my mom always told me to smile, because I looked better that way.
I knew she meant well, but from the start I could tell that something was wrong. is, wrong.
my only reaction was that a smile is just a frown upside down.
"skin wouldn't bruise if we weren't meant to get hurt, jiminie,"
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it was routine in our household to exercise every week, so as a kid my parents took me to a park near my district, where I met a boy.
my first thought was that he looked like a kitten; moody but too adorable to resist—so I tried to introduce myself, but ended up crying after tripping over a seesaw and hurting my elbow.
"it's only a bruise, it's not like you're bleeding or anything," he knelt in front of me despite being so young, but I was younger. younger and so much more dumb. "don't be such a crybaby."
"b-but it h-hurts," I had whimpered, my eyes too squinted due to my pout, that along with the large tears rolling down my cheeks blurred the perfections of his youth.
"tsk, such a baby," he grumbled, offering his hand like we hadn't just met seconds before. "come with me, manggaetteok, my mom has a bag of band-aids in her purse if it'll help you sleep better tonight."
"m-manggaetteok?"
"what? you remind me of a rice cake," he had only shrugged, which made me giggle like the too-perfect boy I was supposed to be. "you know, I actually don't really like rice cake, but manggaetteok isn't bad."
"you're not so bad either, u-um—" damn that nervous stutter.
"yoongi," he had smiled so prettily. "min yoongi."
🍒
I was never allowed to keep small trinkets, my family said it only contributed to hoarding and making mess. I kept that band-aid, though—something kumamon-themed that I had kept hidden in my dress socks drawer until I had to move it underneath my pillow on laundry days.
I later learned that yoongi lived in Daegu, far away from me, and was only visiting a sick relative for two months.
good things never last, right?
it was ephemeral—I had finally found something special, yet something so unique that it made me feel normal.
min yoongi was a dream, an unearthly, ethereal dream that I should have never dreamt of.
🍒
"who was that, jimin? a new friend?"
"we don't have time for friends, park jimin—you need to keep focusing on your studies. friends only get in the way of your success,"
