RUSE || Taekook

THIRTY NINE || J5C3C4J3J5O4XF4C4F4A5

⚠WARNING: DISTURBING IMAGERY; MENTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT⚠

Jungkook brushes his hair in the mirror, trying to get horrible images out of his mind. Pictures he's seen, events that took place in front him, numerous rape cases he had to witness, the sex workers he had to visit.

He tries his best to get out the image of when he saw something like that for the first time.

Sixteen-year-old Kim Taehyung, half-passed out in his own bed, his blanket poorly covering him, his face and body bruised, blood dripping out of his anus as his hand holds Yoongi's for dear life.

Jungkook presses the hairbrush into his scalp, pulling himself back to reality.

Taehyung collapses to his knees behind him and Jungkook's eyes widen as Taehyung cries, cradling his suit and burying his face into it, mumbling into it incoherently.

Jungkook places the hairbrush back and walks over to Taehyung, crouching down to his level.

"Yoonie, baby..." Taehyung whispers into the suit.

Jungkook gently touches Taehyung's back but the elder doesn't feel it.

"Taehyung?"

"I'm sorry!" Taehyung screams out, his eyes elsewhere as he yells at Jungkook. "I don't know! I'm sorry!"

Jungkook flinches but quickly understands it's not him Taehyung is talking to.

Taehyung rocks his suit as if it were a baby, mumbling to it softly.

"Tae, can you hear me?"

"I'm so sorry," Taehyung cries.

Jungkook's heart sinks, the empty feeling in his chest making him nauseous.

As upset as he is with Taehyung, he can't watch the elder in pain like this.

"Taehyung, baby, I'm here," Jungkook tries, keeping his voice soft. "No one can get to you here."

Taehyung's eyes roll back.

Jungkook's brows raise lightly and he moves back a little.

The other person sits in that position for some time and then lays Taehyung's suit out on the floor, "It's always so hard for all of us when he gets flashbacks."

Jungkook immediately recognizes the accent. "Shritha?"

Shritha looks up at Jungkook, wiping the tears on Taehyung's face.

"What...what happened?"

"Scars are proof of all that we have survived, all that we have battled," Shritha sits on her knees, staring at the suit with a longing in her eyes. Her eyes that, albeit are Taehyung's, hold a different emotion. Her eyes shine with a desire Jungkook only remembers seeing on Taylor's face, after she lost her husband and unborn child on the same day. "But they only prove that we are strong to others. And why must we prove ourselves to others? Why do we have to bear all these maps on our bodies? Scars aren't proof of the victories we won. They're proof of all the battles we have to fight in the future. And we can't always win those. Scars are a burden upon those who display them, a series of unwanted events that lead to a permanent mark on their bodies, or in this case, mind as well.

"Taehyung's body is not his own, he never had the right to say that," Shritha sniffles. "From the moment he was born, he was thrown from person to person, assaulter to assaulter..." Shritha's nose flushes and she struggles to speak more, her voice getting stuck in her throat, "Rapist... to rapist."