Bad luck much?

Jimin was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, despite getting the stalker under house arrest he couldn't ignore that certain intuition he felt in his stomach, the anxiety which strained his muscles. He couldn't ignore the emptiness he felt beside him, the usually crinkled sheets now flat out white, with no one to hold in his arms.

"She has college Jimin." He said to himself, he had seen Daehye get rained upon by relief, he saw her shoulders relax off the burden of unpredictable circumstances she had been carrying. And whilst all of this he smiled, because they had escaped the worst. And they managed to do it without drifting off. He was thankful to himself, to her.
—

He grumbled in his sleep, his eyes snapped open when he realised that his phone had been ringing and how it wasn't just a nightmare where his ringtone went on and on like it was background music. The brain was one of the most mysterious things, how it had managed to come up with the worst case scenarios just because his phone rang in the middle of night, at 2:30 am.

He didn't bother to look at the caller ID, he picked up the phone as precipitation came alive on his back. "Jimin?"

Now Jimin put the phone away from his ear just to see what was so urgent that had come up that she called,

Rose BP

"Is everything alright?" Jimin tried to open his eyes wider, he tried to rewind the previous few seconds. As long as he could remember Jimin and Rose weren't the type of friends who would disturb each other's sleep, they weren't maybe even on the point of friendship.

Rose and Jimin were acquaintances and that also because of Jennie, she had been the one who introduced them to each other, though she had ulterior motives Jimin and Rose just didn't vibe. One was too stuck in the past while the other just wasn't willing for anything.

"No, put me on speaker and check your twitter." Jimin ripped off the AC blanket from himself, something was surely wrong. Did that video get leaked? But Jihyun did delete it....

"Can you give me an idea of what the fuck is up?" Jimin's hand started shaking, his gaze still blurry and his phone vibrating as he tried to click on the application of twitter.

"Jimin, I-" he heard muffled cries, he heard the prevalent shaking in her voice the moment he picked up the phone call. Because all over twitter there were hashtags doing rounds.

#freetheidols

He clicked on the first thread which opened. There, a video of Rose kissing a woman. There, a video of Mina with her prsumable boyfriend. A video of Kai stealing a kiss. A video of-

Four videos.

While he was asleep, the Internet was wide awake.

Attached with videos was a small paragraph.

The idol culture has taken the world by storm, underaged and adults, the people who try to make their names in this cut throat competition and toxic industry and while the ones who make them, hide their real life like it's their glorious treasure. Our intention is not to cause a disruption in their lives but we mean to wake up the netizens. We solely focus on improving the conditions of the fandoms who pretend to own the lives of the idols.

Think of it as a cleanse of the respective fandoms. We thank you.

"Kai is here-" he was on a conference call but Rose's voice was cut off, "Hey Jimin." Kai was the friend who could call him up late at night. But no, Jimin wasn't hearing the voices which spoke to him through the phone. He was zooming into the video of his.

"Jimin are you listening? Tell Daehye to stay on her toes, we can't-" Jimin sprang up from his place and, "Kai...." Jimin's heart started beating faster.

"What? Is everything okay? Should we come to your place?" Some shuffling was heard in the background but all Jimin did was stare at the phone screen as Daehye's call came to life.

Jimin had his head in his hands, his eyes streaked with tears now. It felt like everything had ended. But he couldn't avoid this phone call, this phone call of the person he wasn't ready to lose just yet, ever. "Jimin! Am I disturbing you?" She sounded so excited that for a second he thought that Rose's call, this thread on twitter had been a dream, a nightmare which would've haunted him, stalked his shadows.

"No," His reply was so short, so unlike him that Daehye immediately asked, "Bad mood? Okay listen I made it to the summa cum laude list. You'll be so proud of me on graduation day."

The graduation day.

It is the day after tomorrow.

"Babe, I'm going to ask you something..." Jimin trailed off, his tears falling repeatedly. "Park Jimin, I already told you that we're getting married after three years from now." Daehye laughed, it was rare to see her like this. So excited, so full of light that it would've blinded him, but he would've still stared at her as if she were the sun, bringing warmth on his skin.

"Hey, what's up?" Daehye's laughs had stopped now, "I'm going to come to your place but till that time switch off your phone." From what she guessed Jimin was serious about what he said, the way he said it in English just so she could understand it well and clear, his voice deep and vulnerable. "May I know why?"

"No just do as I say for now, please the moment you cut the call Lavya, just shut off the phone."

Daehye now got up from her bed, "Did that video somehow-" Jimin didn't let her continue, "No, I'm cutting the call. Leave your window open." And then a long beep was heard from the other side, it had been her who had always cut the call first. Daehye long pressed the lock button and then swiped right to switch off the phone. She didn't wait for anything, it was odd how she couldn't stop beaming a minute before and now her blood just pulsed in her veins, in an urgency.

Jimin picked a pullover from the chair he had previously left it on, he picked up a fresh mask, a cap, basically all the things which would've hidden his identity. The anonymous group which had called itself the reformers had fortunately and unfortunately enough revealed only their partners. He was practically thankful to that group for at least not leaking their house addresses or their car or phone numbers.

He redialed Rose's number whilst picking up his car keys, a ring went off, "I'm going to Daehye, it's better for you to just go to your girlfriend, warn her about this situation. Try to calm her-"

"She's already here Jimin," Even if she was, it wasn't helping because Jimin could hear Rose sob uncontrollably, she had been such a reserved person, she would save her words just for a few persons and yet here she was, crying her eyes out on a call with a man who she hadn't talked to for more than half and hour. It was only because he understood, Jimin understood her so well. He understood her fear of losing someone.

"Rose you have to stay strong, for her, for yourself. Don't quit the problem before trying to find its solution."

"It's not a problem, it's a whole blow up of what I've tried to hide for so long, for my own sanity." Jimin had expected that she would've screamed but she said it so quietly, so lowly and almost like she was even trying to keep this conversation a secret. "I-" Jimin couldn't say anything else now, what would he even say? He had absolutely nothing to do, he was as defenceless as the woman who he spoke to currently, who wasn't even a part of his life, not even a side character seen from the side lines an hour ago.

"I'm as clueless as you are Rose, and I'm about to confront all of this to someone who would be as devastated as you are right now." He heard no reply to his statement, he just heard quite breathing, as if someone was collecting their emotions, as if they were trying to get a hold of their impulsive feelings.

"At least we're in this situation together, if not alone." He was partially right, partially wrong. Right because yes, instead of targeting just one the group targeted four people, one of the most famous of Korea, as well as the international. Wrong because the other three people had their partners of the opposite gender.

But Rose, she was somehow still alone in this. She had a girlfriend, a partner who was a woman. In a country like Korea which had progressed itself from one of the poorest countries in the nineteen fifties to one of the most developed nations in the twenty twenties but it still was sticking to its norms. Some of its people are still on the same page of racial discrimination, still orthodox and closed off when it comes to same sex relationships. In a country like this, which was a victim of toxic patriarchy, known for its poor gender equality despite its advancement, what would a country like this treat Rose like?

It may just leave her in shreds, or the youth might take a stand. Uncertainty seemed like the shadow which kept on chasing relentlessly, instilling a fear.

—

Jimin was very accustomed to climbing this wall of boundary, being wary of the grills which were pointed at their ends. He always had a thrill whenever he climbed this, always so filled with adrenaline, as if what he was doing was something illicit, something forbidden but the woman who sometimes just looked at him from the window while she teased him how he would fall somewhere in the middle made all of this worth it. But this night was so different, the moon still shone its silver across the sky, never once shying of showing its beauty and on another night he would've maybe paused his steps just to click a picture but no. He had dread climbing his spine as he tried to climb the pipe, his hands shaking, inhaling a deep breath to steady himself so that he really wouldn't fall.

Daehye came just in time to look down, he had almost reached but his steps were so focused that he didn't realise of her presence until she gave him a hand and he stopped instantly. He felt a sense of déjà vu, how she would almost always give her hand to help him and how he would be careful of his weight so that he wouldn't fall over.

He took her hand without a word but missed the other step which would've caused him to fall if it weren't her holding him, now with a death grip. "Fuck bhenchod." She cussed and he smiled, by now he knew how to cuss in Hindi but a second later his brain brought him back to reality, it made him remember the video which had been doing rounds on twitter and all other platforms.

"I got it, wait." Jimin tried to find balance and took help of a branch, setting his foot on it and then jumping inside, Daehye lost her balance and before they knew it they were free falling backwards. A loud thud, a silent hiss, "god fuck." She cussed again, "Hi though." Daehye kept her head back on the ground, taking a note of his face, of his reddened eyes, "Hi back." Jimin buried his face in the crook of her neck,

"Jimin."

"Hmm?"

"What is it?" Daehye's voice provided him with the only calm he had lost, the only land where the tsunami water didn't find its way to claim the earth as itself. Jimin straightened himself, got up and he took Daehye's hand and dragged her up, he never even established eye contact with her, he was averting his eyes away as he made her sit on the edge of the bed and he crouched down and held both her hands.

It was now when she saw streaks of tears which had descended his face, the fresh ones which made their way out. "Hey what happened?" She spoke even softly now, he looked so fragile, she thought that he would even break under the most benign touch.

"Promise me something." A lump formed in her throat, "I promise." She didn't even bother to ask a 'why' before doing what he told her to, "At least let me finish-"

"I do Jimin, tell me what it is?" Jimin kissed her knuckles, "We- there's a video of ours, which found its way to- I'm sorry." Daehye questioned, she questioned the enormity of the universe, she questioned and she was quite baffled at how much peace both of them had lost because of all of the things which had happened as of late, of how much sanity and hard work it had costed but nonetheless,

Luck, a cruel thing it was. She wondered why it wasn't Taehyung and Ara, who had been in the relationship for so long yet never a single threat had looked upon them. It wasn't like Jimin and Daehye weren't secretive, it wasn't like they were loose or careless.

"What- what is the video about? Are we holding hands?" She settled for the most mundane thing which they might've done ever, he didn't say anything, he just handed her the phone. She entered the password and went on twitter with hesitation,

There was a video, the camera quality must've been good, because the video started before it was zoomed in. Daehye leaned against the wall of the corridor. Of the Hybe building. She was wearing a mask, she always did in the Hybe but her eyes were clear as day, her eyes which were very uncharacteristically not so Korean, it must've been in peak summer where it was even shot. She was wearing a tank top with loose jeans. In the video she looked sideways, maybe she was waiting for someone.

She was waiting for him, she did remember that day faintly, he was two minutes late but it didn't matter when he quietly snaked his arms around her waist, back hugging her and then kissing her shoulder and then pecking her neck. The video ended at just that instant.

Below were the comments which Jimin hadn't cared to read but she would,

@hanniesdani: no one would've thought that the idols were the least protected in their own offices

@jiminwasmyhusband: no but her eyes look so prominent in this video, it would be easy to spot her.

        @kimmionie: you are so right, looks like Jimin was more interested in an international bitch
        @imnotyourhope: who gave you the right to call her a bitch        @jenja: she's probably making him pay for her tuition money

And then she stopped reading altogether, closing her eyes and feeling the pinch of salt, "Jimin." They weren't even done with one court hearing with the stalker and yet here was another situation. "How do we get out of this?" She shook the phone in her hand,

"Rose, Kai and Mina, they had their videos leaked too..... all of them filmed in their respective buildings." Because they had, the idols had thought that their buildings were a safe place, with no cameras allowed, with full protection of the idols and yet here they were.

"I- Jimin." She kept repeating his name like it was an oath, because she could say nothing except his name, she had no words, she was speechless.
Not a tear in her eyes but he felt the sadness on her face. She was going to show what she was going to wear on graduation day. She was going to tell him that she was accepted into Stanford. She might have to leave soon, so rather it was the best to make and have a good time while the things lasted, before it turned to a long distance which was tough to be in the first place.

But what was the use of all of it now? Now that the video had been leaked, put on the Internet which was an inescapable hellscape, that video could've been taken down by power but what about the minds of the people? What about the uncountable screenshots clicked? What about the news which was being spread like wildfire itself?

"It's of no use now." Daehye said and continued, "Dwelling over it, crying over it, it's a waste. Your agencies should do something about it though, take precau-" the door of her room swung open,

"Didi, you are famous." Daehyun maybe didn't realise the intensity of the situation or maybe he did and that he was serious about it that he resorted to comedy. It was like a pendulum, swinging back and forth. "Oh well, it seems so." Daehyun then averted his eyes to Jimin, who looked like a colossal mess.

"Oh my, hyung here, have some water." Daehyun immediately went to her nightstand and picked up the water bottle to hand it to Jimin.

—

Daehye wanted to disconnect from this world, she wanted to undo some things, she wanted to rewind time and go back to fix her mistakes. What was their business really?

Why do they care about who you fuck with?
"I don't really know." Jimin trailed off, Daehye blinked slowly upon the realisation that she had verbalised the question she had asked herself, and so the other five people were staring at her, Mina had nodded her slowly, Rose stared at the ground, and her girlfriend who went by the name Emma held her hand since the second they walked in. Kai's girlfriend couldn't make it here though, not everyone was as lucky as Daehye, unlike her she wasn't really wearing a mask in the video.

"What's been done is done I guess, let's just wait for the situation to calm down." Mina did really look like some fallen angel, with her straight black hair and milk white skin, she did enunciate that glow. Even at a time like this, Daehye had almost had a gay awakening at the sight of her.

"Mina, so you think the situation will calm down any sooner?" Kai was dumbfounded at her statement, "What can you do to undo all of this?"

"Nothing really, but let's just think for a second that who will be more impacted by this, me? Well I can handle the slut shaming, Kai-ssi's girlfriend? No, that woman is exposed, Rose? Is society even willing to accept her as the person she is?" Daehye's point had brought silence all over again.

"Did any of your CEOs contact you guys?" Emma who had been silent till now asked an obvious doubt, "Mine did, he said the shares are dropping." Rose's remark received whispered curses, "The sheer fucked up audacity of that man never fails to amaze me." Daehye was already flabbergasted and she didn't even know YG like Rose did, Rose thought that if the woman who sat across her ever saw that man once then she would've already thrown hands.

"Rose, I think you should fly to Australia for a few days." Kai genuinely looked worried, for every single one of them, why won't he be? His own house was set on fire, the least he could do was save everyone else. "I can't do that,"

"You've been attacked in your own house. Twice!"

"You've been attacked twice?" Mina's eyes widened, Jimin's face contorted to an expression of exasperation, Daehye internally thought that this whole plan of having a meet was even time worthy. "It's my decision-"

"Hey guys wait, it's PD-nim." Jimin pointed to his phone screen and then quietly picked up the call, the whole room which was on the verge of being a container of chaos suddenly turned pin drop silent. "Yes, good morning to you too.....Yes, do you want to talk to them? I see........Five days.... Yes at your house? Okay.....all of them? Okay, Thank you so much."

"PD-nim and Park Jin-young ssi, they are going to come to a mutual decision with us, we all have to be there. I'll just say that lock yourselves up, change your numbers if it comes to that. We cannot afford anything else now."
---Daehye was still leaning on Jimin's shoulder, trying to fall asleep, or maybe just trying to find refuge from her thoughts, anywhere really. She was reading 'Interpretation of murder', a book she had waited to read when she had the time and when she finally did something else snapped, quite literally changing the course of her life. Her mind kept drifting on and off, to those hateful comments, to all the name calling, to her being labelled as a 'Flower snake'

No she wasn't, she was graduating tomorrow, in the top five percent, she had been accepted to Stanford-

Right, she never told him, she never told him that yet again she would find herself packing the life she had made here in the last four years. She never told him that maybe she never planned to return. It was a nice moment to break the ice with, he had seen her work towards it and she knew he would be blissed out to find out that she finally had a place in the university.

"Jimin, I wanted to tell you something," she first started with a high pitch of her voice, but slowly enough she bit her words back when she saw his hands frozen, his eyes blinking whilst looking at the screen.

What do you think?
Will a 100,000$ do?
Can you bring her to the rising moon club?
I'll take care of the rest.

And she didn't get to read the rest of it because Park Jimin had gotten up, left his spot and had apparently fetched a number from his recently contacted list.

"Do you have any leads?" She observed him thoroughly, how he swept his hair back in a swing of aggression, how he then screamed. He screamed. And she had seen him like this for the first time.

"You keep saying that- from the past twenty hours what have you been doing? You have absolutely zero clue about who these fucking reform shitheads are, you are sitting here enjoying the fucking show, watching it all unfold and you're doing nothing about it. You are just corrupt politicians who can't do shit about the real things but you're gonna drive scandals just so your mistakes get blindsided. You are going to cancel someone just because they smoked weed but you're not gonna do anything about how- you know what- leave it, IT'S OUT OF YOUR MOTHERFUCKING AUDACITY!"

He had screamed so loud that she flinched at maybe every sentence and then he threw his phone with such frustration that it broke the glass on the wall unit,

She had never seen him like this, she had never thought that he possessed such a level of sinisterness, she had never even seen him raise his voice, even increase an octave, he had always been so calm, so serene. At that moment he looked like her father, but her father was nowhere as scary as him. The whole time his back faced her but she didn't get any less surprised or even petrified at such a sight.

She remembered Taehyung's words all of a sudden, 'Jimin is scary when he is angry.' Scary was an understatement, because she sat there with her mouth slightly parted, goosebumps on her arms as he turned her way, wiped the sweat which almost dripped down his eyebrow. His eyes had held a certain darkness to them, he huffed out.

"You wanted to tell me something?" He asked as he walked over and sat next to her like nothing ever happened, "Lavya?" He trailed his index finger over her arm, his touch soft and warm against her cold skin.

"Can you-" she tried to say but couldn't, "That was the latest Samsung." She pointed over the broken glass of the wall unit, and at the phone which had its screen shredded to pieces.

"How much does it matter?" He moved a fringe of her hair away from her eyes with his fingers, the touch so soft that she thought she had hallucinated his reaction.

"I got in." He first took a moment to register her words, to make a meaning out of them and then his expression turned to a smile, the boyish smile she had fallen in love with. "Do you have multiple personality disorder?"

"Babe, my anger was directed at them, why would I behave that way with you?"

"I don't know maybe because I'm the reason-" he kissed her, "you will never be the reason for something so-" he kissed her again.

"Jimin." She was pulled up, to straddle his lap, "how do you want to celebrate you getting in?"

"There's no time to celebrate really," there was none, the first thing tomorrow was her graduation ceremony, a short speech which she had wanted to prepare but she decided that she would just settle on a few thank you's and then get out her university just so she could go to the court with Jimin, to see what kind of counter attacks the prosecutor from the stalker's side had ready.

The situation was already getting out of hand, Jimin, Mina and Kai didn't really face the number of death threats Rose was facing. Daehye and Kai's girlfriend were a victim of mindless hateful comments,

"I don't even understand how the people have the audacity to think that we are staying with you guys for money." Daehye scoffed,

"I know, I mean you don't even take an expensive gift from me, and Yerim is a Neurologist. I mean can you imagine? It just makes my blood boil." She couldn't imagine it, but she saw it for herself for sure.

"And to think, the way they are behaving with Rose. But I think Rose is also becoming an example, don't you think so?" She was, just in one day various people from so many fandoms had come in support of her, some even made a hashtag. All in all, there were netizens who were in support of the idols, many of them against.

"What was that text about?" Daehye asked him, staring right into his eyes, so she could see herself in his eyes, so that she could see that his gaze lingered on her, rather than behind her or beside her. "It was about-" he stopped, his eyes closing in disgust.

"I can't even seem to speak about it," Jimin sighed, "It's that horrendous."

"Trust me, I can handle it." Daehye smoothed her hand on his nape, she could in all honesty feel the aggression pooling yet again inside him, "This politician I talked to, his son texted me..." Jimin pinched the bridge of his nose and despite the prevalent discomfort he had Daehye just made him talk about it. "....... He said that I should bring you to a club, so that he could drug you later, and then sexually assault you."

"Oh well, that's very far-fetched of him." Daehye tried to say it in an ease, but her voice came small, her expression bitter, it was her who diverted her eyes from him, just so that he maybe wouldn't see the tears coming to the brim, he wouldn't finally see her giving up.

He instead pulled her in his embrace and at that moment he felt her shaking, "I'm so afraid to even go tomorrow."

"I know." He did well enough, he had read those comments, he had felt the need to take down the entire platform of the whole internet maybe. He had blamed himself for something he hadn't done, he continued to do so because it seemed like the only thing which could've worked as an excuse if he was ever asked why it didn't work out.

AU

A shitload of some mind blowing, dramatic as fuck kind of fuckery. Honestly, I don't even know how to feel about this chapter, so much is going on and I don't know if I'm doing an okay-ish job at writing what I want to present so desperately. I might edit this chap a bit after a few days. 

Please vote if you can T-T (comments too, I love comments, I'd love to read your thoughts)