Soul Mates | Jinkook ✓

8.0

Author's Note: There is a lot of really heavy stuff coming up in the next few chapters, and I will try to warn for it accordingly! This one deals with cancer, childhood abuse, forced medical procedures and PTSD. 

"Have you ever looked at the world, Jungkook? I mean really stopped to look at it. At all of the things that slip through the cracks. All of the pain and suffering. There's so much pain down there in the darkness where no one ever thinks to look. But why would they? Those who are near the light know better than to ever stray from it. Get to close to the darkness and it might infect you too.

When I was eight, my mom dropped me off at my dad's. I hadn't seen him in two years. Mostly because they were going through a divorce and she thought she could use me as a bargaining chip. Turns out there was nothing bargain for.

So she left me there. At first I thought she must not have known my dad was sick. But she did. She just didn't care. I was just a burden to her anyway. He might as well take a turn dealing with me.

My dad had leukemia. Actually, he had it twice. Both times they did chemo and thought it worked. But it kept coming back. They... they asked me if I'd be willing to donate my bone marrow. I was ten. I didn't even know what bone marrow was. No one even bothered to explain it, just sent me off to get tested.

When it came back that I was a match, everyone just assumed I'd do it. I mean, he was my dad, right? Why wouldn't I want to save him. But he left me with my crazy ass mom to go live with another woman. He barely bothered to acknowledge that I was alive the entire time I lived with him. At least not unless he was screaming at me to do something for him. And I know he was sick, but this wasn't something new. He was like this before too.

I told them I wanted to think about, and they said my dad had already given them permission. But I hadn't. They didn't care. I was ten and my father had told them they could just go ahead and do whatever they wanted to me.

The night before the procedure, this nurse came in to talk to me. She was the first person who actually explained any of it to me. I wanted it even less after that. I tried to run away, but the nurses caught me before I even got off the floor.

The whole thing was awful from beginning to end. They all knew I didn't want to do it, so they had to sedate me before they could even begin. I don't really remember much after that. Just waking up with pain in my back and hips. It bruised all the way down to my thighs. It hurt for days. I got sick from the sedation and anesthesia. Looking back at it, I'm pretty sure how much I didn't want to do it probably made everything that much worse. Maybe if I'd just accepted it...

In the end it didn't work anyway. My father's body rejected it. There had still been cancer cells in his own marrow before they transplanted mine. They tried to take a second donation from me, but I refused. I actually... I was so fucking desperate that I called my mom and begged her to tell them she refused to allow it. It was the only good thing she ever did for me in my entire life. She even threatened to sue them for taking it the first time without her consent. Really, I think she just saw a payday, but at that point I really didn't care."

"That's -"

"Don't say it. Don't say that's terrible or horrible or any of the other crap people say. Just please don't."

"Okay." It was a whisper, and when he looked up there were tears forming in Jungkook's eyes. "What -" He stopped to clear his throat before contining. "What happened to him?"

"He died when I was eleven. I wish I could tell you I was torn up about it or that I missed him. But there really wasn't any attachment there, you know? And at that point, honestly, I just resented him."

"I think that's understandable."

"Do you? Because let me tell you, no one else did. Everyone looked at me like I was some kind of monster because I didn't cry. I didn't even bother going to the funeral."

"Grief is -"

"It wasn't grief, Jungkook. It was apathy. I just didn't care."

"Maybe you just didn't process it? I mean -"

"You're gonna tell me how if you're dad died you'd probably be in shock, right?"

"... No."

"Yes you were. But how it would hit you later and then you'd cry and cry about it. I never cried, Jungkook. Not once. So tell me, do you feel differently about me now?"

"I -" He did. Fuck, he did. Part of him understood, of course he did. Part of him was rational and knew that it was probably just a response to the trauma. The rest of him was emotional and formed attachments and didn't understand how someone could be so cold.

"Called it." Shifting, he lifted himself from Jungkook's lap, climbing off the sofa and moving towards the door. "And just think, I haven't even told you the worst of it yet."

Slipping on his shoes - the old, ratty ones with holes in the soles and laces that were barely hanging on, not the new, nice warm pair Jungkook had bought for him - he unlocked the door and was out it in a flash, running down the hallway and down the stairs and out into the night air. There really was only one place for him to go, and despite how much he had desperately never wanted to go back there, that was exactly where his feet were carrying him.