"Can I ask you something, old man?" Ariel asks, sauntering into the room.

"You just did."

God, he really is like a dad. What the hell kind of joke is that? "Oh haha. I laughed so fucking hard."

"Language."

She rolls her eyes, plopping the magazine down in front of him and smirking. He dabs the corners of his mouth with a napkin, sliding his tray of food forward and picking it up. "So, what's this?"

Jimin's face goes a shade of pale Ariel didn't think was possible, but here she is, witnessing it first thing. "You think this is funny kid? Where the hell did you even find this?" he asks.

"Under your bed."

"What?! I've never owned a- ugh! That's it." Jimin stands, taking the porn magazine with him and dashing out of the room. Ariel shrugs, eyeing his food. Beans. Who the hell likes beans? Regardless, she picks up his spoon, wipes it off with his napkin, and starts eating his food. When he comes back, he stops in the doorway. "Do you do anything other than annoy me?"

She plops another spoonful of the nasty beans in her mouth and smiles. "Nope," she says after she swallows, popping the 'p'.

"You're never touching any magazines ever again, let alone po- oh my God, why am I having this conversation with a pre-teen? You should be ashamed of your behavior, going out and looking at nasty images like that."

"I'm not a preteen."

"13, I'd say that's a preteen."

"I turn 14 tomorrow." She says it before she can stop herself. Her birthday isn't something she really cares about, and celebrating it never happened in her household. She'd get a cake, maybe a present, but her birthday was just another business day for them.

"Tomorrow's your birthday? Really? You're keeping track?"

"Well, I don't have much better to do," she mumbles, averting her eyes. She places the spoon back down, hopping off the desk and trotting away from the area. "Do you want me to go to timeout or something?"

"No, I want you to stop being a bitch to me. Do we have a deal?" Jimin asks.

Ariel huffs a strand of hair out of her face and leans against the doorframe. "You're really the most entertaining one here, so I can't promise that. Sorry old man, you're stuck with me."

"Ariel, just go back to your room and leave me alone. You've already mortally embarrassed me and eaten some of my food, please just go." When she doesn't budge, Jimin grunts. "Ariel, I won't ask again."

The truth is, she doesn't want to be alone. With the others on a mission, being here is lonely. She has no friends her age in general, but of course she doesn't have anyone her age here at all. Taehyung is unconscious, and there's no pets or anything. The only person she has left is Jimin. How does she tell him that? Why is it so hard for her to ask to stay?

"Ariel, don't make me do the count to three trick." She stays still. "Alright, you asked for it. I'm going to count to three, and if you're not out of my room by the time I say 'three', I'll force you out. Up to you." Her mouth opens, but no words come out. Why is it so hard to say it? "One." Nothing. "Two." Her legs stay planted. "Three."

Jimin comes over, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her out of the room. Ariel lets it happen, keeping her eyes down the entire time. He lets out a long breath when she's fully out, him shifting his weight onto his feet. She still doesn't speak, and that's what finally has him paying attention. 

"Something wrong?" he asks.

Yes. Everything. "No, I'm fine."

"Alright, then leave me alone. Eat if you haven't. Don't bother me unless it's important." 

He shuts the door in her face, Ariel sighing. She raises her hand to knock, but she decides against it. Why would she bother? So, she goes away like he requested, keeping her hands by her side and her eyes down. Ariel passes her room, but she doesn't enter it. Not now. She wants to explore more.

This place is pretty massive. The hallways look like how she imagined school halls to be. No windows, bright white fluorescent lighting, long, never-ending corridors that make this place seem more like a prison. 

School, despite the bad things she heard about it, was always a dream for her. To be able to go and learn. Hell, she didn't even know what a deer was until Jimin told her and let her pet it. If she's being honest, that one moment was probably the best moment in her life. For once, she trusted someone. She doesn't trust Jimin now, but in that moment, she did. It felt like she had someone with her. Someone who cared. And she got to pet an animal. It was all around an amazing experience, having Jimin guide her hand to touch that beautiful fur. She'll never forget it. Ever.

There's a basement to this place, but apparently it's a maze. Like literally a maze. Yoongi and Y/n told her to avoid it. She sees it ahead of her. The doors to it, anyway. Since it's a hideout, having a maze-like basement means there's an easy way to trick anyone following her. It's a genius setup really, problem is she doesn't know how to work it. Not when she's never been down there in the first place.

She stares at the doors for a second longer, then, she turns on her heel. Food. Jimin said to get food if she hasn't already. The kitchen isn't too far away, but it's past Jimin's room. She'll have to pass it again. Pass the temptation to knock on his door and ask to stay. That's all she wants. She wants to stay with him. To not be alone anymore, like she's been all her life. With a sniffle, she prepares to walk away.

Then everything changes.

Out of nowhere, the basement doors snap open, a hand reaching out and grabbing the back of Ariel's shirt. She screams as she's thrown back into the basement, rolling down the stairs until her back hits the back wall with a 'crack'. Ariel yelps, glancing up in time to see a man there, him covered in all black attire, his face impossible to make out. 

"Min Yoongi and Y/n L/n, are they here?" he asks.

Ariel wipes saliva off her mouth, shaking her head and wobbling to her feet. "Fuck you," she says. After, she takes off, rushing down the concrete halls of the basement. Footsteps tap after her, but she ignores them. The only way she's surviving this is if she's faster and smarter than him. And now, she has to navigate this crazy ass maze of a basement to survive. The same basement she was just complaining about not knowing.

Wow, this place quite literally is a maze. It's not even a basement, it's more like a labyrinth of twists and turns, gray walls with scratches and years of use running them down. She ignores them and instead swerves down the passageways, the footsteps still there. Her head is in massive pain from rolling down the stairs, her back in the same condition, but the adrenaline coursing through her is the thing that keeps her going.

Right as she's about to turn another corner, she gets grabbed by the hair, her yelling from the pain that erupts through her body. She's thrown back to the wall, her hands taking the blow. 

Ariel turns in time for the man to attempt a punch. She ducks at the last minute, kneeing him in the balls due to her size. He grunts at the contact, her punching him the way she's seen her father do it. The way she's witnessed it done thousands of times before. The man slumps, her taking his knife out of his waistband, but she doesn't have the heart to kill him. So, she resorts to stabbing him in both thighs, ensuring he won't follow her.

The blood drips off the knife and onto the ground, her panting. She moves on with her hand throbbing from the punch, wondering if she can loop out of here with the help of the maze. 

Jimin is her first thought. She needs to tell Jimin about this. But how can she do that if she's trapped? She doesn't remember the way she came in; she was more focused on running. 

Well, shit. How the hell does she do this? Her best bet is looping around like she mentioned prior, finding a way back that way. Gosh, she had to be running for a full minute before the man caught up with her. There's no way she won't get lost going back, right?

Ariel slips through the walls, keeping her hand on it and letting the blood drip on the ground. It's a path in case she gets lost. The blood will stop eventually, so when it does, she'll consider this plan a loss and turn back. The man shouldn't be following her anytime soon, after all. He's a bit too injured to be doing that.

The very thought that someone broke into the hideout slips her mind. She'll panic over that later. For now, she has an exit to find if her body will allow it. She's weak from the hair grab and the stairs, her leaning against the wall using it as support. 

The only sounds are her hyperventilating and the splattering of blood on the ground. Although she's yet to have her period, she feels like that's what this is. The embarrassment of having blood drip on the ground behind her as she walks, is that what it is? She isn't sure, her mother never explained in detail what a period is.

She turns the next corner only for her entire world to halt. There's two men there, slowing to a stop when they see her. They both have knives in their hands, and she's sure they have guns concealed somewhere. There's some good news: they're not going to use the guns (probably). They want her for information, evident by the man from before not killing her. They'll try to defeat her and torture her for information on the others. But she won't give them up. She can't. Of course she has an attachment to her parents no matter how poorly they treated her, but this place, these people... it's the only time she's ever felt like she's had a home. With that in mind, she raises her knife, giving them a bitter smile.

"Let's get this over with, shall we?"

~~~

As soon as he heard the scream, he ran.

His pistol is in his hand, his breath jagged while he goes. The doors to the basement are swung open, so that's where he decides to enter, listening closely to the sounds the basement produces. He can faintly hear a scream, and that makes him rush down the stairs. 

"Ariel!" he shouts, clicking off the safety to his weapon. Jimin prays he'll have the discipline to hold his fire if he sees her, but truthfully, he's so terrified that he might shoot anything that moves.

Out of fear of revealing his location to potential threats, he doesn't call for her again. That doesn't change how fast his heart is beating. The way his lungs feel like they've shrunk by 80%. Maybe 90, even. His sweat is making art on the handle of his pistol, moisture also forming on his head and trailing down the sides of his face. Jimin uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe it off, him hearing footsteps in the distance. Fast ones.

He follows the sound, checking each corner. Doors and corners are the most dangerous parts of any mission. That's where the enemy has a perfect opportunity to form an ambush. 

Jimin is cautiously fast while navigating the basement, turning each corner with his pistol raised. Right when he thinks he's going to find nothing, he turns the next corner and sees a man on the ground, blood spewing out of two open wounds on his thighs.

Jimin goes to him, kneeling and watching the man let out soft grunts and groans of pain. "Who the hell are you? Why are you here?" Jimin asks, keeping his voice low to again not draw attention to himself.

"Fuck off," the man replies.

Jimin resists the urge to shoot him. Instead, he knocks him out with the butt of his gun. When he stands, he lets out a sigh of relief upon seeing a trail of blood leading down the halls. Finally, something goes right. He can find her if this is the trail she left. 

Jimin smiles albeit unknowingly, him rushing down the corridors. The blood doesn't show any signs of stopping, so he keeps his hope up. Hope is a dangerous thing, but right now, it feels like the only thing he has left. He uses it.

Without wasting any time, he increases his pace, his gun by his side as he pumps his arms to move faster. Then he hears shouts and grunts, some cries of pain too. That's what has him going full speed if he wasn't already.

"Get off me you son of a bitch!" Ariel's voice says.

Jimin's heart leaps to his throat. Time slows to a halt, the next turn he makes causing his world to flip upside down. There's one man on the ground in a pool of his own blood, another man disarming Ariel. Not only disarming her, but he threw her against the wall, a pistol trained on her head. He clicks off the safety, Ariel cowering away in horror. But Jimin, who still has the element of surprise on his side, shoots first.

The second man gets shot through the head, his body stumbling before falling over. The other man is whimpering, a knife wound in his stomach that cloaks his dark outfit in a sheet of carmine. Jimin ends him too. When the fight is over and the adrenaline leaves, Jimin stares at his pistol. He only stares. The smoke that came out of it isn't visible anymore. The two men are dead. Jimin made it.

Ariel lets out a shaky breath and pushes herself off the wall, holding her stomach and standing across from him. Jimin's eyes meet her form, his gaze softening. Her body is so broken. Her cheek has blood on it, tears filling her irises. 

"I-I protected myself pretty well, it was just the last one that uh, he got the upper hand," she's quick to say. It's as if she's trying to convince him that she's ready for something bigger than herself. Ready for fighting, for trust. Jimin would say she's earned his trust by now.

But that's not what's on his mind. His mind is flashing back to the flames. The scorch marks on his body, the choking sensation he had that day. But this time, the flashbacks leave within a few seconds at most. This time, he sees Ariel in front of him. Alive. Because he got there in time. He wasn't late. She didn't die.

"I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean for this to happen," she says, continuing her ramble. "I just, I..." Jimin drops his pistol, her barely flinching. Poor girl is so accustomed to this by now. "I want to protect myself. I do, I think I'm doing a decent job, I think that I'm doing well, I-" Jimin cuts her off. Not with his words, or with his hand. Rather with his actions.

He rushes forward and hugs her.

The girl feels frailer in his arms than he anticipated, but that doesn't bother him now. How could it? She hugs back two seconds later, Jimin closing his eyes and letting out a breath. His eyebrows crease together, his arms wrapping around her so tightly he fears he's hurting her. But when she returns the gesture, he eases into it, his hands squeezing the fabric of her shirt.

"Are you okay?" he asks in a whisper.

"Depends. Do we have alcohol?"

He chuckles, refusing to pull back just yet. "If we did, I'd be drinking it all day long. Besides, you're too young for that, kiddo. You should stick with grape juice and apple slices."

"Oh yuck, apple slices are only good with peanut butter, otherwise I don't want them."

Jimin bites back his laugh, finally pulling away. He pulls up his sleeve, wiping the blood of her face before keeping his hands on her shoulders. "Seriously, are you okay? You were holding your stomach."

"I'm okay, just got thrown down a flight of stairs, no biggie."

"Glad to hear you've kept your sense of humor."

Jimin is about to keep talking, but Ariel glances down. His brows furrow, him going to speak when she cuts him off. "I... I was lonely," she admits. Right away he understands what she means, his heart softening with his eyes.

He sighs, turning and kneeling. He can hear her confusion. "Come on, get on my back, kid. Piggyback ride." 

She happily agrees, climbing on his back and allowing him to hold her legs, her arms wrapping around his shoulders to the front of his neck. As soon as she's secure, he stands, not worrying about the two dead men or his pistol just yet.

"Kid?" he asks. She hums. "I'm proud of you." 

Jimin didn't necessarily mean for being able to defend herself. Sure, that's nice, but he meant he's proud she didn't kill the man from before when she had every right to. She didn't kill the one here either. That takes great discipline not to give into those emotions. And here she is at 13 doing that.

She nods against him, Jimin moving down the corridor and passing the blood once more. What comes next? They'll worry about that later. They'll have to lockdown the basement, and he'll have to torture that man to find out how they found this hideout. Regardless, that's a problem for another time. For now, he can put her somewhere safe. Probably with Tae. Poor girl has seen enough. She deserves a-

"Old man?"

For once, he doesn't grunt at the nickname. Actually, his ears perk up at the sound of it. It's like it's a soft melody stroking his ears. This time it doesn't bring him any pain. Not even an ounce of it. "What's wrong, kid?" He can feel her smile.

"I'm proud of you too."