Jungkook’s P.O.V

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[LATE SEPTEMBER- THE STEAL]

 
It’s stated that the brain isn’t fully developed from teenager to adult until you’re around twenty-five or so.
 
At least that’s what Seokjin told me when we started out sessions.
 
I’m only a year away from achieving that mental medal, and I hope every day that it proves true the second the clock strikes midnight on my birthday. For about seven years I wondered when I’d be able to truly capsulate all my trauma, swallow the hard the pills that life tosses you when you’re down, and drink up all the clean and fresh experiences for crisp new point of view.
 
With my twenty-four-year-old mind, there are things I wish to compute like all my elders do.
 
 
How to grieve.
 
How love people who are close and far from you.
 
How to exist without wondering ‘why?’.
 
 
So that when I’m on the field, doing my job as a policeman—serving and protecting—I don’t have anything to fear what’s on the inside, while I’m battle with the outside where things are stolen from you, like youth or inspiration.
 
So when my birthday came around, just a few weeks ago, I wished like all the rest.
 
Somehow... It managed to blow away in the wind until I found myself twenty-four and lost.
 
 
 

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A

normal day for me, was sitting on the passenger side of the car with patrol partner beside me. All day, we were stuck with ticketing speeders and giving talks to teens who made the wrong turn at the wrong time. Days like that were simple in the fall, people weren’t as wild compared to the in the summer, no girls hanging out of the sunroof, or people blasting their disruptive beach music on the high way. But that was just me; I never liked the summer anyway.
 
Now, it was September the first, my birthday, and it seemed like nothing could go wrong. I watched the civilians walk with their family in scarfs and boots, and inhaled the cold weather smoothly through my nostrils with the window lower.
 
It was all normal.
 
“So JK, you think we got a few minutes get gas and head back to the station? Won’t take too long right?” Namjoon asked, looking up at his rearview mirror before gunning for a U-turn. His jet-black hair flopped wildly in the wind as he pressed on the gas more, filling the car up with chilly air currents.
 
We had been out since around seven that morning, and it was beginning to get dark out. Our lunch breaks were usually thirty minutes, but we’d get interrupted by an emergency call out, making our meals get cut short every other week. So, toward the end of our patrol, we’d make a quick stop to either get food or gas.  It was free most nights, and Namjoon would always grab two chocolate bars— one for him and son at home.
 
He and I had been buddied up for about two years after my other partner retired since he reached seventy. Over the course of time, Namjoon and I shared everything about each other since we weren’t too far in age, and things rolled from there. I’d say I learned more from him about life, than I did from my late-father.
 
It being my birthday was just a lucky addition to the mood.
 
The corner of my lips preened up. “I mean... It’s what? Nearly 7? Couldn’t to stop by. Banana Milk never gets old.”
 
The older chuckled, his dimples showing. “You are the ‘birthday-man’ so... It’s only fair.”
 
Namjoon waited until the lane to his left was clear, and made his way into the gas station’s lot. Just from a few seconds of pulling in, I could there wasn’t much going on that night. Cars in the parking spots were sparse, and gas pumps weren’t occupied by many, except for one car. It had red and white, classic look.
 
A 1977 Ford F150, scuffed and dented in the side like it was taken from a junkyard.
 
There was bubbling heat and pinch of concern that settled at the bottom of my chest when Namjoon placed out car in park. I looked around, side to side at the barren lot we arrived in. The bright, blinking light of the ‘OPEN’ sign began to be the only thing that comforted me as I placed my hand on the door handle, and pulled back.
 
“You know, I had a saying for each time I went through a birthday. I’m thirty now, but it doesn’t hurt to bring it back. I say it to my son.” Namjoon stated, cruising around the bend slowly. “It’s ‘another year to smile is no year to pout’. Bet you never heard that one.”
 
I cracked a small laugh to fight the uneasiness. It was something Namjoon always knew how to make me do. “No, but I’m sure it works.”
 
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Namjoon warmly joked, opening his door and hopping out.
 
Soon after, I planted my shoe on the ground, to get a feel for the outside, while Namjoon was making his way to the glass doors of the station.
 
Once I was out of the vehicle, I whipped my head around to the scope out the exterior.
 
I remember flipping through the imaginary file case in my mind for a reason to be hesitant. Opening all of the possible packets and documents and worries I could to not move a muscle and sit it out.
 
I was twenty-four and anxious as I stepped, and trusted my partner’s confidence as I entered the store.
 
The cool white light on the inside made my vision better, but nothing more. I spotted Namjoon’s short cut from the back of the station where the liquor was sectioned. I wander to the other side of the store near the coffee section. Namjoon’s baritone voice hummed the lyrics to a Lewis Capaldi song the radio played out hour after hour. The cashier wasn’t present at the moment, so the wasn’t anything else I could focus on but grabbing whatever snack was nearby and finding a cup for my coffee.
 
But the same gut-wrench feeling ramped up when I glanced out of the glass window ahead which gave me a full scope of the ford from earlier. The door swung open, and out came a person wearing a dark outfit that was difficult to describe from afar.
 
I tried my best to work through my breathing techniques, closing my eyes after reached for cup and squeezed firmly on the sides. I needed something to hold onto when silence in my head began to fill with whispers of familiar tones that added another bothersome layer of thoughts to my night. All of if tricked down from my chest to my stomach, pooling the space with an unbearable wave of nausea that cause my heartbeat to thud—racing as if I was danger, racing as if the world around me was warping.
 
You’re freaking out over nothing.
 
You’ve done this for years.
 
What are doing just standing here.
 
Stop distracting yourself. Get the coffee.
 
It was like I was back in that bathroom, looking that chipped tiled floor of my high school and listening in to my step-brother malice cackles ricocheting. Those cracks and gaps were forming, and the quietude and solidary was withering as I whispered to myself.
 
“Get it t-together. I-it’s the end of the night, it’s the end of the night, the end of the night, it’s almost over. It’s nothing, n-nothing, nothing--”
 
 
Then I was cut off.
 
There was silence again.
 
But it wasn’t normal.
 
 
My eyes blinked open when I realized we were no longer the only customers in the store. He surrounding sound boomed with sound of a man’s voice shouting from the door. I could’ve swore I wasn’t breathing when I reached for my gun holster on my hip as and froze to hear the man’s commands ring out into the store.
 
“I want anyone who’s in here to get down on the fucking ground, and keep your mouth shut! I don’t want to hear shit or I’ll fucking blast anyone here!” Assuming the man was carrying a weapon, regardless if it was registered or not, I dislodged my pistol from my hip and aimed forward from position. I rushed forward, eyes scanning the front door and the service desk to see the lanky male figure from before.
 
Namjoon’s voice emerged from the opposite side of the store. His voice gradually increased in volume as he creeped up from back to the front desk where the criminal held out his pistol, finger on the trigger and ski-mask on his face to conceal his identity. “I’m going to need you drop your weapon. Officer Jeon and I are--”
 
“S-shut the fuck up!” The man brandished his weapon, his wrist flicking in between the both of us while trembling. “Y-you won’t do shit! I-I'll kill both of you! Huh! I’ll do it!”
 
“Sir! I--” I swallowed to catch my breath, “we need you to put your weapon down or will have to do it for you! So do it! Now!”
 
My sights could focus then.
 
It was like my mouth was just going, but my body wasn’t really in tune with situation.
 
I was just spectating as it played out.
 
The armed criminal’s heavying breathing suddenly calmed.
 
I couldn’t hear a thing.
 
 
I was twenty-four and silent.
 
 
Namjoon took step forward, his voice calmer than before. A tactic for him to gain control of the situation once derailed.
 
It was the last thing I remember him saying before memory hazed out.
 
“Lower your weapon, and we can all leave.”
 
I panned back to look at the criminal's eyes, glisten with what looked like a multitude of things.
 
But none were regret.
 
Namjoon’s left his shooting stance, shoulders slumping and face resting.
 
There was gun in the criminal’s hand, shaking until steady and aimed.
 
Two shots fired off.
 
 
I was twenty-four and still standing.
 
Twenty-four and still breathing.
 
 
When I looked down, my lips quivering from the shock and dreadful imagery I see now saw in my nightmares.
 
Namjoon’s body bleeding out from his chest, oozing like my concentration right out of my head when I dropped down to my knees.
 
I was twenty-four and alone, screaming, begging, and crying.
 
I’d been robbed of much more than a normal birthday in the fall.
 
I was eternally robbed of my inner-peace and healing.
 
 
 

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A

/N: SOOO... HOW WAS IT?
 

SUPRIZE! SUPRIZE! IT’S A HALF CHAPTER!
 

If you're wondering, yes!
This is the reason why Jungkook is on Medical Leave as hinted in the beginning!

I hope you all are beginning to see the story line and connections from JK’s past to the present, and how that may help or hinder him as he’s changing with Jimin’s aid!
 

 
Q: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT JK LOOSING HIS BUDDY?
 
Q: HOW DO YOU THINK HIS EXPERIENCE MAY INFULENCE HIS RESPONSE TO TAE’S SITUATION?
 

Well as you guys know...
 
You’ll just have to wait and see for the next chapter!
 

Love you guys!
 
 
XxxS