It took hours to read through them all.

Hours.

But despite how his eyes burned with tears, despite how awfully his chest throbbed from his anxious, sorrowful heart, Yoongi was determined not to move from his spot on the kitchen floor until he'd read every. Last. One.

And by that last letter, he swore he had never cried so hard, swore he'd never felt such heartache, swore he had never imagined such pain could even be felt. His throat ached, his chest ached, everything just ached.

Such a rush of so many emotions, spiraling together and clawing at the inside of him, begging to get out and the only way he could do that was by crying.

"Jimin..."

He choked out the name and it stung his ears. Face in his hands, Yoongi bent over and spent the next five minutes trying desperately to stop, to just get a hold of himself.

Just this morning, he had been fine. To an extent. His mother had been sick the night before, and so she stayed in bed till later than she normally got up. She was typically always downstairs, Yoongi upstairs in his room.

But today he explored the kitchen with the intent of making something to eat, for himself but perhaps for his mother as well. Now his mother was an organized person, she typically kept things in their right places, utensils sorted and separated in the same drawer, dishes also separated neatly in their cabinets, food items stored properly, etc. But Yoongi was just looking for a recipe book. And he couldn't find it anywhere.

On most days, he wouldn't care. He usually made his own food without using a recipe or simply using one from memory, but for his mother's sake he wanted to make something she'd like and be familiar with.

He was just looking for a recipe book. That's it.

Atop the highest shelf in the kitchen there was a box. An ordinary-looking cardboard box. He figured that was a sensible place to keep something like a recipe book. Perhaps a number of them.

So he had taken that box from the shelf with much difficulty and found a couple books inside. But there was more in the box.

Two recipe books.

And a couple hundred hand-written letters.

Letters. From Jimin. Every one of them. The earliest of which was dated February 8th.

Of last year.

That realization alone had nearly knocked the breath out of Yoongi, and it didn't get any better as he had started to read them, either. They started out sweet and innocent but so rapidly sent Yoongi into a panic, enveloping him in anxiety with every letter he opened, with every time he noticed a day or more had been skipped.

This whole time, he had believed Jimin had just changed his mind about sending him letters. This whole time, he wondered if something had happened to Jimin. This whole time, a part of him wondered if Jimin had even made it to Incheon.

The boy was never allowed to have a phone. And he hadn't told Yoongi his new address before leaving, and Yoongi considered the possibility that Jimin had just forgotten or that he simply planned to reveal his new address inside the first letter he sent. Which had in reality been the plan.

A tragically failed plan.

Tragic. This whole situation was nothing short of tragic.

Yoongi couldn't be mad at Jimin. He couldn't even be mad at himself, because there had been no way of knowing, no way for him to have known Jimin had been sending letters since the day he arrived in Incheon a little over a year ago. And yet still did agonizing, unbearable guilt cling to Yoongi like there was no tomorrow.

That poor boy had endured so much. Heartache, uncertainty, self-doubt, all because Yoongi never replied and he didn't know why, he fell into depression because Yoongi never replied and he didn't know why, he started to feel guilty over realizing he was in love, feeling he was just a burden, believing Yoongi would possibly stop reading his letters after he confessed but he could never truly know, because Yoongi never replied.

September 14th.

Yoongi remembered the date from the time he read the letter and going forward, through till February 14th.

September 14th, when Jimin started to sign his letters with love, instead of from.

That letter, Yoongi had set aside.

And he read it about a hundred times. It moved him, shifted his heart from the locked position he didn't even know it was in.

That letter. The feelings expressed in that letter, and every one that followed, every mention of the words I love you forced another tear to fall from Yoongi's eye.

He was just the same. He had never given it thought. Jimin was his best friend, and he just accepted that as the title that would remain. But deep down, there was more to it.

And it came as such an abrupt change, that shift of his heart and mind on those rusty tracks, but with every word he read, it became clearer, warmer, but painful all the same.

Painful, because he hadn't realized it sooner. Painful, because he had never even considered it. Agonizing, because Jimin believed he was alone in these feelings.

Not knowing. For an entire year. Considering the possibility Yoongi could have found someone else, a lover to replace him before Jimin could even confess face to face.

He could only imagine how much that boy had suffered. His letters could only do so much to explain it. Words could only do so much...

Along with the letter from September 14th, Yoongi had also set aside the photos that were enclosed with the letters Taehyung had written.

Tae. That name entailed another whole rollercoaster of emotions.

It was so odd, how he had never met the boy, yet to an extent he felt they were already friends. The tone in which Tae's letters were written, the fact he went to the effort of sending those photos to begin with, and his assuring Yoongi he would take care of Jimin while the two were apart.

Yoongi had never been so grateful for a stranger in his life. But again, he didn't even feel like they were strangers to each other...

He would have to express his gratitude in person once Taehyung got to Daegu. In the meantime, he knew there was at least something he could do in return. And he wanted to take care of it as quickly as possible, but right now, more pressing matters needed to be taken care of.

In the near distance Yoongi heard footsteps descending the stairs.

And just moments later his mother walked into the kitchen. Though she did appear a little sleepy, her complexion looked much healthier and she even had the slightest smile on her face as she walked into the kitchen.

But when her eyes met Yoongi's, it all stopped.

Silence hung in place for some time. Yoongi gently set down the photos he had been holding, tearful gaze remaining fixed on his mother's face as he slowly rose to his feet.

"Yoongi, dear, I-"

"Shut up! Just shut the hell up!!"

He couldn't repress it. He didn't want to, anyway. He wanted that woman to feel the anger in his bones, the feelings of betrayal coursing through his veins like a poison that waited so long to take effect. Everything just burned. His rage, the hot tears that had once again resumed spilling over his fragile eyelids. Everything.

"I don't wanna hear a single word from you, not a one!" Yoongi choked out. His breathing started to become ragged. So soon. Too soon, he wasn't done yet.

His mother just stared at him with wide eyes, a furrowed brow. Her face filled with an emotion indescribable to Yoongi. Guilt was there, for sure, but the thing is, he knew it was only there because she had been caught.

The despicableness of that fact.

"You've said some things before, but I never thought you could stoop this low." Yoongi clutched the shirt over his chest so as to urge his heart to calm itself. But he knew it wouldn't. "To think you could actually do something this cruel, I...I can't even begin to comprehend how you thought this could be okay. Do you even realize what you've done??"

His mother seemed to be contemplating whether or not she should open her mouth. Eventually, however, she did. "You were always so reliant on that boy."

"And?!"

"And you needed to get accustomed to living without him!" She exclaimed, which only fueled Yoongi's rage. "You won't have that boy forever, dear, and he's never been a good influence on you-"

"That's a load of bull crap and you know it!!"

It scraped his throat like nails on chalkboard - no, that was an inadequate way to describe it. It grated far deeper, tore at it without mercy, but Yoongi thought nothing of it. His emotions were in full control.

"Jimin's been suffering this whole time because I never got his letters, he became depressed and could have done something terribly reckless, and it would have all been your fault!!"

He felt like breaking down again. But he wouldn't, he wouldn't dare resort to falling to his knees in front of this woman. Especially not now.

"You're the reason I've been worried sick about him," he cried, "you're the reason Jimin's been in so much pain. Don't give me that crap about him being a bad influence. The worst influence I've ever been exposed to in my life is you."

Yoongi's face gradually slipped away from anger and into heartache again. His lips quivered.

"What kind of mother..."

He sniffled.

"What kind of mother...would take away the one thing that made her son happy in life?"

Hurt didn't begin to describe it.

"Yoongi-"

"No." He cut her off immediately. "I don't want another word. Please. Not even an apology. If you could ever suck up your pride enough to do that."

Yoongi turned his eyes away for a moment, towards the ground, where they fell on one of the photographs Taehyung had sent him.

Of Jimin, with the saddest smile he had ever seen.

Jimin.

"Jimin..."

He held his face in his hands again.

"I cant stay here with you anymore, Mom."

Her silence was a knowing silence.

"When he gets back, I'll move out with him. I'm an adult. I have enough money to get by on a cheap apartment, and that's all I need."

He looked up at her with heavy eyes.

"I don't need you. I need him. And a lot of space to think about forgiving you."

After saying this, he lowered himself to the floor just to carefully place the precious letters and photos back into the box, which he then picked up and carried up to his room.

He set down the box and locked the door. Opening the drawer of his dresser, Yoongi took out a notebook he hadn't touched in almost ten months.

And he took out a pen.

dear jimin...