The interaction.

Ji-min gave a half- laugh, as he shoves Tae hyung aside lightly. (If he had a whole laugh, tae has never heard of it)

“What’s so funny?” Tae says

“I won’t find anyone who will like me for me, so why ask if I like someone- that won’t change anything, it wouldn’t make the person I like.... if I did like someone... like me back” Ji-min says as he shoves his things into his bag.

“I’m just saying,, not everyone is like your ex- you can’t assume everyone is the same” tae says watching Ji-min walk past him.

“But if I don’t assume and I let people in. How will I know that it won’t turn out like last time? That in itself makes me want to stay away from people” Ji-min says, looking back at tae from the doorway, while he puts his shoes on.

“That’s why you have to try, ‘cause there is a chance Ji-min; that things might just be different- wouldn’t that be worth it to try?” Tae says genuinely worried that Ji-min might actually give up on love. And it pains him.

“I’m leaving for the café, I’ll be home at 10,, bye tae” Ji-min says as he shuts the apartment door behind him.

Ji-min stops behind the door

He leans his back on the wall outside their apartment. Taking a moment to calm his nerves, that were all over the place. His old feelings started to show through again. The anger he felt toward this guy that hurt him in the past. He felt like it was just last week, or yesterday, or minutes ago.

After a second he came to his senses and stood up off the wall and collected himself and walked to the elevator.

As Ji-min presses the button to close the elevator, he gets interrupted. A guy’s echoing footsteps and the shouts appear.

“Waitt!!”

Ji-min quickly pressed the open button.

“Thankkkk you!!” The unknown guy says as he steps onto the elevator.

“Uh I- so you live here?” He asks Ji-min as he turns to him putting his hands in his pockets.

(Ji-min thinks,, why would I be here if I didn’t live here?)

“Uhh yeah, I do... I live with a room-mate” Ji-min says staring straight forward still.

“Oh nice! I’m Jung-kook, and you are?” Jung-kook reaches out his hand.

Ji-min jumps back a bit, as he sees a hand coming at him.

Jung-kook retrieves his hand. As the reaction he got didn’t settle right- with either of them.

After the door opens up Ji-min says “sorry” before running out the front doors of the apartment building.

Before Jung-kook could even get one word out he was gone. He wanted to say that he shouldn’t have said sorry, that he wanted to say sorry to him. Jung-kook hopes to run into him again so he can apologize.

Ji-min is all the way down the block. He ran far away from that interaction. He felt annoyed and embarrassed. The way he reacted to someone just introducing themselves. He felt bad. He felt disgusted that he can’t even have a normal conversation anymore.

Things haven’t been the same. It’s only been a year but it feels like it’s been longer. The pain is still present. Both his heart and the mental bruises, left scared on him.

Ji-min walks to the bus stop across the street and gets on. He props his bag up on his lap as he stares out the window. The bus takes off, as they pass his apartment. He sees Jungkook- unpacking boxes from a van.

He was moving in.

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