Triggers: Brief sexual assault mentions, childhood trauma.

Song recommendation:

Papaoutai -Stromae

Or

Elastic Heart - Sia

Or

Make It Rain - Ed Sheeran

Jimin's nervous.

Far from nervous really - He's terrified.

No matter how strong he tried to force his mind to be, holding up his end and not show a glimmer of nerves by gripping his hands tightly on his lap or grinding his teeth against one another to stop them from chattering - that didn't change anything to how he felt inside.

He couldn't stop feeling scared.

But he needs this.

He needs to do this, not only to not carry the heavy burden on his shoulders anymore, but for his mental and emotional progress.

Lately while Jimin's been in therapy his psychologist advised him that he must try to understand the root of his trauma that's preventing him from being happy. That's preventing him from being able to walk outside more casually or even talk to other people outside his comfort circle.

Sure, it's been eight months since of Jimin's freedom from his past, but it's still laced inside him.

And he can't escape it so easily; if anything it terrified him more to face it now.

Alone.

So he came to the root after more thinking and talking with both Jungkook and his psychologist, even his mother about it, ending up here - This prison.

Where he'll be meeting his father any minute from now.

No matter how much Jimin has tried and tried to hate and despise his father for all that he made him go through, Jimin can't seem to find a way to do that. Maybe it's because of his faithful and believing heart that God loves of all his children in this world, no matter who they are, and made them perfect in their imagine and not monsters. Or it's that parental attachment he has with his father.

He spent every single awaking day with his father, since the second he was been born to this moment when he went behind bars. In some way, he still feels connected to him, even if he didn't want to.

Whatever it was, this was the only door for Jimin to cross over in order for him to have peace.

To gain closure.

Just anything at this point because Jimin doesn't want to think his father was just born as a monster.

And Jimin has tried.

He would ask his mother to tell him more about his father, just to gain some sort of understanding or root to why he's like this. His mother never told him anything, only said that he's just as broken as everyone else.

So that's how Jimin ended up here, sitting on this painful metal chair with a leg bouncing in anxiety as he glares at the glass barrier between him and the other side, waiting.

Well, not for long.

The metal door to the other side abruptly stutters open, forcing Jimin's heart to drop and nearly stop in his stomach by how uneased and sick he felt the second his gaze settled on the man with familiar features as his own.

His father.

There and alive and present before his eyes.

But... Different.

For the first time since he's seen his father, the man is calm.

So.... Calm.

Not angry, tense, close to an explosion in his head like a ticking bomb.

He's calm.

Jimin shivers in unease, especially when their eyes met for the first time.

For just a single second, a single split second, Jimin could've sworn an emotion twitched his father's face. Something, anything, but it was too quickly masked to reveal any sentimentality.

Or maybe he wanted to believe that himself.

Jimin tried not to let it get to him, only keeps his head high while he leans back against the chair, watching his father dressed in a dark blue prison uniform with hand cuffs - That was soon removed when he sat down.

Face to face, silent, and they didn't move.

Jimin doesn't know if he was too scared to speak against the small mic in front of him, or the fact that a red light beamed up from the connector to it to show that the conversation is being recorded.

Everything scared him these days.

That anyone is obvious to.

His father never spoke though, not until Jimin did first.

And that he did, after gathering a small bit of courage to lean forward, resting his arms on the small table, "I.... Um... How's it been like... Here?"

Stupid question to ask, by far so stupid.

Mr. Park didn't twitch an emotion, and it's crazy how he didn't have to be strangling him physically for Jimin to feel suffocated by his gaze alone.

After a long pause, Mr. Park also leans forward, "Depends. Would it satisfy you to think I am suffering? Or would it satisfy you to think I feel more alive?"

His voice.

His voice is still the same.

Jimin flinches to the condescending tone, chewing the inside of his mouth, "I-I would like to think you r-regret what you did to me.... And those people."

Mr. Park just barely blinks at him, crackling a small side smile, "Regret? Wow.... That's a strong emotion you expect out of someone who doesn't feel."

"Yes you do feel," Jimin tries to convince either him or himself, fighting desperately to gain some sort of control here, "W-When you stabbed me.... You were scared, weren't you?"

Mr. Park's smile drops, this dead gaze still filling his eyes, "You got in the way."

"And that scared you because you thought you killed me."

"Why would I feel scared?"

"Because I am your son," Jimin almost desperately tried to look for some sort of emotional bond behind his father, but didn't see any there, "Does that mean anything to you?"

There's moment where Mr. Park remained silent, staring at his child with that blank expression. Jimin kept studying him, trying to search for something behind those emotionless eyes but it almost petrified him when there wasn't anything to find or see.

No humanity inside him, not even a glimpse of empathy.

With lips wobbling a little, Jimin tried not to cry, "W-What happened to you?"

Mr. Park's eye twitching slightly and forcefully sneering his eyes away from Jimin.

Toughening that wall between them.

But Jimin didn't want that.

He couldn't bear thinking about leaving this damn place with nothing!

He need something!

He deserves it!

Jimin tries so hard not to cry before angrily snapping his head up to the man after glaring at his own hands, feeling like a ticking bomb, "Can you FOR ONCE ACT LIKE A FATHER TO ME!"

Mr. Park didn't react, even after Jimin shoots up from his chair - forcing a shrill squeak out of it - and slams his hands to the table, "ANSWER ME! WHY DID YOU HATE ME SO DAMN MUCH?!"

That small string attached to his sanity chipped away, and Jimin found himself unable to stop.

"YOUR HURT ME!" He screamed, his voice cracking with this powerful bellow out "YOU LET THEM TOUCH ME! ABUSE MY BODY! MANIPULATE THE WORD OF GOD TO SOME CULT TO JUSTIFY YOUR ACTIONS - WHY! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME! I'M YOUR SON! I-I'M your.... Son."

Jimin lost his grip, unable to stop himself from wheezing to the painful memories no matter how strong he wanted to be in this moment. His chest burned, just like his eyes. This suffocation of bubbled up emotions piled up in this unbearable pain of agony that Jimin just felt as though he was going to fucking explode!

He can't even cry by how angry and desperate he was for his father.

To for once be a father.

"I needed you," Jimin croaks, eyes on the table with his fingers engraved deeply through his hair with his vision blurred as tears tapped the surface of the table, "I-I needed you to teach me how to be a man. I needed you to teach me how to shave. How to defend myself. How to... Be a father in the future. I-I needed you to love me.... I needed m-my dad.... I needed you. And the worse part is.... I still do!"

And shakily, Jimin raised his gaze up, still seeing that blank look from his father gazing at his son, "But you never wanted me.... You can't love me in that way that I wanted you to. And.... It's not your fault."

Now this....

That right there provoked a reaction.

Jimin could see the way the corner of his father's lips twitched lower. It was such a small reaction, barely a small gesture, but it was there.

He's getting somewhere.

Somewhere close to the core.

Mr. Park rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, brushing the frown away, "You sound so pathetic. Did you forget what I did to you-"

"I. Never. Forget," Jimin cuts through his teeth, his mind growing wild with the memories of the torture he went through, "But I don't want to give in to the idea of thinking you are a heartless monster."

"Maybe I am," And this time Mr. Park perks a wicked smirk, "What are you going to do about it? I'm already in prison."

"I want to understand you."

Now Mr. Park laughs.

He laughs real hard.

His eyes are even glittering to it, and this is the first time Jimin's ever seeing it like this.

He furrows his eyebrows in caution.

His father sighs after his good laugh, shaking his head, "You have some nerve coming here, asking to understand me. What's there to understand? Big bad pastor leader is in prison for hurting his son and other people. Now that I'm here, you want to understand me? Like I said, pathetic."

Jimin now began to doubt himself.

He's not wrong. If Jimin wanted to understand him, he would've tried to a long time ago. Asked for more about him or try to get through him before.

Yeah, maybe he didn't want to understand him.

He wants his closure.

He wants his father's reasoning.

His apology.

That Jimin knows he's not going to get out of him today, or anytime soon.

So Jimin grimaces, sitting back down slowly to the chair, crossing his arms before thinking of something to say.

And going for the main curiosity that was circulating his head for months now.

"What happened to my grandparents?"

That was a nerve being struck.

A very delicate nerve.

Mr. Park frowns almost instantly, his eyes now becoming icy while he sits up right on the chair, keeping his expression numb but the edges are already cracking, "The Lord took them, it was their time."

"Was it?" Jimin asks, trying to read him well, "Did you have to see them die?"

Mr. Park shuffles on the chair, looking anywhere but Jimin's eyes with this lost gaze, "They're with the Lord now, there's nothing more-"

"How old were you? Sixteen? Seventeen-" Mr. Park glowers to him, giving Jimin an indirect answer, "Seventeen. How did they die? Hm? Were they like you? Killed people for the sake of the church-"

Angrily Mr. Park slams his hand against the metal table, startling Jimin with the sudden explosive reaction, "Don't you dare say that about my parents!"

So he does have a weakness.

His parents.

Jimin's curiosity raised, "So they were killed..... Did you kill them?"

"I'm not answering to you."

"It wasn't you," Jimin whispers to himself, noticing the defense edges rising in his father's tone and features, "You weren't just born like this. No person is born as a monster. You're sensitive about them so that must mean you loved them very much-"

"Shut up."

"But if you killed them then you would've said you sent them to the Lord. So who killed them?" Jimin is now quietly rambling to himself, thinking so hard about this.

But it doesn't make sense, why would his parents be killed?

Is it connected to his attitude now? Would it be just an accident that happened? Or the root of it-

Roots.

Roots....

But Jimin doesn't know his father's roots.

What he does know is that his father is a maniac in relations to a corrupt religious cult, disguised as Christianity with their own rituals to disguise their actions as saving rather than destroying.

All these followers didn't come from anywhere, and he couldn't have built this on his own.

Or did he?

But then how does his mother come into the picture of this? She was arranged to be married to him and-

Jimin eyes suddenly widened, lips ajar as he now looks at his father.

No.... No....

Mr. Park looks extremely uncomfortable by Jimin's sudden reaction, especially when Jimin points to himself with a quivering hand.

Hoping to God that he isn't right.

"Me.... Y-You were like me... Weren't you?" He whispers, "A pastor hurt.... You, but you were never saved."

His father didn't say anything at first, but after a while he shakes his head and tears his eyes away from him again to his lap, "He molded me to take care of our people-"

"Oh God."

"And to put the church above all else. Don't you dare disrespect his name!"

Jimin is leaning back to his chair, eyes once again burning in tears with a hand on his lips in shock.

He was like Jimin....

He was always like Jimin.... But more buried in manipulation and the depths of it's torture to find a way out of it. Too deep to know between good or evil, since he wasn't guided to know the difference. If Jimin was the way he was with those three days of that torture, being a robotic and emotionless soul once he was let out, who knows what would've happened if Jungkook wasn't there to snap him out of him.

But no one did for his father.

And he believed it.

Just like Jimin did too before he was awakened.

"Don't look at me like that," Mr. Park growls, evidently trying to regain control of this situation, "You were the sinner who disobeyed-"

"For how long?"

Mr. Park stops, just as a tear streamed down Jimin's cheek in horror.

What they did must've been so bad to the point he actually believed he was doing good for himself, that means a long continuation of this molding and pain from a young age for him to not know.

There's this battle in his father's eyes that Jimin can clearly see, and it burned his heart that this - how Jimin's feeling now - is probably how Jungkook felt while he was trying to break through Jimin's mind manipulation.

So scared and hurt, not for himself but for Jimin that he may never be the same again.

Who was his father before this?

Did he even develop to form his own person?

Is there's even anything left of that person?

Mr. Park purses his lips, snagging those emotions from behind his eyes aside to show his stern glare, "I discovered the way to the Lord at seven. I was poisoned by demons in my head, so they had to cure me."

Demons in his head.

That sounds familiar...

Voices?

Curing?

Psychosis?

Jimin blinks, letting it weigh in his chest that his father was only seven years old when he was first introduced to all of this and with possible psychosis.

And Jimin knows very well how they treat those with mental illnesses in that religious cult like environment he was raised in.

That burning pain in his chest ached even more, visualizing a little boy entering through those gates without knowing what he got himself into.

An innocent boy.

Who was taught nothing but to hurt and accept hurt.

Who wasn't given the proper treatment and grew worse and worse with his condition within time.

He was just a child...

But Jimin wouldn't stop digging in, "T-They hurt you.... Didn't they?"

Mr. Park's eyes are glittering again and Jimin slowly began to realize why his eyes would flash in those gazes of glittering light.

He's trying not to let his tears out.

Oh God, what did they do to him?

Anxiously his father looks around the room, shaking his head, "No. What they did was save me and cure me and purify me so I will not be tempted in the future- I was good. I was cured."

He's looking around the same way Jimin did when Jungkook was breaking through him - gazing his surroundings in paranoia.

To see if they're watching him.

They watched him too.

They as in.... Everyone.

Whoever he was terrified of.

Jimin couldn't help but assure out, "No one can get to you here."

"You don't fucking understand-"

"I do."

"They're telling me I'm okay! That the Lord won't take you and Yongsun away too and that- Shut up! SHUT UP!"

Mr. Park grips his hair, roughly, breathing so heavily in insanity with a shakily smile, "They're coming back again. I didn't say anything. I'm still good. I did what I was taught, now they can't get to me. I passed. I'm still good."

He's pleading, but not to Jimin.

To.... The voices.

To whoever he's fighting against.

He's in complete hysteria.

A hesitating frown twitches Jimin's lips, "Did.... Did they drown you?"

"Don't. Stay out of this!"

"Brand you? Like how you told me they did to the elders?"

"Jimin-"

"It was the pastor, right?" Jimin slowly puts the pieces together, feeling his heart pound harder against his chest, "He ruined you.... He took advantage of your condition and your innocence, molding it to his perfection."

"I'm warning you-"

"They touched you, and you were so young and didn't know," Jimin was scared to know the answer to the question that came out of his lips after, "Did the pastor rape-"

"SHUT UP!" Mr. Park is too his feet now, slamming his fits against the glass with eyes burning red from the tears gliding down his cheeks, raging, "THEY CURED ME! THE LORD SHOWED ME TO THE LIGHT! I MUST DO RIGHT BY THE CHURCH AND ONLY THE CHURCH!"

Jimin couldn't suppress this burning pain to this realization; this horrid and traumatizing realization.

For the first time ever seeing his father fragile.

No matter how much he screamed, devoted his words to make sense of what has been done to him, or show how righteous it was, he has never appeared more fragile.

And Jimin saw right through him.

Maybe he knew subconsciously that what he went through isn't justifiable, and that it's unfair.

But he refused to accept it.

Or maybe he genuine believes in this.

But for whatever reason Mr. Park couldn't handle it. He snaps his head to his guard by the door, wrists pressed together, "Get me out of here."

Now Jimin panicked, standing up to his feet, "Can you please just talk to me! Please! The more you bury it inside you, you're never going to escape it!"

His father didn't look at him, too shaken up while the guard cuffs his wrists and guides him away to the door.

Jimin broke apart, "D-Dad!"

Mr. Park froze by the door, but didn't turn around.

If he did, Jimin would see the shakily way his lips wobbled as he desperately tried to push the voices back.

The paranoia away.

The memories away.

To not think of Jimin as that little baby he held in his arms eighteen years ago.

He wouldn't handle it.

Jimin pressed a hand to the glass dividing them, almost pleadingly, "P-Please.... I don't want to give up on you," He whimpers, his fingers curling against the glass, "If you just talk to me, w-we can figure something out for you to get the proper help and I..... I'll forgive you! We can figure out a way where you can leave early if you comply and get treatment-"

"Jimin," Mr. Park's voice is rough, just barely turning his head aside, not demonstrating to Jimin the tear that glided down his cheek, "Don't.... Just don't."

Tears streams down Jimin's blotchy cheeks, not knowing what to fucking do anymore but bow his head down, weeping quietly, "W-What you did is unjustifiable, I know that but.... I-I just wanted your love..... That's all I wanted."

Mr. Park was quiet for a second before turning his head back to face ahead, "I have never felt more free until I got here..... And you did that to me. You.... Saved me from myself. Can you live with that?"

The words didn't process Jimin's head as quick as expected, especially since it just... Sounded as though the words was a secret.

Something forbidden that he mustn't say and is breaking the rule to do it.

But why.... Why does it feel this way?

What did they fill in his head?

Jimin's voice staggers and Mr. Park cranes his head to the side, for one last time meeting Jimin's gaze.

And it was as though Jimin felt like he could breathe, after so long of drowning.

His father is not angry.

Tense.

Relaxed nor upset.

No.... He's different.

He's trying not to cry.

He's trying not to be weak.

But for that single moment they shared be someone Jimin wanted him to be.

His father.

All Jimin ever wanted.

Jimin's hand on the glass tightens to a fist, using his other hand to wipe the tears away but unable to say anything back to him. He couldn't. He was too overwhelmed with this new information from his father and the fact that.... He still cares for this man.

How desperately Jimin wanted his father.

Needed his father.

But him as a father.

The man he let Jimin take a glimpse of that was still in there, buried deep down inside. He let him see the fragile boy that was taken advantage, the teenager in hysteria about his identity between right and wrong, the man who adored his family before he changed into this emotionless monster.

A spam of seconds, letting Jimin see the layers that his father didn't know still existed.

Before  Jimin could even muster what to say back, the guard took him away, closing the door shut behind them.

Letting it be the last time Jimin would ever see his father again.

_______________________

A/N:

I believe this was a moment I should've added earlier along with the story but it's never too late to write it now.

All I can say for this scene, be sensible for Jimin's emotions. I know many of you are pro hating Mr. Park for what he's done, and rightfully so, but look more towards Jimin's emotions through this scene and his desperation for love and comfort from his father.

Easier said than done for a child to hate their parents, but there will always be this line of connection - no matter how much we hate it or choose to ignore it.  Jimin can't just hate his father so easily for what he's done, or even wish for his death, and I wanted to show that with this scene and in connections to Jimin's forgiving and empathetic nature.

Alrighty, last bonus update! I hope you all are doing well!

I PURPLE YOU! <33