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Eleven year old Jungkook laid still on the stiff hospital bed, in a daze as he stared up at the plain white ceiling. His parents' screams still fresh in his mind from the crash. The drugs were preventing him from thinking properly but still allowed the vague understanding of his parents dying torment him.
New screams were coming from outside the door of the room cramped with machines. His older brother was raising his voice at their uncle, something Jungkook would never have dreamed of his overly polite and respectful elder doing.
"I won't let you take him away from me!"
They were arguing over him. Seokjin hadn't been in the crash but at home studying, he was called a few hours ago as soon as Jungkook woke up and the child identified himself to the blank faced doctors. Only after he had seen Seokjin's panicked expression when he entered the room had the youngest allowed himself to break down. "They're lying right? Umma and Appa are outside right? H-Hyung please tell me they're lying."
Now the two brothers were facing a new horror only hours later, the risk of being separated from each other. The risk of Jungkook going back with their uncle who was moving to America the following week.
"Seokjin, you just turned eighteen, you're barely an adult!"
"I can manage! He and I both can!"
"You're being hysterical, you can't think straight. My sister did not raise you to talk back to your elders!"
"My mother raised me to protect my brother, and you're trying to take him away from me!"
"You'll still see each other when I get back. It's only four years. You're lucky I'm not sending the boy to an orphanage! If this is what you're like I can't imagine taking him with me!"
"No one's asking you to! Please, Uncle. Let me take care of him, I'm an adult now. He won't be able to adjust in America without me."
"Well then he'll grow up to see life's tough-"
"You don't understand, our parents just died-"
SLAP
"Do not disrespect me!"
Jungkook's eyes widened and his hands gripped the sheets underneath him in panic and suffocating fear. Silence was coming from the other room, had their uncle hit Seokjin? If Jungkook ended up living with their uncle would he be hit too? He wanted to go and check on his brother but the machines connected to him prevented him from doing so.
"If the kid is anything like you then I refuse to take him in. I was doing you both a favor, now I think I'll just let you suffer."
Moments of silence and then the door opened slowly. Jungkook's wide bloodshot eyes fell upon his brother's red cheek. Seokjin closed the door quietly behind him and smiled gently on the younger, eyes running over a cast on his leg and the bruises on his face as well as the needle inserted in his hand. Jungkook's face was extremely pale, contrasting with his red eyes and the purple coloring on his left cheek bone, the boy was enveloped in a rough hospital blanket. He looked small, weak and vulnerable. And he was all Seokjin had left.
"Hyung..." A raspy voice called.
Bringing a chair close to his bed, Seokjin sat and ran a hand through the child's dirty hair. "Hey there, Kookie."
"I heard you, I heard you guys yelling." He admitted, eyes guiltily flickering over Seokjin's cheek.
A firm hand held Jungkook's uninjured cheek. "I'm not letting you go anywhere. Especially with him."
He bit his lip and blinked back tears, "does it hurt?"
"You're really asking me?" Seokjin let out a low chuckle of disbelief, "you need to look in a mirror."
"Maybe..." Jungkook began as guilt welled up inside of him, "maybe I should go with uncle..."
"What?" Seokjin sat straighter, "what are you saying?"
"Im gonna be trouble for you, you're in college Hyung. You can't take care of me-"
"Just watch me," a fierce protective gaze replaced his usual gentle one. "I can take care of you and I will. No one can stop me, not even you."
Jungkook blinked up at his older brother, for the first time since the crash he felt that maybe, possibly, everything could be okay. Seokjin was now all he had, they only had each other.
"Hyung? This is really scary, all of this is..." He said quietly.
Seokjin swallowed. Jungkook had been in the crash, had woken up alone with strangers and just overheard a screaming match where someone threatened to take him away. The phone call he had received from the hospital when he was half asleep was one he would never forget as pain as it nearly tore him in two. But he couldn't mourn, couldn't go hide and cry; at least not yet. He had a baby brother to protect. Seokjin reached for his hand and gripped onto it firmly, a reassuring smile for both of them painting his face.
"We'll get through this, Kookie, together."