“I’ll sing with all my heart"

Jimin was the one who found Yoongi. He stepped into the library that morning, expecting to see his brother still reading, turning the pages of a book. For a moment it seemed as if that was true, but when Yoongi didn’t move, that’s when Jimin knew that he was gone. He reached out to brush the top of his brother’s head, shifting the soft strands of his hair ever so slightly. They started shaking and Jimin thought Yoongi might still be with him, but it was only his own fingers, trembling like the rest of him. He pulled his hand away quickly and took rapid steps back to distance himself from the figure that rested on the seat in front of him. Jimin didn’t stop moving until his back hit the wall of the hall just outside of the library door. The force of his contact with the wooden surface caused a picture frame fall with a crash, sending shards of glass tinkling into obscure corners of the floorboards. He slid down the wall’s smooth surface and onto the floor, sitting still as he continued to gaze on in horror at yet another of his fallen brothers.

The others were upstairs in their bedroom when they heard the crash. It was followed by silence, one they had become all too familiar with in the last few months, heavy with emptiness, loss, and despair. They didn’t stop to think about it before bounding down the steps, desperate to know where it came from and which of them had disappeared this time.

Hoseok was the first to catch sight of Jimin. The smaller doll was so still, his eyes gazing at nothing. Hoseok stopped short of him, unsure whether he wanted the question he was forming in his mind answered. It didn’t take long for the others to come up behind him. Their sudden halts were enough to tell him that they too had seen the petite figure on the floor.

It was Namjoon who broke the silence, his voice ricocheted off the walls, louder and harsher than expected. “Jimin?” They waited for a painful and achingly long second for him to answer. He said nothing and continued to stare into the distance. They began to accept that the most innocent of them was gone forever, but then there was a subtle shift of his arm. Slowly he lifted his hand to point through the door of the library. Confused, they all crowded around the doorway and it suddenly dawned on them why Jimin was acting this way. They didn’t have to venture into the room to know that Yoongi was gone. They knew that what was once their brother was now a shell.

Jimin hardly spoke after that. He avoided the library, refused to walk past it. He spent his days in their bedroom, leaving only when Namjoon forced him outside and even then, he stood alone and silent away from his brothers. He sat on his bed one day when Hoseok came to visit, gazing through the window, his head turned to the side so that only his profile is visible.

“Jimin, are you okay?” Hoseok said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Jimin turned his head slowly to look at him, blinking once before speaking. “I don’t know anymore. I want to be okay, for you and the rest of them but I don’t know how to be okay. I was sad when Jin and father left. It hurt, but this is different. This is Yoongi and now he’s gone and the rest of you might leave too and it’s just…so much Hobi. It’s so much.”

“Do you think it’d be easier if we all just left? Went our separate ways? Would it hurt less then?”

Jimin shook his head. “It’d hurt worse. I want to be with you all but…”

“But how can you when there’s a chance one of us won’t be here the next day.”

The younger doll couldn’t bring himself to say anything and simply gave his brother a sad smile, the first one he had made in over a month. It was a painful image to look at, one that Hoseok would have done anything to take away. “Look, I don’t know what tomorrow might have in store for us, but we can’t continue to live our lives worrying about what is going to happen tomorrow. All that’s going to do is make you more miserable than you were before. Do you understand?”

Jimin covered his face with his hands and took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. All you have to do is live.” Hoseok didn’t like weighty feeling that his speech left behind. He clapped his hands together getting Jimin’s attention. “Alright, enough sadness for one day. We’re going to do something.”

“Like what?”

Hoseok shrugged. “I don’t know but we’ll figure it out. We haven’t really explored around here very much. Why don’t we do that?”

Jimin couldn’t think of a very good argument for not going along with his brother’s idea so he nodded instead and started tugging on his shoes, soon enough they were on their way. They passed everyone else on their way down the stairs and were given wide-eyed glances as they trekked by. No one said anything. Jimin knew that they were all staring at him but couldn’t bring himself to meet their gazes. Instead, they looked to Hoseok who gave them a toothy grin, happy to be the one who had gotten Jimin out of his slump.

“Hobi,” Jimin asked. “where are we going exactly?”

“To the shop.” He said not stopping and instead of continuing towards the outside door. Going to his father’s doll shop had been his intention all along.

Jimin faltered behind him unsure if he was being serious or not. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope. That’s where we’re going.”

Before the passing of their father, they had lived their lives in relative leisure without the restrictions of many rules, but there had been one rule that were all expected to follow. Under no circumstances were they to set foot in the toy shop. They were beyond curious but followed that rule as if their lives depended on it. Even now that their father was gone they acted as if the rule was still in place, not setting foot in the mysterious shop. What Hoseok was suggesting went against everything they had learned and everything that they were trying to preserve.

“Hobi…no.” Jimin stopped at the foot of the stairs, his fingers gripping the railing.

Hoseok could see the effort it was taking him not to turn and retreat back into his forced seclusion. For today, getting him out of the room had to be enough. He gave his brother a smile, nodding in understanding. “It’s okay. You can go back upstairs. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He didn’t wait for an answer before slipping through the front door, letting it shut behind him with a sharp click. Jimin would never forgive himself for not following him, for making the same mistake twice, but he couldn’t have known, none of them did.

The outside of the house looked the same as it always had, though the gutters were in need of cleaning, and the paint on the siding needed to be touched up. Hoseok closed his eyes for a moment, basking in the warm summer sun while a light breeze tugged on his hair. He felt calm, free even. He could have stayed there all day, but he soon remembered that he had a mission, a self-assigned one but a mission all the same.

The shop looked much like the house, the only difference being that it was much smaller and only had two rooms, the bigger shop floor and a smaller room behind the counter that housed boxes and wrappings for customers who made purchases. He leaned close to look through the window, or at least he tried to. The glass pane was so covered with filth and grime that he could only really see the faint silhouettes of the shelves, on them he could see darker shadows of dolls. Beings like him only much smaller and more fragile. Hoseok tapped on the glass lightly, half expecting one of the dolls on the other side to tap back but no such answer came.

When he turned the handle of the front door it stuck. It had swollen in its frame, an impenetrable wall that no one could get through unless of course, you were Hoseok. He had always been one of the more obstinate of his brothers, never really giving up until he got what he wanted. He had to be careful though, in any other instance his father would have been able to fix him if he were to get broken but now it wasn’t so simple.

He tried many ways to unstick the door; he kicked it, pushed it, and at one point he even took a running start and tried to crash it open but to no avail. It was getting late and soon the sun was going to disappear behind the trees and he’d have to go back inside but he wouldn’t do that, not without getting into the shop first. He leaned his head again the door with a small thud and to his complete and utter surprise it swung open slowly. Hoseok let out a soft scoff and shook his head. “Of course, it would be that simple.”

When he walked in the first thing he noticed was that everything was covered in dust. That came as no surprise to him. It had been months since anyone had set foot inside of the shop. There weren’t very many shelves but what shelves there were had dolls on every inch. They were of every shape, size, and color. He had no idea that his father had made so many. Hoseok didn’t know when he would have had the time. He always seemed so busy, teaching them how to do certain things around the house or making another one of his brothers, that to add on so much work seemed mad. Maybe it was all that work that drove him to his death, he thought. If father were still here, then Jin and Yoongi would still be here too.

Hoseok shook his head before his thoughts could turn darker. This was not a time to think about what he had lost, but it was a time to explore everything he had gained. His fingers brushed the dust away from the doll’s pale faces, uncovering the soft glow of their artificial skin. He was careful not to move them very much, afraid that he might break their delicate limbs. The longer he looked the more he noticed that the dolls seemed to get bigger the farther he went into the shop, the biggest among them would have reached the top of his leg. As he walked past a shelf, one of the doll’s feet snagged on the sleeve of his shirt without his noticing. His movement pulled it and with a quiet whoosh, it fell to the ground with a crack.

Hoseok turned around quickly to assess the damage. Crouching down he gingerly picked up the doll and frowned when he saw that there was a fracture on its left cheek that spidered down its neck and across its eye. He sighed, he’d only meant to look but instead, he’d broken one of his father’s dolls. Had he still been alive he would have told Hoseok to be more careful before taking the doll to see if it could be fixed.

“I wish father were still here.” He whispered to no one, brushing the crack on the dolls face gently. There was still so much more of the store to look at so he made as if to get up but froze when he looked to his left.

On the very bottom of a shelf was a box. It was small and wooden, a deep red-brown that still glimmered, even with a veil of dust covering it. He set the doll aside and reached for it. It was heavier than he expected and there was a wind-up key on the side. Curious he turned the key a few times but nothing happened. He frowned and flipped the box over, trying to see if there was a switch he should have flipped on the other side. The sudden movement caused the top of the box to fall open and that’s when he saw that there was a little figurine inside. She was the smallest ballerina he’d ever seen, but she was perfect down to the last detail. Her arms were raised above her head and one of her legs was bent at the knee in an eternal pirouette. Hoseok smiled and reached out to caress the top of her head gently. She was very obviously the work of his father.