I woke up knowing what day it was. It was a day that I had long awaited for years, filling me with so many emotions. Trepidation, fear, excitement, sadness...

I woke up knowing that nothing would ever be the same.

Because that was the day that I was going to join the military.

Don't get me wrong, I knew it was coming. I always knew it was coming. Every young man in the Republic of Korea knows it's coming. Still, it had always seemed so far away. Especially when I was surrounded by boys all younger than me in a busy life. Whenever the thought of the military came up, it was always pushed away by some schedule or a member of one of the maknae lines throwing a tantrum.

Things had changed for Bangtan the past several years, giving me even more of a distraction.

But then the day hit, and the atmosphere of the world changed. I wasn't going to be Jin Eomma of BTS again, at least not for a while. For two years I was going to be a soldier of Korea.

My boys were going to die without me around, I knew it.

Still, upcoming major life changes can't change daily routine. I was the first one up, as I had been for approximately the last six years.

I would often forget how old I was getting until I would remember how many years I had been a part of Bangtan.

After preparing everyone's breakfast, I worked up the nerve to accomplish my next task. Being both the resident mother and the leader of the group gave me the role of waking everyone up in the mornings. The mansion that Bangtan lived in was - well, a mansion. Even I wasn't willing to go personally wake everyone up. I had instead figured out an excellent and more efficient method of achieving my goal: wake one of the three maknaes up, and sooner than later they would all be up. Jimin and Hoseok I left to their own devices, and the duo would usually go for a run together before breakfast. And lastly, nervousness would make me check on Yoongi, just to make sure he had gone to sleep the night previous. (I had a good reason for this. Too many times I had found a delirious Yoongi sitting at his desk with a pen in one hand and headphones on, staring into space. Once he was in that state, it was hard to get him out of it. There was only one person in the world that would be able to help him better than I, and that person wasn't here, so that role also fell to me.)

I decided to wake the third and oldest maknae on that particular day. Taehyung mumbled something incoherent as I poked him in the forehead. I took that as a symbol that it was fine to move onto Yoongi's room. Sure enough, as I went from the third floor of the mansion to the second, where the boy's room was, I heard faint and slurred yelling from upstairs. I lightly tapped on the door to Yoongi's room, and the response surprised me.

"Come in, hyung." The voice was so quiet, so timid. Two things that my Yoongi wasn't. Worried that he had once again been awake all night, I opened the door and saw him sitting on his unmade bed.

My mind automatically registered several things. One, that his eyes were red. Two, that he was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, like a child trying to protect himself from some higher power. I sighed and walked quickly to the bed. "Yoongi-ah, you should have slept," I said, already smoothing his silky white hair with my hands.

To my surprise, instead of swatting my hand away like I would have expected, he closed his eyes and leaned into my hand. Definitely not like him. Was he sick? I sat down on the bed next to him to measure the temperature of his forehead when he suddenly hugged me tightly around the waist and buried his face into my shoulder.

Panic bells were ringing in my head. "Yoongs," I said quickly. "What's the matter? Do you feel okay?"

He just hugged tighter. "'m scared, hyung," he muttered, his voice muffled by my body.

"'Scared'?" I repeated, keeping my voice as light as possible. "Scared of what?"

He lowered his body onto my lap and turned his head so he could look into my eyes. "I'm nervous about being the leader of Bangtan," he murmured. "I don't know how you 'nd Joon made it look so easy..." his voice trailed off and he closed his eyes. "Maybe it's 'cause the two of you are or were more used to the spotlight, but I'm not. I don't know how to be a leader."

I was worried, but I laughed nonetheless. "You thought it was easy for me to adjust to the role of leader?" I asked.

He opened his eyes and gave me a confused expression. "Wasn't it?"

Another thing I would sometimes forget: that the people I considered my second family were for the most part grown men. Sometimes, times like this, they were cute enough to be children. I laughed again. "Trust me, when I became the leader, I had no freaking clue what I was doing. I was - I am, actually - used to the role of being the mother, not the leader. But I figured it out, didn't I?" I smiled at the memory of transitioning to the leader of BTS. At the time I had been calling leaders of other K-pop idol groups just to figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing. "And Joon? Remember how he just about threw up out of nervousness before we debuted?"

That brought a small smile to Yoongi's face, finally. Of course he remembered, he had been mocking poor Namjoon for his nervousness. That was, of course, until the younger boy broke down into tears outside the Big Hit studio. I didn't know about it until later that night when Yoongi told me how he had felt terrible when he stumbled upon Namjoon and the two had spent an hour just talking.

"You'll figure it out, Yoongi-ah," I told him. "Don't worry."

He sighed. "I wish you didn't have to leave, hyungnim," he said. I was at first taken off-guard by the formal term. He wasn't like Yoongi to say such things. He was respectful always, but not outwardly; I never asked him to be. I shook it off as him just being tired. "Do you have to leave?" he asked innocently. Yes, he was definitely mentally out of it. He wasn't far from having to join the military himself, he already knew the answer to that question.

"You know I do," I responded lightly, once again running my hands through his hair. "But I wouldn't leave if I had the choice."

He sighed, his face sad again. I gently lifted his body off of mine onto the bed, then covered him with a blanket that was folded at the edge of the bed. "Go to sleep, okay?" I told him. "Don't think about anything, just sleep."

He nodded, curling into the blanket. Good enough for me. I walked out of the room quietly, shutting the door behind me. And not a moment too soon, as the three maknaes came flying down the stairs at a blurring speed. It seemed that the younger two had done something that made Taehyung extremely mad, as he was chasing them with a pair of scissors.

Sadly, this was usual for the mornings at the mansion. I prepared my voice for yelling and followed the three boys down another flight of stairs to the kitchen.

When I arrived, Taehyung had the youngest maknae cornered, the makeshift weapon held dangerously in the air over the boy.

"Kim Taehyung, put those scissors down right now!" I shouted.

Taehyung jumped at my voice and released the maknae, who giggled and ran to the other one. "And you two," I said, pointing at them, "aren't out of it yet. Taehyung, Youngshin," I scolded, looking at the two older of the three, "you're adults. Act like it."

"And I'm not!" Saejin chirped, causing Tae and Young to glare at him.

"Shut up, you're close enough to being an adult," I said. The maknae deflated, crossing his arms with a disappointed look on his face.

Another thing that had changed: the people in the maknae line. But something that hadn't changed was the attitudes of the people in it.

Anyway, mission of shutting them up accomplished. "Now eat your breakfasts," I told them. Smiles broke over their faces and they fought to be the first one to the food. Things may have changed over the past few years, but my cooking talent hadn't.

The front door opened, and Jimin and Hoseok entered, this faces flushed and shiny. They were panting, but still had world-brightening smiles. "'Morning," Hoseok said.

I rolled my eyes dramatically, pretending to be mad. I would pretend that I was angry at them for running while I had to make sure the three youngest weren't going to kill each other, but I actually rather enjoyed the job.

"Oh, hyung, don't be mad," Jimin said, walking towards me and annoyingly maneuvering my face into what was probably a grotesque smile. His arm fell, and his smile fell slightly with it. "Today isn't a good day to be mad."

Oh, Jiminie...

But it wasn't time for that now, especially just after dealing with Yoongi. "Okay, okay, I'm not mad," I said. "Go get ready for breakfast, you two, before the three idiots over there eat everything on the table."

Jimin nodded, then went running up the stairs. Hoseok made to follow, but then glanced into the kitchen before looking at me. "Yoongi-hyung?" he said it like a question.

"Bad night," I answered simply. He would understand.

He bit his lip before nodding and jogging up the stairs.

I didn't want to eat breakfast. I wasn't nervous, I just didn't want to. Instead, I sat on the couch in the nearest living area, staring out the window.

Outside the window was a beautiful garden that, oddly enough, was lovingly cared for by Jimin, Hoseok, and Yoongi. I would have never imagined any of them, Yoongi especially, wanting to have anything to do with taking care of flowers. But nevertheless, my dongsaengs worked hard to care for various red and white roses. They'd been trying really hard to somehow grow black roses as well, but that hadn't been going well.

I'd suggested they just paint the white roses with black paint. They made a snarky comment about Alice in Wonderland, then said that would be cheating.

Still, I swear I once saw Hoseok walking around with ink-stained fingers.

I sighed, and there was a small noise. "Are you okay, hyung?" Jimin's soft voice asked. I turned my head and saw him there, his usual confidence nonexistent.

I responded with a head nod. "Are you okay?"

The younger laughed without humor and laid down with his head on my lap. "Oh, not you too," I said without meaning to.

He turned to look me in the eyes. "Not me too what?" he asked.

I shook my head, pretending I hadn't spoken. "Nothing. What's wrong?"

His eyes moved to the pendant hanging from my neck. It was a white charm carved into the shape of a ring, created from a tree substance that looked like ivory. I had been told the material was called tagua, but that didn't mean anything to me. It had been a gift. Jimin gently touched it, pulling the string between his fingers. That simple gesture hurt my heart more than I thought it would. "Nothing's wrong, I guess," he said, his eyes not leaving the pendant. "I guess I just... I don't know if we're ever going to get a chance to be this close again."

I sighed. "Jiminie, it's only for two years. It's not that long, if you think about it. Besides, you'll be busy, so it probably won't even feel like any time to you." Hopefully, I added mentally.

He shook his head. "It's not that, so much."

"Then what is it?"

He let go of the pendant and it fell back onto my chest. He lowered his gaze, staring off into space. "I know the military changes people," he said, this time quieter. "What if... what if when you're done, you don't want to come back here?"

Well, that was one question that I hadn't been expecting when I was mentally preparing myself for the day. I would have to improvise. "Where else would I go?"

He sat up, and his eyes were older than I ever remembered them being. "Forward."

That stung a bit, but I knew the boy had a point. It was something to think about. I reached over and ruffled his bleached golden hair. "I'll always come back to you, Jimin-ah," I told him. "Military or not, I'll always return."

There was worry still written on his face, but he smiled. "Thank you, hyung."

I wanted to hug him then, but there was sudden shouting from the kitchen. I sighed, already exasperated. "Come on," I told him. "We have to make sure the others don't kill themselves or each other."

Jimin sighed. "I still can't believe I'm part of the hyung line," he said. "I'm not old."

I tilted my head. "Oh, and I am?"

He finally laughed and jumped over the back of the couch. "You have no idea, hyung!" he called, running away.

Usually, I wouldn't take that kind of insult. But if it improved the mood of the others, well, then, I couldn't really argue with it, could I? (Didn't stop me from grumbling about it as I got up to return to the kitchen.)

Once that mess had been figured out, most of the group dispersed to various places in the mansion. I thought I was alone in the kitchen as I washed the dishes. Jimin had volunteered to do them, but his phone had begun to ring and he had to go answer it. It was quiet and was probably the most peaceful place in the house. Just for the sake of it being quiet, I took what may have been half an hour just to complete the chore, often pausing to gaze out of the window.

That was until I turned around and jumped at the sight of a boy sitting at the table.

He stared at me.

"Um, Hoseok, how long have you been the