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Dokkaebi (Korean: 도깨비) are legendary creatures from Korean mythology and folklore. Dokkaebi, also known as "Korean goblins," are nature deities or spirits possessing extraordinary powers and abilities that are used to interact with humans, at times playing tricks on them and at times helping them. (X)

An important distinction to make between dokkaebi and Chinese and Japanese monsters is that dokkaebi wish to live among people. They persist in having themselves known to mortals and to seek ties with them. They are not human-like tricksters but innocent and even forgetful. (X)

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The campus should be unfailingly familiar after three years, but a large construction project over the summer rendered the quad almost unrecognizable; the paths aren’t in the same places they used to be, and there are now clusters of trees and bushes scattered all around as part of the new landscaping design. The committee overseeing the redesign deemed it crucial to have a huge decorative fountain in the center of campus, but apparently lighting wasn’t high on their priority list, so Yoongi keeps tripping over things in the dark.

It’s not that late, but the sun is setting a little earlier each day, and Yoongi’s eyes are squinted toward the ground as he shuffles his way home after helping Namjoon move into his fancy new RA dorm. He’s still feeling more than a little salty about the whole housing situation. The fact that Namjoon opted for the RA job instead of moving off-campus with Yoongi for their senior year is, frankly, appalling, and now Yoongi is stuck with some random freshman as a roommate. Jungkook isn’t a bad kid, but he’s just that — a kid. Classes don’t even start for two more days, but Yoongi already feels responsible for making sure he gets to bed on time, and it’s annoying.

Yoongi doesn’t realize he’s muttering to himself out loud until he suddenly stops. He’s right next to the fountain, which is the halfway point of his walk, and looks up suddenly when he thinks he hears laughter nearby. There’s no one in sight, even in the dim light; the only noise is a slight breeze and the happy burbling of the water as it runs out of the spouts. He didn’t really expect to see anyone — it’s pretty much only freshmen and RAs who move into the dorms early, so there aren’t that many people on campus to begin with, and certainly not many who would be out this late when the parties haven’t even started up yet — but he really thought he heard something. Apparently not.

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It takes precisely one day for Yoongi to get tired of every single person at the university. The students are obnoxious, always loud and in the way. The TAs are either boring, condescending, or both. The professors have no business assigning so much work so early in the semester. He wishes he had looked more closely at those online universities — not the scam ones that charge a lot of money for a subpar degree, but the high-tech ones where you can telecommute to your classes from anywhere, including your couch. Then he wouldn’t have to see nearly as many people, and wouldn’t have to speak to any of them at all.

Alas, Yoongi applied to a normal university, and the only person there who he doesn’t explicitly hate right now is Namjoon. They’re supposed to be meeting for coffee before their afternoon classes, but Namjoon had a conflict mediation appointment with two of his residents and apparently it’s taking a long time, because Yoongi has been waiting for almost twenty minutes. The early September sun is still too hot and he would rather wait in the shade, but he also doesn’t want to stray too far from the fountain, which is their designated meeting landmark. It’s a dilemma.

Knowing that Namjoon has absolutely no sense of direction, and it would be more trouble than it’s worth to pick a new meeting spot, Yoongi decides to stay put. He leans back against the stone rim of the fountain with his backpack perched on the edge to support the weight of his laptop and notebooks that’s been dragging on his shoulders all day.

A brief gust of wind kicks up and it sweeps a cool mist from the fountain against his arms and the back of his neck. It actually feels nice, and Yoongi absently dips his fingertips into the rippling water. The fountain has only been there for a few weeks, but the bottom of it is already dotted with various stones, foreign coins, and other lost trinkets, either tossed in for luck or dropped accidentally. Yoongi idly wonders if there’s anything valuable hiding among the junk, and if there’s a campus rule about fishing things out of the water. He’s about to take the risk when the silver ring on his index finger unexpectedly slips off and starts sinking; he grabs at it frantically, making a much bigger splash than before in his haste.

Yoongi just barely grabs the ring before it hits the stone bottom and pulls his arm out of the water, wet nearly to the elbow; thankfully he’s wearing short sleeves. He shakes his hand dry and wipes the ring on his shirt before replacing it on his finger, wondering how it fell off in the first place. The fit of it seems fine, so he guesses that the water just made it slippery somehow. He doesn’t spend much time thinking about it, because just then his phone buzzes in his other hand. It’s a rushed text from Namjoon, saying that the conflict has escalated and he’s not going to make it to coffee. With a huff, Yoongi pushes off of the fountain to go get one for himself anyway.

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Somehow it becomes Yoongi’s habit to pause at the fountain on his way across campus. It’s a natural development, given that this spot is the center of everything, and thus his main point of reference no matter where he’s headed. This time he stops to take a little rest when he comes within earshot of the trickling water, because walking is hard when his limbs are waterlogged with soju, and the remaining few hundred meters to his dorm building feels like leagues away.

Yoongi’s fingers trail against the stone rim of the fountain as his eyes slide around the dark landscape, taking it all in. He likes campus best this way, when it’s dark and empty and quiet. Now several weeks into the semester, he’s gotten the lay of the land again and doesn’t have to worry about taking the wrong path between buildings, so he can just stop for a minute and enjoy it.

The fountain splashes happily as he dips his fingers into the water. It’s late September and still too hot and muggy out for Yoongi’s taste, and the cool water rippling around his fingers is a nice feeling. He reaches up and drags the dampness across the back of his neck, and the coolness of the air against his wet skin gives him the little push he needs to keep walking. His thoughts are slow and a little sloppy, but he reminds himself that he’s almost home, and soon he’ll be able to collapse into his bed. His arm stretches behind him for the first step until the fountain pulls out of reach, and then falls back to his side.

He barely notices the sudden hush in the air, devoid even of the sounds of water running out of the fountain’s spouts, but even Yoongi’s fuzzy brain can see the dark shape that slides around the side of the fountain, just outside the edge of his vision. He squints through the darkness, trying to decide if what he saw was a shadow or something else. It could be anything — an animal, a person, a trick of the mind. It’s probably a squirrel, but it might also be a murderer. Or maybe he’s just drunk. Yes, that’s probably it. Yoongi shakes his head and resumes walking, telling himself not to be stupid. He’s just drunk and tired and ready to be horizontal in his bed — so ready, in fact, that he’s already dreaming.

He resolutely faces forward as he passes by the suspect spot where the thing disappeared, determined not to show whatever imaginary horror that lurks there any sign of weakness. Everything goes as planned until he nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of muffled laughter coming from just behind him. Yoongi whirls around, hands clenching into fists as he prepares to fight who-knows-what, but there’s nothing there.

The sound of blood rushing in his ears makes it impossible to hear anything else, but Yoongi’s head whips from side to side without catching sight of any threat. “It’s the fucking wind,” he mutters to himself, forcibly relaxing his hands at his sides as he slowly turns back in the direction of home. This is what he gets for trying to be sociable. No more parties, he decides. Ever.

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Just as it became Yoongi’s habit to pause at the fountain each time he passes it, it becomes his habit to skirt around it just as quickly. Somehow it always seems to malfunction when he’s around — just last week, one of the spouts stuttered and coughed until the water stopped pouring out, then suddenly resumed in an almighty rush that shot a jet straight at Yoongi’s backpack, which held not only his laptop, but also the external hard drive that contains his life’s work. That, combined with the way the sloshed-over water on the surrounding stone walkway always tries to make him slip and how the foot-deep water in the basin starts bubbling loudly anytime he’s trying to eavesdrop on someone nearby, has made it no fun and not at all worth the risk.

Today, though, Yoongi is making an exception to his unofficial rule. Namjoon swore on the sacredness of their friendship that he would actually show up for coffee this time, and Seokjin is supposed to meet up with them too, so Yoongi is back at their meeting spot. Thankfully, it’s starting to feel more like fall now, so he’s buried beneath a zip-up hoodie and beanie that prevent him from feeling the mist from the fountain as he seats himself on its edge. After the way things have been going, he probably ought to be wary of getting too close, but the only electronic device in danger of being ruined is his shitty old phone — and the fountain would probably be doing him a favor if it ate that up, since maybe then he would finally feel motivated to replace it with a fully-functioning model.

As much as it seems the fountain is somehow out to get him, though, Yoongi just brushes it off as carelessness on his own part. He doesn’t really understand how he’s suddenly fallen into a very Namjoon-like pattern of clumsiness and bad luck, but he’s sure there’s an explanation for it — a logical one, not the far-fetched fantasy kind that Jungkook had suggested with wide, naive eyes one day when Yoongi came home damp and swearing. If there’s one thing Yoongi’s not , it’s superstitious; he’s much more willing to believe in coincidence as the result of a random, uncaring universe than in vengeful spirits exacting their wrath on unsuspecting students. The fact that strange, inconvenient, or simply annoying things only happen in this one spot is probably due to some psychological phenomenon that Namjoon could explain if Yoongi cared to ask, but he doesn’t.

Still, Yoongi is starting to wonder if maybe he’s had one too many bad experiences with this fountain, just enough to make him a little bit paranoid — even standing here in the middle of a bright, gray afternoon, he could almost swear the running water sounds like a voice whispering just behind his shoulder.

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It’s nearing four in the morning, and Yoongi is just thankful that he finished his work before the sun started to rise. He put things off too long, like he always does, and after a full night of cramming, he doesn’t want to cross paths with anyone on his way across campus. He gathers his things and leaves the all-night study room, bidden farewell by the mechanical click of an automatic lock as the door swings shut behind him.

Yoongi’s feet beat a familiar path between buildings as he fights off the impending caffeine crash that he knows will follow after the truly horrifying amount of coffee he consumed in the last twelve hours. Every once in a while, on nights like these, he is very forcefully reminded of the meaning of the phrase “dead on your feet.” It’s not even that he feels tired — no, he’s too tired even for that. It’s like half of his body is shutting down and the other half is going into overdrive to make up for it.

Between the darkness and his dry contact lenses, he can barely see anything, and he’s sure his mind is playing tricks when he sees a shape materialize out of nowhere on the path in front of him. At first he thinks it’s a person, probably a fellow student pulling an all-nighter, but something tells him it’s not. “What the fuck,” Yoongi says, because what else do you say when something — some one? — that looks like a man but clearly isn’t suddenly appears in front of you?

It — he? — ripples under the moonlight like a mirage, and Yoongi is sure that’s exactly what it is until the not-man tilts its head and his hair waves through the air like it’s underwater. “I’m sorry,” it says. Its language is stilted and somehow reminds Yoongi of the dripping of a leaky faucet, too hesitant to let loose a full flow, but too persistent to stop altogether. “You are...angry?”

The upwards lilt on the final word is too exaggerated to sound natural, but Yoongi still recognizes it as a question. “This is a dream, right?” He isn’t actually walking home; he fell asleep in the study room and is dreaming that he’s walking home. That’s far more believable than the idea that a humanlike being suddenly swirled into existence right in front of him.

Yoongi didn’t actually expect a response, but he gets one anyway. “I do not know your word,” the creature — the man? — says. This time his tone turns downward, apologetic. “ Dream ,” he adds, sounding it out carefully, like he really wants to get it right. “What is ‘dream,’ please?”

Yoongi laughs quietly to himself, definitely not in a hysterical way, and sidesteps the thing that’s talking to him. This might be a dream, but he still wants to get home, and he’s not going to let a figment of his imagination stop him. If he ignores it, it’ll probably go away. He takes a few steps, keeping his eyes forward, but still watching the thing in his peripheral vision. It doesn’t move, but it doesn’t get farther away either. He counts ten steps and it’s still right there, just behind his left shoulder.

So it’s that kind of dream. The kind where you run as fast as you can, but can’t outpace the thing that’s chasing you. Too bad for the dream, because Yoongi doesn’t run for any reason and he isn’t about to start now. The thing isn’t even scary. It’s so un-scary, in fact, that ten paces later, Yoongi turns to confront it. 

“What do you want?” he demands, tired of being followed as he marches irritably across campus.

The man-creature glows in response. His face morphs into something that’s probably a smile, but taken to the extreme; the eyes squint down at the corners in a reflected image of the mouth’s upward turn. “I want ‘you are angry’ and ‘what is dream,’ please,” it explains politely.

Yoongi just stands there, shoulders square with frustration, and watches as he — the man, or whatever he’s supposed to be — bows. He moves like water, flowing rather than bending. It’s decidedly unnatural, but also strangely mesmerizing. “I’m not angry,” he finds himself saying. “I just want to be left alone.”

The man-thing nods sagely, as if it understands perfectly. “You are alone when I see you,” he tells Yoongi. It sounds a little pitying. “I am alone, but not always. I have brothers.”

“I’m not always alone!” Yoongi protests to set the record straight. “I have brothers! I mean...friends.” He doesn’t know why he feels the need to explain himself to his own dream invention — maybe because he thinks something that comes from his own head ought to know the truth about him.

“You have brothers!” Its voice is no longer the dripping of a faucet; it’s the rush of high tide against the beach, full of excitement. “My brother Taehyung is from the tree and my brother Hoseok is from the wind. I am from the river.” Yoongi is sure it’s his imagination, but the being seems bigger than a second ago, like he’s literally swollen with pride. “Where from are you? Where from are your brothers?”

The words obviously don’t make any sense — not because of the slightly skewed grammar, but because people can’t be from trees or wind or rivers. Yoongi has to remind himself that this is a dream, and that he just has to accept it. Suspension of disbelief. “I’m from Daegu,” he answers. “My friends—er, brothers—are from here, from Seoul.”

“Daegu...I do not know this place. The river does not touch it.”

If Yoongi isn’t mistaken, it seems like this guy — or whatever he is — is trying to start an actual conversation. He tries to head that off as quickly as he can. “Cool,” he says flatly. “Well, I’m tired, so I’m going to go home now. Bye.” He turns and resumes walking, but the creature’s voice calls out after him.

“Where is your home?”

Yoongi points in the direction he’s walking and doesn’t stop.

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Yoongi doesn’t tell anyone about his hallucination. In fact, he doesn’t even think about it himself. He wakes up the following morning with the kind of hangover that is only moderate in severity but lasts all day, which means that he wasn’t drunk enough to actually invent a whole conversation with some some kind of made-up creature, but definitely drunk enough to have some weird, wildly vivid dreams — vivid enough, even, to make him avoid the fountain even more consciously. It’s not just once, either; he continues dreaming about that strange encounter for several nights afterward, although those times don’t feel nearly as real as the first.

Eventually, though, the memory fades and his dreams go back to normal — or, rather, his dreams go away entirely, because as the semester progresses, Yoongi is usually too sleep-deprived to have any dreams at all. His senior year classes are no joke, and his late nights spent in the study rooms get even later; a lot of the time, he ends not leaving until morning has already come, usually because he falls asleep at his desk. It’s alright, though, because there isn’t much he’d rather be doing than writing code. Tapping away on a computer keyboard gives him almost as much satisfaction as a musical one and pays a lot more money, plus he has a light at the end of the tunnel.

Chuseok is coming up, and with it comes a long weekend with a couple of days off from school. Seokjin invites him and Namjoon to spend the long weekend at his family’s summer home, which usually goes empty and unused in the fall; Namjoon has finally seen the error of his RA ways, and is anxious to get away from it all after spending the last couple of months settling petty disputes between freshmen, and Yoongi will go along with pretty much anything, so they both accept.

They pile in the car late Thursday afternoon and drive two hours to a small village near the coast where they plan to spend the weekend. It’s not a big production, just the three of them lying around eating, drinking, and bullshitting like usual. It’s on the second night, after Namjoon and Jin have reverted back to the weird courtship ritual they fall into whenever they’re together for an extended period, that the subject comes up.

“Would you two stop being gross?” Yoongi grumbles from where he’s lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. Music is playing through a bluetooth speaker from off to the side and there’s a forgotten bottle sitting next to his head. “If you just wanted to hookup this weekend you could’ve left me at the dorms.”

Namjoon flushes and makes a token effort at decency, but Jin just pulls him further into his lap where they’re sprawled on the couch. “You’re just jealous, Yoonie,” he coos in his most annoying voice. “We need to set you up with someone so you can stop being so lonely.”

“I’m not lonely,” Yoongi huffs. “And don’t call me that.” Jin at least has the grace to muffle his laughter against Namjoon’s shoulder.

“We are the only two people you spend any time with,” Namjoon points out, completely unhelpfully in Yoongi’s opinion.

Yoongi flaps his hand at his friends in response. “I hate people — this isn’t news. I don’t know why everyone thinks it’s such a problem all of a sudden.”

Seokjin’s ears are always pricked for gossip, and even after a few drinks, he doesn’t miss a thing. “Who’s everyone?” he asks, mock-casual. “Do you really talk to anyone other than us?" 

To be honest, it takes Yoongi a minute to remember when and where that conversation happened. Was it with Jungkook? No, that kid wouldn’t dare criticize Yoongi’s social habits, no matter how much muscle mass he’s put on since the start of the semester. Maybe it was a classmate, then...except Yoongi makes it a habit not to talk to any of them. That’s when it hits him: the dream. The memory is so ridiculous, and he’s so warm and tipsy, that he starts laughing out loud, eyes squinching shut and shoulders curling in as he shakes with laughter.

Namjoon and Seokjin just stare at him from the couch, apparently lost for words.

It takes a minute or two for Yoongi to collect himself enough to make a coherent sentence. “I really—” he breaks off with another short fit, “—really don’t...don’t talk to anyone else except—” he pauses again to catch his breath and wipe his eyes, “except for the fountain fairy.”

“Are you high?” Jin asks, looking both confused and offended. He looks at his drink and then at Namjoon. “What is he having that we aren’t?” Namjoon just shrugs, still completely nonplussed. “Yoongi, do you need to go to the emergency room?”

Yoongi drags in one long breath, holds it in for a few seconds, then lets it back out slowly before sitting up. He’s stopped laughing now, but still has the ghost of a smile on his lips. “It’s a dream I had,” he explains, just drunk enough not to be too embarrassed about admitting it. “This fairy, or spirit, or — or demon, something, I don’t know — came out of the fountain on campus and told me that I’m always alone.”

Jin tsks sympathetically while Namjoon frowns deeply, immediately putting his nearly-complete psychology degree to work. “It sounds like your subconscious is trying to tell you something,” he says gravely, giving Yoongi a serious look.

“Nothing I don’t already know,” Yoongi says with a roll of his eyes. “No one ever stops to think that I’m alone all the time because I like it that way.” He takes a long drink of his now-warm beer and collapses back down onto the rug. “I thought I’d finally gotten rid of Jin when he graduated, and yet here we are…”

“Hey!” Seokjin hurls a throw pillow at Yoongi’s face, and he hurriedly raises his arm up to block it. “If you don’t want to be hashtag blessed with my presence, you can go find your own vacation home, Yoonie!”

Yoongi and Namjoon both groan loudly, prompting Jin to hit Namjoon with a pillow too, and the conversation never gets back around to Yoongi’s dreams.

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On the final day of their mini vacation, Yoongi wakes up with more than a hangover. His throat feels raw and parts of his face are sore to the touch. Namjoon diagnoses him with a sinus infection and he takes some medicine and sleeps the whole drive home. The medication makes the symptoms bearable, but Yoongi knows he’s probably still contagious. He doesn’t want to be that asshole who gets everyone else sick, so he emails his professors and stays home from class for the next three days until it starts to clear up. By the time he fully recovers, he’s already behind on schoolwork again, even though it’s barely after the fall break 

The situation calls for another long day and night spent in the twenty-four hour study room, and Yoongi slogs through it all with the help of about eight cups of shitty coffee from the vending machine. Somewhere around his sixteenth hour, his eyes start to blur as he stares at the laptop screen. There isn’t really anything he can do about it — he’s been wearing his glasses all week, so it’s not due to contact lens irritation. It must just be lack of sleep. Yoongi knows that if he doesn’t finish the work now, he’ll just have to finish it later, but he doesn’t feel like he has much choice; at this point, he’s likely to start making a lot of mistakes that will cost him even more time to find and fix. With a tired sigh, Yoongi folds down the top of his computer and slides it back into the case, the case into his bag. He quietly stacks up his empty paper coffee cups, trying not to disturb the ten or twelve others who are studying or sleeping in the vicinity, and makes his way to the door.

It’s definitely fall now, and a little bit beyond brisk. He hasn’t pulled his heavy coat down from the closet shelf yet, so Yoongi tugs the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands and stuffs them in his pockets to keep them from going numb as he walks home. He’s too tired and cold to bother taking a roundabout route to avoid the fountain like he normally would, and is also too tired and cold to even think about why he usually does that in the first place — at least, until a voice startles him out of the darkness.

“Hello!”

Yoongi’s heart stops beating in his chest for at least three full seconds until he wills it to get going again. He turns slowly and sees the same man from before standing in the few feet of space between him and the fountain, wearing that same overdrawn smile that extends even beyond his eyes. Yoongi shakes his head slowly, wondering how this is happening again. He’s sure he took the non-drowsy daytime medicine, but maybe he mixed up the last dose. Or maybe his illness has gotten worse and he’s having a fever dream.

“I was alone,” the man says, interrupting Yoongi’s thoughts. “You were not with me for many days and nights.”

When he gets brave enough to look again, Yoongi sees that the man’s lips have pulled into a pout, and even his shining dark eyes indicate disappointment. It’s stupid and crazy, but Yoongi feels a little bit guilty for reasons he can’t — and doesn’t want to — identify. He shakes his head, hoping to clear his thoughts and his vision. “I’m not doing this tonight,” he mutters to himself, and continues walking without speaking to the man.

The man tries to follow him, but Yoongi keeps walking with his head down and his hands clenched in his pockets. It only takes about thirty quick steps before the man stops walking behind him and Yoongi thinks he’s in the clear until — “I cannot come with you,” the voice calls out.

That news should come as a relief, but of all things, it gives Yoongi pause. He stops walking and slowly turns around again. The man is still there, looking as vivid and real as ever. “Why not?” he demands. “You’re a dream, you should be able to do whatever you want.”

The man’s expression brightens. “What is dream, please?”

Yoongi looks to the sky. Not this again. He’s vaguely surprised by how clearly he remembers their last encounter, but then he supposes that things always feel familiar in dreams, no matter how strange they would be in the daylight. “This is a dream,” he says, exposing his fingers to the cold night air for a moment as he gestures around broadly. “It’s not real.”

The man follows his gesture, looking around at the empty quad around them. He seems to comprehend something at first, but then his expression falls into another confused frown. “Not real?”

Yoongi can’t believe he has to explain the concept of reality to his own subconscious. Or, maybe it actually makes perfect sense. Whatever, it’s still annoying. He heaves a sigh and, for reasons impossible to articulate, gives it a try. “You aren’t actually here. I’m imagining you. I don’t even know what you are.”

“I am Jimin!” the man replies brightly. The last part of Yoongi’s words is all he seems to have grasped, and only partially at that. “What are you?”

“Jimin?” Yoongi repeats, wondering why, of all the possibilities, his hallucination has such a normal name. A second later, he realizes it’s even weirder that it doesn’t know his name. How is that even possible when it comes straight out of his own head?

“I am Jimin,” the man insists, sounding a little offended. “You are not Jimin. What are you, please?”

Yoongi doesn’t know what to do other than answer. “I’m Yoongi,” he says 

“You are Yoongi,” the man affirms. “Yoon-gi.” He says the name slowly and carefully, testing it out. “Yoongi, where do you live?”

Another weird question for a being that lives inside Yoongi’s head. “In one of the buildings over there,” he answers with slightly more detail than during their last encounter, indicating vaguely with a jerk of his chin. “Where do you live?” he asks, feeling a little smug now as he mines this figment of his imagination for made-up information. 

The man seems only too happy to answer. “I live here.” He mimics Yoongi’s chin jerk in the direction of the fountain.

“Where?” There’s nothing around them except for grass, manicured landscape features, and... “The fountain?”

“Yes, the fountain.” Again, it sounds like the creature is trying out a word for the first time. Yoongi doesn’t understand why this thing has such a limited vocabulary — he doesn’t read a lot of books or anything, but he still likes to think he’s pretty good with words — but apparently it’s not so limited that he can’t say something to make Yoongi choke on his spit. “I see you each day when you come to my fountain.” Yoongi is still coughing a little when he adds, “But not old days. You did not come to my fountain.” The man’s plush lips push out into a pout.

“What, did you miss me?” Yoongi snorts. The hurt look on the man’s face is all that stops him from laughing out loud — he looks so genuinely disappointed that Yoongi actually feels a little bad. “Well,” he says, still not sure why he’s bothering to explain himself to a figment of his imagination, “I’m back in town and hopefully not sick for much longer.”

Yoongi kind of doubts that the man really knows what most of that means, but he seems happy nonetheless. “You will come to my fountain? At the new day?”

“Tomorrow,” Yoongi supplies.

“Tomorrow,” the man repeats, beaming in a way that makes his delicate features glow...not like the sun, but like the moon above them.

“Yeah. Goodnight,” Yoongi mutters, finally turning to go. He can’t feel his fingers anymore, or his nose, which is running.

Apparently now he has a date tomorrow. Well, not a date , but...an appointment. It’s irrelevant, because he’ll be around anyway — he can’t afford to miss any more classes, or else he’s going to fall even further behind. He’ll just have to load up on cold medicine and hope for the best, and for all he knows, he’ll see Jimin again.

Shit, now it has a name.

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The next day, Yoongi drags himself out of bed for his 11 A.M. class and doesn’t spare the previous night a single thought until later that afternoon when he passes by the fountain — probably for the third time that day without even realizing — on his way back from getting coffee. It’s probably due to the lethal combination of espresso and extra-strength cold medicine, but the memory hits him with a jolt and he stops next to the stonework, staring at it intently, heedless of the other students milling around him.

He shoulders through a group of underclassmen to get a closer look at the fountain and sees...that it’s just that. A fountain. It’s pretty big, maybe eight feet across and another six feet tall when you count all three tiers. The stone it’s made out of looks like a pressed composite of many types and is a pale, mottled grey in color, but smooth and seamless in texture. Yoongi doesn’t even realize he’s reaching out to touch it until he feels the splash of cold water against his fingers. It’s almost October and the wind is sharp these days; he guesses that the water will be shut off within the next month or two so the pipes don’t freeze.

Mostly out of idle curiosity, Yoongi dips his hand in further, reaching down almost to the elbow, until the bottom surface of the fountain is within reach of his fingertips. There’s an old bottlecap sitting at the bottom, and the ridged edges dig into the pads of his fingers as he grabs it, but he can’t pull it away from where it sits on the stone. His fingernails are too short to dig them under the edge, and he can’t so much as slide it a centimeter to the side. Strange. Maybe it’s part of the fountain? He wouldn’t be too surprised if litter was intentionally incorporated into the design as some kind of statement. Or maybe there’s a magnet inside to keep people from doing exactly what he’s trying to do. Is that even possible? Yoongi doesn’t know. He pulls his hand out of the water and shakes it dry, then casts the fountain one last critical glance before turning toward his dorm.

Later, Yoongi meets Namjoon in the university dining hall for no reason other than Namjoon can get him in for free with his RA privileges. He pokes at his plate of food, which tastes like it all came out of the same vat, and casts a considering glance toward the salad bar. Everything there looks a little wilted and sad, but at least he can tell what each vegetable is supposed to be.

“What’s up with you?” Namjoon asks around a mouthful of some kind of spicy stew — made spicy, no doubt, to mask the flavor of whatever the mystery ingredients are. “Why aren’t you shoveling food into your face like you can’t wait to get away from me?”

The interruption kills Yoongi’s motivation to go make a salad, and he decides to just give up on eating entirely and pushes his plate away. “Nothing’s up,” he mutters, feeling a little guilty that Namjoon felt the need to phrase it that way. It’s the dining hall he usually wants to get away from, not his friend. “I’m still not over this cold or whatever. Been having some super weird dreams so I’m not getting much good sleep.”

Namjoon hums understandingly; he knows very well how moody Yoongi gets when he doesn’t have adequate sleep. “What’s causing the dreams?”

Yoongi snorts. “If I knew that, it wouldn’t be much of a problem, would it?”

“Want to talk about it?” Namjoon offers. It’s always his default to go to the logical, scientific explanation. “Dreams are really symbolic. Even if they’re totally weird and unrealistic, they can represent things from your actual life. Tell me what they’re about, maybe I can help figure out what’s bothering you.”

There is no one in the world other than Namjoon that Yoongi would even consider talking about dreams with. He wants to balk and put up some resistance, but...well, the chance that Namjoon might be able to help him pinpoint whatever’s triggering this psychological response might be worth it. He picks at a chip in the laminate tabletop and chews on his lip, debating. “It’s pretty weird,” he warns, rolling his eyes up to glance at Namjoon across the table. Namjoon just shrugs; he’s already wearing his nonjudgmental psychologist face.

Yoongi sighs and haltingly describes the jist of his two encounters with Jimin. “It’s always nighttime, and I’m always on my way home. Obviously it’s dark, but when he appears — literally out of nowhere, like, poof — I can tell that there’s something weird about him, even though I can’t see much. And he just...talks to me. Asks questions. He doesn’t really know how to talk, though. I mean, he can speak , but it’s like he’s still learning the language or something.” He pauses before getting to what he thinks is the weirdest part, and sees that Namjoon is still just watching him impassively. “Last night he told me — in the dream, I mean — he told me that he...that he lives in the fountain, that one in the middle of the quad. And that he has a name. His name is Jimin.” He barely even realizes it, but his nails are scratching hard enough against the table that he’s on the verge of starting a new chipped area of his own. He pulls his hands into his lap. “It was just so vivid. I mean, I remember the tiniest details. I’ve never had a dream like that before.”

A few seconds of silence stretches between them until Namjoon accepts that Yoongi isn’t going to offer up anything else. “Well, I don’t think it’s that weird,” he begins. “You said he lives in the fountain? Water in dreams can symbolize—”

“Hey guys!” A tray loaded with enough food for three people smacks down on the side of the table and Yoongi looks up to see Jungkook, his usually-shy freshman roommate. Yoongi doesn’t know why he seems so chipper all of a sudden. “Yoongi, I never see you here! Can I sit?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before taking the chair next to Namjoon. “Sorry to interrupt! What are we talking about?”

Yoongi quickly shuts down; he’s already on his way to regretting letting Namjoon psychoanalyse him, and he’s not about to rehash it all for Jungkook. Namjoon doesn’t seem to notice or care, though. “We’re interpreting Yoongi’s dreams,” he explains. “As I was saying, water — as in, the fountain that Jimin supposedly lives in — generally represents your subconscious or emotional state. So that actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe the reason he doesn’t speak fluently is because your emotions and subconscious are messed up.”

“You dreamt about a guy who lives in a fountain?” Jungkook interrupts again.

“Not a guy,” Yoongi sighs, dragging a hand down his face and considering again whether he should go get some salad, just for an excuse to get away from the table until the conversation changes.

“Right, you said there was something weird about him,” Namjoon muses. “But you didn’t know what?”

Yoongi shakes his head. “Just that he appeared out of thin air and apparently lives in a fountain.” That was plenty to qualify as ‘weird,’ in his opinion. Looking to get the focus off himself, Yoongi nods his head toward Jungkook. “You had any good dreams lately?”

Jungkook swallows a bulging mouthful of food and shrugs one shoulder. “A few nights ago I dreamt that I was a character in a video game. That happens all the time though. Yours sounds more interesting.” He seems oblivious to the glare that Yoongi shoots him for being so unbelievably unhelpful. “You said he was weird? Kind of like not human, then? Maybe he’s a ghost. No, wait, if he lives in a fountain that would probably make him a dokkaebi, right?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes while Namjoon laughs softly. Jungkook looks a little embarrassed. “Maybe that’s it, Yoongi,” Namjoon says. “Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something through the use of familiar cultural symbols.”

“Right, I totally need a dream about some fairytale creature to teach me morals,” Yoongi says dryly.

Jungkook smiles, looking pleased that his idea wasn’t immediately dismissed. “Could be!” he agrees, seemingly all too happy to agree with Namjoon. “Or, who knows — maybe it wasn’t even a dream, the dokkaebi just made you think it was.” He laughs when that draws an indulgent smile out of Namjoon and inhales another few mouthfuls of food, unaware of how that idea makes Yoongi’s stomach twist sharply.

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

Yoongi’s talk with Namjoon had the potential to make him feel a little bit better, but Jungkook’s contribution immediately sent him right back to square one. If it was just a matter of his subconscious trying to tell him that he’s stressed or something, that would be fine; but the way that Jungkook — even jokingly — suggested that he might have actually been entranced by a mythical creature, and the fact that that description actually comes pretty close to Yoongi’s actual experience...it’s concerning, to say the least.

Yoongi goes back to avoiding the fountain, hoping that maybe if it stays out of sight, it will also stay out of mind. It more or less works — he doesn’t have any more of those incredibly vivid dreams while he’s asleep, but it doesn’t stop him from constantly dwelling on the subject while awake. No matter how ridiculous he knows it is, Jungkook’s suggestion echoes in Yoongi’s mind, and he can’t shake the feeling of unease it gives him.

The paranoia grows steadily for a week or so before he gets tired of it and decides to do something about it. He doesn’t want to bring the subject up with Namjoon again, so instead he turns to the internet and does some searching. The very brief research he manages on his phone’s web browser turns up the concept of exposure therapy, which seems like it could be promising. The premise is simple: he purposely exposes himself to the thing that’s troubling him to prove to himself that it’s not actually a problem. If he goes to the fountain — alone, at night, but totally awake and sober — and nothing happens, then his conscious mind will have proven to his subconscious mind that there’s nothing there. He decides that there’s no point in waiting and plans to test his experiment that very night.

It’s not a foolproof plan; in order to make it work, Yoongi has to wait up until late into the night — until the early hours of the morning, technically — without leaving himself either sleep deprived or over-caffeinated. He has to make sure that he’s in his right mind so that his results are reliable. It’s all very scientific. The obvious solution is to take a nap, which Yoongi tries to do. He lays down in his bed with only his desk light on and closes his eyes, but feels too keyed-up to get to sleep. It doesn’t help that he can hear gunshots and explosions from Jungkook’s video game through the paper-thin wall. Yoongi scrolls aimlessly on his phone for a while until his eyes feel dry and tired, and finally the video game noises dull into a steady drone and he feels like he might be able to drift off.

The alarm on his phone wakes him with a start a few hours later and Yoongi sits up in confusion, wondering why his light is still on and why his alarm is going off so early. After a second, the plan comes back to him and he flops back on his bed, suddenly doubting himself. Somehow, going out in the middle of the night to confront the source of his anxiety seems even crazier than having these hallucinations in the first place. But, Yoongi reminds himself, no one needs to know, and it should put his mind at ease. It’ll be worth it. He stands up, stretches, and pulls on a heavy sweater and some shoes before slipping quietly out of the dorm, thankful to avoid any prying questions from Jungkook, who is clearly still awake in his room.

The night air is surprisingly refreshing after Yoongi’s ill-timed nap. The campus is dark and quiet at this time, the only sound a light breeze and the crunch of dying grass under his feet. Yoongi tromps in a straight line right across the quad, not even bothering with the paths; now that he has the lay of the land, his only worry is a stray gopher hole, and he’s not going to let that possibility slow him down. He’s here to prove a point, and he’s going to get it over with, then go back to bed.

The dim shape of the fountain comes into sight within a couple of minutes, followed soon after by the splattering sound of water falling from the spouts. The surrounding area is completely silent otherwise, and still deserted. With a flash of irritation, Yoongi realizes that his heart is pounding harder as he gets closer and his steps start to slow against his will. He’s about ten meters away when he comes to a stop and just stares. It takes a moment for him to convince himself to keep walking, but finally he manages it. His eyes flick around, searching for any unusual shape or sign of movement, but there’s nothing. He’s never felt more paranoid.

Finally, Yoongi approaches the fountain, and his palms are sweaty despite the cool temperature. He’s close enough to touch it, and does, tentatively running his index finger over the edge of the basin. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. Yoongi inhales slowly, holds the breath for the count of five, and then lets it out in a rush, trying to expel all of his anxiety and paranoia. There’s obviously nothing to worry about. Nothing is here, and he’s not going crazy. Whatever he saw — or thinks he saw — before was nothing more than extremely vivid dreams brought on by drunkenness, sleep deprivation, and cold medicine.

Yoongi is so relieved that he could almost laugh. He turns around and leans back against the smooth stone edge of the fountain, folding his arms across his chest in triumph. He decides to stay there, just for a few minutes, to get comfortable and let it sink in. Then he can go back to his dorm, tell Jungkook to lower the volume on his game, and get some truly restful, dreamless sleep.

“Yoongi!”

At the completely unexpected sound of a voice just behind and to the side of him, Yoongi has a split second to decide between falling over and pissing himself. He chooses the former and stumbles away from the fountain, scrambling around to face the source of the voice and falling onto his butt in the process. His palms sting from the scrape of cement, but Yoongi is oblivious; it’s just like that first time all over again, where all he can hear is the too-loud rush of blood in his ears and all he can feel is a thrill of terror as he faces something  — someone — that shouldn’t be there.

“You came to see me!” Jimin says, beaming. He holds out a hand, presumably to help Yoongi up, but Yoongi clambers to his feet on his own and stumbles back a few steps, swearing. Jimin’s face falls. “You are angry again?” he asks, sounding a little hurt.

Yoongi’s hands are shaking as he brushes them off on his jeans, and he’s starting to feel the sting of the scrapes on his palms. “What are you?” he hisses, terrified for what this means for his mental state.

“I am Jimin,” Jimin answers, brightening again. “You are Yoongi.”

“No,” Yoongi says, feeling short of breath despite just standing there, “ I’m a person, a human being. What are you?”

Jimin’s eyes light up with sudden comprehension. “I am dokkaebi!” he answers.

Dokkaebi. That’s exactly what Jungkook was talking about, except that’s not possible. Dokkaebi are fairytale creatures, used to scare children into obeying their parents. Somehow the idea must have imprinted itself in Yoongi’s brain, and now it’s being incorporated into his delusions. And they’re not just dreams or substance-induced hallucinations. They’re full-on waking delusions. Yoongi does finally start to laugh, but it’s the brittle, hysterical kind of laughter that’s often accompanied by tears. “This isn’t real,” he tells himself with a determined shake of his head. “This isn’t happening.” But Jimin is right there , casually balancing on one foot with a confused and concerned smile on his lips. He’s standing a little bit closer than Yoongi remembers him being, and Yoongi tries to take another step back only to find that somehow he’s become trapped between Jimin and the fountain.

“This is dream?” Jimin asks, making Yoongi’s heart lurch again. He nods shakily, but Jimin still seems dissatisfied. “I do not know dream. What is ‘not real’?”

Yoongi is in no mood — no state — to have this conversation again. He figures he should probably go home, keep himself somewhere safe until he figures out what to do. Maybe Namjoon will have him committed. But some small, desperate part of Yoongi still clings to the hope that he can knock some sense into himself. He doesn’t think he’s in any physical danger, so would it be so bad if he gives it one more try? For his own sanity, if there’s any left, just to know that he did everything he could.

“I’ll show you,” Yoongi says, gathering his courage and forcing the shake out of his voice. He takes one bold step forward on his trembling feet and raises his arm to extend a hand toward Jimin. He expects his fingers to swipe through nothing, scattering the illusion like smoke, but it’s the exact opposite. His hand makes contact with Jimin’s chest and he’s not just solid, he’s hard. Yoongi once heard that falling into water from a height of thirty feet is like crashing into concrete, and that’s what touching Jimin feels like. He’s hard and cold like a block of ice. Yoongi jerks his hand away with a yelp and stumbles backward again, thankfully catching himself against the fountain this time. “What the fuck,” he gasps, looking frantically between Jimin and his hand.

All of a sudden, Jimin is right there , within arm’s reach again as if Yoongi never moved away. He looks curious again as he reaches out in a perfect mimicry of Yoongi and places a hand flat against his chest. Yoongi stands there frozen, wondering what’s going to happen next — if he’s going to pass out or start frothing at the mouth or have his soul torn out of his body — but the only thing that happens is that Jimin smiles in wonder. “You are like the day,” he says, withdrawing his fingers only to reach up higher, toward Yoongi’s face.

Yoongi smacks Jimin’s hand away like he’s been burned, even though it’s actually the complete opposite. Again, that undeniable physical contact tells him that this has to be real. There’s no way he can imagine something this vivid, is there? He pinches himself hard on the arm and hisses again while Jimin looks on in confusion. At a loss, Yoongi slowly sinks down against the edge of the fountain until he’s sitting on the stone base with his head in his hands, trying to think.

Do crazy people worry about going crazy? Yoongi feels like his logical functions are working just fine, and he can’t reconcile that feeling with the counterevidence standing right in front of him. But say, just for a second, that this is real and he’s not crazy. What would that mean? That he’s accidentally made friends with a fairytale creature who lives in the fountain on campus. Is that such a bad thing? After a minute of deep thought, Yoongi slowly raises his head and drops his hands to his sides, almost prepared to face this possibility — except he no longer sees Jimin standing in front of him. His stomach drops in terror all over again until cold fingers close around his hand and Yoongi’s head whips to the side in shock. Jimin is sitting right next to him, but Yoongi didn’t hear or feel him sit down. And now Jimin is...holding his hand?

Yoongi stares, dumbfounded, as Jimin’s fingers clasp around his. “You’re cold,” is all he can think to say. Jimin tilts his head in a silent question, and Yoongi uses his free hand to point at the shadowy mass of their tangled fingers. “Your skin is cold.” He taps the back of Jimin’s hand to illustrate his point, not sure if it’s quite getting across, but something about the contrast between their body temperatures seems to make sense to Jimin.

“You are not cold,” he says, squeezing Yoongi’s hand for emphasis. “You are…?” He looks at Yoongi expectantly.

“Warm?” Yoongi offers.

“You are warm. Like the day.” Jimin beams, looking proud of himself.

Yoongi nods slowly as he looks back down at their hands. “Why are you holding my hand?” he asks, definitely belatedly.

Jimin’s head tilts again, in the opposite direction this time. “I see your brothers do this,” he explains matter-of-factly. “In old days.”

“In the past,” Yoongi corrects mindlessly. “You’ve seen people do this before.” Jimin nods, accepting Yoongi’s interpretation of his words. Yoongi inhales slowly and gently shakes Jimin’s hand away from his. “Alright,” he says carefully, “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’re real.” He pauses, trying to order his thoughts in a nice, structured way that is still completely at odds with his increasingly apparent insanity. “Why am I the only one who sees you?”

“I talk to you!” Jimin answers happily.

Yoongi nods, but that doesn’t answer his question. “ Why , though?” he presses.

Jimin is quiet for a moment, almost thoughtful, but he’s probably just trying to think of the right words. “You are alone,” he finally says.

Yoongi remembers that Jimin said something about that before, the first time they spoke. He doesn’t feel like arguing about why he’s not alone on a philosophical level, but he can’t deny that most of the times he’s in this area, he’s by himself. “Why don’t you talk to me when there are other people?” he asks, thinking of all the times he’s stood by the fountain with a hundred other students milling around and no sign of Jimin. “Why only me? And why only at night?”

Again, it takes Jimin a few seconds to think of how to communicate his answer, but finally he says, “I am not like you. I am not like your brothers.”

It’s such an obvious answer that it never crossed Yoongi’s mind before. “You look...pretty normal,” he says, but now that he’s paying attention, he can see it — the collection of small differences that told him from the very beginning that something about Jimin wasn’t quite right. Now that they’re sitting right next to each other, he can see the shiny darkness of Jimin’s whiteless eyes. His features are a little off too, his lips and cheeks rounder and his eyes and chin sharper than most people’s. Yoongi thinks back to a few minutes ago when their hands were clasped together and how small and tapered Jimin’s fingers were. He wonders whether the mottled gray-brown appearance of Jimin’s skin is something more than a trick of the dim light. “Maybe not quite,” Yoongi admits.

Jimin nods solemnly, and Yoongi gets the impression that he would like to come out more if he could. “But,” Jimin adds, sitting up a little straighter, “I live here all times. In the fountain. I see you when you do not see me.”

Yoongi thinks that’s a little creepy, if he’s being honest, but somehow he can tell that Jimin doesn’t mean anything by it. “I come by here a lot,” he says, and Jimin nods in happy agreement. “I always thought there was something weird about this spot.”

“What is ‘weird,’ please?” Jimin asks.

“It means…” Yoongi hums as he casts around for an explanation. “It means something that’s different from all the other things.”

Jimin nods slowly as he thinks it over. “I am...weird?”

Yoongi shrugs. “Well, you’re the only, uh, dokkaebi. Around all these people. You’re weird in this context. Maybe not always, though.”

“This night is one dokkaebi and one human,” Jimin points out, not unreasonably. “We are...same?”

“Even,” Yoongi corrects. “I guess you’re right. I guess that makes me weird too.”

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

Yoongi can think of nothing but his conversation with Jimin for the rest of the night and all of the following day, but he still doesn’t know what exactly he thinks of it. Whenever he tries to imagine explaining the situation to someone else, it sounds absolute insane. But he can’t deny that the experience itself felt so impossibly real — he even has a bruise on his arm from where he pinched himself. He can’t bring himself to tell anyone about it, but he also can’t let it go. He finds himself stopping by the fountain at least once a day, not to wait for Namjoon, but to run his fingers along the edge or dip them into the water. It’s probably just part of his delusion when the stone feels warm to the touch in the ever-cooling fall air or when the water starts to bubble around his hand even far away from the spouts.

It takes Yoongi three days before he decides to go back at night. He still has a tingle of fear as he exits the dorm building, wondering whether he’s making a huge mistake by indulging the hallucinations, but it’s tempered with excitement this time. Still, his heart nearly leaps out of his chest when he hears Jimin’s voice calling out his name — but the balance between fear and excitement shifts a little further each time, and soon Yoongi is waiting impatiently all day long until the darkness and cold chase away his fellow students and he can go meet Jimin in peace.

They talk almost every night, for at least an hour or so, until Yoongi starts to get cold and grumpy. He hasn’t really gotten to know anyone new in so long, but Jimin is so interesting — he always has something to talk about, and the more they talk the more he can say. He’s a quick learner and his speech sounds more and more natural each time they meet. He tells Yoongi that everything he knows about human language and culture is from watching people interact around his fountain, and he asks Yoongi to explain or clarify some things that he doesn’t understand. He also talks about dokkaebi culture, if it can be called that, although Yoongi can’t quite grasp the concept of it beyond what he’s read in incognito tabs online.

After he digs past the surface level of dokkaebi-related nursery stories used by parents and teachers as moral fables for children, Yoongi learns more about the actual folklore, which is surprisingly different. He can’t find a lot of information, and much of what he does see is contradictory, but the handful of poorly-designed websites he scours agree on a few things. It seems pretty definitive that dokkaebi are nature spirits bound to physical objects and that they feel compelled to interact with humans, although the reasons why, are numerous and disparate. Some myths claim that dokkaebi are malicious tricksters, whereas others posit that they simply like to play games and seek to make friends with humans; some people believe that they bring luck, others that they spread disease and misfortune. The more time Yoongi spends with Jimin, the more he believes the nicer stories, although he definitely has a mischievous streak that peeks out at times. 

“I am dokkaebi. I make jokes,” Jimin explains one night.

“Like what?” Yoongi asks dubiously.

Jimin looks surprised. “You know,” he says, as if it should be obvious.

Yoongi’s eyebrows rise up to meet the fringe of his hair. “You’ve played jokes on me?” Jimin nods, looking as serious as Yoongi has ever seen him before. Yoongi tries to think back, but nothing comes to him, not unless Jimin counts scaring the living daylights out of him by appearing out of thin air.

Jimin sighs, a new habit he’s found to express his exasperation. Yoongi watches as he holds up his hand and curls his fingers, not sure what’s going on. He’s distracted from figuring it out when a small shower of water sloshes over the edge of the fountain, right onto his head. He jumps away from it in alarm and Jimin giggles. “What the hell,” Yoongi grumbles as he tries to shake the cold water out of his hair. “What’s wrong with this thing? It’s always doing shit like that, how do you live—” Things suddenly click into place as his eyes land on Jimin again, who is still laughing and looks quite smug. “You— you keep spraying me with water?” he asks, caught somewhere between anger and awe. “On purpose?”

“I am dokkaebi,” Jimin says, shrugging — one of a few human habits he’s picked up.

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

Jungkook — growing ever bolder, that brat — has the audacity to ask Yoongi why he’s going out every night and whether it’s to meet a girl. It’s such a normal assumption that it sounds absolutely absurd, and Yoongi laughs out loud. “No,” he says, feeling pretty smug that he can answer without lying. Maybe some of Jimin’s playful, mischievous nature has rubbed off on him, because when Jungkook presses, Yoongi intentionally gives a cryptic response. “You should know, it was your idea.”

Putting off Namjoon is another beast entirely. Even though they don’t live together, he’s too perceptive not to notice Yoongi’s change in routine, and he’s too comfortable in their friendship not to demand an answer. “You’ve been weird lately,” he accuses one day while they’re eating lunch.

Yoongi has just barely woken up after skipping his only morning class. “Weird how?” he asks, more interested in his noodles than anything Namjoon has to say.

“Even more tired than usual, but like...not grumpy about it.”

The real difference is that Yoongi doesn’t mind the loss of sleep when it’s for a good reason. He hates being kept up all hours for pointless school projects, but the burn in his eyes and the weight in his limbs feels completely different when it originates from a new idea — or, as has been the case lately — from a new friend. Yoongi can’t say any of that to Namjoon, though. He’s gotten comfortable with Jimin, but...well, Yoongi still isn’t completely sure that Jimin is real. Even if he is, he doesn’t think someone like Namjoon, who’s logical almost to a fault, would ever believe him. “I’m fine,” Yoongi says instead, because he knows that the root of Namjoon’s question is concern for his well being.

They eat in silence for a minute or two, which allows Yoongi to fall into a false sense of security before Namjoon leans forward and whispers across the table, “Are you doing drugs?”

Yoongi accidentally inhales a few grains of rice and nearly dies from the resulting coughing fit. “No!” he wheezes when he can finally breathe again. “What the hell?”

Namjoon’s brow is furrowed as he frowns at Yoongi, apparently not at all bothered by his best friend’s near-suffocation. “Are you sure? I can’t think of anything else you wouldn’t tell me about.”

Yoongi gulps some water and sets down his chopsticks, not feeling particularly inclined to continue eating. “Maybe I’m secretly dating someone,” he snorts, thinking of his very brief exchange with Jungkook.

“I wondered that too,” Namjoon admits. “But I didn’t think you would keep it a secret. At least not from me.”

Namjoon looks a little hurt, and Yoongi feels a flash of guilt. “Well I’m not,” he says firmly. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“You’re exhibiting at least four signs of evasive behavior,” Namjoon says doubtfully, and Yoongi rolls his eyes. “But I guess that’s no different from usual,” he admits reluctantly.

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

A little over twelve hours later, Yoongi goes to see Jimin again. He’s still thinking about Namjoon — actually, his friend’s concern is bothering him more than he’d like to admit. He feels bad lying about what’s he’s doing, oddly more so because it’s completely innocent, but he just can’t think of a way to explain it without sounding absolutely crazy.

Jimin doesn’t seem to mind that Yoongi isn’t feeling particularly talkative; he hums quietly to himself while staring up at the sky, keeping himself entertained while Yoongi is lost in thought. Searching for a distraction from his dilemma, Yoongi turns to Jimin and asks him, “What are you thinking about?”

“The place after the sky,” Jimin answers, his voice still sounding just as musical even after he’s stopped humming. He points up at the stars.

“Space?” Yoongi clarifies.

Jimin nods slowly and tries out the word. “Space. I think about space. 

“What about it?”

It takes a few moments of rocking side to side for Jimin to put his words together enough to explain, but Yoongi is used to this by now and waits patiently. “I want to know how it is,” he finally says. “Dokkaebi cannot go — there is no water there, no trees, no wind. My brother Taehyung is not enough tall. My brother Hoseok can go some taller than me, but still not enough.” Jimin uses his hands to indicate his meaning, slashing a line through the air to show the top of Taehyung’s tree, sweeping his fingers further up to convey his own ability, and finally waving an arc that must represent Hoseok’s reach. Even with his arm reached straight up above his head, the sky is miles higher still, and his meaning is clear.

Yoongi never really thought about it before, but he can see why people are curious about places they’ve never been. Although, when he thinks about it that way, he pictures something more like Africa or South America, not a cold, empty vacuum in the sky. “Would you go if you could?” he asks Jimin. “Don’t you think it would be scary? Or boring, at least? It’s just a bunch of dark and cold. 

“No, no,” Jimin says, shaking his head. “Not the dark. I want to go to the lights.” He points again at the sky. “Do the lights have a word?”

“Yeah, stars.” Yoongi realizes that Jimin, who probably didn’t have astronomy lessons at whatever passes for the dokkaebi equivalent of middle school, doesn’t understand that they’re burning balls of gas; to him, they’re just pretty lights. There’s something reassuring in that, somehow. It reminds Yoongi that not everything has to be complicated; sometimes it’s better just to enjoy things without overthinking them. “They’re pretty,” he acknowledges, although he’s more captivated by the fervent look in Jimin’s eyes as he stares up at the sky than the stars themselves.

Jimin abruptly brings his gaze back down to earth and locks eyes with Yoongi, looking intent. “I have stars,” he says, causing Yoongi’s eyebrows to raise in interest and slight confusion. “Will you see?”

Yoongi barely has a chance to nod before Jimin is suddenly on his feet and pulling Yoongi up by the arm. “I made stars in my fountain,” he says, dragging Yoongi forward with one hand and pointing with the other. Yoongi stumbles over and stares down into the basin, but it’s too dark for him to see through the water, if that’s even what he’s supposed to be looking at. “Make a light,” Jimin demands, and swats at Yoongi’s hip, where his phone is in his pocket.

“Be nice,” Yoongi grumbles, but he pulls his phone out and turns on the flashlight.

The sudden light is harsh and he squints his eyes against it, but Jimin wastes no time in grabbing his wrist and positioning the light the way he wants it. “See,” he commands, jostling Yoongi impatiently. “See my stars.”

His eyes aren’t quite adjusted yet, but Yoongi blinks a few times and manages to keep them open. He shines his phone down into the fountain and, sure enough, sees the bottom of it covered in glistening specks that actually do somewhat resemble the sky above. “Wow,” he says, genuinely surprised and impressed. He walks slowly around the fountain and sees that the points of light are evenly distributed, but not in a too-perfect way. It looks natural, almost like they were dropped there by accident. “What are they made of?”

Jimin swells with pride as he watches Yoongi look at his work. “Many things,” he says with a sweeping gesture. “Things that your brothers give me.”

Yoongi suddenly remembers all of the objects he’s seen sitting at the bottom of the fountain — coins, bottle caps, earrings that have lost their partners, other stray pieces of glass and metal. They look a little bit like litter in the daylight, but they way they look at night under the light of his phone does indeed make them look like stars in a dark sky. “This is really cool, Jimin,” he says, meaning it.

Jimin’s glowing smile is as bright as the moon above them. “I will make more,” he says confidently. “When I receive more gifts.” He looks pointedly at Yoongi, who has finally lowered his phone.

“You want me to give you something?” Yoongi asks, a little surprised, but mostly flattered.

Suddenly, Jimin is pouting. His thick lips press together in a disappointed line and he adopts a stance, arms folded and half-turned away from Yoongi, that he must have seen someone else use before. “You don’t want to give me a gift,” he accuses.

“Sure I do,” Yoongi says, nonplussed. “I just have to think of what to give you.” He turns off the light on his phone and slides it back into his pocket.

Jimin scoffs, surely another human gesture he’s picked up. “You have a gift for me but you won’t give it.”

Yoongi holds out his empty hands, frowning now. “What gift?” he asks. “I don’t have anything yet.”

Wordlessly, Jimin points at Yoongi’s hand, which is still empty. Yoongi waves it through the air to reinforce his point, but a lightning bolt of understanding hits him when he sees a flash of moonlight on the silver ring he wears on his left index finger. “You want my ring?” he asks, staring down at it.

“You gave it to me,” Jimin says, still pouting. “Then you took it away.”

Yoongi is still confused for another few seconds until suddenly the memory surfaces: a few weeks ago, standing right here in this spot, when he dipped his hand into the water and his ring slipped off. He just barely grabbed it before it sank all the way to the bottom. At the time, Yoongi thought that it was a weird coincidence that this ring, which had fit him perfectly for years, would unexpectedly fall off — but he knows Jimin a lot better now, and he can see the situation with more perspective. “You took it off my finger, didn’t you?” he accuses. He’s not angry about it, but he thinks Jimin’s view of the situation is definitely skewed. “Jimin, it doesn’t count as a gift if you steal it,” Yoongi points out.

Jimin seems to disagree. “I am dokkaebi,” as if that changes anything.

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

Jimin doesn’t bring it up directly, but Yoongi sees the jealous looks he continues to cast toward his ring during their visits. Yoongi isn’t willing to part with his ring just because Jimin thinks it’s shiny, but he does like the idea of contributing a star to the fountain, and he keeps his eyes peeled for something to give in place of the ring. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he thinks he’ll know it when he sees it. It takes some time, but finally he spots the perfect thing.

It’s an early Sunday afternoon and Seokjin has finally invited Yoongi and Namjoon to his apartment, where he’s been living for almost six months already, for a housewarming brunch. “I couldn’t let you see it until I finished decorating,” Jin explains when Yoongi comments on it. “What would be the point if it still looked like a college dorm?”

The one-bedroom apartment is small, but filled with natural light and well decorated, even if it’s not really to Yoongi’s taste. After they eat, they sprawl on Jin’s plush sofa, which is more comfortable than anything Yoongi has ever seen on campus, even with all three of them crammed onto it. “It’s a nice place,” Namjoon says. Yoongi hums in agreement and Seokjin gives a small, proud smile that’s quite different from his usual showy act.

Yoongi gets up to go to the bathroom, and it’s as he’s washing his hands that he finally finds what he’s been looking for. On one corner of the bathroom counter, there’s a small decorative bowl filled with shining glass pebbles. After drying his hands on an embroidered hand towel, Yoongi scoops out a few of the stones and looks at them in his palm, already knowing that this is it. Most of the pieces are a different shade of blue or green to match Seokjin’s chosen color scheme, but the few clear ones are what catch Yoongi’s eye; it’s clear enough to see through when he holds one up to his eye, but it still has a silvery sheen around the edges, and it’s perfect. Yoongi knows it won’t be missed, so he pockets it without hesitation and rejoins his friends.

Later that night, he’s more excited than usual to go see Jimin. It’s cold enough now that he’s grudgingly started wearing a coat instead of his usual hoodie, and sometimes he even thinks he can see his breath when he exhales. He briefly wonders again whether the fountain will be shut off for the winter and what that means for these visits, but Jimin appears out of nowhere as soon as Yoongi is in range of the fountain, and he doesn’t dwell on it.

Yoongi cuts right to the chase, not even waiting until they sit down and settle into their usual spot. “I have something for you,” he says. Jimin’s eyes drop down to his hand expectantly, but Yoongi intentionally didn’t wear his ring tonight. “I told you I’m not giving you the ring,” he admonishes. “But I got you something else.” Jimin is silent, but his head tilts curiously while Yoongi digs in the pocket of his coat. “Hold out your hand,” Yoongi says. He does, and Yoongi covers it with his own, dropping the glass stone into Jimin’s palm. “What do you think?”

Jimin takes the pebble in his fingers and holds it up, turning it over as he looks at it. Yoongi is happy to see that it shines in the moonlight, just like he imagined. He waits anxiously for Jimin to react, hoping he likes it too. It takes a moment, but finally Jimin closes the gift tightly in his palm and looks up at Yoong with a smile. “It is a star,” he says softly, and Yoongi nods. Before he knows what’s happening, Jimin’s arms are around him like a vise, squeezing him in a suffocating hug. Yoongi wants to laugh, but he doesn’t have the air.

“I guess you like it?” he asks, wheezing slightly after Jimin lets go.

“Yes,” Jimin says, voice still soft, almost solemn. “Thank you.” He suddenly straightens and then bows deeply, and Yoongi knows he’s just copying gestures he’s seen other people make, but it’s still endearing.

“You’re welcome,” he says, looking down and shuffling his feet against the ground. “Actually, you’d probably like how I got it, too…” He tells Jimin the story of how he was looking for a gift and finally found it, and took it without asking.

By the end, Jimin is giggling happily and Yoongi can see his small, even, slightly-pointed teeth. “You are like dokkaebi,” he teases.

Yoongi laughs and shrugs one shoulder, unable to deny it. “Jin won’t notice, and I doubt he would care even if he did. Namjoon is the one I would worry about, but it’s none of his business. 

“Jin and Namjoon are your brothers,” Jimin comments off-handedly 

“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees. “Basically.”

“Do you tell them about me?”

Yoongi is more than a little taken aback, and doesn’t really know how to answer. He hasn’t mentioned Jimin to Jin since Chuseok and to Namjoon since that time at lunch, and neither of those were exactly in the best context. “Not really,” he says slowly, hoping that Jimin won’t be offended. It’s complicated to explain why.

Jimin doesn’t seem too bothered, but he also doesn’t let the subject drop. “I have seen Namjoon. He also lives here.” Yoongi nods, not sure where this is going. “I have not seen Jin. He does not live here?”

“No, not anymore,” Yoongi says, still trying to be cautious. “He was a student, but he finished school last year. He lives off-campus now.”

“Namjoon can come see me.”

Yoongi laughs nervously. “Are you tired of me?” he asks, trying to play it off and hoping this conversation ends very soon.

Jimin frowns. “I am not tired,” he says.

“That’s not…” Yoongi sighs and shakes his head. “Never mind. Do you... want Namjoon to come see you?” He’s scared to hear the answer. Part of him still wonders whether this is all part of his imagination. Over the last several weeks, Yoongi has convinced himself that it isn’t, that Jimin is real, but trying to introduce him to someone else puts it to the test in a way that’s just a little bit terrifying.

Silence grows between them for a few seconds while Jimin plays with the glass pebble in his hands. Finally, he looks up and nods. “I want to know your brothers, please.”

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

Yoongi agonizes over the decision for several days. Just like with the ring, Jimin doesn’t say anything about it again, but it’s obvious that he’s still thinking about it. Yoongi hasn’t agreed to it, but he hasn’t said no either. He wants to give Jimin what he asked for, but he’s also scared of what that might mean for himself. He really doesn’t think Jimin is an illusion anymore, but he doesn’t know how to explain him to anyone else. How would they believe him, even after seeing Jimin with their own eyes? Namjoon is open to most things, but he’s also logical to a fault, and Yoongi doesn’t know how it would go over.

It isn’t easy, but the decision was pretty much made when Jimin asked.

“Hey,” Yoongi says, trying to keep his voice casual even though his stomach is twisting in knots. Namjoon looks up from his desk. “Do you, uh...do you remember a few weeks ago, when you asked what I’ve been up to? Like, why I’ve been, uh, more tired than usual?”

Namjoon’s face turns serious, and suddenly Yoongi feels like a freshman who’s about to get written up. “What about it?” Namjoon asks, using his carefully-neutral RA voice. Yoongi is very briefly sympathetic for Namjoon’s future children.

“I was wondering if...you wanted to see what I’ve been...doing.” He knows he can’t say what it is outright, or Namjoon will have him committed before he even sees Jimin. He hopes he can get Namjoon to agree without asking too many questions. “It’s still not drugs,” he adds, hoping that helps his case.

“Like, right now?” Namjoon asks, dropping his pen and and scooting his chair back a couple of inches.

“No,” Yoongi says quickly, waving his hand. “Later, tonight. It has to be, uh...late. Pretty late. 

Namjoon still looks suspicious. “You’re sure it’s not drugs?” Yoongi bites his lip and nods. “But you won’t tell me what it is?”

“You have to see it first,” he insists. Yoongi can see that Namjoon is deliberating, caught between his curiosity and concern for Yoongi, and his suspicion and better judgment.

“Where?”

Relief breaks, and Yoongi sinks back into his chair. Somehow, asking seemed like the hardest part, and now it’s over. “Meet me outside my dorm at…” He pauses to do some quick guesswork, factoring in that it’s a weekday and close to midterms; he doesn’t think they’ll have to wait too long for everyone to get indoors, either at their dorms or at the study rooms. “At midnight. We can go from there.”

Namjoon already looks like he’s second guessing this plan, so Yoongi quickly stands up and grabs his bag. “I have to do some stuff. See you later.” He quickly ducks out of his best friend’s dorm and cuts straight across campus, his feet beating a now familiar path toward the fountain.

It’s nearing dinner time and there are plenty of people still out and about, but the chill wind and setting sun keep them from loitering. No one is within earshot when Yoongi approaches the fountain and dips one single finger into the water to make a ripple. “Hey, Jimin,” he says, keeping his voice low just to be safe — he feels absolutely ridiculous. “I don’t know if you can hear me like this...I hope you can. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up that Namjoon is coming tonight. I hope that’s okay.” The water laps at the sides of the basin and splashes up to spray him with a light mist. He hopes that’s his sign. “Alright, um, see you later,” he mutters.

The next few hours drag by. Yoongi forces himself to eat something and then he tries to keep working on the class project he started at Namjoon’s, but he’s jittery with nerves. All he can think about are at least twelve different ways tonight could go horribly wrong, most of which are straight out of a bad movie. Jimin might turn out to be a figment of his imagination and it will be confirmed that he’s insane, or he might be a human-eating monster who was using Yoongi to lure in prey. Namjoon might freak out at the sight of Jimin and attack him, or they could all get wrapped up in some kind of sinister blood pact and lose their souls. Those are all much easier to imagine than any best case scenario.

Yoongi finally gives up and closes his laptop with a sigh as time continues to crawl forward until finally he gets a text from Namjoon saying that he’s on his way over. Yoongi’s stomach suddenly feels nauseous, but he hurriedly grabs his coat and goes to put his shoes on. 

“Where are you going?” Jungkook asks from where he’s standing at their shared mini fridge with his head practically inside.

“Out with Namjoon,” Yoongi says as he shoves his feet into his sneakers.

Jungkook straightens up quickly and slams the fridge shut. “Really? Can I come?”

Yoongi pauses in the middle of texting Namjoon back, his brow furrowed. “What? No,” he mutters, oblivious to the way Jungkook’s face falls. Almost immediately, Yoongi is second-guessing himself. After all, Jungkook is the one who told him about dokkaebi in the first place — would it be that bad of an idea to have him come along? He wonders whether it would help to have another buffer between himself and Namjoon, someone who might not find this whole situation quite as crazy. Yoongi feels like he might regret it, but he gives in. “If you’re ready in sixty seconds, you can come,” he says, turning back to his phone as it vibrates again in his hand. “Joon is already waiting downstairs.”

Before Yoongi even finishes speaking, Jungkook darts into his bedroom with a yelp of glee. He stumbles back out about twenty seconds later, still buttoning his jeans and with only one arm inside his jacket. “I’m ready,” he says, trying to pull on his coat and his shoes at the same time.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Yoongi says drily as he pulls open the door. Jungkook bounds after him down the stairs, unreasonably excited considering he doesn’t even know what they’re doing. He combs his fingers through his hair as they get the to the building entrance, and as soon as they cross the threshold he’s completely calm, like a different version of himself.

Namjoon is standing at the base of the building’s steps with a scarf wound around his neck and mittens on his hands. He nods toward Yoongi in greeting and shoots a questioning look toward Jungkook before waving to him. “He wanted to come,” Yoongi says, jerking a thumb at his roommate.

“Hey,” Jungkook says, all trace of his former excitement wiped away.

Yoongi doesn’t have enough brainspace to think about how and why Jungkook did a complete one-eighty in the last two minutes; he just starts walking and assumes the other two will follow. Namjoon hurries to walk next to him and Jungkook trails slightly behind.

“Are you going to tell us where we’re going?” Namjoon asks, nudging Yoongi with his elbow.

“I already told you,” Yoongi grumbles.

“Is this where you’ve been going at night?” Jungkook pipes up from behind 

Namjoon’s eyebrows shoot up. “So I’m not the only one who’s noticed something off with you,” he says.

Yoongi huffs under his breath, now regretting bringing either of them. “Would you both just shut up for five minutes? You’ll see when we get there.” Jungkook pushes between them to share a dubious look with Namjoon, but they stay blessedly quiet for the few minutes that it takes them to reach the fountain.

This is the moment of truth. The other two hesitate, but Yoongi walks right up to the fountain. Jimin isn’t anywhere in sight, and he’s not sure whether that’s good, bad, or neutral. He suddenly realizes that he only warned Jimin about Namjoon coming, not Jungkook, and wonders whether Jimin will mind. Maybe he’s nervous and decided not to show up. Or maybe he never existed in the first place.

Yoongi contemplates what to say to his friends. He turns around to face them and sees that they’re both watching him, confused. “Well, this is...this is it,” he says lamely, feeling more ridiculous and more scared for his sanity by the second.

“This is what?” Namjoon asks blankly. Jungkook, regaining some of his usual energy, seems more game; he peers around and starts walking a slow circle around the fountain. Yoongi’s eyes follow him distractedly.

“This is, uh...where I’ve been coming at night,” Yoongi says, his eyes sliding from Jungkook to the fountain to the empty space all around them. He taps his fingers against his thigh, wondering if and when Jimin will appear. Maybe he’s waiting for Yoongi to announce him? “I’ve been...meeting someone,” he says awkwardly, and sees Jungkook’s head snap up in his direction.

“You said you weren’t secretly dating anyone!” Jungkook accuses, voice raised to carry through the empty air.

Yoongi winces and flaps a hand as if he can shove the words back into Jungkook’s mouth. “I’m not!” he hisses. He turns back to the fountain and grasps the rim of it, really starting to fear that he’s made a huge mistake.

“Then who are you meeting?” Namjoon asks, his voice carefully neutral just like earlier.

Yoongi looks around again, hoping to spot Jimin’s silhouette somewhere nearby. “Jimin,” he mutters, now peering down into the softly splashing water of the fountain as if he might see Jimin huddled down there, waiting to be invited out.

“Yoongi!” chirps a voice just behind his right shoulder.

Yoongi whirls around so fast that he almost falls over, just like the first time this happened. “Fucking shit,” he gasps, clutching a hand to his chest. “I told you not to do that!”

Jimin laughs gleefully as he clasps his hands on Yoongi’s shoulders to help steady him. “I am dokkaebi,” he reminds Yoongi with a wink — that’s a new one that Yoongi hasn’t seen him use before. “Show me your brothers!”

For a split second, Yoongi forgot that he brought Namjoon and Jungkook with him, but his eyes dart past Jimin’s shoulder to where they’re standing together, staring. Jungkook leans over and mumbles something to Namjoon that Yoongi can’t hear, and Namjoon just shakes his head in response, looking lost for words. He really hopes they’re staring at Jimin and not at him talking to some invisible mirage. Yoongi swallows with a dry mouth and nods, trying to stay calm and hope for the best. “Yeah, I’ll show you,” he says in practically just a whisper. “Come on.”

Yoongi nudges Jimin forward, and for once, he walks like a person instead of poofing from one place to another. They approach the others and Yoongi clears his throat, hoping that his voice will be stronger when he speaks again. “This...this is Namjoon,” Yoongi says, gesturing at his best friend. “And Jungkook. He lives with me.”

“Hello!” Jimin says cheerfully. “I am Jimin.” He bows to each of them in turn and then stands, beaming, at Yoongi’s side.

“Hello,” Namjoon says slowly. His eyes dart back and forth between Jimin and Yoongi, which floods Yoongi with relief as he realizes that Jimin is visible, is actually there with them and not just in his head. Jungkook seems suddenly shy and only offers a silent wave and a smile from where he’s practically glued to Namjoon’s side. “You’re friends with Yoongi?” Namjoon asks, sounding slightly less stunned as politeness takes over.

Jimin nods enthusiastically. “Yes, Yoongi is my friend,” he agrees. “And you are Yoongi’s brothers!”

Namjoon’s brow furrows slightly, but he doesn’t question it. “How do you two know each other?” he asks, his eyes landing on Yoongi.

Before Yoongi has a chance to describe it delicately, Jimin answers the question. “I live in the fountain,” he says proudly. “Yoongi visits me almost every day.” Yoongi can see Namjoon’s eyes widen in barely-concealed alarm at that news, probably thinking that Jimin is a homeless man who’s squatting on campus property. Yoongi wants to explain that that’s not at all the case, but honestly, the truth is weirder. An awkward silence falls while he scrambles for the right words to make this make sense, but just as he opens his mouth to speak, Jungkook steps forward 

“Why do you live in the fountain?” he asks, eyes locked on Jimin with a calculating look.

“Because it is my house,” Jimin answers immediately.

“Home,” Yoongi corrects before he can stop himself.

Jimin smiles. “It is my home. I live in the fountain with my stars.” He shoots a look at Yoongi, no doubt thinking of his contribution to the decor.

Jungkook’s eyes shift to Yoongi, and his expression is one big question mark. “You said I should know,” he says slowly, like he’s speaking in some kind of code. “You said it was my idea.” Yoongi almost can’t believe that he remembers that, but he nods.

“What was your idea?” Namjoon cuts in, obviously not understanding what they’re talking about. “Why are you meeting out here? Are you a student here? 

The first question is directed at Jungkook, the second at Yoongi, and the last at Jimin, who quickly shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I am not a student. I am dokkaebi.”

Yoongi hears Jungkook breathe, “No way!” Namjoon doesn’t say anything, just looks on in disbelieving silence. Jungkook, growing braver, takes another step toward Jimin, who seems fine with it; Yoongi leaves the two of them to it while he approaches Namjoon.

“Joon,” he says, voice lowered. Namjoon’s eyes drag slowly from Jimin to Yoongi, and it’s obvious that he’s struggling to make sense of everything. “Do you believe him?”

“What does he mean by saying ‘he’s dokkaebi’?” Namjoon questions back.

That’s a loaded question if ever there was one. Yoongi takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as he waits for the words to come to him. “Exactly what he says. He’s not...human. He’s like a nature spirit...thing.” Referring to Jimin that way makes Yoongi wince now, but he doesn’t know how else to put it. “He can do stuff. Like, magic stuff or something, I don’t know. He can control the water, I guess. He’s a water spirit.”

Namjoon snorts and shakes his head. “You know that’s crazy, right?” he asks Yoongi. “I think we should tell someone that he’s living here—”

“No,” Yoongi says sharply, cutting him off. “He’s not some crazy homeless guy, Joon, I swear. I...I really thought I was losing my mind for a while, but he’s real. And he’s...he’s my friend.” It’s true, but it’s also a cheap shot; Yoongi knows that the only thing that can outweigh Namjoon’s logic is his empathy. Namjoon hesitates in his response; and Yoongi takes that as his opportunity. “Watch him,” Yoongi tells him before calling out, “Jimin, come over here.”

In an instant — far too fast for him to have walked — Jimin is at Yoongi’s side, as if he was there the whole time. Namjoon is still staring with his mouth open by the time Jungkook jogs over, looking awed. “Wow, did you guys see that?” Jungkook gasps, staring between them all. “That was awesome!”

Yoongi can’t help it; he grins and throws an arm around Jimin’s shoulders and squeezes him in a sideways hug, feeling proud and suddenly glad that he let Jungkook come along. “Show them what you can do with the fountain,” he urges as he drops his arm. “With the water.”

Jimin tilts his head and looks at them each in turn, his eyes falling on Namjoon last, before nodding. He turns toward the fountain and considers it for a moment, like he isn’t sure what to do. Yoongi and Jungkook wait and watch patiently, but Namjoon huffs quietly behind them. Almost instantly, the water running out of the spouts in the fountain reverses direction and starts flowing up , not into the basin, but into the air, fifteen or twenty feet high. It doesn’t fall back down, either; it just stays there, rippling like it’s running, but without going anywhere. Even Yoongi is a little in awe — he’s seen Jimin manipulate the water before, but nothing that flashy. His surprise only grows when the streams of water frozen in midair evaporate without warning and turn into a cloud of mist that expands to reach the area over where they’re standing and then rains down on them in a light drizzle.

Yoongi reaches up to wipe his face dry, but Jimin’s fingers find his cheek first. There’s a brief flash of heat and then his skin is dry and a small puff of steam hovers in the air for just a second before fading away. Wordlessly, Jimin steps forward and does the same to Jungkook, who’s laughing excitedly, and then reaches out toward Namjoon more slowly and carefully. Namjoon looks tense and nervous, but he doesn’t pull away, and the moisture vanishes from his skin just like it had from the others’.

Yoongi knows that Namjoon has no choice but to believe him now. They lock eyes and he takes in Namjoon’s utter shock with a small sense of satisfaction, because it’s finally confirmed that he’s right.

“So,” Namjoon says, obviously still trying to wrap his head around everything, “This is...happening.”

“Yeah it is!” Jungkook cheers, voice loud enough to echo through the empty night air. “I can’t believe we have a dokkaebi friend now!”

Jimin graces them all with his glowing smile, cheeks round and eyes squeezed shut. “We are friends,” he confirms, the sound of his voice like a river rushing over stones.

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

It doesn’t take long for Namjoon to warm up to Jimin. It’s incredible, honestly, how quickly he’s able to adapt to having his worldview turned on its side; as soon as he has empirical proof that Jimin is real, he accepts it as the new reality and moves right on. Yoongi is relieved beyond words. After months spent stressing over the state of his sanity, he finally has third-party confirmation that he’s not imagining things — and even more importantly, he has the approval of his best friend.

They don’t all visit Jimin together all the time — although Yoongi thinks Jungkook might like hanging out with Jimin even more than he likes mooning over Namjoon — but it becomes a semi-regular occurrence. Jin even joins them after hearing Yoongi and Namjoon’s stories and gets a good laugh out of Jimin’s tricks; his laugh entertains Jimin in turn.

Winter sets in, and Yoongi’s fears about the fountain being shut off for the winter are finally allayed. He brings the subject up to Jimin on one particularly cold night, and Jimin assures him that the fountain actually running doesn’t affect anything other than his jokes — in fact, he seems to think that frozen water is even more fun. From the time of the first snow, Yoongi hardly goes a single day without being pelted by at least one perfectly-aimed snowball from an unidentifiable source. He doesn’t even mind, though; no one brings a smile to his face like Jimin does, even when he’s not in his visible form.

As finals season creeps up, Yoongi struggles to strike a balance between sleeping, studying, and spending time with Jimin and his other friends. It’s tiring work, especially when the weather makes him want to stay huddled in bed, but it gets slightly better when he finally discovers that Jimin has voluntary control over his body temperature. It takes some trial and error before they find the sweet spot between ice cold and boiling hot, but Jimin is diligent about keeping himself a little warmer than Yoongi, who huddles close like Jimin is his own personal heater. It also helps that they’re able to meet earlier in the day, with the sun setting sooner and most people staying indoors.

One evening, Yoongi brings a steaming thermos of soup with him as a late dinner and settles shoulder-to-shoulder with Jimin against the fountain in the spot of concrete where the snow has conveniently melted. He’s asked before and learned that Jimin doesn’t really need to eat anything, but his curiosity about human habits is insatiable, so Yoongi tries to bring him things to try every once in a while. “It’s hot,” he warns as he unscrews the cap from the thermos and carefully hands it to Jimin.

“It is water,” Jimin says happily as he peers inside.

Yoongi knows by now that there’s no point in arguing semantics with Jimin. Instead, he says, “It’s my mom’s recipe. I don’t make it very often, so I hope it’s okay.” He spent two hours in the floor-shared kitchen to make it, and he hopes it was worth it. For himself, Yoongi will eat almost anything, but he wants it to be good for Jimin.

Slowly, Jimin raises the thermos to his lips and sips the broth. He gasps almost immediately after swallowing, and somehow doesn’t choke like Yoongi definitely would have. “I feel it,” he says wonderingly, holding a hand to his throat. “It is warm.”

Yoongi looks on, amused. “You like it?” he asks. Jimin nods enthusiastically and takes another sip.

“You made this?” he asks after some of the novelty has worn off. “How?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi answers. “I cooked it in the kitchen. On the stove.” Some things are hard to explain when he knows Jimin has absolutely no context for them. He rubs his hand over his eyes and shakes his head. “I could show you if you could come to the dorm, but…”

Jimin nods, looking disappointed. He can see a lot from his home in the fountain, but there’s still so much more that he can’t see because of his limited range. Privately, Yoongi has been trying to think of a way around that, but he hasn’t come up with anything yet, and he doesn’t want to get Jimin’s hopes up prematurely.

“You...cook...food often?” Jimin asks, easily redirecting any dissatisfaction into more questions.

Yoongi shrugs. “Not that often. I like it, actually, but it’s kind of a pain in the dorm kitchen. The last time I cooked a full meal was actually, uh, for a date.” That was a while ago — actually about a year, on a night that was so snowy they decided to stay in instead of going out.

“Every day is a date,” Jimin says with a frown. “Every day is not often?”

“No, not that kind of date,” Yoongi says with a small shake of his head. “The word has two meanings. It also means when you…” Yoongi purses his lips and casts around for an explanation. “When two people spend time together, get to know each other, stuff like that.”

Jimin smiles. “We have many dates!” he says excitedly, drawing a startled laugh-cough combination out of Yoongi.

“Well, uh, not exactly,” he says, flustered. Obviously his explanation wasn’t clear enough. “A date is romantic. Supposed to be, at least.”

“What is ‘romantic’?”

Yoongi puffs out his cheeks with a big breath and exhales slowly, wondering if he’s digging himself a hole he won’t be able to climb out of. He struggles to think of an explanation that captures the meaning of the word in simple terms, but it’s difficult. “Romance is between people who like each other in a special way,” Yoongi tries, feeling ridiculous.

“Friends,” Jimin says, but Yoongi quickly shakes his head.

“No, different from friends. Friends don’t do things like...like holding hands, um, kissing, cuddling...other stuff.” Yoongi can’t bring himself to look Jimin in the eye; he’s suddenly having flashbacks to when his older brother explained the facts of life to him when he was still a few years too young.

Jimin shifts slightly next to him, reminding Yoongi how close they’re sitting. “I do not know ‘kissing’ or ‘cuddling’.”

Yoongi bites his lip. He’s definitely dug himself in too far now. He should stop, but Jimin’s look of innocent curiosity forces him to try. “Cuddling is...being close together. Um, maybe with your arm around the other person, or—”

“You did this to me,” Jimin interrupts. He stretches his arm around Yoongi’s shoulders and pulls him a little closer.

“That’s not—” Yoongi begins, but Jimin heads him off again.

“You did not with your brothers.” Despite how cold it is with the snow surrounding them, Yoongi feels himself flush all the way down his neck and he really hopes Jimin can’t tell, or at least doesn’t know what it means. “What is ‘kissing,’ please?” His arm is still around Yoongi.

Jimin has to be fucking with him. Yoongi knows this. He gives Jimin a look, but Jimin just tilts his head, looking so genuinely curious that Yoongi has to at least try. He sighs and, feeling absolutely ridiculous, says, “Kissing is when two people put their mouths — their lips — together...um. It’s hard to explain.”

“I do not understand.” Jimin’s brow is furrowed with confusion, but his eyes are expectant, like he knows Yoongi can do better. “How?”

The blood drains from Yoongi’s face and he feels like he’s backed himself into a corner. “Well I’m sure you’ve seen it,” he tries, but Jimin shakes his head. “I...I don’t know how else to explain it.”

They sit in silence for a few very long seconds before Jimin’s lips purse into a frown and he pulls his arm back from around Yoongi. “I will learn on a future day,” he says, sounding just the right amount of disappointed to make Yoongi’s chest squeeze tight with guilt.

“I can show you.” Yoongi begins silently counting down from ten to when he’ll regret his words. It’s a small window of opportunity, but Jimin’s black eyes light up and he smiles and nods, and then it’s too late for Yoongi to take it back.

Yoongi’s fingers twitch slightly as he reaches out toward Jimin’s cheek, thinking of the last time he kissed anyone. He can’t even remember clearly, which means it must have been at a party when he was drunk and bored. This isn’t really any different; it’s just a friendly kiss without any expectations. No big deal. That’s what Yoongi tells himself as he leans in toward Jimin, who waits with perfect stillness as their lips press together for the count of one, two, three.

That’s it; Yoongi leans back, his mouth dry from unfounded nerves. He clears his throat quietly and says, “That’s a kiss.”

Jimin nods slowly, the smile creeping back up on his face. “Your kiss is very small.”

“What?” Jimin watches Yoongi with shining eyes as the realization dawns on him and lets out a giggle that quickly builds into a full laugh. “Y-you,” Yoongi splutters, expecting it but still feeling betrayed. “You already knew, I knew you knew! You tricked me!” He swats at Jimin’s shoulder only to hurt himself when his fingers make contact, which just causes Jimin to laugh harder.

“I have seen many human kisses,” Jimin says, voice still light with amusement. “They are much more long than yours.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes and grumbles wordlessly, annoyed at himself for falling into such an obvious trap. “I can’t believe I fell for that,” he mutters grumpily.

Jimin attempts to soothe him with a pat on the knee. “Dokkaebi have these things also,” he says conversationally. “For ones who are…” he takes his time selecting just the right word, “...special.” Jimin usually moves faster than Yoongi’s eyes can track, but this time it seems like slow motion as he reaches over and locks their fingers together firmly. Yoongi chews on the inside of his cheek and considers pulling away, but the soft, genuine smile Jimin gives him makes his skin tingle and he convinces himself otherwise.

✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶ - ✶

After a grueling two weeks, Yoongi takes his last exam and turns in the last of his projects, marking the end of his second-to-last semester at university. It’s a relief to have a break, but the knowledge that he’s almost done with this place forever weighs heavily. Of course there’s the issue of finding a job and a place to live after graduation, but Yoongi knows that will come in time. What he’s really worried about is that he’ll have to leave Jimin. The sight of the fountain almost makes his stomach turn sometimes these days because he knows that Jimin is bound within a certain radius of it and it won’t be practical for Yoongi to continue visiting when he’s no longer a student. He’s searched online over and over and read all the websites he can find, but hasn’t discovered any useful information on how or why dokkaebi become bound to their objects. He even spends a couple of hours in the folklore section of the university library, but doesn’t come across anything useful.

Meanwhile, ever since he initially tricked Yoongi into a kiss, Jimin has moved full speed ahead with his unabashed flirting. Yoongi isn’t sure it’s a good idea — aside from the obvious grey area regarding inter-species relationships, he can’t be entirely sure whether Jimin means it or is just playing a game — but he finds himself becoming a little less resistant each time. Regardless of whether the nature of their relationship is just friendly or something else, the thought of getting even closer to Jimin over the upcoming semester and then having to leave is constantly on his mind. Yoongi feels like the clock is ticking, and with no classes to distract him, he starts to feel a little frantic — almost like the way he did back before he knew what Jimin was, when he genuinely thought he might be losing his mind. Now the thought of losing Jimin is even more unimaginable. Yoongi still doesn’t want to ask Jimin, at least not directly, because he doesn’t want to make any assumptions or get his hopes up prematurely. But he’s starting to feel like he doesn’t have a choice; the most likely alternative is not being able to see Jimin again after the spring.

It takes a couple of days, but finally Yoongi brainstorms a way to ask for more information that he hopes won’t be too transparent. “How come you live in the fountain?” he asks casually as he huddles against Jimin’s side for warmth. Snowflakes keep getting caught in his eyelashes and he has to wriggle his hands out of his sleeves to brush them off every few minutes.

“It is my home,” Jimin answers, seemingly unaffected by the question.

Yoongi half-smiles. He should’ve known Jimin would take him too literally. “Yeah, but why not somewhere else?” he clarifies. “Did you choose it?”

Jimin hums his understanding and his fingers press into Yoongi’s waist where he holds him  close. “Dokkaebi homes are important,” he says. “I will explain.” Yoongi pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, getting as warm and comfortable as possible as he prepares to listen.

“Dokkaebi do not have homes when they are new,” Jimin begins. “I was made in the river and I lived there before I lived in my fountain.” He speaks slowly and with care, impressing Yoongi with how fluid his speech has become after just a few months of learning human language. “All dokkaebi are like this in the beginning. We find a home after we are not new anymore.”

“How long was it until you were old enough to leave the river?” Yoongi can’t help himself from asking. He never wondered how old Jimin is before, but he’s curious now that the thought occurred to him.

Jimin shrugs one shoulder, the one that Yoongi isn’t leaning against. “Dokkaebi do not count time the same way as humans, but…” he pauses as he tries to estimate, but Yoongi knows Jimin hasn’t gotten very good with the vocabulary of numbers yet. “The time I have lived in the fountain, but ten and ten and ten and ten times. Four tens,” he decides. Yoongi does some rough math, figuring that Jimin moved in about six months ago, so he must be about twenty years old, give or take. That’s good, Yoongi thinks. That’s an acceptable range. Acceptable range for what? That’s a question he doesn’t quite know how to answer.

“After four tens of time, I was ready to leave the river,” Jimin continues, oblivious to Yoongi’s burgeoning dilemma. “Every Dokkaebi must have a home, and it must be a thing. An...object.”

That was something that Yoongi gathered from his research and things Jimin said — that despite their natural origins, dokkaebi live in manmade objects — but he still doesn’t know why. “So why the fountain, for you?” he asks. “Because it has water?” He’s also pretty sure that although the object has to be manufactured, it still needs a connection to the resident dokkaebi’s preferred element.

To Yoongi’s surprise, however, Jimin shakes his head. “No,” he says, but stops himself. “Yes,” he amends, “But that is not all. I like to live near many people, humans, also. But water, for me, is...is home. I like to be close to it because it is…”

Yoongi, not wanting to put words in his mouth, lets Jimin struggle for a few seconds before offering up his interpretation. “Comforting?” He can’t remember if they’ve gone over this word before, and he’s not sure if Jimin understands what it means.

He considers for a moment and finally nods. “Maybe,” he agrees. “It is what I know. It is comforting?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, more confident now. “It’s comforting because it’s familiar.”

“You are familiar for me now,” Jimin says, smiling softly.

Yoongi feels his face heat up and his stomach flutters weirdly. “So that’s why you like the fountain,” he says, quickly trying to get the conversation back on track. “But you don’t have to live in something with water?”

“No, I can live where I want,” Jimin says confidently. “But some things are more good—” he stops and shakes his head before correcting himself, “— better than other things. A dokkaebi’s home should be strong. It should be strong after time, or else the dokkaebi must live somewhere else.”

That makes sense, although it makes Yoongi’s heart sink slightly because this news doesn’t quite jive with his half-formed plan. “Is it hard to move to a new home after you already have one?” he asks, hoping that he doesn’t sound anything other than casually curious.

Again, Jimin shrugs his shoulder and takes a moment to answer. “It can be done, but is not usual,” he answers. “It needs a lot of work and makes the dokkaebi very tired. This is why dokkaebi leave the places they were made when they are no longer new and not yet old — when they are most strong.” Jimin nods, satisfied with his own explanation. They sit in silence while Yoongi takes it all in and tries to reconcile everything that Jimin has told him. After a few minutes, Jimin reaches over and takes Yoongi’s left hand, where he wears his ring on his index finger. His fascination with it hasn’t faded, but Yoongi is no longer worried about Jimin trying to steal it; he knows by now how special it is to Yoongi. “You ask many questions tonight,” Jimin says softly as he gently plays with Yoongi’s fingers.

“You ask me questions all the time,” Yoongi points out. He watches Jimin bend his fingers one by one, stretching and wiggling each of them in turn. It’s kind of weird, but oddly relaxing, so Yoongi lets him continue. After a little while, Jimin’s fingers slide between Yoongi’s own and he stills. Again, Yoongi considers pulling away, but Jimin’s hand is small and warm in his — and not soft , exactly, but smooth. It’s nice, even if Yoongi isn’t sure what it’s supposed to mean.

“Yoongi.” Yoongi looks away from their interlaced fingers and turns to face Jimin, who suddenly seems much closer than he was before. They were already sitting side-by-side, shoulders and legs touching, but now his face is right next to Yoongi’s.

Yoongi’s throat feels dry. “Yeah?” he asks, barely getting the word out as he leans back slightly to put even an extra inch between them.

Jimin’s hand is solid in his. “Do we have a date?” Jimin asks, his words careful and clear, without any room for misunderstanding. Not only that, but his voice lacks any hint of mischief and his eyes are still dark and shining, but not with humor. He looks and sounds utterly serious. Yoongi mouths and stutters wordlessly without any idea how to answer. “We cuddle.” Jimin shifts his arm, which still rests around Yoongi’s waist. “We hold hands.” He squeezes Yoongi’s fingers.

Yoongi swallows, knowing what Jimin is getting at, but his throat is completely dry. “I told you it’s special,” he rasps, suddenly struggling to rack his brain for counter-arguments.

“You said that ‘special’ is different and better than usual,” Jimin says, voice still soft but with a growing edge of earnestness. “You are different and better than other humans I have seen from my fountain. You are special.” He tilts his head in that familiar way and Yoongi has to remind himself to breathe. “Am I special?”

It’s not really a fair question; Yoongi doesn’t know any other dokkaebi, so he has nothing to compare Jimin to — but that’s not the point. He is special, more special than anyone Yoongi has ever known, even including his family and friends. Jimin is beautiful, in his slightly-inhuman way. He’s powerful in ways that Yoongi can’t even begin to understand. He learns at a dangerous rate and has a compulsion toward trickery that edges the line between humor and risk. His smile is genuine and his eyes are faithful. His hand is the perfect size for holding. Yoongi can’t think of anyone like him, human or not.

“Yeah,” Yoongi breathes, voice still lost. “You’re special, Jimin.” He realizes that he’s not leaning away anymore, but rather leaning toward Jimin. His left hand is still tangled up with Jimin’s fingers, but he raises his right and lays it at the side of Jimin’s neck before closing the distance between them and giving Jimin the sort of kiss that he expected the first time.

It feels like being caught in a summer storm; this close, Jimin smells gritty and fresh, natural , and his breath tastes like rain. Yoongi holds onto him and he holds onto Yoongi for several long moments before Yoongi jerks away with a gasp, icy water soaking into his coat and running down his back. “What the—”

 “I’m sorry,” Jimin whispers, quickly dropping Yoongi’s hand and reaching up to dry him off with his inexplicable evaporation trick.

Yoongi is dry and warm again in less than sixty seconds, but he can still see and hear the water rippling restlessly in the basin of the fountain. “What the hell was that?”

Jimin shakes his head apologetically, but he’s starting to smile. “I was too happy,” he says, a laugh bubbling up along with the words. “This kiss is much better than the other. It is a good date.”

“Glad it was up to your standards,” Yoongi grumbles. He still feels the shock of the cold against his skin and wonders what exactly he’s getting himself into. Jimin clearly likes the way their “date” has gone, and Yoongi can already guess that he’ll expect more in the near future — but how does one date a mythical creature who can’t even walk more than a few meters away from a public landmark? Even if they find a way to work it out for now, he’s graduating in five months, so what happens after that?

Yoongi looks down to his lap as Jimin begins playing with his fingers again. This time, he wriggles Yoongi’s ring loose and turns it round and round on his finger, careful never to bring it past the knuckle lest Yoongi think he’s trying to steal it. A brief flash of moonlight on the silver is like the ringing of a bell in Yoongi’s mind; suddenly, all the pieces are in place and it seems almost obvious.

“You can have it,” he says, quietly but surely. Jimin’s fingers fall still on his and their gazes meet. Jimin wears a slight frown, which is so unusual for him that Yoongi hurries to reassure him. He dips his head in a quick nod, but Jimin doesn’t take the ring. “Here.” Yoongi reaches down and pulls the ring off himself. “Give me your hand.” He places it in the center of Jimin’s palm and curls his fingers closed around it. “Take it,” he urges, offering a small smile.

Carefully, Jimin opens his fingers and stares down at the ring, seemingly in confusion. “But it is yours,” he says, his frown deepening. “It is...it is special for you.”

Yoongi’s stomach flutters nervously. “You’re special too,” he says. “It’s yours now. I want you to have it.”

“Why?”

Jimin’s one-word question has a deceptively complicated answer. “Well,” Yoongi says, his eyes drifting away from Jimin’s, “It’s special, like you said. I wear it — used to wear it — almost everywhere. And I think it’s familiar to you by now.” He swallows and nods to himself, reaffirming his decision. “It’s handmade, supposedly. And sterling silver, so...it’s strong. It’ll last a long time if you take care of it. It’s not damaged by water, either, although I guess you might have to polish it once in a while…” Yoongi glances up at Jimin to see that he’s listening intently, still with a slight frown. “Most practically,” he continues, “It’s portable. You can wear it—or, uh, carry it, whatever—anywhere.” His eyes slide as far to the side as their range allows, and he can just barely see the stone side of the fountain.

“So yeah,” Yoongi says with a rushed exhale. “Just keep it in case you...need it. For anything.” He nods again, still trying to reassure himself that just because he’s probably not making any sense doesn’t mean that he’s doing anything wrong. “I should go,” he mutters, and prepares to stand.

As soon as Yoongi is on his feet, Jimin is there in front of him, small fist clenched around the ring. “Yoongi,” he says, reaching out with his empty hand and taking hold of Yoongi’s. “Thank you. It is a good object, strong and beautiful. I think it can be very...comforting.”

Yoongi’s lungs momentarily stop functioning as his frantic brain wonders whether that means what he thinks it might — whether Jimin understands what he’s trying to communicate without so many words. He must, Yoongi decides. Jimin is probably younger than him and naive to the ways of being human, but he’s not stupid. He’s sharp as a tack, in fact — more than capable of picking up on Yoongi’s implied suggestion. “Okay,” Yoongi breathes, forcing air into his chest so he can speak. “Okay, good.”

Jimin’s smile is soft like the light of the moon, and his eyes shine like stars. “You will come see me soon?” he asks, his short fingers tightening briefly around Yoongi’s hand.

“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees, twisting his wrist to grab Jimin’s hand and squeeze it back. “I’ll come back soon.”

“Good.” Jimin darts forward and presses his soft, warm lips firmly to Yoongi’s cheek. “Goodnight, Yoongi.” He’s gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Yoongi with nothing but the the vivid memory of their kiss and the fading sound of Jimin’s laugh as he walks back to his dorm.