𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 , 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐭.

panic.

━━ july 10, 2021.
❝ she would have been less careless. ❞

NOTES BEFORE WE START: i accidentally published this when it wasn't ready so sorry if you got that notification 😭
but sorry this is a little late! i wrote way more than i intended to & couldn't find the proper time throughout the week to finish on time (and i may have rewritten half the chapter three days before i wanted to release this oops). almost 6k words, all for our min.
although, this may not quite be the 2min anniversary chapter you might have expected... enjoy! <3

MIN IS DOING SOMETHING she hasn't done in a long time; she is reading.

She's been in a funny sort of mood ever since she released First Man a few days ago. Writing about him carried her back to September 2015, and every month before that. And although she cried a lot when writing it, releasing that song healed a part in her that needed that closure. She was pleased with the reception First Man received online, but to continue that recovery process, she's been taking time for herself and avoiding social media, like she should've been doing for years.

Min used to read a lot, but after the takeoff of her career, she hadn't found time to do so. But quarantine had left her life stagnant, so she picked up old hobbies to pass the time. But with everything else she finds joy in, Min began dedicating herself to it all over again, and she's been a story-reading-loving woman for the past year.

For the past few days, she's been reading the novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It's a novel that depicts characters who are able to travel back in time to have a conversation with someone they love. It perfectly compliments the mood she's been in for the past few days, because Min knows who she would talk to if she could go back in time.

    Halfway through the last story in the novel, she finally decides to take a break. Her eyes feel dry, even though she knows if she kept reading, she would've started crying.

She throws off her covers and gets up from her couch, the cool wooden flooring of her living room sending chills through her body. She stretches, the force so powerful she feels dizzy for a moment.

When her head finally clears, she hears her phone ringing from her bedroom.

    Min strolls over to her room, picking up her phone just as the call ends. The screen lights up afterwards. It comes to life with a number of missed calls, from Jimin to her mother and sister. The number of messages scream at her — reaching well over the hundreds in the last thirty minutes. Messages from her family and Jimin, again, to friends like Nayeon, Rosé, and even Niall, who she hadn't spoken to in months.

    Min's face contorts in confusion.

    She opens the messages from Jimin first, whose messages easily take up half of her notifications. They read; "where are you?", "please answer my calls", "you're worrying me eun", and "why aren't you answering your phone?", and she hadn't even scrolled up through the thread yet. She stares back at the messages for a while. What happened?