It was dark. Not pitch black, but some greenish darkness that barely allowed shapes to form. All Jimin could smell was the tang of seaweed, all he could hear was the breaking of the waves.

He was leaving Busan tomorrow. Sure, his family moved around a lot, he’d been everywhere; Jeju, Daegu, Seoul, Gwangju… You name it, he lived there.

But Busan… Busan was something special. He figured his father felt the same way, considering they had spent the last five years there, longer than they stayed anywhere else.

Busan was home to Jimin. It was like his heart was connected with the sea, the beaches. He even developed the Busan dialect, having been there so long.

So when the news came from his mother—his father never was one to talk much— when she told him about the move back to Seoul, his heart broke for the first time.

He couldn’t breathe. For the first time, when Park Jimin was 14-years-old, he felt completely lost. Afraid. Panicked. It was like he couldn’t get enough air, he couldn’t hear his parents trying to calm him down, just the loud thudding of his own heartbeat.

“Jimin, honey…” his mother said slowly, hesitantly, “you know your father, he has to follow where the work is. We can will barely afford to eat if he misses this opportunity. I know you love Busan, but it’s time for the next chapter in our story.”

Our story, Jimin thought, almost laughing. Don’t let them see you cry. He simply nodded slowly, gradually making his way to his room to back up his things.

His first few months in Seoul were hard. He felt lost, not because of the size of the city. It was him. He felt lost. He had become a collection of other people, his parents, classmates, mimicked behaviors and learned interactions. Nothing about him was Park Jimin anymore.

And his parents. They kept trying to fill the void that only his home could fill. There are so many more opportunities in Seoul, son, they told him. They told him “Jimin, you can be anything you want to be.”

Well, they lied.

His parents were lucky, really. They first touched at age 14, his age, instantly knowing. That was the power of soulmates. A connection, a bond. An instant love and ease. All Jimin wanted, Busan aside.

But his parents, they were vehemently homophobic. Society was becoming more and more accepting, considering soulmates are soulmates, they aren’t chosen and can’t be changed. But his parents didn’t care.

This made Jimin nervous. What if his soulmate was a male? His parents would disown him, kick him out. He’d be thrown out like tomorrow’s trash.

When he took up dance classes in Daegu when he was 6, both his parents did their best to be supportive, but he could feel their disapproval. Especially considering he took up contemporary dance.

He had a lithe body. He always had, ever since we was tiny. The dance teacher he had been working with at first showed him to his new teacher, and she was instantly impressed with Jimin. He could do so much with his talent.

And so, when the family moved to Seoul, Jimin applied immediately for the school of performing arts. He had to dance, it was euphoria to him. 

For the first four months of his second year in middle school, Jimin kept to himself, out of place with his dialect, he was just treated differently. He just wanted to