Heal me // A Jikook Trilogy //

《6》Curtains Falling

I hit the wall of my room with all my might and muffled my scream as the pain seared through me.

Then I did it again, yelling to get all that anger out.
It didn't work.
I hated him.
I hated Jimin more than I hated the boys from the Orphanage or the nuns who stood idly by as I was being bullied and harassed.

I wanted to forget him and all those words that had left his lips on the rooftop.
But whenever I closed my eyes or had a second alone with my thoughts, they came unbiddenly to my mind.

When you're ready to admit the truth.... I'll be there... as a friend.

Why?
Why did he say that?
I'd been nothing but an asshole to him.
I repeatedly insulted him, told him to fuck off and snarled it into his face and yet he had still offered me a hand.

Not like Suho had that day, but there it was.
A ladder.

I didn't want there to be a fucking ladder when I had already worked so hard to climb another.
I didn't want my eyes to be opened and yet here I was.
In my room, letting my anger out at the wall and my own body.

It all started with the party that very night after my talk with Jimin.

There had been a young boy, even younger than me with a goofy grin and wide, excited eyes at the realization of being inside X-EXO's compound.
He'd seemed so innocent and when I got around to talk to him.
I had learned his name was Yoenjun.
He got invited by some older friends and couldn't believe how cool it all was.
Yet when Kai and Baekhyun had joined us on the sofa and the red haired boy offered him some pills, his face and paled and he'd declined.

He'd seemed even younger then.
Too young to be here.
Too innocent to understand the glaze in Kai's eyes as he watched every move the pretty boy made.
And pretty he was.
Delicate and small like a little faery.

And then I had watched as Kai cleverly involved him in conversation while Baekhyun slipped one of the drugs in his drink.
Mephedrone by the looks of it.
I knew firsthand how elevated it made you feel- like the world around you seemed less burdened, entirely bright, not to mentioned the heightened senses, especially touch.

I sat there, unable to say anything as I watched the boy drink, oblivious of it's content.
But one warning look from Kai and Baekhyun told me there would be consequences if I said anything.
So I hadn't- and was then forced to watch the drug take effect, the boy giggling in ecstasy and blabbering away while Kai shuffled closer and closer until the boy was in his lap.

And then the way he grabbed him by the hand, the young boys eyes diluted and far away, lost to the drug while he was dragged up the stairs by a grinning Kai.

I had turned and drowned my entire cup of Vodka, desperate to take away the knowledge of how that young boy would wake up.
What he would remember.

A few days later, I watched on in horror as one of Chanyeol's pranks backfired and a girl shy of sixteen caught fire, resulting in her lovely blond hair to be a pile of ashes and angry wilts all over her skin while the boys had laughed how she looked afterwards.

Or when Chen invited some friends as he had called them.

A boy and a girl.
A couple with love glittering in their eyes.
Before the end of the evening, the boy had left crying and broken and the girl wore a dead look in her eyes as Chen ran his hands over her bare legs.
She had sat in his lap, her lips wobbling but otherwise she hadn't moved- hadn't cared about her smudged make-up or her disheveled appearance.
Hadn't even seemed to hear Chen's fake words of condolences or seen the cold, wicked smile of triumph on his lips as he kept touching her more intimate and she allowed it, most likely because she was too numb to even notice.

It piled up and up.
All the horrible things I was a part of.
All the people who came with shiny eyes full of life and left broken and empty.

Was it really worth it?
All the pain and misery of others for my selfish need to feel accepted?
I was no longer sure.
And all of this because of Jimin.
His bloody, damn fault that I was wavering, questioning everything.
But perhaps... perhaps he'd been right?
Perhaps I was blindly loyal, having traded security for truth, given my admiration at the expense of the pain of others.

But there was no point in even thinking about it- no way to descend this ladder and take another road.
Not when I had seen with my own eyes what happened to X-EXO's enemies.
Not when the image of those wrecked, crossed out chairs came to my mind.

No... even if I wanted to, they wouldn't let me go.
And would I really be foolish enough to try?
No.
I was and had always been a coward beneath.
And perhaps I didn't deserve it any other way for already having been a part of this for too long. For the things I already did in Suho's name.