Jimin was slowly getting calmer. The sobs turned to light sniffles, and through it all, Taehyung did not budge. He stayed for the miserable ugly mess Jimin thought himself to be. Jimin didn't think he deserved to be treated so graciously. All the more so, he clung on to Taehyung like a lifesaver.

"Hey..." Taehyung cleared his throat, and Jimin was tired out but his ears seemed to pick up on Taehyung's voice.

"Uh. My legs are going to sleep." Taehyung's awkward grin was sort of lopsided.

Reluctant as he was to forsake the comfort of Taehyung's shoulder, Jimin pulled away and Taehyung felt a semblance of cardiac arrest at the eye smiles the boy was giving him. Taehyung could make Jimin feel unbelievably light sometimes. 

In Taehyung's eyes, Jimin looked like Christmas morning. Never mind that his eyes were puffy, Jimin's cheeks looked like marshmallows as his soft smile wrapped around Taehyung's mind like the dark velvety chocolate curls of his hair. 

Seeing Jimin smile at him like that made him want to shed a few tears himself. All his life he tended to stir up looks of contempt and disgust, but this? This was a look that conveyed that he was precious and irreplaceable.

Jimin wanted to ensure that Taehyung was aware of that.

"Lie down." Jimin said.

"Huh?"

Confused Taehyung found himself being tackled to the ground, and Jimin rather impressively cushioned Taehyung's staggering fall with a guiding hand over the small of his back, and an outstretched arm that grazed the side of Taehyung's face to intercept contact with the ground.

Taehyung never would have imagined that Jimin's legs were strong enough to hold him down. WAIT-WHAT??? 

Taehyung's eyes grew wide as he digested the fact that those robust thighs had a scissorhold on him, and Jimin was backhugging him like he was ready to go to sleep with Taehyung as a bolster.

"잠깐만 Chamkanman/Wait a minute..." Taehyung struggled for Jimin to release him, but Jimin wouldn't have it any other way.

"You wanted to sleep..." Jimin's murmur was in the form of a languid breath running down the back of his neck, and Taehyung wondered what he did to deserve this.

"Doctor Park. You drunk?" Taehyung hinted meaningfully at the inappropriateness of the situation.

"Maybe a little." This was followed by a half-assed whine.

"A little?"

"If my father finds me here, he'd be more concerned that I messed with the order of my stats reports than the fact that I'm lying here." Jimin referred to the papers scattered around him in an uncharacteristic mess. 

Clearly, Jimin couldn't care less now and carried on burrowing his face into the hood of Taehyung's cardigan. He just wanted to give in to the gentle lull of sleep with Taehyung's warmth right against his chest. But as he held Taehyung tighter, he felt him wincing and Jimin recognised it as a reflex action to pain. Jimin recoiled in concern.

"I'M SORRY—Where does it hurt??" Jimin raised Taehyung's shirt urgently to examine his back wounds, propping a hand against Taehyung's uncovered waist to survey his back with worried eyes.

"No-Don't—" Taehyung's grimace deepened and this time it was out of sheer embarrassment. But in Jimin's heavily tranquillized state, he was going to do what he wanted anyway, even if Taehyung was writhing under the tracing of his fingertips over each ragged bruise like he wished he could gently erase the hurt and shame inscribed on Taehyung's back and trembling heart. 

Each of his light caresses over Taehyung's painfully beautiful scarred back opened a deep, dark well of fear in his own constricting heart, and he was just in time to seek out the boy's hand to squeeze in comfort when Taehyung turned unsteadily towards him. 

Taehyung drew a shaky breath, afraid of catching Jimin's gaze on him while the air around them was charged with raw emotion. God knows he would never cry. Not for himself anyway. Pain was familiar to him, and he never knew how to resist it. So why were Jimin's eyes reflecting a world of hurt, like he was hurting for him too? Jimin's teary brown eyes looked so achingly beautiful then, and it made him want to press a kiss on Jimin's forehead to smooth out the crinkles that had formed out of persistent worry for him.   

"Taehyung ah... Who would do this to you?" Jimin's tone was a little inflamed, like he couldn't believe someone had the heart to subject Taehyung to such cruelty.

"I did this to myself."

Jimin couldn't believe his ears. "Really Tae? You still wanna go back there after all this time? Don't you know I can tell that you're lying?"

Taehyung continued to look away, unwilling to burden Jimin with the truth. 

"Are you covering up for your Dad? Is that it? He belongs in jail, Tae!"

"You're only half right. Yes, he belongs in jail. For what he did to my Mum... I hope he rots in Hell. So I have no reason to cover up for him."

Jimin is caught off guard by Taehyung's sudden vindictive language. The unmasking of Kim Taehyung didn't come easy, probably because he was used to noone caring. Jimin was an exception.

"I'm sorry." Jimin focused quietly on their interlocked hands. "I really don't mean to pry... I just needed to hear it from you once, so I know I'm not wrong to reopen the case and press charges."

"Park Jimin. Don't put yourself out there like that. That man... He could hurt you." Taehyung's voice lowered to a whisper under the weight of his fears.

"......I don't want you hurt." His voice came out a little hoarse. In the skip of a heartbeat, Taehyung realized he was weak for Jimin too. 

"Then how do I keep you safe?" Jimin looked frustrated that Taehyung hadn't considered putting himself first. It was eating him up inside that Taehyung was completely unfazed by pain, like pain was second nature to him. How much had this sweet boy endured that Jimin didn't know about?

"I feel like there's things you're not telling me. D-Do you...Do you hate me. If I had known about your Mum's condition, I swear—" 

Taehyung hushed Jimin's hot tears by thumbing them away. 

"No, no. It's not your fault. It never was." Jimin looked at Taehyung questioningly at the tenderness that came over the touch on his cheek. "I don't blame you, you hear me?"

"Then why did you avoid me? You practically camped in the toilet for two whole weeks."

"I was awkward." Taehyung shrugged. "I didn't know how to face you."

Guilt seeped through Taehyung's eyes as he beheld the bridge of Jimin's runny red nose only inches away. Jimin breathed in Taehyung's nearness as he waited for him to speak. "Part of me knew that I was just redirecting my anger at you. You couldn't have known that my mom... kept denying. Kept denying his abuse. Sh-She wanted to be strong... fo-for me."

"Why the . Why the wouldn't she say anything. And where the was I— I wasn't there for her." Taehyung's voice cracked. A personal hell was breaking out for him.

Vivid images threatened to consume him. He had been screaming. YOU CAN'T FIX THIS. Let go Mum. Let go of me.

And she did. While he packed up his bags, half going on his knees at the door pleading for her to come with him, she had already lost all will to reject her lot in life.

"This is the man I married, Taehyung ah... Omma doesn't get to run away."

She had pushed him out and slammed the door to their house. The house that had slowly been crumbling ever since his father laid hands on them both over an economy downturn that their finances dry, and rendered said father at the mercy of a low-paying job with a humiliating fall in social status. His mother and him had shown forbearance, but alcoholism made a monster of the father. The mother stuck by traditional views to not leave him in the lurch, blinding herself to his abuse.

That was how Taehyung knew his mother was lost to him a long time ago. And he felt like he was losing control even now.

Taehyung fell back into Jimin's tight embrace because he wouldn't have it any other way. Let it burn for now, it was okay to show it. Jimin patiently sustained him and bore with his scars, adding whispered assurances that he had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear.

Taehyung wished it were true.

"Tae, trust me, please?" Once again, Jimin had read Taehyung's expressions like an open book, and Taehyung's desire to hide himself showed in the way he dropped his head and leaned into Jimin's chest. Jimin didn't want to lose him again.

"I won't let anyone hurt you from now, ok?" Even in Jimin's drowsy semi-drunken state, he had said it with touching conviction. "I promise you'd be safe with me."

Taehyung nodded painfully against Jimin's chest, not wanting him to see he was crying his heart out in silence. His shoulders quietly heaved as he drew measured breaths to even out the deep breathing he used to mask his sobs.

Jimin encircled his arms around Taehyung's shoulders, and nuzzled his chin over the top of his head so Taehyung could easily find solace in the recess of his shoulder. Taehyung hardly made any movement as Jimin drifted off to sleep.

It was finally time for him to face his fears.

____

:: Author's Note ::

I finally got this chapter off my chest. I was close to giving up! I revised the start 100000 times.  

Leave me a comment or a sign if you're getting into this story, it would thrill me to know that you love Vmin to bits too. :)

I love them so much, I'm not going to ruin them. Not really. I promise.

I write angst because I really appreciate that BTS music vids are just so... raw. and real. They're not just pretty boys, and I love them. Especially Vmin.