Dark Matter | JJK

46. Everywhere

*contains slightly mature content

Jungkook remembered an old tale his mother had once told him, about the Chinese painter Wu Daozi from the eighth century. His last painting, commissioned by the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, had been kept hidden behind a screen in the royal palace, so only the emperor could see it. For a long while, the emperor admired the wonderful art work, discovering a cave in a forest, high mountains, waterfalls, clouds floating in an immense sky, men on hilly paths, and birds in flight.

"Look, sire," said the painter. "In this cave, at the foot of the mountain, dwells a spirit."

The painter clapped his hands and the entrance to the cave opened. "The inside is splendid beyond anything words can convey."

The painter entered the cave in the painting, but before the emperor could follow, the entrance closed behind him. And before the astonished emperor could move or utter a word, the painting vanished from the wall. Not a trace of Wu Daozi's brush was left - and the artist was never seen in the world again.

That was how he felt when he last saw her.

At odd times, especially in the first few weeks when he woke up and did not find himself looking into her eyes first thing in the morning, or came back from the university to a house without her, the emptiness was a shock. Like waking from one of those dreams where he was falling from the sky - falling forever with nothing below. Only this was not a dream. His childhood nightmare, one that had intensified in frequency after he lost his father - what if everyone dies and I'm left alone - had taken a shape he could never have anticipated. The rooms of his house echoed now. Echoed with what remained of her and the silence.

Once every few evenings, his housemates made sure to pay him a visit in his very large - and very lonely - family home. They all sat down to dinner at the same table for eight and stuck to their usual places, leaving Petra's chair where it belonged. If Jungkook banged his foot against his chair, like it was his restless habit, it was Jimin who put a calming hand on his knee. It was Taehyung who dropped him to the university on the mornings he was too tired to drive. Seokjin who set aside time in between his shifts at the fire station to drop a healthy lunchbox on his kitchen counter at least once a day. Hoseok who rubbed soothing circles on his back whenever he was hunched over the toilet sink, retching the day's food because of the giant fist of pain that squeezed his chest hard enough to break his ribs.

The winter after she left was the bitterest he could remember. The numbness of loss still lingered, and the pain would hit him out of nowhere - when he was washing the dishes, putting on his lab coat or turning on the fairy ligths - doubling him over, racking his body with sobs. Where are you? he would cry out. Where did you go?

Of course, there was never any answer.

"Jungkook?"

The boy in question looked up at the sound of his name, his vision slightly distorted before it focused back on what was in front. Over the lab equipment scattered on his alabaster countertop, he saw every pair of eyes in the laboratory affixed on him. That was one of the many reasons he hated it here. They kept looking at him, eyes probing his every action through thinly-veiled cynicism, as though waiting for something. Waiting for him to drop a test tube, spill a liquid, get stuck tearing his glove packet. Waiting for him to screw up. It felt like ages ago when he was his twenty-year-old undergraduate self, eager and scrambling to be one of the hundreds that found their way into the nation's most prestigious university.

Now, less than a year later, the very thought of it revolted him.

Blinking a few times, Jungkook regarded Professor Lee Daehyun standing at the head of the room before the research team, hands braced against the counter and spine straightened, like he was preparing to deliver a speech.