[Unedited]
"Oh hyung, when did you come? Jin hyung sent me to check up on noona just now."
"And he also called you back to lend him a hand in work. Stop wedging out of your chores. Help the old man, go." Jungkook got up from his seat, borrowing a handful of gentle smile with a bow during the departure. Jimin waited until he left.
"Old man who? Should I spill to Jin what you call him?" Jimin shrugged his shoulders only at my tease, asking, "How are you feeling?"
"Alright-" I stopped as he started leaning forward, placing his backhand on my forehead. His hand was so warm, but I flinched at the sudden impact.
"A bit warm, not sure about fever." He continued to feel my cheeks. I lightly brushed his hand off, "There isn't one."
"Did you check the temperature? Jin hyung is worried about you, I need to assure him later as I go."
"Yes, I am so, very, great. Trust me. I don't lie."
"Really? Then why did you black out on the stairs?"
"I don't know. It was weird for me too. But I'm okay now. Tell Jin to stop worrying about me."
"You should start caring more about yourself." I shrugged at him.
"And hyung is a bit protective in nature. He is always there, taking care of us whenever anyone falls sick. Don't criticize the mother in him."
I laughed at his words, "And what is that?" added I gazing at the cup he had placed on the bedside table. The smell permeating the air molecules with its soft sweet aroma had me brazenly withhold a gargling stomach, dying to get a taste of it.
"I thought you would be hungry."
"I don't know if I was, but I am now. Thanks. Now hand me that." He slapped my hand away with a playful glare, "Let it cool down first."
I sat cozily on one side of the head curling myself completely within the blanket, shockingly asking for the time to pass by only to be able to eat soonest, having nothing else of concern. Jimin lunged on the mattress beside me in comfort.
"So what's going on between you two?"
"Me and - who?"
"Jungkook."
"What about him?"
"You guys seem to have got close."
"Eh, well somewhat. He's a nice boy."
"And?"
"Aaand - yeah, he's great to talk with. I like him."
"You like him?"
"He's easy to get along with." I stared at the slow fade of steam from above the bowl, "Can I eat now?"
Jimin seemed to not have heard that, "That's so surprising to hear. Because Jungkook's not likely to loosen up to someone too quick."
"I didn't find him like that. Instead, he rather gives off a pretty welcoming vibe. Yeah he's a bit shy, but not-"
"He has a welcoming vibe? Wow, you're the very first person to say that." He sounded very sarcastic to leave me in confusion.
"Why is your tone getting weird, Jungkook-"
"I get it." Jimin bounced up on the mattress, darting his eyes straight onto me in a gravy mood, "Y/N, just - tell me something. Don't you think you fall for people too easily?"
I was left off guard with the sudden question, "What do you mean?"
"You go believe directly into people's idiosyncrasies not delving soundly enough to see what can be more to that. While your principles are so surprisingly outright, you don't even care as long as the first impression is alright to you."
My jaw tightened at the assertion, "Why are you saying this now? What have I done that made you think that? And how is Jungkook linked to this?"
"It took one night of Jungkook crying on your shoulder and one soft conversation time with him for you to already like him. You already believed him, and you didn't go afar to check what else can be within his persona, have you? Can you say I am not right?"
"I-"
"In the meanwhile, never did you think of examining the factors which, even if worse, may have undeniable reasons, never did you walk outside your vantage point of principles. First impression matters to you and one who has done it best wins your heart. You're such a great traitor."
"I don't get what you are trying to say. Just come to the point."
He averted his eyes away exhaling apparent hot fumes.
"You saying I like Jungkook because he cried and blindly believed in his persona without digging further to know if he's actually nice in reality or not? Because I don't have to. I have the minimum insight I require to know which show is authentic. I am a witness to similar aspect as him and if no one else, it would be at least me who can identify the accuracy of the condition. Why are you trying to belittle your own brother?"
"I am not belittling him."
"You are. And what principle are you talking about? Whose principles have I not tried to walk out of and see from another vantage point?"
He scoffed, "Leave it."
"I cannot just leave it when you called me a traitor on nothing."
"You don't remember what I said the other day on way back home?"
"When? Where? As much as I remember, I never said anything to provoke you. Which part of my words have caused the grudge you're holding on me still now?...Jimin, I am talking to you."
"Do I have to say everything out loud? Do you just not want to realize or are you actually very dumb?"
My blood boiled into my contracting arteries arising a fit of feverish anger. I hardly held myself back from clenching the fists, "Yes. I am dumb. A butthead. Okay? We good? Now cut your own cake."
He rebounded off the mattress without lashing out another word. Almost throwing the bowl at me, he glared, "Eat."
"I lost my appetite." I shoved a blanket over my protesting stomach and wiggled my head deep down at the crevice of my pillow, to lock far enough sight from the male standing on the side from exchanging any further look. He didn't say anything back, neither asked nor pleaded me with a sorry and finish the food. Simply he just left through the door, arising my headache back to its preliminary worse state from all the vex and spitting fire from ire.
I just wanted to hate the guy.
Then, coming back to it, he just straddled me back to my senses in the right way. I was here to get the boys, not to fall weak for them.
My eyes felt heavier from the sleep, so did my head. It took me minutes to get over the radiance of the coziness of the bed, but as I got up, despite feeling a temporary fatigue, the pain was somewhat gone.
The dorm was, surprisingly, silent than ever. Small whooshes and sizzles escaped from the kitchen. I jollily sprang towards to take a look.
"Hi, Jin what are you-" My tongue cut out the rest of the sentence. Jimin obliquely glanced at me once, looking away with a terrible ignorance instantly.
"not doing in the kitchen?" I finished with a greasy smile, "Haha. Where is he, Jimin?"
There was no reply.
"Are you hearing me?"
Still no reply.
"1 2 3 4 mic testing, my voice sounds fine. Has your stepes fallen off?"
"He went to get some groceries." He stopped in the midst to add a glare, adding some more to the info, "And other hyungs, to take out the trash."
"Oh. Then who else is home?"
"Taehyung. Me. And Kookie."
"I can't see any of them."
"Jungkook's cleaning the yard. Taehyung should be around somewhere." I skipped from the kitchen to amble around the innard. The dorm having half of its people out looked so monotonously empty. I peered at the balcony, finding Jungkook in a distance sweeping the lawn. There was not a sound anywhere of the other present member. I climbed upstairs with a view to looking for him. Being careful of the camera, I gave a quick twirl on one of the knobs. All the rooms were left, as expectantly, locked.
A scornful laugh came out accompanied by a short expletive. I went back downstairs. Jimin was out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on the apron. He didn't look much of a professional chef in the attire, rather a young lad eager about cooking, who was trying to get his first trials perfect of being a chef and present a perfectly seasoned dish. With the low trail of brown bangs hanging over one edge of his heart forehead, he looked feminine, cute. Apparently.
"Stop walking around in your socks. Hyung left me to vacuum, I haven't done it yet. Seat somewhere."
I did as he said.
"Are you hungry?"
For someone who had blazed up a conversation and killed the hungry's hunger, his tone appeared too scant of guilt or care.
"No." My stomach wanted to divorce my body.
"You slept for almost seven hours, didn't have lunch. You should eat something now."
"I will suit myself. You don't have to worry."
"Hyung called me a while ago to check on you and to say to call him back."
"My phone's out of charge..."
"Call from mine."
"Hey Y/N, are you feeling good now?"
"Yes, I had a sound sleep. What did you need to call me for?"
"We are at the mart to get stuff for dinner. Hobi wants to treat us, Namjoon settled with tteokbokki, if you'd like, we will get some extra materials too."
"I am down for anything. Get whatever you want." With Jin saying okay on the other side, I disconnected the call and swerved my eyes to Jimin, "I couldn't find Taehyung anywhere. Has he gone out for something?"
"He must have left to the arcade, God..." He cursed under hia breath pouting lips cutely, "I have work. I'm gonna go."
"Do you need any help?"
"No. Still, thanks."
"By any chance are you still mad at me, Jimin?"
He was about to stroll off without giving a reply. I was quick enough to grab a corner of his apron at the right time, "Give me the answer. I feel like you are. Aren't you?"-
"I'm sorry for whatever I have done. Can you stop puffing your cheeks like a baby now?"
Jimin still wouldn't look back to my face.
"Goodness! Seriously though, why are you always angry with me over something? It's like you're always out for a reason. I get it, I will try to fix my principles and look at whatsoever you'd like me to. Now - yah! Stop ignoring me, lad." Jimin flicked my fingers away from holding his cloth. I flinched with inertia when his weight pressed down on the couch seat I was sitting in, making an uncomfortably close progressive slanting of his torso. I arched backward slightly to get back the aperture. When he looked down, he was facing me directly in my eyes.
"Too close distance for a reply, don't you think?" I laughed awkwardly.
"Stop goofing around, Y/N. I'm tired with this." His low sigh fanned against my face in a gentle arc. Looking down once when he looked back up, I saw a morose brown texture of fidelity in his gaze speaking to a no-zone to relish his emotions out. The slight chubbiness of his cheeks melted to a plain at the clench of his jaw.
"I am not angry with you. I am- I am not- I don't know how to define this either. It's the way I am, you are. How...I am mad at how different we are."
My heart silenced at his statement.
"Nothing matches. Your ideals, preference, your type, I am afraid when I want to speak the truth, this difference is gonna blow the much contiguous we are, to a farther distance out of reach."
His hands climbed up to my neck, cupping the side of my cheeks for a momentary second then releasing back. "And I am afraid to take the pit. I don't know where it all started. It never was like this from the first day. And it's just getting no better with passing more moments with you."
"All I can do is make this worse." He got back on the floor, flicking his hair back in a frustrated sigh. "I do make everything worse and at least some of them stay in my hand. This is getting out. I don't know what to do with this whirlwind of mess. But it's me who has to deal with it anyway. I don't expect a hand to bring it to parallel from you. And even if you do, it's not gonna stop, it's gonna be a greater disaster to the time I don't think I will be eager to climb back up. So it's better the first way."
With that, he walked off towards the kitchen, leaving me unwantedly in the same calamity he had turned himself in to.
I slowly grabbed my chest to feel the rising temptation of a fast-beating heart. That beat like no time, beating for its last track as if there was a death at the endline of its race.
Unknowingly or knowingly, he pointed out the exact words which were supposed to be delivered from my side firsthand.
Our differences.
One was enough to make me stand in my uniform and him in his blackened moral carcass but white to his eyes. Our scents smelled like flowers, but neither had the aroma strong enough to coalesce and induce a greater proliferation of sweetest fragrance. If he were a night queen, I had to be the sun, my rise would mean it was time for him to go.
And a desire to not rise would mean an invalid puerile behavior, would make the system go wracked. We all followed the rules of the world, any error in a movement would deflect the natural equilibrium.
I couldn't be one.
And he knew before I did.
Crestfallen sunk my head within my knees as I craved for a dark solitude to scream and burn my lungs.
Why did it have to be like this? There never was an answer.
"I forgot to take my phone back."
"Y-yeah? Oh, here."
"Wait, are you crying, Y/N? Why do you sound like that?" Jimin pulled up my chin using his force, I held his palm away from scrambling to make me look up.
"No, I am not. It's just the cold or-"
"Shut up. Look at me." He hissed, "Why are you crying?"
"I-" I tried to mute my small whizzes and look away to anywhere but front, "I don't know!" I feebly grasped his wrists to check him, "Just leave me be."
"Tell me what's wrong. Did I-" His forehead pulled into a crease, "is it for anything I said?"
"No I - Jimin," I tried swallowing down the lump creeping on my throat in uttermost manner to keep it to me, "Just why did we have to be different?"
His eyes softened as I spoke in fragile intervals, "What is wrong with being different? Just why did you have to be on the other side of the road? I am getting sick of this. I don't want to run anymore, but neither can I stop. Why did it have to mean we gotta get rid and stay away from each other?"
He wasn't supposed to get what I exactly said. But he looked into my eyes in a way like he knew what my heart spoke, and what it wanted.
It took me back to having flashbacks to the first time we had met. When he was strangling being on top of me with an intent to fracture my wrist, and the quick moment before he took the mask off my face. Where would have we been if that day hadn't happened? What would have my fate been if he had seen my face? What would have happened if I never took this case?
If destiny took me this far to tangle with him, what the freakery reason did it have to play with me? What kind of lesson was I supposed to imbibe staying close to someone who caused a fire to warm my heart, at the same time crawled close to char me to ashes?
My hands clung onto his shirt with an exhausted mind of its own. I wanted to let go. But my head recalled every second of the moonlit night. Current Jimin looked the same, but my eyes were different. I saw him in another way, not the shockingly pretty gangster who caught me from running and captivated me underneath, but the boy who was more than that, who made me this doll of freaked up fate game. He was a sinner, when I didn't think of the sin, he was a beautiful person. A beauty glazed on his face, his dazzling eyes, his shiny lustrous hair bangs, a level of the glow of a man a dream guy only has, not available in real life.
This running had no goal. Falling over and over for him when I knew I would, I didn' want to but, I couldn't stop myself...
Small mumbles of mine were lost in the silence. Jimin's eyes locked with mine, in those brown hues with white shine at corner from light, a part of inner me wanted to plunge with the stagnant motion, having me knotted with the boy inside of his.
"Jimin?" This time, my voice spoke the fear and real version of me before him. I shivered at the slow touch of his lips below my chin, crawling up, and up. I felt lost, in a sense of drowsiness, stupor to this unknown, burning feeling. He left soft bites on the same place, one second between the touches had me feeling so cold, in need to get back to it. My hands felt rigid, they wanted to push him off but something was holding them back.
When I opened my eyes again, his face was too close to be fully on view. I saw till his nose, his lips were less than an inch away. I felt the tingling sensation, a hot boiling rum melting with butterflies squirming in my stomach.
His opulent smile accentuated his mesmerizing eyes. As long as it remained, his last sentence rang until the last action to rule my conscience.
"Y/N, can we just forget everything for a while?"