Dark | BTS ✓

3

Jimin is abruptly woken up in the middle of the night when he hears a woman screaming.

Without thinking, he runs through his house and out his front door, frantically looking around for the source of the scream, not caring that he's only wearing a pair of boxers as he runs into his front yard, instantly getting drenched in the rain still falling from the sky.

He sees his neighbor standing in her yard, and he runs to her, heart pounding in his chest as she continues to scream and yell incoherently.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" Jimin asks, his voice barely heard over the rain as he reaches out to the girl who is still screaming.

She's just wearing an oversized t-shirt and shorts, her bare feet getting covered in mud as she stares into the distance. She glances over at Jimin and steps back out of his reach. She stops screaming as she stares blankly at him. Her dark, shoulder-length hair is sticking to her face as the rain falls on their exposed bodies.

"What happened?" he asks, holding his hands up to show her he's not going to touch her. "Are you okay?"

She stares at him, shivering as she takes in his appearance.

"I forgot you live here now," she says in a hoarse voice. "I won't do this again. I'm sorry."

She turns to walk away but he grabs her arm gently, turning her to look at him. "Are you okay?"

Her dull, dark eyes stare at him, the only light around them being the lone streetlight at the end of their road.

"I'm sorry," she repeats before she pulls her arm out of his grip and goes back into her house, leaving Jimin alone in his neighbor's yard, shivering and confused.

As much as he wants to go back to his house and take a hot shower to warm up, he finds himself rooted to the spot, not caring that he's in the rain in only his underwear.

At first, the screams he heard sounded like she was panicking and terrified, which is why Jimin ran straight here. He thought she was in danger or something from the pure terror he heard in her voice.

Then, when he got to her and heard her more clearly, he realized that they weren't screams of terror.
They were screams of rage.

She sounded so angry at someone or something.
Maybe she's angry at everything. Maybe she was screaming at the world.

He also realizes that she mentioned that she won't do this again, meaning this isn't the first time she's done this, and she hadn't planned for it to be her last.

Jimin turns to walk back to his house, but he stops when he hears a soft melody coming from his neighbor's house.

He glances over and sees the girl's living room curtains pulled open again, and this time, he is close enough to see her more clearly.

She is dancing around the room to the song she is playing from a record player situated next to her couch, and there is a dim light coming from a lone candle sitting on her coffee table. She moves around the room in her drenched pajamas, her hair still dripping wet as she dances around the room to the song.

When she turns toward the window, Jimin stiffens as they make eye contact, and he internally curses as he realizes how he keeps coming off to her as a creep who won't leave her alone.

Instead of screaming or closing the curtains, the girl just continues to dance around the room until the song ends.

Then, she turns the record player off and blows the candle out, engulfing her living room into darkness as the rain continues to pour.

Jimin stares at the now darkened window, lost for words as he tries to understand this girl, but he knows it will take much longer than a couple of days and a few chance encounters. He shakes his head to move his hair out of his eyes before trudging back to his house.

He gets inside, shivering as the rain chills him to the bone. He needs to get some more sleep so he can be coherent at work, but he decides to take a hot shower to warm himself up and try to collect his thoughts.

He's seen her show intense bursts of anger twice now. The first time was because she couldn't pull her trash can to the end of the driveway. Jimin figured she'd had a bad day and that small inconvenience sent her over the edge.

What he doesn't understand is her second outburst of anger. She was standing in her yard in her pajamas, barefoot as she just screamed incoherently at no one and nothing. Or maybe everyone and everything.

Either way, he knows that this isn't going to be as easy as sending her a friendly smile to lighten her spirits.

But as he always has been, he's determined to make this girl's life better in some way.

He has to.