THE DAWN - VMIN ONE SHOTS

I DON'T WANT NOBODY ELSE

Jimin had always known, somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, that Taehyung was different to him. A quiet voice had whispered it persistently for years, but Jimin never paid it any mind. He dismissed it the way one brushes off a passing breeze—only acknowledging its presence, never letting it change his course.

That voice was inconvenient. Inconvenient because Taehyung was his best friend—his soulmate—in every way that didn’t involve romance. The boy who’d stood by him since their days in diapers, through mud pies and scraped knees, sleepovers and schoolyard fights.

Taehyung had followed him even into college, nonchalantly claiming he had nothing better to do. And when Jimin teased him about it over the years, Taehyung only shrugged and said, “I meant what I said back then—if not for me, you’d be lost in the world.” Jimin would, of course, roll his eyes and smack him on the back, scolding him for being arrogant—but deep down, in the private space between breaths and memories, Jimin agreed. Taehyung had saved him in more ways than he could count.

Between the two of them, Taehyung had always been the vibrant one—loud and silly. His laugh was unrestrained, his jokes utterly ridiculous. He could light up a room with a wink and a poorly timed pun. Jimin remembered that version of Taehyung so vividly—the lanky toddler with the alien brain who once tried to mail himself to the moon. But somewhere between high school graduation and the first year of university, that Taehyung began to fade—his laughter growing quieter, his posture straighter, and his words fewer. Jimin missed the chaos, but he couldn’t help being drawn to the calm.

The boy who once climbed trees to escape math homework had grown into a man with a face that could silence a room. A face that—unfortunately for Jimin—grew increasingly beautiful with each passing year.

Puberty had hit Taehyung like divine intervention—and it hit Jimin like a freight train. He remembered the first time he really looked at him. Not just saw him, but noticed him—his sharper jawline, the way his eyes seemed to know too much, the way he carried silence like a second skin. It was jarring. And very intriguing. Jimin didn’t know what to do with that realization, so he stuffed it down, laughed a little louder, and moved on—like he should have.

But unfortunately for him, others had noticed too. Girls—and a few boys—gravitated toward Taehyung like moths to a flame. And Taehyung? He met every advance with the same polite indifference: a passive expression, hands in his pockets, and a stare that fell just short of bored. It was like he was waiting for someone who never arrived. Like he already belonged to something—or someone—no one could quite touch.

And it only baffled Jimin more, because they had known each other for over twenty years, and he knew Taehyung didn’t have a special someone.

Sohee, a girl from their literature elective, was no exception. She was pretty, bold, and completely smitten. She’d confessed her feelings to Taehyung once already, and he’d listened in silence, letting her words dissolve into the air between them before simply walking away. Today, she’d asked again—cornering him in the cafeteria with soft eyes and a hopeful smile.

Jimin watched from a distance, uninterested at first. He was too busy laughing with Jungkook, swatting at his dongsaeng’s shoulder after he cracked a dumb joke about their professor’s haircut. Jimin’s giggle filled the space like sunlight, unaware that across the cafeteria, Taehyung was looking at him as if he were the only thing in the world worth seeing.

Sohee saw it before Jimin did—the way Taehyung’s face changed from blank and unreadable to something soft, maybe dreamy even. There was a flicker of light in his eyes, a fondness that bloomed as he stared right past her shoulder. Sohee turned to see what—or who—had caught his attention.