growing blue | jjk x bts

027

𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕪 𝕤𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟

Jeongguk had decided to completely ignore the fact Yoongi had seen the bruises around his neck and attempt to have a nice day. And luckily his day did seem to be going fairly well.

Yugyeom and Bambam believed him when he said he just got caught up with a teacher when he was late for lunch, no protagonists had bugged him, and Taemin had been there to walk with him to work. He hadn't expected things to work out so well but he did encounter a couple of problems at work.

The first issue happened right when he walked in as Kibum told him to leave. The older didn't want the younger coming back to work so soon after everything but, with the help of Taemin, Jeongguk was able to talk through things. He explained how he had taken the previous day off and felt fine. He then had to explain the makeup he was wearing to cover the bruises but Kibum slowly seemed to become understanding of it.

After all the older was more concerned than angry at him. 

The next issue that popped up was schedules. The cafe had gotten more strict to stop accidents happening and ended up changing other rules as well. The main one was three workers must be present at a time to keep the cafe running smoothly. Jeongguk was actually a bit happy with that change, he hadn't enjoyed being made to work by himself. The other rule was what really bugged him.

It stated that highschoolers shifts had to end before 10pm. With that he was going to miss out on so many hours making his paycheck a lot worse than he had wanted it to be. He had immediately begged to try and make an exception but his complaints were heard on deaf ears. Taemin was the only other highschooler working at the cafe but he only had a couple months left before he graduated which would mean the rule only impacted Jeongguk. And the younger didn't find that fair in the slightest.

He needed money now more than ever and with his paycheck here being cut he couldn't help but wonder if he should look into another job. Of course, he could just use his extra time to study, he did want to stay at the top of his class.

"Jeongguk! Your sister is here!"

The boy couldn't help but groan while grabbing his backpack. He had only worked until 6pm since all his coworkers had agreed he should slowly ease back into working since he wasn't fully healed.  It was not even that bad though! Sure Jeongguk would get into occasional coughing fits and would have to strain to use his voice but other than that he appeared perfectly fine. 

"I already told you not to come!" He said as he walked out already glaring at his sister. "I can make it home by myself, it's not that far!"

"Is that any way to talk to your older sibling? First you don't even tell me you're going to school and now you want me to just completely leave you alone? You're not walking by yourself anywhere anymore. If you don't like my idea then I can just go and tell mom and dad what happened and see how they react. They actually are going to be at dinner tonight, they got time off of work."

"Jihyo, you wouldn't tell them" Jeongguk responded as they walked out of the cafe heading towards their house. "Stop trying to make threats."

"I'm not trying to make threats, I am making threats." She replied as she moved her hair behind her ears frowning as she twirled it around her finger. "Do you think I should dye my hair?"

"Dye your hair?" Jeongguk froze and stopped walking while Jihyo continued on. He couldn't help but let his hand move up to brush his own hair while thinking over what she said.  "What do you mean by that?"

Jihyo couldn't help but feel confused by her brother's response as she turned around noting how pale he looked. 

"Dude why are you freaking out so much? I was asking about making it maybe a dark shade of brown, or auburn I haven't decided." She said frowning until she gasped. "Wait, you seriously thought I wanted to dye my hair like a protagonist?"

"Don't talk about that out loud!" Jeongguk replied rushing to where she was while glancing around to make sure no one was listening to their conversation. "What if someone was to hear and report you for just saying that?"

"I'm more confused about how your first thought when I said dyeing hair was me going against the law to look like a main character." She responded in a whisper. "That's insane! I know we're not super close but you should know me well enough to know I wouldn't break the law to try and pretend to be a protagonist. They kill people for that!"

That comment definitely caught Jeongguk off guard. He certainly already knew about the consequences for breaking the law, he even had seen a couple executions to protagonist impersonators on the news, but hearing someone he knew talking about it was different. It reminded him how he was breaking the law and what that could entail for him. 

He didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to think about losing his family, friends, everything he had worked so hard to obtain. Didn't want the people he loved to get hurt just because of his hair color, didn't want them to run away or look at him differently because of it. He could feel himself panicking as his thoughts ran wild and Jihyo she seemed to be growing more concerned with the silence making him even more nervous. He couldn't have his sister growing concerned about him. He needed to change the topic, to try and pretend like everything was fine. 

"That wasn't my first thought," Jeongguk said as he grabbed his sisters hand to get her to continue walking home with him. "I was just wondering what color you were thinking of! You have never shown an interest in dyeing your hair before so I was confused."

"Okay," Jihyo said observing how tense her foster brother had become at this topic. She was curious but didn't want to push so went along with Jeongguk's attempt of changing the conversation. "So do you think a dark brown would look good on me?"

"Definitely, I feel like cutting it to your shoulder would look cute too. Or maybe even a bob? I'm sure that'd look great too!"

Jihyo couldn't help but laugh at how enthusiastic Jeongguk had become, a total contrast of his mood seconds ago. She loved being able to spend time with him and the fact that her parents would also be home and they all could hang out again seemed blissful. This was the first time she was going to be able to hang out with her entire family since they moved to Seoul. 

Except she couldn't help but still think about Jeongguk's weird behavior earlier. Why did he seem so tense when she brought up protagonists? Why did he look so scared?

And that's when Jihyo was reminded she truly knew nothing about Jeongguk before her family adopted him.

-

Red Velvet has their comeback today and I'm so excited!!  They're the group that got me into kpop and I just love them so so so much~

And the BTS World soundtrack is amazing so far, I've literately had A Brand New Day and Dream Glow on repeat for the past couple of days. They're such good songs and I can't wait to see what RM and Suga have for their collab too!

Also, there are new covers for my books! I'm not sure how I feel about them but I wanted them to match each other, I might end up changing them back if people end up not liking them as much