Taehyung laughed before swiping to take the call, standing up and walking to a private room.

"Hurry up!" Kookie shouted. "It's your turn!"

Taehyung yelled back an "OKAY" before holding the phone up to his ear. "Hey, Yoongi-hyung. What's up?"

There was a muffled sound on the other end that either sounded like sniffling or laughter, and Tae laughed.

"Hyung, when you laugh, it sounds like you're crying," he teased. "Anyway, why'd you call?"

"It's Jimin," Yoongi said, his voice rough, and Tae blinked, sitting down, his back straight. "Tae, I need you to come here, right now."

"Yoongi, are you crying?"

"I mean it, Tae. Right now. I can't- I can't fix him. He needs you, okay?" Yoongi went on, ignoring Tae's question, which was an answer in itself.

"I..." Tae shook his head, snapping himself out of it. "Dad isn't home right now, but...I'll try to get Lisa to drive me. Or I'll bike over. Okay? Wait for me, hyung. I'll be there. I promise." Tae hung up and grabbed his jacket while dialing Lisa's number.

"Hello?"

"Lisa?"

"Tae, sweetie? What's up?"

"I need you to drive me somewhere."

Lisa's snort could be heard from the other end. "What am I, your private chauff-"

"It's an emergency, Lisa," Tae said, his heart beating irregularly fast even though he didn't know what was happening. Just that something was wrong, and it involved Jimin.

There was a beat of silence before he heard her voice. "All right. I need to sort one thing out at the station really quickly, and then I'll swing by your house, okay? Be there in 10."

She hung up, and Tae waited next to the door until her car appeared. Then he ran out and jumped in the passenger seat.

Kookie, heading the door slam, stuck his head out the bedroom door. "Tae? It's your turn...Tae?"

***

"Call me when you want me to pick you up," Lisa said, concerned as Tae just nodded and got out of the car and walked up to the door. He hadn't said a word for the entire ride which, for Tae, was a miracle.

She watched as he pulled out his phone and messaged someone before waiting for the reply and going around the house.

She sighed and put the car in drive.

I don't know what's wrong, but I hope they're all okay.

***

hyung i'm here

go around to the side

there's a window

i opened it

we'll pull you in

***

Tae didn't question Yoongi's instructions, just went around the house until he found an open window before slipping his phone in his pocket before holding his arms up.

Almost immediately, two hands grabbed each of his forearms and yanked him up and in. Once inside, he saw that Yoongi had taken his left arm and Hobi had taken his right. Yoongi wasn't smiling, which wasn't much of a surprise, but Hobi wasn't either, and that scared Tae.

Not to mention that both of them were sporting red eyes and wet faces.

The situation didn't bode well for Tae.

"What's going on?" he immediately asked before looking around. "Where's Jimin?" He looked to Yoongi for answers.

Yoongi's eyes raised to the top bunk and Tae's mouth opened in an o of understanding before nodding.

"What happened?" Tae whispered, not wanting to wake the sleeping figure in the top bunk.

Yoongi ducked his head in order to sit down on Hobi's bed, and Hobi followed suit, leaving a space between himself and Yoongi for Tae.

Tae sat down.

"Jimin - he's..."

Yoongi started crying again and Tae froze, having never seen Yoongi cry before, and Hobi reached behind Tae to rub Yoongi's back.

"It's not your fault, hyung," Hobi murmured, but Yoongi didn't respond.

"Hyung?" Tae answered, his voice shaken.

"Jimin stopped talking," Hobi said in Yoongi's stead, as the older couldn't compose himself, and Tae looked over at Hobi, confused.

"What do you mean, stopped?"

"He snapped," Hobi mumbled, shaking his head in shock. "He won't talk. He doesn't respond to anything. He smiles but it's not- it's not a smile, it's like someone told him what a smile looked like and he tried to imitate it and it froze. It's like he's dead, Tae. And we don't...we don't know what to do," Hobi finished in a thin voice, and Tae just stared, transfixed and confused and horrified.

"Why?" Tae asked. "Why is he like this? What happened? Was it something at school?"

Hobi opened his mouth to spill the truth, but Yoongi spoke up.

"It's not important. Somebody said some things to him, and Jimin's heard those horrible words too many times," Yoongi said softly.

Telling Tae wouldn't change anything. And Yoongi didn't want Tae knowing what the other half was like. Jin, Tae, and Kookie had all been lucky to get the good life, and Yoongi didn't want to ruin the blissful dream they were living in by throwing in a pinch of the nightmare he, Hobi, and Jimin has been living through for years.

Tae looked torn between wanting to beat the shit out of someone and being compassionate, and he finally settled on sighing and nodding to the ladder. "Can I talk to him?" he asked, and Yoongi nodded.

"Feel free. I'd say that we could leave and give you privacy, but they don't know you're here, and I'm not leaving you alone," Yoongi said, and Tae just nodded before climbing up the ladder.

He needed to save Jimin.

He needed to bring him back.

No pressure, right?

Tae crawled into Jimin's bed and lifted the blanket gently before slipping underneath and rolling over to face Jimin, setting his elbow down to prop his head up. "Hey," he murmured, but Jimin's back stayed facing him.

He sighed before rolling manually Jimin over to face him. Jimin just stared back as though he didn't recognize Tae. Then the corners of his lips slowly tilted upward as though he'd remembered his instructions, but his eyes stayed dark.

Tae was terrified.

He had never seen Jimin like this.

So...empty.

It's like he's dead, Tae.

Indeed.

"Hey," Tae whispered, wanting to keep their conversation private from their older brothers. "Jimin. It's me. Tae. Taehyung. Your brother. Your triplet."

Jimin just stared blankly.

"You made Yoongi cry, Jimin," Tae said, feigning excitement as he grinned. "Way to go! You've created the eighth wonder of the world. Or ninth. Whatever we're at now."

But no response.

Tae wasn't quite sure what to do. Humor was sort of his standard method. He wasn't great at getting deep and personal. Jin had been better at that.

Why didn't they ask Jin to come? he wondered, but he decided to store the question away for a different time.

He had this impulse to just smack the demon - or whatever it was exactly that was possessing Jimin, be it sadness, resignation, whatever the name of his demon was - right out of him. It worked in the movies, right? Take the guy with amnesia, smack him in the head, his memory comes back. Why wasn't real life that easy, that simple?

But Tae didn't want to use pain, even if it was to save Jimin. Not when he had clearly already been through enough pain for it to get this bad, to crush his soul.

"I don't know what they told you," Tae said softly. "Or who they is. But you have to know that whatever they said, it's not true, okay Jimin? Unless they said you're cute and adorable and lovable and the best brother ever, because that's all true. And you're sweet and nice and caring and genuine and innocent and precious. That's all true too. And you're good for cuddling and hugs. All true. And those are all things that make you Jimin, right? Those are things we love about you."

Tae took a deep breath. He didn't know where he was going with this or if what he said would hurt Jimin even more. "And yeah. You have a stutter." He paused. "So what? It doesn't make you any less caring or intelligent. It doesn't change who you are. If it goes away? That's great. If it doesn't go away? That's great too. You're Jimin, whether you have a stutter or not. It's just another thing that makes you who you are, okay? And anyone who uses your stutter to try to make you feel like less of a person-" Is a rotten asshole who deserves to die. "-is wrong and stupid. They obviously don't know you very well, because otherwise, they'd know all the things that I told you, about how nice and kind and sweet you are, and they wouldn't be able to say a single negative thing about you."

Jimin blinked, and that was all Tae got from him.

Tae sighed, putting a hand on the back of Jimin's neck and pulling his head forward so their foreheads touched. "Jimin, please. I need to know that you're in there. I know you are. I just..."

Tae was scared.

Scared that he would fail.

Scared that he wouldn't be able to save Jimin.

Scared that Jimin was gone for good.

Scared that all that was left was an empty shell that looked like Jimin but wasn't Jimin at all.

Where does a soul go when it's been crushed?

Tae swallowed, and his mind backtracked to his thoughts about treating Jimin's problem like a demon that needed to be exorsized.

Maybe...

Tae ducked out from under the blanket and knelt on Jimin's bed before grabbing the corners and tucking them around Jimin, the way their mom had done when they had been younger and innocent and perfect and unbroken, the way their dad had done when Jimin had been gone.

So the monsters couldn't get in.

Demons were like monsters, weren't they?

Tae tucked all the corners in the way Jimin had always wanted, and he ended up kneeling on top of the blanket, staring at Jimin. "Jimin?" he asked, his voice quiet still. "Look, you're safe now, okay? The monsters can't get you."

Tae stared at Jimin, and Jimin stared back at Tae.

Tae sighed, thinking that Jimin was still frozen in whatever Hell he was suffering in, but then Jimin twitched, and then he started shaking.

Tae didn't hesitate to slip back under the blanket and wrap his arms and legs around Jimin, hugging him as tight as he could to provide Jimin with warmth and reassurance, a safety net that wouldn't let him fall. "I've got you," he whispered, once, twice, infinite times. "I've got you, Jimin."

And Jimin just trembled in his grasp for a long time behind he finally stilled, and when Tae turned him so he could make eye contact with Jimin, he saw Jimin's eyes, full of pain but no longer absolutely numb, and Tae felt horrible about bringing Jimin back into painful awareness, but he knew it was necessary. He didn't want Jimin's soul floating away. Even if it meant he had to staple Jimin's soul back to his body, even if it meant Jimin was in agony, even if that meant Tae was in agony - Tae couldn't let Jimin wither away.

"I know what you're thinking," Tae whispered. Part of it was growing up as triplets and having a third sense as for for the others were feeling, but it was also just from watching Jimin grow up and knowing how he worked. He'd seen how Jimin had transformed from the family crybaby into someone who tried to hold everything in, whether it was during a scary movie or in school when he felt isolated and humiliated.

Once again, Tae gently pushed Jimin's head forward so their foreheads were touching, and then he ruffled the back of Jimin's hair.

"It's okay to cry," he whispered. "I won't tell the others. And nobody thinks you're a crybaby anymore, Jimin. It's okay." He exhaled before saying the words he'd said before, words that he'd probably be using in the future. "It's okay, Jimin. I've got you."

And tears started streaming from Jimin's eyes.

***

It was over two hours before Tae climbed back down the ladder, and Yoongi looked up desperately.

"He's not talking," Tae said softly, not wanting to wake Jimin, who had fallen asleep in the warmth of Tae's arms after crying for a bit. "But he's back."

Hobi looked up as well. "You mean..."

Tae hesitated before shrugging. "It was like you said. It was like he was dead. Soulless. But he's back in there. He just refuses to talk."

Yoongi nodded, his eyes downcast as his head fell. He'd hoped somehow that Tae would be able to fix everything since he'd been the closest with Jimin at one point in time.

"I almost forgot to ask," Tae said, hesitating by the window. "Why didn't you ask Jin to come? You know he's better at emotions and feelings and whatever."

Yoongi laughed darkly. "Like Jin has time for us," he muttered, and Tae hesitated before nodding sadly and sending Lisa a text to pick him up.

"Also..." Tae turned back to face Yoongi with a frown. "Who's the kid that made Jimin feel so horrible?"

Yoongi shook his head. "I'll take care of it, Tae. Thanks for coming."

Tae hesitated before nodding and slipping out the window, and Yoongi was left with his words.

I'll take care of it.

How was he supposed to take care of their step-father?

He didn't know.

But Jimin couldn't handle any more of his verbal abuse. Today had been the last straw. Thanks to Tae, it looked like he could heal, but if he wasn't given enough time, his progress could disappear.

And Yoongi never wanted to see that hollow look in Jimin's eyes again.

No pleasure, no pain.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I'll take care of it.

Those were his words.

And he had absolutely no idea how to make them true.

***

Jin sighed before setting down his math homework and picking up his phone.

It was from several hours ago, it seemed. Just before Tae had left to do whatever it was he had needed to do.

It was probably just an accident, Jin reasoned. Otherwise he would have left me a message.

Shrugging, Jin set the phone down and returned to his homework.