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When Jin left the building he had been in for the last 40 minutes, he could still hear his loud heartbeat in his ears and he hated that.
He stood there by himself, in front of the emergency exit everyone used just like a normal door, and felt the cold wind on his face. It was not a big deal, he needed to calm down.
He felt like this every time he talked with someone around his age that he didn’t know well. He took a long time to reply and when he did, it always sounded awkward. Today, he got so nervous, not being productive at the meeting at all, just listening and nodding most of the time.
He tried not to think about it, not to blame himself for how he was feeling. It wasn’t his fault that he was struggling so much like this, he didn’t choose to be like that. He tried to get better at this, pushing himself to talk more and he was making progress. The only problem was that it was really slow and Jin was in his third year of university now, he couldn’t just stay in his room away from every activity or career fair anymore. He had to push himself more, but he wasn’t sure if he could do that without having a breakdown after.
He usually didn’t like to talk about this topic with anyone, including his best friend and roommate Jimin. He only shared when he thought he was strong enough to do so and he didn’t feel like that now, that was why he avoided going to their shared dorm room as much as he could until he couldn’t feel his hands anymore because of the cold.
He entered the building and nervously went up the stairs, turning left to their corridor when he reached the second floor. Their room number was 219, so he stopped when he was in front of the third door on the right side. He got his keys from his pocket, took a deep breath, put the right key in the lock, and turned it.
When he slowly opened the door, Jimin was sitting on his bed, watching something on his laptop and smiling. He loved watching comedy shows, so Jin thought he was probably watching one. The windows were open, curtains moving with the wind. It all looked so peaceful, Jin didn’t feel like he and his sad thoughts belonged there as he stood by the door.
Jimin looked up from his laptop, “Jin!” he said brightly, “I was waiting for you to watch something together.”
Jin slowly closed the door behind him, not wanting everyone on their floor to hear their conversation. He tried to hide his feelings as he replied to Jimin, “I don’t know if I can do it now.”
Jimin looked at his best friend, who didn’t do well with hiding his feelings as much as he liked to. He immediately felt something was wrong, but he didn’t have any guess about what it was.
“What’s wrong Seokjinnie?” he asked softly, getting up from his bed and slowly walking towards Jin.
“It’s nothing important,” answered Jin, put his bag to the floor, took his coat off, and threw it on his chair.
Jimin seemed worried as he tried to make Jin tell him the problem, “Everything that makes you sad is important to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s really serious or not.”
“It’s nothing new, so we don’t need to talk about it,” Jin said, walking around Jimin to sit on his bed. Instead of his pillows, he leaned back to the wall, that little feeling of cold relaxing him a bit.
Without wasting a second, Jimin sat right next to him. Jin tried his best to pretend like it didn’t matter, like he didn’t need a hug right now, hoping it would make Jimin stop worrying and continue watching whatever he was before Jin came in. However, Jimin knew him well and he didn’t let go of the topic, “You had a meeting about the project today, right? Is this about it?”
Jin nodded but didn’t say anything else. Jimin moved a bit closer to him, held his hand to let his best friend know he was always there for him, that he wanted to help. “Did someone say something offensive to you?”
Again, Jin didn’t reply with words, he just shook his head to make Jimin understand that was not the case.
Jimin tried again, “Did they not let you talk and express your opinion?”
“It’s not something like that Jimin,” said Jin, finally talking. “Nobody did something wrong. It was me.”
“You?”
“Yeah, I just couldn’t do anything. I was so nervous as always,” he explained, looking at his hands instead of making eye contact with Jimin.
He didn’t need to explain more, Jimin knew. He knew Seokjin for a few years now, and also liked him for a few years. He remembered how they met in high school and how hard it was to make Jin talk to him, to make him open up. It took months for Jin to agree to meet outside the school and he had to work hard for that. So he also knew how much Jin struggled in university, trying to find a place for himself in the crowd. They didn’t talk about it much but he knew.
Jimin put his arms around Jin and pulled him close, giving him one of those hugs that he loved. He put his arms around Jimin’s waist, getting emotional as his best friend tried to comfort him without saying a word, knowing he would appreciate this more.
He closed his eyes for a moment and a tear fell to his cheek. He wanted to tell Jimin more, he wanted to tell him everything so he won’t suffer alone anymore. The hug reminded him how much they cared for each other, he wondered why he didn’t feel comfortable with talking about this with Jimin earlier.
He started with a sentence only, “I just want to be like everyone else Jimin.”
Jimin moved his hand on Jin’s back up and down slowly, “What do you mean by that?”
“I want to be able to speak comfortably with others, I want to be able to express my thoughts without thinking about every word in detail. I want to be confident and easily say it when I don’t like something. And I don’t want to say that I don’t have an Instagram account anymore if anyone asks, just because I feel like I don’t belong in their world,” he explained. He could’ve added more but he felt like these were enough for Jimin to understand what was in his mind.
“Why do you think you don’t belong in their world?” Jimin asked softly, still not letting his friend go.
“I don’t like going out much,” Jin said, he preferred his bed over a night at a bar with friends. “And talking with so many people every day. It seems like that’s all they do sometimes.”
“I don’t think it’s like that. You might see it like that as you only see them in class, you can’t know what they’re doing when they get home,” said Jimin, trying to convince his friend he had nothing to worry about.
“Even if it’s like that, they wouldn’t keep talking to me after a day because I am boring,” Jin added.
Jimin couldn’t believe that Jin really thought that when he was the best person living in this world. He needed to let Jin know that, how amazing he is.
“Jin,” Jimin pulled back from the hug and looked him in the eye, “Don’t think like that, please. You’re the most precious person to me, it has been like that for several years now, and I never thought you were boring, not even the day we met. You’re amazing, smart, so hardworking, and beautiful, inside out. You never give up and that’s why I look up to you. I love how determined you are to make things right when they go wrong, I love how you’re always there for me and I love you.”
Jimin didn’t plan to add those three words at the end. His best friend probably thought he meant it as a friend; however, Jimin meant it as more. It felt so good to say it, after thinking about it so many times. Jimin wasn’t sure if it was the right time to explain his feelings to Jin though.
“I love you too Jimin-ah,” Jin replied, “Thank you for being my friend for so many years. You make me happy, always cheer me up and help me with everything. You’re the most precious person to me too.”
Jimin could feel that without Jin needing to say it out loud when he looked in his eyes, saw the small smile on his lips. He was so soft, Jimin wanted to be close to him like this, always. He wanted to say it, he didn’t want to wait anymore. He felt like he could take the risk now.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he began, his heart speeding up as he gets closer to telling Jin the biggest secret he had been keeping from his best friend. He can see that Jin is waiting for him to say it patiently, “When I said I loved you before, I meant it as… more than friends.”
Jin raised his eyebrows and his lips slightly parted, “Since when?” was the first thing he said.
“Last year of high school,” Jimin said shyly, not being able to look Jin in the eyes now.
Jin didn’t say anything for a while and Jimin didn’t know how to feel about it. Was telling him a mistake?
But it didn’t stay like that for long, “It’s only three months for me.”
Jimin couldn’t understand what he meant, “Isn’t it more than three years?” he stopped for a moment to think, “Are you talking about something else?”
“Yeah,” Jin replied, he took a deep breath and hoped he wouldn't lose his courage until he explained it all. “It’s been three months since I had a talk with Taehyung and he made me realize that I like you.”
“You like me?” Jimin asked, his eyes wide. After that silence he thought Jin didn’t feel the same for sure, he couldn’t believe what Jin said now.
Jin nodded, his ears getting slightly red. He could never imagine talking with Jimin about his insecurities today and having this talk with him seemed a lot less possible than that. “Why didn’t you tell me for so long?”
“I thought you didn’t feel the same.”
“Well,” Jin giggled, “I do now.”
Jimin looked at him, Jin’s eyes bright now instead of sad like they were when he came in. He looked happy, beautiful and Jimin could finally do what he had been thinking about for a long time.
He pressed his lips to Jin’s and pulled back, everything happening in less than five seconds, Jin didn’t have enough time to process what was going on. Then Jimin held his hand, took him to his bed, so they could watch the show he was watching before all these happened, cuddling.