For the next five minutes, it’s quieter than a cemetery. The meticulous tick of the clock hanging on the wall just above the kitchen entrance is the only thing making any sound, timed almost in sync with the rise and fall of Yoongi’s chest as he breathes in and out. His eyes are widened, and his mouth is hanging open, probably looking something like a dying fish, but he can’t fix his face into anything else. He’s too shocked. Anyone hearing from their father after an almost domestic abuse case that led to a divorce would be.

He assumed, like most rational people would, that after he and his mom arrived back in Daegu his father would become just an unpleasant memory from his childhood. Nothing but a mere ghost of something that used to hurt him, hurt them, but apparently, this was not the case.

He stares at her awaiting face, silently asking him to say something but the only response coming to mind was a single word.

“No,” he says.

His mom slouches a little, sinking into her hips as she sighs deeply. “Yoongiyah...”

“No,” he repeats, harder this time. “I don’t want to see him.”

“Yoongiyah, I know you and your father don’t have the best relationship-”

“Try terrible,” he chimes in. She ignores him.

“But I don’t think it’s too late to fix it. I want you to have a good relationship with him, even if I don’t.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “No. It’s not possible to have a good relationship with someone who’s not a good person.”

He also thinks that after eighteen years of bad blood, it is too late, but he doesn’t say that.

“Yoongiyah, I know what it may seem like, but your father’s not evil-”

“He hit you.”

She recoils, pressing her lips into a thin line. She may have been trying to hide it when she looked down, but her eyes glass over, and guilt crashes into him like a truck, He definitely hit a nerve that he shouldn’t have, but her words interject his before he can get out an apology.

“He did,” she says quietly, almost to herself. “He hit me. He hit me once, in the heat of an argument. But we’ve talked about it, extensively, and I’ve forgiven him. And I made him promise me that if I do let him see you, he is not to lay a hand on you.”

“And do you really think he’ll keep his promise?” He can’t help but ask. It’s a rare thing that his father would listen to anybody that wasn’t himself, and hearing this, that he actually wants to see him, and also promised to not snap at him sounds too good to be true. This is the same man that screamed at him once because he came in from playing outside with flowers in his hair. The same man that told him to toughen up after he started crying upon seeing a cat get run over. Surely they can’t be talking about the same man.

She puts her hands firmly on each side of his face, forcing him to look at her. “Do you honestly think I would have even suggested it if I wasn’t one hundred percent sure you would be safe?”

The intensity of her gaze is too strong to look at, but he can’t look anywhere else. Her eyes bore into his, and he bites his lip hard enough to taste iron before answering, “No, I don’t.”

“So you’ll see him?” she asks, hope coloring her voice and eyes lighting up like fireflies.

He sighs in defeat, but the smile she gives him and the hug she pulls into when he says yes just might have been worth it.

“So when is he coming down?” he asks when she’s done squeezing the life out of him.

“Oh? Um…,” she scratches the back of her neck and avoids looking at him, opting to look at the blank television screen instead. “Tomorrow.”

Yoongi snaps his head in her direction. “Tomorrow?” he asks incredulously.

“It was the only time he could get off work.”

“Oh, so because he doesn’t have to work he can take the time to remember he has a son?”

“Yoongiyah.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder, digging her fingers into the groves as she massages it gently. “This might be good for you. Maybe you’ll be able to talk things out, man to man, you know?”

Yoongi turns his gaze to the carpet. “Maybe,” he says, though honestly he can’t imagine talking to him doing much to change anything. The man he remembered was stubborn, and talked more than he listened, but he could feel a small part of him that lived deep in the pits of his being and still cared about his father to some degree, holding out the tiniest flicker of hope.

She keeps on massaging his shoulder, scrunching her face at how tense he is. “I think maybe we’ve talked enough about your father,” she says. “You saw Jimin today right? How is he?”

Whether it be from the clouds outside blocking the sun, or his own imagination giving him a visual representation of his feelings, everything in front of him turns even grayer. What happened earlier that day replays on the screen in his mind. He can still see the red in Jimin’s face, can still hear the sound of the China rattling in his ears after Jimin slammed his fist against the table as if it just happened.

He opens and closes his mouth, not sure how to answer, until finally, he settles on, “We had a fight? I think?”

Her eyes bug out for a second before she shakes herself, and schools her face back into something more like a sympathetic mother. “About what?” she asks softly.

He shrugs, pulling at a lose thread in the sofa. “Nothing, really. He’s not actually mad at me, I don’t think.”

“So why the fight?”

He takes his lip in his mouth. “I think - I think him being an amputee is really starting to get to him. Today, for example, his dad tried to put his dishes in the sink so he wouldn’t have to go through the trouble, and he kind of just snapped. Screamed at them. Said they were treating him like he was helpless.”

“Oh, no…”

“I’ve never heard him so angry. I don’t blame him, though.”

She nods, and her lips form something of a smile, but not quite. “I’m glad you don’t,” she says. “He’s going through a really tough time right now. He has to adjust his entire way of living. That’s not easy.”

“It’s not,” Yoongi agrees. “I just wish I knew what to do.”

Her fingertips are soft as they graze his chin and turn his head to her. “The best thing you can do right now is just be patient with him,” she says. “He’ll come to you when he’s ready.”

Yoongi really hopes she’s right.

He’s on facetime with Hoseok later that night, wrapped in his blankets with his headphones in, trying to talk as quietly as possible because his dad was coming early tomorrow and he was supposed to be asleep an hour ago. The bright screen gives him a bit of a headache, but not nearly as big of a headache as he would no doubt have tomorrow if he didn’t talk to Hoseok right this instant.

It’s the small victories, he supposes.

“Maybe your mom’s right,” the grainy image of Hoseok says on his phone screen. “Maybe this will be good for you.”

“Okay, but do you actually believe that or are you just saying that to keep me from freaking out?”

He almost can’t tell with the bad quality, but Hoseok rolls his eyes. “I actually believe that. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Yoongi settles even farther into his bed, wrapping his blankets even tighter around himself. “I just don’t see how. The only thing I can see coming out of this is me being even more emotionally stunted than I already am.”

“Or you can finally get all of your frustrations off your chest.”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything to that, so Hoseok keeps going. “Look, maybe I actually don’t know anything, but I distinctly remember you collapsing on my doorstep and bawling your eyes out, and even though I still cracked jokes and tried to make you feel better, that was really scary. I never, ever want to see you like that again, because it was painful enough the first time. I can’t tell you how the conversation would go, and I can’t tell you what to say, but you need to say something to him.”

Yoongi pouts and grumbles, annoyed with how right he is. One the other end, Hoseok stifles a yawn.

“And also, hate to change the subject but before either one of us falls asleep, what’s your address? I need to send you your Christmas present.”

Yoongi rattles off his address as he stifles a yawn of his own. His eyes grow heavier with each passing second, so after he’s done giving Hoseok his address he says goodnight, and falls into a restless sleep about 10 minutes later.

-

Yoongi’s eyes droop tremendously the next day. He can barely see his bowl of oatmeal in front of him, and his dexterity is nowhere near where it usually is, evident in the fact that there’s oatmeal on his cheek from where he missed his mouth a couple spoonfuls ago.

He was so tired. His bones ached all the way down the the marrow, and his head on his shoulders felt like it weighed a thousand kilos, but as much as he’d rather retire to his bed for the rest of the day - scratch that: the rest of his life - than see his dad today, he can’t. He already promised, and his mom keeps throwing him hopeful glances and encouraging thumbs ups that might have been endearing if he weren’t so dead.

With a yawn, he checks his phone to see if Jimin had tried to contact him at all, but his inbox still came up the same way it did 5 minutes ago: empty.

He roughly shoves his phone back into his pocket.

It takes him three tries before he’s able to grab his spoon again to shovel the next spoonful of oatmeal and fruit pieces into his mouth. It’s halfway to his face when the doorbell rings, and he freezes, dropping the spoon, and his heart and his stomach along with it. His mom pops up from her seat, and he groggily pushes himself out of his as he follows her to the door.

He blinks a couple times, and rubs his eyes as he struggles to recognize the man in front of him. He’s wearing a black coat over a knitted red sweater, and dark wash jeans and scruffy black boots. Yoongi realizes that this is the first time he’s ever seen him not in work clothes.

“Hello, Yoongi,” he says, voice still as deep and scary as it’s always been.

“Hello, dad,” he answers back with a curt bow.

“I see you’ve dyed your hair,” he observes. Yoongi almost cringes at how uncomfortable he sounds.

“Oh, yeah, it was Jimin’s idea.”

“So you’re still hanging out with Jimin.” He phrases it like a statement. A statement he’s not sure if he’s happy about. Out of the corner of his eye, his mom shifts her eyes between them for a few moments before she clears .

“Well, you two better get going, huh? You’ve got a long day ahead of you.” She throws in a chuckle to try to lighten the atmosphere, but it just makes it even more pressing, if that was possible.

“Yes, we should,” he says, and with a nod of his head, signals Yoongi to follow him out the door.

The car ride was awkward. His dad didn’t play the radio when he drove, and neither of them knew where to start to make conversation, so Yoongi spent the entire time contemplating how much it would hurt if he opened the door and tuck and rolled.

They went to the movies first, most likely so they’d have something to talk about afterwards when they went to lunch at some Thai restaurant, but Yoongi can’t say he remembers much of the plot, the only detail he can recall being that it was about a man having a quarter life crisis. The characters weren’t all that memorable either, so he could only give vague, generic answers when his father asked for his opinions.

Of course, he could have just flat out said it was boring, but something told him that was a bad idea.

At the least, the Thai restaurant was nice. The walls were a peach color that he liked, with a white elegant trim around the ceiling, and soft swing music played over the speakers. It wasn’t packed, but there was still a good amount of people around to make Yoongi feel a bit uneasy. He never liked crowds.

“So, Yoongi, have you been thinking about what you want to major in yet?”

Yoongi glanced up from his menu. “I’m not sure, I know I like writing a bit, and maybe-”

“Egh,” his dad scoffed, waving his hand in front of his face. “There’s no money in writing. You need to be smarter about this. You’d be best off picking something else.”

Yoongi sighed inwardly. He knew better than to give his honest answers to any of his father’s questions, and mentally kicked himself for slipping up. Words he wanted to say burned his tongue. Hoseok’s words whispered in his ear, but instead of listening to them he simply replied, “Yes, father.” Just like he was taught too.

“There’s good money in accounting. You were always good at math,” his father suggests, not looking at him.

“Yeah,” Yoongi barely answers.

“So accounting it is then. Have you thought about what colleges you want to go too? You should start applying soon, you know.”

Yoongi tilted his head, pretending like he was thinking about it. “I’m not sure. What would you suggest?”

And just like that, his dad lit up like a jack-o-lantern. “Well of course I would suggest my alma mater. The business program is great, as you already know, but I also had a few friends in accounting who gave it many praises.” And then he leaned back in his chair and looked at Yoongi with a look he’d never seen before. A mix of fondness and pride, and Yoongi feels his chest involuntarily swell.

If only it wasn’t fake.

“You’ll love it there, I’m sure,” and then, more to himself, he added, “My son, the accountant.”

Yoongi only nodded.

They both went back to looking at their respective menus until a waitress came over. Her uniform was a white and peach ensemble that matched the walls, and her hair was pulled up into a loose bun atop her head.

“Hello,” she said with a chipper smile, pen and paper in hand. “What can I get for you today?”

“The yam tao sounds delicious,” his father said.

The waitress diligently wrote down his order and turned to Yoongi. “And for you?”

“I’ll take th-”

“He’ll just have a simple salad,” his father cut in, and turned to Yoongi. “You’ve put on a little weight. You’ll never get a girl like this young lady here to look at you if you keep up your current eating habits.”

Yoongi’s arms instinctively wrapped around himself as his face went up in flames. The waitress, sporting the same flush, coughed awkwardly next to them. “And a-anything to drink?” she stuttered.

Yoongi prayed the ground underneath him would open up and swallow him whole.

“Just water,” his father answered too casually.

She wrote it down quickly, before mumbling that it’ll be out right away, and made a hasty exit. When she was gone, Yoongi looked down at his body. His tummy was pudgier than it used to be, and his thighs had filled out a bit more. He noticed that his cheeks were fuller too, but he never saw any of these things as bad things until now. He wrapped his arms around himself tighter, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to hide.

When the food arrived, Yoongi only picked at it, the roof of his mouth tasting of something putrid that made his food sour.

After lunch, they took a train into Busan. Jimin told him once that his family lived here until he was four, though he doesn’t remember much of it. The entire city smelled of salt water, but it was oddly calming in a nostalgic sense, even though he’s never been to Busan.

The sun, shining brightly in the late November sky, reflected off of the ocean in specks of glitter. It was too cold to go into the water, but it was still nice to see it from the sand. Yoongi took of his shoes and stuck his toes in it, letting the cold grains of crystal slide between his toes. His father stayed off to the side. Something about not wanting to get the sand in his work clothes, or whatever. It was a flimsy excuse, and Yoongi rolled his eyes when his father wasn’t looking.

They went to the aquarium after the beach. His dad hadn’t let the conversation from lunch die, and kept telling him stories about what his college days were like, and what he remembers about the campus, but mostly how he was oh so proud of his son for choosing (“choosing”) to follow in his footsteps. Yoongi tuned him out as much as he could, only listening enough so he could nod when he needed to and watched the fish instead.

His favorite so far had been the penguin habitat. He observed them for about half an hour as they waddled along the man made ice and swam in the water, but he mainly watched one in particular. This penguin was smaller than the rest. One of it’s fins was torn, and Yoongi followed it with his eyes as he waddled along. It was noticeably more wobbly, the torn fin affecting it’s balance, and it occasionally stumbled over it’s webbed feet, but it still waddled. And then it dove into the water. It’s good fin had to do most of the work, and it’s swimming wasn’t as precise or as quick as the others, but it still swam.

Yoongi found himself smiling.

It’s 4:45pm when they catch the next train back to Daegu. They eat dinner at the soup and sandwich place a few blocks from Yoongi’s house. It was freezing inside, but the food was good, quick and easy.

His dad lets him order his own food this time, thankfully, and he gets a large bowl of lobster bisque while his dad orders a turkey sandwich. He didn’t say much on the train ride, but he did put his arm around him. His dad rarely showed any kind of physical affection, and it was awkward, to say the least. The whole day has been awkward, but at least it’s been bearable. He hasn’t been yelled at yet, and his father hasn’t hit him. Maybe they’ll be able to end this day without any casualties after all.

Yoongi’s about halfway done his soup when his father asks, “So how did you like Busan? I grew up there before I moved to Daegu and met your mother.”

“It was nice. I really liked the sea. It’s calming.” And then, as an afterthought, he added, “Jimin was born there, too.”

His sandwich was almost at his mouth when his father froze, and made a face. “How is Jimin?” he asked tightly.

Yoongi lowered his spoon from his face. “Um…he’s okay, I guess. Doing his best.”

“Is he still doing that, um, dance thing?”

Yoongi gulped, and loosened his jacket, suddenly too hot even though the heating was broken. “Um, no actually, he can’t. He uh, he and his family were in a car accident that crushed his leg. It had to be amputated. He’s in a wheelchair now.”

The mild look of surprise on his father’s face only lasted for a moment, and when it was gone, he shrugged, and took a bite of his sandwich. “Maybe that’s for the best.”

Yoongi dropped his spoon in his soup, and stared at his father as if he’d just slapped him across the face. He might as well have. “How in any way could Jimin losing his leg possibly be ‘for the best?!’” he shouted.

It was almost reflexive, how fast he went from timid to protective. He didn’t mean to shout, but he almost couldn’t help it, not where Jimin was concerned. A few people in the cafe turned their heads to them. His father aired out his collar, nervous and embarrassed, but Yoongi’s eyes stayed fixed on him, burning holes into his face.

“It’s just, you know how boys who dance turn out.”

“No, I don’t. How do they turn out, dad?” he spits.

“Yoongi, stop making a scene.”

“How do they turn out, dad?” he said even more harshly.

“You know what I mean, Yoongi,” his father growled. “Boys who dance like he did turn out-”

“Gay?”

His father drops his hands, and carefully folds his hands on the top of the table.“They’re not real men.”

Under the table, Yoongi clenched his fists.

“And I was always worried about you associating with him. People talk, and people come to their own conclusions. What if people started thinking you were like that, too?” He asks it dismissively, like it would be an impossible thing. Yoongi unclenches his fists, and takes a deep breath.

“And what if I am?”

His father froze, and slowly brought his eyes back up to Yoongi’s. His heart thudded wildly in his chest, his whole body shaking with so much fear that his vision blurred around the edges, but he kept his eyes up, meeting his father’s dead on.

“What the did you just say?” his father asked slowly, menacingly.

“I said, and what if I am?”

For a moment, everything freezes. The music playing over the speakers stop, in between songs. Side conversations from other customers in the cafe cease. For a moment, it feels like the entire universe is watching them. And then the music plays, and the conversations pick up again, and his father chuckles darkly.

“We’ve had such a good day. There were no problems, there were no fights, and we got along ing great, so why are you trying to ruin it now?”

“Because I’m tired of pretending!” he shouts, and jumps up from his seat. “You think we had a good day? We didn’t! It was terrible for me! I spent the day full of anxiety trying to carefully pick my words or just not saying anything at all because I was so afraid of how you’d react if I said the wrong thing. And I’ve lived my entire life like that. Scared of talking to people because I could never shake the fear of getting laughed at or screamed at, but it was never about them. It was always about you. I was always trying to impress you.”

Yoongi’s eyes widen as he says these words. It was almost like an epiphany, how everything clicked into place like the last slide of a Rubik’s cube. Everything about his personality, and his fears and his anxiety in social situations, it all made sense. It finally made sense.

“Now you listen to me-”

“No,” he cut him off, angry tears streaming hotly down his face. “No, you’re going to listen to me for once. I grew up stunted because I spent so much time trying to reach your bull standards I started suppressing what I really wanted. I grew up awkward and scared because I was afraid to let the real me out because according to you the real me was weak. The me who loved poems, and was sensitive, and cried easily, and liked to put flowers in his hair. And the me who’s in love with Park Jimin.”

If his father was angry before, he was practically seething now. His face was as redder than a chili pepper, and his hands were gripping the table so hard it looked like it might crack any second, but Yoongi felt lighter than a feather.

“I love him, dad. And even after everything he’s been through he’s still the most beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous person I’ve ever met in my entire life. He’s so strong. He didn’t deserve this fate, and he definitely doesn’t deserve you, talking down on him like he’s something dirty, because he’s so pure, and good. And I love him. And nothing you say or do can make me stop loving him.”

His father, red faced and seething stays glued to his seat as Yoongi makes his way to the door. He pushes on it, turns around one last time, and says to him, “Have a good life, father,” and walks out into the cold night. The cold air filling his lungs hurt in a good way. It grounds him back to reality, and he jolts a little as he realizes what the actual he just did.

He stood up to his father. He came out to his father. And he did it in a soup and sandwich cafe in front of a bunch of other people to bare witness to it. A few months ago he wouldn’t have even dreamed of doing something like that, but now that he had, he felt free, like if he jumped high enough he might be able to catch wind and start flying.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and his heart skips when he checks the message.

Jiminie [6:47pm]

Can you come over? I miss you

Yoongi makes a very unmasculine noise, and starts typing out his reply, and his hands freeze as an idea dawns on him. His heart picks up the more he thinks about it, and before he can talk himself out of it, he finishes typing out his reply and books it to his house.

me [6:49pm]

i’m on my way

-

He busts through the front door without knocking, and skips the stairs two at a time to get to his room. He distantly hears his mom call after him, but he ignores it, more focused on finding what he needs, but as soon as he enters his room he realizes he has no idea where he put it. He rips his desk apart, throwing old homework papers and tests onto the floor and also accidentally knocking over his kumamon pen holder. Thank God it didn’t break.

When he’s destroyed his desk and still hasn’t found a trace of what he’s looking for, he decided to go dig through his drawers. His floor is spectacularly covered in sweaters, jeans and underwear by the time he finally finds it.

His poem book.

He flips through it quickly, looking for a specific one and smiles to himself when he finds it, carefully ripping it out and folding it neatly to tuck into his back pocket as his mom peaks through the door.

“Yoongiyah, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great. Never been better a day in my life.”

“That’s great!” she exclaims. “So I take it your day with your father went well?”

“No, it was terrible.”

She her head and knits her eyebrows together. He almost laughs at her, but stops himself. “I’ll explain everything, I promise, but right now I really gotta go,” he says in a rush as he pushes past her.

“Where do you need to go so quickly?”

Yoongi turns back to her, and smiles. “I’m going to go tell Jimin that I’m in love with him.”

-

It’s fully dark when Yoongi arrives at Jimin’s house. There aren’t any clouds in the sky, so the stars and the moon are out, shining to to their maximum ability. He could never see the stars in Seoul. Too much light pollution.

He knocks on the door with his knuckles. Jimin opens the door a few seconds later - he must have been waiting on the couch - dressed in grey sweatpants and a lose white t-shirt, looking super comfy and cuddly and Yoongi just wanted to squeeze him, so that’s what he did. He throws his arms around Jimin with so much force he almost knocks him over, and Jimin giggled in his ear, the same twinkling of wind chimes that he could never get tired of.

Yoongi pulls back with a dopey smile on his face. Jimin giggles at that too, and squeezes his hand before turning to the stairs. The younger seats himself down on the stair lift, and rides it up the stairs while Yoongi follows closely behind, playing with soft strands of Jimin’s hair.

“You’re in a good mood today,” Jimin notes when they enter his room. Jimin turns on his lamp instead of the room light, casting the room in a warm glow. “I haven’t even apologized yet.”

“You were going to apologize? For what?”

Jimin hung his head. “For how I acted yesterday.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that. You don’t need to apologize for your feelings.”

Jimin kept his head down. Yoongi brushed his fingers down Jimin’s arm, went over to the bay window and sat in it, patting the space next to him. Jimin still hangs hid head lowly, but hobbles over on his crutches, and takes a seat next to Yoongi.

“Never apologize for your feelings, Jimin. You’re going through a lot right now, more than a lot of people ever have to go through, and you’re not going to do yourself any favors if you keep how you feel bottled up inside.”

“My therapist said something like that, too.”

“He’s right,” Yoongi says, and leans his head against the window. “So talk about it.”

Jimin his lips. “I just, I feel like I’m confined now, and it’s not even because of me or how I see me, it’s other people. They look at me, and even though they never say it out loud, they don’t need to, because it’s written all over their faces. ‘How sad.’ ‘Poor thing.’ I’m put in a cage and I feel like I can’t escape it.”

Yoongi brushes Jimin’s hair out of his eyes. “I saw something today that reminded me of you. I was at the aquarium, and I was in the penguin habitat and there was one penguin that had a torn fin. But it could still walk, and it could still swim, and all of that.”

“Really?”

“Really. It just goes to show the only limitations you have are the ones you put on yourself.”

Jimin smiled shyly, leaning more into Yoongi’s touch as he continued to play with his hair.

“I was doing research about other people like me, and I came across this guy from Australia, Nick Vujicic. He was born without any limbs, no arms or legs or anything. His doctors didn’t think he’d even live that long, let alone walk. But he taught himself how to walk-”

“How do you walk without legs?” Yoongi asked impulsively, and then shuts his mouth quickly. He might have just asked a really stupid question but Jimin didn’t look offended.

“He uses his hip bones. But yeah, he taught himself how to walk, and now he’s a motivational speaker. He even taught himself how to swim, hyung. He swims without limbs. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the videos.”

“Wow, that’s pretty damn amazing.”

“It is pretty damn amazing,” Jimin agreed. “No one thought he’d ever amount to anything, and he proved everybody wrong.” He solemnly leans his head against the window. “I wish I could do something like that, too. I want to prove people wrong.”

Yoongi sticks a finger under his chin, and tilted his head up, the different angle casting different shadows over his face. “I have no doubt in my mind that you will,” he says honestly.

Jimin smiled. The stars shining outside matched the twinkle in his eyes, and his chestnut brown hair, a little messy from Yoongi’s musings, fell effortlessly, beautifully on his forehead. Always so beautiful.

They fall into a quiet. Jimin sits looking out the window, up at the stars. Yoongi sits across from Jimin on the his window, playing thumb wars with himself as he tries to figure out what to say first. There are so many things, too many things that he’s been keeping bottled up, and if he doesn’t start talking soon he’s afraid they might spill over and cause a flood. He swallows the lump in his throat, thinking it best if he just started at the very beginning.

“I stood up to him,” he says.

Jimin knits his eyebrows together. “Stood up to who?”

Yoongi nervously his lips and runs a hand through his hair. “My dad,” he replies. “I stood up to him. I stood up to him for the first time in my life, and it was really scary because I kept remembering when he hit my mom, and all I could think the entire time was ‘what if he loses it and hits me, too,’ but he didn’t. And I told him that his opinion of me and who he thinks I should be didn’t matter, and that he didn’t control me, and it may not seem like a big deal but that man had me in chains my entire life. He made me afraid to talk to people, he made me afraid to express myself, but I finally stood up to him, and now I just, I feel like I can take over the world.”

He finishes, and it feels like fresh air is entering his lungs for the first time ever in his life. He’s light and floaty, maybe a little bit high and like his feet aren’t touching he ground, but it’s okay, because if he falls he knows he’ll land on something soft. Sometime during his mini monologue, Jimin had scooted himself closer. There was only an arms length distance between them, and there was a twinkle of something in his eye as well as the small beginnings of a smile on his face. Yoongi’s heart was beating wildly in his rib cage, but he wasn’t afraid of it anymore.

“That’s amazing,” Jimin breathed. “Really amazing, I’m so proud of you.” He pulls Yoongi into a hug. It’s a bit awkward because of the angle, but it still feels like everything Yoongi’s ever wanted. They separate, and Yoongi clears his throat.

“Good, because there’s more.”

He paused as Jimin’s face shifted back into one of curiosity, leaning his head against the window as he waited patiently. Yoongi runs a hand down his arm, slightly scratching it out of nervousness as he took a deep breath.

“I have a secret, and I kept it from him, because I was scared of how he’d react, and I also kept it from you because I was scared of losing you, but I’m not scared anymore.” He takes another deep breath. It shudders, but not from nervousness, and not because he was scared. Not anymore. “I didn’t just stand up to him. I came out to him. I…I’m gay.”

If Jimin makes any kind of sound, he doesn’t hear it over the pounding in his ears. Jimin’s expression hasn’t changed, but he can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He doesn’t look disgusted, and he hasn’t kicked him out, hasn’t told Yoongi to leave and never come back so maybe it’s a good thing. He’s so busy looking at his face for answers he doesn’t notice how Jimin’s hand is slowly moving towards his until they’re already touching, and Jimin’s small, chubby hand is wrapped around his. He looks down at their conjoined hands, and smiles, warmth spreading through him like a slow burning bonfire before looking back up.

He came into this with the intention of finally confessing his feelings, but looking at Jimin now, and seeing him smile at him like that, he’s thinking that maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe this is enough.

Jimin scoots himself closer, and looks at Yoongi’s eyes, gouging his reaction as he tentatively wraps his arms around his waist. When Yoongi gives him no resistance, he leans in, and rests his head on his shoulder.

Yoongi just might cry.

Jimin felt so warm pressed against him, though it could also be in part to the fact that Yoongi was redder than a sunburn, but either way, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except for this moment, with Jimin in his arms and their bodies pressed together, and even with his poem burning a hole into his back pocket, it’s definitely enough.

For today.