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But Eileen was still missing.  Tae and Jimin had walked up and down the Champs-Élyssés for the last half hour looking for her.  Tae could tell that Jimin was crushed.  He must really like this girl.  What exactly had happened between them last night?  Tae studied his friend curiously.  It appeared that he and Jimin had both fallen in love in the same night.  How amazing was that?!

“Jimin.  What do you want to do?”

Jimin blew his breath out through pursed lips as he shook his head.  “I don’t know.  I don’t have any idea where she would have gone.”

“Well, we could go back to the last place you saw her.”

“But we already checked in front of the Disney store.”

“Let’s try one more time.  We didn’t actually go inside.  Maybe she went looking for you in the store.”

Jimin shrugged.  What did he have to lose?

—

Eileen didn’t know why she was panicking.  She was a grown adult and so was Jimin.  She should feel relieved that they had found the kids’ mother.  And she did.  But in the process of finding what the children had lost, Eileen had lost the one she had found last night.  Her heart was hurting.  Why had he just walked away?

She spun around in a circle looking for him.  Her eyes searched high, scanning every face, expecting to see his sunglasses and hat and easy smile.  She searched low, but many people were wearing blue jeans and a white shirt.  Even the open, long-sleeved, black shirt was more ubiquitous than she would have expected.  She scanned the south, then the east, north next, finally west.  Nothing.  The crowds were immense.  She was gazing into a sea of people, expecting to find one specific face.  She sighed and decided to follow the children into the Disney store.

As she walked through the doorway, her attention was drawn to the smiling eyes of a man holding a Snow White doll up to his face while he gazed into a mirror.  He had dark brown hair covering his forehead as it nearly spilled into his matching eyes.  She watched him snap a selfie of himself and the doll.  Now that was bizarre behavior for a grown man to be engaged in.  Just then another guy, brown hair flopping rakishly across his brow, danced up to him and began to joke around with him.  Something about his manner drew her in.  She wished she had an easygoing friend like that.  

She sighed.  She had to face it.  She had no friends.  She had finally made one, but now he had disappeared.

She scanned the store for Pierre and Elaine.  She saw them by the Mickey Mouse ears.  She heard Pierre’s voice raised in anger.  It was followed by Elaine’s softer tone.

“But I want one!” he shouted as he pulled on a Mickey Mouse headband that his sister also had her fingers wrapped around.

“Pierre,” Elaine spoke very quietly, attempting not to draw any more attention to them.  “Please let go.  If you break this, we have no way of paying for it.”

But her warning had come too late.  The little boy gave one last violent tug, and the headband snapped in two.  Petrified, Elaine looked down at the mouse ear in her hand before gazing in horror at the matching ear in her little brother’s hand.  Eileen watched as tears filled the girl’s eyes.  

“Pierre, what have you done?”  She whispered it, but the store was eerily quiet in that moment, and her words floated to not only Eileen’s listening ears but also those of the three guys who had been grouped in front of the mirror while looking at the princess dolls.

Curious, those men turned towards the children.  The tallest guy, a man with honeyed hair and two darling dimples, made his way over to Elaine.  He spoke in English in an unusual accent, “Mademoiselle, do you need help?”

Namjoon looked down at the pretty girl.  A tear was rolling down her cheek.  She appeared terrified.  She stood frozen, staring down at the broken headband in her hand.  A moment after he spoke to her, she glanced up at him.  In a tiny voice, she responded, “My brother just broke this, and I have no money to pay.  Look!  It’s so expensive!  Even when Maman arrives, we’ll be in trouble!  She doesn’t have this much money either!”

Namjoon was moved by the very real distress in the girl’s voice and eyes.  “It’s all right.  I will buy it for you.”  He turned towards the little boy as Elaine nearly wilted with relief.  “What’s your name?  I’m Namjoon.”

“Pierre.”  He stared wide-eyed up at the commanding yet friendly presence of the golden giant who had just come to his rescue.

“Pierre, do you realize that you just did a bad thing?  You broke something that you couldn’t afford to pay for simply because you were fighting over it with your sister.  Did she tell you not to touch the toys?”

Pierre nodded sheepishly as he now studied his toes.  They had suddenly become so very interesting.  He could see the big toe of his right foot every time he lifted it.  There was a hole in that shoe directly over his big toe.  And he had forgotten to wear socks today.  Namjoon also took note of that naked toe.

“Pierre.”  The voice was soft, quiet, yet still brooked no argument or evasion.  The little boy lifted his eyes.  “How are you going to pay for what you broke?”

It was Pierre’s turn to be horrified.  He stared up at the giant.  “I thought you said you were going to pay for it.”

“I am, but you have to pay me back.”

Pierre’s eyes flew to Elaine’s face.

“Don’t look to your sister.  This wasn’t her fault.  If you had respected her, you would have obeyed her, and the toy wouldn’t have broken.  She was just looking out for you.  Trying to keep you out of trouble.  But you stepped into it anyway.  So, the question is, how will you pay me back?”

“I–” the little boy stuttered, “I-I-I don’t know!”  Now tears filled his eyes.

“Don’t distress yourself.  We will figure it out.”  Namjoon turned towards Elaine and winked at her.  Then he held his hand out to the small child.  Without thinking, the little boy slipped his hand into Namjoon’s much bigger one.  “First, you’re going to pay the clerk.”  Namjoon looked back at Elaine.  “You’re coming with us, right?”

In wonder, she nodded.  This man was amazing.  She felt a tug in her heart.  This must be what it was like to have a good and loving papa who also knew how to appropriately discipline his children.  She sighed.  She and Pierre had missed out on so much.

She watched as the tall man and the tiny boy approached the counter.  Pierre looked up at the clerk.

“Tell her what happened,” Namjoon instructed him in a gentle voice, still holding his hand.

Pierre gulped.  He swallowed, hard.  Then he opened his mouth, but no sound came out.  He tried again.  In a tiny voice he told the clerk, “I broke this.”  He sounded pitiful.  He set his mouse ear on the counter.  Then he hurried to finish, “But I can pay for it.”

His wide hazel eyes turned towards Namjoon’s face.  Namjoon placed a few bills in the little boy’s hand.  Pierre turned towards the clerk and handed her the money.  She smiled sympathetically at the tiny boy as she received his payment and finished the transaction.  She even gave him a bag to put the broken headband in.  

Pierre thanked her quietly without Namjoon needing to remind him.  

“That was a good job, Pierre.  You even remembered to thank her.  That was important.”  Namjoon praised him.

“B-But how am I going to pay you back?”

“Well, you could work your debt off.”

“I could?” A hint of hope filled the little boy’s voice.  “How?”

Namjoon smiled at him.

“Well, today is a very special day.”

Hobi, Jin, Eileen, and Elaine had gathered in a circle around Namjoon and Pierre.  They were also listening intently to Namjoon, each completely fascinated by his treatment of the little boy.

Namjoon continued, “Today is our friend’s birthday.  And we need to buy him a present.  Do you think you could help us pick several presents out?  Our friend is very precious to us.  And he is the best gift giver of our whole group.  He always picks out the nicest things to give us.  So we are shopping for him this afternoon, trying to return the favor.  But we have to find some very special presents for him.  Do you think you could help us?”

Pierre nodded his head, eager to get to work now that he knew what his mission was.  He wandered over toward the Mickey Mouse toys, followed by Namjoon.  Hobi turned towards Jin and spoke to him in Korean.  As Eileen listened to him, she was still absorbing Namjoon’s words.  They had a friend who shared Jimin’s birthday?  Wait.  What language were they speaking?  She looked sharply at them.  

Suddenly, she spoke.  “Is your friend Jimin?”

Hobi and Jin both looked over at her, shock written on their faces.

“Yes.  Do you know BTS?” Jin responded.

“No, but I do know Jimin.”

Hobi and Jin looked at one another.  

“How?” Hobi asked.

“I rescued him from a crazy mob last night.”

“You’re the one Jimin was with last night?” Hobi’s eyes were stretched wide open, an incredulous look blanketing his face.

“Where is Jimin?” Jin looked around.  

“I don’t know,” Eileen sighed.

“Wait.  What do you mean?” Hobi asked, struggling to converse in English.

“He disappeared.  A few minutes ago.  We were outside the store.  When I looked around, he was gone.”

“Jimin’s been with you since last night?”  The question came from behind her.  It was spoken in Namjoon’s precise English.

Why was she blushing?

All three men watched in fascination as the redhead’s face suddenly matched her hair.  She nodded at them, uncertain what to say but very embarrassed, nonetheless.  She wanted to sink through a hole in the floor and disappear from sight.  Unfortunately, no earthquake came to save her.