Jimin remembers that morning from time to time.

For some reason, Jimin found himself woken up earlier than anticipated. He whined softly to himself when he saw the time on his phone flashing an hour earlier than what he was used to. He was about to close his eyes and attempt sleep once more when the slamming of multiple car doors caught his ear. Honestly, anyone could be heading to work at that ungodly hour in the morning (and Jimin didn’t envy them) but his curiosity still managed to grab onto him.

Jimin crawled out of his warm bed despite his protesting grogginess and shuffled to his bedroom’s window. He drew back the curtains and the sight across the street took a few moments to process.

There was a large black van parked in front of his neighbour’s house with three fully suited military men on guard, assessing their surroundings with their large guns in hand.

His neighbour's front door then opens, revealing two more soldiers on either side of a smaller figure clutching a large carrying bag to their chest. Jimin recognizes a man and woman, husband and wife, following after the three with a mixture of sorrow and apprehension visible across their expressions.

Jimin squints, attempting to focus on the smaller figure until recognition took. It was the couple's only son. Jimin only saw glimpses of him and when he did, the boy kept to himself with his ears covered by headphones. After living across from each other for ten years, Jimin still didn’t know his name.

The mother suddenly rushes forward with a raised voice. The boy turns to face her immediately and drops his bag to the ground right before she hugs him tightly. The mother pulls back quickly, a sad smile on her lips as she mouths something to the boy. She fidgets with his hair for another moment and then pulls away completely. The boy is frozen for a few seconds before he bends down to pick up his bag with shaky hands. He turns around, head facing down, and walks towards the black vans to join the rest of the soldiers.

Just before he enters the van, the boy looks up. Jimin gasps when their gazes connect but Jimin forces himself not to hide away. He catches a glimpse of one sole tear escaping from the boy and, just like that, the boy is gone.

The van fills up, turns on, and flies down the street until it, too, is out of sight.

Jimin later found out that the boy’s name was Yoongi and that he had just completed his Gradation exam like the rest of the sixteen year olds in town. Against all odds and heritage, Yoongi’s results came out as a whopping Category Five. How Category Zero parents could give birth to such a high Category, no one knew, but people sure liked to gossip about the possibilities.

Jimin paid no mind to those though. There was always an oddity every year, and his neighbour happened to be the most recent one. In two years time, it would be Jimin’s turn and he only hopes it’ll be a more peaceful affair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Are you ready?”

Jimin looks up from his notes to his friend, Taehyung, sitting on the desk beside him. His smile is almost smirk-like in quality, but it twitches just a bit to show his nerves. Jimin doesn’t blame Taehyung though. It’s the day of their Gradation exam after all.  

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Jimin mumbles while fiddling with the corner of his open notebook, “it’s not like we have to do much anyways,”

Taehyung sighs and properly plops down onto his desk’s chair, “yeah, but what if your results aren’t in the One-Two?”

Jimin immediately shuts his notebook and glares with all his might towards Taehyung, “don’t even joke about that, it’s not funny.”

Taehyung flips his hands up in mock surrender, “hey, I’m not trying to be funny. It’s just called being prepared. I mean, my family has been solid Two-Threes for as far back as I can remember, so it’s a possibility that I’ll have to move up.”

Jimin can’t even imagine school without Taehyung. It was bad enough that after elementary Jimin had to spilt up from his friends due to the new Category-based middle school and high school boards (Zeros, One-Twos, Three-Fours, and Fives). Jimin was lucky enough that he didn’t lose Taehyung, his childhood friend, since both of his parents were Category Twos like Jimin’s own.

“You know the stats,” Jimin sighs, “it’s very unlikely that same Category parents will have a kid in a different Category.”

The teacher then walks in and closes the classroom door behind him. The students quieted down but right before the silence settles, Taehyung leans forward and whispers, “There are always exceptions,” and then he’s sitting straight, facing the front like the good student he pretends to be.

When the last class finishes about an hour and a half later, a P.A announces that the students for the Gradation exam should head to the gymnasium. On his way over with Taehyung, Jimin repeats in his head that he won’t be an exception. Despite his love for all things magical, he wants to stay where he is. He’s comfortable and used to a certain way of life. Minor parlour tricks of the One-Two Catergory was all he wanted. Although most people desired a higher gradation due to the associated prestige and better employment opportunities, but Jimin has witnessed the increased worries that are linked to the higher Categories.

His parents were graded as Category Two and, after their proper training, had found their talents. His father was found to have an x-Ray vision of sorts, which was extremely handy for speedy diagnoses in any hospital he worked at as an ER nurse. His mother could sense people’s emotions when eye contact is maintained, a talent that led her into the counselling field. Sure, his father didn’t have healing powers of a Category Four or his mother didn’t have the mind reading powers of a Category Three, but greats powers bears great responsibility (or something like that).

Once Jimin arrives at the entrance of the gymnasium, he’s given a number based on the month of his birthday and stands in the corresponding line. He raises his hand to Taehyung across the gymnasium who only wiggles his brows back. Jimin eyes the taped down wires leading into a number of cubicles. Inside said cubicles held a government official with a gradation tool. One touch to the sphere-like tool and the student’s gradation was determined.

The lines move pretty quickly. Students enter and leave the cubicles in a matter of a couple of minutes, most with little surprises on their faces. The ones being degraded, with their face as white as a sheet, or upgraded, with their smiles a mile wide, were easy to recognize.

There were about two more people in front of Jimin before the gymnasium suddenly went black. A few exclamations echoed in the dark until the lights flickered back on. The official in Jimin's cubicle leaves it with a scowl and a phone pressed to his ear.

“Please remain calm,” a static filled voice on the P.A announced to the students, “an unfortunate but harmless power outage has occurred, but the Gradation will proceed as usual in the few moments,” and a few moments it was. The official came back to the cubicle a few minutes later, phone tucked away and he grumbled for the next student to enter.

Before long, Jimin was called in.

It’s a simple set up. One table, two chairs, one which was occupied by the official, and the clear spherical Gradation tool resting in the middle of the table. Jimin hands the official his student ID, which the official scans with a device.

“Park Jimin, both parents are…Category Two, correct?” The official drawls and Jimin nods back immediately, “All right. Have a seat and place a hand flat on top of the tool when I prompt you please, and no, this will not hurt.”

Jimin does take the seat and waits as the man punches information onto a touch screen pad both plugged into the ID scanner and the Gradation tool.

“Okay, please proceed,” and the official motions toward the sphere, never looking at Jimin even once since he entered the cubicle. But, Jimin quietly does as he’s told and places his hand on the sphere. It feels a little cool to the touch but that’s about it.

“Hmm,” the official hums and then sighs before he continues, “you can remove your hand now.”

Jimin quickly removes it and stares at the man intently. The man punches a few more things onto his pad, his face grimmer than before and finally, he looks to Jimin.

“Park Jimin,” he says, “You’ve been degraded to Category Zero. The next steps, as I’m sure you’ve been told, are to switch schools—“

“What?” Jimin cuts the man off sharply, “t-that can’t be right, I mean—“

“You’ve been degraded,” the man cuts back in with no infliction in his tone, “you will be switching to the Category Zero school board, but you may remain in your parents' household since no additional training is required for Category Zeros. Please proceed to Room 110, where the Category Zero representative will be waiting for you.”

Then the man looks down to his pad and calls for the next student.

Jimin doesn’t remember much of the day from that point. He remembers the Category Zero rep being a nice lady. He remembers dinner that night being his favourite lasagna dish, but he can’t remember what his parents’ reactions were when he told them about his gradation results.

Jimin never wanted much or desired more than what he got b-but, being completely magic-less was the one pill that was hard for him to swallow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a world surrounded by magical beings, there weren’t a lot of jobs that couldn’t be done with a magical touch. But when there was, a Category Zero was usually behind it. The Category Zero school Jimin transferred to taught him the basic living essentials but it was very clear that the teachers weren’t trying to get their students hopes up too high. Law school were for the Lie Detectors of Category Three, and politics were for those with the limitless memory of Category Four. You could drive their cars for them, you can make their specialty coffees and take care of their food orders, but Category Zeros must remember what they can never be.

So, Jimin ended up cleaning for them instead. And goddamn, it may not seem like a lot by the world’s standards, but Jimin is proud of how clean he can get a condo in two hours without a spark of magic to help him. The pay’s okay, and it gets him by. He has the opportunity to move up to more expensive placements within the company he’s with, so Jimin’s content.

“Hey Jimin!”

Jimin looks up from his popcorn bowl and dodges Taehyung, who dove right onto the couch Jimin was taking residence in.

“What the ?” Jimin hisses, now huddled in the far corner of the couch, “you almost made me drop my popcorn!”

“Shh shh, Jimin,” Taehyung crawls closer, eyes sparkling, “I just landed you a sick deal, you won’t believe it!”

“I told you,” Jimin whines, pulling the popcorn bowl away when Taehyung tried to sneak a hand inside, “I will not work for your dingy repair shop,”

Taehyung looks offended, “I’ll have you know it’s an honour to work with such a talented individual as myself,”

“Taehyung…” Jimin starts slowly, “your talent makes it so you know what’s wrong with electronics, but not a thing about how to fix them, so stop it already,”

Taehyung pouts and sits up straight, “fine, see if I ever help you land a job to clean a millionaire’s vacation complex ever again,”

Jimin then actually drops his bowl, which causes Taehyung to gasp and reach forward to save it.

“Wait, wait,” Jimin smacks his hands on either side of Taehyung’s face and pulls him forward, “did you say millionaire?”  

Taehyung looks visibly uncomfortable eyeing both of Jimin’s hands with distaste before he pulls his head free, “Yes, in fact, I did. But I’ll tell the guy the cleaner I suggested has respectfully declined—“

“No!” Jimin bounds forward again and it’s actually Taehyung being the one to lean away from him and not the other way around, “No, you won’t dare! The complex is mine and it will sparkle like the ing diamonds this guy will pay me with.”

Taehyung pauses before a giant smile beams, “great, you start tomorrow!” And he then pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of his jean’s back pocket.

“Address and pin codes, he’ll be out all day so show up whenever.”

Jimin kisses both of Taehyung’s cheeks sloppily and tears the piece of paper out of his hand. He rushes away to his cleaning supply closet down the apartment hallway and packs his work bag expertly.

Jimin should have known not to trust any one of Taehyung’s contacts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes forty five minutes for Jimin to arrive to the complex via public transit. Concrete walls surround the complex, like the rest of the high class neighbourhood Jimin found himself in. He punches the 8 digit code into the number pad beside the front entrance gate. An audible click sounds and Jimin opens the heavy gate with more effort than what he’d like to admit.

The weather is mild, being the later part of the morning, and the sun shines handsomely on the garden pathway to the home’s official entrance. Jimin wonders if the owner had a special gardener on call, because he’s pretty sure someone has to tend to them in order for them to look as good as they did.

Jimin punches another code to get into the house, and God, what has he gotten himself into. Everything looks so fragile and hella expensive. He’s cleaning the place privately and won’t be covered under his cleaning company’s damage insurance, so Jimin is understandably a little intimidated by the scope of the place. But, then again, it also means Jimin won’t be paid in dimes. So, Jimin takes a few calming breathes and drops his cleaning bag onto what looks to be marble flooring. Whelp, no day like today, Jimin thinks and gets to it.

The place itself is a maze of rooms and is noticeably void of personal effects. But, Taehyung did say it was a vacation home, so Jimin tells himself to not be bothered by the emptiness.

He’s in the middle of scrubbing at shower tile grit when a very loud crash makes him jump. It sounded like a very large and glass-like item broke and Jimin’s heart in nearly coming out of his throat, because oh god, did he leave something somewhere he shouldn’t have? Whatever was broken better not have been his fault. And even if it wasn’t, does he still have to pay for it?

Thoughts continue to whirl in his head as he rushes out on the bathroom he was cleaning and towards the noise. Jimin finds himself in a living room he had just cleaned, but Jimin notices with the help of a small breeze that the glass wall looking onto a terrace was completely smashed. In the centre of the mess was a man in completely black clothing.

“Wha--?” Jimin only manages to let out when the man bolts forward and grabs Jimin by his neck. They practically fly backwards until Jimin is pinned to a wall by one hand tightly around his throat. The man is glaring something fierce and his grip tightens, making Jimin feel even more light-headed from the lack of air.

Please, Jimin begs while tears build in the corner of his eyes, please, he doesn’t want to die.

Then heat at his jaw and it feels a lot like fire burning into his skin. Great, just what Jimin needed. Not only will he be choked to death, but this man, who seems to be a Category Five pyromaniac, will burn his body to an unrecognizable ash.

However, as soon as Jimin feels the burn, it immediately distinguishes the same time the grip on his throat vanishes. Jimin chances opening the eyes he just closed and sees trances of confusion on the man’s face as he examines his hand.

“Please!” Jimin yells hoarsely between his coughs for air, “I-I’m innocent, I’m just the cleaner!”

The man pauses right there, eyebrows knitting together before his eyes start at the tip of Jimin’s socked feet and moving up his dirty sweats pants and ratty t-shirt with bleach spots. The sponge Jimin was originally holding was on the floor with a small soapy puddle around it and his hands shake within his yellow rubber gloves.

“What’s your name?” The man quickly shoots out.

“Park, Jimin,” Jimin replies just as quickly back, “I’m a Category Zero, so please, don’t kill me or burn me or anything. I-it’s my first time even stepping foot in this place a-and I sure as hell won’t be back, so—“

“Category Zero?” the man cuts in, “but I didn’t…” he trails off before he shakes his head, “ID now, or else.”

Jimin immediately snaps his gloves off and grabs for his ID in his pocket. He throws it at the man, not wanting to get any closer than necessary. The man easily catches it and eyes the card closely. He growls out in frustration and heads towards Jimin quickly. Jimin immediately clenches his eyes shut, preparing for a blow. But all he gets is what feels to be his ID being shoved against the middle of his chest. Jimin scrambles to grab the card and watches the man with wide eyes.

The man, on the other hand, doesn’t look to Jimin as he retrieves his cell phone from what looks to be a weapons belt.

“Joon,” the man says into the phone, “Wrong guy. It’s the ing cleaner.” A pause and the man rolls his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, you were right. I’ll be heading back now, bye.”

The man then hangs up and puts the phone back into its holder. He then turns to Jimin, eyes running up and down again before sighing.

“Grab your stuff, I’m driving you home,” he says, or more, demands.

“No thanks,” Jimin, embarrassingly, squeaks, “I’m, like, 100% okay taking the bus. Not a far commu—“

The man glares intensifies and Jimin swears he can see flames within his eyes, “I said to get your ing stuff.”

And no more needed to be said. Jimin lungs for the sponge on the ground and he speed-walks to the bathroom he originally came from. He clumsily grabs all his cleaning solutions and tools and races to the entrance where he left his bag. The man is waiting there with crossed arms and a sharp gaze as Jimin stuffs everything into his bag.

Once in the car, the man starts what looks to be a modest looking black sedan, but it's impressive looking dash looks like it came out of a sci-fi movie. As he begins to drive, the man pushes a few buttons.

“This is Min Yoongi of the third division, on May 23^rd, 2016 with—state your name,”

Jimin looks between the dash and the man a few times before stuttering, “P-Park Jimin,”

“Mr. Park, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and please understand there will be consequences if you do not answer them truthfully, understood?” Jimin immediately nods, but the man turns his head slightly with another glare which prompts Jimin to verbally give his consent.

“How did you come to be Mr. Hong’s cleaner?”

Jimin’s mouth goes dry pretty quick. The first thing that comes to mind is Taehyung and, despite whatever the hell is going on, he wants Taehyung, his one and only friend to stay far away from it.

“I-I work for a cleaning company and got a, uh, a private voicemail yesterday,” Jimin lies straight through his teeth the best he damn could, “they gave me the address, access codes and hourly wage…which was pretty damn good in comparison to the company I work for so I, uh, went.”       

Luckily, no flames escape the man’s ears or something. The man just seems to take his word for it, at least until he reaches forward and touches a button on the dash.

“You’re telling me you go to strangers' houses and potentially get killed for a one-time pay check?” the man hisses, taking a corner a little hard.

“W-what, like going to a stranger’s house and potentially killing someone is any better?” And oh my god, Jimin, shut your mouth if you don’t want to be a shish-kabob.

The man sneers before he pushes a button on the dash again, “Further investigation needed, with reminders to check over Park Jimin’s bank and phone records. End.” And then the man pushes the button once more.

The rest of the ride is pretty much silent and Jimin is kind of wondering how the man knew where Jimin lived, but he’s thinking it had to be do with his ID he handed over for a short time ago. Good memory, Jimin supposes.

When they arrive, Jimin scurries out of the car as quickly as he can, but the man still meets him just as quickly on the sidewalk outside his apartment building.

“I hope you’ve learned not to accept suspicious calls anymore,” the man mumbles and hands over a paper card, “call me if that private number tries to contact you again.” Jimin looks down on the card. It’s a simple design, with Min Yoongi in red font at the top. His Category is written underneath with his fire talent written beneath that. There’s only one number, but Jimin is staring at the name because it’s really familiar until it hits him.

“Yoongi!” He blurts out loudly, without really meaning to. The man, or Yoongi, turns around quickly with eyebrows raised, “Y-you're Yoongi!” Jimin decides to continue, “Of the Min family, the Category Zero Yoongi!” Yoongi instantly froze with an affronted expression on his face.

Yoongi takes a step toward him, “how did you—“ and his eyes widens, “wait, you’re Park…” one of Yoongi’s hands crosses over his mouth in a shock, “How did, but you said you were a Category…” He then whips around and, casually as ever, gets into his car. The car turns on and then it basically leaves a very confused Jimin in its dust.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Taehyung arrives home, Jimin is right there at the door with arms and eyebrows crossed.

“We need to talk,” Jimin says sternly.

Taehyung looks around the apartment quickly, maybe hoping for an answer to Jimin’s irritation.

“I swear, I thought that stir fry was fair game, and besides—“

“This is definitely not about the stir fry,” Jimin says through his gritted teeth. He looks Taehyung up and down and is struck with a little bit of guilt. Taehyung looks exhausted. His button-up shirt has a large and questionable stain on it, his hair is a little messier than usual, and his under eyes bags have seen better days.

Jimin knows Taehyung has been getting more and more attention at work, and it’s all fun and games with the increased sales traffic, but Taehyung has been using his talent more than ever and it’s beginning to take a toll on him.

Jimin motions him to the couch and they take a seat together. Taehyung looks that close to passing out, but Jimin thinks he can stay awake just a bit longer to know just how closely he came to sending Jimin to his death.

“Oh!” Taehyung sprung up, brightness lighting up his otherwise tired face, “how’d the new placement go? The guy’s place must be awesome.”

Jimin squints his eyes, trying to catch onto something from Taehyung but nothing comes, “And how do you know this guy again?”

Taehyung shrugs, “Just a customer, came in with a weird device for me to look over. Oddly enough, he just wanted to know what the problem was and didn’t want me to try and fix it. Then, bam, he mentions he’s staying at this nearby vacation home, but was worried about the state of the place since he hadn’t been around in a long while, so I brought you up!”

“Okay,” Jimin sighs, “okay, thanks. Though, I think I’m going to stick with people I know a little better for private clients from now on.”

Taehyung frowns with his entire face, “what, why? What happened?”

Jimin bites into his bottom lip a little harder and looks down. What Taehyung doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.

“Ah, nothing. Just thinking.”

Taehyung still frowns as he leans his head back on the couch, eyes suspicious at they stick to Jimin. Jimin darts his eyes around before he lets out an awkward laugh and mentions a new comedy movie available on Netflix. Jimin turns the movie on and sure enough, Taehyung drifts off within five minutes of it.

The next morning, Taehyung still seems a little concerned about Jimin as he leaves for work. Jimin just pushes him out, making sure to ruffle his hair before he closes the door. He hears Taehyung's squawk of disbelief he desired soon after and gets ready for work himself.

The day goes as it usually does. He goes to a few different condos and houses throughout the day, scrubbing away what he can and leaving a lemony clean scent in his wake.

He comes home and makes dinner for himself as he does and watches TV until it gets late. Taehyung hasn’t arrived yet, but Jimin doesn’t put much thought into it before he falls asleep.

The next morning and day goes by and Jimin still hasn’t seen Taehyung after work. There’s no evidence that he’s been in the apartment in the morning either, if Jimin could be frank, it’s hard not to notice when Taehyung is around.

A week goes by and Jimin is seriously about as concerned as he can be. He called Taehyung’s parents, but they say they haven’t heard from him either. Jimin called his work but the phone rings and rings until it reaches the voicemail. Jimin called Taehyung’s friends, and even past girlfriends, but there’s nothing from them either.

Jimin is staring thoughtlessly at the news, eating some popcorn when knocks erupt from the door. Jimin looks over his shoulder with wide eyes before he races over, bowl of popcorn once again forgotten. He unlocks the door and tears it wide open.

“Uh,”

Right there, in front of Jimin’s eyes, was Min Yoongi in his all black glory like the last time he saw him. Yoongi’s mouth gaps in confusion, looking to the number plate on the door a few times.

Jimin finally cuts the silence, “w-what do you want? I thought…whatever happened was done with.”

Yoongi looks over his shoulder, discomfort radiating off him with increasing intensity.

“Listen, can we talk inside?” Yoongi nudges his head to the space behind Jimin. As much as Jimin wants to do anything but let this crazy guy in, he does step aside and in Yoongi goes.

He heads to the right, directly into the kitchen and leans against a counter with a long sigh escaping him. He rubs his hands over his face roughly before looking towards Jimin.

“Can you explain to me why you’re in Kim Taehyung’s apartment? And, please, don't say cleaning this time,” and Yoongi pointedly looks to Jimin’s plaid pyjamas bottom.

Jimin scowls, “I’ll have you know I actually live here. You dropped me off here last week, remember?”

“But you’re not on the lease. And this apartment has 23 floors, so cut me some slack.” Yoongi argues right back, crossing his arms tightly. Jimin freezes, because Jimin is not technically or legally Taehyung’s roommate, more of a…permanent visitor as of four months prior. So, Jimin decides to use the age old distraction trick.

“Why are you here anyways?” Jimin asks, crossing his own arms in an attempt to give off a more intimidating vibe. And he probably fails because Yoongi is a ing Category Five with his fire controlling talents.

Yoongi looks behind Jimin and then to the side of him before a frown stretches on his mouth, “Is Kim Taehyung not here?”

“Why?” Jimin raises his chin, “what do you want with him?”

“I’m looking for him,” Yoongi replies softly, “I just want him to look at something.” Jimin opens his mouth with a suspicious gaze but Yoongi cuts him off, “no, I don’t want to hurt him.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Jimin feels a pout come on, but he wills it away, “besides, you’re a little late, I’ve been looking for him myself this past week.”

“You mean he’s missing?” Yoongi’s arms uncross and he takes a step into Jimin’s space, causing Jimin to jump a little at the movement, “well, .” Yoongi says under his breath and Jimin isn’t getting any less concerned than before.

Yoongi whips out his phone and presses it to his ear like before.

“Joon? Kim Taehyung is gone… if I know…His, uh, roommate says he’s been missing for a week…Yeah, will do, bye.” And Yoongi puts the phone away.

Jimin just stares at Yoongi, looking for answers to the many questions in his head when he finally asks, “Is…is Taehyung gonna be okay?”

Yoongi averts his eyes, contemplating something before he meets Jimin’s eyes again, “who is Kim Taehyung to you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Yoongi fires back quickly.

Jimin opens his mouth again, a little confused before words formed, “he’s my best friend. He’s been my best friend since elementary school,”

“Wait,” Yoongi says, raising a hand, “Was Kim Taehyung that glue kid?”

Images of flustered teachers with their pants and skirts sticking to their chairs flashes back from Jimin’s memory and oh god, Yoongi remembers that? “Uh, yeah, one and the same.”

“Okay,” he whispers, then his fingers reach up and massage his temples.

“What—“

“Give me a damn minute,” Yoongi mumbles, massaging a little more deeply.

So, Jimin waits because what else is he supposed to do? Yoongi finally opens his eyes and sighs the loudest sigh Jimin had ever remembered hearing and he’s lived with Taehyung for God sakes.

“Change your cloths, I’m taking you with me.” Yoongi’s tone would make the most stern drill sergeants in the world proud but Jimin tells himself not to budge.

“Why? I don’t have to go anywhere with you,” Jimin replies back, fists tightening at his side and Yoongi is looking straight at them. An inner conflict is displayed across Yoongi’s expression before it caves.

“Of course you don't,” Yoongi says more lightly, “but listen, Taehyung may be in a bit of a dangerous situation right now, and it’s one I’m going to quickly get him out of. But, I can’t do that and keep an eye on you at the same time,”

“What do you mean, dangerous situation?” Jimin can feel sweat begin to build on his forehead because oh god, Taehyung, “and why do you have to keep an eye on me?”

“You’re best friends with Taehyung, right? That might be enough for others to be…interested in you,” Yoongi says slowly, “and I’ll answer your first question better, but only if you get changed and come with me now.”

Yoongi drives a hard bargain. Jimin’s mind tells himself that no, he should stay right where he’s comfortable but his gut tells him to follow the boy whose only companions as a child were a variety of sound-cancelling headphones. Besides, Yoongi knows something about Taehyung and if he’s in danger…Jimin has to do something about that. After all the times Taehyung has stood up for Jimin, it’s time for Jimin to pay him back.

Jimin decides on comfortable jeans, worn-in white low-rise converse and a plain black hoodie. It’s a choice that Yoongi seems to approve on because he does a once over and nods. Yoongi immediately makes it to the door and waits for Jimin to lock the door behind him.

Once in the car, Yoongi zooms down the streets at a speed that Jimin doesn’t think is very legal.

“Listen, Jimin…” Yoongi says all of a sudden, “I…I know I probably haven't gained a lot of your trust, but I’m going to bring Taehyung back to you, okay?”

Jimin feels his fists tighten in his lap again, “what has Taehyung gotten into anyways?”

Yoongi sighs back, speeding past blurring cars on the highway, “Despite only being a Category Two, Taehyung’s talent is very…useful for a lot of unsavoury people. There are some machines out there, powerful machines that shouldn't be in the wrong hands. And if they were to somehow inevitably end up in their hands, we work hard to ensure they won’t be able to use it, still following?”

“More than I would like,” Jimin whispers, as the words process, “so these people, they’ve taken Taehyung…so he can tell them what’s wrong with your so-called dangerous machines.”

Yoongi nods, “yes, essentially,”

Jimin narrows his eyes at Yoongi, “do they realize that Taehyung’s talent and only talent is to know what’s wrong with these machines, and not how to actually fix it? Like, he’ll say there’s an error in the coding, and if you’re lucky enough, he’ll pin point a section within it, but he doesn’t know two s about coding.”

“I’m not so sure they know about that,” Yoongi admits, his tone lowering, “but what matters right now is they have a very dangerous weapon and they’re closer to unlocking how to use it. So, time is of the essence.”

Weapon?

Weapon?

“What do you mean weapon?” Jimin finds himself saying.

“I,” Yoongi pauses, “I may have said too much.”

“Is…Taehyung going to die?” Jimin whispers.

Yoongi slows down in front of a glass building with reflective windows, a little out of place with what looks to be farmlands in the background.

Yoongi shifts the car into park, turns directly to Jimin and says, “not if I can help it.”

With that gaze filled with familiar flames, Jimin kind of sort of believes Yoongi.

At least he sure as hell wants to.