don't let me down.

"I'm sorry you didn't get to talk to V," said Jin. Nari shook her head, pulling her lips up to let him know it was fine.

On her way home in Jin's car, they stopped by Beauti-Floral. Apparently, Jin was asked to cover for someone (though business was lacking as of recent, so it felt a bit extra). Nari didn't stay for long, telling him that she could walk home.

The second she stepped out of the shop, her heart had the spasms she anticipated.

Her hand fisted the collar of her shirt, right above her chest, and she wanted to hold herself and scream. The entire experience was surreal, barely real, maybe even unreal to her.

She firstly allowed a man she didn't know watch over her blind, gullible guardian and barely-toddler son, and proceeded to allow herself to meet a model she barely knew with her coworker she can narrowly call a friend. And then she encountered one of her few friends in her childhood.

Nari's other hand ran through her hair habitually. It wasn't cold. They were burning and clammy, sticky and so uncomfortable that she wanted to dunk herself in the nearest bathtub.

She began to walk hastily through the streets. It was nearly five in the afternoon, which made her feel numb at how fast time flew by that day. She felt a bit bad for having stranger Jimin look after her responsibilities for that long, which currently overweighed her discomfort with having that happen in the first place.

Her hand into her pocket, clumsily drawing out her phone, when she bumped right into a jogger and dropped it. It faced down, and Nari swore that she thought she was going to have a heart attack.

Like a horse, the jogger pulled at his reins, assessed the situation, and darted over to her side, apologizing profusely in English, "Oh, sorry sorry—"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Nari dismissed in Korean, afraid to pick up her phone and most likely see the touch screen shattered. She would've blasted away from the young man if she wasn't so disturbed with her thoughts.

The jogger picked it up instead and grinned. He showed it to her. "No lineseu! Lucky— you speak Korean?"

Nari nodded, her eyes fixated on his blindingly orange hair, matching the fiery sky.

He handed the phone to her, bowing in apology once more. "I'm sorry about that!" He turned and began jogging again, waving at her and hollering at the sky, "I'm Hobi by the way!"

Nari just stood there for a moment, processing what just happened.

She glanced at her phone, and indeed, there wasn't a scratch. But he was still a man, and she was still afraid, and her heart leaped out of her chest.

So she ran it out. The jittery adrenaline was unpleasant.

---

Her legs were on fire when she reached her house. Nari rushed in, forgetting that Jimin was still there, and shrieked without thinking.

Jimin was in her kitchen, on the table, drinking a glass of water. "Ah," he managed to let out, "sorry if I startled you... are you Alice's daughter? I'm Park Jimin, Jin-hyung's friend—"

Nari shrieked again, smacked her hands to her face, and shrieked in . Her entire body was shaking at the fact that she probably met 1230 men that day.

She peeked through her fingers. He was obviously confused, conflicted if he should ask if she was okay.

"Is Jin-hyung with you?" he slowly asked. He got a rapid shake of her head in return.

"I— I walked here by myself," she stammered. Her legs felt like giving out. "Um, Jimin, was it?"

"Yeah?"

She took a deep breath, tried to compose herself, and said, "Thank you so much for caring for Alice-eomma and Jihoon. You don't even know me, and yet..."

Jimin smiled warily. Oh my god, he thought. I don't know you... right.

"I-It's no problem!" he assured (unsurely). "I'm actually unemployed at the moment, so I'm in a painful kind of free. I've been filling out job applications lately though. But I haven't gotten contacted for an job interview."

He sighed. Nari clamped at his words for a moment, and then opened her bag to shuffle through it. "In that case, I should pay for your troubles."

He didn't decline it. "Thank you," he said. He chuckled in self-pity. "I must look pathetic, huh?"

"No," said Nari, quicker than her brain processed. She paused at her voice, saying whatever, but continued to dig for her wallet.

"This is what I get for dropping out of high school. No one wants to hire a quitter."

She halted completely. The air stilled and chilled in seconds, and Jimin pursed his lips, realizing what he might've just said.

"I, um, dropped out of high school too," Nari finally spoke, and hesitantly at that. "But I'm working now. I'll need a second job to support my family, but my point is that it's possible. People can hire ambitious quitters, I think. You don't even have to be that ambitious. It's... better than being broke and eventually homeless— I mean what?"

Jimin wasn't going to lie— he was a bit astounded by her words. It wasn't expected of her. He made a distressed noise, ironically smiling. "But I don't know what I want to do."

"Well... what do you like to do?"

He wasn't prepared for the question, so he stumbled with his thoughts and elongated his noises, "Uh, um, eh— I like to dance? And exercise?"

Nari focused on normalizing herself. By closer inspection, Jimin looked very kind, with youthful cheeks and beautiful body proportions. She smiled at this. He could be a mo...

For a second, she forgot she was sweaty and disgusted with herself, as she looked up.

"You should meet a, err, friend of mine. He likes doing those things too," she told him. "And he knows Jin-ssi, so I'm sure you two would click. He can probably help better than I ever could."

Jimin didn't look confident yet. He bit his lip, darted his eyes around, and eventually landed on her. He stood up, took Nari's money offer, and lowered his voice, "You know, I'll tell you a little secret. Is that okay?"

Oh. Nari blinked only once. We're not— wait, are we?

No. God help me, we are strangers. Our lives are literally linked through Jin. Jimin's not a friend yet. 

Wait... yet?

He's waiting. How long has he been waiting?

"Yes," she let out, then got laughed at, much to her embarrassment.

"You spaced out, didn't you?" he teased, waving a hand across her face. "I guess that came out of nowhere, huh?"

Nari didn't realize how close they were, as she was too busy trying not to pass out from the day of men overload as a whole.

"So my secret is," he started, leaning a little close to her reddened ear, "that I'm... dysfunctionally insecure."

"Really?" Nari covered , not meaning for it to come out like that.

"I know. I'm silly, right?" Jimin chuckled, tapping his hand on his thigh to show his discomfort.

Nari felt bad in an instant. She really didn't mean to say anything, but her voice made its own sound and communicated for the worse.

"I— to be honest, I am actually really insecure. It takes a while for me to make real friendships. People tell me I'm short, fat, that I have big lips, small hands, a weird 'eye smile,' a girly voice— though, that's because I'm trying to work on losing my Busan satoori, and my voice just gets higher, and— honestly, right now I don't know why I'm telling you these things out of all people... but..."

Jimin met her eyes and parted his lips. Her eyes were piercing into him, serious and on fire, and it heightened his attentiveness.

"You're not being silly. You're being honest."

"You think so... really?"

I remember Alice's books.

She had a whole library of them, but she didn't have any more use for them ever since she lost her eyesight. I used the thick, boring ones with little sentimentality in them for blackout poetry. They were how I admitted my faults and shortcomings, and how I still admit them now.

For a moment, Nari felt unafraid.

"Yeah. You must know." She smiled. "You're really just right the way you are."

---

"Wow, these lyrics . Are you writing a children's song?"

Jung Hoseok pouted, slumping. "But I worked really hard on this, hyung," he lied. He didn't even write it in the first place; Jimin did. But because Jimin mostly expected this kind of response from Yoongi, he asked Hoseok to take credit and consult the critical photographer instead.

Yoongi shook his head in disapproval, sliding the notebook to Hoseok's side. "Bother me with something actually interesting," he said with his signature bluntness, taking his camera and going through the pictures he captured. "I need to edit today's round of photos."

Hoseok tapped on the table, taking in the silence of Yoongi's apartment. It wasn't anything special, anything he personalized much besides his professional photography equipment and laptop.

Yoongi barely had anything in his fridge. He didn't even want to stay in Daegu anymore.

But one thing that kept him from leaving was the brown piano in the hotel nearby, one that he played for guests that came in and out of that building since he was seven.

That hotel was also the place where he encountered his first love. Music.

Freaking music, Hoseok had to repeat in his mind, pouting at the thought.

"When are you going to follow your dreams, hyung?" he asked distractedly, shuffling through Yoongi's fridge for the fourth time. From this, he mumbled, "Maybe I should get him some kimchi."

"Yeah, okay," Yoongi said. "I'll be a basketball player, and you get out of my house. I'm busy."

"But my lyrics—"

"Your lyrics honestly are not good, 'J-Hope,'" he countered, rubbing his temple. "I'm really tired, and I hope to get this done by maybe three in the morning, so be quiet or leave."

"Yah, Min 'Suga'! That's late!"

Yoongi whirled from his chair, exasperated. "Do I look like some sweet 'Suga' to you? Why do you, Namjoon, and Jimin call me that?"

"And Jin," Hoseok added, and pretended to act serious, "because your skin is not a joke. It's as white as bleached raw sugar. I wonder how you make it so flawless sometimes. Do you rub sugar at your face every day or something?"

"Alright. Thank you," were his dry words of appreciation. He turned, plugged in his earphones, and blasted hip hop music on full volume.

Hoseok observed for a bit, taking in his surroundings and Yoongi's work. Yoongi was focused, eyes darting from left to right on his computer screen, using all sorts of effects to enhance lighting and shadows on the right places in each photo to bring about clarity and perfection. For this shoot, the request had a moody atmosphere. His photoshop skills revealed a unique talent he possessed.

"You should photograph Tae and Jungkook again," Hoseok thought out loud. He proceeded to loosen his body and freestyle dance in the middle of the room.

Yoongi couldn't hear him, but he saw the shadows of Hoseok's dance moves across his screen and rolled his eyes.

---

Nari stared blankly at her contacts.

Park Jimin. I have your email and number... and you said you can't make friendships easily.

She then laughed at herself. "Then what about me?" she asked to the kitchen ceiling. "How am I making these many friends in a matter of weeks after being alienated for God-knows-how-long?"

When she gave some thought to it, she found that it was because of Kim Taehyung.

Nari didn't cry. Instead, she walked over to the living room and found Alice and Jihoon, napping in each other's company. She looked at her phone again, and the contacts there.

Home, Boss, some shops, Kim Seokjin, Jeon Jungkook, Kim Taehyung.

Oh, and Kim Namjoon. He was my tutor in high school... should I delete his contact?

Nari decided against it, finding the number of contacts on her phone pitiful.

Heading to her room, she scanned her bookshelf and pulled out several thick books, laying it on the floor. She opened one of them to a random page, admiring the black marker covering most of the words, and read as follows:

"Deeper, deeper,
the wound 
just 
gets deeper. 
Like 
pieces of broken glass 
that
I can't reverse."

The words she blocked out made the words she left unmarked reveal herself. It was a very vulnerable feeling to realize that.

It was also sad to realize that she still felt this way, despite all the good things that's happened to her.

I hate my blackout poetry. It's so emo I can't, oh my god.

She flipped to another page. It was unmarked.

Nari got up, found a black marker, and picked up the book, heading over to her bed. She plopped the book and herself on it, lying on her stomach, and began blacking words out rather quickly.

"I've been 
hiding it
I'll tell you 
something
Just to leave it 
buried
Now I can't
endure it anymore."

In Taehyung's apartment that night, he fatefully picked up his poetry journal and began writing.

"Why couldn't I say it then
I have been hurting away
Really, I won't be able to endure it."

Nari's face appeared in his mind, and he froze. Struck.

Her features were striking in contrast to the typical people in his eyes, with her eyes and hair and voice.

Why he was so strangely obsessed with her, he was dumbfounded at.

"Stop crying, tell me something
Try saying to me, who had no courage
Why did you do that to me then?"

Taehyung wanted to cross it out. Tear out the page. He didn't know why.

"I'm sorry."

Taehyung didn't know what he was writing, but he knew he was pleading for something. His head was usually too preoccupied to think darkly, but this time was different. He was giving more thought about feeling stuck in his career.

His inability to speak up, tell others that he wanted to be an actor, tell them that he didn't ask to be weird, and that he wanted to be accepted for it.

He wished to be young forever. Responsibilities, expectations, pressure, stress— he wanted them dead.

"Please," he wrote, not knowing exactly what he wanted.

He suddenly remembered his parents. Then his grandmother, whom he was closest to— who passed away while he was in Paris, without him even knowing until he was in the US in New York nearly a month later.

These painful emotions were almost foreign to him. Taehyung hated these feelings with his entire being.

He glared at his journal, mentally questioning why he wrote such depressing things in there, and told himself to stop thinking about it all.

He was supposed to smile and be weird. Love Gucci, love children, hate tears. He didn't want to let anyone down.

More than anything, he wanted someone to dry his eyes.

written on 17.06.09.

original note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER MINMIN /insert hearteu

four things i absolutely have to say about this chapter:
1. jimin has always been a perfect mochi diamond and it ain't from the rough
2. i love Suga and i want to write a fic about him like right now
3. i hate the blackout poetry scene but it's important so can't delete ugh
4. J-HOOOOORRSSEEe

on another note: i'm sorry for being so inactive on afics i'm like planning on going to ao3 aaaa this is hell

i'll post some more i promise wth i swear to myself if i break my promise

is anybody even reading this??? should i still stay idek