The next morning Jimin woke up later than usual, figuring that Jin must’ve asked the other’s to let him sleep in or else he would've been pounced on by Taehyung. He slid his feet over the edge of his warm bed, his toes retracting on reflex at the immediate cold touch of the hardwood flooring. He got cold so easily lately.

Next to his slippers on the ground lay an empty food container and he smiled softly when he noticed it. Taehyung must’ve eaten the meal Hoseok had brought him last night. He was glad, someone deserved to eat that meal, and it sure wasn’t Jimin.

Picking up the empty container, Jimin padded out of his room and walked out into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” he chirped when he saw Namjoon, Hoseok, and Suga sitting at the table. Hoseok grinned at him and gave a thumbs up when he saw the empty food container, making Jimin feel guilty for misleading the energetic boy. In turn Suga gave a lazy wave in acknowledgment and Namjoon offered a goofy grin over his mouthful of toast. Jin was busy flying around the room cleaning up after the others.

Just then Jungkook called over from the sofa that he was lounging on. “Oh, Jimin,” he drawled, “I think there should be some food left. But when I was there, Taehyung-hyung and Namjoon-hyung were eating a lot of it…” He awkwardly left off, feeling bad for not saving some of it.

Jimin glanced back at the table and noticed that yeah, most of the food was left desecrated and crumbled in front of Namjoon’s plate. With an audible gulp the leader looked up at Jimin guiltily who was shifting in his place, uncomfortable with the attention that was suddenly fixated on him.

“Oh, uh, sorry about that Jimin-ah.”

“That’s okay, hyung!” Jimin ensured, not wanting him to feel bad. It was probably good he didn’t have a big breakfast anyway, they had to practice all week for their upcoming performances and Jimin needed to be in his best shape by then. “I’m not all that hungry anyway!”

Taking the empty seat next to Hoseok, Jimin rested his head against his hyung’s shoulder, still fighting off the resilient grip of sleep. Hoseok looked down at the head on his shoulder and smiled, patting down the mess of hair and resting his own head on top.

“Hey there sleepy, how are we doing this morning?” Hoseok asked quietly in an uncharacteristically calm moment of his. However, Jimin had noticed soon after meeting Hoseok that the taller boy was gentle pretty often and was quite attentive and caring when it mattered. At least that's how he acted when he was around Jimin. He really appreciated that the older member knew when to joke and when to be serious.

Except for last night, apparently. Jimin still felt a little sick after that ordeal, but after a night of practically no sleep, the boy had pushed the incident behind him and figured that it was bound to happen eventually. He was actually surprised the others hadn’t taken to ceaselessly taunting his weight gain as well.

Jimin blinked his eyes repeatedly to clear the thoughts and nuzzled his face into Hoseok’s shoulder, hugging the elder’s arm to his chest.

“ ‘m sleepy... “ He mumbled into Hoseok’s shoulder.

The older dancer was chuckling and the shoulder Jimin had his face buried in shook, causing him to frown at the disruption

“But you slept in so late, Jiminnie.” the small tired boy just groaned in response.

A moment later a rumbling came from the young dancer stomach and his hidden face became hot from embarrassment.  

Hoseok frowned down at the boy resting on him and poked him in the side, motioning to a few sausages left on the otherwise barren plate in front of the him.

”I know it's not much, but you seem hungry… Lucky I gave you that extra dinner last night, huh?” he grinned and patted Jimin’s bright, bed ruffled hair.

Faking a smile that was perhaps a bit forced looking, Jimin gingerly picked up a single sausage and after a moment of hesitation he took a tiny bite, barely nicking the edge of it. Instantly he felt nauseated, he swore he could feel the grease sliding down his throat and the fat going straight to his stomach. Rationally he knew that wasn't at all the case, but the online comments and his hyung's teasing words from last night about his weight came back and he felt sick. Immediately he dropped the food back onto the plate and he buried himself back into Hoseok’s side, not able to explain himself in words.

“Aw, Jimminie has my cooking really gotten that bad?” Jin suddenly asked, propping his chin on his hand as he moved to lean his elbow on the table.

“N-no hyung, it’s not that, I swear! I just had a big dinner is all… Please don’t feel bad hyung!” the boy made sure to reassure the eldest member and eventually Jin had to grin at how frantic the boy began acting in the process.

Suga from the other end of the table lifted his head and gave a soft chuckle at Jimin and stood from the table to sit next to Jungkook on the couch, both of them amused.

Jimin was thankful none of them pressed the matter any further and he proceeded to lazily untangle his limbs from around Hoseok and then headed over to his room, followed by Taehyung who pranced ahead of him. As the pair walked into their room, Jimin was completely unaware of Hoseok watching him with a thoughtful look on his face.

______

The apartment was utter chaos for the rest of the week, between practicing their new songs and the routines for them in every spare moment, appearing as guests on shows, and preparing for upcoming performances, there was hardly a minute left to breathe. Much less for any of the members to pay any close attention to where Jimin was or what he was doing.

So Jimin couldn’t take any offence when he was left at a subway station in the middle of nowhere on their way back from one of their various shows. Jimin’s eyes widened as he looked all around him, searching desperately for any familiar face. But it must’ve been around rush hour because there were hoards of people passing him by and shoving past each other, all of them looking unfamiliar and threatening to Jimin’s worried eyes.

If he were a normal acclimated person he wouldn’t have had a problem simply getting back onto the subway and going back to his apartment building on his own. But he wasn’t used to taking public transit as an idol, they usually stuck to private busses or vans, leaving Jimin at a loss. He approached numerous people, gently tapping their shoulders and hesitantly asking for help, but time and time again he was brushed off by stressed looking people wanting to go home after a long day of work. Jimin could relate.

So that’s where he was left- cold and alone in a foreign place with no one willing to slow down their lives for just a second to give him directions. He felt pathetic.

They probably left him behind on purpose…

Finding an empty bench near one of the dull tiled walls, Jimin dropped his head into his hands and whined brokenly, earning a few judging glances and raised eyebrows from the nosier of bystanders. Jimin didn’t care about them though. He didn’t care about anything but getting back home.

He looked back up and spotted a digital clock on the other side of the station, and felt the building dread in him reach a head when he noticed their train was supposed to leave a good half hour ago. There was no doubt left in his mind, his last hope that he could still get on the right subway with his friends was gone. He was really alone.

Hands shaking from the cold bite of the evening air or maybe it was from his untouched lunch, Jimin pulled his sleeves over his palms and yanked his hat down further over his head. He was gonna try to find a cab to bring him back to his apartment. And their manager was not gonna be happy with that bill considering how long the ride to the show was originally.

Jimin knew he wasn’t in top spirits recently, had heard Jungkook and Taehyung complain to each other when they thought he was out of earshot that he was being boring lately.  The young dancer felt bad he’d dragged his friends down, but they had all been so busy recently with their schedules he couldn’t find the energy to act like his old goofy self that the rest of the maknae line wanted. Not to mention that he’d been getting back home late most days because he found that the evening was the only time he could seriously practice with out any breaks. He had been making more and more mistakes lately in the choreo, their footwork tripping him up much more than it used to and even Hoseok seemed to be losing his patience with him.

He would not let the group down anymore, he would not let Hoseok down anymore.

Trying to draw determination from this, Jimin slowly braved his way up the scarcely lit staircase to the street only to stop in place when he heard loud footsteps behind him, climbing up the steps, thundering off the walls. But Jimin quickly scolded himself for being too jumpy and laughed lightly, continuing his way up the steps.

But the footsteps behind him continued. He wasn’t used to being out at night, especially not alone, so paranoia was quickly getting the better of him. He decided to just check though. Checking never hurt anybody, right? But when he turned around to peek at the person he froze a second time.

“H-hyung!” he cried.

“Jimin! Oh my god, Jimin!” a rather rough looking, heaving Hoseok flew up the remaining steps, taking two at a time in his haste and barreled into Jimin’s cold and shaking form, wrapping the boy in his arms. He rubbed his arms up and down Jimin's arms and back rappidly, trying to get some warmth to return to the chilled boy.

“God, you don’t know how worried I was about you, Jimin,” Hoseok exhaled once he had the younger boy safe in his arms.

Jimin was stood there unmoving, shocked at the sudden appearance of the taller boy.

“You...You came back for me, hyung…” he muttered softly. He wasn’t left behind, he wasn’t alone anymore.

Hoseok pulled himself away just enough to witness a single tear roll down Jimin’s cheek, the smaller boy probably hadn't even noticed it. “You have no idea how worried I was. When we got onto that subway it was so crowded, I thought you were on it but...well, you’re just so short- I sort of assumed you were behind someone... The second I noticed you weren’t there I got off the train.” He took one arm back to scratch the back of his own head. “I, uh, I didn’t even tell the other members I was getting off, I just sort of leapt off at the next stop and got here as fast as I could,” he admitted.

Processing the story numbly, it finally clicked for Jimin. Hoseok came back for him. He came back. Jimin launched himself back into the elder boy’s arms and the exhaustion finally caught up to him now that he felt safe.

“I wanna go home, hyung. Take me home?” his voice was soft and Hoseok looked down at him with adoration and an underlying concern.  

“Of course Jiminnie, of course. I’ll get us home right now. You just rest, Hyung will take care of everything, okay?” Jimin nodded his head silently and grabbed Hoseok’s hand following him back down to the station and onto a subway that the elder guided him onto.

Almost immediately Jimin fell asleep and Hoseok took off his own jacket and laid it over the boy. Their group had a made a huge mistake leaving Jimin behind. How could none of the others have not even noticed that Jimin wasn’t with them?