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“Do you think this was a good idea?”

Jimin looked up from his phone at Hoseok. His hyung was sitting across from him at the cafe, the pastry in front of him untouched. Jimin had bought it for him in hopes that he would eat it for him but he was left disappointed. The older man hadn’t been eating all that much lately and it didn't seem like that was going to change for a $4 honeybread.

“What? Setting Anna and Kai up like that?” Jimin assumed nonchalantly.

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I don’t see a problem with it. Do you?” Jimin questioned, looking at Hoseok in confusion. The older man sighed.

“I mean, for starters, Kai’s friend wasn’t murdered. She committed suicide,” Hoseok reminded him, as if that was his real reason for being apprehensive. He and Jimin both knew that wasn’t the case. Still, Jimin addressed the concern.

“It’s still loss,” Jimin pointed out. “Sudden loss, at that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Hoseok muttered, running his finger along the rim of his coffee cup. Jimin eyed him.

“What’s really got you worried?”

“It’s just,” Hoseok began before glancing up at Jimin seriously. “You know how Kai’s story ended.”

Jimin held his eyes for a moment before sighing, frowning down at his hands. “Of course, I do.”

“And you don’t worry about the same thing happening with Anna?”

“Of course, I do,” Jimin emphasized, sadness filling his features. “But as her friends, her family, aren’t we supposed to do whatever we can for her sake? For her happiness? Aren’t sacrifices necessary sometimes?”

Hoseok’s eyes fell along with his spirit. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be so willing to make them.”

Jimin smiled sadly at his hyung. “I wouldn’t expect that of either of us. But-”

"But for Anna, I'll do whatever has to be done," Hoseok added sadly, his love for the girl masking his unwillingness to accept a potential future. Jimin smiled yet another sad smile, a certain pain hiding under his expression as well. 

"I think we'd all."

◎    ◉    ◎

Namjoon and I continued to work together for the next few days, though I heard his constant pestering on admitting my love for Anna as much as I heard any song we worked on. But to be honest, it was still really nice. I hadn’t done something like that with him for a while and I’d forgotten the kinds of things we were able to create when our minds joined together. It was reminiscent of how things had been before I even knew a person like Anna existed, a time that seemed so incredibly far away.

But as simple as those times were, nothing could compare to now. I’d rather live a complicated life with Anna than a lonely one without her. 

I wasn’t sure what Anna’s schedule looked like for the day so I texted her telling her I’d probably come home late. She'd been out all day yesterday and into the night doing God knows what with Jimin and Hoseok so I was anxious to see her. I reminded her that if either of those two weren’t home to let her in, she should try the other guys’ dorms, all of whom were ready to offer her a place in the meantime. She’d had to stay at Jungkook’s once, which she claimed was actually the most entertaining part of her day. The two ‘97-liners had an interesting dynamic that she always enjoyed, no matter how much they bickered.

I hadn’t heard back from her so I assumed she had no problem getting into the dorm, though I did expect even a short answer. But I wasn’t too worried as I pressed save on all of the open files on my computer. I left the studio in a pretty good mood from a successfully productive day with a good friend, my eyes wandering up to the stars. They just barely broke through the night’s cloudy sky. I’d never imagined we’d ever have a fellow artist up there somewhere.

When I got back to the dorm, the main lights were all off but I could see light pouring out from under everyone’s bedroom doors, telling me everyone was in fact home. I didn’t bother with dinner and instead went straight to my room, pushing open my door without any warning.

Anna sat on my bed with papers sprawled out in front of her, her eyebrows furrowed in focus as she shuffled through each one. She’d occassionally stop to make notes on a few, circling and underlining things she’d interpreted to be of importance. I honestly didn’t think she had noticed me come in.

“Hey,” I spoke up, making her flinch and snap her head up in surprise. She relaxed slightly in recognition but not as much as I would’ve expected. Her guard was still up and it immediately worried the out of me. “What’s all that?”

She looked down at the papers, opening to give an explanation but closing it in speechlessness. It made me wonder whether she had originally been preparing to lie, only worsening my worries. She sighed.

“Yoongi, we need to talk.”

Yep, there was the validation to my worries. “Am I going to like what I hear?”

She held my stare, looking as worried as I was starting to feel. She then shook her head. “...no, I don’t think so.”

I nodded, dropping my bag on the floor and shoving my hands in my pockets. “Alright, go ahead.”

She nervously slid her papers out of the way to allow her to get to her feet. She glanced down at them, gesturing at them with a nervous nod of her head. “Those are contracts.”

“Okay, and what are they for?” I pushed, my patience already wearing thin. It was a bad sign for Anna and she knew it, becoming more and more fidgety before my eyes.

“I…,” she began, her voice cracking ever so slightly. “I’m leaving.”

I stared at her skeptically. She could’ve meant a hundred different things with such a vague statement, though I knew I wouldn’t have necessarily been happy with most of them anyway. “Elaborate, please.”

“They’re setting up a SKEES Headquarters in the States. They’ve apparently been planning to branch out for a while,” she explained before dropping the atomic bomb. “Any they’ve asked me to be a representing artist there.”

“What-” I started before shaking my head in frustrated confusion. “What does that even mean?”

“It means they want to use me to create as much hype around the US Headquarters as possible so they’re sending me to the States to be based out of there. Permanently,” she said regretfully.

I was so far past worrying at this point. At this point, my heart was beginning its plunge into my stomach.

“Did they give you any say in this?”

She hesitated, looking at me with sad eyes before nodding. “I talked it through with Director Jung and agreed to it. Signing these contracts is my first step in preparing for the move.”

“So, you’re leaving Korea, then?” I asked, despite the fact that she had literally said that just minutes prior. “You’re going home for good?”

She nodded again nervously, waiting for my reaction. I wasn’t quite sure what kind to give just yet. My feelings were too all over the place at that moment to be reactive.

“You don’t want to stay here?” I managed to mutter, the painful feeling that I wasn't good enough filling my entire being. Her face immediately dropped in despair.

“Of course, I do,” she told helplessly. “But I can’t keep living like this. I need to be happy again-”

“You have a list of people here who would go to the ends of the earth for you, myself especially. And yet, you’re telling me you’re still unhappy?”

“Just hear me out. Please,” she pleaded desperately. She looked so pained that it almost won me over. Almost.

I crossed my arms over my chest, gesturing for her to continue. She heaved a deep breath.

“It’s not that you guys don’t make me happy. That couldn’t be any farther from the truth. But I’m only truly happy again when I’m with any of you. You guys make dealing with all the terrible things that have happened so much easier and I love you all endlessly for it. But that’s only a temporary relief. A short-term solution. I can’t keep relying on you guys for happiness, I’ll never truly be okay again if I do. I have to find my own, real motivation to live on everyday.”

“And how are you so sure you’ll find that in America?” I retorted, ignoring how close to crying she looked. For the first time, I was part of the reason behind her tears and that disturbed me. But my devastation was too strong to allow me to be even just a little more sensible.

“I’m not sure I will,” she admitted sadly. “But Yoongi, I need my family. I miss them now more than ever. I can’t get the love and comfort I need from them all the way in another country.”

“So, take some time off! Go home and visit them - even for a month or two if that’s what you need! I think Director Jung would be more than willing to comply for you,” I desperately encouraged. But she wasn’t having any of it, her head shaking sadly.

“Yoongi, I can’t stay here any longer. Everything’s a painful reminder of Chun Hwa and I just can’t handle the pain anymore. Even just saying her name hurts.”

“You can’t just run away from your problems. I mean, did you even stop to think about this? This sounds way too impulsive.”

I noticed the tightening of Anna's jaw and the clenching of her fists and suddenly, I was able to add fearful to the wide spectrum of emotions that was flooding my body.

“Are you kidding me? Of course I thought this through! How could you be so ing cruel?” She began to yell, catching me off guard. I couldn’t recall a time I’d seen Anna this angry. She was fuming, and I was about to receive the brunt of it.

“I just lost my best friend, one of the first and only people to make me feel like I actually had a home here! I watched her get shot right in front of my very eyes- watched her bleed out in front of hundreds of her fans at the hands of a man who could’ve targeted any one of us. A man who considered the girls and I to be traitors for being public figures in a country other than our own,” she spat, tearings spilling out of her eyes and her face contorted in frustration. “Imagine if you were in my place! Imagine if Chun Hwa was someone like Namjoon or Jimin or Hoseok instead! You may have known them all longer than I’ve known Chun Hwa but she was just as much family to me as they are to you. She was there for me when I was all alone here.”

I was really speechless at that moment. But even if I had words to retaliate with, she wouldn’t have given me a chance to say them as she continued.

“Then on top of that, I’m reminded every single ing day that I don’t belong here. I work tirelessly on every song I create, spend hours and hours fixing my pronunciation on individual Korean words, just to hear that being anything but Asian ruins every chance at musical success here anyway. Then the next thing I know, my face is being used to promote Korea as some internationally-friend holy land as if I hadn't just been discriminated against hours earlier. Outside of this organization, I’m not treated how I feel I deserve to be treated. So, why should I even bother staying?”

“Because Korea is one country! They don’t have to love you here when the rest of the world does! All you have to do is live here. This system you have going on now is working, people around the world worship you. ‘Why fix something that isn’t broken.’ Didn’t you say that once?”

“The system may not be broken but I am,” she pointed out in exasperation. “And Korea may be one country but I left my own home almost 7,000 miles behind me to become a success here. Since that didn’t and probably won’t happen, how could it possibly be logical for me to be based here? Shouldn’t I be somewhere that I have closer access to my stronger fanbases?”

“You have fans here,” I pointed out, as if that were a solution to what she was talking about. She looked at me dubiously.

“Yeah, for variety and my public image. Not for my music.”

“What’s wrong with that for now?”

“You know exactly what’s wrong with that! What the hell is wrong with you?” She scolded in incredible amounts of anger. “Why are you having such a hard time even trying to accept this for me?”

“Maybe because you threw this at me out of nowhere? How did you expect me to react?!” I argued back with anger of my own.

“I expected you to be understanding! To maybe consider how I was feeling and eventually accept that, yeah, this might but it’s for the best! I didn’t think that was too much to ask.”

“You must be delusional, then. There’s no chance I’d just accept you running away from Korea like a child,” I spat out bitterly but most of all, impulsively. I didn’t mean it, nor did I mean to say it. But I did and there was nothing I could do about it.

Anna’s expression attempted to harden before my eyes, though I could see the quivering of her lip and the welling of tears in her eyes.

“Delusional and a child. Never thought I’d see the day that you’d be so heartless. I guess I really must be delusional,” she muttered with bitterness that easily topped my own from before. She reached down to grab the contracts before looking back up at me with a glare I never thought I’d live to see aimed at me. “But you know, I’d rather be delusional and a child than selfish and an .”

Without another word from either of us, she stormed out of the room. She pushed past Hoseok as he tried to stroll past the door, probably curious and wanting a glimpse at what all the yelling was about. His eyes followed her until she was out the front door and slamming the door behind her. Then, his eyes landed on my own tearful ones, my fists clenched by my side. He seemed to be struggling with what to say, clearly shocked and confused. I sighed, though it sounded more like a growl through my clenched jaw.

“Can you-”

“I’m on it,” he nodded, thankfully understanding what I was getting at. He ran out after her, something I really should’ve been doing. But I was at my tipping point. Anything I would've said to her would most likely have just made things worse.

As soon as Hoseok was gone, Jimin stepped into view just outside my door, peering at me hesitantly. Like Hoseok, he was unsure of what to do or say.

“I’m fine,” I lied before he could ask.’Fine’ was far from an accurate description of how I was feeling. He may have still been looking at me in concern but he gave me a simple nod, knowing better than to press the situation.

“Can I do anything?”

I thought about it for a moment, willing to accept any kind of help for once. Then, I sighed, knowing full and well he couldn’t do anything to really help the situation. I had Hobi doing his thing and that was enough for now. “No, it’s okay. Thanks anyway, Jimin.”

He nodded before shuffling out of sight. I stood in place for a moment, trying to take in what had just happened, before running a frustrated hand through my hair and throwing myself back-first onto my bed. I stared up at the ceiling, breathing so heavily you would’ve thought I’d just ran a marathon.

I stayed like that for longer than I could keep track of before my eyelids shut closed, hoping to give myself a mental break of my own.