"Mom, please stop! Have mercy!"

"Zip it and sit down Joon, I'm dying to see your childhood pictures."

YeongMi smirked as she huddled on the couch with Mrs. Kim, going through their photo album. Once they hit his middle school years, YeongMi grew silent, staring blankly, looking up at Namjoon before looking back at the pictures.

"Namjoon...." 

Namjoon winced, recalling the years when he thought the world was against him, with no friends but the music on his phone. He regretted it deeply, and now his girlfriend was seeing him in a new light. Or rather, a dark one.

"You were that kid?" YeongMi lost her composure, her face pulling up in a boisterous laugh that filled the room. 

There was nothing attractive about the way her forehead creased, nor in the way her lips stretched into a thin line. Except, there was. Namjoon loved moments like this, where she was so amused that she was so perfectly unembarrassed, no matter how much her skin wrinkled, or how much her teeth showed. It was her careless beauty that he loved the most.

It made his own embarrassment bearable, and he found a smile creeping to his face, watching her laughing so much, even though it was at his expense.

"Don't," YeongMi chuckled, "don't feel bad Joonbug, I too, was the emo kid," she admitted, and Namjoon watched as her eyes disappeared in the creases of her smile. It was hard to picture her with a stony expression when she looked so full of life in that moment. But Namjoon recalled their rocky past, and the way she could resemble a statue when she wanted to.

"I wasn't, I just," Namjoon gave up on explaining himself, instead focusing on the way his mother leaned into YeongMi as she laughed, and the way they clutched each others arm to keep from falling over.

He really didn't think it was that funny, but if it made them happy, then he was fine with it. 

He enjoyed himself, watching as they continued poking fun at his expressions, doing bad imitations, YeongMi's being obnoxious, while his mother's were more muted. 

"You know, Yeo, this means when I finally see your childhood pictures, I get to laugh as much as I want."

YeongMi immediately frowned, and Namjoon cursed himself for unknowingly saying something wrong. He could practically see the happiness draining from her face.

"Oh, well, I don't really have very many baby pictures. After my brother got older, I guess my parents got tired of keeping track of photos, so you wouldn't have much to laugh at."

With every new thing she revealed, Namjoon grew more and more curious about her family. Who was this brother, and how did she manage to love him so much when he was arguably the cause of her parent's neglect? Though, Namjoon had to admit that it wasn't the brother's fault, he still couldn't believe that YeongMi didn't harbor at least a bit of contempt for him. And who were these parents, and how did they manage to resist loving YeongMi with all their hearts?

YeongMi noticed the suddenly somber atmosphere, and she forced a smile, trying to bring back the brightness in her eyes. "They took lots of videos, though."

It wasn't enough to bring up the mood, and YeongMi was relieved when GeongMin burst through the door, rushing into the room with dozens of stories on the tip of her tongue, just waiting to talk, and talk, and talk.

And YeongMi managed to disappear into the background, once again. 

This time though, Namjoon was there to join her in the darkness.