Hoseok:

The cup of tea in my hands warm up my cold fingers, thawing the frosty skin. The weather outside had gone from rain to almost snowy. Taehyung and Jimin were wrapped up in a blanket together whilst the movie played in the background. Something was going on between the both of them, but it wasn't my place to question it.

If they didn't ask questions, I would return the favour.

My phone buzzes again in the quiet room. Taehyung tilts the screen towards himself and glares at the device, switching it off before pressing it in his curled fingers.

“Taehyungie,” I whine, “at least tell me what it says.”

He ignores me and focuses back in on the movie, turning a little to allow Jimin to rest his head on his lap.

My nerves were high today after Namjoon asked me about why I left the party early, and then I had given him two separate answers that didn't correlate, of course he wouldn't believe me. First I'd told him I left because I felt sick but then, without realising, I had spun another lie about my friend calling me for help. In fact, I had been the one calling my friend for help. And then Taehyung had to go and take my phone while I was in the middle of texting him, who knew what he was trying to tell me through texts?

I can barely remember much of last night, except for the fact that Namjoon had gone off into the bathroom with a girl that loved him, and that I had lost it and left the party to stay over at Yoongi and Jimin’s apartment. Everything else was blank, a distant memory I had no need to try to recall.

The phone buzzes again but this time my ringtone plays noisily.

Taehyung glances down at the caller ID with a slight glare before looking at Jimin, answering the call. My heart picks up and I stand up, grabbing the phone out of his hands before pressing it against my ear.

“Namjoon…?” Out of breath, I sound out of breath. He will surely question why.

“Oh, hey. Why haven't you been replying to my messages?” His warm, husky voice drifts over though the speakers and my heart does a little leap into my throat, stopping any words from leaving my lips.

“Sorry,” I laugh awkwardly, “my friend took my phone because he thought I was getting distracted.”

“I'm sorry if I'm distracting, tell me next time so I'll stop.” He genuinely sounds guilty.

“Uh, it's okay, so,” I clear my throat, “ what happened- uh, after I left?”

He pauses, his heavy breathing filling the space between our communication.

His tone is flustered now, embarrassed.

“Um, well, y'know Eunwoo… I think I was too drunk because I somehow ended up in the guest room with her.” He goes silent. The implications are too large here, and the atmosphere becomes even more awkward after his confession.

My eyes find Taehyung's disappointed eyes and I take a deep breath, trying to calm my shaky voice. “Oh, haha, anything else?”

He goes even more quiet before I urge him to continue and tell me.

“Well… I'm kinda trapped in a relationship with her. Last night she worked me into somehow becoming her boyfriend and now we're a couple? Honestly, maybe she's not that bad… I just think weirdly of her because we had and she's my sister's best friend.”

Becoming her boyfriend. We're a couple. Her boyfriend.

The words circle in my head like a fierce tornado, unrelenting.

“Hoseok? You still there?” he asks, concern in his voice.

My heart sinks into my stomach and my throat chokes up with emotion, what the ?

Did this mean all my chances were gone?

Tears spring to my eyes but I shut them and hold them tight until they disappear. No more crying over him, no more regretting what I never said. We didn't all get happy endings like Taehyung and Jimin.

I had to accept that to move forward.

“I have to go,” I somehow manage to squeeze pass my tightly pressed lips that were stuck in a permanent scowl. It's all I can do to keep my tears at bay behind my eyelids. Safe in my tear ducts they would remain.

“Hoseok? What? Why? Are you sure you're okay?” he questions quickly, and I can picture him raising an eyebrow with panic on his face. A calm kind of panic.

“Yeah, gotta go. Bye.”

I hang up and hand the phone to Taehyung without a second’s hesitation. He doesn't expect it but accepts the offering calmly, a worried look spreading over his features. Jimin’s expression is identical.

“He has a girlfriend,” I tell them, my words lifeless and flat, exactly like how my eyes must have looked. I just wanted to go to bed and sleep my whole life away, that would probably feel much better than trying to come to terms with the fact that he never had any feelings for me.

“I'm so ing stupid,” the words linger in the air. Taehyung shakes his head, grabbing my arm gently.

“Don't you dare put so much into him. Don't you dare do that to yourself, you don't deserve this kind of pain,” he begs, because he knows in the end I'll always pull the blame onto my weak back and shoulder all the problems. Even if they aren't mine.

“I deserve all this pain, for ever thinking of him as something more than just a colleague,” I stress, shoving my hands in my hoodie pockets, trying to keep warm even as my heart burns with an inextinguishable fire. It hurts, it hurts a lot more than ever.

Taehyung gives me a sad look, pity shining in his eyes. “Aren't you friends?”

“ no,” I laugh, wincing at the crude curse word. “He said we were only acquaintances. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Jimin's eyebrows furrow and he gives me a contemplating look.

“You know you can't run from him, from your feelings. Why don't you just get it out there? Tell him how you feel, there's no other way to fix this,” Jimin says, placing a hand on Taehyung's back.

“I can't, you don't get it…” I murmur, thinking back to one of our past conversations, the most nerve-wracking one we had ever had. At that time it seemed like we were friends but Namjoon never considered us as anything more or less than work partners.

“Is he… gay?” Namjoon asks me, and my heart stops in my chest, lodging there for a moment. The disgust in his voice is almost a betrayal to the things I have never told him.

“Baekyeol? Uh-- yeah, he is. He came out to us over a year ago.” I don't know why I'm telling a homophobe all of this, but Namjoon makes it hard not to.

“You're not-- you're not like that, yeah?” he asks me cautiously, eyes hooded with suspicion. There is a spark of distaste in his eyes, and what makes me feel wrong and ashamed are the words that come out of my mouth.

“Of course not, gross.”

His exhale of relief shatters my heart.

“You guys have already done it,” Taehyung blurts out, “even if it was a one-night stand, it was obviously consented on from both of you.”

I stiffen and glance at Jimin whose arms are crossed, a delicate frown on his lips. “You didn't tell me that.” He shoots us both an accusatory glare and unfolds his arms.

“But that was different! It was different because he only let me do what I've wanted for months but I didn't want that. I didn't want him to kiss me because he was drunk on alcohol, I didn't want to kiss him because I was drunk on desperation! He doesn't even remember, he doesn't ing care that he's done that to me. I'm just so done, so ing done.”

Taehyung flinches when my voice rises even further.

“Not everyone gets a happy-ing-ending, he's going to leave and forget about me!” The tears don't come, they don't trickle down my cheeks and form a puddle on my collarbone. They don't race down, trying to win a competition that didn't even exist.

Hoseok isn't supposed to cry, I'm not supposed to cry.

So I don't cry. The only thing left is the anguish in my cracked voice, the anger seeping out of my pores.

Taehyung looks conflicted, torn between wanting to help and not being able to accept that there was nothing. I need to vent my anger. I can't help it.

“I don't even ing know why I even tried to be someone more to him,” I spit bitterly, kicking the cough angrily, wishing Jimin didn't look at me with pity, wishing Taehyung was strong enough to tell me to leave, wishing they both snapped and hated me.

“Hoseok, calm down,” Jimin whispers, torn apart by my near-breakdown.

“I need-- I thought…” I say forlornly, “I need Yoongi. I think I need to go underground again. I need to be J-Hope again.”

“Why?” Taehyung asks quietly. He was the one who convinced me to leave my mask behind, but life was easier when I could laugh to what I felt.

“Because; J-Hope is strong, he's smart, he's reasonable, he's talented, he's so damn mesmerising. J-Hope is everything I'm afraid to become.”

“Remember what happened last time! You got lost in the underground scene, you started drifting away. You lost yourself in your image on stage, you were ruthless, it took months to pull you back into the real world,” Taehyung insists, and it's true. He was the only one who tried to help me when I lost myself in the world of cigarettes and alcohol. When I lost myself in partying and gang-life.

Hell, J-Hope nearly became a leader of a street gang. He was charming enough to work his way into their system and then destroy them from the inside out, but he wasn't strong enough to resist the temptation of reality’s freedom.

And