Chapter 25: The Reality

Taehyung froze. The phone slipped from his hand, hitting the ground with a dull, unimportant thud. The sound barely reached his ears — everything around him suddenly became a blur, muffled and distant, as though the world had been plunged underwater. His pulse thundered in his head. His lungs refused to work properly, pulling in shallow, shaky breaths that only made his chest ache.

“Baby?” Jungkook’s voice cut through the haze. A hand touched his shoulder, warm but grounding in the wrong way. “What’s wrong?”

Taehyung lifted his eyes, glassy and unblinking, to meet Jungkook’s. His lips trembled before words tumbled out, broken and desperate.

“B–bring me to the hospital… Jungkook, please!” His fingers latched onto Jungkook’s arm like he was clinging to a lifeline.

Jungkook’s face arranged itself into an expression of worry — the perfect picture of concern — yet his tone was curiously flat, devoid of the same urgency his features portrayed. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

Taehyung shook his head violently, fresh tears spilling over.

“Jimin… Jimin-hyung is dead.” The last word cracked like brittle glass. “So please, bring me to the hospital right now, Jungkook, I’m begging you!” His voice dissolved into a sob.

Jungkook didn’t waste a beat. “Get inside the car.”

He swung open the passenger door, and Taehyung stumbled in without hesitation. Jungkook took the keys from his driver, sliding into the driver’s seat. The engine roared to life, but inside the cabin, there was only the sound of Taehyung’s trembling breaths and the quiet tap-tap of his knee bouncing uncontrollably.

The drive felt both endless and too short. Taehyung’s hands were clenched into fists on his lap, nails biting into skin, lips pressed tight as if holding back a scream. Jungkook’s eyes flicked to him in the rearview mirror — once, twice — noting every shiver, every tear.

When they reached the hospital, Jungkook had barely shifted the car into park before Taehyung flung the door open and bolted. The harsh fluorescent lights of the corridor stung his eyes as he sprinted past startled visitors and nurses, muttering apologies he didn’t mean. His lungs burned, his chest ached, but he didn’t slow until—

“Hyung!” he gasped.

Yoongi was standing outside a room, eyes red and swollen, face pale. There was a weight in the air, thick and suffocating.

Before Taehyung could speak, the door opened, and two nurses emerged, pushing a stretcher draped with a stark white sheet.

“Wait—please wait!” His voice cracked. He staggered forward, grabbing the side of the stretcher. His hands shook violently as he reached for the sheet. “I need… I need to see—”

The fabric slipped between his fingers, lowering slowly until it revealed a face.
And the world stopped.

It was Jimin.

Pale as snow. Lips tinged a haunting shade of purple. Still. Silent. Wrong.

“No… no…” Taehyung’s knees buckled, and a strangled cry tore from his throat. He touched Jimin’s cheek — cold, rigid. His hand recoiled as though burned, yet he couldn’t stop himself from cupping that face again, willing it to be warm.

“This isn’t real! Please tell me this isn’t real!”

Yoongi moved to him, wrapping trembling arms around Taehyung, who collapsed into the embrace, shaking so violently that Yoongi had to hold him tighter to keep him upright.

“I’m sorry, Taehyung…” Yoongi’s voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and cracked.

Taehyung’s cries turned frantic. “No, Hyung, please — tell me this is a dream. He promised he’d stay with me forever! He can’t leave me like this!” He clawed at Yoongi’s shirt, voice breaking over and over.

Yoongi didn’t answer. There were no words that could rewrite reality.

“Hyung, do something, I’m begging you!” Taehyung’s voice was raw. “He’s not dead, he’s not! He promised—he promised—” His fists pounded weakly against Yoongi’s chest.

The guilt was suffocating. His mind replayed every choice that had led to this moment — his stubbornness, his curiosity, his selfishness in coming to Seoul. If he had stayed in Daegu, Jimin would still be laughing beside him, teasing him, taking care of him.

“I’m sorry, Jimin-hyung, I’m so sorry,” Taehyung whispered through sobs. “Let’s go home, okay? We’ll go back to Daegu, I’ll do anything… just please open your eyes… talk to me… don’t leave me like this.”

It was then that Jungkook stepped forward. His presence loomed, his voice softer than silk as he pried Taehyung from Yoongi’s arms.

“Taehyung… baby… come here.”
Taehyung didn’t even register the movement until he felt himself pressed against Jungkook’s chest, his face buried in the crook of his neck. Jungkook’s hand moved in slow circles across his back — steady, warm, deceptively soothing.

“I know it hurts,” Jungkook murmured, lips grazing Taehyung’s temple. “But you have to breathe for me. You have to calm down. No matter what you do… a dead person won’t wake up.”

Jungkook’s arms were like a vice around him — warm and unyielding — as though letting go would mean losing him to the cold body lying on the stretcher. His palm pressed firmly against the back of Taehyung’s head, pushing him deeper into the curve of his neck, shielding his face from the world, from the sight of Jimin’s lifeless features.

“Shhh… don’t look anymore,” Jungkook murmured, voice low and velvety, the tone one would use to hush a frightened child. His other hand ran down Taehyung’s back in slow, deliberate strokes, pausing at the small of his back before sliding upward again — a rhythm meant to soothe, though it felt almost too controlled, too measured.

Taehyung was shaking so hard that his sobs came out broken, muffled against Jungkook’s skin. His tears soaked into the collar of Jungkook’s shirt, his breath hitching with every attempt to speak.

“I… I can’t… he’s gone, Jungkook, he’s really gone…”

“I know, baby, I know,” Jungkook whispered, tilting his head so that his lips brushed the shell of Taehyung’s ear. “But you can’t follow him. You have to stay here. With me.”

Those last two words were weighted — not with desperation, but with quiet certainty, as if they were an unspoken command.

Taehyung’s hands clutched at Jungkook’s coat, curling into the fabric like a drowning man grabbing at anything to keep himself afloat. His cries grew softer but more anguished, the kind of weeping that left his chest tight and his throat raw.

The words were blunt, the truth sharp enough to cut. Yet his tone was dipped in honey, as though he were the only one willing to anchor Taehyung in reality.

“You still have me,” he whispered, almost possessively, his grip tightening. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

There was a faint shadow in his eyes — a glimmer of something almost like satisfaction, hidden beneath the layers of feigned tenderness. As Taehyung sobbed into his neck, Jungkook’s thumb brushed over his spine, each stroke a reminder: You need me now more than ever.

And whether Taehyung realized it or not, Jungkook intended to keep it that way. But even as he spoke, there was something in his gaze — a flicker of almost imperceptible contentment — that Taehyung was leaning into him, not anyone else. That Jimin’s absence had carved a void only he could fill.

“It’s not fair…” Taehyung’s voice cracked again, every syllable trembling. “We were supposed to grow old together. He promised… he promised me…”

“You still have me,” Jungkook murmured again, softer this time, almost tender, though the possessiveness underneath bled through in the way his fingers dug just slightly into Taehyung’s jawline. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you. I’ll be here when you wake up tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that… until you realize I’m all you need.”

The words sank into Taehyung’s spinning mind, not entirely registering as anything more than comfort in his grief-stricken haze. He let Jungkook pull him back into his chest, let the steady, deliberate rhythm of Jungkook’s breathing drown out the sounds of the hospital corridor.

And one of them had a smirk on his face as if he had achieved something successfully, and the thing is, it was not Jungkook who was smirking.