Jinkook Ao3 / You Came For Me (You Stayed For Us) by kuragecharms

Chapter 9 ( Epilogue notes)

It was a Friday morning at the start of his son’s first spring semester in college when Jungkook woke up curled into the Kim Seokjin. He grunted, not wanting to wake up quite yet, when Jin moved to slip out from under him. There was a soft chuckle, and then a hand running through his hair.

 

“Will you be ready to go at 4 when I come home?” Jin hummed happily, and Jungkook let out a little groan. It was too early to be conscious. Blindly, he reached out and snaked an arm and a leg each out around Jin, making the older man chuckle. “You little shit. Wake up.”

 

“Don’t wanna.” Jungkook pouted, clinging more tightly.

 

“You gotta , we have to go see Jimin today.” A soft, gentle kiss was planted on his mouth with butterfly-delicacy.  It was a softly-worded promise, about a weekend they had been looking forward to. Jimin was attending the same college where they had met all those years ago, when the lines around Jin’s eyes hadn’t been as deep and Jungkook had been all angles and skinniness. Jin squeezed the thickness of Jungkook’s thigh, the one that had started to ache if he didn’t take care of it. Jimin living a couple hours away meant that he was ‘free from the clinginess’ and made it harder for his parents to come by and surprise him with an unexpected visit. But it also served to make each time seeing him a sort of special event, something to be cherished.

 

“Jimin who?” Jungkook teased, turning to bury his face more deeply into his pillow. “I don’t know any Jimin.”

 

“I’m talking about your spoiled-ass son ,” Jin snapped, yanking the blankets away from Jungkook, wrestling them roughly from Jungkook’s stubborn grasp. “If you get up, we can have breakfast together.”

 

The kitchen table was different from the one they’d had when Jungkook had first moved in with his then-boyfriend. It was nicer now, as was the couch (which had gotten moldy beyond reparation) and the cupboards no longer waited empty in between the last long stretch between paychecks. Seokjin’s work in a local law firm based in the city helped improve their style of living from stressful to comfortably secure. But signs of the old life still remained. Photos of Jimin riding his first bicycle with Jungkook holding onto the back, photos of the three of them at Christmastime, of Hoseok and Yoongi standing amidst the empty floor of their apartment when they’d first moved in, of Jin standing at Jimin’s side at his high school graduation, smiling down at him with oft-overlooked gratification. The red and green Mario mushroom salt and pepper shakers were now down to just the red one with the chip in it, as the other one had been shattered years ago, always mismatched with a disposable pepper shaker in its stead.

 

Jungkook slumped at the table, eyes bleary and hair a total wreck as Seokjin made them coffee. The house was quieter these days. Ever since Jimin and his noisy friends had graduated, since Yoongi and Hoseok had left for their yearly-couple getaway (this year to Cuba), and since Taehyung had gotten wrapped up in his own family life, the house settled into a strange sort of familiar silence. The coffeepot gurgled and eggs sizzled in Jin’s pan, but no other sound permeated the atmosphere, and Jungkook blinked sleepily.

 

“I have two new cases starting today,” Jin commented, his bare shoulders broad and such a beautiful expanse as he stirred the eggs. “So I’m not sure how long I’ll be. We should still be able to grab some lunch, though, if you meet me at my work.”