BTS Jungkook FF | Remembered

Chapter 11 | Mask

But before my heart can do anything, my mouth messes it all up. I start talking before I can think about it.

That was stupid.

I do stupid things sometimes.

I'm still feeling breathless and woozy, but I block out the pain for a moment and concentrate on his face in front of me.

"So you have that mask too, huh Kookie?"

His face shows a mixture of worry and confusion, but I plow on. I feel dizzy, but this only makes me more reckless.

"You hide under it just like me, hmm?"

I pause.

"Or have you only just learned to put it on?"

Now that I've started I just can't stop the flow of words, the things I've wanted to say for years and never has. It's all coming out now, the dam breaking and the flow of words spilling out into the air, to dissolve into nothing but never to be forgotten. 

"Oh, I've hid under this mask for nearly nine years now... So long it's almost become part of me..."

"Wh-why? Why did you put it on? Why did you cover yourself up?" He says tentatively. There's a sadness in his eyes I can't quite figure out. It's not pity, but something else. 

"You of all people should know that.." I say quietly. 

He looks at me with those eyes.

"I've never told anyone this before." I say, looking straight into his eyes. There's something about him that makes me feel like he will listen to me, like he will let me be heard.

He gives me a tiny nod.

So I tell him.

"I was seven years old." I say in a flat voice. I don't want to relive these memories, but at the same time... I need to. I have to tell someone.

I'm too far in to stop now.    

"My mom and dad were always away for work, meetings and big 'important' parties I was always too young to go to. They didn't even have time for me. They still don't." I say, the bitterness seeping into my voice.  

"So they found me a nanny. Rose... I..... loved her. She became more of a mother than my real mother ever was. Until... one day they took her away. I'll never know what happened to her. All I know is that I never saw her again." 

My fists clench. I can remember every detail of that night. The knock on the door. The taste of the ice cream fading on my tongue. Her terrified face. Her telling me to hide. The woody scent of the table I hid under. The crack in the tablecloth. I could only watch. Watch as they took her away, watch as she reached for me one last time. And after that... after that I was alone, alone in a huge house, crying silently, my tears dripping, one by one, onto the hard wooden floor, with no one to catch them, no one to brush them away. I knew I would never see her again.

I realised tears have gathered in my eyes, ready to spill over. I furiously blink them away, biting my lip so hard it draws blood. 

"So my parents told me, it was time I was a big girl and stayed home alone. I would have my meals prepared beforehand, everything readied for me by people I never saw. I know they knew what had happened to Rose. But they never told me, pretended everything was fine, like we were a proper family and Rose had never existed. But of course we never were."

He listens in silence, and I continue on, whispering into the space between us, a space that feels so much thicker than before.  

"The boys at school, they teased me about Rose, about how I didn't really have real parents, about how ugly and clumsy I was, they would find fault in everything I did. And what they told me, about my parents, it was true. And it hurt. But I never could find the courage to stand up to them. There was no one I could talk to. And one day they went too far. They cornered me and started throwing rocks."