A few weeks after his revelation about his feelings, Da Hee shyly invited him to an exhibition of her photographs. “Is the exhibition all about your photographs?” he asked as they sat in his studio, him spinning around to face her as she edited photographs on her laptop at the table behind him, which had slowly become a part of their normal routine. She shyly looked up at him and nodded. “Yeah. This is the first time I've had a solo exhibition. If you don’t have time it’s okay.” She added hastily. “I have time. I’ll be there.” He said, an encouraging smile on his face.

That weekend, he made his way to the address Da Hee had sent to him. She had arrived long before him to set everything up. He was dressed in black trousers and a black shirt with the top two buttons undone. He felt a little uncomfortable in the fancy clothing, but he wanted to look his best for Da Hee. The moment he stepped through the entrance, he saw a huge photograph of Da Hee, with her name and the name of her exhibition written on it. “The Road to Freedom.” He read, curious about the types of photographs that would be on display. Da Hee hadn’t told him much about the exhibition, telling him that it was better for him to see it for himself.

He saw Da Hee standing near the entrance, she was dressed up in an elegant black dress, that coincidentally matched his outfit, with her hair pinned up away from her face. She was talking to a group of people, a wide smile on her face. She laughed, turning her head to the side and catching his eye. He gave her a wave, a smile making its way onto his face. He couldn’t believe how breath-taking she looked. She excused herself from the group of people she was with and made her way over to him. People stopping her every few steps to congratulate her.

By the time she finally made it to his side, she had a huge smile on her face. “Yoongi! You made it!” she said as she gave him a brief hug. His breath hitched at the sudden hug. He wrapped his arms around her, inhaling the gentle scent of her perfume. She pulled back, the smile still on her face. “When did you get here?” she asked. “Just now, I haven’t even seen any of the photos yet. Well, except for the huge one of you at the front.” He teased.

A blush made its way onto her face. “Oh my god, it’s so embarrassing! I didn’t want that there but the organisers insisted on it.” She whined. Yoongi grinned at her. “I think it looks amazing.” She grinned at him as someone called to her from the room behind them. “Go ahead.” He said, nodding in the direction the voice had come from. “I’ll take my time to go around the exhibit.”

“I’ll come see you later. I hope you enjoy it. You should start from over there.” She said, pointing in the direction of the start of the exhibit. He made his way over to the entrance, picking up an information leaflet on his way. The first photographs were of people shackled and hiding in shadows. He was surprised by the intensity of the photographs. “The road to freedom has to start somewhere.” He said to himself as he moved onto the next set of photographs. The next set of photographs were portraits of people with words ‘tattooed’ onto their skin. The words were words that they had been labelled as throughout their lives.

Coward              ugly          

Fat                    arrogant

                  boring

Callous               foolish

Greedy              obsessive

Alone                 stubborn

The words went on and on. There were many different types of people in the photographs, young, old, men, women, children… some of them were crying, some were angry, confused, smiling… Yoongi began to lose track of how long he spent looking at each photograph, surprised by the feelings that each new one brought to the surface.

Eventually the photographs became lighter, the shadows replaced by photos of people in the sunlight and smiling, some of these photographs held more than one person. He recognised a photograph of Youngji and her boyfriend. It looked like it had been taken without them realising it, they were holding hands on the beach as the sun had started to set behind them.

He froze in place when another familiar face appeared before him. It was him. It was a photograph that she had taken the first time he had joined her on a photoshoot. He was looking out at the water in front of him, perched on top of the rock, a small smile on his face. He barely noticed when someone appeared by his side. “I hope you don’t mind that I used this photograph.” He jumped a little at the sudden voice. He turned to see Da Hee standing by his side. “I needed some more photographs for the light side of the exhibit and I came across this one. It just seemed so perfect. You had been so tense up until that moment. But almost as soon as we arrived there, your stress seemed to almost melt away.”

“It did. I can’t remember the last time I felt as… free.” He said with a chuckle as he turned back to the photograph. They both stared at the photograph for a few moments longer before he broke the silence. “Why did you chose this theme for your exhibit?” he asked curiously. She took a deep breath. “It’s about my journey of getting better. Back around the time when my father died, there was just so much going on in my life. My mother died when I was a kid and my dad and brother were all I had. A few months after he died, my boyfriend and I broke up. Apparently he couldn’t be bothered to deal with me whilst I tried to deal with losing my father. He ended up cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend.” She kept her eyes glued to the photograph as she spoke, fearing that if she turned to face Yoongi that she would lose her grip on her emotions.

He looked at her as she spilled her darkest secrets to him. He reached out and linked his hand with hers as she continued. “Looking back now, I guess it’s a good thing that I broke up with him then. Otherwise I would probably still be with him and he would still be cheating on me, but back then it was just another devastating blow to my life. I lost two of the most important people to me in such a short space of time. I didn’t know how to cope with it. I was in a really dark place. I felt so betrayed and abandoned. My brother started talking about moving back to Seoul to help me, but I couldn’t let him do that. He has a girlfriend there that he’s madly in love with and he has an amazing job. I tried to pretend that everything was okay. I had everyone fooled, I even managed to fool myself for a while, but it was a fragile lie which soon came crashing down around me.” She stopped, taking a deep, steadying breath, Yoongi squeezed her hand gently. She flashed a quick smile in his direction.

“I thought that if I just pretended to be okay that soon enough I would be. But I was wrong. I needed to give myself a chance to grieve properly before I ended up doing something I would really regret.” She said as she tilted her head back slightly, holding back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. She squeezed Yoongi’s hand, using it as an anchor. “It took a long time, but I finally started to heal. I had a lot of help along the way from lots of different people once I finally admitted that I couldn’t cope with things on my own.” She said as she finally turned to face him. “You are one of those people, Min Yoongi.”

“Me?” he asked, surprised that he had made such an impact on her life. She nodded, “Yes. Your passion for what you do was inspiring. Plus I don’t think I've ever gotten on so well with someone so quickly. There's just something between us, I’m not sure exactly what it is, there's just some kind of connection between us that I've never experienced with anyone else before. I don’t even know how to put it into words.” she chucked at her own rambling. “I mean, I know we didn’t meet in the most ideal way, but if I could go back and change things, I don’t think I would. I’m glad we met that day.” She said, her smiling face making his chest tighten as the urge to kiss her became almost overwhelming. “Da Hee…”

His words were cut off when they were interrupted by one of the exhibit organisers. “Da Hee, there’s someone over here who is interested in discussing and buying one of your photographs.” He said, pointing at someone who was standing near the start of the exhibit. “Okay, I’ll be right over.” She said as the organiser went towards the potential buyer. “I have to go.” She said reluctantly. He nodded, “Go on. We can catch up afterwards.” She squeezed his hand, “Thank you, Yoongi.” She said, her words holding more weight than simply thanking him for attending her exhibit as she slowly stepped away, holding his hand until the very last second.

Yoongi smiled as he watched her go. He was happier than he would ever admit. He hadn’t realised that he had become such an important person to Da Hee. He already knew how important she was to him, but to think that those feelings were reciprocated, made him happier than he could have ever dared to dream about.