Hey look. Twenty chapters. And a story that has spiraled well beyond what I thought it would.

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San's POV

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SecretARMY378: Hey. Sorry I haven't been replying to you lately. I've been swamped with work. I picked up so many hours to cover this holiday rush we have going on. My boss has kept me plenty busy. And... I need the won. I spent the last of mine getting a special gift. Do I regret that though? Absolutely not. I know the outcome will be worth it.

Do you have any plans for the holidays? I really don't. Mom and dad have stopped so far, so I'm hoping my family lasts through Christmas. Guess we'll see. I plan on playing games, and binging as much fanfiction as I can. Yours are still my favorite though.

I guess that's all I got this time. I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person, but... I doubt you'd want me there anyway. I'm not that interesting. See you around BangtanBadBoi.

I hit the send before I could second guess myself. I hadn't meant to ignore him on Wattpad. Not really. But I could barely talk to him without bile clawing at my throat. How could I pretend to be so nice to him on here when in real life I was so vile? One thing was for sure though, he'd never look at me the same way again if I told him who I was. So he couldn't know.

I was trying to fix this. Really, I was. I knew what I'd done was bad. I'd always known it. It wasn't fair. It wasn't nice. He didn't deserve it. I knew all of that. But right now it seemed the damage had been irreversibly done. Wooyoung wouldn't even look in my direction anymore. How could I fix this without breaking him further? That's all I did to him. I broke him. Then I broke him some more until his pieces were so indistinguishable that it was hard to believe they'd ever fit together again.

"Hey." I barely looked up as Mingi sat at the end of my bed. It was so commonplace for them to show up around here. It never seemed weird to me until very recently. Maybe they shouldn't have had such easy access to my house. But right now I didn't care. Not when it felt like an abyss would swallow me whole. "Did you hear?" he asked, shattering my silence. I shot him a curious look. "About Hongjoong and Seonghwa hyung?" he elaborated.

"No?" I said, sitting a bit straighter. Mingi's face pinched, and all at once I realized what he meant. "Oh." I flopped back against the headboard. "Oh wow. When..." I left the question stretched between the two of us. Mingi lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, lips drooping in a pout. I briefly pondered what could be running through his head. "I'm happy for them," I added as a kind of afterthought, musing this quietly to myself. "If anyone deserves happiness, it's them."

"I guess," Mingi huffed. Now I sat up again, tilting my head to the side. "What if they get so wrapped up in each other they forget about us entirely?" he blurted. I blinked slowly. That definitely wasn't the question I was expecting. "It's probably why they never visited us until now. What, suddenly we aren't good enough for them? Did... Did they ever need us?"

"Mingi, come on now." I tried to sound as reassuring as possible. But what he said... It made twisted sense. "That's not it at all. They're just busy. They've spent every day with us since getting back. Do you think they'd just forget about us like that?" I forced out a chuckle. But Mingi bit his lip and glanced at a point on the wall opposite him.

"Yeah, they could," he whispered. "They've got their own lives. Why would they want to be friends with us any longer?" He finally turned to me. "Would you want to be friends with us after what we've done?" I fell silent at that, guilt coursing through my entire body. No, I wouldn't. "Have you talked to Yeosang or Wooyoung?" Mingi asked suddenly. I flinched, thinking back to my encounter with the two of them a few days ago.

"Not really," I lied. "I wouldn't even know what to say to the two of them." Except I did know. I knew every fucking word I wanted to say to them, even if it would never be enough. We lapsed into silence after that. Mingi sat, thoughtful and brooding, at the end of my mattress, finding something fascinating in the carpet. I thumbed aimlessly through the book I'd been attempting to read. Honestly everything else paled in comparison to BangtanBadBoi's work to me. Wooyoung's stories were my absolute favorites.

"Come on," I said at last, unable to stand the silence any longer. Mingi started, glancing sideways to me. "Let's go do something. Anything. Sitting here, stewing in my own thoughts, is going to drive me nuts." Mingi complied, following behind me down the stairs. We paused to put on coats, hats, and our shoes, then I led the way outside too. Finally snow had fallen, albeit lightly, powdering the ground and the sidewalks. I watched my breath form clouds in front of my face, chuckling to myself. Mingi and I just walked side by side without saying much of anything. I listened to the snow crunch under my shoes, feeling a sort of satisfaction from the sound.

"Remember coming here in year seven?" Mingi asked as we swung into a park several blocks away from my house. I bobbed my head, looking around. Everything always seemed so much bigger then. But we'd just been smaller. The equipment on the opposite end had been freshly painted some time, now bright orange instead of pale yellow. A clump of trees sat directly to my right. I remembered many summer days under those trees. Picnics. Hiding from the sun after our parents told us not to spend too much time inside. Counting our combined money in the shade so we could plan our big summer trips. I missed it.

Was I even allowed to miss it?

"Didn't this always seem so much bigger then?" I asked, settling on a question that wouldn't break the pair of us. At least, not directly. Mingi hummed, parting from me and running through the snow, up to the equipment. He climbed up to the top, and once again I flashed back to this same scene many years ago. But with many more bodies. A lot more smiles and laughs. Now, it was empty and lonely. And it was all my fault.

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Wooyoung's POV

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Snow at last. I'd been waiting. All week, the clouds hung heavy in the sky, threatening to spill their innards but never actually doing so. Snow always got me in a writing mood in the past. So I gathered my things. My laptop. My notebook and pen (the new ones someone left for me). A mug of hot cocoa, made with milk so it was extra creamy and delicious. I sat at the bar in the kitchen, lifting the mug to my lips occasionally and staring at a blank Wattpad part.

I hadn't meant to keep it blank. I wrote a few words here and there, only to hate the sight of them a few moments later and delete them all. I wanted so bad to get into a groove again. Writing was my passion. My love. But nothing felt right. Not trying to finish Color My World even though I desperately needed to. Not trying to write the Namjin I had started somewhere else and could piece together in my mind. Not another Taekook one shot I'd been tossing around for awhile. Not the Jihope I wanted to start sometime. Nothing BTS felt right or good.

"God damn it!" I cried, slamming my palms against the countertop. I winced as the sound travelled through the quiet house. I slumped in my seat. "Writing always came so easy to me. What's wrong now? Nothing's changed. I'm still loved by my fans. I still have the same support I've always had. What's wrong with me?" I glared at the laptop like the story could write itself, lifting my mug and taking a long draft from it. A knock at the door, though, pulled me from my inner turmoil. I glanced to the clock above the stove. Who came knocking at seven in the evening on a Sunday? I slid off my seat and trudged to the door, throwing it wide open.

"Hello." I blinked at the boy on my doorstep. Yunho grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "Can I come in?" he asked. For all of two seconds, I debating slamming the door in his face. But I knew that wouldn't make me feel any better, so instead it wordlessly stepped to the side, opening the door a little wider. Yunho moved passed me, shedding his coat and hanging it on the hooks beside the staircase like so many times before. I felt numb again. "How are you?" Yunho continued, turning his attention to me.

"Do you really want to know?" I blurted. "Or are you just being polite because you feel bad for me? I'm not a charity case Yunho." He looked momentarily hurt, and of course now I felt bad. Why? They deserved it. They all did. None of them were kind to me this whole year. Why should I be nice to them?

You're better than that. And deep down, you still care about them. You always have.

"I have something for you," Yunho admitted quietly, jiggling a small box I hadn't noticed yet. I followed its movements, frowning thoughtfully. "For Christmas," he elaborated. "We always get stuff for each other for Christmas. Why should this year be any different."

"Because I'm a freak, right?" I said simply. No malice. No sadness. Just acceptance. Yunho's expression fell and he shook his head. But he also didn't offer up any words of comfort, and I was sort of grateful for that. "I didn't get you anything." Yet. I was still tossing around the idea of getting them something or not. But again Yunho shook his head.

"That's fine," he assured. "You don't have to. I just... I wanted to do something nice for you, that's all. We haven't been nice to you. At all. And this definitely doesn't make up for everything we've put you through. But I hope you like it anyway." He thrust the box into my hands. I turned it over a few times, studying it. Finally, I jutted my chin out towards the kitchen.

"Come on," I told him. "Let me make you some hot cocoa. Then we can talk."

"Oh yes please," he replied eagerly, trailing behind me into the kitchen. "Your cocoa always tastes the best. I don't know what you do to it, but it's always so much better than anyone else's." I hid my smile as I gathered the few things I would need to make him a mug. I watched as he perched on a chair at the bar, glancing around. "Not much has changed here, huh?" he asked. "Do you still have the fairy lights hanging up in your room?"

"No, I broke them," I admitted to him. I kept my back to him, not wanting to see his reaction. "I destroyed my room about a month back. Broke my lights. Tore my notebooks up. Damaged some of my books on accident." I took a deep breath to keep my composure. Silence. Then:

"Do you still remember the dances we've learned? It's been awhile." I briefly closed my eyes and counted to three. Of course I remembered those dances. I would never forget them. "San, Mingi, and I haven't tried since this summer," he continued. "I don't know why. We always did enjoy it." I set his nug of cocoa in front of him, picking up the box and studying it some more. Yunho took an appreciative sip of his drink. Finally I opened the lid, peering inside. I arched an eyebrow, reaching in and grabbing ahold of the lump of fabric.

"A BTS shirt?" I asked, skeptical. I unfolded it, my jaw dropping. A BTS shirt from their Seoul concert. None of us had gotten to attend, and we couldn't afford the merch either. These were hard to come by. "How?" I asked Yunho. He shrugged his shoulders.

"I pulled a few strings," was all he had to say. "I know it doesn't excuse my behavior. Far from it. But I do hope you get some enjoyment out of this. I almost kept it for myself. But you like BTS way more than I do. I know you'll love it." I looked down to the shirt in my hands, feeling them shake slightly.

"Thank you," I croaked out. I put the shirt back in the box, closing it back up. I was grateful. Truly I was. I didn't want to sound ungrateful to him. But at the same time I had no idea if I could bring myself to wear it. I was still a freak for liking them. That hadn't changed. It never would.

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I really gotta give Wooyoung some moral high ground here. But I also know, from experience, that hearing something time and time again just chips away at you. Even if it's not something intending to be hurtful.