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It was the shouting he heard first, followed closely by lots of clanging and a few choice curse words. But it was the desperate roaring that stuck with him in the moments that came after, when everything fell back into the dull murmurs he usually heard outside his room. Jimin usually didn’t mind the quiet, he found it rather peaceful, but this was disconcerting.
He tried to dismiss the noise from his mind and returned to the book he’d immersed himself in, but found his solitude disturbed by a sharp knock at the door. The owner of the knock didn’t wait before he let himself inside, his expensive shoes tapping against the wooden floors, announcing his identity even without seeing his face. Jimin closed his book and placed it on his ruffled blankets, sliding off the side of the bed until his bare feet hit the cold floors. He suppressed a shiver.
“Come.” There was no room for question in the demand, no necessity for more than a single word. Jimin obeyed immediately, ignoring the biting in his toes as he walked behind the older man, unwilling to pause to even shuffle into his slippers for fear of reprimand. As they moved further from his secluded rooms down the hallway, Jimin heard those roars again, getting louder each passing second. He took a deep, quiet breath, hoping anxiously that they’d keep going, they would leave the ugly sound behind them.
He should have known better.
When the tapping of shoes ceased, Jimin stopped walking a small distance away. The older man turned and stared at him. He knew that hiding under his fringe wouldn’t work, but he couldn’t meet the other man’s eyes.
“Inside. You know what to do.” Again, the command came across as distinctly undefiable. Jimin nodded wordlessly and scampered past, through the unsuspecting doorway. He had no idea what to expect inside the room, but wasn’t given a moment to ponder on it as the door slammed shut behind him the second he crossed the threshold. He clenched his eyes shut at the sound, grimacing.
It took him a few moments before he noticed the lack of noise. Given the bellowing he’d heard prior to entering the room, the contrast was startling, and made his eyes fly open in alarm. Instead of what he’d assumed was some hulking, furious person, he saw… a tired, young man, slumped resignedly against the wall, watching him from under knitted eyebrows. Jimin tilted his head curiously, but maintained the distance between them - there was a reason this man had been brought here, a reason they were using Jimin, and he wasn’t going to test out why.
He spotted a spare armchair in an ideal spot, opposite the man and close to the door, deliberately placed so Jimin knew it was just for him. There was a single book on the seat, and he approached to settle in. It was going to be a long while.
“If you don’t let me go, when I get out of here, I’m going to rip your pretty face apart with my bare hands.” The growl echoed through the small room as if the man had shouted it, and Jimin very nearly curled into a ball when it reached his ears. He heard the slight rattle of chains when the man shifted, and he spun on the spot to stare at him. A feral smirk appeared on the man’s face. “Oh? You seem scared. Worried about what I’m going to do to you? Then maybe you should get rid of these chains, pretty boy.”
Jimin took several deep breaths to calm himself from the shock of the reverberation of his voice and squared his shoulders. His face dropped into a blank expression, eyes hardening slightly as he eyed the man off. “I’m not worried about you, nor am I scared. It doesn’t matter what big, horrific thing you think you can do. You can’t hurt me, in or out of those chains. You should worry about yourself instead.”
With the slightest shrug of indifference, Jimin sat in the armchair, crossing both his legs under him, and opened the book on his lap. He flipped open the first page when he heard the chains again, and he sighed, glancing up. The man was closer, not so far as to be pulling on his chains entirely, but away from the wall, and was frowning at him. Jimin raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Why aren’t you scared of me?”
Jimin laughed softly. “What do I have to be scared of? You, the helpless kid in chains?”
“Exactly.” That gave Jimin pause, and he gave the younger man a questioning look, prompting him to continue. “If you knew what I could do, to you, to everyone, you’d be terrified of me. And given you’re part of the damn thugs that kidnapped me, you should be terrified regardless, because the second I have the opportunity, I’m tearing this place down to rubble, and there’ll be nothing you can do to stop me.”
Jimin kept his gaze on the younger for a few moments more, thinking, and shook his head before returning to his book. “You don’t know anything. Like I said, worry about yourself.”
Days passed like this. In the early morning, when the sun was barely a glimmer of gold over the horizon, Jimin would be sent for, and he’d arrive in the small room to find a new book on the armchair and the same surly expression greeting him from under increasingly messy raven hair. Three times a day, the silence would be broken by the clattering of plates as men brought meals to them, Jimin’s much more lavish than the other man’s. Each night, late enough that the dark was suffocating and even his escort was shivering from cold, Jimin would be returned to his own room.
Every now and then, the younger would have the energy to be screaming or thrashing in his chains, which Jimin initially froze up at, but now would merely wince and ignore - but most days, whatever they did to the man overnight that left him blooming purple and blue, would keep him quiet and sullen.
After a few weeks, Jimin was feeling particularly fidgety. He had been alone for so long that company was unusual, but now he had it, the company he had wasn’t quite satisfying him. He needed conversation. As he stepped into the room and the door closed behind him, instead of beelining directly for his armchair and book as he usually did, he looked over at the chained man. He was on the floor, chains pooled around his ankles, and his head drooped close to his chest, his eyes shut. Jimin pursed his lips and then moved into the center of the room, away from the safety of the door and his chair, and settled on to the floor in front of the other man.
The noise seemed to startle him awake, because he jumped and shook himself out of his sleepy state, glaring at Jimin.
“What do you want?”
“I’m bored. I don’t have anyone to talk to. So now, you have to talk with me.”
The man scoffed. “I don’t have to do any such thing. Go back to your damn chair and leave me alone before I -”
“Tear me apart, yeah, yeah, tell me something new, why don’t you?” Jimin waved his hand dismissively, cutting him off. He caught eyes with the man and smiled. “I’m Jimin. If we’re going to be in here for this long, I figured you should at least know that.”
He waited for a response for so long, he turned and went to return to his chair in defeat, but a small “Jungkook” stopped him. He grinned to himself, seating himself back down.
“Nice to meet you, Jungkook. Now, I don’t know anything about you, and you don’t know anything about me. Got any questions?”
Jungkook seemed to hold his breath for a second before he replied. “Where am I?”
“Uh,” Jimin paused. “I’m not really sure what I can tell you. But I guess it’s not like you’ll repeat anything, right?” Jungkook just rolled his eyes. “Okay, maybe you will, but it won’t matter anyway, you aren’t getting out of here, so I’ll just tell you and deal with the consequences later. You’re in a facility under the very heart of Seoul, built to contain people like you, and to employ people like the guys you see out there to help contain people like you.”
“And you? What are you here for?”
Jimin glanced away, raising a hand to rub at his neck. “I’m… a complicated situation. I’m necessary, but not wanted. I’m here to ensure people like you can’t go through with any threats you may have.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that I can do things that other people can’t. I’d say you can relate, right? Only I help, but you’re here because you were causing trouble up on the ground, so they brought you here to condition you.”
Jungkook tugged at his chains, his expression morphing into anger. “I didn’t cause any trouble! I was the one helping people, but you guys decided that my powers weren’t safe, you guys locked me up here for something I was learning to control!”
Jimin shifted backwards the slightest bit, and he noticed Jungkook’s eyes zero in on the movement. Jimin pointed to the chains binding the man to the wall.
“You know what? Those things, they aren’t keeping you here. I know that for a fact, because even if I don’t know what you can do, I know you believe you can get out of them without a thought, so you must be able to do something. The reason you’re stuck here? It’s me. So you damn well better calm down and talk to me like a reasonable person.”
He didn’t let his anger show visibly on his face, but the venom in his voice must have stung Jungkook’s pride, because the man, heaving chest and all, leaned back against the wall, fists clenched at his sides. He was pointedly glaring at Jimin, but the blonde wasn’t fazed, he simply smiled again like nothing untoward had taken place.
“Now. Tell me, Jungkookie, how old are you? Do you live alone? What do you like to do?”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“This is a conversation. Don’t act like you’ve never had one before. You’re far too pretty for that.”
Was it Jimin’s imagination, or did the raven-haired man flush red? He didn’t get a chance to ponder it as Jungkook began rattling off answers, and when the younger mentioned reading and music as a hobby, Jimin swallowed it all up and rambled on, until the both of them were bouncing words off one another in a steady stream. Neither noticed how the day had passed until the door was opening and Jimin could peer outside and see pitch black encompassing the hallway, punctuated by small dots of light emanating from the walkie-talkies of the escorts.
He stood to leave, and he heard a small escape of breath from behind him. He suppressed a grin. “Goodnight, Jungkook. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He didn’t turn to see a response as he returned to his rooms.
More days passed much the same, but Jimin always left feeling lighter from the conversations they immersed themselves in. Jungkook seemed to open up to him more, whether from loneliness or because he actually enjoyed the company, Jimin had no idea. But he was grateful for it.
One morning, when the city of Seoul was battered hard enough by storms that he could hear it from underground, he wandered into Jungkook’s room to find it empty. He had paused in the doorway, frowning in confusion, when he felt a weight hit him from behind. He stumbled forward and fell to his knees. Composing himself quickly, he spun, defences up. Instead of an attack, he saw the crumpled body of Jungkook lying on the ground, and the sliver of the hallway through the door as it closed.
“Jesus,” Jimin exclaimed, crouching down by the younger man, inspecting him. Fresh bruises coated his face from ear to chin, peppering his collarbones and down under his flimsy shirt. Someone had tried a hasty cleanup job of the blood by his eyes and nose, but had missed the key areas. Hesitantly, Jimin reached out a hand to Jungkook’s neck, feeling for a pulse. He couldn’t hear one at first, but then it stuttered under his fingertips and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed his, weakly. Jimin looked at his face, and their eyes made contact. He could feel his guard slipping, the walls he’d built up dropping down bit by bit.
“Jungkook… are you okay?” Jungkook shook his head feebly, but his grip on Jimin’s hand tightened the slightest bit. He jumped at the nearly imperceptible jolt of electricity that zapped his fingers. Jungkook’s eyes slid closed again and his weight grew heavier. Jimin very nearly panicked before he noticed the younger was still breathing, so he dragged him up into the armchair, trying to make him as comfortable as he could. He sat against the wall for half the day reading his book, his gaze constantly drifting over to check on Jungkook.
Early afternoon, when the trays of lunch had already lost their steam and the winds from outside the facility had grown quiet, a small moan alerted Jimin to Jungkook’s stirring. He closed the book he held and stood. Jungkook, unhindered by chains, raised a hand to his forehead, wincing. Jimin moved closer, kneeling down by the chair. Jungkook’s eyes slowly fluttered open. They swept around the room until they landed on Jimin and held there like they were caught.
Jimin felt the spark again, the hairs on his arms rising. Jungkook shivered violently, and the feeling left him. Jimin furrowed his eyebrows, confused.
“Was that… was that you?”
A long pause. A dip of the chin.
“How?”
“You know how. Or have you forgotten why I’m here?” Jungkook’s voice was shaking, as if he couldn’t physically speak without stressing himself out.
Jimin sighed. “No. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant, how did you cause it to affect me? That shouldn’t be possible.”
“I affect most people. It’s just part of the so-called gift. You aren’t special.” Jungkook rolled his eyes.
Jimin pursed his lips, and touched a hand to Jungkook’s arm. “But I’m not most people. You keep wondering why I’m your visitor all the time? Why I’m here every single day? Why I’m needed but not wanted? I’m like the kryptonite of every powered person. I nullify anything you can do, no matter what it is. People like you, I visit and stay with every day to stop you from having access to your powers, and eventually it weakens you enough that it takes more effort to use them than to not. But you… it’s like it’s stopped working on you.”
“If it’s stopped working, you would have been in a much worse state. But you know, I understand now.” Jimin frowned. “I’ve heard of you, up there in the city. Not you specifically, but more of what you can do. Powered people are scared of you. You’re like the boogeyman up there. I’ve heard of some people who were wreaking havoc aboveground who disappeared for a few weeks, and when they came back… they weren’t the same. They either couldn’t use their powers, or they were so significantly weakened that they may have been better off not being able to use them. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Jimin ducked his head, unable to look at Jungkook. So far was he in his own thoughts, that he gasped deeply when Jungkook’s fingers touched his cheek, and he felt the heat of the spark burning his skin. The burn turned into a sting, and it was like his entire being was being tugged at, his very soul being pulled away from his body.
“I’m sorry. I need this. I wish it didn’t have to be you.” He almost didn’t register Jungkook’s words, as sludgy as his brain was becoming. And then, it stopped almost as soon as it began. But his vision was spotted and swimming, and moving his body felt like he was trying to wade through mud.
“ Wh-what?”
“Don’t try to speak, Jimin. It will only make it worse. Just hold on a little longer and you’ll be okay,” Jungkook told him, but it sounded like it was being muffled by water. Jimin shook his head, only succeeding in making himself dizzier. He felt himself being pulled up by strong arms, his head lolling on to Jungkook’s shoulder.
In the flashes that he remembered afterwards, he saw himself being dragged down the hallway, Jungkook an intimidating figure, holding him against his chest, one arm sparking bright with electricity, aimed at his heart. As if from outside himself, he saw Jungkook escape the exit door of the facility, and the lightning disappear as if it never existed.
He felt it though, felt it when Jungkook leaned down and propped him against the wall, felt it when the younger’s hands brushed his fringe out of his eyes, felt it when he moved in and kissed him hard.
When Jungkook pulled back, Jimin could see more clearly, could breathe better. He watched Jungkook, who was staring at him.
“Thank you. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to use you… but I needed to get out. I knew who you were when I met you, I’d heard all the rumours of the pretty demon in the angel’s skin who caused people to lose their powers. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting you . And I didn’t expect you to be, well, not a demon. If you ever leave this place, you should come find me.”
“Wait-”
“Goodbye, Jimin. I’ll see you again one day. I promise.”
Jimin’s vision faded to black to the sight of Jungkook running off into the busy heart of Seoul, losing himself in the crowd. His last thoughts before unconsciousness said I’m glad I could help another one get out.