With trembling fingers Seokjin did up the tiny buttons on the blue shirt he wore, feet dangling down from the high examination table he sat on. It was always a little odd when he was on the other end, and terrifying, because it usually meant only one thing.

“Okay,” his doctor announced, coming through the door, a large manila folder in hand.

“X-rays are back?” Seokjin asked hopefully. There’d been a rush put on them, out of respect for how he’d done his residency at the hospital, but sometimes there was no telling how long they’d take, and Seokjin very much did not have all day.

Minah, her high heels clacking a little, nodded as she opened the folder to hold one up to the light. Her short hair bob listed to the side as she cocked her head before giving up on spotting the issue without a backlight. “Right on time, for once.” She headed to the white board across the room and slid the x-ray into place, lighting it up properly.

“And now you tell me the bad news,” Seokjin said, shoulders sagging. He tried not to shift on the paper covered bed, hating the sound it made. More than anything he wanted to get up and run out. If only willful denial was an option.

Minah shook her head. “We don’t know it’s bad news.”

Seokjin wished that were the case. Gently, he told her, “You forget you’re dealing with a doctor here, Minah. More than that, you’re dealing with someone who has intimate knowledge of this condition. I know all the warning signs of a flareup.”

The technical phrase was a “hot phase” but it didn’t make any difference what it was called. The light headedness, the increased severity of his heart palpitations, and the dizziness were all very concrete signs that things were about to get worse.

Across the room Minah crossed her arms and stared at the x-ray. “Let’s not jump the gun, okay? I didn’t spend all this time working to keep you alive for you to go so fatalistic on me.”

Seokjin had to crack a smile at that.

Minah hadn’t, in all actuality, been his doctor from the start. She wasn’t that much older than him. It had been Minah’s father that Seokjin had seen since he’d been diagnosed as a child, and Minah’s father who’d treated and cared for him. But Minah had always been there, lurking around, watching, and making declarations of her own aspirations. Like Seokjin, she’d graduated from school early, blown through her residency, and was now the youngest and maybe even most competent, cardiologist in her field in Korea. When Minah’s father had passed away the previous year, and Seokjin had needed a new doctor, she had been the natural choice.

She hadn’t let him hand his care over to anyone else.

“Any blackouts?” she asked.

Even though she wasn’t paying attention to him, focused on the images of his lungs, Seokjin shook his head. “No, thankfully.” That was truly his worst nightmare.

“Swelling? In either your legs or abdomen?”
 

Again, Seokjin told her, “No. But it seems like that might be next.”

Finally, Minah turned away from the x-ray and to the nearby table where his EKG and echocardiogram results were displayed.

Mouth dry, Seokjin said, “It’s getting worse, right?”

She finally turned towards him and gave him a sad look. “You know as well as I do, Seokjin, that this is a progressive condition. It will always get worse.”

Until he died.

“I thought we were managing it,” Seokjin said with a sigh. This was not what he wanted to hear. There was still so much for him to do, so much left for him to accomplish, and if his health was starting to significantly fail him, it was the worst timing ever.

“We are. It’s just time to increase our management.”

But still Seokjin could feel the abnormal beats of his heart, and the lightheaded feeling the beats brought with them.

Stepping closer to him, Minah brought her fingers to his wrist. He noted that she absolutely didn’t comment on the bruising at the skin there. Instead she concentrated on the beats that were too quick one moment and too slow the next.

“Well,” she decided, “I think we need to handle your heart being so out of synch right now. We need to get it back to normal, and at this stage I don’t see it happening by itself.”

Seokjin blanched. “A cardioversion?”

Minah patted his shoulder. “I think so.”

And it seemed the day was getting even worse.

“I’ll call for a nurse so we can get started,” Minah said, but then hesitated when she saw his face. “Seokjin. Jin.”

Her hand slipped easily into his and Seokjin remembered that this was the girl who’d gotten into mock fights with him with her father’s tongue depressors. She was the first girl who’d ever kissed him, held his hand just before his first surgery, and promised to always be there for him. She was his friend, and then some. She was a trusted confidant.

“Do you want to call someone to come be with you?” she asked gently. “Your father? Your brother?”

“My father?” Seokjin nearly snorted. “He’s at work, I’m sure. And he’d probably be more irritated that I interrupted his day, than any kind of worry he might feel.” And his illness had always been a sore spot. It was, after all, his illness that had gotten Seokjin and Jungkook’s mother and elder sister killed. At least indirectly.

It was a kind of guilty that Seokjin had wrestled with for a good portion of his teenage and young adult life, and only recently started to come to grips with. All of his therapists and councilors told him that even if his heart condition had caused those deaths indirectly, he was in no way responsible. Seokjin believed that now. But he wasn’t certain his father did.

So for the most part, with the issue being an overly sore and sensitive subject for his father, Seokjin tried to limit his involvement as much as possible. He came to his appointments alone. He didn’t burden his father with the facts of how his condition was progressing. And if there was an emergency, it wasn’t his father that he called.

“It’s not a big deal,” Seokjin told Minah finally. His father wasn’t an option, and who knew about Jungkook. He was probably busy trying to convince himself that being a thug was a normal career aspiration.

Neither did Seokjin want to worry his brother. Jungkook worried more than he let on, and Seokjin didn’t want to add to that.

Minah reminded, “We have to put you out for it. You might feel better if you wake up to a friendly face.”

Seokjin grinned at her. “Your face doesn’t count? It’s certainly friendly and pretty enough.”

Minah rolled her eyes. “Stop flirting, or else I’ll tell my girlfriend and she’ll beat you up.”

Seokjin put a solemn hand over his heart. “She has nothing to worry about. You’re gorgeous and talented, Minah, but my interests lie in someone I can’t remember pulling the pigtails of.”

Minah poked him in the arm. “I pulled your hair right back.”

“I’m fine doing this by myself,” Seokjin reassured. He’d done it alone before. And there were minimal chances for complications, so he wasn’t worried. “But let me call the clinic and tell someone that I’ll be out longer than I expected.”

Almost delighted, Minah comment, “Oh, that clinic of yours! I’d almost forgotten about it.”

“You conveniently forgot that I asked you to put in some volunteer work.”

“When the year turns over,” Minah promised. “I’m swamped until then, and I won’t commit to something I don’t think I can fulfill. But I swear, sometime in the back half of next year you’ll have me for a while.”

“Good,” Seokjin said, because even having Minah a few hours a week would be something incredibly good. Minah certainly wasn’t a pediatrician, and they had Hongbin to fill that position around May, but Minah was especially good with children. She’d go a long way to comforting the smaller ones, and keeping the older kids focused. Plus, when she wasn’t teasing Seokjin, she had a great bedside manner. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Minah moved to the x-rays and commented, “You know, everyone here is pretty secretly thrilled and jealous that you have that clinic.”

Seokjin rolled his eyes in an exaggerated way. “They’re jealous of a building in a bad part of town, that barely has enough funding to keep the lights on, is understocked and understaffed, and barely hanging on?”

Minah gave him a dazzling smile. “Of course, and the people who won’t admit they’re jealous are the ones who are the most. Because it’s your clinic, Seokjin. It’s the start of your very own practice. And you’re so young. That is incredible and amazing and astonishing. Most of the doctors here will work at this hospital for the next few decades before they have the balls to open their own practice, and some of them are such fat cats they never will.”

“Well, I’m not sure how long the clinic can actually hang on. We’re nearly in the red, and we’re getting more and more patients every day. It feels terrible to have to turn people away because of lack of manpower, or because we’re not large enough to handle their more complicated medical issues.”

Minah gave a sorry kind of nod.

“But it’s where my heart is,” Seokjin said finally. “It’s what I want to do with my life, and I don’t regret it for a second.”

His father had always been right, even from the start. With his amazing scholastic performance, residency under the best oncologist in the country, and all the drive and ambition he had bubbling up in him, he could have had an easy ride. He could have ended up at the top of his field already, seeing specialty patients from all over the world.

But that wasn’t what Seokjin wanted or valued.

His only regret was that the nature of his choices led to a considerable amount of stress, and therefore strain, on his heart. He was making himself worse, he understood. But there was no way to change anything, not without giving something important up in return.

“Call your clinic,” Minah urged a few seconds later, a tentative smile pulling at her lips. “Then when you’re done, we’ll get you situated, bring the nurse in, and get this done. You’ll need to rest here for a while, but you’ll be out by later tonight.”

Seokjin caught Minah’s eyes drifting back to his x-ray and test results.

Hoarsely, Seokjin asked, “Minah, how bad is it? How much worse is it this time than the last time I got check out six weeks ago?”

She seemed to deflate in front of him.

“How thin is my ventricle getting?”
 

Minah’s finger traced a detailed photo of his heart. “Thinner than I want to see,” she admitted finally. “At this size, your heart is having a significant amount of trouble getting blood to your entire body. And I can tell, just by looking at this, that your left ventricle has started to weaken along with the right. That increases the difficulty we’re going to have treating you.”

“So,” Seokjin reasoned, “what you’re saying is that I can expect to just drop dead at any second?”
 

Minah spun on him almost angrily. “Don’t you dare say things like that, Seokjin.”

He offered an apology, but he didn’t retract his statement. There was always the risk of sudden death, and that possibly had been looming over him since he was a child. The better care he took of himself, and the medications he took, helped to regulate the chances of that happening, but his heart was like a ticking time bomb. And Seokjin didn’t know what the number on the timer was, or when it planned to go off.

“I’ll keep you alive,” Minah said, finally reaching for the light switch on the brightly lit board the x-ray was attached to. “How about you trust me to work something out.”

Skeptically, Seokjin told her, “You can’t invent a cure out of thin air, Minah. I’d gladly take one, but we’re not there just yet in terms of medical advancements. Not even you can work miracles.

She grimaced a little, making him feel like he’d said the worst thing ever, and thumbed towards the door. “I’ll be back in about five minutes. Make your call.”

Her heels clacked all the way to the door and Seokjin made his call.

“How serious is it?” Jonghyun asked, and of all the doctors and nurses that worked at the clinic full or part time, Jonghyun was the only one who knew about Seokjin’s condition. He never asked for details, and never pried into Seokjin’s personal business, but he was aware of it.

“Well,” Seokjin said with a forced laugh, “it’s never good when I have to go to the hospital, but it’s not the worse I’ve ever been, either. I need to have a cardioversion to get my heartbeat back to normal. I’ve had a few before. I’ll be out the entire night, just to be safe.”

Jonghyun gave a pause before asking, “I know you don’t have a car. I can come pick you up afterwards.”

Jonghyun was more of a friend now than a simple colleague, and Seokjin truly appreciated him.

“Is this, or is this not the last night Kibum is going to be in town?” Seokjin questioned.

“Key would understand,” Jonghyun argued back.

“I swear I’ll be fine,” Seokjin said, and he really meant if. “I’ve had this done before. They put me to sleep for it, and when I wake up a little while longer, my heart is better … relatively speaking. I’ll be up on my feel less than an hour after that, and I’ve never experienced any severe compilations. I’ll be more than capable of not only taking the bus home, but also working tomorrow morning.”

With severe hesitancy, Jonghyun asked, “You’re absolutely sure? It would only take half an hour to pick you up and drop you off at the clinic.”

That was true, but Seokjin also knew that Kibum had an early flight out the next morning, and wouldn’t be back to Seoul for almost eight weeks. Seokjin didn’t want to take a second of their time together, away.

“I’ll call my brother,” Seokjin said, trying to reassure him.

“Okay,” Jonghyun said eventually. “Please take care.”

Fifteen minutes later Seokjin had changed fully out of his regular clothes and back into his examination gown. Minah had already returned, her favorite nurse Eunji is tow, and they were preparing to wheel him down the hallway to the room he’d have the procedure done.

“I still think you should call someone,” Minah said as she tucked a blanket around Seokjin’s legs. “You’re one of the strongest people I know, but you don’t always have to be. It’s okay to lean on someone else for a while.”

Seokjin asked her, “Do you give that inspirational talk to all of your patients?”

Minah flicked him on the forehead. “You brat.”

He was out just after that, sedated for the procedure that would essentially shock his heart back into a more natural rhythm. And with any luck, it would hold for a while. His medication did most of the work, keeping his heart going, but every once in a while it wasn’t enough.

Manipulating the beat of his heart with electricity wasn’t exactly the most comforting thought ever, but it was a necessary evil.

When he woke sometime later, breathing much more easily, and finally, finally without the heavy beat of his heart echoing in his head, Seokjin felt infinitely better.

“Don’t worry,” Eunji said comfortingly, leaning over him as he glanced around the room, trying to get his bearings. She put a hand on his arm and the nurse added, “You came through just fine. You’re going to be fine.”

Voice cracking, Seokjin asked, “Water?”

He managed a small sip of water, even if it felt like too much, and then promptly went back to sleep.

When he’d been sedated, he hadn’t dreamt at all. That wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He’d spent a lot of time sedated over the years, for medical procedure after medical procedure. He’d never once dreamt during that time. It was always an abyss of blackness and nothingness.

But afterwards, when the heavier sedation wore off into a more natural sleep, the dreams came. And this time he dreamed of something so long ago he’d practically forgotten about it. He dreamed about his mother, about his sister, and about before Jungkook had been born. When Jungkook had been just a thought between his parents, and before they’d known that Seokjin was sick, there’d been trips to the park every afternoon to feed the ducks, adventures on the jungle gym, and cold ice cream in hot weather.

And when Seokjin woke up again, his mouth was full of a cotton like sensation, but he could think much more clearly. And instead of Eunji, who was a very capable and nice nurse, Minah was back.

It had to be much later in the day, Seokjin reasoned, because her hair was pulled back into a less stylish ponytail, her heels were gone and replaced with flats, and already she looked a little worn and tired--like she needed a solid night’s sleep.

“You with us now?”

Seokjin sat up slowly, his eyes locked on the machine next to his bed monitoring his vitals. His pulse and blood pressure looked good, and he was able to hesitantly say, “It worked.”

“It worked,” she confirmed, squeezing his hand. “But as always, you know I have to tell you this isn’t a permanent fix. It will only last so long, and stress or poor habits will exacerbate your condition. Seokjin, I don’t want to see you in here any sooner than our scheduled visits.”

She helped him right himself completely, and take a new drink of water that went down much more easily than the last.

“I will do my best,” he said, still feeling a little drowsy, but slowly coming back to himself.

Within half an hour he was up and standing, and just after that he was dressed and holding still so Eunji could tie his shoes for him. He’d attempted it already himself, but a sudden case of vertigo had sent him smashing to the ground and he had an egg at the back of his head to prove it.

“Take it easy, will you,” Minah said as she came to see him off. She put the back of her hand to his forehead and cautioned, “You’re going to be a little dizzy and disoriented for the next few hours, but it’ll wear off. Come see me immediately if anything feels off, and don’t take chances with your health. I know you’re stubborn, but be a little less stubborn on this issue.”

“Thank you, Minah,” he said appreciatively, and kissed her cheek in a way that had her blushing. “I’ll see you in September.”

The sun was low in the sky when Seokjin left the hospital. He was a little unsteady on his feet, and there was the barest hint of vertigo, but he was more than capable of making it to the bus stop less than a block away. Then it would be straight home, hopefully he could manage to eat something light, and then he planned to go to bed early.

He was tottering his way down the sidewalk confidently when he heard the motor of a bike sound far too close for comfort.

Instinctively he veered away, not trusting his sense of balance or the rider.

The rider on the motorbike swerved in front of him and stopped, body vibrating atop the bike.

Seokjin, who was too tired and too worn to put up much of a fight, asked him simply, “What’s your problem?”

The rider turned the ignition key on his bike and flipped up the visor of the helmet he wore.

Seokjin took a long, deep sigh. “Why am I not surprised that you ride a motorcycle.”

Jimin gave Seokjin a wide grin only slightly visible from under the helmet. “Why am I not surprised you’re cheating on your clinic?”

Seokjin tried to push past him immediately.

“Hey, wait!”

Jimin hefted himself off the bike and unlatched his helmet.

“Look,” Seokjin said, and he was going to be very, very angry if he ended up missing the soonest bus and had to wait an additional half hour. “I don’t know why you’re here, following me around, but could you not? Please? I’m not going to say anything to anyone about you or your leader, or anything that might endanger my brother. You didn’t have to come down here and attempt to be all imposing and threatening. And not just because I don’t find you imposing nor threatening in the least bit.”

Jimin gave him a bland look. “You sure think a lot of yourself.”

“I’d settle for you thinking nothing of me at all.”

A spark of light-headedness cut through him and Seokjin held still, hoping it would pass soon.

“I’m here because I although I might not like you, I do like your brother.”

“Jungkook is pretty likable,” Seokjin said, the nausea sneaking up with the vertigo. He couldn’t wait to get home and crawl in bed. He was going to forego the whole food aspect, upon further reflection.

“And he’s worried,” Jimin added. “About you. That’s why I’m here.”

“What?”

Jimin reached suddenly for him and held up his bruised wrist. “This is why I’m here. Because your brother is terrified that some guy from Infinite showed up, because of us, threatened you, and hurt you. That’s why I’m here.”

In the fading light of the day Seokjin looked at the bruises once more. They were more vivid and awful that ever before, and now Seokjin knew it had less to do with how hard Hoya had grabbed him, and more to do with the current level of blood circulation in his body.

“It was Hoya?”

Seokjin jerked his wrist back. “You were seen, going into my clinic that night. One of Infinite’s men saw you, reported back, and that’s why Hoya showed up to demand answers. He grabbed me because he didn’t think I was telling the truth, and he was right, I wasn’t. But I convinced him otherwise. I would never put my brother in danger, even if it means protecting you along the way.”

“So,” Jimin eased out, “you mean to tell me that Infinite’s scariest enforcer showed up, questioned you about something you lied about, hurt you, probably tried to scare you into fessing up, and you still didn’t?”

“No,” Seokjin said simply.

“That sounds like bull,” Jimin argued back.

“You don’t have a brother, do you?” Seokjin asked. “Or a sister? Anyone you’d lay down on a wire for?”

“I would for Bangtan. They’re my family, your brother included.”

Finally, the vertigo started to pass. Even with the nausea lingering, it was better than nothing.

“I lied to Hoya then,” Seokjin told him, “and I’ll lie to him every time he comes around. I think I was pretty convincing, and I had a probable story, but please don’t put my brother in danger by making stupid choices in the future. I need you to watch his back, not add fuel to the fire.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have his back,” Jimin shot back. Seokjin still didn’t like him, but at least in the regard of Jungkook, Seokjin believed him.

“Okay then,” Seokjin said, and tried once more to step around Jimin.

But Jimin, in the most unpredictable way, cut in with, “So why did you leave that little clinic you defend so much, to go work at that hospital over there?”

Seokjin wanted to demand to know what kind of game Jimin was playing, and why he was holding Seokjin up. But by now Seokjin had figured out the type of person Jimin was. He was there for a reason, he probably wasn’t going to come right out and say what that reason was right away, and if Seokjin wanted him to go away, he’d have to play some kind of waiting game.

“I wasn’t working,” Seokjin said. “And don’t diminish my clinic.”

Jimin shrugged. “It’s nice enough, I guess.”
 

“When people aren’t bringing guns into it.”

Jimin cracked another smile. “Considering the part of town it’s in, and the kind of shady people that come through it, I bet you more than anything at least one of them has brought a gun into your clinic before.”

Seokjin shook his head. “I have no way of knowing that for certain. I do know, however, that none of them ever pointed a gun at me, making unnecessary demands.”

“Would you have honestly helped us if I’d asked nicely?” Jimin asked with a snort.

“Yes,” Seokjin said in almost a snappish way. “because I’m a doctor and that’s what I do. Anyone, including my brother, would have told you that.”

Unflinchingly, Jimin pointed out, “I think you take for granted that not all doctors are like you.”

Seokjin’s eyes drifted down to Jimin’s waist and chest.

“See something you like?” Jimin asked in an almost crude way.

Seokjin’s eyes jerked back up. Jimin was certainly fit and attractive enough, but that hadn’t been the point of his ogling. “I was trying to see if I could tell if you were wearing a gun or not.”

After a moment of quiet, Jimin said, “I’ve got a piece on me.”

Seokjin tried not to make a completely repulsed face. “I don’t like guns.”

“Your brother mentioned that, but not why.”

“Jungkook doesn’t have the same association with them that I do.”

Jimin turned to nod back at the hospital. “So if you weren’t working there, what were you doing? You left for the place really early in the morning. Almost twelve hours ago.”

Eyes narrowing, Seokjin demanded, “Have you been watching me?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Jimin countered, “Why did you go to the hospital for almost twelve hours?”

Seokjin let himself look to the hospital in the distance. “That’s where I did a majority of my residency. I know a lot of the staff. I went to visit a friend. I hadn’t seen her in a while.”

“And that took all day?”

Angrily, Seokjin said, “I don’t know what your problem is or why you’re here, but I want to know even more why you’re following me around. You have no right to do that, and it’s creepy. It’s not your business where I go or what I do, and you’re putting me in a tough spot if anyone spots you in Infinite’s territory. Hoya believed me last time, but I don’t know if he’ll believe me again. So stop it. Leave me alone, don’t follow me.”

“Would that I could,” Jimin finally said, almost in an exhausted way. “You think this is what I want to be doing with my days? Following around some prissy doctor who thinks he’s better than other people?”

There was such furry crawling under Seokjin skin as he spat out, “I do not think I’m better than anyone else. No one is better than anyone else.”

“You sure act like it,” Jimin shot back, eyebrows raised “You think anyone who isn’t a charity case or martyr like you is some selfish, terrible human being. News flash, that’s not true. And me having to watch you parade around with your nose in the air, especially since you don’t seem to know that your nose is in the air, is suffocating. But I do it anyway, because that’s what I was told to do.”

Seokjin said simply, “You’re an ,” then he was pushing past.

He did not, for one second, think he was better than anyone else. He understood that not everyone could afford to be so charitable, and some people were simply selfish for various reasons. He knew that instinctively most people wanted to do good, and that was enough. But he didn’t stick his nose in the air, he didn’t think that him running a clinic was any more important than whatever anyone else was doing, and the accusation was absolutely hurtful.

Seokjin had put everything into his clinic. He’d given everything for it, and to keep it going, and he hadn’t done it to be able to brag or show it off or use it as fodder. He’d done it because he wanted to help people, and it was as simple as that.

Behind him Seokjin heard the rumble of Jimin’s motorbike, and sure enough seconds later he was cutting back into Seokjin’s path.

“Gun or no gun,” Seokjin threatened, “if you don’t leave me the hell alone, I’m going to make you regret it.”

“I can’t,” Jimin said, having to speak up so he could be heard.

There wasn’t a terrible amount of people on the street, but of those that were, they were steadily starting to pay attention to Seokjin and Jimin. Attracting attention was never good.

“Why not?” Seokjin asked with a sigh.

Jimin had his helmet back on, and he reached to the side of his bike where a spare was latched on. “You get on and let me take you back to your clinic, and I’ll tell you why.”

Mouth agape, Seokjin looked almost fearfully at the motorbike. “You can’t … that’s a death trap.”

“I’ve been riding for five years,” Jimin assured. “I haven’t crashed once, I’ve never lost a passenger, and I give your brother rides all the time, so that should be good enough for you.”

Seokjin put his hands on his hips. “Telling me that you let my little brother get on the back of your deathtrap isn’t how you’re going to win me over.”

“And why should I care if I win you over?” Still Jimin held out the spare helmet.

Seokjin pointedly didn’t take it. “Because, you should know, with Jungkook being my brother and your friend, we’re linked together. I’m obligated to you by default, and my doctor’s oath requires me to help you whenever you need it. If, god forbid, one of you is shot again, and you choose to come to my clinic, I will help you. But how much anesthesia I use, and how gentle I am, will depend on how much I like you.”

Jimin’s eyes crinkled in what must have been a salacious smile, his mouth still hidden by the heavy helmet he wore. “You’re just a firecracker.”

“I’m also your elder.”

“Get on,” Jimin said, trusting the helmet at him one more time. “You’re a doctor, but you’re also probably the most practical and logical person I know. If there’s a question in your mind, and there must be, I know you’ll want the answer. I’ll take you home, give you your answer, and you can decide from there if you’re satisfied.”

Seokjin made a dissatisfied sound as he looked the bike over one more time.

“You’ll be fine,” Jimin said in an exacerbated way. “Statistically speaking you’re safer on my bike than on that bus that’s leaving up there, the one you’re not going to catch even if you run after it.”

Seokjin’s gaze jerked to the bus in question, and it was true that he could see the one he was supposed to be on, driving away from the curb and merging into traffic. It was long gone, and now Seokjin’s only options were to wait an additional half hour, or take his chances with Jimin.

“Not winning me over,” Seokjin warned, then he gingerly took the helmet and slid it over his head. It felt tight, almost impossibly so, and uncomfortable. “And I think your helmet is too small.”

He was fussing with it when Jimin called out, “It’s supposed to be that way. If we crash, for whatever reason, it being that snug will save your brains from getting scrambled.”

It was awkward and almost downright horrible having to throw his leg over the bike and climb on the back. And it only got worse when he realized he needed to wrap his arms around Jimin’s waist, and tightly.

“You’ll be fine,” Jimin shouted as he revved the engine, the bike vibrating on command. “Just hold on tight and lean with me when we turn.”

Seokjin, who wasn’t one for excitement or thrill seeking, closed his eyes, probably squeezed Jimin too tightly, and tried not to hold his breath.

The motorcycle ride, which Seokjin did not enjoy, was thankfully over much sooner than expected. The motorcycle was certainly faster than taking the bus, and Jimin had sense enough to bring Seokjin through the alleyway that cut across the back of the clinic. There were no eyewitnesses there, and if Jimin kept his helmet on, no one would ever know he was there.
 

“I rode the motorcycle,” Seokjin said as he handed the helmet back, his hair probably completely ruined. “Now tell me why you’ve been following me around.”

Easily enough, Jimin said, “You saved Rap Mon’s life. Maybe another doctor could have helped him, but we didn’t have time for that. It was you. You saved his life, you kept him alive, and don’t give me any bull about that being your job. I was there, okay? I saw how you handled him, and it was more than professional behavior. You cared about him, you comforted him, and you made sure he knew he was safe. Then you tried to keep the police away. You even took on Hoya for us, putting a target on yourself. I won’t deny any of that, even if I think you’re boring and have a stick up your .”

Seokjin wasn’t certain if Jimin was attempting compliment or insult him.

“The order came down from Rap Mon,” Jimin told him. “Ever since Jungkook told us about Hoya threatening you, and more than that, grabbing you, Bangtan made a decision. For the next few weeks, until things fully calm down, one of us will be watching you at all times. We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

Seokjin pointed out, “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I agree.” Jimin shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t even matter what you do. Rap Mon said to watch after you, to keep you safe, and that it’s on my shoulders if something happens. J-Hope should be lurking around from time to time, too. You should get used to it for the next few weeks.”

Hands on his hips, Seokjin said, “You can tell Rap Mon that I think we should have a little talk. I don’t appreciate him patronizing me via you.”

“It’s a life debt,” Jimin shot back. “Rap Mon looks out for his own, and that’s not negotiable.”

Seokjin argued, “I’m not one of his.”

Jimin kicked the throttle of the bike back up, “Take that up with him, because as far as he’s concerned, you are. That means Bangtan is going to protect you, whether you think you need it or not.”

The bike revved even louder and Seokjin shouted, “You tell him I want words with him!”

Jimin kicked up the stand on the bike. “I’ll pass that along.”

Seokjin, mouth set into a frown that felt permanent, watched Jimin drive off down the alley and cut back out onto the street.

Rap Mon … Namjoon … had ordered that Jimin and the others watch after him?

As much as Seokjin appreciated the sentiment … he supposed, it wasn’t something he particularly needed. And it seemed even more dangerous to constantly have Bangtan hovering around, since Hoya had seemingly bought everything in the story Seokjin had sold to him.

No. It wouldn’t do. Seokjin needed to speak with Namjoon and soon. Something about the situation had to be done. Seokjin was not some damsel in distress, and he was going to let the man know.