🥀 Love is pain 🥀 ' Junoon ❣️ ' ( ✓ )

34.

The next few days passed with an uneasy calm. Yoongi and Jimin tried to keep their relationship steady, but the tension between them grew heavier with each passing conversation with Jimin’s parents. It seemed like every day brought another argument, another demand for Jimin to come home and meet his parents’ expectations.

One evening, Jimin’s phone buzzed again. It was his father, asking if he had given more thought to meeting the boy they had in mind for him. Jimin stared at the message, feeling his heart drop. He didn’t even want to tell Yoongi—he knew how Yoongi would react.

But Yoongi noticed. He always noticed.

“What’s wrong?” Yoongi asked, glancing up from where he was sitting at the kitchen table.

Jimin hesitated, biting his lip. “It’s... nothing.”

Yoongi’s eyebrows knitted together, concern flickering in his eyes. “Jimin, don’t lie to me. What’s going on?”

Jimin sighed, rubbing his temples. “It’s just my parents again. They keep pushing me to meet that guy.”

The air in the room grew colder, and Yoongi’s jaw tensed. “They’re still doing this? After everything we’ve been through?”

Jimin nodded, avoiding Yoongi’s gaze. “Yeah, they are. But it’s not like I’m actually going to meet him. You know that.”

“That’s not the point, Jimin,” Yoongi snapped, standing up abruptly. “The point is that you’re letting them get into your head. Every single time they call, you shut down. You start acting like... like you don’t know what you want.”

Jimin flinched at Yoongi’s tone. “I do know what I want, Yoongi. I want us. But they’re my parents! I can’t just cut them off.”

“No one’s asking you to cut them off!” Yoongi’s voice rose, frustration spilling out. “But you keep letting them control your life, and it’s affecting us. Every time we make progress, they pull you back. And you let them!”

“I’m trying my best!” Jimin shouted, standing up too, his voice shaking with emotion. “I don’t know what else you want from me. I can’t make them accept us overnight!”

Yoongi ran a hand through his hair, pacing back and forth. “I know you’re trying, but it doesn’t feel like enough. We can’t keep living like this, Jimin! It’s exhausting.”

Jimin’s eyes filled with tears, but he fought to keep them back. “What do you want me to do, Yoongi? Just stop talking to them altogether? I can’t do that! I love you, but I love them too.”

Yoongi stopped pacing, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. “I’m not asking you to stop loving them. But I am asking you to choose us. To choose me. Because right now, it feels like I’m always second.”

The words hung in the air, sharp and painful. Jimin felt his heart ache at the look on Yoongi’s face—hurt, frustration, and love all mixed together in a way that made Jimin’s chest tighten.

“That’s not fair,” Jimin whispered, tears spilling over despite his efforts to hold them back. “You know how much I care about you. How much I need you.”

Yoongi’s expression softened, but the hurt remained in his eyes. “I know. And I love you too. But this... this back and forth, the constant pressure from your parents—it’s tearing us apart, Jimin.”

Jimin wiped at his tears, feeling torn apart inside. He wanted to scream, to make everything stop for just a moment so he could breathe. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he choked out. “I don’t want to lose you, Yoongi.”