To Sink Like a Stone

17 - Crutches

Jimin woke up with his face buried between a set of pillows. He could tell they weren't his own by the smell, and knowing that he was in Jungkook's bed, that Jungkook had yet to come home, made the pang of grief in his chest all that much stronger.

Grumbling to himself about a headache and puffy eyes, Jimin tugged his head upright lazily and glared toward the window. No light shone in through the blinds. His gaze languidly shifted to the clock on his own nightstand, the rest of his head following with a few seconds of delay.

It was nearly four-thirty in the morning. Jimin had only slept for five hours, at most.

He was sitting up with his back to the bathroom, from which a sliver of light escaped, allowing him to see just enough to navigate. With a sigh, the boy pushed himself from his roommate's bed and dragged himself to his own on the other side of the bedroom. He'd left his phone lying by his bag the night before.

The bright light of the screen catches him by surprise, but a far more unexpected message sits on his lock screen from just two minutes before.

"JIN: I'm getting Jungkook early this morning. He said he wanted out as soon as possible. We'll be back around 6."

A smile spread across his overjoyed face. Just in time, he thought.

With no regard for how much sound he was making, Jin pulled together a bag of things for the ride to the hospital. He packed whatever he could find, hats and gloves, tissues and bandages. He pulled chargers from outlets and packages from cupboards. If anything went wrong in the hour there and back, he would be prepared.

Jin had a whole dorm to himself. The arrangements had been like that for only a few months, and it was meant to be temporary, since finding a cheap room that fit three boys was much more difficult than for two or even one. But Jin didn't mind the single room. He lived right next to Hoseok and Namjoon, and constantly threatened to punch holes in the wall if they would not stop being so loud.

But that morning, the second morning he'd retrieve Jungkook from the hospital, he didn't care about keeping his own volume down. The stress of losing Yoongi and having to take care of Jungkook for another month kept him from having any sympathy for his sleeping neighbors.

As the oldest boy flung himself from his apartment, bag slung over his shoulder, he heard a voice calling from behind him. At this hour? he thought to himself, then turned, only to find himself face-to-face with a weary looking Jimin.

"Hey," Jimin whispered, out of breath from sprinting down the hall. He'd been waiting only ten minutes to hear Jin's door click open. "I saw your text and I was wondering -- I wanted to come along."

"Why are you up so early?" Jin asked, not feeling the need to give permission for Jimin to join. The younger boy just shrugged his shoulders at the question. "Okay then. Let's head out."

Jungkook entered the leader's room, leaning on one crutch and using the other to hold the door open for Jimin, who had followed behind.

Namjoon was hunched over his knees, hands on his forehead, listening to Hoseok despairing aloud. "You said if he wasn't back by this morning, we can start worrying."

"Well, we can't do anything about it," Namjoon argued back. "There's no point in worrying. It's just more stress. We need to leave this to the manager and the guards."

"It feels wrong to not even try to help. We could go out and help look for him. It wouldn't hurt to try," his roommate suggested.

"If something really did happen to Yoongi, we don't need more of us wandering in the streets while all the guards are scattered. And if you're really all that concerned about helping, you can check out the Twitter feed. See if the fans find anything. That's about all we can do right now--"

"Wait," Jungkook interjected. His right crutch had fallen out of his hand and was leaning on Jimin, who had also become Jungkook's new human crutch. Bracing himself against Jimin, eyebrows pinched in, he asked, "Where is Yoongi?"

Hoseok gasped. It hadn't registered with any of them that Jungkook was still oblivious to the situation. Of course the manager wasn't heartless enough to send the youngest the news during his surgery. "He -- he didn't come back home last night."

"So he didn't come to the hospital at all?"

"No, he did," Hoseok winced. "We saw him there on our way out. But none of us know where he went after. And they're sending out guards all around town to find him, but we don't even know where to start--"

"That's enough, Hobi," Jin interrupted. He picked up the crutch from the floor and re-situated it beneath Jungkook's armpit, then moved on to setting up a spot for the youngest's foot on the coffee table.

Jungkook sat himself down on the couch between the other two younger members, leaning his head on Taehyung's shoulder. "But why would he have just left? Did something happen to him, or did he just change his mind?"

"I don't think he would have just changed his mind about coming to see you, Kookie. He seemed pretty set on it when he left yesterday," Taehyung consoled him.

"But then something must have happened to him! What should we do? What can we do?" He picked his head up and looked around the room at all the other uncertain faces. Finally, his eyes met Jimin's, which were narrowed at first before his gaze turned toward the ground. "Could we ask the fans to help? They're always good at finding us..."

"No. We've been instructed not to create commotion among the fans. We're not allowed to tell them unless it's absolutely necessary," said Namjoon, scrolling back through messages from the manager.

"Then what do we do?" the youngest whimpered.

But no one had much of an answer. The same question rang in all six heads.

What do we do?