They told him that the first lesson would be vocal with one of the other trainees.

“Just go to the second room in the third floor. If you meet with a soundproof room full of glasses and a piano, you’re in the right place,” the staff who was more like his fairy godmother right after he stepped his foot on Seoul smiled at him, “good luck, sweetheart,” she cheered for him.

He bowed at her thankfully and walked out of the room. He passed by some people; most of them stared cockily at him, probably knew that he was the new guy, new meat. His heart pounded hardly inside his ribcage. It was the first night he was being away from his parents and a part of him was scared, but there was also a part of him that jumped happily—excitedly. He was only a step, or more—he didn’t really care, from seeing or, even worse, being exactly on the same stage as his role model, all time favorite singer, Kwon Jiyong of BIGBANG. He was only a kid after all, so that was the only thing that got stuck in his mind. He shouldn’t care about how people stare; his dream was big enough to fight for.

He got too caught up in his train of thoughts before realizing that he was already pushing the door of the vocal room open. Another teenager turned around awkwardly, holding a microphone in one of his hands, and a music sheet in the other. They stared at each other for a while before the other boy grinned brightly at him.

“You must be the new guy!” he beamed happily, putting everything in his hands recklessly on top of the piano and practically dragged him inside, before closing the door behind them.

The room was too chilly for his liking, and the friendly greeting of the other boy kind of scared him a little bit too much.

The boy took his hand in his and shook it hard. “I’m Kim Taehyung,” he introduced himself and he wondered where that thick accent came from, “from Daegu!” Taehyung continued, like he could read his mind.

“Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook,” he replied shyly, “from Busan.

“Ah!” Taehyung nodded, “It’s really good to meet someone who’s originally from other cities than Seoul! You should meet the other hyungs! We have another one from Daegu, and Gwangju also, and—and there’s one from New Zealand, although he’s actually from Ilsan, and another one was from Gwacheon. You’ll like them all! Are you going to live with us?” he asked suddenly.

Jungkook stared. “I—“ he stopped for a while because it never really came to his mind when he planned his future before with his parents.

Taehyung saw the doubt in Jungkook’s face and smiled softly. “Well, do you have another place to live here, in Seoul?”

Yes, he wanted to say so he would not look so pitiful. But, Taehyung probably knew how it felt to be far away from home too. “No—not really,” he answered timidly.

And, Taehyung’s smile got even bigger. His grin shaped rectangle and it was too bright for the shy Jungkook. “I guess you didn’t really have choice other than living with us then! We’re far away from home too, and we can always cheer each other up. I promise! Seokjin hyung will cook like our mothers do!”

“Seokjin hyung?”

“You’ll meet him when we get back to the dorm!” he said energetically, “Now—“

Taehyung stopped speaking immediately when the door burst open and some middle-aged man came in quickly.

“Tae-ah, sorry, hyung got stuck in traffic,” he said without looking.

“Oh, hyung!” Taehyung bowed but still smiling so bright it started to annoy Jungkook—he thought so, “It’s okay! I got company! Look! Look!” He shook Jungkook’s shoulder like a child showing his toy to his father. “We have a Busan boy!” Taehyung said as he looked to Jungkook.

Their vocal coach finally acknowledged Jungkook’s presence. “Oh, the new guy,” he said, and Jungkook bowed at him, “good to finally have you joining us. Is Taehyung a bother to you?”

Taehyung stared at him expectantly, like a puppy—exactly like a puppy, and Jungkook preferred cat more. “No, he’s not,” he answered quietly.

“See?” Taehyung bounched slightly, “I welcome him with friendliness!”

“Or, Taehyung hyung is scaring him,” the coach teased Taehyung and he pouted.

“Taehyung hyung?” Taehyung frowned and looked to Jungkook, “How old are you?” he asked, tilting his head to the side cutely.

“Thirteen?” Jungkook answered doubtly.

And, Taehyung was jumping again. “Even better!” he cheered happily, “We have a maknae!” he sang like a kid having too much candy, and their coach laughed along with him.

Jungkook had no idea what he’d signed into.

 It was months later. Jungkook was still too shy, too stiff, for everyone’s liking. He came home alone, giving a reason that he wanted to practice a bit more when he just didn’t know how to act around weird Taehyung and happy Jung Hoseok, a 16-year-old trainee. He showered when the five hyungs were too deep asleep. He ate carefully, sometimes too little for his stomach not to grumble.

“Are the kids treating you nicely at school?” Kim Namjoon from Ilsan, a rough but funny guy, 3 years older than him, asked during their one of their breakfasts time.

Jungkook looked up from his tiny size of food and all of the other hyungs looked at him expectantly for an answer.

Well, he had been going to his new junior high school for three months already and the kids still pushed him around, but he didn’t want to trouble anyone, and it wasn’t like these hyungs cared anyway. So, he shook his head a no. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Jung Hoseok asked, “You came to practice a little late yesterday. Is anything troubling you at school?”

Again, he shook his head. He just got a little detention for not giving his homework that he did without sleeping after a long practice the other night before because some kids took his notebook away and ripped it right in front of his class. These hyungs probably would only scold him for being weak if they knew the real reason. “I took the late bus.”

Hoseok nodded. “Don’t do it again, okay? Seokjin hyung was worried.”

“Why?” It just slipped comfortably like that from his mouth and he widened his eyes in surprise. “I’m so—“

“You’re just a kid and far from home, of course everyone’s worried for you,” Namjoon answered for Seokjin who was home that morning—sometimes, the eldest stayed with them at the dorm, and other times he came home since his home was near Seoul.

Taehyung leaned to him and pouted. “I’m always worried for you,” he said like a little child.

“So—sorry. I didn’t know,” Jungkook tried a smile and looked to the end of the table, to the place that the second eldest of the group always took, and Min Yoongi was staring at him throughout the conversation.

The older was cold most of the times. Jin, Namjoon, and Hoseok knew him for a year longer, and Taehyung always knew how to act prettily around them so Yoongi didn’t really have a choice to not pamper him around too. Jungkook though was still getting a cold treatment from Yoongi. Hoseok said it always took a longer time to get close to Yoongi when he was introduced to Jin, Yoongi, Namjoon, and Hoseok for the first time, since Jungkook only got a half-hearted nod from the small rapper.

Jungkook didn’t show up the following afternoon at their practice. Even until late at night, he didn’t come home. The older staffs that should be taking care of all of them were looking for him everywhere. When they went to his school, they said Jungkook went home at the exact time like the other students. They walked around the neighborhood, and, still there was no sign of Jungkook.

It was almost one in the morning when the key of their door clicked open, revealing a beaten up Jungkook. He walked inside slowly, only to find his hyungs sitting in their living room, awake for good, and he thought it was the end of him; he’d be kicked out of the company.

Jin was the first one to stand up, looking terrified at all of Jungkook’s bruises. Taehyung was even worse; there were tears in his eyes.

“Wh—what happened to you?” Jin asked in daze.

Jungkook gulped. He couldn’t dodge it anymore this time. But, he’d still try it. This was his dream after all. “I—“

“Don’t start with a lie. Can you just tell us the truth for once?” Namjoon said dangerously low, Jungkook thought he was like a bomb; ready to blow anytime soon and hurting them all, hurting him the worst.

When Jungkook kept his mouth shut and his stare down, Hoseok stood up and walked to him. Gently, he took Jungkook’s hand in his and dragged him to the couch in the living room. He pushed him down until he sat next to Taehyung.

“Tae, can you get the first aid kit please?” Hoseok said softly and Taehyung dashed away quickly, probably wanting to avoid Jungkook so much. Then, Hoseok put a hand on Jungkook’s chin and lifted up. “There you go,” he said when he caught Jungkook’s wet eyes. He let a little smile, a charming and kind one, and Jungkook wanted to cry even more. “I just had to look at how badly injured you are, okay?” he talked slowly, like Jungkook was just a little kid. “Do you hurt anywhere else?”

Jungkook wanted to shook his head, but something inside his stomach started hurting him badly and it really hurt to breath. So, he lifted his hand slowly and rubbed the left side of his stomach, where the rib was probably broken. He cried so much already.

Hoseok softly ed Jungkook’s uniform and looked at the big ugly bruise. “Oh, Jongkook,” his breath hitched, then he turned around to Namjoon, “I think we should take him to the hospital. It can be broken.”

Jin nodded his head to call for the staff but Jungkook shook his head, and the eldest stopped.

“No—“ Jungkook sobbed, “no hospital. I’m scared, hyung,” he admitted for the first time. He wasn’t sure himself if he was scared of the hospital or he was scared of everything right now, including the five of them.

“Honey,” Hoseok his head, “I think it’s broken and it can pierce your lung if we don’t treat it well. And, we’ll be there, okay? We’ll be there with you so you don’t have to be scared so much,” Hoseok calmed him down.

“No, please,” Jungkook sobbed and stood up abruptly, unintentionally pushing Hoseok who was squatting in front of him until he fell back to the floor. He shook his head, and Namjoon and Jin were at his side, calming him, immediately.

“It’s okay. Jungkook-ah, it’s going to be okay,” Jin cooed as he hugged Jungkook from the side and kissed Jungkook’s ear that was smell like sweat mixed with blood.

Namjoon his hair and there was dried blood sticking to his hand. “Hey, we’re not mad. No one is going to be mad at you. We just want you to be okay.”

Jungkook leaned heavily to Jin who kept him still and felt the energy draining out of him. Jin took him down slowly until he was seated back to the couch. Namjoon took his backpack off and put it on the floor recklessly.

“Yoongi hyung, please call the staff,” Namjoon said, turning around to Yoongi who sat still all the time.

Yoongi blinked, recollecting himself from the shock and his own thoughts, before standing up to make the call.

Jungkook stared at Yoongi’s back. Yoongi probably hated him so much, he thought before blacking out. The last thing he remembered was Taehyung calling for him and Yoongi turning around with wide eyes.

He opened his eyes to the blinding light and people whispering around him. He thought he heard someone saying Mr. Jeon, and he tried to focus at that. He worried his parents so much if they knew. Oh, if they knew…

“Hey,” Jungkook turned around to his side at the sound.

Taehyung was sitting next to him, smiling softly seeing him awake. Yoongi was sitting behind him on the couch, hands folded in front of his chest, deep frown on his forehead. Namjoon was speaking on the phone at the door and when he saw Jungkook awake, he left the room. Hoseok and Jin came in not a while later.

“Hoseok hyung was right. You got two broken ribs and it definitely could pierce your lung if we weren’t careful. But, now, they’ve treated you well. You can go back to practice in a month,” Taehyung smiled got bigger in each second, “that’s good news, right?”

Jungkook gulped down and nodded. “Sorry.”

Hoseok sighed, but it was Yoongi who stood up and walked to his bed. “Why do you keep saying sorry?” he said impatiently.

Jin threw an affectionate smile toward the scene.

“Look, I might not seem to care, okay? But, you gotta start telling us what you feel and the truth really is,” Yoongi said, indeed sounding so upset, “so, are you ready telling us what happened?”

Jungkook stared at each one of them. And, the tension in the pit of his stomach got even worse when Namjoon stepped inside the room. He didn’t know what to tell them, honestly. That he got heavily bullied at school? And, the teachers didn’t seem to care? Or, that it started to get too bad in the past few days? That, these bullied not only ruin him, physically, but also his academic achievement? That, the other kids were laughing when they were kicking him? That, he hated going to school?

“Was it the kids in your school?” Yoongi accused and, why again, it felt like these five people could read his mind. “Jungkook,” Yoongi said sternly, “are you getting bullied at school?”

Jungkook closed his eyes. He was never the one to always know what to do. Heck. He never knew what the hell to do.

Yoongi nodded at Jungkook’s reaction. It already answered all the questions in his mind. “Okay,” he answered, “they’ll know what it feels like to be kicked around until they get their ribs broken like this.”

“Hyung!” Hoseok and Namjoon warned Yoongi, almost at the same time.

“No,” Yoongi said to them, “look where Jungkook ended up now. Are you going to stay just like this?”

Namjoon sighed exasperatedly and turned around to Jungkook, who already had tears slipped out of the corner of his closed eyes. “What else did they do to you, Jungkook-ah? Honest to us,” he demanded.

Jungkook opened his mouth slowly, and closed it again. But, he opened it again and this time determined to stand up for himself, and maybe this was the only way for now. “The other day,” he sighed softly, opening his eyes again, “I was late because I got into detention for—not collecting my homework,”

“The one you did without sleeping?” Taehyung asked.

Jungkook nodded weakly. “They trashed my notebook. And, they—“ he felt like a coward for letting the bullies on to his hyungs, but, to be perfectly honest, he couldn’t handle it himself anymore, “kept messing with my books and papers, I can’t read anything because they’re—torn.”

Jin nodded. “I saw the books,” he said softly as everyone looked at him, “I was cleaning your laundry, and I saw the books that you’re talking about.” He sighed and looked to Yoongi. “This is not right.”

Yoongi nodded with determination in his eyes. “Okay,” he said, “don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it,” he squeezed Jungkook’s shoulder a little, somehow giving the right comfort that Jungkook needed.

“Don’t do anything bad, hyung,” Jungkook spoke softly to Yoongi, without looking to his eyes, “I don’t want you to get into trouble for me. The company will be pissed if you do anything bad to them.”

Yoongi laughed and Jungkook looked up in surprise. “Don’t you know that trouble is my middle name? And, if they think you have nobody to stand up for you so they can do whatever they want to do to you, well—“

“—they’re wrong,” Taehyung cut Yoongi off-guard. Taehyung shrugged. “We’ll always stand up for each other.”

“And,” Hoseok continued, “Yoongi hyung’s not going to be alone.” He looked at each one of them. “None of us will ever be alone.”

 The next time he opened his eyes, it was broad daylight outside and Taehyung was humming next to him. Jungkook thought he never left his side ever since he was put there. Taehyung turned around to him, like he could feel Jungkook’s stare on him.

“Hey,” he leaned forward, putting the magazine to the bedside; “you’ve been sleeping the whole yesterday afternoon that we were scared you wouldn’t wake up. But, the doctor said that your body was just forcing yourself to rest,” he sighed, “from now on, stop overworking yourself, okay?”

“But, I’m left behind all of you,” Jungkook answered quietly.

Taehyung chuckled. “I know I’m awesome and all,” Jungkook let out a snort comfortably and Taehyung looked at him with surprise, before continuing with another cheekiness, “but you’re almost half as good as me, which already is thousands level above the other newbies,” he said jokingly and the two of them laughed, before Taehyung turned serious, “but, seriously though, you’re good enough. So, stop pushing yourself too much. I hate it.”

Jungkook nodded, feeling a lot more comfortable with the bright and unexpected Taehyung after more than four months training and living together.

He looked around and realized there were just the two of them in the room. “Where are hyungs?”

Taehyung smiled softly and looked down at the needled that was stuck in Jungkook’s vein. “They’re at your school, dealing with your problem.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened. “Are—are they in trouble?”

“Okay, I’m going to be honest with you, which you have to start doing to all of us too anyway,” Taehyung started, straightening his back, “Yoongi hyung is. But, it’s not that bad because it’s considered as self-defense, of you.”

“What did he do?”

“He kind of put at least a bruise in each of your bullies yesterday after school. He was caught by the securities of your school and arrested for the night. But, this morning Bang PD bailed him out, and together with the other hyungs, they’re at your school now.”

Jungkook felt like he stopped breathing for a while. “Bang PD is not—“

“—mad?” Taehyung continued for him, “He is furious,” Taehyung answered while emphasizing the last word, “to those bullies after Namjoon-ie hyung told him what happened to you.” He smiled at Jungkook. “Namjoon hyung told you that no one is going to be mad at you, right? He is the man of his words,” he said proudly.

Jungkook looked at his hands timidly. “I’m sorry for troubling so much.”

Taehyung groaned. “You are if you don’t stop saying sorry!” Taehyung said, getting slightly annoyed, “You gotta start trusting us at some point, Jungkook-ah, we’re your hyungs! And, we’ll always get each other’s back.”

Jungkook looked to Taehyung. The older could see trust slowly rising in his eyes.

Taehyung then smiled teasingly. “It really is good to say ‘we’re your hyungs’,” he said playfully and Jungkook laughed at that.

Loving these boys started from right there.