Purple Death | A BTS Murder Mystery ✔

THREE

It was only four in the afternoon when Jimin put the last cover on the futon that would be his bed for the time being. It was put in place by one of their managers on the left side of Namjoon's room, near the window, from which Jimin could stare at the sky and see Hoseok's face way up there, in the grey clouds that buried the whole city.

Jimin hadn't eaten at all today. He hadn't had the time in the morning before he found Hoseok. And since then, his stomach was twisted in a way that made him unable to eat anything. He was too far gone to think about eating anyway. The dorms were eerily silent, and every time Jimin closed his eyes, he saw Hoseok's face. Hoseok's face, smiling at him. Hoseok's face, staring at him. Hoseok's face, telling him that someday, something bad would come out of all his partying. Hoseok's face, frozen in death.

It made Jimin sick to his stomach.  

He knew Hoseok had been killed, and that if anyone had wanted Hoseok dead, they would have managed to kill him. But it still made Jimin insane to think that if he hadn't partied so much, maybe Hoseok would still be alive. That if he hadn't gone out, if he hadn't gotten drunk to the point where he couldn't remember exactly what happened last night, maybe Hoseok wouldn't be dead. 

Except Hoseok wasn't only dead - he had been murdered. 

"Jimin, do you want to talk?" 

It was Namjoon, from the other side of the room, staring at him with worry in his eyes. Worry and sadness. 

Jimin shook his head and pulled on the last cover of the bed again, finally standing up from the floor.

"I'm hungry," he whispered. It was a lie, but it didn't really matter. He just didn't want to have to look at Namjoon in the eyes and tell him that somehow, he felt like Hoseok's death was his fault. So instead,  he crossed the room and escaped into the hallway, avoiding Namjoon's concerned gaze. 

Slowly, instinctively, Jimin made his way through the empty, silent hall and into the kitchen where Seokjin was eating cereal and Taehyung was absently staring at his phone. 

He looked at the empty seat beside Taehyung - the seat he would always sit in. Then, his eyes travelled to the seat facing his - the one Hoseok would always sit in. A seat that was now empty and that would remain that way forever. Empty, because Hoseok was gone. Empty, because Jimin had drank too much. 

He threw up on the floor. 

_______

"Jungkook?" Namjoon knocked on the youngest's bedroom door, hoping that he would talk to him, because no one else seemed to want to.

It was weird. All of them used to talk all the time, yet, now that Hoseok was gone, it was like the invisible link that kept them close together had been broken. It hadn't even been a few hours since they had found Hoseok's body and had all been told they were suspects of his murder. It hadn't even been a full day since BTS had gone from seven to six members, yet it felt like BTS didn't even exist anymore. BTS had seven people, and with one of them gone it had exploded, and suddenly they were six people. Not BTS, not six friends, not six people together. Six people, separated. Six people who could now barely look at each other. 

"Yeah?" came Jungkook's muffled voice from the other side of the door.

Normally Namjoon would have opened the door and walked in right away upon hearing Jungkook's half-answer, yet for some reason he couldn't understand, he hesitated. 

"Can I come in?" he added, because barging in Jungkook's room without asking suddenly felt like an invasion of privacy.

Namjoon used to believe that privacy, in BTS, just wasn't a thing; that privacy didn't exist when you lived and worked with the same people for over 5 years; that privacy wasn't necessary for them because they shared everything: careers, clothes, success, hardships, friends, secrets.