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Jimin's Taehyung was a bit different from the rest.
Taehyung smiled too wide, stood too close, hugged too tight, was lost to the world when he was reading something he found interesting. And to Jimin he was perfect.
Ever since Taehyung came to his house to play from across the road with two boxes of strawberry milk when they were both 5, Jimin decided Taehyung was his perfect companion.
People at school didn't think this way. Because there were some things Taehyung didn't know. Jimin's mother said it was because Taehyung's parents were very busy, and his grandmother couldn't teach him such things.
So, Jimin decided he had to help Taehyung.
Like one time when a girl came to school with her hair coloured red. Taehyung was so delighted, he'd gone and held the strands of her hair, lifting them up to marvel at the colour of the sunlight. There was pure joy on Taehyung's resplendent face.
Taehyung didn't know this was rude. Jimin, and a few of their friends, knew exactly how pointedly Taehyung could fixate on things that interested him. But the girl, startled at her space being invaded, left no expletive unsaid, knocking Taehyung to the ground. The incident made him withdrawn for days on end. And Jimin didn’t like that for him. It was a lesson learnt the hard way for Taehyung, and an eye opener for Jimin.
Not everyone perceived Taehyung like Jimin did. He took it upon himself to warn and protect Taehyung from that day on. Jimin was able to rope in a few more friends to join him with this.
"If you really want to protect him," Jimin's mother interjected Jimin and his friends one evening, "you should help him learn to protect himself."
"But he will get hurt, eomma!" Petulant 13 y.o. Jimin had cried. That was important, apparently, because one fell while learning to walk and ride a bike too. The added fear Jimin didn't voice out was that Taehyung may not need him anymore.
The fear wasn't limited to Taehyung. Ever since he could remember, loneliness lurked like an insidious shadow around Jimin. It did so till date. That, however, didn’t stop Jimin from showing Taehyung how he can equip himself.
But another thing about Taehyung was that he was also especially intuitive.
He'd climbed into Jimin's bed once, staying over during a cold night.
"Ji-min-ah, I came here so you wouldn't get lonely." Taehyung whispered. They were 15, and Jimin realised he couldn't imagine a life without Taehyung in it. He didn’t want to.
"Now I'm not lonely at all!" Jimin giggled, letting Taehyung hold him in a tight embrace as they slept.
They got into different fields growing up. And the separation stung more than Jimin let on. He terribly missed frolicking around the neighbourhood with his friends and cousins, and the big city was cold and harsh. And Taehyung still found a way to be there for Jimin. Taehyung always found a way.
“I’ll be on the phone with you for the first hour,” Taehyung told Jimin one evening as he got on the train to Seoul because his course started before Taehyung’s. “Then Joon-hyung will call you, then Hobi-hyung, and I forgot who it was after that, but we’ll keep you company on the train.”
“Do you ever get lonely?” Jimin once asked Taehyung on the phone one night from their respective dorms.
“So many times.” Taehyung said, like it was no big deal.
“How do you stop it?”
“I don’t think I can stop it, just like I can’t stop the rain,” Taehyung exclaimed, “but you can take an umbrella in the rain.”
“That’s very smart, Tae”
“I’m very genius, Min”
“Then what’s the umbrella for your loneliness?” Jimin asked, desperate for an answer.
“I think of you,”
Jimin blushed. He could hear the smile in Taehyung’s voice. It went just slightly deeper, a little airy.
“I think of how you always hug me and call me your alien when we meet. It makes it easier to deal with. Sometimes I… No, you told me that comes under ‘creepy’.”
“Tell me anyway,” Jimin almost whimpered.
“Sometimes, I look at your picture and forget everything. And when I talk to you or see you, it makes me so happy I don’t know what to do with it.”
In Taehyung’s language, this was a confession.
“The movie was so good, I don’t know how to explain!”
“This is so delicious, omonim! I don’t know how to eat it like a human!”
“I’m so angry I don’t know how to move.”
So Jimin didn’t hesitate proposing after Taehyung’s graduation that they move in together.
“I want us to be a couple. Do you want that too?” Jimin asked as Taehyung stuffed his face with fried chicken, direct without fanfare, like Taehyung preferred.
“Yes. I have not been successful in other relationships. But I don’t feel weird with you at all.”
“Okay. Good. Because I love you very much.” Jimin was able to say it easily.
Jimin’s Taehyung was extra sensitive. Because he burst into tears when Jimin said this.
“You said you love me very much. How should I measure my love for you? It doesn’t fit in ‘very much’.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me exactly how much,” Jimin cried too, “it’s enough that it’s there.” He went to Taehyung’s side of the table to hug him and press kisses all over his face.
“Ji-min-ah, us kissing makes people stare at us.” Taehyung said cautiously. Jimin wished they could live in a world where he didn’t have to be so careful.
"But do you like it?" Jimin asked, grinning.
"Yes–no, I love it,"
"Then it comes under 'we don't care what they think'."
“Good.” Taehyung said, his gaze turning warmer by the second, as he pulled Jimin in by the nape and kissed him flush on the mouth.
Jimin figured loneliness was something that had seeped in his bones from a few ancestors ago. There was nothing he could do. The feeling just came up and wrapped itself around him at the most random of times. At work, over dinner with friends, at a party. Trying Taehyung’s method of revisiting pleasant memories somehow made it feel colder.
“I read about touch therapy,” Taehyung said one evening after his shift at the lab, “come here.”
Hugs would usually help, but Taehyung took it a step further. Laying naked under the blankets, Taehyung insisted he and Jimin deliberately touch every part of each other. After the initial tears, Jimin found that this was by far the most effective remedy for him. It was the only way warmth reached his bones.
“I can’t measure it, but I can demonstrate it like this,” Taehyung said, kissing Jimin’s forehead. “I love you the most.”
“And I love you.” Jimin returned, humbly.
His Taehyung was a bit different from the rest, in the best of ways. Jimin was glad that Taehyung was his.
~keut