WITHOUT YOU ||Vmin ff

CHAPTER 12

By early December, just over two weeks into rehearsals, the sky was winter dark before miss choi would let us leave, and jimin asked me if i wouldn't mind walking him home. I don't know why she wanted me to.

But jimin's house was on the way to mine, and i couldn't say no without hurting his feelings. It wasn't that I like him or anything, don't get the wrong idea, but when you've had to spend a few hours a day with someone, and you're going to continue doing that atleast another week, you don't want doing that for at least another week, you don't want to do anything that might make the next day miserable for either of you.

The dance was going to be performed that Friday and Saturday, and lots of people were already talking about it. Miss Choi had been so much impressed by jimin and me that she kept telling everyone it was going to be the best dance performance the school had ever done.
You might think i'd be getting excited about it, too, but i really wasn't. My friends were still teasing me at school, and i hadn't had an afternoon off in what seemed like forever. The only thing that kept me going as the fact that I was doing the "right thing." I know it's not much, but frankly, it was all I had. Occasionally i even felt sort of good about it, too, though I never admitted it to anyone. I could practically imagine.

So I was walking him home that first night, thinking about the stuff, when Jimin asked me a question.

"Is it true you and your friends sometimes go to the graveyard at night?"
Part of me was surprised that he was even interested. Though it wasn't exactly a secret, it didn't seem like the sort of thing he care about at all.
" Yeah" i said, shrugging. "Sometimes"
"What do you do there, beside eating ?"
I guess he knew about that, too.
" I don't know," I said. " Talk .  .  . Joke around. It's just a place we like to go."
" Does it ever scare you?"
" No," i answered. " Why? Would it scare you?"
" I don't know," he said " it might."
" Why?"
" Because I'd worry that i might do something wrong."

"we don't do anything bad there. I mean we don't knock over the grave or leave our trash around."
" Do you ever just sit around and listen to the sounds? he asked. " Like the crickets chirping, or the rustling of leaves when the wind blows? Or do you ever just lie on your backs and state at the stars?"
Even though he was a teenager and had been for four years, jimin didn't know the first thing about teenage, and trying to understand teenager boys for her was like trying to decipher the theory of relativity.
"Not really," i said.
He nodded a little. "I think that's what I'd do if i were there, if i ever go around to really see the place, or sit quietly and listen."

The whole conversation stuck me a strange, but i didn't press it, and we walked in silence for a few moments. And since she'd asked a little about me, I sort of felt obliged to ask her about himself.
"So what do you do?" I asked. "Besides working with orphans or reading the books, i mean?" It sounded ridiculous, even toe, i admit, but that what he did.

He smiled at me. I think he was surprised by my question, and even more surprised  aty interest in him.
" I do alot of things. I study for my classes, i spend to time with my dad.
"Do you ever  just go off with friends and goof around?"
"No," he said, and i could tell by the way he answered that even to him, it was obvious that no one wanted him around much.
"I bet you're excited about going off to college next year," i said changing the subject.
It took him a moment to answer.
"I don't think I am going to go," his answer caught me off guard. Jimin had some of the highest grade in our senior class, and depending on how last semester went, he might even end up valedictorian.

"What about mount sermon? I thought that's where you were planning to go. You'd love a place like that," i offered.
He looked at me with. A twinkle in her eyes. "You mean I'd fit right in there, don't you?"
Those curveball he sometimes threw could smack you right between the eyeballs.
"I didn't mean in that way," i said quickly. "I just meant that I'd heard about how excited you were to be going there next year."

He shrugged without really answering me, and to be honest, i didn't know what to make of it. By then we'd reached his house,and we stopped on the sidewalk out front. From where I was standing, i could make out mr. Park shadow in the living room though the curtains.

"Thank you for walking me home, Taehyung," he said and he glanced up at me for a moment before finally starting up the walk
As I watched him go, i couldn't help but think that of all the times I'd ever talk to him, this was strangest conversation we'd ever had. Despite the odd ness of some of his answer, he seemed practically normal.