Can't Be Without You | Jungkook

Part 5

"No, no! It's the first time, I promise. It's just—"

There's no way out for him. Whether he lies or tells the truth, he'll disappoint you. It's bad either way.

"I was supposed to fight the week before that but I didn't so the organizer got pissed and made me fight again out of spite but it got more people going to see an already beat up guy fight again and win," he explains, a smirk forming on his face. You glower at him as if to say it's not the time to be cocky.

"Why didn't you fight last —" your eyes widen at the realization. "I asked you to come to dinner with me and my dad, that's why you couldn't fight..." you say, suddenly feeling terrible. Until it hits you again.

"Why did you have to fight the week before that, Jungkook?" You slap his arm. "You only fight every other Friday! That was the arrangement. Why are you doing it every week?" You exclaim, voice getting louder by the word. "And since when?"

His body slumps on the floor. Now that he has to explain himself to you, it dawns on him how silly he was for even signing up to weekly fights. You're right, it isn't the arrangement. This was just supposed to be a side gig, a means to earn extra cash every once in a while.

"It's just been two months," he admits. "I've learned how to treat myself on the days I'm not supposed to..." He stares at the floor, the shame he feels suddenly becoming suffocating.

You don't respond. You just look at him, the energy you thought you had to scold him suddenly dissipating. Now you just feel helpless.

"___, say something, please."

"You said this wasn't gonna be your life, Jungkook. You said I wouldn't lose you to this world."

"You aren't! I'm still the same. I have it figured out. I still have the same hours at the club and the supermarket. Not much has changed, especially me."

"Why do it, though?"

There's a pause and a shift in the air.

"It's my parents... Jiyoung said Dad's cut off some of his maintenance medication, they barely do anything outside of working at the restaurant... They said they'd get the ceiling at home fixed but they haven't so it leaks when it rains," Jungkook says, the hurt and frustration evident in his voice. "Her tuition fee is getting higher and I want to be able to cover it fully so that my parents won't need to."

You know how hard this is for him. His parents have always been happy people who enjoyed life, enjoyed what they did for a living, but to know that they're cutting back on other things, it hurts him to think what they'd given up because of him. If he hadn't been cocky, the robbery wouldn't have happened. Even if it's been 6 years, the effect on his parents has been massive. Suddenly, they're afraid to live.

You kneel in front of him and take his hands into yours. You need him to know that he doesn't need to carry the burden of what happened anymore. He doesn't have to keep punishing himself for something that he didn't have control over. He doesn't have to sacrifice himself for his family like this because you know, the same way he does, that they wouldn't let him.

You tell him all this and all he does is apologize - to you, to his family... he doesn't apologize to himself, though. You wish he would.

"I get it, Kook, but what about you? What about what's good for you? You don't get to do anything else other than work or fight, either. Is that really living for you?"

"But my priority is my parents, ___. That's the whole point of coming out here, of working all these jobs, so I can save enough so they wouldn't have to work too hard."