A Thousand Words (Min Yoongi x OC)

Schoolwork Struggles

*About four weeks later, January 26th*

Mariana had been back at her college for about 3 weeks now. For the first week, she had been hearing from the boys every day, as well as getting video calls every day. Some days she'd get a video call from each member, along with regular calls and/or texts from Suga, Jimin, and Namjoon. But lately, the boys were getting worried. Mariana would see their messages, and never reply, she would decline video calls far more often than she would answer them, and she wasn't active on any of her social media accounts. The boys were worried about her. They knew she had a part-time job and a slightly sporadic school schedule, but it was so unlike her to just not be there.

Jimin was over it. Not only because the neglected feeling was driving him nuts, but Suga was starting to genuinely worry that he'd done or said something wrong. It was about 6:00 at night on a Wednesday, so Jimin knew Mariana would be home for the night and the boys all had the night free to do whatever they wanted. So Jimin decided he was going to go across town to Mariana's apartment and check on her. Mariana had only mentioned her apartment complex a couple of times, but Jimin knew he could figure out exactly what door was hers when he got there.

He told the others where he was going, and they all wished him luck as he walked out of the door and made his way to Mariana's apartment.

***

Mariana had school papers scattered all over her dining table, her BTS playlist playing through her Playstation 4 console as she hopped from one seat to another, trying to get through her mountain of procrastinated grammar and language and math homework. She shot her attention to her door when she thought she heard a knock on her door. She paused her music and just listened for a moment.

"Ana? It's me." She heard Jimin from the other side of the door.

Mariana sighed as her shoulders slouched before she went to go get the door. It's not that she wasn't glad for a Jimin distraction, but she was stressed about being behind on all of her homework, and just wanted to get it slammed out in any way she could.

Mariana opened the door with a look of confusion. "Jimin. What are you doing here?" She asked and let him in as Jimin took a step closer, gently inviting himself in, Mariana closing the door behind him.

Jimin took off his face mask and stuffed it into his jacket pocket as he spoke. "I wanted to check on you. Nobody's heard from you in a while. We're worried about you." Jimin said as he noticed her four to six person round table that had turned into a mound of books, folders, and papers.

Mariana put a hand on her forehead and pushed her fly-away hairs back, her hand flopping back down to her side as she spoke. "I'm sorry. I've got three tests next week, with this mountain of homework on various topics that's all due on Friday, and..... I barely understand any of it... So I put it off until the last minute, which was a really stupid choice, because now all I can do is stress out and hope that I'm making the right symbols, because I apparently can't read Korean near as well as I can speak it....." Mariana rambled off and then stopped herself mid-thought as she looked back up at Jimin. "How are you doing?"

"WAY less stressed than you are. You know that if you need help with reading and writing, you have seven native speakers at your fingertips, right?" Jimin pointed out with a chuckle as he took his shoes off. He hadn't stated it yet, but he didn't plan on leaving until Mariana was caught up on her homework.

"You guys are busy enough, I didn't want to bother you with something so trivial...."

"Ana, even if you don't think so, you can always ask us for help. Most days we'll be glad for the brief change of topic." He pointed out with a smile before wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Now. Why don't we start diminishing that homework mountain of yours?"

Mariana let out a little sigh of relief she didn't know she was holding back. "That. Would be amazing." She said and led the way to the table, resuming her position in the chair she had started in, Jimin sitting right next to her as they went through the homework.

They were going slowly at first, but with Jimin around to guide her, Mariana was quickly remembering the more commonly used symbols, and they were actually sticking with her this time around. Jimin made sure they had short breaks between assignments to keep their brains from frying and to make sure Mariana would have time to actually remember what she'd learned rather than storing it into her short term memory and then forget about it later. After about an hour, the table under Mariana's homework was finally visible again, and after 2 hours, they had the mountain down to a handful of longer writing assignments.

Jimin plopped back in his chair a bit as Mariana slumped her arms onto the table. "Jimin. No more pulling the brother card on me tonight. I'm tired of homework, and tired point general, and it's 9:20 at night. I just wanna go to bed."

"Sleep sounds great right now." Jimin agreed with a smile.

Mariana stood up and reached her hands out to him. "Come on. That's your signal that you should probably head home before the guys think I kidnapped you." She said with a chuckle and Jimin took her hands to pull himself up. "Thank you so much for saving me tonight. You're seriously the best." She thanked him with a smile as she walked him to the door.

"Anytime. You know how to get ahold of me." He said as he happily hugged her to his side.

"We should do this more often. But you know, without the homework." She said, her smile growing as she got an idea. "We should have at home movie nights. That can be our brother-sister thing!" She excitedly offered as she put a hand on his upper arm.

"I like that idea! I'm definitely down." Jimin agreed with a nod and started putting his shoes on. "How does next Sunday evening sound?"

"Perfect. I'll be here all day."

"You're sure you haven't already made plans with your other friends?" He joked a bit with a smile.

"Oh please. Other than you seven, all of my real friends are still back in the states. I have work and school friends, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'd hang out with them outside of that environment." Mariana pointed out.

"But you seem so sociable." Jimin joked with a smile.

Mariana raised an eyebrow at him. "There's literally only ten friends that I text on a regular basis." She started and kept a running tally with her fingers. "The seven of you, best friend number one: Payton, who lives in the states. Best friend number two: Alex, who also still lives in the states, and number 3: my only out-of-school friend here in Korea, Mina.

Jimin chuckled a bit. "At least you have a friend here to keep you occupied when we can't." He stated as he pulled on his jacket adjusted it to get it zipped.

"Yeah, I do. Even if we don't hang out all of the time." She started as Jimin dug his face mask out of his jacket pocket and situated it over the lower half of his face. "Be safe going home okay?"

Jimin nodded. "I will be. Go get some sleep. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Talk to you tomorrow, Jimin." Mariana confirmed before Jimin opened the door, and started on his trek home.

Mariana locked her door behind him, then went back over to her school work to make sure her backpack was properly assembled for her day tomorrow before going into her bedroom. She changed into her pj's, and let her hair down from its ponytail before heading to her bathroom to quickly brush her teeth, then went back to her room and climbed into bed, quickly falling asleep for the first time in weeks without the stress of her homework keeping her up.