17 MAY 2034

◣ C A M E R A  1

blood flowed, from the slashes across his wrists, a slow stream informing that the boy had been bleeding for a while now. 

the bathtub now appeared as if the boy was bathing in a pool of scarlet. his face was decorated with splatters of blood as if it was a canvas. one of his hands was twisted around so that it hung out of the tub, revealing the deep slits that marked his otherwise unharmed wrists.

jin was the one who found him that morning. the scream he let out was so loud that all of the boys came instantly rushing to witness the horrifying scene.

even yoongi couldn't help but let his wine stained lips escape a sad cry as he fell to the bathroom floor, his eyes set on the frozen look on the corpse's face. the look on his face was a one that would sure to leave nightmares in everyone's minds, an eternal lamentation.

namjoon, choking on his own sobs searched for any signs of life as the other's watch with spark of hope but namjoon soon dismissed them with a shake of his head.

hoseok reached out a let his fingertips grace taehyung's slits, the blood now staining his fingers. he sobbed quietly as namjoon and jin struggled to pull him out of the bathtub.

suddenly, jin called out,

"wait—what's this? is this taehyung's? i've never seen him wear this before."

yoongi's heart beating stopped momentarily as his eyes grazed the ring on taehyung's finger. he spluttered out a few incoherent words.

"guys, let's do something about taehyung before taking about it."

and so, after a few hours of tears and shoveling, taehyung's body was buried in their backyard since it was the only access they had at the moment. jeongguk brought up the request of burying him next to jimin, yet namjoon turned it down as they simply couldn't carry his body across streets to get there. 

"before anything, here, i translated the morse code." hoseok said softly, lending namjoon his notebook as namjoon studied it thoroughly for a few noiseless seconds.

"beautiful, hands, lover." namjoon read the words out loud and the room fell into a comfortable silence as everyone momentarily got lost in their own thoughts. the image of taehyung's morbid expression remained stoic in all of their minds and the loss of his presence only added more pain to what they were feeling.

"hands, lover... wait—does this have something to do with taehyung?" yoongi said, and suddenly namjoon's eyes lit up as he rummaged through his bag before pulling out a piece of paper.

"it could. It could mean something. think about it. hands—as in his scars and lover—as in," he paused. "you know." he said before jotting everything down he was saying in scribbles on his paper.

"and there's something else i noticed," jin spoke up as the group turned around to look at him. "if taehyung committed suicide there has to be a knife or some sort of blade around the place right? i mean, did you see the slits? they weren't scratches or anything—they were clean cuts—

"--but there was no knife around the place. plus it couldn't have been the creatures either. they wouldn't have been able to get inside." namjoon said softly as all heads turned to look at him. namjoon looked at the guys' faces and a look of pure fear crossed his features, and the room fell into a deafening silence until he spoke out again, leaving the room in an eerie silence as soon as the words tumbled out of his lips.

"this was a murder."