BTS Kidnapped

Part Eighty

"Where is Taehyung-ssi?" Jungkook had asked them, his voice sounding dazed. Like he'd only just woke up.

Even now, in the silence that followed their maknae's disappearance into the showers, the question hung heavy in the air and Namjoon felt the weight of it sit on his shoulders. Because no matter what hidden torment their maknae was concealing - no matter how much that scared Namjoon to consider - Jungkook's only concern at the moment seemed to be where Taehyung had gone.

That Jungkook had found himself by Taehyung's bed, asking that question wasn't a surprise; he and Taehyung had always been inseparable and changing their natural inclination to be with one another, even after they had found themselves on different paths, each walking side by side with someone else, had been a challenge they had not surmounted. They were best friends, through and through. Finding themselves wearing a shirt that was the other's; buying more of something the other liked when they were in the store; trudging up the stairs bleary-eyed after waking up on the couch only to find themselves in the other's bed - none of that had stopped... and probably never would, unless...

The question had lingered on Jungkook's face, a face that was devoid of anger, a face that had unabashedly showed the pain his heart felt.

Yoongi had growled but it was the look Hoseok gave him that hit him hardest. Reproachful. Heavy with disappointment. Because Namjoon got it.

Namjoon knew.

It wasn't just Jungkook and Hoseok who knew something was terribly wrong here.

Whether or not Taehyung had betrayed them wasn't the real problem at all. It was why.

The why was important because it couldn't have been malicious - it couldn't have been self-serving.

His dongsaeng would never do that to them. Even at his angriest, Taehyung thought of the others first.

Maybe it was because if he hit one of them he knew he could really hurt them: Namjoon still remembered the day he felt Taehyung's unrestrained strength as he punched at a videogame punching bag, missed, and sent a devastating right hook to Namjoon's own chest. He thought his heart had actually stopped beating, thought for sure something was broken.

Maybe it was because Taehyung knew that if he got angry enough to leave the group, they would crumble. They were all tethered to him - tethered to each other. Out of all of them, Taehyung knew who he was outside of Bangtan. He would go home and farm and be fine with that. The rest of them would flounder like fish out of water. Taehyung grounded them all. They needed him far more than he ever needed them.

Maybe.

But Namjoon knew that it was none of those reasons. Taehyung didn't turn on them for self-gain because he was too good of a person. Namjoon knew that to be true in his soul, yet he did nothing. He looked over at Yoongi, registering the scowl etched on the man's face as he stared hard at the floor. Why didn't he know that too?

The members heard the shower turn on and heard Jungkook sigh into the spray.

What they didn't hear was the maknae crying quietly, his tears washed away as soon as they fell as he wondered if he would ever survive the nightmare - the overwhelming pain - that had become their lives.

~oooOooo~

Nothing further was said between the five members of BTS, each of his hyungs knowing that when their maknae was in a mood nothing they could say or do would make him talk.

After what seemed like hours, the door flew open once more, Kim Taehyung being flung into the room as the steel door slammed shut behind him. A look of horror crossed his face as he noticed that Jungkook had been returned looking much worse for wear. Taehyung briefly wondered what had happened to his Jungkookie, wondered what horrors he had been through since they were last together. It made him sick to think that he had been hurt, the strongest of their group - the friend upon whom he could always depend... even now, in hell.