warning: explicit language

"Jimin hasn't been talking for a week or two now, and-"

"What?" Jin blinked. "What do you mean, he's not talking?"

"It's not that hard to figure out, Jin," Jooheon said. "He won't talk."

"That's impossible, I saw him Friday and..." Jin hesitated, thinking back. Did Jimin say anything to me? He must have...

"And?"

Jin shook his head. "He must have said something."

"He didn't. He isn't talking to anyone, as far as I know. Even Hyungwon. He's really upset because Jimin hasn't said a word to him, and they had a fight the other day. Well, Hyungwon fought with Jimin, and Jimin didn't say anything. Look, Jin. I like Jimin a lot. I think he's a good kid and he hasn't been treated well by a lot of people. But as much as I care for your brother, I care for mine a hell of a lot more. Jimin made Hyungwon miserable, and Hyungwon isn't going to be happy until they patch things up, so hurry up and talk to Jimin and sort this all out, okay?"

Jin hesitated. "I won't see Jimin until Fri-"

"Talk to him today."

Jin paled. "I don't have time today, I have-"

"Make time."

"I can't, I have practice and-"

"Skip."

Jin bit his lip. "I can't, my teammates won't be happy with me if I-"

Jooheon snapped. He scowled and took a step towards Jin, who backed up against the teacher's desk. "And wouldn't that just be the end of the world if you weren't unanimously loved by every single kid in this school?" he growled. "What's more important, Jin? Your popularity or your brother? I know which is more important to me. I suggest you figure it out quickly."

With that, Jooheon stormed away.

***

Jin hesitated before pulling out his phone.

***

jinnie

hey Jimin can we talk after school today?

it's important

***

Jin waited for a response, but he received none, and his frown grew with each passing minute that his message was ignored. After another moment of hesitance, he went back to his messages and composed a new one to Yoongi.

***

jinnie

hey I need to talk to Jimin, where is he?

***

Jin was startled a moment later by the ringing of his phone, and he picked it up nervously. "Hello?"

Yoongi's voice came through from the other end. "Jimin isn't at school right now. He can't talk to you."

"Where is he?" Jin asked, worried. They should still be in school, right?

"We're at the hospital," Yoongi said, and Jin heard what sounded like a nurse yelling in the background.

"The hospital?" Jin swallowed.

"Yeah." Yoongi bit down on his teeth. "That stupid brother of ours hasn't been eating for over a week, and he passed out in class today."

"Oh." Jin swallowed again, feeling so disconnected. "Is Jimin all right?"

There was a long moment of silence followed by an incredulous laugh. "Jimin? Jimin's not the one with an eating disorder, Jin. That's Hobi. Jimin is the one that got abducted. You still remember which one I am, right? I really hope you remember your football plays better than you remember who your own fucking brothers are or else your stupid fucking team is in for a losing season."

And then Yoongi hung up.

Jin stared at his phone in shock before running to the parking lot. As a high school senior, he had his license, which meant he could drive himself to the nearest hospital.

And so that's what he did, and in his moment of focusing on his own mistakes, it slipped from his mind that he had two brothers that he was supposed to drive home after practice.

***

Yoongi and Jimin were sitting inside Hobi's hospital room. He was too pale against the stark white sheets.

Yoongi hated it.

And he hated a part of himself, too, because there had been a time when he'd wished that he could be the one in the hospital bed, sickly, weak, with people around him, worrying over him. He had thought it would make him feel loved and needed and important.

Hobi didn't look like he felt very loved or needed or important.

He just looked unhealthy.

"Hey," Yoongi said as Hobi's eyes flickered open, his voice sounding harsh despite his best intentions. They'd ridden with Hobi in the ambulance, so they were the only ones in the room with him.

"Hey yourself," Hobi said back, trying to joke, but his smile didn't carry when paired with the dark smears under his eyes and the paleness of his skin.

Yoongi didn't know how to approach the matter delicately, so he just went right in. "Why the fuck did you stop eating, Hobi?"

Hobi's smile slid slightly, but the echo of it remained, more a testament to his disposition than his current mood. "All the cool kids were doing it."

"Stop joking. This isn't fucking funny."

"No need to get so testy. Relax, hyung."

"Relax? I just had to ride in an ambulance with your unconscious body, Hobi."

"Damn, I wish I would have been awake. I've always wanted to see the inside of an ambulance."

Yoongi just shook his head. "This is a hospital room, Hobi. Not a stage for your comedy show. I'm not kidding. Why did you think this was a good idea?"

Hobi's smile finally disappeared, and as he went to cross his arms, Yoongi couldn't help but stare at Hobi's thin, spindly wrists.

I could wrap my hand around it and all my fingers would touch.

"I see your question, and I'll raise you one better. Why didn't you notice before it got so bad that I passed out?"

Yoongi's eyes snapped up to meet Hobi's. "What?"

"It's been two weeks, Yoongi. If you really cared, shouldn't you have noticed earlier, before they needed an ambulance?" he asked bitterly.

Yoongi fumbled for an answer, but Hobi got there first.

"Oh, right, sorry, I forgot, I'm not Jimin so my problems don't matter," Hobi said, his eyes glittering darkly, and Jimin, who had been sitting silently until this point, bit his lip and wrapped his arms around himself, pulling his knees to his chest, and leaning his forehead against them so all he could see was darkness.

"That's a load of-"

"Truth," Hobi interrupted, tilting his head. "If Jimin trips, you come running, flying. You'd slap a band aid on even if he wasn't bleeding. But here I am, dying on the inside," Hobi said, and his voice came out raw, empty of the cynicism he'd been using before, and Yoongi finally saw that the inside of Hobi matched the outside: unhealthy with need, "and you don't even notice until I collapse in the middle of gym."

"Hobi, I-"

"Save it," Hobi snapped, biting his lip to keep himself from crying. "You know, we've always been close," he said, his voice softer, more painful to listen to. "You were the brother I could always count on. Even growing up. I looked up to you, so much. So much." He grinned, and Yoongi couldn't move, transfixed by the tears running down Hobi's cheeks, reflecting the harsh lighting. "I would have done anything for you. Hell, I still would, even now. That's how stupid I am. That's how stupid I've always been. I just let myself be used, taken advantage of, and of course everyone leaves me when I'm not useful anymore, when they've gotten what they wanted. Why should you be any different? Besides the fact that we have the same blood running through our veins, why should you be any different than any of them?"

Hobi clenched his jaw, thinking of his early childhood, when he'd shared his food, thinking he was being a good friend. And look where he was now.

He took a certain satisfaction in seeing how pale Yoongi had become, how still he was, how horrified he looked.

"I don't know why you even came with me," Hobi continued on, trying to pretend like he wasn't spilling his heart out, like it wasn't unbearably painful, like he didn't feel like he was dying. "Doesn't Jimin have secrets that he needs to tell you? Secrets I can't hear?" Before Yoongi opened his mouth, Hobi glared at him. "And don't you dare - don't you dare defend him. If that's what you were going to say, then just - get out now."

Yoongi's body was still, but his mind was racing. He was in charge of them, of keeping them safe, of protecting them, and he'd failed. As usual. Nothing new.

But he needed to find a way to fix this with all of them coming out closer. He couldn't sacrifice his relationship with one of his brothers for the other.

He wasn't going to break this family apart any more than it already was.

"I understand how you feel," Yoongi began slowly, and before Hobi could say how much he hated that phrase, Yoongi hurried on, "because Jungkook felt the same way for years and years and years. But Jimin was abducted, Hobi." He saw the look Hobi gave him, and he shook his head. "I'm not trying to defend anyone. Just hear me out, okay? Jimin was abducted and raised apart from us. That kind of trauma doesn't heal overnight. Maybe ever. And so yeah, maybe we - maybe I treat Jimin a little more delicately than I need to, and I'm really sorry that I made you feel any less special because of that. But that doesn't mean that I'm not just as worried about you, Hobi."

He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I didn't notice the signs that you'd stopped eating. I'm sorry I don't know enough about your condition to figure this stuff out, and I'm sorry I didn't check in on you. And I'm sorry that I've prioritized Jimin over you for the past two weeks."

Yoongi swallowed. "And I'm sorry that I forced you to take responsibility for Jimin that day. I'm sorry that I told you to handle it and expected you to, well, be me while I was gone. That was a really shitty thing of me to do, and I made a bad decision in knowingly putting you in danger. I guess I thought it was okay because you were the second oldest, but just because you're a certain age doesn't mean it's okay and that you have to be able to do everything I can."

Yoongi turned to Jimin, and as much as he cared for Jimin, he felt angry for putting them in this position. "Jimin. Look up. Now."

Jimin flinched before raising his head and meeting Yoongi's eyes.

"As your older brother, I love you a lot. I would do anything for both you and Hobi. And because I'm your older brother, sometimes I shelter you too much because I don't want anything to hurt you. But that's life, Jimin. Life hurts. Nobody's free from that. I'm not saying that I won't help you or that your problems aren't valid. I'm pissed that there are people in the world who would attack you to the point where you decided it was better if you didn't speak. I'm mad, and I'll fight for you every time, Jimin, but the way you're handling your pain is hurting the people around you, and you have to see that, Jimin." By this point, Yoongi was begging. He knew it, and his pride hurt a little bit, but he didn't care.

"If you love us, Jimin, then you won't hurt us, right?" he said softly before hesitating. He was scared of saying too much and pushing Jimin past the point of no return. "Look, Jimin. Taehyung isn't here to hold your hand. It's just us. Isn't that what it's been for a while now? It's like what they say. Family is all you got. Only we don't always have Jin or Tae or Jungkook or Dad or even Lisa. We only have the three of us. And I promise -" Yoongi thumped his chest for emphasis. "I promise that I will take care of you guys, but I need you to take care of us, too okay?"

Jimin hesitated before getting up to speak to Yoongi, but Yoongi shook his head, crossing his arms.

"I'm sorry, Jimin, but either you talk to both of us or none of us. It's hurtful to Hobi when you exclude him after all he's done for you and given how much he trusted you with telling you about his condition in the first place."

Jimin's voice was soft and shaky, but it came out nonetheless. "H-h-how?"

"How what? How are you supposed to take care of us?"

Jimin nodded.

"By trusting both of us with your problems. By talking to us. By not just shutting down because you think that you're the only one affected by everything. By remembering that there's more to life and that no matter how bad things get, you're not at the end of your rope. But Jimin, you have to realize that Hobi and I, we're not perfect. We have problems too. We've tried to keep them from you because we thought you needed to be taken care of more than we did, but obviously that can't work anymore. This needs to be mutual. Okay? We'll take care of you, but you need to take care of us too."

Jimin nodded.

"And that means that you and Hobi are fixing this."

Without another word, Yoongi exited the hospital room, leaving Jimin alone with Hobi.

Hobi stared at Jimin. "What, you can't talk to me because Yoongi isn't here?" Hobi scoffed, looking away. "You know, besides Wonpil, you were the first one who I told about my eating disorder. I thought that meant something. That it was special somehow. But then you stopped talking to me, and I realized that maybe it wasn't. Not to you, at least. But it was hard for me to tell you that, Jimin. Really hard." Hobi coughed, and Jimin instantly moved to help him somehow, but Hobi held up a hand.

"Don't touch me," he said harshly, before softening his tone. "Please don't touch me. I don't hate you, Jimin, but it's really hard to like you right now. You just monopolize everyone's attention, and it's suffocating sometimes. I have to wind up in the hospital for Yoongi to know something's wrong, whereas all you have to do is call his name. It's just - saying it's unfair sounds like I'm whining. And I get it. You had a really screwed-up childhood. But when are you going to get over that? It's been years, Jimin. You can't just play the I got abducted card every time something goes wrong."

Hobi hesitated. "But that doesn't mean I want you to hide things from us, either. Like if you're still struggling with it, I get it. But there's a difference between struggling and trying to recover. If you want to talk about it? What you went through, I mean? We'd listen. And maybe it would help if you got it out, you know. And I know you're afraid of us judging you for stuff you did back then, but we won't. Or at least, we'll try not to. Okay? We will help you get better. But you need to hurry up and realize that you're not the only one suffering in that house. Just because I call her Mom doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to be separated from the others or that I don't miss seeing Wonpil in school. Yoongi has it rough, too. He's constantly getting in trouble because of other people. Sometimes, he even gets in trouble defending me and you. So...you're not alone. You're not the only one who's struggling and who needs help."

Jimin was staring at the ground. "S-s-sorry," he said, feeling sick with self-loathing. "Ab-bout n-not t-t-talking t-to you."

Hobi nodded as though he'd expected the apology.

"D-did y-you s-stop eating b-because of m-me, hyung?"

Hobi was quiet for a second before tilting his head and smiling. "If I say yes, is it going to make you feel worse or is it going to show you how much our relationship means to me and how much it hurts when you shut me out?"

Jimin's eyes widened. "H-hyung-"

"It's fine, Jimin. I won't do it again. On one condition."

Jimin swallowed. Was Hobi really threatening to starve himself if Jimin didn't do what he said? But he wasn't smiling. He wasn't joking.

"You need to stop this whole silent business. I'm sorry I froze up in the kitchen, Jimin, I really am. But from now on, if somebody makes fun of you about it and I'm there, I'll defend you. Yoongi would do the same in a heartbeat. If we aren't? I'm sorry, Jimin, but that doesn't give you a free pass to build your depression wall, okay? You ignore it. There will always be mean people out there. You just have to be stronger. It's how I've gotten through school all these years, and Yoongi wasn't always there to protect me, but I'm still here, aren't I?" Hobi looked around as though remembering that he was in a hospital. "Okay, maybe not the best example, but my point remains. We'll help you as much as we can, but only you can take care of yourself on the inside, okay?"

Jimin hesitated before nodding. "Okay, h-hyung."

Hobi nodded, and they became quiet.

"H-hyung?"

"Yeah, Jimin?"

"D-do you h-hate m-me?"

Hobi sighed before reaching out and grabbing Jimin's hand, pulling him closer to the bed. "No, Jimin. I don't know why you feel the need to question that. There's just a lot on my mind, and I haven't been feeling great mentally for the past two weeks because it felt like you and Yoongi were part of a secret club I wasn't allowed in. I kind of lashed out. I'm sorry. But..." He made sure to look Jimin in the eyes. "I meant what I said, okay? Maybe I didn't say it in the nicest or gentlest way, but it's like Yoongi said. That's life. Sometimes, things are painful to hear. But no, I don't hate you. I hate the circumstances you went through and how they've affected you so badly, but I don't hate you."

Jimin bit down on the inside of his lip. "I'm s-sorry h-hyung."

Hobi just nodded. "I know you are." He hesitated before forcing a smile and slowly ruffling Jimin's hair. "Jiminie."

And that was the last straw. Jimin leaned down and hugged Hobi hard, hating how weak Hobi felt in his arms, how breakable, how vulnerable. "I'll t-t-take c-care of y-you from n-now on, h-hyung," Jimin promised. "D-d-don't worry about m-me."

Hobi laughed, and the sound was sweet to Jimin's ears. "Of course I'm still going to worry about you. You're my little brother. You just get too much attention, is all, and I like attention too so I want you to share it."

Jimin ignored the cue to laugh at his lighthearted words and just hugged Hobi harder, memorizing the feel of each rib and bone. It would serve as his reminder. He wasn't the only one who was hurt. "I love you," he whispered, his words smooth for once, and Hobi smiled.

"I love you too, Jimin."

***

Yoongi was about to go back in when he saw a familiar figure coming down the hallway.