Leap of Faith: BTS Hyung Line FF

Story Telling

"Where the hell are you?"
"I'm not coming home. I'm never coming home."
"Stop being childish."
"Stop calling. Seeing your name makes me sick."
"You'll regret this, Winter, unless you come home right now."

***

Hoseok let her keep her secrets for awhile. For nearly a week, he didn't poke or prod or ask any questions she wouldn't want to answer. However, he could hear her phone vibrating relentlessly at night against the wooden coffee table in the living room.

One night, while she slept, he crept over to look at who would be calling her so frequently, who she would be actively ignoring. Of course, it was her father.

Hoseok should have left it at that, but there were messages from him, too, so many messages. His curiosity and concern got the better of him, so he sat on the chair adjacent to her and opened her messenger app.

He was surprised that her phone wasn't locked with some kind of pattern or passcode. Maybe she felt as if she had nothing to hide.

The messages from her father inflicted an uncomfortable nausea with every word. They varied from angry, demanding messages, to sickeningly specific ones.

Come home now and you won't be punished.

Answer your phone. I know you're using it. I still pay your bill, Winter.

And perhaps the most disturbing of them all that Hoseok had the displeasure of reading.

Remember what I'll do if you tell anyone what happened. Don't be stupid, Winter.

It was vague, but Hoseok could deduce that whatever he was talking about was most certainly connected to the reason Winter tried to hurt herself. Her father did something horrible, and Hoseok couldn't just ignore it anymore.

"Hoseok?" Her sleepy voice caught him off guard. She sat up, seeing the dull light of her phone lighting up his pretty face. What little color there was in her face drained from it immediately, and she reached over to grab it from his hand.

"I'm sorry, Winter. It kept buzzing."

"You read my messages?" She furrowed her brow, scrolling through the countless texts her father had spammed her phone with. She had been ignoring them for a reason, but now she couldn't.

"What did he do, Winter?" Hoseok asked bluntly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "You can tell me."

She shut off her phone and set it on the table again. Her pale hands retreated into her lap to wring together nervously. Hoseok could see that she wanted to tell him, but something was holding her back.

"Winter, you're safe here. You're safe with me, and you can tell me these things." He reached over to rest a hand on her knee in hopes of comforting her.

"I'm scared," she admitted. "I don't... I don't want you to think... It's really... Um..." She swallowed hard, unable to find the right words. Winter usually never had a hard time communicating things, but she did, in that moment. They were words she never tried to say before.

"It's okay. Tell me."

"When my mom died," she cleared her throat. "My father, he... He changed. He was busy most of the time when I was growing up. After she died, he started spending more time at home. He was... drinking... and when he was really drunk sometimes he'd tell me how much I looked like her. How I was pretty like Mom..."

Hoseok already didn't like where this story was going, but he said nothing. She needed him to listen patiently, to hear everything without speaking at all.