The Contract

Twelve

WARNINGS: Mentions of vomiting, depression.

Packed bags sat in the entranceway to the apartment, taking up the available space and making it difficult for anyone to enter or exit the place. The way the seven were feeling, they wouldn't care if they never left the apartment. They barely spoke to each other since ___ left, and the air around them was so suffocating, even management didn't want to be around them.

When they arrived home, the first thing they did, well Jungkook did, was go into what was ___'s room and turn the light on. Empty. Jungkook felt a pang of pain when he saw just how big the room was without all of her things in it. It smelled like her still. The scent of her perfume lingered in the air serving as a reminder that she had recently been force ejected out of their lives. Jungkook wasn't one for tears usually. It took a lot to make him cry. But there he was, kneeling on the floor of what was her bedroom, breathing in her scent and bawling like a baby. He'd never been betrayed like this before, especially by someone he was madly in love with, and it hurt like hell.

"Jungkookie," Jimin's soft voice came from behind him. His arms wrapped around his younger brother and pulled him in for a hug. "Let it all out. That's it."

"She's gone." Jungkook wailed. "I didn't think she'd actually leave. I thought she'd still be here when we came back. I thought we'd argue but sort it out. I wanted her to be here, Hyung."

"I know, buddy. I know."

"But she left."

"She had no choice." Taehyung replied, just as emotional as Jungkook. "It was stay for us or get deported for good. At least now she has the option to come back."

Hobi, "Don't tell him that, Tae. You'll get his hopes up."

"But she can."

"But she won't."

Namjoon, "He's right, Tae. She's been told to stay away, and it's in our best interest she does. The company has a big enough fight on their hands to dispute what the media have been saying about us. We can't have another slip up – and that means any woman we're seen with is going to be suspected of prostituting herself out again. She can't come back."

Jungkook sniffed. "Don't call her that."

"What?"

"She's not a prostitute."

Jimin, "No, Kookie. She was our girlfriend. We know that. But the rest of the world doesn't. They just see that she was contracted to do those things with us. They don't understand it."

Jungkook wept again. "Why would she do this to us, Hyung? I thought she loved us."

"She does."

"Then why?"

"I... I still don't think she did."

Jin, "Jimin-ah."

"What? It makes absolutely no sense. She was mad about us. We all know it. We all felt it."

Namjoon had started to take on a warning tone. "Jimin."

"She was there for us right from the start. Two years of her life she gave to us. She was in it for the long haul."

"Jimin-ah, stop."

"Fuck, if polygamy was legal she would have married us in a heartbeat. It makes no sense that she would do something like this."

"Jimin! That's enough! Our entire private life is out there and she's the only one who knew the sordid details. She may have loved us, she may not have. That's irrelevant. What we do know is that she sold us out and doesn't regret a single thing."