young gods / lie : park jimin

003

Lee Jaeyi

We met because of bad luck, bad timing, and a bad girlfriend. And then, the next day, I watched in horror as my boss introduced him to me again. But this time as Park Jimin, who'd left the police force early to work as a bodyguard for whoever could afford him for four years before Namjoon had offered him this job with steady income.

I could never forget how he looked at me that day. He'd walked into my office wearing a black blazer over a similarly colored button up, looking tired and sober. He'd looked up and made eye contact with me. The polite smile dripped off his handsome face and one of utter disgust replaced it, he glanced away to look at our boss as if he could barely stand to look at me for that long. He looked as if all of his expectations for this job as if he'd told himself "my girlfriend just dumped me but at least I have a steady income now", had thoroughly disappointed him.

I'll admit my faults, what I did was rash, a result of the high I experienced from the disappointment of not getting to buy those concert tickets. To Jimin, I'd ruined a relationship. And he was right, like a homewrecker, I'd told his girlfriend I was something to him that I wasn't. But he was also wrong, she treated him like shit and I could tell from the slight sadness in his smile that he was no stranger to it. I had no doubt that he was used to taking her shit, and he would take it with a smile. She took his kindness for granted and the more I got to know him these past two years, the less I regretted it. Jimin was the kind of man to tell you that everything would be okay while the world was falling around you, and his smile was the kind that made you believe him. Genuine and something I'd truly never seen before. He was unlike any man I'd ever met.

We never spoke about the incident, we never brought it up, not once. It only took a few days of awkwardness before we grew close, forced by the rigor of the now more dangerous cases I could take, to spend most of our time together. We were friends now, close friends. We had to be, we worked so closely together, we even shared a room. But we argued constantly. Most of the time, affectionately, in heat of the moment. But every so often he says something that reminds me exactly why we can never be anything more than friends.

And as I follow him into my office and find him with his arm around his ex-girlfriend, I'm reminded of it yet again.

"Minah-yah," he said and I tried not to wince when he said her name casually as if nothing had passed between them.

"Oppa," she whined, burying her head in his shoulders. For a moment, my heart seized in sympathy. Minah's appearance had changed drastically since the last time I'd seen her. She was makeup free other than the faint black streaks of leftover mascara. Her normally stick straight hair was knotted and greasy, pulled back in the world's messiest bun. She wore a skirt and a blouse as if she'd tried to get ready, but the patterns nor the colors matched.

She was a mess.

"Thank you," I mouth to Jungkook and Taehyung who leave quietly, looking worried. They shut the door behind them. Sighing, I avert my gaze from the two as Jimin tries to calm her down and seat myself at my desk, rubbing away my headache and opening my laptop.

"Kang Minah-ssi?" I said gently. "I know that you must be in a lot of distress, but we need to know why you're here."

Minah pulls away from Jimin, her tears never stopping as she sniffles loudly.

"Two weeks ago my boyfriend- he was murdered," she says shakily. I raise my eyebrows, searching to exchange a look with Jimin but his gaze is glued on Minah. I open a fresh document, trying not to feel the sting of rejection and begin taking down notes.

"Murdered, you said? Why are you here, why aren't you with the police?" I ask. Why hadn't I heard of this?

"Because- when I found his body, he was hanging from his neck on the ceiling fan in our home," she tells me. Christ.