The Broken Dancer

The Cage and the Thread

Jimin wakes to the kind of silence that isn't soft. It's manufactured silence. Heavy. Perfect. The kind that settles over the house like frost.

His room looks exactly as it did when he left it the night everything fell apart - neat, orderly, lifeless. The curtains are drawn, allowing only a thin, sickly light to bleed through, just enough to illuminate the faint layer of dust on the dresser. There's no scent of hospital antiseptic here, no warmth from Yoongi's hand wrapped around his. Just the house breathing around him, slow and measured, like it belongs to someone else entirely. Which, of course, it does.

He lies still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. There's no shouting. No footsteps. No slammed doors. It would almost be easy to pretend nothing happened - if not for the ache blooming along the edges of his body. His wrists burn when he moves, a dull, purple pulse beneath the skin.

Jimin sits up slowly, the sheet slipping off his shoulders, and pulls back the sleeves of his shirt. The bruises are dark now. Not fresh, but angry. Rings of violence that climb like shadows up his skin. He touches them with careful fingers. They were left there in the grey light of early morning, when the father's men dragged him into the study as soon as he'd returned from the hospital. Not because he'd been caught sneaking out. But because he hadn't needed to be.

The father hadn't asked questions. He hadn't needed to. The way Jimin had walked into the house - soaked in rain, shaking, his shirt stained faintly with Yoongi's blood - had been enough. The blows had been deliberate. Measured. Punishment dressed as control. Not loud. Not emotional. Just cold. The way everything with him always was.

The marks on his neck had come when the father pressed his hand there, forcing Jimin's head back, hissing words Jimin didn't fully hear because all he could register was the lack of air. He hadn't mentioned Yoongi's name. Not once. That was almost worse.

Jimin traces the marks now with the edge of his thumb, then lets the fabric fall back over them. His throat still feels bruised on the inside, as if the air itself has been touched by him. He stands, pulling the curtains open a little wider, and the morning floods in - not warm, just brighter. He watches the gardens outside, neat and still, guarded by men in black coats who stand too straight and blink too little.

He doesn't know whether his father truly knows he snuck out that night or not. The man hadn't asked. Hadn't accused. But his silence is never ignorance. It's cruelty. A quiet kind. The kind that makes Jimin feel as though a noose has been looped around his neck and no one needs to pull it tight for him to choke.

He moves through the house like a ghost - down the stairs, through the marble-floored hall, into the kitchen. Every surface gleams. Every door is closed. There's no one in sight, but the father's presence is everywhere. It seeps into the corners, sits like weight on the air, makes the walls feel closer than they are.

He sits at the long dining table, picks at the untouched toast on his plate. The housekeeper hovers near the doorway, silent, watching him the way everyone here watches him. Not with concern. But with duty. With fear.

He doesn't taste the food. He doesn't look up. His body moves because it has to. His mind floats somewhere else entirely - back to the hospital, to the sound of Yoongi's shallow breaths, to the faint beep of the monitor beside his bed.

He looks at the clock. 7:42. He knows exactly when Seokjin will be at the club. He counts down to it without meaning to.

7:43.

7:44.

Every second here stretches too long. Every breath feels borrowed.

The father doesn't appear at breakfast. He doesn't summon Jimin to his office. He doesn't speak a single word to him. It's worse than yelling. Worse than punishment. It's the silence of a predator who doesn't need to bare his teeth to remind you they're sharp.