-hiraeth-

Close some doors. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they no longer lead somewhere.

In a flash, the school term is over. PW kicks in full force right after their last paper, and the group realises that they have 23 days to fix their written report and 35 for the oral presentation.

For the sake of efficiency and cost-saving, Jimin opens his house to the group, since all of them live in the East and both his parents are away for the time being, so it's convenient for everyone.

Although initially more well-behaved, everyone's true self surfaces after a week of high-intensity preparation and brain drain. The floor becomes Sungyeol's favourite bed, while Jongdae has high praises for Jimin's sofa ("I've never fallen asleep faster on anything than your sofa, do your parents plan on selling it"). Sehun craves to infiltrate the second floor, but Jimin banned all of them since day 2 because he wants to protect at least half the house.

Well, granted, he allows Kyungsoo to be upstairs. His fellow formatter that understands and echoes every bit of his OCD. They'd groan over the unsightly work forwarded to them by their fellow members, trade curses and swears to kill Sungyeol if he forgets to label the source of his diagrams again. Sehun complains, but Jimin shuts him up with "he didn't peel an orange on my bed", and that ends the discussion as the guilty trio draws away, admitting defeat.

That's how the staircase becomes a clear divide. The "content warriors" (as they term themselves) are in the living room, sprawled out all over the floor, pulling their hair out as they try to make their report sound remotely convincing. It is the noisiest place of the house, with music blasting from the speakers, Jongdae twerking on the sofa whenever he's reached that point of insanity, Sehun rolling on the floor with a bag of chips spilled somewhere near, and Sungyeol sitting cross-legged at his corner, tangled in cables and one hand permanently buried in the bowl of grapes. The "OCD squad" reigns level two, which is mostly silent, save for the occasional low groans of frustration. Jimin's beautifying the report section-by-section in his own room, and Kyungsoo is tucked away in the study room, refining the content to fit the word limit.

The two teams communicate via yelling and emails, but the efficiency is low because their throat is often dying (blame the snacks, really) and their email trend is spammed with too many unnamed drafts and lame content like "come down for yoghurt" or "Jimin where did you say the coffee is again". Upgrade came a few days later in the form of a pulley system at the staircase for easy movement of individual thumb drives, and communication was done via the house phone (his mom found it a neat idea, although Jimin is less impressed).

Those days were hectic and crazy, so for the first time, Jimin tries coffee. But his body must have been really fcked up, because ten minutes later, he was knocked out on the bed and only jolted awake two hours later thanks to the insistent ringing of his phone.

"I figured you were sleeping since you weren't replying me on wechat," Kyungsoo says on the other line, sounding apologetic. "Sorry to wake you, but we have work. Version 3.4 is in."

"Oh god," Jimin groans. "Okay I'm on it. "

"Thanks. Do you want breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yes please. I can eat the entire bakery."

"Alright, see you in," Kyungsoo pauses, presumably checking the time. "6 hours."

"Okay, okay. Goodnight."

"I wish urgh."

"I'll make coffee tomorrow?" Jimin offers.

"Don't think that will help, even espresso has lost effect on me these days."

"Uh, you can come crash in the study room bed?"

"Maybe I will, let you know later?"

"Sure."

Three hours later, Kyungsoo calls to let Jimin know that he's coming over at 6 and he does need that bed.

It is inevitable that Jimin and Kyungsoo eventually grew closer to each other. They had too much in common not to.

One afternoon, when Jimin enters the study room to ask Kyungsoo if they should use footnote or in-text citation, he finds Kyungsoo sitting on the chair with legs pulled up and chin resting on his knees, staring out of the closed windows. The atmosphere was sad, and Jimin debates quietly if he should leave the room, but Kyungsoo didn't seem to resent his presence, so he shuts the door behind him, and settles on the bed.

"I used to take the bus pass her house, just to see if she's home or not by checking if her window is lit, then I would worry if it isn't, and come back again in every half an hour to check," Kyungsoo starts after a pregnant pause, not looking at Jimin. "But what's the point, when I can't even text or call her myself to check if she's safe?"

Jimin only murmurs sympathetically.

"You know I dated Suzy, right?" Kyungsoo asks after a pregnant pause.

"I guessed, but wasn't sure," Jimin admits, blinking.

"You didn't ask around?" Kyungsoo blurts out, head shooting up in surprise.

"Why should I?" Jimin asks back, unfazed.

"You haven't heard about me? About my uality, how I'm too girly and have mental problems and got retained and the principal called me in to talk every month?" Kyungsoo asks again in disbelief, and Jimin was baffled by how he's shooting so many questions.
"No, I don't. I'm not the most curious about people that I don’t personally know," he says honestly.

That was how Kyungsoo opens up to Jimin. A blank piece of paper to his past, which is rare because apparently everyone in school has more or less heard bits and pieces of Kyungsoo's case. But Jimin hasn't, because he is that detached. He doesn’t know, so he doesn't judge, and accept whatever Kyungsoo pours out to him.

Kyungsoo and Suzy, a textbook example of a self-destruction relationship that neither is ready to fully let go of. Break up, make up, break up, make up again. An endless cycle. Unhealthy, destructive, jealousy and possessiveness. Not the best kind of couple, but apparently that's what love does to you.

Jimin doesn't fully understand, but he listens anyway. Kyungsoo grows sheepish and asked if Jimin has any story he wants to confess. Jimin pauses to think, about this entire ordeal between him and Jungkook, when he realised it.

"Nothing much, except that I was fixated on fighting a lost battle. The result was determined from the start. From the moment I cared more, I lost my say in this game. I knew it all along, but I just insisted on walking down a path of tragedy because I won't believe it won't work out otherwise."

His words seem to trigger some thoughts in Kyungsoo, so they sat in silence, with only the air conditioner droning in the background.

Outside, the sun is probably setting, and even through the closed windows, the warm tones highlight the dim room, and that moment, Jimin sincerely wished that  Kyungsoo would look less broken.

The peace was shattered when Sehun crashes through the door, gave them both a knowing look and ran out reporting that "they were just talking~". Kyungsoo pulls himself back together quickly and Jimin leaves the room, a little weighted by the trust of Kyungsoo in him. They don't talk about it much after, but they text at an increasing frequency.

xxx

After PW wraps up nicely, Jimin jumps into the suffering of math in December holidays, courtesy of Yoongi hyung (one-on-one tuition at $8 per hour, where else will you ever get this rate in Singapore yall). It was painful, but necessary. Yoongi hyung does make it a lot better though, with his gentle coaxing mixed with small gifts to celebrate the end of every topic.

Apart from math, Jimin starts to reflect a lot about his relationship with Jungkook.

Jimin and Jungkook were the unexpected pair when they first started out. The position and responsibility of student instructor tied them together without a chance of escape, and within two years, they'd unconsciously adjusted their eating habits, dress style and working preference to each other. And together they were the perfect pair.

Jimin is attentive to details, Jungkook has a good grasp on the big picture. Jimin is sensitive to body language and tends to get naggy in an attempt to soften the edge in his words, and when he rattles off too much, Jungkook takes over and cuts straight to the point. Jimin's like the water that quells Jungkook's fiery temper, and when the younger is mad, Jimin sticks by him to make sure he doesn't lash out at the poor kids, even if it means tolerating Jungkook's rough acts (although he'd apologise afterwards) and only whining when he's back to normal. Jimin likes the admin work that Jungkook hates, in exchange Jungkook handles all the "teacher-management" thing that Jimin loathes. Jimin is better at teaching how to incorporate emotions into the dance and working on the fluidity and grace of the movements, while Jungkook can really sit down and comb through the basics with new learners. When they dance together, everything falls in place and their moves are in perfect sync. No pair work as well together as they did. Even the teachers would say, what would dance be like if you two didn't get along?

But that joking question has become reality. Jimin was too new to the idea of a best friend, and Jungkook was with him almost 24/7, and at a point in time, Jimin starts to think of Jungkook as his world. Which was fine, because back then, he was probably really important to Jungkook too. But moving to Senior High, with Jimin quitting dance, their chances of seeing of each other gets increasingly limited, and when Jimin realises that they actually need a legit reason to meet up now, he panics. The lack of Jungkook in his life is terrifyingly foreign, and he just couldn’t accept that change. This relationship gets increasingly one-sided and toxic, with Jungkook curious for new friends and experience, and Jimin just drowns as he replays thair old perfection in his mind. He's tried so many ways to keep Jungkook as a friend, to understand him, to accommodate his schedule, to forgive him for every stupid excuse; each time he backs off a little from his boundaries, lowers his stance a little more, and feels even smaller inside.

Jimin has never quite done this, sitting down to really reflect on what's happened and went wrong between him and Jungkook. Never been this brutally honest. The truth hurts, but Jimin realises that he has to do this.

Photogs has a community service event scheduled in late November. The night before, Jimin writes Jungkook a letter, a letter to tell him that he's leaving, a letter to explain why, a letter that he's been wanting to write since forever.

"This letter is sort of late, because I've wanted to tell you this ever since September," he writes. "But there's exams and PW, so I didn't want to disrupt things for both of us. I've thought through the events of this year, and came to the conclusion that this isn't doing myself any good."

Jimin writes and writes. He doesn't even remember what he wrote, actually. He's so eager to prove that he's finally not as foolish as he was, to the very person that he'd valued so much.

"I'll be a little shameless and say that you would feel a little sad reading this, because if I didn't even mean that much to you, I must have been a really sh*t friend for the past 2 years. Don't feel bad for me, because I'm okay now, and anyway I've already suffered so there's no need for you to as well. Just know that I wish the best for you, and I really hope you won't lose future friends because of the same reasons you lost me.

It's a shame that we ended up like that, but I had two good crazy years with you, and that's good enough. No matter what happened, you're still someone that made me into who I am today, and for that I'm glad.

Happy early birthday, Jungkook-ah. It was nice knowing you."

Jimin ends the letter there, seals it before he can go back to change the content, rip the paper or rephrase whatever. He slips the letter into his bag and goes to bed.

The next day, he passes the letter to Jungkook, and they don't see each other for months to come.

"At that point in time, I wasn't fully okay, although I tried desperately to be. When I wrote you that letter, I was still in denial, in the sense that I don't see what fault I have in this, partly because I was so fed up with myself coming up with excuses for you. I tried to sound morally higher and sacrificial and all that sh*t, trying to believe myself to be okay when I pretty damn isn't. The well wishes were true though, because as much as I was still lowkey mad at you, I wanted you to be happy, even if I'm no longer a reason to that."

- Park Jimin, 2016

-TBC-

Naggy author time!

So this is a really wordy update LOL

About Kyungsoo… I hesitated a lot, whether to even mention him or not. His story is a lot more complicated, but it has relations to mine with the Jungkook friend.

*And if there are any SG kids here that are wondering why Taehyung is taking O levels, that friend wasn't able to promote with us in year 4, so he retained a year and went to the O level class. To make things simpler, I just said Taehyung went to a different school, which was kind of true because that friend moved to polyafterwards.

That's it! Until next time :)