Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jimin took a long time to get to know themselves, to learn about who they were and how the world worked, but they always knew the spirits.

“Have a good day at school,” They’d tell Jimin, their voices a chilly, ghostly caress by their ear as they’d pick up their backpack and run out the door, Jimin's mother never being the one to say it.

“Take the low road home today.” The spirits don’t always talk, sometimes they just project feelings and warnings and imprints of emotion onto Jimin’s chest, so powerfully and viscerally that these thoughts feel as tangible as Jimin’s own.

The spirits always seem to have Jimin’s best interests at heart. That’s why Jimin listens when, one day at school they murmur against his ear, “Stay away from the boy in green.”

Jimin may have never even noticed the boy in green if he hadn’t been pointed out to them. He was just another teenager in a sea of desks, his fluffy black hair illuminated by the early morning light slanting through the windows on the right wall. He isn’t in green—he's wearing the same back uniform as everyone else—but his backpack is green and open on his lap as he rifles through it.

Why? Jimin is half tempted to ask, but doesn't. They’ve learned to trust the spirits by now. Besides, people don’t look at Jimin kindly when they catch them talking to the air.

It is usually better to simply stay silent and follow along.

“I’m Taehyung.”

Jimin looks up to see the green boy standing over their desk, hand extended to shake. “I’m new here. Well, not really. I’ve always lived just out of town, but I was homeschooled before. This is my first year in public school.”

Jimin frowns at that extended hand, then up at the green boy offering it. Taehyung. His eyes are pinched with his smile, a wide, boxy thing that overtakes his face and transforms his features.

No spirits are talking now, but Jimin knows that doesn't mean they aren’t there. Jimin can feel the weight of the spirit’s ghostly chill like a frigid blanket on the back of their neck.

Stay away from the boy in green.

“I’m Jimin,” Jimin says, their voice as soft and tentative as their grip when they reach out to shake Taehyung’s hand.

Taehyung is neither soft nor tentative. “Woah!” he exclaims, holding up Jimin’s hand, keeping their fingers intertwined. Jimin can’t help but marvel at the feeling of warm skin against their own, so different from the omnipresent cold they’ve grown used to. “Your hands are so tiny. And cold. Do you want to borrow my sweater?” Taehyung drops Jimin’s hand to reach for it before he’d even finished asking.

“No,” the voices hiss, angry and discordant. “Don’t take it. Tell him to leave, get him away.”

Jimin curls in on themself, gripping their elbows and holding them tight. “No,” Jimin whispers. “I don’t want your sweater. You should get back to your desk, class will start soon.”

Taehyung’s smile slips from his face, the corners of his mouth falling as his eyebrows draw together in tandem. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Yes. He is wrong. Make him leave.”

“No,” Jimin answers. “I’m sorry, I’m just--”

Just what? Just beholden to the voices of people long-dead?

“Yes. You hear us, help us when we need, and we offer you guidance in return. Have we ever steered you wrong? Listen now. Make him leave.”

Jimin curls into themself further like if they shrink small enough, Taehyung won’t be able to see them--like the dead won’t be able to see them. “I’m sorry,” Jimin murmurs again, though just as hollow as before.

Taehyung blinks once, twice. “Okay,” he says slowly, and turns and walks away.

Why does it feel like a part of Jimin’s heart is going with him?

Jimin is used to eating lunch alone, used to walking home alone, despite it being their last year of school in a small town where everyone knows everyone. They’d been too busy playing hopscotch with lonely, demanding ghosts to make any living friends, but it’s common to see groups of teenagers on the streets in the afternoon, visiting the one ice-cream parlor in town before making their way to their evening study academies.

Maple boughs arch over the street from both sides, the sun filtering through the green leaves as Jimin walks to their own academy after school, the straps of their backpack digging into his shoulders from the weight of all the books.

The sun’s warmth doesn’t reach him though, and Jimin understands why the late-spring air is so frigid when a translucent boy wearing hanbok materializes ahead of them on the path.

“Follow me?” the boy whispers, and though he’s dozens of meters away Jimin hears his voice as a frigid wind against the shell of their ear. “Please. I need you.”

Jimin needs to get to their academy. They have studying to do, tests to prepare for that won’t pass themselves. But when it comes to Jimin’s priorities, they’ve always known that the needs of the undead come before their own. Who will help those who have died if not Jimin? No one else can see them, can hear them, can understand how to ease their pains and worries.

“Alright,” Jimin says, hiking their backpack up to ease the soreness. “Lead the way.”

The little boy disappears, then reappears a dozen paces down the path.

“I need you,” the voice repeats, a second chill, a second shudder down Jimin’s spine. A wind whips the branches overhead, but the sound of rustling leaves does little to fill the gaps of the uncanny silence.

“I know,” Jimin replies, embarrassed by how weak their own voice sounds in comparison to even the dead. “I’m coming.”

Jimin has to jog to keep up as the spirit flickers in and out of existence, appearing farther and farther away every time. Though it’s a warm spring afternoon, the cold of the ephemeral combined with the sweat of Jimin’s exertion results in shivering tremors that weaken their knees and wrack their limbs.

“I need you,” the boy calls, again and again, leading Jimin off the road and into the woods. Soon there were no signs of civilization left, just the dry scrape of wood against leaves as air moves high enough to disturb the trees but too far to reach Jimin. No birds sing, no squirrels chirp. The world isn’t silent, but it’s quieter than it should be. Unnervingly so.

There is a crunch of branches, almost indistinguishable from the sounds created by the wind. Jimin whips around to look over their shoulder, but sees nothing other than the swaying foliage, leaves gilded gold by the light of the setting northern sun.

“I need you,” again and again. Again and again and again—

Jimin is always needed. It never stops.

“I’m coming.” I’m coming I’m coming I’m coming. Jimin always comes, always goes where they are told, no matter what it costs, because what does their life matter when there are others who are suffering, others that only they can help?

The sun dips lower and lower until soon none of its light reaches the forest floor, the shadows of the trees stretching long and casting the world in darkness. The chill of the evening is only compounded by the chill of the dead, and Jimin finds themself shivering as they stumble through the undergrowth, hardly aware of the scuffs on their loafers or the wet stains on their stiff uniform slacks or anything beyond the echoing voice all around them I need you I need you I need you—

This isn’t the first time that Jimin has gone too far for a spirit, not the first time that they’ve walked or dug or danced for the dead until his body gave out and he collapsed, unconscious, because they still hadn’t been satisfied, placated, soothed. Jimin would do anything for others, no matter the cost. It isn’t a matter of kindness, but rather if my life has no meaning, why not sacrifice it for someone who needs me?

This isn’t the first time that Jimin has gone too far, but this is the first time that they aren’t alone.

Jimin doesn’t even get to see what the little boy is leading them towards before their vision starts to blur, legs wobbling beneath them as the world tilts and someone yells “Jimin!”

The voice is loud. The voice is warm. The dead are never either of those things.

Jimin’s strength gives out and they collapse, but this time someone is there to catch them.

Taehyung carries Jimin back to his place.

Jimin would be embarrassed if they were cognizant enough. They tried to put up a fight—muttering things under their breath like put me down, I need to go back, I have to see where the boy was leading me, I have to help him—things that would probably sound deluded and half-mad to someone normal. Someone like Taehyung. But Taehyung just ignores Jimin’s weak hits to his shoulders and keeps saying over and over “No. You need to rest. You need to let someone take care of you.”

(Please let that person be me.)

It takes hours—hours of Jimin drifting in and out of consciousness, eyes fluttering open to see the black silhouettes of branches swaying high overhead, the darkening dusk sky beyond them, and the curve of Taehyung’s jaw only centimeters away from their own. It’s clenched with exertion.

“Put me down” Jimin tries to demand at one point, their voice more breath than sound.

Taehyung looks down at Jimin and raises an eyebrow, thoroughly skeptical. “Will you run right back to that ghost if I do? Will you even be able to stand?”

Jimin doesn’t like that response, doesn’t like how Taehyung sees right through them. But— “You saw him?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “No, but you keep mumbling about him. Go back to sleep, I’ve got you.”

Jimin just groans. “Why?”

“Why do you need sleep? You literally passed out. You need it.”

“No, why—“ Why do you have me? Why do you care? But Taehyung is right. Jimin needs to sleep. Their eyes flutter shut, and when they open them again, Taehyung’s fluffy hair is illuminated like a halo by a streetlamp overhead, the night sky a murky black beyond the ring of light.

“Where are we going?” Jimin murmurs, Taehyung’s face phasing in and out of blackness as they struggle to keep their eyes open against the fatigue.

“My house,” Taehyung answers, his hold on Jimin unwavering even as they swayed with each step, the motion as calming and rhythmic as the lull of the ocean. “My parents are out of town, it’s alright.”

The neighborhood is unfamiliar to Jimin, who’d lived in this small town almost their entire life. Houses loom out of the shadows, their pointed roofs like fangs in the jaw of a beast. Though the little boy from the woods is nowhere to be seen, other spirits lurk in the corners of Jimin’s vision, a paranormal chill creeping toward Jimin where they are cocooned in Taehyung’s arms.

“I don’t like this place.” Jimin shivers.

Taehyung looks up and shoots a glare into the darkness, and though he can’t see the ghosts lingering nearby, they shrink away from his stare, the cold receding. Jimin would shrunk away from that look too if it’d been directed at them, but when Taehyung meets Jimin’s gaze again his eyes have gone soft, one hooded and one lidded but both tender and black—not the black of nights that make the dead more powerful, but the blackness that’s found when curled up under blankets. The blackness of warmth and protection and familiar safety.

“Stay away from the boy in green,” the spirits had cautioned.

But what if I don’t want to?

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung apologizes, as if the ghosts clinging to the passing houses are somehow his fault. “It’s not much farther though. And I didn’t know where else to take you.”

You could have left me. It wouldn’t be my first time waking up alone and lost and drained. “Not your fault,” Jimin slurs, words thick with sleep. “Thanks.”

The arched entryway to Taehyung’s house yawns wide overhead, and Jimin shivers again as they pass underneath. Taehyung doesn’t have to let go of Jimin to maneuver the front door open, and a wall of air conditioning slams into them as they pass inside.

“Cold,” Jimin barely has the strength to whisper, as if they weren’t always cold. Cold is second nature. Why does it matter now?

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says again. “I’ll get you tucked in, okay? And I’ll turn off the a.c., that should help.”

Taehyung’s voice washes over Jimin like lulling ocean waves, lapping at the edges of their consciousness, coming and going as Jimin’s mind fades in and out.

There is a hallway. Doors. Taehyung uses his hip to nudge open one near the end before walking a few more steps and gently laying Jimin down on a bed that looks silver in the moonlight. Everything is silver: the tall, worn bedposts, the fringes of Taehyung’s hair, and the shine of his eyes in the dark.

Jimin falls a lot. They’ve fallen on concrete roads, on thorny bushes, into puddles of rain. They go where the spirits ask and once the dead have drained him dry, Jimin collapses, spent. This is the first time they can remember being laid down gently, in someone else’s hands for once, and with such care. It makes their heart stutter, their breath catch. Jimin’s body is heavy with exhaustion but the weight of the comforter as Taehyung carefully pulls it over them and tucks in the sides in a welcome one.

“Why?” Jimin has the barest breath to whisper. Why help me? What have I done for you to deserve this?

Taehyung’s limned silhouette shruggs. “Why not?”

“Stay away from the boy in green.”

Jimin doesn’t want to.

Taehyung keeps a close eye on Jimin after that.

They don't notice at first. What Jimin does notice is the spirits growing more agitated, more protective.

More suffocating.

"Don’t take that way home," they hiss, and when Jimin asks why, they caution: "danger. Trust us."

"Don’t go in that room. Danger. Trust us."

"Get groceries from a different store. Danger. Trust us."

"Don’t go to academy today. Danger. Trust us."

Jimin stops walking when they hear that one. The sky is cloudy overhead, a flat grey, but the moss on the trees and the leaves on the bushes that line the sidewalk on this side of town—the nice side of town—are green, green, green.

Green is the color of life. It’s always been Jimin’s favorite.

“Why.” Their voice is flat, a demand rather than a question.

“Danger. Trust us.”

“No, that’s not enough anymore.” Jimin shoves their hands in their pockets and plants their feet, bracing themselves. “I help you when you need and you protect me. I appreciate it, I really do. But this doesn’t feel like protection anymore.” It feels like control, Jimin thinks, but lacks the nerve to say.

“Have we ever steered you wrong before?”

Jimin bites their lip. “No. But this is important. I can’t keep hiding from my responsibilities. I understand having to leave because you need me, but if there’s no reason—“

“There is a reason!”

The cacophony of the dead is strong, their breathy words funneling into a wind that rattled the branches and sent chills down Jimin’s neck. A stoplight further up the street sways from the force of the gust.

“Then what is it?”

“Jimin!”

Jimin whirls around to see Taehyung coming up the sidewalk behind them, waving, his usual grin lighting his face.

Ghosts hiss, flickering in and out of the shadows. “Stay away stay away stay away—“

“Taehyung,” Jimin replies, closing their eyes as if that can block out the voices. “Do you need something?”

“Need something?” Taehyung doesn’t quite frown, but his voice isn’t as bright anymore. “No, I don’t need anything. Just wanted to join you, if that’s okay. You’re headed to academy, right?”

Jimin opens their eyes slowly, forcing them to focus on Taehyung rather than the angry apparitions surrounding them, circling like sharks but keeping their distance. “Yes, I am,” he says.

Taehyung tilts his head to the side. “So can I join you, then?”

Jimin can’t help it. Their eyes dart to the side, and they see the sharp outline of a translucent woman. Her face is stern as her gaze locks on Jimin and she bears her teeth. “Stay away from the boy in green.” Her words echo through Jimin’s mind, clanging against their skull like the tolling of a death knell, and Jimin flinches back.

“Is it the ghosts again?”

Jimin startles again, and they know they must look like a cornered animal when they turn back to Taehyung, because that’s how they feel: trapped and afraid and boxed in on all sides. “Ghosts aren’t real,” Jimin breathes, because they learned many years ago that it’s safer to lie than to be honest and accused of being crazy or attention-seeking.

Either way, Jimin is alone with this burden. At least if they lie they aren’t ostracized too.

“Just because not everyone can see something doesn’t mean it’s real,” Taehyung replies, and his hands are up and extended like he’s trying to placate a frightened kitten. “I can’t see the moon right now but I know it’s still there. I can’t hear or see ghosts but that doesn’t mean you can’t, and that they aren’t real.”

Jimin shudders and takes a step back. They’ve never had someone confront them about this before, never had to talk about it or address it face-to-face with another person. It’s unfamiliar. Scary.

“I think I‘m not going to academy today,” Jimin whispers, even though it goes against their original plan. Jimin likes Taehyung, but they’ve never had anything to like before. They don’t know what to do about it—about him.

It doesn’t help that the dead keep hissing in their ear: "stay away stay away stay away—"

Taheyung’s eyebrows are furrowed, his forehead crinkled with concern. “Are you alright? You’ve been missing academy a lot recently.”

Jimin almost flinches at how the words land—with the force of a punch, but none of the hurt. “You…” You noticed? You cared? You actually see me?

Some days, Jimin is afraid that they’ll fade and fade and disappear, just as intangible and invisible as the spirits they spend all their time with. If Jimin never has anyone alive by their side, are they even living?

Jimin doesn’t realize that they’ve been silent for too long, simply standing and staring, though on the inside they’re being battered from all sides by buffeting thoughts throwing accusations like daggers in the storm. No has seen you before—no one ever sees you. Soon the world will look straight through you like they do the rest of the dead.

Because even though Jimin’s heart is beating, that doesn’t mean they’re alive. Any day they could reach down and put their hand on their chest and feel nothing but a hollow echo inside.

It wouldn’t even be that much of a surprise.

Taehyung is frowning now. “Are you trying to avoid me?” He asks, and his eyes are wide and sad as a kicked puppy on the ground. “If you don’t like me, that’s alright. But I’d prefer that you just tell me.”

This time Jimin does flinch. “I—what? No. No, I don’t dislike you.”

“But you didn’t say you aren’t avoiding me.”

Jimin wants to shrivel, to curl in on themselves until they disappear. “I don’t want to avoid you,” they confess, and it feels like a sin.

“Then why do you?”

Jimin is at war with themself, torn between their need to protect themself and their inability to bear anyone being hurt when there’s something to be done about it. Jimin could offer the truth as a balm and Taehyung could take it and turn it around and use it to slit Jimin’s throat. Ghostly hands are pulling at Jimin’s shoulders, raking their claws along his neck and pulling him down and down and down all the while hissing "trust us, you are ours, when have we lied? listen to us, we care about you, you are ours, we need you, stay away stay away stay away—"

Jimin falls to their knees, bones cracking against the cement. “Stop, go away go away please just leave me alone,” they murmur, they beg, screwing their eyes shut—but the dead aren’t listening.

"Ours ours OURS—"

Jimin’s head is between their knees, hands over their eyes and squeezing so so hard like they can force the voices from their head but they don’t go away, they’re still there, they’re always there.

But then another pair of hands overlaps Jimin’s. The long fingers wrap around Jimin’s palms, gently pulling them away from the sides of their face.

Slow. So, so slow. So soft.

“Me or the ghosts?” Taehyung asks, his voice merely a breath passing by Jimin’s ear, and Jimin shudders.

“Them,” Jimin answers, and somehow, impossibly, incomprehensibly, Taehyung understands.

“We aren’t going to academy,” Taehyung decides. “We’re going back to my place, and we’ll study there. Are you okay to stand or do you need another minute?”

The winds are still whipping around the branches overhead, stirring the trees and slapping the two of them with their anger, though only Jimin can hear their frigid screams. Jimin shivers, and Taehyung’s grip tightens the slightest bit.

It’s grounding. Jimin takes a deep breath, feeling the air filling their lungs and trying to focus on blowing it back out through their mouth rather than the chills gripping their spine.

At least the claws are gone, having disappeared the moment Taehyung knelt down beside Jimin.

Why, Jimin wants to ask. Why do you want to take care of me? That’s supposed to be my job. Jimin exists to care for others, not to be cared for.

“Okay,” Jimin says instead, because they don’t have the strength to refuse. “Let’s go.”

Taehyung’s house starts to feel a little like Jimin’s home.

It isn’t exactly welcoming. The halls are drafty and painted a pale grey—the same grey as the sky on chilly winter mornings. The furniture is firm and spotless, the floors always immaculate. Jimin doesn’t know how Taehyung’s parents maintain it, especially since they’re never actually there.

But Jimin and Taehyung make tea cookies, and the kitchen is filled with the scent of sweet sesame and sugar. They spread out their books and papers across the back table on the mild fall afternoons where the summer sun is still holding on but the breeze blowing through the russet leaves (and Taehyung’s hair) keeps the air from being too hot. They go to the garage, to the corner with the tarp over the concrete floor—the only place Taehyung is allowed to make a mess—and Jimin watches as Taehyung pours cerulean and mauve and lilac onto canvas and brings his emotions to life with color.

Jimin never paints. They don’t know what they would create if they did. Jimin’s world was once only muted shades of grey, and even now it is only the dark, oppressive black of the dead and the startling, blinding white of their time with Taehyung. But one day, after months and months of afternoons spent by each other’s sides, Jimin picks up a brush.

Taehyung doesn’t notice. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing a canvas that’s propped up against the wall. To his right is his palette, swirled with all the rainbow shades Jimin sees every day yet never feels. Jimin doesn’t know why, but they dip the brush in a pool of green—alive as a young spout, resilient as the moss that clings to the trunks of trees—and drags the hue up Taehyung’s bare forearm.

Taehyung’s hand freezes mid-stroke against the canvas. Jimin’s hand freezes hovering a mere breath away from Taehyung’s skin, the soft gold of it and the black of the fine hairs in contrast with the glossy emerald.

After a heartbeat that feels like an eternity Jimin manages to pry their eyes away from Taehyung’s skin and look him in the eye. Taehyung’s gaze is wide, unblinking, flickering back and forth between the streak of paint and Jimin’s face.

“What was that for?”

Jimin bites their lip and tries to shrug, but their shoulders are stiff and stilted. “I don’t know. Just felt like it, so I did it.” Taehyung doesn’t immediately respond, so Jimin continues. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked.”

Taehyung shakes his head. “No, it’s alright.” He finally looks away, dipping his brush into the pallet to pick up a pale shade of rose. He raises it and asks, “May I?”

It takes Jimin a moment to register the meaning behind the request, then another to calm their heartbeat enough to respond—but it doesn’t calm down, continuing to thunder so hard Taehyung must surely hear it. Jimin eventually nods, holding out their hand.

Taehyung’s grip on the brush is delicate, the elegant bones in his fingers loose as he touches the bristles to the back of Jimin’s hand. The paint is cool but not cold, and Taehyung moves slowly enough that the sensation doesn't startle. Jimin watches transfixed as Taehyung traces out the petals of a flower on their hand, though Jimin doesn’t recognize the variety or even know if it's supposed to resemble one.

Jimin has always been a violin wound too tight to make music, but with each stroke of Taehyung’s brush they feel their strings loosen.

“It’s beautiful,” Jimin says as Taehyung finishes the last line, breaking the silence that had settled over them like a down comforter. “Thank you.”

Taehyung grins. “Thank you for letting me.” He sets down the brush and picks up Jimin’s hand, careful not to smudge the still-wet paint. “Your hands are so small and round. They’re the perfect canvas.”

Jimin tries to pull their hand away but Taehyung tuts and shifts his grip to Jimin’s wrist, easily encircling the bones there as he lifts his other hand and presses it to Jimin’s palm. Taehyung’s angular fingers are at least three centimeters longer than Jimin’s smoother ones. “See? It’s incredible.”

(“You’re incredible,” Taehyung thinks, but doesn’t say.)

Jimin can feel the heat rushing to their face, knows that their cheeks must now be even rosier than that paint on their hand. “That’s unfair. I can’t help what my hands look like.”

Taehyung’s smile doesn’t falter. “I know. It’s just a happy accident—one I’m thankful for. Just like us meeting.”

Stay away from the boy in green.

Jimin has no intention of doing so.

“Yeah,” they say. “I’m thankful too.”

Things are different now when the spirits have requests. If they’re simple, reasonable things—lay some flowers on my father’s grave; check on my cat, there’s no one to feed her now; visit my grandmother, she gets lonely—then Jimin obliges. Taehyung often tags along, reticent to let Jimin out of his sight, claiming that “You may be great at helping out the dead but you’re shit at helping yourself.”

But sometimes the spirits aren't simple, aren’t reasonable. They make vague, taxing demands, sending Jimin all over town on wild goose chases that leave Jimin drained and exhausted. Taehyung insists on coming along then, but only when he fails to talk Jimin out of going at all—which he attempts often.

“What about you?” Taehyung hisses to Jimin as they walk through the school halls, buffeted on all sides by passing students, trying to argue without being overheard. “You break your back for them and they don’t do shit for you.”

“That’s not true,” Jimin shoots back. “They offer advice. Protect me.”

“Yeah?” Taehyung asks, but his voice shapes his words into a spear rather than a question. “And when was the last time they did that?”

Jimin knows the answer but they don’t like it. When they told me to stay away from you. But Taehyung has done nothing but help Jimin, not hurt them. So why do the dead dislike Taehyung so much?

“It doesn’t matter,” Jimin spits at last. “They’ve looked after me. I can’t just do nothing when I’m the only one who can help them.”

“They want you, they don’t love you. They don’t care about you, they care about what you can do for them. I care about you, I look after you when they hurt you. Can’t you see the difference?”

Jimin hates those words, hates the way they grate up against the columns that have held up Jimin’s entire way of life, their purpose for living, until now.

So Jimin pretends they can’t hear them, even while following Taehyung back to his house rather than following the chilly whispers that call from the shadows.

It happens one night.

Then two.

Then three.

And soon it’s been weeks since Jimin has gone on a fool’s errand for a ghost and they don’t even realize that much time has passed. Sure, Jimin feels guilty. Every time they turn away from a beconing spirit they feel a stone settle in their gut, and soon Jimin is carrying around a thousand-pound burden of unhelped souls. But physically, Jimin is stronger than they can ever remember being. Their grades are rising and sure, there’s still a leak in their bedroom ceiling, and their bike tire has a tear they can’t afford to repair, and they only have dinner on the nights they see Taehyung, but that’s almost every night now.

Behind the draping clothes hung neatly in Taehyung’s closet is a stash of fluffy throw blankets and candles and a box of matches. When Jimin can’t stop shivering, the breath of the dead frigid against their neck and their whispers ceaselessly grating against their ears, Jimin does his best to hide the discomfort. Taehyung can see through the facade, though—just like he’s always been able to see straight through Jimin, straight to their core.

Taehyung brings Jimin up to bed early on those nights, arranging the pillows across the neat bed spread and forcing Jimin to sit. Taehyung goes to the closet and pulls out as many blankets as he can carry and tents them in, cocooning Jimin in softness before going back for the candles and matches.

It’s the warmest Jimin ever is, when they’re like this: two people under the blankets, the dark and the cold kept at bay by blankets and candle light, the scents of melted butterscotch and apple pie and whatever other fragrances Taehyung recently found on sale swirling through the space in ribbons of wavering smoke.

It started with Taehyung reaching out, introducing himself to Jimin all those months ago in school for the first time. It started with Taehyung reaching out, extending his hand and taking Jimin’s one night, and Jimin thinks that the dead will never reach them again as long as they have this.

It started with Taehyung reaching out, but soon Jimin learns to reach out too.

Not long has passed since Taehyung brought Jimin to his room tonight, and residual shivers are still trembling up Jimin’s spine even as they burrow deeper under the comforter—the weight of the fabric against their skin doing nothing to dispel the chill in their bones. Taehyung is still getting settled, a match in one hand as he strikes it with deft familiarity, a well-practiced motion. Jimin likes watching Taehyung like this, likes seeing how sure of himself Taehyung is, like he’s settled in his body, in the world, as if he knows he belongs in it. The golden flame flickers, casting the planes of Taehyung’s face in warm hues and heavy shadows, the light flaring as he lowers the match into a candle and the wick catches.

This one is “Garden Herbs:” basil and rosemary and just the faintest hint of mint, according to the label on the jar. Jimin isn’t familiar with these scents, but Jimin thinks that they like them. It smells green. It smells like a home.

Taehyung leans back on the pillows beside Jimin, his face a breath away. Jimin stares at him, at his uneven eyelids, at his lashes shrouding the black of his irises. When Jimin focuses on Taehyung, they can almost forget the spirits buffeting the blankets behind him.

“Taehyung,” Jimin says, because everything starts with Taehyung, really.

“Jimin,” Taehyung replies, closing his eyes with a smile. “What is it?”

“Thank you,” Jimin whispers, almost afraid to say the words out loud, their heart pounding against their ribs with the force of them, “for taking care of me. No one has done that for me before. Not like you have.”

Taehyung’s eyes flash open, wide and startled, but he relaxes back down only a moment later, closing them once more.

“You don’t need to thank me. This is just…” (This is just me loving you.) “You take care of me too, you know. I may not have anyone haunting me, but I didn’t have anyone at all before you. I need this—“ Taehyung gestures between the two of them, his long finger pointing back and forth at their hearts— “just as much as you do, I think. We take care of each other.”

Jimin blinks, too stunned to speak for a moment. “I… we do?”

Taehyung’s lips curve up in a slow, easy smile, and the picture of him is more perfect than anything Jimin has ever seen before. “Yeah, we do.”

“I feel like you do all the caring,” Jimin confesses, “And I appreciate it, I really do. But I want to do more for you. Will you… will you tell me how I can care for you? How I can make you feel as good as you make me feel?”

Jimin’s words are clumsy, tripping over each other as they spill from Jimin’s lips but they are too important too be kept locked away, too pivotal. Jimin needs Taehyung to understand this. Jimin needs to be cared for by Taehyung, and needs to care for Taehyung in return.

Taehyung opens his eyes and lifts a hand, lightly placing it against the side of Jimin’s face to cup their jaw, running a thumb back and forth over their bottom lip. “Yeah,” Taehyung says, his voice so soft that it doesn’t even cause the flame of the nearby candle to flicker. “I will.”

Jimin isn’t breathing, too afraid of popping this iridescent bubble they’ve created, their mind buzzing between the touch of Taehyung’s hand and the reflection of fire in his eyes. “Tell me now?”

Taehyung huffs out the faintest laugh, leaning close to press their foreheads together. “Can you kiss me?”

Jimin does.

Jimin wakes with a start to the sound of branches whipping their window.

It’s one of the rare nights they’re sleeping at their Mom’s house, though they haven’t seen her since coming home from school.

That isn’t rare.

Brittle leaves scrape against the glass, their late-autumn-early-winter silhouettes skeletal. Long shadows stretch across the room, stark in the moonlight. Jimin sits up with a start, gasping, then shivering when their breath fogs the air in front of their face. They pull the sheets up to their chin, but the cotton crackles, stiff with frost.

Jimin drops the sheet and stands, rushing to the window and peering outside, jumping back when their nose accidentally brushes the icy glass.

Glowing under the grey moon and yellow street lamps are dozens and dozens of spirits, transparent and glitching around their edges as they watch from the street, crowded as if a funeral procession were passing through town. Though their forms are too vague for Jimin to read their faces, they’ve known the dead long enough to be able to recognize when they’re angry.

Some of the individual ghosts are familiar too. Jimin sees a short armor-clad spirit who has followed them after school multiple times. There’s a stooped figure in a dress who often bothers Jimin in the isles of the local grocery store. They even spot the hanbok-clad figure of the little boy who’s led Jimin into the woods to the point of exhaustion on multiple occasions.

These are the spirits Jimin’s been ignoring for weeks. The dead have come to collect.

Jimin stumbles to their closet, almost tripping over the water bucket on the floor that has now frozen to a solid block of ice. They yank open the door and pull on the first sweatshirt and shoes they lay hands on before sprinting down the hall to the front door, keeping their footsteps as light as they can in an attempt to keep from waking their mom, in case she is actually there.

The front window is opaque with frost, creaking under the pressure as hairline fractures form on the surface.

No. I can’t let this happen, I can’t let them in. This house isn’t a home for Jimin—never has been and never will be. But they care about their mom enough to want to keep it safe for her sake.

Jimin bursts through the front door and is instantly engulfed by the gale-force wind of the angry dead, their chattering grating against Jimin’s eardrums. "Where have you been? they hiss. "What are you doing you belong to us what can be more important than us come back to us help us you are ours help us help us help us—"

—and they rush forward in a storm, fluid ice engulfing Jimin in a flurry, tearing at Jimin’s clothes and hair and skin, leaving white lines of frost in their wake, and everything is cold cold cold.

Jimin falls to their knees, their hands on either side of their head as they shut their eyes and rock back and forth, anything to keep the dead out of their head but it’s not enough, it’s never enough. Taehyung isn’t here and Jimin doesn’t know what to do and finally they scream “go AWAY!”

An invisible energy forces the spirits away, pushes them back if only for a breath. But the world is quiet, and it lasts long enough for Jimin to still, to lower their hands and open their eyes and look up to see the dead hesitating.

The spirits clearly aren’t pleased, buzzing and swirling like a swarm of angry bees, definitely not placated and only barely deterred.

Jimin doesn’t think. They just run.

Jimin rises on shaking legs and tears down the street, the horizon tilting as they struggle to maintain their balance and just go. Whatever momentary magic held back the dead breaks in an instant and they roar as they rush forward in a wave, flooding the street and pouring towards Jimin.

Jimin can’t remember having ever run this hard in their life. Their thighs go numb from the shock of going from frost to flight, their knees and ankles throbbing with each impact against the asphalt. Street lamps blur in Jimin’s periphery, a latticework of ice painting the road ahead as the frozen fury of the dead closes the distance. Each heartbeat hurts, pounding in Jimin’s skull as they force their body forward, barely thinking, barely cognizant of the distance to Taehyung’s house, just knowing that Taehyung is safety and Jimin needs safety now.

Jimin has never considered themself lucky, but their soul drops out of their shoes when they round a corner several breakneck kilometers later to see a car parked outside Taehyung’s house.

For once, his parents are home.

It’s such a mundane thing, but a whiteout of panic makes Jimin’s mind blank when they realize that this means they can’t go in, they aren’t welcome.

Jimin’s eyes burn at the thought of being defeated by something so simple.

I care about you, I look after you when they hurt you.

Jimin grits their teeth and pushes forward, not sparing a glance over their shoulder, knowing the spirits are close by the growing frost on the bushes in front of Taehyung’s house. The back gate swings open easily under Jimin’s touch, already unlocked, and they skid to a stop under Taehyung’s bedroom window seeing that it’s already open and Taehyung’s head is peaking out.

“You’re awake?” Jimin gasps, winded, bracing their hands on their knees.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Taehyung answers, blaise until he notices Jimin’s state. “Did you run here?”

“Yes,” Jimin huffs. “They—“

Taehyung doesn’t need any more explanation, peering over Jimin’s shoulder into the shadows even though the dead are as invisible to him as ever. Goosebumps prickle up Taehyung’s arm as he extends it to Jimin out the window. “Come on then, hurry.”

“But your parents—“

“Stop arguing and they won’t hear you, now come on.”

Jimin does, hoisting themself through the window and collapsing on Taehyung in a heap. The carpet is rough under Jimin’s hands as they pant, staring down at Taehyung’s face. It’s barely visible with Jimin’s silhouette blocking the moonlight.

They’re both shivering.

“I’ll get the window,” Jimin whispers, standing in a hurry and sliding the glass shut. They pause though when they see frost creeping along the window pane even after the latch clicks.

“You must be exhausted,” Taehyung says, already straightening the sheets. “We can’t light anything with my parents home, but—“

“Taehyung,” Jimin interrupts. The ice is cracking, a web of crystalline cold spreading from the glass to Jimin’s fingers. This isn’t right, normally the dead leave Jimin alone with he’s with Taehyung, knowing that their pleas will go unanswered.

Evidently they’re done being patient.

“Taehyung,” Jimin says, and this time their voice cracks as they try to pull their hands away from the window and their skin sticks, frozen to the glass. Jimin’s voice grows high and panicked as they say “Taehyung they aren’t going away, my hands are stuck—“

A screaming spirit slams into the window, mouth wide and eyes warped with rage and Jimin jumps back so hard their hands rip free. They almost scream, both in fear and pain, but Taehyung slaps a hand over their mouth from behind before any sound can escape.

“Shh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Taehyung murmurs, head bent low against Jimin’s, bringing his voice close to their ear. Every other word cracks.

Jimin is shaking even more now, and it’s not only from the cold. “They aren’t going away, I don’t know what to do—“

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know, they aren’t being reasonable, they just say they want me.”

“Can we outrun them?”

“I tried,” Jimin huffs. “I ran all the way here and they just followed, oh god—“

Jimin breaks off as a translucent hand phases through the outer wall, fingers wide and outstretched, grasping at the air, reaching for Jimin.

“—They’re coming, they’re here, the walls aren’t stopping them.”

Taehyung searches the room, eyes wide in panic but completely blind to the danger. “What about a car? Would that be fast enough?”

That was odd enough to give Jimin pause. “Neither of us have cars.”

“My parents do. We could take it to the train station and just go, run away. Would they be able to keep up with that?”

Jimin blinks. “No, but we can’t just run away.”

Taehyung grabs Jimin by the shoulders, his hands firm but gentle as he turns them to face him. Jimin doesn’t like the thought of having their back to the danger. They swear they feel an icy touch on the back of their neck.

“Jimin, they are hurting you. You’re in danger here.”

“I can’t ask you to abandon your life.”

Taehyung takes Jimin’s face in his hands, and with no hesitation he says, “You’re the only thing for me here. I go where you go.”

Jimin swallows, the fingers reaching through the walls in their periphery not giving Jimin any time to think. All that’s on their mind is the fact that Taehyung is in just as much danger as they are. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Jimin and Taehyung hadn’t meant to end up in Seoul.

They left Taehyung’s parent’s car at the station with the keys under the wheel-well and their cash emergency fund in Taehyung’s pocket and leapt on the first outgoing train from the platform, barely even bothering to read the sign.

Every evening breeze feels like the touch of the dead. Jimin hasn’t stopped to breathe since waking that night, and they don’t think they will any time soon.

The countryside streaks past the train windows in a blur, Jimin resting their head on Taehyung’s shoulder while they watch trees and farms and orchards pass by outside. Jimin has never been this far from home before… if home was what that town was. The world is wide and foreign, intimidating and unfamiliar.

Taehyung has a little more experience, a little more confidence. His hands are steady as he picks up the small backpack they’d had time to grab, then reaches out to hold Jimin’s own trembling hand.

“We’ll be okay,” Taehyung murmurs, but he looks just as afraid as Jimin feels.

At least they’re afraid together.

Jimin gives his hand a squeeze. “If you say so.”

Seoul is scary. They leave the station an hour or so before dawn, but instead of being greeted with the dark night sky and stars overhead there are flashing lights and thumping bass and people, so many of them, throngs in the streets despite the hour. It all makes Jimin’s head pound, and they flinch back into Taehyung’s side anytime someone brushes past too close.

At least there aren’t any shadows for spirits to hide in. Jimin is confident that they left their ghosts behind.

“What now?” Jimin asks eventually.

“Find a place to sleep?” Taehyung replies, but it sounds more like another question than a confident answer. “Seoul isn’t cheap, but at least we have lots of options here, right?”

Jimin rubs their arm with the hand that isn’t secured in Taehyung’s grip. “Yeah, sure.”

So they wander, past drunk foreigners and tired business people and bright storefronts and dark alleys. Neither of them have a clue where they’re going, and Jimin left in such a hurry that they forgot their phone beside their bed.

The skies open up, a slow drizzle pattering the roofs, not enough to clear the haze but plenty to slick the streets and soak Jimin’s sweatshirt, chilling their arms and plastering Taehyung’s fluffy hair to his forehead.

Jimin knows that if they pause for even a heartbeat to stop and think about what they’ve done, they’ll spiral. They, like Taehyung, had nothing holding them back—but this is all so different, so foreign, so overwhelming. Jimin compartmentalizes it, tries to view all the sensory input through an objective lens. Detached.

They end up in a quieter neighborhood, bars and clubs replaced with convenience stores and narrow apartments but still nowhere offering boarding. Jimin’s stomach is rumbling, and they're about to suggest they stop somewhere if only to eat, but Taehyung pauses in the middle of the road.

“We should go in here.”

Jimin frowns at the storefront Taehyung is indicating, if it can be even called a storefront. It’s just a plain wooden door, brown paint peeling at the edges. “Is this even a store?”

Taehyung shrugs. “I don’t know. Does it matter? Can’t you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

Taehyung turns to Jimin and his face fills Jimin’s field of vision, barely visible in the black pre-dawn, raising his hands to either side of Jimin’s face and blocking out the sounds of honking horns and chatter in a dozen languages. “That,” Taehyung says, as if it’s enough.

But somehow it is. When Jimin isn’t being overwhelmed by the world around them, they can feel the steady tug on their still-erratic heart. Even as it beats in panic, it’s pushing against the cage of their ribs, reaching towards that brown door.

“I… yeah. Okay,” Jimin says, enveloping Taehyung’s hands in their own and bringing them down to swing between them.

Everything starts with Taehyung.

Taehyung opens the door.

Despite its delipidated appearance, the hinges are smooth and silent as the door swings open. Jimin and Taehyung step through before closing it behind them, and the very breath in Jimin’s lungs stills when they turn to face the shop.

It’s warm.

It’s so, so, warm.

Candles are flickering on mahogany bookshelves, reflecting off the worn yet well-polished floor where it isn’t covered by a large red rug. Steam curls up from a tea tray set on a low coffee table surrounded by worn leather sofas, a pot of crystalline honey set beside the bowls of steaming flowers. Something about that steam, about this place—it wraps around Jimin’s bones, chasing away that omnipresent chill they hadn’t been able to dispel since the first time a spirit whispered their name.

There’s a young man sitting at one of the sofas, a bowl of tea cupped in his hands, and he turns to face Jimin and Taehyung when the door clicks shut behind them. He has a sharp, angular face, but his hair looks soft, shining in the candlelight, and those angles completely transform as a grin takes over his face.

“Welcome to the Magic Shop. How can I make you feel better today?”

Jimin looks back and forth between this man and Taehyung by their side, who looks equally as puzzled. Yet it isn’t a concerning puzzlement—it’s a calm curiosity, an intrigued wonder, rather than the fear of the unknown that’s been strangling Jimin for hours.

“I… I don’t know. I feel better already,” Jimin confesses, and Taehyung gives their hand a reaffirming squeeze.

“It’s four in the morning,” the man says, setting his cup gingerly on the table and gesturing to the seats around him. “You must be exhausted, please sit and have a drink. It’s chamomile.”

Jimin doesn’t know if it’s them or Taehyung who takes the first step, just knows that suddenly they’re sitting, enveloped by the soft leather on their back and the fluffy rug at their feet.

“You must be tired too,” Taehyung says as he takes two of the three steaming bowls on the table, passing one to Jimin. “What is this place? Who are you?”

“Oh sorry, I’m Hoseok,” Hoseok introduces, and Jimin can see now that he must only be a couple years older than the two of them. “And this is the Magic Shop. We help people, give them what they need, that’s all. We aren’t normally open at this hour but Yoongi-hyung said something was coming, and I couldn’t sleep anyway. I guess that you two are that something.”

Taehyung blinks. “You knew we were coming?”

Hoseok shrugs like it’s no big deal to predict the future. “Yoongi’s premonitions aren’t usually very concrete or specific—they’re more like feelings, really. He’s been restless for days, expecting something. He finally passed out tonight just because he was so exhausted from pacing.”

Passing out sounds good to Jimin. Now that the fight-or-flight adrenaline has disappeared and they finally feel safe enough to relax, they think they may collapse any moment.

“Magic,” Jimin murmurs, turning the word over in their mouth. “I think that may be the sort of help I need.”

Hoseok quirks an eyebrow as his grin turns conspiratorial. “Yeah? What sort of problem are you having?”

“I’m…” Jimin trails off, losing their train of thought in the fog of fatigue. “I’m.. I see…”

And then Jimin does collapse.

Jimin wakes up to a sprig of mint under their nose.

They’re tucked into a large bed made with white linen sheets, the sun streaming through a window overhead. Other than the bed, the room is plain, empty save for Hoseok leaning over Jimin with the mint and a second man, taller and broader, waiting in the doorway. He smiles sheepishly when Jimin looks up at him.

“Hi. I’m Namjoon,” he introduces with shy dimples and a small wave. “I carried you up here when you passed out. I hope that’s alright.”

Jimin nods and sits up slowly, feeling Hoseok’s hand on their back, guiding them upright. “Where’s Taehyung?”

“He’s downstairs checking out the shop with Seokjin-hyung,” Hoseok explains, withdrawing the mint leaf. “Seokjin is the one who bought this place. Taehyung expressed interest, so Seokjin is giving him the run-down.” Hoseok studies Jimin for a while, giving them a slow once-over that leaves them feeling exposed despite their thick sweatshirt. “Taehyung says that you two aren’t strangers to the supernatural.”

Jimin grimaces, looking down at their hands where they’re folded atop the bedspread. Taehyung is the only person they’ve told, ever, and they still aren’t very sure how to have this conversation.

But Hoseok had said ‘magic,’ and this place feels more safe than anywhere Jimin’s been before.

“Yeah.” They swallow down the sleep in their throat. “Yeah, I can see spirits. I hear them too, and talk to them. That’s why we’re here?”

“Here as in the Magic Shop? Or…” Namjoon asks.

“Seoul,” Jimin answers. “We ran away because things were getting too dangerous. We don’t really know what we’re doing.”

Hoseok and Namjoon nod as if this is completely commonplace. “I’ll get Seokjin,” Namjoon says, stepping back into the hall. “Sounds like you could learn a thing or two about protection spells and warding from him.” And then Namjoon is gone.

“Is it alright if I touch you?” Hoseok asks, and Jimin nods slowly, somewhat puzzled by the request, but Hoseok merely brushes their hair back from their forehead. “You’ll be safe here. Seokjin has warded this place to heaven and back. No spirits are getting in unless we let them. Understand?”

Jimin nods again, because they truly do understand. The warmth they feel here… it’s not warmth necessarily, but the absence of the spirits clinging to Jimin’s bones. This is how it feels to breathe without the dead weighing Jimin down.

Jimin feels like air, like all it would take is a breeze to send their soul spiraling up toward the sun.

They wouldn’t want to go without Taehyung, though.

“I want to see Taehyung.”

Hoseok’s brows furrow. “Are you sure you feel up to walking? You were pretty drained.”

Jimin nods as if that small movement isn’t enough to set the room spinning. They feel listless, unanchored, incomplete without Taehyung by their side.

Hoseok extends an arm and Jimin takes it, leaning on him as they swing their legs over the side of the bed and rise to standing. They pause to sway for a moment, and Hoseok’s eyes narrow as he notices but he doesn’t say anything. Jimin is determined enough that Hoseok wouldn’t be able to stop them even if he wanted to.

They take slow steps into the hallway, Jimin maintaining their grip on Hoseok’s arm. It’s a narrow hall paneled in dark wood, but well-lit and covered in photographs. Jimin notices Hoseok and Namjoon in many of them, as well as two other men, laughing and smiling and tender in all of them. Seokjin and Yoongi, Jimin guesses.

Down a staircase is the kitchen, bright from the sunlight pouring in through the window over the sink, filtered through the leaves of the herbs potted there. Crystals sparkle on shelves over the white counters which are cluttered with unwashed dishes stacked in neat piles.

“Sorry for the mess,” Hoseok apologizes, “We just had lunch and I haven’t had a chance to clean yet.”

“This is nothing,” Jimin says, thinking of what his mother’s kitchen usually looked like.

This mess is the mess a family makes after a meal together. It’s hard to hate.

Hoseok guides Jimin past a maple dining table with far too many chairs and through a doorway across the room and Jimin gasps at what they see, freezing in the threshold, their drip tightening on Hoseok’s arm.

“Are you okay?” Hoseok asks, but his voice is far away to Jimin.

Jimin has never seen a room so alive.

Shelves line the room, and on them are plants upon plants upon plants, vines draping the walls and leaves catching the sun and flashing like emeralds. Jimin holds out a hand in a daze, taking a deep breath and reveling in the feeling of green filling their lungs as they trace a gentle hand over some nearby labels.

Basil. Rosemary. Mint.

“I never want to leave this place.”

Hoseok’s grin turns wry. “We’ll see about that.”

“I think we may be able to arrange something,” A new voice says, and Jimin looks up to see a face unfamiliar except in photos standing in the doorway to the front room. Jimin can almost feel their heart stutter as it notices this man and his broad shoulders, his full lips, the light in his eyes. “I’m Seokjin. Rumor has it you’d like to learn about protection.”

“Yes,” Jimin breathes. “I want to learn everything.”

Time passes.

Jimin and Taehyung re-enroll in a local school, and though they’re a year behind, Namjoon and Yoongi are helping them study. Their gentle encouragement and enduring support is more helpful than academies ever were.

Jimin never had the capacity to care about school before, but now their brain is a void, hungering for any scrap of knowledge it can collect. They sit at the maple table every evening and take neat, diligent notes on calculus and history, then once all that is done those books are closed and other ones are opened—books about protection and energy and reaching out to those who have passed without letting them push back.

Jimin is still scared to commune with the spirits alone, but they aren’t afraid to with Yoongi by their side. Even though Yoongi can’t see them, he keeps the dangerous ones at bay until Jimin can learn to do so for themself, and maybe do the same for others.

Jimin wants to learn that, too.

But one afternoon Jimin’s routine is interrupted. They come home from the bus stop after school, hand in hand with Taehyung as always, and Namjoon is out front, stripping the paint from the door.

“What’s this for?” Jimin asks, letting go of Taehyung’s hand to wrap their arms around Namjoon from behind and prop their chin on his shoulder.

“This door has been ugly for years, but we have a very talented painter living with us now,” Namjoon explains, smiling up at Taehyung. “First impressions are important, don’t you think? We want the right people to be drawn to this place. Seokjin figured it’d be a good idea for Taehyung to give it a new look.”

Taehyung moves to kneel beside Namjoon, running a careful hand over the bare wood. “Yeah, I’d like that,” he says, and grins over at Namjoon and Jimin.

Jimin can’t help but smile back. This love sparks a fire in their heart.

Jimin tries to focus on studying while Taehyung painted outside but they get restless quickly, bouncing their leg under the table while their eyes trace the words on the pages in front of them without internalizing any of it. Yoongi places a calming hand on Jimin’s knee and they feel their very bones still.

“Maybe take a break today?” Yoongi says, raising Jimin’s hand to his lips and placing a soft kiss there. Jimin would’ve closed their eyes and swooned if Yoongi weren’t
so utterly captivating, from the crescents of his eyes to the slope of his nose to the curve of his lips. It’s impossible to look away. “You’ve worked hard lately.”

“Are you sure it’s alright?” Jimin asks, even though they know they won’t be able to bully their brain into any more studying tonight with their thoughts drawn toward Taehyung painting outside.

Painting with Taehyung will always be Jimin’s favorite place to be.

Yoongi nods and closes both of their books with finality. “Go. I’ll get started on dinner and get you when it’s ready.”

Jimin beams as they stand, planting a kiss on Yoongi’s hair. Yoongi waves them off even while blushing and Jimin bounces outside. The sun is shining, but it’s pale in comparison to the glow in their bones and on Taehyung’s skin.

“Careful,” Taehyung admonishes, quickly pulling an open can of paint out of Jimin’s path. His eyes light up when he notices Jimin’s smile. “Someone’s cheerful. Shouldn’t you be studying?”

“Yoongi-hyung gave me a pass today,” Jimin says, sitting cross-cross on the ground beside Taehyung and leaning their head on his shoulder and hand over his heart. “He likes us together as much as we do.

Taehyung’s chest reverberates with his laughter. “We’re all good together.”

Jimin hums in acknowledgement and wonders if Taehyung feels what they feel—togetherness and happiness, but not quite contentedness nor wholeness. Jimin knows something, or someone, is missing, though they can’t figure out what more there is to wish for than this.

Taehyung sets the can back down and Jimin sees then that it’s a vibrant emerald. The door is a deep evergreen, latticed with a pattern of brilliant ivy. Jimin’s eyes burn as they look between it and the boy beside them.

“Do you like it?” Taehyung asks, his hand painting a steady stroke of jade down the door.

“I love it.”

"Stay away from the boy in green."

Jimin is never going to let him go.

It’s raining.

It isn’t a weak rain, one that hangs in the air stagnant, trapping the smog. It’s a powerful thunder, hammering the dirt of the city and washing it away.

“Now this is a rainstorm,” Hoseok declares, sweeping into the kitchen while Jimin and Seokjin are cleaning the dinner dishes at the sink. Hoseok reaches into a cupboard and withdraws a dozen jars of various sizes, taking them down one by one and lining them up on the counter neatly before sweeping them up in his arms. “I’m going to the roof to collect some water. All help is appreciated,” he adds, disappearing as quickly as he came.

Seokjin sets down the towel he’d been using to dry the wet dishes Jimin handed him. “I suppose I should collect some moon water while he’s up there too. Want me to send Yoongi down to help with the rest of the mess?”

Jimin smiles at Seokjin. “Only if he feels up to it.”

Seokjin laughs and kisses Jimin’s cheek. “I’m sure he will. Thanks love.”

“‘Course, Hyung.” Jimin watches as Seokjin grabs as many jars as he can fit in his large hands and follows Hoseok up the stairs.

It only takes Jimin a few more minutes to finish the dishes, and they immediately crank on the gas stove and place a pan on top.

Taehyung is watching the shop now, but he’d been low-energy at dinner. Baking may be therapeutic for Jimin, but eating is for Taehyung. There’s a restless energy buzzing under Jimin’s skin tonight, so they channel it into making something nice for Taehyung.

Yoongi comes down the stairs when Jimin is pouring sesame seeds into the now-warm pan. “Seokjin said you needed help with dishes. What’s this?”

“I’m making dasik for Taehyung,” Jimin explains, keeping a careful eye on the seeds while they toast. “You can help with this instead, if you’d like.”

Yoongi hums in agreement. “What would you like me to do?”

Jimin points to the mortar and pestle on the counter. “Grind these up once they’re golden? I’ll get started on the honey syrup while you do.”

Yoongi’s hand wraps around Jimin’s when he takes the spatula from him, and Jimin proceeds to get the honey and sugar down from the cupboard.

“You really fit in here now,” Yoongi observes, seeing the way Jimin moves around their kitchen—their home. “How does it feel?”

Jimin admits then what they’ve been feeling for months, maybe even years, since they first arrived in Seoul. “Sometimes I berate myself for giving up so easily, for running away,” they explain, keeping their eyes on their work as they pour the honey into a warming pan. “I look back on that situation and think, ‘Was it really so bad? I’m doing so great now, I could’ve handled that.’ I don’t think I regret coming here—I’ve gained so much, and there wasn’t really anything worth holding on to, but I wonder sometimes. I wonder if I shouldn’t have run away, if I am weak for having given up so easily.”

Yoongi pours the now-golden seeds from his pan into the mortar before turning to hug Jimin from behind. The pan of honey and sugar swims in Jimin’s vision as tears well in their eyes.

“You weren’t weak then and you aren’t weak now,” Yoongi says, and his voice is as deep and warm and slow as that honey. “Giving up takes incredible strength, and so does leaving everything you know. Everyone is entitled to safety, and you aren’t a coward for leaving a dangerous situation. You shouldn’t have had to live like that even as long as you did. Besides, our capacities and what we can handle grow and change. You can handle more now than you could’ve then, but you never would’ve healed if you’d stayed. The you of today may be okay, but the you of then wasn’t, and never would've been, if you hadn't left. Do you understand?”

Jimin closes their eyes and leans back into Yoongi’s body behind them. “Yes,” they breathe, and that breath unwinds every muscle it passes as it leaves Jimin’s body, leaving nothing but light behind. “I think I’m starting to, at least.”

“Good,” Yoongi says, and kisses the back of Jimin’s neck. “Continue to. I’ll remind you as often as you need.”

Yoongi grinds the seeds into powder, and Jimin can’t help but watch the way the tendons in his arms flex while he does. Jimin stirs the powder into the syrup and they and Yoongi both sit at the table, molding and pressing the dough into cookies while kicking each other’s legs out of sight beneath the table, trying to mess each other up. It’s hard for Jimin to see their work while they’re laughing so much, but dasik are simple enough that they’re nearly impossible to ruin.

Yoongi excuses himself when the last cookie is finished and Jimin hears the notes of his piano drifting down the stairs when they bring the plate of cookies out to Taehyung in the front room. He’s bent over the front desk, leaning his head against the wood when Jimin walks in. He sits up immediately when he sees them approach.

“Are those dasik?” He asks, leaning forward.

“Yep,” Jimin says, setting the plate down on the coffee table but picking up a handful and bringing them to Taehyung. “Yoongi helped make them, so they have double the love.”

“There’s no such thing as too much of that,” Taehyung says, smiling as he takes a bite of the cookie Jimin holds to his lips. It’s a weary smile though, not reaching his down turned eyes.

“You’re tired,” Jimin observes, running a thumb over Taehyung’s cheekbone. “Is anything on your mind?”

Taehyung shrugs, slumping back down into his seat. “Not really. Well, not anything new. It’s just one of those days.”

Jimin nods, knowing exactly what he means.

“How about I take over for the rest of the night?” Jimin proposes, coming around the desk to wrap an arm around Taehyung and help him up. “You grab as many cookies as you’d like and head on up to rest with the others.”

Taehyung just nods gratefully, leaning in to hug Jimin, burying his face in Jimin’s neck and letting out a sigh that weighs as much as he does. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jimin replies, and it’s as easy as breathing. “Get some rest, okay?”

“I will,” Taehyung says and steps back with that same tired smile. He grabs six cookies on his way out.

Jimin gets comfortable in the chair Taehyung just vacated, the leather still warm from his body heat. The record book is open on the desk and Jimin looks through their recent business transactions, lists of customer names and items purchased or given and the dates of the exchanges. Yoongi’s piano music echoes low through the ceiling, and the smell of the remaining dasik waft toward Jimin.

Sitting here, seeing all this, Jimin can’t believe that this is their life now. They never could’ve imagined something like this for themself before. It’s everything Jimin never thought to wish for but still desperately needed—though something is still missing.

Then the bell above the door chimes and a boy walks in.

He’s sopping wet, having clearly been caught outside in the deluge that Hoseok was so excited about. His dark hair is long, plastered to his forehead and hanging in his wide, dark eyes that dart back and forth, scanning the room. Water drips from his baggy sweatshirt and onto the floor, puddling around his boots. He looks absolutely miserable, and Jimin viscerally feels their heart twisting at the sight of him.

This is someone Jimin can help. This is someone Jimin wants to help.

“Welcome to the Magic shop,” they say, and smile with all the hope thundering in their heart. “How can I make you feel better today?”