Edge || vmin

"What do you feel?"

Gravel in his shoes (reminding him of the playground they went to as kids) and the wind in his hair and dust in his eyes, but there's nothing like the rush of blood in his veins once the car really gets going. Taehyung laughs and shakes his dark hair out of his eyes, and Jimin stares a moment too long because the sun is outlining Taehyung's cheekbones and the line of his jaw and if he was an artist he'd paint it.

But he's just a struggling musician with a shitty car and a best friend that needs to go somewhere, so he does. He slams the gas pedal without hesitation—"I'll pay for the fuel, hyung." Taehyung had said, eyes a little too bright, ringed red with desperation—and lets the car move forward.

Two hours into their drive to nowhere, Jimin asks the question.

Taehyung laughs and curls up tighter on himself, and there's deep imprints where his nails had dug into the flesh of his palms, and maybe Jimin is pretending not to see them, or the dried tear tracks down his face, for politeness's sake. Taehyung is normally the sun (should be the sun always) with big bright eyes and beautiful smiles that could just maybe fill up his face. Jimin kind of wants to shoot whoever made him look so wasted and sad, whoever made him put off a fake aura of happiness only because he feels like he should.

"You have a song, hyung." Taehyung says, "You know the song. The song that I kind of feel like right now. You made it with Namjoon hyung and Kookie."

There's only one song like that, one song Taehyung could be talking about. Jimin remembers a whole day of fucking around in the studio, plugging and unplugging instruments, arguing over who was going to sing, fighting over the mostly warm coffees that Taehyung brought in at lunchtime. They scraped together a track after six hours of blood, tears, and coffee and Taehyung had fallen in love with it entirely on the first listen. He said it could have been made for him. Jimin didn't have the heart to tell him it really was.

Jimin opens the glovebox and takes out an unproduced CD, slipping it into his stereo. He navigates to track eleven without a word, small calloused hands fumbling with smaller buttons.

Your Hand in Mine starts playing. Taehyung sinks against the seat with a sigh that comes from his bones, his eyes fluttering shut as he breathes it in. Jimin doesn't know what the latter sees in the song, but just the relief of hearing Taehyung's rapid heartbeat slow down makes it okay to not know. Jimin keeps one eye on the road and the other on the boy next to him, his face in rapture. He wants to take out his camera from the glovebox and take a picture, wants to immortalise Taehyung on paper like he does for anything special. Wants to press his fingers to the edges of Taehyung's smile and see if it's as soft as it looks.

"Thank you." Taehyung breathes, now as quiet as the passing breeze, and he curls back into himself. Jimin resists the urge to reach out and twine their fingers together, even though he knows Taehyung would never protest.

The car goes on, steadily and determinedly, down a long road. Jimin has only the vaguest idea where he's really going, having only planned far ahead enough that he knows where gas stations should be. He wonders how far Taehyung wants to go, if Taehyung wants him to continue until they proceed off the edge (exactly what edge, he doesn't know, but it has to end somewhere, everything ends somewhere).

Jimin thinks of a little boy with ineffective fists, and he can remember seeing him everyday on the playground and every night through dimly lit windows. He thinks of parents with enough inclination to hit and yell, hearing the destruction of it occasionally through two pairs of walls, fifteen feet, and a white picket fence. He thinks of Taehyung growing up with a key around his neck and bruises under his clothes, and he keeps going right off their very own sort of edge. Being Taehyung's neighbour for ten years had left him with memories he couldn't scrub clean even if he wanted to. He remembers the yelling, most of all. And Taehyung climbing through his window in the dead of the night to hold their hands flat against each other's. And the sunshine of Taehyung's smile the next morning, even with the bruise curling over the side of his mouth.

But they're in college now, and it shouldn't still hurt Taehyung this bad sometimes. They are no longer kids with skinned knees and images to live up to. And Jimin knows it isn't the same anymore. They drove off that edge a few short years ago. Jimin knows. But Taehyung's smile hasn't filled out in these few short years like it did when Jimin first met him and his hands mean more now when they are gripped vicely in Taehyung's. So no, Jimin doesn't know.

So he asked. "What do you feel?" and Taehyung is smiling, his eyes bright with tears that Jimin once again excuses politely. He has absolutely no idea why Taehyung is still hurting, but he waits for an answer. He always does when Taehyung skyrockets over whatever edge he can.

"Nothing."