No regrets, really – just a little, lingering longing, sometimes.

Especially now when the KaTalk is buzzing with notifications, photos of Namjoon on stage and the boys – as he has always called them and forever will – together off stage, flooding the group chat. Lack of Taehyung in the photos make Seokjin feel less bad but not being the only one who was not there doesn’t make feeling like wanting to be there any less either.

Because being with them is home. It’s where he belongs.

“If you don’t stop smiling this once I’ll assume you’re cheating on me.”

But this is also the home where he belongs; long legs sprawling on the couch, watching the night news as his wife brings him a cup of coffee to wash the dinner down.

Seokjin welcomes Jihye into his side, wrapping an arm around her waist quite naturally, palm resting on the small baby bump, as he passes the phone to her. A photo of Jimin grinning stupidly to the camera greets her, and the smile is proven infectious as Seokjin watches it spreads on his wife’s face, making her as beautiful as ever.

Her thumb slides on the screen for the next photo and toothy Jimin is replaced by the maknae making chic face.

“This is the maknae, right?” Jihye asks as she rakes her brain for a name. “J-Jimin?”

Seokjin laughs, the thought of Jeongguk’s reaction to be mistaken as Jimin amuses him. “It’s Jeongguk.”

Jihye grins apologetically but Seokjin knows better than to take any offence. Just like how he wants to build a life outside of his idol days, Jihye doesn’t know much about his boys more than random names.

“That’s Jimin,” he quips helpfully at one solo shot of Jimin as Jihye continues to browse.

“Oh,” Jihye nods. She stares at the photo some more as if to get Jimin’s features ingrained into her mind. “He looks like the moodmaker of the group.”

Seokjin reminisces on how Jimin has always had making them laugh as his goal, and nods to confirm the fact. Jimin had come to join the group a little over a month after himself, and while Seokjin had claimed the resident princess spot at once due to his age and inability to keep his critical remarks to himself, Jimin had climbed his way up to member’s ranking of favourite people with the eyes smiles that he was so generous with, and how he was so ready to please everyone that came his way.

And how he worked so hard that he actually drove the other members to work just as hard as not to disappoint him. 

Seokjin knows Jimin had thought it was the other way round, though. He knows for a fact that Jimin spent every second available to practise as to not to mess up in any least possible way and let them down.

Seokjin, and the rest of the members, had been spending the whole time convincing Jimin that he was doing well enough – but they have never succeeded till the very end.

“I wonder,” Jihye starts, pulling back Seokjin’s attention to her and he realizes that she has done scrolling through the photos. “What kind of member Jin was in Bangtan?”

“A princess with shoulders wider than the world,” Seokjin deadpans and both of them laugh. Jihye rests her head on one of those shoulders as Seokjin pulls her closer. “A replaceable member who was only there because they were too kind to replace me.”

“I’m sure it’s not like that.”

Seokjin wonders – if it isn’t like that. It is true, though, that Seokjin couldn’t rap to save his life, and could barely dance to look decent, and was the weakest of the vocal line. It was frustrating, because everyone else shone so bright and Seokjin wanted to be up to the par with them.

He was probably the one who understood Jimin the most, even if he had never said it out loud.

“Jin was,” Seokjin contemplates if he should use is , “the oldest member who was in charge of being pretty and awkward” – Jihye laughs and nods eagerly as if agreeing – “and the only who can prepare a decent meal that is not sandwiches, who nagged even if no one was actually listening because Yoongi was the one with that privilege, even though we both almost always let them all go wild instead because it was so tiring trying to constrain them, and the only reason why Jeongguk keep his formalities at all because that one time he actually pleaded to start talking banmal ‘for a closer bond’ as if I would actually accept that.”

Seokjin huffs in annoyance at the memory and Jihye chuckles. He stares off the space before he continues.

“Jin also the one who watched everyone sprint as he tried to catch up with them with everything he had because he wanted to be with them no matter what.”

Because that was how it was like – because when schedules kept piling and sleep was scarce, and he had to survive with only salad without dressings to shed the unwanted meat clinging to his bones so that he could probably dance better, when his inability to move his limbs the way Hoseok or Jimin or any other normal people has nothing to do with that, or when their vocal instructor sighed at the recording he had strained his throat practising for or even when he listened to his own recordings – he had wanted to call it quit then.  

He wanted to throw everything away and just give up, because awards and fans’ adoration probably were not worth it to constantly feel so pathetic – but Yoongi sat through his rants about everything under the sun, and Namjoon never failed to consult him even in things Seokjin had no idea about, and Hoseok come up with easy methods for him to master the dances and explained it to him during lunch, and Jimin made everything easier with just being there while Taehyung kept his mind off the work when they talk about the coming animation films, as Jeongguk quietly did the chores to make him happy.

And they for being the dance black hole in addition of being awkward on broadcast all throughout their career but had always made him feel needed in the group – so Seokjin had wanted to be with them as long as it took, because it had felt like home. They had felt like home.

“I’m sure you’ve done your best,” Jihye says gently, her breath tickling his neck, her hand warm on his own. “I’m sure the others understand that as well.”

Seokjin knows they do, and he is glad Jihye knows exactly what to say. It feels like home now with Jihye, a different home as it was with Bangtan but a home nevertheless.

He thinks of Jimin as he hums in agreement; he wishes someday Jimin would believe it if such words are being said to him, that someday Jimin would have someone to say such words in a way he would believe them– that someday Jimin would find his own home as well.