☢️

You married him with dirt still under his fingernails, the wild in his eyes, and the certainty that the two of you were going to make something that lasted. The day you said I do, the air smelled of rain and wet soil, and the cicadas screamed in the trees overhead like they were blessing the union. You didn’t care that your clothes smelled like smoke from the campfire or that your hair was always damp from the humidity. You had him, and he had you, and that was enough.

For a long time, the dream you shared was bigger than the walls of that half-built stage. You wanted a child. Someone to pass the jungle to. Someone who would learn the rhythm of the monsoon seasons, who would call this remote green nowhere home.

It didn’t happen for a long time. You tried. You failed. You tried again. And then one day, you didn’t fail.

The day you told him. You were sitting cross-legged in the hammock, he was standing over you with his shirt half-unbuttoned, the heat clinging to his skin, a thin sheen of sweat at his collarbone catching the sunlight. You didn’t need to say the words; he read it on your face before you could even try to form them. His eyes softened first, then widened, as if his body was catching up to the realization.

His smile was the kind that reached his eyes, slow and luminous, as though it was born from somewhere deep in his chest. A shaky, almost disbelieving laugh escaped him—half joy, half stunned silence—and he crouched down in front of you. His knees sank into the worn boards of the porch, his calloused hands finding your thighs like an anchor. Then he pressed his forehead to your stomach, as if your body held something sacred, something he couldn’t yet believe was real. You remember the way his hair brushed your skin, the way his breath was warm and trembling against you, the way he stayed there for what felt like forever, whispering words you couldn’t quite catch but knew by heart anyway.

The baby’s room had been nothing more than an empty square at the back of the house, its walls still raw with years of sun and dust. Jungkook threw himself into it like a man on a mission. Measuring, sanding, painting, even fixing the crooked window frame so the breeze would feel softer when it came in. You watched him work from the doorway, a mug of tea cooling in your hands, your heart caught somewhere between awe and fear.

He painted the walls a pale cream, saying it would make the jungle light “look warmer” when it spilled in at dawn. He built the crib from scratch, running his hands over the smooth wood like he was memorizing it. In the evenings, you both sat on the floor surrounded by tiny things that looked impossibly delicate—folded blankets, little shoes you couldn’t stop holding. Sometimes he just leaned back against the wall, legs stretched out, eyes tracing every detail as if committing the room to memory.

But joy in the jungle never stayed untouched.

It happened at night, when the air was so still you could hear the wings of moths tapping against the walls. There was pain first, sharp and sudden. And then there was stillness—inside you, outside you. You remember looking at the sheets and not looking at the same time. Your body knew before your mind could catch up.

Jungkook carried you through the dark, barefoot, every step urgent and uneven on the dirt path. The jungle was loud in the distance—frogs croaking, leaves shifting in the wind—but around the two of you, there was only the sound of his breathing, ragged and uneven, and the faint, wet rustle of his shirt against your skin. His arms were strong, locked tightly around you, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. You could feel it in the way his fingers dug into your side, not rough, but desperate, like he thought if he held you tightly enough, he could keep you tethered to him—as if proximity could undo the truth.

After that, the sickness came, slowly and quiet. A cough at first. Fatigue that didn’t lift. He told you it was the heat, the humidity, the long days. But deep down, you knew it wasn’t.

He took you to doctors, to clinics, to anyone who would see you. You rode boats that smelled of diesel and wood rot, buses that rattled over mud roads. You swallowed bitter medicine, watched your hands grow thinner, your skin paler. Nights became a string of half-sleeps and whispered apologies—him saying we’ll fix this, you saying nothing. You let him hold you, even when the weight of his arms felt too heavy for your fragile body. The baby's room, locked away at the end of the hallway and in your hearts.

And through it all, he kept working on the opera house.

You told him to stop. You told him it wasn’t important anymore. But he would just look at you with those dark, stubborn eyes and say, “I want to finish it for you. So you can see it.”

Now,

the jungle smells the same—wet earth, crushed leaves, the faint sweetness of fruit rotting in the shadows. Jungkook walks the narrow path with a machete, hacking away at vines that have crept across it in his absence. The air clings to him, heavy and damp, coating his skin in sweat by the time the building emerges from the green.

The opera house rises like a dream out of the undergrowth, pale stone framed by the dark lattice of tree trunks. Vines already climb the columns, their green fingers testing the cracks. He pauses at the steps, runs his hand over the smooth stone railing.

Inside, the air is cooler, tinged with the smell of sawdust and varnish. Rows of seats stretch before him, the wood polished and dark, the armrests carved with small, intricate patterns. High windows filter sunlight into pale beams that drift lazily with the dust.

He walks slowly down the center aisle. His footsteps echo in the emptiness. On stage, the boards creak under his boots.

For a moment, he closes his eyes.

And you’re there. Front row, hair tucked behind your ear. One leg crossed over the other, dress brushing your ankles, your hands resting lightly over your stomach the way they did when you were pregnant. Your eyes are on him—soft, certain, the way they only ever were for him.

He moves to the wings. In the shadows, he sees you leaning against the wall, head tilted, smiling in that small, private way. He walks up the narrow stairs to the balcony and sees you there too, elbows on the railing, chin in your hands, watching him like the whole world was a stage you could conquer together.

But every time he blinks, you disappear.

The front row where you should be is empty. The balcony where you were leaning, elbows on the railing, is bare. Every imagined whisper of your laugh, every soft brush of your hair against his shoulder, evaporates the instant his eyes try to hold it. The air that should have felt full with your presence feels impossibly hollow, and the echo of his own heartbeat becomes deafening in the vast silence of the opera house.

Back on stage, he stares out at the empty seats. The air hums faintly with the jungle outside—cicadas, the distant call of a bird. The sun shifts, throwing long shadows over the boards.

Jungkook built an opera house for you in the deepest jungle.

And now, he is the only one who will ever see it.