Muse 📸 // Reader x Kim Taehyung (EDITING)

33) Mutual

Staring at him through the doorway, you knew it was safe to approach. Your steps were casual and you made your way over to him in no time. It was one of those moments that felt like time stood still. Your eyes locked as you walked toward him, and you could recognize the look in his eye. It was familiar, but still somewhat different. Sadder.

Before you could bring yourself to ask the inevitable question, he beat you to it.

"Can we talk?"

You nodded your head and the two of you once more returned to a world of your own. He brushed past you and started walking to a more secluded area back out in the hallway. The two of you sat on a bench at a reasonable distance away from each other. You knew you wanted to look his way, but you couldn't bring yourself to keep looking his way. For as much relief as it brought, it also gave you just as much pain.

As much as it felt right to look at him again, you couldn't ignore everything that was still wrong.

You had wanted a moment like this for so long, a chance to explain yourself. A chance to make him understand. Now that you were faced with it, you couldn't find the words.

Good thing it seemed that he had a plan of his own.

"Before you say anything, I think I need to explain myself," he spoke disheartened, sighing heavily after the initial statement.

"Jimin sat me down and made me face the reality of how I was treating you. How unfair it was for me to have idealized you to be this perfect person in my head. My expectations had been too high and at even the slightest setback, I thought you had disappointed them all. Now, I'm not even sure that you should've disappointed me at all. I thought you were the one that let me down, but really, I was the one that let you down."

"You... You said something about me believing the rumors... I don't know if I ever heard your side of the story and I'm sure I would have believed it if I had..." Your voice trailed off, knowing that the simple action probably would've prevented the whole break up in the first place. 

Why hadn't you been able to get him to open up to you, to actually trust you?  Were you so self-involved that you once again forgot that other people have problems too?  You hoped he would give you some insight. You hoped he would give you the chance to believe him.

"The rumors... they're really just that. I guess there's some truth behind it as the misunderstanding must've started with some sort of understanding... You were in junior high when they all started so I'm assuming you never actually heard what happened." He looked at you to gauge your response, to see if he was right. You nodded.

You really didn't know how all the rumors started. One day, Taehyung was your brother's dorky best friend and the next he was made out to be a heartless, sex-crazed maniac. You never understood what could make such a drastic change because, in your mind, he was always the former. He never ceased to be dorky.

"It was my first year of high school. I guess that something had changed about me because I kept getting all of this attention from girls... I'm not saying I wasn't flattered or anything, but some ended up getting kind of creepy. They were like fighting over me even though they were too afraid to talk to me. And they had no reason to be, I would've talked to them no problem, even despite the uncomfortableness of the situation... But they... I guess, they just thought I was the perfect guy that anyone would be lucky to have. That image would soon change."