STRANGER; 낯선 사람 - taekook; vmin

9. hell is other people pt 2

exciting news

there's a war of hormone trailer

it's coming soon. it's massive.

don't forget to comment! enjoy x

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Jimin had a broken arm, I had a heavy conscience. Whatever hard time I was having was soon forgotten when we started hanging out again, as though it never happened. Jimin's broken wrist wasn't directly my fault, but I was the one who started it, so even though he was kind enough to not blame me — except one or three times he wanted to make fun of me —, I felt guilty. We ended up getting a lot closer and spending a lot more time together, more than I had ever anticipated. I was the one taking notes for him during class, because he had no chance of passing Law school if he didn't take notes for three months, so he ended up having to work twice as hard for that period. It wasn't a liability to me, being obligated to take notes and study with him after school wasn't as much of a bore because I had him with me, and my grades soon became college eligible again. I wouldn't have made the effort of studying this hard if I didn't have to take notes for him and probably wouldn't get into college with the mediocre grades I was getting since the beginning of the school year. This is why I couldn't say that I didn't take advantage of the situation; besides, Jimin's house was a comfortable place, and most of the nights we would eat take out.

His wrist started to exceptionally hurt in the wintertime, when the temperature dropped significantly. Ye-ji carried his bag around whenever she could, and both of us drew on his cast to the point where you could barely see the white in it. Han and Hyun-jin drew themselves right where the broken bone was placed, and it seemed to brighten his mood a little.

Watching his recovery from up close, I knew how hard it was for Jimin, how much his mental health deteriorated because he was unable to do things on his own. Jimin became a heightened version of himself and his insecurities: needy, delusional, jealous and more often than not, we were fighting over the stupidest things after coexisting for most of our waking hours.

"Where are you going?" He would ask me as though he was a child whose mother was abandoning him in the grocery store.

"I was planning on walking Ye-ji home", I'd hesitantly explain, for I didn't know what his reaction would be. Truth is, I hadn't really spent alone time with Ye-ji ever since he broke his arm and I really wanted to.

"But I really need your help with..." whatever thing he decided he needed help with that day.

And I couldn't say no to him, even though I knew he was doing it to avoid that Ye-ji and I hung out together without him. There was this sort of energy that Jimin had, a je ne sais quoi that made it impossible for me to deny him anything; even before he broke his arm, I'd find myself trying to protect him. Now that he was fragilized, this feeling in me grew deep to the point where I would confront anyone who'd just as much as look at him the wrong way.

Which is exactly what happened to that tall kid Ki-tae. One day decided that Jimin's cast was just the funniest business in school and heard around the halls that he is rich, so he thought it was a smart idea to harass an impaired bloke for his pocket money. His biggest mistake was to let me, a kid who takes pleasure in vandalizing and with nothing to lose, know about it. It wasn't Jimin who told me, he'd never say a word about it, but Han saw it and thought I should know, as he vaguely put it.

So I waited for him one day and didn't tell anyone about it. Studying for three years with the same guys, you end up learning a few things — as to where they live, who are their sisters, their brothers, even their cousins. I knew his mom left his father just as much he knew my father was a drunk. People talk, but that night I talked to no one. I ditched Ye-ji and Jimin and found myself walking the path to Ki-tae's house, following him quietly, watching him walk around the street as though he owned them. He entered a simple, dirty spoon-like house such as my own, and I stayed behind to watch the streets and see how people came and went in the solitude of after hours. I loosened the tie around my neck and felt the cold winter breeze on my newly exposed skin, shivering as I had no one but my old golden friend in my hand when I wrote 돼지야 in bright red. You pig, it said, right in front of his home, just below his window so his omma knows exactly what she raised. It was scary how easy it was, how good it felt.