Chapter Text
Jimin always had a tendency of staying up late; whether it was a party, or a charity event, or a dance practice, he always managed to find the short hand of the clock reaching numbers that should only be seen by broad daylight.
Two. Three. Four. Five AM. Jimin was a bit of a night owl.
The security systems had claimed to be perfectly sound and functional—Jimin’s family was just wealthy enough to warrant a few strategically placed guards and motion detectors. Not exactly of celebrity-status aristocracy, but also not a typical upper-middle-class suburban family.
(It was nearly three in the morning when they had abducted him.)
Security cameras certainly served to ease the troubled minds of Park Jimin’s family. Perhaps, at the end of the day, these cameras were nothing more than obnoxious gnats to the potential intruder. Nonetheless, it could not be emphasized enough that a practically useless video camera will help a rich man sleep better at night.
(He was in the bathtub when they had taken him.)
After an outrageously long day filled to the brim with meaningless conversation and overpriced three-piece suits, Jimin had wanted nothing more than to come home and take a long, indulgent bath. He had even slipped into his parents’ bathroom to steal one of those chalky golden-orange bath bomb things that his mother soaked in religiously—perhaps, thought Jimin, she won’t notice if I only take one. It smelled like citrus and ice cream and a bit like his friend Taehyung, for some reason.
(A gloved hand slapped firmly across his mouth, a distinct chemical scent emitting from the rag covering his nose. Bathwater splashing to the floor, dull thuds sounding from the porcelain as Jimin thrashed against the sides of the clawfoot tub; thrashed against the sets of hands that littered his body with small bruises.)
Jimin himself had never put much thought into the damned security systems. He wasn’t entirely sure what good they would do, anyway, against someone who really and truly wanted to harm the family. Guards could be shot. Cameras could be short-circuited. Motion sensors could be hacked. It was entirely doable, and to the professional eye, robbing the house would have been a breeze.
After a few years of ignoring the way the cameras swiveled, it was almost easy to forget that the whole system was even in place. It was even easier, on a night that his parents were out of town on a business trip, on a night that he was so thoroughly exhausted, to forget to press the button that activated the security measures. On a night like this night.
He didn’t pay attention when the cameras neglected to swivel. He hadn’t noticed the absence of light emitted from the motion sensors. He gave it no thought when he didn’t hear the bolt of the front door lock behind him.
(Distantly Jimin felt himself sinking lower into the water. His limbs refused to move against their constraints and his vision became blurry, black. He felt his eyes flutter closed as the chloroform in the mask slowly and tenderly lulled him into unconsciousness.)
It was almost three in the morning, and Jimin had been absentmindedly soaking in the golden-orange water, his eyes closed. If any intruder had slipped into the bathroom, he would have never known—after all, he was so genuinely exhausted.
Jimin’s eyes shot open the second he felt a strong hand clench itself around his mouth.
The next time his eyes had opened, he wasn’t even sure they were open at all.
Jimin was utterly encased by pitch-black. Blinking a few times and whipping his head around, he tried to collect himself and orient exactly where he was—to no avail, of course. Any chance of recognizing his surroundings was entirely hopeless, considering that there was absolutely no source of light anywhere around him.
Am I dead?
It was a startling thought, but one that wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. Attempting to wiggle his fingers, Jimin finally gained a slight sense of his situation.
He tugged his arms, then his legs. Neither budged; he was apparently tied into a chair by very, very heavy ropes that were perhaps knotted a bit too tightly. These weren’t the kind of ropes that he could suddenly break free of when the moment was right—these must have been for industrial use, because they were large in diameter and extremely unforgiving.
The room was still saturated by a dead, void-like black.
Time passed, and somehow, Jimin wasn’t entirely sure whether it was minutes or hours. In this room it seemed like time was nonexistent; there were no signs that the clocks in the outside world were ticking, there was no telltale flickers of motion. Jimin may have fallen asleep; he may have been wide awake. He had absolutely no way of knowing.
Maybe it was days. Again, there was no way of knowing. Jimin’s mind screamed at his that this must be what it is like to be in a coma; to be in purgatory; to be insane. A man left alone with nothing but the sound of his own thoughts and the visions of his own mind was bound to go crazy at one point or another. As minutes (hours? days? weeks?) passed, Jimin felt himself being consumed by the runaway train that had become his head.
When the light came, he couldn’t help but cry out at the sheer assault on his eyes. It was utterly blinding; no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyelids together, no matter how far he bowed his head away from the light source, it still managed to stun his senses and permeate his brain.
It took him a very long time to finally, delicately, blink his eyes open. Whoever had turned on the light must have been patiently waiting, for he heard no movements or voices as he slowly flickered his eyelids and fought against the burn of the harsh brightness.
With a steady cautiousness that he hadn’t known himself capable of, Jimin finally was able to look at his surroundings. The grey, concrete floors were first. Next came the half-finished plaster walls, the finally the fluorescent lights above him came into view.
Oddly enough, the lights reminded him of the ones that hung from the ceilings at his high school.
Maybe I am in hell after all. Maybe I’m spending the rest of eternity in the eleventh grade.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
Jimin yelped and his ears bristled at the first sound he had heard in what seemed like years. He knew it was barely more than a whisper, but the voice seemed to have the power of a megaphone situated directly against his ear. As he turned his head around to find the source of the noise, Jimin’s blood ran cold when he laid eyes on a dark-eyed man to his right.
This man oozed intimidation. He seemed much larger than his slim figure and relatively short height should have portrayed. The man was clothed entirely in black, and seemed to have grey-tinted hair that was unfitting of a person his age—he couldn’t have been more than 25 years old.
Jimin was already terrified of him.
“Please don’t freak out, kid, that just makes my job a lot harder. Just sit back and listen for a minute.”
Seemingly against his own will, Jimin obeyed the man’s commands and screwed his mouth shut.
“If you’ve got half a brain, you’ve probably figured out that you’ve been abducted. It’s not personal, kiddo, you’re being held for ransom. I’m not going to harm you, and I’m not gonna starve you. Just do what I tell you to and you won’t get hurt,” his abductor stated calmly, sauntering across the cold floor to stand in front of Jimin.
Jimin nodded shakily.
“You were ass-naked when we took you, so we’ve taken the liberty of giving you some simple clothes. Sorry if they’re uncomfortable, we did what we could.”
The clothes, Jimin suddenly noticed, were a little baggy. At least he wasn’t naked. He couldn’t really complain about that.
“Your ransom is set for $100 million.”
Jimin’s eyes bulged and his mouth dropped, as panic began to bubble in his chest. His family didn’t even have that much money—sure, they were rich, but not to the level that this man was talking about—
“Calm down. We know you don’t have that much money, which is why we’ve set the ransom deadline for a month from now. So that they have time to get loans, collect money, things like that. Or they can try to track you down, but that’s not going to happen. We’re very good at what we do, and the government is a bit on the dumb side when it comes to things like this.”
Silence.
“You know you aren’t gagged, right? Can you talk, kid, or are you just quiet?” the man inquired curiously, leaning down to reach eye level with Jimin.
“… I can talk,” Jimin replied softly. “My throat’s just a little dry, I think.”
It was true—God knows how long it had been since he’d had any water. The scratchiness was ignorable, given his situation, but talking hurt. Well, that combined with the fact that he didn’t feel any particular inclination to make small talk with his fucking kidnapper.
“I’ll get you some water.”
At least the man seemed to be reasonable. Jimin had been through a relatively comprehensive amount of training about what to do in a situation like this—ransom was an unfortunate reality for the rich, one that Jimin had hoped to never face. In his training an instructor had told Jimin that most professional ransom kidnappers would treat their victims moderately well. Jimin was glad that it seemed to be true in this case.
That, however, did not halt the pure and unadulterated fright that crept into his veins. If not for the fact that he had not eaten in at least 24 hours, Jimin would have probably vomited by now.
He still wasn’t sure what this man would be doing to him, and that was the terrifying part.
The man returned to the room a few moments later with a simple glass of water clutched in his hand. Involuntarily, Jimin snorted when he noticed the hot pink, flamingo-shaped straw poking from the top of the cup.
“Something fucking funny?” the kidnapper growled.
Jimin paled slightly at the man’s anger. “I… Sorry, I just…” He gulped.
“These straws were on sale. If you’ve got shit to say about it, you don’t have to drink. Your decision.”
Jimin’s breath left him. The look in the man’s eyes was enough to make Jimin believe that he was not afraid to take away water privileges. (Even if the straw really was kind of funny.)
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Jimin.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin croaked, his tone verging on pained. “Please, I’m sorry, I’m just really thirsty.”
The man paused a moment, staring at Jimin, as if mulling over his options. Finally, with a sigh, he strolled over slowly and stuck the straw up against Jimin’s lips.
“Drink, but don’t make yourself sick. I don’t want to have to clean up a mess. Pace yourself.”
Jimin obeyed, relishing in the chilled water as it soothed his throat and eased the pain. After a few moments, he felt his eyes fall closed and he desperately sucked down water like it was the last opportunity he would ever have to drink anything ever again—
“That’s enough,” came the gravelly voice from above him.
As the straw was pulled from his lips, Jimin whimpered in protest and looked up desperately.
“No. I’m trying to hydrate you, not turn you into a fucking piss factory.” A brief flash of annoyance crossed the man’s eyes and he quickly turned to place the glass on the only nearby surface—a table to the left, empty except for a tripod and camera.
How did Jimin miss that?
“What’s the camera for?” Jimin asked shakily, suddenly becoming cold at the thought of possible answers to that question.
Wordlessly, the grey-haired man gave him a hard look and ambled to the steel door. He pulled it open, and for a minute Jimin thought that he might leave—instead, however, the man simply reached past the opened doorframe and hauled out a metal, folding chair. He dragged it back along the floor with a sharp screech, finally stopping in front of Jimin and tilting the chair open. As the man sat, he faced Jimin and met the boy’s eyes.
“We’ll be broadcasting a ransom video to your house, once daily. That’s what the camera is for. We’ve taken steps to make sure that the IP address will reroute every few seconds, that the modem is untraceable. It’ll show up in Malaysia one moment, Nigeria the next, then Belgium, so on. We’ve got some very talented hackers working on our side. They aren’t getting paid enough, in my personal opinion.”
Jimin shifted uncomfortably, but continued listening.
“For each broadcast, we need you to be tied up like this. I’ll have a knife at your throat, but I’m not gonna hurt you as long as you keep your mouth shut. You won’t be allowed to talk on the broadcasts. Even innocuous words can hold messages. We don’t want to risk that.”
“But…” Jimin swallowed thickly, breaking eye contact with the man. “Are you just gonna keep me tied up in a chair all day? What if I have to go to the bathroom, or—”
“What do you take me for, a fucking animal?” the man interrupted darkly. “You’ll be taken to a holding cell after the broadcast, you’ll get a bed and a small bathroom. We’re trying to get money, not torture you. We just need to amp up the drama for the videos—the worse you look, the faster we get the money. Like I said earlier, this isn’t anything personal, kid.”
His lip wobbled subconsciously. “You fucking kidnapped me, it feels pretty damn personal,” Jimin whimpered softly, cursing his feebleness.
The man’s gaze softened for an impossibly short moment, before hardening back into a scowl. “Whining won’t get you anywhere. Nothing you can do will really get you anywhere.” He stood and pushed the chair to the corner of the room. “But I’ll let you in on a trade secret, kid. The more desperate and terrified you act on camera, the faster your mommy and daddy will want to come and pick you up.” He stopped and plucked the video camera from where it sat on the table, positioning the tripod and setting up the system. “I’m not saying you have to. But if you want to sacrifice your pride, crocodile tears can come in handy.”
“How do you know that the tears are gonna be fake?” Jimin asked waveringly. “You took my from my home and tied me up in a chair. I’m terrified as shit.”
It was perhaps too bold of a statement. Mouth shut, Jimin, mouth shut, mouth shut—
“You don’t seem like that type. If you were gonna cry for real, you would have already done it by now.”
At that point, Jimin had finally noticed that his eyes were oddly tearless. Jimin was petrified, that was for sure—but somehow, he seemed to be keeping a moderately level head throughout the situation…?
“What’s your name?” Jimin ventured.
Perhaps it was a dumbass question. He couldn’t possibly expect this man to give him any personal information. But, to Jimin’s surprise, his kidnapper actually gave a curt answer while fiddling with the video camera.
“Call me Yoongi.”
“Yoongi,” repeated Jimin softly to himself, trying to adjust his arms more comfortably against the ropes. In a strange way, the name seemed to fit the intimidating man pretty well. “Yoongi, how much longer do I have to stay in these ropes?”
The older man shot Jimin an impatient glare, effectively shutting him up. “Don’t start getting whiny on me, kid. Remember who gives you meals. Remember who has the gun.”
Jimin hesitated, eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“We need to shoot the first video, then I’ll take you back for the night. Don’t say a word while the camera is recording, and keep your eyes shut. We had a guy once who blinked in Morse code. He thought it was really clever, until I slit his throat,” Yoongi stated coolly.
A shudder passed through Jimin’s body.
“The light on this camera will turn red in twenty seconds. That’s when it will start live-recording. The broadcast will end immediately after thirty seconds.”
Yoongi sauntered over to stand behind Jimin’s chair, unsheathing a large, curved knife from his belt. Jimin felt his hair being lightly tugged back by a firm hand, and he realized that Yoongi was trying to get a good angle on his neck. Blood ran ice-cold in the boy’s veins as the metal was pressed lightly at the skin above his Adam’s apple. It took a startling amount of self-control to not panic, to keep his mouth shut. Jimin heaved anxious breaths quickly through his nose, doe-eyes staring up at Yoongi’s emotionless face.
“Eyes closed.”
Jimin followed the orders, and all was black once again.
“Our instructions are simple,” Yoongi’s monotone voice stated loudly. “Your family has one month to collect and pay 100 million dollars for the ransom of Park Jimin. You’ve been sent access to a numbered bank account to transfer the money into, when you are ready. You can try to track us down, but you will fail. Thirty days remain.”
A light beep signaled the end of the recording, and Jimin delicately opened his eyes once more. He had half-expected to find himself back home, waking from a nightmare, slowly regaining his senses and glancing around his bedroom.
When his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent light, his heart sank. He cursed himself for harboring the naïve notion that this could simply be a dream.