The Most Beautiful Moments In Life

Chapter 10: Friends

June 4th, Year 22

9:23 PM

Seokjin stood outside the hospital waiting room hesitantly, his hand hovering above the handle. He'd gotten the call from Namjoon two and a half hours ago, but still, he couldn't bring himself to go in. He couldn't figure out why. He thought he'd saved Taehyung already. He thought that stopping Taehyung from killing his father was all that was needed to save him, but here he was at a hospital, not daring to go inside.

Taehyung's incident with his father on May 20th was one that Seokjin had re-lived time after time. It had taken him forever to figure out that he wasn't the right one to stop Taehyung. No matter what he tried, he still failed every time. The last time he tried to save Taehyung himself had ended with a broken bottle embedded in Seokjin's chest before the sound of glass shattered and the loop restarted. After that, he realized that Hoseok was the one who needed to stop Taehyung.

It had worked. It had worked every time after he'd tried. But this? This had never happened before. Seokjin couldn't understand how things could have devolved so quickly. Seokjin knew Taehyung's father was abusive. He'd learned that from the many loops he lived. But he never knew it could be this bad. He thought everything would be fixed after Hoseok came to help, but it wasn't that simple. It was never so simple.

He was naive to think that Taehyung would just be okay after that. But now Seokjin could see. Repressing Taehyung's anger wasn't going to fix the problem. Clearly, that only would make things worse. Seokjin hadn't even accounted for the repercussions for stopping Taehyung. Just because he found a way to prevent Taehyung from murdering his father, it didn't mean that Taehyung was safe. It only endangered him more.

Why did something always have to go wrong?

Suddenly the door opened, and Seokjin stumbled backwards to avoid the body stepping through the door. He was unsuccessful and a certain Hoseok bumped right into him.

"Jin?" Hoseok's eyes softened with recognition. His eyes were glassy, like he'd been holding tears in for too long. Seokjin didn't know what to say. He didn't often see his friend dropping his guard.

"Sorry," was all Seokjin managed to say.

"Why are you sorry?" Hoseok asked, though his eyes seemed distant as he spoke. Seokjin wasn't even sure how to answer. He was sorry that Taehyung was suffering because of an oversight that he'd made? He was sorry that he kept failing to save everyone? But he couldn't bring himself to say either; no one would believe him if he explained the loop anyway.

"I'm sorry for being late. You all must be tired," Jin tried instead. Hoseok nodded.

"It's been a few hours since surgery started. We don't know yet if he's okay," Hoseok explained. Seokjin nodded wordlessly. Hoseok shifted from foot to foot awkwardly.

"I was going to go get snacks for everyone. Do you want anything?" He asked with a forced, yet very convincing smile. Seokjin shook his head.

"I'm okay," he answered. With that, Hoseok was heading down the hall to the vending machine, leaving Seokjin in front of the door once again. He let out a deep sigh and turned the handle.

Inside it was even drearier than he expected. Taehyung's sister looked so weak as she leaned against Namjoon. Her eyes were puffy and vacant, and obvious tear streaks stained her skin. Jimin was expressionless, staring off into space, his body unmoving. Jungkook was fiddling with his sleeves anxiously, seemingly looking for an output for his shaking fingers. Seokjin could tell what Jungkook really wanted to do was punch something. Namjoon was gently rubbing Eunhye's shoulder with one hand as she leaned into him, and with the other hand he pulled at the bandages wrapped around his knuckles. Yoongi was looking straight up at Seokjin. He didn't need to speak for Seokjin to get the message.