Jimin and I were both jerked awake at the sound of somebody knocking on my locked bedroom door.

We sat up straight in bed and made fierce eye contact, then dropped our gazes down to each other’s bodies and started silently giggling.

“Jungkook?”

We both froze and swiveled to face the door.

“Baby, are you in there?”

“Yeah, Umma, I’m here,” I said, leaping out of bed and gathering up my clothes before tossing them into the hamper and rushing to find some pajama pants. “I’m getting dressed, so I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

“Sure. Do you know where Jimin is? His umma is looking for him…”

I turned and glanced at my boyfriend as he stepped into his flannels. He just grinned innocently.

“No idea. I haven’t talked to him since last night,” I fibbed, pointing under the bed.

Jimin glared at me and started mouthing words furiously.

I pointed more vigorously.

He rolled his eyes and dropped to the floor, wiggling his way under the bed.

I flattened my hair (holy , hair is something I can have now?) and pulled open the bedroom door. “How was date night?”

“Good.” She smiled at me uncertainly, her eyes lingering on my neck and shoulders. “Want to borrow some foundation for that, Kookie? You have a doctor’s appointment today.”

“What?” I hissed, turning and staring at my reflection in the mirror.

A dozen hickeys blossomed in rows of pink, purple, and red from my jaw all the way down to the neckline of my pajama shirt.

“Oh, my,” was all I could say.

She sighed and shook her head. “My foundation is in the top drawer in my bathroom. Feel free.”

Once the door was shut and Jimin and I were alone again, I swiveled back towards him with my jaw hanging open. “I’m so colorful.”

He rolled out from under the bed, grinning broadly and almost immediately folding his arms behind his head proudly. “You sure are.”

I shuffled over to him and settled onto my knees by his side, resting my hand on his belly and smiling nervously. “Good morning.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and stuck his lips out invitingly. I bent and kissed him, kicking my legs out behind me and flopping onto the floor beside him so that my arm was slung across his tummy and my head was against his bicep. “You were amazing last night.”

He caressed my cheek with his free hand, brushing his thumb from the corner of my eye down to the corner of my lips. “Not as amazing as you.” Then he pouted. “I wanted to wake up all romantic like they do in the movies.”

“, what time is it, anyways?” I d at his pants pocket for his phone and pulled it out to examine the numbers. “You’d better go home, baby. It’s eleven.”

He emitted a high-pitched whine and rested his cheek on top of my hair.

I wrapped my arms loosely around his middle and kissed his chest, directly over his heart. “I don’t want you to leave either, Jimin. Your umma already knows you’re gone, though…”

“I know, I know,” he grumbled, hauling himself to his feet and helping me up alongside him. “Do you feel sore?”

I  scrunched up my nose and hesitantly lowered myself down into a sitting position. It definitely stung, but it wasn’t as unbearable as I’d expected. “A little bit.”

He held my hands and helped me back up, kissing me quickly. “Will you distract your parents while I haul ?”

“Sure,” I said agreeably, leaning forward and giving him a quick Eskimo kiss before rocking back and nearly skipping downstairs to find my parents.

…

Moods can change as quickly as a room can go from light to dark.

My light switch was flipped when I arrived at the doctor’s office that afternoon.

They gave me the biopsy first, which I they thankfully knocked me out for. I would have to wait three more days to see if the tumors…which were indeed tumors…were cancerous or benign.

The ultrasound came next. They rubbed a lot of cold gel on my torso…hopefully my umma’s foundation got the job done, because there were a lot of hickeys there, too…and put a scary camera over my lungs and chest.

My umma, since my appa was at work, did all the talking. They informed her and me that I had a tumor in my lungs as well, and while it was small, they still wanted to do a biopsy. So they knocked me out again.

I thought about Jimin the entire time. I never stopped thinking about him, in fact.

Don’t let me die. Don’t let me die as soon as all of my dreams came true.

Three days. Three days, and I would find out.

…

I had five missed calls when I climbed into the car with umma, amusingly. One was from Hoseok, one was from Yoongi, one was from Taehyung, one was from Namjoon, and one was from Seokjin.

I had five new texts, additionally. I was proud to find that I could read all of them.

Hoseok: MAKNAE. DID YOU LET PARK JIMIN STEAL YOUR INNOCENCE? TELL ME EVERYTHING.

I grinned at the question and respond with overexcited fingers; I’ll call you in a minute.

Yoongi: Is Jimin just a big-headed delusional teenager, or did you two go all the way?

Taehyung: You had UAL ?

Namjoon: You have some explaining to do, maknae

Seokjin: Where has the time gone? :’)

…

“How was it?” Hoseok asked over the phone as I folded laundry in my room.

“Haven’t you and Yoongi done it?” I asked with genuine curiosity. “Don’t you know?”

“We haven’t, actually,” he admitted. “So tell me about it.”

I gulped at the realization that Jimin and I had gone further than our senior couple. Was it too early to be having ?

I didn’t give a .

“It was the best feeling I’ve ever experienced,” I said truthfully. I had to fight a hysterical giggle as I thought about it. “He’s amazing.”

“How big is his ?”

“Like five inches I’d say,” I said casually, tossing a t-shirt into my middle drawer. “It felt like it was six feet long though, no joke.”

Hoseok cackled aloud. “I love your honesty.”

“Thanks,” I replied, sitting back on my bed and immediately leaping to my feet as a stab of pain crushed through my butthole. “I’m sore as hell today, but it’s worth it.”

“How long did you last?”

“Uh…I have no idea. It couldn’t have been more than five or ten minutes.”

“Did it hurt?”

“A little, at first.”

“Is he a moaner? Oh my god, does he do his weird Jimin shout when he comes? Like when he’s about to drop something?”

I cringed at that one. “Um…no.”

“He was holding back,” Hoseok informed me.

…

When I went to work that evening, seeing Jimin was like walking outside on a sunny day after being in a dark room for years.

He had a can of soup in his hands and looked up at me with wide, unsuspecting eyes. His shock melted into a relaxed smile, and he rose to his feet to greet me.

“Hi,” I breathed, extending my arms and pulling him close when we made contact.

“Hi,” he replied, squeezing me loosely and kissing my temple before pulling back. “How was the doctor’s?”

“Good. I’ll get the results back in three days,” I told him, pushing any deeper connotations that accompanied that statement to the back of my mind. “How was your day? Was your umma mad at you?”

He grimaced and placed the can of soup on its shelf so he could walk me to the cash register. “No, she wasn’t mad, really…she gave me a half hour lecture on safe , though. I told her that we…did it…”

I pursed my lips and widened my eyes at him.

“She really likes you, so she didn’t seem to care. I wouldn’t have told her if she hadn’t asked, but she did, and she didn’t sound angry…” he was babbling again, and he turned faintly red. “Sorry.”

“I don’t care either way, Jimin. I’m just glad it happened.” I grinned at the end of my sentence and rocked forward to kiss his cheek. “It’s work time, baby. Come over after?”

“I have to do homework…” he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, looking me up and down a few times before smirking and shaking his head. “But whatever. Of course.”

“Yay,” I whispered, smiling wider and glancing at the clock before dropping a kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s a minute till 4:30. You’d better get to your post.”

“Right. Also, Jungkook, we are ually active citizens of Korea. We are one of those couples.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

He cackled deviously before swooping in, kissing me, and springing off into the aisles like an excited kangaroo.

…

Umma asked me nicely not to go to Hoseok’s after school on Wednesday.

“The results are in,” was all she said when I dropped my backpack on the couch. She looked small and frail from her position at the bottom of the stairs, her little lips pressed into a thin line.

“Did you read them?” I asked uncertainly, looking at the phone clutched in her hands. “Was it an email?”

She nodded slowly.

I approached her carefully, aware of the thundering of my heart and sudden feeling of balancing on the edge of a very sharp knife.

“Umma…”

“Jungkook,” she interrupted me, tears trickling from both of her eyes and leaving glistening trails across her cheeks. My heart tore in two at the sight.

“Umma…”

“I can’t stand this anymore, baby,” she whimpered, holding her arms out and pulling me into a choking embrace. “You don’t deserve this…any of this…”

I rested my chin on my shoulder and my hand down her soft hair, unsure of which emotion I should let overtake me. My heart was confused. Adrenaline coursed through me and set my teeth on edge, but I felt too sad, angry, and exhausted to the point where I felt absolutely nothing.

“It’s cancerous, then,” I said quietly.

…

Umma and Appa had been talking about moving for months now. They just hadn’t thought of sharing their plans with me.

“We’ve been in debt ever since the surgery,” Appa said calmly. His hands were folded on the dining room table and his back was straight, like he wanted me to take him even more seriously than usual. “We’re not going to be able to treat you, Jungkook. Not without help.”

I hid my mouth and nose behind my nervously wringing hands and waited for him to cross a few boundaries.

“Your aunt…in America…is willing to help out. She would love to have us stay with her and aid you through the chemotherapy.”

Stay with her? In America?

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” I said in a low voice, fear surging in my heart as I continued to think through the sentence.

He and Umma exchanged an exhausted glance.

“Stop doing that!” I slammed my fist down on the table and leapt to my feet, kicking a dining room chair into the wall and nearly smashing my