Malevolent

36."Fear unknown"

"Hyung! Jin hyung!" Jimin ran inside Seokjin's office, panting.
It was a shabby little room with space for just an office table and some racks of files.
Seokjin as startled as he could get, looked at the boy with wide eyes. A hand on his chest.
"You startled me, Jimin-ah! Aish! What is it?" He inquired, heart still racing.
"Lee Jaehwan!" Jimin breathed out, catching his breath as he sat down.
"What about him?" Seokjin sighed once again, all the excitement abandoning his body like smoke leaving a lit cigar and disappearing in thin air once again at the mention of the man.
"He resigned." Jimin finally announced, his expressions of something between excited and bewildered.
But Seokjin's chest just rose and fell, his Adam's apple dipping as if his whole body was preparing itself to reply to the boy's latter statement.
"Isn't it too obvious now, Jimin?" He finally scoffed, apathetically.
"He laid low for years, being loyal to Hoseok and helping him whenever he could. But, that didn't mean he was any less interested in his profession No." He shook his head, blinking lazily.
"But now the player has changed, Jimin. Hoseok isn't the one in control anymore and Namjoon's not anywhere near to what Hoseok was." He continued, head resting against his chair. His body portraying such stillness that one could mistake him for a soulless mannequin.
If only Jimin hadn't spoken up.
"What is he after then, this Namjoon? Didn't he get Taehyung and Hoseok out? What else does he want from us, now?" Jimin questioned, forhead creased, eyes troubled.
"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." Seokjin repeated, his limp body finally showing movement. And only now Jimin could see just how much the things were eating him up.
"If only I could know what else he wants from me!" Seokjin yelled now, slamming his fists on the table, eyes filled to the brim with irk, frustration and tears. "He stole my love from me, took him so far away that even if he's right infront of me I can never get him back!" The boy gritted his teeth, voice shaking.
"H-He stole my best fucking friend once and I got him back! But now!? AGAIN!" tears had started streaming down the boy's face without his permission and he hated it. He hated to admit that the man had made him so vulnerable.
He wiped his face, carelessly, sniffing and hiccuping as he went on.
Jimin was quiet, knowing all too well that he had to let him get it out. And that's why he just listened, sighing, trying too hard not to let his own eyes cry but failing. His cheeks were tear stained but he didn't let any sobs escape his mouth. It wouldn't be just to Seokjin, right? He didn't want to distract the man from what he was onto, right now. After all, he'd waited for it for so long.
"And now he," Seokjin was just crying at this point, raw emotions rolling down his eyes. The feelings he'd kept buried for far too long, for his own good all making their way out of him like molten lava after a volcanic eruption. A volcano that had long been dead.
"Now he robbed me of my peace, my passion and everything I thought I'd never get sick of. He robbed me of life, Jimin-ah. I don't know what else he wants from this hollow shell of a man I'm left with." He finally finished, the remaining fire dying down as the last words left his lips.
The room was silent once again, but It wasn't the comfortable type. It was as if somebody had sucked away all the oxygen in the room and made it hard to breathe. It was suffocating.
"You've been meaning to make me open up, the lot of you haven't you?" The man now said, as calm as ever but the calmness that of an abandoned lake at night, him being the lonely black swan that inhabited it.
"But the muted response was to save my last straw at sanity." He shook his head, smiling. A plastic smile like those of paper characters, painted across his features but not corresponding to his otherwise state.
"I held onto it because it was the last sane thought in my head. It was the only thing he had left behind for me but ah, I just had to let it go." Seokjin chuckled, remorseful. He regretted speaking his mind although the soundless screams were otherwise gnawing at him like termites on dry wood.
Jimin advanced towards the boy embracing him in a hug at once. He didn't know anything better and Seokjin's agony made him lose his own mind, anyway.
"You still have me and Jungkookie, hyung. You'll always have us." The petite boy reassured the man, head buried in his shoulder.
Seokjin reciprocated his actions, although an entirely different thought made it's way to his mind.
'That's what I'm scared of, Jimin-ah.'
'That's exactly what scares me, now.'