[A/N]
Possible trigger warning, I guess? A little bit of violence and blood.
You think you die for a second.
You're stuck somewhere between existence and oblivion, floating bodiless in a field of nothing. Strangely enough, you feel conscious - you're perfectly capable of, in this state, canting back onto the nothing and thinking about how strange it is to have all physical orientation removed from you.
You can think - the problem is you can't remember.
Why are you here again? And how did you get here?
And where is here?
Then you blink, and you're suddenly back in that dream home, curled up on the couch with Jungkook beside you and your son asleep in his crib a few rooms away.
"Jungkook?" you whisper. You reach out and touch his face, which is so realistically warm beneath your fingers.
Something nags at the back of your mind, but you shove it away. Nothing is more important that this moment.
You're happy here, with him.
Letting your eyes run over his face, you admire the strong line of his jaw, and the way it cuts squarely underneath his round cheeks. His black hair is a little long, fringing around and tangling with the long lashes around his eyes. His lips, fuller on the bottom as thinner on the top and ringed by his piercings, quirk at your in-depth perusal.
"What is it?" he whispers in amusement.
"Nothing," you say. "I just love you."
He grins, smile lines crinkling at the edges of his eyes, and rests his hand over yours.
"Shh," he says gently. "Don't talk too loud. The baby's sleeping."
"The baby?" you frown at that, trying to remember that incessant detail that keep tugging on the tail-end of your thoughts.
Jungkook laughs a little, scooting closer on the deep chocolate couch and letting his thumb trace along your cheekbone. "Where'd that pretty smile go?" he murmurs.
You can't smile as you look at him. "Something's wrong."
"Wrong?"
He says the word, and that instant you're sucked out of that dream and into the next.
Now you're all the way back in the vanilla-wreathed bakery, with a plate of brownies in front of you and an un-tattooed, un-pierced Jungkook sucking chocolate off of his thumb.
"Is this better, Princess?" he asks in his lullaby voice.
In the background, Taehyung's laughter mingles with the voices of the others.
It isn't better.
"No, no," you mumble, pressing a hand to your forehead. "Something is wrong. I don't...I can't remember."
The urge to run away is an abrupt reality, pressing into your lungs and taking your breath. Something about this is so stomach-turningly unnatural that you can't focus.
Jungkook wipes his peanut-butter-smeared hand on a napkin and leans toward you. With a soft bump, he leans his forehead to your, resting with your noses touching and your breaths intermingling. "You don't have to remember," Jungkook soothes. "Nothing's wrong, Y/N. I'm here."
Quite suddenly, you realize that his presence is the exact thing that's so wrong about the whole situation.
Memories come flooding back to you, gunfire and shouting and blood.
He's...
He's dead.
Is this real? Proof that he's actually gone?
Is this his soul, pure and beautiful and vanilla-scented perfection, tempting you to stay with him for always?
You wish you could stay.
You can't.
"You aren't real," you say, trembling. It's the hardest thing in the world to pull away from him, but you make yourself do it.
Jungkook catches your fingers in his, pulling you back toward him with gentle insistence.
"So?" he asks. "Does that matter? Why can't we just be like this, Y/N?"
You have things to do.
A father to stop.
" I can't stay here," you choke. You can't believe this. You've already had to watch him die; now you have to leave him again. "There's- this isn't reality. I have to go back."
Tears are welling in your eyes, and in his.
"We could be together here," he whispers. "Please. Don't go."
With trembling lips, you place your hand against the side of his face, feeling the curve of his cheekbone beneath your palm for the last time.
"I have to," you say through a clogged throat.
His creased face melts into resignation, and he opens his mouth, an understanding goodbye written in his eyes.
But what comes out is, "Wake up, Y/N."
"I know, I need to," you mumble. "But how should I-"
He cuts you off. "Wake up."
You do.
With a gasp that brings a wave of air into your dying lungs and a choking cough, you wake up.
For the first few moments, all you can do is breathe. Your eyes are closed, and the air tastes like something you can only indescribably describe as life.
Nothing's ever tasted so wonderful.
You actually were dying.
Your throat is burning, painfully giving under your fingers when you press a hand to it.
You were dying. How are you alive?
Forcing your eyes open, you lay there, blank and heaving, and behold the face of your savior with utter shock.
It's...
Another illusion.
An illusion that's so utterly real amid your painful hacking that it hurts even more.
Your body wants to stop breathing, but your lungs aren't able to - they continue to inflate and collapse, over and over again as your brain takes similar actions in trying to process that the person before you is really here.
His hand glances over your cheek.
He's real.
Alive.
"You-" is the word that comes choking out of your lips, hands reaching forward. "You got shot. I thought..."
Under your grasping fingers, Jeon Jungkook smiles. "Still kicking," he huffs. "Barely."
Barely is an understatement.
He's pale white, his beautiful skin abnormal devoid of color, and he's heaving with effort. His hand is pressed to the bullet wound in his chest, applying pressure in a sad attempt to staunch the blood flow.
You can feel him, really feel him, now. This is not dream, no illusion or hallucination. He's really here, breathing, alive beneath your fingers.
He watches the emotions crease and morph across your face, breathing just as heavily as you.
"Just stay awake," he says. The other hand, the one that's not caressing over your cheek, is clutching his chest, pressing hard and white over the wound.
You glance around for the first time since waking.
There's a metal grate and some chalky dust on the ground, inches away from where you lay with Jungkook beside you.
A glance up reveals the origin of the grate - it's the slatted plating that was covering the opening of the air conditioning vent.
That must be how Hoseok's gotten all the way to where you are.
You guess that whoever said air conditioning vents were superior will be mighty pleased when this is all said and done.
A little further off, your father is propped up against the wall, a hand shielding his left eye like he's been hurt. His other eye is glaring at the figure standing over him with a gun aimed at his head.
Hoseok is trembling.
You've never seen him do that before, shaking with an emotion that you can't name.
A laugh is ripped out of your father's lungs as he looks up at Hoseok. He's realizing it; this is finally, really over.
Your father has officially lost the battle.
Officially lost you.
He lowers his hand, revealing an eye that already swelling up from a harsh hit. You really hope it hurt, and you wish you could've been conscious to see Hoseok deliver it.
"You're the one with the bomb," your father says around a grin. "I don't know you, but you keep ruining things."
The shaking of Hoseok's hand grows worse, and his lips flatten into a grin line.
Something in his eyes makes Boss Song sigh in false disparity. "Oh dear," he says. "I may not know you, but you know me, don't you? There's a lot more than a general kind of hate in your face."
Jungkook pulls you up into a sitting position, the two of you leaning heavily on each other. Unsteadily, you manage to scoot back until you're leaning against the wall.
Jungkook leans his head on your shoulder, weakly.
"I know who you are, Song." Hoseok's voice is indescribably, a nearly silent cacophony of sorrow and hate.
He's digging his heels into the carpet, his nails into the skin of his hand, his teeth into his lower lip until it's almost bleeding.
You don't understand completely what's happening, but a dreadful weight like rocks in your gut starts to drag you to the hotel floor.
How many times will you feel this sinking suspicion?
How many times will you discover another heinous act that your father's hammered down on someone you love?
And how could you not suspect before that the killer of Hoseok's family was that one man that's seemed to ruin everyone else?
That has to be it - the reason that Hoseok's shaking as he regards Boss Song, and the reason that he's bursting with a molten mix of anger and sadness.
Face to face with the man who tore away his family from him, and is now trying to do it again.
Of course Hoseok opted to protect his brothers rather than confronting Boss Song - until now, your father has been an impenetrable fortress with no weak points.
Hoseok never forgave.
He never forgot.
He was only biding his time.
"My name is Jung Hoseok," says the hurting man. "And you and I have something between us that needs to be resolved."
"Do we?" Boss Song replies. He sits back, unbothered by the muzzle of the gun directed at him, and peers up into Hoseok's tumultuous face. "Jung Hoseok...Jung Hoseok...."
Your father shakes his head. "Doesn't ring a bell."
Silence.
Then, a nearly-mute, "No, it wouldn't. And even if I told you, you wouldn't know the names on my family, either. My family that you killed."
Boss Song spreads a hand on his chest, arching his brows in a comically inappropriate 'who, me?' look.
His crass unconcern is making Hoseok's teeth grind.
You think he's about to speak, but Boss Song cuts him off with a snap of his fingers.
"Ah," your father exclaims silkily, with a sly, murky smile. "Wait a moment. Jung Hoseok. Maybe I do remember you - not you, but your father."
A whimper of misery sticks in your throat, watching the rabid emotion washing over your brother's features.
You might as well be watching Hoseok's heart, ripped from his chest and mixing his blood with Jungkook's on the floor.
"He was...a teacher, was it?" Boss Song goes on, tapping his finger thoughtfully. "But that move to Seoul made money hard to come by. So he had to borrow some."
You're sick with the way your father is smiling.
The more words that come out of his mouth, the more you want to rip the phonemes from the air and bury them somewhere where Hoseok will never have to face them again.
"Of course, I was only putting my feelers out in Seoul at that point. Busan is my domain, and I didn't have the manpower or funds in Seoul to keep up with clients who couldn't pay back with interest." Boss Song shrugs. "Your poor father. A teacher's salary just wasn't enough."
"Poor?" Hoseok asks in a strangely quiet voice, strangled voice. "My father was never poor. Not a day of his life. In fact, you're the one who's poor, Boss Song."
"Me?" Your father grins.
"Yes. Here we are, at the end of your life, and who's standing by your side?" Hoseok tilts his head. "Your friends? Family? Your only daughter?"
Splaying his hand back, open-palmed towards the place where you and Jungkook slump against the wall, Hoseok says, "I'm rich, Mr. Song, and you're the poorest man that's ever lived."
He's right.
At the moment, you and Jungkook might be completely useless, but at least your here.
Not alone.
Hoseok pauses. Then, "It almost makes you pitiful enough to not kill."
Until the very end, your father is determined to smile.
"Then kill me, you frightened little boy. But when I'm gone, what will you have left?" Easing forward, Boss Song lets the barrel of Hoseok's gun rest against his forehead. "When all the drive for revenge is gone, you will be too. You've been raised on it, fed on it. What will you have when your purpose has been removed?"
Hoseok squats in his place, lowering himself until his eyes are level to your father's, keeping the gun against his head.
He says, "My purpose isn't revenge. Not anymore."
Glancing over his shoulder, Hoseok's eyes, large and hollowed with emotion, rest on you and the man beside you.
"I just want my family to be safe," he says, tiredly. "I just want them safe."
Jung Hoseok.
You can't think of words to describe the swelling in your heart.
Turning his face into your shoulder, Jungkook shudders in a scary way.
"Hoseok," you squeak, turning to cradle him in your arms. He's heavy, almost-limp, and his eyes keep fluttering closed.
You're running out of time, and blood. You have to get him out of here.
"No, Jeon," you wheeze, patting his face. "It's your turn to stay awake now. Stay with me."
Hoseok turns, focuses on your father, and murmurs, "This is the end, Song."
Jungkook rouses long enough to glance up, bare his teeth, and hiss, "See you in Hell."
"You will." Death is imminent, and your father sits up, glaring at Hoseok and Jungkook. "I'll find you there."
"Cant wait," Hoseok says.
Then he shoots your father.
Where the impact of the bullet into Seoungmin's body had been minimal from your distance, Hoseok's gun is directly against your father's skin.
The gun blasts, and blood splatters red-brown speckles onto Hoseok's face.
He doesn't flinch.
When he stands and moves away from the inanimate shell that used to be a human being, you have to look away from the mess of blood and brain that's smeared across the wall and carpet.
Finally.
Your father is gone; it's all over.
You're finally safe.
But Jungkook isn't.
You focus on him, helping support him as he slowly leaks blood.
Hoseok appears on Jungkook's other side, wrapping an arm around his ribs.
"Can you stand?" he asks you gently, lifting his black-haired companion up with wiry strength that you always forget he has.
There's a blood drop clinging to a strand of his brown hair. It slides slickly down, desperately seeking traction on the smooth of Hoseok's hair, but fails.
You watch it fall, and soak into the carpet.
"I can." Levering yourself up, your find yourself fairly well recovered from almost suffocating to death. You help Hoseok, fitting your shoulder beneath Jungkook's other arm, and the two of you begin to lug him toward the exit.
"Is everyone else safe?" you ask.
"As far as I know," Hoseok answers. "Jimin has Taehyung, and the others were together. Finding you after getting the other two out of the hotel was the trickiest part."
"How did you find us?" you wonder aloud, breathless beneath Jungkook's heft.
Hoseok shrugs. "I was trying to get back to that room where you were being held," he mumbles. "I was crawling through the air ducts, but one of the grates collapsed beneath me and I fell out. And there you were - with your dad's hands wrapped around your throat and Jungkook practically dragging himself down the hall."
You shake you head, swallowing an incredulous laugh. "You are so...lucky."
"It wasn't luck," Hoseok protests. "I told you! Air conditioning ducts are far more efficient than the elevator shaft."
Jungkook groans between you, signaling for the two of you to shut up and finish dragging his incapacitated form to safety.
[A/N]
Severely Unedited
'Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.'
Sorry for the wait! Thanks for reading!
❤️PB