Claw's Bridge(Discontinued)

46. Understanding

"Let's go!" I jumped impatiently as I waited for Jimin and Seokjin to get ready. Jimin stuck to his word of planning the visit to the animal shelter. I was too excited, too relaxed to keep in mind the way they had acted towards me.

"Give me a while. Lana wanted to talk to me," Jimin said. I nodded. It wasn't a surprise that Lana didn't like them. She only interacted with them when she felt that the situation was serious enough.

^Jimin's POV^

"Hey, you wanted to talk?" I asked Lana.

"Yeah. It's about Jun-Nighter," she said. I had noticed how she never used Nighter's real name around us. "I know it's hard for you to trust him after knowing what he did for a living back on Jupiter. I know he told you this already, but he really does have a justified reason for all those deaths. It's not my place to tell you, so all I can tell you is that you take my word for it. He needs you to be patient with him. He's gone through a lot, and it's difficult for him to cope with the changes. A rough life is all he knows. He..."

I could tell she was trying not to reveal too much, but at the same time she found it difficult to explain without doing so. "We all planned on waiting for him. But it's a two-way thing, he has to be a little open-minded," I said.

"You know, he's already considering accepting Taehyung as his mate. He told me that yesterday. Taehyung looked past Jungkook's frontier and showed him that he really did want Jungkook as a mate. The only thing holding him from accepting the bond is because he doesn't feel like he's worth the affection. There's... a lot more to all this. I'm just telling you bits of what you can work with if you're willing to. Just... give him space and time to open up or get comfortable," she said. I thought he was more comfortable living in the palace, he left his room, he goofed around with staff, made jokes and such. All he refrained from doing was interacting with us. "He hesitates to go into the kitchen for food, he hesitates to roam the palace unless I drag him out, and much more. He doesn't feel wanted."

I pursed my lips at that. We made him feel unwanted. We judged him by his frontier, and refused to look deeper. That was our fault, not his.

"He told us he wasn't ready for a mate," I said. I wasn't making excuses for the way we behaved. Lana knew Nighter best, taking her advice was essential, and understanding Nighter's perspective would help.

"He doesn't believe that mates can have a healthy relationship. He's never had that exposure," she said. "Before he stopped believing in the relationships between mates, he used to fantasize about it. He looked forward to meeting his mate. Being exposed to only the bad relationships in our neighborhood, he stopped. He started resenting the concept. A while into our relationship, he thought he was ready for a mate, but after meeting you guys, he realized he wasn't. He was scared that you would treat him the same way people from our neighborhood treated their mates. The society there was too normative. The people of our rank were treated like dirt by the higher-ups, especially by the royals."

"Oh my god," I whispered. I could feel the regret hitting me, the pity for our mate. He was scared all along, not rebellious. All along we were trying to show him that we were good people, and meant no harm, when in fact we should have focused on his emotions, his comfort. "I have an idea. I'll discuss this with the others. But I'll also need your help."

"Anything for Jungkook," she said, giving me a smile. "I don't like you guys, but you're the only ones who can make Jungkook happy."