Kill Our Way to Heaven (Jikook) ✔

Chapter 31

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 31
"ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛꜱ ꜱᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴇ"

The more street corners they turned, the more people surrounded them. His mother hadn't spoken a word to him since they had left the apartment, she hadn't even let him lock the door or tell his roommate—now roommates—that he would be heading out. Jungkook was too scared to ask anything at this point. He wasn't sure whether they were in danger or what they were running from to begin with.

His mother had never done this before. She wasn't the one to leave without a second thought, to flee without reason. Jungkook did remember them moving around a lot when he was a baby, but at some point, they stopped. They continued to live at the house Jungkook would grow up in and for as far he knew they would never even think about leaving it. 

The only reason Jungkook knew this was because his baby photos were taken in different houses, sometimes just motels as it turned out. Sometimes he sat on carpet, sometimes he ran around on stones, sometimes he'd draw on white plastered walls but other times he'd lean against floral wallpaper; none of which he could recognise in his house when he had finally grown up. 

He had asked his mother once but she refused to talk about it. Jungkook just figured it was because that time reminded her of his dad and their troubled past, so he decided to never ask again. She stayed quiet about a lot of things, so he wasn't too surprised. Questions remained in his head for a long time but he never made moves to figure them out. They were almost like a work of fiction to him. He liked to imagine all the different scenarios which could've played out in his life before he could remember it, or at least he did when he was young and innocent.

His father was the main source of wonder. He knew nothing about him, courtesy of his mother shutting him up whenever the words would even as much as start to leave his mouth. He wondered whether he was a good man and his parents had just been fighting and weren't made for each other, or whether the story was much darker and his father had inflicted horrors onto his mother that he could hardly imagine. The longer Jungkook had the time to think about it, the more the second possibility seemed to become reality. It wasn't that uncommon to have a dysfunctional family, anything from drug abuse to physical and emotional abuse was an option his mind didn't want to explore. But the more he saw his mother's face drop at old pictures and questions of times long since gone, he knew the story wasn't as light as a mutual divorce. They had been running for a reason.

"Jungkook, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest," his mother announced. Jungkook shot up from his thoughts, seeing how his mother had guided him towards the side of the street, her nails still digging into his clothed arm. "Do you see anyone?" she asked.

Jungkook just tilted his head in confusion. "I see loads of people, we're in the middle of a busy street," he answered, even though his tone of voice made it seem more like a question.

"Not the people," his mother said matter-of-factly. "I mean, can you see them?"

Her melody of voice was clear. That pointed tone, filled with fear and anger, she only ever used it when talking about his abilities. He wasn't allowed to call them angels or demons, and any slip up was punished as if he had said something worse than a swear word. His ability to see them was cursed out, almost like a taboo. So his mother asking him about it, willingly starting a conversation about what he had been told to stay quiet about for years, was out of the question. At first, he even believed he had heard her wrong, but the longer she stared at him expectantly, the more it started to dawn on him.

"Yes," he answered in a quiet tone.

"How close?" his mother asked immediately, seemingly not as phased by the conversation as her son.