You didn’t need friends. That’s what you’ve always told yourself. It’s what you told yourself when the other kids left you alone on the playground and it’s what you told yourself when the only time your name come out of your peers’ mouth was if it was accompanied by rumours. It’s what you repeated to yourself over and over again every single day, like a broken record you couldn’t get rid of. All you needed was yourself.

Unfortunately, residential idiot Kim Taehyung disagreed.

“I’m not in the mood today, Taehyung,” you gritted your teeth, walking faster than you were before in attempt to ditch the puppy-like boy. However as often as you made excuses to evade Taehyung, you weren’t lying about your sour disposition today. You had been running on two hours of sleep for the past couple of days rather than your usual eight and it was beginning to take a toll on you.

You recalled the first day you arrived at the university. You remembered how sunny it was and thinking how refreshing it was to be in a new town where no one knew who you were or cared to find out about you.

That was before you bumped into Taehyung roughly two weeks afterwards.

You remembered the way his eyes turned into crescents and he bared all his teeth when he smiled as he extended his hand out for a handshake. How he asked you to be friends with him; an offer you immediately shut down, saying something along the lines of “I don’t need friends”. You especially couldn’t forget how he challenged your response, telling you “everybody needs somebody,” with a stupid smile on his face.

“But the café is really good! You’d really like it,” he beamed, stopping in front of you. You were so close to the parking lot. All you wanted to do was go home and sleep until next year.

“No offence, but what makes you think you know what I’d like?” you rolled your eyes, pushing past the boy. “You barely know me.”

“Just a feeling,” Taehyung grinned as he stood outside your car door, watching you slam the door in his face.

 “Bye Taehyung,” you sighed and drove away.

--

“No,” you said flatly, flipping through your textbook in the dusty library.

“Why not?” Taehyung pouted, resting his head on the table. He truly was a puppy.

You let out an irritated breath and glared at him. “When have I ever agreed to hang out with you?” you deadpanned, leaning back in the chair and crossing your arms.

“I just thought…” he muttered, suddenly feeling small.

“Well you thought wrong,” you cut him off, packing up your things. “Bye Taehyung.”

--

“How about we—”

“No,” you said to him for what felt like the millionth time, resting your head on the bus’s windowsill. In fact, “no” was probably the only thing you ever said to him.

“I’m getting tired of being rejected all the time,” Taehyung teased, his laugh not hiding any of the bitterness lacing his words. He was upset, you expected that much. You knew something as one sided as this would exhaust Taehyung someday. You just weren’t sure if you cared. You didn’t have any obligation to.

“Then stop asking,” you replied curtly, closing your eyes in hopes he would shut up and let you nap for once.

“Man, it’s hard being your friend,” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“How hard is it being something you’re not?” you questioned him as you lifted your head to face him.

“Excuse me?”

“We aren’t friends Taehyung,” you stated, emphasizing every word as you look him dead in the eye.

The air was tense between the two of you and you could almost see Taehyung shrink in his seat. Those words never came out of your mouth before, despite all your constant refusals of friendship. Now that you finally said it, it made you feel like absolute .

The bus pulled to a stop and the doors opened, waiting for its passengers to leave the vehicle.

“This is my stop,” Taehyung said slowly, opposite to his actions as he rushed out of the bus and into his house. Hearing him whisper goodbye with your name in the same sentence made you unusually uncomfortable.

--

It had been nearly a month since you last heard from Taehyung. It was like a dream come true—for the first few days at least. Then it became hell for you. For some reason, you felt concerned about him among other emotions you just couldn’t put a name to. You wondered where he went now that he wasn’t following you, who he spoke to if he wasn’t pestering you about going out to the latest hangout spot. However, just because you hadn’t heard from Taehyung, it didn’t mean you didn’t hear about him.

It didn’t occur to you that Taehyung was lonely. It didn’t ever occur to you that people thought ill of him. If anything, you thought people loved him. He had so much to offer to people who weren’t you.

“Have you seen that Taehyung guy lately?” one of your peers said one day after class.

“No. I kind of want to keep it that way. He’s weird as hell,” another one laughed. “He’s always butting into conversations and asking if we want to hang out.”

“He does that to you too? No wonder he doesn’t have friends. He’s so clingy.”

For a split second, you felt offended hearing all these things about him. Actually, you were offended. You almost wanted to scream at them that he did have friends. You, a voice screamed at you from the back of your mind. It didn’t take you another millisecond to tell your classmates off about gossiping.

What occurred to you now was that you cared about Taehyung.

Perhaps you had been alone for much too long; long enough to not notice what loneliness felt like. Nobody stayed around long enough for you to miss them. You didn’t realize that you had an option alternative to loneliness when Taehyung was around. So when Taehyung opened the door of his home with a messy head of hair and wide eyes, it occurred to you that the one person in the world you could possibly need besides yourself was right in front of you.

“Everyone needs someone, right?” you smiled meekly at Taehyung, with three bags of snacks in your arms and a Netflix account ready to go, hoping he would let you in after all you’ve said to him.

“Everybody needs somebody,” Taehyung nodded, baring his teeth in that huge smile you missed so much, pulling you into his home and soon, his arms.