"You appreciate me asking you along for company?? Do you hear how ridiculous you sound right now? Why are you acting like a stranger??"

"I'm n-not— I just— I don't know... What are we supposed to be?"

"What do you want us to be?" Taehyung challenged.

"We've been through this many times..." Jimin spoke wearily. The rift between them was splitting open like an old wound, and he could barely hold it together at the seams. "You never wanted to listen."

"I'm listening now. Tell me what you want."

"I want... I wanted to love you."

"No... Wrong answer... Not even close."

"Stop telling me how I feel! You don't know me that well."

"That's cause you refuse to feel anything unless it punches you in the nose."

On the day Taehyung left Jimin with a broken heart, he had topped it off with a bloody nose. Jimin couldn't bring himself to hate or so much as blame Taehyung because Taehyung had been in an equally vulnerable state. He remembers Taehyung uttering incessant apologies as he tried to fix his trousers with shaky hands, eventually ditching any last shreds of dignity in retreating from the room with a bottom and his slacks bunched up between his legs, looking every bit like a kicked puppy with a trampled tail. Jimin had stared after Taehyung in a druken haze, unable to catch up when he couldn't even fend for himself. Why did Taehyung run away?

Maybe that's what people do at parties. They get smashed, their senses betray them, they cozy up to their best friend, and then... Taehyung's crestfallen face resurfaces in his memory.

Basically, it never ends well. Jimin was sure he wouldn't regret it, but Taehyung's subsequent disappearance gave him second thoughts.

"You wanted to me, Jimin. There's a difference there."

Jimin flinched at the way Taehyung emphasized the 'f' word with such force as if it were making his blood boil.

"You don't remember our PDA? The fitting room s? Airplane cabin quickies? Boy, we were practically ing for thrills." Taehyung drawled and slurred his speech, his eyes clouded over with misgivings yet smiling airily like he was still immersed in the high of their ual stimulation.

"If you don't enjoy it, why pretend?"

"You really just take me for a quick , don't you?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Was I only a good after him?"

"You were never a substitute, if that's what you're thinking."

"Then why do you cry his name when you're with me?" Taehyung's bitter rage was simmering as he came close to realizing that nothing he said would make any difference now. If they can't be lovers, would Jimin still love him as a friend? Somehow, he felt like he couldn't live with either option. Even with the world coming to an end, he had plenty to lose.

"You let him slap you around, but you wouldn't even let me make a sound?" Taehyung scrunched his eyes tightly to shut away the tears. "Did you just want to see how far you could go with me?"