Time Stolen
Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x female reader
Genre: angst, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, grief, mention of abuse and domestic violence
Word count: 1.4K
Description: After ending a five-year relationship because he wasn't ready for marriage, Jungkook watches from afar as his ex-girlfriend moves on with someone new. When he learns about your new relationship has become abusive, he realizes too late that you were the one he always wanted. As he gathers the courage to win you back, a devastating tragedy leaves him haunted by the future the both of you almost had and the love he failed to choose in time.
Jungkook always thought love could wait.
Five years together had made it feel permanent—like something he could set down for a while and pick back up when he was ready. You talked about wedding venues and guest lists with a quiet certainty, the kind that didn’t demand but simply existed. He, on the other hand, felt time like a tightening collar.
“I’m just not ready,” he told you one evening, eyes fixed on the table instead of your face. “I don’t want to rush into something I might mess up.”
You didn’t cry right away. That almost made it worse. A moment of breath-hitching complete silence.
“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” you said softly. “I’m asking you to choose me.”
But he couldn’t. Or at least, he thought he couldn’t.
So he let you go.
At first, the silence felt like relief. No more conversations he wasn’t ready for. No more expectations he felt he couldn’t meet. He told himself it was the right decision, that if it was meant to be, the both of you would find your way back.
Six months passed.
Then one night, a mutual friend mentioned your name casually over drinks.
“She’s seeing someone new,” the friend said.
Jungkook’s chest tightened and twisted in a way he hadn’t expected. “Oh. That’s… good.”
But the friend hesitated.
“I don’t think so, man. I’ve heard things. He’s… not great. People say he gets angry. Like, really angry.”
The words lingered long after the conversation ended.
That night, he lay awake replaying memories—the way you laughed too loudly at bad jokes, the way you held his hand when crossing the street, even when there were no cars. He remembered how safe you had always made him feel.
And suddenly, the idea of you being unsafe somewhere out there clawed at him.
He told himself it wasn’t his place anymore and you had chosen someone else.
But the thought wouldn’t leave him.
Days turned into restless nights. The weight of his decision began to feel less like freedom and more like loss. He started drafting messages he never sent. Typing, deleting, rewriting.
Finally, one evening, he stopped overthinking.
Can we talk?
Jungkook stared at the message for a long time before hitting send.
It didn’t deliver.
He frowned, tried again. Still nothing. A cold unease settled in his stomach.
The next day, he reached out to one of your mutual friend.
“Hey… have you heard from her recently?” He tries to fish an answer from his friend.
There was a pause before the reply came. “Where have you been?”
Something in the words made his chest tighten.
“What do you mean?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“I’m so sorry, man. She’s gone.”
The world seemed to tilt. “Gone where?”
“She… she was in an incident. A few days ago.”
The words didn’t make sense at first. They floated, disconnected, like they belonged to someone else’s story.
“No,” he said aloud, even though he was alone. “No, that’s not—”
“It was him,” the friend continued. “The guy she was seeing. It was in the news. Apparently a murder-suicide after a domestic violence report by the neighbor.”
Silence swallowed everything. Jungkook sank into the nearest chair, phone slipping from his hand.
There were no dramatic thoughts. No immediate tears. Just a hollow, expanding emptiness where something vital used to be.
He thought about your last words to him.
I’m asking you to choose me.
And he hadn’t.
Now there was no choosing left to do. Only the unbearable permanence of a decision he could never undo.
Love hadn’t waited. And neither had time.
Jungkook didn’t go to the funeral. At least, not at first.
When he heard the date, he told himself he didn’t belong there. That grief had rules, and he had forfeited his right to stand among the people who had chosen you, who had stayed.
But the morning of, he found himself driving anyway.
The church was already full when he arrived. People dressed in muted colors, voices hushed, the air thick with something heavier than sadness. Regret had a presence there—he could feel it in his throat, in the way his hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
He slipped into a seat at the back.
From where he sat, he could barely see your photo at the front. But he didn’t need to. He knew that smile. He had memorized it long ago, in moments that now felt borrowed.
People spoke about you.
They talked about your kindness, how you showed up for everyone, how you made ordinary days feel important. Someone mentioned how you used to bring extra food “just in case someone forgot to eat.” Someone else laughed softly through tears, recalling how stubborn you could be about the smallest things.
He closed his eyes.
Jungkook remembered all of it. The small things. The unremarkable, irreplaceable things.
Then your mother stood.
The room fell into a deeper silence.
“I used to ask her,” your mother said, voice shaking, “why she stayed so long with someone who wasn’t sure about her.”
His chest tightened.
“She told me… ‘Because I know he loves me. He’s just afraid.’”
The words hit him harder than anything else that morning.
“I told her love shouldn’t feel like waiting,” her mother continued. “That she deserved someone who was ready to choose her, without hesitation.”
A quiet sob escaped someone in the front rows.
Your mother paused, steadying herself. “But she believed in people. She believed they could grow into the love they already felt.”
He couldn’t breathe.
The service blurred after that. Words passed over him without landing. When it ended, people slowly began to leave, offering quiet condolences to the family.
Jungkook stayed in his seat until the room was nearly empty. Then he stood, legs unsteady, and walked forward.
Your photo was surrounded by flowers—white, soft, almost unreal. He stared at it for a long time, searching for something he couldn’t name.
“I was going to choose you,” he whispered, the words breaking on the way out. “I just… needed more time.”
But time, he now understood, had never been something he owned.
He reached out, fingers hovering just above the edge of the frame, as if touching it might undo something.
“I’m sorry I made you wait.”
The apology felt useless the moment it left his mouth.
He stayed there until the staff began quietly clearing the chairs.
—
Days turned into weeks, but the world didn’t pause for him.
It moved forward in small, indifferent ways—traffic lights changing, people laughing in cafés, songs playing on the radio like nothing had happened.
But for him, everything was divided into before and after.
He found traces of you everywhere.
A coffee shop both of you used to go to. A song you loved that he used to skip but now couldn’t turn off. Even the way the late afternoon light fell through his window reminded him of how you used to say it made everything look softer.
One evening, unable to sit still, he opened an old box he had shoved into the back of his closet months ago.
Inside were pieces of a life he had put on hold.
Photos. Movie tickets. A small, slightly worn notebook.
He didn’t remember it at first.
But when he opened it, he recognized your handwriting instantly.
It was a list.
Not of demands or expectations—but of moments.
“Things I want to do with you,” the title read.
Visit the ocean at sunrise Try cooking something complicated and fail Adopt a dog (even if you say no at first) Grow old enough to laugh at how young we were
His vision blurred.
At the bottom of the page, written more faintly, as if added later:
Marry you, if you ever feel ready.
His hands shook as he closed the notebook.
For a long time, he sat there, the silence pressing in on him from all sides.
He had always thought readiness would arrive like a clear answer. Like something solid he could hold onto before making a decision.
But now he understood—too late—that readiness wasn’t something you waited for.
It was something you chose.
And he hadn’t.
Outside, the world carried on, unchanged.
But inside, he lived with the echo of a life that could have been—if only he had been brave enough to step into it when it mattered.
Somewhere between love and fear, he had let uou slip away.
And now, there was nothing left to reach for but memory.
