Chapter Text
The lecture hall buzzes quietly as it fills with students. Mid-morning lectures are Jungkook’s favorite. He’s able to sleep in, still snag some breakfast from the cafeteria, and see some of his favorite crushes in their various snuggly pajamas. He’s too shy to say anything to any of them, obviously, but it always makes him smile when the girls come in with messy buns on top of their heads and the boys schlep in with their lousy grey sweatpants. Nobody had warned him about it like they had everything else. They’d all said his professors would be strict (a lie), that the homework would take over his life (a truth), and that he’d make a ton of friends (a sort of lie).
Granted, it was only the middle of his second semester freshman year. He still has plenty of time to make friends and muster a little bit of bravery to be the first to introduce himself.
Today, however, is not that day. He’s still sleepy and he forgot to brush his teeth before he left. His breath surely smells like sour tangerines and the bitter coffee he inhaled on his way across campus. Absolutely not the best combination for any sort of impression - first or otherwise.
He’s comfortable in his seat in the front row, all the way to the left. His laptop is out on the little folded table that creaks if he bounces his knees. Attendance for this course is sparse enough that he can drop his bag into the seat next to him and not worry about taking someone else’s spot. His coffee is on that chair’s tabletop accompanied by his phone and earbud case.
The side door opens again for the millionth time and his professor quickly jogs down the steps to the front table. Normally he looks a little sleepy, almost like he’d rolled out of bed at the same time as his late rising students, but today he looks frazzled. Worried, almost. He hastily covers his face with a disposable face mask.
“Class!” His professor clears his throat and tries again. “Folks, I need you to settle down for a sec.”
The class goes eerily silent, almost as if they’ve been scolded for smiling when they shouldn’t. Someone behind Jungkook whispers about the face mask being creepy.
“I know we’ve been hearing about this COVID-19 going crazy and, ah, I know we’ve all heard about how they were considering a lock down.” The professor scratches his head and twists his mouth uncomfortably. “The state just put it into effect. So. Yeah, the university has asked that everyone go back to their dorms.”
The professor hoists his bag up onto the table and looks around apprehensively.
“I’m aware of the controversy brewing around this request, but if you feel so inclined, I do have masks for you to wear back to your rooms." The man pulls out two brand new boxes of masks that look identical to the ones Jungkook's mom always keeps around the house. "As it turns out, having these on hand for my own visits to my mom during her chemo, means I have a stash of them. Please take an extra one or two if you plan on stepping back out for lunch or whatever. Just. Please be safe. Wash your hands frequently. Stay six feet apart if you can. All that jazz.”
The lecture hall is so quiet that Jungkook can hear someone sneeze in the hallway outside the closed door. A trickle of fear drips down his spine.
“I, ah, I have no idea what the long term plan is.” The professor continues, probably to fill the silence of students staring at him in disbelief. “The Dean said further information will be released by mid-afternoon so keep an eye on your emails. I’ve heard rumors about it being two weeks but everywhere has been different so far and I’m guessing things are subject to change.”
Jungkook’s phone lights up with a text from his mom.
mom: sweetheart, call me when you get a chance
mom: it’s kind of urgent
In an instant, the room is a cacophonous mess. Some students laugh uncomfortably at the announcement, others scoff at the necessity, a few kids audibly panic about exams and grades. Everyone, though, gathers their belongings and exits the room in a bit of a hustle. Knowing full well his mom will yell at him for not grabbing a mask, Jungkook waits for that line to dwindle before he steps up and grabs a couple for himself.
She’s been asking him for weeks to wear one, but because of peer pressure and whatever else, he’s quietly ignored her admonitions. Besides, everyone was always sick in college. The place was a petri dish of germs.
“Hey, mom,” he says the second he hears her voice on the other end of the line.
“Baby!” His mom sounds exhausted. She’s been running around like crazy, taking on extra shifts, and getting home way too late. “Please tell me you’ve heard about the lockdown.”
“Yeah, my professor just came in and told us. I’m heading back to my room.”
“Okay, did you text your roommate to see if they’re going home or…I mean I know they’re local so maybe they’ll go home so you can be isolated?”
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Jungkook dodges out of the way of a student blazing past him and out the doors to the chemistry building.
His mom remains silent on the other end of the line.
“Hey, buddy.” His dad says closer to the phone and his voice gets louder when his mom switches to speaker phone. “Yeah, it’s, ah, mom’s been working triple shifts at the ICU lately. It’s not looking good.”
God. Even his dad sounds exhausted.
“Oh.” Jungkook stops at the corner to wait for the walk signal. He takes three steps to the right to separate himself from the crowd of people gathering to cross the busy road. “Do you want me to just come home? I can see if Taehyung can drop me off?”
“Please.” His mom begs from somewhere in the distance. Their tea kettle starts singing and Jungkook listens while his mom pours water into two mugs.
“Yeah, I’ll check and let you know.”
“Thank you, baby.”
Jungkook smiles at the relief in his mom’s voice. His dad mumbles his thanks to her for his tea and he can tell the pair of them are hugging by the sound of fabric rustling. They’ve always been so affectionate and Jungkook misses them terribly. Whatever the circumstances might be, he’s secretly glad he might be going home. He could absolutely go for some home-cooked goodness instead of the mediocre dorm cafeteria food.
He talks to them while he walks to his room and then for another half an hour. He shouldn’t be too surprised to find that his roommate has already taken all of his clothes and left because he does live almost right around the corner from campus. Even though they aren’t exactly friends, Jungkook experiences an undefined emptiness while reading the chicken scratch on a note left on his desk:
Moved back in with the rents bc…you know.... Good luck, JK. You’ll be great in life.
While he’s still on the phone, he texts Taehyung, a kid he’d gone to high school with who’s two years older. They don’t exactly hang out, but he’d offered a ride home to Jungkook over the Fall, Thanksgiving, and Christmas breaks. It’s not that they were the only kids from their high school who attended this university, and Jungkook isn’t exactly sure why Taehyung is so nice to him considering Jungkook’s only ever stared at him from a distance, but he accepts every single ride because one, Taehyung is super nice, and two, Jungkook’s had a crush on him for ages.
But that’s neither here nor there when Taehyung finally replies that he is, in fact, going home for this unexpected lockdown. He has to finish his exam first and then pack and then he’ll swing by Jungkook’s dorm and they can make the six hour drive home.
Despite not having a lot of stuff, Jungkook packs quickly and then sits on his barren bed to wait for Taehyung to text him. He could probably use the time to do some homework but everything seems so oddly liminal. The dorm is simultaneously loud and quiet. Doors bang down the hall, residents are trying to keep their conversations light but probably failing. Instead of being productive, he doom-scrolls the clock app and watches clip after clip of kids his age talking about their plans for this lockdown or their thoughts or their fears, sometimes all of the above.
None of it serves to soothe his anxiety so he microwaves some water and tosses in a tea bag, grimacing because he knows his mom would chastise him for being a ‘heathen’ making tea like this.
Taehyung’s text comes through just as Jungkook is rinsing his cup in the sink. Throat warm, belly warmer, anxiety not exactly soothed, but definitely not bursting from his skin, Jungkook hauls his gigantic duffle bag and overly stuffed backpack down the stairs to Taehyung’s waiting car.
For the first hour, their ride is quiet while Taehyung plays the radio. It’s update after update. Statistic after statistic.
“Can we play music instead?” Jungkook asks quietly, now on the verge of tears after hearing about the number of infections spreading quickly through their state. His mom is so exposed and if this really is as bad as everyone is saying, he’s scared for her. And for his dad.
Taehyung nods and hands him the aux cord. “Anything. Literally anything to make it better. Even if it’s that angry shit you love so much.”
Taehyung’s attempt at humor brings a small smile to both of their lips. Well, not that they can see each other’s smiles since they’re both masked. But Jungkook knows Taehyung’s smile and how his cheeks get rounder when he does.
Scrolling through his music library, Jungkook plays the angriest growling music he can find purely to get a reaction out of Taehyung. It seems to do the trick temporarily, although it doesn't seem to assuage the eventual dread steaming through his body.
He doesn’t know why he feels so desolate, so ready to despair. It’s just the flu, right? These deaths across the country and the infected in his state are all from folks who are already kind of sick, right?
“It’s more than just the flu, Kook.” Taehyung says and Jungkook realizes he’d said those thoughts out loud. “This shit is bad. Your mom’s an ICU nurse, hasn’t she told you about it yet?”
Jungkook shrugs shyly, almost ashamedly. His mom usually censors herself because their house is already full of enough violence and pain. Not in the abuse sort of way, it’s just that Jungkook’s dad is a cop. He sees terrible shit almost every day. His parents do their best to leave that stuff at the door, but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes he hears one of them crying to the other late at night when they think he’s asleep. But always, always, his parents are two peas in a pod trying to bring sunshine into each other’s life.
So Jungkook rarely asks for details. Just asks for hugs and snuggles and that always seems to do the trick.
“People being immunocompromised is only part of it," Taehyung continues. "There are reports that people who are fit as a fiddle get sicker than sick and don’t come out of it. Illness like that…dude, we don’t know what the long term effects even are yet.”
Taehyung exhales nervously. He’s a microbiology major and once told Jungkook that he wants to be a pathologist. He definitely already knows more about the reality of the…pandemic.
It’s strange saying that word in his mind. He mouths it quietly to himself. Afraid that if he says it out loud, then it’ll be real. The reports will be real. The likelihood of increasing deaths will be real and final and devastating.
When they stop for gas, they both keep their masks on while they walk into the convenience store to grab snacks. After paying for his, Jungkook stands outside and calls his mom to update her with their whereabouts but it goes straight to voicemail. She’s probably working already. His dad isn’t so he calls him, too, and they chat while he waits for Taehyung to pee and grab one last powerade before they get back on the road.
Hours and several forced cheery conversations later, Taehyung drops Jungkook off in front of his house. For a split second, he panics that he forgot his house key – discovers he did – and sighs with relief when he remembers his parents installed that new app where he can unlock the house that way instead. It’s his first time doing it though and he sets off a bunch of alarms that he doesn’t know how to turn off. His dad calls him, voice laced with the deep chuckle that Jungkook misses dearly, and walks him through it.
The house is quiet, which is not unusual considering both of his parents are working, but there's something different about it this time. Something that makes Jungkook want to crawl into the corner of his closet and hide like he used to during thunderstorms when he was a kid. Not that anything's changed, of course, he's still afraid of them. It's just…now that he’s older, he understands how easily they might evolve into tornados...
Doesn’t matter how young or old he is, there's nothing quite as terrifying as the weather sirens going off when he's alone...and that's exactly what it sounds like in the back of his head...
To his relief, right before he falls asleep that night, his mom facetimes him to check in. She’s tired as hell, Jungkook doesn’t even have to ask when the last time she slept was because the dark circles under her eyes and the redness from all of her PPE tells him everything he needs to know. Evidence of her exhaustion is made worse under the fluorescent street light she’s standing under during her break.
Unprompted, they cry together. She promises him she’ll be home at a normal time and that they’ll get a quick two second hug before they have to isolate themselves from each other. Him because he’s been surrounded and unprotected from so many students, her because every single one of her patients for the past twelve shifts is suspected to have been either diagnosed with or in contact with COVID.
Once she finally gets home, that hug lasts way longer than two seconds. They can’t help it. Jungkook can’t stop himself from sobbing and she can’t help herself from being the mom she’s always been. Full of life, full of love, full of holding Jungkook and herself and his dad together at all times.
His dad does the exact same thing when he gets home several hours later. He finds Jungkook and his mom snuggled in their bed with tear stained cheeks and puffy eyes. The three of them haven’t shared a bed like this since Jungkook was a kid still struggling from nightmares.
And for the first time since the lockdown announcement, Jungkook can breathe. He’s home. With his family. His small, hardworking, ever-loving family.
***
Two weeks pass before the university says anything other than ‘everything has been put on hold’. In the meantime, Jungkook watches the news more than he ever has before and doom-scrolls on his phone just as much. At least once a day, he hops on facetime with his best friend, Andy. Their moms work together and have since the boys were eight or nine. At this point, Andy is basically his brother.
“They emailed us today and said everything’s going to be online,” Andy whines. “You know how much trouble I have learning online. I was terrible at it in high school.”
“We can do study sessions,” Jungkook suggests. They’d done that together at each other’s dining room tables during their senior year for their AP European History class. They could’ve gone to an actual class for it, but that would’ve required driving to their rival high school’s campus to take the course and they both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“I guess. But all of our classes are different.” Andy keeps whining. He fusses so loudly it makes Jungkook laugh. If he looked out his own bedroom window, he could probably see into Andy's across their backyards.
“You’re such a dope," he teases softly. “We’ll figure it out, okay? We can make a schedule and do shit together. Who knows, maybe it’ll help us learn better.”
Andy whimpers pathetically. “But I don’t wanna.”
Jungkook snorts. He really doesn’t want to either. Being home makes him lazy and comfortable. The last thing he wants to do is form a study schedule. Not to mention that he’d already not made many new acquaintances that semester so his social circle was withering by the second. Maybe he’ll reach out in one of his gaming discord channels to see who else might want to join their sessions. Make it a group effort.
Slowly and steadily, he starts receiving class updates and emails regarding his lectures. Every single professor has worked more than overtime to put their classes online. Some of them have just thrown up slideshows, others have pre-recorded lectures and used the normal class time as an opportunity for students to log into zoom and ask specific questions. University policy requires zoom classes and attendance and while a lot of the professors and TAs abide by the rules, a great deal of them make exceptions and adjustments.
In April, the university officially announces that everything is shut down until the Fall semester and Jungkook doesn’t know what the heck to do with his life until then. Obviously, classes will still be conducted online, but he really wishes he could be on campus during the summer like he’d planned. Summer classes were less expensive and he wanted to knock out as many credits as he could as quickly as he could so he could graduate early and hopefully slide into a Master’s program ahead of the rush from what would be his graduating class.
“You can still do that,” Taehyung says from his lawn chair on the opposite side of the yard two days later.
Something about their most recent trip home had solidified their friendship. Taehyung had reached out a few times to check in and before Jungkook knew it, they were texting fairly regularly. It’s likely due to the uncertainty of the pandemic and what it will mean for them in the coming months (or years, according to Taehyung's outlook on the situation). But Jungkook isn’t complaining. He’ll take all the friends he can get, especially when it’s his crush, especially when the world feels like it’s falling apart.
Taehyung sips on the fresh lemonade Jungkook’s mother made and squints up to the sun. He hadn’t even gone through the house, he’d gone around it and plopped himself in the chair, waved from a distance and moved the chair into the direct sunlight instead of keeping it in the shade.
“But that’s just so long at your desk during the summer. Nobody wants to do summer school.” Andy rolls over onto his belly, the blanket beneath him sticks to the back of his leg because he’d lathered himself with sunscreen and hadn’t given it the chance to absorb before he’d laid down. “Then again, nobody wants to be out in this humidity so maybe it’s not a terrible idea.”
“Yes, the humidity.” Taehyung emphasizes with a tilt of his glass.
Jungkook frowns and goes back to his book. He’s reread this page three times and is contemplating giving up. The other two might want to waste away on this oddly warm day for mid-April, but Jungkook still has two exams left and he never actually did the reading for one of the courses.
“I already signed up for a few classes,” Jungkook says, giving up on his book. “A girl I met during first term messaged me on IG and asked if I was going to take the follow-up to the course we were in together. I said I would if she does. So we’re going to be study buddies.”
“That’s cute,” Taehyung smirks and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“She’s a lesbian.” Jungkook defends, a blush creeps up his chest.
“So are you,” Taehyung jokes.
Andy cackles and Jungkook’s blush grows an even deeper pink.
“Shut up.” Jungkook snorts. He doesn't normally joke about someone’s sexuality or sexual preferences, but Jungkook had legitimately just told them a story about his mom having a picture of him at her nurse’s station and that one of the new interns commented about how her ‘daughter was utterly adorable’. When his mom had kindly corrected the intern, the woman had replied, “Oh! I’m sorry. He just has the exact same blunt-bob haircut as my daughter and she’s super masc sometimes. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
And in truth, Jungkook does kind of look like a butch lesbian most days even with his hair being shorter now than it was in that picture. To add to that, he’s by no means offended because half of his crushes are usually butch lesbians. He’ll never get over how bad it breaks his heart every time they don’t want a queer boy to peg now and then.
Because that’s the thing. Jungkook might be introverted and shy, but once he gets comfortable somewhere, he opens up a lot. And that got him into some fun situations during the summer before his freshman year of college. He just wishes he’d been able to find that level of comfort at some point during the school year. Maybe then this whole being home thing wouldn’t feel so abysmal or like he’s losing time.
“Hey boys,” Jungkook’s dad steps out onto the back stoop and waves to the three of them. “I hate to break this up but I’m gonna need you two to go home as soon as possible. Probably isolate yourselves, too, once you get there.” His eyebrows are tightly knit and his voice is quiet as if he’s trying hard not to panic. “Kookie’s mom tested positive for COVID. She’s on her way home right now.”
“Oh, shit.” Taehyung abruptly stands and backs up. It’s probably instinctual and Jungkook certainly doesn’t take offense to the action. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jeon. I hope her symptoms are mild.”
“She has a headache but that’s about it.”
“Keep me updated, Kook. I’ll see ya.” Taehyung sets the lemonade glass down in the grass and skirts the edge of the yard to the gate. It looks kind of silly, but Jungkook gets it. Taehyung had spent a good thirty minutes soliloquizing earlier about how careless so many people were when they went in public.
Andy quietly rolls up his blanket and crosses to the back end of the yard where he tosses the bundle over the fence into his own greenspace. “Call me later, okay?”
Jungkook nods and watches his best friend scurry into the house opposite his, likely harboring his own fears of when his own mom will inevitably get sick since she works alongside Jungkook’s mom.
“You okay, dad?” Jungkook asks as he picks up Taehyung’s glass and sets it on the tray his mom had placed on the stoop before she’d left for work.
His dad shrugs his shoulders. “Glad it’s just a headache. Scared it’ll be more. Scared one of us will get it. You good sleeping in the basement still?”
Jungkook nods. He’d moved all of his stuff down there out of his parents’ precautions. Luckily, they’d just finished remodeling it last summer so it was no longer the musty, gloomy space it was when Jungkook was a kid. “I’m gonna miss you guys though.”
“I know, buddy,” his dad takes the tray from him and follows him into the house. “We’ve done a terrible job at keeping each other safe, but we have to be good for these next couple of weeks until she’s better.”
Jungkook nods again. “You gonna take my room officially now?”
“Ugh. I guess so. Not that she and I have slept together much over the past few months because our schedules have been opposite one another, but at least our bed smells like her.”
“Spray her perfume on the sheets.” Jungkook nudges his dad in the side.
Sometimes he can’t believe he contributes to their gross affections. Other times, he knows he’s exceptionally lucky to be able to. When Andy’s parents got divorced, it was torture watching their family fall apart. Andy often climbed over the fence and through Jungkook’s window to hide from the fighting. Eventually, Jungkook’s parents sat Andy down to let them know they knew he was sneaking in despite how hard the boys tried to keep it a secret. They handed him his own key and promised him he was always welcome – openly and warmly – no matter what was going on at his house. Andy had never once taken advantage of the offer, but he’d used it a few times and each of those times, one of Jungkook’s parents would get up and hold him while he cried.
“I might have to,” his dad’s gravely tone brings Jungkook back to the present. “That woman drives me crazy in the best ways. Find someone who drives you crazy, Jungkook. Someone who makes you want to see the sun every day even on your worst days.”
Jungkook smiles. “I will, dad. Don’t worry.”
“I’m always going to worry, son.” His dad pulls him in for a fiercely tight hug that presses all the air out of both of their lungs. “There, now you have your daily dose of my worry aggression.”
“Worry aggression?” Jungkook wheezes when his dad squeezes even harder.
“Like cuteness aggression but worry. Eeeeeeee,” his dad makes a goofy sound like a balloon deflating that has Jungkook giggling hard by the time they let go of each other. “That’s also from your mom since…well, since she’s got germs.”
The garage door starts rumbling and Jungkook scrambles to gather a few snacks before darting down the stairs. He hangs out at the bottom, waiting to see his mom come in through the mud room so he can wave to her.
She looks impossibly tired, laden down with her bags and her giant container of ice water. None of the cubes have even had a chance to melt, that’s how little she was away from home before they turned her right around to come back.
“I love you, mom.”
She jumps a mile high, definitely not expecting Jungkook to greet her that quickly upon entrance.
“Sorry.” Jungkook giggles and then all out laughs when his mom pouts down at him. “But I love you.”
“I love you too, my sweet boy.” She sets down her bags and her water. “I got some of those snacks from the vending machine that you really like. I’ll leave them up here for you.”
“Okay. Thanks, mom.” Jungkook’s face hurts from smiling at her. It might be weird to think his mom is adorable, but she really is. She’s so tiny and so determined. She probably snuck over to those vending machines before anyone caught her and chased her out of the hospital.
“I snuck over there after they told me to go home. Pretty sure Sherri saw me going over there but she covered for me because I saw her follow me with the Lysol wipes.”
Jungkook cackles. He knew it. His mom never gives up when she has her mind made up like that.
It’s the silly things that get us through, Jungkookie. She always says.
“It’s the silly things that get us through, Jungkookie,” she says it like she heard herself in his thoughts and wants to put her stamp of approval on his memories.
“I really love you, mom. Now go to bed.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” she mumbles as she kicks off her shoes. The silly facade she’d donned quickly falls from her voice and is replaced by her more honest exhaustion. “Love you, baby.”
A few moments later, he hears the shower in his parents’ bathroom kick on. His dad fusses in the kitchen, definitely making soup to place at the door for when she’s done. He also sets a bowl for Jungkook on that same tray as earlier at the top of the stairs. He includes a banana milk and the whole bag of individually wrapped corn ice cream treats that Jungkook loves so that he can keep them in his mini freezer downstairs.
Jungkook stays up late reading and listening to his parents’ muffled voices talk to each other on their phones from different rooms. Finally tired, he sets his alarm to take his exam online at 9am the next morning and rolls over to sleep once the house is settled and quiet.
Halfway through his exam, his mother’s coughing catches his attention. Because his dad showed no symptoms, he was still required to go into work even though he’d been exposed to the virus. He’d probably left around 6am, if Jungkook recalls reading his bedside clock correctly, so Jungkook debates whether or not to run up the stairs and check on his mom since she’d been alone for a few hours.
Jungkook: you ok, mom? Want me to put anything in front of your door?
He puts his phone down and keeps working on his exam. She texts him back that she’s fine, her throat is just dry.
The rest of the day progresses similarly, Jungkook checking on his mom. His mom saying she’s okay or asking for some soup or tea which he dutifully provides.
The next few days progress similarly until one night he wakes in the pitch black of his room to what sounds like his mother hacking up half of a lung. His dad’s footsteps move from Jungkook’s old bedroom and stop at the closed door of their bedroom and his deep voice vibrates through the floor. Her only response is more coughing.
Jungkook listens carefully as his dad opens the bedroom door and his steps creak across the floorboards. He flicks on the light next to his own bed and sits at the edge of it, every muscle in his body tense, heart rate kicked up.
His dad’s voice is calm but urgent. Jungkook thinks he’s on the phone. He snags his t-shirt off the back of the futon and walks to the bottom of the stairs.
Waits.
“Okay. Thanks, Sherri. Yeah, I’ll. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, see you in a bit. Jungkook!”
Jungkook runs up the stairs three at a time, simultaneously putting on a new mask. “Yeah, dad?”
“Good, you’ve got your mask. I’d tell you to stay home but I know you’ll fight me on it and at this point I need us all together.”
Jungkook steps into the mudroom to slip into his tennis shoes and then trots to his parents’ room to help. He keeps his breathing as even as possible to mitigate the fear cycling through his bones.
Whatever he’d thought he was ready to see – his mom looking a little sicker than the one time she’d had food poisoning, worn out, maybe flushed with fever – he was not prepared for this. Her eyes are sunken in and foggy, her lips are ashy, her skin has none of its honey color it usually has even on her worst days.
“Eomma,” he says, barely catching her when she steps forward, too ambitious for what little strength she has.
“Carry her, will you?” His dad says. “I’m going to start the car. We’re taking mine.”
Most people might frown upon Jungkook’s dad using his police car for his own emergency like this – sirens and everything – but Jungkook would’ve honestly hated him if he hadn’t.
He sits in the back seat with his mom cradled in his arms just like she used to cradle him when he'd get sick. It shouldn't be this way. Not until she's old and grey, not until she's well into her elderly years. Her breaths are shallow, her coughs wreck her body like an ice pick shaving chunks off of an iceberg. In the lull between bouts, he manages to get her to drink from the bottle of pedialyte he’d run back inside to get before they left. He has no idea if it will help, but it certainly won’t hurt.
Sherri and two other nurses meet them at the emergency doors, covered from head to toe in PPE. She doesn’t make eye contact with either Jungkook or his dad, just tells them they’re not allowed inside.
“What?!” Jungkook’s dad bellows. “But that’s my wife!”
“And you’re now considered contagious until proven otherwise.” Sherri snips over her shoulder. “You can sit out here if you want, but there’s not much we can do or guarantee other than we’ll do the best we can.”
“Mom!” Jungkook shouts, tears well up hot and fast. “Eomma! Saranghae!”
His mom weakly raises her hand in response. Sends flying kisses for both of them before the automatic doors close behind her.
After such a blaring rush of sound to get them to the hospital and the throng of people practically throwing his mom onto a gurney and covering her face with an oxygen mask, the silence around them is deafening. Birds chirp quietly as they settle into the dusk of the night. A small bat flutters overhead and swoops back up into the thick trees. The streetlight buzzes. Jungkook hears none of it. All he hears is the echo of gurney wheels mixing with his dad’s anxious breathing.
“What the fuck.” Jungkook whispers angrily as he crouches down into a ball, tucks his head between his knees, and tries to breathe through the nausea building at the back of his throat.
He watches an ant cross in front of his feet carrying a crumb on its back. Oh, how he wishes he could trade places with that bug. Anything to escape the fear and panic rising in his chest.
His dad sinks onto the ground beside him and pulls him close, kissing him on the temple and hugging him tight. “She’s gonna be okay, buddy. She always is.”
Jungkook doesn’t believe him.
***
Maybe if he’d believed his dad, he wouldn’t be sitting in the front row of an empty memorial room, staring at the urn filled with his mom’s ashes, and listening to a masked reverend read useless bible verses about God’s love and how He welcomes His children into Heaven where neither sickness nor pain can reach them. Maybe he’d be able to believe that, after all of her fighting for everyone else, the Universe would finally fight for his mom and somehow magically bring her back.
Instead, his body shakes with rage. Rage to a God he’s never once fucking believed in. Rage at all of the people who’ve lived carelessly and ungratefully of all the hard work that people like his mom go through…went through…every single day. Rage at himself for not bullying his way into the hospital to give her one last hug so she wasn’t alone while she died – his own health be damned.
As it happened, his dad had caught it shortly after her hospitalization, but he himself hadn’t. His dad’s symptoms were mild and dissipated after a couple of days. Jungkook nearly burned the house down, wishing it had been himself who’d gotten sick. That his parents had stayed completely untouched, unscathed.
His mom died two days after his dad felt better.
Taehyung and Andy sit quietly on the other end of a facetime call to keep him company during the memorial service. They’re stuck staring at the ceiling because Jungkook can’t stomach holding his phone up anymore. He shamelessly cries through the whole thing. Due to restrictions on funerals and wakes, it’s just him, his dad, the reverend, and two assistants present. He’s shocked the home even agreed to host, but he guesses it has something to do with his mom being a nurse.
They’re livestreaming the funeral, which feels like fucking blasphemy because who the fuck shares a youtube link for people to watch a dead person be mourned. How can that link have over two hundred active viewers? They should all be here instead. They should be able to talk about his mom. How great she was. How kind and smart and funny she was. How she made the best fucking gimbap in the neighborhood.
Jungkook tips over and buries his head into his dad’s lap. He cries so loud he can hardly hear himself think. The reverend stops his reading and lets Jungkook cry. Let’s his dad cry, too. Eventually, the reverend finishes the ceremony and quietly leaves the room to let them mourn. Taehyung and Andy both end their call. Jungkook knows they’ll reach back out later even if it’s to just let him cry again.
When the two of them can finally regain a bit of quietude, they follow one of the assistants to the nearby columbarium on the cemetery property. From a distance, they watch the small urn disappear into its place, locked safely behind the bronze door for all eternity.
The assistant leaves silently. Jungkook and his dad stand hand in hand for who knows how long. The days are long now, the cemetery closes at sunset. They stand there so long, the assistant comes back to alert them that they have about ten more minutes before the gates close.
Jungkook’s dad finally steps close, lays his hands on either side of the bronze door and presses a kiss to the heart etched next to his wife’s name. He whispers his love for her in Korean and it breaks Jungkook’s soul into even more pieces than it already was because he can only understand half of what his dad is saying.
Taking his father gently by the elbow, he leads them down the gravel pathway to the car. He thinks he says something about coming back with flowers on the next really nice day, but it’s possible he’s only said it to himself.
His dad slides into the passenger seat and cries the whole drive home.