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There’s something about nighttime drives.

When the late summer is turning into fall, the trees fading from green to shades of oranges and yellows. When the cerulean sky deepens into an indigo expanse dotted with sparkling constellations, and eight o’clock suddenly feels like midnight.

When Jimin is sitting in the passenger seat.

The windows are cracked, just enough to feel the slight chill of the air from outside. Just enough so Taehyung doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating. He drives with one hand on the steering wheel, listening to the chirping of the crickets, the faint music drifting from the speakers, Jimin’s voice that he loves so much.

Taehyung can’t help but think this feels so raw. The winding country roads and deep feelings being put into words make him feel a sense of reverse nostalgia.  A kind of feeling that makes him want to take the long way around just so the sensation lasts longer.

But hearing Jimin speak to him in confidence makes Taehyung realize something.

Taehyung was never this happy a year ago. When he felt as if the world was against him, as if people didn’t say his name so much as spit it. He felt an overwhelming sense of isolation, like life was a party Taehyung wasn’t invited to.

But Jimin, a classmate who never had any obligation to Taehyung, was the outlier. Jimin was the one person who didn’t cast Taehyung aside, whisper behind his back. He was the one person who made Taehyung feel valid.

And now, Jimin is Taehyung’s best friend.

The one person Taehyung tells all his secrets to, the one who Taehyung wants to spend his most precious moments with.

The one who could make Taehyung feel whole just by sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

But Taehyung feels his stomach drop when they finally arrive at Jimin’s home, when Jimin has to leave him.  The faint music from the speakers, the twists and turns of country roads, suddenly hold significantly less meaning as Taehyung drives home.

To a home without Jimin.