A MYSTERY TO ME | TAEKOOK

chapter eleven

Jungkook had touched down late the previous night, a cab taking him back home. Or to his old home. He was still unsure of his decision, confused by the words that he had been left with. On one hand, it did seem like something he needed to do. To honor his family, forgive and forget- it would be a way to move on and way to really, start a life that he had always planned for. He was never one to live outside of a routine and really, choreography didn't leave much in that department.

When he arrived, Jimin had been sleeping but Jungkook couldn't. He turned about in bed, the dog at the foot of it growling each time. For a second he wondered if this was because he didn't want to leave, or maybe it was that he didn't want to be back here- that he had felt more comfortable on the East Coast despite every inch of his brain telling him that, that wasn't the case.

"You okay?" Jimin's voice was tired, his body exhausted but he couldn't sleep when Jungkook was rustling about next to him.

"Fine!" Jungkook pretended to mumble the words but both could read right through him.

"Really?" Jimin sat up on his elbows, using a pillow to prop his side, "What's going on?"

A heavy sigh escaped the youngers lips, his fingers dancing across the pattern on their duvet, "I don't want to keep you up. I know that you still have to work tomorrow!"

The boy next to him shook his head, a mop of blonde hair encasing his sweet features that were so centered on his face, "Tell me. I'm up! Is it about the trip? How was it? I didn't want to pry!" His energy was unmatched, even in the middle of the night.

"The trip was fine. My sister's fiancé is great, very nice and charming. I think I need to move back there, and be closer! Not only for her but I think that... it's time for me to take over the family business." Jungkook said the words slowly, deliberately, thinking each one through as they fell from his lips.

Jimin paused, a scowl replacing his usual grin, "I'm sorry, come again?" The sassy tone wasn't unnoticed.

"It's complicated!" Jungkook was nervous now, his fingers fiddling over one another, stumbling across whatever they could to distract his mind, "My Dad he's, well he's dying, and my Mom and him apologized and-,"

"And that's all you needed to forgive them for the absolute abuse that occurred on that day they kicked you out?" The older seemed livid that Jungkook would even consider something of that sort. And in reality, he had a right to be. Jimin had picked up the pieces, put him in therapy, introduced him around town, helped him land a job- Jimin was his everything and it was unfair to just leave, "Jungkook, do I even know you in this moment?"

"You don't understand!" Jungkook was pleading, to Jimin and to himself, "It's so much more complicated than what it seems."

"How so? Explain it to me!" The boy had thrown the sheets from his body, up and about pacing around the bed with their dog in tow. His hands rested angrily on his hips and Jungkook swore he had never seen the boy so mad.

"I spent years, no, decades- since I could read and write and breath, perfecting being the next CEO and when it was stripped from me I was devastated. This is my chance to have it back. To put everything, I learned to use!"

"And if they just strip it from you again? If this is a ploy?"

The younger had only thought very briefly of that, the fact at the end of the day was that his family was breaking apart and there was nobody to piece it back together once his Father eventually passed, "It's not this time. I know it's not!"

"And what about us? About this place? About Mochi?" He held the small ball of fluff up, tears daring to drip from the corner of his eyes, "Were you just going to leave us?"