DIAMOND | KTH ✓

10. Diamond

"What happened, Jiyoung?" he asked again and the younger rolled his eyes.

"Just some assholes at school, nothing more."

"Why did they do that to you?"

"I dunno," he shrugged, and when Jungkook raised an eyebrow he repeated, "I really don't know, hyung. I don't know why they do this to me."

"Does your sister know?"

"I... don't think so."

That was when Jungkook stormed to her door, knocking on it and without waiting for her to reply, opened it.

"What are you doing!" Jiyoung ran after him and they were now both in Jiah's room, watching as she stared back at them in shock from bursting in.

"You're awake?" was the first thing she said to her brother, walking over to him, "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Yeah," he looked over at Jungkook annoyingly, "I'm going to sleep. Good night."

And before Jungkook could say anything further, he was out the door and in his room.

"Okay now please explain why you barged into my room like that?"

Of course the two of them, with living in the same apartment for the last three years meant that they had some ground rules. The most important being that if the door was shut, they must knock before opening.

"When was the last time you spoke to Jiyoung?"

"Just then. You were there."

"No I mean really spoke to him, Shadow, his back is riddled with scars, he's being bullied."

She winced, and although that was all she did, Jungkook knew her enough to be able to say this was a small but significant crack of the wall she had built around her heart.

Jiah knew it too.

If she wasn't careful this crack was going to cause the whole wall to fall, sharp edges against her heart and make it rip open, make it bleed. The one thing she feared more than anything else.

—

Jiah was sitting at the kitchen table when Jiyoung opened his bedroom door, and of course he was surprised to see her there.

"Good morning?" his tone was more of a question, this hardly ever happened. It was a pleasant surprise for him in all honesty.

"Hey, uhm, Jiyoung I want to talk to you."

He saw where this conversation was going, "I need to go to school, maybe later?"

"You still have an hour before you need to be at school, we can talk for fifteen minutes, please?"

She wasn't used to this version of herself, the one who was begging someone to stay with her.

"O-okay," he slipped into the seat in front of her, clasping his hands together. "What's up?"

"Jungkook told me that you were getting bullied, what happened? Is everything okay?"

His eyes fell, expression turned bored.

"You're only asking because hyung told you?"

"Wait, no, that's not what I meant, you know that."

"Yeah I'm getting bullied at school, what are you going to do about it? People there are saying that you're some kind of drug dealer, and they're always asking me for drugs. When I tell them you're not," he sighed, "well yeah, everything else follows."