บท 46: Chapter 44: Divine Intervention
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
"Thank you for bringing me the clothes." Jungkook zipped up the pale blue jacket he wore while thanking the woman. "No problem. I'm glad to see you've been well. Now, I'd love to catch up with you but I'm sure you have more fatherly things to do. We'll see you maybe the next time you get a break, until then Jungkook-ah." Me-Ji ruffled his almost non-existent hair and bid farewell not wanting to intrude with her daughter.
"Oh, okay. Take care noona!" The actor bowed his head while observing her and her daughter's figure walk away. The soldier uniform was neatly floded on the chair to his left. It had been almost half an hour since he left Jimin alone to feed their newborn and he was about to knock on the door when a voice stopped him.
"Jungkook." It was Taehyung. The older carriee a balloon filled with helium and a flower arrangement. On the balloon, there were the words in a light blue ᴄᴏɴɢʀᴀᴛᴜʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs! ɪᴛ's ᴀ ⒷⓄⓎ.
"Give this to him. I need to leave for work. And... tell him I'll try to be back tomorrow morning before leaving for the set." Jungkook nodded and accepted the gifts following the fading swollen marks around the corner of the male's eyes. He remembered Jimin telling him, he snapped at Taehyung. That must've been while the older was crying, he assumed.
"Don't fuck up and give him space. I'm assuming you'll stay the night... there's a blanket on the couch next to the bed, it's mine. You can use it. Take care of them." Taehyung told him with a warning glare fearing the youngest actor would try to take advantage of him, or just cross the line. "I will, hyung." Jungkook agreed with a serious gaze completely aware of what he was never going to do.
Taehyung left him to stare at the closed door of the hospital room with Jimin and theie newborn inside. Every inch of his skin seemed to pull him inside the room. He wanted to... He needed to hold him again.
With a silent knock on the door through his knuckles while holding the flower arrangements on one hand, he managed to knock. "Come in." Jimin's silent voice gave him permission to enter and so he did.
Upon entering, Jungkook noticed how their newborn was silently sleeping on the writer's arms. "Taehyung bought this, he left for work. Said, he'd try to be back tomorrow morning." Jungkook walked over to the shelf at the other end of the room before momentarily leaving the room to pick up his uniform from the chair outside. "Thank you..." Jimin nodded feeling guilty from his past actions, but also greatful for his best friend.
"Did you feed him? Burp him?" Jungkook slowly approached the bed not wanting to intrude on the writer's personal space. "Mm." A nod came from the older's head as soon as the younger sat beside him on the chair. "Hyung... um... The doctor recommended skin to skin contact. Would you mind if I tried it before I leave tomorrow?" The suggestion forced Jimin's eyes focused on the newborn's closed ones to the actor's.
The words on Jungkook's entry came to his mind with butterflies fluftering inside his stomach. His heart felt on fire. Not because Jungkook basically said he wanted to take his shirt off, but because Jungkook had been nothing but acting like a father. And with so many steps being achieved, with a heart beginning to slowly adapt yet still cautious, he gulped.
"He's asleep right now... I don't want to wake him up by moving him." Jimin said softly and observed how the actor's expression dropped lower than the Dead Sea. With a heavy heart, Jungkook slowly reached his right hand towards the baby peacefully sleeping just to gently let his index finger caress the small hands.
"He has your hands." He chuckled and earned glare from the writer. "So small" He continued. "and agile." It was a small innuendo that forced Jimin to have an urge to slap his head, but he didn't. Who was Jungkook without an implied sex joke?
Sudden baby cries forced them both to look at their newborn suddenly whimpering and holding Jungkook's finger between his small hands. "Shh... Aegi." Jimin began to gently and slowly rock his arms while the actor managed to retract his finger and undid the zipper of his jacket. "W-What are you doing?" Jimin blinked his eyes profusely while staring at Jungkook take off his jacket.
"He's awake. I'm going to try skin to skin contact. Don't worry, just my chest." Maybe it was the residing feelings that still lingered inside him for Jungkook, but the writer found himself blooming crimson inside his cheeks while trying to get the newborn to calm down. He did not want to watch how Jungkook was taking his upper clothing off.
Holy fuck.
Jimin peeked from the corner of his eyes and scrunched his nose embarrassedly. The tattoos he had once seen just on the actor's hand did not stop there. The skin of Jungkook's right arm was carved with ink from his knuckles (there was a small space for the wrist) to the sleeve all the way up until his shoulder.
"Can I carry him?" Jungkook had to gulp his chuckle down. He was resisting the urge to curve the ends of his lips just because he noticed how the writer was observing him. "Please don't drop him." Jimin slowly gave in and very gently made sure the actor held him in his arms before bitterly groaning from the pain in his lower stomach.
"Hyung?" Jungkook raises his head, worry portrayed in his eyes. "I'm okay, it just hurts." Jimin replied while panting and continued to observe how Jungkook gently held their son. "Even though you can't hear me..." The actor leaned down, slowly decreasing the distance between the calmed newborn and his forehead.
"I want you to know that I'm here. Even if I may not be every day for a year and a half more, I am now." With so much gentleness in his words, the actor pressed his lips against the newborn's rosy forehead. The skin was so soft, smooth and also warm.
"I will continue trying to earn appa's forgiveness. Okay?" Jungkook felt his eyes water when he helt the newborn's small hands reach for his chin. Although the small hands were full of dribble, he let him touch his chin and giggled. The warmth emitted from both of their bodies felt so complete. It wasn't an added warmth for Jungkook. It was his own, although half was Jimin's, it was still his, theirs.
Jimin observed them, majorly his eyes traced the ink around Jungkook's arm. The memory of him snapping at the actor when he told them a few of their definitions came to his thoughts. Although he wasn't completely in the wrong, he felt a little guilty now. And he made a note to ask him again, after he finished the skin to skin contact.
"Have you named him yet? The nurse should bring the birth certificate soon." Jungkook continued letting his skin and the newborn's touch against his muscular chest and it felt normal, even better. "The nurse will come tomorrow morning to complete the certificate." Jimin replied to the second statement and finally managed to read the letters crossed on Jungkook's outer forearm. His mind did a 360 degree spin.
"Hyung..." Jungkook's eyes were teary now, something he'd never seen during their time of dating but rather during the time where they weren't. "Please... don't take him away from me if you don't forgive me." His eyes shifted to the peacefully sleeping newborn in his arms. His heart couldn't take it. This was the second time he'd held him and yet he didn't want to let go.
Jimin remembered what he'd read before. He could remember the words Jungkook wrote as part of one his entries.
I won't ask for custody, because I want to share my life with you and him. Us three together as a family.
And maybe this was another step forward for them on the road to forgiveness. "Do you love him?" Jimin's voice wasn't low but firm. He wanted to hear again the words the actor had said when he first held their newborn in his arms. He was sure.
Jungkook felt a tear slip his eyes when he focused his gaze on Jimin's. "I do." He still hadn't completed his service for atoning his sins, but he needed to say it now or never.
"His name is Jeon Si-Woo, our divine intervention." Jimin named their son with a smile and eyes radiating the one expression they both felt for each other, for their newborn. Jungkook bit his lower lip between his teeth and held back a whimper from escaping and gazed back at Si-Woo.
"Jeon Si-Woo..." He repeated trying not wake him up from the sudden changes inside his chest from holding back tears of joy. Jimin had read the journal. He knows that Jungkook was waiting until after his service. He used the name he'd offered.
It went about four more hours until it was in the late afternoon and both parents had to bid goodbye to Si-Woo before the nurse took him on his bed on wheels to the nursery room where they'd take care of him for the night.
"Take off your shirt." Jimin said to Jungkook as soon as they were alone and missing Si-Woo's presence and warmth. The actor's eyes almost oozed out of his skull. He was not expecting that.
"Wae? Wae? Is something wrong?" Jungkook tried covering himself with his arms even though he was wearing a black shirt and the jacket again. "Can you tell me again what your tattoos mean? But this time, I want to know what all of them mean." Jimin tried taking a peak at the tattoos on Jungkook's hand and heard a chuckle. The younger couldn't hold that one.
"I won't overstep my boundaries, but if I am to take my shirt off, you'll have to comply with my wishes." Jungkook offered him a smile. Just how different those smiles were. The first time he'd offered a smile like that to the writer it was to trap him but now, the smile was to say he wanted something for both with not ill-intentioned. Jimin perked an eyebrow up and he was beginning to step back mentally. He was beginning to feel a déjà vu.
"Let me sit beside you and you have to trace your fingers on every single one of them." He was wrong. Jimin didn't need to feel threatened or a sense of déjà vu. The actor just wanted him to acknowledge the work of art on his arm. "Come here." Jimin patted the space of the bed and moved a little to the side to let more space for the male.
Jungkook felt the same like a little kid looking up to his mom on her bed to join her to sleep after a bad nightmare but obviously the scenario was quite different. He began to unzip the jacket while staring at the writer with a curve of his lips that revealed the front row of teeth in the most giddy way possible.
And when the shirt was off, Jungkook approached the bed and slowly sank his plump muscular ass on it. His body faced the writer's in a way that he could see his right arm completely. "Ask me anything." He watched as the writer hesitantly reached his hands out to his knuckles, more specifically to his middle finger.
"Is this a woozy face?" Jimin felt the ends of his lips curl while tracing the emoji face on the actor's middle finger with his thumb. "Yeah. It's my reaction for the love you gave me but I couldn't return it. This was me realizing I fucked us up but I didn't want to have enough of your love; I wanted more and return it." Jungkook explained while remembering how he thought of it. With furrowed eyebrows, Jimin nodded and continued tracing down his fingers causing a series of goosebumps to errupt in the actor's body.
"Why a purple heart?" Jimin passed his thumb over the skin softly as if to check it wasn't painted with marker, but he just wanted to see how the light purple heart was attached to the skin. "The last color of the rainbow, it means that even if I will try with all my heart to gain your trust back and even if I don't, no matter what, I'll purple you forever." Instead of saying the real words, the actor replaced them with the symbol of his art. He was going to be honest, Jimin's heart did flutter but he needed to remind himself that forgiveness isn't earned from midnight to morning; Jungkook still had a long way to go.
"A crown?" Next, the writer traced the skin of his index finger and earned a small laugh. "This is going to sound narcissist and arrogant, but I'm THE actor Jeon Jungkook. I'm a king. Ow." There was a slap made against the back of his head that the writer finally made after resisting his urge. "And these?" With tenderness, Jimin trailed the three black lines that somehow seemed familiar. "Three lines of justice from the Taegukgi. It means justice has been served and I am still serving for mine." Glad that the name of a certain male was not mentioned, the writer trailed his fingers next on another one.
With furrowed eyebrows, Jimin seemed to recognize the symbol of a skeleton hand forming a sign carved against the actor's forearm. "Rock on." Jungkook said while feeling the soft fingers pressing against his skin in wonder. "I didn't think you'd tattoo this. Wow." The writer was forming inside his mind a story to unpuzzle all the symbols that each represented a part of Jungkook's soul. Most of them were enigmas but so gorgeous.
Jimin slowly turned the forearm around to make out the large words carved onto the ventral side of the arm. His eyes focused and his lips parted while trying to read the words in English. "Plea...ve me? Is this a tiger lily?" He said out loud and then looked up at the actor for confirmation that he said the words correctly.
"Please love me." Jungkook corrected him. "The tiger lily refers to my gained wealth, and it symbolizes you. You're a flower that helped me gain back my confidence even if not directly." Jimin felt his toes curl, clearly those words were reaching him. "Rather be dead than cool." He read again the next one.
"The motto I used to have before everything happened. Now, it also means I have a new passion, you." It was taking a lot of self restraint for Jungkook not to lean down and kiss Jimin's lip. Just now, the smallest touch was sparking flames up in his skin, not in a bad way.
"Make hay while the sun shines. It means I won't give up on us while there's still hope you can forgive me." Jungkook felt a tear land on his arm. His eyes visibly focused on the writer's hanged head. It wasn't his intention to make him cry, so why was he? "I've told you many times, forgiving you won't be easy." Jimin whispered and sniffled while wiping the tear on the actor's skin with his thumb, although there were many tattoos left, he was already crying.
Every single action Jungkook was making, it wasn't exactly how he pictured it. From the moment he left, he thought the actor wouldn't take him and their son seriously, at least not always think of them first; but that was the complete opposite of what was happening. Jungkook was always thinking of them first. He was acting like the father he wanted him to be, but he couldn't forgive so easily (he thought as) how he felt used.
"Do you know what I went through alone after getting home from the trial?" Jimin's hands slowly traced the outline of an eye on the skin while his own eyes focused on Jungkook's. The actor gulped and shook his head in shame.
"I broke down crying in embarrassment and I refused to look at myself in the mirror not longer than two minutes for almost two months because I felt humiliated." Jungkook couldn't take it any longer and with his left hand, he grabbed the writer's hands tracing his arm and intertwined their fingers before lifting them up to his lips and pecking them continuously with closed eyes shutting away tears.
"I'm so fucking sorry. You deserve so much better than me." Jimin wanted to retract his hands but he couldn't find it in himself to do so. "I do, don't I? But I don't want someone else, I want you. If you want to earn forgiveness, continue your training and come back to us alive." Jungkook's eyes opened like a blossomed flower and the movement of his lips stopped. Had he heard him right? Did Jimin just say he was-
"When you finish your time, I want you to come see us and when you're ready, say those words you so want to say and I so want to hear. After that, I'll give you an answer." Jimin tightened the hold on their intertwined fingers and gave him a saddened smile knowing that it was in years to come.
"I will come back to you and Si-Woo, and I'm going to kiss your lips letting you feel every ounce of my heart right after I say those words." Jungkook felt happy. His love was willing to work for them, he was going to work for it. The only thing against them was time, 21 more months to go.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
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