take two | VMIN | BTS

the moment i knew

It was Park Jimin's wedding anniversary.

It was his first wedding anniversary and he was spending it scrubbing dishes at his in-laws' house, set to the background music of his mother-in-law's shrill voice nagging away at him.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, as he continued to mercilessly scrub hardened grime away from dishes that had been languishing in the sink for a week, humming occasionally to let his mother-in-law know that he was listening to her.

Certainly, there were better ways to celebrate one's first anniversary than washing your in-laws' dishes without gloves on, and even so, it was hardly a reason to smile.

But Jimin couldn't help it. He smiled because he was happy. He smiled because no matter how far from ideal this was, his life had been so much worse before he married Choi Jaehyun.

Being an aromantic, asexual omega adopted into a family free of any love and support where the only thing you didn't have to worry about was money, had left things a wee bit complicated for Jimin.

It hadn't always been like that for him. When he was a baby, he had been found in a box abandoned outside a church. The cold October night hadn't claimed his life, so the Park family did.

They were a wealthy couple, Mr. Park, the son of an industrialist who built gold out of nothing but hard work and sheer will, and Mrs. Park an heiress in her own right, with everything in the world but a child.

When Jimin came into their lives, he was a happy baby, unburdened by the strains of society and the labels its evil would place on him.

A busy father, a devoted mother, and a loving grandfather, little Jimin had it all, and even though he had learned the word 'adoptee' in kindergarten from being called that word in a derogatory way, he was still largely a happy boy.

All in all his life had been positively generic up until the age of five.

It started with a cough, and quickly spiraled from there.

Jimin, who was too young to understand what was going on, didn't understand why he couldn't see his mother at home anymore, or why they had to visit the building with funny smells and scary white walls to see her. He didn't understand why she wouldn't open her eyes, or look at his drawings. When his father sat him down and told him that his mother went to heaven, Jimin didn't understand what that meant either.

Sadly, things got only more complicated from that point on.

A big fight shortly after the funeral, between Jimin's father and his beloved grandfather, took place resulting in the older man moving out.

Not long after that, another woman moved in and brought along with her a lovely-looking little girl that was Jimin's age.

When Jimin looked back at this time as an adult, he couldn't help the bitterness that filled his mouth.