Enigma || Park Jimin || [BTS Idol/Gang AU]

"It's the cleaning day of the month," Jin said, dusting the chairs aggressively as if to turn woods into diamonds. I stood leaning against the door watching them over with a tentative smile in the meanwhile of subduing the headache mildly growing above the corner of one of my eyes.

"Is it like an official date for cleaning?" I asked.

"Kinda. We always fix a day from a month on which we clean the entire all polished at once. Every time it's just me who has to do the whole thing, these jerks always manage to run away," He flipped the broom waving it like a token of victory, "I ain't letting 'em go this time."

The six sighed at his words, Taehyung was about to whisper something in Jungkook's ear, Jin glared at him and immediately yelled, "Don't dare try fleeing this time! I won't make you food for a week!"

"Do you need any help?" I said.

"Nah, since you're a guest, I'mma let you be. By the way, your face looks kinda pale. Are you feeling okay?"

"Does it? I'm fine."

"You don't look so. You should never avoid even the shortest symptom when you're feeling sick."

"It's just some migraine headache back for a while."

"Does it hurt a lot? I think I have some paracetamol or aspirin sorts in my drawer-"

"Not a lot. And usually, pain relievers are not much help to me. I can handle it my way. If I keep busy, I think I will be able to distract myself from it. Give me something to do."

"But I think you should take rest-"

"But I do wanna help," I spoke with enough persistence for the older to condone. "Aish. Okay. You can help me arrange these books first." I nodded immediately and knelt down beside him to join in.

"I should bring the ones kept in my and Namjoon's room as well. Keep the work ahead a bit, I will be back at speed," He stood up and headed for the staircase, "Yoongi, stop strolling around if you don't have work. Help Y/N out. Show her the labels." Yoongi's eyes blankly locked with mine for one short moment. He silently shook a neck once to his hyung and stood aside leaving the way for him to go in.

I clapped both of my cheeks to get the emerging blurry semi-black off my vision. My limbs had started to feel numb this morning as soon as I woke up from three hours of sleep, along with the migraine pretty soon within thirty minutes under the bright light of sun amidst the whites, aging to a soon-to-be dismal gray winter with snowflakes getting ready for its first arrival. From all the arcs of constant workload and weird weather changes, I couldn't say I didn't expect the immunity to kick in betrayal soon. I didn't want to engage with all this excusal cleaning work. Nevertheless, I had to do so to fit in. And fitting in was the hardest task in anywhere of this world.

"Don't keep them alphabetically. Comics first, magazines in the lowest rack." It was the first time Yoongi spoke, of that even gave any instruction. I quietly gave a nod and went along what he said, stashing a pack of books at a time. Moments passed on with two of us working without a word, at one point it started to get too awkward. The aura of this one member was so daunting that any starter would fall less of a word to keep up to his taciturn nature and get more than two words out in return of five delivered sentences. I went with the 'none of the above' option. Neither did I have any business with getting too much under the radar of smart ones in my target group.

It was a long hem of soundless phase until the boy spoke again.

"Where were you last night, Y/N?" His voice lulled to a medium tone retaining the usual graveness, sending a chill through my spine even if for a short slice of time.

"Uh? I don't get what you're exactly referring to..?"

"Yesterday night, what were you doing at around- 2 o'clock? You weren't in your room sleeping." His eyes fixated onto the gather of books he took in his arms to keep back in the bookshelf, not requiring to look up at me to realize the off guard situation I was in, embellished on my transfixed gaze. His placid tone was enough as a reflection of his persona, enough to cut short of what he exactly wanted as an answer. Only that worked to deliver acute of his dominance onto the perpetrator he targeted to. I nibbled my lower lip. How could he know, that I wasn't in my room?

"I came down to get some water. Then I saw Jungkook. He was in the balcony-"

"I know that. Hoseok told me about it." Leaving the books back at their places, he looked up to meet my gaze. In his, there was a scornful static of a sparkling glint fluttering an unannounced arcane derision, "Jungkook came down later after you were down here, not before you."

I drained every element off my face to keep it blank. It wasn't a statement rather an unspoken "am I right" interrogative from him. He was trying to testify by my expression. I couldn't take a risk.

"Can you forward those books?"

"Ha? Oh, yes, here." I hastily did so. He slowly got to placing one after one in each of their slots. I unconsciously gulped my throat- something wasn't right. He wasn't awake to know this very precisely. No one was until-

"There's no way it would take so long to get some water. What else were you down here for? Can I ask?"

The lightning bolted onto me in the blink of an eye as I remembered at an instant. The cameras!

All three of them were kept manipulated to a transcript of empty hallways till the moment I was down here. That is, since I wasn't caught in those eyes, so wasn't Jungkook.

I cursed under my breath. They must've already realized the cameras were manipulated...

"Are you awake, Y/N?" Yoongi's voice pulled up to my ears, "You haven't answered yet."

"I was-"

"You guys are done already? Glad to see that." Jin's words cut me off at the needed intersection. Yoongi's eyes trailed off mine and followed him with partial menace.

"There. Lemme help with the rest." The male came forward with the brush and started dusting off the remnant debri.

"I and Y/N will get it managed over here. You can go start with the kitchen."

"Okay then. I will get the pillows off-board and depart. Finally, you guys are actually working!" Jin said in glee gathering the pillows off the couch, throwing them to the side along with the seat cushions.

"I wanna show you something Y/N. Tell me one thing." Suddenly Yoongi's voice amplified to a fluffy muffled tone. He was pushing the bookshelf partly to the side, my eyes loomed big when he picked out an electromagnet as similar to the previous of mine and grazed over the bookshelf, revealing the compartment I had dried sweats on to find out the earlier night.

"We already have a nice, big-enough closet thing over here, see. Isn't it very stupid to install a bookshelf for the books when we already have something built-in like this? I told Jin hyung so many times, but he says it looks nicer on a bookshelf. What drivel!" He spoke loud enough for the older on the other side of the room to hear. I sidelong glanced at him, seeing no reaction on his face either at the unexpected revelation his younger was doing to a stranger like me.

"It's been left vacant so long for no reason. There would have been more space in the living room too if the shelf wasn't here." He asked. I stared at his eyes. What was he exactly trying to do?i

"This looks so cool! And that with a magnet lock system, no one would've even made a wild guess that something like this could be here. It looks so damn like those hidden compartment in the movies."

Nevertheless, if he wanted to play, I was going to play along.

"I know right, do you agree with me or not?" He put stress on his question for me to reply. I did so, ebulliently, "Yes, leaving something empty like this is such a waste."

"See hyung? Even Y/N agrees to this. Let's throw the thing off the road already. It gets on my way."

Jin didn't pay him good heed, doing his work only while exasperating in return, "How the heck is it getting on your way? What is my bookshelf doing to you? It's kept on the corner taking the least space than you do in this house. Stop your shits and get back to work! Ugh!" He gave a last whoosh on the seat cushions, wiping an invisible drop of sweat.

"The living room's done. I should put the clothes in the laundry first before going to the kitchen. Y/N. can you bring me those first for laundry? I think I kept the pile on the first floor beside the washroom."

"Roger." I moved away from Yoongi's side, not taking a look back to further apprehend the knowing smirk of suspicion diminishing to a slight desultory splayed across his eyes, giving an internal eye roll to that.

He thought he was smart. How smart was he? Did he think he could always get himself and his mates away from this? One day or later, the end is to all of us. For those who did a bad job in the bad world, their ends are closer than the ones who fix.

"And oh- take this with you too. Hoseok must be cleaning his room, give it to him." I nodded and picked up the CD storage box he pointed at. None of the cases seemed to be touched within ages, the specks of dust vortexed to a small tornado by Jin's swirling brush, heaving a rush of coughs in my lungs. My eyes tightened with the sensation with a knock-on throbbing of the headache. Light felt too bright for day. I paused halfway on my stride and took out a breath. Cleaning day of the month, huh? Proud nutjobs doing null works. How did they always come up with the best joke in the market?

The floor was matted with a thick layer of dust. Wearing no slippers, my grey socks were now brown with it. I clutched onto the pile of clothes and headed for the stairs. Jin's voice along with Taehyung's could be heard from the living room, they were discussing the lunch. Just some criminals doing everyday human being activity.

At the middle step, for one second, it felt like the world had a shake. The light flashed in anomal phosphenes darkening my vision, the stair flights started moving out of my way, trembling in nuisance eerily. My legs wobbled losing the balance. The enviroment before me shifted before losing entire existence. I sensed that I was having a fall, my hands flapped around to hold onto something to prevent it. And I landed on the stair with a loud thud, the ringing in my ear intensified to loud crickets singing uncertainty.

A few seconds passed as I tried to realize the sudden predicament while waiting for my vision to be unfazed. The ringing buzz subsiding to a low ping, my ears were starting to get cleared. I heard Jin's voice. His face was leaned askance onto mine, fixing eyes full of concern.

"Y/N? What happened? Oh God, are you hurt?"

"No. I'm fine. I felt a bit...dizzy suddenly I don't know why."

"I told you to get some rest. You didn't listen."

"What happened? I heard a sound. Gosh, Y/N!" Hoseok reached from upstairs and hurried down with a worried face. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, really." I held my head to get myself up straight, "And I'm sorry," I looked at my right hand which had slapped against something hard and was now hurting. The line of wooden boards covering the wall beside the staircase- one of them was tilted off position from the impact of my hand.

"I think I broke the decor. I will get it fixed. Wait." I was startled at how Jin's hand motioned fast to grab mine from reaching out, "It's okay, Y/N. I will get it done. You don't have to do anything. Go to your room and take a rest."

I observed his reaction, then perplexedly nodded.

"Hobi, can you take her to the room?"

"It's okay, I can go by myself." I advanced towards my room and closed the door as they left.

The closed window left the innard dismally dark, I pulled myself under the blanket and breathed in the warm air down the cover, checking the reading of the thermometer holding in a sniff. There was a slight rise in temperature, but not enough to call it a fever. The sudden chills grappling till my knees felt gnawing a block of ice and spreading the thin water all across from there till my neck. Everything was going haywire from yesterday.

I missed my home. The brilliance of warmth of the blanket on me and a cup of hot coffee in my one hand looking out the window in silence would've been my present scene now. One way to feel less terrible was to stop thinking that you were, I thought of trying it, but the ringing burn in my head along with the shivers obtained from cold wind were monsters. The blanket didn't provide enough warmth. Hugging a shawl, I grabbed my phone.

Y/N : Checking in.

6:23 am

Momo: Checking in as well.

I'll leave it in short.

There was no apparent criminal record about that Illhwa you told me about. But noting that she's rich, that ain't surprising. I'll attach her PDF to email.

Woozi's men from the team have come quite close to finding our guy, as he said. And he told to look out for two days or so, there

should be a good news. I'll send off the final list of suspects alongside.

And you haven't informed me the concert tour dates of the boys yet. Are they finalized yet? If so, inform me soon. The

dinner party is on hold on our request. I will

have to ask to delay it further until you arrived otherwise. It's better if we get to close this chapter asap.

Call or text when you are free.

12:47 pm

Y/N : I should be getting the dates

from the manager soon. We have to wait till tomorrow or after that.

Working on some details myself, will inform you after I ensure a part. Nothing more for now.

"Come in."

Jungkook's head peered in as the door allowed open a small entry. He hesitated for a moment before entering, I gestured at him to come forward keeping my phone down.

"What's up, Jungkook? You good today?"

His hands fidgeted behind his back from apparent nervousness as he spoke, "Yeah uh- Jin hyung told me to check on you if you needed anything. I heard you fainted on the stairs. Are you feeling okay now?"

"I didn't faint, gosh! Who's spreading the rumors?" I fanned my hand laughing, "I am good. I don't need anything."

"Okay. I will leave then-"

"If you have something else to say, go on." I tapped a silent smile looking at him, "I don't think Jin sending you to monitor is the only reason you came now."

"I..." His eyes met the floor contemplating whether or not to say. I motioned my finger at the chair on the side for him to sit down first. He did so and continued to stutter with his words.

"Uh umm, I- about last night, noona..." He licked his lips in hesitation, "I am sorry."

"Why? There's nothing for you to be sorry about."

"I troubled you and the rest with this stupid-"

"You didn't trouble anyone. And no one is annoyed by you for this, Jungkook. It's okay to rely on others sometimes. And you see-" I looked at his eyes with warmth, urging him to gaze up from the floor at me, "there are these certain days, and hours we immaculately preserve in our brain, not that we want to. Surfing back and forth to it consciously is an act of guilt, but when it crawls back to us in such a way we can't overcome it neither fight back with enough resistance, you have to take a breath and close your eyes doing nothing, for it to get exhausted and pass. That's the only best way out of the both sides until you find back your strength to stand tall."

"Had I said anything terrible?"

I didn't forget that he had called me a bitch, but I let it slide with shaking my head, "I don't remember anything."

"Your words helped me a lot. Usually...it's kind of hard to scratch out the feeling so quickly. I don't think- I felt better this soon before."

"During the next attacks, try one of these out. Get yourself as much as stimuli from your surrounding as you can and distract your mind from the absurd arrival of thinking. They work as good as for m-" I crossed it out to add on next, "I am not a doctor neither good with giving advice. But I hope it comes helpful."

He flashed a short bunny smile showing only a little bit of his pearlescent front teeth. His hands reached out to grab one of mine and he gently pulled the coalesce closer, "Thanks for being there for me."

His sincere words trailed up to the zenith of my core. I protruded my lips to return a similar to his. Suddenly the ambiance had brightened up, his giggles turning livelier as he resumed his usual self. My headache was no longer was a cause. Of all the members in the house, this one with the youngest heart felt so much more close, and a part of me wanted to be there for him, to lend a shelter of protection with a motherly attitude I barely ever felt. A quarter of my wake didn't want to equalize him to the perpetrator I demanded to have behind the bars. My belief was transistorized with equal amplification and rectification of two opposite emotion poles. His innocent eyes perked up a clench I didn't want to feel even for myself. My mind sidled back to one excuse of the vast racemic solution- they worked under some guy. These some guys to be executed for their crime. The boys, Jungkook- they must have had a reason to be behind all of this.

I wanted to believe his words, my words, that even if anything else, it was not them, but the bigger head behind, only they who was behind all the reasons the case files stacked in the record room and photographs stuck up on to the wall unsolved had a link anywhere, anyhow. Sometimes reality was a culprit, our fascinating thoughts to overcome the bizarre the world had to hold- crayons to proclaim ugly was another form of beauty to give violence a flowerish title to behold. Even so, none of us, neither I, wanted to still rid the thoughts that kept us on survival aboard.

"Mind if I come in?" A low buzz at the door buffered my intermittent unconscious thoughts, "unless you don't want to be interrupted." Jimin stood there squinting his eyes in a weird manner, impatiently holding a cup of something, a mild fog of steam condensing on its top.