Chapter Text
Park Jimin’s life effectively started on September 1st, when he was precisely three years old.
Before that date, his memories were nothing more than fragmented shapes—the yellow wallpaper of a small apartment in Busan, the smell of sea salt through an open window, and the distant hum of the port. His biological father had walked out on them when Jimin was just a toddler, a vague memory that held no real weight in his mind. By the time Jimin turned one, a gentle, quiet-spoken man named Mr. Jeon had entered their lives. Mr. Jeon brought red bean buns on Fridays, loved Jimin’s mother fiercely, and legally stepped into the role of the father Jimin had never truly had.
Shortly before Jimin’s fourth birthday, the family packed up their lives and moved from Busan to the bustling heart of Seoul, ready to start anew. But the real miracle had arrived just a year prior—a tiny, round-cheeked baby named Jungkook, born in early autumn.
Jimin had been commanded to sit square in the middle of the living room rug. His mother and stepdad spent five whole minutes propping him up with every decorative throw pillow in the house, turning his tiny body into a human fortress.
"Hold your arms like a cradle, Jimin-ah," his stepdad whispered softly, kneeling on the carpet. "Just like that. Steady and soft."
When the bundle was lowered into his lap, Jimin stopped breathing entirely.
He had been told he was getting a little brother, but no one had warned him about the cheeks. The baby possessed the roundest, softest, most impossibly chubby cheeks Jimin had ever laid eyes on, flushed a delicate rose-pink. The baby let out a tiny, snuffling noise, his chest rising and falling beneath the blanket like the flutter of a bird’s wing.
For ten minutes, Jimin sat frozen in awe, his fingers twitching with the urge to poke one of those marshmallow cheeks.
Then, the front door chimed. His Aunt Sun-hee walked in, her voice booming through the entryway as she dropped her handbag. "Oh, is the baby home? Let me see him! Put him in the crib so he can rest!"
She leaned down, her large, jewelry-laden hands reaching to lift the newborn from Jimin’s lap.
The moment the baby was lifted two inches away from Jimin’s chest, the world ended.
Newborn Jeon Jungkook squinched his tiny face into a deep, crimson ball of rage and let out a wail so loud, so piercing, that the living room windows practically vibrated. Aunt Sun-hee gasped, rocking him frantically, but the baby’s cries only grew higher, his tiny fists flailing in the air as his chest heaved.
"Oh dear, oh dear," his mother fussed, bustling in from the kitchen with a warm towel. "Is he cold? Is his nappy full?"
"He was fine a second ago!" Aunt Sun-hee panicked, bouncing the screaming bundle up and down.
Jimin, still stuck in his fortress of pillows, scrambled to his knees. His heart hurt. The baby sounded terrified. Without thinking, Jimin opened his mouth and began to sing the only song he knew by heart—the soft, simple nursery rhyme his mother sang to him every night before bed.
"Island baby, sleeping sound... while the ocean turns around..."
His three-year-old voice was quiet, slightly pitchy, and thin, but the effect was instantaneous.
The wailing cut off in an abrupt, hiccuping gasp. Aunt Sun-hee froze. Slowly, the tiny red face relaxed. Two huge, glossy, dark eyes blinked open, searching the air until they locked directly onto Jimin’s face. The baby let out one final, shivering breath, his tiny mouth parting slightly, and reached out a microscopic hand toward the sound.
"Look at that," his stepdad murmured, a soft, amazed laugh bubbling up from his chest. "Jimin-ah... I think he only wants you."
Aunt Sun-hee carefully lowered the baby back into Jimin’s lap. The moment the newborn felt the warmth of Jimin’s knees again, he settled, resting his chubby cheek against Jimin’s thumb and closing his eyes in complete contentment.
Jimin stared down at the small, warm weight resting against him. His three-year-old brain didn't know words like devotion or responsibility, but his chest felt impossibly full, tight with a fierce, quiet certainty.
I will take care of you, Jimin thought, leaning down until his nose brushed the baby’s soft, peach-fuzz hair. I will never let anyone hurt you.
The only variable three-year-old Park Jimin hadn't factored into his grand life plan was the sudden arrival of Kim Taehyung once they settled into their new Seoul neighborhood.
When Jimin was five and Jungkook was two, the family next door welcomed them to the lane. A boy with box-dyed knees, a permanent smudge of dirt on his left cheek, and a rectangular, boxy grin wandered into their yard holding a half-eaten green apple.
"I'm Taehyung," the boy announced, taking a massive bite of his apple. "I'm five too. Do you have race cars?"
Jimin had eyed him suspiciously from his porch steps. "I have race cars. But my brother is sleeping, so you have to be quiet."
Taehyung had immediately dropped to his knees, crawling up the steps on all fours with dramatic, wide-eyed stealth. "Okay. I'm a ninja now."
Just like that, Kim Taehyung became Jimin’s shadow, his co-conspirator, and his undisputed best friend. Naturally, that meant Taehyung was automatically drafted into the Protect Jeon Jungkook Alliance—or the "Koo-lliance," as the two boys affectionately dubbed it.
The Koo-lliance saw its first major physical trial three years later, when Jimin and Taehyung were eight, and pre-schooler Jungkook was five.
It was a bright Thursday afternoon in May. Jimin and Taehyung were walking home from their elementary school, their backpack straps digging into their shoulders. As they turned the corner onto their quiet street, they spotted little Jungkook sitting on the curb in front of their gate. He was holding a plastic bottle of chilled banana milk—his absolute favorite afternoon treat—waiting patiently for his older brother to get home.
Then, Choi Jin-woo appeared.
Jin-woo was ten, built like a brick wall, and spent his days terrorizing every kid within a three-block radius. He stomped down the sidewalk, an old wooden broomstick slung over his shoulder like a wooden sword.
Jimin’s blood ran cold the moment Jin-woo stopped right in front of Jungkook.
"Hey, squirt," Jin-woo sneered, nudging Jungkook’s tiny shoe with his sneaker. "Give me that."
Five-year-old Jungkook blinked up at him with wide, innocent eyes, clutching the yellow bottle tightly against his chest. "No... it's mine. Jimin-hyung bought it for me."
"I said give it here!"
Jin-woo swung the wooden broomstick without warning. The hard wood cracked sharply against Jungkook’s small forearm. The bottle slipped from his hands, tumbling into the dirt, and Jungkook let out a high, shocked yelp, collapsing backward onto the grass as tears instantly flooded his big eyes.
Jimin didn't think. He didn't process the fact that Jin-woo was two years older, a head taller, and holding a weapon.
A guttural, primal sound tore from Jimin’s throat. He ripped his heavy, metal Transformers lunchbox off his arm by its thermos strap, spun around once like an Olympic hammer-thrower, and hurled it with every ounce of strength in his eight-year-old body.
CLANG!
The metal edge caught Jin-woo square in the sternum. The older boy gasped, stumbling backward, his wooden broomstick clattering to the pavement.
"GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" Jimin screamed, charging forward like an enraged terrier.
Before Jimin could reach him, a blur of striped cotton and denim shot past his shoulder. Taehyung had sprinted ahead, yelling at the top of his lungs, and hurled his entire body into Jin-woo’s midsection. Both boys crashed hard into the dry dirt of the front lawn, rolling into a chaotic mess of flailing limbs, flying fists, and dust.
"Tae!" Jimin yelled, diving straight into the pile to pull Jin-woo off his friend.
By the time Mr. Jeon and Mrs. Kim ran out of their respective houses, alerted by the deafening racket, Jin-woo had fled down the alley wailing for his mother.
Jimin and Taehyung were left sitting on the steps, panting heavily. Jimin’s right knuckle was split and bleeding, his uniform shirt torn at the collar. Taehyung had a rapidly purpling bruise forming over his left cheekbone and a scraped knee weeping blood into his white socks.
"Oh Jimin, we are in so much trouble," Taehyung mumbled, wincing as he touched his swollen cheek. "My mom is gonna take away my Nintendo."
"I don't care," Jimin snapped, wiping a mixture of sweat and dirt from his forehead. "He hit Jungkook. I'd do it again."
The front screen door squeaked open.
Little Jungkook crept out, his lower lip trembling, his face streaked with dirt and tear tracks. In his arms, he was carefully cradling a white plastic first-aid kit and two cold bottles of strawberry milk he’d pulled from the fridge.
He didn't say a word. He just knelt down on the hard concrete between the two older boys. With trembling, tiny fingers, he opened a sanitizing wipe and gently dabbed at the blood on Jimin’s knuckle.
"Ow—Kook-ah, careful," Jimin winced softly.
"Sorry, hyung," Jungkook sniffled, his voice tiny and thick with tears. "I'm sorry..."
"Why are you saying sorry?" Taehyung asked, leaning down to catch the little boy's eye despite the stinging pain in his own face. "You didn't do anything wrong, Kook-ah."
Jungkook finished putting a bright blue Band-Aid over Jimin’s knuckle, then turned his small body toward Taehyung. He took another wipe, his tiny hands hovering nervously over the dark bruise on Taehyung’s cheek. He pressed the cold cloth there with extreme, delicate care, blowing softly on the skin as if his breath could erase the pain.
"Does it hurt a lot, Tae-hyungie?" Jungkook whispered, his dark eyes brimming with fresh tears.
Taehyung stared at him, his boxy grin slowly breaking through the dirt and bruises on his face. "Nah. Doesn't hurt at all. I'm made of steel."
Jungkook let out a small, wet hiccup of a laugh. He popped the straws into both bottles of strawberry milk and handed one to Jimin, and one to Taehyung.
"Thank you, Jimin-hyung. Thank you, Tae-hyungie," Jungkook whispered, wrapping his small arms around both of their waists at the same time, burying his face into Taehyung’s shoulder. "I'll protect you when I'm big."
Jimin hugged his brother tightly, sipping his milk. "You don't have to protect us, Kook-ah. That's our job."
By the time Jimin and Taehyung turned fifteen, their role as permanent bodyguards had become legendary in their Seoul neighborhood.
Jungkook was twelve, in his final year of middle school, and possessed a quiet, gentle demeanor that unfortunately made him an easy target for older, insecure kids.
That winter, Mr. Jeon had arranged for a brilliant high school senior who lived down the street to tutor Jungkook in advanced mathematics. His name was Kim Namjoon—tall, dimpled, incredibly polite, and articulate beyond his years. Jungkook absolutely idolized him. Namjoon didn't just teach him equations; he explained how numbers functioned in music, architecture, and galaxy formations.
During dinner one Sunday evening, twelve-year-old Jungkook had leaned over his bowl of rice and sighed happily. "Namjoon-hyung is the smartest person in the whole world. He's so cool. I wish I could be like him when I grow up."
It was an innocent, pure expression of childhood admiration.
Unfortunately, a bitter freshman from the local high school—a boy named Park Sung-jin who had failed his algebra midterms—overheard Jungkook talking to his classmates near the neighborhood convenience store two days later.
Sung-jin took the innocent praise, twisted it into something filthy, and began spreading a rumor across the middle school grounds that Jeon Jungkook had an embarrassing, pathetic "crush" on the high school student council president. He cornered Jungkook by the bicycle racks after school, shoving him against the metal chain-link fence while three other boys laughed, chanting cruel, taunting nicknames.
Jimin and Taehyung, who were waiting at the main gate to walk Jungkook home, heard the chanting from across the yard.
Jimin didn't even drop his school bag. He handed his coat to a startled bystander, adjusted his sleeves, and walked toward the bike racks with a terrifying, absolute calm. Taehyung walked right beside him, his jaw set so tight his knuckles turned white inside his pockets.
What happened behind the bleachers that afternoon was swift, brutal, and utterly lacking in sportsmanship.
When the vice-principal finally broke up the scuffle, Sung-jin had a bloody nose and a ruined sweater, while Jimin and Taehyung stood over him, breathing heavily, their school uniforms torn at the seams.
The consequences were immediate and severe: two full weeks of academic suspension, mandatory community service cleaning the school gymnasium, and a joint lecture from both sets of parents that lasted well past midnight.
At two in the morning, the window to Jimin’s bedroom creaked open.
A twelve-year-old Jungkook slid through the opening, shivering in his flannel pajamas. He was carrying a bag of crushed ice wrapped in a dish towel and a box of fresh bandages.
"Jungkook?" Jimin sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. "What are you doing? Dad said you're supposed to be sleeping."
Jungkook didn't answer. He walked quietly over to the floor where Taehyung was sprawled out on a futon, having been forced to stay over so their parents could monitor their punishment jointly.
Jungkook sat on the edge of the futon. He opened the bag of ice and pressed it gently against Taehyung’s split bottom lip.
"Ow, ow, ow," Taehyung hissed softly, opening his eyes. "Kook-ah? What time is it?"
"It's two," Jungkook whispered. His voice trembled, his chest heaving as tears silently spilled over his lower lashes, dripping onto his pajama top. "Why did you do that? You got suspended. Your mom was shouting at you for an hour."
"Hey," Jimin said, sliding off his bed to sit on the floor beside them. "Don't cry. Sung-jin is an idiot. He won't ever say your name again, I promise you."
"I don't care what he says!" Jungkook cried softly, wiping his nose with his sleeve. He pulled two cold bottles of strawberry milk from his coat pocket, setting them on the floor with a sharp snap. "I care about you! You always get hurt because of me! Look at your lip, Tae-hyungie! It's bleeding!"
Taehyung sat up, looking at the younger boy with a strange, quiet intensity. He reached out, his long fingers gently catching Jungkook’s wrist to stop his frantic movements.
"Jungkook," Taehyung said softly, his voice lower than usual, devoid of his usual playful teasing. "Listen to me."
Jungkook blinked, his teardrops hanging from his long eyelashes. "What?"
"If anyone ever makes you cry, or makes you feel small," Taehyung whispered, his dark eyes searching Jungkook’s face in the dim moonlight filtering through the window, "Jimin and I will fight them. Every single time. It doesn't matter if we get suspended. It doesn't matter if we get grounded until we're thirty."
Jungkook stared at him, his breath catching in his throat. He swallowed hard, his cheeks flushing a sudden, deep pink that had nothing to do with the winter cold outside.
"Please stop fighting for me," Jungkook whimpered softly, though his hand remained still in Taehyung’s grip.
"Never," Jimin and Taehyung answered in unison.
Taehyung popped the straw into one of the strawberry milks, pressing it gently into Jungkook’s hands. "Drink your milk, brat. Go back to bed."
And then came the autumn Jimin and Taehyung turned eighteen, and Jungkook turned fifteen.
It was the year of the Great Heartbreak.
It was a cold, rainy October night when it happened. Jimin and Taehyung were hanging out on the porch steps, waiting for Jungkook to get home from his art club, when they saw three figures walking down the street under a shared umbrella.
It was Kim Namjoon, accompanied by two older guys—a strikingly handsome man with broad shoulders named Kim Seokjin, and a bright-eyed, energetic guy named Jung Hoseok.
And slung over Namjoon’s back, his arms wrapped weakly around Namjoon’s neck, was fifteen-year-old Jungkook. He was sobbing softly, his face buried in Namjoon’s coat, his broad shoulders shaking violently under the rain.
Jimin and Taehyung shot off the porch instantly.
"Namjoon!" Jimin yelled, his voice laced with venom as he intercepted them at the front gate. "What did you do to my brother?!"
Taehyung stepped right beside Jimin, his jaw clenched, his eyes glaring daggers at the older boy. "Why is he crying?! Did you do something to him?!"
Namjoon held his hands up defensively, struggling under Jungkook’s weight. "Whoa, whoa, hold on! I didn't do anything! Seokjin, Hoseok, and I were walking out of the cafe near the station and we found Jungkook sitting on a bench in the pouring rain, crying his eyes out."
"We took him inside, got him a warm meal, and tried to ask him what was wrong," Jung Hoseok added gently, stepping forward with an open, comforting expression. "He was so distraught he could barely speak, but he mentioned something about a person he loves... someone who completely broke his heart today."
Taehyung’s eyes narrowed into fierce slits. He stepped right up to Namjoon’s face, his voice dangerously low. "A person he loves? Who's to say it wasn't you? He used to talk about how cool you were all the time!"
Before Namjoon could even process the accusation, Kim Seokjin stepped directly between Taehyung and Namjoon, crossing his broad arms over his chest with an unimpressed glare.
"Excuse me, kid," Seokjin snapped, flicking Taehyung’s forehead lightly. "Watch your tone. Namjoon is literally dating me and Hoseok. We are a committed trio. He has zero interest in middle schoolers, so wipe that attitude off your face."
"We just wanted to get him home safe," Hoseok added soothingly, placing a gentle hand on Seokjin’s arm. "He's exhausted. He's been weeping for hours."
Jimin gently took Jungkook off Namjoon’s back. The moment Jungkook felt his brother’s arms, he clung to Jimin like a drowning man, burying his tear-stained face into Jimin’s neck, letting out a heart-wrenching, broken sob.
"Thank you, hyungs," Jimin managed to say softly, glaring past Seokjin for a split second before turning to carry Jungkook inside. "I've got him."
For the next four days, Jungkook locked himself in his bedroom. He refused to eat his meals, didn't ask to draw, and barely touched his daily banana milk. Through the thin drywall of their shared apartment, Jimin could hear his baby brother quietly crying into his pillows late into the night.
Jimin was beside himself with a terrifying, frantic rage.
"Someone broke his heart," Jimin declared, pacing back and forth across Taehyung’s bedroom floor, kicking a crumpled sweatshirt out of his path. "I know the signs, Tae! He’s fifteen! Some sociopath at his school led him on and dumped him!"
Taehyung was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring fixedly at the floorboards. He looked pale, gaunt, and strangely exhausted, his hands clasped tightly between his knees.
"Jimin-ah..." Taehyung started, his voice barely a rasp. "Maybe... maybe you shouldn't push it. Maybe he just needs time."
"Needs time?!" Jimin exploded, throwing his hands in the air. "He’s been crying for four days! He didn't even touch his banana milk this morning! Do you understand how serious that is?!"
Jimin grabbed his coat from the chair, tossing Taehyung’s jacket directly into his lap. "Get up. We're going hunting."
"Hunting?" Taehyung repeated, blinking blankly.
"We're driving around the district. We're going to every arcade, every boba shop, every internet cafe. We're going to find out who he was hanging out with, and when I find the kid who made him cry, I'm going to flatten his bicycle tires and tear his blazer to shreds."
For the next three hours, Jimin drove his beat-up sedan through the rain-slicked streets of Seoul, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. He checked every corner, glaring out the window at groups of high schoolers like a hawk hunting prey.
Beside him in the passenger seat, Taehyung sat in absolute, suffocating silence. He held a wooden baseball bat between his knees—Jimin had forced him to bring it from the closet—staring blankly out at the blurred streetlights.
Little did Jimin know, the true culprit was sitting right beside him.
Taehyung hadn't realized.
He genuinely, truly hadn't realized. To Taehyung, Jungkook had always been Jungkook—Jimin’s cute, round-cheeked little brother who needed protection, who brought them milk when they were bruised, who smelled like vanilla powder and baby lotion. Taehyung had spent years treating him with an affectionate, teasing fondness, completely blind to the subtle shift in the way Jungkook looked at him.
Two weeks prior, Taehyung had started casually dating someone from his art class. He had offhandedly announced it over pizza at Jimin’s house, laughing about a movie they were going to see.
He hadn't noticed the way Jungkook’s glass of juice had frozen halfway to his mouth. He hadn't noticed how the younger boy had quietly stood up, walked into his bedroom, and locked the door for the rest of the night.
It was only when Seokjin, Hoseok, and Namjoon had brought Jungkook home soaked in tears—and when Taehyung had listened to Jungkook sobbing through the bedroom door for four straight days—that the truth had hit Taehyung like a physical blow to the chest.
It was me, Taehyung had realized, his stomach dropping into an abyss of horror. I'm the one who hurt him. I'm the heartbreaker.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Jimin’s car, listening to his best friend vow total destruction on the anonymous monster who made his brother cry, Taehyung felt like he was suffocating. He couldn't say a word. He couldn't confess. If he told Jimin the truth now—that Jungkook was crying because of him, because he had dated someone else—Jimin would either murder him with the very bat in his hands or banish him from their lives forever.
So Taehyung sat in silence, holding the bat, watching the rain strike the windshield, carrying a guilt so heavy it felt like it was crushing his ribs.
Now, Park Jimin believed those chaotic, violent days of youth were firmly behind them.
September 1st had just passed two weeks ago, marking Jeon Jungkook’s official entry into his twenties. He was a university student studying graphic design, tall, broad-shouldered, and strikingly handsome—a lethal combination of doe-eyed sweetness and sharp, sculpted jawlines. Between hitting the gym religiously and taking up boxing, Jungkook had shot up in height, towering over Jimin (a sensitive topic) and easily standing eye-to-eye with Taehyung. He was, by all logical metrics, entirely capable of taking care of himself.
Or so Jimin had thought.
It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon. The late summer heat was hovering thick over Seoul, and Jimin was humming softly to himself as he carried a stack of freshly folded laundry down the hallway toward his brother’s room.
"Kook-ah," Jimin called out, pushing the door open with his hip. "I brought your oversized black sweater back from the cleaners. Don't leave it on the floor this time—"
Jungkook was standing near the foot of his bed, having just stepped out of his private bathroom. He was stripped to the waist, in the middle of pulling a baggy black graphic tee over his head.
For a single, brief second, as the fabric hovered mid-air, the collar pulled back, exposing the entirety of his left shoulder and collarbone.
Right there—nestled directly in the pale, soft dip where his neck met his shoulder—was a mark.
It wasn't a pale shadow. It wasn't a scratch. It was a deep, dark, fiercely reddish-purple, unmistakably human bruise. It was oval-shaped, fresh, and possessed a distinct, dark center where someone’s lips had applied intense, relentless suction.
The laundry basket slipped from Jimin’s hands.
THUD.
Clean, folded shirts tumbled across the hardwood floor like fallen leaves.
Jimin froze. The air left his lungs in a sharp, wheezing gasp. His eyes dilated until they were practically black.
"Jungkook."
Jungkook whipped around, his face turning from pale to a terrifying, incandescent shade of crimson in less than a nanosecond. He violently yanked the collar of his t-shirt up to his chin, nearly ripping the cotton seam.
"H-Hyung!" Jungkook’s voice squeaked—hitting an octave so high it sounded like a whistle. "You—you should knock! Why don't you ever knock?!"
Jimin raised a trembling, rigid finger, pointing directly at his brother’s neck. "What... what is that?"
"What is what?" Jungkook stammered, backing away slowly toward his desk. "There's nothing there! I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Do not play stupid with me, Jeon Jungkook!" Jimin took three aggressive, stomping steps into the room, his eyes locked onto the spot beneath Jungkook’s clutching fingers. "There is a crater on your collarbone! What happened to your neck?!"
"It's a mosquito bite!" Jungkook yelled defensively, pressing his back against the edge of his wooden desk. "A summer mosquito! They're super aggressive this month! You read about them in the news!"
"A mosquito?!" Jimin shrieked, his voice cracking with sheer, unadulterated hysteria. "Jungkook! That mark has an upper and lower jaw curvature! Did the mosquito have a full set of dental veneers and a human tongue?!"
"I scratched it!" Jungkook’s face was so hot he felt like he was going to combust on the spot. He pulled his shirt up even higher, hiding his entire throat beneath the collar. "I have sensitive skin! You know I react badly to bugs! It’s fine! It’s just an itch! Go away, hyung!"
Jimin didn't go away. He backed out of the room, his shock instantly solidifying into a terrifying, lethal focus that he hadn't worn since he was eighteen years old.
He pulled his smartphone from his pocket, his thumbs flying across the glass screen in a blur of lightning-fast speed. He slapped the phone onto speaker mode while pacing down the hallway like a rabid animal trapped in an enclosure.
The line rang once.
"Jimin, I am literally in the middle of bouncing an audio track for a client," Min Yoongi’s flat, unbothered voice echoed from the speaker, accompanied by the distinct clinking of an ice cube against glass. "If the cat threw up on the rug again, use the green spray under the sink."
"Yoongi," Jimin barked, his voice dropping an octave into a low, terrifying growl. "Code Red. Drop everything you are doing. Put down the headphones."
Silence lingered on the line for two seconds. "Jimin... what are you talking about?"
"Someone bit Jungkook."
"...Someone what?"
"A hickey, Yoongi! A massive, violent, territorial, deeply purple hickey on his shoulder!" Jimin shouted, turning around at the end of the hallway and pacing back the other way. "Someone touched my baby brother! Someone put their mouth on his skin!"
"Jimin, he is twenty years old—"
"I DO NOT CARE IF HE IS EIGHTY-FIVE!" Jimin bellowed into the microphone. "He is pure! He is innocent! He doesn't know the ways of the world! Someone is taking advantage of him! Hold on, I'm merging Tae into the line."
Jimin furiously stabbed his finger against the screen, initiating a three-way conference call. It rang twice before Taehyung’s voice connected. He sounded slightly out of breath, as if he had just been running up a flight of stairs.
"Hey... Jimin-ah," Taehyung’s voice came through, strangely muffled. "What's... what's up? Is everything okay?"
"Tae. Code Red," Jimin stated, his voice dropping into a deadly, solemn whisper. "Cancel your plans for the rest of the month. Clear your schedule. We have an apex predator in our midst."
On the other end of the line, there was a sudden, violent sound of someone choking on their own saliva, followed by a heavy thud as if a phone had been dropped onto a carpet.
"A... a what?" Taehyung squeaked out, his voice laced with a raw, unmistakable panic that Jimin entirely misread as protective fury.
"Someone bit Jungkook’s neck, Tae," Jimin explained, his eyes burning with a dangerous, righteous fire. "He tried to tell me it was an aggressive mosquito, but I know a human mouth when I see one. Someone is secretly dating him. Someone is hiding in the shadows, sneaking around behind my back, marking him like territory."
A long, agonizing, suffocating silence stretched across the line from Taehyung’s end.
"They... they marked him?" Taehyung managed to whisper, sounding like he was actively hyperventilating.
"Yes! He's being targeted by some shady, manipulative bastard!" Jimin declared, slamming his fist against the hallway wall. "We need to meet up at my place in thirty minutes. I’m setting up an investigation board. We're going to cross-examine his university classmates, his study groups, and his social media followers. We're going to hunt this predator down, Tae. And when we find him, you and I are going to ruin his life."
In his own apartment three miles away, Kim Taehyung was pressed flat against his bathroom wall, staring at his own pale, sweating reflection in the mirror with absolute, unadulterated terror.
Slowly, with a trembling hand, Taehyung raised his fingers, pressing them against his own lower lip—the exact lower lip that had been pressed with desperate, passionate hunger against Jeon Jungkook’s shoulder, against the wall of his studio less than twelve hours ago.
"Tae?" Jimin’s voice cut sharply through the speaker, cold and demanding. "Did you hear me? Meet me at the apartment."
"Y-Yeah..." Taehyung choked out into the receiver, cold sweat breaking out across his neck as his knees threatened to buckle beneath him. "Yeah, Jimin-ah..."
"Great," Jimin snapped, his dark eyes narrowing with lethal resolve. "Bring your baseball bat."
Taehyung swallowed hard, his throat completely dry, his hand trembling so violently he nearly dropped the phone into the sink.
"Y-Yes, hyung..." Taehyung stuttered out, his voice barely a squeak. "I'll... I'll bring the bat."