~Trigger warning on this one~

January 2021

Walking through the Big Hit company building, Moonhae heads for one of their dance practice studios. There's some moves she wants to tweak for her world tour, that's been finally re-announced for this spring. Entering the studio however, she notices it's already occupied.

Just one figure in the center of the room, hunched over, leaning against their knee as they sit to catch their breath. Walking closer, she can tell it's Jimin by the reflection in the mirrors. His chest rises and falls, but his expression looks dazed and out of it. His long and baggy clothes seem to be swallowing him whole as he just sits there.

"Jimin?", she steps up next to him.

Finally noticing her presence, he whips his head up towards her, before standing quickly. He seems slightly unsteady on his feet though, swaying a little as he still catches his breath.

"You okay?", she asks, seeing him blink aggressively a few times.

"Yeah...", he croaks, seemingly trying to adjust his vision as he puts a hand to his forehead, "Just... Need some water I think..."

"Maybe you should take a break, Jimin", she suggests while grabbing a water bottle from the counter in the corner of the room and handing it to him.

After thankfully taking a sip, he speaks again, "I've got to work on the choreography though."

"It won't do much good, if you obviously aren't feeling well", she conveys worriedly.

Not listening to her, he sets the water down to try whatever move he was working on before. Doing a spin though, he slips out of balance. Although he catches himself, he hunches over his knees for a moment, clearly struggling.

"Fuck", he swears under his breath, "This stupid move."

Seeing him like this, a thought comes to Moonhae's mind that she doesn't even want to verbalize.

"Jimin...", she starts hesitantly, "Are you...?"

"Aya's going to visit soon", he says to ignore her, not looking too pleased, "She's coming to our performance."

"Oh, that's good", Moon replies, "Isn't it?"

He merely nods, staring down at his feet, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Jimin, but seriously", she tries to start again, "Are you-?"

This time he quickly cuts her off, "You're right, I should take a break. I'll see you later, okay?"

Just watching him leave with a pained expression, her chest tightens. She doesn't want it to be true. Maybe he's just going through a rough patch. But what other explanation is there for him being so pale and lifeless?

It hasn't been too long since concerts and shows are allowed to be held with fans again and this performance is one all the members are looking forward to. Most of them have invited their significant other's to attend.

Moonhae sits backstage on a couch with Taehyung before the show starts. While the others get ready, they snuggle up to one another, watching everyone else in the dressing room doing their thing.

"So annoying", Moonhae groans into Taehyung's ear for the hundredth time. She's been watching Hoseok on the other side of the room, who's canoodling with Youna.

While Youna is her usual stand-offish self, Hoseok showers her with hugs and kisses nonetheless. He talks nonstop, getting her to let out the occasional giggle or smile. They're quite cute, but Moon is having none of it.

"What is your issue?", Taehyung responds, following her gaze, "They're in love, let them be."

"She bothers me", she pouts defensively, "Her presence bothers me. Did you see the way she looked at me when I walked in? Like I'm something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe."

"You're exaggerating", he rolls his eyes.

"No, I'm serious. She hates me as much as I hate her", she talks back.

"Well, eventually you'll have to get along, because look how committed Hobi is", Taehyung gestures towards the boy who tries feeding Youna a strawberry.

"Not a chance", she puckers her lips and diverts her attention to Jin plopping himself next to them on the couch.

Although he's just scrolling through his phone and not paying attention to the cuddling couple, Moonhae decides to start a conversation, wanting a distraction.

"Congratulations, Jin", Moonhae says, making him look up at her.

"For what?", he seems confused.

"Moving in with Hyunae and not exposing your relationship to the world", she smiles.

"Yeah... Honestly, we were pretty lucky", Jin runs a hand through his hair, "The apartment's registered under my name and no one knows Hyunae, so they just assume she's another resident in the building."

"Do you know when you'd ever announce your relationship?", she asks curiously.

"I don't know", he replies honestly, shrugging a little, "We like things the way they are and the media can be really cruel. I mean you've seen harsh they were being on Jimin and Aya. I think we're just going to hold off for now."

Moonhae nods understandingly, having a lot of first hand experience with the cruelness of news outlets and the media. She's about to say something, when someone new enters the backstage area.

"Isn't that Yoongi's boyfriend?", Taehyung eyes Minjun, who immediately runs up to embrace a cheerful looking Yoongi.

He's come into the room with some girl in tow however, which Yoongi takes notice of and hugs as well. She's definitely cute, her dark auburn hair falling sweetly around her shoulders and her smile directed at the pale boy seems so warm.

"Who's that?", Moon narrows her eyes at her.

"That's Myeong", Jin responds all-knowingly. For some reason he's always the first to know what's going on in all relationships among the BTS members.

"Myeong?", both Taehyung and Moonhae furrow their brows.

"She's Minjun's best friend."

"Why do they seem so close?", Moon can't help but ask.

"Well, they are", Jin tries to explain, "Apparently, Minjun and Myeong are super close and Yoongi's become close friends with her as well. Honestly, the whole thing's a little fishy cause the three of them hang out a lot. I asked Yoongi about it and he said there's nothing to worry about, because Minjun's gay and Myeong's straight."

"Hmm...", she contemplates while observing how friendly they are with each other.

Before they can discuss the matter any further, another person enters the backstage area. A person that makes Taehyung stir next to Moonhae, pulling out of her grasp to get up.

"What are you doing here?", Taehyung asks his sister, who's just stepped into the room.

"Uh, you invited me?", Eunjin reminds him.

"Yeah, to the concert. Not the backstage area", he mumbles, slightly disconcerted.

"What's the big issue?", she responds annoyedly, "One of the security guards recognized me and brought me back here. Relax, okay?"

"Fine", he mutters back, watching her strut over to where Moonhae's sitting and plop down next to her.

As they immerse into conversation, Taehyung moves over to the little buffet table in the corner, being all pouty as he does. Jungkook's already piling food up on his plate without a care in the world. While Taehyung grabs a few chips, he notices the maknae's dazed demeanor. Looking up at him, he sees his gaze fixated at something on the other side of the room. To his displeasure, following that gaze he spots Eunjin, speaking excitedly with Moonhae while her skirt seems to be riding up on her thigh.

"Whatcha looking at, Jungkook?", Taehyung says to him darkly.

"Huh?", the youngest snaps his eyes away immediately, his ears as well as his cheeks going red. He wavers as his hyung just waits for further explanation, "Um..."

"Watch it, Jungkook", he warns him before slowly stepping away with his chips in hand.

The maknae gulps uncomfortably, refraining himself from glancing back over at Eunjin. Although he does his best to stay out of trouble, she obviously doesn't, for a minute later she appears by his side at the buffet.

"Hey, Jungkook", she slyly leans against the table.

"Oh, hey...", he nervously glances over at Taehyung, but he seems to be distracted by Namjoon at the moment.

"Yeah, so, sorry I didn't show up last time. I'm just not that into the whole one-night-stand thing. Especially with my brother's friends", she speaks lightly as if she says these things everyday, while grabbing a cherry to pop into her mouth.

"Probably wasn't such a good idea anyway", he watches her bite into the tiny, bright red fruit.

"Yeah... Really bad idea...", she meets his eyes and the temperature in the room suddenly seems to skyrocket.

Letting his tongue run over his bottom lip in trance, she snaps out of it sooner than he does.

"Anyway", her tone changes as she laughs a bit, "I can't believe you actually bought me one of those stupid floaty sharks."

"I'm a man of my word", he grins, trying to cover up for the fact that he does feel a little stupid for buying it.

"I find that hard to believe", she pops with raised eyebrows.

"Then let me show you", he smirks, "You come by my place and I can finally give you your present."

"Uh huh", she nods with an amused expression, "But no."

Her strutting away from him with a mischievous grin, he can't help but chuckle a little. She always leaves him hanging and seems so happy about it.

"Alright, Bangtan, let's wrap it up", one of their managers calls out, "We're out in 10!"

Jungkook, still standing there with his filled plate, scoffs to himself. He can't believe someone has actually managed to distract him from his food for once.

The performance goes off without a hitch, ecstatic armys cheering them on as they give it their all. Of course it helps when they have a few of their loved ones amongst the audience as well. Right after they finish, they gather backstage, all sweaty and out of breath. The staff fanning them and them chugging water slowly manages to cool them down.

Moonhae comes along to congratulate the boys, Eunjin tagging along not too far behind. Even Hyunae had come to watch the concert, despite not being backstage earlier.

"Happy with the show?", Taehyung eyes Eunjin, who's smiling faintly as Moonhae dabs a washcloth against his sweaty face and neck.

"You guys are pretty good", she downplays it and suppresses the big grin that's forming across her lips, "You should've invited me to more shows when we were younger."

"We were broke then", he merely responds, almost seeming sorry.

"Well, at least now I understand why you guys are the biggest boy band on the planet", her compliments never sound like compliments in the way she says them.

"Well thank you", Taehyung responds slowly.

"Anyway, gotta get home. Have an early morning on the job", she slaps her brother on the back before moving towards the exit.

As she does though, she can feel a pair of eyes on her. Glancing over, Jungkook stands there, wiping his sweat while holding a bottle of water. His black hair looks wet under the dim lights, sticking to his neck and forehead, but somehow making him so much more attractive. His chest rises and falls, but his eyes never leave her.

So she decides to pull a risky move, knowing Taehyung is close by. She strolls over, right next to him, grazing his arm. While he looks down at her quizzically, she leans up a little to whisper something into his ear.

"You're really hot when you're like this, Kook", she whispers lowly, sending shivers down his spine.

His eyebrows raised as she pulls back, she smirks at him. With a last little wink, she walks off, leaving him so much more confused than before and somehow yearning for more once again.

Soon after, Aya steps into the dark corridor backstage, looking around like a lost deer.

After a few moments, she spots Jimin sitting on the floor against one of the walls. His hunched over figure breathes heavily, but even under the dim backstage lights, he seems unusually pale.

"Jimin?", Aya goes to kneel next to him, placing a soft hand on his shoulder.

"Hey", he manages a crooked smile as he gazes up at her, "Did you like the show?"

"It was amazing", she speaks quietly, "But are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. As long as you liked it", he leans forward hazily to embrace her.

Although he's hot and sweaty, she reciprocates the hug, not having seen him in about a month. As she does however, she can't help gasping a little. Even though his figure was pretty small when she last saw him, he must've drastically lost weight over the last four weeks. There's nothing but skin and bones that she holds onto whilst he leans into her arms.

"Jimin...", her voice quivers as her stomach drops, "Have you been eating?"

Pulling his head back, he gazes at her in confusion, "Eating? What are you talking about?"

"You've lost so much weight", she almost whispers, the whole thing so scary to her.

"Of course I've eaten", he suddenly takes offense, moving out of her hold, "It's just cause it's concert day. It's fine."

"But Jimin... You were already so thin", she reaches for the hem of his shirt in distress, slightly lifting it to see exactly what she feared. His ribcage is a lot more visible than it usually is, almost sickly.

"Stop it!", he quickly shoves her hand away, hiding his body again.

With his angry expression, he pushes himself up off the floor, swaying a little as he does. Not wanting to face Aya as her eyes full of tears are on the brink of spilling over, he bitterly runs off towards the dressing rooms.

As soon as he's out of sight though, the girl can't help bursting out into tears. The boy she loves so much is crumbling right in front of her and he won't even admit it. Everyone backstage glances over at her tensely, unsure of what's going on, but Moonhae immediately runs to her side.

"Hey, hey, what happened?", she takes the sobbing girl into her arms.

"H-he... J-Jimin's not eating!", she cries out.

Hearing that twists Moon's heart around. She knew it. It's not like she hadn't seen him almost passing out and refusing to eat with the others. His weight loss was noticeable as well, although he's been wearing baggy clothes lately. But just like Jimin himself, she didn't want to believe he's back to old habits again.

"Oh, Aya...", she speaks softly to her friend, "I know it's hard. It's awful. But we're going to help him, okay?"

"B-but how? A-and w-why does he do this?", she whimpers.

"First, let's go home and then we'll talk, okay?", Moonhae suggests, helping Aya up as she nods.

There's a lot that Aya doesn't understand about Jimin's mind and it's dark places yet.