"I think I've got it!"

You bound down the hallway on quick feet, grasping a sheet of paper tightly in your hand as you slide into the kitchen.

Yoongi's there, a piece of toast in front of him and his computer opened up beside him. His black hair shimmers cleanly under the kitchen lights.

"Hm?" he asks, without looking up. "What is it?"

You sit beside him, slapping the piece of paper in your hand onto the table. It sticks there limply, a white sheet of evidence.

"Okay, so Taehyung's credit card was used two weeks ago at the next town over, right?" You point a finger indicatively at the paper. "But nobody saw him - they said it was a woman. So my theory is this; a mafia princess saw Taehyung in passing, thought he was gorgeous (because he is), and kidnapped him to be her sex slave forever more." You pause, watching Yoongi for his reaction.

Your brother yawns.

"Come on, Yoongi oppa," you groan. "I need your input here."

Sighing, Yoongi bows his head and runs his hands through his shiny black hair. Silverish highlights glimmer through the thin strands, reflecting in the kitchen lights.

"My input," he says, "Is to stop looking up his records and let the police handle his case. They're doing all they can, Y/N."

All they can isn't enough, though, not for you. The man you love is missing.

After the (failed) wedding on the beach, you, Yoongi, and Taehyung's family had waited with bated breath for contact from the runaway groom, waited to pounce on the man who broke your heart, pride, and wallet.

That contact never came.

Kim Taehyung was officially filed as a missing person two days later. And now, two weeks later, there's still been no trace of him. The only hint the police have gotten is a credit card charge at a gas station. No sightings, no contact, and no body. He isn't dead; you know that. You would feel that. However, he is missing .

And you're determined to find him.

"You're no help," you sigh, picking up your evidence and returning to your room. As you trudge back down the hall, Yoongi's cellphone rings.

"Hello?" you hear him answer, but the rest of the conversation is muffled when you slam your door shut.

Inside, your room is a mess.

The sheets are crumpled up and wrinkled from your tossing and turning at night, and coffee mugs litter the side table and dresser. Looking down, you realize that you've been in the same clothes for at least three days. You also don't know when the last time you showered was; you've been too busy hunting for any traces of your fiancé.

It just hasn't been worth it. Any energy that you could be spending on finding Taehyung needs to go toward finding Taehyung. Anything else you do should just be the bare necessities of life - using the restroom, eating and drinking.

Just things to keep you alive.

Footsteps outside your room make you look up with a frown.

Yoongi? Isn't he on the phone?

"I'm asking you on more time, Baekhyun," you hear your brother whisper. His voice is shaking and timid, an unusual thing for your tough-and-rough brother. "You saw the tape? You're positive?"

Baekhyun? That's Taehyung's cousin and closest friend.

Why is he calling Yoongi so early in the morning?

There's silence for a second, then a heavy, soul-wrenching sigh.

"Okay, Baek. Yeah, me too. Thanks."

You don't hear anything after that. A second later, there's a soft knock on your bedroom door.

"Come in," you say softly.

The door creaks open, revealing your brother's face, and his expression makes your heart drop into your stomach. He's so pale, even paler than normal, and his gorgeous eyes have an unusual downward slant to them.

"Y/N," he murmurs in a shaky voice. "I think...we need to go to the police station."

You stare at him with wide, horrified eyes. "W-why," you breathe in horror. "Please don't tell me...there's not a body-"

"No." Yoongi cuts you off. "Not a body."

You didn't realize how tense your shoulders were until those worlds left his mouth. If they had found a body?

That would've killed you.

Yoongi says, "It's worse than that."

"What?!" Gaping, you blink at your brother in shock. "How could it be worse than that?"

He purses his lips and shiver his hands in his pockets, shifting back and forth uncomfortably on his feet. After a moment of uneasy silence, he finally grabs your hand without answering.

"Just come with me," Yoongi says. "You need to see this."

***

It's a tape.

In the police station, they bring you into a room with a television screen, and sit you down.

Static on the screen introduces a security feed. The gas station is small but clean, and an older man sits behind the cash register as he waits for customers.

"What is this?" you ask, but Yoongi shushes you.

On the tape, the clear glass doors of the gas station swing open to admit a woman.

The most stunning woman you've ever seen.

Tall and statuesque, her pale blonde hair falls in silky waves to the middle of her back. The pure perfection of her face is clear even through the grainy video, proportionate and elegant features appearing to be painted by angels.

As she glances up around the store, the crystal blue of her eyes is strikingly impactful.

"Whoa," you whisper.

But before you can further concentrate on the depths of her beauty, the woman glances back at the door behind her.

A heaving sigh lifts and lowers the curve of her chest, and she turns around and yanks the door back open.

She grabs someone on the other side of the door and grasps their wrist, dragging them inside.

When the tall figure fully enters the small store, they turn to look around with familiar, lovely eyes.

"Taehyung," you utter in an almost silent plea.

Your heart leaps for joy and drops like a stone simultaneously.

He's alive.

You don't know what to do, or to think. He's well and whole, for which you're happy, but he's also well and whole and with another woman.

You don't want to believe what this situation implies; that he really did leave you at the altar, and not because of an accident or kidnapping.

He couldn't have left you for another woman.

Could he?

The look on his face gives you pause.

He blinks around the store, looking a tiny hint dazed and confused. His fingers reach out, touching a package of chips on a display.

Getting the woman's attention, he points to them.

A sweet smile makes the woman's face gloriously radiant, and she lets her head incline gracefully so that her stunning hair tumbled across her shoulders.

Taehyung takes the chip packet from the shelf and holds it to his chest, like a child with a beloved teddy bear.

"What are they doing?" you ask the officer standing beside the doorway.

He shifts in an uncomfortable way between his two feet, looking down. "Just keep watching," he says.

You do.

The woman leads Taehyung up to the checkout counter, wrapping her hand around the slender length of his wrist.

The sick pit in your stomach begins to grow.

She places the chips on the counter, and when the cashier asks for payment, her eyes glance up to Taehyung's face.

She smiles, tilts her head.

Lets her fingers slide into the back pocket of his jeans, and her lips glance over the sharp curve of his jaw.

The pit in your stomach isn't a pit anymore. It's a raging, devouring black hole that's sucking everything in.

And Taehyung smiles.

He smiles that smile you love more than life, the one where his face glows with so much happiness that he's simply bearing his teeth in an almost-painful grimace of joy.

He smiles like that at her.

They pay for the chips and walk out together, holding hands like the happiest couple.

The screen flickers to blackness.

For a moment in the room, there's only silence. There can only be silence.

What else could there be?

Wailing and suffering and the violent outputting of emotions? No.

There are no tears, no cries of anguish and suffering.

The worst suffering is the one you sit through there in that room, with Yoongi and the officer, and the silence.

The silence.

They don't need to hear your heart breaking.

They can feel it, as every shred is torn apart, piece but piece, inch by inch, until all that's left is a pulsing, bloody hole full of the jagged, shattered shards of what your heart once was.

Pain like never before, but not a sound leaves your lips. You can't speak, until the black hole in your stomach explodes and covers your insides with the back oil slick of disgust and terror.

"Excuse me for one moment," you say in your most composed voice.

You stand.

Push back your chair.

Open the door.

And vomit directly in the middle of the hallway floor.

[A/N]
Unedited
I'm sitting here now, wanting to publish this but debating whether I should because:

1. I haven't updated Honey Bunny in an eternity

AND

2. I don't want to start another book I can't finish rn and disappoint my Lilpockets

BUt iTS jUst siTTinG hErE

🤔🤔🤔

Hmm decisions decisions
❤️PB