"Seungyeon-eonni likes you, you know," Seulgi said as they were sitting in the library, preparing themselves for their history of art test.

"What?" Jimin said, his finger suddenly stopping in its track because of the sudden topic.

"I said, Seungyeon-eonni likes you," the braided-haired girl in front of him repeated her words again before nonchalantly turning her attention towards her reading once again.

"Wait, why are you saying this all of a sudden?" Jimin said, his mind suddenly went blank. There went the difference art style of the middle ages out of his head. So much for what he had read for the entire day. All of it gone because of an impromptu information which purpose Jimin was questioning right now.

"It just pops into my head," Seulgi said.

"Things like that didn't just pop into your head."

"It does when I try my hardest memorizing who the prominent figure of the Roccoco style was and its difference from Baroque, before everything got mashed up and I started thinking about a monkey dancing under a hot-air balloon," the girl said before sighing, massaging her temple. "For god's sake we've been here for almost five hours and it's freaking three in the morning and I think I need another cup of coffee."

"You don't need another cup of coffee. You need rest, Seulgi," Jimin said.

That middle school friend of his let out another sigh before she fell on top of the table, hiding her face under her arm.

"But I'm serious though, Jimin. I think Seungyeon-eonni really likes you," she murmured again with her face still buried in her arms.

"How do you know, then?"

"She's a close friend of mine too and even though she didn't say it i can obviously tell."

Both of their studies were being abandoned and by now Jimin realized that there was no point of going back. It wasn't like they were able to continue either way.

"And you're my friend since middle school," she said again, this time peeking through the crack of her arm, slightly lifting her head. "That's why I feel like I need to tell you as well."

Jimin furrowed his brows because maybe this was indeed the lack of entertainment and their effort of studying finally backfiring on them, roasting their brain whole.

“What do you mean?”

Seulgi gulped in front of him before she directed her gaze to her textbook that she definitely wouldn't read, a gesture that Jimin knew too well.

“You know, after what happened with you before you left Seoul. With you and Taekhoon,” she said, the last name being whispered from her lips.

Jimin's body tensed up to the name and Seulgi was still avoiding his gaze.

“And?”

“Look, I don't care about that at all. I just don't want you to break Seungyeon's heart before she likes you too much. I hate to see my two best friends fighting,” she sighed, finally looking back at him in the eye.

It wasn't really the fact about Seungyeon that bothered him. It was Seulgi mentioning the mistake he made back then.

“Aren't you disgusted by me?”

The answer that he got from Seulgi was a laugh instead and he clearly didn't see it coming. Seemed like the lack of sleep had really gotten into them.

“Oh please, Jimin. We're studying dance, for god's sake. More than half of the guy in our class is gay. So no, I'm not disgusted by your ual preference,” she said, letting out a smirk that Jimin slowly mirrored. Seulgi leaned forward from her seat with a mischievous look on her face before continuing. “In fact, since we finally got this topic out into the open, I can't wait to finally tell you how many questions I got from some hungry boys who had been totally asking for your in our faculty.”

That night, instead of memorizing the prominent figure of the Roccoco style and its difference from Baroque, Jimin found himself chatting with the too eager Seulgi, to the point that the two of them were receiving glares from the neighboring figures. The sun almost rose as he returned to his windowless apartment that morning, totally unprepared for the upcoming test but heart feeling a bit lighter, simply because he was glad to be accepted, to not lose a friend for doing the crime of being something that he was.

+.-.+

Jimin was ecstatic. Ecstatic was probably an overstatement, because he shouldn't actually feel this happy over petty stuff like Min Yoongi standing in front of his door in the middle of the night. Still, Jimin couldn't deny that he was somehow happy, knowing that the elder decided to come to him for aid.

So there Jimin was, lying on top of his bed with a foreign steady breathing beside him, one that he still couldn't believe to be real. They had both stopped talking, trying to gain sleep somewhere passed midnight. The problem was how Jimin couldn't even sleep. He had instead spent a good two hours or so staring at his ceiling in the dark. Yoongi had his own back against him, seemingly asleep and sound. And here Jimin was, getting more and more conscious of the boy beside him.

They didn't share a bed, of course, but Jimin had somehow spent the last two hours calculating that it only took him an arms length to reach Yoongi's back and touch the older boy. He swallowed. He clearly didn't see this night coming, Yoongi suddenly appearing in front of his door. Whatever feud that the young man was having with his father wasn't clearly a secret to the group. Taehyung told him before how Yoongi had disappeared last year before appearing three days later as if nothing had happened.

This time he decided to appear in front of Jimin's door and he couldn't help the fact that he was simply happy because of it.

Jimin swallowed.

Everything about Yoongi was an enigma to him. He thought the young man hated him with all his guts, thus explaining his constant glare and snark comments. Other time he spoke words Jimin would never imagine coming out from a certain Min Yoongi's lips. But he was right. Yoongi was the first one who ever cared for him, even if the elder didn't find it that way.

Groaning, Jimin finally decided to wake up, knowing that he wouldn't sleep anytime soon either way and headed down to the kitchen to fetch a warm milk. The clock hanging on the wall suggested that it was nearing 4 already.

“Jimin, I heard some voices the other night,” his grandmother suddenly calling out to him as he was pouring hot water into the cup. Startled, Jimin almost knocked the cup down, prompting his grandmother to quickly raise her hand and caught it before it even left the edge of the kitchen counter.

“You startled me, halmeoni,” Jimin said. “It's 4 in the morning, why aren't you asleep?”

“When you're as old as me, sleep doesn't come that easy, my dear,” the Old Park answered, smiling at him. “And I hear a little bit of laughter and another young boy's voice as well earlier, or am I just imagining that, Jiminie?” she continued, a sly smile sneaking to her face, making Jimin felt both a little bit shy and uncomfortable.

“I'm sorry if I woke you up because of it,” he answered. “And I know I didn't talk to you about Yoongi coming over. If you're not okay with it then I'll-,”

“Oh, nonsense my dear. If you're asking me whether I'm troubled by it, then I'm not. I'm actually happy for that,” she stopped him before he could finish his sentence. “As long as you're happy, I'm happy as well, Jiminie.”

They fell into a comfortable silence as Jimin drank his warm milk and his grandmother brewed some tea. It was in the middle of reminiscing how rarely he got to invite a friend over because his parents didn't really like having guests, when the Old Park turned her head towards him and asked him something that got Jimin choking from the milk.

“So is this Yoongi your new boyfriend?”

“What? Halmeoni, that's preposterous!” Jimin said, eyes wide and face getting warmer. “Yoongi's j-just a friend. He just has some trouble with his parents. It's not like I invite him over or anything.”

“Is he the son of the Mins who lives a few houses away? I knew his grandmother when she was alive. His grandfather and yours used to go out fishing together,” she said before breaking off into a heartwarming tale about two old men and a bucket of trouts.

“Yeah. We've been going back home after basketball practice together,” Jimin said, looking at the surface of his glass whilst remembering the walk they shared almost every day since the game. It started with one of them walking ahead of the other and a head that was raised towards the sky for too long. Somehow along the way it turned into echoing steps and soft smile upon stolen glances.

“So do you like him, Jiminie?” she asked again, this time sneaking a smirk.

Does he?

“I've told you, halmeoni, he's nothing but a friend,” Jimin said, feeling how awkward this conversation was, though not in an unsettling way. It was simply how he could never have this kind of talk with his parents. More than anything, he wanted to ask whether his grandmother realized that it was a boy that she was teasing her grandson with.

And it seemed like she could read his mind for she repeated herself once again. “I just want you to know that I love you, Jiminie.” She raised her wrinkled finger and caressed his cheek softly, sporting her notorious smile. “And I don't care about anything else as long as my grandson is happy.”

Frankly, Jimin had forgotten when was the last time his mother ever done something as simple as caressing his cheek. He had forgotten when was the last time his parents ever said that they loved him. He always thought that Seoul was a home, a safe haven where he already got everything he needed for. Yeoryang-myeon was supposed to be a punishment, a place where he was thrown into for a mistake that he had made.

That night he realized that it might have been the other way around all along.

+.-.+

Jimin didn't know how it happened, but partly it was because of his parents coming over without notice. It led to him running along the road with his bare feet, having his parents words echoed over and over again in his head, saying that he was simply repeating a mistake, that he still hadn't learned and how society would condemn him even harsher if he didn't – as they said it – get better.

It was in the middle of the argument, with Jimin screaming that Yoongi is just a friend and how he wouldn't simply ' any boy that he happened to meet', that he realized how his heart was aching from it all, everything came crushing down once again when he finally had felt a tad bit better just hours ago.

Yet friend turned into a questionable word when he pried Jimin's wrist and said that he was the best thing that had ever happened to this place. It became a blurry line when he spent the afternoon trying to find the older boy all around the town with a bleeding feet, and it certainly did when a leg was broken and Jimin brought the bike with bitten lips and shuddering shoulder to the Min's workshop, hoping that Yoongi's father wouldn't realize that the bike he was fixing belonged to his own son and Jimin was practically stealing it.

It blurred even further as Yoongi sat on the backseat each day, leaning his back against his, sitting backwards as Jimin pedaled the bicycle down on a warm evening, heads tilted upward like always.

So Jimin started to question everything, as he realized himself smiling to the grunting and annoyed Yoongi every time he had to help him get down the series of stairs, or how he glanced at him each time during dinner at Seokjin's. He always found a reason to stay with Yoongi, partly because he had promised to help him in return for the broken leg. Yet it didn't explain that small ache in his chest as they parted each day on the road, Jimin stopping there by the junction, keeping his eyes on the elder as he wobbled with his broken leg until he disappeared beyond the door, or how he hoped that Yoongi would simply turn his head in the middle of the lesson to say something stupid, so just he could catch his eyes.

Jimin knew what falling in love felt like. He knew his feeling well enough to tell that he was going to fall so hard. At first he thought that it was nothing but a crush, that it was simply him caring for a best friend just like Yoongi would care for him. Then it happened, the day where he stood on the hallway silently, watching Yoongi laughing to a joke that Yujin had made. It shouldn't be a problem, a small voice in his head said. So what, his friend was conversing with a girl, why shouldn't it be a problem?

But then it was his heels that suddenly turned, his feet taking him far away from the scene that made each inhaled breath an agony. The next day he sat there on his table again with hands on his chest, realizing that he hadn't cried in the classroom for months before he poured his tears out again for a completely different reason.

Because this was proving his parents right, that he was indeed repeating the same mistake. Park Jimin was a fool that let himself fall in love with another boy again. He knew that none of this was going to end well. He would only hurt himself more, bound to return to this very classroom once again, crying in agony. As much as a nice friend Yoongi was, and even if his words made Jimin's heart beat like mad, he knew that Yoongi wouldn't return this feelings. He couldn't simply hope for Yoongi to be like him, and it pain him even more, thinking of how a disgusting thought it would be, for him to wish for such thing.

And after they made the promise that summer day, Jimin made another silent promise, convincing himself that it would be fine. That he would be there on the sideline, watching Yoongi with an aching heart and that would be enough.

(Turned out both of them where bad at keeping promises)

+.-.+

Summer was a bittersweet memory for Jimin. For once, it was the happiest moment of his life, one where it was filled with nothing but of the seven of them having fun. The walk to the Auraji Train Tunnel was going to be something he remembered for the rest of his life and so did Gangneung. Yet it was a torture, having him standing there with a soft smile painting his lips, watching the boy he loved laughing along to the five others that he got to call friends. Each time his heart was filled with happiness, and each time Jimin hated himself a little bit more, knowing that deep down he was wanting for more. He hated that longing, that part of himself who kept on wishing for something illogical, for being childish and stubborn, a naivety that he couldn't get rid of.

His self-hatred culminated one night as he muffled his moans against his pillow with one hand down his pants and another coated in lube, taking care of his business like any other teenage boy would do. Yet, instead of images of girls baring their s, it were anonymous baritone that he imagined being whispered on his ear, before it somehow turned into something familiar and it was Yoongi's name that he chanted passed his lips as he was coming undone. He had never thought of Yoongi that way and having his face flashing in his mind made Jimin felt really guilty.

His grandmother never really about Yoongi ever since their first conversation, since the boy did end up having dinner and sleepover with him from time to time. Thus, Jimin never talked about that agonizing feeling with anyone, thinking that he was doing a good job at keeping it hidden.

That was until Taehyung talked to him one summer day as the two of them sat by the banks of the Songcheon River, Jimin coming along to Taehyung's random and sudden request of fishing.

“What do you say?” Jimin asked again, eyes getting wide and heart parading in his chest. Because he hoped that he heard Taehyung wrong, that he was making that question up in his head.

They were somewhere along the Songcheon River, a little bit south of the town, right where the river ran right next to a highway. Taehyung had claimed that the river was deeper at that part and his 'fisherman instinct' told him that he was going to catch a trout within three hours. They were currently in the two-and-a-half.

“Are you in love with Yoongi-hyung?” Taehyung asked again nonchalantly, the words he were asking and the expression he was sporting weren't making any coherence, considering he was still concentrating on his static bait with constant focus and wrinkled forehead, that Jimin thought he was hearing him wrong.

“In love? Like what do you-,”

“Okay, maybe not in love. A crush, maybe?" Taehyung said, shrugging his shoulder with eyes still focused on the water's surface. For the last two-and-a-half hour, Taehyung had never once turned his head towards him, his eyes fixed entirely on the bait. Yet for the last two-and-a-half hour, the only topic they exchanged were nothing more but Mrs. Oh's thick mustache and Taehyung's oral discovery report about a family of albino crow somewhere behind the school building. So of course, Jimin didn't see this coming, even more so when Taehyung was talking about this as if it wasn't any different from Mrs. Oh's thick mustache or a family of albino crow. "I don't know, Jimin. Are you?"

“That's ridiculous, Tae. I love you all,” he said, trying to play dumb, turning his attention towards the river because he certainly couldn't look at Taehyung in the eyes.

His stomach started churning and heart beating louder. Dozens of questions swarmed his head at the same time. Why did Taehyung decide to mention this right now? Did he know about his past, then? Did Taehyung realize it from his gestures around Yoongi?

"No, I'm serious, Jimin. I mean sure, I love you as well, and Jungkook, and the others, but do you love Yoongi more?" Taehyung asked, still being unsettlingly calm.

"I'm telling you, I love you all. It's not like I prefer Yoongi over you all," he said, this time trying to turn his attention towards the sky in a manner that Yoongi would. And Jimin realized it, the one other feeling he had creeping up from the distance, the fear of rejection, being afraid of what Taehyung might actually mean or do. His seatmate was being so nonchalant, he couldn't even read him, couldn't even understand where this was heading.

"Don't say such weird stuff, Tae," he said, hoping that Taehyung would just let this slip away.

For a moment he thought that Taehyung would and he could pretend that this conversation never happened, but Taehyung raised his voice again.

"I don't know Jimin, it's just-, whenever I see you look at Yoongi-hyung, it's different from how you look at me or Jungkook or the others," he said, his tone sounding serious, making Jimin felt like biting his lips and hiding his face in his own palm. "You look at Yoongi-hyung differently and you always look so happy when you're with him. It just reminds me to what my mom used to say about love, and I'm honestly a bit jealous."

"Jealous?" he said, repeating the last word while turning his head towards Taehyung.

Taehyung just nodded with his gaze still fixed on the bait. "Yeah, I mean, I never look at someone else like that and no one has ever looked at me like that. And I know everyone in the group loves one another but it seems like you two are going to care about each other more."

Taehyung paused and Jimin honestly didn't know what else to say to that.

"It just makes me feel a little bit left out, you know," Taehyung said again.

Something burst in Jimin's chest, because he never knew that Taehyung ever saw it that way. Sure, Taehyung didn't mean that he loved Jimin in the same way that he was harboring feelings for Yoongi, but it certainly made Jimin feel happy, to find that his friend thought of him in such way.

"Don't you find it weird, Tae?" he said softly. "Aren't you going to hate me, if I do?"

"Hate you for what?"

Jimin gulped.

"For loving another man."

And Jimin was so afraid, frightened about the words that Taehyung might give him. Because that seatmate was one of the few friends that he had left in this world. He was the only one who went to such extent to talk to him, and losing him now would break his heart as much.

For the first time Taehyung turned his head towards him with eyebrows furrowed and expression unamused, as if he didn't agree completely with what he just said. Taehyung had finally looked him in the eyes for the first time since two-and-a-half hour, doing so only when he disapproved of his words.

"It's ridiculous, Jimin. Why would I hate you for that?" he said. "Why should I hate you for loving someone else?"

That time Jimin remembered how he cried during that initiation night almost too embarrassingly underneath the moonlight, something that Yoongi unknowingly had witnessed. Right now Jimin wanted to do exactly the same, feeling his heart brimmed with happiness. Maybe Taehyung didn't really understand what he meant, didn't really understand the weight of the conversation and what it meant to Jimin, but all of this was more than enough for him.

"The only time I would hate you is when you decided to forget about me. That, and if you said that I'm not the best seatmate that you got in the whole wide world," he said, before sporting the square smile of his that Jimin knew too well.

That day Jimin felt genuinely happy for the words that Taehyung said to him, he let his best friend blamed him jokingly for not catching a trout because of the words Taehyung said as 'utterly ridiculous', it got him turning his attention away from the bait for a milisecond (which Taehyung wholeheartedly believed was the exact time when the trout caught his bait and swam away with it).

That day Jimin knew that Kim Taehyung wasn't going to ever hate him, because he too, would never going to forget about having such a friend like him.