Sujin was always an active kid, quite the tom boy. She used to run around, climb trees and play in the garden all day as a kid. But once little Sujin started elementary school, life wasn’t all that fun. She didn’t like to play house every day with the other girls and talk about the pretty dresses she got from her parents. She wanted to play with the boys because they would run around playing tag or pretend that they were pirates looking for gold, fighting the enemy pirates.

But of course, none of the boys wanted to play with her. In fact they only wanted to , call her names and pull on her pig tails when she asked if she could play with them. One day the boys all gathered up around her and started pushing her and pulling her hair. “Is Sujinnie going to cry? Girl’s shouldn’t play with us. Go away Sujinnie we don’t like you. Sujinnie is gross!!!”

She finally couldn’t take it anymore and she turned around to face the biggest bully in the group, Daejin. She huffed up her red cheeks before pushing him and letting out a firm “Yah! Stop it!” The boy stumbled back a few steps and got angry because a girl pushed him. He pushed her back with enough force to knock her off her feet and land on the ground.

She looked up just in time to see the big boy raise his foot to kick her and out of instinct she covered her face with her hands. There was a resounding thwack but Sujin didn’t feel the impact of the kick. Instead Daejin let out a loud scream before bursting into tears. Sujin opened her eyes to see a little boy picking up a big orange ball, which he had apparently thrown towards Daejin’s face. The said boy came up to Sujin and stood in front of her when she got back up on her feet.

“Daejin you can’t hit girls! I won’t let you hit Sujinnie!” he said sternly. Sujin expected the boys to all beat up this new face but instead they grumbled and started leaving, Daejin still hiccupping back his sobs. The new boy turned towards Sujin and asked her if she was okay. She nodded and said thank you.

“I’m Yoongi. We’re in the same class but we never talked” he said and Sujin finally recognized who he was. Yoongi was the kid in class who always fell asleep. He sat on the other side of her class and she only knew his name because the teacher would always call on him to wake up. But this was the first time a boy spoke to her without calling her names or saying she was gross. “I’m Sujin!” she said, her eyes forming little crescent moons and her dimples showing.  Yoongi just let out a little laugh before asking her if she would like to play basketball with him. Sujin didn’t know what that was but she said okay anyway, glad that someone wanted to play with her.

They became friends pretty quick after that. Yoongi was quite a promising basketball player, even at that very tiny age, because his elder brother would teach him how to play a lot. This was partly the reason why the other boys didn’t pick on him when he stood up for Sujin. Because they all admired how good he was. Sujin was absolutely hopeless when it came to the game however. Yoongi kept telling her she was hopeless and would laugh at her whenever she couldn’t dribble the ball or throw it high enough to reach the shorter hoop they had installed for the elementary kids. But Sujin insisted on learning. Sujin was really good at climbing trees though and she helped Yoongi learn how to climb trees too. She gave him pointers on what kind of trees he should try climbing and how to look out for weak branches.

On the first day of second grade they decided to sit next to each other. That way they almost always had group work together. During one of those group works they had to make friendship bracelets with colourful beads. While stringing them together they agreed to keep them for ever and ever and ever and that if one of them lost their bracelet they had to buy the other one a biiiig ice cream.

Sujin was absolutely in love with K-pop. She would make Yoongi listen to the hottest groups, Shinhwa, G.O.D and 1TYM. That had to be the only time she actually acted like a girl her age, singing along to pop songs and collecting every single picture of the “handsome oppas” that were printed in the newspapers. She asked Yoongi to be an idol one day. “Pleaseeee!! That way I can meet all the handsome oppas!!!” she said. “NEVER! I don’t want to be an idol I want to be the bestest Basketball player ever! Or a fire fighter!!! I want to run into burning buildings and put out all the fire. I’ll be a real super hero then!!”

The best part about their friendship had to be the fact that they lived close to each other. The little town they lived in had quite a few patches of forests and in the summer they would always meet up to explore and have adventures. They found a stream one day and splashed around in it. They ran into a tiny clearing full of wild flowers another day and ran around chasing butterflies. It’s a miracle they never got lost but they made sure they never went too far deep into the forest, always wandering close to a path.

On one day however they were looking for wild berries when they heard some rustling in the bushes nearby. Yoongi remembered his mother telling him to be careful that day because the village people had seen a wild boar. Those were quite the violent pigs and his mother had warned him that his little legs wouldn’t be able to save him if he ran. The rustling continued and Yoongi quickly screamed “BOAR!!” grabbing onto Sujins hand and heading back the way they came. Sujin was screaming the moment she heard the word boar but she remembered that boars can’t climb trees so she tugged on Yoongi’s hand and led them towards a big tree. Soon after the two scrambled up the tree they saw that the boar had indeed followed them since the bushes near them were rustling too. After a very long minute of wide eyes staring at the creature getting closer to their tree, still covered by bushes…

… out jumped a little wild rabbit before scampering off into another cluster of bushes. The two frightened kids were silent for a few seconds but quickly burst out laughing uncontrollably.

Life isn’t always full of happy moments though and at the same time Sujin’s family fell into some financial trouble, Yoongi’s father’s business picked up. The two friends were both going to be moving, Sujin to Jeolla Province where her grandmother lived and Yoongi to a more populated part of Daegu. On the last Sunday of summer they met for the very last time, Sujin crying and Yoongi hugging her while trying not to cry too. Sujin couldn’t remember her grandmothers address but luckily Yoongi was smart and “not a pabo like Sujinnie” so he already remembered his new home address. He wrote it down for her carefully and they promised to write to each other.

Now this would have been the perfect little ending to the two little friends, except that Yoongi really was a pabo and he accidentally wrote the wrong address. The first letter Sujin sent him got returned and so did the second, the third, the fifteenth. Her mother asked her to stop writing after a long year of writing letters and them getting returned.

When they finally got a telephone a year and a half later, Sujin went through a telephone directory, calling about 40 different Min families asking to speak to Min Yoongi. After the first month’s phone bill arrived and her father realised why it was so so so high, he said he would get rid of the phone if she ever tried to call another Min again.

Sujin all but gave up hope after that day. She still remembered Min Yoongi from time to time, especially when she would find the bracelet they made together. But she made a lot of new friends when she joined the track team.

While she was in High School, the age of the internet quickly began. She tried many times to look for a specific Min Yoongi from Daegu but no one ever looked familiar to her. Of course, she had no idea what a teenage Min Yoongi would look like but she was guessing his gummy smile couldn’t have changed all that much. She managed to get nothing. He was virtually non-existent. This was quite a bit of a blow to her ego though since she was really good with computers. She was so good she had to give up looking for him once she started hacking into profiles to make sure it wasn’t a creep, only to realise she was becoming a creep. High School was tough enough to take her mind off her little childhood wish to find the pabo who gave her the wrong address, but she got through all her exams with stellar results. She did so well she got into Seoul University to code her way to a wonderful degree.

While packing up her stuff to move to Seoul she once again came across the box that stored all her memories of Yoongi. After a long internal debate she decided that she wouldn’t bring that box with her to Seoul. She needed to move on. It was getting rather ridiculous now, Yoongi probably didn’t even remember her. It was time to keep the one part of her childhood she held closest to her heart behind.

University was nice. Nice in a way that makes you want to pull your hair out every few days because of an assignment deadline. But luckily she had music to make things all good. She was up to date on all the hottest songs and she would make it a point to check out all the new groups that were debuting too. She had been to quite a few concerts and fansigns and her collection of albums was impressive.

Jieun, her roommate, was equally hooked on K-pop and the two would frequently fangirl together. On June 13, Jieun asked Sujin to check out this new boy group that came out. She quickly pulled up the boys’ debut video and thoroughly enjoyed the debut song. She looked up their profiles and nearly spat out her juice when she read Suga’s bio. She replayed the song a bajillion times after that, having the strangest feeling. She tried to convince herself that she was being delusional.

‘There’s no way this is him. He said he wanted to play basketball not be an idol. And besides, there has to be more than one Min Yoongi from Daegu. I found a few online back then…” The more she found out about him her suspicion kept growing but she would always try to push those thoughts away.

‘There’s no way this could be him. I mean yeah sure he has a gummy smile, he has an elder brother, he loves basketball and is pretty good at it, he’s from Daegu and is my age. There’s just no way he’s the same lazy person I know though, I mean, a lot of people can be that lazy too…’

But what really made her rethink all her rethinking was when she found out, two entire years later, that Yoongi was afraid of his dad. He said it quite innocently on their Vapp Halloween party, dressed up as Naruto, and a lot of ARMYs giggled about it. But Sujin kept thinking about that one time when the both of them came back from the forest and Sujin had tripped on a rock and had a wounded knee. Yoongi had helped her hop back to his house, since it was the closest, to put a plaster on her knee. His dad had come back from work early and seen Sujin bleeding. He had scolded Yoongi so much for not taking better care of her and for going into the woods all the time. Yoongi has just stood there, shaking with his head bent and his fingers twisting together. He had waited till his dad had stopped his scolding, said he was sorry and that he would never let it happen again and returned to the couch Sujin was seated on. He looked rather pale and his lips were quivering but he never cried. Yoongi’s dad wasn’t a bad person, he was just very strict and very direct. He didn’t sugar coat anything. Yoongi loved his dad and looked up to him so much. Yoongi too was pretty direct and didn’t lie about things even to be polite. But deep down, Just like how Yoongi was, Yoongi’s dad really was a caring person. Because after he disinfected Sujins knee and put a pretty plaster on it, he drove the both of them to Sujin’s house but took quite a detour to buy them both ice cream.

Sujin wasn’t 100% sure Suga was Yoongi, the Yoongi, but she decided it was time to test out her theory. As soon as she got a break from University she went back home and brought her box of memories to Seoul. She had to wait six months to get into a fan sign, the 9th attempt being successful. She really had no idea if it would be him honestly, but she took the bracelet with her. She planned on giving it to him as a gift.

She was nervous. So nervous she came to the fan sign an hour early, constantly fidgeting with her white skirt and pretty floral top. She thought her heart was going to stop when she saw BTS arrive and especially when Suga arrived. He took a seat right at the end of the long table and the fan sign started. Occasionally he would get a break from signing albums and either act cute or shoot hearts at all the fans taking pictures. He had on a tiger ear head band when her turn arrived.

Sujin had written down little MCQ’s on post-it notes for the members to answer, knowing she would be too nervous to talk much. The BTS members were really sweet and asked her how she was, what she was studying and gladly answered all her little questions about their health, their favourite food or who their ideal girl was. With every single member that finished signing her album, she felt her heartbeat growing louder. And then, faster than she thought it could happen, she was in front of the rapper known as Suga.

“Hi how are you doing today?” he asked looked up at her standing figure and smiled at her.

“I’m in a very happy mood today” she replied. He simply nodded, the smile never leaving his face as he flipped through her album to get to the page she had book marked for him. There was no post-it note for him.  She crouched down so that they could be at eye level and took the bracelet out of her bag and looked at it one last time.

“I have a gift for you… oppa…” she said. The word oppa sounding very strange to her. He was older than her by a few months but they only ever called each other by their names in elementary school.

He looked up at her and held out his hand to take the bracelet. He looked at the bracelet for a very long time and asked her how old she was distractedly.

“I’m your age oppa but a few months younger. That bracelet… I made it with my friend in elementary school and he told me to never ever ever lose it…”

It was now or never. If he really was the right Min Yoongi then he would say something now. Suga kept looking at the bracelet a bit more, his lips set in a lazy smile as he fiddled with the little colourful beads.

She took a deep breath and said “I went to Yang-Ri Elementary School in Daegu.”

As soon as she said the name of her elementary school Suga’s head snapped up and he looked her directly in the eyes. “What’s your name?” he asked in a rush, face completely blank.

“Park Sujin.”

Silence. Yoongi just stared at her for a good few seconds, blinking slowly. But that really was the calm before the storm since his eyes quickly grew double its size and he jumped up out of his chair, the tiger ear headband slipping off his head and nearly hitting her as it fell to the table. He pointed down at her screaming “YAH! IMMA! YOU… YOU!!! SUJINNIE?!?!?”

She just chuckled at him and nodded, her smile the same as when she was a kid, crescent moon eyes and dimples.

“YOU NEVER WROTE TO ME! WERE YOU SUCH A PABO YOU LOST THE ADDRESS I GAVE YOU?!”

Sujin felt her eye twitch involuntarily at that. She was the pabo? SHE?! Sujin shot up to her feet and let out all the frustration she had bottled up since she was a kid.

“YAH MIN YOONGI YOU PABO YOU GAVE ME THE WRONG ADDRESS! AND DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MIN’S I CALLED? I EVEN HACKED FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS LOOKING FOR YOU IMMA!”

By this time all the other members, the staff and even the fans waiting in line were staring at the two of them with varied levels of shock on their faces. The only thing breaking the silence after her words was the shutter sounds coming off of all the fancam operators. Why was Suga and a fan… arguing? Were they arguing? In any case the manager came up on stage and pulled Yoongi by the back of his jean jacket, asking him to shut up and continue with the fansign. He was about to call security on Sujin but Yoongi quickly stopped him and said he would explain later and that he wanted to talk to her after the event was over. The manager looked like he was clenching his teeth really painfully as he motioned for Sujin to follow him as he escorted her to a waiting room.

The fansign took another hour to finish and Sujin wasn’t allowed to leave the waiting room. During that time the manager had questioned her about what was going on. She explained to him that they were childhood friends and how Yoongi was an idiot giving her the wrong address. He wasn’t too happy with the explanation and didn’t really understand why they had to make such a huge scene over their reunion but he told her to stay put anyway and agreed to let her talk to Yoongi for a bit.

As soon as Yoongi walked through the door of the waiting room however he marched right up to her and crushed her in the tightest hug she had ever felt. Back then, they were both the same height but right now he was taller than her and she was getting smothers by his chest and while her heart was doing happy little flips she was also finding it hard to breath. So she reluctantly tried to pull away from the hug, giggles escaping her when Yoongi just grunted and untangled himself from around her.

“Did you really write to me?” he asked, eyes searching for any signs of her lying. She smiled at him and pulled out a stack of letters, glad that she brought them too to the fan sign. Yoongi took the bundle and read the address on the topmost envelope, a massive red “RETURN” stamped across it. He really had given her the wrong address.

“I’m sorry” he let out, slightly embarrassed.

“It’s alright oppa~~~” she dragged out the oppa in a sing-songy voice. He gave her a look that said she should stop. Wonderful she thought. She’s definitely going to call him oppa more now.

"Also... I'm sorry I couldn't keep our promise. I lost my bracelet."

"Yah you-" but Sujin got cut off when Yoongi kept talking. The same mischievous gummy smile she loved plastered on his face.

"So since I broke my promise I'll make it up to you okay? The next time I have a free day I'll take you out for the biggest ice cream in Seoul!"

Did he just… 'Damn who knew he grew up to be so smooth' Sujin thought an equally mischievous smile forming on her lips. "Call! I'm going to be ordering the most expensive one too!"

A/N: Just to clarify what imma (임마) means. Imma means Idiot or fool. In "Intro: Never Mind" they say imma a few times (부딪힐 것 같으면 더 세게 밟아 임마 / If you feel like you’re going to crash then accelerate more, you idiot) and in general BTS call each other imma a lot too. I know it's spelled exactly like the colloquial English Imma (Imma kill you) and if you don't know what the Korean word means you guys might have gotten confused with my grammar :)

Also I have no idea which elementary school or even which area Yoongi lived in as a kid but I just saw a few things here and there and looked at the map of Daegu and just picked an area that correlates with the story.