?MY LIGHT IN THE DARK ? || JIKOOK ?

16.

Jungkook jumped from my
truck without a second of hesitation so apparently he wasn't too scared.

I grabbed his backpack which
it seemed he'd left in his rush and followed him.

As I broke even with his pace to the front porch, I wanted to touch him but I wasn't sure if it would help or not, so I waited.

I waited for him to speak, too.

He trudged up to the house
with his suitcase in hand without even looking back at me.

I could handle a lot— a gun pointed at my head, a mean-spirited argument, running ten miles but watching Jungkook quietly fall apart might be more than I was equipped to handle.

His neck muscles tensed as he heard my footsteps behind him, even though he knew it was me.

He dropped his suitcase onto my bed and stood there staring at it like it might jump up and eat him, clenching and unclenching his hands.

I wanted to ease his pain but I hadn't been given permission yet.

What I could do was make sure that Jungkook knew this place could be his home, now that his had become unsafe.

I moved to my closet and
started clearing out half of it, shoving my things to one side and taking down any clothing that I hadn't worn in a while.

I threw some things into boxes
at the back of my closet and left the vacated hangers for Jungkook to hang his own clothes.

As Jungkook moved to the closet with a quick smile of thanks and started hanging his clothes, I did the same thing to my dresser, clearing out two drawers for
him and making sure there
was space on top as well.

Jungkook still didn't say a word.

Needing to escape the suffocating silence, I went to
the hallway closet to get
some clean sheets and my
best comforter so that
Jungkook could be warm
as he slept that night.

I hadn't asked him if he was okay sleeping in the same bed
as me but I was a bachelor without a guest bedroom and
no way was I letting him take
the couch and I wasn't quite selfless enough to do it for him.

I wanted him in my arms
tonight and I needed to sleep knowing no one could touch
him except for me.

I hoped that maybe, just
maybe, Jungkook needed
that, too.

When I got back to my room, Jungkook was almost finished putting his things away.

He'd used the closet space and drawers that I'd cleared out, which made me smile.

I loved it when he accepted anything from me, even some thing as simple as space to
put his clothes.

He hadn't protested that I
didn't need to go to the trouble.

In fact, in the last few days before all this happened, he'd stopped protesting all the compliments I'd given him.

Maybe my omega was
learning his worth after all.

"I need to take a shower."

His voice startled me out of
my thoughts and as I looked
at him, my smile quickly disappeared.

Jungkook was clearly still
upset and shaken, I moved toward him again with the intention of giving him a
hug but something in his
eyes told me not yet.

I nodded to him instead and he disappeared into my bathroom and a few minutes later the shower turned on with the screeching wail it always had when it first started up.

I sat down heavily on my bed, clasping my hands as I listened to the running water, hoping
that he would find his way back to me, so we could go through
this together.

He was in the shower a long time. Too long.

I began to get worried, listening to the running water fall in an uninterrupted fashion.

I'd always been too nosy for
my own good, part of why I
was a detective and I started
to imagine all the things that could have gone wrong while
I sat in the other room and
gave him space that he'd
never even asked for.

I went into the bathroom, knocking quietly first but when I didn't hear anything, entering quickly, more worried that ever.

I found him in one piece but it was still worse that I'd hoped.

Jungkook was curled up on the floor of the shower, drenched from head to foot, sobbing.

My heart shattered.

I went to him.

The water was a cold smack to my body as it sprayed me and I was furious with myself all over again that I'd waited this long.

I cradled my arms around him, picking him up just enough to get my body under his, to
protect him from the cold,
hard shower floor.

I made sure not one part of his body was without mine as a cover, wrapping him in my arms completely, trying to hold him together as he shook apart.

It occurred to me that I was being stupid.

Shaking off some of my own shock, I reached around and turned off the shower.

Silence settled around us.

Jungkook continued to heave
but didn't make a noise.

I scooped him up and out of
the tub, carrying him from
the bathroom to my bed.

I grabbed a towel on the way, when we reached my bed I wrapped Jungkook in it, hoping he'd dry while I was gone.