The Broken Dancer

Shadows Watching

The night began as so many others had, yet the air felt wrong from the moment Jimin stepped onto the stage.

His body moved the way it always did - fluid, graceful, perfected through repetition and necessity - but underneath, there was a trembling he couldn't shake. He didn't dare glance toward the crowd, but he could feel their eyes differently tonight. Not hungry. Not disinterested. Watchful. Whispering. Measuring.

The scrape of a chair, the low hiss of a voice, the sound of someone drawing in a sharp breath - it all pressed against him as though the very walls of the club had grown teeth.

When the bidding began, it was almost a relief. At least then the rules of this place reasserted themselves.

Yoongi raised his hand early, his expression carved from stone. The gesture was quiet, almost routine by now, and yet the effect was immediate: the room hushed. No one countered. No one dared. The silence thickened, not with peace but with calculation. It wasn't the silence of safety. It was the silence of predators circling, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

Yoongi won easily. Too easily.

Jimin's father smiled as he slammed the gavel down. The sound cracked like a whip. He let the moment linger - just long enough for everyone in the room to feel the tension coil tighter - before dismissing the buyers with a curt wave.

Yoongi expected to be waved upstairs in the usual way, expected to retreat into that fragile bubble that had become his and Jimin's sanctuary. But tonight, the father intercepted him.

"Mr. Min," the man drawled, voice thick with satisfaction. He leaned close, the scent of expensive liquor clinging to him like rot. "You've been very loyal. Very... consistent."

Yoongi kept his face carefully blank, though unease crawled under his skin.

The father's smirk widened, the kind that never reached the eyes. "I'd like to propose a courtesy. A special arrangement."

The words dropped heavy, calculated, already a trap.

"At an adjusted rate, of course," the man went on smoothly. "You can secure exclusivity over my son. No need for nightly bids. No chance of interruptions. Jimin, yours alone - for as long as you can pay."

Yoongi's jaw tightened. He knew exactly what this was. Not kindness. Not efficiency. It was control. It was a leash disguised as generosity, a test to see how far Yoongi would go, how deep his pockets truly ran, how much he was willing to bleed for this fragile sanctuary he'd built with Jimin.

And the worst part was: he couldn't say no.

If he refused, Jimin would be tossed back into the pool, exposed to strangers again, his body auctioned like a commodity to whichever monster threw down enough money. If he refused, the fragile safety of their nights upstairs would be shattered.

"Yes," Yoongi heard himself say, voice steady even as guilt twisted inside him like glass shard. "I'll take the arrangement."

The father's smirk sharpened, satisfaction blooming like poison across his features. "Excellent. I knew you'd be reasonable."

Yoongi's hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Inside, his thoughts roared:

Every coin I hand over feels like blood money. Every note is bought from someone's pain, someone's silence. And now it's buying Jimin's cage, gilded but still a cage. I swore I wouldn't become part of this system, and here I am feeding it, keeping it alive. But how can I stop? How can I stop, when he's in it?

Yoongi's chest ached with the weight of the truth: he couldn't stop. Not anymore. Not when Jimin's safety was at stake.

Across the room, the father raised his glass in a mocking toast. The smile on his face was not one of triumph, but of ownership, as though he'd just tightened the strings of a puppet.