withering leaves ❁ yoonmin

IV

Honestly, fuck being a goody-two shoes. It sucked most of the time, anyways. At least, this was how Jimin felt. Sure, he had a "cute and tiny little mochi" image that he needed to maintain, but that image didn't matter in the dorms.

So screw that.

Jimin laid on the couch upside down, his head hanging off the edge as he peered that the tv screen. It was playing a random English Disney movie and Jimin had trouble reading the Korean captions upside down, but oh well. Jimin didn't need captions to understand that Mufasa was dead.

The dorms had once again dulled to a silence in the absence of the other members, the only sound being the jabber of a foreign language and the African beats that played in the background.

Jimin huffed loudly, partially for the sake of relieving his boredom (it didn't work) but also just to breathe some life into the dorm. Because, seriously, when did Jimin's life begin to revolve around his hyungs and two annoying dongsaengs? Jimin was like a clingy girlfriend, always needing to be cuddled or entertained or something because anything is better than laying around like this. He was honestly repulsed with himself.

With a sigh, Jimin decided to pack up and head to the studio, rather than laze around all day doing nothing but watch movies in a language he didn't understand. He pulled on a sweater over his tank top, turning off the tv and sliding on his worn out sneakers.

He took a black face mask off the table right next to the front door, sliding it over his face. Bangtan Sonyeondan wasn't that popular yet, since it was only a few months after their debut date, but Jimin would prefer no one knew who he was when he looked like this; no makeup and raggedy old clothes.

He should have been embarrassed, really, at the state of his own attire. His black (could you even call it that anymore...?) shirt was so old and had been through so many wash cycles that it had faded to a sickly grey. Jimin was also wearing an old pair of basketball shorts from his high school days in physical education.

Which, bit the way, sucked.

No one liked you, Coach Choi!

The only unit in physed that Jimin truly enjoyed was the dance unit, but his partners had never danced before, so he was stuck doing do-si-do's and grapevines when he could have been doing aerials and pirouettes and fucking sashays around his incompetent partner.

And aside from that one random lesson in sex (aka, the awkward banana-condom lesson) physical education in high school was boring and Jimin would like to forget every single second of his time there. Not to mention, the white logo on the right side of his shorts had faded until it looked like disgusting paint splatter. Great.

Lost in his thoughts, Jimin made it to the BigHit building fairly quickly. It was only a ten-minute walk or so, but seemed much shorter. He smiled at the woman manning the front desk, and made his way into the studio that had practically been dubbed "Bangtan's Room". The other trainees were allowed to use the room, but for some reason, preferred to stick to the other practice rooms. There were boxes lining the back wall, since it did not have to be clean for a video session. Not that they did any videos in this room yet, anyways. All their dance practices were filmed in the larger room, where the trainee dance classes were held. But the idols could not practice in there as they liked, for BigHit needed the larger space for their huge class of dancers.

No one was in the dance studio when he entered, the air oddly still and smelling faintly of Hoseok's deodorant. Jimin plugged his phone in with the Auxiliary chord, pressing shuffle on the playlist and warming up in the middle of the dance floor. Jimin wanted to turn up the music louder, to its highest setting. Loud enough to drown out his own thoughts and wash them away until they were as faint as being underwater. But Jimin was considerate of the other studios around him, and kept the volume at a reasonable volume.

It was August already, just over two months their debut date. September was rapidly approaching, along with the 16th birthday of their precious maknae, which the Hyungs have planned a hidden camera for. Jimin's birthday was also the next month, his dreaded 18th birthday. Apparently, he was supposed to see his soulmate on the exact moment he was born, which sucks for Jimin because he was born at exactly 3:54 AM.

Jimin stumbled tiredly over to the far wall, laid over with white tiles and the blue BigHit logo, the first bass notes of BTS' debut song flittering around him.

He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, trying to count how many songs he had danced unconsciously to, unable to find the right number.

"I can practically hear you thinking from here."

At the sound of a familiar voice, Jimin snapped his head up to the door. "Hobi-Hyung."

"Yes, it's me. I've been here for the past 32 minutes," Hoseok raised an eyebrow. "You wanna tell me why you're pushing yourself so hard on a day off?"

"N-no reason," Jimin stuttered, feeling his Hyung's intense gaze on him. "I just... the dorm was feeling so stuffy and I n-needed to think. I just came here."

After a moment of silence, Hoseok sighed, pulling off his cap and closing the door of the studio behind him. He crouched in front of Jimin, a frown on his face. "Jimin, you've been... a little off for the past few days. Is anything going on?"

"Nothing," Jimin answered quickly. Sincerely. "I've just been a little more tired than usual. I tried to take a nap back at the dorm but it was too quiet and I haven't danced in two days-"

"It's fine, Jiminie. You don't have to explain yourself if you don't want to. If anything was going on, you'd tell me right?" Hoseok placed a comforting hand on Jimin's shoulder.

"Yes, of course I would."

The older dancer smiled and squeezed Jimin's shoulder. "Good. Now, you think you've gotten a long enough break? I saw a sequence you did that might work really well in that song Joonie is working on and I wanna see if it fits into the beat."