Welcome to the final naggy author time! I can't believe I'm finally concluding this story after 2 years of planning and writing wow.

This is actually the first chaptered fic I've written in years (my last chaptered fic was Bittersweet, and that was written in 2012 wow), since I tend to prefer writing one-shots that require less planning. In a sense, the only work I had that's more or less mature was The Beautiful Mistake is that I met you, the 5 AU one-shot I wrote in between A-levels. But When My World No Longer Stops For You is different. It's basically my story. Perhaps because it is just so personal, I want nothing but my very best in this, be it the planning, writing or formatting, I try to ensure that every chapter uploaded is my best effort. And I really hope all that effort paid off to allow a smooth reading for you.

Not sure if I mentioned this anywhere, but the whole story really just stemmed from how well the jikook dynamics suited my story. The title originated from the mass run scene and was decided within the first 5 minutes; planning took months, and so much changes has been made since first draft, with each change removing more and more fictional feature. I started writing it to mark a milestone of me finally putting behind a friend in the past, but it ended up to be much more. I included a lot of scenes that were intended to be a secret to everyone, including particular scenes of bullying, the talk that never happened, my aunt's passing, my insecurity as a 'dancer', and so much more. To write those scenes it forced me to recall memories that I always denied their existence, pulling them out of the darkest corners, trying to re-experience those emotions and express them in black and white… it was a true journey. Writing about these history and putting them out in the open is a lot more therapeutic then I imagined, and although I probably still won't bring these up to a friend, I feel more at peace about the fact that it has happened. This is why I like writing, in a sense. You pour a piece of you into every word, you convert memories into concrete material with a pinch of how a more mature self sees the situation. You acknowledge and accept yourself more, and can better understand why certain decisions were made.

The first planning page of this fic was created on 17 December, 2015. While planning and writing, I had that dream in Xinjiang. I got back my A-level results. I got the letter, and talked with the JK-friend. Worked my first internship, got my first introduction to people outside of 'Bangtan High'. Made a choice between my offers and enrolled in the university against my parents' recommendation. Got cultural-shocked multiple times during orientation, went to a club for the first time, shared a hotel room with people I knew for barely 12 hours. Got my much delayed grade 10 for 'dance', and realised that it isn't something I'll ever give up. Struggled to adapt to the very different university life, lost contact with some friends, restored connection with others, and cautiously keeping a one-semester friendship with university classmates. Saw a good amount of back-stabbing and stuck-ups, trying to learn to become more guarded against people. Learnt to better appreciate kindness, yet also learnt to be selective and cautious with that too.

I went from 18 to 20, not exactly very much of an adult, and still trying to figure out how society works without changing too much of myself. This fic was something that kept me sane in this transition, and writing it was a constant reminder to appreciate people and embrace myself.

I would like to thank everyone who gave this story a chance, I know it's a pretty different story from the average stories especially without the romance aspect. Especially to those who left me comments to tell me how they felt of the story so far, they always motivated me to write. So really, thank you guys so much for letting me know. And there were also readers who told me their own story, I am honoured you chose to share them with me. Perhaps you've found shadows of yourself in this story, if so I guess I would have succeeded as the author.

I hope this story was able to spark something in you, that it gave you some sort of takeaway that you didn't expect. Things like appreciation and not taking friendship for granted. Things like being honest with yourself, not denying pain and dismissing your emotions. Things like how perspectives would change so don't resist flipping back on old chapters to reflect. Things like different people handle issues differently and there's no right or wrong, only what's suitable for you. And also, I would repeat this time and again but just because the person who hurt you apologised doesn't mean you should accept it. It's completely up to you, and I want you to know that you're not obliged to accept the apology. Taehyung never really forgave Jungkook, just like how Kyungsoo wants nothing to do with Jimin anymore, and there's nothing wrong with that. It was Jimin's choice to forgive, it was Taehyung and Kyungsoo's choice to not. No individual should be expected to give the same decision, you can't compare the pain felt either. And never, ever try to make excuse for anyone that's hurting you, physically or mentally. This goes to all the people out there in an abusive relationship. Forgiving that person repeatedly will only deepen the wound and make it harder for you to pull away and heal.

As of future updates… So I've already created this story on AO3 (if you see this story uploaded anywhere else that would be plagiarism, do alert me immediately!), and I'll slowly upload every chapter there after the last rounds of beta (forgive my OCD lol). If major changes were made I'll update the AFF version too. I'll probably be compiling this into a pdf or something, I'll let you guys know later.

You can expect a bonus chapter of a collection of scenes, quotes, conversations etc that I really wanted to include in the story, but couldn't find a way to. When I update the AO3 version I may try to include some of these into the actual work though. And perhaps another bonus chapter of what this story was originally meant to be (it was supposed to be a yoonmin ending with a jungkook pov initially can you believe), including some of the parts that I had written out. I had a lot of planning done for this fic before I converted it into a 80% personal story, and of course I liked the honesty now but I definitely have some fond parts from the old version (I even had a whole 2k worth of planning of how the character appearance will evolve over the 4 years lol). I may or may not write out the backstory of Jimin and Kyungsoo, if I do I'll definitely alert yall :)

If you like my writing style (kyaa) and don't mind reading on other groups and ships (mainly eunhae, ship of the century, best friends who lived together for half their life time, I have like 3 long-overdue plots that is not developed yet), you may want to look out to my future fics haha. I don't think I'll be writing anything BTS soon haha, I have 6 mods this semester and there's too much going on with my other fandoms (SuJu is touring and TVXQ is gonna comeback soon kyaaa priorities oops), but I have like a list of drabble ideas stored somewhere called 50 shades of gay, I'll let you guys know if I find the commitment to actually write it out lol.

Lastly… the characters. I've said this time and again, but every character in this fic was picked with care. Here is why.

This story really started from jikook. They were the very first characters I decided upon because their 2015 (and before) dynamics were hauntingly similar to my experience with the JK-friend, it reminded me painfully of how I was once like, so the moment I thought "should I write a slightly more personal story?" jikook popped into my mind. On the emotional spectrum, in BTS Jimin would try to cling onto Jungkook, who keeps pushing him away. On the professional spectrum, BTS Jimin tends to get overshadowed by Jungkook (their positions also overlaps exactly: the main vocals and dancers). [Once again I must emphasize that this was the impression I had in 2015, before the jikook dynamics shifted into something much sweeter and before Jimin got more recognition, and also, I wasn't even an ARMY then so yeah my observations may be off here and there yeah.] I did alter a few things though. The real life should be 2 years, I altered it to be 2 months. The height difference is probably the only thing that is completely different, because I'm the taller friend lol but okay I can't exactly picture Jungkook being shorter than Jimin so yeppp I reluctantly allowed it. The main adjustment would be finding a replacement for my club activity, and it was a quick debate between dance and choir: both were performing arts, but I thought dance has more aesthetic to it LOL. But hey fun fact, JK-friend is actually in a dance club AND a choir now in university! How cool is that!

[This is not exactly part of the character selection discussion but uhhh, a part of the story-jikook dynamics that I didn't actually talk about was their rivalry in Year 1/2. Jimin and Jungkook both joined as the best/highest-grade dancers of their batch, they were probably better than some of their seniors even - Jimin was a grade 7, and Jungkook was one grade higher. They felt that rivalry since the audition, and later in their first section allocation by their instructor Jimin was allocated to section one, which used to be made up exclusively of DSA members only; Jungkook was allocated to section three, much to everyone's surprise because of his high grade. They never saw eye to eye since day one, and their batch mates complained later in Year 4 that there used to be this tension in the air whenever they were in the same space. I skipped this part in the story since it was quite eventless, and things only got interesting in Year 3 when they were tied together with the same responsibility. This is just to explain for the curious ones as to why Jimin and Jungkook were batchmates but never became friends earlier. So to summarise, jikook technically has 8 years of interaction. 2 years of rivalry, 2 years of bonding, 2 years of pain and healing, 2 years of mending.]

Now for the individual character.

Let's start from the obvious. Jimin is a direct reflection of myself. Maybe because we're both libras, but he has always been the most relatable member in BTS for me. The fic discussed the character enough since it's from Jimin's POV so you've read enough of how he tends to think. One aspect that wasn't fully covered was his insecurity as a dancer as compared to Jungkook, because the people (teachers, juniors, seniors) tend to look to Jungkook more because the latter had much more leadership and more comfortable with the spotlight, but Jimin easily reads it as he's being overshadowed, overlooked and underappreciated for both his contributions and skills (doesn't help when Jungkook habitually by demanding that Jimin admits him as the better dancer between them) (tbh their competency lies in the opposites, which is why it's so hard to say who's better). He believed that he's kind of mistreated by the club, and was upset that they allocated him to section 2 (see the first chapter: I quit), and comes up with a conclusion that people are too used to him being around as Jungkook's side-kick and plus one, which is why they're treating him carelessly (although in the seniors' POV it may be because Jimin was absent from all holiday practices, etc, I'd never know). This drove him to quit the club. This was a kind of similarity with BTS Jimin that I was initially hesitant to include, and is one of the most buried reasons that I'd never admitted to anyone openly, but since this story was meant to be a complete record, I decided to write it out in the end.

Jungkook is the direct replica of that friend, as I tried to the best of my ability to recreate from my understanding of her personality. This Jungkook is probably quite OOC from the BTS JK that fans know though, but for me I see similarity between the two of them. Emotionally constipated but cries surprisingly easily, curious about many things, doesn't know when to stop when a joke is taken too far, game-addicts, kind of spoilt and brattish, doesn't text very often, kind of vain and relies on his born talent (I'm not sure how, but in 2014 when I watched AHL I feel like Jungkook didn't work as hard because he was born talented; similarly JK-friend doesn't study as hard because she's relatively smart) etc. The other traits (such as the typing habits, nervous actions, tone etc) are all of that friend's. I've stressed before in chapter A/Ns, but JK-friend is in no way a bad person, she's just pretty dumb in some aspects and often used the wrong methods to handle issues (just like how he's equally insecure about his dance skills so he tries to prove himself wrong with validation from Jimin, or how he thinks that the best way to keep Jimin beside him is to not change how he's acting even when that was exactly what's driving Jimin away), she's gave in to me in many ways that I couldn't cover in this fic (like how she clears the food for both of us even if she hates it, but she knows that I hate it even more), and there were probably a lot more of that which I don't even know myself. It doesn't excuse anything, but I want people to realise that good people can hurt people too.

Taehyung is built after my best friend whom I met in Year 1. We were in close cliques in the first four years but weren't that close all along until Year 5, when we no longer had a shared friend group (because things fcked up with the JK-friend, and also because V-friend retained so she went to the O-level class while I moved on to Senior High), and she's the constant in my life and is my pillar. She's the typical "we're so fcking comfortable we can meet on a birthday, hang out the whole day, exchange gifts and just leave without a single happy birthday" friend for me lol. Choosing Taehyung for this role was a very simple logic: V-friend is my best friend, so in the fic she needs to be Jimin's best friend and who's a better choice than the other 95 line? Their characters are kind of similar too, with her love for art, lame puns, and weird Telegram stickers. She's a pretty guarded person, just like how V has such a strong on-stage mask that I believe is very different from the inner Taehyung whom I'm sure is just as deep and intellectual as Namjoon is.

Hoseok is characterized after one of me and JK-friend's common 'dance' friends. She and JK-friend had been close since Year 1, so she was naturally a main source of my insecurities of being replaced after I quit the club (although from her perspective, I may have been the one who 'replaced' her instead). We were never very close, but we did talk a lot in the past. Her and the JK-friend were both hot-headed Sagittarius so they're usually arguing during 'dance' because of different opinions, but they always manage to make up at the speed of light outside 'dance'. Selecting her character had two criteria: a dancer, and a similar surname to Jeon (because her and the JK-friend shared the same surname so that's how they addressed each other, and it used to deep-root my insecurities). Hoseok was the best choice, although I feel kind of sorry that in the fic I had to put him as less of a dancer (because the Hobi-friend was less skilled as compared to myself and the JK-friend, although IRL Hoseok is the best dancer in BTS but yeah, fanfics), and also minimized the role he played as a student instructor because it would complicate the plot (the Hobi-friend worked just as hard as a zhidao alongside us, I just didn't interact with her job scope that much since we were in-charge of different things and usually JK-friend would be the middle person for this kind of stuff since she's closer with both sides). I ended up changing his surname from Jung to Jeon too. [Fun fact, but initially this character was supposed to be Taehyung, while Hoseok will be the Jimin best friend. I considered this arrangement mainly because then (as in 2015) there were a LOT of videos saying how Jungkook is only sweet to Taehyung, and a lot of fans compared how he treated Taehyung vs Jimin etc. It felt more natural that Jimin would find jealousy towards Taehyung, but at the same time, this is a Jimin-centric thing so I stuck to the best friend concept more so eventually this is how the characters turned out.]

Yoongi hyung was built after one of my closest friends and life saver that I met in Senior High. She was my classmate (class president, to be accurate) from my Year 3/4 class, but we never spoke much then until we got into the same club ('photogs'). She was very passionate about the club and was already seen as the next president, so during one event she sought my help and cooperation because she's super short of hands. She encouraged me to run for vice president, and we eventually grew close after trading intimidate stories (I actually told her about how I was struggling with JK-friend, but I didn't include that scene in the fic). She offered to help my math, and as mentioned in the fic she was very successful (the 8% to 80% is my actual data, so yes it's possible please don't give up on math kay you'll regret it) and I owe her a lot because she was definitely underpaid for how much she helped me! Selection of her character was very simple… I needed a hyung (since me and the Suga-friend had a 2 year ) who likes photography, and Yoongi was the obvious choice. In the fic, I removed all his colder traits because the Suga-friend was one of the warmest people I've knew, so this may be super OOC (since IRL Yoongi is such a sassy tsundere oops sorry for removing all of your covers Yoongz).

Namjoon is built after the 'dance' friend that quit the club along with me. We weren't exactly the closest, but I used to dinner with her after every dance practice until that person became the JK-friend. She was the first to hear about the story, just as mentioned in the fic. She was a great listener and really affirmed my decision to leave and stay away. Selection of her character was mainly from 2 aspects: a similar personality (she's a very rational, warm and guiding person) and less of a dancer (the RM-friend wasn't the best 'dancer', although her foundation skills were very strong), I had a little dilemma between Namjoon and Seokjin but settled on Namjoon eventually since I didn't know Seokjin's character as well then. I think their characters matched pretty well.

Seokjin is characterized after JK-friend's closest friend in his Senior High clique. I knew very little about her except that she's a pretty nice person (we were groupmates in the Year 2 level camp). Seokjin was the only BTS member left that wasn't matched to a more important role, but he didn't seem to fit Bambam's role or Jackson's, so yeah (tbh if I wrote this story 1 year later I would have used Seokjin for Bambam's role instead, but back then I really didn't know Seokjin very well so I just placed him with the safest role).

Kyungsoo is the shadow of a… special friend, I guess. He was a great support to me in Senior High, where we grew close through being in the same PW group, we texted using WeChat every single day, from 5am to 2am. In Year 6 he moved house and ended up living 15 minutes away from me, so we often took the morning bus together. He was having lots of issues with his ex-girlfriend and I was having issues with JK-friends, I guess we both needed that comfort. It was fine initially, it was completely platonic and he came out to me that he's trans and bi. But our class kept teasing us to be a couple (since I mean on the outside, we were a very close pair of guy-girl friends). Things changed when he confessed, and unfortunately he got attached to me like how I was attached to JK-friend, while I stayed cautious about keeping distance. As the fic mentioned, he changed drastically to become crazy possessive and obsessive; initially I liked how nicely he was treating me, and I wondered "do I like him" when truly I was just confused, but eventually he was getting scarier so I started to avoid him like the plague, and eventually wrote him a 7k essay to break it off. As mentioned in the fic, he showed no sign of wanting to talk to me and we've broke off contact completely. His character may be a little unexpected since it's quite a main role but not allocated to a BTS member, since none of them seemed to have a comparable vibe, while Kyungsoo always had this sort of psychopathic aura to him (sorry ><) and his eyes were hauntingly similar. If I have the time I'll probably write out this back story, idk. I reflected a lot about this in the past 2 years and tbh I'm just as fault as he was, and I regret sounding like an in some parts of the letter I wrote to him. Morale of the story yall, try to reject a confession out clear and don't be an to keep the person hanging just because you enjoy having someone take care of you.

Donghae is characterised after my Year 2 tablemate, she was one of the first people who reached out to me and successfully cracked into my shell, she encouraged me to believe in the better of people, the better of the world, to see colours and believe they exist. I trusted her with so many things and we would email each other endlessly over the holidays. We kind of broke contact after we were streamed into different classes. As mentioned in the fic, I wrote her a letter on Year 6 Friendship Day to tell her how much she had helped me. She replied me with a letter a few days later, and she said that she never knew she had so much impact in my life, and she's glad I told her about it since she's been losing faith in people lately. She's a Libra just like me, so this was literally the only basis of selection (like idk I can't be the only one who literally uses horoscopes as adjectives), and one of the kindest person I ever met. Donghae, as my kpop bias for almost 8 years, is someone I would say I know almost inside out and he was the closest match to this friend.

Yixing is based off a friend who was more like a soulmate. Me, her and V-friend were in the same clique in Year 1/2, but some typical 13-year-old drama that no one remembers pulled the clique apart, and we had a very dramatic making up online after months of cold war but with sentimental facebook posts similar to a posts after a break up. We were very similar in personalities and values, saw eye to eye on most issues, and both prioritised friendship strongly and are highly cautious when it comes to romance. She's also a Libra but has some traits of a Virgo too, so eventually I settled on Yixing, who's equally sentimental yet rational.

The more negative characters like Zico, Suzy, Youngjae etc were just idols who gave me a bad first impression. The remaining character selection were more loosely-base on one or two traits like sporty vs geek, air-headed vs rational, gossipy vs low profile, loud vs quiet etc, and I prioritised selecting characters from groups that BTS was closer to (read: GOT7).

That's all! And kudos if you read this far haha (this is like 4k lol). I know I'm such a horrible author in updating consistently and it's not uncommon for my updates to be months apart, so really thank you for your patience!

Happy new year, and thanks for staying the ride, stranger!

At the end of the day, I just hope that this was something worth reading to you :)