After his conversation with Namjoon that late July afternoon, Yoongi began to sink into a state of despondency. He didn't leave his house for the rest of the summer, save when he had to go to work. He ignored all text messages sent to him--those from Namjoon, Jimin, Hoseok...everyone. If someone tried to call him, he would hang up right away, without doing so much as glance at the caller ID. Needless to say, this raised quite a bit of concern from Yoongi's friends, namely those who were completely unaware of the reason behind it all, which was all of them but Namjoon. Jimin more than anyone, though. Because it happened out of nowhere. One day, Yoongi was replying to his messages like normal, and the next, he doesn't get a reply for over a month, and longer still. The calls, too. He had attempted to call Yoongi several times, but he wasn't greeted by a voice mail box--no, he was hung up on. Immediately. Deliberately. Something was wrong. Jimin didn't need Namjoon to tell him that. He didn't need anyone to tell him that. He didn't want to invite himself over Yoongi's house, however, though that thought did cross his mind. Truthfully, he was more than a little scared. Surely, if Yoongi had shut himself off so abruptly like this, there must have been a significant reason. Perhaps one that left Yoongi in a deep and fixed state of depression that only Namjoon could pull him out of. Of course, Jimin wanted to be able to do something. But he was terrified of being pushed away. For quite a while now, that fear plagued Jimin's mind. He was scared of Yoongi rejecting him as a friend, let alone his love confession.

A part of Jimin hoped he had been overthinking things. Maybe there really was nothing wrong. Maybe Yoongi had just been too busy lately to talk, maybe with something so important that he didn't want or need anything around to distract him. He was aware it was more than likely foolish and wishful thinking, but regardless Jimin tried desperately to convince himself of this. But then school started again. The new term in late August. Jimin walked to school that day with Taehyung as usual, and although neither boy said a word on the subject, both were secretly a little anxious to see Yoongi--or, if they would see him at all.

They did see him. Jimin and Taehyung found the mint-haired boy sitting at his desk, head facing down, resting in the crook of his elbow. They went over to him cautiously. Jimin sat down at his own desk and spun around.

"Yoongi?"

No answer. Somehow, Jimin knew that he was awake. And that made it all the more painful to hear his silence.

"Yoongi, what's wrong? You haven't answered any of our texts for the past month. We're worried about you."

It had hurt Yoongi all the same to hear Jimin's voice after so long. He refused to lift his head. He wouldn't, he couldn't look that boy in the eyes. Not now. Not with everything Namjoon had said to him still floating around in his mind.

"Yoongi, if you're even listening to me right now, I just want you to know that we care about you. I care about you, and...and whatever's going on with you. If you're sad, you know you can talk to us, right? You know...we would listen to you. And I know I can speak for all of us when I say that I don't like seeing you like this. I won't pressure you, just..."

There was a long pause.

"...just remember I'll be here for you, Yoongi."

It took a whole lot of willpower, but Yoongi didn't give in. He continued to shut everything out. Everyone out. He didn't avoid Namjoon, per say, but he didn't talk. And Namjoon didn't force him to. In one sense, Namjoon believed he had made a horrible mistake that day on the basketball court for ever having said what he said to Yoongi. He wondered if things would have worked out better if he had simply let things play out naturally. So he made the decision, for the time being, to keep quiet on the matter and pretend that nothing had happened. That he was back to being Yoongi's protector, the guardian that stood by his side and warded off anyone who would come too close to the boy's bubble.

But it wasn't the same. Yoongi dragged his feet more than normal, and it was so noticeable, too. He couldn't help it. His heart was in such pain, a pain he couldn't adequately put into words. He felt betrayed. Betrayed by the person he trusted above all else, the person who now seemed to be willingly giving him up, not realizing that this wasn't their intention at all. Nevertheless he still believed this person, Namjoon, was subtly confessing that he could and would step out of Yoongi's bubble, the reason being that he supposedly wasn't needed anymore. Ridiculous. Surely it was such a ridiculous thing to say. Surely no one could have ever become so important to Yoongi, as important to him as Namjoon, without him realizing.

Yoongi's head filled with thoughts of Jimin. Thoughts of the brilliant light that boy had shed on his life, the kind words, the soft touches, the warm conversations he always walked away from feeling good about himself. And he began to wonder if Namjoon was right. Maybe he really had fallen in love with Jimin.

The thought of that being true made Yoongi feel...as though he were the one doing the betraying. Betraying that special, irreplaceable relationship he had spent so long building with Namjoon. It killed him inside. He didn't like change. He had always been that way. New things scared him. He was scared of being in love. Scared of losing what he had, or of what he didn't have yet, but could lose. So in his bubble he stayed, guardian by his side.

Until his guardian had had enough.

The first week of October rolled in when Namjoon suddenly showed up at Jimin's house, completely unannounced. It was rather late at night, almost eleven o'clock, which made Jimin twice as confused to find his friend on his front step.

"Uh...hey." He stood with the door open for a few seconds. "Do you want to come in?"

"...yeah, that'd be nice."

So he entered Jimin's house, soon to make his way over to the couch, where Jimin followed. They both sat down. Neither said anything at first. Then Jimin loudly cleared his throat and urged himself to speak up.

"So, how have you been-"

"I can't take this anymore."

Jimin held his tongue. He waited for Namjoon to speak again.

"It's gone on long enough thanks to me," the blond spat in a tone meant to spite himself. He clenched his teeth. "This has been my fault from the very beginning, Jimin, and I've been trying to fix it, but I'm just making it worse. At this rate, Yoongi will never go back to the way he was. Not with me holding his hand like I'm doing..."

"I...I'm not sure I understand," Jimin said quietly. "Why are you blaming yourself? What's wrong with Yoongi, Namjoon?"

"I asked him if he was in love with you, that's what's wrong."

The orange-haired boy could only stare at first. He felt a faint jolt in his chest. "What?"

"I screwed up, Jimin. I thought I could help Yoongi by giving him a little push, but I think I pushed him in the wrong direction. And too far, too, to the point where I can't do anything about it anymore. It's beyond my reach. You have to do something, Jimin. Yoongi needs you."

Jimin held his head low. Folding his hands, he drew in a deep breath and pondered Namjoon's words. "But he's been shutting me out all this time," he argued, greatly in a feeling of defeat. "If you can't help him, how am I supposed to do anything? What would I even do?"

"Tell him how you feel."

He lifted his head abruptly. Frozen in the intensity of Namjoon's gaze, Jimin struggled to come up with a response yet again; moreover, he had been acutely caught off guard by that short, simple sentence. He wrestled with himself to open his mouth.

"But I'm scared-"

"So is Yoongi."

Jimin flinched. His brows knitted together. "Yoongi's scared?"

Namjoon nodded solemnly. "He's scared he really is in love with you, Jimin. That's why you're the only one who can fix this. I don't care how you do it, but you need to come out and tell him the truth before he sinks too far." Namjoon looked down at his own hands, self-disappointment evident in his sad expression. "Please, Jimin...if you really do love him-"

"I do."

Namjoon gazed into Jimin's eyes, which drew a faint smile from his lips.

"Then I'm leaving this up to you, my friend."

They made plans. Since Jimin's birthday was coming up, he suggested to Namjoon that they--meaning himself, Namjoon, Yoongi, Taehyung, Jungkook, Hoseok, and maybe even Seokjin--could rent a karaoke room. Of course, at the time he thought of the idea he didn't consider how he would coax Yoongi into coming along, but then Namjoon assured him he would have it covered. All Jimin had to do was prepare himself. And he tried. He really did try, but he had a funny feeling that practicing in front of a mirror wasn't going to come close to comparing what it would be like to stand in front of Yoongi.

The 13th of October arrived in the blink of an eye. By then, Namjoon had already finished with the preparations, from making a reservation for a karaoke room to inviting everyone Jimin had named, including Seokjin, who was more than happy to join them before he was scheduled to fly to Japan the next day. However, Jin's excitement was a little dampened by the seriousness of Namjoon's tone when he had called him. And when Jin asked about it, all he got in return was a gentle laugh and a reassuring, 'Don't worry about it. It's gonna be fine.'

With preparations complete, all that was left to do was convince the despondent Yoongi to agree. Well, 'agree' wasn't really the correct word in this situation, considering Namjoon's methods for carrying this out.

"We're going to karaoke. Let's go."

By way of the spare house key Yoongi's parents had given Namjoon a while back, the blond made a visit to his best friend's house and found the boy curled up on his sofa, inattentively watching whatever garbage happened to be on TV. To Namjoon's surprise, Yoongi actually looked up at him, though his expression displayed clear opposition to his friend's previous statement without him even having to open his mouth.

"I'm tired of the way you're acting, Yoongs," Namjoon said firmly, taking hold of Yoongi's arm and pulling him off the sofa. "It's Jimin's birthday today, and we're all going out to karaoke whether you like it or not. So c'mon, let's get you dressed."

He was too tired to resist. Somehow, Yoongi felt that Namjoon had already made up his mind and that he wouldn't be able to argue effectively in his current state, so he allowed himself to be led by his best friend, first to his room to put on that outfit Namjoon had gotten him for his birthday, then to the karaoke place, outside of which everyone was already waiting. Seokjin, Jungkook, Taehyung, Hoseok, Jimin...they were all there. And they all saw Yoongi's particularly disheartening face, but kept quiet about it.

"Glad you guys got here before it started to rain," Jungkook said eventually, looking up at the sky. "I heard it's supposed to start pouring some time tonight."

"Well, why don't we just go inside then?" Namjoon suggested. No one was about to argue with him. That being said, the seven of them entered the building and went directly to the karaoke room they had reserved. A long wooden table sat in the middle of the small room, red-cushioned benches wrapping around it, a large, flat-screen television screen hanging on the pale orange wall above. Nothing really fancy, and yet the sight of it made Hoseok absolutely ecstatic. He leapt over the couch and immediately took a seat, hurrying the others to move so that they could get this show on the road. So they did. Jimin, Jungkook, Seokjin, Taehyung, Namjoon, and a very unwilling Yoongi followed after the bubbly redhead and sat around the table. They started straightaway. Hoseok was raring to go, and, with his enthusiasm having rubbed off on some of the others, Jungkook grabbed a microphone and sang with him instead of waiting his turn. The song that Hoseok picked was one neither he nor Jungkook knew very well, so both ended up stumbling over a handful of lines and thus drawing laughs out of everyone in the room--save Yoongi, of course. Yoongi was on the left side of the table near the end of the bench, somehow having gotten stuck between Namjoon and Jimin, which is exactly what he wanted not to happen. Why was he even here? He wondered. He would much rather have been at home watching TV or eating ramen or even be at work. At least at work he wouldn't have to be around Jimin. Or any of his friends, for that matter.

The night seemed to drag on forever. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, taking turns on the karaoke machine or, as with what happened with Jungkook, joining in at random points just for the sake of doing so. For the most part, no one was singing legitimately, but rather in that joking manner you do when you're with a bunch of people or filled with so much excitement that you can't sing in what one might call a 'serious' tone. There was laughter, there were loud voices and cheering and smiles from everyone except that sad little mint-haired boy who hadn't opened his mouth once since he got here.

"Alright, guys, I wanna sing one on my own this time," Jimin said at one point. Hoseok let out a prolonged whine, but soon beamed at his friend.

"Go ahead, Chim Chim, it's your birthday, after all."

"Yeah, Jiminie," added Taehyung. "We won't interrupt this time. Promise."

Jimin swept his gaze over the five people looking up at him, and he smiled in a grateful manner, then thanked them softly. He rose to his feet, picked up the remote in one hand and his microphone in the other, and finally selected a song from the karaoke machine. A song he had been thinking of for a long time now, a song that held a special place in his heart ever since the day he realized he was in love with Yoongi.

He sang it to him. With his eyes ever trained on the mint-haired boy, Jimin sang his heart out to Yoongi, who at last raised his head the moment he realized that Jimin was looking at him. And he listened.

"All this is no coincidence
Just, just I could feel that
The whole world is different than yesterday
Just, just with your joy
When you called me, I became your flower
As if we were waiting, we bloom until we ache
Maybe it's the providence of the universe
It just had to be that, you know I know
You are me, and I am you

As much as my heart flutters, I'm worried
The destiny is jealous of us, just like you I'm so scared
When you see me
When you touch me
The universe has moved for us
There wasn't even a little miss
Our happiness was meant to be
Cause you love me and I love you

You are my blue mold, saving me
My angel, my world
I'm your calico cat, here to see you
Love me now
Touch me now

Just let me love you
Just let me love you
Since the creation of the universe
Everything was destined
Just let me love you

Let me love, let me love you
Let me love, let me love you..."

It was a powerful rush of emotion that surged through him. Jimin's angelic voice, the lyrics of that song, and above all else the fact that Jimin was gazing into his eyes the entire time, as if to make certain there was no mistake. It was meant for him. Jimin was singing this to him, about him, for no one but him. And he was overwhelmed. Tears surfaced behind his eyelids and began to run down his cheeks and as soon as he took notice of this, Yoongi hastily got to his feet and ran out of the room. Everyone was left speechless. But not for very long.

"Go after him, Jimin."

He didn't need to be told twice. Dropping the microphone into Namjoon's lap, Jimin took off after Yoongi, who by this point had already exited the building altogether and was halfway down the block. The distance didn't hinder anything. Especially not Jimin's dedication, the steadfast dedication that he had to see this through, to ensure he didn't let Namjoon down. Or himself. The desire to mend Yoongi's broken heart empowered him to press on even as the rain started to pour down like there was no tomorrow. And if he didn't fix this now, for Jimin, there would be no tomorrow.

The chase led them to a park several blocks away. Empty, it was now, as no one in their right mind would be at a park late at night in the middle of a rainstorm. Ten degrees colder and this would be snow. But alas, it wasn't, and so in this cold, wet, and rainy park is where they ended up. Again, Yoongi was much too tired, and he wasn't stupid enough to believe he could wear out Jimin's stubborn commitment. He came to a slow stop in the middle of the grass. Jimin did as well.

"I don't understand."

In a brittle tone the mint-haired boy spoke, unable to mask that he was still crying, despite the rain now blending with his tears. He clutched the hems of his jacket.

"I...thought I made it pretty simple to understand," Jimin said, quietly, but just loud enough to be heard over the chattering of the rain. "I can...I can spell it out for you, if you'd like. But I want you to turn around first. Could you please turn around...Yoongi?"

He did, but only with the tender guidance of Jimin's hand, pulling gently at his own hand. It had been months since he felt that touch. However something was different about it this time.

"Yoongi, I-..."

Jimin's heart was caught in his throat. He hadn't prepared for this. In a sense, though, he figured it was better this way.

"Yoongi, I've been hiding something really important from you...for quite a while now," he began, hands tensing up. "And I wish I hadn't. But I couldn't help it, I-I was scared. I was so freaking scared of facing you, because I was afraid I'd be rejected, and that would have torn me apart. But I know now that you've been scared, too. I know...I'm not alone. And I know that if I want you to face your fear that I'm going to have to face mine, so here I am, making myself vulnerable...but I don't care. I need to do this, because it's important to me, you're important to me. I really hope you know that, Yoongi. I hope you've realized by now that I haven't simply been searching you out in crowds because I liked your face or anything like that. I've told you before...how even though I'm sure you think you do, you've never...never caused trouble for me, Yoongi. On the contrary, every time I noticed you were sad, or uneasy, or troubled, or hurt, physically or otherwise, I felt myself wanting to be the person there to pick you up and set you on your feet again. I...I've wanted to be something to you. Not like Namjoon. I've never wanted to replace Namjoon, Yoongi, I could never dream of being what he is to you. I want to be something different. I want to be someone who can comfort you in a way no one else can. I want to be someone who can make you happy just by being with you. I want...to be with you. It's probably selfish of me to say this, but I want...I want you to look at me...like I'm something precious to you. Because Yoongi, I-..."

He drew in a ragged breath, determined not to cry as he noticed Yoongi's tears beginning to form again.

"I love you, Yoongi. I love you so, so much. I'll say it as many times as I need to. As many times as you want me to. From the bottom of my heart and beyond that, I love you. And I can say this now with a little more confidence than I would have before, that you...love me too, don't you, Yoongi?"

It was a gradual process at first--Yoongi mustering up the strength to raise his head, then begin nodding it, again, slowly at first, but it soon became a rapid nodding induced by the swirl of emotions in his chest. He stepped forward and threw his arms around Jimin, and Jimin did the same, and the two hugged each other so tightly and basked in this moment of warmth, each having missed what it felt like to have the other so close like this.

"I love you, Yoongi..."

"I'm sorry-"

"No, don't you dare start apologizing." Jimin pressed his hand against the back of Yoongi's head. "In fact, I don't want to hear you say anything at all unless it's that you love me or that you want me to kiss you."

"I want you to kiss me."

The rain was still whispering loudly around them, and Yoongi's voice had been so faint, Jimin thought he had misheard him. Pulling back his head, he stared at Yoongi, unblinking, and asked in a disbelieving tone, "What did you say?"

"Don't make me say it again. Just get it over with."

"G-get it over with? I don't want it be something you're forcing yourself to do, Yoongi, I-"

"I'm not forcing myself. I want you...to kiss me...Jimin."

Jimin never thought, and not once did he ever imagine, that he would hear that sentence come out of Yoongi's mouth. And the soft-spoken 'Jimin' at the end gave it a more stirring and emotional effect. With those words ringing with clarity in his mind, Jimin took the boy's face in his hands and placed his lips on Yoongi's, delicately, because Yoongi was precious to him. And at that very moment it almost seemed as though everything around them disappeared, as though everything behind them didn't matter. All that mattered was this person in front of them. Jimin didn't want to break the kiss. He had waited so long for this--that little peck he had given Yoongi when he was sleeping couldn't compare. Despite the rain, Yoongi's lips felt so warm, everything just felt so, so warm, and so...happy. He was happy. Yoongi...was happy. Because all doubts and misunderstandings and fears were gone now. All that was left were two joyfully beating hearts.

When Jimin finally pulled away from the kiss, his cheeks were as red as Hoseok's hair, Yoongi's even more so. They had their foreheads resting against each other for a long moment, not only to catch their breath, but so that they could gaze into each other's eyes and take it all in. Jimin couldn't stop himself from smiling.

"I hope you know I'm not gonna leave you alone for a while. You can come over my house, or I'll go over yours, I don't care, I just want to be with you. Is that okay? Of course it's okay. You don't have a choice now. You're stuck with me. So my house then? I still have all those movies I borrowed from Tae months ago. We could have a sleepover for real this time."

Yoongi smiled at him, a loving fondness in his eyes.

"I'd like that a lot, Jimin."