[ ! ] suicide warning.

                 It’s been days since he’s last exchanged so much as a sentence with Taehyung, and the very thought of it scares him to death.

                  The past week consisted of vague texts, unanswered Facebook pokes, and an absolute lack of contact. Whenever Jimin did see his friend around school or in gym class, the latter would make up some excuse to look busy when Jimin knew he wasn’t. It scares him, the thought of Taehyung slipping away.

                  He figures it’d be best to get the orange-haired male to a place where he’s cornered, where he can’t run. They can’t keep avoiding each other like this; after all, communication is key in a relationship, even one that feels like it’s about to fall apart. But Jimin is hopeful.

                  So he goes to the convenience store.

                  The automatic doors part for him as he strides in, craning his neck to peek over the shelves. He spots Taehyung behind the second cash register, a huge grin spread across his face as he addresses the customer in front of him. Jimin isn’t one to be clingy, but his heart spikes with an emotion he can only identify as jealousy.

                  He stands in the line, planning out what he intends to say. Within a couple minutes, he walks up to the counter and promptly goes blank the moment he makes eye contact with his best friend. He stammers, “T-Tae, we need to talk,” though he isn’t sure what they’re supposed to talk about yet.

                  Taehyung looks unimpressed. “Sorry, I’m on the job right now,” he says, shifting his weight. “I can only serve customers.”

                  Jimin lets out a scoff. He stares right into the other boy’s eyes as he grabs the nearest chocolate bar and tosses it onto the counter. “… I’m a customer.”

                  “So you are.” The guy juts his lip while scanning the item. “That’ll be four hundred won, please.”

                  He scrounges through his pockets and to his complete mortification, finds only three coins. “… Shoot, I’m a hundred won short.”

                  Taehyung coughs as if he’s trying to stifle laughter. “Looks like you’re not getting this chocolate, man.”

                  “Dude,” he huffs, “it’s just a couple coins.”

                  “You think our friendship is worth a couple coins?” Taehyung retorts, drumming his fingers across the cash register. He gives Jimin a patient look, expecting him to retaliate.

                  “I…” Jimin pauses. “Tae, can I borrow a hundred won?”

                  “Sure.” The guy reaches for his bag and slides over a single coin. “Here you go.”

                  “Thanks.” He gives him the rest of the change. “Here you go.”

                  “Thanks.” Taehyung rings up the purchase and makes a show of putting a tiny bar of chocolate into the biggest bag he can possibly find. “Come again!”

                  “Okay, no, this—” Jimin bunches up the bag and glowers at him. “Tae, we seriously need to talk… seriously.”

                  “Alright, fine. I’M TAKING A BREAK!” he shouts at no one in particular. He grabs a water bottle, clumsily climbs over the counter, and leads Jimin out the back door where they meet in the plaza parking lot. He looks at Jimin expectantly while taking a swig of water.

                  “Uh…” Jimin stutters, unsure of where to start. Being direct is probably the best course of action, he decides. “I-Is something up? You’ve been avoiding me lately…”

                  Taehyung shrugs and digs at the gravel under his feet. “I didn’t mean to, sorry.”

                  “Is it because of the in-invitation?” he asks, carefully studying the change in his expression.

                  “I don’t know, maybe?” He keeps digging. “There’s just a lot wrong with you getting one. You don’t like parties, you’re not insanely popular, and man, you’re not even graduating. I just thought… I just thought that if you were getting one, then I’d be invited to the party too. We’re supposed to be equals, right?”

                  Jimin frowns. “I hope you’re not implying that the invitation makes me better than you.”

                  Taehyung doesn’t say anything. He leans against the concrete wall and stuffs his hands into his pockets.

                  “Tae, you—” The other male swallows a lump in his throat. “Y-You said that if I auditioned for the dance team, then I wouldn’t have to crash the party. Remember? If I joined the team, you would quit band and—!”

                  “We wouldn’t have to crash it, I know.” A distant siren could be heard passing by while he sighs. “But Park Jimin, maybe—maybe that wasn’t me trying to entice you to join the dance team. Maybe I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything at all. Maybe I genuinely wanted to go to that party, invitation or not. I thought you’d never audition, so… I was really planning on crashing it. Sorry, that sounds mean, but…”

                  “Why are you so obsessed with crashing this party?” Jimin shifts uncomfortably in place. “I think there’s a little more to it than wanting to be ‘cool’, right?”

                  Taehyung glances at him before turning to gaze at the horizon. “It’s him who’s cool… Seokjin-sunbae. I really admire him.”

                  “He—!” Jimin hesitates. He’s not sure if he wants to go down this road, a path that leads to a potentially disastrous situation he’d much rather avoid. But his duty as a best friend compels him to do otherwise; Taehyung has to know. “… He’s not cool, Tae. He isn’t what you always make him out to be. Seokjin only gave me this initiation b-because he stole my dance. You know, f-for the musical. I came up with the final dance number and h-he just… told the entire school that he made it.”

                  Taehyung looks at him skeptically, mouth opening and closing before he finally utters, “what? He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have done something like that—”

                  “But he did,” Jimin huffs. Frustration is escaping him. “I-I didn’t know what to do, Tae. I couldn’t just go up there and—why don’t you believe me?!”

                  “Jimin.” The drop in Taehyung’s voice startles him. He stares into his eyes, finding a glint more serious than what he was usually capable of. “I didn’t say I don’t believe you. Hell, you never lie to me, so I’d be stupid to think otherwise. I’m just… not sure.”

                  “Not sure?” the other repeats, shoulders stiffening. “Tae, he took something important from me. Why is it so hard for you to see what Seokjin is really like? Are you that ing blind?” Raw anger itches from his throat, and it takes all he has to hold onto its flames. He doesn’t even know who he’s angry at; him, or himself? “Why do you like him so much?!”

                  Taehyung scrubs his face, releasing more sighs. He mutters, “I like him because he saved you.”

                  Jimin looks aghast. He doesn’t comprehend what comes out of his friend’s mouth. “What?”

                  Taehyung grabs his hand and pulls them toward the ground, letting them sit side-by-side on the curb. “Obviously you wouldn’t remember because you were totally out of your mind, but it… wasn’t really me that saved you the night you tried to commit suicide.”

                  Jimin bites his lip, blinking rapidly because for some reason, he already wants to cry. “Wh-What are you talking about? It was you. I think I’d remember something like that, Tae.”

                  “Well, I mean, yeah, it was me. I’m just saying it wasn’t entirely me.”

                  “Stop being vague.”

                  “Sorry.” He looks away for a second. “How much do you remember?”

                  “Not much, I guess…” It comes to him in hazy, abstract fragments. It’s a night that he remembers sparsely, although he’d rather forget it altogether. He remembers it was cold. He remembers that he wasn’t wearing anything beyond his pajamas and a pair of bunny slippers his mom bought for his tenth birthday and at the time, barely fit his teenage feet. He remembers being held in Taehyung’s arms for most of the night, running away from Taehyung, getting caught by Taehyung, and holding onto Taehyung until morning.

                  He wants to forget, yet all the memories come flooding back the harder he tries to erase it all.

                  “Hey.” Taehyung snaps his fingers in front of his face, bringing him out of a daze. “Don’t think too hard about it, okay? I just want you to hear me out. Just listen.”

                  Jimin swallows and nods.

                  “Do you remember that stupid argument we had on Facebook? I got a new Mortal Kombat game, and you said you wanted to play. I told you that you’d have to wait until I finish it before I let you borrow it. Then you called me a , and we argued for a bit. After that, I just logged off for a while to play my game, so we could both cool down.” Taehyung scratches his nape and continues. “Now that I think about it, I was being a ing moron. You texted me afterwards, but I ignored it because of some petty argument. I didn’t know what happened until you came running to my house. I wasn’t on Facebook, so I didn’t know that picture of you existed until you told me. S-Someone edited that ing picture, uploaded it to everyone, and I didn’t know. I was such an idiot.”

                  “Don’t be so hard on yourself…” Jimin urges, resting his head against Taehyung’s shoulder. “Keep going.”

                  “So you came to my house,” he sighs. “Pajamas and all. You were crying... a lot. I couldn’t make out what you were saying, so I just told you to go wash your face while I went to see what was happening. I guess I was already annoyed with you, because I brushed it off like you were exaggerating. So I stalled… I didn’t check Facebook for another ten minutes. When I did check—when I saw it, I was so angry. I was pissed. I couldn’t believe some ing would do this—to my goddamn best friend. I wanted to kill whoever did that to you. I wanted them to die in a hole, because that’s how angry I was. But the thing is, I was angrier at myself. I couldn’t forgive myself for not believing you, for not taking you seriously soon enough. I—you were still in my bathroom. I thought, ‘Jimin’s been in there for a really long time’. And—I don’t know man, I just panicked. You locked the bathroom door and wouldn’t answer me. God knows what the hell you were doing in there.”

                  “… Your mom’s medication,” Jimin confesses. His hands are shaking. “I just… I just took it all.”

                  Taehyung reaches over to keep his hands still. “She’s not angry about it, I can tell you that. But—I called an ambulance, and it felt like forever until they arrived. I just sat in front of the door the whole time, trying to get you to talk to me. I was crying so much; I couldn’t even hear anything. When the police came, they broke down the door and—what I saw was a complete nightmare. You were already collapsed. You were barely breathing. You—You were just lying on the bathroom floor, and—!”

                  “Keep going,” he interrupts, shutting his eyes to keep himself together.

                  “Th-They took you away.” Taehyung sniffles. “They told me that if I called any later than I did, you’d be gone. But you lived, and there’s nothing I’m more grateful for than that. I just wanted you to be okay. Even if you had to stay at the hospital forever, I wanted you to live. But after you were released, I got a call from y-your mom. She told me you ran away, and I still don’t know how you did it. A couple days after overdosing, and you still had the energy to escape.”

                  He can vaguely remember that moment. “I don’t know… When I woke up, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that I didn’t die. And the whole time, I just kept thinking about killing myself again, but I was being watched so I never got the chance. When I was released, I—my mom picked me up in her car, and on the way, she stopped for gas… I don’t know, I-I just ran. I didn’t know where to go, I just wanted to get away. I… I was embarrassed. I tried to die and failed. I didn’t want to see anyone, I just wanted to leave—to die.”

                  Taehyung takes his words into consideration before continuing. “… She called me, asking to look for you. No, she was begging me. Jimin, I couldn’t think. I didn’t know where you went off to, or what you were thinking. I didn’t want to lose you again, so I­—I went on Facebook and asked everyone I knew to go looking for you. It was probably a stupid idea, getting other people involved. But if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know if you would still be here, man.”

                  “… What happened?”

                  “You were standing by the bridge, remember? The one by the park. You almost jumped, but I found you and pulled you away in time. That’s because… Seokjin told me you were there,” he breathes, as if it’s the greatest secret of all time. “I left my phone number on that Facebook post. Seokjin saw you walking to the bridge, called me, and I ran to you. I saved you, Jimin, but it was only because of him that you’re still here, sitting next to me. That’s why I like him so much. That’s why I practically idolize him, because he saved the single most important thing in my goddamn life.” He chokes a little on his own sobs. “That’s why I keep warming up to him. I want to be friends with him. It’s hard to approach him sometimes, s-so I just watch him from the sidelines. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to impress him. That’s why I want to crash the party. I-I want to go there, to his house, to have fun, to be his friend. That—That’s all.”

                  Jimin stares at him as he drips tears, almost on the verge of crying himself. He squeezes Taehyung’s hand, letting the moment pass by them as softly as the spring winds. “… Do you remember what you asked me that day?”

                  The other boy nods. He in a shaky breath and says, “I-I asked you not to leave me.”

                  “That’s what ‘rabbit shoes’ is, right? We promised that I wouldn’t leave you, and you wouldn’t leave me. Rabbit shoes,” Jimin snorts, “because I showed up at your house in bunny slippers that one time.”

                  “It’s stupid.” Taehyung lets out a faint laugh. “We’re stupid.”

                  “We’re working through it.” He affectionately combs through his friend’s orange locks, noting how his natural color is showing up in his hair. “Tae, you… you’ll never leave me, right?”

                  “N-Never.” He clutches onto his hand a bit harder. “I’ll never leave you behind.”

                  Jimin reaches into his pocket and pulls out the alleged invitation. It’s still sealed, its contents unknown and untold. “Well… I’ll never leave you either.” He takes both of his hands and shreds the envelope to pieces, throwing its remains onto the gravel before watching it float away. “You can’t crash a party you’re invited to. Now I don’t have an invitation, so—”

                  “PARK JIMIN!” Taehyung screams his head off. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!”

                  Jimin flinches, startled out of his wits. “I-I thought you’d be happy if I threw it away!”

                  The guy grabs his shoulders and violently shakes him. “WASN’T SEOKJIN’S ADDRESS ON THE INVITATION?! DO YOU KNOW WHERE HE LIVES?! DO YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHEN THE PARTY IS HAPPENING?! NO, I DIDN’T ING THINK SO!”

                  “… OH.”

I really appreciate all the comments! doesn't matter if they're short and sweet or really, really long with five theories shoved into one :' ) 
I hope everyone is okay with this chapter! I'd imagine a handful of people would go through something like this at some point or another.
Thank you for getting this far, you can definitely keep going!