description: minjeong hates sharing, but never with jimin

- fluff and a little of angst

- happy ending

- fast-paced

Minjeong has always had a little bit of a problem with sharing ever since she was little. She never liked sharing her stuff with others, especially kids around her age because she once heard from her brother that they have cooties. And Minjeong hates cooties. In fact, there was a particular incident at school when she got in trouble for poking a crayon straight into a boy's left eye simply because he had borrowed it without asking for her permission first. With how possessive she was as a kid, you'd think that her first word as a baby would be an overly angry, ferociously snappy 'mine!'.

However, Minjeong isn't proud of any of it.

After all, she's seven and three quarters now.

One can say that she really has gained an impressive wealth of knowledge from her childhood (which was not even a minute ago).

So on her first day as a post-cootie-prone child, she is very determined to make it all about giving and willingness to share without biting other people's knee caps.

Which is a skill that is going to be put to a test right about now.

“Who are you?” she asks, fighting the urge to frown when she comes face to face with a stranger as soon as she opens the trapdoor of her treehouse.

The girl flashes a wide, toothy grin, taking a step back to make room for Minjeong to come up.

“Hi! My name is Jimin! What about you?”

Jimin looks strange, Minjeong thinks. 

She has cat eyes, but her physical appearance is nowhere near a feline. She is also lanky, and awkward, and she looks nerdy with that propeller hat that's probably just as stupid as her.

(Since Minjeong is seven and three quarters now, she believes she can say the word “stupid” without consequences. 

Besides, her mom isn't even here.)

“I'm Minjeong.” Minjeong regards her with a suspicious look, “What are you doing in my treehouse?”

“What's a treehouse?”

See? Stupid.

And in contrast to that, Minjeong is a very intelligent kid. She's won the title Magnificent Mathlete and Word Problem Wizard two years in a row (she's in second grade). Her dad once told her that she's basically smarter than Albus Winston (?) now.

Minjeong doesn't know who that person is, but her father is totally right!

“It's a house on a tree.” Minjeong tells Jimin. “You see? You're standing in one right now.”

“Like apple tree?” Jimin asks, curious and wide-eyed. “It's the only tree I know.”

“Sure.” Minjeong moves past Jimin, and sits on the floor.

Excitement grows evidently on Jimin's face as she happily skips towards Minjeong and clumsily plops down beside her. “And you live here?”

“No, I live right over there.” Minjeong points towards the house nearby through the treehouse's supposed round window. Jimin almost breaks her neck trying to take a peak. Minjeong smirks at that before she adds, “My mom said that I can only move here permanently once I turn eighteen.”

“But that's like fifty years away!” Jimin gasps dramatically.

“It's not very far for me.” Minjeong says, throwing Jimin a grin. “I'm seven and three quarters now.”

“Oh.” Jimin blinks, probably counting the numbers in her head. “I'm eight.”

“You're in third grade then?” 

“Yeah,” Jimin puffs her cheeks, frowning as she pouts to herself. “But I don't like it very much.”

“Why not?” Minjeong asks.

Third grade has always been something that Minjeong has been looking forward to since her favorite neighbor, Aeri, is currently in that grade and claims that their mathematics is more challenging than Minjeong's, and Minjeong likes a good challenge. That's the exact reason why she has achieved numerous remarkable feats at such a young age, so watching Jimin act this way makes her want to reconsider her future plans. Third grade just might be her final demise.

That, and MIT. Minjeong doesn't know what that is either, but she once heard her parents talking about it. They said it was some kind of a school for a bunch of geniuses and she'll be able to get in there without much of a struggle. But still. MIT sounds pretty intimidating.

“I don't have a lot of friends, and all the girls around my age only like to talk about boys.” A wave of relief washes over Minjeong when Jimin says that. “I don't like talking about boys.”

It's great to see that Jimin doesn't appear to be too worried about the subjects and teaching methods in third grade. After all, that's Minjeong's only concern anyway. She doesn't care about boys and girls and friendships and all that stuff. It's a wisdom she once learned the hard way as someone who's been through hell that is first grade.

“Me too. Did you know that they don't stop getting cooties until they turn thirty? They're very gross.” says Minjeong with a grimace.

“Really? Who told you that?” Jimin smiles widely, and her set of teeth (or lack thereof) amuses Minjeong a lot.

“My dad. He's really smart.” Minjeong remarks coolly. “He made this treehouse for me with the help of the tree fairies.”

Eyes wide in innocent wonder, Jimin faces Minjeong. “Tree fairies?”

“Yes.” Minjeong nods. “They live in the trees to take care of the fruits.”

“Are they your friends?” 

With a smirk, Minjeong looks at the taller girl. “Maybe.”

“I really want to have friends other than my sister. She's been really mean towards me lately, and my mommy said it's only because she's going through puberty.”

Jimin pronounces it as “poo-bertie” and Minjeong is not quite sure what it really means. It could be an award after finishing third grade, or perhaps, it's a type of illness. 

Maybe it's the latter.

“Is it deadly?” she wonders.

“I don't think so.” Jimin's nose scrunches, and then she grins as if a sudden brilliant idea just hits her in the head. “Can I be their friend too? The tree fairies, I mean.” 

If it were any other children in their neighborhood, Minjeong would have said no and kept the tree fairies to herself. Their existence is a top secret between her and her father, after all. However, there's something about Jimin that she can't quite put her finger on yet, but she's not too bothered to figure it out. It's whatever. Jimin seems nice anyway.

And so she shrugs. “Sure.”

Jimin claps her hand as she springs up excitedly, “Awesome!”

Amused (and maybe even smug), Minjeong shakes her head and quietly allows Jimin the moment to celebrate.

“Can I be yours too?” Jimin asks after a while, and she flashes that wide stupid smile that Minjeong finds to be strangely drawn to for some reason 

“I guess.” Minjeong mumbles.

She didn't even get the chance to prepare herself when Jimin suddenly jumps to her and gives her a hug. 

Jimin smells weird. 

Minjeong doesn't know what it is, but maybe Jimin smells like chocolates. Or ice cream. Or that one specific page in her big Mathematics book that defines all the five mathematical operations in it.

Jimin smells like all the things that Minjeong adores, which is very fascinating.

Seven years later, and Minjeong finds herself sitting on a bench with the people that randomly picked her as their designated Smartass #2 years ago for some strange reason. Aeri, Ningning (she's Smartass #1), and of course, Jimin, are deep in a nerdy conversation about Pokémon and the oddity of the backstory behind the skull on Cubone's head out of context, but Minjeong chooses to stay out of it.

“That's mine.” She scowls, swatting away the sneaky hand attempting to snatch a piece of her strawberries.

Aeri quickly snatches her hand back to shield it from the wrath of Minjeong's lethal ones. “I'm just taking a bite!”

“No.” Minjeong says as the girl next to her, Jimin, casually grabs a strawberry from her box and pops it into .

Unlike before, Jimin has a full set of teeth now. She's also ditched that stupid propeller hat that she wore throughout her childhood, and opted for a more age-appropriate look for a Sophomore in high school, but Minjeong still looks at her the same way.

With betrayed squinting eyes and a palm placed against her chest, Aeri turns to Minjeong fully. “How come she can take one, and I can't? You've known me longer than you've known her!”

Jimin smirks, a smug look on her face as she throws an arm behind Minjeong's chair. “Because she loves me more,”

Not a lie.

“No, she d—”

“Quiet, losers!” Ningning hisses at them and dramatically slams her hands against the table. “Light Fury at nine o'clock!”

They all turn their heads in three different directions. 

“Whose nine o'clock?” Aeri questions.

“My nine o'clock, idiot!” Ningning widens her eyes in exasperation. She can be quite dramatic sometimes (all the time).

“Well, in her defense, Aeri only ever owned digital clocks her whole life.” Jimin retorts.

Minjeong lets out a dry chuckle and faces Jimin. “It's basic knowledge, doofus.”

Jimin playfully winks at her and bursts into giggles because she knows damn well that she finally achieved her task for the day; which is to get on Minjeong's nerves. This stupid routine of hers has been going on for years, and Jimin has never missed a day. Her dedication is definitely something that Minjeong admires and hates at the same time.

They stare at each other for a while (the other could be glaring, but who knows which one?)

“...and she's gone,” Ningning announces.

Minjeong snaps out of her trance and blinks back to reality. 

Light Fury (Aeri came up with that), also known as Yeji, happens to be Jimin's crush (allegedly). Despite not confirming or denying the rumors created by her own group of friends, it doesn't change the fact that Minjeong still feels like throwing up whenever the topic is being brought up.

Years of pining will do that to you.

Yes. She has long accepted the fact that she's in love with the toothless intruder who once broke into her treehouse and stole half of her properties as a child.

She realized it years ago, back in third grade, when fourth grade Jimin stood up for her by punching a boy who once tried to eat her crayons. Jimin then cried because she truly hadn't realized that punching someone could hurt her fist this much, so naturally, Minjeong cried because she hadn't realized that seeing Jimin cry could hurt her heart this much.

From then on, Minjeong started sharing her things with Jimin willingly. Only with Jimin.

And then she's in love.

“When are you going to make a move on her?” Aeri tilts her head towards Jimin.

“Uh, never?” Jimin answers vaguely.

Minjeong analyzes it, of course, and comes up with two conclusions. 

Jimin is not making a move because she doesn't like Yeji like that, or Jimin is not making a move because she likes Yeji like that.

One can guess the difference between the two.

Minjeong is walking home with her books against her chest while her mind wanders to a peaceful place where she doesn't have to think about the pressures of her classes, club meetings, extracurriculars, and the fact that the person she's in love with could be in love with someone who isn't her.

“It's nothing.”

For the second time that day, she forcefully pulls out of her own thoughts, and then she looks to her side only to find Jimin next to her, matching her pace. Well. Looks like they'll be walking home together.

“I don't like her like that.” Jimin adds.

“Okay?” Minjeong trails off, confused. “Why are you telling me this?”

Jimin grins as she takes Minjeong's books to carry them for her out of habit. “So you won't be jealous.”

Scoffing indignantly, Minjeong scowls at Jimin, although Minjeong herself can list all the reasons why right at this moment, but she knows better. “Why would I be jealous?”

“We both know how much you hate sharing me with others.” Jimin smiles, and Minjeong adores how much it resembles the way she used to do it before. 

Crooked and stupid.

“Please.” Minjeong rolls her eyes. “I hate sharing everything. You're not that special, Jimin.” She is. 

“Uh huh, whatever you say.” Jimin wiggles her eyebrows, earning an annoyed, disingenuous smile from Minjeong. She wraps her arm around the shorter girl and sways their bodies from side to side as they walk. “Hey! Wanna go to our treehouse?”

“You mean my treehouse?” It's been some time since their last visit to the treehouse since they've been so caught up with school and—well, growing up.

Minjeong wonders what it could possibly look like at this moment, considering that she and Jimin haven't been able to clean it up daily like they did when they were younger. Is it dusty? Are the fixtures made out of wood slowly rotting? Can they still open the trapdoor without causing the entire tree to collapse? The rational, bathing with straight A's part of her knows so. But then the foolish, secretly romantic part of her, the same one that chose to fall in love with her best friend, wants to believe that the tree fairies never really stopped taking care of it.

“It's been years, Minjeong. Don't you think I deserve some rights over it just as much as you do? It's our treehouse.” Jimin argues though the tone of her voice says otherwise. 

However, Minjeong doesn't argue back and chooses to lose silently. With Jimin, she always does. It could either be because Jimin just has an incredible talent for making it look like everything, including the universe itself, is on her side, or because Minjeong is so ridiculously in love with her that all the words that come out of just always seem to be right.

It's the pathetic part of being in love, but Minjeong wouldn't trade it for the world. She figures that she likes being in love with Jimin quietly so long as it stays that way.

Quiet. 

A secret.

Something that's so silent that no one else will be able to hear it, and maybe Jimin will be allowed to feel its whisper, though hushed and shy, she'll know it's there. That it exists. 

Just not in the way that Minjeong feels it.

Because with Minjeong, it screams. It's loud and deafening, and it blares against her skin. It thunders all over her body, always begging to escape that it might have turned insane. So insane that it becomes monstrous enough to scare Jimin away.

And Minjeong doesn't want that.

So she stays silent.

She doesn't say anything. 

Maybe she never will.

They arrive at the treehouse with Minjeong's mind flying elsewhere. She doesn't even know how or when they got here, but she doesn't question it.

Gaze tracing around, Minjeong figures that not much has changed except for the dust settling on a few shelves and cobwebs lurking in every corner of the room. Maybe the fact that it's placed in a private property that's coincidentally owned by Jimin's family is what kept it somewhat tidy and well-maintained.

“Hey, for the record, I love that you don't like sharing me with anyone else.” Jimin speaks as soon as they settle inside, a clown horn mysteriously appearing in her hand.

“Again, I'm not—”

Honk!

“Sorry? Were you saying something?” Jimin feigns an apologetic smile when she receives a glare from Minjeong.

“I said—”

Honk! 

Again, Jimin honks the clown horn in front of Minjeong's face, cutting her off for the second time. “Oops?”

“Whatever, Jimin.” Minjeong grumbles, annoyed and too tired to banter with the taller girl.

Silence blankets over them as their eyes roam around the treehouse. It's fascinating how, as kids, they truly believed that this is how their future would look once they grow up. They were just so sure that someday, they would share this place and live together. And Minjeong wonders,