Archive of Our Own

 The sound of the town is blocked by the sound of propellers chopping the canvas of the sky. The swaying of the leaves, the laughter of children and the daily noises are muted by the wind as the black pieces of metal swoosh through the clouds, clear in Jimin’s sight.

They’re black holes in the blue watercolor-like sky; like someone had poked through a piece of paper but the dark color of the aerial machines just continue moving, continue slicing through the air until the sound of it disappears into the distance.

Jimin has never been into a plane and he often wonders how it would be like above the world. Would the oceans look bluer? Would the clouds look whiter? Or would the people look like citizens under his domain, under his kingdom? He doesn’t know. A plane ride is considered a luxury and Jimin could barely afford to ride a train.

He’s tired, his body is limp on the window sill that he nearly drops the book he’s reading. He watches and smiles softly the children play with their wooden toys outside.

Click.

His head turns toward the room covered in sunlight and he spots a man behind an old dusty camera that’s on the verge of breaking apart.

“How long have you been there?” Jimin sighs, closing the book.

“Enough to take a good picture.” The man replies as he lowers the camera, looking at it with satisfaction as a smile crawls to his lips. He takes steps toward Jimin, bringing a faded photograph and showing his body in its exhausted glory on the edge of a window looking absolutely spaced out. “Perfect and candid.”

Jimin shakes his head and scoffs slightly. He doesn’t understand how he ended up living with Min Yoongi, a photographer who placed first on a non-government national contest for taking pictures of dead insects by the sidewalk and by the train and who evolved into taking hundreds of pictures of him everyday; Park Jimin per five seconds squared.

“I can’t believe you show, I don’t know, two or three portraits of myself in your studio. How are your clients not freaked out?” Jimin asks, stopping himself from thinking about it any further before he becomes beet red out of embarrassment.

“No shit, I have seven hanging proudly on my walls.” Yoongi smiles at him, showing him even more pictures of candid Jimin in his camera. “They think of you as my number one customer.”

Great, so half the town probably thinks Jimin is a narcissist.

“What the hell, hyung!”

“I got the okay from my boss, it’s fine.” Yoongi nods, already forming a thumbs up with his hands.

“But what about my okay?” Jimin retorts. “Not all people think I’m actually worth photographing, your business is gonna shut down soon.”

And Yoongi gasps like he himself was the one offended by the comment. “Suddenly I feel so embarrassed and ashamed and offended. Did you just fucking say you’re not beautiful? If you’re not beautiful then what in the fucking world is beautiful hmm?”

“You are.” Jimin says back and he catches Yoongi’s pale cheeks turn red upon hearing the words.

Caught you.

“T-That’s not the fucking point!” Yoongi stutters, hitting Jimin’s head.

“You’re the one taking pictures of me, hyung.” Jimin pouts.

“Because it’s my shitty job!” His hyung says. “God, Jiminie, I thought you were smart. What happened to that 100 point exam you had in class? Plus, at least you can fulfill your dream of being tall in pictures because you can’t be tall in real life.”

“What? We’re literally just the same height!”

“Someone’s in denial.” Yoongi clicks his tongue. “Don’t worry kid, Seokjin-hyung’s developing this growth pill. You’ll get your height back.”

Suddenly, he forgets about his book (Bye, Mark Twain) and the exhaustion clinging on his body. As expected, Yoongi never fails to make him smile and the ways his elder does it are some things that people don’t see. The way Yoongi acts when they’re alone together is a treasure for Jimin alone, a secret for them both to remind themselves that even in a world where they’re shunned for being them, they can still find love in mundane days.

“Seriously.” Jimin laughs and he feels lighter when he sees Yoongi’s gummy smile reaching his eyes. He hasn’t seen him like this for quite a while. Most of the afternoons he spends with Yoongi involved the elder sleeping basically anywhere (the sofa, the floor, the bed --- anywhere) from overwork. He always wonders how Yoongi can angle himself at just the right spot to actually, well, sleep.

He swears, Yoongi could even stick himself to the ceiling and he’ll still be able to sleep.

It’s probably the workload in the studio weighing him down from photographing dead insects to disgustingly sweet forced couples for their wedding portrait in which Yoongi would describe: “fake as fuck”.

“Don’t worry, Jiminie.” Yoongi says with a yawn (Something that Jimin has been looking for because it isn’t a normal conversation if he doesn’t yawn out of his own tiredness) “If they look at those pictures and think you’re not even beautiful then they can fuck off.”

Jimin raises a brow at the statement. “You’re seriously saying that your money-making clients should just go and---” He clears his throat and raises his fingers, preparing to quote. “fuck off?”

There’s a smug look on Yoongi’s face and it honestly makes Jimin feel his heart stop at the look. Nothing beats the smug Yoongi look; the dominance, the slight arrogance and the predicted victory look is considered hot.

“They can fuck a cactus for all I care.” Yoongi scoffs.

“You’re insane sometimes, you know that?” Jimin snorts at this.

“The only day I’ll be called insane is when I move out of this house and think of stealing Taehyung from Jeongguk.”

He suddenly imagines it, Yoongi running away from their small flat just below Seokjin’s clinic and waving nonexistent divorce papers on Jimin’s face as he frolics around Taehyung while waiting for Jeongguk to take him apart with his muscular hands. Yoongi may be a hyung who should be feared but hey, touch Taehyung, you get killed by Jeongguk. It’s common policy.

“No offense hyung but Jeongguk can rip your throat out if he wanted to.” Jimin states, unsure and disgusted by the image of Jeongguk actually trying to rip out Yoongi’s vocal chords while whimsically screaming ‘I AM BEOWULF’! with all its Celtic accents. “I’m serious. He may be the maknae but that kid’s a muscle pig and you look erm… well if you were put next to him then…”

“Okay, I know I’m fucking small but hell, Jeongguk won’t rip off my vocal chords even if he wanted to, Jiminie.” Yoongi brushes the statement off and Jimin wonders where he could get Yoongi’s smugness because he needs it whenever he talks to that stingy guy selling bread near the train station. “Jeongguk’s still a small shy rabbit.”

Uh-huh. Small shy rabbit.

There’s a faint whistle in the kitchen and it’s calling Jimin. He closes the window and heads for the kettle on the stove.

“Why are you so energetic today? Is it a full moon? Or are you one of those doppelgangers that locked Yoongi-hyung in a closet so you can kidnap me?” Jimin asks, turning the gas off and taking two cups for some coffee. “Mostly, once you’re done with work you want to be this mummy who sleeps for eternity and he who shall awaken you shall suffer thy curse.”

He hears Yoongi shifting, sliding his shoes on the wooden floor as he maneuvers his way to the dining area.

“Day off, the studio’s closed, I don’t have to deal with insensitive people who don’t like my pictures while they’re bitching about it, and I slept for the whole day until you came back. Fucking finally.” Yoongi says, stretching his arms and then laying his head on the table. “Means I just have more energy in my hands.”

Jimin pours the coffee on the mugs and brings them to the dining area before sliding one to Yoongi. He’s not the best coffee maker --- he knows no one can take Seokjin’s title of that --- but it’s not shitty coffee and Jimin’s proud of it.

“Hyung,” Jimin sips on the coffee, his eyes wandering to the sky through the window. It’s so blue that he could mistake it for another ocean. What summer can do to skies is amazing. “Have you ever been on an airplane?”

He imagines the plane flying again, being a black spot on the blue canvas as it goes farther away.

“No and probably never will.” He replies.

“Well you’re back to being negative.” Jimin chuckles. “I think it would be nice to fly on a plane, you know? See the people looking like ants and stuff.”

“I prefer things up close. The scenery is clearer when you’re on a train.” Yoongi finally places his camera on the table and drinks his beverage. “Why are you asking about a plane anyway?”

Jimin has an answer to that question: no matter how amazing it is to see a plane, the way that fleet looked just bothered him. They didn’t look like normal planes.

“I don’t know. I saw some planes fly over the town and I thought they looked weird.” Jimin replies, pursing his lips. “I’ve never seen planes look so intimidating before. Why did they look like that?”

Yoongi sighs at this. “Jimin, they were planes. You can’t judge a plane for being a fucking plane. It’s like judging a British kid for being British but in nonliving metallic transportation vehicles instead.”

Jimin would have laughed at the statement if that was the point but couldn’t bring himself to. The planes that caught his eyes were too weird and out of place, like they themselves were unidentified flying objects to Jimin. Their dark color palettes were intimidating, something that could make people pale just by seeing them and Jimin can’t explain it very well but overall, they looked so… scary.

He stares at his coffee. He suddenly hesitates on drinking it, thinking that he’d never be able to sleep once he does and he’ll probably get caffeine-induced hallucinations regarding planes and he’ll start screaming ‘HYUNG, THE FLOOR IS FLYING’ while Yoongi would bring him to Seokjin if not, worse: the asylum.

Park Jimin, you have some weird thoughts other than thinking your neighbor is a part time frog with his dance steps.

Ungracefully, there comes a sigh from his lips.

Click.

The familiar and almost broken sound of the camera echoes --- Yoongi’s camera is falling apart and so is his business may God help him --- and his elder looks up at him, face looking so innocent like he hasn’t done anything which could also be translated as blank.

“Hyung, I swear to everything I hold dear, if you run out of film because of me then we’ll get even into more illegal stuff that’s even more illegal than illegal.” Jimin shakes his head and he’s not kidding. He and Yoongi are unregistered citizens who only work their arses off to live and Seokjin’s this underground --- also illegal but hey, at least he’s helping people while being illegal --- doctor that offered them a place to live below his clinic (Bless him, his soul and his handsome face that women would injure themselves for.)

Their existence is basically illegal.

“Ain’t gonna stop me, though.” Yoongi smirks and takes another picture of Jimin staring straight at the camera.

Goodness, for the love of---

“Give the camera to me, hyung!” He exclaims, getting off his chair and propelling himself to Yoongi, who’s dodging Jimin’s attempts on taking the camera sloppily.

“What? Fuck no!” Yoongi exclaims back, raising his camera so that Jimin would have to either jump for it or do some goblin magic to suddenly turn tall and get it.

He jumps once then twice but even he’s surprised that Yoongi has enough fast reflexes to throw the camera back and forth to his right and left hands until Jimin finally sees an opening and takes it --- he tackles Yoongi down the floor with a loud thud.

But even with all that effort, the elder still manages to fucking raise his arm just to put distance between the camera and Jimin’s small hands.

Time for Plan B.

Jimin then results koala-hugging Yoongi until the elder starts to struggle from the grip.

“What the fuck, Jimin!” Yoongi retorts, struggling from Jimin’s golden arm grip on his chest.

“Give me the camera!”

“You’re taking away my source of life ---I mean money!”

“Hyung!”

Then, an exaggerated exhale of defeat comes out of Yoongi’s lips. “I always thought Jimine would like me taking pictures of him.” He says with a face full of drama that he actually looks like he’s either about to vomit or about to lay an egg. “Now that I take too much, Jimin doesn’t like me anymore.”

“Huh? What?” Jimin asks, but his grip doesn’t loosen.

Another exhale. “We’re in a shitty place living below Seokjin-hyung’s clinic and because I take too many pictures of Jimin, he hates me now. I like Jimin so much but now he hates me.”

“Wait, hyung, are you driving me away with guilt?”

“Jimin doesn’t like me…” Yoongi nods a little.

Jimin puffs his cheeks. This is totally unfair.

“But hyung, I love you!” Jimin sings playfully, much like how Taehyung would if Jeongguk suddenly decided to give him the silent treatments from one of their petty fights (they still fight over who gets the last custard piece and Jimin still can’t believe them).

“Sounds really fake and really Taehyung to Jeongguk-ish but okay.”

“Hyung, I love you!” Jimin repeats but Yoongi doesn’t stop the guilt tripping so without even sparing a second, Jimin brings his lips over to the elder’s cheek for a peck.

Yoongi freezes.

“Hyung, I love you.” Jimin says again but this time, with all sincerity as he buries his face on the crook of Yoongi’s neck. He smells like coffee and it brings a smile to his face. Just like my Yoongi-hyung.

“This is getting so awkward but it’s nice. You can let go now, Jiminie.” Yoongi replies and he stops struggling, his voice small and his pale face already turning pink.

“No can do, hyung. I like hugging you.” Jimin replies, his smile reaching his ears.

“You’re clingy as fuck.” Yoongi points out.

“And you love me for it.” Jimin chuckles.

Yoongi tries to reply but when he opens his mouth, a cracking sound pierces through the air, metal ripping itself from metal and suddenly, the screws on the mechanical device on Yoongi’s hands just fall to the ground with a metallic ding like withering flowers; only that flowers were metal and capture pictures.

The camera breaks, finally.

…and so does Yoongi’s business.

“Fuck, my camera!” Yoongi screams in despair.

o o o

The first time the bombs drop, he was in Yoongi’s arms.

The loud and booming sound of the projectile landing on the ground almost deafened his ears. The land was cracking, breaking, liquefying and his hands crumpled Yoongi’s clothes with a death grip. The glass shattered and it rained shining crystals on their heads as the elder held him closer, his whispers swimming in Jimin’s ears.

When the shaking stops, Yoongi’s hands are on his cheeks, lightly slapping them and the slight sting sobers his head and calms his irregularly beating heart.

“Hey, Hey, Jiminie.” Yoongi calls him, his voice in a low frantic whisper like he’s afraid of letting the walls know that they’re there. “Jimin, it’s over. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Fuck, there’s glass all over your hair ---- ”

Jimin blinked once then twice and the images in his eyes slowly focus, there’s glass debris on Yoongi’s pitch black hair and his pale skin is matted with black soot. He can’t feel his body, he only feels the warmth of Yoongi’s hands on his cheek and on his hair that they almost burn but when the sounds are not drowned in water and they clearly reverberate in his ears; the screaming, the cracking buildings and the crying children, he propels himself to the broken window.

It’s snowing ash in summer.

There’s a scream stuck in his throat and there’s an annoying and continuous ring stuck in his ears that wouldn’t stop. He catches the puff of smoke emitting from a distance, painting the sky into an ugly gray.

“What the fuck was that?” Yoongi curses, taking steps to the window and as he sees the black ashed snow, another cuss escapes his lips.

There’s a montage of images flashing through Jimin’s mind, overlaying themselves on top of one another with metallic dark colors over blue and the rumbling and intimidating feeling that settled in Jimin’s stomach rises once again. He reminds himself of the eccentric shapes of the planes and their irregular flying patters and suddenly, everything started to click.

“Those were war planes.” He whispers but he knows Yoongi managed to catch the words when his eyes widen. “Hyung, those were war planes.”

And it doesn’t need an explanation to know that the thing that set the whole town at a distance ablaze was a bomb.

o o o

….left with no other choice but to fight back and accepting alliance with the mentioned countries. Damages are increasing all over the country with numerous bombs and surprise attacks ranging over more than five hundred deaths and it continues to rise at this very moment. With some places re-captured by the United States, men had started to volunteer in ---

The sunken voice from the radio echoes throughout the room accompanied by static as he sees Yoongi sitting on the couch tensely, licking the inside of his cheek. Jimin purses his lips at the sight and Yoongi doesn’t even spare a glance at Jimin like he’s some kind of wandered ghost when he passed by.

“Hyung,” Jimin calls and still no response.

Jimin’s lips forms into a thin line and finally, he maneuvers himself to the radio and turns it off; the room pooling over with silence.

“Hey!” Yoongi says, finally, his head popping towards Jimin.

“Stop listening to those things with such a morbid expression, you’ll end up emitting fumes of gloom up the place too and I ain’t gonna handle that.” He replies, blocking the radio from Yoongi once he attempts to turn it back on.

“Jimin!” He calls sternly and it makes Jimin flinch. When was the last time he called him in such a tone?

“I’ll make you listen to it as long as you don’t look like you’re going to burst out into panic when you hear it!” Jimin exclaims back, grabbing his elder’s wrist, his hand not going anywhere near the radio. “Hyung, I’m just worried. You aren’t going to work and I’m --- just why are you so preoccupied with ---”

“We’re at fucking war!” Yoongi bursts and he grabs his hand back from Jimin and makes his way back to the sofa, flopping himself down with frustration as he runs his fingers through his hair. “The bombs dropped at another town but fuck, what if that happened again? If you got hurt? If ---” A groan of confusion finishes the sentence, Yoongi bringing himself up and his legs bringing him to any spot of the house.

He has never seen Yoongi like this before; pacing around the room with steam in his ears and never really knowing what to say. Yoongi has always been calm and straight to the point.

But it’s a bullet of a reminder for Jimin. His heart started to beat erratically at the thought of war planes and he suddenly remembers the fear clutching on to it, like there were dark fingers already there and started to tear their way onto Jimin. His hands starts to tremble and the sound of Yoongi’s complaints start to drown off in his ears much like the sunken voice of the man in the radio.

He takes a deep breath, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.

“Hyung, they don’t talk about it that much.” Jimin forces out.

Yoongi’s eyes start to widen, his face formed into an expression of disbelief before he stomps his way onto the window and forcefully opens it that the curtains hung above it start to fall. A gust of wind enters the room and so do mixed voices from different people, speaking in different languages in angry, scared screams.

THE END IS NEAR! THIS IS THE APOCALYPSE!
KOREA IS NO MORE!
THE END IS NEAR!
WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!

He freezes at the sounds of despair, there’s a shiver on his spine and the trembling worsens.

His hyung closes the window and he turns his head back to Jimin, expecting an answer, more specifically, a rebut to his statement and evidence.

“W-Well you know hyung,” Jimin starts, unsure, and now he tries to hide his shivering hands behind his back. “People are crazy these days and you know…”

“Yeah, crazy.” Yoongi scoffs. “That’s a fucking riot outside! Outside Seokjin-hyung’s clinic; outside our fucking living space!”

The ringing in his ears is back with the sound of loud explosions and roaring plane engines mixing with different voices swirling around his head. He feels the heat of fire on his skin and his airway getting blocked and oxygen’s not circulating around him properly. The world suddenly spins, going in circles and tilting in the opposite axis until Yoongi turns into a kaleidoscope in front of him.

A war, a war, a war, what if, what if, what if---

Yoongi’s rambles are muted, drowned and lost at sea, the words getting warped and the sounds changing in pitches and tones --- his head starts to ache.

Air. He doesn’t have enough air. He’s in outer space, his lungs suddenly burning and he doesn’t know if he’s actually breathing.

Yoongi keeps on talking; he looks scared, eyebrows furrowed and eyes looking distraught.

Hyung, why are you making that face? Why do you look so scared? Hyung why? Hyung, hyung, hyung ---

He catches a call from him but Jimin is already making his way to the bedroom, his feet not feeling the wooden floor, and he peels off the white sheet from the bed and runs back to Yoongi. Without a second thought, his hands just swept the sheet from his fingers as he wraps it around his hyung with much haste.

The whiteness of the sheet covers Yoongi’s head and Jimin connects and ties the ends on the elder’s neck in a secured knot.

“Jimin what---”

“Calm down, hyung!” Jimin yells, all the thoughts that he should have voiced out piled into one sentence without any hesitation but with a voice filled with a confused feeling of fear.

And Yoongi stops talking, he tries to catch his breath through soft pants as he stares at him but Jimin still feels dizzy there are pages of poisonous thoughts corrupting his good ones --- of blood an of guns, of corpses and of bombs, of children losing fathers and of siblings losing siblings --- that he tries to search for a sense of calm in a blanket covered, frustrated Min Yoongi.

The white sheet almost matches the elder’s pale skin and his small eyes reflect whatever mundane thing they have left and Jimin sees it; he sees the collection of photographs that Yoongi proudly shows him, he sees the late night coffee dates and the secret meet ups along with the calm night and the beautiful exchange of good mornings at dawn, he sees himself and Min Yoongi --- happy in each others’ arms.

Yoongi’s face softens and his pale fingers meet Jimin’s small hands on the edges of the sheet. The elder holds his hands tightly, trying to stop the shaking of his.

“Jiminie,” Yoongi calls, his voice a whisper. The pads of his thumbs rubbing softly on the back of his palms until his grip on the sheet edges relaxes and the white blanket falls of his hyung. “Hey, sunshine…”

Jimin swallows the lump on his throat. He lowers his head and watches their bare feet, the words stuck in his throat once again as he feels his head pound.

Yoongi bumps their foreheads together and both of them are so close that Jimin could hear the pattern of Yoongi’s breathing.

“I-I’m… I’m scared too, hyung.” Jimin whispers. “I try not to think about it that much but I’m scared too.”

He finally admits and it’s like a huge weight has been taken off his chest the more he talks about it. He acknowledges the feeling of pitch-blackness when he saw the papers filled with bold headlines of war and when he saw the camouflaged uniforms and the rifles the soldiers hold while patrolling.

Most of all, he pales at the thought of the arrest of the unregistered citizens like him and Yoongi.

“I know…” Yoongi whispers back. “I know, I’m sorry for shouting.”

Jimin nods slightly, and he croaks a small ‘it’s okay’. He lifts his head slowly and the mixed feelings on Yoongi’s face morphs into an expression of concern.

“We’ll get through this okay?” He says. “I know I’m not even the right person to say this kind of shit but we’ll be okay.”

And the world fades away, all he can see is Yoongi in front of him. There’s still a bad feeling settling down in his stomach but the way the elder’s eyes look at him fills him with a sense of reassurance. He sees their world inside of them, he sees the gleeful past and the secrets it holds.

A secret that extends to the present when they move their lips to touch.

They kiss like they’re a fairy tale found in books --- almost unreal.

It starts of slowly, their hands wandering to each others’ necks until their bodies fall down the couch with a creak. They pull off, their faces inches away and Jimin sees Yoongi’s smirk above him before he connects their lips once again in heated passion. He lets his fingers wander to Yoongi’s black locks and he feels like every touch from his elder burns on his skin but the more it burns, the more he pulls Yoongi closer.

They’re alone, the walls don’t have eyes, the mice have their ears covered; the way they touch and the way they love are things they keep for themselves. It’s a fairy tale kind of love wherein people would think it’s nonexistent because the only righteousness people would allow to see is of that of a man and woman’s relationship --- a type of love that they do not have.

Men are not allowed to love other men.

Society will not look at them. Society will not accept them. But in the end, both of them do not care. They have each other and that’s enough.

Their lips separate and Yoongi buries his face on Jimin’s neck.

“We’ll be okay, sunshine.” He says again.

Jimin finds himself out of breath as he smiles. “Why do you keep calling me that…?”

“Because you are.” Yoongi says softly and Jimin snakes his arms to the elder’s frame, hugging him tightly.

No matter what people think, Park Jimin will always know that what he feels for Min Yoongi is love.

o o o

He wakes up with his limbs tangled with Yoongi’s, the blankets tempt to fall to the floor as they loll on the edge of the fabric sofa. Jimin does not attempt to fix them but instead, he buries himself further in the space between him and the elder, bringing him a few more centimeters close to him, enough to smell the coffee on Yoongi’s clothes.

The night is silent, except for the unusual buzzing that enters his ears but Jimin shakes it off, thinking of it as an after effect of the dreams that mostly included plane engines and trips with the man lying beside him.

He sees the moonlight seeping through the window and dancing along with the swaying of the curtains like a perfect waltz in the corner of his half lidded eyes,. Yoongi looks calm and beautiful basked under the pale light and the shadows of black and blue hues that he ends up looking like a painting.

He smiles at the mere sight of Yoongi and he’s filled with a sense of sentimentality within him. Is he really mine? Are we really meant for each other? His fingers slowly brush on Yoongi’s cheek and he doesn’t answer the questions. He spends his time just lying there in awe of how much his heart beats for his hyung that he just wants to take Yoongi’s camera and does his way of taking pictures: Min Yoongi per five seconds squared.

And in moments, Yoongi’s eyelids start to flutter open and as he sees Jimin’s disheveled state, his lips curve into a smile.

But when Yoongi opens his mouth, there are loud footsteps that are heavy on the wooden planks that Jimin thinks that they would splinter and break. The sleep and drowsiness is knocked out of Yoongi and they vanish into nothingness as his eyes flinch and widen.

“Hyung…?” Jimin calls but Yoongi shushes him back and sits up in a flash, his head shaking and scanning the walls.

The footsteps grow louder and Jimin swears they sound like thunder and the way the invisible feet hit the wood goes along with his heartbeat, thump thump thump, his heart is going to go out of his chest.

Yoongi’s hand finds his and he squeezes it tightly before standing up as the footsteps come closer.

“Come on, hurry!” He screams in a shushed and whispered voice while he starts to pull Jimin away from the sofa and into the closet in swift ghostly tiptoes until Yoongi opens the wooden hinged platform and pushes Jimin in.

“W-What’s going on?” Jimin asks, there’s a lump forming in his throat and his mind suddenly races that he feels like he’s catching the worst fever of his life. He curls himself inside the closet, his feet on fallen shirts and as he grabs Yoongi’s sleeve, the elder starts to look around once again in a feared wide gaze. “Hyung?”

Yoongi shushes him again. “Be quiet, Jimin.”

The way how he made his voice low makes Jimin shiver and there’s adrenaline filling his veins that he’s already ready to run for miles away; away from that place, away from that war anywhere but here; just away.

Jimin’s lip shake and he’s whispering a mantra uncontrollably as the steps become even more alike to thunderous claps.

Yoongi curses at this and lowers his head, curling himself up next to Jimin and closes the closet door in a split second before bam! The main door blasts open in the loudest bang Jimin has ever heard and he swears his limbs have already turned into stone.

“Where are they?” The voice is deep; a male with a prolonged accent for vowels.

The only source of light they have in that constricted space is from the light seeping through the cracks of the closet and Jimin’s line of sight is dependent on it like a lifeline. There’s a small strip of the outside that he could see: the pathway to the kitchen.

The floorboards creak over the man’s weight and the more they do, the more uneven his breaths become and the tighter Yoongi holds him.

And then the unknown man goes into the picture on the small strip of Jimin’s sight. Sandy blonde locks, tanned skin, lifeless pale blue eyes and a figure two times bigger and broader than any Jeon Jeongguk. An international soldier.

“What are they doing here…?” Jimin says and it comes out as a whimper but even a whisper comes out as something louder than shout and Jimin’s hand covers his lips with a shaky hand on impulse.

“Arresting unregistered civilians.” Yoongi whispered back.

Their ragged breaths echo in the air surrounding them. Jimin’s foot starts to numb and Yoongi’s eyes are glued to that small strip of sight he has.

“Where are they!?” The soldier screams and more footsteps scurry onto the creaking floorboards accompanied by a hiss and a string of painful coughs.

“The accused has nothing to say, sir.” Another one says.

And Jimin knows that voice.

Namjoon-hyung…?

“Namjoon?” Yoongi breathes out loud.

“Well bring him in and let him speak!” The soldier snaps and Namjoon tenses.

“Shit, why is Namjoon here?” Yoongi mumbles.

But the question diminishes once Namjoon drags up a battered body into the room and throws it to the kitchen table, the chairs cluttering and the glasses shattering into millions of pieces on the floor as the poor dragged man coughs out whatever blood’s left on his lips.

The white doctor’s coat is stained red on the collars with huge blotches on the sides and sleeves, his black hair is messed up, matted with flakes of blood and the once healthy glow the man had on his skin is replaced with a pale shade corrupted with purple bruises flowering up randomly on the surface.

The man coughs again, more blood splattering on the floor and Jimin’s heart stops in his chest as the horror sinks in the moment he scans the man’s battered face.

“S-Seokjin-h-hyung” He whispers through his hand and God, he’s trembling.

“W-Why…?” Yoongi adds.

Seokjin writhes in pain on the floor, groans and grunts escaping from his lips as the man towers above him with a sadistic smirk before he lands a heavy kick on his hyung’s abdomen and Seokjin curls.

“Where are they?” The man asks Seokjin.

“...What are you… talking a-about? Seokjin says, his voice almost inaudible and laced in poisonous pain.

The soldier cocks a brow, kneels and then proceeds to grab Seokjin’s black hair before lifting him up to his eye level. “Oh, are you sure about that?”

Seokjin only coughs, his eyes are closed shut.

The man snaps his fingers and signals something to Namjoon before turning back to Seokjin.

Namjoon starts to move, he scurries in through the room and looks through creaks and under beds that both Jimin and Yoongi stop moving, afraid that a single muscle contraction would give them away, afraid that a single breath would shed more blood on the floor.

And Jimin really doesn’t breathe when Namjoon finds himself in front of the closet and looking into the strip creak of their sight.

Their eyes meet and Jimin prays to whatever god there is just for Namjoon to stop himself from opening the door and revealing them. He starts to count in his head, the numbers red and glowing painfully in his mind-scape, joining in with the thumping of his heart in his ears.

Ba-dump

One.

Ba-dump

Two.

Ba-dump

Three.

He feels Yoongi’s trembling hand on his shoulder and as he slowly snakes his over it, Namjoon blinks once then twice, scanning both him and Yoongi; there’s some kind of unknown emotion swimming in his eyes that Jimin couldn’t quite decipher but the words are clearly stated despite the feeling.

Stay there and don’t go out.

Namjoon turns his back and then leaves.

Jimin exhales as he sees Namjoon’s back turning smaller before he’s next to the senior soldier.

“Nothing here to report, sir.” Namjoon says, his right hand popping up to his forehead in a salute.

The senior soldier frowns and the creases start to form on his forehead when he starts to furrow his brows. He turns his attention back to Seokjin, who’s still heaving and catching his breath.

“I t-told you,” A cough escapes from Seokjin’s bloody lips. “no one’s h-here.”

The soldier’s face is stoic, as if unaffected by Seokjin’s words as he suddenly slams his hyung’s head on the wood, the impact so loud that Jimin lets out a shaky gasps, fearing Seokjin’s head would crack.

“H-Hyung…” He croaks shakily, his hand already on the platform separating both of them from the situation in the room.

He tries to push it slightly, the the old closet hinges starting to creak but Yoongi pulls him back, taking his hand away from the wood.

“No, don’t do it.” Yoongi says to him as he shakes his head.

“B-But Seokjin-hyung,” He says back. “Seokjin-hyung is going to---”

“I promised Seokjin-hyung that I’d protect you!” Yoongi retorts back in a hissed whisper. Jimin could see the desperation spreading in his eyes that it hurts to look at him.

A scream pierces through the heavy air and Jimin has never ever predicted that Seokjin’s voice could morph into something so morbid. His head turns to the direction of the sound but when he sees a splatter of red beneath Seokjin’s head, he holds out a gasp before Yoongi’s hands are already on his eyes.

“No, no, shit, don’t look!” Yoongi forces out. “Don’t look, don’t look, Jimin.”

And the screams only continue, the sound of flesh on flesh reverberating through the walls. There are tears prickling on Jimin’s eyes, already threatening to fall. He’s being overloaded with adrenaline that he feels like he’s going to explode right at that very moment because he just can’t take it!

“Why would I trust a quack doctor?” The man says before delivering another hit and Yoongi’s hands shiver like leaves exposed to the wind but refuse to unveil Jimin’s eyes. There’s nothing he could see but darkness but the sounds penetrating Jimin’s ears were horrifying enough for his mind to conjure up all the images that could have happened: Seokjin’s bloody face, the man’s merciless actions and Namjoon’s concerned look.

Why, why would they do this to Seokjin-hyung?

It’s true that Seokjin doesn’t have a license to perform any medical procedures but he has enough knowledge to treat the wounded that those greedy officials would just leave on the streets to die. Seokjin did nothing wrong, Seokjin was kind enough to give a home to both of them, he doesn’t deserve ---

“There’s no one here!” A cracked shout rips through Seokjin’s throat and Jimin’s on the edge of pushing the closet door open but Yoongi continues to pull him back.

“You can’t go out!” He says, pulling Jimin from the door. “Remember that Namjoon left us here, Namjoon will make sure that Seokjin-hyung won’t---”

“But if he keeps this up then hyung will---” Jimin cuts him off.

Seokjin-hyung will die

The thought freezes him and his blood runs cold.

Seokjin-hyung will die.

He’s possessed by clairvoyance and his imagination play tricks on him making a photograph of Seokjin’s cold lifeless body in a casket, his skin porcelain and matted with flowers as the sound of a shovel cracking up the ground bounces off in the background.

“No,” Jimin shakes his head slightly in all fear.

“Even if they were here,” Seokjin coughs out and he laughs mockingly. “I would never tell you.”

And something inside Jimin snaps, there’s a little voice in his head battling off the feared ones, whispering in his ears to go outside as his blood heats up and rises to his head. He rips Yoongi’s hands off of his eyes.

“Jimin, don’t---”

He struggles free from Yoongi’s grasps, pushing the closet door open before Yoongi reaches out to him and fails to grab him back, his fingers only brushing on the cotton of Jimin’s clothes.

Everything suddenly feels foreign to him, the certain pumping in his veins and the feeling of wood on his soles as he runs toward Seokjin and the man towering above him but before he even reaches them, the soldier rushes to him, his strong hand already pushing him down with the other clumping on his throat as his body finally hits the ground in a loud thud.

His head hits the floor roughly and he lets out a cry at the sting spreading throughout his skull while the hands on his throat tighten up his airway. Jimin’s fingers brush on the man’s wrist before fully grabbing it and attempting to remove the hand from his neck but the man’s fingers only tighten and there’s a choked up whimper coming out of Jimin’s lips.

“Ah, so that quack did lie.” The man laughs. Jimin sees him through forcefully opened eyes and his hand suddenly loosens its grip at the sight of awful sadism painted on the soldier’s face. “Such a saint-like sense of duty. But of course, it’s not a saint that lives in this world, it’s a tyrant.”

Jimin can’t breathe, the fingers are too tight on his throat that his lungs start to light up on fire and he starts to heave up whatever air that could enter his system. His eyes start to wander, from the man pining him down to Seokjin who’s already going in and out of consciousness to Namjoon who’s too shocked to move or know what to do.

“Such a pretty face.” The man’s free hand cups his cheek, traces the skin underneath Jimin’s eyes and then feels his plump lips with the pad of his thumb. “Such a shame that you aren’t a woman.”

“Get off of him! He doesn’t have anything to do with this!” Seokjin’s broken voice intervenes but it falls deaf on the man’s ears.

The soldier closes half the distance they have until their faces are inches apart. Jimin feels his breath on his face and it starts repulsively crawling on his skin that he turns the other cheek and closes his eyes tightly.

“But even if you are a man, you’ll still be of some use to other people.” He whispers to Jimin’s ears. “I’ll take you to a place where they could have fun with you.”

Jimin tries to push the unbearable man’s weight away from him but there’s no more air in his lungs and the strength leaves his limbs that struggling becomes almost useless. His eyes threaten to roll back, but he shakes them off, stay awake stay awake stay awake.

But the edges of black close up in his sight and his grip finally loosens more on the man’s wrist before his body falls limp and then---

The sound of knuckles on flesh pierces up the silence of his mind. The hand on his throat disappears along with the colossal weight above him. He starts to cough uncontrollably and he gasps for air.

The punch was a clean hit on the soldier’s jaw and it certainly made Yoongi’s knuckles rip up and bleed.

“Get your filthy hands off of him you fucker!” Yoongi hisses, his face darkens; a predator hunting his prey.

“--gi-hyung” Jimin coughs out, inaudible. Yoongi’s hair is cloning up in his vision.

There are gentle hands on his back, rubbing gentle circles in comfort. “Hey, Jimin. I told you not to go out, I fucking told you.” Yoongi’s voice is sinks with the ringing that’s starting to form in his ears. “Are you okay? Where did he---”

Yoongi pauses, his breath caught up in his throat when he sees the marks already forming on Jimin’s neck.

“Shit,” Yoongi curses but before he can comment more, a kick on his hyung’s cheek sends him flying to the other side of the room.

“Y-Yoongi-hyung!” Jimin screams but Yoongi continues to bring himself up with the groan and scattered coughs.

“People are scary nowadays.” The soldier laughs, grabbing the handgun from his holster and pointing it on Yoongi’s head. “But always remember that you rascals are nonexistent. Even if I send you to hell right now no one would even know you’re gone. Unregistered pieces of scum.”

Yoongi glares at him, wiping the blood dripping from his lip. “I’d like to see you fucking try, you fucker.”

The man smirks, clicking off the safety of his gun. “A cuss-er, I see. Such bad manners. Didn’t your parents teach you how to speak properly to people of higher authority?”

“Stop! Don’t kill him!” Jimin’s throat hurts but he continues to scream, he continues to scream until it burns and pricks because if he stops he’ll lose Yoongi and the words circle in his head.

He’ll lose Yoongi.

Nononononono I can’t! I can’t lose him, I can’t fucking lose him!

“Please, please!” He begs, desperation clawing in his very being because Yoongi can’t leave him; Yoongi. Can’t. Die. “I’ll do anything, just don’t kill him!”

But the man is stoic despite the tears falling down his face, mixing with the droplets of blood on the floor.

“Jiminie…” Yoongi calls him and once Jimin glances at him, he throws him a smile.

No.

“It’s fine, Jiminie.”

Don’t show me that face.

The soldier threatens to shoot, his finger curling on the trigger and Jimin looks away.

The gunshot is loud, the sound bounces on the walls but as Jimin tries to get a glimpse of the horror that awaits him, Yoongi is still there, awake, real and alive. There’s a hole on the floor, oozing with white smoke, the edges burned black.

“Sir!” Namjoon is on the soldier’s side, his hand on the bigger man’s arm, redirecting the bullet from Yoongi’s head to the ground.

“What are you doing?” The man hisses at him and Jimin could see the hesitation eating Namjoon up but he replies, nonetheless.

“We are commanded by the general to not kill them.” Namjoon reminds, his hand continuing to lower the man’s hand. “You will be penalized if you do, sir.”

The soldier takes his time to look at Namjoon and then back to Yoongi, contemplating his actions. He scoffs then after in all arrogance and keeps his gun. Jimin could finally breathe, running to Yoongi and placing his hands on his shoulders.

“They’ll die in the war anyway.” He hears the man mutter. “Both of you, as punishment for not abiding the law, you are obliged to join military training starting tomorrow before you are assigned to specific squadrons. Good luck.” He turns his back on them, signaling Namjoon to leave. He glances at Seokjin and then rolls his eyes. “Bring the quack along for interrogation. I need to know the… relationship of the people he has hidden.”

And there’s a shiver wracking up Jimin’s spine.

Relationship.

If the government finds out about them then they’ll end up in front of a garrote.

The door closes and they’re left alone inside their wrecked home. The blotches of blood on the floor makes Jimin dizzy and nauseous that he swallows the bile already rising up.

“Jimin,” Yoongi calls with a rasp voice. “Don’t join the army.”

Jimin stares at him in disbelief. “…What?”

“I’ll find a doctor, I’ll fake a certificate of illness or some shit, just don’t join.”

“I can’t let you risk your life for me again. If you’re going to go then I’m going too.” Jimin persuades but Yoongi only shakes his head.

“No, I can’t let you, you don’t understand. I promised Seokjin-hyung I’d---”

“And who will protect you, hyung?”

“I can’t lose you!” Yoongi snaps, his bloody knuckles tight on Jimin’s shoulder. “I can’t lose you. I just can’t. I won’t be able to… be able to--- fuck, Jimin, I just can’t.”

“And I can’t lose you.” Jimin says back, the tears are falling again and he sees one drop from Yoongi’s eye. “Sorry, hyung. I’m not letting you go there alone.”

And Yoongi sighs then brings him close. He’s at lost for words and that’s okay. Yoongi doesn’t need to be full of wisdom all the time. After all, Yoongi is human too.

“Don’t die on me.” Yoongi whispers on his ear, his hand crumpling Jimin’s shirt.

“I won’t.”

But he can’t promise anything because for Yoongi; he’d even welcome death if the elder could live.

o o o

Jimin never expected himself to actually experience formal schooling. He’s been into free classes here and there since schools don’t really accept people who aren’t listed on the register but this time, he isn’t too thrilled on learning when he’s copying Morse codes instead of math equations.

Their professor is partly made of metal, all with mechanic emotions that Jimin would believe anyone who said that the guy isn’t human. The man’s voice is sharp and devoid of feeling and the way he moves his hand on the board is hard and jointed.

Definitely not human.

“I heard the ones in patrol got you hard last night. The neighbors actually heard a gunshot or so I’ve heard. Is Yoongi-hyung okay?” Taehyung asks in a low voice, covering his face with a notebook. (As if that would do any type of camouflage.)

“He’s okay. He’s in another class here.” He replies, copying the newly written words.

Taehyung nods at the answer, relieved.

They fall silent and Taehyung’s back to scribbling circles on his notebook instead of notes. Jimin laughs at this slightly, which brings a smile to Taehyung’s face.

“Well, are you okay?” Taehyung asks, his head turning towards Jimin again.

“Yeah, why are you asking?”

“You seem a little down.”

“Tired.”

“People don’t just say tired when there are bruises snaking around their neck.” Taehyung points out and this time, Jimin turns to Taehyung’s direction. His friend’s brows are furrowed and his tired face is marred with concern. “Don’t lie to me, Jiminie.”

Jimin nods at this before pursing his lips. “You really are my best friend, aren’t you?”

Taehyung scoffs proudly and then rubs his nose. “The best-est. Who else can be better than me that can take that place?”

Jimin tries to remember that night again, the way Seokjin’s limbs were painted in red and bent in places that shouldn’t have been bent, Namjoon’s worried gaze, the gun on Yoongi’s head and the man’s breath on his face --- he drops his pen at the thought and Taehyung almost jumps up in surprise.

“You don’t have to remember if---”

“No, I’m fine.” Jimin says, picking his pen up. “It’s just… Well Seokjin-hyung, do you know what happened?”

“Yeah, I heard.” Taehyung nods, bringing the notebook closer to his face as if it would do any purpose of hiding it. “Doctor across the street got arrested by a nearby soldier and stuff like that. I can’t believe Namjoon-hyung would do that to him.”

“It’s not Namjoon-hyung’s fault.” Jimin defends him, remembering how Namjoon looked at them when they were still hiding in the closet. “He wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t pushed on the edge and at that time, it looked like he really didn’t know what to do.”

“Why did Namjoon-hyung even become a soldier in the first place?” Taehyung asks.

“No offense to what you’re thinking Tae but we’re becoming soldiers too in matter of time.” Jimin reminds him. “Fastest graduation ceremony and only graduation ceremony we’ll ever get.”

Taehyung frowns at this and when Jimin turns his head back to the board, he almost curses at the amount of words that were already written in chalk and the professor’s (robot man) already threatening to erase them so swiftly, Jimin grabs his pen and starts scribbling the information in almost illegible handwriting.

“Yeah, good luck to us.” Taehyung says bitterly, not even fazed by the amount of letters he needs to copy. “I mean even here there’s a war between unregistered citizens and well, people who actually want to be in the army. We’re the lower class rats.”

“What happened to the positive attitude?” Jimin pauses in writing and corrects an ‘o’ and changes it into an ‘a’. He’s a little shaken by how Taehyung chose to word up his sentences. He has known Kim Taehyung since he was a child and Taehyung almost never says anything negative.

“Well, when guys in army jackets raid your house when you get home with Jeongguk still inside, you try everything to get him out of there but then there’s this other guy who dug a knife to your arm and now you’re in the army to be sent to death. Probably enough reason, right?” Taehyung has a point. Even Jimin couldn’t argue with it.

“Surpised you didn’t make friends with the soldiers there.” Jimin chuckles and Taehyung soon follows but his laugh contains venom so poisonous that Jimin soon stops.

“Jiminie, I’m even friends with the cats behind the trash cans but then again, I wouldn’t make friends with a guy who stabbed me with a knife just for going inside the house and basically scared Jeongguk to death. That guy wasn’t near anything like a cat or a human in general.” Taehyung replies, showing the white bandages criss-crossing on his arm. “Jeongguk may sound tough but he gets scared too. Believe me or not, I almost cried at the scene.”

Almost crying is better than continuously crying like how I did that night.

“Yoongi-hyung’s the same. I never saw him like that before, all frustrated and scared. But why aren’t you bothered by it anymore?” Jimin asks, partly confused.

“Because if I did then I’d be punishing myself. In situations like this, it’s better to forget and move forward.” Taehyung replies, lowering his notebook and finally copying the words on the board. “As for Yoongi-hyung and Jeongguk, it must have been the pressure that got to them. You know, the whole homosexuality law and more laws regarding when to drop bombs and when to destroy cities and other stuff like that. They’re the types that would over think about such things.”

The professor then slaps a book on their table, and Taehyung immediately closing his notebook in fear of letting the whole class find out that he’s been listing ‘I’m pretending to take notes’ on his notebook for a duration of 45 minutes.

“Kim and Park, cease your chatter.” He says mechanically. “Stop disrupting my class.”

Jimin and Taehyung bow, whispering their apologies but they do not “cease their chatter” as they stare at the board but continue talking and whispering without eye contact.

“Bogum-hyung was scared to death too. I got guilty for involving him.” Taehyung says and continues to scribble on his notebook. This time, a stick man. “He’s the one who took both Jeongguk and me and gave us a home, much like Seokjin-hyung but now he has to work his arse off for the military because of our unregistered arses. Such gratitude we have.”

Taehyung’s annoyed. Jimin could tell by his voice and the way on how he violently scribbles on his notebook that the pencil lead would break more than three times. He’s not annoyed at the class or at Jimin; he’s annoyed at himself. It’s something that normal people would mistake for passing apathy when in fact Taehyung’s the one eating himself up with the guilt and self pity.

“It’s not your fault, Tae.” Jimin whispers, his hand pauses in copying. “You didn’t have a choice. We all didn’t have a choice.”

Taehyung is silent and for a while, Jimin thinks that his friend is going to give him the silent treatment for saying the wrong words but Taehyung only slides a piece of paper to him that’s messily folded.

“Thanks, ChimChim.” He catches Taehyung’s boxy smile at the corner of his eye.

He lets the muscles of his lips tug up into a smile in return and he unfolds Taehyung’s message. It’s in Morse, much to Jimin’s surprise since Taehyung hasn’t been listening to Mr. Robotic for fifty minutes but he erases the thought and tries to compare his friend’s message with his gathered notes, trying to decipher the dots and dashes that Taehyung wrote and finally cracks it in two minutes.

prof’s pencil case looks like a penis head

Jimin tries to hold his laughter already threatening to pour out of his lips. What the hell, Tae!?

Taehyung’s doing the same, covering his lips and his shoulders shaking. Jimin finally feels that holding out laughter hurts more than holding out a scream so he lets the laughs pour softly as he lowers his head onto his notebook.

He regrets that decision.

Mechanical professor shows up next to him, swiping the paper from his fingers and starts to decode the message as well.

Shit.

“Nice observation and magnificent usage of the Morse code, Park but realizing that my pencil case looks like a so called…” He eyes Jimin with a face filled with stoic resentment. “penis head, does not help the country win the war.”

The class bursts out into uncontrolled laughter.

This time, it’s not a chuckle he’s holding off, it’s the urge to strangle Kim Taehyung.

o o o

When he gets to the gardens, he already sees Yoongi sitting on the bench with his mouth full of sandwich and his free hand feeding the birds breadcrumbs.

“Hey, grandpa.” Jimin calls teasingly as Yoongi spreads the last of his bread crumbs but Jimin’s footsteps scare the birds away and they retreat back to the sky.

Yoongi stares at him, maybe thinking why he needed to scare the birds away when he was enjoying their company.

“Why’d you scare my fucking birds away?” Yoongi asks with a sigh, taking a bite of his sandwich.

“Birds don’t like people. They drop bird dung on them.” Jimin says, taking a seat next to him on the bench. “And hyung, you better get the cussing fixed or you’ll get in trouble with the superiors.”

“Well, they like me.” Yoongi says back. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the cussing under control.”

“Really?” Jimin scoffs.

“I wouldn’t really expect someone overly comparable to sunshine as you to relate, penis head.” Yoongi laughs and Jimin turns red in a split second, a rosy flush spreading to his cheeks that he attempts to cover up but Yoongi prevents him. “Don’t cover your face when you look so cute being embarrassed. Didn’t know you had a thing for penis heads.”

Traitorous people spreading traitorous rumors what a traitorous universe let me die.

Yoongi’s playing with him and the smug smile on his face is back.

“I swear, the guy who wrote that was Taehyung.” Jimin explains, arms up in defense while making his voice form into the most persuasive tone he has that he’s 95% sure he can defend a guilty client on court with it.

“Yeah, I know.” Yoongi exhales, the laughs diminishing. “Only Taehyung can pull off a stunt like that without getting caught but you gotta admit that bullshit was funny as fuck. I almost fell out of my chair when Hoseok told me.”

He should’ve strangled Taehyung back in class.

“Penis heads aside, how many minutes do you have before your next class?” Jimin asks with an embarrassed sigh.

“I’ve got sparring sessions fifteen minutes from now.” Yoongi replies.

“Then you should get going. You’ll get in trouble.” Jimin says, getting the breadcrumb bag from Yoongi. “I’ll feed your birds.”

But Yoongi only snorts. “You’ll feed my birds?”

“Yep.” Jimin nods.

Yoongi hums but doesn’t make an attempt to move a muscle from his spot.

“No, too lazy to move.” Yoongi yawns. “This is more exhausting than taking pictures of fake and arranged couples in the studio.”

“Hyung…” Jimin warns. He doesn’t want any of them to get in trouble during training or else they’ll definitely die before they even step into war’s battlefield.

“I want to be with you more, give me five minutes.” Yoongi says but he lowers his head, his eyes averting Jimin’s.

There’s an echo of a loud, husky voice from the sparring rooms and Jimin hears the birds he terrified (also Yoongi’s new friends) earlier, chirping above them. He is reminded of the things he misses. If Jimin could rewind time, he would. He would go back to their boring days filled with usual banters but like how Physics defines time --- he remembers from different free catered classes --- it’s always positive for it never goes back, it always goes forward.

And that’s what they’re doing now; moving forward. The present is theirs, it’s the place they’re meant to be and it’s the only thing they have left that hasn’t fallen victim to such cruelties.

“I heard a lot from you in the halls.” Jimin comments.

“That I’m not good in Languages? English is the only thing I can get. The others? Zero.” Yoongi replies, finishing his sandwich. “Why does the world have to have multiple languages?”

“Diversity.” Jimin answers and Yoongi scrunches his nose at him, as if unsatisfied with a single worded reply. “Sparring, hyung. They keep saying you’re good at sparring.”

“I just pack a good punch.” Yoongi brushes the comment away and then yawns.

“You know, why do people call you lazy when you’re really not lazy?”

“What? I am lazy.”

“Tell me more lies, hyung.”

Yoongi shakes his head at this but as Jimin forms more comments in his head, they all go blank when he spots a soldier in uniform with a girl on the entrance of the facility. They’re laughing about something and the way the soldier looks at the girl is filled with so much care and gentleness, like that person in front of him means the world to him.

He glances at Yoongi, who’s looking at the same thing as him but his face shows no prominent expression. It’s just plain Min Yoongi.

But the bubbling feeling in his stomach keeps on bothering him so he averts his gaze from Yoongi and asks lowly. “Hyung, would it have been easier for you if I ended up being a girl…?”

Yoongi doesn’t reply for a moment. Instead, he turns his head slowly to Jimin and shows a face of disbelief mixed with a sense of hurt that Jimin immediately regrets asking the question.

It’s not that Jimin wants to be a girl. He’s proud of his own pride as a man but the thought wouldn’t leave him alone: Would things become easier for Yoongi if he was a girl? If he was then they wouldn’t have to hide. If he was then Yoongi wouldn’t be too careful for their relationship’s sake. But even if humans are made to control their actions, they cannot choose who they can be in the beginning of life.

Jimin can’t control his family tree and Jimin can’t control his sex.

Every singe thing that they can’t control is complicated. Gender. Sex. Family. Orientation.

Love.

“If Jimin was a girl then you wouldn’t really be the Jimin that I have come to know.” Yoongi starts with a sigh. “You think being a woman would make things less complicated? Bullshit. Love is complicated no matter what the situation is and this, this love is ours. Not anyone else’s.”

“But Yoongi-hyung…”

“I’d love you even if you were a boy or a girl. As long as Jimin stays as Jimin.” Yoongi looks at him, his hands wanting to brush and cup Jimin’s cheek but he stops himself. “But most of all, I love Jimin for who he is right now.”

And Jimin does regret asking despite Yoongi’s reassurance. The question itself is stupid because it all comes to one thing: It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re here in the world. Their stories are real, their bodies are real and their lives are real. Life comes with all complications, they just need to find ways on how to deal with them; deal with reality.

He knows that Yoongi isn’t the type of person that would be considered as a romantic. He doesn’t speak of words, his actions speak for him. That’s why hearing Yoongi say things like that makes him feel like he drove the elder back to a corner to say those so his self doubt arises and even more statements of how he doesn’t deserve Yoongi circle around him.

“Don’t ever doubt yourself like that. You’re Jimin. You’ll always be Jimin and I’ll always love you for being Jimin.” Yoongi continues and Jimin feels his heart swell but it doesn’t hurt like how he expected it to.

The people disappear, the soldier and the girl are no longer there and the voice from the sparring rooms drown in silence. Jimin’s hand makes its way onto Yoongi’s hand on the bench; their pinky fingers touch and without sparing a glance at them, they curl, overlapping each other.

They’re not like any other couple out there who are free to hold hands and kiss each others’ cheeks and only curling pinky fingers already feels like a crime that they would get arrested with.

It’s the only crime that Jimin would commit just to be closer, just to be someone who would be more worthy of Yoongi’s love and just to show the elder that he feels the same.

“Hey, sunshine.” Yoongi whispers and Jimin flinches at the use of the nickname outside their house. “Class is going to start.”

But Jimin breathes in, the way their remaining fingers curl is something that’s so right but is deemed as a sin in their society that is accompanied with a punishment of death. Jimin shakes his head.

“Just one more minute, hyung.”

Yoongi squeezes his hand, Jimin squeezes back and as a person passes their way, Jimin lets go.

o o o

Taehyung is calling him.

The world tips and spins in his vision, he can’t feel his limbs but he can feel the nausea rising up to his head as the rest of his body continues to sway.

Taehyung is calling him.

He wants to throw up, but there’s nothing rising to his throat and God, there’s a sting burning his abdomen and he feels it spreading to his chest that he lets out a groan.

Taehyung is calling him.

His limbs are suddenly there and he feels as if they’ve been run over by something, got stomped over by a carriage until his bones were pulverized into bone dust.

“---min!” Taehyung is calling him, his name repeating over and over and over like a broken record. “Jimin!”

He snaps and then he’s awake. His arm is hung around Taehyung as his best friend tries to carry all of Jimin’s weight while he walks. Jimin tries to move his feet but the moment he steps on the ground, the ache sends his nerves on fire and he hisses in pain. His knees buckle up and Taehyung curses while he tries to keep him upright.

“Whoa whoa!” Taehyung brings him up again. “Hey, Jiminie, don’t go to sleep. Stay awake okay? You’ll be okay.”

What happened? Jimin wants to ask but the words are stuck and he can’t bring anything out other than groans and hisses.

His body is like grounded meat, there’s something wrong with his muscles that when he tries to move, every other part of his system screams at him to stop. Even breathing started to hurt.

“God, I’m bringing you to Seokjin-hyung. Stay put okay? Stay awake. You need to stay awake.” Taehyung says to him, his voice frantic as if he’s begging Jimin to keep his eyes open.

What happened? Was he really run over by a carriage? Did someone shoot him? Why does his side hurt like hell? Why is Taehyung carrying him? Where the fuck is he?

It’s worse than having alcohol stick strings to his mind.

“N-No,” Jimin croaks out, shaking his head, it hurts. His hand wandering to Taehyung’s chest just to stop him.

“No? What do you mean ‘no’?” Taehyung retorts. “You’re hurt and God, Jimin, just let me take you to Seokjin-hyung!”

And Seokjin’s bloody face comes into the picture that he shakes his head even more until his neck burned because of it.

“Seokjin-hyung’s n-not w-well…” Jimin continues with a grunt.

“Shit,” Taehyung curses and Jimin thinks he must have gotten hurt real bad for Taehyung to actually cuss. “I can’t take you to Bogum-hyung, he’s out of town.” He mutters in continuation. “Then Yoongi-hyung… I’ll call Yoongi-hyung.”

“No!” His answer is almost immediate, his feet letting him stand for a split second before the pain takes over and he’s crumbling down to Taehyung’s small figure again. “…Don’t--- Don’t call Yoongi-hyung…”

“Jimin, this is not the time to---”

“I don’t want to worry him, please… Please, Tae, don’t call him.” The last sentence comes out as a whisper and he finally feels like he’s swimming in a deep ocean, his body numb and his vision swaying. “Please….”

o o o

Jimin doesn’t know how he ended up back in their house below Seokjin’s small clinic.

He wakes up feeling sheets of cotton with the smell of coffee lingering in their threads. It’s Yoongi’s blanket he’s gripping and through his half lidded eyes, he sees a shadow moving in the kitchen.

“Such a pretty face.”

He suddenly sits up and his chest heaves, his side burns and he’s already catching his breath like he traveled a thousand miles just to get home. His body’s suddenly broken and he doesn’t have control to do anything when he feels the man’s tight grip on his neck. His fingers reach for his skin, clawing on the invisible marks the man’s hands left as he struggles for air.

There’s a gun on Yoongi’s head and Seokjin’s blood is on the floor. The closet is stuffy and he can’t breathe breathe breathe.

“Jimin!” Taehyung’s suddenly in front of him, shooing the thoughts away as his hands erase the weight forming on his chest. He tries to slow his breathing and then he starts counting. “That’s it, that’s it. Breathe through your nose, breathe like me, Jiminie, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

He feels like he’s a kid, being taught how to breathe like how Taehyung does it. Through your nose, slowly, through your nose, slowly.

Time has gone in that room and extended for an eternity. It takes hours for him to get back on earth and he finally recovers from his pain-induced stupor but Taehyung doesn’t leave him.

“Jiminie, I’m just going to get some medicine for your side upstairs okay?” Taehyung whispers and he’s about to object but then his friend shushes him. “Don’t worry, Seokjin-hyung’s not here and I haven’t said anything to Yoongi-hyung. He’s still in the academy, you’re back home and I’ll be back okay?”

Jimin nods at this, his voice refusing to form any sound other than groans and hisses. Taehyung’s finally out of the room and he’s alone with himself.

“Oh God,” Jimin forces out as he breathes, burying his face on his palms when his memories suddenly resurface as if he was afflicted with temporary amnesia hours ago.

He was beaten up hard during sparring practice. Their teacher was gone for an hour and Minho wrecked his bones and muscles as if he was an enemy soldier and damn, it hurt like hell. He doesn’t remember the rest of what happened but Taehyung got him out of there, thank God for him.

There’s a pounding ache on Jimin’s temple and he maneuvers himself off the bed and to the bathroom, each step threatening to make his knees buckle until he gets to the sink and reaches out for it for support.

He sees his face in the mirror all beaten up and swollen, his lips split and the skin under his eyes already bruising. A sting from his side makes him groan and grip on the sink for dear life. He lifts the fabric of his shirt and he sees messy crossed bandages around his abdomen and he could immediately tell from the handiwork that it was done desperately by Taehyung. He never had that much knowledge in first aid.

He finds out that his right ankle is bandaged up too in an awkward fashion and he can’t find any other reason not to thank Taehyung for what he did.

He groans again, clutching his aching side and his eyes close shut. Jimin bites his lip, imagining photographs in his head to distract him from the pain.

“Hey,” A voice enters his ears and he’s already swaying too much.

“Tae, I’m sorry, I-I can’t g-get up properly---”

“Tae, huh.” And Jimin suddenly tenses in realization.

This isn’t Taehyung’s voice.

He uses the strength he has left to turn his head and he sees Yoongi next to the bathroom door, scanning Jimin from top to bottom while he’s still in uniform.

“H-Hyung” He stutters.

Yoongi exhales through his nose and observes the bandages on Jimin’s ankle and the tight grip he has on the sink. Silently, his hyung tries to lift him up, hands on Jimin’s back and the back of his knees as if carrying a bride.

“Hyung, you won’t be able to carry me without---”

“Yeah, try me.” Yoongi cuts him off confidently but every step he takes is shaky however in the end, it turns out that pure will power is enough to bring Jimin to the bed without any more complications.

“Yoongi-hyung, about Taehyung…” Jimin says as Yoongi gently places him down the bed.

“I ran into him at the door and I asked him to get out for a while.” Yoongi says back, refusing to look at him.

He makes Jimin sit up comfortably on the mattress as Yoongi kneels down to take a look at his ankle. He shakes his head at the sight of the messy bandages so he gets up and grabs the first aid kit from the closet.

Yoongi doesn’t speak when he arrives. He doesn’t speak when he’s undoing Taehyung’s effort of healing his sprained ankle, he doesn’t speak when he sees how red it looks and every single note of silence that Yoongi emits drives Jimin crazy.

“Are you mad?” Jimin asks sheepishly but Yoongi doesn’t reply. His hyung purses his lips and starts to treat the sprain. “Hyung…” Jimin tries to urge.

He unveils a new set of bandages from the kit and he properly wraps them on Jimin’s ankle gently.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Yoongi mutters.

“Wh-What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about what happened? About sparring practice, about Minho, about Taehyung bringing you home like this?” Yoongi rambles and his hands stop working on the sprain. “Do you know how it feels, Jimin? To know about this fucking situation from Hoseok as a fucking rumor of all things? I get home and find you beaten half to death and you can’t even stand properly.”

“I didn’t want to worry you…” Jimin replies, his voice small and laced with guilt.

“I’m not mad at you,” Yoongi looks up at him and then finishes wrapping up Jimin’s ankle. “But if you didn’t want me to worry then you could have just told me. Don’t you trust me?”

“No! It’s not like that, hyung I---” Jimin denies and then a sharp pain from his side cuts him off as he curls inward with a hiss.

His name flies through the air in Yoongi’s worried voice as he stands and hovers around Jimin. He attempts to lift the shirt up and sees more bandages over Jimin’s side.

“Don’t worry, unlike my ankle, Taehyung did an average job there.” Jimin groans as he sits back upright.

Yoongi’s fingers lifts up his shirt and brushes the surface of the bandages then hisses. “Fuck, I’m going to kill Minho.”

“You can’t do that though. You’re too good and that goodness wouldn’t let you kill people.” Jimin chuckles.

Yoongi doesn’t reply. His fingers stop brushing the cotton and it slides out to find Jimin’s hand, he silently lets the pad of his thumb rub the the back of Jimin’s palm repeatedly.

“What did I do to deserve you?” Yoongi whispers and it’s almost inaudible but Jimin manages to catch it.

Jimin has lost count on how many times he asked himself this and he’s also lost count of how many times Yoongi has said I love you for the past few months. Here he realizes that both of them, not only Yoongi, are changing in more ways than one. The desire to protect each other and the need to show love only rises the harder things become and it scares Jimin that there will come a time that either he or Yoongi would say their last ‘I love you’s to each other.

He prays it wouldn’t happen but then again, Jimin can’t predict anything and he could only hope.

“We’ll always be together, right Yoongi-hyung?” Jimin says and Yoongi smiles at him, that smile that never fails to make Jimin feel safe.

Yoongi places a chaste kiss on the back of Jimin’s hand.

“Always.”

o o o

Promises are never really fulfilled.

Jimin realizes this when he sees the wide list of soldiers on the board right after their graduation. He skims over the names, too many Kim’s and too many Park’s with minimum Choi’s.

He finds his name fifteen minutes later, messily and coincidentally ten names after Kim Taehyung’s, assigned to a squadron that does patrol duties in town and he’s partly happy that he’s not going anywhere but home. He can sti;; stay in Seokjin’s place and he can still be with his best friend.

He takes it all back when the squadron list ends with a certain name missing from the roster.

He manages to see Yoongi ten feet away in the sea of people and soldiers who are bursting out crying and laughing with mixed emotions floating in the air but Jimin feels as if he’s stuck in black and white film with all silence other that a single melodic piano in the most prominent tone of remorse.

He’s guilty that he smiled at the roster a minute ago because when he comes closer to his hyung who’s petrified as a statue on the spot, he sees the name he’s been looking for.

Min Yoongi

The name has been assigned to a squadron joining the military’s front lines that’s miles away from where Jimin will be.

And Jimin feels it, he feels that those normal days with Yoongi will never come back again and they shatter before his very eyes just because of a name that was written on another squadron list.

Most of all, his heart swells for the mere fact that he needs to say good bye to Yoongi.

o o o

The sound of the tapping feet and dozens of luggage scraping the ground fills his ears. The trains move on the tracks and the voices of goodbyes and ‘see you again’s spread out evenly in the air. There’s a cold bite from the spring breeze and there’s a small twinge on his chest at the sight of Yoongi’s back as they climb up the stairs with suitcases in hand.

When they arrive at the platform, there are children lined up in the opposite lanes, all dressed in Western dresses and the boys all match clothes along with their tight suspenders. A woman leads them into the train as they move obediently, their line remaining straight and unbroken.

Jimin sees the soldiers lined up on the other side, hugging lovers and family members and women giving their beloveds kisses of farewell until minutes later, the sea of camouflage green gathers in the train.

“Taehyung’s already crying.” Yoongi says beside him, smiling with a tint of sadness as he taps on Jimin’s shoulder.

Taehyung is crying and of course, is trying to make the tears stop while he looks at Jeongguk when he starts to enter the train. It’s kind of cruel actually; sending Jeongguk to the front lines. He’s two years younger than Jimin but the posted lists don’t lie and no matter how much youth Jeongguk may carry, fate always has other plans.

It has other plans for him and Yoongi too.

He glances at Yoongi’s luggage and slowly, he scans Yoongi’s army pants to his camouflage coat to his pale face until he starts holding back the sting of the thin sheet of tears forming in his eyes.

I’m not going to cry.

And as if Yoongi was reading his mind, he asks: “Why aren’t you crying?” His tone is laced with nonchalance, a joke probably referring to how Taehyung started sobbing but Jimin smiles at this.

“I don’t want to cry in front of you, Yoongi-hyung. You don’t like me crying.” Jimin says and he fidgets with the clips of his suspenders.

Yoongi’s smile drops. “Jimin…”

“I don’t want to see you off crying.” Jimin replies.

“I’ll still wipe off your tears if you do. Even here.” Yoongi says with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood and it somehow works when Jimin lets out a small chuckle.

“When did you become a romantic?” Jimin asks teasingly, punching Yoongi’s chest softly.

“I’m not a romantic, I just learned how to speak like one.” Yoongi replies.

“Seokjin-hyung?”

“The one and only.”

The train whistles roar and people are rushing in a manner that’s ten times faster. Hurried waves and hasty pecks on cheeks as the men and women drag their suitcases to their respective trains.

There’s a sudden emptiness that takes over Jimin because this is it, this is finally it: the time he will say good bye to Yoongi and will desperately wait for him for God knows how long. It’s the time Jimin would have to look through news papers everyday for updates and the time he would have their room all to himself in complete and utter loneliness.

He smiles at Yoongi one more time but the elder doesn’t return it. Instead, Yoongi searches for the words he needs to say and his hands fidget awkwardly at the hem of his jacket.

“See you, Jimin.” Yoongi manages to say and it’s like the words only force out through his teeth --- he doesn’t want to say good bye and neither does Jimin.

It makes Jimin even more hollow than he already is. He sees Yoongi struggling to say farewell because if he says ‘good bye’ then he fears that it will really be ‘good bye’.

“Say you’ll come home.” Jimin breathes shakily and he licks his lips, staring at both of their shoes. “Say you’ll come home, hyung.”

Yoongi places a hand on his shoulder and Jimin looks up. “I’ll come home. I promise, I’ll come home.”

“You better.” He smiles at him and this time, Yoongi returns it. “If you won’t then I’ll starve your birds and sell off your studio for easy cash.”

“Don’t you fucking dare Park Jimin. Kill my birds and I’ll burn your Mark Twain books.” Yoongi warns with a laugh.

“I don’t know what’s funnier; you not even caring that I’ll sell your only source of income or the fact that you’d burn my Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books just for the birds you feed back at the academy.” Jimin replies and the mere memory of Yoongi falling asleep on the garden bench with birds perching on his hair fills him with such innocent joy. “Wow, you really are a grandpa.”

The conductor rings his bell and the platform empties up with only both of them left. The windows on the train close up and the engine roars, there’s steam coming out of the pile of metal, rising to the sky and spreading to the air. The train is going to leave and Jimin is knocked out of his thoughts when he notices this.

He grabs the handle of one of Yoongi’s luggage and speeds up to the entrance of the train where the conductor disappeared to. “Hyung, you’ll be left behind, we need to hurry!”

He’s hesitant to do this of course. If he could, he’d make Yoongi miss the train over and over for him to stay but if he does he knows that Yoongi would take his punishment from the military if that were to happen and he doesn’t want that.

So he forces himself to move to the train entrance, passing by signage by signage of businesses unknown to him that serve as advertisements for traveling people while his eyes water.

But Jimin doesn’t reach the entrance.

Yoongi grabs his arm when they reach a space between two colossal advertisement posters stuck to wooden planks and the elder pulls him until there’s no space between them; Yoongi bringing his lips to Jimin’s and he kisses him lightly until he brings the younger closer and closer with passion.

Jimin’s grip loosens at the suitcase and the luggage falls to the ground with a thud as shock swims in his nerves, bringing impulses to his body to tell him that Yoongi’s kissing him, Yoongi is kissing him.

And when Yoongi pulls back, he’s frozen in place, hands trembling and eyes scanning his hyung’s face.

“Hyung, what if--- what if people see us?” He whispers but it comes out as a whimper then Yoongi shushes him.

“No one’s looking right now, sunshine.” Yoongi says in a low tone, his hand cupping Jimin’s cheek.

“Yoongi-hyung,” He croaks out and shakes his head. “We cant--”

“Please, Jimin. Please.” Yoongi cuts him off and it’s the very first time he sees so much desperation swimming in the elder’s eyes, begging him and clinging onto him with fear. “Just one more time, Jimin. One more time.”

And Jimin sways.

He places his lips on Yoongi’s. His eyes flutter close and the sweet taste of Yoongi’s lips register and he tries to remember; oh God, how many times did he try these past few months but it’s all Jimin could ever do --- to remember. He remembers Yoongi’s gummy smile back when they were children, he remembers Yoongi’s arms on his waist when they grew into adults, he remembers his warm embrace and every single normal thing he could dig up in his brain as their lips dance before parting.

“I love you, I’ll come back home to you.” Yoongi says it like a pledge and Jimin nods

“I love you too.” He whispers.

He doesn’t want to let go of Yoongi anymore but he needs to.

They run to the moving train and Yoongi hops in the entrance on time as Jimin helps him with his baggage. When his hands were finally empty and his breath huffs out of his mouth, he stops running and just sees Yoongi’s head coming out of the window, the wind blowing through his black locks as he waves good bye to Jimin and Jimin returns it.

He watches Yoongi go fade away to the distance until the train’s finally gone like a ghost.

There’s a tight squeeze in his chest and finally, the tears fall and Jimin is reduced to a sobbing mess at the silent empty platform.

o o o

Others say that time is an illusion, that they shouldn’t even feel it and that their ancestors chose to measure it because they needed something to tell when they could do this or that. One can say that time shaped traditions because tradition is accompanied with time like when to hang trees when Christmas steadily comes or when to buy presents when there’s a birthday. Humans should not feel time but humans choose to feel time.

Park Jimin, however, refuses to feel time but can’t do anything but otherwise.

He feels its wrath ever since he saw the town burning in red hot tongues of fire from his window. Minutes to hours and then hours to days, days to weeks then to months and years until finally, he’s out of military training and then came another month, Yoongi was forced to leave him--- The ultimate and awful trick that time has given to him as a present.

It’s hard to adjust to life without Yoongi. Jimin still orders extra food and then regrets the act because he forgets that Yoongi isn’t there and he sometimes asks the elder to reach out for a certain object when he’s writing until he remembers that Yoongi isn’t there.

Each reminder drills a hole in him, holes that are in the shape of Min Yoongi.

It takes time to get used to ordinary life once again and he realizes how much he and Yoongi depended on each other from the simplest private cuddles to their past occupations. Now Jimin has to deal with things by himself at home if Seokjin’s busy and has to wake up ten times early just to patrol over town with Taehyung.

He often thinks of him, of Min Yoongi, if he’s doing okay in the front lines, if he’s eating properly and if he’s doing well with his comrades but no matter how much Jimin thinks about it, there will always be no answer. It’s only Jimin and his prayers.

Jimin watches the clock in Seokjin’s clinic, it stopped, its hands frozen and glass cracked that he could already tell that it’s broken beyond repair. He sighs in an exhausted fashion as he slumps further on his chair.

He hates being a soldier. How the crowds look at him with feared faces and how his clothes suffocate him along with the heaviness of the rifle; he hates them to the core.

“I still wonder why Namjoon-hyung chose this kind of job even before things went, I don’t know, went to hell.” Taehyung says, dropping his head to the table with a yawn.

“His father was in the army too and Namjoon wanted to serve the country like how he did.” Seokjin says and Jimin is relieved that the doctor has finally passed the stage of recovery with only a limp on his leg as permanent damage. He’s glad that it was only his leg that got affected and not anything more fatal. “Well, it would be a good job until those outsiders conquered the country.”

“That’s why Namjoon-hyung did it right?” Taehyung asks, almost hesitantly with his voice almost like a mouse’s squeak.

And the silence comes, bringing in the heaviness with it. Seokjin stops fixing his tools and Taehyung lifts his head, waiting for an answer when he realizes that the eldest hyung heard what he said.

“Yes,” Seokjin answers and then takes a seat next to Taehyung with his shoulders slumping. “He beat me to the edge of death so I can live. The irony.”

“But he didn’t want to.” Jimin comments and Seokjin scoffs.

“There’s a difference between want and need, Jiminie.” He says and Jimin could see him eyeing his broken leg under the table. “If you have seen how much Joon cried for doing this to me even if I wasn’t mad at him then…” Seokjin stops and sighs. “I wasn’t mad at him, I had no reason to. If he didn’t hurt me when he and his superior came barging in here then he would have been killed and I understand that. Worse comes for worse, they would have found out that we’re seeing each other and would kill both of us.”

Jimin doesn’t want to remember that night but his mind surely does like to bring it up just to torture him and the way Yoongi’s face just comes up in his head when there was a gun pointed to him makes his blood go cold.

“Even so, I feel... angrier at myself for what happened.” Seokjin continues. “Joon and I and even Hoseok failed to protect you all. You and Yoongi and You and Jeongguk. They ended up finding you all and then this happened.”

“It’s not your fault, hyung.” Taehyung says and Jimin agrees with it. If anything, Seokjin and the others has done too much for them.

“But it is. If only I wasn’t a quack,” Seokjin laughs mockingly at the word. “Then I would have seemed more believable right?” His hyung purses his lips and the task of arranging his medical tools go down the drain. “I learned from my father about how to treat people. Like Joon, I wanted to be like him. I wanted to save lives but when he died, education was a luxury that I couldn’t afford. And then I ended up like this in an old shabby clinic, equipped my father’s teachings.”

“You’re more than what you think, hyung. At least that’s how Tae and I and everybody else look at you.” Jimin says and Seokjin smiles at him.

“Thank you.” He says. “But let’s get out of this gloomy topic. I’m too tired for emotional instability. Anyways, how’s the military?”

“Horrible.”

“Depressing.”

He and Taehyung say in unison and suddenly, Seokjin regrets asking.

“God, what’s with all of us today? I said I’m too tired for emotional instability.” Seokjin buries his face in his palms then exhales.

“It’s emotional instability day, hyung! You should mark your calendars.” Taehyung laughs and then says with a cheer as he walks to the calendar hanging on Seokjin’s wall. He takes out a pen and pops out the cap with his mouth and swiftly writes the words messily on today’s date.

Emotional Instability Day

Jimin may have to mark his calendars with that holiday on more days than one.

o o o

Jimin,

It’s already a given that I’d ask you on how you’re doing and if you’re okay just like any other letter so I’m going to fucking ask anyway: “How are you?” I hope you haven’t laid a finger on my birds because Park Jimin, I will murder you if you do. They’ve done nothing but keep me company if you were in class.

Birds aside, is Seokjin-hyung okay now? I’m not allowed to send multiple letters at once so I can’t ask him myself. I hope Namjoon and Taehyung are holding up fine there too.

The place I’m in isn’t much of the place I imagined. The rooms are still fucking small like how I pictured but the big gunfights and bloodbaths that I feared never came. We only have small skirmishes here despite it being called “front lines”. I guess there’s even more shit happening in the capital or in the borders.

I’m rooming with both Hoseok and Jeongguk by a miracle and if you’re going to ask, they’re doing fine too. Hoseok’s still as friendly as fuck like always and Jeongguk’s still some kind of nervous mouse but he does a lot of things during small battles. I still worry for the kid though.

By the way, I saw some odd flowers that looked like the penis heads you were so fucking obsessed with (I still can’t get over the fact that you were teased by those words and let me tell you that they’re still fucking hilarious.) I’ll show them to you once we have time and or money to ride a train because I swear, you’d laugh at the shape too.

Writing’s a pain in the arse, how do you do it? Do writers like you have these monster wrists or something?

Overall, I hope you’re doing well and eating well (and not starving my fucking sons birds). Don’t overwork yourself, the army’s not worth shit but don’t tell Namjoon that.

I miss you and I love you.

Yoongi

o o o

“Why aren’t you both worried?” Seokjin asks, breaking the silence forming in the clinic and the sudden question wakes Namjoon up from his three hour sleep.

Taehyung stops chewing his bread and Jimin almost spills the ink on his report that a curse pours over his lips much like how Yoongi always does when he breaks something by accident.

“Worried about what?” Taehyung asks, his words mushed by the bread filling his mouth and crumbs continue to fall to the table.

“You’re both far away from each other and what if Yoongi and Jeongguk fancy another person there?” He continues.

Jimin looks at Taehyung before looking at Seokjin’s stressed face (the man has been working all night with some wounded civilians and now he’s spurting out nonsense caused by auditory hallucinations or who knows what).

“Yoongi and Jeongguk fancying someone else?” Jimin echoes and he snorts in laughter when Taehyung does, bread crumbs flying everywhere just from the question. “Hyung,” There’s a laugh. “Yoongi’s gonna think social interaction’s a pain and he’d sleep whenever he can because of his job! There’s no time to fancy people there.”

For all Jimin knows, Yoongi might be finding more penis headed flowers just to tease him in his letters.

“Yeah, and Jeongguk’s scared of people. Probably too nervous to even approach someone he doesn’t know that much.” Taehyung chuckles. “The reason why Jimin and I have them as beloveds is because we were the ones clinging onto them like a nail buried in a piece of wood.”

“Okay, okay, stop cornering Seokjin-hyung.” Namjoon says before Seokjin could open his mouth. “Darling, you need to sleep before those weird thoughts get rebutted by people younger than you.” He says, to eldest man.

Seokjin pouts at this and then his face lowers, his hands brought up in defeat before he exits the scene and limps to the door, probably going off to bed.

“And I suppose both of you are confident with whatever thing you say because Yoongi, Jeongguk and even Hoseok are sending you letters.” Namjoon raises a brow and it’s hard not to smile.

Taehyung has that boxy grin painted on his face and Jimin’s biting his lip to prevent his from widening any further and erasing his eyes.

Time may have placed him in a place of punishment but it’s somehow worth enduring if he gets Yoongi’s letters. Sure, the words that were too intimate were crushed out just to be safe but Jimin knows Yoongi and how he writes every single character on paper so it wasn’t hard to read the crossed out ones.

It’s amazing on how a single letter can connect them and how it can bring both of them closer than how he ever thought they would. He could hear Yoongi’s voice in his head uttering the exact same words written in black ink on the paper and he feels the warmth of those letters; he feels Yoongi’s sincerity.

After all, Yoongi’s honest even in letters (look at all those cusses).

As Jimin dives deeper in his thoughts and the emotion of joy mixed with excitement for the following letters to come, the sound of an ugly horn that could be comparable to a dying animal brings him back to reality.

The sound continues and it reverberates. Jimin sees different faces coming out of their houses from his window as the horn increases its volume and heck, the sound’s so ugly that Jimin might even consider ripping his ears off.

“It sounds like a vomiting monkey.” Taehyung comments, irritated by the sound while he covers his ears.

“Have you even heard a monkey vomit?” Jimin asks.

“No, but I bet this is what it would sound like.” Taehyung replies.

“Some soldiers from the front lines are back, that’s all. The horn signifies them getting back home safely no matter how much it sounds like a vomiting monkey.” Namjoon informs them and such statement makes Taehyung and Jimin turn their heads to him faster than the speed of light.

“Return of soldiers?” Jimin asks and Namjoon only nods.

Yoongi-hyung.

Without a second to waste, they run to the door, bringing themselves to the busy streets. The people gather on the sides, all lined up in crooked fashion, their shoulders touching each other but Jimin forces his way through, ripping through person after person with different ‘sorry’s and ‘excuse me’s escaping from his lips. He drags himself forward, blocking the complaints in his ears and as he reaches the edge of the crowd, a huge truck carrying about twelve soldiers sets him back for an inch.

“Don’t run off like that!” Taehyung catches up with Namjoon trailing behind him, his breath hitching and labored from the run and crowd sweeping.

“Well you ran off too.” Jimin raises a brow and Taehyung rolls his eyes at him.

Jimin brings his focus back on the passing carriages and trucks along with loads and stacks of rifles and other things that are probably used for mass murder that for some war-influenced reason, they are allowed to use.

In war, Jimin thinks it’s always about which mass murders are the biggest and he knows it’s a horrible thought that could be true.

The soldiers pass by one by one, their faces marred with an expression sculpted by battle, with smiles upside down, muscles tight and their eyebrows knitted. Their skin is lined up with black and blue bruises snaking up to their faces like a flower patch; dirt serving as sheet to cover them up.

Yoongi isn’t there and the small flame of hope mixed with expectation burns out in Jimin’s chest. One year probably isn’t enough waiting.

“What’s that?” Taehyung points out to the back of the line and Jimin’s head turns to the direction of the younger’s hand.

There’s a huge sheet of paper being held up by two poles of wood carried by tired-looking cadets. The edges are black and the left portion is almost burned to dust. Jimin wonders why they’re taking time in walking while displaying the wide sheet and while he starts asking himself for possible reasons, he reads it:

Kim Jaehwan

He has heard that name before, back in the academy.

“It’s a list of the deceased.” Namjoon says and there’s an inky black haze that forces Jimin’s heart to drop. “People who fought for the country and never made it home.”

And so Jimin leans forward to read all the names in pure fear, he eyes all the characters and he’s thankful that he has perfect vision. One name, he just needs to hope that one name isn’t there.

Min Yoongi. Min Yoongi. Min Yoongi --- his mind circles.

It’s not there.

Jimin could feel his legs shake from the relief. He hasn’t seen Jeongguk’s and Hoseok’s name either; his lungs feel so spacious that for some reason, the oxygen filling them up feels so much better than how it usually does.

“Not there, oh thank God, not there.” Jimin mutters under his breath.

The procession march ends and the people scurry back into their homes with much gloom found in their faces comparable to the battle-scarred ones he saw in camouflage green. He hasn’t even done much but he feels that a week has already passed just from looking at that sheet of paper, name searching.

Namjoon notices this and he taps Jimin’s shoulder.

“Time to go, you’re on patrol.” Namjoon says and Jimin’s not sure if he just wants both him and Taehyung off the empty roadside. He’s too tired --- too much relief washing over him --- to tell.

o o o

Jimin,

Do you know that stars explode? What the fuck I didn’t really know but Hoseok won’t fucking shut up about it. You do know that Hoseok’s been studying stars and shit right? Probably why he was always out at night when we thought he was part time Carmilla the vampire or some shit like that. It might sound crazy, believe me it fucking is, but he keeps telling me that stars explode into nothing gas or something? I don’t know what shit he’s on, I swear.

But anyways, Hoseok’s the one studying stars so I should I know?

Main point is that stars fucking die. They die, Jiminie and we don’t even notice.

People really are different right? When they die, it’s a whole ceremony but if little things do then the ‘fuck them, why would we care?’ attitude comes in. We’re like those stars, Jimin. Only visible in the darkest nights Whether we live or die, who’s going to care for unregistered pieces of human flesh? Probably not anyone except those who really knew us. But for you? I know I’d care and fuck, I’d die over and over for you if that means you keep shining.

I guess I’m just a little frustrated. Skirmishes are just becoming really though and shit. I’m becoming a bit fucking weird if I just ended up talking writing about stars and all that. I don’t know, I just…miss you. I just really wanted to share it.

I hope you’re doing well.

I love you.

Yoongi

o o o

Yoongi’s name is not on the Deceased List for a few months. Jimin knows, Jimin saw.

It’s four in the morning and he stands there at very entrance of town with its worn out wooden gates. He shivers when the cold air sweeps in and he regrets not bringing something warmer to wear.

He stares at the bluish hue of the sky slowly being erased by the sunlight piercing through them, exploding into colors that blend in contrast with the darkness left. Jimin is not fond of watching sunrises. He almost never gets out to watch dawn pull over since Yoongi always sleeps through them. Jimin is more invested in sunsets, where the reds and oranges mix as everything fades into darkness. He figures that he has grown to love dusk just because it’s the time Yoongi gets home from the studio, his face drained but he still manages to smile.

Jimin loved that moment. He’d race to Yoongi and just jump up to grab him in his arms while the elder would just whine about him being too clingy even if deep inside, he actually loves being held tightly by him.

“Yoongi-hyung loved them too…” He mutters to himself as he shivers in the cold.

“Yoongi-hyung loved what?” He jumps at the voice and almost yelps but realizes that it’s only Taehyung with a bed head, his shirt not properly tucked in and his whole figure quivering in the cold despite his nonchalance.

“Sunsets…” Jimin finds himself answering. “Yoongi-hyung loves sunsets.”

“You know you’re saying that at dawn right?” Taehyung snorts at him, pointing out the irony.

“Why are you here, Tae?”

“I don’t know.” Taehyung shrugs. “I just thought that you’d be here.”

A yawn escapes from Taehyung’s lips. Jimin wonders if his best friend might have been sent in by Seokjin if by some miracle, something woke Seokjin up and made him notice that Jimin wasn’t asleep and was well, gone.

“Seokjin-hyung told me you were gone.” I knew it.

“And you just magically knew where to find me?” Jimin clicks his tongue.

“We wouldn’t be platonic soulmates if I didn’t.” Taehyung replies without a hint of doubt in his face. “And I knew that the main reason you’re here is to look at that.”

Taehyung points toward the gate, and Jimin finally sees it; the large roster that will be paraded in town, the Deceased List without that ugly dying animal sounding horn.

It was something that Namjoon didn’t mean to mention; a slip of the tongue --- how the Deceased List wouldn’t only come when soldiers return but they get displayed early in the morning of the second Friday of every month. Perhaps Namjoon had a good reason as to why he didn’t say anything about it and Jimin probably knew that certain reason halfway and just outright refused to acknowledge it.

It’s anxiety, it’s grabbing Jimin by his feet, pulling him deeper into an abyss where he could hardly breathe and he really doesn’t breathe once he starts scanning the messily written names on the paper.

He searches for the same name, it’s always the same name.

He reaches the middle part of the list with sloppier handwriting like the one who bothered to hold the brush didn’t even have any respect for those who laid down their lives for whatever reason the country’s been fighting for.

He starts to hear ringing in his ears and he feels as if a thousand eyes are burning their gaze at him. Paranoia is clutching his heart, crushing it until it starts to bleed and cry out in fear and it disappears once he reaches the end.

No Min Yoongi.

It’s just every second Friday of every month. He’ll just have to endure the horror one’s name could bring at that time.

o o o

Jimin,

I just rode a plane, Jiminie. I rode a plane and fuck fuck fuck it was so beautiful. Everything was so fucking blue and fucking green and the people, Jiminie, they look like ants from above and just God, it was so beautiful. The mountains, the trees and the rivers that look like threads, fuck, Jiminie, I wish you could have seen them. It was just… breathtaking. Just like how you said it would.

I just couldn’t believe it! Jimin, I was so high up in the clouds, oh my God, I just really wish you could have seen it. I couldn’t stop thinking of you at that time, you were fucking right. It was just so beautiful.

It would have been even more beautiful if you were there.

When I come home, I’ll take you to the skies one day, Park Jimin. I promise you that.

Yoongi

o o o

He makes Taehyung drop the apple he’s carrying and shakes his head at him no matter how much wistfulness his friend’s eyes carry.

“Don’t,” Jimin whispers and Taehyung retrieves his hand from taking the fruit off the ground.

There’s a child beside them, well, beside them if it weren’t for the metal bars separating them. Her eyes are like large moons hallowed out from the sky painted in the color of pitch black; space in the absence of stars. The gaze she gives Jimin feels like fire on his skin yet the emptiness of it pulls him to some kind of darkness takes him in bit by bit. Her hair is like black spider threads falling to her pale, pale face. Jimin has never seen anyone who’s paler than Yoongi before.

The little girl is a canvas, a blank gaze and porcelain skin covered in black and blue with thin lines of red on her arms and legs and blotches of crimson blood on her worn out dress. She sits in the cold void inside the cell, her limbs limp, her lip shaking and her eyes watering at the sight of three corpses rotting behind her.

The flies start to fly over, landing on her hands and feet as if she was already one of the dead behind her and as she breathes in, she looks over to the light --- to Jimin.

“Please spare some food…” She whimpers and sobs, her stare is still devoid of anything as if she already knows the answer to her plea.

Jimin has never seen anyone so skinny before. Her skin is sticking to her bones and her cheeks are hollow under the light that he almost cries there on sight. If he could, he could have given her more than just food, he could have given her freedom from that cell she’s in and he could have brought him to the clinic and wrapped her in blankets until she doesn’t have to feel the coldness of the ground anymore much like how Seokjin did to them.

But Jimin couldn’t.

Taehyung picks the apple up this time and he turns to the cell, kneeling to the girl’s height before speaking.

“Hello there,” Taehyung says gently and the girl starts to cower and shake before trying to get back to the dead bodies behind her. “Wait, wait! I’m not going to hurt you…” Taehyung reassures and the girl stops.

“You’re not going to hurt me…?” Her accent is broken now, intonations wrong and her voice sharp --- Japanese.

If the military let people tour inside the cells, Jimin’s sure that the public would wonder why they’d keep corpses and almost dead children in the underground prisons. Why? Because of their race. Japanese. Part of the enemy forces.

No more, no less.

And Jimin’s disgusted by it. Why punish people for how they are born?

“No, no I won’t.” Taehyung smiles at her and when he starts to lift the apple towards her, Jimin swiftly slaps it away.

“Don’t, Taehyung.” Jimin warns him.

He could have given that apple. He wants to give that apple. It’s right to give that apple.

But he can’t.

“Jimin,” Taehyung calls him and his eyes widens and starts to water like that of a puppy. “You can’t let her die like this.”

“It’s not allowed, Taehyung.” Jimin forces out and he refuses to look at the girl, he refuses to look at the desperation gnawing at her face.

No, no, don’t look at me like that.

Jimin wants to stab himself.

“We were like this once too!” Taehyung argues, his voice slightly raising. “If it weren’t for Bogum-hyung or Seokjin-hyung, the flies would have swarmed our bodies long ago! We can’t leave her alone, Jimin.”

“You can’t.” Jimin hisses and his throat starts to hurt. “What would Jeongguk say if he went home and found out you’re in your own cell for helping suspected criminals?”

Taehyung’s face drops and he tries to say something back but the main door opens and new officers start to fill up the room, handing out metal trays filled with things that could have been labeled as food.

Jimin swears to everything that the mush on those trays shouldn’t even be considered as food.

The officer throws the metal plate inside the girl’s cell and the she rushes to it, eating the brown mush with her bare hands as they trickle to the sides of her mouth like she hasn’t eaten in years.

The apple and the argument is forgotten when she crawls to the back of the cell but it hurts Jimin to think that humans are being treated this way. His hand burns to just get the key and release her, let her see the world and breathe in fresh air that isn’t contaminated by rotting flesh but then he shakes his head.

He can’t. He shouldn’t be causing trouble for anyone anymore. Not to Seokjin, not to Namjoon, not to Yoongi, not to anyone.

And right at that spot, just for not giving a starving child an apple, Jimin suddenly feels the hate towards himself at the thought of him transforming into those selfish soldiers that took Yoongi away from him.

o o o

… the fleet is sunk to the depths of the ocean as the enemy boats attacked them out of the blue. The border squadrons suffer the horrible damage of the attacks. Soldier formations are rumored to be leaked out by a spy in the nearby towns, possibly masquerading as a civilian. All preparations are being done for the counterattack and various scouts start hunting for possible suspects for the said spy. Houses are reminded to be searched thoroughly for any object that may or may not----

o o o

It’s the third time Jimin celebrates his birthday without Yoongi.

Taehyung barges in the clinic with corn bread in his hands in which he is very proud of. His best friend can’t offer anything that’s as fancy as a cake but corn bread in the neighboring bakeries tastes so good that Jimin wouldn’t need a cake for the next fifteen years. Namjoon brought over some potage, thick soup in a large pot made by him and Seokjin and that alone is already a good meal for a birthday boy.

Seokjin’s clinic isn’t decorated, they didn’t have much time to do so but his hyung made preparations on the table with colorful tablecloths and shiny candle holders as a centerpiece accompanied by some fruit. Taehyung sets the corn bread near Jimin and stabs a small candle in the middle of the bread as a connotation for cake.

“This was the biggest corn bread they had Jiminie! You better be happy or else, I would’ve fought two more corn bread enthusiasts for nothing!”

“There are corn bread enthusiasts?” Seokjin questions.

“Of course there are!” Taehyung answers back and Seokjin only laughs in response before Jimin does.

His birthday has never been fancy even before things went shitty. He never asked for gifts and cakes, mostly, it’s like this; Taehyung buying cheap corn bread, Seokjin preparing the clinic and Namjoon doing his best cooking potage with Jeongguk preparing a song or two to perform while Hoseok dances a routine. Yoongi would organize everything, call out their friends just to make sure everything was perfect and at the end of their dinner, he’d just meekly makes his way to the celesta and plays something that Jimin falls in love with every year.

Yoongi would make him tea in the morning and make him breakfast, he’d buy him a book if he had the cash and would give him the sweetest photographs of Jimin he’s got. Jimin likes all of those of course and he misses them too but the thing he misses the most in his past birthdays were Yoongi’s embraces.

He misses the warmth of Yoongi’s body on his, he misses the soft whispers of ‘happy birthdays’ to his ear and he misses Min Yoongi all in all.

Sure, he still gets letters from him nonstop and he’s becoming more of the poet that he is the more time passes but written words can only do a few things compared to the actual person’s presence beside him.

“Thanks, Tae.” Jimin laughs while Taehyung dramatically bows as a welcome. “Thanks for the potage, Namjoon-hyung and of course, for letting us use the place, Jin-hyung.”

“No problem.” Namjoon replies, putting a hand over Seokjin’s shoulder.

“On October 13th, we celebrate the birth of the sweetest child humanity ever has. He may have been born on the most unlucky day on earth but thank God, he’s still the nicest person anyone will ever meet.” Taehyung continues and he skips to the table and lights up the candle on the corn bread happily.

“Oh God, Tae, you’re exaggerating.” Jimin says but Taehyung only smirks back at him.

No one replies anymore, instead, Seokjin claps his hands and the three of them start singing in a voice that’s more out of tune than the vomiting monkey horns in the soldiers’ arrival days.

Jimin turns beet red at this.

Oh my God, this is embarrassing. He thinks, covering his face before smiling uncontrollably and clapping along with them. They’ve done this so many times already but Jimin still isn’t used to it.

“Happy birthday, Park Jimin!” They scream at the end, clapping and howling, with Taehyung already carrying the corn bread to him just for Jimin to blow the candle.

“Make a wish, partner!” Taehyung says cheerfully.

And so he does.

He closes his eyes and his small hands find each other before holding them up to his face in prayer.

I wish everyone comes back home safe.

He blows on the candle and the flame disappears. The moment it does, the awaited applause is cut off by the sound of Seokjin’s telephone as the ringing echoes through the walls.

The room goes silent and for some reason, Jimin pales at the sound of the telephone just ringing from Seokjin’s desk.

“...I’ll answer that...” Seokjin says sheepishly and he limps his way to his desk.

Jimin forgets about the cornbread cake Taehyung bought for him since all he could think about is that hollow eyed girl in the cells and how much regret that’s eating him up for not giving a damn apple to her. The girl aside, Jimin fears that the guy behind the line would be someone who heard both his and Taehyung’s conversation back in the underground prisons.

“Jiminie,” Seokjin calls him, his voice unsure and his eyes already widening and watering as a shivering hand holds up the phone for him.

Jimin thinks like he’s going to faint. The hungry supposed ghost of that girl in prison is sitting on his shoulders.

He maneuvers himself to Seokjin’s desk and he hesitates on grabbing the phone but in the end, he does.

“...Hello…?” He says, voice quivering as his fingers fidget on the wire.

There’s only a collection of sounds in the opposite line and Jimin calls again. “Hello? Is there anyone there…?”

He waits, he catches a gasp a few seconds later.

“Jiminie…”

The voice that morphs into his name made his knees buckle up and within a second, he drops to the floor, shaking and already letting the tears form because that voice, that voice!

“Oh my God,” Jimin sobs on the phone. He doesn’t believe it’s real because it’s the same voice that used to say all those good mornings and all those I love yous in the past and he just can’t help but cry. His heart starts to race and goodness, he just feels all the nostalgia again that he couldn’t find any more words to say. “Hyung… Yoongi-hyung.”

“Happy birthday, Jimin.” Yoongi replies “The commander gave us time to call people using the emergency phones out of the goodness left in him and of course, I had no other people to call but you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there and… Fuck, what was I supposed to say? I was practicing a lot earlier but shit, I just… I just lost it when I heard you, Jimin that I couldn’t even damn speak, oh God.”

“Hyung…” He says again and his mind is just a lump of memories.

“Can you… can you speak more, Jiminie?” Yoongi asks and Jimin just closes his eyes and imagines Yoongi next to him. He imagines the elder’s pale skin and his black hair, his gummy smile and small eyes. How much would Yoongi’s face change in a matter of three years?

“What should I say…?”

“Anything. I just, I just want to hear your voice.”

“I miss you, hyung.” This time, the answer is immediate. “I miss you so damn much. I miss your lazy whines and your foul mouth. I miss your annoying photograph hobby and clever remarks. I miss you so much, Yoongi-hyung.”

“And I, you.” Yoongi replies and Jimin would give anything just to see him right now. “You don’t know how much I think of you here as time passes. Is Jimin’s hair longer now? Is he still buying extra food? Is he sleeping all right? Every single thing fucking reminds me of you. When I get back, I have a little surprise for you.”

“Hyung, I want to see you…” Jimin says and it comes out as a beg. “I want to see you so much.”

“Just wait a little more, Jimin. I’ll come home. I’ll come back to you.”

o o o

A scream in the form of Kim Taehyung’s voice makes Jimin run and shove the shoulders blocking him in the crowd. Another pained shriek then follows and he tries to squeeze himself in between the spaces of people with his small frame until he finally sees Taehyung’s body sprawled on the ground.

Jimin almost falls back upon the red matting Taehyung’s head with an ugly laceration. Two more soldiers in the same uniform are standing above him, rifles in their hands and grim expressions on their faces.

“Tae!” Jimin runs to him and the soldiers click their tongue. “Hey, hey!” Jimin shakes him slightly, afraid that he might worsen the cut on Taehyung’s head. “Taehyung!”

“Jimin…?” His voice is hoarse and his eyes are unfocused. Jimin holds him closer. “The child…” Taehyung mumbles.

“The child?”

Jimin finally notices her. It’s the same girl he saw in the underground cells, skinnier and looking even more scared than ever. She’s shivering, her hand grabbing tightly on another child’s hand, a boy who’s as skinny as her. He scans the town square, dozens of prisoners have been brought to light in the public’s eye and a collection of squadrons are keeping the civilians from entering the scene.

Jimin hears it, the screams and echoes of judgment as well as the cries of confusion coming from the crowd and he’s overcome by confusion.

“What’s… What’s happening?” Jimin asks, the blood rushing to his ears.

There’s something tugging on his sleeve and he turns to see the little girl shaking his head at him frantically like she’s afraid to speak. Before he could even ask, the soldier started to pull Taehyung’s limp body away from him and swiftly, Jimin grabs Taehyung’s bruised hand to keep his friend still.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The soldier asks, the way his eyes look so dead makes Jimin shudder.

“I could ask you the same thing, sir.” Jimin manages to speak. “Why are you bringing the prisoners out and moreover…” He glances at Taehyung’s body and he knows that his friend is going in and out of consciousness. The blood just keeps on running, painting the ground in a crimson glow and for a split second, his face morphs into that of Seokjin’s that he almost forgets his words. “…I-Inside violence is prohibited so what do you think you’re doing to him?”

The soldier clicks his tongue again and scoffs in arrogance.

“What do you think happened? Doesn’t helping suspected criminals make him one too regardless of what he does?”

Taehyung did what?

He looks at the girl again and she’s already on the verge of tears. Taehyung tried to protect her, that’s why he’s wounded. The question is: from what?

And as if the universe wanted to answer his question, the sound of wood hitting wood as it burns in roaring flames fills in his ears and once he pops his head to the sound, he sees it: rows and rows of houses burned to flames, spreading to nearby homes and coloring them in a fiery mix of red and orange.

The screams grow louder and the children start crying in the crowd, hiding behind the larger frames of their parents as more start to beg, “Stop taking away our homes! Please stop, please!”

And Jimin wanted to scream too but there’s something blocking his voice in his throat Everything just goes slow in his eyes and the ringing starts to take over his ears. He sees the sadistic laughs of the soldiers and the desperate cries of the people, he sees stray children on the ground, abandoned and alone and Taehyung’s weight in his arms suddenly turns light when he stops feeling himself there.

“This is what you people get when your so called “spies” go against us.” A built general speaks in the middle of the square. Where did he come from?

Spies. This is about the whole scenario about the spy causing them a whole fleet in the battles near the border.

“So that means…” Jimin mumbles to himself as he finally clicks the puzzle in his head.

They think the spies have something to do with the prisoners.

The general walks past them and he offers them a cruel glance before laughing mockingly, then staring at the prisoners beside them. He lifts his brows then faces the remaining soldiers.

“Bring them to the center and slaughter every single one of them.”

No.

The soldiers salute their general and without hesitation, they drag the prisoners one by one to the center and the girl clutches at him tighter, sobbing and crying, begging him to spare her.

“No, Mister, don’t let them take me. I did nothing wrong, don’t let them take me!” She sobs frantically, her skinny fingers digging into Jimin’s uniform as she begs.

And at the spur of the moment within the madness already forming in Jimin’s head, he holds the girl with his free arm, the other bringing Taehyung’s unconscious body up slightly.

“D-Don’t worry, don’t worry.” Jimin stutters. “Don’t worry, I’ll--”

Hands wrap into the girl’s frail body and they start to pull, and the girl screams like she’s being eaten by a monster and at that time, Jimin would believe it. He finally sees the prominent fear in her eyes as the tears continue to fall and as her fingers dig into his clothes even tighter.

“No, please! Mister, don’t let them take me!” She begs and Jimin tries to hold her tightly, tries to take her back and run away but in a snap, her grip loosens and she’s taken away, brought up to the center in line with the other people.

She’s still staring at him and Jimin can’t move.

“No,” He says once more as the soldiers point their rifles onto their heads.

She doesn’t take her eyes off Jimin. His legs are converted to stone, the fright freezes him there and he just holds Taehyung stiffly

“No,” Jimin repeats but the soldiers don’t stop and the girl lifts her head and her gaze turns empty like that stare she gave him in the cell --- moons hollowed out from the sky, the space without stars.

She smiles.

Jimin sees Yoongi overlapped on her face.

“It’s fine, Jiminie.”

“No! Please stop!” Jimin begs but the gunshots echo and the ground is bathed in a sea of red and corpses lumped on the ground. Men. Women. Children.

All who could have been innocent, dead.

“Oh my God.” He clutches Taehyung’s body tightly and the coppery stench fills his nose along with the burning wood. “Oh God,”

He sobs and somehow, he feels his throat burning. He couldn’t breathe as he sees the ash fall like snow on that summer day. The peculiar planes run through his mind and the thunderous footsteps invade his ears, he feels the fingers on his throat again and the invisible breath of that man on his skin that night.

There’s someone screaming and Jimin wanted it to stop but when he realizes that it’s his own wrecked voice breaking his throat, he doesn’t stop crying.

o o o

… with the mass murder done in town, the government had no choice but to create mass graves for the prisoners executed on the square. The spy is yet to be captured and townspeople continue to riot over the incident. Soldiers and scouts start to subdue any kind of revolt but executions will not be stopped until the so called spy is found. Choi In Ho, lieutenant of the second unit, says that in no circumstance will the military stop in finding those accused of treason no matter who they may be. The public however, does not accept---

o o o

“You need to sleep.” Seokjin taps Jimin’s shoulder but he doesn’t make an effort to face his hyung.

He’s tired.

“No,” Jimin rasps out. His throat still hurt and he couldn’t remove the image of that girl’s smile in his head that his eyes water in response. “I can’t leave Tae. I don’t want to leave Tae here.”

Taehyung. God. Taehyung.

Jimin can’t leave him. He just can’t. He feels that if he does then something --- he doesn’t know what but there will surely be something --- that would put a knife on his best friend’s throat and he wouldn’t be able to handle any of that.

“Jimin, your room’s literally downstairs. Listen, Taehyung’s going to be okay. I treated his wounds and he’ll be sleeping soundly here so please. You’ve been through enough.” Seokjin continues and he forces Jimin to look at him. Jimin scans the elder’s face and he’s already regretting whatever thing he did to make Seokjin’s face look so worried like that. “Taehyung’s going to be okay. And I want you to be the same so please rest.”

Jimin drops his head once again and he runs his fingers through his dark hair. How did he get back to Seokjin’s clinic? He doesn’t really remember anymore. It was just him screaming in the town square then he was begging Taehyung to wake up and then he sees the girl’s lifeless body in the middle of the ground and then Namjoon came and then--- he doesn’t know.

He sighs roughly and he takes a glimpse of the pathway leading to the beds in the clinic. Taehyung’s still not awake and Seokjin won’t be leaving him until he gets to sleep.

He’ll be causing more trouble for Seokjin again if he doesn’t leave so in the end, Jimin gets up and drags his feet downstairs back to his and Yoongi’s room.

The moment he gets in, he sees the rain hitting his window and he could see a fire burning at the distance. His stomach churns at the thought of the military burning more houses of the people who started to rebel so he slumps to the bed and tries to sleep but can’t. There’s just too much in his mind and it’s giving him insomnia.

He rolls to his side, refusing to see the orange glow reflecting from the window.

Before deciding on just faking sleep and closing his eyes, he sees an envelope placed on the bedside desk and his heart suddenly stops.

“Yoongi-hyung…” He calls silently and with haste, he grabs the envelope and looks at the address behind it and it confirms his suspicions. It’s a letter from Yoongi. Seokjin must have placed it there when he was witnessing all hell breaking loose in town square.

He’s always excited when he reads Yoongi’s letters but this time, there’s some sort of unease stopping him from reading the contents on the paper. There’s smudged ink on the sides and the address is messy and almost illegible, like Yoongi was writing while time was chasing him. But Jimin shakes his head at this. It’s from Yoongi. He needs to read it, he wants to read it.

Jimin shoves all the exhaustion weighing down his chest and he rips the letter out of the envelope and somehow, he wishes he hadn’t,

For the first time in his life, Jimin almost couldn’t read what Yoongi wrote. There were too many erasures and the ink bled too much on the sheet that some spots covered letters and much like the state of the paper, it correlates to the content.

Jimin reads it and he doesn’t stop.

Jimin,

Oh God, Jiminie. Jimin I killed someone people fuck fuck fuck Jimin I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry Oh God, Jimin. They were children. Jimin, I slaughtered innocent children like those fucking soldiers Jimin I’m a fucking murderer like them! Oh my God, Jimin I want to die I heard them, they were crying for help and they reminded me so much of how we were before everything went to shit and Jimin, they begged me, they fucking begged me not to kill them but I did I couldn’t set them free and there’s so much blood. Jimin, you must be disgusted at me. You must hate me now. I fucking hate myself I wanted to help them but they’re going to kill me if I do and I couldn’t do that to you. I promised I’d come back, I need to come back to you, Jimin but I didn’t want to do this. God, Jimin I can’t take this I’m just like those cruel bastards who beat people for fun but Jimin, they didn’t do anything wrong and I burned their houses and took their lives. It’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair. I know you hate me now, I just know it. I don’t deserve you but I need to come back to you, Jimin. I just need to.

But you don’t have to wait for me anymore.

The letter isn’t signed but it knocks the life out of Jimin. The girl’s ghost is in front of him, smiling like Yoongi did in front of that gun.

Yoongi killed people. Yoongi killed children much like how those soldiers killed that girl in town.

He can’t breathe and he prevents himself not to scream.

It’s not hate burning Jimin up but it’s the unbearable weight of sadness. Yoongi may have done those things but he’s suffering because he did unlike those people who shot that girl’s head off with no remorse in their faces. Just the thought of Yoongi writing this breaks him, his very being, and Jimin would do anything just to hold him tight right now.

He holds the letter tightly. There’s thunder outside his window, roaring and ruling over the clouds as it mixes up with the sound of flying war planes dropping off bombs. There’s a glow of orange at a distance from Jimin’s window and he’s reminded of the fire from town, spreading and burning bodies of innocent people.

Jimin breathes in and he regrets crumpling the letter in his hands but he’s just too scared. The noises grow and the cold seeps into his body; he shivers. The whispers and prayers pour out of his mouth and within the wracked trembling, he finds himself crying out Yoongi’s name like a mantra.

It’s okay. Yoongi will come home. Yoongi. Will. Come. Home.

And when Yoongi does, he hopes such pandemonium will end.

o o o

Time passes, albeit slowly and painfully.

Jimin makes it a habit to look at the Deceased List whenever it comes and he refuses to take duties in the underground prison. He begs Namjoon to fix his schedule for him and Jimin promises himself that it will be the last time he bothers any of his hyungs for anything.

He doesn’t delve in deeper in military issues and in-fights. If he doesn’t know, he wouldn’t be able to feel anything.

However, Park Bogum passes in a cold winter night during a medic job in the borders. He hasn’t known Bogum that much but Jimin makes sure to put himself in Taehyung’s shoes once the news gets to him.

He’s there beside his friend when they bury him. His hand rubbing soothing circles as Taehyung sobs his lungs out. Jimin couldn’t blame him, it was Bogum’s family that took him and Jeongguk in after all.

His clothes are pitch black and with his pitch black feelings, he continues to wait for Yoongi as he offers his condolences.

He feels shitty and guilty for some reason. There’s so much pain and remorse boiling inside of him and he feels bad for feeling such things when Taehyung’s mourning for his friend.

But the pitch black winter soon packs the coldness and lets spring enter.

That spring, Jeon Jeongguk returns with other soldiers his age.

When Taehyung sees him in front of Bogum’s clinic upon arrival, he runs to him in less than a second and wraps his arms around the younger’s neck.

“I missed you, I missed you so much.” He catches the whisper that pours from Taehyung’s lips.

Jeongguk hugs him tightly like he didn’t want to let go and from the looks of it, it seems like Taehyung had written about Bogum’s passing because right at that very spot, they both cry their hearts out in each others’ arms.

Jimin smiles at this. He’s happy that Taehyung finally has someone to share the burden of remembering Bogum, has Jeongguk to recall their memories with the man as they fix each other along the way. More importantly, they have each other again. Their hearts are no longer connected by letters alone anymore.

Jimin wishes that he and Yoongi would be able to do the same soon. He imagines Yoongi’s arms around him, his kiss lingering on his lips and his voice calling out his name but right now, Jimin only has Yoongi’s letters.

When Jeongguk lets Taehyung go, he holds the elder’s hand tightly before chuckling at whatever joke Taehyung told him. He notices Jimin a few minutes after.

“Hey, hyung.” Jeongguk says, wiping the stray tears and snot from on his face as he gives Jimin a smile. “It’s been a long time.”

“You’ve grown.” Jimin eyes him and yes, Jeongguk did grow and Jimin certainly didn’t need that. Aside from height, Jeongguk looked even more muscular than he did when he left. He isn’t the small shy rabbit Yoongi labeled him with and that’s probably why he stops calling Jeongguk ‘kid’ midway in his letters.

“Yes, and you haven’t..” Jeongguk teases and Taehyung’s already there, ready to back him up to whatever insult Jimin may throw at him.

“Disrespectful little twat. I’m older than you.” Jimin jokingly reprimands and he messes up Jeongguk’s already disheveled hair even more.

Jeongguk’s grin only widens but then slowly fades as his hand lingers to his back pocket.

“Guk?”

Jeongguk hands him out a card, all ripped in its edges and looking like the remains of whatever prehistoric paper area it’s from.

“What’s this?” He accepts the paper before Jeongguk could answer and he sees dots and dashes on the paper and he suddenly remembers his first day in military academy. All hail Morse codes and mechanical teachers.

“It’s from Yoongi-hyung. He talks about you all the time, you know.” Jeongguk replies. “He’s going home in two months along with Hoseok-hyung.”

He doesn’t read it yet and for a minute, he stares at Jeongguk as if he said something almost unknown to him, like Yoongi’s name is considered alien language. Two months. Yoongi is coming back to him in two months.

Two more months. Just two more months, Park Jimin.

He and Yoongi have been writing letters even after that manslaughter and Jimin assured him that he didn’t have a choice in doing what he did and that Jimin will still be waiting but the coming letters were more of Yoongi just downing himself even more.

Jimin is not disgusted with whatever Yoongi did. He’s shocked, nonetheless but not disgusted. After all, Jimin thinks it’s also his fault that he let such an innocent girl die along with the other prisoners.

Healing takes time, Jimin knows that and up to now, he still sees that girl’s ghost following him wherever he goes and because of this, he waits until Yoongi’s back to being Yoongi again. He sends letters of encouragement and comfort and if Jimin could sent up his arms for an embrace, then he would but words are all he could offer.

“Is he…” Jimin starts and the pads of his thumbs feel the rough surface of the paper. “Is Yoongi-hyung okay?”

Jeongguk smiles again, showing his bunny teeth. “He’s okay thanks to you.”

o o o

Jimin,

In my dreams, I kiss you and hold you tight.
It’s the closest I can get to see you.
The clouds are always dark here.
I miss you, sunshine.

o o o

Jimin waits at the town’s entrance at the same time he goes off to check the Deceased List. He’s been waiting for years and now that he already knows Yoongi’s going to go back in a matter of two months, he suddenly can’t like all the patience he had has been drained from him upon knowing.

It’s what excitement does to people, he guesses.

Two months. Yoongi will return in months.

Suddenly, all days seem so…hopeful. Everything in town seems bright again like how it used to in his eyes. Seokjin and Namjoon looks pleased with how he acts and how he smiles and Taehyung outright says he misses his jokes when he does make his friend laugh.

“You’re here again.” Taehyung yawns dragging his feet towards Jimin with Jeongguk trailing behind him, looking like he’s going to fall and sleep on the ground any minute.

“You brought Jeongguk here at four in the morning?” Jimin raises a brow. “The boy’s going sleep on the ground any minute from the looks of it.”

“Nah, Jeonggukie will be fine.” Taehyung throws a thumbs up at him.

Jeongguk does make it without falling and the younger sits beside Taehyung, letting his head fall on his shoulder before going back to sleep.

“You just wanted to publicly cuddle?”

“There’s no one here at four o’ clock in the morning except for you, of course we’d take the opportunity.” Taehyung smirks.

The sun still hasn’t risen and the sky is painted dusty blue. The cold seeps in and Jimin waits, continuously looking towards the gate for any squadrons that may pass. Yoongi could come home any day and Jimin wants to be there when he does.

“When Yoongi-hyung and Hoseok-hyung come home, can we have another corn bread party at Seokjin-hyung’s clinic?” Taehyung asks him, his face already filled with much excitement.

“Of course.” Jimin nods. “As many parties as you want!”

o o o

Seokjin has grown accustomed to Jimin’s everyday patterns that the elder already prepares him tea everyday to bring and drink while he waits beside the gates so when he sees a full bottle on the dining table with a note and an absent guardian, he isn’t really that worried.

Got called. I’ll be back before you get home.
Don’t get into trouble.

- Seokjin

He smiles at the note. The amount of tea Seokjin made surely surpassed the normal range and Jimin doesn’t mind. It’s cold near the gates, especially before dawn breaks.

He grabs a coat and then the tea before heading out, his feet already dragging him to the same direction he goes everyday just to wait for an ugly monkey vomit noise from the horns.

Strangely enough, Taehyung doesn’t surprise him this time and Jimin figures that the guy did some things late at night with Jeongguk resulting in an endless cycle of oversleeping. He might have to fake some kind of excuse to cover up Taehyung’s mess up later in case he’s still sleeping soundly on the bed when patrol duties come.

Cold? Bubonic plague? Taehyung could probably have both and the two are certainly reasonable excuses for missing a morning job. Jimin thinks, that is.

He sits on the dusty bench and takes a sip of Seokjin’s morning tea. It’s not hot anymore but still warm and delicious nonetheless --- as expected of Seokjin.

Jimin laughs at a sudden thought passing through.

Yoongi never liked tea. The man always comments on how people just wanted an excuse to say that boiled leaves are literally healthy when they’re just well, boiled leaves. Jimin could never blame him, he’s a coffee person after all.

If there’s no coffee, then water. The choices are always the same.

“Get your fucking tea out of my face, huh.” Jimin mutters to his bottle, trying to imitate how Yoongi would say it and utterly fails. He’s suddenly embarrassed of what he did and he covers his face with the bottle from invisible people crowding the area.

Jimin should have brought coffee instead but the beans are scarce nowadays so if Yoongi were to return and ask why Jimin’s giving him tea instead of coffee, the man will have no other choice but to drink the so called boiled leaves.

And his expression would be so priceless.

In the midst of his thoughts, Jimin is pulled back into reality at the sound of trucks already entering the gates with their green paint peeled off and their metal parts blackened. The horn does not sound and a group of men march sloppily with their heads down. They’re covered in white cotton wrapping over their skin, red already blooming out from each one.

His heart goes to his throat.

Dozens of stretchers are following at the back and far beyond, bags carried by already sobbing soldiers are trailing behind.

“What…?” Jimin stands abruptly, placing the tea on the bench, wondering on what’s happening. “The horn, where’s the horn?” He asks himself.

A white coat flashes in the corner of his eyes and finally, he sees Seokjin going towards the people entering the town.

“Hyung!” He calls, pulling back on Seokjin’s shoulder. “You said you were working, why are you here?”

Seokjin seems to swallow up the words he’s saying but Jimin clears it out. “This is work, Jimin.”

“What do you mean?” Jimin asks and there’s already a sheet of puzzlement draped on his face, he knows it.

Seokjin shakes his head and brings his hand back from Jimin’s touch. “Look, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. I need to---”

“Medic! We need a medic!” A man screams from a distance and Seokjin’s head just springs out to where it came from.

“I need to work.” He repeats. “I-I’m sorry.”

Seokjin flees without giving Jimin a chance to reply. Jimin doesn’t think, his mind is starting to cloud up and he follows the elder’s coat in the crowd. He doesn’t know how many seas of people he crossed in but the one he’s in right now feels different.

He feels more fear than he should.

“Hyung!” He calls for Seokjin when he loses sight of the man’s coat. There are too man medics, too many stretchers. The stench of blood fills his nose and a coppery taste starts to from in his mouth. He feels sick and as he feels the bile already rising to his throat, he swallows it up.

“Yoongi-hyung…” He mumbles to himself.

Where’s Yoongi-hyung?

“Hyung!” Jimin calls again, not sure which hyung he’s referring to but he needs someone there just to confirm that this hell of a “heroic” comeback isn’t something bad.

“Jimin?” The voice sends shivers to his spine and when Jimin turns back, he sees a black haired man in a tattered camouflage uniform, his arm is slung and covered in bandages and half of his face is covered in white and red.

Jimin knows him.

“H-Hoseok-hyung!” He stutters, his legs start to feel like jelly again. Hearing a friend’s voice after years of their absence makes his eyes water and Jimin runs to him despite his knees buckling up. “Hyung!”

Hoseok offers Jimin a tight embrace, his smile wide and his laugh becoming rays of sunshine lighting up his clouded mind.

“You’re okay! I’m glad you’re okay. Oh God, thank God!” Jimin says, trying to prevent the tears from falling.

“I’m okay, Jimin. I’m okay.” Hoseok’s voice suddenly breaks and something inside Jimin does too.

“Hey, hyung…” Jimin says gently, taking a step back to see Hoseok’s battered face. His hyung is crying. “Hyung, it’s okay, you’re home. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Hoseok doesn’t reply.

The smile of relief that formed on Jimin’s face falls.

“...Hyung?”

“No,” Hoseok whispers and finally, like he’s been holding in all the world’s troubles, the sadness paints his face and he sobs. “No, it’s not fine, you don’t understand Jiminie. I’m sorry, I’m fucking sorry I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, I’m-- Oh my God, how do I even… Jiminie---”

But before Hoseok even finishes, two soldiers carrying wide sheets of paper pass by them and Jimin sees it.

The world spins and suddenly, he doesn’t feel Hoseok beside him anymore. Hell, he doesn’t feel anyone in that place. There’s no sound and the stench of blood disappears. He’s fixated on the burned edged papers slowly disappearing as it goes to the direction of town. Just then, he forces himself to hear it: that ugly horn he has been expecting to hear --- where is it? Why didn’t it sound? Why is there only a list being paraded with a group of half-dead soldiers?

It’s not true. Jimin thinks. It’s a mistake.

It washes over him: grief.

“Yoongi-hyung…” He calls out, a sob, a whimper, a whisper --- whatever it may be. And as his legs finally give in and he falls to the ground, he realizes that his voice will never reach Yoongi again.

Because Min Yoongi’s name is on the Deceased List.

o o o

“It was an ambush, Jimin.” It’s Namjoon’s voice trying to sound comforting and at the same time like that of a lieutenant’s inside his office.

Jimin scoffs at this. He doesn’t know why he went to Namjoon but if he wants to get answers then he’s the only person who has them.

“An ambush? Hyung… Hyung, this is some twisted joke you made out and if it is I swear, I fucking swear---”

“It was an ambush, Jimin.” Namjoon repeats forcefully, his eyes begging Jimin to understand but no matter how much Namjoon begs, Jimin will never get it. He refuses to do so.

“Yoongi-hyung… He was supposed to come back today. It’s been two months, hyung. Two months. He’s supposed to be here, he’s supposed to be home, he’s supposed to be with me, hyung!” Jimin ends up raising his voice and he’s choking on his own breath and he just hopes, God he just hopes, that Namjoon would suddenly just turn around and smile at him, say that it’s just a sick prank.

Min Yoongi’s name is on the Deceased List. Min Yoongi is an honorable soldier who fought until his very last breath. Min Yoongi is dead.

No. No. No. No. No!

“He’s not… He can’t be! He promised, Namjoon-hyung, where the fuck is he!?”

“He’s gone, Jimin!” The way Namjoon says it shoots a hole in him and it hurts like hell.

“No, no he’s not.” He insists. “He’s not gone. He’s supposed to be here, he’s supposed to be home, he promised me…He promised me, hyung!”

The silence covers the room and with Namjoon already blinking up his watery eyes, he cocks his head over to the door behind him and he leads Jimin inside. There are stairs spiraling downwards and the more Jimin looks below, the more he gets lost in the almost abyssal-like darkness at the very bottom.

“Where are we going?” Jimin asks, he’s burning and itching for answers and he does not have time to explore another secret prison cell where the military sends off little girls to die.

“Just follow me.”

“Where are we going!?”

“Park Jimin.” He flinches at his name. “Follow me.”

He doesn’t protest this time and he follows Namjoon’s swift steps downwards and as the darkness covers them in minutes, a ray of light illuminates a small portion of the pitch blackness. There’s something at the very bottom.

The light comes from the other side of an old, spider web infested door. Jimin doesn’t breathe when he looks at it. He doesn’t know what he’ll find: Yoongi’s clothes, Yoongi’s weapons, Yoongi’s things, who knows?

“Where is this?” Jimin croaks out. Namjoon doesn’t answer.

The elder turns the door knob and pushes the platform open.

He almost screams at the sight that appears before him.

Dozens of beds are lined up in columns inside the room and on them are body shaped things covered in white linen and everything smells of death and nothing but death. He feels the urge to vomit again, the corpses are too much to bear and his knees go weak that his hands just hold on to the door on impulse as Namjoon enters.

“Here,” Namjoon says and calls his name afterwards.

And Jimin knows what he’s about to see.

He wants to turn back and run to that pitch black darkness. He wants to stay there, suffocate on the death reeking from this room and feed his own body to the rats scurrying and hiding behind the walls but his legs doesn’t move; he couldn’t.

Namjoon nods at him and as he starts to feel the already rising shock, his shaking fingers brush on the edges of the linen before he just freezes on the spot. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to see the person under that sheet because if he does then he would do nothing but accept a stab from the truth.

“It’s okay…” Namjoon says, his head bowed.

Jimin swallows the lump forming in his throat and with a deep breath, he pulls the linen away from the body and sees him.

“No…” Jimin shakes his head and mutters. “No, no, it’s not him.”

“Jimin---”

“It’s not him, this can’t be him!” He cries out, his hands gripping on the fabric tightly. “This is not Yoongi-hyung!”

At that time, all Jimin can think is that everything couldn’t be real, that he’s just dreaming and Yoongi’s just waiting for him to wake up back at home and when he’ll wake up, the elder would comment on how he’s overworking himself. But if everything’s not real, why does the pain feel otherwise? Why does his chest tighten so much that the air is being sucked out of his lings?

Yoongi has always been bright. He’s the first one to call Jimin sunshine but no one has ever noticed that he was one too --- something even brighter than sunshine that people didn’t know about. From his gentle smile to his loving actions, Yoongi has always been different. He’s not like other people. He’s thoughtful and kind, courageous yet humble and throughout Jimin’s life Yoongi has always been… there.

He knows how Yoongi looks like. He knows how Yoongi’s black locks feel on his fingers. He knows the feeling of Yoongi’s lips on his, he knows the feeling on Yoongi’s hand on his.

The body he’s looking at can’t be Min Yoongi’s.

At the sight of it, it’s all that Jimin could think about: No, this pale, pale man is not Yoongi-hyung. Not my Yoongi-hyung. It’s not him.

It’s just someone who looks like Yoongi. It can’t be Yoongi. It’s not Yoongi.

“I know it’s hard,” Namjoon starts and places a hand on Jimin’s shoulder. “I knew how… close you were.”

The way how Namjoon looked around before he says that makes Jimin go off.

“I love him.” Jimin says back, voice even louder. “I wasn’t just close to him, hyung. I love him, he’s my beloved! He’s---”

“Jimin!” Namjoon cuts him off and there’s genuine fear swimming in his eyes. “Yoongi-hyung didn’t only fight for the country. He fought for you. He fought for both of you. He wouldn’t want you to follow him just because someone knew about how both of you were. He doesn’t want you to be executed just because people knew that you love him.”

“If he fought for me…” Jimin’s voice breaks. His tears threaten to fall and he just wants to cry there; fall down and sob, scream as long as his heart wants him to but he will not. He will not cry in front of Yoongi. “If he fought for me, for us, then why didn’t he come back to me?”

“He didn’t mean to.” Namjoon replies, removing his hand from Jimin’s shoulder as he fishes for something in his pocket. “We found this on him. He was holding it tightly.”

He places the object on Jimin’s hand.

The object is cold on Jimin’s skin --- a locket. It’s covered in dirt and there are grazes on the surface.

“It must have been precious to him.” Namjoon comments.

He lets his fingers open the locket and the thing almost breaks in his hand when one of the small hinges snap.

Inside, he sees a familiar picture of him taken back when Yoongi started doing photography. Jimin is laughing there, his hand trying to cover the camera and his eyes forming crescents. It’s even more faded and dirtied than he last saw it and it the fact that Yoongi carried this for years just to think of him hurts.

He cleans the other side of the locket with the pad of his thumb, removing the excess dirt sticking to the metal.

Yoongi engraved words on the surface and judging from the jagged angles of the letters, Jimin concludes that it was done with a knife.

The words pierce through him and silently, he curses at Yoongi because for the very first time, he breaks the one promise that he was supposed to keep.

He reads the engraved words again and looks at his picture beside it.

“You must come back to him.”

Jimin finally lets the tears fall. He lets the deadly poison corrupting his lungs out as he screams, he lets the heartache take over him and he lets the hands of remorse choke him.

Namjoon leaves him to grieve.

o o o

The knocks come continuously from the door and Jimin has no plan on answering them.

“Come on, Jiminie.” It’s Taehyung’s voice echoing from the outside and once Jimin decides to stay silent, “Jimin please, let me in.”

He spots confetti raining outside his window and it’s hard to acknowledge the fact that the sight of colored papers being thrown is more overwhelming than a glowing fire. Jimin’s not used to the act of celebrating anymore. There has been too much strife in his heart.

There are trumpets being played in the town square and Jimin hears it from his small room. He imagines people gathered there, cheering and clapping their hands in praise of the heroes who fought for the independence of our country. It’s weird, Jimin thinks, that people take too many years fighting and only take a day to celebrate the end of fighting.

It’s such a joke --- Yoongi’s death. He died with a hundred more soldiers and a month after such a massacre that was destructive to both sides of the war, a peace treaty was formed in the capital and finally, their country’s free.

The war is over but in exchange, Yoongi had to die.

He feels bad about not going outside. Seokjin has been knocking on his door until morning last night and Namjoon had his share of worries now. Now, it’s Taehyung’s turn on trying to break the door and drag him out of the room since he hasn’t gone outside ever since the funeral.

It was a huge punch in the face, really. It was the day where the truth finally sunk in. The whole funeral confirms that Yoongi is dead and will stay dead; from the flowers to the grave and to the constant apologies from Hoseok laced with so much regret that Jimin feels sorry for him too.

The ceremony doesn’t do anything. It’s for formalities alone; to bury the dead. It’s nothing special because the generals and the soldiers were watching along with ten other people who never even knew Yoongi. The eulogies they gave were filtered and bluffed at the end and the word ‘friend’ was venom to Jimin’s tongue when he said it on the pedestal.

“Min Yoongi was a close friend. We knew each other since childhood and he helped me through tough times.”

Jimin thinks it’s bullshit.

Even in Yoongi’s funeral, he had to continue lying. He had to say goodbye to Yoongi as a friend and not something more than that.

When they lower his casket, Jimin muttered a single and last ‘I love you’ even if Yoongi could never hear it.

“Are you sad, mister?” The girl’s ghost is behind him. Her spider thread-like hair is disheveled and her eyes look like empty orbs. He doesn’t reply to her. Jimin knows she’s dead too and he knows that the more he spends time in that room, the more he’s losing himself.

Part of him wanted to turn around and talk to her, apologize for not saving her and ask if she has ever met Yoongi at the other side after death but he doesn’t.

The knocks die down after a while and when Jimin thought Taehyung gave up on bringing him outside, the man manages to enter the room and without words, he holds Jimin tight in his arms.

o o o

He decides to burn Yoongi’s things that remain untouched in the corner of the room. Jimin can’t look at them anymore.

The room he stays in is suffocating him, it was lonely waiting for Yoongi before but he never knew it could get even worse than that so when he approaches Seokjin and asks him to let him leave and find another place to live, Seokjin didn’t protest.

The only thing left was to do something about the stuff Yoongi left behind.

He finds a lighter and some oil in Seokjin’s basement and he plans to bring everything to the isolated part of town and let the things burn to ashes. It’s time to let go of Min Yoongi.

Jimin finally touches the suitcases and takes a deep breath before opening them. Yoongi’s clothes are inside and there’s a broken camera packed too. He digs through the things further until he sees an unfamiliar worn out notebook that Jimin never knew that Yoongi had.

A journal?

He imagines Yoongi sitting on a desk in their small room back in his camp, a lamp beside him as he writes his memories of war on paper. Yoongi’s memories are in his hands and he doesn’t have the courage to read them.

He tries to put it away but when he lifts it up, dozens and dozens of pictures fall from the pages and they scatter ungracefully on the wooden floor.

“What the--” Jimin finches in surprise. He kneels back down and starts collecting the fallen pictures. He stops picking them up when he realizes that he hasn’t even seen these pictures before. The landscapes, the flowers and the mountains doesn’t resemble their town and he’s reminded that Yoongi brought a camera with him.

He stares at the journal again and this time, he finds himself wanting to open it and unknowingly, he does.

It’s not a journal.

The Beautiful Things You Deserve
---- For Park Jimin

He almost drops the notebook. It’s a collection of drafted letters that Yoongi was supposed to send to Jimin.

He suddenly remembers the phone call he had his birthday. Yoongi said something about a surprise and with that in mind, he flips the pages of the journal to see pictures and pressed flowers on the pages, all with different captions and tags.

Yoongi has never been a fan of prose but he’s probably the best poet Jimin has ever known.

Jimin finds a picture of a town in aerial view with the surrounding seas covered in clouds. It’s the airplane ride Yoongi mentioned. I wish you were here with me. Was written below it.

He also sees the flowers that obviously looked like penis heads, Yoongi wasn’t lying and he slightly laughs at the image. He sees the landscape pictures of mountains and plains, as well as different soldiers laughing over something funny and in the middle of the notebook, there’s a small note written in Yoongi’s handwriting.

We’re far apart.
I know it’s hard,
We can’t hear each other,
We can’t see each other,
You must think
Of how cruel and ugly,
This place may be,
But look at the wonderful things,
That still exist for you.
You, and you alone.

There’s only one image left after the note and Jimin’s on the verge of sobbing and choking on his tears but as much as his heart swells he flips the page and he lets himself break.

It’s a picture of both of them taken by Seokjin when Yoongi first got his camera and below it, a single word serves as a caption.

Us.

“You’re a liar.” He sobs and whimpers. “You said you’d let me ride a plane and show me how little the world is. You said you’d show me those weird flowers you saw on the way there. You said you’d…” Jimin chokes on his tears and he feels his heart bleeding. “You said you would come home to me. To us.”

For the last time, Jimin tries to remember Yoongi’s embrace and Yoongi’s hands on his hair. He tries to remember his so called lazy remarks and the way his fingers dance on the piano keys on his past birthdays and everything starts to hurt. Yoongi is never coming back.

“I want to see you.” He says, begging to Yoongi’s ghost. “I want to see you, Yoongi-hyung.”

But Jimin knows that Yoongi can’t do that anymore.

o o o

To: TaeTae
hey tae you said you’d come back before dark

To: TaeTae
is the shopping with namjoon-hyung done already???

To: TaeTae
oh come on. you should have told namjoon-hyung that whatever he’d give
seokjin-hyung a rock for an anniversary gift and he’d still be happy

To: TaeTae
Seriously, where are u?

“If you’re worried about Taehyung, he’s with Jeongguk.” A voice startles him and when he sees Yoongi in front of the door, he breathes out in relief.

“It’s just you, hyung.” Jimin sighs. “When did you come in?”

“Minutes ago when you look like your phone’s giving you constipation.” Yoongi replies and makes his way to Jimin’s bed for a seat. “Don’t worry about Tae. Jeongguk texted me saying that he’ll be staying over in our apartment for a while.”

“Wait, so your room mate exiled you?” Jimin laughs at this.

He’s amazed by how Yoongi just shrugs and just brushes the problem off. He doesn’t know if Yoongi just doesn’t realize that he doesn’t have a bed to sleep in or if Yoongi’s just pretty much convinced that Jimin would let him stay in his and Taehyung’s dorm room.

“Pretty much but that’s okay.” Yoongi says. “Seemed that those two were in some sort of pinch.”

The way Yoongi says it leaves a sour taste on his tongue.

“You mean Tae is still…” The word is stuck in his throat but he forces it out. “Disappearing?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi nods. “Jeongguk’s not taking it very well but I’m sure they’ll push through. They’re strong people.”

We all aren’t taking it well.

Jimin keeps his phone. If Jeongguk’s with Taehyung then he has nothing to worry about his best friend. Jeongguk will take care of him, he’s sure of it.

“Hey,” Yoongi breaks the silence starting to form and when Jimin hums in response, Yoongi’s opening and closing his mouth like a fish struggling for breath. “Aren’t you fucking tired of your dorm room?”

Jimin tilts his head. “My dorm room?”

He looks around the area. If he could describe his and Taehyung’s dorm room in one word then it would be ‘small’ the place barely has even space left to walk in.

“A little but I’m not complaining. I’ll be leaving this place after graduation after all.” Jimin chuckles. “I think I’ll just find a small apartment to live in near the entertainment agency.”

Unlike the other dancers in his year, Jimin has already filled up forms and auditioned for various companies for a swift job after graduation and he didn’t expect to get accepted as a choreographer in the agency Yoongi works in. The moment he got the news, he’s filled with so much bliss that he ended up spending all his pocket money on food just to celebrate.

“...Don’t you…” Yoongi continues and at this point, Jimin’s wondering why he’s talking so slowly. “Don’t you want to live in with me?”

Jimin freezes. “What?”

“Live with me. Don’t you want to live in with me?”

He buffers and he starts processing his thoughts. Living with Yoongi? They started dating back when they were still in high school and now Yoongi wants to live with him.

“But aren’t you already rooming with Jeongguk?” He asks.

“I talked to Jeongguk about it.” Yoongi replies. “He doesn’t have any complaints and Hoseok the kid said they’ll room together once Hoseok moves to another branch for his job and once Jeongguk graduates.”

“You want me to live in with you?”

“Well if you don’t want to---”

“No, no!” He cuts Yoongi off. “I think… I think it would be nice. I’d love to, hyung.”

He snakes his arms around Yoongi’s body and starts to koala hug him. He can’t hide the large grin on his face and the joy taking over him.

He sees the smile on Yoongi’s face as well and when he does, there’s an unexplained twinge in his heart. A plane suddenly comes to his mind, ripping through the blue sky as it flies. Jimin has never ridden a plane before but Yoongi has, once.

He sees something vague in his mind, it’s blurry and confusing but the more he thinks about it, the more his heart sinks and he holds Yoongi tighter before burying his face on the man’s shoulder.

“Jimin?” Yoongi calls.

Say you’ll come home. Jimin thinks and it’s odd because Yoongi always does come home and of course, he sleeps when he does. Yoongi has never left him in the first place.

He feels a hole inside his chest but it’s not as lonely as he would describe it. It’s far from the emotion of loneliness and in this case, at this moment, Jimin could feel nothing but at ease.

“Hyung,” He calls. “Welcome home.”

Yoongi’s brows furrow for a second, puzzled but as he thinks of the reasons why Jimin said that, a smile creeps up on his face; he somehow understands what Jimin means.

“I’m home, Jimin.” Yoongi replies, his hand ruffling Jimin’s dark brown hair. “I’m home.”