Chapter Text
Park Jimin cradled a can of diet coke in both of his hands. He had yet to take a sip of it. The can had been offered to him by the police officer sitting across from him. Jimin wishes Namjoon was here, the leader could delegate the situation better, he could answer the questions that were being asked in english more in depth than just a "yes" and a "no", the most used English phrase here being "I don't know." Or just staring at the police officer till the man finally pulled out his phone and input his question in Google translate. State of the art equipment they got here in America.
Even with somewhat understanding the question Jimin was at a loss for words most of the time. It had been dark. It had happened too fast. And Jimin was too terrified to even realize what had actually happened to them, till he realized he was being questioned by the police in the small room he was currently in. He remembers he ran. He remembers hearing a gunshot fly past his ears. And he remembers running faster till he ran into the stereotypical American cop pointing a gun at him and a lot of yelling, while Jimin was begging for help in half Korean half broken English.
"How many people were there?"
"Me," Jimin points at himself in the still warm freshly printed picture in front of him with his bandmates. It's in black and white, they are on the red carpet at an award show. All of them are smiling here holding their trophy for the night. The man draws a circle around his torso in the picture and nods."Jin, V and Jungkook." He uses the stage names of his bandmates as he points at them in the picture, which is probably better here in America. Jimin doubts the man across from him even knows how to pronounce Taehyung and Seokjin's names. Jungkook should've gone with the stage name Seagull, Jimin thinks to himself trying to solace himself with some inside joke inside his own head. At least that way he wouldn't be called John Cook all the time.
The man does not circle the other three vocalists like he did Jimin, but draws quick and sharp exes on their torsos, the marker squeaks as he does so. Jimin winces seeing it, not from the sound the marker makes, but from the meaning behind the crosses.
"How many attackers?"
Jimin holds up two fingers but thinks about it for a while and adds two more fingers, thinks some more and lowers one leaving only three up. "Don't know." He ultimately admits "dark."
The man in front of him nods and scribbles something down in his notebook. "Do you think you would've been targeted on purpose?" The man talks into his phone, the phone is quick to translate his words in a confusing sentence, but as with all the questions so far Jimin understands the context at least.
"Sasaeng?...maybe?" Says Jimin, the man looks at the translation the phone is giving him and sighs. Probably translated the word into gibberish, some gibberish about love since it's a compound word of sorts.
"They had a getaway car, do you remember it? Any details can be of help."
"Ugh… big bus?...no, van. Colour black…or dark." Jimin tried to describe the car with movements but it's hard even for the dancer who is used to doing interpretations, he tries to show the officer the way the wans doors were pulled but the man just stares at him quizzically. It was just a dark van, could be dark blue, could be black could be just too dirty to tell the color.
The door opens and a very out of breath manager Sejin is ushered into the room by another officer. "Jimin-ah, thank god you're okay…" the older and much taller man approaches Jimin who is already up from his seat. Sejin puts both of his hands on Jimins shoulders making him sit down again. Sejin squats down to Jimin's eye level and finally asks. "What happened? Why did the police have to pick you up from the streets at night?" Sejin asks in Korean and the officer on the other side of the table clears his throat loudly.
"You must be their… ?" The man gets up and extends his arm waiting for a handshake.
"I'm Sejin." The manager switches to English "One of their on the road managers." Sejin gets up to shake the other's hand and the officer nods in acknowledgement. "Ed Baker," the man shares his name "It seems I won't be in this case long, I'm just a patrol officer trying to get as much information for the higher ups as I can, this seems to be serious Mr. Sejin."
"I wasn't told much," says Sejin looking back at Jimin who is back to cradling his can of coke. "Did Jimin do something… ? He is a good kid, it must be a misunderstanding…" Jimin is the kind of a person who would return a full wallet to the police station if he were to ever stumble upon one. In fact, when Jimin was five he had found some money in the street and had gone to the police station so the law enforcement would reunite the money and the owner.
Sejin is sure it's nothing, but Jimin shouldn't be out without a security or a manager at this late hour, maybe he wanted to get some fresh air and got lost then accidentally stirred up some trouble. The company has lawyers and money. Everything can be solved with lawyers and money, so Sejin is sure they will be on their way back to the hotel in no time.
"He was a witness to a kidnapping." Says officer Baker making Sejin stare in shock at Jimin who is looking down at his fingers playing with the clasp of the can. Jimin seems to be holding back tears at this point. Sejin just hopes the younger man didn't see anything traumatizing.
"If I'm not wrong, the other vocalists from the group, Jin, V, John Cook?..." The man reads his notes and winces as he reads the last of the names, knowing he is pronouncing it wrong.
"Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook." Sejin tries to correct the officer politely. His eyes finally catch the printed out picture. There are exes over Taehyung, Seokjin and Jungkook… and a circle around Jimin…why?
No, it couldn't possibly be… thats impossible.
Sejin knows the members sometimes went to each other's rooms to hang out late at night. And if Seokjin was there there is no way they would do something as reckless as go out at night all alone, let alone in a country they barely could understand the spoken language. Seokijn might like to play around but he was very responsible when it comes to safety. It's not them… but then again, Sejin didn't check before he left with the police if they were all in their hotel rooms. And Jimin is clearly distressed.
"Jimin… can you explain what happened?" Sejin slowly asked in Korean still looking at the picture.
Officer Baker followed the manager's eyes to the picture. "Mr Sejin, the reason you're here is… well at this late an hour we really can't get a hold of any korean-english interpretors, would you be so kind as to help me out a bit? It's better to ask him now while his memory is still fresh. And it is crucial we start as soon as we can, the first 24 hours are the most important ones in these kinds of investigations."
The officers words had confirmed it to Sejin. Taehyung, Jin and Jungkook were the ones… that Jimin had witnessed… being kidnapped.
"I'm sorry, we… we just went out to grab some snacks." Jimin looked up with glazed over eyes, the shock of what happened leaving him slowly letting emotions take over. "The hotel didn't have any decent korean food so.. we went to the seven eleven to get some noodles, it was only 15 or so minutes from the hotel…"
***********
"Why is a single packet of spicy Buldok noodles like almost 4 dollars. America is crazy." Taehyung frowned looking inside their 7Eleven white and green plastic bag containing their snacks for the evening.
"Because our fast food is great." Said Jungkook sipping on the soda he had also grabbed at the store. Mmmhmm, so good.The taste of pure wet carbonated sugar. Delicious.
Seokjin yawned behind Jungkook and sleeply nodded his head in agreement. He hid his hands deeper in the front pocket of his oversized hoodie feeling chilly. He can't believe he was convinced to come along in this cold because of food… at least they were done venturing out for the night now all that was left was to eat, shower off the rest of his stage make up and sleep. Almost tripping on his shoelaces, Seokjin suddenly stopped and looked down at his sneakers. Dang, why did he have to wear sneakers? The rest had gone out in their flip flops. Ah, maybe the fact that it was only 5C° outside and he hated to be cold. He wore them out of self love and they wore their flip flops out of laziness. Sadly, regardless of his footwear he was still cold so self love didn't pay off this time.
Seokjin bent down to tie his shoes, meanwhile Jimin grabbed the the bag from Taehyungs hands and ran a few meters ahead of the group "Hurry up already guys!" He whined turning around to face the group while walking backwards "You're all walking like slow grandpas I wanna eat- JIN HYUNG BEHIND YOU!" Jimin suddenly yelled out noticing someone behind their hyung,who was the furthest away from the rest of the vocal line, still bent down tying his shoelace.
Jimin froze where he was. A man in a clichè bad guy ski mask had sneaked behind Seokjin.
"I'm not falling for that one Jimin, I'm coming, I'm comi-" Jin was cut off when hearing Jimin alert the oldest, the masked man didn't hesitate to put a rag of some sort against Seokijn's mouth and nose. Caught by surprise Seokjin almost fell face first into the pavement, but the assailant seemed to be a lot stronger than him and using his other hand to grab Seokjin by the hair the man dragged the oldest vocalists towards a nearby van with its head lights off, doors open and motor apparently silently running. All the while Seokjin was giving out muffled screams and trying to pry the man's hand out of his hair
Having faster reflexes than the rest Jungkook sprinted forward. Acting on instincts alone and without thinking Jungkook was reaching for the man with an intent to pry him off Seokjin "You! Stop! Let him go!" He yelled at the masked man in English, with a voice a little shaky and scared yet loud and serious. All of a sudden from the darkness Jungkook saw something sheer fall over him tangling his limbs as he fell over.
What the hell?
It was see through kind of a material and felt like a lot of entwined strings. It was a net. Jungkook had been trapped in a net like some kind of a wild animal.
In the shadows two more men approached, one of them didn't hesitate to grab the end of the net to drag the youngest of the group to the direction of the awaiting van. "RUN!" Taehyung had been cornered yet he still yelled at Jimin from where he was, the third man was pointing something dark and shiny at him. Jimin couldn't see what it was, but he had seen that stence in movies, shoulders lowered both hands grabbing something and that something being pointed at his best friend
"They got a gun, Jimin go!" Jimin was frozen in place still. Taehyung had both arms up in the air and the man approached him and grabbed him, turning him around just to point the gun in Taehyung's face making them both back away slowly to the van where one of the men were still struggling with Jungkook who was still putting on a fight even while still in the net. Seokjin isn't moving or struggling anymore. He was just now laying there on the floor of the van.
The first man who had grabbed Seokjin was now free; he took the gun from his masked associates hand and pointed it at Jimin!
"Get over here or I'll shoot!" The man yelled in English. He was yelling in Jimin's direction pointing the gun at him.
Jimin isn't a hero. He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to be in the masked men's clutches. And he was oh so close to a corner with a hard fenced wall.
He can't help them. He can't… he can't.
"NOW!" The man yelled with more aggression in his voice.The man shouts and points with his other hand down beside himself. Like asking an unobedient dog to come sit at his master's feet.
"JIMIN GO!" shouts Taehyung, but it ends up being a pained cry when the now gunless man grabs Taehyung by the hair just like the first one had done to Seokjin.
Jimin winces from the sound yet he stares down at the gun.
He can't help them.
Jimin drops the white and green 7Eleven bag to the pavement floor and bolts out of there. He runs hearing something fly past him as he rounds the corner. Jimin will later realize it had been a bullet, missing his head by a few centimeters.
He can't help them.
They need help.
He can't help them.
Someone.
Anyone.
Help!
Please…
He can't help them…
Jimin repeats a small mantra in his head as he runs without looking where he is going. He doesn't know how far or long he has been running, but eventually he runs into two police men, patrolling a.k.a drinking coffee in their car. The two seeing a running foreigner first of all point their guns at him.
Jimin puts his hands up shows that he is harmless. Tries to ask for help using the limited amount of English words he knows.
"Help…Please! Gun!" Jimin whips his head where he was running from. And the policemen exchange glances "Told you it was a gunshot." Says one man to the other, his voice sounding slightly annoyed. Jimin is getting angry at how casual the man sounds. Like this is a normal daily occurrence for them and not the most terrifying experience Jimin has ever gone through.
Jimin tries to urge the two to go! Do their duty, their job! With desperate movements pointing in the direction he came from. Do they not understand that they need to save his friends? "Men took…my group! Friends!" He finds the words. "Took them… car! Van! Took them with gun!"
One of the officers seems to finally do something, the man takes his radio phone and from what Jimin understands calls for backup as he finally with his gun drawn approaches the place where Jimin was running from. The other one asks Jimin to get in the car and wait there while he follows his partner.
The officers come back empty handed yelling into their radiophones. They take Jimin to the station.
***********
Sejin finishes translating everything Jimin says back to officer Baker who writes down more notes and nods along. "A net?... and one gun…?" The officer murmurs to himself with his eyebrows knitted together in deep thought.
"All right." Says the man "If that's all you remember for now you are free to go, back to your hotel room that is… I know you're a foreigner, but as a witness it's better that you don't leave the country. There will be more people coming to question you tomorrow." Says the officer to Jimin who nods only half understanding. He looks up at Sejin who is extending his arm to shake the officers "We understand, all the members, managers and staff have a 90 day visa, will that be enough?"
"Hopefully," says the man extending his own hand for the handshake "Best case scenario is ransome. Worst… Well, we will keep you updated."
Jimin doesn't understand everything that the man had said. But looking at his manager's face Jimin assumes this is very serious.
***********
"Shit, it worked Mikey, you son of a bitch it worked!" Said the driver of the van, hitting the steering wheel with one of his hands excitedly. The man's mask had come off the moment they had started driving. Jungkook and Taehyung were sitting facing the tiny window showing the road and the back of the drivers head. He was a middle aged redhead. That's all they could tell from his voice and the back of his head.
"Careful now Al, that's our mother you're talking about." Said what was now assumed to be Mikey, with a laugh added at the end. Also around middle aged, he had dark brown thinning hair, gray eyes and sun-tanned skin. And he was also the one who was holding an unconscious Seokjin in his lap, who was laid on his side facing Jungkook and Taehyung. The man is currently binding their hyungs hands together with zip ties in front of him. Multiple. There were at least four or five zip ties just around his wrists, then more zip ties were added to bind the four together.
Jungkook looked at Taehyung who had his hands in cuffs in front of him, the cuffs were looking a bit rusty. Junkook doesn't know how or when his hands got tied but he could feel that he had some kind of rope binding them behind his back.
Why were their restraints so different?
"Michael, you dumb ass," the third man now removed his mask and ran a hand across his face, clearly annoyed. The man was as the rest probably middle aged, looked to be asian, could be mixed, but in the darkness of the van the man's facial features were unclear. Only dark hair and dark eyes were visible. "We were supposed to get the small one and you almost shot him!"
"This one was easier, he was all bent down and just ripe for the picking." Said Mikey or Michael or whatever his name is. "Also the small one had it coming, he ran."
"Bullshit. You literally made us stop the car when the taller one bent down, we could've driven a little further and gotten the smaller one in a quick grab and drive! He even moved away from the rest of the group!"
"Ughhh," Mikey exhales and rolls his eyes up his skull "Fine! You got me!... I just wanted this one!" Michael holds up Seokjin's bound hands to show the elder asian man who he is talking about like a child showing his mom which toy he wants at the store. "And look, it all turned out well, we got three! And look at them, they are perfect! We will get triple the amount now!"
"We already had a buyer for the small one!"
"So now let's get three buyers for these three instead."
"It can take months!"
"Or days… or even hours! Brighten up Ryan! We will soon be swimming in money! I mean look at them! Just look!" Mikey now grabs Seokjin by the face, squishing Seokjin's jaw between his thumb and the rest of his fingers. "With faces like these buyers will line up in no time, we'll get to take our pick-!"
"Don't touch!"
All attention is now on Taehyung who had interrupted the conversation between the two men with his deep voice. Jungkook has his eyes wide with fear as he is nervously looking between Taehyung and the two men. His gaze occasionally falls on Seokjin, who is still in the man's…Michael's lap.
Mikey laughs, ending the tense silence in the back of the van "Oh, would you look at that? Face so pretty but voice like a growling old dog."
Mikey follows Taehyung's tense gaze that's pointed at Seokjin. Mikey lets go of Seokjin's face and uses the hand to pet his own chin in a mock thought. "Don't touch his face you mean? I see, I see." He strokes up and down his chin and pulls a face like he is contemplating his next decision.
Mikey, puts his pointer finger up in the air like he had finally figured out his thought. Ryan murmurs something unintelligible, pulls a face and looks away from the scene.
"How about I touch him here then?" Mikey lands his hand on Seokjin's hip right where his oversized hoodie ends. The older man's fingers start to slip closer and closer to the hem of the hoodie where there will be nothing separating the man's fingers from Seokjin's bare skin. The man looks straight at Taehyung, "Is this better?" The man asks, smiling, mocking the angry second maknae.
Taehyung, pulling the most hate filled gaze he can muster up, just stares at the man's hand and says nothing. Fearing what will the man do if he speaks or if he says the wrong thing with his limited vocabulary.
Jungkook hazardly looks from Taehyung to the man's hand, alarm bells going off into his head. No one should be allowed to touch any of them like that without consent. So when Mikey's hand finally slips under Seokjin's hoodie and onto his waist Jungkook speaks up, with a desperate voice. "Please, no… company will pay, don't touch…him. Okay? Don't. Okay?" Jungkook knew English a little better than the rest of the group excluding Namjoon. He was almost at the same level as Yoongi now, he could understand and give simple short sentences.
"Don't, please!" He repeats looking into Michael's direction. They most likely want ransome. Why else would Jungkook, Taehyung and Seokjin be kidnapped? So that means the men won't hurt them. Right? To get the money he and his members need to be returned safely. The Company is doing very well financially because of them… they will pay and all this will be over soon! The words that follow make Jungkook's heart drop.
"Ohhhh? Hahaha!" Mikey pulls an amused face and slaps Seokjin's hip like he was hitting his own knee hearing a funny joke. "You think you're kidnapped for ransom money? No silly, that shit is too dangerous."
"We aren't gonna contact your family or your company. That automatically involves the police and you see we don't want that."
"You're up for auction! You three are getting sold to the highest bidder!"
Jungkook understood that… he knew the meaning behind those words. He looked at Taehyung who looked lost, most likely not understanding what their captor had said. Jungkook could tell his own eyes were now swelling up with tears. Taehyung seeing their maknaes face change from fear to tears after the man had spoken looked pointedly at Jungkook. Demanding answers.
"Tae…hyung… he said… he said we are getting sold."
