The Wrong Soulmate (BTS OT7)

Chapter 3.20-Jimin

Now it was my time. It felt like forever since I'd been hoping for progress on Yoona's speech therapy, but she just never made a sound. I'd started to feel like a disappointment. Everyone else had been so successful in their areas of therapy while mine was stuck in reverse. We just really needed a breakthrough.

I felt terrible that both Yoona and Jungkook had to go through the trauma of her being so afraid of him based on just a little misunderstanding. But at the end of the day they seemed closer than ever and Yoona had whispered out her first words.

Now I just had one problem. I needed to try to pry Yoona and Kookie apart so we could begin work on the therapies that had been recommended. To say Jungkook was being overprotective of Yoona barely began to scratch the surface. It really was incredibly sweet, but he'd barely set her down since they reunited. He fed her every bite of food by hand; her chair had eventually been removed from the dining room table since she always sat on Kookie's lap. The only time they were apart was during her nightly baths with Jin.

Eventually Jungkook had to go back to the company to work on some music that had been falling behind schedule and already had a public release date. He wanted to take Yoona with but Jin and Yoongi eventually put their foot down, pulling their Hyung card to ensure Yoona stayed home so Jungkook could work without distraction.

Based on what we'd observed and Yoona communicated, it seemed that Yoona's speech based trauma had two components. First Hyunjin beat her mercilessly because he said she talked too loud and had lost her volume control. Second, he told her she was pronouncing her words wrong so it didn't sound right, followed by an all out assault if he heard her misspeak. In either case Yoona could no longer hear herself so she had no ability to assess if he was right. Regardless he abused her until she eventually gave up speaking, having lost both her self confidence and any motivation to communicate further.

The first issue was easier to address. The therapist gave us a device that measures how loud different sounds are. Yoona was given a chart that outlined how loud different types of talking should be in different situations. Whispering, one on one conversation in an empty room, talking in a crowd and the like were all laid out in detail. It allowed her to practice adjusting how loud she spoke in a way she could measure so she was able to control calibrating her own volume. The hope was that over time she'd just become more confident speaking and she wouldn't need to rely on the device to give her confidence anymore, but she could keep it as long as she needed to.

The second issue was harder. Hyunjin had made her lose confidence that she understood how to make different sounds correctly. And from what we could gather he convinced her that she was saying some sounds incorrectly when she actually was saying them right, and vice versa. So as she followed his guidance she became more and more off kilter until her language sounds had become so confused she truly wasn't able to speak correctly.

Based on the therapist's guidance we would set time aside each day to work on both areas. We'd find a word she was comfortable saying and practice it at different volumes. And then we would painstakingly go back through the alphabet and relearn the sounds each letter made with the help of the therapist. We'd then practice the sounds together, eventually putting them into words, and finally into sentences.

As of right now there was only one word we'd heard. "Kookie". So we started there. I asked her to say it at different volumes so she could get used to how the device worked. She was clearly very shy about it but worked hard. I was able to get her to raise her voice above a whisper, but getting to be much louder felt like it was going to take some time.

Getting her to experiment with other words was more of a challenge. My soulmates constantly reminded me to take it slow. We had all the time in the world and Yoona would only get there at her own pace. So instead of spending all of our time together on speech therapy we returned to our old hobbies too. We'd watch tv shows together, watch the flowers bloom from the apartment balcony, and drift into neighborhood shops to see what they had to offer.

I didn't notice it at first, but after a while I discovered she'd sometimes move her lips along to bits of the closed captioning on the television. Once or twice, when I listened really closely I thought I could hear her saying whole words out loud.

A few days later I caught her in the act. I'd heard her whisper out "Oppa", testing out how the syllables and sounds felt in her mouth and on her lips.

Pausing the show I slowly ran the back of my fingers down her cheek to gain her attention.

"Oppa" I said to her, knowing she wouldn't hear me but hoping she'd gather from the shape of my mouth. I also signed the word to her, thankful it was one of the signs I'd picked up on early with the hopes that she would become comfortable enough to call me her Oppa.

She paused, looking at me deep in concentration.

"Oppa" I said again, giving her a big smile and nodding at her encouragingly and then pointing at her and then at me. "Oppa".

Yoona closed her eyes, thinking hard and I could see her mouth the words a few more times before it came out as the smallest whisper.

I almost tackled her into a hug, I was so proud of her progress and how hard she was working. After covering her face and lips with kisses I pulled back and could see her blushing hard.

"Oppa" I said again, hoping I might get her to speak it a bit louder. The speech therapist had told us that once the dam broke open, everything would become easier. Then it would just be practice, practice, practice until she had all of the sounds and volume right.

"Oppa", she looked anxious to see my response, afraid she might disappoint me. But honestly it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. We were slowly but surely unraveling all of the horrors that Hyunjin had put her through and she was going to make it and become strong again. While I was happy for her, I was glowing inside knowing that I got to be her champion through the entire process.

I leaned in and gave her a soft kiss on the lips to encourage her. Once again receiving a full flush in return.

"Oppa" she tested again, which I rewarded with another slower kiss.

"Oppa" she tried one last time, causing me to pick her up and resettle her on my lap, legs straddling my thighs. I pulled her closer and wrapped my fingers through her hair, waiting to see if she would resist as I slowly drew closer to her.

Seeing her break into a smile I stopped holding back. We started slowly, I was softly exploring her mouth with my tongue while my hand rubbed gently up and down, from her thighs to her hips, and finally to her waist. We slowed for a bit, foreheads pressed against each other's before I returned to offer her more aggressive kisses.

As we kissed I laid her back on the couch and moved to hover over her so I had more access to her neck and collar bones and could explore applying some friction in our lower regions. In response she'd look at me with her big eyes, but she never protested or held back, responding willingly each time to my advances.

I could feel so much through the bond. I could feel her relief, her pride, her joy, and hidden somewhere in the back a small spike of spite, which I gathered was toward Hyunjin, knowing that she was slowly moving further and further from the cage he had trapped her in.

I couldn't wait to tell the rest of our soulmates. Once again we had made a huge leap forward and I could only dream of what else would be possible.