His ears were still being assaulted by the shrill of the alarm by the time Seokjin regained his senses.

He was a little panicked, and a lot confused, but he could feel his nerves evening out, and his main priority was now the bleeding man who was being moved to one of the examination rooms.

A man who was likely a thug of some kind.

As Seokjin lifted himself squarely to his feet, he wondered if that meant somehow Jungkook was a thug. He was associated with these men, and only criminals had guns outside of the military. But that was a connection that Seokjin didn’t want to believe, especially since his brother was so young and had so much potential. Seokjin couldn’t bear to see him burdened by a life of crime, and to see him become a degenerate was a heart wrenching thought.

But he had to focus. Even if the man who’d been shot was a criminal or a thug, or whatever, he was still an injured party. And to a doctor, the only thing that mattered was the injury, and not the person it belonged to.

Seokjin didn’t go after his brother. Instead he careened down the hallway towards the sounds of men arguing, and shouldered his way into an examination room that his new patient was currently bleeding all over.

“I can’t treat him here,” Seokjin said firmly, eyeing the man Jungkook had given orders to. The gun was out of view now, but probably not far from reach.

“What?” the gruff man demanded, sharing a quick look with the man with the impressive bruise on his face. “I thought you were a doctor--”

“Your friend,” Seokjin cut in sharply, “he’s been shot, correct?” He didn’t wait for a response to say, “I take it none of you have any medical training? Can you tell me if the bullet is still lodged in him? If the wound is being complicated by any excess bleeding, damaged organs, or--”

The man who’d been shot groaned terribly.

Quickly, Seokjin pushed up the sleeves on his pajamas and said, “I need you to bring him with me to the operating room at the back. It’s sterile and will have all the equipment I need to save his life. Unless you’d like him to bleed out here in a room that mainly has cotton swabs and tongue depressors?”

“Where?” the man with the bruised jaw asked, already reaching for the gunshot victim. “Where is that room?”

“Follow me,” Seokjin snapped out, and then he was running ahead to get the single operating room ready to go.

For the most part, Seokjin and his fellow doctors worked towards preventative health care. It was their main goal, with a few exceptions, to treat minor illnesses before they became major ones. Seokjin tried to make his clinic cheap enough and welcoming enough that patients would come frequently, and he and his colleagues could catch diseases early on.

Once in a while they needed to conduct a minor surgery or two, and Seokjin kept the small operating room in pristine condition for any medical emergency that might require it. He could handle a gunshot wound, especially if the victim had made it this far.

“You,” Seokjin said, rallying his courage, looking to the man who’d pulled a gun on him. “Street thug, don’t bump your friend into anything. Think of him like a delicate vase that’s already cracked. Too much jostling could do more damage than the bullet.”

The man glared at him. “Jimin. I have a name.”

Frankly, Seokjin didn’t care what the man’s name was. Just that he did as he was told.

“Move,” Seokjin urged.

“What do you need us to do?” Jimin asked as he and the others came through the door behind Seokjin, flipping on lights and helping their friend onto the operating table.

The alarm finally cut out and Seokjin breathed some relief.

“Get his clothes off,” Seokjin commanded, washing his hands carefully and thoroughly at the nearby sink. “All of them except for his underwear. I need to be able to see the wound clearly, but don’t touch it.”

“He’s bleeding,” the unnamed man stated, laying the nearly unconscious one down on the table. “I don’t want to take my hand off the wound. You have to keep pressure on it, right?”

“It’s an abdomen wound,” Seokjin told him. “He hasn’t bled to death yet, despite you moving him all around, so that is a very good thing. You can let off the pressure now and take a step back.”

“Jin!”

Seokjin was getting his first look at the wound when Jungkook came skidding into the room, sweaty and breathing hard.

“Not now,” Seokjin said, placing a tentative amount of pressure on the wound. The hole looked clean, the placement was as good as it got, and a few seconds more Seokjin was able to determine the bullet had gone completely through. The fact that it wasn’t still lodged inside was likely the reason the man was still alive. “I’m busy.”

The wounded man groaned again, eyes opening wider than before, but with a delirious haze.

“Sir,” Seokjin said, feeling blood gush out warmly over his gloved fingers, “my name is Doctor Kim. You’re at my clinic and you’ve been shot. I am going to help you. I will take care of you. But I need you to listen carefully to me, and do as I say.”

A furry of movement caught Seokjin’s attention, and when he next looked up at his brother he could see another, suspiciously dangerous looking man standing next to him, leaning up to whisper in his ear something.

“Do any of you have basic medic training?” Seokjin asked, looking from face to face.

There were only headshakes in response, and Seokjin knew there was no way he could wait to call in any kind of assistance. Let alone, how could he explain it?

“Jungkook,” Seokjin said sharply, wiping the bullet entrance clean to get one more look at it before he assessed any possible internal injuries, “take your new friends and leave. I need to concentrate.”

“Jin--”

Seokjin shot him a dark glare and his brother stiffened and paled.

They’d called him a Tasmanian devil when he was a resident. Seokjin was good natured and well-mannered by default. He was kind and gentle to his patients, respectful to the nurses, and always thankful for his life and what he had. But in the operating room, when there was a life to save, he was critical, harsh, and above all else, unflinching. There was no room for niceties in the operating theater, and it was the only place in the world that Seokjin was aggressive.

“You,” Seokjin said, narrowing his eyes at Jimin. “You get out too. You especially get out.”

“Doctor,” the man on the table moaned out, one of his bloodied hands reaching up for Seokjin’s pajama sleeve.

“You’re going to be okay,” Seokjin told him again, giving him a soft smile. “I promise you. I’m a very good doctor, this isn’t the first bullet wound I’ve treated, and you’re going to be okay. I’ll take care of you.”

The man’s hand felt back limp as Jimin demanded, “Why should I leave?”

Ignoring him completely, Seokjin turned to the man with the bruised jaw and asked, “What’s your name?”

The man hesitated, something that was awkward and unsettling to Seokjin, before he said, “V.”

Seokjin balked, “Your name is V?”

“Stop making chitchat and save his life,” Jimin cut in.

“V,” Seokjin said, nodding across the room. “You’re now my nurse. See that surgical tray over there with the blue tarp? Bring it over, but be careful not to touch anything but the side handles. It has sterilized surgical tools for an operation that’s supposed to take place in about nine hours. I need to inspect the wound and clean it up before I can pack it and seal it. I need those tools.”

V, who looked young like Jungkook, and out of place with the others, moved quickly to get the items requested.

Jimin shouted, “I’m talking to you!”

“Don’t snap at my brother like that!” Jungkook’s own voice rose.

And then the new comer, whoever he was, interjected, “Stop fighting, all of you!”

Seokjin turned to Jimin and looked in straight in the eyes. “Do you know why you have thirty seconds to get out of my operating room?”

“Go ahead and tell me.”

“Because,” Seokjin said, muttering a thank you to V when he deposited the tools at his side. “Because you’re the idiot who pointed a gun at me. You’re the idiot who, instead of asking nicely if I could save his friend’s life, demanded that I do so. Because I don’t like you. Because I don’t like violence. And because this is a clinic where I treat people and take care of them, and you are making it very difficult for me to want to do that. Now, your friend is laid out on my operating table, bleeding out from a gunshot wound. Do you want to stay here and be an , or do you want to leave now and let me work? Fifteen seconds for you to decide.”

Seokjin turned fully away from him then, and instead concentrated on the wound.

It was only the shuffling of feet, and then the quiet shutting of a door that alerted Seokjin that he was alone with the victim and Nurse V.

He was able to work is relative silence for a few minutes before V asked, “Is he … do you think he’s going to be okay?”

The trepidation in V’s voice was almost endearing in its uncertainty. Seokjin was used to reassuring people and comforting family members, so it was easy for him to say, “Your friend has a lot going for him. He’s young, fit, appears to be in good health, and if one is going to be shot in the abdomen, this is a good place for it to happen.”

The victim had passed out moments ago, and Seokjin knew that was a godsend. He didn’t have an anesthesiologist on hand, couldn’t possibly call for one, and more basic pain medication was something that would have to wait until Seokjin could get a better sense of the patient’s vitals.

“Also,” Seokjin said, this time giving V a reassuring smile, “the bullet went through and through. In and then out. And it did so in a clean trajectory. If that hadn’t happened, your friend probably would have bled to death before you even got him to me.”

V frowned. “How come?”

The subject was so close to home, but Seokjin refused to be anything but professional. “When a bullet goes through and through, in one side and out the other, it makes it much easier for a doctor to not only assess the damage, but also repair it. When someone is unlucky, and depending up on the circumstances around the shooting, the bullet can do one of two things. Either it can remain whole in the person and bounce around, damaging organs and various other things, or it can break apart as shrapnel and lodge everywhere.”

“And Rap Mon he didn’t … that didn’t happen to him?”

“No,” Seokjin said confidently. Then his mouth turned down and he asked, “That isn’t really his name, is it?”

V looked panicked.

“That’s his thug name?”

When V remained staunchly quiet, Seokjin shrugged and said, “I think you should know that my surgical skills are going to save this man’s life tonight. But for me as a doctor, what I do is more than simply or clinically treating someone. I bond with my patients. I comfort them and make them feel like they’ve got a lifelong friend looking out for them. For the moments they’re with me, and maybe after, they are my friends. And do you know how that starts? It starts with a name.”

V shook his head. “You shouldn’t--”

“You broke into my clinic at one in the morning,” Seokjin said, eyes narrowing. “You set off my alarm, no doubt broke something, dragged your bleeding friend all over the place, you’ve forced me to contaminate an area that another doctor planned to use to help someone else, and you can’t tell me a name that I can use to comfort my patient with?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” V said, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, “Jungkook always says what an amazing doctor and brother you are, but--”

Wheezing a bit, and startling them all, the patient on the table rumbled out, “Kim … Nam … Joon.”

“Ah,” Seokjin said, peering up at his patient. “So he has a name. Namjoon.”

Kim Namjoon was an odd-looking man, not overly handsome like Seokjin had seen before, but there was certainly something appealing about him. He was the kind of person who looked like he had a magnetic personality, and looked a force to be reckoned with. He looked to be the kind of person Seokjin liked best, which was interesting, and he was now even more determined to see him to recovery.

“Namjoon,” Seokjin spoke once more, “I don’t know if you heard me earlier, but I’m your doctor. I’m taking care of you. I’ve inspected your wound, and while you most certainly need a blood transfusion, of which I do not have at this clinic, I think you’re going to make a full recovery with enough time. You are going to be okay.”

“Blood?” V asked quickly. “He needs blood?”

“Most certainly,” Seokjin said. Then he was surprised by how hard Namjoon grabbed his hand and squeezed. He turned to V and wondered, “I don’t suppose either of you know what blood type he is?”

Without saying a word V jogged quickly to the door. He popped it open to speak to someone on the other side.

Trying to keep his face as easy and friendly as possible, Seokjin leaned closer to Namjoon. “I don’t know if I even want to ask how this happened.”

Namjoon hissed through his teeth in pain before saying, “Disagreement.”

Seokjin gave a thin laugh. “A disagreement with guns?”

Namjoon winced, and for the next few minutes they worked in silence.

V was back in the room by the time Seokjin started on the stitches that would hold everything together.

“Just a little while longer,” Seokjin promised as he threaded the needle through Namjoon’s skin. “I know this hurts, but honestly, I’ve seen grown men cry over things less than this. You’re doing well.”

A smile that was all teeth greeted Seokjin as Namjoon said, “Gotta … impress …my hot doctor.”

“You’re so greasy,” Seokjin . “You’re lucky I like greasy. It’s one of my character flaws that I find greasy endearing.”

Namjoon said assuredly, “Best … doctor … ever.” He was gasping for air, fighting through the pain, and Seokjin was only more impressed by the fortitude being displayed.

For fifteen minutes Namjoon endured stitches being applied to his already inflamed skin without pain medication or a numbing agent. Through it Seokjin talked to him about the much worse gunshot wounds he’d seen, how much worse it could have been, and how he was confident that Namjoon was a very lucky person.

A quick check of Namjoon’s blood pressure satisfied Seokjin enough to finally say, “Okay, now you get your reward.”

“Lollipop?” Namjoon asked, sweating profusely across this nearly body.

Seokjin hadn’t allowed himself to look much before, but the muscle definition was impossible to miss now. Namjoon, before his brush with death in the form of a bullet, was likely a perfect male specimen. Toned legs, developed arms, and a strong, wide chest, probably drove countless people crazy with want.

Seokjin hadn’t had a date in five months. He hadn’t had in almost a year. And Namjoon flirting with him, dangling about like a piece of meat, was not helping.

For the most part, Seokjin considered himself married to his occupation. But some nights he went to bed lonely and in want of companionship. Namjoon was a reminder of sorts that he was young, and he should have someone, and that he couldn’t live forever in the small apartment above his clinic alone and without a partner to share his life with.

Nor should he want to.

“This is a local,” Seokjin said, producing a syringe, and filling it with a carefully measured dosage of liquid. “It’s not the strongest stuff I could give you, but something tells me you don’t want to be completely dead to the world, unable to defend yourself if trouble comes knocking.” Seokjin paused, giving Namjoon a suspicious look. “I know you won’t be bringing any more trouble to my clinic, though, right?”

Namjoon cracked his eyes open and gave a weak shake of his head. “No, sir.”

“Then this,” Seokjin told him, “will provide relief from what must be an excruciatingly painful throbbing in your side, and help you sleep. But you’ll still have your senses should you need them.”

V tensed up, having been silence since he returned, and Namjoon caught Seokjin’s wrist sharply before he could administer the syringe.

Seokjin asked plainly, “You don’t want the pain relief?”

He could see the conflict on Namjoon’s face. Seokjin could see the uncertainty and the panic and the hint of fear.

“I’m a doctor,” Seokjin told him evenly, not pulling his wrist back in the least, despite the almost painful grip Namjoon had on it. “That means, above all else, that I help and protect people. You are my responsibility as long as you’re under my care, and I won’t let anything happen to you. That is my promise to you, and you should be aware, I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I haven’t broken one yet, and I don’t expect to start with you.”

Slowly, almost excruciatingly so, Namjoon’s hand released on his wrist.

“You’ll feel better with this and a little rest,” Seokjin promised, then slid the syringe tip into the crook of Namjoon’s elbow gracefully. “Trust me.”

Namjoon gave a small nod before his eyes closed and he was out.

Gently Seokjin snapped his fingers, and when Namjoon didn’t react, he told V, “He’s going to be fine.”

V nodded and replied, “Blood is on the way.”

Eyes widening, Seokjin asked, “And did you break into a different clinic to acquire it? Or the local blood bank? Because that is absolutely not something that--”

Before he could finish the door burst in and Jungkook rushed out, “Jin! The police are here!”

Seokjin whipped off his bloodied gloves at once, giving a worried look down to Namjoon’s still body. “Figures they’d pick tonight to be the one time they make it here within an hour of an emergency.”

Uncertainly, Jungkook asked, “What are we going to do?”

There was a lot implied in that simple sentence. Seokjin knew at one that whatever his brother was mixed up in, whoever Namjoon or Rap Mon was, it wasn’t good. And the police were a complication that could possibly endanger everyone.

Seokjin was certainly going to rip his brother a new one at the first chance he got, but he wasn’t going to let anyone else hurt him. He wasn’t going to let Jungkook be in danger, and he wasn’t going to expose him to the police.

And then there was Jimin to consider, with his gun. The clinic couldn’t afford a shootout, and Seokjin couldn’t let anything happen on his watch that endangered people, including his patient on the table.

“Stay here,” Seokjin said, striding towards his side. “I’ll take care of the police. Keep everyone out of sight.”

Seokjin brushed past Jimin and the newly arrived man with his eyes straight ahead.

“Hey!” Seokjin called out, a forced happy smile on his face the moment he saw the first police officer, baton in hand and flashlight shinning through the unlit reception area. “My name is Kim Seokjin. It’s my alarm that went off.”

Of the two police officers, the one at the lead looked the most agreeable, so Seokjin directed his attention towards that man.

“What caused the alarm?” the first police officer asked.

Seokjin ran a hand across the back of his head as he fabricated, “You know the neighborhood. I imagine it was only a matter of time before someone decided to test the waters and attempt to break in. As you know, there is a lot of valuable equipment in here.”

The second officer eyed him. “And where are the assailants now?”

Seokjin shrugged. “I think the alarm scared them off. That alarm would scare me, especially if I were just looking for a quick steal.”

Palms sweating, Seokjin knew whatever the look on the second officer’s face meant, it wasn’t good. He certainly didn’t look convinced. And it was highlighted when he reached for a small pad of paper and read off it, “Why did it take you … nine minutes to enter the code to the alarm, after two failed previous attempts.”

“Nerves,” Seokjin told him, never so thankful for the medication pumping through his veins at the moment, helping to keep him calm. He forced another laugh. “I mean, I got the system installed just in case, but a part of me never expected to actually hear it go off and be confronted with proof that someone was attempting to break in.”

There was perfect silence behind him, and Seokjin, who hardly believed in god, was praying desperately that none of his brother’s … associates, made a sound.

“So,” the first officer continued, “you heard the alarm, came down stairs, discovered that the perpetrators had run off, and that’s it?”

Nodding Seokjin told him, “I guess I’m lucky, right?”

The second officer raised an eyebrow. “Do you need us to call an ambulance for you?”

“Ambulance?” Seokjin frowned. “I’m a doctor. I don’t think I need an ambulance.”

The officer gestured to him. “You’re injured, aren’t you? Bleeding?”

Seokjin’s eyes darted down to his sleeve and he saw for the first time where Namjoon had grabbed him. Against his blue pajamas were streaks of blood. And there were more splashes of blood, too, proof that he’d been sewing someone up.

“I’m not bleeding,” he said slowly, thinking frantically for an excuse. “I was just … this is a clinic. I was cleaning. One of the doctors performed a surgery earlier. Our cleaning service doesn’t come until the morning. I was getting a head start on it.”

“In your pajamas?”

“I have insomnia. Cleaning helps.”

Now the first officer looked suspicious and he said quietly, almost so that Seokjin had a hard time hearing him, “Is everything okay?”

And now the police clearly thought that whoever had broken in was forcing him to put on a front.

“Oh, no, everything is fine!” Seokjin put up his hands defensively. “I’m just tired and shaken and upset all at the same time. I swear, officers, everything is fine.”

The second officer shook his head and said certainly, “We’re going to need to take a look around.”

Seokjin bit his tongue nearly hard enough to draw blood.

Seokjin followed behind the two men as close as he dared as they searched the clinic. And they were thorough, too. They opened all office doors, all examination rooms, and even the storage closets that held the extra supplies they used during business hours. And all the while the officers crept closer to the operation room, Seokjin worried he wouldn’t think of a reason to keep them out in time.

“This is the operating room,” Seokjin said darting in front of them when they reached the last room in the clinic, and the only that remained with a closed door. “Like I said earlier, that’s where a surgery occurred earlier today.”

The second officer pointed out, “Where you claim you received those blood stains?”

Seokjin was certain he nodded a little too forcefully, and then the officers were pushing past him to the room where certainly Namjoon and the others were hiding.

“Well,” the first officer said after a moment, hands on his hips, “it looks like everything checks out.”

Seokjin blinked in surprise at the empty room.

Empty.

How the hell was it empty?

The first officer patted his partner on the shoulder and said, “One of these days your suspicions are going to pay off. But not today.”

The second officer looked sour.

Seokjin still couldn’t believe the room was empty. All of the evidence was still there, from the blood on the floor to the used tools and the bloody bandages. But it also looked like Seokjin had claimed, and that there’d been a surgery in the room earlier. His lie held up, even in the face of the truth, and he knew from the way the offices were shuffling away, that they believed him.

“I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here,” Seokjin said, trailing after them to the front door.

“Don’t worry about it,” the first office said in a good natured way. He gave Seokjin a dismissive wave. “We’re more than happy to come and check out any possible threats to this place. You’re doing the neighborhood a great service. This is the least we can do in return.”

The second officer stopped them short and pointed to a small, side door barely in sight. “What about that?”

Seokjin thumbed towards the door as nonchalant as he could manage. “That’s the stairwell that leads to my apartment above the clinic. You’re welcome to search it too, if you want.”

The officers shook their heads and continued towards the front door.

The moment they were gone and the door was shut behind them Seokjin choked out a gasp of air and leaned against it.

“You nearly blew it,” a voice behind Seokjin stated.

“Are you serious?” Seokjin demanded, spinning around to glare at Jimin. “I just saved your asses from the trouble you likely brought down on yourselves, to my clinic which is supposed to be the very opposite of trouble. Be thankful I didn’t turn you over.”

Jimin, who was even shorter than Seokjin had first assumed he was, still managed to look intimidating and threatening as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t give your brother up.”

“Maybe I would if I thought it would get him in trouble long enough for my father to snatch him away from you and put him into a reformatory school in China.”

“Jin?” Jungkook called from behind Jimin. “Everything okay?”

Seokjin did his best to glide past Jimin without so much as a glance, to get to Jungkook. “Where’s Namjoon?”

“Excuse me?” Jimin demanded still at the front door. “Why does he know that name?”
 

Seokjin leveled an angry finger up at his brother. “I expect you to have a very, very good explanation for bringing this to my doorstep--and for being involved yourself. And I will want to hear that story, likely with several bottles of soju to go along with it. But right now I need to know what you did with my patient. My patient, I should tell you, who needs to not be moved barring an absolute necessity.”

“This was a necessary thing,” Jungkook insisted. “We thought we’d be okay in the back room until the cops started searching the clinic. And we were counting on them not searching your apartment. We had to move Rap Mon up there.”

“Take me to him,” Seokjin insisted right away, and was climbing stairs a second later.

Seokjin found that Namjoon had been placed on the only soft surface available in his small, one bedroom apartment located above the clinic. And that happened to be his bed. It was the first time Seokjin had had a boy in his bed in quite a long time, and it wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it to happen.

But for the most part Namjoon was still sleeping comfortably. His wound looked good, there was still no sign of a fever, and he looked fine for having been carried up steep stairs and moved so quickly after being sewn up.

“Well,” Seokjin said, now aware that he had all of the men in his thankfully clean and tidy bedroom, “everything looks fine. I think, if he gets the blood transfusion that he needs, he’ll recover just fine, and quickly at that. I don’t expect any complications if the wound remains free of infection, and he can go home to rest as soon as tomorrow.”

The only unnamed man, the most recent arrival, asked, “Tomorrow? You want him to stay tonight?”

Seokjin asked, “And who are you?”

The short boy thumbed at himself and said, “Suga.”

Seokjin had to fight to roll his eyes as he stated, “It’s one ridiculous nickname after another.”

“Jin,” Jungkook said, almost at a whine.

Seokjin asked his brother, “What’s your nickname? Seagull?”

Jungkook scowled.

“He needs to stay with me tonight,” Seokjin said definitively to them all. “Whether he sleeps here or down in the clinic, he shouldn’t be moved any more than he has to. I want to watch him for any possible signs of a developing fever, too.”

V asked, “What about when the other doctors and nurses start arriving?”

Seokjin reasoned, “Yoona is the most punctual of all the nurses. She’ll be here at six-thirty. And Jonghyun has a consult at seven. You can take Namjoon out just before that. It’s not long from now, but enough time for me to be sure that he’ll recover on his own without needing further medical supervision.”

Jimin told them, “J-Hope said he’ll be here in ten minutes with the blood. V, you’ll stay with--”
 

“Listen,” Seokjin said, and he felt as if Jimin was the kind of person who would crawl under his skin and never fail to irritate him. “This is my home and my clinic. I’m Namjoon’s doctor, and I’m going to tell you all how it’s going to go.”

Jimin’s head cocked in almost an impressed manner.

“My stupid brother,” Seokjin said pointedly, “will be staying with me tonight so that I can lecture him for the next five hours. Because if I’m not going to get any sleep, he’s going to suffer as well. My new nurse, Nurse V, will stay here as well. He’ll hand me the blood, he’ll run errands if I need them for Namjoon, and he will be the only one other than my brother that I have contact with. The rest of you can prowl around outside, or go home, or go steal candy from babies if that’s what you do. But you’re going to leave and you won’t come back until tomorrow morning when you take Namjoon to rest at his place. If there are any questions or concerns about this, feel free to take them to someone who cares. My clinic, my rules.”

The silence that followed was satisfying.

Then Suga, the one with the most laughable nickname, told Jungkook seriously, “I thought you said your brother was one of the nicest people on the planet?”

Jungkook ran a hand through his hair. “He is, when he’s not busy being someone’s doctor.”

On Seokjin’s bed Namjoon shifted a little, murmuring in his sleep.

Seokjin said to Jimin, “You take your gun and your hoodlum friends and leave now, please. You can come back at six-thirty.”

Jimin, in a touching, almost affectionate way, brushed his hand against V’s arm and said quietly, “If you have any problems, you call right away. I’ll be nearby.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” Seokjin said when Jimin and Suga were gone. He made his way to the kitchen attached to the living room and reached for the coffee machine.

Collapsing down at the kitchen table, Jungkook bemoaned, “You’re going to be really mean when you lecture me, aren’t you?”
 

Seokjin called over his shoulder, “Don’t you think I should be? I just found out my little brother is associated with a group of hoodlums that I can only assume comprise a gang of sorts. And this after I spent my lunch hour in the company of our father, listening to him complain about what a letdown I am as a son, and how he’s scared that you’re going to follow in my footsteps and become a disappointment as well.”

Jungkook winced. “You had lunch with dad today?”

“Every Wednesday afternoon when our schedules permit it,” Seokjin said. Then he called out, “Nurse V, please get the mugs in the cabinet next to you. On your left.”

V gave him an incredulous look. “I don’t think I like it when you call me nurse.”

“Tell me your real name, the one your parents gave you, and I won’t call you my nurse.”

Jungkook smothered a laugh behind a hand as V said, “To my left?”

The blood arrived less than ten minutes later, and after Seokjin started the transfusion for Namjoon, he was more comfortable leaving him to sleep away the early morning hours.

“Now,” Seokjin said, filling three coffee cups when the machine beeped to indicate it was ready. V took his in a hasty retreat as he hurried to Namjon’s side, and Seokjin sat across from his brother at the kitchen table. “I want you to tell me exactly how you fell in with these men. I want to know what you’re doing hanging out with people who get shot, and you’re going to explain to me calmly and very convincingly why you don’t think I should go straight to dad, tell him everything, and have you shipped to a reformatory school in China.”

“Because I hate Chinese food?” Jungkook offered. He took a careful sip of the coffee, and then made a repulsed face, commenting, “Ugh, I forgot you drink decaf only.”

“Talk,” Seokjin demanded, and he wasn’t going to let Jungkook go until he had all the answers.

“You’re not going to like it,” Jungkook warned.

Seokjin told him plainly, “Somehow, I already figured that.”