15& Dorm: January 6^th, 2016, 00:45 a.m. (Present day)

Jimin and Yerin have a bad habit of staying up until after midnight on their days off. Most people their age would go out, but because of their curfew as minors, they are used to just staying in on those days. They don’t usually talk, they just sit together in one of their rooms (tonight, they’re in Yerin’s room) while on their phones or whatever. It sounds sad, but it’s relaxing that way.

            Yerin lies on her stomach while scrolling through Naver, and Jimin sits on the floor, leaning against the bed and browsing Instagram. It’s been an hour since either have said a word, but it’s still comfortable. Yerin, who feels like fighting the usual tonight, starts the conversation. She locks her phone and leans over to the edge of the bed to lightly hit Jimin on the head. Jimin doesn’t look up, but she talks.

            “What’s up?” Jimin asks, double-tapping pictures while scrolling.

            Yerin lies her chin on her pillow, tracing shapes in the cloth of it. “What should I do?”

            “I dunno,” Jimin shrugs, “Sleep if you’re bored.”

            “No, I mean—” Yerin sighs. “I didn’t tell you, did I? About Yugyeom.”

            Jimin flinches, but keeps her eyes on her screen. “Um… what happened with Yugyeom?”

            Yerin ignores the twitch of her roommate. “Well, we kind of had a fight a few days ago… it was pretty bad. I think it’s only fair I tell you…”

            Again, Yerin sees Jimin flinch slightly from behind. “Uh, sure, go ahead! You’re telling me a little late, huh? It’s been like four days.”

            “Yeah, I’m sorry—” Yerin stops and squints in thought. Wait… she grabs Jimin’s phone to catch her attention. Just as she’d hoped, Jimin stares her way from the sudden action. Yerin catches Jimin’s eyes before Jimin can avoid eye contact.

            “Jimin-ah… how did you know it’s been exactly four days since I fought with Yugyeom?” Yerin asks, soft voice feeling sharper than usual.

            “Ah… I wonder how, right?” Jimin tries her best to be casual, but to no avail. Yerin bites her tongue to hold back from any kind of  profanity.

            Instead, she asks the basic question on her mind. “Who told you?”

            When silence is her only response, Yerin leans in closer to Jimin. “Look-at-me-Ji-min. You didn’t hang out with Yugyeom recently, I know that. Was it Bambam? Did Yugyeom tell Bam, and that little kid told you, huh?”

            The interrogation is more than Jimin can handle, so she finally gives up. “Yes! Wow, you’re good at guessing. I’m sorry, he told me everything yesterday and I didn’t know how to bring it up to you.”

            “I’ll deal with him later,” Yerin mutters and shakes her head. “But I guess it’s convenient that you already know. Do you have, like… advice?”

            What rarity, for the introverted “I-can-handle-it-myself” to ask for advice from the hyperactive shorter one. Jimin can’t lose out on a rare chance to help Yerin out, so she smiles a bit (failing to contain herself). “Ah… well, if you really want my advice, then I can’t help it…”

            “Jimin, please give me serious advice, I’m confining in you for once.”

            “Ey… I’ll give real advice! Don't doubt me,” Jimin pouts. “Look, I can’t read your mind. But you are the blunt, I-don’t-give-a- Baek Yerin that I came to know and love.”

            “Of course, I’m still that Baek Yerin.”

            “Then act like that Baek Yerin, damn it!” Jimin slaps Yerin’s arm lightly to give her a push. “You gotta go to Yugyeom and tell him properly how you feel. I know you don’t really know what you feel, but just go by your gut and not your mind.”

            It sounds like a task better said than done, but strangely, Jimin’s words actually make sense. Yerin sees the way Jimin gives these tips—she does it without thinking twice. Or at least, she does it without overthinking. That’s what Yerin was doing wrong. She couldn’t answer Yugyeom because she was thinking from her fears, not from her own self trust

            “You’re weird sometimes, but you’re pretty smart,” Yerin mumbles under her breath, and rushes to whip out her phone and go to her text messages. She can’t rely on Yugyeom to make the first move.

            “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not,” Jimin says and stands up to leave the room. “I’m going to bed. ‘Night…”

            Yerin barely looks up. “Good night.”

            “Oh, wait—Yerin, did you tell Taecyeon Oppa about any of the whole New Year’s deal?”

            Now Yerin’s eyes catch Jimin’s. “No. Wouldn’t he get mad at me?”

            “I dunno, but he was worried about you on Christmas, he told me… you should give him a ring.”

            “Okay, sure.”

JYP Building: January 6^th, 2016, 6:23 p.m. (Present day)

            The sound of the guitar starts the instrumental for Tori Kelly’s Dear No One, one of Jimin’s favorite songs to cover. The topic of the song speaks to her, even if she can’t relate to all the lyrics. Nonetheless, it has a great melody, and Jimin decides to pass time by practicing in the singing room—because for once, Yerin isn’t hogging the speakers. Where even is Yerin? Not that Jimin really cares right now. She just wants to sing.

            Jimin looks at the unavoidable wall of a mirror as she sings. No doubt, she’d gained weight. Luckily she had found the perfect remedy to get rid of that god awful pimple, but her jawline is not as strong as it was only a few days ago. It’s not an intense change, at least not intense enough for anyone else to notice, but it bothers Jimin. Bambam was probably just being nice last night when he said he didn’t notice.

            Her admittedly depressing thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open. Jimin jumps at the loud noise, and sees Jackson walk through the door. Doesn’t this scene look familiar.

            Oh wait. It’s Jackson.

            Yes, it’s Jackson.

            The man Jimin had successfully hidden from for the past few days. Not that it was hard—she had avoided him successfully in the past, too, when he started dating Youngji.

            Now she’s in an open-spaced room with nowhere to go or hide. He seems to be aware of this, too, and when he sees Jimin, his eyes lock onto hers. Jackson points his bare finger towards her.

            “Jimin-ah!” Jackson exclaims. “I was right! I knew I would catch you here, Mark did the same with Yerin yesterday! What a coincidence, wow…”

            Jimin freezes up and can’t bring herself to run away. She just stares wide-eyed at him, and the only sound is the faint guitar of Dear No One. She flinches, and Jackson takes that as a sign that she’s running away again, so he rushes to grab her wrist.

            Jimin looks down at her wrist without moving her head, then moves her eyes back to Jackson. “What are you doing?” She asks calmly.

            Jackson shrugs. “I don’t know. Mark told me how he confronted Yerin yesterday, and wrist holding was a part of it.”

            “Well I’m not running away, so quit it.” Jimin rips her arm from his grip. She tries to change the subject from whatever dangerous topic is on his mind. “Anyway, I was practicing, so… unless you wanna dance to ballad music, you might want to practice dancing in the other room.”

            Her attempt to shoo Jackson away is useless, and Jackson only moves closer to her. The Jimin of 2015 would die for Jackson to come this close to her. The Jimin of 2016, however, only wants to get away.

            “Do you really think I came here to practice?” Jackson’s face becomes more serious. The more seconds of silence pass in between, the closer Jackson’s face is to Jimin’s. He seems to really want her to look in his eyes, and at this closeness, there’s no avoiding it. Jimin wants to respond, but his eyes are so big. She doesn’t see how his eyes can stop her from talking, but they do.

            His breath is so close, and it only gets closer. The Jimin of 2015 would be staring at his lips, but his big, locked eyes won’t let her take a glance.

Just as their noses are about to touch, Jackson quickly pulls away. It’s as if Jimin blinked, and Jackson was already meters away from her again. Jimin blinks a few more times, not knowing what exactly had just happened. It’s not like he was going to kiss her—he has Youngji, and Jackson is the last person anyone would expect to cheat in a relationship.

            To Jimin, it looks more like Jackson was testing her.

            And he was.

            Jackson nods several times before taking off his snapback, running his fingers through his hair, and putting it back on. It’s an unnecessary little piece of action, but Jimin knows Jackson does extra things just for dramatic effect.

            “Yep, it’s just as I thought,” Jackson sighs and nods a few more times. Jimin shakes her head.

            “Um… sorry, what?” Jimin can’t seem to fall out of that trance Jackson put her in. His eyes are so hypnotizing, in a way she’s never looked at them before. She used to look at Jackson with a petty young crush, now she sees magic in his eyes. Something about his glare has determination.

            Jackson interrupts her thoughts again. “I’m saying, it’s just as I thought.”

            “Jeez, what is?!” Jimin yells, getting annoyed.

            “You used to get red when you looked at me up close. Either that or you would suddenly get very giggly and laugh a lot,” he continues to explain. As he speaks, Jimin can tell that he must have known that she liked him before. Those observations can only be made by a knowing crush.

            “Used to?” Is all Jimin can make out.

            “Yeah. You know what I see now?” Jackson asks, not waiting for an answer. “You didn’t get red, you got paler. And normally, you’d push me away with an annoyed, yet giggly, What are you doing?!” He gestures as if he were being pushed away from her.

            “As… as opposed to now?”

            “Yes, as opposed to now. Your lips didn’t even turn a bit into an embarrassed smile. Your mouth just hung open, like a fish.”

            “Like a fish…” Jimin finds herself getting annoyed again at Jackson’s awkward Korean. How could she not? It’s his fault for staring at her with those damn big eyes. “So… what’s your point?”

            “I think,” Jackson twirls around (again, dramatic effect) before pointing at Jimin again, “You really are over me.”

            Another weird exclamation comes out of the blue. Jimin feels the blood draining from her face as she remembers the reason she was avoiding this idiot in the first place. Those ing texts.

            “What…” Jimin can’t word herself again.

            Jackson helps her out on that one, and starts to reveal the truth. “I’m just saying. You texted me and said you’re over me, and it seems like you really are. Were those drunk texts weird? Of course they were. Did they make me uncomfortable? Absolutely. That’s why I acted cold to you on the first of January, and I’m sorry for that.”

            He bows slightly in apology before continuing. “When you guys left our dorm to investigate at Ayeon Noona’s place, I started to think to myself. The truth is, I always knew you liked me. The constant twitter mentions and YouTube comments were helpful in my realization.”

            “Will this speech do anything aside from embarrass me?” Jimin mutters, and Jackson chooses to ignore her.

            “So I figured a young crush is harmless, and I’ll tell you I don’t like you when the time is right. I forgot about that when I asked Youngji out. After that I became a coward. I knew you liked me, but I chose to ignore it as I lived a happy love life. I’m sorry.”

            The speech only brings back stressful emotions from the past, and Jimin can feel tears welling up. She quickly blinks them away, not knowing why his simple words have such an impact on her. Maybe it’s because she’s never said it out loud; ‘I like Jackson’ was something that Eric, Bambam, Yerin and Yugyeom figured out without her needing to say the exact words. And this whole time, Jackson knew as well? Something about that is so overwhelming to her.

            “Are you… pitying me?” Jimin asks a familiar question that came up that fateful night. Jackson shakes his head.

            “Anyway, from what I see, the difference between now and before you sent those texts…” Jackson shrugs. “It seems you’re over me. Are you?”

            “What?”

            “Do you still like me?”

            It is weird. Jimin thought she was avoiding Jackson out of being embarrassed in front of her crush. But this whole time, her heart has been beating out of fear of his words, not out of love. For the second time, Jimin finds herself having avoided Jackson for something so stupid and petty.

            Truthfully, her heart feels like she was afraid of losing a good friend.

            “I wonder why?” Jimin suddenly feels the tears coming again. “Why do I suddenly not like you anymore? Is it because you just rejected me… or even before that…”

            Jackson tilts his head and moves in to hug Jimin. The Jimin that liked him would push him away in embarrassment, but this Jimin doesn’t resist him. “There’s something weird and empty about getting over someone, right? It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Jackson reassures.

            “You’re so weird,” Jimin says, voice muffled in his chest. “You’re comforting the girl you just rejected, and who just said she doesn’t like you.”

            “That doesn’t change that I still want to be your friend,” Jackson replies, laughing, “With time, I’m sure we can love each other as family.”

            She can’t respond, but Jackson feels her nod in his chest.

JYP Building: January 6^th, 2016, 7:12 p.m. (Present day)

Yerin paces back and forth in the recording studio, where she and Yugyeom had their fallout a few days ago. She had texted him first, telling him to meet her whenever he can. It’s definitely odd for Yerin to initiate the conversation, so she hopes Yugyeom will take that as a sign that she really wants to talk to him. She had been chilling in the recording studio for half an hour now.

            Sure enough, she sees Yugyeom’s silhouette through the blurry glass window. When he enters, he is surprised to see Yerin looking directly at him. He expected her to look more bashful than this. Her eyes seem less mellow than in the past days of the year. Looks like the blunt Yerin is back.

            Yugyeom still does his best to stay calm. As much as he hates to fight Yerin, he’s still a little annoyed. And looking at her isn’t very easy—not that looking away is easy, either, with her glare. Yugyeom clears his throat.

            “So… what are we doing here?” he asks.

            “I needed to talk to you,” Yerin responds, “You know why.”

            Normally Yerin is the stubborn one of the two, but Yugyeom feels stubborn himself. He ultimately nods, showing her that he’s not so stupid to not know why they’re here. It’s so hard for him to look at her—not because he’s that mad, but because when he sees her soft face, he feels the burning need to forgive her. Though he hates how easy he is, he already feels like forgiving her.

            It’s something about her eyes. They’re so small, but there’s so much in them. It’s something about her lips, too. Her little lips can say so much without her even talking.

            “—Sorry,” Yugyeom suddenly blurts out. As much as he knows he did nothing wrong, he just wants to make up. He doesn’t expect Yerin to really apologize anyway, so he might as well do it first.

            The apology catches Yerin off guard, and her face suddenly drops in disappointment. “Are you apologizing? I hit you and I rejected you, then I played with you and talked to you about it as if it were no big deal. Why are you the one apologizing? I brought you here so I could talk to you, not so I could pressure an apology out of you.”

            Her frustration is evident with her words, and Yugyeom can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s trying to keep calm. He stays silent until she finishes talking. Yerin is about to continue her speech when her eyes catch Yugyeom’s hand. His middle finger is wearing a ring—more specifically, his hand is wearing the ring that she gave him for Christmas, engraved in a유 (Yu) for Yugyeom. At the sight of it, Yerin feels more frustration coming out.

            “You’re wearing it?”

            Yugyeom pauses in confusion before realizing where her eyes are looking. Her glare makes him self-conscious, so he covers his finger with his other hand out of instinct. He gives Yerin a slight nod, no use in lying. What he won’t say out loud is that he’d been wearing the ring since Christmas.

            “Yeah, I’m wearing it,” Yugyeom says.

            Yerin nods and sighs. “I thought so.” She goes to her jacket pocket and takes her own ring out of her pocket. As it was when she got it, it’s a little silver ring with the 예 (Ye) of Yerin engraved in it. She holds it out in her palm so that Yugyeom can get a good look at it, then places it back in her pocket.

            “I actually called you to talk to you about that, and about the… the kiss,” Yerin struggles with the last word. “I can only be honest. I didn’t know what that kiss meant to me… and very sincerely, I still don’t know. I think that I liked it. But I don’t know what that means about us. And I think that the fact that I don’t know… is very unfair to you.”

            She clenches her fist around the ring in her pocket. “So I really can’t wear this ring. Not until I’m properly ready to return your feelings.”

            The last sentence confuses Yugyeom. He keeps a poker face, but his heart is beating so hard he swears that it’s visible through his sweater. Is Yerin saying that she likes him, but she’s in denial? Is she saying that she’s trying not to like him? So many questions, and the answers are within this beautiful woman in front of him. Why can’t he just ask?

            “Why… are you not ready?” Yugyeom basically croaks with his swollen throat. The only question that he could manage to get out, yet it comes out as if he were pressuring her. Yerin seems not to mind.

            “You’re too good for me, Gyeom,” Yerin says, and as she pauses, she on the inside of her lips to contain a wince. “You do so much for me. You always call me, you always come to help me. And what have I done in return? I’ve hit you, scolded you, ignored you, blown you off… and you let me do all of that. I’m seriously the worst.”

            Yugyeom wants to speak back to her, telling her that she’s wrong and that she’s not so ungrateful. Yerin sees this, and she places a finger in front of her lips to shush him. “So until I’m ready to become a better person and give as much as I’ve taken—or until you screw up enough to get as low as me—I won’t wear this ring. I don’t deserve the effort you put in for me. Not until I’m ready to shamelessly like you—until then, it’s a crime for me to wear this ring with no doubts.”

            Yerin bows and smiles at him. “Thank you for coming out for me.”

            She walks past him, and goes to the door to leave the room. Before she leaves the room, Yugyeom calls to her.

            “I’ll wait for you.”

            He doesn’t look at Yerin, but he hears a slight chuckle in her voice. “I know. You always do.”

GOT7 Dorm: January 6^th, 2016, 7:30 p.m. (Present day)

The dorm is quiet as the members rest from their busy schedules. In the living room, Youngjae is trying his best to get Coco’s attention, but the dog only wants to run to Junior. Jaebum pats Youngjae on the head to comfort him. Bambam laughs at the sight and continues to scroll though twitter. He’s lying on the couch, taking up most of the space, so Jackson can’t find a place to sit. Bambam is well aware of this, and continues to hog the couch just to irritate his Hyung,

            The sound of the lock switching attracts the attention of the other members. Mark enters, hands full of grocery bags, and the members go back to doing their own business upon seeing him. Jackson walks to him to help carry the bags. Mark smiles in appreciation.

            “Thanks, Jackson,” Mark says in English, and Jackson responds with something in Mandarin that only they understand. Considering there isn’t much going on in the dorm, Bambam automatically eavesdrops on their silence-breaking conversation.

            As the Markson duo makes their way to the kitchen, Bambam hears Mark ask Jackson, “So, did you talk?”

            “Yeah,” Jackson responds. Bambam assumes they’re talking about Youngji or someone.

            “How’d she take it?”

            “I don’t know… I had to tell her I didn’t like her, even though I knew she liked me. Nobody likes to hear that… Jimin’s tough, but she’s still human.”

            Jimin? Bambam almost jumps hearing her name. Jackson spoke to her? And rejected her? That doesn’t sound good—he would have heard it from Jimin if it went alright. Youngjae peeks over at Bambam’s face; he and JJ Project were so busy with Coco that they didn’t listen.

            “Bam, you okay? You’re pale…” Youngjae asks.

            Bambam nods. “Yeah, I’m good.” He hurries to exit twitter and find his message thread with Jimin. When he finds it, he texts away.

            “JiminJiminJiminJimin” he writes quickly and sends. Right afterwards, he hits himself on the forehead (earning odd glances from the other members). That’s no way to confront a possibly heartbroken girl! What was he thinking? He’s so used to talking playfully to her that he has no idea how to have a deep conversation with her.

            Nonetheless, she responds. “WhatWhatWhatWhat” she mimics his message.

            “This might be weird and out of the blue but… are you okay? ;;;;”

            There’s a significant pause. The speech bubble showing that Jimin is typing pops up, disappears, and pops up again. She looks like she’s trying to find a good answer. Eventually, all he gets in response is “Yeah ㅋㅋ should I not be?”

            “Are you really?? What are you doing right now”

            “I’m fine ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I’m just in my dorm.”

            Junior plays with Coco’s ears, but looks up when he sees Bambam put on his shoes and surgical mask. “Yah, Bambam, are you going out? I was gonna start making rice now…”

            Bambam rushes to the door of their dorm. “Save me some, I might be out for a while.”

A/N: We're inching towards the end, next chapter will be the last one... ㅠㅠ Everything will be finished soon, so I must thank everyone for supporting me on my first non-oneshot story! It's been a great way to type the summer away! See you next chapter! (on a side note, remember how GOT7 "A" and 15& "Can't Hide It" were rumored to be related?)