Thief

39

"Jaebum, what are we gonna do?" Mark asked upon Jaebum's return.

Jaebum plopped himself down on the couch, his fingers diving into his hair as he tried to think. "I-I don't know, just give me a sec..."

"Maybe we should call the police... we're in too deep..." Mark suggested.

Jaebum shook his head. "And what if the police are tied in with Shadow? We're basically letting the enemy in."

Mark sighed frustratedly. "What choice do we have? We're four dudes in a random penthouse that has a whole organized crime group coming after them, we won't make it one foot out of here alive! And let's not talk about how fucked up Jinyoung is- "

"Shut up! He's stressed, he's panicking, he's fucking scared, you can't blame him for what they did! They were the ones who fucked him up in the first place, don't you dare blame him for it!" Jaebum retorted, automatically defending Jinyoung despite the two not being on good terms at the moment.

Mark faltered, realizing that he'd hit a sensitive spot when mentioning Jinyoung. He took a moment to try and phrase himself better. "I'm not blaming him, I'm just saying, he's not a big help right now..."

"Well you sitting on your ass and complaining isn't helping either! What the fuck do you expect him to do? We don't even know what to do, and we're sitting here constantly lying to him, telling him we'll protect him and that he's fine, that we won't let anything happen to him. How can we keep promising him that when we're obviously still in danger? How can I promise him that when I'm not even sure if I can protect him or not?"

Mark shook his head, trying to explain himself. "Jaebum, I didn't mean to-..."

"Look, both of you, arguing won't solve shit. We're all stressed, we're all worried, we're all scared. Let's not blame anyone, and let's not yell at each other. None of that will help. How about we cool down, and come back when we're calm and collected to talk about what we're gonna do." Jackson suggested, cutting between the clashing two.

He looked at Mark who nodded his head, agreeing that they all needed to recollect themselves and regroup afterwards. "...Yeah, okay. We all just... need to chill..."

Jackson then looked over at Jaebum, expecting him to say the same. "Okay Jaebum?"

Jaebum stared at the floor, his hands habitually raking through his hair again as he tried to wrap his head around all that was happening. He felt worried about everything, from Jinyoung to dealing with Shadow, it was all just too much. And the last thing he wanted was for Jinyoung to suffer from it.

He let out a heavy sigh, leaning forward to bury his face in his hands."... I don't wanna fail him..."

Jackson pressed his hand to Jaebum's back, obviously hoping to reassure him. "You've done so much for him so far, there's no way you can possibly call yourself a failure. I'm sure he's thankful of everything, don't beat yourself up over a situation that you can't control."

Despite Jackson's words, that's exactly what Jaebum was doing, beating himself up over this entire situation. He was exhausted of everything already, he just wanted this all to end. With another sigh he stood up, walking away from the others. "I just... I need to go lie down..."

"Let's talk more over dinner, food always makes people happy, right?" Jackson suggested, to which Jaebum gave a single nod of acknowledgement to and continued walking down the hall.

He walked back to his room silently, hesitating just before opening to door. Jinyoung was in there, and he already felt his chest hurting at the thought of how scared and confused and left out he must've felt. He didn't want to see Jinyoung so upset, he hated it, but Jaebum realized that there was no one else he wanted to run to aside from Jinyoung despite their argument.