The Missing Piece

Chapter 27

The fallout from five of the members accidental bonding was as bad and as far reaching as Park Jiwon and Bang Shihyuk had predicted when they'd first been told about the situation.

In the short term, the unfinished concert left fans confused, with never ending theories, and more importantly of really good footage of Jungkook stumbling unaccountably away from the line at the end of their final performance, and he and Yoongi 'going for each other'. The fans and staff alike were hurried away from the building, everyone being told to pack up for the day, get their things and make their way to the hotel to await further instructions. By the time the boys arrived back, a memo had gone round, accompanied by several wild rumours, that the boys had to take an urgent break for health reasons.

A statement was released by HYBE telling fans not to worry but that one of the members was unwell and that they had been "pushing themselves too hard" leading to tension within the group, and ultimately an inability to continue with that performance or any other for several days.

The last two weeks of the Asian leg of the tour were cancelled outright, including a homecoming in Seoul, all of which left ARMY reeling. In compensation HYBE published every scrap of available footage they could to try and keep up with the insatiable appetite for the boys. It wasn't enough. Neitzens plagued the social media team with complaints, questions and conspiracies, some of which came just a little too close to the truth.

Inside the company, the staff were locked down into an immediate embargo of information. It didn't stop the rumour mill from flourishing. Those select few that knew the truth did their best to help with the cover up, but with over 1000 staff all discussing the intimate details of the boys derailed tour at every water cooler and toilet door, the truth had a way of surfacing.

The seven idols went to ground in their own spaces. No longer seeing any need for separation, Namjoon and Jungkook moved back into the large apartment and began the business of settling their bonds with the others as a fivesome. Sejin and Shihyuk called them as soon as the group landed in secrecy back in Seoul and told them they had the remaining two weeks of what would have been the tour, and then the planned rest week, to 'do what they needed to do'.

It was obvious the company were angry at them, but all five were too elated to care. No one had felt good for weeks, and now, at least just those five, were a little better. They acknowledged to each other and to their management that this would complicate things, but as they had done the first time they'd bonded, made it clear that they weren't sorry for it.

Seokjin and Jimin sent a car to the airport for Narae when the larger support team returned to Seoul the day after them and somewhat reluctantly, she got in and allowed it to take her back to Seokjin's apartment. They greeted her cordially and over the following days, seemed to mutually agree not to speak about either the others' bonding, or her outburst in Bangkok. As usual, she made no move to tell them about her worsening health, hoping that her decision to stick closely to her bonded mates would make the difference.

Narae became smaller and smaller in her own world. She hardly spoke when she was at home with the two of them, just muttering little answers here and there to questions they asked her. She didn't ask them for anything, didn't inconvenience them in any way, tried to get out of their way if she was passing them on the stairs. Anything to become more invisible. None of the others were active either in messages to her (although there'd been none of those for weeks), or in the group chat which was silent. Narae found herself often curling up against the window seat of Seokjin's spare bedroom, staring, imagining that she could see all the way across the skyline to the shared residence where the other five pieces of her heart were. What were they doing right now? What did it look like? How would it make her feel to be a part of it, any part of it? She didn't know why she longed for them so, when they were so obviously not longing for her. But it was a moot point. She'd bleed to death with their faces in her mind's eye rather than forget them altogether.