Louder than Bombs

Worrying

When Taehyung got the news, he let out the breath that he didn't know he had been holding in for the past ten years. He had battled with every emotion possible about what had happened to Jin and Jimin. After a while, he had accepted that they were dead. Ten years was a long time.

But when Jimin's parents let him know that both of them had been found, dead, he still felt a tunnel of sadness envelop him. It was horrible hearing that your closest friends had died.

Jin had been found somewhere near the city. He had been buried in a shallow grave. It looked like it had been hasty, by the way that the earth was packed in, all messy and clumsy. He had been killed by a bullet to his chest. They brought him back a few weeks after he had been found. His name was crossed off the missing list.

Taehyung felt weird knowing all of this. He knew how Jin had died, but he didn't know why or what exactly had happened. He had been way off course. Their team had been nowhere near where Jin had been found. Why had he been there? And where was Jimin?

Jimin had been found in the city, inside a building. After a long time, the government had finally decided to tear those old buildings down. When one of the workers went upstairs to search for valuables, they found him. It was quite a sight. They had run tests on Jimin but they couldn't find any life-threatening injuries on him. There was something in his leg, but it didn't look too bad. Maybe he was tired. He did seem malnourished.

He was brought back too.

Why had they been separated? Taehyung had always assumed that they had been together. Maybe that they had gotten lost together and ended up somewhere. But now he had to understand that they weren't together at all. They had been all by themselves, wandering through an unknown landscape, without any food or water.

It was a miserable ending. Taehyung had to admit that Jungkook had it easier than Jimin or Jin. At least Jungkook had had people around him. He had had Taehyung and Namjoon around him, who had tried their best to take care of him and cheer him up. But Jin and Jimin had had nobody.

The thought constantly brought tears to his eyes. He wished he was there for them. Maybe if he had kept an eye out for them, they wouldn't have gotten lost. It was a confusing mess. There was no way he could fix anything now. Everything was over.

He let Yoongi and Namjoon know. They deserved to.

--------

He knew it had been coming. Yoongi knew that there was no way that they could still be alive. He cried bitterly when he found out. All the hope that he had for so long had been completely useless. This was why it was better to be pessimistic.

He read through the entire report. Jin's one was shorter than Jimin's. It just mentioned the condition that Jin's body was found in - dismal - and what his supposed cause of death was. He was talked about in such technical words, Yoongi had to remind himself that this was his friend. This was someone that he had known and grown up with. He had spent his late teens and early twenties with him. Now he was in his early thirties and everything had changed.

Jimin's report was longer. There was a lot of speculation at what had actually happened to him. Yoongi read through all the possible situations that they had mentioned. Everyone agreed that they had died around the same time, but in wildly different places.

If Yoongi closed his eyes, he couldn't imagine anything. He couldn't imagine how scared they must've been. He was glad he never joined up, however selfish that was.

There was a weird sense of finality. Yoongi felt like he was ready to close this chapter of his book. Every aspect of his younger life was gone. He had abandoned his music, his friends were gone, and he didn't live in the same place anymore. Yoongi was a different person.

But the feelings persisted. The nagging worries that had started way back then kept coming. Yoongi was always on edge. He knew Taehyung had it worse, along with Namjoon. But Yoongi knew that he had some right to pity as well.

He had struggled enough.

At least, at least, they were found. At least some peace in the form of closure had been obtained.

------

770 words