Original request by AlinaAK47
warning: blood
-------
"Ow."
Namjoon winced.
He glanced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. There was dried blood on the side of his face.
The panic hadn't slowed down. His heart was still beating quickly, and he felt like he was on edge. He wondered if the person was still outside, trying to find him. He wondered where his phone was.
Namjoon sighed. He leaned forward to turn the tap on. Splashing water onto his face stung even more. It also resulted in water spilling everywhere. Namjoon sighed again, louder.
He was going to lose his mind.
Sitting down heavily on the floor, he put his head in his hands. What a kind of mess had he got himself into?
"Namjoon hyung, don't stay up too late!" Jimin called as he walked past his door, heading to his own room to sleep.
"Yeah!"
Namjoon hoped Jimin didn't hear how his voice quavered.
He didn't. Otherwise Jimin would've said something, but the footsteps didn't stop. Namjoon sighed.
He decided to take a shower. That would wash all the blood off of his body.
Namjoon carefully got to his feet. Taking his shirt off was a lot harder than it usually was. His arms were too tired to slide it off.
Eventually, he did manage to get it off but he was so winded after, that he had to sit down again. Namjoon tried to take deep breaths.
He was alone in the bathroom. Nobody was watching him anymore.
After nearly ten minutes, Namjoon finally got into the shower. Soaking his hair in the cold water sent electric shocks down his spine. He hadn't anticipated the cuts to sting that badly. Namjoon had to cling onto the shower handle to keep from crying out.
Tears welled up in his eyes. Why did he have to go through this?
When he looked down, he could see the blood washing away. The back of his head continued stinging anyway.
The tears got stronger and stronger until he was bawling. Namjoon crouched down in the shower. He wrapped his arms around his knees, the shower still pouring on his head.
It had been a stroke of pure luck that enabled him to escape.
Namjoon was so grateful. He was so, so grateful.
He would've stayed longer there, but the water started to make him shiver quick enough. Pretty soon, Namjoon had to get up and out of the shower.
Then put on his pajamas and pretend like everything was perfectly fine.
------
"Why did you call last night?" Hoseok asked. "My phone died before I could answer you properly so... you usually don't call at that hour so-"
Namjoon shook his head, the cuts throbbing. "No, don't worry about that."
"Okay."
Hoseok smiled. "I... now... I kind of feel bad for leaving you alone last night. I hope you understand it wasn't like, you know, because I wanted you to be alone or something, it's just-"
"Yeah, I get it. Don't worry."
"Okay."
Namjoon brought a smile to his face. "Don't worry, I understand."
"Yeah, it was just because I was tired."
Namjoon couldn't bring himself to be angry at Hoseok. The dude was also under stress. He couldn't have known what was going to happen to Namjoon right? None of the others had any clue what was going on. Namjoon had made sure never to tell them.
Still, he couldn't help but feel hurt that none of them had noticed how different he was today. Nobody questioned his teary eyes or his messy hair. They all believed him when he said he was fine.
That was what he said he wanted, but not really. He had wanted someone to notice, someone to care, someone to...
"I don't want you to feel bad," Hoseok continued. "I know you don't like being alone at the night, but-"
"I understand."
Hoseok smiled.
--------
"Where did you lose your phone?" Jimin asked. "I can help you look for it if you need help."
"I don't know."
"What do you mean?"
Namjoon shrugged. His lost phone was nagging at the back of his mind, but he wouldn't dare trying to look for it. He could get a new one. He didn't need the old one.
But he still found himself thinking about it. Was it still there, laying on the street? Or had that guy picked it up and taken it somewhere?
He couldn't get into the phone, right?
When Namjoon didn't reply, Jimin sighed. "Hyung, you have to know where you lost it? Where did you last see it?"
"I don't remember," Namjoon said. "It fell out while I was walking home, so... it could be anywhere, you know."
Jimin's eyes widened. "It fell out? You don't even look all that worried!"
"It's fine, I can get a new one."
Namjoon forced a relaxed smile.
"I don't understand how you're so calm about this situation."
"It's not a big deal," Namjoon said again. "It's just a phone."
Jimin shook his head.
--------
Jin ended up smacking Namjoon on the head when he found out how Namjoon had lost his phone. And of course, that one smack happened to hit where the scrapes were. It took everything for Namjoon not to cry out loud.
But Jin was also the only one to notice that Namjoon looked kind of shaken up. When he asked what was wrong, Namjoon said that everything was fine.
Just like what the agency had said.
-----
"Maybe we could find your phone for you?" Taehyung asked. "What route did you take home?"
Namjoon shook his head. "I don't remember, I'm sorry."
Taehyung sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't help you then."
"No, I'm the one who should be sorry," Namjoon said softly. "It wasn't your fault that I lost it."
"True."
Namjoon closed his eyes and leaned back. He took a shaky deep breath in. His lungs crackled, much like they had done last night when he was running. A torrent of memories flooded into his head. The cuts on his head stung.
"Hyung?"
"Mmm?"
"Did something happen last night?"
Namjoon peeked his eyes open. Worry was blooming across Taehyung's face, his eyebrows perched up and his mouth drawn in a straight line.
"Why do you ask?"
"You look shaken up about something. Also... usually... if you lose something as important as your phone, you aren't this nonchalant about things. Like, you would be more worried. But, you're not and... did something happen? Did somebody steal your phone?"
"No." Namjoon forced a smile to his face. "No, nothing happened."
"Okay, good, phew." Taehyung sighed in relief. "Sorry, I was just thinking about things."
Namjoon frowned. He hoped the others never found out. He didn't want them to go through any hard feelings.
-------
The next few days passed by in suspense. The others gradually stopped bugging him about his lost phone and started nagging at him to get a new one.
And on one of those days, Namjoon snapped and lost it. He couldn't go on pretending like nothing had happened anymore.
-------
"Would you please stop nagging at me all the time Hoseok?"
Hoseok glared at Namjoon. "What the heck are you talking about? You need a new phone, don't you?"
"I know I do!"
"Then why are you getting mad at me?"
"Because you don't know what truly happened!"
Hoseok gaped at him. Namjoon's face turned red. Oh no.
"What happened? Tell me! You said that you just dropped your phone or whatever, you didn't tell me that something had actually happened! What happened? Tell me!"
Namjoon shook his head. "Forget it. Just leave it. I-I... am sorry for getting mad. Really sorry."
Hoseok sighed. He grabbed onto Namjoon's arm. "I'm not three years old Namjoon. Something happened that night and I know it did. It's fine if you're not comfortable telling me, but don't play it off as nothing."
"The agency said it was going to be fine..." Namjoon murmured. "I tried telling them, they didn't listen..."
"What?"
The desire to tell Hoseok about everything that had happened overpowered his common sense. Namjoon wanted someone to hold him close and give him some comfort.
"Can you promise that you won't tell anybody what happened?"
Hoseok frowned. "I don't like the sound of this Namjoon. I... I can't promise something like that, I'm sorry. Did you get hurt?"
"Sort of."
"Huh?"
Namjoon nodded. He touched the back of his head and winced. Oof. Those things still hurt. Hoseok gasped.
"Did you fall and hit your head? Collapse? Namjoon? Is your blood pressure okay?"
Namjoon sighed. He decided to just spill it. Who cares if he worried the members. He worried about them all the time, it was time that they did the same to him.
"I... I think it was a few months back. I had this fanboy. At the beginning, they made all these sweet posts about how they loved me and stuff. But then it got real creepy, real fast. Their posts suddenly became really, you know, weird and creepy. I got worried. I went to the agency execs. I told them. I even showed some of his posts. I tried, Hoseok, I really did."
Hoseok was listening to him with a pale face and wide eyes. "What happened that night, then?"
Namjoon inhaled shakily. "I was coming home. Then, I don't know how it happened... but somebody pushed me over and tried to hold me down. I tried calling you. I thought you could come, but you didn't even..."
"I'm so sorry, my phone died..." Hoseok murmured. "If I had gotten a chance to figure things out, I would've gone!"
Namjoon shook his head. He sat down heavily next to Hoseok on the couch. "It was so scary the entire time. It was a stroke of pure luck that let me escape, I'm telling you. But to do that, I... it's a long story, but I had to get rid of my phone."
They sat in silence for a while. Hoseok snuggled up to Namjoon's side and hugged him tight. The stress from the past few days got to Namjoon and he burst into tears. His head was starting to hurt too. Oh, his life was miserable.
"I'm so sorry Joon, I didn't know, I didn't know..." Hoseok kept repeating as he cried. "I didn't know..."
------
Hoseok told the others that night. Namjoon didn't really know what to say, so he just cried non-stop. The others tried to comfort him. Taehyung attacked him in a hug that lasted ten minutes at least. The only thing Namjoon could do was keep crying pathetically.
Jin and Yoongi were incensed. Yoongi made up his mind that he was going to go talk with the agency heads by himself the next day and talk about what had happened to Namjoon.
"They're bound to listen to me," he said when Namjoon tried to protest. "You'll see. I'll fix things."
------
Nobody had really expected anything to happen to Namjoon. They all seemed shocked when Yoongi went and lectured them. They had been expecting the threats to be false alarms and hadn't expected something to actually happen.
Needless to say, they offered a bunch of apologies to Namjoon and the others. They promised that they were "going to find the person and make them pay their price".
-------
"Bold words from people who can't even do their job right," Yoongi said, rolling his eyes. "I don't believe a word they say anymore."
Namjoon nodded. He had wanted to trust them. The agency people seemed trustworthy with all their nice words and kind gestures. It was all an act. They didn't care about him or the group. They were just a source of income for them. Of course, not everybody was like that. Just the people who were in charge.
"If you get concerned about anything else, please tell us," Yoongi said. "I can become your bodyguard if you need one."
"Stop being ridiculous," Jungkook said. "You would fall over the minute they put their hand on you."
Yoongi glared at him.
Namjoon shook his head, not bothering about their bickering. He was too tired.
"It's too late anyway. I'm fine guys. I just hurt my head a bit, that's all."
"You're not fine," Jin whispered. "I know you're sad about this."
Namjoon shrugged. Jin put his arm around his shoulders and squeezed him tight.
"We'll look after each other," Jimin said. "That means... if someone is staying late at the studio, we need to make sure they're getting home safe. We need to make sure everyone is having their meals properly. Small things like that will make a big difference."
"Agreed," Taehyung said.
In the circle of his members, Namjoon started feeling a bit more at ease. He could get a new phone. Their agency had launched a case into finding his crazy stalker person. Everything would turn out to be okay. He just needed to be patient and trust that all was well. In the meantime, the others would look out for him and take care of him.
------
woo we on a roll today
2174 words