It was the evening of that very Friday when I moved into my new home, accompanied by the ever-eager BTS and Mirae, who had tagged along but cautiously avoided Jimin-sunbaenim, who looked at her worriedly.

I had no idea what happened there, but going into my new house made all thoughts of that leave my mind.

“We made sure to get a house with enough space for the four of us,” Eomeonim smiled cheerfully as I marvelled at the size of the place. “Youngwonie did quite well in his office so he’s been getting a higher paycheck. He asked for a transfer to his company’s main branch in Seoul.”

It was a two-storey house, modestly sized but still bigger than my old house had been. The windows had potted ledges of flowering plants that draped over the edge. We entered the house, the boys pulling my suitcases. The inside looked even more spacious. The walls were a tan brown, and the inside was simply decorated, but there was a lot of greenery. A potted tree was stationed in between the sofas and the coffee table was made of solid glass.

“Your room is across mine,” Youngjae-oppa mentioned, pulling me by the arm.

I followed him eagerly up the stairs as he led me through a hallway and through a closed door.

When inside, I gasped with surprise. The walls were a rose-gold colour, and the bedsheets were a light dusty pink. How did they remember that pink was my favourite colour?

There was a study table and a bookcase, which I immediately took note of. Back at the old house, I didn’t have a bookcase, so all my textbooks had been stacked in corner of the room away from harm. There was also a dressing table, which Eomeonim remarked at.

“Girls need to learn how to dress up,” she laughed as I shot her a dry look.

I glanced at the entire room in stupefied shock.

“This whole room is mine?” I asked, taking a breath.

“Yup,” Youngwon-oppa grinned. “Youngjae’s been sleeping in your room, and he hates how pink it is. But now he’ll have to move back into my room, so you can have this room for yourself.”

I shot a tearful glance at Youngjae-oppa.

“Hey, it’s no biggie really,” he hurriedly waved his hands. “Don’t cry over nonsense like this.”

I wiped my tears away, but the lump in my throat just grew bigger and the weight in my heart grew heavier.

“Let’s leave you to unpack, then everyone can come down for a good meal,” Eomeonim smiled and moved out of the room.

My brothers traipsed after her, leaving me with my friends. I cocked a grin at them as I placed Hinsaek's box on the floor, the bird crooing in delight.

“Shall we get started?”

---

“So how’s Hyuna doing?” Hoseok asked conversationally as Jimin’s eyes trailed after the lost figure of Hwang Mirae who was busy pulling stuff out of boxes and placing it on the floor.

“She’s fine,” Jimin muttered noncommittally as he gazed at the girl. “Say, do you think she’s ignoring me?”

“Yeah, I think she’s ignoring you,” Jungkook popped in helpfully.

Jimin glared at his intrusion.

“Dude, what’s up between the two of you?” Namjoon interjected, pointing at the girl. “You’ve only mentioned her like once, but every time you’re in the same room with her it’s like the energy gets magnified thousandfold.”

“Look, nothing’s going on, okay,” Jimin said distractedly, his eyes still on the girl. “And I have a girlfriend.”

“You didn’t seem like you had a girlfriend yesterday,” Jungkook replied.

Hoseok frowned. The boy did seem rather attached to the girl yesterday at the hospital. He’d been hugging her and whispering to her while the rest of the guys were talking to each other.

“Leave me alone okay,” Jimin groaned.

“If you’re going to hurt Hyuna, you should just break it off immediately,” Namjoon advised. “She’s too good a girl to be cheated on.”

Jimin paled as Namjoon mentioned the words.

“You… cheated on her?” Jungkook asked quietly, the question that everyone was itching to ask.

“It was just one kiss,” Jimin interjected desperately but the rest gasped in horror, making the connection between the two.

“Bangtan meeting, in the living room!” Namjoon called as Seokjin-hyung and Yoongi-hyung and Taehyung came over.

The seven of them made their way downstairs, gathering at the sofa.

“What happened?” Yoongi-hyung asked disinterestedly.

“Jimin-hyung kissed Mirae-ssi!” Jungkook whispered in shock.

Yoongi-hyung seemed to go rigid, before shooting a vicious glare at Jimin.

“You ing bastard-” he got up, only to be pulled down by Seokjin-hyung.

“Calm it Yoongi,” Seokjin-hyung warned. “We don’t want to make a situation here. We’re guests, remember.”

Yoongi-hyung clenched his fists and took deep breaths.

Hoseok blanched at the man’s anger, but he knew the man was a stickler for honesty and loyalty, and couldn’t tolerate cheating. He made a mental note to never cheat on Youngmi, but he realised he never wanted to anyway. She was perfect.

He giggled to himself as Jimin let out a low wail of despair.

“I honestly didn’t mean to,” he groaned. “It was just… she looked so pained and I wanted to make her feel better… and things just spiralled out of control.”

“Do you still love her?” Seokjin-hyung asked quietly.

The room was silent as Jimin deliberated his answer, before finally holding his head in his hands.

“I tried to forget her, I really did,” Jimin sighed deeply, voice muffled by his hands.

“You have to tell Hyuna about this,” Namjoon said fiercely. “That girl doesn’t deserve a guy who cheats on her.”

“Yeah, it’ll hurt her more if you don’t tell her the truth,” Hoseok interjected. “Honesty is the best in any relationship.”

“If you keep lying to her, you’ll just hurt her,” Jungkook said.

Jimin refused to answer, head still in his hands.

“You need to sort your issues out with Hwang Mirae-ssi,” Yoongi-hyung stated clearly. “Whatever happened between you two, you have to talk about it. Or you’re going to end up hurting two people, not just Hyuna.”

“Come on, let’s go find the girl and thrash it out with her,” Namjoon stood up, and led the way. “Jimin, you better decide what you want to do. DO you want Hyuna, or Hwang Mirae-ssi?”

The rest followed after him, casting worried glances at Jimin still sitting on the couch, head in his hands.

Hoseok wondered noncommittally how his girlfriend was holding up, being with the other girl alone in the room.

---

Well, she was crying in my arms, so I probably wasn’t handling it very well. I didn’t even have a clear idea about what had happened between the two of them.

Apparently when she’d left the hospital, he’d insisted on walking her home. She’d still been crying then, and he’d wrapped his arm around her, trying to comfort her. She had been thankful to him for his support, and she had missed him so much.

And then she finally gave in to her urges and kissed him.

Now she was feeling like a piece of , because she’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to take the guy back.

But then they’d kissed in a moment of vulnerability and the entire situation was a ing trainwreck.

“Do you still love him?” I asked quietly.

“I… I don’t know,” she sobbed. “Everything . I hate this. I hate boys.”

“It’s okay to love someone even when you’ve broken up,” I said. “But you’ve broken up with him for almost three years now. Evidently you still have feelings for him, and he probably does for you too, seeing how he responded to you.”

“But if he loved me, why did he abandon me the first time?” she asked desperately. “Why did he break up with me?”

“You’ve got to ask him that, not me,” I patted her shoulder sympathetically. “Come on, I’ll give you guys some space so you can sort it out. Let’s go.”

She followed me hesitantly, wordlessly as we made our way downstairs.

We bumped right into BTS minus Jimin-sunbaenim.

“Ah, we were just looking for you,” Namjoon-sunbaenim directed to Mirae awkwardly, having never spoken to her before.

“Go follow him,” I encouraged as she darted a fearful glance at me.

She nodded hesitantly and followed the boy, tail between her legs. I stared after her worriedly, hoping that things would go okay.

---

There was silence as Jimin kept his eyes on the floor, not making eye contact with the girl sitting opposite him.

What was he supposed to say?

“I guess you don’t want to talk,” the girl said brokenly, standing up to go.

He flicked his eyes up, catching the stray tearstains on her cheeks as his heart crashed to the floor. Of all things, he’d always hated to make her cry.

“I still love you,” escaped his lips, Jimin hardly trying to censor himself.

He was tired of the secrecy. He was tired of the heartbreak, of the nights he spent dreaming of her, of the pain he felt whenever he caught sight of her ashy hair swishing past in the school hallways.

“Then why did you break up with me?” she asked quietly, sitting back down and refusing to make eye contact with him.

“You changed,” he answered steadily. “You stopped caring about the important stuff. You only thought about worthless things, things that didn’t matter. After you joined Block B you just seemed so distant and so unreachable.”

“And you thought the solution was to break up?” she glared at the boy, aghast.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he confessed tiredly. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

“Thanks to you,” she snarled. “I’ve been in seventeen failed relationships. You ruined me.”

“And I want to fix it,” he replied steadily, shocking her into silence.

“I still love you, Rae,” he carried on. “You’re different now. You actually care about people, like Lee Youngmi. I didn’t know it but I fell for you all over again. Seeing you yesterday just made me realise it again. I’ve missed you so much.”

She started tearing as Jimin’s heart broke.

“How can I be sure you won’t abandon me again?” she asked painfully, covering her tearstained face with her hands.

“I’ve changed too,” he replied confidently. “I used to be scared. I was terrified that you wouldn’t love me anymore, but I know different now. I know it’s hard but give me a chance again, please.”

“What about that girl?” she asked quietly.

“I called her just now,” he answered. “I want you Rae. I don’t want anyone else.”

She hesitated to answer, tears in her eyes.

---

I twiddled with my thumbs, staring at the clock every now and then. The two of them were still embroiled in their drama downstairs but it’d been twenty minutes already.

I was getting really tired and frazzled. For the past two days, I’d been haunted by thoughts that I had been at fault for my father’s death. If I hadn’t gotten injured, I could have been there to stop him.

And I also felt like I didn’t deserve any of this new stuff like having an actual loving family who cared about me or even `1my very own room. It was the small things, but it all built up over the whole day and the stress was getting to me.

But I pushed all thoughts of that aside. Now I had to focus on Mirae and Jimin-sunbaenim.

As if the devil had answered the call himself, the door pushed open and Mirae peeked in, a light dust of pink on her cheeks.

I looked at her expectantly.

And she entered hand in hand with Jimin-sunbaenim, shooting me a grateful glance.

I felt a smile break out on my face as the rest of BTS bounded over to Jimin-sunbaenim, who smiled bashfully, his eyes crinkling.

I felt a sense of peace envelop my heart. I’d known how pained she’d been about Jimin-sunbaenim, and how he had screwed up romantic love for her. But I knew the guy well enough to know that he wasn’t going to treat her badly a second time.

My friends were finally happy.

---

As I lay in my new bed that night, the torturing thoughts came back.

I thought about the loss of my father, though he had not been the best. I thought about the demise of the one person who had been constant in my entire life. I thought about having been gone for a month, for not being there to stop him from overdrinking which led to his death.

Was it my fault that it had happened?

I had faced so much stress the whole day. Meeting my brothers had taken a toll on me, though it was a positive experience. I had been robbed of growing up with a proper family, but now I finally had people who loved me truly.  

I didn’t deserve one bit of this . I honestly didn’t deserve anything.

Hadn’t I hurt other people? Hadn’t I bullied others? What sort of person did that and still had good things happen to them?

I groaned, the thoughts swirling in my head like dark storm clouds. Why couldn’t I stop beating myself up over things I couldn’t control?

And then my phone rang. I picked up the call from Superhero-sunbaenim.

“I knew it,” came his cheerful voice.

“What do you know?” I said drily.

“That you’d be stressing,” Superhero-sunbaenim laughed.  “What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up,” I muttered stubbornly.

“Don’t lie to me,” I could hear him rolling his eyes. “Is there anything I can do?”

I recalled the time I first confessed to him about my father. Back then he’d helped me… Perhaps he’d be able to help me again. Not to mention I was just aching to lean against him once again and feel his sturdy chest against my cheek, reminding me that I wasn’t alone in life.

“I… Do you wanna meet up?” I asked hesitantly.

There was a pause.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” I laughed awkwardly after a while.

“No no, I want to!” he replied immediately. “I’m just wondering how I’m going to sneak out of the house, since I have curfew at 12am and it’s already past.”

“It’s okay, we can talk tomorrow or something,” I said, trying not to show the disappointment in my voice.

“Pabo,” he grinned through the earpiece. “I’m coming.”

I couldn’t contain the quirk of my lips as he hung up the phone. What did I do to deserve this guy again?

---

“Hey,” he called as I looked up from the porch seat.

I jogged over to the gate, letting him in before we walked back to the seat.

I collapsed onto the seat, sighing deeply, my head in my hands. He sat next to me, our knees almost touching.

His presence was like fire on ice. I felt like I was melting, but it was a good sensation. It felt warm and comfortable, a feeling that was foreign, yet welcoming. I breathed in his presence, basking in the warm glow he was radiating.

“I’m guessing something’s up?” he hummed quietly as the cicadas buzzed.

I shot him a look.

“Why else would I ask you to come?” I asked.

“You mean you didn’t want to spend time with your boyfriend?!” he gasped in mock-horror. “At 12.30 in the morning?!”

I felt my lips twitch as he feigned a shocked look.

“You’re an idiot,” I sighed as he sat a little closer, our thighs touching.

We lapsed back into silence as my thoughts returned to the current situation. Honestly, I was a terrible person. I had hurt others just to make myself feel good, and then tried to recompensate by not being an , but was that the really correct thing to do? I didn’t deserve a good family. I didn’t deserve anything, like the curse of my life dying, or having found my family again.

“It’s your dad, isn’t it?” his voice was serious now, his eyes compassionate.

I felt another heavy rock collapse onto my back as I turned my eyes back to the floor, feelings washing over me.

“… Yeah,” I finally let out, my voice etched with pain. “I just feel like… he died because of me. It was my fault.”

“That’s literally the stupidest thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth,” the boy snorted, grabbing my hand tightly.

I turned to face him, frowning.

“That’s not helpful,” I pointed out, but he kept going.

“You were in the hospital, Youngmi. It’s not your fault that your dad couldn’t control his drinking and killed himself in the process.”

“But if I hadn’t-”

“Don’t give me crap about if you hadn’t gotten hurt and landed in the hospital. You went to the hospital because of some , and you are not at fault. Everything that has happened is terrible, but you shouldn’t blame yourself for it.”

I let his words sink in deeply as I contemplated what he said.

“You have a point,” I looked at him ruefully. “Why do you always talk sense?”

“Because I’m your senior,” he teased.

I cracked a weak grin.

“I just feel so… bad. I don’t deserve any of this. I don’t deserve this house, or this family, or anything good,” I finally released what I really felt. “I’m a bad person, Hoseok-sunbaenim. I don’t even deserve you.”

He looked shaken as I used his real name. I felt myself get choked up again.

“I don’t deserve happiness when I’ve taken away so much of others’ happiness.”

“Youngmi,” he said slowly, turning my chin to face his. His eyes were full of compassion, as his mouth trembled as if he wanted to say something.

Slowly, he brought his lips to my forehead, kissing me softly.

I leaned into his embrace, being comforted by his piney woody smell. He wrapped his arms around me and laid his head on my shoulder, his hair tickling my cheek.

“I love you,” he said compassionately.

I flushed hard at his sudden confession, my heart rate increasing by a thousand beats. I opened my mouth to say something but he continued.

“I love you not only as a woman, but I love you as a person,” he whispered slowly, voice causing my cheeks to vibrate. “You are a wonderful human being, despite how messed up you may be. You’re a diamond in the rough, and I love you, chips and all.”

He pulled away, eyes gazing directly into mine. They shone like moons, and I felt myself slip into a comfortable atmosphere, like I was home. It felt so right, being there in his arms.

The lump in my throat got bigger as his grip tightened slightly.

“And I know your family loves you too,” he smiled, crinkling his eyes. “They moved here to find you. You don’t deserve it, but none of us do. If you are a horrible person, I think we all are horrible people somehow. You are not what you did in the past. You’re a new Lee Youngmi, one who has learned from her past and is now striving to be a better person. It doesn’t mean that you’re bad, but you just want to be better. You aren’t an angel, but you’re a human. And humans try.”

I lifted my hand and touched my cheek. It was wet. I was crying.

And like a dam, the barrier broke. I let out my frustration, my anger at myself for my terrible past. I let out my guilt at having treated people meanly and bullying others to numb my pain. I cried for having been hurt by my father so many times that it destroyed my humanity, until Jungkook and Superhero-sunbaenim brought it back.

And then lean muscular arms wrapped around my shaking frame, reminding me that I wasn't alone in this. He knew exactly what I had gone through. He knew the pain and hurt I had tried to hide from others. He had exposed my hidden wounds, and then he had healed them.

Finally, the tears gradually turned into whimpers, but the patting on my back and the lips against my ear whispering comforting words were always constant.

I sat up, wiping my puffy face with my hands as I showed an embarrassed smile.

“I look like a mess,” I groaned through the tears, covering my face with my hands.

“You’re my mess,” he grinned fondly, pulling my hands away and gazing at me with his deep brown eyes.

I flicked my eyes away, my heart galloping and a sudden shyness enveloping my entire being.

It felt so strange, knowing that my best friend was now my boyfriend. I just couldn't wrap my head around how I'd missed this for so long. And it was so easy to slip into a comfortable atmosphere with him, and then out of the blue, electricty would rip through the air and the hair on my arms would tingle as my mouth turned dry when I even looked at him.

It felt weird, but it felt right. It scared me how much this boy meant to me. He was my best friend and my knight, and I didn't know if I could live without him.