Don't Come Inside • Jungkook

ii.

"No point in waiting, he's not coming," Yoongi snapped from his starfish position on the floor.

"Okay, calm down Yoongi," Namjoon said, putting his hands up defensively. "Let's just give him 15 more minutes-"

"For what?" Yoongi asked, glaring up and Namjoon and retracting in his arms to fold them across his chest. "Every minute we spent waiting around for him is a minute wasted. We barely get any time to sleep anymore, and the time we're taking away from that is time wasted for someone who doesn't even care."

"What do you want to do, then?" Hoseok asked, stretching out his legs with a frown. "Just skip practice and sleep? Or redo all the choreo for six?"

"You make it sound so horrible to do that," Yoongi said. "How is that wrong? Maybe Jungkook wants to take a break, but our careers are on the line here. Not all of us went to college, and those degrees are worthless anyway. If we don't make it with this, what are we going to do for the rest of our lives? This whole idol thing wasn't really what I wanted, but it got me to music production, and that's what I want to do. The second we say we're pausing this whole thing for Jungkook, some new, younger group is going to come in and steal everything we've worked for and then it'll be bye-bye to us and everything we wanted to accomplish. Is that what you want to happen?"

Hoseok sighed, unable to refute the majority of Yoongi's claims. "No, I just...I want to give him more time-"

"We can't force him to come back," Yoongi argued. "If he wants back in, great. But until then, we have to keep working. For ourselves, for our families, for everything they sacrificed to get us here. I'm not wasting that all because Jungkook is a scared little kid."

"That's wrong to say, hyung," Jimin said quietly, and Yoongi shut his mouth. Of all of them, the only one who seemed to have any effect on Yoongi was Jimin. He was the only one Yoongi would listen to, the only one who could keep him under control, but that meant that Jimin was just as often the one to take Yoongi's thorny comments. Still, he didn't back down. "Jungkook went through something really scary. It ended up being all right, but it could have been a lot worse. I don't want to waste our hard work either, hyung, cause it's true that being an idol isn't easy." Jimin didn't elaborate on his own struggles, but they all knew what Jimin had gone through and still went through every day. "But you're right, I don't want to sit around here doing nothing." He looked over at Namjoon and Jin, who had migrated toward the outside of the group. "Are we learning anything new today?"

Namjoon opened his mouth, looking to Jin for confirmation, but Jin didn't give a sign. Namjoon looked back at Jimin helplessly. "Well...no, we were just hoping he'd come in or we were planning on reviewing otherwise."

"All right," Jimin said, getting to his feet, and Namjoon watched in concern.

"Where are you going?" Namjoon asked as Jimin started heading toward the door.

"Out."

"Wait," Namjoon said, scrambling up after him, but Jimin was already out the door. He took a step but was immediately distracted by a new argument that was breaking out between Hoseok and Taehyung. Putting a hand against his temple and massaging the skin there, he looked down. "Yoongi, can you go after Jimin and make sure he stays safe? The last thing we need is anything getting out to the fans." He phrased it loosely, but it was clear to both Yoongi and Jin (the other two weren't listening) that he didn't want anything to happen to Jimin like it happened to Jungkook.

Evidently, Yoongi shared the same fear because he rose with only a few grumbles before disappearing out the door.

***

"You don't have to come with, you know," Jimin mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets but slowing his pace anyway. He stared straight ahead, not bothering to watch as Yoongi half-heartedly jogged for a few steps until he was beside Jimin.