wonderland 「 jungkook 」

[three] i'm really okay

너건 지질 하다고 말하지만 난 정말 괜찮아
some may call me a loser, but i'm really okay

jungkook and alice walked out of the cold classroom and into the even colder school hallway. alice crossed her arms over her skinny frame, trying to do the job of warming herself that her cardigan wasn't doing. jungkook shivered as well. he was tall and awkward and skinny, due to the many, many nights he'd gone to bed hungry. so hungry, in fact, that sometimes he would cry due to the painful ache of his empty stomach.

it was almost on a daily basis that he went without food, only scavenging the tiniest morsel of oatmeal or cheap cereal from the barren pantry. he tried his best to conserve everything he had available to eat, because oftentimes he didn't know when his parents would begrudgingly give him money to go out to the store, throwing venom-laced insults at him and warning him of the consequences he would have to endure if he took too long or got anything other than what they told him to. each time he went out to get as much as he could with the scant amount of money, he was extremely careful to follow their guidelines.

consequences usually ensued anyways.

jungkook cringed at the horrific shiver that attacked his withered body as he looked down at his filthy, old and tattered clothes. he prayed that someone as captivating as alice would never have to endure hardships such as his own. she was too beautiful to feel the world's harsh blows. jungkook was ugly, he thought, so he deserved them. he'd come to terms with that. he'd accepted that he would always be knocked around and beaten down. but... just... not alice. beauty such as hers, pure and innocent and warm, was sacred, and should remain untouched, untainted.

jungkook was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice alice searching through her binder and pulling out her schedule. that was, until she was holding it out to him, a bright smile on her face.

"i think it says i have arnolds for algebra two next period. and in room twenty-one hundred... do you know where that is?" her eyes twinkled as she looked up at him, the icy blue heating him up inside and making him sweat with nerves.

"u-um... i... i think so... l-let me see your m-map?" jungkook could barely speak above a whisper. he wondered if she could even hear his small, frail voice.

she laughed a bright laugh that resembled the chiming of little bells.

she was like music.

"i assumed you knew how the school was organized?" there was no annoyance in her tone; only amusement. she spoke with a gentle accent that was all her own.

"j-just to m-make s-sure..." jungkook trailed off as he took the map that alice handed him, afraid that she thought of him as annoying, even though her smile hadn't faltered for a fraction of a second.

he scanned over the map and found the room. it was exactly where he thought it would be, but he checked to make sure several times so he wouldn't get it wrong and annoy the pink-haired beauty.

"did you find it?" she asked patiently after a moment of watching jungkook look at the map over and over.

"um, y-yeah... it's t-this way," as he gave the map back to alice, his hands were shaking visibly. she didn't notice. or if she did, she didn't mention it. she smiled warmly and thanked him as she took her map back, and jungkook mumbled a quiet, heavily accented "you're welcome".