The Broken Dancer

The Silence Breaks

Jimin's father had stopped asking questions.

The steady stream of money from Yoongi's bids pleased him well enough, and as long as the numbers rose with predictable regularity, suspicion dulled. Jimin's father didn't care what happened behind the locked doors, so long as the club's reputation remained unblemished and the balance sheets fattened. The lack of scrutiny should have been a relief, but to Jimin it only deepened the ache. It meant no one was watching closely enough to see the truth of what was happening, and maybe that was exactly what Yoongi wanted - to play this silent, inscrutable game unchecked.

The routine had become familiar. Night after night, Yoongi raised his hand at the auction without hesitation, his bid like a blade through the smoke-filled air. Night after night, Jimin's mask slipped into place and his body carried him down the same narrow hallway, steps echoing against the walls like a rehearsed refrain. Night after night, the door clicked shut, and silence swallowed them whole.

But what once served as a shield had become suffocating.

Jimin felt it pressing against him with every breath, the quiet gnawing at his nerves, scraping raw the inside of his chest. In the beginning, silence had been tolerable. He could convince himself that Yoongi's distance was a kind of mercy, that at least in these rooms, no hands groped at his skin, no voices ordered him into poses that left him feeling hollow. Silence had been a reprieve then, a fragile pause in a life without them.

Now, though - now the silence was a cage.

Jimin's movements remained flawless, mechanical. He led Yoongi inside with the same stiff poise, locked the door, turned his body away as if the gesture cost him nothing. His motions had been practiced so many times that they required no thought at all - pull the curtain closed, step to the side, wait. His body performed as it always did, precise and detached. But beneath the shell, something was shifting.

Every second of quiet scraped at him, louder than shouts, heavier than blows. Yoongi would sit there, composed and maddeningly still, his gaze sometimes on Jimin, sometimes drifting to the wall, and never saying a word. And Jimin - Jimin could feel the words piling in his throat, thick and choking, an unspoken scream gathering weight with each night they sat in this unbearable limbo.

He told himself to endure it. Just a little longer. Just keep breathing. But his chest was tight, his pulse uneven. He thought of his father's satisfied smirk at the rising bids, the way the people in the audience no longer tried to compete, and the bitter thought cut deeper than it should: So even you, Yoongi. Even you see me only as a price on a page.

Something inside him was buckling. The mask still sat on his face, his motions still pristine and unbroken, but beneath it all, a storm was pushing hard against the walls he'd built.

The night was already frayed at the edges.

Maybe it was exhaustion dragging at Jimin's limbs, a bone-deep weariness he couldn't disguise no matter how tight he pulled his mask. Maybe it was the faint bruise blooming under his ribs, courtesy of his father's sharp reprimand the night before. Or maybe it was simply the weight of too many nights like this - silent, suffocating, unrelenting - that finally cracked something inside him.

Whatever it was, the silence pressed heavier tonight.

Jimin followed the motions as always: leading Yoongi into the room, shutting the door with that small decisive click, and retreating to his usual place by the far wall. His spine was straight, his body poised, but his hands had curled into trembling fists at his sides. The silence settled thick between them, but it didn't feel like reprieve anymore. It felt like a verdict.