It was four in the morning, and everyone else was asleep. Yoongi had a futon or something in his studio, so he was sleeping in there while Taehyung and Jungkook were sharing the spare bedroom. Hoseok and Jimin had argued back and forth about who should get the living room futon (Hoseok insisting that Jimin should take it and vice versa), but Jin had stolen it while they'd been talking. Hoseok and Jimin had just shrugged and spread out on the floor, talking quietly among themselves as the night dragged on.

They were still talking when Jin fell asleep around two, but both of them were out now. Jin sat up on the futon, heartbeat pulsing irrationally from a nightmare he'd already forgotten, but that sense of panic persisted. He padded into the kitchen and sank down to the ground with his back against the farthest side of the island as he pulled out his phone and dialed.

It rang for a long time before a sleepy voice picked up. "Jin??"

"Hi," he said, still feeling panicky and also a little tipsy from the wine earlier.

"It's four in the morning," Aika grumbled; she was far from a morning person.

"I'm sorry," Jin said, pressing the phone closer against his ear as though that would bring her closer as well. "I just- needed to hear your voice. Do you want me to hang up?"

Aika was quiet for a moment. "I'm already up now," she decided with a small sigh, and there was a click and a small rustle on the other end as she turned on her bedside lamp and sat up. "Have you been drinking?"

"I had a little wine." Well, he'd had quite a bit, but that was a while ago, so they sort of balanced out.

Jin could see Aika's frown in his mind. "You know I don't like you drinking." She exhaled into the phone, and then her voice came back, smaller than before. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound controlling, Jin, I just-"

"I know," Jin said. Aika had told him in vague terms that her father had had an alcohol problem, and that was part of what had contributed to her cutting ties with her family. It was only natural for her to be worried about that. "But I'm just with my family, and everyone was under control." Well, 'under control' might have been a generous interpretation, but it was still mostly true.

"I know, I'm sorry," Aika said, and Jin could picture her rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "I'm just tired, sorry."

"That's my fault for calling at this hour," Jin said, a small smile forming on his lips, but then that panicky feeling came back. "Aika..."

"What is it?" she asked, her reactions still delayed a bit by grogginess, but she seemed to sense that something was up.

"I'm just scared," Jin admitted, closing his eyes and melting back against the island.

"What are you scared of?"

Her voice was soft, intimate, as though she were in the room with him, right next to him. He wished she was.

"Me," he answered shortly, opening his eyes and staring down at the kitchen tile. He took a finger and traced along the grout until he hit an intersection and stopped. "I'm afraid of me becoming like my dad."

There was a long pause and more rustling. It sounded like Aika was getting out of bed to sit somewhere more comfortable and talk Jin down from whatever weird ledge he was wavering on. "You love your dad," she said as though reminding him.

"I know," Jin said with a weak laugh. "He's been a great dad. And I love him, I do. But I- ..." Jin rubbed at his face with his left hand, trying to figure out how to phrase the thoughts that had been eating away at his brain the past few days. "I love my dad, and I wouldn't trade him for anyone, but I don't want my kids to have that experience," he said after a moment.

Aika let that statement settle in, and to her credit, she didn't start the whole kids-or-no-kids debate, just tried to address his anxiety. "What don't you want them to experience?"

"All of it," Jin cried out softly, wrapping his arms around himself the best he could manage. "Having two parents and then suddenly only one, missing someone in your family for years and watching the person who's supposed to be taking care of you just fade away and suddenly you have to take care of yourself and everyone else and you're just a kid and you shouldn't have to do that."

"You shouldn't have had to do that," Aika agreed. "Kids should be kids for as long as they can. But why do you think our kids would have that experience? Do you think I plan on leaving you?"

"No," Jin said, and he didn't know when he started crying but he had tears on his face.

"Do you plan on leaving me with our kids?"

"No," Jin repeated.

"Then why are you worried that it will happen?"

"Because my dad didn't plan on that either," Jin said, closing his eyes again because it was easier to imagine her sitting next to him that way. "The way he tells it, everything was fine until it wasn't. And I'm worried that I'm too much like him and that I'll make the same mistakes and force our kids to have to grow up too soon."

"Jin-" Aika asked, a note of concern in her voice.

"I'm not ready," Jin said, squeezing the phone in his grip as though it were her hand that he was squeezing. "I thought I was ready for this – for marriage, for kids, all of it. But I'm not. I thought I was but I'm not."

"That's okay," Aika said, and if Jin pretended hard enough, he could feel her fingertips cascading through his hair. "We don't have to rush into it."

"But I can't be with you and not want those things," Jin said, shoulders shaking with more tears as he squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they would go. "I want to commit to you and start our life together. I don't want to let our time slip away. I don't want to take you for granted. So I can't- I can't just love you and not want to be yours, completely."

"What will it take for you to be ready, then?" Aika asked. "How can I help you feel like you're enough?"

"I don't know," Jin whispered. "I don't think you can."

"Jin, everyone makes mistakes," Aika said with a small exhale. "Everyone. In marriage, kids, everything. And even if we repeat the same mistakes your dad did, look at you. You turned out pretty good, didn't you? So if you're worried about the kids-"

"I'm worried about you," Jin cut in. "I'm worried about not being able to make you happy."

"Jin, I am happy."

"Maybe right now," Jin said, swallowing as he recalled his own childhood. "But what happens when-"

"You are not your father," Aika said sternly. "And more importantly, I am not the woman your mother was. I'm not going to walk out on you and our kids, even if I somehow come to hate you. I promise you that if things ever get that bad, we're going to talk about it, and we're going to get counseling and do whatever it takes to save our relationship. And if we have to separate, then we will, but I'm not going to just disappear overnight. I will never do that to our family."

"I believe you," Jin said, tears still streaked down his face. He opened his eyes, and he felt distant all of a sudden. "I just don't believe in myself."

"Even if I believe in you? That's not enough?"

"Not when I'm thinking about the happiness of you and our children."

They were both silent for a long time. Jin glanced up at the neon digits above the stove and saw that the first digit had turned into a five while they'd been talking.

"Where does this leave us, then?" Aika asked, and even though he no longer felt close to her, he could still tell that she'd been crying too.

And Jin knew she would cry more, and so he felt bad for saying it, but he didn't see any other alternative. "I think we should take a break."

--

They talked for a while after that. Aika had stressed to Jin that they weren't breaking up, that they were just taking some time to think. Jin had agreed, saying that he didn't want to rush into big life decisions before he figured a few things out first.

And so Jin climbed back onto the futon sometime after five in the morning and went to sleep hoping that he wouldn't repeat the same mistakes his dad had made. A conversation from earlier in the night kept him up for a few minutes. He'd asked Jungkook why he'd thought Jin was dating the lead actress, and Jungkook had said it was because Jin had told them he was dating the prettiest girl on set. Jungkook had taken that to mean the lead actress, but Jin had only ever been talking about Aika.

It wasn't just her face that was pretty to him, it was her heart too.

He could only hope that she'd wait for him to figure things out.

--

published 09/16/20 (mm/dd/yy)

a/n: some of y'all have been asking about the update schedule...school threw that off, and I haven't concretely decided on a particular day yet, so please just bear with me :) I'll try to keep updating once every 1-2 weeks but I'll let y'all know if I create a more consistent schedule.

Also, random question...what's your favorite song right now? Like not overall, but just this day or week.