You Never Walk Alone

Chapter 49: So, What'd I miss?

After a while, the Baeks separated from their hug, Suecheon began cupping his sons' faces and pressing soft pecks on his sons' foreheads as he noticed that all seven of them were still crying, it absolutely broke his heart about how his sons' cries were naturally silent, because they were so used to shutting themselves up, all of them felt so broken in his embrace, it made Suecheon want to cry.

"D-dad..." Jungkook called out, "E-everything was so s-scary...d-dad..." He cried.

"Shh, shh...Kookie, I know and I'm so sorry..." Suecheon spoke, cupping his son's face gently.

"D-dad..." Yoongi spoke.

Suecheon immediately turned to his second oldest son, small tears collecting in his eyes, "Yoongi, I'm so sorry." He apologized, "I hurt you guys so bad, I'm so sorry..."

Yoongi didn't reply as he broke into sobs yet again, Suecheon didn't hesitate to pull his second oldest son into a hug again, threading through Yoongi's hair.

After Yoongi's sobs subsided a bit, Suecheon spoke, "C'mon, let's not take up the living room space and go to your room, yeah?"

Suecheon gently distanced Yoongi from the hug but still kept a comforting hand on his son's shoulder and lead him out of the room, he waited for his other five sons to follow and then began climbing up the stairs.

With a soft click, he opened the boys' room door and entered along with his sons.

They decided to sit down on the circular carpet in the center of their room, with Suecheon sitting in the middle, against the wall, his legs criss-crossed, Jin sat beside him, laying his head on his father's shoulder, Yoongi sat on Suecheon's other side, head laying on his father's shoulder as well, The two older pair of twins sat next to the two oldest, side-hugging them, The younger pair of twins laid their heads in the laps of the two oldest and lastly, Jungkook laid his head in his father's lap.

"So, what'd I miss?" Suecheon asked in a joking tone, trying to lighten up the mode before the boys began talking because he knew that once they started recounting the recent years of their lives, the atmosphere will get gloomy.

"A lot, dad, probably... enough to last a lifetime." Jin chuckled, looking at his dongsaengs, as if asking who was going to start.

"Do you want the good...things first or bad... things first, dad?" Hoseok asked.

"Well, let's start with the good things." Suecheon replied, a small frown making its way to his face as he noticed the amount of pauses his sons needed to take while talking.

"Okay...well, we found Yoongi hyung...and Tae." Namjoon spoke.

Suecheon chuckled a bit at that, "Thanks for letting me know, Joon, I hadn't seen those two at all." He joked.

"You're welcome, dad." Namjoon responded, giggling a bit too.

Suecheon turned to Taehyung, regret and remorse hitting him like a truck as he saw his second-youngest son's left eye, the layer of frozen blood still there, like a protective solid glass covering his eye, preventing him from seeing anything through it, and right below his eye, was a stitched up scar, it was clear that it had been infected a few times at least, and then, Suecheon focused on his son's entire face, there were small scars scattered here and there, reaching out, Suecheon brushed through Taehyung's hair, the boy smiled at his father in return.

Then, Suecheon caught sight of Yoongi's hair from the corner of his eye, he couldn't see the boy's face because his head was on his -Suecheon's- shoulder, but he could remember it, on his right cheek, there was an ugly scar, and his face too, was littered with cuts, they were like battle scars for his sons, scars to remind them what all they went through, tokens of their strength, he gently patted Yoongi's head.