Growing Pains

8

Author's Note: I dedicate this chapter to my followers who were also my followers from my old account when I was BlueTulip97. I am humbled by your faith in my ability as a writer because you made the effort and took the time to find me again after I closed my account. Thank you.

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Jungkook checked his phone again but his text notifications remained silent.

"Why aren't you responding to me?" he huffed as he tossed his phone on the bed and buried his head in his pillow.

He heard his phone bounce off the mattress before landing on the floor but he was too tired and frustrated to retrieve it.

It has been four days since he saw Jin at the cinema, and the latter has been avoiding him.

At first, he thought he was imagining it when Jin never responded to the text he'd sent after Jin bolted from the cinema, because Jin always answered his texts promptly.

Jungkook had sent the text as he sat in the dark, his mind wondering why his hyung had looked so devastated when he locked eyes with him.

But Jin never answered, and the girl he had taken to the cinema had hissed at him to stop after he sent three more text messages to Jin.

He had tried to explain that he was worried about his hyung, but the girl reminded him in an angry whisper that he was on a date with her, and should focus his attention on her.

Her indifference to his concerns for his Jin-hyung had irritated him, so after the movie was over, he had put the girl on a bus home and walked away while deleting her contact on his phone.

He had then hopped into a taxi to go home, eager to get to Jin, and not wanting to wait for the bus that he would have normally taken.

But when he got home and knocked on the door of the house next door, Jin's older brother told him that Jin had called earlier to say he was staying the night at a friend's house.

Jungkook had asked for the friend's name but Jin's brother had shrugged and said he didn't know, only that he was Jin's classmate.

Jungkook had frowned and wondered if it was the clumsy Frankenstein that had followed Jin out of the cinema.

His phone dinged to signal an incoming text.

Jungkook immediately dived to the floor for his discarded phone.

He eagerly opened his messaging app, fully expecting to see a text from Jin, but it was a text from the girl that he had taken to the movies.

Exasperated, he deleted her text without reading it and laid back on his bed.

He placed his arm over his eyes, and began to cry quietly.