✔️ Unconditionally [Book 2] | Jeon Jungkook

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"Poppy?"

An 8-year-old girl is what she became. She hadn't heard his voice in three months, yet the effect of the demon's grasp was as if not a day of separation had passed. It wrapped its skeletal fingers around her throat, depriving her of much needed oxygen.

Breathing became a chore, standing became difficult, and the all too familiar white noise started to build in her ears, drowning out the world around her.

Even her scalp hurt, the nerve endings somehow remembering her traumatic journey with him down the stairs of her previous home.

".......Yes, Appa?"

Well-trained ears picked up the sound of her soft voice through the laughter filling the kitchen. He turned towards her, hearing the change, hearing the fear and anxiety within it.

Heavy footsteps resounded behind her as he approached. Alerted to his presence, she whipped her body around, eyes widened and jaw slackened, meeting his pointed look.

"Yes, it's me. How are you, my dear?"

"Who is that?" Jungkook asked.

She answered neither. Her gaze remained transfixed on his as she listened to the voice through the phone that somehow remained pressed against her ear, almost as if by unseen forces.

"I'm sorry I've been away for so long. I was upset about how you and your mother left and I didn't know what to do. But I'm still your father and I want to fix things."

"Hyun-Ji?"

Her eyes were now unseeing, darting to different spots on the floor as she listened, becoming glossier with each second.

He wanted to fix things.

Fixing things meant buying a new game system. Not because she had straight A's again and deserved a reward, but because hers was thrown in the garbage because she played it too much for his liking.

Fixing things meant she was taken to an amusement park. Not because it was a summer family outing, but because the thrill of a roller coaster helped her to forget the adrenaline rush of hearing her parents screaming in the early hours of the morning.

Fixing things meant vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry on top after leaving the emergency room, eaten clumsily with the left hand because the right was in a sling. Eaten slowly because the treat was hard-earned, not through good grades or for seeing another birthday, but by getting a little too close to Appa while he was angry, and by having a bone that was just a little too fragile to withstand the consequences.

"Hyun-Ji?" Brow furrowed, his voice was more urgent.

"My colleagues keep congratulating me on becoming a grandfather when I've never even met my granddaughter. I want to change that."

She remained silent and immobile. The voice was male, and Jungkook knew that only one male in her life had this effect on her.

"Hang up the phone, Hyun-Ji."

"I really want to meet her. I want her to get to know me."

His words were loud enough for Jungkook to hear through the phone. She had yet to respond to either one of them, and only the note of anger in Jungkook's voice made her meet his gaze again.