Chapter 116

It was 4 in the morning.

Tae entered the room where Jin was admitted. He saw Jin lying on the bed an IV running into his hand, face peaceful in sleep, but the dried tear stains still visible on his cheeks. Like even unconscious, his body hadn’t been able to fully let go of the night.

The doctor was speaking quietly with Yoongi and Hyunwoo near the corner of the room.

“He is fine for now. He fainted due to stress and based on his vitals, I believe it was triggered by some kind of severe shock. And he has a high fever and fatigue” He glanced briefly at the monitor. “He’ll wake up in a few hours. He will be fine.”

He bowed and left. Tae stood near the doorway. Eyes fixed on Jin. Not moving.

“Tae.” Yoongi’s voice came quiet and careful when he noticed him standing there. “He’s fine. He was just exhausted. He’s going to be okay.”

Tae didn’t respond. He just kept looking at Jin’s face. Then, slowly, he turned his gaze to Hyunwoo.

“Hobi hyung told me everything,” he said. His voice was low. Completely steady. The kind of steady that wasn’t calm it was controlled. Deliberately, carefully controlled. And underneath it, just barely visible at the edges something that burned.

Hyunwoo looked at him.

He already knew what was coming. He could see it in the set of Tae’s jaw. In the way his hands were loose at his sides but not relaxed. “You made a mistake, Samchoon,” Tae said quietly.

The room went still.

Then, Hyunwoo spoke “Tae…. I am sorry. I know I didn’t say anything to yo—-” “Will that sorry bring my old Kookie back?”

Hyunwoo stopped. Tae’s voice hadn’t risen. It stayed at exactly the same quiet, controlled level and somehow that made it hit harder than any amount of shouting would have.

“Will that sorry make my brother smile and laugh without guilt? Will it make him stop thinking he is a killer?” He paused. “Will it get rid of those scars?”

Hyunwoo said nothing.

“No,” Tae said. “It won’t. Not a single one of those things.” He took a slow breath. “You say you were there with him. And maybe you were. But you still let appa take control of him. You let your own brother traumatize your own nephew even knowing he was already traumatized. Even knowing what that basement did to him. Even knowing all of it.” His voice didn’t crack. It just carried the weight steadily, word by word.

He spoke “If you had just made one call. One text. To any one of us we would have been there. We would have been with Kook.”

Yoongi stood very still beside him. He wasn’t looking at Hyunwoo. He was looking at the floor jaw tight, eyes glassy, blinking slowly.

“Okay,” Tae continued. “Fine. You say you did it for our sake. That you couldn’t tell us Suho hyung had died because of what our father did. I can try to understand that.” He tilted his head slightly.

“But what about his stolen childhood, Samchoon? What about that? You sacrificed that one poor soul to keep six others comfortable. You could have told us the moment he was forced into the mafia. The very moment. We would have gone to him. We would have made sure he never had to face any of that hell alone.” He stopped. “But no one did.”

His eyes didn’t leave Hyunwoo’s face. “Not you. Not appa.”

The tears came then finally, quietly falling without any drama, running down his face while his expression stayed completely composed. Like his body had decided to cry separately from everything else.

Hyunwoo stood there.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t reach for another apology. He just stood there and received every single word of it because he had known, from the moment Tae walked through that door with that look on his face, that this was what he owed him. That this was the very least of what he owed all of them.

The guilt that had lived in him for years settled heavier. And he let it. Because Tae was right. Every word.

“And I am veryy grateful that you were with him when he was at his lowest. I am. But Samchoon…..” Tae’s voice finally wavered. Just slightly. Just enough to show what was underneath all that careful control.

“Did you ever stop and think that he had a family? That he had people who would have dropped everything?” His jaw tightened. “He was living like a fucking orphan. And we were all sitting here thinking he was fine. Thinking he was great. When he wasn’t even close to that. Not even a little.”

He exhaled shakily. “All anyone did was to fucking hide. Hide and hide and hide.” Another tear fell. “And that hiding didn’t protect anyone. It didn’t protect him. It didn’t protect us. It just made everything worse. That’s all it did.”

Hyunwoo didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“And I….” Tae stopped. Pressed his lips together for a moment. “I saw him smile through all of it. Every time he had a nightmare I convinced myself he was going to be fine. I told myself he was getting better. I believed it because I needed to.” His voice dropped lower.

“But seeing him fight for his own life. Hearing him say he doesn’t want to live  when he should be out there living his best days, when he should be laughing and being young and not carrying any of this…”

He shook his head. “It makes me so angry at myself. For not seeing it sooner. For not pushing harder. For every single moment he needed someone and I wasn’t there.”

His tears were falling steadily nowquiet and continuous, making no attempt to stop them.

“I waited twelve years,” he said. “Twelve years just to see him smile and lean against me. And it came. It finally came.” His voice fractured on the next words just barely, just at the very edge. “But when he leaned against me it wasn’t because he was happy. It was because he was in pain. And there is a difference. There is such a big difference.”

“And all these waiting is for just one random evening to know every part of his fucking suffering in just one sitting…. All the pain of those 12 years, all the cries, all his stolen childhood, all his loses which he endured was to hear in just one day…” The room was completely silent except for the soft sound of the monitor and Tae’s unsteady breathing.

“I will never forgive anyone who stole his childhood,” he said finally. Quietly. With a certainty that was absolute. “Not a single person. And I will never forgive myself for not being there when he needed me.”

He looked at Hyunwoo one last time. “Before eomma died, he was the prince, he never ever cried because of appa or nay of us…. And he always smiled infront of us, laughed giggled…. And after eomma died, he forgot everything…. Our existence, our memories, the way he laughed with us… The way we treated him like he was the happiest person alive…. He never ever felt a slightest pain…” He paused. A tear left.

“And after he went to Italy with no memories of those precious 8 golden years of happiness he lived like a orphan and felt nothing but pain…. He literally lived a whole fucking hell as life all these years like it was the only memory! Like happiness never ever existed in his life!” He finished breathing heavy.

“And I will kill my dad with my bare hands for what he did to my baby brother.” He turned and walked out with tears.

Yoongi wiped his face quickly and followed. While Hyunwoo stood there with tears.

Tae was standing just outside the door and the moment he stepped into the corridor the composure broke completely. His shoulders dropped. His face crumpled.

Yoongi crossed to him without a word and pulled him in.

Tae went immediately pressing his face into Yoongi’s shoulder, hands gripping the back of his jacket.

“Hyungie….” His voice came out completely wrecked. “Wae? Why is everyone doing this to him? My baby….” He choked on it. “He was never supposed to carry any of this. He never had to. He never should have had to…”

He couldn’t finish. Yoongi held him tight. One hand pressing against the back of his head. His own tears falling silently into Tae’s hair.

He didn’t say anything. Because there was nothing to say that was big enough.

So he just held his younger brother in the empty corridor at five in the morning and let him cry.

The next day. 1 PM.

Tae was in Jungkook’s ward.

Jungkook was still sleeping. The oxygen mask had been removed sometime during the morning his face peaceful now. The IVs still ran quietly into his left hand. The monitor beeped on, slow and steady.

Tae had changed into comfortable clothes at some point soft grey sweatpants and a sweat shirt with sleeves rolled up. 

He hadn’t slept. Not even close. He sat in the chair beside the bed, one hand holding Jungkook’s loosely, and every few minutes he would reach over and tug the blanket up slightly not because it needed adjusting, just because his hands needed something to do. Something that makes him feel Jungkook is still there with him

Sometimes he would smooth the hair back from Jungkook’s forehead. Sometimes he would press his lips gently against his bandaged hand and just stay there for a moment.

He had been doing this for hours.

One hour with Jin. One hour with Jungkook. Back and forth splitting himself between the two rooms, between the two brothers who both needed him.

He was exhausted in a way that went beyond sleep deprivation the kind of tired that lived in the chest, not the body. But he couldn’t rest. Not yet. Not while they needed him.

Hobi sat on the small couch near the window, laptop open on his knees, working quietly on something. He had been there almost as long as Tae had.

The door opened.

Haein slipped in carrying a large bag, her eyes moving across the room. She glanced at Tae, who hadn’t even registered the door opening, his entire attention still fixed on his sleeping brother.

Hobi looked up and smiled warm and genuine despite his own exhaustion. “Noona.” “Here.” She crossed to him and held out the bag. “I brought food from home.”

Hobi’s eyes went wide as he opened it. “Woah noona!! you didn’t have to, we could have just bought something….”

Haein sighed. “Stop,” she said simply. Hobi closed his mouth immediately.

She looked at Tae then. She walked over quietly and placed her hand gently on his shoulder.

Tae flinched just slightly, a small automatic startle and looked up. The moment he registered it was Haein, his expression softened. “Oh! noona.”

“Come eat,” she said. Tae shook his head immediately. “I’ll eat after he wakes up.” “Tae-ya.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday evening.”

“I’ll eat after he wak—–” He stopped. His hand the one holding Jungkook’s felt something. Small and soft and barely there, but completely unmistakable.

A twitch. Jungkook’s fingers had moved.

Tae felt it again another twitch, slightly stronger this time. His eyes went wide. He looked up at Haein and Hobi, his voice dropping low and careful, like speaking too loud might somehow interrupt it.

“His hand twitched.” Hobi was on his feet immediately, crossing to the bed in a few quiet steps. Haein leaned in, both of them watching Jungkook.

“Noona!” Hobi said quickly, eyes still on the monitor. “Can you Dr. Hwang?”

Haein was already reaching for her phone, stepping back slightly to make the call.

Hobi checked the vitals quietly eyes scanning the numbers, expression focused. Tae didn’t move from his spot. He held Jungkook’s hand a little firmer not squeezing, just holding. Steady and present and certain.

“I’m here,” he said softly. To Jungkook. Just to him.

Then he saw it the faint crease forming between Jungkook’s brows. The smallest shift in his expression. Like something far away was slowly pulling him back toward the surface.

“Hobi hyung!” Tae’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “He’s waking up.” Hobi looked at Jungkook’s face. “Hey, Kook-ah,” he said gently. “Can you hear me?”

Haein lowered her phone slightly, eyes moving to the bed.

Then slowly, with the particular heaviness of someone returning from somewhere very deep Jungkook’s eyes opened.

Just a sliver at first. The light hit him immediately and he winced a small, pained sound escaping before he could stop it, his face scrunching against the brightness.

Tae moved instantly. He raised his free hand and held it up between the overhead light and Jungkook’s face not touching, just blocking creating a small shadow that softened the light just enough.

Jungkook’s grip around his hand tightened. Involuntary. Unconscious. His fingers curling in without any apparent awareness that they were doing it.

Everything was hazy. Blurred at the edges and slow. Voices reached him like they were coming through water present but muffled, not quite landing yet. He blinked once. Twice.

“Hey, Kook-ah.” Tae spoke. Low and careful and cracking slightly at the edges despite his best effort to keep it steady. “Can you hear me?”

Jungkook blinked again.

Slowly very slowly the blurriness began to resolve. The ceiling. The white walls. The monitor beside him. And then the faces. Jungkook’s vision finally settled.

The first face that came into focus was Tae’s right there, close, eyes wide and red-rimmed and completely fixed on him with an intensity that held twelve years of waiting in it.

Then Hobi just beyond, watching quietly, the corners of his eyes creased with a smile that was warm even through the worry. Haein standing a little further back still, watchful, concern written into every line of her face.

Jungkook looked at each of them slowly.

He felt something strange on his chest a pressure, a weight he couldn’t name yet, sitting just below his collarbone. Unfamiliar and wrong and too present to ignore.

And his heart was looking for someone else.

Searching the room without him meaning to let it moving past Tae and Hobi and Haein, checking the corners, checking the door.

Jin hyung wasn’t there.

He didn’t let himself think about what that meant. Not yet. Everything was still too slow and too hazy and too heavy for that.

Then the voices reached him soft and slightly cracked, careful in the way people were careful when they were trying not to show how scared they had been.

He heard them distantly. And then his gaze dropped. His breath hitched.

His own hand. Lying in Tae’s small and pale against Tae’s larger one and the scars running across it were completely, undeniably visible.

Every one of them. Old ones and new ones layered together, pale and dark against his skin, telling a story he had spent years making sure no one could read.

He looked at his other arm. The hospital dress had short sleeves. Both arms completely exposed. Every mark. Every scar. All of it visible to anyone who looked and they were all looking, all right here, all close enough to see every single thing he had hidden for years.

The panic rose before he could stop it. He jerked his hand away from Tae’s.

Hard. Fast. Both hands pulling back and tucking against his chest simultaneously pressing inward, trying to cover, trying to hide what was already seen. His eyes darted across the room from face to face to face wide and frightened and screaming something that his voice couldn’t form yet.

“Kook-ah” Tae reached forward instinctively.

“Don’t” The word didn’t come out. It stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat and dissolved into a whimper instead small and broken and barely audible.

Jungkook laid there while breathing heavy, his chest rose and fell hard and heavy. Cold sweats forming.

Tae stood there. Hand still half extended. Completely frozen.

The shock on his face was absolutenot at Jungkook pulling away, but at the look in Jungkook’s eyes. The raw, unguarded terror sitting in them. Not directed at anyone. Not anger or betrayal.

Just fear. Pure, bone-deep fear.

The kind that didn’t come from the present moment but from somewhere much further back triggered by something as simple as being seen.

“Kook-ah,” Tae said again. Quieter this time. He gently placed his hand on jungkook’s. But he regretted it hard.

“NOO!!” Jungkook screamed, voice trembling and filled with fear. Tears started to pour down. He shutted his eyes tight, “no…. Please….” Jungkook mumbled out. Cracking and broken.

Tae quickly left the hand.

Jungkook was scared of him.

I updated finally! Anyway 8 got a little sick that’s y slow update!

How was the chapter?

What was your fav part? Mine is tae confronting with Hyunwoo!

What was the saddest part??

Next chapter in 70+ comments! 8 won’t delay i promise!

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