SUNSHINE, jihope. [fin.]

13; how much

Jimin doesn’t know what love feels like but he knows seeing Hoseok at the end of every day is a comfort. He knows that Hoseok’s voice calms him down like no one else’s can, that Hoseok’s laugh is the best thing he’s ever heard and that staying up until four in the morning to make sure Hoseok gets back from the club or another man’s bed all right isn’t even tiring.

And he knows that Hoseok is full of life in a way that makes him envious, that just being near him is enough to make him feel alive, too, but he has a bad habit of giving love to people who aren’t worth two shits and that’s what he’s doing when he says he loves Jimin.

It can’t be true because Hoseok is everything and Jimin is nothing. Loving Jimin is a mistake and Hoseok will regret it, Jimin knows he will. Anyway it’s painfully obvious that Hoseok’s heart still belongs to Sejun. He can’t love Jimin, too, he just thinks he does. He’s attached himself to Jimin like he does to so many others. Hoseok has too much love, more than anyone Jimin’s ever met, and it’s beautiful, it’s exhilarating, but it’s dangerous, too.

Not so long ago he thought that if Hoseok were his, he would do anything to make him happy. Now he has the chance but all he can think is that it can’t be true. It wasn’t supposed to be an option. Hoseok likes living life to the fullest and Jimin just wants to stay home. He’ll only drag Hoseok down. Not to mention that Hoseok will want to have sex, eventually, and Jimin never will. Why would Hoseok stick around for him when he can have anyone he wants?

“Do you like him?” Taehyung asks when Jimin knocks on his door that night, the story spilling from his lips. Jimin shrugs, helplessly. “I think you do.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe you should give him a chance.”

“It won’t work out.”

“Last time I checked, you couldn’t predict the future.”

Hoseok is awake when he returns in the morning to fetch his bag for class. He looks like he never fell asleep. “Jimin, can we talk about this?”

“I gotta go to class,” he says, and escapes.

He avoids him for a week. Hoseok tries so hard to talk. “Just listen to me,” he says in the morning. “Just talk to me,” he says at night. Jimin spends as much time as he can out of their apartment. Running away from his problems isn’t the best way to deal with them but he’s too confused to do anything else. Change terrifies him. There are a million reasons why Hoseok and he could never work, and most of those reasons are his fault.

He sits in the practice room alone one evening. In his mind’s eye he sees Hoseok laughing by the mirrors, tossing him a water bottle. Switching the stereo to some girl group song even after promising to stop goofing off. Like this, he says, demonstrating a move with enviable grace. Jimin misses him.

He doesn’t know what love feels like but he thinks this might be it.

There are a million reasons why they will never work out, but maybe Taehyung’s right. Maybe it’s worth a try. Before he can second-guess himself like he always does, he gathers his things and runs all the way home.