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Taehyung wakes up somewhere between Noksapyeong and Itaewon, according to the light-up metro map above the doors. He’d drifted off for only a short moment. His head’s still couched on Jimin’s shoulder, propped up so he can see the phone in Jimin’s lap, still playing the video Jimin’d wanted to show him. Earphones still hopelessly tangled between the two of them. His neck hurts, but he doesn’t move an inch. Thinks he’s gotten away with it.
“Hey,” says Jimin. “Are you even paying attention?”
Taehyung flicks his eyes up. The gleam of the handrails, scattered light out the windows like stars in space. Jimin, already looking back. Taehyung’d look away, but he’s already been caught, so he decides to make the most of it. Breaks into a smile.
“Hey,” Taehyung says back. “You’ve got something on your face.”
Jimin frowns, turns to peer at his reflection in the subway windows, says, “what, where, I don’t see anything.” At this angle, neck craned and throat bared in front of him, Taehyung thinks the contrary—he can see everything.
“You’re not looking hard enough,” Taehyung says, and when Jimin’s tricked into leaning closer to the glass, he reaches up and yanks the hood of Jimin’s sweatshirt down over his face. It covers everything except his mouth, which opens in an indignant yelp as he struggles out of Taehyung’s grip. Their earphones get tugged out during the scuffle, the video long forgotten, and they’re loud—a little too loud for the stifled stillness of the morning. The gazes of strangers in the subway compartment slide onto them, then right off again. Jimin shoves off his hood and shushes Taehyung with cheeks burning red, but all it does is make Taehyung want to laugh a little bit louder. To make them all stare a little bit longer. But nobody does—already the train is slowing to a stop, the passengers exchanging themselves like currency through the doors. The morning slowly moving on. Nothing’s changed, except Taehyung staring at the shiny metal handrails and the caution signs on the walls and Jimin next to him like he’s seeing it all for the very first time.
“You jerk,” Jimin says, even as he shifts closer, settling back as Taehyung’s arm automatically slides up and around to receive him. “I’m gonna get you for that.” His breath is hot, smells like the bag of warm corn bread they’d shared at the vendor stall in the station, foreheads knocking against each other in a fumbling rush to beat each other to the last bun, even with both their mouths already crammed full. Maybe that’s what all this is about—hunger, or the jolt of stopped momentum between subway stations, or—or maybe he’d just opened his eyes, half-asleep, to see Jimin, hair still soft from the shower, eyes crinkled in a smile, and that was all it had taken to blink wide awake.
Oh, Taehyung thinks. Loses his breath, and lets it go, up in the air and out the window and swallowed up by the rattle of the train tracks. It isn’t so much being knocked off kilter as it is being knocked onto something steadier. A truth he never realized he was headed for all this time. Now that he’s reached it, though, he thinks he likes it here. The view’s better. All that’s left to do is wait for Jimin to catch up.
“You gotta be fast, then,” Taehyung says, poking Jimin’s cheek with a grin, and he dodges Jimin’s attempt to pinch his ear. Slow drag of the train to a grinding halt, pneumatic hiss of the opening doors, and they’re off, chasing each other into the hustle of the morning crowd, out and up into the light.
Taehyung lasts a long time—longer than he’d thought himself capable of—but in the end it’s a race he can’t outrun. Jimin doesn’t quite catch up so much as he catches on, one night at a party thrown by one of his friends Taehyung’s never met. The crowd is just unfamiliar enough to feel distant, but not far enough to leave behind the possibility of recognition. That’s what Taehyung likes about university parties—the degrees of separation can always be traced back to the origin, to each other. It’s impossible to ever get lost. Like being a stray star, briefly drawn into a new constellation. For just one night they get to make something bigger, something brighter than themselves.
But tonight everything else is light pollution because Taehyung doesn’t take his eyes off Jimin, not once, where he’s throwing himself into chasing the cruel beat of a song he can barely keep up with on the makeshift living room dance floor. In the morning they’ll have to answer for the ache of their bones, but Taehyung’s been wearing his bruises as badges of honour since he was old enough to know how to run. It’s a fact of youth that there’s no better time to be stupid, after all, so Taehyung gets a little brave, gets a little reckless, gets a little drunk and takes a step forward towards him—
Only to misjudge the distance of the ground under his feet and lose his balance, lurching face-first into a crash landing until something—someone—reaches out to catch him before he falls, unrelentingly solid and steady.
“Oops,” Taehyung says, and then, squinting up at a sweep of black hair, a wide-eyed, wary gaze, “sorry, thanks. Did you know you smell really nice?” He looks young. Familiar, maybe. It’s a little hard to tell, in the dark, but then again, it always is. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere?”
The other guy stares back at him. The line of studs and piercings along the shell of his ear glints under the disco lights, catches Taehyung’s gaze and holds it there. “Uh,” he says. “Maybe?”
Maybe not. Taehyung’s about to say something more when a hand latches around his wrist. “Taehyung?” comes Jimin’s voice in his ear, breath tickling the back of his neck, and Taehyung shivers, though he’s anything but cold, here in the spill of bodies in the living room, all aligned to the same racing pulse. “Sorry about him—he’s drunk.”
“I can see that,” the stranger says. Taehyung pouts.
“I am not,” Taehyung insists, headbutting Jimin’s shoulder. “See—could a drunk person do this? I don’t think so. You take that back, Park Jimin—”
The other guy glances from Jimin to Taehyung to Jimin again. “Um,” he says, backing away, “I’ll leave you two to it,” and Taehyung hadn’t wanted to let him go so quickly, had wanted to pin down where exactly he knew him from, if he knew him at all, but it’s easy to lose someone in a crowd. It’s why he holds on tighter to Jimin, now. Here with his head tucked into the crook of Jimin’s neck, Taehyung can’t for the life of him remember what he was going to say. He forgets about being patient, too, and leans in to lick the line of Jimin’s jaw.
A yelp, a dizzying scramble of movement, and Taehyung’s vision is swallowed up by a long blur of light as he stumbles, floundering, but when the world straightens out again he’s still standing. Jimin’s still holding onto him, keeping him upright.
“What was that,” says Jimin. Running a tongue over his lips.
“Oops,” Taehyung says, again, and shrugs. He feels shaken loose, floating. The slow spin of space. Jimin tugs on his arm, and he snaps out of it, tries to make sense. “You had something on your face.”
“What?”
“No, that’s not right,” Taehyung corrects himself. Starts to beam. Smile cracking itself open, leaking out. “Now you do.”
Jimin’s still got his hand circled around Taehyung’s wrist, but Taehyung isn’t going anywhere. Just waits, watches as Jimin raises his other hand to his face, to where Taehyung’d had his mouth on him. Red and green and yellow, under the lights. “Huh,” Jimin says, like he’s figured it out, and Taehyung sways back and forth on his feet, pleased with himself. Then—“huh,” Jimin repeats, a little more thoughtful, heavier with intent, looking back up at him, and Taehyung swallows, throat running dry. All of a sudden he’s aware of the edge this moment is hinging on, hanging over. His heartbeat thundering like a shooting star picking up speed, hurtling through the air, all else muted in the moment before impact—
And then the music changes, into a song they both know by heart, in their bones. Taehyung can feel Jimin snap to attention, spine pulling taut, fingers digging into Taehyung’s wrist. They stare at each other through the scattered light. In intermittent flashes of neon Taehyung can make out something in Jimin’s eyes that reads like the flip of a coin, spinning through the air. Everything depends on which side it falls, and Taehyung feels like a child at a carnival game, waiting to get lucky. To get what he wants.
“Taehyung,” Jimin says, careful. “Taehyung, come on, dance with me,” and Taehyung isn’t sure what he’s been granted—safety, or mercy. He isn’t sure which is worse. But Jimin’s still got him by the hand, so when he leads him into the crowd, Taehyung follows. Set adrift once more in the slow dance of the universe.
In the morning Taehyung wakes up to a splitting headache and a foot nudging into his side. He blinks open his eyes, sprawled out on his back on the living room floor, to see Jimin’s face hovering above him.
“Hey,” says Jimin. Gentle. “Wake up. Are you with me? Hey, don’t fall back asleep. Hey, Taehyung—are you even paying attention?”
“Hey,” Taehyung says back. “You have something on your face.”
Jimin looks at him for a long moment, long enough for Taehyung to come back to himself. He takes his time. Wiggles all ten of his fingers, folds his limbs back up, one by one. In the weak morning light Taehyung feels washed out, shone straight through. A ship that’s drifted too far out to space, and now there’s nothing left to do but tilt his head back, wait for Jimin to call him home.
“Okay,” Jimin says eventually, nodding. Squats down and offers Taehyung a hand. It feels awfully like settling for a compromise, but Taehyung remembers the careful grip of Jimin’s fingers around his wrist, the way he hadn’t let go. The crashing wave of his heartbeat has quieted to a dull roar, but it’s still there, pulsing in Taehyung’s ears. They’ve got time to ride it out. In the meantime Taehyung takes Jimin’s hand, palm against palm, and lets himself be pulled back into orbit.
“Dibs on first shower,” Taehyung says, and they argue about it all the way home.
Life rolls on as usual with such ease it’d be almost unbearable if not for the rush Taehyung suddenly gets from things as everyday as using Jimin’s shampoo when he runs out of his own. It feels almost like a secret, except Taehyung isn’t hiding anything, not anymore. Still slings his arm around Jimin’s shoulder on the subway, just as Jimin still lets him, soft against the bruise of what Taehyung bears, and it somehow soothes the sting all the way through his routine cycle of classes and rehearsals. Days upon days. The ordinary turn of the earth.
“—won’t you stay,” Ara’s saying to Seojoon, her eyes wide, hopeful. The scene’s set in a ballroom, and the final production’ll have Seojoon in a neat tuxedo, Ara with her hair up and lips shiny, but for now they may as well be on the street, Seojoon unflinchingly earnest in his baseball tee and Ara’s slight frame swallowed up by her university hoodie. Something about that makes the scene more intimate, familiar, like it could be happening to anyone. It could be happening to people like them.
“I can’t,” Seojoon says. “It isn’t right. You don’t understand—I don’t belong here.” The angle of his body is a little awkward, half turned away like he’s already made up his mind to leave, but he also can’t quite stop looking at her. He’s good, Taehyung thinks, watching from the wings. Gets a little too caught up in studying the stubborn set of his chin, and accidentally steps on Minho’s foot next to him. He ducks his head in apology, but Minho just ruffles his hair with an easy grin.
“Yes, you do,” Ara says. Or is supposed to say, before the moment drags on a little too long, past the acceptable time of response and into the uncertainty of hesitation.
“Cut,” the professor says, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. The scene screeches to a halt, Ara dropping her outstretched hand to bow in apology. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Ara says, “it’s just—I can’t ever get the line right—I don’t know, it seems—it just doesn’t seem strong enough?”
Seojoon plants his face into his palm. The professor crosses her arms over her chest, ever so deliberately. “Ara,” she says. “It’s the climactic scene. You’re in love, and this is your last chance to do something about it. Is that strong enough for you?”
The tips of Ara’s ears are burning red. Beside Taehyung, Minho winces in sympathy. “Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while,” he whispers.
Taehyung glances at the clock to see rehearsal was supposed to end ten minutes ago, and shrugs in response. The truth is he could stay here all day, just watching the story unfold over and over again, moment by moment. His role in the play is minor at best, but he finds it comfortable. Homey. It could be called complacency, maybe even cowardice, but the only reason why Taehyung had started acting in the first place was because it came easy. As a kid, he had a way of charming all the neighbourhood aunties with iconic celebrity impressions or dramatic re-enactments of events that had happened at school that day. “Born for a stage,” they would say, indulging his baby-toothed smile, sweet and sticky like lamplight drawing in the moths, but such grand visions had nothing to do with it. Rather, his habit of mirroring gestures and body language had come as a natural side effect to the simpler truth of liking people and wanting to be liked back. The sun of the spotlight’s never been necessary for the reciprocal reaction he’s always wanted—just a smile, a laugh, an echo of applause is enough. An answering signal through space.
“Your job isn’t to question whether the line’s strong enough,” the professor’s still saying. The stage lights glint off the lenses of her glasses, catch out Taehyung and snap him out of his thoughts. “It’s to stand up there on the stage and make it strong enough. Now are you in love, or aren’t you?”
Taehyung’s still thinking about that one when he files out of the auditorium with the others after rehearsal finally ends, bag slung over his shoulder and skateboard tucked under his arm. When he checks his phone there’s a missed call from an unknown number buried under the usual messages from Jimin, followed by a text: is this kim taehyung? The late afternoon sun is startlingly bright after emerging from the darkness of the theatre, making his screen hard to see. Maybe that’s why he calls back, instead of settling for a text.
“Hey, this is Taehyung,” he says when the other end picks up. Drops his skateboard to the ground and rolls it back and forth under one foot. “Sorry about getting back to you so late, I was in rehearsal just now and we went way overtime. Professor Lee really doesn’t joke around when it comes to her beloved semester productions. Makes me a little glad I’m not one of the leads, to be honest—all that pressure.” He pulls a face. “Also, I’ve seen some of the costumes they’re gonna have to wear, and man, did I ever dodge a bullet with that one.”
There’s a pause. “Shouldn’t you be asking who I am before telling me your life story?” The voice is dry, a little rough from irritation, or disinterest, or maybe just sleep. As unfamiliar as the number.
“Well,” says Taehyung. “I figured that since you already know who I am—and since you’re probably not some creepy stalker—we can’t really be considered strangers.” He shifts his phone to his other ear. “Besides, you’re about to tell me, aren’t you?”
“I could be some creepy stalker, for all you know,” the other end says. Taehyung waits him out. “Lucky for you I’m not. You left your wallet at our place, the other night during the party, and you probably want it back.”
“Oh!” Taehyung stops short, beams even though it can’t be seen through the phone. He’d realized his wallet had gone missing a few days ago, and though his losses had only totaled to an impressive collection of loose change and his university ID, he’d picked that wallet out himself from the corner store way back in middle school with Jimin at his side, and some things he still isn’t ready to start outgrowing. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere. How’d you find my number?”
“I asked around,” the voice says, “since Seokjin’s too much of a bleeding heart to let me leave your wallet catching dust under our couch for the rest of time. You think you could swing by sometime to pick it up?”
“Sure,” says Taehyung. “Why don’t I just head over now?”
A pause. “What, right now?”
Taehyung’s already getting on his skateboard. “You know what? You can keep all the money in the wallet as thanks for returning it. See you in a few!” He hangs up on the other’s protest of what’re you talking about, you’ve got nothing but coins in here and books it straight into the rush of wind that rises to meet him.
It’s only when he’s already at the door of the house party from the other night that he realizes he never did get the caller’s name. Oh, well—he’s already here, and he’s already fallen off his skateboard and scraped both his knees getting here, so there’s no turning back now.
The face that answers his knock belongs very much to a stranger. Soft head of dark hair, narrowed eyes, sharp twist to his mouth. “You look just like you do in your ID photo,” he says.
Taehyung pouts. He knows exactly what he looks like in that photo—a bowl cut, unfocused eyes, mouth half open as though to say wait wait wait I’m not ready against the already flashing camera shutter. “You take that back,” he says.
He thinks the other guy smirks for a second, but then it’s gone and his face is back to neutral, almost bored. Maybe he imagined it. He eyes the flat line of his mouth in suspicion, as though it’ll turn out any more tricks, but the guy just steps back from the door innocently. “Come in, then,” he says, and Taehyung does.
There’s no trace of the party from the other night, all the rugs vacuumed and countertops polished, save for Taehyung’s worn old Pokemon wallet sitting on the coffee table looking awfully out of place. Taehyung drops his skateboard, kicks off his shoes, and is across the room in seconds, cradling it to his chest. “Missed you,” he croons, even as Eevee stares resentfully back up at him.
“Do I need to give you two a moment?” The other guy’s eyebrows are raised all the way up past his hairline, blocked by his fringe. He’s nursing a mug of coffee in his hands, and for the first time Taehyung notices the tousle of his hair, the shadows under his eyes.
“Oh, did I wake you up,” Taehyung says. “Sorry, man—” He checks his phone. It’s four in the afternoon. And, technically, the other guy did call him first. “My bad.”
“Your bad,” the other guy agrees, easy. “Don’t be so quick to leave your shit behind at a party next time—I promise they’re not gonna care as much about getting it back to you as Seokjin does.”
There’s nothing valuable about the wallet, really, but the fact that some stranger had looked at it and thought someone out there might miss it makes Taehyung feel oddly vulnerable. He runs his finger along the old fabric of his wallet. Imagines someone else doing the same, and deciding it’s worth giving back. “Seokjin, huh? I know him, I think—he tutored Jiminnie in biology. Pretty much single-handedly got him through the whole course. Saved his life.”
“Yeah, that sounds like him,” the guy says with a snort.
Taehyung shrugs. He wouldn’t know. There’s a moment of pause, as the situation settles around them, sinks in. Taehyung holding his Pokemon wallet, knees scraped up from the sidewalk, rocking back and forth on his heels, a square of light coming in through the window to frame the space between him and the other guy, leant against the wall with an expectant look on his face, like he’s waiting for Taehyung to say something, to make a move. Like he’s waiting for him to leave.
Taehyung settles back on his heels, firm against the ground, and smiles. “Late night, huh?”
The guy doesn’t smile back, but he doesn’t tell him to fuck off, either, which is always a good sign in Taehyung’s books. “Late is relative,” he says, not giving an inch, and his eyes are sharp, maybe a little more than they were before. Sizing him up, like he thinks Taehyung wants something. He’s right. Taehyung does want something. The flicker in his eyes he’d seen at the door; the smirk hidden by a straight face. Taehyung’s standing in a stranger’s home in his mismatched socks and he wants it to mean something.
“Thanks for this, really,” Taehyung says. “I owe you a coffee or something.”
The guy still looks stone-faced, but something tugs at the corner of his mouth. There it is again—Taehyung stares at it in amazement. “Well,” the guy says. “I did take all the change from your wallet, like you said.” He shrugs. “I’d say you saved up enough coins in there for a cheap convenience store drink, at least.”
Taehyung can feel the stupid grin spreading across his face. He can’t help it, really; he knows an opening when it’s offered to him. “What if I treat you to something a little better than that, and you tell me what it is you’re staying up all night for?”
He holds his breath, but the other guy doesn’t look all that suspicious anymore, anyway. Like he’s finished his assessment and come up clean. “Maybe if it’ll get you to go away,” the guy says with a good-natured sigh, but then, after a considering glance, “drama department, huh?”
“Kim Taehyung,” Taehyung says, giving an exaggerated bow, sweeping low to the floor. “Second-year theatre major, eighth on the cast list of this semester’s play, your everyday broke arts student, but what can I say.” He shrugs. “It’s what I’ve chosen to love.”
That’s definitely amusement on his face, now. “Shouldn’t you at least ask who I am before sharing your life story,” he says, and then, eyes dropping down to his knees—“wait, what the fuck, are you bleeding?”
They don’t end up getting that coffee. Instead Taehyung settles for talking his ear off as he fixes himself up with the inexplicably pink bandaids the other guy digs out from a drawer in his bathroom, but all it means is that there has to be a next time, as Taehyung’s sure to remind him in a text to the phone number he now saves to his contacts as Yoongi-hyung.
But Yoongi never makes good on the favour Taehyung owes him, his replies becoming more and more sporadic in the ongoing rush of midterms and assignments until they eventually peter out completely. Taehyung gets it—it’s easy to lose hold of things; he does it all the time. His wallet, his phone. His breath. He himself, on the other hand, has never been that quickly shaken off, left behind. Call it an annoying habit of tangling himself into things, sticking around, but he doesn’t go down without a fight.
“Really,” Taehyung says aloud from his desk, staring down at the currently one-sided KKT conversation on his phone, where the last message from Yoongi had been one griping about a new project he was working on. Taehyung’s own messages—a wealth of cute motivational stickers and ah hyung dont forget to take a break and eat something!!—have been left unread. “Do I have to do everything myself.” It’s 9 PM. His paper is due in the morning. He starts looking for his hoodie.
“Taehyung,” comes Jimin’s voice from the other side of the room, when Taehyung starts rummaging through the pile of clothes on the floor. He’s lounged across his bed, laptop and study notes spread out in front of him, tapping a highlighter against his cheek as he reviews—or at least, he was. Now he’s straightened up, frowning at him in concern. He’s even taken out his earbuds—this must be really serious. “It’s 9 PM. Your paper’s due in the morning. Where are you going?”
“Taking a break,” Taehyung says, ignoring the fact that Jimin’s scarily starting to sound like his own internal monologue, or maybe it’s the other way around. “I dunno, I’m restless. Think I’ll pay a friend a visit.”
“A friend,” Jimin says. His tone’s oddly neutral, his highlighter gone still.
“Yeah,” Taehyung says, hopping on one foot as he forces the other into a sock. “He’s the one who returned my wallet back to me after I lost it at your friend’s party, still owe him a favour—his name’s Yoongi. Two years older than us. D’you know him?”
“Huh,” says Jimin, “can’t say I’ve ever met him, but—” and he actually looks thoughtful—“I will, won’t I? If you’re at the point where you’re running out to see him the night before a paper’s due.” A beat. “Also if he had the heart to track you down just to return your wallet. I know you love that ugly thing.”
“You take that back, you monster,” Taehyung says, running a hand through his hair as he surveys the mess of their shared room, but he’s really thinking of being thirteen years old and standing before the shelf of the corner store with a summer’s worth of allowance clenched safe in his fist, Jimin next to him telling him to pick the one he liked the most. Taehyung looking at him, not sure how to tell him he already had, so he pointed at the Eevee one instead. “Hey, have you seen my hoodie, the grey one?”
“Have you checked under the bed,” Jimin snorts, and Taehyung throws a balled-up sock from the floor at him, which he ducks with an unfair grace.
“Whatever,” Taehyung says. God, he’s really got to do laundry sometime soon. Maybe tomorrow, after this paper’s done with. He slings his bag over his shoulder, but not before shoving his laptop and textbooks in, too—just in case. “I’ll see you later, then—”
“Wait,” Jimin calls when Taehyung’s halfway to the door, and when Taehyung turns around he’s met by a faceful of denim. He reaches up, peels Jimin’s jacket off his face, and turns to stare at him questioningly.
“It’s freezing outside, idiot,” Jimin says. “Or were you planning to come down with a cold?”
His voice’s gone a little quieter, less certain as he reaches the end of his question, lilting up at the end—like he’s only just realized what he’s done. In the dim yellowed lamplight of their shared room Jimin suddenly looks every inch his exhaustion, eyes puffy and hair mussed, sitting up against his own shadow on the wall. There’s a smidge of pink highlighter on his cheek. For a moment Taehyung forgets everything else but the sudden want—to cross the room and wipe it off. To have his own finger come away with the stain.
“Taehyung?” Jimin says. Has maybe been saying for a while. “Hey, are you even paying attention to me?”
“If I get sick I’m just gonna bring you down with me,” Taehyung says automatically. A knee-jerk reaction of a sentence, but it does the job, spins the moment right-side-up once more. Gravity settling everything back into its place. Jimin shifts on the bed, smiles.
“Exactly,” Jimin says, and Taehyung feels oddly out of breath, like he’s been chasing after something that ended up catching him first. He’s not sure what to do with his hands, so he focuses on putting on the jacket instead. He’s taller than Jimin, but lankier, too, so the jacket hangs off his frame a little bulkily, material thick and warm. When he meets the eyes of his own reflection in the full-length mirror propped up by the door he thinks he likes the way it looks. He thinks he could get used to it.
“Hey, Jimin,” Taehyung says, walking backward out the door so he can give a goodbye salute, “you’ve got something on your face.”
When he shows up on Yoongi’s doorstep with a cardboard cup of coffee warming his hands and a box of cupcakes in his backpack it’s someone else who answers his knock. Taehyung gets a flash of déjà vu, another stranger blinking at him from behind the door.
“Hi,” Taehyung says, making sure to come up out of his bow with his brightest grin. “Is Yoongi-hyung in?” He lifts the cup. “Special delivery.”
The guy behind the door looks startled into his smile. He’s got nice teeth. “Come in,” he says, and then he calls out behind him, “Yoongi, you’ve got first-years running errands for you now?”
“It’s not an errand,” Taehyung says as he steps over the threshold. Yoongi’s nowhere to be seen. “More like a treat. And I’m in my second year, not first.”
The guy makes a face. “Wow, that’s still pretty young—no offense. I’m Seokjin, Yoongi’s housemate. I graduated last year. Anyways, Yoongi’s holed up in his room if you need him, like he always is.”
“None taken,” Taehyung says, slipping out of his shoes. Keeps the sunny smile on his face. “Maybe you’re just pretty old.”
Seokjin’s surprised into a bark of laughter. “Why, you little—” he starts, but Taehyung’s already beelining for Yoongi’s room. “Okay,” he can hear him say as he disappears around the corner, “I walked into that one,” and he thinks Jimin and Yoongi really weren’t exaggerating—the guy’s too good to be true. Anyone who lets Taehyung get away with that on first meeting has to be.
Yoongi doesn’t open the door after knocking, calling his name, and even all-out banging with his fist, so Taehyung takes a risk and pushes it open. Yoongi’s back is turned to the doorway, hunched over his laptop with his headphones on. He barely acknowledges Taehyung when he sets the coffee down on his desk with a flourish, and Taehyung wavers for a second at that. Maybe he’s misjudged the situation—overextended himself. It wouldn’t be the first time. But that day when Taehyung’d been trying to not get blood all over the couch Yoongi had told him he was a music production major and that’s what he was saying up all night for, and Taehyung had said he must be really good then, and Yoongi had shrugged and said—how did you put it, again? It’s what I’ve chosen to love. Watching him now, Taehyung believes it. And anyway, he did owe him, for more than just the wallet. So he shuts the door quietly behind him on his way out and files back into the hallway, smothering a yawn with his palm.
“There’s tea, if you like,” comes a voice, and Taehyung opens his eyes to see Seokjin standing by the doorway of the kitchen. “Sorry about Yoongi—you know what he’s like when he’s on a roll. I’m glad he’s got people like you looking out for him, though—god knows he needs them.”
Taehyung doesn’t know what Yoongi’s like when he’s on a roll, actually. It’s his first time seeing it. It’s his first time seeing Seokjin, too, and here he is being offered tea. Taehyung’s got a paper to get back to, but for some reason he notices that Seokjin’s wearing pink slippers, and it’s such an innocuous, harmless sight that he finds himself saying, “Thank you, that would be nice.”
It’s only when Taehyung’s seated on the couch sipping from a cup of tea that he remembers the cupcakes. “Oh, shit,” he says, somehow managing to spill tea on his wrist in his fumble to set down the cup and open his backpack. “I forgot—I got this for you guys—I hope they didn’t get crushed too badly.” He peers into the box—there’s minimal damage, to his relief. When he looks back up Seokjin is staring at him in bemusement. “Right, I forgot to say—my name’s Kim Taehyung, I left my wallet at your house during your party a few weeks ago, and never got around to properly thanking you for helping get it back to me.”
“Oh,” Seokjin says. He still looks bemused. “Is that it?”
Taehyung shrugs. Sets the box of cupcakes—now slightly lopsided—on the coffee table between them. “That’s all,” he says. “Sorry if cupcakes aren’t your thing—but I kinda live on the assumption that everyone loves cupcakes.” He makes a face. “I mean, they’re cupcakes.”
Seokjin’s still eyeing him strangely, but after a beat the corner of his mouth twitches, curves upward, like he can’t resist it. “You’re right,” he says, nodding sagely. “Everyone loves cupcakes.”
Later, Seokjin’s brow furrows as he pauses in the middle of refilling his cup of tea. There’s frosting on his lip. Taehyung doesn’t tell him. “Kim Taehyung, huh? You wouldn’t happen to know a Park Jimin, by any chance?”
Taehyung’s phone is set out on the table, lighting up message after message: so when are u coming back and dont say i didnt warn u when ur dying over ur paper at 3am and hey!! hello?? kim taehyung are u ignoring me. Somewhere buried under all those notifications is his lockscreen, a blurry selfie of their heads smushed together, pulling funny faces at the camera. “Yeah,” is what Taehyung settles for, in the end. “Yeah, I know Jimin. You tutored him in biology, right?”
Seokjin nods. Licks the frosting off his lip—dammit, how did he know? “You guys must be good friends,” he says. “He talked about you before, I think. Never thought I’d actually get around to meeting you, though.”
Jiminnie: u better be taking care of my jacket
“The best,” says Taehyung, and as he types it’s cute that u think ur ever getting it back, “why not? We were already in the same orbit—it was only a matter of time before we collided.”
“Huh,” comes Seokjin’s voice. “Well, if you put it that way, I guess you’re right.”
Taehyung glances up from his phone—haha good joke, Jimin’d sent, and he replies that’s what u think—to see Seokjin looking back at him, close enough to reach, and it’s too easy, really, to cover the distance. All it takes is scooting over on the couch and into Seokjin’s space, holding out his phone camera and saying, “Why don’t we take a selfie to show him?”
Of course it’s when Taehyung’s got his phone angled where Seokjin can see that Jimin sends in a flurry of notifications saying so what about ur paper due tmr?? Seokjin side-eyes him in the middle of taking the picture, and he has to hurriedly explain: “I’ve got all I need for it with me, I was just taking a break and I’m almost done, I swear—well, I’ve done all the research, I just have to start writing it—shit, this isn’t a very good first impression, is it.”
Seokjin stares hard at him for another moment, and then inexplicably bursts into laughter. Taehyung doesn’t know what to do but take another picture for good measure, Seokjin’s mouth hanging wide open, eyes crinkled shut, face blurry. “Please,” Seokjin says, “I’ve seen my fair share of blatant procrastination, don’t worry about it—hey! Delete that picture! But you know—it is getting late out there, and pretty cold.” He shrugs. “You could just stay here to finish it, if you’d like.”
Something about the whiplash of his tone from joking to serious, the casual way he doesn’t even look at Taehyung as he makes the offer, instead taking a sip of tea from his mug, makes it seem like any other choice of action would be absurd, makes his words ridiculously easy to accept. It’s only later that Taehyung’ll examine it more closely, realize maybe that’s exactly what Seokjin intended. But for now the couch is soft enough to sink into, the tea is warm, and Taehyung’s too weak against unexpected kindness to do anything but take one last picture, as though the moment can be kept. “If you don’t mind,” he says, lowering his phone, “I think I’d like that very much.”
It’s sometime after 5 AM when Taehyung closes his laptop lid with more force than necessary just to enjoy the finality of that thunk and looks up from the couch to see Yoongi blinking at him from the kitchen table. The paper’s done, the teakettle’s long empty, and Jimin’d fallen asleep and stopped replying to his messages a few hours ago, so Taehyung stretches his arms over his head, stands. Makes his way over to Yoongi, who watches him approach.
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” Yoongi says.
“Seokjin is a very gracious and welcoming host,” Taehyung says, though half of it is mangled by a yawn. “And I’ve got the pictures to prove it.”
Yoongi snorts. “Of course,” he says, and then, after a pause: “Surprised you showed up in the first place, too.”
Taehyung leans back against the counter. Looks down at his palms. “You seemed really stressed out over your project—I just thought I’d drop by and check in on you. Sorry I don’t know your coffee order, but.” He shrugs. “I wanted it to be a surprise, so I didn’t ask.”
“It was too sweet,” says Yoongi, looking closely at him. “You should go easy on the sugar.”
Good thing Seokjin ate all the cupcakes, then, Taehyung doesn’t say. “You still drank it, didn’t you?” he says instead.
“Hmm,” Yoongi says. And then: “We’re even now, at any rate. You don’t owe me anything anymore, kid.”
If it were a normal time of day, if the both of them were completely awake, if the sun had fully risen and was watching them from the sky, Taehyung might’ve taken it as a dismissal, might’ve swallowed the sting. But everything else is asleep, and there’s no audience expecting a script, and he’s always been good at improvisation. “Friends don’t owe each other things, hyung,” he says. “You give them because you want to.”
Yoongi raises an eyebrow. “Is that what we are, now?” he says, but the wary set of his shoulders has long since deflated. If Taehyung doesn’t know better he’d even say Yoongi’s hiding something like a smirk behind his hand propping his chin up on the table.
Taehyung’s grin is full, now. Waking up with the morning sun. “It’s too late to stop it now,” he says.
Yoongi seems to consider it. Shrugs. “In that case,” he says. “D’you wanna hear it?”
They sit in Yoongi’s room and blast his track on repeat until Seokjin wakes up and forces them to eat breakfast. It burrows into Taehyung’s head and makes itself at home there, and he walks to the beat of it all the way to campus where he hands in his paper, to the subway station, to the apartment where Jimin’s still in bed, snoring. His laptop’s open next to him, his phone poking out from under the mess of sheets. Taehyung snorts at the sight of him and moves to clear his bed, but when he’s putting Jimin’s phone on the bedside table he accidentally turns on the screen. The background photo is of the two of them with eyes closed and peace signs up, and there are twelve message notifications from Taehyung himself. He barely remembers them now, having sent them at the peak of 3 AM deliriousness, but he gets caught on the last one.
Taehyungie: dream about me
3:49 AM
Taehyung takes off Jimin’s jacket, hangs it back up. Flops down onto his own bed and falls asleep watching the steady rise and rest of Jimin’s chest across the room. His last clear thought is—Jimin’d been right, he hasn’t met Yoongi yet. But he will.
Jimin meets Yoongi and by extension Hoseok at the convenience store in the middle of a heated argument over which brand of instant noodles to buy, when Taehyung’s waving his hands wildly to prove his point and accidentally smacks someone in the face.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” Taehyung says over Jimin’s laughter, turning around to see a familiar glower. Behind that, a grin full of teeth.
“Hyung!” Taehyung says, brightening. He hadn’t expected Hoseok, when he’d wormed his way into Yoongi’s house and phone contact list and general plane of existence, but the guy had shown up with a smile so freely given it’d been impossible to not return. They’d hit it off right away, while Yoongi had said oh god now there’s two of you and then ended up choking on his lunch trying not to laugh at one of Hoseok’s funny faces.
“It’s past midnight, what’re you doing out so late,” Hoseok says, but it’s Yoongi who sidles up next to him with a sideways glance and says through his face mask, “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Right,” says Taehyung. “Uh, this is Jimin. Jimin, this is Hoseok-hyung and Yoongi-hyung. You know, the Yoongi-hyung who got me my wallet back.”
The Yoongi-hyung who’s eyeing the both of them with the same look he’d had in the room where he met Taehyung for the first time. “So this is Jiminnie,” he says dryly, and the cool refrigerated air of the drinks section against the back of Taehyung’s sweat-flushed neck makes him shiver in exposure.
Jimin straightens up out of his bow in greeting and turns to Taehyung, punching him in the shoulder. “You told them about me,” he says accusingly, tips of his ears already reddening.
“Of course I did,” Taehyung says, taking the hit, but Jimin’s ears only burn redder at that. “He’s Seokjin-hyung’s housemate, you know.”
“Oh, you know Seokjin, too?” Hoseok says. “Huh. Small world.”
Actually, Taehyung thinks it’s the opposite. The world’s pretty big. It’s just up to you to make it small.
“Haven’t seen him in ages since he started medical school, though,” Jimin’s saying. Scratching the back of his neck, the way he does when he’s shy. Like he has anything to worry about.
“Oh,” says Taehyung, “I didn’t know he’s studying to be a doctor. What about you, Hoseok-hyung?”
Hoseok bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I dance,” he says, and Taehyung doesn’t have to look to know the way Jimin sparks to attention beside him. Like electricity, Taehyung thinks, completing a circuit, and he settles back to watch the light.
The days pile up on one another and Taehyung feels the brunt of it like a physical blow, stretched thin between classes and rehearsals and the relentless pulse of living. So it’s a strange Sunday afternoon that finds him lazing around the basketball court with the others, like they have nothing else better to do, like they’ve slipped out of time’s grasp. Taehyung’s mostly fooling around at first, running in circles just to feel the wind through his hair and shooting the ball with his eyes closed, but then he makes the mistake of stealing the ball from Yoongi, whose eyes narrow ever so slightly, deliberately. Game on.
It’s when Yoongi and Hoseok are up 12-5—and not showing any signs of mercy—that Taehyung takes a tumble trying to block a pass and finds himself blinking up at sky instead. It’s a blustery day, clouds hanging low, letting down the occasional crack of light. Even from the ground he can hear Hoseok’s laughter, Jimin yelling foul. Somewhere a storm breaking. It’s only a matter of time before it reaches them.
“What do you mean, foul,” Yoongi’s saying, “the guy took down his own damn self, no one else was even anywhere near him—oh, hey, Namjoon.”
“Seokjin said I’d find you here,” comes a new voice, and Taehyung’s still sprawled out on the ground, trying to catch his breath, so he doesn’t look to see who it is, not yet. His bones feel like they’ve been rattled out of place. “I wanted to talk to you, about the project. What’re you doing?”
“Winning is what I’m doing,” Yoongi says. Taehyung can hear the shit-eating grin on his face. “Why, did you want to join?”
“Namjoon and Taehyung’ll make a good team,” Hoseok says, “they can wipe each other out,” and there’s a smattering of laughter at that, the clap of a high-five.
“No,” Jimin pipes up, “Taehyung’s mine. You can’t split up the dream team.”
“Is that—is he okay?” the new voice says, in bemused concern.
“Him?” comes Jimin’s voice again, and it’s closer, now. “Don’t worry, he’s fine.” His head pokes into Taehyung’s field of vision, butting out the sky. “Aren’t you?” His face is shiny with sweat, and Taehyung’s eyes follow the bead of it down his temple, his cheek, his chin. “Hey, Taehyung, are you even paying attention?”
“Mm,” Taehyung says noncommittally, and his gaze flicks back up, to meet Jimin’s eyes. “It’s just—you’ve got something on your face.”
Jimin raises an eyebrow. Makes no move to wipe away his sweat. Holds his hand out instead, and Taehyung takes it, pulls himself all the way up. The tightness of Jimin’s grip leaves his palm feeling tender, like before a bruise begins to form.
Namjoon’s wearing a red bucket hat that Yoongi pokes fun at, but Taehyung likes the bright pop of colour against the grey November skies. He’s a year older than them, like Hoseok, but two school years ahead of them, like Yoongi, and he’s content to watch on the sidelines as Yoongi finishes wiping the floor with Taehyung and Jimin, making occasional commentary. Taehyung doesn’t know him yet, but he thinks he could get used to the sound of his voice.
It’s Hoseok who makes the final winning shot, arcing over their heads into the basket with a grace that’s quickly ruined by his shriek of triumph as he launches into a victory dance, Yoongi joining in with all the enthusiasm and none of the dignity. Losers have to buy everyone popsicles in a rule Hoseok made up on the spot, so Taehyung and Jimin suck it up and pool together the change in their pockets. It’s not a particularly warm day, but Taehyung’s body’s practically thrumming out of itself, from the exertion maybe, from exhaustion, from Jimin’s elbow casually knocking against his own as they head back out of the convenience store, so the press of ice against his tongue brings sharp relief. They’ve bought a popsicle for Namjoon, too, who catches it when Taehyung tosses it to him, but not without a look of pleasant surprise, smile dimpling his cheeks.
“It’s good,” Jimin says next to him from where they’re sat on the sidewalk. “Watermelon. Want some?”
Taehyung’s own is strawberry. He leans over into Jimin’s space, takes a bite, feels the sting of it down to his teeth. When he looks up, Jimin’s eyes are on his mouth, the mess of red smeared there. For a moment Jimin looks caught, almost, startled at his own self, but he also doesn’t stop looking. To the side Yoongi and Namjoon are discussing something about their track, the seriousness of their voices at odds with the brightly coloured popsicles in their hands. Hoseok’s on the phone, talking with Seokjin, something about coming over for dinner. Nobody’s watching him, except for Jimin, who’s watching all of him, so Taehyung licks his lips, swallows, slow. He can feel the ice melt all the way down his throat, sinking into the pit of his stomach. Crystallizing into just another part of him.
“It’s sweet,” Taehyung says. Smiles.
He can see the storm, coming. It’s only a matter of time.
True to intuition, Taehyung’s in the middle of practicing his death scene when the first flash of lightning whites out the entire room through the windows. Taehyung pauses from where he’s sprawled on the bedroom floor, hand clutched to his chest and head lolling backward, and holds his breath. He doesn’t have to wait long—the echo of thunder cracks so loud it sounds like the gunshot that marks Taehyung’s cue on stage, and for a second he thinks he’s gotten it wrong, acted out his scene in reverse. The instant of eerie calm before the rain starts hitting the windows, like death before life.
“Damn,” Taehyung says, sitting up and breaking character. “That’s some storm.”
Of course, that’s when the lights flicker out.
There’s a yelp from the other room, and a crash, and then, “Taehyung?”
Vision comes back to him slowly, the outlines of shapes sharpening themselves in the darkness, separating from shadow. His bedframe. His desk. Jimin at the door, fumbling his way into the room. Taehyung grabs Jimin’s ankle before he can accidentally step on him on the floor, which in hindsight probably wasn’t the best course of action in the dark.
“Stop—stop, it’s me,” Taehyung grunts, struggling to push a shrieking, flailing Jimin off of him, ducking before he can get a foot in the face.
“Taehyung?” Jimin sits up, panting. “What the—what’re you doing on the floor?”
“I’m dying,” Taehyung tells him. They’re tangled up on the bedroom floor, Taehyung’s foot in Jimin’s lap, Jimin’s hand on Taehyung’s knee, then moving up, to his chest, his shoulder, feeling for him in the dark. Taehyung’s breath hitches, but it’s lost in the clatter of rain against the glass. The hand’s on his face, now, pausing, and then—pinching his cheek, hard.
“Ow!” Taehyung jerks away, falls back flat on the floor. “What was that for?”
“You just took ten years off my life,” Jimin says, “I thought you were a serial killer or a demon or something, crawling around on the floor, trying to drag me down to hell—”
A giggle escapes Taehyung’s throat. Jimin dives for him then, fingers tickling, and Taehyung screeches loud enough to drown out the thunder outside, trying to roll away. The next thing he knows he bangs his leg on something solid and something crashes to the floor. Both of them freeze.
“Shit, I hope that wasn’t something expensive,” Taehyung says.
After they’ve collected all the self-sustaining sources of light in their apartment—candles, glowsticks, the tiny light-up toy robot Taehyung’d won once from a gacha machine—and gathered them in the centre of the room like an artificial campfire, the thing they’d broken turns out to be the ugly decorative lamp the previous renters had left behind. “No big loss,” Taehyung says, reaching down to clear away the pieces.
Jimin swats his arm out of the way. “Don’t—it’s broken glass,” he says, and he purses his lips, frowning down at the mess on the floor. “Just leave it—we’ll deal with it in the morning.”
That seems like more of a danger hazard to Taehyung, who can already foresee himself rolling half-asleep out of bed and onto the glass, but he isn’t gonna argue with Jimin when he’s got the flashlight of his phone shining straight into his eyes. “Cut it out,” Taehyung says, grabbing Jimin’s arm, then finding himself unsure of what to do with it once he’s actually got him in his grip. “Hey—wanna help me practice my death scene?”
“What?” Jimin turns off his phone flashlight, and they’re left back in the dark. “Haven’t you been practicing all night already?”
Taehyung shrugs. “Show’s coming up,” he says. Too soon, he thinks. Acting’s an art built on transience, on an entire cast and crew coming together for a story before packing it up and apart and moving on once more. Taehyung knows this, but he still hasn’t quite learned how to throw himself into a role and then shed that skin again, leave it behind when the show ends, when the curtain falls. The whiplash of becoming, and then being born back into himself—as he was only ever just himself. Something about it skews his world out of proportion sometimes, like he can’t tell anymore what he has to let go of, and what he gets to keep. When he gets to last. So it’s not his fault really, that he tries to hold on to everything, to anything he can get his hands on.
“Hey,” says Jimin. “Hey, come on. You’ve practiced enough for today—stop thinking about it. Here,” and when Jimin starts moving Taehyung’s hand is still clamped around his arm, so really he’s got no choice but to follow Jimin to where he’s rearranging the pillows on his bed, pushing back the blankets to make room. “C’mon, lie down. Let’s watch a movie.”
Jimin puts on an animated film, laptop brightness on low and battery running out, but Taehyung’s grateful for the flash of moving pictures as he sinks into the blankets, oddly exhausted. It’s a movie he’s seen countless times before, so he can lean his head against the solid weight of the wall and let his eyelids droop.
“Hey,” Jimin whispers next to him, after a while. “Kim Taehyung. Are you falling asleep on me? Are you even paying attention?”
Taehyung cracks open an eye. This close he can see it all—the light from the laptop screen falling over Jimin’s face, the colours of the movie reflected in his eyes, wide open. Greens and blues. The sight of the earth from space. Taehyung’s been looking at Jimin all his life, but he still hasn’t figured it out: how to stick the landing, and come home.
“I don’t know,” Taehyung blurts. “What am I missing?”
A pause, and Taehyung watches it sink in. It all happens very fast. “Oh,” says Jimin, and Taehyung barely has time to swallow before Jimin’s straightening up, eyes sharp. “Taehyung—how long?”
Taehyung doesn’t even pretend to not know what the question is. Gleam of handrails, lights flickering on a map, snatches of a dream on a moving subway. It could have been any day—they’ve had so many, by now. “I don’t—I don’t know. A while.”
“You never said anything.” Jimin’s hands are still. Taehyung looks down at his own fidgeting fingers, drumming against the blankets.
“I was trying to be patient,” Taehyung says. Bites his lip.
“So you would’ve just waited forever?” It strikes Taehyung that maybe Jimin is angry. He can count on his hands the number of times he’s seen Jimin angry. The low tone of his voice, the tense line of his jaw. Taehyung feels itchy, restless. Defensive. Scratches under the collar of his shirt, and Jimin’s eyes follow the movement, catching him out.
“So what if I would have?” Taehyung says.
“Idiot,” Jimin says. “And you wouldn’t have been hurt? You wouldn’t have hurt?”
“I’d still have you, wouldn’t I,” Taehyung mumbles.
“Idiot,” Jimin says again, but his hand reaches out, covers Taehyung’s own. Stills his movement. “Always running off ahead, aren’t you?” The line of his mouth is still unhappy. “You can’t leave me behind that easily—but you can’t expect me to just know where you’ve gone, either. You shouldn’t just wait like this.”
Taehyung shrugs. Jimin’s palm is soft. Warm. Suddenly he can’t remember what he was so anxious about just a moment ago. He feels like a cloud, unravelling, free. “I knew you’d find me eventually,” he says. “I didn’t want to rush you.”
Jimin sighs. “I thought—” He hesitates. “I’ve been thinking—but I wasn’t sure. I have to be sure. Taehyung, believe me—I only have you. So we have to be sure.”
The movie’s still playing in their periphery. Skies and trees; tall grass in the wind. Taehyung closes his eyes. Sees stars.
“You don’t have to worry about that, Jimin-ah,” Taehyung says, on the edge of sleep. “You’ll always have me.”
In the morning when the light’s returned to them Taehyung inspects the damage. The candles are burned out, the glowsticks faded to a dull glimmer, the toy robot still uselessly flickering on and off. A mess of broken glass scattered on the floor. Jimin peering up at him from the bed, eyes soft from sleep, or from something else.
“How bad is it?” Jimin says.
“Looks permanent,” Taehyung says gravely, and then, now that he can see, he notices something strange. “Hey—are you wearing my hoodie? The grey one I thought I lost?”
Jimin looks down at himself, then back up. “Oops,” he says, and then, “oh.” Another pause. “Hmm.” It’s almost comical, the look on his face. Taehyung can’t help but laugh.
“Oh,” Jimin says again, a little helpless. Blooming into a smile as he looks at him. A smile so big and bright Taehyung can’t help but say—
“Hey, Jimin. You’ve got something on your face.”
“You little punk,” says Jimin, but he’s still smiling.
Outside, the sky is open, clear, like it’s over. Or like it’s just beginning.
The thing about Jimin is that Taehyung doesn’t even remember a time without him. So when Seokjin says one day, while chopping carrots in the kitchen, “How’d you two meet, anyway,” Taehyung’s stuck in the middle of washing a cucumber in the sink, trying to choose. Jimin, tying his shoelaces for him after he’d tripped over them on the playground. Chasing him through the fields; catching frogs by the lake and letting them go; racing each other to the school bus. Cramming themselves into the coin karaoke booth meant for one and scraping together the change for a song. Sharing a bowl of hot rice cakes by the side of the road, as kids; a locker, in high school. And after that, a room. The same slice of life.
“Hey, hey,” says Seokjin, “the tap’s running.” From the living room, Hoseok lets out a whoop as he presumably knocks Jimin’s Mario Kart off the track. They’re here for dinner under Seokjin’s invitation, and Taehyung’s in the kitchen under the guise of helping, but really he’s just curious to see what Seokjin’s making and Seokjin won’t let him near a knife anyway.
“I dunno,” Taehyung says, turning off the tap. “We’ve known each other a long time.”
Seokjin nods, takes the cucumber. He’s got a teakettle boiling on the stove, next to a simmering pot, and seems to be handling it all with an easy elegance. “Seems like it,” he says, and then, “you’re very fortunate, then.”
“To know him?” Taehyung says, peering into the pot over Seokjin’s shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Well, that too, of course,” Seokjin says with a laugh, pushing Taehyung out of the way with a finger to his forehead. “But I meant, to still get to see him, every day. Not many people can say that about their childhood friends.”
Taehyung sneaks a piece of cucumber from the cutting board when Seokjin isn’t looking. “It’s not so much fortune, I think,” he says, wrinkling his nose as he thinks about it. “We just never let go of each other. That’s all.”
“That’s what I mean,” Seokjin says. “It’s easy to make friends. But sometimes it’s hard to hold onto them.”
Taehyung is quiet. Remembers standing in this house, sticking his stubborn heels in the ground, teeth and tongue all bared like a dog begging to be allowed to stay. The overgrowth spilling out of him. Even if it’s just weeds—they’re all he’s got to give. Heart wide open like he wants to be hurt. Like he wants to be loved. He’s always had a little too much trust in the world to soften the blow, but then again, he’s been lucky so far. Looking at Seokjin, though, back turned to him and shoulders slightly hunched as he tastes the soup, Taehyung knows not everyone can say the same.
“Don’t worry, hyung,” Taehyung says. “I won’t let you go, either. You’re stuck with me forever.”
Seokjin sighs, long-suffering. Taehyung tries to sneak another cucumber slice, but Seokjin smacks his hand with the ladle.
“Don’t push your luck, Taehyung-ah,” Seokjin says, and Taehyung laughs, right on cue as the teakettle begins to whistle.
Later when they’re all seated around the table Taehyung spots an empty chair, bowl and chopsticks laid out for no one. “Is someone else coming?” he asks.
“Seokjin’s kid cousin,” Yoongi says. “Nobody invited him, but he comes over to eat our food all the time because he can’t be trusted to feed himself properly.” He shakes his head, sighs. “First-years—you know how they are.”
“Ah, hyung,” Hoseok says with a snort. “Like you don’t live on a diet of caffeine and instant noodles every time you’ve got a deadline approaching. What’s your excuse?”
“Stupidity isn’t something you outgrow,” Namjoon says sagely, and then proceeds to prove his own point when he accidentally drops a chopstick, clattering against the floor. Jimin valiantly tries to hide his giggle behind the palm of his hand. Yoongi scowls at all of them. Seokjin sets down the teapot, heaves a sigh.
“Where is that kid, anyway,” he says, “I swear, if Jeongguk shows up late one more time I’m going to stop making all the extra portions his freakish metabolism demands—”
The door slams open, someone stumbling inside in a mess of scattered snow, struggling to take off his oversized coat. “Sorry I’m late, hyung,” he says, shaking the snow from his hair as he bends to untangle his bootlaces, “class went on longer than it was supposed to, and then I went out with some friends for a quick coffee…” He straightens up, layers of winter clothing falling away to reveal—a line of glinting earrings, a sweep of black hair, a wide-eyed, wary gaze. Frowning slightly, straight at Taehyung sitting at the table. “Do I—do I know you from somewhere?”
Taehyung, grin lighting up the room. Steam rising from the seven bowls laid out on the table. “Now you do,” he says. “Now you do.”
In the end it doesn’t go out with a bang, or even a whimper. Just Taehyung coming home one evening to find Jimin on the couch, passed out in front of his laptop screen, the space beside him empty and waiting. Taehyung drops his bag, kicks off his shoes, flops down next to him. It’s not a perfect fit, the couch too small to hold the two of them together, but somehow they manage, like they always have. Taehyung sticks his socked toes into Jimin’s side until he stirs, lifts his head to peer at him through lidded eyes.
“Hey,” Jimin says sleepily, and then, after a pause, wrinkling his nose—“have you been using my shampoo?”
For a moment Taehyung can’t even speak. Heart so full with nowhere to put it. The light burns low between them, softening Jimin’s face in shadow, from where his cheek’s pressed into the couch cushion. Frowning at him in concern when he doesn’t answer.
“Hey, Kim Taehyung,” says Jimin, and they both know what’s coming next, as he straightens up slightly, couch cushion falling to the floor. “Are you even paying attention?”
Taehyung thinks about it. Looks at Jimin, carefully. Hair sticking up and cheek indented with the shape of the cushion and holding himself perfectly still, looking back at him from the other side of the couch. For the first time Taehyung thinks that maybe Jimin’s been waiting for a serious answer to his question, all this time.
“Yeah,” says Taehyung, slowly. “Yeah, I am.”
Jimin doesn’t move a muscle. “And what do you see?” he says. Barely more than a whisper.
Taehyung’s been waiting for so long. Flung far out in space. To finally know what he has to do is a relief. Reach out himself, and be the one to pull Jimin closer, for once.
“Oh,” says Taehyung. “Jimin, here. Come here,” and Jimin comes.
Jimin’s hands hover like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch, but also like he doesn’t know how to do anything else. Oh, Taehyung thinks, remembering—absurdly—Seojoon and Ara, standing on a stage. So it’s true. He tilts his face up, presses it up against Jimin’s palm, lets him feather through his hair.
“Hmm,” Jimin says. “I wanted to be careful, you know.”
“You are,” Taehyung says, and it slips out like a breath. He feels like he’s melting. Liquid gold, stirred by Jimin’s touch as he traces down along his hairline to the shell of his ear, cups his cheek in his hand. "You are, right now."
“I had to make sure,” Jimin says, helplessly.
“And now?” Taehyung says, after a beat. “Are you sure?”
Jimin huffs out a laugh, and they’re so close Taehyung can feel it, the warm vibration of Jimin’s throat, the tickle of his breath in the air. “It’s funny,” Jimin says. “Isn’t it funny? I was waiting for some warning sign, some alarm to go off, something to let me know it was a bad idea. That someone was going to get hurt. I spent so long waiting for something to feel wrong I took for granted that it already felt right. I just—it just didn’t occur to me that it could be that simple. You know?”
Taehyung thinks of Yoongi’s hard stare under the scrutiny of the sunlight, sizing him up. Jeongguk shying away from him at the party, a stranger; Namjoon’s pleasant surprise, catching the popsicle tossed his way. Seokjin, bent-backed over the stove, humming quietly to himself.
“It’s easy to be lonely,” Taehyung says, and his heart hurts at that, at knowing it to be true.
Jimin bites his lip. “I’m sorry,” he says. “We really did take the long way ’round, didn’t we?”
“The scenic route,” says Taehyung, straight-faced.
Jimin picks up the couch cushion from the floor and swats him with it.
“What!” Taehyung says. “It’s true. Anyways—it doesn’t change anything, really, you know.”
Jimin’s eyes go serious. “Taehyung,” he says. Like he’s pointing out a bird in the air. A star in the sky. “It changes everything.”
Taehyung thinks about it. The line of life ahead of him, stretching off impossibly long and impossibly unknown, and Jimin would be at his side, he knows, in any case, in any world. The only question is, how close. It’s not difficult to answer. All he does is sway forward on the couch, throat bared, jaw slack. Eyes intent, on Jimin’s.
“Good,” Taehyung says. “I want it to.”
“Huh,” says Jimin. Thoughtful. “You know what? I believe you.”
Beyond, out the window, the setting sun touches the slanting lines of apartment buildings, the rooftops and the streetlamps, alighting on the surface of a changed world and sinking in. Taehyung leans close, lets the curve of his mouth meet Jimin’s own, smiling into the slow unfurl of Jimin’s lips. Sweet and steady as landing home.
“Looks like you were right,” Jimin says, “I think I’ve got something on my face,” and it’s Taehyung’s turn to grab the cushion, smack him until they’re both going down, laughing all the way.
The auditorium is packed on the night of the play. Hoseok whistles at the sight of it, and then at Taehyung in his stage makeup and costume. “Break a leg,” he says, clapping him on the back.
“You came!” says Taehyung, a beat late. He’d been jittering with nerves for the past week leading up to this night, but seeing Hoseok’s familiar smile grounds him a little. That, and Jimin’s arm around his waist, keeping him close.
“Of course I came,” Hoseok says, looking almost offended. He’s wearing glasses, and a smart black turtleneck. The thought that he might’ve dressed up for this cheers Taehyung immensely. “I’m not the only one, either—sorry to disappoint.”
They’re all there—Namjoon absorbed in reading the program, Yoongi with a camera. Seokjin’s even brought him flowers. Holds them up next to his face and singsongs, “Which is prettier?”
Jeongguk slides his face into his hands in embarrassment, but Taehyung just beams up at him and says, “Hyung, it’s you, of course.”
Seokjin blinks at him for a moment in surprise. “This kid,” he says, but he can’t quite keep the smile off his face.
“Wait,” says Jimin before Taehyung heads backstage, and he’s barely turned back around before he’s met by a kiss. “For good luck.”
Taehyung can hear Hoseok wolf-whistling again. “Took you long enough,” comes Yoongi’s voice, but Taehyung isn’t looking anywhere but at Jimin, eyes alight and cheeks flushed.
“No,” says Taehyung, considering. “I think it took us just the right amount of time.”
A slow smile spreads across Jimin’s face. “Yeah?” he says.
“Every step of the way,” Taehyung says seriously, nodding. “But you should know—Park Jimin, now I’m never gonna slow down.”
“Of course,” Jimin says, holding his gaze like a promise. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
From the stage everything’s so much brighter. There’s too much to look at, so Taehyung settles on tiny details—the swish of Ara’s silver earrings, the shiny buckles of Seojoon’s shoes. Their slow dance under the spotlight, hand in hand.
“I don’t belong here,” Seojoon says, for the last time.
Ara hesitates, something panicked in her eyes, like a wolf about to bolt. The entire stage holds a collective breath of horror. And then she blurts—“But you are here.”
A moment of pause, balanced precariously on its edge. Someone lets out a muffled gasp behind the wings, but Taehyung can see Ara owning up to it, straightening her spine and reaching her hand out, palm upturned, for Seojoon. “We’re here. Come with me—I’ll show you.”
In the periphery of Taehyung’s vision Professor Lee is nodding her resigned acceptance in the wings; the crew, the cast letting out their sigh of relief. Seojoon is ever so slowly reaching out to take Ara’s hand. But Taehyung isn’t looking. He’s scanning the audience, the rows and rows of silhouettes, searching for what he already knows is there, like the certainty of stars in the sky. Namjoon leant forward with his chin propped up on steepled fingers and Seokjin sitting straight-backed in his seat and Hoseok tapping a restless rhythm on his armrest until Yoongi’s gentle hand comes down to quiet him and Jeongguk holding the bouquet of flowers laid out on his lap and Jimin, who’s doing more than just watching him—Jimin, who’s already looking back at him.
Are you in love or aren’t you, Taehyung thinks, as the audience breaks into applause, like a burst of fireworks welcoming him home.
After the show it’s Jimin who finds him first, thrusting both the bouquet and himself into Taehyung’s arms with enough force to almost bowl him over. “You were amazing,” he says, as Taehyung struggles to keep them both upright.
“I had like five lines,” Taehyung says into Jimin’s hair.
“Yeah, and then you died! It was so tragic. I swear Jeonggukie was gonna start crying.”
“I was not!” Jeongguk says. Taehyung laughs at the look of horror on his face. They’re making a scene, Taehyung’s sure, the lot of them too loud for the respectable venue. Good. Let them look.
They take pictures. So many pictures. They start out somewhat professional, Taehyung in the center holding his bouquet in one hand and his phone in the other, but then he insists on a funny-faced version, which turns into a funny pose version, which turns into Hoseok instantly launching into dance and Seokjin blowing flying kisses at the camera, which Taehyung can barely keep his hold on as he leaps onto a yelping Jimin’s back, all while Jeongguk’s trying to lift up a wildly struggling Yoongi in the background and Namjoon stands in the middle of it all looking like he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t know any of them.
“I’m gonna drop you,” Jimin yells over Yoongi’s swearing and Hoseok’s car noises.
“Say cheese,” Taehyung yells back. Presses the shutter and holds on for dear life.
In the aftermath of the fall the bouquet’s coming apart and Taehyung sheds a trail of flower petals everywhere he goes. Outside, the night is cold enough to see breath, so he blows streams of it into the air, clouds of silver rising and swallowed up by the sky.
“Look, the moon,” Namjoon says, and Taehyung follows the point of his finger, tips his head backward, squints up. But he gets a little distracted when Jimin rubs his hands together, then seems to think better of it and sticks them into Taehyung’s pockets instead, wrapping him up from behind in a backhug.
“Where next,” Hoseok says, and there’s a moment of pause, interrupted only by the loud rumble of Jeongguk’s stomach.
“Well, that answers that question,” Yoongi says. He’s got a flower petal in his hair and Taehyung sure isn’t gonna tell him. Everyone else sniggers at the furious bloom of red on Jeongguk’s cheeks, and conversation predictably lapses into argument over what to eat, as Taehyung surreptitiously sneaks his hands into his pockets to join Jimin’s own, and curls their fingers together.
“I’m telling you, you have to try this new BBQ place I found over in Hapjeong,” Seokjin’s saying, and then, turning to Taehyung, “hey, bigshot actor, are you even paying attention?”
In his pockets, Jimin squeezes his hand. “Yeah,” Taehyung says, struggling to keep a straight face. “Yeah, I really am.”
Seokjin squints at him suspiciously, but lets him off easy. Taehyung beams bright as the streetlights over their heads. Around them, the crowds are beginning to grow, the night still young ahead of them. They’re nearing the entrance to the subway station when Jimin peels himself away from Taehyung. Taehyung pouts. Jimin shuts him up with a quick kiss, and they giggle, like they’ve gotten away with something.
“Race you to the train?” Taehyung says, waggling his eyebrows.
“Really? With all these people around?” Jimin says, wrinkling his nose. “And the escalators, you’ll probably fall down on your face. And—hey, wait a minute,” he says, leaning in closer. Lights like stars in his eyes. “You’ve got something on your face.”
“Yeah?” Taehyung says, breathless. He can’t look away. “Where?”
“Hmm,” says Jimin, getting closer and closer, until his lips are almost brushing Taehyung’s own. “Right… here.” And just when he’s about to close the distance, he suddenly breaks away, off and running into the subway station, laughing, leaving Taehyung standing there in indignation.
“You giant cheater,” Taehyung shouts, but he’s already moving to follow, to take off after him, chase him down and out of the light.