Moving Forward

11. In Jimin's Room: Viral

Taehyung and Jungkook were lying on opposite sides of Jimin, alternately reading to him the comments on Jungkook's post which had generated over 7m likes and 25k comments since the day he posted it.

"Oppa!!! Where are you??? It's so good to see you!!! Missed you so much!!!"

"Oppa!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭"

"Taehyung oppa!!! Are you okay???" Taehyung was lying on the floor in the picture and there were many comments asking how he was or if he was hurt.

"Bangtannies, when are you coming back? Please come back 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭"

"Where is Jimin oppa???"

"It's so good to see our boys together again... are you okay now? Take your time, no one is going anywhere. ARMY is here for you."

"Yoongi, marry me!!!"

They laughed out loud at the last comment and nudged Jimin gently. "Jimin-hyung, wake up and read this. They're asking about you... so many hearts and marriage proposals..." Jungkook laughed. He knew it, nothing had changed.

The four hyungs were having a serious conversation on the couch. Days after Jungkook's post, Namjoon received a message from HYBE, inviting them to come in for a meeting.

"I was having dinner with my parents when I got this, I almost choked. My mom wanted to call our lawyer," Namjoon told them. HYBE was still an un-mentionable name in their household. Although he suffered only sprains and bruises during the accident, the thought that they placed her precious son in grave danger made HYBE her personal enemy.

"They're probably worried that we might be making a comeback on our own," Suga said. "They own BTS."

"We own shares of HYBE too," Hobi reminded them. "We're not, are we? Making a comeback?" he asked.

"No!" was the simultaneous reply. They were all approaching 40 and were too old to be the BTS that ARMY remembered.

"I wouldn't be able to do our choreography even if I wanted to," Namjoon said.

"Jungkook-ah, your post gave us another thing to think about," Jin shouted to the back. Jungkook didn't look up from the IG comments.

"At least we know that ARMY is still there." Suga felt relieved. Now it was just a matter of reaching out.

Jungkook's post traveled to other social media platforms and was still trending many weeks after the original posting. Now everyone all over the world was talking about BTS again. There were already hundreds of tweets with their picture.

"Can we respond to these posts?" Namjoon asked.

"It's best not to," Jin advised. "Unless we're ready to engage consistently again."

"Let's just do things naturally, post when we feel like it but not force ourselves if we don't." Hobi didn't want to go back to the previous grind of delivering content non-stop. They were past that. "Taetae," he called out to Taehyung. "Do you want to post something?"

Taehyung's social media accounts were controlled by his agency. "I don't have an account," he replied to Hobi.

"I'll make you one," Jungkook volunteered and went on it right away, creating one in Instagram. He had a hard time finding a name that no one else had used before though.

Taehyung decided on wbv9522 and Jungkook found it wasn't taken. When the account was made, Jungkook asked to take his picture, but Taehyung refused. He carefully took Jimin's hand in his. He had placed a friendship bracelet on Jimin, which he and Jungkook were also wearing. Then he asked Jungkook to photograph their hands intertwined and post the picture. ARMY would recognize their hands.

"Taehyung, maybe we should ask permission first." Suga told him. Jimin's parents might not like it. Taehyung didn't answer. He wanted to share this moment with Jimin to people who still cared for them.

"It's okay," Jin assured Suga. The maknae line was very close, and although they looked like they were always sharing light moments, he sensed their sadness at the fact that Jimin remained unawake. He felt that, more than the physical injuries that Taehyung suffered from the accident, he was deeply wounded by Jimin's state, and this wound was not healing.

"No one's seen it yet," Jungkook reported after posting. He decided to help it a bit and pressed the heart with his account and posted on the comment box a purple heart. It probably took an hour, but the views were rising within the allowable limits of IG. He was afraid it would crash at any moment.

"Here we go..." Namjoon sighed. He wondered where all this would take them. As soloists they did have their own following, but it was nothing compared to when they were BTS. Their present popularity was more comfortable and allowed them to live a normal life for an artist. That could all change.

"Do we want to be out there again?" Suga asked everyone.

"No, I like where we are now." Hobi answered. "I don't want to go back to the time when we would need a lot of security just to go from one place to the other."

"Is there a halfway to this? When we start with ARMY again, can we say that we only want the involvement up to a point? They will always want more." Namjoon was stuck with questions to questions again.

"Maybe we can," Jin answered. "Maybe we can ask them to try." He believed that it was love for them that pushed ARMY forward that night of the accident, the kind of love that didn't respond to reason. If they would meet ARMY again, he wanted the chance to tell them that love sometimes meant holding back. "I want the chance to talk to ARMY just one time about the accident."

"How?" They all asked.

Questions to questions....