The knock on the clinic door was gentle and hesitant, before it swung open slightly. Yoongi didn't enter right away, instead merely poked his head through the gap to give the room a quick once-over. The sigh that left his lips a moment later was one of gloom and tiredness, a mirror to the expression he wore, as he pushed the door wider and stepped inside.

With trudging feet, he made his way towards the little brown desk sitting at the opposite end of the room, where a plate of grilled meat had been placed some hours ago, only to remain untouched hours later. Taking it away, he replaced it with a bowl of fresh, steaming fried rice, while trying his best to not to think about how it was just going to stay there until the next time someone else comes in with a new dish of food.

He stopped by the examination bed next, proceeding to dust off the cold, leathered surface with his free hand and fluffed up the pillows that had been left by Seokjin — deeds he found to be completey unnecessary when the bed didn't look any different than how it did once he was done, yet somehow he managed to convince himself otherwise, keeping a positive front towards the dreary routine he and the rest of s had unconsciously fallen into.

It'd been four days. Four damn days of the same cycle repeating itself over and over. And he was about to lose his mind.

Another sigh escaped the male's lips as he brought a hand up to rub his forehead meditatingly, a means to regain his composure, before finally turning to meet the doleful pair of eyes that had been watching him the entire time from when he'd entered.

If there was an occasion where Yoongi felt like a piece of his heart could ever be melted, he certainly didn't expect it to be because of a stranger he'd just met. So no matter how much he'd grown accustomed to the sight of the quivering boy on the floor before him, he would never feel prepared enough for the ache that filled his chest every time.

Damn, the boy was still there, in the same crouch, against the same wall by the same damn corner of the room, just the way he had been the afternoon they saw his human form for the very first time. It hasn't even been 12 hours since Yoongi's last visit, yet the boy looked like he'd aged five more years, more frail and wrecked than anything Yoongi had ever seen.

While the gashes that once coated his heavily blemished skin had already closed up into long, fading scars — a sign that his self-healing ability was back to normal — there was nothing healthy about the boy; even under the blanket that was draped over him, Yoongi could easily make out the bumps along the fabric that were the back of his ribcage and spine, and the scrawny, bony outline of his arms and legs. Pale, horribly chapped lips peeked from in between dry, brittle locks of hair, a clear hint of dehydration, and all Yoongi could think about was how the boy could still be alive, breathing, after all those days spent cooped up in the cold, depressing air of the clinic that had become his temporary shelter.

With what went on from the boy's breakdown following the shift to his human form, the pack had agreed to lay their interrogations aside and work to help him get better. Technically they didn't have a choice, as the interregation would've been useless; despite the countless attempts made to converse with the boy, in hopes that they could get him to open up about what happened, not a single word had slipped from him, nor even the slightest reaction to show that he could understand them in the first place. 

It wasn't that they didn't try. Gosh, they really did try — bringing him meal after meal, setting up a bed for him to sleep comfortably, leaving clothes for warmth — yet the boy took nothing they gave, even when they'd promised so many times that they weren't gonna hurt him. The only thing he did take though, was the blanket; albeit Seokjin had been the one to put it on him when he'd fallen asleep one night, the fact that he didn't get rid of it should've meant something (right?).

As much as they willed to help the boy, there was only so much they could do. It'd been days of absolutely no progress, and the pack was running out of ideas, patience wearing thin, but right at that moment, as Yoongi stood there, gazing at the boy the whole time he was absorbed in his thoughts, even he couldn't bring himself to walk away from the broken, terrified look on his face.

"Hey," Yoongi finally whispered, in a voice so calm and soft he couldn't believe was his own.

Getting down on one knee, he reached the boy's eye level. "There's um, some fried rice on the table for you. We figured you might want something different, since you didn't eat any of the meat we gave you, so... yeah. Please, try to eat. You can't get better if you don't."

Yoongi didn't know what he was expecting, but silence was the only response he'd gotten, just like always, and with a dismayed exhale, he stood to make his exit.

The five pairs of eyes by the dining table turned at the sound of the basement door clicking shut, and trailed after the tired male that sauntered back to his seat among them.

"So, how'd it go?" Hoseok spoke when no one else did, picking absentmindedly at his dinner.

Elbow coming up to rest on the table and chin on his palm, Yoongi sighed for the umpteenth time. "He's still the same. Not eating, not drinking, not talking."

Seokjin groaned. "And that makes it the fifth plate of good samgyupsal we've thrown out."

"This can't go on," Namjoon said as he leaned back in his seat and folded his arms in ponderment. "We shouldn't force him, but he's not going to live any longer if we don't do something. He's already getting worse."

"He still clearly doesn't trust us."

"Hyung, that may be, but remember the look on his face?" Jimin added thoughtfully. "He stared at his hands like... like he doesn't recognise them. Like he's never seen them before. And I'm pretty sure we all sensed the shock he felt when he turned human."

"Yeah, I sure did," Hoseok agreed. "And it definitely wasn't because he was and being stared at by 5 other guys."

"This is something none of us have dealt with before," concluded Namjoon, then turned to Jimin. "Have there been any reports of missing teenagers around this area lately?"

The blonde shook his head. "Not from what I heard from my dad. But maybe if we could get something off him, like a strand of hair or fingerprint, I could get my dad to run it secretly, then we'll find out who he really is."

"Sounds like a plan. For now, let's just keep at what we've been doing and give him a little more time. We'll see how it goes in the day tomorrow."

With that, all discussion on the matter was dropped and everyone diverted their attention back to the dinner on their plates, despite the loss of appetite that had unknowingly consumed them. Jungkook, who'd been listening in silence through the entire conversation, didn't finish his food for the first time that night, and stole a covert glance towards the stairs that led to the basement.

Gosh, he'd never wanted to stay away from that damn place so much before.

After clearing up from dinner, the pack retreated to the confinements of their respective rooms, all except their maknae who'd been left on his own in the dim lighting of the living room. Strong Woman Do Bongsoon played on the television, the indistinct dialogues a soft murmur from the low volume it'd been turned to, courtesy of the elders whom Jungkook knew were worn out by the training they'd done earlier on. While he was just as exhausted — he could hardly move his arms after the last practice battle he had with Hoseok (the guy was a damn beast) — he wasn't gonna miss a run of his favorite drama, not even when his lids fluttered heavily from unshakable sleepiness.

Though it was barely an hour later when light snores began to join the long-forgotten chatters of the TV, as the chestnut-haired boy finally gave in to the fatigue that engulfed him and laid passed out on the couch, head slumped uncomfortably over a folded arm and leg hanging off the side. He didn't realize how tuckered out he'd been to even fall asleep without his usual cup of warm milk, not until he was rudely woken just shy of midnight by a distant, undistinguishable sound that bugged his ears like a fly that just wouldn't go away, and he jolted up from his unexpected slumber with an aggravated groan.

What the hell? The brunette thought as he rubbed at his worn eyes. Picking up the remote to turn the TV off, he was fully awake now, sitting up with brows furrowed in concentration as he listened deliberately to what seemed to be whimpering — an erratic, muffled sort of whimpering — in an attempt to locate where it was coming from. Soon enough, he found himself moving towards the stairs that led to the basement, feet striding carefully over the floorboards as the noise grew clearer the closer he got.

Jungkook didn't know how long he'd stood there, facing the threshold with hopes that someone else would wake up to check things out instead. He really, really hated clinics, and hospitals and doctors and medicine and antiseptic— and being the s