Last summer - Jihope & Taekook ✅

Chapter 20: Assault

AT TAE'S PLACE

"Hi, who is it?" Tae answered his phone.

Tae just heard a gasp and was about to hang up. Then he distinguished words, spoken in a low voice.

"... help ... Tae... help me..."

It was Jungkook's voice, weak and pleading.

Tae sat up straight. He'd been lying on the couch doing his homework. It was late afternoon and he had sort of been waiting for Jungkook to call him, hoping they might meet up tonight. But Jungkook's weak voice made him totally forget about that. Now he was only worried.

"Jungkookie? What's wrong? Where are you?"

There was no answer except a low groan. Then a sound as if the phone fell to the floor. After that nothing.

"Jungkookie, are you okay? Say something! KOOKIE?"

Nothing. He tried redialling the incoming number but no answer.

Tae quickly put on his sneakers, grabbed his keys and ran out of the apartment. He tried to think, but was too stressed. Something had happened to Jungkook. Where was he?

Tae called Jimin for advice, but Jimin's phone seemed dead for some reason.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

Tae knew where Jungkook lived. After all, Jungkook had been his crush for half a year and it wasn't that difficult to find out. As a matter of fact, sometimes he just watched the place on google maps, when he was thinking about Jungkook in the evenings.

He started to run in the direction of Jungkook's place.

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AT KAI'S PLACE

Jimin couldn't move. 

He could hardly make a sound. It was difficult to breathe. His body hurt all over, his head was spinning, he felt nauseous. And he didn't understand a thing.

They had assaulted him when he was on his way out to do some grocery shopping. Well, not so much groceries, but more coke and crisps really. A car, a black van, had stopped right beside him, when there were no people around, and two guys had jumped out of the back.

They grabbed Jimin by his arms, one man at each side of him and put a piece of cloth over his nose and mouth which made him lose consciousness in seconds. He woke up, his back leaning against the wall of the van, with a severe headache, his hands and feet tied, a gag over his mouth.

Jimin had not even been able to scream for help.

They had showed him his phone before demonstratively throwing it out of the window into the street with heavy traffic. 

Then they started the beating. The two guys beating him up talked as if it was just an ordinary job for them, which made it almost more scary than if they had done it in anger.

"So, let's hit him over the head with the gun first. Some blood in his hair will look good for the pictures."

One of the men hit him hard in the head with the handle of a gun. Jimin's groans were muffled by the gag. It hurt like fuck and he fell to his side. He couldn't even protect himself since his hands were tied behind his back. He saw stars and soon felt blood running down the side of his head, matting his hair.

"And some bruises to the face. Not the nose. It looks better over the cheek and eyes."

It was as if they were painting some kind of dreadful real-life picture.

They pulled him up into a sitting position again and one of them held him still while the other hit him several times in the face, just as they said. First over his left cheek, which was painful enough and made his head spin. Then to the right eye, which was far worse and his vision was temporarily lost. Jimin screamed into the gag from pain.

The two men took no notice of his screaming. They just looked at his face, and decided he still didn't look wounded enough.

Jimin barely had time to wonder what the fuck this was all about before the man hit his chin with a clenched fist, and followed it up by a punch to his left cheek again. It felt like his jaw was broken. When they hit his right eye again his eyebrow cut and started bleeding heavily. Blood ran down his face and almost made him faint.

"That's good, just one more small touch up. Hold him still." one of the men said.

He brought out a knife and cut a wound into Jimin's left cheek, starting at his temple and down towards his neck.

"Wow, look at all that blood, it looks awesome." the man said chuckling.

Then he gave Jimin a hard kick to the ribs, grabbed his head and hit it hard against the wall of the van. After that Jimin remembered nothing until he woke up in what looked like a cellar, with a strong light in his eyes. 

Someone was slapping his face to wake him up.

He was tied to a chair, the gag still in his mouth. His head, face and ribs hurt really bad. He could hardly see anything with his right eye and he could feel the coagulated blood on his cheek, neck and hair.

They started to take pictures.

"Hold your head up, Jimin. And look at the camera. Or I'll hit you again."

Jimin tried to hold his head up for the picture and look towards the camera. He didn't want any more beating.

They took a lot of pictures, from different angles.

Then they left and Jimin fell back into unconsciousness for some time. He had no idea how long. 

When he woke up Jimin was aching all over from the beating and from sitting tied to the chair in this awkward position.

What was he doing here? Why him? What was supposed to happen now? Would they come back? Or just leave him there? What was with the pictures? Were the pictures for their own amusement, some pervert website or to be shown to someone?

Were these bastards maybe thinking about blackmailing someone with Jimin's pictures?

But no one cared about Jimin that much. Except Tae, of course. But he was hardly a lucrative target for blackmail, living on student loans.

No, if they wanted money, they chose the wrong person and he would most definitely die in here.

He was scared out of his mind. And extremely thirsty.

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