11:09 p.m.

Yoongi pushed Jimin away.

"You're making me feel small."

"Why? Did you want to be the big spoon?"

"Yes."

"Not my problem."

Jimin was an alchemist. It was too easy for him to produce a smile in Yoongi from nothing, and to bewitch him was even simpler. Love spun him over in Jimin's arms to face him, and it almost worried Yoongi how much he didn't care to hide his grin.

As awkward, tense, and gloomy as things were, Yoongi still managed to smile. Jimin wondered how he could be so cheery all the time. He wondered: what what he was hiding whenever he caged his tongue? 

"Get off of me," Yoongi's hungry breath hit Jimin's face with as much attitude as the boy to which it belonged. But he only slid closer.

Because Jimin thought about how kind Yoongi was. And Yoongi was thinking about how dumb he was for being here.

And Yoongi didn't know what to call whatever he and Jimin had. But Jimin knew he would cry about this moment later when, inevitably, the illusion cleared like smoke. 

The watery city lights danced onto the sheets. Their pale feet grazed each other over Yoongi's black bedding. The silence was like the darkness. Light, Jimin's voice pierced it.

"Do you want to come with me to my cousin's graduation party on the twenty-third?"

"What kind of graduation are we talking?" He murmured groggily.

"It'll be at the MET."

"Deal."

"Wait, why does it matter?" Jimin chuckled, lifting his head.

"It doesn't. I was going to say yes no matter what," Like an old, lazy dog he didn't bother opening his eyes to reply. "Why though?"

"Why what?"

"Why bring me along? I've never met your family before and aren't they expecting your plus one to be--"

"Taehyung?"

Yoongi hesitated, but continued.

"A girl. Won't they start to... notice a pattern?"

"Their gaydar is from like 1986. They can't tell." Jimin lightly laughed, exhaling until his grin left no trace. "Sometimes I wish they could notice, though. Sometimes I want them to see... me."

Jimin sighed, "Not many people see me. It gets lonely sometimes. Doing all the watching and never really feeling..." 

Yoongi rolled onto his back to look at the ceiling. He said nothing for a long, long time.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm here on earth to observe."

Jimin turned his head to look.

"Because there's love all around me and I'm just standing there. I kind of just have to watch it. And..." 

Sometimes I watch it from really far away. Sometimes I watch it from really close and still don't get to be held by it.

And for a really long time I thought I did something really bad in my last life. Because why else would it happen to everyone else but me? I fell in love once and it didn't go right. I gave it my all and then it wasn't enough. Why did that happen to me and no one else? 

 It took meeting you to realize I have my head turned towards places they don't need to be. The only time anyone can be brave is when you're afraid. So I met you at the right time in my life, and I thought, Yes, I am scared. What if I just let you know me anyway?

Wouldn't that be nice? Instead of torturing myself and sentencing myself to a lifetime of rejection, can't I just... Be known by you? 

Even though it's torture too, what if I let you hold my thoughts and the things I find funny or hold dear and the wounds inside of you? And what if I could say out loud that a bad day together is so much better than a bad day alone? You know I like that you say you don't like me and still keep me around. You know what my shadows look like.

So maybe this is bad for me, but only in the future, and right now I can just know that I love having someone around who just might be worth the lesson when this crashes and burns like I know it's going to.

And isn't it nice to hold a hand? Be so boringly, blissfully at peace when the room has only us in it?

Oh, I think I could love you.

What? 

Did I just think that?

Fuck.

What felt like a swell in his chest instead came out in a short string of monotonous words, "It's better to let people know you than to protect yourself all the time."

"But I love them. And what if they don't love me?" Jimin's gentle voice ripped through the silence like shattering glass.

"Would you rather risk your soulmate?" 

Jimin scoffed, but his heart still dropped at the idea. 

"He's not my soulmate anymore."

"Damn, my fault," Yoongi laughed, but tried to push his hopes down.

"Could you quit it for two seconds?" Jimin's eyes smiled as he jerked Yoongi a little, who yelled at the assault. He then sighed, raking his hands through Yoongi's crow-colored hair.

The pads of Jimin's finger against his scalp. Love just within reach... and still, not quite. 

He scooched away some more, murmuring a sloppy excuse about being too hot.

"I just don't know if I love him the way I used to. But I don't know if I deserve to be in love anymore. It used to feel like I'd die without him.. but with him all he does is make me want to disappear. I feel so... guilty. Undeserving."

"That's no good." Yoongi drawled.

Jimin shrugged again, stopping his fingers and putting his hand to rest at Yoongi's neck.

"Now do you see why I don't want to come out?"

Yoongi yawned, flinching with a sudden shiver.

"No."

Frustrated, he pouted and felt even more inclined to justify himself. "I don't want to because I... I don't think Taehyung is worth it. I don't think he's the one." Jimin said, "If I come out, he'll be my only family."

"You have friends." 

"No--! I mean, like...-- What if I come out of the closet with him by my side, and then one day, he leaves me for good? Then what? We already take breaks, lots of them. Shit, we're on a break right now. I think it is, at least."

"Do you want it to be one?"

The room felt stiller, suddenly. And the noiselessness was palpable.

"Actually, don't answer that."

Yoongi was the first to shift, the chafing sheet ripping through the air. The darkness on their every side had be readjusted to, for they had taken for granted and needed to be reminded to never become too comfortable in it.

Jimin looked past Yoongi at the sky through the window. It was strange to see life from Yoongi's side of the world.

"All I can say is, life goes on. You'll keep growing and find someone else if he's not worth it. And you're worth it, anyway." Yoongi rasped tiredly, his heart pounding, secretly hoping the someone else was already found and in Jimin's arms. 

He felt terribly upset when Jimin inched away from him, even though he'd done the same thing first. And wondered what his parents did to him as a child that made this right now hurt so much.

"You kinda have to do it anyway. Just get it out of the way."

"This isn't like public speaking. You can't just get it out of the way." He snapped unintentionally. However, Yoongi, as always, was cool about things.

"Yes, you can. I literally came out to my family over dinner. I wouldn't say they loved the idea of me being bisexual but they eventually came around."

"That's your family though. Mine is so traditional and narrow-minded." Jimin muttered with shame.

"Fine, suit yourself. But a mentality like that is what will really keep you alone." Yoongi talked nonchalantly, baring his sleep-laden eyes for Jimin to see again. "Because that's what you're afraid of, right? Abandonment?"

"No. I just want to have both."

"Or you just don't want to admit that you're comfortable living in fear."

"I'm not."

"You're too afraid to look at yourself."

"Don't say that."

"It's just the truth." Yoongi coughed, rubbing his eyes. "But maybe it was easier for me since my family was never all together to begin with. Anyway, either way you lose. You lost Taehyung because you were afraid. And you're gonna lose yourself living in this fear. There's no way to have both. Just hurry up and take your pick before you actually lose it all."

Jimin hoped the mattress would swallow him whole. He thought Yoongi invited him here to continue what they'd been doing all this time-- to pretend. He liked it when they were frauds. He secretly liked it when they ran away from themselves with each other. This was not that.

Min Yoongi did not blanket anything. Min Yoongi was honest even when it stung, because he understood that a sting always has someplace better to go after a while.

Yoongi hugged Jimin's whole arm, cocooning it with his entire body. Unknowingly, he saved him from the depths of his own conscience.

This wasn't the first time he'd done it though. There had been many times which Yoongi fixed what was broken without even knowing. 

"Did what I just said hurt your feelings?"

"No."

The lie was short and simple, and yet, Yoongi caught him in it anyway. He gripped Jimin's arm tighter and loosened again, saying through a yawn, "I know you think you're weak and shit, Jimin."

"And you are. But if you own that, then that's all it'll take to make you a lot stronger."

Jimin closed his eyes too. He didn't feel much better after all this. But he was grateful to have someone who tried and was patient with him even when he was in the wrong. He gazed at Yoongi's sleeping face -- half-open eyes and oily skin and all.

Soon enough, there Yoongi was, all oily and snoring and unpretty and raw. And his first thought, oddly enough, was not disgust or complaint. In fact, there was nothing to think. 

A smile happened anuway.