Faltering Steps • J-Hope

xvii.

Yoongi waited until all the other members had already left for practice, taking Hobi with them to make him feel included even though he wouldn't be.

Then Yoongi called a number.

"Yeah. You can come over tonight. Don't back out now or I'll kill you."

Then he hung up the phone and went to practice.

***

"I'm so tired," Jungkook moaned, dragging himself through the door.

"I'm sore," Tae complained. "Somebody help me stretch or I won't be able to move tomorrow."

"I'll help you all just give me a second to relax," Jin said, just as thoroughly exhausted as the rest of them.

Well, except Hobi. When Yoongi had showed up at practice, he pulled Hobi aside and talked with him for several minutes. Then, while they had been practicing, he'd disappeared for a few hours and had only showed up when they'd finished. But he refused to tell them what he'd been doing.

"It was nothing important," he was still insisting to Jimin, who was worried about him. "If you keep worrying about me, you'll shrink, Jimin! Cause you know worry weighs down on you!"

Jimin crossed his arms. "J-horse."

"Of anything, I'm J-Stallion!" Hobi defended, putting a fist in the air.

"J-Mustang!" Taehyung piped up.

"J-Thoroughbred," Jungkook suggested.

"J-Unicorn," Namjoon said as he shut the door to the dorm. "Because people think you're real but you don't actually exist."

Jimin just pursed his lips and sighed.

Hobi laughed. "It's okay, Jimin, you're J-Shetland-Pony."

All of them cracked up and even Jimin had to laugh a little bit. "Fine, fine..." He rubbed Hobi's hair so it stuck out at weird angles.

"No, my beauty is all I have going for me," Hobi complained, but he grinned and left his hair as was.

"I wouldn't bank on the beauty thing," Yoongi said and Hobi pretended to be hurt.

"Waaaait...are you saying I'm not the visual?" Hobi asked, mock-surprised.

"Sorry but that position is already filled," Jin said, flicking his hair and posing with a finger on his lip.

"Ewww," Hobi said.

They all argued and laughed for a while until there was a knock on the door.

They all looked at it, surprised, all except Yoongi, who went to the door and opened it.

"So you came." He held open the door, and Sehun walked through, nervously nodding at Yoongi before turning to face the six other members.

He hesitated, opening and closing his mouth several times, but then Hobi interrupted.

"Sehun?? What are you doing here?" Hobi asked before grinning. "Is this a maknae hangout thing?"

Jungkook shook his head, confused. "No...at least, I don't remember planning to meet up?"

Sehun shook his head. "We didn't. I'm not here for that. Hoseok...Hoseok, can we talk alone somewhere?"

Hobi frowned before getting up. "Sure, I guess." He laughed. "Are you going to confess to me?"

Sehun blushed out of embarrassment and nervousness. "No, I'm not-"

"I'm kidding, Sehun. Relax. My room is over there. Just follow me," Hobi said, walking to his room, his limp pronounced.

Sehun winced upon seeing Hobi's bad leg and hesitated before hurrying after him.

The door to Hobi's room closed and there was a moment of silence in the dorm. Then-

"You just went ahead and decided this without us?" Jin asked, frowning disapprovingly.

"Yeah, I thought we were going to talk about all this!" Namjoon said.

Yoongi shrugged. "You all can talk all you want, but I'm doing what's best for Hobi."

"What's going on?" Jimin asked uncertainly, looking between the three of them. "Hyungs?"

"Sehun is the driver of the car that hit us and hurt Hobi," Yoongi said, not sugar-coating it.

Jungkook frowned. "Sehun did? You're sure?"

"Yeah." Yoongi's tone brooked no argument.

"But...but why is he here now?" Tae asked, his eyes flicking over to the room he shared with Hobi. He stood up and took a step, ready to intervene.

"To apologize," Yoongi said, putting a hand on Tae's chest and pressing lightly so Tae sat back down. "Just give them some time to talk it out."

"And you knew about this?" Tae asked. He was really close with Hobi, and knowing that he'd been excluded from knowing info about Hobi's injury was painful. "You knew? All three of you? And you didn't tell us?"

Jin tried to calm Tae down. "We only found out yesterday who it was, okay? And we didn't want to make any false accusations or make the situation worse-"

"We still have a right to know!" Tae said, uncharacteristically serious. "We care about Hobi too! Just because you're older than us doesn't mean that you guys are the only ones who get to worry about him and protect him."

"Relax, Tae," Yoongi said, frowning at him. "Now you know, okay?"

Tae stood up, still angry. "I'm going to my room."

"You can't, they're in there," Namjoon said, but Tae pushed them aside.

Jimin hesitated before following him. "I'm with Tae on this one. We're a family. We don't keep secrets. What you guys did was an asshole move."

The two of them went to the closed door and hesitated before walking in.