9 IX

As they ran as quickly as they could toward the town center, Jimin began to smell something strange. It wasn't like anything he had ever smelled before and he wasn't quite sure how to place it.

It only got worse as they got closer and Jimin could feel his eyes begin to water because of how awful it smelled. Whatever it was, it was coming from up ahead.

They ran into the town square and the smell hit them like a brick wall.

It was putrid, like hamburger left in the sun to rot for days or even weeks on end, there was an overwhelming scent of ammonia and shit with the strangest tinge of decomposing flowers and plants layered on top.

Jimin pinched his nose as quickly as he could and did his best to hold back the urge to retch.

The sickening stench was probably going to be burned into his memory for the rest of his life like a searing brand.

You can't just forget something like that. It's too powerful. Too strong.

Yoongi tensed up beside him and held his hand in a death grip. Jimin had closed his eyes the second the stench hit. He didn't want to see what was causing it, didn't want to believe that anything in this world could make a scent that smelled of fear itself.

"Jimin," Yoongi said quietly. "Turn around and go home."

"No," He stood his ground and resolutely shook his head. "I'm not leaving you. I made a promise and I'm not going to break it."

Jimin slowly uncovered his eyes to see what was in front of then and reality shattered.

He immediately lost his balance and collapsed to his knees, vomiting onto the cobblestone street. The bile splattered on the ground and just added to the vile smell that they were surrounded by.

His breathing was sharp and inconsistent as he retched and gasped, tears slipping out of his eyes and falling into the mess on the street. His throat burned from the acid and he couldn't help but cough.

He could feel Yoongi kneeling beside him and rubbing his back in a circular motion, but it didn't help.

The ground in front of them had been painted crimson by the hands of death.

Jimin trembled and felt all the strength in his body leave him. Everything hurt as if a giant weight was compressing him and flattening him into nothingness. He wanted to cry out but he couldn't.

He opened his mouth to inhale but the air just wouldn't come. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. Why couldn't he breathe?

All the noise turned into a faint buzz in his ears and his mind and he couldn't hear anything anymore. His blood pounded in his ears at an unnaturally fast pace

Every time the pressure on his back moved, it felt like needles digging mercilessly into his flesh.

His vision tunnelled until all he could see was Red. Red. Red.

Everything was red and he didn't like it. Red is bad. Wet red is worse.

The red was wet.

His limbs were frozen in place. He couldn't move at all. There wasn't enough strength left to move.

But he had to get away getawaygetawayrunrunrUNRUNRUN-

"Jimin."

He startled and looked up. Dark eyes bored into his and he felt his heart stutter and begin to slow.

"Listen to me. You're ok."

He nodded slowly and let the voice draw him in.

The voice was safe. It broke through the buzz in his mind when nothing else could.

He felt himself slowly being helped to his feet but stumbled when his legs were forced to support him. Hands found their place on his arms and kept him standing.

"Deep breaths Jimin. You can do it."

Jimin looked back over at the red and he felt himself go numb.

There was someone there covered in red. They weren't moving. Why weren't they moving?

Was it because of the scarlet liquid gushing out of the gaping hole where their stomach used to be?

Was it because of the ropes of organs strewn about like confetti after a birthday party had ended?

Or maybe it was the chunk taken out of their neck that reminded him of a bite from a vicious animal.

He stared at the body in morbid fascination, at the limbs twisted at unnatural angles, the hair and scalp that had been ripped off to expose a bloody skull and the finger or two that lay separated from the body a few feet away, small and pale. He was horrified and wanted to vomit again but he just couldn't look away. It was mesmerizing in the worst of ways and drew him in like a vacuum.

He watched as a woman broke down and collapsed in the puddle of red, the colour staining her clothes as she wailed.

She gently cradled the head of the body in her lap and cried over it, screaming in horror when the thin strands of muscle that held it on snapped and it separated from the neck with a sickening squelch and crack as the body hit the ground with a thud.

That body had a name, he realized.

A name she was screaming.

Jiyong.

The strangely warm hands on his cheeks forced him to look away. He couldn't say anything. What even was there to say?

"Jimin look at me."

He did.

"Calm down," The voice seemed just as panicked as Jimin felt and despite that, he still tried to follow their advice.

"Y- Yoongi." Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. "He's... He's..."

"I know."

"Why is no one going to her Yoongi?" Jimin cried, grabbing into Yoongi's wrists desperately. "Why is no one helping her?"

Yoongi looked away quickly and said nothing.

"Yoongi why?"

Jimin clutched tightly onto Yoongi's jacket as if it were the only form of support he had.

There was no answer.

"Please… Just tell me."

"I'm sorry, love, he broke the law."

Jimin whirled around to see the regretful expression on the old woman's face.

"And no one is helping just because he broke the law!?" Jimin shouted angrily. He looked around and saw others just standing there, some crying and others only impassively watching, but making no moves to help nonetheless.

"Fuck you and your laws!"

He stepped away from her and out of Yoongi's grasp, walking shakily towards the distraught woman.

The smell was worse the closer he got to the disembowelled corpse but he kept walking. If he stopped now, he didn't know if he would be able to get up once he had fallen.

Jimin stopped beside her and put a hand on her shoulder as an attempt at comfort.

Even though he tried, he couldn't hold back from looking at the head in her lap. His eyes were open and rolled back in his head while his mouth was open in a silent, bloody scream. His hair was matted, sticky and the skull that showed through where there was no scalp or hair left was a sickening off-white stained with crimson.

He wanted to hurl again and it was only the sheer force of will that kept him from doing so.

She stared up at him with haunted eyes and a lost expression.

"It's alright now," Her voice wavered with every syllable. "My baby is home."

She lifted the head up and gently kissed it on the forehead before smoothing out what remained of his hair.

"Thank you for bringing him home."

He looked back over his shoulder and saw Yoongi's horrified expression.

"I... I-" Jimin began.

"Jiyong is thankful too. Right sweetie?" She said, looking at the head. Jimin felt sick every time the loose muscles moved unnaturally every time the head shifted.

Jimin slowly backed away, not wanting to spend even a second longer with either Jiyong or his mother.

He didn't stop until he felt his back hit something. Arms snaked around his waist and turned him so he couldn't see her anymore.

Yoongi.

"Come on Jimin. Let's leave."

"But-" he tried to protest but Yoongi just dragged him away, holding onto his wrist.

They made it to the alley where they had first met before Yoongi collapsed against the wall. Yoongi curled himself up and hid his face before trying to regulate his breathing. Jimin sat down next to him and hugged him tightly.

"Not again," Yoongi whispered, broken. "It's like Seok again."

Jimin's eyes widened in realization. If it was this bad for him, Yoongi probably had it worse. So much worse.

He was likely reliving his best friend's murder but still managed to calm him down while he was panicking.

Yoongi held onto Jimin tightly and refused to loosen his grip even though it pulled uncomfortably in Jimin's shirt. He could feel Yoongi shaking helplessly next to him and his heart rate was still elevated.

"That could have been you," He sobbed. "Oh god, Jimin. What if it had gotten you?"

"I-" Jimin felt his words refuse to leave his tongue and swallowed nervously before forcing them out. "I'm okay. It didn't get me, Yoongi, you know that. Don't think about it."

He waited around ten minutes for Yoongi to calm down enough to talk. Jimin felt awful - Yoongi was so strong and he was so weak. It shouldn't have been Yoongi doing the comforting, not at a time like this.

"Yoongi?" Jimin asked quietly. Yoongi only hummed to show he had heard and it was so quiet that Jimin wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't felt the vibrations.

"What is this law that people keep breaking?"

Yoongi hesitated for only a few seconds.

"That law," He laughed dryly. "It's stupid."

"What?"

"You heard me," Yoongi found Jimin's hand and laced their fingers together, "it's stupid. I don't even know why it exists."

Jimin squeezed Yoongi's hand in reassurance and Yoongi silently squeezed back.

"It's against the law to die here," Yoongi mumbled.

"It's... Illegal to die?" Jimin asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. I have no fucking clue why though. It's just always been that way," Yoongi looked away. "Some people say it's because the graveyard is full, other people say it's because no one in this whole fucking town wants to admit that they aren't invulnerable and that they'll all die sooner or later. By making it illegal, they don't have to care about the dead. They're only criminals, after all."

"So when the coffee shop lady said that her grandson had broken the law-"

Yoongi nodded. "He died a few years ago. Illness. I never really knew him."

Jimin leaned back against the wall and exhaled. "Well, that's stupid."

"It is." Yoongi agreed easily. "No one wants to face it and so they use the law as a way of covering it up. No one even visits the graveyard anymore."

"At least I know now," Jimin replied quietly, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"What do you think killed him?" Jimin asked after a moment.

"To be honest, I think it was the shadows," Yoongi replied quietly but confidently. "The amount of damage... It was too similar."

"Funny. The book said that people went missing and turned up a lot like this and it was just... Wild... Animals."

Jimin paused for a moment until everything sunk in.

"Oh my god Yoongi! This has been happening for hundreds of years! The shadows were here before the town was!" Jimin grabbed Yoongi's coat and shook him slightly in excitement, doing his best to push the other events from that morning out of his mind. "We might finally sort of have a lead!"

"Great," Yoongi deadpanned. "We have a lead in a boring book that I read like half of last time."

"Shut up, there could be something helpful in the other half," Jimin protested weakly.

"That's unlikely and you know it," Jimin heard Yoongi scoff loudly. He really had no faith.

"Well, I'll just go home and read the other half. I'll see if I find anything," Jimin moved to stand up but Yoongi stopped him from letting go of his hand.

"What do you mean 'at home'? The book is at the library-" Yoongi narrowed his eyes. "You took it, didn't you?"

"Maaaybe."

Jimin let go and stepped back nervously.

"I had to! The librarian wouldn't have let me take it out if I didn't sneak it out!"

"That's called stealing, Jimin. Pretty sure that's illegal in Seoul too," Yoongi sounded upset. "Return it as soon as you can. It's a priceless record of our town."

"That was the plan anyway," Jimin rolled his eyes. "Are you coming?"

Yoongi stood up and brushed off his pants. "Yeah. Let's go. Your parents are probably worried as fuck."

Jimin grimaced. "They probably won't let me leave their sight for a week."

"I'll visit you in your tower."

"Can you stop with the princess jokes!? Please!?" Jimin threw his hands up out of exasperation.

"Sure thing kid." Yoongi snickered.

"For fuck's sakes Yoongi!" Jimin smacked him on the arm really hard. It was an awful attempt at humour and they both knew it, but if it managed to distract them both enough, it would do. Anything was better than seeing the gruesome mess of blood and death clearly pictured in their minds everytime one of them blinked. Anything was better than that smell that was

"Fine! Fine! Just stop hitting me!" Yoongi moved away with a laugh.

As they walked back to his house, Jimin realized that they both needed at least five showers to get the smell off of them. The smell of death indeed.

Despite everything, they had managed a smile. He hoped that the smiles could last forever.

But he wasn't about to hold his breath.

The second they arrived at Jimin's house, they were dragged in and forced to sit down on the couch. When Yoongi protested and tried to stand up, Jimin's mother gently pushed him back down.

"You boys look like you've seen death." She joked but sobered immediately after seeing their matching haunted expressions.

She sighed and ruffled their hair gently. "I don't know what happened and I'm not sure I want to. But just know that we're both here for you."

"Thanks, mom," Jimin whispered with a small smile.

"No problem. Now, would you boys like some tea?"

Yoongi looked over at Jimin with a concerned expression. "I'll take some coffee instead if that's ok," Yoongi said, rubbing gentle circles on Jimin's back.

"I'm not really in the mood to have anything," Jimin admitted. His throat still burned from puking earlier.

She frowned but didn't say anything as she left them alone and walked into the kitchen. They could hear quiet murmurs of conversation between Jimin's parents but they tuned it out easily.

Yoongi paused his massaging. "Jimin, are you alright? I didn't really get to ask earlier."

"I'm fine." Jimin turned to look at him with a shaky smile and Yoongi returned it with a skeptical look in his eyes.

"The truth, Jimin."

"I saw a fucking dead body, Yoongi. Do you think I'm alright?" Jimin inhaled sharply and hung his head. "I don't know. I was terrified out of my mind earlier," he admitted, "but I can't feel anything now"

"That's understandable." Yoongi started to gently drum his fingers on Jimin's back. "You're probably in shock still."

"How are you?" Jimin asked nervously.

"Do you want the fake answer of 'I'm fine' or the truth that is 'like shit'?"

"Truth."

"Honestly I'm barely keeping it together," Yoongi admitted. "It was too similar. Jimin you have no idea what it was like that day and I hope you never have to find out." His voice wavered as he finished

Jimin slowly put his arm around Yoongi's shoulder and pulled him close

"Just let it out Yoongi. It's okay."

He leaned his head on Yoongi's shoulder and let the other bury his face into his neck. Jimin didn't mind when Yoongi gripped tightly onto the sweater and held him closer before completely breaking down crying

"I- I miss him Jiminnie." He hiccuped "I just want my best friend back."

Jimin closed his eyes and didn't respond.

"It isn't fair." Yoongi shook in Jimin's hold. "The world takes everything from me."

Jimin turned slightly and whispered comforting words into his hair while slightly nuzzling him.

"I could have lost you earlier too." He cried.

Jimin paused before continuing with whispers of "I'll never leave you" and "it will be alright" and promises of a brighter future. One where the shadows were gone for good.

"I should have just died instead of Seok all those years ago. He deserves life more than I do," Yoongi spat. Jimin pulled away and held onto Yoongi's cheeks, forcing him to look into his eyes. He knew his gaze was intense and saw Yoongi shudder slightly.

"Never," he hissed, "say that." He watched as a few tears slipped down Yoongi's cheeks and wiped them away with his thumb.

"You deserve to live just as much as anyone else, maybe even more. Don't think that way Yoongi." Jimin tried to change his tone into something more comforting, but he wasn't sure if he could soften it to the point where it wouldn't hurt.

"If you died then, we wouldn't have met."

A bit of light entered Yoongi's eyes at that.

"You're right. I don't deserve someone like you. You're too pure for someone like me." He laughed dryly before removing himself from Jimin's hold. "I have had blood on my hands for years. You're still untainted Jimin. Stay that way."

"You and I both know that isn't true, Yoongi," Jimin said seriously.

"It's the concept of it Jimin." Yoongi waved a hand dismissively. "You can still forget and move on."

"I don't think so." Jimin never looked away from him. "There are things you don't know about me."

Yoongi scoffed. "I know enough."

Jimin sighed deeply. "No. You really don't."

At that moment, Jimin's mother returned with a steaming cup of coffee and looked between the two nervously before handing the mug to Yoongi.

"If you need anything else, we'll be in the kitchen."

She left somewhat awkwardly after Yoongi had nodded at her and began to drink the coffee.

"If I were to compare myself to something," Yoongi began, "it would be shattered glass."

He placed his mug down on the small wooden table beside the couch before looking back at Jimin.

"Then I'll pick up the pieces and fix it," Jimin answered confidently.

"That's the thing Jimin." Yoongi grimaced. "The pieces don't fit anymore. And if you try you'll just cut yourself on the edges. You'll get hurt." Yoongi pressed

"So? Does it look like I care?"

"It won't be the same anymore." Yoongi stared at Jimin fiercely. "It's broken with no way to fix it."

Jimin reached out to brush Yoongi's bangs out of his face but hesitated at the last second, his hand left frozen about a centimetre away.

"Sometimes broken things are the most beautiful," Jimin whispered, finally closing the gap and running his fingers through Yoongi's dark hair. "The lines where they've been put back together tell a story. A story that is uniquely yours."

When Yoongi made no move to stop him Jimin moved closer so he could reach the strands in the back.

"And if there are any parts missing, then I'll fill them in." Jimin smiled lovingly and watched as Yoongi's expression changed from defensive to once again about to cry.

"As long as it takes, I'll fix them all."

Yoongi opened his mouth as if to say something but then just drew his knees up to his chest and hid his face.

Jimin smiled fondly and relaxed into the couch, watching Yoongi in silence. He knew his parents were watching from the doorway, they really weren't subtle at all.

Jimin reached over and gently rested his hand on Yoongi's arm.

"Yoongi, no matter what happens from here," he whispered only just loud enough for him to be heard, "we'll stick together. I'll never leave you if I have the choice to stay."

Yoongi placed his other hand on top of Jimin's.

"We'll have each other's backs," He answered, "always."

Jimin felt Yoongi lightly squeeze his hand.

"Let's rest for a bit before looking again. We need time to cool down after something like this."

He just answered with another squeeze instead of words.

Jimin looked at Yoongi and met his sombre gaze. It seemed like they both had the same thought.

"Less talk, more rest," Jimin whispered, leaning his head on Yoongi's arm and closing his eyes.

He heard Yoongi whisper one thing before he fell asleep.

"We'll finish this. One way or another."