Chapter Text
This trembling light I place in your hands
Is my heart
A flightless firefly
Forever yours to keep, forever yours to crush
A piece of light lays on the parchment in a strange, atrocious way. A sinking sun- the glow so wilted that it almost doesn't have any warmth left in its stream- would not usually dare linger on the diminutive numbers neatly typed across the page of this thick, unexciting binder. Usually, it would scatter all over the desk in particles so trivial that Taehyung wouldn't notice its existence.
But today, he does.
The pencil held between his index and middle finger comes to a halt midflip as his eyes end up focusing on the rectangle of soft afternoon light caught on the top of the page. He looks over his shoulder at the giant window behind his back, and finds the huge sky set on fire.
Looking at the shredded clouds, flame red and orange and gold, he realises he has lost track of time at some point. Usually a very sore neck or his father's assistant- whichever comes first, acts as the reminder. Sighing, what he does is put down the pencil and slump in the leather chair, pushing back some raven fringes of hair that have come loose over his brows while he attentively hovered on the binder earlier.
"Seok?" He calls, his voice barely a notch higher than an inadequate murmur. "Time to leave."
The feet on the armrest of a chair across the desk-table moves, toes twitching, before Hoseok takes down his legs and gets to an askew sitting position, stretching.
"Uugh. All those years ago...when I told you you can drop the formalities-" He pauses to yawn. "I didn't mean this much."
"Sorry hyung. If you're done sleeping let's leave."
Hoseok rubs his eyes for a whole good minute before he starts to look properly awake and bored. "But I want to have the conversation here. The temperature is set pretty nice today."
"What conversation?" Taehyung mutters, piling up the binders in a stack then pushing it aside. "Thought you just wanted to hang out at the Yellow Bowl."
"No? Their fishcakes have lost the touch. What I'm more interested in is......" Hoseok leans over the table, curiosity shimmers in his eyes like miniature bulbs in Christmas. Strangely energetic for someone who was sleeping like a boulder by the river just a few minutes ago. "What were you doing yesterday dressed like a hot nerd and since when you care for soft boys?"
Taehyung doesn't pause.
To be true, Jimin had left his mind since he chose to visit the office to crunch some numbers as his weekend-starter activity. He has always found comfort in numbers; the way they fit into one uncomplicated formula or another, easy to sort, easy to deal with. To him, digits seem to be a better pass-time than a human head full of unnecessary contradictons. But that is only when he is looking to relax.
Now when he has relaxed enough, and Hoseok has reminded him of it, he realises he has been carrying a pebble-sized anticipation this whole time; along with the smug excitement of getting to rip the fruits of his hard work, soon.
How long can it take actually? A couple days, or maybe two? Park Jimin is eventually going to lose this little tug of war against himself. Not his fault, how can he not fall for someone who was customised solely for him with half-white lies and brashness and feigned tender eyes; just his type- someone as reliable as a cotton sleep-shirt on Monday nights, and as wild as a cotton sleep-shirt in a funeral.
Poor Jimin never stood a chance.
"How about Gwino's place then? You like shrimps." Taehyung says, quietly assorting the rest of his things.
"Brother I asked you something."
"Did you."
"Huh? I used my forbidden lock picking skills because you asked me to but I get no context?" Hoseok slowly blinks as if he is incomprehensibly hurt. "How's that fair! How come I get nothing in return?"
"I remember thanking you."
"I don't. You tell me exactly how you're fooling around. That's the least you can do for me."
Taehyung hikes up his bag over his shoulder and lazily peers down at hoseok, who still sits on the chair with a stubborn patience. It makes him exhale.
"I'm in love, with the soft boy you mentioned."
Again, Hoseok blinks. Slow, processing, at the end he just shakes his head with a certain incredulity.
"Now, shrimps?" Taehyung queries, turning to the door.
Unlike yoongi- who prefers to ponder over the conclusion, Hoseok enjoys the uncertainty that comes before. He likes the feeling of curiosity a little too much. So much, that he goes around collecting small portions of half-explained tidbits to keep himself amused. Taehyung knows he isn't going to ask further, atleast for now.
"That's great news. You two look quite cute together. You have my blessings. And yes, shrimps will do."
"Nice." Taehyung mutters curtly.
"You can call him over and we can all hang out together!"
"No I can't."
"Too soon?"
"Too soon."
"All right!" Hoseok hums in a sing-song voice, following Taehyung out of the room and then into the enormous, corporate passage.
The walls here always had this annoying shade, almost ivory yet not, a color that makes one squint and ponder if there was color at all. It is a good thing there is so much glass on the other side, if it was not, if it was meters of that illusive colour stretching everywhere along the walls and ceiling, Hoseok believes he'd go crazy enough to bring a calligraphy brush and paint a huge dick on the left side of the corridor.
He glances at Taehyung walking ahead of him, wondering if he too has ever thought of fucking up this place like that. Then he dismisses the thought. Taehyung has always preferred to be here rather than home. Or maybe he preferred any place else over his home. Hoseok remembers him hanging around at one corner or another in this building, or Jungkook's house, or inhabiting a bench in some random park, in his school uniform long after sundown. How long ago was it actually?
"You remember there was a white cat...it used to live somewhere in the parking?" Hoseok muses.
"The one that got ran over by a car years ago?"
"You should try being more gentle when people are trying to reminisce." The older suggests, continuing to lean against the metal wall inside the elevator, watching Taehyung press the buttons. "It's what my mom says when I interrupt her sob sessions over my father. The biological one. Now I get her. Anyways. I brought up the cat so I could use it as a thread to reach a certain point."
"Apologies hyung."
"Do better."
The elevator opens to a place that is equally mundane. Same colourless coloured, same tiled flooring, even the same plants in the same fucking planters placed in the same fuckinh spots. One would think they were stuck on the same floor in some kind of Sci fic nightmare.
But they are not. Hoseok shivers as he steps into the parking stretched ahead like the blueprint of a 3d space- grey and unnatural. He puts his hands in the pockets. The air is unusually chilly in here, in a way that doesn't bite but makes the skin tingle unpleasantly. "So you do remember the cat?"
"Yeah. What about it?" Taehyung answers, walking ahead.
"We used to feed it sometimes. But it'll never approach the food if you weren't around. Remember? Why do you think it trusted you so?"
Taehyung feels the urge to roll his eyes even though it came from Hoseok who tends to jump across random topics. Is he even supposed to remember something so inconsequential and ancient? But now when he spares it a thought, there were those days when the four of them used to hang out in the parking after school sometimes. Hoseok who still had his empathy issues back in those days, would often bring food for the small, thread- bare cat.
Based on how thin the cat was, it's surprising that it lived. It was completely white with startling blue eyes, cute in a way that would make one want to pick it up and nurture it back to health- the kind of charm certain fragile things possess.
Strangely, the cat wouldn't even come near the opened can of luxurious cat food, not until Taehyung would go and crouch down in front of the can, only then the cat would leave its safe spot behind a pillar and slowly start to approach with its cautious tiny paws.
Looked more like stupidity than trust. Taehyung never bothered to dwell on it.
"Beats me." He mutters, slightly bowing to a familiar face who walked by.
"You used to dress all neat and proper hm? While the rest of us went for a wannabe delinquents look. Could be our cat thought you were safe because it judged us on the basis of our appearance........" Hoseok ponders.
"Mhm sorry. If I knew you'll be having this crisis I'd have picked cat psychology as my major."
Hoseok exhales loudly. "A shame. So this guy you're in love with.....he reminds me of that cat."
His tone was airy, the kind when someone is simply commenting on weather, but there is that deepest look on his face. Once, Taehyung used to find it hilariously odd how this guy can speak of the utmost nonsense with that knowing, wise smile. Like usual, he chooses to brush it off and slips inside the car. He needs to sleep. Or eat something horrifically spicy to dull down this persistent headache he has.
"Looks like you're ignoring my observation." Hoseok says, his eyes lazily grazing the autumn overcrowding the trees as the car rolls out of the blue shadows of the parking and onto the road. "It puzzles me more. How come cats don't notice how discourteous you are......he was walking literally tucked in your shadow when I rescued you lot out of that creepy storage hut."
A cops of oaks stood by the road in flashy reds and rust, the colours unnecessarily bright. Taehyung rushes past it, visualising crushing the aflame leaves under the wheels. The engine raves, but the familiar vibration doesn't hinder his mind's brief detour to park Jimin's face post his little confession.
Jimin had looked startled at first, then overwhelmed, as if he was a newborn fawn with a watery heart. And then Hoseok appeared before the poor thing could process any of it. How he must have wanted to hold onto Taehyung's sleeve and stick closer but could not. Oh what an adorable turmoil it is when you only know comfort in the hands you can't reach for.
Hoseok hasn't completely mistaken. He is like that cat in a way- trusting the one he should avoid the most.
Autumn air leaps from tree to tree. As the car rolls to a halt at a small crossing, Taehyung glances at the rattling leaves. At least this lot is green. Just as they should be.
"Do you think I should be doing this, hyung?" Taehyung says all a sudden, half wondering, half asking as he taps his index on the steering wheel, watching the pedestrians walk across the road like multi-coloured ants.
"Sure."
"You don't even know what I'm talking about."
"I don't need to. Whatever you're doing, you seem exited for it. Excitement is necessary, otherwise our feet and hands start to feel dead and then in a few year it spreads everywhere. I don't care what happenes to the soft boy."
"You don't?"
"As the saying goes brother, the world is no fit place for those without a broken heart."
Hoseok leans back comfortably in the seat, probably planning to resume his nap. Taehyung glances at him once and then at the shifting light on the signal.
A smile forms somewhere beneath his pursed lips.
If he had asked Hoseok this same question years back, he'd answer differently. Hoseok was a lot like Jimin back then- bright, lively. In the beginning they found him annoying, yet still kept around for some reason he didn't understand yet.
Hoseok used to care about rights and wrongs, about being nice and warm to those who were not. That was it. For so long he used to be the one who kept the three of them from spiraling down into the hollow they were.
But it was all in the long- gone past.
It is wonderful how all things of colour shrivel and scatter at the end. All warm things get cold. Sometime slow like a planet settling down, sometime just within a heartbeat. It's comforting to know where everything is headed. Taehyung can't tell where they belong now, how far from the absolute grey. But it feels right, to be cold together, to be same with a different vertical crack running down their hearts.
"Do you think I'm an asshole, hyung?" He mutters, almost wishing to be answered with something he doesn't already know. "Why do I want to break him so badly...."
The older doesn't open his eyes, yet allows a soft tilt to climb on his mouth. "We've all intentionally broken a toy or two in our baby days. Just to see what was inside. The urge is innate I guess."
"Do you ever feel like.........stopping?"
"I belive in Darwin, mate. Of course I don't."
"But survival is not living. Are we living?"
"..........why are you acting like yoongi? Did you skip breakfast or something?"
Taehyung titles his head, pretending to think. Of course he doesn't care if they are alive or just animated structures made of limestone. He simply wanted to talk as if he cared. It makes him feel remotely human, sometimes, a human who still worries of turning brittle on the inside.
Maybe it has something to do with Hoseok. Maybe deep down Taehyung kind of hopes Hoseok would answer the way he used to; with the stubborn optimism of a dumb child. He knows it's a disturbing thought.
"It's fine, if you ask me. You want to fuck around with someone, so you do it. Being considerate won't even exempt you from mandatory military survice. Can you belive it?"
The song playing on the radio sounds like a tuned static, Taehyung notices, the volume set too low, losing its shape even under the quietness of Hoseok's voice. It was Jimin's doing, the last time he dropped him off. He'd usually set the volume low so that he could keep rambling over it, but won't let Taehyung turn the music off for some reason.
park Jimin, full of itty-bitty mysteries, resembler of a dumb cat from the past- is a sweeter reward than military exemption. But Hoseok won't get it. Taehyung chews on the inside of his cheek. the only person he is considerate of, is himself of course.
"Just......don't be too harsh on him." Hoseok lifts his head to say, as though he has been having serious second thoughts this whole time. "Leave room for redemption in case you actually fall in love or shit." He says with a chuckle, low and sarcastical. "You never know."
𓂃 ִֶָ𐀔
Jimin presses his palms on the glass, beads of water still sticking to the other side of the window.
It is that time of the year when all the leaves imagine a shade of red or yellow and turn into it in silence. Some as vibrant as coronation roses, some so pale they look pretty like sad smiles.
Usually, a surrounding like that would make Jimin queasy with a peculiar kind of happiness. With so much colour scattered everywhere, the sky a nice and crisp blue, the air smelling of sunlight- he would feel so warm that sometime he couldn't decide what to do with so much unnecessary happiness and get jittery on the inside.
Though now is an exception.
It has rained a while ago. Out of nowhere, brief, but somehow it has turned all that brightness into runny watercolour. Now there is that strange light which appears only following afternoon rain, as if filtered through a melancholic cellophane stuck to the wet sky.
Over the past four days he has been a restless mess. He'd toss around in the bed half-awake, zone out on half of the lectures, put on his shirts inside out and so on; all because of this unaccountable feeling inside his chest. Novel, sweet, as swollen as a full moon floating right in the middle of the sky.
And at last it had compelled him to stare back at the washroom mirror after the last lecture he had earlier today.
The soiled mirror held a reflection that Jimin inwardly groaned at. The first thing was his hair; almost back to its natural color- a ridiculous chestnut that he suddenly couldn't stand. The next thing was his face. One would think he'd lose at least a speckle of the cheek fat from all the sleep-deprivation he was going through, na da. And then there is this brown pullover that looked like a coarse potato sack all of a sudden. Jimin couldn't remember why he put it on, or why he bought it in the first place.
Collectively, it was grandly off-putting. But somehow the little bubble inside his stomach persisted. It was that kind of bubble carried specifically by people who had read too many young-adult novels at some point of their lives and nurtured beliefs such as there will be someone who would look at your worst self as if you were the prettiest star in the entire milky-way and stuff.
A part of him could tell it was bullshit, but chasing bullshits weren't a new thing for him. After all, he had been hovering around a guy thinking it was all friendly affection, until he found himself shivering thinking how they had already walked on the streets side by side- so close that their clothes brushed against each others- and he had failed to notice the static his skin still carried wherever he went.
But he could no longer hold still, no longer hope that it would subside at some point.
So Jimin had then splashed some cold water on his solemn face, swiped his damp fingers through his hair until he could label himself 'remotely presentable' and then again, stared back at the reflection with a thumping heart full of stupid resolution.
He was going to find Taehyung and then do something he still dreaded to consciously think through. He was just going to walk over and decide the rest later. One moronic step at a time.
And then it rained.
It was the kind of rain that comes in with plump droplets crashing straight to the soil like heavy icicles as if it is in rush to be elsewhere shortly. Jimin had blindly run to the open entrance of whatever department building was nearby. But he was already halfway-drenched.
The forecast didn't mention any raining, he glumly thought, patting at the damp patches on his pullover where the droplets had caught him. His hair too was damp, limply spilling over his brows in a way he absolutely hated.
"Excuse me? A voice had quipped pulling him to the realisation that some girls were flocking out of the building and he had been standing right in the middle like a soggy scarecrow. He had bowed apologetically to the disapproving glances, hurrying to move out of their way.
He had felt awkward and stiff, and then a damper feeling crept up to him.
What if Taehyung was with his friends like that one time and they look at him with this kind of evident disapproval? Won't it embarrass Taehyung if a soaked fool approached him in front of others? He pondered with a sinking heart. Maybe he had read it wrong all together. Taehyung said he liked him but never indicated he would like to be with Jimin. He even apologised for liking him. Maybe that was where Taehyung stopped, drawing a line and retreating.
It was a dampening thought, a thought that peeled off the colourful excitement his heart had been wearing like a cheap sticker. And suddenly he felt utterly stupid. The empty hall, the plastic chairs, and the green-white direction tags on the wall- all stared back it him as if they were watching a ridiculous intruder.
No biggie!
He had put on a tight smile. It was alright, everything was alright. Since he was already here and he hadn't been in this building before, he had decided to explore. He could just walk around and take note of the architecture, he'd look at anything to look away.
With small aimless steps Jimin had moved towards the stairs without any apparent destination in mind. He had climbed, and he subconsciously clutched the strap of his backpack when a couple of students walked past him chattering, then he trotted to a random room on the left- not aware how he looked like a lost bird looking for a way out in all the wrong places.
This room, resembling most discussion halls in the block, too was just functional. Small clusters of chairs faced each other around wooden desks, an electronic whiteboard hung empty on the wall, the windows on the other side hold a soaked, colourless sky. The rain was mostly gone by then.
For a while Jimin had watched the campus slowly turning lonelier with the drifting figures of students on the path bellow. He absently leaned in, until his forehead was touching the cold glass.
It was oddly peaceful. He had always found this strange comfort in empty rooms, in buildings standing desolated like a deliberate loner. Jimin had thought he could just be here until this anxious feeling dissipated a bit, and then he too would go.
Now he can't even tell how long he has been standing here.
The remnants of a few droplets trickle down against the reflection of his palms. It is golden, catching the hue of the clear sun that is starting to reappear.
".....Jimin?"
A familiar, magnetic voice calls from behind; a hint of surprise tilting his otherwise quiet tone, and even if Jimin wasn't distracted, it would probably still startle him as much as it does now.
He stays facing the window for several seconds, frozen mid-breath.
".....um hi." Jimin murmurs after he effortfully makes himself turn. "What....are you doing here?"
His voice comes out strained, probably the smile he tries to put on is no better, then his eyes catch a glimpse of the guy standing a few feet away and suddenly, everything worsens, a lot.
Before this day, Jimin has never find it straining to look at a person or speak to them. It had been as simple as existing. But now, even this barest whiff of spice and musk in the air made him unable to remember how he used to do either of it.
"Had a class. Economics." Taehyung explains, and then after a pause he lightly steps inside. "......are you alright? You look red."
Jimin shakes his head in a vigorous denial, busying himself in looking at a nearby chair as if he was suddenly very interested in the meterial. "It-it's the sun. I was taking a stroll. A long, long stroll. Why else I'd be here. My department is completely on the other side!"
"The sun?"
"Be-before it rained! Once I'm red it doesn't go away easily. Haha! It's like I'm extra sensitive-"
He falters, once his haste to build up a response makes him mistakenly meet Taehyung's eyes.
The watercolour sun was slender and soaked, so its shy shimmer filtering through the glass has fallen over Taehyung's dark windswept hair, and the collar of his moss-green shirt, and his lashes like strewn flakes of fragile gold that Jimin find himself wishing he could touch.
For a solid minute he forgets to hide his startled stare. And he speaks only after realizing the nature of his thoughts and feels his cheeks burn with a flush.
"...to.....to the sun...."
"I see."
"So, um....what are you doing here?"
A quizzical expression passes through the taller's face and Jimin immediately realises with a panic he has already asked the same thing before.
"I was here for an economics class."
".......you have economics?" Of course he had to have economics!
"Mhm."
"I thought classes were over...."
"Yeah. I stayed behind for a bit of self study."
His tone is the same, matter-of-fact, quiet, usual. So if one doesn't look closely, they won't even notice the shift, the cut-short smiles, the physical distance deliberately set between them. But Jimin does.
So he clutches at the strap of his backpack tighter, pretending not to notice the pang of disappointment inside his chest. "Oh.....I will be get going then! I'd hate to be in your way-"
"No. You stay." Taehyung exhales, rummaging inside his back pocket. "I'll head out. I think I forgot to pick up the books I need-- uh, here."
Jimin doesn't know how to respond except placing his confused eyes on Taehyung when the taller's out-stretched hand holds a handkerchief to him, neatly folded and white with a navy lining running along the border.
"Your hair is wet."
Jimin's gaze flickers back at the handkerchief and rests there, before he finally reaches for it.
".....thanks." He mumbles, closing his fingers around the fabric tightly enough to keep them from trembling. "I'll return it later."
"You don't have to."
"....but I can't just-"
"It's no bother. I'll head to the library. Se-" Pausing, Taehyung shakes his head, as if catching himself. "Bye, Jimin."
The taller turns, withdrawing the quiet gaze placed on him along with his parting smile: and by now Jimin knows Taehyung was about to say 'see you later' but did not. So he is not going to see Taehyung again, and even if he dose, it would be like this- a moment of them brushing past each other.
And by now, Jimin knows he can't live with that kind of unfaltering homesickness.
"Taehyung?"
He calls back, heart thumping against his ribs almost audibly. Think before you speak-he has always been warned, but how does one even start to think when their heart is being this loud, Jimin can't figure. So he just fixates his gaze on the back of Taehyung's shoulders and holds his breath. One moronic step at a time.
"Can we- can we talk?"
𓂃 ִֶָ𐀔
The cellophane is still there. Clinging to the sky, so all the fallen red-yellow leaves sticking to the wet concrete path look more sad than they usually do.
Jimin avoids stepping on them as they walk towards the biggest oak in the north end of the campus. They are going to the oak, or at least Jimin thinks they are. He is aware that he shouldn't be thinking of oaks, or fall rain, or the details in the goddamn scenery right now. He needs to figure out what to say to Taehyung, but his nerves keep forcing him to think of a distraction, to distract himself from the distraction.
Taehyung.
Walking together with him, being around him, aren't first-time things for Jimin. Yet it feels brand new. He had never been so self-conscious around him. He had never been so aware of his fingers- that might brush past Taehyung's clothes if he's careless and catch a sweet burn, of his skin- that tingles at the mere realisation of his proximity, of his own breathing- erratic like a branch swaying with the weight of too many blooming flowers.
There are all these alien emotions, and he could feel their strings entangle his limbs- just a bit tighter and he'd be forever stuck.
"You don't have to do this."
".....what?"
Jimin pauses, his unfocused eyes coming to rest on the back of the taller.
"Whatever this is." Taehyung, who has walked a few inches ahead, says, turning to him. "If you're worried about hurting my feelings, know that it wasn't your fault at all. You don't owe me any explanations."
It takes him a moment to realise what Taehyung is talking about, and then he lifts his palms up, shaking his head. "That's.....that's not it."
"Then?" The taller tilts his head.
For a moment Jimin can't decide where to place his eyes. The stripes of sunlight on Taehyung's collar that is dangerously near the bare expansion of his throat, or his forehead where a few strands of hair strewn on his brow make a misleading trap to his pansophical eyes? Jimin ends up staring down at a bush, clutching on his backpack straps; oh how his inside shivers despite this pathetic attempt to convince his nerves.
"You said you liked me."
".......yes."
"And then you decided you've done me wrong. You never stopped to ask, you didn't spare it a second thought, you just took your leave."
Jimin continues in a tone that is soft like a cautious ball of floating cotton, as if a mild blow of air could make it disperse. No word comes easy, it is never easy when you speak of things you don't know how to fit in words.
"You've actually done me wrong, you know? You can't say you like someone and then......and then just disappear. You gotta take responsibility."
"........responsibility?" The taller repeats with a confused chuckle.
"Yeah." Jimin nods, gathering all the affirmation he could in his voice. "You can't just put it down and leave. Do something about it."
It came off childish, Jimin can tell from the miniscule shift in Taehyung's eyes- from a seriousness to the alleviation of it. The latter slips his fingers back inside the pockets of his brown corduroy jacket, and when he speaks, his tone is in a cusp of teasing and dismissive. "Well, I can do something about it only if you let me. Are you going to let me?"
This time Jimin doesn't look away. He stares at the midnight eyes the same way severed kites get lost into the unperturbed wind, and then he murmurs. "Yes."
Probably it is the sincerity trembling in his voice that makes Taehyung halt and then he glances away with a short chuckle.
"You do realise what I meant was-"
Jimin nods, inhaling and holding in the air that smells of torn leaves and moisture. "I like you."
Taehyung slowly clenches and unclenches his fingers. His neck too feels stiff from standing at a place for so long, but it is all worth it. There stands Jimin, looking at him with the eyes of a fascinated doe, lips a pretty red from all his nervous biting, and his fingers- those have been tightly closed around the dangling strap of his backpack since the time he found Jimin in the discussion hall. He looks so tense and adorable Taehyung could just take him to his car and fuck him on the backseat.
"Yes. I know you like me." He says, breathing out. "You've been quite open about wanting me as a friend from the start."
"No. Not- not like you like that." Jimin blinks. "Why don't you understand...."
"I do understand Jimin, you want me to fix this situation and stay friends because you like me, but I can't. I can't even look at you without having the thought of kissing you pass through my head in every five minutes. Trust me."
Jimin freezes at the casual statement, and it is a rush of blood towards his cheeks and ears that makes him able to quickly look down in the adjacent moment.
"Y-You can't say things like that!"
"I know, I'm sorry."
"No- I mean.......I don't mind.
"........you don't?"
Jimin shakes his head slowly.
There was so much noise inside him till now, too many things to say at once that nothing could've made coherence. But now there is a blank plane. A stunning white, and he'd get lost in it if he doesn't speak. "Because I like you." He murmurs, "I like you in a way that- that I wonder what it would feel like if you'd hold my hand......or if I could h-hug you....I like you in a way that I won't mind if you...kissed me and I like you in a way that I won't mind getting locked in the darkest storage shed as long as you're around-"
He falls quiet with an unfamiliar desperation stuck in his throat. There is these overflowing things inside him, yet no matter what he said turned out to be just another stupid word. Jimin's downcast eyes grow blurry, too many entangled emotions conjuring up strange, unreasonable tears.
Just what would he do now?
Wind swirls past him, grazing his face and hair and clothes, and he almost mistakes it as the weightless touch of fall wind when the taller reaches for his wrist.
"So, for a starter...." Taehyung mutters, gently prying open his curled fingers and wrapping them with his own hand. "This....is what it feels like if I hold your hand."
Startled, Jimin glances up at his face and then down at his taken hand. Even a second before he didn't realise the ache in his knuckles from holding onto the strap for who knows how long. But now there is
such alien sensations lacing his fingers. Taehyung's hand- slightly rough and big and warm- enveloping his small palm, feels like something impossible to be perceived by a human heart. Too much, yet barely enough.
Jimin lifts his eyes to the other's face and finds the afternoon sky has slipped into a final purple behind him. Its soft reflection outlines Taehyung's jaw, his hair, and the edges of his shoulder as if he is some enigma crafted out of the shadows and lights of daybreak. Jimin blinks, trying to regain his focus.
Taehyung whistles out a breath, retrieving his hand to place it back inside his pocket. "Oh no Jimin. You remember the five minutes interval I told you about?"
".....yes?"
"It crashes to a motherfucking point five if you give me those eyes."
"....but I-"
"Don't know how to avoid common perils. I know." Taehyung murmurs under the softest of smiles. "Let's get you home before you get yourself in further trouble......shall we?"