BTS Kidnapped

Part Sixty

Mathan was almost through Bangtan's door, hand on the door handle, ready to push in when he heard raised voices coming from within.

"He's a monster, Kim Seokjin," came Namjoon's all too familiar voice. "Just as I've said all along."

"He isn't!" Jin insisted, his voice high pitched with uncertainty.

A derisive laugh. Yoongi maybe?

And overwhelming silence.

Mathan pushed his ear to the door to see if they had lowered their voices or if the conversation had come to an end.

"Say that when he's pounding you into oblivion, hyung."

Definitely Yoongi.

"He isn't like that!"

Jin again.

Mathan's heart almost broke at how resolute the man still was. But was it because he had faith in the words he spoke or because he was clinging to a false ideal to help him through?

~oooOooo~

Inside the room, all six members were in a tense verbal stand-off, five to one.

Jungkook forced himself to be quiet even though he was burning up inside. That Jin could even think about trusting Mathan confused him as much as it enraged him. Did he not see what the man had done to Namjoon? Did he not see what happened to Jimin in the aftermath? His poor, sweet Jiminie - how badly had he been hurt? Jungkook couldn't tell and it drove him mad. It was all because of that bastard Mathan, the one who gave them false hope, the one who tricked them into thinking that he cared, the one who tore his brother to shreds.

Jungkook clenched his jaw when his hands balled into fists, hoping he could keep it together.

"Don't be foolish, hyung," Hoseok said. "You saw him...he enjoyed what he did."

"He's - all of them - they're just fucking with us," Yoongi growled. "Mentally. Physically. They get their rocks off all the same."

"Ani," Jin said, shaking his head. "There's more to it than that. Mathan-ah... he-"

"Mathan?" Taehyung said suddenly, his voice, laced with disdain, rising above the rest. "Listen to you, hyung. It's like you don't realize how you sound. Drunk on a crush. You sound like his fan, defending him even when you know he was wrong, yet expecting apologies from all of us for offenses that are far less."

"E-what?" Jin asked as he shook his head in confusion, his eyes seeming to roll in his head beyond his control.

"Just admit you have a hard-on for him, hyung," Yoongi purred, so much hatred flowing from his tongue. "That's what keeps you up at night. You like that monster. I bet if he offered you his hand you would take it and never look back. All for one, and you for yourself."

Jin stood up from the table, intent on walking away from this fight he wouldn't win, didn't wholly want to win, truth be told - when he felt the ominous thunder rumbling in his head once more. Time slowed to a disorienting crawl, Jin blinked, his body swayed, and as he grabbed his head, he collapsed to the ground.

"Hyung!" His brothers screamed in horror, all of them frozen, even as Mathan burst through the door.

Mathan moved lightning fast, reaching Jin's side in three long strides, a look of terror etched upon his face.

"Seokjin?" he asked, shaking the man lightly. "Kim Seokjin???"

Mathan looked up, his eyes pleading with the others to tell him what was wrong.