Stigma Love's Algorithm [ A BTS x Reader Poly ]

Chapter 111: Before the Break Becomes A Ruin

I couldn't breathe.

Everything was too loud-the echo of words we hadn't meant, the aftermath of truths we couldn't take back.

My chest heaved like I was trying to claw air into lungs that no longer believed in breath. I couldn't see properly through the blur of tears, but I could feel the weight of every soul in the room.

Hunched in pain. Shattered in grief.
Our bond frayed and bleeding.

It wasn't just Y/N and Joon anymore.

It was all of us.
Cracked. Reeling. Scared.

The hallway was empty now, save for the sound of Tannie scratching behind Joon's closed door like he could sense the devastation inside.

Like he couldn't understand why one of his favorite human had vanished behind silence.

Taehyung staring at the stairwell where Y/N had disappeared, his mouth set but eyes screaming and full of tears.

I was still standing.
Somehow.
But barely.

All of them-my soulmates, my family-were scattered across the living room like the remnants of a storm.

Every face wet with tears.
Every heart open and raw.

My chest ached so badly it felt like I was breaking in two.

And the worst part?

It wasn't the argument. It wasn't even Joon and Y/N disappearing into their rooms, shutting out the world, shutting out us.

It was the way everyone else looked at me.

Like they were trying not to fall apart for my sake.

Like they knew.

Like they finally understood what it meant to carry someone else's fear like your own.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice barely holding. "I'm-God, I'm so sorry."

Yoongi was the first to move.

Quiet but sure, his hand closed over mine as I stood in the middle of the room like a man lost in battle, blood on my hands and no idea whose it was anymore.

"Hyung," he said, steady, his voice like a low mountain keeping the sky from falling.

"Stop. Come back to us."

I looked down at our hands. His fingers warm and anchoring. Mine trembling.

I tried to speak again, but the words lodged like glass in my throat.

He grabbed my shoulders, grounding me.

"Jin hyung," he said low, "breathe."

"I can't," I choked.

"This-this is my fault. I brought this fear into our home. My father. My fucking name. If I wasn't-"

"Don't," he snapped. And when I looked into his eyes, they weren't angry.

They were begging. "Don't you dare go there."

"But it's true-"

"It's not." Taehyung stepped in then, his lips trembling, eyes rimmed red.

"Hyung... please."

His voice cracked, and it gutted me.

"Don't say it like that. Don't make this your cross to bear alone."

I looked at them, at all of them-huddled and crying, still trembling from the fallout of what had just happened-and all I wanted was to make it stop.

To go back.
To fix it.