Buy me flowers| PJM

F. 27

As we enter the house, Hobi throws his backpack on the floor. It was already pretty late in the evening and both of us were tired. The ride from the boys' flat has been dead silent. A tensioned silence, that made me feel weirdly uncomfortable in the presence of my brother.

"Do you want to eat something?" Hobi says in a neutral voice as I throw my boots on the floor.

"No." I say.

However, he enters the kitchen and walks towards the sink to wash his hands. So he's gonna cook anyway.

I stop in the doorstep. I clench and unclench my fists near me, feeling so uneasy and alone in this situation. I didn't know if I should bring it up, because a part of me knew that Hobi won't believe me that easy. But the tension was too much for me to bear.

"Go ahead." I say and my brother stops his movements in drying his hands with a towel.

He looks at me and I continue.

"Scold me. Ask me what on earth I was doing at the practice room. Ask me what on earth I was doing with Jimin. Be mad at me, be disappointed or whatever. Go ahead." I say and I feel my vision blurring.

He puts the towel on the kitchen table and he sighs.

"Just don't be okay with it..." I whisper.

"Yunhae-ah..." he says and his tone is... sad.

I wait for him to continue. If he's going to say "It's alright" again, I'm gonna lose it. I need him to knock some sense in me. I need him to be real.

"Be honest with me."

I look at him, curious where he wants to get with this.

"Do you like Jimin?" he asks.

I almost choke on saliva, not believing what my brother has just asked me.

"Are you kidding?" I ask, still shocked. "Of course not."

"Then why were you hugging him back at the practice room?" He asks narrowing his eyes.

"He'd just regained his consciousness after fainting and I was terribly scared. It was just an impulse, Hobi-ah." I explain myself casually.

He sighs.

"You have JungKook..." He says hesitantly, as if he wanted to add something. "Just be careful."

"I am, trust me, there's nothing you should worry about." I assure him.

He stares blankly at a wall near me, as if he's thinking about something, without hearing my words. It's weird, having a fight with my brother. We haven't fought for solid years and we're doing it now because of... Jimin? However, I don't regret it. I need to let it out. And if he chooses to be the one who takes part in this, I won't stop him.

"You've helped him." He suddenly says.

I look at him, wondering what he's talking about, but I can't figure out.

"You've helped Jimin." He continues.

Oh.

"So?"

"So?!" he turns towards me. "He's older than you, he can take care of himself!"

"Well, it didn't seem like that to me." I say a bit annoyed. "He fainted, Hoseok, he fainted in front of my eyes, what did you expect me to do? Run away and leave him just like that?"

"You don't get it..." he says, trying to keep his calm.

"I couldn't leave him there, Hoseok. It's against the rules of humanity!"

"He always faints!" my brother snaps.

I'm taken aback by his loud voice. And by the despair in it.

He always faints.

I remember my brother telling me that there's something about Jimin. I remember him making me feel like I should be careful with this guy. I remember him making me want to find out what's wrong with his friend. And maybe this is a part of that something. But discovering that he's so vulnerable sometimes terrifies me.

However, it comforts me as well somehow.

All my life I've been surrounded by people who showed me their strong side, people who didn't want to break down in front of me so that I don't suffer as well, people that cared so much about me that they were putting me before themselves. People whose hardships I've never known.

And seeing him in his raw side, makes me feel like I'm not lonely anymore.

"What?" I manage to whisper.

My brother sighs.

"I overreacted, he doesn't always faint, but..."

He takes a deep breath.

"He's used with this, he's used to passing out and having nobody there. He just faints and wakes up half an hour later, wondering what happened. It isn't something that I can stop, I'm trying my best but there are several times when I'm not there to help him. He deals with it by himself."

"Does Taehyung know?" I ask in a shaky voice.

"Not all of it, Jimin doesn't want him to worry more than he already does." He answers.

I suddenly remember Jimin saying that This shouldn't scare me after he woke up. Did that mean that it happens so often that it became a habit for him?

Oh my God.

"Yunhae-ah, what I want to tell you is that it's better if you stay back, he's... he's difficult to deal with." My brother says wearily.

"He helped me too." I say in an as-much-as-possible firm tone. "Why aren't we talking about that as well?"

"It's not the same..."

"It is exactly the same!"

I step closer to my brother so now I'm just a few inches away from him.

"You don't understand. You don't understand how being able to help somebody feels like because you've never let anybody help you!"

I feel a hot tear streaming down my cheek and Hobi looks at me with a spark of sorrow in his eyes. Yes, it does hurt me, but this is a wound I've been hiding for too long. Way too long to be just a wound.

"Please trust me, Hobi-ah..." I whisper.

"It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just worried about you-..."

"You've been worried about me your whole life!" I say in a shaky voice. "You've been carrying me on your back all the time lately. You can't carry your problems and mines as well! You will collapse, Hoseok-ah! I don't want to crash you, I don't want to make you fail! I want to be one who helps you step forward, but you're never letting me do so, you're never letting me try being that person and you have absolutely no idea how worthless that makes me feel..."

I end up crying my heart out in front of my brother, but he doesn't step any closer to me. He just stands there, looking at me, half bewildered, half hurt. And as tears stream down my face like a river, I don't know what the feeling in my heart is. It hurts, that's for sure.

But there's also a sick part of me that is glad it does.

That part of me who wanted to hurt my brother, who wanted to make him feel miserable for treating me like a kid, like an irresponsible kid, who wanted to make him feel bad for being the brother who knows best...

Who wanted to make him feel terrible for being the one who got to live longer with her.

And there it goes, Yunhae, you're losing it again.

I run away from the hallway and rush to my room, shutting the door closed behind me. Locking it is the last thing I remember before losing my mind in the despair of a broken child, drowning in hard sobs, crying rivers and feeling a clutch my heart's never seemed to feel before.