A/N: the soundtrack is for the second part of the chapter I indicated it below (I wanted to try some background music but I don't really know if it works other than on a computer)

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   At the foot of Jin's second desk, Jungkook noticed the many papers lying around. Curious, he stood up and saw that they were the torn envelopes from the birthday letters. The letters lay on the desk, strewn beside an upturned picture frame.

     Lifting the frame, Jungkook realized that it was the painting that depicted the two of them, and he smiled seeing it again after so long. Still, he wondered why Jin had insisted on flipping the frame: was it possible that he still wasn't able to look at it even after all this time?

     He then grabbed some of Jin's birthday letters which they proceeded to read and which made him smile seeing the love Jin had received which must have lifted his spirits. He sat down in the desk chair and began to read them with interest, acknowledging the compliments that depicted Jin with regular nods.

     He had always loved hearing people say good things about his hyung because he knew how much it made Jin feel good and gave him confidence. Mrs. Kim was right to say that Jin was particularly sensitive to what his fans thought of him. He always have been.

     After several long minutes, when he had read several letters and realized that Mrs. Kim had still not returned, he got up.

      Realizing he was stepping on the envelopes, he bent down to pick them up and came across an open letter that Jin had dropped. Jungkook grabed it and his face darkens as soon as he reads the first words:

Paris, December 4, 2021

     Dear Seokjin oppa,

     I am writing this letter to you without knowing if you will read it. After all, you may already be dead on your hospital bed, without anyone knowing. We haven't heard much from you since the concert but being stabbed must not have done you much good, even if you were supposed to die immediately at the Stade de France. Making you suffer was not what I wanted, I just wanted you gone forever, you understand?

     There was a time when I liked you. You were the beautiful mysterious boy of BTS, the one who did not speak, who was easily forgotten but who watched over his little brothers in the shadows, watched them shine and become the twinkling stars of their fans. At that time, you were perfect and no one had anything to blame you for. You were the perfect Kim Seokjin that everyone liked even though he didn't dance well.

     But you ended up changing, taking too much confidence in yourself. You got noticed more and more, you started talking louder and more often, you kept making jokes, you showed arrogance by putting your beautiful face forward instead of showing humility and discretion like you used to: you weren't anymore the one we loved at the beginning of BTS.

     And it was getting worse and worse, you even got more and more lines in BTS songs, like you were gradually trying to become the lead singer. Did you forget this is Jungkook oppa's place? Sometimes, you even had more lines than Jimin oppa, how could this happen?! Did you forget that Jimin oppa and Taehyung oppa are much more talented than you and should continue to sing more than you? Never forget that originally you weren't a singer, you were just recruited for your face so don't be so pretentious while your voice is not essential to the group!

     I could have learned to appreciate the new person you had become who made people smile, but I failed and you know why? Because you sneakily interfered between Taehyung oppa and Kookie oppa. We kept reminding you to stay in your place, to stay behind, to be only their big brother, but instead of listening to us, you just did what you wanted.

     And now, I hate you. So many of us hate you! And we want you gone because you are the extra member in this group, the one that is not needed and the one that ruins the perfection of BTS. They should have been six. If the compagny wanted a visual, there was already Taehyung oppa. Didn't you say yourself that he was more handsome than you? Didn't the obvious strike you? If you only knew how it annoys me to know that you usurped his place! It is time for him to reclaim his rightful place but he won't be able to do it while you're here because he's too nice to do that..

     So it's my duty to let you know if the other members are too kind to tell you the truth: nobody needs you! And if you don't respect our wishes, the wishes of BTS fans, then we don't want you anymore in the group, we are no longer your fans. You only exist thanks to us, have you forgotten? We are the ones who made you a famous and rich idol. We gave you everything and we can also take everything back from you. So now listen to our request and DIE, YOU USELESS OPPA, WE HATE YOU!!!!!

     You should have died at the Stade de France but Kookie oppa saved you, that's the only reason you're still breathing. He received the stab wound that was to kill you and he suffered terribly because of you. And he will continue to suffer and be unhappy because of you if you do nothing. That's why you have to disappear from this earth. We won't let you go on living hurting him and the rest of the group anymore.

     If you have any semblance of self-respect, if you still care a bit about what Army thinks, and if you really love Kookie oppa and BTS, then you gotta die. You will, won't you? By any way? Do it quickly, because if you don't, it's me or others who will. And it will be ugly. And painful. In any case, you won't go back home with the others, it's over for you. The game is over.

     I hope this letter will reach you because I had to tell you the whole truth before the end. Don't die telling yourself you were loved when you're not.

     I wish you a last happy birthday, I promise you'll never have another.

     Farewell,

An Army

     "Oh no..." Jungkook muttered, losing all the color in his face as he read the letter at top speed, "No, no, no, no, no... "

     When he was done reading, he immediately took out his phone to try to call Jin before remembering that the elder's phone was in the bedroom whit him and had no battery.

     He jumped when he heard footsteps in the hallway and turned his head sharply, wondering if Jin would suddenly appear, but it was a panicked Mrs. Kim who tumbled out:

     "Jungkook, I'm very sorry, you came so far but I couldn't find Seokjin. His shoes and his coat are gone, he's gone out, I don't know what suddenly got into him because he hasn't gone out for a long time and he's not going out all alone. It might be nothing but it worries me, he doesn't have a phone with him and he still can't run if people see him and try to pick on him. Besides, with his crutches, I'm afraid he'll slip because of the frost, fall and break something again, his body is still so fragile and-"

     "Eomeoni, we absolutely have to find Jin hyung quickly," Jungkook cut her off with an even more distraught look than her and she saw that he was white as the snow falling outside.

     "J-Jungkook, what is it?"

     He handed her the letter with a trembling hand, giving her to read, which she did eagerly while his face took on an increasingly earthy hue, as each line read was like a new explanation for Jin's absence and a stab in her heart, imagining what her son must have felt reading it himself.

      "Oh my God what have I done..." She whispered, "I was the one who gave him the letters thinking they were cheering him up, I should have read them before giving it to him. But how... how could these people write such monstrous things for his birthday? Why do they hate him so much to write such inhuman things? D-don't they know that Seokjin is way too sensitive and he would have taken what was written in there to heart?"

     "Yes, I think the person who wrote that knows it very well and that's why Jin hyung is no longer here. We absolutely have to find him quickly!" Jungkook said, frightened at the realization of what he himself had just said.

     But if he was scared to realize this, Jin's mother went crazy when the obvious hit her:

     "NOOOOOOO!!! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPEN, THIS IS NOT TRUE!! SEOKJIN, BABY, WHERE ARE YOU?!!!" she cried in a sudden fit of panic. "Oh no, no, no, this is all my fault, I should have stayed with him and read to him myself, I should have..."

     She stopped herself, incapable of continuing, tearing her hair out and struggling to breathe. Jungkook grabbed her hands to keep her from hurting herself and tried to speak in a reassuring voice but he failed because it was trembling with anguish:

     "This is not your fault, you couldn't have known that someone would send him this as a birthday letter. Please you have to calm down for the sake of Jin hyung. We need to find him very quickely ! I will contact everyone and as for you, call anyone who knows where he might be and can help us find him. Okay?"

     Mrs. Kim nodded nervously, pulled out her phone and dialed her husband's number with difficulty.

      Before she picked up, Jungkook whispered:

      "I'm going to go out and get him on my side, will you be okay here alone?"

      Again Mrs. Kim nodded but this time she burst into tears.

      "No... no, I won't be okay... what if.... what if Seokjin was really looking to end his life because of those horrible words he read?"

     Jungkook hugged her trying to suppress the panic that had taken hold of him and said:

     "We will find him before. I promise."

     "Yes... yes we will. We have to..." Mrs. Kim agreed before answering her husband when she heard his voice: "Hello, Yeobo...?"

     Jungkook broke away from Jin's mother and was going to head for the exit in all haste but he changed his mind. He walked back to the desk and grabbed some of the letters Jin had received and slipped them into his inside coat pocket.

     Then he took a photo of the hate letter Jin had received and quickly wrote a message as direct as possible to the other members to let them know about the situation, attaching the photo of the letter to the message and expressing all the urgency of the situation.

     Finally, not waiting for their response, he got dressed in a hurry and rushed out of the house at a run and set off in search of Jin in the snowy cityscape of Seoul.



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https://youtu.be/wrlR09f2ByU

A/N: The soundtrack was for this part of the chapter but I believe that we can't put play dt continue reading it's a shame. So I put it at the start of the chapter if you want to play it for this last part of the chapter.

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     Jin had a injured ankle and was on crutches to walk through the snow that was piling up on the sidewalks. Disabled as he was, he couldn't be very far from the neighborhood where his parents lived thought Jungkook as he had been running for about twenty minutes already. But he couldn't know exactly when Jin left his house.

     It was not so late, barely 6 p.m., but the winter days being short, daylight had already declined sharply, allowing Jungkook, who wore a cap but no mask, relative discretion in his research, especially since he was running fast without stopping and passers-by didn't really have time to analyze the features of his face to know him: as soon as he appeared in front of their eyes, he had already disappeared, carried away by the urgency of his race. As for him, he was looking for a familiar tall but curved figure above his crutches.

      Exhausted and out of breath, Jungkook eventually stopped and leaned against a wall, doubled over, his chest hurting, and exhaling loudly, breathing in the freezing January air at the same time, burning his lungs.

     He took his phone out of his pocket and gripped it tightly in his frozen hand. He saw that he had missed a group video call. On the group chat, he quickly skimmed through the other members' replies to his message earlier.

      Arrived at the end of the conversation, he had learned that Hoseok had gone to look for Jin at their dorm but that the latter was not there.

     Namjoon who had gone to the premises of the company had made the same observation.

     Jimin had contacted several idols who were very close to Jin but he was not with any of them - they still claimed that they were going to look discreetly for him on their side, avoiding noise about the affair we his disappearance for the moment.

     Even though Mrs. Kim surely did afterwards, Taehyung called Jin's brother but he was not at home then like Jungkook, he was now heading to the neighborhood where Jin's parents lived to help the youngest scouring the area, while frequently checking social media to verify that Jin hadn't been seen anywhere.

     Finally, Jungkook's blood froze in his veins when he read Yoongi's last message:

     "I'm on my way to the Mapo Bridge, I'm going there as soon as possible, I'll let you know."

     The Mapo Bridge, formerly "Seoul Bridge" and which crossed the Han River, had a macabre symbolism that everyone knew in South Korea: it was a bridge where many people came to end their days and that had earned the nickname of "suicide bridge", even if the authorities of Seoul recently tried to make it an anti-suicide bridge.

     Yoongi's message made things suddenly very concrete, as Jungkook's words at first seemed unreal to them, straight out of a nightmare. But through Yoongi's lucidity, everyone in the group was terrified to suddenly receive a phone call to inform them that Jin had had an accident, that he had committed suicide, that he had disappeared forever as had happened to so many other idols in distress before him.

    Jin was so emotionally unstable after everything that had happened to him that none of them should take lightly the hypothesis of an attempted suicide on his part. But they had to stop him at all costs.

     "Hyung where are you? Please, please, don't do anything and wait for me..." Jungkook whispered when he had regained some semblance of breath. He felt like he had circled the area where Jin could be but to no avail. Then he realized: "I'm stupid, nothing says he left the house on foot, he may have taken a taxi. Think, Jungkook, where could he have gone? THINK, DAMN IT!"

     His howl of frustration startled the passers-by next to him, and some ajumma glared at him, but he ignored it. He put his head in his hands and tried to think more calmly. Yoongi's message swirled around in his head. Would Jin really try to end his life in the Han River? This place meant nothing to him. No recent memory had been shared here, no small event of his idol life or of his months of suffering. Where could he have gone to end his life? Where had he buried his sufferings while hoping in vain that the future would be brighter?

     "No... that's impossible, isn't it?"

     But suddenly, Jungkook was sure he knew where Jin was. He straightened up and gestured frantically toward a taxi that stopped and he got into. Without greeting the driver, he shouted:

     "Take me to Hanagae Beach as quickly as possible!"

     Then, as the vehicle sped away with no regard for the rules of the road or the safety of its passengers, and after telling the other members where he was going to look for Jin, Jungkook muttered with anguish:

     "Please hyung, wait for me. Please, don't do this, don't leave me..."

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A/N : I felt like I had to talk about Idol suicide because unfortunately it's a dark reality that's part of this industry and that's what shocked me the most when I was doing my research on K-pop. This shows that we have reached the depths of the worst.

To end this chapter, this is an old French text song which in my opinion announces well the next chapter. The song is from Daniel Balavoine and is called "SOS d'un terrien en détresse" which means "SOS from an earthling in distress". Here, I put you a cover of Grégory Lemarchal because I couldn't find the original version with English subtitles but it's a good version, very close to the original.

https://youtu.be/QncZJYjjnjA