Sea Me - BTS mermaid

Chapter 4

Hehe.

"Kookie! Home so early, son? I'm proud of the fact that you finally decided to take your walking cane with you!" yelled Jungkook's father, Jin, as the boy slammed the front door and bumped into a wall on his way to the kitchen. Jin heard and came out of the cooking room to see if his son was okay. Physically he was, but emotionally, Jungkook was a wreck.

"Hey, it's okay. Come here," Jin said comfortingly. Heavy tears fell on the man's shoulder as his son bawled in his arms. Jin guided Jungkook to his bed, staying with him until Kookie had cried himself to sleep.

Jin lay with his son for the better half of an hour, barely keeping from crying, himself. He was young for the father of a 15-year-old, and he looked even more so as he helplessly tried to still his quivering lip.

His son had been living in pain for more than 4 weeks now, and it was only becoming more unbearable.

But he'd seemed better yesterday, and he left with a smile on his face this morning. What changed? Why did this have to be so hard on him? Why my son? Jin broke down in tears.

"Dear Poseidon, why my son," he cried in a whisper, laying his head next to Jungkook's on the tear soaked pillow. Jin fell asleep dreaming about all the insane things he would do to give Jungkook his vision back. Jungkook dreamt of the feeling of Taehyung next to him, taking in the fascinating salty smell of the older boy, reaching his hand up to the mysterious boy's cheek, and being left alone to drown in his own emotions.

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A few hours later, Jungkook woke up to the sound of an alarm going off. It was faint from behind his closed bedroom door, but still considerably noticeable.

Feeling the warmth of his sleeping father next to him, Kookie eased slowly out of bed so he wouldn't wake Jin. He found the wall near his bedside and followed it to the door.

Jungkook eventually located the origin of the noise in the kitchen, and he went to turn off the timer on the oven. It took him a minute to decipher what all the different braille stickers on the buttons meant, but he eventually pressed what he was sure was the 'Timer Off' button.

He was startled by a hand on his shoulder and moved out of the way as Jin removed a sweet-smelling, slightly overbaked apple pie from the oven.

"I'll start dinner. We can talk if you want," Jungkook's father said in a soothing voice. The boy didn't answer, just went and sat on the kitchen's island counter. He listened to his father make dinner, and he listened to his father eat dinner at the dining room table. He took maybe two bites during the meal and had nothing to do with the homemade pie waiting for him in the kitchen.

As Jungkook remained sitting at the table, Jin picked up the boy's untouched plate and carried it to be stored in the fridge. The man couldn't bear to let his son hear him cry, so he cleaned the dirty dishes and countertops, heading straight to bed and leaving Jungkook in the darkness.

The boy couldn't see if the lights were off, but he felt it all around him. He felt himself trapped by his senses, wishing Taehyung were there to rescue him from the pitch-black world. He had only known Tae two days, but the alluring light Jungkook felt in him had made it feel like a sunlit eternity.

I shouldn't think about him anymore. I shouldn't think about anything. I shouldn't try to picture how he looks. It'll only make this more miserable.

The more Jungkook tried to convince himself to ignore daydreams of Taehyungie, the more he found himself picturing muscular long legs carrying Tae swiftly across the sand, and a soft, warm hand pulling Jungkook excitedly on a long walk through the park. Oh, how wrong his daydreams were.