Y/N

" Jungkook...."  I squeaked out his name. " Jungkook. No.No No. Jungkook. What have I done?" I curled up on the stairs and cried like a child. " I am sorry. I shouldnt have done this to you... I..."

" Y/N. Hey hey.  " Jimin came in swiftly descending the downstairs and sat beside me to curl his arm around me. " Y/N... Its ok ."

" No… he never lied to me. Not once. He was screaming the truth in every breath he took, and I..God" My sobs ruputred. "I was too blind, too scared to hear it. He was always Jungkook. My Jungkook. I knew it. My soul recognized him even when my mind was drowning in the web of deceit Jake spun around me. But I let doubt in. I let it rot everything he built between us. I betrayed the only person who loved me without asking anything in return, Jimin...now...I.." I took a gulp down as my cries were interrupting. My chest tightened with several knots. "Now I can't undo it. I can't take back the way I looked at him like he was a stranger. I can't take back the silence when he needed me to believe. And the worst part? ."

" Y/N." He swiped his palm on my back as my breath was shaking.

"I .. I...I...knew. Somewhere, in the quiet corners of my mind, I knew it was him. But I let the lies win. I let them kill the truth. And now... now he is gone." I grooved my face to his chest. " I cant do this, Jimin...I cant do this...like Freya said , May be I should die . I let him die while he just wanted was me.. "

" Y/N.  Stop saying such things, will you?" His voice shuddered and rumbled at his chest.

The name 'Jungkook',it doesn’t just resonation in my chest. It haunts me. It is carved into the walls of my grief, and I cant dissociate myself from it.

"Y/N... look at me." He curled his fingers at my chin and lifted my head. His eyes met mine. "You didn’t fail him.You were thrown into chaos, ripped from the truth, suffocated by lies. They spun a world around you so cruelly that even love got buried in doubt. But he.." His voice softened."He..Jungkook,he never doubted you.He might have lied about his identity to me. But about his heart, about his love..." He sighed. " "You don’t get it, do you?" His voice trembled."That fucking asshole ,Jungkook..he loved you with everything he had. It wasn’t just love, Y/N. It was survival for him. You were his light when everything else was burning to ash."

He swallowed hard.

" I watched him fall apart every time you were in pain. Every fucking night. I saw him healing his own wounds just to be strong for you. Do you understand what kind of love that is? " He raised his brows at me."The kind that doesn’t die when the body does. The kind that lives on in your guilt, your memories, your fucking heartbeat."

His thumb found my tears ,that slipped warm from eyesm

"His love for you... it’s still in there. And it always will be.He knew your heart, even when your mind was at combat with itself. That’s why he kept loving you. That’s why may be he never stopped fighting, even when you didn’t recognize him, the first time you saw him at the club and kissed him like your soul was entangled with him. " I gave him a gentle nod.

"Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t carry all this weight.You were hurting. You were scared. And still, you held onto him in ways you couldn’t even see. That pain in your chest? That ache when you thought he was Ian? That was love, Y/N." His words came in whispers. He is always your Jungkook. And you are always his sunflower.Don’t let your dismay drown that truth. He wouldn’t want you to.." He mopped my tears by back of his wrist.

" Jimin... I miss him . I want him back.. I let him die in the blazing flames like he was nothing. You know .how .I ." I choked on my sobs." Even when it was hopeless… his fingers still clung to the edge of that stair, like he was fighting with everything he had just to stay with me. Just to live for me.  He looked so helpless, Jimin...his knuckles scraped, his skin torn, and blood… there was blood dripping from his hand."

My head fogged with the memories of his helpless eyes. Meanwhile a tear slipped down from Jimin's eyes that failed to loiter at his eyes.

"And… I..I did the unthinkable. I.... I struck his hand. I hit the one thing keeping him from falling. Because I was petrified… petrified that if Jake caught him, he would do something worse. He would dismember him, torture him. And I couldn’t watch that. I couldn’t let him suffer like that right in front of me." I clutched  on Jimin's arm. My tears drenched in a patch at his shirt.

"So I let him fall. I let him go... and he still looked at me like he loved me. Even while falling, he begged. " I cried out loud. " The last word that came out of his lips while he fell, was my name...Jimin.. my fucking name.."

" No. Listen to me!death can’t fucking defeat him!"His eyes turned crimson."You think it ends like that? You think someone like him just disappears because the world says so? No." He shook his head to me." No..no Y/N. "He took a gulped down coupled with a sniffle.

"He was made of fire, pain, and fucking love. A love that would never die. That sickening love on you will never fucking die.That kind of soul doesn’t die, Y/N,it rips through death, claws through it. He would never leave you, not even if the world burned or torn apart." He gentle held my shoulder."You are breathing because he protected you. You are shaking in fear because he’s not here, Y/N. And that’s how you know he mattered more than anyone ever will.. " His voice and words ruputred for split second. "He lives in the way your chest hurts ,when you say his name. He’s there, Y/N. Right there." He gently gathered my hand to his and escorted to my chest where I felt my heart pounding against my palm."Death can’t fucking defeat him. Because he is still fighting inside you."He sniffled. " Here. " He pressed his hand firm over mine that was rested on my chest.

My breaths became stable.

" Now… now we find everything. Every fucking truth,every lie, every secret buried in the dark. We dig it all out." His voice was sharp and firm.

"And I swear to you, I won’t let a single truth, no matter how cruel, how twisted to break you. I won’t let it drag you down or tear you apart.  Not while I am still breathing." He gave me a nod of assurance. "Whatever it is… we face it together. And  I will protect you from every damn piece of it, Y/N."

" Yes." I whispered.

" So, tell me what did you find last time?" He mopped off my tears again with his fingers and fixed my hair.

I gasped softly, the air scrapped off my throat.

The hair tie.

Jungkook’s mother’s.

It lingered there, tangled in the strands of my own hair, that Jake had sliced off like they were nothing.

The moment rushed back into my head and weighed down.

I could still feel the numbness rushed through me when he set the scissors at my hear while I was standing there with helplessness.

And I fucking lost that hair tie along with my hair. It hurt me because Jungkook always loved to tie my hair with it. And I lost it and him too.

" Y/N. What is it?" His mellowed gaze followed my countenance.

" Nothing.." I swallowed hard and cleared my throat to speak. I took a breath." Jimin, the last thing i found in here was the footage of my optogenetics session and .it was done by Jungkook."

" Wait, what?" His eyes went round and wide. " Son of of a ...." He made a disapproving sound.

" He fed me that it was done by Paxson. And it was him, this whole fucking time. " Jimin sunk into thoughts " thats why Jake was insisting to do hynotics to your head, because may be he knew that..."

" Jungkook did the optogenetics to my head. . " I finished off his incomplete words. "Jake wanted me to find that out and hate him.  "

" But why would Jungkook do the optogenetics to your head.?" Jimin's brows furrowed deep.

" He said he wanted to erase of my memories with the other Jungkook.  " I shrugged my shoulders.

" Why would he want to do that?" His lips curled inside. " Why would he even want to wipe out memories that go back ten years?" 

" Jimin, lets find out shall we?" I cut in.

" Yeah." He nodded and glanced at the boxes and its contents scattered on the wooden floor of the basement.

"That was me. " I stated.

" Yeah It clearly says, its you." He gestured his hands to the floor. "Lets dig in. "

I descended down the stairs further and walked to the box I pushed down to find the footage of the horrifying night Jungkook killed his parents.

I crouched down. I traced my fingers at the cassettes that were like more than thirty years old. I slowly picked the VHS cassette and curled into my palm. It barely fit my hands. I let out a soft chuckle as I read the label.' Ian and Jungkook, four years old ." My heart softened at the thought that I could see what Jungkook looked like when he was just four, through these old cassettes. This video could give me a glimpse into the future, a tranquil promise of what our son might look like someday, when we have a child of our own, if things went different.

" Y/N, what is it?" Jimin's voice came in sharp, slicing off my thoughts.

" Its um...." I exhaled " its a VHS cassettes of Ian and Jungkook 's birthday, when they were like four." I gave him a soft smile.

" Did you find out through these cassettes that he had a twin?" His question was firm like a barbed wire.

" No. Not through these.  It was..." I pursed my lips. " It was a Polaroid photo of them. "

" Where is it?" He wandered his eyes around.

" Somewhere here, Jimin. i threw out the boxes in frustration..and..." I sunk myself to think where would that polaroid photo might have gone. " The photo might have scattered here somewhere."

" Ok let me look for it. " He turned around and gazed at the floor.

" We can watch these birthday videos of them. But the videos are only until their fourteen birthday." My voice strike low.

" No, Y/N. Every single detail,no matter how small, it is important for us to understand what really happened. We can’t just overlook them. And I found that sweater with blood streaks on it.  It’s not just evidence, it’s a sign that something terrible happened to Ian and Jungkook. We can’t walk away from this until we know the truth ." His voice trembled.

I gave him a nod and stood up to forage for the Polaroid photo of Ian and Jungkook 's.

I rummaged through the dusty boxes, flipped them open to toss their contents aside in desperation. My hands were shaking with the urgency of it all. Somewhere in pandemonium I pulled, that Polaroid photo had to be here. Jimin joined me and crouched down, pulling apart the cassettes and CD's of my optogenetics session. He let out a gasp as his eyes captured the optogenetics sessions CD's. " Is this the one?"

I nodded. He sighed ."Alright keep looking for it. " He stood up.

Minutes passed, frustration was constructing in my chest like a thunderstorm, until my eyes suddenly locked onto a small, crumpled corner of the Polaroid, barely visible and peeking out ,under the sole of Jimin’s boot.

I glanced it paralysed.

"Jimin…" I choked on my words.  " You are standing on it."

He blinked his eyes in perplexity.

"The photo," I whispered and took a gulp down. "You are literally standing on it, and we have been fucking destroying everything in here to find it!"

He instantly, stepped off the Polaroid.

I lunged forward, and hauled it free from the sole of his boots.  I crashed the photo to my chest. And let out a shuddering gasps. I swiped the photo on my chest to dust off the dirts lingered on it. I pulled it back from my chest and took a look at it.

I gently swiped my fingertips over the faces on the Polaroid,two replication souls frozen in time. "They look the same." I whispered. My body trembled in pain.  A lonely tears swayed at my eye lid and slid down. It landed right on the one in the grey sweater,the one with J.K. embroidered over his heart. It was like the universe chose to let my tear fall on him. Jungkook. My Jungkook. My husband.

And then my gaze shifted to Ian,my brother-in-law. He is not just my brother in law, he is a wedge of my Jungkook.  A brother-in-law is like a son to any woman,not by blood, but by bond, by care, by every silent moment where love replaces obligation.

And Ian was never just my brother-in-law. He was the boy no one protected, the heart no one heard rupturing into shreds and pieces.And something perforated my heart when I saw him hurt, my heart reached out for his, not as a sister, not even as a friend,but as something deeper and firm,  maternal in a way. A mother.

I wanted to be the arms that held him when he flinched and quaked. I wanted to be the voice that told him he was enough and he was never a curse to the family. I wanted to be the one to make sure he never felt abandoned again. I wanted to be his mother,not the one who gave him life, but the one who would have died to protect her son. And I would die to protect him.I wanted to be the one who would have told him his twisted leg,his broken soul,his twisted arm,  none of them depicts him he deserve less love. He deserves love. More love from a mother. And I wanted to be one for him.

Because Ian didn’t need a sister-in-law. He needed someone to fight for him. To believe in him. To look into his eyes and see more than pain. And if I could be that,if I could be his mother in the ways he never had, then maybe, just maybe, he would learn that he was never unlovable.

He looked so heartbreakingly innocent in the Polaroid. There was a softness to him, a fragile purity that almost didn’t belong in this world. That fading smile on his face,it gleamed like it was borrowed from Jungkook, like a piece of Jungkook's love had found a home in him too.

But as my eyes slowly moved downward, something tightened violently at my chest. His right arm.It looked strange. He had deliberately positioned it away and , hidden it from the frame, like he was ashamed, like it was a curse. And then his leg,his left leg,was bent awkwardly, slanted as though he couldn’t place it on the ground. I realized he must have been in pain, and yet he smiled.

I looked back up at his face and that was when the sob clawed its way out of me. His face,Jungkook’s face, that replica of the man I loved, was ruined. Jake had carved through it like it meant nothing. His flawless features were now slashed, disfigured. And his eyes the one that would have glistened with so much life,Jake gouged it out. Just took it from him like he wasn’t even human.

It shattered something deep in me. Because that wasn’t just Ian. That was a piece of Jungkook too. And they both were being torn apart because of me.

I let out shuddering sobs.

" Y/N..." Jimin pressed his fingers on my shoulder.

" Both of them suffered because of me, Jimin,."Clogs of guilt choked me. "If I had never walked into Jungkook’s life… if I had just stayed away… none of this would have happened."

Tears streamed down my face as I clutched the Polaroid to my chest, holding it like it was the last piece of them I had left. "I ruined everything," I whispered, the tears made its way to my lips. " I was supposed to love him, not lead him into this mess. And Ian… he never asked for any of this. I dragged them both into this. It was my fault,Jimin. My fucking fault..All of it. I dont know how to live with that. And..and.. I let Ian with Jake. He tortured him for ten years, Jimin. I just left him in that mansion and .."

Jimin sunk to his knees beside me, his fingers softly curled around mine as I clutched the Polaroid like it was all I had left in this world. His eyes weighed down with pain. Not just pain but a trace of understanding me.

" Hey… look at me." He said softly." You didn’t ruin anything. You loved him, Y/N. With everything you had. And he loved you so much. He chose you, Y/N. The universe chose you both to fall in love. And you both did."

Tears glistened in his eyes but he didnt let them scroll down his cheeks. " And Ian didn’t suffer because of you. He suffered because this world was cruel. Because the people who were supposed to protect him didnt . But you… you tried. You saw him. You wanted to be more than just a sister-in-law to him. You became his family.  In that short span of time, you became his family,Y/N. "

He gently stroke my fingers with his thumb."They chose you. Both of them. They loved you. Jungkook loved you, and Ian wanted love from you, like a sister, a sister in law , a friend or may be..."

" A mother " i whispered as another tear slipped down.

" You didn’t destroy their lives. You were the only light they had in it." He gave me a gentle and comforting smile.

" Jimin, did your team save Ian. Did they find him? Did they find Jake? Because Jake would..."

" Y/N. " He cut in." No " he inhaled sharply. " They didnt find neither Ian nor Jake. I got the intel before we reached here "

" What? Where would they go? How did that ..." I bit back my words. I took a moment not to explode my wrath over him. " Jimin, that sick bastard would hurt my Ian. He would do unspeakable things to him and how did your team didnt even get a glimpse of them?"

" Before they could get them, they disappeared ,Y/N. I have instructed them to find them one way or the other. Ok. Ian will be fine. Your Ian will be fine. I promise you.." He gently pressed his fingers on mine assuring the promise.

" If not, you can watch me how effortlessly I can take my own life " i threatened. " And i will do it right in front of your eyes. Because I dont want to live in a world where my Jungkook and a piece of him, Ian, is not there. And you can live with the grief that you have failed another sister of yours. And she died in front of your eyes "

He let out a shuddering gasp." No. Y/N. Please for god sake! I promise you , Ian will be safe. No matter what. Just stop talking like ..."He trailed off.

I gave him a firm nod.

A moment of painful silence lingered between us.

He sniffled. " Let me have a look at it." He spread his palm to me. I gently removed the polaroid photo from my chest and placed it on his palm." Careful, thats all is left for me."

His eyes mellowed as he gazed the photo. " Motherfucker never told me he had a copy of himself." He let out a weak chuckle.

He gazed at the photo for longer minutes and then all of a sudden his countenance shifted into a suspicious groove.

" What is it?" I asked him instantly.

" Y/N, did you watch the video in the cassette?" He glanced at the VHS cassettes of Ian and Jungkook.

" No." I shook my head.

He picked one of the cassettes into his palm." We need  a VCR player for this. " He gently placed the photo into my palm and I slid them into my dress's pocket.

" Why? Why do you wanna watch that?" My brows furrowed.

" There is something off in the photo, Y/N." He retorted and stood up to look for something. Probably the VCR player.

" What is off in that photo?" I squinted my eyes at him.

" Y/N. Look for a VCR player. We might need to connect it to ..."

" There is a PC system. " I slice in.

" Where is it?" He cocked his neck to me.

" It’s in the other room," I said, swallowing hard and pointed toward the ominous green door like it was the gateway to some cave of horror. "Right through there" I glanced at Jungkook’s dead specimen preservation chamber.

" Great.  We can connect the VCR to digital converter and then we can transfer the video into the PC system." His voice was slashing in urge." Keep looking for the VCR, I will check on the digital converter." He marched to the spooky green door.

" Jimin, just keep your eyes down while you walk through that room. Welll, it actually leads you to another room and thats where the PC system is. " I took a sharp inhale.

" Why should I keep my eyes down?" His brows furrowed. " Its not like I will be hunted by a ghost in here." He gave me a smirk and kicked the green door and stepped in.

" Just keep your eyes down." I warned him again. Because Jungkook literally had my mom's head preserved in a fucking jar and Clark's one hand and one leg in two jars. Hope it wont scare the shit out of...

" Holy motherfucking shit!" He screeched.

" Told ya." I sighed and walked to the corner of the basement to hurl out the stacks of boxes aligned one above the other to hurl put and forage for the VCR player.

" Whose . Whose.." His voice was disintegrating. 

" Its my mom's and the leg and hand belongs to Clark. " I retorted concurrently flipping the boxes to check its contents.

" Damn, why is he preserving them.." His blurts were resonating which indicated that he was moving further into the room to get the PC system.

Meanwhile, a dull ache started crawling up my back as I bent and twisted, to hurl out one dusty box after another in the desperate hunt for that damn VCR player. The room was a mess of wires and relics.  With each box I shoved aside, the ache in my spine screeched louder. But I didn’t stop. Not until I found it.

Minutes passed , and I finally reached the last box to be unravelled. Before my fingers found the box's flipping lids, my eyes loitered on the photo of the two strange boys. The photo i didnt give a shit when I stepped inside this basement for first time without knowledge of my Jungkook.

I shoved my fingers beneath the photo and clutched it. I picked it up and took a gaze on the two boys. One with the pleasant smile and the other with an evil jotted all over the face.
" This must be the photo Jake talked about." I mumbled.
Do you know who they were.? Who the boys were? It was the other Jungkook and myself.
Jake's voice pierced into my head. Again. I locked my eyes at photo and drew my eyes to the two boys. " Who is the other Jungkook and who is Jake here? " I murmured trying to recall the other Jungkook's face from the footage i witnessed. By a sudden stroke at my mind, my eyes and my heart, lingered on the face that had evil jotted all over. My mind screamed it must be the other Jungkook.
" Y/N! " Jimin's roar fragmented my thoughts. " Y/N. I got them. Come on. You gotta watch this."
I quaked gently by the sudden pull off by Jimin's voice. I marched to through Jungkook 's dead specimen preserving chamber and reached the underground room.
My eyes fell on Jimin. He was sitting in front of the PC system with widen and broad eyes gazing at the monitor like it had him in a fucking strangling string.
" What is it?" Jimin eyed to the photo in my hand.
" Jimin, this is the photo that Jake was talking about." I shoved the photo into his hand. " Look at this. Jake said it was him and the other Jungkook. " His eyes transformed into a narrow slits as they were piercing the photo to perceive them.
"Which one among these is the other Jungkook? " I took a step closer to him.
" It must be him " Jimin placed his index finger tip at the boy that had the face of evil. My heart bounded a beat.
" I thought the same. " I whispered.
"I saw the footage from the surveillance camera on the highway, Y/N  and also the one mounted outside Jungkook’s house and yours. I mean, Paxton’s house. That’s the other Jungkook. He said pointing the boy with evil face .
" Then this must be Jake right?" I pointed my finger tip at the other boy that had pleasant face.
He nodded. And glanced at me in conundrum.
" Are you thinking,what I am thinking?" I asked him right way.
" Yes " he gave me another nod. " Jake looks different now. He doesn't look the same like in this photo. " He squinted his eyes at the photo again.
Master you look different when you are young
Travis, ..Trav...what did you say?you are not there to find my childhood photos. Look for the one you came for.
Who is the little guy with you, master.? In the photo i can see..
Shut up.  Look for the fucking thing. Is it there or not?
Travis words swayed inside my head.
"Jimin.." i called him out with a sudden realisation that hit me in split seconds." Before I tried to run from Jake," I whispered, the memory spiralled back to the scene. "I stabbed him with a wooden splinter. He stumbled back, clutching his face, and clawed out his glasses in pain." I paused. My hands set forth to tremble as the image of his face blazed in my mind. "His face... it was strange. Unnatural. One of his eyes wasn’t even in proper alignment, it seated lower than the other. And then I realized... it wasn’t real. It was prosthetic."
My breath fogged at my throat. "He gouged it out himself in pain. And then it hit me,he did the same to Ian. He gouged out Ian’s eye too... like it was some kind of offering to his pain. He tortured Ian to replace his pain. "
" How did that even happen to Jake's face, Y/N? " He glanced at me and to the photo. " Here, this boy, whom we perceive as Jake has perfect facial features and Jake..." He paused immersing himself into thoughts. " His biconcave glass looked suspicious to me but, I didnt affixed my mind there because he wasnt in our web of anything that happened before he revaled he was the orchestrator of everything."
He shoved the photo into his pocket " l  will convert it into a digital copy, and then I will run it through a biometric identity tracking system. That way, we can analyze the facial features and match them with Jake’s current identity. If the system confirms it, we will finally know if that boy in the photo was really Jake or not. No more assumptions."
I gave him a firm nod.
" Alright." He sighed. " I have got something to show you " he set forth to the hit the left click of the mouse.
I ran my eyes over the entire setup. The VCR player and the digital converter already wired to the PC.
"You found the VCR?"I asked with urgency coiled in my voice.
" Yeah, it was right here under the table,"he replied, nodding as he worked on connecting the cables. "He already had it rigged with the converter."
"Oh, God." I exhaled, rubbing my lower back and straightening up, hoping to crack the tension that had built up in my spine.
" You okay?" I took a glance at me .
" Yeah " i nodded.
" Alright lets watch this." He clicked the mouse cursor on the keyboard displayed on the monitor which made me to recall that I broke the keyboard into two pieces while I smashed it on my Jungkook 's shoulder.
Then he clicked on the video file to play it. The video commenced to buffer. My heart started to thump to my ears and throat bouncing like a thunderstorm.
"Ian, look at me. Look at eomma. Kookie, hold him,he might fall. And if he falls, you will fall too."
The voice that floated through the speaker was warm, soft and gentle. But it slashed me like a scythe.
And then I saw it. I witnessed the horror playing on the screen.
The fogging footage trembled as the camera struggled to focus. With a final shake the camera came focus on two fragile boys, clutching on each other. But not the way siblings do by curling arms on each other's shoulder. 
They were fused. Their tiny bodies joined at the arm. Jungkook’s right arm was melted into Ian’s left, their skin stitched together by nature or by something worse.

My breath shortened.

They weren’t just holding each other, they were one. Conjoined. Bound in flesh and in fate. Their small faces were concealed in perplexity ,in fear, in frightness. The innocence was concealed by terrible truth.
My stomach twisted and twitched. My soul couldnt grasp what my eyes was seeing.
My heart shattered and I couldn't look my Jungkook in adoration. He was just four in the video. The fear is what jotted all over that little face. His doe eyes, bubble shaped cheeks and that protruding pouting lips was depicting only the fear of not being able to help Ian to stand. Because the fused flesh at their arms were getting pulled off each time Ian fell to the floor as his twisted leg couldnt plant firm on the floor.
Each time Ian collapsed to the floor, Jungkook let out a cry that tore straight through him. It wasn’t just the emotional pain.It was raw. Their arms, fused together at the flesh, it depicted the twisted torment they shared.
When Ian fell, the skin stretched and tugged at the bond between them, yanking Jungkook down with him. The joined flesh turned crimson and wrathful as if the universe itself was punishing them for being born this way, for loving each other this deeply with whole heart.
Jungkook didn’t even try to brace himself .He just fell with him,every single time. He didnt back off or hesitated. No second thought. His only instinct was to keep holding on to Ian.
It hurts to see his little face contorted with fear and pain, his lips trembled as he whispered Ian’s name, over and over like a prayer lost to cruel pandemonium.
"I am sorry, Kookie… I didnt.. fall." Ian apologized with his little voice and disintegrated words. And Jungkook would just shake his head, clutching his little brother tighter, his voice shook." Its ok bun ."
I instantly looked down at my right arm, my breath clawed at my throat. My eyes locked onto the scar, the thin, cruel line of skin that didnt heal ,where he had tried to stitch his arm into mine.
The mark was still there.
A phantom of his desperation. Of his madness. Of his love.of his possession.
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