Struggling Father • Namjoon!Father + BTS!Adults

lvi.

Finally. The six of them, in one room, all sitting in a circle and looking around at each other. Quiet. Hesitant. Reluctant.

"So," Jin began, his tone firm. He wasn't about to let anyone wiggle out of this one. "Let's have a sharing circle, hm? We can each go around and tell each other what we've been struggling with recently."

"I don't like that idea," Yoongi immediately spoke up, crossing his arms, and Jin just stared at him, raising an eyebrow at the questioning of his authority.

"You don't like anything I suggest. But hey, let's pretend like this is a democracy. Who agrees with my idea?"

Half a second went by before Jimin, who'd grown increasingly loyal to Jin over the past few months, raised his hand, looking over to Jin (whom he'd sat next to) for confirmation. Jin smiled and ruffled his hair before looking back at Yoongi with a confident smirk on his face. "Jimin likes my idea. Therefore, if you don't like my idea, that's like saying you don't like Jimin. Still have a problem?"

Yoongi sighed and leaned back onto his hands, grumbling incomprehensibly but unwilling to stand against his younger brother.

Jin, who'd known about his secret weapon all along, smiled politely at the others. "It was my idea, so it's only fair if I have to go first." He paused, trying to decide what to say, and that was when he felt a bit of warmth on his knee. He looked down to see Jimin's small hand resting on his kneecap, massaging the skin lightly to relax him. Jin looked over at Jimin and smiled before turning back to face the group, exhaling. "Um...I haven't been feeling too bad about anything in particular. I guess I'm just sort of dissatisfied with where I'm at in life...which isn't a bad thing," Jin rushed onward, not wanting them to get the wrong idea. "I'd make the same choices I did if I had to do it over again, but...I'm not really sure where to go from here. I guess I'm just worried that I'll be stuck working in a stupid electronics shop for the rest of my life because I don't know where else to go."

"But you're super talented, hyung," Jimin said, and his statement was confirmed by two emphatic nods from the other triplets.

"Yeah, I don't think I would have made it to adulthood without you," Jungkook added, a cute grin appearing on his face.

"You can move into our dorm room," Tae suggested. "I'll sleep under the bed. It'll be perfect, no one will ever know."

Jin wheezed out a laugh at the thought of being forced to live in a room the size of a large walk-in closet with his two youngest (and most likely messiest) siblings. "Thanks, Tae. Means a lot, but I'll pass."

"What do you feel like you're missing?" Yoongi asked. Hobi shifted in his place as though wanting to say something, but he'd been quiet ever since the breakup, and no one had wanted to pressure him into anything.

"I don't know, I just...I just feel like I'm not doing anything meaningful," Jin said. As the words came forth from his mouth, they seemed to make his own abstract fears and doubts more tangible, increasing their weight in his mind, and he felt his spine already starting to warp and buckle under the pressure.

"You mean a lot to all of us," Jimin said softly. He didn't know how to express his gratitude to Jin, who had managed to stitch him back together over the last few months he'd been staying under Namjoon's roof. That said, whether it was verbal validation or through some other course of action, Jimin was bent on making Jin feel appreciated and valued.

"You'll get where you need to go," Yoongi said offhandedly, shrugging. "Don't sweat it in the short term. You'll look back twenty years from now and realize that it was all inconsequential anyway."

Hobi, meanwhile, opened his mouth, trying to phrase his thoughts as the old question What's the point of pain?  popped back into his mind. "Maybe it doesn't seem purposeful now, but you need to experience this part of your life in order to get to whatever the next part is. To teach you something."