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yoongi has always been the new kid, used to moving often and not looking to make any friends. at this new school, as well, he's already decided not to bother getting to know anyone. he'd be gone soon anyway, so it'd be pointless. he'll just sit at his desk, do his work, and not talk to anyone. and when all else failed, he'd stick his headphones in and pray that it was enough of a hint to tell anyone with any funny ideas to fuck off.
except for how even that doesn't seem to be working, at the moment; mealtimes are usually a big fucking to-do no matter where you go, especially during high school. but it already looked as though this place was going for the goddamn championship title on that one, because no matter where he tried to escape to - not only other classrooms, but also all the other designated eating areas he could find on this damn campus - everywhere was loud as shit. and since no one knew how to use their fucking inside voices, apparently, yoongi was left with no other choice but to give in and just try finding the roof access during lunch.
day one, and he was already back on this avoidant bullshit.
but really, it wasn't such a big deal. escaping to a balcony or rooftop was something he's gotten used to doing, as it was often the only place he had ever been able to find even a small moment of solitude at any of his old schools as well.
except that when he finally gets up there, after climbing all those hundreds of stairs, he finds that something is blocking the door. and usually even this wouldn't be too much of a hassle, the last straw or whatever, but yoongi's been feeling suffocated all goddamn week - with the move and now another new school - and he just needs to get some fresh air. alone. so when needs must; there's a large white sheet draped over what looks like an oddly shaped pile of detritus, so yoongi goes ahead and rips that off straight away to see what he's actually working with here, how much he'll have to move in order to get to the door. but when he does, it isn't a pile of desks or chairs waiting for him.
it's a person. passed the fuck out, by the looks of it, and laying across what appeared to be… an old filing cabinet, tipped over onto its side. well shit. yoongi couldn't very well move an entire person --
or could he?
no. don't even think about it, dipshit, yoongi scolds himself, slightly incredulous. what is wrong with you, holy fuck.
he huffs out an annoyed breath. fighting the compulsion to kick a wall - or this inconvenient person - yoongi resigns himself to just finding a deserted restroom where he could wait out the rest of the lunch hour. and he turns away to go do just that, when something stops him. yoongi looks down, and finds long fingers locked around his wrist.
"you finally... came for me?" the voice is deep, rough with sleep. but also somehow. sweet.
the person who yoongi had discovered sleeping under that large white sheet was now slowly blinking awake, shifting their grip on his hand to interlock their fingers. and now that he was really properly looking, he hates that the first thing he notices is how pretty this fucking guy is. like what the hell was going on with him today, honestly. learn to keep your gay in check, min yoongi, especially around the vaguely questionable guys you met in empty school corridors.
and he kinda wants to ask this guy what the fuck his deal is, but he never gets the chance. because just as soon as yoongi's opening his mouth, he's being tugged closer by the hand still laced with his.
"uuuuum... who are you?" the guy asks - now fully lucid, it seemed - his eyebrows furrowed suspiciously. "and why are you holding my hand?"
yoongi just stares back at him indignantly, because who the fuck, and is thisclose to succumbing to his building stress and just telling this guy off, cute or not. but then a rumble of laughing voices come up the stairs behind him, a voice calling out:
"ahh, if it isn't seokjin-sshi," some asshole sneers from the front of a small group of boys that looked about yoongi's age. he was obviously their de facto leader, chest puffed up ridiculously. "heard you been looking for this?"
the guy holds up a set of keys and yoongi's pulse jolts. "are those --"
"so you lot are the key thieves, huh? i should have known," the pretty, sleepy guy has stood up by now, and yoongi is annoyed to note how tall he is, how fucking broad his goddamn shoulders are. excessive. the guy, seokjin, continues addressing the leader, a smirk curling his full lips. "you know jealousy isn't a good look on anyone, right. even for someone as beautiful as me," the smirk shifts, then, just slightly meaner. sharper. "which means you most definitely shouldn't let it get to you."
the entire group immediately starts muttering in protest, but the leader stays silent, just glaring back at this seokjin person. he must see something there that he doesn't want to engage with, though, because he doesn't rise to the very pointed bait.
"whatever," he grumbles after a tense moment. walking right past yoongi and seokjin, he kicks aside the old filing cabinet and moves to unlock the door. "not worth even getting into it with you."
his posse smugly follows him out onto the rooftop, and once they've all disappeared through the open doors, yoongi lets himself deflate, disappointed. "well fuck."
"you really wanted to get out there that badly?"
when yoongi looks over, seokjin is standing a bit closer than he remembered, once again staring back at him with a furrowed brow. not so much confused this time, as maybe. intrigued.
yoongi sighs hard through his nose. "yeah, but those asswipes have the key, so --"
"right," seokjin says, cutting him off. "wait here."
then he turns on his heel and walks out onto the roof. it leaves yoongi kinda frozen for a few seconds, struck dumb by the utter weirdness of this fucking guy. but then he hears grunts and dull thuds coming from outside, and his body is suddenly in motion again, running over to see just what the hell was going on.
he gets to the door just in time to see seokjin punch that guy from earlier right in the goddamn nose. "holy shit," yoongi whispers under his breath, impressed despite himself.
which is, of course, when the other douchebags in the group decide to start circling like shitty little piranhas. and even though yoongi can tell that this seokjin dude is more than capable of taking care of his damn self, that was still like -- five against one, which. not the best odds.
with another resigned sigh, yoongi pushes off the doorframe and steps out onto the rooftop himself; he hasn't been at this school more than a few hours and already he was fixing to get himself wrapped up in trouble. normally, he wouldn't bother. normally, it'd be way too much of a hassle. more so, even, then climbing up all those motherfucking stairs had been. but see, the thing of it was - yoongi hadn't been in a proper, throw-down fight in a good couple of months and the itch under his skin was practically screaming at him to jump into the fray.
and if it would help him get the damn roof key by the end of it, well. that would make the trouble worth it, right?
right.
---
they wait until the last guy has run back through the doorway into the building, limping slightly and whining through his clenched jaw. and then, once the roof is abandoned besides just the two of them, yoongi and seokjin collapse down onto the warm asphalt. they fall almost directly next to one another, their chests heaving with laboured breath.
yoongi drops his head to one side so he can look over at seokjin, finds that he's already looking over at him as well. this seokjin guy is smiling, teeth tinged the slightest bit pink from a cut at the corner of his beautiful mouth, the open expression pulling at a small gash along his beautiful cheekbone. one of the guys from before had been wearing these big, ugly rings and yoongi brings a hand up to his own eyebrow where the asshole had slugged him, is unsurprised when it comes away wet with blood. yoongi sighs, mentally exhausted if nothing else.
"so," seokjin begins, steal yoongi's attention away from assessing the damage to his person. "this is what you wanted, right?"
he's holding the goddamn keys to the roof access, swaying softly from a crooked finger in the air between them. yoongi reaches out to grab them from him, no hesitation, when a voice shouts at them from the doorway: "kim seokjin, what the actual fuck?"
and that's how yoongi meets hoseok.
---
hoseok immediately drags them to the infirmary to get patched up, after that, and it's on the way there that yoongi is told that hoseok had actually been out looking for him in the first place. but then hoseok had walked past a group of students who had been beaten bloody and his feet had changed course without a second thought, knew that he had to track down his goddamn delinquent friend.
"and then who should i find, but you - min yoongi - the exact person i was supposed to be showing around the school at the exact moment. what a coincidence!"
hoseok tells him that originally, it was actually someone named namjoon who was meant to do the whole tour thing, but -- "he's president of the student council, so he got held up doing... i don't really know what, to be honest. council things, i'm sure."
yoongi likes him, this hoseok character. he's bright and smiley and seems to ease the tightness in yoongi's chest. a nice person to be around.
but just as yoongi is about to ask him more about himself, hoseok catches sight of the clock on the infirmary wall. "oh shit, is that the right time? i was gonna surprise joonie with lunch," he pauses dramatically, arm still poised in the air where he'd been dabbing at yoongi's split eyebrow with a disinfectant wipe. "you guys have got this under control, right? i can trust you to behave until the nurse returns from her break?"
when yoongi and seokjin only nod back a bit dazedly still, hoseok jumps up out of his seat and makes for the door. before he can disappear beyond it, however, he spins back around and points a threatening finger at seokjin.
"and i had better see you in class, hyung. you know it makes joon-ah sad, and you know i hate to see him sad. i won't forgive you."
"yeah, yeah," seokjin waves him away, wincing slightly when his crooked grin smarts at his lip. "go on, get out of here."
hoseok apparently doesn't need to hear much more than that, because he's gone in an instant. leaving yoongi and seokjin in the infirmary, alone.
which would have been fine, maybe - if their uniform shirts hadn't gotten so bloodied and gross from the fight, that hoseok had forced them to stop by the classroom to grab their p.e. clothes before bringing them anywhere else, just to make sure they had something to change into. and maybe even that would have been fine - if seokjin hadn't then decided to completely forgo wearing a top altogether and was now just walking around the room shirtless, casual, as if he didn't have the most ridiculous body of any teenager yoongi had ever met. and even then, even then, maybe yoongi would have been fine - if seokjin hadn't eventually brought his naked torso over to help yoongi clean up. if he hadn't gotten all up in yoongi's personal space, disinfecting and patching over all of yoongi's cuts and scrapes with steady, capable hands.
but all of those things did actually happen. so maybe yoongi wants to die, a little bit, even though he's determined not to let it show.
---
yoongi ends up stuck getting tasked to clean up duty after school, since he wasn't part of any clubs yet. on his first day at a new school, incredible. but it's whatever, because at least hoseok and his sunny smile were also still here. which was more than motivation enough, yoongi thinks.
they get to talking as they work, the topic quickly shifting towards their hobbies, and hoseok nearly shrieks when he finds out that yoongi plays the piano. "do you really?!"
"yeah, but like i was saying, the place where i'm living right now doesn't have a piano, so i haven't gotten to play in a while and --"
"oh!" hoseok exclaims, suddenly. "joonie has a piano! or, well. his family does, at their record shop. and i'm pretty sure namjoon-ah's working tonight, so he'll definitely let you have a go at it. even if for no other reason than because, as my boyfriend, he lives to please me."
yoongi's excitement at potentially being allowed to touch a piano again is dampened slightly at finding out that hoseok was apparently already seeing someone; not that yoongi would have ever initiated something, not when he didn't even know how long he'd be staying in this goddamn town. but still, it had been nice to dream, even for a little while. oh well.
after they finish their tasks, hoseok wastes no time in dragging him through the school doors and straight to the kim's record store. where sure enough, kim namjoon is indeed working. hoseok immediately runs across the store the second they step inside and practically jettisons himself across the back counter to wrap his arms around namjoon's neck, planting a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek.
"miss me?" he asks, eyebrows waggling. namjoon gently pries him off, guiding him around the counter to pull hoseok properly into his lap.
"terribly," he drawls. namjoon's voice is plain, but his eyes are undeniably, unbearably fond. it's gross. yoongi can sympathize. just then, namjoon looks up and notices him. "oh, who's this?"
hoseok introduces them and asks about the piano. namjoon is reluctant at first, claiming something about how his parents were wary of lending out their instruments to strangers, and then sending an apologetic glance in yoongi's direction. hoseok immediately begins to argue in his defense, pouting at namjoon and finally, mentioning that yoongi was practically already one of them. he's even friendly with seokjin-hyung! hoseok stresses, oddly enough. and yoongi wants to deny that, opens his mouth to explain the situation, but namjoon gets to it first.
"wait, really? he's actually friends with seokjin-hyung?" namjoon looks over at yoongi, his eyes sharpened appraisingly. "huh."
"exactly!" hoseok says, pulling yoongi away toward a door just off the counter. "so i'm just gonna go ahead and get him acquainted with the piano, okay? see you later, love."
and just like that, yoongi finds himself being thrust down a flight of stairs. all forward movement is completely out of his control, hoseok making small delighted noises as he followed close at his heels down the steps. yoongi barely needs to fully turn the corner once he reaches the bottom, however, before he sees it; the kims have obviously cared for the old upright piano, as it almost seemed to gleam at him in the hazy basement lighting. that could also, of course, have just been his excitement playing tricks with his eyes, but yoongi wasn't inclined to think so. doesn't stop him from reaching out to touch, in any case.
"and just what are you doing here?" a voice asks. when yoongi glances over, deeper into the basement, he sees that guy from before. seokjin. he's sitting behind a drum set, posture rigid and face annoyed. yoongi can relate, as he was feeling much the same at the moment. seokjin turns his frown on hoseok. "what's he doing here, hoseokie-ah? you know ahjussi doesn't like outsiders down here."
he sounds defensive, protective, like he might step out from behind his drums at any moment and bare his teeth at yoongi to scare him away. and it's a bit of a shock, after having experienced seokjin's lighter, much more carefree demeanor at school only a short while ago. but yoongi can't say he doesn't understand, honestly, even if it's only on the surface. so he's more than happy to heed seokjin's clear warning, has already begun to (regretfully) step away from the piano and back toward the stairs, when hoseok scoffs next to him.
"oh come off it, hyung. you aren't Keeper of the Piano Keys or whatever, and joon already let us down here, didn't he?" hoseok sighs, and then grins, like flipping a switch. "besides! yoongi knows how to play piano, don't you hyung?"
yoongi realizes that hoseok has shifted to address him, just as seokjin barks out a derisive laugh.
"sure, maybe. he looks like he could be the type. but probably just like, classical music or something. and we only play jazz down here, so --"
"i know jazz," yoongi cuts him off. he doesn't mean to sound indignant, but there was only so much unwarranted presumption he was willing to take before he snapped.
seokjin, however, doesn't seem to be deterred. "ha!" he laughs again, clapping his hands together at what he probably thought was a hilarious joke. "you wouldn't know real jazz if it came over and bit you on your cute little ass. now this -" he pauses, pulling a pair of drumsticks out from where he'd tucked them underneath his upper arm. he twirls them between his fingers and shoots yoongi a sharp grin. "- this is real jazz."
at first, all yoongi hears is noise. a crashing cacophony of sound that seems to assault every single one of his senses. but as seokjin continues to bang away, his music begins to almost... settle, around yoongi. begins to seep into his skin and coat his bones, weighing him down. he feels heavy in the best possible way.
(and that's not even mentioning how - no other way to say it - beautiful seokjin looks while he's playing. strong and focused, and just a little bit wild. yoongi can't look away.)
musically, in the technicalities of it, he was a bit rough. that much is obvious even to an untrained eye, probably. but the passion was definitely there. yoongi can not only hear it in the music, but can also see it in seokjin's every movement. and if there's one thing he knows, it's that jazz is all about passion; in that way, perhaps, seokjin was already a professional. he definitely had passion to spare.
for a single, uncharacteristic moment, yoongi wonders if he'd be willing to share.
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