AUTUMN ; September

Sunday -- Evening

“Hurry up Jiyoo!” Jungkook whines, waiting impatiently near the fence to her house.

Jiyoo could only roll her eyes as Jungkook nagged her. It was mostly his fault that she’d forgotten the gift she was going to give to Namjoon for his birthday. He was the one that was rushing her. Scanning through the shelves, she finds the familiar purple book and tucks it into her backpack, not forgetting to zip it up and rush out before Jungkook threw another fit.

“It’s about time.” Jungkook rolls his eyes, his foot tapping impatiently as he slowly heads out the door.

Jiyoo does the same, only she doesn’t lose the quick pace she had. “You’re the one that needs to hurry up.”

Jungkook takes her words as a challenge and the two race towards the stalls. Of course Jungkook was bound to beat Jiyoo in terms of speed, but little did Jungkook know that Jiyoo hadn’t kept up with him at all. She stopped halfway and walked normally with the rest of the guys as Jungkook sprinted alone towards the tents.

“You’re so cruel Jiyoo.” Hoseok chuckles. He makes a move to pinch her nose, but Jiyoo dodges swiftly to his surprise.

She sticks out her tongue and laughs when Hoseok ruffles her hair. “I didn’t say I was going to hurry either.” She shrugs.

“Jiyoo, they have bubble tea! With ice cream!” Jungkook’s voice booms through the crowd.

Jiyoo’s eyes widen, looking at Hoseok sheepishly before she skitters quickly towards the treat. She was a er for desserts and nothing says happiness like a bubble tea.

The rest of the guys stroll over, their eyes wary of the amount of children crowded around the bubble tea booth.

“They put ice cream in these sugary drinks?” Jimin asks with a frown. He enjoys a good ice cream as much as the next guy, but bubble teas packed a lot of sugar in their drinks; he couldn’t imagine how sweet it tasted with ice cream on top of that.

“Just let it go Jimin-ah.” Hoseok sighs, a small grin on his lips despite not going anywhere near the cavity inducing stand. “They’ll be the ones to suffer if it’s too sweet.”

Jiyoo and Jungkook bought their drinks (thanks to the money that Jungkook’s father had given them) before running off to the next stall. They’d saved their appetites for the fireworks show after finding out that there would be food stalls there, saying things along the lines of “we want to enjoy our weekend to the fullest”.

Seokjin sighs. “So you want to eat junk food for dinner? Really?” He thought it was just their excuse to eat unhealthily for dinner, but since it was Namjoon’s birthday and he said it was fine, Seokjin decided to not say anything more.

“Namjoon oppa! Try this!” Jiyoo says excitedly. The sugar in her drink was already beginning to excite her, eyes getting wider as she continued to run around.

As soon as the brown liquid touched the tip of his tongue, Namjoon pulled away from the drink. He didn’t need to fully drink it to know that it was way too sugary for his tastes. It still looked like he took a small sip though, so he’d given Jiyoo a small thumbs up before watching her run off after Jungkook in search of a new food to try out. Taehyung followed shortly behind, whining that Jiyoo wasn’t giving him anything.

“That’s why he doesn’t mind snacks for dinner.” Hoseok chortles.

Namjoon shoves him playfully, not hesitating to walk ahead of the group after the girl he’d become so interested in over the course of a few months. He could see her feet stumbling on the loose gravel as she ran. “Be careful Jiyoo! You’re going to fall!”

He knew he was caring for her a lot, but that didn’t mean that the others could for being “such a dad”. He ignores the sick looks on his friends’ faces and continues to walk after Jiyoo. She heard him tell her to slow down, though she made no effort to do so, continuing to run around with Jungkook.

Jiyoo and Jungkook led the rest of the group towards more food booths than they could stomach. From bubble tea to donuts, even stopped at the potato stick stand to pick up a two foot long stick each. The two were having a blast and made sure to include the others in their search for the best game in the area. Suga was adamant on his opinion stating that the hoop game was the best game, though many of the others could testify mostly due to the fact that Suga beat all of them during the process. Jiyoo didn’t know that Suga was so good at basketball, hung open the more he continued to throw the ball effortlessly into the hoop.

“It just takes skill.” Suga shrugs, a smug grin on his face as he watches the rest of his group fail at beating his score.

“I want to play one more time.” Jungkook wheezes. His forehead was drenched in sweat and he was out of breath from trying to beat Suga’s record. When Jiyoo refuses to wait for him, Jungkook’s eyes stare longingly at the basketball game before he huffed and ran off.

No point in staying if Jiyoo wasn’t going to watch him after all. He cooled down once Jiyoo bought him (and the rest of the boys) a refreshing juice pack each. She sipped on her drink and watched as everyone talked together. A small smile appeared on her face; The sight of everyone getting along really made her heart feel warm inside.

Her happiness was short lived, for a cold chill ran down her spine, causing her to shriek.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!”

Jiyoo was unaware of the panicked voice, concentrating on the sticky frosty feeling that began to creep down her back. A small grimace was etched into her face as she turned around to see what was going on, revealing a familiar face.

Looking at the boy, she knew his face from somewhere, and he had the same reaction. They looked at one another with questioning eyes before a lightbulb appeared over Jiyoo’s head.

“You’re Yugyeom’s friend!” Jiyoo gasped, pointing a finger at the boy that almost seemed to copy her every move.

He too, had a finger pointed in her direction. There was an empty plastic cup in his hand, allowing Jiyoo to deduce that whatever was in the cup was the result of her shirt being soaked in the back. “Y-Yah! I have a name too, you know!”

“What happened Youngjae?” Yugyeom asks, his voice a bit startled after hearing Youngjae begin to yell. When he sees Jiyoo, he’s just as shocked. “Jiyoo?”

Before Jiyoo could say anything, she felt someone pull her backwards. Jungkook pushes her gently back towards the rest of the group before going up to Youngjae. His eyes had a small fire burning within them, not looking happy to see the familiar faces.

“You spilled that on purpose.” Jungkook says, his tongue clicking at the end of his sentence as he continues to look down at Youngjae.

“It was an accident!” Youngjae argues. He looks back at his friends, though none of them made a move to back him up. “Guys! Tell him it was an accident!”

“Well,” Jackson says, pretending to think about Youngjae’s request. “We did tell you to stop swinging your hands.”

Youngjae’s jaw drops. “B-But-”

“You can beat him up Jungkook.” Yugyeom says with a small sigh. “It’s what he deserves.”

Jungkook stares at the latter confused as to why he’d let his friend get chewed out. Then he sees the mischievous grin on Yugyeom’s face and then realized that everyone was just messing around.

“As if.” Jungkook backs down immediately to the surprise of everyone. When he notices the astonished looks on everyone’s faces, he just shrugs. “We literally run into them everywhere. Might as well be civil.”

He walks back over to where Jiyoo was before turning around and throwing a eating grin back at Youngjae. “After all, we know how to behave outside.”

A small chortle was heard before everyone started to laugh. Even Youngjae let out a few nervous chuckles, not catching onto the joke and continuing to laugh because everyone else was laughing. Once he realized his friends were in on the joke, his scared expression immediately melts, revealing a more angry one.

“What the hell you guys! I could’ve died just now!” Youngjae screams, shoving Yugyeom back since he was the closest.

Jiyoo chuckles after seeing Youngjae continue to whine. His personality kind of reminded her of Seokjin in a way. They both had a tendency to over exaggerate sometimes. She continued to watch the scene unfold before they’d ultimately began to talk about the games that were spread out around the place.

“The basketball one is my favorite.” Yugyeom says, a bit of a cocky tone etched into his voice. “I’m pretty good.”

“Oh?” Suga was interested in a new rival now. “Care to show us that you’re not a liar?”

“Of course.”

The two immediately began to walk together towards the shooting game, leaving the others to follow behind. Jungkook immediately began to follow, though his steps faltered after realizing Jiyoo was still soaked by the drink that Youngjae spilled on her back.

“We got her, no worries. Go watch them.” Namjoon waves his hand to shoo Jungkook away.

Jungkook nods, looking at Jiyoo one more time to confirm that it was okay. When she nods and shoots him a smile, he grins back, running off after Suga to watch him beat Yugyeom. When Jungkook was out of sight, the grimace re her face. “It’s getting sticky.”

Namjoon laughs, placing his hands on her shoulders before guiding her off to the side. They stopped at a nearby bench. He prompted Jiyoo to sit down, helping her take off her backpack that had absorbed most of the blow despite how her shirt was still wet. Luckily for Jiyoo, it was only a portion of her shirt that had gotten soaked, though that still meant that her bag and hair was covered in whatever Youngjae was drinking.

She watches as Namjoon dumps out the contents of the cup he was drinking from. He rinses out the cup in a nearby water fountain and fills it with some water, returning to her side.

“I’m going to pour the water to try and rinse out the, uh..” Namjoon leans forward and takes a whiff of the smell coming from Jiyoo’s hair. “Damn. It’s fruit punch.”

“Yes please.” Jiyoo sighs. She grits her teeth as Namjoon pours the water down her back. It felt cold with the coming of autumn, sending more shivers down her spine the more water he poured.

“I said you could rely on me sometimes, you know.” Namjoon says, his voice barely audible over the noise of the festival.

For a second, it almost sounded as if Namjoon was upset. It made her stomach pull, though she tries to ignore it after mentally telling herself that she couldn’t really rely on him this time since it was an accident. Namjoon continued to work in silence, leaving Jiyoo to just sit and endure the cold. He didn’t exactly have the steadiest hands, so she wasn’t surprised when Seokjin eventually came over and took over. It didn’t feel as uncomfortable afterwards, allowing Jiyoo to take a look around until her eyes had fallen on her juice stained backpack.

“Oh no!” Jiyoo yelps, immediately moving to her backpack. She ignores the complaint from Seokjin who told her to sit still, ping her bag and finding the purple book untouched from the fruit punch. She sighs and zips up the back carefully, peeking around to see that some of the others were interested. They were, especially since she was acting a bit strange, but seeing her secretive eyes, they let her be.

“Well, this is the best it’s going to get.” Seokjin sighs. “I can’t believe you had to wear white today too.”

Jiyoo shrugs, “I’m just sad about my bag.” She sighs, staring sadly at her backpack that belonged to her for years.

Namjoon wants to ruffle her hair, but stops midway when realizing that Jiyoo’s hair was still wet. Taking a step back, he observes her sad face for a bit longer before pulling off his hoodie. “Here. Wear this to cover your shirt at least.”

Jiyoo takes one look at Namjoon’s yellow hoodie as immediately shakes her head. “It’s yellow! The fruit punch is going to stain it.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind.” Namjoon says, urging her to take the hoodie.

“B-But my hair is wet too!” Jiyoo tries to argue.

“I can fix that.”

Seokjin moves in between the two and puts his hand out. “Give me your hair tie.”

Jiyoo hands over the black hair tie around her wrist and cringes as she feels her wet hair get yanked backwards a bit. She lets out a yelp and tries to turn around to tell Seokjin to stop, only to get shushed by the latter and forced to sit forward. Her hair gets wrung out until the water stopped dripping. Seokjin then combs it up into a ponytail to the best of his ability without a brush before twisting the hair, ultimately tying it up into a bun.

“There.” He says, admiring his work. “Now you don’t have to worry about getting his jacket wet.”

“But my shirt-”

“You can change in the bathroom.” Seokjin rolls his eyes. He pulls her up and pushes her over towards the bathroom, not forgetting to shove Namjoon’s hoodie into her arms. “Hurry up so we can go watch the others play basketball.”

Jiyoo skitters off, a small pout on her lips as she disappears into the bathroom. Seokjin sighs and looks at Namjoon, his eyes tired after having to play “mother”. It wasn’t that he particularly enjoyed acting as the mom of the family, more like it just happened most of the time. “You owe me.”

“For what?” Namjoon asks, baffled by Seokjin’s words.

Seokjin shakes his head and points towards the girl’s bathroom. Namjoon doesn’t understand what Seokjin is talking about until Jiyoo emerges out.

She was wearing his hoodie, which practically swallowed her body. It covered the shorts she was wearing, making her look tinier than she already was. With her hair in a bun, the sight made Namjoon’s heart clench.

Jiyoo looked adorable.

He puts a hand on Seokjin’s shoulder to silently give his thanks. Heading over to meet Jiyoo halfway, he spots her stained shirt in her hand. “You took off your shirt?”

“My bra wasn’t stained so I just wiped up what I could and yeah..” Jiyoo mumbles, not meeting his eye.

Namjoon nods, not asking her anymore after seeing her uncomfortable expression. Seokjin was already holding Jiyoo’s bag for her, so after he’d taken her soaked shirt, she had nothing to carry. Holding a hand out towards her, he tilts his head a bit. “Let’s go?”

Jiyoo takes his hand, using her other hand that was covered by the long sleeve of Namjoon’s hoodie to hide the flush on her cheeks. He still knew she was embarrassed, but continues to guide her towards the basketball game. Namjoon had a prideful smile on his face and he wished that their moment together would last just a bit longer.

“Do you like the jacket?” Seokjin asks, trying to get a bit of a conversation flowing between the awkward (not) couple.

Jiyoo nods, refusing to look at Namjoon when she spoke. “It smells nice.”

Hearing her words made Namjoon’s pride soar even higher. Seokjin only rolled his own eyes, knowing how Namjoon always liked to suffocate himself in his cologne before going out. Now he was going to have to deal with the headaches that were brought by the stench of cologne even more than usual.

“You can’t even beat Suga hyung?” Jungkook laughs out loud, his voice booming through the air as he continues to jeer at Yugyeom. “You couldn’t even come close!”

“Shut up Jungkook!” Yugyeom huffs, “I’m going to play one more game.”

“Time to feed the game some money!” Suga chortles, enjoying the show of seeing Yugyeom’s suffering.

After watching Yugyeom play a few more games, he was baffled that he hadn’t come close to Suga’s record even once. They’d eventually stopped after the man running the game was begging them to leave, saying that there needed to be a chance for others to play as well despite the amount of money he was making off of Yugyeom alone.

Jungkook laughs, though it was a bit uneasy after realizing that Yugyeom’s slowly increasing score would’ve almost beat out his own record if the man hadn’t stopped him. After spotting Jiyoo return with Namjoon, he eyes out the way that they were holding hands, but doesn’t stop them, instead just returning to her side and sitting opposite to Namjoon. Seokjin was watching his every move and Jungkook knew this. Seokjin was practically glaring at him to not ruin Namjoon’s fun on his birthday.

“Jungkook?”

And of course, they had to run into more people they knew.

“Hyunbin!” Jiyoo said happily. She was running on a happiness high after being given Namjoon’s hoodie.

Hyunbin was a bit shocked by the energetic greeting, but returns it nonetheless. Jisung shoots Hyunbin a sneaky grin before letting out a happy cheer. “It’s nice to see you guys here! And girl, of course.” He winks in Jiyoo’s direction, causing her to grin and laugh at how silly he was acting.

“Hello, I’m Jung Sewoon. Nice to meet you all.”

Jiyoo gives a slight bow towards the new boy that had come along. He seemed a bit serious compared to Jisung’s peppy personality, but she doesn’t mind it. Sewoon still seems nice and smiles along to whatever the others talk about. Moonbok is here too, but he’d gone and practically jumped into Taehyung’s arms when he’d realized that he was here.

Everyone caught up over the course of a week and a half since they’ve all seen each other. While Jungkook continued to tease Yugyeom about his “poor basketball skills”, Taehyung and Moonbok were catching up together.

“They’re a fun group, aren’t they?” Moonbok says with a smile.

Taehyung nods, watching a certain girl in particular. When he doesn’t say anything more, Moonbok takes that chance to speak again.

“Why did you go back to school?” He asks curiously, looking at Taehyung who was taken aback a bit.

He hums, thinking about the reason for a bit. The sound of laughter broke his train of thought. Looking back at the group, he finds Jiyoo laughing at how Jungkook and Yugyeom were challenging each other to some sort of gag battle. The soft tinkle of her laugh made his stomach feel warm, and his mouth moves before his brain processes any words to say.

“Her.”

Moonbok lets out a small whistle, not missing the way that Taehyung watched Jiyoo in relative silence. He could tell his friend really had an interest in this girl. Meeting her for the first time, he couldn’t help but think that she was just a kid that got spoiled a lot by her best friend. Seeing Taehyung think so highly of her changed Moonbok’s opinion though.

Taehyung hated school more than anything else, so knowing that his friend was doing something that he really hated by his own choice was baffling enough.

Slowly, but not slowly enough, the night was beginning to come to an end. The groups bid goodbye to one another and Jiyoo walked home with the rest of the boys. When she’d stopped at her house first, she waved goodbye to everyone, but not before motioning for Namjoon to come towards her.

Jungkook was shocked the most out of everyone, but he held in his apparent jealousy knowing that Namjoon’s birthday still hadn’t come to an end. He knew that he was being a bit of a prick on his own birthday, not realizing it until after they’d all gone out for pizza. Doing this for Namjoon was the least he could do after all that he’d done for him. He technically was one of the only ones that acted civil towards him in the beginning.

“What’s up Jiyoo?” Namjoon tries to ask casually, poorly hiding his anxiousness as to why Jiyoo would call him over out of all people.

She s her bag and pulls out the purple book from earlier, handing it over to Namjoon with a small smile. “This is what I wanted to give to you for your birthday.”

Namjoon takes the book and stares at it for a second. The Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede. He hasn’t read this one before.

“Sorry that’s it’s nothing really special.” Jiyoo mumbles, her eyes looking elsewhere. “I didn’t know what you liked, but I found out from Jimin that you liked to read, so.. I wanted to give you my favorite book..”

Flipping through the pages, Namjoon was too absorbed in his own interest for the book to pay attention to Jiyoo ramble about how childish the book actually was. He found a particular line that struck a chord in him. “If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power.”

Jiyoo’s eyes widen. She hadn’t recalled that one quote from the book when she’d read it the past four times. Being unsure of what to say, she looks to Namjoon for insight.

“What do you think that means?” Jiyoo asks, her voice quiet, as if to slightly test Namjoon’s answer.

He hums, but ruffles Jiyoo’s hair. “I’m not sure since I haven’t read it from the beginning. But I’ll let you know when I figure it out. Thank you Jiyoo.”

Jiyoo smiles, feeling the happiness radiate from her head to her toes. Seeing her so pleased made Namjoon smile too. He leans forward and gives her a tight hug, pressing his nose to the crown of her head, before releasing her to turn around and go home for the night.

Of course that moment of theirs didn’t last. Jungkook sprang from his spot and ran over to Jiyoo, maneuvering around Namjoon to give her a hug of his own. When he sees the baffled look on Namjoon’s face, Jungkook just shrugs. “It’s 12:02. Not your birthday anymore hyung.”

“Oh thank god it’s over!” Taehyung whines.

He too, rushes over to Jiyoo’s side and engulfs her into a bone crushing hug. “I was holding back all day, you know? I worked hard, you know!”

“Not hard enough.” Jimin grumbles. He grabs Jungkook and Taehyung by their collars before dragging them away to their dismay. Namjoon is left alone with Jiyoo once again and he doesn’t miss a beat before swooping down and pressing his lips to her forehead.

“Thank you for a good birthday.” He whispers, leaving Jiyoo in shock by the sudden gift.

As they all head back to their respective homes for the night, Namjoon couldn’t erase the grin playing on his lips. Not only did he get closer to Jiyoo that night, but he knew that she reacted towards him in a non platonic way. Her pheromones gave it away that she was embarrassed and that was a dead giveaway that she no longer rejected the idea of him being close to her. Of course, he wasn’t going to force his way in. Namjoon just thought of it as a small victory in their blossoming friendship.

He holds the purple book firmly in his hand, swinging his arms around a bit as he thinks happily to himself. If he wanted to know Jiyoo more, he’d learn through the book. And reading was a pleasurable specialty of his anyhow, so tonight was definitely going to end on a good note.