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“Tae, I think I left an extra pillow in your room.  Can you go get it?” his eomma asked him a moment later.

Furrowing his brow, Tae wondered why his mother would need the extra pillow.  Especially while she was in the kitchen.  But he did her bidding without asking.  He found his bedroom door shut when he arrived.  There was another purple box sitting in front of it.  His eyebrows hit the ceiling.  What was going on here?

He bent to retrieve it before opening the door to discover Jimin lounging on his bed.  

“It’s about time you found me,” his best friend murmured as a beautiful smile suffused his face with joy.

“Jimin!  I knew at least one of you had to be here!” Tae exclaimed.  He glanced around.  “Where are the other guys?”

“What?  You thought they’d show up in your birthday story?  Nah.  Jungkook and Yoongi have already starred in several of our celebrations this year.  Don’t you think it’s time I got you to myself for a while?”

Tae narrowed his eyes.  “Are you the reason my eomma needed an extra pillow?”

“But, of course!  I won’t sleep well without a pillow.  But I imagine her real reason for sending you to your room was to discover me!”

“Probably so,” Tae murmured as he glanced down at his present.  “What’s in the box?”

“Why don’t you open it and find out?”

“It’s from you then?” Tae queried.  “Was the other one from you too?”

“What other one?” Jimin blinked innocently.

“I see how it is,” Tae chuckled.  

He sat down next to Jimin on his bed and settled Yeontan in his lap before ripping the purple paper off the box.  Again, it was a white box with a lid.  Tae grinned.  He lifted the lid and peeked inside.  He began to laugh.  

“What on earth?”  A pause.  “I haven’t seen these since my siblings were little.  My eomma bought them when they were taking an English class.”

He reached in and pulled out some alphabet magnets.  He chuckled softly as he spread them out on the blanket covering his bed.  The magnets were made of bright colors: hot pink, neon orange, sunny yellow, vibrant green, and cerulean blue.  Tae frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Jimin asked.

“There’s no purple,” Tae pointed out.

“No indigo either,” Jimin noticed.

“Nope, you can’t make indigo without purple,” Tae sighed.  “Life without purple is just sad.”

“You’re missing ARMY, aren’t you?”

Tae nodded.  “This year has been hard, huh?”

Jimin agreed.  “I would never have imagined a whole year of being separated from ARMY.  It’s no good, Tae.”

Tae stared down at the magnets.  “I wonder what they mean.”

“Hmm,” Jimin responded, but his face was lit up by a mischievous smile.  “Well, if Jin were here he’d probably rearrange them to spell some kind of message.”

“Namjoon would have thought of that too,” Tae murmured.  

He was missing his friends.  They’d all spent so much time together during this year in quarantine.  A different quality of time than they were used to spending.  He felt like they’d grown even closer.  

He loved being home with his family, but BTS was his family now too.  All of them like crazy elder brothers.  Except for Jungkookie, of course.  He was his beloved little brother.  His twin self sometimes.  And Namjoon wasn’t so crazy.  In fact, he was often too serious.  Tae wondered what he was doing today.

He gazed down at the letters.  “I think I need Namjoon’s help.  I don’t know English well enough to decipher this.”

“Really?  Hmm.  Maybe we’ll have to do something about that.  Let me see if I can get a hold of him.”  Jimin pulled his phone from his pocket and called Namjoon.  He put the call on speaker so Tae could hear their friend too.

Who immediately answered it. “What’s up, Jimin?”

“Hey, Namjoon.  Tae needs your help to unravel a puzzle.”

“Okay.  Give me a moment.”

Suddenly, Tae’s bedroom door opened, and their fearless leader walked in.  

Tae’s face lit up like the noonday sun as his boxy grin released its light into his room.  “Namjoon!  You’re here too?”  Then he glanced at Jimin.  “Does this mean everyone is here?”

They both ignored his question as Namjoon asked, “So what’s this problem you need help with?”

Tae glanced down at the letters on his bed.  “I think these magnets spell a message in English, but I have no idea what it is.  Can you help me?”

“Hmm.”  Namjoon knelt on the floor in front of his bed.  Yeontan leaned over to sniff him, and Namjoon affectionately ruffled the little dog’s fur.  “Hey there, Tannie,” he greeted him softly.

Then he began to arrange the letters into two piles, separating vowels from consonants in alphabetical order: E, E, E, I, O, O, U, Y and H, K, L, M, M, S, T, T.

Then Namjoon pointed out the word that jumped out at him, “There’s y, o, and u, so I think you is one of the words.”  He separated the three letters to create YOU.

“What’s left?” Jimin queried.

Tae exclaimed, “I see THE!”

“Excellent!” Namjoon grinned, and his dimples popped out.

“So, what letters are left?” Jimin asked again.

“E, E, I, O, and K, L, M, M, S, T,” Tae responded as he grouped the letters by vowels and consonants again.

“What about me?”

“Jimin, it’s my birthday.  Not yours.  I’m supposed to be the center of attention,” Tae responded sharply.

Jimin smacked him.  “Not me.  ME!!  M…E!”

“Oh.”  Tae pulled the M and E out of their respective piles.

“YOU, THE, ME,” Tae read the words slowly.  Then he looked at the leftover letters.

E, I, O.  K, L, M, S, T.

“The K is the most unusual letter,” Tae pointed out.  He drew it down to stand by itself.  Then he examined the other letters.  But he shrugged his shoulders after a few moments.  He glanced up at Namjoon.  “I have no idea.”

Namjoon reached out and stuck his index finger on the L and dragged it down to join the K.  “How about now?”

Tae stared at the letters.  L.  K.  E, I, O.  M, S, T.

“Oh!  I like you!” Jimin exclaimed.

Tae glanced at him narrowly.  “Jimin, I like you too, but wha—?”

“No!  Look, L, I,” Jimin grabbed the I and the E with two of his fingertips and dragged them down towards the L and K.

“K, E,” Tae finished.  “Ah!  LIKE.”

He glanced at his four words: YOU, ME, THE, LIKE.  Then his eyes slid over the four remaining letters. O, M, S, T.

MOTS!

Map of the Soul?

“Look!” Jimin ejaculated, “MOTS!  Map of the Soul!”

Tae grinned at him.  “I just thought the same thing!”

Namjoon laughed then opined, “But that doesn’t make any sense with the other words.”

“You like the MOTS, me,” Tae read before chortling.

“Not!” Jimin asserted.

Tae stared at the four letters and changed their position several times, transforming MOTS to STOM, TOMS, and SMOT.  He sighed with frustration.  Then he decided to put them in alphabetical order again as he had seen Namjoon do at the beginning of this aggravating game.

M, O, S, T.

MOST!

“Most!” he yelled.  “That’s a word, right?”

“Yep.  It sure is.”  Namjoon’s darling dimples were dancing.

Tae examined his five words: YOU, THE, ME, LIKE, MOST.

He moved them around to read YOU LIKE ME.  Then he glanced at the two final words.  THE MOST.

“‘You like me the most!’”  He frowned.  “But what does it mean?”

Namjoon’s lips quirked upward.  “Who would say that to you?”

Tae furrowed his brow.  “What?  Jimin?”

“No.  Not me.  It was from an interview you did.”

Tae drew his dark eyebrows even farther down towards his nose for a few moments.  Suddenly, a memory resurfaced.  “Jin!  I said it about Jin!  ‘I like Jin the most.’”

“Bingo!” exclaimed a cheerful voice from the doorway as the door instantly opened dramatically to reveal his smiling friend.  “None other than Worldwide Handsome himself!”

“Jin!” Tae welcomed him.  “You’re all here, aren’t you?”  He glanced around at Namjoon and Jimin too.  “Where are the rest of them hiding?”

He glanced back at Jin and noted the purple package in his hand.  “Another one?”

Jin’s head bobbed up and down.  “Yep.”  He entered Tae’s room and handed him the box.

Tae unwrapped it and opened it to find…