7:12 p.m.

"Thank you."

The worker nodded and was on his way. Jimin settled into his seat across from Taehyung, shrugging off his coat and hanging it on the back of the chair. The linen white tablecloth was topped by glistening silverware and china, even a small clear vase filled with to the brim with water. On the water's surface sat a small lilypad.

"I love the atmosphere of this place. What's this restaurant called again?" Taehyung smiled, looking around the room.

"It's called Ochoa."

"It's so modern and chic. Reminds me of our apartment."

"Yeah," Jimin shifted in his seat at his boyfriend's word choice, "Yeah it does."

"I'm kinda digging the black and white minimalism, you know? It's usually a turn-off for me unless its monochrome-- You know me,  I like contemporary modern stuff. But this is surprisingly an aesthetic pleasure to me. I never knew this restaurant was so close by."

Taehyung noticed Jimin's gaze on him and chuckled, "What?"

"You look good, Taehyung. I could just take back you home right now." Jimin's lips curved, "I didn't even know you've been working out."

"Yeah, well I was getting tired of looking like a twink all the time. It started with squats, but I thought I might as well get the package deal and work my arms too." He replied.

"Mmm," Jimin hummed, folding his hands. His eyes hooded in adoration.

"Welcome to Ochoa!" Came a foreign and feminine voice. Jimin was startled and sat up straight to look at the redhead hovering above their table, "I'm Areum and I'll be your hostess for tonight. Can I interest you in any drinks or appetizers?"

7:29 p.m.

Yoongi rolled his sleeves back, a variety of seasonings and flour all over his palms. The heat of the kitchen was intense. He darted around trying to get back to the monitors to get another order to prepare, bumping past other coworkers, trying to ignore the sweat on his neck. Tonight was a busy night. Orders were flooding the monitors, waiting to be filled.

He tapped the screen of a free monitor and found a list of waiting orders, listed from most to least recent. He typed his name into the one at the top of the list, sent it through, and went back to work. Fuck, I don't know what the order is. He went back to read it over again.

"Ravioli Inammorati, Cebiche." He said aloud to himself, so not to forget. He went to the pantry and freezer to pull out the ingredients, still going, "Innamorati, Cebiche."

He cut the first pineapple in half and got straight to work at his station.

It didn't take very long for him to prepare the dishes. Yoongi, although having been recently employed at the restaurant, caught on quickly and had mastered most of the menu -- aside from desserts and cocktails. He even inspired the lobster bisque he was making, which had become a big hit in the seven months of his employment. He was favored by Don Iglesias, the senior chef who seemed to favor nobody but treated him like a nephew.

Before Jimin, he was the object of all his teasing. Don couldn't help but like Yoongi, which Yoongi knew and was quite smug about. But he was humble still in spite of easily earned promotions and astounding culinary talent. He knew that being favored by Don still meant walking very, very thin ice. The ice was thinner even. The expectations were high.

Although Don took a liking to him, he ran a tight ship and was ill-tempered. Ochoa was a restaurant of prestige and only the finest cooks made the cut. Apparently Yoongi had a job because Don had told Mr. Paranzetti to fire the last junior chef for overcooking some rice one time during the evening rush. That could be him, too. It didn't help Yoongi's case that Paranzetti's wife disliked him either. One slip up could be fatal, and he would have moved all that way from home for a job he couldn't even keep.

Don chewing out a coworker was just white noise to him. He plated all the food carefully and set them on a tray. He returned to the monitor to mark his order as complete and waited by the door for the waiter to show up.

"Good to go?"

To his pleasant surprise, the waitress was Areum, his only other good friend from work. She, too, looked frazzled from the buzz in the restaurant.

Yoongi set the tray in her hands, "Here you go."

He looked up and across the restaurant at the full house, whistling in awe, "Sheeeesh. Rough night tonight, huh?"

"You don't even know." She laughed back, "I've been getting tables with mostly snobby rich people and whiny suburban moms and their kids. This guy even ordered two plates of food for himself."

"Must suck to be-"

He furrowed his brows. Yoongi swore he felt his stomach sink at the sight before him.

"Jimin?"

"That's Jimin?...." Areum paused, "He's cute, but two plates of food is crazy."

Yoongi sighed, "Yeah, but..."

To groan or sob? Why not both? The universe was playing some sick joke on him it seemed, and Jimin got up from his seat to go toward the bathroom. Yoongi's heart caught in his throat, beating rapidly in his ears for some time. He went deaf and something that can only be compared to the likeness of gravity or possession drew him in the wake of Jimin's path.

Yoongi pushed the bathroom door open again. He was overcome with anger and hurt, glaring at the boy through the wall-to-wall bathroom mirrors. Jimin looked up from his wet hands in the sink and jolted at the sight. His breath hitched for a time before he could finally muster up a palmful of words to roll off his tongue.

"What are you doing here? Jesus Christ."

"I work here. What. the fuck. are you doing here?" Yoongi bit.

"I'm eating. That's kind of what people do at restaurants, Yoongi."

"Why'd you really come here? I know you're not here just to wine and dine yourself."

"I just told you, I came here because I genuinely wanted to eat here."

"Bullshit." Yoongi laughed.

"Bullshit?" Jimin scoffed with a roll of the eyes, "Sure it is."

"Tell me the real reason." He demanded, crossed arms and all. And for some reason, that set Jimin off.

He finally turned to Yoongi and poked a finger into his face, "Fuck you, alright? I don't need to justify myself to you."

"What the fuck did you think was going to happen if you showed up to my workplace?"

Yoongi cackled for a long, long time. At first, Jimin was afraid, the sound reverberating off the slate tiles and floors of the little bathroom. This was the closest they'd been in some time. Here they were, both of them in the little black box that felt like the tiniest sinkhole or the bottom of eternity. But as time progressed and as Yoongi showed no signs of shutting up, he became bored and annoyed. He readjusted the glasses on his face and reached for the door handle.

"You're so selfish, you know that?"

Jimin did know it. His fingers loosened around the handle.

"Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe my feelings are hurt?" Yoongi diplomatically hid his anger between crazed giggles, "You didn't! You ran straight back to Taehyung and--"

"I have. I have Yoongi. I think about it every day how much I hurt you--"

"No, don't make this shit about you. Let me talk."

"I'm not making it abo--"

"I said let me talk!"

Jimin let go of the handle.

Yoongi was tugging at the roots of his hair now. He turned his back to Jimin and took deep breaths. He was red like a cherry, hot like hell, a bomb counting down from ten. And yet, Jimin still wouldn't look. He knew he didn't because he didn't hear the shuffle of his feet about face.

Why won't he fucking look?!

"Did you come to mock me? To rub salt in my wound? I told you how I felt! And you probably think I'm avoiding you to be a dick, but I'm avoiding you because its not good to want a person in your life this much-- it hurts to want someone that much more each passing day, and they still choose you last!" Yoongi must have sounded crazy and wild to him, but he didn't care, because that was the case. "Why am I always chosen last?!"

Jimin snapped without looking back, "I didn't choose you last! It's not a--"

"No, you listen!" Yoongi boomed.

Weeks of anger and jealousy and insecurity, desperation and wrath built up, brick after brick, only for him to collapse in an instant.

"Taehyung disappears on you for God knows how long, and you need someone to fill that space, so you fill it using me. It was obvious there was something between us, but you were leading me on all that time. You knew... You knew were in a relationship with him the whole.. fucking.. time, Jimin! You could have told me otherwise before I was in this deep, but you wanted to have it both ways. So as soon as he came prancing back into your arms, I'm not given the mercy of being cut off completely, but the agonizing position as the second choice suddenly. What the fuck?"

"No more good morning and good night texting. No more walks to the Trescott Avenue, unless Taehyung couldn't walk you. You started picking your books over me again while we waited at the station, but every now and then, you'd still have the fucking audacity to put your fucking head on my fucking shoulder. You tell me the random things that make you tick, and I listen, even though you stopped asking me about all my little things since he came around."

"And I..." The words snagged on a sob, so quickly tucked away that Jimin hadn't the chance to hear it in his voice, "I lay down in my bed at night sometimes and wait for your text. I think, 'maybe he hasn't forgotten. maybe he's just busy with editing manuscripts, he had to have had a bad day at work.' But every day can't be a bad day. So the text just never comes. Not unless you're asking to borrow some rice so you can make him something, or inviting me over. Which I'm assuming is because he canceled on you; or was it that he was busy?".

"That's because I'm--"

Yoongi sighed.

"I don't know why you think I came here to listen to you. I'm never doing that again."

Jimin looked at Yoongi, who suddenly looked as though nothing had happened between the walls of this black hole. Really, his throat felt like it was shred to ribbons.

"I'm doing this for us both. I can't have you fucking around with Taehyung the way you've fucked with my head. I can't let you ruin me." He shrugged coolly, "'Cause you two clearly have something that you and I never can. After you leave tonight, please do me a favor and go back to not knowing me. I don't care. It'll feel better than whatever this is supposed to be."

Jimin disagreed. It did not feel better. It would never start to feel better, and it ached more and more with each passing day, and each footfall on the white tiles, and the swing of the doors behind him as he went.

So much had happened in three months and it felt too soon to tell him but he knew it always and only realized it now but Yoongi was already gone. There was nothing left to say.

So that was it.

When they left the bathroom, Jimin went left.

Yoongi went right.

This is grief.