Inevitable | Jeon Jungkook

Chapter 13

With Jungkook coming home and you two being more than civilized, which is really the bare minimum that everyone else had hoped, your group of friends' dynamic had slowly returned to normal.

Aside from Taehyung rejoining the guys' group chat, you've rekindled your friendships with Yoongi and Hoseok, too, who were just as ecstatic to finally be seeing and talking to you again. You're still putting off Jungwon meeting them, though, because there hasn't really been time, given that you've also been prioritizing Jungkook.

Everyone is just glad that you could all be together to celebrate achievements and milestones again, like tonight at Jimin's opening night of the Swan Lake Ballet.

All men and their plus ones - except for Yoongi and Jungkook who, by nature of their singleness, opted to be each other's dates - are standing by the performers' lounge, leaving Jimin so he could ease his nerves.

"So, how are you and ___?" Yoongi asks Jungkook as he eyes one of the production staff who's definitely been checking Yoongi out as well.

"We're good, I mean, I've definitely captured Jungwon's heart. He lets me feed him now and asks me what I want to eat when we order out and—"

The older man chuckles. "Jin's right, you've been deflecting. I asked about you and ___, not you and your son," he continues, rolling his eyes.

All the guys have noticed how Jungkook tends to avoid questions about you. He often gives vague answers and proceeds to repeat stories he's already told them about him and Jungwon, which they all enjoy, finally seeing him happy and inspired again unlike months ago. But questions about his closeness with you, about a possible resurgence of feelings - or if they even left at all - or how the progress with Jungwon would impact Jungkook's relationship with you are always dodged.

He's thought about his feelings for you, but he's not ready to verbalize them, given as well that the priority is to be good enough for Jungwon. While he does acknowledge that his relationship with his son's mother has a lot to do with that, he keeps saying that he'll cross the bridge when he gets there. When that is, he doesn't know, but the sooner he's introduced to Jungwon as his father, the sooner Jungkook will have to start really thinking about what he wants with you.

"We're good," Jungkook says, earning him a chuckle from the older man, but Jungkook knows that he can't get anything past Yoongi; the man has this amazing ability to just know.

"You know there's nothing wrong with trying again, right? I mean, aside from the obvious fact that the best situation is for Jungwon to grow up in a complete and loving family, we all know how much you loved ___. Regardless of what happened, I think at some point you were gonna try and see if it was still possible to get back what you lost."

Jungkook chuckles. Yoongi really does know.

"Why do you think that, though?"

"I think it's common to measure how much we loved someone by how broken and lost we were when they let us go. I mean, most of the guys think that way. You may have felt like that but you didn't really lose your way, did you?" Yoongi says.

"Sure you changed but you didn't really lose yourself when you were out there. None of the vices, the playing around, the recklessness. You did what you had to do. And you were still you, just a really sad version."

Jungkook nods, recalling how his friends took turns visiting him in the US, making sure everything was okay.

"We were all anxious that things were gonna go downhill because of what happened, you know? But it never did. Because from what I've seen in your years together, you learned to love yourself the way she loved you. That kind of love stays with you, Jungkook, it doesn't break you. And I think you always knew that."