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You could feel the crowd pulsing around you, the music pounding through your ears turning the haze into a kaleidoscope of hues. The alcohol in your veins exacerbated the feeling, turning into the wave of your hips as you swayed next to your friends. You didn’t realize how much you needed this night – a time where you could forget the heartbreak, forget wanting to be more mature. Who needs to be mature? Mature didn’t lead to fun, it led to boring pantsuits in a class full of colorful ensembles, it led to ghosting your friends to add another point to your overall score, it led to nights home alone doing laundry.
You liked this better. You liked this meaningless grinding against Jimin as he winked at a girl next to you. You liked taking too many shots with Jungkook as he droned about his new obsession. You liked being babied by Yoongi and his girlfriend as they led you back to the booth and ordered fries. This was fun. This was supposed to be fun.
But with your cheeks rudding from the soju bombs and the world spinning, listening to your friends loudly laugh at jokes you didn’t catch and watching them flirt with people they had found for the night didn’t seem so fun anymore. Suddenly everything wasn’t bright and wonderful, it seemed dark and depressing. It reminded you that when you usually had someone to whisper and cuddle with, there was now no one who noticed that you were quietly staring at your cup. In a blink of an eye, everything was exhausting.
“Hey, you okay?”
Your best friend’s voice broke through the crowd, his hand on the back of your neck grounding you as you blinked up at him. You hadn’t noticed that he had abandoned the girl he was dancing with on the dance floor, hadn’t noticed that he was sitting next to you. And somehow with his kind smile puffing up his cheeks, it didn’t seem so dark anymore.
The lights of the club reflected on his face, turning it from blue to pink to green, turning his white shirt into a vibrant neon. He looked a little ridiculous, his dark hair disheveled with sweat matting it to his forehead, and a giggle escaped you.
“Hi Jinnie,” you smiled and Seokjin couldn’t help returning it, hand slowly running up and down your back.
“Hi giggly,” he retorted, endeared, before ruffling your hair. Usually you hated when he did that but the warmth from him noticing you when no one else did made you forget. Instead you hugged him, clinging on as his arms wrapped around you. If there was anyone in the world who knew you the best, it was Seokjin. You couldn’t help but be giddy that he was in your life. Out of all the people in the world that rejected you for your quirks, Seokjin shared them with you, and in that moment you had trouble describing just how happy you felt to soak in the cologne he had been using since middle school. It smelt like home.
“Wanna call it a night?” he asked against your hair and it felt like he could read your mind, somehow instinctively knowing that you wanted to just go to bed. You nodded with a grin, still clinging on as he guided you into a rideshare and took you home. Like usual you sat on your counter as you shared a bowl of ramen, the salt sobering you up just enough to let him into a secret you had been carrying around for months.
“Am I mature or am I fun?” you asked Seokjin as he inhaled the last of the noodles, his loud slurps spraying the broth in tiny specks over his pristine shirt. He paused for a while, chewing as he thought out his answer, brow furrowed with a frown.
“You’re both?” he replied, tone lifting at the end hesitantly.
“Am I wife material?” you questioned, needing a more concrete answer to stow away your insecurities, his confusion making them flair up again dangerously. But Seokjin was quick to quash them with his confidence.
“I’ve tasted your carbonara. I’d marry you on the spot. Call the officiant!” he joked with a flair, somehow making you laugh despite being on the edge of tears. “Thousand percent wifey material!” he declared.
“Damn right!” you echoed, suddenly overwhelmed as your tears finally broke through your defenses, turning into rivulets down your cheeks. You tried to mask it with a laugh but hiding from Seokjin was impossible and soon you were sobbing in his arms recalling the last words your ex had spoken to you, how he had belittled your four year relationship to casual sex and reminded you that marrying you would be unfathomable.
“Hongbin’s a fucking idiot, you know that right?” Seokjin interjected between your sniffles, cupping your face tightly, conviction turning his eyes ablaze. “You are remarkable. You are fucking invincible. If he couldn’t see that in the first second he met you, he is the biggest idiot on the planet.”
Seokjin didn’t often speak in hyperboles, always boasting himself as a man of science and facts, so it helped fill in your cracks a little hearing his high praise. Seokjin wouldn’t lie to you, and if he thought you were invincible, you would believe him. Hongbin couldn’t break you. No one could. Because you were invincible.
“Thank you,” you whispered, wiping your face and sitting up straighter, the counter you were sitting on helping you face Seokjin instead of looking up at him as usual. It helped you see the soft smile bloom on his face. It helped him reach out and easily help you wipe your tears with the paper towels behind you.
“Now don’t cry over him,” he said, wrapping his arms around your head to pull you into another hug. “He doesn’t deserve my best friend’s tears, that piece of shit.”
The anger wrapping around his syllables made you laugh, your own arms wrapping around him. Seokjin was right. Hongbin could burn in hell for all you cared. You told Seokjin as much and he rewarded your comment with your favorite laugh, the one that started low in his chest and turned into little squeaks as he lost himself. He hugged you tighter.
“Damn right! My best friend’s too good for mediocre assholes.”
It was strange. Seokjin didn’t stay too long after, but even as you replied to his text informing you he reached home, you couldn’t stop smiling, feeling lighter than you had for weeks. You wouldn’t cry anymore. Not over anyone. Because you were invincible.
Seokjin said so himself.