one shot | yoomin | ✓

part two : wolf in sheep's clothing

I set down my pen, flipping my journal shut. That was all I had wanted to write. Just enough to get the memories off my back. It was the end of our last year of school, and there were some things I didn't want to forget.

The springs on the upper bunk creaked as Jimin bounced up and down above me. "Yoooongi-hyung, are you done yet? I want to go outside~"

I sighed, slipping the thin black book back into the drawer.

"Yes, Jimin. I'm done. Let's go."

The sun was beating down on their backs. The orphanage still surrounded them, even all these years later. No one had wanted to adopt a murderer. For some reason, Jimin had declined the hundreds of offers, simply saying that he didn't think that they were the one. He told me he wanted to stay with me. I regret it- he could have left hell and gone to heaven if not for me.

"Yoongi, you're spacing out again! I wanted you to hear about what Bwohya said today!"

I bit my lip. Bwohya was his crush. His perfect, fantastic senior dream. The only person he ever talked about anymore. It hurt, but he made Jimin happy. "Yes, what did he say?"

"Well, first we were just talking in our English class, and he started talking in English! I couldn't understand it, but it sounded really nice and..."

I nodded to the beat of his words.

"So, do you think I should, hyung?"

"What?"

"Well... tell him. How I feel."

I smiled at Jimin, squeezing his hand. "Of course! If you never tell him how you truly feel, you can never know how he feels about you." I gave Jimin a tiny hug.

After that things between Bwohya and Jimin started to grow into love. They dared for a few months. I was happy simply because Jimin was happy. It didn't matter whether I was the to make Jimin to smile or not, as long as he was happy. He and Bwohya hung out more and more often, until their dates came back to the orphanage, to Jimin's bedroom. Jimin claimed that they were just chatting, and the innocence in his eyes told me that really was all that was happening.

I walked home late from one of my after-school classes to see someone fleeing the building. I thought nothing of it, my mind to preoccupied with me and Jimin's plans to move to Seoul for him to go to college and for me to study music.

I wander down the empty corridor until I reached our shared room. I creak the door open, not wanting to disturb Jimin if he was asleep.

He wasn't asleep.

He was curled up in a fetal posture on my lower bunk, sobbing, shaking with every hiccuping breath.

My own breathing stopped, along with my heart. I threw the door open, tears already forming in my eyes even though I had no idea what had happened. The instant I sat down beside Jimin he began to cry even harder. I plucked his blanket off the top bunk and wrapped it around him, holding him close. Jimin put his arm around me and as he did so, I saw a steadily darkening bruise of his wrist.

My vision swam with red as I began to put the pieces together.

Then words began to pour out of Jimin's mouth like a waterfall.

"He just wanted me for sex. Today when we got through the entrance hall he pulled me into the janitor's closet. He started telling me to drop my pants and telling me to let him... let him..." Jimin choked up, and I held him, anger boiling in the pit of my stomach. "I told him no, I don't want that, no, no, but he... he reached down my pants and squeezed.... and I hit him. I hit him and I ran and I locked the door until he left and I can't..." he trailed off.

I could hardly speak. I felt like a cartoon, smoke doming out of my ears. "Do you know... where he lives?"

Jimin looked at me for a half-second, then nodded, pointing at a sheet of paper tacked to the wall. I took note of it, then pulled Jimin close and rocked the small boy to sleep.

Once Jimin was asleep, I climb out the window, the paper I had ripped from the wall crunched in my shaking but sure fingers. Bwohya's house is a small, rather run-down place near the outskirts of town. I break the window to his room, having peered in through the dirty glass and seen his calm, snoring face.

I drag the imbecile into the street. Night had fallen in a clammy blanket over the sleepy street. He moaned as he slowly wakes, a tiny bit of drool dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. My nose wrinkles in disgust. I drop him onto the pavement. The boy gazes up at me, confusion dancing in his gaze.

I take firm hold of his hair, tilting his face back so his eyes meet mine even through the cloud of night. He too, I am sure, has heard the rumors.

"You know why I'm here." I feel him tremble beneath my hand. "Good." His eyes widen, an useless attempt for pity.

Suddenly all the anger I had felt before bubbled up within me. Long, pale, and clenched, I stare at my own fingers and hand as they slam Bwohya's face into the concrete. On impact, he moans. I take the duct tape out of my bag, pressing it over his mouth, over the blood already dripping from between his lips. I stroke his face gently.

"You really shouldn't have hurt Jimin." Blood sprays across the pavement. Laughter bubbles from somewhere deep within my chest at his weak attempts to cry for help. The next blow cracks the pavement and his skull. I feel it crunch beneath my fingers as I ram it into the concrete again. And again. And again.

I wash the pavement clean with the hose attached to his house. The body is already out a thousand yards or so into the woods. It will be long gone, in my limited experience, by the time the police think to look for his bones.

My clothes are anther matter. I make my cautious way to the nearest gas station, pulling Bwohya's blanket around myself to hide the blood stains. I reach for my phone, only to see five missed calls from Jimin. As I do so, he rings me once more.

"Yoongi! Finally, oh, hyung, I was so worried! Are you ok? What happened? Where did you go?"

I splash water onto my face, scrubbing off the blood. "Jiminnie, I'm at the gas station where we go for after-school snacks. Would it be alright if you could bring me a change of clothes?"

"Whatever you need, hyung. I'll be there." The line went dead.

I wait patiently, making sure to scrub myself completely clean. After perhaps ten minutes, Jimin knocks on the door to the bathroom. I reach an arm out, not wanting him to see my bloodied clothes. I switch clothes, wrapping the blanket in a trash bag, planning to burn it.

I slip out of the bathroom to see Jimin sucking on a lollipop. He smiles at me in the dim light. "Yoongi, what did you do?"

I glance down at the red converse he had brought me, suddenly finding them very intriguing. "Um... let's just say you'll never see nor hear from him again."

A small silence feel between them, then Jimin slid one of his slim hands into mine. We walked back the orphanage in comfortable silence, Jimin resting his head on my shoulder. I looked down at him, but he only smiled, then he murmured,

"Thank you, Yoongi."

I walked back a tiny cloud of joy, yet when we reached our dorm, Jimin curled up in my bed. I stared down at him. He tugged on my hand, pulling me down beside him.

"Will.. will you snuggle me? Please?"

I laid down beside him, wrapped my arms around him, and began to sing the only lullaby I knew.

I didn't sleep much that night.

The next day 'MISSING TEENAGER' was plastered all over the news. A few of our classmates and associates knew Jimin had been dating him and tried to comfort him. He accepted graciously and ended up making some good friends. The rumors died down after a few months and all went back to normal. Jimin was happy, so I was happy.