Chapter 17

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The words echoed in his mind, stabbing through the silence, each syllable a wound that couldn't be undone.

They reverberated in his skull, cutting deeper with each passing second.

Dead. She's dead.

The sound of it was a constant hum, like a mantra he couldn't escape.

His mind screamed at him to make sense of it, to find some reason, some explanation, but there was nothing-nothing but the cold, unforgiving truth.

His knees buckled under him.

The weight of everything collapsed into one crushing moment.

His body crumpled, and he fell to the floor, hands scrambling for support on the smooth, unforgiving tiles of the bathroom.

The stark white tiles stared back at him, indifferent to his pain, indifferent to the devastation that had torn apart everything he thought he knew.

Jimin could feel the chill of the floor, sinking into his skin, grounding him in the reality he wanted so desperately to avoid.

He curled into himself, his breaths shallow and ragged, as if each inhale might bring him back from this nightmare.

But no amount of air would help. No amount of denial would change the truth.

Kyara is gone.

The distant wail of an ambulance siren sounded, too far away, too late. But it was all he could focus on, as he continued to tremble on the floor, fingers pressing into his scalp as if trying to squeeze the horrible truth out of his head.

Footsteps.

Frantic.

Quick.

The door slammed open, and then voices-loud, urgent voices, cutting through the chaos of his mind.

"We need to check for a pulse."

A shadow loomed over him, but Jimin didn't look up. He couldn't. Not yet. Not when he still had hope-foolish hope-that it wasn't true, that maybe they were wrong.

"No pulse," the paramedic confirmed, his voice flat, devoid of anything Jimin could hold onto.

Jimin's chest tightened, but his body wouldn't react. His mind screamed, but his limbs froze-too terrified to move, too stunned to do anything other than sit there, cowering, shaking in the corner of the room.

Then, they moved. Methodical, efficient. Rolling Kyara's body onto a gurney. The soft shuffling of their footsteps was the only sound in the room, now consumed by the weight of the moment. Her body was an empty vessel, a shell, holding only the cruel remnants of the life that had been taken away.

The paramedics lifted her. As they moved past him, Jimin's trembling hands reached up, frantic, a desperate attempt to pull himself together. Blood smeared his fingers, streaking across his skin, and he could feel it-no longer just on his hands but deep within him, as though it had stained his very soul.

The silence hit him like a wave. The room suffocating, too quiet, too heavy. The only sound was the frantic thumping of his heartbeat in his ears. The blood on his hands was a mark he could never scrub away, no matter how hard he tried.

His head snapped back. His body shuddered involuntarily, hands pressing harder against his ears as if shutting out the finality of everything he'd just heard, everything he'd just witnessed.

No. No, no, no. The words came in a silent, broken chant. His body shook violently, his breath coming in ragged sobs, but no matter how much he shook his head, no matter how much he tried to escape it, it was still there. The truth was still there. It couldn't be erased, couldn't be undone.

Too late. Too late to save her.

With shaking hands, he pulled his knees up to his chest, pressing his forehead to the cold floor. His chest heaved with silent sobs, as if each tear was another piece of him lost.

She's gone.

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For the past week, Jimin had been sleeping in Kyara's abandoned room, the emptiness of the house swallowing him whole.

Her parents were rarely home-always distant. Now it was just him, alone in the silent house.

At least they didn't care he was practically living there.

The room felt too small, too cold without her. Every morning, he woke up in a daze, overwhelmed by the crushing weight of guilt, as if he had failed her in the worst possible way.

The sheets faintly smelled of her, but it only made everything harder. He had spent countless hours just staring at the walls, hoping for some kind of escape, but nothing came.

He slept, only to wake up and face the same sorrow again. His body felt numb, exhausted by grief, but sleep never truly brought him rest.

All he could do was go through the motions, as if the passing days meant anything at all.

With a restless mind and shaking hands, Jimin wandered the house aimlessly, until he found himself at Kyara's desk.

The weight of her absence hit him all over again, and in a daze, he began going through her things.

Her room was frozen in time-untouched since she had left it. It felt too final now, like he was intruding on something sacred.

As his fingers sifted through the mess on her desk, his hand brushed against something small, leather-bound, hidden at the back of the drawer.

A diary.

He hesitated, unsure if he should disturb it. But curiosity overwhelmed him. He opened it.

The first page, in Kyara's neat handwriting, was a message for him-one she had written, never imagining he would read it like this.

"Jimin, one of the best people I've ever met in my life. You've been there for me when no one else was. No boyfriend, no parent, no man I've ever met could ever compare to the strength you carry. You've seen the worst and still, you stand. I admire that more than anything.

I know we've shared a lot together-laughed, cried-but what I feel for you isn't love in the way people think of love. It's not the romantic kind. It's something deeper, something more pure-admiration for who you are, for how strong you are to survive this world. I want you to know that. I hope you understand that.

You've been my rock, Jimin. And no matter where we go, no matter what happens, I'll always carry that with me."

Jimin's heart stopped as he read the last sentence again.

I'll always carry that with me.

It wasn't romantic love. It was something that cut just as deeply. Love born from admiration and respect-the kind people rarely talk about.

He closed the diary slowly, pressing it to his chest. The weight of it now a heavy presence in his arms.

He sank to his knees, holding it close, as his tears began to fall. The overwhelming ache in his chest intensified, realizing what he had lost-how much Kyara had believed in him, how much she had trusted him.

She hadn't needed him to be her boyfriend. She hadn't needed him to be anyone other than who he was. And that thought alone shattered him.

She had been the one to carry him when he felt weak. She had seen something in him that no one else did. And in return, he had failed her.

His tears fell freely now, his body shaking with the intensity of his sorrow. He cried for the friendship he had taken for granted, for the woman who had believed in him when he couldn't believe in himself.

His sobs were ragged, desperate. He hugged the diary to his chest, wishing, praying for one more moment with her.

One more chance to tell her that he understood, that he saw her. That he had failed her.

But it was too late.

Jimin sat there, crumpled in the cold, empty room, surrounded by the things that once belonged to someone who had loved him in the most selfless way possible.

The girl who had taught him that strength wasn't always about surviving, but about holding on to what mattered.

And in that moment, Jimin realized that he would carry her with him, too, for as long as he lived.

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The morning of the funeral arrived, and Jimin stood in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection.

His dark suit felt too tight, suffocating. His face was pale, drawn, the fatigue of the past week evident in the hollows beneath his eyes.

He didn't recognize himself anymore. A broken man stared back at him, lost in the aftermath of everything.

His breath came in shallow gasps, a pit of sorrow lodged deep in his chest. He closed his eyes, trying to steady himself, but the weight of everything was too much to carry.

With a deep, shaky breath, he grabbed his coat, turning away from the mirror to step out the door.

The taxi ride to the funeral home was a blur. His thoughts tangled, but all he could focus on was the crushing reality ahead.

There was no going back now. The man in the mirror had already left everything behind.

Jimin found himself standing in the funeral home, the oppressive quiet choking him.

The room was filled with flowers-so many flowers-but they felt hollow, as if they were just another mask for the suffocating grief that hung in the air.

He looked around, but everything felt unfamiliar. His mind was somewhere else, trapped in the silence of his empty home, in the cold space where Kyara had once been.

Her absence felt like an open wound. He had never been good at filling the gaps, never good at making his house feel like a home.

Now, it was just him-alone. Alone with the ghosts of the past, and the unrelenting weight of the present.

His feet moved automatically, carrying him toward the casket as if his body knew the steps, even when his mind couldn't.

The sight of her, so still, so serene, made his stomach churn. Kyara, the woman he had failed to protect.

The woman who had wanted so badly to escape her past, to find some kind of peace-and now she was gone.

Her face, almost peaceful in death, was marred by bruises on her legs, wrists-bruises he hadn't seen before.

They spoke of something dark, of someone trapped, someone desperate.

A presence beside him shifted, and Jimin's breath caught in his throat. He didn't need to turn to know who it was.

Jungkook.

The shock of seeing him there was enough to make his head spin. Jungkook was just as silent as Jimin, both of them locked in the same oppressive grief.

The weight of the moment pressed in on them, thick and suffocating, a reminder of everything they had lost.

Jungkook wasn't just mourning Kyara's death; he was mourning the years of silence between them, the years that had torn everything apart.

Jungkook's voice broke the silence, softer than Jimin expected. "She was my sister."

The words hit Jimin like a physical blow, stealing the breath from his lungs. "Your sister?"

Jimin's mind raced, but his voice cracked when he spoke. "She was adopted. She wasn't your sister." The words felt wrong, as if they didn't belong in this reality. This doesn't make sense.

This can't be real.

Jungkook's gaze never wavered, his face drawn, his grief a reflection of Jimin's own. "It's complicated," Jungkook murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

"We didn't know each other for most of our lives. But we were siblings. She was taken from me before we even had the chance to meet." His words faltered. "I never even got the chance to help her."

The weight of those words landed like a ton of bricks on Jimin's chest, squeezing the air from his lungs.

Kyara had been Jungkook's sister? A sister he never even knew? And Jimin-had he really never suspected? Never wondered? His mind reeled, spiraling into a dizzying vortex of confusion, anger, and betrayal.

The silence between them grew heavy, stretching into something unbearable. Jimin wanted to scream.

He wanted to lash out, demand answers. Why didn't you do something? But the anger churned within him, twisting into something darker, something more suffocating.

"I... I can't," Jimin whispered, his voice breaking, and before he could stop himself, he turned away.

Away from Jungkook, away from Kyara's casket, away from the truth that was too much to bear.

The house had always been empty, but now, it felt more hollow than ever.

His mind raced with fragments of memories-Kyara's laughter, her pain, her absence-and it was all too much.

Too much to understand. Too much to fix. All he could do was stumble away from it all, to try and outrun the broken pieces of the past that had finally caught up to him.

But he couldn't escape the sadness.

Not now. Not ever.

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one more chapter folks

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