Broken

Part 1

Screaming, laughing, and yelling is heard as Park Jimin and his friends are sprinting as fast as they can down the road. The ice cream vendor is chasing them, but being overweight and way slower than the children, he is far behind them and gives up only after a few seconds. Yet another day that those kids find a way to sneak some free ice cream.

"YAH, JIMIN!" Choeun, coincidentally the ice cream vendor's daughter, yells as she tries to catch her breath. All five of them start to slow down and come to a stop, panting.

"YAH, CHOEUN!" Jimin yells back at her, laughing and teasing her. Jimin catches his breath again. He stands upright again with a mischievous smirk on his face. The others are all smiling with him, also trying to catch their breath, including Choeun.

"Hey guys, what should we do now?" Jimin asks as he starts walking backwards in order to be able to see everyone. He looks at everyone's joyful faces, one by one, and hops a little, as if he's skipping backwards. Jimin's best friend, Jooyoung, catches up to him and joins him.

"Hyung, why don't we go to the park?" he suggests with a smile. The two girls, Choeun and Minseo, nod happily in agreement. Jimin nods towards the only other guy besides Jimin and Jooyoung, Taehyung. He has a little hop in his walk, too, as he nods with a smile.

"Which park, though?" Jooyoung asks. Choeun stops, and Minseo stops with her, at the popcorn stand. The guys realize they stopped and follow them to get popcorn. They walk out with two bags of popcorn for them all to share, buttered and caramel. The girls start to skip, side by side, and Jooyoung quits hopping alongside Jimin to skip with Choeun. He grabs his chance and takes her hand. Taehyung was already standing on Choeun's left, so everyone except for Jimin were skipping in a line. Instead of joining them, as everybody's laughing, he pulls out the camera on his phone and snaps a picture of them while laughing along, still hopping.

"Yah, let's go to the skater park!" Choeun exclaims and Minseo nods her head excitedly while chewing the popcorn in her mouth. "Mhm! I agree! I agree 100%! There could be some cute guys there," Minseo whispers the last sentence, nudging Choeun a little.

"Yah! What are we?!" Jooyoung says, still swinging Choeun's hand, "You... You wouldn't cheat on me, right?!" He says, teasing Choeun.

"Who said we were dating? Who knows, I might have a boyfriend to tell that you're hitting on me." Choeun replies seriously, convincing and disheartening Jooyoung for a moment until she bursts out in laughter with Jimin.

"Okay, okay, we get it, you're madly in love with her. So where are we going?!" Jimin asks impatiently, mocking Jooyoung and Choeun. Minseo laughs with him, also teasing them. Taehyung catches up to Jimin while laughing, and hops along with him.

"I heard there's a carnival not to far away," he pauses as the others get excited, "I'd rather go there than watch Choeun staring at the guys at the park with heart eyes while Jooyoung keeps getting jealous," he teases them, winking. "Jiminnieeeee, hyuuuuung," Taehyung attempts aegyo as he puts his arms around Jimin, "Let's go to the carnival!"

"No need to ask me twice! You should have told us about it sooner!" He laughs at Taehyung as he pretends to do aegyo back, hugging him as they release each other and excitedly skip ahead. They give each other a look and Jimin smirks. They break into a run, making the others have to sprint after them with the popcorn. They all yell after Jimin and Taehyung, screaming their names, as they secretly cuss under their breath.

***

Three hours later, the five friends are exhausted, sitting in Minseo's living room. They hung out and it was a full hour of jokes, laughter, and recalling (even the embarrassing) memories. Jooyoung suddenly gets a text from his mom, telling him to be home. Choeun decides to go with his since her house is on the way and she wouldn't want to walk alone later. Taehyung, Jimin, and Minseo stay and hang out for an hour longer.

Taehyung and Jimin stay behind with Minseo, because Jimin said it was too early for him to go home. Minseo heads to take a shower but says the guys can still hang out and wait in the living room or backyard if they wanted to. Jimin and Taehyung headed to the "club house" from when they all were little. They've all known each other since 5th grade, but they really got close in 7th. They've been hanging out since then.

Jimin and Jooyoung have been best friends since Jooyoung transferred to the same school as them in 4th grade. Jooyoung started liking Choeun around two years ago, when they were freshmen. Now they're juniors, yet still act like 5th graders when they're together. Jooyoung and Choeun aren't dating, but they've become more affectionate towards one another over the years. Choeun isn't quite sure of her feelings towards Jooyoung, and they both like things the way they are.

Jimin walks into the large club house with Taehyung following behind. There's a bunk bed on the farthest wall, with a desk next to it. To the right of the door, close to the center of the room, is a swinging chair hanging from ropes that attached to the ceiling. There was a mini fridge on the same wall as the door. On the wall to the left of the door, there's a couch about five feet away from the bunk bed. In front of the couch is a wooden box that they use as a coffee table. They had found the large box while hanging out at a festival, so they fixed it up and painted it to use in 8th grade.

Taehyung sat on the couch as Jimin sat in the swinging chair. The room wasn't too messy... They had fixed and cleaned the bunk beds for the most part when they were last in there. But there were still a few soda cans on the coffee table and some crumbled pieces of paper on the desk. There were some pink and yellow stick notes stuck around on the desk, mostly crumbled. They had a sticky note fight a few club house meets ago, around two weeks ago. They didn't meet as often at the club house as they did when they were younger.

"Yah, what do you wanna do while we're waiting?" Jimin asked, swinging in the chair. Taehyung pursed his lips, thinking about what they could do to kill time. He stood up and walked to the mini fridge, grabbing two cokes and tossing one to Jimin. He caught it and smiled, thanking him. Taehyung nodded and smiled back. He looked around the room and walked around a little. He got to the desk and picked up a crumbled sticky note with his index finger and middle finger. He threw the sticky note at Jimin, laughing, which hit him in the face. "Maybe we should clean?"

Jimin looked around and nodded, and they got to work. About 45 minutes later Minseo came to join them and was surprised that the club house was so clean. Taehyung and Jimin laughed at her reaction as she walked in. She close her eyes and shook her head, to tease them because she she wouldn't expect them to clean in their free time.

"It was Taehyung's idea, not mine," Jimin says, laughing. "Ah, I see, that makes only a little more sense," she laughed, nudging Taehyung. They hung out for about another hour and then Minseo had to eat dinner with her parents, so Jimin and Taehyung left. Jimin was really slow while they were walking, about 100 times slower than the speed they were all skipping to earlier. Taehyung went his speed, Jimin always walked this speed to go home. The first time they walked together, Taehyung had asked him why he walked so slow as he had realized he was far ahead of Jimin. Jimin spoke while laughing, but it hadn't been his usual bubbly, cheerful laugh. His response echos in Taehyung's mind whenever they walk together.

"It's just really boring at home. I like you guys more"