SWEET TALKER

23

"I came out to my brother as bisexual the other day. I lied, obviously, because I can't just tell him I'm actually very interested in dicky ducks only - not yet and the fucker went and hung up on me before I could complete my sentence." Jimin is rambling to me as we step out of our first class on Monday. 

It has been three days since Taehyung and I had met up in the study room and I've decided it best not to stay with him when we're alone. I have been speeding through the rest of my weekend at a staggering pace, throwing myself regularly at the work I have in hand so I don't find myself drifting away in my hurricane of thoughts.

There is a feeling of both fear and nervousness burning inside me whenever I'm around Taehyung and it douses me with worry because I don't know if this is the right thing to do. Part of me wants to believe it's not the right thing to do because he is invading me, controlling my thoughts; it's this compelling sense of control Taehyung has over me that renders me vulnerable, steers me into yearning for his presence. And I keep going back for more.

I don't even know if he is aware of what it's doing to me.

I purse my lips at the memory of his fingers holding my cheek, his steady breath fluttering over my hair. Taehyung sat beside me in class today with a pair of AirPods stabbing into his ears and his fingers streaming across the page in concentration. He spent all fifty minutes scribbling over his page to nullify his boredom and I spent thirty sideway-eyeing him pour his dreamy stripes onto the sheet. Somewhere in the middle, a smirk stained his features the second our eyes met and I had to look away in a frenzy because he had caught me staring at him blatantly. Again.

"So I call him again and explain to him that I'm bisexual and he goes 'why don't you just choose a side?'" my friend is angrily muttering under his breath.

"Jimin," I blink at him, "are you sure?"

"What." my meek intrusion halts his venting and Jimin stops dead on his tracks. "Mary, I'm gay like full G-A-E from the head to dick-"

"Y, Jimin," I intervene to correct.

"Why?" he splutters in disbelief, "did you just go and ask me why I'm gay?"

I frown as his grimace turns cynical.

"The spelling!" I hasten with my hands raised in explanation, "It's spelt G-A-Y, I was not -"

"Yeah right," Jimin snorts. "fuck me for being dumb."

The hallways are streaming with students from all majors, all of them directed to the lunchroom before their consecutive lectures. I have my language club meet-up at four in the noon and I haven't caught up with any of the outlines that have been drawn so far. I haven't talked to Yoongi in a whole week and I barely remember thinking about his piano lessons anymore. The embarrassment of knowing that he had seen me - half-undressed and an unnecessarily elated mess - makes me want to push the thought of wanting to see him away. I don't think he would want to be around me after that night.