STAY for a while (Taekook)

💜Chapter-29💜

"I've cleaned the rooms. Please drink and freshen up, then you can have something to eat," Kai said politely. Jin nodded in appreciation, though Jimin remained expressionless. Kai barely glanced at him, treating him as if he were invisible.

"Kai, it’s alright. We’ll just sit here," Jin said gently, sensing the unease. Kai smiled faintly and nodded, sitting down with them.

As they sipped their drinks, Jin started to ask about Kai’s well-being, but his mind was preoccupied with a question that lingered in the back of his thoughts. His heart clenched, knowing he needed to ask.

"Hmmm, Kai..." Jin hesitated. "Where’s Jungkook?" His eyes carefully observed Kai’s reaction, noting how his face changed, the lightness in his expression fading into something more guarded.

Kai cleared his throat before responding, "Hyung, he’s in his room. Freshen up first, then we’ll go to him."

Jin smiled weakly and nodded. He was about to stand when Jimin abruptly got to his feet, drawing both Jin’s and Kai’s attention.

"Where?" Jimin asked, his voice steady but his posture tense.

Kai’s gaze shifted to Jin before answering, "Hyung, upstairs. Turn right—first or second room."

Jin gave an awkward smile and nodded again, unsure how to handle the silent exchange between Kai and Jimin.

As Jin and Jimin made their way upstairs, kai’s eyes involuntarily drifted toward the far corner of the balcony. There, at the end of the hall, was the room where his baby brother had locked himself away, a self-imposed prison that had stretched on for years. His heart clenched as memories flooded back—he hadn't seen Jungkook in so long, and now, after all this time, with the Kim brothers beside him, he didn’t know how to face him.

How had Jungkook changed? How much had his little brother endured in this isolation? The unknown weighed heavily on Jin as he gulped, his gaze fixed on the door at the end of the hall, the place where all of his fears and worries resided.

*Bunny... Tia needs you... please, stop punishing yourself,* his thoughts echoed. The words he had rehearsed countless times in his mind played again, words meant for his brother who had suffered alone for so long. *God himself has given you a second chance at this painful life. Your daughter wants you, and I know you need her too.*

Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered the day he first learned that Jungkook refused to see his own daughter’s face. The pain of that moment cut deep, sharper than any wound he had ever felt. For the first time in his life, he had spoken harshly to his baby brother, demanding to know why he would do such a thing, why he would deny himself the chance to see the most precious gift he’d been given.

Jungkook’s response still haunted him: those pained, hollow eyes that had lost every trace of emotion over the months of suffering. And the single, devastating sentence he had uttered in reply:

*“I can’t live after seeing her face. I won’t be able to leave her.”*

That one sentence had frozen him in place, rendering him speechless, his heart shattering into pieces. Every time he had thought about pressing further, about   From that day onward, Kai never found the courage to ask Jungkook anything more. Every time their eyes met, Jungkook’s hollow gaze would remind him of a deep, unbearable pain—a pain that mirrored what he had once seen in his mother’s eyes. The memory shook him to his core, leaving him helpless, haunted by the silent suffering that his brother carried.

Kai prayed for Jungkook every day, hoping that somehow, in some way, he could find peace or healing. But no matter how much he wished for his brother’s recovery, the thought of what Jungkook had become weighed heavily on his heart. Never in his darkest thoughts or nightmares had he imagined that his baby brother would walk the same tragic path their aunt had once lived—a life consumed by grief and loss, cut off from the world and the ones who loved them most.