Yoongi wanted to leave that suffocating house right on the next morning after he received the letter. He didn’t have anything that held him back there anymore, he lost the respect he had for his parents the second it all became clear to him that all they cared about was themselves and their image. His home in Daegu was already nonexistent, along with the person he considered more of a parent than the two people he lived with. Heck, he was tempted to leave right away.

But Yoongi wasn’t reckless. He knew he wouldn’t get far without money or actual plans no matter how much he felt like anywhere else would be better than here. There were four months until his graduation and he decided to just wait and get the diploma he had worked his off his entire time, as well as make some money. Not that he was planning on using it or anything, in fact becoming a doctor or lawyer or anything close to those sophisticated jobs was nowhere near Yoongi’s plans. He held onto the money for his new camera and they were his only motivation to keep going to school and pretend that everything was the way it used to be. All he could think of was buying that new camera his granddad probably spend so much time saving for and he wasn’t going to waste all those efforts. Yoongi was going to use that camera to the fullest and he already decided to dedicate every single snap taken to his favorite old man.

But that wasn’t going to happen in Korea. He wanted to travel and explore all the things worth saving in a paper variation, all the festivals his granddad would’ve loved seeing and so on. He didn’t need much to live and leaving wouldn’t be hard for him as there weren’t much things that would make him feel sad that he won’t be in his homeland anymore. Or none at all.

His parents never noticed a change in him, and no matter how much he struggled, he continued living the way he had always have. But not to make them suspicious he decided not to take a part-time job, which would lead to him skipping his lessons, but instead he started tutoring some of his classmates after school who really needed some help and were willing to pay as long as Yoongi guaranteed they would pass the final exams, which he really could. For once all that studying helped him in a way. Studying, tutoring and occasionally sleeping. That’s all Yoongi did. But for some reason he wasn’t quite ready to touch his camera yet. It was put away under his bed and he didn't take it to school. He knew he was going to buy a new one, but he was never going to throw away the one he got from his granddad, even when it stopped working completely. But he felt like he needed to sort out his thoughts and the feelings before embracing the camera again. Yoongi wanted to do things right and not half-heartedly.


To say Yoongi’s parents were mad would be a great understatement. When they saw his son wasn’t back home when they got there from the graduating ceremony, just after bragging how their son got accepted into SKY and his path as a doctor was just couple of years away, but there was only a lousy note left, saying that he was going and they shouldn’t search for him. He also thanked them for feeding him all those years and granting him life, and if they accepted he would repay all those later in the years, but he was going now. They were mad sure, but not sad. The two of them had way too much pride to care for more than a few days that their son left their sorry asses, so what did they do? They changed the locks and just gave away all of his remaining belongings. If Min Yoongi dared to disrespect his parents he was no longer welcome in the household. That was it, that was how their mindset was and that was the day the connection between Yoongi and Seoul was completely cut. Yoongi cried once, maybe because he was scared and he thought those months were not enough for him to fully prepare, maybe because it was a great change in his life, but he cried only once. He felt free afterwards.

--

Yoongi had enough money to go by and not starve. It was hard, almost nobody wanted a young, suspicious looking person with a way too good looking camera in contrast with the rest of his appearance to take their photos, but he was smart and managed to scrape by. He ended up travelling a lot and to be honest, hitchhiking wasn’t as bad as it seemed to be. There were many kind enough people that let him ride in their automobiles, trucks, even wagons, and even though he didn’t have an exact place in mind he wanted to go to, he always got somewhere. As gratitude he would always offer to take the persons picture, get their names and promise to send it to them when he could and although nobody believed him, Yoongi always wrote down the name of the people that showed him human treatment. There were also people who would let him do some errands and photographs few things they wanted and as little the payment was, it was enough for Yoongi.

About two years later Yoongi was now residing in Hong Kong. He managed to create a routine where when he got hired to a place, he would never work there for more than six months; after all his goal was to travel. He would save all the money he earned and only indulge spending a bit more for the well-being of his camera. In the course of time he met bad people that made him work for nothing, that lied to him and shooed him away in the end, but he also met good people that took him in and allowed him to travel. Yoongi had studied so much, yet where was all of this mentioned in the countless of textbooks that he had gone through? Textbook did not give justice for real life at all. In Hong Kong he worked mostly as a photographer for weddings. It was fun and Yoongi didn’t find it as stressful as other jobs he had taken before - which weren't always as apporved by the law as he wanted to, but he didn't have much choice. He was now under the wing of a Korean man that had a place in China too.

--

“Ouch!” Yoongi was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn’t see the man he bumped into until the contact made him almost drop his camera. He then realized he managed to push the other on the ground, hence the loud thud that made him come back to reality.

“Oh, oh I’m sorry, are you okay?” Yoongi quickly shoved his camera inside its bag and reached out his hand to help the stranger, but then it hit him that he’s not in Korea. “No, I mean 對不起, 你还好吧？(I’m sorry, are you alright?)” he stuttered in heavily accented Chinese. Upon further inspecting, he saw that it was a boy around his age with very interesting features. His clothing was a lot different than the usual people wore in China. He was wearing a few sizes bigger hoodie than needed, a snapback and some flowy shorts. The boy stood up energetically and stared at Yoongi for a while.

“Are you Korean? I’m Korean too, so you can talk freely. I don’t understand any Chinese anyways.” the boy said and patted his clothes to get rid of the dust. Yoongi was kind of mesmerized. Excluding the fact that he heard Korean speech again after a while, it was the boy that make him stare for longer than acceptable. He had an eye shape that Yoongi found quite unique – they were in the shape of a crescent with little wrinkles around them and his cheeks were full and chubby, unlike the rest of his body. It was quite endearing. But then Yoongi realized he looked like some freak and he still needed to apologize for not looking where he was going.

“Oh, that’s a relief, really. My Chinese hardly ever sounds like Chinese. But I’m really sorry for bumping in you so hard, I wasn’t looking in front at all. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. But I think I might know a way for you to help me. I think I’m lost.” the boy said that, but he didn’t sound worried at all, in fact he was showing his gummy smile to Yoongi and he seemed a lot younger than he probably was.

“You are?  So you don’t live here?” Yoongi raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, nope. I’m here for just three months over the summer for a dance camp. But my instructor went somewhere and only gave me a map which I can’t read for the heck of it.” the boy said and took out a map completely in Chinese out of his pocket with only a small red circle around a certain place. Yoongi’s Chinese wasn’t very good either, but he had an idea of the where the place was and it was only fifteen minutes away by bus.

“I can’t promise much, but I think you can trust me on at least taking you somewhere very close to it. My name is Yoongi by the way, Min Yoongi.”

“Yoongi, huh. I’m Jimin. Deal.” the no more anonymous boy introduced himself and his eyes turned almost invisible with the smile he shot Yoongi while reaching out his hand for a handshake. Damn, it was endearing.
--

It took them around forty minutes of wandering around, wrong buses and a lot of Yoongi’s incoherent Chinese until they found the exact place, but it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable for neither of them, probably because of the lack of language barrier. Yoongi found out that Jimin was only two years younger than him, eighteen, and he was a first year dance student in a University in Busan. He had won a contest and the award was to attend a dance camp here in Hong Kong for three months over the summer with some famous choreographer and dance veteran, whose name Yoongi didn’t remember. And the thing he liked the most about Jimin was that he was really carefree and their conversation flowed, despite the fact that Yoongi wasn't very talkative, because he tends to make things really awkward. The bubbliness of Jimin was so contagious, Yoongi found himself smiling a lot more than he did usually and he thought that bumping into him wasn’t that bad, even though he was going to be late with the work he had to finish by tomorrow.
 

“I think it’s here. Can you call your instructor or something? Just to be sure.”

“Nah, I think I got it. Really, thank you for coming along, I probably would’ve spent the whole day completely lost. The bump is all forgotten.” Jimin grinned and reached out his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Yoongi.” The latter did the same, but he felt somewhat sad that they had to say goodbye. Jimin’s hand was surprisingly big and really warm, just like the whole aura around him.

“Yeah, it really was nice meeting you.” Yoongi said and next thing he saw was Jimin’s back retreating in the direction of what seemed like an apartment complex. Yoongi felt strangely, but not unfamiliarly empty. It wasn’t an everyday thing for him to witness such a beaming and truthfully a beautiful person. Yoongi regretted not taking a picture of him.

A/N I know i said I planned this to be a two-shot but i guess...not.. It'll probably be another few chapters long ;u;
And to be honest this whole chapter is 100% inspired by this pic ('from behind the lenses' get it, get it) which I saw in the morning and it perfectly fit the timing, so i wrote this is one go (one go means 4+ hours because of the million and one things i get distracted with), so this shall be picture of the day ~
Thank you for reading and to the wonderful few people who subscribed ♥