Trust Issues //Vkook\\

Chapter Six

Spring will come someday

A phone call from his father. A text from his mother, asking about coming to visit him during the next break. An email from the careers counsellor. A result on the dropbox for the latest paper he'd submitted.

Taehyung deletes all of them.

(Note: He does text his mother back later on in the day, lest the guilt swallow him whole.)

Nothing from Jeongguk. Nothing at all.

“I just don’t understand.” He is talking to Jimin's ceiling, laying on his back on Jimin's bed, head hanging over the edge. Jimin himself is sitting a little further up the bed. He stopped stroking Taehyung's hair an hour ago. Taehyung doesn't know how to ask him to resume doing so without sounding whiny. Whinier, anyway. “It’s been half a year. Half a year and he still doesn’t trust me.”

“Tae, it’s not that he doesn’t trust you. Believe me: I know him. He trusts you, for sure.” The bed shifts. Taehyung tilts his head back, sees an upside-down version of his friend sighing to himself as he stands.

“What?”

“Hm?” Jimin peers down at him. “What, what?”

“Why do you look upset? Is something wrong?” He twists over in time to see Jimin frowning, right side up.

“No. Just worried about you, Tae. And Guk, of course. He must be upset right now. His heats are rough for him. I remember one time..." he trails off, looking wistful as he walks over to his desk. "Anyway, that's a memory that he and I share. I've been here for a lot of his heats. I learnt how to help him from afar. You know. All of the little things I could do to make that time easier for him. But that's just in the lead-up. During the actual heat, he doesn't even want me around. So don't take it personally."

Taehyung feels a nerve tick in his jaw. He swallows and says, “Right. Well, it doesn’t really feel nice being kicked out of your own dorm. He never worried about it before when we were friends. Why is it only now an issue?” He watches Jimin roll his neck, watches him stretch his lips out. “I guess I just want him to open up to me. Not be scared of me. I just. I wish I was you.”

Jimin turns back to him. “What do you mean?”

Taehyung lets his head fall onto the bedcovers, voice muffled somewhat as he admits what he has been thinking for days now. “You know him better than I do. You said it yourself. You know how to deal with his panic attacks. You know how to help him. You know the right things to say and how to be quiet around him and- I don’t know how to do those things.”

Jimin immediately appears before him, eyes wide and looking directly into his. “You’re not saying that because of what happened the other week, right? At the theme park? Because of what I said?”

He has spoken too much, he realises. Jimin looks stricken, eyes full of guilt. Taehyung pastes a smile on his face, puts some pep in his voice when he answers, “Jimin, that’s all in the past now. It’s not about that. I just got a bit upset when Jeonggukkie got frightened by me, that’s all.” After a pause, he adds, “Ignore me.”

Jimin grins, shoulders high, apples of his cheeks rosy. “Oh, Tae. You just need to be a little quieter. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. It took me years of knowing Jeongguk to figure out what he needs. It’s the sort of thing you only learn when you’ve been with him for a long time.”