It was like experiencing the peak agony of a dizzy spell while still only half-conscious. The splitting, almost nauseating sensation that shot through his head as though it had been slammed against the concrete, the pain from which spread through to the back of his neck and stiffened it.

He was conscious now. It took a moment to realize it, but the muffled voices helped to knock it into his mind like a hammer on nails.

Slowly, fighting the urge to just keep them closed, Taehyung pried his eyelids apart to welcome light.

He was lying on his side on the floor. A cold, hard floor that straightaway made him miss his carpet at home - rather, made him realize he wasn't at home. No, wherever "here" was had had its carpet or floor tiles stripped bare, leaving an empty space chilling to the touch.

The next thing Taehyung registered was that his hands and ankles were bound together. So securely that he couldn't move them apart even a mere half-centimeter.

Taehyung had never considered himself claustrophobic in any mild form of the definition. But this. This feeling of being trapped, suffocated, unable to move.

This felt awful. For so many reasons.

His vision still somewhat unclear, Taehyung blinked as he struggled to at least sit himself upright. It wasn't the easiest task. His whole body ached, he wanted to cry out in pain but managed to refrain from doing so. After some time he succeeded. His back against whatever solid wall or wall-like structure was behind him, Taehyung had himself in a sitting position, legs out in front of him.

It was seconds later his vision finally cleared. He could see who those unfamiliar voices belonged to - a small group of men stood afar off, one staring at his phone while the other two talked with one another. The large room was just about barren save several pieces of old-looking furniture scattered here and there, including an arm chair beside which stood a fourth male.

"Seok...jin.."

The name dropped from Taehyung's mouth like a chunk of lead sliding off his tongue, leaving behind a bitter, repulsive taste that made Tae wish he could have swallowed a bar of soap just then.

"Oh, the kid's awake." One of the three men in the group tapped the one holding the phone. "Call Yojun."

"No need, I'm right here."

Taehyung offered no more than a glance towards the older man now entering the room from somewhere else. The vast majority of his focus had been trained on Seokjin and Seokjin only. Their eyes had met for a mere second. And in that second, Taehyung felt every ounce of trust he had built up for that boy blown back in his face in the form of dust.

He didn't want to move his vengeful gaze from Jin's face, but out of the corner of his eye Taehyung saw something.

Someone, rather.

Jungkook. Against another wall of the large room, lying on his side just as Taehyung had been, hands and ankles tied securely. From the looks of it he was still unconscious.

The sight of him. Just the sight of him there, too far away from Taehyung than he believed the boy ever should be. Unarmed. Helpless. The bruises on his face had just been starting to go away. If he were to be harmed again, even touched again by someone, it wouldn't end well. Not in Taehyung's mind and heart, at least.

Just the sight of Jungkook lying there...

Tae's heart pounded against his chest and soon became the only thing he could hear. His eyes froze open in denial as the boy's name fell from his lips. He didn't move.

But then, all at once that burst of rage struck him. Connecting the dots that these people in this room were the ones who had hurt Jungkook so badly before, who had left him bleeding and alone in that alleyway. These were most likely the same people who had nearly killed him years ago, the same people who Jimin had been running from for far too long.

The same people.

And now they were taking a step even further than Taehyung could ever tolerate, putting Jungkook in danger.

"You heartless bastards..."

His voice felt hoarse crawling up his throat. Entering the air so sourly, being carried to the ears of whoever could hear him - including Seokjin, who kept his head facing down.

"Seokjin!!"

Yelling hurt. But that didn't cause his determination to falter. However he did get choked up a bit and felt the need to spit at the ground.

"Seokjin, you filthy traitor, look at me!!"

"You're going to waste all your strength doing that, kid," one of the men said. Taehyung paid him little mind.

"Won't even look at me, huh??" He spit at the ground again, this time in Jin's direction but it didn't reach him. "This is what you had in mind from the start, right?? Leading us on..."

Guilt. He could see the guilt on Seokjin's face, but the boy said nothing.

"Look at me!!" Furiously, Taehyung slammed his fists against the floor. The other men only seemed amused by him, but again, Taehyung ignored them. "Seokjin, you disgusting prick, you made us trust you. But it was my mistake...I should have known better than to trust you! Forget music, you should have become an actor, you little—"

"Alright, shut up, will you?" The one Taehyung gathered was Yojun spoke up this time. "Getting on my nerves."

"Yeah, tough." Taehyung spit in his direction. He didn't care about any one of them but Jin right now. "If you didn't want me to talk you would have duct-taped my mouth. Seok-...jin..."

His attempt at another outburst was silenced by the crack of his voice. He could feel tears threatening to surface, mixed emotions all enveloped by fear on the verge of billowing up inside of him and making their escape. But he couldn't cry. Not in front of these people.

Once again his eyes found their way to the boy on the other side of the room.

"Let Jungkook go...now..."

Regrettably, a hint of desperation bled through his facade of intimidation. Yojun took several steps closer to Taehyung, shaking his head.

"That wouldn't be the wisest thing for me to do, would it?" he said. "Seokjin said the boy is quite protective of you. Letting him go could potentially cause us a pretty problem."

"I'll..." Taehyung breathed heavily. "I'll...I'll cause you...a pretty problem..."

No reaction. No reply, no scoff, not even rolled eyes. Taehyung's empty threat didn't even get answered by its own echo, because it was just that - an empty threat.

And that realization hit hard. The realization that, even if he wanted to, Taehyung couldn't stand up to these people. His hands and ankles bound, even standing up without falling over seconds later would prove to be a strenuous task, let alone following through with his "threat."

This feeling of helplessness. Seeing Jungkook lying there, too far away to reach, still with his eyes closed.

It overwhelmed him.

Because he also realized something else. This here. This was exactly what he had spent so long fearing. His nightmares of being found, taken in, and now, to make things exponentially worse, they had also found the person Taehyung loved, the person he had finally learned he didn't want to live without.

"Please..."

The shaky whisper left him without his permission. Faintly, he saw Jungkook's eyes begin to open.

"Don't touch him...don't you dare touch Jungkook..."

"Jin."

Seokjin tensed at his father's mention of his name. He finally lifted his head. Having his face in full view made Taehyung feel sick to his stomach.

"Here."

Brushing aside his coat, Yojun soon took out from a holster on his belt a gun. Just a small one, but a gun was a gun. Seeing the weapon alone made Taehyung's chest compress.

So naturally, watching as Yojun handed the gun over to his son and gestured at Jungkook, Taehyung lost every last sliver of sanity and composure he had left in him.

He couldn't speak right away. Voice lodged in his sore throat, he gasped for the shallowest breaths of air as his trembling eyes followed Seokjin's steps over to a horribly confused Jungkook.

"T-Taehyung??"

The gun was pointed directly at Jungkook's head.

And the tears flooded to Taehyung's eyes.

"We have your phone," Yojun said, scarcely managing to break through the inner screams of terror inside Taehyung's head. "If you bring the blue blood here, we'll spare the boy."

It was as though these words fully grounded the situation into Jungkook's head - no ounce of sleepiness from whatever he had been drugged with still present, he was fully awake now. And Yojun's threat wasn't something he couldn't follow through with. If Taehyung refused, it was as easy as giving Seokjin the signal to fire the gun.

On the inside, Jungkook was terrified. To say the very least. Understanding he had been fooled, that he had made the mistake of trusting Seokjin just as much as Taehyung did - it burned his heart, but rather than with rage, Jungkook could only focus on dread. Dreading what might happen to Taehyung, terrified that the boy would give in to his own fear of something happening to Jungkook, that he would agree to Yojun's condition and suffer the regret of doing so later on.

"Taehyung...Taehyung, don't!" He felt breathless after three words. Jungkook didn't even have the strength to struggle against whatever his limbs had been bound with. Yet he cried out anyway. "Don't do what he says!"

They locked eyes. Taehyung's jaw fell open gradually and shook as he hopelessly floundered for words to say. His attention was grabbed forcibly by Seokjin's father.

"He's blubbering like a fish. Forget this. Give me the boy's phone."

Without shifting the gun away even an inch from Jungkook, Seokjin reached into his pocket and pulled out Taehyung's phone, soon to hand it over to Yojun, who inspected it for a moment before nodding.

"So you've got one of those face-recognition phones, huh?"

He made his way over to Taehyung and without hesitation gripped the boy's jaw with his large hand to hold it in place as he held the device up to its owner. Sadly, even with the muscles of Taehyung's face scrunched up from crying, after a few tries, the phone recognized him, and Yojun was soon making his way across the room again.

Taehyung could see him scrolling through it now. He couldn't tell if his own heart was beating anymore.

"Please..."

Desperation out in the open, Taehyung found the energy to scream again.

"Leave Jimin and Jungkook ALONE!! JUST TAKE ME, PLEASE!!!"

If his throat hadn't already been bleeding, he swore it was now. It certainly felt that way. Even still, with all that he cried out, all that he begged and pleaded to be heard, he was ignored. Yojun still scrolled through his phone, and it wasn't much later that the man seemed to have found what he was looking for.

In absolute horror Taehyung watched Yojun raise the phone to his ear.

"...yes, Jimin? It's Kim Yojun. I'm glad you picked up."

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end of chapter thirty-four.