Did we really reach 100k? Is this even real?
oh my god
I can't believe how much this story has grown, and I'm so glad that my hard work paid off. I love you guys so much, your support means the world to me
I always read every single comment I get on this story and every time I'm overwhelmed by all the love, and by all the feelings you share with me. After all, my goal as an author isn't really to write the most beautiful, poetic paragraphs, it's to make you feel something.
So to see you guys' reactions to some of my work means everything. Thank you so much for a 100k, I'll do my best to keep giving you the content you look for when you read my fanfiction, I'll try hard to make you feel just as many emotions as I have so far, I hope I'll be able to finish this fanfiction and be proud of the results.
I'm not sure how I'll end it yet, we're still far from the finale, I'd say we're only halfway through, and if you've read the previous chapter, I'm certain you know that all hell breaks loose from this point on...
And I hope you're fucking ready.
_____________
Junghyun exits the court room with a smile on his face.
Not because he won the trial. It's been a while since he hasn't felt the pride of winning in court. The thrill of it only persisted when he used to do the impossible and proved innocent people who were guilty. It was horrible, but it made him feel divine, invincible.
Now the smile on his face is bittersweet, because he can't fucking believe that his brother, whom he tried to raise as a smart man, actually got himself into a mess this big.
He has to get him out of it. He has to.
"Minho." Junghyun abruptly stops walking. "I need to use the bathroom. Wait for me here. Don't go out yet, there are journalists everywhere outside and I need to be there to make sure they don't distort whatever you tell them."
"Okay. Thank you again," Minho replies and goes to sit on one of the benches next to the court room.
"It's my job."
Junghyun leaves promptly, walking in the opposite direction towards the bathroom to not arise any suspicions. There's no way he'll make that call in a bathroom stall, though, it's far too dangerous. So he finds a secluded place where two hallways intersect, so that if anyone were to come towards him, he'd see them way before they reached a short enough distance to hear what he's saying.
He dials a number he knows by heart and waits for the call to be picked up. It doesn't take long.
"Hyung? Be quick, activities start in a couple minutes."
"I know who your cell mate is."
There's silence for a few seconds. Junghyun can perfectly picture Jungkook's face, with his eyes open wide and his eyebrows furrowed. He knows him so well.
"...Who is he?"
He knows him well enough to know his brother is a petty piece of shit. If he tells him, Jungkook will probably end that guy. He will destroy him.
Junghyun doesn't want to have Judge Kim's grief on his conscience. That man was like a second father to him, he taught him everything he knows. Jungkook doesn't have the same bond with him, because he was way younger than Junghyun, so he doesn't really remember the times he spent on the judge's side. He probably doesn't even remember his face, since they left after their father died and Jungkook was still a child at the time. That's probably also why he's spent so long in the same cell as Taehyung without recognizing him, while his face immediately sparked a feeling of déjà vu for Junghyun the second he set foot into that courtroom. Choi Minho's information was what helped him link everything together and understand the current situation.
He wonders if he can keep Jungkook from finding out that Kim Taehyung is the one who has been lying to him and using him to protect himself ever since he set foot in that prison.
But then Junghyun realizes that he has to tell him, because the moment Jungkook associates with someone the whole prison is going to be after as soon as his identity is revealed, Junghyun's afraid his brother might suffer the same fate. The risk is too great, and he refuses to roll the dice when his brother's safety for the rest of his sentence is at stake. He just can't risk it.
Not when he's not sure he'll be able to look after him until he gets out.
"Kim Taehyung. His name is Kim Taehyung, and here's why you need to stay the fuck away from him."
Taehyung's dancing alone today.
After the trial, he was immediately driven back to the prison. He left while everyone else was still chatting and trying to find an agreement, he saw Minho approach the young girl and comfort her as she cried and apologized profusely for taking her obsession with him too far.
He barely had time to drop by his cell to change into his workout clothes before going to activities. He caught a glimpse of Jungkook sitting on his bed, looking a little absent. He quickly asked him if he was coming, to which he only replied with a shake of his head.
Taehyung didn't want to press it. He just rapidly changed and walked away.
So now he's dancing and it's a little less fun than usual. Being able to ogle Jungkook, seeing him freak out when he has to be a little too close to him, catching the lust in his eyes every time Taehyung does something a little provocative... that was all part of his activities and contributed to the fun of it all. Taehyung loves dancing, but he loves it even more when he can fuck with Jungkook's mind while he does.
Jungkook's been a little distant lately. Since the cafeteria thing, they haven't talked much. They've fucked a few times, fast and needy and animalistic, in the laundry room or in the showers, but they never really had much conversation after that. The teasing isn't as intense as it used to be, when Taehyung tries to rile him up he just dismisses him. Earlier in their cell, when he saw Jungkook's expression, he told him he "looked like an anime character who just found out his crush was his sister all along", but Jungkook didn't even react.
Taehyung's overthinking it and he hates it.
"Whoa there, inmate," the coach tries to get his attention, "slow, you're dancing like you're trying to fight someone. I don't know what kind of drama's going on between you and Jeon, but go take a moment to breathe and calm down before you gouge someone's eye out."
Taehyung stops dancing and realizes he's dripping with sweat after only ten minutes. He's breathing heavily, heart thumping in his chest, and for some reason he feels angry. He doesn't get why he's so upset over something so trivial. So far, he's been managing his feelings pretty decently, he hasn't been violent in a while — except for, well, the thing where he sort of, maybe castrated some dude in the showers but that was well deserved.
So he takes the coach's advice and leaves the dance room. Fuck it, he already knows that choreography by heart anyways, he'll just come when they start a new one.
When Taehyung reaches the empty showers, he doesn't waste a second and strips from head to toe, tossing his dirty clothes into the pile. He opens his locker and grabs a clean towel and flip flops. Once he's all set, he inhales deeply, hoping this shower will relax his tense muscles and clear his head from all the toxic and bothersome thoughts he's been having lately.
Taehyung doesn't have time to step into the shower, though, because the second he turns around, he barely catches a glimpse of an enormous figure before there's a fist in his face.
Then all the can see is black as he collapses on the floor.
"Choi Minho, how did you win this trial?"
"Minho, you apparently brought an anonymous witness to the stand to testify in your favor. What's your relationship with them?"
"Do you have a girlfriend, Minho? Your fans want to know!"
"Are you going to press charges against the girl who falsely accused you?"
"Did you—"
Minho puts his brain on off mode, like he's learned to do so well in all those years of being an idol. When you go through a crowd of journalists who are only looking for something that'll compromise your career and boost theirs, your best bet is to lower your head, keep your face neutral, stay behind and let your lawyer deal with the bullshit.
Junghyun's walking in front of him, also assaulted with questions, cameras, microphones and whatnot, keeping a professional stance with a discreet smile on his face. He thanks the journalists for their interest and apologizes for not being able to answer due to a secrecy agreement. Minho only sees genuine interest in his eyes when he spots a young journalist in the crowd — he recognizes the logo on her microphone as the national news channel's symbol — and subtly gives her his business card.
He doesn't think too much about it.
Once Minho gets home, he tells his driver to drop off Junghyun wherever he asks him. After a firm handshake and one last expression of his gratitude, Minho watches as the car drives off. What a strange man his lawyer is, he thinks, but now thanks to him he finally got rid of the terrible situation he was in.
He wonders for a brief moment why Junghyun was so interested in knowing about his witness. He decides to pay it no mind and enters his house with the feeling that a heavy weight was lifted off his shoulders.
What he doesn't know is that that weight is now crushing somebody else.
Junghyun is exhausted as he enters his home. He feels his back straining, his chest hurting more than ever. He coughs dryly, the violence of it burning his throat, and he decides to go for a well-deserved nap.
However, as soon he sets foot in his bedroom, he is surprised to find someone who isn't his wife standing tall before him.
"What the fuck is this?" Hoseok asks, brandishing the gun that was sent to his house.
Right. He might have forgotten about that small detail.
Junghyun sighs and heads towards his bed so that he can at least sit down to rest his tired legs. He holds in a cough and straightens up in a confident stance.
"Where's Dawon?" Junghyun questions.
"She was feeling lonely and bored. She insisted that she wanted to welcome you home but I told her to go out and see her friends. So I'm the one welcoming you home," Hoseok explains, eyes full of ire. "Now you tell me. What the fuck is this?"
Junghyun stares at the gun and smirks. "A gun."
He only has the time to see Hoseok's face distorting in pure rage before the latter grabs him by the collar and slams the gun against his chest.
"I am fucking tired of your shit—"
"Whoa there," Junghyun smiles. His lungs hurt. "Is your new boyfriend the reason why you're so brave all of a sudden? Should we put a target on his head, too?"
Hoseok shivers at the mention of Jimin. He's breathing heavily. Slow and careful, he does his best to calm his nerves down, and reluctantly lets go of Junghyun. He hears him wheeze for a split second before the older man's staring at him defiantly again. It's what he always does, looking at him like he's the lowest of dirt, like he's garbage. Sometimes Hoseok finds himself believing him.
He recalls what Agust D told him in his cell, that day.
I swear to god if I ever see you smuggling in anything again even if it's a fucking teddy bear, I'll break your bones one by one.
This is a bad idea. A terrible one. If only he could just disappear, walk away from this whole mess. When he first got the job at that prison, he was so proud of himself. He wanted to be a detective or a criminologist, initially, he's always had a passion for crime and has always wanted to work in that field — but life didn't work out for him the way he would've wanted it to. He struggled with everything, from money to studies, because Hoseok's always had the terrible habit of helping others find their happy ending before trying to pursue his own. He absolutely wanted to see his older sister succeed and so he worked two jobs to support them both so that his sister could focus on succeeding. He was already at a disadvantage, because although he was hardworking he didn't have the chance to be a fast learner. That, and the fact he was absolutely spent after work, didn't help him on the road to achieving his goals. He simply didn't have the time or the means to succeed.
But it was okay. He was fine with failing. He simply settled for the closest thing he could find to his goal, and worked hard to become a correctional officer. Initially, he was proud of himself for finally doing it, he was happy being in the field that interested him even though he didn't exactly have the position he would've preferred. He was cheerful, all smiles and good vibes, he was a ball of positive energy and he tried his absolute best to treat the inmates like people. His kindness got the best of him, though, because when said prisoners realized that Hoseok was the weak link... it was all over.
So now Hoseok's sister's married to a successful man she loves, pregnant with that man's child and working her dream job. She's on her way to her happy ending.
Hoseok, on the other hand, is stuck in a loop of suffering, getting humiliated and risking his life, a loop he can't get out of now because he's still fucking hooked on the idea that he has to keep fighting for his sister's happiness. He's working a miserable job he doesn't even like anymore, surrounded by people who use him like a slave, forced to be a mule for the Jeon brothers because one of them just had to steal Dawon's heart.
And despite all of that, Hoseok thinks that he'd rather have broken bones than Dawon's blood on his hands.
"What do you want me to do with this?" Hoseok asks, defeated.
"Just get it into the prison by the end of the week and leave it where you usually leave the drugs. Jungkook will take care of the rest."
"Won't it be detected by the x-ray machine when I go in?"
"You won't go through the x-ray. When you decide to do it, let me know and I'll make sure the other officer working for us is on duty for the machine," Junghyun says in what seems to be an attempt at reassuring Hoseok. "Don't do it on Friday, though. Kim Namjoon's on duty, and you know how that bastard is."
"Smart, honest and serious about his job?"
Junghyun chuckles. "Whatever you say, brother."
Hoseok shakes his head and starts making his way towards the exit. He needs to get rubbing alcohol on his way home to get rid of any traces of his DNA before he smuggles that gun inside. He doesn't need to know what the gun is for to understand that it's not going to be pretty.
Hoseok stops in his tracks, however, and figures he can at least go for a desperate attempt at knowing what he's being involved with.
"Will you at least tell me why you're doing this?"
There seems to be a tiny gleam of hesitation and apprehension in his brother-in-law's eyes.
"You don't wanna know."
Hoseok shrugs.
He just doesn't care anymore.
Everything is blurry when Taehyung starts prying his eyes open.
He blinks slowly, and as soon as his consciousness starts to come back to him, he feels a migraine hitting him like a sledgehammer. His head hurts, it feels like it's going to explode. He has no idea what happened, but all he knows now is that he can't see for the life of him, there's a familiar blurry figure hovering over him and he's lying on some cold, wet, tiled floor.
God, his head fucking hurts. He scrunches up his nose, face distorting as he hisses in pain.
"What the fuck..." He groans.
"Good evenin', Gucci boy," a disembodied, gruff voice says and the words seem to echo in Taehyung's head a thousand times. "Missed me?"
As Taehyung manages to fully open his eyes, the image before him starts to clear up, traits of the face hovering over him getting neater and forming a slightly familiar face. Taehyung doesn't have the time to dwell on it enough to fully recognize it, however, because in a split second he finds himself being lifted off the ground by one strong hand fisted into his hair, grabbing him and roughly throwing him against the wall. His scalp stings from the pull of his hair and his legs give up on him as he slides down the wall until he's seated on the cold floor.
He tries to support himself by putting his hands on the floor, but just as he tries to pull them apart he realizes that they're... tied up?
Eyes squeezed shut, Taehyung groans in agony. Everything hurts so fucking bad. He feels the man's shadow cast upon him as the latter crouches before him. Taehyung tries to open his eyes again to look at at the person who's doing this to him, because whoever the fuck they are, they just dug their own grave.
Then he sees it all. The disgusting scar on his lower lip. The unkempt beard. He recognizes the fat pig before him the moment he finally sees his face clearly.
"If it's your testicle you're looking for, it's probably somewhere in a third world country's lake, sorry I couldn't catch it before it went down the drai—"
A violent punch in the jaw has Taehyung's head spinning and the coppery taste of blood invading his mouth. Right joke, wrong time.
"Shut the fuck up, you fucking slut," the man growls and grabs Taehyung by the throat, slamming his head against the wall. "Who do you think you are, huh? You thought you'd get away with this shit?"
The old pig gets up, lowers his pants and grabs his own dick, revealing a horrifying sight that has Taehyung's stomach dashing to his throat. He retches at the sight of a disgusting scar that hasn't fully healed yet, outlines of freshly removed stitches still visible. There was... well, something missing.
"Well, look at the bright side, you are now one step closer to becoming Hitler."
Taehyung doesn't seem to acknowledge the waves of acute pain still flaring up his jaw until a knee lands on the same area and this time, as he spits blood and hits the ground, he actually considers the possibility of keeping his mouth shut.
The ire in the other prisoner's eyes is terrifying, he's looking down at Taehyung with a murderous stare. He scans the slim body of his victim as the latter stays sprawled out on the ground, eyes squeezed shut and body inert, refusing to show the slightest sign of pain.
His hands are tied, he's getting beat up, his face is full of red blotches that would soon turn purple and blue, he's dizzy from all the impacts his head has suffered, but he's still fucking fighting. His assaulter realizes soon enough that Gucci boy is stubborn, and that breaking him won't be as easy as expected.
"Y'know why nobody's gonna help you, Gucci boy?" He crouches down again, grabbing Taehyung's jaw to make him look at him. "Because I've got friends in this place. Friends who know what you did to me and who are posted right in front of the locker room door, not allowing anyone to come into these showers until I'm done with you."
Taehyung smirks. "Sorry, honey, you're not my type."
"Yeah?" He scoffs. "You better faint again then 'cause you're not gonna like this, Gucci boy. If you had been good the first time you might have enjoyed it, but now..." There's a perverse smile on the man's face as he lets his hands roam down Taehyung's stomach. "I don't think I'm gonna go easy on you."
Taehyung's brain goes blank. His skin crawls. His eyes shoot wide open and all the pain he felt vanishes, replaced by fright and heart wrenching fear. Every muscle tenses up. Every hair stands on his body as goosebumps litter every inch of his skin. He knows this feeling. He knows it and he hates it, he's panicking and he wants to do something but he's rendered immobile, rigid. Everywhere that man touches, his flesh sizzles.
He doesn't move, waits, waits until his heart beats again, waits until the flashbacks from eleven years ago stop invading his mind, waits until the visions of horror from that dark basement leave him alone—
But it doesn't happen.
Taehyung is fifteen years old again.
"Let me go..."
His voice comes out strained, he can't breathe. There's a hand on his ass and raspy laughter in his ears. He presses his thighs close together.
"Please, please let me go," he begs. The room is cold but it's not the reason why he's shaking. "Please."
"You're even prettier when you're not tryna act tough... I'm gonna have so much fun with ya."
The man stands up. Taehyung heats the belt buckle cling as it hits the floor, along with the man's pants. It's only when a sob comes out of Taehyung's throat that he realizes his eyes are filled with tears. He shuts his lids and lets them spill out.
He does the same thing he did eleven years ago. He doesn't scream. He doesn't cry for help. He just closes his eyes, forces himself to stop shaking, and makes his mind travel. He detaches himself from his body, so that he doesn't feel anything. He wasn't in a dark basement. He isn't in a prison's showers. He's somewhere far away.
But just as he starts to let himself go, something brings him back to reality. Everything around him seems to far, but he still manages to perceive two sounds: something being slammed against a surface repeatedly, and a voice grunting at every slam.
Taehyung weakly moves his head and sees... not quite Jungkook. The figure he sees looks like Jungkook, sounds like Jungkook, but feels different. It feels like an untamed beast, an uncontrollable monster, it feels like something evil and angry and murderous, because the way he's crushing that man's skull repeatedly against the wall, that's not Jungkook.
It's the shell of a man who has let his demons invade every inch of him.
Taehyung briefly thinks, as he feels his consciousness slip away, that this is unusual.
Jeon Jungkook never gets his hands dirty.