“THERE ARE POEMS INSIDE YOU THAT
THE PAPER CAN'T HANDLE.”

Seokjin was watching a little girl in front of him, laughing and playing giddily.

The little girl seemed determined to catch a white butterfly as she ran around the field with her hair flowing in the air freely. She fell to the ground and missed the small insect several times. But giving up wasn’t in her dictionary. Her mother was reading a book, sitting a few metres away under a large tree. She often took glances at her daughter and offered graceful smiles.

Finally, the little girl caught the butterfly. She had the proudest grin on her face as she held the butterfly's wings and ran off to show her mother. He noticed the mother's smile fading upon seeing her daughter's possession. She whispered some words to her daughter politely; and the next moment, holding a little pout, the girl set the butterfly free, even waved at it. Maybe her mother advised her not to go around trapping animals from their freedom. 

He once heard childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. He could exactly relate to that. He thought he was the happiest when he was a child, beloved by his family and friends. His high school life was also great, full of awesome friends and endless fun. He never was the type to sit for study and think of the solution of pi. All he did was enjoy his youth with his family and friends, that was the very reason he had no regrets from that moment of his life.

However, does every child get to experience happiness the way he did?

He never asked himself this until yesterday, when that mysterious girl confessed she ran away from her home at the age of 18. Running away wasn’t the concern here. But the reason what made her do it in the first place.

As far as his knowledge, most teens run away because of drug and alcohol abuse. Some children find it difficult to adjust to their family members or critical home situations. Some teens run away to escape abuse. It's obvious they don’t believe home can protect them from the problems they’re trying to escape. Now the question arose, what was her reason?

Seokjin glanced around before taking a look at his watch. There were still 5 minutes left. He didn’t know what made him act on his conscience and arrive at their destination earlier. Well, he was late yesterday so he could make it up for her by doing this hopefully.

He heard some footsteps nearby so he turned around and met the girl's surprised eyes. Who wouldn’t be?

“Jin-ssi, you're early today,” she showed him a sweet smile and took a seat next to him on the bench, her arm was occupied with a book.

He didn’t feel the need to answer her.

After she settled down, she also looked at the little girl who was now busy receiving kisses from her mother, the sound of her giggles echoed around the park.

She smiled a little. “I heard if people had a chance to travel back to their past, they would choose their childhood.”

He glanced at her.

“Where would you go if you also had the chance?”

He was never asked this question. To be honest, he never even thought about this. A chance to go back to the past?

He wondered if he would also go back to his childhood. Yes, it was a precious time of his life. But it was also the time he encountered those enemies disguised as friends who later shattered his fame, his career, his everything. Could he be prepared to meet them again?

“I-I don't know,” he murmured, gazing down at his feet on the ground.

“Me too.”

He took a glimpse of her face innocently. Slightly he was glad; maybe not everyone in this world wanted to go back to their childhood. Like both of them. His reason was valid. However, what was hers?

He couldn’t help but continuously glance at the book she had on her lap. Personally, Seokjin wasn’t a fan of books. He wasn’t like those kinds of people who found peace in reading poetic lines and endless imaginations. But the cover somehow intrigued him because he couldn’t stop staring at it.

Yoon Min found his eyes fixed on her book. Letting out a chuckle, she took the book in her hands and offered it to him. “Do you want to see it?”

Hesitating a little, he accepted the book from her and took a long admiration of the cover. It was wonderfully attractive. Two anonymous teenage figures hugged each other tightly under a sky full of stars and shooting comets. One of the figures was slightly faded than the other. The golden and silver blurry lights were the main attraction of the cover. On the top, he read the title ‘Jalmosieun Uri Byeol-e Isseo’, as in The Fault in Our Stars.

He turned the book around to see the backside where a short description was written with the author and publisher's name. Before he could read the description, he heard the girl narrating beside him.

“It's a story of a teenage girl who is diagnosed with cancer. After joining a support group, she meets a boy with bone cancer. They find comfort in each other through the tough times and learn to lean into each other.”

Interesting.

He waited for her to tell more. But when he understood she stopped talking, he glanced at her and blurted out, “Then what?”

Yoon Min shifted her eyes at him. “You didn’t watch the movie?”

The question was unexpected. He wouldn’t ask her that if he had watched it. Even he did, he couldn’t remember anything now.

His silence earned a playful smile from her. “Why don't you find out?”

Seokjin pressed his pink lips together in a straight line before shaking his head. “I-I don't read books.”

“Is it wrong to try once?”

It would be a lie if he said he wasn’t interested in the book. But given the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if he would even read one line from the book. He barely did anything apart from sleeping, eating and spending a day doing nothing. Dr. Han used to assign him some improvement tasks which he never bothered to do them. So he doubted he'll ever read this pretty interesting book.

He didn’t answer her for the time being.

She suddenly added. “I made that cover,” There was a cheeky proud grin on her face.

Glancing at her again, he raised his eyebrows in a process to think if she was kidding. There’s no possible way she created such fascinating art! Oh wait, he didn’t even know her so why was he judging her so quickly?

“I am an illustrator at Lights Studio.” She didn’t sound like she was bragging. “I suck at drawing, but I can manage to make worthy covers for books. They wanted a new cover for the translated version and gave me the job.”

At first, he didn’t know her job and now when he knew, she turned out to be an illustrator.

He thought he should consider giving her a light compliment since he honestly was in love with the cover already. But he just knew he would never be able to do that. The lump in his throat grew bigger so he turned away to the opposite side.

“Do you want to know how I became an ARMY?”

He nodded willingly. It didn’t sound like a bad topic. She's pretty good at choosing topics, he must admit.

Yoon Min smiled and hugged her elbows. “Back in 2016, I installed a game called BTS Messenger 2 out of interest. It was my first time knowing Korean names so I was kinda confused. After I was finished, I uninstalled it. But guess what? Two names never left my mind,” there was a cheesy smile on her lips.

She knew exactly how to make him more impatient. “Do you want to guess?”

He could scoff right there in front of her but his good manners forbade him to do so.

“How do you expect m-me to guess?”

“Come on, it’s not that hard. Just two members,” She snapped her fingers before speaking, “Since it's you, I'll give you a hint.”

Okay, a hint sounded nice.

She sounded excited. “Both of them are from Hyung Line.”

Seokjin looked away quickly to think. Okay, so he just had to guess two members out of the eldest ones. Hoseok, Namjoon, Yoongi and him are the ones. But who could the two be?

All he knew he couldn’t lose this simple question to a mere fan girl. He would just look stupid and he'll lose his self-respect as well. Also, she was right about considering this fun little quiz to be easy. She even gave clues so he had to win at any cost.

Suddenly, he remembered her saying it was her first time knowing their names. So those two names had to be easy for her to remember even after she deleted the game or whatever.

Glancing at her slowly, he gulped down to see her facial expression. She was just normally waiting.

He opened his mouth but closed it due to the countless doubts about himself. Come on, it wasn’t that hard.

“Nam Joon and...m-me?”

Yoon Min blinked twice before her lips curved into a smile as she nodded. That nod gave him a big relief mentally. He succeeded. Of course, he was always the clever one.

“Daebak, how did you figure it out?” She even clapped for his victory.

He wanted to smile but smiling was the hardest thing for him.

She continued, relaxing her arms on her lap. “Well then, in 2019, I heard my friend bragging about a group's songs and characters. So I decided to give it a try and told her to share some songs. That’s when I knew, it was the very same band I met years ago and the owners of the names I never forget. Yeah, I became a die-hard fan right after hearing one song.”

Years ago, Seokjin always was inquisitive of every ARMY's story. How they met them, what made them a fan, why they supported them greatly. But as the tragic incident cut open his heart and took away his hopes; he also lost that cute wish in the time-lapse. However, today, without wishing for it, he eventually got to learn about how a girl found their music in the most unexpected way in her life. It's as if the aspiration from when he was still a beloved idol just came true today without any reason.

He was indeed perplexed by the unseen sides of fate.

☆THE FAULT IN OUR STARS☆

THANK YOU FOR READING
╚»★«╝

A/N: Boring ending, I know. Btw, all the artworks are collected from Pinterest so kudos to the owners.