PSYCHE-KSJ•JHS✔️

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||This is 6.1k words long and I had to get it all out in one go.

|THIRD|
22 weeks, 3 days

Jania sits at the table sipping a chocolate shake and eating grapes as she listens to Taehyung talk. She needed a break from being on her feet and he could tell. She was trying to push through it but she was also out of breath so he just told her to take a break. He didn't mind.

"My dad works in the beer factory by downtown so when I was in high school, everybody wanted to have their parties at my house. They thought we had like, stacks of beer stocked in my basement or some shit. We don't even drink."

He chuckles and Jania's eyebrows raise.

"Really? Like at all?"

He shakes his head and takes a sip of his water.

"Nope. It tastes terrible and I don't like the feeling of being out of control. Like that swaying, heady feeling. I don't like it. Makes me panicky. I don't understand why people would induce that sense of panic in themselves."

Jania shrugs a little and pops a grape onto her mouth. "It can be fun sometimes. You don't have to get drunk, per say. You can be tipsy or just like buzzed, I guess. You're still in control, you're still coherent. Your alcohol content is just a little higher."

"That doesn't make it any less gross." He counters and she laughs.

"Yeah... okay, you're right. But nobody drinks liquor for the taste. It's all disgusting. If you want taste, you go for wine and spirits." She points at him and drinks her milkshake.

"Wine?" He twists his face up and Jania holds her hand up.

"Aht. Don't do that. It is not just for moms and book clubs."

Taehyung covers his mouth and laughs into it. "I wasn't even gonna say anything. Moms drinking wine? Understandable. But book clubs?" He laughs again. "Please tell me you're in a wine drinking book club. Please! Because how are you focusing on anything intoxicated?"

"I think wine makes people hyper focused, actually. FYI."

"On what? The plot? Y'all be gossiping. Book club my ass."

"Yes, the plot. What you mean? It helps bring the imagery to life." Jania debates.

"You're staring at thinly sliced trees and hallucinating."

Jania chokes on her milkshake as she starts laughing. Taehyung hands her napkins and she wipes her mouth.

"You know what? You make valid points. But you're still wrong about the wine thing, alright. And I am not in a book club but I do like to read... from time to time."

"You hesitated."

"And then said from time to time. I'm not an avid reader at all. I'm going back at least four pages every time I pick a book up because I forget what happens. But that's not the point."

"Are we gonna blame that on your mom brain or are you admitting that your memory may be shit?"

Jania opens her mouth and he raises an eyebrow. She closes and pokes her lips out.

"I... am not answering that. I'm pleading the fifth. We're not even talking about that. We're talking about your crazy distaste for wine. What's the matter with you?"

"I have never had a glass of wine in my life. If I wanted alcoholic fruit punch, I'd make jungle juice." He's completely serious but Jania still finds him funny.

He finds her laugh endearing. She seems so jovial, almost adjacent to her Instagram personality. She's more or less the same. It's rare for that to be the case with the people he's met from social media. Everyone puts on some sort of facade. Everyone fakes some part of their life.