Your Divine Grace {NamJin}

ten

"Yoongi."

"Mm."

"You haven't spoken once since we got here."

"Mm."

"Are you okay?"

"Mm."

Jimin pulled the elder into a hug, drying his own melancholy tears in his thick-lined robe. Yoongi's arms stayed dead at their sides, lifeless as his countenance.

"I miss him too, Yoongi-hyung," Jimin whispered, sighing shakily. "It's only been a day and I want to go home."

Namjoon sat inside his palanquin, looking down at the food Seokjin had so carefully made for him with almost no intention to eat it. His throat burned with sorrow, and his hands trembled, clicking the chopsticks in his hands irregularly with the beating of his own empty heart.

"But we have to be strong," Jimin whispered, calming himself. "We have to. Jungkook is up there, caring for the entire army. Hoseok is caring for the entire palace. Seokjin is caring for the entire nation. Can you believe that?"

Yoongi's stone facade broke down from the inside.

"The ones we love are fighting. We have to fight too."

Yoongi, finally listening to Jimin for the first time after the journey, reciprocated the embrace, keeping Hoseok's memory alive and burning in his mind.

"Okay," he nodded, cracking his lips into a low smile. "Let's set up, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Jimin and Yoongi pulled their horses to adjacent trees in the forest, tying their reins to the sturdy trunks and patting their hides, silently commanding them to be good.

Namjoon took a bite of the kimchi, closing his eyes and savoring the taste that Seokjin created with his own beautiful, soft hands.

He wished those hands could hold his one more time.

Jungkook stepped into the man-made ring with another soldier, pulling his wet black hair over his head and running his hands over his slick, bare skin. Three fights in and he had already gone shirtless, but his energy was far from even coming close to depletion.

"Come on," he taunted, "show me how well Jimin trained you."

The soldier gritted his teeth and ran towards Jungkook, moved by his burning muscles and the cheers of the crowd of men surrounding him. Jungkook's knees bent a fraction of a second later, then popped back up -- propelling him into the air and spinning him like a top until he fell back on his feet, behind the soldier's charge.

By the time he had realized Jungkook's evasion, it was too late to stop moving. He ran right into the right side of the crowd, knocking men over like an angry bull charging at its fighter.

"Who's next?"

The laughing and cheering stopped as men looked at each other in uncertainty. It fell so silent that not even the shuffling of feet could be heard among the giant forest of soldiers, unwilling to face Jungkook.

"Is this how you would act in war?" Jungkook asked, crossing his arms. "When the tide has turned against you, and death stares right down into your soul, would you run from it?"