✔️ Unconditionally [Book 2] | Jeon Jungkook

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"Ok, Jungkook, scoot forward on the bed until your feet touch the floor."

He took a few deep breaths before attempting to obey what should have been an easy command. Surrounded by nurses, his arms shook as he pushed himself to the edge of his bed with their help until his red-socked feet finally touched the cold floor.

Today, he would get to stand. The staff needed to test if he could, along with other tests of his mental and physical capacities. The entire morning had been filled with doctors poking and prodding him, and when they weren't touching him, they were finding other ways to embarrass him in front of Noona.

His favorite being having him touch squares on a laminated poster as a nurse said in a highly sugared voice to 'Touch the color green! Now touch the apple! And now the dog! Excellent job, Jungkook!'

She sounded like the creepy robot voice from a children's toy. He had a brain injury, he wasn't 6.

"Hold onto the walker, and on three we're going to help you stand up."

Jungkook nodded and gripped the handles of the current source of embarrassment in front of him. Hyun-Ji and his mother were both watching nervously as if standing was such a big deal. Sure, he may have gotten winded a little easier than normal but they weren't asking him to run a mile. Just stand up.

Easy.

"One, two, three..."

Two nurses, who were a lot stronger than they looked, supported him by his arms, and a third behind him helped him by literally grabbing his ass and pushing his body up to stand, but he didn't have time to be shocked by the clinical fondle. As soon as he tried to put weight on his legs, he understood why he had to wear the red socks that indicated to the staff that he was a potential fall risk.

His legs shook under his own weight. His entire body felt twice as heavy even though his mother remarked he was thinner than he used to be. Fear crept in as dizziness took hold, and had it not been for the nurses, he was sure he would have fallen.

But they held him steady, coaching and encouraging him that even standing was an important step in his recovery and that he was doing a great job. He gripped the handles of the walker tighter, his breaths shaky from exertion, and the nurses gradually supported his weight less but still held onto him just in case.

Noona was trying to hide her tears. She wiped them away so quickly that he almost hadn't seen them. But he had.

She looked proud of him. Extremely so.

"How are you feeling, Jungkook?" The nurse asked.

"Good," he said after a second, still having a hard time speaking.

It was a half-truth. The dizziness subsided, but he felt heavy and unbalanced. His death grip on the handles of the walker was beginning to hurt and he couldn't stop his body from swaying.

But she looked so proud of him. So he kept standing.

It was only for one minute but when the nurses finally eased his body down onto the bed, he wanted to go back to sleep. Just the act of standing exhausted him. He was only immobile for two weeks. How did his muscles deteriorate so quickly?