(JIKOOK) Texting Story Snippets

Damaged

"Shouldn't we tell him, then? I think he's just upset. He wants to stay here with his friends, with his boyfriend, and he thinks that we're trying to take him away." Jimin's mother stares up at her husband with tears in her eyes. Her heart feels heavy and her mind is littered with bad thoughts. She worries for her sons happiness more than his father ever will and she knows that she heard Jimin crying. Even surrounded by his friends, he's hurt in more ways than she can probably understand. He doesn't want her to kiss away his pain like she had done when he was little. He needs his friends and he made that clear.

The only man in the kitchen pushes his fleeting hair back from his face. He's annoyed, above any other emotion, but he does feel bad for creating such a burden on his own son after what happened to him. He should've known it would cause friction between them. "How do you suppose we tell him? He won't open the damn door. He won't listen to us."

"Let me." Jungkook's mother offers, speaking up for the first time since she'd come to the door with a weary expression, looking for her child she just knew would be here. She'd kept her distance, letting Jungkook stay with his friends instead of suffering at home. She found out about Jimin returning home through a courtesy call from Hoseok's mother, but figured out the situation was anything but resolved when she saw the drained looks on everyone's faces. "Maybe I can help. Maybe they'll let me inside."

"Why you?" Jimin's mother responds, but the pure curiosity of her question withers away as she grows more anxious. "It's worth a try. I want to talk to Jimin." She sighs, turning her body to face the other woman and speaking directly to her with softened eyes. "Will Jungkook listen to you and open the door? Can you convince them to come out so we can tell Jimin that everything is okay?" She can hear the desperation in her own voice.

"All I can do is knock and ask. They must be hurt, all of them. I'll do what I can without making it worse."

Hoseok's mother points her towards Jimin's room. They all watch her disappear behind a corner and then her gentle taps resonate throughout the quiet house. She speaks softly through the door when they assume she gets an answer, but maybe she's just taken the initiative to inform.

"Jimin, it's Jungkook's Mom. Can I come in?"

She's quiet for a moment, maybe listening through the door for an answer it doesn't sound like she receives.

"I can hear you talking. I know you're upset, but I bet I can tell you something to make things a little easier for you."

They hear the click of the door being unlocked and Jimin's mother stands from her seat. His father straightens his shoulders, alert.

"Oh, sweetheart." Her voice grows faint as it disappears behind the weight of the door again and they return to still silence in the kitchen, the lock sounding from Jimin's bedroom. She made it inside, just like that.

Jimin's mother crumples back into her seat, head in her hands. She feels worthless as a mother.

-///-

Cold hands splay across Jimin's hot face, touching tears away from his red cheeks. She moves away from him to claim a seat on Jimin's bed next to her son and waits for the smaller boy to sit beside her. She still feels close to him, even motherly as she watches his gloomy expression and it pains her heart the same way it did before, when it was Jungkook's tears she had brushed away from heated cheeks. Watching her son crumble before her eyes in way she almost couldn't bare to see put a burden on her as well. Jimin is his whole world it's clear to see, and Jimin is hurting, in the midst of sharing the weight on his shoulders with his friends and she can feel the heavy atmosphere in the room from it.

"I might have heard a bit of what you were saying." She whispers, delicately. "I could barely hear you through the door, but you sounded scared. What's making you scared?" Jimin looks away from her, coming off as shy and she touches his shoulder with her own. He doesn't look up at her again, but it's okay. She doesn't need many details to figure out what his feelings might be. He was taken from his life. That's scary enough for anybody to be damaged. "You don't have to answer me, you were talking to your friends."