Don't Call Me Angel || VMIN

δεκαέξι

Fragile rays of light from the dawn sun peering up over the horizon filtered into the room, casting a serene glow on everything it touched. What a false sense of innocence those delicate beams gave. Jimin felt anything but serene, still half-strapped to the bed, his vision fading in and out with every pounding in his head. Thirst wracked his throat, which, alongside his headache, was a nasty result of the dehydration sapping at his body. Nothing had been able to prevent the tears from flowing relentlessly down his cheeks in the hours before. The ravenette's lips were swollen and a trickle of dried blood running from the corner of his mouth marked the roughness of the four others.

Matching bruises and nips trailed down his neck to his navel, a collage of purple and blue hues that tainted his skin. Raw burns wrapped around both of his wrists and the one ankle he had managed to tear free; who knew silk could be so brutal, he certainly hadn't until now. Didn't people usually fawn over how soft it was? They must have swapped his ties out for rope then, for the material had been anything but soft; it had practically torn small patches of his skin apart.

The bonds were discarded on the floor, joining the rags that were once his shorts and part of the harness that had been wrapped around his torso. After the men had left, jeering to each other at the mess they had turned the dancer into, Jimin had summoned his remaining strength and tugged one of the sheets over himself. The linen scratched at his already irritated skin, but it was better than lying exposed, anything beat that. He couldn't bring himself to find something nicer to drape over his battered body, knowing there probably wasn't anything of that sort nearby and he would only inflict more pain on himself while looking.

They had left around one o'clock and, in the hours that followed, sleep hadn't been so kind as to bless the younger with its presence. No, it had once again alluded him. Instead, he had teetered on the edge of consciousness, hardly sure of what was real and what was a distortion created by his distressed mind. One thing he did know for certain was that the pain demanding his attention in his lower half wasn't a hoax. They had been cruel, to such an extreme level, and never once had they given the poor dancer a break, their own filthy desires overwhelming any sense of morality. Their intoxicated states hadn't helped much either.

A soft buzzing filled the room, the result of an object vibrating around inside something, and it broke through the monotonous droning in Jimin's ears. However, he ignored it, convinced it was all in his head despite the pressing evidence that proved otherwise. For one thing, the human head didn't usually buzz at regular intervals for set periods of time. This didn't click in his mind until, after a short pause, it started again and he remembered the little device he had managed to smuggle into this hellhole with the aid of his boots.

Slowly, he pried his eyes open, scanning the room for his shoes and trying his hardest not to shift his head too much. If he moved too quickly, he would be sure to set off another incessant round of pounding in his skull. Conveniently, they sat at the base of the bedside table, only a metre away. Still, moving even that tiny distance was going to cost him a lot, so he began to advance at the steadiest speed he could muster, moving barely a centimetre per second.

When the ravenette was halfway across the gap, attempting to manoeuvre himself with his left leg still tied up, the sound stopped. Oh, come on. Sighing in frustration, he let his grip on the bedsheets slacken, unaware it was the last support currently holding him up. His body hit the floor with a force that knocked all the air from his lungs and he cried out as a sharp pain shot up his leg. That sound must have been enough to alert the other people in the house that he was moving around, if there was anyone around that was.

New tears welled up in the corners of his eyes and Jimin slumped, draping his arms over his torso in defeat. At least the scratchy linen had fallen with him and he could still cover up part of his lower body. The silence that followed unnerved him because he was almost certain someone must have heard him. He thought the sound would be impossible to miss, but no one came. No figure appeared in the doorway to help him, or even sneer at him, and he was left to believe that the house was empty. It was better than buying into the alternative: that they had heard and simply didn't care.