"S-stop!"
The pleads manifested a broken groan of pain to the void. I knew I heard the voice a lot than once, like the voice within me, but the source was unidentified. The knife was alive, against the owner's conscious desire to stop or go on, it worked on its own. "You think she deserved this!" Splices and thrashes stitched unpatched red scars all across the body forth, wherever it could find a skin to slide over. Sirius drilled onto the northern sky was under a thick layer of clouds, a shower of scanty raindrops cascaded as a yellow drizzle against the faint streetlight. Oddly, when I raised my hand to feel the freeze, all the raindrops would color down to a taint of red no sooner. One blackish-red playground pointed out like veins branching on my arms, featuring an ugly painting, but even ugly is another form of beauty. Shifting eyes away from was an ignorant's cinch. I stared at it with an enamored gaze. No domain of the world could conceive this inconceivable nourishing a calm reserve with unknown traits and hold a reason for this. When I touched my arms, tracing the lines, with each deeper nudge of touch, the lines seemed to fade. A scar formed underneath every fading vein, dissolving to a fader mark afterward, and each started to spread out. One line crossed over the other, stitching a chronicle of beauty with a slow progression just as slow a raindrop fell heaving from the sodium light heightened far from my stature.
I flinched at the irking pain slowly to arise. The slight suspicion of all these being real seemed to falter. It wasn't supposed to hurt in a dream. But a dream that so vivid but so unreal...it still had to be a dream. But there was a body lying in front of me, redder than blood and deader than dead to scream the vital felony. My hand was dappled with a shade lighter than it, still now a fresh crimson. I couldn't see the face. Who killed the person?
"Are you awake, Y/N?"
Am I? Can you wake me up? What is happening to me?
The lines had finished coalescing upon each other. I started, looking at it. It was vague manufacture of an open door that led to someplace. Like it always would. Equipment of chemistry lab captured the hollow space, even the old burette stand stained with purple acid had remained. I knew what would happen next. This picture would light up a fire, and set the city news and the entirety alight with a pretty golden flame to engulf the rest. There would be glasses cracking to a sharded state. There would be a scream, a menthol scent near the door, a rush of footsteps dragging the silence with it towards the staircase. And there would be me, standing and watching the whole thing over and over, once LIVE, hundred times in my memories afresh and more translucent than reality.
"Y/N? You okay-"
My eyes would reach a perennial dark when the curtains pulled up, the white light seeping into from everywhere restrained to leave back the distorted sleep. Neither light was sometimes more helpful from the dark. I groaned slightly under my breath, clutching whatever my hand could fall onto. There was another hand but with warmth, each finger encircled with smaller rings and sweaty wetness maneuvering the rough palm lines.
Something didn't feel right.
"Hey, Y/N."
I peeled my eyes open to fully awake, to meet a shiny white ceiling and a room of the same white and blue. Only the person who sat next to my bed had been a full glow of sunlight yellow, contrasting the clamoring pale noise of color, to a serene desert of no dark. That sun looked at me with worrying eyes.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"I'm okay." That wasn't the question.
I was checked by a faint beeping sound that triggered a headache for a moment. Jimin held my other hand as I slowly tried to get up, gritting my teeth to subdue the gnawing pain, "What had happened?"
"You had a seizure. Doctors got your wrist stitched up. The cut wasn't too deep, but the bleeding wouldn't stop."
"How long have I been out...?"
"One day, and about a half, I think?"
"Ah." My mind still withered over the last time effect. What was that dream about? It wasn't the first time for me to see something like this. But it was one of those times I couldn't conjecture these irrational activities of the human brain. A vision that so weird to even get the title of a nightmare - seeing once would have felt reasonable to let it have the emblem of one typical bad dream, but that was not it. As if there were real-life incidents connected to it, but to my concern, there never were.
"Are you seriously okay? Your face's pale." Jimin's voice spurted to my thoughts.
"Yes...Tell me everything. What else had happened? Is Namjoon okay? Jungkook? What about those thugs? Did police-"
"Set those matters aside. You don't look too good. I should go call the doctor-" I held his hand to stop him getting up from the seat, "I'm okay." I tried to smile disregarding the throbs inside my head, "Really."
His brows twitched with confusion held for some moments, but he decided to sit back down following my request. Those little fingers of his would fidget across the bed sheet, tapping onto the solid metal bar peeking under the mattress, "You don't have to worry about anything. Everything's taken care of."
"Taken care of like what? How come I won't worry about this? Are those thugs caught or not? Did the police get them? And what about others? Tell me what happened Jimin."
"I told you, don't worry. Y-yes...they're caught. The police came in right on time. Namjoon hyung's condition is a little bad...four of his fingers are uh- it will take some time to heal. The rest is fine."
"Gosh! How is he doing now?"
"He got a bandage and a few stitches. Hyung is strong, he can handle himself well. I know. Don't be too worried about him."
I released a big sigh of relief, "I wish well for that. Thank God, at least the main part ended well. Though I'm still confused regarding the whole incident." I had to lie to be normal, "Who were those people? Why did they raid like that? What money were they talking about? Nefa- what was it? And Che...Geun-Hye? What were they talking about? I just don't get any part of it."
His face gave out no reflex of disconcertment like I had expected, "That's yet to find out from police interrogation. Most likely they made things up to get a ransom for our captivity. Leave it. What's ended has ended." Engraved by his face with a look of perplexion, Jimin gathered his eyebrows, stammering a bit with his next words on conveying.
"What is it? You wanna say something?" I asked.
He took a while to reply, probably unsure of how much to tell me. "It's that...PD nim got to know about the incident. He was disappointed that we tried to solve taking the matter in our hands. Also that...your stay at our dorm...he didn't seem to take it the right way. Said it's better if this news doesn't go out in public- that uh...the company - they will be taking care of the situation...and PD nim..."
"Well, that sounds right."
"...there might be a meeting called on the context afterward. And if you get questioned by the management board on anything regarding this, just say that it was I who brought you to our dorm. That was none of your ideas. No one else yet knows how long you had stayed. Just fill it all up with something. And regarding those men- don't say anything too specific. There maybe-"
"Why won't I say anything about those men? Lives were at stake. Those people attacked me before, then tried to attack you coming to your place. There should be better security ensured with your privacy."
"Things may get more complex. Listen, those people..."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Company should get to know about this. If they don't, things then will get complex not the other way around." I knew more than anything else why the company shouldn't know more about it. But after anything that had happened, a normal person, in general, would've been concerned with the situation. I was a commoner in this story, I had to be concerned. For me to be that, he had to pass his lie proficiency test. This was fun to watch him lie so well. Other than a short time for a big sigh, he needn't any more seconds to come up with his lines of untruth,
"Hyung forbade to tell anyone else. But I think...I should tell you a little about it. Tell me you'll keep it a secret."
"Okay...what is it?"
"Namjoon hyung's family is tied up in this. Before, they had been a victim of this one loan shark organization. Hyung's guessing that those men are from the lender. His family had cleared up the due interests but then the wicked lender pressed fake documents to get double money out of them. Things became so convoluted, they had to eventually move outside the city yet failed to be free. The police got those men to questioning, one of them have already confessed about it. Hyung doesn't want his family involved in any related annotation any news. Our company doesn't know any part of this past of his. Even though staff members will make sure not to let anything out if hyung doesn't want but it still may have a risk of exposure to the media by a leak. He doesn't want it risked. With the police, he wants to resolve the matter himself without a third party involvement."
For good's sake, Jimin never disappoints.
"I get it. Okay, if Namjoon wants so...I will keep it all off the list."
"When the board questions you, as I said. Fill up the blank. PD nim held a meeting yesterday too regarding this...when you're called, tell them about the times you were attacked. Leave my part to me. I- we are trying to reduce any possible negative outcomes that may affect but umm...yeah, let's see. The sooner this gets over without further approach, the better."
"Did something happen, Jimin? Why do I feel like you're not telling me something? And 'negative outcome', huh- what are you hinting to?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dude, be honest." My inaudible laugh escaped with a tsk, "I am getting an inkling. Tell me, is there any raised possibility for me getting fired?" I was brought back with a titter when he didn't respond immediately. "That's yet to decide." He said.
"I see. Well, that's logical. After all that has happened. Even I wouldn't have let myself stay at the dorm if it were me in place of PD-"
"You don't have to care about that." Jimin said firmly, "And as long as you are fine, everything else should be."
"Duh. I work there. And those who I work under, I am supposed to care what they have to say."
"Aish. Don't give that glum face." I patted his back lightly, "I will find a job elsewhere. Don't worry. I am not gonna die starved."
"You can't get fired. And you're not getting fired." He added with pauses but so rigidly. I narrowed my eyes, taking delight in his adorable feature, "So do I think that. But yeah, we shall see."
We sat in silence for a moment, having nothing else to sort out. I further added later in a calm voice, "One thing that- I realized I never thanked y'all enough for what you have done for me. You took all risks and saved me twice, then let me stay at your place-"
"We have thanks to give too. You too saved us from that - and woah-" His eyes flickered twice before concentrating on me, "Dang, you fight well. Well like really well. It's almost like-"
"I learned a bit when I was younger-" I laughed trying to brush it off, "Never knew it would come handy this way."
"Still..." Jimin nibbled his lips, "I will say that you shouldn't have done that. Those people were dangerous, and you took the situation in your hand just like that. Things could've got worse. What if that man-" He stopped midway. It was halting on his lips to trace the remaining of my gone possible fate.
"What if that man what? Aish," He didn't know I was stronger than he still saw me as, "Nothing would've happened to me. Don't take me too weak. I was in my right mind."
His body arched forward at a slow pace, suddenly swallowing mine under his within a soft embrace. I wasn't ready. My first reflex was to grow tense, but soon enough I loosened up into his arms. It was a fresh welcome of nothing, but ease got control of it.
"Y/N-i, forget about this, forget everything that had happened earlier. It was just a bad dream. When things go haywire anytime, don't ever go take those in your hand right away. Maybe you are strong, but the world sometimes likes to take the strong as guilt." I listened to his soulful voice clambering next to my neck with seamless rhythmic whispers. It was nice of him to try to console me, but I wasn't taught to take reality as a dream. Oblivion never made one strong. "You left us worried." He clutched my fabric softly to hold me closely, "Don't give me a wrack like this. When that man touched you, when you collapsed, I-"
"You thought I died?"
He didn't take my attempt to lighten the mood into account, "If something had happened to you, I..."
"You what?"
"...nothing." His biceps grew anxious as he curled them softly around further. The sweet fragrance was violet cannabis, his hug felt secured yet a bit distant. Smooth skin melted with rosy cool texture onto his cheeks and neck, flourishing a baby tone. His care was purely toned, but this care had a demand. The firmness in his hold made me remind the last time I saw him this close. And the time the "bit distant" was pushed back in with real measurement.
So I did now as well.
Jimin was startled with the sudden action, he looked upright at me when I uncomfortably moved away towards my pillow, to a good distance from where both of us would know where our paths should meet a dead end.
"I am not feeling too well. Maybe I should get some rest. If you please-" Leaving a dash to fill up, I waited for him to take the hint. He took it on no obligation, but the forlorn blue was splayed across his countenance, that he turned around to hide. He understood the reason, perhaps more than me. The way he did the aid for me all the time to turn back from my pieces of broken dismay, I couldn't do the same for him. When I was a culprit and sinner to the same crime myself.
The door reverberated a faint knock to the short awkwardness. I looked at fore to find Jackson, standing with a posy as he looked in with a small form of curiosity, the same way the other male in the room had looked at him, then at me, with question replacing the former look in his eyes.
"Good afternoon." He sounded too hesitant.