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Two weeks and four days.
Eighteen days straight with not even a word between the two of them. They functioned like the other didn’t exist, only passively acknowledging each other’s existence when they needed to move apart. First it was the beds—the two twin beds that they had pushed together came apart within a few hours. Second were their toothbrushes—the heads of each brush used to be wrapped around one another but now they both were laying down on the medicine cabinet. Then there was the makeshift laundry hamper to keep their clothes separate, the shared clothes that suddenly made their way back to their original owner, the meals they no longer shared morphing into lonely take-out boxes, and the steadily increasing amount of time they each spent outside of the apartment—the list went on.
The worst was the unflinchingly dead looks the older would give him whenever their eyes connected. No emotion, no energy, no feelings: he only looked at him with his empty puffy eyes, even the beautiful dark ochre irises seeming wholly melancholic.
He knew fighting with Jimin would suck.
No one had told him that it would hurt this much. Not Hoseok when he introduced him to the older boy. Not Taehyung when he begged him to ask Jimin out because Jimin was too scared to ask him out first. Not Namjoon or Jin when he asked if being roommates with your boyfriend was a bad idea. No one could convey the pain he felt when the older boy viewed him as a stranger in his own apartment.
He lost track of older boy’s day-to-day life. “Oh, he was at the studio today,” Hoseok would offhandedly mention. “We went to go get ice cream today,” Taehyung would report. He was happy that Jimin was still having some fun, but a sharp twinge in the pit of his stomach tormented him: he wasn’t involved in his boyfriend’s life. Someone had snuffed out the sun in his life, and it sucked.
Perhaps saying that it was someone was misleading.
It was his fault. “You’re too possessive, Jungkookie,” Jimin had screamed at him. “You don’t even trust me to go to the library with Tae because you think I’m cheating,” he had choked out between sobs, getting off the bed. “I can’t be in a relationship with someone who gets so jealous that they can’t let me be a real person,” he had cried, slamming the bathroom door shut.
Living with Jimin but not being able to touch or cuddle or care for him was torturous. This morning drove him over the edge: when he went to bed the night before at midnight, his boyfriend was at his desk reading over his notes, features dimly illuminated by the faint glow of his desk lamp; this morning when he woke up, his boyfriend was hunched over his desk, his soft face squished against his arms while his chest rose and fell slowly in a deep sleep; when he got out of the shower, Jimin was still at his desk, ashened blonde hair pointing out every direction from his head and pink lips plump and swollen from the needed sleep.
Something broke inside of himself. Hair still wet, he ran to the kitchen and hurriedly pulled out the baking mix and eggs and milk. Fumbling through the unkempt cabinets until he found a mixing bowl, he quickly whipped the ingredients together while pulling out the grill. Pouring large circles of pancake batter onto the now-hot grill, he let them cook while he funneled some orange juice into one of their glasses. Once the pancakes were finished, he pulled out the heart-shaped cookie cutter that he had gotten Jimin for his last birthday and perforated the round pancakes into smaller heart-shaped cakes. After drizzling a light amount of syrup on top, he balanced the plate of pancakes on one hand and held the orange juice in his other as he returned to their shared bedroom.
He softly set the orange juice down on the desk next to Jimin’s notebook, earning a surprised glare from the older boy. His wide eyes immediately shifted to a crestfallen look when he realized that Jungkook was the one who brought him juice, like he’d rather it be anyone else.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
“I, um, made pancakes too, hyung.” He set them down on the desk next to the orange juice, Jimin’s eyes flickering with emotion when he saw that his boyfriend had cut them into hearts. “I – I used the cookie cutter I bought for your birthday…”
Jimin just stared at the food, face expressionless.
“I can’t do this anymore, Jungkookie,” he breathed, voice weak and cracking. Jimin looked him in the eye—“I can’t drop everything to be yours 24/7…”
He didn’t know what to say.
“I can’t handle you dumping all—all of your feelings on me two hours before my test,” he choked out. “You weren’t here when I was sobbing to Tae over ice cream, you weren’t here when I collapsed into a puddle in the studio with Hobi, you weren’t here when I had to go to Namjoon and Jin because you wouldn’t say two words to me.”
“I, I di—“
“—B-but then you nag me about spending time with Tae and Hobi and Namjoon and I—I can’t do it.”
“Hyung, I—“
“—You choose the most inconvenient times to be my boyfriend, Jungkookie,” the older said darkly, staring at his notebook.
“I didn’t mean to, hyung,” he whispered meekly.
“You never mean to, Jungkookie,” Jimin whined. “But you do.”
“Please, hyung.”
Jimin looked back at him, hurt visible in his eyes, a tense, writhing pain palpable in the air.
“Please give me another chance, hyung. I love you so much.”
“J-jungkookie,” he breathed, eyes glistening wet with tears under the light of the sun beaming through the window.
He immediately grabbed the chair from his desk on the other side of the room and rolled it over next to Jimin, taking a seat and holding Jimin close to him. The older boy buried his face into the fabric of Jungkook’s shirt, and Jungkook pulled him onto his lap to close the distance between the two of them.
“I love you too,” he said, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist.