Archive of Our Own ^beta

Taehee finds Jimin at the place they meet for lunch every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Under the tree behind the food court on the west side of campus. She’s lying on the bench, phone held above her face, legs hanging off the edge.

She looks really. Really nice. As she always does. Taehee is not used to it, but she probably won’t ever be, so there’s no use dwelling on it.

“Minnie,” Taehee calls when she’s close enough to grab her girlfriend’s attention.

Jimin doesn’t even turn to look at her. Taehee gets a little closer and notices the earphones trailed from her phone down to Jimin’s ears.

Taehee rolls her eyes a little. She’s probably got Min Yoongi’s newest single playing at an inhumanly loud volume. Taehee is not immune to Min Yoongi’s brutal sex vibes, oh absolutely not, of course she’s a fan too, but not like that.

Taehee thinks it’s getting a little annoying. It’s always – “Tae, did you see Yoongi’s V-app stream? He looked so good today,” or “Ah, Tae, Yoongi was on Mnet last night. His voice is so hot. I want to go to a concert next time he tours, okay?”

Taehee yanks an earphone out of Jimin’s ear abruptly, cackling when Jimin yelps and almost rolls off the bench.

“Heathen,” Jimin curses at her, dusting off her ridiculously nice legs. She’s wearing a skater skirt today, a patterned blouse tucked into it at the waist. It makes her ass look really nice. Taehee resists the overwhelming Lesbian Instinct to smack it.

“What were you watching? Did Yoongi stream again?”

Jimin slides on the bench next to Taehee, settling with their thighs pressed together, before answering. “No stream, but there’s a song he released with Epik High. Isn’t that amazing? He’s looked up to Epik High since, like, his debut. It’s so cool for him that he got to work with them.”

Taehee smiles, nods her assent. It is pretty cool. Yoongi’s really become a superstar in the past year. It makes Taehee proud to say she’s been a fan of his for so long.

It’s practically why she and Jimin met, too. A dance club where someone played one of Yoongi’s old Soundcloud tracks to warm up to, and she had seen how Jimin had perked up instantly, and then her gaydar had gone completely haywire because about thirty seconds later, Jimin had dropped into an easy side split, and really Taehee had stood no chance after that.

“Plans for today?” Taehee asks tentatively, shoving noodles into her mouth. “I was thinking we’d swing by the boys’ room later and see if they’re busy. We haven’t hung out in a while.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure. It’ll be fun. Have Namjoon and Sojin made up? Last time we hung out I think I remember Namjoon having a breakdown because Sojin teased him about having a threesome with Jackson.”

Taehee doubles over the table with her hands over her mouth, trying vehemently to not spit out the noodles in her mouth as she laughs. “Yeah, something like that. I think they made up. Joonie posted on Insta earlier today and tagged Sojin with photo credits, so probably. I mean. They can’t keep their hands off each other, in their gross, old-people-love way.”

“Very true,” Jimin nods, as if Taehee’s just imparted some sage wisdom, “very true. Okay. Yeah, I’ll meet you outside their building at, what, six?”

“Six is good.” Taehee checks her watch. “I gotta run, Minnie. If I’m late to Philosophy again Hyuna will have my ass, and not in the good way.”

Jimin snickers. “When did she say you could call her that, again? Isn’t she supposed to be Professor Kim?”

“You know it makes me feel like we’re friends. Let me have the little things in life.”

“You know, I bet if you asked –”

“Shut up,” Taehee quickly stuffs her things in her bag, sliding off the bench. She feels her whole face heating up, a heavy blush likely painting her face. “Don’t say it, Minnie, don’t you dare –”

“Didn’t you once ask her –”

Taehee slaps a hand over Jimin’s mouth before she can finish speaking. Jimin won’t let her live down the one unfortunate time Taehee ran her mouth, high on fever medicine, and asked Professor Kim if she’d just please hold her hand just once. Taehee is just thankful she didn’t ask anything more… extreme. She’s known to say some strange things while on medicine.

Jimin laughs bright and loud, muffled only a little by Taehee’s hand, eyes scrunching endearingly. Carefully, Jimin pries Taehee’s hand off her face, and makes a kissy face at her, wrist clasped between her hands.

“Kiss, come on, I want a kiss before you go.”

Taehee pretends she’s indulging Jimin and not herself, and leans down to plant a soft kiss on her girlfriend’s lips. “See you at six,” she says quietly, knocks her nose against Jimin’s, and steps back.

Jimin waves bye cutely, fluttering her fingers a little, and Taehee tries to keep the little smile off her face.

☆

im outside
open up
bitch

would it literally kill you to be nice to me
would it?????

sorry :(
my favorite bitch. love you

ill take it
give me like 5 mins

why…
oh my god are u naked
i am SO sorry did i interrupt your sexy times with sojin
please forgive me
but also don’t leave me here im kinda cold

shut up tae

Taehee waits outside the door to Namjoon’s dorm building. Jimin had texted her a moment ago saying she was on her way, but would it kill Namjoon to just let her in? It’s October, and the nights are starting to get colder.

The door swings open behind her, missing her calf by a half inch, and Taehee screams at the sudden movement before slipping past Namjoon and reveling in the warm air inside. “I almost died out there,” Taehee proclaims.

“Sure, Tae. Sure you did.”

“Don’t belittle my vulnerabilities, Namjoon. It’s cruel.”

“Look, your girlfriend’s here. She can deal with you.”

Jimin slams into Taehee’s side before she notices, and Taehee catches her, stumbling just a bit.

“What are we doing today?” Jimin asks, a little breathless. She must’ve sprinted the last stretch.

“We? Who says we’re doing anything?” Namjoon retorts. “I wanted a quiet Friday movie night with my own girlfriend. You two loudmouths can find some frat party to crash. Some poor straight dudes to confuse with your wiles.”

“But Namjoon,” Jimin pouts, making her eyes big and round and pushing her bottom lip out, and Taehee’s really glad it’s not directed at her, because that pout is God-tier, it’s lethal. “Please. We wanted to do something with you today. And Sojin, and Hobi. Please? We haven’t hung out in a while, right?”

“With good reason. Last time, Hobi almost got a concussion.”

“But did he die,” Taehee interjects, “the answer is no. So really it isn’t an issue.”

“You’re crazy. You’re so crazy. Come up, then. Whatever.” He turns slinks to the elevators, leaning sadly against the wall beside it. “I’m doomed. My Friday night is done for.”

“Don’t look so miserable,” Taehee pats his back carefully, “we’ll have fun. We always have fun.”

Thirty minutes later, Taehee is lying on Hobi’s bed, legs parallel with the wall, and head pillowed on Sojin’s thigh. Hobi himself hadn’t even come home yet so he hasn’t gotten the chance to antagonize Taehee for sitting on his bed so freely. On Namjoon’s bed, Jimin is aggressively smashing keys and screaming all sorts of curses at Sojin, who’s in first place in MarioKart. Namjoon looks like he’s trying to look miserable but he’s clearly awed at Sojin’s sexy maneuvers in Coconut Mall.

“Someone text Jeonghwa,” Taehee suddenly yells. At the sound, Jimin startles, and drops her controller. The fury on her face changes to anguish as her Koopa Troopa gets hit by a red shell and spins right out of control, cementing her fifth place standing.

“Taaaee,” Jimin whines, “I’m losing.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Taehee reassures, like a good girlfriend. “You’re still cute when you lose.”

“You’re supposed to tell me I’m a winner no matter what.”

“Well that would be lying. And my mama said I shouldn’t ever lie.”

Jimin clicks her tongue. “Min Yoongi wouldn’t treat me like this.”

Taehee feels her mouth twist up a little. Min Yoongi again. Taehee loves Min Yoongi as much as the next fan, but. It makes her feel a little… a little weird inside when Jimin says that. Gets a little harder to take her next breath, but that’s probably also because she’s still laying upside down and all the blood has drained from her legs. They’re tingly now.

“Too bad you’re stuck with me,” Taehee sighs. Only a little serious. Only a little. Jimin will contradict her, because Jimin loves her. Will sense that Taehee doesn’t feel too good about their banter anymore. Jimin will say –

“Truly, too bad,” Jimin responds. Something drops like a stone into Taehee’s chest.

Jimin looks away from the game and flashes Taehee a little smile, just to show she’s teasing, and winks. Her Koopa falls to seventh place.

Taehee smiles back. A little forced. Jimin buys it and turns back to the game, screaming when she sees the drop in rankings.

“Jeonghwa says she’s on her way,” Namjoon announces. Taehee didn’t realize someone actually listened to her and texted the girl. “She also says to tell Jimin and Taehee that she hates their guts because they didn’t text her before.”

“Why doesn’t she hate you, you’ve been here too,” Taehee grumbles. Her chest still feels a little weird but she tries to ignore it because Jimin smiled at her after, and that means she wasn’t being serious. It was just a joke. They do it all the time.

“She respects her seniors, unlike you two.” Sojin offers. She is brutally destroying Delfino Square, but this time Jimin’s putting up fair competition in second place.

“Psh, Jeonghwa can’t even spell respect. She literally failed all her vocab tests in high school.” Jimin says, picking another MarioKart course. She picks Delfino Square. Iconic. Taehee’s favorite to play.

“This,” Sojin sighs, “is why she hates you and not me.”

☆

The next time it happens is when Taehee, Jimin, and Jeonghwa are tucked in a corner of the library. Taehee is ailed by a rough strain of boredom, and she tears small squares out of her notebook, fashioning them into small origami pieces. She only knows how to make a frog, but she has some cute origami site pulled up on her phone to teach her how to make a rose, so she’s hard at work doing that. She’ll present it to Jimin when it’s done, to reward her girlfriend for studying so hard.

Four minutes into her second attempt at a rose (the first one failed, so, so poorly, she doesn’t know how she fucked up that badly), Jeonghwa seems to catch Taehee’s illness and nudges at her elbow.

Taehee hums her notice. “What?”

“I’m bored.”

“Make something.”

“Like what?”

“I’m making a flower for Minnie,” Taehee boasts.

Jeonghwa rolls her eyes. “You’re whipped.”

“And what if I am?”

“Boring. Going out with you two is no fun because all you do is grind on each other and then everyone wants to have a threesome with you, but nobody wants to hook up with me. Since I’m single.”

 “Why don’t you just have a threesome with us? Saves you the trouble,” Taehee teases.

Jeonghwa kicks her in the shin, hard enough that Taehee winces and rubs at it. “Ow,” she glares at Jeonghwa, “muscle pig. Put those muscles to use and do something helpful instead of abusing me.”

“Like what,” Jeonghwa repeats, desperate this time. She taps at her open textbook with her capped pen.

“You two, shush,” Jimin hisses. “Constant chatterboxes, the both of you. Let me study, I have to do well on tomorrow’s test.”

“Thought you said it was a quiz,” Jeonghwa says.

“Same thing. Now shut up.”

“She’s cranky today,” Jeonghwa whispers To Taehee, a little quieter. “What’s up with that?”

Taehee shrugs.

Jeonghwa tilts her head, eyebrows pulling together. Oh come on, her expression says. You know something.

Taehee shrugs again. Jimin hadn’t mentioned anything going particularly poorly about her day, or even her week. She got a 90% on her last history paper, and that’s literally her worst subject. She seemed just fine earlier in the day when Tae had ambushed her outside the humanities building with a loud smack on the cheek and a cookie snatched from the cafeteria.

“Ah,” Jeonghwa smacks Taehee on the shoulder suddenly, and Taehee hisses, rubbing at the sore spot. Jeonghwa either needs to stop working out or she needs to stop hitting Taehee. “I know. She’s trying to get all her studying done now so she can watch Yoongi’s performance on that award show later. I forget which one.”

Taehee frowns. “Really? She didn’t mention anything. I would’ve watched with her.”

Jeonghwa waves it away. “Or I could be wrong. I don’t know. Do you wanna come play Overwatch tonight?”

Taehee considers. She doesn’t have anything else pressing going on. She’d just wanted some time spent with Jimin, but that’s unlikely if Jimin wants to glue herself to her laptop watching an award show, so Jimin probably won’t give her any attention.

“Sure, yeah. Text me what time.”

“Okay,” Jeonghwa says happily. She leans back in her chair, pulls her knees up to rest against the edge of the table, and starts tapping away at Piano Tiles. Taehee wonders why she couldn’t have done that earlier before using Taehee as a punching bag, but some mysteries remain unsolved.

She goes back to her rose. She gets it right on the third try.

Jimin is almost done with her reading, still highlighting and making neat notes, so Taehee places the rose on a corner of Jimin’s notebook.

Jimin looks up at her and gives her a sweet smile. Taehee’s poor gay little mind freezes, turns to static, then melts. Jimin’s worth it.

☆

“Jimin-ah, I’m going to Jeonghwa’s to play Overwatch. You wanna come?”

“Ah, no, you go. I’m gonna tune in to Yoongi’s performance on Countdown tonight.”

“Oh, okay. Have fun then.”

Ask if I want to come. Ask if I’ll watch with you.

“You too, Tae-ah. Tell Jeonghwa I said hi!”

Dial tone.

Okay.

☆

Some weeks, Hoseok is hard to get ahold of. He doesn’t come back from dance til late, and he goes to seminars at odd hours, and even Namjoon doesn’t see much of him those weeks.

Some weeks, Hoseok is impossible to get rid of. This is one of those weeks.

“Jiminie~” Hoseok whines. “I missed you at dance. Where’ve you been?”

“Sorry, Hoseok,” Jimin drops her feet in Hoseok’s lap, leaned against the wall, “I had a few papers due this week. I’ll be back next Tuesday, I promise.”

“I was starting to think you’d dropped off the face of the Earth,” Hoseok laments. “My favorite dancer, gone. Probably run away and eloped with Min Yoongi, if you had the choice.”

Taehee frowns. “Not while I’m still here,” she mumbles.

“Hm?” Hoseok turns to her. “What?”

“I said,” Taehee says, louder, “Not while I’m still here. Jiminie’s mine now. Yoongi can’t have her.”

Jimin laughs. It sounds like rainbows and sunshine and everything good in the world. “Of course, Tae. But, I mean. You have to admit. If Min Yoongi wanted you to marry him, you wouldn’t say no.”

Taehee presses a hand to her chest in offense. “I’m gay for you and Min Yoongi can’t change that. His tongue technology is tempting but yours is more important to me.”

“Well,” Jimin shifts, and flaps a hand in Taehee’s direction, “He can take me to Hong Kong any day he likes. You’re my forever, Tae-ah, but he’s, like, the mistress. Can’t say no.”

You’re my forever, Tae-ah. That sounds nice. But the mistress part doesn’t sound so nice.

They’re exclusive. Of course they’re exclusive. The day they’d gotten together, five months ago when Taehee had asked out Jimin with an impressive bouquet of lilies and daffodils and hibiscus, Taehee had said, Will you be my girlfriend, and Jimin had hugged her close and kissed her ear and said Of course, you’re the sweetest, of course I will, be mine too, and so Taehee had said no question about it, and that was that. So of course they’re exclusive.

Sometimes Jimin tickles Jeonghwa under her chin and makes a crude remark about joining Jimin and Taehee in bed someday, to which Jeonghwa always flushes pink and whacks at Jimin’s arm, but Jimin’s not serious.

Sometimes Jimin slaps at Hoseok’s ass when he’s nearby and she’s feeling obnoxious, and says he has the nicest backside on a boy that she’s ever seen, and Hoseok always yanks at her hair in response and says to keep her hands to herself, but Taehee laughs at that too, because it’s funny.

Sometimes Jimin hangs all over Sojin and says she’s always had a thing for older girls, and she’s sure Namjoon wouldn’t mind if Jimin wanted to borrow Sojin just for a night, just one, and Namjoon rolls his eyes and asserts his dominance by prying Jimin off, and Sojin just winks and Taehee watches it go down with a whistle because she doesn’t want to seem too possessive, wants to find it a joke like the rest of them do, but it gets a bit much.

Sometimes Jimin sighs dreamily and says –

“Min Yoongi’s my straight awakening. My only exception, I swear. Tae-ah, I love you, but Min Yoongi.”

And Taehee will cross her arms across her chest and scowl and say –

“Don’t you dare leave me for Min Yoongi. He won’t let you fuck him with a strap like I do.”

And Jimin laughs again, pitched high and clear like windchimes or bells or something else beautiful sounding, and says, “I guess he won’t.”

And that’s it.

Hoseok wrinkles his nose. “I don’t need to know about your sex life.”

“Shut up. It’s hot, I know you think it is.”

“Let me plead the fifth here.”

“Hey, now who’s being crass? I’ll give you a hint: it’s you.”

“Nasty girls, the both of you. I liked it better when you were dancing around each other and shy and blushing. There were less lesbian sex jokes then.”

“Excuse me,” Jimin lifts a finger, “only one of us was shy and blushy, and it wasn’t me. It was that one,” she points at Taehee, “and I made plenty of lesbian sex jokes. I just said them a little quieter because Tae never actually told me she was gay and I thought it would’ve been a little rude.”

“Oh please,” Hoseok scoffs, “she wore flannels over bralettes and cuffed her jeans. How much gayer can she get?”

“I’m surprised you know what a bralette is,” Taehee narrows her eyes at Hoseok. “Is there something you wanna tell us? You have a secret girlfriend you’re hiding?”

“If I had a secret anything, it’d be a boyfriend, and you know it.”

“Does he wear bralettes?”

“I don’t have a secret boyfriend, genius.”

“That’s what you want us to think,” Jimin says, nose in the air. “Fine. We’ll get it out of you sometime soon.”

“Sure, Jimin.”

☆

Taehee is a fairly dramatic person. She’s, well, she’s a bit loud. All the time. No, most of the time. She just has a lot of feelings and she likes to show them and sometimes it’s loud. That’s it.

“Minnie, light of my life, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, angel on Earth, I swear, you pure soul,” Taehee rattles off, slowly taking the warm cinnamon roll from Jimin’s hands.

Taehee had forgotten about lunch, and it was Wednesday, so Jimin had texted her asking where are you and Taehee had hastily replied studio so it was ten minutes later and Jimin had popped by the studio with a nice treat for her girlfriend in hand because she had rightly assumed that Taehee had forgotten about lunch, caught up in editing her newest set of photos.

“Mhm,” Jimin hums, “that’s me. Keep it coming.”

“Nicest ass on this planet, prettiest girl in the world, no, prettiest human in the world, sweetest person to grace my life. Love this for me. So glad you chose to settle with me, a mere peasant. I don’t deserve to be in your presence.”

Jimin giggles. “All this for a cinnamon roll, huh? I should treat you more often if it gets me praises like this.”

“All you have to do is ask,” Taehee says, mouth full of dough and sugar. “And now if you kiss me I’ll taste like dessert. So it’s a double win for you.”

Jimin taps her finger on Taehee’s lips. “Finish eating and then we’ll talk.”

Taehee pretends she isn’t disappointed and shoves the rest of the cinnamon roll in her mouth as Jimin clicks through the photos she’s edited so far.

“These look good,” she says quietly. “When did you take them?”

“We had a few student models that the department paid for at last week’s group session. We don’t usually take photos in class, but I won’t complain, since I got to use the studio flash for these.”

“That’s cool. I’m impressed, as always,” Jimin nudges Taehee’s shoulder with hers, and Taehee scrunches her nose and smiles in response. Jimin says things like this.

“So where’s my praise, hm? Light of your life? Angel on Earth? Tell me, I wanna hear it.”

“Your ego is too big as it is,” Jimin laughs, “you don’t need to hear it. Besides, I have to go, I’m meeting Professor Choi during her office hours to ask about my last project. I’ll see you later today, okay?”

There are things Jimin doesn’t say. Taehee hardly hears the last part of the sentence. She wishes, sometimes, that Jimin would be as loud about it as she shamelessly was. But Jimin never is. She never says it back as stupidly dramatic as Taehee does and Taehee knows she should brush it off because it’s not an issue, but she can’t.

She just can’t.

“Kiss before you go?” Taehee bats her eyelashes cutely. Jimin gives her a long look, but gives in, leaning down for a kiss.

“You really do taste like sugar now,” Jimin muses, and steals a second kiss, and Taehee does not complain.

“Sweet, just for you,” Taehee says, and waves goodbye as Jimin leaves.

She said it because Jimin wouldn’t. If she left it to Jimin, Jimin would never say it. Taehee wishes Jimin would say it sometimes.

☆

“I don’t know if, if I’m just being dramatic like I always am, but it. Bothers me. A little.” Taehee looks up from fidgeting with her jeans.

Sojin pauses for a second like she could read Taehee’s mind just by staring into her eyes, which actually wouldn’t surprise Taehee that much, but then she frowns. “What bothers you?”

“I – Jimin, I just – I don’t know how to say it. I feel like I’m whining for no reason.”

“Did Jimin do something?”

“No, no, she didn’t.”

“Did you do something?”

“Of course not.” Taehee searches for the right words, tapping her fingers against her leg, but comes up empty. She doesn’t know how to say I don’t know if Jimin loves me like I love her without sounding childish. “Never mind. It isn’t that important.”

“Of course it’s important, Tae-ah. If it’s bothering you, it’s important. And it’ll only get worse if you ignore it. Tell me.”

“I just think – well, Jimin doesn’t – she doesn’t say she loves me a lot. And I, I know she isn’t going to lead me on, I know that, but I say a lot of things and she doesn’t say anything back sometimes. And she makes all these jokes about how she would leave me for Min Yoongi, and like, I get that they’re jokes, but I don’t know how much she’s joking, sometimes. If someone better asked her out, like, like if someone like Yoongi asked her out, why would she be with me, you know? She’s too good for me anyway, you know?”

“Stop right there,” Sojin puts up a hand. “Slow down. I don’t follow. You think Jimin’s going to leave you?” Sojin sounds incredulous. She wiggles her toes where she’s painting her toenails bright pink. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I – no, I don’t think – well. She would, if someone better came along, right? The only reason no one else has asked her out is because everyone knows she’s not single. But, like. She’s always watching one of Yoongi’s performances on livestream and last time she didn’t ask if I would watch with her, but she knows I would have if she asked.”

“Does she know that?”

Taehee pauses. “Of course.” Frown. “Of course she does, I’m a fan too. He’s such a talented rapper. I watch his performances anyway, I just watch them after a few days because someone will upload a better quality video and I can watch it then.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“What?”

“No, keep going. You sounded like you were going to say something else earlier.”

“That’s, that’s it. She said, when we were with Hobi the other day, that if Min Yoongi asked, she would leave with him. And I said, not while I’m around, and she just kind of laughed and said you’re my forever, Tae-ah, but I can’t say no to Min Yoongi, and I just. I don’t know. I don’t know if she – if she thinks of me in the same way that I think of her.”

Taehee stops there, because she feels her throat getting a bit tight, and she doesn’t want to get choked up and cry in front of Sojin over some joke that Jimin made, but Sojin peers up at her from painting her toes and gives her this knowing look like she can feel exactly what Taehee is trying not to say.

“How do you think of her?”

“Like I want to love her forever. She’s the best thing ever.”

“And how do you think she thinks of you?”

A month ago, Taehee would have said, the same way, of course. We’re meant to be. Soulmates.

Taehee chews on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. She doesn’t say anything to me about it anymore. It’s like we’re just, just friends like before, except we kiss sometimes, and we’ve had sex like once in the past two weeks. Like really good friends with some really good benefits.”

Sojin purses her lips. “Taetae, this is pretty serious. If you feel like this, you should talk to her about it.”

Taehee waves the suggestion down. It makes her feel like she’s blowing things out of proportion; what is she going to do, call up Jimin and say hey do you still, like, want to be with me? Is that something you still want?

That would make her sound so, so clingy. Extra clingy. Like glue, like rubber cement, she doesn’t want that. That would drive Jimin away for sure, if everything else didn’t already do the trick.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Sojin presses. “This is important. Jimin would want to know if you feel that insecure about your relationship.”

“I’m not insecure,” Taehee defends. “That makes it sound like Jimin did something wrong, or, or that I don’t believe her when she kisses me, or something. None of that.”

“That’s exactly what it sounds like to me, sweetheart. Please just talk to her about it when you see her tomorrow. I promise she’ll want to hear it.”

Taehee rearranges the bottles of nail polish on the floor in front of her, in rainbow order. “It’s okay. It’s fine. Talking about it was nice. Made me realize I’m kind of just being dramatic about everything. I’m sure Jimin’s just joking, anyway.”

Sojin doesn’t look convinced. “Just mention it to her.”

“No, no, she’ll think I’m being clingy. It’s okay.”

A sigh. “If you’re sure. It’s up to you.”

“Yep. No worries.”

No worries.

☆

Sunday afternoon, Jeonghwa and Jimin go to the gym together because they’re stupidly healthy people who do stupidly healthy things. Taehee doesn’t usually go with them, opting instead to develop photos in the darkroom, because it’s always empty on weekends and she works better when there’s not twelve other people bustling around in her space.

She spends a little longer on developing and adjusting and more developing today. She has some lovely pictures of Namjoon and Sojin that she took without their permission just a few days ago, and some even lovelier pictures of Jimin that she took with her permission, and she can’t wait to see how they turn out.

Taehee’s spent almost an extra hour in the darkroom today, but when she checks her watch it’s six in the evening, so at least she knows for sure that Jimin and Jeonghwa will be back from the gym and showered, so she can ambush Jimin in her room and demand cuddles, and Jimin will of course comply.

It’s been a long couple of hours on her feet, so she packs up her things and carefully stores her prints in one of the racks before heading out of the arts building. The sun is out, but it’s the kind of day where the sun might as well not even be there, because it’s cold and she can’t feel the warmth of the dumb star in the sky.

Her neck aches from being hunched over her prints, her hands are dry from scrubbing fixer off her fingers, and she hasn’t eaten since the lunch she shared with Jimin and Jeonghwa hours ago. The walk to their dorm is, amazingly, graciously, thankfully short.

Taehee doesn’t bother to stop at her own room to drop off her bag and heads straight upstairs to Jimin’s instead. Jimin’s roommate was usually out on the weekends doing God knows what anyway, so they should have the room to themselves.

She knocks on the door, two quick taps, and waits with her forehead pressed against the wood. It swings open just a few moments later and Jimin smiles up at Taehee.

“Was wondering where you were,” Jimin comments.

Taehee lets her bag drop to the ground with a thud. “Extra hours in the darkroom. I had it all to myself, you know how it is.”

“Cool. When do I get to see the prints?”

 “When you prove to me that you won’t leave me for Min Yoongi.” Taehee snuggles into Jimin’s side, pushing her leg in between Jimin’s just to be a brat. It’s warm. Cozy.

Jimin laughs. “You’re still stuck on that?”

“Of course I am. How am I supposed to get over being threatened with being the side hoe?”

“No no, I already explained this, babe. You’d be the main hoe. Min Yoongi would be the side hoe.”

“I want to be the only hoe.”

“Aish, you ask too much of me.”

Taehee lands a smack on Jimin’s shoulder. “Don’t say that. It scares me.”

Jimin curls her arm around Taehee, pulling her in closer to her side. Her hand trails down Taehee’s bare arm where her T-shirt cuts off, walking past her elbow and sliding to Taehee’s waist. Taehee arches a little, shuddering when Jimin’s fingers lift past her shirt to rub at her hip.

“Not trying to scare you. Ah, but speaking of Min Yoongi.” Jimin shifts, her hand falling away from Taehee’s hip. She tries not to be disappointed about it. “I asked Professor Bang if I could dance to one of Min Yoongi’s songs for the showcase instead of using a student composition, because you know, we have more dancers than producers anyway, so it’s okay. And he said if I can get written or email permission from Min himself, then I can do it! Isn’t that exciting? I’d finally be able to choregraph something to one of his songs, for the showcase no less. People will see it.”

“That’s cool, and you’ll even get to do it solo?”

Jimin nods against Taehee’s head. “Mhm. On my own, so no sharing credit. All I have to do before I can start is find a way to contact Min Yoongi.”

Taehee doesn’t know what to say. It’s a fantastic opportunity for Jimin, and Jimin deserves it – a solo in the showcase, choreography credits, and to a song by her favorite artist. Then there’s a bonus of, if she manages to secure it, written correspondence with her idol himself. That is cool. More than cool.

“Actually…” Jimin muses, shifting more. She sits up and leans to grab her laptop, and Taehee whines.

“Nooo, Minnie please. Come, come. Put the laptop away. Just tell me something else.”

“Taetae, please,” Jimin mimics, “I should get this done now. Find a way to contact him and ask for permission, right?”

Taehee pushes the laptop shut as Jimin opens it, pouting over the top of it. “Please? Cuddle time. It’s been a whole week since we got cuddle time.”

Jimin rolls her eyes a little and pushes the laptop back open. “Let me just find a contact email and send it and I’ll lie down with you, okay?”

“No,” Taehee says firmly, “no, no, no, kiss me right now, you’re not going to do anything while I’m here, that’s not fair. You’ve had a whole Sunday. Tell me something instead.”

 The more Jimin resists and insists on opening her laptop, on just let me do this, I promise Taetae, I’ll put it away after, the more Jimin slowly sits up further, Taehee slouched against the pillows even further, the harder it gets for Taehee to ignore the hard feeling in her lungs. Like the organ is restructuring, reforming, and she juts her bottom lip out comically like she’s kidding but if she tries to say one more thing the constricted thing in her chest will come out like tears because it’s not fair.

She lets go. Drops her head back onto the pillows and winces when the ache in her neck from the darkroom makes itself known again.

Sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and nibbles at it to keep busy as she watches Jimin type in her passcode and open the browser, getting distracted on the Tumblr web app for a moment before resuming her search for her idol’s contact email.

“Jimin-ah,” she says quietly.

“Hm?”

Taehee clears her throat. Swallows her words. “Nothing.”

“Okay.”

☆

taetae what time are you coming over today?

The message flashes up on Taehee’s phone right before she tucks it into her jacket, gathering her sketching pencils and dropping them into their pouch.

“Someone wants your attention,” her seat neighbor, Minjae, comments. The phone is still vibrating with messages inside her jacket.

“Ah, that’s Jimin,” Taehee says. “I’ll get back to her after I’ve cleaned all this up.”

Minjae rolls up his paper and carefully slides a rubber band over it. “How long have you two been together, again?”

“Five months.”

Minjae nods thoughtfully. “That’s cute. I had Jimin in an English class last year. Sweetest girl in the class. Swear everyone was hitting on her. But I’m pretty sure she liked you even then,” he teases, poking at Taehee’s shoulder, “because she never flirted back with anyone.”

“Oh, seriously?” This is new information to Taehee. They had been friends for about two years before they started dating, playing a nerve-wracking game of touch-me-not for months before Taehee finally worked up the (slightly drunken) nerve to finally ask the other girl out, but she didn’t really know how long Jimin had liked her for.

“Mhm. Same goes for you, if you didn’t notice.”

Taehee stops abruptly, bag swung over her shoulder. “What?”

Minjae pauses too. “What?”

“What do you mean, same goes for me?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? You don’t know? Half the people in this class have tried to date you this semester.”

“What?”

“You seriously didn’t know? Come on Taehee, it’s pretty obvious.”

“Nobody’s asked me out. Plus, everyone already knows I’m dating Jimin. I’m pretty sure we kissed in front of literally everyone when she dropped off my lunch once.”

Minjae rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but that doesn’t stop anyone. Hell, I’ve been with my girlfriend for a year now and people still try to ask her out. I’m just lucky she never says yes to them.”

Some part of that strikes a little too close to home. Taehee tries to smile, because she’s pretty sure that was a joke, but it’s hard to pull her lips into shape when she can’t help but connect all the dots into a horrifying shape.

“Guess I’m lucky Jimin doesn’t say yes to anyone else, either, huh?”

Minjae nudges her shoulder. “Nah, she’s lucky you don’t run off with someone. You’re in high demand these days.”

Taehee gives him an inquisitive look, and he gestures with a tilt of his head to where a group of three freshmen are huddled by the lobby of the fine arts building. They avert their gazes and shuffle their feet as soon as Taehee looks in their direction.

“Aish, they’re just staring because we’re the cool upperclassmen. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I swear I’m not. I have insider information. But I know you and you’re too whipped for Jimin to ever break up with her. And,” he stops right outside the door before they part ways, and pulls Taehee closer by her shoulder to whisper into her ear, “I have a solid fifty dollars on the line for if you two stay together for another three months. I’ll buy you froyo with it if you’ll just do me a solid and don’t let me down.”

He pulls back, flashes Taehee a wide, blinding smile. “Deal?”

Taehee can’t help but smile in response. Minjae’s so endearing. He’s like a baby, like a puppy she can’t help but spoil with cuddles, like one of those fluffy baby wolf pups. “Idiot. I wasn’t planning on it, but now you owe me froyo regardless.”

“Duh. Later, Kim.”

She waves as he walks away. “Later, Kim.”

Taehee stands there, outside the fine arts building, for a few more dazed moments before her phone vibrates in her pocket again and she remembers Jimin’s messages. There’s plenty of them waiting for her.

taetaeeeeeeee what tiiiiiiiiiime
ive got an extra practice w the dance ta she says she wants to see my midterm project
sooo if u were gonna come at 2 then u shouldn’t do that
bc I wont be there
we should meet at 4 then
i think ill be done then lol
ok its been 10 minutes r u dead
i rly hope ur not dead :( id be sad
ig youll respond when u see this
i gotta go to practice now~ byeeeeee

minnieeeeeeee
sorry I was just finishing in class!
good luck w ur dance ta!!

Taehee considers for a moment, thumb ghosting over I’ll see you at 4. A thought crawls up behind her like what comes before a storm. Some dark, swirling thing that makes her pause.

Minjae’s words echo in her head, larger than life. Sweetest girl in the class. Swear everyone was hitting on her. Taehee knows how true that is. She’s seen it in action. All Jimin has to do is fuckin breathe, and she’ll have guys and girls wrapped around her pinky. That’s just how Jimin is. It’s like enchantment. Taehee had fallen prey to it, too. She just got lucky that Jimin gave her the time of day.

Taehee thinks, maybe. Maybe if… if she pulls away a little, Jimin will see. Instead of Taehee hovering in Jimin’s dorm like some ever-present poltergeist, or constantly demanding cuddles and kisses, or whining when Jimin jokes about leaving her for Min Yoongi. Maybe Jimin will finally tell Taehee what she wants to hear; that Jimin loves her, that Jimin wants her, that she isn’t some use-and-throw, in-the-moment, oh-yeah-that-girl-I-dated sort of fling.

Taehee thinks, maybe if she pulls away a little, then Jimin will finally notice.

So she erases the message draft and sends a different one. Two minutes after her last message.

i have some work to do today so ill see u at lunch tomorrow~

Okay. Taehee takes a deep breath like it will help. The gloomy feelings don’t recede, they just plague her as she tucks her phone away and starts walking, they just follow her.

It’s okay. Jimin will see. She’ll chase them away. She has to.

☆

The next day, Jimin’s already at their lunch bench before Taehee is. Like she usually is. She has one earphone in, one lying on the table beside her hand, watching what appears to be a YouTube compilation of carefully curated moments in which Min Yoongi apparently almost revealed a secret relationship to the world.

Taehee slides onto the bench. Before she can pick up the other earphone and pop it in, Jimin clicks her phone shut and smiles up at Taehee.

“Where’ve you been? It’s been two whole days since I saw you,” Jimin jostles Taehee with her shoulder, “I missed you.”

Taehee melts. It’s so nice to hear that. “I missed you too, honeybunch,” she says back.

Jimin snorts. “Love that nickname. Did you finish whatever you were working on yesterday?”

Taehee is confused for a moment before she remembers that’s the excuse she went with when she texted Jimin that she couldn’t meet after classes. She’d literally gone home and scrolled through Twitter, then switched to Instagram, then watched One Piece, then scrolled through Twitter again. She’d read a whole 20k fake-dating trope fic and resisted the urge to send it to Jimin, despite the feels, because then Jimin would know she wasn’t actually busy, and… well.

“Oh, mhm. It wasn’t too hard, just took some extra time. What about you? What did your dance TA say about your piece? How’s it coming?”

Jimin leans her head down on her clasped hands on the table, smile splitting across her face. “She said it was good. She said looking forward to seeing it finished, and she doesn’t ever compliment me in class, so I really thought she hated me, but it turns out she doesn’t, because she said that. Ah, that was so nice.”

“How could she hate you? You’re impossible to hate. It would be a cardinal sin.” Taehee isn’t even exaggerating. To be honest she doesn’t know what ‘cardinal sin’ means but it sounds pretty bad and that’s the vibe she’s going for.

Jimin giggles. “Right, okay. That’s nice of you to say, at least. But I’m pretty sure it’s your job as my girlfriend to say that to me.”

“It sure is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“My name is Tae,” she says firmly.

“Sure, Tae.” Jimin’s tone is still sarcastic, teasing. She’s giving Taehee that dumb little smile that means she’s making fun of her.

“Shut up. That’s a reference to something, I know it is. I hate it when you do that. Make references to things I’ll understand, like anime.”

“Ah, are you trying to turn me into a weeb? Like you and Jeonghwa? You’ll never get me, Taehee. I’m immune.”

“Immune to what?”

“Your womanly wiles. Your endless charms. You used them on me once and now you can’t use them again. It’s a one-go.”

It’s a one-go. “That’s just not true. I use them all the time. Like when I convince you to let me have the last slice of pizza. Or when you give me the half of the cookie with more chocolate chips.”

Jimin flaps a hand. “That’s. No. Those don’t count.”

You can’t use them again. It’s a one-go. “That hurts my feelings, Jimin-ah. Are you saying our magic is fading? What does that mean for our relationship?”

No, no, no, too many words. To many honest words. She should not have said that, she really should not have said that. Taehee wants to take her words back and put them back in her mouth before Jimin hears them.

Jimin’s arms snakes around Taehee’s waist, yanking her closer. Taehee slides along the bench until she’s pressed against Jimin’s side and Jimin can shove her face into Taehee’s neck comfortably. “Of course not. Relationship strong as ever, duh. Just means you can’t coerce me into watching anime. That’s what you have your weeb friends for.”

Taehee sniffs. “Kiss,” she demands.

Jimin plants one on her ear, then on her cheek. Beams at her. “Good?”

It’s a one-go. “Good.”

☆

Taehee remembers her plan to be distant when Jimin texts her Saturday night. Jeonghwa and Sojin have both already taken Taehee’s bed hostage and Taehee is laying across their legs, flopping around and trying to make them uncomfortable so they’ll give her more space.

Her phone lights up with a message and Jeonghwa catapults herself towards it to get it before Taehee does.

“Jimin wants to know if you’re free,” Jeonghwa announces loudly.

Sojin snickers. “Get it, Tae. We’ll leave.”

Tae slaps Sojin on the knee because that’s the body part closest to Taehee’s hand at the moment. “Shut up.”

“Jimin also wants to know if you want to go hang out with – who’s Taemin? Is that Lee Taemin? Senior dance major? Ohh, that’s so cool. I didn’t know Jimin was friends with Lee Taemin.”

Taehee frowns. She, also, did not know that Jimin was friends with Lee Taemin. “I – nah, I don’t wanna meet him. Tell her I say to have fun and dance her little booty off. I’m full from dinner and if I try to go dance with them now I’ll just explode.”

Something swirls in Taehee’s stomach. She’s not used to saying no to Jimin. Usually if Jimin invites her somewhere, she picks up and goes.

Taehee closes her eyes. Like a puppy. Like a little trained puppy going to its owner. When did Taehee last decline one of Jimin’s invitations? On the other hand, Taehee had asked Jimin just earlier that day if she wanted to make plans to visit the aquarium the next day, and Jimin had said we’ll go next week taetae, I just wanna stay in tomorrow.

She feels a little sick. Is this how it had been the whole time? For five months – no, for two years? Taehee, falling all over herself to please Jimin and do everything Jimin asked, while Jimin had just – well, no wonder Jimin had been growing tired of her lately. If Taehee had a little tail following her around everywhere, in the form of a whole ass human being, she would quickly tire of it, too.

Taehee couldn’t blame Jimin for rolling her eyes a little whenever Taehee asked for cuddles. Taehee was practically attached to her. Overcommitted.

“Tae-ah?” Sojin asks, slapping Taehee on the cheek lightly, and Taehee snaps out of her thoughts.

“Huh? What?”

Jeonghwa is pulling at Taehee’s toes, trying to make them all pop and crack, and Taehee hadn’t even realized. She yanks her foot out of the younger girl’s grasp and hisses.

“What were you thinking about?”

Taehee shakes her head. “Nothing. Just got distracted. What were we doing?”

“Ordering pizza.”

“Absolutely not, I’m so full. How are you still hungry?” Taehee throws an incredulous look at Jeonghwa. She just shrugs.

“Can I have your Thin Mints then?”

“If you touch my Thin Mints I’ll slit your throat, you little whore.”

☆

Somehow, Hoseok had managed to find an errant gap in schedules when all six of them are actually free and able to spend time in a place that isn’t a musty old dorm room.

Naturally, they go to the best place money could afford: the waffle house across the street from campus.

It’s college money. They like to save their cash for drinks on weekends. Plus, they convince themselves that the company makes up for the lack of gourmet dishes in their diet.

 “I missed everyone,” Hoseok laments, chin rested on his hand as he watches Jeonghwa harass Sojin by trying to shove a paper napkin down the older girl’s shirt. Namjoon watches in conflicted, muted terror as Jeonghwa’s hands get dangerously close to his girlfriend’s boobs.

“Gotta say, it’s really been a while. The last time we all met up was, hm…” Jimin trails off, and it triggers Taehee into a fit of giggles as she clicks her phone on, trying to find the pictures. “Yeah.”

“Really can’t forget a near-death experience, I suppose.”

Sojin raises a finger. “First of all, that’s not true, apparently I almost broke my mom’s favorite plates once, and I don’t remember doing that, Namjoon told me about it because I think I was drunk.”

“That’s not a near death experience,” Jeonghwa points out. She uses Sojin’s momentary distraction to triumphantly shove the napkin into her bra where it sits like a pointy, sad lump as Sojin gives it a distasteful look and carefully fishes it out.

“It is, too. It would have meant my imminent death if I really broke it. My mother would know how to get away with murder.”

A waiter bustles over with their extravagant meal of burgers, eggs, and waffles. Jeonghwa’s hungry pounce for the hash browns leaves the poor guy slightly traumatized and he leaves with a look on his face that says he’s worried for his life.

When they’ve gotten a sufficient start into their food, Namjoon waves his hand around, trying to get their attention. “Is anything interesting happening? Somebody say something. I’m sure there’s something to talk about.”

Everybody gives more or less a noncommittal hum, unwilling to diverge their attention from their plates. Taehee remembers what Jimin had said just a few days ago – about her showcase solo. She taps Jimin’s foot with her own under the table, tilting her head to signal say it, that thing you told me about, but Jimin just purses her lips and shakes her head no.

Jimin’s too humble to say anything on her own. Taehee should’ve known. She clears her throat dramatically, tapping her fork on her plate loudly. “I have an announcement.”

“Tae, no,” Jimin tries, but Taehee smiles brightly at the rest of them.

“Minnie has a showcase solo!” She bursts out, and claps a little, and Jeonghwa and Sojin join in immediately.

“Jimin-ah, is that true? That’s so cool,” he praises, and Jimin drops her head into her elbow as a flush spreads to the tips of her ears.

Hoseok, seated on Jimin’s other side, nudges her to get her attention. “Why didn’t you tell us yourself, huh? That’s something you should be proud of! We want to hear these things.”

Jimin lifts her head and twists her mouth cutely and Taehee coos at it.

“I just – I mean, it’s confirmed I’ll have a spot, but I didn’t want to say anything until I could confirm the song, too.”

“Bullshit,” Jeonghwa declares, and then winces, so Sojin must’ve stepped on her foot to berate her for cursing loudly in a public place. “Bullshit,” she says a little quieter, but still just as fiercely, “you wouldn’t have said anything til the day before the showcase and even then it would’ve just been a text in the group chat and then none of us would have known.”

Taehee knows Jeonghwa is right. Jimin knows Jeonghwa is right. They all know Jeonghwa is right.

Jimin shrugs. “Eh.”

Namjoon prods further. “You said you didn’t want to say anything until you could confirm the song. Do you know which one you want to do?”

Jimin shifts in her seat, wriggling. The excitement suddenly starts to pour out of her, as if she hadn’t been flushed pink in embarrassment just a moment ago.

“Yes! Ah, I mean, yes.” She composes herself. A little. Kind of. Not really. “I want to do one of Min Yoongi’s songs. Like – The Last, or maybe First Love. Because they’re not really normal hip hop, but they aren’t contemporary pieces like I usually do, either, so it’ll be interesting, I think.”

Sensing an interjection, Namjoon encourages, “But?”

“But the department says I need written or email permission before I can use the song in the showcase. So, I need to find a way to contact Min Yoongi in a way that won’t, like, get redirected to spam. And sometime in the next two weeks, because our piece information is due then.” Jimin sighs and scrapes her fork along her plate.

Taehee watches her, feeling her mood go from proud to just shy of morose. She doesn’t know why her mood flipped so abruptly; she would chalk it up to the subject matter, and how it’s been pinching at her lately, but she was the one who brought it up. She started it. She was proud of Jimin, happy for her girlfriend. Now she just feels something foreign settling inside of her, something heavy and grey in her stomach or in her chest, she doesn’t know.

“Is there any contact information on his website?” Jeonghwa offers. “Artists usually have things like that, right? Somewhere you can email them for business purposes.”

Jimin hums, but she doesn’t seem convinced.

Hoseok clears his throat. Fidgets in his seat. Crosses, then uncrosses his legs. “This is… interesting, then.”

Taehee shifts her gaze from the divot between Jimin’s eyebrows over to Hoseok and his restless energy. “What is?”

“I, hm. Well. I might know a guy.”

Across the table, Sojin narrows her eyes at Hoseok. She looks ridiculous with practically half a burger stuffed in her mouth and some sort of accusing, curious expression trying to fit on her face but there’s no room anymore since the burger is taking up all the space.

“What… kind of guy?” Namjoon asks.

“The, uh. Min Yoongi kind.”

There’s a beat of total silence before everyone’s jaws seem to collectively unhinge, including Taehee’s own.

 Jeonghwa lets out an inhuman screech. “You what?”

Sojin smacks Jeonghwa right in the boob, and Jeonghwa hisses and cowers. “Hoseok-ah,” she begins calmly, then jumps up four decibels, “you what?”

Jimin is silent, jaw on the floor and eyebrows somewhere up in her hairline. She hasn’t breathed since Hoseok said Min Yoongi. Taehee reaches around and carefully pushes Jimin’s mouth shut before a fly buzzes in there.

“Hobi, you did not just say what I think you said. Please tell me you didn’t,” Taehee says. She can barely hear the sound of her own voice.

Because – really. Really. Hoseok – there’s no way. He’s just messing with them. He doesn’t… he can’t really…

Hoseok winces and shoves his face into his hands. “It’s a secret. You have to promise, it’s a secret. I only – said it because I trust you guys. So can you promise that. Don’t say anything. To anyone.”

He looks genuinely worried, and a tinge of fear colors his tone, so Namjoon’s natural Protection Instincts kick in and he reaches across the table to grasp at Hoseok’s wrist.

“We won’t say anything, Hobi, if you trust us with a secret then we’ll keep it secret.” He hesitates. “Are you, like, serious though? Like for real, know him, or just, like… I don’t know. Serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious, what the hell kind of joke would it be if I wasn’t? I know him. He’s in my contacts as Yoon with a little cat emoji because he’s like a small dumb kitten. Of course I – what did you think I could have meant?”

Jeonghwa malfunctions, right there for Taehee and everyone else to see, mouth opening and closing, emitting sounds that aren’t part of any known human language. She gives up, finally, and pushes her empty plate aside, folding her arms on the table and dropping her head onto them.

“This – ” Jimin finally finds her voice, probably having worked hard to descramble her thoughts after Hoseok deep fried her brain just then, “this means…”

Taehee rubs soothing circles on Jimin’s back. To be honest, she’s trying not to make any thoughts herself, because she knows if she makes any thoughts they’ll just make her stupidly anxious and she’s self-aware enough to stop that process before it starts.

Anxious, and for all the wrong reasons.

Yeah, Taehee’s not getting into that.

“Take your time,” she encourages Jimin.

“This means you know Min Yoongi,” Jimin manages.

“Yes, he said that,” Taehee supplies. “Keep going.”

“And you – all this time – I said so many dumb things about him, and you just – ”

Some petty part of Taehee rejoices at dumb things, as if to convince herself, Jimin knows they were dumb. She didn’t mean any of them. She’s not going to leave you for Min Yoongi. Or for anyone.

Some less petty, more rational part of Taehee, knows she’s grasping at straws. She had cancelled plans with Jimin for a whole week, save for their thrice-a-week lunches, and Jimin… hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t noticed.

So yeah. She’s grasping at straws.

“But!” Jimin jumps suddenly, and then seems to remember she can’t stand up since she’s restrained by the rules of society to remain seated as she’s dining, “But this means! You can ask him if I can use his song!”

Further understanding appears to dawn on her, and she slowly leans back, smile growing bigger and bigger until Taehee has to look away. “This means I can ask him! Hobi, you can – you can – I can meet him? I can meet Min Yoongi!”

Hoseok laughs as Jimin gets stuck on a loop, seeming to realize the endless possibilities at her fingertips now that one of her best friends has revealed a golden connection, and pats her head fondly. “I guess it does,” he says.

“But wait,” Namjoon says, tone calculated. He strokes his chin thoughtfully like he’s Albert Einstein or whatever. “Wait. How do you know Min Yoongi?”

And this – right here, is where something magical happens. Taehee doesn’t know if she’ll ever see something like it ever again.

Hoseok’s whole face turns so red so fast that Taehee worries for a split second if his head is going to pop off and roll under the table. Like someone had clicked the ‘Fill’ option and put their cursor right over Hoseok’s face, like some little kid had gone to town with their red marker, he turns almost the same shade as the ketchup bottle on their table. It’s impressive and concerning at the same time.

“We, uh. Ahem. Are. Kind of. Together.”

All hell breaks loose, for the second time in ten minutes.

Jeonghwa uncocoons herself just to screech again. A couple on the other side of the restaurant shoots their table a dirty look.

Sojin whacks at her, again.

Taehee stares at Hoseok. “And this didn’t. Seem important to share at… any particular time?” She asks.

Hoseok shrugs. He’s still the same color of the bright red establishment logo glowing behind him. “It – like I said, I’m supposed to keep it secret. I’m lucky nobody made me sign an NDA.”

“NDA?” Jimin asks faintly.

“Non-disclosure agreement.”

“Oh, so this is… this is real real. That’s a fancy word. Oh my god, this is really happening.” Jimin puts her face in her hands and turns to Taehee as if trying to connect the dots. “Tae. He’s being serious. He’s completely serious.”

Taehee nods at her slowly. “Apparently he is.”

Sojin levels an accusing finger at Hoseok and he, like any other human with semblance of self-preservation, slowly scoots away from it. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

☆

Later that night, when Taehee is back in her own bed with her roommate sleeping soundly in the other cot, when her clock reads sometime past midnight and she’s just locked her phone after attempting to tire her brain out with a game of flappy bird,

When Taehee is trying to avoid running her mind in circles,

She forgets to not think about Hoseok’s confession in the waffle house.

And she forgets not to think about what it could mean.

She’s been trying to pull away from Jimin, just a little bit because she can’t handle cutting Jimin off completely, she’s weak and she can’t handle that,

She’s been trying to pull away from Jimin, just to see if Jimin will notice, if Jimin will say anything, if Jimin will see what she’s doing and reel her back in,

And Jimin hasn’t said a thing. She’s declined three of Jimin’s invitations to pass the time in her room, she’s taken a rain check on dinner plans, she’s refused an offer to watch Min Yoongi’s newest music video together –

And therein is the issue, she supposes.

And now. Jimin has a direct line to Min Yoongi. Before, he was just an idol, he was no more than pixels on a screen and a voice rapping lyrics over killer tracks, but now he’s about to be real, and will Jimin even have time for her anymore?

Taehee turns in her bed, pulls the comforter up over her head until the suffocating warmth is all she can feel.

It seems like. Like every day she gets closer to losing Jimin.

Before, she pushed Jimin away by being too clingy, too loud, too close. Trying to cage Jimin in by expecting her to give Taehee the same adoration that Taehee gave to her. How could she ever expect that? Ridiculous.

And now, she doesn’t even have to do anything, and maybe nothing is the worst thing she could do but that’s where they are, that’s where Taehee is, because – now Jimin won’t even be the one to try and pull closer. Or maybe Jimin hasn’t even noticed that they haven’t spent more than an hour together in the past week and they live in the same fucking dorm building, they go to the same fucking university, they’re together, they’re –

They’re supposed to be soulmates and Jimin hasn’t even noticed that Taehee is pulling back.

And Taehee does not know how to explain, even to herself, how much that hurts.

☆

“Don’t you have some gross girlfriend things to do with Jimin today?” Jeonghwa drops her head back against the back of the couch. They’re in their dorm floor’s lounge, and thankfully it’s fairly empty aside from them.

Taehee scritches her fingers along Jeonghwa’s knee. “Not really.”

The younger girl’s lips pull down into a frown. She gives Taehee a concerned look. “When’s the last time you two hung out?”

“Dunno. Like a week ago, or something. Whenever we all went to waffle house.”

“You haven’t seen her since then?” She sounds incredulous. Like the idea is preposterous.

Taehee gets a little defensive. “I’m not always clingy and annoying, you know. And I did see her at lunch.”

“I never said you were annoying. It just – surprised me, that’s all. Usually you two are inseparable.”

“I’m allowed to have a life outside of Jimin. Just like she has a life outside of me. I don’t even know where she is right now. She hasn’t texted me since yesterday afternoon.” Taehee tries not to sound too bitter about it. The last text in their chat was from Taehee, with a good luck i’ll see u later then, and so it follows by the rules of social etiquette that Jimin has to be the one to start the next conversation, since Taehee ended the last one. The ball is, metaphorically, in Jimin’s court now.

Jeonghwa pulls Taehee’s hand off her knee and shoves her own fingers between Taehee’s. She yanks on the girl’s arm so Taehee is forced to crane her neck and look up into Jeonghwa’s oddly serious face.

“Tae, what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.” Jimin hasn’t noticed anything. I’m scared.

“No, something’s definitely happening. What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Jeong-ah. We’ve both just been a little busier than usual, I guess.” She’s been a little busier than me, I guess.

“Evidently you aren’t busy now because you’re lazing around in the lounge with me,” Jeonghwa points out.

“Don’t insult yourself like that. You’re not half bad company.”

“Stop changing the subject,” Jeonghwa slaps at her, and Taehee wails, “and tell me what’s wrong. I know something’s up.”

“Has – has Jimin said anything?”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality. I can’t tell you.”

“That means she did.” Taehee is quiet for a moment, thinking. She doesn’t know how to ask Jeonghwa what she wants to know. “Was it about me?”

“No, it was about her other girlfriend – of course it was about you, dipshit. But I want to know what you think.”

“About what? What did Jimin say?”

“She didn’t say anything,” Jeonghwa tries to backtrack, but the damage is done and Taehee’s heart is slowly kicking into gear, faster, louder.

Jimin noticed? Does that mean Jimin noticed? But she hasn’t – hasn’t reached out to Taehee. Hasn’t texted her for over twenty-four hours, for God’s sake, and it’s not like she needs hourly updates from Jimin, but she’d waited through her first class today to see if she’d get a good morning text but she’d gotten nothing, and –

It hurt, kind of.

Taehee pulls out her phone and swipes furiously up in her chat with Jimin to two, three weeks ago, when Taehee was as unwittingly clingy as ever, and she notes the start of every conversation started with herself. Some funny Twitter screenshot, a meme she found, something she overheard in class, and predominantly, requests to come over and watch Netflix, cuddle, nap, anything –

Taehee locks her phone and shoves it under her ass so Jeonghwa can’t snatch it from her.

“What were you looking at?” Jeonghwa asks.

“Nothing.”

“You’re fucking lying again, just lying through your teeth, stop doing that. I just want to know what you’re thinking.”

“Am I too much?”

Jeonghwa is taken aback by this. She blinks, mouth half-open, and tilts her head to the side. “What?”

“Me. Am I, I don’t know, too much? Do I ask for too much?” She’s nervous to hear the answer, almost can’t hear anything over the irregular beat of her heart. It’s like the little muscle is trying to outdo itself, but it’s losing traction. It’s speeding, then slowing, then speeding up again. Working too hard.

Jeonghwa scoffs. “Who told you that?”

“So I am. That’s why Jimin doesn’t –” Sharp cut off. She does not want to finish that sentence. Don’t be a baby. Jimin isn’t your keeper. You should be able to go two days without falling all over her.

“Doesn’t what?”

“Never mind.”

“No, no, we were just getting somewhere. What doesn’t Jimin do?”

“She doesn’t – you know. Like. I’m always texting first and I’m asking her for things and telling her how much I love her. And I’m the – the one that asked her out, I usually plan our dates because there’s something cool that I wanted to do. You know.” Taehee gets quieter and quieter until she’s shoving the words out, one by one. She sounds too loud to her own ears and it sounds bratty, whiny, spoiled. She doesn’t look at Jeonghwa because she doesn’t want to see the annoyed exasperation she’s bound to get.

Jeonghwa doesn’t say anything right away. The moment stretches.

“So, it’s… you think that… you’re too pushy?” Jeonghwa phrases it carefully, tone artificially light, like she’s stretching it out to make it weigh less.

Pushy. That’s how I seem, Taehee thinks, and closes her eyes for a second. That’s the first word that came to Jeonghwa’s mind when Taehee described their situation. Pushy.

No wonder Jimin was tired of her.

“Yeah,” Taehee says finally, “I guess so.”

“Tae-ah, I don’t think you’re pushy.”

Taehee hunts for amusement somewhere in her mind and reels it out of the depths harshly. She giggles, but it sounds forced to her own ears. “Jimin does. I’ve tried not to text first for a few days and now she hardly messages me. She’s probably glad for the space.”

“How do you know she thinks that if you haven’t asked her?”

“I don’t have to ask. She keeps making jokes about leaving me for Min Yoongi and now that –” her breath catches, she didn’t even notice the lump forming in her airway, in her throat, but suddenly her vision blurs and she blinks it away rapidly. She can’t cry over this, not now, not in front of Jeonghwa. She’s keeping the conversation light. Feathery light, light as fucking air, Taehee cannot be so bothered about this.

“Now that she’s about to meet him personally,” she soldiers on, and crosses her fingers hoping Jeonghwa doesn’t notice the strain in her tone trying to keep that lump from turning into crying, “maybe she can just do it and join their relationship. I’m sure she’s heard of polyamory.”

“Oh, Taetae, come here,” Jeonghwa mumbles, pulling her arm out from under Taehee to gather her closer to her chest. She rubs along Taehee’s back, slow, soothing strokes up and down her spine, and murmurs comforting words right into Taehee’s forehead.

It doesn’t work.

“Jimin doesn’t want to leave you, you know that, right?”

Taehee’s instinct is to say, of course, like she always does, but before she can regulate her words, the truth comes spilling out. “I don’t know.”

Jeonghwa’s grip on her grows tighter. “Jimin doesn’t want to leave you. You two are perfect together, soulmates, remember?” She stammers a little, a hiccup, but Taehee can’t see her face so she doesn’t know what kind of expression she’s making. “So perfect. Your first date, she was so excited, she talked my ear off for an hour beforehand. Did her makeup three times over because she kept messing up her eyeliner wings, you know that?”

Taehee nods into Jeonghwa’s neck. She did know that. Jimin had told her, in a mess of cheap vodka and Coca Cola, a month into their relationship.

But that was long enough ago that it doesn’t carry into today. It doesn’t mean anything for the state of their relationship now.

“So you – so you know that she’s not going to break up with you. She adores you. She’s your girlfriend, not anyone else’s.”

“She’s hardly that anymore,” Taehee whispers.

“What do you mean?”

“I just – I can’t remember the last time she said she loved me. I don’t know.”

Jeonghwa’s eyes go wide. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, Tae.” She sounds a little frantic now. Insistent. “It just means it’s slipped her mind.”

Taehee doesn’t say anything.

“Can you talk to Jimin about this? Please, can you do that today? I don’t want you to keep overthinking and making yourself sad. She’ll clarify everything for you and you can be happy again.”

She’s tired of people telling her to just talk to Jimin. To go crawling back to her and begging for validation like she’s Jimin-starved, a needy little girlfriend who can’t think on her own, can’t see what’s going on right in front of her.

The lump in her throat heats up, scorching, and comes stumbling out. “Again, again with the – the just talk to her, like I have to have her permission for everything. I’m not that clingy. I’m not that desperate. I don’t need her to own me.”

“It’s okay to ask her to talk to you, Taetae. Nobody said you’re clingy or desperate. Nobody said she owns you.”

But she does. She owns every part of Taehee, she owns every fucking waking thought, because Taehee can’t go five minutes without instinctively checking her phone for any new messages. She’s going mad with just how much of her Jimin owns.

Taehee breathes, deep and rattled. Shaky exhale. “Talk about something else.”

Jeonghwa looks her in the eye, searching for something. Something, always something. “You didn’t agree. To go talk to her. Will you do that?”

“Talk about something else,” Taehee says, firmer.

Jeonghwa looks absolutely distraught. “Please, come on. Do this for me.”

Taehee narrows her eyes. She’s surprised she has it in her to bully Jeonghwa around like this after the emotional cliff she just mentally peered over.

“Fine.” Subdued. Resigned. “Fine, what – you wanna play Overwatch? We can kick my roommate out or something.”

“I’m gonna kick your ass. D.Va is about to destroy you.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, why don’t you.”

☆

taetaeeeee! guess what
no im gonna tell you anyway lol
hobi said we can meet min yoongi today!!!!!!
oml im still not over it
i don’t think i believe it in my head yet
but!!! hobi said today evening we can meet him????
ahhhh im so excited
i know your schedule is free after 4 today~ come over and we can get ready together ok?? he’ll pick us up at like 6

Taehee watches the messages come in on her phone, the little bubble sound of the messaging app a constant wub-wub-wub.

today???

that’s what he said!

Exclamation marks. So many exclamation marks, Taehee thinks bitterly. She hasn’t seen so many exclamation marks from Jimin in weeks.

sure then jiminie~
ill be over at 430ish?

ill see u then xx

Kisses. Jimin snagged Taehee’s elbow as she rushed to gather her trash to leave their lunch spot, earlier today, and pecked her on the cheek. She hasn’t gotten a kiss on the mouth from Jimin since a week ago. They’ve seen each other four times since then.

Had Taehee always been the one to initiate their kisses?

She hadn’t noticed it before, it didn’t feel so one-sided before, but now.

Now it feels like she’s in too deep. Feet flat against the floor of the nine-foot end of the pool, water clear but suffocatingly chlorinated, Jimin floating somewhere above her. Jimin’s always been afloat. Always been fine. Taehee’s the one that jumped in, took a fucking running start and dive-bombed into her relationship, with full force like she does everything in her life.

And so it’s ended like this, Taehee thinks as the little words under Jimin’s contact name change from ‘online’ to ‘last seen just now’. With me, running out of air, in too fucking deep, drowned while Jimin’s doing just fine.

Taehee’s been avoiding this train of thought. This image. Because it leads to:

She’s not happy with me like she used to be.

And that leads to:

What do people in relationships do when they aren’t happy anymore?

And that, unmistakably, inevitably, dreadfully, leads to:

They break up.

☆

At 4:30 on the dot, Taehee arrives in front of Jimin’s room. She raises her fist but like in every unrealistic sitcom ever, it swings open before she can knock.

Jimin’s roommate, a pretty accounting major with dyed auburn hair and a bad case of resting bitch face, stares up at Taehee. “You’re back.”

Taehee clears her throat. “Yep.”

Jimin’s roommate nods. “Cool, then. Bye.” She brushes past Taehee gently and disappears down the hallway and Taehee feels vaguely like she’s just had a brush with a cryptid.

“Come in Taetae, come in, come in,” Jimin sings. “I’m so exciiiiiited. I can’t believe this is happening. Can you?”

Taehee lets the fond smile spread over her face as she sees Jimin plowing through her closet, yanking out items then shoving them back in when she deems them unworthy. “Not really, no. It’s crazy.”

“Absolutely. Three weeks ago I never would have believed that I could meet Min Yoongi, of all people.”

“Three weeks ago, Hobi still kept his trap shut about knowing one of Seoul’s rapstar idols, too,” Taehee points out. She sits on Jimin’s bed, hands propped behind her and digging into the bedding.

The room smells like Jimin. Logically, Taehee knows it’s because Jimin’s roommate is hardly ever in, and so Jimin primarily inhabits the space, but her lizard brain says it’s because Jimin’s some sort of supernatural being that just fills every room she walks into. Her lizard brain is also fucking Jurassic-aged and therefore very stupid.

“Very true,” Jimin says. It’s muffled because her face is shoved into her closet. “Can you see my red top out there? The one with the big poufy sleeves. Cropped.”

Taehee spots it hanging from one of the bedposts, half-obscured by a pair of loose jeans. She fishes it out, hooks the jeans carefully back on the post, and then launches the top at Jimin’s head.

“Thank you,” Jimin says very politely. Then she pulls her shirt over her head and tosses it to the floor, and Taehee almost chokes on her own spit because she wasn’t expecting Jimin to get naked right then and there. Some warning would have been nice.

Jimin looks good. Jimin always looks good. Taehee knows this. The line of her body stands stark against the mass of clothes in her closet, from Taehee’s angle on the bed, and then she pulls the red top on and turns to face Taehee.

“How is it? Is it meeting-an-idol worthy?” She turns side to side a little, cocks a hip.

Taehee nods. Chews on her lower lip. Hopes she looks more earnest than she feels. “Stunning. He’ll have to be blind not to fall in love.”

Jimin snorts. “Okay, Romeo. That’s not quite the angle I was going for, but I’ll take it.”

That piques Taehee’s interest. “Then what were you going for?”

“Hm. A little I’m a hot dancer that wants to use your song, a little I’m your boyfriend’s friend so you have to impress me, a little I’m a huge fan please sign my bra.”

Taehee looks inquisitively down at her own outfit. She came straight from class, so she has on a loose off-white sweater, holes cut down the sleeves (DIY project, she’s rather proud of it), and what some would call mom jeans, but she calls them nice jeans because they’re really nice. Make her legs look great, actually. The same old pair of Converse that she wears literally everywhere.

“I can practically see your thoughts. Sometimes I wonder if I’m telepathic, you know, because I can read you so well. You look just fine, don’t you worry.”

If Jimin were telepathic – Taehee almost laughs at that, but she doesn’t, because she is a terrific actress and knows how to hide things. If Jimin were telepathic. Oh, boy. She’d have broken up with me weeks ago.

Taehee flashes Jimin a smile. “Thanks. So do you. Which bra is Min Yoongi signing then?”

Jimin pulls down the neck of her top to show the bra she’s wearing. “My favorite. Makes me look like I actually have boobs, you know?”

“Shut up, you always look like you have boobs.”

“That’s literally not what I meant. But thank you, I think.” Jimin slams the closer door shut and sits down on the bed next to Taehee. “We have an hour. What are we doing until then.”

Something expands in Taehee’s chest. Jimin wants to do something with her for an hour, a whole hour. Just up to them. She can feel the warmth of Jimin’s body just inches away from hers, and it’s like a gravitational pull, that she starts to lean into her. She can’t not.

Taehee wants to say cuddle. It’s what she normally says. It’s what she would have said. Jimin would have rolled her eyes a little and leaned back against the pillows to accommodate, hands automatically going to Taehee’s hair and to her collar to rub at the skin there. Or she would have pulled her laptop up to turn on Netflix, to put on some dumb old show to play in the background as they started to doze.

Taehee doesn’t say anything. She wants Jimin to say it. Wants Jimin to pull her in. Wants it so bad.

Jimin sighs. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she laments.

Taehee makes a duck face. “Mhm. It’s been a while since we hung out. Just been so. Busy, I guess.”

Jimin nods along. “I had so many dance practices. And you’re in the studio so much now. I bet Minjae sees more of you than I do.”

She’s teasing, but it’s literally true. She’s laughed at Minjae’s dumb jokes more times than she’s held Jimin’s hand in the past few days.

Taehee’s heart pulls at that realization. Her fingers creep towards Jimin’s on the bed automatically before she realizes what she’s doing. Crawling right back. She shakes her head a little, at her own subconscious weakness. She’s always weak to Jimin. Let her hold you if she wants.

“We never had that issue before. I feel like we always made time. I guess the end of the semester just does that, huh? Schoolwork always getting in the way.” Jimin keeps rambling. She isn’t looking at Taehee. Taehee wants her to look. “This must be the issue with being in different majors. No classes together, either.”

A text comes in on Jimin’s phone. Her head snaps up to locate the device, sitting on her desk, and she leans over to grab it.

“It’s Hobi,” she says, grinning as she reads the rest of the message. “He’s here early. I know you’re probably ready an hour early because you’re excited. Come outside, we’ll head there now. Ah, he knows us too well,” she teases happily, pushing at Taehee’s shoulder as she stands up to locate her socks and shoes. “Let’s go, let’s go. This is so fun.”

Affection spreads through Taehee’s body where Jimin had touched her. Jimin is the giddy kind of excited, bouncing on her toes. Slipping her room key into her pocket with a little shoulder dance to dispel the nerves.

Taehee wonders when was the last time she saw Jimin like this.

☆

Min Yoongi is a polar opposite to his broadcasted image. On screen, he’s aloof and acerbic and unattainably hot, sharp angles and sharp tongue and sharp everything. In real life, he’s soft edges and a wide, gummy smile, kind of short but with a presence that makes you feel like he’s bigger than what you can see of him.

Min Yoongi is warm, sweet, and whipped for Hoseok. He greets his boyfriend with a tight hug and clasps Hoseok’s fingers in his and doesn’t let go even when he holds out the other hand to greet Jimin and Taehee.

“You’re Jimin,” he says, examining Jimin’s face, “right?”

“I – yeah, that’s, that’s me,” Jimin squeaks. She seems to be short circuiting a little. Splotches of pink decorate the apples of her cheeks where her blush probably won’t fade for another thirty-six hours because she’s so nervous.

“And you’re Taehee,” he turns to the taller girl. “And you two are dating.” To Jimin, “And you major in dance,” and then to Taehee, “you major in art, and you have been dating for five months.” He stops. Looks very proud of himself, looks over at Hoseok, then back to the girls. “Right?”

“Yes,” Jimin breathes. She looks like she’s about to keel over with the knowledge that Min Yoongi knows who she is and what her major is.

Taehee curls a hand around Jimin’s shoulder and tries not to feel foreign as she does it. She feels like she hasn’t invaded Jimin’s personal space in a very, very long time. “She’s very excited to meet you, Min Yoongi-ssi. Thanks for agreeing to this.”

Min Yoongi flaps a hand at them. “Just call me Yoongi. It’s so awkward if you call me by my full name.”

Taehee nods along. “Sure. Yoongi-ssi.”

“Just Yoongi, I said.”

“Sure. Yoongi.”

Yoongi laughs and pulls Hoseok a little closer. “So what is it that you wanted to ask? Seok-ah wouldn’t tell me.”

Jimin shakes out of her trance, physically shuddering and shaking her hair around her face a little. “I – me. I’m doing a, uh, a dance showcase, and I was wondering if I could use your song.”

Taehee hasn’t heard Jimin this nervous with her words since, like four months ago. Since Jimin asked how comfortable Taehee was with wearing something pretty for her for the first time.

She hasn’t asked Taehee to wear anything pretty for her in weeks. Almost… six weeks. No, Taehee hasn’t been keeping track. That would be pathetic.

Yoongi is a little hesitant. “What song? I’d have to know what kind of performance it’ll be. I don’t… like my name to be associated with something I wouldn’t approve of.”

Jimin looks horrified. Like Min Yoongi just insulted her dog, her father, her entire existence. And then blamed it on Jimin. “I wouldn’t! Of course, of course, you can see – I mean, I have my portfolio, some old stuff I choreographed. It’ll just be, like, I dance contemporary as my focus so it’ll be that, and I’d – I want to use The Last, or maybe First Love if you’d be okay with it even though it’s newer.”

Taehee watches Yoongi cycle through several emotions as Jimin stutters out her explanation but the predominant one seems to be fondness. She can’t blame him. She feels the same way. Jimin’s wide eyes are earnest, and she pats around her pockets to locate her phone. Jimin quickly opens Instagram and scrolls through until she finds a video on her account that she’s proud of and turns the phone around to shove it at Yoongi’s face.

“This! Here, an example. I’d, uh, choreograph something in this wavelength. To either of those songs. I think.”

Yoongi takes the phone and turns up the volume as the video plays through. Taehee recognizes the song. It’s a performance Jimin had gushed over for days after, exhausted and spent after late night practices leading up to the recording, but she’d been so happy with the result.

Taehee used to know every piece that Jimin learned and perfected because she used to sit in at Jimin’s last few practices, with her sketchbook on her lap, practicing action sketches and experimenting with flavors in her pieces. Her muse was always Jimin.

She hasn’t drawn Jimin in three weeks because Jimin hasn’t invited her to any dance practices. Taehee usually invited herself, but…

Yoongi looks mesmerized as the song in the video sputters out and it starts again, looping. Jimin carefully takes the phone back, locks it, puts it back in her pocket.

“What did you think?” Jimin asks. Hesitant.

“That – was great,” Yoongi says. He blinks at Jimin with astonishment written all over his features. He’s a lot more expressive in person, Taehee notes. He seems so closed off, reserved, when he’s on screen, but in person he reminds Taehee of a small animal. Expressive, little pouty mouth, fluffy extravagantly colored hair, like he had to grow up fast so he’s in an adult’s body, but he didn’t really go through all the motions.

Like a kitten, but hidden really, really well.

Taehee will never say that to his face. She is not brave enough for that.

 “I told you he’d love it, Jimin-ah,” Hoseok asserts happily. He has a hand rubbing patterns on Yoongi’s leg, Taehee notices, and he’s tucked right into the older man’s side. It’s cute.

After a pause, Yoongi asks, “Well? Which one do you want to use?”

Jimin stares. “You’re serious? I can pick?”

Yoongi almost smiles. His eyes do the thing where they start crinkling a little, but he catches himself and schools his expression and nods solemnly to match Jimin’s expression. “Whichever you like. One condition.”

“Anything, anything. Of course.”

“I want tickets to the showcase.”

Jimin’s brain explodes right there. Taehee can feel her take a sharp inhale, and then another, and then another, as if she’s trying to hold in so much air that she bursts. “What?” She squeaks.

“Tickets. I want to see the final thing.”

“Yes! I can do that! I can get you tickets! Will – can I use,” Jimin thinks, and Taehee can hear her mind whirring faster and faster, “The Last?”

Yoongi pretends to think. Hoseok laughs at the face he makes.

Taehee feels a little detached from the situation. Everything sounds one-dimensional, like it’s been flattened thinner than gossamer. The words stretch thick around her. She struggles to catch the phrases, to comprehend. It wants to turn to sludge.

It gets loud. Then quiet.

Taehee doesn’t know what they’re saying anymore. She feels Jimin shift under her arm, and she’s moving away, Jimin’s getting up to shuffle closer to the boys and snake her arms around Yoongi’s thin frame and wrap him in a hug. Taehee thinks she can see Jimin’s lips form ‘thank you’ as she squeezes her eyes shut and she looks so happy.

Taehee is happy. Secondhand contentment. Jimin’s just met the idol that she’s been following, supporting, adoring, for years. Since his debut into the music world. Jimin’s mouthed along to every lyric, has every song downloaded, even bought a dumb bumper sticker with the star’s name on it even though she doesn’t even have a car.

Jimin’s just met her idol, and Taehee can’t hear anything.

Jimin retreats, puts herself back next to Taehee, but it’s hard to move and Taehee doesn’t put her arm back around the other girl.

Hoseok says something. Taehee isn’t sure what it is, but it makes Yoongi break into a wide smile and it looks so cute she feels (doesn’t hear) Jimin coo at it beside her.

It warps. Too loud now. The whir of the air conditioning inside the building, the sound of Hoseok laughing and Jimin talking over it, making a joke, there’s a conversation going on somewhere several feet away between the receptionist and someone else, and still everything is unintelligible.

Jimin nudges her side. It warps again. Thrown into relief. It’s back to normal levels.

Jimin is expecting something from her. Taehee does not know what.

She has not known what Jimin wants for so long now. It’s been a month. Almost two.

Now, with Jimin gazing up at her, probably having just asked a question that Taehee didn’t understand, her beautiful features that Taehee has seen in every kind of light, every time of day, with Jimin looking at her like she hasn’t done in so long, Taehee wants to walk away. The ache between her ribs has been steadily growing but now she just wants to walk away to give herself time to hope that it will dissipate.

“Sorry, what was that?” She asks Jimin.

“You’re a fan too, Taetae. Which is your favorite song?”

“I – it’s hard to choose. But I loved the Cyphers. And Seesaw is my favorite off the new album, no doubt.”

Yoongi smiles, curling in on himself a little bashfully. “Thanks. I liked Seesaw too. I tried to, uh, experiment with it, to expand my style, so I’m glad you like it.”

Taehee can’t help but like him. He’s just so fucking likable. That’s what makes it harder for her. “You’re really talented. I’m not surprised that even your experiments chart on Melon. We’ve been, um, we’ve both kind of been fans since your debut.”

Hoseok swats at them with the hand that Yoongi isn’t fiddling with. “Shut up, Tae. If you keep talking I’ll think you’re trying to steal my boyfriend away from me. He’s two seconds from bursting as it is, you’ve praised him so much.”

Yoongi kicks at Hobi but he’s too soft on the younger boy to do anything else about it. Laughs a little at the joke. “I could always use some more praise.”

“You get more than enough from fans and critics,” Hoseok retorts.

“And? You’re going to deprive me of more? They’re fans. Ah, speaking of,” Yoongi shifts in his seat and starts patting around his pockets, “is there anything you want me to sign?”

Jimin practically vibrates out of her seat. Taehee stifles a snort when she remembers what Jimin had told her earlier – that she’d ask Yoongi to sign her bra – but to Yoongi’s question, she just shakes her head a little.

Jimin sticks a hand in each of her pockets and comes up empty of any tiny material things Yoongi could sign.

“I don’t think so,” she says at the end of her search, mournfully, like she regrets it deeply. “I didn’t bring anything. Was kind of in a rush. Sorry.”

Yoongi pauses, surprised. “Oh, really? That’s cool. Don’t say sorry. No, it’s kind of… usually people I meet want me to sign something. It’s…” he pauses again and Taehee notices how rueful Hoseok looks, and that’s something that looks like it should be unpacked but Taehee doesn’t know what it means, “it’s refreshing.”

“Does this mean we’re friends?” Jimin asks, eyes wide.

Yoongi laughs. “Yeah. Sure, we’re friends. You’re already Hobi’s friends anyway. I’m sure you’re better company than him.”

“Hey!”

“You know it’s true.”

“Shut up.”

Taehee likes making new friends. And now she’s friends with an idol. Min Yoongi, a superstar that she’s looked up to for years.

So there’s no reason for her to feel as subdued, sad as she does. No reason at all.

☆

Taehee opens her chat with Jimin several times. She hasn’t seen Jimin since Hoseok dropped them off at their dorm after they met Yoongi. Jimin texted to let her know she couldn’t come to lunch because she had a meeting with the career counsellor.

Each time, she makes a message draft:

hey Minnie when can we meet? i think we should talk

Erase.

jiminie when r u free? i have something to talk to you about

Erase.

hi jimin-ah when do u have time to talk tmrw?

Erase.

jimin~

Erase.

Each hour that goes by makes it worse. She doesn’t know what to say.

She didn’t think there would ever come a situation that would make it impossible for her to talk to Jimin.

And yet.

☆

Taehee knocks lightly on the door to Jimin’s room and Jimin opens the door the next second.

“Hi Tae-ah,” she smiles, warmly, and Taehee doesn’t – she almost chickens out.

“Jiminie,” she returns the smile best she can. Deep breath. She has to do this. For herself and for Jimin. Mostly for Jimin. She has to.

“I got a little worried when I saw your text,” Jimin jokes. “Usually ‘talk’ doesn’t mean something good.”

Taehee nods. Her heart is so loud in her ears and her whole body feels heavier than it did before she walked in the door but she has to do this.

“I – yeah, about that.” She clears her throat. “I think. I don’t – I don’t know – how to say this. Fuck, I don’t know how to say this.”

Taehee crosses her arms and hunches her shoulders in. She’s hovering by the door, while Jimin has drifted farther inside, and Taehee feels too big for her body with Jimin perched delicately on her bed, looking up at her like that.

“It’s okay. Take your time,” Jimin encourages. It makes Taehee even more choked up because it just shows how Jimin has always been so good, too good for her, not good in the right way for her. Jimin wants her to take her time but she needs to just get this out.

“I think – well, it’s been a while since. Since we spent time together, right?”

Jimin nods earnestly. “Yeah, I think so. Is that what you wanted to talk about? Do you want to stay?” She pats the bed next to her, a jerky kind of motion. “Come sit, we can put on Netflix. Or anime, if you want. I know you’re rewatching Free!!!, right?”

Anime. Now she’s okay with anime. Now she offers to watch anime with Taehee.

A film of tears falls over her eyes and suddenly she can’t see anything. Everything is a mass of colors and she sniffles lightly.

“Taetae? Are you upset?” Jimin sounds so hesitant. Taehee can see the blob that represents Jimin get up and pad closer to her. Taehee presses the heel of her hand against her eyes in an effort to dispel the tears. Not now, not now, not now, later, we can cry later, just not now –

“No, I. I meant to say, it’s been a while. And I just think, even before then, I always,” Taehee doesn’t know what words to say next, they’re all a mess inside her brain, fuck words have always been difficult, “I always felt like I – was too much. Asked too much. I know I’m clingy.” The word falls out with so much stupid weight attached to it. She’s wanted to say that to Jimin for so long.

Jimin’s expression is flitting through changes and Taehee can’t identify a single one. “Taetae, no, no, you never – I don’t think you did. You’re not clingy.”

“You don’t have to make me feel better. I’ve always been really loud about how much I loved you but I just thought about it a lot in the past few weeks and I know you don’t love me – as much. Like that. Don’t,” she puts a hand up when she sees Jimin’s hands up and sees Jimin’s mouth open, and Jimin halts soundlessly, “say anything because I know you’ll try to console me, or something, and it’s okay, I promise, you don’t have to do that.”

She lets herself stop, to take a deep, ragged breath. Her eyes slide off Jimin’s face and down to somewhere by Jimin’s feet. Jimin’s toes are curled into the carpet, the edges discolored white with how tight she’s gripping the floor.

“I waited a bit. I, I stopped inviting you out to things and I waited for you to notice and ask me to come over, like I always do, and you, well, you,” Taehee chokes and curses how emotional she’s getting, to the point where she can hardly say what she’s trying to say, “you never did. And it just made me realize how,” she chokes again, fuck, speaks around the lump residing in her throat, “it was always me. And I think I need to take a step back right now so that I can get my shit together and figure out what’s going on with me.”

“Step back? What do you mean?” Jimin asks, alarm written all over in the way her arms hover around Taehee’s shoulders and how she shuffles closer.

“A, a break. I think. I don’t know. I don’t – know why you haven’t broken up with me yet, I guess,” and that’s it, those are the words that splinter her right in the chest, and suddenly it hurts too fucking much, and she can feel tears sliding hotly down her cheeks.

“Why would I break up with you? Do you want me to?”

“Of course I don’t want you to,” Taehee almost wails. Why doesn’t Jimin get it? Why is she still trying to pretend like she doesn’t know what Taehee means? It’s just pathetic that Taehee had to drag herself over to Jimin’s dorm to tell her, I finally figured out that you don’t love me like I love you, sorry it took this long, and now Jimin wants to drag it out? It’s embarrassing. Taehee wants to curl up with shame.

“Then what? Why would – is something wrong?”

“S-something’s been wrong since we got together, it just took me a stupidly long time before I figured it out. I know, I’m too pushy, I – I know you – deserve someone who won’t hang on to you and expect you to text them good morning every day and want you to say I love you as many times as I do. So, I guess I’m, not the right. The right person for you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she repeats herself. Like a broken record, like dysfunctional tape in the player.

“Tae, I love you,” Jimin says, her voice half-there. Taehee shuts her eyes because that’s not what she wants to hear. She doesn’t need Jimin telling her she loves her out of pity because she’s walked in started crying her eyes out.

Taehee shakes her head, throat too tight to say words.

“No, no, don’t say no. I promise, I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it enough.”

Taehee just shakes her head harder, drops her chin against her chest so she doesn’t have to see Jimin’s face. It’ll make it harder.

“I hope you understand,” Taehee manages. “It’s been so hard. And I just realized I’m, I think, I’m too invested and it’s probably uncomfortable for you because I used to ask to say things you didn’t want to say. So, I hope you can. You can feel a little freer now. Without me chasing you all the time.”

Bitterly, suddenly, Taehee remembers Minjae’s request to keep their relationship going for another three months so he could win his bet. Taehee wonders how Minjae would’ve ever been able to have money riding on their relationship, because who bets on two girls dating when they’re already dating? But it doesn’t matter now. With one month left on that bet of his, Taehee’s cracked under the pressure and come sobbing to Jimin.

“I don’t understand,” Jimin says. Despairing. “You want to walk away? You, you’re, breaking up with me? I love you, I do. I’m saying it now.”

I’m saying it now. Like that’s all Taehee has to hear for her to sober up and sit docile. Like that’s all the issue is.

The issue isn’t that Jimin doesn’t love Taehee. The issue is Taehee loves Jimin too much. And thus, it would follow that Jimin doesn’t need her like she needs Jimin.

“Two months and you didn’t notice that I haven’t come to a single dance practice because you never invited me. Two weeks since we met the love of your life Min Yoongi and we haven’t hung out for more than twenty minutes, just the both of us. Six days since we kissed but even longer since you kissed me and not the other way around.”

Taehee finally looks back up at Jimin and the other girl’s eyes are wide and glassy. She looks stricken.

“You’re the love of my life,” she says quietly. “Not Yoongi.”

“Yoongi,” Taehee repeats. “It’s okay. I don’t have to be the love of your life. I’m not trying to fish for compliments. You don’t have to make me feel any better. I’ll just,” Taehee shuffles back and her shoulders hit the door. She fumbles for the doorknob and twists it but Jimin’s hands land on her arms, gripping tight.

“Are you leaving? Don’t leave. We aren’t done yet, you can’t leave.”

“I’ve said everything I think I need to say.”

“I didn’t get to say anything!”

“You don’t have to.”

“I – you want me to stay silent right now? When you’re breaking up with me? We’ve been together for – it’s been seven months now, Tae. That’s more than half a year. Don’t break up with me like this.”

“And the past two have been torture.”

“It really makes you that miserable to be with me?”

 “No! No, no, I can’t – I can’t do this right now, I’m,” Taehee shakes, lets out a cry. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I said what I had to,” she’s repeating herself again, stammering. Each phrase comes out broken because this wasn’t in her script. She was supposed to just say her piece and get out because Jimin was supposed to understand. And let her leave. Because Jimin was supposed to know already.

“You’re just going to leave like that?” Jimin’s voice is choppy now. If Taehee wasn’t so occupied with trying to shove herself out the door, chest seizing up with the force of how badly she wants to bury her head in a pillow and cry, she would notice how Jimin looks somewhere beyond helpless.

“Let me – let me, let me, let me leave. I can’t stay. It hurts too much.” It’s okay if she’s honest now. Jimin already knows. Has already seen her ugly crying over it. So a little honesty can’t make it worse, now.

Taehee finally manages to throw herself right out of the door, and pulls the door shut behind her.

She feels worse than she did before she went in. Doesn’t feel any lighter, having done the right thing, letting Jimin free. They didn’t want the same things out of their relationship. Taehee’s always loved too hard and Jimin is a free spirit and Taehee was wrong to try to keep her all for herself. Taehee was too selfish about it.

Taehee can’t stop the little whimpering sounds she’s making now that Jimin isn’t in front of her face anymore. She lets her feet carry her back downstairs, back down to her room. She slips inside, thankful her roommate isn’t in. Crumples onto her bed, but she can’t feel anything anymore, and the only place in her body with any nerve endings left seems to be her heart, because it hurts. It squeezes and compresses and shrivels and it hurts.

She cries.

She did the right thing. She did the right thing. She did the right thing.

She cries anyway.

☆

When she wakes it’s to three missed calls from Sojin, two from Namjoon, and a flurry of texts from Jeonghwa. Those messages are still coming in, but she doesn’t get the chance to read them before her door bursts open and Jeonghwa stands on the other side, looking furious.

“You aren’t responding to your texts,” Jeonghwa says accusingly, and stomps inside.

Taehee is in no state to respond. She can feel how puffy her face is, from crying for so long, and she can’t express how much she wants Jeonghwa to leave so that she can be alone and miserable on her own.

Jeonghwa’s angry expression falls away like paper in the rain and she brushes a hand over the back of Taehee’s head. Her hair is a knotted mess but Jeonghwa pulls her fingers through it anyway.

“What did you do, Taehee?”

The world fades out for a moment as she closes her eyes and she doesn’t respond. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

“Do you know Jimin called Hoseok? She sounded awful. We couldn’t understand a thing of what she was saying. We were all together at the time, me and Hobi and Sojin and Namjoon. They were gonna go out to get food by themselves but I coerced free food out of them. That’s not the point. The point is, we were – were so worried.”

Worried. They were worried. Nothing to be worried about, though. She did the right thing.

Taehee can’t believe – they probably all knew it before she did. How pushy she was, how much she always asked. They probably saw it happening. How she drove Jimin away with her constant whinging. Maybe when they first started dating, Jimin would’ve invited her to every dance practice, would’ve planned more dates, would’ve kissed her more. But not after months of Taehee’s overwhelming personality, she wouldn’t.

It’s okay. Taehee can understand that. She’s always been a bit much.

She feels bad for disappointing Minjae but maybe he’ll win his bet anyway. They can assume that Taehee and Jimin are still together, it’s nothing to her.

Unless Jimin starts going out with someone else. Hurt lances through her chest at the thought of that.

“Are you okay, Tae?” Jeonghwa brushes hair out of Taehee’s face and peers down at her. “You look terrible. What happened?”

She might as well say it now. She did it, after all. Worked up the nerve and everything.

“Broke up with Jimin.”

Jeonghwa is silent. “What?”

Taehee moves her head so her words aren’t eaten by the pillow. “Broke – up with Jimin.” She chokes on it. Her throat hurts from crying so much. She’s not going to cry again.

“Why?”

“She – like I told you. She doesn’t love me the same way I love her. It’s not smart to keep going like that.”

“Like you told me? What do you mean?”

“When we talked. I – you said – pushy.”

“I said you weren’t pushy. Is that why you broke it off?” Pause. “I didn’t think it was that serious.”

Taehee snorts. Devoid of amusement. Devoid of most emotion, actually. She thinks she might’ve used up her emotion quota last night. It all flooded out of her.

“What did Jimin say?”

Taehee thinks. “That she loves me.” That’s all she can remember Jimin saying actually, during the whole thing. It’s a bit of a choked-up haze.

“And you still – broke it off?”

“I always knew she loves me. It doesn’t mean I pushed her away any less. I’m – I’m too loud, I ask for too much. She doesn’t need me constantly on her ass about these things.”

“She’ll always need you to ask for things, Taetae, that’s how it works, it’s okay. You’re allowed to want love from her.”

“I always want more than she wants to give. It’s okay, I swear, I’ll be fine. I’ll get over it.”

“You shouldn’t get over it. You two were, you were so,” Jeonghwa sounds irritated, but Taehee can’t tell who with, can’t tell because she’s resolutely got her face shoved in her pillow where everything hurts less if she can’t see it. “You were soulmates. You still are. There’s a reason we called you that.”

“It was because we called ourselves that.”

“Yes, and there’s a reason you called yourselves that. You’re just right for each other.”

“Jimin doesn’t need me like I need her, Jeong-ah. I need to get over that. It’s not right.”

“You don’t know that. Did you ask her what she thinks?”

“I don’t have to. I didn’t ask her to cuddle me for a whole month and look where it got me.”

“Where did it get you?”

Taehee wants to scream. Jeonghwa still doesn’t get it. “It got me no cuddles, Jeong-ah. I was always the one to push Jimin into everything. The moment I stopped asking for things, she stopped giving them to me. She doesn’t want to give me anything.”

She stops before she gets herself worked up, but Jeonghwa doesn’t say anything, so she continues, quieter. A false sense of tranquility. “That’s okay. She doesn’t have to. But – if she didn’t want to be, to be with me, I just wish she would have told me earlier. Then I wouldn’t have gone through all this. By myself.”

“You were never by yourself,” Jeonghwa implores. “We’re here. We’re all always here. And Jimin was with you, you just didn’t see. Because you never asked her for help.”

Taehee doesn’t know what to say to that.

She doesn’t get it. What part of the story isn’t clicking? It adds up. It all comes together to form one horrible, miserable picture, and by breaking it off, Taehee just stopped the picture from developing all the way. She pulled it out of fixer too early, she put it in the cool water bath too early, it’s half-done and Taehee can see so clearly what it was supposed to be but it’s just too faded to be full.

That’s just it. Taehee did what was going to happen anyway. Just saved some prolonged heartbreak in the future. It’ll hurt less now that she’s ripped off the Band-aid early.

“Can I be alone for a while,” she hears herself asking Jeonghwa.

Jeonghwa looks skeptical. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I think I want to be alone. I just want to sleep for a bit. Can you leave?”

Jeonghwa really looks like she doesn’t want to do what Taehee is asking her to do but Taehee fixes her that look, the one that she bullies Jeonghwa with all the time, the I’m-really-being-serious-don’t-test-me look. And Jeonghwa sighs. Looks away.

“I’ll come back in a bit, okay? Or – or I’ll send Sojin, or Namjoon, or Hoseok. Someone will come by. Turn your phone on, answer it, okay?”

Taehee nods. She’s not going to turn her phone on. She’s not going to answer anyone. She’s literally lying and Jeonghwa probably knows it.

But the younger girl gets up anyway, drifts cautiously to the door, and looks back at Taehee reluctantly. She slips out the door.

Taehee is alone again. She asked for this, though.

Turns her head back towards the pillow and tries to go back to sleep so she doesn’t have to think about what she’s done.

☆

The first time she kissed Jimin was at some gathering of friends. Taehee can’t remember the day or the date, but she remembers it was when they mixed Coca Cola with the cheap vodka they had and Taehee tried not to drink too much because she didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of her crush.

She ended up tripping all over herself anyway trying to stand up after knocking back a couple cups, because they were in Sojin’s apartment off-campus and Sojin had prodded at Taehee’s shoulder to go get the popcorn that they’d all forgotten in the microwave. Taehee had stumbled standing up and used everything but Jimin’s head as a stabilizer, because she didn’t want to scare Jimin away by falling into her right away.

It had been more or less useless because Jimin had followed her into the kitchen anyway. The room had spun, the walls farther and closer than they should be at the same time. The floor was carrying her where she needed to go.

She leaned carefully against the kitchen counter to gather herself and then Jimin had peeped inside, looking far too put-together compared to what Taehee knew she must look like. Automatically Taehee’s hands went to her hair to try and smooth it down. To look nice in front of the girl she was hopelessly infatuated with.

Jimin had drifted a little closer, looking impossibly fond, this little smile on her face that made Taehee’s heart beat painfully harder.

“You drank a bit much, huh?” Jimin had asked. Or something like it. Taehee doesn’t remember her words perfectly but she remembers the gist of what happened.

Taehee had nodded.

“Somehow you still look so cute,” Jimin’s hand had trailed down from pushing Taehee’s hair back to tickle her cheek a little, and Taehee had curled in on herself, blushing pink at the gesture.

“I came to make sure you didn’t fall and drop the popcorn,” Jimin had teased. Taehee wanted to just melt into the floor. She must’ve stumbled so much trying to get to the kitchen that Jimin had felt bad for her. This was why Taehee didn’t drink much. She really hated the taste of alcohol and how was she supposed to impress Jimin with her low alcohol tolerance? With her drunken clumsiness?

“I can do it,” Taehee had insisted, trying to be cool about it. She rested a hand back on the counter and straightened her back in an approximation of calm and collected but her hand slipped and she fell back. Before she could lean too dangerously to one side, Jimin had stepped even closer, all up in her personal space, and steadied her with hands on her waist.

Jimin’s hands on her meant heat bleeding easily through her thin shirt. She’d worn that shirt especially hoping that Jimin would appreciate how it clung to her body. Jimin hadn’t given it a second glance all night but now it was lending itself to something useful, so Taehee didn’t mind too much.

“Careful,” Jimin had said.

Taehee’s eyes had been just level with Jimin’s with how she was slouched against the counter. Usually Taehee was taller, but now her gaze dropped magnetically down Jimin’s face, trailing across the highlighter dusted on her cheekbones down the slope of her nose to her lips, parted slightly with gloss smeared across them, terribly plump and inviting.

Don’t do it, her brain chanted, even well on its way to inebriated her brain knew the dangers of leaning forward, but Taehee’s always been pretty stupid when it comes to these things, so she’d found herself caught in Jimin’s gravitational pull, forward and forward and forward –

Until Jimin must’ve met her there, she must have, because then Taehee’s face was too close to Jimin’s to see any of her features but she could feel Jimin’s breath on her lips where they were kissing. Jimin’s hands still molded to the curve of her waist, getting tighter with each breathy exhale, and Taehee’s hands curled around Jimin’s delicate shoulders to pull her even closer.

Jimin had pulled back, just barely, Taehee chasing the electric sensation of her lips by following her movement, but Jimin had just giggled and put a finger against Taehee’s mouth to stop her.

“Later when you’re sober,” she’d promised.

Taehee could feel Jimin’s lip gloss sticking on her own lips, she was giddy with the feeling. The knowledge that she’d just had her mouth on Jimin’s, kissing, kissing. That she’d kissed her crush and her crush seemed more than okay with it.

She’d pushed forward for another kiss but Jimin had just pushed her back lightly again, and Taehee had pouted so hard, twisting her lips up, and Jimin had pushed her finger into Taehee’s mouth. The feeling of Jimin’s finger against her tongue had startled her so much, something terribly innocent but heady and erotic at the same time, that she’d dropped her jaw open in surprise, and Jimin had just laughed and wiped her finger against her own skirt.

“So silly,” Jimin had teased. Taehee blinked. Suddenly remembered the popcorn in the microwave that she was supposed to be getting. Jimin had sashayed right out, as if nothing momentous and important had just occurred, leaving Taehee staring after her in astonishment and adoration.

So yes. Taehee remembers their first kiss. Slightly drunk and hazy. But the memory sits in her chest like a weight. It’s not easy to forget something like that.

☆

Hoseok shows up to where Taehee’s stashed herself away in a corner of the cafeteria, his own lunch in hand, and he slides into the seat across from her easily.

She hasn’t seen him in like a week. She doesn’t usually see Hoseok if it’s not the weekend or – or unless she’s at one of Jimin’s dance practices. So to find him here, with lunch, catches her off guard.

“Hi,” he greets easily.

Taehee tries not to frown. “Hi,” she responds, slow, “what are you doing here?”

Hoseok pays her cautious tone no mind and easily digs into his grilled chicken. “Just saw you. You don’t usually sit in the cafeteria.”

It doesn’t sound accusatory but Taehee knows what he means. It’s Wednesday. She usually sits with Jimin on Wednesdays.

Taehee doesn’t think she can see Jimin without wanting to burst into tears so she hadn’t shown up to their usual lunch spot Monday, or today either. But Jimin hadn’t come looking for her either so she doesn’t think it’s that dramatic an issue.

“No, I don’t,” Taehee says finally. She goes back to her soup. “Do you usually eat lunch in here?”

“I don’t really have a routine. But I thought I’d come give you some company.”

They lapse into silence. Taehee had been reading on her phone before, but she flips it face-down now to be polite.

“Do you wanna talk?” Hoseok says, a good five minutes into their quiet.

“Hm?”

“Talk. Jimin, um, called us, over the weekend. I think Jeonghwa told you. But I didn’t get to talk to you. So do you want to talk?”

A dull throb echoes through through Taehee’s body but she’s really so tired of being miserable and crying over it. She’s tired of being pathetic. She’s the one that did the breaking up, she didn’t get broken up with. She’s helping Jimin move on without her. She shouldn’t be so torn up about it. She shouldn’t be so broken without Jimin’s constant presence.

“Not really.”

“Bullshit, come on Tae. Talk. Say something.”

Taehee puts her spoon down. “What do you want me to say? There’s nothing left to talk about. I made a choice based on something I’ve noticed and I think it was the best one.”

“Does Jimin think it was the best one?”

Something bubbles up inside of her. “No, why – why does everyone think Jimin controls me? Have I always been that needy? I saw how much I was holding her down, expecting things she doesn’t want to give me, and so it makes sense that we had to break up. It’s ridiculous to expect her to be okay with me hanging off her like a little tail all the time.”

“That’s a non sequitur,” Hoseok says calmly. He doesn’t sound as worked up about it as Taehee feels. “You noticed something about your relationship so it would follow that you talk to Jimin about it.”

“I wasn’t about to go whining to her about how she doesn’t give me enough love and affection. That’s so stupid, she doesn’t need to deal with that. She just held off on dumping me because she’s too nice.”

Hoseok’s gaze drills through Taehee. She feels watched, exposed. “You can’t make that choice for her.”

“I stopped constantly nagging her to do things for me for two months and suddenly we never hung out, we never spent hours together like we used to, we didn’t even kiss as much. It was exhausting to stop myself from asking for all of that all the time but at least I finally saw what was going on.”

“And what do you think was going on?”

Irritation creeps through her. She’s explained this. It should be obvious. Her friends saw this go down anyway, the five months they were dating, and the years that they weren’t. “I’m clingy. I always wanted too much attention for her. I invited myself to her things and I invited her to mine and I never said no when she wanted me to do something. I was like a puppy, a pet, she owned me. Nobody wants to own another person like that, not when they’re dating. It was a matter of time before she broke it off because I got too annoying.”

The expression on Hoseok’s face is foreign to her and she can’t identify even a morsel of it. It unsettles Taehee that she can’t tell what Hoseok is thinking at all.

“Is that really how you felt?” His voice is gentle, so soft and careful. Taehee doesn’t need to be treated like that, like a baby. She wishes he would stop doing that.

“It’s what was happening. I just cut it off early so it wouldn’t get worse. She deserves better anyway.”

“Okay. I still think you should explain that to her. I don’t think she knows that’s what you mean when you… when it went down.”

Taehee nods mutely. She knows she’s not going to talk to Jimin face to face for at least another week. Maybe two. But she nods anyway.

Hoseok looks like he knows she won’t do it, but he pretends that she will.

☆

Minjae nudges her shoulder as they sit side by side. “Remember that bet I told you about?”

Taehee’s felt a bit numb all day, all week if she’s being honest. Jimin weighs on her mind constantly even when she’s not thinking about her. She feels like a boat about to sink because of the extra weight but everything’s too heavy for her to shove off board so she just has to sit there and watch it happen.

The boat tips dangerously when Minjae brings up that bet. The one on her relationship with Jimin.

Taehee hums. “Yeah.”

“I’m about to be fifty dollars richer in two weeks. I have the screenshots so Bogum can’t wiggle his way out of this. Where do you wanna go for froyo? We can go off-campus if you and Jimin want. I still haven’t properly met her, that’s a shame.”

Taehee nods along. She doesn’t know whether it would be better to tell him now, or maybe if she just keeps her trap shut about it, Minjae can win his bet and then she’ll tell him. Maybe she’ll feel less numb about it then, too. Maybe she can say it without wanting to throw up.

Something occurs to her. “What exactly is the bet about, anyway?”

Minjae waves one of his pencils around nonchalantly. “Ah, it’s stupid. We were high at the time, which is why Bogum even agreed to it I think, but he bet me fifty dollars that he could get someone to score a date with Jimin. I remember I told him not to put money on it since you two were already dating at the time, but he said he’d do it by January and I wasn’t about to pass up easy money, so I said sure.”

Taehee doesn’t have it in her to tell Minjae that he might be fifty dollars short. She consoles her guilt, at Minjae’s faith in her and her ability to keep Jimin happy for so long, by telling herself that if he ends up losing, she can help him out and pay half. It’s only fair.

She tries not think about the fact that for Minjae to lose the bet, it would mean Jimin says yes to a date with someone in the next two weeks. That would break her heart. More than she’s already broken it herself.

So she just cracks a smile for Minjae. “Good luck to him, then,” she says, and hopes it comes out joking.

It must pass, because Minjae laughs, too. “Oh, bet. He’s about to lose.”

☆

come 2 the libraryyyy im LONELy

what do u need me for there omg
i cant help u write ur geography notes

nooooOOOOO ill get BORED!!!!

needy child

uwu :)

shut up im omw

Jeonghwa hates doing her work. She’s somehow, impossible, obnoxiously, very good at literally everything (except English, and that’s something Taehee will always hold close to her heart) but she always likes someone to keep her company when she’s working. Today, the onus seems to fall on Taehee.

Taehee drops her laptop and history notebook into her bag before heading out of her dorm to the library. With no real plan for the day, and ignoring the buzzing of her phone her pocket as Jeonghwa probably just hounds her asking when she’ll get there, she looks out at the campus calmly. Everything always feels subdued during the wintertime.

People don’t lounge around the common spaces much because it’s too cold to be out all the time. Wind cuts across your skin on the bad days but the sun isn’t useful to warm you up even in the good days. It’s not ideal spending-time-outside weather, but it’s not terrible to just take your time walking.

Taehee makes it to the library ten minutes slower than she probably should have, but she relishes in the burst of warm air as she pushes the door open and heads inside. Jeonghwa likes to study on the third floor where it’s a little quieter, so Taehee directly heads up the stairwell.

She searches for Jeonghwa’s head of dark hair, probably hunched over her phone because she’s prone to distractions like that, and when she spots it she brightens and starts beelining towards her, except –

Except she notices the second head of dark hair that accompanies her. One she’s been avoiding.

The sight of Jimin makes something drop in Taehee’s stomach. It’s been a week since Taehee saw Jimin. A whole week. They usually never spent this much time apart, but that was… before Taehee broke it off. Fucked it all up for herself.

Taehee is rooted to the carpeted floor still, indecisive and half terrified, but Jeonghwa, to Taehee’s absolute misfortune, looks up and sees her. Her eyes go wide, like she wasn’t expecting to see her there, but Jeonghwa’s literally the one that invited Taehee out, so what’s the truth?

Taehee doesn’t want to be mad at Jeonghwa but it’s – it’s so hard. Did Jeonghwa do it on purpose?

Jimin stands up, shoving some things into her bag and pulling her jacket on. She hasn’t seen Taehee yet. Dread and anticipation drip into Taehee’s veins as she waits for the inevitable, waits for Jimin to look up and spot Taehee, frozen. Taehee couldn’t move her limbs if she tried.

She doesn’t have to wait long. Jeonghwa still hasn’t said anything, but Jimin seems to be chattering quietly. Her mouth stops abruptly when her stray gaze finds Taehee, across the floor of the third floor of the library.

Libraries are usually quiet, but the floor seems to quiet more than usual. Taehee catches a glimpse of Jimin’s face for the first time all week, bare of makeup and dark smears apparent under her eyes like she’s not been sleeping. Or been especially stressed. She always gets like this as the end of the semester approaches.

Jimin tears her gaze away and the muted sounds of the library surge back up to a normal volume, scraping chairs and soft muttering.

Jimin pulls her bag onto her shoulder and quietly steps away from Jeonghwa’s table, Jeonghwa waves goodbye, and Jimin picks her way past the empty tables and chairs towards the stairs. Closer to where Taehee is, hasn’t moved from.

She slows as she approaches Taehee. Seems to stare right into her, right past her. She pauses in front of Taehee.

“Hello,” Jimin says.

Taehee dips her head in greeting. Her throat feels so dry but she tries to make words anyway. The last time she spoke to Jimin, she was crying so much she could hardly see past the tears. “Hi.”

“Good to see you.”

Is it really? Does Jimin really want to see her? Taehee wouldn’t want to see herself. Not after a failed relationship. This seems like the kind of situation in which it’s really not good to see the other person. Hence her avoidance of the other girl for the past week. But all things must come to an end and change is inevitable and here they are.

“You too,” Taehee tells Jimin honestly. She’s never lying about this. It really is good to see Jimin. No matter how much it pulls at her heart and soul to wrap herself around Jimin and tuck herself into Jimin’s neck again, it isn’t her place anymore and it’s definitely not allowed.

“I’ll… I’ll go now. Got some… things. Yeah.” Jimin runs out of things to say. Steps past Taehee kindly and Taehee hears her footsteps get quieter as she descends the stairs.

By force of habit she heads towards Jeonghwa and sits in the seat across from her. Not the one Jimin had vacated.

“I didn’t do that on purpose,” Jeonghwa says immediately.

Taehee narrows her eyes.

“I promise, I’m serious. I really was here alone and Jimin just saw me as she was leaving so she stopped to talk for a bit. She was getting ready to go when I saw you showed up. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have done that on purpose. That’s a mean surprise.” Jeonghwa rambles when she’s nervous, gaze travelling everywhere except to meet Taehee’s.

Taehee chews on her lip before taking a deep breath and finally putting her bag down on the table. “It’s okay. It was bound to happen.” Pause. “I haven’t seen her since… you know. Last week.”

Jeonghwa looks surprised. Taehee doesn’t know why she’s that surprised. Does she look like the kind of person that would like confrontation? To see everything she couldn’t have dangled in front of her face?

“Really?”

“Is that hard to believe?”

“I just,” she traces a finger along the pattern on her phone case, “I’m not used to that, you know? You two were inseparable. It’s just strange.”

She’s right. Taehee’s days have been going by impossible slow and fast at the same time. It’s partially because the parts of her days she used to spend with Jimin are now empty, and partially because the parts of the days she used to spend with other people are also sparse. It’s hard to pretend she’s forgotten what’s been plaguing her mind.

“I guess so.”

There’s a tense silence between them both and Taehee doesn’t know how to dispel it. She runs her tongue along her teeth and tries to think of conversation topics that won’t lead back to this but her mind is running on gaps, unable to fill in anything.

She hates that she’s done this. Driven a rift between herself and Jimin, the one person she loved spending time with most in the world, and now she’s made it harder between herself and the others in their group. Practically made it impossible for the whole group to hang out.

She wants to feel guilty about doing it, but she can’t quite regret her choice. She knows it was the smartest thing to do. Break it off before it got worse, before it started hurting more. But the consequences were no less tangible, as it would seem.

Taehee sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“It’s so hard to go back to normal. I didn’t really think this would happen. I’d hoped we could just… get over it. I don’t know about Jimin, but it’s been so hard for me. It just proves how I was too attached, I guess.”

“You’re allowed to be sad, it doesn’t mean you were too attached. You really loved her.”

“Love,” Taehee corrects softly.

“Hm?”

“Love her. Present tense.”

Jeonghwa doesn’t seem to have a response to that.

☆

She sees Jimin again just a couple days later. She hasn’t recovered from the sight of her that day in the library.

Jimin hasn’t spotted her yet. Taehee was just about to leave the humanities building when she’d seen Jimin in the common area, draped across a sofa with a book held over her head. She has her reading glasses on, but it’s a bit strange to see her wearing them outside of her dorm room because she’s never liked how she looks in them. Taehee thinks she looks cute in them but Taehee also she looks cute in everything.

Taehee realizes it might be a bit creepy to just stand there watching her ex with what is undeniably fondness and some specks of regret painted across her face for the whole world to see so she shifts on her feet and starts buttoning up her coat so she can leave the building and head back to her dorm.

She doesn’t make it halfway to the door before she sees someone tap Jimin on the shoulder lightly.

Jealousy paints a thin film over her chest. Someone else gets to talk to Jimin like that, easy and free, but she can’t do that anymore.

She’s close enough to hear the conversation, and sure it’s definitely creepy to listen in, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t even try not to.

“Hi Jimin,” he says.

Jimin reshuffles on the sofa so she’s sitting up. She pulls her glasses off her face and throws them onto the cushion next to her. “Hi Seungmin!”

Cheery as always. Like sunshine. Something else Taehee has missed about her.

“What are you doing this Saturday?”

Simple question. Taehee knows where this is going. She wants to walk away already. It’s not even been two weeks…

“Ah, not much. Dance, classwork, got a presentation to finish for English. You?”

“There’s a party that night. Epsilon Xi Omega is hosting.”

“Oh! I didn’t know. I don’t think I usually go to their parties.”

“First time for everything, right?” Seungmin laughs a little. “You wanna go? You could be my date,” he says, a little teasing, but Taehee isn’t looking at them anymore and even she can tell he’s being serious.

Say no, one part of Taehee chants, but she chokes it out with a hand wrapped around its throat. Jimin can say yes to whoever she wants. This is what Taehee tries to convince herself of. That’s why Taehee broke off their relationship in the first place. So she can say yes to other people. That won’t cling onto her and follow her around and expect her to give them every waking moment of affection.

People that will take her to parties every weekend instead of crashing a frat party once a month and spending all the other weekends curled up with Netflix or with just a tiny group of friends. Jimin can say yes to anyone she wants.

Jimin seems to hesitate for a torturously long moment before answering. “Aw, that’s nice, Seungmin, but I don’t think I’m up for that. I’m looking forward to a weekend just relaxing.”

Seungmin masks his disappointment well. “No worries. Maybe next time,” he offers.

“Sure. Maybe.”

Seungmin walks away. His footsteps fade. Jimin swings her legs back up onto the sofa and puts her reading glasses back on. Taehee doesn’t think Jimin even noticed her standing there.

Taehee leaves. She doesn’t know how bad the ache in her chest would’ve been if Jimin had actually said yes, to being someone else’s date to some party at some frat they’ve never been to, but. As it is, her heart hurts enough.

The idea of Jimin moving on is too much for her to force down her throat. She doesn’t bother trying.

☆

Taehee had gotten three separate texts earlier in the day asking her to please show up to Namjoon’s and Hoseok’s room sometime in the morning, and Sojin had actually given her a very specific time to be there (11:43 AM).

So, just to piss off Sojin, Taehyung texts Namjoon at 11:44, asking to be let in. It’s a very small thing but Sojin is well versed in the art of bratty friends so she’ll catch it.

Namjoon comes down to let her in. Namjoon is very reliable. He will always come and let her in. He’s very nice for that. He could’ve just called nose goes or something and made someone else do it but Taehee’s very grateful that he’ll always come down to let her in, so she hugs him just a little when she sees him.

Maybe she’s a little emotional. It’s whatever. Sometimes that happens.

Maybe it’s also PMS. That’s whatever too. Usually PMS makes her just insufferably snappy but apparently now it’s making her emo. Such is life.

“Finally,” Jeonghwa says loudly when Taehee walks into the room.

That’s weird. She didn’t know Jeonghwa would be there.

There’s definitely more than three people in the room. There’s Sojin, Hoseok, Namjoon. Those, she expected. There’s also Jeonghwa. Unexpected.

There’s also Min Yoongi. Really, totally, completely unexpected. This presence gives her whiplash as she does a double take so hard she hears her neck pop.

Yoongi gives her a little wave. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Okay. That’s that.

“What – are you all doing here?” Taehee asks, carefully. There’s a tension in the air but there seems to be tension in the air all the time now so she doesn’t know if she’s imagining it.

“Wanted to talk to you about something.”

“About what?”

“About Jimin.”

Should she have seen this coming? Taehee doesn’t even know. Maybe. But, honestly, –

“This is kind of mean,” Taehee whines a little, “You’re all ambushing me?”

“It’s not an ambush,” Namjoon interjects, affronted. “We just want to talk.”

“Intervention,” Sojin supplies.

“Absolutely not!”

“It totally is,” Hoseok says.

“He’s right.” Jeonghwa.

“Yeah, it kind of is.” Yoongi. Min Yoongi.

“I don’t need an intervention. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Well first of all, okay, Sojin, that’s kind of mean, I definitely am fine. I’ll get over it. I’ll stop being miserable soon.

“I totally am.”

“This isn’t what we’re arguing about,” Namjoon tries valiantly, to set the conversation back on track. “Please stay on topic.”

“What’s the topic? I thought the topic was Jimin.”

“It is. And, more importantly, how you haven’t talked to her.”

Taehee crosses her arms self-consciously. “I have. I went and talked to her two weeks ago.”

“Yeah, and that went so well,” Hoseok snorts. “Have you talked to her since?”

They already know the answer to that. Taehee knows they all know. She shifts on her feet. “We said hi in the library once.”

“I thought I’d suffocate from that tension and I wasn’t even a part of it,” Jeonghwa complains. “That doesn’t count.”

“It doesn’t have to. Whatever. I just, I need some time, okay? I’m – not over it yet.”

“Why are you trying to be over it?” Yoongi asks suddenly. Taehee had almost forgotten he was there.

“I – because we’re not together anymore.” Isn’t that a fairly obvious answer?

“And why’s that?”

“I broke up with her.”

The rest of the group silently watch their back and forth.

“Why’d you break up with her?”

“I was, just, not right for her. I, uh, always, well, I wanted something other than what she did. We loved a little differently.” Taehee gets quieter and quieter, but Yoongi listens intently. It just makes her feel more exposed. “I love a little too loudly. I don’t think she would’ve kept me around much longer anyway.”

“You didn’t ask her about it?”

“I didn’t have to. I was part of the relationship, too. It was apparent to me after I started to notice it.”

“I find that strange. From what I saw, I didn’t think you’d break up.”

This piques Taehee’s interest. She tries to sound laid back about it but her curiosity is probably obvious to anyone who’s looking. Which is all of them. “What did you see?”

Yoongi picks his words very cautiously. “You looked very comfortable with each other. Like you were very important to each other. It’s surprising to me that you would have issues this deep.”

“It’s not issues,” Taehee says. That makes it sound like it’s a problem. But it’s not, she swears it isn’t. “Sometimes things happen and people break up. It’s not like a bump in the road. It’s just a fork. She has to one way and I have to go the other.”

“This isn’t High School Musical for you to go your own way, Tae,” Sojin pipes up finally, “you weren’t happy in your relationship and you convinced yourself that she wasn’t either. But you just never talked about it.”

“There was nothing to talk about!” Taehee insists. “I know this. I didn’t want to – ” she cuts herself off before she says something incriminating

“Want to what?”

Seriously, fuck Namjoon for catching all of Taehee’s mistakes.

“Want to drag it out. It hurts less if you just do it fast.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes it hurts a lot less if you don’t have to do it at all,” Hoseok says, entirely unhelpfully. Of course it would hurt less if they didn’t have to break up at all. But they can’t do that.

“I feel like you’re all ganging up on me when you don’t understand the situation.”

“Well I can think of at least one other person who also doesn’t understand the situation,” Sojin says. “And that would be Jimin.”

Taehee’s about to retort something caustic and annoying but that stops her very effectively. “What? Why wouldn’t Jimin understand?”

“Jimin is, more or less, on the same page as the rest of us. You just seem to have skimmed the novel and moved on.”

“Namjoon, I love you, but I usually don’t understand any of your metaphors,” Taehee sighs. “Please restate.”

“He means Jimin agrees with us. You have to talk to her before you keep torturing yourselves like this. She isn’t going to come to you – ”

“And why not?” Taehee interrupts. Something frustrated, a little angry, starts boiling inside of her at that. “Why won’t she ever come to me? Why am I always the one that goes crawling back?”

“She – she’s just not that type of person. She’s going to give you your space because you asked for it.” Jeonghwa tries. Jeonghwa knows Jimin well, but Taehee doesn’t think this is an acceptable answer. If that’s true, Jimin’s been giving her space for two months, and that really doesn’t cut it. Nobody does that.

“She’s been giving me space for an awful long time,” Taehee snaps.

“She probably was in the wrong there. She should’ve come to you then. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to cut her off like that. You aren’t right either.”

“I’m not saying I’m right. There’s no right answer. Everything’s wrong, sure, fine, whatever. But it,” Taehee takes a deep breath, something twisting her throat tight, making it harder to breathe, “it hurts when I think about it. I wanted to be right for her but I wasn’t and she would probably be better off with someone else.”

Min Yoongi sits right there, less than ten feet away from Taehee. Right at this moment. The irony does not escape her. She wants to say it, biting and scalding, but she holds it back because it’s not his fault. He isn’t even the main problem. But he only serves to ignite Taehee’s straining temper.

“None of this means you aren’t right for each other, Tae-ah,” Jeonghwa says, a little subdued. “It just means you need to work on it. A lot of this could be solved if you’d just have a conversation and tell her what’s bothering you.”

“She doesn’t need me around,” Taehee says, matter-of-fact, “she never needed me as much as I needed her. And that was the problem.”

“Do you know how much that girl loved you?” Yoongi cuts in.

Taehee falls silent. The temper burning in her quells like a flame doused in water and suddenly Taehee just feels spent. Burnt out, wisps of smoke but nothing more.

Loved.

“What?”

“I don’t think you realize how much she loves you. Hoseok used to talk about you all the time because, bless you, Hobi, but you only have like four friends,” Yoongi pats Hoseok’s hand consolingly, “and I only met you like three weeks ago for a half an hour but from the little knowledge I have of you, I could tell how much she loves you. I think it’s obvious to everyone but you.”

Taehee clears her throat. “I know she loved me. She said so.”

Loved.

“But do you believe it?”

“Yeah.” Tastes like a lie. “I do.” Can the rest of them tell? That the taste of it is ugly and charred on her tongue like the coal that faded out inside her just a moment ago?

“I don’t think so. I think you let your insecurities about your relationship drive you to cut it off because you didn’t want to get hurt later, but if you really knew how much she loved you, you wouldn’t have let go so easily.”

Yoongi speaks like he knows exactly what he’s talking about, like he’s known them for years and watched them grow together. But he hasn’t. He hardly knows them.

“You don’t know any of that,” Taehee tries. She sounds weak to her own ears. Doesn’t know how else to say it, though.

“It’s an educated guess. I’ve seen enough relationships fall apart in my industry to understand their anatomies.”

“Tae-ah, please. You talked to me about this before and I didn’t take it seriously and I should have because you sounded so sad even then. But why – you didn’t have to break up with her over this. You were together for so long.” Sojin sounds like she’s half asking Taehee and half asking everyone else, too, but nobody else responds.

“Doesn’t mean it’s the first time someone’s told me I’m too much to handle,” Taehee says bitterly.

“What?” Hoseok asks, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Taehee stares at the ceiling, head tipped back. “Nothing. Whatever. You think I should talk to Jimin,” she states. Not a question, but she’s still asking for confirmation.

Do you know how much that girl loved you?

I know she loved me. She said so.

But do you believe it?

Yeah. No.

Maybe she should feel a little elation at the insistence of all her friends, the people who know Jimin best (and one person who doesn’t even know her at all) that she should salvage their relationship.

But all she feels is dread, something thick and sad, because she’s going to talk to Jimin and it’s going to be awkward and she’s going to start to cry again. And all that will happen is Jimin will confirm, we’re better off not dating, Taetae, you were right, you just were always a bit much, and I don’t think I can deal with that all the time, and maybe Taehee will lapse back into what she pleaded so hard for at the end of her last relationship, senior year of high school, maybe Taehee will fall back into the familiar mantra of I can try, I promise, I’ll be less overwhelming, I’ll ask for less, I can settle, I’ll compromise, we don’t have to break up, but it wasn’t enough then and it won’t be enough now.

She wishes someone would say no, never mind, don’t bother talking to Jimin. She wants someone to say go home and try to sleep it off, we can get ice cream and watch anime if you want.

But Sojin just gives her the look, the one that means she cares a lot but has to say the hard thing anyway. Sojin says, “Yeah, you should. Please. Be honest. Try.”

And Taehee blinks against how the world goes a little out of focus for a moment because she knows she’s about to get her heart broken for the second time in two weeks and it’s her own damn fault for being so fucking invested, easy to fall in love, easy to pull around.

It’s her own damn fault but she’s going to go anyway.

“Okay. Fine.”

☆

After the intervention, the rude awakening, the coerced agreement of communication, Taehee waits a whole excruciating day of procrastination before she seeks Jimin out.

Her phone sits heavy in her back pocket because she knows she could text Jimin right now, she could ask her where she is and if she’s free and can you meet with me for a bit, but she can’t take up more of Jimin’s time like that. It’s not her right anymore to expect that Jimin would bend her schedule for Taehee.

So, on a deceptively sunny Friday afternoon in December, Taehee wanders out of the cafeteria to the bench where she and Jimin used to have lunch every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a chilling breeze whipping past and chills of an entirely different kind climbing up her skin.

Maybe she won’t be there. Jimin doesn’t have a reason to show up to their lunch spot after class anymore. So maybe Taehee will turn the corner and there will be an empty bench, that one lonely tree with all its leaves rattled off, maybe she can wait another day before she tries to seek Jimin out somewhere else.

Or, Taehee realizes as her gaze finds Jimin’s form curled over a sandwich, hair pulled into a haphazard bun and sweatshirt sleeves pulled up to her elbows, maybe Jimin will be right there.

It was both stupid and hopeful of her to think that maybe Jimin wouldn’t. She was always right there.

Taehee approaches carefully, and normally she would be gathering her thoughts and building her next words right then, but her mind is going too fast to be coherent. She’s going to embarrass herself, again, she’s going to just make it worse if she speaks. Maybe she can get away with not saying anything.

Jimin startles when Taehee touches her shoulder. The surprise on her face melts into something a shade darker, bluer, than before. The corners of her lips pull down a little.

“Tae-ah,” Jimin says. “You want to sit here? I can leave.”

“N-no, don’t go,” Taehee says first, rushed, and stares at the spot on the bench next to Jimin for a second before making a decision and sitting down. “I came to. Talk to you.”

She can’t look at Jimin. It’s too hard; if she looks at Jimin she’ll get caught up in all the things she’s missed seeing and maybe she’ll get caught up in all the things she doesn’t want to see written plainly across the other girl’s face. She rubs her fingertips along her nails instead, picking at a hangnail, soothing the burn when it starts to sting.

“Did someone put you up to this?” Jimin’s tone is caustic. Like acid wash.

Taehee shakes her head again. “I –” Hesitate.

Jimin scoffs lightly. It hurts.

“They told me you had some things to say. That I didn’t let you talk. I’m sorry for that.” The apology is necessary, it wanted to tumble out, she has so many things to apologize for and she isn’t apologizing for anything that matters. But I’m sorry is a start no matter what it’s for, Taehee justifies to herself.

“Yeah. You didn’t let me say anything before you walked out and never came back.”

That’s true. She did that. She walked out and she never came back. She did that so it would hurt less but it doesn’t feel like it’s hurting any less. It just feels like she took the gun from Jimin, flipped off the safety, and shot herself. She doesn’t know if that makes it any better.

“Will you say your part now?” Taehee asks quietly.

Jimin kisses her teeth and pauses. Taehee takes a peek at her because she can’t resist and Jimin looks like she’s trying to keep herself from lashing out.

“First. The first thing is. You said something about being clingy, and I was trying to tell you, I never thought you were clingy, or needy, or too much. I just – it was unfair of you to assume that you knew what I was thinking. Because you didn’t ask me how I felt about any of it. You just came by and you dumped me, and you left and that wasn’t fair.” Jimin takes a deep breath, heavy.

Taehee doesn’t know how to believe her. Maybe she wants to believe it. That Jimin really never thought she was too needy or any of that. But Taehee doesn’t think it’s possible. It just doesn’t add up.

She notices Jimin’s hands wringing in her lap, betraying the nerves that must be fizzling out in her, compared to the cool hardness of her expression. Taehee peers a little closer at the object she’s fidgeting with.

It’s a little flower made of paper. The origami rose that Taehee had placed on her textbook, in the library when she’d been bored, with Jeonghwa pestering her. Weeks ago.

“And you… said something else, too. About two months ago. I – what did you mean?”

Taehee takes a moment to register that she’s been asked a question, and she jerks her head up to look into Jimin’s face. “What did I mean?” She repeats.

Jimin just nods.

“I – ” Suddenly anything Taehee could see sounds pathetic ringing in her mind. Why did she ever think she was justified in whining over this? She should’ve just – just kept her mouth shut. “I’m. I thought, almost two months ago, I was. I was getting a little anxious that you didn’t want to be with me anymore because you never said anything to me anymore. So I stopped coming to things and I stopped – stopped inviting you to things.”

Jimin’s jaw has fallen slack as she stares at Taehee with a gaze so intense that Taehee doesn’t think she can face it head on. She picks at the stitching on her pants instead and continues: “And you didn’t notice,” her voice breaks but she patches it back up by clearing her throat and moving forward, “and it got worse. I thought you would see that we hadn’t spent time together, or had a date, in weeks. And you just… didn’t say anything. What was I supposed to think?”

“Tae-ah, that’s not fair,” Jimin starts, voice half the volume it was before. Taehee has to strain to hear it. “That’s not fair of you to do that to me. You can’t test me like that.”

“It wasn’t a test,” Taehee protests weakly. “I just… I had to see. If I stopped begging you for attention, what would happen. And I learned.”

“I don’t think you ever begged me for attention.”

Taehee is about to retort, but Jimin stops her with a hand on her knee. The warmth cuts off any words she might’ve had on the tip of her tongue.

“Listen to me. I’ve never been very forward. I know I flirt a lot, and that’s what I did before we got together, but it’s just because that’s all I’ve ever done. You know I’ve never been in a relationship before you. I don’t know how to act when I’m dating someone. So when – when you, at the beginning, at our beginning, took the lead. I just went with it. I – I don’t know how to explain myself. I thought you were okay with how we were, our dynamic.” She trails off. Taehee waits for her to keep going, but she doesn’t.

The threat of tears presses insistently at the back of her throat. She can’t cry, though. She can’t cry. Not now.

“I love loving you.” Taehee is barely above silent, but it’s something. She reverts to using words that she remembers thinking to herself, late at night, forgetting to translate herself into something that sounds a little more dignified. “It’s wonderful. I hate realizing that I love you too hard, too loudly, and you don’t love me like that.”   

“Don’t say that,” Jimin chokes out, and Taehee finally looks up at her to see that she’s got a hand pressed against her mouth so she doesn’t cry. Her big eyes are shimmering, covered in a layer of tears threatening to leak. “You can’t say that. You don’t know that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“What else am I supposed to think?” Taehee asks. The sight of sadness on Jimin has never sat well with her, and guilt at making Jimin like this hooks inside of her and pulls at her chest, but she can’t stop. She’s finally started saying everything that has been building inside of her, and she can’t stop now.

“What else am I supposed to think when you never say anything to me? I – I’m so tired of convincing myself I’m yours when you don’t even seem to want me. It’s always easy for you to say you would marry Min Yoongi but when it comes to me –” she spits it with force, a jealous bitterness.

Jimin cuts her off. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for that. I never meant to ignore how you didn’t like those jokes.”

“It’s not about the jokes,” Taehee tries, but when Jimin waits for her to continue, she doesn’t know what else to explain with.

“Tae-ah, please. How can I – how can I convince you? I love you. So much. You were my first, my first everything, my first love. I was so worried when you stopped coming to my dance practices, and you didn’t want to come hang out with my friends anymore, and you stopped asking for dates, and for cuddles. You said I didn’t notice, but I did. And I thought – thought you just needed some space, because you always pull away when you get stressed, so that’s what I thought. But I’m – I should’ve still asked. I’m sorry.”

The more she strings on to her apology, every admission that she cared and that she had noticed Taehee’s stupid tantrum, pushes Taehee further to the brink. She teeters dangerously. Tries to keep a grip on herself.

“Just, please.” Jimin quiets. “How can I convince you? Don’t leave again.”

The softness, the caution, the gentle whisper of it, it topples her. Taehee pitches forward and drops her forehead to Jimin’s shoulder, arms coming up to encircle Jimin sloppily. A shudder wracks her body and a sob chases on its heels, and the tears melt against her own cheeks and the fabric of Jimin’s shirt but she doesn’t want Jimin to see her face like this.

“I’m so sorry,” Taehee manages through the hiccupping, the wet bursts of choking and sobbing that comes with bottled up emotions spurting out in a flood, “I’m so, so, sorry, Jimin. You don’t have to apologize. I don’t deserve you. I’m sorry I can’t trust you when you say you – say you want me, and you lo-love me. I c-can’t, I can’t – ”

She cuts herself off and starts over. Jimin’s warm hand, familiar hand, rubs a circle in the spot between her shoulder blades.

“I – in high school. I had a boyfriend. Senior year. We were – together for three months. And h-he broke up with me right b-before prom, because he said I was too much. Attention whore. That’s what he c-called me.” Taehee spills the memories into Jimin’s neck because she’s too much of a coward to say it to Jimin’s face.

It sounds, to her own ears, like she’s trying to justify herself. Like she’s trying to wring pity from Jimin, but she doesn’t want pity. She doesn’t deserve Jimin’s kindness. Not after what she’s put her through, the tantrum Taehee just threw, Taehee’s utter incapability to process emotions like a normal fucking person.

Jimin hums into Taehee’s ear. “This,” she says, quiet to match Taehee’s subdued tone, “was the boyfriend you used to tell me about? With the Jeep and the one that failed math and had to take it again?”

Taehee snorts involuntarily at the reminder of the stupid things she’d told Jimin about him. “That’s the one.”

Jimin’s soothing rubbing on Taehee’s back stops, and the warmth disappears for a moment, only to come back as a hard smack against the back of Taehee’s head.

“Ow!” Taehee tries to pull back, wounded, but Jimin yanks her tighter against her smaller body.

“You don’t get to move. That slap was for letting that asshole’s stupid words come in between you and me. Do you really think I’m anything like him?”

Jimin is trying to be nonchalant. Taehee can tell. But the question is a vulnerability waiting to happen.

Taehee answers her honestly. “No.”

“Then why would you put his words in my mouth, Taetae? Do you understand that that’s not how I feel?”

Taehee is silent. She does not want to be honest here.

“I could never – I could never feel like that about you. I’ve… never fallen in love before you. But I fell so hard, so fast, for you, Tae. For you, and for all of you. If – if something bothers me, I would tell you. But everything, from how you’re lazy in the mornings to how you’re loud when you kiss me to how you call me in the middle of the night asking to come over, I love all of it.”

Taehee has stopped breathing. She can feel her lungs seizing up. But she wants to remember how Jimin’s voice sounds as she says this.

“I love you so much, Tae. I know you love me, I swear I do. Please. Let me – I didn’t know that this was weighing so heavy on you. Let me show you.”

I love you so much.

Let me show you.

She’s never wanted to hear anything more.

“I’m sorry,” Taehee says again into Jimin’s shoulder because she doesn’t know what else to say. She doesn’t deserve to say anything else. Jimin deserves someone who can actually handle emotions and treat her like she deserves to be treated but she’s stuck with Taehee who runs away from the bomb instead of defusing it and cries when she gets burned in the explosion.

“Don’t apologize. Promise you’ll talk to me next time.”

Taehee nods.

Tentatively, Jimin pulls Taehee away from her. Taehee lets her gaze roam Jimin’s face, eyes puffy from the tears that had swelled up before, lip bright and bitten raw with nerves.

Jimin leans closer. Taehee meets her halfway. She’s missed this.

It feels like a promise. Some sort of blank check, it feels like: see? You could never leave me. This is a part of you. You need this.

But Taehee has never been so happy to need something before.

☆

The last time all six of them went out together, it involved Hoseok revealing a fairly important piece of information about his life, essentially paralyzing three out of the remaining five friends in their group from the effect of the shock.

This time, there are seven of them.

They still go to Waffle House because with the exception of one stupidly rich and famous friend, the six of them are still poor college students and they’re not about to break the bank for a meal if it doesn’t come with a chocolate fountain and maybe a platter of meats too.

Jimin, across from Taehee, has deposited her flip flops on the floor to tentatively rub her toes against Taehee’s ankle. Taehee is trying to pretend like she doesn’t notice it. It’s not remotely sexy, it’s just obnoxious, because Jimin has really cold feet.

From next to Jimin, Jeonghwa nudges her shoulder, but Jeonghwa is a muscle pig and doesn’t know her own strength sometimes, so she ends up jostling Jimin into the window on Jimin’s other side.

“What,” Jimin snaps at Jeonghwa, returning the gesture with a shove at Jeonghwa, and Jeonghwa topples into Yoongi, who was previously staring stupidly into Hoseok’s eyes like he had nothing better to do.

Jeonghwa wraps her arm around Jimin’s shoulder. Jeonghwa is taller than Jimin by a good couple of inches, even when they’re sitting, and she playfully pinches Jimin’s cheek and coos at her. “You’re too cute. Playing footsie with Tae? And you thought nobody would notice, didn’t you?”

“What, are you jealous?” Jimin snorts.

Jeonghwa bumps her nose to Jimin’s. “Should I be? I don’t know, you two are a bit vanilla for me.”

“Shut up, Jeonghwa, you’re literally a virgin,” Hoseok says. He hasn’t noticed how Yoongi had gone back to staring at him, with his face propped up on his hand, with a dreamy expression.

“I am not!” Jeonghwa squawks, thoroughly insulted.

“You so are,” Sojin pipes up, snickering a little. “I totally believe it. Have you even had a boyfriend?”

“First of all, I’m gay, so no,” Jeonghwa says sullenly.

The table falls silent for a moment. Yoongi seems to finally register that there are things going on around him and snaps out of his daze, looking between them with a confused puppy look on his face.

“What?” Jeonghwa looks up again. She blinks when there’s no response.

“You’re gay?”

Jeonghwa lets go of Jimin and shoves her hands under her thighs. “Yeah…”

Sojin claps a little and breaks into a smile. Taehee pulls at Jeonghwa’s arm across the table and clasps the younger’s hand in two of hers. When Jeonghwa looks back at her, Taehee winks. “Knew you’d see the light.”

Jeonghwa yanks her arm away and her face heats up, rapidly turning a shade of red to match the red in the seats and the logo on the wall. “Don’t be dumb,” Jeonghwa mutters. She turns her attention back to Sojin and Namjoon and Yoongi and Hoseok, away from where Jimin is pointedly wiggling her eyebrows.

“You guys didn’t… know?” Jeonghwa asks.

Namjoon is busy stuffing his face with the fries that the waiter had set in front of him and shakes his head. “I mean, you hang out with those two,” he jerks his head towards Taehee and Jimin, “so we aren’t that surprised, but,” he shrugs, “still a big thing to say it.”

Jeonghwa’s face is still fire truck red, apple red, fire hydrant red. She just chews on her lip a little and fiddles with the stick poked through her burger.

Jimin nudges at Taehee’s foot with her cold, cold toes again. Taehee jumps a little but the sly look Jimin gives her distracts her.

“What?” Taehee whisper-shouts at her, finally, after Jimin spends another three whole minutes drawing strange patterns on Taehee’s shin.

Jimin lifts a shoulder. “What?” She asks back, innocent. There’s ketchup smeared on the corner of her lip. Taehee isn’t going to do the sexy swipe-and-lick thing because she doesn’t like ketchup. Jimin will figure it out at some point.

“You keep harassing me,” Taehee accuses. Chatter continues at the table which means nobody has yet noticed their hassle.

“I am doing no such thing,” Jimin says, mock offense shining through her face, as her toe drags up Taehee’s calf and draws a lopsided heart on it.

“Your feet are fucking cold.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Taehee rolls her eyes and gives up. “Continue to freeze my skin then, see how much love you get tonight.”

Jimin’s eyes widen and she pauses. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Noooooo,” she drags out, and her toe retreats.

Taehee holds back a smile. “’kay.”

Jimin frowns. “You wouldn’t,” she challenges, and Taehee narrows her eyes in response. Jimin’s toe returns with vigor, tracing up all the way to her knee.

Yeah, Jimin’s right. She wouldn’t. But she hates losing.

She’s concentrated in trying to trap Jimin’s foot between her knees when Sojin slaps the back of her head and she looks up to see Hoseok miming throwing up. “Ow,” she says loudly, dramatically rubbing the back of her head. “What?”

“Stop being disgusting under the table, we’re trying to eat here,” Namjoon whines through his burger.

Taehee feels her cheeks get warm at the admonishment. She lets Jimin’s foot drop, and Jimin tucks her leg back under her with a little smirk. She doesn’t seem as affected at being caught as Taehee feels.

“Sorry.” Jimin clears her throat and she sounds far too mirthful. Taehee is afraid of what she’s about to say. “You know how it is. I like to get my baby riled up early.”

Taehee chokes on a fry. “Jimin!” She screeches, astonished. “Shut up!”

“Oh, no,” Hoseok groans, and drops his forehead to the table. “I didn’t need to hear that. I really could’ve gone my whole life, and it’s been ruined now.”

Sojin has her face buried in her hands and Namjoon has turned ashy pale, staring in dismay as Jimin cackles. Yoongi looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there and Jeonghwa looks like if she wishes hard enough, she might melt into her seat and avoid them forever.

“At least when you two were fighting the sex jokes stopped for a while,” Sojin grumbles.

Taehee carefully stuffs her face with food so she doesn’t have to respond, or take responsibility for whatever the hell dumb thing Jimin decides to say next. Her face is still, no doubt, tinged pink all over.

“Nasty,” Jeonghwa comments weakly, and gives up on trying to become one with the furniture, returning to finishing her meal.

When they’re done, and trailing slowly outside of the fine dining establishment that is the waffle house, awkwardly standing around before they pile into their two separate cars, Namjoon sighs loudly.

Nobody says anything. Sojin checks her phone for the time and gets distracted with an Instagram notification for a moment. Jeonghwa is intently watching a squirrel on a nearby tree.

Namjoon sighs again. Louder. He hangs his head this time.

Sojin turns her attention to him, and lovingly says to her boyfriend, “Stop doing that, it makes you sound like you’re about to wheeze and keel over. What do you want?”

He looks skyward. “The strength to deal with you and the rest of this group of idiots.” Looks back at the rest of them. Yoongi is playing with Hoseok’s fingers. There seems to not exist a single moment of time in which Yoongi is not trying to hold Hoseok’s hand. It’s okay. It’s his thing. They let him do it. It doesn’t matter if it means Hoseok has to learn to do most things one-handed because that’s a sacrifice that he chose to make. Even if Yoongi made the decision for him. It’s okay.

It’s evident none of them wanted to go home and crash for the night, so Namjoon finally gives in and asks it. “What do all you heathens want to do now? And don’t,” he holds his hand up as Jeonghwa starts bouncing excitedly on her toes, “say that you want to come to my room and drink and play Wii, because next it’ll become a stupid drinking game and we’ll all be wasted and I don’t want to deal with that. Please pick something a little more sensible.”

Jeonghwa drops back onto her heels and crosses her arms, glaring at Namjoon.

Jimin sidles closer to Taehee’s side, her body heat spreading into Taehee’s. A happy glow settles in Taehee’s body, somewhere between her muscle and bone, somewhere she couldn’t see it if she tried. Here are her friends, on a cool almost-spring night, warm jackets and pretty night sky and full bellies. Jimin hasn’t left her side all night.

Jimin slides her hand slowly into Taehee’s back pocket and it sends a jolt up Taehee’s spine. She straightens a little at the feeling. Side-eyes Jimin carefully to see what the other girl is trying to do, but Jimin only has her head leaned on Taehee’s shoulder, not paying her any attention.

Hoseok says, happily, “Okay, not our room. How about Sojin’s?”

“Absolutely not,” Sojin counters immediately. “If we’re trashing someone’s room it’s going to be Jimin’s.”

“Hey!” Jimin squawks. “What do you mean?” She tightens her posture in indignation, except it just means that her hand ends up squeezing Taehee’s ass where it’s still buried in Taehee’s back pocket, and Taehee tries not to squirm where she’s standing.

“It means,” Sojin says patiently, with the air of explaining calculus to a two-year-old, “you’re already messy. You wouldn’t even notice the disturbance. Plus, your roommate’s never around.”

Jimin huffs, but she can’t deny the accusation since the last time she actually cleaned her room was probably when the Earth was born, so she settles for narrowed eyes and silence.

“Is that a yes?” Yoongi interjects cheerfully. Taehee didn’t even realize he was paying attention to the conversation. “We’re going to Jimin’s room? Jimin-ah, do you have alcohol?”

Jimin deliberates with her mouth half-open for a second. She glances at Taehee, considering.

Deflates. “Yeah. I have last week’s peach vodka still.”

Taehee jostles her a little, kind of worried about the defeated tone of her voice. If Jimin didn’t want them there, they wouldn’t go there. She tries to say it with her expression, earnest and questioning, but Jimin looks back up at her and winks. Taps her fingers meaningfully against Taehee’s ass, and okay, that probably counts as an I’m fine from Jimin, Taehee thinks.

The three youngest climb into Sojin’s car, leaving the boys to go in Hoseok’s, and Taehee tries not to notice too obviously as Jimin traces light patterns into her inner thigh along the ride back to the dorms.

(Taehee thinks she’s really good at pretending, and she may be, but Jeonghwa catches the glint of one of Jimin’s rings as Jimin’s hand ghosts over the older girl’s thigh, and tries really, really hard not to notice how Taehee looks a tad too distracted as she tries to keep their conversation about Overwatch mains going.)

☆

get ready by 9
ill come get u
beta tau sigma are hosting and im ready tO GET SHITFACED
UGH ITS BEEN TOO LONG!!! TAETAE!!!!! IM SO READY!!!!!!!!!!

The messages come in as Taehee sketches for an assignment, and it slowly dawns on her that Jimin is inviting her to a party. A big one, if she knows anything about her own school, because Beta Tau Sigma are the party fraternity. Taehee hasn’t been to one of their parties in… months. Not that she hates parties, no, of course not, just that she doesn’t usually go to theirs.

But if Jimin wants to take her, who is she to say no?

sure ill see u then!

She messages back immediately, and the clock reads 8pm, so she has an hour. Leave it to Jimin to give her minimum notice.

Jimin shows up at 8:47 and goes still where she’s standing when Taehee opens the door for her.

Taehee shifts on her feet, a little self-conscious as Jimin’s eyes trail slowly down her body. “What?”

Jimin shakes her head. “Damn, Tae, I – it’s been way too long since we went out together. When’s the last time I saw this thing?” She reaches out and snaps one of the straps on Taehee’s bralette appreciatively.

A smile rising at the compliment, Taehee wiggles her shoulders. “Take me to parties more often then.”

Jimin scoffs. “I would if I could, you know that. Any excuse to dress slutty is one I’ll take. But there’s only so many parties you can go to before the hangovers interfere with dance practice and I need to practice for the showcase.” Pause. She tilts her head and leans against the doorframe and looks down at Taehee’s legs, bare in the distressed denim shorts with more holes than fabric. “Promise we can go to more parties after the showcase is over, though,” Jimin says.

Taehee agrees with a nod and holds out her pinky. Jimin curls hers with it. It’s a promise. Binding. Can’t be broken. Satisfied, Taehee leans back inside to locate her room key and slide her phone into her pocket.

They arrive a little after 9, but it’s Beta Tau Sigma, so the party is underway already. Jimin weaves them into the kitchen because of course she knows the layout of this frat house like she knows every other one, the party addict that she is. Taehee has her fingers loosely grasped in Jimin’s and keeps her gaze firmly fixed on Jimin’s ass in her leather skirt because that’s a sight she doesn’t have to let go of any time soon. It’s her blessing and hers only.

Jimin pours them something questionable out of a bottle and mixes it with something else also questionable and hands the cup to her. She looks proud of her concoction, so Taehee takes a tentative sip and it tastes like what she thinks rubbing alcohol would taste like, and it smells like nail polish remover, but she downs it anyway.

Jimin does it again and places the cup back in Taehee’s hand and she holds her breath and knocks it back again. She doesn’t feel the tipsy that is soon to come, but the bass pounding through the floor, with the lights in the living room turned off and someone’s neon disco ball spinning on the ceiling, runs some kind of other feeling through her.

She puts her cup down next to Jimin’s and pulls her girlfriend to the living room, into the crowd of bodies, unassuming and opening to absorb them too.

Jimin laughs at the feeling that she loves, of being surrounded and of dancing, moving like the beat of the song has synchronized with the way her blood pumps through her, and she closes her eyes and drops her head back and links her arms around Taehee’s neck, grinding her hips down.

The humidity of the room manifests in the dampness of sweat already forming along Jimin’s hairline, on her jaw, sticking Taehee’s hands to the back of her thin camisole. Taehee lets her hands wander lower until the rest on the curve of Jimin’s ass and Jimin’s hands grip at her shoulders, pulling them closer and closer.

The song changes. Jimin doesn’t even seem to notice, and Taehee almost stops moving because she gets to lost in the way Jimin’s hair sways, how the light seems to bounce off her and make her glow.

There are eyes watching them, and Taehee can feel them on her back and on her face and on the way Jimin moves against her, but it’s always been like that. She loves the attention. Jimin must notice, too, and she’s even more of a sucker for being watched than Taehee is, so she smirks and presses closer to Taehee. She turns, letting go for a cold second before reattaching herself, her back to Taehee’s chest and her legs on either side of one of Taehee’s. She grinds down, sultry, and damn, how long has it really been since they’d attended a party together to grind on the dancefloor? To get lost in each other?

Wolf whistles float up from some onlookers in the crowd. It just spurs Jimin on, and Taehee can feel a flush climbing through her body as Jimin snakes an arm back to curl her fingers against Taehee’s neck. She drops her head back on Taehee’s shoulder, lips dragging along her neck, and Taehee lets her hand roam down the planes of Jimin’s body until it rests on the jut of her hipbone, taunting her with little butterfly touches.

Jimin laughs at the teasing, breath against Taehee’s throat. The alcohol is finally taking hold, the room starting to become a little bigger, a little louder, a little more. The sound wobbles through the room and Taehee sways, but the slow, almost delirious drag of her hips against Jimin’s ass doesn’t stop because that would just be rude. She has to keep that part going.

Jimin unwinds herself from Taehee, and Taehee whines in response, reaching out to bring her back. Jimin grasps her fingers and pulls her back through the crowd, her scarily high alcohol tolerance meaning she doesn’t stumble like Taehee does trying to get back to the kitchen.

Jimin pours Taehee a glass of water and shoves it at her. “Drink,” Jimin says, and under the harsh white kitchen lights Jimin looks like she’s glowing even more than she did before. Or maybe the same amount, but in a different way. Here, the light soaks into her and then bursts out, her smile bright, her skin effervescent. Taehee leans forward to plant a kiss on her red, red lips, but Jimin pushes her back gently and lifts the cup of water to her lips.

Taehee obliges.

“Bathroom,” she says after she’s drained it, pouting at Jimin like there’s something Jimin can do about the issue.

Jimin rolls her eyes, purses her lips and downs another two shots from one of the bottles that still haven’t run out, and leads Taehee to the bathroom.

The quiet of the bathroom is jarring but Taehee is still just tipsy enough to enjoy how the muted sounds of the party leak in. She takes a moment to stare at herself in the mirror, hair messy but it’s kind of sexy like that, eyeliner hopelessly smudged in a hopefully endearing way, skin glistening with sweat. Her bralette, which she’s worn with nothing on top, has straps askew but she doesn’t bother to fix them before heading back out. She’s sure Jimin won’t notice either, so it’s okay.

When she opens the door, Jimin isn’t where she left her, waiting right outside. Taehee starts to panic a little. She doesn’t know anyone else here, and she’s had enough of the demon juice to mean that she doesn’t want to go wandering in the big house alone, looking for Jimin. It’s dark enough that it would be hard to locate her, anyway.

She takes a few careful steps down the hallway. She feels terribly exposed all of a sudden, and she crosses her arms in an attempt to preserve both modesty and heat. It’s okay if she’s dressed like this for Jimin but where’s Jimin?

The room shakes gently as she steadies herself against the wall. She isn’t even drunk, but she’s toeing the line, on the right side of tipsy but not sober enough to see perfectly. Jimin, Jimin, Jimin, where is she –

She hears Jimin’s voice and zeroes in on it so fast she feels like some wild animal hunting for its prey. Or maybe she is the prey. Fitting.

Jimin’s leaned against the far wall, at the end of the hallway that opens back out to the living room, head tilted up to look at the person she’s talking to. He’s tall, tall enough that she has to look up at him, and Taehee pauses in her steps to wait for a moment.

Jimin laughs, bright and clear, and the glitter on her face sparkles beautifully. The boy also seems to think so, leaning forward ever so slightly, but Jimin doesn’t do anything about it. She asks him something, words too jumbled for Taehee to pick up, but Taehee feels something ugly shoot through her chest like a pinprick at the sight before her.

The boy explains something using his hands, and when he’s done, one hand floats down to hover near Jimin’s elbow. Taehee wants to sidle up next to Jimin, push the boy’s hand away and tuck herself against Jimin’s side possessively, but that would be obnoxious, so she just keeps her feet rooted where she is.

She promised Jimin she would tell her if something made her uncomfortable, but she isn’t sure if that applies to this situation. Jimin’s natural state is flirty, it’s her go-to mode, her first setting. She flirts a little bit with everyone, makes everyone fall a little in love with her. She’s Taehee’s, though. They have established this.

It still burns a little when Jimin winks at the boy, still turned towards him, swaying slightly.

Taehee finally uproots herself and slinks closer, socked feet padding silently on the carpet. As she gets closer, Jimin finally sees her, and her face lights up in a way that makes the nasty thing fizzle out of existence from Taehee’s chest. Warmth takes its place. Jimin’s hand curls naturally around Taehee’s waist and pulls her close.

“This is my girlfriend that I told you about,” Jimin says to the boy, loudly to be heard over the music, and Taehee feels nothing but elation at the implication that Jimin had already mentioned her.

He smiles, and nods at Taehee in greeting, and Taehee searches for any kind of malicious disappointment that she can find in his eyes, but there’s nothing.

“Cute,” he says, and taps Taehee on the jaw, before pointing behind him. “Okay then. I’ll see you later, Park. Baek just walked in.” He waves a little and turns and disappears into the crowd.

Taehee turns to Jimin. “Who was that?”

Jimin flaps a hand. “Chanyeol. He’s in one of my classes. I didn’t think he’d be here so I said hi anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t he be here?”

“He’s in Epsilon,” Jimin says, and Taehee nods in understanding. Beta and Epsilon were competitive, always trying to one-up the other, but Taehee knew somewhere in the back of her mind that the members had always been good friends despite the rivalry.

Jimin lifts a hand to Taehee’s neck and trails a finger slowly down the side of her throat, down between the dip of her collarbones, to rest right where the fabric of her top began. “You wanna go back to dancing? Want another drink?”

Taehee takes a moment to look at Jimin, just stare at her, at the glitter on her face and the eyeliner making eyes look wider and rounder, her shaped eyebrows and the stray pieces of hair going every which way. She’s a little embarrassed that she got so upset, just a moment ago at seeing one of Jimin’s friends getting a little too close, and Jimin must see something in her face because the sultry expression shifts into something softer.

“Were you jealous of Chanyeol? When you saw him?”

Fuck. Jimin’s gotten too good at reading her.

Taehee tries to deny it. “What? No… no way.”

Admittedly, that was a poor attempt. In her defense she is slightly inebriated.

Jimin giggles. “You’re silly. So silly. I love you, you stupid, amazing girl, how many times should I say it?”

Taehee shakes her head again. “I know. I know. Not jealous. See?” She lifts their clasped hands, having sneakily intertwined her fingers with Jimin’s just moments earlier. She smiles. “Look. Not jealous at all.”

Jimin rolls her eyes. “Sure, baby. How about we dance for a little more, and then we go back to your room and you show me how not jealous you are by putting on something real nice?”

(Jimin always slips into a bit of her native Busan accent when she says things like this because she knows how much Taehee likes it. She does it now. Taehee likes it.)

Taehee pulls Jimin off the wall and starts to wiggle through the crowd to get back to the middle, surrounded by sounds and people and the atmosphere. “Whichever you want,” Taehee promises.

Jimin seems to like that.

☆

Taehee knocks on Namjoon’s door with an extra Wii controller tucked in her elbow and it swings open to Sojin. On Hoseok’s bed, Hoseok and Yoongi sit with their legs tangled grossly together because they’re lovebirds and can’t keep their hands off each other. Before she can make a snarky comment, Sojin pokes her in the shoulder.

“What are you doing here?”

Taehee shrugs. “I was studying with Minjae so I was already in the building. What’s going on here? You all are having a party? Without me?”

“Tae-ah?” Hobi finally notices her when she sits down on his feet. She hears one of his toes make a pop sound but she ignores it. “Where’s Jimin?”

Taehee snorts. “Believe it or not, we aren’t actually attached at the hip. I think she has a study group for history today. I texted her where I am, so she’ll be here soon.”

Hoseok goes back to whatever he’s doing with his face shoved into Yoongi’s neck. Yoongi looks tiny curled up there next to him. Taehee resists the strange urge to slowly pet her hand down Hoseok’s back like she’s soothing a child. They just look… so peaceful.

Namjoon drops something on his foot and screeches and the moment is broken. Sojin looks completely unfazed as she scrolls on her phone, and the two babies cuddling on Hoseok’s bed look like they didn’t even hear it, but Taehee jumps about a foot in the air. Yoongi kicks at her for jostling them so much and she sticks her tongue out at him.

Another knock sounds at the door, small and tentative. Namjoon is on the floor trying to do something with whatever he just dropped, so Sojin drawls her name, long and drawn-out.

Taehee sighs.

“It’s your girlfriend, you get the door,” Sojin defends.

Taehee sighs again, louder, but she gets up to open the door anyway. She goes to lean down and greet Jimin with a kiss, but she realizes approximately half a second away from assured disaster that the person at the door is not Jimin.

Taehee stops immediately, eyes going wide, face extremely close to Jeonghwa’s. Jeonghwa’s face is frozen in shock and the poor girl looks terrified.

Taehee steps back, pulling the door open wide, and jerks her head to motion for Jeonghwa to come in. Jeonghwa moves like she’s being dragged, tripping over her own feet as she falls into the room, and Taehee clears her throat.

“Hi, Jeong-ah, hello, good to see you. I – thought you were – Jimin.”

Yoongi peeks an eye open. “Jeonghwa looks traumatized,” he notes, observantly, as Jeonghwa stands stock-still in the room like a Sim waiting for instructions. Yoongi turns his one-eyed gaze attentively to Taehee. “What did you do?”

“Why do you assume I did something?” Taehee crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

“You look guilty. It’s also generally a fair guess, always.”

“I may have assumed she was Jimin and tried to kiss her but I have eyes so I noticed and nothing happened,” Taehee mumbles after a silent pause.

Sojin finally looks up from her phone, her eyes connect with Taehee’s, and she bursts into laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” Taehee snaps, batting at Sojin’s legs. “Shut up, shut up, it’s not that funny. You’re all so deprived of entertainment. I even literally brought my Wii remote so we could play but you think I’m more entertaining than the Wii? Is that it? Would you rather sit here and laugh at me than play MarioKart?”

“You’re so dramatic, Tae-ah,” Sojin says through her laughter.

“Okay, that’s pretty dumb, and therefore funny, you have to admit,” Namjoon pipes up.

Taehee glares at him. “You’re all dumb. Does that make you funny? No.” Taehee turns her nose up. “Where’s my girlfriend? She’d defend me. You all have no love to spare.”

“Hey, my love goes to Joonie,” Sojin says, patting Namjoon’s head where he’s still on the floor. That’s a sickeningly sweet thing to say, for someone who consistently expresses her affection for her boyfriend by making puns since they all know she’ll get embarrassed if she has to actually say something kind to him.

“My love goes to Seokseok,” Yoongi mumbles from Hoseok’s bed. They honestly look like they’re drifting off into a nap together. That’s relationship goals, Taehee will admit.

“Jeong-ah is single,” Sojin sighs. “When will you find a girl of your own, darling?”

Jeonghwa finally snaps back online and she blinks owlishly at Sojin. Then at Taehee. Back at Sojin.

“What was the question?”

That sends Sojin back into fits of laughter and she doubles over until she’s wheezing. They almost don’t hear the knock on the door, but Taehee hears it because she’s busy being annoyed with Sojin for laughing at her, and this time she does get to kiss Jimin because this time it is Jimin on the other side.

Jimin looks pleasantly surprised at the greeting but she doesn’t seem to mind. “What’s going on in here? What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Taehee quickly says. “You didn’t miss anything. Sojin is being mean to me.”

Jimin rolls her eyes a little and steps inside. She drops her dance bag on the floor next to the door and takes her chance to ruffle Jeonghwa’s hair sneakily until Jeonghwa notices and screams because she hates it when Jimin does that. Jimin cackles and hides behind Taehee.

“Why are you all in here now?” Namjoon asks. He’s finally put together whatever he dropped on the floor earlier, but Taehee can’t even tell what it is, it looks so weird. He tosses it back on his desk and it teeters dangerously before settling into place.

Jeonghwa pouts. “You don’t want us here?”

“Shut up, I didn’t say that. But there’s nothing going on, is there? Did I forget something important?”

“Actually,” Jimin says loudly, clapping her hands together once. “There is something.”

Taehee tilts her head to the side, eyebrows drawing together. They hadn’t planned this, so she doesn’t know what Jimin’s talking about. Jimin hadn’t mentioned anything earlier in the day either.

Jimin glances at Taehee, something sly in her mona lisa half-smile. “I was in the arts building earlier today,” Jimin begins dramatically.

“You’re majoring in dance, that is an assumption we all made,” Yoongi bites out, half-asleep and even more like a kitten than he usually is. His snark comes out like a whine.

Jimin ignores him and continues. “And I noticed something on one of the corkboards, right by the main entrance, and I think there’s something that Taehee has forgotten to tell us.”

Jimin looks expectantly at Taehee now.

Taehee stares back her. She has no clue what Jimin’s talking about. On a corkboard? Taehee didn’t put anything up. She doesn’t have anything to put up on any corkboards.

“What?”

“You know,” Jimin makes a rolling motion with her hand, encouraging Taehee to speak, “the thing. Come on. You can brag.”

Taehee draws a blank. “What?”

Jimin sighs, but it isn’t exasperated. The half-smile hasn’t disappeared from her face and she looks so earnest. “The photography competition. Exhibition prize.”

It clicks. “Oh!” Taehee says, realizing, and being very loud about it. “Oh!! Yeah! I did do that!” She bounces a little on the balls of her feet, fidgety with excitement as she remembers the notice she’d gotten in her email just two days ago. She’d actually forgotten about it!

She has Sojin’s and Namjoon’s full attention. Even Hoseok props himself up on an elbow at Jimin’s vague words, interest piqued. Yoongi has an eye winked open.

“What happened?” Jeonghwa prompts.

Taehee turns away from Jimin and to face the rest of them. She wiggles her shoulders as her excitement bleeds out of her. She’d opened the email and it had been so late at night that she couldn’t wake anyone up to yell about her achievement, so she’d just left the matter, but then she had just forgotten about it. And Jimin had reminded her! Jimin had seen, and noticed her name, and she’d brought it up in front of all their friends when Taehee had forgotten to mention it.

“I submitted to a photography project competition a few weeks ago, and I won it! There’s a one-hundred-dollar cash prize, but the more important bit is that my work is shown in an exhibition downtown! They’ll actually show my photos at a gallery!” Taehee feels her smile stretch her face, warmth filling her up to the brim. She’s been working towards something like this for so long – photography isn’t her major, but she’s taken a couple of courses on it, and she knows the professors well enough that they’d given her access to the darkroom whenever she wanted.

Seeing her friends’ faces painted with affection and pride at her accomplishment is something lovely. Hoseok screams, delighted, and beckons her over for a hug, which she gladly obliges. As she pulls away from Hoseok, Yoongi gives her a sleepy smile and says “Congrats, Tae-ah,” and it’s so sincere, so pleased, that she marvels at how she ever felt bitter towards him, before she even knew who he was. He’s too much of a sweetheart not to love.

Sojin claps her hands together in excitement. “Good job, good job, good job, I’m so proud of you, you’re such a good artist, I knew you’d do it, we all knew it –” Sojin continues mumbling into Taehee’s shoulder as the younger flops onto her for a big hug.

Namjoon wraps his arms around her too. “That’s awesome, Tae. I’m proud too.”

Taehee scrambles off them, and back up to throw her arms around Jimin, who’s waiting with her arms extended. Jimin’s arms come to automatically wrap around her like she can’t help but hold Taehee when she’s close, and Jimin presses a kiss into her hair sweetly. “I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell anyone,” she teases.

“I swear I forgot!” Taehee says. She sees Jeonghwa, leaned against the wall and pretending to stare at her feet because she isn’t getting any attention, and snorts. She pulls Jeonghwa closer by her sweatshirt sleeve. “Come here,” she says, and wraps an arm around her, too.

Jimin pushes her away by the shoulders when Taehee feels like she could fall asleep standing up like that, wrapped up and comforted.

“What do you want to do to celebrate? Date? We can go out this weekend?” Jimin suggests. She has her lower lip caught between her teeth, hesitation written in her wide eyes.

Why would she be hesitant? Taehee nods eagerly. “Mhm! Yes, let’s go out. It’s been a long time since I took you on a date, huh?”

“Yeah, too long. Okay, is there somewhere you wanna go? Something you wanna do?”

Taehee purses her lips and thinks hard. “Not… there’s not anything I can think of. I’ll go look around and see if there’s something we haven’t already done in the town, okay?”

Jimin shakes her head immediately.

Taehee can feel the corners of her lips pulling down, a little hurt. “What? Why not?” Does Jimin not want her to plan it? She can’t remember anything going horribly wrong the last time she picked out a place. In fact, Taehee’s always been the one to pick out the place. And nothing’s… ended in disaster, or destruction. She can’t think of a reason for Jimin to refuse so intensely.

“Because,” Jimin says.

Taehee waits. Nothing more. “Wh – did I do something last time?” She tries to mask it, but it’s hard to ask what she did wrong without sounding hurt.

“No! No, no, you didn’t.”

Taehee frowns. “Then why?”

Jimin slants her gaze away. She looks conflicted, chewing at her lip. “I just – want to plan this one.”

“Is there a reason? Did you not like the last one?”

Jimin’s hands squeeze on Taehee’s shoulders like she’s trying to communicate everything that way, but Taehee doesn’t know how to read that.

Finally, Jimin gives in and looks back at her. “You always plan them. And I – like you said, I’ve never taken you out, it’s always you taking me on a date. So – so I want to do it.”

Taehee doesn’t have anything to say to that.

That’s right. She did say that. And it’s… it’s true. Something warm and soft expands in her chest at Jimin saying it. That she cares.

Taehee nods, slowly. “Yeah. Please.” Her voice is quiet. She will not make it any louder.

Jimin smiles. “You’ll let me take you on a date, Taetae?” She nudges Taehee’s foot with hers, teasing.

“Yeah, Minnie. I would love that.”

☆

About two weeks later is when Taehee’s exhibition downtown opens to the public. It has her name on a fancy black-and-white card, and it’s a little room inside of the much larger gallery. There’s a title by each picture, titles that Taehee picked out by closing her eyes and then opening them to the picture and then writing down the first thing that came to mind when she saw each photo.

As Taehee takes a little trip around her own little exhibition, her friends ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the mixture of film and digital photos, it’s hard to believe that these are all pictures she took. Photos she developed and edited and finished.

One is a film photo of Sojin and Namjoon. They’re in the library, probably in the sixth floor because that’s where their favorite study corner is. They hadn’t known Taehee was there, but they were curled into each other, Namjoon with a stack of books on his side and his nose stuck in something thick, and Sojin with her long limbs bent so she could tuck herself into him as she took notes on the textbook in front of her. The shelves of books behind them, out of focus, made them look so cozy, so comfortable. They looked so right to be there, in their space, together.

Sojin coos when she sees it, and Namjoon slips an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “We really look like that?” he wonders out loud.

Taehee nods. “Glad I could show you what the rest of us see.”

Namjoon’s cheeks start to turn a sweet shade of pink as he continues staring at the picture. Sojin’s smile when she sees the look on his face is the definition of lovestruck.

Another photo, this time digital, shows Hoseok and Jimin and Jeonghwa, at dance practice. It’s an older photo, from when they were practicing a unit stage they called 3J – in street clothes, to practice hip hop, joggers clinging to their legs and tees damp with sweat, all captured frozen in their ending pose. The lines of their bodies match so perfectly, and the angle from which the photo is taken makes them look larger than life. The sweat shines on their skin, dedication and practice visible in every pixel.

The three subjects, when they find it, call Taehee over to explain the title.

“Euphoria,” she reads it out, “it’s an English word, that means, like, this extreme kind of happiness. Pure happiness, I think. That’s – that’s what you make me feel, when you dance. That’s what you feel when you dance, too. Right?”

Three sets of eyes shine with wonder at her explanation. She feels warm.

The next photo is of Hoseok and Yoongi. This is newer, of course it is, because Taehee hasn’t known Yoongi for long. But this one is taken in Hoseok’s dorm’s lounge room. She had asked them to sit for a picture and of course they’d agreed and proceeded to do nothing but fool around, trying their very best to do the exact opposite of what she’d asked. Hoseok is a silhouette against the window where he had planted himself, the line of his body curved like a parenthesis against the whiteness of the sunlight. Yoongi sits on the floor, a couple of feet away, knees tucked into his chest and just looking up at Hoseok. Taehee thinks Hoseok might’ve said something stupid, right at that moment, because his mouth is open and his eyes are amused but more indicative of the scene, Yoongi’s expression is open and pure in laughter. His gummy smile is on display for everyone, a side of him that Hoseok sees most often, that the rest of the group is slowly becoming accustomed to as well.

“You told me your NDA ended a couple weeks ago,” Taehee says. She’s a little nervous for this one. “And you posted about Hoseok on your Twitter. So – so I thought this would be okay.” She wrings her hands together in anticipation.

Yoongi, a little unexpectedly, wraps his wiry arms around Taehee’s frame and squeezes her. “You’re too talented,” he says into her shirt, “to be worried about showing your pictures because of me.”

Hoseok has his jaw hinged a little open at the photo. “I look at him like that?” He asks, a little in awe.

Taehee laughs. “Yeah, you do. Lovebirds,” she teases.

Another photo is of Jeonghwa, alone. She had asked Jeonghwa to come out to a playground with her just off campus to take some photos, and of course she’d said okay because Taehee had promised food afterwards, and this picture sees her perched on top of the monkey bars, hands braced on it and legs hanging off. She looks down and out of the frame, craning her neck a little bit; something must have caught her eye. But the smooth lines of her body, stark and soft and human against the artificial metal of the playground, contrast the childish roundness to her face, the innocence gleaming out of it. Her black hair, feathery, falls around her face so softly. She looks like she’s lost even though she knows exactly where she is.

Taehee finds Jimin staring at the photo, head tilted to the side in the habit she’s picked up from Taehee. Confused, it seems, but her expression is open with an emotion that Taehee doesn’t know the name of. 

“What is it?” Taehee asks, softly, but Jimin jumps a little anyway.

“I just – ” Jimin starts, the stops. She tries again. “I think I know what you felt when you took this.”

Taehee nods. That’s the goal. Pride beams in her.

Jimin turns and looks at her, attention pulled away entirely from the photo. “I think I know what you feel when you look at her,” she clarifies.

Taehee furrows her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Jimin hesitates. Looks away for a moment. “I’ll explain later,” she promises. And so Taehee nods, and lets her keep wandering the exhibition.

The last photo is from the shoot she did with Jimin in the gardens. Jimin looks like an angel in this photo; it had been so hard to choose, out of all the ones she developed from that shoot, one to include in this set for the competition. Jimin is crouched to ground level, on the sidewalk, one arm extended to pick a white flower to match her thin, strappy sundress. The rest of the flower surrounding the one she’s chosen are a deep red. Tall grass and trees fill the background, and nothing is really in focus, in that blurry way that Taehee loves to see her photos turn out. The effect softens Jimin into a glowing, haloed, ethereal thing.

She named this one serendipity. Taehee turns when she hears a shutter going off, but it’s Sojin, giggling as she takes a photo of Taehee’s reaction to her own photo. “And you think I looked in love in that picture,” she says, turning the phone around to show Taehee, “look at yourself.”

She’s definitely right. Taehee looks like she wouldn’t rather be anywhere but right there, attention focused so clearly on the photo of Jimin.

Look at yourself.