In the end they parted ways. Jimin went back to his own house in the afternoon and Yoongi decided to go to Namjoon’s. He already offered the piggyback, being concerned about his injured feet (in the coldest and meanest way possible) before Jimin made a weak smile and said how he had to take care of the problems waiting for him back home. He proposed the idea of accompanying the boy but Jimin just shook his head lightly, leaving no place for Yoongi to offer any other help, only to watch Jimin’s back as the boy walked slowly back towards his house.

Meanwhile, Yoongi’s stuff was still at Jimin’s and he had practically brought nothing when they ran away. He still wasn’t thinking about going home. This wasn’t his first time running away. The last time, he disappeared for a few days, almost all of his friends went insane looking for him. This time at least he had to make an appearance.

Knocking in front of Namjoon’s door with nothing but a rumpled tee he’d been sleeping in (and at that point Yoongi managed to joke to Jimin as well before how he actually didn’t have any underwear on the moment they left the house), the Kim greeted him with a surprise look on his face.

“Where have you been?” Namjoon asked after letting Yoongi hit the shower and threw him some new shirts to change into (but no underwear, since Kim Namjoon was the party that supported what he said as ‘legal rights to private ownership of undergarments’)

Yoongi soaked his wet hair in towel after a bath while answering to Namjoon’s questions. Namjoon’s mother was out and he had to bail before her coming back and realizing Yoongi was there, since his own mother must have been calling his friends already, asking his whereabouts. He still didn’t plan on going home for a day or more if he could manage it. A whole week, even.

“Your mother called last night. Said that you ran away again. Honestly, hyung, I thought it was going to be like last time. We’re all worried, you know,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I went to Jimin’s,” he casually brought it up.

Other than clothes and a hot shower, the reason why he went to Namjoon was due to his grumbling stomach. His best friend was kind enough to cook him some ramyun. Sometimes he thought what would he be without the very Kim Namjoon that he loathed.

“Figured,” the other said, sighing in relief. “So why do you end up in front of my door looking so homeless?”

Yoongi sighed. He thought about keeping whatever he had seen and heard to himself at first. Namjoon was indeed a fan of gossips, but when it was his friend’s secret that he was dealing with, the boy had learnt how to keep his mouth shut.

“The brat’s parents suddenly came and-,”

He remembered the fight again, taking bits of information and formed it in his own head like a puzzle.

“-I don’t know. Some awful happened to the brat when he was in Seoul. They fought about it again so we ran away. Funny. His parents wouldn’t even let a friend stayed overnight.”

“So you ran away because his parents were mad at you for crashing there?”

Yoongi shrugged.

“Something like that. But they were already arguing about something that happened in Seoul. I don’t hear much.”

Namjoon hummed, nodding his head.

“I mean, I’ve seen the boy cried like-, dozens of times back in the classroom, about something in Seoul, I guess. He said that everything in Seoul was sad. I never asked anyway,” Yoongi trailed on. He remembered about how Jimin had cried back in the gym again and all the words he had said to Yoongi.

“He said about destroying his life. I don’t know. It’s just that-,”

-that seeing the pathetic Jimin always stirred him. He always ended up wondering, what had happened back in Seoul, until it left such a boy to pieces like that.

“-what could have happened?”

Yoongi sighed again, tossing the wet towel away before grabbing the bowl of ramyun Namjoon had placed for him on top of his desk. His friend was awfully quiet, taking the story in and probably coming out with stupid comments and more philosophical . His comeback was certainly something that Yoongi didn’t see coming.

“You know, hyung. I never heard you care for someone as much as this.”

Yoongi nearly choked on his ramyun.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Namjoon,” he said, glaring at the boy.

“Hey, no need to give me that death glare. I’m just making a comment here,” he said, lifting his hand up as if Yoongi was pointing a gun at him. “Anyway, finish up that ramyun fast. My mother would come back soon.”

Yoongi groaned.

“For your information, I don’t care about the brat, okay? I’m just curious.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, hyung.”

And if it wasn’t for finishing up the ramyun and having himself being raced by the clock, he could make out a list of reasons why he didn’t care about Park Jimin and point it out one by one to Namjoon with its own conclusive evidence.

+.-.+

The sky was dark when Yoongi roamed the streets again, wrapped in Namjoon's clothes and shoes. He didn't bring his own phone, leaving it at Jimin's house. He thought about how ridiculous this situation was, running away from his house only to find himself escaping the house he ran away to through the window in the morning. He couldn't risk going to his friends' house in fear of walking on their parents after that. He couldn't go back to Jimin's as well since the boy had his own matter to straighten out. Lastly, he clearly couldn't go back to his house for he would run away for nothing.

He had found this situation almost too familiar. Last time he had spent almost two nights out, that time without his friends knowing where he was. He thought about going to the same place he had sought shelter before, before his feet somehow had dragged him elsewhere.

The sun was setting and he had found himself walking aimlessly towards the hill. At least no one was going to look for him there, especially his parents. His friends would know this time that he would be okay, considering he popped out in front of Namjoon’s door already. Yoongi just clearly needed some time to be alone. Tomorrow was Sunday after all and he got at least until Monday to keep this charade on.

He got on to their usual spot, sitting on the ground with the tree behind his back. For a minute he tried to forget about the petty problems of finding shelter for the night or something warm to eat. He tried to forget about his father back at home, still being as stubborn as he was. He tried to forget his dream of Seoul and this town that he hated. He simply tried to be the Min Yoongi that he was now, doing nothing but enjoying the breeze and sunset.

And the Min Yoongi that was cooped up in his own perfect spot managed to close his eyes and got something else filling his head, gnawing at his vacant mind. Somehow it was the face of Park Jimin, rolling down this very hill, body soaked and wet, that managed to pop into his thought. He remembered vividly the tears of joy running through the boy’s face, the scene imprinted in his mind and how he somehow knew that he was the only one who realized it, as if it was only him who got the sole opportunity and claim to witness that obscure scene.

He let out a small laugh, brushing the silly thought aside.

A part of it was indeed true, though. He would always be the sole witness to the cry of Park Jimin’s, too many to even be called a coincidence. He didn’t know how much of a cruel fate the brat had it coming, because it would always be Yoongi that he ran into. If only it was Seokjin who was every bit of nice, or probably Taehyung who seemed to get along real well with the brat, then maybe Jimin would pass the problems he was dealing with already.

No, he had to come across Min Yoongi instead, who didn’t seem to bring more light to the issue than he had done already.

He was a nightmare, Yoongi had said it.

(And Jimin too should have seen it coming)

+.-.+

Motionless Min was a nickname his friends gave him jokingly somewhere along his first year of high school since he was known to be so lazy he could do nothing but roll around in his own bed for the entire day. Basketball court would probably be the only place where Yoongi gave him his all. As his name suggest, falling asleep at the most obscure place wouldn’t be a problem too great for the motionless master. Therefore, as what he had done on that rainy day, he had found himself sleeping soundly by the tree bark, the sky already dark and even started to scare him with the absence of illumination.

Yoongi quickly got up, stretching his sore limbs and thought that maybe he got a serious case of narcolepsy before heading back down the hill. He didn’t even bring a watch he couldn’t tell the hour, but simply looking up, he knew that it was late already. Time for dinner or maybe passed that.

This would be just the last time, he thought. Last year he had run away somewhere no one would bet an eye on and it had been his safe haven ever since for such case of emergency. After he thought about it, he should have gone there instead last night than ending up in front of Jimin’s door. He did that entirely on impulse and see what it had brought for both him and the boy. Jimin wouldn’t even probably get himself in trouble for him staying over.

Sighing, he thought that maybe he had gotten too much of a Park Jimin in his life already.

He had both his hands in his pocket, walking down the path of the town he knew too well, thinking of finding another shelter for the night. Maybe he had to spend a day in the road, sleeping on benches or in stations, huddled in the corner with nothing but the clothes on his back. Maybe he could even run away for good, trying to earn money in any way possible and rode the train towards Seoul. Or hitching a ride to Jeongseon-eup until he could get to Chuncheon and end up in Seoul on way or another, anything could work.

Living on the streets, maybe Min Yoongi could even try that for tonight.

He was deep in silly thoughts when he caught a certain figure, running frantically through the night. It was him who caught the figure or rather it was the other person who caught him, for the shadow ran towards him and Yoongi could then make out who it was.

“Hyung, I’ve found you.”

Jimin was drenched in sweat, his bangs sticking to his forehead. The boy stopped right in front of Yoongi and bent down, catching his breath. He had changed his clothes from the last time Yoongi saw him and it looked like as if he’d been running for quiet some time.

“I don’t know we’re playing hide and seek,” he mocked.

Jimin made out a small laugh, still holding his stomach. He looked like someone who had run a marathon or two. It took quiet a moment until he breathed normally, back standing straight and finally looking at Yoongi in the eye.

"I've been looking for you, hyung."

The elder raised his eyebrow in confusion. Now that he mentioned it, Jimin should have been back at home where problems awaited him. His parents must be furious from the brawl that he got and the sudden escape. Maybe Yoongi was forever restricted to the house ever since, the Park prohibiting their very son to spend time with him, whatever the reason would be.

"Why would you?"

The younger let out a smile whilst trying to maintain his normal breath.

"You don't bring your cell. I don't know where you've gone. Namjoon called me and he said you've been there. I've tried to look for you everywhere, hyung," he said.

(And the boy had to make the search look like a freaking marathon. Interesting)

"Yeah I get that, but why do you have to look for me?" he asked again. Jimin didn't seem to get the first question right or maybe he didn't give Yoongi the answer he was waiting for.

The boy in front of him coaxed his head sideways, brows furrowed.

"Why? To bring you home, of course."

Jimin's answer seemed to itch his ear and made no sense to him at all.

"I ran away for a reason, Jimin. And I'm not intending to go back to my house so soon."

"No, no, I mean my house."

"What?"

"Your stuff's there. You don't have any other place to stay the night, right?" he said.

Somehow hearing that made Yoongi laugh instead. Everything about Park Jimin always ended up like this for him, even when he didn't see it coming.

"You've been running around town to look for me just to invite me again to crash at your place? Or are you really that desperate to have someone sleepover, jiminie?" he said in the midst of laugh.

This time it was Jimin's part to blush, realizing what he had done. The boy gulped and shook his head, looking exactly like someone that realized the wrong he accidentally committed and how awkward it costed him. Yoongi's mind wandered to that day when Jimin nonchalantly asked whether he'd stayed behind to check on Jimin and remembered how embarassed he was that time. This time it was his part to give the blatant question.

"No, no. I mean Namjoon-hyung told me to take care of you as well," he said, making an excuse that Yoongi himself had believed to be true. He believed Namjoon had done so, worrying about his sake. At this point the others would have probably known that he was crashing at Jimin's already.

Yoongi groaned. "They should have left me alone."

The younger boy shook his head. "No, hyung. They were simply worried about you."

He sighed. His friends were indeed nosy. If he chose to disappear like he did last year, his friends would probably be heads over heels once again, looking for him. He wouldn't be surprised to see his face printed on a milk carton if he did.

"What about you? Shouldn't you be at home?" he said. "I don't think your parents would be thrilled with the idea of another friend staying over for the second time this week."

It took only that sentence to make Jimin look sad again and sent his eyes darting back towards the ground. Yoongi cursed to himself inside his head, realizing that at least he could do as much as verbalizing his thoughts so it wouldn't sound as harsh as it did right now.

"I mean, I'm sorry. They wouldn't probably be mad if I didn't come to your door last night," Yoongi added in, feeling the guilt that started to crawl on him.

Jimin shook his head. "It wasn't your fault, hyung. They weren't supposed to come, I don't know about it and I shouldn't have said anything either so it was-,"

And he already know what Jimin would have said. He had now known about it too well. 'It was my fault', he was going to say, blaming himself yet again.

"-no one's fault."

It was always funny to see that even when it took only a sentence to get the boy down, it took simply another to send a smile back to the boy's cheek.

"How is it with your parents, though?" he asked.

"It's okay I've straightened things up. They were a bit-, troublesome sometimes. But it's okay now."

He couldn't tell whether that was a made-up lie or not. He didn't even know what Jimin's parent's problems were. But still he didn't see how he can easily crash at the boy's place freely from now on.

"I'm not convinced, Jimin," he said, tone rather low and demeaning, trying to pry whatever that the boy could maybe hide from him.

Jimin sighed.

"They left, hyung. When I got back, they weren't even there anymore," he said.

That sounded more trustworthy to his ear somehow.

"So I guess I didn't really manage to straighten things out. Halmeoni said they just left. Maybe I'm being disowned, I don't know."

"Jimin, you better think about your parents more than looking out for me. I can take care of myself," he said, not wanting to cause trouble.

The younger boy shook his head

"Then what if I wanted you to come, hyung? What if I wanted you to stay the night just because I want to?"

Yoongi gave Jimin three solid seconds. Three. He waited three seconds for the boy in front of him to laugh. Three solid seconds and he didn't see any sign of Jimin faltering, telling Yoongi how serious he really was. That was when Yoongi finally laughed. He laughed so hard, holding his own stomach until tears started to pool around his eyes. Jimin just stood there, not seemingly to get the humor.

"Oh my god, Park Jimin. Are you confessing your love to me-,"

At that point Jimin's eye widened in surprise, face looking like someone had dropped a bucket of cold water on top of him.

"-because you just sounded like a freaking girl to my ear."

Jimin's face went red in an instant, diverting his gaze from Yoongi all the while trying to hide how embarrassed he must be feeling. He bit on his lower lip, his hand crumpling the edge of his T-Shirt.

"Okay stop doing that because you look so much like a girl to my eyes right now it started to look disgusting instead of funny."

"It's not like I'm going to call you Yoongi-oppa," Jimin said, joining the joke.

"I won't accept your love confession even if you were a girl, Park Jimin," he snorted.

There was this strange look in Jimin's eye as he finished the sentence but Yoongi quickly casted it aside and laughed instead.

(And of course, if only Min Yoongi wasn’t such an idiot, he would have known all along)

+.-.+

At the end he did stay in Jimin’s room for the second night. That day he ended up having dinner with Jimin’s grandmother. The old Park had missed her front teeth and she liked to smile widely, revealing what she had lost almost too eagerly. There were moments when the boy was purely ecstatic, being the little bundle of joy that he was, and this was one of it.

“Why don’t you stay forever, Yoongi-ah. Jiminnie’s never this happy since he’s been here,” the old Park had said during their dinner.

Jimin’s face turned a slight red and he tried to change the topic, saying that his grandmother was purely exaggerating. Yoongi laughed to that and Jimin’s grandmother continued the conversation, telling embarrassing stories about Jimin’s childhood that got Yoongi laughing even harder and Jimin even redder, trying to stop his grandmother from spilling anymore of his secrets.

As easy as that they all kind of forgot about their own problems. Yoongi forgot about how he was there because he ran away from home. Jimin forgot how his parents just came and practically destroyed his first sleepover (as Yoongi had said it). So that night, when their stomach was full and they ended up talking about the series of ugly expression and imitating the screeching noise that Hoseok always made whenever he was afraid, Yoongi asked something about going down from the window towards the tree like they did this morning and raced towards the school field to do some star-gazing.

"How could a boy from Seoul like you understand how to climb down a tree?" he had asked.

Jimin made that small gesture and expression whenever he tried to hide something obvious about his past but continued to answer nonetheless.

"I used to run away from my room at nights," he said, looking sad. Yoongi tried to change the subject, feeling himself stirred whenever he saw Jimin like that before the boy managed to add a soft, "It wasn't that that got me kicked out, though."

"I dare you to climb down the tree again now, then," he said.

"Why should I?"

"Because running away from your house in Seoul cannot be compared to this. Where would you even go when you ran away in Seoul?"

"Clubs in Hongdae?"

Yoongi kind of regretted for asking that because he had found himself to be jealous of the simple answer now. There was no club to visit in this god forsaken town and it only made him want to visit Seoul even more.

"Anyway, I bet Seoul didn't have a place as beautiful as our school field."

"What could be so great from a mere school field?"

Yoongi smirked. "You got to climb down that tree to figure it out", he teased.

Pretty much that was how he got both of them, standing outside of Jimin's house much like how they did in the morning but with smile and laughter smacked across their face. They ended up running back towards the school before Yoongi remembered about Jimin's sore feet midway.

"No, it's okay, hyung. I've been running around looking for you anyway."

"Which is the very reason why you shouldn't run more than that now. We need you in the game, I've told you," Yoongi said, offering the younger boy a piggyback ride.

He had indeed promised before. Min Yoongi wasn't as cheerful as this most of the time. He was rude and mean. But somehow that night he had found it in himself to be a little bit nicer. How they managed to forget about their own respective problems got him wanting to do more and more. Doing things helped, he thought, because now he barely had the time to think about his mother looking for him or the anger remarks that would greet him when he got home.

So in the end they reached the school field with Jimin on his back. The school was creepy at night but Yoongi had grown familiar with it already. Nothing seemed to frighten him now, not even the woods of their small town or the rumors of the haunted rail track.

“You’re sweating, hyung,” Jimin said, giggling. The boy was propping his head on top of his shoulder, right at the crook of his neck.

“Because you’re heavy, ,” he said back. This time he purposely let go of his hand, letting Jimin fell to the ground with a loud thud. The boy protested but Yoongi just grinned and kind of laughed.

Jimin was crouching on the ground, rubbing his sore before the elder boy joined him on the ground, lying on his back, eyes darted towards the sky. He liked to do this, simply having the soft grass on his back keeping him warm and the wind caressed his cheeks. He let out his arms and legs, spreading them apart as if he was making a snow angel on the grass field.

“Tell me again why this place is so amazing?” Jimin asked, sitting beside him with legs crossed.

Yoongi just smiled. He found out about this place last year, right when he ran away from home. It was during the nights when he had gotten missing. He didn’t know that everybody was looking for him. It was clearly passed midnight, he recalled, when he passed this place and decided to lie on the school field just like that. That was when he realized how perfect this place was. Amongst his friends, the hills had been unanimously voted as their favorite spot. Yet as beautiful as the hill could be, there was something that only the field could do to satisfy his need for such a clear sky.

He held out his finger and pointed towards the sky.

Jimin let out a small laugh.

“I should have known,” he whispered with a slight smile forming on his lips.

The boy lied down next to him before mimicking his gesture, looking towards the same night sky.

“Known what?”

“You’re always looking at the sky.”

Yoongi thought about it again. Was he really that obvious?

“I do?”

“Every time we came back from the school, you’ll always have your chin up, looking at the sky. Even when we’re waiting for Minju and the others in the city, you’ll want to sit beside the window so you got to see the sunset.”

He scoffed. Jimin was, as he had said it the first time, more observant than he thought. The fact that the boy even realized that counted as-, something, he thought. It shouldn’t mean anything but it did make him smile. Something then, indeed. Something he couldn’t quiet put a label upon. They stayed like that for a few moment, breathing in and out, letting his eyes darted from one star to the next, counting them by heart.

He always loved them so much he didn’t need an explanation to why. He just raised his head one day and he understood what love was. Maybe in another life he was the reincarnated soul of Galileo that was reborn as Edwin Hubble before finding himself trapped in the body of a Min Yoongi, a boy living in a small abandoned town somewhere in Gangwon.

He slowly raised his hand upward, trying to reach the star if such action would even be possible. It was childish but he liked to pretend that he could do otherwise.

“The sky would be so lucky, hyung,” Jimin said again softly.

He cocked his eyebrow, looking at Jimin from the corner of his eye. The boy was having his head lifted up like he did as well, a smile forming on his face.

“Why?”

“Because it got to be looked at like that every day by you.”

As much as how weird the sentence sounded to his ear, Yoongi couldn’t brush off that warm feeling spreading inside of him. He didn’t know where did it come from, but he knew that it wouldn’t even be there if he weren’t lying on the school field in the middle of a summer night with Park Jimin beside him.