Unable to take it anymore, Jin rushed out of the room and collided with a dumbfounded Yoongi. 

      Not having the presence of mind to question himself about his presence or to show the youngest his facade smile, Jin let silent tears flow before threw himself in the arms of Yoongi who, distraught, hugged him by all his strength in return, one hand around his shoulders and the other around his waist.

      Burying his face in the rapper's neck, Jin stifled the sobs he vainly tried to contain. Another part of him had just died in Jungkook's room again. 

     Why had he stayed? he wondered. 

     To protect Jungkook before protecting himself, he was convinced, but if Jungkook hated him, what was the point of staying? Should he be selfish and leave anyway, leaving Lee to tell everyone what Jungkook had done to him? 

      No, he couldn't accept it. Even though Jungkook had made him suffer, he couldn't bear the thought of making him suffer in turn. He couldn't, he loved him too much for that. So he was doomed to stay here and suffer. With no one to support him this time.

     He had believed he could survive the harshness of the trials that beset him alongside Jungkook. Without him, he felt himself become a cold and helpless stone again. What was to become of him? Where would this new existence lead him? Jungkook hadn't just given up on him: he had just taken it out on him and embraced the breakup of their once happy and tight-knit pair.

     Never would he have believed that this separation would be so heartbreaking: his heart ached and it seemed to him that every tear shed was another stab at his already bruised heart. 

     They were no longer united souls: Jungkook's had been tinged with a frightening blackness and his was almost extinct, unable to reflect the light of the maknae who had always stood by his side. He was like a living dead, standing under a black sun whose rays no longer warmed him because, after all, the sun of the living no longer warms the dead.

    He let out a long whine which, if he was choked again, was screaming in pain and still tore Yoongi's heart. Where was his formerly so strong hyung? How could he have been so destroyed?

     In his room, Jungkook slowly came down from his anger upon hearing Jin's muffled sobs and heartbreaking cry. Then a terrible thought assailed him:

     He had made his hyung cry.

     He grabbed his hand in disgust and squeezed it until it hurt. Again, he had allowed himself to be overcome by anger and had done and said unforgivable things.

     "What did I do..."

     He had sworn to Jin to protect him and fight for him. Instead, he had just hurt the person he loved most, with his hand and his words. It had taken him little more than a day to betray him and renege on his promise to him.

     The horrors he had thrown at him completely obscured reality. No, Jin hadn't stayed out of fear for himself and his reputation. Yes, of course Jungkook knew that. So why the hell had he been able to say such horrible things? It was Jungkook's fault that Lee could blackmail them to begin with. Then, Jin had done everything to preserve Jungkook's reputation and then to stop Lee from attacking him in the bedroom.

     Lee's violence against him had made him feel so weak that he was desperate of his own weakness and wanted to prove to himself that he was strong enough to at least face the pain of his broken heart. In doing so, he had not only wielded a shield for protection but also a sharp sword made of painful words and physical violence that he had brought down on his hyung who had always been so kind and gentle to him. Instead of shooting it down on Lee.

      He hadn't been strong at the time: on the contrary, he had revealed that he was so weak that he needed to attack the person who had always preserved him with all his might from the pain. He realized that he must have taken his hyung's love for granted to allow himself to hurt him like this without thinking about the consequences. 

     Neither his youth nor his anger in any way excused his lack of judgment and odious behavior towards Jin, he knew that. It was not Jin who had broken their bond as he had implied earlier: it was himself. He ran a feverish hand through his hair: how could he have been such a stupid brat? They were all right, he was just a temperamental kid and insensitive to the pain of his elders.

   What did he care that Jin's feelings for him weren't romantic? He loved him, wasn't that the important thing? But Jungkook had just crushed that love to nothing. Did he have a chance to fix what he had just done? He may have unwittingly reached the point of no return that morning. So his wishes, washed away by the waves of Hanagae Beach, had really taken his hopes deep into the depths never to be granted. He refrained from crying in the face of this terrible reality if it was one.

     He rushed out of the room in turn and found Jin crying and gasping in Yoongi's arms. The tall one was curled up like a child against the other and suddenly looked smaller than he was. The sight of his broken hyung from him hurt. Very badly. The two older ones paid no attention to Jungkook as he slowly approached, in a desperate desire to fix what he had done and ease the pain of the eldest.

     The moment he put a hesitant hand on the back of Jin's neck, he felt Jin flinch before he calmed down under the effect of his caresses which had always had a saving effect on the eldest whose body had undoubtedly reacted without concerting with his bruised mind. Jin turned a face with red, swollen eyes that showed his pain, which laid on the youngest and Jungkook was consumed with painful guilt, crossed by the suffering of the other who pierced him through and through.

     Yoongi felt the eldest's body calm down in his arms and noticed the younger's caresses on the back of his neck. He had overheard the conversation of the two singers and in his eyes it was unthinkable that Jin would calm down under Jungkook's hand.

     After all, he was the one responsible for his pain, the one who had broken his only hyung.

     The only one who had been able to take care of him like a little brother.      

     The only one who managed to wrest a smile from him with his kindness, his inappropriate cuteness for his age, his dad jokes, his funny faces and his infectious laughter when everyone else failed miserably to relax his straight face.   

      The only one who could draw tears from his normally dry, unruffled eyes when he saw him in pain. 

    And finally, the one he should take care of when he forgot himself, drowned in his candor and carelessness, blind in the face of the wickedness of people and the harshness of the life's laws.

     He was angry with the youngest for being responsible for this suffering, but he didn't understand how he could be the one who then managed to appease him.

    And he suddenly remembered Namjoon's questioning two days earlier: How could Jungkook be both the source and the solution to the problem? Then the rapper brutally pushed Jungkook's hand away and growled:

     "Back off, don't touch him."