Jimin P.O.V:

"You're late... again." Coach Jisung says with a stern face to me.

"You're distracted lately. What's going on?" He says, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I sigh and reply softly,

"I-its nothing. I just woke up late, that's all. Shall we start?"

"Jimin, you have to be in the right-"

"Right headspace to reach perfection in the art of riding. Yes, I know.." I say, finishing his sentence that he's repeated to me so many times. Coach Jisung has been training me for 6 years, and let's just say he knows everything about and me and what goes on in my life. I don't mind telling him because I know I can trust him and he's the one that trained Uncle too. So at times when depression clouds my thoughts, he sits me down and tells me about how determined Uncle was and all the fun they had during training.

I only wish I could have been there to see him train, to see him fall and pick himself up and act like nothing happened. He's always been my role model and I will never put anyone in his place. Never.

" You can tell me anything, you know that right?"

I nod and run my fingers through my hair before walking over to Firefly. Grabbing the brush, I glide it over his brown coat and he grunts. Brushing your horse is one of the best things you can do to promote a healthy emotional bonding and trust between the horse and the person. I place a kiss on his soft skin and place the saddle on his back, attaching his reins and leading him out into the field.

After two laps of jogging, Coach Jisung shouts from the end of the field,

"Ok, standard procedure! 100 metres in 6 seconds for a start!"

I tap the side of Firefly's neck to encourage him, but something feels off with me. I feel... naturally melancholic, like it's something that would happen only once in a while...once in a year. Firefly shuffles under me and grunts, sensing my change of mood today.

(For those of you that wonder how a horse can detect human emotions, they respond to human emotional cues by integrating the emotional value of the voice they hear with that of the facial expressions they see. They even detect a human's heart rate and it affects theirs too. Fascinating isn't it?)

I bend down to whisper into his twitching ears,

"I'm alright boy, it's just another rough day. Let's do this."

"3, 2, 1. Go!"

We start slow for the first 20 metres and then increase our speed.

The world is cruel, Jimin.. rise above it.

Pathetic..

I can see your potential, use your determination.

Useless..

Take that anger and make it the fuel to your flames.

Weak..

My heart rate increases and Firefly's rythmic steps stumble as we cross the finish. Coming to a slow stop, Coach Jisung strolls up to me with a confused face.

" What the hell happened? 11 seconds? That's not you, Jimin! For gods sake, you're the record holder of 7.2 in this place, man! With that timing, you won't even qualify for the Olympics. " He says, clearly annoyed at my sudden downfall when I'm approaching an important time to prove my strengths.

" We have 2 months. 2 months Jimin, and you need to buck up. You have to qualify for this. And I'm not saying this just for you, do it for your uncle. He trained so hard to get to that place and he handed his legacy down to you! Shouldn't that give you a fighting spirit to get through? " He says, gripping his chest over his heart.

" You've been tripping up this week, and you need to sort it out. It's fine if you don't want to tell me.. just fix it. " He says before taking off his cap and throwing it into his office through the window.

Something's wrong about today.. and I know why.

Y/N P.O.V:

I squint open my eyes to see myself still sitting in the same position as before.

Oh shit, perfect time to fall asleep Y/N.

I look at the time and sigh in relief.

Only half an hour.. that's fine.

I furrow my eyebrows when I feel a wet substance coat my fingers and when I directed my gaze to my hand, the hay was gone, leaving behind what I figured out was....drool.

Instead of freaking out about my hand being covered in horse drool, my eyes widened as I look to Crystal. She was standing there, staring at me as she grunted and shuffled.

Did she... come to me while I was asleep?

" You sly little horse, I see you. " I say with a large smile of happiness now spread across my face. Just to make sure, I grabbed another handful of hay after wiping my hand with a tissue, holding it out to her with hopeful eyes.

"Pretty please?" I say softly.

After a few seconds of staring, she makes her first small steps towards me and stops a few feet before me, bending down and taking the hay from my hand into her mouth. The feeling of her sandpaper tongue on my palm made me giggle since I was a highly ticklish person.

My heart rate picked up it's pace in joy as I smile once again, slowly lifting myself off the ground. "See? I wouldn't hurt you.."

With another grunt, she steps back into her usual spot and shakes her head, her white mane bouncing all over the place before landing back perfectly onto her side. Her beauty was breathtaking but also made me wonder,

Who made you like this? Who would do something cruel to a creature as beautiful as you? Well.. if it turns out that you really were abused, I'm pretty sure we'll get along perfectly.

I step forward, completely calm as I glide my hand down her snowy white coat. I take the brush and slide it across her belly, stroking her skin softly. From an angle, one would think she was the spitting image of a unicorn and the only thing missing is a horn.

As I come to stroke her forehead, she turns away with a grunt, hoofing at the ground again. With furrowed eyebrows I say,

" No no no, it's ok, I'm sorry! You don't like to be touched there? " I say, moving back a little to give her some space. I know that horses are emotionally fragile creatures and some of them don't like to be touched in certain places. As riders and trainers, we have to respect that and learn to give the horse its own space sometimes.

I lean against the wall, resting my head on the wooden surface as I begin to sing to myself.

이 모든 건 우연이 아냐
그냥 그냥 나의 느낌으로
온 세상이 어제완 달라
그냥 그냥 너의 기쁨으로...

니가 날 불렀을 때
나는 너의 꽃으로
기다렸던 것처럼
우린 시리도록 피어
어쩌면 우주의 섭리
그냥 그랬던 거야
You know, I know
너는 나 나는 너

I see Crystal's ears perk up immediately, turning a little to face the direction of my voice. I smile and say almost in a whisper,

"You like that song?" She releases a heavy breath and turns to me as I say,

"I do too.. my mom used to sing that to me during.. tough times in our lives."

I sigh and close my eyes, my mind taking me back to one of the few special moments I shared with her when I was young.

*Flashback*

Y/N is 6 years old.

I flinch when I hear the front door slam open to see Appa walking in with a bottle in his hand.

He always carries that bottle... does he like it a lot?

When I see his angry face, I bring my focus back to continue washing the dishes that Eomma told me to wash. At first I didn't want to do it, but Eomma said that Appa will be angry if things are not clean and I don't want to make Appa angry. I want to make him happy.. Maybe I can show him my shiny cup after I finish washing it and it will make him happy.

With an excited smile, I wipe the cup with the towel and skip into the room that Eomma and I share.

"Eomma, look! I made it shiny again! Do you like it?"

Eomma's back was facing me and when she turned to me, I gasped to see a red cut on her lip.

"Oh no! E-eomma, you're hurt.." I rush to her a place a finger on her lip. When my eyes travel to my now red stained finger, I immediately wiped it on my clothes with a disgusted face.

"What happened Eomma?" I ask with a wavering voice, tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.

" Ah, i-its nothing Y/N-ah, I just fell down the stairs. I'm alright now.." She says with a smile, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes so I know she's lying.

" Please tell me Eomma, I promise I'll keep it a secret. " I say in a whisper.

Ignoring my question, her eyes travel down to the little cup I washed.

" Wow, it looks great Y/N.. I can even see my reflection in it! Look.."

She takes the cup from me and places it in front of our faces so we could see our reflections in it. Our faces were distorted and twisted as we looked at the shiny porcelain cup and Eomma stuck her tongue out, making a funny face.

I laugh loudly and make a face along with her, wrapping my arms around her neck.

"I love you Eomma" I say, placing a kiss on her cheek as she turns to me and nuzzles her nose with mine. With another giggle, I say,

"I'm going to show Appa my shiny cup and make him happy!" Taking the cup from her hands and running out of the room, Eomma's happy demeanor changed in an instant as her eyes widened.

"Y/N! No, we can show him some other day! Don't go there Y/N please!!" She yells, stumbling to the door of her room but I was already down the hallway and outside Appa's door.

I hope this makes Appa happy. I've never hugged him before, I want to give him this gift and give him a big hug so he can smile again.

I've noticed Appa laughs sometimes when he drinks that special juice. Maybe I'll ask Eomma to buy some more for him to make him laugh more.

I open the door to see Appa sitting at his table with his special juice, looking at some papers that looked very important.

"Appa! I want to-"

He startled at my sudden appearance and his hand shook, spilling the golden liquid all over his papers and he looked to me with eyes overflowing with rage as he screamed,

" WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?! GET OUT! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE! "

He gets up, swaying from east to fricking west, implying that he was heavily drunk and it corrupted his judgments. Well, whether he's drunk or not, his judgments are always corrupted.

Stepping back in fear, I say with a wailing voice,
" I-I'm sorry Appa, I didn't- "
Eomma bursts into the room, quickly standing in front of me.

"You, what kind of woman are you? Take that abomination out of my sight. It's non-existent to me. GET OUT!"
He slurs, gobbling half his words as he placed a hand on the wall to keep himself standing.

" She's a child for god's sake and right now, you're acting like one. "

He directed his gaze to her as he took ragged steps to her.
" Shut your mouth. Unless you want to be flung down the stairs again, I suggest you take that little bitch and get out. "

I gasp and look up at Eomma who now keeps her eyes lowered to the floor. I could see the pools of tears rising in her eyes.

I step forward, grasping tightly onto the newly washed blue cup in my hand as I said,
"A-appa.. I-i washed this just how you wanted us to.. Do you like it? It's really shiny now.. "

A smidge of surprise surfaced on his face before the drunken rage covered it up again. He grabbed the cup from my hand, throwing it with anger towards the wall, smashing into pieces as bits of it scattered on the floor near the wall.

He grabs me by the collar holding me up to his face as I yelp, tears now flowing down my face.

" You think you can walk in here and win my heart over? Don't call me 'Appa'. I'll beat you up the next time you say that word to me. You are nothing to me, born out of deception. " He says, eyes boring through Eomma with his last sentence.

Letting go of my collar, I drop to the floor as my heart clenched in pain. I wailed running to Eomma as she put her arms around me, carrying me up into her arms and she took rushed steps out of the room, towards the small room we share.

I thought it would make Appa happy... He said I'm nothing to him..

Placing me down onto the small bed, Eomma cups my cheeks, lowering herself to kneel down to my level.

"Y-Y/N, listen to me... you must never go to Appa again, ok? Avoid him everytime you see him and always stay with me. Don't take what he says to your heart... Sometimes he says b-bad things because he's not in the right mind.. You are perfect just the way you are. Your birth is a sacred gift and it's the best thing that has happened in my life.."

I look down to my quivering hands, drops of sorrow falling into them as I say,

" I-i only wanted to make him happy... In school, people avoid me and hit me sometimes and at home Appa hates me.. What d-did I do wrong? Nobody loves me! " I wail once more, hiding my face in my hands.

Eomma wraps her arms around me and lays down, pulling me with her. Slowly removing my hands from hiding my face, Eomma's chocolate brown eyes look into mine as she said,

" Don't you ever say that Y/N. I love you more than anything in this world and I would readily give up my life if it means you will have one. This place is not much of a home for us.. but let me be your home Y/N. I love you, and the key to our hearts is in your little pocket. My heart is yours forever.."

Pulling me into her embrace, I place my head in the crook of her neck, inhaling the sweet lavender scent that's always on her.

이 모든 건 우연이 아냐
그냥 그냥 나의 느낌으로
온 세상이 어제완 달라
그냥 그냥 너의 기쁨으로...

니가 날 불렀을 때
나는 너의 꽃으로
기다렸던 것처럼
우린 시리도록 피어
어쩌면 우주의 섭리
그냥 그랬던 거야
You know, I know
너는 나 나는 너

설레는 만큼 많이 두려워
운명이 우릴 자꾸 질투해서
너만큼 나도 많이 무서워
When you see me
When you touch me

우주가 우릴 위해 움직였어
조금의 어긋남조차 없었어
너와 내 행복은 예정됐던 걸
'Cause you love me
And I love you

Those words sent waves of warmth through my body as Eomma continued singing it, rocking me slowly as my mind went blank and I was welcomed by the peaceful world of dreams.

A/N P.O.V :

Special update because it's our Jinnie's birthdayyyy! 👑💖😘



Lots of love,
Kim 😙