"Yoongi, let's do something fun!" Hobi suggested, sitting up and staring at Yoongi eagerly.

"No."

"Please?" Hobi asked (begged). "It's so boring and quiet with Jimin gone."

Yoongi sighed. Jimin had gone home with Hyungwon. Although rare, it wasn't the first time Jimin had hung out with a friend after school, but it was the first time their mom had allowed him to skip speech therapy for it. Yoongi thought that it meant something, like that she realized that it wasn't working, that maybe that was just how Jimin was, and it wasn't a horrible thing to just let him be him.

Or maybe he was just imagining things. Ever since he'd (rather humiliatingly) went to his mom for girl advice, he'd started questioning himself. He felt like he was suddenly trying to throw her in a good light somehow. Everything she did was out of love or something. But he knew she wasn't perfect. That said, he knew by now that she wasn't being insincere. But he didn't know where to draw the line.

Just then, Yoongi's phone rang, and he waited a beat before picking it up. "Yeah?"

"H-Hi hyung," came Jimin's breathless voice from the other end, accompanied immediately by giggles and whispers, probably between him and Hyungwon.

"Jimin," Yoongi said by way of greeting. "When do you want Mom to pick you up?"

Hobi stared at him, and Yoongi cursed himself for the slip, but every time he said it, it became more natural. He wasn't sure if that was a bad thing. He wanted it to be, wanted to resist the change that was happening, but...

"Um, actually ab-bout that..." A pause before Jimin's hopeful voice resumed. "C-Can you ask M-Mom if I can s-stay the night?"

Yoongi blinked, his eyes widening. "Jimin, it's a school night."

"Please? P-Pretty Please?"

Yoongi sighed before tossing his phone to Hobi and getting up. "Talk to him for a minute, I have to check with...her about it."

Hobi stared at Yoongi for a second before nodding and putting the phone up to his ear. "Hey, Jiminie! It's your favorite hyung! How are you? Do you miss me? Are you having fun? But not too much fun, right?"

Yoongi just rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen, where he saw her at the counter, working on making dinner. "Hey...M-Mom?"

She turned around quickly, too quickly, and had to put a hand on the counter to stabilize herself. "Oh, Yoongi. Sorry, you startled me. What's the matter?"

"Well, Jimin wanted to see if he could stay the night at the Lee's house."

She hesitated. "Well, you all have school tomorrow, right?"

Yoongi nodded and shrugged. "That's what I told him, but he wanted me to ask."

She paused once more, looking thoughtful. "Well...is he happy? Is he having fun?"

Yoongi blinked, shocked. "Um...yeah, yeah, I think so. He was laughing."

"And does he have his school stuff with him?"

Yoongi nodded. "Yeah. And if he needs something, he can probably borrow it from Hyungwon, although they're different sizes, but...he should be fine."

She pursed her lips before nodding slowly. "Well...it's all right with me, just this once, because he hasn't gone out in a while...but tell him not to stay up all night playing video games because he'd better not fall asleep in class tomorrow, all right?"

Yoongi nodded, and she smiled before turning back around. Yoongi waited an extra moment as though he had something to add, but he didn't know what he wanted to say, so he went back to their room and took his phone from Hobi mid-sentence.

"Jimin, she said okay, just not to stay up too late and stuff."

Jimin's excited but soft yell was heard on the other end before he said, "Thank you, hyung!"

"Uh huh," Yoongi said, a small smile creeping over his lips. "Have fun. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Ok-kay! Say b-bye to Hobi for-"

Yoongi hung up, ignoring his request because he felt like being a little selfish.

"Aw, I wanted to talk to Jimin more," Hobi complained, and Yoongi rolled his eyes.

"You'll see him tomorrow. You can wait til then to talk his ear off."

Hobi rolled his eyes and pretended to be upset before sitting up and propping his head up, his elbows on the mattress. "All right, now that it's really just the two of us, what are we going to do tonight? It's the special broadcast of everybody's favorite show, Hobi and Yoongi bonding time! And for today's episode-"

Yoongi threw a pillow at Hobi to shut him up, but Hobi just grinned.

***

Their mom knocked on the door half an hour later. "Boys, it's time for-"

She stopped, staring at the mess that was now their room: blankets stretched out to form thin roofs, pillows propped up as columns and supports holding up the elaborate structure.

From somewhere in the middle of the pillow fort, Hobi's head popped up, and he grinned. "We'll be there in a minute."

"Okay," she said with a smile before tiptoeing backwards softly and shutting the door.

Her fifteen-year-old and sixteen-year-old sons had just made a pillow fort.

In terms of age, they might have been a little too old for those sorts of things, but she thought that it was a good sign. They'd had to grow up so quickly from a young age that they'd been forced to leave behind parts of their childhood.

Maybe now...maybe now they were stable enough to start picking the pieces back up. Even if they were a few years behind.

I just hope Jimin doesn't start a stuffed animal collection, she thought to herself with a worried smile.

***

Yoongi and Hobi got off the bus the next morning in time to see Hyungwon and Jimin getting out of Jooheon's car, Jimin standing behind Hyungwon so they couldn't see him, but they went over to say hi.

"Morning," Hobi said with a grin, waving to Hyungwon, who nodded back with a shy smile. Hyungwon was normal with Jimin, but he wasn't that comfortable around many people, so he reverted back to his shy self with people he didn't know that well.

"M-Morning, hyung," Jimin said, stepping out from behind Hyungwon with a smile.

"YOUR HAIR!" Hobi said, gasping in Korean as he swatted Yoongi's arm. "IT'S PINK!"

Jimin grinned nervously before nodding and looking up at Hyungwon as though for support. "I d-decided to t-try it."

"He just wanted to make me feel better," Hyungwon mumbled, rolling his eyes. "Now we'll both stick out. And neither of us will get dates to the dance."

Jimin laughed before linking his elbow with Hyungwon's. "I t-told you, didn't I? That if n-no one w-wants to go with us, we'll j-just go together, right?"

Hyungwon snorted lightly but nodded. "Fine, fine. But if you get a date, you're going with your date."

"N-Not if you d-don't get a date t-too."

"Go with your date, Jimin."

"W-What if my d-date is you?"

Hyungwon just rolled his eyes before ruffling Jimin's hair and awkwardly looking over to Hobi and Yoongi as though having forgotten that they were there. "We're...going to go to class now."

"Ah, the princesses have to go to class," Hobi said to Yoongi and Jimin just laughed while Hyungwon looked exasperated, probably due to having been teased enough by Jooheon already.

Yoongi just shook his head, stupefied. He had no idea what to even say to Jimin. On one hand, he couldn't care less if Jimin dyed his hair mint green or whatever color of the rainbow he wanted.

But on the other hand, he didn't think their step-father would be as forgiving.

thanks all for the well wishes and for reading :)

also, here's a new sticker of our lovely 7-year-old jin drawn by Amberoonski2003 (her insta is @ mookti_peach so go check it out!)

the sticker has been posted on the redbubble so you can find it here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/xgoldenxmaknaex/works/31684080-jin-with-his-pink-backpack?asc=u&ref=recent-owner

otherwise go to www.redbubble.com and search xgoldenxmaknaex :)