Warnings: mentions of violence, explicit language, mentions of death
"Hobi, I don't wanna be mad. I just wanna know the truth," you pleaded, voice wavering. And that was the truth, you felt like you could care less if he was in a gang. It was Alcorn, you had to be in a gang to survive if you weren't rich.
Upon seeing your eyes water and your lip tremble, Hoseok instantly wished you would scream at him. He didn't want to hurt you. He didn't mean for it to go this far. For you two to get so close after his sister's death, or for him to lie to you for so long. He told himself he kept you out of it for your safety, but really it was just too easy for him to live two lives, for you to look at him like he wasn't a murderer and for him to pretend for a few hours that he wasn't.
He sighed, sitting on the couch, and you plopped down next to him and waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts.
"I guess it's best to start at the very beginning, which was when I was around 16," he started.
"I lived in the same neighborhood as these two guys RM and Suga. They had actually served some time for getting busted with another gang, the Dime Lions, they're long gone now but basically, some shit went down during some kind of gang raid, and RM and Suga ended up taking the fall for it. Instead of the Dime Lions busting them out of jail, they left them there and basically disowned them afterward."
You nodded along to let him know you were following.
"Anyways RM and Suga, they had a rough start when they got out of the gang, both were bastards, street rats on the Westside they never had anyone to look out for them. So they did the only thing they could do at the time to survive, which was breaking it to cars and shit and cleaning them out. I don't just mean personal belongings of these guys took engine parts, piping, tiers they took it all, and sold it to any scrap shops they could find. At the time, I was working at my uncle's scrapyard.
I knew RM and Suga when they were in middle school before they joined the Dime Lions. They stayed with the foster family that lived in my neighborhood. I knew they had been kicked out of the house and were basically living with the Lion's, so when I saw they were working alone, I got curious.
For a year or so, I convinced my uncle to continue buying from them even when he started getting a little suspicious about the guys stealing. The guys knew I looked out for them, and we were cool for a while. Then my mom got sick," he paused for a moment looking away from you.
You reached out and placed your hand on his leg knowing how hard it was for him to talk about his mom and Dawon.
Collecting himself, Hoseok went on, "So I asked for an in with the guys, I needed money and I knew cars. I could remove the parts more effectively than they could. I also knew some clientele who were always coming by and buying parts because they flip cars for fun, those guys were easy targets. So I guess the three of us were a little gang of misfits for a while, I used the money to help pay for mom's treatment. They used the money to survive.
Then we started taking some younger ones under our wing. RM and Suga got their own place and opened their doors to some kids in a rough spot like they were. But as we got bigger, we started getting sloppy.
We had been at it for about a year at this point. The guys started taking on some other jobs, but I stuck to what I did best. I wasn't really interested in broadening my horizons. Like I said, we had been at it for a while, and I got cocky, I guess. We had a few scuffles here and there, but we always got out of them okay.
Then one night, we got busted scraping a car at some guy's house, and he shot me in the leg, and the cops got me. RM ended up bailing me out of jail, and Suga, Suga got me a gun."
He shifted in his seat and looked at you nervously, "I wanted out at this point, mom was basically on her deathbed, and I was all Dawon had. I couldn't risk going to jail, ya know. I owed RM money for bail, but my uncle got me a job as an actual mechanic, I thought I could earn money the honest way, pay them back, and then Dae and I could just go back to our lives.
But then the doctors told us about some experimental treatment that could possibly cure mom. How the hell could I pass that up? I would have done anything to help her get better." his brows furrowed as he tightened his fist into balls.
"So I stayed. At this point, BTS was growing, it was an official gang, tattoo and all. We had recruited Jin, who came from money, he used some of his trust fund to fund BTS and help us grow, and RM was starting to get a little ambitious. He wanted territory, he wanted me to take the tattoo and be his third." Hobi squeezed his eyes shut as he let out a sigh, he felt like he had to force the words out of him to confess his sins to you.
"I told you Suga got me a gun after the arrest, and it ended up I'm a really good shot, so good I didn't even have to kill a guy for a long time. I researched where to shoot to keep someone down for a long while without it being fatal, so that's what I did. I worked a few more jobs for RM, we did a big heist.
Actually, that was our big break. A team of six other guys and I broke into this old rich dude's mansion, nearly cleaned out his safe when we split the money most of the guys put a percentage into my pot. I walked out that night with almost enough to pay for mom's treatment in full.
I told RM I wouldn't be his third, and he offered me an out, I just needed to take one more job for him, and he would pay out the rest of mom's bills, so that's what I did. I killed for the first time, and then I was free. I wouldn't have to do any of it again. Well, that's what I intended," he paused, his voice growing softer.
You tried to keep your face neutral as he revealed the horrors to you. Not that it mattered Hoseok couldn't even bring himself to look at you.
"Mom ended up passing that night." he laughed, a bitter sound that felt foreign to the kind man you knew, "I swear whatever cruel god is out there pulling all the strings did it to punish me. To let me know, they saw what I had become and that I didn't deserve to have people I love in my life. I wasn't good enough to feel love in this world,"
"Hobi, that's not-" he cut you off with a bitter laugh as he looked upwards to hold back his tears. The motion made him seem as though he was searching for the fates he mocked.
"Don't y/n, I know what I am,"
"Dae was a senior when mom passed, and it absolutely broke her. I had to fight to get her to go to school for those last few months. Hell, it was a fight to get her out of bed for her graduation. Her exit exams were a disaster, and the councilors at the college were understanding, for the most part. They still admitted her to the school, but not a drop of financial aid was offered to her. She deserved so much more," Hobi's voice was laced with bitter disdain, his eyes looking far off.
"So I did everything I could to give it to her. I borrowed from Namjoon, enough to cover her entire admission at Alcorn University."
"Hobi, that's so much," you couldn't hold the comment in. It was near impossible for an ordinary person to buy their way into Alcorn if they didn't get scholarships, the tuition at the prestigious school was over $60,000 a semester for admission alone.
"And I did it, I had Jin make up a fake scholarship for her, send her a cute little letter telling her about the award. She thought that she earned a full ride, and I let her believe it. I even borrowed enough so she would stay in the dorms, I figured it would be safest to keep her out of the house. I didn't know what kind of jobs RM was going to have me do."
"I took the tattoo, and killing became more of a normal thing for me. It started to get easier, I kept my distance and tried my hardest to not even see their eyes.
There was a big turf war that year. I don't know, the city was on the brink of a recession, a lot of big players in the city were changing the rules of the game. Business owners fought to take down other businesses simply so theirs could stay open, the market was a disaster.
I never cared about the politics of any of it, I just did what I was told, and because of that, I'm still not totally sure all I did that year. What lives I took. Who all I hurt. I did everything I could to forget those nights and the blood. I told myself I was doing it for a good reason, ya know.
I didn't want to know, I thought I would save that for the day I'm standing outside of hell, and they list off every single one of my evil deeds before they sentence their judgment." Hoseok's vacant eyes started to shine with tears.
"And that was the stupidest fucking thing I could have ever done. I had no clue who had it out for me, I had started feeling invincible. I didn't even consider that someone would want to take their revenge, I had killed Kim Martin Sr.'s son."
Your blood chilled at the name, and he didn't look at you as he continued.
"He was some big business owner or something, I was supposed to kill him, but there was a mix-up, and I got his son, Kim Martin Jr. instead. Whoever made the call decided that killing his son was just as effective because the grief practically destroyed him. A few misguided stock investments, while he was grieving, crashed his empire. He lost everything and had to move to the Westside in the aftermath.
Suga kept good tabs on the guy, but then he fell off the grid. We figured he left town or hell maybe he died. We didn't consider him a threat, he showed no interest in coming after BTS, so I didn't even think to keep an eye out for Dawon."
You felt hot tears roll down your face as you realized what happened.
The media painted Martin as the bad guy. They accused him of losing his business after his son died due to extreme drug abuse. The city officials wrote him off as such a pathetic low life, that come the time of his death that his murder was barely investigated.
It was simply declared a drug deal gone wrong. But he was a father, a father who lost everything to a hitman and wanted to return the favor.
Hoseok believed he didn't deserve love. Whatever higher power that was calling the shots took everything away from him as punishment.
You think of your best friend now long passed, her beautiful smile and contagious laugh. The way she could always read you and knew exactly what you needed, whether it be your favorite ice cream on your period or a trip to the botanical gardens in the middle of the night when she knew you were missing home a bit more than normal.
To this day those memories were your safe place. There was a loose glass in the greenhouse that hosted the plants native to your home. You would both scale the fence to the gardens late at night and push that glass panel in and carefully crawl into the greenhouse. The air would be filled with the floral scents you grew up with, and you would just walk the rows of plants and run your fingers over the velvet petals and waxy leaves.
Until Dawon would play music, a playlist the two of you made of songs in your native tongue. You would dance around the humid greenhouse singing on the top of your lungs while Dawon would laugh and clap along, excitedly shouting with you when she recognized a word or two.
You thought about the way you and Hoseok both carried a burden of guilt after she passed. Until now, you had felt like you failed her as a best friend and roommate.
For three years, you had tortured yourself with thoughts like if you hadn't procrastinated so much on your assignments that week, you would have been home when she decided to make a late snack run. You told yourself the robber probably wouldn't have stopped her if you were together. You reasoned that two of you would have deterred her as a target.
Or maybe he would have just shot you instead. Dawon would have recovered from the loss so much better, she had Hoseok to comfort her and her family and friends to support her. You were merely an exchange student in a city with no morals, loved by no one, but taken in out of guilt by her brother. It would've been a better trade.
You tortured yourself with these thoughts day and night consumed with feelings similar to survivor's guilt.
You never understood Hoseok's guilt, until tonight, you felt like there was nothing he could have done to make that night play out differently. But now you realize he could have done anything, and it might have made a difference.
"Y/n, I understand if you hate me," Hoseok said softly, watching the tears that dripped down your cheek as you processed everything he told you.
"I wanted to honor Dawon's wish. I didn't expect you to do so much for me, for you to become my best friend and for you to make me feel normal. I kept this from you because you were the closest thing to her I had left. There was a time where I thought I would distance myself from you when you moved out. That I would just become another hazy detail to the tragedy, and you would move on completely with your life, but y/n you were so sad, and you needed me too.
When you moved out, I was terrified of something happening to you. I couldn't stop myself from checking up on you. I couldn't let us grow apart." Hoseok's voice broke off as you looked at him, the pain and betrayal in your eyes.
"Y/n, you're the closest thing I have to redemption, protecting you, being your friend is the last thread of humanity I have left, I can't lose you," he pleaded reaching for your hand.
"You watched me blame myself," you whispered accusingly, your eyes shining with betrayal.
Hoseok froze before he touched you looking up at you with tear filled eyes.
"You watched me tear myself apart, and used comforting me to make you feel better about yourself?"
He flinched at your words, "I tried everything I could to convince you there was nothing you could have done," Hobi argued feebly.
"Everything but tell the truth," you hissed as hot tears rolled down your cheek.
You got up as a sob escaped you, your face red and snot running from your nose. Hoseok stood with you, but you flinched away with a broken no.
"I need time, Hoseok," you begged.
You swallowed thickly as you did everything in your power to keep it together, "I don't want to hate you, but please, I need time to think about everything," you assured.
Even knowing what he did, he was right. You needed him too. If you lost him, you truly didn't have anyone in the city who cared if you lived or died tomorrow.
And maybe settling for that made you your own kind of monster.
It was funny how he claimed such a tarnished person could be his redemption.
A/N: Yikes sorry for the tragic back story and angst there! But thanks so much for reading please let me know what you think!!!! xoxoxo