#big man this time i am a serious mint chip defender

[zephyrfuse]

ohhhh my gosh i love all 3 icecream flavors but everyone should know i'm an AVID mint chip fan

[apriorisea]

BTS Imagine Series: Don’t Leave Me, Pt. 5

Hoseok x You

That night, he doesn’t meet the others for a late dinner.      He doesn’t join them for a few drinks after.       He doesn’t even answer Jungkook’s text about playing video games together.      He just goes back to his apartment. It’s big and empty and silent.       He hates it.       The last message from you hasn’t changed, no matter how many times he looks at it: Please don’t.       So he doesn’t. He sits silently in his dimly-lit kitchen for hours.       His knee is killing him.       But it doesn’t hurt more than how much he misses you.

----

You sit in your car for 45 minutes, crying until you just can’t anymore. Your head aches, your eyes sting, your throat feels raw. You hurt.      The first thing you see when you enter your apartment is his jacket hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. Your stomach lurches.       I don’t get it.       A few more stubborn tears slip down your cheek and you wipe them away angrily. You move instinctively towards the chair, reaching out to touch the jacket before you can stop yourself. “How can you seem like you love me so much, but not enough?” you whisper to him. Except he’s not there.       The apartment is silent. Empty. Just like it was for the 3.5 weeks while he was touring, except---      Your breath catches in your chest. Except he’s not coming back now.        Closing your eyes tight against the tears that bubble up, you suddenly realize you don’t want to be alone in this empty, silent apartment. You grab your phone and before you can stop yourself, open Hoseok’s contact.       “No.”      Your heart hurts so much, but you force yourself to navigate out of his contact and to your best friend’s instead.       “Hi,” you sniffle when he answers. “Can you come over?”      He’s there within 15 minutes. By this time, you’re changed into baggy sweats and sitting listlessly on the couch. You’d washed all your make-up away, which only highlighted how red and swollen your eyes were. You’d kept the TV on as loud as you could, unable to bear the silence.      He knocks once before letting himself in. “Hey,” he says hesitantly, shutting the door behind him. “What happened?”      You take a breath to explain---and lose the words in a torrent of tears.       Sighing, he moves to sit next to you on the couch, reaching out an arm to wrap around your shoulders. “All right, dummy,” he says, rubbing your arm. “Tell me.”      The two of you had known each other practically since birth, so you had complete confidence that he’d be able to interpret your watery, muffled, garbled storytelling. By the time you’re finished, the second wave of tears is over. You sit back, wiping your nose on your sleeve. “All right,” you say thickly. “You tell me.”       He’s quiet for a moment, before turning to look at you shrewdly. “Are you really ready for my opinion?”       “I....” you hesitate; one of the things you loved the most about your best friend was his ability to offer unbiased, straight-talk opinions. Coincidentally, it was also one of the things you hated the most about him. “No,” you admit.      Nodding, he gets to his feet and heads for your kitchen. “Please tell me you have ice cream or chocolate or something; I came woefully unprepared.”      You watch him rustle around the kitchen through puffy eyes. “You think I’m wrong,” you posit.       “No.” He pauses in his search and turns to look at you seriously. “I think you have every right to be upset and hurt, and for that I want to punch his face in.”      The amount of snot you’d accumulated through your crying-fest causes you to make a really unattractive noise as you manage a laugh.       “I’m serious,” he insists, returning to the couch with a bag of mini-Snickers, a half-full carton of mint chocolate-chip ice cream, and two water bottles. “I’m a good 10cm taller than him; he wouldn’t even know what hit him.”      “You,” you say, already feeling a little better at this familiar humor. “You were what hit him.”       Smiling, he hands you a spoon. “So.” He opens a mini-Snickers and pops it into his mouth. “Did he ever apologize? Or did he just keep insisting that he wasn’t a liar?”       You pause, putting your ice-cream-laden spoon back into the tub. “He...” Frowning, you trade your spoon for your phone; with your best friend here next to you to help analyze, you’re not afraid of opening Hoseok’s messages anymore. “He just keeps saying he’s not a liar.”      “Yeah, I really can’t get behind that,” he says, shaking his head. “Whatever his reasoning might be, he did lie.”      “Right?” you say glumly, folding your arms over your stomach, ice cream forgotten. “Honestly, that’s part of what hurt me the most: that instead of trying to apologize or explain, he just kept saying he wasn’t a liar.”      “Well he was flustered,” he reasons logically, digging his own spoon into the now-abandoned ice cream.      You raise an eyebrow. “So that makes it okay?”      “Hey.” He waits until you accept the Snickers he’s offering you. “I’m on your side, dummy. Always. And I never said it was okay.”     You exhale heavily and tip your head back to rest on the couch. “The closest he ever got to apologizing,” you remember, “is saying that he never meant to hurt me. Isn’t that the oldest excuse in the guy playbook?”      “It’s turned into that now,” he shrugs, “But some of us actually mean it still.”      You’re quiet for a moment. “The worst....” You take a second to catch your breath, feeling fresh tears sting your eyes. “The worst part was when he said but.”      “But?”      “I asked him if he even loved me,” you say quietly, “And he said “Of course I love you, but....” The tears catch the end of your sentence, carrying it away.      Wordlessly, he leans over, pressing his shoulder against yours in a familiar sign of solidarity; a code the two of you had made, a sign that the other person wasn’t alone, wasn’t shouldering everything on their own. It helps. The two of you sit like that for a long time, snacks ignored. Finally, when you feel like you’ve caught your breath again, you clear your throat.      “Okay. I’m ready for your opinion now.” You reach for a Snickers.      He nods, gathering his thoughts again. “Generally speaking,” he begins, “This dude’s a good guy, right?”      “Yes.” The answer comes immediately, easily.      “He’s never mean or cruel?” he persists, looking carefully into your eyes. “He doesn’t demand things? He’s not abusive?”       “No.”      “Good.” He thinks again. “Does he take care of you? Worry over you? Try to make things easier for you?”      Your stomach knots as you remember all the little conversations you’d had before Hoseok had left for tour: don’t forget the trash, the landlord’s coming over, remember your dentist appointment. “Yes,” you whisper.       He nods. “Do you believe that he loves you?”      “Yes.” Even with how much your heart was hurting right now, you knew it was true. “Except for the but.”      “Here’s my theory.” He takes a long drink from his water bottle first. “There’s something he’s trying to protect you from.”      This catches you completely off-guard. “...Protect me?”       “Yeah. Whatever it is he’s “hiding” from you is being hidden in an effort to protect you.”       “Like--like what?”       He shrugs. “I don’t know. But...we both know the hectic life of an Idol, right? How much their privacy is invaded, the death threats, the stress....It’s not beyond imagination, right?”       Defamation. “Right.”       “Now,” he turns towards you seriously. “Hear me carefully: I don’t agree with it. Whatever it is. You’re in a committed, serious relationship, and that requires transparency and intimacy in all things. There really shouldn’t be secrets, no matter the reason for them. That’s my opinion, anyway.”       You nod slowly.       “But....the two of you are still brand-new in a baby relationship.” He sits back. “These things take time to work out.”       There’s a long pause.       “So you think I was wrong?” you ask eventually.       “Not wrong,” he says firmly. “He still lied to you. And then lied about lying. You still have a right to be hurt.” He studies you for a moment. “What do you think?”       Your swollen eyes are aching and your head is starting to swim a little from exhaustion and the crying. “I think....I want to be in an honest relationship, with someone who loves me enough to include me in everything. A real partnership.” You exhale roughly. “And I think I’m sad. And tired.” You look over at him.      He smiles gently. “Ready for sleep now?”       “I think so.” You grab his arm and give it a squeeze. “Thanks for coming,” you say. “Sorry it’s so late and I’m such a mess.”      He laughs. “I’m pretty sure I called you over at 3 in the morning after Ex #4 dumped me.”       You make a face. “Usually I hate it when you refer to your ex-girlfriends just as “ex # whatever,” but.....man, I hated her so much.”       “She was the worst,” he agrees easily. Growing more serious, he adds, “But your guy is not the worst.” Bumping your leg with his, he goes on. “I’ve seen how happy you’ve been these past few months. That makes me vouch for him more than anything else. I just want you to be happy, dummy.”      You both get to your feet and you accept his hug willingly. Sighing heavily, you say, “I’ll keep you updated.”        “I’m always here,” he says as you walk him to the door. “Speaking of Idol-privacy, though, are you sure it’s even cool that you told me all of this? Am I going to get snipered on my drive home??”       You laugh. “It’s fine. I’m sure he’s talking and commiserating with all his buddies right now, too.” The thought twists your guts a little.       Shoes back on, he gives you a look. “Okay. Get some rest. Text me in the morning, okay? And don’t be afraid to give yourself a little time to think. Just listen to your instincts. It’ll be okay.”       “Thanks. Drive safe. Send me a text when you get back?”       “Yes, ma’am.” With a final wave, he’s gone.       You close and lock the door behind him, feeling much lighter---though still heartbroken. As you shut off the lights and head for bed, you can’t help but picture the scene again: Hoseok, surrounded by his brothers, explaining and defending, getting advice from the older ones and support from the younger ones.....The image brings you sorrow and relief at the same time.       “You should be here with me,” you whisper to his pillow. “But at least you’re not alone.”

----

He was alone.       It was well past midnight, and he hadn’t heard from you again.       The apartment was dark and empty and still silent.       He sat alone in the kitchen, his thoughts a mess.       Finally, at 3am, he drags himself out of the kitchen and down the hall to his empty bedroom. He stares at your side of the bed for ages.       In the end, he grabs his pillow and favorite blanket and takes it back into the living room with him. He curls up on the couch, turns the TV on so it isn’t so silent, and tries to sleep.      Everything hurts.       How? How did he end up losing you anyway?