— why can't i just
forget?

OCTOBER 15:
PARK JIMIN

==

"we have to go to useol."

seokjin is frantic: pacing back and forth in the relatively cluttered space of namjoon's living room, eyes wide, fingers drumming against his thighs. the six other men exchange looks of confusion and mild incredibility.

namjoon finally breaks the silence. "what?"

"we have to go to useol, i sent you guys the text, you understand, right? taehyung—no, whatever the fuck that thing is, i don't know—there's something in useol that's important—"

"slow down, hyung," hoseok interrupts, grabbing seokjin's arm. "we saw the text, we know. but don't you think that—"

"and you saw it, right? the 325? christ—" he wrenches his arm free and faces the others, wetting his lips out of habit. "it's so damn obvious!"

the briefest moment of silence passes through the room, and jimin shrinks further into the corner of the sofa. he really wants to believe that the newspaper and video is as big of a sign as seokjin is making it out to be. but for all they know, the whole situation could be a literal misconception, some cruel joke played by nature; hell, they don't even know how the newspaper found its way into namjoon's jacket, much less the author.

"look," seokjin quiets his voice, finally standing still. "i—i know this seems like such a small thing to be going to another city for. i get that. but all of these events—the subway, taehyung's movements, the newspaper—it's too planned, too obvious to be a coincidence. you saw the indentation around the date, right? what else could have made it?"

"i don't know," jimin finds his voice running without realizing it, "i can think of a lot of things, seokjin, just not the fucking nail of a monster."

"jimin," yoongi hisses warningly.

"no, i'm serious, alright?" jimin leans forward on his elbows. "i'm not going to travel 325 kilometers to just search for something we don't even know—that's just stupid. you realize taehyung and the fucker that has him are still here in sunab? he could be doing crazy shit to this city as we speak."

"i get that," seokjin responds, struggling to maintain a calm tone. "and i know that traveling costs money we don't have right now, but—don't you want to get to the bottom of this?"

"for christ's sakes, of course i do!" jimin stands up, anger etched into his words and he's just done. "but you know what? i don't even know if we can even save him in the first place. i don't even know if he's alive right now. do you understand?" seokjin opens his mouth to speak, but jimin continues. "you weren't at his funeral. you didn't watch his coffin be lowered into the ground as you watched his mother sob at the platform alone because her husband committed suicide from the grief two days before."

"jimin," it's jeongguk this time, "we know that, but that isn't the point here—"

he scoffs in response, shaking his head. "then what is the point, huh? because going to useol with literally no plan is about as stupid as—"

"you know what?" seokjin explodes, and that's when jimin registers his words, his insults, his absolutely awful treatment of people who were trying to help him find out what happened to his best friend.

"you're a fucking asshole, park jimin! you think i don't know that you're hurting? you think you've got it so fucking bad because you're in this situation, right? in case you've forgotten, there are five other people who can see taehyung and they're here, suffering too, alright?"

"hyung, just let it go," namjoon tries to mutter, but seokjin shuts him off.

"no! no, i'm fucking tired of you guys allowing him to stomp on us just because he's got a personal connection with taehyung. i know you've had a shitty past four years dealing with his death, but we've dealt with our own bullshit too, you understand? i was fucking homeless for three months out of high school. i couldn't even attend university because we didn't have the money for it. we spent it on treatment for my sick parents in the hospital."

jimin breathes, "hyung, i—i didn't know that—"

"and i want to get to the bottom of this fucking nightmare just as much as you do. i'm looking for everything i can, some sort of clue and what do you do? dismiss it as some fucking joke!" seokjin's voice is cracking, eyes glassy. "going to useol is better than staying here and waiting for the monster to come to us, like it always has before! i don't know what we're looking for there, but that's all the more reason why we need to look right now."

the room is dead silent.

jimin doesn't even have time to register the impact of seokjin's words, the truth of his words, before hoseok his standing up and swinging an arm around seokjin's shoulders comfortingly.

"i—i think we need to take a break from this today." namjoon speaks quietly, standing up slowly. jeongguk follows the action, and before jimin can comprehend what's happening, the four of them are holding seokjin, comforting him, doing what jimin should be doing.

"why don't we..." namjoon struggles with his words, "why don't we grab some lunch together? we can discuss this in the evening. sound good?"

"yeah, i—i think i need that," seokjin mutters, grabbing his coat from the kitchen counter.

jimin follows them with his eyes, mind whirling from—guilt is what it is, he thinks. "i'll stay here," he croaks. "you guys go."

no one argues.

"yoongi, you coming?" jeongguk asks, turning to the aforementioned male still sitting at the sofa.

the response is unexpected. "nah. i'll stay with jimin, i'm feeling a bit lethargic."

"...okay, if you want. we'll be back around six. there's some food in the fridge if you get hungry, alright?" namjoon doesn't face jimin as he speaks. "call me if anything comes up."

"will do."

the door shuts.

and jimin puts his face in his hands, ready to cry from utter disgust at himself—feeling the bones of his fingers curl against his skin, eyelashes wet, throat garbled.

and he does. completely disregarding the fact that yoongi is there, a mere three feet away from him, he sobs into his hands, feeling his diaphragm quake from the action. streams of tears creep in between the crevices of his fingers and fall to the wood floor, and jimin just weeps. weeps for god knows what, but weeps because he just can't stop.

he feels a reassuring hand on his shoulder a few minutes after,

and jimin just sobs harder.

==

"you're guilty, aren't you?"

it takes an hour for jimin to finally look at yoongi—out of humiliation, is probably why—, eyes red and cheeks swollen. he expects a lecture of some sort.

he doesn't expect that.

"i know you're guilty about your words to seokjin," yoongi continues, looking outside the living room window. they can see every individual car, even from how high in the apartment complex they are—every individual building, every street, every person, everything. it's strange, how everything is functioning normally, and for the six of them nothing is.

jimin wipes his nose and doesn't respond.

"your face said that. but that's not all, yeah?" yoongi pauses, finally turning to look at jimin. "you still carry guilt about taehyung, don't you? it's why you're so reluctant to go to useol, because you feel like you're abandoning him here, right?"

jimin's eyes widen, and he finally speaks in a scratchy voice. "wh—that's not—"

"it's not your fault, jimin."

he watches as a few cars drive by.

"you care about taehyung so—so fucking much, and that's admirable. no one is blaming you for reacting the way you are. seokjin just yelled at you like that because—"

"because i was being an asshole."

"well, i can't deny that." jimin manages the faintest smile at this. "you were being a bit of an asshole. but seokjin doesn't hate you for this, alright? no one does. we just need some time to cool down."

jimin sighs, looking at his lap and gritting his teeth. "i just—you guys are doing so much for me, for taehyung, and i'm—i'm acting like an ungrateful shit, treating you guys so horribly and i'm so sorry for that."

yoongi opens his mouth, closes it, leans forward, and opens it again.

"i have nightmares, you know."

"...what?"

"nightmares. of taehyung—no, the monster, actually. i have dreams where i'm alone in the forest, just like back then, and the monster finally catches me. finally pushes me to the ground. finally hits me head on. and instead of before, i can't escape."

jimin's jaw unclenches.

"we're all under the stress of this situation, jimin. we know what you're going through—maybe not to your extent, but we're still going through the same shit you are. sometimes we can't sleep at night because we're afraid, just like you are. but we aren't going through this alone, are we?"

fresh tears sting at the corner of jimin's eyes again as he nods.

"we have each other and that's incredible. do you ever think about it? how lucky we are to have met up with each other? how lucky i was to go to the detective agency right at the same time you had, how lucky we were to meet up with namjoon and hoseok from the slightest change of a sentence? shouldn't we stick together because of that?"

"yeah. yeah, we should."

"listen, you aren't alone anymore, okay? no matter what fucked up shit happens, no matter if you're acting like an asshole, you're still with us."

jimin smiles through blurry eyes. "okay."

yoongi looks at his watch and grins. "they'll be back in a bit. apologize to seokjin, alright? i don't want a goddamn cold war in the middle of this shitstorm."

"i was planning to." jimin pauses, then continues. "hey hyung?"

"yeah?"

"thank you. that...that helped me. a lot."

==

it takes one second after jimin says the words "i'm sorry" for seokjin to envelop him into a hug.

"i was being an asshole too, jimin. it's okay."

"you sure?" jimin holds him tighter and exhales shakily. "i've treated you guys so horribly, and i just—"

"come on, jimin," namjoon enters the room with hoseok and jeongguk, bags of dinner in his hands, "you think we're gonna hold a grudge in this situation? you're still one of us. we know you mean well."

that's the moment, jimin realizes. that's the moment when he realizes he fucking loves these guys like his own brothers.

"yoongi talked to you, then?" namjoon says, turning on the t.v. with a smile.

"yeah. the guy was really emotional, too, you should have seen him—"

"shut up," yoongi laughs, "i'm not the one who cried!"

"i guess, but—"

"fuck."

the word halts all conversations, and six pairs of eyes turn to face jeongguk, who looks at the television with wide eyes. and that's when jimin feels his stomach drop.

"what?" namjoon asks. "jeongguk, what is it?"

he swallows and turns to the side, and it's just like before, watching as footage of an explosion unfolds on the screen, watching as an unfamiliar figure standing at the foot of a burning building becomes familiar, watching as a flashing headline runs at the bottom of the screen, BUILDING IN USEOL SUDDENLY EXPLODES INTO FLAMES.

"kim fucking taehyung," he hears jeongguk growl under his breath, but jimin doesn't care about that right now.

he turns to seokjin and whispers the words they're all thinking.

"i guess we need to go there now anyway."

==

/drinks tea/ fuck
can you believe that this is 1900 words of pure angst??? fascinating
i just felt i needed to elaborate more on their characters so this was born aha
tune in next time bc youre a real champ for sticking w this story lmao