The Fantastic Eight: Abnormals

chapter twelve: jin gets collected and then everyone cries

This chapter is 15,067 words so yall better buckle in.

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Jin was never one to disappoint. He was a disciplined and intelligent young man who never strayed from the path that led to completing his goals. His classmates admired him, his teachers were never unpleased to have him in their classes and there was no doubt that the boy would achieve unimaginable things. To everyone else, it was Jin's world and they were simply living in it. Jin was mature, well-mannered, and walked around with an indescribable sense of elegance and poise everywhere he'd go. In other words, Jin was inauthentic, unhappy, anything other than the person he truly was.

Despite what others may think, Jin's life has never been easy. It was filled with tension, backhanded compliments, comparison and unachievable expectations. None of the things he achieved were without any sacrifice. His life was a constant routine feeling worthless and forced motivation. Harsh words of degradation circled in his mind like a merry-go-round or a broken vinyl record and all he could do was try and pretend he hadn't heard them (which was a losing battle all on its own). It's common to say that you're your own worst critic, but no one was harder on him than his own parents. Nothing he could say in his head could match the unknowingly cold stare of his father or the sigh of disappointment from his mother when he'd come home with anything lower than their expectations. He tried to tell himself that they cared for his future and all they wanted was for him to succeed past what they themselves were able to accomplish. They lived vicariously through Jin and he knew that. Yet, when it feels like he's only worth their time when he's done what they asked, met their expectations, gets 100% on all his exams- he feels less like a son and more like an employee, like some sort of robot created only to do what is asked when it's asked.

Even then, the short gleam of happiness- of appreciation, pride- on their faces when he's done well is enough to make him wanna do it all over again. So, when his parents kick him out of the house and force him to go to the library, he goes. Textbook notes replace the grumble in his stomach when he misses dinner. He comes home late in the night when the only thing he could do is go to bed just to wake up early and trudge to the library hours before school. The process repeats yet Jin continues with the same determination and vigour like it was the first time. Because he'd rather throw his true self in the closet and make his parents proud than being who he wants and feel the blistering eyes of failure at the back of his head. Over the years, Jin learned that sometimes it was okay to make other people happy at the risk of your own joy, he reminds himself that he's not only doing this for his parents but for him too. Maybe things were hard now but soon when he was successful in his desired field, everything he had sacrificed will have paid off. At least he hoped so, because if not... then what.

Jin stood near the front entrance of his local library, it wasn't far from his house so he was lucky in that sense. The building was tall and had multiple floors and interestingly enough, every floor had a plethora of books based on a certain subject or similar subject. With five floors in total, books/textbooks to do with math and science were located on the 4th floor and unfortunately enough there were no elevators. Luckily, Jin had legs of steel... but he was (unexpectedly) incredibly lazy.

He made a heavy sigh, gripping the strap of his book bag on his right shoulder and walked into the building, beginning his journey up those wretched stairs.

Taehyung and Jungkook sat in the driver and passenger seat of the van in comfortable silence while they waited for the other boys to leave the house. The home was about a 30-minute drive away from Jin's location and it was approximately 45 minutes until Jin's "awakening" as Jimin dramatically described it. They had discussed the plan of extracting Jin from the library multiple times in the day leading up to the event, the boys practically had the plan engraved in the crevasses of their minds, still, Taehyung felt uneasy. It wasn't the unease that Yoongi's vision in Taehyung's mind gave him but instead, it felt different. It was almost as if a part of his vision was missing- as if he was missing something big that would happen after they got Jin from the library. The vision felt unfinished, something would happen after but Taehyung didn't know what and recently, the fear of the unknown had developed in Taehyung's mind before he even realized it was there.