Yoongi trudged out of the bathroom and threw his towel on Jungkook's vacant bed. He slumped down on his back next to it, rubbing his face out of tiredness. Sleeping in someone else’s bed had never been a comfortable experience for him. He had always loved being in the presence of his four friends back when the group was still unbroken, but he had never liked sleepovers. He needed the familiarity of his own room and bed at the end of the day. Normally he would have declined the request Jungkook had made the previous night, but the boy had been in such a miserable state, there was no way he would have left him alone. Yoongi sighed thinking about the sheer hopelessness of the situation.

.............................................................................................. 
MEMORIES…

 More often than not, love wrecks more than it creates, that's what Yoongi had learnt early in his childhood and believed till the present day. His single mother, a talented musician, the person who had been his teacher and mentor, had been madly in love with his biological father. She had forfeited her career and taken the biggest risk of her life, offending her wealthy and socially celebrated family, by running away with him. All for the dream of a new life and happily ever after with the handsome, brooding, intellectually endowed man whom she had first met at a college party. He was a struggling author who had offered her nothing more than love…not even the promise of being faithful… and she had ignored all of the questions, because nothing stood a chance in front of love. After three years, he left her and their two year old son, for an older woman, an heiress, who was prepared to take him away from the minimal apartment he shared with his girlfriend, into her inherited mansion and also fund his work. Yoongi's mother had stayed strong, made up her mind to bring up her son alone and bring him up well. She transmitted her dream of becoming a musician to a hope for her son’s future instead, teaching him to play the piano from when he was five years old, herself settling for any job that she could get, including waitressing at a local restaurant. However, as she had quit college to be her lover’s wife, she did not have the strength of a degree to land a job that paid enough to raise a child alone; her parents too had permanently closed the door for the daughter who had very publicly wounded their pride and destroyed their reputation. When Yoongi was ten years old, a friend of his Mom’s, one out of the small number remaining by her side though her dramatic struggle-laced life, had brought in the offer of a rather demeaning but unexpectedly high paying job. It was the job of a housekeeper and governess for a rich family which had just moved to town. His mother, the only daughter of a flourishing businessman , had once been used to clothes being brought in for her, which cost more than the wage she was being offered, but at that time, she had no place for pride or past memories.  There was just her son in her vision and the need to provide a good life for him. 
She had walked in to the huge penthouse on the first day of her job, with apprehension about her new employers and a firm leash on her sense of self-respect. Mrs Jeon however had been the complete contrast to everything she had apprehended. It did not take a long time for Yoongi’s mother to learn that her new employer was a lady who could not be compared with most others. She was the kind of person who would go to lengths to do good for people whom she did not have any claim on and welcomed everyone, irrespective of their societal or otherwise status with the same warmth as she did her closest family members. Years later when governess and mistress had transitioned into friends and confidantes, Mrs Jeon had confessed that she had come to know all about the helpless condition of Yoongi’s mother from their mutual friend and felt deeply for her plight. She had also been in the need for a well-bred woman whom she could trust with her son's safety, often having to stay away for weeks on business trips with her husband, and a solution had dawned in her mind, whereby she could help both herself and this girl.
 On her employer’s encouragement and due to the long hours she had to spend at the Jeon household, Yoongi’s mother had brought her son over to the house with her very often. The incredibly shy child had been introduced to Jungkook as well as to Taehyung, the former's best friend and shadow. Yoongi was two years elder to Taehyung and three to Jungkook, nevertheless his inherent shy nature made him back off from the younger, but much more confident boys. He had been particularly scared of Taehyung, the kid with the sweet face and boxy smile, a storehouse of weirdness in mini-human form. Jungkook on the other hand was a genius mischief maker and prankster. But they both treated him as if he were the junior, pulling him to go play with them every time he tried to sit down in a corner, out of everyone's line of vision. By a week or so, his shyness didn't stand a chance in front of the younger two's persistent attempts and he was laughing and having fun with them. Hobi was the son of Mrs Jeon's friend and Jin was their neighbor. A group of five unwavering friends was formed on their inclusion. It had stayed the same way, unaltered by different origins, by small fights, verbal and physical that are typical of childhood and the greater ones brought on by ego that go hand in hand with adulthood. Problems and good times had both come in equal measures and passed as well, but the group stayed intact. Till that one day, when the first crack was introduced in it, when Taehyung started to develop feelings for his best friend and constant companion. 
They had known that Tae liked guys as well as girls for a long time, without any special marked coming out event coz these are things which you know about each other when you're growing up together and spend the greatest amount of time round the day with each other. There had never been any stigma regarding it among any of them and they made jokes about crushes and possible couplings without ever hurting any sentiments.

There had always been a greater bond between the two youngest boys. Taehyung had grown up at the Jeon household. He was an orphan who had been left at the doorstep of a church in the locality of Jungkook’s parents’ old house on a rainy night. The elderly Father of the church had taken the child in and kept him under his care for five years, after which his own health declined and he started to worry more with every passing day, for arranging a better shelter for the little boy, facing the fact that there were not many days left in his own life. Jungkook’s father, had grown up in the neighborhood, acquainted with the priest since his childhood days and he was saddened by the gradually worsening frail looks of the old man. On a visit to him at the church one day, he had asked emotionally whether he could be of any help to the old man and promised to do whatever he could in his power for him. The Father had smiled, having finally found the answer to his question.
And thus, Taehyung had been brought into Jungkook’s family. He had never been adopted legally by the family as far as Yoongi or the other boys knew, neither had they ever thought of asking this question since it had never come up as a significant matter in any of their minds. As he pondered over the matter now, Yoongi realized that Jungkook’s parents had the kind of wealth and social influence that would have bypassed the legal problems which might have occurred for any other middle class family in matters of bringing up a child without legal documentation. On the other hand they were the kind of people who were not in the least bit concerned about the societal stigma present regarding adoption and had enough social impor