Chapter 112

The waiting was its own kind of suffering.

Suho sat in the corridor outside the ICU elbows on his knees, head down, dried blood still on his hands and shirt. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak to anyone. He just sat there and waited and stared at the floor and thought about a sixteen year old boy screaming on a basement floor for his appa while people stood around and laughed.

Hours passed.

Then the door opened.

The doctor who stepped out was not Dr. Hwang. He was Italian, older, quiet-faced, carrying the particular kind of gravity that came from years of seeing things no one should have to see.

He looked at Suho. Then he spoke, carefully, clearly, without softening it more than necessary.

“He is stable now. We were able to flush the drug from his system.” A brief pause. “He will remain under its effects for at least two days. The recovery will be gradual.”

Suho exhaled. Just barely.

“However…” The doctor continued, and the word landed heavily enough that Suho’s eyes sharpened immediately. “The drug caused significant trauma to the mind. Not just physical impact… psychological. When he wakes, he may panic. He may not immediately know where he is or what is real. He will need someone he trusts beside him at all times.”

He looked at Suho steadily.

“He is sixteen years old. His mind is not yet developed enough to absorb what a substance like that does to a fully grown adult let alone to a boy his age. The psychological impact of what he experienced tonight….” He paused, choosing his words.

“It may stay with him for a very long time. I strongly urge you to arrange professional support. A therapist. Someone he can speak to.”

He held Suho’s gaze for a moment longer. “Take care of him,” he said quietly. “Please.”

Then he turned and walked back through the doors.

Suho sat there alone in the corridor.

He looked down at his hands still stained, still shaking slightly and for the first time since he had kicked open that basement door, he felt the full weight of what he had walked into settle over him completely.

Sixteen years old. Jungkook was just sixteen years old.

And he had been lying on that floor, alone, with no one coming for God knows how long before Suho had gotten there.

He pressed his hands over his face. And for a long moment, in the empty corridor outside the ICU, Lee Suho who feared almost nothing sat with his head in his bloody hands and said nothing at all.

(End of flashback #2)

Present.

“And that day….” Hyunwoo’s voice was quiet. Final. “Because of your father’s anger… Jungkook was traumatized. Deeply. In a way that didn’t heal cleanly.” He stopped speaking.

The silence that followed was the kind that sat on the chest.

Haein had stopped trying to hold herself together. Tears ran freely down her face, and she didn’t wipe them. She just stood there, listening, absorbing, trying to fit this new shape of the truth over the version she had believed for years.

Jin sat very still. His hand, resting on his knee, had slowly closed into a fist without him noticing.

Yoongi sat there, his rock like personality broke and tears fell. Namjoon who was trying to hold himself together couldn’t help but cry. And hobi sat there, looking down. Tears slowly dripping.

“Suho fought for him,” Hyunwoo continued. His voice carrying something that sounded almost like reverence. “Really fought. He didn’t let hyung anywhere near Jungkook that day. Didn’t let anyone touch him, not even me.” He paused.

“Those three days were some of the hardest I have ever witnessed. The hallucinations kept coming back. They were frightening… truly frightening… and so violent in his mind that the doctors kept him sedated just to give him any peace at all.”

Jin felt the tears come before he could stop them. He didn’t say anything. He just let them fall silently and kept listening.

“Jungkook’s nightmares….” Hyunwoo said slowly. “Its not just his grief. His loss. It was never only that.” He looked at Jin directly. “It was those scary hallucinations. What that drug did to his mind that night, it never fully left. The images, the things he saw…” He stopped briefly.

“That’s why he started taking the pills. To sleep without seeing them. To get through a night without waking up screaming.” He exhaled. “And it worked. It genuinely helped him. But the dosage was never safe for someone his age, and it left him sick. Most days… more days than anyone knew he was running on those pills and whatever strength he had left.”

The room was completely still.

“Now….” Hyunwoo said. His voice dropped lower. “He can’t go a single day without them. Not one.”

Silence settled over the room again heavy and absolute and no one broke it for a long moment.

Then Jin wiped his face slowly with the back of his hand. He straightened. And when he spoke, his voice was measured and quiet and completely controlled. “How did Suho hyung die?”

Hyunwoo looked at him. He took a slow breath.

“A week after Jungkook’s recovery Suho and hyung had a fight. A bad one. I don’t know what started it or what was said. But it escalated in a way their arguments never had before.” He paused. “It got so heated that hyung…” another pause “he beat him. Brutally.”

His jaw tightened. “And that day….” he said quietly. “Jungkook was there with them.”

.

.

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Flashback #3

“Appa!!” Jungkook gasped.

Suho hit the cold floor hard, blood already covering his face, spreading beneath him on the marble. Kim stood over him, chest heaving, eyes bloodshot and wild in a way Jungkook had never seen before.

“HYUNG!!!” Jungkook didn’t think. Despite the limp, despite the pain shooting through his own leg with every step, he ran. He dropped to his knees beside Suho and grabbed his shoulders.

“Hyung…. Hyung, what happened? Hyung, look at me!” He was already crying, voice cracking on every word.

Suho was gasping. His mouth was bleeding, a slow, steady ooze spilling over his lip and down his chin. Several deep cuts across his face the shape of them familiar. The shape of Kim’s ring.

“I…. I’m fine!” Suho tried. He ended up coughing instead wet and heavy, his whole body curling with it. “Guards.” Kim’s voice came out flat and cold. “Take Jungkook to his room.”

“APPA!!” Jungkook’s head snapped up. “What are you doing? Leave hyungie alone please!” Kim looked at his son. Something moved briefly behind his eyes. Then his expression settled back into that terrible calm.

“You know appa doesn’t want to punish his Kook again,” he said quietly. “So be a good boy. Listen to appa.” “No!!” Jungkook shook his head frantically, tightening his grip on Suho. “No, don’t do anything to hyungie please! don’t…”

The guards moved. Two of them closed in and took Jungkook by the arms, pulling him back. He fought them pulling, twisting, dragging his feet against the floor but his body was already too broken from before to resist properly.

Kim didn’t watch his son struggle. He turned back, crouched down, and closed his fist in Suho’s hair wrenching his head back. “Arghh” suho whimpered in pain.

“How dare you,” he said, his voice dropping low and lethal. “How dare you stand in my house and tell me that I killed her.” He slammed Suho’s head back and drove a hard kick into his stomach. “You know nothing!! nothing… about what happened, Mr. Lee.”

Suho coughed, a broken, bloody sound. But when he lifted his eyes, they were still clear. Still certain. “You….” he rasped out. “You are the reason…. Because of you it happened….”

Kim’s jaw locked. He pulled his foot back again. The front doors burst open. Fast, furious footsteps crossed the entrance hall. “KIM YOONSEONG.” The voice filled the room.

It was Emilio Jordan.

Kim straightened slowly and turned. He took one look at Emilio’s face and exhaled through his nose already knowing. Already understanding what this was going to be.

Emilio’s eyes moved across the room in one sharp sweep. Suho on the floor, bleeding. Jungkook struggling against the guards, face soaked with tears.

Then his eyes landed back on Kim.

“Because of your son….” His voice was shaking with fury barely held in check. “My son is dead. Your people killed my son.”

“Your son drugged my child, Jordan,” Kim said sharply. “He put something in my son that could have killed him.”

“Because you told him to handle your son yourself!” Emilio’s voice broke through the ceiling. “You handed my boy that responsibility and now you stand there—”

“Enough.” Kim pressed his fingers against his temple. The vein there was visible. He looked down at Suho one final time. “This is all because of you, Lee.” Another kick, hard, deliberate, final. “Do whatever you want with him.” He turned away. “My son and I are leaving.”

He crossed the room and took Jungkook’s arm. “Appa!” Jungkook pulled back immediately. “No… please… Suho hyungie didn’t do anything! please tell them not to hurt him! please, appa, please!”

He was sobbing fully now barely able to get the words out, barely able to stand, tears and snot and desperation all at once every bit of the sixteen year old boy he actually was pouring out in that moment.

Kim stopped. He looked at his son’s face.

Something flickered just briefly in the back of his eyes. Then he took a slow breath and said, quietly and finally, “Kook-ah. Come with me.”

“No.” Jungkook shook his head. “No…. Not hyungie…. Please…. Not hyungie….” He kept crying. And Kim just didn’t care, he dragged him up.

Before Kim could take another step, Jordan spoke. “I came here with the thought of killing your son as wel—-.”

The gunshot came before the sentence had fully settled in the air.

The man standing to Jordan’s left dropped instantly a clean shot straight through the head. He hit the floor without a sound.

Jungkook flinched so violently he grabbed Kim’s hand without thinking fingers closing around it in pure, instinctive terror, his whole body pressing closer.

Kim didn’t even lower the gun.

“Dare to touch him,” he said, his voice dropping to something quiet and absolute, “and the next bullet goes through you. Be grateful I’m letting you breathe at all that I have any regard left for what we were to each other and any pity for what you lost.”

The room was completely still.

Jordan looked at the body on the floor. Then slowly, with the composure of a man who had already calculated every move before walking through the door, he lifted his eyes back to Kim.

“I want your son,” he said calmly, “to kill this person. The same way his bullet killed mine.”

Kim turned fully to face him. His expression was unreadable. “You think I would agree to that?” The bitterness in his voice was sharp and cold.

Jordan smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“You might.” He reached into his jacket and held up his phone casually, almost lazily. “Everything is ready to burn. Every record. Every contract. Every drug. Every agreement with your name on it gone in seconds. Even if you put a bullet in me right now, the order is already set.” He tilted his head. “That is worth billions, Kim. Billions of euros. All of it.”

The silence stretched. Kim’s hand dropped slowly from Jungkook’s.

Jungkook didn’t wait. The moment the grip loosened he pulled free and ran, dropping to his knees beside Suho, hands reaching for him immediately.

“Hyung… hyung, look at me…hyungie!” he sobbed. “Look at me please!!!”

“I…. I’m fine, Kookah!” Suho’s voice came out cracked. He was barely holding himself upright. Blood was running freely from his mouth now. The cuts on his face were deep Kim had not held back. “I’m fine……”

He didn’t look fine. Behind them, Kim stood with his phone, confirmingwhat Jordanjust said, pressing his fingers hard against his temple.

“Ahhh, FUCK!!” The word cracked out of him like something snapping. He paced once. Stopped. Looked at Jordan.

“We had an agreement,” Kim said tightly. “I cannot ask my son to do that. He is still recovering… do you understand what state he is in? What your son did to him!!”

“Then I suppose the records burn,” Jordan said simply. He raised his hand slightly a small, casual gesture toward someone to his right.

“NO!” Kim’s voice came out sharp and immediate. Jordan lowered his hand. And waited.

Kim stood there. The muscle in his jaw worked steadily. His eyes moved to Jungkook on the floor, holding Suho’s face in his hands and crying and then away. Away from his son’s face. Away from Suho’s destroyed one.

To the phone in Jordan’s hand.

Billions. His reputation. His empire. Everything he had built held in the palm of one man’s hand, one button away from ash.

His son’s mental state on one side of the scale. Everything he had built on the other.

He closed his eyes for one second. Then he exhaled.

“Just….” He stopped. Started again. “Handle it yourself.” The words came out like something being dragged from him. Rough and low. He chose billions over his son’s mental health.

“But if a single scratch lands on my son…” his voice hardened back immediately, like the softness had never been there “you are dead. Your son already did enough. You understand me.”

Jordan smiled slowly. He turned and nodded to his guard. The guard moved to Jungkook and grabbed him by the arm wrenching him upright, away from Suho.

“No!!!” Jungkook immediately twisted against the hold, fingers scrabbling for purchase, feet dragging against the floor. “Let go… LET GO!!”

Two other guards crossed to Suho. They grabbed him by both arms and hauled him upright, forcing him to stand despite everything making him groan through his teeth with the effort of it. All thanks to kim.

Suho lifted his head. His eyes, through the blood and the bruising, went straight to Kim.

“Y-you will regret this, Kim Yoonseong.” His voice was broken but certain. “Jin will find out everything. Every single thing.”

Kim’s teeth ground together.

Jordan stepped forward toward Suho and started hitting him. Hard, methodical, relentless fist after fist while the guards held him upright and unable to fall.

Each impact made Suho groan. Made Jungkook scream.

“NO!!” Jungkook thrashed against the guard’s hold with everything he had, tears and saliva and desperation all at once. “STOP IT!! PLEASE STOP! APPA tell them to stop!”

His voice cracked completely. “APPA PLEASE.. TELL THEM TO STOP PLEASE APPA PLEASE!!!”

Kim stood with his back to his son. He didn’t turn around.

He just stood there jaw tight, eyes fixed on the wall ahead of him while behind him his son screamed his name over and over and over.

And he said nothing. He did nothing. He just turned his face away.

Jordan finally stepped back from Suho. Satisfied.

Suho hung between the guards barely conscious, blood running freely from every cut, soaking through his shirt, dripping onto the floor beneath him.

“Now…” Jordan turned. His eyes found Jungkook. Then lookedat suho again and spoke “You saved the person who is going to die by your hands right now.”

Jungkook stopped struggling.

The words took a moment to reach him. Then they did… and his blood ran cold.

He looked at Kim. “Appa….” His voice came out broken and desperate. “No…. Please…. Not hyungie…. Please, appa tell them to stop please”

Kim closed his eyes. His fist clenched at his side.

“Come, little one.” Jordan crossed the room and grabbed Jungkook’s arm. He pulled the gun from his waist and closed Jungkook’s trembling fingers around it, wrapping his hand over the boy’s to keep it there. “Let’s finish this.”

“No!!!” Jungkook shook his head frantically, trying to pull his hand back, trying to pull his whole body back. “No no no…APPA! Tell them to not!”

Kim said nothing. “APPA!!” Nothing. “APPA!!! TELL THEM TO STOP….APPA PLEASE!!”

His voice broke completely. He was screaming with everything in him every last piece of strength his battered, sixteen year old body had screaming for the one person in the room who could stop this.

And Kim stood there. Still. Silent. Deaf to all of it.

Jordan dragged Jungkook forward until he was standing several feet from Suho positioned him, forced his arm up, aimed the gun directly at Suho’s chest.

Suho lifted his head.

His eyes through all the blood, through all the damage found Jungkook’s face.

And he smiled. Soft. Certain. Without a trace of blame in it. “It’s okay….” he said. His voice was barely there. “It’s okay, Kook-ah….”

“No…” Jungkook shook his head, tears falling so fast he could barely see. “No… not hyungie! please…please!”

Jordan’s hand closed over Jungkook’s on the trigger. Iron grip. Unyielding.

Jungkook’s whole body shook. He tried to pull back wrist twisting, fingers scrabbling but Jordan was immovable.

“No… please… please don’t please!!” No one moved. No one stepped forward. No one said a word.

Jordan pressed Jungkook’s finger down on the trigger. The shot rang out.

Deafening. Echoing off every wall. Filling the entire room with a sound that was too loud and too final all at once.

Jungkook squeezed his eyes shut, his whole body flinching violently at the impact of what he just pressed.

“Ahhh” Suho’s voice. Small. Just one sound. Jungkook opened his eyes.

The gun slipped from his fingers and hit the floor.

The bullet had landed in Suho’s chest. Right side. Blood was already blooming outward through the fabric of his shirt dark and spreading fast.

Jordan’s grip on Jungkook’s arm loosened.

Jungkook took one step forward. Then the room filled with gunshots again.

Two more. Both into Suho’s chest.

Jungkook froze.

He watched his favourite person in the world receive those bullets,watched the impact move through him, watched his body jerk with each one, and he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make a single sound. He just stood there, completely frozen, like something inside him had simply stopped functioning.

Suho fell.

The thud of him hitting the floor echoed through the silence that followed.

Then Jungkook moved.

One step. Slow. Then another. Then faster, until he was running, dropping to his knees in the pool of blood spreading beneath Suho, not caring, not thinking, both hands pressing hard against the wounds in his chest.

Suho whimpered beneath his hands.

“Hy-hyungie…” Jungkook’s voice came out as almost nothing. “Hyung…. Don’t leave me…. Please don’t leave me… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I shouldn’t have… hyungie, stay with me! please! pl-please…”

He was sobbing so hard his whole body shook gathering Suho into his arms, cradling him.

Suho’s lips moved. “K…. Kook-ah….” “I’m here…” Jungkook tightened his arms. “I’m right here… don’t leave me please…”

“H…. Hyungie loves you….” Suho rasped. Each word costing him enormously. “So…. So much…. Kook…”

“Don’t.” Jungkook shook his head frantically. “Don’t say goodbye… don’t… please! You promised me, you promisedme to take me to the amusementpark again! You promisedme to eat ice-creams again.”

Suho chuckled faintly, and spoke, “I… I am sorry!” He slowly took his hands to his neck and took it off whimpering he handed it to Jungkook. Jungkook took it crying.

“I…. I will always….” A breath. Slower than the one before. “Always be happy…. For you…. And I am….” Another breath. The slowest yet. “Always…. So proud…. Of my Kook….”

“No…” The word tore out of Jungkook broken and raw. “No, hyungie, don’t… please don’t leave me… please..you can’t please”

“I’m…. I’m sorry….” Suho whispered.

His eyes were still on Jungkook’s face. Still warm. Still certain. Still without a single trace of blame. “For…. For leaving you….” And then his eyes closed.

His hand, which had been resting weakly against Jungkook’s arm, slipped and fell to the floor. The room went completely silent. Jungkook stared at him.

At the stillness of him. At the way his chest had stopped. At the way his face had gone slack and peaceful in a way that was entirely, unmistakably final. “H-Hy-Hyungie….?”

His voice came out barely audible. A breath more than a word..”Ani….” he whispered. Then,

“No.. no no no! HYUNGIEEE! ” The cry that tore from him was not like anything that had come before. It wasn’t crying. It was something deeper and more primal and more devastating than crying a wail that came from somewhere beneath words, beneath thought, beneath everything pouring out of him all at once as he pulled Suho close and held him and rocked and screamed into the silence of that room.

“NOOO!! ARGHHHH…. HYUNGIEE! NOOO…. AHHH…”

He clung to him.

To the person who had taught him how to smile without apology.

Who had stood between him and every terrible thing.

Who had held him in a bloody basement and carried him to safety.

Who had smiled at him just now, just moments ago, with a bullet in his chest, making sure the last thing Jungkook saw on his face was not pain but love.

Jungkook held him and cried.Completely shattered. And around them everyone just stood there. Watching. In silence.

(End of Flashback #3)

I am disappointed you all! I really am!

I swear! If you all don’t complete the target… I am not updating! I promise I won’t!

So better comment!

BTW… what made you cry? Poor kook!

That idiot kim chose his reputation over his son! How brutal!

Anyway…. if you want double update give me 60+ comments. As soon as it is done I’ll update! If it is late just know I might me sleep! But I’ll give update only if you all complete the target! Cut I expect a lot of reactions from you for this flashback. So please!