Jimin watches and claps along with the rest of the crowd because that is what is expected.  He smiles through the aching pain that’s slowly squeezing his heart because that is what everyone else around him is doing.  He forces himself to sit there, silent and still, watching the progression of graduating students from start to finish.  

    He listens as Seokjin, someone Jimin knows mostly by accident, gives a speech about the future being whatever they make it.  That life will give back to them whatever they put into it.  Something poetic about doors and windows and grasping at a future that they want.  He drones on for a while, tipping towards too long about the time that Jimin loses interest and just sort of stares in the general direction of the stage as his mind wanders in circles.

    He sits there watching a little too closely as Yoongi travels across the small stage, smirk in the corner of his mouth as he throws a curled fist into the air and there’s a small eruption of laughter and hollering that is probably Yoongi’s Senior friends. And it’s so Yoongi, so much the boy he’s known for years, the boy he followed around like an annoyance in middle school, that he’s left with an ache in his chest.

    He watches the same boy he clutched onto when his dog had died gets handed his diploma and shakes the hand of Principal and the like. Sits there as the same boy he’d shared his first illegal celebratory drink with smiles widely yelling in victory and jumping off the side of the stage. He sees so much of their past and their present in the way Yoongi smiles - forever the life of the party, even while still being on the student council, getting straight a’s and being captain of the basketball team. The perfect contradiction. 

    Jimin sits in his seat until the last graduate leaves the auditorium. And then he keeps sitting as families and friends and loved ones make their way out behind the graduates in storms of excited proud limbs. He sits there until it’s nearly silent in the dim lighting of the much too large room.  There is a whole were the pride should be, an emptiness were the happiness is suppose to linger. 

    He forces himself to slip out towards the doors, looks around through the crowds of people, watches student hugs parents or high-fiveing one another in celebration.  There is freedom invisibly written across the face of every single one of the graduates, it leaves Jimin frowning as he looks for the one face he actually came for.  He finally sees the older boy, directly across the hallway from him, face split into an unusually bright smile as he throws his arms around Seokjin and Namjoon they pose for a picture. 

    He takes a step towards the boy before he stills suddenly, overwhelmed and oddly terrified of what will happen when he crosses the space between them.  He’ll be expected to give congratulations, to smile for a picture or two, to give the older boy and hug and wish him well on life after High School.  Jimin isn’t sure he can actually manage that with a smile and a straight face. 

    So instead, he runs. 

    He runs because he’s a coward and there is a sudden sob lodged in the back of his throat, the recently all too familiar sting of tears in the corner of his eyes. His vision blurs as he bursts out the side stage door in the auditorium, sprinting down a side hallway and skidding out into the back basketball courts. He gets to center court before he breaks down, cement cracked and fading paint lines underneath swirls of gravel littering the expanse of the pavement that is growing hot with the beginnings of a summer sun. 

    He sinks down, arms curling around his knees head dropping against his thighs.  He bites into the fabric of his only nice pair of pants, ironed this morning by his mom when he’d thought he wanted to look good for Yoongi - when he’d thought he could smile and clap and be so happy and proud for the older boy. But now he screams into them instead, teeth gnawing on the fabric between his lips as he shakes and chokes on sobs that rip from the middle of his chest. 

    He can’t place the emotions rolling through him like waves crashing into shore, he feels lost and misplaced.  His legs wobble when he stands, his chest heaving and eyes bloodshot.  He looks up at the school, thinks of next year and the hallways that are going to feel so empty without the older boy and his friends around, without the teasing remarks and the fingers ruffling through his hair.  How is the basketball team going to go to states again without it’s winning captain. 

    He pulls himself together just enough to head home. He hops over the back fence, and tries not to think about the fact that its a trick Yoongi taught him when he’d been a freshman.  He turns away from the front gates, takes the long way home, slipping down a few alleyways and skipping through backyards. He keeps his head down and his feet moving, doesn’t allow his mind to wander far from his own feet slapping against the pavement. 

    It takes him twice as long as usual to get home and he contemplates all this life choices leading up to this moment as he bangs into the house with a little too much force, the door bangs against the wall. The noise sends his sister running into the front room with wide eyes and a frying pan in her hand. Jimin can’t even bring himself to chuckle at the image she presents - though in the back of his mind he knows that he should find it quite hilarious.

    “Oh, Jimin it’s just you - you scared the crap out of…” She trails off slowly, getting a good look at him and moving closer.  He slips out of his shoes, dropping his gaze to the floor and skirting away from her hands when she reaches out towards him. 

    “I’m fine.” 

    He sprints up the stairs, sighing in relief when she doesn’t call up after him. He locks himself into his room, rips off the outfit he spent hours putting together, shoving legs into sweats and pulling a raggedy t-shirt that is probably Yoongi’s over his head.  He curls under his comforter and wails all the injustices of his life into his pillow.  

    Choking on tears and sobs that just won’t stop.  His chest is tight and heavy as he pants, dry heaving through the tears and hacking coughs into damp fabric.  He curls up more, knees up against chest and everything just sort of aches.  He muffles every sound with hand or pillow or comforter between his teeth, kicks his legs occasionally in an irrational fit of anger. 

    There is a soft knock on his door a handful of hours later, the sun going down and casting shadows across his room as he lays there staring at the ceiling.  He ignores the sound, just like he’s been ignoring his phone and his computer, wonders if he can get away with ignoring the rest of the school year and the summer to follow.  Maybe he can just ignore the rest of his life and stay locked up in his room, until the end of his forever. 

    “Jimin, it’s me.” Yoongi calls softly when there’s still no answer, pressing the palm of his hand to the door as he tries to compel it open.  He hears scuffling in the room, something crashing follower by a sharp rough curse before the door is cracked open and Jimin peeks through the small space. 

    Yoongi feels all the air in his lungs dissipate when he gets a look at Jimin’s face, the boy’s eyes rimmed red and his cheeks puffy. There’s something so close to anguish swirling in the boy’s soft brown eyes that Yoongi pushes into the room without a second thought, scooping Jimin into his arms and holding onto him tight enough to bruise. 

    Jimin’s arms stay at his sides, body loose like a rag doll as Yoongi grasps at him tightly.  Jimin’s head rolls against his shoulder, as if he doesn’t even have the strength to hold it up anymore. Yoongi feels sudden wetness against the curve of his neck and the fabric of his shirt. 

    “Where did you go?” Yoongi asks softly, a whisper that’s barely heard. 

    "Don’t make me say goodbye,” Jimin says suddenly voice cracking and breaking over the vowels.  “Please, don’t make me say goodbye - I can’t.” 

    “Who said anything about goodbye Jiminnie?  You were just suppose to give me flowers and pose for some pictures,” Yoongi tries for humor, because he doesn’t understand exactly what is going on - can’t quite seem to get a grasp on what has the boy so worked up. 

    “You’re leaving.”

    “Well not right this second,” Yoongi’s voice drops a little, softer and slower as he brings a hand up to pat at the back of Jimin’s head a little awkwardly, he’s never been overly good with comforting.  

    "It’s going to happen. But th-those words - Yoongi,” Jimin looks up suddenly, face so serious that Yoongi takes a small step back. Jimin’s fingers snap forward, curling into Yoongi’s shirt and holding.  Yoongi searches Jimin’s eyes, tries to find some sort of clue to what is wrong with the other - but even after all these years of being so close to the boy, even being best friends with the boy he still can’t fully read him.  There’s always been this sort of invisible