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One year earlier. Avalon's Yard.

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"I wanna die! Some fucker out there, get me an overdose, hand me a gun! Hand me a fucking rope! Toss a bomb at me, would you! WOULD YOU!? KILL ME, CRUEL WORLD!" 

A heart-wrenching cough tore through the crumpled man. His lungs spasmed, twitched painfully in his hollow chest. He stumbled a few steps before collapsing onto his stomach, crying out at the impact of his bones against the unforgiving earth.

The dirt particles underneath Booboo Forlorn hugged his body, kissing his sorrow with all the comfort they could offer him. His legs were stiff, bent awkwardly to the sides, and his arms cradled his chest.  

Warm blood trickled out of his nose, but he didn't bother to reach up and wipe it off of his bruised face. He didn't bother to turn on his side to avoid the puddle of trash juices from soaking into the collar of his neat, baby blue shirt, nor did he swat at the flies landing on the back of his legs, mistaking the unmoving person as a dead slab of meat for them to explore.

Trailing away from his side was an unmistakable dark river of blood, pooling at a constant rate over wrappers and tidbits of rotting foods. Lazily, he watched as the bugs moved out of the path of the maroon river that seeped into the land. 

The bloody life liquid of the heartbroken man was lapped up by the ground with ease. Soaking. Seeping. 

Disappearing like the relationship he once had.

His insides were as dejected as his current surroundings, some junk yard he'd managed to stumble into after being shot in the side. The rusty sign hanging above the entrance archway read Avalon's Yard, but Jimin had never heard of it before. Whenever the Garbagemobiles took his trash away, he never thought twice about where it traveled to. 

He never considered that such a nasty place could exist in Mither, one where thick smog blocked the sun on the daily. Towering incinerators loomed overhead, and atrocious scents floated by in wavering puffs. It was as if the junkyard had a climate of its own, dependent on the incinerators' pollution puffing and the different putrid stenches from day to day. 

Now, Avalon's Yard weather was stifling hot and partly cloudy with a chance of acid rain. It was awful, but the pain cascading down Jimin's torso was even worse.

"Kill me, world! LET ME DIE!" Jimin coughed against the dusty ground. "Please, let me PERISH! I NEVER WANTED TO BE BORN IN THE FIRST PLACE! Let. Me. Go. Let. Me. Bleed. Out. And. Never. Resurface...HE DOESN'T LOVE ME! Oh, he doesn't love me!"

Upon yelling the words, the tattoo on Jimin's face stung with realization. For the last two years, Jimin had been nothing but a loyal and dedicated partner. He'd stuck by his boyfriend's side like no other. He was the sexy white-haired man's ride-or-die. They went on trips together, laughed together, had sex nearly every day...yet in the end, Jimin was thrown out.

Chased. Attacked. Shot in the side.

And he didn't know why. 

Well...he had a few ideas. 

His boyfriend was very easy to upset. He never minded hurting Jimin before, and it became a regular part of their relationship...yet. It never got to this outrageous level before, one that leaned dangerously towards the brink of death. 

"WHY...UGHHH...WHY DID YOU...I DIDN'T EVEN HURT YOU, V! I DIDN'T, I JUST WAS EXPERIMENTING, AND, AND...I DON'T BELONG TO YOU! I'M NOT YOURS! OH...FUCK...KILL ME NOW! I DON'T DESERVE THIS TORTURE!"

The pain blossomed smartly in his obliques, traveling to his lungs. He wouldn't be surprised if one of them was punctured, since it was growing increasingly difficult for him to breathe. Blood loss was making him faint, and his breaths came shorter and quicker. It was only a matter of time before the circling seagulls made a feast of his perished body, leaving nothing in remembrance other than the bones they could not digest.

"Hmm...I'm going to die." Jimin whispered, barely able to voice his thoughts. "I'm going to die and it's all because of you, V. All because of you. If you can't have me, no one can, right? You fuck...head."

Jimin's eyelids lolled drunkenly as unconsciousness toyed with him. The idea of death wasn't what scared Jimin, but what came after. For all the good he'd done in the waking world, he basically had a one way ticket straight to the underworld. Jimin wasn't an angel in any way, shape, or form. Neither was his boyfriend.

That was, his ex-boyfriend.

"Goodbye, world."

With finality, a cold wave swept over the boy's aching body. His eyes snapped shut, and he felt himself releasing the last of his power out into the smoggy air of Avalon's Yard.

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"Goodbye, world. Goodbye. Goodbye world. Goodbye. Bye! Bye!"

A high-pitched, swooping noise penetrated the stinky air. It was vibrant, agitated, and Jimin had heard nothing like it before. Was he dreaming? Was his mind trapped in some faraway time of boarding school when he was a child, trying to be shaped into the greatest businessman Mither had ever known?

Was one of his teachers trying to instill in him positive values again? Who did this voice belong to, and why was it speaking with him on his way to the underworld? Was this the Satan that all the tales spoke of in Hell? Was this nothingness?

"Booboo, gotta save Booboo! Out of my way, stupid bird! Stupid bird! Stupid Booboo! Look at the blood! Gotta save blood! Move out of the Booboo stupid save! Bird save!"

Blearily, Jimin's dazed eyes opened to face the owner of the voice. Two beady, curious eyes were inches from his, sunken into a twitching, feathered head. The bird's twisted beak swung to and fro like a crazed conductor leading his wild orchestra, and what exited the bird's massive mouth was shocking enough to make Jimin yelp.

"Booboo! Booboo! Gotta save Booboo!" A garbled English voice traveled to Jimin's ringing ears.

"W...what?"

"Blood! So much blood!"

Jimin winced as he eyed the bird's substantial talons prodding the ground next to his body. A deep burgundy pool of blood coated the ground next to him, next to his bullet-hole injury. The bird's talons dipped and skimmed across his blood as if it were nothing, continuing to spasm its mutilated head around. Jimin swallowed as the bird's head swept closer to his face, nearly pecking his eye out.

"Booboo, save?"

The bird gazed at him imploringly, deeply, as if it knew what had befallen him. As if it knew how to make it right again. Jimin turned his head to look around him, past the bird's ruffling green feathers. 

His body had been moved to a semi-clean location in the junkyard, next to some disregarded washing machines. The light scent of stale cleaning supplies reached his nostrils, alongside the metallic smell of his dried blood.

"Uh...where...how, what are you?"

"Booboo, save?" The bird didn't seem to understand his question.

"What...happened?" Jimin stared at his side, which no longer bled out on the ground. As he studied the baby blue shirt that clung to his side, he realized that a new lump was protruding from under the fabric. One that wasn't there before. "What the-"

"What happened? Booboo OKAY! GET OUT OF MY WAY STUPID BIRD!" The green fowl squawked loudly, dipping his head towards Jimin's side. "Booboo saved! Gotta save Booboo!"

"What are you even saying, bird? Shoo! Get the fuck away from me." Jimin peered at the thick wad of bandaging that laced around his torso. Someone must have found him at the junkyard and fixed him up. Saved his life by removing the bullet fragment from his side and halting the blood flow. 

But who? And why?

The bird swung its head at the yellow sky.

"Ugh! Booboo gotta save! Gross junkyard! Gross! My Prada slippers...my Prada slippers ruined!"

Jimin, suddenly wrought with an idea, raised his head.

"What did you say? Are you...are you repeating what someone said to you before?"

The bird fluffed its grimy feathers. "Repeating, repeating!"

"I thought so." Jimin nodded, cringing as the movement reminded him of how sore his neck was. 

His entire body was sore, aching all over from the beating he'd received by his boyfriend's gang upon trying to escape. Then, the bullet. The bullet wound sent zaps of agony through his abdomen whenever he shifted, and the rancid stench of the junkyard brought tears to his eyes. It was awful, the pain and environment. 

Even if he didn't die and travel to the underworld, this was hell on Earth.

"So...someone must have showed up here wearing Prada slippers and..." Jimin trailed off, digesting the words. "And...pulled the bullet out. And bandaged me up. And left without a trace of his being here, except for you, that is."

"Prada slippers, all dirty! Save Booboo-"

"Wait. Only...V wears...Prada slippers..."

The junk yard fell silent. 

The bird's gruesome beak waved back and forth lazily. It was like an orangey, swinging pendulum, moving to a tune that was offbeat, unsteady. Jimin followed the beak with his eyes, open-mouthed at his realization.

V...saving him? V...helping him out? Keeping him alive? 

It didn't make sense. Not in the least. 

Why wouldn't V capture him, bring him back to his mansion if he wanted him alive? Something was off about the whole thing...it rubbed Jimin the wrong way. Why would V enter this place, this rancid, oozing place, if only to save his ex-boyfriend from death and then leave him behind?

Nothing about it made sense...unless...

"Oh...oh no. Nuh uh. No fucking way. He thinks he can toy with me, use me when he wants. Visit when he feels like it. Make me miserable...since he thinks I'll comply with his demands. He thinks, OH, Booboo BabyBlue loved me so much that he proposed, and got turned down, and proposed again, and got turned down-"

"Proposed?" The bird repeated stupidly. "Got turned down! HAh! HAH!"

"Shut up, Prada bird!" Jimin raised a fist but could do nothing but weakly shake it around. "I only proposed because...because...I wanted his money! That's why. That's the only reason I was with him."

A beak shake. "Prada bird! Booboo BabyBlue LOVED ME SO MUCH THAT HE PROPOSED-"

"Shut the fucking fuck up!" Jimin groaned as his side pulsed painfully against the bandage. "No more fucking words out of you, Prada bird! I didn't love him! I never loved him! I always hated him, from the moment we met! I was always trying to lure him in and make him fall for me so that I could run away with his money, and...and live my own, independent life! That's why!"

"Hated? Booboo loved Prada, hated Prada? Gotta save Booboo...gotta save Booboo...? Shut the fuck up?" The bird's words were garbled, confused.

"Oh, fuck. Fucking hell." Jimin rubbed angrily at his brow in frustration. "I left everything at his mansion. Everything. He made me sell my home, hand my things over to his possession...he has everything. Everyfuckingthing! Damn me for being so blind! All he ever wanted was power over me, power over my things. I was his little damn play toy, to do with as he pleased...why couldn't I see it earlier? Why couldn't I-"

"Gotta save Booboo...love Booboo..."

"What?" Jimin paled, leaning forward as far as his injured side would allow him. "Say that again."

"That again!"

"No, the other thing."

"No...the other thing!"

Jimin clenched his fists. "No! What you said before, when you-"

"No! What you said before when you-"

"DID V SAY HE LOVES ME OR NOT? I NEED TO KNOW, PRADA!"

Prada made a throaty flutter in her gullet that mimicked a cackling sound. Jimin frowned deeply, waving his arms around. He just needed to know...did V say that about him?

"Please, Prada...did the man who came here, who fixed me up...did he say anything about...uh, loving me?"

Prada stared. 

Jimin blinked at the bird's blank, beady eyes, wondering what prompted such an odd creature to spawn in nature. Obviously, this grizzly bird was a mutation of some kind. Its wings were much too small to lift its short, stout green body off the ground, and its beak was hardly a beak. Bent, dinged up, and clearly abused in the past with what looked like a sharp object, Prada's beak was nicked so many times Jimin wondered how the bird could approach him so openly.

Like Jimin, the bird was a subject of torture, of some past unspeakable agony that normally would drive people to insanity. But here abuse was, bringing two creatures together. Fucking abuse.

"Gotta save Booboo..." Prada repeated, although the bird's voice sounded strained, deeper in pitch. This time the bird was really trying to reenact the owner's raspy tones, puffing its chest up and dipping its head. "Booboo needs to be alive."

"Alive...right. Anything more?" Jimin's pointer finger traced the tattooed word on his cheek in expectation. "Nothing else, he said nothing else?"

"Stupid Prada slipper! Disgusting! Dirty!" The bird stared into the sky. "Gotta save Booboo..."

Jimin waited for the bird to say more, to define anything else that V could have said when saving his life, but nothing came out of the bird's beak. Nothing but a heavy, layered cough, that reminded Jimin of smokers. 

It reminded him of smoking cigarettes with V, of all the nights they spent talking on the balcony, when Jimin thought the other was paying full, unbreaking attention to him. 

Jimin knew those moments were lies. Nothing but lies.

V didn't love him.

He never did. Never. He was incapable of loving anything other than power and control. V was heartless, a monster. A liar, cheater, and someone who played dirty to get what he wanted. Someone who wanted him alive to mess with him. A pestilent perpetrator.

"Prada?"

"Booboo." The bird shuffled in the dried blood pool on the ground.

"Tell me...does V come here often?"

"Often! Often!" Prada beamed.

"Why the fuck would V come to Avalon's Yard often? His business is doing well, and he's almost at a quarter of a million in sales...why would he come here in his free time? Why would a rich man come to a junk yard in his free time?"

"Gotta save Booboo!" Prada spat, dipping her beak again and again. "Booboo! Gotta save! Gotta keep him alive!"

"Would you shut up? What does that even mean? Gotta save Booboo? More like, gotta make his life a living hell. Why would he send his men to hurt me, then save my life? And why does he come here often? Is he trying to make me miserable? To put me in a place that he can control?"

Prada said nothing for a long while. 

Eventually, the sun set in Mither. With it, Jimin's heart tumbled into the deepest shadow it had ever seen, one of unrequited love and dumpster diving.

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izzizz thoughts

brief interlude!

this time period is between jimin's relationship with V and the current DOYEN battle they're in now! i would say sorry that i'm jumping around in time, but i'm not! i'm only sorry if you're confused, otherwise toughest shite in a bucket! lately i've been experimenting with curses, so if you hear very odd profanity combinations from me, don't fret! i've just been swashbuckling around the swearing block, don't mind me! 

never mind me!

also, i'm also i'm also i'm also i'm also getting nervous because i'm going out of my comfort zone to hold a meeting with some of you reader folk! ah, meeting people, am i right! says no one ever! at least not mega-introvert-antisocial-writer people, they don't say yay people! oh poopy dillpickleshit! i'm in for it!

goodbye! 

izzy.