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“Jimin I swear god, just go fucking talk to him!” Taehyung whispered harshly to his best friend. They were hiding behind a series of chairs in the waiting room before people boarded their designated flights and were staring at a very interesting, very intimidating yet very attractive stranger.
He had pale skin, was dressed in black from head to toe and his hair was dyed mint green.
‘Hmm, he likes making statements too.’ Jimin thought to himself, carding his fingers through his orange hair when he first passed by, then dragging Taehyung over to a corner only to continue staring at the beautiful stranger who hadn’t acknowledged their existence.
“Tae, you know I don’t have the guts to do that” Jimin hissed, pointing a glare in Taehyung’s direction before turning back to the stranger and resting his chin on his open palm, elbow in mid-air as if he was daydreaming.
“Fine,” Taehyung deadpanned, making Jimin look up at him in panic as he stood abruptly “If you won’t talk to him then I’ll ask him to talk to you!”
Taehyung had managed to turn away and take a step before he was pulled back by the roots of his hair, his audible suffering drawing the attention of those around them as his hands flew to Jimin’s, trying to pry him off; yet the beautiful stranger remained undisturbed, still reading his book.
“Tae,” Jimin said, smiling anxiously as he held his hands up low in surrender “Babe, there’s no need to do that.”
Taehyung massaged his scalp, throwing Jimin an unamused scowl. He rolled his eyes as Jimin gave him a sheepish grin. He sat on a chair connected to the series they were originally hiding behind, Jimin slowly following suit as he spared the stranger a long glance. Too long to be counted as a glance, Taehyung thought, still massaging his head.
“Jiminie,” he said, pulling out his phone and earpods “either do something now, or regret it forever.”
Jimin knew Taehyung had a point, even though he wouldn’t admit it. His face fell into one of intense thought and tried to figure out how to approach his crush-at-first-sight.
“You don’t have to talk to him per se” the younger boy said, making Jimin look at him once again with wide eager eyes, curious as a kitten.
“What did you have in mind?”
“If you want to know what I think then you’re going to have to do everything I actually suggest,” Taehyung smirked, still not looking at his unacknowledged hyung.
Jimin’s chest tightened slightly, he knew that whenever Taehyung gave him an ultimatum between receiving his help or nothing at all, it usually ended with Jimin humiliating himself, getting hurt, someone else getting hurt, or all of the above.
But the fair-skinned bookworm was so cute and Jimin didn’t know what to do. He ended up nodding to Taehyung’s terms and preparing himself for the worst with a grimace on his face.
Taehyung locked his phone, leaving Bruno Mars on low volume as he turned his body to look toward Jimin entirely, cautiously eyeing his friend’s new crush in the corner of his eye in case he would look their way. It’s not like he was in earshot.
“Okay!” Taehyung clapped his hands together, his smile wide and full of mischief.
Jimin rolled his and pursed his lips. Mumbling a low ‘I just know I’m going to regret this later’ to which Taehyung happily responded with an ‘Oh please, you’re never going to see him again anyway so what do you have to lose?’
Taehyung’s first idea was for Jimin to pass by Adonis ridiculously close, and wait—or hope and pray—that he notices Jimin enough to strike up a conversation or wave hello.
“Adonis?”
“What? Mint haired stranger is too long to say!” Taehyung pressed “And besides, Adonis is the Greek god of beauty and desire, which for you, clearly applies.”
Taehyung gave Jimin a smug look and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively but Jimin only rolled his eyes at his friend with a smile, craning his neck to take a peek at the man. His nose was still buried in his book and looked as unbothered as ever. The noise inside the room, surprisingly, didn’t faze his reading; he wasn’t even listening to music to accompany his past time. Jimin felt the tiniest pang of guilt in his gut at the thought of disturbing his reading. But that feeling quickly went away as Taehyung pinched his side, sending him bouncing forward with a glare.
Taehyung made pushing gestures with his hands as his smile only grew wider with every step Jimin took farther away from him. He had no idea if this was going to work, and honestly, Taehyung just wanted to humiliate Jimin; it was always too funny to resist.
Jimin walked towards the series of chairs that lined the wall, the same series that the stranger had chosen a chair off to sit on. He turned slowly to pass Taehyung a pleading face, regret clouding his eyes, but the younger only grinned wider and encouraged Jimin further.
Jimin turned again, closing his eyes, taking a deep breath and swiftly letting it go. His ripped jeans touched the edge of the seat a few strides down from the anonymous bookworm. He took a step away from it, and started walking forward.
As Jimin passed the stranger by, his hand brushed the edge of the book’s spine ever so slightly. It was enough to make Jimin look back in panic to see if he had indeed disturbed his new crush’s reading, but he only kept on as if Jimin was never even there.
Jimin looked up in even more panic towards Taehyung, but Taehyung frantically motioned for him to keep walking before Adonis could look up at Jimin and see him frozen there.
Jimin straightened his back, took a risky glance at the handsome bookworm and took big steps away from him; moving as far and as fast as his legs allowed.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Jimin’s phone vibrated. He looked behind him to see a far, and now mistakenly smaller, Taehyung waving his free arm in the air as he held his phone against his ear.
“What?” Jimin hissed, turning away just in case Adonis would look up and see him angrily spitting fire into his phone.
“Did it work?!”
“No! No, it did not work!” Jimin raised his voice slightly, drawing a few curious eyes to him. “If it worked then I wouldn’t be wanting to reach into my phone and strangle you!”
Taehyung laughed at his friend’s frustrations, amused more than afraid. In fact, there was no trace of fear in Taehyung’s aura at all, he knew Jimin would never actually live up to his threats.
“But you hit the book! Did he not look?”
“Yeah but—“
“Whoa, okay that rhymed”
“… What?” Jimin asked, very confused.
“What I said just now!” Jimin could see Taehyung beaming his rectangular smile and looking at Jimin’s back tense from afar. “You know ‘But you hit the book, did he no—“
“Yes, okay, whatever,” Jimin squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingers lightly, trying not to run back to where he came from and hit the back of Taehyung’s head as hard as he could . “Just… what now?”
Taehyung began to think again, what now indeed. At first he thought this plan was fool proof, with the hopeful side-line of Jimin tripping on himself and grasping Adonis’ attention completely.
Aha!
“Trip” Taehyung said simply.
Jimin’s eyes turned into crescents, but not in the usual way when he smiled too much or laughed too hard; they turned into crescents as his eyebrows furrowed together and his face scrunched up in a mixture of shock and rage.
“What?!”
“Trip” Taehyung repeated, uncaring
“No!” An old woman nearby shot Jimin a dirty look. He apologised softly for being too loud, but she only glared a few seconds longer before moving chairs. Jimin sighed, frustrated that he had played into Taehyung’s games so easily. “Think of something else!”
“Walk the way you came and trip on his foot or something.”
“Tae, his feet are tucked under the chair!”
At that, Taehyung took a good look at Jimin’s mint-haired, unknowing Romeo, only then to notice that he did, in fact, have his feet tucked under his chair; crossing at the ankles as shifted positions and leaned back in his seat.
“Well, there goes that”
Jimin rolled his eyes for what he felt was the hundredth time in the past twenty minutes, sometimes Taehyung was too dense for his own good.
Still holding his phone to his ear, Jimin turned slowly to look at the black clad stranger. He had licked a small portion on the pad of his thumb to flip the page, his almond eyes resetting to the top left corner; continuing whatever fictional endeavour he had set out on.
For some reason, this intrigued Jimin. He didn’t see them going on dates or anything of the sort, for all Jimin knew he could’ve been a serial killer or something. But Jimin saw them as friends. Namjoon and Jin had mentioned several times about how Jimin had a talent for finding good people, naturally gravitating towards them in the most chastening of ways. At first, Jimin didn’t take his hyungs’ words to heart although now, of all moments, he believed them.
“Jiminiiiieeee” Jimin closed his eyes to compose himself, straining his posture forward as he continued to speak to his childish friend. “You look like a stalker if you keep staring like that”
“Why am I friends with you?” Jimin grumbled, asking himself more than Taehyung.
“Whatever, you love me!” he laughed, Jimin audibly groaning mechanically into his ear. “Anyway I have another plan!”
“Well shit”
“Shut up, it’s gonna work”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we try something else! Duh!”
“What if I don’t want to grab his attention anymore?”
“Oh please, as if you’re going to pass up the opportunity to snag a cute guy”
It was times like this Jimin cursed himself for ever being friends with Taehyung. The man child knew him better than the back of his own hand and Jimin hated it sometimes. This moment adding to the ever growing list of time he wished Taehyung didn’t know him at all.
He uttered a ‘Lay it on me’ as Taehyung quickly got to explaining. Apparently, the younger boy planned on blasting music on Jimin’s Bluetooth speakers and have him dance to it but Jimin wasn’t having any of it. There were too many factors that contradicted Taehyungs plan.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“I don’t know Tae, maybe the airport music, people who are asleep waiting for their flights and the fact that the guards might detain me for public disturbance?” Jimin spat
“Huh… well… that’s gonna be a problem.”
Jimin scoffed and threw Taehyung another sarcastic remark, only making it halfway through his sentence before someone caught his interest from the corner of his eye. The mint-haired stranger had paused from reading his book, holding it at his side as he walked away from Jimin.
Taehyung screamed in Jimin’s ear, making the older yelp in surprise and drop his phone. He whipped around to glare at Taehyung, only to be met by more, distant, screaming and his friend frantically waving his arms around. Jimin looked at him, confused, but Taehyung only continued to jab arm movements towards him.
“Excuse me?” someone said
Jimin turned around to see his nameless crush standing before him, his eyes turning into saucers out of surprise and shock. He was so much more beautiful up close. He had feline-like features and his skin looked well cared for despite the dark ringlets under his eyes. His lips were a light shade of red, plump and inviting, Jimin could tell that he had probably been worrying it not too long ago. Jimin noticed that he had several piercings on his ears, they were small enough to be hidden from plain sight from a distance.
Jimin must have been staring a moment too long because the mint haired beauty raised an eyebrow at him and took a curious look at his screaming phone.
Taehyung, still, was not calm about the entire situation.
Jimin’s eyes turned wider as he quickly reached for his phone, shoving it into his pocket without ending the call.
“I’m Yoongi” the stranger said
‘Oh my god his name is even better than Adonis’ Jimin thought, forcing himself not to swoon and melt in front of him.
“Ah, I’m uh, I’m J-Jimin.” He managed, reaching to shake Yoongi’s extended hand.
“Nice to meet you, Jimin.” Jimin found Yoongi’s voice low and sultry, making Jimin’s knees crumble underneath him.
Yet before Jimin could respond any further, Yoongi gave him another smile and waved him goodbye, continuing to walk the way he took.
Jimin was frozen where he stood, eyes dreamy and smile content as he gazed at Yoongi’s figure gradually become diminutive, until Taehyung’s screaming woke him from his day dream.
Jimin reached for his phone, took a breath, and slowly put it to his ear.
“Oh my god! Did that just happen!? What did he say?! What did you say?! You fucking stuttered didn’t you!!”
Taehyung continued his rapid fire as Jimin made his way back, shifting from yelling to his phone to yelling to his friend who was now in front of him, face as red as a tomato.
Jimin told him all about it, occasionally having to pause because Taehyung couldn’t supress a giggle or a heightened squeal. He told him that his name was Yoongi, and that he found it nice to meet Jimin but that was all the interaction they had. Taehyung asked him what he looked like from up close, and Jimin told him that he resembled a cat, maybe even a kitten because of how soft his skin looked. Jimin didn’t mention his observation about Yoongi’s lips, knowing that the younger boy wouldn’t let Jimin live it down even after they got back to Seoul. Though he couldn’t stop himself from reminiscing how he liked the way Yoongi said his name, like a phenomenal epiphany after being lost for so long.
Thirty minutes later, Taehyung had finally calmed down, allowing his music to envelope his ears and the games on his phone to steal his attention. Jimin had pulled out his small sketchbook and was mindlessly drawing figures and shapes for the past quarter hour. It was only when the flight attendant’s automated voice had announced that Jimin and Taehyung’s plane was ready for boarding had Jimin broken out of his unconscious trance, realising that he had drawn a pair of feline-like eyes.
He turned to see that Yoongi had returned to his seat, nose still buried in his book but now with only a minimal amount of pages left to read.
Jimin bit his lip, thinking of what Taehyung said about talking to Yoongi being now or regretting it forever.
Taehyung was pulling out a hoodie from his duffel bag and a small blanket to pair it with when Jimin had torn off a small piece of his sketchbook’s page, quickly scribbling something down.
“Jiminie?”
“Come on, I don’t want to be one of the last people to board.” Jimin said hastily, throwing on his jacket and grabbing his oversized backpack.
He walked away from Taehyung quickly, folding the paper he had written on and making his way closer to Yoongi who, expectedly, was still engrossed in his fictional world.
Jimin slipped the paper onto Yoongi’s open page and continued to walk towards the boarding gate before Yoongi could look up and acknowledge him. Taehyung jogged up beside the blushing mochi and bumped their shoulders, giving him a proud boxy grin as Jimin’s eyes turned into happy crescents.
They were the first pair of people who didn’t fall under the category of women and children, or elderly to board the plane, quickly finding their seats mid-aisle. Taehyung had snagged the window seat even though his ticket said he was assigned to the middle, but Jimin didn’t mind very much, he wasn’t able to appreciate the scenery at night anyway since he couldn’t see anything.
As soon as Jimin had buckled in and closed his eyes, ignoring how Taehyung was staring in awe at the other aeroplanes taking off, the occupant of the empty seat beside him had finally arrived. He tucked his small suitcase into the compartment above them and sat beside Jimin quietly.
“So…”
‘Oh shit’
Jimin tore his eyes open and slowly looked to the passenger on his right. Yoongi held up the folded piece of paper where Jimin had written his number and a short message of ‘Text me when you get to where you’re going or something. Jimin x’ and smirked at the orange haired boy.
The corners of Jimin’s mouth curled up in embarrassment as his hand flew to cover his reddened face; Yoongi laughing fondly at him.
“Guess I’ll text you when I get to Seoul then?” Yoongi playfully asked.
Jimin tried to play it off as if his chest didn’t tighten and his heart didn’t soar as he heard Yoongi speak the words. He turned his head to the side and looked Yoongi straight in the eye, drowning in his chocolate eyes and artificial pastel hair. It kind of reminded him of mint chocolate chip.
“I guess you will” He smiled.