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Four short days later, you found yourself returning to a sense of normalcy as you unlocked the entrance to Sugar Daddy. You were granted a soft open, thank heavens, and only had to come in at 6 am, but even after nearly 5 days of nothing but sleep you found yourself yawning as you battled with the key.
"Jimin," you called as you entered the dark shop, surprised to see the front cabinets were completely empty, and the air smelled of baking bread instead of the sweets that were normally in the oven by now.
He must have been running behind schedule.
You hope he didn't stay up too late after checking in on you yesterday evening. Your worry shifted to guilt at the thought that you might have interrupted his evening routine. He had sacrificed so much of his personal time to come and check on you and keep you company between shifts.
"Jimin?" You called, making your way to the kitchen, relieved to see the ovens were at least running. A quick scan of the kitchen showed no sign of your co-worker, but the counters were uncharitaristly messy for Jimin's work, and for a second you wondered if you misread the schedule.
That's when you noticed the door open in the back.
It was a solid metal door labeled maintenance. You had no clue what was behind it but never bothered to ask because it was never open.
You made your way towards it cautiously, one voice in your head reminding you, you were in a bakery and would be fine, and the other taunting you that you were in a gangster bakery and to always be prepared for surprises.
Your heart pounded its way up to your throat as you approached the cracked door, careful to make your footsteps quiet as possible.
"Ella,"
You gasped in shock as Jimin appeared in your line of vision, cracking the door open a little wider to see you.
"Jimin, you scared the shit out of me," you breathed one hand on your chest. His mouth quirked into a small smile that seemed to say 'my bad.' "What are you wearing?" You questioned the thick gloves and safety goggles on his head.
Jimin grimaced.
"It's personal protection equipment," he started to explain.
"Yes, I know what PPE is I've worked in a lab before," you said with a roll of our eyes. You had worn the equipment plenty of times in your chemistry labs in college, "Why are you dressed like your about to go to lab?" you questioned.
Jimin grinned sheepishly, "Because you're in my lab?" he offered as explanation.
Jimin thought your eyes might bulge out of their sockets as you pushed past him and took in the intensive research lab behind the metal door.
It makes sense given the dimensions of the building you guess the kitchen didn't quite fit it, but you were still shocked and showed a little bit of fear of working in the midst of explosives all this time.
Everything was starting to make sense, this is what the gangster bakery was hiding. You thought back to the chemistry books you saw in Jin's office and the odd hours Jimin always seemed to be working.
"How do you even know how to do all this?" You asked, a little in awe as you took in the different devices that lined the walls, and the bubbling beakers along the counters.
Jimin smiled ruefully, "I've always had a natural talent for it. Some people work well with numbers or words. For me it's chemicals that connect the world and make it the way it is," he explained bashfully.
"Yeah, but do you Google how to make bombs and just go for it, or did someone teach you?" You asked.
Jimin tilted his head as if contemplating his answer, before he walked back to the beakers, turning the flame to low and scribbling down a few notes.
"It's a bit of a long story. We should probably talk in the kitchen," he offered in response as he finished whatever it was he was doing and made his way back to the bakery.
It was quiet as you both set to work unloading the baked goods out of the ovens and setting them on the cooling rack. Jimin grabbed a tray of cookies ready to be iced and handed you a piping bag with a smile.
"Just glaze them, they don't need to be pretty,"
You rolled your eyes before snatching the bag from him and starting to carefully trace the perimeter of the oval-shaped sugar cookies, laying down a base coat for Jimin to later design.
"I was kind of a protege back in the day," he offered, finally breaking the silence. "Ya know, small-town country kid who was really good at math and science. I got accepted in some big STEM boarding school in East Alcor, I was surrounded by students who wanted to cure cancer or end climate change. Some really inspired me, but most were my rivals. The program was competitive, we were constantly pinned against each other for performance reviews. At the end of the year, they would do a big review, lots of tests, a research presentation, I was 16, and working on a thesis. If you didn't do well you got cut and sent home. I didn't want to disappoint my family like that. I couldn't stand the thought of not being enough, so I became too much." He said with a shrug.
He stayed quiet, and for a moment the two of you just focused on icing the cookies as you gave him space to gather his thoughts and decide whether or not to tell you more.
You glanced up and met his gaze. Saw the invitation to ask, "How did you end up in BTS?"
You waited for his face to fall, for the deep sadness that brought him here to surface as it did for Taehyung or Hoseok any time you asked about their pasts.
But Jimin smiled a crooked little smile that was better classified as a smirk as he started talking. "I wanted to set myself apart from the others and as I said, chemistry came naturally to me, I knew that I could make something big. Have some kind of breakthrough if I had enough time, so my second year I broke into the labs at night to work on my own research. The goal was to create a more isolated explosive that you could control or manipulate for small scale construction projects or even disaster relief." He explained.
You swallowed nervously, able to predict where this was going.
"It's kinda handy if you think about it. Especially in Alcor where construction and development happen so quickly, it would be an easy way to clear roads or old districts with mostly vacant buildings." he continued and you admired how his eyes lit up in excitement, it was work he was passionate about, proud to talk about. Somehow calling him an arsonist like most of the inner circle referred to him as seemed like an oversimplification of all he was capable of. He was a chemist and a visionary.
"So, what happened?" You prompted, wanting to keep him on track. As much as you would love to discuss his passions, the bakery did open in less than an hour.
This time Jimin's face did fall, "I made a miscalculation, and it blew up in my face. Literally. I almost lost my arm from the impact of the explosion," he paused for a second, worming his arm out of his shirt to show a band of wicked scarring along his left shoulder and down his arm.
You gaped at the brutal injury. By the look of the scarring, the burn wasn't treated or healed properly. It hadn't occurred to you until now that Jimin wore exclusively long sleeve shirts. Only rolling up his sleeves to a portion of his forearm where the thinner scars could be dismissed, especially when compared to the stark tattoo on his inner forearm.
"And the school lost half an entire wing of the building. So naturally, I was sent to juvy."
"So you joined a gang in a juvenile detention center?" You asked in disbelief.
At the accusation, Jimin laughed. "Technically yes, it's pretty brutal in there. But not BTS. Namjoon got word of some mad scientist sent to juvy, and thought it sounded like a waste of potential. He sent Taehyung there who posed as a prisoner, my roommate actually, and he offered me a way out. I could take the tattoo and they would get me out, and I would have a lab to work on all my passion projects as long as I did some jobs for them. The bakery came to be a few years later and I just really liked the pace of life here." He said with a shrug.
You imagined Jimin and Taehyung together, the two always seemed thick as thieves. A friendship born of pure mischief. But friendship, aside you could see the ambition clear as day in Jimin's eyes.
You couldn't keep the disbelief off your face, "You never wanted to go back to school, continue your research?" You asked, incredulously.
Jimin frowned, setting down his icing bag with a sigh, "I ruined myself when I broke into that lab after hours. I put students sleeping in the dorms at risk. I violated a million different school policies. I was a few months out from turning 18 and being truly convicted for the crimes I committed. Even so, juvy ruined me. I would never get accepted into a college or a research program, my work as a scientist wouldn't be respected because of the boundaries I pushed when I was young. But even if I would have been pardoned, breaking out of jail and escaping like that is unforgivable. There was a warrant out for my arrest for nearly a year before they tossed it up and filed me as a missing person. I ruined my future myself, but Namjoon and the others breaking me out was the final seal in my coffin, it took away my chance of living any kind of quiet life."
You frowned, disturbed by Jimin's words. Hoseok once described taking the BTS tattoo as both a target and a shield. RM had given Jimin safety but also made him completely dependent upon him to receive it.
You shivered as you realized the parallels in your situations.
If you were caught treating and practicing on gang members in your home, you could lose your chance of ever becoming a licensed doctor. It was a detail you didn't dwell on very often, but you could only hope you could make it through this encounter with BTS, provide your services and pass through the gang unscathed.
And once you graduated and were a real doctor, then what?
You were quite the rest of the morning as you finished opening the bakery. Your thoughts cycling in the same nerve-wracking spiral of "what ifs?"
A/N: a better look at our besties back story! I hope you enjoyed!!! please comment and vote