Heal me // A Jikook Trilogy //

《19》Solution: Alkohol

"You sure you're okay?"

I nodded at Jimin who shot me a worried look, then sighed.

"You were up all night looking for those missing women again, weren't you?"

There was no point denying it.
Jimin knew me.
Knew why I had to do it too.

Why I sat down in the Black Swan for hours on end, following evidence that led me nowhere. And yet I couldn't stop.
The photos of the woman killed and hurt was truly gruesome, loathsome, utterly inhumane.

But there were those cases that were unsolved.
Girls younger than me who went missing under questioning circumstances and in the time-frame of the other crimes done to women with similar occupations.
Girls who were used.
Girls who were forgotten by the world.
Who no one looked for.
No one cared for.

I was once one of them.
A nothing.
A young boy with no family, no one who cared or would have looked for me had I died under that bridge when I was only fourteen.

Jimin only shot me a long, knowing look and then pulled me towards him in a tight hug.

I knew he meant for it to sooth me.
To comfort me.
And once, a hug from Jimin could take away all my problems for a moment.
Since a few months though... I could no longer fight it.
No longer relax in his arms or fail to realize how it affected me.

How he felt in my arms.
The small body with so much hidden strength in it.
The curving of his spine since he had to raise to his tiptoes to get his hands around my neck.
The way his white-silver hair tickled my cheeks.
His smell, so soft and yet so heavy with all those exotic, multilayered nuances I hadn't been able to name all.

A hunch of sandalwood.
A trace of Jasmin and a faint hint of vanilla, mixed with a minty after-smell and the heavier nuance of smoke.

But it would probably take me a lifetime to identify all the others.

Jimin pulled away quickly, but the smell stayed with me, almost like a phantom scent, clinging to my skin even though his hadn't even touched mine.

"Thanks," I murmured quickly and turned to continue walking across the street toward the two schools.

Shit... I was so loosing control. Even the smallest touches had me burn up with heat and want these days, thoughts upon thoughts of what I really wanted to do with Jimin shooting unbiddenly into my head.
It was torture.

Jimin is pain.

I bit the inside of my cheeks hard to make the voices go silent.
I still heard them, sometimes in distorted, demonic voices, sometimes in Suho's, as clear as day.
Only from the corner of my eyes did I notice Tae's worried glance between me an Jimin, and I even felt Jin's heavy sigh without seeing it before he drove off.

My stomach dropped as it did every time we came to the crossing.
The left path led to the school Taehyung and I went to, and the other...

Namjoon had kept the deal with Suho for all those three years.

Three years of having to watch Jimin enter that school.
And now, it was not only Kai and Sehun in the same classroom as Jimin, but Chanyeol and Baekhyun too. Chen had graduated last year, where else the two crackheads had, in my opinion, purposely failed their classes and had to repeat the graduate class.
Or maybe it had been an order from Suho himself.

My only condolence was that they had indeed not touched Jimin once, and he came out of that building with a smile still on his lips every time.
And yet, even after three years, I hated to call a quick "Later" to him, forced to watch him walk away, sultry as always, making the cracked pavement his runaway and only lifting his hand to wave us goodbye without turning.

Tae and I took our time heading to class, even if we knew what was awaiting us in there.
Or rather who.
Tae seemed downright giddy with excitement, while I could not shake the bitter coating on my tongue.
I hated using people.
I hated getting Lian, even if she was a complete stranger, into a mess she did not want to be part of.

But I trusted Namjoon and he would never do anything that got her seriously hurt.

It felt like no time at all had passed before we stood in front of our classroom door and I went first, pushing it open and falling into my character.
Not much of it was a lie.
Nothing was a lie really.
Only another part of me I highlighted, showing the people only that which they already thought I was.
Trouble.