• 🥀 • chapter five • 🥀 •

The first person to come upon the charred wreckage that was once Seung-hyun's Namwon estate was the gardener, who came to start her weekly shift.

She called the authorities, who, upon investigation, surmised that there was only one body in the debris.

One body identified by the coroner, thanks to dental records.

And that's when they called Jimin.

Jimin, who played his part to perfection-

"Hello? Yes, this is he... What do you mea- no. NO! Seung-hyunie?!- Seung-hyunie nonono-"

Yoongi and Taehyung watched their friend's face crumple as real tears trailed down his cheeks, explaining his whereabouts according to his scripted alibi and agreeing to come in for questioning between his cries and gulps of air.

Then, as he hung up, they watched his expression fall into its default position. Eyes dry.

Taehyung gripped the fabric at the arm of Yoongi's shirt. "Minnie?"

"It was the coroner. And the chief of police. They're sending an officer to pick us up for questioning, just as we thought."

Yoongi spoke up, his voice impossibly steady, "We've got you covered. No one deviates from the story."

Taehyung nodded silently, still staring at his best friend. Unsure of who he was really seeing because even though only one body was found in Namwon, something else died in the fire that night.

Yoongi pulled him along as he turned to leave the room, "C'mon, Taehyung-ah. We're supposed to be ready when they get here."

Taehyung followed wordlessly, waiting for the door to shut behind him before he let himself slide down the oak surface, hands coming up to cover his face as silent sobs racked his body.

Yoongi quickly glanced up at the door, listening for a moment before dropping to Taehyung's side, pulling his head into his chest to muffle the noise, "Tae- Tae... Shhh. It's okay." Knowing it wasn't okay.

After a few moments, Taehyung slowly pushed himself free, taking a deep breath.

Yoongi watched him for a beat and then wiped his hands over his face before he stood, offering his hand to Taehyung, "How the fuck did this happen-"

Taehyung took Yoongi's hand. The older boy pulled him to his feet and they crossed the room to sit on the bed together.

Farther away from the door.

Yoongi pulled his legs up and rested his elbows on his bent knees and Taehyung leaned over to lay his head on his shoulder, taking another deep breath before his delayed whispered reply, "Jimin married a self-important... self-indulgent...emotionally abusive asshole, that's how this happened. I wish he'd have just left him before everything escalated, but we couldn't make those decisions for him."

Yoongi nodded, reaching up to play with the strands falling across Taehyung's forehead, giving him space to continue. Space to cry if he needed to.

There would be no room for crying later.

"Something's changed in him, Yoon. Something's wrong... Do you think he's in shock?"

"I really don't know, Tae. All I know is we have to hold up our end of the story. And once this is over we can worry about that. But right now we are culpable and we have to get the eyes of the investigation off of us."

And that they did.

It was a long interrogation, but with an irrefutable alibi and no reason to suspect malintent, the three were released within a few hours.

Within the week, Jimin received official word that the investigation was closed and the cause of death was determined: a decanter of high-proof spirits and faulty wiring in the master-bedroom fireplace that caused the fire and dry outdoor conditions that exacerbated the damage to the home.

Accounts were unfrozen, assets liquidated, the estate would be divided.

It was the biggest paycheck Jimin would receive to date, and he didn't even have to fuck Seung-hyun to get it.

Maybe it was a callous thought. Maybe even entering a new level of fucked-up.

Jimin was hardly in the mood to care.

He avoided giving Yoongi or Taehyung anything resembling the full truth beyond his disjointed phone call on that night, instead reciting the vague, "I'm not ready to talk about it."

To which Taehyung almost too-readily replied, "It's okay, Minnie. You... You did what you had to do."

But... Jimin didn't have to.

He could have left Seung-hyun, gone through the proper channels. Maybe have gotten some sort of settlement with the help of blackmail - their "arrangement" wasn't quite wholesome, after all, and Seung-hyun was all about keeping his illusions intact.

He didn't have to kill Seung-hyun.

He wanted to.

He wanted to and it felt good.

Shutting Seung-hyun up. Seeing the light leave his eyes.

It gave him... a taste of something and his hunger urged him to find another. To fill the void.

There would be time. Later.

Right now he was busy collecting his belongings from the penthouse in Seoul, finding his own place, and negotiating a write-off for his mother. An amount that would encourage her to sever ties.

And there was the matter of the Namwon estate. Or what was left of it.

A week after the ordeal, he'd received a call that the home was no longer declared a crime scene, that officers could assist him, if he wished, to check the property for any salvageable belongings. Sentimental items.

Jimin agreed, wanting to see the blackened remains of one of the homes that held nothing but negative emotion.

One final time.

He made the trip with an officer, silently recalling the night Yoongi sped down the same road. A pitch-black road with Taehyung in the backseat. Taehyung, unable to resist opening one of the 96 proof bottles of vodka that Yoongi assured them had a flash point of -18℃ and would light up the house before the match hit. He remembered Taehyung tipping his head back to drink a shot's worth, struggling to swallow as it burned his entire mouth but powering through it because he was about to move a fucking body.

The officer's car pulled up to the gates. Jimin could still detect the smell of burning, or maybe it was all in his head. Whatever the case - if he closed his eyes, he could still see the night when the flames lit his friends' faces.

"Mr. Park, is this too much? Should we turn back?"

Jimin opened his eyes and turned to the officer, smiling sweetly, "I think I'll be okay, thanks. And 'Jimin' is fine."

He stepped inside the property, iron gate creaking, and made his way to what was once a staircase leading to the porch, their entryway. Now all that was left was splintered, charred wood and stone.

He stood for a moment at the entryway, recalling many an argument with Seung-hyun, right here.

The times he called Jimin stupid and belittled his ideas, knowing well that it struck a nerve as he didn't finish high school.

The countless times he reminded Jimin that he couldn't leave because Seung-hyun owned him.

The times he pushed Jimin around. Verbally and even physically. It wasn't often and it usually stopped soon after it started. Except for that last night.

Jimin spoke loudly enough for the officer, lingering back a little, to hear, "There's nothing for me here."

He scanned the whole of the property from the line of trees to the narrow road leading down to a small lake, whispering to himself, "Never was."

The gates creaked once more.

"Oh shit."

Jimin and the officer turned, spotting a delivery boy standing stock-still at the gates.

He was holding a bouquet of red roses inside an intricately etched crystal vase and his eyes widened taking in the destroyed property and the surviving yellow crime scene tape fluttering on the ground.

"I- I- Shit. I have a delivery?" he looked down at the label, "Park Jimin?"

"That's me," Jimin called softly, stepping away from what was left of the structure.

"Could you sign here?" The boy handed Jimin a pen and the delivery confirmation receipt.

Jimin scrawled his signature and took the heavy vase, fingers trailing over the soft, dark red petals of the roses before he plucked the card out from the metal clip.

'Happy Anniversary to my Jimin'

It was marked from Seung-hyun, but Jimin knew perfectly well they had been preordered by his assistant and scheduled to be delivered today. Seung-hyun rarely saw any occasion as a time to get Jimin gifts.

At least not until after he'd earned them.

Jimin realized he'd still been thoughtlessly holding the pen and returned it to the delivery boy, "Thank you."

The boy nodded and turned on his heel, walking briskly to his car.

"Should we get going then?"

It took a moment for the words to process but when Jimin looked back at the officer he made a show of pulling out a single rose, walking to the remains of the staircase, and laying it on the stone.

He returned, mimicking his best choked-up voice, "Mhm. I'm ready."

The officer looked down and shook his head as he opened the car door, looking genuinely upset, "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Jimin climbed into the front seat, the fullness of the bouquet hiding his smile.

They drove in silence, Jimin examining each of the roses, wondering what it had been this time that Seung-hyun was apologizing for.

Jimin let his fingertips linger on the stems, dragged his thumb across a thorn.

'You have been nothing but a fucking thorn in my side.'

Watched, as if outside his body, as he pressed - pierced - the print of his thumb into the sharp barb.

A bead of blood welled at the site, trickling down his skin.

He brought it to his lips after he let the rose drop back into the vase and watched his blood disperse into the water.

Contemplating roses and how they were exactly like every other thing Seung-hyun - or any man really - ever offered him after taking advantage.

They were beautiful gifts wrapped in apologies. Covered in threats.

Jimin smiled as the landscape blurred in his peripheral vision, as the sting of the wound cemented an understanding he'd long felt, but never expressed because he'd never had the chance.

Not until Seung-hyun.

And that understanding was this:

By nature, delicate things developed weapons and Jimin would show them - all of them - their blood if they ever made the mistake of forgetting.

🥀

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{you thought we were done, didn't you?}

{eight months later}

🥀

In his twenty-six years, Park Jimin had known hunger.

And it oddly seemed to hit him in the strangest moments.

He lay across the middle of his bed, running his fingers across the page of his sketchbook, allowing his fingertips to ghost the outline of the long-gone roses.

Remembering his short-lived marriage to Seung-hyun.

Winding his fingers close to the cross-hatched curves of the petals. Walking his fingertips on each of the sketched thorns, the points painstakingly shaded to evoke the memory of their bite.

But it was only a memory and his fingers danced across the page, unscathed.

A turn of the page and he could nearly smell the fragrant stargazer lilies from memory as his eyes traced the charcoal lines.

Pictured the overly-pushy American tourist he met exactly two weeks before his marriage to Seung-hyun.

Tall and handsome, excited to flaunt his wealth with a tour of every Michelin rated restaurant in Seoul, having memorized every desirable destination but conveniently developing amnesia to the fact that Jimin had his own autonomy and that consent was not beyond his social standing.

Jimin remembered the reunion, how easy it had been to find him just after Seung-hyun's estate sale.

How full of himself the man had been, even though his death couldn't quite fill Jimin.

A shame.

He remembered the soft leaves of the bouquet and the confusion he felt when he saw the arrangement left on the roadside memorial - as the blooms were more likely found in wedding florals than in funeral displays.

Americans.

He recalled not knowing exactly what the man said as he'd pleaded in English, defaulting to his native tongue in a panic.

Frowned because his work had been sloppy.

Smiled because he now knew lilies were as poisonous as they were beautiful. Jimin could relate.

Next page, the orchids.

A politician's son, a client Jimin remembered back when Yoongi was first starting law school.

Another waste of space asshat from Jimin's past who had to go.

A weak man, being groomed to the ideals and agenda of his father, too addicted to the lifestyle to walk out or strike his own path with another party.

Though it took a considerable amount of time, it was so easy. The man kept his current extramarital arrangement with Jimin so far under wraps that when it came time to even consider foul play, there was no direction for the investigation to go.

Nine weeks of meeting in secret, evenings paid for with cash and misappropriated government funds. Using an undocumented, disposable phone that the politician's wife was unaware of. Not even showing Jimin off to his campaign buddies.

Not a word to another soul.

Easy.

Jimin was able to go for a weekend getaway just before reelection season started up, have his fun, end the pompous man's life and come home with time to spare before the obituary was released.

In, out. Invisible. Done.

Jimin traced his fingers over the thin lines where he took so much care stippling and shading in the campaign ribbon tied to the bouquet.

And then roses, roses, and still more roses. Each bundle represented a life taken. A life ended. Blood on his hands.

Jimin didn't take trophies. At least not in the definitive sense. If you'd been paying attention, you'd have seen that Jimin was nothing if not a stickler for self-preservation.

No, his prize came in the form of trade. His hands taking a life turned into his hands bringing life to a page.

Page after page and Jimin could still recall the time, the face, that each sketch belonged to. Each one drawn to him and, each one, drawn onto these pages in the form of their loved ones' parting gifts.

He wasn't sure why he was so fixated on the florals, but he never missed the services to find out which arrangements adorned the caskets or urns. Carrying the image in his mind only to seek out the same flowers at the nearest shop, bring them home, and sketch them into his collection.

Capturing the beauty that was wasted on each of his victims.

He turned to a fresh page and sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes drifting up to the new, white roses on his bedside table.

Selecting a pencil and pale blush-colored brush pen from a set Taehyung got him for his birthday.

'Minnie, I'm so glad you took up this hobby, you're getting so good!'

He'd probably been relieved that Jimin had taken up such a normal way to spend his time. Poor thing had no idea.

He planned out the lines, remembering the way that one of the roses from the real bouquet had a broken stem. The way it hung down over the side of the vase as if it, too, were bowing its head in sorrow beside the urn on the mirrored table in the funeral hall.

Thinking how, if he could, he would tell the wilting rose not to be sad.

Tell it that this one, this man, had been easy as well.

His most recent target, a seedy strip-club owner, had once been his first unofficial employer. Unofficial because Jimin had been too young to be working there at the time.

Now at the age of twenty-six, Jimin found the man in the same club, pulling the same shit as always: soliciting and harassing the men and women who worked there on the pretense that his money could erase or excuse any of his behavior. As men like him tended to do.

All Jimin needed to do was exist in the club-owner's vicinity and the man fell into the same pattern.

Except for the part where, unbeknownst to the club-owner, Jimin was now the one with the power.

He took the man to one of the back rooms, sweetly agreeing to anything that helped him secure payment. What the man lacked in interpersonal-skills, he made up for in his generous tip.

Jimin played along, took his fill, before kissing him quiet as he twisted a knife in his chest, Lonely Gun playing on the main floor of the club.

Jimin drummed his fingers on his chin, studying the curves of his drawing before he uncapped the brush pen, tracing his lines.

Remembering how he'd sat back on the plush chairs, sipping the dry champagne the man had previously ordered before the start of their session as he watched the blood pool. Letting the bubbles dance on his tongue and tickle the roof of his mouth.

As he stood to leave, he made sure the Do-Not-Disturb door hanger was in place before walking out.

This particular establishment didn't have security footage aside from the entrance and there weren't many reliable witnesses. Anyone there that night was either working, drunk, or too busy looking at... more stimulating sights.

Jimin tilted his head, admiring his work. Each new piece always captured his attention, but he couldn't help how much he enjoyed each addition to his collection.

Especially roses. They may have been his favorite.

Blooms equally appropriate for both a budding romance and a grave marker.

Probably why Jimin was always flirting with death.

🥀

[a/n]

hello, my loves

i am this close 👌 to graduating i can't even think straight

 ̶i̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶m̶y̶-̶-̶

how are you?

did you celebrate thanksgiving?

i made pies for my family. and they came out SO goooooood, you may now call me the high priestess of baking 👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳

(can you sense my descent into madness on the first weekend in a long time when i actually take time for myself??)

what did you think of this part? 

thanks for reading

💜💜