Single Father • Namjoon + BTS!Kids

cxxv.

Despite everyone's assurances that Jimin would be fine, there was only one person who could make him feel safe at that moment, someone who had always been there to keep Jimin safe.

But he wasn't there.

He wasn't in the car.

As Jimin heard their step-father's footsteps growing closer, he fumbled his cellphone out of his pocket and quickly scrolled through the contacts before finding the one he needed and hitting the call button.

The car clicked as the locks disengaged.

"Hello?"

"T-Tae," Jimin breathed out.

The car door opened.

"Jimin? What's up?"

Jimin swallowed before forcing himself to laugh. "'N-Nothing, Tae. I j-just got b-bored. What are y-you doing right n-now?"

A breathy pause on the other end before Tae's reply. "Well, nothing really. According to Dad, I'm doing homework. According to Lisa, I'm researching the ingredients for a homemade pipe bomb. According to Jungkook, I'm plotting step 17 in my master plan of ruining his life."

"That's a l-lot of s-steps."

"All great endeavors take time." Another pause. "What are you up to?"

"I'm t-taking a break from h-homework," Jimin said, swallowing once more and turning his head to stare out the window as their step-father climbed into the driver's seat. He didn't even look back.

Jimin didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.

Yoongi and Hobi, meanwhile, were caught between anger at Jimin for lying and concern for his well-being. He could see their reflections in the window.

He ignored them. "I was j-just thinking that it w-would be fun if we all h-had a s-sleepover," Jimin proposed, thinking back to the years they'd all slept under the same roof, years he'd appreciated dearly but had taken for granted in the moment.

"Ooh," Tae said, and Jimin could hear a pen tapping against a desk in the background. "That sounds like fun. Almost as much fun as step 17 in my master plan to ruin Kookie's life."

"What's s-step 17?"

"A magician never reveals his tricks!" Tae boasted before immediately adding, "But, on a completely, totally unrelated note that has absolutely nothing at all whatsoever to do with step 17 in my master plan to ruin Kookie's life...how do you feel about robots?"

Jimin blinked. "R-Robots?"

"Yeah. I was thinking that I'd build a robot version of Kookie, and then everyone would like the robot version better because 1, it's a robot and 2, it's like Jungkook 2.0 and 3, I made the robot so of course it would be awesome. I had reasons 4, 5, and 6 listed in the subcategory Reasons  Why Robot Jungkook Would Be More Popular Than Real Jungkook but I spilled juice on the list and had to rewrite it. Upon writing the list a second time, I realized that there was an error in the original subcategory Reasons Why Robot Jungkook Would Be More Popular Than Real Jungkook because I realized that we don't even know that the Jungkook we know is the real Jungkook, you know? Like, what if the Jungkook we thought was the real Jungkook was actually just a robot based off the real Jungkook? Or a robot based off a robot based off-"

"I g-get it," Jimin interrupted before Tae got caught in an infinite loop. "B-But I think he's the r-real one. I think."

"Are you sure, though?"

"I...N-No..."

"Exactly. Like, what finite proof do we have?"

"D-Don't robots have to r-recharge or s-something?" Jimin asked, raising his eyebrows because he was used to letting Tae unwind his own twisted logic without interrupting him with reality. Better to let him dream.