chapter 4

The drive to Bighit was quiet, too quiet for Jungkook’s liking, the air in the van had begun to feel uncomfortable at some point, and the eldest’s unusual silence was unnerving. At first Jungkook had prodded his hyung for answers but when Seokjin had remained mute he had let the elder be, as there wasn’t anything else, he could do from his current position behind the wheel.

Seokjin sat passively in the passenger seat, his right leg lightly bouncing up and down to keep himself from unraveling in front of the youngest. His hands had begun shaking in his lap at some point so Seokjin decided to stick them – along with his phone which he had been holding – under his thighs so they would be pinned to the car seat and stop trembling.

When Jungkook pulled up to the curb outside the Bighit building, Seokjin didn’t even wait for the car to come to a complete stop before he was unbuckling his seatbelt and launching himself out the door, leaving the maknae behind in the car.

Sejin was patiently waiting in the somewhat empty reception for Seokjin, having arrived at the building a couple of minutes prior. Other than him there were a few late-night workers who were beginning to pack up for the day, and some trainees who had decided to stay late to practice, still roaming the halls.

The moment Seokjin pushed himself through the double glass doors and inside the building, the first thing he did was scan the whole room for the person whom he had told to meet him there. A few people had been staring at him after his entrance – it’s not every day that they saw one of the members crash through the building entrance wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt, looking ready for bed – but most of them quickly looked away and minded their own business, the only exception being a small group of trainees who had been looking on in awe before one of them snapped out of his daze and started herding the others down the hall.

The eldest member quickly spotted the manager in question and made his way over to the other in a fast pace, letting the glass doors fall shut behind him and almost hit Jungkook, who had gotten out of the car and followed the elder – after locking the vehicle – barely 10 seconds after Seokjin had left him behind.

When Seokjin grabbed the manager’s wrist, in a means to attempt to drag the giant with him, he was unsurprisingly stopped when Sejin didn’t move as little as an inch and Seokjin was the one who ended up being the one who had to catch himself from falling flat on his ***.

Sejin was kind enough to support the younger’s back so he didn’t fall backwards, which Seokjin was grateful for – he didn’t have the time to make a fool of himself when there were more pressing matters to attend to –. The commotion between the manager and idol was enough to rouse interest in the people milling around the room, and a few people sent curious glances towards the two males.

“Careful Seokjin,” Sejin berated the idol as he helped the other stand upright. Jungkook eventually came to stand beside the two and grabbed his bandmate’s arm to reel the elder back so he wouldn’t cause a bigger scene.

“Can one of you two tell me why I’m here right now? Namjoon didn’t give me more information than you telling him that I was urgently needed at the company building?” the manager asked the two.

“I need the code to Yoongi’s studio,” Seokjin said hurriedly, and Jungkook tightened his hold on the elder’s arm as if to wordlessly tell the other to take a minute to breathe and calm down – which perhaps was a bit hypocritical seeing as Jungkook felt high-strung too and didn’t think himself capable of calming down before the situation had been handled –. Sejin furrowed his brows at the younger but nonetheless reached into his jacket pocket and took out a key ring adorned with dozens of keys of all shapes and proceeded to remove a relatively small round piece of black plastic from the ring and hand it over to the eldest member.

Seokjin stared dumbfounded down at the piece of black plastic in his palm for a second before looking back up at Sejin for an answer as to what it was that the other man had handed him.

“Yoongi changed his code awhile back because he claimed too many people had access to his studio, and because he didn’t want anyone else other than him to have the code. But because of safety precautions at least one other person here needs to have access to his studio, so he agreed to have a chip lock installed which could override the need for a code. That’s the only chip that was made for the lock, so be careful with it,” the manager explained and gestured to the round black disk in Seokjin’s hand.

“I’m going to need you to have one of these made for me,” Seokjin told Sejin, looking at the chip that he was now holding delicately between his thumb and pointer finger. The small blank circle in the middle of the chip reflected the light from the ceiling when Seokjin experimentally flipped the plastic between his twitching fingers.

The manager could see that the younger’s hand was shaking now that it had been brought into his sight, and it worked to further make him question what had happened that would lead the eldest and youngest of BTS to come to the company building at such a late hour.

“I’ll see what I can do. Why do you need to get into Yoongi’s studio? Is he staying late again?” Sejin asked the younger, even though he already knew that the answer to the last question was `yes´.

“Something’s wrong,” Seokjin replied before turning away from the manager, shrugging Jungkook’s hand off of his arm in the process, and briskly walking towards the closest elevator within only a couple of seconds. Jungkook gave Sejin a tight-lipped smile before following his hyung in a light jog – that used up more of his remaining energy than it should have – and getting into the elevator just in time as the doors started closing immediately after he was inside.

Sejin was left to stare at the metal doors when they closed behind the maknae. Whatever was happening didn’t sound like it was good considering the tone of which Seokjin had used. The manager shook his head tiredly and glanced around the room where he instantly made eye contact with the receptionist who raised an eyebrow at him before going back to packing up their stuff.

Instead of staying in the reception and waiting for the boys to return like he had originally planned to do, the manager moved towards the elevator that was situated on the opposite side of the room, right across from the one Seokjin and Jungkook had taken, and made his way up two floors before the elevator stopped on the one Yoongi’s studio was located on and the metal doors opened.

The short walk to Yoongi’s studio didn’t take long, and as he rounded the last corner he would have to take, his ears were assaulted with yelling and the sound of banging.

In moments like these Sejin was happy about how remotely placed the rapper’s studio was, because if it had been on the main level or placed further towards the center of the building, someone would certainly have heard the excessive screaming coming from the eldest member of the company’s idol group and have come running to see what was happening.

Seokjin was seemingly talking to the door in a loud voice that anyone else – Sejin included – would classify as yelling, hoping that Yoongi would hear him through the door even though he knew the room was soundproof and had been so since a little over a year ago when the rapper had moved his studio from a room on the floor underneath them to this one.

The manager increased his pace and quickly approached the maknae who was standing silently beside Seokjin, most likely not knowing what else to do other than stand by his hyung’s side. When the youngest caught sight of Sejin he was quick to grab the eldest member’s right arm and redirect his attention towards the manager.

When Sejin caught the other’s eyes he wasn’t sure whether he was truly surprised that Seokjin looked on the verge of a breakdown or not after having heard what he had heard not even seconds before. The idol’s eyes were tinged red close to the edges and both corners of his mouth were pulled down into a frown, his former semi composed mask had been violently ripped off of his face at the prospect that something could be terribly wrong with his eldest dongsaeng without his knowledge.

“The chip doesn’t work,” Seokjin said, his voice strained as he struggled not to let tears that had gathered in his eyes fall and demonstrated by swiping the chip across the panel on the doorframe in a quick motion and pulling down on the door handle that didn’t budge more than a centimeter. At that Sejin grabbed the chip from the eldest member’s hand and lightly pushed Seokjin away so he could get to the scanner.

“You need to be more patient Seokjin. The scanner can’t recognize the chip if you don’t give it time.” And so Sejin pressed the blank side of the chip against the panel and kept the black piece of plastic there until a beep was heard simultaneously with a small green circle appearing in the upper right corner, and then they could hear as the mechanism in the door was shifted and the door was unlocked.

“You can turn the handle now but-.” Sejin didn’t get to say anything else before he was interrupted by Seokjin pushing his way past him so he could get to the door handle, which he – now that it was unlocked – proceeded to push down in one quick motion before shoving his way inside Yoongi’s studio.

Immediately as the door was opened a filthy stench filtered out of the studio and into the hallway. Sejin stumbled further away from the door because of the smell, and Jungkook brought his arm up to cover his sensitive nose.

The door to the studio slammed harshly against the wall – most likely leaving a dent in the plaster which Sejin would have to inform someone higher up about so it could get fixed – as Seokjin wasted no time getting to his dongsaeng despite the awful smell that had repelled the two others.

What Sejin saw when he entered the room – after having gotten a bit more used to the smell – was far from what he had been expecting – not that he had actually been expecting anything exceptionally bad to have happened to the rapper – and therefor he had not been ready for the sight the open door presented to him.

There, lying unconscious at the foot of the couch, face an arm’s reach away from what Sejin came to the conclusion could only be the male’s own puddle of vomit, was Yoongi.

The rapper’s visible cheek had a small red tint to it, but the rest of his face had turned an eerie ghostly white pallor. If he hadn’t been able to see Yoongi’s shirt moving, he would have thought that the rapper was dying or perhaps already dead, a thought that immediately sent a strange and uncomfortable tingle down Sejin’s spine.

Seokjin threw himself to his knees beside Yoongi and dragged his unconscious groupmate away from the vomit covered floor, turning him onto his back in the process. He tried shaking the younger male in an attempt at waking him up, but when that didn’t reward him a single reaction from his dongsaeng he manhandled the younger male back onto his side and into the recovery position in order to avoid any further complications that could have arose had the younger been left to lie on his back, like potentially choking had he started to throw up again whilst unconscious.

With most of the situation handled he once again became aware of the two other people who were in the room with him. Sejin was standing in the doorway and talking with someone on the phone, he could only hear the manager’s side of the conversation but could probably still have figured out whom the person on the other side of the line was if trying to piece the information he was getting together wasn’t hurting his head. Jungkook – whom he had forgotten in his haste to get to Yoongi – had frozen up just a few steps inside the studio. The younger boy had put on a mask to school his face in an attempt at hiding his emotions, but the tears gathering in his lower lash line gave him away.

When Seokjin stood up and reached out towards Jungkook the younger immediately rushed forward and into the eldest’s awaiting arms that wrapped themselves tightly around the maknae the moment he came crashing into them.

The moment Jungkook had been encased in his arms, the maknae broke down and the tears started falling freely from his eyes.

Seokjin felt the moment the younger’s knees buckled and he carefully lowered the both of them to the ground – despite the initial moment having come as an unwanted surprise, this was his dongsaeng and he had to make sure he was okay – and looked down at the younger with concerned eyes as he in that moment feared that the younger had fainted. He could breathe out in semi relief though, as a few seconds later Jungkook’s breath hitched in his chest and the elder could feel the maknae’s tears seep through his t-shirt as the younger shook in his arms. Seokjin set to carefully rub his hands in small circles on the younger’s back whilst mumbling comforting words into his ear, hoping that it would soothe the maknae.

Whilst comforting the youngest Seokjin took in the room. The light had been on when they got into the room so Yoongi couldn’t have been out for long seeing as the light had a sensitive motion sensor and would turn itself off after 20 minutes of no movement. Nothing else in the room looked to be on, the monitor on the desk and the one hanging on the wall both had black screens, the chair by his main station was pushed up against the desk as if it hadn’t been used and no papers lay strewn across the desk or crumpled up on the floor.

Seokjin caught sight of Yoongi’s phone laying against one of the wheels of his chair and reached out for it, trying not to jostle Jungkook too much. The screen was cracked it had turned out when he flipped it over in his hand, and it wouldn’t turn on when he pushed the power button, so he discarded it again.

Seokjin’s free hand continued its ministrations on Jungkook’s back until the younger’s cries started to die down. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but was positive that it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes since Sejin had yet to put down his phone.

Jungkook had at that point calmed down enough that he was only occasionally shaking. His breathing sounded clearer now and was no longer hitching in his chest every couple of seconds, it hadn’t completely returned to normal, but the wheezing had passed and Seokjin no longer feared that the younger was going to faint if he turned his back to him.

When Seokjin gently drew his arms back and pulled the maknae away from his chest so he could take in the younger’s face and smooth away the remaining tears as well as the tear tracks on his cheeks with the soft pads of his fingers, Jungkook no longer had the comforting sound of the eldest member’s heart filtering into his ears to calm him down, or the tight but safe hold of his hyung’s arms around him to ground him, and so he no longer had anything to distract him.

He didn’t want to look, but his eyes were immediately drawn to the unconscious figure less than a meter away from himself like a magnet. His tear ducts opened up of their own accord again and suddenly it was getting hard to see. It felt like someone was reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart as well as his throat at the same time. It was prohibiting him from breathing properly and he had been reduced to wheezing again. He couldn’t hear it himself, but to Seokjin it was loud, and it was scaring him.

Before Seokjin could stop Jungkook, the younger had pushed himself away from the elder and launched himself towards Yoongi. Seokjin had reached out to grab the maknae and pull the younger back so wouldn’t end up worsening things, but was unsuccessful as his fingers barely managed to touch the youngest’s shoulder before he was out of reach.

Jungkook laid his head down on top of Yoongi’s shoulder, and his hands grabbed onto the thin material covering his hyung’s chest as he let the tears he had been holding back leave his tear ducts and soak into his hyung’s black shirt. Now that he was closer to the vomit Yoongi had expelled he could vaguely feel his own stomach turn queasy at the smell. The nausea he had been feeling had already been bad but now it was building up to a level where he didn’t know whether he would be able to force it down considering how often nowadays he would find himself in front of the toilet throwing his guts up because he had failed to do so.

Hands were grabbing at his sides and shoulders gently, attempting to pull him away, but their touch felt uncomfortable and made his skin tingle so he shrugged them off when they would attach themselves and held onto his unconscious hyung tighter.

When the man beneath Jungkook let out a low groan the maknae froze, and so did the hands on him as well. Jungkook wanted nothing more than for the hands to disappear as the pricking turned to needles that got hotter for every second that passed by with the other’s continuous touch, but he couldn’t make himself move even when his gasping was no longer caused by the invisible hand around his throat and heart but instead by the very real ones on his shoulder and waist.

He watched with wide eyes and with his breath caught in his chest as Yoongi’s eyelids fluttered before raising that small bit that allowed Jungkook to see the other’s irises. He doesn’t know how, but the moment one of Yoongi’s hands made contact with the two hands he had fisted in the elder’s shirt the needles stopped and he felt the invisible hands gradually let go before disappearing entirely, letting him take his first full breath in what felt like hours.

The moment, however, was ruined when Yoongi started gagging.

Jungkook looked around the room with teary eyes for anything he could let the elder throw up in, but before he knew it Seokjin was already in front of him with a trashcan ****** underneath Yoongi’s chin, which was lucky as the rapper started throwing up clear liquid the moment Seokjin had managed to get the younger up into a sitting position.

When Yoongi suddenly tipped forward Jungkook reacted on instinct and wrapped his arms around the rapper’s midsection to stop the elder from faceplanting into the trashcan.

Seokjin put the trashcan down beside the three of them when Yoongi was done and shuffled closer to the two younger boys. He shot a look up to Sejin who was gazing worriedly down at them from the doorway – his phone was gone again, and now he just stood at the side a bit awkwardly because he didn’t know whether he should let Seokjin and Jungkook take care of the situation, or if he should cut in and do something about it himself considering Jungkook hadn’t looked to have been faring too well either a minute ago – before redirecting his eyes to Yoongi again.

He took the rapper’s face into his hands and lifted the younger’s head. Yoongi’s half lidded eyes met with Seokjin’s fully open ones for a few seconds before his eyelids lowered again and sealed away his eyes.

“Keep your eyes open Yoongi, you can’t sleep right now,” Seokijn said and lightly slapped the younger’s cheeks in the hope that Yoongi would open his eyes again and maybe even give one of his usual rude or snappish responses that would tell Seokjin that the younger was alright. But no such thing ended up happening, and the younger stayed silent.

Seokjin removed one of his hands from Yoongi’s face and reached blindly behind him to grab his phone from where he had dropped it before he had started tending to the rapper, seeing as he had had nowhere else to put it in that moment since the basketball shorts he was wearing didn’t have any pockets and he had forgotten to take his jacket with him when he left the dorm with Jungkook.

“Jungkook-ah I need you to hold his head up for me,” Seokjin told the maknae once he had finally managed to get ahold of his phone after having struggled to find it.

Jungkook looked up at Seokijn – from where he had been gazing down at Yoongi’s side profile with worried eyes – with furrowed brows, but nonetheless proceeded to lean backwards so it would be easier to keep the rapper upright – even though it made his abdominal muscles burn as he held the position – and put his right hand on the rapper’s forehead to keep his head up without obstructing the male’s breathing, whilst his other arm stayed wrapped around the elder’s chest.

When the maknae had Yoongi upright against his chest, Seokjin shuffled closer to the other two until his knees could touch the rapper’s inner thighs and he was within easy of not only the sick male but Jungkook as well, and lightly tapped the rapper’s cheeks until the other groaned and his eyes opened by a tiny sliver.

“Hey, good to see that you’re awake,” The elder said a bit jokingly, attempting to lighten the tense atmosphere a bit so he would get to see a smile on the maknae’s face again and so the band around his own chest would loosen up, before he grabbed ahold of both of Yoongi’s hands.

“Can you squeeze my hands Yoongi, just a bit.” Seokjin squeezed Yoongi’s hands to encourage the younger to squeeze back, and luckily it didn’t take long before the rapper did so.

“That’s good, can you open your eyes a bit more so I can see those pretty brown eyes of yours?” Seokjin asked the younger man whilst almost rhythmically tightening and loosening his hold on Yoongi’s hands to keep the rapper’s focus on him.

Jungkook snorted at Seokjin’s comment despite the tears swimming in his waterline threatening to fall – this time out of relief and not because his anxiety was starting to overflow – and ducked his head to bury his head in Yoongi’s shoulder when Seokjin threw him an unamused glare.

Yoongi groaned and attempted to pull his hands from Seokjin’s, though with him currently being depleted of all his energy and basically reduced to a ragdoll in Jungkook’s arms, not much happened other than the eldest jokingly groaning back at the rapper in a higher pitch, which in turn made Jungkook chuckle.

“Common Yoongi-yah, just a bit more,” Seokjin prodded the younger, and eventually after a bit more gentle coaxing from the eldest and from Jungkook – who had joined in and was gently rubbing Yoongi’s stomach and side above his shirt – Yoongi managed to peel his eyes open enough that a bit more than half of both his irises were visible.

With the rapper’s eyes now visible Seokjin grabbed his phone and turned on the flashlight application.

“You’ll need to keep your eyes open while I do this Yoongi-yah. Okay?” Seokjin said, and Yoongi nodded his head slowly one time in understanding whilst maintaining eye contact with his only hyung.

Though, despite the younger male agreeing on keeping his eyes open while Seokjin did whatever he was going to do, his eyelids seemed to have a mind of their own and fell to cover Yoongi’s eyes the second the light neared the rapper’s sensitive retinas.

“Hey! I thought I told you to keep those two eyes of yours open,” Seokjin said in a teasing tone as he poked Yoongi’s chest with the pointer finger belonging to the hand that wasn’t holding his phone.

The male groaned at the elder but preceded to open his eyes despite wanting nothing more than to keep them closed and sheltered away from the offending light.

“That’s it. Just a tiny bit more,” Seokjin encouraged the younger.

With his hyung cheering his progress on Yoongi managed to open his eyes fully.

Everything around him was so blurry that he couldn’t recognize the things he was looking at. His last memory was of him of being in his studio, but for all he knew his hyung could have moved him somewhere else. He couldn’t even properly make out his hyung’s face, and if he hadn’t been able to place the familiar voice on one of the faces ingrained in his brain, he would have had absolutely no idea who the person in front of him was.

He knew that there was someone behind him as well, but he didn’t know who it was as the person hadn’t said anything during the time he had been conscious – at least not anything that his brain had managed to register –. He could feel the person’s built chest pressing against his back, the legs on either side of his own two, the arm wrapped around his middle, and the hand against his forehead, there was a faint smell of sweat clinging to the person, a smell which would certainly have been much stronger hadn’t it been overpowered by the smell coming from the vomit on the floor less than a meter away from them.

There were all of these clues, but his head was in too much disarray for him to connect any of them.

Yoongi had been so far gone in his thoughts that he hadn’t reacted when Seokjin had shone his phone’s flashlight in his eyes. Which even though it was great for the eldest – as it meant the rapper kept his eyes open long enough for Seokjin to conduct his short test – was slightly concerning as the other male hadn’t blinked a single time during the last minute and a half.

With the test done and no other visible signs that supported his former suspicion, Seokjin could turn the flashlight on his phone off and put the device away with a conscience that was a little less weighed down with worry than before.

Jungkook raised his eyebrows at the elder which in turn made his eyes open wider, but the elder didn’t say anything. His legs and abs were beginning to cramp because of the way he was sitting in order to support his hyung’s weight, and the studio’s hardwood floor was pressing uncomfortably against his ischial tuberosities and tailbone.

Sejin walked into the room from where he had been leaning restlessly against the doorway whilst he had been talking to his boss over the phone, informing the CEO of the eldest rapper’s condition, and kneeled down on one knee next to the three younger males, a bit too close to the vomit – that he was sure had left a stain on the wood by now – than he would have liked.

Sihyuk had when he heard of Yoongi’s condition given the manager the go-ahead to take the rapper to the hospital to be checked up on, if Sejin believed that whatever illness he was suffering from had gotten to the degree that medical help would be necessary for the idol to make a full recovery.

The manager wanted to take the younger male to the hospital to find out what was wrong, but he didn’t know if doing so was actually necessary. With the information he had gathered so far – which wasn’t a lot – Yoongi could be suffering from anything from food poisoning to the flue, possibly something worse, but Sejin was afraid of adding a possible diagnosis to the growing list in his head that could potentially turn out to be dangerous for the small rapper, in the case that even considering such a thing could change the outcome for the worse.

Now that the manager was next to the rapper, the light red flush that he had been able to see from the doorway seemed much more vibrant on the younger’s otherwise pale face. He could see how the ends of Yoongi’s hair was shiny and sticking to the younger’s skin in a couple of places where Jungkook hadn’t been able to smooth it backwards when he had put his hand up to the other’s forehead in order to hold the rapper’s head up, and he could hear how his breathing didn’t sound clear.

Sejin snapped his fingers next to Yoongi to get the rapper to look at him. Seokjin’s and Jungkook’s eyes looked over at him immediately while the rapper’s unfocused eyes shifted towards him lazily after a couple of seconds and a few more snaps. It wasn’t that Yoongi hadn’t heard him, but he’d had a hard time figuring out which direction the sound came from at first.

With the younger’s attention now on his hand the manager continued snapping his fingers in front of the other’s face, shifting his hand from side to side in front of Yoongi, until the rapper’s eyes started following every movement of his hand. Sejin snapped his fingers next to the younger’s left ear, but pulled his hand back with a small smile when the rapper closed his eyes and tried to move away from the loud sound while a low whine sounded from the back of his throat.

All the while Seokjin and Jungkook looked on confused but also slightly amazed that the manager had managed to get Yoongi more alert in such a short amount of time.

“Yoongi, can you tell me where you are right now?” Sejin asked, and instantly motioned for Jungkook not to say anything with a sharp look and a quick shake of his head when he saw the maknae open his mouth to probably answer for his hyung who was having trouble making his vocal cords work. His mouth was moving to form the word that had jumped to the front of his mind when his manager had asked his question, but no sound was coming out.

Yoongi’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to answer the question, but the only sounds that would come out was weird staccato breaths and whines which were beginning to concern both of the two other members in the room, with Seokjin being worried that something had happened to his eldest dongsaeng’s brain when he had fallen onto the hardwood floor.

“Take your time, don’t push yourself,” Sejin told Yoongi as he gently rubbed the smaller male’s shoulders. He wasn’t too worried about the rapper’s current state as it was quite normal to be unable to communicate verbally immediately after having woken up after fainting.

The manager looked behind Yoongi and made eye contact with Jungkook – who was fidgeting around where he sat, trying to get more comfortable – and then turned around to catch Seokjin’s gaze.

Now that he was sure he had gotten both of the boys’ attention he opened his mouth to talk.

“I informed Bang PD-nim about what’s happened. For now, he says that Yoongi’s schedule tomorrow will be completely cleared, and depending on how bad this is he’ll get a number of the coming days off as well to recover,” Sejin told Seokjin and Jungkook, to which both of them nodded in understanding.

“Now it’s just deciding whether or not I’m gonna take him to the hospital to get a medical checkup, or if I’m gonna take all three of you directly to your dorm. Bang PD-nim has given the go-ahead to take him to the hospital if I decide it’s necessary, but I want to hear what you two think before I’m gonna make any decision. So, what do you say?” The manager questioned the two, looking from one to the other.

Jungkook opened his mouth to comment but closed it the next second, not yet completely sure what he wanted to say, and so Seokjin took the opportunity to voice his thoughts first.

“I would rather wait until tomorrow to see how bad it is by then. If it’s just as bad tomorrow as it is now then we’ll call you or one of the other managers up to take him to the hospital to get checked, but if not I think he’ll be okay to stay home and rest with us occasionally checking in on him,” Seokjin said, playing around with Yoongi’s fingers to keep the younger engaged.

“But hyung, what if Yoongi-hyung ends up getting worse after we get home or during the night?” Jungkook asked and tightened his arms around his hyung, to which said hyung grunted when the air was temporarily forced out of his lungs.

“Then I’ll be there to take care of him, that’s the only reason we’re not already on our way to the hospital,” the eldest member said, trying to reassure the youngest as well as stop him from working himself into a panic again, though it didn’t seem to have worked, because right as Seokjin finished talking Jungkook opened his mouth again.

“But-“ This time Seokjin didn’t let Jungkook finish his sentence, knowing that whatever would leave the younger’s mouth would only send the maknae into a downward spiral.

“Jungkook-ah, if worse comes to worst we can still take him to the hospital, everything’s gonna be okay, okay? Yoongi will be fine, nothing will happen to him, I’ll make sure of that,” Seokjin told the younger, letting go of Yoongi’s hands again and moving until he was straddling one of Yoongi’s and one of Jungkook’s legs so he and could bring both the younger and Yoongi into a hug.

“Okay,” Jungkook replied in a subdued voice, and leaned into his hyung’s touch, letting the unease melt from his body once more.

The tension in the room seemed to have lightened after the talk between the eldest and youngest, and Sejin looked on from the sidelines as they leaned closer – squeezing Yoongi body between their own two – to find comfort in each other.

“Studio.”

Seokjin and Jungkook froze when they heard Yoongi’s voice and quickly separated, with Seokjin drawing his arms back to his body so that he could move back and catch Yoongi’s eyes, which looked to be much clearer than they had before, and with Jungkook removing the hand that he had been holding against the rapper’s forehead since he took his position behind the rapper, so that he could shift Yoongi’s weight in his arms and peer over his shoulder.

“Could you say that again Yoongi?” Sejin said, encouraging the younger to keep talking to them.

“Studio. I’m, in the studio.  You’re here. Hyung, is here.” Yoongi’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and he opened his mouth to say something more, but stopped when he felt someone breathe against his neck. He turned his head in the direction the sensation came from but jerked back when his face almost collided with Jungkook’s, which had only been a couple of centimeters away from his own during that short moment.

“Jungkook is here,” he added quietly.

“That´s right,” Sejin said and gave the rapper’s left shoulder an affectionate squeeze before retracting his arm and moving back from the three members to give them some space.

Yoongi puffed a breath out through his nose and relaxed back against Jungkook’s chest, his left hand settled down on the forearm that the maknae had wrapped around his stomach and stroked the bare skin underneath his fingers lovingly as one would with their partner.

“You smell,” the rapper told the younger as his lips stretched out into a tiny smile. The best thing he could manage at the moment.

“Well, it doesn’t exactly smell much better in here,” the maknae said jokingly and gently rocked himself and the elder male in his grasp from side to side, not knowing that what he had said had hit Yoongi in a different way that he had intended.

The comment made Yoongi tense up – which in turn made Jungkook stop his rocking abruptly – and in the next second, all the memories that hadn’t been properly registered at the time of their happening came back to him.

When he had just woken up, he had originally been confused. He could somewhat remember having been in the studio, but that was all there was, and it had been causing his head to feel empty and him to feel detached. Now though, all the information he was bombarded with at once was almost too much for him to handle, and the bitterness that he could suddenly feel coating his mouth felt strange.

The next breath Yoongi took was a gasp, and he felt his mouth water. He tried to swallow down the nausea that had appeared, but the action only served to make it worse, and in the next second he could feel it making its way up his throat.

The three other males in the room turned to the rapper with a concerned look in their eyes at the gasp, and when Yoongi let go of Jungkook’s forearm and his right hand shot up to cover his mouth, Seokjin was quick to connect the dots and rushed to grab the already dirtied trashcan and put it under the younger’s chin for the second time that night.

The second oldest sat there and dry heaved every single time he felt his stomach tighten. At least 3 minutes had gone by before his abdominal muscles decided to stop clenching and finally let him relax. All the while he had been hunched over the trashcan, his hyung had been rubbing his back, and Jungkook had been lightly massaging his stomach.

Yoongi leaned back against Jungkook’s firm chest, and Seokjin swiftly removed his hand from where it had been sliding up and down the younger’s back before it could be trapped between the two bodies, and instead turned to put the used trashcan away again which he hoped they wouldn’t end up having to use a third time.

Sejin walked back to the doorway and leaned out to see if there was anyone in the hall, before turning back around and lowering himself into a kneeling position next to the three boys again.

“Do you think you would be good to go now?” Sejin asked as he gently grabbed ahold of the rapper’s left elbow, so that he could help the younger male get up if he was to say yes.

“Just give me a minute,” Yoongi replied before taking a deep breath.

Sejin let go of the younger’s elbow and backed away from the three when Seokjin puffed lightly to the manager’s arm with his own, and proceeded to watch with proud eyes as the eldest member moved in front of his dongsaeng so he could be the one to give his aid if it would end up being needed.

“Okay, I think I’m ready,” Yoongi said before he – all on his own – tried to get up on his feet. The attempt ended up unsuccessful and the rapper would have fallen back down on his *** had Jungkook not stopped the descend by gripping the smaller male’s waist tightly.

Seokjin reached out to Yoongi with his hands, offering him the silent support if he decided he wanted it, and the offer was graciously accepted by the younger who – not long after – took ahold of the elder’s hands and held on tight as the other man raised himself onto his feet and pulled Yoongi – who’s knees had started shaking at the sudden exertion – up with him.

The moment Yoongi got up on his feet he tried adjusting his hold on Seokjin, and instead of keeping his hands in the other’s hands, he slowly – one hand at a time – moved his hands to grip onto the elder’s forearms instead so he would feel more secure, as he was certain that if his hyung was to let go of his hands for even just a short as one second, he was going to crash to the floor.

“Thanks,” Yoongi said, directing a barely-there smile to his hyung who hopefully caught the gesture.

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get you home,” Seokjin replied, and even though Yoongi wasn’t able to see the smile on his hyung’s face, he could hear it in the elder’s voice.

When his hyung let go of his left arm and he could feel that the elder’s grip on his right arm was loosening as well, Yoongi felt like he was going to panic, and to counteract the fact that the elder was no longer holding him up his own grip tightened significantly on both of the elder’s forearms, and if the quick inhale and hiss coming from his hyung indicated something, it was that it definitely didn’t feel painless for the other part.

“Yoongi-yah you’re gonna need to let up a little on that grip you got there or I’m gonna loose circulation in my hands,” Seokjin tried to tell the rapper in a calm voice, but his teeth were clenched.

“Sorry,” Yoongi said. He was trying to keep himself calm, but knowing that letting go off the person in front of him would mean that he would fall and potentially get hurt as he didn’t think he would be able to stop himself from crashing to the floor, scared him, and made him unable to loosen his grip.

Jungkook who had been sitting on the ground all this time behind his two older group members – in the same spot and in the same uncomfortable position he had been in when supporting Yoongi –, pushed himself onto his feet and took ahold of his second eldest hyung’s left forearm with his left hand – which caused the rapper to let go of his hyung out of shock at the unexpected touch – while he ducked his head low enough that he could make his way under the elder’s arm, so that Yoongi’s left arm was now pulled up and around the younger’s shoulders and his weight was being supported by the maknae.

Seokjin smiled thankfully at Jungkook for his quick thinking, while Yoongi froze when he felt himself be pulled against the younger male’s warm side.

The surprise that was the younger’s right hand grabbing Yoongi’s waist immediately afterwards didn’t help the rapper with trying to mask himself either as the elder couldn’t stop his eyes from widening on their own accord and gazing down at where the sensation was coming from, or his body from naturally attempting to move away from the foreign limb.

His focus was redirected when he felt fingers running soothingly over his right forearm, the arm that was still gripping tightly onto Seokjin’s own and had probably tightened even more – if that was even possible – when Jungkook had made his move.

Yoongi immediately let go of his hyung’s arm and couldn’t stop the shame from manifesting inside him when he saw Seokjin gently rub his forearm in the place where he had been digging his fingers into the delicate skin just a second ago. If he looked closer maybe he would even be able to see the terrible marks that he was sure to have left behind, marks which would more than likely have bloomed and turned into ugly bruises by the time tomorrow morning would roll around.

With the realization that he had just hurt his hyung, he couldn’t stop himself from turning his body more towards Jungkook, nor could he stop his head from immediately lowering down until his chin was pressing uncomfortably against his chest, and his arm from shooting up to curl around his stomach. He wanted to raise his head again as the position it was in was quickly working up a crick in his neck because of his already overexerted muscles, but the guilt that rolled over him from seeing his hyung cradling his arm overruled his want to relieve his own discomfort.

“Hyung are you okay?” Jungkook asked as he tilted his head to look down at Yoongi. His hyung had suddenly tensed up again, and he wasn’t making eye contact with any of them.

When the older male didn’t reply Jungkook turned to his other group member who was still gingerly rubbing his forearm where Yoongi had been gripping it, then he looked back to the man who was seemingly trying to move closer to him and further away from Seokjin – opposed to before when it had almost been the complete opposite –, and then the pieces clicked.

“Jin-hyung,” the maknae said, easily catching the other male’s attention.

“Could you stop doing that, you know, with your hand.” The elder seemed confused by Jungkook’s request, but then his eyes were drawn down to Yoongi who had made himself look even smaller than his frame already was pressed up against the maknae’s chest, and his eyes filled with understanding and he let both of his arms drop to his sides. Jungkook was glad that he didn’t have to further elaborate for the elder to understand him and figure out that the action was upsetting Yoongi.

Seokjin looked down at his arm which he had been rubbing earlier. There were no marks from Yoongi’s fingers, and the spot wasn’t even hurting, so why had he even been rubbing it as if it was going to relieve something? Now he just felt like an idiot for causing his group member distress over absolutely nothing.

“Hey, it’s okay Yoongi-yah, see, there’s nothing there, it’s fine, I’m fine,” Seokjin tried to tell the rapper whilst showing off his forearm after having moved closer to him and Jungkook, hoping that perhaps approaching the younger carefully like this with his words would make Yoongi unfurl. But the other male didn’t as much as lift his head or turn his body back to face Seokjin who was waiting patiently.

He just couldn’t do it, and somehow that made everything worse. First he hurts Seokjin, and now he can’t even make himself raise his head to make his hyung happy.

Almost as if Seokjin could sense Yoongi’s self-deprecating thoughts, he took another step closer and wrapped his arms around both Yoongi and Jungkook, so that he and the maknae were now sandwiching the smaller male between their bodies.

“Hey, Yoongi-yah, I’m okay, see? You didn’t do anything,” Seokjin told the rapper.

It took some further coaxing from both Seokjin and Jungkook, but eventually Yoongi raised his head, and unfurled his arm from around his stomach so that it could snake around his hyung’s waist instead and pull the elder closer.

“Sorry,” Yoongi murmured out into the barely-there space between the two other bodies.

“Hey, stop saying sorry, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Seokjin told the younger.

Seokjin looked up from where he had been looking down at Yoongi, and swept his eyes across the room to see whether there was something they had to take with them when they were going to go home, but other than the younger’s phone there didn’t seem to be anything. While looking around the room he realized that Sejin was no longer present, having most likely left the three of them so that he could get a car ready for their trip back to the dorm, at least that’s what Seokjin believed was the reason for the elder’s absence.

“Let’s get going now, yeah?” Seokjin said and tightened his hold around the two others for a second, before moving as far back as Yoongi’s hold on the back of his shirt allowed him to.

“Okay,” was the only reply from the rapper.

“Can you stand on your own or do you think you’ll need one of us to help you get to the car?” Seokjin asked Yoongi. He would be more than happy to give the younger a helping hand, but in the end it was the other’s decision, and unfortunately Yoongi had a bad habit of playing it cool and brushing things off.

“I think I can do it on my own,” Yoongi told the older member. The younger’s voice didn’t sound sure to Seokjin, but he decided to keep quiet and told himself he would just make sure to be right next to the rapper until they were home.

Jungkook, having decided to not say anything but just listen to his hyungs conversation, ducked his head and gently lifted Yoongi’s arm off of his shoulder and cautiously removed his right hand from where he’d had it snaked around the smaller male’s waist, to respect his hyung’s wishes of them not helping him unless it would turn out to be necessary.

Now that Jungkook was no longer supporting any of Yoongi’s weight and the only thing that was giving the rapper a bit of help in holding his body up was his own arm around Seokjin’s waist, the second eldest was starting to regret having told them that he would be fine on his own, as even just now whilst not carrying all of his weight himself, the weight was too much and he felt like slipping to the ground so he wouldn’t have to carry it, but at the same time, he didn’t want to go back on his words and look weak.

When Yoongi let his arm fall from his hyung’s waist, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath as the full weight of his body returned to him and threatened to make his knees buckle.

He could only have had his eyes closed for a couple of seconds while he breathed deeply to ready himself for the walk to the car and to calm himself down, when he suddenly felt a hand encircling his upper left arm and his eyes shot open to look confused at Jungkook who had been the one to grab his arm.

“Sorry, I thought you were going to fall,” the maknae said as he let his hand release its hold on his hyung’s upper arm. Reaching out to steady Yoongi had been his first reaction when he had seen the rapper starting to sway forward, so he couldn’t say that he was sorry for doing it when he genuinely thought him ignoring it was going to end up getting his hyung hurt.

“Oh uh, well, uh. Thanks,” Yoongi replied, though it almost sounded like a question.

The moment that Jungkook opened his mouth to ask his hyung whether he was alright, a sound came from Seokjin’s phone, informing them that their hyung had gotten a message.

The two younger people in the room looked expectably up at their hyung at the sound, and watched as Seokjin crouched down to reach his phone which was laying discarded on the ground right next to Yoongi’s broken one.

When the screen lit up Seokjin let out a relieved breath as he’d thought that the only reason he would be getting a text this late at night would be because something bad had happened back at the dorm with the four other members, when in reality it had only been Sejin telling him that he had gotten a car ready for them to be driven home in out in front of the building.

“It was just Sejin-hyung, he said he has a car waiting for us out front,” the eldest informed the two others as he grabbed Yoongi’s phone and rose back to his feet, now holding both of their phones in his left hand and basically having everything they needed in order to leave.

“Ah, okay, we should get going then, I don’t want to waste any more time,” Yoongi said, – the last part only loud enough for himself to hear – before taking small calculated steps around Jungkook, so he would avoid bumping into the other male, and so he wouldn’t step in his puddle of vomit. The smell wasn’t as bad as before, he didn’t know if it was because it had thinned out a bit or if his nose had just adjusted to the smell, but that didn’t mean he would be happy with dragging it around with him on the sole of his shoes.

The two others followed him out without complaint but stopped when they had crossed the doorway like he had and didn’t start moving again – albeit reluctantly – until he asked them to keep walking down to the car while he locked up the studio.

Typing in the code to lock the door was harder than usual, and he felt like he had to put more power into his fingers just so he could push the buttons in properly. Though, after getting through the initial problem, everything else went as smoothly as any other time.

When he turned around to look down the hallway he would have to walk to get out of the building, he was unsurprised to see that both Seokjin and Jungkook was waiting for him only 5 meters away.

He redirected his gaze towards the floor next to his hyung’s feet and felt his facial muscles trying to pull his mouth into a smile despite the minimal energy he was currently running on.

“Hey! Are you coming? We’ve been gone from the dorm for a long time, and I know none of the others have texted me about it, but I don’t want to return to a burning dorm, because I couldn’t stop Namjoon from doing whatever he did this time that ended up starting a fire,” Seokijn told Yoongi jokingly. Exaggerating and poking fun at Namjoon’s ability to destroy things just by touching them, usually made all of his dongsaeng laugh or at least crack a smile – except for Namjoon –, so he decided that that was going to be the approach he was going to take this time.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Yoongi said, raising his gaze to look over Seokjin’s shoulder.

But when he took a step forward, he had to stop and grab the wall for stability as his vision turned fuzzy and his ears began ringing. It didn’t take long for his vision to go back to normal and for the ringing to go away – at least to him it didn’t feel like it did – but the moment his eyes opened – when had he closed his eyes? – he almost flinched back when he was met with the concerned eyes of Seokjin and Jungkook – when had they crossed the room to stand right next to him? —.

“What?” Yoongi asked in a confused tone. Why were they looking at him like that?

“Are you okay hyung?” Jungkook asked the rapper, choosing to ignore the smaller male’s question in favor of asking his own. When he had seen his hyung falter in his step he had been the first of him and Seokjin to move towards the other and the first one to reach him, he had reached out to help Yoongi when he got to the elder, but his hand had been swatted away by his oldest hyung, and the bordering on stern look the older sent him when he looked at him stopped his brain from trying again.

“Yeah, just tired. Sorry,” Yoongi said, and lightly pushed himself away from the wall after taking a deep breath, and began walking down the hallway again, and this time, instead of walking in front of him, Seokjin and Jungkook followed him from behind.

“If you’re tired one of us can help you?” Jungkook offered his hyung. The only answer he received though, sadly hadn’t come from the hyung he had been directing the offer to but had merely been Seokjin softly nudging one of his elbows into his ribs, as a way to tell him just to let the other be.

The three of them continued on their way down the halls, turning corners and passing empty rooms, until they eventually after a couple of minutes – as they had to stop up a few times because Yoongi would stop walking and lean against a wall to catch his breath – reached the elevator Seokjin and Jungkook had used to get from the ground floor to the one they were currently on.

When Yoongi made no move to press the button which would call the elevator to their floor and instead just stood leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the closed metal doors with his eyes closed, Jungkook walked forward and did the job for his two hyungs.

When the resounding electronic pling sounded and the doors opened, Seokjin and Jungkook moved as one and made their way into the elevator with Yoongi trailing sluggishly behind them.

The elevator was filled with stifling silence as it moved down towards the ground floor, and Jungkook didn’t find that he was able to relax until after the elevator had stopped moving, and they were all walking out of the restricting metal box and into the reception.

No one else was in the room anymore – not even the receptionist – which reinforced the fact of how late it was, as the last receptionist of the day usually went home when it was 12am.

The car which Sejin had said he would have waiting for them outside was easy to catch sight of as it was the only car which was pulled to the curb that had its lights running, so the three of them didn’t waste any more time and walked to the building’s entrance, where Seokjin turned the lock and held the glass door open as his two dongsaengs followed him out into the cold night.

The air was cold and Seokjin has regretting having left his jacket at the dorm, Jungkook’s and Yoongi’s jackets as well as those two were wearing almost as little as he was, which wasn’t that much seeing as he himself was only wearing the thin t-shirt and pair of basketball shorts that Namjoon had put on him after their shower.

Seokjin let go of the handle of the glass door and turned back around to guide the two younger males towards the car after he heard the audible click signaling that the entrance had locked itself when the door had fallen shut.

When they finally got to the car and got that small bit closer to getting home again, Seokjin took ahold of Jungkook’s left wrist with his right hand and pulled the maknae with him over to the door to the passenger seat of the car, intending to make the maknae sit in front while Yoongi and himself sat in the backseat.

Jungkook, having quickly caught onto what his hyung was doing, resisted Seokjin’s pull and tugged back by wrapping his own hand around his hyung’s wrist.

Seokjin looked back at the maknae when the younger didn’t follow him, only to be met with Jungkook’s pleading eyes and shivering form. His eyes shot over to Yoongi who was walking to the car by himself, shivering as well, with his arms wrapped around his stomach, before looking back at Jungkook who hadn’t let his eyes lose any of their pleading shine.

With a final look back at Yoongi he let Jungkook’s wrist go and gestured for the maknae to get in the back of the car with the rapper like Seokijn had realized he wanted to.

The younger shuffled off happily at got in the car after Yoongi while Seokjin opened the passenger door and slid into the front seat like he had when they had been driven home from dance practice last night. The only reason he wasn’t too disgruntled about not getting to sit in the back of the car and make sure that Yoongi would be alright on the trip back to the dorm was because he knew Jungkook would be capable of taking care of the rapper as well. Also, the passenger seat had a heater and would help him warm up after being outside and exposed to the cold air.

Now that he thought about it, maybe it would have been better if he instead of trying to get Jungkook to sit in the front seat, had made Yoongi sit here as the smaller male would have benefited from the heat more than the maknae and he himself would have.

Seokjin turned his head to look at the driver, having fully expected it to be one of the drivers that Bighit had hired to drive for them when they had to go places, but to his surprise and joy it was Sejin who sat behind the wheel.

“I thought you had gone home,” Seokjin said to the manager, attempting to start up some small talk so the only thing cutting through the heavy quiet in the car wouldn’t be the rumble of the engine.

“Thought I would’ve as well, but none of the drivers were available, so sadly the task fell on me,” Sejin replied jokingly, as he pulled away from the curb and started the drive home.

“Hey!” Seokijn said, whipping his head back towards the manager, as he after his first comment had turned back to face the front so he could watch the road.

“I’m kidding, you know me, how was I supposed to just leave you at the company building not knowing whether you got back to the dorm in one piece,” Sejin said, and looked away from the empty road in front of him for a second, so he could catch a glimpse of the two sitting in the backseat in the rear view mirror, before looking back where he was supposed to.

Somewhere during the drive Jungkook must have pulled Yoongi’s head down to rest against his shoulder, cause when Seokjin turned around in his seat to see how the two were doing, that’s how the two were sitting. Both of their eyes were closed so the elder turned back around in his seat and left the two alone to sleep away the rest of the drive.

When he was situated back in his seat, he leaned his head against the car window and watched as the bright lights of the city passed by them until he couldn’t keep his eyes open and the comforting lull of the engine and the soft music spilling from the radio caused him to fall into a slumber like his two other group members.

When he opened his eyes again it was to Sejin shaking his shoulder to rouse him from his temporary sleep, and he guessed that they had arrived back at the dorm.

He took a couple of seconds to wake up enough to function, but eventually got out of the car and moved around the front of the vehicle to help Sejin get Jungkook and Yoongi out of the car.

Jungkook ended up being easy enough to rouse awake and was able to stand up on his own without any needed help, but Yoongi couldn’t be woken up, and so instead of keeping on trying, Seokjin gave his phone and Yoongi’s phone to Jungkook and got Sejin’s help to get the rapper up onto his back.

After helping with Yoongi, Sejin turned around to head back to the car so he could drive the car back to the company and then get home himself. But before the manager got to open the door he was stopped by a hand on his arm.

Sejin looked down at the hand on his arm and looked questioningly at the face attached to it.

“Thanks for the help,” Seokjin said and gave the older male a smile, before turning around to face Jungkook and gesturing with his head for them to start walking.

The manager watched the three retreating figures with fondness until they disappeared into the apartment complex, and then he turned around himself and got back into the car and drove away.

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