Jimin

Days on trial: 66

There were about three things I was absolutely sure of.

The first was that clay face masks were a gift from the gods. Why I wasn't doing them before I met Chloe, I'd never know. My skin had never felt so soft and supple.

The second was that I needed to have the ring that was hidden underneath my bed resized. Chloe's fingers were tiny. It would just fall off. There was no way I'd be having her lose a family heirloom at midnight on the beach over on Jeju. My mum would kill me. And so would Chloe.

And thirdly, it was that Jungkook was an idiot. Just like Annie said.

Twisting a coin in the lock of our bathroom door, I knew that he wouldn't actually be showering. He only turned it on to muffle the sound of him crying. The lack of a bedroom with four walls had forced him to be creative.

Sat with his legs tucked up to his chin, back against the wall, steam billowed around him. He didn't flinch when the door opened, nor when I shut the shower off or took a seat next to him. Instead, he just sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeves, embarrassed for having been caught in such a state.

"What's happening, man?" I implored, searching for signs of an answer in his petal pink eyes. Ravaged from tears, it had been a while since I had seen him like this. The last time had been after a back-to-back movie marathon, where he'd watched The Notebook, followed by Titanic. He stayed silent, lips pursed shut. "C'mon, dude, talk to me."

Gnawing at his bottom lip to keep it from trembling, he shook his head slowly, a small sardonic smile gracing his lips. "Everything's fucked."

He didn't seem to be interested in rational thinking, so I wasn't going to patronise him with it. "How so?"

There was a pause. Then a sob. And then, finally, a sigh.

Ruffling his hands through his hair, he shrugged, resting his tired eyes on his lap.

"Tiff showed up at my mom's."

"Uninvited?" I had to confirm. I knew he wouldn't have willingly fucked Annie over. He wouldn't be in this state if he had.

"By me," he nodded, closing his eyes. "But not by my mom. I hadn't told her we'd ended."

I inhaled sharply, wincing.

"I know, I know," he beat me to it, berating himself. "I'm an idiot. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess."

He'd always been shit at remembering to call home. At least four times in the last week, he'd mentioned 'needing' to call his mom, but he never did. She didn't call either, so it was easy to see where the habit had formed.

"So?" I urged, attempting to coax more out of him. I wanted clarification on what had happened, but I wanted him to give it to me willingly. I wanted to see if he'd admit to what we all knew, without having to tell him that we knew. I wanted to feel peace in the fact that he wasn't gonna dodge the truth in a bid to keep Annie happy.

He wouldn't. He simply wasn't built that way. Lying didn't come easily to him.

"So," he sighed. "I didn't make her leave. I should have done. I just didn't want to cause drama, not on Christmas, so I let her stay..." 

He let the syllable of his last word hang in the air, like the head that was on his shoulders. "She kissed me."

"I know." 

"I lost my colours."

Our words mangled upon one another, his quiet statement buried slightly underneath my bold declaration. The pair of us looked at each other with bright wide eyes and slack jaws from our respective revelations. 

"What?!" We spoke in unison again, but this time, Jungkook decided that he needed answers first. "How do you know?"

"You lost your colours?!" 

"That's not important right now," he looked panicked - and I knew that he must have been, because his colours had absolutely been the most important thing to him. Though, when I thought about it, perhaps they weren't. In fact, I knew they weren't at all. She was. "How do you know?"

His words were merely a thin veil for what he really wanted to ask: Does Annie know?

"You've still not signed into instagram yet, have you?" I made reference to his newly changed Multi settings, and the predictability of him forgetting his passwords.

"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me," he fumed, connecting the dots in his head and coming to a realisation. "And Annie?"

"She knows. She sent it to Chloe."

"Fuck," his hands travelled to his hair, tugging down harshly while his body rocked, cursed words hissing from his gritted teeth.

I let him stew for a while, his grief washing over him, until he began to sob again. Grabbing onto the flannel shirt that he'd layered over his polo neck sweater, I yanked him towards me and engulfed him in a hug. There wasn't much that my hugs couldn't fix.

Unfortunately, this felt like one of the few rare minorities.

It was a bit more soul-crushing than his Titanic induced tears, to say the least.

Taking longer than he probably would have liked me to admit, his breathing slowly began to regulate. As he pulled away and rested the crown of his head against the condensation coated bathroom tiles, his brows softened.

"I lost them instantly," he admitted of his colours. "It wasn't the slow turn to grey that you'd all described. She kissed me, and then there was a shooting pain, and then they were gone."

"Maybe the pills just wore off? Did you forget to take it?"

Jungkook shook his head. "I missed once last week by accident, and it didn't affect my colours. "

I took a second to try and work out if he was pulling my leg or not - but his face remained stoic and serious. 

His colours were dependant on the pills. His claim made no logical sense. Then again, his relationship with colour never had.

I'd never known such a romantic, nor someone so hopeless. He'd read every book he could find on the subject of love and how colours came to play a part. He'd watched all the films, and knew exactly what it meant to experience colour. I'd go as far to say that he knew better than those who got to experience it first hand. It was so painfully unfair for him to not have the luxury of Multivision. For most, it wasn't even considered a luxury - just everyday life.

"Annie was asking if you had gotten home safe. You should talk to her," I changed the topic, half hoping that thoughts of Annie would give him clarity.

The lids of his eyes pressed down firmly, nostrils flaring gently. He was trying to suppress his eyes from welling up again. This shit was painful.

"I just," he sighed, trying to find the words to articulate himself. "I just feel so fucking guilty. I should have said something to mom as soon as I saw Tiff. I shouldn't have let her stay and I shouldn't have let her kiss me. I don't even know what to say to Annie. She already thinks I'm an idiot as it is."

"She knows you're an idiot," I corrected, ignoring the glare he cast my way. "But she likes that you're an idiot. What the hell is ignoring her going to achieve?"

"What's the point?" He argued against me. "It's selfish for me to have even flirted with the idea of us being a thing. She deserves someone who can see colour. She's never gonna know where she stands with me. I got so caught up in my colours, that for a second I let myself believe that I was normal, that she was the reason for my colours - when in reality, it's those shitty little drugs."

"Colours or not, the pair of you are made for each other, Kook."

"She's made for me," he smiled softly, lamenting. "I'm not made for her. There's better out there. When the trials are over, I'll permanently be back to Mono. We'll be living in two completely different worlds. I can't ask her to do that for me - that's assuming she can even see colour for me."

It had been something he'd expressed concerns about before, whether or not the drug would get approved, or be readily available to the general public following the trials. Without it, he'd be Mono again. It wasn't a reality that any of us liked the idea of.

"I really..." He stopped himself, chewing on the insides of his cheeks, and turning to face me. Eyes finally dry, his face was still puffy and a little red. "I really care about her. Like really care about her."

We both knew what he was saying. I had no doubt that he felt for Annie in the same way that I felt for Chloe - and I was planning on asking Chloe to be my wife in less than a week's time.

"So then don't shut her out."

"But it's not fair for me to trap her in my mess."

"You don't get to decide that for her."

The conversation was exhausted, and I knew he'd just argue against me, so I didn't give him the choice. "C'mon, it's still Christmas. We're not having the Ghost of Christmas Past ruin this for you, Scrooge. Chloe's heating up some mulled wine, and we're gonna watch the second Home Alone. You in?"

I knew he'd be in; hook, line and sinker. Though he'd never publically admit to it, the second was his favourite - even more so than the original. He just recognised that his opinion was borderline sacrilegious, so he kept it hush-hush.

"We'll even turn the TV to Mono," I teased, meaning no harm.

"Fuck yourself, Jimin," Jungkook laughed with a smile.

"Attaboy."