Chapter Text
Jungkook woke up with a gasp so violent it felt like his lungs might tear. He could feel the air scorch its way down his throat, it felt sharp, and absolutely nothing like the breath he remembered taking last.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound of machines suddenly startled him. These noises were shrill and urgent, but his mind was already elsewhere.
There were flames and heat and glass and panic all around him. There had been flames outside the car. He remembered the orange piercing through shattered front glass, the taste of smoke settling down his throat.
His seatbelt had locked against his chest and shoulder and how much ever he tried, it just didn't snap open. It stuck to him, choking to a point until it felt molten, searing into skin.
And then… Then there was a flash of another pain. It was something sharp, tearing the skin across his waist. The shock of wet blood and heat spreading beneath his shirt.
He immediately flinched at the memory, and a strangled noise escaped his lips. His hand shot down instinctively, clutching at his waist side. He braced himself for pain so violent it would hollow him out….
But… there was nothing.
It was just skin, an uneven and strange skin beneath his fingertips. It didn’t feel like he was touching himself. It was like a scar tissue, ridged and alien, numb in some places, tight in others. His hand trembled as it explored the unfamiliar terrain, and then moved higher across his chest, brushing the lines carved into him like molten trails.
His heart and mind and body stuttered. Had it been a dream? Did he dream of himself in an accident? No…. dreams didn’t leave skin like this behind.
His chest rose and fell too fast, panic rushing through his limbs. He tried to sit up, to push himself upright, but his left arm dragged sluggishly, heavy and weak. His legs felt even heavier. When he forced them toward the edge of the bed, his right leg twitched, but his left dragged limply, jerking as if he was looking at a stranger’s limb.
The world tilted and his breath hitched. This wasn’t his body… couldn’t be.
“Mr. Jeon, lie back, please…!” A nurse’s voice cut through, firm but startled, hands pressing to his shoulders just as the monitors shrieked their alarm.
“I…” Jungkook’s voice cracked, it came out hoarse, his throat burning. “What happened…my waist, it was cut… where’s…” His stuttering words mixed with the beeping sounds. His chest felt pressed like it was still crushed and beneath the seatbelt.
The nurse murmured something into her walkie-talkie and Jungkook’s pulse thrummed loud in his ears. His body was feeling alien, his skin branded with memories but those didn’t align with the numb flesh he felt beneath his hand.
Had he died? Was this…
The thought cut off as the nurse’s hands steadied him against the mattress, her voice low and practiced, but Jungkook barely heard her. His focus turned inward, into the body that refused to feel like his own.
His chest ached with every breath, not sharp, not burning the way his mind was insisting it should, but it was dull and heavy, as if he forgot breathing or ran out of practice. His fingertips skimmed over the raised scar again and again, following its cruel diagonal path from collarbone to shoulder to his chest.
He swallowed hard. His left arm felt heavier, slower to respond than the right, and when he clenched his fist, only three fingers obeyed. The other two lagged, trembling faintly before curling in reluctantly.
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head, refusing to accept it. “No, that’s not…”
“Mr. Jeon, you need to relax,” the nurse urged. “Your body will feel strange for a while, but…”
Strange?? That word barely scraped the surface of what Jungkook was feeling.
He forced himself upright once again despite her warning, teeth gritting. Every muscle screamed against the command. Everything felt sluggish and unfamiliar. His right leg shifted with effort, foot scraping against the sheets, but his left dragged behind, numb and uncoordinated. When he finally swung both legs toward the edge of the bed, a bolt of pain shot from his hip down his thigh, stealing the air from his lungs.
The floor wavered beneath him. His balance buckled, vision sparking at the edges, he swore he saw some stars.
The nurse caught his shoulder quickly, guiding him back down before he could collapse entirely. “Easy,” she said firmly. “You can’t push your body yet. You’ve been…” She hesitated, then softened her tone. “You’ve been through more than you realize right now.”
Jungkook’s breath came ragged, chest heaving as though he had run miles, though he had only tried to stand. Suddenly shame burned hotter than the scar across his chest. His body had never failed him before… Never like this, not in training, not in sports, not when he carried his one year old son laughing through the yard while having ankle weights on him. He used to run, lift, move without thought. Now he was reduced to this: legs that didn’t listen, arms that trembled under their own weight.
His pulse was the loudest he had ever heard in his ears. This isn’t me.
He curled forward, hands digging into the thin hospital blanket. He wanted to tear the scars away, tear the skin off until he found something familiar underneath. He could almost feel the car seatbelt again, the heat blistering across his chest, the tearing pain at his waist… but it was as if his body had been remade in his absence.
“Why…” His voice came out cracked and hoarse, he was on the brink of tears. “Why does it feel like it isn’t mine?”
The nurse glanced toward the door, as though waiting for someone else to answer as the monitors chirped steadily, indifferent to the panic crawling through the room.
The room door opened with a soft click.
The nurse straightened immediately, relief written across her face. A man in a white coat entered, his expression calm in the way of people who were used to seeing this kind of panic unravel in hospital rooms daily. His presence filled the room with quiet authority, but it didn’t soothe Jungkook… it only sharpened his fear.
“Mr. Jeon,” the doctor said gently, stopping at the foot of the bed. “I’m Dr. Han. You’ve been awake for only a few minutes. I need you to take slow breaths for me.”
“I…” Jungkook’s throat burned, the word catching. His chest still heaved from the failed attempt to stand. ‘Fuck slow breaths, tell me what is all this parallel universe running…’ was what Jungkook wanted to yell back at the doctor.
The doctor nodded once at the nurse, who adjusted the bed controls until Jungkook was reclined again, machines steadying their rhythm.
“I know you’re confused,” Dr. Han continued. “That’s expected. But we’re going to take this step by step. To start, can you tell me your full name?”
“Jung… Jeon Jungkook.” His voice cracked, coming out feeling like sandpaper.
“Good. Do you know where you are?”
His eyes moved around… the blank walls, the IV stand, the monitors blinking steadily. “Hospital,” he croaked.
“That’s right.” The doctor made a note on his clipboard. “Do you remember what happened?”
The flames crashed back into his mind, the searing heat, the seatbelt cutting like molten wire, the sound of metal shrieking as something tore into his side. His son’s name had been on his lips… he remembered that too, calling it into the smoke before the world went black.
“There was… an accident,” he whispered, hand tightening around the blanket.
“Yes.” The doctor’s eyes softened. “And when do you think that was?”
Jungkook looked at the doctor blankly and took a few moments to respond. He blinked at him, heart hammering as he looked at the wall clock. “…just last night… I think?”
What followed was silence… a silence so deep that it was louder than the hum of the machines. The nurse shifted uncomfortably at the bedside, her gaze flickering away.
Dr. Han set the clipboard aside and stepped closer. “Jungkook,” he said carefully, his hand on one of Jungkook’s knees. “That accident happened over two years ago. You have been in a coma ever since that night”
The world tilted. No, No. The world stopped.
“Noooo, Can’t be… No” Jungkook said, shaking his head. “No No No No, that’s not… that’s not possible” His chest tightened, ribs straining against the monitor pads attached to his chest. “I was just… I was just there…”
“I know it feels that way,” the doctor said quickly, hands raised in a calming gesture. “Coma patients often wake up with their last memory feeling immediate. But you’ve been unconscious, in and out of responsiveness, for twenty-four months. We kept your vitals stable, your muscles preserved as much as possible, but…” His eyes flicked to Jungkook’s limp legs. “Let’s not beat around the bush. Recovery will take time.”
TWO YEARS. Two years of it stolen away. Two years that Jungkook has no memory of.
Jungkook’s mind spiraled. His son… Two years ago, he was very small. Two years ago, he’d just started stringing words together. Jungkook had promised himself he wouldn’t miss a thing.
Two years, that means his baby must be five now. His stomach curled up violently.
“You’re lying,” he whispered, but the doctor’s calm didn’t falter.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Han said simply. “But it’s the truth.”
The nurse murmured something about medication, but Jungkook barely heard it. His ears rang with a single thought: two years of his son’s life had gone by, and he hadn’t been there to see any of it.
“I need… ” His voice broke. “I need to see him. My son. Where is he?”
The doctor and nurse exchanged a glance, something unspoken passing between them. It was the same look people used when deciding how much truth to tell a person going through a shock, how much they think he could survive at once.
“Right now,” Dr. Han said softly, “what you need is to rest. We’ll talk more when you’re stable.”
“Stable??” Jungkook shouted as if the word could mean anything to him right now, Jungkook shook his head violently, “Tell me! Tell me now please!”
The nurse pressed a calming hand to his arm, “Mr. Jeon, please…”
But the doctor only watched him with steady eyes, letting the storm crash. Because Dr Han knew storms always ended, and patients always calmed down after their own panic eventually.
And when Jungkook’s strength finally gave away, he sagged against the pillows, eyes wet with pain and anger that he refused to let spill.
The room wouldn’t stop spinning. Two years. The number repeated like a broken alarm.
Jungkook clung to the only anchor that made sense. “My wife,” he croaked, throat raw. His fingers clawed at the blanket, knuckles white. “Where is my wife? Tell me she’s here. Is she outside?.”
The nurse hesitated, lips pressed tight.
Dr. Han’s eyes softened in that professional way, that made people mad “Jungkook…”
“Tell me she’s here! No… but how can she be? She would be with him at home” His voice cracked and his chest heaved each breath shallow and frantic.
The silence stretched too long. Finally, the doctor gave in and said, very carefully, “Your wife is no longer here.”
The words landed like a blow, sucking the air out of the room. Jungkook stared at him, unable to process. No longer here could mean anything. Gone home? Gone to work? Gone where…?
“No,” Jungkook spoke, shaking his head hard enough to make the IV line tug. “No, she wouldn’t… she wouldn’t just leave. Not while…”
“She made a difficult decision,” Dr. Han said, voice steady but quiet. “In the early months of your coma. She moved abroad. We don’t have contact information on record.”
Jungkook’s heart stuttered. Abroad?? Gone?? She made a choice, to leave. His wife had left. Left him in this bed, left the wreckage of their marriage behind, left him.
The devastation hollowed him out… but it was nothing compared to the next words clawing their way up his throat.
“My son.” His voice was barely a whisper, it came broken and desperate. “Where’s my son?”
Again, that silence. That exchange of looks between nurse and doctor, as if they were weighing how much of him could break before he stopped breathing.
Something in him snapped. Jungkook’s body surged forward despite the pain, wires straining and alarms blaring. “Tell me where he is! Where’s my son…. where is he?!”
The nurse pressed a hand to his shoulder, trying to ease him back down. “Mr. Jeon, please… your vitals… ”
“I don’t care about my vitals!” His voice was raw, it felt like it was shredding his throat. His pulse spiked on the monitors, frantic and wild. “Tell me where my son is! He needs me…. he needs his father.. ”
“Jungkook.” Dr. Han’s tone cut through, firm but not unkind. “You are not stable enough for this conversation. Right now, your body needs to recover. If you want to see your son again, you need to survive this stage first. Do you understand?”
The words blurred into static. All Jungkook could hear was not now, not now, and the roaring refusal in his own chest. His son was out there, five years old now…five, not three like he remembered … and Jungkook had missed every step in between, every bedtime story, every birthday candle, every scraped knee and every sleepy smile.
He couldn’t breathe. His chest locked, the monitor shrieked, the nurse shouted for sedation.
A cold rush hit his veins. He struggled, tried to fight it, but the strength bled out of him too fast. His head sagged against the pillow, eyes burning.
Through the blur of all that was happening, he managed to say one last word. It was not his wife’s name, it was his son's.
“Haneul...”
And then the darkness pulled him deep under. When Jungkook opened his eyes again, the room was dim.
The lights in the room overall had been lowered and the soft beeps from the machines attached to him filled the room. His throat felt exceptionally dry, his limbs heavy, but still nothing compared to the frantic edges of pain that dulled raw ache beneath his skin.
Sedation had left everything blurred but not enough to soften the pain inside him.
The chair by his bedside was empty, even the nurse had gone. Was this him, on most of the days in the past two years. Just lying around his bed, alone. The silence started to close in.
Slowly, he tried lifting his arm. The IV line tugged against the tape and the shoulder muscles resisted. He felt even weaker than he remembered from few hours ago. He started to stare at his hands feeling as if they belonged to someone else. The tendons under his skin looked sharper, veins standing out a lot more, fingers thinner and paler.
It took effort, but he did pull himself upright. There was a dark reflexive surface, maybe a mirror he thought or a glass panel. His reflection showed up faintly on that and for a moment, he didn’t recognise the hollow cheeked man staring back.
His hair was uneven, grown out in patches, the weight of the time he lived stretched on his forehead. His face was scrawny, big dark bags pooled under his eyes. But… It was the scars that made him flinch. The ropey, diagonal ridge cutting across his chest and shoulder, the jagged valley at his waist, the reminders carved into skin he hadn’t chosen.
Before the accident, he had been someone else entirely. He had been beautiful in a way that birthed whispers even outside the world of business and boardrooms. His dark hair always falling across his forehead no matter how often it was styled, eyes cut sharp but softened whenever he smiled. He had the kind of physique sculpted by both youth and discipline, broad shoulders and a waist that was petite but at the same time the V shape looked cut from stone.
Charisma came to him like breath and of course he had the city’s magazines had called him the “most eligible bachelor” more than once, and society dinners turned into hushed conversations about who would be fortunate enough to tie their legacy to the Jeon heir.
The answer had been swift and quick an alliance forged not from love but from legacy came into being. The Seos, owners of another business dynasty, put forth their daughter, Seo Yuna. She was too young, everyone had whispered.
But then, so was Jungkook. They were barely twenty-one and twenty-two when the engagement was sealed, and he was twenty-three when the wedding vows were spoken under heavy expectation.
A year later, he was twenty four, standing in a hospital corridor with trembling hands as his son’s first cries carried through the maternity ward. Fatherhood arrived like a wave, rearranging his entire being. In the small moment, the heir became a man who would walk through fire for the tiny boy in his arms.
At twenty-seven, Jungkook had carried himself with the easy confidence of a man who believed he had all the time in the world. The time to prove himself, time to build his legacy, time to make good on every expectation that came with his last name, a true blue third generation Jeon, heir to a business that had a legacy of decades. He had been groomed to train under his father for years before stepping in.
But fate had cut his apprenticeship short. His father’s sudden passing left him no buffer, no gradual handover. Overnight, the responsibility was his.
And he… He had borne it with determination of quiet steel, the way Jungkook did mostly everything in life. He was their only child and his mother died when he was still struggling through adolescence. Jungkook knew all too well how the absence of a parent ached. That ache had shaped him, made him fiercely protective as well as cautious of what remained.
When his own son, Haneul, came into this world Jungkook’s prayers had been endless and almost desperate. ‘Never let this child know that kind of loss. Let him grow with two pairs of steady hands to hold him.’
But, in all the upheaval of business, family, sudden responsibility, something had been left behind. He never truly came to know the young woman who had been placed at his side. They shared a roof, meals, and eventually a child, but the chance to fall in love never came.
And those prayers had no weight against destiny. Somewhere between the life he was supposed to live and the life he was forced to wake up into… Haneul had lost his father.
He pressed his palm flat against his chest as he looked at his reflection now. In the faint light, his reflection looked like someone else’s skin branded onto him.
The limp was real too… he discovered that when he tried to stand again. He gripped the railing, and nearly collapsed as his left leg dragged. The muscles screamed from lack of use and the joints were painfully stiff. He positioned himself back onto the mattress with a heavy breath, heart thudding from the effort of simply trying to stand.
Two years ago, he’d been whole. Two years ago, he could lift his son easily, toss him in the air just to hear him giggle. And… Now?
Now his wife was gone. Haneul must be five years old, somewhere out there, growing without him, maybe not even remembering him.
A sound broke out of him, low and cracked… it was half sob, half growl. He pressed the palms to his eyes, wiping the tears away, but they burned anyway.
“I need Haneul,” he whispered loud, voice catching but he forced the words out, as if saying them would anchor him. “I need my son.”
His body had betrayed him, time had betrayed him, even his wife had betrayed him… but he wouldn’t let go of the only thing left.
If his body couldn’t fight, his money would.
When the nurse came back in a few minutes to check his vitals, adjusting the IV with her practiced hands, he didn’t bother with pleasantries. His voice was raw, but steady.
“I need to call my lawyer.”
The nurse blinked, startled. “Mr. Jeon, perhaps you should..”
“Now.” Something in the way he basically shouted it, silenced her.
His body might have betrayed him, stripped of strength and time, but he still had power. He still had means. And he would use every last piece of it if it brought his son back to him.