Work Text:
Jimin raises his fist to knock one more time on the wooden door of the lighthouse, unable to bear another second stuck out in the raging storm and desperately hoping that this time he will get an answer. Otherwise he will have no choice but to search for shelter elsewhere and risk the return journey back down the narrow, winding staircase that’s carved into the cliff-edge as it sweeps up into a great jut of rock upon which the watchtower stands, precariously leaning out over the ocean. On the ascent, he had crawled on his hands and knees, terrified of losing his footing on the uneven, slippery stone steps, blinded by the driving rain and buffeted on all sides by a fierce howling wind that threatened to sweep him off the edge and down onto the rocks a hundred feet below.
There’s a deafening crack of thunder followed mere seconds later by a flash of lightning that lights up the entire sky like daylight, rendering the beacon flashing at the top of the lighthouse obsolete for a single moment of burning clarity. And then the door swings open, revealing the silhouette of a man just within the doorway.
The Great Agust takes one look at Jimin – soaked through to the bone, his flimsy raincoat offering him no protection from the elements, shivering violently and on the verge of collapse, completely exhausted by miles of trekking through the darkness and the pouring rain with only a distant light to guide him like a ship lost at sea – sighs deeply at the inconvenience and ushers him inside.
“What the hell were you thinking? Coming out in a storm like this? And in the middle of the night? You stupid kid.” Yoongi admonishes him, tone full of disapproval – and that’s how he introduces himself: Yoongi, not Agust, though he assures him they are one and the same. Apparently, no one calls him that anymore.
“They told me –” Jimin breaks off, racked with a particularly violent shiver, teeth chattering and lips a pale blue. It’s a miracle he can speak at all. “They said you were only here during a storm.”
“Do they indeed?” He scoffs disdainfully, rolling his eyes at the notion. He glances at Jimin and the pool of water gathering at his feet and mutters something under his breath. There is a rush of warmth and suddenly he is bone-dry, water evaporating off his skin in a cloud of steam. “People will say anything these days. Honestly! Where am I supposed to be the rest of the time, pray tell?”
“Oh,” he murmurs, struggling to shake the feeling of cold and wet even though all his senses are telling him he’s not either anymore. “What – how did you do that?”
“Not much used to magic, are you?” Yoongi raises an eyebrow at him and then tells him to leave his shoes in the hallway, shuffling off down the hall and grumbling about ‘city kids’ and how they ‘don’t know a thing!’
Well, Jimin supposes it wouldn’t be a big deal to a powerful sorcerer like him, just a click of his fingers, barely a second thought – though admittedly he doesn’t look all that powerful, or indeed much like a sorcerer. He had built up an image of the great curse breaker in his mind, fed by the tales of impossible feats of magic, of eldritch creatures slain by his hand, of indescribable power, but the man before him defies every expectation.
Instead of illustrious robes that are simultaneously priceless and more expensive than anything Jimin has ever owned, he’s wearing comfortable sweatpants and fluffy slippers and an old moth-eaten jumper that’s too big for him, rolled up at the sleeves and swamping his small frame. He’s younger than he was expecting too, hair not grey but bleached blonde and a little dark at the roots where he needs to touch it up. And he’s pretty, with his delicate features and the scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, the edge of a tattoo snaking up his neck, inky black against pale skin.
Even his imperfections are pretty, the dark shadows under tired eyes and the faded scar that cuts down the right side of his face, an unnatural silver like something not quite human put it there (Jimin would know). And maybe that’s a strange thing to notice about a man he’s only just met, but it makes him seem human – he’s just pretty, not perfectly beautiful, not so perfectly flawless that his appearance seems like a skin laid over something ugly.
Of course, appearances can be deceptive when it comes to magic; the mermaids off the shore of Busan had been beautiful until they’d bared their teeth and pulled him into the water with webbed hands, silky hair turning into seaweed, golden skin suddenly dark and mottled like a toad’s. They had not meant him any harm, had been trying to help in fact (though of course they could not), to heal him with their unearthly voices and the salt of the sea stinging in his throat.
Back before this happened, when Jimin was just an ordinary student with normal concerns like meeting deadlines and maintaining a healthy sleep schedule, the possibility that the people around him – the strangers he passed in the street or the equally exhausted students in his lectures – were anything other than human, never even crossed his mind. He had always assumed that if magic existed in the city – which indeed, he doubted – he would know it when he saw it.
But if he has learnt anything from his months of searching for answers, it’s that magic does not fit a mould, nor does it conform to expectations. A lot of creatures can imitate a human form when they need to, plenty look and sound and act and, for all intents and purposes, are human most of the time. Like the werewolf he met out in a tiny town on the outskirts of the Gyeongju National Park one freezing day in late December, an ex-roommate of Hoseok’s who he had met in passing once or twice, who seemed completely human, just another student among hundreds – but was of course far from it.
He worked as a librarian and dressed like a hipster, silver hair tied back in a man-bun, snakebite piercings and intricate tattoos winding up his arms, effortlessly cool and intimidating until he broke into a dimpled smile and swept Jimin up into a crushing hug even though they barely knew one another.
“Any friend of Hoseok’s is a friend of mine,” Namjoon beams when he finally puts him down and Jimin is too cowed by his enthusiasm to complain about the invasion of his personal space. Endless affection is a werewolf thing, apparently.
He’s probably capable of ripping him to shreds with his bare hands, but it’s impossible to be afraid of him after he walks into a door, knocks over an entire stack of menus with an errant elbow and breaks two cups within the first five minutes of their meeting. He blushes bright red with embarrassment and gets so flustered and apologetic that the waitress forgives him immediately and then, when they leave the café an hour or so later, tries to offer him her number.
“Sorry, it’s just so soon after the full moon,” he says conspiratorially to Jimin as soon as she goes out of earshot, and laughs, flashing pointed canines – the first indication that he is anything other than human. “Being back in a human body takes some getting used to after three days running around on four feet! I’m sure Hoseok has told you about the bathroom sink incident…”
It’s easy to forget what he’s really here for after half an hour of chatting with Namjoon – he’s far too friendly to keep the conversation strictly professional – and despite the circumstances (perhaps, because of them) it’s nice to talk about something normal for once, like their respective studies or the difficulties of finding cheap food that isn’t ramen. They swap embarrassing stories about Hoseok and reminisce about Busan, about how much Namjoon wishes he could have stayed there longer.
“The only reason I didn’t was the cost of the train ticket back every month,” He laughs, “And you can’t stay away from your pack for too long.”
“I guess not,” Jimin agrees, thinking of his own life back in Busan, and how much he misses it, wonders if he’ll ever be able to return to it.
That evening, Namjoon takes him out into the forest to meet his pack, partly as a favour to an old friend – one Jimin suspects he misses more than he is willing to admit – and partly because they are willing to advise him. The boundaries between human and not are blurred for them, they stand with a foot in both worlds, consider themselves to be a part of both, and are thus both more knowledgeable than humans and more willing to share that knowledge than most magical beings. They provide him with almost everything he needs to guide his search for the next three months, which creatures to seek out and where to find them, those who will help him for free and those who will demand a price.
Other than that, they cannot help him – werewolves are not healers – but the pack elder, a grizzled old wolf with streaks of grey in her fur and cloudy cataracts scarring her eyes, gives him her blessing under the thin light of the new moon, for all that it’s worth.
Later, he will realise that their true gift to him is hope.
“Come and sit,” Yoongi instructs him, pointing towards a cosy looking armchair next to the empty fireplace. A wave of his hand and a fire roars into life, pumping out heat and casting a warm glow over the room. A second armchair drags itself over to settle beside him and a thick blanket flies out of an open cupboard to wrap itself around his shoulders as he sits down.
Jimin is so distracted by the seemingly effortless displays of magic that when Yoongi hands him a mug of tea he brings it to his lips and takes a long sip without thinking. It’s spicy and aromatic, unfamiliar flavours coating his tongue his tongue with warmth and tickling at the back of his throat. He puts the mug down suddenly, staring at its murky depths as if he can somehow tell whether it’s safe to drink just by looking hard enough.
He should know better – can he trust this man? All he knows about him are rumours, old stories passed from mouth to mouth that change a little every time, none of which quite agree on what kind of sorcerer he is. His naivety had gotten him and his friends in more than enough trouble already; he’d sworn he wouldn’t make the same mistake after that business with the coven back in Busan. They’d walked in blind and had been lucky to get out of there alive.
Hoseok had barely said a word for days after, face pale as milk and hands shaking, and Jungkook had cried for hours, partly out of fear, partly relief. And all a waste of time, since there was nothing they could do even if they’d wanted to help.
“It’s just tea, stop looking at me like that,” Yoongi scowls at him, taking a big gulp out of his mug as if to say see, what’s all the fuss about?. “Besides, why would I try to poison you? If I wanted you dead, I’d just turn you back into the storm and that mark on your arm will do the job for me.”
“You can – how did you know?” Jimin stammers, hand instinctively flying to the bandages on his right arm, belatedly trying to defend himself when the damage was done long ago.
“Nasty magic like that?” He wrinkles his nose in disgust, lips twisting into a grimace, “Stinks up the place. I could tell the second I opened the door. Can I see it?”
“I…” Jimin hesitates, suddenly unsure. His wrist is still cold to the touch – whatever magic Yoongi had cast was not strong enough to reach it – and is hurting again, a dull aching throb of pain deep in the bone.
“It’s what you’re here for isn’t it?” He huffs exasperatedly, reaching out to take hold of it. “Come on, I don’t bite.”
“Be careful,” he warns him, regretting his words as soon as they’re out of his mouth – it seems a stupid thing to say to the most powerful sorcerer in existence (allegedly, anyway). Still, other people had suffered the consequences of direct contact with the cursemark, had been burnt or shocked by the dark magic still lingering there, days and even weeks after it happened. Nothing as bad as what it’s doing to him, true, but he doesn’t want to risk hurting anyone else.
“I’ll be fine,” Yoongi dismisses his concerns, undeterred by the charred skin being revealed as he peals away the bandages. It looks worse than the last time Jimin had had the courage to check it, it’s spread further up his arm and down across the palm of his hand, black and ugly like an oil slick seeping into his veins. He cannot bear to look at it.
“Hmmm,” Yoongi frowns at it, carefully turning his arm this way and that so he can get a better look at it, pressing two fingers against the vein, searching for a pulse. “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes,” Jimin shrugs. The pain has dulled overtime, fading away as his wrist stiffened and the skin turned numb – it certainly doesn’t hurt under Yoongi’s gentle hands. “Most of the time I can’t really feel it.”
“That’s good,” he says, but he’s just being kind. They both know it only hurts less because the flesh is dying, rotting away from the inside. “What happened?”
“I… I don’t remember,” he tells him, a version of the truth that he can bear.
A touch, freezing cold fingers against his skin, nails digging into his flesh, he wants to pull away but he can’t, he can’t, words whispered into his ear that seem to tear through his soul and pain, pain, earth-shattering, indescribable pain, overpowering, unbearable, too much, too much toomuchtoomu–
And then nothing. Nothing until he’s stumbling into Hoseok’s flat on trembling legs, ears still ringing with those terrible, awful words, barely coherent and unable to respond as his friend asks him where he’s been and why didn’t he call them and Jimin, you had me so worried! Jimin! Jimin? Hey! And the crash of something smashing on the kitchen floor and a soft cry of fear and Jungkook running into the hallway, eyes full of terror and oh god, oh no, no, Jimin, no! The dawning look of realisation on Hoseok’s face and the colour draining out of his skin and the oh fuck, jesus, please don’t – oh my god, your arm, your arm! Fuck! And he’s lunging forward to catch him as his legs finally buckle beneath him and he’s falling and falling and falling and –
But Jimin can’t tell Yoongi that, can’t articulate the vastness of that pain and that fear and the tears streaming down Jungkook’s face as he held him and begged him to just stay awake and stay with him, pleaded with him to hold on. It’s unspeakable.
But the sorcerer doesn’t seem to expect anything else out of him, doesn’t seem surprised by his words, just nods in understanding, “that sounds right. Bad curses tend to do that to you.”
“It’s part of their charm,” Yoongi adds, sarcastically, snorting at his own joke. It takes Jimin a moment to realise that it’s a pun – a bad one, admittedly, but that’s not why he doesn’t laugh. “If you can’t remember what happened, it’s harder to break.”
“Right,” he attempts a weak smile, not because he feels the moment merits it but because he needs it to suppress the memory of that night bubbling up like bile rising at the back of his throat, because he’ll scream if he has to relive it for one second longer.
“You’ve seen witches?” He inquires, pulling fresh bandages out of thin air to start wrapping Jimin’s arm back up. He wonders if that’s a bad sign – it feels like a bad sign.
“Several,” he confirms, and then starts to list all the other magical beings he’s encountered. “Witches, mermaids, werewolves, human healers once or twice but they mostly turned me away. None of them could help me.”
The closest Jimin has come to finding a cure was in the care of an elderly witch on a strawberry farm an hour or so’s drive from Daegu county, lauded as a specialist in healing magic and with more experience treating curses than any he’d seen before. She’d treated him like a member of the family, so insistent on him calling her halmeoni that she did not offer any other name.
Jungkook had come with him this time, though it meant missing a few days of classes – it was too soon after their near escape with the coven for the younger to allow him to go anywhere alone, or indeed for him to feel safe doing so. He’d insisted on holding his hand for the entire journey there, pretended it was for his benefit, but from the strength of his grip (like he was terrified he’d lose him if he let go, even for a second) Jimin knew he was desperately wishing that in doing so he could pass on a little bit of his seemingly endless good luck.
It was a beautiful spring day, uncharacteristically sunny and warm, and they sat out in the garden under an old pear tree sipping tea and eating fresh strawberries – it was too early for them to be ripe naturally, but that was magic for you. While the witch disappeared into her kitchen to brew various potions and grind up ingredients with complicated names and produce healing salves to soothe his dying skin, her grandson took it up himself to keep them entertained.
“Give me your hand – I’ll do a palm-reading,” Taehyung instructs him, not waiting for an answer before he snatches up Jimin’s good hand and starts examining the lines on his palm, “Oh look your life line is really long!”
“Is that a good thing?” He asks wearily, tired from the long journey and from the heat and because he can’t sleep – because he’s afraid to sleep when every time without fail he wakes up screaming from a nightmare he can never quite remember – and just tired. He’s exhausted by it all, by the long string of failures, by the worried looks Jungkook and Hoseok give him when they think he can’t see them. They think he doesn’t notice the way they walk on eggshells around him or the red rings around Jungkook’s eyes every time he walks into a room and he tries to pretend he hasn’t been crying, doesn’t hear their hushed conversations at night when they think he’s gone to sleep. But he does.
“Of course!” He announces cheerfully with a bright, boxy grin that had Jimin’s lips tugging upwards into an involuntary smile – there was something irresistible about him, like his happiness was infectious. “It means you’ll live a long life – guess that means you’re definitely going to find a cure for this!”
“Oh. Cool. Thanks.” He tries his best to believe him, if only for the way Jungkook smiles at him then, looks a little younger, a little less afraid. He doesn’t ask what the lines on his other hands say.
“And you should see your love line!” Taehyung exclaims, tilting his palm to show Jungkook. “It’s very strong! Do you have someone special in your life?”
This, at least, is enough to make him laugh and for the rest of the day – at least until they all realise that none of halmeoni’s magic is having an effect – he feels happier and lighter than he has for weeks, since before it happened, really. Taehyung just has an innocent charm that is hard to resist, even when Jimin wants to cry, his enthusiastic attempts to cheer him up have a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
Jungkook is enraptured with him; he could barely string a sentence together at first, but a few hours in all his usual shyness has evaporated and he’s chatting away like he’s known him for years, hanging on his every word, watching him with his big doe eyes like he’s never seen anything so wonderful. In the early afternoon when Jimin is taking a magically induced nap – supposedly to hasten the work of the potions, but probably because the shadows under his eyes are starting to scare people – Taehyung ropes him into helping him feed the chickens and ducks.
When he comes back, his lips are stained red with strawberry juice – and from where Taehyung had kissed him hard, standing at the edge of the duckpond (or so Jungkook tells him later with a dreamy look in his eye). On that day all his good luck is working in his favour and not Jimin’s, but he can hardly begrudge him a little happiness. It’s nice to see him smile.
“Do you have a dog?” Taehyung asks at some point late in the evening when they’ve retreated to the terrace to have some supper and the air is full of fireflies, little spots of light winking at them like stars.
Jimin shakes his head, assuming the question is motivated by the young witch’s love of animals – his own dog, a tiny ball of fluff name Yeontan, is currently curled up in a ball on his lap fast asleep. “No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“Well, maybe you need True Love’s kiss to break your curse,” he explains, giggling at Jimin’s snort of laughter. “I’m serious! There’s nothing more powerful than True Love! And a dog’s love is the truest kind there is!”
“Yeah, hyung, we should get a dog!” Jungkook chimes in, a little drunk on apple cider (but mostly on Taehyung). They end up staying the night.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t help you,” Taehyung whispers in his ear when he hugs him goodbye in the morning. “Don’t give up hope.”
“I won’t,” he promises, but he thinks he already has.
“You need to find the Great Agust,” he tells him, warm hand on his shoulder holding him steady. “He can break any curse.”
“You know where he might be?” Jimin asks, sarcastically – he’s not the first person (human or otherwise) to tell him that and he probably won’t be the last. Everyone seems to have heard of this Agust (and agree on his greatness) but no one can tell him where, or indeed who, he is.
But Taehyung surprises him by flashing him a smile and suggesting that he asks Jungkook, “if anyone can find him, he can.”
“So you came to me,” Yoongi comments, sitting back in his chair with a sigh.
“I came to you,” Jimin confirms. “They said you were the most powerful sorcerer in South Korea.”
“They do say a lot of things, don’t they?” He smiles, a hint of a laugh in his tone. “How’d you find me?”
“My friend gave me the address.”
Jungkook had disappeared for a few days after they’d got back from Daegu, had declined all their anxious calls and replied with cryptic one word answers to their dozens of texts asking where he was or if he was safe or when he would come home. Jimin couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, spent hours sitting in the hallway waiting for his key in the lock. He’d been apologetic when he returned, but wouldn’t say where he’d been, just handed Jimin a scrap of paper with a rough address scribbled on it, coordinates really, and told him to trust him.
They’d taken him to the train station to send him off alone the next day, and at the last moment Jungkook had leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, murmuring “For good luck,” and the train was pulling out of the station and it was too late to ask him anything else.
“Address? What address? It’s a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere!” Yoongi exclaims, laughing in disbelief. “What did they show you the spot on Google maps?”
Not sure how to explain it, he shrugs, “he pointed me in the right direction.”
“Few people have ever made it all the way here before…” he frowns, fixing him with a piercing stare and it might just be Jimin’s imagination, but the temperature seems to suddenly drop by ten degrees. For a wild moment he wonders if Yoongi sees him as a threat.
“You wouldn’t know him,” he says hastily, sure that Jungkook would have at least said something to dispel all the rumours (sometimes the awe had sounded more like fear) if they’d met. “He’s just… lucky, I guess.”
“Oh, I see. That would explain the Fae magic on you,” Yoongi remarks, and the shadows that had been creeping up the side of Jimin’s chair retreat back into the corners where they belong.
“The what?” He blinks at him, perplexed.
“Fae magic,” he repeats like this clears everything up. “Unnatural amounts of good luck? Your friend is Fae.”
“Oh, no that’s – no, Jungkook is human,” Jimin corrects him, conviction wavering as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “I’ve met his parents. They’re just regular people. And he’d have told me.”
“Oh so he doesn’t know, then? Happens,” Yoongi hums, picking back up his mug of tea. “Most likely it skipped a generation or two – the Fae are human, of course, until they aren’t. Well, either way you should thank him.”
“For sending me here?”
“No, for saving your life – he was the first person to touch you afterwards, no? See, there you go, he saved your life. Without his magic protecting you, you’d be dead by now – good luck indeed,” he snorts in amusement.
Jimin doesn’t find it all that funny; he could very well be dead soon anyway.
“So can you help me?” He asks, sick of sitting their searching for reasons to be hopeful in the sorcerer’s expression. He’s either drawing out his suffering longer than he needs to, or he’s delaying the inevitable.
“I can slow it down,” Yoongi announces.
“You can’t help me,” Jimin states, trying not to choke on his words as his heart drops. Not even a promise to fix it? Though he’s heard enough false promises to last him a lifetime and he couldn’t face another disappointment like that, of course, of course he doesn’t want to be lied to again (good intentions, bad intentions, but every time a lie), but this is his last chance, his last, and if not even the Great Agust can save him, no one can.
“When did I say that?” He scowls, somehow offended (when Jimin is the one dying – as if he cares about ego). “I can slow it down. You slow something enough and you’ve good as stopped it. Sure, if I find whatever creature left the mark, maybe eventually I can break it, but you don’t have eventually, so for now I can slow it.”
“Oh,” he says softly, blinking away the tears stinging in the corners of his eyes, tears of relief, of hope maybe of fear, fear that his hope is misplaced, that this is another false promise. He doesn’t know. “Thank you.”
“But it won’t be free,” Yoongi adds – and there it is, the catch (there’s always a catch).
“I… I don’t have much money,” Jimin starts, hoping that he doesn’t sound too desperate (but he is desperate, to live, to not have this chance snatched away from him, he can’t take it, he can’t, he-) He’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the tea and the gentle way he held his wrist as he examined it and those stupid fluffy slippers and now the price is due and what if he can’t pay?
He scoffs, disdainful at the very notion. “What would I want with money? What use is that?”
Some had treated him for free, or refused payment when they realised they couldn’t help him, but others had wanted money, often more than he could afford, or things of magical value, locks of his hair, photos from his childhood, items of sentimental value. A rare few required the sweat off his brow – the wood nymphs had refused to even talk to him before he had spent three days planting trees for them, toiling away at the hard ground until his back hurt and he’d developed calluses on his hands.
And the coven… their price had been far too high. They’d offered to turn him and when he’d realised what that meant – draining him of every last drop of blood on the chance (slim chance) he might wake up once they’ve had their fill – and turned them down, terrified by their translucent skin and glassy eyes and the stench of death, they’d smiled at him with glinting teeth and he’d realised that they wouldn’t meet his gaze because they were too busy staring at his neck. They never had any intention of letting him go, they just got lucky.
He wishes he had Jungkook here with him now, to hold his hand and tell him that it’s all going to be ok.
“No, I’ll do it,” Yoongi decides, “But in return I want you to stay here with me for a while – a few months, no more, five seems fair – help me with my work.”
“But I don’t know any magic,” Jimin blurts out, shocked by his offer and not quite believing that his price could really be that low. Ten minutes ago, he’d thought he only had five months left to live – at best – and now he’s being handed his entire life on a plate, like a shimmering mirage in the desert that will disappear as soon as he reaches for it. “What help can I be to someone like you? I’m only human.”
“And? So am I! (For the most part, anyway). And anyone can learn. Besides, there’s more to running a lighthouse than the occult.” He argues, glancing up at Jimin with an almost hopeful expression like he’s nervous that he’ll turn him down, which – “But I can teach you. If you like. And those friends of yours can come visit anytime – I could use a little good luck.”
Oh. Oh. He’s lonely. He’s living alone in a lighthouse miles from anywhere and no one ever comes here and he’s only human and he’s lonely. But of course, he is, as much as he’s clearly trying to pretend not to be, to pretend that this is purely a transaction, labour in return for labour, that his kindness is purely for his own gain, when really all he wants is some company.
Would five months really be that hard? It’s barely a drop in the ocean compared to all the time he suddenly has, months and years stretching out ahead of him like a long, straight road when he’d turned the corner expecting to find a dead-end. And with the opportunity to learn enough about the world that hurt him and how to protect himself that he will never let it happen again, in with the bargain, it is not a hard decision to make.
Jimin has nothing to return to back in Busan, nothing that can’t wait a while, anyway. His parents had decided he was cursed long before he’d got a black mark burned into his arm for reasons of bigotry and a determination to be disappointed by him – they’d probably think he deserved it if they knew – and his friends, his real family, can come to visit him. He’d ended the lease on his flat as soon as he was strong enough to get out of bed – couldn’t bear a single night sleeping alone – had filed all the paperwork to suspend his studies months ago. There didn’t seem to be much point struggling on under the stress of deadlines and student loan payments when it seemed likely he wouldn’t live long enough to graduate.
“Five months,” Jimin checks, just to be sure, though he has already made up his mind.
“Five months and you’re free to go,” he confirms, and after a moment’s hesitation holds out a hand for him to shake.
Jimin reaches out to accept it with his good hand, grips it firmly as the most powerful sorcerer in South Korea breaks into a gummy smile and thinks you would have helped me anyway, wouldn’t you? “OK. You have yourself a deal, Yoongi-ssi.”
~
And at the end of five months, when Jimin realises that he doesn’t want to leave, he doesn’t have to.