Chapter Text
Millions of stars shine brightly outside the spaceship's thick window, and Jimin watches on in amazement from where he is curled up on the round windowsill.
Five years into his life on board of the Daechwita and the sight still hasn't grown old, and whenever he finds the time to actually sit down and just observe for a bit Jimin always feels like a giddy wide-eyed kid again, heart beating fast in wonder as he tracks the unfamiliar moons and planets, space debris and satellites that their spaceship moves past through the dark, everlasting night of outer space.
Some part of him still can't believe that he actually made it here, that after spending his youth slaving away on the most crappy planet of the Empire's territory he's actually free now, and not only that: he's actively helping to spread freedom and hope to others across the universe.
In fact, the countless adventures, illegal concerts, fights, near-death situations and victories from the past five years make his youth on solid ground feel like another life completely, which makes him feel older than he really is.
For a moment, he wonders what his parents would think if they could see him now: a 27 year old space pirate – at least, that's what he and the others have started jokingly calling themselves –, running an illegal radio station from a crappy but dearly loved spaceship, and working together with countless other rebels to spread messages of hope and change throughout the known universe.
His carers in the orphanage that he grew up in had told him that his parents had been rebels themselves – something that they were sure to hang over his head at any occasion –, so maybe they'd be proud?
He hopes so; he loves the idea that he might be carrying on the ideals and dreams of the people who made him but were taken from him before he ever got to meet them properly.
Thinking of his childhood always makes him pensive though, and he finds himself getting lost in thought, memories of his youth resurfacing.
Images of a small, shy boy of Asian descent rummaging through the scattered trash in the alleys around his orphanage, hoping to find some extra food, toys or interesting gadgets.
Of small positive things, like a childhood friend with whom he always went on adventures to abandoned buildings in their neighbourhood, or a friendly older lady who took him in when he turned 18 and was kicked out of the orphanage, allowing him to live on her attic for just a few coins a month and knitting him warm socks in the winter.
But predominantly memories of nights spent shivering under a ratty blanket, of hunger, thirst, and when things got really bad sometimes even oxygen deprivation, not exactly things to look back happily on.
The thing is, although his carers in the orphanage had always reiterated how lucky they were to live in one of the fifteen domes that their planet Earth counted, sheltered from the radiation and toxic pollution that caused those living outside of them to inevitably die young, the domes had had their own problems.
That is, while living in a completely controlled environment had indeed protected them from all the dangerous things outside of the domes, it had also made them completely dependent on the owners of the domes for their supplies, including their basic survival needs.
Domes only had a few points of entry, which consisted of large tunnels of which only one exit would be opened at a time to not let the outside air in, and which were used for supplying the city with both water and food. In addition, fresh oxygen was supplied only by huge machines that filtered the outside air before pumping it into the dome.
This meant that if someone were to close the exits and shut down the oxygen filters inhabitants had mere days before circumstances would get very dire.
Of course, with a benevolent owner of the domes things would have been fine, and things apparently had been fine for many years long before Jimin's time.
However, after the Empire – a ruthless, in Jimin's opinion undoubtedly evil cooperation that was purely focussed on their own gain and exploited whichever planets and peoples they came across to the max – had taken control over the known part of the galaxy a few years before Jimin was born, they hadn't been so lucky anymore.
Manipulating conditions in domes became an easy way of ensuring cooperation of the Earth's citizens, with the simple act of closing the exits and oxygen filters for a few days being a very effective way of shutting down any type of resistance. Simply put: having your nourishment and oxygen cut off makes model citizens out of even the most rebellious people, because living in oppression will always win over dying a pitiful death.
That's the reason that Jimin had never in his wildest dreams imagined ever becoming a rebel.
Surviving in the dilapidated, dirty and overpopulated dome without daring to engage in any kind of rebellion was difficult enough, and from childhood on Jimin had spent all his time trying to somehow save himself of the worst of fates: having to work outside of the dome.
Because in a world in which most processes were automated and the bulk of provisions came from other worlds there had been very few job opportunities for dome citizens.
It had basically come down to three main options for those who weren't born into the elite: finding some kind of job providing services to other citizens, like a hair dresser, dentist, or doctor – of which job openings were extremely rare and required ridiculous amounts of education and experience –; being scouted by the Empire based on talent or looks and being shipped off to other worlds, without knowing what planet you were heading to and with the large chance of getting forced to become a sex worker –; or finding a job outside of the dome, working on one of the state-owned farms.
The latter jobs were extremely easy to come by, but also exposed you to exactly the dangers that the dome was protecting you from, and Jimin very much hadn't felt like dying of cancer in some decades just to earn enough money to make a living now.
Instead, he had put all his efforts in trying to learn valuable skills, very early on settling on becoming a technician.
In a world in which everything relied on technology, from preparing food to transport to exoskeletons and robots, it was the one thing he was sure everyone would always need: even the poorest person still needed a myriad of technological equipment just to be able to make payments, send job applications, and transport themselves.
Of course, acquiring in-depth technological skills had been hard, especially without any access to proper education, but Jimin had soon learned that simply disassembling and reassembling any technological equipment he could get his hands on was a great way of learning, plus there was always the internet.
He had already been making small technological repairs within the orphanage by the time he turned ten, and by the time he went out into the world on his own he was proud to already have a sizable clientele.
By then, he had also saved up enough money for a protective suit, making it possible to head out of the dome whenever he had time to scavenge for useful parts on one of the many junkyards, only increasing his earnings by the costs it saved.
Yeah, life had still been hard, and he had still suffered under the Empire's random punishments of their dome, had still gotten sick way too often just due to their unhygienic environment and malnourishment, but his skillset had allowed him to not go hungry often, to have clothes that kept him warm, to have some standard of living.
Funnily enough though, it hadn't been expensive or complex devices that he had ended up repairing or making from scratch most of the time: it had been radios.
Some three thousand years after their invention, he had found that most of his clients were most attached to these simple devices, and of course where his clients asked, he had delivered.
Which also meant that he had soon found out why they were so attached to their radios in the first place, and it hadn't taken long before he found himself hooked too. Hooked to what he had found out were a handful of pirate radio stations, spreading important news, uplifting messages, and music.
All three of those were unheard of under the Empire's rule: not only was – and still is – there heavy censoring of any news and entertainment, but music itself had been forbidden for as long as Jimin could remember.
Sure, there were some types of music that were actively spread by the Empire – basically only the Empire's anthem and the annoying tunes of the myriad of commercials that they were being bombarded with every second of the day – but actual music, the stuff with beautiful melodies and deep lyrics that made you think and feel, that stuff was punishable by death.
And the Empire's soldiers were very eager to make good on that promise, meaning that outside of softly sung songs in the privacy of one's own home music was practically non-existent.
Except for that it apparently wasn't, because those pirates, those brave souls who Jimin had soon learned lived on spaceships, travelling in between planets to escape the Empire's wrath, defied all orders and risked their lives to spread music to all of them anyway.
And radio was the perfect means for doing so: radio waves were very hard to stop since the Empire used them for communication purposes themselves too, and the radios that Jimin built and repaired were so basic and old-fashioned that there was no way to track their usage.
In other words: the people who had lived without hope could suddenly hope again, could educate themselves and make plans and unite, and Jimin had been absolutely mind-blown by this new discovery.
It also meant that by the time he was 22, the year that his whole life would turn around, he hadn't been completely well-behaved anymore.
Sure, he still hadn't been an actual rebel, but he had listened to the pirate radio stations religiously – especially one that was apparently run by guys his age, called BTS, whose songs he loved and who's leader, someone going by the name Rap Monster, he could listen to for hours whenever the man decided to go on a political rant –, and he had been one of the main suppliers of radios within his dome, so he had been pretty sure the Empire wouldn't exactly approve of him anymore.
Which was okay, for Jimin had kept a very low profile and the Empire generally had bigger fish to catch, but he had also started to long for more.
The other planets and adventures the radio stations spoke of had made him realise how tiny his world had always been, how much more there was to see. And also how much more people should be able to experience in their lives, how fucked up it really was to spend your life suffering in the bleak, filthy shithole that had become Earth – or any of the other oppressed planets under the Empire's rule –, while an elite out there was getting inconceivably rich on your expense.
It was unfair, and plain wrong, and although there had been nothing much Jimin could do about it, he had felt more and more passionate about his disapproval.
Still, he could have never imagined the path his life would take on a certain late summer day.
Jimin had been out scavenging again that day, braving the heat in his protective suit to raid the junkyards around the city for useful parts.
He had been in a pretty good mood: a while ago he had managed to make a hoverboard from an old skateboard that he'd found, and while he had first experienced major problems with its battery, making him only able to use it for some fifteen minutes before having to change the battery, he had gotten his hands on solar panels earlier in the week.
With these thin strips on his back he could fly unlimitedly as long as the sun kept shining, which was practically all the time in the summer, and he had loved the feeling of freedom as he meandered through the abandoned suburbs surrounding the dome, going further than he often went.
While others might have found the graffiti-covered, half overgrown ruins of more prosperous times creepy, Jimin had always loved them: it was just so quiet, so peaceful, compared to the neon-covered chaos that was his hometown.
That is, until things suddenly hadn't been quiet anymore, his peace getting disturbed by a crowd of people – probably dome-less inhabitants –, rushing by, clearly heading in a certain direction.
It was an odd sight, because while Jimin was used to people running from one place to another, it was almost always due to a police raid or something equally dangerous, but these people looked happy. Excited even, with huge grins on their faces and the buzz of anticipation in the air, and Jimin had been intrigued.
Intrigued enough to, after a few moments of careful deliberation, take his hoverboard and fly along the edges of the crowd, keeping his eyes out for any signs of danger but feeling his own heart start to beat in excitement too.
What could possibly be waiting for him at their destination?
Jimin smiles fondly as he remembers his younger self, completely unprepared for the sight he was about to see, unaware of the immensity of what was about to happen. He can still visualise the scene perfectly after all these years, feel the shock, the disbelief, the immense joy.
Because what Jimin had come to discover after a few minutes of moving along with the crowd was a large open space in between buildings, and in the open space there was a band just starting up a concert.
Not just any band, but the one band that he had been looking up to and fantasizing over for years: BTS.