He didn't remember when the pills stopped helping—only that one day, he stared at the bottle and thought:
I want to feel this.
Because feeling meant he was still here.
Still fighting.
Still human.
The pain didn't destroy him.
It shaped him.
Therapy became his ritual. His checkpoint.
He sat across from someone who didn't flinch when he said her name.
Didn't rush him when he sat in silence for twenty minutes.
Didn't look at him like he was fragile.
Just... listened.
Week by week, piece by piece, he spoke.
He dug into himself and bled honesty.
The guilt. The confusion. The ache of being abandoned without a map.
The therapist helped him name his feelings. Gave him space. Tools. A place to put the love that had nowhere to go.
He stopped drinking.
Stopped blacking out.
Stopped pretending he was okay just so people would stop asking.
He started again.
Started breathing. Started journaling. Started answering calls again.
One of those calls was from Taehyung.
He flew in after finishing a hellish filming schedule. No delay. No sleep. Straight to Jimin's apartment.
And the moment Jimin opened the door, Tae pulled him in like his life depended on it.
"I'm sorry," he kept saying. "I should've been there—I didn't know—fuck, I didn't know."
Jimin didn't reply. Just let himself be hugged. Let the air get thick between them.
Tae kissed his temple, his cheeks, like a hyung would, like a best friend would.
Like someone trying to erase bruises with affection.
Tae's presence didn't heal him.
But it helped him breathe easier.
Then came Jin.
Freshly discharged. Older, broader, eyes a little wiser. He didn't say much.
Just looked at Jimin and said, "Come here, my baby chick."
And for the first time in months, Jimin laughed.
That ugly, scratchy, cracked kind of laugh that feels like both a wound and a balm.
Then Namjoon. Then Hoseok.
They filled the house with noise. With warmth. With food. With reminders of who he used to be and who he still could be.
They didn't try to fix him.
They just didn't let him be alone.
Until finally, Yoongi was back too.
Discharged. Still sharp. Still gentle in that uniquely Yoongi way.
He brought silence and music, coffee and sarcasm.
Sat with him on the floor at 3AM like they were seventeen again.
"I'm proud of you," Yoongi said one night, eyes on the city lights outside. "Even if you don't feel proud of yourself yet."
Jungkook, though?
Jungkook was still gone.
Not physically. But everything that made him Jungkook—his grins, his chaos, the way he annoyed people just to be loved harder—felt like it had been stripped away.
He was distant. Cold. Stuck inside a war no one could enter.
His texts were slow. One-liners. Sometimes days apart.
Taehyung and Jimin didn't wait.
They timed it right—knew Sayuri was out of the picture that day, off doing another one of her influencer brand launches.
When they entered his place, they expected a mess. But not this kind.
It was too clean. Too quiet.
And then they saw him.
Jungkook. But not really.
His frame was sunken into the couch like it had swallowed him whole. Shirtless, pale, hair unwashed and damp. A bottle by his side. A second one open. Eyes bloodshot but eerily... empty.
Sayuri's poison hadn't just changed him—it was killing him slowly.
"Get up," Taehyung said, jaw clenched, voice trembling.
Jungkook barely turned. "Why?"
"We're taking you out," Taehyung snapped. "No excuses. No her. Just us."
Jungkook laughed. It was bitter. "You don't get it, Tae. I can't even move without her showing up in my calendar."
"You're letting her destroy you!" Taehyung barked, stepping forward. "You think this is you? You think this lifeless version is what we're supposed to accept?!"
"I'm trying!" Jungkook suddenly shouted, stumbling to stand. The bottle hit the floor. "You think I want this?! You think I don't know I'm drowning?!"
Fists clenched. Shoulders squared. Taehyung moved first.
But Jimin got between them.
"Enough."
He didn't yell. Didn't even raise his voice.
Just stepped into the space between chaos and collapse.
He looked at Jungkook—really looked.
And he saw himself. The hollowed version of him that existed after Celine left.
But this? This was worse.
Because Jungkook wasn't just broken. He was trapped.
Caged in a life curated by someone else.
Jimin took a breath. Then wrapped his arms around him.
"Get out," he whispered. "The moment you get a chance, run. Go somewhere. Anywhere. Heal. Before this version of you becomes permanent."
Jungkook didn't move. Didn't speak. But he leaned into the hug just enough to let Jimin know—he heard him.
Jimin pulled away, grabbed Taehyung by the sleeve.
"Come on," he murmured. "Let him brood. Let him grieve. He'll come back to us. He's not ready yet... but when he is, the trinity will rise again."
They left without looking back.
But that night, Jungkook lay awake.
Staring at the ceiling.
And maybe, just maybe, something shifted.
A whisper of hope.
A crack of light in the fortress she built around him.
He took a bag. A duffle bag. Stuffed his things. Whatever his hands could land on.
Until he saw it. A recorder. Tucked beneath his bed enough to conceal.
For safekeeping. It said, in fine print in her handwriting.
***
One night, Jungkook just turned up to one of their dinners. Eyes on him. Not one said a word. No one dare because he looked like he just finished a battle with the Spartans.
Taehyung glanced at him. Remembering the night he squared him.
But Jimin pulled up a chair beside him. The sound of the chair pulling cut the tension in that room.
No words were spoken.
He sat.
He ate what Jin placed in front of him.
He drank what Yoongi gave him.
He listened to Hoseok's cries and banters.
Gave a scowl to Taehyung. Clearly not yet over about the last time they spoke.
Until he spoke:
"I'm leaving for a while."
No one stopped him.
No one begged.
Because sometimes escaping was the only way to survive.
But somewhere in the back of his mind, Celine's voice echoed:
"He should leave the country. He needs space to heal."
He never told Jungkook she had said that.
Never would.
Some memories were meant to stay sealed.
He stopped chasing her ghost.
Stopped tracing songs back to her.
Stopped wondering what he could've done better.
Not because he stopped loving her.
But because he finally started loving himself.
She left, and it broke something in him.
But healing?
That was his choice.
And he was making it every day.