The neighbourhood is made up of quaint condos and neatly spreads out of the city grid. Magenta, bright pink, blood red, and sunshine yellow decorate the flower pots. Taehyung will like this house fine, J-Hope thinks. It has all the spacious room for him to hop around like a bunny on crack, much better than his cramped home. J-Hope rang the doorbell.

Henry who's wrapped tightly in rainbow-pattern bathrobe comes out and greets J-Hope at the door. The therapist’s eyes are bloodshot, like he had a gag concert marathon for one week straight without sleep and ate gummy bears and coke for every meal (J-Hope isn’t surprised if he actually did).

"Are you alright?" J-Hope asks, "You look terrible."

"Thanks, Hobi," Henry looks at him dreamily, as if J-Hope isn't real, "Do you want to come in?"

J-Hope nods and follows Henry inside the dark room. Did you survive a zombie attack? J-Hope wants to ask but keeps his mouth shut. He picks up an overturned stool. He treads his way careful so he won’t step on any burger wrappers, pop cans or empty take-out boxes. "Are you alright?" J-Hope asks again, sounding more concerned than the first time.

Henry plops down on the yucky green linen fabric couch. J-Hope follows suit. "I always live like this, before I met you kids," the owner of the rat hole explains.

"That's even worse," J-Hope frowns.

Henry smooths down his bathrobe. He puts on a professional facade as best as he can, "How was your day?"

"It was okay. Did you read my journal? I dropped it off in your mailbox."

"Yeah. I read it. Xiumin and Luhan should be taken care of soon," J-Hope shudders when Henry’s small eagle eyes gleam murder.

"So you're coming back?" the student’s face is lightened up.

"I don't know, Hobi. The group therapy is more difficult than I expected."

"So you're washing your hands off of us?" he sounds devastated. Henry forces himself to meet his shining eyes.

"I just need time to think," Henry chuckled humorlessly, "Not like the rest of you want me back anyway."

J-Hope clasps his hands over Henry's, "We want you back."

Henry pats his hands, "That's really nice of you," he withdraws his hand.

"We don't want to die in XiuHan's hands!"

"My boss will get you guys a better therapist. Or the therapy group will..." Henry stops himself when he sees J-Hope's crushed expression. "How about this? I will give you personal therapy for free."

"I don't want therapy by myself," J-Hope's voice shakes, "I want all of us to get help! I know Jimin can get better! What about Jungkook? He's so weird lately! You can't leave Jin alone when he can barely be seen in public! You can't disband the group when we barely started!"

"I'm sorry, Hobi," Henry wants to slap his big fat mouth. "Sorry" was probably the worst thing he could say to the desperate boy.

J-Hope stands up quickly. His lips quiver, "I'm not giving up," he steps all over the trash and storms past the door.

Henry listens for the angry bam. There's nothing he can do about his bent door.

Session #6

Jungkook hugs Yoongi tightly to his chest, "It's okay..." he murmurs above his ear, "...I'm here. The door and windows will be unlocked soon." Yoongi takes shallow breaths when his nose is buried into Jungkook's shirt.

"Let us in!" Xiumin yells from the other side of the door.

"Never!" Namjoon and Jimin simultaneously yell back while their backs are against the locked door.

Taehyung is standing guard by the locked windows, watching for any sign of XiuHan’s ninja sneak attack. He re-ajusts his smiley mask without taking his eyes off of the window.

J-Hope rubs Jin's back soothingly. "I'm fine," Jin says, "I'm not going to cry." Even so, he doesn't shrug his hand off.

After half-an-hour of defending their home base and ten minutes of utter quietness. Namjoon, Jimin, and Taehyung rejoin the circle. They all look to Namjoon, but he doesn’t meet eyes with any of them. He asks J-Hope, “What did Henry say?”

J-Hope embraces his Honey Espresso ‘N Red Yam to his chest, “He’s not coming back,” he sips on his coffee solemnly.

A stunned silence descends the group. They all look to J-Hope for elaboration, but there’s none.

“OK, guys. Let’s make sure none of those crazy therapists come back,” Jimin breaks the silence, “Now Henry is out of the way, how are we getting rid of  XiuHan?”

“Shut up, Jimin,” says Taehyung through gritted teeth.

“You didn’t just tell me to shut up,” Jimin hissed.

“I just ing did.”

“What’s that ugly thing on your face anyway? Take it off!”

“Guys!” Namjoon shouts before another fight will break out or anyone will break down, “What do we do now?” They all peer at one another’s lost faces. Six pairs of eyes turn to Namjoon again. He sighs, “Let’s do this again: who wants therapy? Close your eyes and on the count of three, put your hand up if you want to get better.”

This time around, no one closes their eyes. J-Hope, Taehyung, and Jin raise their hands without hesitation. Jimin crosses his arms and glare at the trio. Jungkook is busy soothing Yoongi in his arms. He whispers something in his ears. With a shaking arm, Yoongi puts his hand up feebly. Jungkook follows his lead. The rest of the group looks at Namjoon. He raises his hand as well. It was six against one. The rest of the group looks at Jimin. He grits his teeth, “No.”

“C’mon. For me, please?” J-Hope attempts.

Jimin sneers, “Never. This group is over. They will give up on us too. They always give up on us.”

He waits for a refutation. He scowls when they look doomed.

“We can’t,” J-Hope takes a sharp breath. He stares straight into Jimin’s soul, “We can’t give up on ourselves even if they gave up on us.”

The others waver between J-Hope and Jimin. “All of us need to ask Henry to come back,” rallies J-Hope. He meets eyes with everyone, seeking consent.

“Okay,” says Taehyung.

“What do you mean ‘okay’?” Jimin shakes his head, “I’m not going.”

“Jimin!” J-Hope cries exasperatedly, “Can you just listen for once for everyone’s sake?”

Jimin’s guarded eyes stare back at everyone. Namjoon squeezes J-Hope’s shoulders, “It’s fine, we’ll go find Henry without Jimin. He’ll listen to us.”

J-Hope slinks away, not before giving Jimin another reproachful look.

The boys watch the hands crawl around the clock, waiting for it to strike six. They wait for a miracle to walk in the room before the time is up.

J-Hope's Journal

I’ve never hated my mom.

Jimin throws another pebble into the pond where ducks swim. Poplars and evergreen line all around the circumference of the body of water. Blue Jays and small bird sing amongst the branches into the lazy afternoon. "Why did you bring me here?" Jimin asks suspiciously.

"Relax. I'm not going to push you to the water," J-Hope says from the bench. Jimin, nevertheless, takes a step back. They listen to the footfall behind them in the forest trail. If they listen hard enough, they will hear children laughing in a distant playground. "Want to take a walk?" J-Hope asks. Jimin gets off of his bum and takes his offered hand. He links arms with him like couples in the black-and-white movies taking an afternoon stroll. "What a fine evening, milady," J-Hope speaks in his fake British accent. Jimin kicks his , "It's 'Your Majesty' for you." J-Hope bows to the ground deeply.

The two walk through the wood in a fairly peaceful manner with sparse bickerings, until they step into a botanical garden. Jimin takes in the explosion of scents and colours. Just the chrysanthemum alone bloom in purple, teal, yellow, orange, and coral green. "Taehyung will die if he comes here," Jimin grins. "Yah! Don't you dare bringing him here!" J-Hope warns. "You're the only one who knows this place."

"Oh. I'm special," Jimin grins.

J-Hope ignores his smug look, "I used to come here all the time when I got perfect mark on spelling tests. I don't do that anymore."

"'Cause you grew up to be a ."

"That’s right. And no one brings me here anymore."

"Who used to bring you?"

They wander into the humid part of the garden. Tropical plants like cacti and palm trees poke their sides. "My mom brought me. We came here too after I did a gag at the fashion show."

"What gag?"

"I wore a horse head in tuxedo,” a smile breaks through the surface of past memories, “I wasn't wearing any pants when I did the horse dance."

"Ew. Gangnam Style."

J-Hope hits his head, "True Koreans don't diss Gangnam Style."

"Sorry."

He pulls Jimin to a half hug, "So you do know how to apologize."

"Yah! I'm not a monster. I'm a kid who knows when to say 'sorry'."

"Correction: you are a kid monster."

"And you're a weird kid. What's up with you and your props and acronyms?"

J-Hope goes to a bench. Jimin watches him pulling out his wallet. He slides onto the seat next to him when he smells the won. To Jimin’s disappointment, J-Hope shows him a jade-bead string in his palm. "This is a good luck charm my mom gave me before she died. Whenever I have my anxiety, it makes me feel better."

Jimin touches the beads lightly. "Your acronym props help your anxiety too?"

"Yup. It's pretty, right?"

"So it's only you and your dad?"

"Nope it's just me. My dad left before my mom was gone."

Jimin makes some interesting patterns on the gravel floor with his shoes. "At least there's no one telling you what to do."

"I miss having someone telling me what to do."

"I guess I'll never find out what that's like," Jimin checks on J-Hope's expression. He doesn't seem offended.

"Yeah. You will find out. One day you'll grow up and you'll miss having someone telling you what to do."

"No. I won't."

"We'll see."

Jimin kicks the gravel, "Is it hard living by yourself?"

"Sometimes. But I have my landlord. He's nice. And I have you guys," he smiles, though he's not looking at Jimin.

"Don't try guilt-tripping me. It's not going to work."

J-Hope stares up at Jimin. His eyes are wide and watery, "Pretty, pretty, please?" he protrudes his lips. "Come with us to see Henry."

"I don't think so."

J-Hope hits his chest lightly, "C'mon, I'm serious. I only have you guys."

"We aren’t the only reason why you want the therapy. You want it for yourself."

"If that's true, I would have said 'yes' to Henry's personal therapy already."

"You would what?"

J-Hope stares sternly into Jimin's eyes, "I want this group therapy for all of us."

"Why? You barely know us!"

J-Hope plays with the beaded string. He puts it under the sun where the gems will shine. "My mom died because she didn't get treatment for her major depression. I want all of us to be well and alive."

Well and alive... Jimin looks at his own hands, "That's funny. Taehyung said he wants to be normal. And I told him that it's good enough that we're well and alive."

Jimin and J-Hope saw each other eye-to-eye then.

Jimin slaps J-Hope's back, "That's a corny story."

"Corny but true. Things like that happened."

Henry-ssi, I didn't tell Jimin the full story. I didn't want to freak him out or depress him. I'll tell you though. You need to know my story, so you'll know how important this group therapy is. We need every help we can get. I'll tell you what's in my mom's letter:

"Hobi, I love you.

You wouldn't think that, would you? But I really did love you. I regret that you didn't know. I've never hugged you anymore after your father left. I've never hugged him before he left. If I knew that quitting my job to be a housewife will depress me to no infinite end, I'd never listened to your father. Forget it, Hobi. It's not his fault. It's not your fault. It's my fault. I deserve being cooped up in my own world. I deserve being alone. But you don't deserve me, Hobi. You deserve better. You poor little creature should have had a better home. You won't have a gloomy house to come home to when I'm gone. Please don't think that me being gone is anyone's fault. It’s not because I hated your father or you.  It's all my fault.

Hobi, I have always loved you."

Henry-ssi, my mom's last words for me isn't the full story either. She really loved me, and she was right -  I didn't know that until she stopped breathing. You can tell how much she loved me when she never mentioned how I never hugged her when she was crying. All I did was watching her tears fall. All I did was watching her going through the day automatically with a dark cloud following her. I told her to get help, but she said it's too expensive, too hopeless, too late. I don't want us to be too late, Henry-ssi, I don't want any of us to end up in  her place.

Author's notes:   Poor J-Hope. T.T. You're too precious. I know life is not always rainbow and unicorn but I love the happy BTS more! <3

Subsribe for more fun BTS though! Upvote if you like the story. Constructive feedbacks, questions, any comments, or if you need to talk, etc are always welcome! I'll be here to listen. 

Lastly, if anyone you know is going through hard times, make sure they know that you're there for them whenever they need you.

-suzyelf

P.S. I've made a Fake OST Playlist. Check it out!