Chapter Text
Jungkook doesn’t forget about what happened in the next couple of days. He never actually forgets about anything anyway. He still remembers the embarrassment of peeing his pants in kindergarten. It haunts him on the nights he can’t sleep. He doesn’t even forget about the deadlines for his classes. Instead he deliberately chooses to push it far back in his brain, right beside other unpleasant things he wishes he could forget.
So, although he tries his best to push the thought further than mars, he can still feel his phone burning in the pocket of his jeans. It makes him pull out his phone and put it in his backpack instead. The mentioned deadlines do help in the process of forgetting about Namjoon but they aren’t helpful in any other way. Actually the opposite. They make Jungkook even more miserable than he usually is.
His struggles with “The thing”, have pushed him way behind the schedule. Jungkook has just handed in two of his assignments and he still has three more for tomorrow that he hasn’t even started yet. He has barely slept 4 hours in the last 2 days and his eyes feel like two heavy balls of fire in his skull. He’s also very late for his next class.
Jungkook is running to get to class when his phone starts ringing. He stops and drops his backpack on the floor, searching for his phone buried under his multiple heavy textbooks. When his fingers curl around the phone, it stops ringing. It starts ringing again when he pulls it out. The caller id shows a picture of Taehyung laughing his guts out. A thing only Taehyung can do.
“What is it, Tae? I’m late for class.” Jungkook says, as he throws the bag on his back and starts running again.
“Have you finished the project for Fluid Mechanics? I don’t know what to do about this one part.” Taehyung’s tired voice echoes in Jungkook’s brain for a few seconds before he registers what it actually means.
“What? Fluids?” Jungkook stops in his tracks. He can already feel the cold sweat gathering on his temples.
“Yeah, Fluids. Wait… did you forget? Professor Choi talked about it last week. It’s like thirty percent of the final grade.” Taehyung’s voice gets higher. Like he’s the one hyperventilating and not Jungkook.
“I’ll call you back.”
“Jungkook, wait…” he ends the call before Taehyung can say anything else.
Jungkook’s hands are shaking so much, he can barely grab the handle of the door to the emergency stairs. He finally pushes it open but now he can’t even breathe. He lays his weight on the door behind him and slides to the floor. Everything around him keeps getting in and out of focus. His eyes burn. His throat burns. His lungs burn. Everything is burning and he still can’t breathe. He opens his mouth, trying to get some air into his body. But it doesn’t work. There are dark spots on the white stairs that seem to be floating in front of him. Why are they floating? It doesn’t even matter because he can’t breathe!
Jungkook brings his left hand to his mouth and bites hard between his thumb and point finger. His phone slips from his loose fingers and falls on his thigh and then hits the floor. Jungkook follows it with his eyes. He tries to concentrate. On the screen of the phone lighting up, the salty taste of his skin under his tongue, the scratchy feeling of his jeans in the grip of his right hand. On anything but the fact that he can’t breathe.
After a couple of minutes or maybe a thousand years, he stops biting his hand. He manages to put both of his hands on his face before a sob escapes his throat and he can finally breathe. He heaves between his sobs, trying to get as much air as he can before his body forgets how to breathe again. His shoulders keep knocking into the metallic door behind him and it hurts. Everything hurts. The bite mark on his hand is throbbing. A massive headache is already pushing against his forehead and behind his eyes. And the tears. They’re unstoppable. It’s like something made a hole through the dam inside his head and now his eyes are the only things stopping a flood.
Jungkook hears footsteps before the sound od something hitting the floor and tumbling down the stairs. He lifts his head and there’s a can of soda lying at his feet. The remnant soda streams out of the can with a quiet fizz. There’s also a person standing at the top of the stairs leading to the second floor and that someone is apparently the Kim fucking Namjoon.
***
Jungkook blinks a couple of times but Kim Namjoon is still right where he was a second ago. Jungkook still doubts himself. Maybe the panic attack and the lack of breathing had damaged his brain so hard, he started hallucinating. Maybe the tears made his eye sight so blurry that now he’s seeing his crush’s face instead of a random student. Whatever the reason is, Jungkook sees Kim Namjoon standing a couple feets away from him and he can swear Namjoon is glowing. It might be a side effect of the tears and Jungkook has never met any holy person before, but that must be how Jesus looked after he resurrected that dead bird.
However, despite all the Jesus look like tendencies, Namjoon’s expression doesn’t look like he has just executed a miracle. It looks more like he has executed a person and is very shocked about it. It is the “I might have killed someone and now I don’t know what to do” written all over Namjoon’s face that finally startles Jungkook. In the span of a second, Jungkook realizes that Kim Namjoon -his latest and probably biggest crush ever and the person who not only accepted Jungkook’s follow request but also followed him back- is in fact standing in front of him while Jungkook’s face is still covered in tears.
“Umm… hi?” says Namjoon, still looking like he has seen the ghost of one of his murder victims.
“I—what…” Jungkook’s voice comes out so wobbly that it makes both of them wince. Namjoon comes down a couple of stairs. Jungkook swallows and tries again. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just going to my class on the first floor? I swear the emergency stairs are almost always empty. I didn’t think someone would be here. Let alone you! I was kinda late for my class and this way is actually much faster. The elevators take forever and the main stairs have way more stairs than the emergency ones. Did you know that? I counted them once… Um… yeah…” he stops rambling and his face looks even more horrified than before.
“Oh no. Oh shit. What time is it?” Jungkook says as he grabs his phone and unlocks it while struggling to get up. Namjoon runs down the last couple of stairs and grabs Jungkook’s elbow to help him get up. Jungkook tries to ignore the burning sensation of Namjoon’s hand on him and looks at the time. He’s already thirty minutes late for his next class.
He can’t believe himself. He barely manages to hand in his assignments, forgets about an important project, and now he’s thirty minutes late for his stupid class. What the fuck is he even doing? What’s even the point anymore? Jungkook brings his hand to his forehead and practically drops himself on the second step. What the actual fuck is he doing with his life?
He hears the sound of clothes rustling and feels Namjoon’s heat by his side. A hand rests on his back. Namjoon’s low voice cutting through the voice in his head, almost makes a shiver run down Jungkook’s spine. “Hey. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not.” He tries to push back the sobs but they still make his body tremble and he’s just too weak to stop them right now. So he starts shaking even harder. He can barely feel the body enveloping his. The sobs seem to run through his bones, shaking his core, wringing him out until there’s nothing left.
He notices Namjoon’s arms aound him, rocking him back and forth, as he starts to calm down. Namjoon’s low murmurs slowly wash away the bitterness. At least for now. Jungkook wants to stay in this moment forever but he has to stop or he might embarrass himself even more in front of Namjoon. So he slowly pulls back, wiping the tears with the sleeve of his sweater.
“I’m really sorry. I can’t believe this is happening. This is barely the second time we meet and you have to see me like this.” A few more tears find their way onto his face as he tries to laugh. Namjoon keeps stroking his back.
“it’s okay. Really. It happens to the best of us, right?” Namjoon says and Jungkook turns his head to look at him. The sight of those beautiful dimples makes an actual smile lift his face.
“Yeah I guess. I’m still sorry we had to meet again like this.”
“I’m happy that we got to meet again at all.”
This makes a laugh force its way out of Jungkook and he tries to hide it behind his hand.
“Cute…” even before the word fully leaves Namjoon’s mouth, he looks mortified. He drops his head and proceeds looking anywhere but where Jungkook’s now smiling like a mad man.
Jungkook’s probably still high from the rush of adrenaline caused by the attack before or the crying has made him lightheaded, because the next few words leave his mouth without him even registering what they are or what they might mean to a normal human being that isn’t a wreckage like Jungkook. “Do you maybe wanna go have a tea or coffee right now?”
Namjoon’s head snaps back so fast, it almost makes Jungkook jump in his place. He notices what he’s said as Namjoon’s wide eyes keep going back and forth between his. “I mean… I really wanted to thank you and we’re already too late for our class I guess… wait a minute. Aren’t you an arts major? What are you doing here?” Jungkook’s face crinkles in confusion at the same time it starts to warm up from embarrassment.
“I’m actually a double major. I’m doing both music composition and mechanical engineering.” Namjoon says as he runs his hand over his neck. The dimples are peeking from his cheeks again.
“oh.” Jungkook is the one to look away this time.
“I would really love to have that tea or coffee right now actually.” Namjoon says as he stands up. He reaches out a hand as he smiles at Jungkook. “should we go then?”
Jungkook smiles as he grabs Namjoon’s hand. As the warmth envelopes his hand once again, Jungkook wonders, not for the first time and definitely not for the last:
“how the fuck did I end up here?”