The Most Beautiful Moment in Life

Chapter 2: Hold Me Tight

My grandmother was dead.

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I didn't know what to do. It was like deja vu from the night I heard my parents disappeared, except this time I knew my grandmother would never come back to me.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I surveyed her frail but peaceful state. She wasn't breathing at all. I felt helpless, tears stinging my cheeks as they fell onto my grandmother's small figure. I walked over and held her wrist, praying in my heart, halmeoni, I wish I held you tighter when I could, but now I hope I can let you go and be free because I know you'd want me to be happy.

I hope you're happy in heaven too, halmeoni.

With another pang of grief and guilt, I realised that my grandmother was the only person I could talk to and share my feelings with. She was always there listening, even though she couldn't do anything about it. I felt broken and overwhelmed. I ran out of the house, letting my feet lead the way.

"Jungkook! Taehyung! Jimin! Namj--" I yelled, not caring if I attracted too much attention. Blinded by tears, I couldn't see where I was going, but somehow I knew it was the right direction.

"Y/n! Hey, over here!" someone called. I wiped off my tears and registered a blurry shape at the end of the road; I immediately ran towards whoever it was.

It was the seven boys. Thank goodness. Jungkook asked, "Y/n, I told you to call us for help five minutes ago and you're here right now." He laughed. When no one else did he stopped. I glared at him as if to say, stop being so insensitive my grandmother just DIED okay? and no one spoke after that. It was a kind of mutual understanding.

I didn't have to explain anything; they know it all. "I'm sorry," Yoongi said unexpectedly. He wore a sombre expression as if it was the funeral of one of his friends; it was a little startling that he didn't cry, nor did many of the others.

"H-hey, guys, why don't we go to the arcade in town or something, you know, just to take our minds off this thing," Hoseok suggested, hiccoughing a bit.

I bit my lip. "I have to work at the cafe nearby in five minutes though..." I trailed off meekly. As much as I wanted to tag along with them, work was even more important to me now since I needed money to give my grandmother a proper funeral service.

"Chillax, y/n-ah, we'll pay for the food and fun," Seokjin and Jimin said in unison, and we all burst into peals of laughter.

"Fine, let's go!" I said, already running ahead. They started chasing after me and I felt a smile spread on my face for the first time in years. We laughed and joked around as we headed on the main road like no one's business.

Time skip...

The arcade was pretty far from our neighbourhood, but we managed to get there in good time. It looked like those arcades my parents brought me to when I was little times a million. Neon lights installed in every game flashed at maximum intensity, music blasting so loudly I felt my eardrums start to tremble in fear of imploding and all the enticing prizes and rides and games beckoned me closer. It looked amazing. I entered feeling like a brand new person who loves being blinded and deafened by the arcade stuff.

The boys followed close behind, and I saw Hoseok and Jungkook hyping up to the music, screaming and dancing random dance moves (A/N: *coughbaepsaecough* nothing hehe). Seokjin disappeared and reappeared at the MarioKart game with his arms thrown around it, while Namjoon found a destruction game he said he liked there. But he was so engrossed that he crashed part of the system. Taehyung went to ride all the kiddie rides in the arcade and Jimin ran to a plushie claw machine. "YESSSSS I FOUND MY JAMS!" he squealed causing some people to stare at him. Even Yoongi seemed to have lost his $$$wag and screamed "KUMAMON!!!" at the passing guy in the Kumamon costume and didn't hesitate to take a dozen selfies with it.

In short, the boys wrecked the whole arcade. Aish.

But I had fun too. Yoongi recommended a new basketball game so we played that after everyone calmed down. Yoongi was pretty good at basketball, but he ended up in second-last place. Jungkook topped the leaderboard without even trying and the basketballs bounced off Namjoon's head more than they went in the hoop, making us all crack up. I was in last place because my hand-eye coordination was terrible.

In conclusion, according to Yoongi at least, the basketball game didn't require any skill at basketball whatsoever. According to the others, Yoongi was just feeling bad about losing. I agreed.

Next, we tried the dance game which Hoseok, surprisingly, turned out in the bottom half of the eight of us, while Seokjin and Namjoon made it onto the leaderboard in the game.

"Is this Opposite Day or what?" Hoseok demanded of thin air. Yoongi muttered a smol "finally" and nodded vigorously in agreement. Meanwhile, Seokjin sounded like he polished the whole arcade with his laugh and it was so contagious that everyone else started to giggle too. After all the random chuckles have 90% subsided, we went to play air hockey.

Air hockey was fun as Seokjin and I were playing with ourselves until we lost to our respective opponents. But because everyone thought our playing style would clash very badly we faced each other off and I lost 3:5. I admit I kinda lost my energy there for some reason.

After a few hours of fun, we went to a nearby fast food store because they knew one of the workers, or rather, one of the workers knew them. Seokjin also says that the fried chicken was excellent there so I agreed to go with them. "Y/n, this is gonna be the best chicken you've tasted," Taehyung said, patting my shoulder in excitement. When we arrived, a young worker immediately noticed us and came over. He greeted us with a smile and a wave and got some fried chicken with coconut flakes ready for us at the counter really quick.

"He knows what we like because we used to come here often when we were kids, like all eight of us. This place used to be open since then," Jimin reminisced, his eyes curved into gentle crescent moons.

"He's kind of like Hoseok, the loud cheery type," I observed with amusement, which caused Jimin to giggle and nod.

"Y-hic-yes," he said while hiccuping. I remember I used to do that when I laughed too hard when I was little too, but nowadays I almost never do that.

"Guys! The chicken's here!" Jungkook announced, his bunny eyes and smile lighting at the sight of fooooooddd. Behind him, I saw Hoseok imitating a full-on marching band (well, the trumpet part to be exact) and Seokjin and Taehyung carrying the tray of chicken like it was an offering to the gods (A/N: I personally think Namjesus likes chicken and J-pope likes chicken noodle soup) and jokingly bowed down to it when they placed it onto the table.

"Random extra kids, I don't want to know you guys anymore," Yoongi said.

"Yoongi hyung, you're smiling. Now eat the chicken before the others get it," Jimin said. I realised he cares a lot about his friends. I grabbed a piece of chicken myself and bit into it. It was so gooooodddd. The sweet batter coated tender chicken with the tiniest hint of chilli and coconut flakes. I finished it in two bites and snagged another one from right under Seokjin's nose, earning myself a "yah!!!!" from him that caused everyone to laugh. That was the best meal I'd had in a very long time.

Between mouthfuls of tantalising chicken and soda (Hoseok might have drunk a bit too much sprite), we talked about a lot of funny things that happened to us and Namjoon told Jimin "you got no jams", which will definitely be the most iconic line in memes history, mark my words. Hoseok even chimed in with a "you very no fun" which left us clutching our full stomachs, wheezing from laughter.

Sooner than I expected, we finished all the chicken, and I had a suspicious feeling that Seokjin might have smuggled some out of the store. as we walked back to our neighbourhood with full stomachs, there wasn't much to chat about, but the silence was a comfortable one so we didn't mind.

There are some things in life that don't need to be told but need to be felt.

They're the only friends I got. I need to hold the friendship like a forever-escaping balloon and fly along with it if I have to so that we can still be happy together. I don't want to lose them.

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A/N: Purple those who read this :)

u know who u are but idk lol