YOONGI
I'm too late.
Jungkook appears before us, frozen with wide eyes.
My face screws up, the truth excruciating as it gores its way through the center of my chest. It's over. The lies. The deceit. It's all over.
My heart cracks in my chest, agony ripping through as a spotlight is placed on both of us.
The officers are following on foot, along with the other kids I recognize from the library. Professor Daegi is behind them, and so is Namjoon. A small crowd draws around both me and Jimin, with Taehyung coming up next to Jungkook and looking back and forth between us.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, slowly standing, focusing my eyes on the people watching me.
"Yoongi. . . " Namjoon says, his voice barely above a whisper.
Jin catches up with him, and I watch his face drop, a heartbroken look entering his eyes. "Oh, no."
My throat burns and my soul is shattered, my eyes brimming with so much tears I can barely see.
Fast movement. Officer uniforms. Then I'm pulled away, Jimin being dragged off the grass. There's an ambulance. Medical attention. Yes. He needs help.
Time passes. An hour. A year. A minute. A century.
A hand grabs my arm. A male voice speaks sharply. An officer. "Professor Min. Professor. Put the scissors down."
~
I come back to earth fast when the nurses at the hospital start cleaning my bloody hands with cold water. Even with it being someone else's blood, I can't look for too long. They patch up any cuts I sliced on my own skin and dab ointment on some of the darker bruises. Honestly, I don't remember half of them existing before now.
When I hiss from the sting of the open wound, the nurse gives a sad smile. "Sorry. Stay still." She keeps applying the ointment. "You did a great thing out there. I heard the deputies talking about it."
I raise my eyebrows. "What did they say?"
The nurse keeps her focus on my cuts. "That you were a hero for risking your life for a student." She glances up at me then, eyes alight with curiosity. "So did you actually use scissors to stab the guy? That's pretty creative."
I swallow the bile that raises in my throat and offer her a small smile. I should feel terrible for stabbing someone, and I do, but that asshole had it coming. He should have known that someone like me would have come to help. He should be grateful that it was me with a pair of scissors and not an officer with a gun.
Though I wish I did have a bullet to shoot through his head for cutting Jimin.
But not today. Today has been bad enough. I want to sleep for a year. I want to wake up with Jimin lying next to me on my bed. And I really, really, want to see him.
"Is the student here now? Park Jimin?" I ask.
"He's getting treated now," she says, and I hate how well I can read people. Her voice is low, but has an optimistic edge. Jimin. Jimin is hurt, and she doesn't know how bad it is, or how bad it could turn out to be.
When she leaves and I'm alone, I sit up, my entire vision tunnels like there's no light in the world, and I'm trying to breathe, trying to steel myself to hear it as a statement: Park Jimin is not stable. Oh, my Jimin. What are they doing to you?
I pick up on footsteps. Then Namjoon is standing in the doorway. He walks into the room and sits on the edge of the bed, half on and half off, like he's afraid to touch my foot. And the two of us sit there in silence, a friendship forged of secrets now broken by one of my own.
He exhales, the kind you take after learning someone in your family has passed away; an older relative expected to turn over, but it still stings. Perhaps that's what I am to him: dead. "What were you thinking?"
I look to the window overlooking the city. It's mid-afternoon, the sky a gradient of pink to blue. "Do you really want to know?"
"Why didn't you tell me? I had to listen to a student retell what he saw. You could have told me."
"And then what?" I ask. "Namjoon, there was no logic between me and him. I had no idea I was in love with him until it was too late."
He draws a breath when I say the word "love". He shakes his head and looks out the window, fingers curled in disgust.
"They're saying you molested him."
That is the word that takes me aback. Is that what the truth is to them? I've been gentle with him for so long, it makes me want to throw up knowing that people think of me like this.
"Tell me it's not true," he says through closed teeth. "Swear to me that you didn't do it."
"Namjoon, you know me. How could you possibly think that could be true? What do you think I'm capable of?"
"He's just a kid." His voice cracks, a sob chokes out, and it feels like my body has left the room, observing both of us as a spectator, completely disconnected from the man sitting up in a hospital bed. It's unnerving, seeing Namjoon cry like this, crying for my sake.
"It's not like that," I try again. "It wasn't like those news of a pedofile getting a job just to touch skin. This, what I have with Jimin, is special. Don't you understand? I love him. I love him so much that I fucking stabbed someone. It was all to protect him."
He stares at me, and I can tell he's scared. I don't know how to explain any of this to him— who Jimin is to me, what we've done— without making it sound horrible. This isn't enough to help convince him that I'm not someone who should be behind bars. And even if I had Jimin vouching for me, they could turn him against me and claim that I have already made a threat to Jimin to lie on my behalf.
From the edge of the bed, Namjoon watches me and waits, his patience endless. I tip my head back so my hair falls away from my face, and to the ceiling I say, "I knew this was a horrible thing to do, horrible to fall for a young man with so much potential for the world. But I was weak, and I fell in love with him in spite of myself."
We're quiet. My breathing steadies and he stands, his hands dropping to his sides.
Gently, he says, "Does he think of you in the same way?"
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer," he says sharply. "Whatever he says will determine whether you end up in prison for sexual harassment or behind a desk teaching. If you can't give me a solid answer, how are you going to convince a jury full of people that you never abused him?"
I'm silent, and he's patient as the words drip out of me. I begin by defending myself, that I never once abused Jimin, then move on to the beginning of our story. I don't talk about feelings, I focus on facts, the sequence of events leading up to now. He keeps his expression contained in his eyes, though I still read the way he gets flustered at the first couple of days.
At the end of my story, he asks, "Was he there in your classroom on the night of the Halloween dance?"
My eyes flutter, a few rapid blinks. Then I swallow. "Yeah. He was in the office."
Namjoon stares at me for a moment longer before pacing to the other side of the room, next to the window. "This is bad, Yoongi."
"I'm well aware."
My answer is too casual. It makes him grit his teeth.
"No, you don't understand. This will go on your permanent record," he says. "It will follow you wherever you go, and even if this thing blows over, it will still be there for everyone to see. Your name and picture will be all over the news. You'll never get rid of this."
He won't look at me, choosing to stare out the window and shake his head. Emotion wells in me. After all these years of me being the one to give advice with his romantic endeavors, it is only when I need a friend the most that he can't even look me in the eye. He's like a stranger standing before me.
"I know this is serious," I say when I catch his gaze, refusing to let him look anywhere else, "but he means more to me than a job. He's. . . my everything. My light." He moves his feet toward me, his torso still pointed at the window. I swallow. "You out of everyone here should know how hard it is to love someone when society has turned their backs to you. As long as you have Jin, then you're okay. But Namjoon, I've found my love; he is the one I would give up everything I have for him."
He doesn't move, and I start to cry, but keep my face neutral. It's like a screw came loose behind my eyes, now tiny streams escape, blocking part of my vision and making my cheeks wet. But I don't feel my heart breaking. I think this is what it feels like after a funeral; when all the heavy crying is done and you're left with steady streams.
"If you've decided you want to be ruined," Namjoon says softly, walking to the door, "I can't stop you. But I hope you understand what will happen if you do."
"Fine," I say just as soft, "but can you do me one more favor? As a friend?"
Namjoon glances over his shoulder. He scans me up and down, dissecting me in a way you would look at a murderer behind bars. This, I hate, but I know his stares is only the beginning. Luckily, his loyalty outweighs his morals because he waits for me to speak.
And when I do, he sighs and says okay.