It’s a long trip home, but Jimin’s settled in with at least 30% battery left on his phone – enough to listen to a few songs while he dozes off, staring out the window at the same scenery he sees every day.

His mother keeps urging him to take up Jihyo’s offer. “Come work in my bakery!” the old woman would say whenever she came around to visit Jimin’s mother for a cup of tea. “Won’t it be lovely to stay near home?”

And Jimin doesn’t disagree. It’s not like he wants to be bagging groceries for the biggest supermarket chain in South Korea for the rest of his life. His boss still forgets his name after two years, and the customers aren’t always the politest and most respectful individuals. The wage isn’t even that good, although Jimin would feel bad for accepting anything more from old Jihyo.

Yet, he stays. The supermarket lives in the heart of the city, constantly bustling with life as people go through their routines with no mind for the next person. It’s anonymous; no one expects anything of Jimin there. Customers forget his face as soon as they walk out the shiny glass doors.

People didn’t care who Jimin is, or where he’s going. They don’t compliment him for being the perfect son, and they certainly don’t ask invasive questions about his plans for the future. Right now, Jimin enjoys being no one – almost takes pride in it. It’s his secret little hideaway; he can’t expect the people back home in his little village to understand that.

He’s nearly got the bus to himself today, except for a middle-aged man sitting in the front seats. He’ll get off as soon as they crest this mountain – Jimin’s memorised everyone who rides this bus regularly. It’s not like it’s hard. Most days see Jimin alone on the bus, and he can count the other regulars on one hand. Most people don’t have a need to be heading out so far.

As the bus winds its way around another corner, Jimin glimpses a group of people on the side of the road. Occasionally, groups of wayward teenagers make their way up the mountain to drink and smoke and ride down at the speed of light on their bikes and skateboards.

It’s not until the bus slows to a halt that Jimin begins to feel like something is wrong. No one gets on the bus this high up the mountain, not unless it’s heading back into the city. Some part of Jimin’s mind rationalises that it’s probably just a group of hiking tourists who got lost, but he knows that’s not true.

When the three young men get on the bus through the front doors, Jimin’s already tensed in his seat. He can lie and say they haven’t noticed him yet, but he knows they have. They’ve memorised his schedule, just like Jimin has with his other riders – they chose this bus in particular.

All three sets of eyes turn to glare at him, malicious intent clear as they begin to make their way towards the back of the bus. Jimin waits, his heart pounding, but he can’t get this wrong if he’s going to escape their clenched fists. He doesn’t know how he became their target, what he did to anger them so badly, but he’s never really felt like asking either.

The bus doors begin to slide closed, and Jimin counts in his head to keep his mind straight. As always, the doors in the middle of the bus get stuck, grinding along some unknown object stuck in the runs. It’s always the same.

Jimin leaps out of his chair, vaults over the barrier, and slides through doors as they jolt past the blockage and slam closed. He hits the ground running, not stopping to look back and check if they made it out. He heads down the mountain – going up would surely mean death, and Jimin doesn’t kid himself that he can outpace those gym junkies.

How he’s going to get home now is on the back of Jimin’s mind, but he shoves it down. He won’t be going home at all if he’s hospitalised.

His small glimmer of hope is dashed aside when he hears the wheels behind him squeal, right before the angry shouts that chase Jimin down the hill. Jimin’s heart drops, and he almost considers stopping and just letting it happen. The buses only run every three hours, and sometimes not even that if the driver can’t be bothered completing the trip. He can’t outrun these three men for hours on end.

He glances back, only to regret it immediately upon seeing how they’d closed the gap. Jimin’s head start didn’t even mean anything, and it was only 30 seconds into the chase.

His second regret comes from not turning back forward quick enough, as he feels his toes slam against something solid on the road. His ankle rolls underneath him, his breath rushing out of his lungs as he topples forward. Jimin tries to catch himself with his arms outstretched, yet meets nothing but thin air.

He’s fallen off the mountain.

Jimin takes a gasp of air as his body becomes weightless, but it’s out of him before it makes a difference as he collides with the steep ground. He’s rolling too fast to stop, but instinct makes him stretch out his arms anyway to grab onto something.

He’s immediately punished for such a thought, his left arm colliding with a rock or tree or something, and was that the crack of sticks beneath him or his arm disintegrating into a thousand pieces? Jimin cries out without thinking and gets a mouth full of dirt for his troubles.

The impact sends him careening, tumbling into a freefall that makes even the rolling seem calm. His leg kicks out wildly at branches and underbrush, his injured arm continuously crushed again and again under the weight of his body against the forest. Nothing goes through his mind as he falls, nothing but pure fear. His neck is thrown back by a particularly harsh jolt and sends his head into some kind of boulder. At this point, Jimin can’t even feel the pain.

It seems like hours before he finally reaches a plateau. Jimin lays there crumpled at the bottom of the mountain, and his first thought is one of self-pity. I can’t even cry.

He almost wants to laugh, but he’s not sure why. He knows he’s going to die; he can taste the blood running into his mouth. He only hopes someone finds his body. Being slowly consumed by the forest seems like a dismal way to go.

I won’t even be able to feel it. I’ll be dead .

 

~*~

 

Wet.

Jimin would be grumpy if he had the energy. He’s never liked the rain; it always comes around at the worst times and ruins plans. In this case, it’s preventing a peaceful death.

At first when Jimin opens his eyes, he thinks he’s gone blind. His body hurts so much he wouldn’t be surprised, but when he rubs his right hand over his face the darkness peels away.

Even in the gloom, Jimin can see the blood on his hand. As if in response, the rain starts to come down harder.

His legs are so bruised and battered he can’t recognise them through his torn pants, and his left arm won’t move at all. It’s only spring, but the rain is cold enough to pierce through what remains of his clothes, only adding to every other inch of pain Jimin’s currently experiencing.

Jimin doesn’t like to swear, but he feels like if he could open his mouth right now, he would be saying all kinds of despicable things.

He doesn’t want to die. The thought of closing his eyes again scares him to no end, so Jimin tries to push himself upright instead. The world spins, and his chest begins to ache with every breath, but the way he sees it at least he’s breathing at all.

It seems like it takes Jimin forever, his hair pressed flat to his forehead, but he gets there. On his knees, he’s able to struggle forward, letting his left arm dangle limp and drag through the mud.

It hurts, but Jimin can’t feel it. He knows he’s probably making all kinds of horrible groans, but he can’t hear it. He only knows to push himself forward, one tiny step at a time. He’s still not sure where he’s going, but he also can’t be certain how fast the world is actually spinning, so he writes it off as collateral damage. Surviving is the first step, a destination can come later.

Even as he moves, he can feel his eyes drifting closed. It’s hard to stay focused when all Jimin knows is nothing. The rain is so loud that it almost drowns out the thunder in his head, and every part of his being is telling him to just curl up and let it all be. He won’t, though.

Jimin’s briefly ashamed that he hasn’t thought of his family, but he can’t even hold onto that thought for long. The world revolves around that next step, crawling his way to some kind of haven that even he knows doesn’t exist.

The rain comes down harder, and he keeps going. Nothing is important anymore, even the pain seems to have vanished. He’s not cold, he’s just tired. Names don’t matter, family doesn’t matter, just sleep.

 

~*~

 

Jimin is so sick and tired of being woken up. It reminds him of some distant memory, someone gently nudging him awake and out of bed with the smell of delicious food, but this isn’t that.

Everything is so wet, and everything hurts. Before Jimin had been rudely awoken, there had only been peace – but now he is aware of every inch of his body, a mixture of burning and throbbing and stabbing. Someone is trying to kill him, but when he cracks his eyes open he only sees darkness. It took all his energy to even get to that point, so instead he just lets it happen.

Whoever it is makes a tsk. Jimin takes offence to that. They prod again, this time lifting Jimin’s arm a little before letting it fall – and that hurt like a . It wasn’t going to be personal, but now Jimin’s more than upset. Can’t they just leave him alone? What did those three guys find so insulting about him anyway, it’s not like he ever hurt them. They’re not throwing around those hurtful slurs though, so maybe they pity Jimin enough to leave him be.

“What the hell?” says his attacker, but to Jimin it’s all white noise anyway. He realises that he might’ve been talking out loud, but his mouth wasn’t moving so it wasn’t his problem.

“, alright, hold on.” Jimin’s pretty sure that’s not one of the voices of his assailants, but it’s not impossible they picked up a new friend. Why was he here, again?

Footsteps approach – over wood, and now Jimin realises there’s no rain on his face, no mud under his bare skin. Whoever it is steps over him, and with little concern grabs Jimin under the arms and starts to drag him like some kind of dead body.

If Jimin thought he knew pain, he was wrong. Jimin’s certain he doesn’t have a mouth, but he hears himself scream anyway. He can’t thrash, can’t struggle, can only let himself be dragged over bumps and lumps and sharp splinters of wood. His head drops to his chest, and somewhere along the line he realises he’s still screaming, but it doesn’t matter. Screw this guy, can’t he leave me be?

 

~*~

 

“I may as well just finish the job. If you move again, you’ll be as good as dead anyway.”

At least Jimin has the energy to glare now. He’s thankful to this stranger for wrapping him up, but who does he think he is?

Jimin had heard about all the strange trends of the city folk. In the village, everyone grows up the same, but in the city, there are all kinds of cliques and factions to follow. People who dress in all black, people who never wear shoes, people who pretend they’re magical. He’s never seen someone who wore long, thick claws over their natural fingernails, but Jimin supposes it’s not all that weird considering.

Whoever he is, he’s not nice. He treats Jimin’s wounds gently enough, taking care to wrap everything in thick cloth that doesn’t resemble any kind of medical bandage or gauze at all, but his words cut deep. It’s almost like the man hates Jimin, but how can that be? He can’t remember doing anything wrong, but then he can’t remember much at all.

The man pulls his arm back and removes the pressure he’d placed on Jimin’s chest to stop him from wriggling and writhing, no longer pinning Jimin to the wall where he’d been propped up. When the stranger stands and backs off, Jimin takes the opportunity to scan his body – and what a mistake that is. He looks away instead, scanning the room.

 

It’s simple. No furniture, no luxuries – just a small kitchenette, and a pile of blankets in the back corner that Jimin supposes is a bed. The place looks unlived in, although there’s clearly running water and electricity connected.

The man runs fingers through black hair, pushing it out of his eyes. He’s soaking wet too, Jimin realises, but he doesn’t feel at all bad for the man when he won’t stop looking at Jimin likes he’s something incredibly unsavoury.

He looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how to get it out. In the end, the man settles on, “don’t move,” before turning away to the kitchen.

If Jimin had working arms, he’d definitely give this guy the finger to his back. Surely it must’ve crossed the man’s mind to call an ambulance or something, especially if he didn’t even want Jimin here in the first place. All in all, it’s getting a little too creepy for Jimin – but it’s probably better than dying. Probably.

Jimin closes his eyes and lets his brain relax. His head still throbs, but at least the world isn’t spinning anymore.

It must’ve been longer than he thought, because the man is nudging at Jimin’s shoulder with a wary foot, almost as if he’s making sure Jimin hasn’t just up and died on his floor.

Jimin vows not to die now, out of spite.

The man settles down next to Jimin, stirring something absently in the black bowl he’s holding. He’s quite young, and Jimin’s not entirely sure how someone like that could live in isolation like this. Even Jimin’s village starts to feel a bit cramped at times.

The stranger spoons something out of the bowl, but won’t look Jimin in the eye when he feeds it to him. It tastes like flavourless soup, but Jimin accepts anyway. There’s no way this guy went to all this trouble, only to poison Jimin in the last moments...right?

There are some weird es out there , his brain reminds him helpfully. Remember the claws.

“How’d you find this place?” the man begins after a moment, taking the spoon back from Jimin’s mouth. Jimin shrugs, and he knows he looks uncooperative but he genuinely can’t remember.

The man doesn’t seem to like that response. He digs in the bowl again, feeds it to Jimin. Maybe the soup does have flavour.

“Who are you?” the man tries once more. He can’t be much older than Jimin, but he looks aged anyway.

“Park Jimin,” he supplies, but he figures that’s not the answer the man wanted by the frown he gets. “I’m from a small village, but I don’t know where I am now,” he adds hurriedly, although he’s not sure why he’s trying to please this man.

“And what, you just decided to throw yourself down the side of a mountain?” the man asks a little scathingly, feeding Jimin again. The soup tastes amazing, but Jimin’s not about to admit that out loud to this .

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Jimin bites back, but grimaces when he shifts a little. The man has the decency to look concerned, but Jimin passes it off. “I was being chased, and I slipped.”

The man doesn’t look up, just feeds Jimin yet again. He hates this, Jimin hates feeling like some incompetent baby, but the food just tastes so good. It warms him up from the inside, and makes everything feel just that tiny bit better. Like it’s all going to be okay.

With that thought, the warmth shifts into something darker. Jimin barely gets his head turned to the side before everything comes back up, spilling the contents of his stomach right out onto the stranger’s wooden floor.

The man leaps to his feet, and Jimin assumes that’s the end of this conversation. His chest aches and he doesn’t think he can breathe, but somewhere inside he also feels kind of bad for vomiting on this guy’s floor. He did make Jimin a nice meal, and patch him up from death, even if he was a complete about it.

Jimin knocks his head back against the wall and groans, eyes shut. Something tickles the top of his head, but he doesn’t have the time right now to be bothered checking. The man returns, and helps Jimin slide away from the puddle he’s made – and he’s not necessarily unkind about it. Jimin just wants to cry.

Before he knows it, he’s tucked up into the pile of blankets. There’s a mattress underneath that Jimin hadn’t been able to see earlier, but it’s far too comfortable to be legal. He’s propped up with a balled blanket under his back, and a pillow for his head. He’s still wearing his tattered wet pants – his shirt had been long since replaced by wrapped cloth – but right now it’s the last thing on Jimin’s mind.

The man covers Jimin, looking down on him with an expression Jimin can’t quite read. “Thank-you...” Jimin starts, trying to move the moment on and away from whatever the man was thinking.

“Yoongi,” the man finishes. “My name’s Yoongi.”

 

~*~

 

The next day, Jimin’s already walking. He still needs to support himself against the walls, and take frequent rests, but to be fair it’s a miracle he’s even alive.

In one of Jimin’s waking moments, Yoongi shows him where everything is – which really just consists of the kitchen, the mattress, and a door next to the fridge that apparently leads to the bathroom. He also shows Jimin how to operate the trap door and ladder in the ceiling, even though he can’t possibly reach up with his arms yet in his sorry state.

Turns out, they’re underground. Yoongi won’t go into detail why, or what’s above them, but Jimin’s free to leave whenever he wants so he’s not fussed. Yoongi even promised to open the trap door for Jimin, if he wants to leave before he’s completely healed.

Jimin tried to ask why Yoongi didn’t just call for help, but he didn’t get much of a response.

“You wouldn’t want that,” apparently.

Yoongi’s gruff, and he’s blunt. He acts like he’s being forced to let Jimin stay, but Jimin figures that’s just his mind running wild.

Jimin slips in and out of sleep for most of the morning, and Yoongi seems to be gone by the time he’s conscious enough to get out of bed again. He holds his arms outstretched in front of him, and slowly raises them up above his head – it hurts as his elbows reach eye level, and he drops them sullenly. It’s far better than he’d expected though, because surely no one heals that quick. Jimin’s had bruises that have lasted months, so it’s not like he should’ve recovered from a shattered body overnight.

True to his word, Yoongi has left the trapdoor in the roof open, with the ladder folded down. Jimin steps past it though; he has other business to attend to first. He feels disgusting, and his throat is drier than a desert by this point.

“Bathroom first,” he mutters aloud, slowly shuffling towards the only other door in the little room. He’ll pee, wash his face, and then try and figure out how to get home. Priorities first.

As soon as he enters the bathroom, Jimin’s horrified. He looks terrible. He’s as pale as a ghost, with dark circles around his eyes. His abdomen is swallowed up by a thick white wrap, and his work pants are so heavily coated in mud that Jimin knows he’ll be buying new ones. Even his skin seems drawn tight, hollow cheekbones and sunken eyes. No wonder Yoongi was constantly checking for a pulse. He looked like he was one step away from decomposing.

The room has no shower, only a bath, so Jimin settles for cupping water in his hands from the running tap and splashing it on his face, trying to clear his bleary eyes.

He immediately wishes he could’ve stayed blind a little longer.

“What,” he hisses under his breath, “the .”

Two perfectly white lumps protruding from his head, morphing back into his hair. He’d recognise them anywhere, because he looks like one of those dumb cat girls they use to promote the chocolate bars his work recently started stocking. Cat ears.

His suspicions are confirmed when he turns around to find a matching tail sticking out from the waistline of his pants.

Jimin doesn’t hesitate to storm out of the bathroom, although he has to relish his anger a little in the struggle to pull himself up the slanted ladder. He doesn’t take any notice of the empty room he ends up in, his mind set on finding the creep that did this to him. He shuffles out the door opposite, leading to the bright and sunny world outside – but Jimin’s out for blood, so he doesn’t stop to appreciate the beauty.

Yoongi’s sitting on the end of the veranda, unaware of the imminent danger he’s in as Jimin stalks towards him.

“What the ,” Jimin seethes, this time loud enough for Yoongi’s benefit. He finds a little joy in the way Yoongi jumps in surprise, scurrying to his feet to face Jimin. “Just who do you think you are?”

Yoongi scowls, and he’s back to the same angry stranger that Jimin first met. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says forcefully, which leads Jimin to believe Yoongi knows exactly what Jimin’s talking about. How could he not?

“You’re a sick creep, you know that right? Is that why you wouldn’t call an ambulance? So you could play out your little ?” Jimin says, a little louder than he expected. He clenches and relaxes his fists repeatedly, knowing that there’s no response Yoongi can give that won’t start a fight.

“Are you kidding?” Now Yoongi’s mad too, taking a step forward – Jimin takes a step back without realising, but it’s not like he wants to get hit. “You think I did this to you?”

Jimin rolls his eyes. “You’ve got the claws, and you wanted some cute catgirl to be your slave. Get your mind out of the gutter, you freak,” he says, reaching up to grab at one of the ears and giving a sharp tug. He has to duck his head to even be able to reach, and it’s just another reminder that there’s no way Jimin will make it out alive if it does come to physical punches.

Yoongi looks entirely too smug at the resulting yelp Jimin gives out, wincing at the pain. Jimin tries again, but quickly drops the act when the feeling gets too much. It’s like the ears have been glued to his head, but Jimin’s not entirely stupid. That pain, it was coming from the ear itself. Jimin can feel the ear throbbing like it’s a part of his body.

“What did you d-” Jimin starts, but gets cut off immediately.

“Listen here, ,” Yoongi says, closing the distance. “Whatever you’ve got going on is not my problem. This here,” he continues, throwing his arm towards the wooden building, “is one of those shrines from the Japanese occupation. That makes it your problem.” He jabs the pad of his finger against Jimin’s chest, hard enough to make him stumble back.

“Wha-”

“You’re a god now, so it up,” Yoongi hisses. “It’s no concern of mine whether you want to accept that, but you’ve got no right to be throwing the blame around here.” By this point, Jimin’s actually a little scared. Yoongi’s furious, although Jimin’s not entirely sure what expected when he came out here in the first place. It’s not like Yoongi was just going to own up to the fact, but Jimin certainly wasn’t expecting this.

“You know what? I’m done,” Yoongi says, turning away with a sharp exhale. “You’re hopeless, and my job is done.”

Yoongi hops down from the porch, taking quick strides out into the forest underbrush. He turns back one last time to throw Jimin a sneer. “Good luck.”

 

~*~

 

Jimin’s not sure how long he’s been sitting on the front steps, staring out at nothing. He’s lost.

The ears are real.

The tail is real.

Jimin’s pretty sure he’s died, and this is just some sick dream.

What other explanation is there?

Moving the new appendages comes like second nature to Jimin, as if he’s had ears and a tail all his life. They’re soft, and Jimin finds himself subconsciously his own tail like it’s some pet. It feels good and the rhythm is keeping him calm, so at least there’s that.

The sun begins to set, but there’s no sign of Yoongi. The birds are singing their final calls of the day but Jimin doesn’t hear it.

Jimin doesn’t really know much about the presence of the shrines in Korea. He always hated history class and certainly didn’t bother listening any more than was required to pass. He knows the shrines were built by the Japanese during the occupation back in the early 1900s, and he knows that most of them have since been torn down as part of the Korean anger towards their past oppressors.

Jimin doesn’t know anything about gods though. He sure as hell knows nothing about being a god.

Part of him just wants to set out into the forest and not look back, but he’s more than aware that would just mean trouble. He doesn’t know where he is, and besides, even if he did make it back to civilisation – he has a tail. He has ears. He doesn’t fit in anymore, not until he figures out how to get rid of it all.

He’s not a god though. Yoongi is some insane hermit, living out in the forest all by himself. He’s probably just lost in his own illusion, and Jimin’s somehow been drawn into it. Jimin stands up and brushes himself of the imaginary dust. His arm doesn’t hurt at all now, but he’ll ignore that for the time being.

He’s not a god.