Chapter 22 – Patching Things Up

The next morning, Jimin woke up in his own bed with a pounding headache. He tossed the blanket away and rolled over, trying to find a more comfortable position, but gave up after a few minutes. His eyes blinked open, and he moaned and threw an arm over his head to shield himself from the sunlight that was peeking through the curtain of his bedroom window. He couldn’t exactly remember how he’d gotten back home, and most of the night was a blur, but slowly, as awareness crept back in, memories started to return.

“Oh god….” he mumbled to himself, as the realization that he’d spent at least a good half-hour making out with Hoseok, hidden in Suga’s food closet, assailed him like a ton of bricks. He rolled over, pulling a pillow over his head and hiding there, as if it could somehow erase the memories from his brain.

‘I kissed Hobi-hyung….’

‘Hobi is gay…’

‘… and he likes me…’

‘and I kissed him….’

‘Oh god, oh god, oh god…’

His moment of panic however was interrupted when he heard the sound of his phone buzzing from somewhere under the blankets. He d around with his hand, trying to find it from his current position, but obviously the phone was trying to hide from him, so he grumpily tossed the pillow away and shook the blanket until his phone fell out. He grabbed it and then looked at the screen.

“Oh great.” he muttered aloud, a pained look crossing his features.

[Hey Jimin… are you okay?]

[Hum… I think we need to talk…]

The message was from J-Hope, and Jimin guessed that his friend could also remember what had happened the night before, and he wasn’t really looking forward to the conversation that obviously needed to happen. Because honestly, he had no idea what he was going to say.

He tossed the phone away without answering the mail, and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. His mom greeted him in the hallway and sweetly offered to make him breakfast, even though it was already nearly lunchtime. He tried to smile and nodded so that she wouldn’t worry about him and said he was gonna take a shower. He took his clothes off, realizing that he still wore the same ones from the day before, and he just stared at them in a daze after he’d put them in the basket.

‘I wonder if they smell like him…?’

But then he shook his head, and turned the tap on, letting the hot water wash away at least some of his discomfort.

He walked back into his room a half-hour later, in a fresh pair of boxers and a towel over his head, feeling slightly better, and looked at his phone, lying on top of his comforter as if taunting him. He looked at it for a moment, and then finally sighed and grabbed it.

[Hey hyung. Yeah I’m alright. Just really hungover.]

He typed his message, hoping it sounded normal enough, and a reply came back instantly.

[Oh I’m sorry. I thought maybe we could meet if you felt well enough…]

Jimin stared at the phone for a long time before replying.

[Nah I can go. Just give me an hour or so?]

[Ok]

And that was it.

J-Hope was never usually this curt with emails, so it didn’t help to ease the queasy feeling in Jimin’s stomach.

*

About an hour later, he arrived at the ice-cream shop they’d been to before, near the dance studio, which was where they’d agreed to meet. J-Hope was already there, sitting outside in the furthest corner of the patio on a lonely bench, away from the few other customers. It was Sunday, but the weather was really gloomy, clouds hanging down ominously over their heads as if they might start pouring rain at any moment, and it was also unseasonably cold for early June, so he guessed that not many people were feeling like ice cream today. Something about the sight of his hyung, dressed up nicer than he’d ever seen him, in shorts, a button-up shirt and a little black fedora hat, munching quietly on his ice cream cone, lost in his thoughts, tugged at Jimin’s heart-strings.

“Hey” he finally said. He’d been standing in front of him for a good 10 seconds, but the other boy hadn’t even noticed he was there.

“Oh” J-Hope looked up and a strange look passed over his features before he broke into a wide eye-smile. It was pretty convincing, but Jimin could tell it was forced.

He sat down next to his friend, not knowing what to say.

“I thought you wouldn’t want any, so I didn’t wait for you,” said the dark-haired boy, smiling as he pointed to his ice-cream, “hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh no, it’s fine of course” Jimin replied, with a nervous laugh.

Both boys sat there, next to each other, not looking at each other, for over a minute. J-Hope quietly his ice cream, and Jimin just not knowing what the heck he was supposed to say. It was awkward.

Finally, Hoseok broke the silence.

“So…..… you were pretty drunk last night…”

“Yeah…”

“Do you… remember what happened?”

“Yeah…” Jimin paused, scratching the back of his ear, “somewhat…”

Silence.

“It’s a bit blurry” added Jimin, “……. You?”

“Oh, I wasn’t that drunk…”

“Oh…”

“So yeah….”

“Oh…”

There was a long silence before Jimin added, “I like girls though.”

“I know.”

Silence.

“And you?”

“I don’t like girls…”

“Oh…”

“Yeah…”

Silence.

“Look…” they both said at the same time. Then Jimin said “you first.”

“Look it doesn’t have to be weird… we were both drunk… these things can happen…”

Jimin nodded, thoughtfully.

“I’ve never kissed a guy before though.”

Hoseok didn’t say anything. There was a long silence. Then J-Hope sighed, his shoulders hunching sadly.

“Look, if it’s going to be this weird. Let’s just pretend it never happened, ok?” He looked up at Jimin, hopefully, “I just want us to be friends, normally, like before.”

Hoseok looked so bright as he waited for Jimin’s answer, but the younger boy couldn’t give him what he wanted. He couldn’t just sweep it under the rug and pretend it had never happen.

“Hobi…” said the younger, and J-Hope’s smile faltered.

“I want to be friends but… I need to think…” said Jimin, staring at his hands in his lap.

“Oh, ok.” said J-Hope, in what he hoped was an off-hand manner, though Jimin could see that he was hurt.

The brown-haired boy took a deep breath and stood up. Then he turned around and flashed Hoseok his best smile. “Don’t be sad.” he said, “I just… I just need some time… ok?”

J-Hope nodded, not looking him in the eye.

“So… I’ll see you at school?” asked Jimin, trying to sound normal.

“Yeah” J-Hope smiled, and Jimin knew he was faking it as well.

***

The living room was empty when Rapmonster walked inside Suga’s apartment, later that afternoon, though the lights were on so he knew his friend had to be around somewhere. He checked the unmade bed – though it was empty – and then popped into Suga’s workroom and was surprised to find his friend and V, hunched over some papers, discussing something intently.

“Oh, hey” he said as a way of greeting, though he obviously sounded surprised. “I just came to drop my part of the rap for next week. If you have time to look it over?”

Suga turned around and greeted his friend, “oh yeah man, come on in.”

V also turned to look up at Rapmonster, and they exchanged a brief look, that was not as harsh as the blonde boy would have expected.

“I can go if you guys need to talk” said the ashen-haired boy, and Rapmon was somewhat surprised at the lack of venom in his voice.

“No, no, we’re not done yet.” Suga waved him off.

“What are you guys doing?” asked Rapmon, curiously, making his way over to the work desk.

“This kid… did you know he could sing??” explained the red-haired boy, with a touch of awe in his voice, “got a super low gravelly tone that sounds like melted chocolate. It’s insane! We were working on something together… I’ve been thinking about actually incorporating vocals into our songs…”

“Wow, seriously??” exclaimed Rapmonster, genuinely surprised. And V flashed a little grin, though he looked both pleased and embarrassed at the same time, and he shrugged.

“I just wanna record his part, and then we can do yours?” suggested Suga.

“Nah, we can just do mine whenever, I’ve got someplace I need to be anyways. I just came to drop this off” he said, placing his papers on the table. “Let me know after you’ve had a chance to check them over.”

Suga glanced at the few sheets of paper and said “Cool.”

“Well then” said the blond boy after a slightly longer than normal pause, “I guess I’ll leave you guys to it…”

“Later” mumbled Suga in his usual deep tone, as he’d already turned back towards the computer.

“Bye” added V as Rapmon had already crossed into the other room, but the sound of the younger boy’s voice made him turn around and stare. ‘huh?’

*

Rapmonster entered the restaurant and walked over to a table in Soonja’s section without waiting for someone to assign him a seat. The tall girl looked up from the table she was cleaning as and followed him with her eyes as he did so. The look was nowhere near as as vicious as it would have been just a few days ago. Rapmon smiled at her before sitting down and looking over the menu.

“Eating alone again, monster-boy?”

He looked up and saw the pretty girl quirking an eyebrow at him, pen poised over her notebook, and he smiled.

“Yup. But you know I only come here to see you,” he added, greasily.

She rolled her eyes. “So what will it be?”

Rapmon ordered a handful of side-dishes and Soonja took off. He took out his notebook and started working on his lyrics again; this time for a completely new song. The girl came back with his food a few minutes later, but it remained mostly untouched, as he stayed there writing well into the evening, only packing up to leave hours after the sun had gone down.