The Calm After The Storm ||BTS_HYBRIDS X F!MOC|| OT7

Heels, Heat, and Havoc! PART I

Hey there my loves, before you begin this chapter I just want to tell you to please read the authors note at the end of the chapter. thankyou and enjoy! ;)

3rd Person's POV

The moment hung heavy in the air, the stranger's bright smile clashing against the suffocating silence that had seized the room.

"Finally, I've found you guys!" he beamed, voice ringing with a joy so pure it almost felt out of place. Too raw. Too real.

The boys stood frozen, as if their bodies refused to move until their minds caught up. There was something familiar about him. Something warm... something haunting. His scent lingered in the air like a ghost of a long-forgotten dream — cedarwood and cracked pine, the smell of cold metal and bleeding knuckles. It wrapped around them like a memory, tugging at the deepest, darkest corners of their minds.

It was Jungkook who spoke first, his voice almost a whisper. "No way..."

Taehyung's brows furrowed, eyes locked on the stranger's face, as if staring long enough would rip the answers from his skin. "Why does he smell like—"

Jimin staggered back a step, breath catching. "I've smelled that scent in my dreams."

Then Namjoon's eyes widened. "Wait... wait." The realization slammed into him like a freight train. His heart lurched. "Soojeon hyung?"

The man's smile faltered, eyes glistening. "Yeah... It's me."

And just like that, the dam broke.

Jungkook let out a choked breath. "Hyung?" he repeated, louder this time, his voice trembling as he stepped forward. "Is it really you? You're real?"

Soojeon opened his arms slowly. "I missed you all so damn much."

They rushed him like a wave. Jungkook, Jimin, Namjoon, and Taehyung collided with him in a crushing hug, arms wrapped tight, heads buried in his shoulders. Hoseok, Yoongi, and Jin stood a few paces away, watching with stunned silence until Soojeon looked up, eyes landing on them.

"Hobi... Yoongi hyung, Jin hyung?"

"Holy shit," Hoseok muttered, a hand covering his mouth as tears gathered in his eyes. "You're alive."

"I thought you were dead," Yoongi said hoarsely, eyes dark and unreadable but wet with emotion. Jin didn't say anything he simply walked forward and pulled Soojeon into a hug that said everything words couldn't.

Soojeon was trembling too now, laughing through the tears. "I thought about you all every damn day," he whispered.

They stood there, clinging to one another like survivors of a war. Because they were.

Memories began to rise like floodwater.

Cold cages with rusted bars. Screams echoing down metal corridors. Nights spent curled around each other like broken limbs trying to fit back into place. When one cried, the others hummed lullabies. When one bled, they all bled.

They shared stories in hushed whispers, made jokes to distract from the pain, held each other when the guards took someone away. Soojeon used to crack awful jokes at night just to make Jungkook smile. Taehyung would braid Jimin's hair with shaking hands to keep him calm. Namjoon would whisper escape plans no one really believed in, just to give them hope.

They were just kids. Stripped of everything, dignity, identity, even names. But they had each other.

And then one day, Soojeon vanished.