[A/N: This is a triple update, starting at Chapter Four. 

 

Trigger warning: rebound, bad communication within a relationship, homophobia.]








 

At twenty-five, a month after his birthday, Jimin packs up his life and moves from the space he’d made his own. It had become apparent throughout their afternoons spent together that Jeongguk was struggling. For the first few months it had been fine, Taehyung still paying rent whilst the lease ran out, but eventually the end loomed and Jeongguk decided he either had to find a flatmate or find a new flat.

 

Jimin, as he listened to the increasing panic, remembered doing the same when Taehyung left him to live with Jeongguk. He’d had to find a new flat, ultimately. He hadn’t wanted to – the flat was something they created together, something that looked like them, and giving that up had been hard, but in the end he’d had no choice in the matter. Jimin’s space looked like him now, and he didn’t let a lot of people see it.

 

For that reason, a week before his birthday, stood in a living room that still looked like Taehyung, Jimin made the decision for Jeongguk that he never got to make. It was meant to be a farewell to the flat, since Jeongguk hadn’t been able to find anyone, as well as an early birthday party for Jimin. But in the quiet of the clean-up, their other friends long gone and the buzz of alcohol slowly following, Jimin had said,

 

“I could move in with you.”  

 

(They didn’t really talk about it. Jeongguk had looked at him with big hopeful eyes, and neither of them spoke about why they so desperately wanted to keep a space that felt like neither of them.)

 

They had let their friends know tentatively, expecting rebuttal, but Hoseok grinned and proclaimed it a great idea, and no one tried to disagree. So at twenty-five, Jimin moves into the space Taehyung vacated. All of the spaces. First, the flat. Then, Jeongguk’s bed.

 

Three months. Three months into living together, four months into being twenty-five, and Jimin begins what would eventually overtake his relationship with Yoongi as the most defining of his youth. An odd bond between them had grown, of sorts, over the mutual gap in their lives.

 

(They don’t talk about it. It feels almost inevitable. The living room is starting to feel like them.)

 

It’s nice, Jimin thinks. It makes him feel human. It doesn’t have a name and Jimin is too anxious to ask for one, but it has lunch dates and shared dinners and someone he cares about holding him at night. He knows it’s rebound, knows he’s a consolation prize, knows he’s doing the exact same thing, but…

 

It’s nice.

 

(They never talk about it.)

 

They talk about a lot of things. They talk about work, and they talk about their friends. They talk about Taehyung, sometimes. Jeongguk talks about Jimin.

 

“I think I misjudged you.”

 

They’re lying in bed, skin against skin, sleep fighting them.

 

“How do you mean?”

 

Jimin is anxious to ask.

 

“I used to think you lied, kept all these secrets.”

 

Jimin wonders if he should feel insulted by that.

 

“You don’t think that anymore?”

 

“Are hiding and lying the same thing?”

 

He should hope not.

 

“I hope not.”

 

“I don’t think you do it on purpose, anyway.”

 

“I do.”

 

Jimin wonders when he started being this honest with Jeongguk.

 

“You do?”

 

Wonders why it’s easy.

 

“I try not to with you.”

 

Skin on skin, in the arms of someone he cares about holding him at night.

 

“That’s enough.”

 

 

Six months, over a year since Taehyung left, in bed skin on skin – Jimin watches as Jeongguk looks at him with big apologetic eyes whilst answering a call from a boy no one had heard from in months.

 

Jimin knows they’re rebound, knows he’s a consolation prize, knows they’re second place to the boy on the phone, but he’s never really felt like it. As they built their space together, safe from worlds outside of Seoul, it had never really felt like that.

 

But as Jimin watches Jeongguk’s face, speaking with a man he’d swear he doesn’t love anymore, Jimin feels exactly like that.

 

He retracts from Jeongguk’s side, retracts from his bed, retreats to the safety of his own room, retreats to his own head.

 

It’s not nice.

 

Jeongguk watches him go, looking at him with big defeated eyes, and doesn’t stop him, still speaking softly into the phone’s receiver. Jimin doesn’t know why he thought he could ever be more than a third wheel to a better relationship. Maybe it’s because he thought Jeongguk was good for him, and he made Jeongguk smile, sometimes.

 

A glance back when he’s at the door makes him realise he’s never made him smile like that, though.

 

It takes six months for Jimin to realise how difficult it’s going to be to rebuild his defences, even though they’d come down so easily.

 

A quiet part of him wants Jeongguk to yell at him, wants Jeongguk to be loud. Thinks of Yoongi and Hoseok and being made to talk.

 

The next night, lying in bed, skin against skin, he wonders if they’ll ever talk about it.

 

(Jimin is desperate to talk about it.)

 

“You have a lot of people who love you, you know that, right Jimin?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“You don’t sound like you believe it.”

 

Jimin stares at the ceiling, allowing himself this one last moment of vulnerability.

 

“Knowing and believing aren’t the same thing Gguk.”

 

(Jeongguk never makes him talk about it.)

 

 

Nine months. Nine months after Jimin moves in, six months after they start whatever they are, and three months after the beginning of their downward spiral – Jeongguk gets another phone call. His job is offering him a transfer to America at a much higher pay grade. It would be foolish to decline it. It would be selfish for Jimin to ask him to, especially when Jeongguk is offering to pay his half of the rent until the lease ends. He’ll find a new space. He loves this place, but it won’t be right. It won’t be right, without him here. He doesn’t want to be here without him.

 

Without the living room feeling like them.

 

Besides, it’s natural to end it here. He should feel relieved, right? It makes sense to end it here civilly, instead of drawing it out to the quiet angry conclusion he knows it’ll have if he makes himself a nuisance and holds on too long. He knows how this goes, he knows everyone eventually leaves, so he doesn’t fight it. 

 

Still, it hurts a little, seeing him go. Jimin makes it another month before, Yoongi seemingly unwilling to drag him out again this time, he can’t take the quiet anymore and visits home.   

 

 

Visiting home is difficult. He loves his family, needs his family to be there, scared to death of the day they’ll eventually leave too, but being around them is difficult.

 

He’s never officially come out to his parents, not after that first attempt. But they know. They don’t approve, but they know.

 

(They won’t talk about it.)

 

So when his mother asks why he’s there, he can’t bring it up, right? Too anxious, too much risk. But she knows, and she asks, and for the first time in years Jimin breaks down.

 

He can’t remember a time he’s cried like this. His family have definitely never seen him cry like this. He doesn’t want them to see him cry like this, but he doesn’t have the energy to be angry anymore. So he clings to his mother even as she shies away.

 

Jimin thinks of sixteen, under the stairs, wishes his mother would wrap him up and let him hide.

 

Thinks of nineteen, distressed in his fury, wishing he could be the right type of loud.

 

Thinks of twenty-four, sleeping alone on the sofa with the smallest of hopes, wishing he knew what to do to make things better.

 

Thinks of ten months ago, clinging to the old. Seven months ago, grasping at the new. Four months ago, watching old and new collide, knowing that it was going to hurt, and wishing it wouldn’t.

 

Last month, saying another goodbye and wishing it got easier.

 

At age twenty-five, still a month away from his twenty-sixth birthday, Jimin wipes aggressively at his still watery eyes, offers a tight smile, and retracts himself from his mother – retracts into himself.

 

When he’s calmed down, his mother asks him to help with dinner and he gets lost in the task. He feels lighter, floaty. Like he doesn’t weigh anything. Like he’s empty.

 

She speaks softly, gentling her tone, trying her best to smooth everything out. She tells him men will never treat him well, because men are men. Shoots him an apologetic look for including him in the damnation. Quietly tells him worries about grandchildren.

 

Visiting home is difficult.

 

She starts talking about their neighbour’s daughter – a nice young Busan girl, she says, just moved to Seoul. Could use someone to show her round. Someone who would treat her right. Maybe she could make Jimin happy, she says, but she won’t push if Jimin asks her not to.

 

Jimin listens as he floats, and wonders what he should do. When he doesn’t respond his mother changes topic, and they finish making dinner. They eat together as a family, his previous outburst forgotten, and no one talks about it.

 

 

Jimin had taken a week of impromptu holiday leave to visit home, and with his family tip-toeing around him wonders what he should do with the time.

 

(He needs someone to talk to, but he doesn’t want to worry any of his friends and Jeongguk is out of the question.)

 

Maybe it’s the part of him that blames Taehyung that makes him pick up the phone.

 

Taehyung answers after two short rings, surprise colouring his voice. Jimin lets him know he’s in Busan and asks if he’s still in Daegu – prepared to make the trip – but Taehyung decides to come to him instead. He can see both Jimin and his dad that way. Jimin, despite himself, despite Taehyung making no effort in what feels like forever to keep their friendship alive, decides it’s enough.

 

(He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He needs someone to talk to, but his family won’t understand and Jeongguk is in a different country.)

 

They meet for coffee. Taehyung looks tired but well, and Jimin envies him. He asks how he’s been doing, and in turn Taehyung asks about him. Then, he asks about Jeongguk. Jimin asks if there are still feelings there, and Taehyung tells him it’s been a year. Jimin lets him know Jeongguk is in America. Taehyung seems surprised but unbothered.

 

Jimin tentatively asks if he’s seeing anyone.

 

(He doesn’t know why he’s asking this, but he needs to talk and Jeongguk left.)

 

Taehyung isn’t – too busy – and Jimin asks if he wants to be. Taehyung comments on the pointed nature of Jimin’s questioning.

 

(He doesn’t know why he’s asking this, but Taehyung left too and he never got to ask.)

 

Jimin asks if Taehyung could ever see them together.

 

(He always comes back, though. He keeps leaving, but he’s always come back.)

 

Taehyung is stumped, admits to never thinking of Jimin that way. Jimin, too tired to be anxious anymore, brings up all the times he’s called him a catch. Taehyung, flustered and unsure, says he was just saying what Jimin wanted to hear.

 

(He wonders what it would take to make him stop coming back.)

 

“So you think I’m not? I’m not- I’m not good enough to date?”

 

“For me, Jimin.”

 

“I’m not good enough for you?”

 

“That’s not what I mean, don’t twist my words.”

 

“I wasn’t.”

 

“You’re a friend to me, Jimin.”

 

“That’s fine, I’m happy as that.”

 

They haven’t been friends in nearly a year now.

 

 “Then why ask for more?”

 

“Well, I,” Jimin rings his hands, “I couldn’t not. If you want something, you should ask – right?”

 

“Well I can’t give you that.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“You deserve someone who’ll be there for you, Chim. I’m not in the right place for that.”

 

Yoongi was there for him, until he wasn’t. Jeongguk was there.

 

“But even if you were, you wouldn’t want to be with me.”

 

“Jimin.”

 

Has Taehyung ever been there for him?

 

“I’m just making sure I understand.”

 

And he does. He understands perfectly.

 

 

Taehyung is in Busan a while longer, but they don’t meet up again. Jimin replays their conversation over in his head a lot, wondering how he should feel about it. Upset, maybe. Angry.

 

He feels light.

 

He’s unsure what he would have done, had Taehyung said yes. Unsure of what outcome he’d been hoping for. Wonders if he’ll leave again.

 

Empty.

 

Before Jimin leaves for Seoul, his mum asks about setting him up again. She looks hopeful, and Jimin loves her, and Jimin can’t lose her too. He tells her to give the girl his number.

 

While on the train home, he calls Taehyung.

 

(Jimin is so desperate to talk.)

 

But the number is not recognised.