Surrounded by forest, Yoongi felt a lot like he was in a prison, the trees acting as steel bars that kept him trapped. He’d been walking for what felt like days, dirt now permanently caked to the bottoms of his bare feet, and he was pretty sure he was walking in circles because he’s definitely seen that exact root sticking out from the ground at that exact spot at that exact angle before, he’s certain of it. Or maybe he’d been walking for so long that it was just his delirium starting to blend everything together. He honestly couldn’t tell.

It was mostly dark, save for the occasional beam of sunlight that managed to break through the density of the canopy above, and provide him just enough light to see in front of him. The trees were tall, and thick in the trunk. The bark on them looked carved by hand. Each tree adorned an intricate design of lines and swirls that was purely unique to each one, like fingerprints. Yoongi put his hand on one of their trunks, feeling the roughness of it scratch at his palm, and his other hand on his chest, clutching his heart to catch his breath. He had no idea how he’d gotten here, or where he was going, but his gut instincts were telling him to keep moving despite the ache that was settling deep in his bones from the exertion.

He stopped to take in his location as he filled his lungs with air, though it was kind of moot considering everything really did look exactly the same at this point. To his right were trees. To his left were more trees. In front of him were even more trees, and also a squirrel with an acorn in it’s mouth that skittered across his line of sight. He turned his back to the tree and slid down. The roughness of the bark ripped easily through his shirt and made small, stinging cuts in his back, but he ignored them. an infection. Also, his instincts, if they really think he’s moving anywhere from this spot anytime soon.

With his eyes closed and his head tipped back, he pondered on how to get out of here, because clearly walking was doing him all. He didn’t even know where he was, so what made him think walking through and praying for an exit was a good idea in the first place? Come to think of it, he doesn’t even remember walking into a forest to begin with. He kind of just appeared here out of thin air, like he was a ghost. Where was he before this? He tried to think back, but he couldn’t remember.

He opens his eyes, and is almost blinded by the overwhelming amount of sunlight that showered him and was not in his vicinity ten seconds ago. Ten seconds ago he was in a forest, hidden in the shadows under a canopy of lush, green leaves. Now, he was in a field of some sort, no longer surrounded by trees but by open air, with soft grass tickling the bottoms of his feet and vibrant purple, orange, and red flowers that scattered on until the ground met the pale blue sky, not a cloud in sight. It stole the breath from his lungs, and instead of wondering how he managed to completely switch scenery like he probably should have, he rose to his feet, and began exploring.

He already liked this place better. In the forest he felt caged in, constricted like a wild animal, unable to break through his confines no matter how many hours he walked, no matter how many times he tried. But here, in this open grassy field, he felt free. He could take a breath and the air in his lungs would lift him up rather than weigh him down. He could run for hours and still be loaded with energy.

So that’s what he did. He started at a mild pace, not wanting to burn himself out before he could truly enjoy the vastness and the freeing feeling of the open space. He didn’t run often, mainly because it took too much out of him, but also partly because Jungkook - the little - once told him he looked like that one titan from Shingeki No Kyojin trying to run, and has since avoided doing it as much as possible. But in this field, for some reason it was all he wanted to do. He could easily see himself skipping and jumping through it. Hell, he’d even go as far as frolicking through it without giving a single damn what anybody thought. Not his peers, not society, not even his father.

He picked up the pace a bit, squinting his eyes a little as he ran into the sun. The wind blew his blond hair back and out of his eyes, and breezed along his scalp and his face, kissing his nose, his cheeks, and his lips. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt a more exhilarating feeling than right now, running through the open terrain like this, occasionally bending down to pluck a brightly pigmented flower out of the ground and stick it in his hair. He briefly thinks of what his father might say if he saw him like this, and then remembers that it doesn’t matter because he can’t see him right now. Right now, Yoongi thinks, I can do whatever I want. He giggles mischievously to himself, and continues plucking more flowers out of the ground, placing them sparingly all over his head. That is, until after some allotted amount of time, he sees someone in the distance, and stops.

Someone with short, brown hair is sitting about a football field away. Their back is facing him, but he can see that their hair is also laced with flowers, and the curve of their spine that indicated they were slumped over. They’re shaking a little, as if they were cold, or crying.

He scrunches his nose and bounds forward, pulled by his curiosity and his desire to help. Upon closer inspection, he could see that it was a boy, probably no older than he was, maybe even younger. They’re cast in a shadow, and Yoongi looks up to see that there are clouds coming in, and huffed. So much for sunshine.

He keeps moving, and after he’s about 20 meters away, he’s struck with a sense of familiarity, and stops again. He knows that hair. He knows that back. He knows those shoulders. He knows how they shake.

Cautiously, he calls out, “Jimin?”

The boy turned his head to Yoongi, and the latter jumps. It was Jimin. And he was crying.

Yoongi ran the last 20 meters to the younger boy. All of his flowers fall out but it doesn’t matter, not where Jimin’s concerned. When he reaches him, the clouds above have rolled in almost completely, blocking out the sun and covering the field in a muted gray. Yoongi feels a droplet of water on his shoulder, so small he thinks he might have imagined it, but then he feels another, and another, and then it’s drizzling.

“Why are you crying?” Yoongi asks. More tears run down Jimin’s face - or maybe it’s the rain, he can’t really tell - and Jimin parts his lips and lets out a soft, barely there whisper of a sound.

“I can’t fix it,” he says.

“What can’t you fix?”

Instead of a verbal answer, Jimin lowers his head, and looks back down at the ground and places his hand over the delicate curve of the spine of a small animal. A gazelle, it looked like, the tiny beginning of horns on it’s head indicating it was somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. It’s on it’s side, twitching and mewling, and one of it’s legs is bent at an odd angle. Broken.

From above, the rain gets steadily heavier.

“I can’t fix it,” Jimin says again. “It’s gonna die because I can’t fix it.”

The gazelle spasms slightly under Jimin’s hand, and lifts it’s head to let out a high pitched whine that hurt Yoongi’s ears and made him cringe. It sounded like it was in a lot of pain, but Yoongi didn’t know what to do either.

The clouds were almost black now, and the rain was coming down in buckets, soaking through Yoongi’s clothes and sticking his blond hair to his forehead. Jimin’s flowers had been soaked through, and were barely hanging in his hair.

“It used to dance with me, but now it can’t dance anymore.”

In the distance, another animal emerges from the trees, and Yoongi freezes. A wolf. Watching them with it’s sharp, unforgiving eyes.

“It can’t dance anymore,” Jimin says again. Yoongi looks down at him, and then the wolf. He grabs his arm to try to pull him to his feet so they can run, but Jimin won’t budge.

“It can’t dance anymore,” he keeps repeating. Yoongi tugs on him a more desperately, but Jimin is suddenly heavy, and Yoongi’s too weak. He’s too damn weak. In the distance, the wolf gets into position, ready to pounce.

“I can’t dance anymore.”

The wolf takes off in a sprint towards them.

From the clouds, a roaring clap of thunder shakes the ground.

Yoongi wakes with a start. The first thing he registers is that it’s dark. As his eyes adjust, the second thing he registers is that he’s in somebody else’s room, on somebody else’s bed. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder from outside makes his heart skip a beat, and he’s only now aware of the whimpering coming from the person laying on top of him, and then he remembers how he fell asleep in Jimin’s room trying to comfort him after...after what happened that day.

Jimin’s whimpering turns into shaking, and in his sleep he grips Yoongi’s shirt in his hands.

“Yoo...yoong..i..”

Yoongi goes still at the sound of his name, and his face heats up. No way could Jimin be...no. That was impossible. Jimin didn’t like him like that, but he kept repeating his name, and pressed his body closer to Yoongi’s, and he felt like he just might combust. Cautiously, he shifts, trying to ease out from under Jimin, but in his sleep, he grips Yoongi’s shirt even tighter.

“Come..back..d..on’t leave...me,” he mumbles, follows more whimpers that sound less like what he was originally thinking, and more like something else, and when Yoongi feels a drips of wetness against his chest where Jimin’s face is, it clicks.

He was having a nightmare.

“Jimin, Jiminie,” he whispers loudly, gently shaking his shoulders, trying to wake him up. It takes a couple more tries but he finally rouses the boy awake. He wakes up with a jump and a small shout of Yoongi’s name one last time, and then in a sleepy panic, looks around the room. Jimin blinks at him groggily, and rubs at his eyes as they adjust, and when he can see Yoongi in the dark, he throws his arms around him, mumbling something incoherent into his neck.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Yoongi coddles him.

“I had a bad dream.”

“I know, I know,” he whispers, running his fingers along Jimin’s scalp. “But it wasn’t real. It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.”

Jimin lifts his head slightly. “I... I dreamed that I was trapped under the car again,” he started. Yoongi’s breath hitches. “And you were right there in front of me, but you were so for away, and no matter how loud I yelled out to you, you couldn’t hear me.”

“It was just a dream,” he says again. “It wasn’t real.”

Jimin snuggled back into his neck. “I was so scared,” he says shakily.

“I know, but I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” Yoongi rubs soothing circles into the boys back. “It was just a dream.”

That becomes his mantra. Even when it’s long after Jimin has already fallen back to sleep, and he was the only one lying awake again, and he’s no longer sure if he’s talking to Jimin or himself.

“It was just a dream.”

-

After the incident with Jiho and his friends, Jimin was assigned an aid that would accompany him in the school at all times. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as Taehyung, with wiry circle specs perched on the bridge of her nose, and long black hair that she had slicked back into a low ponytail. She usually wore a pantsuit, or a blouse with a pencil skirt. Yoongi thought she looked more like she belonged in an office, not a school.

The first time he met her had been the following Monday. Jiho and his friends had all been suspended, thank , because Yoongi honestly doesn’t know what he would do if he had to see any of them again so soon, and he and Taehyung had been waiting for Jimin at their usual spot before homeroom. A gust of mid autumn wind blows through as Jimin’s bus pulls up, ruffling Taehyung’s red hair that could probably use a retouch, as his roots were starting to show through, as well as biting through Yoongi’s jacket. By now, everyone had stopped watching him get off the bus, something Yoongi was grateful for, especially now since he knew the true extent of everything Jimin had gone through, but the second he could see his face peak out from the back emergency exit, he could tell something was wrong.

He didn’t really look sad. More like disgruntled, or annoyed. The woman followed closely behind him with her hands on the handles of his chair, easing him down the ramp with the help of the bus driver. She tries to continue to push him once they’re on the ground, but Jimin swats her hands away.

“I can do it myself,” Yoongi hears him say, and that’s how he knows something’s definitely up. Jimin never turns down an opportunity to be pushed.

He wheels the chair toward Yoongi and Taehyung as fast as he can, trying to smile but it looks more like a grimace.

“Who’s the shadow?” Taehyung whispered when Jimin was close enough. He opens his mouth to answer, but then the woman, as if Taehyung summoned her somehow, appears right next to him.

“Are you Jimin’s friends?” she asks, her friendliness contrasting her strict business image, momentarily throwing Yoongi off guard.

“We’re his very best friends,” Taehyung answers. “Plus Jungkookie, but he’s not in high school yet.”

She laughs a little. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Choi Yengsung. I’m Jimin’s new aid.”

“Aid?” Yoongi questions.

“She follows me around to make sure I stay safe,” Jimin answers, turning Yoongi’s attention to him. From his tone and the look on his face, he didn’t seem too happy about it. Ms. Choi either didn’t notice it or refused to acknowledge it.

Beside him, Taehyung starts fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “That’s good right? Now we know for sure no one’s gonna mess with you.”

“I guess,” Jimin replied sullenly.

Ms. Choi pressed her lips into a thin line of a smile. “Well it was nice meeting you two. Come this way, Jimin. You don’t want to be late for homeroom.”

Jimin lets his hands fall carelessly on the wheels of his chair, and pushes himself forward, staying in line behind Ms. Choi as Yoongi and Taehyung watch him roll away, both able to sense that Jimin didn’t want them to follow him that day.

-

"It’s not that I don’t like her,” Jimin says from where he’s laying on his bed. His right leg is bent, with his knee up and his foot planted firmly on his duvet while his left stump lays idly, hands folded over his stomach. “It’s not even that she’s mean or anything. I just wish she didn’t hover.”

Jungkook flips through Jimin’s manga collection on his bookshelf as he responds. “But isn’t it her job to hover?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“But nobody’s messing with you anymore, right? So isn’t it a good thing?”

Jimin sighs and shakes of his head in a disbelieving sort of way. “They don’t mess with me. But,” he pauses, “because of her, they’re staring again.”

From his physics textbook, Yoongi can see Jungkook crinkle his eyebrows, and then sneakily turns his eyes to Jimin, who’s biting his lips and looking down at his hands that he keeps wringing together. Jungkook starts to open his mouth again, but Yoongi cuts him off.

“Stop asking questions and do your homework, Jungkook.”

Jungkook scowls at him as much as a fourteen year old can, and roughly grabs his backpack and pulls it over to him. “You’re not my dad,” he mutters.

“I sure as hell feel like it,” Yoongi retorts.

In the upcoming hours, not many words are exchanged. Yoongi finished his homework about half an hour ago, but pretends to keep solving problems so he can watch Jimin whilst not getting caught.

Taehyung also finished his homework, but in contrast to Yoongi, he’s made himself comfortable next to Jimin on his bed, putting his hands around his waste and his head on his shoulders. Taehyung, despite most people’s first impressions of him, is actually incredibly perceptive, and Yoongi knows he’s doing this to try to alleviate some of Jimin's discomfort but it doesn’t seem to be working, and with each passing minute Taehyung looks more and more like an abandoned puppy.

Yoongi lowers his eyes back down to his physics book, thinking to himself that Jiho and his friends busted more than Jimin’s lip.

-

It’s the following week when they’re between classes, walking with Jimin on his way to the bathroom that Yoongi decides he doesn’t like Ms. Choi.

He doesn’t remember much about the conversation they were having, because he was too busy marveling at Jimin. Whatever the topic, his eyes were lit up like lanterns, and his smile stretched across the entire bottom half of his face. He laughs, and Yoongi has to take a moment to catch his breath. It’s been a while since he’s heard that twinkling sound, been a while since he’s seen Jimin this happy.

Jimin starts to turn himself to the handicap bathroom, and Yoongi and Taehyung follow immediately, thinking nothing of it since they follow Jimin into the bathroom all the time, so neither notice Ms. Choi’s arm coming up in front of them, blocking their way.

“You can’t go in there,” she says, more stern than Yoongi’s ever heard her.

“Why not?” Taehyung questions.

“I can’t monitor him in there. How am I supposed to know what might happen?”

Yoongi stares at her unwavering face as the words she’s speaking process in his brain. At first, he’s confused, because the handicap bathroom only allows one person to go at a time, and nobody else would be in there while he is. And then he thinks about it some more, and has to bite down the anger rising in his throat as he catches on to what she’s insinuating.

“We’re his friends!” he almost yells. “We wouldn’t hurt him!”

“I don’t believe you would,” she replies coolly, “however, it is my job to make sure he’s protected at all times, and by letting you go alone with him to a place where there are no cameras, I’m not doing my job. It’s nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal?” Yoongi spits, unable to control himself. “We’re his friends. And we were looking out for him long before you were.”

“And look at what a great job you’ve done.”

Yoongi recoils as if he’s been hit.

Ms. Choi slams shut, and hurriedly adjusts her glasses. “Look,” she starts, “I understand where you’re coming from, but my job and Jimin’s safety are more important than your feelings.”

“And what about Jimin’s feelings? Doesn’t he get a say?”

“Yoongi hyung,” Jimin’s soft voice interrupts their quarrel. Yoongi turns to him, his joy from not even a minute ago now replaced with a look of sullen resignation that squeezes his heart. “I can just go in by myself. It’s no big deal.”

He frowns and looks down, silently berating himself for letting his anger get the better of him and causing an upset, but nods all the same.

Jimin goes into the bathroom, leaving him with Ms. Choi who has taken to acting like he’s not there, Taehyung who keeps throwing him worried glances, and himself, thinking over and over about Ms. Choi’s words.

And look at what a great job you’ve done.

Yeah. Look at what a great job he’s done.

-

The next few weeks pretty much continue like that. Ms. Choi doesn’t let Jimin out of her sight, and the stares that he garners from being followed around by her only seem to get worse. Along with the stares, there are also whispers now, and sometimes while Yoongi’s in class trying to pay attention he’ll here hushed conversations behind him about a certain Park Jimin, or worse, from people who didn’t know his name, “that kid in the wheelchair.”

Trying to listen to his teachers and not snap the pencil he’s holding in half as these conversations go on has been his one of his biggest challenges to date.

But the absolute worst part of it all is watching how these things affect Jimin. It's like Yoongi's slowly watching him deplete as the weeks go by. The light that used to shine so brightly from within, so bright it lit up even Yoongi’s world, was gradually being extinguished and he felt he could do nothing but helplessly stand watch as both their universes grew darker. Even Taehyung, who usually did so well in cheering Jimin up is having less and less of an impact, leaving the younger visibly distressed and worried for his best friend. Everybody wants to help, but nobody knows what to do.

A stalemate.

Usually, Yoongi would turn to Hoseok in times like this, but the last time they talked he kept going on and on about a girl who moved up from Australia into the house next to his. Chaeyoung, he said her name was, but in Australia she was called Rose, and according to Hoseok is just as pretty as one, and Yoongi wasn’t about to disturb his new found happiness with his “Jimin Problems,” as the younger sometimes fondly dubs them.

So instead he’s doing this: sitting at Jimin’s kitchen table, tapping his fingers against the freshly polished wood and watching as Jimin’s parents try their best to keep him from caving in on himself.

They shuffle around him tirelessly from where he’s sat directly across from Yoongi, anticipating his wants before he can open his mouth to ask for them. There’s a bowl of his favorite beef bulgogi in front of him, though it’s remained untouched since it was placed there twenty minutes go, as was the cup of mango banana smoothie right next to it. Yoongi wants to reach out to him, maybe touch his hand, maybe hold it, squeeze it, tell him that everything will pass eventually, but for whatever reason, he stays mute. Maybe he doesn’t want to make another promise he can’t keep.

“Would you like anything else, Jimin-ah?” his father asks smoothly.

Jimin’s scowl stays fixed on his face, staring at the bowl of beef bulgogi as if it just insulted his family. “I’m okay, “ he says.

His mother scratches her scar. “Oh, well, let us know,” she says. Jimin responds with a noncommittal noise.

He does eventually end up eating the beef bulgogi, but he picks at it, taking small bites in intervals that last too long, and slowly sips down the mango banana smoothie.

It’s within the next 5 seconds that everything comes to a head.

Jimin places the cup in the bowl, grabs the bowl with one hand and one of his crutches with the other, preparing to get up so he can place his dishes in the sink but his father, who was practically waiting in the wings, comes in and swoops the bowl right out of Jimin’s hands, and places them in the sink for him.

The sound of Jimin’s fist hitting the table is so loud it rattles the fine China in the glass cabinet.

“Stop,” he says, with more force than a runaway train. “Stop! Just stop it! Stop doing that!”

There's a pregnant pause before Jimin’s mother, startled, lowers her hand from her chest and scrunches her nose. “Stop doing what, Jimin-ah?”

“Stop treating me like I can’t do anything!”

Jimin’s entire body is red, and Yoongi guesses his heart is probably pumping blood through him at 100kph. If he looks closely, he swears he can see steam coming off of him. Mr. Park puts up a cautious hand.

“Jimin-ah, we don’t mean to, it’s just, well, ever since that incident with those boys at school, we’ve been-”

“But that’s exactly what I don’t understand,” Jimin cuts him off. “What happened, happened, but what happened was also their fault, not mine, so why am I being punished too?!”

“Jimin, you’re not being punished-”

“I am,” he insists. “Now I have all of these precautions, all these rules, and I feel like I can’t breathe. You got the school to assign me an aid to feel safe, but guess what? I don’t! In fact I feel even more unsafe because now people have even more of an excuse to never take their eyes off me!”

Jimin’s pauses, giving his parents a chance to offer up some kind of explanation or rebuttal, but they have none. Mr. and Mrs. Park are silent, so Jimin keeps talking, voice thick and scratchy as tears start to delicately stream down his face.

“We were in an accident. We were in an accident that cost me my leg because I was trying to be a hero. Yes, I can’t walk without crutches. Yes, I can’t dance anymore. And yes, I can't do some of the things I used to to do without a little bit of help, but I’m not helpless!”

That’s the last thing he says before he roughly places his crutches under his arms, and makes his way out of the room, leaving Yoongi and Mr. and Mrs. Park stunned and looking awkwardly between each other. Mrs. Park places her head in her husbands chest. His hands come up to her hair as her shoulders begin to shake.

“Yoongi?” he calls him. “Please...please go talk to him. We-” his voice cracks, and he stops for a second to pull himself together. “We don’t know what to do.”

Yoongi kind of wants to say he’s no better at this than they are, but he says okay anyway, and gets up from the table. Jimin’s been his friend for a decade. He trusts him, and maybe that was all Jimin needed. Someone he trusted.

In the dimly liy hallway, he brings his hands up, and lightly knocks on his bedroom door.

“Go away,” Jimin says.

“It’s me, Jiminie,” he tries. Jimin doesn’t answer for some time. Yoongi runs a hand through his hair, his lips, and tries again.

“Jiminie, please,” he says, a little more forceful, a little more desperate. “Talk to me, I hate seeing you like this.”

In the time it takes Jimin to answer, Yoongi has his cheek and the palm of his right hand pressed against the door.

“Go away,” he says again, so quiet through the door he almost couldn’t hear it. Yoongi hangs his head, feeling useless. “I’ll talk, eventually, but right now I really need to be alone so please, please just go away.”

Yoongi digs the tips of his fingers into his palm. There are a plethora of emotions swirling through him right now, but the most prominent one, the one that stands out the most, is anger. Anger at the driver that caused the accident that cost Jimin his leg, anger at Jiho and his dumb ing friends, at Ms. Choi for treating Jimin like a porcelain doll that would break if you even held it the wrong way, but mostly, he’s angry at himself. Because in even in times like this, of desperation and sadness, he still, still, has no idea what to say, how to act, or what to do.

Yoongi stands outside of Jimin’s door for quite some time. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours, but eventually, he does go away.

-

On the walk home, the lose pebbles from the cement are the most interesting things in the world. He spends the entire time kicking at them, scuffing them with his shoes, playing a game of soccer with himself where the only rule is to keep the same pebble for the entire walk home. He’s lost one already to the streets and the cars, and he can’t help but think it’s an incredibly morbid yet accurate representation of his life right now.

He doesn’t bother knocking when he arrives at his front door, opting to instead use his own key to let himself in, though after he walks in he thinks it might’ve been a better idea if he did knock.

His mom is standing in the middle of the living room, pacing back and forth with her phone glued to her face, spitting words so fast he can’t quite catch all of them. She doesn’t notice him at first, too engrossed in her conversation but when she does flick her eyes to the door and sees him standing there with his eyebrows knitted, her eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.

“I have to go, he’s here,” she says into the phone. If possible, Yoongi’s even more confused.

“No I-I’ll talk to you about it more later, but I really have to go, goodbye,” she asserts into the speaker, and hangs up, quickly fixing her hair and hiding her phone behind her back as she smiles at him in faux innocence.

“Hi Yoongiyah, how was your day?” she asks, exaggerated sweetness dripping from her voice like honey. Instead of answering honestly, he shoots back a question of his own.

“Who was that?”

“Who was who?”

Yoongi narrows his eyes at her. “Come on, mom.”

She tries to keep up the facade for a few more seconds, but cracks and sighs deeply, gesturing to the couch. “Sit.”

Warily, he follows her to the couch, eyeing her suspiciously as he lowers himself down next to her. She takes his hands in hers, and for a second he thinks she’s about to tell him somebody died.

What she does say, however, has him almost wishing she told him that instead.

She rubs the smooth skin of her thumb across the his knuckles, takes a deep breath and slowly raises her head, looking him dead in the face.

“That was your father,” she says. “He wants to see you.”