Two Worlds | JIKOOK ✅

25.

JIMIN POV

"Here." Jungkook handed
me a beer.

"Tell me everything."

We opted to sit on the couch
so I could put my foot up.

It hadn't been aching as much lately but for some reason
that bothered me.

It was almost as if I wasn't feeling it at all.

Elevation it was.

I snuggled into Jungkook,
unable to believe how the
cards fell into place.

"I was on my way out of
work and Allen—he'd stopped
by and asked me some weird questions and I didn't think
much of it." I took a long sip
of beer.

It felt good going down after
a shift of speaking too much
and resting too little.

"Like work questions?"

Jungkook inhaled deeply, the
way he did when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

Jin had told me that was a
shifter thing and that he was simply enjoying my scent.

It was weird but also sweet,
so I continued to act like I
wasn't aware so he wouldn't
get self-conscious and stop.

As crazy as it was for me to
have a mate who wasn't
human, it had to be weirder
for him.

I never knew there were
different species—was that
the right word?—of beings,
so I lived my life assuming
you fall in love and do the
best you can to keep that
love going.

Jungkook, on the other hand, grew up knowing there was
a difference and being
taught it mattered, mattered
so much fate agreed.

"He asked me if I had
submitted my offer, which
he knew I had because I'd
told him but that wasn't the strangest part of the conversation."

"From there, he started
asking me if I had thought
about a business plan ahead
of my offer and if I
understood it would cost
more than just the price of
the building to make it work
and things like that."

"And that is why he accepted your offer?" Jungkook guessed.

"I don't think so because
while I was talking with him,
my phone rang and he
excused himself saying he needed to go."

"It was the Realtor saying he accepted the offer."

"He was helping you?"

"Sort of, I think."

I'd misjudged him for so long even when he showed me glimpses of his good side.

I needed to bake him a cake
or throw him a going-away
party or something.

Yeah, that's what I'd do.

"The Realtor said that they weren't supposed to let me
know that my offer wasn't the strongest financially but he wanted the bar to stay a bar."

I set my beer down.

"Are you forgetting what
day it is?"

I picked my leg up off the ottoman and set it on the
floor.

"Maybe?"

"I have to go see Trenton."

"If all goes well, I get to
throw this bad boy away."

I tapped the boot.

It did not go well.

I saw the look in his eyes as
he removed the boot and
then the gauze underneath it.

I was one of the unfortunate ones who wasn't allowed to
take my boot off and I
imagined it had to smell
pretty bad by now.

"Did it atrophy too much?"

The doctor who first treated
me had warned me about that.

Said it might come out looking like a little leg and not to freak out if it did because physical therapy could bring it back.

"No."

"No, it's normal like that."

"Then how is it abnormal, Trenton? I can see it in your eyes." I asked, Jungkook just staring at the healer the
entire time.

What was he seeing that I couldn't see from that angle?

"Are you feeling any of what
I'm doing?"

"What do you mean?"

I pushed myself to sit up and
his fingers were pressing into
my leg, my yellowish, wrinkly, slightly crooked leg.

What the fuck.

"Shit, What's wrong with it?"

"I thought maybe—I
should've come to you
when it started to not hurt."

"I just thought it was getting better. Do you have, I don't know, a tea or eight for this."

Tears were flowing down my face.

This was supposed to be a
happy take my boot off I can take a real shower day, not a
you look like a movie
monster reveal party.

"Lay back, mate."

"Let the healer do his job."

Jungkook forced his words.

He was scared, too.

This was not good.

This was very not good.

I forced myself to lay back
down as Jungkook wiped
the tears from my eyes and
Trenton went back and forth doing I didn't even know what.

"There's an infection in the
bone, I think but I will need to...it sounds worse than it is
but I need a sample. Here."

Jungkook started to help me
up and I saw why...Trenton
was handing me tea.

"This will make it so getting
the sample is easier."

I drank it, not asking what
he meant by that.

I should've asked, my eyes almost instantly starting to
close as consciousness left me.

"You awake baby." Jungkook's sweet voice was the next
thing I was aware of and I awoke, oddly alert.

"Help me up?" He did, and Trenton was standing with
his back to us and more little bottles in front of him than
I'd seen in here before.

"Trenton, how bad is the infection?"

"The infection isn't." He
turned around, his face grim.

"This is something else?"

"Something fixable?"

Please be fixable.

I couldn't lose my leg.

"It is but I need to figure
out the best way."

"It turns out that Ari might've
not been as happy with your human DNA as we assumed."

He wasn't meeting my eyes.

Why wasn't he meeting my
eyes?

"I don't understand."

"Ari tried to change you
and from the looks of it,
things did not go—"

Trenton was cut off by a
growl as Jungkook's hands
left my shoulder.

The growl turned into a snarl,
a less than human snarl.

Jungkook had shifted.

Fuck.