Jimin’s first impression when he saw the building was “quaint.” It wasn’t a skyscraper by any means, but it wasn’t tiny either. It was about the size of a large, one-story house and had a sign post in the front of it with the company’s logo on the front and a family of stick figures in different colors huddled together.

Jimin found himself smiling at Yoongi as he watched him dismount the scooter and ruffle his fingers through his hair. “What?” Yoongi questioned when he made eye contact. Jimin shrugged.

“You don’t seem like the type of person that would work here.”

“Where do I look like I’d work?” Yoongi was wearing black skinny jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and his leather jacket.

“A club,” Jimin replied to which Yoongi rolled his eyes. “It’s true! You dress like the stereotypical bad boy.”

“Are bad boys low on money too? I just buy things on clearance or from thrift stores.”

“Well it looks good,” Jimin muttered without thinking. Luckily, Yoongi didn’t hear it because he was too focused on getting to the door, his lips in a thin line as if he was about to do something he absolutely dreaded. He greeted his coworker, Jooheon, at the front desk and out of the corner of his eye, saw a woman of about thirty and a girl of roughly six years old sat, watching the TV.

“This the family?” Yoongi asked quietly so only Jooheon would hear him.

“Mhm,” Jooheon handed Yoongi a sheet of paper with the list of families he’d be photographing today and their theme requests. “Who’s he?” he asked, looking Jimin up and down with interest. Jimin suddenly became uncomfortable under his gaze.

“This is Jimin and he’s mine,” Yoongi replied sharply, his tone implying no room for questioning his answer. Jimin was shocked to hear Yoongi say it, considering they hadn’t spoken about being official yet. Maybe he just said it to save Jimin the trouble of dealing with this guy, or maybe he said it because he genuinely felt like they were together now. The latter reason made Jimin’s stomach drop, not because he didn’t want to be, but because he felt that he was being rushed into the situation. He was just starting to move on from Jungkook but that didn’t mean he was ready to give his trust the way that was needed in order to be in another relationship. He didn’t want to give up the control he had felt only an hour earlier.

“That’s fine then,” Jooheon said with a shrug. He looked over at the mother now, who was wearing a pencil skirt and a long sleeve button down blouse. Yoongi followed his train of thought and made a sound of disgust.

“C’mon, she’s got a kid.”

“That’s never stopped me before,” Jooheon said with a laugh. Yoongi smacked him behind his head.

“Ah, hyung!” Jooheon whined as he rubbed his head.

“Just do your job instead of doing women that are way out of your league,” Yoongi said in a stern voice. “Jimin you’re gonna come with me in the back,” he said, glancing at Jooheon who was pouting at Yoongi. Jimin nodded in agreement.

“I’ll be with you in a second, I just have to get the cameras and backdrop set up for you,” Yoongi said in a completely different tone than his previous one. He smiled politely and was respectful to the woman, and in that moment Jimin realized he’d never seen Yoongi talk to someone older than him. It was weird for Jimin to see him talk to a superior.

“Alright, thank you,” she replied, returning his smile with one of her own.

Yoongi led them down a short hallway and then made a left into one of the studio rooms. Here, there were a bunch of props for the garden themed photoshoot option. The backdrop was already hung up and all Yoongi really needed to do was rearrange the flowers from storage and set up the camera.

“Could you grab that box over there?” Yoongi asked Jimin as he pointed to a corner of the room while he got the tripod. Jimin nodded and retrieved the box to bring it over to where Yoongi stood. They were quiet for a while, Jimin watching Yoongi as his hands carefully removed the floral decorations so as not to further tangle them.

“Hey Jimin?”

“Hm?” he looked up from Yoongi’s hands to his face, yet Yoongi’s attention was still on the flowers.

“About what I said out there, don’t overthink it, okay? Jooheon will pounce on just about anything that moves and I didn’t want you to deal with it, so I told him we were together.” Yoongi looked up at him now. “We don’t have to be if you don’t want to though. I won’t rush you, okay?”

“Okay,” Jimin nodded and Yoongi smiled softly. He reached up to hold Jimin’s chin and bring his lips to his own. It was a soft, lingering peck and then he was focused on the decorations again. After he untangled everything, he went to the wall with the backdrop and hastily put the decorations on the hooks along the wall. They were so small, you could only see them if you knew where to look. Jimin watched Yoongi set up some more pots of flowers on the floor and bring in a rocking chair from the back of the room. Then, he set up the tripod and mounted the camera.

“Alright, I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go get them,” he said after some finishing touches on the camera. Jimin took a seat on the floor when Yoongi left. A minute later, he was back with the mother and daughter, the latter being full of excitement for taking the picture.

“Thank you for taking us early,” the mother said shyly as she tried to hold the girl still by her hand. It was pointless, her eyes scanned the room and her body bounced with energy.

“Ah, it’s no problem. It was our scheduling fault, it’s the least we can do,” Yoongi responded. He motioned to the rocking chair. “If you could sit there, please.” She nodded and tugged her daughter along.

“Who are you?” the girl asked Jimin as her mother set her on her lap.

“My name is Jimin,” he replied with a smile.

“Ah, Jimin-ssi! Are you taking pictures too?”

“Jia, please,” her mother pleaded. “Just sit still and let him take our picture so he can enjoy the rest of his day.” The girl pouted momentarily but then situated herself. Her small hands rested on the ruffles of her light pink dress and her long, dark hair fell to her waist.

Yoongi walked behind the camera and leaned down to look into it. Jimin watched the way his jaw clenched as he focused the lens on the family. It brought up memories of last night and this morning when Yoongi had kissed along his neck and left the hickeys. He was thankful that Yoongi found a shirt that was able to cover them because the last thing he wanted to do was explain to this very observant girl what the bruises were on his neck.

“Alright, smile,” Yoongi said. They obliged and Yoongi took a few snapshots. He stood back upright and took the camera off the stand to cycle through the pictures, looking for the best one.

“The lighting is weird,” he muttered and set the camera back down. “Let me adjust these and we’ll try again.” He walked over to the overhead light switch and adjusted the lighting before moving to the backdrop and arranging the lights that shined on the props. As he was fixing everything, the mother’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse and checked the caller ID.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” she said as she gently pushed Jia off her lap.

“Take your time,” Yoongi replied, bent under the lighting. As soon as her mother left, Jia went to the back part of the room where it was empty and began twirling around and singing to herself. Jimin gave Yoongi a doubtful look as if to say ‘ can you handle her? ’ Yoongi waved off his concern and went back to the camera to delete the pictures.

Jia went over to Yoongi and pulled on his jacket. He looked down at her puzzled face.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m deleting the pictures that you guys took. They weren’t good.”

“Are we gonna take more?”

“Mhm. When your mom comes back.”

“My mom talks on the phone a lot.”

“Does she now?”

“Mhm. When she’s on the phone, I like to dance. Or play with my hair. It’s really long, see!” she held up the ends of her hair which made Yoongi laugh to himself.

“Yes, it’s very pretty. Do you braid it?”

“No, it’s too hard. My mommy does it for me.”

“I can braid hair.”

“You can?” Jimin and Jia said at the same time.

“Yes, I can.”

“Will you do mine! I want flowers in it, like those!” she pointed to the flowers that were around the set and then looked back up at Yoongi, with big puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t you think your mom will be mad if I braid it?”

“Nope!” she said a little too quickly as if she was lying. Yoongi didn’t really care if she was though, he figured it would make her happy and calm her down for a few minutes.

Yoongi went over to the set and grabbed the end of the string of flowers. He ripped one of the flowers from the string, making sure not to tear the stem and then walked back over to her and sat down on the ground.

“You have to be really still so I don’t mess up, okay?” he said.

“Okay!” She plopped down in front of him and Yoongi began combing her hair back with his hands before starting a french braid.

“Where’d you learn that?” Jimin asked him to break the silence in the room.

“Working at Hoseok’s studio. One of the girls asked me if she could play with my hair cause it was mint green at the time-”

“You had mint green hair?” Jimin’s tone was disapproving like a parent’s.

“That’s beside the point,” Yoongi shot him a look, “but yes, I did. She wanted to play with it and she braided it a little and then showed me how to do it so I could braid my hair whenever I wanted to.” Yoongi smiled a little, thinking back to the memory. “I thought it was actually pretty cool, so when I got home, I watched some videos on it so next time I saw her, I could properly braid. Then all the other girls wanted me to do it and it just caught on.”

Yoongi was halfway done with the braid when the mother came back. She saw the scene before her and became increasingly more confused.

“Jia, what are you doing?”

“I wanted to braid my hair, but you were busy, and he knows how!”

“I can see that…” she stepped closer to get a better look at Yoongi’s handiwork. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“Thanks, it’s just something I picked up.” He finished up the braid and used the hair tie from Jia’s wrist. Then he set the flower in the front of her hair to make it look like a hair clip.

“There, all done.” She jumped up and half skipped, half ran to her mother who was smiling at her hair.

“Look mommy, is it pretty?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s very pretty. Are you gonna thank him?”

“Thank you Yoongi-ssi!”

“You’re welcome Jia,” he said, his smile growing. “Are you ready to take the pictures now?”

“Mhm.” She went back over to the set and patiently waited for her mother to sit on the chair. She lifted Jia onto her lap and they settled back into the seat.

“Okay, smile,” Yoongi told them. The picture came out perfect this time and he was satisfied with the results. “Now just one of Jia,” he directed. “Put your elbows on your knees and your chin in your hands.” She did and then smiled. “Perfect,” he praised her and took another picture.

“One more with this,” he said as he walked to another box in the back and grabbed a bouquet of flowers. The girl posed again with a smile and Yoongi took the last picture. “That’s it, you’re all done,” he said more to the mother than he did Jia. “I’ll develop the photos and get them framed and wrapped up for you. It should be ready for next week.”

“Sounds great,” she said. “C’mon Jia, let’s go get some ice cream.”

“Yay!” she shouted and rushed out of the room. Her mother trotted in her heels to keep up.