Heartbound Enemies

7| Unraveled

"Mom, please stop!" The voice was desperate, pleading, full of raw emotion. A loud crash echoed, followed by a deafening silence. Then, with a sudden jolt, Taehyung awoke, drenched in sweat, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. It was the same nightmare- one that had haunted him for years, one that had only worsened since the incident with Seokjin.

He sat up in the small, dimly lit room of the hostel he had fled to. The sheets were tangled around him, and he wiped a trembling hand across his forehead. He hadn't heard from Jungkook or Mingyu since. He rubbed his face, trying to shake off the lingering dread of the nightmare. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed his phone, only to see a string of missed calls: 87 from Jungkook, 76 from Jimin, and 17 from his father. The group chat was flooded with messages, but one stopped him cold: "Seokjin is in a coma."

Taehyung stared at the words as if they were written in a language he couldn't understand. He swallowed hard, the reality of the situation crashing down on him. This can't be happening, he thought, his mind reeling. He dropped the phone onto the bed, burying his face in his hands. The shrill ring of his phone startled him, and he answered it without checking the caller ID, his voice shaky.

"Hello?"

"Are you Kim Taehyung from Hang Kwang's school?" The voice on the other end was female, trembling and thick with emotion.

Taehyung hesitated, his heart sinking. "Yes," he whispered.

"I'm Seokjin's mother." Her voice cracked, and Taehyung felt a pit open in his stomach. "Did you... did you do this to my son?"

The silence stretched on, heavy and suffocating. Taehyung felt his throat tighten as he tried to find his voice. "I... I did."

There was a moment of silence, then a sob broke through the phone. "He's such an angel, Taehyung. What did he ever do to deserve this? Yesterday was his father's funeral... and now... now he's in a coma because of you!"

Taehyung gripped the phone, his knuckles turning white. He wanted to say something—anything—that could make this right, but the words wouldn't come.

"I'm so sorry," he finally choked out, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Sorry?" Seokjin's mother's voice hardened, laced with bitterness. "Sorry doesn't bring my son back. Sorry doesn't undo what you did. You're worse than evil, Taehyung. My son's father just died, and you took the last thing he had of him—his watch! You put him in a coma on the day of his father's funeral!"

Taehyung felt a tear slip down his cheek, shame and guilt crushing him from all sides. "I know," he murmured. "I know what I did was horrible, and I'll do everything I can to—"

"Do everything you can?" Seokjin's mother cut him off, her voice rising in disbelief. "You think you can change what you did? You think you can fix this? You've shattered our lives, Taehyung. No matter what you do, you'll never make this right."

"I'll try, I swear I'll try," Taehyung insisted, his voice shaking with desperation. "I'll change, I'll—"

"Don't come near my son again," she interrupted coldly. "If you do, I will make sure you pay for what you've done. I don't care what it takes." The line went dead, leaving Taehyung holding the phone to his ear, staring blankly at the wall.

He slowly lowered the phone, the reality of her words hitting him like a freight train. He threw the phone across the room in frustration, watching it bounce off the wall and clatter to the floor. Tears of anger and shame welled up in his eyes as he buried his face in his hands, the memory of Seokjin's beaten face replaying in his mind like a never-ending nightmare.

In the hospital, Jungkook was talking to the doctor, his hands trembling slightly. The doctor's words were clinical, detached, but they felt like daggers to Jungkook's heart. "When Seokjin wakes up, if he wakes up, there's a possibility he may have lost significant memories. The trauma to his brain was severe. We can't say for certain what the extent of the damage will be until he regains consciousness."