Chapter Text
How did they meet?
Well, there’s two stories depending on who you ask.
Yoongi would say it’s just a stupid story from a long time ago. They met during final crits in Yoongi’s sophomore and Namjoon’s freshman year of college. Namjoon just happened to plant directly into Yoongi’s studio desk and that was that.
Namjoon would snort at Yoongi’s explanation. He would argue that Yoongi didn’t even cover the half of it, pointing to his Christmas photos where everyone could clearly see the black bruise covering half his face as proof. Yoongi would roll his eyes and argue he totally had it coming to which Namjoon could only indignantly squawk, “It was an accident and I said I was sorry!”
Well, either way, they met in December at the end of the semester during Yoongi’s sophomore and Namjoon’s freshman year. Yoongi was taking Abstraction: The Language of Paint (“PNTG309 with Ngo,” Namjoon unhelpfully supplied). Namjoon’s Aesthetic Philosophy class (“PHIL301 with Choi,”) went to examine (“Read bother,” Yoongi deadpanned) the more advanced studios.
Most of the workspaces were empty; after all, final critics had just finished and there wasn’t anyone in their right mind who wanted to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in that damned building they’d been trapped in for the better part of a month. Namjoon couldn’t really blame them.
Their art department’s classrooms were all painted in the dingiest shade of white administration could possibly find. The walls were dotted with hundreds of tiny holes from constantly pinning projects into the wall for feedback. It didn’t really bother Namjoon though. He liked running his fingers over the ridges and dents on the walls.
Namjoon followed his class into the painting department’s studios. Their school provided all the freshman and sophomores work space in the department, but the juniors and seniors got private work rooms or semi-private studios shared with a few people. The studio they were exploring was the sophomore work space. It was basically a single hall separated into different spaces by tarps. It wasn’t very private, but it helped the professors assess in-progress work.
The first thing that assaulted Namjoon was the scent of turpentine and acrylic plastic. Oil and chemicals. Namjoon didn’t know how any of the painting majors even managed to survive through their degree breathing in this kind of shit, not that he could really judge considering how many hazardous materials were probably lingering around the sculptural department. His eyes stung from the intensity of the fumes, but at this point, Namjoon was somewhat acclimatized to the burn.
The painting department looked like a foreign place for Namjoon. The studio was the same but so different. It was like he was walking into a parallel universe. The space was the same with huge white walls in a room that was big enough to comfortably hold a high school assembly. The spaces were still divided with white, blue, and tan tarps; groups of drafting tables and stools against the walls. There were still blue plastic covers on the floor, but it was so different. Instead of sculpting tools covered in white and gray clay and chipping plaster, there were paint brushes, wooden handles covered in specs of dried blue and pink and green and every color under the sky, dumped in empty buckets on the floor. Every visible surface was stained in a hundred shades and hues of paint. There were canvases stacked in each person’s space with hastily scribbled threats and warnings of touching them. Instead of sculptures, there were wooden easels covered in smatterings of paint built up high.
Namjoon felt like he was looking at the world sideways. Everything was similar but not quite the same.
It wasn’t that Namjoon couldn’t appreciate the artwork, but nothing really stood out. Maybe it’s because they were only looking at beginner abstract work and everything was similar. He felt like he was just looking at copies and fakes of Piet Mondrian’s and Joseph Alber’s works with the occasional Jackson Pollack mixed in.
Then the inevitable happened. His shoe got caught on a blue plastic tarp. He felt himself start to go down, heard the crinkling of the tarp as the masking tape that was holding it down came off, but it was impossible to stop. He tried to catch himself on the only thing nearby which was a huge mistake. His hand landed on a desk and, unfortunately, went through the canvas resting on its surface. He vaguely heard the gasp coming from several students close enough to see the disaster unfold.
Namjoon stared down at the canvas in utter horror. His hand somehow managed to tear through layers and layers of modeling paste and acrylic and even tear through the stretched canvas. It was actually the best one they’d seen too.
Namjoon felt a strange feeling in the corner of his chest as he stared down at the painting. The colors seemed to be pulled out of a different reality. The inkiness of blue seeped in from the edges and mixed together with the dullness of gray until you couldn’t tell where one color ended and the other began. Different shades of orange and red bloomed together and apart, outward in pools and ripples and Namjoon’s breath caught in his throat as the light caught on streaks of gold and reflected in his eyes. White lines tugged his eyes through the piece. There was something, something he couldn’t quite place but it made something in Namjoon flutter. It was strange. It felt incomplete, like it was missing something, but still it was beautiful. Namjoon’s heart dropped when he saw his fist running right through the middle, tearing right through red and gold.
Fuck. What if he ruined a piece for the final show?
One of his classmates standing beside him stepped closer to get a look at the carnage. “Fucking hell,” the guy told him wide eyed, “That’s fucking Min Yoongi’s work. The guy’s going to kill you.”
“Is he really scary?” Namjoon gulped. He would be afraid of anyone after he destroyed their project, but this guy just had to have some kind of reputation too.
“I’d run if I were you, man.”
The warning wasn’t helpful at all though since the man himself showed up just a second later.
“What the actual fuck, dude!” Yoongi shouted at him. Yoongi in sophomore year didn’t look all that different from Yoongi now. He still wore washed-out jeans with holes at the knees, not because it was fashionable, but because he was too lazy to buy new ones even after he wore down the denim to tatters. He still had specs and strokes of paint on every single article of clothing he owned, still wore Birkenstocks with socks dyed gray by charcoal that wouldn’t ever come out. He still had brushes of paint all over his fingers, in the crevices between his joints, over his collarbones and behind his neck. The only notable difference was his hair colors were a bit more muted these days, but that had more to do with how much damage his hair was taking than anything.
Anyway, Yoongi didn’t look all that conventionally scary (he had kind of reminded Namjoon of grumpy cat for some reason), but he was ridiculously intimidating. The artist was shorter than Namjoon by several inches, and even though Namjoon was still rather lanky, he didn’t look as thin as Yoongi did. Namjoon was still scared though. Maybe it had to do with his glare, but not even the speckles of orange dotting Yoongi’s cheek and flowing behind his ears could detract from Namjoon’s panic. Namjoon opened his mouth to apologize, but abruptly shut it when his eyes travelled up.
Namjoon had been too distracted by Yoongi’s mint green hair to apologize (“You can’t judge my hair colors, asshole. Your hair was pink.”
“I didn’t say it looked bad! Just distracting!”).
Now Namjoon was no stranger to weird hair colors. He had kept his hair dyed since freshman or sophomore year of high school, but there was something so weird about seeing someone pull off green hair that Namjoon lost his train of thought. It was throwing Namjoon off. Min Yoongi had a weird aesthetic. He was so contradicting, Namjoon didn’t know what to make of him. Was he soft or was he some kind of asshole (both, Namjoon realized much later).
The shorter kid was somehow slightly more badass than Namjoon even though he dressed like an old man (this was saying something since Namjoon had kind of been going through his “leather jacket and bad boy” phase. Yoongi felt like he needed to add in, “You didn’t look badass, more like an emo, faux deep, art school asshole.”
Namjoon blushed and sputtered, “I’m not faux deep-“
“No, you’re not,” Yoongi acquiesced but then he grinned, “That would’ve been better than the stupid shit you actually think about,”) and had the softest green, fluffy hair he’d ever seen.
Anyway, the boy got closer, and Namjoon got his shit together. He went into a half bow, not meeting Yoongi’s eyes. “Shit! I’m so sor-“
Namjoon wasn’t even able to get a full apology out before Yoongi literally decked him. Namjoon heard the sound of Yoongi’s fist impacting with his face before he felt the pain-his mind had also kind of distantly heard the “Oooohhhh” of some hyper-masculine asshole in the background, but it was hazy. He vaguely registered how cold Yoongi’s hands were before he fell backward. Considering how he’d kind of destroyed Yoongi’s final project, he’d kind of deserved it, but man, it hurt. Yoongi’s scrawny ass was able to seriously pack a punch. Literally.
“Fuck, man,” Namjoon groaned, stumbling back, “That hurt like hell.”
Yoongi stepped away, looking almost relaxed, like he didn’t just give Namjoon a black eye in front of a class of about thirty people and a professor. There wasn’t even a hint of remorse in his voice. It didn’t really sound all that angry either though, more matter-of-fact than anything. “You destroyed my painting, asshole.” He shrugged as if Namjoon had it coming (he totally did).
Namjoon’s cheeks pinked, which looked completely out-of-place compared to the redness of his entire eye. “’M so sorry about that,” Namjoon apologized sheepishly, “I really didn’t mean to.”
Yoongi picked up his canvas, peering at the damage. There was literally a huge, gaping hole in the middle of his 20-by-20 canvas. The piece of torn canvas fluttered back and forth as if mocking Namjoon. “Whatever, I was coming back to trash the shit anyway. It’s pretty terrible,” he said with an impassive shrug.
Namjoon ignored the urge to tell Yoongi that his work wasn’t shitty at all. He didn’t think his input would be appreciated especially considering he’d just kind of killed the piece anyway.
“Then why’d you punch me?” Namjoon gingerly touched his slightly swollen cheek. It stung like a bitch and the entire side of his eye throbbed.
“I don’t know, your whole,” Yoongi gestured vaguely with one hand to Namjoon’s entire being without looking away from the canvas in his other hand, “That kinda just pissed me off.”
Namjoon just gaped, his mouth falling open like a dead fish (“Very attractive,” Yoongi teased while Namjoon just rolled his eyes).
“What the fuck.” Namjoon was too dumbfounded to even be offended by that comment. Ok, he was still kind of offended. What did that even mean?
“If you two are done,” Professor Choi interrupted, “Can we move on?”
Namjoon’s ears turned red as he realized the entire class was watching the exchange, “’m sorry, Professor.”
“Try not to destroy any more projects, Kim Namjoon. And Min Yoongi please refrain from assaulting students no matter how well deserved it may be.” A few students snickered and Namjoon blushed even deeper, looking down at his feet.
Seems Choi was acquainted with Yoongi. Yoongi just tilted his head as if sort of acknowledging the professor’s comment. Choi, knowing he wouldn’t get much more from Yoongi, decided to continue his tour. The class, being either too stoned out of their mind to care or too tired to pay attention, just turned away to trek behind the Professor to the hanging crit wall in the back.
“I’m sorry again, dude,” Namjoon whispered to Yoongi under his breath. “Tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Help? There’s literally a hole straight through the middle of the canvas,” Yoongi told him wryly, “It’s fine. I was literally about to burn the thing anyway.”
“Kim, are you coming?” his professor called from a few drafting tables down. He raised his eyebrow at the two. Namjoon yelped, bowing his head a bit, and running after the class. He looked back a moment later and Min Yoongi was gone.
---
The next time they met, Namjoon watched Yoongi paint someone black and white. And, no, it wasn’t like that.
For someone who Namjoon had never heard of before, the name Min Yoongi seemed to haunt him. It’s like everyone knew Yoongi, or, at the least, knew of him.
Namjoon groaned throwing his head unto the table in front of Hoseok’s salad. “If one more person asks me if I destroyed Yoongi’s work, I swear to god.”
Hoseok laughed, “Oh yeah, I heard about that. I can’t believe you’re clumsy enough to destroy someone’s final piece. I wouldn’t be surprised if people banned you from coming within ten feet of their projects.”
“It’s been a fuckin’ month! He already punched me. I had a fuckin’ black eye all of Christmas break. And besides, it was a fuckin’ accident! I tripped!”
“Dude, you literally broke the door to a bathroom stall before, remember.”
Namjoon groaned, “Let me live.”
“Sure, sure,” Hoseok grinned, leaning in closer to Namjoon, “So are you coming to my performance tonight?” Hoseok was a dance major and probably one of the best at the school. He was already participating in a showcase even though he was only a freshman. He was preforming alongside a few upperclassmen, but he had a solo at the end.
“Yeah, of course,” Namjoon stole a leaf from Hoseok’s salad and shoving it into his mouth. “What time again?”
“It’s technically at 7, but I’m leaving in an hour to get my stage makeup done.”
“’Kay, I’ll see you there.” Namjoon distractedly chewed another spinach leaf, kind of dazed. His eyes were transfixed on the tree next to the table. His eyes followed the breaks in the bark and the grains flowing up to the tips of the branches.
“Come with me?”
Namjoon shrugged, returning his attention to Hoseok, “Sure, I don’t have anything else I need to do.”
“Hey, Namjoon,” Jackson called to him from another table, catching the attention of nearly everyone lounging in the courtyard, “Did you really fuck with Yoongi and destroy his final?”
Namjoon groaned and slammed his head into the table while Hoseok cackled.
---
“Hobi, where the fuck are we?”
The two were standing at a ridiculously run-down apartment near the college. The door was gray and covered in miscellaneous gray marks and smudges. The door frame was yellowed out and the edges and corners had been eaten away. The corridor was wide and covered in dry leaves and some scraps of litter. A few paper napkins and the wrapper of a candy bar shifted in the wind. Next to the doors, most of them, there was a pile of random objects like old, yellow-paged books and flattened cardboard boxes, the odd empty box of cigarettes, and broken glass and crappy food in a white trash bag. The entire area stank like rotten food and smoke. There was this weird dampness in the air like the building had never dried after a rainstorm and now mold was infesting the hall.
“I’m pretty sure it’s here.” Hoseok fiddled with his phone making sure this was the right address. He glanced up to check the door number. 404. “Yeah, this is it.”
Namjoon nudged the trash bag with his foot so he could go knock on the door. “You better be right,” Namjoon wrinkled his nose and raised his fist to bang the wooden door.
The two of them stood silently in the hallway, waiting for the door to open. Namjoon glanced around watching a paper napkin dance in the wind. Namjoon’s eyes followed it down the hallway as it blew this way and that down the stretch.
Finally, the door opened and out stepped the last person Namjoon was expecting to see. There stood Min Yoongi in all his sweatpants-clad glory, wearing the most impassive expression Namjoon had ever seen. The shorter was wearing the same gray sweatpants Namjoon probably had lying somewhere on the floor at home and green flannel over a random white t-shirt covered in hundreds of paint specks. The sleeves of his flannel had clearly been dragged through acrylic paint, red and black, and the forearms were smudged with white from running them over chalk or white charcoal. The sleeves fell over his hands and Namjoon found it- dare he say- cute. Yoongi’s hair was still the same washed out green that haunted Namjoon these days.
“You Hoseok?” Yoongi’s voice was as low as ever.
Hoseok nodded, “Are you Agust D, hyung? Taemin sunbaenim recommended you and I saw your work and it was great.”
“Yeah, I’m him. Anyway, come in kid and bring the gaping god-of-destruction with you.”
Namjoon sputtered, following right behind Yoongi into his apartment. He stayed on his heels, “I’m not a god-of-destruction-“
“You’re THE god-of-destruction.” Namjoon stopped in his tracks, incredulous. What? Was that a smile Namjoon was detecting in Yoongi’s voice? Namjoon couldn’t imagine Min Yoongi smiling, at all.
He was broken from his reverie by Hoseok’s distinctive laughter behind him. He spun around to glare at him, but Hoseok just shrugged, beaming at him unapologetically. “You know it’s true.”
“Take a seat,” Yoongi called from somewhere deeper in his apartment. “I’ll be out in a second.”
The apartment was rather dark, at least in the living room, but Namjoon could tell there was light coming from what he assumed was the kitchen. The entry and living room didn’t have any windows and Yoongi didn’t turn on the overhead lights, but there was this yellow glow coming from a lamp in the corner. The entire apartment stank of oils and cigarettes and vaguely like some kind of expensive cologne that didn’t really belong. Namjoon could see enough to understand a bit more of Min Yoongi.
There wasn’t a single painting hung up on the wall, even though there were probably dozens of canvases stacked in the corners. Namjoon didn’t really know what that said about Yoongi or artists in general, because he kind of understood. He’d never displayed his work at home either.
Yoongi’s apartment was small and filled with to the brim. The entire living room was covered in miscellaneous things. There was an old, musty sofa, but it was buried deep under stacks and rolls of canvas, off-white and painted stacked together, lying upside down on the beige cushions. There were sketchpads set leaning against the back of the couch. Namjoon recognized some of the paper, but not much. Strathmore 300 series Bristol, Blick brand Newsprint, a spiral Canson pad, and probably more than a dozen sheets of arches watercolor. They were all different sizes too. Eleven by seventeen inches, nineteen by twenty-five inches, a few black eight-by-ten pads stacked on a random cardboard box and three spiral nine-by-twelve Strathmore sketch pads opened to different pages resting on the coffee table.
The coffee table was covered in plastic cups filled with muddy water in shades of browns and grays. Paintbrushes with the metal ferrules covered in layers of acrylic paint and handles with the blue and red plastic coating chipping away lay on crumbled paper towels. There were copic markers and conte crayons laying around. Tubes of paint were scattered around and on the table. Namjoon could see they were all capped though thankfully. A metal gallon tin of turpentine rested at the foot of the table along with a pile of yellow stained paper towels. There was a tin of blue drawing pencils worked down to the stubs between the couch and the sofa, but half the pencils were missing scattered around the carpeted floor. Namjoon noticed a translucent sheet of pallet paper with the residue of sticky, half-dried acrylic and metal pallet knife stuck to the sheet by the last of some reddish-brown, dried up acrylic.
The metal artist’s boxes and make up boxes and a tin box of prismacolor pencils were stacked on the side table against the other wall, but before he got to examine them Yoongi came back, carrying a fresh cup of water and a few large paint brushes in his between his fingers on the same hand. His other hand clumsily dragged a chair into the living room and he set it in the only empty area near the wall next to the door.
“Take a seat, God-of-Destruction. This is gonna take a while.” Yoongi called. Yoongi began ruffling through a box near the far wall. It was one of the large black boxes that Namjoon recognized as the kind makeup artists used, but when Yoongi dragged it over to the chair, Namjoon saw it was filled with jars and cakes of paint and miscellaneous things like sequins and feathers.
“M’ name’s Namjoon.”
“Good for you,” Yoongi said, not bothering to look up, “Hoseok, I need to see a video of your performance.”
Hoseok nodded, “Yeah, Taemin sunbaenim told me.”
“Why do you need to see a video?” Namjoon asked.
Yoongi fumbled around with his supplies a bit more, before standing up and pinning Namjoon in a stare. Namjoon heard Yoongi calling him idiot in his mind without Yoongi ever needing to actually say it. “How’m I supposed to paint him without knowing how his performance feels.”
“Here it is, hyung,” Hoseok cut off the oncoming comment from Namjoon, pinning him in a glare that told him to behave, while he handed Yoongi his phone. Do not fight him.
“Hmm,” Yoongi hummed in approval when he saw Hoseok’s body move to the music. “So you’re definitely a different from Taemin and Kai. I don’t think that style fits for your dancing much, not that I know anything about dancing.”
“They’re both trained classically and I’m more street.”
“Mmm,” Yoongi agreed, eyes trained on the video. “It’s intense. The whole thing is about being,” Yoongi paused, taking a breath that sounded a bit like slurping while searching for the right word, ”I dunno, destroyed, impure, basically tainted by something?”
“Yeah,” Hoseok blushed and ran fingers through his brown hair, “It’s about a love that’s kind of sweet on the outside but when you get further, you realize how bad it really is but at that point you can’t stop.”
Yoongi raised an eyebrow at Hoseok’s explanation but didn’t ask him anything else. “Take off your clothes and take a seat.” He passed him his phone and went into the kitchen. There was some minor banging around but Namjoon couldn’t see what was happening as he stood near the sofa awkwardly. “You brought your costume or whatever?” Yoongi called from the kitchen.
“Yeah, Hyung!” Hoseok shouted back as he stripped off his pants. He awkwardly stood near the chair in a pair of boxers holding his clothes. Namjoon shared a look with Hoseok. Why the fuck was he here?
Yoongi came back a moment later carrying or struggling to carry over a tub. It’s one of those clear plastic tubs with the white lids that Namjoon remembers his mom using to store things like Christmas decorations and old paperwork in their garage a long time ago. The kind you can get at Target for like five bucks so you can shove stuff in it and never take it out again.
He finally managed to drag the tub over to Hoseok and gave Hoseok a once over. Yoongi looked at Hoseok like he was being an idiot and Namjoon for the life of him couldn’t understand why, “When I said strip, I meant everything, kid.” Hoseok blushed as he realized what that implied.
Yoongi didn’t look at him though and just tore off the lid to the tub with a creak. There were so many gallon Ziploc bags in the tub Namjoon couldn’t even tell what was in all of them. He just saw colors and overfilled bags, some with holes poked into them. There were hundreds of different feathers and sequins and fabric and yarn and fake flowers, broken mirror shards, sheets of gold foil, and just. Jesus Christ, was Min Yoongi a hoarder? Cause honestly, Namjoon hadn’t seen this much random crap together since he went through his old room back home when he moved out.
Yoongi shuffled through the bags, haphazardly tossing things to the floor when they weren’t what he was looking for. The man almost looked like he would disappear into the mess. “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in actual children.”
Hoseok blushed even deeper and got to slowly and awkwardly fumbling around with the band of his boxers before he finally stripped them off. Namjoon turned his eyes away, feeling a bit embarrassed himself and looked for anything to distract himself. The best distraction was obviously Yoongi. “You’re only a year older, maybe less.”
“I’m a year older. That’s one more year of living out here, one more year of drinking, smoking, partying, and whatever else college kids do these days. Besides it’s not so much age as it is y’all are freshies.”
“You don’t really look like a partier.”
Yoongi shrugged, drawling “’Cause you know me so well, don’t you.”
Namjoon started at Yoongi pointedly, “Are you?”
“Not really, but it’s art school. You won’t be able to survive without going, at least for the free alcohol.”
Namjoon and Yoongi fell silent. Yoongi was preoccupied pulling out some paint and plastic bags while Namjoon became preoccupied with just watching Yoongi. The three men didn’t speak, and the only noise was the hum and clank of the fan stand as it rotated from side to side, blowing at the paper towels stuck under cups and heavier pads and tins of paint brushes.
There was something about the way Yoongi worked that Namjoon couldn’t get out of his head. It was painting in the broadest sense. Yoongi used everything and anything. His paint brushes were stuck between his fingers rotating between three separate brushes for white and black and purples and reds. Sometimes he ignored the paintbrushes he was flicking through to just smudge the colors with his fingers. Other times he would blend with the makeup sponges but sometimes he’d dig his fingers into Hoseok’s skin like he was trying to mix the colors with only his hands on Hoseok’s flesh. Hoseok yelped and grimaced more than once, but he tried to keep quiet as Yoongi worked the colors on his body.
Then Yoongi pulled out body glue and glitter and tore open the Ziploc bag of black and white feathers. The paintbrush, a scrappy one was dunked into the glue and Yoongi brushed it over and around Hoseok’s eyes, but then he shrugged and tossed it into a tin can of water before he began to push around the glue with his fingers. He pulled out a few feathers, setting them into Hoseok’s eye
Namjoon sat still, leaning into the mushy sofa. A corner of stretched canvas dug into his bicep. Watching Yoongi was strangely hypnotizing; there was something rhythmic even in all the sporadic and something graceful in all the insanity. Before Namjoon knew it, his eyes had closed. The last thing he remembered was how coarse the couch was.
Namjoon must've passed out because the next time he opened his eyes, Yoongi was just touching up Hoseok's face, blocking his view of his friend, and Hoseok was dressed. It took him a moment to blearily recall exactly where he was, but when he remembered he sat up straight like a rod was rammed into his spine.
"Finally awake, sleeping beauty" Yoongi called to him without ever turning around.
Namjoon's face pinked and he coughed, embarrassed, "How long was I asleep?"
Hoseok drawled teasingly, "Long enough for Yoongi hyung to finish."
"It's like 6:30, so you like passed out for a solid hour and a half."
Yoongi stepped away from Hoseok, finally allowing Namjoon to see his work.
Namjoon’s breath caught in his throat. Wow. Namjoon couldn't really say much more than that. Hoseok looked different. Namjoon, eloquent as he was, didn't exactly know how to describe him. Ethereal, graceful, just. Namjoon couldn't describe it.
Hoseok's clothes were fairly simple, just an extremely large and loose white shirt tucked into black skinny jeans. There were two white ribbons around his collar to tie the back, but they'd been left untied and Namjoon could sort of see some of the feathers continuing under the white, translucent fabric. Hoseok's orange hair had been styled, but it wasn't really distracting. Namjoon didn't think anything could drag his eyes away from Yoongi's work.
Hoseok looked like something beyond human. Yoongi didn't paint Hoseok's entire face like Namjoon thought he would, but he did more than what could be considered just makeup. Hoseok's eyelids were darkened with blacks, grays, and a hundred mixes between and as Yoongi got to the edges, he'd crafted in small feathers, ebony ombre into ivory. Namjoon might have been seeing the corners of Hoseok's eyes glitter violet, but he couldn't quite tell with the way the colors mixed into the black. His eyelashes were tinted metallic silver and every time Hoseok blinked, they flared, reflecting any light they caught and brightening his eyes. Streaks of white dripped down past his cheeks, down his neck, blending into the inky blue and black feathers at the place neck met his shoulder. There were brushstrokes of white on Hoseok's collarbones dripping into his shirt. It was like seeing watercolors on skin, blend between makeup and running down the curves and facets on Hoseok's face and body.
White was juxtaposed with black. Under his collarbones and above the strokes on his cheeks, there was a strong, contrasting shadow that just seemed to loom over and behind the white simultaneously. But at the same time, Yoongi didn't ever just use plain black and white. Namjoon saw the silver shimmer highlighting the rim of Hoseok's eyes, He could make out the iridescent glittering shades of blue and purple around his jaw and creeping up the back of his neck. He could see the colors hidden in the black feathers that would glow a different color for just a moment as the light hit them. He saw the ever so slight tinge of red dusting Hoseok's nose bridge and cheeks. It was so much more than Namjoon had ever expected and so much more than he could take in under the dingy, yellow light of Yoongi’s apartment.
“I think we’re good but let me know. I’ll be at the venue since I need to touch up Taemin for his second performance.”
“Thanks, Hyung! Do you have a mirror or something, so I can see it? Hoseok’s eyelids gleamed amethyst, glowing and shimmering like a galaxy for an instant before fading back to black. Namjoon saw the silver mascara and eyeliner flash under the light.
“Down the hall to the left,” Yoongi bent down, squatting to gather up the dozen used paper towels into a large crumpled ball. Yoongi seemed to ponder a moment before he just tossed the bunch into a corner and picked up his tin of murky, milky water with his paint brushes stuck in the top. The tin can tilted as he stood up and the water sloshed up against the rim but didn’t spill over.
Hoseok slid past Namjoon who’s eyes were still glued to him. The longer, pointed crow feathers wrapped around the back of his neck and against the curve of his shoulder blades. They were wings, Namjoon realized, but they weren’t really. Just the relics of them, lingering on Hoseok’s skin.
Something stirred in Namjoon’s stomach, the same way he felt when he’d looked at Yoongi’s final. Something more and something meaningful.
“Hyung,” Yoongi faced him, giving him his attention. Maybe because he noticed the change in Namjoon’s voice, maybe because he had nothing better to do. Namjoon noticed the way he tilted up an eyebrow ever so slightly. Namjoon traced the curve of his brows with his eyes. He swallowed, “Collaborate with me.”
---
They hadn't ended up collaborating then.
It wasn’t the end of the world though because a tentative friendship was forged between the two after that.
It wasn’t much at first. Passing greetings in the hallway, occasionally getting coffee (“Me getting coffee for you,” Namjoon grumbled), grabbing lunch and complaining about professors and idiots in their classes. Eventually Namjoon had just kind of forgotten about the prospect of collaboration and began to seek out Yoongi for his sarcastic sass. They were close now with Namjoon laying on the dingy carpet flooring of Yoongi's apartment more often than not and Yoongi sort of just accepting that he had to order two portions of takeout everytime instead.
At least, until the end of Yoongi’s junior year and Namjoon’s sophomore year.
“Fuck this!” Yoongi slumped into the seat opposite of Namjoon with a dull thud and no warning.
Namjoon had been working on thumbnails and schematic designs for his latest sculpture in the campus coffee shop silently. He’d taken the seat near the window nestled into the corner where no one would bother him. He’d gotten the cheapest thing off the menu and spread out his sketchbook and project sheets on the table in his booth. His bookbag was settled into the corner between him and the window. His micron pens were spread across the table around his loose-leaf sketches. The teeth of his papers were crumpled from how carelessly he’d torn them out of his sketchbook. It was an all-around mess, but Namjoon worked best like this. Organized chaos, he liked to call it (“A fucking disaster,” Yoongi corrected to which Namjoon gave him a look that just screamed are-you-fucking-kidding-me because no matter what Yoongi said, he was a hundred times worse than Namjoon).
Namjoon looked up calmly, capping his pen when Yoongi smacked his hand onto the table. He didn’t say anything and slid his black coffee over to Yoongi. The café was pretty empty. To be fair, it was only eight in the morning, not early enough for anyone to really want to settle in to work at the coffee shop. Some students had come in to grab a cup and leave for their seven am classes. Other than Yoongi and Namjoon there was only another kid, probably a stem kid if the textbook he was trying to read was anything to go by. The only reason Namjoon was up was because he had class at nine and hadn’t finished his preliminary designs which were due like a week ago. Namjoon didn’t even know why Yoongi was up; he’d never seen Yoongi get up before noon willingly in his life.
“They won’t let me enter the end of year showcase.”
Namjoon did a double take. Yoongi was leaning forward resting both his arms on the table, coffee untouched. His eyebrows were scrunched up and he was glaring so hard at Namjoon that Namjoon would’ve flinched had he not been used to it.
But he wasn’t really focused on Yoongi’s face right now. He was furious. “What the fuck, Hyung! Your work is so much better than any other student’s.” Namjoon thought back to Yoongi’s work and knew he was right. Yoongi was better than anyone else in the painting department, even the seniors. “What the fuck do you mean they’re not letting you exhibit!”
Yoongi kind of slowly sank back into his seat, finally taking a sip of the cold coffee, assuaged by Namjoon’s righteous indignance on his behalf. “Honda said I’m only a junior and that there’s too many people exhibitin’ in painting and photography for them to give me a place ‘n the wall.”
“That’s so fuckin’ stupid! Your work ‘s a hundred times better and they should be presenting the work that’ll actually bring in sponsors.”
Yoongi shrugged, tension seeping out of his body at Namjoon’s words. His anger was dying down in the face of Namjoon’s fury, “Honda’s right though. I’m a junior and my work isn’t all that great even if I’m doing better than some of the people in studio.”
“Fuck what Honda says! Your work’s great, better than the shitty senior who only ever draws that stupid anime and the other one that literally decided to copy Jackson Pollack for every single piece of his.”
“But they can’t exhibit a junior at the senior fuckin’ showcase if they don’ have enough room.”
Namjoon kind of sank into the seat again. It made sense, but he hated it. Yoongi’s work deserved to, needed to be seen. Yoongi’s work was electric, shocking in a way that Namjoon had never seen from anyone else.
“Wait-“ Namjoon started slowly, an idea blooming in his mind, “You said there wasn’t enough space on the walls.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi confirmed, head sinking into his hands, “Can’t even ask Tae to take pictures of my work for the photography category.”
“What if you didn’t need any wall space?” Namjoon started. Yoongi’s eyes snapped up to meet Namjoon’s, furrowing as he thought about what Namjoon was saying. Of course, he needed wall space. He was a painting major. Unless- Namjoon watched as Yoongi’s eyes lit up as he made the connection. It’s not like Yoongi is only a painter nor is Namjoon just a sculptor. Art doesn’t work like that. They’ve both dabbled and heavily mixed between three-dimensional and two-dimensional. They’re artists; they wouldn’t be artists if they didn’t experiment and shift between the two, but Namjoon’s preoccupation is in the form and materiality while Yoongi’s art concentrates on line and color more than anything else.
“Fuck no-“ He started, but Namjoon cut him off.
“Just hear me out, hyung! Your work’s too good for it not to be seen! We could just collab for this!”
Yoongi stood up, growling, “No fuckin’ way, Namjoon! I refuse-“
“Hyung! Just consider it-“ Namjoon grabbed Yoongi’s pale wrist. His palm must have felt like fire against Yoongi’s cold skin.
“No! I told you I don’t work well with others.” Yoongi tried to wrench his arm out of Namjoon’s grip, wincing as Namjoon’s calloused fingers tightened like a vice around his bony wrist. The angles of his bones dug into Namjoon’s palm in a way that was rather painful, but Namjoon didn’t care.
“Hyung,” Namjoon’s voice changed. If Yoongi had to describe it, it changed from something desperate and hurried, something candy red, to something heavier. Burgundy or burnt sienna maybe. His eyes flickered up into Namjoon’s for a moment and there was something that made Yoongi pause. “Listen, we’ve known each other for a couple years.”
“A year,” Yoongi muttered, pulling his wrist free of Namjoon. Namjoon hesitated before letting it go. Yoongi was still; he was listening.
“A year and three months,” Namjoon corrected without missing a beat. “Look, we know each other. We know how we work and you’ve seen my work more times than I can remember, and I’ve seen yours more times than I can count. We know each other, and you can’t tell me that you don’t work well with me.”
It was true. Namjoon had gone to every single one of Min Yoongi’s shows and crits since spring quarter of his freshman year. He visited Yoongi’s apartment and worked there just as often as he worked at his own dorm which wasn’t all that common, but it was frequent enough. Yoongi and Namjoon had spent their time bouncing ideas off each other and no one could criticize Namjoon’s work the way Yoongi could and vice versa.
Yoongi hesitated.
Namjoon gave one more push, “Please hyung. Let’s just try.” Namjoon saw Yoongi swallow, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Yoongi gave in.