They did not know how long they ran for. For all they knew, they continued to run long after the sirens could not longer be heard and their energy draining from their body by the litre. But they could not seem to bring themselves to stop as though it was a way to vent out their frustrations that have accumulated. 

After what seemed like forever, they settled along the quiet side of the Han River where minimal street lights reached, a good 15 minutes away from where they live: near enough to home in case if they needed a shelter, but comfortable enough to not have people they know recognize them every 5 minutes. 

The lack of benches in the vicinity did not bother them. Instead, they planted themselves to the cold, wet floor that had cooled with the cold autumn temperature and rested for a moment. Perspiration drenched their clothes and hair as they struggled to catch their breaths. 

“Where is NamJoon?” Jin sat up straight in shock as he realized one of the six was missing, the others following suit after in realization. Afraid that he might have lost his way or worse, have been caught, Jin looked around desperately, only to be replied with the rattle of bottle against each other. All the boys diverted his attention to NamJoon who approached them with a bag of bottled alcohol, shaking them victoriously. 

“We won’t be able to sleep tonight without these.” NamJoon tried to joke. All the boys heaved a sigh of relief at the safe return of their leader. Finally, TaeHyung laid down on the floor and allowed the physical pain from the burn earlier to engulf him. 

“Yah, are you alright?” Jin asked, concerned, returning to his usual soft and kind nature, unlike before, as he crouched down beside TaeHyung to check if he was fine. TaeHyung just nodded his head and explained in a weak voice that a burn could not do much to him. Like a worried mother, Jin persisted giving it a check and without approval, pulled TaeHyung’s shirt up, exposing his bare upper body as he examined the scalds on his back. 

“Hyung...” TaeHyung whined weakly as he pulled his shirt down again, complaining that it was too cold for him to be doing that. But Jin could not care less. Instead he insisted on sending TaeHyung to the hospital. However after much fruitless persuasion and consideration for them getting caught, Jin gave up and settled with an agreement that TaeHyung would let Jin treat his wound with the cream NamJoon grabbed on his way to the convenience store earlier. 

By then, the boys were too tired to even budge and just tried to drown their frustrations temporarily with alcohol. 

“Why did you do that?” HoSeok finally asked after a while of silence, directing the question to TaeHyung lying on the floor, whose face scrunched in indescribable pain as Jin applied the medication. 

“What?” TaeHyung retorted, even though he knew very well what the elder boy was talking about. By that point, TaeHyung was already too drained out to pull his body off the floor and decided to just leave it that way for a moment. 

“Rushing into the house,” YoonGi followed to explain, “Out of all of us, it should not be you rushing in first, you know that. What if... I mean you could’ve died. Then what about JungKook, if anything happened to you?” 

It was not that he did not think about JungKook, but in a life-and-death situation, it was not something he could follow his mind about. Instead he just allowed his heart to lead him to do what he was supposed to do. It too, was not that the rest of the boys would not do the same if it were them, they just did not have enough time to react as fast as TaeHyung did the moment he caught on. 

Life is all about timing. 

TaeHyung laughed as he forced a smile but his eyes watering from the thought of leaving his brother behind. “I still have you guys, you will take care of JungKook for me I’m sure.” He tried to sound like it did not bother him.

“Crazy bastard,” YoonGi raged but sipped on his bottle of beer instead to prevent him from literally slapping sense into TaeHyung. “Don’t you dare ever do that again. You have too much to lose.” 

No one said anything to that. In fact, all of them had too much to lose despite seeming like they had nothing at all, TaeHyung’s just a little more obvious. 

“Hyung,” TaeHyung started again after a while, unable to contain his emotions anymore, “what if everyone thought that way?” He muttered softly, choking up on his tears that he had held for so long, “what if at that time, someone took less time to think of themselves and went to save JungKook before it was too late? Would he have turned out different? Would my parents have died?” 

“Hey, it was different that time, those idiots were heartless,” NamJoon tried to comfort the hurting boy as TaeHyung relieved the memories he wanted to delete from his mind and heart so hopelessly but was reminded of every single day when he saw JungKook. 

Jimin sat up and took a bottle his friend offered him. 

“But you know what? We were almost as heartless as they were