The phone calls wouldn't stop. Jungkook guessed that Nari had access to their apartment line through her incessant conversations with Mina. Everytime the same caller ID called, he felt something ignite inside him, a hatred. Jimin thought it would be best for Jungkook to stop checking the phone.
"It's unhealthy." They were watching TV with Mina and Yoongi cooking something up in the kitchen. Classes had been postponed after someone had accidentally pulled the fire alarm. "You're hung up on the past, aren't you?"
Jungkook had refused to tell Jimin any parts of the conversation with Taehyung, but judging by Jimin's concerned expression, he already knew half of it. Not to mention he'd been watching them from inside the shop the entire time.
"Not really," Jungkook replied, picking at the loose strings of his ripped jeans. "We had argument on things in the past, but I'm over it now. I'm sure he isn't though."
"Relationships are tough," Yoongi added, walking in with a bowl of noodles. He set the broiling bowl on the table before the two, and sat down on the couch across them. "It's not worth it if you're not ready for it."
"You'd know," Mina laughed, entering with another bowl for Jimin. Jungkook was already devouring his, struggling to use the chopsticks. His mother insisted he learn because of his heritage, but Jungkook stuck to forks, spoons, and knives most his life. "Yoongi didn't know shit when we started dating."
"Objection!" He said, putting up a finger. "Mina thought my name was Seulgi for the first three days." Jimin chuckled, and Mina playfully shoved him.
"You never spoke clearly on our dates!" She leaned into Jungkook and Jimin and whispered, "He babbled on and on about unimportant things and every time I tried to speak, he'd put his finger up like a mad man and shush me." Yoongi pulled her in for a close hug and nuzzled his head in her neck.
"I apologized, didn't I?" He asked as she giggled. Jimin rolled his eyes, grabbing the remote to change the channel. "Oi, I was watching!"
"You were watching commericals?" Jimin asked, and Yoongi kept quiet. "There's nothing good on. . ." The three of them drifted off into a separate conversation while Jungkook slipped away to the security of his room. He shut the door, quietly turning the lock so that they wouldn't hear. Then he proceeded to rummage through a drawer underneath his bed. The drawer was unknown to Jimin, and he planned to keep it that way. Inside was an album of his high school memories; cheesy, of course, but it was something his parents insisted he'd keep.
It was chock-full of photos of Kim Taehyung.
Jungkook didn't know what he was doing. As a matter of fact, he never really knew what he was doing half the time he was around Taehyung. You could say he acted instinctively whenever he was around. He kept the photo album closed, carefully touching the laminated photo of himself on the cover with his graduation cap and his parents' arms on his shoulders. He had to remember to be thankful for the opportunities they'd given him. They had accepted his sexuality back in the ninth grade, they'd supported his relationship with Taehyung and most importantly, they didn't interfere with his college decision.
Finally, he turned the page of the front cover to see a photo of his first day of high school, standing beside a small boy with fringed brown hair and fake tattoos on his left arm. Tae. Before the blossoming of their relationship, they'd shared a special bond that couldn't have been severed even with the scorching temperature of lava. Jungkook was dressed a button-down white polo with plaid shorts and brown loafers. Taehyung, on the other hand, was wearing a unknown band t-shirt, khakis tearing at the hems, and sneakers. The social differences between Jungkook and Taehyung was enormous; Taehyung with his filthy rich family but no desire for an education, and Jungkook's family struggling to provide for his brother and him, but bearing a song with unimaginable knowledge.
