Jimin was aware of the fact that he always missed things, usually important things, because they always seemed to happen whilst he wasn't there, or when he was asleep. It was incredibly irritating that he was constantly left asking 'what?' ten minutes after everyone else already knew, after it had already happened and no one wanted to talk about it. Sometimes it wasn't important but rather something amusing, a joke he hadn't heard because he had been distracted, something cool like Jungkook singing those few days ago in the back of the now broken car, the one thousands of miles away. This time it was neither of those things, it was something very important and he finally hadn't missed it, or at least not entirely.

He hadn't really been asleep when the knocking on the door had loudly sounded but rather trapped between his dreams and reality. He had been sleeping when Yoongi had climbed into the bed beside him and had accidentally woken him up. That had been rather disorientating because it had taken him a moment to remember that he had fallen asleep in their room, curled up on the floor with a stomach full of hot food for the first time in near a week. At first he had felt the sensation of the bed shifting and then a waft of cigarette smoke coming from whoever had climbed in the bed beside him. Could have been Taehyung, who he usually shared with, for the boy often smelled of cigarettes, but there had been no obvious scent of booze coupled with it. That had been the first hint that it hadn't been the boy. The second had been the fact the covers hadn't been wrenched off him rudely, and the third had been the sensation of someone actually lying beside him. Taehyung either spread out like a starfish and hogged all of the mattress or he stayed on his side, back against his. He most certainly didn't share the bed in such a manner; a manner Jimin had greatly appreciated because it meant not waking up on the floor and discovering he had been pushed out of the bed at some point in the night. He had felt the young man settling down beside him, doing so gently to try and not disturb him, legs brushing against his and his tee against his back, and he had closed his eyes again and felt himself drifting off once more. Well, at least until the pounding on the door had jolted them all awake and Yoongi had climbed back out of bed to answer it. He had just gotten comfortable too. So Jimin had pried one eye open to see Namjoon sitting up in the bed facing them, looking as wrecked as he felt, and their friend hastily pulling the lock back with fumbling fingers.

He had been caught too much by surprise to have even guessed who had been knocking on the door because he didn't even have time to sit up before Yoongi was dragging someone inside, someone that looked and sounded like Jungkook. Then the young man hit the light switch hard and plunged the room in a harsh yellow light. Jimin squinted with a hiss of pain to see that it was indeed their friend, but he looked drastically different than he had when he had last seen him.

The boy's hoodie had been worn from use but in a pretty decent shape with just some scuffing on the elbows, but there was now a massive tear in one of the sleeves, on the shoulder seams so that he could see the grey of his tee-shirt sleeve peeping through the hole. For some reason his eyes focused on that first, as if that was the most obvious and shocking thing about his appearance. Dark hair a tattered mess that looked to be the result of snagging hands, from a few hard tugs that would have hurt a lot, but not as much the bruises and grazes all over his face. There was a blemish on his right cheek that looked like it would darken into a hideous bruise and a similar one on his jawline. No black eyes but a split in his lower lip that was deep enough to be bleeding profusely. It was just a little off centre, to the left, a slice that looked like a trench to his eyes: angry red against his lips. There was blood all down his chin and throat soaking into the neckline of his tee and making a rusty crimson bib its wake.

He had been in a fight again, perhaps something more closely described as a brawl.

Jimin knew that Jungkook had a tendency to get into fights and it was no secret. It came about because the boy was always wandering the streets in the dead of night and bumping into drunks, or at least that was what he told them. He always made it sound like they picked the fights first, that he was just walking when they crashed into him, all slurred words and waving fists, and he tried his hardest to avoid the confrontation. Except Jimin knew that that was not the case at all and he was pretty certain that the others did too. Maybe the drunks started it, but he certainly carried it on, let it escalate to the point of blows just because he wanted it to happen. Jungkook liked to pretend that he didn't want the trouble but he did. The boy carried around a lot of anger, anger that he kept in check around them, but that he certainly vented somehow, thanks to his fistfights on street corners with complete strangers. Why he had so much aggression he wasn't sure because he didn't want to ask but it was there, just beneath the surface. Sometimes it was visible in the brief downturn at the corners of his lips, the narrowing of his eyes, but then it was gone as quick as it had appeared. And tonight it had burst free and gotten him into a spot of trouble.

"I know, I know," Jungkook sighed. "But hey, you should see the other guys."

Jimin dragged his eyes away the boy to look at his friends. Hoseok and Taehyung were still standing by the door, which was open a crack and letting a breeze in. They were both in states of undress, underwear and wrinkled tees, and judging from their tousled hair they had been sleeping just like him, or at least attempting to. The older boy looked tired but the younger did not; he was alert and wide-eyed, arms crossed over his chest and fingers scratching at his elbows restlessly. Yoongi was standing just in front of Jungkook, also in his underwear, and he just looked annoyed primarily. Their two other friends were still seated on the bed but at least everyone was awake. Namjoon was on the very edge, legs over the side and twisted to look at the boy, and Seokjin had the covers pooled around his waist. There was a strange sense of deja-vu about it all, about something always happening and rudely waking them up disorientated and confused, and Jimin could do nothing more than look back at his friend and wait for someone to break the silence. Eventually Namjoon did.

"Guys?" he asked in a low voice. "What do you mean by 'guys'? How many were there?"

"Doesn't matter," the boy mumbled.

"What matters is that it's 1am right now," Hoseok said as he reached up and roughly rubbed at his eyes to get them to stay open. "And you just stumbled into the room covered in blood and-"

"That's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

"wipe your chin, we'll see who's being dramatic." So Jungkook wiped at his chin and then lifted his hand to look at his bloody fingers. There was confusion on his face and he hastily tried to wipe the rest of the blood off, only really succeeding in smearing it all over his skin rather than cleaning it. He knocked his lip and winced from the contact before experimentally prodding the tip of his tongue out to feel the cut. "I told you so," Hoseok muttered.

"Yeah OK, thanks mom-"

"Hey," Yoongi interrupted, "cut the cute shit and tell us what the fuck happened."

"He left about two hours ago," Taehyung said as he finally reached behind himself to close the door and leaned back against it. "To go out for a walk or something. I offered to go with him but he kept saying it was fine, just a walk around the block for a few minutes. So I thought 'fine, whatever,' but I should've known he was lying and-"

"I wasn't lying," Jungkook declared.

"You're lying right now you crazy son of a bitch!" the other boy practically shouted. "Two hours? A walk around the block took two hours? How big is this fucking block?!" Despite everything Jimin couldn't help but snort laughter, getting a glare off the youngest boy as a result. "You went to the clubs again didn't you? To get into a fight like always. Been a couple of days since you punched and kicked the shit outta someone, must've been getting restless."

"I didn't go to any clubs," he retorted. "Or bars either before you say that."

"So where did you go?" Jimin asked, seeing his friend shifting at the question.

"I...I went to a park," Jungkook said quietly, "'cos I wanted some fresh air. That was all. I didn't go to clubs looking for fights, I just wanted some air instead of being cooped up in some shitty hostel room with linen that stinks of bleach and cockroaches in the walls, OK?"

"Kookie, just tell us what happened." Seokjin gestured for him to sit down on the bed, patting the covers softly, and after a moment of silent studying he did sit down with a heavy sigh.

So Jungkook explained exactly what had happened, from him leaving the hostel not that long after they had finished the food. At that time Jimin had already been asleep, curled up in the bed and completely oblivious to the world. He had repeatedly turned down Taehyung's offers to go with him because he claimed that he didn't need a chaperone but judging from his bruised and bleeding face he really had needed one, and he had left with the aims of going to walk around the block. And he had done just that before catching sight of a street sign alerting him to the presence of a park pretty close to the hostel, so he had went off to find it, knowing that it would likely be empty at such a late hour. He had been correct and during his stay in the park only a handful of people had walked through it: three dog walkers, a couple holding hands, and a group of girls returning back home with convenience store bags that seemed to hint at there being a sleepover of some kind. The boy had sat on the bench and meditated on his thoughts for some time, had messed around on the swings and roundabout in the kid's playground area and also skipped rocks across the surface of a small pond and scared off a small gathering of ducks. That was it, two hours or so of complete solitude before leaving the park and heading back to the building. Except he hadn't counted on bumping into guys on the way back and getting caught up in their meddling that had ended in blows.

There had been three of them according to Jungkook, and judging from his description they were just a bunch of young men after trouble. College dropouts or perhaps they hadn't even enrolled in college at all. They had been up to no good by attempting to break into a closed store, an electrical goods one from what he had been able to see; two of them loitering around and the other on his knees trying to jimmy the shutter lock on the door open. Jungkook admitted that he should have crossed the road, that he should have avoided them because they were clearly trouble, but he had stupidly just tried to walk past instead. At least he also called his actions 'stupid', something that they could all agree on. So he had just looked at his boots and carried on walking in the hopes that they would let him pass with no trouble but of course that hadn't happened. One of the men had decided to stop right in front of him, so that he had collided with him and then it had all spiraled out of control.

"I didn't want any trouble but the bastard grabbed me and slammed me against the shutter, hard enough so that I bounced off the metal. And it hurt, like it really hurt and it pissed me off," Jungkook explained. "He had his hand around my tee, right around my neck, and he tried to get me into a choke-hold so I pushed him away. He was pretty drunk, I could smell the booze on him, and he stumbled and tripped over his own feet. That made him even more mad and his stupid buddies jumped in too, and next thing I know some dick's punching me in the mouth. So I had to fight back. I had no choice. I couldn't just run off, I had to at least rough them up too."

"Did you?" Taehyung asked and he nodded. "How badly?"

"I busted one guy's nose and made him squeal, hit another hard enough that he might get a black eye...and I elbowed the guy that grabbed me enough to wind him pretty bad." The boy reached up brush a tangled mess of hair off his face and Jimin saw grazes on his knuckles, pink marks and gouges deep enough so that he might be missing skin. It looked painful but not as much as the split in his lip, which likely hurt more than his nose had when he had slammed it on the back of the driver-seat. "They'll regret jumping me."

"Why didn't you just cross the road?" Namjoon asked with a shrug.

"I dunno..."

"You must've have known that they would cause shit, that they were drunk and after trouble, so why didn't you just cross the road or go back the way you came and go around them?" Jungkook didn't even reply and the room fell silent for a few seconds.

"We know why," Yoongi finally muttered to break the quiet. "It's 'cos he wanted the trouble too." The boy had been looking at his battered hands in his lap rather than at any of them, but at this he looked up and across the room to glare at the young man. There was a flicker of anger on his face but he curbed it back and instead nibbled on his lower lip, stopping only when it dribbled more blood down his chin. "Just admit it, you won't piss us off. Just admit it and tell the truth: you wanted the fight."

"I don't have to admit anything." The tone of his voice sounded petulant and if possible he likely would have pouted in annoyance. Yoongi rolled his eyes and seemed just about ready to argue against this when Jungkook got to his feet and stormed across the hostel room, pulling the door open and slamming it shut hard enough for it to shudder in its hinges.

"The lady doth protest," Taehyung remarked after a few seconds. Jimin was surprised that the boy even knew a single line of Shakespeare but of course he knew enough to make wisecracks. If he asked him which play it came from he could likely stare at him dumbly.

"It could have been worse," Seokjin said quietly. "He could have been seriously hurt but he wasn't. Maybe he'll think about this before wandering off and getting into fights again."

Jimin shifted to get out of the bed, swinging his legs over the side so that his bare feet brushed against the thin carpet pile. He was still dressed from earlier and he got upright to also cross the room. As he twisted the handle he heard Hoseok asking him where he was going and he ignored him to instead step out of the room, hearing the lock click as he closed it behind him. Their room wasn't beside this one like usual but rather across the concrete path and closer to the entrance area. He walked the length of the L-shaped building and then entered the room to find Jungkook was not in the bedroom area. For a moment he was convinced that he had ran off in anger, that one of them was going to have to run after him to drag him back, but then he wandered over to look into the bathroom and he saw that he was in there.

Jungkook was seated on the floor beside the bathtub so that his back was against the porcelain. The room was so small that he needed to keep his legs drawn up for the toilet was in the way and his long legs couldn't fit around it. It didn't look comfortable at all and he was slumped back with his hands balanced on his knees. Now that he was alone he finally had that pout on his lips, sullen and swollen from the gash right near the middle. He looked like he wanted to be left alone but he didn't go back into the other section, rather he just leaned against the door frame and studied him.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Jungkook asked in a soft voice. He sounded a little like he was trying his hardest to not cry and his pouted lip even quivered.

"I..." Jimin paused before finishing, "I do believe you." He wasn't lying to him, he really did believe that he was telling the truth because there was very little reason for him to lie. He might have a penchant for trying to dodge or deflect the blame sometimes, often on him because he was the regular fall guy, but this entire situation just didn't seem to be the case. It wasn't like he was trying to avoid getting into trouble for he already had, so if he said that that was what happened then he would believe him.

"It was stupid," Jungkook muttered under his breath. "Real fucking stupid." He sighed and then rubbed at his eyes roughly.

"Are you OK?"

"...I guess," he shifted to look at him. "They're pissed off with me, aren't they?"

"I don't think so," he replied, "but you should uh...maybe try and avoid that in the future, right?" The boy made a soft noise in agreement. "You should clean that up." Jungkook said that there was some antiseptic in his holdall but he didn't seem to want to move and so Jimin went into the room and collected it for him, hastily going through the inside compartment until he found a little plastic bottle. The contents were not green like he had expected but rather a murky brownish shade and when he unscrewed the cap the scent wafted up to hit him in the face. He went back into the bathroom and hunkered down in front of him. "This is gonna hurt like a bitch."

"Seems fitting," Jungkook muttered as he grabbed a towel that had been on the side of the bathtub. When he tipped the bottle the liquid stained the white cotton. Jimin reached forward to gently dab at his lip and his friend hissed loudly, making him pull his hand away again. He asked him if he wanted to do it instead and he shook his head. "It's OK, just go quickly." So dabbed at the cut a few times before moving down to his chin to clean it, wiping the dried and tacky blood off his skin. When he was done he moved onto his hands, making sure to wipe the towel across his knuckles even when he saw his hands shaking from the horrible stinging pain. "I should've stayed in the room..."

"Maybe, but you didn't mean for it to happen."

"You really believe me?"

"I do," Jimin said as he hastily ran his fingers through his unruly hair, checking for any slight cuts on his hairline.

"You're so naïve Dumbass..." Jungkook said with a soft laugh. "But I really didn't mean for it to happen, even if the other don't believe me. I don't blame them, I'm a bad liar, you know?" He just carried on cleaning his cuts for him without a word and after a few seconds the boy sighed. "I'm sorry for causing trouble."

"Hey, Tae causes shit all the time and he doesn't apologise," he remarked and this made his friend grin, wincing as he did because his split lip protested. "By tomorrow no one will probably even care. They're just mad 'cos you disturbed their beauty sleep. Which they all clearly need except me." He winked and the boy rolled his eyes with a weary groan. "And speaking of sleep you really need some. We're leaving early tomorrow, remember?"

"The walk was supposed to clear my head," Jungkook said as he finished wiping the grazes and cuts in his skin. "To help me sleep, but maybe the five kicks to it will help instead?"

"Don't joke about concussion, come on." Jimin grabbed his upper arm and dragged him to his feet, pulling him across the room and to the bed beside the window. His friend sat down with a sigh and then proceeded to remove his boots. His were already off his feet and on the floor of the other room. "You might get three whole hours if you're lucky."

"Dumbass do..." Jungkook paused before continuing, "Jimin, do you wanna share beds tonight? Instead of with Tae?"

"I was sharing with Yoongi," he said, "and it was a relief 'cos I didn't keep getting knocked outta bed for once. You don't kick, do you?" The boy shrugged and said he didn't know, but he thought that he didn't. "...Yeah sure, why not?" Jimin hastily undone his jeans and slipped them down just as his friend removed his hoodie.

"Shit, this is wrecked..." Jungkook held it up and studied the massive tear in the shoulder seam. The band hoodie looked to have cost a decent amount of cash and now it was as worn and destroyed as his oil-stained jeans. "Does Seokjin know how to sew?"

"I think Hoseok does," Jimin replied as he slipped his tee off and climbed into the bed. As he lay down he detected the underlying scent of bleach from the covers just like he had mentioned earlier. "But it's not like we have a sewing kit..."

"Tae can steal one," Jungkook retorted as he pulled his own tee off over his head. He checked the massive stain on the front and grimaced. "Oops. that's one tee down and I only have three."

"Wear it back to front, no one will know."

"That's...pretty fucking stupid but also kinda smart," Jimin replied that he had street smarts and the boy laughed as he got out of his jeans. "Sure, whatever you say." He settled down in the bed beside him with a weary sigh, wriggling under the covers to try and get comfortable. "Hey Jimin?" Jimin made a noise under his breath to let him know that he was listening. "Do you think what happened tonight was a bad thing?"

"...Not really," he said as he slipped his arm under his pillow. "It was a little stupid and reckless but I don't think it was a bad thing. Why do you ask?"

"What if I did a bad thing? Like, something that wasn't stupid or reckless, but was actually bad?" Jungkook was lying on his back so that he could stare up at the ceiling and he could only study his profile and try and gauge what he meant by that. After a few seconds he turned his head slightly to look at him and Jimin just held his gaze steady. "They would be pissed with me then, wouldn't they?"

"Bad like what?" he asked quietly.

"I told myself that I wasn't doing something bad in the end by taking it but I knew that I was 'cos I had to tell myself it wasn't, you know? If it wasn't bad then why would I have had to tell myself that?"

"Kookie?"

"And it was stupid and it was selfish, and I didn't have to take it but I did and-"

"Kookie, what're you talking about?"

"I..." His friend paused for a moment as if thinking his words over. "Jimin, I-" but before he could continue talking, could explain himself, the door across the room swung open and the two other boys entered the room, Taehyung yawning loudly as he locked the door. "...Never mind."

Jimin finished patting his face dry as he stepped out of the bathroom. His friends were practically ready but they were still in the midst of packing their bags, lacing shoes, suppressing yawns behind hands. He had glanced at the clock on the side table not that long ago to have seen 6:15am lighting up the black screen with glowing green numbers, the sound of someone knocking on the door to wake them up: Seokjin calling into the room as good as any alarm. By the time he had managed to sleep it had been nearly 2am but he had at least gotten a little more rest from his nap before the boy had woken him up and all of the trouble had started. He didn't feel that tired at all but he wasn't entirely sure that his friends weren't. Maybe four hours wasn't the greatest amount but it was better than nothing and it was probably more than Yoongi usually got anyway. Yet if they were in any way tired they didn't really show it, they just packed and dressed without much fuss.

Jungkook hadn't said more than a few words since waking up, rather he had went right into the bathroom and gotten cleaned up first. Over the early morning hours they had been asleep his lip had stopped bleeding at least but it still looked very painful; a horrible red gash and a deep pink mark around it where it had swollen considerably. His knuckles were equally as marred and they would likely scab as they healed but they weren't as obvious as the blemishes on his face. There was a bruise on his jawline that was a faint yellow mark that wasn't as bad as the one on his opposite cheek. That one was a deep purple that would take a week to fade, that looked just like the pastels that Hoseok had been using back in the trainyard. He looked a lot worse than he had yesterday and he wondered if the others would comment on it. He had also caught sight of a bruise on his back, around his shoulder blade from where he had slammed it against the metal shutter most likely. He probably had even more around his ribs and stomach but he hadn't been able to see them whilst he had been brushing his teeth in front of the sink. Their friends would be thinking about the fight from last night but he was thinking about what he had said to him instead, what he had been about to tell him when they had been alone before they had been interrupted.

Jimin crossed the room to go over to the bed, grabbing his backpack from the floor and dumping it on the bed to unzip it. He pulled his polo shirt out and shrugged it on, quickly flattening his messy hair as he did. Jungkook was on the end lacing his boots up and humming under his breath as he did.

"Someone left us a present," Taehyung declared as he closed the door and turned on his heel. There was something dangling from his hand and he saw that it was his boots, that Seokjin had likely dumped them there a few minutes ago. He was holding them by the laces, tangled between his fingers, and they lazily rotated clockwise before going anticlockwise, unable to fully complete a rotation. "It looks like a dog chewed on these, why're they so scuffed, huh?"

"Just 'cos," Jimin retorted as he zipped his backpack up. He had a terrible habit of scuffing them on curbs, on the pavement when he was waiting or thinking, and as a result they were badly worn down in parts. He held a hand out to him and the boy tossed them both at him as if they were nothing more than a ball of rolled up socks. He managed to catch one of them but the other went flying off and narrowly avoided smacking Jungkook on the back of his head; another bruise to add to the collection. It bounced off the bed and landed by his feet so at least he didn't have to cross the room to retrieve it, and it luckily hadn't smashed one of the windows either.

"Who wants to make a bet?" Hoseok asked suddenly, looking out of one of said windows to check the weather, coat still spread out on the bed rather than shoved in his backpack. Jimin sat on the floor to get his boots on as he let go of the blind and looked over at them. Bright expression on his face that hinted at no headache, even if his eyelids looked a little heavier than usual from lack of sleep.

"You're asking the wrong guy," Jungkook said quietly, the first proper thing he had all day, "I don't see Namjoon here..." The joke actually made them laugh and at least it dispelled the awkward sensation in the air.

"What kinda bet?" Jimin asked as he finished knotting his laces and got back to his feet.

"Yeah, what're the odds?" Taehyung added, as if this was a legit gambling venture.

"Uh...I didn't actually think of any." Their friend smiled sheepishly.

"You're supposed to be the smart one!"

"Damn it Tae, I wasn't being serious." Hoseok rolled his eyes theatrically. "Let me see...losers have to do what the winners tell them to do, so long as it's not illegal."

"Define 'illegal'."

"I bet that we're gonna get lost on our way out of this city and spend the entire night on the road," he said, ignoring Taehyung's wisecrack, "because we haven't gotten lost yet and that seems kind of crazy, I'm not counting the freight train incident of course."

"You're gonna jinx us," Jimin remarked.

"I bet we won't," Jungkook said after a moment of thought, "'cos we surely can't end up getting lost if we follow the road, right? And twelve hours is a long time to get fucking lost, so I think we'll be fine."

"I think we'll be stuck on the road but I dunno about being lost," Taehyung said with a shrug, "'cos I think we've been lost the entire time."

"What happened to the power of positivity?" Jimin asked, feigning a shocked expression as he looked between his friends. "I'm with Kookie, no way we can get lost with the road. We'd have to be fucking stupid, right?"

"Yeah Dumbass, real fucking stupid." Taehyung was about to lean back against the door when the handle moved and he hastily dived away before he was knocked flying. The door opened and Namjoon's head popped through the gap to study them all.

"You ready?"

They left the hostel building just several minutes later, on a relatively good note for once because they hadn't been dragged out or robbed blind. Backpacks and holdalls packed, stomachs only half-full with cold leftovers, it wasn't the best start to the day but Jimin was still relatively optimistic because they would hopefully be leaving Gangwon and be on their way back through Gyeonggi to get to Seoul. He knew that it might take a day or two to get out but at least they would get back to the capital eventually. Truthfully speaking he didn't particularly care how long it took because he could still recall his father's voice in his head, his yelling and waving fists, the threat about him not being allowed back into the house still fresh in his mind. It could take them an entire month and he wouldn't mind in the slightest. At least he wouldn't get smacked around the head and called useless by his friends, and that alone was enough to make him feel happy enough to not mind the hours on the concrete sidewalks and dirt paths out in the middle of nowhere.

The hostel they had been staying in hadn't been very far into the city, rather just on the outskirts, and as a result it had taken just under an hour of walking to get out of Wonju, but like Taehyung had joked about just yesterday they had no map and they didn't even know where they were going. Jimin hadn't even known from the beginning and he wondered if any of them had or if they had just taken to the roads without a care. His other joke about being lost from the start didn't seem that outlandish with that knowledge. The immediate area around the outer limits of the city had stayed industrial for quite some time, freeways and subway lines, train tracks constantly visible on the hilly rises not far from the road that they stuck to. No wandering away from it to seek shelter in the woods and skip along abandoned tracks like eager boy scouts on their first camping trip, no, they instead stuck to the road because it was smarter. The weather stayed rather mild for the first time in days, a cool breeze that actually made him shiver every now and again until Yoongi shrugged his jacket off and handed it to him. Jimin gladly accepted it and felt a little stupid for not packing something like that himself. The jacket smelled like cigarettes but it was a familiar scent, one that he was very much used to. Same annoying straight road that never seemed to meander in any way, walking against traffic to spare great gout of exhaust fumes hitting them in the face, he had thought that it would take them most of the day to reach the first city but when they started to see more industrial block buildings in the distance Taehyung's watch revealed it to be no later than 11am. They had an entire day still left open and it seemed like their friends' pessimistic thoughts would be proven wrong, for they hadn't gotten lost at all on the road into Hoengseong County.

They ate another hot lunch rather than cold convenience store shit, that of burgers and fries like the very first day on the road, enjoyed eating it inside the actual building rather than sitting on some knoll or walking across a city as they ate. That sorted they all discussed their options and finally decided on carrying on through the city in the hopes of getting to the next one. They couldn't just spend the entire day wandering around Hoengseong County before settling down for the evening because they had already wasted yesterday just like that. And so they set off across the city, walking down streets and waiting at traffic lights beside vehicle-packed roads. Hoengseong County wasn't like Seoul at all, maybe a little like a lesser bustling area like Nowon, and it wasn't all high-rise offices and glass walls, rather it contained wider streets and much more brick and concrete. No massive digital billboards but rather just paper poster advertisements, more houses than apartments. There was even less people on the streets too. Even with it being the break it felt calmer than Seoul, which would have been so full of pedestrians that the sidewalks would have been impossible to walk on. The only places that looked to be even close to bustling were the shops, the parks and markets they passed, and they steered clear of these just for convenience. The city looked nice, almost nice enough to spend an entire day sightseeing if they had the time, which they didn't. They had to get through the place as fast as possible: taking as many side streets as they could find.

For a while it seemed that they were going to make it to the next city just like they had made it to Hoengseong County because it had taken just a few hours to make the first run. But then the minutes rapidly turned into hours, and the hours bled into a horrible cycle that didn't seem to end. The view varied from freeways for miles to scant fields. Jimin had enjoyed the sights of the grassy fields and farmland back around Gyeonggi and Seoul, but he didn't like the ones on offer today: gravelly scrub and telephone pylons like monolithic metallic trees. The weather didn't get any warmer nor cooler but luckily for them it stayed the same so at least they weren't caught out in the rain, though that seemed to be the only good aspect of the entire situation. When the sun started to dip on the horizon Yoongi took it upon himself to start complaining and for once it was completely warranted, for it had been nearly twelve hours of walking and nowhere to crash for the night at all in sight. Jungkook, who had spent quite a couple of nights on park benches didn't seem bothered by this at all and neither did Taehyung but he could sense his friends starting to get tired physically and mentally, yet there was little else for them to do but keep walking along the side of the road and hope to find a field with deep enough grass that they could risk crashing in for a few hours. Yes, the idea of lying in the dirt with bugs crawling all over them wasn't the most appealing but it seemed better than possible countless more hours: hours in which they would likely end up sleep-walking. The mental image of them all staggering around like zombies was enough to make him laugh under under breath.

"What's so funny?" Namjoon asked him, holdall swinging from his hand that looked to be as heavy as an anchor right now.

"Nothing, just thinking..."

"Seems like me and Tae are going to win that bet after all," Hoseok called from the front of the formation for once, turning back to look at them. Seokjin asked them what bet and he yawned loudly. "We had a bet this morning. Jimin and Kookie bet that we'd be tucked up in bed by now and me and Tae bet that we'd be out here, lost in the wild."

"Not lost technically..." Jimin muttered under his breath.

"And here we are," Hoseok waved his arm around them. "Still on the fucking road."

"I was being hopeful," the youngest boy said before sighing, "which was bad idea, clearly."

"Don't you remember the wager?" Taehyung asked, glancing over his shoulder at them with a wide grin. "Losers do what the winners ask. Dumbass, you're all mine now." He rubbed his hands together with a wicked laugh and he dragged his eyes over to look at the other boy.

"Nu-uh," he balked, "not if Hoseok makes me do something first."

"Well I...uh...I want you to..." Taehyung trailed off for a moment, no doubt struggling to sort his nefarious ideas out.

"Jimin, go run ahead and check if you can see anything, like a gas station," Hoseok said before he could think of something. "Instant coffee would be good right about now, huh?" They all murmured in agreement and he grinned at the clearly annoyed Taehyung.

"Gladly," Jimin replied as he shrugged his backpack up onto his shoulders, straps rubbing against Yoongi's jacket with a soft rustling sound. He started running at a jog to wake up his tired legs and he heard the other boy now turning his attention to Jungkook, promising all kinds of hilarious prompts with glee audible in his voice. The youngest boy just muttered something under his breath and he didn't catch it because he was too far ahead.

After a few seconds he started running at a quicker speed and it didn't take long for him to get far away enough to not hear them at all. Instead his friends' voices were replaced by the sound of his boots pounding on the gravelly path beside the road, beating in rhythm with his jostling bag, the faint drone of passing traffic that never seemed to fully fade away no matter where they were. He really didn't expect to find anything at all but rather that he would just run for a couple of minutes and wait for them to catch up, mission failed and energy wasted, but then he thought about being positive. It hadn't helped them this morning at all but it really didn't hurt to try, so he just kept his head up and scanned the sight of the horizon in front of him, eyes trained to see the faintest hint of light that might signal a gas station or even a hostel of some kind as crazy as it sounded.

He didn't find either of those things, but he did find something.

Jimin slowed down when the stitch in his side went from a stinging sensation to a white hot flare of pain but he didn't stop and just carried on at a slower speed. His legs felt a little heavy from walking all day, particularly around the shin and knee area where his muscles were beginning to cramp tight. He knew that walking tomorrow would be sheer agony but it wasn't like they had the car any more. At first he caught sight of the building and he didn't think much of it. It was unlit and imposing in the evening dim, but as he got closer he found his interest piqued enough to make him stop completely. It was a square-shaped block of concrete judging from the sensation against his fingers and when he pulled his hand away he felt brick dust on his skin. Jimin rubbed his fingers against his thumb before hastily wiping them clean on his jeans. What was it exactly? As he walked around it he rapidly discovered that it wasn't a building at all but rather part of a structure, one that went down into the underground by the way of a now dead escalator. At the bottom of the impromptu staircase he saw an opening that looked as deep as the maw of a cavern, pitch black. For some reason he bent down to grab a loose pebble from by his feet, tossing it down there as if checking for water at the bottom of a well. It skittered at the bottom and echoed on the still air, not rousing any scrabbling rats or biting bats out. He stepped back to study it fully when he realised what it was.

He was staring at an old subway entrance. Why was there one so far out here he didn't have a single clue but it meant one thing: shelter.

"Hey!" Jimin called before waiting for a reply. When he didn't get one he cupped his hands around his mouth and tried again, shouting loud enough to make him throat hurt. "Hey! I found something!"

"...nd what?!" Yoongi hollered back, almost as loud as Taehyung when he actually tried.

"An old subway! Looks abandoned!" He lowered his hands and a moment later his friend angrily yelled back about how much he had wanted it to be a hostel instead. "No sign of one of them! But hurry up and check this out!" He didn't count but it took them at least a couple of minutes to catch up with him, minutes in which he tapped his foot impatiently and gnawed on his lower lip. Jungkook was the first to reach him, Taehyung piggybacking because the boy had no doubt demanded it of him, and he didn't even stop and instead just shrugged him off his back to practically skip down the dead escalator. Jimin felt the most pressing urge to call after him and tell him to not go into the subway but that would have encouraged him to do it even more so he just held his tongue.

"Huh...would you look at that," Taehyung announced as he stared at the structure, hands on his hips and mouth hanging open.

"I don't like it," Hoseok said as he drifted over. "It looks pretty...creepy."

"How many dead bodies you think have been dumped in there?" the other boy asked with a sadistic smirk and their friend just grimaced and took a couple of steps away from the entrance. "I bet there's some kinda hobo city down there." Taehyung said as he reached out to run his fingers along the concrete just like he had done. "They ride shopping trolleys instead of cars and their cash is recyclable glass and plastic."

"Stop making fun of the homeless," Namjoon said disapprovingly. "Tae, I think you forget the fact that you've been homeless three times since dropping outta high school."

"I wasn't making fun of my brothers and sisters of the streets, I promise." The three young men wandered over to the structure and also eyed it in a mixture of confusion, interest and dislike. "There's probably a whole bunch of 'em down there already and Kookie's gonna interrupt their supper."

"I complained about sleeping on a settee," Yoongi muttered, "but I'd take the most under-stuffed, flea-ridden settee over whatever the fuck is down there. Concrete floor? Old subway lines? Thanks but no fucking thanks."

"Who said we were sleeping down there?" Hoseok asked dumbly. "I didn't vote for that, I wouldn't vote for that."

"It's OK lover boy, if you get scared you can cuddle with me," Taehyung offered.

"We do need to rest," Seokjin said after a moment of thought, "or we'll all pass out. Do you want to all walk another six miles in the hopes of finding somewhere 'hospitable'?" He had a very good point but Jimin still didn't like the look of the dark entrance below them. "Even if just for a couple of hours, it's better than nothing, right?" He let this hang in the air for a minute or two, so they could all think about the pros and cons of going down there. So far there seemed to be quite a few pros and the only con was that it was a little bit 'creepy'. Their eldest friend had just opened his mouth to add something else when Jungkook's voice sounded from the darkness of the entrance.

"Hey guys! Come check this out! It's so fucking cool!" Taehyung didn't need much encouragement and he bounded down the escalator two at a time, followed by Namjoon, then Seokjin, then Yoongi. Jimin watched them going down and then turned to look at his friend. Hoseok looked like he would much rather take the six miles over what was down there but he had no choice. So he reached over to snag his wrist and gently pulled him down the broken escalator to get inside the subway.

"You know how much I hate scary things..." the boy muttered under his breath.

"Yeah, me too," he replied as they both stepped into the subway. For a few horrible seconds they were completely blind and they could do no more than take cautious steps but after a minute their eyes started to adjust and the interior became more visible; shapes in the shadows rather than just sheer darkness. The light from outside at least bled in enough to allow him to study the sight in front of them.

The main area of the structure was a wide square and there were thick concrete support beams in place here and there, wider than his frame by a considerable few inches and going all the way up to the high ceiling. When he glanced up he saw the dead bulbs that had used to be lit up, massive glass domes growing out of the ceiling like eyeballs. To the right of the square there was a drop that showcased three rows of tracks and an opposite platform. Judging from the condition the line was clearly not live but he wasn't going to jump down and check. The area seemed to stretch for a mile in length and there were various off-shooting corridors that would lead into other sections of the subway of course. Jimin kicked at the pebble he had tossed down and it bounced off to land on the tracks with a clattering sound. Hoseok jumped and pulled his wrist free to grab his hand instead, almost painfully tight. Then he let out an embarrassed laugh and the sound echoed off the walls and high ceiling. Jungkook's head popped out of one of the corridors and his eyes had adjusted well enough for him to see that there was animated interest on his face.

"All kinds of tunnels," he called, "and different lines. Seems abandoned from what I can see, but there's signs that people have crashed here 'cos there's beer cans and condoms."

"Lovely," Seokjin said with a disgusted noise. "The perfect combination."

"We could totally sleep here for a few hours," Jungkook leaned against the wall and glanced around them. "Not ideal but it's like the freight carriage. Bags as pillows, jackets as blankets. What kinda person's gonna stumble in here at this hour except for maybe a homeless person or two? They won't want any trouble, they'll leave us alone."

"You're talking like you know a few," Namjoon remarked.

"I do, back in Seoul. Know a few by name and face from crashing with them on subway lines like this. Usually there's people travelling to work and security workers to dodge but not this time." The youngest boy looked between them all slowly. "I say we find a nice line a little further in and just settle down."

"I second that," Taehyung agreed with a vigorous nod.

"Sleep? Rest my legs? Sign me the fuck up," Yoongi said, a complete 180 from his previous statement. After a moment Namjoon shrugged and said 'why not?' and Seokjin added his name onto the list. Jimin glanced back at Hoseok to study his expression for a few seconds. His friend didn't look as confident as the others, like he was going to say something against it, but then he just sighed and reluctantly nodded.

"...OK, it's better than nothing," Jimin said and Jungkook popped back down the corridor like a rabbit down a hole. They crossed the main area and followed after him and after a minute they all settled on a line that looked to have almost been untouched. The narrow corridors and beams were often marred by graffiti, amateurish just like the stuff back in the trainyard: names, signs, cartoonish shapes and logos. It was almost eerie walking through the subway system as it felt like a labyrinth; a concrete jungle with platform signs like strange way posts to guide them. When they finally found the right one Taehyung wandered off across the vast area, shouting back over his shoulder that he was just looking for something, and they all let him go and instead sat down on the platform with weary sighs. Jimin lay down and stretched his aching legs out yet when he closed his eyes sleep did not come like yesterday. His body was exhausted but his mind wouldn't settle so he sat up again, drawing his legs up to rest his elbows on them. When he glanced over his friends he saw that Jungkook and Hoseok were lying down and shrugging coats or jackets over themselves, already prepared to sleep the minute their heads hit their lumpy bag pillows.

"We doing a watch? Just in case?" Namjoon asked, looking at the two young men and not in his direction at all.

"Yes, you sleep first," Seokjin confirmed, "and I'll keep an eye open just in case anyone wanders down here." Yoongi added that he'd share the shift too and though their friend looked like he was going to argue otherwise he managed to hold his tongue. So Namjoon also lay down, pulling his hood up over his eyes as he shifted to get comfortable. The two other men didn't lie down but rather sit, in Yoongi's case with his back propped up against a nearby support beam. After a moment there was a strange sound echoing through the subway system and then Taehyung emerged whilst dragging something behind him. Upon first glance it looked to be a steel trash can but when he got closer he saw that it was actually a small oil drum.

"Look what I found," he declared as he dragged it over to them and left it in the rough middle of their formation. "There's some stuff in the bottom, might be able to light it with some luck." Taehyung shrugged his backpack off and opened it to rummage inside for a moment, pulling out his battered exercise book and a box of matches. He tore a few pages out and scrunched them into balls before tossing them into the drum and when he struck a match and dropped it in too it seemed that it wouldn't work, that it would smoulder for a few seconds and then go out. But after a moment he heard it starting to crackle. Jimin got to his feet and moved closer and sure enough he detected hints of burning gasoline, for the last person to have used it clearly had more brains than they did. "That'll scare all of the spooky ghosties away, right lover boy?"

"...Fuck...you," Hoseok replied in a sleepy mumble and Taehyung grinned widely. "Go to sleep."

"Yeah yeah, why aren't you sleeping huh?" he asked as he nudged Seokjin's thigh with his boot.

"We're keeping watch."

"What? You're scared of the ghosties too?"

"No, we're scared of drunk teens coming down here to fuck," Yoongi retorted, "and trying to rob us whilst we're all unconscious."

"Hey, so long as they share the booze I don't mind," Taehyung said as he sat down on the opposite side of the drum and crossed his legs. "Wake me for the second shift, not Kookie or Hoseok, they need the rest. I'm good, I just need a quick nap." Seokjin confirmed that he would and so the boy lay down and wriggled to get comfortable. A few minutes later he heard light snoring that signaled at least one of his friends was fast asleep.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" Seokjin asked quietly and his voice stirred him out of his thoughts.

"Mmm...? Oh me? I... dunno, just not sleepy," Jimin replied. "Thought I would be but I'm not. Muscles are sleepy but not my brain."

"Boy oh boy, do I know how that feels," Yoongi remarked as he slipped his packet of cigarettes free of his jeans and pulled a stick out, using some shitty hostel room lighter to light the end. He took a drag and breathed it out in a sigh. "Anything you wanna talk about?" Jimin furrowed his brow at the question and his friend pulled the stick free. "If your brain can't sleep it means you can't stop thinking, so what're you thinking about, huh?"

"Uh..." he paused and felt his fingers moving down to fiddle with his bootlaces. "I guess, I mean a lot of stuff has happened, you know? Maybe that's why I can't sleep?"

"Are you talking about the stuff like the train and the hostels troubles?" Seokjin asked as he crossed his legs and shifted to get comfortable. "Or something else?" Jimin stared at the shimmering air above the oil drum as he wrenched on his bootlaces, the heat almost making it ripple. He felt like he should say something and yet at the same time he didn't feel it was the right time to do so, especially considering that he wasn't just talking about himself. It wasn't that he couldn't trust them but rather he felt in the wrong for possibly talking about the others in such a way.

"What about you?" he asked after a moment, dragging his eyes away to look at the pair. "What's on your minds?"

"Not much," Yoongi said, smoke pluming out of his nose. "Jin?"

"I... well I guess I've been thinking of college a lot," Seokjin said in a low voice, coat shrugged over his shoulders like a blanket. "And what happens when I get back to it. Hyosang, my roommate, he informed everyone important of my absence. I gave a shitty excuse about my father being ill, which isn't good because you know what they say: be careful what you wish for. I needed to make up an excuse you see, because I wasn't supposed to leave. I wasn't even on a break but I needed one, so I lied and ran off. I'm as bad as the kids." He laughed softly to himself. "I've been thinking about how I might just get kicked out but I don't care as much as I thought that I would. Is that weird?"

"I don't think so...?" Jimin replied, Seokjin unzipped his holdall and pulled a large book out, opening it to slip a couple of pieces of paper free. He held them up for a moment as if studying them and then scrunched them up before tossing them into the drum. "What was that?"

"My essay. Well, the first sentence anyway. I can't write it."

"I've been thinking about work," Yoongi said, "like always... 'cept I don't have any jobs any more, right?"

"I've been thinking about my dad," Jimin said quietly.

"Why?"

"'Cos I don't wanna go back home," he explained without looking at them. "My dad he...well, he was pissed with me when I got home and we got into an argument and-"

"Did he hit you?"

"What do you think Seokjin? Yeah, he hit me a couple of times and he yelled at me and he told me to never come back home. That's what happened, that's why I don't wanna go back to Seoul."

"Your mom?" Yoongi asked and he sighed heavily in response.

"Doesn't care, or doesn't get involved I dunno." Jimin finally stopped playing with his laces. "So I wanna stay on the road, on this stupid 'adventure' or whatever it is just so I don't have to face him again. Face him and his flying fists and curses...if he even lets me back into the house to begin with." He glanced between them both and saw that they were thinking his words over. "It's kinda sad and pathetic right? That I'm scared of my own fucking dad."

"We're all scared of something," Yoongi replied, cigarette poking out between his fingers like always.

"So what're you scared of, huh?" His friend didn't say a thing and he wasn't sure if it was because he was thinking or because he didn't want to speak.

"I'll tell you what I'm scared of," Seokjin said after a moment of silence. "I'm scared that...well, that I'm doing something wrong with my life, you know? That I'm making a mistake." Jimin asked him if it was something to do with college and he chewed on his lower lip before shrugging. "I don't even know, but it still scares me."

"What am I scared of?" The question was rhetorical and Yoongi didn't seem to really know how to answer it, instead stubbing his cigarette out on the concrete wall and flicking it hard, the butt skittering off to disappear over the edge of the platform and land on the tracks. "I guess I'm scared of...I'm scared of everything really." He laughed under his breath but the corners of his lips stayed in place. "My life, those stupid fucking jobs I don't even have any more, my bad habits, everything. That's pathetic, not you."

"I don't think it's pathetic, I think it's natural to be scared of things like that, everyone is." Jimin looked over at their friends, all of them seemingly sleeping. "What do you think they're scared of?" Neither of them replied and he made a soft noise under his breath. "There's one thing we're all scared of."

"What's that?" Seokjin asked.

"...Growing up."