-back at where we started-

It took some probing, but Jimin finally spills a little about his insecurities.

Days flew past faster than expected after the trip. Unpacking, rambling about the experience to his parents, catching up with his friends…

Wednesday came a little too fast. As Jimin sat in the train station, waiting for Jungkook (what a new experience, he hasn't done that in a while), the panic seeps in bit by bit as he realised that he hasn't actually prepared what he wants to say later. Luckily (or not), Jungkook reached before Jimin could cave in to his terror and flee home, so they head out for lunch.

xxx

The mall was packed, god forbids it's a weekday what's with the crowd. Jungkook eyed the queues all over wearily before saying, "Looks like that leaves us with Macs… if we're fast we can still get that free seat we saw earlier."

"If we're fast," Jimin agrees.

They got the seat. And ordered their usual. It was a casual meal, since nothing serious can be exchanged in that noisy environment, but Jimin's cool with hearing about Jungkook's class stories and clique drama. They left after finishing the meal, to make space for the hungry, waiting eyes.

"Why did you choose the lunch hour," Jimin grumbles as they walked out. "There's so many people."

"I didn't quite expect this much people," Jungkook replies, blinking innocently. "I thought it would be just a little worse than the school Macs."

"Jeon," Jimin groans. "The school Macs is desolated compared to Tampines. And we've barely been there at any peak hours because practice never ends on time."

"Fine, fine," Jungkook throws his hands up. "Even a genius miscalculates sometimes."

"Genius my ," Jimin muttered, and Jungkook reaches to strangle him and Jimin smacks him away.

"I can't believe they ran out of honey mustard sauce though," Jungkook grumbles after a while, as if an afterthought.

"You can't expect every outlet to be prepared to entertain strange, sauce-mixing hobbits like yours," Jimin deadpans. "A regular, normal customer orders curry."

"No they don't, some people take honey mustard and also I'd only mixed sauces on ONE occasion," Jungkook argues.

"You mix sauces whenever you're bored and wants to disrespect your leftover fries," Jimin corrects him.

"That was once!"

"Not the way I remember."

"You're making things up," Jungkook declares after a few more rounds of bickering, huffing as he blows a strand of hair away from his eyes.

"Nah," Jimin dismissed him. "You just have a non-existent memory span. Yaknow. Like a goldfish."

"Rude and offending remark, especially coming from you."

"You asked for it, Jeon."

The conversation seems long drawn out, but it was quite short and they've actually not wandered too far away from the outlet (the crowd may be another factor). As Jimin looks back, he can still see the outlet's bright red M sign. It was then when he realised that this was the first time he's had Macs since… well, that time when he told Jungkook that he was quitting dance.

"Oi, neko," Jimin snaps back to attention when Jungkook waves a hand in front of his eyes. "You weren't responding to me for a while, what's up."

"Nothing much, just suddenly remember that I haven't had Macs in a long time," Jimin replied lightly.

"Whyyyyyyyy?" Jungkook whines.

"I dunno. I swapped back to KFC," Jimin said. Maybe I subconsciously wanted to avoid that place. It reminds me too much of you.

"But KFC is so dry and Pepsi tastes so weird…"

"I still haven't figured out the difference between Coke and Pepsi, so I'll live, thanks."

"But still! Macs is for lifeeeeeeu," Jungkook draws out.

"Yeah sure, but I ate that for 2 years straight, I need the change," Jimin replies in a dry tone.

The Macs or KFC argument dies down as they turned their attention to searching for a quiet area to sit down and talk for real. But the populated mall offers no option, so somehow, 15 minutes and one train station later, Jimin finds himself back at White Sands. Once they stepped off the escalator at level 5, they head towards their usual spot, the worn sofa tucked behind a wall, facing some of the least visited music school ever.

As they settle down on the familiar furniture, all the creases and spilled fillings unchanged but the occupants much more tensed, Jungkook seems to get a whole lot more talkative. Homework, project groupmates, ridiculous marking scheme, nags from his mom, allowance adjustments… Jimin cuts Jungkook off before he can jump into the topic of politics.

"Jungkook," he says, voice quiet and eyes on the floor. "Let's talk."

"We are talking!" Jungkook exclaims indignantly. "We've been talking for hours, like hours and…"

Jimin studies Jungkook: fingers clenched, knees twitching and visibly tense. "Let's talk," he repeats, more gently but voice firm. "I appreciate knowing about your life and all, but its 4pm and we need to get started on the real topic."

Jungkook's barely audible (and senseless) chatter dies down fully, before he finally says, "Okay."

It was an awkward start, but it got better. And with the exception of occasional gay moments, they remained largely genuine.

Am I becoming your last priority or even a priority at all? How many times have you kept me waiting over fcking card games, and do you know that even Jackson tells me to stop waiting for you sometimes. Do you know what my friends tell me, they say I should stay away from you and that you don't appreciate me and that this friendship isn't healthy at all.  Honestly Jeon I knew that quitting dance is gonna affect us but I never imagined that it would get to this point. And speaking of dance why the fck do you still keep telling me about that, and all those details about you and Hoseok and you and Minhyuk and you and whoever, god damn Jeon Jungkook I don't want to know any of that, do you know I already felt left out and you've been emphasizing that to me since god knows when. I want to smack you so much whenever you tell me those stuff, all the things that I'm no longer a part of and how great your life is without me and just fck- why are you making it so difficult for me to breathe-

Words tumble out in absolutely no sequence and probably makes the least sense but Jimin's glad that Jungkook is listening. With every word he feels a little lighter, like a weight is taken off his chest, and yet the fear builds in the sense that he doesn't know how Jungkook will respond, to this pathetic messed up feelings of his.

"I'm sorry," Jungkook finally says. "And you know how I rarely say this. But I'm sorry. I was adjusting to Senior High life, and I really, really like my class this time, neko."

Jimin stares at him, and he sees that Jungkook really means what he said, his eyes shining with something he can't put into words.

"I know it's wrong, and I'm really sorry I stood you up so many times. I just really like my classmates and I want to hang around them," Jungkook was saying, but Jimin's barely hearing him.

I understand, Jungkook, I understand. It's what anyone would have done. Socialising and stuff. It just so happens that I'm sh*t at that and I thought it's alright even if I don't make that much friends because having you as a best friend would be enough.

"And about dance… I just… it's just a habit..? It's hard to remember that you're out of dance and it just naturally comes out of my mouth, I didn't intend on triggering anything, I just-" Jungkook gestures wildly for a while, trying to find the right words. "I just wanted to keep you updated."

"I get your point," Jimin says after a while. "Yeah. And uh. Yeah I mean I get you. Yeah. I just wanted to hear it from you, that's it. Anyways, uh. I also wanted to know. Who am I to you? Like, I don't know. You're pretty important to me, Jeon, but I don't know if it’s the same case for you."

(He regrets asking the question from the moment it left his lips.)

"That's hard to answer, neko," Jungkook frowned. "I mean, I don't know how to, yaknow, weigh this kind of intangible stuff. Like, how do you-"

"No, no, no," Jimin cuts in desperately. "Ignore that question. It's just my insecurity surfacing. Fck. It wasn't a question meant for you. Just, ignore that question."

Think of something else, anything, Park Jimin change the topic now- " We were supposed to talk after concert. Why didn't you come?" Jimin blurts, before he realises what he's said.

You were supposed to phrase it in a more subtle way, you fcking idiot.

Jungkook blinked twice, and Jimin has to shove down the urge to puke when that night's memories come crashing back to him. "Oh. I've wanted to explain that to you for a while. I lost my phone after rehearsal."

"You lost your phone," Jimin repeated slowly.

"Yeah. I left it in a changing room. I looked through the school for you after the concert but I couldn't find you. When I asked around Sungjae said he saw you leaving right after the concert, so I thought maybe you didn't want to talk. I only saw your text at 11pm, and I thought you wouldn't have waited."

"You thought I wouldn't have waited," Jimin repeats, fingers clenching around the hem of his shirt. A thousand thoughts whirled inside his mind, he wants to cry, to shout, to scream at Jungkook for not telling him earlier, wants him to know of his humiliation and how low he put himself that night and how much he hated himself and how he thought he was ridiculous for even asking to talk, as if he was begging for Jungkook's time and attention. There's so many that he wants to say, but none seems fit for Jungkook to know.

What a terrible, terrible joke that fate has played on us.

"I waited, though," Jimin finally says, only looking up when he's sure his face is more or less passive. "I waited."

Jungkook falls silent as well, probably unsure of how to reply. Jimin takes pity on him after a while. "Anyway, so I'm glad it's just a huge misunderstanding. Now that we have that cleared, uh, that's great. It was stupid to want to talk after concert anyway, everyone's exhausted."

"And… last question," Taking a deep breath, Jimin asked. "Did this bother you? In other words, did you care? Like, I mean you definitely could tell that I was pissed, but I couldn't tell if you were bothered by the fact that I was upset and things had gone so wrong in such a short period of time. I'm sorry if this question seems ridiculous to you, I wish I could be more confident too but yeah that's me, and as much as I hate the insecurity, that's who I am. I mean I've been acting around you, around people 'cause I didn't want you to be stuck in awkward situations and it isn't fair to drag someone else into this, but I'm so sick and tired of acting like we're great and still so close, when I barely know you anymore. God I'm just blabbering, I'm sorry."

"Of course I was bothered," Jungkook says, frowning. "I just didn't show it, and I thought you could tell. I was scared to offset whatever tight balance of things between us, so I just mirrored the way you acted."

"It's scary, Jeon," Jimin says after a while. "I thought I'd be able to read you, but now it's like I don't know where I stand in your world anymore. This change is scaring me so much, and I couldn't tell if I was the only who wanted this to stop, I can't read any signs of that from you and that's why I didn't dare to bring this up earlier, not that we have a chance to properly with school and club activities and all, but it has been bothering me for quite a while."

"Neko, I don't know how to reply you. I've always been more comfortable with change than you were, and perhaps it's easier to be a realist because changes are inevitable and you can't just keep lingering in the past when the world has moved on."

"I know you're right and I'm trying, but it's hard for me."

"I know it's hard, but it's for the best. For yourself."

"Yeah… hey what time is it my phone died a while ago."

"Holy fck it's like almost 7," Jungkook jumped up.

"The fck? Why didn’t you check earlier oh my god," Jimin cried as they started to pack their things. "I'm so dead my dad will skin me-"

"Excuse me, at least you live like 20 minutes from here," Jungkook reminds him.

"Aren't you going to your grandparents' place?"

"Yeah, but they live like 40 minutes away," Jungkook mutters distractedly as he packs his power bank and cable.

"Wait, I thought you said they live 20 minutes in the opposite direction?"

Jungkook froze for a moment, before quickly blaming it on a slip of the tongue. "I meant 40 minutes in this rush hour traffic, like yaknow, traffic jams and everything."

"Right…" Jimin falls silent. He questions himself how many other things had Jungkook sacrificed for him quietly these two years, and here he is, being insecure and expecting Jungkook to be as anti-social and secluded as he is and stay behind with him in the past…

"Neko?" Jungkook waves a hand in front of his eyes, jolting Jimin back to reality. "Hurry up, I need the toilet before catching my bus."

"Sorry, zoned out for a moment. Let's go."

You've been more fcking selfish than you thought, Park Jimin.

-TBC-

Naggy author time! This update came a lot quicker than I expected, because this talk was the least documented in accurate terms and the most distant in my memory. I built it mainly off the blog post I wrote after this, but there were a lot of things that went unspoken because I wasn’t brave enough for that yet, so forgive the mess of the form that I wrote out the talk.

Also, I've been struggling to write out the things Jungkook has done for Jimin, but its kind of hard because I'm doing it from Jimin's POV and frankly speaking, I don't know all that Jungkook's sacrificed. I'm sorry if somethings it pops up a lil abruptly, I'll try to fix that in future chapters. Until I find a better way... bear with me? Hehe.

Anyway. Same rule. No promise on the next update. Beta for the previous chapter is up. This chapter will be betaed when the next chapter is up. My school’s starting in 4 days and I’m probably gonna die from tanking 5 mods lmao but whatever I pray my GPA will be alright. Until next time!