"Taehyung, are you sure that this is okay?" Jimin gulped. "Isn't this... illegal?"

"My dear Jiminnie," Taehyung started, "of course this is illegal. The real question is, will they even catch us?" Over his shoulder, he throws Jimin a mischievous grin as he finished spraying his spot on the wall.

It was almost sundown and the two 17-year olds were under the bridge they usually pass by on their way home, vandalizing. Well, that's the legal term for it. Taehyung seemed to have a different perspective of what they were doing because he called it "keeping the world clean and pure". He somehow managed to convince Jimin that they should spray paint over the previous vandalisms, which consisted of curse words and vulgar images, with different drawings and bright, encouraging words. Taehyung had assigned their tasks― Jimin was in charge of cancelling out the bad words and Taehyung, being the more creative one, was in charge of painting over the hideous drawings.

Jimin, being the more level-headed one, couldn’t help but worry.

“When did you even find out about this place? Don’t we go home together?” Jimin asked as he sprayed over a particular string of words talking about doing inappropriate things to girls. He felt shivers run down his spine.

“Remember that time you had to go home early because you got sick at school?” Jimin hummed in response, also remembering that it was just a week after that happened. “Well I sorta dropped my notebook near the edge of the stream so I went down to get it. Then I saw these,” he gestured to the entire space above them. “I really think we’re doing the world a favor.”

Jimin smiled at that, looking over to where Taehyung was using his can of spray paint to make flowers, animals, and other random objects, covering the indecent drawings that littered the wall. But a thought kept nagging at Jimin, making him frown. “And are you sure that no one will see us doing this? Because we can’t go to jail.”

“Psh, of course I’m sure. Nobody passes by this place anyway, except maybe the people who vandalized these walls.” Taehyung stuck his tongue out the way he usually did when he was concentrating. Jimin found it funny and kind of endearing. “But if we do get caught, you can run, right?”

Jimin nearly choked on his spit. “W-what?!”

Taehyung snickered. “Well, we can’t get arrested, can we? And since we’re using these face masks, we’ll just have to outrun them and they won’t be able to recognize us. We can just slip into an alley like two blocks from here and―”

“Taehyung I swear, you’re going to be the death of me one day,” Jimin groaned. His best friend just laughed at that and soon enough, Jimin was joining him.

For no particular reason, they kept laughing their asses off until they heard sounds of a police siren above them. Jimin, acting on instinct, bounded over to where Taehyung was still giggling and clamped a hand over his mouth. Taehyung tried to escape from his grip but Jimin looked at him and put his index finger on his mouth, implying that Taehyung should shut up and try to listen for any police officer going their way.

After 5 minutes of listening to the siren without hearing any footsteps, Taehyung motioned for Jimin to remove his hand from Taehyung’s mouth. When Jimin did so, Taehyung moved closer and whispered in his ear, “Let’s get our stuff quietly and go. I know another way out.”

Jimin nodded and padded over as quietly as he could towards the other side of the wall where he put his stuff. He doesn’t notice Taehyung waving wildly behind him, motioning for him to just leave the spray paint behind, so he reached for the cap inside his bag, replaced it on the can, and tucked the can wordlessly into his bag. He looked at Taehyung, who was then running his hand over his face, and started walking towards him. Taehyung then picked his backpack up and beckoned Jimin to follow his footsteps.

Just as they reached the edge of the tunnel, a booming voice behind them called out, “Hey! You two! What are you doing there?”

Taehyung, the genius, instead of remaining calm, looked at Jimin with a panicked look and shouted, at the top of his lungs, “RUN!!!”

They raced up the stream, Taehyung leading, with two officers behind them, chasing them for a petty (if you ask them both) crime. And one of the perks of being young and 17 is that their stamina is way higher than those of most adults. Taehyung pulled Jimin behind the nearest tree when they turned and it was then his turn to clamp a hand over Jimin’s mouth. As they hid, they heard the two police officers running towards the area where they were.

Both officers were panting and trying to catch their breaths. Apparently, they didn’t see Jimin and Taehyung behind the tree.

“Where are they? Did you see where they went?” One officer said.

“No, I didn’t. But should we really still chase after them? Maybe they were just there, maybe they were just passing by or something. Just a coincidence.” The other officer asked.

“Don’t think so,” the first officer said with a huff. “Anyway, we’ll get them, I’m sure Kang’s making rounds.”

The duo behind the tree listened as the two officers slowly walk back to the way they came from and waited patiently until they couldn’t hear footsteps anymore. When Jimin (since he’s more agile than Taehyung) stepped out and made sure the coast was clear, Taehyung released a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He flashed a smile in Jimin’s direction and said, “Come on, we’ll get out this way.”

When they stepped out onto the concrete road, thinking about everything that transpired in the past hour alone, Jimin started giggling. Taehyung noticed and when he asked Jimin why, Jimin’s giggles turned into full-blown laughter. Unfortunately for Taehyung, Jimin’s laugh is always infectious so in a matter of seconds, the two were almost full-out howling like lunatics at the side of the road.

After what happened, after not getting caught, Jimin felt like he could do anything.

A second later, though, a police car pulled up next to them and Jimin felt his heart sink to his stomach, instantly putting a stop to their laughing fit.

They were dead meat.

As night fell upon their quiet neighborhood, even with the wild day he had, Jimin felt somewhat at peace with the world. He plopped down onto his bed and closed his eyes, fatigue starting to creep up on him. But he thinks that maybe… maybe what he did with Taehyung wasn’t actually so bad since they were trying to make the place look better. Whatever happened to them, at least they got to contribute to the community in a small way, right?

They actually wouldn’t have been caught if Jimin only left behind the can of spray paint. Apparently, the officers who chased them only vaguely remembered their physical features so they were in the clear until they checked the bags of the two. When they grabbed Jimin’s bag, out of the corner of his eye, Jimin saw Taehyung groan and lean his head back, as if he knew what was going to happen after they searched Jimin’s bag.

And he did.

Fortunately for the both of them, they were both underage so they only got off with a warning and an home from the police. Of course that’s only what they got from not being law-abiding citizens. Not being good children, though… it was a different issue altogether.

As Jimin’s phone started to vibrate in his pocket, he was thankful that his aunt and uncle were kind enough to let him off the hook without taking his phone privileges away, though he was scolded thoroughly, the your-parents-didn’t-raise-you-like-this argument having been brought up as well. Jimin didn’t get mad at that because he knew that they were right (even from the moment he and Taehyung first popped the caps off their cans of spray paint).

He was even more thankful for the minimal punishment he received when he answered the call and the first words he heard come out of the receiver were “JIMINIE HOLY THAT WAS FUN! LET’S DO THAT AGAIN!”

Instead of scolding his best friend, Jimin just rolled his eyes and laughed breathlessly. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

”Yeah, but you had fun, didn’t you? Don’t deny it.”

Jimin smiled. “Yeah. I did,” he admitted. Because who was he to lie to his best friend or to himself? Besides, he never had any doubt that anything he did with Taehyung was always fun. The fun was default, no matter what they did.

As long as they were together, every second was worth it.