Aristotle and Dante.

Kim Taehyung has always wanted to ask: Why do you care? In some/most cases, he wants to ask: Why the do you care? From his mother’s Church friends who have the indecency to pretend like they know him and ask questions of his personal life like Do you have a girlfriend, Taehyung? or Why don’t you have a girlfriend, Taehyung? or Have you ever had a girlfriend, Taehyung? He believes these questions are equivalent to Have you ever had premarital , Taehyung?, they just had enough decency to cover their question with stupider ones that doesn’t even make Taehyung feel any better about being questioned by people he doesn’t know when he made the mistake of spending one second after his mother’s Church friends arrive at their house for a meeting, a pray-over or a tea. He doesn’t even ing get why they need to have tea at his house. Like can’t they have tea somewhere else so he can save himself from further insanity about how some inscrutable people question people they know nothing about?

It doesn’t end with his mother’s Church friends. Funnily, it comes in different kinds and types of people that he just wants to yell, Why the do you care? From the kids around his age who call themselves his ‘friends’ and who advertently question everything about his life like Why is your hair like morning hair all the time? or Do you always have headphones on? Why? or Have you always wanted to become an architect? to people he can’t care less what they think about him – more so, their questions about him. They come from all kinds and types but it doesn’t make it any less harder – or a lot easier to deal with for Taehyung. Most of the time, he just smiles and answers in the most polite way he can, when in truth, he is dying to shave the hair of the person who asks him nonsensical questions, like they really know him and they really care.

It doesn’t help that he is raised by such God-fearing individuals who fell in love, graduated in university, got married and never once had premarital before getting married. He doesn’t like to think much that he is living under his parents – mostly his mom’s – strict rules but he likes to be reminded that his games, his computer, his allowance and his car will easily vanish the moment he lets it slip.

However, there is in life what people call highlights and just one day, Taehyung’s life is practically hell in earth because of a plate or ten he failed to submit because a ing person bumped into him while holding a large cup of iced red tea, his plates and his life fragile on his hands, and that basically turned a son raised by God-fearing individuals to the nastiest, meanest and doesn’t-give-a--anymore person. That’s his ing midterms so it is understandable.

He walks bristly from the Fine Arts and Architecture Building and crosses the field where many blocks are still holding their Physical Education classes. He still doesn’t understand why such class is required for every major. He feels like Mental Education classes should be more important because he is seriously losing his mind right now, the loud blare of music coming from his big headphones so no one will talk to him or even if someone will, he’ll be deaf before he hears them.

After successfully crossing the field, he thinks he is lucky enough not to wound up anyone he knows – or who knows him, for this matter, because if someone talks to him… If someone talks to him…

“Hey, are you alright?” A ing bunny holding a large white placard with multicolored letters spelling Free Hugs!, flowers and rainbows and ing unicorns with the letters suddenly appears – or hops – in front of Taehyung that scares the out of him, though only for a split second before the question registers to him and the ridiculous bunny costume registers to him and the idea that if someone dares to talk to him that day he’ll finally lose it registers to him.

He glares at the guy in the white and pink bunny costume and hisses, “Why the do you care?”

Taehyung almost regrets it. Almost. Because the idea of a grown up guy in a bunny costume is still ridiculous to him but the guy looks like the most innocent person he has ever seen in his entire life and that includes his mother’s Church friends’ annoying brats who would cry because of the air that they sometimes bring along with them to their house. With slightly disheveled hair because of the silly costume he notices is red (Who the wears his hair red?), small eyes and dumpling-like cheeks, he swears the guy can pass as an eight year-old. But he is almost as tall as him, just about three to four centimeters shorter and he knows he wouldn’t be standing here inside the campus that only allows student-initiated events in the university premises if he isn’t at least a freshman. But somehow, he knows he isn’t a freshman.

The bunny guy’s bright smile slightly falters though only for a quick moment before it brightens his face again and he exclaims, “Of course I care! Free hugs!”

Taehyung doesn’t know if he wants to hit the guy on the face or kick him with his shin or both but before he can decide what the best course of action is without losing his games or his computer or his allowance or his car, he gets pulled into the tightest hug he has ever been in like, ten years. He pretty much stopped allowing his parents to hug him, or worst, kiss him, after he turned ten years old and his parents were the only people he remembered doing that to him on his consciousness before even them, he couldn’t see himself hugging or kissing without puking.

He basically just freezes there as the bunny wraps his arms around him tightly. It lasts longer than Taehyung imagines and he immediately pulls away, almost throwing the other guy on the ground but surprisingly, despite his smaller built, the guy stays put and looks at him amusedly, like this is something to be amused at but keeps the smile on his face.

“Get away from me,” Taehyung hisses but he notices his tone doesn’t sound the least bit angry but just surprised. At the very least, irritated but not entirely angry. He doesn’t want that to register to the other so he still looks at him furiously.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just…” the other guy pauses.

He knows he better leave. Why the does the thing this guy wants to say matter anyway? But he finds himself looking at him, with the same intensity of pissed, and growling, “What?!”

The other guy smiles at him and maybe it has something to do with his ed up plates because of the ing, hopping person with soda. Maybe it has something to do with his failed midterms and the consequences of it if he wants to stay on his major. Maybe it has something to do with his current life on hell here on earth. But it has certainly nothing to do with the guy’s smile.

It’s just… He doesn’t know. Weird?

Taehyung is never been the one to be fond with words. Maybe that’s why he likes Why the do you care? so much because it can mean I don’t want to talk to you. or Who are you to question me or what I do or what I think? or Just who do you think you are? or Leave me alone. But if he is going to try to explain the guy’s smile in words, he’ll say it’s like losing something and giving hope to find that thing ever again after looking for it forever and then one day, finding it. That same feeling. Although he isn’t sure if it makes sense because the guy just smiled.

He just ing smiled.

“It’s just that you kind of looked like you needed a hug.”

Taehyung doesn’t remember how he gets home that day in his car without any accident, how he shrugs the rubbish coming from the bunny guy’s mouth and how he ends up feeling sorrier for himself that night, alone in his room. And it’s not just because of his goddamned plates.

He doesn’t seriously think he’ll see the guy in the bunny costume again. Their university is huge! He can swear he tries remembering each and every person he sees everyday but he ends up with none but those people who call themselves his ‘friends’ at the end of each day. But again, life has what people call highlights and maybe, this part of his life’s highlight is supposed to be the bunny guy. He just doesn’t know that then.

“Hey!”

What the .

“Do you remember me? I’m the guy…” the bunny guy chirps happily, like talking to a guy he forcefully hug is normal for him.

“With the bunny costume who I should sue for ual harassment,” Taehyung finishes up for him, looking at him in a cryptic manner because that’s what he does with people he doesn’t want to do anything with. He gives them puzzles and mysteries so they will give up trying to understand him and leave him alone.

But the guy doesn’t budge. He merely sits beside Taehyung like that is ing normal considering Taehyung doesn’t even know his name and most probably, unless he is a stalker, the guy also doesn’t know Taehyung’s name, and chuckles at the other’s comment.

Taehyung realizes he looks normal when he’s not in a bunny costume, with a slightly bigger black shirt than his built that nicely (He didn’t just say nicely to a stranger.) emphasizes his clear complexion, straight denim jeans, and rubber shoes. He notices he is wearing a large sling bag instead of the usual backpack university students like themselves have. He looks pretty normal. Except for the hair.

“Why are you alone? Where are your friends?” Taehyung takes note that he is more interested in his life than his name. How odd of a person.

“Why the do you care?” he answers, feeling proud of himself that he finally got to say the thing he has always wanted to say twice already. Although his mother – or his father or his mother’s Church friends – will probably not to be proud of him.

“I already answered that question,” the guy smiles at him and it’s that smile again that somehow, Taehyung can’t stand up and leave and sue him for ual harassment. “Of course I care.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I don’t need to know you to care about you.”

“You’re weird.”

“No,” he smiles up brightly at him that Taehyung thinks he is going to blind. Too much brightness for a person so used to the dark like him. “I’m Jimin. Park Jimin. And you are?”

He doesn’t know why but he finds himself giving the bunny guy his name. “Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

“And why are you alone?”

“I don’t have any friends,” Taehyung answers – and it’s the truth. He wonders if Jimin will believe him though because when he tells that to his parents, his father will laugh at him and his mother will mess his hair saying, How can someone have no friends, Taehyung? They don’t understand him. They probably never had.

But Jimin only nods thoughtfully and settles his huge bag on the ground.

“I had a friend once.” Suddenly, Taehyung finds himself talking. He doesn’t understand why because he only met Jimin but still, he finds his mouth moving and eventually, maybe his heart, too. “He was my only friend. His name was Aristotle. But he died during my senior year in high school. I don’t think I ever really moved on from his death.”

Jimin nods again, placing his chin on top of his knees as he wraps his arms around his legs. He hums to the sound of the breeze and listens to Taehyung.

“I think I loved him too much,” Taehyung confesses. But it’s like his mouth is moving on its own and he doesn’t have control on what he is saying. Maybe it’s this foreign relationship with a human being like himself, the way he can talk to him in a manner he is most likely to understand. Unlike when he is talking to say, his pillow or his bedroom ceiling or wall. “Maybe that’s why I can’t move you. Maybe I shouldn’t have loved him too much.”

Jimin smiles at that. “It’s not because you loved him too much that you can’t move on. It’s because you couldn’t moved on that you love him too much.”

Taehyung doesn’t understand if he understands that but somehow, he knows that he does.

“I had a friend, too,” Jimin tells after a moment. “His name was Dante and he just died a couple of months ago. I didn’t know I could cry so much.” He smiles after the thought – albeit a very sad thought –  and Taehyung realizes he likes that smile. He likes that smile because it’s truth and because it’s honesty and because it doesn’t ask so much and because he knows it really cares.

Taehyung continues to sketch the remedial midterms his professor gave him while Jimin sits beside him, humming a sound against the own music of the wind. From time to time, he’ll glance at Jimin and he’ll see his eyes on him and they’ll both smile.

It’s strange for Taehyung that some stranger can connect to you in almost a blink of an eye but people who you have known almost all your life are still in a bigger mess than ever trying to get through you. But a lot of things have always been strange for Taehyung. Humans, especially. Human relationships, most especially. But then, he figures maybe Jimin is not a stranger after all. He gets this weirdest feeling that maybe Aristotle sent Jimin to him. So he wouldn’t be that lonely anymore.

He wants to think maybe Dante sent him to Jimin, too.

“So,” Jimin asks after Taehyung finishes the sketch he is doing. “What is Aristotle?”

“A dog,” Taehyung grins. Then he asks as well, “And Dante?”

Jimin smiles and somehow Taehyung knows he’ll not have to ask Why the do you care? anymore. Not so much anyway. “A rabbit.”

Oh. A rabbit.

Of course it’s a rabbit.

End

A/N: Like VMin, Jimin's strawberry jam hair, the idea of Jimin in a bunny costume and the idea of Taehyung as an eccentric and rebellous person, I love Benjamin Alire Saenz' Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. It's the first book I picked up to read in a while, a book I read the entire night until I realized it was already morning. The book is beautiful.

Aristotle, the dog, and Dante, the rabbit, came to life because of that book.

Take care, everyone. Love always. - Elle