The next day, Junseo was sitting in his office, really pondering his life choices. He ran a tired hand down his face. It was basically back to the starting board with the group of seven boys he had met with the day before. He looked at the clock. He had about 25 minutes, give or take, until he had to host the group session. On this particular day, he got lucky and didn’t have any appointments after the group. He would probably end up extending the session for as long as he could. This time around, he was going to try and he was going to do it right.

He sat down heavily in his wheeled chair, spinning around a few times before stopping at his desk and beginning to pen out plans for the upcoming meeting. He figured if he actually had plans, everything would be simple and easy and he could breeze through this with the boys. Everyone would be friends, blah blah, all that, and he could move on. Of course, it could possibly take months. He would prefer if it would take weeks but that was impossibly optimistic. He just wanted those boys to be happy and he didn’t think he wasn’t the person qualified to grant them that happiness. Oh well. He couldn’t just give up. Not for these boys. He couldn’t give up on them.

He risked a quick glance at the clock and hissed in annoyance as he realized that he would be late even if he ran. He grabbed his notes and made a swift beeline for the door. He was almost completely out of breath as he reached the door and began to turn the handle. To his surprise, the door was flung open by Jimin, Taehyung, and Hoseok. All three of them gave him a disappointed look, and Junseo really felt as if he had let them down. The three of them had faces that could make anyone feel guilty. Junseo shook his head with a slight scowl and mentally chastised himself for feeling guilty over something so trivial.

“Hey you guys, sorry I’m late,” he huffed, eyes drifting up to Jimin’s. Taehyung rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah hyung. It’s fine we forgive you. We want to start! Yesterday was so much fun!” Junseo was torn between asking the boy when the had gotten comfortable enough for him to call him hyung and making sure the boy really did have fun the day before. He seemed to have forgotten all about the incident at the end. The therapist wished that he could forget as well. What he had done wasn’t right. He was supposed to help his patients when they were having a bout of depression, not leave them behind to let their friends deal with it because he couldn’t.

He let out a sigh, as he had been doing all to often lately, and began to push into the room, which was still being barricaded by Taehyung- V- and Jimin. He was stopped once again by Jimin, who gave his outfit another look. His face paled and Junseo tilted his head in confusion. “Hyung,” he whispered, “what are you wearing? What is that- those shoes on your feet?” His whispering was low and panicked. “Uh…. converse…? I- I didn’t have time to wear my other shoes but whatever. Is… there a problem…?” Jimin furiously nodded. “Hyung, he’s going to kill you! It’s Y-” Jimin got cut off just as he was about to say who exactly was going to kill Lee Junseo.

“Yah, Park Jimin what’s taking so long,” Yoongi shouted from inside the room. “Ah, nothing, hyung!” Jimin scurried into the room, followed closely by Taehyung, but not before giving Junseo a headshake and a worried look. Junseo was once again torn between what transpired the day before where Jimin was so casually calling Yoongi ‘hyung’, and what exactly was in store for him when he walked through the door. He took a deep breath and steeled himself before stepping in.

As he took a quick look around the room, he realized they weren’t sitting in the same order that they were last week, and the chairs were a smidge closer. His face screwed up in confusion before he just shook his head and walked in. He took the seat in the middle of the half- circle of chairs.

“Hello, everyone. Today is our second session. Is there anything anyone would like to say before we get started? Anything interesting or exciting,” he began, wanting to give them a chance to speak their minds before he began his spiel.  While glancing around the room, he noticed that Jimin was doing everything he possibly could to draw attention to himself and away from Junseo. “Jimin,” he stated. “Is there something you would like to say? You seem to be shifting around a lot.” Junseo said this as politely as he possibly could, but there was unbridled sass and a raised eyebrow anyway.

Jimin spluttered and furiously shook his head.”Ahhh, hyung it’s nothing, I was just… you look very… ummm… your shoes-” If possible, Jimin paled even further and looked around as if hoping no one heard him. He winced as Yoongi’s head whipped up from where he had been talking to Namjoon about something or other. He scowled, but Junseo figures he might have been scowling before Jimin said anything. He glances from Jimin to Junseo, and then down to Junseo shoes. His face took an immediate change from where it had been before.

Before, he had looked like an extremely grumpy cat, but now his face had indescribable fury in it. It stayed like that for a few minutes, eyes fixed on his shoes, and began growling. Junseo’s mouth opened and closed, and hell yeah he was more than a little scared. “Are… are those… Converse” Yoongi asked, almost like he was trying to start a friendly conversation. The therapist's mouth finally stopped moving and he simply nodded his head. Wrong move. Yoongi tipped his head back and let out a breathless giggle, more like a rasp than a laugh. At this point, everyone was scared for their lives, and Jimin was silently standing by Taehyung with his hand over his mouth.

The tension was thick in the air, and Namjoon was rocking back and forth in his chair, looking between the two men that were now silently staring at each other. As quick as a bullet, Yoongi shot out if his seat and practically skipped over to Junseo. He gave him a wide, gummy smile and yeah it was pretty adorable but not in these circumstances. Yoongi opened his mouth to speak.

“Converse, converse I really hate converse,” he maniacally whispered. He then whipped out a matchbook, lit a match, and dropped it on the therapist's shoes. It took him a minute to comprehend that his shoes were on fire, but in that minute, everything went to .

Jin immediately stood up and began screaming at the top of his lungs about how much his ‘friend’ hated fire, and Namjoon tried to calm him down. Unfortunately, one of Jin’s flailing arms caught Namjoon in the face and he stumbled backwards in surprise, tripping over and knocking down all the chairs everyone else has abandoned. Jimin was frantically running around the room, trying to find water while Hoseok was just running around the room screaming in a high pitched voice.

Taehyung  had pulled a whistle from god knows where and was obnoxiously blowing it in an attempt to get everyone calm. While Jungkook was curled up on himself in the furthermost corner away from the fire, Yoongi was simply watching in morbid fascination at the Converse slowly burning on the floor. At this point, Junseo had kicked off his shoes and fallen backwards in his chair. As he was scrambling to get up, Jin, now screaming about how fire was a safety hazard, picked up the shoes and threw them out the open window.

Junseo ran over to the window and peered down, sincerely hoping none of the plants caught on fire. He let out a breath of relief when he saw that the fire had gone out and the shoes were simply smoking. His relief was short lived when he turned back to face into the room and saw Yoongi trying to strangle Jin, and then watched Namjoon tackle him to the floor. While they were wrestling (Yoongi was tougher than he looked), Hoseok was hysterically laughing. Jimin had passed out at some point and Taehyung was poking his face. Jungkook hadn't moved. Junseo ran a hand down his face, feeling older and more tired than he ever had before. He took a deep breath and slammed his file on the table as hard as he could.

It make a loud bang and everyone's heads turned to face him. “Stop. Now. Yoongi,” he held out a hand. “Matches. NOW. All of you, fix up the room and sit down in your chairs.” Yoongi’s hand was shaking as he handed over his prized matchbook and Junseo would feel bad if the kid hadn’t tried to burn his shoes with his feet still in them! The other 6 began putting up the flipped over chairs and gathering other miscellaneous items. Junseo caught Taehyung discretely trying to slip the whistle into his pocket but he nailed him with a glare and an outstretched hand, into which the whistle was promptly dropped.

As all 7 of the boys settled into their seats, he took his place in the middle. He cleared his throat and took a glance at the clock. He had 20 or so minutes left. “Starting from today, our sessions will have an order. You don't have to do much. Just listen to me if I ask you to do something. If you don't want to answer a question, don't,” he shot them a smile, a genuine one, and kept going. “So, what did you guys do yesterday? You seemed pretty.. err… friendly. In the beginning, at least,” he asked with a slight wince.

Hoseok jumped up and down in the seat, raising his hand. He was smiling as wide as he possibly could, and Junseo was a little blinded, to be honest. He chuckled and lightly shook his head. “Yes Hoseok? You don't need to raise your hand, as I said before.” The boy simply beamed and began speaking. “Well, after you left, we were all sitting in the room, looking at each other. It was pretty awkward. We all stood up to go to our rooms but as we began our journey to our rooms, Yoongi hyung spoke!” The theatrical way the story was being told was quite amusing, and everyone (except Yoongi) was listening with amusement.Hoseok continued after looking around to make sure the other 7 were listening.

“He said, ‘why are we going to our rooms? That's so boring. I know this room where we could hang out for a bit.’ At first, Jiminie and Jin hyung protested, but Yoongi hyung is scary. So we all agreed to go and the room was really cool! We talked until our curfews and, don't tell our teachers but, we skipped all our classes.” Junseo blinked a few times as he processes the story because, wow, they were doing a better job bonding by themselves than with him. Good job, Junseo, he mentally scolded.

Looking again at the clock, he sent them off with a stern warning not to skip their classes. He reflected back on the session and noticed that Hoseok, Jimin, and Taehyung seemed the most willing to talk. Jungkook really hadn't said anything except for an introduction, same with Namjoon. Jin seemed to like talking to his friends more than the people around him and Yoongi… didn't seem to like anything, especially Converse.

Junseo shuddered and scowled as he realized he would have to walk around with no shoes. He was abruptly shaken from his thoughts when a loud ping came from his phone. He checked and saw he had an email from his dad.

‘Hey Junseo-ah, it's been awhile since we last talked. Let's meet up for lunch tomorrow, and maybe you can give me a status report on your group therapy sessions. Signed, Lee Junseung.’ He sighed. Even though his dad wrote the email, it was most likely that Junseo would be eating with his father’s advisor. Again. And what the hell was he going to say about the group therapy? He groaned as he walked down the hallway and to his office, slumping in his chair defeat.