Guilty as Charged

32- Hater

It was Sunday after I woke up in the morning the next day. I planned to just spend my day away in the art room and get all the messed up feelings out of my mind.

And that's exactly what I did.

I drew a lot today. I tried to make up for all the missing days that went by. After I finally went to the art room after quite a while, I felt full. I felt like the room, and everything in it was calling out to me. As if they were feeling alone and lonely- being locked away in a dark room.

I wanted to expand my painting of Yoongi's piano. I didn't feel like starting with a new canvas, I wanted to expand on the thought that I was thinking about back then.

I still kept the saxophone that was apparently broken.

It was.

But I just kept it. Because... I don't know why I kept it. I just did.

If I told anyone all of this drama that's been happening around in my life, they would probably be surprised by how much drama a high schooler can go through. It's practically unbelievable if judging on the scale of having a normal life.

I wanted one of those. I never got one.

That's when Mom came into the room.

"I heard Hoseok is back." She was talking to me in a quiet and smooth voice while watching me paint. She used to be really against the idea of me painting because it would remind her of dad but she warmed up to it over time.

"Yeah." At that moment, I felt like the world was playing with me. It was slapping Hoseok's image right on my face every single day.

"Did you go over to him?" She kept asking me questions, like a normal parent but again, she didn't talk to me for a while. It felt weird when she talked to me for more than a minute.

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

"Good."

After that, both of us were watching the process of my painting. The sound of paint going over the rough surface of the canvas was soothing to my ears.

"Your dad didn't get mad at you for... making trouble back then. Because he believed people learned from their mistakes. But I think he just saw a reflection of his own childhood in you." My mom smiled at the thought of dad going back to his own childhood.

"He probably made some huge deal back in the day too. He didn't admit it to me, but I could tell. He thought he was being sleek." The sound of my mom chuckling rang in my ears, it took me back to the times when I was scared to my core but all I got was a smile from my dad.

The same kind that Jimin has.

"Or I wasn't worth his time." Honestly, I knew I was worth his time, but I just wanted to hear more about him.

Even though his memory is clear as crystal in my mind like my grandpa's memory.

"Yeah, you were. After you were born, it was like I didn't exist. Jeez, can you imagine how I must've felt when he was ignoring my whole existence?" She moved on from the hurt she was in after my dad's accident. Now all she lives by is his happy memories.

She was trying to hold on.

"Yeah, I can imagine that." For some reason, everything that I say makes the whole environment go to hell. Her best effort of trying to keep the mood up fails as soon as I opened my mouth to let words out.

"Well I suppose everyone can imagine it, but I think I was the only one who felt it." A cheerful tone in her voice that seemed familiar to me showed up.

I almost forgot how happy a person she was back then.

Two years can make a real difference in someone.

"I bet you five bucks that I can find another person who went through the same as you in this very city." I put the paintbrushes away, soaking them wet into the paint water.

'Yeah? Well, I bet you ten that I can find twenty."

"I bet twenty on ten."

"Now you're being childish, Taehyung. That's not even a fair deal."

"You gotta play what you gotta play."

"No, you don't play an unfair game. Who taught you that?" After she finished saying so, she gave me a whack on the skull.

It hurt.

"It's not unfair, it's called strategy." I rubbed on the spot where she hit me with all her might. Or it felt like she hit me with all her might.

There was probably a potato growing up on there by now.

"What army general taught you that?" She was about to whack me again, but since I flinched, she decided not to.

"Whatever. Is the bet on or not? I need my money." I said after I straightened out myself.

"Close the front door boy. I just came here to tell you to fill yourself with some breakfast. You look like you're dying."

She speed-walked out of the room. I was just happy to know that I won this argument.

I liked that part of me.

__________ . . . . . __________

When school was in session, Jimin ate from my lunch again. And I was pissed at him for that.

"Can you bring your own food? I don't wanna die. Well, at least not out of starvation." I snatched the chopsticks out of his hand after he filled his mouth with my food. He looked like the chubby- cheek Jimin from before.

After he took his time finishing what he put in his mouth, he told me that he was getting old and I needed to remind him every night to bring his lunch.

Boy thought.

"What? Your parents aren't at home?" Namjoon was with us today.

Jin Hyung was absent and Yoongi probably didn't bother moving again.

So it was the three of us again.

"They are home but they are getting old too, so yeah." Jimin folded his arms and stood there with a comfortable pose as if he wasn't gonna move from there very soon.

"Yeah. Or you all ran outta eggs." What's up with Namjoon and eggs. He has been talking about them for a while.

Oh.

He was one of those people who says some words for a week way too much, then forgets about them after the week ends.

He doesn't really make mom jokes anymore.

Got'em.

"OK fine. I will tell you guys what happened." Jimin sat down in front of us, in the empty seat, whose owner was nowhere to be seen at that moment.

"I don't really wanna know." I shrugged looking at Namjoon, nodding with me.

"Whatever, you guys are a bunch of haters anyway. So I kind of lost my whole lunch box pack and I can't let my parents know that I lost them, so they think I am bringing lunch to school but in reality, I am just dying inside." Jimin said all of that without stopping and Namjoon burst out laughing afterward.

"You're telling me you lost your SpongeBob Lunch Box?"

"No! I lost my real ones!" Jimin sounded pretty offended.

"Why don't you go and buy some?" I asked him after smiling at him losing his lunch box.

"Well, I don't really like to flex my money up on people." To Jimin's words, Namjoon and I looked at each other with bored eyes and looked back at Jimin's black Chanel shirt.

"Yeah, you do."

"Yup, you totally do."

__________ . . . . . __________