Growing Pains

44

Yoongi looked in the rearview mirror and made eye contact with his boyfriend.

He smiled and was pleased when Jin smiled back, but his smile was not as bright as it usually was.

It worried Yoongi.

He then adjusted the mirror so he could view the boy sitting on the far side, next to the other window.

The one called Jungkook.

The boy was sullenly looking outside as Yoongi drove towards Jin's apartment.

Yoongi didn't know who the boy was, nor what to make of him.

All he knew was the boy was not related to either Jin or Taehyung.

Still... there was something about the boy that unsettled him.

Especially after what happened at the station.

After Yoongi entered the railway station with Jin, his boyfriend had pulled him to the bank of monitors to check if the train from his hometown had arrived.

When Jin saw that it had, he'd released Yoongi's hand and hurried off to the platform.

Though Yoongi was not able to keep pace with Jin's excited strides, he was able to keep his boyfriend in sight because there was something breathtaking about him that made people step aside to let him pass so they could look at him.

It made Yoongi proud to know that this fine-looking man was his.

"Tae! Taehyungie!"

Yoongi watched as his boyfriend embraced a boy who was almost the same height as he was.

The boy had looked thunderstruck as he gaped at Jin before the woman beside him closed his mouth for him.

Jin had then greeted the woman, and this assured Yoongi that they had found Namjoon's mother and brother.

As the three exchanged greetings, Yoongi had approached quietly and stood next to Jin, waiting for his boyfriend to remember he was there.

He could tell Jin was happy to be reunited with the people from his hometown because of the glow on his skin and his giddy smile.

It made Yoongi happy to see his boyfriend's joy.

When Jin took the woman's luggage, and one of the bags from Namjoon's brother, Yoongi had stepped in to take them off Jin's hands.

He didn't want his boyfriend to tire himself out.

Namjoon's mother had looked at him with interest and asked him who he was, while her son had looked at him with a disgruntled frown.

But before Yoongi could introduce himself as Jin's boyfriend, another boy had appeared and ran to engulf Jin in a bone-crushing hug as he cried into Jin's neck.

It was evident that Jin was very important to this boy, and it made Yoongi uneasy.

Yoongi had looked at his boyfriend to gauge his reaction, and saw the shock on his face.

But when the first sob broke from the boy, Jin's face had softened into an expression that Yoongi had never seen before.

It made his stomach twist into knots.

He had watched with mixed feelings as Jin wrapped his arms around the sobbing boy, and rubbed his back gently while murmuring, "Shhh Jungkook, shhh. Kookie, I'm here. Hyung is here."

It puzzled Yoongi because he knew Jin had an older brother who was in the Navy, and that Jin was the maknae in his family.

So who was this boy? And what was Jin's connection to him?