JIMIN’S POV

“I hate you.” Young Jae muttered drunkenly to me as I helped him to the bathroom.

“Well, the feeling’s mutual.” I said. I let go of him and handed him my clothes. “They’ll probably be a little small on you because you’re so damn tall. Don’t rip them.”

Young Jae took them sullenly and shut the door in my face. I heard the sound of the shower faucet squeaking and figured he was making himself right at home. After all, he knew where the towels were.

I hung around waiting for him, wondering how I had gotten myself into this situation in the first place. Why was she being so nice to him? She told me that before she dated me, she just dropped boys when they started getting troublesome. Her longest relationship had been two years and even then, she said it wasn’t super serious. I didn’t find her past to be an issue; she was just young and having fun. But it wasn’t like Young Jae was the first guy she had dumped; why did she care so much this time? I honestly couldn’t help feeling insecure about it. One, because my girlfriend was a reformed player, and two, because she actually cared about one of her boy toys. I mean, she wasn’t a real player. She was always upfront with the guys she dated. But it was undeniable that the girl had some serious commitment issues. Even though we’d been together for two years, she still wasn’t ready to get married to me. So why all this fuss over some guy she’d only known a month? I rolled my eyes. It had taken me so long to get her to tell me she loved me without having to beg for it, but she hangs out with Young Jae for a month and suddenly they’re “best friends?”

I grew impatient waiting for Young Jae. I was about to knock on the door and tell him to move it along when I heard the squeak of the shower faucet turning off. After a minute, Young Jae stepped out of the bathroom and I held back a laugh. He looked incredibly stupid dressed in my clothes. The pants came up past his ankles and the shirt was too small in the shoulders. Part of me felt like maybe I should feel bad because he was much taller than I was, but I didn’t really feel the need to be 6’2”. She loved my body and we both knew it.

Young Jae seemed to have sobered up after his shower. I briefly considered asking for his address and driving him home, but I was tired and didn’t feel like dealing with his . “Let me get you a pillow and a blanket.” I said shortly. I went over to the hall closet and pulled out her guest pillows and blanket. I gave them a tentative sniff. Seems like she hadn’t washed them in a while. Good. Let Young Jae sleep on unwashed pillows.

“Here.” I threw the bundle at him. He fumbled to catch it and it hit him in the face. I snickered as he glared at me. “Still drunk, or were you just pretending?”

“I wasn’t pretending.” He muttered. I believed him. I’d seen Young Jae drunk enough times to know what he was like.

“Why are you here?” I asked as he set up his bed for the night.

“You know why.” He whispered.

“You love her, right?” I walked over and sat down on the floor across from him. He gave me a short nod of affirmation.

“Have you ever even loved a girl before?” I asked him quietly.

Young Jae sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “Yeah. I loved that girl back in high school, remember?”

I laughed. “You loved every girl back in high school.”

“No, don’t you remember that one girl? In your homeroom class?”

“Oh, the quiet girl? With the long black hair?” I asked, suddenly recalling Young Jae’s drunken adolescent ramblings about his crush.

He nodded. “Yeah. I loved her.”

“What, you loved her so much you forgot her name?” I scoffed. “And if you did, you sure had a funny way of showing it. I’m sure sleeping with half of her homeroom class really made her feel sure of your affections.”

“I don’t like to say her name.” Young Jae said softly. “It’s not a good memory for me.”

“Well, that’s your own damn fault.” I told him unsympathetically. “If you were serious about her, you should have acted seriously.”

“You’re one to talk.” Young Jae retorted. “If you were so serious about your girlfriend, why did you leave?”

“That’s none of your business.” I snapped.

Young Jae smirked at me. “It’s not like I don’t already know the whole story. She’s so talkative when she’s tipsy. I heard all about her ex-boyfriend who left her because she didn’t wanna marry him yet.”

“Shut the up.” I glared at him. “Don’t talk about her.”

“Oh, why not, Jimin? You afraid to hear about what we did while you were gone?” Young Jae teased meanly.

“You guys didn’t do anything.” I hissed. “She already told me everything.”

“Oh yeah? You didn’t seem to know that I’d slept over here before.” Young Jae pointed out smugly.

“Because she didn’t think it was important.” I said dismissively. “She must not have thought much of you if she let you sleep here without a second thought. You’re just a friend to her.”

“Then why are you so jealous?” Young Jae demanded. “You wouldn’t be this jealous if you didn’t think I was some sort of threat.”

I stood up, done with this conversation. “Shut the up and go the hell to bed. I know that girl like the back of my hand. There’s no room for you to squeeze yourself into her heart. You better be gone by the time we wake up.”

“Are you so sure she loves you?” Young Jae baited me. “Why is she so sweet to me even though she knows you hate it? Did you ever think about that?”

“You know what, Young Jae, I will think about that. Very carefully. And while I’m thinking about that, you can think about how it feels to be sleeping on her couch while I’m sleeping in her bed.”

Young Jae’s face fell. I felt a little bad, but not bad enough to apologize. Without another word, I turned and walked away into her bedroom. I locked the door behind me. I wasn’t taking any chances with that bastard staying in just the next room.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair as I studied her sleeping peacefully. She had snuggled onto my side of the bed and buried her face in my pillow. I walked over to her slowly, throwing dirty clothes into the laundry basket as I made my way over. I climbed into the bed and squeezed myself in between her and the wall. I couldn’t sleep unless it was on this side. I gently rolled her over. She grumbled in her sleep and I chuckled softly to myself. She was so cute. I settled myself in and wrapped my arms around her.

“I love you.” I whispered. I left a tiny kiss under her ear.

Although I said those things to Young Jae, I didn’t feel that confident. I secretly worried to myself, feeling so alone in the darkness with my nervous thoughts. I knew she loved me, but I wasn’t so sure that she didn’t also feel something towards Young Jae. I’d seen the way she spoken to him softly while he was drunk, seen the way she’d insisted that he couldn’t sleep in barely damp clothes, seen the way she’d wrapped her arm around his waist. I’d seen her hug him goodbye the other day with that wistful look in her eyes. , even though she’d said all those things about how every time he touched her, she’d wished it had been me, the fact remained that it hadn’t been me. It’d been him touching her and she’d just let him. And now she was having a hard time letting him go.

Each time she insisted that they were just friends and that he wasn’t my replacement felt like a knife to my heart. A replacement would have been easier to fight against, because who needs it once the original has returned? But a friend? A friend was a harder thing to tackle. Because that meant they had an emotional connection that I couldn’t fill. That meant that she actually cared about him and didn’t want to lose him. It meant that there was something there that I couldn’t give her and she felt sad about giving it up for me. I wanted to believe that it was just guilt and tried to convince her of the same, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure at all and it made me so ing jealous of him. I’d scared her the last time I let on just how jealous I was, so it wasn’t like I could even tell her all of these thoughts. I didn’t want her to think I would leave her again. No, this was something I had to handle on my own. But how could I handle watching the girl I loved falling for someone else?

I sighed and brushed away a few tears, feeling tired and overemotional. I snuggled even closer against her, resting my chin on her shoulder. I turned my head and kissed her cheek.

“Please don’t leave me.” I whispered. “I can’t live without you.”