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    "I hate you so much, Tae." Jimin had an ugly sobbing face, sniffling belligerently, tears threatening to glide down his cheeks, and were already trickling his eyelashes. "You hate me, you always hate me because you're so mean to me!"

    "What? Me? Mean? W-What did I do? Oh god, M-Minnie, don't cry." Taehyung verbally flapped, witnessing his best friend spiraling out of control for the first time in their friendship, shedding artificial tears!

    "You always avoid questions about yourself, and you always make me look like I'm the one rambling the whole time. I made you hang with Kookie because I wanted to see if you were different from someone else, and you were. Don't do me like that, Tae!

    "Don't make me someone you can't trust! Why are you so scared of me? What will I ever do to you? I'm just trying to be your best friend, but to you, it's probably not even real, is it?"

    Oh god, Taehyung never knew one bit of Jimin's conflict. Taehyung realized now that he had been too self-absorbed and overanalyzing everything, causing him to overlook certain things.

    Like how to be grateful about his vicinity, what he had instead of what he wished he had.

    Taehyung was precarious that he wasn't able to view himself worthy of this sort of title, yet, the fact that he affected someone this badly for the first time brought him closure and warmth he never regarded.

    Not that he was a sadist, however, that someone truly cherished him for him, let's hope whatever truth unfolds later won't break that.

    "No, no! It's not like that, Minnie!" Out of impulse, Taehyung swiftly hugged Jimin's slim waist and had the snout of his nose nuzzling into his chest. "I don't hate you, I love you a lot, I can't survive in this school without you! It's just that— I'm scared of intimacy, of trusting someone after everything that had happened during middle school!"

    There, Taehyung hollered the overbearing truth, after a delicate minute of Jimin sniffling, Jimin pulled away first and greedily stared at him with a questionable expression.

    "What happened during middle school?"

    "What, what happened...?" Taehyung droned off, questioning his own motives and words, petrified, traumatized to moot even a speck of it, trailing away in his intrusive thoughts. "Well...what happened was, I— I—"

    Can he say it? Can he? Will he? Wafting in and out a massive amount of breath, his nether lip trembling, whisking his head away so he won't have to face reality.

    For a few seconds, as Taehyung purchased the track field through the window of the infirmary, there was a group of joggers from afar. Upon the scene, Taehyung reminisced Jungkook, distracting himself from the gruesome circumstances in his early youth.

    As if he was ashamed to have these feelings, to say the least, as if treasuring someone can be limited.

    If he were a girl, would he have suffered less?

    If he were a girl, would admitting to something so "gross" such as being gay be easier?

    Hold on, but wouldn't the thought of transforming into a girl plainly to be chosen by someone you yearned for be any grosser?

"Never mind, don't tell me if you're not comfortable. Besides, didn't you have a migraine? It will add, you dumbass." Jimin rebutted through the pout on his plump lips, bonking the crest of Taehyung's pained head with his fist.

    Taehyung trapped Jimin's wrist within his fingers, not letting him go. Jimin was startled, what a manly thing to do, locking one's wrist insistently.

    "Jimin, I like boys !" Even manlier and insistent of Taehyung, catching Jimin off-guard— wait, he liked boys?!

    "W-What?"

    "..." Was it a mistake?

    Taehyung wouldn't have the strength to endure it, in reality, he might have a mental panic attack again if he ever decided to cock up his head and bravely meet Jimin's eyes as if coming out of the closet was a day-to-day occurrence in 2010.

    "That's..." Taehyung clenched his trembling fists, digging fingernails into his palms and barring his eyes and humanity away with a safe lock, crossing his fingers and hoping he was dead!

    Fuck, fuck, this was harder than Taehyung imagined. He had invested himself in clips of these procedures, the endings were generally positive.

    Taehyung had read countless queer fan-fictions for experiments, even queer coming-of-age films, albeit them being mostly French and Taehyung unable to read the English subtitles, he still wept!

    How could Taehyung have forgotten this was reality? Never had Taehyung coveted to reverse the clock ever so diligently right at this moment! Fictions and fantasies were much docile than reality, Taehyung had no choice but to indulge.

    "That's it?!" Jimin shrieked.

    What?

    "What?" Taehyung confronted Jimin, his best friend, atlas, able to paint a vivid image of Jimin's coltish expression. Oh, Taehyung might start to cry at that.

    The littlest details mattered, too. The way Jimin eyed him with love and affection even after hearing such a grueling confession, such brazen and forgiving light-brown irises, as if Jimin was an angel in salvation blessing his disgusting soul.

"That's the stupidest reason to bully someone!" Jimin bickered, looking honestly distressed, grumpy, huffing and puffing with the stomp of his foot. Taehyung saw an energetic baby chick. "What is wrong with them?!"

    Taehyung had told Jimin about his bullied experience during middle school one time ago, as they had been friends for 2 years. Surely, amidst the long period of time provided, there should be something close to that to be disclosed somehow.

    Unfortunately, Taehyung made it sound light-hearted, consequently, he never told Jimin about the why or the how. Just a simple: "I was bullied during middle school, please take care of me, Jimin."

    About how they did it was worse, what they did was unforgivable! Jimin continued, "I'm sure you don't owe me anything to tell me the whole detail, it might traumatize you, I just hope they're not bothering you anymore."

    Taehyung shook his head to affirm him, wriggling all of his hair like a puppy drying itself after being dampened. It should impact the migraine, yet it had receded a while ago.

The migraine was no more and it was strange, human nature not functioning of nature was strange.

    What kind of immune system was Taehyung gifted? Or was it a superpower?

    Taehyung's eyes widened in awareness, feeling anguished, he grabbed Jimin's arms and cried out to his best friend for help, hungrily ready to beg his way out of the catastrophe he had created of Jeon Jungkook.

    "T-They're not bothering me, Minnie. They're not! It's no one's fault, it's not my fault, I can't help falling in love with him!" The immediate outburst would certainly shock a person to death, Taehyung was rambling like a mentally challenged patient to a psychologist in an asylum.

    "Him? W-Who?!" Jimin stammered. The first time Jimin ever had the fortune of beholding this side of Taehyung.

    Taehyung was always ideal, prim and proper, and desirable. Plus, he was an honor student, and a teacher's pet. He's top of his class, Jimin always assumed Taehyung was fine, that it would be unnecessary to go: "Are you alright?" Once in a while.

    Guess Jimin was wrong. And Jimin felt terrible.

    "K—KOOKIE!" Taehyung roared at the top of his lungs the familiar name.

    "You have feelings for Kookie!?" Woah, Jimin wished the earth would swallow him whole. How oblivious must he be? He had been friends with Taehyung for years! What the actual fuck?!

    "K-Kookie, he's— he's...uughh, he's..." Taehyung relapsed, tongue-tied into a knot. His was recalling itself before his eyes, ruminating into objectives after objectives of everything that had transpired.

    Taehyung sensed himself gradually being driven into insanity. Was this it? Was this his breaking point? He flunked it.

    The deities upstairs had bequeathed him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reverse back the clock, exterminate the mission, and reside in the anew, and Taehyung had fucked up.

    "He's gone. Kookie is...gone."

    "He's gone? What are you talking about? He—just messaged me...?"

    "He did?" Come on, Taehyung, will you irrevocably fight your ass off for Jungkook's sake? This was about Jungkook, not about you, it had never been. "What did he say?"

    "He said he had a headache so he went home early, told me not to look for him and stuff."

    Jimin's puffy and teary eyes seemed scared or concerned, backing away every now and then to assess Taehyung better, fishing out his phone to prove his words in case Taehyung in this mental condition would become wary, or would indirectly harm himself or someone.

    Taehyung's head descended towards his own set of thighs, logically because of his hangover from last night's cocktail. So he must have gone home already. Please be home, Jungkook.

    "Also, he asked about you," Taehyung inhaled through his mouth. "He asked if you're still with me and stuff. He assumed you went home or something as if you're supposed to," Jimin confirmed his non-verbal question.

    That was strange.

    "But I told him you're with me," Jimin paused. "Did something happen between you two? I mean, I saw you guys yesterday leaving the snack bar together, ahaha."

    Will you be whining instead of working, Taehyung?

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✩‧₊ AUTHOR'S NOTE ★

word count : 1579 words
published date : 03/02/22

Having a nervous breakdown cuz : mood
am an introvert and I got schoo ~(￣▽￣)~*