Nepenthe - University Superstar Drabble 3
Nepenthe - [N]. Something that can make you forget grief or suffering
[Summary]: Jungkook’s life has always been a polarizing battle. It has been pushed and pulled from a constant fight about which should take control: his heart, or his brain? He could never balance it all, the overwhelming emotions too much to even out all by himself. But when he met you…all of that disappeared. When he met you, he felt both organs rest, allowing him to embrace all that is life, and all that is you.
[Theme]: Jock!Jk, LacrossePlayer!JK x TeacherIntern!Y/N, Friends(?)ToLovers!AU, EnimeisToLovers!AU, Inside the mind of Jeon Jungkook
[Rating]: 18+ for mentions of the deed, fluff (so many tingling feelings), a slight hint of cheating (if you’ll call it that [I feel like everyone has a different boundary with what they associate as cheating, so I’ll put this here and leave it for you to decide])
[Word Count]: 1,545
[A/n]: Not me setting my expectations for men to the highest standard with this drabble. Read with caution.
Jungkook was the quiet boy. He always kept to himself, just bunny smiles and wide eyes as he went about his younger years.
The boy was good. Never had to flip his green card to yellow or red in his life — minus the one time he accidentally hurt a girl’s feelings in the second grade for calling her pigtails uneven.
He never missed a day of class, never once received a grade lower than a C+, and never got involved in drama or fights.
Every day was a blessing when he was growing up. His parents taught him well, giving their son their best heretic traits of pure goodness to Jungkook to go about his life with. He was giving and generous with his friends, even more so to strangers. Always giving up his favorite things to make someone feel better or sacrificing his time to spend a little extra with someone who needed him near. Beyond humble and caring he was, always the teacher’s favorite student.
But that was Jungkook. He was the good boy. Until he came face-to-face with puberty.
Junior High was dreadful. That goodness he went about life in started to not make sense. He was angry and breaking out in pimples and his voice started cracking with every breath he took. In what world would holding goodness be okay when the growing pains in his shin provoked him to quit the soccer team?
It was a mess. He was a mess.
And he was so unbelievably horny.
It was embarrassing how horny he was.
In the eighth grade, he was chosen to be the class speaker at his graduation ceremony. However, as he stood up there, all he could think about was whether or not the crowd could see the massive boner he waist-banding under his belt buckle. It was as if he was sporting a hard-on with every breath he took, and suddenly he realized that his right hand became much stronger than his left.
The next two years couldn’t have gone by any quicker, because soon Jungkook was the most popular kid in his high school. His sophomore year was by far the easiest with the way he was climbing up in popularity.
Jungkook was in every upper math class, honors, and AP course a person could possibly have the opportunity to fit into one semester. Despite being in classes with total nerds and questionable individuals, the minute he exited his upper-level courses, he was bombarded with the cheerleading team sticking their boobs in his face and his own friends fighting to ask him when he had the next day off practice to hang out together.
He would have guessed it was from his final stages of puberty. Finally, that crack in his voice was gone, and the pains in his bones were starting to fade. Besides, he was pulling so many women, he started getting tested every week just to make sure that he wasn’t overdoing it with how much sex he was having.
By his senior year of high school, he was one of the tallest, most athletic kids in the class. And, as if no one was expecting it at all, he was elected his high school’s prom king.
Through it all, Jungkook still didn’t find much reason to apologize. It was a strange word coming from his lips. He had always respected others enough to the point where it was rare that he really did anything wrong. Not because he was a person who didn’t have any negative thoughts or who didn’t indulge in negative actions. But Jungkook was always good at blending. If he wanted to do something bad, he did it with others. If he had negative thoughts, he pretended he didn’t. Big walls and big problems formed from his very own defense mechanism to never have to run into upsetting someone else from his presence.
His “jockiness” formed with his first girlfriend, Park Haneul. She was quite the opposite of Jungkook. If she had a problem, she’d say it right then and there with no warning or build-up to coat any of her insults. She also constantly had a problem with Jungkook, which made it really hard for him to understand why. He felt like he was doing all the right things — he listened to her, let her cry on his shoulder, hugged her when she was feeling down, made her tea when she was angry, gave up almost all his time for her, took her out on the over-ly expensive dates she demanded as a “make-up” technique. He did it all, and yet there were still fights and a dissatisfied girlfriend by the end of the day.
When he finally got fed up after being yelled at and told that he wasn’t being a good boyfriend, he figured he needed to say that he was sorry to make it right. However, it was really hard for him to muster the words to apologize.
Instead? He coated himself with the biggest percentage of confidence within himself that he could bring out.
And, well.
It worked.
His relationship with Haneul began to feel like a ride in a Rolls-Royce. Not a singular bump in the road or crack in the windshield could be felt. His relationship with her was smooth sailing. However, just because he couldn’t feel the bumps in the road or the cracks in the windshield, doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
Three years rolled by, and he couldn’t do it anymore. There was no “pop”, no drive that made him feel this overwhelming sense of love he knew he was supposed to feel when she told him she loved him. It wasn’t fair to either of them, and he couldn’t take it anymore. Not when he realized that he wasn’t feeling anything when he looked into her eyes. Not when he looked in yours and felt the life of passion you lived through them.
He wanted that. He wanted to hold your face and stare into your eyes until he could learn how it felt to feel like you did. He wanted to be near you; to watch that fire in your eyes teach him how to live as you warmed his soul while doing so.
And so, he left in search of your fire. He searched and searched and searched until he found it in a coffee shop, covered in his coffee. With just a bat of your eyes, you became a nepenthe to him. Years of pining and tensity he spent while trying to find you lifted, and that desire to join you in life came back.
It was a strong desire for Jungkook to be everything to you. To be the reason you light up in flames and laugh until your stomach hurts and to be the person you run to when you need to feel safe. He wanted to do everything to you that you did to him. And he soon found himself in a crossfire between who he was in elementary school and who he was in high school. A heart of humility and good, so full of passion and warmth, competing with his defensive brain who so brutally reminded him of all the walls he built in order to protect that special heart of his.
It took reality to break his wall. While your aura warmed him, it also warmed everyone else. And you were in high demand to light aflame to whoever captured it first.
But the fact angered Jungkook. You’re not to be captured. You’re to be spread, just like a fire naturally would. And if he had to spend the rest of his life protecting your flame from those who dared misunderstood it, then he was going to do it with everything he had.
The intimacy of being understood was what made him fall in love with you. Though you slowly began melting his candle into the pores of your heart, that look in your eyes sped up the process. It was as if you held him hostage as you nodded your head, telling him that you understood, telling him that you loved him. Euphoria ripped through his body, that feeling of falling in love for the first time was excessive, almost abnormal as it took over his soul.
You single-handedly made him forget all of his grief — years of suffering he spent trying to balance himself and figure out who he was and what he wanted to feel in life. You gave him joy on a silver platter, handing it to him as if you didn’t just find his true self protected behind all those walls.
It was then that he realized that you’re gonna be where all his paths end. You’ve embraced his weakness and helped him strengthen into this foreign body he knows is himself but better. That weak, confused boy at the center of thick walls and defense mechanisms and hurtful words stands with you by his side. He’s made it a mission to go about his new life, walking with you with the intent be everything to you that you are to him. This is the start and end of all lines. He does not want more. He just wants you. Only you, and you alone.
—-
[End. Do not copy. Original work of @jungkookstatts , 2023]
