Despite his attempts to become again the strong person he was before Lee's assault, and despite his separation from Jungkook, Jin just couldn't get his self-confidence back. 

    Because he lived daily in Lee's shadow. Each time he took the resolution to resist him, it was enough for him to be in the same room as him to obey him blindly. He was so afraid of suffering on the one hand, so afraid of shame on the other, that he couldn't manage to be strong again. The man held him in the palm of his hand and did what he wanted with him.

     The more time passed, the more Jin sank into the deepest despair and wondered what interest his life had, if he lived it in the most total distress. Wouldn't it be better to end it? But he didn't have the courage and he felt even more like a coward. 

     However, even if he continued to live in appearence, he was dead inside. He had lost his taste for everything, nothing made him happy anymore, not even his fans, many of whom had calmed down to see him away from Jungkook and supported him again with fervor.

     He might have managed to get better if he hadn't felt so alone. Because he certainly wasn't happy away from the maknae, as if his destroyed mind couldn't be reconstituted away from him, but he seemed to force his mind to refute the idea, 

     Lee had forbidden him to speak to the maknae and he had put it in his head that his presence at his side would not guarantee his protection but on the contrary, more suffering. He kept hammering at him to the point where Jin convinced himself. 

     Besides, Lee wanted to hear him repeat regularly that he hated Jungkook, that he had no desire to talk to him. He was instead trying to persuade Jin that the only one he really needed was him, promising him protection even though he was the one who hurt him the most. All this with the aim of isolating him from others and always taking advantage of him.

     With horror, Jin had one day realized that even without Lee around him, he blithely defended him if he heard the members or other people complaining about him, and the others falsely understood that Jin, in his loneliness , had really found in Lee a support, an unexpected friend, and they were grateful to Lee for that, always being happy for Jin when they knew they were going to spend time together, thinking it allowed Jin to relax.

     But at the same time in the shadows, Jungkook only wondered what would happen if he suddenly decided to start his nonsense again: would Lee go after Jin again or act- he as a friend?  The closeness between the two sickened him because he couldn't believe why Jin accepted his friendship after the horror he put him through. It was beyond his comprehension. 

     It was as if Lee had done everything to contradict him. He had told Jin that he would protect him from Lee and eventually, Jin had grown so close to Lee that he no longer needed his support. The manager had even left him alone and Jungkook was reassured but he felt a deep discomfort despite everything to live as if nothing had happened with the man who had raped Jin with impunity.

     His members kept telling him how much Jin was really having a good time with Lee and it upset him because he wanted to believe it was fake. But Jin couldn't have fooled his members if he hadn't really felt comfortable with Lee during their late night game. What could have been going on in his head to manage to feel so comfortable with this monster?

     Another possibility was that Jin was still under threat from Lee and for that, Jungkook was doing his best so that Lee had nothing to blame him for and couldn't hurt Jin. If that was really what was happening, it made Jungkook feel more reassured and tell himself that, in the shadows, he was doing his best to protect Jin. 

    But seeing Jin continue to smile away from him convinced him day after day that the older one was happier away from him and that he finally replaced him.

     It was Jungkook's final conviction.

    He didn't know how wrong he was.

     Little by little, the self-confidence Jin had rebuilt on a shaky foundation after the first night Lee raped him, the presence of his pillar, JK, by his side facing Lee, disappeared very quickly away.

      Jin was of course surrounded by the other members and in particular by Namjoon, but yet he had never felt so alone in his life, because inside he kept everything to himself. Besides, no one could reassure him as Jungkook would have done when, for example, he passed nearby Lee, when the latter threw him discreetly a derogatory remark about his abilities or even when Jin had to speak.

     Sometimes, the camera could capture Jungkook's hand which instinctively advanced towards the back of Jin's neck to reassure him during his anxious speeches before quickly turning back when the maknae remembered that he had lost the right to touch Jin and be his protective wing.

     More than ever, Jin was plagued by anguish and anxiety.

     His stutters had resurfaced in the middle of the interview and Han, keeping his promise, had added eloquence lessons to his schedule. 

     Lee on the other hand had deemed him too incompetent at dancing and added several more hours of dancing to him, but Jin wondered if it was not just to hurt him by further isolate him and weaken his minds even more. 

     Jin felt exhausted and gradually, he no longer looked for the maknae's presence by his side at all, having grown used to this loneliness in pain. It was at this very moment that Jungkook had drafted his surrender, his capitulation: the two had ceased to seek their deliverance in reconciliation.

     As Jin moved away from Jungkook, Taehyung grew closer to Jungkook. Not only in public but even in private, they had ended up finding the same fraternal relations that they had always maintained, Taehyung no longer having to blame the maknae for his suspicious behavior towards Jin since they were no more glued to each other and no longer hurt each other.

     However, this situation did not go unnoticed by fans. Some were delighted that Jungkook had moved away from Jin to be closer to Taehyung, but many found this drastic "break-up" strange and felt some tension between the members.

     "Will we ever be able to satisfy everyone?" Taehyung exasperated one day, by scanning social networks.

      "Never everyone, that's impossible..." Jimin sight.

     But it was mostly against Jin that the criticisms were directed. After showing that he had trouble speaking, he suddenly fell into silence and stopped the jokes and laughter that made him so enjoyable to most fans. Now, according to some of them, he seemed lacking in energy, as if his age had caught up with him: people always seemed to have something to complain about. And some even wondered if he shouldn't finally stop and go and do his military service.

     For his part, Namjoon tried to get closer to Jin but often faced a wall raised by the elder, which often took on the appearance of a smile and prevented him from accessing his feelings. Jin had started to fall into an eerie silence, although he sometimes tried to joke that his eloquent teacher, instead of teaching him to speak, disgusted him with speaking.

     At the same time, Lee began to regularly extort large sums of money from Jin, aware that he would not tell anyone, isolated as he was. The manager, no longer asked: he ordered. He was telling Jin that since the young man had stayed with BTS thanks to him, the money Jin made from that moment was his. He had obviously become used to this wealth which he gathered effortlessly and seemed like he could not do without it anymore.

     Jin came to see the bright side of things: as time passed, Lee became less present, too busy no doubt enjoying his newfound wealth, and no longer molesting him. Moreover, Jin being a millionaire who had never had his money in his hands, he did not miss his lost wealth.

      Lee's absence was therefore less stressful and he would have gladly given all the gold in the world not to feel the presence of the manager's demonic shadow behind him. And he preferred satisfy Lee that way rather than in a bed.

   The manager raped him less often, probably because he was also less sexually frustrated given the time he spent with women, but he had traded that in for gratuitous physical violence when he was alone with Jin.

     The more these sexual assaults became rare, the more Jin felt like he regained some semblance of self-esteem, he felt less submissive, less tortured, even though the terrible things Lee had done to him continued to haunt him day and night. He felt that all it took was a trifle, a more frequent presence of Lee with him, for him to plunge back into his nightmare. Jin was therefore particularly on his guard in Lee's presence and was never at ease.

     The manager's absences were eventually noticed by the company and Lee asked Jin to lie to cover him up, even changing his schedule so that he was alone most of the time and could serve as an alibi with the CEO. Jin thus had to pretend he spent a lot of time with the manager. On one side for work, on the other for their game nights.

    Thinking of Jin alone away from them so often had initially worried the other members but Jin had repeatedly assured them that everything was fine, and as in their eyes, Lee and Jin got along well, they stopped worrying, even if they would have preferred that Jin spent less time working and above all, that he spent more time with them than he did, as they were all missing him.

      During his forced and increasingly lonely moments, Jin finished writing the song he intended for his solo during the tour, and his lyrics were validated by the company. He received occasional help from Namjoon who was happy, unable to really speak to him as he was so silent, to be able to read him. 

     Although shaken by the pain expressed by this text, the leader did not question Jin but gave him his opinion and advice during the writing and, understanding the melancholy tone of the text, offered him a powerful chorus with an accuracy that he did not suspect:

    "Still, I remain with myself".

     Jin soon finished the composition with the help of a composer recommended by the CEO and then prepared his set design. The song, which was not on the album and was not being promoted, would come as a surprise to fans and members alike on day one of the upcoming year-end tour.

    It was filled with the feelings that gripped him but that he had buried in the silence of the previous weeks in which he had felt himself plunge into the abysmal depths of the sea that had swallowed his wishes, his dreams and his happiness.

    He called it Abyss.

https://youtu.be/BAvm92M8S8k