Single Father • Namjoon + BTS!Kids

xix.

Jin sat down in his chair, setting his pink backpack down on top of his desk and swinging his legs back and forth.

All the other kids were in groups of two or three or four, talking and laughing and giggling.

But Jin was alone, smiling to himself, swinging his legs.

He'd told his brothers that he was popular, that he was friends with everyone in his class, that everybody loved him.

But that was just what he told them. In reality, Jin was alone.

He watched the other groups of kids and listened in on their conversations. Sometimes, he liked to pretend that he was included in the conversation, that he was just being quiet. Sometimes, he laughed quietly to himself as though they'd told the joke to him. Sometimes, he felt like one of them.

But he wasn't.

He was just the boy in the back with the pink backpack, sitting by himself, smiling to himself, swinging his legs back and forth and back and forth.

What he'd told Yoongi hadn't been true either. They didn't give him their juice boxes or snacks. Because they didn't talk to him.

Jin just smiled, swinging his legs back and forth and back and forth.

Sometimes, they talked about him, and Jin was okay with that since it was close enough. It was basically the same thing, right?

Jin is my favorite person was basically the same as Why does a boy have a pink backpack?

Jin is my best friend was basically the same as Why does his face look like a girls?

Jin is so nice and handsome was basically the same as Why doesn't that one kid talk to anybody?

Right?

Sometimes, Namjoon asked Jin if he had friends and how school was going. Jin always smiled and said he had lots of friends and that everything was great and so much fun.

Because Jin was the oldest. Because he had to be someone his donsaengs could look up to. Because he had to look out for all of them and protect them.

But Jin just sat in the back, swinging his legs back and forth and back and forth, smiling to himself, not because he was trying to fake happiness for all the other kids in his class, but because everything he did was for his younger siblings. He didn't mind being alone in class because when the last bell rang, he got to run down to Yoongi's classroom and pick up his younger brother, and then Namjoon would pick them all up in his car and take them all home, where nobody gave Jin weird looks or teased him about his pink backpack, where they talked to him and included him.

And that was enough for Jin.

It would always be enough for Jin.

"Everybody, take your seats," the teacher said, standing in front of the class.

Jin didn't have to sit down because he was already sitting, swinging his legs back and forth and back and forth. Sometimes she yelled at him-

"Jin, stop swinging your legs. Set them down properly on the ground."

-but he never paid attention, because when he kept his legs swinging, it was like he was personally commanding the clock, making each second tick by and bringing him closer to his family again.

The kids in his class giggled because she told him to stop all the time but he never did. Jin knew that they all thought there was something wrong about him, something strange. Maybe it was why they didn't include him.