Chapter Text
“Well, I’m a fucking whore, too.”
Taehyung didn’t really realize it was him that had said that until the wind felt cold against his open mouth and Yoongi’s expression changed from endless confidence into pure confusion.
“What?” Yoongi grunted. Taehyung could tell he didn’t really care to listen to him anymore or entertain his being there, but that was what made him keep going.
Because there was a nerve that had been pressed now, one that hadn’t been pressed before, and Taehyung found he didn’t really give a shit about how he came across anymore.
“If we’re talking about sex, let’s be fucking honest, yeah? You’re a whore,” he continued, savouring the word and making sure it came out really full and rounded as it left his mouth. Yoongi seemed to start regarding him like he was slowly losing his mind, and perhaps just slightly shocked at his sheer audacity. “If you’re gonna call Jimin a whore, then at least look in the fucking mirror. Jimin has slept with two people his entire life; that’s it. You and all your threesomes, your exhibitionism, whatever the fuck? That’s whore behaviour. You big fucking slut.”
Maybe Taehyung’s impulsiveness could be useful after all. And in that moment, when Yoongi thought he could get away with being the most hypocritical, deranged piece of shit, he stood by his outburst for once.
Luckily for Taehyung, Yoongi didn’t really seem to know what to do with that information, or the fact that Taehyung had said it when he expected him to shut up and fuck off forever. And maybe Jimin wouldn’t be at the risk of heartbreak if he had done just that. But good grief was it more important to get Yoongi as far away from Jimin as possible after his deranged thoughts about him. Or at least, subconsciously, that was what he thought. In the moment, he might have just given himself the green light to rip that evil prick a new one.
Before Yoongi could respond, or even properly figure out how to react, Taehyung started walking backwards, replaying what he’d said a few times and feeling his breath grow thin and cut short.
The walking backwards turned into a quick backwards jog where he could hear his loud breaths in his head and the concrete under his shoes. And then, as it often did, it turned into a run.
*
The dial tone went on for about a full minute. Taehyung knew because he counted the seconds in line with the beeps, and still nothing let him through. Even when he tried two more times, Jimin didn’t pick up.
His breath was loud in his ears as his shoes slapped against the street, his hair dancing around his head wildly as he took to a sprint.
Yoongi couldn’t have done anything yet because as soon as Taehyung had rounded the corner to the woods, that was when he’d started trying to call. It hadn’t been more than thirty second, and Yoongi had been left looking like an idiot, hopefully spending at least one minute nursing himself back from that.
“Fuck,” he grunted, his voice cracking a bit at the end of the word. He was fumbling with the phone, his fingers shaking a little.
He wasn’t even sure what he would say if Jimin did pick up. What could he possibly say? Was it even best if he said anything? The calculation of what would hurt Jimin least felt like the hardest quadratic formula of his life. And he felt like he wasn’t smart enough to solve it. It was like he needed Jimin’s help to tell him how to best solve Jimin’s problem.
He groaned, realizing he’d run in the direction of Jimin’s house and quickly stopping in his tracks. Showing up at Jimin’s window late at night looking distressed and trying to relay the shit that had just happened didn’t feel like the right thing to do either.
He stood there for a few minutes. Jimin’s house was just in the distance, at least one light on in the window, at the end of the abnormally long neighborhood street.
He turned to look the other way, for once trying not to rely on his dumb brain alone to give him a sporadic solution to something that deserved more thoughtful thinking. Jessica’s house was about the same distance in the opposite direction as the length he’d already run. Maybe 10 minutes, maybe less.
His own thinking hadn’t gotten him very far as far as Jimin was concerned up until then. It was like he thought every thought in his head was the right thought, until a cool-down period of a few hours later when he was able to tell it was a wrong thought. Or that there were better thoughts, better ideas. And worst of all, that usually the consequences that happened could have been mitigated if he never acted on the thoughts at all.
Maybe it was a good time for him to get on his knees for once, and really fucking beg.
He lost track of the distance and speed he was going at, checking Google Maps a few times before he got in the near vicinity of a place he’d only been a few times before. Luckily, he had of course been to Jessica’s bedroom before, so he knew where abouts it was oriented. It didn’t take long for him to go from figuring that out to climbing up, feeling less stressed about the ordeal because at least it wasn’t Jimin’s bedroom he was climbing into, but if he didn’t get help within the next hour he wouldn’t really be sure what to do with himself.
Ten raps at the window later and finally the light inside turned on. It felt weird, standing there and looking in. He vaguely remembered the failed blowjob that had happened in there, and somehow it made him feel worse.
“Jesus, what the hell?” Jessica hissed as she opened the window in her oversized t-shirt, hair up in the messiest bun he’d ever seen. Taehyung felt relief flood through him instantly, leaning forward to begin climbing in, before she then quickly added, “Are you on drugs?”
He didn’t bother acting offended that she would think that, because he’d probably created that problem for himself, too.
“No—no, I promise, I just really need your help.”
Jessica stared at him, probably taking in the state he was in. He realized he hadn’t really stopped to breathe or calm himself down, and glanced at the muddy state of his shoes and the bottom of his pants, feeling his sweat drip onto her floor as it rolled off his upper lip.
“Sorry, I’ll—” he leaned back over the window pane, kicking his shoes off to fall down on the grass below, then wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Sorry. Can I come in?”
She glanced at the clock. 1 in the morning, just about. Then, she glanced back at him. Somehow, her face softened. Just a little.
“Yeah.”
He was about to say thank you when he realized he couldn’t say it without getting choked up, and proceeded to drag himself inside, landing unsteady on his feet. He brushed himself off and tried to straighten up, swaying a little where he stood. He was unsure if he felt hot because he’d been running, or climbing, or because he was stressed. And embarrassed, and his life was falling apart without him being able to stop it—
“Taehyung,” Jessica said calmly, now sitting down on her bed and looking up at him. Her eyebrows were a little furrowed, but she spoke to him as if in a perpetual sigh. “I’ve seen you cry before. Somehow, I feel more worried about you now.”
Taehyung nodded, not really sure what to say about that. He could easily cry if he let himself, but considering he was more concerned about fixing Jimin’s situation in time, there wasn’t really any space for that. Because for all Taehyung’s self-pitying and anguishing, Jimin was the one who kept perpetually suffering. And would suffer hardest. And he wasn’t really sure if he could live with being the cause of that anymore. But trying to figure out a way out of it all felt like the wildest maze he could conceptualize in his head, and it darted erratically between pain, pleasure, anguish, mourning, and completely blank, undisturbed, empty space.
“Taehyung,” Jessica said again, more forcefully this time. He laid his eyes back on her. She’d pulled her legs up cross-cross on the mattress. Had pulled out the elastic from her bun, too, because her long, black hair hung messily over her shoulder and streamed down her in two pools.
He nodded a few times again, his palms sweating weirdly. They usually did that, but only really around Jimin, for obvious reasons. Even though he and Jessica had grown close over the past while, he felt like he didn’t really want her looking at him somehow. Like he was a walking self inflicted-wound, that had since gotten an untreated staph infection, and proceeded to infect every other open wound around him, if there were any..
“I won’t hate you.”
Taehyung looked up again, realizing he kept looking away. Jessica usually didn’t hold back on insulting him, and this would have been a great opportunity, because he didn’t feel funny enough to retaliate at the minute. He couldn’t even think of something self-deprecating in his head that would make the pressure on his chest lift for a second.
“Whatever it is that happened,” she clarified, running a tired hand through her hair. “So just tell me, and we can fix it. You can fix it.”
Taehyung nodded, again, maybe continuously still, pursing his lips. He wasn’t sure when the last time he showered was, and felt like he should stay on the other side of the room where he was, even if it meant Jessica staring at him head-on.
He gulped in a deep breath, at least twice, pressing the dull edges of his nails into his palms, but realizing he’d bit them off too much to even vaguely get some sharp sense of grounding. Damn, he really was at the end of his rope.
Jimin’s face flashed by his eyes for his second, and he felt nauseous again, before Yoongi’s did the same, and his heartrate started picking up in a panicked stutter.
It was just about the only thing letting him spit out his incoming word vomit, croaking through vocal chords it felt like he hadn’t used in ten years.
“I told Yoongi that Jimin and I fucked because he was being a dick to me on purpose. And I regretted it immediately and tried to fix things, but then he called Jimin a slut, and-and something about him being a nuisance or a waste of time, and that I should back off or he’d break up with him-hurt him. But I couldn’t back off because he’s a shitty person and he fucking—” he took a second to compose himself, swallowing hard while Yoongi’s smirk imprinted itself behind his eyelids. Taking two deep breaths helped, as well as tightening his fist behind his back. “Said unforgivable things about Jimin and I don’t want him anywhere near him or thinking about him or breathing near him. And now he can break Jimin’s heart any second, and I have no idea what to do, because it’s my fault.”
Jessica stared at him, pressing her lips together slightly. She seemed to chew on his words, weighing them around in her mouth as she heard them in her head. She’d never been particularly expressive, so it was hard to tell what she was thinking. But he figured he’d take whatever reprimand she had for him in stride, because time was ticking, and the chances that Jimin would wake up to a horrible text or call from that demon were now more than zero.
“So Yoongi is confirmed evil?” She asked, her face still not betraying what she was feeling. She spoke rather calmly, and also like she was waiting for him to come to a specific conclusion. Which made him feel stupid. “Like more than just being the annoying and creepy rival in your jealous little head?”
“Did you miss the part where he called Jimin a slut and threatened to hurt him?” Taehyung pressed, eyes narrowing.
“I heard that part, actually,” Jessica quipped, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. Funnily enough, Taehyung felt himself relax a bit more already, feeling more like himself the more she made him talk. “Just making sure, because I only have your account of a three-person problem here.”
“He actually said those things. Out loud. To me.”
Jessica nodded, and Taehyung bit his lips. The tiredness hadn’t gotten the chance to catch up to him much, but his head started feeling a little heavy. There was a dull throb on the left side.
“So he’s a bad person. Established. You think he should remain Jimin’s boyfriend?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay. So he should break up with Jimin.”
“You don’t—I mean when you put it like that it doesn’t sound so severe, but you don’t know him like I do. He’ll destroy him. He’ll let Jimin down just days after Jimin’s got what he’s always been pining for. Jimin won’t be able to handle it.”
The thought of Yoongi even speaking to Jimin again sent tremors of fear down his extremities. He wanted to hold Jimin’s head and cover his ears, making sure he couldn’t ever hear anything hurtful ever again. And he’d had those thoughts before and they were always there, but suddenly he felt like his hands weren’t big enough to block anything out, or small enough not to scare him.
“I’m sure Jimin can handle being broken up with,” Jessica clarified. “Even being treated poorly. From my understanding, he’s gone through poor treatment from peers before, right? And like we’ve established pretty firmly now, he’ll be better off without Yoongi in his life.” She posed it as if it was a question, leaving a moment of silence hanging. Before Taehyung could butt in, however, she interrupted him, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. “What I’m not sure will go over so well, as I’m sure you’re aware, is the knowledge that his best friend managed to trade his most intimate secret to his boyfriend for the chance at a rebuttal in a selfish hissy-fit.”
Taehyung’s jaw clenched.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t been waiting for this part of the conversation, or already accepted it, but hearing it framed like that made him sound so pathetic. As if just standing there and taking Yoongi’s childish jabs and shitty smirk and gloating would have been better.
Would it have been?
He already knew Yoongi was a prick. And Yoongi already didn’t like him. But the new part of the equation had been his bringing in the secret between him and Jimin, which was supposed to take him down a peg. Though Yoongi being taken down a peg felt like it came more from a place of helping himself rather than helping Jimin, even if Jimin might benefit from it down the line, having a boyfriend with such a shit ego and all—
“Does that sound about right?” Jessica pressed. It wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t soft either. It was just plain and bare.
“Obviously I didn’t mean to even say that. It wasn’t like I’d planned it out, and I wish I hadn’t said it. Just…it’s just like, when I get riled up or whatever, I feel like I suddenly get fixated on saying something, just whatever that pops up in my head that feels like it fits at the time, and my brain completely checks out. And I can’t see or conceptualize anything that isn’t what’s right in front of me.”
In a pretty marked departure from a comeback, he’d mumbled that whole string of words while staring at the floor, feeling Jessica’s eyes on the crown of his head. She didn’t speak immediately, but he did wait in silence until she did.
“Then learn how to overcome that. Work on yourself. Or do you think it’s everyone else’s job to suffer the consequences of your irrational behaviour?” She proposed, the words hitting almost a little too hard as they tumbled into him, his shoulders curling forward slightly as he dropped into a stilted slouch. “High school will stop being an excuse real fucking soon.”
“I know. Yeah. I’ve been trying—....I thought I’d been able to—”
“Just do better, Taehyung. Own your shit. And stop feeling so sorry for yourself,” she paused, looking a little upset for the first time since he’d come in. It wasn’t even her problem or her relationship on the line, but she had a very distinct ability to empathize. “Because it’s stopping you from feeling sorry enough for him.”
Taehyung felt his throat constrict, pulling the air and moisture out of his mouth and lungs. Jessica wasn’t just saying that objectively, she was even saying it as someone who barely knew Jimin, with no emotional ties to him outside of her friendship with Taehyung. And her seeing that if he couldn’t felt like more of an insult than anything else she could say.
He nodded, walking his eyes down from her own piercing ones to her feet, then to the floor, then back up again. Because he had to look someone in the eyes when making the promise.
“It won’t happen again. I’ll fix it,” he said firmly, whatever shit Yoongi had said earlier feeling far away and vague at best already. It probably wouldn’t always, but he’d deal with that if it got to it. Then he added, “And I’ll be better.”
She was the one who broke eye contact first, leaning her head down to smile a little. He was a little too high strung to try to process that, but the bite was gone from her words when she spoke again.
“Sounds like a good start.”
Taehyung exhaled, like actually, with the air in his lungs, and then inhaled for what felt like the first conscious breath he’d ever taken. He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten so insecure at figuring out solutions to problems or saying the right things, but somehow hearing her half approval made him feel like maybe the world wasn’t ending just yet. And that was enough to go off of.
“Jimin must really think I’m unhinged if I tell him what I told Yoongi without the context of me being in love with him,” he chuckled bitterly to himself, already seeing them both in the dreaded conversation he was prepared to have to weather the incoming storm.
“So you’re just never gonna tell him, huh?” Jessica almost laughed. But it was in a way that made him feel stupid. She was laughing at him, and he was at the very least smart enough to pick up on that.
“Fuck that, have you met me?” Taehyung explained, finally leaning back on her radiator to sit down for a second, before realizing it was hot and promptly pushing himself off it. He grimaced. Of course karma wouldn’t let him rest that night. It was a slow form of suffering, a jointly external and personal flagellation that only formed meaning in his head. “I wouldn’t date me. No, the only good that would do would be for me, and I’m not really worried about me at the moment. So.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t date you either,” Jessica said quite dead-pan, shrugging to herself. “But half of all of this shit you’re in is because you like him and haven’t said anything. You don’t think a confession might, at the very least, explain some of your behaviour over the past few months? From my, admittedly, limited observation, you seemed like a decent friend up until Yoongi came into the picture.”
Taehyung mulled that over for a second. It was probably true. But also, he didn’t want Jimin to feel sorry for him, or pressured by it. It was just a thing. That was there. And he frankly kind of wanted Jimin to not even consider him in that way. Because he wasn’t sure he could do a good job of that thing. Being a boyfriend, or whatever. Or being a good influence. Or not be selfish.
“I think I’d rather give him some space and…I don’t know, disqualify myself? I don’t really want to bring it up at the moment, and I really feel like he deserves…” he paused, because saying something like what he’d been about to say made him really feel like shit. And it might be a bit too heavy to admit, self deprecating as he was currently okay with being and all.
“Very noble of you. Even Jesus hasn’t seen the like of this level of martyrdom before,” Jessica snorted. Somehow, she was still making Taehyung feel like he was stupid. Like there was something he wasn’t getting. Even though he felt like it was perfectly reasonable to come to that conclusion.
“I’m trying to do the whole ‘being better’ thing,” Taehyung said with some annoyance, side-eyeing her at her poking fun at his, honestly quite sincere, expression of emotion.
“You think you pulling away from Jimin right when he’s about to have his heart broken is a great fucking idea? You know he worships the ground you walk on, right? Like, you have eyes? Think, Taehyung. If you ever even do that.”
She paused, reducing her volume. Taehyung watched her get up and walk over to her drawers to pull out a sweater, which she pulled over her head. She held a slightly bigger fleece up in his direction, as if checking if he wanted one, too. He shook his head. She shrugged, before putting it back and taking her place on the bed again. Criss-cross.
“You can fuck up and be an okay person at the same time. And the world hasn’t ended. And, something tells me Jimin’s able to make up his own mind and think for himself and all that, actually.” The last bit was said slowly, and with sincerity. Jessica had her head resting in the palm of her hand at that point, as she stared at him. She looked tired too, but relaxed. She was done chewing him out. Taehyung realized he felt significantly less panicked now than he had been…however long ago that he’d first arrived.
“And you’re an absolutely shit liar,” she continued. She was pulling her hair back into a bun, but a neat one this time. On the top of her head. “So just put yourself out of your misery, yeah? Because your martyrdom smells a bit like cowardice. And Jimin isn’t stupid.”
Taehyung couldn’t really rebut something he agreed on, so he let Jessica watch him stand there for a little bit and take that one, figuring at least it was the last blow of the night. He did though, also wonder when the shift in his life had gone from him fucking girls to being metaphorically fucked by them instead. To his own betterment, of course.
She hugged him before he left. She’d never done that before, but she’d hugged him up against the pane of her window, her short frame quite apparent against his as he felt the hair of her bun tickle his chin.
She was almost Jimin sized, and it made the whole thing feel a little hollow, a little sad. But it was the first time that evening he didn’t hear the voice in the back of his head telling him to pull at his earring so hard it ripped his ear, so he welcomed it with slowly closing eyes.
*
Jessica hadn’t sent him home with a plan—because that was his job to figure out—but he hadn’t really been expecting the doorbell to ring so soon.
He’d gotten to catch some sleep right after falling in his own door, some time in the AM with his head hanging in a weird position off his bed. Jessica had offered to let him sleep over, on her floor, but he’d declined because something told him he needed to go home. Because as much as he wanted to think Yoongi was a better man than what he thought, he didn’t doubt Yoongi’s desire to enact his vengeance. Even if it was at the cost of someone as precious and lovely as Jimin.
He scrambled out of bed in a hurry, his pulse back up instantly. The doorbell had only rung once, because Jimin was a considerate person, and Taehyung knew he was probably still standing there, waiting. And it was definitely Jimin because Jimin never pressed the button in all the way, so the bell only sounded downstairs instead of upstairs thanks to faulty wiring he’d told his parents they should fix ages ago.
But still, he very much heard it. And the walk towards the door almost felt worse than anything he’d felt yesterday. It was one thing to visualize Jimin upset, or experiencing the full brunt of Yoongi’s revenge, but he just knew it would be another entirely to actually see it. And then came the whole soul-crushing piece about having had a hand, however small, in causing it. And he’d probably wished for the ability to rewind time a thousand times in the past two minutes alone.
Shit, had he really been dragging out opening the door for two minutes? He stood there staring at the solid wood, his face eye-level with nothing but the expanse of that as far out as his peripheral vision. Until he couldn’t justify staring at it anymore, worried Jimin would think he was ignoring him and start dejectedly walking back home.
When he did open it, Jimin was standing there, looking desolate. He was wet from rain, which Taehyung only just realized was pouring outside, and he was wearing a white t-shirt that had grown almost see-through, clinging to his skin like a film. He had red-rimmed eyes, which framed the general redness of his cheeks and face, like he’d already cried for a bit before he made his way over.
Maybe a lot a bit. But he was trying to be at the tail end of it before he even faced another person. As if he could choose when to be at the tail end of it.
“Jimin?” Taehyung urged, feeling oddly worried at his lack of movement and eye contact. Jimin usually didn’t shy away from opening himself up and sharing how he was feeling. Taehyung loved that about him.
Unlike Taehyung, Jimin wasn’t emotionally constipated. And usually that meant Taehyung had an easier time sifting through to any problems and solving them before they got bigger. Only this time, he felt like he already knew what the problem was, but Jimin wasn’t emoting it the way he’d expected.
“Hyung broke up with me,” Jimin just whimpered.
He bit his bottom lip, seemingly trying not to cry more. And looking like he felt almost embarrassed for even doing so. Taehyung had expected a lot more of him comforting Jimin rather than Jimin intervening and disciplining himself mid-cry, and it felt off. It looked almost like Jimin was angry with himself. His words came out short and clipped, and his brows were furrowed down. Taehyung wanted to reach out and smooth them out. Rub his head or stroke his hair. But somehow touching Jimin felt like it would be misplaced. Like he would smudge him instead of clean him up. Like it was illegal.
Taehyung gulped back something he thought of saying, because no line he cycled through in his head sounded appropriate or remotely helpful. Instead, he stayed staring at the crown of Jimin’s head, picking at a scab on his left thumb as a weirdly insistent tick, while hating himself a little more every second that passed.
“I feel like I deserve it,” Jimin continued, voice a mere shell of what it usually sounded like, and not waiting for Taehyung to try and console him. “Because I’m not sure what I was expecting, trying to…” Jimin continued to take a few breaks to get his point across, but his thoughts seemed eerily coherent. Like he’d been thinking about it for a while. Somehow, he didn’t want to interrupt him, because he felt like he did enough of that on a day-to-day basis. “Pretend I could have a boyfriend while—while refusing to stop fucking around with you.” A deep gulp then, and Taehyung was trying to process the derision Jimin had said the last bit with, and the tone he’d not been expecting. “But he just…he didn’t have to…”
Jimin’s words died off hoarsely, punctuated by a shaky draw of breath. Taehyung had forced himself to stay put and let Jimin get his words out, but he was at his absolute limit now of being able to watch him try to justify it. Before Jimin could keep going, he pulled him inside by his wrist, getting almost worked up. Jimin wasn’t strong enough to stop him, so he just let his feet stumble in, his shoes squeaking on the tiles. As if already expecting Taehyung to take him up to his room, Jimin just looked down and waited for him to do so. But Taehyung didn’t have time for that, and pressed Jimin’s shoulders up against the door instead.
Jimin’s big, glassy eyes peered up, his brows relinquishing some of the loathing for what seemed like a second. Exactly how it should be.
“Are you fucking hearing yourself?” Taehyung said, trying to make his height advantage over Jimin feel more comforting rather than threatening, then realizing what he’d said in the first place, and ‘being better’ did a few leaps through his head, causing his shoulders to forcefully relax. Jimin just stared up at him, seeming too jelly-like in his body to move around much. “Sorry, I just mean—why are you talking like that? Yoongi was very clear about not being official with you, and he knows how much you like him. He fucking made you official like…two days ago? So no, you didn’t deserve it. And you didn’t do anything wrong, really. And you’re allowed to hurt.” He paused, taking a breather and checking to see if any of this was sinking in with Jimin. Jimin seemed a little more deflated where he was pressed below him, but because deflated was better than guilty, Taehyung welcomed it.
Then, the ice Taehyung had had in his stomach yesterday made a surprise return. He clutched Jimin’s shoulders, hating that he was shaking more than Jimin was. Jimin’s t-shirt felt so thin and cold against his fingers.
“What did he say to you?” Taehyung pressed, absolutely not wanting to hear the answer. He would rather not hear a single thing Yoongi had said for the rest of his life. That would be ideal.
But the anger was back.His familiar, twisting, jerking anger. And he felt like if he didn’t hear the words then he couldn’t remove them one by one from Jimin’s head, either. And nobody was allowed to talk shit about Jimin except for him, and he got a pass because Jimin was comfortable enough to dish back and put his foot down when he needed to.
Yoongi wouldn’t have half-assed it, either. He would have looked straight at Jimin’s lovely, trusting face and said the most hurtful, vile, cruel things while feeling nothing, because Yoongi was heartless and evil and hated Taehyung’s guts enough to not care if he had to break Jimin to get to him, specifically.
“Jimin,” he almost begged, moving his hands from Jimin’s shoulders to his face, cupping his cheeks and just barely threading his ears out through the peaks of his fingers.
Jimin shook his head. Taehyung didn’t blame him. But at the same time, he had to hear it. He just had to. He needed to know how bad it had been. Needed to know how badly he was going to mangle Yoongi until the life ran out of him when ‘accidentally’ choked the life out of him somewhere one night, and—
“I’m sure you can guess the general gist of it. I just didn’t expect the last part, and I think he could see it really got to me.”
Taehyung’s fingers twitched, his brows furrowing as he was dragged out of his one-track thoughts.
“The last part?” He said, feeling his skin prickle with heat and shame and a stewing, impending dread. “Jimin I…I can explain,” Taehyung paused in his haste, because of course Yoongi would have told him about what he did before he could tell Jimin himself. It fucking checked out. God, now he really was nauseous. It was one thing to plan doing this in his head and have it all laid out as best as he could, but it was another entirely to say everything while holding Jimin’s head in his hands against a door and have it forced out of him without even being allowed to offer it of his own volition. “I mean,” he started, trying to remember what he’d written down in his notes app before passing out and also the corrections he probably made in his head as he imagined this scenario and it playing out in great detail. “Nothing excuses it, but I tried to talk to him and ended up egging him on, which also egged me on, and I kind of…I—” Taehyung paused, the distress building in his entire body, like a pressure cooker. Except there was nowhere for that pressure to go. “And I may have bragged about having you a little. You know, before him. Before he got to. Um, to get at him.”
Jimin gaped up at him, and it was enough of a shift to tell Taehyung that that had not actually been something Yoongi had communicated at all. And Taehyung had managed to communicate it by word-vomiting at Jimin all at once, not at all along the lines of how he’d planned to.
“I—Taehyung what—” Jimin gasped out, sounding confused and looking up at him like he wanted him to take it back; say he was just kidding. That’s what Taehyung wanted to do, anyways. It sounded really stupid saying it out loud, too; and he knew that. It sounded horrible. He was well aware. “Why would you do that?” He heard Jimin ask then, voice and eyes imploring. He sounded hurt, but in a confused way.
Taehyung winced internally. Of course he felt like that. Taehyung would do anything to take it back now, of course. Because he knew it was stupid. He knew he would hate himself for it forever, probably—that this was another stain on his big collection of dirty laundry, taking up swelling space in his conscience. And his stupid brain hadn’t had the capacity to comprehend the gravity of what fell out it his fucking mouth.
“He did it first,” Taehyung reasoned unreasonably, voice gravelly as he slipped into a panic thinking about Jimin never talking to him again. Or hating him. Probably both. “To me. He was always so smug about you—riling me up. Showing it off, but in an underhanded way. Every damn second I was around.”
“Why would that rile you up?” Jimin asked, and it was such a genuine question that Taehyung hadn’t even stopped to think about why he was asking it. Jimin’s hair was still a little damp from the rain, and the tips of his locks touched the tips of Taehyung’s fingers, still firmly latched to his face. He only noticed because he felt like his brain stopped working then. “I still spend time with you, don’t I? I tried to make sure you never felt left out. That’s a shitty thing for you to do, by the way—so…so f-fuck you—but I don’t understand—”
“That’s not—” Taehyung stopped himself, swallowing what he’d been about to say down so hard he almost folded over. How was he supposed to say I’m so head over heels in love with you, so of course I got jealous, and I’m absolutely losing my fucking mind—
“He called me a homewrecker,” Jimin said, yanking Taehyung out of his spiral again, quiet as his voice was. Jimin was looking up at him rather quietly. With big, sad eyes, a few fresh tears leaking out of the corners of them, almost as if in slow motion. Taehyung watched them glide down.
“What?” Taehyung knew that came out really dumbly, and if he hadn’t been so taken aback, he would have wiped Jimin’s tears away immediately. But he had no idea what he was even saying, or if he was getting at something he was meant to understand, but he just didn’t. He stared down at Jimin’s face as if that would help clue him in.
“Y-You and…and Jessica. You never told me she was your girlfriend.”
Taehyung gaped down at him, this time genuinely lost for words, rather than being unable to speak because of how much he hated himself or something similar. He felt stiff, his head almost throbbing with the effort he needed to put in to try and process what Jimin was saying.
“Sorry—what?” Was the only thing he was able to say.
“I feel really dumb for not figuring that out,” Jimin just continued, before Taehyung even had a chance to try and understand. “I know how much you hang out with her. And I know you…fucked. Or whatever.” He said it with a turn up of his lips, like he was grossed out. “But I thought it was just that. F-Fucking.” Jimin inhaled sharply, and then Taehyung felt a shove at his chest. It was stronger than he expected, and he took a stumbling step back. “And you never fucking told me. You prick. And you made me do this to her.”
Taehyung let his arms fall down, feeling winded. That was not the development he’d planned for or expected in his head, but Jimin seemed so genuinely hurt. So convinced.
What was he talking about? Where was this coming from? Yoongi?
“And I guess this is my fault for fucking around with a ‘straight boy’ or whatever, but you were also my best fucking friend, so didn’t exactly expect you to like…make me a side-piece, and also never tell me you were dating someone in the same breath. Because that’s really shitty, even for you. And I d-don’t…I actually don’t wanna be your friend anymore this time.”
Taehyung just stared at Jimin—love of his life—panting and looking at him from eye to eye while Taehyung took in the words that came out of his mouth, each of them making less sense than the next, but at the same time, Jimin had never sounded this serious.
“I’m not dating Jessica,” was the first thing Taehyung could think to say, flipping between holding his hands up to reach out for Jimin or keeping them at his side, because Jimin obviously didn’t want to be held.
“At least man up and tell me the truth,” Jimin pushed, eyes low where they stared at Taehyung’s feet. His voice was firm now, and slightly mean. He’d never spoken to Taehyung like that, and this time it wasn’t even because of something Taehyung deserved. His red-rimmed eyes made even more sense now. Jimin had rubbed them raw. He’d tried to prepare himself to not only process losing Yoongi, but remove Taehyung. “You owe me that much.”
“I’m—what? What the fuck are you on about—”
“I’ve seen the picture, Taehyung!” Jimin hissed, and it made Taehyung shut up instantly. “I thought maybe you had a crush on her and you were just figuring your shit ou for a while, or you really were just fucking. But she’s been to your house, and you never bring girls over to your house. Climbing into her room at night…I should have worked everything out when you started blowing me off.”
The picture? Taehyung knew he was pulling a face, but that was mostly because he was so utterly bewildered he was unable to pretend he wasn’t.
“What picture?” He asked, still not touching Jimin, but leaning slightly closer to him. Jimin seemed suddenly flustered by his proximity, and cowered back, lowering his head a bit. Taehyung winced internally, forcing space between himself and Jimin again as he leaned away. “Seriously. I have no idea what you’re fucking talking about.” He grimaced then, and thought back to all the times he’d hung out with Jessica. All the times they’d…met up. Jessica at his house. Wait— “How did you know she even came over?”
Both questions at once seemed like quite a lot on Jimin, and he visibly flushed up.
“I was…I-I just wanted to talk to you. I came over, you know…after the drugs thing and me passing out.” Jimin was talking with his mouth barely moving, which he did when he felt unsure of what to say. He also wasn’t looking Taehyung in the eyes. “But when I got closer she was…I saw her leaving. Out the front door.”
“We fucked, alright?” Taehyung sighed, shrugging to himself, because he wasn’t sure why this was what Jimin was caught up on. “We just fucked.”
“In your bedroom?” Jimin asked, and Taehyung swore he almost sounded betrayed. His face was drooping, and he was curling in on himself a little bit. “On your bed?”
“Why do you care?” Taehyung pushed back, even though what he desperately wanted to say was of course not on my fucking bed, I only fuck you in my bed. In my house. At all.
“I don’t!” Jimin almost shrieked, and Taehyung felt like he was the one getting whiplash from Jimin now. “But that’s more than just ‘fucking’, Taehyung! You know—”
He bolted forward to clamp a hand over Jimin’s mouth, shushing him.
“You’re gonna wake my fucking parents,” He hissed into his face, and he couldn’t really think of anything worse in that moment than either of them walking in. He didn’t even want to see them on a good day. “Jesus.”
Jimin made to protest and throw him off, probably not loving their proximity, but Taehyung didn’t have time to wrestle him around, so he just bent down and grabbed him around the waist, practically throwing him over his shoulder as he made to move them upstairs.
“Put me down!” Jimin protested, clearly not caring about the noise memo.
“Be quiet,” he growled, praying to anything anywhere that they would remain undisturbed in his room, because he wasn’t sure he could answer a lecture and a host of questions on top of an already awful situation.
He dumped Jimin down on his bed; the quickest way he could think to get away from him without hurting him. Jimin whimpered as he landed, then stared up at him in a bit of a daze.
A vivid image of him fucking Jimin open while taking his nudes on that bed flashed across his eyes, and he blinked rapidly to make it disappear. Jimin sat up quickly, his wet shoes scrambling up under his legs as he settled half on his knees. He didn’t make to get off, because Taehyung occupied the entire space around it.
“Anyways,” Taehyung continued, folding his arms in front of his chest. “Yeah, we fucked at my house. It didn’t mean anything. I felt lazy. More importantly: what’s this about a fucking ‘picture’, huh? What fucking picture—”
“You’re bleeding,” Jimin interrupted him, staring at his mouth quite intensely. “Your lip ring.”
Taehyung swallowed, and felt the metallic taste coat his mouth. He noticed he’s been flicking his tongue rapidly over the metal ring that never seemed to heal.
“Can you focus?” He pressed, wiping his mouth with the back of his shirt sleeve. “The picture, Jimin.”
“Th-this,” Jimin said with a marked frown, pulling his phone out of his pocket and fumbling around with it. He was trembling a little, too.
Taehyung resisted the urge to reach out and comfort him. Pat his head or thread his fingers through his hair, like he wanted to.
Jimin held his phone up when he seemed to find what he was looking for. Taehyung moved closer, squinting. The screen was smashed, and he wasn’t sure when that had happened. He’d never seen Jimin’s phone looking like that. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d seen Jimin all that much lately. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about that more than the picture itself.
Still, clear and on the screen was a zoomed in picture of Taehyung at Jessica’s house from yesterday, showing them in her room through the window. It was taken at an angle, from ground level. Neither of them were looking at the camera, but her head was lined behind his. They were talking, but the angle maybe made it look a little weird. They looked closer than he remembered being, but that had to be an angle issue, also.
“Jimin,” he started, some deranged part of him feeling like, or maybe convincing himself, that Jimin was acting out of jealousy. The other, also significant part of him, was hurt that Jimin would believe he would lie to him about something so big. That he was that bad of a person. To Jimin, of all people. “I just went to talk to her last night. Why aren’t you weirded out that someone’s creeping on me? Who even gave you this?”
Jimin’s lower lip wobbled, and he tightened it into a thin line, pressing it against his upper one. Taehyung’s heart clenched.
“Yoongi gave you this,” he just said, answering his own question. They were decently close again, Taehyung looking down at Jimin, who had resigned himself to the comfort of Taehyung’s bed. He was probably cold. Taehyung briefly wondered if he should go get him a blanket or a change of clothes. “Jimin. Why do you think Yoongi gave you this?”
“Because you—”
“Because he wants to hurt you!” Taehyung almost yelled, feeling exasperated at this point. He was glad he’d closed the door and that his room was on the top floor, because was really not getting it.
He pulled out his phone, flicking through his messages to get to a contact. Jimin made to move off his bed in offense, but Taehyung pushed him back down, really needing the boy to pay some attention. He kneeled next to him on the bed, using a gentle hand to keep them both in place.
“Don’t move. Please,” Taehyung practically begged, gripping Jimin’s shirt in his fist like a lifeline. Jimin looked surprised at his boldness, but stilled under his touch. “S-Sorry,” he added, pulling his hand away. “Just…I would never do that, alright? Especially to you. Or a girl. I know I’ve fucked around and I’ve done some horrible things for sure, but I’m…” he paused to swallow, feeling himself get a little choked up. Preparing to talk about this stuff really was absolutely nothing compared to trying to physically get it to crawl out of his throat. “I-I’m not a bad person. But Yoongi is spiteful, and he wants you all alone and hurting. You know that, right? Because I confronted him and pissed him off. Just let me prove it, okay?”
He pressed the number hastily, and Jimin remained obediently still against the wall that his bed was pressed against. He’d tried to inch away as far as he could without Taehyung pulling him back again, but he’d stopped at a certain distance. Maybe this was just Taehyung, but he felt his skin hum where it made contact with Jimin’s shoulder. He was warm, and Taehyung had missed their proximity. Yes, it was a little pathetic for him to be thinking that right now. And for his fingers to be almost shaking as the dial tone filled the silence between them. He wasn’t used to feeling so naked under Jimin’s gaze.
“Yes?” Came Jessica’s voice through the receiver. Taehyung sighed in relief, but it was short-lived. “Do you want to come over to cry again? Or why can’t I go a few hours without you bothering me this time?”
“I don’t—” Taehyung inhaled, feeling himself heat up. Jimin was staring up at him, his big, pretty eyes quite an overwhelming pool to get lost in. “Fuck you, okay? Listen,” he rushed, not liking how still Jimin was in his hold. Maybe making Jimin hear her voice wasn’t the smartest move in the world. Maybe he had no idea what he was doing, but it felt necessary. “I need you to answer something for me, okay? Just answer the question properly and don’t joke around.”
“Are you being held hostage?” Jessia said with a snort. It wasn’t like he could blame her for thinking that, but his heart was hammering horribly in his chest while Jimin’s warmth melted his hand a bare reach away from the phone. “Or is this your idea of a prank call?”
“Can you be serious for a second, please?” Taehyung hissed, his fingers gripping the device in a now sweaty grasp, the volume buttons digging into his index. She didn’t interject, which was a good sign. He didn’t dare look up at Jimin to see what expression he wore, but at least he hadn’t tried to move away again. Which was good. Probably. “Anyways, just…are we…are we dating?”
He wasn’t sure that was the best way to phrase it either, necessarily. But he needed Jimin to hear her say they weren’t going out without alluding to him being there or ‘tipping’ Jessica off to ‘lie’. Or whatever Jimin might conjure up to dispute the facts.
The line was quiet for a second, and he almost opened his mouth to impatiently ask again, but she spoke up before he could.
“Unless there’s something you’re not telling me,” she started. “I’m pretty sure you’re still gay and in love with Jimin.”
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck.
“That’s not—um, okay—” Taehyung panicked, feeling slightly unable to breathe as he cut himself off, his fingers slipping into hanging up on Jessica before she got to say one single thing more.
He proceeded to fumble his phone out of his hands, watching it tumble between Jimin’s legs. He promptly froze, staring at Jimin’s thighs to avoid looking in his eyes.
“She was joking,” Taehyung blurted, folding his arms over his knees where they were now pushed up to his chest in his perched position. “Obviously.” He cleared his throat. “Anyways, I really am sorry about acting so shitty and saying something that wasn’t even mine to share. But please just know that Jessica and I were never together. And we aren’t. Like, now. Yoongi’s just lying to make you feel bad.”
“Is it funny?” Jimin asked, voice really, really quiet. Taehyung barely heard him the first time, and had to look at him and turn his head to make sure he didn’t miss anything. He raised a brow in confusion. “You being in love with me. Like…even the idea of it?”
His eyes were imploring as their gazes locked. Taehyung felt his breath thin.
Taehyung had no idea what to say. So he just said—
“No, of course not. Not like…hilarious, anyways.”
Great save. This was going so well.
Jimin stared at him, not breaking their gaze. He could count each individual eyelash on Jimin’s eyes in that light, he realized. It was the only thing he could focus on to stop himself from throwing up.
“Why would she joke about you being gay? Being gay isn’t funny.”
Taehyung winced at the strained tone to his voice, and the thought of Jimin even remotely thinking Taehyung would genuinely make fun of his sexual orientation or take it lightly. Obviously, Jimin was missing some context. Most of it, in fact.
“It’s not funny,” Taehyung agreed. He was really sweating now, his arms feeling like they were cramping up. His lip was stinging. He wasn’t crying, but at this point, he kind of wanted to. Probably would have been if he hadn’t emptied himself yesterday already. Was this how it ended? Their friendship? His pride? The safety of keeping Jimin at arm’s length, because he was too much to experience all at once? “It fucking sucks, actually. I don’t think anything’s ever hurt this bad.”
Everything was quiet for a few seconds, except their breathing. Or, maybe Taehyung was only able to hear his own because it was so loud, and Jimin was quiet. He felt movement, and jerked his head up slightly to watch as Jimin crawled on the bed, moving closer towards him. The mattress dipped, and he felt Jimin radiating heat near him like a furnace. There was a familiar, small hand that came out and touched him. It moved to hold his hand, but ended up clutching little fingers around his long index one.
That was fucking cute. But he didn’t really have the capacity to think about that much, because the fact that Jimin was right next to him in his bed, holding him, hit him like a sack of bricks, as if it had never happened before. He wasn’t sure whether he was about to panic and leave or panic and die tragically young due to a freak cardiac arrest—
“What’s going on?”
It was so soft and quiet, full of so much patience and emotion that Taehyung almost felt guilty for itching bodily to hold Jimin with his hands, kiss him breathless and squeeze him close. He wanted to hold him so hard they would never separate. He wanted to fucking weld them together like two slabs of metal, because the separation anxiety he’d had over the past few days was so bad, and it was harder to imagine life without Jimin when he was right in front of him. He just wanted to go back to how things had been, before he’d gotten so fucked up and made that Jimin’s problem somehow. Before Yoongi hurt him. Before he felt like Jimin was melting through the cracks of his fingers and disappearing.
Don’t leave me.
He supposed he had to talk if he didn’t want this to be the moment he and Jimin drifted apart forever. Never to mend their relationship ever again. Not that he thought he was capable of it. Of explaining everything adequately, and in a way that didn’t sound like a massive, pathetic pity party.
“I’m so head over heels in love with you. Have been for a while,” he rushed out. He didn’t give Jimin a chance to so much as breathe or think before he continued, insistent on getting all the shit in his head out of it so that he could stop feeling so heavy and stop hurting Jimin by accident. And he knew this was the most he’d talked about his feelings to Jimin since they’d met, because he was so shit at doing that in general. Frankly, it was long overdue. “And completely honestly, when you were with Yoongi I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be him or kill him more.” His lips felt slippery with haste, like he couldn’t possibly speak fast enough. His body remembered just how tense and antsy it had felt as Yoongi had grinned at him; gloated. Every inch of the miserable path of their relationship. “And I was jealous to a completely unacceptable degree. And I was selfish. I can admit that. But I was also protective of you, and he never fucking deserved you. Nobody deserves you, to be honest. But I wanted you to be happy, and you seemed so excited. And I didn’t want to come across as controlling, even if maybe I was, but I’m so fucking glad you’re not together anymore. And I know it hurts for you and that I shouldn’t be happy about it, but holy shit he said horrible things about you. You should have heard the way he spoke…” Taehyung trailed off, trying his best to quell the rage he never quite was able to keep at bay. “I’m sure he wasn’t kind to you when he broke up with you, and I accept some blame for that. I really am so sorry I bragged about you to him—and I know there’s no excuse, and that you trusted me with all that very personal stuff—I just feel like I’m absolutely losing my fucking mind. And I don’t know what to do. And everything kinda hurts, and it has been hurting since you started trying to get with him, and there’s always, like, this painful squeeze in my chest when I think about you.” Taehyung had to take a break and swallow really hard to keep it together. He hadn’t been able to look at Jimin the entire time he’d been talking. He just knew he was sitting there, quietly, while Taehyung vomited his heart out. Completely unable to stop. “And now I’ve backed myself into a corner and pushed you away and I can’t even take back telling you all of this; even if it changes us forever or grosses you out. All I know is you’re so pretty it’s overwhelming, and thinking about you with someone else makes me sick to my stomach, and right now I have no idea what the fuck to do with myself.”
As soon as the word vomit left his mouth, he felt a little lighter and heavier at the same time. Lighter, because he’d finally gotten everything off chest. Heavier because Jimin’s eyes on him without speaking or reacting felt unbearable. He’d never been particularly insecure, and maybe he really deserved this, but the few seconds he was left to stew in silence were suffocating.
“You think I’m pretty?”
Taehyung looked up at Jimin, finally. Stared, rather. At Jimin’s face. For way too long.
At his silky hair that fell into his eyes so delicately. At his smooth, glowing skin, and the kind eyes that usually disappeared when he smiled. He didn’t expect to find Jimin blushing, the colour dusted up his plump cheeks and over his button nose.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathed, barely aware of what he was saying as he allowed himself to stare at Jimin properly up close for the first time in a while.
What drew him out of his daze was a sharp sound, and he didn’t realize it was Jimin crying until he saw how his face had twisted into something somewhat pained. Wet, little trails carved down his cheeks, his face dipping down as he crumples.
“Did I say something wrong?” Taehyung asks, alarmed. Of all things, this was not a reaction he’d expected to get. He wasn’t sure whether to leave Jimin be or reach out to comfort him. Especially since he hadn’t even gotten Jimin’s reaction to his confession or word vomit yet.
Jimin just shook his head. When he lifted his head back up again,he made a wobbly attempt at a smile.
“N-No, just…nobody’s ever said that to me before.”
God, Taehyung wanted to absolutely shred Yoongi multiple times through a cheese grater until he was basically confetti. Then he thought maybe he should also be shredding himself for the same reason.
It was then an awkward case of him sitting there still like a weirdo, because it felt too soon to hug Jimin or move closer to him, but just sitting there still in his presence while he cried didn’t feel right, either. He settled for hesitantly picking up that hand that had wrapped fingers around him a little moment ago, and put his hand on top of it, holding it in a way that almost swallowed it up.
Jimin cried a little more, rubbing his eyes with the back of his shirt sleeve, but very pointedly not moving his hand out of Taehyung’s holding. Taehyung sat there quietly, stroking the back of Jimin’s warm hand and looking cautiously up at him.
“You can only say something like that if you mean it,” Jimin rasped eventually. His face was red from rubbing now, but he still was. Beautiful.
“Of course I mean it,” Taehyung blurted, almost confused.
“Not that,” Jimin clarified, subtly making to maybe pull his hand out of Taehyung’s hold. He could feel him twitching. Taehyung didn’t let him move out of his grip. It almost made Jimin sag where he was perched against him. “Th-the other stuff…you can’t say that lightly. You have to mean it.”
Taehyung frowned, his jaw feeling tight. It wasn’t like he didn’t know years of rejection and social struggle had made a mark on Jimin. But the whole Yoongi situation seemed to have made things worse. He probably had a hand in that, too. Maybe more than he wanted to admit. He could hear some of the things he’d said in his head. About his body; about fucking him. Comparing him to girls. Saying many things, but none of them being what Jimin wanted to hear.
“I mean it,” he repeated, pulling Jimin a little closer by the hand. He looked like he wanted to be pulled into a hug, but Taehyung didn’t want to risk it and freak him out or accidentally push him away. “I mean that you deserve better. I mean that I’m sorry.” He paused, just for a few bated breaths. Just to savour the last out he had, before there was no turning back. There was no saying it was just a joke. That he meant something else. “I mean that I’m in love with you.”
“Fuck,” Jimin whined then, sagging forward and all but collapsing against the side of Taehyuing’s knees, his shoulders shaking.
Taehyung propelled himself to move this time, concerned as Jimin seemed to break down against him. He placed his hands on his shoulders, supporting him as he leaned down. He noticed Jimin was now awkwardly sitting with his thighs perched on top of his dirty shoes, and held Jimin around the middle as he reached down to pry his shoes off, tossing them off the bed when he hooked them off his feet.
“Sorry,” he just said, his voice rather flat as he spoke automatically, brain reverting to damage control with the lack of any affirmation and instead a host of unexpected crying. “I know this fucks things up a bit. I hope it’s not too gross. You, um, I mean we can just—or I can, rather—get over it. Eventually. We can just forget about it.”
Jimin kept sniffling, sobbing into Taehyung’s knee by himself and wetting it quite profusely. Taehyung changed his mind a few times in the midst of deciding to place a hand on top of Jimin’s head. His head was warm, too. Radiating through his fluffy hair; all rain long since dried. He dared to stroke a little, smoothing the strands of his hair down and gently massaging his scalp.
It felt so natural. Or, a little different, but it felt good. He liked the feel of Jimin’s hair. He felt like Jimin was just warm everywhere, too. Magnetic in how he operated like a little space heater. Taehyung would miss his warmth, most of all. The radiation of his presence near him; usually curled up to him. He just couldn’t see a world in which he could have that proximity with Jimin anymore if he was to try and move on from him. Or if Jimin felt weirded out by him.
But that’s why he felt almost compelled to touch him again, just one last time. Just a little bit longer, before he got his withdrawals.
Jimin had now not only lost the person he was in love with in Yoongi, but also his best friend. And while Taehyung felt really bad about it, he wasn’t sure he could claim he regretted coming clean. Loving Jimin was so heavy and all-encompassing he felt like it would come out eventually anyways. Leak out of him, until he burst. It would only be delaying the inevitable
An arm looped around his leg, and he stilled. It was Jimin, holding him close. His face remained pressed into his knee, his frame shaking every time he breathed.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Taehyung cooed, the pet name slipping out without him even thinking about it. He moved to stroke his hand down Jimin’s back in loose circles, his mind disassociating slightly as he felt like a rift was created in space-time. A timeline where he’d confessed, and one where he hadn’t. And he was desperately trying to find his way back to the comfortable one. The familiar one. Where he hadn’t made Jimin cry again. “You’ll be fine, okay? I’ll make sure of it. Should we get you home?”
He was expecting a shameful or slow nod, lack of eye-contact, and an awkward move up from the bed. What he got instead was Jimin lifting his head up from Taehyung’s knee, looking entirely debauched and mildly distressed.
“Jimin?”
Jimin leaned almost closer, trying to straighten himself up a little. Taehyung sat still as Jimin clambered against him, tiny fists gripping Taehyung’s clothes as pulled himself up against him. The fists only let go to move arms over and around him. Until he was almost in his lap, his thin arms wrapped around his neck.
Until they were completely flush close, and he felt warm lips press up uncertain but urgent against his own, entirely still put full of purposeful pressure. Like it was their first ever kiss.
Oh.
Wow.
His arms were around Jimin’s waist before he was aware of consciously placing them there. He was radiating so much heat, Taehyung burned. Any expanse of him where Taehyung had his hands; they grew warmer and left invisible marks in their wake.
Holding him close to support his weight was just about all he was able to do. And he had a hard time even doing that right, trying not to hold or press too hard; to assume anything. He barely breathed until Jimin finally moved his lips, to prove he did intend to kiss, specifically. Kiss Taehyung.
Not used to not being the one to lead the kiss, Taehyung let Jimin find his footing as he moved against him, holding them so tight, like he was afraid Taehyung would evaporate into thin air. He planted all sorts of wet kisses, always the more conservative with their touches, keeping them chaste towards the top bow of his lip or the corners of his mouth, like he was trying to taste him for the first time, or pry something out of him.
It wasn’t until Jimin paused with a small whine against him, his neck curling embarrassedly down against his neck, that Taehyung finally felt like he understood. He moved to help him, one hand cradling the back of his head and the other gripping and angling his chin.
He kissed him hard, nipping at his lips, relatively close-mouthed. Until it wasn’t, and he leaned Jimin backwards a little over his right arm in his eagerness, barely able to keep himself from licking into Jimin’s warm mouth.
“Fuck,” he hissed in between trying to draw breaths, feeling like suddenly he couldn’t possibly hold Jimin close enough against him. Jimin’s fists were so firmly planted in twin grips in his clothes that he almost felt dizzy with the reciprocation. “Fuck.”
He elected to ignore the thoughts of all the times Yoongi had kissed Jimin like this. He elected to ignore a creeping, crawling fear that maybe Jimin just didn’t want to be alone; to be abandoned, and he was acting out of desperation.
“Please,” Taehyung breathed in between kisses, his throat and chest itching with a weird hollowness that was difficult to ignore. “Tell me, please. Order me away or tell me you’re mine. I’m begging you…I need to hear you say something.”
They breathed against each other’s mouths, until Jimin, who was now splayed over his lap, leaned his head against Taehyung’s chin instead.
“Do you want me to beg on my knees?” Taehyung tried, meaning every bit of it as his head drooped down, too, almost chasing the warmth of Jimin’s mouth, willing to do just about anything to have it back on him. “I’ll do it. I’ll beg you.”
He must have looked a state. The next time Jimin raised his head, he peered down at him with some difficulty, his previously lax mouth tightened into a frown. Taehyung peered up at him in a disorienting confusion, his hands crawling up to cup Jimin’s face.
“Baby—”
Before he reached Jimin’s face or even got to start what he was going to say, he felt a slap at his hands, batting them away. Then, a hard shove into his chest. He groaned, sagging against the wall that he’d somehow ended up with his back against.
“Ow—” Jimin kept slapping at him, rather weakly, jabbing at his face and chest until Taehyung flailed his arms up to try and keep him off. “Stop it—ow!”
Jimin did stop, only to be left panting above him, still firmly sitting in Taehyung’s lap. Taehyung realized he was holding Jimin’s wrists, squeezing them together with one hand. Jimin hung over him, his weight resting on where Taehyung was suspending his arms.
“That’s for bragging about fucking me first to my fucking boyfriend,” Jimin muttered, accentuating his anger with final knee to his stomach, which Taehyung was powerless to protect himself against. He groaned gutturally, but accepted it. He deserved worse. “And that’s for talking about me like I’m not good for much other than a warm fuck.” The last word was said so jarringly that Taehyung almost flinched, loosening his grip on Jimin’s wrist in his shame. “And for being so fucking stupid,” Jimin continued, though he seemed to be losing the fight in him, because he was leaning against Taehyung again, a little breathless. “Because I’ve been in love with you for years, but you were too self-absorbed to even bother to realize.” His head lolled down to Taehyung’s shoulder, and Taehyung felt him breathing him in. Heard the deep inhale, right into his shirt. “You fucking asshole.”
“Wait, you…” Taehyung started, feeling his throat run dry as his entire body buzzed with Jimin’s weight on it. “You like me? Like...like that?”
“Wish I didn’t,” Jimin confessed, turning his face away from Taehyung’s neck so that he spoke away from him, despite still being rested against him. “All it does is hurt, usually. Why do you think I stopped going to parties with you?” Jimin sniffled, rubbing what must be wetting eyes against his shirt, warm pools wallowing into him. “You think I was super keen on seeing you suck face with any girl that breathes your direction every other second? God, you’re so dumb —you’re so annoying.”
Taehyung grasped at the hair at the back of Jimin’s head, pulling at it a little. Almost immediately, Jimin followed the pressure, his eyes closing as Taehyung pulled him out of the crook of his neck.
“I couldn’t get hard for anyone after I fucked you,” Taehyung pressed plainly, hearing Jimin keen at his words ever so slightly. His eyes fluttered a bit, before closing. Taehyung continued, slow and purposeful, moving towards a throaty whisper. “All I did was jerk off thinking about you. Cry because Yoongi was fucking you. And wishing it was me.”
Jimin remained quiet, eyes only opening to shyly peer down at Taehyung’s lips. Taehyung licked them, before biting his bottom lip slightly and quirking up the side of his mouth.
“From what I could tell, you wished he was me, too. Isn’t that why you kept coming back to me?” It felt weird, but welcome, to almost be himself again. Teasing. Having the upper hand, and having Jimin where he wanted him. Just a little bit. “Unexpectedly, Yoongi was a disappointment in bed. Right?”
A violent shade of red spread up Jimin’s neck and face, but he kept his composure.
“I was in love with you, but I still wanted him to fuck me. I want to feel wanted,” Jimin mumbled. Taehyung watched him fiddle with his own fingers. “You never gave me that. You didn’t make me feel special or wanted. So I won’t apologize for it.”
Taehyung nodded, smiling to himself despite thinking about what Jimin was saying hurting more than it should.
“That’s fair.”
“He took every last first from me that you didn’t get,” Jimin continued, like he was on a mission to really make it smart. His voice was thin but steady. “And as much as you’re unable to comprehend it, because you’re unable to consider him outside of your own perception of reality—Yoongi was a good boyfriend. We listened to ABBA together. He let me pick movies I wanted to watch, rather than persuade me to watch his. He was ‘protective’, too. Isn’t that what you all call it? When you act selfish.”
Taehyung laughed. He supposed he was glad Jimin had some bite in him, still. It would have been more concerning if he didn’t. And now, with something finally going Jimin’s way, he wondered if there was a little part of him that felt the need to try and sabotage it for himself before he got stuck in too vulnerable of a position. And he needed to promptly kill it.
“I love you. A stupid amount. And, unfortunately for you right now, you can’t talk me out of loving you.” Taehyung paused, moving from peering into Jimin’s eyes to his lips. “Every second you were with Yoongi, I had to hold myself back from practically pissing on you to claim my territory. So,” he paused, winding his arms tighter around Jimin’s waist. A faint gasp fell out of Jimin’s mouth, and Taehyung drank it up. “You’re going to have to try harder than that to push me away.”
Their foreheads were pressed together, and Jimin felt weightless above him. He could tell Jimin was softening around the edges; his fight died down. Taehyung was tired too, but now also reinvigorated with a sense of thrill and excitement. A sense of ease in all the unease.
“What now?” Jimin asked, and his breath fanned Taehyung’s face. He sounded uncertain, despite his firm tone a few seconds ago.
Taehyung took a moment to consider it. Jimin seemed to be waiting for him to tell him.
“Up to you. What do you want?”
“Want you to hold me.”
“Already doing that.”
“Tighter. Lay down with me.”
Taehyung complied, moving so they were both lying against each other on his bed, Taehyung a little more so on top of Jimin, so he could make him feel squished under him the way Taehyung secretly knew he liked.
“Happy?”
He felt Jimin nod, his arms tightening around him as he pressed their cheeks together where they rested with their heads against his duvet. Taehyung tightened his own arms around Jimin’s waist, his heart hammering so happily and hard in his chest he wasn’t really sure how long they’d been laying there, let alone what day or month it was.
“Kiss me,” Jimin said. Asked. He still sounded a bit uncertain. Like he wasn’t sure if Taehyung actually would.
Taehyung frowned, before slotting them so hard together Jimin wouldn’t be able to pull away even if he wanted to. He kissed Jimin so hard their jaws ached, until he heard Jimin grunt and exhale into his mouth.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“If someone’s gonna kiss you, they better do it right.”
The blush he received in reciprocation for his efforts was well worth it.
“As opposed to…?”
“However he thought it was sufficient to kiss you,” Taehyung mused, using the tips of his fingers to scratch little patterns of touch at Jimin’s nape, while simultaneously avoiding saying the guy’s name. Wasn’t like it was relevant to anyone anymore. “Like some limp fish.”
Jimin had to bite back a laugh, because he knew it was true.
“You really thought he’d be sufficient because he’s older,” Taehyung laughed, already halfway through kissing Jimin breathless again. “Such a shame his random fuckboy experiences don’t translate into knowing what my Jimin likes.”
“I see your ego’s still in-tact,” Jimin snorted, but he had his mouth open and ready for Taehyung to kiss regardless, enjoying every part of Taehyung holding his head and waist in a cocoon-like grip; how he usually did.
“Are you saying I don’t know what my Jimin likes?” Taehyung teased with a pouty frown, pressing their hips together the slightest bit, just so Jimin got the idea.
Jimin didn’t have much to say after that, mostly enjoying having Taehyung all around him. This was probably the first time ever Taehyung didn’t even care about the fact that there were streaks of mud in his bed from Jimin’s shoes. And if his parents made any meals that day at all and called him down for them and he didn’t answer, he wouldn’t know or care.
*
School was really hard, after that. While it had felt like an eternity of them in the sanctuary of Taehyung’s room, reality did exist, actually.
Mostly, it felt like everyone knew. Or like everyone had been able to fit together a series of wonky puzzle pieces into a crazy, ugly amalgamation. And Taehyung definitely wasn’t able to keep his distance from Jimin, or even let anyone think that nobody wanted Jimin for even a second, and so there were some hushed whispers when they passed by, especially from older students.
Taehyung had taken to promptly glaring at anyone who even so much as looked at Jimin wrong, much to Jimin’s embarrassment, and made a show out of the two of them holding hands.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” was a favourite of his. He used that one on a gaggle of girls that kept stopping by their geography class to see whether Taehyung and Jimin were sitting together inside.
In other instances, he could get really pissed off. Like if someone even vaguely associated with Yoongi and his collection of toenail clipping friends dared to give him the stink-eye.
“I’m a whore, too, you know,” Taehyung piped up when one such boy had stared at Jimin for a bit too long at lunch time, from almost across the school grounds. Taehyung had promptly walked up to him, Jimin frantically at his heels, until he just started laying into him with zero thoughts. Head empty, Jimin protecting only. His default state. “You’re also giving me whore vibes. It’s a general tingle I can feel near my loins. It’s like a gay-dar, but—“
“Jesus, Taehyung,” Jimin cut him off with, pulling him back where he was standing, almost making the poor glaring boy piss himself as he cowered under Taehyung’s words and the lean of his rather large body.
The other thing keeping him sane was that Jessica was still around, and she had his back. She would shut down conversations she heard in the girls bathroom some days, or just send him knowing looks of support from across the hallway. Her and Jimin had gotten to talk a bit, too. And by talk, he meant talk shit about him together and how difficult he was. As lovingly as that could happen. Not that he had anything to say about that.
*
The saddest part was university applications. Taehyung had marched into the empty classroom Jimin was sitting in one day and dropped a whole pile of books and printed out papers on his desk.
“Tae?” Jimin asked, staring up at him in much bewilderment.
“I’m here to help you with your university applications,” Taehyung said plainly.
“We’re both in special ed,” Jimin said with a short but slightly bitter laugh. “No offence, but I’m not sure your help is gonna do much.”
Taehyung swallowed, faced with yet another instance of him bending the truth in a slightly twisted act of love for Jimin.
Well, since he’d come clean about so much already, he might as well add this one to the list.
“I lied.”
Jimin looked up from the textbook he was reading and highlighting. He cocked a brow up.
“Sorry?”
Taehyung wet his lips a little, before sitting down practically on top of Jimin’s textbook.
“I faked being bad at school so I could stay with you. Kind of random, but there you have it.”
“What the fuck?” Jimin pulled away from his textbook and dropped his highlighter, massaging his temples as if he was in pain. “Taehyung, jesus…that’s really sweet...well, kinda weird, also. But anyways, I…I already applied. Before Yoongi broke up with me.”
It was the first time they’d mentioned his name in a while, and it felt a little jarring. A little foreign, and a little uncomfortable. But Taehyung supposed they couldn’t treat the guy like the boogeyman forever.
“Alright, well...I’ll help you with your final exams, then,” he offered, stroking some of the hair on Jimin’s head out of habit.
Jimin had gotten a lot better with it; public displays of affection. Helped by Taehyung of course, and how he just didn’t give a shit. He’d helped Jimin start to not give a shit, too. Life was easier that way.
Jimin gave him a small but quite dazzling smile, reaching to hold his favourite finger again, and squeezing it. Taehyung would probably offer to help Jimin wipe his own ass if it meant him doing cute shit like that. It was a high he got to constantly chase. And by now, for Jimin, it was a habit.
“Okay.”
*
Jimin was pretty smart, actually. And Taehyung's support also helped. The only issue was that the university Jimin got into also happened to be his university. Which was no surprise, considering Yoongi had made Jimin apply to that one so that they could stay near each other. So he could have ‘access’ to Jimin at all times.
Ew.
Taehyung, true to his word, really hadn’t wanted to attend university. And so he stayed living at home while Jimin moved onto campus. It was only in the ballpark of a twenty minute drive. Besides, he found his calling in carpentry as a woodworker. He’d always been good with his hands, and now he got to build his muscles and build occasional cute little things for Jimin at the same time.
He’d gotten a makeshift apprenticeship just by showing up at a local construction company enough, ending up in them kind of taking pity on him, but also being impressed by his enthusiasm. He’d now graduated to having his own tin snips and nail puller, and when he visited Jimin on campus, he would show off his latest terrifyingly murder-capable device in his tool belt. He liked to make a scene out of it, too. Visiting Jimin. He’d make sure to come straight from the wood-shop, still laden with sweat and sawdust, his car parked out back of Jimin’s dorm.
He had Jimin’s schedule printed out and glued to his car door, too, so he knew exactly which building to pick him up at in order to ferry him back to his room.
“Hey pretty baby,” he said with the broadest grin as he walked up to his familiar mop of blonde hair and wispy eyelashes, making him turn around as soon as he heard him.
Jimin smiled too, though not without trying to stifle it, his cheeks heating up. When he moved his eyes over the rolled up sleeves up Taehyung’s biceps, the flushing got even worse.
“Since when do you talk to me like that?” Jimin muttered, stepping away from what looked like a group of students he may or may not be friends with, promptly ignoring them so that Taehyung would stop whatever it was he was starting.
“Well if I didn’t before, I really should. What’s wrong with calling a pretty baby a pretty baby?”
They were starting to amass a small crowd of staring people around them. Probably staring because Jimin was getting so flustered. Or because Taehyung had the audacity to come dressed in his woodshop attire, and also wasn’t wearing a backpack, so he clearly didn’t go there.
Taehyung’s loins kinda burned at the thought of everyone thinking he was Jimin’s hot older lover, come to seduce him after class.
“You’re so ridiculous,” Jimin groaned, and turned his eyes away from him as if that would help the redness in his face go down.
Taehyung just trailed after him happily as Jimin made haste for his dorm, still letting Taehyung carry his heavy backpack for him and hold all the doors open on the way. It wasn’t up for much argument, considering Taehyung practically insisted.
When they finally got to an area of privacy, which was Jimin’s shared dorm, Taehyung was quick about enveloping Jimin in a needy embrace. This time, Jimin was more than happy to accept, almost falling over himself to get into Taehyung’s arms quick enough, all but purring into him.
Maybe Taehyung had decided to make it a habit to tell Jimin how beautiful he was on a regular basis ever since Jimin had confessed that nobody ever bothered to tell him. Because that was actually crazy, and he wouldn’t stand for it.
*
All in all, they’d built up a good little routine. Taehyung came over most days, would pick Jimin up after class, and then fuck him to sleep for a well-deserved nap, before they woke up to get ready to make dinner and catch up on each other’s days.
It was all usually a relatively private affair. Though Taehyung had mentioned Jimin had a shared dorm, and on occasion, this became a slight hint of an issue.
On one particular day, which was the most recent one, Taehyung had been staring at Jimin as he was sleeping. This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue in and of itself, except it had been one of those times where Taehyung had fucked Jimin to sleep, and he was staring down at Jimin because Jimin was left still sucking on one of his fingers while he snoozed away..
Cue Jimin’s actual roommate walking in just in time to see it, his face pale as a ghost and his forehead and brows jointedly betraying how much they hated Kim Taehyung being a factor in Jimin’s life.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Taehyung said automatically, but was unable to bring himself to pull his finger out, because it felt so intimate and special and fascinating at the same time. And maybe he had a bit of a thing for it.
“I’m not sure what the fuck it’s supposed to look like,” Roommate said in a bitter breath. He was always so snappy. “But I need it to be over.”
“Okay, rude,” Taehyung defended with a huff, shifting a little in his position. “We’re just cuddling.”
“I’m going to fucking shoot myself if I have to deal with this any longer,” Roommate just continued, though Taehyung found that quite dramatic. He wasn’t even there on weekends. And the roommate was always out. Usually. Doing other things.
“Maybe you’re just homophobic,” Taehyung offered, reluctantly pulling his finger out of Jimin’s mouth and sitting up, trying his best not to wake him up. Jimin was always really tired, and if this jackass made to wake him, he might actually start getting offended.
“It’s not homophobic to not like your roommate being pawed at constantly by his fucking weird boyfriend who doesn’t even go here,” Roommate shot back, his hair falling forward into his eyes with the force with which he spat that. Taehyung faintly wondered if he had a crush on Jimin, or if he was just prissy about his own personal space.
Either way, Taehyung was sufficiently annoyed. He squeezed Jimin’s sides to get him to wake up, and sat them both up further in the bed, all while glaring at the intruder. The disturber of peace.
“Jimin, we’re leaving,” Taehyung just said. They had better places they could be, anyways. Like getting hotpot somewhere.
“Yeah, you are leaving,” the roommate agreed, throwing Taehyung’s bag onto Jimin’s bed. “Fucking weirdo.”
“Okay, no, now we’re not,” Taehyung changed his mind, showing the bag off so that it fell to the floor. Jimin seemed too groggy to understand what was going on, rubbing at his eyes on the bed and slurring a quiet question that he couldn’t quite pick up. “What did you just say to me, you little bitch?”
Taehyung’s intonation getting way more hostile and the loudness increasing seemed to be enough to spur Jimin to hasty movement, and he scrambled out of the bed to grab at Taehyung, barely holding him back.
“Stop, Tae,” Jimin mumbled, though with enough force in his pushes to make Taehyung sit down on their bed.
Roommate stood behind them, glaring still. Refusing to mind his own business. The he turned to empty the groceries in his backpack onto their table, ready to put them into his mini fridge.
Taehyung turned to Jimin with a pout, feeling scorned.
“I feel like I have to fight everyone around you. Like some guard dog. Like, fucking woof woof, bitch. You know?” Taehyung muttered to Jimin a little under his breath, eyes flicking up to Roommate every once in a while as he spoke.
Jimin shook his head, sighing.
“Okay, no. Let’s not—maybe don’t fight people. I don’t wanna be kicked out of my room.”
Taehyung relented. Reluctantly.
They ended up heading out to grab a beer at the local bar, only returning when Taehyung put Jimin to bed, which was decidedly when Roommate was fast asleep.
*
Taehyung could handle the odd prick here and there. The odd asshole who would say some shit, or look at him weird, or be crude.
But that was the odd asshole. People he didn’t know, and who didn’t know Jimin. What he couldn’t handle, especially faced with him head-on after so long without even having him remotely in his thoughts, was Yoongi.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise seeing as Jimin and him went to the same university and all. But at the same time, it also was. They hadn’t bumped into each other once, even in a general sprawl of people, and very clearly didn’t run in the same circle or have the same interests. And now they were at a party; some shitty get-together on campus, and Yoongi was there. Him and his friends. Right across from them.
Taehyung had played a billion scenarios out in his head of how running into Yoongi again would transpire; what would go down. How he was stronger now, and less scared, and didn’t have anything to hide. How Yoongi should feel ashamed, and hopefully embarrassed of things he’d done in the past. It had been at least a year, after all.
But maybe that was too much to expect from someone like Yoongi.
Jimin had paled as soon as he’d seen him, burrowing himself into Taehyung’s side and squeezing his arm while the shitty music blared around them. Taehyung hadn’t seen him until Jimin had tensed up like that, because that was a reaction he felt could only be the cause of one person. And time seemed to slow a bit. And some people around them seemed to stop to look on, curious as to what was causing a commotion.
Unfortunately, Yoongi seemed to find their proximity and Jimin’s reaction highly amusing, and as soon as he noticed, he muttered something off-colour under his breath that Taehyung only barely caught. Perm and Bleach-Job were beside him, of course, and both of them laughed rather heartily, eyeing Jimin, too. It felt like every shitty party Taehyung had been to ever, except he’d never been this sober before. Never quite this on edge, and now, never quite this angered.
Taehyung’s hairs stood on edge, and the dormant part of him that he’d subdued for a while blinked up, rearing its ugly head.
“What was that?” Taehyung demanded.
“Huh?” Yoongi offered, laughing as he barely acknowledged what Taehyung was saying.
“What did you just say?” Taehyung pressed, trying his best to sound demanding. Like he wasn’t fucking around. Because now he really wasn’t.
“I said I knew it.”
“Not that part,” Taehyung muttered. “The last bit.”
“Come on, buddy,” Yoongi said with a wry laugh. He clapped Taehyung on the back (when had he gotten that close?), and Taehyung flinched. This time, however, Yoongi didn’t look as confident as he always remembered seeing him. Taehyung towered over him at this point, in size and stature. No amount of Yoongi thinking he was cool or edgy would gloss over that fact. “No need to get your panties in a twist. We’re all just vibing tonight. And you and your little baby slut can go hang out somewhere else. Yeah?”
“Why do you have to be so mean?” Shockingly, that came from Jimin. Taehyung turned to stare at Jimin, entirely impressed and wholly proud. Then he smiled, really wide. “You’re short. And you’re an asshole. And nobody likes you.”
Yoongi seemed to also be taken aback by Jimin’s words. He was so sure Yoongi hadn’t expected something like that to come out of him ever. But Taehyung was there now, and he’d teach Jimin how to diss someone if it was the last thing he ever did.
Unfortunately, Yoongi seemed to regain himself.
“I seem to remember you liking me quite a bit,” Yoongi said with a smirk. God, Taehyung knew this was Jimin’s to handle, but if he had a penny for how many times he was thinking about pulling Yoongi’s tongue down through his bowels and out pf his ass, he would have a fuckload of fucking pennies. “I know you have Daddy issues, Jiminnie, but that’s still no excuse for you to act out this bad.”
Jimin frowned. It clearly hit a nerve, and Taehyung would have been worried for him if Jimin didn’t look so positively murderous.
“Maybe you’re so angry all the time because you’re the one who’s three inches and lasts three minutes.”
There was a thick, bizarre silence that settled over them, and at one point the music was even killed, adding to the burn. Taehyung stared at Jimin, then over to Yoongi, who didn’t seem to have been able to process that someone like Jimin could even throw an insult that impressive.
Then, Taehyung really laughed. He snorted, which burst out into a maniacal guffaw. He heard a few people around them snicker and chuckle as well. A few girls by the billiard table and a few of the guys nursing warm beers by the sound system.
Yoongi was red with anger, the weird vein at the side of his forehead popping. Like he was about to burst, but didn’t know how to channel it. How to even hit Jimin back. Unfortunately for Yoongi also, any further swing at Jimin and Taehyung would absolutely put him to sleep with his fist. Metaphorically.
“What are you laughing at?” Yoongi spat in Taehyung’s direction, seeming to have remembered he was there, and how loudly he was losing it at Jimin’s comment still. “No need to get ahead of yourself. You’re stupid, and you clearly peaked in high school. You don’t even go here.”
A few low whistles from the crowd that had gathered, but Taehyung didn’t pay them too much mind. He knew Yoongi felt backed into a corner. Calling him stupid or anything similar would be just about the only insult that piece of shit could sling at him.
“Whoa, way harsh,” he said in mock-hurt, walking a bit closer to Yoongi just to bask in the insane height advantage he now had on him. Yoongi seemed to involuntarily look up, eyes widening. “If you don’t even eat ass, I really don’t care about your opinion.”
Various iterations of murmurs about Yoongi not eating ass rippled the crowd again, and Taehyung allowed himself a last, little laugh under his breath. He felt Jimin at his side, his hands holding his arm. He knew he could get a little worked up. Maybe a bit too ahead of himself. But he was fine. Really. Just that one insult as a parting gift. That was it.
“Don’t you still live at home with Mommy and Daddy, you fucking loser?”
Taehyung tensed. Again, it was the same fucking material he was using, because he had nothing else. But that didn’t mean Taehyung wasn’t a little insecure about it.
Jimin squeezed his hand again, as if he knew this. Maybe he did. Maybe he knew him way too well.
“In your lib, ‘well educated’ circles, I believe they would call that a classist comment,” he snapped back.
Yoongi looked around himself. A few people seemed to be in latent agreement. Like they were only able to just now think that up, after Taehyung mentioned it.
“I don’t care what anyone would call my comments, freak. Facts are you’re dumb as shit, you have no ambitions, no friends, no decorum—”
“Don’t break your neck saying all those big words as they rip out of your mouth one letter at a time,” Taehyung shoved in between his list, easily talking both louder and faster than him. Yoongi ignored him, but Taehyung got a kick out of seeing the veins at his temples pop even more. He wondered if they’d ever burst.
But then, Yoongi’s eyes went dark. His brows smoothed, and he zeroed in on Jimin, before moving back to Taehyung. Taehyung felt himself stiffen up. Like something was coming. Something not good. He could take a little banter here and there, especially from someone as boring as Yoongi. But he didn’t like the look in his eyes. He didn’t like the way Yoongi and his friends exchanged quick glances, all in under a second.
“Worst of all is that you’re trying to put a ring on the loosest pussy this school has ever seen,” Yoongi continued, smirking to himself and allowing himself a full, pointed look at Jimin. “Yeah, I said it. Let it sink in, you poor fuck. You’re kissing sloppy thirds at this point.”
It was a low blow, and one Taehyung didn’t take lightly. But then it got worse.
“Fourths if you count the fact that fucking everbody and their mom has seen him naked,” Bleach Job interjected, laughing to himself.
Taehyung froze, the words barrelling into him and almost making him unable to stand.
What the fuck?
He breathed so hard he could almost only hear himself. Everything else melted into the background.
Taehyung thought back to the events of two or however many years ago. How he’d considered if it had been a bad idea. Flashing images of Yoongi and his friends crowding around his phone in the courtyard, oddly absorbed. Oddly timed.
The fucking nudes.
He had to clench his fists to keep sane, his breaths coming out strained, if at all. He couldn’t remember a time he’d felt this angry before. His vision was getting a bit blotchy, black spots entering here and there as he stared at Yoongi so hard he couldn’t even see straight. He was gulping down breaths at one point, realizing that while he felt like an eternity had passed, it had barely been a second.
“Tae, no!” Jimin shrieked as he realized before anyone else what was coming.
Inevitable, really. And he didn’t care if Jimin or anyone else got angry at him for his behaviour this time. He was Jimin’s protector dog thing that didn’t know how to do anything and was good for nothing except for physical labour, right? Hotheaded to a fault and never knowing how to behave himself.
Well, woof, woof. Bitch.
“Ow! Shit!” Yoongi whined, clutching at his nose. It was gushing blood. Perm and Bleach Job grabbed at him, trying to help him up from the floor. “What the fuck, you fucking psycho!”
But Taehyung wasn’t finished, and sprung forward, shoving Yoongi down and landing on top of him, before wailing on him a couple more times, until his knuckles felt warm and wet.
“I didn’t mean it! It wasn’t everyone! It was just us!” He heard Bleach Job yell shrilly from the side, his face pale and scared as he looked down at Taehyung clobbering his friend.
Still, nobody moved to restrain him or stop him this time, not even Jimin. And so, Taehyung hit until he was finished. Until he felt like Yoongi looked ugly enough under him, blood bubbling from his nose and at least one eye slightly swollen.
When he got up, he swayed a bit, sweat drying down his back and arms. Then, while everyone still watched, he bolted from the scene, storming out the door to get himself to a more sane mental space.
The cold air hit his face just at the right time, and he closed his eyes, exhaling loudly as he found himself resting behind a pillar near the building next to the one the party was in.
Soon after he’d stood there for a little bit, he felt a soft grip on his hand. No, his finger.
“If you’re going to tell me something about controlling my anger or whatever, I don’t want to fucking hear it,” he muttered, his chest still whirring in adrenaline and his breaths still coming out raspy and loud. “I’d do it again, alright? I’d sit down and gather my composure, and then do it two more times, actually. I don’t know what you want from me, okay?”
“I’m not here to tell you off,” Jimin said softly. Because it was Jimin. Of course it was.
He wasn’t sure he could bear opening his eyes to look at him. To see his disappointed or scared face.
“S-Sorry,” he just said, breathing to himself while Jimin held his finger and still refusing to open his eyes. He was trying to get himself together, really, but it was hard.
“It’s okay. Maybe I…” he heard Jimin trail off, as if embarrassed. Taehyung could hear him struggle to say something, but it was like he almost didn’t want to say it out loud. “Maybe I was happy you did that. Maybe it made me feel protected, a little. And loved. Like I’m worth something.”
Taehyung forced his eyes open, almost spinning on his heels until he was facing Jimin head on. He surged forward and grabbed Jimin by the shoulders, squeezing him hard.
“You’re worth everything,” he hissed. “I’d do more for less, okay? You know that.” He paused, relinquishing his grip a bit, and instead slotting Jimin against himself, placing his head into the crook of his neck. “Just ignore them, okay? Even if someone has seen you…” he trailed off, his stomach twisting painfully. “It’ll be the most beautiful thing they’ll ever see. And we can pity them for that.”
“Yeah,” Jimin agreed. The crook of Taehyung’s neck was a little wet already. Taehyung held him harder. “Yeah,” he repeated.
He held Jimin close like that for a little while, kissing the warm part of his cheek that didn’t have tears all over it. Then kissing the side that did. Jimin calmed in his arms, until they were swaying a little, courtesy of Taehyung.
“Yoongi looked really ugly when I was punching him,” he offered, delighted when he heard Jimin laugh, bubbling clean out of his throat. “He curled up like a wilted crocus. Like a flaccid, little penis. I think people will remember him like that. Impossible for him to act all tough but let some brute carpenter who’s way younger than him pummel him into tomorrow. Embarrassing. Mark my words.”
Both of them were quiet for a few seconds, and all that could be heard was the wind in the bushes around them. Jimin shook a little in his hold. It was cold outside, Taehyung told himself.
“I love you.”
Taehyung looked down at the lump in his arms, raising an eyebrow.
“I love you too,” Taehyung offered, before laughing a little. “Of course I do. Though this is a bit of an odd moment to confess it, don’t you think?”
“For us?” Jimin snorted, looking up at him pointedly. His face was red and his hair was ruffled but he still was. Beautiful. “Is it really?”
“You got me there,” Taehyung laughed into the crown of his head. “‘I love you more’ might be more appropriate, then.”
“It’s not a competition,” Jimin giggled. It was a little bit of a wet giggle still, but every time he made Jimin laugh, his tears dried a little more.
Easy. Taehyung had been working on perfecting how to make Jimin laugh his whole life. Perhaps preparing for this moment.
Maybe this was how he knew they would just work out, and that everything would be okay. He wouldn’t allow himself a shot at Jimin’s heart if he didn’t think he could trust himself with protecting it in the first place.
“It is now,” Taehyung teased. “And, um,” he nosed his way up Jimin’s neck, his ears singing with every little giggle he drew in his wake. They were light and easy, and gathered into his already swimming brain, painting over the dark bits in there that made him think about angry things. Non-Jimin things. Which, in that moment, were quite unnecessary. “It looks like I’m winning.”