The Broken Dancer

A Crack of Light

The room no longer felt like a cell.

It wasn't free, not yet - the velvet curtains were still heavy, the air still too thick, the ritual still unchanged. But something had shifted in the space between them.

The silence wasn't sharp anymore. It bent, softened, reshaped itself into something that hovered, waiting.

Jimin felt it the moment he stepped inside. He hated that he noticed. He hated even more that it no longer terrified him.

Routine carried his body forward. Sit. Fold hands. Lower gaze. But when his eyes flickered - just for a moment - to the man across from him, he caught the faintest trace of something that made his stomach lurch.

Patience.

No scrutiny. Not hunger. Not pity. Just patience, steady and unshakable.

He dropped his gaze immediately. Dangerous. Too dangerous.

The night stretched, and then Yoongi spoke.

Not probing, not demanding. Just... speaking.

"You ever notice," Yoongi said, voice low, unhurried, "how the guards here walk like they're in some kind of bad play? All stiff shoulders, like they practiced in front of a mirror."

The words caught Jimin off guard. His brow furrowed before he could stop himself. He shot Yoongi a glance, cautious.

Yoongi's mouth twitched faintly - not quite a smile, but close.

"Tonight one of them tripped on the rug. Tried to pretend he didn't. Nearly fell into the wall."

It wasn't much. Just a small observation, dryly delivered. But the image bloomed in Jimin's mind before he could stop it: the guard's puffed-up dignity crumbling as he stumbled.

The sound escaped before he could catch it.

A short, raw burst - not practiced, not polished. Startled, unguarded.

A laugh.

It cut through the air like sunlight cracking through storm clouds. Bright. Alive.

Jimin froze. His breath caught sharp in his throat. The sound still hung in the air, damning and fragile. He slapped a hand over his mouth, as though he could force it back in, as though he hadn't betrayed himself.

Shame scalded him. His chest constricted violently. "I-" His voice broke. He shook his head, eyes wide with panic. "Don't - don't look at me."

His shoulders curled inward, every muscle screaming retreat. He couldn't let it happen. Laughter was dangerous. Laughter was a luxury he wasn't allowed.

But Yoongi... Yoongi was staring at him like the world had just cracked open.

Yoongi hadn't expected it. He hadn't planned for it. But the moment it spilled out, it struck him with the force of revelation.

That sound.

It wasn't just laughter. It was a living thing - raw, startled, jagged at the edges, but pure.

And in it, Yoongi saw the boy Jimin had been before the world caged him. Before the mask. Before the silence.

It was sunlight spilling through hairline fractures, uninvited but unstoppable. It was warmth blooming in a place that had only known cold.

Yoongi's chest ached with it. His pulse hammered in his ears. God, he's beautiful.

Not in the way others had seen him - not as a body, not as a possession, not as something to pay for and discard. But as something alive, something whole, even if Jimin himself couldn't see it yet.

Yoongi wanted to carve the sound into memory, to lock it inside himself where it could never be taken away. He wanted - fiercly, desperately - to give it back to him.

Again and again.

As many times as it took until Jimin believed he was allowed to laugh.

But Jimin didn't know any of this.

All he knew was shame, clawing at him from the inside. He pressed a hand against his mouth, eyes burning. His shoulders shook.

"I shouldn't-" His voice was a cracked whisper. "You'll regret it. You'll see. I'm not-" He broke off, teeth sinking into his lip hard enough to sting. "I'm not someone you laugh with."

The words were jagged. They carved into the air, filled with conviction that was really just fear.

Yoongi didn't argue. He didn't tell him he was wrong. He only said, voice steady and sure:

"You are."

Jimin's head snapped toward him, disbelief flaring.

Yoongi's gaze didn't waver. "You are," he repeated, quiet but firm. "I heard it. That's real. No one can take that from you."

The words lodged in Jimin's chest like a stone thrown into water - ripples spreading, unstoppable. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

The silence settled again, heavy, but different now. Not suffocating. Not hollow.

Protective. Waiting.

And Yoongi, sitting across the room, felt something sharp and certain burn through him:

I want to give him that again.

No matter how long it took.

The night ended like all the others. The door creaked open, the signal given. Jimin slipped quickly back into his mask, face smooth, voice flat, as though the fracture hadn't happened.

But Yoongi carried it with him as he left - the sound of laughter still ringing in his ears, brighter than any song.

And in the quiet of his own thoughts, one truth rang clear:

This wasn't about silence anymore.

It was about finding ways to bring the light back through the cracks.