Chapter Text
Sickos shouting death threats at idols? Unfortunately, not new.
Actually pulling the trigger? That’s a first for Hoseok.
He’s not even aware that’s what it is at first.
Just a sudden sense of wrongness.
There’s no pain, there never is, but there is pressure. Force. A shift in the lights around him as something burrows its way into his forehead.
He takes a professional approach.
Immediately grateful to the choreography positioning him on the outer edge of the stage. Meaning he can pretend to jump at the effects and spin around just enough. So that his face is turned away from the audience and the rest of the members. Pretending to cough, doubling over to lift his hand to his face, to let some of his hair cover his forehead.
Covering whatever the wrongness is.
He has some ideas. He won’t entertain the thought right now. Not in front of thousands of fans.
Not when the rest of the members are watching out for him as he breaks outside the choreography.
Yoongi, positioned closest to him, shoots him a glance that’s only barely letting slip concern.
He bats away the worry with a smile and a waved hand. The beat picks up, and in practiced ease he’s back up, jumping on his toes and rapping into the microphone.
The lights are burning into his eyes. He can’t see the audience anymore, the purple lights blurring into a mess of color and motion.
He just counts his steps, remembers his voice, and pretends his lungs are gasping for breath as he dances and sings.
The final concert of their tour ends in deafening applause, waving purple lights, and fireworks
BTS gives their heartfelt thank yous and speeches. Hoseok makes sure his moment is short and sweet, and prays that the camera trained on his face isn’t too close.
And then with a bow and hands entwined, the audience screaming for more they won’t give tonight, the lights cut out.
In the darkness, Hoseok finally allows his hand not holding a hand to trail up to his forehead.
He brushes against something warm and solid.
His fingers come back slick.
He can’t tell if it’s sweat or something else, but he pushes the hand into his pocket and rushes off stage with the rest of the group.
There’s weary congratulations from everyone, and stylists already swarming to wipe away their makeup. Hoseok makes a b-line for the restroom, apologizing to the stylists as he gently bats their hands away, and locks himself in the dressing room’s adjacent washroom.
With a breath, he removes his hand from his pocket and stares.
His fingertips are tipped in red.
“Oh fuck,” Hoseok mutters, turning towards the mirror.
Wide eyes stare back at him. Face sculpted in layers of makeup for the stage. Lipstick only slightly smudged. Bangs fanning over his forehead.
It just looks like a person. Nothing wrong.
He heaves out a stale breath and lifts his bangs up.
It’s not pretty.
In fact, it’s horrifying.
Sucked and puckering deep in the center of his forehead is a deep red puncture. The skin inflamed, angry and red, with lacerations around the edges as well as a ring of swelling blood.
Lodged in the middle, keeping most of the blood inside, is a glossy metal shell.
A bullet.
He drops his bangs back over the wound, and heaves another sign as his hair covers it perfectly.
No one would be any the wiser.
He’ll give the shooter props. Whoever nailed the bullet between his eyes is clearly a professional. The pop of the barrel had been entirely lost to the sound of the fans cheering and the firework effects of their grand finale.
They must be going insane from whatever vantage point they shot from — because he’s pretty sure it’s a sniper. No one could enter the stadium with even a butter knife. He knows BigHit doesn’t cheap out on security. Not after everything.
He presses the palms of his hands against his eyes, wracks his brain for any mention of death threats on the internet.
Nothing current comes to mind. If there was, they’d all know about it and take precautions.
This was the real deal.
Not some internet sicko wanting a short time in the spotlight. Not an empty threat just to get a rise out of fans.
A true professional.
Or, and he shudders at the thought, someone who’d pay for one.
He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He grips the sink. Hard. The material creaks under his fingertips, and leans against it.
His reflection looks sick, shaking and smiling.
Someone actually went out of their way to kill him.
It’s like New York City, like Texas, like Japan, but so much worse.
Because a bullet flew.
A bullet landed.
And it’s in his head.
He can’t even begin to wrap his mind around it, and for his own sanity he won’t. All he can do is slowly slide down to his knees on the tile floor. Remind himself to breathe. Not because it works, but because it makes him feel a little better.
A little more alive.
“You’re okay,” he whispers.
His hands itch to hug himself, but he forces his fingertips to not even graze the edges of his stage costume.
If anyone sees blood on him anywhere, it’s over.
“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
He continues to mutter the mantra as he pulls himself to his feet. Washes his hands, runs the water to scalding and scrubs until not a speck of red is mixed with it. He wipes away the makeup with wet paper towels, and dabs his cheeks with his hot hands to add some color to his pale complexion. Corrects the face in the mirror. Forces his eyes to be less wide, alters the wrinkles on his brow, smoothes out the tension at the edges of his lips, until there’s not a spec of terror ingrained anywhere on the features staring back at him.
“Well,” the reflection says to him, smiling in the sly way friends do when they share an inside joke. “At the very least, out of all of us that could have been targeted on that stage, it was you. That should count for something.”
And strangely enough, that helps.
Because, out of all the heads a person could have targeted, it was his.
Jung Hoseok.
The single individual on this planet — at least he thinks he’s the only one, there could be more like him hiding in plain sight — who’s already dead. A walking corpse puppeteered by its spirit, continuing to live out the life that was robbed from him years ago.
“Hobi-hyung?”
The voice startles him. He slams his elbow against the sink and curses at the noise. A voice that sounds like Taehyung belts out an apology, muffled through the door.
“Tae, is that you?” he wheezes, hand over his not-beating heart. A reflex, more than anything.
“Mhmm.” Taehyung says. “Are you okay? Our rides arrive in ten minutes.”
Hoseok takes one last look in the mirror, brushes his bangs further over his forehead, and unlocks the door. Taehyung’s doe eyes stare back at him, and he does his best to smile without clenching his jaw.
“I’m okay. Just got surprised.” Hoseok affirms, pretending to rub his elbow. Taehyung raises an eyebrow.
“You don’t look okay. You’re pale.”
“Am I?” He looks back at the mirror, but at this angle he can’t see himself anymore. “Do I, at least, look passable?”
“Sure?” Taehyung shrugs. “To most people you’d probably look fine, at a distance. Seriously, you still have patches of makeup on.”
Hoseok laughs, and makes sure to bend his head down rather than lifting it up. He’s so nervous his hands are trembling, and he’s so fucking cold .
“Fucking hell,” he says at last. “I guess that’s what I get for breaking down in the bathroom.”
Taehyung’s eyes darken immediately. “Do I need to get someone?”
Hoseok shakes his head, waving a hand dismissively. “I’m better now. You know how it gets sometimes.”
“… alright.”
Bless his heart, Taehyung drops the conversation.
He links his arm in Hoseok’s and practically guides him outside and into the dark van waiting for them. Sends the rapper to the front seat and leaves no room to argue.
Soon the rest of the group crowds in along with the driver, and the van ambles away from the stadium.
Everyone crashes then.
A collective sigh fills the space, and Hoseok watches from the rear view mirror as postures shift to slumps. Post-concert, no paparazzi, and the lull of the car engine is all most of them need to fall asleep, or teter on the edge of.
Hoseok just dips his head lower, closes his eyes, and waits.
That’s the worst part.
The waiting. It makes his mind hyper aware of each aching second, passing much slower than he knows a second should. It makes him so very aware of his forehead. Feels each individual strand of hair brushing against blistering skin and the slick surface it curtains. The crushed cap of metal wedged into his scalp.
Eventually they reach the hotel, and at least the staff do their best to keep their stay there as secure as possible. Taking the ‘celebrity entrance’ and the private elevator that takes them to their floor.
The group splits once they step foot on the silent floor, muttering good nights between yanks as they split off.
Hoseok drags himself through his hotel room door, key card limp between his fingers. The room is lavishly furnished and practically untouched, a large window making up an entire wall to take in the view of the city. Rooftops and windows of other high-rises adjacent.
He closes the door behind him. Leans against it as the latch and the electronic lock click into place, and then he moves.
There’s an ice bucket in the mini fridge. He drags it out along with a cold water bottle.
There’s a tissue box on the desk by the television.
Hand sanitizer on the bathroom sink. A hotel vanity set with some cotton pads. A nail clipper.
He lays them all out on the bathroom floor with shaking hands. Lifts away the shower mat and throws it inside the tub. Clears the space as best he can of anything white and fabric. Anything that can stain.
Then, he pushes his hair up out of his face with one hand, and grips the nail clipper tightly in the other.
Turns to the mirror.
The person looking back is pale under the warmth of the lights. Glassy-eyed. Drenched in sweat despite the chill of the air conditioner.
It’s him. It’s always him.
But not the way he’s supposed to be.
With his hair pushed up, the bullet is plain to see now. A shallow puncture, swollen and red, the metal casing slightly askew like it’s been jammed into skin that didn’t know how to break right. The flesh around it is tight and bruised, but not weeping. Not bleeding properly. Like his body is stuck, still trying to decide if it's injured or just ruined.
He doesn’t give himself time to think.
He grips the nail clipper and slides the metal file out from the side. A small, curved tip.
That’ll do.
He sanitizes it. Pouring a palmful of cold hand sanitizer over the file until it drips onto the counter. Feels nothing as the gel splashes onto his skin. No sting.
He braces his left hand on the countertop, pushes his bangs back again, and leans in close to the mirror. So close his breath fogs the surface.
Then he starts to dig.
It’s a clean motion at first. Just pressing the edge of the file under the rim of the casing.
But the skin catches.
Flesh resists.
His skull thuds dully behind it all. Not pain, never pain, just pressure. Something shifting, then sliding, and then, finally, letting go.
He doesn’t exhale through his teeth but his body makes the motion of it, lips curling and teeth gnashing as the bullet finally loosens, the metal scraping against bone, sinew, and muscle. It makes a wet little pop when it comes free.
It tumbles out of his flesh, and his hand darts out to catch it.
It falls into his palm, stained dark red.
It’s so small. So… nothing.
A smudged little dot of death.
He drops it in the sink.
The bullet lands with a soft tick.
The hole left behind doesn’t bleed much. It just seeps, viscous and almost tired. The skin around it is puffy and bruised, raw and coldly inflamed.
He presses tissues and cotton pads to it until the weeping stops, then cubes of ice to the swollen edges.
Chucks all of the stained tissues and cotton into the trash and packs it down deep, any hint of red out of sight.
Then he opens his makeup bag.
His fingers tremble as he unscrews the cap of the concealer, the same one the stylists use for touch-ups between sets. It’s warm between his hands, somehow.
The applicator tip hovers just above the crater.
And he hesitates.
Scrunches his nose up at the thought of what he’s about to do.
Then, carefully, delicately, he pushes in.
The sponge head of the applicator sinks into the hole with a soft squish, and he squeezes beige cream into the bullet hole.
A temporary sollution to a long term problem.
Fills it fully.
Dabs more on.
And more.
Pushes it flat with a sponge.
Then blends it. Layers it with foundation. Powder. A press of setting spray.
By the time he’s finished, it’s flush with the rest of his skin.
“Okay. Done,” his reflection whispers back at him.
He cleans the bullet. Pockets it away.
He’ll bury it in the tomato garden with his murder’s corpse when he has the time.
And he will. This was their final performance. BTS’ tour is done, for now. Until their next comeback. Until their next show in some rented mansion, and pretend it’s a break.
He has time. He can do this.
He checks his reflection again, just to be sure.
Flawless skin. No rotting flesh. Sweaty, shining, hair. Not a hint of death in sight.
But the hole is still there.
He just buried it under a shade called ‘Natural Beige’.