PAINT THE ROSES RED

Three: Drink Me

Jimin awakens and it's springtime.

The fresh scent of newly cut grass and clear air fills his nostrils, and birds chirp and sound all around him.

It's actually a rather nice thing to wake up to after getting such a shock.

Gently, Jimin's dark eyes open. He's lying on his stomach in someone's yard. The soft grass and cool dirt feel good on his skin, but he knows he has to get up, so painfully, he pushes himself off of the ground, blinks to clear his vision, and swallows to try and stop the pounding in his head.

He squints. Even light spring sunshine hurts his eyes.

Once again, he is met with all too familiar sights.

He is in his old neighborhood. The homes are all around, and everyone's yard is bursting with flowers and bushes and everything's so perfect Jimin wants to puke.

Then, all of a sudden, an ear-piercing sound echoes through his eardrums.

Vroom! VROOM!

Jimin, startled, jumps about a mile high and hastily beings to glance around like a frightened deer.

His mother with the lawnmower soon fills his panorama.

Jimin visibly relaxes and feels foolish for being so spooked.

His mother is dressed in a nice white top and khaki shorts, and she looks fairly healthy and happy. Jimin is so glad for that; he was getting so fed up with seeing his mother so distraught in the last two places he's been.

No one else seems to be out at the time at first glance, but then Jimin looks more closely, behind his mother, near the boundary between his house's yard and the neighbor's, and he sees another small form.

Jimin can't help but let out a huge laugh at the sight of his six year old self whacking golf balls into the yard next to theirs.

What a little troublemaker he was when he was younger!

Jimin's smile suddenly fades.

Wait a minute…this day, this memory…it's—

"Jimin could you please stop that? I don't want Mr. and Mrs. Johnson to get angry," His mother pauses in mowing the lawn for a moment to scold her young son from across the way.

Six-year-old Jimin frowns, but he shrugs and puts down the golf club for the time being.

She smiles. "Thanks, Minnie."

Then, all of a sudden, two forms appear on the sidewalk in front of Jimin's yard. The first is an older man; he has twinkling chocolate eyes and a bright smile. He wears a hat which partially covers his gray hair. Next to him saunters a young boy with messy jet black hair and the same bright chocolate eyes as his grandfather.

Jimin's eyes light up, and he feels an overwhelming ache of nostalgia and love as he watches his six-year-old best friend approach.

"Taehyung…" he whispers to himself, and he lets a smile take hold of his features.

This is the day Taehyung and I first met.

The older man raises a hand as he catches sight of Taehyung's mother. "Hey!" he calls, "How's it goin'?"

Jimin's mother waves in response before cutting off the loud lawnmower. "Hey! I'm doing fine. Just tryin' to get some long overdue yard work done."

The two of them exchange a small laugh at her words, and then Jimin's mother walks over to the two on the sidewalk. "What are you two up to?" she asks comfortably.

Taehyung's grandfather smiles. "Oh, we're just taking a little walk. My grandson Taehyung here is visiting for the weekend, and I thought he'd like to get outside on such a great day."

Jimin's mother smiles down at Taehyung. "Hey little man. Are you having fun with your grandpa?"

Taehyung smiles cheekily and nods overly-enthusiastically in that way little children often do.

They laugh. Then, Jimin's mother blinks, just remembering something. "Oh, I want you to meet my son," he turns, "Jimin! Come over for a minute please!"

Jimin turns to see his younger self's reply.

He lets out a small chuckle as he does.

His six-year-old self had gone back to smacking golf balls into the neighbor's yard after his mother was distracted, but as soon as he notices the visitors and hears his mom calling, he drops the golf club in less than a second and has scurried over obediently to avoid trouble.

His mother laughs a little and shakes her head. "Junmyeon, this is my son Jimin. Jimin, this is my friend from work, Mr.Kim, and this is his grandson, Taehyung."

Six-year-old Jimin, being sort of shy, continues standing behind his mother's leg. Slowly, though, he peers out, and smiles softly as he sees Taehyung.

Taehyung's grandpa laughs a little. "Taehyung, why don't you and Jimin go play a little bit?"

Taehyung nods excitedly and races forward. He grabs a hold of Jimin's hand and exclaims, "Come on!" before the two little boys race off into the yard.

The two adults shake their heads, laugh, and then begin to speak about something going on at work.

Jimin's attention quickly switches from his mom and Taehyung's grandfather to across the yard where Taehyung and his younger self had dashed off.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment, smiles, and feels the excitement fill him.

He's going to get to re-live one of the best moments of his life. He's going to get to "re-meet" his best, longest friend.

Immediately, he breaks into a sprint and flies around the house to join the two little boys.

He slows down as soon as he reaches the all-too familiar, wooden swing set right in the middle of the yard. Taehyung and his younger self an swinging together, and Jimin chuckles as he sees how uncomfortable his six-year-old self is compared to Taehyung, who is laughing and chattering happily away.

Jimin pauses. Now that he thinks about it, it's always been like that.

He's usually always the one who is awkward or uneasy or nervous or hostile, and Taehyung is always the one who takes over and helps him out by being utterly comfortable, confident, understanding, and kind.

It was this unspoken thing between the two of them, and Taehyung never objected to helping Jimin out in those situations.

Jimin exhales heavily as he remembers that he will never see Taehyung again.

He shakes off his almost-tears and regret and decides that he will simply enjoy this memory to the fullest extent.

He saunters over to the swing set and sits down on the swing next to the two-seater that his younger self and Taehyung are now on. Carefully, he smiles and begins to listen to Taehyung's young voice as he starts a friendship that will last more than half of Jimin's life.

"My favorite color is green. What's yours?" Taehyung exclaims, and Jimin laughs.

His six-year-old self has quite a different reaction, however, and shrugs shyly.

Taehyung smiles. "It's okay if you don't know it. A lot of kids don't know their favorite color."

Six-year-old Jimin frowns. "I know it. I just don't want to tell you."

Taehyung's smile grows. "That's okay, too!"

Jimin shakes his head at Taehyung's kindness and ability to bounce back with something so positive and understanding after his younger self just shot something so negative and rude at him.

Some things never change, Jimin thinks, remembering how many times Taehyung had put up with his negativity through the years.

"How old are you? I'm just six."

"I'm almost seven."

"Aw man! You're older!"

"Not too much."

"You're right! We can still be best friends

"So, Jimin…why were you hitting balls into the neighbor's yard?"

Six-year-old Jimin shrugs.

"I dunno. I was bored."

Taehyung suddenly stops the swing.

"Was it fun?" he asks, his voice b with hope and excitement.

Six-year-old Jimin blinks.

"Yeah, it was really fun," he replies, and looks down at his shoes.

Taehyung hops off of the swing as smoothly as he can, considering he's so small still and the swing is so big.

"You wanna go hit some more golf balls?" he suggests and bounces up and down excitedly.

Six-year-old Jimin looks up. He blinks. "You really wanna? With me?"

It's Taehyung's turn to blink. "Yeah! `Course! We're bestest friends, now!"

And then, for the first time since he and Taehyung were first introduced, six-year-old Jimin smiles.

"Okay! Let's go!" he cries, and then he hops off of the swing as well.

Then the two little boys scamper off to where several bright red, plastic golf balls and a bright red, matching golf club lie in the fluorescent green grass.

Jimin stares after them.

He watches as the two happily continuing giggling and chattering, and he remains sitting on the swing.

His stomach hurts.

Or maybe it's his heart.

He's not sure which, but he feels like dying, again, even though he's already dead.

Slowly, he closes his eyes, feels the world around him start to melt away, realizes that this memory is over, and…

…He starts crying.

"Go to Hell, Taehyung! Go. To. Hell!"

A door slams and Jimin blinks.

He is no longer in front of the swings, with his younger self and best friend before him.

Now, he is in a dark hallway.

The hallway of his house back home.

He wipes the tears from his eyes and quickly tries to re-gain his composure to get ready for whatever might happen next.

All of a sudden, someone flies out of a door up ahead.

Jimin's eyes widen.

It, once again, is himself.

But he's not younger.

He's the age he is now.

And he is furious.

A voice follows himself out of the room he just exited.

"Good God, Jimin, how much of an idiot can you be?"

Jimin recognizes the voice right away.

It is Taehyung.

Soon after, the familiar boy appears in the doorway Jimin just stormed out of, and he watches himself fly around and flip Taehyung off.

Jimin's jaw drops at what he just witnessed himself do.

Suddenly, he remembers what memory this is.

It was a few days before he…before he died.

He and Taehyung had gotten into a huge fight. A fight Jimin is now so ashamed of.

A fight that means that he never got to say good-bye to his longest friend.

Taehyung gets a look of disgust on his face after his friend gives him the finger, and his jaw drops as well.

"Oh my God, Jimin. Oh my God. What did I do for God's sake?" he screams.

Jimin's eyes narrow to slits.

"You come in here and insult every single one of my choices, my life, and me. That's what you do!" he hisses back, and Taehyung shakes his head.

"Oh no way. No way!"

He runs forward.

Jimin runs farther down the hallway and into the kitchen area to avoid his approaching friend, and Jimin closes his eyes as he is soon walked straight through (Note to self: not only can you walk through people, but they can walk through you too!). Taehyung follows soon after. Jimin turns around and follows the drama.

"Jimin, I never meant to insult you at all, I'm just saying—" Taehyung starts, truly attempting to make peace and be honest, but Jimin will have none of it.

"Shut up. You know you meant what you said. You know you called my life a complete hypocrisy and me an absolute liar. You know you did; don't try to lie to my face about it!"

Taehyung shakes his head sadly, utterly shocked at his friend's accusations.

"I said no such things, Jimin."

Suddenly, Jimin watches as he does something so utterly mind-blowing that it disgusts him more than he could ever imagine.

He truly hates himself as he sees it.

Jimin grabs a glass off of the counter right next to him, and he chucks it full-force at his best friend.

Taehyung, thankfully, moves out of the way at just the right moment, but it still doesn't discount what Jimin just did.

Taehyung stands there, wide-eyed, horrified.

Jimin is beyond furious, breathing so heavily; he's obviously making an attempt to control himself.

Finally, Taehyung speaks, and the words cut Jimin to the bone.

"You're just like your father."

At that, Jimin's already angry eyes blaze with hate and he cries,

"GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, MY LIFE, AND DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK!"

Taehyung shakes his head.

"Is that what you really want, Jimin?" he asks, oh-so calmly in that way he has.

Jimin roars in anger. "I SAID LEAVE. YOU ARE A FILTHY, SELFISH LIAR, TAEHYUNG. I DON'T KNOW WHY IN GOD'S NAME I WAS FRIENDS WITH YOU FOR AS LONG AS I WAS. YOU'RE WORTHLESS."

Jimin actually falls to the ground in utter humiliation and shock as he watches himself. Tears explode from his eyes as he sees Taehyung's devastated face, and for a minute, he feels, to the fullest extent, that he deserved to die.

Taehyung doesn't say a word in reply.

All he does is silently walk out of the house and close the door gently.

Jimin is alone with himself, now.

The tears are pouring down his cheeks in rivulets and he runs forward and starts to hit himself so hard, even though his fists go right through his body.

"YOU GO TO HELL, JIMIN. YOU GO TO HELL! YOU'RE THE IDIOT, THE WORTHLESS IDIOT. MY GOD, JIMIN, YOU ARE AN IDIOT!" he's screeching at himself, sobbing, and he feels nothing but miserable fury. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT? WHY DID YOU DO THAT? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT? AFTER ALL HE DID FOR YOU—AFTER ALL HE MEANT TO YOU—YOU JUST DESTROYED YOUR RELATIONSHIP! GOD, JIMIN, GOD YOU'RE AN IDIOT!"

He falls to the ground now, onto his knees, sobbing. He's shaking and sobbing, and he feels so frustrated.

And then…

…the world around him starts to change.