"Do you think I could grab a glass of whatever that guy is holding?" Hobi asked speculatively, staring at a nearby waiter with half a tray of what looked to be champagne flutes.

"If we aren't allowed to swear, then I'm pretty sure alcohol is out as well," Yoongi said dryly as he yanked viciously at the bow tie that was trying to strangle his neck with each passing minute. He wasn't often in formal attire, so having to wear a suit - and a bow tie - was equally unfamiliar as it was uncomfortable.

Jimin, on the other hand, seemed to be living up the bow tie and suit ensemble, tugging delicately at his cuff links from time to time and straightening his bow tie. He looked like one of those plastic dolls you saw while window shopping, the kind you bought for an outrageously high price before proceeding to buy dozens out tiny, coordinated outfits that cost more than real clothing.

"It's t-too b-bad there aren't a l-lot of k-kids our age," Jimin said sadly, looking around.

Yoongi had to admit that he was correct, even if Yoongi didn't care to socialize. The majority of the crowd were male businessmen, veering on either the high or low end of age; the sparse middle crowd was made up of men like their step-father, family men, although most of that faction were accompanied by much younger kids, kids past the age of babysitting and just old enough to handle themselves in public while looking cute and having no idea where they were.

Then there were a few older boys in suits like Yoongi's, standing over by one of the refreshment tables and talking amongst themselves.

"Why don't we try talking to them?" Hobi asked, feeling a bit bolder than usual since there weren't that many kids their age.

Yoongi was about to protest, but when Jimin said, "Okay, h-hyung," he knew he had lost the battle, 2-1, and he wasn't about to abandon them in a crowd of socialites, so he trailed along behind them over to the refreshment table.

"Hello," Hobi said, and the five boys' conversation halted as they turned to look at the three newcomers. "I'm Hoseok, but you can call me Hobi. This is Jimin, and that's Yoongi." Hobi then blinked as though he hadn't thought that far ahead, but luckily, one of the boys nodded and picked up the conversation.

"Hey, I'm Joshua," the fairly normal one said with a wide grin. "These are my brothers. This here is Wonwoo-"

Joshua paused for Wonwoo to smile, and it was unclear as to whether Wonwoo was intentionally frowning or if he actually believed that he was smiling, but...it wasn't happening.

"It's just his face," Joshua said for the Kim brothers' benefit before moving on. "This is Dino. He's our baby brother," Joshua said, pinching Dino's cheek, and Dino made a face before pushing Joshua away. Joshua just chuckled and moved on. "This giant is Mingyu."

Mingyu smiled at Jimin, giving a slight wave, and Jimin smiled back nervously, having to crane his head a bit to make eye contact, but he liked the taller boy because he seemed friendly.

"And this is Woozi," Joshua introduced.

Yoongi stared at the height gap between the last two. "So, when your dad was at the hospital with your mom, did he check that the baby was his?"

Woozi groaned before punching Mingyu's shoulder. "If you were ten centimeters shorter, I wouldn't have to hear comments about it all the time."

Mingyu punched Woozi's shoulder, although considerably more gently. "And if you were ten centimeters taller, I wouldn't hear about it either."

Hobi, meanwhile, looked between Woozi and Yoongi in shock. "No way..."

"What?" Yoongi asked, annoyed for no apparent reason. Probably because of the ban on cursing. He was suffering from the withdrawal symptoms of irritation and a slight headache.

"Yoongi, maybe you were on to something with the switched at birth thing, because you two look identical."

Yoongi looked back to Woozi's face and stared closely, Woozi sort of creeped out by Yoongi's staring. After a good fifteen seconds of scrutiny, Yoongi turned back to Hobi. "I don't see it."

"It's you!" Hobi insisted. "You guys even have the same mildly-disgusted expression."

Yoongi rolled his eyes at the same moment that Woozi did, and the two glared at each other.

"We have one more sibling," Joshua said, ignoring the small battle going on while scanning for their missing link. "Our dad had a kid from his previous marriage...Oh, there," Joshua said, pointing to someone a few feet away whose back was turned to them as they swept their long hair behind their ear before grabbing a flute of something alcoholic.

"Oh, is that your older sister?" Hobi asked, smiling as the figure turned to face them with a glare, as though they'd magically overheard Hobi's comment. "Or - or not," he amended, wincing as the figure walked over.

"Dad thought it was a phase that would pass," Joshua whispered to Hobi, snorting softly. "But Jeonghan went to a university abroad and guys with long hair was all the rage, so he kept it. Although Dad threatened to chop it off in his sleep, and he keeps saying that he'll turn off Jeonghan's credit cards if he doesn't see a hairdresser, but Dad's too soft to actually do it."

As Jeonghan approached, Joshua grinned and raised his voice back to normal. "Eyyy, Jeonghan. Big brother. Samson."

"Samson?" Hobi asked, lost.

"Well, I'm Joshua - don't ask," Joshua said before immediately answering his own words. "Dad went through a weird Western culture slash Biblical phase. But Samson is the guy in the Bible who got his strength from his hair and so he didn't want to cut it," Joshua explained with a grin before ducking to avoid a smack from his older brother.

"I'm the one who buys them alcohol since they're underage," Jeonghan explained succinctly by way of introduction, and Yoongi nodded.

"So yeah, we have a big family," Joshua said with a laugh, and Jimin spoke up for the first time.

"W-we have s-six b-boys in our f-family, t-t-too," he said, his nerves making his stutter slightly worse, and he felt his muscles contract when he saw that familiar look as they all stared at him and wondered what was wrong with him.

Thankfully, Yoongi stepped in to save him. "Yeah. We're three of six, just half the set."

Jimin exhaled, but his nerves stayed with him while the carbon dioxide left, only when he looked up, Mingyu was smiling softly at him, and Jimin smiled back shyly.

"Where are the others?" Wonwoo asked in a voice deeper than Joshua's. "We could play a volleyball game just with our two families alone, six on six."

Nobody was really sure if that was a joke or not, but Joshua laughed anyway.

Hobi blinked twice before realizing that it was up to him to field the question.

"Ah, they're at our dad's house right now," he explained somewhat awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. The truth had become easier to swallow over time, but it was still hard to explain it like it was okay somehow. "Our parents split up. Our dad kept them, and our mom took us, and her husband brought us here as some sort of Look at my beautiful family, see what a great father I am, invest in my company bullsh- uh, thing."

Jimin poked Hobi, catching his slip-up, and Hobi cringed before winking.

They weren't really taking the whole no-swearing rule seriously, but they'd decided to comply anyway, making it into a contest of who could avoid swearing for the longest period of time.

So far, Hobi and Jimin were still competing, but they all had their money on Jimin.

Yoongi, in his true fashion, had muttered a quiet fuck when he saw the amount of people in the room, making his task to avoid everyone a few hundred times more difficult.

"That sucks," Jeonghan said bluntly before asking, "Any of you guys want something to eat?"

"Sorry, I'm not supposed to eat anything," Hobi said, putting a hand up politely.

Jimin and Yoongi frowned, but Hobi just added, "I get an upset stomach."

Jeonghan nodded before turning to the others, and Jimin hesitated, wanting to say he was sort of a little hungry and he had been eyeing the cracker and cheese plate for a while but he didn't want to eat in front of Hobi only he didn't want to deal with stuttering his way through anything at the moment, only-

Mingyu took his wrist lightly and led him away, smiling back at Jimin who went to protest but just let himself be dragged off instead.

"He always makes friends," Yoongi said, rolling his eyes.

Woozi was also in the middle of rolling his eyes. "Mingyu always steals away everyone we meet to make friends out of them before we can."

Yoongi and Woozi stared at each other with narrowed eyes before Yoongi lifted his chin slightly. "I'm not hungry. I'm just bored. I'm going to go eavesdrop on people's conversations."

"Sounds fun," Woozi said, tilting his chin up as well.

"Who said you were coming?" Yoongi asked, crossing his arms, and Woozi crossed his as well.

"I did. I may be shorter than you, but my hearing is apparently superior."

The two stared off as Hobi tilted his head and grinned at the sight.

"Aw, you two are so-"

"I'm not cute!" they both yelled at the same time, glaring at Hobi, who winced under the pressure of two powerful glares.

Then they both whipped their heads back to glare at each other before huffing and stalking off in two opposite directions.

"Sorry about him," Joshua said, and Hobi just laughed.

"They're so similar it's funny." Hobi grinned and clapped his hands, as he'd been left alone with Jeonghan, Dino, Wonwoo, and Joshua. "All right, now that they're gone, spill the tea! I want all the embarrassing stories."

"If any of you make another comment about my hair, I'll stop buying you alcohol," Jeonghan immediately warned.

"Well...on the topic of hair..." Joshua said before grinning mischievously.

***

"Cracker?" Mingyu asked, holding a small plate in his hand while imitating a waiter, and Jimin giggled before pointing to the cracker he wanted.

"And your choice of cheese, sir?"

Once again, Jimin laughed and pointed, and Mingyu arranged several cracker-and-cheese sandwiches on the plate before holding it out to Jimin, who accepted it gratefully.

"T-Thanks," he said before taking a bite, and Mingyu smiled.

"No problem. How do you like the party?" he asked, and Jimin swallowed before looking around the large room.

"I h-hate it," Jimin answered honestly before realizing that it was probably a poor answer. "I m-mean-"

Mingyu said, holding up his hands. "Hey, it's okay. I'm not offended. It's not my party after all. But what do you not like? All the adults? Or just...parties in general?"

"B-both?"

Mingyu laughed, and Jimin smiled hesitantly before his smile faded.

"A-Aren't you g-going to ask m-me?" he asked, slowly setting down the cracker plate on the table even though it was still half full.

"Ask you what?" Mingyu asked, surprised.

"About m-my s-stutter," Jimin said. He'd become used to the process. Step one: Jimin said something. Step two: people's expressions changed as they tried to discreetly figure out if Jimin had an actual speech problem or if he just experienced severe social anxiety. Step three: when they failed to figure it out, they asked in some way that they thought was delicate, usually asking Yoongi or Hobi if they were around.

Jimin was slightly offended every time, but he figured he didn't have much reason to be. Humans were curious animals.

"Do you want me to ask?" Mingyu asked skeptically, looking as though he were trying to spot the trapdoor on the trick question.

Jimin hesitated before shrugging. "M-Most p-p-people do."

"Well, do you want to tell me?" Mingyu asked, and Jimin blinked.

"N-Not really."

"Then I won't ask," Mingyu said, smiling before patting Jimin's shoulder. "Relax. You've looked tense from the moment you guys walked over to introduce yourselves. You may not like the party, but there's no reason why you can't try to have a good time."

Jimin opened his mouth to say, what, he didn't know, but then he locked eyes with someone across the room, and he froze.

They'd been doing pretty well with the no-swearing rule, but there was another rule that Jimin had broken, and he swallowed, thinking of the consequences of his actions.

He shut his mouth firmly, and even when Mingyu tried to coax an answer or even a small laugh out of him, Jimin remained silent, fear keeping his mouth closed.

After a while, Mingyu gave up, thinking it was something he'd said to make Jimin uncomfortable, and he led Jimin back to the others, where they were discussing something about shark fins.

"Hyung, save me," Dino mouthed, and Mingyu smiled before trying to distract them. "Oh look, Woozi and Yoongi are back."

And so they were, grinning secretly to themselves, not quite linked arm in arm but walking together closely in a conspiratorial manner.

"Do we want to know what gossip you two learned while spying?" Hobi asked with a grin, and Yoongi just crossed his arms.

"I don't care whether you want to know, you won't, not for free."

"Eavesdropping properly is hard work and should be respected," Woozi added, and Yoongi nodded.

Everyone just rolled their eyes at the two.

***

The rest of the party was fun. The party itself sucked, but since they'd found good company, Hobi, Yoongi, and the others enjoyed themselves to a reasonable extent. Jimin was quiet, but Yoongi and Hobi assumed it was because he had become tired after the novelty of wearing a bow tie had worn off.

Their mom came over to them a little after nine. "Sorry to break up your fun, boys, but it's a school night, so we have to be getting home."

"We probably have to go soon too," Joshua said before looking at Jeonghan, who was scanning for their dad.

"Seungcheol is talking with whatshisface again," Jeonghan said, groaning. "We'll never leave."

"Maybe we should swap out Yoongi for Woozi," Joshua whispered to Hobi. "It'll be like that one movie, Parent Trap. Our parents won't even know."

Hobi snorted but shook his head. "As fun as that would be, Lisa would notice immediately."

"Lisa? Who's this Lisa? Yoongi's girlfriend?"

Hobi nearly choked on laughter. "Nonononono, our dad's girlfriend. She's a cop. She investigates things...I think. Mostly she does paperwork."

Joshua laughed, and everyone said their goodbyes. Jimin just nodded quietly, avoiding eye contact with Mingyu, who frowned.

***

As they sat in the car, waiting for their step-father to finish his conversation and come out the front, their mom twisted around in the front seat.

"So? Did you boys make some friends?"

Hobi grinned and nodded, and even Yoongi had a reluctant smile on his face.

Jimin was expressionless.

"Jimin?" she asked, happy for her sons.

"I t-talked," he whispered in a horrified tone, and they all turned to look at him, confused.

"What?" Hobi asked, and Jimin swallowed.

"I t-t-talked," he repeated, looking at Yoongi. "I b-broke the r-rule." He turned his head to look at their mother with wide, scared eyes. He didn't know if he looked to her because he trusted her or if it was some sort of mother-son instinct, but he did.

She looked back at him, feeling sick that her husband was the cause of such terror in her son. "Jimin-"

"Is h-he g-going t-to hurt m-me?" Jimin asked, and she froze before shaking her head.

"No, of course not. Never. He'd never lay a hand on any of you boys."

They nodded, and Yoongi tried to take Jimin's hand in his, but Jimin took his hand back out of Yoongi's grasp and folded his hands neatly on his lap, staring out the window.

Again to Yoongi, he looked like a doll. Perfectly made in terms of proportions and colors and material, but empty and sad.