~ trigger warning: mentions of sexual abuse ~
I woke up in a haze in the middle of the night and realized my arms were no longer wrapped around Jimin's form. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and when they did I could see that Jimin was still next to me in bed, except he wasn't lying down anymore, he was sitting bolt upright and staring at his bedroom door with a horrified expression.
"Jimin...", my voice was raspy with sleep as I reached to pull on his arm, "What's the matter?"
The moment he shied away from my touch was when I heard the doorknob rattling in its place. I straightened up to glance in direction of the entrance to see that someone must have been trying to get the locked door open from the other side. For a few seconds I could only breathe and watch it happen until Jimin started trembling next to me.
"He- oh no- he's g-gonna- oh no", Jimin choked out in a panic as his chest rose and fell at a rapid pace. He was spiraling into hysteria again.
"Jimin, it's going to be alright, the door is locked, he can't get in", I tried to convey in a calm tone, "I'm right here for you too, okay?"
He didn't even spare me a glance and I was unsure how aware Jimin was of his surroundings as his only focus lay on that door across the room. I thought for sure he was going to start screaming and crying, but as the rattling persisted his breathing didn't become more uneven. In fact, the opposite seemed to happen as he stilled and suddenly barely let out any breath. I would have been relieved if I hadn't taken a look at his face, it was completely expressionless and blank.
"J-Jimin?", I spoke unsurely and lifted my hand to cautiously place it against his arm. I was surprised when he remained motionless and didn't even look at me. It was as if he had become catatonic. The horrifying thought that this might be the state Jimin was put in when that man would... violate him made me feel like hurling.
The sound of the door ceasing to rattle is what drew me from that horrid place in my mind and I was able to make out heavy footsteps withdrawing down the hallway. If I hadn't locked that door earlier in the day I didn't know what would have happened. I thanked heavens that my gut feeling had told me to do so.
It was silent for a while before Jimin started scratching at one of his arms. It was light scratching at first, nothing more than to satisfy an itch, but his hands kept moving and the next thing I knew his skin was turning bright pink at the surface. I reached to pull one of his hands away, yet the other rubbed more frantically then. He was murmuring under his breath, his eyes unfocused and distant as the word "dirty" spilled from his lips like a mantra.
"Jimin, you're not dirty, you're not", I croaked with my eyebrows knitted together, but I knew it was no use.
I decided the only thing I could do at this point was help him do what he had always done to calm himself. Getting out of bed and carefully guiding him towards the bathroom, I bent over the bathtub to let it fill with water. A feeling of embarrassed hesitation bubbled in my chest when I turned back towards Jimin who was staring blankly at the running tap, but I quickly pushed it away because that was not what was important at the moment.
"Jimin, I'm going to help you bathe, okay?", I spoke softly, but couldn't help the slight tremor in my voice as I stood in front of him.
There was no reply, although I had wished he could give me a sign that he was okay with this. The last thing I wanted to do was make him uncomfortable, do something he didn't want me to do. But I didn't know what else I could do in order to help him.
Again, he didn't flinch when I reached to unbutton his shirt and it broke my heart, because it made me realize how out of touch he was with reality. Even removing his pants and undergarments he said nothing, so I did my best to look away and steer him towards the bathtub, slowly helping him over the edge and easing him down into the warm water.
This was not how I wanted to be in an intimate position with Jimin for the first time, with his mental state in disarray and unaware that I was even by his side. But it was important that I disregarded the fact that he was naked and instead concentrated on bringing him back to reality.
As I gently splashed water over his skin, leaning against the side of the tub, I murmured softly to him, "You're safe. No one's going to hurt you. You're going to be okay. You're safe."
His head rested itself against the head of the tub as his eyelids fluttered shut after a while and the water didn't turn murky as he had said it did when he usually took a bath. Of course it wouldn't, because he was clean. He was always clean, because he was always bathing. It was all in his mind.
"I'm sorry. Forgive me", was the whisper that barely made it from his lips as he breathed shallowly.
"It's not your fault", I hummed back as I brushed a lock of blonde hair out of his face.
Gazing down at him I couldn't believe this was the same man that had run into me the first day I met him and cursed at me. How could I have ever guessed that underneath the layers the alcohol provided was a young broken boy. Yoongi was right all along and it made me feel bad for having riled him up all this time.
I wondered if Jimin would be able to heal, could maybe turn into that sweet young man I had had very little conversations with. The glimpses of what Jimin was like underneath all of the trauma he had been through was too kind to forget and I didn't like the direction my heart was heading at all. Maybe if Jimin got out of Mnemosyne once and for all he would be able to heal, but no matter if I married him or not there was no way of preventing him to become the heir to the throne in his country.
It was funny how Jimin had spoken the truth. It was ironic that us, two powerless individuals, were deemed some of the most powerful people to walk the continent. Weren't we all just powerless in the end?
The time I spent in Mnemosyne bordered on being nightmarish. I tried to stay locked up in Jimin's room for as long as we could to avoid Kang, but when the king called us for dinner the next day there was no way to decline.
Considering the king was already drinking himself beyond common sense when we arrived, the dining hall wasn't as filled as it usually was. To my dismay however, Kang was one of the guests seated at the large table, glancing around with a smug expression like he owned the place. I stayed as close to Jimin's side as I could and didn't blame him in the slightest when he gulped down a few glasses of wine. Anything that prevented him from having a meltdown at dinner was a good thing at that point.
The king eventually turned to his son with a small chuckle halfway through the meal, "Jimin, I understand that you must be very excited, but let's try not to spend all day in bed with the Princess, yes?"
Jimin choked on his drink and his father began laughing. If I wasn't so horrified with how oblivious the king was to Jimin's mental state, the thought may have caused me to blush. But instead I noticed the way Kang's expression soured from across the table as he looked at the blonde with displeased eyes.
When dinner was over and the king was stumbling out of the hall with some woman that was definitely not the queen, I didn't let Jimin out of my sight. I knew that Kang was going to approach him, so it came as no surprise when he stepped out in front of us in the hallway as we were leaving.
"Where have you been, Jimin?", his tone was dangerously suggestive as he moved closer, "You didn't even come out to train in the field today."
"I-I was b-busy", Jimin took a few steps back and ended up bumping into me, but I just raised my hands and placed them lightly against his back to keep him steady on his feet.
Kang chuckled darkly as he glanced from me back to the blonde, "Busy? Ah yes, you've found a new whore to play with. You're no different from your father really."
If I didn't know any better I would say that the fear in Jimin's eyes was replaced by fury for a moment. His fists clenched, but he was still shaking all the same.
"Well, as long as you know that no woman will ever be able to pleasure you, I suppose you can keep as busy as you like", Kang continued bitterly, "But Jimin..."
I tightened my hold on the young man in front of me as Kang leaned in much too close for comfort. His mouth was almost right by Jimin's ear and I too could feel his breath on my skin from where I was standing.
So I most certainly heard when he whispered, "...You and I both know the only way you can be pleasured."
When he withdrew and started to move down the corridor, he called out once more, "So make sure to come and see me before you head back!"
Jimin spent the rest of that night crying in my arms and repeatedly telling me that he hated everything Kang did to him and that everything he said was a lie. I comforted him and was simply baffled that Jimin would think I would believe a word that man said.
For the rest of our days there, Jimin just couldn't catch a break. We went from locking ourselves in his room to attending the occasional dinner and from meltdown to meltdown. No, Jimin couldn't even catch a breath until we were sitting in the carriage on our way back to Coeus. I didn't even leave him alone then, too afraid of what he might do if he was in his own carriage.
"I'm sorry, Milou", was what he whispered out, slouched on the velvet bench across from me as the scenery passed us by at dusk.
"Jimin, don't-"
"No, it's not just about this trip", he interrupted before I could start lecturing him again, "It's not just about... what you had to experience in Mnemosyne. It's about all the horrible things I've said to you since I've met you. I just... I don't know why I acted that way towards you and I just ended up making you feel as miserable as I was feeling."
"Maybe... that was your goal?", I said quietly, knowing he didn't want to hurt me anymore, but that it had probably been the reason for all of his previous jabs.
"In some sick and twisted way I think it was", he grimaced as he agreed, "But I don't want that. I don't want to hurt you anymore."
"I don't want you to hurt either", I told him with knitted eyebrows.
"I...", he paused as he examined my features with those beautiful dark eyes of his, "I'm a mess and it's affected you this whole time and I'm sorry about that. I'm a mess and I don't know how to fix it."
He looked out the window at the trees whizzing by as I hung onto his every word. A deep sigh made its way past his lips before he could turn to me again.
"I think you should just... let me go. You should leave me be. For your own sake", his irises glistened with sorrow as he spoke, like he didn't want to be saying his words as much as I didn't want to be hearing them.
"I can't do that", my head shook involuntarily in response as I couldn't look away from his gaze.
"Why not?", he whispered again.
The crickets that came out in spring could be heard chirping alongside the steady rattling of the carriage wheels against the dirt pavement. And I had no answer to his question.
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