Work Text:
The fourth time Yoongi trips over the edge of his own bed frame, he knows he needs glasses. It’s not that he’s been avoiding it, per se, just...not having the time to go to the optometrist, is all. And have them blow air in his eyes and probe at his pupils. Namjoon thinks Yoongi is scared of the eye doctor. Yoongi thinks Namjoon is an idiot.
“I will literally set up your appointment for you,” Namjoon says one morning through a mouthful of cheerios, and Yoongi gags at the fact that Namjoon is a grown adult in college and still talks with his mouth almost all the way full. Seokjin walks into the kitchen and voices this, smacking Namjoon lightly on the side of his head for having bad table manners. Yoongi loves his roommates, loves that he was blessed enough to get a triple with two of his closest friends and not with total strangers. But Seokjin is overly clean and uses way too much bleach when he cleans the bathroom, and Namjoon is a pain in his ass sometimes. Like now.
“I don’t need to go to the eye doctor, my eyes are fine. I see fine.” Yoongi grumbles and takes a big swig of his second cup of coffee of the morning, trying not to wince openly at how hot it is as he runs his tongue along the roof of his mouth to get rid of the feeling of the burn. Seokjin speaks up from where his head is inside of the refrigerator.
“You almost broke our lamp the other day because you thought Namjoon’s bracelet on the side table was a big spider.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “The room was dark , and I was literally half asleep. It was an honest mistake.” he pauses. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”
“I’m on the side that’s right , Yoongi. Unfortunately for both of us, that’s Namjoon’s side.” Seokjin closes the fridge after pulling out a pitcher of thick green liquid that he pours into a glass.
“Whatever. I don’t care. I’m not going.” Yoongi knows he’s being petulant. Namjoon sighs and puts his bowl in the sink, grabbing his bag.
“As much as I would love to stay here and argue with you for being a baby--”
“I am not being-- ”
“--I’m gonna be late for class, so. Bye.” Namjoon starts out the door and closes it behind him. Seokjin faces Yoongi and holds up his hand.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“You cannot be fucking serious.” Yoongi rolls his eyes again. At this rate, they’ll get stuck up inside his fucking head. He grabs his backpack and laptop and turns back to Seokjin. “Four. Now leave me alone.” Yoongi gets his hand on the doorknob before he hears Seokjin say,
“It was two. You really do need glasses.”
*
It gets worse in class.
It would have been fine, if someone didn’t take his fucking seat in the third row of the lecture hall. It’s still relatively early in the year, that’s why the person didn’t know, Yoongi muses. That’s it. When he finishes signing in he turns around and heads for his seat, just to find a girl sitting there. He doesn’t want to tell her to get up, because that would be rude. But as much as he hates to admit it, Yoongi actually cannot see. He sighs and goes up to the seventh row instead, people sitting below him blurring into indistinct shapes in front of his eyes. He hates when Namjoon is right. It’s like a deep stab wound to his dignity and self esteem to admit that Namjoon is correct about anything. Yoongi sits quietly and does his best to magically adjust his eyes to see the screen in front of him before the professor actually starts presenting. Jeongguk slides into the seat next to him as he does every Tuesday and Thursday morning, a granola bar between his teeth and textbook in his hands.
“Why are you sitting up here? You never sit this far up. I almost sat next to a stranger because I was expecting you to be down there.” The younger asks, taking a bite out of his granola bar which leaves basically half of the bar left.
“That girl is in my seat, so.” Yoongi mumbles and pulls out his laptop.
“But...you can’t see. How are you gonna take notes?”
“I can see,” Yoongi almost snaps. He remembers how sensitive Jeongguk is though, (as much as the younger doesn’t want to admit to that) and calms his tone down before he makes Jeongguk start pouting. “I can see fine. I don’t need to move up, it’s fine.” Yoongi spares a glance at Jeongguk and he can tell that the younger thinks he’s full of shit, but he doesn’t say anything, just shrugs.
“If you say so. You can copy my notes if you need to, though.”
Thirty minutes into the seventy-five minute lecture, Yoongi gives up. He types on his laptop here and there the words he can make out from his seat, trying not to squint too hard before someone catches him and thinks something is wrong with him. He also tries to steal a few peeks at Jeongguk’s notebook, but truthfully his handwriting really fucking sucks, and Yoongi can’t understand why Jeongguk doesn’t just type his notes like a normal college student. He ends up with only a page of notes on a 50 slide long chapter and sighs as the clock marks the time of the end of class.
“You know,” Jeongguk starts, and Yoongi has the feeling he’s about to say something stupid. “There’s an eye doctor on campus in the health center. The med students volunteer to do eye exams and stuff, just go get one.”
Yoongi was right.
“You want me to go get an exam from someone who doesn’t even have their degree yet?” Yoongi deadpans.
“Grad students work in there too.”
“Jeongguk it’s fine. I don’t need glasses. Next class I’ll just get here early so that I can get my seat back and I won’t have to suffer anymore.” Yoongi shoulders his backpack and the two of them walk out of the lecture hall and onto their next class upstairs. They approach the elevators and wait for the doors to open to take them up to the fourth floor. Jeongguk turns to Yoongi and stares for a minute, big eyes twinkling and Yoongi wrinkles his brows. “What the fuck are you staring at?”
“Can you see me clearly? Do I look blurry to you?”
“You look stupid, but that’s nothing really out of the ordinary.” Yoongi takes a step forward once he hears the elevator ding, and before he looks straight ahead again his head comes in hard contact with the cold elevator door just before it slides open. Jeongguk is next to him laughing loudly, clutching his stomach before covering his mouth. Yoongi puts a hand to his head before stepping inside of the elevator.
“You really do need glasses.”
“It’s because I wasn’t paying attention, asshole, not because I can’t see.” Jeongguk shrugs and presses the 4 on the panel.
“I saw the door.”
Yoongi wants to throttle him.
*
By the end of the day, Yoongi decides that maybe ( maybe ) it’s time to give up his pride and suck it up, and go to the campus health center. The final straw was his studio professor projecting slides on the wall that he absolutely could not see, and therefore couldn’t answer any of her questions. His last class ends at two in the afternoon for the day, so he forgoes lunch with Namjoon in favor of making a walk in eye appointment.
He pushes through the doors of the health center and into the lobby, and steps up to the receptionist’s desk. The boy sitting there is probably a year under Yoongi, and looks vaguely familiar, like he’s seen him around the arts building more than a few times. His blonde hair sits perfectly styled on his head, and he’s typing something onto the desktop computer while sorting papers. Maybe Yoongi shouldn’t interrupt him. Maybe he should call Namjoon and go out--
“Can I help you?” a soft voice asks, causing Yoongi to look up at the boy behind the desk. He has an expectant look in his big eyes, and Yoongi recognizes him now. Park Jimin, aka the guy Jeongguk has been enamored with since the second week of school but has never actually spoken to.
“Uh, yeah. Hey, Jimin,” Yoongi says. Jimin looks a little surprised and a little pleased at the fact that Yoongi knows who he is. “I didn’t know you worked in here.”
“Yeah, it’s my work study,” Jimin sighs and rests his chin in his palms with a small smile and sparkling eyes, and Yoongi can see why Jeongguk is so infatuated with this kid. “How can I help you?”
“I need to see an eye doctor. For an eye exam.” Yoongi pauses. “For my eyes.”
Jimin tilts his head with a bigger smile playing at his lips, almost like he’s trying to hold in a laugh. “Okay. The schedule is cleared this afternoon, so I can just pencil you in right now and have you in right away. Can you just wait like, ten minutes maybe?” Yoongi nods as Jimin types away at the computer, and goes to sit down in the small waiting area. He messes with his phone for a while before being called inside, and reluctantly, walks in. Jimin guides him to a room where he sits in front of a few charts and a machine on a desk, and tells Yoongi to sit in front of it.
“Are you gonna do this?” Yoongi asks, a little stupidly and Jimin really does laugh this time, a bright sound.
“Nah, I just get you ready for it. I’m getting a design degree just like you, Yoongi.” Jimin can tell Yoongi is a little nervous probably, and gives another smile. “This won’t be bad. My best friends do most of these exams, and they’re really good at what they do.” With that he leaves, and Yoongi doesn’t have to wait long before the door opens back up and a tall boy steps in wearing a long white lab coat and a pair of classy black frames poised on his nose. He looks up at Yoongi from a clipboard and gives a beaming smile, and is everyone who works at the campus health center bright and cute?
“My name is Taehyung,” the boy says and takes a seat across the table from Yoongi and starts fiddling with the eye machine on the table top. “And you’re Min Yoongi.” Taehyung pauses to write something down on his clipboard. “Interior design junior.” Yoongi is almost too enamored with how pretty Taehyung’s hands are, he almost doesn’t catch that.
“How do you know that?”
Taehyung cracks a smile before standing up and turning on the projector and turning off all the overhead lighting. “I’m a sophomore in interior design. I see you around here and there, and your work is hanging up on all the walls in the studio rooms. You’re amazing by the way.”
Yoongi is slightly taken aback by that statement. Sure he’s heard that he’s talented, plenty of times by his professors and by a few freshmen, but for some reason he feels a little more pleased at hearing it come out of Taehyung’s mouth. “Oh. Thanks.”
Taehyung nods. “Ready for the exam?” Yoongi lets out a breath and runs his clammy palms over the fabric of his jeans and nods. “It’s alright. I’m just gonna run a couple tests on you before you actually go in for the actual exam.”
“You mean there’s more to this?”
Taehyung laughs this time, big and a little loud but Yoongi doesn’t mind, and nods again. “Trust me, you’ll be perfectly fine.”
As it turns out, Taehyung was actually right. Yoongi doesn’t feel as nervous going through his tests and his eye exam, given to him by a guy in his year named Hoseok who’s majoring in graphic design. Yoongi has to stop to ask, “does everyone in the design building do work study as doctor jobs?”
Hoseok laughs a little before switching out a lens in the eye machine for another one before signaling Yoongi to look through it. Yoongi decides that yes, everyone who works in the health center is bright and cute. “I feel like it’s because we’re all getting bachelor’s in science they want us to work scientific jobs. My dad is an optometrist though, and I always used to make him bring me to his job when I was little. Eye charts got me interested in typography.”
Hoseok is interesting, and Yoongi thinks he’s cool and that they should really hang out outside of Hoseok analyzing Yoongi’s corneas. When Yoongi finishes his exam, Hoseok writes down his prescription on a slip of paper. “It’s really good you came when you did, because no offense dude, but you’re eyes are really terrible.” Yoongi has to take it to Taehyung and then to Jimin to get it authorized, and then he can go. Thank God.
(“We can’t give out frames here since we’re just a small office, so you need to take that to a legit eye doctor to get frames. The university is too cheap to pay for that.”)
Yoongi makes his way back to the front lobby where Jimin is sitting at his desk still, Taehyung perched on the desk beside Jimin’s computer. They’re talking in low voices and laughs and when Yoongi approaches they both quiet immediately, but Jimin wears a knowing grin and a sparkling look in his eyes.
“All done? Wasn’t bad, right?” Jimin said and starts typing away at the keyboard before he scribbles something on Yoongi’s paper.
“Yeah, it was okay. Hopefully won’t ever have to happen again, though.” Yoongi grumbles and Jimin laughs.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure Taehyung will take good care of you next time you come,” Jimin says without looking up from what he’s writing, but Yoongi can see he’s trying not to smirk and when he looks over at Taehyung, he looks like he wants to kill Jimin. Yoongi clears his throat slightly and Jimin hands the paper back to him with a big smile, eyes crinkling at the corners and cheeks beaming. “Tae just needs to stamp this for you and you’re all set!”
Taehyung gets up from Jimin’s desk and gives Yoongi a small smile and a nod in the direction of the door, the two of them walking back into a small office which might be Taehyung’s, or just a general office space. Taehyung takes a big red stamp and plops it onto Yoongi’s prescription slip, signing off on the bottom, and hands it gingerly to him.
“Hope the exam wasn’t too bad. Hoseok is a little weird.”
Yoongi cracks a smile. “It was fine. Thanks for all the reassurance and stuff.” They meet eyes and Taehyung has a look in his eyes that Yoongi can’t place, it almost seems like interest, and a little bit hopeful.
*
It’s between a few more awkwardly stuttered sentences and soft looks that finally ends up with them getting here. Here being an empty dimly lit exam room, Yoongi’s back pressed against the wall and hands clutching at Taehyung’s shoulders tightly as the younger stands slightly bent over him, tongues gliding softly and languidly against each other’s. Taehyung pulls away a little bit and Yoongi feels himself chase the feeling of Taehyung’s soft lips, before blinking his eyes open. Taehyung has a worried expression on his face.
“Is this weird?”
Yoongi snorts. “I think this is the best thing to happen to me all day,” and when he says it, he realizes that he actually means it. It must be enough for Taehyung, if the way he surges back in to capture Yoongi’s lips again is anything to go by.
Yoongi leaves fifteen minutes later with kiss swollen lips and Taehyung’s number newly added into his contacts. He runs a hand through his hair before walking past the lobby again to exit the building, and Jimin laughs at him as he passes by. “That was an awful long time for one stamp and signature.”
“Okay, bye Jimin.”
He hears the younger’s twinkling laughter ring out after him as he exits the building and checks his phone. There’s a text from Namjoon,
hey, waited for u. still wanna grab lunch?
Yoongi replies.
sounds good. where should i meet you
outside the dorms. how was the eye exam?
Yoongi smiles a little bit and his mind brings up an image of Taehyung’s pink mouth and how it stretched into a big smile when Yoongi had suggested they do this again sometime soon, and he replies:
i have a story to tell you. see you in ten.