➵ yoongi
"hey, hyung, i'm going out. i'll probably be back by midnight," called my brother yoonho, yanking his jacket from the closet.
"alright, have fun, be safe, blah blah blah. oh, and don't get too wasted," i replied, not looking up from my phone. my brother just laughed, waving goodbye as he closed the front door behind him.
yoonho and i were extremely close; we spent almost all our time together, being in pretty much every class together. even in our free time, we did homework together, studied together, and played together. ever since we were old enough, our parents had signed up both up for basketball, and we'd been on the same team all our lives. on the court we were like lightning, so in tune with each other that we could communicate by just our eyes alone, and would pass and make shots unstoppable by our opponents.
according to our parents, we had been the same way when we were little, some strange bond keeping us together and making many, many people think we were twins. we were always laughing and teasing each other, but when it came down to it, we were always there for each other.
we fought rarely, and when we did it was very petty and we made up quickly. when i was fourteen, i didn't speak to him for a whole of six hours because he had hidden my ipod and refused to tell me where he put it. he ended up giving it back, telling me he had planned to keep it for a whole day, but felt bad. we had the kind of bond people with siblings had always wished for.
yoonho, although he was actually two years younger, had always been protective of me. it was strange. our childhood had only been good memories, and we'd never been made fun of or been the brunt of anyone's joke. our family was loving, and though we did not have much money, we pushed ourselves and made it through each day.
but my perfect little world all came crashing down one day in elementary school. some kid named hyunbin had called me a faggot at recess, and several of his friends laughed at me.
i didn't know what it meant at the time, but yoonho apparently did. coming out of nowhere, he shoved the kid up against the wall and punched him in the stomach. i'd never seen him punch anybody before, and overwhelmed, i ran to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall to cry, only to see my brother crawling under the door minutes later to comfort me. he held me while i quietly cried, in shock at the sudden upheaval of my perfect little world.
that night, i went home and got on the computer, google searching the word "faggot". i found out that it was a derogatory term for gay people. then i became confused as to why calling someone gay was so bad. what could be wrong with two boys loving each other? i didn't think i was, at that age, but that didn't mean i couldn't defend them.
i also didn't understand why someone would be rude to me. i'd always tried to be polite, holding doors that were often too heavy for me. i would even keep extra snacks in my bag for the kids that i knew didn't have a lunch. sure, sometimes i scared people off with my chronic resting bitch face, but i was never actually mean to anybody.
my brother and i never spoke about that day again. it just became something we kept a secret, both of us too unwilling to talk about it.
so i proceeded to grow up, moving through high school, pushing and discovering myself. when i had my first kiss with a popular boy i didn't know during a game of spin the bottle at a party sophomore year, that fifth-grade memory came back and slapped me in the face. the boy had just laughed it off, dramatically wiping his mouth, but avoided eye contact with me for the rest of the night. meanwhile, i sat in that circle, silent and afraid. i had enjoyed the kiss, even if it had only lasted a few seconds. but one question circled through my head: was i into boys?
my circle of friends at the time were pretty much all from my basketball team; cocky, loud, jock-types that enjoyed cycling through girls like underwear. they were certainly not the kind of people that would have been accepting towards my dilemma.
so, i closed myself off from everyone, scared that someone would find out that i was attracted to guys and make fun of me again. i quit my favourite thing in the world–basketball–which hurt yoonho, but i didn't care. i devoted all my time to schoolwork, constantly making up excuses to my friends as to why i couldn't hang out. my grades were the best they'd ever been, but my happiness was at a record low. i became withdrawn from even my family, and yoonho never stopped worrying about me, even after i'd slapped him one night after he pestered me too much.
it was only at the start of junior year, in biology class, that i met the person that made me enjoy life again.
kim namjoon was tall, playful and popular. he was a guy who was passionate about his interests and loved to talk about them. we sat next to each other for the whole semester, quickly becoming close friends after discovering our shared love of music. we did everything together, and soon my life was full of colour again.
we had sleepovers almost every weekend, staying up so late that we could barely keep our eyes open. we would play video games until we got bored or tired, and sometimes we would compose songs together.
now, at the start of our senior year, we were faced with the reality of graduation. i didn't want to leave namjoon, nor did he want to leave me. so we both applied to the same arts school, hoping and praying every night and day we would both get in.
i ended up getting accepted, but when i called namjoon to ask if he'd gotten in, his father answered and informed me that my best friend would be pursuing a career in business instead. hurt and confused, i confronted namjoon the next day at school and he told me dejectedly that his father had ripped up his acceptance letter and told him he wasn't going to let his son become a 'failure'.
i was terrified at the thought of following my dreams alone, but namjoon promised he would still be with me and be my biggest supporter, even if we were hundreds of miles apart.
