☂ Chapter 12 ☂

Was she dead?

Y/n didn't understand what she was feeling. Her lower body was void of sensation, and her head ached worse than it ever had before. Her eyes felt droopy and heavy. Her hands were trembling. There was sweat attached to her forehead that refused to move. It stuck there, and the longer it did, the more it felt like slime due to its gooey texture.

What awaited her was a dim light in a hospital room. She could tell she had been out for a decent period of time, otherwise the lights would be much brighter, and the windows wouldn't be covered. They didn't want to overstimulate her senses, was her guess. Seeing as her head felt as though it had been rammed through twelve and a half brick walls, she was thankful they kept her room dark.

She slithered her tongue out to moisten her chapped lips, and she felt each crack and dip in her flesh. Her first thought was to do a damage report, but she didn't have enough feeling in her body to uncover where she had been injured. She scanned her memory for what had occurred. What she discovered was the ship. Being shot was at the forefront of her mind. Actually, she had been shot multiple times, but the bulletproof vest protected her from most of it; however, bulletproof vests weren't foolproof. Getting shot while wearing one meant you would have deep bruising and, in some scenarios, broken bones.

"Y/n?" a male voice said from beside her.

Her eyes flickered to her bedside, and she spotted Officer Park there. Except he wasn't in uniform. He was wearing a white sweater that made him appear angelic. The light color softened his skin and hair. His blonde locks were long and falling in his face. Several stray pieces were tickling his cheeks and covering his hickory eyes. However, her gaze stuck to the sling that held his injured arm against his body. It was navy blue with two white strings. There was a single dinosaur sticker on it, and it was making a rawr pose.

"Oh, that," Jimin said when he noticed her stare. "Hoseok has a sticker collection. He gave it to me."

Y/n accepted the answer and attempted to relax. Pain meds were in her system. They caused her eyes to feel bulky, and they twitched here and there. She tightened her grip on the arm rests on either side of her bed, and-

Wait.

She shot up and didn't care about the dull ache that hit her core. Jimin approached and held her shoulders to coax her back down, but she couldn't move. She couldn't do anything other than stare at her hands. Her hideous, repulsive hands. The gloves she used to cover them were gone and replaced by marred flesh that had been stapled and stitched together. Her nails were chipped and bent, her knuckles were coated in dry pus, and her wrists were swollen and had matching scars.

Breaths became heaves that forced the overwhelming sense of fear into her lungs. Her tongue swelled with her wrists, and her eyes shook as they glared at what remained of her hands. Her parents' words came back to her and floated around her mind.

Useless.

Disgusting.

A waste of life.

"Don't," she muttered in a voice that cracked and broke the second it left her lips. "D-Don't look at them. Please don't look at them."

He followed her gaze, and as soon as he spotted what she was looking at, he snapped his eyes back up and shushed her. He pushed her hair behind her ears and guided her to hit the pillows. He ended up tucking her in and taking her arms. When she flinched, he murmured an it's okay that convinced her, just for a second, that it was.

"I'm not looking, I promise," he said. He kept his tone gentle. Delicate. Sweet, almost. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out her gloves. He handed them to her. "I washed them for you. Do you need help putting them on?"

No was what she wanted to say, but no words had enough courage to pass her chapped lips and dry tongue. She raised her hands in a clawing motion as if trying to latch onto air. Jimin took one of her hands, without looking at it, and held up one of the gloves.

"Can you put it on?" he asked.

Her arms were numb. She didn't know what to do. For the first time in years, she was powerless. Feeble. Weak.

Jimin dropped his voice to a whisper. "Okay. Can I look at them-" At her immediate disapproval, he made a soft "shh" noise and shook his head. "Just for a second, so I can get the gloves on." After a moment, he placed his hand on her forearm and stroked it as if petting a puppy. Somehow, it calmed her down. "I won't tell anyone. You have my word."

She had hated him ever since she stepped foot in NYPD. He had glared at her with the same heavy, hostile eyes her parents had. He had screamed at her, telling her she deserved the treatment of her youth. Yet, somehow, he was also the only one she found herself trusting with the thing she hid most: Her hands.

When she nodded, he picked up one glove, laying her hand on his lap without glancing at it. Then, he positioned the glove and prepared to do an awkward maneuver to use one and a half hands to shimmy the fabric on.

"Verbally," he said, but his voice was as soft and sweet as before. It was soothing and serene. She imagined it was what a hug felt like. "Please, tell me verbally."

"Okay," she managed to force out in a wheeze. She cleared her throat and opened her trembling lips. "You can."

He did, but only as needed. Tears bit at her skin as they passed by her eyes, and her hands shuddered as he did his best to conceal them. When he noticed her crying, he was quick to pause and wipe them away.

"What's your favorite song?" he asked, and she sniffled.

"What?"

"Your favorite song. You have one?"

It occurred to her that she didn't, and her open mouth gave that away. He chuckled and smiled. It wasn't wide enough to reach his eyes, but it scrunched up his tiny nose and made a single dimple appear on his cheek.

"Can I sing you mine?" he asked, and she was quick to nod. He did a dramatic cough that managed to get a hiccup of a laugh out of her, and soon enough, he was singing a song she didn't know. His voice was a murmur, but it was silky and elegant; it was equivalent to running barefoot through a meadow on a bright summer day.

Y/n focused on the song as he worked. She could feel each movement, but she didn't hate it. She didn't hate him touching her hands and brushing by the darkest memories of her life. The song was far too pleasant to make anything seem dreary.

"If I lay here," he sung, pausing for a moment to move the glove past her swollen wrist. "If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

He moved to the next hand, and that time, she aided him. It went much faster. Before he could get to the second chorus, they were done. Jimin ceased his actions and met her eyes. She stared back at him, but the words thank you couldn't come out. He grinned and placed both her hands on their respective arm rests before speaking.

"You're welcome. Do you... want to talk about it?"

He sat on the side of the bed as she struggled to find what to say. It was strange that she did want to talk about it. She hadn't told anyone about the horrors her hands had faced. But no sentences could form in her brain to explain it. It wasn't like it was a topic she thought about let alone spoke about.

"That's okay," Jimin said. "You don't have to tell me, but I hope you know I won't judge you if you do."

She coughed when she tried to laugh. "You're so full of shit."

He grinned. That time, it met his eyes. "Okay, I'd judge you a little, but I wouldn't tell you that."

They chuckled together, and Y/n peered at the ceiling, wondering what she could do to get her point across without feeling embarrassed. It was time to discuss it, but she hesitated nonetheless.

"I'm not a great person," she said. It was just as good a start as any. "I was a street racer and I... I got into a lot of accidents and fights and..." She trailed off and coughed. No tears came that time, but they were threatening to spew free. "I didn't care about my body, so my hands got all the injuries and..."

"Hey, shh."

Jimin placed his good hand on top of one of her gloved ones. He rubbed his thumb back and forth. It was comforting, for some reason.

He stiffened and kept his eyes on her. Seconds passed by. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to speak again, but then, he took his hand off hers and reached under his sweater. His locket sprung free, and he took it off to instead hand it to her. Upon receiving permission from him, she opened it and took in the details.

It was the same picture she had seen before. It was Jimin and a woman with a newborn. Jimin appeared younger, but not by much. In the picture, he didn't have bags under his eyes.

"That was my partner, Irene," Jimin said. He pointed to the bundle of joy in the picture. "That's her baby, June."

"Not yours?"

He chuckled. "Oh gosh no."

"Really? You had no feelings for her?"

Jimin tilted his head back and forth. "When you're raising a woman's kid, it's hard not to feel at least something for her, but she was a mentor to me more than anything else. I loved her, but I would have never pursued anything with her, y'know?"

She accepted the explanation but kept her eyes fixed on the woman. Her skin was glowing as if she was a supermodel. There were no blemishes Y/n could see, and she wore a t-shirt that said KNPA.

"Her husband was a deadbeat asshole who didn't care about the kid." Jimin paused to snort. "That poor excuse for a man left as soon as Irene said she was pregnant, so guess who moved in with her to help?"

Y/n smiled. "You."

"Irene, she's an incredible woman, truly. She's saved my life over and over again. You know, she used to wear one of those cow onesies and chase me around the house while mooing aggressively." Jimin paused to laugh. He had tears in his eyes. "I told her once that I thought cows were assholes, and she took it upon herself to dress up as one any chance she got. And that's why I did it, Y/n. I never wanted kids, all I wanted was a fulfilling career. June was great, but I always did it for her, not him."

"And she..."

Jimin tightened his grip on his knee and averted his eyes. "Heart failure."

"Oh," Y/n said. Then, after a moment, "I'm sorry."

"She was my June bug," Jimin whispered. His voice stumbled over itself, and a sharp breath fired out of his nose. "She was my..." Jimin swallowed what sounded like a lump of agony, and she watched the way his Adam's apple bounced. He leaned back and rubbed his lips together before sucking in all the air around him. "But I made it worse."

"What? Jimin, that wasn't your-"

"No, I don't mean her heart. I mean after she..." Jimin cleared his throat. "I was an idiot. June was supposed to be my boy. It was what Irene wanted, but I couldn't do it."

"Couldn't do... what?"

"A kid. I couldn't raise a kid, let alone Irene's. Not without her," Jimin said in a cough. "I knew Irene for almost a decade, Y/n. She was my rock, and when she passed, I was nothing. I still am." Jimin buried his head in his one hand, and she saw the tears had won the battle and danced down his face. "So I left."

"You left Korea?"

"Everything. I left KNPA, Busan, my family..." Jimin stopped to meet her eyes with his tear-filled ones. "June. I could have easily gotten legal rights to him, but I didn't even try. I put him in an orphanage and left."

Y/n didn't know what to say. Out of all the ideas she had for why Jimin left Busan, it wasn't that. Death, sure, but leaving a kid behind didn't so much as cross her mind. As much as she started off on the wrong foot with Jimin, she never thought he was the kind to hurt someone in such a way.

Jimin shook his head, and more tears skipped down his cheeks. His voice became scratchy and desperate. "I don't know why I did it. June was my boy, I loved him, I just... after Irene..." Jimin broke off and whimpered. His breaths became spastic, and seeing as Y/n couldn't move her lower body, she felt hopeless as she watched him hyperventilate. "It was a mistake, but I can't bring myself to go back. After all this time, he'd never forgive me, and I wouldn't blame him."

"Hey," Y/n murmured. "Stop it. Don't say that. June loves you, and it hasn't been that long yet. You can still go back and find him, fight for legal rights-"

"That's assuming the ex-husband didn't come back or someone else adopted him. He's an adorable, well-behaved kid. What are the odds no one took him in?"

"What do you think the odds are?"

Jimin nibbled on his lower lip. He pulled at it until it bled. "Well, adoption is rare in Korea. Bloodline is important, so the adoption rate isn't the best..."

"So there's a chance."

Jimin nodded once, but it was short. Like he didn't believe it, or at least didn't want to. Whether that was out of fear, excitement, or a mix of the two, she didn't know.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Jimin said as he wiped his tears. "You were honest with me, so I wanted to be honest with you, but here I am making it all about me. Again. Why do I always do this?"

"Not always." Jimin went quiet when she spoke. She took it as a sign to continue. "I don't remember much about the ship, but I remember seeing you. You were injured, but you came after me anyway. What did you do when you found me?"

Jimin didn't answer for a long beat. "I drove you to the hospital."

"All by yourself?" she asked, and his silence was an answer. "Why?"

"I didn't want you to die."

"But why?"

He hung his head. "You're a fellow officer and I didn't want to-"

"Jimin, why?"

"I didn't want to let another partner down!" Jimin shouted, and he stopped after he said those words. His body convulsed as he breathed. The breaths sounded wet and painful. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout. In my eyes, you're still my partner, and I let you down when I yelled at you and said such awful things. I couldn't let you down again. Over and over, I make the same mistakes. The people I care about most suffer because of me. Jungkook is breaking his back to keep me on the force, you're in the hospital and probably hate me for what I said, and June..." Jimin trailed off and rubbed his clammy hand against his pants. "I let both June and Irene down."

Y/n didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. The words Jimin had said would take days if not weeks to process. Instead, she had to shift the conversation away, otherwise Jimin would continue breaking down, and she didn't know if she could handle that.

"I'll talk to Jungkook," Y/n said, and Jimin knitted his brows together at that. "About us being partners again. Officially. I can get you away from that racist asshole."

"I have to keep working with him if I want to keep my job, but maybe after..."

"Deal." Y/n reached her hand out, and Jimin shook it. "We're both injured, Officer Park. I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of paperwork to do together. We should at least be on peaceful terms, right?"

He nodded.

"Then let's clear the air. I'm sorry I went through your stuff, and I'm sorry I kept prying into your past."

Jimin softly smiled. "I'm sorry for everything I said that day. You didn't deserve any of it. I was angry, and it was unfair I took that out on you."

"I forgive you. Can you forgive me?"

Jimin laughed. "Will you celebrate Chuseok with me?"

"Fine, but please don't use any Korean. I want to understand you," Y/n said, and Jimin hummed. It was as beautiful as his singing.

"Deal. For now. When we're partners again, you're gonna have to get used to it."

She groaned but decided against replying. Instead, she focused on Jimin's puppy eyes and the way his cheeks appeared squishy. They were stained with moisture she wished she could swipe away, but he was out of reach.

He had gorgeous skin, and she was obsessed with the mole on his forehead. He had a perfect face with the perfect dimensions, and every little mole was a tiny imperfection that made him more attractive. She didn't know why she was paying such close attention to him, but it was nice. Comforting, almost. And it was even more comforting when he spoke.

"I forgive you."

☂☂☂

A/N: That was certainly an emotional chapter. What do you guys think?

Why Jimin left Busan is finally revealed. How you guys feeling about that?

My new PJM fanfic, Starfield, is out now. If you are enjoying this fic, then you're going to love Starfield. Please go check it out!

Here's the cover in case you missed it: