Burning Heart

The Truth

"Does it hurt a lot?" A worried Jimin looked at Seokjin with concern in his eyes. He placed a soft hand over the one Seokjin had on his cheek. "Can I see it?" He asked, sitting next to his hyung to be on the same level. He could easily read the word pain written all over Seokjin's face and wanted to help reduce it.

Seokjin had never been hit so hard in his life that his ears rang for a few seconds. He had never even been hit on his face other than as a harmless joke before now. The sharp pain felt like it could knock him out as he felt nauseated a bit.

Cursing his uncle under his breath, seokjin extended his hand to grab some tissues from the box on the table but Jimin grabbed it first and handed him some tissues where Seokjin spat the blood coming from inside of his cheek, hating the disgusting metallic taste in his mouth.

Jimin cringed at the sight of blood and realized how strong the man who's supposed to be Seokjin's uncle was with his fists.

"Can you get up? We should go rinse your mouth and put an ice pack on your cheek."

"I'll get the ice pack." Namjoon said as he and Yoongi approached the two after finally kicking out Jeong-hoon who refused to leave until the end, giving the two a headache.

Seokjin didn't seem to want to let go of his cheek until Namjoon came with the ice pack and his cheek was indeed very swollen and red, the finger marks from the slap showing. The sight made them not only sad but angry at both Seokjin's uncle and themselves for not interfering earlier before this could've happened.

Even though Seokjin was clearly in pain, something seemed to be on his mind other than what he was feeling now. He looked distracted, listening to them as they moved with him to the bathroom but still halfway in his own world. He only seemed to leave whatever was on his mind when he rinsed his mouth with salt water that made whatever cut inside of cheek burn.

Jimin softly applied ointment where Seokjin's cheek was swollen, looking in Seokjin's eyes to make sure he was not hurting him.

"Does it hurt a lot?" Jimin repeated his question from before and Seokjin brought his thumb and index fingers close to each other but not touching, meaning that it hurt but not too much and informing Jimin that he preferred not to talk right now just with that simple gesture.

They wanted to speak with Seokjin about the matter even if it was family related but it didn't seem like there'd be any good communication with Seokjin not only hurt but also spacing out for some reason so with just a small head shake from Namjoon, the other two understood to leave the conversation for later.

After making sure Seokjin was alright and all, the three wanted to stay with him. However, Seokjin seemed to want to be alone for now. He gave them a nod and a small thank you before leaving to his own room, feeling drained mentally and physically.

What happened made Nmajoon, Yoongi and Jimin realize that one of the reasons Seokjin was not getting better was that they were leaving him on his own too much. They weren't as involved with him as before because they were too careful with everything that had to do with him in order to not hurt him by mistake but maybe being that careful wasn't a good idea. They should've spoken to him more until he was fine to open up to them about his worries regarding the company and their group.

Maybe being left alone for so long made Seokjin unable to read situations or people's emotions because he'd have found another way to turn his uncle away instead of playing on his nerves and provoking him.

The next day, the members woke up to find Seokjin nowhere in the house and only when Taehyung checked his phone did they find the message on their group chat.

"I'll be visiting aunt Bon-hwa" Was the text Seokjin left right at 7 in the morning before anyone was awake.

"Take care of yourself and tell us when you're on your way back." Was what they decided to reply with from Taehyung's phone, not wanting to force Seokjin back because they had no reason to trap him indoors. However, they'll keep on checking up on him every few hours.