ICE CREAM SHOP

“Guys, where do you want to go?” Jin asked everyone.

Taehyung whispered, “I want to go to the burger sh-”

“Let’s go to the ice cream shop!” Jungkook yelled. Everyone nodded and Taehyung didn’t speak up. Slowly, they walked to the van as they joked around. Taehyung took part of this situation, smiling and laughing. They kept on talking about the concert and how amazing the feeling of Armys cheering for them was. After a while, they arrived at the ice cream shop.

The shop was quite dainty. The walls were covered in pastel pink paint which Jin had quite a liking for, wooden tables scattered around the shop, and post it notes which covered one wall. One by one the members ordered their ice cream. Taehyung, however, didn’t order. He knew that if he ate, he’d become fat. There was no way that he’d risk that over ice cream, so he walked over to the wall with a bunch of post its covering it. He read the sign that was on wall. It read, “What is your biggest regret in life?” Taehyung read the other post it notes that were scattered on the wall. “Not asking my crush out”, “Not studying in high school”, “Fighting with my family a lot.” He read the notes and felt that he should write one. He thought carefully about what he should write. There were many regrets that he felt that he didn’t know which one was the biggest. As Jimin, the last person to order ice cream, received his ice cream, Taehyung figured out what he wanted to write. He carefully wrote on a blue note, “I regret not dying…” He stuck it on the wall filled with different colored notes. After he stepped back to see the wall, he went to go talk to the members.

“Are you not getting anything?” Jin asked.

“No, I’m not really in the mood.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Taehyung, you should get some. It’s really good!” Jimin jumped and wrapped his arm around Taehyung’s shoulder. Taehyung, fearing human touch, fliched and pushed Jimin away. Jimin landed on the floor with his ice cream splattered on the floor.

“Um… I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Taehyung slowly started to back away. Hoseok and Yoongi immediately picked Jimin up from the ground. Yoongi went up to Taehyung and started to yell. “Why did you do that?! Can’t you see that he’s hurt?!” Taehyung looked closely to see blood coming out from the cuts that happened when the glass bowl containing the ice cream shattered. He felt more guilt and ashamed that he didn’t notice it before. He didn’t even speak or look at anything else. He just stared as the blood started to drip on the floor.

“Hyung, calm down. It’s just a cut. Nothing big…” Jimin spoke up, trying to make the mood better.

“You’re bleeding! How is that no big deal? He pushed you and you got hurt! That’s not okay!” Yoongi yelled at Jimin back. Jin was watching like everyone else. He had enough of the yelling and told Yoongi to calm down. Yoongi knew that Jin wasn’t going to let it go if he didn’t stop, so Yoongi calmed down.

Taehyung started to pick up the glass. He knew that he was going to get cut, but he didn’t care. If he made Jimin get cut, he thought that he deserved the same. The glass started to cut his skin, but he didn’t mind. He kept on picking up all the shattered glass on the floor. Hoseok asked him to stop, but he didn’t. He knew that he deserved it and if he didn’t pick up the glass and get cut, he’d do much worse back at the dorm. He continued to pick up all the pieces until there were none left. He threw the glass in the trash and looked at his hands. There were dozens of small cuts and all of them oozed out blood. Taehyung didn’t mind. He went to go ask the worker for some bandages. When the worker gave it to him, he immediately gave it to Jimin. Since Taehyung was afraid of human touch, he couldn’t put the bandages on for him, but he made sure Hoseok bandaged Jimin’s hands up correctly.

“Don’t you need to put bandages on your hands?” Hoseok asked carefully. The tension in the store was still high.

“No, it’s okay. Plus there isn’t any left,” Taehyung replied while smiling.  

No one was brave enough to speak up. Few minutes went by until the managers called them to go back to the dorms. Everyone returned their spoons and cups to the counter and got into the van that took them back to the dorms.

They arrived, but no one said anything. The silence was killing Taehyung. He longed for someone to fill the void, but no one volunteered. He looked down at his hands. They were still bleeding. Not enough to drip off of his pale skin, but enough to make his pale skin stained red.

Finally, someone spoke up and broke the silence. It was Namjoon. He said, “Everyone get ready to go to bed. We have a lot on our schedule. Thank you.” Everyone nodded and scurried along. Jin and Yoongi both noticed that Taehyung’s hand was still bleeding and needed to be bandaged. Jin went up to Taehyung and asked, “Can I bandage your hand?” Yoongi didn’t hear Jin’s question to Taehyung, so he walked to him and demanded, “Follow me. Let’s fix your hand.”

FOR JIN, GO TO CHAPTER 4

FOR YOONGI, GO TO CHAPTER 5