Y/N POV
Jungkook sat quietly in the passenger seat as we drove along. He stared out the window intently, looking at everything that we passed.
He had insisted on wearing his hat again, and I couldn't really blame him. If someone cut my ear off I'd probably try to hide it every day too. The look on his face when he noticed me staring at his ear, when I had realised that he no longer had one, he was terrified.
I wasn't really sure what was running through his mind at that moment, but I could guess that he was probably scared of what I thought of him. Maybe he thought that I would think he was ugly and disfigured, or maybe that I thought he was damaged goods.
Looking at his big innocent eyes, the way he held onto the car door and pressed his face up against the glass to watch the world go by, I couldn't help but want to just keep him with me forever. He was too innocent for this world. He didn't deserve this.
Maybe I was getting in too deep, I had my own pack to consider. I loved them like family, they are my family! I would never want them to feel like they're getting replaced, or that I'm pushing them aside to make room for a new pack.
They had to come first. But I wasn't sure how I would be able to let Jin and his pack go back out there by themselves...
They were a stray pack, anything could happen to them.
We pulled up to the vet and I noticed Jungkook starting to tremble slightly. I quickly parked and got out, going over to his door to help him out.
"I promise everything will be okay! As far as the business is concerned, we're not even here for you. We're here to get a refill for my registered hybrids, ok?" I rubbed his arm as I led him towards the front door.
He said nothing, but nodded lightly, following me towards the small building. I guess it was a good thing I had my friend here. She managed to book the appointment under herself, nothing on the system saying that this was for Jungkook.
"Y/N here for an appointment with Jisoo" I told the receptionist.
"Sure, take a seat and she'll call you up shortly." She smiled at me and Jungkook.
"Thanks!" I pulled Jungkook back towards the seats.
He sat down next to me, completely frozen and staring blankly at the wall. I squeezed his hand, I knew he must have been terrified.
The poor thing had been dragged around, been without his pack, and was now sitting in a vet's office.
I looked at some of the other people in the waiting room. One of the hybrids looked just as terrified as Jungkook, her person was also holding her hand and whispering something to her. The other hybrids seemed fine, one of them was even chatting away about what they wanted for dinner.
"Y/N?" I heard my friend call.
I smiled at her, and stood up, gently pulling Jungkook with me. I could tell that every single muscle in his body was still tense, but he moved with me anyway.
As soon as we got into her room I crushed her in a hug.
"I missed you!" I squealed out.
"I missed you too! Why don't you ever come and visit me??" Jisoo hugged me back.
"You're always busy! See, you even came in to work on a Saturday!"
She pushed me away from her and lightly slapped my arm.
"Hey! I only came in because you asked!"
"I know, I know" I loved that it was so easy to rile her up.
"Anyway, this is the guy I was talking about, Jungkook." I motioned to Jungkook, who was still standing frozen behind me.
"Ah, nice to meet you Jungkook! I'm Jisoo. Y/N here is my friend, she told me about your situation so don't worry, nothing's going on record here."
Jungkook just nodded, wringing the hem of his hoodie.
"Why don't you sit up on the bed here" Jisoo gently led him over to the soft looking bed. I took a seat in the corner and smiled at Jungkook, trying my best to reassure him.
"Y/N told me that you hurt your ear. Is it alright if I take a look?"
He nodded again, and carefully lifted the hat off his head. Jisoo's eyes went wide, the hand she had slapped over her mouth hardly muffling the shocked gasp. Jungkook just looked down at his legs, twisting the hat harshly in his hands.
"Oh no... you poor thing. How did this happen?" I felt bad for not giving her some more warning.
I knew she had seen some pretty messed up stuff, that was part of her job after all. But her heart was too big for her own good, and she always felt sad when seeing an injured hybrid. She had seen a lot worse than this, sometimes needing to spend the night at mine to cry. One time a hybrid had come in so bad that she cried all night.
"U-um, some people..." Jungkook's voice shook so badly that I was surprised that any words came out at all.
"Oh honey, it's ok. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. I'm just going to remove these bandages and take a look now, okay?" Jisoo said softly, reaching up to start removing the bandages.
Jungkook remained quiet, but lowered his head a little for her. He winced as she carefully pulled the gauze off, earning him another gasp when the wound was finally revealed to her.
"Oh, my darling," she said sadly as she inspected the stump. "You haven't had any medicine or painkillers?"
"N-no. I got some painkillers a few days ago, but they weren't very strong." Jungkook replied quietly.
"Okay well I'll definitely be giving you some of those to take home. Jungkook, did they use a metal knife to do this?"
"Y-yeah"
"Okay. I'm going to give you a tetanus shot to be safe, okay? Tetanus can be fatal and we don't want to take any risks." Jisoo went over to her drawers and started pulling out the things she needed.
When Jungkook saw the needle he whined and started shaking again, even worse than before.
"Hey, hey, it'll be alright!" I quickly went over to sit down on the bed next to him. I wrapped an arm around him, holding him tightly to me.
"It'll just be a little sting, and then it's over!"
Jisoo returned, and Jungkook buried his head into my neck as I continued to hold him. He never stopped shaking, his whole body was vibrating. It must have taken everything in him to stop himself from bolting out of there.
We got through the tetanus shot, and some further questions, before Jisoo went through and disinfected the wound. She quickly re-wrapped it, clearly sensing Jungkook's intense distress.
"There we go! All done! All you'll need to do is try to keep it as dry as possible, obviously don't let it get dirty, and once it has scabbed over completely, you can leave the bandages off. I'll get you those painkillers. Oh also, I'll give you some antibiotics just to prevent any infection." Jisoo walked back over to her cupboards.
"You did so well" I whispered to him as I rubbed his back. The grip on his hat was still so tight that his knuckles were completely white now.
"Don't worry, we'll be home soon."
Home. Is it his home? Was that the right word to use? Or was my house just a stopover until they get to their next destination?
"This appointment is technically for Yoongi," Jisoo explained as she walked back over. "So don't mind the names on the bottles, but you just need to take 1 antibiotic twice a day, and you can take up to 2 painkillers every day."
"Wow, you're so shady Jisoo, this could get you fired," I snickered at her.
"Shut up!" she slapped my arm again. "I'm doing you a solid, so I don't expect any smart remarks from you."
All I could do was laugh. She was so cute, and doing something shifty like this was pretty out of character for her, but I guess that's what friends are for.
"Okay, thank you! I owe you one!" I got up off the bed and gave her another hug.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now get out of here, the poor guy might collapse from stress if you keep him here any longer." Jisoo nodded her head over to Jungkook, who was still trembling and had replaced his hat.
"Okay, okay, let's go!" I waved him over, and he shot up, coming to walk right next to me.
I paid for 'Yoongi's' medication at the front desk, and we were back in the car in no time. Jungkook's entire body slumped in relief as soon as he closed the door. He looked absolutely exhausted and I felt terrible for him.
"Hey," I got his attention, his tired eyes blinking at me. "You did so good in there, you were so brave! Why don't we get something to celebrate? Do you like ice cream?"
His eyes widened a bit and he nibbled on his bottom, shyly nodding his head.
"Ok good, me too." I started the car and we started making our way back home.
I decided on getting him a drive-thru soft serve cone so that neither of us would have to get out of the car. I wasn't sure he'd be able to handle any more stress today.
Jungkook hummed in delight as he ate away at his ice cream. I did the same, being careful driving with one hand. The radio gave us some nice background noise as we drove through the streets.
"I wonder if Yoongi is cooking something delicious." I wondered out loud.
"Jin is a really good cook too. With our last owner, he used to cook all the time. He makes the best kimchi stew!" Jungkook said happily.
It was as if we had never even been to the vet. That terrified, shaking bunny was nowhere to be found.
It made me curious, I hadn't even really thought about them being with previous owners. For some reason, in my mind, they were a homeless pack- and therefore... were always homeless? My own thoughts were beginning to sound more and more dumb.
Maybe I could take the opportunity to learn a bit more...
"Did you like your last owner?" I questioned carefully.
Jungkook hummed, taking another lick of ice cream and looking out the window.
"He was ok. He was a bit old, he didn't have a lot of time for us. At least it was a place to live."
Well that's depressing.
"So... how did you guys end up... not with him?" I wasn't sure how to ask "why are you homeless" nicely.
"He... he moved away. He told his son he could keep us. But his son already had hybrids of his own, and didn't want any more. He took us to a shelter that we had been to before, and they took one look at us and told him to leave. They said if he left us there then we would be in the pound by the next week."
Jungkook just stared blankly out the window. It was as if he was completely numb to this whole story.
"We've been in the shelters a lot... nobody wants packs." he let out a sigh and took a big bite of the ice cream cone.
"So what did he do?" I asked.
"He took us to another shelter, and we had been in that one too. They turned us away. He took us to a third one, they were full.
"He was about to take us to another shelter, but he decided not to. He gave Namjoon $200 and told us we could go wherever we wanted. Whether we took ourselves to another shelter, or just tried to survive on our own. So that's what we did."
"Oh" I mumbled. I wasn't really sure how to respond. These guys had been left behind by their owner, and then been left on the side of the road. My eyes felt hot thinking about that happening to my own pack.
"You've been in a lot of shelters?" I mused out loud.
"Yeah. We've been with a lot of people... who got tired of us..." he took another bite of ice cream.
My heart felt like the ice cream in my hand - melting and dripping away to waste. I knew that this kind of thing happened, but being face to face with it was so different. It was so depressing, and to hear Jungkook talk about it like it was just another day for him, that almost made it worse.
Michelle had spoken about how packs were difficult to adopt. After all, why would people want to adopt a pack of hybrids when they could just specifically choose the exact one that they wanted? It was cheaper, and then they weren't stuck with other hybrids that they may not want.
"So you guys, after he left you, did you ever think about finding another shelter to go to? To get adopted?"
I wasn't sure if he had noticed, but I was taking the long route home. I just wanted to talk a little more.
"No." He answered almost immediately, before taking another bite.
I waited for him to explain, and he let out another little sigh.
"We've been with some... bad people before. Our last owner was probably one of the best ones."
I hummed at his explanation, taking a bite out of my own ice cream. I felt bad for pushing, but I was just so curious.
"Namjoon didn't want to risk us getting adopted by a bad person again. I mean, you know why people adopt bunnies, right?"
A shiver raked through my body as I thought about what he said. I mean, I knew what people did, I just tried to pretend that it didn't happen. Call me ignorant, but it broke my heart thinking about the awful ways people used hybrids.
"And, well, now... now no one will want to adopt a pack with a disfigured member anyway. So I guess we'll be taking care of ourselves. Jin just needs to find another cheap place to live, and we'll be fine!" Jungkook smiled at me, but it didn't reach his eyes.
I tried to smile back, but it probably came out as more of a grimace.
I wanted so badly to offer them to stay. But I had so many other things to consider, most important being my own pack. Not to mention the money side of things as well - I don't think I could support 6 hybrids with my current salary.
I was already pushing it with 3, we were managing. My savings took a bit of a hit, but we were ok. 6 though...
"You're not disfigured" I told him. We were almost home now.
"You still deserve a home and a loving family, you're just as perfect as any other bunny hybrid."
From the corner of my eye, I could see Jungkook duck his head down, his face now hidden by the rim of his hat. He quickly popped the last bit of his ice cream cone into his mouth and continued to look out the window.
A/N: as promised - le another chapter