The Broken Dancer

The Price of Silence

The first night, Jimin thought it was a fluke.

When Yoongi's voice cut through the bidding again - low, steady, unyielding - Jimin felt that same shock, the same lurch in his stomach that he had tried to bury. But when the gavel fell and Yoongi's hand was raised, there was no mistaking it. He was doing it again.

And then again.

And again.

Every night that followed, Yoongi was there in the crowd, waiting until Jimin stepped onto the stage, mask in place, body burning with the eyes of strangers. And every night, before the frenzy of numbers could rise too high, Yoongi's bid sliced through, sharp and immovable.

Jimin learned to anticipate it. The dread and the strange flicker of relief tangled inside him, sour on his tongue.

It didn't make sense.

He had thought, after that humilating night, that Yoongi would disappear again. That he would wash his hands of the filth he'd glimpsed and never look back. But instead, he came back stronger, more relentless.

And worse, he didn't even touch him.

In the suffocating quiet of the private rooms, Jimin did what he always did - shed his mask, his clothes, his voice turning to steel. "Get it over with." But Yoongi never moved. Never reached. He only sat there, dark eyes steady, silent as if simply being present was enough.

At first, Jimin thought it was cruelty. Some new, inventive way to humiliate him. To bid on him every night and then discard him without a touch, reminding him with every breath that even someone like Yoongi found him ruined.

So Jimin shut down harder. His eyes never lifted. His words became barbed with bitterness, rehearsed detachment. Inside, shame twisted deep, clawing at the part of him that had once - stupidly, recklessly - thought Yoongi was different.

But still, the nights passed. And the silence, though suffocating, was not the same kind of silence he'd known before.

No hands. No bruises added to the map of his skin. Only Yoongi, sitting too far away, watching him with something Jimin refused to decipher.

The world outside the door roared on with it's auctions and laughter and smoke, but inside that narrow room, time began to blur. One night bled into the next, weeks folding over themselves until even Jimin could not ignore the pattern.

And though he told himself it meant nothing, though he forced himself to cling to the cold, hard certainty that Yoongi's presence was pity and nothing else - something inside him shifted, uneasy.

Because for the first time in a long time, he was waiting for what might happen next.

The first time Yoongi claimed him again, Jimin couldn't look at him.

The room was thick with the smell of smoke and cologne bleeding through the walls, the muffled laughter of people outside, the echo of the gavel still ringing in his ears. Jimin stood near the bed, back straight, shoulders rigid, already moving through the motions. His voice was clipped, the same cold detachment he had practiced until it no longer cracked.

"Do what you want. Let's just get it over with."

His fingers found the buttons of his shirt, mechanical, rehearsed. But before he could finish, Yoongi's voice cut through the air - firm, quiet, immovable.

"Stop."

Jimin froze, but he didn't look up. Shame crawled over him, slick and suffocating. He was convinced he knew what it meant: Yoongi didn't want him. Not like this. Maybe not at all. He thought he could feel Yoongi's disgust coating the silence.