Aristotle and Dante II.

 

Taehyung and Jimin don’t exchange mobile numbers that day but eventually, they do, too, after meeting on more than several occasions at the campus without even intending to. Strange, considering people usually exchange mobile numbers because they could not meet without intending to but perhaps, there is always a bizarre feeling for Taehyung whenever he sees Jimin in front of the Main Building or walking by the Car Park or around the Fine Arts and Architecture Building (considering that the Engineering Building is at the other end of the campus from his building) and he is never the one to be fond of surprises which surprised him that he doesn’t kick Jimin out of his life after that well – peculiar two meetings with the bunny guy.

But the truth is, he can’t kick Jimin out. It’s like he just latched himself onto Taehyung’s life and scraping him off will hurt Taehyung as well.

He slightly feels a little bad now when he thinks, or calls out loud, Jimin the bunny guy because he remembers Dante, his dead rabbit, and somehow, he feels like remembering Dante is like remembering Aristotle as well. He has never gotten over the death of his dog. It’s hard to get over the death of your only friend, he thinks.

He expects it a little, when he is walking like a corpse in front of the Main Building after successfully submitting about fifty remedial midterm plates for one course and not to mention, he has not slept for about five days so he could complete those and review for the rest of his courses’ written tests, he sees Jimin, sitting alone on the grass with a sketchbook on his lap and a concentration impossible to break. He notices that when Jimin is concentrating, his dark eyes looks larger – but he knows he is only probably imagining it because the guy’s eyes are small. But Taehyung doesn’t really feel like explaining to anybody so he finds Jimin’s eyes larger than usual when he is concentrating and that’s it.

He hovers a little to see what the other guy is working at, probably distracting Jimin by blocking the natural light, before slumping himself beside him. “If you can draw that much, why didn’t you study arts?”

Jimin smiles but he doesn’t look at Taehyung. He just keeps on shading the part of the tree that he is shading before he stops for some moment because Taehyung blocked the natural lighting of the setting he is trying to sketch. “You know, I can say the same to you, Taehyung.”

“How did you know it is me?” Taehyung is sure Jimin has not looked at him once.

“Your voice,” Jimin simply answers. “It’s distinct.”

Distinct. That’s the first time someone comments on his voice – not that he really wants it from anyone or he gives other people enough time to tell him what they think of his voice. He decides he likes that description for his voice anyway – distinct.

“Do you sing?” Jimin suddenly asks as he finally looks up at Taehyung. He finishes the sketch of the largest and oldest tree standing in front of their university’s Main Building and quietly hands it over to Taehyung.

“No.”

Taehyung takes the sketchbook and studies Jimin’s sketch. But there is nothing to study because the sketch is, well, beautiful. Perhaps that is why he takes arts over literature, even if he knows they have different purposes and both can be equally eternal and their beauty ethereal. Because art is art. If he finds it beautiful, it is beautiful. If not, it is not. At least for him. There is no complicatedness in it for him unlike in words put together. A single word can or can not mean anything. A single art can or can not mean everything.

“Why don’t you sing?”

He thinks the question is ridiculous and his look on Jimin when he hands him back the sketchbook doesn’t fail to express the thought. He shrugs because looks are not enough for Jimin. “Because I don’t sing,” he only answers.

Jimin thinks about it for a moment before closing the sketchbook and keeping it inside his huge sling bag. “I think your voice will be great if you sing.”

Taehyung tries to keep that off his mind the next time his mother’s Church friends’ come to their house to pray and they sing songs of prayers because according to his mother, it is more enjoyable and it is sort of a higher form of prayer which he thinks is ridiculous because if there is God – and he thinks there is – he thinks God doesn’t discriminate against devotees who can sing and those who can’t. Besides, some people can sing prayers like they’re in an opera stage but don’t mean a single thing of what they are speaking while there are people who simply close their eyes to pray and mean everything they are saying even only with their hearts.

“Why didn’t you study arts?”

“I can say the same to you, Taehyung,” Jimin answers again.

“You haven’t seen me drawn,” Taehyung points out.

“I’ve seen you,” the other guy protests. “When you work on your plates and let me talk alone.”

Taehyung smiles. He thinks that when he is around Jimin – and ever since he met Jimin – he has been smiling for someone who stops smiling when his dog died. “That’s different, Chim. Those are course plates, not to mention, midterm plates. I need to do them the best I can.”

“Chim? Is that my new nickname?” Jimin asks but he is smiling.

“If you want to,” Taehyung grins. “Not that I’ll stop calling you that if you don’t want.”

“,” Jimin says although it is obvious he is trying to keep himself from laughing.

“What? What is that? What did you say, Chim?”

Jimin finally ends up cracking. He’s not used to cursing, one thing he has told Taehyung before, and whenever he does, it doesn’t sound like he is angry or even mildly irritated. Not that he has ever felt the need to curse someone because of anger or irritation. He tells Taehyung he just hits them on the face instead and Taehyung has not been able to process that one: how someone can not curse but easily hit someone on the face.

“Do you always give nicknames to people you just met?”

“No, just you,” Taehyung answers honestly. He doesn’t tell Jimin that he is the first in his life. Of course, if he’s not going to count Aristotle who he would call from time to time when his friend was still alive Ari. “Anyway, those are course plates. They don’t count.”

“Of course they do,” Jimin says, raising his brow at Taehyung and giving him an expression like that is supposed to be the most obvious thing in the world. “Those are plates you need to do to pass your courses and stay on your major. And they’re beautiful! What more if you just, say, draw something you like? No pressure of passing your courses or staying on your major. No professor telling you the lines need to be longer, more defined or the look rushed and stressed. No rules. No limitations.”

He says it like he is showing him a new world. He thinks it makes sense but he doesn’t say it. Unlike Jimin, he doesn’t know how to say things. But he doesn’t counter it either. Maybe one day, he’ll just give Jimin a piece of art, maybe a painting or something, that will tell all the words he isn’t able to say to him because he doesn’t know to express himself in words.

“Why didn’t you take arts then? Why be an engineer?”

“Why be an architect?” Jimin smiles. “We all have our reasons for our decisions, Tae. Why I chose engineering. Why you chose architecture. Why we chose those paths even if, as you say, we could have chosen arts. Why I chose to be an engineer and live as an engineer for the rest of my life, maybe.” He looks dreamy after the afterthought and even if Taehyung thinks that is supposed to be worried, an anxiety for the unknown future, it just looks solemn slipping in his slightly chapped lips as if he is giving in to the possibility of an unguaranteed life and the reality that he is never in control of this life.

“And for you, an architect…” Jimin continues, turning to look at Taehyung with a smile still on his face. “Although sometimes, we don’t get to choose. Those reasons are more difficult to see… Why Dante died. Or why Aristotle died.”

Taehyung stares at Jimin as he talks, completely taken by the way the other speaks although he can’t identify what it is exactly that is taking him. Perhaps the solitude he is feeling even if he is not entirely alone or the way Jimin’s mouth moves, as if his brain is on his mouth and he has rehearsed everything he is saying to Taehyung, or Jimin’s voice itself. He doesn’t know if he’ll describe it as distinct like how he did to him. But Jimin’s voice is Jimin’s voice.

He thinks he’ll have to give him a separate piece for his voice, probably an abstract with multitudes of colors on one end and none on the other (most probably black, the absence of it all). Like Jimin’s voice which seems to be a rainbow with different colors and sounds but at the same time, just one – Jimin’s.

“Dante was given by a friend – sort of a going away gift,” Jimin tells after a moment.

“A friend?”

“A human friend,” Jimin grins at him. “Unlike you, Kim Taehyung, I do have human friends.”

If someone else says that to him, he will take offense and curse the person who said that to him in his mind, if his parents are around. If his parents are not around, he’ll probably take than chance to say Why the do you care? in the person’s face. But so far on his life, no one has ever been close to being what Jimin is to him right now – a friend. Or a human friend. He slightly feels bad thinking about Aristotle because he, too, had been nothing but a friend to him. But he figures human friends are different from dog friends. Human friends tell truth unlike dog friends. They stay with you all the time, keep you company and show you the feeling of coming home and knowing you were awaited but dog friends can’t talk. They can’t tell truth. Jimin tells truth.

“Well, shame on you,” Taehyung tells him, pretending to be indignant. “You miss the spectacular chance of talking to the mirror or the wall or the ceiling or your mother’s potted roses!”

“Spectacular?” They both end up cracking.

“I read sometimes.” They laugh more.

“Your mother’s potted roses?” They can’t stop laughing.

“She keeps many inside our house so it will smell nice and natural. Or so she says.” They probably look like a couple of lunatics but they don’t stop laughing.

Taehyung doesn’t know he can laugh that much, that he has it in him to let himself be engulfed by sheer bliss and laugh it out, even though the reason is stupid or doesn’t make sense (Potted roses?) and will probably upset his mother. But he laughs and he laughs with Jimin. It feels nice but somehow, he still thinks of Aristotle because the last time he can remember himself laughing like this, laughing like there is no tomorrow and if there is, Aristotle would be with him. Aristotle had learned to jump the highest bar on their community’s park or Aristotle slipped on their newly waxed floor because they were running inside the house or Aristotle knocked one of his father’s jars accidentally (There is nothing to laugh there but he still did because Aristotle looked up at him like he was going to cry until he wrapped his arms around him and told him I’ll never let anybody hurt you because of a stupid jar, Ari.). He was so happy when Aristotle had finally learned to jump the highest bar that he just laughed – laughed, laughed and laughed. He knew Aristotle laughed with him as he wagged his tail and obediently followed him back home.

“What are you thinking?” Jimin asks when Taehyung turns quiet.

He doesn’t even lie. “Aristotle.”

Jimin turns quiet, too. “Yeah. I think of Dante, too.”

The mood has turned from that of a party to a depressing, sullen one and they don’t even try to kick that mood off because they are remembering Aristotle and Dante. Taehyung thinks that sometimes, people like to be sad not because they want to depress themselves and their souls out of their bodies but probably because they remember memories. The thing about memories is they are nothing but memories. So people remember even if it comes with severe sadness.

Which is probably why he is meeting Jimin on a weekend, Saturday, outside the campus, moving his feet from time to time to keep it from going numb because of the coldness of the weather. He thinks it’s about -8 degrees that morning, considering it’s not yet even proper winter, as the guy in his father’s radio said this morning. He looks at his watch, eleven minutes before nine. They agreed to meet at nine.

“You’re early,” Jimin suddenly appears in front of him, wearing about as much clothes as he does.

“I need time to think,” Taehyung tells him.

Jimin laughs at that and begins to walk. They are, apparently, going to a pet store.

“Are you sure about this?” Taehyung looks at him uncertainly.

“Think of it as a birthday gift – and a Christmas gift and a New Year’s gift and a Valentine’s Day gift and a birthday gift until next year,” Jimin says with a smile.

“Valentine’s Day gift?”

“I give gifts for Valentine’s Day,” Jimin explains. “Since there is really no one for me to give to.”

He feels a little guilty about it as they enter the biggest pet store in the city. It looks like a shopping mall outside but it is a whole new world inside – at least that’s what Taehyung thinks after he enters it with Jimin and they are greeted by about ten cats and twenty dogs, domesticated, and barking and meowing at them by the lobby. The staff greets them and asks how they can help them.

Jimin is decided to buy him a dog. Not that he needs one right now but the other seems to have convinced himself that in order to help him move on, he needs not to run from Aristotle’s death but he needs to face it. Thus, he needs another dog to help him move on. So when he thinks of Aristotle, he’ll not only think of him as his dog that had died or as his only friend who is gone now but he’ll think of Aristotle as the dog who stayed with him for eight years and left him many great memories.

He hasn’t had any other dog beside Aristotle. His parents have also suggested this idea a lot before – which he strongly opposed because he doesn’t need a dog to remind him that his dog, Aristotle, is gone now.

But Jimin is decided.

The guy assigned to help them brings them to the dog section. Taehyung has never seen so many dogs in his life. It’s like the entire floor is of dogs, different breeds in different cages. There are big dogs (too big for him), medium dogs and small dogs. There are about a hundred adult dogs and he doesn’t even want to start estimating the puppies which are kept on separate cages or with their mothers.

Jimin looks more excited that he is getting a dog than him. He watches him waltzed through the entire floor, looking at each and every dog and offering him an input. (Input?) The guy helping them is kindly explaining what the type of dog is, what they usually like to eat and how active they are, stuff like that.

He stops in front of a small cage after they reached the puppies section and notices a puppy – he’s not certain what breed – that is alone. He looks back at the other puppies they already saw and notices that unless they are with their mothers, the puppies are together. But this one is alone.

“How come this guy's alone?”

“Ah. That little one,” the guy looks at the puppy Taehyung is talking about. “He came from a nearby shelter that recently shut down. About eight days ago…”

How the does this guy remember something exactly as eight days ago is beyond him. He also doesn't want to question the fact that Jimin decides to give him a puppy eight days ago as well. He is counting to the day that he is going to see Jimin outside of campus, yes. But that's not even the issue here. The puppy was brought here the exact day Jimin decided he is going to get him a dog – or a puppy.

“The shelter lost funds and their permits and certifications to hold animals,” the guy continues. “They managed to distribute the animals except that little guy because he was born just the night before they officially closed. His mother, the owners' dog, died giving birth to him and his siblings didn't survive the night without their mother. He’s weaker than other puppies. The might step on him or play with him too much. So we keep him alone. It's sad,” he paused, “and they kind of begged us to take him in because we have proper facilities. The owner couldn't say no... It's just so sad, too many bad things happening in one night.”

Taehyung leaves and quickly follows Jimin who has moved on to the adorable set of baby shih tzus after saying an awkward Oh because the guy looks close to crying and he doesn't know what he'll do if the guy cries with him around. But he does meant it to be sympathetic. He just doesn't know if that comes out.

Jimin looks with great amazement in the assortment of puppies and dogs, whispering Oh, they’re so cute! or exclaiming Look at them, Taehyung! Aren't they cute? or asking Why are they so cute! (that doesn't even sound like a question) but Taehyung only looks at him, smiling, because he thinks Jimin is still the cutest inside the room. Or outside. He doesn't even know why he thinks that. Or if it's alright to think that.

He has done a little research on his part after Jimin announces that he is getting him a puppy, with or without his consent. Like who is going to feed the puppy? Who is going to bathe the puppy? Who is going to take care of the puppy? But Jimin is a little stubborn and well, Taehyung knows that him getting a puppy is going to happen whatever his say on it is. He knows Jimin means well. So he does his research. He doesn't want to go to a huge pet store and be baffled by the amount of choices – which is, as he assumed, is too many.

He wants to get a puppy that he’ll take care of until he grows. He is decided on the he, at least, but he is still carefully and with great difficulty deciding what breed to get. The guy helping them is probably running out of trivia to offer him.

He is sure he is not getting a golden retriever like Aristotle. That is certain. He doesn’t want to get a golden retriever because he doesn’t want to end up comparing him and Aristotle. Whatever he is going to get didn’t do anything wrong to end up with the unnecessary comparison humans tend to do often. He doesn’t want to do that to dogs.

He is considering a German shepherd or a Doberman pinscher or a collie. He isn’t exactly going for huge dogs but he thinks if someone is getting him a dog whether he likes it or not and if he is going to go along with that, he at least should like what dog is that. Those are his best choices and the pet store is offering an adorable bunch of each type.

“Tae, what about this cute little guy?” Jimin asks for the nth time that day, pointing at a small dog that looks like a bulldog but doesn’t look as scary.

“I don’t want a bulldog, Chim,” Taehyung says.

“Um, it’s a pug, sir,” the guy tells them with a smile that is most certainly not judging.

“I think it’s cute though,” Jimin says. “Like a bulldog that’s kinder.”

He lets Jimin talk to the guy about how to differentiate pugs from bulldogs. He is thinking between a German shepherd pup or a Doberman pinscher pup. But he can’t seem to get that out of his mind.

“What breed is he?” he walks back to the little guy alone in a cage.

“He’s a chow chow.”

He doesn’t even know what a chow chow is. Is that even a breed? But the little guy moves from his sleep and he’s afraid his heart moves a little, too. Forget the big dogs, he thinks. He’s not leaving this little guy alone anymore. He suddenly thinks how much he’ll cost (because he has only researched on the collie, the German shepherd and the Doberman pinscher) and he really doesn’t want to burden Jimin. He suddenly thinks of an idea.

“Do you also have rabbits?”

Jimin looks at him curiously and he doesn’t even have to guess what’s on Taehyung’s mind. “Tae, you don’t have to…”

“Think of it as a birthday gift and a Christmas gift and a New Year’s gift and a Valentine’s Day gift and a birthday gift until next year,” Taehyung imitates him with a grin.

Somehow, both of them know that if the other has already decided on something, there is no stopping it. They follow the guy helping them to the section of rabbits and Taehyung is awed. He has never seen so many rabbits in his life. Not to mention he is with a bunny guy. Jimin is more than awed. He looks through the rabbits immediately and whispers Oh in every rabbit he sees. The other rabbits look scary for Taehyung but most of them look adorable puffs of cotton, especially the baby ones.

They probably spend the entire morning in the pet store like they are in the zoo but they don’t really look at other animals besides the dogs and the rabbits. It’s odd for Taehyung because he has always convinced himself to be sad whenever he sees dogs because they are not Aristotle but that morning, with Jimin, he doesn’t feel the least bit sad. He thinks of his theory that Aristotle sent Jimin to him and it might be stupid for other people but he wants to promote that theory to a law now.

He wants to be the one Dante sent for Jimin, too. He wants that to be a law as well.

He doesn’t really expect him to choose the little guy alone on his cage in the end, all light brown the color of leaves that reminds him of autumn, with beautiful fur and more beautiful eyes. He doesn’t want to wake him up because it probably needs to sleep more to gain strength but it’s like he knows someone is going to take him from the store that day, take care of him and will not let him be alone anymore because he wakes up when Taehyung comes back for him. He is the most beautiful thing Taehyung has ever seen after Aristotle died, once the guy takes him out of his cage and carefully places him on the puppy nursery so Taehyung can look at him without the cage. He is truly the most beautiful. On the dog division, at least, he thinks, after Jimin suddenly appears in front of him again.

“He’s so cute,” Jimin says, smiling up at him.

Like him who doesn’t want to get a grown up dog, Jimin also doesn’t want to get a grown up rabbit.

“So is he,” Taehyung smiles back at him and at the little rabbit (What are baby rabbits called anyway?) on Jimin’s hands. “What is he?”

“Florida white rabbit,” he tells Taehyung with a smile and Taehyung has to fight back another smile. (He thinks he is smiling too much for a couple of hours, like he already smiled his quota for two years on just two hours.)

“He looks like you,” Taehyung says instead, remembering the first day he met Jimin on a white and pink bunny costume. “What’ll his name be?”

“Don’t we need to pay for them first before thinking their names?” Jimin chuckles but answers regardless. “I think I want to name him Aristotle, after your Aristotle.”

Taehyung is not exactly fond of the name Dante – no offense to Dante, the rabbit – but he feels touched that Jimin is naming his rabbit after Aristotle and even though Jimin probably is not asking for it like how he is not asking for the rabbit he is holding so dearly against his face now, he wants to do exactly the same. It’s like Jimin is turning Taehyung, who is so used of the darkness and being alone he reeks of it without even saying anything, into a person just like him. So full of light. It’s like he is slowly opening the windows in Taehyung’s life he decided to shut permanently when Aristotle died.

“I’ll name this little guy Dante then,” Taehyung finds himself saying, “after your Dante.”

He doesn’t know why he named Dante Dante. His parents will probably ask Why Dante? and he’ll probably answer Why not? without really answering the question. But he thinks of Dante, the rabbit, when he sees Dante, the dog, and when he thinks of Dante, the rabbit, he remembers Jimin, his friend. His human friend.

“Do you also give gifts during Valentine’s Day?” Jimin asks curiously as they make their way out of the pet store after another hour (Almost four hours in a pet store!) because of vaccinations, legal documents, and a short seminar about owning a rabbit and a dog, even if both of them don’t really need it.

Taehyung doesn’t lie. “No, just you,” he says.

 

End