If people were meant to travel at 3 A.M, then… then… Yoongi was too tired to finish the thought and certainly too tired to read the train map Taehyung kept shoving in his face.  Taehyung tried unsuccessfully for another few seconds before Yoongi turned around and gave him a look that convinced him that it would probably be easier if he just let his friend sleep.  He returned to puzzling over the map by himself.  Leave it to the worthless cabbage to leave him in charge of monitoring their location when they both knew that he had a terrible sense of direction.

Yoongi stared out the train window through half-closed eyes and lazily watched as the sun began to rise, casting a rich orange glow on the skyscrapers in the distance and causing the huge panes of glass to sparkle and glimmer.  Then he heard a gasp of awe and turned to see Taehyung marvelling at the view with shining eyes and a wide-open mouth.

Peeking through his grey bangs, Yoongi glanced at Taehyung, then at the majestic sight outside the window.  Then he shifted his dark blue snapback so the brim covered his eyes and went back to sleep.  Why would he lose sleep when he could watch the exact same thing on high resolution monitor when he got to a more comfortable location?

Yoongi saw some strange things while he slept.

He hadn’t been fully awake at the time, but he was pretty sure Taehyung had told him earlier on they were going down to Busan to see Jungkook, not Hawaii.  He was also fairly certain that mudfish didn’t live on top of palm trees.  He had no idea what time it was as he wasn’t wearing his watch, nor could he see a clock in the mass of palm trees and playground structures around him.  Why would there be a clock on a palm tree anyways?

But Yoongi didn’t remember that Hawaii had sped-up sunrises were actually sped-up sunsets and vice versa.  He was at a loss for words as he watched the sun rise and the moon set, which caused the entire island he was on to become basked in darkness.  As the sun went down and the moon rose, the world was awash in sunshine again.

All of a sudden, the cycle tripled in speed.  The universe became a blur of spinning moons and suns.  His toes curled into the white sand, which was being whipped up by strong winds that had come out of nowhere.  White strobe lights suddenly dropped down the palm trees and began flashing on and off.  He tried not to focus on the strobe lights and their incessant blinking.  If this continued, he was afraid that he was going to have a seizure.

But he couldn’t afford to get a seizure now.  This was Hawaii.

What?  But what difference did it make whether or not this was Hawaii?  Yoongi opened his mouth to say something but closed it again because he was too confused to react.

He avoided the blinding glare of the flashing strobe lights and focused on the sun and the moon instead.  He squinted and did a double take.

Was that him sitting on top of the sun, holding a microphone?

As soon as he processed the thought, his heart stopped beating and he stood rooted to the spot, unable to move and unable to breathe.  Something had cut off his blood flow and he had no idea what it was.  There was a low, deep voice giggling in the background, and it was only getting louder and louder by the second.  Though he was trying his best to do something, anything that might get his blood flowing again, it was really pretty pointless because Yoongi had no idea what had happened and what he was supposed to do about it.

He jerked awake to find Taehyung next to him, giggling to himself as he played a game on his phone.  Yoongi immediately slapped him in the face as hard as he could.

The phone dropped out of Taehyung’s hands as he yelped and gingerly touched his stinging cheek.  Yoongi was still breathing hard, a fearful look in his eyes.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL --” Taehyung bellowed before Yoongi clapped his hand over his mouth.

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed, meeting the irritated faces of the ten or so other passengers in their car, who had been sleeping before Taehyung had woken them all up.

“What do you mean, ‘keep your voice down’?!”  Taehyung asked angrily once Yoongi removed his hand.  “What the hell was that for?”

“You woke me up with your ing giggling.”  Yoongi glared at him with such ferocity that Taehyung reluctantly backed down.  “You should be happy I haven’t ripped off your balls yet but I swear to God, I’m gonna do that if you wake me up like that again.”

Life lesson of the day: never wake a sleeping Yoongi.  He had learned the hard way earlier this year when he had first moved in with him.  Taehyung let out a faint groan and let his head drop back against his seat.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

Yoongi ignored him.  He was still trying to calm himself.  The reason behind his bad mood wasn’t entirely because Taehyung had woken him up, but because of his dream.  He had no idea what the dream was supposed to mean and it scared him.  It wasn’t an exhilarating kind of scared like the scared he felt whenever he took drugs, but a kind of scared that made him very, very nervous.  Suddenly, he had a vision of one particular mudfish with a peach-colored tail jumping up from the palm tree and shoving him off the rising sun.  He fell through the air for several long seconds before crash landing on the setting moon.  Meanwhile, the mudfish jeered at him, throwing its head back and letting out a loud belly laugh.  Then Yoongi blinked and the images disappeared.

“How long until we get there?”  He asked Taehyung hurriedly, trying to take his mind off of what he had just seen.

“How am I supposed to know?  I can’t read maps, I thought you knew that,” Taehyung protested.

“You’re kidding me.  You’re a fully-fledged adult and you can’t read a ing map?  Pretty sure that’s a good skill to have around, don’t you think?”

“I realized that, but--”

“Are you honestly telling me that you don’t know where we are?”  Yoongi sighed and snatched the train map out of his hands.  “We’re two stops away from Busan Station,” he said after glancing at the map for a moment and then at the digital map at the front of the train car.

“Oh.”

“You’re welcome.”  Yoongi flipped his snapback so that the brim was behind his head again.  Looking out the train window, he saw that the sun was already fully up and it was daylight.  The two of them had left the dorm at two in the morning and boarded the train at three.  It took about three hours to get from Seoul to Busan.

“We could have acted like normal people and took the regular morning train.  Or better yet, the afternoon train.  Why was it absolutely necessary to get up at such an ungodly hour?”  He grumbled.  Sleep was Yoongi’s second favorite pastime after music, and he was not a morning person in the least.

“2 A.M is not an ungodly hour, I’ve seen you stay up way past 2 A.M and pull all-nighters countless times.  It shouldn’t make that much of a difference, Yoongi.”

“There’s a ing difference between staying up to a certain hour and getting up at a certain hour.  I can stay up all night, but I can’t function before ten in the morning, .”

“Cheer up, you melancholy little dumpling,” Taehyung said brightly.  “As you said, we’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“Just because we’re almost there doesn’t mean I can fall back asleep.  Any chances of me doing that were already ruined because someone was too busy giggling over Candy ing Cru--”

“I wasn’t just playing that game, I was also texting Jungkook to make sure he’s gonna be there to meet us at the station.”

“Who in the world would voluntarily wake up at six in the morning?”  Yoongi let out a sigh and adjusted the backpack in his lap.  “Only crazy people would do that to themselves.”

“It’s called common courtesy, ever heard of politeness?  Oh right, you’re Min Yoongi, a rude- motherer who would go to the trouble of writing diss raps for anyone who so much as gives you a funny look.”

“You little--”

“Anyways, Jungkook volunteered to drive us to his place instead of making us pay for a taxi.  And I’m telling him that you called him crazy.”  Taehyung scrunched up his nose and pouted.  Yoongi just rolled his eyes because he knew that Jungkook couldn’t care less what he called him.  This was Yoongi’s first time going down to Busan to see his best friend’s boyfriend, but it wasn’t going to be his first time meeting him.  Jungkook headed up to Seoul about once a month to spend the day with Taehyung.  Sometimes the two of them would go out to eat or visit an art museum or just walk around the city doing nothing in particular.  Other times they would stay head to the dorm and cuddle the out of each other while watching a cheesy rom-com.

Frankly, Yoongi had never been one for romance, and the sight of the two of them making out on the couch always made him want to throw up.  Luckily, aside from his excessive display of affection for Taehyung, Jungkook was a pretty chill guy.  He was friendly, a little shy and quiet around strangers, but once he got to know someone, he got much louder.  While he wasn’t a producer like Yoongi was, they shared the same love for music.  That was enough to Yoongi to take a liking to him.  A platonic one of course, otherwise Taehyung would have buried him alive.

But regardless of the fact that Yoongi was looking forward to seeing Jungkook again and catching up on their conversations about music, having to get up before the crack of dawn to do so, along with the events that had taken place earlier, had made him crankier and more irritable than usual.

“Remind me again why we have to see Jungkook so urgently?”  Yoongi complained with a drawn-out yawn.  “It’s only been two days since I woke up from post-midterm hibernation, don’t I deserve a longer break?”

To Yoongi’s dismay, Taehyung put down his phone and sprang into a long lecture-- one that he had heard three times already.  He swore under his breath.

“Taehyung, I didn’t mean actually remind me.  I already know the reason why.”

Unfortunately, Taehyung paid no attention and continued to talk.  Yoongi swore again and put his snapback down over his eyes for the second time that day.

The café that Jungkook worked at was a very ‘special’ one.  Taehyung said the food there possessed a special type of magic, whatever the hell that meant.  Taehyung couldn’t describe it to him very well because he had never been there, and Jungkook refused to elaborate for him, saying that it was one of those things you just had to experience for yourself in order to find out.  Yoongi didn’t see how driving across the country just to eat at a café could possibly help him with his problems, but Taehyung kept at it until he couldn’t take it anymore and gave in.

“Hey, Yoongi, are you listening to me?  I’m telling you, this is extremely important for you and the future you want for yourself.”

“I’m listening,” he mumbled.

“Yeah?  Tell me what I just said.”

“Whatever this magical food is, it’s going to stop me from taking those drugs, which is extremely important because drugs are bad for you and you’re afraid I’m gonna get even more addicted if I continue this and you don’t want me to ruin my health and get arrested for doing drugs and I can’t exactly make music very well if I’m in jail,” Yoongi drawled without even stopping to take a breath.

“Exactly.  Furthermore--” Taehyung began gesturing wildly, continuing to talk about the point that Yoongi had just explained in full detail.  Yoongi groaned in frustration and half-wished that the train would crash so that Taehyung would stop talking.  He was starting to sound like his professors.

Thankfully, the driver of the train announced over the sound system a few minutes later that they were approaching Busan Station.  Taehyung closed his mouth at last and began to check that he had all his belongings, holding them as if they were filled with valuable gems rather than books and toiletries and extra clothing.  When the two of them got off the train and headed into the station, Taehyung spotted Jungkook and ran towards him, promptly dropping those same bags onto Yoongi’s foot.

As Yoongi cursed loudly and hopped up and down while massaging his foot, Taehyung tackled his boyfriend with a rib-crushing hug.  When they pulled away at last, Taehyung’s trademark rectangular smile spread across his face as he cupped Jungkook’s in his hands and ran his thumb along his cheekbones.  Jungkook drank in the sight of him and leaned forward, pecking Taehyung’s lips and bringing a cherry-colored hue to his face and ears, a shade that matched the plaid jacket Jungkook was wearing.

“Anyways, moving on--”  Yoongi said loudly, limping forward and roughly pushing the two of them apart.

“That’s so rude of you, I haven’t seen my Kookie for almost a month and you’re--”

“Okay, okay, group hug on the way off the platform.”  Yoongi adjusted his snapback and yanked the two of them along.  Jungkook chuckled good-naturedly and pulled his arm out of Yoongi’s iron grip as they walked into the station.

“It’s been a while, Yoongi.  How’ve you been?”

“Things could be a lot better.”

“Why’s that?”  Jungkook looked concerned.  “Has school been getting to you?  Honestly, from what Taetae tells me about you pulling all nighters and gorging yourself on junk food and coffee in order to stay awake, university sounds like a pretty horrible place.  I’m glad I’m not going there,” he said with a small shudder.

“Not only that, you two just scarred me with your extensive PDA right there.”  Yoongi made a face of distaste.  “Get a ing room, will you?  Or at least wait until you’re alone so I won’t have to see that.”

“It wasn’t anything that bad,” Jungkook said innocently.  “You’ve seen us do worse.”

“Unfortunately.  It’s probably taken a good ten or twenty years off my lifespan.”  He shook his head and sighed.  Taehyung laughed at his response.

“Hey, you can always use what you see as inspiration for your songs, right?  I’ve read some of your love songs before and they’re not bad.  A bit lacking in feeling, but maybe if you watched a couple in action--”

“Hell no, you two are disgusting.  I don’t need to see or hear anything else scarring.”

“You know what’s scarring?”  Taehyung exchanged a mischievous look with Jungkook before turning back to Yoongi.  “You know those nights when you wish you too had a significant other, but you’re all alone in your room with only your laptop for company?  What’s scarring are those exquisite sounds you make when--”

“KIM TAEHYUNG!”  Yoongi roared at the top of his lungs, causing Taehyung to burst into even louder laughter, Jungkook to give the two of them a horrified look, and the rest of the train station to stop and stare.

“What?  It’s not like Kookie’s still a minor and of course we’ve already--”

If they weren’t in public, Yoongi would have followed through with his promise of ripping Taehyung’s balls off.  For the time being, however, the only thing he could do was jam his earphones inside his ears and crank up his music as loud as possible to drown out Taehyung and Jungkook’s conversation.

This continued for the duration of the car ride to the suburbs of Busan where Jungkook lived.  While his two friends sat up front and talked to their hearts’ content, Yoongi lay in the backseat and drowsily stared out the window.  He had lived in Korea all his life, but had never visited its second most populated city.  It was a pretty nice place and it seemed similar to Seoul in many ways, but still gave off its own distinctive vibe.  Taking out his earphones, Yoongi rolled down the window a few inches and listened to the city.  Busan seemed less pushy-shovey than Seoul.  The city had a thriving, unique feel to it, and Yoongi decided that he liked it.  Busan felt vibrant and dynamic and had a certain energy that felt like a mix of the old and the new-- kind of like his hometown, Daegu.

The first thing Yoongi did after they got to Jungkook’s tiny apartment was collapse on the living room couch and fall asleep.  He dreamt of mudfish once again, the exact same scenes as last time popping into his head-- the mudfish kicking him out of his rightful place on the sun and laughing at him.  Yoongi tried his best to interpret the dream and what it really meant in terms of his real life, but couldn’t.  He was trying hard when he was very rudely woken up by Taehyung yelling in his ear.

“Rise and shine, you clueless donut, we’re going down to Kookie’s café in exactly seven seconds to get lunch!  Hup hup hup, let’s go, let’s go!”  Taehyung leaped backwards just in time to dodge the cushion Yoongi blindly hurled in the general direction of his face.  Before he could pick up another one, Taehyung hooked his arms under Yoongi’s armpits and lifted him off the couch.  Yoongi was helpless in Taehyung’s grip and too sleepy to do anything as Taehyung literally dragged him down the apartment stairs and into the backseat of Jungkook’s beat-up red convertible.  It wasn’t until Jungkook drove out the parking garage and got onto the road that Yoongi finished gathering his senses and woke the rest of his brain up.

“If Jungkook wasn’t here with us and I didn’t have the innocent life of an extra human being to worry about, you would be dead.”  Taehyung swiveled around in his backseat and put on a confused expression.

“What did I do?”  He asked, completely ignoring Yoongi’s death stare.

“As soon as Jungkook gets out the car--”

“--we’re gonna go with him into The Jam Jar.”

“What the is The Jam Jar?”  Yoongi curled his lip and continued to glare at Taehyung.

“The café I work at,” Jungkook cut in, keeping one hand on the steering wheel and grabbing Taehyung by the collar with the other, pulling him so that he was facing forward.  “Leave him alone, Taetae, I told you that you didn’t need to drag him out of bed like that.  We didn’t need to leave that urgently, we have all the time in the world.  I have the day off so we can come in at any time and eat whatever we want.”

“You know Yoongi, Kookie.  If I didn’t drag him out of bed myself, the lazy would have stayed there the entire day.”

“Even so--”

“Your sweet, precious Kookie is right, Taetae,” Yoongi rolled his eyes and let out a loud groan as he stretched his arms above his head.  “Was it absolutely necessary for Taetae to haul me out of bed so aggressively?”

“Hey!  Only Kookie can call me that.”

“Whoa!  Will you look at that?”  Yoongi peered out the car window and squinted into the distance.

“At what?  At what?”  Taehyung asked eagerly as he pressed his face against the glass to get a better view.  “I can’t see anything, what is it?”

“The I give about what you just said.  It doesn’t exist.”

Taehyung just rolled his eyes and Jungkook laughed.

“Anyways, Yoongi,” Jungkook continued.  “As I was saying, The Jam Jar’s the name of the café I’ve been working at for a while now.  Has Taehyung ever mentioned it?”

“He’s mentioned the café before but not the name.  Why The Jam Jar?  Do you only serve jam on toast or what?”

“We get that sometimes.”  Jungkook smiled at him through the rearview mirror.  “I guess we’re just your typical, family-owned, independent café.  We got our name a few decades ago because the founder used to be the owner of a jam factory and knew nothing about running a café.  Starting the business was a spur-of-the-moment thing.  The café started out as a bakery, and our first foods served were pastries and desserts filled with jam.”

“Oh.”  Yoongi nodded absentmindedly and looked out the window, watching the city and its people speed by.  Then he remembered something.  ¨Wait a minute, how does the magical food Taehyung´s been talking about tie into all this?  Do you guys serve jam that makes you breathe fire or something?¨

¨You’ll see.”  Yoongi saw a spark ignite in Jungkook´s eyes, but Jungkook wouldn´t say anything else, despite Yoongi´s pestering.  He resorted to staring out the window again, zoning out as Jungkook returned to talking to Taehyung.  As they drove, Yoongi wondered about The Jam Jar and what about it was so special that it was necessary for him and Taehyung to take two weeks off from university to go down and eat there.

When Jungkook finally stopped the car, Taehyung leaped out, took Jungkook by the hand, and ran into the café before Yoongi could even unbuckle his seatbelt.  Afraid that I would follow through with my death threat, Yoongi thought, snorting loudly.  Now alone in the parking lot, he got out of the car with a sigh.  He slammed the car door closed, locked it with the keys Jungkook had hastily left in the driver’s seat, and looked at the café properly for the first time.  As soon as he did that, he stumbled backward in shock, nearly falling onto the car hood.

The café was pretty unremarkable in facade.  It was a mundane rectangular building that was painted a cheerful light blue.  The windows, which had white and pastel pink awnings hanging over them, reached from the floor to the ceiling so that passerby could see inside.  Matching white and pastel pink patio umbrellas were perched on top of three tables outside the café.  There were a few couples sitting at the outdoor tables, obscuring the interior of the building.  But Yoongi could see a gleaming white counter and colorful display cases of desserts and other finger foods, along with more tables.

Despite its ordinary appearance, however, there was a certain quality about the café that made Yoongi feel very odd.  He found himself walking towards the entrance and pulling open the door.  As he walked in, a strange sensation washed over him and he shuddered.  It felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him, but then filled him back up with an emotion that buzzed and hummed like a certain… something.

Yoongi couldn’t find the words to describe it, but he felt as if the world had somehow become more colorful.  It was like he was on drugs, and the drugs were amplifying his surroundings and making them seem more vivid and exciting than they were supposed to be.  It wasn’t very comfortable though: he still couldn’t breathe very well.  Somehow, he found the strength to close the café door behind him and step into the tiny waiting area.

Immediately, a young woman appeared in front of him.  She was dressed in a white top, black pants, and a checkered, light blue apron.  Her brown curls were twisted up in a messy bun, which was held in place with a matching blue hairpin.

“Table for one?”  She said in a bright voice.  She looked up at Yoongi, who was taking in everything around him with a stunned look on his face.  He didn’t seem to notice her and several seconds passed as the waitress stood there awkwardly.  “Sir?  Table for one?”  She repeated.

Something about the entire café had put Yoongi in a trance.  He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the entire place, innocent and plain and homey-looking as it was, had this aura to it that made a hurricane of emotions well up inside him.  The café made him feel warm and comfortable, but there was also something about it that overwhelmed him and rooted him to the spot.  It was as if someone had doused him with a bucket of hot water.  The air felt pleasantly warm, but so unexpected and suffocating and confusing and--

“Sir?  Are you okay?”  The waitress looked alarmed.  “You look rather dazed, if you ask me.”

“I--, err--”  Yoongi vision flickered for a second before his eyes came back into focus.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  Sorry,” he stammered.

“That’s alright.  Table for one?”  She gave him a smile even brighter than her voice.

Yoongi’s eyes darted around the café in search of Taehyung and Jungkook.  He eventually spotted them sitting in the far corner.  As he watched, another waitress in a checkered apron brought them two ice cream cakes in large mason jars.  After thanking her, Taehyung took the spoon from Jungkook’s hand and gestured for him to open his mouth.  Eyes widening, Yoongi looked away before the rest of the scene unfolded.

“Yeah, just one, thanks.”  It wasn’t just because the only tables left in the café were those that only had one chair-- at this point, Yoongi couldn’t be made to sit with his friends if someone chained him to the table.  Besides, he had more interesting things to investigate aside from Taehyung exchanging lovey-dovey gazes with Jungkook over coffee and cake.  He hadn’t been very hungry before, but there were enticing smells coming from behind the counter and something mysterious about the atmosphere that made Yoongi want to sit down and try the food to see just what was so special about it.

A minute after Yoongi sat down at a table near the window-- thankfully his back was to Taehyung and Jungkook’s table-- the same waitress brought him a small laminated menu.  Yoongi opened it and stared it for a few seconds, turning it over and over on the table, but nothing unusual happened.

Yoongi frowned to himself.  Well, what had he been expecting to happen?  That the menu would sit up and begin talking to him?  That the words would writhe on the paper and rearrange themselves to form new ones?  It was pretty ridiculous now that Yoongi stopped to think it over.  Yet deep down, he still had the peculiar feeling that something of the supernatural would happen.

Nothing did.

Yoongi ordered an Americano and plate of pan-fried mandu.  As he ate, Yoongi kept looking around him, expecting something incredible to occur.  He knew that he was acting like a complete fool because he knew perfectly well that there was nothing abnormal around here.  The café seemed to be exactly as Jungkook described: a small, family-owned establishment where anyone could come in to grab a red bean cake to munch on or a cup of coffee to mull over.  Or it could serve as a casual place for friends or couples to hang out or go on dates.  There was nothing about it that seemed particularly special.

Except Yoongi knew there was a certain something.  It radiated from the dumplings he was chewing on.  It wafted over from the aromas that continuously left the kitchen.

Whereas the air had made him ditzy and uneasy, the food was making him feel good about himself.  He couldn’t describe how it was good.  Eating it just felt right.  There was definitely something magical not only in the café itself, but the food.  In more ways than one, it was just as Jungkook had, or rather, didn’t describe.  Even Yoongi, with his knack of finding exactly the right words to express what he felt, couldn’t find an adequate phrasing for the eating experience.

That was how he ended up sneaking into the kitchen before the waitress went up to ask him if he wanted dessert.  He finished the mandu, gulped down the Americano, and got up from his seat, slipping into the back of the café as discreetly as he could under the guise that he was going to the bathroom.

To his disappointment, he found nothing special as he headed beyond the bathrooms and past a sign on the wall that read ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’.  Ignoring the sign, he pushed open a door that turned out to lead to a small office.  It seemed to be a typical office.  The strange feeling in the air was still there, but didn’t seem to be very strong.  Yoongi glanced over the tiny desk and the metal file cabinets lining the wall and headed out the door again.

The next door down the hall led to the kitchen, which also seemed to be a typical kitchen: steel stovetops and counters, white-tiled floors, and pots and pans of food on every available surface.  The only unusual thing about it-- other than the ever-present mysterious quality in the air-- was the fact that there was no one in there.

It was a little early in the afternoon, but it was technically still lunchtime.  He remembered seeing at least a dozen customers in the dining area earlier on.  He didn’t know if they were still there, but there had to be someone out there who was ordering food or waiting for their food to be served to them.

Yoongi waited.  As he waited, he walked around the kitchen and carefully looked over every inch of it.  That special thing in the air was the most powerful here, pulsing and vibrating and making the kitchen feel alive and exciting, even though there was nobody chopping vegetables.  There was nobody putting trays into ovens or bustling around with slips of papers containing orders.

“Where the hell is everyone?”  He muttered after standing there for no less than five minutes.  He looked back at the kitchen door and then at a large, bubbling vat of kimchi stew in front of him.  Shouldn’t the café owners know better not to leave food unattended for so long?  He was about to step away from the stew before the gas range flared up all at once, causing the red colored liquid to bubble more fiercely.

Something was wrong.  Although the fires had died down to their normal level again, the stew was still bubbling violently.  As Yoongi looked on, it rose higher and higher.  He stepped towards the vat cautiously.  If this continued, the stew would boil over and begin to spill out the sides.  He looked back at the door again in a panic-- he really wasn’t supposed to be touching anything in the kitchen, but if he didn’t do something--

“Hello?”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up as an unfamiliar voice pierced his ears.  He swiftly put his hand back into his jacket pocket and whirled around so that his back was to the stove.

“I wasn’t--”

The man standing in front of him was dressed in a simple white chef’s coat.  Thick black eyeliner accentuated his wide eyes.  The shock of carrot-colored hair on his head clashed wildly with the neutral tones of his chef’s uniform.

Yoongi took a step backwards, mouth half-open as he began to prepare several frantic apologies, and promptly crashed into the vat of kimchi stew behind him.  The next the two of them of knew, Yoongi was clutching his left arm in pain and spitting out cuss words faster than a machine gun could fire bullets.

In a flash, the chef had ripped off Yoongi’s jacket and yanked him across the kitchen to the large sink.  He took out the plastic bin of rice that had been soaking in it and moved it off to the far end of the counter before turning on the faucet and ing Yoongi’s arm underneath the stream of cold water.

“HOLY ING--”  Yoongi yelped in agony before the chef clapped his hand over his mouth.

“Hey, shush, shush.  It’ll be okay.”  The chef said in a soft voice that sounded a little like tinkling wind chimes.  “It’s only a burn.  Doesn’t look that severe.  This happens all the time, after all, this is a kitchen, right?”  He cracked a small smile and his eyes disappeared for a moment as he did so.

Although the two of them were roughly the same height (actually, Yoongi was a little bit taller), Yoongi suddenly felt very small.  His heart rate slowed down as time froze for a moment.  He became very self-conscious of the man’s warm, smooth fingers on the lower half of his face and how close together they were standing.  Yoongi’s eyes darted all around the kitchen before locking with the chef’s calm brown ones.  Those eyes drew him in and for a second, he forgot all about the throbbing pain of his burnt arm and the contrast of the icy water running on top of it.

And then the feeling passed over and the pain was back.  Yoongi wrenched the chef’s hand off his mouth and opened his mouth again.

“Hey, hey.  Your arm’s gonna be fine and the mess you made will be dealt with, but what’s not fine is what's going to happen if you start swearing up a storm again.  These walls are pretty thin, and there’s a mom with three little kids out there.”  The chef motioned his head in the direction of the kitchen door.  “Elementary school age.  I don’t imagine she’ll be very happy if her kids pick up on that type of language.  The Jam Jar is a very family-oriented environment, you see.  Make sense?”

Yoongi winced and managed a nod.

“Now, stay here for a minute and keep your arm under the running water.  I’ll go get a bandage.  And a few other things.  Maybe some cucumbers or honey.  And a few spoonfuls of good intentions might help too.”

“Huh?”  Yoongi’s mouth dropped open and he brought his arm out of the water, flinching as he did so.  “What the do you mean, a few spoonfuls of good intentions?  Good intentions aren’t something that can be measured by ing spoon--”

The chef raised an eyebrow and sighed before advancing towards him, backing him against the counter.  Yoongi now had his arm twisted at an awkward angle as he tried to face the chef and keep his arm underneath the water flow at the same time.

“My, my, you certainly have a dirty mouth.  Don’t you remember what I just said about watching your language?  Hmm?”

Yoongi realized just how close the chef’s face was to his.  The hooded eyes were focused intently on his and the plump lips slowly curved in a sly smile.  Yoongi was so busy staring back and trying not to look shifty-eyed that he didn’t notice the fingers coming up to gently poke his cheek until the poking actually happened and he shrunk back in distaste.  That stupid smile grew wider as the chef pressed him up against the counter further, his arms on either side of Yoongi’s body.

“I--, err--, okay, I’m sorry, I’ll try not to swear as much,” he said nervously, wondering why the man was pinning him against the sink like this.  He could feel his hot breath tickling his skin and he could smell the faint musk of his cologne, mixed with some cooking smells that seemed to be coming off his chef’s jacket.

“Hmm.”  The chef murmured under his breath, breaking eye contact with Yoongi as his eyes began to roam across the rest of his body.  His gaze swept up and down a few times before his piercing eyes connected with Yoongi’s again, causing the grey-haired man to flush bright pink.  The chef’s eye smile appeared again as he watched Yoongi’s face burn up.  He cocked his head and opened his mouth to say something.  “I wonder--”

Before Yoongi could find out what it was that the chef was wondering, the kitchen door burst open and the two of them jumped back away from each other.  Yoongi hissed loudly as his arm was abruptly jerked out of the water.

“Yoongi?”  A very confused-looking Jungkook stood in the doorway, an even more confused-looking Taehyung right behind him.  “What are you doing here?”

“N--nothing.”  Yoongi blinked rapidly as it suddenly dawned on him that Jungkook worked here part-time.  .  He turned to the orange-haired chef next to him, hoping that he wasn’t the head chef or someone important who worked here.  With luck, maybe he wouldn’t report him for trespassing and maybe Jungkook would get to keep--

“Jimin?”  Jungkook’s mouth dropped open as he noticed the other man for the first time, who also wore a bewildered expression.  “Err-- I can explain everything, Mr. Park.”

Yoongi’s heart sank as Jungkook looked at the steaming kimchi stew all over the floor and then at Jimin, panic written all over his face.

Hi my readers/subscribers ^^

First of all, I've officially reached 100+ subscribers (please don't unsubscribe just because I said this LOL) so thank you for that XD I really didn't expect this story to get so many subscribers O.o well I consider getting this much in this amount of time "many".

I remember saying a while back somewhere (in an author's note or a blog post, don't really remember) that this fic would be 3-4 chapters at most, but that doesn't seem to be the case... just so all of you get an idea of how long this is going to be, I've decide to extend it to at least 5-6?

I apologize for the somewhat sloppy ending to this chapter O.o it was supposed to be a little longer but this chapter was already getting to be a little too long so I decided to just cut it off here.  I would have liked it to be a little longer and it seems a bit incomplete to me, but hopefully it still reads okay?

I actually would have finished this chapter last week and I probably should have, but this past week have been very stressful for me in terms of academics and other parts of my life and not only did I not have the time, I also really didn't feel up to it.  I'm still very, very stressed about certain things and will continue to be very stressed for a a while, but mentally, I'm doing a little better than how I was doing last week.  I'm also still pretty busy because of school and other things so I can't guarantee when the next update will be, but I'll try my best to keep updating at a somewhat regular pace ^^

Also, a lot of you have been asking about Jimin (who actually made his first appearance in the previous chapter... he didn't physically appear, but I very briefly mentioned him in there, not sure if all of you noticed) and Jimin's finally here XD I know I mentioned him as having orange hair (THE RUN ERA AYYYYYYYYYYY) in here even though his hair color on my poster is brown but oh well LOL

By the way, I know a lot of you here are ARMY because this is a BTS fic and everything and I'm an ARMY too (wouldn't have made this a BTS fic otherwise), but to those of you who are also ELF like me (ELF was and is my first and top fandom), YESUNG IS FINALLY MAKING HIS SOLO DEBUT SM IT'S ABOUT ING TIME XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD NOW ALL THE KRY MEMBERS GET TO HAVE THEIR OWN SOLOS THIS IS GR9 OMFG

This is a very long author's note ._. so I'm gonna stop here...

Thank you for reading, comment, subscribe, and upvote if you haven't already, and have a lovely day everyone ^^