— "you're a hero,
never forget that!"

NOVEMBER 20:
MIN YOONGI

==

  —to everyone,

it's me, taehyung.

i have a lot to explain, don't i? i kept most of you in the dark about everything. i'm guessing that since you're reading this, jimin followed my instructions and gave this letter to you all, whenever he thought the time was best. and i'm also guessing i'm dead.

for starters, i want to tell you all something: please don't cry too much. i'm okay. there was a reason i ended my life, and though i wish i could stay back with all of you, i wouldn't change what i did. especially mom and linnie—you guys tend to get pretty emotional. seokjin, if you're reading this, tell them a few jokes for me, will you? and don't cry yourself, either. this paper is too thin to hold tears. believe me, i know.

when i woke up from my coma, i knew immediately that abraxas and i were still bonded together. it was kind of an instinct, like how you know to breathe or blink. but the more i thought about it, i realized that if abraxas's physical form was still here and i was, too, then our physical properties were the same as well.

basically, if abraxas was to die, i had to also.

i only told jimin this. it's selfish of me, i know—extremely so, and i'm sorry about that. i'm so sorry. not only because you all were kept ignorant, but also to jimin, and the burden i placed on you. i'm sorry, chim. you never seem to get a break from me, do you?

i was scared. i still am, as i write this. i was scared about the outcome, and that i was still intertwined with abraxas. i didn't want to die, not when i had finally found a group of people, a big one, who supported me. but ending my life was the only way to end abraxas's and to stop losing any more innocent witnesses, so i vowed that i would do so, if it meant that no one else would have to live a life the way i have. (most, however, didn't have friends like you looking after them. i'm a lucky man.)

but i was scared to tell anyone. i didn't want anyone to worry or try and stop my plans. but most of all, i didn't want you to live without me until the very last moment. i wanted to preserve my life for as long as possible, to rake as many memories together as we could, and it's selfish as hell of a reason but i couldn't help it. i'm sorry, everyone. i hid a lot from you all, but i had to. more than anyone, i wanted—want—abraxas to be gone. and i finally had the ability to make that happen.

to mom especially, and jae, i'm sorry. you deserved to know, but i only had the courage to tell jimin, because i knew he would eventually let me end this myself. but please, please don't blame him. he didn't tell you all because i told him not to. everything i did was of my own accord, and jimin had to carry the burden of what i told him until i eventually...ended up doing it. i didn't want to take my life, but i chose to do it, because it was the right, the only, thing to do.

i know this sounds like me being a hero, or some justice activist. but believe me, my hand is shaking as i write this and i'm trying my hardest not to cry, either, (pretty hypocritical of me, huh?) because i don't want to leave you guys. you're my family. but this is the opportunity no one else has ever had to make this world okay again, without demons and destruction. and if that means i have to die to bring that peace back again, so be it. i will. i have.

if everything worked out the way it should have, abraxas should be gone right now, and i should be too. that means no other monster will ever roam this planet again. ever. our realm already met its capacity limit, and although abraxas is dead, its actions and mark on the earth has already filled up the space of our realm. isn't it a fair deal? no one else ever has to die and live such horrible lives ever again, in exchange for one life. mine.

it's almost a little strange. i'm important to our entire realm. kinda cool, isn't it? i'm sort of like the superman of this story!

before i end this letter, i have just one thing i want to ask of you. tell the world about us. about the second witnesses before me, about abraxas, about the society. tell them what happened. and if you can, make them believe you.

so here's one more concept, before i go off the save the world (isn't that a strange phrase!):

i love you all, and that will never change.

                       — k.t.h.

==

today, there is no new story flashing over the television screen. those in the past have disappeared now, replaced with the usual scandals and politician coverage, just as it had once been before the first days of october. perhaps in the fine print below the rolling "breaking news" panel, there may be the slightest hint of a past subway explosion, or an inscrutable car crash, or a collapsed building—maybe ludicrous conspiracy theories made by angry reporters, even. regardless of their presence or not, the city—and world—has done what they do best: brushed their shoes and moved on.

it's two minutes before the hour of eleven when yoongi winds the convenience store up, sweeping the remaining tufts of floor dust into the cleaning bin and setting the broom against the backdoor. he's the only one working during these shifts (and no one really needs groceries at 10:58 in the evening), so the store is swamped in the monotone repetition of the humming heater and refrigerators. yoongi is used to the silence. he's worked in this store for months now, after all. 

he isn't used to the mended door, though, nor the security cameras placed perfectly back into position. and most of all, yoongi isn't used to the hollowness in his chest.

the past week has been a blur of subconsciously distant days, and interviews and lies with police officers—though only from jae, mrs. kim, and jimin, we can't drag you all into the investigation, it'll be too suspicious: but we were a part of this too: don't say a word—, slowly piecing themselves back together. often times, when he walks through the streets, or sits down at his two-chair table after a day of long shifts, or watches airplanes fly through the clouds above his head in the city park, it feels unreal. like he isn't really living through it, like he isn't breathing. he's a shell of a body, feet dragging over the concrete and mind far away. 

maybe yoongi feels empty because everything he, and everyone else, worked for is gone. all the effort to find him, help him, free him—all of it was futile, now reduced to the specks of light that floated away on that night those days ago (a week? has it really been a week?). but no, yoongi knows that isn't true. it wasn't futile. not in the slightest. he knows that from the news channel on the television screen, bleak and customarily ignorant, and the way the store door shifts but will never break that way. not again.

it's a strange feeling, nevertheless. it's strange to feel completely hollow.

the investigation on kim taehyung's supposed disappearance (what a cruel promnesia) has become an event unattached to jae, mrs. kim, and jimin, as far as the police department is concerned. low cooperation. hard to handle distress. in a few weeks, perhaps, the file will be lost to the basements, where a similar case four years prior resides in dust. 

(they may never connect the dots like that. they never care.)

but to yoongi—and everyone else, for that matter—, maybe that's better. maybe, that way they can complete what kim taehyung wished for from the beginning: scrawled hastily at the bottom of a thin, curled paper, as if racing to beat the teardrops dangling from his chin: given by his silent, trembling best friend with the slightest nod as an explanation: shifting slightly from its position on the desk as eight people broke to the ground.

as yoongi locks the door with an exhale of cold air, he hopes that, for once, the world will listen to them.

==

"it's ready," comes mrs. kim's quiet voice. it's barely heard over the tap running in jae's kitchen. 

the six of them walk to the table slowly, as if lethargic, or wading through water. yoongi is silent; so is everyone else. it's hard to speak, nowadays. they don't even know their own thoughts.

"i've made ginger soup," she whispers, placing the bowl onto the counter. it hits the tablecloth with a soft thump and an inviting aroma, but the glazed look in their eyes—except for jimin, no, jimin won't lift his face— doesn't disappear. jae walks through the door frame (was her face so aged before?), right as mrs. kim begins to tremble.

"ginger soup..."

a tick of the clock.

"taehyung always asked for that."

yoongi looks up.

"mrs. kim—"

"i'm s-sorry, i didn't mean to—" she slowly brings a hand to her face, cutting off her words. the knot in her throat seems to grow bigger. one tick, two ticks. silence. the night creaks by.

then, jeongguk speaks. yoongi hasn't heard his voice for a while, nor the others'. that night just hasn't hit them yet, he supposes; they drift through their lives, shutting away their thoughts. "taehyung liked coffee, too."

a prolonged period of silence hits them.

"and he liked to read comics," namjoon finally murmurs, managing the barest smile. and suddenly, they begin to understand what jeongguk and namjoon are doing, and why mrs. kim's eyes are wide with an unreadable emotion. slowly, yoongi pushes his seat closer to the dinner table. "the old ones, too, like the ones in newspapers. remember his garfield sweater?"

"oh yeah, he wore that sweater all the time," adds seokjin. "and taehyung loved to tell concepts, right?"

hoseok laughs. it surprises everyone at the table, hearing something so distant and yet—now so familiar, and gradually, yoongi is smiling too. slowly, he lapses out of his foggy, disassociated state, managing to coax the slightest chuckle from his throat. jae and mrs. kim still stand, frozen and wide-eyed, unable to speak. 

"man, some of them were crazy," he says. "those concepts were so well thought out, too. that was the frightening part!"

"his favorite flower was the daisy, even though he was allergic," jae says, shaking her head reminiscently. her eyes are slightly glassy. seokjin turns to her with a smile and squeezes her frail hand gently.

"taehyung watched animated shows, too. i always teased him about that, but then he figured out i watch them too, and god did i get an earful!"

"he loved cherry cola, even though it's hardly in any stores."

"for some reason, he really liked the color beige!"

"and tae loved to stargaze," jimin whispers, and yoongi turns to him. his head is raised, and it's clear to see the slight upturn of his lips. "it was the first thing he told me, even before his name. he loved to learn about the constellations, and the galaxies, and the sky...he read about them all the time. what a dork, huh?"

three ticks, four ticks.

tears spill down mrs. kim's cheeks; but she doesn't seem to register it. she glances around the table to each one of them, hands holding onto the fabric of her apron tightly, almost like an anchor. and finally, she laughs too. it's a broken one, and she trips over the almost-sobs in her throat, but it's a laugh nonetheless. and then, jae smiles, too; the wrinkles in her weary face make way to a heartfelt grin, and the expression is so raw that yoongi finds himself overflowing.

he overflows in stored-up, suppressed emotion; everything hits him like an opened dam, flooding his mind and eyes (suddenly he can't see through the blur in his vision). he's crying. when's the last time he cried like this? yoongi can't remember. it feels good, he thinks, as hoseok takes his hand beside him and holds it, chaining themselves together around the circle. 

it's a wound yoongi knows he'll never get over. a reality without taehyung simply isn't a reality he wants to live in, but he understands there was—is—a reason he died. and from the countless times yoongi has read that fragile letter, he knows better than to disregard that reason. abraxas is gone. the realm is sealed.

taehyung died so no one else has to.

"and he saved us," mrs. kim finally says, locks of graying hair tumbling from her bun. she turns to stare at jimin and jae with an understanding expression: a shared, private message between the three. "this country, this world, he saved them."

she fishes taehyung's note from her pocket and wipes her eye.

"so let's return the favor."

==

my name is box and i dONT KNOW HOW TO WRITE RESOLUTION BUILDUPS what is this blasphemy
anyway yea um. i hate how this is written but im Way too far gone to fix anything so we're gonna just have to deal w it 
adiós kids!! i just ate like 5 oranges