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One True Compass – NamjoonxJimin
„I’m telling you, it’s faulty. You should get it checked out or something. “
Jimin huffed and pulled the edge of his sweater further down to cover his fingers. Jin reached over and pulled Jungkook away.
“Ok, that’s enough. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, it’s his goddamn right. Have some respect for your elders!” He grunted struggling to hold onto the youngest but strongest of them.
“But hyung, we followed the thing all the way to all the ends of the city and nothing! I’m sure there’s something they can do!”
Yoongi walking in front of them with Taehyung, their fingers casually interwoven, turned around and glared. “There is nothing wrong with Jimin’s compass. Just because his soulmate is a hyperactive idiot doesn’t mean Jimin needs to do anything about it.”
Hoseok grabbed Jimin by his shoulders and squeezed until the younger one let out a noise of protest. “Exactly. Our Jiminie’s a diamond. His glow is going to attract his soulmate, compass or no compass!”
Jimin smiled a bit. At least he had good friends. Despite only Yoongi having his wrist marked with a now red coloured compass pointing Taehyung’s way, everyone was very willing to help Jimin on his adventures trying to catch up to his other half. As Hoseok once put it, since they had to count on their soulmates to find them, everyone would hope they had a little help along the way.
Behind them, Jungkook escaped Jin’s hold and dived after Jimin to grab him around the waist and lift him of the earth. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with our Jiminie-hyung! I’m just worried!” The youngest wailed into Jimin’s back as the blond reached behind him awkwardly and patted the proximity of Jungkook’s head.
“I know, Kookie. Can you put me down please?”
“Right.” As his younger friend set him down, Jimin put on a smile that was only half forced.
“But really, thanks for coming with me again. The arrow was so short this time I was sure they were close.”
Yoongi shrugged. “They probably were, they just managed to leave again before you had the chance to find them again. Don’t worry about it, you’re gonna catch up to them one of these days.”
Jin wildly nodded until he looked like a bobble-head toy. “Definitely, they can’t run from you forever! Now, who’s coming for drinks?”
Jin took Jimin around the shoulders and started to lead everyone towards the underground station. Jimin looked at him. “Is hyung paying?” he asked slyly.
“Yah! I’m not made of money, ya know? I already left a fortune with you brats! Maybe one time I want you to pay for your own alcohol!”
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Later that evening, Jimin sat in front of his computer with earphones jammed in, lazily watching the quivering arrow sitting on his wrist, pointing vaguely west and looking incredibly long and distant. He knew he was pouting, but he couldn’t really help it. The mournful notes of one of his favourite songs were resonating through his bones.
He found RM on Youtube only a few months ago and didn’t really stop humming his music since. The playlist from the raspy-voiced man was fairly short. Jimin found himself liking the softer ballad style songs better, but shouted the fast-paced raps easily enough when he was angry or frustrated.
Today he felt mostly sad though. He really thought they were close this time. His friends tried very hard to make him feel better, but had to disperse far too early. After only one drink, Jin had to go for his night shift at the hotel, Yoongi and Taehyung got up next to get in some practice for their upcoming recital and then Hoseok made his excuses, saying he had to get up for an early morning class at the Veterinary school. That left Jimin with Jungkook, which wasn’t a bad thing, but the clear concern in his younger friend’s eyes just made him somehow feel worse.
So, he fled away to his room and tried to find solace in the deep and calming voice of a youtube musician. The warbling voice calling towards a moonchild somehow helped. Maybe it was the lyrics promising a better luck next time, or the calming quality of the voice, he didn’t know.
“Jimin-ah, why do you look so down again.”
Jimin raised his head and smiled a bit at his grandmother standing in the door to his room. “It’s nothing grandma, just something at school.”
“Ya! Stop trying to lie to your old Granny!” The old woman swatted at him with a cloth, but it hardly even landed.
Jimin chuckled and pretended to cringe away from the light hit. “I’m not lying, Granny! It’s nothing, I promise!”
Granny sighed and shuffled closer to hug him around the shoulders. “You know, Jimin-ah, your grandfather and I didn’t meet until we were both almost thirty. You have so much time on your hands… Still so young. You can’t just throw away everything waiting for them to stop wandering around.”
“I’m not throwing away anything, Granny. I just… Really wish I could meet them.” The last part was mumbled into his caretaker’s arm.
“And you will!” the woman swatted at him again lightly. “Now, either stop moping around or come help me prepare the rice flour. I’m making some rainbow rice cakes for Seulgi’s great grandchild and you can have some on the side, if you want.”
Jimin quickly got up to follow his grandmother to the rice cake shop’s kitchen. He didn’t notice a notification for a new video uploaded to RM’s channel until later that night.
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The next morning Jimin found himself outright skipping to school. He met up with Taehyung by the entrance gate to the university and almost jumped into his friend’s arms by how hard he hugged him.
Taehyung being Taehyung just took it in stride. “Good morning, Jimin!”
“Tae Tae! Good morning! Do you know what happened!” Shouted Jimin right by his friend’s ear, earning himself a few weird stares.
“No, I don’t! What happened?” Shouted Taehyung right back and Jimin had to start giggling.
He finally let go of his friend and started leisurely walking towards their one shared class. “RM posted a new video.” His legs were doing that happy skipping thing again. He didn’t particularly care. “He made a contest out of it! He posted a song and he wants people to make covers for it!”
Taehyung cheered next to him. “Awesome! You need to make one too! Do you have the notes? Yoongi-hyung can help you make one in the recording studio here. He knows a guy!”
“Yes! I was actually really hoping that would happen. To be perfectly honest with you, my laptop’s microphone is pretty crap.”
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Jimin might have jumped the shark there. It wasn’t even a week since RM posted the song with his own raspy cover and the call for his listeners to make one too, and already at least twenty people responded with their takes on the song. There was a girl playing it on a violin and singing it with a low mournful tone. There was a guy playing the song on a piano with incredibly fast and complex hand movements that made even Yoongi-hyung whistle. Two toddlers were cutely singing the song in front of a camera, dressed like adorable little fairies.
Jimin gulped. How could he compete with that? He didn’t even really know why he wanted to win this thing so much. The only real prize that RM has advertised was that the cover will be featured on his channel. Sure, the channel had a very impressive size with quite the multinational reach but Jimin never really wanted to be known for his singing voice. So why? Was it the private skype session with RM? He didn’t even know what RM looked like!
Yoongi next to him made a noise while he was pouring over the note-sheet RM shared under the original video along with Korean and English lyrics. “The chorus doesn’t really work. I kinda get he doesn’t have the vocal range to go higher, but I think it will be better for you to tweak it.”
Jimin frowned. “But… He said to just make a cover, not change the song… What if that disqualifies me?”
Yoongi grunted and started to scratch something on the paper with a pencil. “That guy with the piano you just had on changed the whole key, played it twice as fast and added so many thrills my head is still ringing. I think we’re fine.”
Jimin gulped. Yoongi was probably right, but still. His chest was too tight for some reason. “Are you sure we should be doing this? What if it’s for nothing?”
His older friend raised his head to squint at him. “Should I sick Jin and Hoseok at you? Stop that.”
“Stop what?” croaked Jimin, throat strangely hoarse.
“Alright, that’s it. I’m calling Jungkook.”
“No, wait! He has his taekwondo club now; you can’t just call him away!”
“Stop panicking over nothing, then! The song is practically made for your voice tone, and with some polishing will fit your range like a glove! You have nothing to worry about!”
Jimin sighed and sat down next to Yoongi. This really was a fight already lost, wasn’t it?
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Another week went by since he and Yoongi spent almost an entire night recording the song. RM had since posted on his Youtube channel the deadline and that he newly named the song Serendipity.
Jimin honestly loved that. He even downloaded both RM’s and his and Yoongi’s versions on his phone and used them as his ringtone. It always filled him with a strange calmness.
Yoongi just looked smug when Jimin told him about the new title. Jimin decided he didn’t necessarily need to know.
That evening, Jimin returned from the shop’s kitchen with hair still full of flour to find his phone and chat app on his laptop blowing up with messages. He frowned and almost dived towards his desk to check what the emergency was, only to find a string of shocked and celebrating emojis, a lot of exclamation marks from Jungkook and a single link at the very top of the chat room.
Just as he clicked on it, Jin send a message about how if Jimin will not check his phone in the next thirty seconds he will personally come to the shop to make him. Jimin left the newly opened youtube tab to load on its own and hurriedly clicked back to the chat app to assure his friend he was watching it now. Last time Jin came over, he and Granny got roaring drunk and the lady from across the street called the police after they started singing old folk songs into the night. They really couldn’t afford to repeat that.
“Hello, everyone. As some of you know, I made a contest here some two weeks ago for a best cover of my latest song and… I must say, the response was incredible.” The deep voice chuckled and Jimin hurriedly clicked back into the youtube tab. While RM made a point of speaking mostly in English, he was kind enough to include Korean subtitles which Jimin still very much needed to fully understand.
As always, the screen was filled with a cute drawing of a green koala that looked like a child made it in recess. Today the koala was in the middle of chewing a leaf and Jimin cooed. In the next moment a familiar nervousness gripped his insides. He focused on the purple letters beneath the little animal.
“I will tell you the truth, I couldn’t decide for the longest time! All of your responses were so well done and thoughtful. I almost cried. In the end, I decided on posting top three here. I will make the promised skype call only to the winner, so that they don’t feel cheated, but… I couldn’t not share the rest.”
Jimin send a quick glance back to the chat. It was posted about an hour ago, so everyone else already saw it. Did that mean he placed in the top three? God, he hoped so…
The third place was the violin girl. Jimin sighed. Yeah, she was really good. Yoongi scoffed, said she misunderstood the mood of the song, but Jimin wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was meant to be sad instead of hopeful. Only RM really knew, didn’t he?
The second place was the pair of toddlers and Jimin had to laugh. Of course. The duo was incredibly cute after all. They didn’t really hit any of the notes, but they had all of their group visibly melting when they watched it together.
Jimin held his breath when the time came to announce the first place. He told himself before that he will not let himself hope for the win. The piano guy was so much better and there were others since that far exceeded his own vocal qualities. And yet, in that moment, he couldn’t make himself not cross his fingers and send a quick prayer to whoever could be listening that it worked out in the end.
“Now, the absolute winner of this little contest. To be perfectly honest with all of you, I knew he would be the winner the moment I heard that version.” Jimin sighed. Yep, it was the piano guy. “He captured the mood of the song perfectly; his voice suited the range and the back-up of the song exactly hit the spot.” Jimin frowned. The piano guy didn’t sing it… Did he? “Without further ado, here is the winner. Send me a DM on Instagram and we will set up the video call, whenever you’re free.”
And then, the first notes of Yoongi’s version of Serendipity started and Jimin actually screamed.
The sound of breaking glass came from the kitchen and Granny hurried over to Jimin’s door to see who was trying to murder her grandson. Only to watch her beloved boy sit frozen in front of the screen of his computer with the tones of his own voice echoing through the still room.
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If Yoongi looked smug before, he now resembled a very well-fed cat who just snacked on a bird. Jimin still couldn’t believe it even three days later.
Turned out RM was going to be traveling for the next week and will be hard-pressed to find free time around the evenings in Korea (apparently, he’s in USA with his uncle? Jimin found out more about his favourite youtuber in this short conversation than he did in the last few months of listening to him), and so they made plans to meet on skype in two weeks’ time.
Yoongi declined Jimin’s offer to share the call, claiming Taehyung gave him his reward already. While Taehyung grinned at his boyfriend, the rest of them quickly pretended to gag.
About a week later, Jimin noticed his compass moving again. He was pretty used to it and the slow slide of the pitch-black arrow from vague west to vague northwest and then further north seemed standard for his traveling soulmate. Still, he couldn’t help but pout a bit at it. Sure, it was shorter now, indicating his soulmate was much closer than before. But it wouldn’t be the first time Jimin seriously thought about taking the train to Seoul, only to watch the arrow elongate and change direction the moment he got to the station.
“Where are you always running to?” He whispered once the arrow seemed to stop, pointing somewhere north.
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“Hi!” Called the familiar voice from the other side of the screen. Jimin audibly gasped. This was really happening!
“Er… Hi?” His voice cracked a bit. Oh god, this was so embarrassing…
RM on the other side chuckled. “I do have to say, it’s so good to finally hear other people than my family speak Korean at me again? I really missed it.”
Jimin smiled. “I’m glad to be of service then.”
“Thank you! It’s really nice. Now, first things first. Congratulations on your win! You really did a great job on that, I honestly didn’t expect people to put so much work into it.”
“Well. I had a lot of help. My friend is a music major and he arranged the whole thing. I just sang, really.”
A sound of something falling and a quiet curse echoed through the speakers as RM seemingly hurried to contradict him. “Hey, don’t sell yourself short! Your voice is really pretty! Also, the song wasn’t exactly easy to sing to begin with and you went even higher during the chorus? And it still somehow sounded smooth and easy? That was incredible!”
Jimin found himself smiling despite himself. If he wasn’t so preoccupied with the person on the other side of the call he would have noticed his soulmate compass shiver and dance around his skin in anticipation.
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He was mobbed the moment he stepped foot into the restaurant. Hoseok basically hopped onto his back.
“So? How did it go? Is he cool? Is he weird? Is he a foreigner? Tell meeeee!” His older friend whined into his ear. Jimin laughed and started to lightly drag his friend towards the rest.
“He’s really nice, I think he’s cool and he’s actually Korean. From Ilsan, of all places.”
“Ilsan? Neat!” Hoseok drummed his fingers against the table and earned a look both from Jin and from the Ahjumma behind the counter.
While Taehyung and Jungkook started to excitedly chatter about the news and Yoongi continued to look at everyone with the smug expression he sported for the last few days, Jin squinted at Jimin in suspicion.
“There’s more. Tell us.” Jimin found himself colouring up.
“Well…”
“Well? I’m not getting any younger here, Jimin-ah!”
Jimin looked at his lap and tried to hold in a pleased smile. “We have another skype date the day after tomorrow.”
The ensuing chaos and screams had them thrown out of that restaurant for the third time that month.
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“So, actually…” RM hesitated. “Turns out I will be in Busan in a week. Not for long, but… Yeah.”
Jimin bit his lip in thought. Was it too soon? Wasn’t it? On one hand, he didn’t even know RM’s real name. RM didn’t know his surname. It wouldn’t mean much even if he did, because Jimin himself knew at least four other Park Jimins, two of which were girls. But still.
On the other hand, despite them calling through skype for only a few months, Jimin felt like he knew RM his whole life.
He hesitantly looked at his compass. His soulmate didn’t look like he would be around for some time yet and even then would probably travel further away again very soon.
“We… Don’t even know what the other one looks like.” He laughed softly, trying to mask from both RM and himself that he made his decision already.
“Oh, damn, you’re right. Give me a sec.” RM muttered from the other side. A crash and a groan sounded again and Jimin giggled. This happened far too often for him to be spooked by the occasional broken object on RM’s side. Suddenly, his screen shivered and a handsome face with a wide smile and deep dimples stared at Jimin. “Hi. I’m Kim Namjoon. Pleasure to meet you.”
Jimin giggled again and after a few seconds clicked on the screen to activate his camera too. “Hi. Park Jimin. Pleasure to meet you too, once again.” He breathed out.
If anybody asked, the stunned blush on RM’s – Namjoon’s – face didn’t do anything to his insides at all and definitely had nothing to do with the butterflies rapidly multiplying in his stomach.
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The day finally came. Namjoon would take the train to Busan that morning, arrive around eleven with his younger cousin and his uncle and while the uncle would have a crime-psychology presentation in a nearby police academy, Namjoon, his cousin Jiyoung and Jimin would have lunch in a nearby cat café.
Jimin felt himself vibrating with anticipation the three days before the fated arrival. The evening before he couldn’t even make himself go to sleep.
He finally managed to nod off for a few hours only to wake up at four in the morning sometimes around the time Namjoon had said they would start their journey to the station. He shot a text to his new friend and received a cute sleepy Ryan bear sticker. It made him feel slightly better.
They spend the next few hours texting and exchanging emojis, before Jimin had to cut their conversation abruptly short.
He noticed something that before would have filled him with joy and anticipation, and now just terrified him. His soulmate arrow was getting shorter and shorter.
He quickly got up, threw on some clothes and ran out into the bustling city of Busan. Last time his soulmate arrow was this short, he and his friends spend the afternoon running around the west quarter, trying to catch up to him. Why now? Why now when he was mostly decided to give this soulmate business a rest and try things out with Namjoon?
His phone vibrated with a message from Namjoon. They had safely arrived and his friend had sent him a cute selca of himself and his eight-year-old cousin, both clutching a Ryan plushie. Jimin felt something resembling a sob trying to crawl out of his throat. Why now of all times?
He pressed his lips together and took the first bus going in the vague direction his compass was pointing at.
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At noon Jimin carefully entered the cat café, eyes still focused on his wrist. He sent a quick smile the waiter’s way and took a seat near the entrance. The arrow on his wrist shivered, turned east and started to shorten even more. It was now barely visible.
Jimin closed his eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to centre himself. The street in front of the café was busy and full, Jimin couldn’t help but glance at his compass every few seconds in case he sees it swing by as his soulmate was passing.
He sat there for maybe five minutes, when he felt somebody pull on his sweater. He glanced down and saw a little girl. “Hi, mister. Are you Oppa’s friend?”
His breath caught in his throat. He raised his head and there stood Namjoon, awkwardly standing at the door, collecting both his and Jiyoung’s shoes. At the same time, Jimin’s compass burned.
“I’m so sorry.” Choked out Jimin and ran out of his chair. He didn’t bother putting his shoes back on. His soulmate was nearby. He brushed against Namjoon and ran out to the street, wildly looking around.
But all around him were just people in business suits rushing towards or out of their jobs. He quickly glanced back towards his wrist in a vain hope his fated wasn’t far and could still be caught up to.
And then did a double take. The bright red arrow was pointing steadily back towards the café, seeming to shimmer and dance around his skin like it was laughing at him. And at the entrance, Jiyoung and Namjoon stood with almost identical looks of confused shock, staring at him through the glass door.
Jimin felt himself colour up and slowly trudged back towards what seemed to be his destiny.