“YOONSEOK!!!” I hollered up the stairs, cupping my hands to my mouth in a makeshift megaphone. “GET YOUR DOWN HERE, YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!”

            Having finished yelling, I strained my ears for any sound coming from his room upstairs and was met with several loud thumps and a muffled string of swear words. Moments later, my younger brother, now in his high school years, clomped down the stairs with his backpack carelessly slung over one shoulder and his eyes glued to his phone.

            “I’m heading to work early today,” I informed him, making my way to the front door of our apartment to pull my shoes on. “Breakfast’s ready. Make sure to lock the door when you leave-”

            “-look both ways before crossing the street, stay safe, yeah, yeah,” he finished absentmindedly, padding into the kitchen.

            I huffed in annoyance, putting my hands on my hips. How a sweet, wise-beyond-his-years child had grown into a back-talking careless teenager was beyond me. Sometimes, now for example, his ignorance and ungratefulness drove me insane.

            “Yoonseok,” I called again, quieter this time, leaning against the front door. “Come here.”

            I heard an irritated sigh come from the kitchen before the messy-haired head of my brother came back around the corner, his attention still fixated on his phone. “What do you want?” he mumbled, not focusing entirely on me.

            “Hey.” I snatched the thing out of his hands when he was close enough, and glared at him when he snapped his head up. “You might want to try to be nicer to the person who pays for your phone. And, oh yeah, everything else you have.”

            Yoonseok held my stare for one second before his gaze softened, and he deflated with a sigh. “Sorry,” he said, and I could tell that he meant it. “Sometimes I just forget how much you went through.”

            “Don’t remind me.”

            “Sorry,” he said again, leaning forward to give me a hug. He was only in his first year of high school, yet he was already taller than me by a couple centimeters. “Have fun at work, okay?”

            I rolled my eyes once we pulled away. “Bro, I work as a secretary for an insurance company. ‘Fun’ is not part of my job description.” I returned his phone to him, and gave a little wave before opening the door.

            He laughed. “Love you, sis. Stay safe. Bye.”

~

            I stared at myself in the full-length mirror behind my bedroom door, straightening my tie and smoothing down any wrinkles in my dress shirt. Even though I knew it was pointless – riding the subway to work in the busiest city in South Korea wouldn’t exactly maintain my outfit’s pristine condition. Nevertheless, the action did help soothe my nerves.

            It was my first job after I’d graduated from university. Sure, it was boring as hell, but at least it made some dough so I could finally pay some of the rent and wouldn’t have to be the one paying every time my roommate and I decided to go out for dinner.

            At that moment, a knock sounded at my door, snapping me out of my trance. “Hurry up or you’re going to be late,” my aforementioned roommate, Hoseok called. A year older than me and long-time family friend, he had my dream job – he was in a famous dance crew with a highly esteemed reputation, which meant companies were constantly calling them to be backup dancers for a promoting K-Pop artist. His stories about meeting idols were amazing enough to make me almost drool in envy.

            But I digress.

            “Coming!” I called back, smoothing out one last wrinkle before opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. Hoseok was waiting for me against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, trademark wide grin plastered across his face. “What do you think?”

            “It won’t last a minute once you step out the door,” was his blunt reply as he stood up straight and tossed an arm over my shoulders. “Don’t worry, it was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said when I started yelling at him for ruining the state of my shirt. “Come on, breakfast’s ready. You better hurry your up or you’re gonna come home jobless and drunk tonight.”

~

            “Did you hear about the new employee?” One of my colleagues asked, setting a steaming mug of coffee on my desk.

            “Thanks. And, no,” I said, grabbing the mug gratefully and taking a long sip. I’d woken too late to get my daily dose of coffee this morning, so this was much needed. “Why? Anything special about them?”

            “I saw him,” came a voice from the next cubicle. Yeo Miseon, one of the boss’s favorites, popped her head around the divider and grinned at us. “He’s really hot.”

            “Is he?” Kang Rikyeong, the colleague that had brought me coffee, raised an eyebrow. “How old do you think he is?”

            “Oh, I don’t know, early twenties maybe? Way too young for both of us.” Miseon sighed, dejected, but perked up the next second. “Oh, hey, Yoonmi, how old did you say you were again?”

            I rolled my eyes, knowing where she was going. “I turned twenty-two last October.”

            “Oh!” She squealed, clapping her hands excitedly. “Yoonmi, you lucky , you actually have a chance with him…” she sighed again, her personality turning one-eighty degrees in a split second. “Well, boss should be here any moment now, so we should better start work,” she added, disappearing into her own cubicle. “Talk to him sometime, ‘kay?” she called.

            I rolled my eyes, and started up my computer.

~

            Standing in front of the jammed printer, fumbling around with the machinery, I reviewed my day so far. I was pretty proud of myself. In my opinion at least, I’d made a pretty good first impression on the people at the company.

 Or maybe not, because while everyone else was on their lunch break, I was here trying to fix the damn printer.

            Holding my breath, I pressed the power button and watched the tiny screen that indicated the machine’s status. When it flickered to life, empty for a moment before displaying the word CLEAR, I couldn’t contain my giddy relief.

            “Yes! Oh my God, finally,” I yelled, pumping my fist in the air and looking up at the ceiling. My boss had only called me to fix the thing after I’d finished my lunch, so I wasn’t working on an empty stomach, but I was still glad the printer was finally okay.

            A woman’s voice – “It’s him!” – drew my attention to the window taking up most of the wall next to me, showing a wonderful (not) view of the hallway. Two women walked down the hall, coffee in one hand and papers in the other, chatting away lightheartedly. The one closest to the window, whom I recognized as the one who’d helped me find my cubicle when I’d first arrived, was staring at me, while her companion was looking away, most of her features obscured by the person in front.

            “Jimin, hi!” the woman closer to the window – Miseon – said once she saw that I’d noticed her, waving a manicured hand at me. “What are you doing there?”

            “Boss made me fix the printer,” I complained, huffing. “But at least it’s good now. What’s up?”

            “Oh, just making my way back to the office, break’s almost over,” she replied. “Oh, I almost forgot! Jimin, this is Yoonmi. Yoonmi, say hi!”

            The girl beside her mumbled something, but I was too focused on my racing heart and matching thoughts to hear what she’d said.

            …Could it be the same Yoonmi?

            Don’t be foolish, Jimin, the reasonable part of my mind scolded. Yoonmi’s a relatively common name. It’s probably not her.

            I hadn’t seen her in, what, five years? Ever since she’d sent that text that broke my heart – which, I realized a few years later, was kind of stupid of me. Of course she didn’t feel the same way about me. I should’ve expected her to freak out and cut me off like that. After she was out of my life, I’d met other people, immersed myself in serious relationships, suffered through the breakups.

            I was over her now.

            I dimly heard Miseon apologizing for Yoonmi’s – Yoonmi – rudeness, and managed a nod before I snapped back to focus and realized they’d already turned the corner.

            Maybe it was my need for closure. Maybe I just wanted to make sure that I was really, truly over her.

            Whatever it was, I found myself running after them, turning the corner and almost crashing into someone, apologizing absentmindedly before continuing on until I reached the nearest block of cubicles.

            Swinging myself through the open doorframe, I searched for her face amidst the ten-or-so businesspeople going back to work after break. It took me a while, but then I saw someone in the furthest cubicle, arranging her papers on her desk, hair falling out of her once-professional ponytail.

            She turned a little bit, allowing me to see her profile, and my heart stopped beating.

            It was her. It was really her.

            Frozen in shock, I could do nothing but stare as she turned her head to talk to one of her colleagues, something they said making her laugh. And it was a real laugh – no sad eyes, no quickly disappearing humor. It was a laugh I’d only seen once, when I’d met her best friend in that mall all those years back.

            Without knowing, a sad smile slipped onto my face. You’re so happy now, Yoonmi.

            I watched as she took a bunch of papers from her colleague and turned to face the doorway.

            Our eyes met, and everything else kind of melted away.

            Her eyes grew wide and fell open as she looked me up and down, slowly mouthing my name as we both realized that we were here, that we’d finally met after all those years apart, tainted with the lack of closure when she’d left.

            I made a ‘come here’ gesture with my hand, and she obeyed frighteningly quickly, walking briskly to me. As she walked closer, I observed all of the changes in her. Other than the fact that her hair was longer, and she was wearing studious professional makeup instead of the teenage-girl-liquid-eyeliner look, she looked well-taken-care-of, healthy, happy. She practically glowed, as opposed to the somber mood she was always in five years ago.

            Maybe it was just the excitement of seeing someone I’d thought I’d never see again, but for one moment it was almost as if I’d fallen back in love with her.

           Then some dark corner of my brain whispered,

            When did you ever stop?

~

            My heart beat faster and faster with each step I took closer to Jimin, clutching the papers in my hands. To say that he looked amazing was an understatement. To say that I regretted leaving him the way I had was even more of an understatement.

            And to say that the mere sight of him didn’t completely and utterly take my breath away was the biggest understatement of all.

--

            I took her hand without thinking, and pulled her into the hallway. It was a little past the end of lunch break, so no one was around.

            Not that I cared much anyway. I was too focused on the girl in front of me.

            “Listen-” she started to say, but a dark emotion suddenly overcame me when I realized she was so close, the girl who’d brightened my day, taken my heart without realizing, and then dropped it.

            “Why did you leave?” I blurted out, unable to contain my pent-up feelings any longer. I’d kept the questions at bay for five years. And now that she was in front of me, the only person that could answer them, I found myself incapable of holding back. “Why did you cut it off like that?”

            She turned a dark shade of pink, looking away. “It’s a long story,” she mumbled.

            I sighed in exasperation, frustration, and anger. Five years later, and she was still hiding secrets from me? “I don’t care, Yoonmi.”

           She opened , about to say something, before she visibly deflated and leaned against the wall for support. “I just… my parents were going to disown me, and I had to think of my future.” She met my gaze then, and the desperation in her eyes immediately melted all the anger forming a lump in my throat. “You understand, don’t you? I had no hopes if I were to stay with them, and even though I had feelings for you back then, I couldn’t – I couldn’t just stand back and let them ruin my future. I…”

            She trailed off, but that was all I needed to hear.

--

            “Is that… are you telling the truth?”

            “Of course I am,” I said, looking out the window to avoid meeting his eyes again. “Can’t you… Jimin, what-?”

            He grabbed my wrist and spun me around so that I faced him. We were barely inches apart, so close I was pretty sure he could feel my heart racing in my chest. Emotions I couldn’t place swirled in his eyes, and I was so fixated on them that I didn’t realize he’d opened his mouth to speak before he started talking.

            “You… had feelings for me?” he murmured, cupping my face with his hands. My skin heated up from the contact, and I suddenly found myself torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away. This… this, whatever it was, was too much and not enough at the same time.

            I sighed, realizing my slip-up too late and deciding it would be stupid for me to deny it now. “Yes,” I admitted. “I… still do, actually.”

            Wait… what?

            My head snapped up, my eyes widening to the size of saucers, when I realized what I’d just said. Not because it was a lie, but because… because I’d said it. Something I’d been meaning to say, finally admitted aloud, in his face.

            Then I realized he wasn’t replying, and a whole new emotion filled my heart.

            Which was taken over just as quickly when he angled his head and brushed his lips against mine, sending my heartbeat racing even more and making my knees turn suddenly weak.

            “I don’t think I need to say anything else,” he said when he pulled away, smiling in a way that made me want to grab his face and kiss him again.

            “No,” I managed to say breathlessly. “No, you don’t.”

            He smiled again, wider this time, and stepped away, leaving me feeling oddly cold. “Oh, and by the way, your ponytail’s falling apart,” he informed me, reaching back behind my head to pull the hair band off. Free from its too-tight style, my hair fell in a light, wispy shroud around my face. I ducked, embarrassed, and started pulling it back into a ponytail.

            “No, don’t,” Jimin said suddenly, taking my hand. “You look beautiful like this.”

            I blushed at the compliment, reaching to take the hair band out of his hand only to have him take my hand in his instead. Looking up, my face even more red, I stared at him as he smiled and stepped closer.

            “Am I forgiven, then?” I asked quietly, regaining some mental ability.

            Jimin laughed, leaning forward and kissing me again, just as light and sweet as last time. “Of course. I loved you back then, Yoonmi. I still love you now.”

--

            This is how it really started:

            “I believe you still owe me a date?”

((A/N: I was writing this when an image popped up in my mind

Like just imagine Jimin reaching behind your head to pull your ponytail loose

With a soft, loving smile on his face

Omfg what have I done

Don’t kill me pls

Also I'm thinking of writing a second ending bcs I can because that part last chapter with her and Jungkook was too strong to dismiss

So yah

Look forward to it???

Comment, upvote, subscribe!!!))