No matter how hard Sera would try to brush off the bits of anxiety that had been transforming into whole inside her head, her face did not seem like cooperating with her. Her eyebrows stayed creased the entire time, and she could not refrain from massaging her forehead every now and then.

Her brain was occupied with only one thought— 'Is Jimin alright?'

Even though Gaeul did not say aloud her concern for Sera's unprecedented change of behavior, her trying to look into the female's eyes occasionally to check was she was up to, was gesturing enough. As obvious as it was, their consequent spoiling of moods was the cause, as well as the result of one-another. With a wordless sigh in unison, their exhaustion by keeping up with the pretense became palpable. It was then a mere nod from Sera that wound up stirring Gaeul to place her hand on the former's back, and begin caressing it unintentionally.

With guilt sinking in her heart like a bulky anchor, Sera would be lying if she said that her emotions were not under her control earlier in the evening. It was something that she had mastered long back, and it was quite unlikely of her to give up too easily. If she had desired to leash her grief right that instant, she would have done it infallibly— she knew that in her heart. But something restrained her from putting any sort of effort into it. And that was most probably her ever-growing care for Jimin.

If she thought too much, she might end up with a burst head like that android emoji. That was how in the spur of the moment, she called Jimin right away, not even regretting a pinch as if she were drunk-dialing him and was unconscious of her actions. Just like how people feign forgetting their late-night confessions to their crushes, Sera would play Jimin into believing the same if things happened to go south.

Easier said than done.

Amidst all those musings, a raspy voice fell into Sera's ear as it broke her trance eventually. However, confusion regarding the voice being hoarse due to fatigue; or crying; or sleepiness, stayed persistently in her head even when a little greeting slipped off her tongue in the meantime.

"So you finally called, huh?" Jimin's voice still held the same grogginess, but Sera could sense a smirk formulating on his lips.

"Yeah... I was sorta worried about you. You see, I read one article about you being chased by a malicious fan— as the article said. Are you fine, though? That's the serious talk here." Sera's voice was calm as usual, but her heart was throbbing like crazy. She literally had her heart in her mouth at that moment— the phrase was no longer just a phrase.

"Ah, you don't need to worry about that. The company will take care of it, they've always done." Jimin's speech was a little clear now, and judging by that Sera could conclude that he may have been sleeping until she had called him, after all.

She needed to stop overthinking for real.

"Oh, that's nice then. Take rest, we can talk tomorrow anyway." The words mindlessly rolled off Sera's tongue, as her reaction of slamming her palm against her mouth with two widened eyes was explaining.

"Tomorrow? So like, are we call-buddies now—"

"I was about to say maybe but you interrupted!" Sera could no longer put up with her nonchalance as she burst into a hyperventilating mess. If only she had held it in for a little bit longer.

Scratch that, it would have been the best if she had not called Park freaking Jimin at all.

"Woah there, chill. I know it isn't what you mean in your heart." And there went Jimin once again, with his terribly uncounterable remarks. Nothing was to be expected from Sera now, apart from her being rendered tongue-tied, of course.

"Well, guess what? You're right in a way because my heart is saying it's about time I hung up the phone so by—"

"Wait, please don't. I swear that was the last one, I swear." Jimin's enlarged eyes definitely owed to Sera's sassy response, and he was growing quite unsure of himself being able to convince her otherwise. After a spell of absurdly amusing silence, he spoke up once again, "Are you perhaps free right now?"

Sera could not evaluate much by Jimin's obscure question, though she took up a considerable amount of time to contemplate her own to-be-reply. Jimin cocked an eyebrow when he received no answer from the other end, and truthfully, he was all set to kill his own self in his mind because of his vague choice of words.

Park Jimin did not do that usually, then why did he have to behave so stupidly before Sera?

"Ser—"

"Why? Do you have a plan or something?" Sera had finally mustered up her courage to bind her end of the ongoing conversation, but the uncertainty of not knowing what Jimin must have in store for her was choking her badly.

"I do, but only if you're comfortabl—"

"Shoot." Sera pursed her lips as soon as she completed, making weird facial expressions out of nervousness.

"Come down to the main gate. I have a place to show you." Jimin notified, a tinge of contentment evident in his voice as he cut the call.

Dumbfounded with her arm still suspended mid-air, Sera did not give heed to the beep that indicated that their call had rather ended. Although she had managed to stand up and put on some clothing that would prevent cold from affecting her, her mind seemed like it had wandered faraway. No more did it look like she had her attention on what was in front of her. Probably, she had transmitted her brain to where Jimin was, because he was all that Sera could think of at that point in time.

That surreal of a human turned out to be a mind-thief too, how petty of him.