My Light, My Jimin

Chapter 28: Social Studies

Something cracks open in my chest, flooding through my insides like water, pushing away everything else that ever mattered outside of him.  I need his mouth on me immediately, so I pull on his black robe and kiss him hard, swirling my tongue in his mouth until he moans my name.

"You. . . " he starts to say, a breathless word that is suddenly cut off by a knocking sound coming from the classroom door.

I jump back, because he's already pushing me away in a panic before he can untangle himself from me.  My mind goes into hyperdrive.  What's a good excuse for me to be in the dark with my professor after school hours and while there's a dance happening?  Answer: there isn't.

Yoongi slides out the office and turns around quickly, as if suddenly remembering I'm still here.  "Don't move," he says, and it takes me a confused, blinking moment to realize he wants me to hide.

I drop down, crawling on the floor to the desk where I wedge myself under and pull the chair to me.  In the dark, I morph with the shadows and quiet my breathing as I strain to listen.  From the office, I hear Yoongi's voice say hello to the person on the other side and the greeting is tossed to the side when the person asks where he went.

I recognize it to be Professor Kim Namjoon, and my insides crumble.  The blood drains out of my face as I listen to their conversation about finding kids and why Yoongi isn't back at the Halloween party yet.

It's terrifying, how casual it is between them, when I've thrown Professor Kim under the bus because I couldn't come up with a fake name and because I decided to be petty.  I didn't think.  I didn't fucking think about anything besides myself.

Am I a monster?

I don't know.  I don't know.

He has a life outside of the university.  He doesn't openly talk about it, but I know he has one.  Just like Yoongi.  I don't know why it never occurred to me that he might have someone waiting for him when he gets home.  Now, because of me and my stupid lies, it might destroy his entire career.

"All right.  I understand," Yoongi says, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Then we're clear: You can't disappear like that without telling me the truth."  I hear Professor Kim let out a long sigh.  "If you wanted to take a minute to yourself, at least text me before I get freaked out.  You're lucky I didn't get Jin involved, otherwise this whole campus would be turned upside down looking for you."

"Of course it would," Yoongi mutters.

"I'm serious," Professor Kim says.  "Now that administration is sticking the new curfew rules up, we're on surveillance just as much as them."

"If you would like to know the details of my evening, I'm happy to provide them."

"Sure, enlighten me," Professor Kim drawls.  "Because I haven't heard or seen you since the beginning of this semester.  I thought you were just busy and shit, but now it's like you've been sneaking off all the time.  I can't even remember the last time you, Jin, and I went out to lunch together."

"I don't remember getting invites."

"You would know that you never needed one."

There's a beat.  A moment of showdown where someone has to say something, anything.

It's Professor Kim.  He exhales and I hear his feet lift, like he's shifting in place.

"It's just me," he says.  "The staff can be conned and lied to.  I can't be.  You've never acted this distant before, and it's not right for you to suddenly leave me and Jin high and dry."

"I'm not leaving anyone," Yoongi says softly, like he's breaking it to him.  "You know me, Namjoon.  You know I wouldn't stay late unless it was something really important."

"Then what is so important that you have to come back with all the lights off and without your computer?"

The long silence returns.  I slip back into the shadows; it's like I know the words that come next will slice me raw.

The truth eventually will.

"If you know what's best, you won't ask me that question," Yoongi says slowly.

"You can't say shit like that!"  Professor Kim's distress bleeds into his voice.

"Stop implying that I'm sneaking around."

"Aren't you?"

"I'm not," Yoongi says, just as slow, but twice as dangerous.  I won't lie, it flashes through me, the fear.  "What I choose to do with my time is my business.  I shouldn't have to be the one to tell you what can be done behind closed doors, right?"

Professor Kim takes a deep breath.  I don't see anything, but I can hear and feel Yoongi's words cut deep.  Whatever the meaning behind them, it must have been something personal.  I bite the inside of my cheek.  It's because of me that Yoongi had to use this tactic, as a way to distract from the truth: me behind his own closed door.

"All right," Professor Kim finally says.  "Return when you want.  The party's going to be shutting down soon anyway."

I hear shoes click out the door, and then it shuts.  I close my eyes when Yoongi starts rustling around, and then I hear him sigh.  I let myself sit there in the dark, just to give him time.

"Are you still here?" He asks.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to drive you to the dorms?"

I don't know what to say.  I feel sick.  What little I know about Professor Kim Namjoon has been uncovered tonight by a conversation I should have never had participation in.  With knowing that he and Yoongi are closer than I realized, it adds to my ever growing guilt.

I pull myself out from the desk and out of the office.  "Hoseok is waiting for me," I say, holding my phone up for him to see even though my screen is turned off.  "I should go before he gets upset.  Goodbye."

Yoongi does not say goodbye in return.  I wonder if he's not able to.

If he tries, will he break?