Y/N

Eleven years ago.

" Its ok sunflower, I am here. I am here for you. The pain will go . Baby. Its ok " Jungkook 's voice rumbled through his chest as I grooved my face more harder to his chest.

I loitered to his chest for several minutes as it felt paradise. Just like I felt the same when we met for the first time when I was eight years old. I still remember what Jungkook told me.

But he said we met long before I thought we did, when I was just six years old.

That night... I had been crying outside my house. My mom had shoved me out. She didn't even look at me when she did it. Just muttered something about needing peace and slammed the door shut behind me leaving me outside in the cold night. She needed her time alone with Uncle Paxson.

Yeah. She still sleeps with him. Even now. And my dad has no idea that she is cheating on him with uncle Paxson.

Jungkook said he heard me crying. He said the sounds from inside the house, the awful groans, the weird thuds, scared the hell out of me. Yeah the weird groans and moans of my mom and uncle Paxson. I don't remember the noises anymore, but I remember how cold the night was. I remember how small I felt how the cold night was cruel to me, wondering if I did something wrong. But I knew the cold night was cruel to me , so that Jungkook would wrap me in his warm arms.

And then... they came.

Jungkook and Ian.

He said I looked like a lost kitten and I looked, too tired to cry and too scared to breathe. And he walked up to me. Slowly. Gently. Not wanting me to jump scare by his presence. His presence was the warmness I craved for.

He said , I followed them. I don't even remember thinking twice about it. Just... warmth. His hand was warm. Only his warm hands are the one I remember.

He led me to a little cabin hidden between the trees. It was warm inside. Not just from the fire, but from something else I couldn't explain. May be his little family.

His mother was there.

She looked at me like I mattered. She smiled like she knew I was breaking and still thought I was worth saving. Her silver ring caught to my eyes in the light of the fire and I stared at it for so long, it was so elegant, that looked so perfectly curled around her alluring finger.

And then I remembered about what she asked me.

"You like it? Do you want it? "

I smiled to her and giggled.

" Eomma , give her the pancakes she loves them. " Ian squealed gently.

" With strawberries Jam and honey " Jungkook finished off his sentence.

" And honey." Ian spoke again.

And thats it. Thats what all I remember, words of his mother, Jungkook 's soft voice, Ian's bun cheeks and their huge eyes.

Jungkook said we had pancakes that night. With strawberry jam. He said I smiled. That I wiped my tears and thanked his mom before falling asleep in his lap.

That night, without even knowing, I found my home. May be thats why I feel like home whenever Jungkook came to me slowly and gently to hold me in his arms.

But the one that anchored to my heart and its every fibre ,was the night I met Jungkook when I was eight years old.

It was outside my house.

I had run out in my barefoot with shivers while tears streaking down my face. Inside, my mother was doing things. Unspeakable things. Things no child should ever see. In the basement, beneath the floorboards, where light barely reached, where screams resonated off cold cement.

There was a child down there that night. I didn't know his name. I don't think I ever did. But I will never forget the way he screamed. I still hear it sometimes shrieking through my bones and fleshes like broken glass shards. My mother, she used to call it science. Some pathetic experiment, cutting into their skulls and probing their brains like they weren't even human. Like they were experimental test pieces.

And me? I was the cleanup crew.

The one she called when it was over.

"Dispose of it," she would say.

And I did.

I carried little bodies down the woods behind our home with my trembling hands and hollowed out. Blood were on my hands. Vomits are in my throat. I was eight.

Then, one night ,things went too far. The boy's screams ripped something inside me open. I couldn't take it anymore. I bolted. I ran out of the house sobbing, clutching my stomach, and begged the universe and stars for silence to stop the cruelty.

The sound of crickets and the barking dogs that was far off, blended with the last faint echoes of a child's scream that still alarms in my ears.

" I didn't see anything. I didn't see anything. I didn't see" I whispered to myself, trembling.

Suddenly ,footsteps crushed in the grass. A boy's shadow appeared under the light streaks of the street lamp. He approached me slowly, hesitantly. Yet softly.

And thats when he came.

JUNGKOOK

"Are you okay?" His soft voice set my paced up heartbeats into a calm rhythm.

I startled a little . I turned my head sharply. My eyes were wide as they captured his face. A messy black hair, with mellowed eyes and a too big hoodie with sleeves covering his hands.

"Who... who are you?" I asked with my shaking voice.

" I am Jungkook. I live... not far from here." His answer was hesitant.

He walked a few steps closer, hands tucked in his sleeves. He knelt beside me slowly, giving me space to breathe.

"You looked like you were crying." He swiped the sleeve of his hoodie in which his hands were seated , at my cheeks to mop off my tears.

"I wasn't." I lied to him. I tried to conceal the fact that I was.

"It's okay if you were. I cry too sometimes." He removed his hoodie's sleeve from my face.

A beat of warm tranquility passed between us.

"Did someone hurt you?" His voice hit a concerned note.

I hesitated. I trembled. I shook my head as no. But my quivering lips already depicted that I am terrified.

"It's loud. Down there. It hurts my head." I clutched my hair with my tiny hands.

"Down where?" he slowly set free off my hair from my fingers with his.

"The basement. My mom says not to talk about it. She says she will ... she will kill me if I do." I sobbed.

Jungkook didn't flinch. He simply nodded ,like he understood, something I was too scared of.

"I won't tell anyone. I promise." He let out a sharp exhale and held up his pinky finger. "Pinky swear?" He asked as I stared at his little finger peeped out of his fist.

Then slowly I lifted mine and interlocked with his little finger. "You won't tell even if they hurt you?"

"Even then. They would have to go through me first." He held my little finger with his like he doesn't want to let go at all.

I stared at him. His hands were warm, but tainted with something dark. Blood. My eyes went round and big.

"That's... is that...?" I stuttered.

"It's not mine." He retorted. He smiled to me. It was small and sad. "Sometimes I help people who are hurt. Like now. I saw you were sad. So I came."

"Why me?"

"Because you looked like you needed someone. I know that feeling. And I will always come for you."

Silence. A soft wind bristled through the fragile leaves and stroke me. My shoulders relaxed.

"Will you... come again?" A tear slipped from my eyes.

Jungkook nodded. "Yeah. I will come again. I will take you with me one day, sunflower."

"Where?" I asked him softly.

"Somewhere quiet. Somewhere warm. I can make pancakes with strawberry jam. You would like them." He gave me a soft smile.

I gave him a faint smile. It was fragile but was real." I like strawberries".

"I know." He stood up and gently took off his hoodie and pulled down his slender T shirt down from his chest to his stomach. He draped his hoodie over my shoulders. "You are cold." I embraced it closely " thank you, Jungkook."

"Goodnight, sunflower." He turned and walked into the night. I watched him go, the strange boy who showed up just when the world became too cruel for me.

He didn't walk into my life like a savior. He just appeared. Quiet. Gentle .warm. A boy walked from the shadows to me to embrace me with him, when the world turned cruel to face alone.

I believed him.

Every night ,he came for me to embrace me in his warm hands whenever I was alone outside in the cold night.

And I begged him, not to tell anyone about what my mother was doing in her basement. Because if she found out, she would join hands with Uncle Paxson, and they would kill both of us.

He promised me. Swore on his own name. Said he would never spill a single word.

That he would come back for me. That one day, he would take me away.

I remember how light my heart felt. I had someone. I had him. It was the first time the air didn't feel like it was trying to choke me.

But the other Jungkook, the one next door, he was different. He was the police chief's son. He had perfect neat and clean hair , perfect neat and clean clothes and perfect neat and clean shoes and a heart that only beat for himself. We played together sometimes, but it never felt like home. He never looked at me the way my Jungkook did. And when I tried to tell him about the basement, about the screams, the blood, the smell of death, he just laughed. Said I was making it up. Said I lost my mind.

He always thought I was weird. He was nice to me, but only because my mom encouraged him to be. She had always put on this act , kind, sweet, loving , especially when he was around. She told him to help me, to like me, to treat me well. And he did. He said he liked me. But, he never really believed me. Not about the things I tried to tell him. About the screams. The basement. About her.

Still, I played along. I smiled back at him, laughed at his jokes. I even started failing a few subjects on purpose , just so I could ask for his help. Because I knew when he was close, when he was with me, my mom wouldn't lay a hand on me. She wont hurt me when he is with me. She needed to keep up the mask, and I clung to that like my life existence depends on that.

But deep down, I knew she was planning something. I didn't know what, but I could feel it. She never does anything without reason. And that fake kindness? It was never for me. It was for him. And it might be certainly a trap. A trap for me and him.

And I just wish my Jungkook ,the one who came to me like a silhouette in the night, who held me when I was breaking , would never fall into whatever trap my mother was setting.

Because he had already been through more pain than any boy should ever have to endure. I saw it. I saw it all ,the way he cried, how he broke down and sobbed into my shoulder when I was just nine years old. His voice trembled when he told me he had lost both his mother and his twin brother, Ian. And the part that shattered me the most, it was because of me.

He said his father never wanted them , not him, not Ian because Ian was born crippled arm and leg. His mother had taken them and ran, trying to protect them from the cruelty of the man who called himself their father.

And the worst part? The most gut wrenching part?

He lost them both , his mom and his brother , on the very same night he brought me to his happy place. The night I had pancakes and strawberry jam in that little cabin with his mom smiling like everything in the world was okay. Ian had insisted on walking me home, dragging his leg with such quiet strength, never complaining once. Jungkook called it his "warrior walk."

But Ian being seen was a mistake. Being seen by his father on that night was mistake. Jungkook said, my mom hit me terrible asking me where was I and why was I late? Not able to watch me enduring Ian stepped , dragging himself out of the dark streets where he stayed hidden until I safely crawled to my bed. He knocked the door the next instant, he heard my cries and screeches as my mom was hitting me with a leather belt of Uncle Paxson's. Ian stood for me. He revealed I was with them. And my mother, she went greedy gazing at Ian to use him for her scientific shits. Jungkook did mention that, how Ian was terrified by the deathful stare that my mother gave to Ian as Ian might have told to him.

And knowing what my mother would do to Ian, I ran to the next door Jungkook 's house and knocked the door. I called out the other Jungkook's father , not knowing he was the one who left the two little boys just because one was crippled. Because he was police officer, I drew him to my house before my mother could hurt Ian and use him as next specimen. I dragged him to my house in a hope that he would save Ian.

Thats it. He came out running only to see my mother pampering Ian, like nothing happened.

That's how his father found out.

And all my mother did was left me starved but she had no idea I already had a feast at Ian and Jungkook cabin. That night, while I was sleeping safe in my bed, thinking about sweet jam and soft smiles, Jungkook's world was burning.

Jungkook mentioned.His father didn't hesitate.

He killed them.

His mother. His brother.

All because of me. All because I went to the cabin with them for few moments of happiness.

And Jungkook still looked at me like I was the only thing he had left in the world.

I always had this lingering perplexity, why did he and the other Jungkook share the same name? So, I asked him, while his head was inclined to my shoulders.

He stayed immovable for a long moment before answering. "Because the other Jungkook was a replacement," he said quietly. "My father didn't want me. Or Ian. He wanted to erase us."

He told me the maid raised them in secret, hiding them away like fragile things not meant for the world. "We called her Eomma." He said. "She was the only real mother we ever had."

" I am sorry, I didnt know he was your father who pushed you out..." I did cry to him. The guilt was haunting me. " And I called him for help ,that lead him know about Ian. "

" Oh no, sunflower. " He uplifted his head from my shoulder. "You were just six years old, you didnt know anything at all. You dont even remember what you did. You did right thing what anyone would have if they were in your place. "

" But its my fault. ." I let out a choking sob.

" No, sunflower. It was never your fault.." he gently swiped off my hair from my forehead that plastered due to the sweat beads. He gathered my hair ,gently into his palm. " It was them. My parents. They will pay for what they did, one day ." He gently twisted my hair into a messy bun and hung a hair tie to it. To keep it in place.

It felt good as the gale caressed my nape the minute my disheveled hair hoisted up to a bun. " I wish Ian was with us. "

He gently placed his head on my shoulders as his tears dripped down. " I couldn't do a damn thing in that basement. All I heard were her screams, my mother's voice, ragged and painful, clawing through the air like it could reach me. She was in pain, real, soul wrenching pain and she kept calling out our names. Mine. Ian's. Over and over like a prayer. Or a goodbye." His tears drenched the sleeves of my dress.

"The fire crackled louder, closer. I could hear it munching through the cabin above, inch by fucking inch, while I stayed trapped like a coward in the dark" He uplifted his head from my shoulder and immersed his face to his palm. "I couldn't climb the stairs, the closet door was jammed shut. I couldn't break the tiny basement window either, no matter how hard I slammed my fists against it. I was stuck. Helpless. Just a boy breathing in smoke and guilt. " He choked on his sobs. "And then... her voice, saying ,'Don't come here, Kookie... don't. Stay alive, my baby..' She knew she was going to die. And still, her last thought... was to keep me safe." He shook his head and cried out.

"I should have done something. I should have saved her. But all I did was survive. And it fucking hurts." He slammed his hand to his chest. " Jungkook." I called him softly and intertwined my fingers to his, to cease him thrashing his hands to his chest. I softly threw my other hand around his shoulder and drew my hand down to his elbow. He quaked and winced. As if something stung him. " What is it?" My words pitched with concern.

" Its nothing." He breathed out. But I didn't believe. I gradually, unzipped his hoodie and pulled down his sleeve. He did let me do it. My eyes then captured something painful. A long stitched scar ran from his shoulder through his elbow. I traced my fingers and hovered over the stitched scar. He flinched.

" How did this happen?" My voice wobbled.

Jungkook looked down, his jaw pebbled as his throat worked to hold back his tears "Me and Ian... we were conjoined twins," his words were whispers. "And my dad, he sliced us apart. Not to save us but just to get rid of Ian. Like he was nothing."

His eyes gleamed with tears, and one slipped past his lips as he added, "He didn't want us. He just wanted me. Alone. But I wanted Ian. Always.. and this. ." he gulped down. " This scar reminds me of what happened that night....and it still hurts.." He whimpered gently.

All of a sudden, I stood up from the spot and rushed to my room to grab a marker pen. But the muffled cries of the child beneath the floor of my room pestered me. I tried brushing it off and descended down the stairs, only to see Jungkook was already inside my house as he followed the muffled cries. My eyes went wide. I startled. I instantly ran to him and held his hand. " Come on. Come with me before my mom sees you here. She will kill us both." I dragged him to my room and slammed the door shut behind us. Then I turned to him. " Lets get under the bed. "

" Huh?" He look at me with his huge eyes.

" Under the bed quick.." I nudged to him. He slowly slid down under the bed and crawled beneath the frame. I followed and pulled the comforter down low to hide us. And the muffled cries had gone silent. Probably my mother might have silenced him forever. I pressed my little hand to his lips. " Don't make a sound." He nodded to me. " Pull your legs inside, if she sees a toe , we are dead " I whispered to him.

A wet and heavy footsteps approached my room. And then, my room's door burst open with a thud. " Dumbshit! Where the fuck is she?" My mother roared. Her blood drenched feet was the only thing we could see from under the bed. I turned to Jungkook and pleaded with my eyes not to make a noise because if she founds us together she will kill either of us. " I fucking hate her to call her ' Y/N! Who the fuck would even clean those shits." My heart felt like it would burst from my chest. I turned to Jungkook, silently begging him not to move. Not to breathe too loud.

"If she finds us together," I whispered in my head, "she will kill one of us. Or both."

"I hate that fucking name, Y/N," she snarled. "Who the hell is gonna clean all this shit up, you dumbshit , where the fuck are you?" She stormed out, still shouting my name.

"Y/N! Y/N!"

Silence.

I let out a sharp exhale. My entire body trembled as the sound of her footsteps faded.

"She is gone," I whispered.

" What is it?" Jungkook asked eyeing to the pen I was clutching in my tiny fist. I rolled out from under the bed and helped him with my tiny hands to slid him out. Though ,he doesn't need me to help because he is huge.

I slowly walked to the door and softly shut the door with a soft click. I walked back to my bed and seated on it. " Come ,sit." I patted my forefingers beside me. He sat slowly beside ,not so closely to bristle his body over mine. " Show me your arm ." I slowly slid down the sleeve of his hoodie from his right shoulder. His stitched scar revealed to my eyes. I gently placed the marker over his stitch scar. " Just tell me to stop if it hurts." I whispered and dragged the marker's nib gently over his scar to drew some patterns. " What are you doing?" He asked me with eagerness. " Just wait. " I mumbled .

I had inked a trail of intricate curves and sweeping designs across his shoulder. He winced gently as the marker hit his skin. I pulled each stroke that was deliberate and each line a veil. I pulled the patterns flowed down his arm like dark rivers, and coiled them into the fierce, snarling face of a dragon. I drew its eyes seemed to burn, even in stillness, and its jaw stretched wide across the curve of his bicep. I pulled the dragon's sinuous tail slithered down and wrapped tightly around his forearm, curling all the way to his fist like a protective scales and myth. Though my sketch was not like someone who mastered in it, but it depicted like a rough drawing and outlines.

And beneath it all, hidden in plain sight was the stitch scar on his right arm. Erased not by surgery or time, but by my ink and my intention. The tattoo didn't just cover the wound, it transformed it. Rewrote it. I made his pain into art, the past into armor. " Now you don't have to see it as your mistake. You look beautiful, Jungkook " I gave him a soft smile.

" May be I should...."

" There you are ,dumbshit!" The door burst open again. Jungkook's words sliced off. We both jumped off the bed by her bellows.

Her eyes shifted to Jungkook, the next instant. " Oh. What are you doing here? No where to go huh? " She chortled and took a step forward, while Jungkook pushed me gently behind his back to protect me. I clung to his hoodie. I curled my fingers around the hem of his hoodie.

" Stop hurting her, Mrs.Rey.." Jungkook warned her. " I am taking her with me " My eyes went round and wide by his words.

" No, you can't," my mother fizzled through her clenched teeth. She stepped forward with her arms crossed and eyes were sharp like broken glass shard. " She is just nine years old, Jungkook. And you.." she hoisted her finger toward him like a dagger, "you are seventeen. That makes you a criminal. If you even try to take her with you, it's called kidnapping."

Jungkook didn't flinch. His jaw tightened, his eyes flicked to me for a heartbeat before they settled with a glare back on her.

But my mother didn't t finished.

"You will be dragged into court. You will rot behind bars like a filthy little rat.," she spat. "And I will make damn sure you never get out. Because I will be there, on the stand, in the press, screaming about how you preyed on my daughter. I will paint you like the monster they all want you to be."

The air throbbed with fearful silence.

Then she smiled. Slowly. It was poisonous.

"So go ahead, Jungkook. Try me. I dare you."

Behind her words, I could feel the wall of power she thought she held. Well she can seek those from Jungkook's father as he is a cop. But she didn't know what we had. She didn't know what Jungkook was willing to do for me.

" So , dumbshit . Tell me , are you going with him?" She tilted her head to me . I shook my head letting out sobs. " No. I don't want to go with him, mom." I said, in fear and fright that she would do the terrible thing to Jungkook.

"Its ok. Go. I cant see you in pain again because of me. Again. You lost your mother and brother because of me." I looked up at him and untangled my fingers from the hem of his hoodie.

" No, sunflower." He crouched in front of me. " She cant do a thing when you speak up about what she is doing down there in the basement." He whispered as he wiped my tears with his fingers.

" So you told him huh?" My mother snapped her fingers. " Well, I think you should get a flash play of what I can do.."

" Mrs. Rey, Mrs. Rey " Jungkook's father bellowed from downstairs. " What is it? Why did you call me at this hour?" He scrambled the stairs and reached my room.

Jungkook stood up. He pushed me again gently behind him. His fist clenched tight.

My mother's expression changed in an instant, like flipping a switch. The rage vanished behind a delicate, teary eye as she turned to face Jungkook's father. Her voice dropped into a, desperate tone. She almost trembled with false concern.

"Oh my... Mr. Jeon," she gasped and placed a hand on her chest like she was some helpless, heartbroken woman. Or more precisely, pretending to be one. "Mr. Jeon, please. Look at this. Just look at your other son..."

She motioned toward Jungkook with a trembling hand, with her wide eyes and wet like she was the victim here.

"He is not in his right mind. He is not well. He is acting like a maniac, trying to take my daughter with him." She let out a shaky sigh, leaning toward Mr. Jeon as if seeking his protection. "I am so scared for her. For all of us."

But beneath her act, I could still see the sharpness behind her eyes. She was lying. And she was damn good at it.

I glanced at her feet and to my surprise it was clean. She might have washed it off before she called Jungkook father in here. " Please Mr. Jeon. I love my daughter so much..he is trying to.." my mother let out a dramatic sob.

" You filthy thing! Told you not to show up here. " His father walked inside and clutched his hoodie and shoved him away from me.

" No. Mr. Jeon you gotta listen to me. He didn't hurt me. Don't believe my mom.." I cried out.

" Oh my baby " my mother rushed to me and embraced me in her arms holding me dangerously close to her , muffling my words to her chest. " She is scared . Please take your son out.."

" No no Jungkook." I cried out trying to writhe out of my mom's venomous hold.

"Y/N..." he cried out, his voice ruptured as he thrashed against his father's iron grip. "Let go, she is in dang.."

But before he could finish, his father's fist crashed into his jaw.

The horrifying sound of it robbed the air from my lungs. My breath caught in my throat as I stumbled back. "No! Jungkook!" .I screamed, my voice shuddered with fear and helplessness. But that was all I could do. Just scream. I was only nine. Just a kid. Too small to stop the chaos. Too weak to pull him back.

His father didn't stop. He dragged him, roughly, cruelly, down the stairs, Jungkook's heels thumped against each step like dead weight. And from my room, I could hear every slam of his body. Every muffled grunt. While my own mother, standing right beside me, kept up her perfect little act, pretending to be the kind, sweet, loving parent.

And I just stood there. Paralyzed. Crying. Powerless. And feeling weak of not able to do anything for him.

After his muffled grunts came to silence, I perceived that he has gone. My Jungkook has gone. " Now , cut this shit out and come to basement to clean it up." My mother roared to me switching back to her cold and cruelty. Meanwhile my head was clogged with his desperate cries calling out for me. I couldn't sweep it off my head. He was the only soul who was there for me every night when I was in agony. And now he was ripped apart from me.

The rain poured down, loud and relentless, as if it were trying to drown out the screams of my Jungkook resonating in my head. I turned slowly toward the glass window of my room, something tugged me forward like a silent whisper and mumbles that I couldn't ignore. The rain slammed against the windowpane. It was urgent and wrathful, like it was calling me, warning me. I walked to the window.

And then I saw him.

I gasped. My steps froze in the spot.

Under the old tree in our yard, drenched in the downpour, stood Jungkook. My Jungkook .Blood was dripping from his nose and jaw, trailing down his chin. But he didn't move. He just stared up at my window. At me.

" Jungkook..."I whispered, as it cracked the lumps at my throat. He stayed there, bruised, broken, bleeding. But for me. Always for me.

" Oh, how romantic," my mother's voice pierced from behind . "You are just nine years old, and you are already acting like some desperate teenage girl mourning her fucking boyfriend. Pathetic."

I flinched. But not this time.

"Stop it, Mom," I snapped . I spun to face her. " At least Jungkook has never touched me the way Uncle Paxson touches you. Or the way Roy tries to slide his hands up my thighs when he thinks you are not watching."

Her eyes went wide.

" You think I don't know? I see it. I hear it. "My voice trembled, but I didn't stop." At least I am not out here being a lying, cheating, manipulative woman like you. But Jungkook, he never hurt me. He protected me. And he is trying to protect me from you. He never touched me inappropriately. Not like you, sleeping around behind Dad's back with Uncle Paxson."

Her face turned pale, her jaw went slackened.

"You know what?" I gritted my teeth ." I am going to tell Dad everything. Every single disgusting detail."

And I meant it.

" How fucking dare you, piece of shit!" she snarled and clasped my hair only to shove me to the glass of the window. My face plastered to it. Jungkook stared at me with consternation from under the old tree. " No..don't come here" I shouted at him.

" Listen, you little shit." she growled and yanked me by the hair ,shoving my face hard against the cold window glass. " Go downstairs and tell that little hero of yours not to come back. Ever. If he does, I swear I will call Mr. Jeon again, and you will never see him again. I will fucking make sure of it."

The glass stung my cheek and my breath fogged it up with fear.

"He will end up just like that crippled, cursed thing that was attached to his flesh " she whispered into my ear. " Burned. Into. Ashes. Is that what you want? Huh? You want to watch him burn?"

Her fingers dug into my skin like claws. I shook my head, too terrified to speak, as the rain outside pounded louder, like it was trying to scream for me.

" Then go, downstairs and tell him." She let go of my hair. " Go now.!" She yelled.

I stood there, frozen against the window, my breath trembled as the rain blurred my view. Jungkook was still standing under the tree, soaked to the bone, blood was dripping from his nose and jaw. His eyes, those gentle, aching eyes, never left mine.

I slowly lifted my hand and pressed it softly against the glass, as if I could touch him through the storm. My fingers trembled, but I delivered a small gesture, just enough to tell him: Stay.

Then I mouthed the words, that slowly formed on my lips.

" I will come down."

His face shifted slightly. A pinch of hope flickered through his face.

It was innocent. Silent. Our kind of bond was unspoken and pure.

"Please... leave." I whimpered the words as soon as I reached him, my voice nearly lost in the downpour. The rain soaked through my clothes, and clung cold to my skin, but it didn't matter. He was drenched too, his blood blended with rainwater as it trailed down his chin. I wanted so badly to lift my hand, to wipe it away. But I couldn't. My hands ached.

He just stood there. And shook his head. No.

"Please, I am begging you," my voice wobbled. "You already lost your mother... and Ian... because of me. They will hurt you too. They will take everything from you, like they always do. You need to go."

Jungkook didn't speak at first. Just looked at me with that same gaze that was kind and protective. " I wish we never met. " I sniffled. And then, slowly, with his trembling fingers, he brought his hands up and interlocked them over my head, shielding me from the rain.

"What if she hurts you, sunflower?" he whispered. "What if something happens to you while I am not there to stop it?" I gazed at his protective hands he interlocked just to prevent the rain drops piercing my skin.

My throat blazed. I couldn't speak. I didn't want to say it. but I had to.

" I can't let another terrible thing happen to you," I whispered. My hand rested gently on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "Go. Please. Go away before they ruin you too."

He stared at me for a long second. Then gave me a tiniest and slowest nod. It was not in agreement. It was in promise.

" I will come for you," he retorted. " Again."

And then... he turned.

That was the last time I saw my Jungkook in the rain. That was the only memory I had about him meeting when I was nine years old. This was the only memory about him clung to my head.

He disappeared from my life like a shadow immersed into the dark. Days bled into years. He never came back. But I felt him. In the small things. A box of strawberries left on my windowsill. A sunflower tucked into my schoolbag. My window, always mysteriously latched before a storm.

He was there, I knew it. Protecting me from a distance. Always in silence. Never showing his face.

Until that day.

Exactly after five years he came back. He came back on that horrifying day. The day I wished I was dead.

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