Friends have limits, Jimin thinks to himself. Friends have limits friends have limits friends have limits.

                He’s stirred awake by the incessant tapping on his bedside window, the very sound of freaking Satan cackling into his eardrums. Burrowing under his pillow to drown out the noise, he groans when it only seems to get louder and more annoying. His patience breaks after a mere minute, in which he finally climbs out of bed, stumbles to the window and opens it.

                Taehyung is perched on the ledge, hand loosely gripping the top of the frame to avoid falling ten metres to the ground. He smiles brightly (Jimin winces at his buoyancy) when he’s allowed inside the bedroom. “Hi!” he salutes and closes the window after himself.

                Jimin merely grunts and slides back under his warm sheets. “What’re you doing here…?”

                “It’s the first day of school!” says the orange-haired idiot. He drops his backpack at the foot of the bed and shuffles through it.

                “It’s also ing four in the morning, Tae…”

                “I know, right?” Taehyung jumps into the vacant bed space, consequently landing on Jimin’s elbow (this is like the fifth time; he swears he’s going to break that bone one day). “I couldn’t even sleep.”

                “Clearly.” He hears the faint music of a video game, presumably his DS but Jimin’s too tired to actually care. Instead he just mutters, “… shoes off, please.”

                His friend shuffles nosily beside him before both shoes land with a thud on the carpet. Then he tries to get under the covers too, but Jimin is having none of that because Taehyung is cold as . The two of them scuffle for a bit, just up until he’s rolled up into a blanket burrito against the wall.

                “Park Jimin,” he starts, slamming on the buttons. “Are you excited for school? I am. I wanna see how many times I can pull off wearing boxers to class this year.”

                “Gross. Don’t you ever stop goofing around?”

                “C’mon, like you never tried to fool a supply by switching seats with that other Jimin chick. You guys have the same last name too, it was hilarious.”

                Jimin giggles. His eyes fall shut, sleep slowly taking over once more. “I’m… indifferent about it, I guess. It’s just another year to get through…”

                “, my Pokémon died.” Taehyung looks up at the ceiling in thought. “I don’t know, man. My gut tells me this year is going to be something different. We’re not freshmen anymore. We’re not seniors, but we’re not complete noobs either. It’s the middle year. It’s going to be different.”

                Jimin takes this into consideration. Then he says, “Since when did your gut ever tell you anything good…?” before falling into the dark realms of dreamland.

--

                Orange is all Jimin sees when he opens his eyes again, all at once reminded of the lanky son of a sprawled over his bed and face. Taehyung is just snoring away, completely oblivious to the fact that his game is still on and personal space is thing that shockingly, exists.

                “Christ,” Jimin mutters as he sits up, neck stinging from sleeping in the same cocoon for hours. He notices the faint sunlight filtering into his room and winces when he turns to look at the time too fast. The clock on the wall blissfully reads, ‘8:01’.

                He doesn’t hold back from shoving his friend off the mattress. “YOU TARD!” he screeches, stumbling out of his covers and removing one piece of pyjamas after the other. “WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!”

                Taehyung slowly sits up, glancing at the time. He starts laughing and then sighs, “.”

                Jimin groans, climbing half- into his closet in search of fresh jeans. He racks his brain for anything he might’ve missed; the schedule is in his binder, the binder’s in his backpack and his pens are in his pencil case which is in his backpack. All he needs is breakfast and a mint because there sure as hell isn’t time to brush his teeth. A shirt would be nice, too.

                “If only you didn’t wake me up last night,” he blubbers when fully dressed and attempting to throw on socks. “I need exactly eight hours of sleep or else I wake up later than usual and—!” When he turns around, Jimin realizes there’s no one else in the room and he’s talking to himself.

                It’s another minute before he hears someone stomping up the stairs and Taehyung is in his room again. “Here,” he says while shoving buttered toast into Jimin’s mouth. “I asked your mom to make it.”

                “Did you greet her properly this time or did you scare her again?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

                “I greeted her,” Taehyung replies, frowning at his elbow. “But your dad didn’t know I got a dye job and manhandled me. He probably thought I was a thief or something. I hurt myself.”

                Jimin snorts. “ it up.” He picks up his bag and checks himself in the mirror one more time. “Okay, let’s go.”

                “Autobots, roll out!” Taehyung opens the window and starts scaling down the wall.

                “Why can’t you leave my house like a normal person?!”

                He shouts back, “BECAUSE I’M NOT NORMAL—!” A loud crashing sound cuts through the air, followed by “, I THINK I BROKE YOUR MAILBOX!”

                Jimin sighs, “Again?” and sprints down the stairs.

                Catching the bus seems to be a marathon of sorts, with Taehyung making at least a thirty second lead down the sidewalk and begging the bus driver to wait for Jimin before they were finally on their way to school.

                As they reach campus, a wave of nostalgia from their prepubescent freshmen year washes over them. Their peers are bustling outside, making their way to class while teachers herd them in. It’s a familiar feeling that happens to be rushed because according to Taehyung they ‘have like, two ing seconds to get to class holy my homeroom teacher is Pigman Choi I’m screwed’.

                (They have a full six minutes but Jimin believes him and trips twice running up the stairs.)

                They split up at the second floor. Taehyung sprints down the hall to chemistry while bidding his friend a loud ‘see you later’. Jimin watches as a teacher chases him down for running, and then walks the opposite direction into functions. He finds a seat in the back row next to some girl he vaguely remembers as Junghwa (or was it Junghee?).

                The next hour is a normal period, filled with an abundance of awkward ice breakers that Jimin could do without; that’s probably why he hid out in the washroom half the time. His next two classes are relatively the same, and by the time he walks out of third, he’s already tired.

                It doesn’t help much when he hears his name being screamed by a voice of baritone, and the following fifty-eight kilograms of pure Taehyung jumping onto his back. “Hey, bestie!” he says, locking himself around Jimin’s neck. “How were your classes?”

                Jimin is acutely aware of all the eyes staring back at them as they make their way to the cafeteria. “They were okay. Standard, I guess.”

                Taehyung gets off and walks alongside him. “You know, you said the exact same thing last year. But uh, do you happen to have a Kim Himchan guy in your classes?”

                “I don’t think so.” Jimin doesn’t actually know who’s in his classes, because he wasn’t there during introductions (he was playing the hand dryer in the men’s room). He shrugs anyway. “Why?”

                “He’s in my chem class, but I swear he graduated last year— whoops, hold on.” They stop in the middle of the hall because a student is taking a photo of a group of friends.

                Jimin waits until they can walk again. “What are they taking photos for?” he asks, wary.

                “I think they’re from the Yearbook committee.”

                “Ah… Anyway, I think I know who you’re talking about. I saw him when we were picking up our schedules,” he says. “I remember thinking that he graduated. Maybe he’s doing a victory lap?”

                Taehyung nods. “True that, true that.” They stride through the cafeteria doors, voices of the student body bouncing off brick walls as they all cram themselves around tables. There’s hardly an empty spot to be seen, so he suggests they go eat up in their hiding place instead.

                As they turn around to relocate, Jimin bumps chests with another boy who’s slightly taller in height, though his face is resonating with a certain innocence that only freshmen can retain (seniors are distinguishable from the dead look in their eyes).

                “Oh,” is all the boy says before holding up his schedule. “Where is the gym?”

                Before Jimin gets the chance to answer, Taehyung erupts in a series of coos. “AW! AREN’T YOU THE CUTEST FRESHMAN?!” He watches in horror as his friend squeezes the kid’s cheeks. “ARE YOU GOING TO YOUR ORIENTATION RIGHT NOW? ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY GAMES WITH THE REST OF YOUR FELLOW FRESHMEN? WHAT’S YOUR NAME, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER?”

                “Jesus Christ, Tae! You’re scaring him—!”

                The boy doesn’t even blink. “Jeon Jungkook,” is all he says.

                “Jungkook, huh? Well, the gym is just right behind you, so go and have fun because you’ll be starting the best three years of—!” The boy turns around and walks away without so much of a ‘thanks’. Taehyung is absolutely stunned. Once he’s out of earshot, he scoffs. “Wow, them youngins are getting taller and ruder by the generation.”

                “Or you came off as creepy,” Jimin comments and nudges him on their way. They walk up to the third floor, the emptiest storey during lunchtime. In the top stairwell is a pair of tall windows with a ledge big enough for two grown boys to sit, eat, and relish the sunlit view outside.

                “Hey, I just remembered something about that Himchan guy,” Taehyung starts as he’s opening a sandwich. “Didn’t he organize that big grad party last year?”

                Jimin scavenges through his backpack for his lunch. “Y’think so? I thought some top dog named Baekhyun threw the party.”

                “No, no, no. It was definitely him. He was talking about it after class. Apparently, it was huge… Do you have a lunch?”

                He looks up and frowns. “No… I think I forgot it at home.”

                Taehyung rips his sandwich in half and gives one to Jimin. “I got you, bro.”

                “Thanks. Wait, take back this pickle.”

                “Eat your goddamn pickles.”

                “No.” He drops the pickle onto his hand. “You were saying?”

                “Oh yeah. It was huge!” Taehyung spreads his arms to exemplify his point. “Like fireworks and . They had a circus elephant, dude. A circus elephant.”

                “Okay, now you’re just exaggerating.”

                He shoves his phone into Jimin’s face. “You shut up and look at this picture on Instagram.” Sure enough, under some student’s username was a photo of an elephant, decked out in circus gear. Jimin’s pretty much rendered speechless, so Taehyung asks, “Who do you think is throwing the party this year?”

                The latter male pulls out another pickle from his sandwich. “I don’t know any of the seniors, but does it really matter? We’re not graduating this year, so we’re obviously not invited.”

                Shrugging, Taehyung picks up the pickles and chews on them. “Maybe that chick Soyou’s gonna throw it… or maybe Jiho, the debate team captain?” His eyes grow wide as he snaps his fingers. “Jin-sunbaenim!”

                “Jin-sunbaenim?” Jimin repeats, frowning. “You don’t mean Kim Seokjin, right?”

                “Of course I mean Kim Seokjin,” his friend replies. “I heard he got assigned to be editor-in-chief of the Yearbook in June. And doesn’t he run both cooking club and dance team? Isn’t he great?” There’s a sparkle in his eyes that Jimin finds completely foreign, that he accidentally swallows a lone pickle in his sandwich and now he just feels very sick. “I’m pretty sure he’ll throw the party this year.”

                The whole idea of a party makes Jimin anxious in general, and pickles make him hurl. “We’re not graduating Tae,” he says. “So we’re not going.”

                Taehyung sighs and stares out the window. “The senior students are really cool, you know? They have a lot of friends. I just wish you and I had more friends, so that whenever I’m busy you have someone to hang out with.” He throws his hands up in the air for some dramatic reason, but Jimin knows it’s just an attempt to balance out the gravity of the topic. “But really, we’re just two kids who hang out by themselves in the third floor stairwell every day. We’re kind of lonely, but at least we’re lonely together, right?”

                Jimin nods. “Yeah…”

                Like with most things, Jimin doesn’t outwardly express that he doesn’t need a whole posse of friends. He doesn’t need a thousand friends on Facebook, nor does he need people warming up to him in attempt to get his phone number. If all he had was one friend, it’d be okay.

                Even if Taehyung was the only one he ever had, that’s more than Jimin could ask for.