For Everything I Am | KTH 18+ ✔

Chapter Twenty-One

Taehyung anxiously taps his foot as he looks at the clock on the stove again. It was already after six-thirty and knowing that Ria had a date in less than one hour, he felt like he was going to be sick to his stomach.

During the past week, his realization that he was crushing on his best friend blossomed into what he now realized is that he had been full-on heart-stopping, earth-shattering, hopelessly in love with her for quite some time. When he told himself he would let her know, he thought he had more time. He thought he could come up with some kind of scenario in his head where he would be able to ease it into conversation somehow and pray that he wouldn't be the one with unreciprocated feelings this time around. Not with her.

But here he is now, racking his brain for a way to say something without potentially killing a friendship while Ria gets ready for date number two with a guy who he didn't feel threatened by, but worried that it could become something serious if he didn't speak his truth before it was too late. The last thing he wanted to be was her man of honor at her wedding to some other guy because he was too chicken to say anything when he had a chance. Just the thought of having to write a toast in honor of their love disgusted him.

Sure, it was highly unlikely, although not entirely impossible, that that could be the situation with Andrew, but it wasn't a chance he really wanted to take.

"Do you think I should wear these or these?" Ria walks out holding up two pairs of boots that looked way too similar to even own both in his opinion.

"I don't know, the black ones." He shrugs, kind of annoyed by the fact she was even asking him, but he had to remind himself that she doesn't know how he feels yet and this was a normal thing between the two of them.

Dropping the shoes to her side, she sighs out in frustration, "They're both black and you blew me off about my outfit too."

"Because I don't really care about what you wear on a date with Andrew, Victoria."

He catches the way her demeanor changed at the sound of her full name. It was rarely spoken from his lips unless he was angry with her, trying to get out of trouble, or was discussing something serious and he knew that. The way he was acting was also completely uncalled for, but it was hard for him to stop speaking in such a harsh, annoyed tone when he was in the middle of his own personal battle.

Call it being petty, but he wasn't about to help her look her best for Andrew to ogle. Andrew didn't deserve her.

"You're being a jerk tonight." She rolls her eyes as she walks back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Huffing out in frustration, he sits back on the couch and tugs on his wavy hair, "Whatever!"

Looking back at the clock, more time had passed than he had hoped it did and his heart rate speeds up.

"Come on now, Kim Taehyung, since when are you a wuss? Since when do you not have the balls to just fucking say what you're thinking? Since you fell in love with the woman who's your entire universe, that's when." He whispers in an attempt to coach himself out of his own mental block.

He can do this. He can tell her.

He has to tell her!

Stomping back out of the bedroom to snatch her phone off of the counter, Ria sends him an intense glower that was obviously intended to intimidate him but just pulled at his heartstrings even more and honestly turned him on. She was always adorable when she would get mad. Whether it was at him during their seldom arguments or when she'd be mad at someone else and even though he never made her feel any less menacing, the truth is they both knew she wouldn't hurt a fly.