Days Thereafter

Jimin’s P.O.V.
We’re all getting packed up and ready to leave the studio they rented for pictures. V and I are messing around when he gets a phone call.

“Yoboseo?”

“What?! Is she okay?” He turns away from me but doesn’t move.

Did his mom get hurt? I continue to stand by his side and wait for him to finish.

“Araso, we’ll all be there soon.” He hangs up and looks at me. His eyes are sad and he looks hesitant.

“Something happened to ________” I just look at him.

This can’t be right…

“What are you talking about?”

“My dad said he got a call from the police, she’s at the hospital with a lot of injuries. The doctors said that she said she was attacked at home.” I don’t hear anything after that. He keeps speaking to me but I can’t hear anything else. I can only picture a number of scenarios that could have happened.

Was it an intruder? A crazy pervert? Was it HER? Aniya, she isn’t here in Korea anymore… I think…

I start to pack my stuff even faster, V gets the guys and lets them know what’s going on. I’m the first one to make it to the van. I wait for what seems like forever, but is only 5 minutes. All the guys bustle in and we start to leave.

“Can you stop at my house?” V asks manager hyung.

“Yeah.” He responds. We get to V’s house and see the police there walking around the inside and outside of the house. We start to walk up to the house, I see one guy go up to one that must be the head officer. I stay back and listen to their conversation while the others walk ahead to look at the damage in the house.

“It looks like they entered in the back upstairs window, there’s a tree it seems they used. They left a bag of weapons on one of the beds. There were several knives of varying sizes and some kinds of chemicals, and we’re going to send those into the lab for testing. There was also a bundle of rope and some duct tape.”

What did they do to her?! I run past the guys and into the house. It’s a complete mess. Things are broken and strewn everywhere. I look down and two feet from where I’m standing is a small puddle of half dried blood. I feel sick. I try to control my breathing but it turns into hyperventilating. Someone grabs my shoulder and turns me around. It’s J-Hope.

“Let’s go before you do something stupid.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me out into the downpour.

Jungkook runs up to us.

“Ga ja! V hyung said that his parents are already at the hospital waiting for us!”

I’m the last one to get in the van. We all head to the hospital silent.

“Ok, if you guys don’t want to get in trouble with the press you better cover yourselves good, araso?” Manager hyung says.

Rapmon and Jungkook mumble a yes. As soon as the van stops I rip the door open and stumble out onto the wet pavement. We all run through the doors and to the registration desk.

“Where’s _________?” I ask breathlessly

“Are you her family?”

“Yes”

Her fingers glide over the computer keys.

“It looks like they moved her to the fifth floor, room 519.”

“Gamsahmnida!” We all bow and run to the elevators.

“She’s going to be ok Jimin-ah” Suga says, breaking the silence. I look over to hyung and nod.

“Yea, she has to be strong to like a pabo like you.” Jungkook claps my shoulder.

“I hope you guys are right.” It’s hard to optimistic at a time like this.

We walk through the halls searching for room 519. When we finally find it we see V’s parent sitting in the chairs on both sides of her bed. When they come over to talk to us I finally see her. Her beautiful face is swollen and bruised. Her cheek is bandaged and her arm is in a sling. I fall back against the wall and try to hold in my anger.

“The nurse said the doctors would be with us shortly, we don’t know anything yet, but the nurses said she was in so much pain she fainted. They’re not sure when she’s going to wake up, but she’ll be in some pain, the medicine they gave her takes a while to kick in.” Mr. Kim explains to us all. Mrs. Kim is busy wiping her tears. Seeing her in tears makes me feel even worse, it makes it feel real.

I can’t hold back the shock and sadness anymore. I let it engulf me and I slump to the floor. I let the tears and anger wash over me. J-hope and Jungkook sit on both sides of me and try to calm me.

“Gwenchana”

“Don’t let her hear you, she wouldn’t like that”

“Gwenchana” Jungkook says over and over.

It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fucking fault!

After the crying subsides, all that’s left is anger. I brush off the tears and stand up.

“Have you spoken the police yet?” I manage to say. Mr. Kim answers me first.

“Ne, we have already told them to do everything they can to find these people we don’t care who they are-

“Mrs. Kim?”

She’s awake!

I rush over to the chair by her and see her wet eyes looking at me. I wipe her tears as gently as possible.

This is all my fault. If I could have taken her with me, this wouldn’t have happened.

“Mianhe. I should have been there to protect you from whoever did this, but I couldn’t. Mianhe.” All I can do is whisper. All my shame makes me feel sorry towards her. It makes me cry all over again.

Damn it, I can’t be crying right now!

She smiles at me just a little and squeezes my hand. I give it a gentle squeeze back.

“Gwenchana, really” She says

“No it’s not.” Mr. Kim says. I can feel him standing right behind me.

“You are a part of this family while you’re here, and we are going to do everything to make this right.”

“From now on you call us Eomma and Appa.” It makes me happier hearing the love they have for her.

She is always in good hands with the Kim’s.

“Ne” she says.

“What happened?” Kookie asks her

“Two girls broke in. They were crazy, but I think they were your fans.”

“Sasaengs already?” V asks Rapmon. He just shakes his head.

“Can you describe them?” Mr. Kim asks

“One girl had long black hair and big scar on her face. I can’t remember anything about the other girl.”

It really is all my fault. Damn it Ah Ra! Why can’t you just let anything go?!

“What did they do to you?” I ask her

She tells me everything, and it all sounds like Her. I can picture Her setting up everything. Making Her little sister do all of Her dirty work.

I can’t listen to this anymore.

I get up and leave the room.

There’s only one way to face this.

I dial the familiar number into my phone. It answers on the third ring.

“Yoboseyo?”

“Stop. Anything else you’re thinking of, just stop it.”

“What are you talking about Jiminie? What did I do?” She says sweetly. I hate it whenShe calls me that.


“You know what you did. What is it that you want? Why are you taking it out on her?”

“If you really want to know why don’t you come visit me at our old place? Remember the times we had there?” She laughs. It feels disgusting to me.

”I’ll meet you there this weekend I’ll let you know what time works for me.” I hang up before she can respond with anything.

By the time I have some things figured out I see the doctor head into the room, I follow and listen to his diagnosis.

After hearing everything from him, it didn’t sound too bad, but it looked worse than he described. She looked at her ribs and her thighs. Seeing everything that happened to her because of me… it’s one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had.
______________________________________________________________________

By the time it’s ready to leave I lead people out and walk Jin to the door. I’m not in the mood to let him flirt with my girlfriend. I turn off the lights and close the door and look at her.

“What?” she asks.

I'm going to tell you tonight.

Notes