Beyond Repair (Min Yoongi)

51. To Save A Life

"What do you mean?" Seokjin asked.

Hoseok shrugged. "I just...after everything, I couldn't not believe there was something out there making everything happen. People don't just become evil on their own; there have to be opposing forces driving humanity, a good force and an evil force. I couldn't understand why the good force—God, I guess—would let that happen to Yoongi while Daejung was alive and well. And I just thought, 'if God won't do anything about it, then it's up to me because this whole thing was my fault, in the first place,' you know? It...it sounds stupid to say it out loud, but that's why I did it. Or, why I was going to do it, anyway."

Seokjin shook his head. "It wasn't your fault, but it doesn't sound stupid, either," he said, and it was the truth. Seokjin had had all-too-similar thoughts more times than he could count, over the past couple of weeks, whenever he let himself think about what had happened. He was just having immense difficulty believing that Hoseok—one of the sweetest, most even-tempered, least-violent people he knew—could be driven to manslaughter.

"Okay, why are you so calm about this?" Hoseok asked. In one fluid motion, he stood up and began to pace around the room, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "I don't know what kind of reaction I was expecting, but this...this apathy isn't it. I almost killed a man, Jin! You should be scared of me! Or at the very least, disgusted! I came this close," he whirled around and held up his thumb and forefinger so Seokjin could see that they were less than a millimetre from touching, "to murdering someone in cold blood."

"I'm not apathetic," Seokjin defended. "I'm not completely calm, either. But I know you, Hoseokie. I know your heart and mind, maybe better than you know yourself, at this point. And I understand your reasoning. Honestly, I can't say the urge hasn't crossed my mind, too."

Hoseok stopped in his tracks, almost tripping over the coffee table as he whirled around to look Seokjin in the eyes as if searching for any hint that he was lying. "You...you...what?"

"What, you don't think I've thought about killing him?" Seokjin's words came out a mile a minute. He heard his volume rising but he couldn't care; he was beginning to lose control of his temper.

"I-I didn't think you would...I mean, I thought Yoongi and I were the only ones who..." Hoseok stammered.

"You forget, Hoseok," Seokjin interrupted, "that I was the first one into that building when we went to save Yoongi and Jimin. I was the one who cut Yoongi free. I had to pull him away from that man and feel him shaking—he was trembling so badly when I put his clothes back on, it was like he didn't even know the torture had stopped. I had to pick him up and let him bleed all over me because he couldn't stand on his own. I had to hear every sob and gasp because he was in so much pain, he couldn't even properly scream anymore—and don't think I didn't see Jimin, too, tied up and screaming with a voice he didn't have while he had to watch that man literally torturing Yoongi to death. And when Daejung pulled out that gun, I was the one who wasn't holding Yoongi tight enough. I was the one who couldn't pull him back in time to stop him from taking that bullet. That's on me. Do I blame myself for that? Yes. Absolutely. But I blame Daejung more. That man hurt my—my—he hurt my family."

Seokjin's voice cracked when he finally found the right word to describe what the rest of Bangtan were to him. He didn't know whether it was out of anger or sadness or the fear that still lingered weeks after the incident, but then again, it didn't really matter. In such an emotionally charged moment as this, his voice was bound to break at some point. He sucked in a deep lungful of air, panting slightly from the amount of yelling he'd done in just a few short breaths.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped no one aside from Hoseok and Taehyung had heard him (he'd have preferred to discuss this with the group as a whole, tomorrow, when he would have more self-control and therefore be less likely to let his emotions get the better of him like this, probably frightening Yoongi in the process). But a larger part of him didn't care.