Embracing the thorns of the present looks easier
when the toxic past welcomes you back with open arms.

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Jungkook's pov

I was sweating profusely, even when the air conditioner was wavering cool breeze onto my way. Nothing of this calm surrounding could give me serenity, because the waves of trouble were surged by my inner conflict and I knew no cure for it.

My fate would be mocking me because the reason for my scares— Nari, lay asleep beside me while I was restless and wide awake. I can't blame her either, it was me who gave her a sleeping pill cause she couldn't stop shivering and shouting and I feared she might have harmed herself, if awake.

She nuzzle more to my neck, which quickened my heartbeat. But to my solace, it was not because of my reviving love for her but the proximity between us when I know she is just enjoying my warmth of protection as I sheltered her and saved her from the goons her fiance tailed behind her, and I don't even know why did he do that...

Nonetheless, I knew, somewhere, in tiny cracks of my healed emotions, the caged euphoric feelings from the past were trying to seep out, trying to catalyse the question, 'Only if we were in each other's arms as lovers but not as...

I don't know what to name that something which lingered between us, but it's indeed breathing, which caused her to thump on my door when those jerks were chasing her. I never in my wildest dream thought that just a week after texting her my address, she will be stumbling onto my doorstep all bruised and panting.

The sweet odour seeping from her sleeping figure on my arm pillow struck my nostrils, smacking the truth of boundaries we must oblige to. We shouldn't stay close like this. Though I loved her in the past; one-sided Love it is, I can't indulge with her in any way.

My eyes darted at her once again while contemplating whether to distance myself from her and my long-buried emotions.

When I tried pulling my arm back, her pale face made me freeze again.

Don't be so inhuman, Jungkook.

I closed my eyes, heaving a sigh. She needs undisturbed sleep.

It's okay, Jungkook. Just a few hours.

Clenching my free hand, I opened my eyes to look at her. My senses sting me when I was just an inch away from her lips. Didn't realise when I inched her way.

But that wasn't something I wanted to think of as my eyes started edging to every corner of her face.

Nothing changed, though her facial features have become more feminine and have sharpened. Her lips were mounted with a lustrous antiseptic gel, like a crater on the moon. I noticed the bruise while she kept the glass of water on her quivering lips and hissed under her breath, but it didn't go unnoticed by me and I treated her wounds.

The unanswered questions still clouded my mind; why she texted me and asked my help? Why her fiance was trying to harm her- that too making goons chase behind her?

Only she can answer them all.

"Seung-ah" she mumbled in her sleep.

'Ah! I'm getting married soon. My fiance is Hanja Seung, the owner of Hanja Corporation.'

Her text from earlier flashed in my mind for a second, she was whispering her fiance's name, but it didn't look out of fear as she is smiling.

Her smile...It's been years since I saw it. The only difference is, I had to hide from afar to be blessed by her smile before and now she is right in front of me- in my arms. Though the irony of it made me smile sadly. In the past, even though at a far distance, it made me so content and she felt near to me, but now, even when she is so close to me, breathing the same air as me, it feels so void, as if we are very far away...which is indeed true.

I sighed, still stacked in the same posture- close to her.

'A nerd like you doesn't deserve someone as pretty as me.'

Nari's words which pricked my broken self in past were now harmless, I understood something over time, words do hold a lot of potential, but only until you bother about them. Words aren't venomous, but priorities are; priorities to listen to someone's words over your own.

No wonder why a villain keeps going with his heinous acts even when he would be at a stack of drowning in the venomous words of his opposition. But does he? No.

Learning something good from a bad character isn't wrong in any way, I believe.

'Kookie, don't you think, you are turning very chubby? Stop eating so much.'

'Kookie, can you write my assignment? You can ask the teacher for an extension for yours. Mine is a little important.'

I closed my eyes tightly, and her words curl in my ears like an irritating tone of a broken cassette.

What's happening to me? Though I'm not feeling weak to them but irritated that my mind kept replaying them. Stop!

I opened my eyes, breathing heavily, I better go away.

Pulling my arm gradually, I placed her head on the pillow and unwrapped her arm off my chest. To my relief, she was still sleeping.

I smiled weakly, like always, she was pampered by me and I was the one struggling.

Stepping down from the bed, I groaned stretching my arms and neck. I had been sleeping in the same posture for five hours and my body feels so packed up and rigid.

She clung to me out of fear that I couldn't step away after tugging her onto the bed and my tiredness from working all day made me drown in a slumber beside her, unwantedly.

I don't know what will happen once she wakes up. If she will ask me to bring her to the police, cause, of course, it's a crime and she was a victim to the goons and her sick fiance.

Thankfully, there was no fuss created as she tricked the goons into the park which is a few steps away from my house and had come after making sure no one stalked her behind.

To our dread, when she was about to enter my house, the goons stepped into my neighbourhood, until then I knew nothing except her pleas to save her. But watching her frightened face, my senses fired up and I pulled her in and closed the door and to our relief, just like passing any other clueless locale, they walked away.

I don't know why I worked so impulsively and saved her. Why I didn't even for once thought about how she treated me in past, mocked my love for her and threw me out of her life with a snap of a finger.

I shook my head, I shouldn't overthink until I hear her concerns.

Also, I'm not sure if I'll be helping her...

She might be up soon, and I'm sure she hasn't eaten anything ever since her awful previous day.

Even I didn't.

Intending to prepare something, I stepped towards the door. But even before I could step out I heard sniffles from my back.

Is she awake?

I snapped back, instantly. But saw her crying in her sleep.

Let it be, Jungkook.

I muttered under my breath and tried moving my legs but again, her low whimpers chained my feet.

I breathed out knowing the uneasiness of letting someone suffer will always win over my bitter memories towards them.

Also, I'm a psychologist now. It's my responsibility to help people who are mentally weak or unstable.

By the time I turned, she was already wide awake and panicking. As soon as her eyes latched with mine, her lips wobbled to say something.

I tried quieting her.

"Calm down, I'm here"

"So coward of you, kookie. Just because Bong chased you, you are crying. You look like sh!t"

My steps toward her were loathed by my brain, which started reminiscing the most mourning memories of mine and my bully...Nari.

I saw her getting down from the bed while stumbling, even my legs seem to deject my act of selflessness to my toxic past, they moved slower than ever when I must be sprinting to her by now, deciphering her miserable state.

"Nari, please sit down."

My voice was softer than usual.

"Why the hell would I console you? Fragile people like you don't deserve my attention."

But I can't let someone suffer a death out of their fragile emotions.

She stood still, neither sitting on the bed nor coming forward.

"Save me." She whimpered, now joining her hands.

I was just a few inches away from her, but my legs felt wobbly as if I could slump down any moment. Why? First, my mom now my emotional durability seems to slip through my life.

My throat dried, because...

I saw the teenage Jungkook in her.

He too was surrounded by the abyss. Drowning in the sea of toxic love, breathing out the last spec of hope, throwing limbs to come out of the agony and to search the true love...which the sea of his one-sided love never had.

She opened her arms, asking me to embrace her. My vision blurred with tears, remembering how I did the same; yearned for her love, and unconsciously prayed for someone to pull me out of the dark.

But no one came.

And now, she, the cause of my wounds is asking me to heal her. My beliefs were conflicting, the dark perspective of me tried eliciting, wanting to savour the scene and blame it on Karma.

But my one question dissolved them all.

No one should become like past me, right?

And I finally reached her and felt her encircling my body and leaning on me.

Our tale started with love but will meet its end with something else, a soothing bond I hope for.

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Nari, the love interest of Jungkook from the past is back!!

I swear the emotional roller coaster a person suffers due to the toxic past returning is the worst.

Let's see how Jungkook faces it.

And of course, before proceeding to further chapters, I want to assure you that Jungkook and Nari will not be romantically involved with each other. If you felt that from this chapter or are foreseeing it since Nari is back, then sorry. It won't happen. I have different plans and ways to involve them with each other :')

Just clarifying it because I don't want people to skip the story thinking that the story depicts that whatever wrong a person does, the love from the other person involved never fades and he/she suffers all the sh!t the other person had put them in the past and love them again.