Last Girl Alive | Bangtan

146: Home

had i caught you that day

had i stopped you that day

how would it be?

***

"Papa!"

Jin freezes in his footsteps at that voice.
His eyes instantly blur at that nostalgic voice, one that he'd almost forgotten. It triggers something in him, a feeling of home and love that he'd only ever felt with three little persons.  

Raising his head softly, in hope and a paternal worry, his now sensitive and trembling eyes search among the gathered people for a familiar face, hoping that it'd be familiar.

But before he can even look, something pummels right into him. He falls backward as a teenage boy runs into him, crashing his figure suddenly, deterring his vision. He stumbles on his two feet a little with the force. The face buries itself in his chest sobbing and just that gesture itself, of a small boy reaching to him for comfort had him numb.

Heart pounding he looks down at the little boy hugging his middle desperately tight. Expecting it to be his oldest son he finds that his youngest son is now the same age as his oldest son was before. This was not Gukmul, no this was Odengie, his lovely little youngest one, six years old now thirteen years old.

Odeng looks back at him with wide, curious eyes, cherishing the sight of the father he'd lost seven years ago. Both of then look at each other for what seemed like an eternity, as if to recognise each other, before Seokjin finally breaks.

His knees crumble and he falls to the ground at once, unable to carry the weight of this anymore. He shakes uncontrollably as he looks more earnestly through his tears at the child in front of him. And then before he knows it, two others have collapsed onto him much taller, much bigger, basically men. They almost propel him back onto the ground, arms thrown all over his shoulders as now three people latch themselves onto his figure, holding onto him so tight as their tears soak his clothing.

"Appa..."

The way they're holding onto him so tight, it was unmistakeable. His eyes trace their faces, running all iver the features of each of them. He couldn't believe he was seeing his oldest at twenty years of age, having gone throug all his adolescence on his own as well and now with the biggest changes to his face and body. But despite that, all their features were so identical to his, especially more so now that they had grown so much: those plump lips, the wrinkles by the eyes as they smiled through the tears, the shape of the jawline and their shoulders.

These were Seokjin's sons. His beloved babies.

He's shaking. He can't believe it. His hands roam their bodies, holding their arms in his and pressing them to his face. He runs his fingers over their shoulders and faces, touching their shoulders, their cheeks desperately as if he was afraid they weren't tangile, they weren't real. But the longer the cried, the more he hugged them, the more his heart ached because that piece of memory that he lost was able to find these boys. They were the children whose little fingers had wrapped his thumb, whose first memories he'd captured, who he'd cook for, he'd make jokes for, he worked for, he'd spent sleepless nights caring for, that he'd drop to school, that he'd cure their wounds and fevers, that he'd love unconditionally every single day.

Teardrops wet the ground as he looks impatiently from one to the next to the next, savouring their image. "G-gukmul...Eomuk...O-Odengie...?" he stammers, pulling his youngest child into his arms again. Those words seem enough to break open the three boys who, through their own tears, begin to spout all sorts of things.