PITYING THE PRISONER | p.jm

f i f t e e n - c o r a

"What about her, though?" Rap Monster inquires.

"She, uh... I may not be the best at explaining this," Jimin manages. He looks to me and I sigh, not wanting to do this in the slightest. 

"I worked at The Company," I begin. "I was born there, and I only ever went outside of it for school. It was my whole life. My job was to break prisoners, do interrogations, all of that. I was assigned to work with Jimin. I ended up breaking him out."

"You were with those people? The ones that took him?" Suga practically growls.

"I—"

"She didn't know any better," Jimin says, standing up for me as he promised he would.

"What happened to you, Jimin?" V asks, seemingly more concerned with the well-being of his friend than my presence.

"Nothing too bad," he replies, taking the attention off me for a moment. I relish it while it lasts. "It could have been a lot worse."

"Yeah, but what happened?" Jungkook repeats.

"I don't know, I got beat up a couple of times, this kid slapped me six times, and I got waterboarded. That's about as bad as it got."

Glares of hostility are immediately shot my way as Jimin mentions me hitting him. I wish I could disappear.

"You hit him?" Jin asks me, calmly and evenly, unlike many of the others. I internally thank him for his calmness.

"I had to," I attempt, trying to make it seem less drastic than it is. "To keep the others from suspecting things."

"Explain," Jin says, still in that calm and even tone. I try to focus on only he and Jimin as I tell the whole story, start to finish. I don't leave out any of the details, not even the parts that make me look bad. I spill the whole truth honestly, not wanting to deceive Jimin's best friends. I'm not going to live another lie, no matter how it might affect me.

Jin nods understandingly, seeming to make sense of my actions. Jungkook's face is blank, as is V's, and the others seem to be at varying degrees of hostile. Suga seems completely irate, while J-Hope appears to be only a little pissed off.

Jimin squeezes my hand, proud of me for speaking out. "Look, guys, like it or not, Cora is going to live here for awhile. She has nowhere else to go, and I owe her."

"After everything she did to you?" Suga says.

"Yes, after everything she did to me," Jimin responds. "I care too much about her."

"Oh, great, so you love her, too. Just wonderful."

Suddenly, an epiphany strikes me, and I find the courage to speak. "Okay, I know that this is a huge surprise to you guys. You were expecting things to go back to normal, right? You were just going to get Jimin back and try to act like this never happened, and I get that. I would do the same thing if I were in your shoes. Unfortunately, I got factored into the equation, and now you don't know what to do. I'll try to stay out of the way, I really will. I'll get a job and get out of here as soon as I can support myself. Until then, I'm stuck here."

"I get that you guys might not like me," my eyes fall on Suga as I speak, "but you are going to have to put up with me for at least a little while. I'd really rather try to bury the hatchet— try to set things back to the way they were as much as I can. Here, stand up, all of you." I stand with the aid of my crutches as I speak, and I'm surprised to find that all seven of the boys are listening to me.

"Okay, now make a line. I'm just going to stand here. I'll be totally still; I won't do a thing. You guys do whatever you think will ease the tension. I don't care what it is, you can punch me square in the jaw and I'll put it behind me, as long as you're willing to put what I did behind you, too. Will that help?"