#&meme answer

“No, it’s- it’s fine-”

Jimin’s tail curled stiffly as he tried to move his leg under him to stand. The instant he tried to put weight on it, a thread of pain shot up through his leg, loudly declaring to his body that the forming bruise was due to a sprained ankle. Great. There would be no way for him to get home by himself now. But the last thing he wanted to do was trouble anybody else for help. If he had something to put his weight on - even just a stick from a fallen tree branch, he could limp his way home, but there was not a stick in sight.

Of course he had to trip and fall and mess up his ankle on his way home from grocery shopping. At least he had managed to collect the few things that had bounced or rolled away with the help of the kind stranger now fussing over him. 

[  assist  ]  sender  helps  the  receiver  with  a  task  they’re  struggling  in

It’s easily the worst thing that has ever been thrust upon him, a misery Jimin wouldn’t wish on anyone else:

Inventory.

Or at least, that’s what he would have people think considering most people actually do feel that way about inventory. Jimin doesn’t mind it at all. In fact, he finds counting the boxes and the items they contain and all the backstock contained in the little sweet shop actually quite calming. Meditative, even.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been sleeping well lately.

Though he hadn’t actually been there at the moment of the crash, Jimin’s imagination has done a relentlessly good job recreating the scene while he dreams. The way the car speeds, endlessly slowly yet there in the blink of an eye. The way it hits his twin brother. The cartoonish abundance of blood that can’t be realistic, but a sleeping Jimin isn’t aware of reality enough to know that. It’s like watching two scenes at once: there’s the start of it, the buildup to the scene that creeps by, like watching the second hand of a ticking clock. The way a minute feels like an hour. Then it’s as if it has already happened, and Eiji is laying there in the street, his body mangled in a growing pool of his own blood. Sometimes the car stops, lingers. Sometimes it speeds away. Sometimes it simply disappears as if it had never been there to hit his brother, yet his brother is always broken in the street. It plays over and over and over-

[ weep ]  for your muse to catch mine crying // word prompts: ACCEPTING

It had been a long, long while now since Yako had been back. She had abandoned her mother long ago, but she still took her trips every so often to visit her little brother. Now, though, it felt like an eternity since she had been able to. Between debuting and touring and promoting and meetings and practices - just thinking about how busy her schedule was made her head swim. She wished she could be carefree, like Felix, and as beloved. She wished she could grow strong, like Taeyong. She wished she had a family that cared about her. Even with Hoshio, one young boy couldn’t replace a family, especially with how infrequently she saw him. There were too many people who hated Yako, and with good reason. She was cruel - no. She could be cruel, and she had been. There was no way to go back and undo that, undo the way her step-family had treated her, undo the things her ex-boyfriends had done to her, it just wasn’t possible. 

Even dressed cutely as she was, frilled pink skirt and blouse, full and shining red cherry appliques abounding, Yako fell deeper and deeper into the spiral of despair. All at once it became too much, and the girl ran off into the small alley beside Minx, collapsing against the wall with choked, heaving cries. She curled her arms around her knees and just sat there in the dirt, letting all the anger and sadness and hatred and loneliness burst out of her with each sob. Yako barely heard when someone approached.

It wasn’t uncommon to find Jimin awake far past his bed time, though it was much less common to find him in Mukashi-Kara with the shop lights turned on. Not all of them even, just a few to keep the shadows in the corners at bay and to help his already sharp eyes pick out lines and indents and tiny shapes that form his wagashi. It was a habit that he picked up from his grandmother so long ago, taking advantage of her insomnia and his restlessness to practice shapes or make up new ones. Over time it had become something he did when his mind wouldn’t quiet down and the guilt once again ate at him slowly from within.

What he hadn’t expected - ears and tail drooped in exhaustion and unhappiness, firm frown of concentration marring his usually sunny face - was for someone to walk into the shop so late at night. It was obviously not open, it was far too late for that. No one else was even out on the streets. Except, apparently, one woman who wandered into the sweets shop with some intention other than buying sweets. Though if she asked very nicely, Jimin was sure to give her some.

You, Yako almost answered just on instinct, but it struck her that she didn’t know the person who was trying to speak to her. That said, he might very well know her; that was the price for pop-stardom. Even on Mount Phoenix she could no longer be her pure, unadulterated self half the time, but she figured it would be best to wear her public persona when meeting new people.

Just in case.

“Hmm?” Yako hummed as she turned to face the speaker, silently looking him over with a soft smile that didn’t reveal the way she was picking him apart behind it. “I guess not. Some people are awful sad, I guess. Why?” The girl cocked her head in a way that usually charmed people, a bemused expression accompanying her smile in a way that tended to read as cute and innocent.

With all the rushing around in the sweets shop, Jimin didn’t exactly have a lot of spare moments to worry about his clothing. Besides, part of the reason the shop uniform consisted only of an apron worn over whatever clothes the employees like was that he wouldn’t have to worry about his clothes. That was why Jimin was a little startled when a rush of people purchasing sweets came and went, and one of the customers leaned in across the bar instead of moving away to eat his sweets.

The stranger had noticed his falling sleeves apparently, which Jimin had taken to merely haphazardly shoving up on his arm every few minutes. It wasn’t exactly efficient. But the man made quick work of Jimin’s sleeves, rolling them up carefully so they made two neat little cuffs about his elbows. Jimin’s ears twitched with an interested admiration as he looked over his sleeves. Then he bowed with his tail dipped down in respect.

“It’s a good thing we don’t got paparazzi here or this would be something for the Japanese tabloid news,” Yako murmured with a giggle. 

After she had twisted her ankle running about and making mischeif with Eros, the god had offered to carry her home. With her new profession as a pop idol, Yako couldn’t exactly afford to damage her ankle any further, so she took him up on it. It was the sort of incident that online forums would love to hate her for. If they were going to call her a slut, it should at least be for something she actually did and not something that just made her incel fanboys angry.

The girl wasn’t thrilled about the situation, but at least there would be no news about it. That was why she always came back to the island after shows and tours and whatnot; she could relax and be herself here.