Love has no off switch
You love once*One month ago*
Jimin made a face, looking down at the wedding invitation cards.
"I didn't know turquoise meant this colour. "
Namjoon looked up at him incredulously from his makeshift workstation.
"Well you better like what you just found out it means!"
Jimin's frown intensified, but he lowered his head, stomped up to Namjoon's side and sat down. He elbowed Namjoon, who was focused on addressing the envelopes and elbowed him away in turn.
"Don't bug me Jimin."
"But Hyung!"
"Don't Hyung me!...God! You might as well call me oppa, you're being such a princess ever since that boy said yes to marrying you! You're acting like a bride, and it’s like I'm your dad, arranging a fairy-tale wedding for you."
"That boy's name is Taehyung! And you can stop being mean just coz you don't like my decision to marry him."
"Now, that's not true." Namjoon said, looking up, pointing his permanent marker pen at Jimin's face. "The truth is that I HATE it."
Saying this, Namjoon turned back to his desk, which was strewn with cards and pens. He had been doing this for the past two hours and his neck hurt terribly.
"Hyung, you have to learn to like it. Taehyung is the person I love and whom I'm going to spend my life with." Jimin said, his voice now low and stern.
"Yeah. Maybe you are."
"Maybe??...What do you mean maybe? I'm getting married to him. Our engagement is in a month." Jimin raised his hands in exasperation."Hyung, sometimes I think maybe you are disappointed coz I'm with a guy instead of..."
Namjoon threw his pen down on the table, closed his eyes and sighed loudly.
"Jimin, if your memory hasn't been entirely clouded by your boyfriend’s pretty face, you might be able to remember that I was the first one in the family to come to know about you being gay and the ONLY one who stood by your side. I have ALWAYS supported you Jimin, in everything."
"Then why can't you be happy for me now?"
Namjoon looked up and saw that Jimin looked like he was almost about to cry. His lips were puckered up and nostrils flared and in their childhood days, Namjoon had always known what this face meant. It was an indication that his younger brother had just been denied the fulfillment of some wish by their parents. He would, then, straightaway get down to the task of somehow getting it done by his parents and if they did not budge, he would brainstorm a way to get it done himself. More often than not, he would find a way to accomplish it or something close enough to get Jimin smiling again. Nothing had ever been more important to Namjoon than his younger brother's happiness and the assurance that Jimin got whatever he wanted.
The boy had never, by any means, been a brat. He was a very sweet and kind child. The child Jimin's demands usually stretched up to the level of deciding to bring a three legged puppy home from a dustbin where someone had left it and get it patched up medically. Or insisting that the old grandpa who lived alone three blocks away from them, be brought to live with them in the vacant attic room, since the old man had fallen and fractured his hip and he would obviously need someone to tell him stories when he was eating (Coz that’s what Jimin had needed a few days before that when he had cut his own thumb and it had hurt badly).
Jimin had always had an aspiration to fix broken things and that had invariably involved bringing the broken things into his own life and developing an attachment to them. Namjoon had always been okay about this. If fixing broken things made Jimin happy, then he would help fix them or watch as his younger brother did it. It made sense because he knew that he would always be there, right beside Jimin, ready to put his own hand forward in case there was any broken part that could hurt his brother.
But as Jimin grew into a young man and his fascination with broken objects diverged to a different path, Namjoon found himself powerless against the adversity. This time, it was a boy with a broken heart, whom Jimin had come to know as a close friend, becoming fixated over putting the broken pieces together, believing he could do this with his own love. One weekend night, Jimin was back home from his University and the two brothers were lying down at the rooftop, laughing together over a bottle of rum and a heap of accumulated stories that each had to share. When the alcohol had loosened the reserve on his words and the starry sky and cool breeze persuaded his sentiments, Jimin narrated to his brother, the story of his new best friend, Taehyung. About how beautiful he was and how much he liked him and how he fails to understand how someone could have broken his heart. Namjoon had understood, with a sinking feeling, where this was heading and that he needed to pull his brother back before he could jump into the fire.
“Jimin, this guy is in love with this Jungkook character. He’s never going to feel anything back for you.” Namjoon had said.
As expected, Jimin had turned against him after that one sentence.
“Hyung, you are wrong.”Jimin had said. “I’ll show you how wrong you are.”
Last month, he had come home, smiling from end to end, and pulled Namjoon away by the arm, to the same rooftop where Namjoon had first warned him of Taehyung’s lack of feelings towards him. Jimin had then taken pleasure in announcing that his Hyung had been wrong and that he had proposed and Taehyung had said yes. He had hugged Namjoon tightly, saying that he wasn’t mad at Namjoon anymore about what he had said about Taehyung and now that Namjoon would get to see how happy he was with Taehyung, he was sure his Hyung would feel differently about the situation. He had assured Namjoon
Comments