SUNSHINE, jihope. [fin.]

1; you are

Sometimes he passes weeks feeling fine.

No sweaty palms, no hummingbird heart, no clenching stomach. No lying awake at night, repeating words they said and words he said and words he wished he'd said, letting the embarrassment, the regret, flood his thoughts like an ocean wave. Larger and larger until they're a tsunami blocking out everything else.

When he feels fine, it's bliss. There's no blanket of remorse weighing down his limbs. Talking to people is easy. Trying new things is easy. He can dance without dissecting the exact problems of every move after he's done; he can hold an entire conversation with a stranger- ten minutes, thirty minutes- and barely remember it later.

But when things get rough again, those okay days just feel like a dream.

The first time Jimin meets his new roommate, it's for coffee a week before they move in. They talk for all of one hour, maybe, and objectively it goes swimmingly. Objectively, Hoseok is awfully friendly and easy to talk to and Jimin's just as poised.

But Jimin can't be objective.

So he lies awake for two hours that night, tossing from side to side with an itch in his bones he cannot scratch. He thinks about how he stumbled over his words when explaining his major. Per- oh, um- dance performance. Stupid. Why was it so hard to answer a simple question? He thinks about the dumb joke he made about their coffee when Hoseok teased him for the lack of sugar- I'm so sweet I don't need it. Hoseok had chuckled but Jimin knew he must have done it out of kindness. And then Jimin hugged him before leaving. A quick, one-armed hug, sort of an awkward one, but now he was absolutely sure it was the wrong thing to do. He didn't even know Hoseok. It probably wasn't normal to hug someone after the first meeting. And Hoseok had hesitated before returning it. He must have thought Jimin was so weird.

Logically, he told himself none of these things really mattered. Probably Hoseok hadn't even thought twice about Jimin's fuck-ups, yet here he was losing sleep over them. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't slow down the anxious jumble of words in his head, the snippets of their conversation replaying like a broken record, mixed in with his own self-loathing commentary. Stupid. Why'd you say that, dumbass?

When he can't stop himself thinking, he'll do something mindless. He has nearly fifty e-books downloaded onto his phone. Late at night, when exhaustion floods his limbs but the mental activity doesn't cease, he reads them hidden under his covers, until his eyes close of their own accord midway. No time to think. He'll watch videos, too, brainless comedy videos on Naver or lighthearted shows, maybe read news articles. He likes to fall asleep as if sleep is some sort of thief, stealing into his brain without him realizing it's too late and his eyes are already drifting shut, his fingers growing slack around his phone. It's not exactly healthy. Because there are too many days where he finishes his homework at 4 AM but forces himself to read in bed for another hour or two to fall asleep because it's better than thinking about his daily fuck-ups, even for a minute. So he doesn't get much sleep, most days.

But sometimes that's not even enough, like the day he meets Hoseok. It's it's too important of a meeting. He's never roomed with a stranger before. For his first two years at K-ARTS he lived with his best friend, but Taehyung decided to move in with a bunch of other acting students for ease of study, so Jimin had to ask around for someone random. It's worse that they'll be living in a studio apartment to save money, meaning their beds will be about three steps away from each other and when Jimin wakes up every morning, it'll likely be to Hoseok's face. He can't make a bad impression this early on.

The morning before he moves in, Jimin visits the terrace of the Visual Arts building. He finds himself there a lot when he's nervous. It has the prettiest garden and the nicest view, and it's small and usually empty and it makes him feel a little melancholy but in a good way. He steps carefully around somebody's drying art project, a collection of painted rocks with a "DO NOT TOUCH" sign next to them, and hops through the small lavender and yarrow plants around the edges of the terrace to make it to the railing. The railing comes higher than his waist and has three bars, so he steps on the bottom one to boost himself up, leaning over and gazing out at the city. Students mill around the courtyard between the various buildings. A few girls dance by the entrance of the library and a boy in the middle of the courtyard strums on a sticker-covered guitar. No one passing by gives him much notice, but he seems so caught up in his own world that Jimin doubts he cares. Someone wearing a massive hat hands out flyers near the Film building.

Everyone looks busy. Confident. Jimin knows he can't make judgements about the feelings of strangers when he's so high up he can barely make out their faces, but a part of him is sure that none of them are as lonely as him. It's easy to alienate himself when he's so far away, looking at them as if through a glass wall. He stands there for a while, until the door creaks open and a pair of students come onto the terrace. Then he slings his bag over his shoulder and leaves to finish packing.

He gets there before Hoseok does. Technically that means he has first pick for which side of the room he wants, but he's afraid of choosing. Really he wants the side away from the door, but he convinces himself he doesn't care which side it is, and it's better if Hoseok picks. He'll feel bad if he chooses a side that Hoseok wants. So he unpacks some things for the kitchen, first, listening to music to make himself comfortable, until the lock in the door turns and Hoseok shoves his way in with a shoulder, hands occupied with his suitcase.

"Hey," he says, pausing in his endeavor to flash Jimin a blinding smile, soft brown locks falling into his eyes.

"That's the biggest suitcase I've ever seen in my life," Jimin teases, holding open the door so Hoseok can focus on dragging in the suitcase.

"It's ninety percent snapbacks." When Jimin's brow starts to furrow, Hoseok laughs. "Kidding."

"Oh."

"Maybe thirty percent."

Jimin laughs.

-

heya!

this was more of an intro to Jimin and his personality and such, and the next chapter will be kind of an intro to Hoseok.

hope you enjoyed the chapter, lovelies ♡

-bbybangtan