Just One Day: Pt. 3

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The next day you walked through the door frame, entering the crowded classroom, the sound of chattering students welcoming you in. You kept your head low, knowing that you were soon going to have to see the very person you had been thinking about all last night, the very last person you wanted to see. Your eyes traced along the invisible lines that your feet reluctantly followed, until your eyes met a familiar pair of shoes that you had always been able to spot amidst a large crowd.

Your eyes gradually made its way to Jimin’s, his eyes widened the second you made eye contact with him, hesitantly reaching his hand up to greet you. It was unlike his usual cheerful, smiling greetings, you could already feel the tension in the atmosphere building around you two. Your mind blocked out all of your surroundings, everything blurred except for the boy in front of you, it was as though your brain wanted to torture you even further. In contrast to the dark grey clouds looming over the skies, your whole vision was illuminated by just Jimin’s radiant presence.

You could tell that Jimin was forcing his smile, the way his eyes didn’t form slim lines, the way the bags under his eyes remained hidden. You knew you had made things awkward, but at least this way he would avoid you more often. Maybe this meant progress, maybe this meant that the developing feelings you had for him would finally be cut. This was a good thing, you reminded yourself, in no time you’ll be over him and he’ll be back with his girlfriend. It’ll be like nothing had ever happened between you two.

You forced yourself to take the last three steps needed to reach your seat, ignoring Jimin’s wave, you turned your head to the raindrops splattering against the window panes of the classroom. In the corner of your eye, you could see Jimin awkwardly chuckling to himself, casually using his ignored hand to scratch the back of his neck.

“Good morning Y/N,” Jimin cheerfully sang as you quietly sat in the seat next to him.

You continued to settle your things down, taking your pencil pouch, binders, and folders out of your backpack. You bit the inside of your lip to keep yourself from succumbing to your burning desire to respond, hiding your clenched fists in the pocket of your jacket.

Seeing that you had ignored him once again, Jimin pressed his lips into a line in disappointment before trying once again, “did you sleep well last night?”

No, because I was thinking of you all night, you mentally responded. You kept your eyes on your pencil pouch that rested on the long desk you shared with Jimin.

“I was thinking about what you said yesterday and…” Jimin’s voice trailed off towards the end, his mind scrambling to try and find the right words to express his thoughts.

Before you could let him finish, you grabbed your backpack and looked for your earphones, phone, something, anything that would distract you from crawling back to Jimin’s embrace. You felt Jimin gently grab your wrist as you searched through your backpack, but you dared not to look at him in fear of breaking your determination.

“Yah, don’t you think you’re being too much Y/N?” Jimin muttered under his breath, trying not to attract attention from the rest of the rowdy classmates.

Taking a deep breath, you braced yourself for the next few minutes. If it took painting yourself as the villain to bring Jimin to his senses, then you were willing to do it. For the second time since today, you turned your head to face Jimin’s, your eyes meeting his as you gave him a death glare.

“Okay, you thought about what I said yesterday, and what?” you snapped back, raising one of your eyebrows to put on a cocky front. You needed to look like you didn’t give a damn about him, that you didn’t care if he left you for his girlfriend, when all you really wanted was to feel the warmth of his embrace without a trace of guilt in you.

Jimin scoffed in disbelief over your immature behavior, he bit his lips as he jutted out his chin, looking at everything but you. It was as though you two had switched positions, you who wanted to end this pain as soon as possible, and Jimin who wanted to drag this out as long as possible.

“As I was saying… I thought about yesterday, and I just…” he sighed loudly, returning his eyes to yours, “I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?” you rolled your eyes, crossing your arms against your chest. How many times do you have to say it to get it across? It wasn’t like it didn’t hurt you too, it wasn’t something easy for you to say the first time, the second time, it wouldn’t ever be easier for you no matter how many times you’ve said it.

“Just, why can’t we be friends? It’s not like she has anything to do with our friendship?” Jimin tried to reason with you, and they were all very valid reasons. It was just that he didn’t know you were hopelessly in love with him, and it only pained you the longer you stayed beside him like a third wheel.

“We can’t. Everyone’s going to misinterpret our friendship. She’s going to misinterpret it…” you emphasized ‘she’, after all, it was the only thing on his mind. She was the only one that mattered, she was the one that mattered the most.

“I’ll just clear things up, she’ll understand! Y/N, this doesn’t make sense, is there something else you’re hiding?!” Jimin nearly yelled, but caught himself in the middle of his sentence, bringing his voice back down to whisper level.

“Look, Jimin. We might be just friends now, but that doesn’t prevent anyone of us from feeling more than that. From wanting to be more than just friends…” you looked at him dead in the eye, biting harder onto your lip so that you could taste the metallic taste of blood flow through your mouth.

“We’ll think about that when-”

“-it already happened.”

There it went, the feelings that you had kept hidden for so long, the feelings that you feared would be break Jimin’s relationship with her and the cherished friendship between you two.

Jimin’s eyebrows were now knotted, but his eyes never moved away from yours, he was trying to take in everything that was happening. His lips were moving, but no words were coming out from his mouth.

“Y-you’re confused. You’re confused between a close friendship and love…” Jimin stumbled on his words, as though he was trying to convince himself what he was telling you.

“You’re questioning my feelings?” you scoffed, your eyes widened at how preposterous he was being. “I like you, Jimin. And that means that we can’t be friends, because you have a girlfriend,” you mockingly pointed your forefinger at him.

“…How do you know that you like me?” Jimin’s eyes were now staring intently at the ground, he was trying to figure out something that was incomprehensible to him. Was your affections for him really that unbelievable? Or was it because he truly didn’t want you to love him? Was your love unwanted? Your heart sunk at the thought of it, anything but that. Anything but for your love to be kicked to the side and trampled on.

“I think about you every morning and every night…” you mumbled, barely parting your lips. Jimin leaned in a bit closer so that he could hear your nearly inaudible voice, he was a few inches away from you now. It made your heart race, you could feel your face heat up as you blushed, this wasn’t what you had planned for. This wasn’t what you wanted. You were supposed to be pushing him away. He was supposed to be beside her, listening to her words, not yours.

“You pop up in my mind at the most random times… my heart skips a beat whenever I’m near you, I can’t hear anything but your voice…” you slurred your words, squeezing your arms to the point that you could no longer feel blood flowing through your veins.

“I want to hear your laugh all the time, your smile lights up my whole world, you’re the only person that I want to see all day. I want to spend every single second of my day with you,” you took a deep breath and sighed, “and I always hope that for just one day, I could be the girl holding your hand and not her.”

Jimin turned his head, his eyes immediately finding your eyes again, they were softened as he bit his lips.

“But I guess that’s how you feel for her, right? So make sure she continues to feel that way. Don’t mind about me, I’ll be okay, as long as you’re happy,” you lied through your teeth.

“But that makes no sense, I feel the same-” Jimin began to rush his words, but the bell rang, signalling the start of the class and cutting off his words.

Nearing the end of class, the teacher had assigned another project to be done in groups of two. In the corner of your eye, you saw Jimin turning his head to look at you, as if he was going to ask you to be his partner yet again. You were planning to use the restroom to avoid the question, but before you could do so, Jimin turned his head back and got up from his seat. Your eyes followed him as he walked towards her, hugging her from the back, wrapping his hands around her waist, asking her to be his partner.

In a split second, your whole world turned upside down, this was what you were waiting for the whole time, yet you felt like you had made the biggest mistake of your life. Feeling the tears forming in your eyes, you blinked them away and quickly walked to the restroom to escape what was happening in front of you.

When you returned, the whole classroom was empty, you figured everyone had left after the last bell had rung. Keeping your sobs as quiet as possible, you held your breath and walked towards your desk to pack up your things.

On the top of your notebook was a yellow sticky note, with Jimin’s messy handwriting scribbled on it. Your mind lingered on the last word he had written as you repeatedly read the note over and over aloud:

Is this what you wanted?