Run With Me || JJK+PJM

one

JUNGKOOK

"Jungkook-ah! Come down and say goodbye to your sister! Who knows when she'll be back again?" Eomma's voice travels up the stairs from the foyer. Her words hang in the still air, waiting to come shattering to the ground. My heart is pounding - like it's being dragged by Dread and it's fighting to be released.

I close the book I've been holding up. It's still on the page it was fifteen minutes ago. Words don't seem to make sense when nothing wants to make sense.

I lean my head against the glass of the window sill I am sitting against. I watch helplessly as Dae struggles to lift her luggage to pass to the coachman - most likely a way to not have to talk to Eomma and Appa. My legs slide off the cushioned bench of the window sill and I put my book down.

I look around my room and try to remember every place Dae has been in here. I try to remember what she looks like coming through my door, looking through my closet and...

I sigh. My room is bare but I make do with what I can.

My family makes do with what we can.

After Appa made some poor choices in Korea, Eomma's parents had to give them some money to take Dae and me to London. Appa was a gambler. He still was one, stealing Eomma's money every once in a while to try and win at something. In Korea, he'd messed too much with some very important gangs. Apparently, he screwed up so much that we had to move to an entirely different continent in a painfully poor state.

All this happened when Dae was five and I, a baby. Eomma's parents absolutely detested Appa. According to Dae, they would've gutted him if not for us (they didn't want us to be fatherless).

The money my grandparents had given my parents was barely enough for us to afford a house in the most hauntingly empty countryside of London. Though our house was big, it was positively ridden with weeds, rodents and prone to collapsing if a storm strong enough came.

Needless to say, when Dae was accepted into Cambridge, my parents could've just fainted on the spot. It was a blessing in many ways. For starters, Dae going to university meant one less mouth to feed. Secondly, and most importantly, Dae had a future. She was to be the breadwinner of the family after university (although I frequently advised her to just run away).

And although I wholeheartedly supported her, I felt so left behind. Appa was abusive - he always has been. He was a gambler, an alcoholic and an abuser. Maddeningly, despite his entire being, Eomma refused to leave - not that she had a choice. I think Appa would've slit her throat with all that craziness he had in that head of his.

Appa always hated everyone.

But he hated me so much more once I came out as gay.

I'd known I was gay when I was 14, three years ago. Three long years of enduring drunken beatings and screams. Dae was always there for me through it all.

Not anymore.

I stand at the end of the staircase, watching as Eomma and Appa each hug Dae. I'm trying to memorise her features and her voice and the words she'd use to comfort me whenever anything went wrong. Looking right at her through glossed eyes, I finally appreciate how we look almost identical - we have the same brown hair, brown eyes, red lips, nose, everything.

She always understood me.

Finally, as Eomma continues sobbing and leans into Appa, making room for me to walk towards Dae, the world grows grey and cold. She gives an apologetic smile, tears starting to form and all I want to do is tell her she doesn't need to feel sorry for anything.

My feet carry me to fill in the last steps between us and the way I can only hear my footsteps and not hers running by my side sends tears streaming down my cheeks. She accepts me with open arms and she hugs me tightly.

"What am I going to do, Dae?" I hiccup as my arms wrap around her thin body. I can't tell if I'm trembling or if she's shaking - maybe it's both.

"Don't worry, Kookie. You'll do fine. Everything will be fine. Trust me, okay?" her voice breaks at the end and I want to break along with it.

"I will see you soon," she promises.

"How? We don't have enough money to send another carriage for you," my voice is ragged. She rubs my back soothingly.

"We'll find a way, I promise," she gives my arms a tight squeeze before pulling away. Her hands hold mine and they are warm against my cold ones.

"Take care of yourself," she murmurs before she smiles and walks towards the carriage, never looking away from me till the last moment when she has to turn to climb up. Her skirt swishes about and Eomma and Appa crowd at the window of the carriage to hold her hands as the coachman takes his seat behind the two white horses.

I look at her for possibly the last time before the horses are neighing and the carriage is moving.

"I love you, Jungkook-ah!" she shouts, sticking her head out of the window, her brown hair whipping in the wind.

I don't have the energy to scream it back.

As soon as the carriage leaves the gates, the house turns into an actual hell.

On cue, the rain starts pouring and it cracks a smile on me. Dae loved the rain and in turn, I did too. This was the sky's parting gift to her. 

Appa helps Eomma back into the house but I stay at the foyer.

My heart seems heavy and all I want to do is bolt after the carriage and beg Dae to let me stay with her in her dorm (as if that were possible).

I almost do if not for Appa who's already screaming for me to start replying to letters.

Until I am capable of applying for university, my fate is to be wed to a pretty lady with a pretty sum of money to her name and live in a pretty house in the pretty life Appa wants.

Being me, being gay and being happy is not on his agenda for me.