Colder Than Winter [BTS | Drama | Romance]

40. Let Go

Sitting in the lobby of a police station gave feelings of deja vu. Except this time Hoseok was with me. His uncle and dad were in the latter's office talking after a small ordeal between Hoseok and his dad. The policeman was adamant about getting me to file an official report on everything I had experienced and seen. However, Hoseok was completely against it. He knew that telling them too much could put me in more danger from the mob. The two almost made a scene of the argument which brings us to our current split.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, eyeing the bruise on my cheek with concern.

"Tired." Tired of so many bad things happening. "Right now, I'm just nervous about my parents finding out. There's no way my dad will let me out now."

Hoseok chuckled, "he can be a bit over protective sometimes."

"He's not the only one," I nudged his arm. He gave a sad smile and patted my head. I pouted, "why are you treating me like a kid suddenly?

He was deep in thought for a moment until he said, "one of us almost died today because of me." I clicked my tongue and grabbed his hand from my head.

"Don't talk like that! There's no point to it! In fact let's not even think about it." I quickly thought up another topic. The strange class period today came to mind. I considered telling him about it until I remembered that the substitute was the under cover mob who abducted me. The other happenings of the day played n my head. I gasped at my huge discoveries of the day. "I found out that Jimin's not as kind as I thought he was!"

I stared at my friend with huge eyes of revelation. But he only looked at me incredulously. "So you finally found out?"

My jaw dropped, "what do you mean?! Did you know already?"

"I suspected it since I transferred in last year," he said nonchalantly. I was speechless. "The weekend at the spa just confirmed my thoughts about him."

"Why? Did he do something slimy? Was it on the hike when we split up?"

Hoseok hesitated. "Before that, in the springs. He just talked about a good person in a tasteless way. But I didn't know how truly evil he was until that night at the warehouse." I listened intently as he explained what had happened from his perspective. How it was even a surprise to him that Jimin was hired to report information about Jin to the mob. And how he had zero shame in doing so.

I thought back to Jin's strange behavior that night and Yoongi's on point prediction about Jimin that same night.

Hoseok didn't hold anything back, including how he was a part of the plan and how he was tasked with beating Seokjin to get his father to provide their ransom. Yet another fact Yoongi pointed out that I refused to acknowledge. "Now it makes sense, why Jin couldn't talk about Jimin that night. Why you and he were avoiding one another. I was completely clueless! Yoongi wasn't even there and he knew. Why couldn't I see it?"

"Yoongi knew?" He asked, focused. I nodded and summarized the argument we had that night. "And you never considered he was right?"

"I..." Words escaped me but the truth was clear. "Maybe deep down somewhere, everything he said made sense." I admitted shamefully. "But you ghosted me, then showed up again without explanation, then disappeared again to where you could've died, then I watch you return home unsure if I'd see you again. After all that I didn't want to be mad at you anymore or believe that you had anything to do with what happened that night! I just wanted you to come back and stay safe! I wanted to have a friend at school again, which Jin was until even he left," my voice broke and I dropped my head in my hands, sobbing.

This was what I was supposed to tell Yoongi today when I planned to apologize. In some ways I'm glad I didn't have the chance. I don't know what I'd do if I broke down crying like this in front of him.