My Light, My Jimin

Chapter 26: Responsibility

JIMIN

I don't want to pick up the phone. I'd rather run back into Professor Min's bedroom or his shower, oddly enough. Though, now that I think of it, it's ridiculous now to refer to him as "Professor Min." But the thought of calling him by his first name seems weird, too. The phone rings for what's got to be the twelfth time, and as much as I want to avoid everyone outside of this apartment, I answer anyway.

"Yah, what took you so long to answer?" Eomma says on the other line, clearly annoyed by her son's punctuality even if there's no specific time to answer a phone call. "Where are you? I came by the dorm to surprise you for your birthday, but you weren't there."

I give a quick glance to Yoongi, my heart speeding up as he leans in close, peering at me, trying to make out the conversation. "I, um, was with a friend," I say faster than a normal person would. "Hoseok. Remember him?"

A car starts up on her end, and I hear the sound of a seatbelt clicking into place. "Oh. Well, are you far from the campus because I can come pick you up and take you to a Korean barbeque restaurant, or maybe we could take the food out for a picnic. How does that sound?"

"Yeah. Sounds good."

"Okay, Chim Chim. Text me when you get back to the dorms. Saranghae!"

And just like that, my hope is obliterated.

Luckily, I don't have to explain everything out loud to Yoongi, who walks to his room to get changed. A black T-shirt and jeans that are cuffed at the ankles, probably to blend in with the outside world. He grabs his keys from the kitchen counter and looks at me expectingly. I appreciate how he doesn't say anything, but my panic gains momentum and I struggle not to cry.

It's only after I take a pair of skinny jeans from under the dress pants he has multiple duplicates of and steal an old band T-shirt, do I turn away from him when he tries to hold my hand while taking the elevator to the lobby.

"As much as I wish I could, I can't read your mind," he says.

I shake my head. He seems completely content with dropping me after everything that happened, a complete 180 from where we stood twenty minutes ago after he offered for me to stay there until I wanted to leave.

His fingertips touch my knuckles and wait to see if I'll jerk away. I don't, and his hand creeps up and around, linking our fingers as we did in his classroom. I sigh, lean into him, his body like a mountain.

"It's just. . . we're not going to be able to do this again for so long," I say. "We can't sneak out every weekend, or else someone will catch on."

"I'm not going anywhere," he says, kissing my forehead. "There will be another time. Just wait for me, okay?"

I turn my face deeper into him. I want him to say more, that he'll always be there for me and won't let anything hurt me, but he continues stroking my hair and giving me quick kisses until the doors open, and we're faced by the rest of the ignorant world.

Maybe he doesn't need to say it. I think of last night, how he promised he'd be gentle with me and, for the most part, was true to his word. I still haven't admitted to him that until then, I was a virgin, and I'm not sure I ever will.

On the drive back to campus, he tells me he will park in the back of the dorms and for me to enter through the front entrance. It feels like we're planning a heist, one that will most definitely land one of us in jail and the other in serious therapy if we're caught. Our heist breaks the biggest rule of all crimes: don't go in the daylight. I wonder if he knows this, too.