Archive of Our Own

It was a fairly ordinary day at Disneyland when everything changed for Jimin.

June 7^th, the beginning of summer and the school holidays was one of the park’s busiest times of year. The skies were blue, the sun was out, and visitors would flock in swarms to the iconic destination. Jimin had survived two of these seasons working at Disney so far. The first was the worst, back when he was in costume as Woody, but the second had been much easier to handle – when he was Prince Charming. He hadn’t enjoyed the Prince’s stiff and uncomfortable dress jacket, and the wig was a goddamn nightmare, but it was far better than the giant head he used to have to stumble around in.

This summer, though, Jimin knew would be the best.

He was in one of the best costumes to beat the heat this year, having hung up his crown as Charming just a few months ago. Prince Eric’s lightweight cotton shirt would be all he had to wear for signing appearances out under the sun, and he could survive the length of a parade in the dress coat without much of a hassle. He still had the wig, sadly, despite his own natural black hair, but he couldn’t be too picky. He was sitting pretty in one of the best jobs in the park, about to spend another unforgettable summer working with his closest friends in a job he adored.

Everything was going right for Jimin.

The sounds of chattering voices and lockers slamming echoed loudly throughout the change rooms as Jimin tucked his shirt into his pants, adjusting the red belt around his waist. Day 1 of the summer holidays had arrived and the character actors were all gearing up for a busy day.

“Did you hear about the new guy starting tomorrow?” Jin asked as he leaned back against the locker next to Jimin’s. He was already dressed as Gaston, the only thing remaining was for him to put on his wig. He was holding an apple in one hand and a tiny knife in the other, slicing off pieces so efficiently that Jimin was a little concerned about how much practice with knives he had had.

Jimin shook his head quickly and stuffed a foot into one of his boots, “I knew there was a guy starting but I don’t know anything about him. Is he taking over Sully?”

Jin smirked at him mischievously as he stuffed a slice of apple into his mouth.

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’ loudly, “He’s Prince Charming.”

Jimin froze in the middle of putting on his second boot, “What?”

That definitely couldn’t be right. Jimin knew that one of the Charmings was leaving, he’d found a job at a law firm downtown, but everyone was sure they were going to pull Shownu out of the Sully costume and promote him to face work.

Jin grinned brightly, happy he was getting a chance to unload his suspiciously-acquired information. Jimin had his theories about how Jin found out this stuff, and a lot of them revolved around Ken in HR.

“Yes sir, they signed him last week. He’s been training since and starts tomorrow.”

“A week?! They’re giving him a week to train?!”

Jin was still grinning as he pushed more apple into his mouth using the flat side of the knife.

“They are putting on a new guy to play Charming at the busiest time of year? When Shownu is right there?” Jimin pointed to Shownu dressed in the large blue-and-purple monster costume in the corner of the changerooms to emphasise his point, “They’re crazy. How on earth do they think this is going to work out okay?”

It was unheard of. Completely unprecedented. Disney didn’t just cast you, train you for a single week, then stick you on the front lines at the busiest time of year to represent their brand in one of the most iconic possible ways. No, Disney put you through an excruciatingly nerve-wracking audition process, then an intense 3-month-long training where you learned how to walk, talk, and sing like their most iconic characters. They couldn’t have five different actors all sounding completely different, that would ruin the magic.

A lot of the time they also chose to put you into a fur character suit for a week or two during your training as well, just to make sure you were suited to interact with the park guests before they threw you to the wolves. The only two current face character cast members who had been fortunate enough to skip that stage were Jin and Taehyung, who had both been lucky enough to go straight into their roles as Gaston and Aladdin. Jimin himself had been forced to balance the gigantic head of Woody on his narrow shoulders for a whole two weeks. He still had it better than some of the other cast members though; poor Jungkook’s trial was as Jessie for a whole month.

“How the hell does a newbie go straight to Charming?” Jimin was bitter about it, he would admit that. His time in the Woody costume was an absolute nightmare.

“See, that’s the thing,” Jin had a shit-eating grin on his face, “Rumour has it, he’s friends with Yoongi.”

Um.

“Excuse me?”

Yoongi was their Program Leader; the big man in charge of coordinating and managing both the face and fur actors at the park. He had started in his managerial position around the same time as Jimin and Taehyung went through their auditions, and the three of them grew pretty close as they all struggled through a very painful growth period together. It surprised Jimin that Yoongi would pull strings like that – he didn’t seem like the type – but Jimin couldn’t rationalise it in any other way. Even the best actors in the world wouldn’t have gone straight into Charming a mere week after being casted.

“Wait,” Jungkook’s face appeared as he slammed his locker shut on Jimin’s other side, “He’s really going to be playing Charming after just a week? Jimin had to do weeks in a suit before they let him have that roll.”

Jin nodded.

“That’s ridiculous,” Hoseok chimed in next as he rounded the end of the row, sitting down on the wooden benches by Jimin and leaning down to help him adjust his trouser cuffs, “He’ll be eaten alive.”

“He must have a ton of previous experience,” Jungkook sat down next to Hoseok and fiddled with the puffy sleeves on his costume, ready to start the day as Prince Philip.

“None whatsoever,” Jin corrected, “He’s a complete freshie. He hasn’t moved from another park or acted before.”

“Jesus,” Hoseok said in awe, “He must’ve aced the casting call then.”

“I don’t care how well he did at the audition,” Jimin scoffed, “It’s ridiculous that he got the roll just because he’s friends with Yoongi.”

“Jimin,” Jin rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, “You’re an actor in Los Angeles. You know how this works.”

Jungkook shook his head adamantly, “No way. Yoongi wouldn’t have done that.”

Hoseok hummed thoughtfully, “It’s weird, but it makes sense. Admit it, Kook. How else would a complete freshie get given Charming after just a week of training? There’s no way he’s even got the signature down yet. Yoongi had to be involved somehow. Then again… at the same time, I can’t really see Yoongi having enough pull to be able to get his friend a job just like that. Maybe it wasn’t direct.”

Jungkook was nodding and about to agree when Hoseok continued, “Maybe they’re not just friends. Maybe he’s Yoongi’s lover, or something.”

Hoseok wiggled his eyebrows up and down suggestively and Jungkook frowned, looking very dejected.

“Hobi,” Jin sighed, “Watch your words. You’ve made the baby sad.”

“I’m not sad!” Jungkook protested, frowning even deeper and crossing his arms over his chest sulkily.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Jin cooed, “Everyone knows about your ridiculously adorable crush on Yoongi anyway. Hobi is sorry – aren’t you, Hoseok?”

Jin’s voice left little to be argued with and Hoseok nodded fervently, eyes wide in alarm.

“We all went through hell to get to where we are,” Jimin whined, completely ignoring the others’ conversation to continue on his own tangent, “The first few months completely sucked for each of us. This new guy shouldn’t be an exception. He should have to earn his place too.”

“Jimin, let it go,” Jin sighed, “He has the job now. Sure, I wish Shownu had got it because he’s been here a few months now and has worked really hard to prove himself and get out of that suit, but we can’t change things because it’s not our place. Just calm down, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, Jiminie!” Hoseok stood up and ruffled Jimin’s hair playfully, “I’m sure you’ll end up liking the guy anyway. He’s probably super nice and you end up liking everyone whether you want to or not. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put the finishing touches on my costume.”

Jimin looked down at Hoseok’s “costume”, which currently consisted of Peter Pan’s tights and only the tights, and sighed has the other man turned abruptly and sauntered away.

It was irrational to be so annoyed about the whole thing, Jimin knew, but he couldn’t help but feel personally slighted by the decision to invite a complete stranger into their ranks without first testing him out. They were a very tight-knit crew behind the scenes, it wasn’t easy to infiltrate their little circle, and absolutely every single one of them had first gone through their trial-by fire, whether it was during the three -month training, or out in the park in a suit. Many of them had sweltered away in the sun in ridiculous shoes, loping around and performing little tricks just to brighten up the day of some children. There was a kind of solidarity that came from it.

Jimin didn’t like that someone jumped the queue.

Jimin didn’t like this faceless new person.

“Hey Jin, what did you say their name was?” Jungkook asked.

“Hm?” Jin threw over his shoulder as he adjusted his wig, “Oh, Kim Namjoon.”

Jimin didn’t like Kim Namjoon.

❧

The rest of Jimin’s shift proved to be fairly uneventful, as far as a standard shift at Disneyland could be uneventful. He smiled so much his cheeks hurt, held far more babies than he could count, signed so many autographs he thought his fingers would fall off, and had a child throw up at his feet twice. All in a day’s work.

He was fortunate that he got along so well with his Ariel, otherwise he had no doubt he would have been stuck in his horrible mood from the morning for the rest of the day.

“What’s eating you?” Wheein had said to him as they lounged around on break after the first parade.

“Ugh,” Jimin winced, “Is it super obvious?”

She chuckled warmly, “Only for people who know you pretty well. So, what’s up? You seem kinda dull today.”

“I’m sorry,” he groaned. The last thing he wanted to do was make things harder on her, “It’s just something Jin said to me this morning. You’ve heard about the new guy starting tomorrow?”

“Prince Charming? Yeah, I’ve heard about him.”

Jimin nodded, “Well it’s pissing me off. That should’ve been Shownu’s roll. I know it’s stupid—”

“It’s not stupid.”

Jimin looked up in surprise.

Wheein was shaking her head adamantly, “It’s not stupid. I get where you’re coming from. You’re not wrong to be a little miffed about the whole thing-” who even says miffed anymore? “—but don’t let it eat you up because it’s out of your control. And don’t take it out on the new guy, either.”

Wheein waved a warning finger in front of his face. She knew him too well.

“I wasn’t going to,” he pouted. She didn’t look like she believed him for a second.

Jimin took her advice though and he quickly dropped his sourness, reverting to his cheerful default without so much as a second thought towards Prince Charming A.K.A. Kim Namjoon.

His mood improved considerably after he watched Jin trip over his own feet when Taehyung walked by dressed as Aladdin, then even more so when Taehyung walked promptly into a wall after noticing the other man staring at him. Jimin had zero thoughts of the job thief as he watched his two friends walking away blushing bright red, Gaston limping slightly and Aladdin rubbing a slight bump on his forehead. Those two were cute, though frustratingly oblivious.

It was mid-afternoon when Jimin left the park and the sun was still blaringly bright in the sky. There were little sticky puddles all over the asphalt from where ice cream had melted and dripped to the ground, and Jimin had to dodge crowds of overweight men with burnt-red skin and middle-aged women in cargo shorts shepherding along their minibus-load of kids.

It was the kind of heat that made you sweaty the instant you walked outside. The sun was so strong that even SPF50+ couldn’t save some people from their destiny as lobsters, and any attempts to walk on the pavement barefoot would leave you with blistered and angry soles.

Some people would call him crazy for saying this his was favourite time of year. In fact, most people probably would. It was, though, despite what people thought.

On days like this, Jimin would wake before the sun and drive to the back beach with his longboard strapped to his roof racks. He’d paddle out as far as he could reasonably go and watch the sunrise from out on the water. At that time of morning there would only be the local surfers out there and the occasional dog walker running along the shoreline. It was peaceful. On days without much of a swell he wouldn’t even stand, he would just lay flat on the board and float for a while, heading back every so often when he drifted too far from shore.

Jimin lived with Taehyung and Hoseok, who both surfed as well – though they preferred a shortboard – but Jimin liked the solitude and he knew if he went with either of them he would never find any kind of peace and quiet. His days were filled with so many loud people and high-intensity social interactions that his mornings were often the only down-time he got.

When winter began to roll in and the weather turned colder, it was harder for Jimin to pull himself out of his blankets and get out to the beach, so he liked to make the most of it while he could.

Though, today, the sun was probably a bit intense for him to think about taking an afternoon dip to cool off.

When he made it across the lot to his van he was unsurprised to find Taehyung and Hoseok already there, leaning up against the hood of the beat-up old orange Kombi with a tray of quickly melting iced coffees beside them. This had become the ritual for the days they all worked the same shift; Jimin would knock off, get changed, grab his stuff and head to the car while the other two bought drinks from the tiny coffeeshop nestled around the corner. Jimin was always the last one out.

“Come along, my Prince!” Taehyung crooned, “We have two new episodes of Love Island awaiting us!”

Jimin chucked his keys at Hoseok who caught them with ease and the trio slid up into the high worn-out vinyl seats, ready for an evening of mind-numbing reality TV before they had to return the next morning.

❧

Jimin knew his day was going to suck from the moment he got out of bed.

To begin with, he slept through his alarm and was woken instead by the neighbour next door starting his lawnmower at the ungodly time of 5am (which, what the fuck? Who does that?). Not only was this a fucking awful way to be woken up, but this meant that Jimin would have to shave half an hour of his surf time that morning. His only form of vindication came when he saw police cars pull up out the front of next-door’s now perfectly manicured lawn, no doubt the result of one of the other neighbours putting in a noise complaint.

His next trial came from the kitchen, when the coffee machine erupted like a fountain while he was in the middle of brewing a fresh batch, spraying him and the entirety of the room with scalding hot espresso. His lovely clean white shirt was painted an unattractive shade of brown and Jimin was forced to resign himself to not having his morning caffeine.

Next, his car battery decided to betray him just like everything else that morning, refusing to kick his engine to life and forcing him to pull out the jumper cables and the portable jump starter.

That all sucked.

But the icing on the cake that was Jimin’s No Good Very Bad Day came when he arrived at the back beach, in the form a single car. The car, a nice shiny silver Toyota Corolla, was parked in his spot. This probably wouldn’t have been a big deal in most situations, except back beach had a notoriously small number of carparks, and all the others were taken. Jimin was forced to park his car at the main beach and lug his longboard all the way around, after which he had less than an hour to spend in the water.

The entirety of his journey on foot and his “relaxing” dip in the ocean were spent cursing his alarm, his coffee machine, his car, and the asshole whoever owned that disgustingly neat Corolla. By the time he finished his morning surf, if you can even call it that since Jimin hadn’t actually managed to catch a wave, he was geared up and raring to face a shit day.

By the time he got back home, showered, redressed and was ready to head to work, he was running late. Taehyung and Hoseok were waiting for him by the remnants of the coffee machine, forlornly staring at the former love of their lives, when he came into the kitchen ready to go.

“Rest in peace, buddy,” Hoseok mourned, making a cross sign over his chest.

“He was gone too soon,” Taehyung wept and clutched onto Hoseok’s shoulder.

Jimin rolled his eyes and grabbed his keys off the counter, “Shut up and get in the car.”

“What’s got you in such a shitty mood this morning?” Taehyung snickered, loping after Jimin as he powerwalked to the car.

“Absolutely fucking everything,” he shot back.

It took them around 10 minutes to get to the park and then the three of them had to book it through the back entrance as fast as they could to make sure they had enough time to get their shit together before the park opened.

Jimin’s heart was pounding in his chest by the time he made it into the changerooms and had a moment to breathe. People were moving around him in various states of dress, some in costume and some barely in anything, as they scrambled to get prepared for the day.

“There you are!” Jungkook called out to him from the lockers and Jimin ducked and weaved between the bodies to get to him.

He dumped his bag in his locker with a huff and turned to face Jungkook, who seemed to be buzzing with excitement, “What’s up, bun?”

“Yoongi looks so good today!” Jungkook’s face was red as a tomato as he said it, but he obviously couldn’t help himself and had to get the words out of his mouth, “He was in here just a moment ago to introduce us to Namjoon and he looks so pretty and he had a haircut last night and it suits him so well. He looked so soft, Jimin!”

Wait.

Hold up.

“The new guy is here?” Fuck. How had Jimin forgotten about that?

Jungkook looked at him quizzically, “Yes? He’s here, Yoongi brought him in not too long ago and told everyone to be nice to him. They are friends! Jin was right, Yoongi said that they’re friends. Apparently they were roommates freshman year of college or something. I’m not sure, I was only half listening because his lips looked so pretty and pouty when he talked that I wasn’t really paying attention. Namjoon is nice though! He was really friendly, Jin is showing him around.”

Jimin blinked slowly, trying to absorb all the words Jungkook just threw at him.

“He’s… nice? Wait, Yoongi asked everyone to be nice to him?”

That was fair. That was probably normal. That was almost certainly something a manager would do when introducing a new staff member to their team.

Jimin hated it.

“Yes!” Jungkook nodded, fringe flopping wildly as he did so, “He warned everyone to be good to Namjoon because they’re friends and he would know if we weren’t. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, though, Namjoon is sweet. I like him.”

Jungkook liked him.

Of course Jungkook liked him, Jungkook liked everyone.

The rational part of Jimin’s mind was working overtime to calm the increasing amount of bitterness growing inside him, but it wasn’t doing a very good job. Some pernicious little niggling feeling was setting Jimin on edge, and his already horrible morning was doing a great job at bringing up all his negativity from yesterday. He still couldn’t wrap his head around how a new guy without any sort of experience had landed one of the most coveted positions in the park, and he was trying so hard not to seem like he was petty or resentful. He was just in a bad mood. Hearing that everyone seemed to like Namjoon already only served to make him feel worse since he didn’t want to like the guy – Jimin was still annoyed about Shownu being passed over. This whole week was making him miserable, and it was only Tuesday.

“Do you want me to introduce you to him?” Jungkook snapped Jimin out of his reverie.

“You—what? No!” Jimin shook his head quickly and held up his hands to try and stop Jungkook, but it was too late; he was already running off, no doubt searching out the last person on earth Jimin wanted to meet right now.

Jimin groaned and leaned forward to bash his head against his locker door, slamming his brain against it as if it would somehow fix everything that was going so horribly wrong today. Maybe if he kept going he could knock himself out and wake up when the day was over with a nice concussion and permission off work for the rest of the week.

He thudded rhythmically on the cool metal with his eyes squeezed tightly shut until someone cleared their throat from behind him.

“J-Jimin?” Jungkook’s soft voice asked hesitantly.

Jimin froze and slowly turned around. Almost everyone in the row of lockers was staring at him with expressions ranging from mildly concerned, to sympathetic, to completely terrified.

Jungkook’s own expression fell somewhere within the concerned-terrified category, along with that of the extremely attractive stranger standing beside him.

“Um… this is Namjoon.”

Jungkook threw an awkward little gesture towards the man next to him, still looking slightly disturbed.

Oooooof course the man Jimin had sworn to hate would be built like his motherfucking wet dream. Of course the universe would do that to him. What an absolute surprise.

“Hi,” Namjoon said with a voice like honey that made Jimin feel just a little bit too warm. He smiled shyly at Jimin in greeting and two little divots of dimples appeared squarely in the middle of his smooth round cheeks, “Nice to meet you, Jimin.”

Fuck.

“Uhhhhhh,” Speak, Jimin, “Uhhhhhh,” Speak words, Jimin, “Hhhshhhh,” Speak English words, Jimin, “Hello.”

Good.

Jimin shook his head with a little jolt and cleared his throat, “Sorry! Hi, yes, hello, good morning! Nice to meet you, Jimin! No. I’m Jimin, yes. You’re not. Hello. I’ve said that already. Namjoon. You’re Namjoon.”

Namjoon laughed and the dimples got deeper.

Double fuck.

“Yes, I am Namjoon,” he smiled showing a full row of teeth this time and Jimin felt the urgent need to punch a wall or smash a plate or something just to feel powerful again.

Namjoon was almost a full head taller than Jimin and it made him feel incredibly weak as he was looked down at by the very pretty man dressed completely as Prince Charming. He filled out the costume so well that Jimin felt like he’d never seen it before, let alone actually worn one every day for 8 months. It was making him even more irrationally angry than he was already.

He must’ve still been puffed from running from the car, Jimin reasoned as he found himself losing breath.

“I hear you used to be Charming?” Namjoon asked.

“I’m still charming!” Jimin growled, “You’re just tall and you caught me off-guard.”

Namjoon looked completely taken aback by Jimin’s outburst and Jungkook shoved a fist in his mouth to hide his laughter. Jimin could see his shoulders shaking.

“No, I—I meant, no…” Namjoon floundered and Jimin’s stomach dropped as he realised what just happened, “I’m sorry! No, that wasn’t—I am not… This is not going well. Goodbye.”

Namjoon turned on his heel and left straight down the corridor of lockers, his movements stiff and jerky but moving as quickly as he possibly could without breaking into a run, getting as far away from Jimin as possible.

“Oh my god!” Jungkook wheezed, tears streaming down his cheeks and ruining his freshly applied makeup, “What the fuck even was that?! You were both so awkward holy shit!”

“What just happened?” Jimin was stunned.

Jungkook took a deep shuddering breath as more tears slipped out of his eyes, “What just happened – holy crap – is that you and Namjoon just participated in what may have been the most awkward and disastrous introduction in all of history. His face was so red, oh my goodness, I can’t believe he just left like that.”

Jungkook’s cackles were far too loud to be appropriate and Jimin knew Namjoon would be able to hear them wherever his own locker happened to be.

“Why did you say that you’re still charming? You know he meant Prince Charming, right?” Jungkook giggled tightly, face turning red as he tried to stop the flow of his guffawing.

“Yes, thank you,” Jimin hissed, “I do now!”

“Wow that was so great,” Jungkook sighed and rubbed his chest bone like it was hurting him, “Like, even-better-than-Jin-and-Taehyung-physically-injuring-themselves great. I can’t believe you scared him so much you made him run away – actually run! Anyway, you should get ready otherwise you are going to be so late.”

Jimin looked around him to see that everyone else was already completely suited up and he was still standing there in his oversized t-shirt and skinny jeans, ten minutes left on the clock.

Damn Kim Namjoon and his stupid smile.

Jimin hated him.

❧

Jimin’s day went exactly as he expected it to. His encounter with Namjoon that morning had set him off on a war path that even the sweetest of children could not divert him from. He did his job and he did it with a smile so immovable he probably looked like a Ken doll, but internally he was seething.

He had run into the infuriating Prince Charming several times throughout the day and was forced to interact with him for the sake of the children. Jimin had to admit, Namjoon did a good job. He answered questions without too much specificity so the kids wouldn’t get too latched on to certain things, kept it vague enough that the other Charmings would be able to give similar responses, laughed and teased in the right spots, as well as flirted with the mothers like it was his second job. He did well. Hell, he did really well.

For someone who had gained this position through deception and fraud, Jimin was impressed. Still bitter, but impressed.

Namjoon made large enough waves that by the end of the day people were approaching Jimin to comment on “how wonderful” he was. Certain traitorous individuals went so far as to compare Namjoon’s Prince Charming to Jimin’s, which… come on.

“He’s phenomenal!” Taehyung gushed when they’d arrived home that evening, “He did so well for his first day! Some of those kids can be tough, man, but he was a pro!”

Hoseok was nodding along as he stuck the frozen lasagne in the oven, “It’s true, he did. He didn’t even flinch when I ran into him during his signing and started teasing. He just gave it back as good as he got. I have to say, he really fits the role.”

Jimin saw Taehyung nodding so fast out the corner of his eye that his head was a blur, “He’s as good as Jimin!”

Jimin broke the wine glass he was cleaning in the sink, scrubbing it so hard he bumped it against the tap and it smashed, slicing a little lump out of his thumb.

“Fuck!”

Hoseok slammed the oven door shut and rushed over to check on him.

“Jimin! What happened?” Taehyung stood up from his seat at the dining table and bounded over to have a look.

Jimin dropped the remainder of the glass in his hand into the sink with a loud crash, cursing under his breath, and messily tried to pull off a long wad of paper towel with his wet, bloody hands.

Soggy paper and little droplets of blood were everywhere and Hoseok and Taehyung were hovering awkwardly around the fuming man, unsure whether to step in and help or to just let him be. It seemed they deemed the latter option the safest.

They were right.

“How did it break?” Hoseok asked, delicately fishing the bits of glass out of the sink and into a trash bag.

“I hit it on the tap,” Jimin muttered as he applied pressure to his thumb. His legs must have decided that giving up was a fine decision, and he found himself sliding his back down the cupboards to sit on the floor. Today could go suck on a lemon.

“I’ll go get the first aid kit,” Taehyung called, heading down the hallway to fetch what was really a glorified Tupperware container they kept behind the bathroom mirror. It was primarily filled with hangover helpers.

Hoseok knelt down in front of him on the linoleum and tried to pull the wet bundle of paper away from his hands.

“Let me see, you big baby.”

Jimin wrestled with him for a little bit, just for the sake of being difficult, but he eventually let Hoseok pull away the paper to see the divot on his knuckle, about half the size of a penny and bleeding profusely.

“Jesus,” Hoseok replaced the old paper with a fresh lot and looked up at Jimin with confused eyes, “What had you so pissed that you needed to break our dinnerware?”

“Shut up,” Jimin sulked.

“Awww, baby,” Taehyung cooed, appearing with the tub of mixed medicinal products, “Are you sad I said Namjoon was as good a Charming as you?”

“No,” Jimin pouted, giving away his lie.

Hoseok tutted softly, grabbing the tub from Taehyung and opening it up to pull out some disinfectant and bandages.

“Jiminie, you know you’re still the best Charming Disney’s ever had,” Taehyung reassured, sitting down on the floor beside him.

Jimin hissed as Hoseok applied the disinfectant and went to jerk his arm away, but Hoseok was holding his wrist too tightly.

“Namjoon’s just as good though, apparently,” Jimin moped and Hoseok laughed at his petulance.

“Stop being a big baby, you know that Namjoon could never take your place. Least of all with us.”

Jimin harrumphed grumpily and Taehyung rubbed his back in small circles.

He knew he was being irrational – that was something he was aware of about himself quite often – but it didn’t stop him from feeling both dejected and competitive. The worst part about it all, was that he wasn’t even able to disprove them. Namjoon, though Jimin would rather die than admit it out loud, was every bit as good a Charming as Jimin had been. He played the part perfectly, which irked Jimin to no end.

It wasn’t like he was actively hoping for Namjoon to fail at his role, that wouldn’t have been fair, but he wasn’t really expecting for him to do so well, either. It was more like he hoped Namjoon would learn his lesson – you shouldn’t be able to succeed when you weren’t deserving, when you hadn’t earned it – and, as far as Jimin was concerned, Namjoon hadn’t earned it. He hadn’t properly proven himself against the same test that everyone before him had had to take, and as a result, someone who had worked twice as hard had missed out on the opportunity to move up.

Jimin wallowed in his feelings of self-righteousness for the rest of the evening; nothing Taehyung or Hoseok could do was able to drag him out of it. He was too busy thinking. If everybody else was just going to ignore the injustice done, Jimin would show them some other way.

Jimin was convinced there had to be something wrong with Namjoon. No one man could be that perfect. He wasn’t actually Prince Charming, that was just his character. There had to be a goddamn flaw inside there somewhere and Jimin was determined to find out what it was. He was on a mission to prove that Dark!Joon was lurking inside that man.

❧

Normally, in summer during his set time for appearances, Jimin would head outside and find a nice shady spot to let the mobs attack (god help the poor soul who got mobbed while they were in the sun). He had a favourite little hang out in the Fantasy Faire Courtyard where he liked to be found outside of meet and greets; a little undercover spot near the Royal Hall that kept him pretty busy. Jungkook liked to hang out close by as well, so the area was often a popular spot for guests to come and meet the Princes. The guests that visited Jimin regularly knew he was most likely to be found here, but on the odd day Jimin liked to wander around throughout the rest of Fantasyland. It was a nice break from the norm on those days, and Jimin enjoyed interacting with the other character actors, particularly Peter Pan and Alice. They gave him the most stimulation because they were generally pretty spontaneous, and as Prince Eric Jimin was allowed to be a little more playful than some of the other Princes. It was always fun for him when some of their interactions ended up on YouTube.

Today, though, Jimin had one character in particular he was on the hunt for, and he needed to be out of costume when he did it.

Prince Eric’s final set conveniently finished around an hour earlier than Prince Charming’s, so he managed a quick-change act back into his normal clothes and set out to begin reconnaissance.

Namjoon was stopped along Fantasyland Path when Jimin found him, deep in some improv with Jin as Gaston. They were engaging in a battle of wits, much to the amusement of the crowd around them, which Prince Charming was unsurprisingly winning. Jimin watched from afar, unrecognisable by the guests out of costume, as Jin broke from the conversation and began taking photos with some middle-aged women hanging off his biceps.

Namjoon turned his attention towards a little girl dressed as Cinderella.

He gasped exaggeratedly, “Oh my! Princess! They’ve shrunk you!”

“Noooooo,” the little girl giggled and shook her head fiercely, “I’m not your Cinderella!”

“You’re not?” Namjoon looked perplexed, “But you look just like her! If you’re not Cinderella, then who are you?”

“I’m Amy,” she said cheerfully, rocking forward onto the balls of her feet.

“Princess Amy,” Namjoon bowed forward, as low as he could possibly go.

The girl giggled again, a happy little airy sound as she refuted the title she had been bestowed.

“I’m not a princess, silly!”

Namjoon leaned back and appraised her carefully, scanning her up and down dramatically, “Hmmmmm... you sure look like a princess to me.”

“I do?”

“Indeed! Are you sure you’re not a princess?”

“I dunnooooo,” Amy said sceptically, “Where is my Fairy Godmother then?”

Namjoon looked very serious for a moment and answered, “Perhaps she got lost! Fairies have a horrible sense of direction, you know.”

She grinned widely up at her Prince Charming, showing off an adorable little gap where her two front teeth should be.

“Really?”

Namjoon nodded very seriously, “Oh yes, they’re constantly getting lost.”

Jimin scoffed.

Cute.

The little girl.

The little girl was cute.

Jimin’s little scoff was apparently loud enough to be heard by the subject of his spying and Namjoon swivelled around to face him. He saw the exact moment the taller man’s eyes lit up in recognition.

It seemed that Namjoon was more confident around Jimin when he was in character, because he approached him almost immediately.

“And who might you be?”

Jimin smirked softly before replying, “I’m a friend of Prince Eric’s.”

Namjoon grinned cheekily, “Well then… Prince Eric certainly has fine friends.”

It could’ve been an innocent comment, and may well have been to anyone else listening, however Jimin didn’t miss the quick rake of Namjoon’s eyes over him as he spoke and knew there was a more playful intention behind it.

Jimin’s eyes widened in surprise and he could feel his cheeks growing hot, and try as he might, he couldn’t quite hide the smile that was tugging on his cheeks. “Does Cinderella know you talk like that with strangers?”

Namjoon’s eyes crinkled in a wide grin and leaned in closer, placing a large, warm hand on the small of Jimin’s back in a casual touch, “Oh, but you’re not a stranger, silly. A friend of Prince Eric’s is a friend of mine.”

Jimin’s face was well and truly red now, he knew, and Namjoon’s hand felt like it was burning him through where it was placed on top of his shirt.

He couldn’t stutter out a response quick enough and Namjoon was whisked away by other park guests, throwing a final wink over his shoulder at Jimin that left him bewildered and gaping like a fish. The spot on his lower back felt much colder than the rest of him, even in the summer sun, now that the heat of Namjoon’s hand was gone.

What the fuck?

Had Jimin just unwittingly become one of the middle-aged mothers that became a flustered mess at the hands of Prince Charming? Jimin was completely floored.

Namjoon had his back to him now and was happily snapping photos with a group of Japanese tourists who had a stack of autograph books in their hands, but Jimin knew that there would be a slight flush to Namjoon’s cheeks if he could see them. Even though he was confident in-character, Jimin knew it would’ve taken every ounce of his willpower to speak to him like that. Still, Jimin was the one left behind blushing like a school girl. Prince Charming had moved on to the next set of faces to cuddle up to, as if Jimin’s world hadn’t just started lurching beneath his feet.

Day 1 of his Dark!Joon reconnaissance was turning out to be a total failure. 

❧

Namjoon was crouched down on the asphalt in the parking lot when Jimin saw him at the end of the day. He had folded his magnificently tall body up into a ball beside the front wheel of one of the cars, and had one hand out, palm upwards, flat on the ground.

His mouth was moving animatedly and his eyes were wide, and for a moment Jimin thought he was talking to himself until he got close enough to hear the words he was mumbling.

“- pretty colours. You are very bright, I bet you’re the brightest among all your friends. And you have tiny hands! Little grippy hooks. That’s very cool. That would come in so handy.”

A beetle. He was talking to a beetle.

Jimin wasn’t sure why that warmed his heart a little, but it did.

“Did you make a friend?” Jimin asked, interrupting Namjoon’s one-sided conversation.

The other man was so startled by Jimin’s voice that he shot up from the ground with as much power as he could muster in his legs, propelling himself upwards with such great force that his head collided into the side-view mirror of the car with a sickening noise.

Jimin winced as Namjoon’s face contorted in pain and he fell back down on the ground.

“Oh my god, are you okay?!” Jimin rushed forward to help him off the ground, but Namjoon scrambled away in favour of getting to his feet himself.

“Ah, yeah,” the taller man said as he rubbed the sore spot on the top of his head, “I have a nasty headache, but I’m okay.”

Jimin giggled lightly, “You didn’t squash the bug you were talking to, did you?”

Namjoon’s eyes widened and he looked around on the ground frantically for his winged friend, but thankfully the beetle must’ve flown away before he was caught underneath the tumbling prince. He turned his attention back to Jimin with a bashful flush on his face.

“You, ah, you saw that did you?”

Jimin nodded quickly, grinning widely at the spreading blush working its way up Namjoon’s neck, “Yes, I did.”

“G-Great,” Namjoon stuttered, “You probably think I’m so weird now.”

Jimin laughed openly at that, bright and so loud that it startled Namjoon and he jumped slightly, “For what? Talking to a beetle? Doesn’t everyone? I wouldn’t be so worried about what I think, I’m best friends with Hoseok and Taehyung. My opinion clearly can’t be trusted, anyway.”

Namjoon smiled kindly and nodded, half in agreement, half in thanks. He scuffed his feet nervously and Jimin watched as little pebbles of asphalt came skittering towards him.

“Um, I better be going,” the taller man said, almost hesitantly, “I have an appointment that I really can’t miss.”

“Oh! Yeah, sure. Same. I mean—not an appointment, I don’t have an appointment right now. That would be really strange if we both happened to have one. I just… I mean I have to go home. I should be going home. I—bye.”

Jimin flung his hand up in a quick little awkward wave and backed away from Namjoon, ready to rear past him to get to his car.

Namjoon’s face was red and very surprised at Jimin’s hasty adieu, but he nodded his own goodbye and pressed the unlock button on the keys dangling from his hand. The silver Toyota Corolla next to them came to life with two sharp, successive beeps.

Jimin’s smile was more like a grimace as he whisked away. Why must he turn every conversation uncomfortable?

He threw one final look over his shoulder before he left and—

Wait a gosh-darned minute.

“This is your car?!”

Namjoon swung around quickly, looking extremely alarmed by Jimin’s sudden outburst and accusatory tone, and stuttered out a quick “yes”.

After the morning he had, he would recognise that license plate anywhere.

“You stole my parking space!”

Jimin pointed his finger at him and Namjoon looked beyond confused.

“Your parking space? This is your parking space?” He gestured to the spot his car was currently sitting, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! I didn’t think the staff car park had allocated parking. I mean, maybe it doesn’t. It doesn’t, does it? If it does, where am I supposed to park? Do I have a space? Nobody showed me that on my first day! I didn’t think there was, there’s always a different car parked next to me. You probably just really like this spot, right? That’s okay, I can stop parking here! I’ll park up the back, it’s fine. I’m sorry! You can have this space back!”

“Oh my god shut up!” Jimin rushed to stop the taller man from stressing them both out, “I’m not talking about here!”

“Y-You’re not?” Namjoon went back to his confused state.

“The beach! You stole my car park! I have to get up a whole half an hour earlier in the mornings now just so I can go out on the water before work, since I have to walk all the way from the main beach lot.”

Namjoon froze.

“Oh. Oh. Oh my god I had no idea.”

Jimin huffed indignantly, “Well. Now you do.”

“Right, well,” Namjoon rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, “You can have that spot back, then.”

His cheeks were so red and there was a look on his face that Jimin couldn’t quite decipher, when he breathed out a hurried “I’m sorry, Jimin”, then turned around and slipped into his car, quickly starting the engine and reversing out of the park.

Jimin was left standing there on his own, replaying the last few moments in his head, chest aching a little.

Jimin wasn’t sure what to do with that.

❧

So far, Jimin’s efforts to prove the existence of Dark!Joon were fruitless. Jimin was struggling to find a single shred of proof that supported his theory. After the car park incident, Namjoon had stopped parking at back beach, leaving Jimin’s space clear. Jimin had seen him out on the waves in the mornings though, meaning he was parking at main beach and walking down. Jimin’s chest still ached whenever he thought about it and it made him angry.

He was getting more and more frustrated by the results of his research. No matter how hard he tried to catch Namjoon off-guard, all he had managed to do was solidify Namjoon’s status as an outgoing and charming creature-lover that stumbled through life awkwardly with heart eyes.

Namjoon was cunning, he would give him that.

Whenever Jimin watched him in character, Namjoon was the perfect Prince. He was kind and funny with the children, and flirtatious and respectful with the adults. Truly charming.

When he was out of character and Jimin saw him around, he was always taking photos of strangers’ dogs, or with his face buried so far in a book that he would occasionally bump into the objects around him. He was like a cross between Belle and a glitching video game character. Jimin had observed him lose two Mickey Mouse balloons when he had accidentally let go of the strings while wandering the park in his free time. He’d also managed to spill ice cream on himself four times and walk full-pelt into two light posts.

Jimin had only been watching him for less than 2 weeks.

Jimin was most taken aback, however, the day Namjoon encountered Mrs Tuesday. Mrs Tuesday was notorious among the cast members for visiting the park every single week (on Tuesdays) and carrying a bag of knitted scarves everywhere she went. She would spend the entire day chasing Captain Hook around the park. Tuesday’s were awful for the Hooks. One particular Tuesday, she happened upon the Castle Courtyard as Namjoon was about to leave for his break. Jimin had watched as she approached him for an autograph, autograph book and pencil in hand, and Namjoon had politely refused. He explained that he had to visit with Cinderella and would be back shortly, if she would like to wait for him to return. Mrs Tuesday didn’t like that at all. She became aggressive and started to get in Namjoon’s face, but he kindly brushed her aside once again.

That was when Jimin watched her stab her pencil into his arm.

Namjoon, to his immense credit, hadn’t broken character for a second. Jimin didn’t know how he managed it, but he quickly said goodbye to the other guests, pencil still sticking out of his arm, and rushed off backstage.

Jimin heard the next day that he had to have six stitches.

His investigation was running out of steam and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He said as much to Taehyung and Hoseok one evening after they’d returned home from the park.

“I just don’t know what to do now,” Jimin whined, thudding his head down on the kitchen table.

“I don’t understand what your problem is,” Hoseok eyes him over the rim of his wine glass from across the table, “Namjoon is wonderful. Why are you so determined to dislike the guy?”

“I’m not! I just don’t trust him. I didn’t like him getting the role of Charming at first, but now he’s just... too Charming. He’s too princely. I don’t trust it. There has to be something wrong with the guy.”

Taehyung scoffed from his position flat on the floor beside Jimin’s chair, “Why? Because you want there to be? The way I see it, Namjoon’s fatal flaw is that he’s like a puppy. He’s too trusting sometimes; too innocent and curious.”

“That’s exactly the same problem you have,” Hoseok rolled his eyes down at Taehyung.

“Yes! Exactly! That’s why I understand it so well. Jimin’s problem,” Taehyung sat up, “Is exactly the opposite. He’s too cynical. You look for the worst in everyone that isn’t a child.”

“Oh no,” Jimin lifted his head up and shook it, “I look for the worst in children, too. Those little gremlins ruined my back from swinging their tiny overweight bodies off my neck. I’ve been peed on one too many times to trust children either.”

Hoseok grimaced in sympathy.

“Fine,” Taehyung shrugged, “Then you’re an all-round Scrooge.”

“I understand, but also I don’t,” Hoseok chimed in. “How can you be so pessimistic and work at Disneyland?”

Jimin shrugged, “The magic was ruined.”

Taehyung let out a loud peel of laugher at that, falling back against the floor with a thud.

“Lies! You’re still a giant kid at heart, you just don’t like people!”

Jimin leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table with a sigh, “It’s like working in hospitality. If you stay in the industry long enough, sooner or later you end up hating the human species.”

“Okay, I can’t argue with you there,” Hoseok tilted his glass at Jimin, “But Namjoon seems to be one of the decent ones. If you like Taehyung and I then damn, you should at least be able to like Namjoon. The guy is practically a saint compared to every other single person we know.”

Hoseok had a point, Jimin just didn’t want to admit it. He hung his head and started picking at the peeling lacquer on the wood of the table instead of responding.

“Unless... there’s something more to it than that?”

Taehyung perked up in curiosity, sitting up fully and cocking his head in question.

“I have no idea what you mean, Tae.”

“I mean, you’ve done absolutely nothing but talk about Namjoon since he started three weeks ago. You can’t shut up about the guy!”

Taehyung got up off the floor and took a seat at the table next to Hoseok, opposite Jimin. They were both staring at him intently and he was getting extremely uncomfortable under the attention. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought up Namjoon.

This was beginning to look a lot like an intervention.

“Stop coming for my neck!” Jimin huffed, “I just don’t like that he didn’t have to do any of the difficult or gross shit that we had to do when we first started. I don’t think it’s fair, is all. Plus, he’s too tall to be Charming. They had to completely alter the costume.”

“Jimin,” Hoseok said patronisingly, “You were the shortest Charming the park ever had. The reason the costume even had to be altered in the first place was because of you.”

“It’s still not fair—” Jimin began but Taehyung cut him off.

“Is there anything you actually dislike about Namjoon? Because so far, all you’ve done is whine about the guy but with nothing actually worth whining about. I think you just don’t want to admit when you’re wrong. Seems to me you just kinda like talking about him.”

Jimin glared at Taehyung, who was beginning to look like the cat who ate the canary, “False.”

“Okay, Donald Trump.”

“Tae’s got a point, Chim. Every single day after work it’s been ‘Namjoon this’ and ‘Namjoon that’,” Hoseok agreed, “You have been so wrapped up in your new eye candy that you didn’t even laugh when Taehyung got a bloody nose from walking into a tree branch because he was staring at Jin.”

“Hey!”

“I mean,” Hoseok ignores Taehyung’s indignation, “You normally would’ve boomeranged that shit and put it on instagram. What gives?”

“As pissed as I am that you two like to make a public spectacle of me humiliating myself, I agree.” Taehyung raised an eyebrow at Jimin, “You say you’re watching Namjoon to prove that he’s not as good as he seems, but are you sure you’re not actually watching him because... you actually like looking at him?”

Pfffft.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Hoseok smirked.

“You spend a lot of time staring at him, Jiminnie.”

“And don’t think either of us missed you watching him bend over the other day—”

“Honestly why were you even there?”

“Your locker isn’t even on that side—”

“You kind of looked like you were drooling—”

“Were you drooling at Namjoon, Jiminnie?”

Jimin shrank under the rapid-fire questions. He had no idea how to answer any of them. He didn’t really want to even think about his answer for them, since he didn’t actually have one. Jimin had no excuse for being over that side of the lockers the other day. He’d gone over under the guise of talking to Taehyung, but he’d actually wanted to suss out Namjoon again. It wasn’t his fault that he froze when Namjoon bent down to tie his shoes. It wasn’t.

“Enough!”

Jimin groaned and pushed the heels of his hands as hard as he could. Maybe if he rubbed hard enough he could stimulate his brain into actually doing something useful for once.

Red and white stars floated behind his eyelids as he tried to get his thoughts in order. He knew Taehyung and Hoseok were probably feeling a bit too pleased with themselves over his outburst, but he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of being right.

He took a deep breath enjoyed the hushed silence that had fallen over the kitchen. It was a rare moment to have both Taehyung and Hoseok’s mouths shut at the same time.

“I’m done with this conversation.”

He said it with such finality that, when he removed his hands from his eyes, he saw the two men opposite him looking a bit chastised. His chair scraped loudly against the wooden floorboards as he stood up, leaving the pair sitting at the table behind him as he left the room.

As much as he wasn’t really upset, he truly didn’t want to continue the interrogation. Jimin had a lot to think about and probably a few reassessments to make, and he’d rather not do it in the presence of the two smuggest bastards in the world.

Jimin retreated back to his own room and lay flat on his mattress as he mulled over all the thoughts swimming around in his head.

He glared up at the peeling paint on his ceiling as if it had personally wronged him somehow. A part of Jimin knew that if ceiling paint could, this ceiling paint would. Everything seemed to be doing it lately, the ceiling paint would only be the latest in a very long line of personal enemies.

Objectively, if Jimin was feeling particularly objective, he knew that his bitterness towards Namjoon was unfounded. It was unfounded from the beginning, but it was too late for Jimin to admit it without looking like a fool. Jimin hated being wrong. If there was one thing he hated more than being wrong, it was him being wrong and Taehyung and Hoseok being right.

So, in the interest of cognitive dissonance, he had stuck to his guns.

If Jimin was being completely honest with himself, he told his ceiling, then he would also be able to admit that he found Namjoon to be moderately attractive.

It was such a shame that Jimin was hardly ever honest with himself.

Jimin didn’t emerge from his room for the rest of the night, choosing to bury his face in his pillow out of fear of being potentially cornered by his housemates again.

❧

Jimin was on week 4 of watching Namjoon like a hawk when it happened.

Jimin was in the change rooms, packing his things into his bag and getting ready to leave for the day after finishing his shift. He was looking forward to heading home and curling up on the couch with the “share pack” of chocolate he had bought the night before, and binge-watching Gossip Girl until he could physically feel himself losing brain cells.

Namjoon was getting changed into Prince Charming’s outfit as he was leaving - he’d come in as a last-minute replacement for the evening parade when one of the other Charming’s had suddenly come down violently ill.

Jimin had his headphones stuffed in his ears and his hands buried deep in his pockets when he rounded the tall, grey lockers. His eyes were down on his phone, tapping away deftly at the screen as he flicked a message to Taehyung. He was so engrossed in his own little world that he didn’t notice the wall of skin in front of him until he had rammed straight into it.

The wind was knocked out of Namjoon’s lungs with a soft “oof” as Jimin knocked him off balance. The pair went down, Namjoon’s arms coming up to wrap protectively around Jimin as his bare back hit the concrete floor with a thudding slap.

Jimin’s eyes were wide with shock as his mind slowly caught up to what the fuck just happened. He was lying flat on top of Namjoon, who had his hands on his waist, and they were both staring at each other in frozen mortification. Jimin’s headphones had been ripped from his ears and he could hear them dimly still playing Walking on Sunshine from where they lay on the floor.

Jimin could feel the heat radiating off of Namjoon from the skin underneath him.

He didn’t hate it.

Both of their faces were burning red as they came to their senses and tried to scramble away from each other as fast as possible. Jimin could hear a faint buzzing in his ears as he tried to escape, but every time he tried to awkwardly step around Namjoon to run away, the taller man would step the same direction and they kept bumping into each other.

Jimin just wanted the ground to open up beneath him and swallow him whole.

By the time he had fumbled his way around Namjoon to leave, he was still in a complete state of shock. He couldn’t remember driving home, he had completely blacked out the entire journey, but he somehow ended up in his house, standing in the centre of the living room like he was in a trance.

Jimin’s afternoon plans were shot to shit. He demolished his share pack of chocolate but didn’t bother to turn on the TV to watch Gossip Girl. He just sat there in silence, staring blankly at the coffee table. He was positive his face was stained a permanent red colour.

Jimin couldn’t get the image of Namjoon’s chest out of his mind. Not even just the image, but the feel of it. He kept thinking about how smooth it had felt against him, and how soft yet strong the muscles had been under his hands.

He was screwed.

Jimin sat in the exact same position for hours - until the sun had set and the room was completely dark, and he had long since finished his chocolate.

Taehyung and Hoseok came home to find him sitting ramrod straight on the couch in the dark.

“I think I like Namjoon.”

“No shit.”

 ❧

The purpose of Jimin’s work days completely shifted from that time on. Week 5 was a pathetic failure in terms of compiling evidence against his Dark!Joon theory, as Jimin had completely given up watching Namjoon in the hopes of catching him in a malicious act, and was instead now watching him to catch a glimpse of his dimples.

He was far more successful in this venture than he had been in the previous one.

Within a single afternoon of his Soft!Joon surveillance, Jimin witnessed him rescue two lizards off the pavement so they weren’t stepped on, and saw him excitedly popping bubbles with the enthusiasm of a 3-year-old. He also thought he saw the larger man cry while watching a YouTube video of a raccoon panicking after it accidentally dissolved cotton candy in water.

Jimin, once he had moved past his initial stubborn resentment, was quickly enamoured.

The problem now became what to do about it.

“So I have a dilemma,” Jimin said to Wheein one day as he plopped himself down at a seat in the break room.

She looked up from her phone with one perfectly manicured eyebrow cocked, “Do tell.”

“It’s about Namjoon,” Jimin sighed and took large gulps from the water bottle in his hands. He had been doing a set outside and felt like he was about to melt out of his clothes, so the water was a welcome refreshment.

“Ah,” Wheein looked much more interested at the mention of the other man’s name and turned her phone off, sitting it face-down on the coffee table. She rotated her body to show Jimin she was giving him her full attention, “Is this about your crush?”

Jimin choked and water flew up his nose as he desperately attempted to hold back from spitting everywhere.

“My what?!”

Some of the other heads in the room turned to look at him and he hid his face behind a hand as he coughed and wiped the water away that was now running down his nose. His cheeks were growing hotter by the second.

Wheein cackled as she watched him splutter.

There were tears in his eyes when he turned to her and hissed, “how the fuck did you know?”

“Aw, sweetie, everybody in this place who has two braincells to rub together has figured out you’re sporting a massive heart boner for Prince Charming,” she leaned back into the sofa cushions triumphantly, “I think the only poor soul who hasn’t realised it yet is your Tall Dark and Handsome himself.”

He groaned and hid his face in his hands, “I can’t believe this. How did everyone else know before I did?”

“Because you’re woefully oblivious,” Wheein stated succinctly, “Even Jungkook figured it out, and sometimes I think that boy is dumber than a sack of bricks. I’m still wondering how he managed to figure out your crush but hasn’t realised that Yoongi is ass over tits for him. Honestly, why else would that little gremlin offer to give Jungkook a ride home every day? Jungkook lives with Jin, for crying out loud. They carpool to work every day, why wouldn’t they carpool home? It doesn’t make sense. Yoongi isn’t exactly subtle.”

 Her words faded off into quiet confusion so Jimin came to her rescue.

“Ah, yeah,” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, “Jungkook was there when I met Namjoon – worst day of my goddamn life. I choked.”

“Well that’s one mystery solved,” Wheein smiled at him gently, “So how’d you figure it out?”

“Have you ever seen his naked chest?” Jimin sighed dreamily, “It’s a goddamn work of art.”

Wheein sat up and leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a hushed whisper.

“You’ve seen him shirtless? You must’ve been a saint in your past life because apparently he’s like a ninja getting changed. None of the other guys I’ve spoken to about him have caught even a glimpse of the elusive Bare Skin. He arrives earlier than everyone else in the mornings and stays after everyone else has left. The fact that you managed it is actually surprising, since you weren’t even trying.”

Jimin shook his head in befuddlement, “Wait, what? You mean some of the guys have actually been trying to show up deliberately when he’s getting changed?”

She shrugged, “They’re thirsty. Then they found it freaky when they weren’t able to catch him in the changerooms. They swore up and down that he was actually apparating into his clothes or something.”

Jimin sighed dreamily, “He’s definitely not doing that.”

Wheein scoffed, “You’re so whipped, it’s kind of gross.”

“And we’re back to my original problem!” Jimin groaned and flopped sideways on the couch, “I don’t know what to do about it! How do I go about getting him to like me back?”

“What?!” Wheein laughed, “Oh my gosh, you’re adorable. First of all, I wouldn’t be so concerned about him not liking you back – just trust me on that and don’t ask questions. Second of all, I’d say your problem is actually how to go from A to B. ‘A’ being ‘staring dreamily’, ‘B’ being ‘holding hands and frolicking off into the sunset’.”

He hummed softly.

“So how do I do that, then?”

Wheein lifted her thumb and forefinger to her chin and feigned thinking for a few moments, before she responded, “I think I’ve thought of something you might not have tried yet.”

“Oh?” Jimin perked up, sitting upright again, “What’s that?”

“Being nice.”

She shot him a dark look, “You’ve barely spoken a handful of words to the guy and most of them were awkwardly jumbled. You even went off your little firecracker head at him in the parking lot once – yes I know about that and don’t question me. Every opportunity you’ve had, you’ve been going around telling people how much you dislike him. You think he hasn’t realised by now that he’s not in your good books? I guarantee you he thinks you hate him. He may be an adorable oaf, but he’s not an idiot. In fact, he’s actually extremely smart, and very perceptive. There is no way he has missed your cold stares or your weird little stalking sessions – which, by the way, what the fuck was that? So, your first task, young padawan, is to correct that major fuck up.”

By the time she’d finished, Jimin felt like he was in third grade and had just been scolded by his teacher in front of the entire class.

The worst part about it was that Wheein was right.

He’d been awful to Namjoon so far and there was no way he could just magically up and ask him out without first correcting all his mistakes in-between. So, that was his first order of business. He knew what he had to do, and the first step in that was making sure the other man knew that Jimin didn’t actually hate him. In fact, quite the opposite.

It was going to take some work, and a lot of effort on Jimin’s part, but he was determined.

He was going to woo Namjoon.

❧

Wooing Namjoon turned out to be harder than he thought.

Jimin tried to catch him on his own later that afternoon after his set had finished, but it was like the man vanished into thin air. Namjoon was nowhere to be seen in the entire park. Jimin knew, because Jimin looked. Everywhere.

He figured he would be able to catch him as he came back to grab his things from the lockers when his set time had ended, but after waiting 15 minutes and finding out from Cinderella that he had definitely left, Jimin was stumped. How he had managed to slip past was a complete mystery. So, instead of calling the day an entire waste, Jimin searched the park for a trace of Namjoon. He was sure the other man had to be around somewhere, he couldn’t have left without getting changed and collecting his things from his locker, but the more that Jimin looked the more freaked out he became. Maybe Namjoon was a ninja like Wheein had said.

When Jimin finally gave up and walked back to his car, he was even more saddened to see that Namjoon’s car was gone. He spent two hours after his clock-off time walking around the park for nothing.

Jimin had a pout firmly planted on his lips for the entirety of that evening.

He woke up the next morning feeling decidedly more optimistic – today was the day he wooed Namjoon, he thought. However, his enthusiasm was shot down when he arrived at back beach for his morning surf, only to see that Namjoon had decided to forgo the beach that morning. Jimin spent his entire time out on the waves frantically analysing every new man with a board to appear on the beach, only to be dejected when he realised they were not the one he was looking for.

The pout returned full force.

“Why so down, munchkin?” Jin questioned when Jimin appeared in the changerooms, dragging his feet with his bottom lip sticking out petulantly.

“Is Namjoon a ninja?”

He plonked down on the bench next to Jin’s locker, laying down on his back to stare up at the ugly grey ceiling like he was on a therapist’s couch. His voice sounded whiny even to his own ears, so it was no surprise Jin picked up on it too.

“Aww, why? Have you been looking for him?”

“Yes!” His hands flew up in a frustrated flip in front of his face, “It’s like he just vanishes! I knew he was too good to be true. He probably doesn’t actually even exist. Namjoon is a just shared delusion. There’s probably a gas leak in here or something.”

Jin scoffed as he pulled his shirt off over his head, “That’d be right. It makes sense that your Prince Charming is actually a carbon monoxide induced hallucination.”

“Who’s a carbon monoxide induced hallucination?” Jungkook appeared from around the end of the lockers and lifted up Jimin’s feet to sit on the bench, placing them back down in his lap. “What are we talking about?”

“Namjoon,” Jimin whined, “The actual real-life Prince Charming.”

“Ah,” Jungkook nodded wisely and pulled a ziploc bag of goldfish crackers out of his pocket, “That carbon monoxide induced hallucination.”

“Jimin’s been trying to find our good prince, however he’s been evasive,” Jin said, shaking out Gaston’s red shirt and picking off stray bits of cotton.

Jungkook laughed loudly, “Yeah, I heard he’s hard to find at times. Some of the boys said that they’ve never even seen him change from his normal clothes into his costume. Maybe he is actually Prince Charming and doesn’t even need to get changed. He just wakes up like that.”

Jimin shook his head, “That’s a good theory, but I’ve already seen him out of the costume a couple of times now. I’m still betting that it’s the long-term effects of some kind of poisonous gas. We’re all slowly going loopy.”

“I’m not sure how that’s a better theory than mine,” Jungkook said sceptically.

A spectacular bang echoed throughout the room followed by a loud cry of pain and the three of them swivelled their heads in the direction of the disruption.

Taehyung was standing at the end of the row of lockers, clutching his face and groaning. He seemed to have walked face-first into Shownu’s open locker door. Shownu was standing there, frozen in complete shock after having his locker door violently slammed shut by Taehyung.

“Tae!” Jin said worriedly as he rushed forward, hands outstretched, ready to check the other man over for injuries, “Are you okay?”

Taehyung’s hand flew away from his face and his eyes widened impossibly large when he realised Jin was coming forward at him. He tried to back away as quick as he could, like a skittish animal, but all he managed to do was walk straight back into where Shownu was standing. His face was firetruck red. He looked on the verge of having an aneurysm.

“I-I’m f-fine,” Taehyung cowered away from Jin’s touch, scrunching his eyes shut while the other man’s hands poked and prodded trying to assess the damage, “I— it wasn’t— I just wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Yeah, cos you were too busy staring at Jin’s chest,” Jungkook spoke with the most flatly exasperated tone that Jimin had ever heard.

Jin froze, his hands on Taehyung’s shoulders, and slowly tipped his head down to look at his still-shirtless body. Taehyung looked like he wanted to cry.

“Oh,” Jin said.

Taehyung definitely wanted to cry.

Jimin wanted to high-five Jungkook.

Shownu just wanted to get into his locker.

“I—” Taehyung whimpered, “I’m sorry.”

His face was still an angry red as he pushed Jin’s hands away from him and turned and ran off, shoes squeaking on the painted cement floor as he bolted as fast as he could, past the other cast members turning to stare or asking if he was okay.

Jungkook lifted a hand full of goldfish to his mouth and crunched away.

“Oh,” Jin said, dumbly.

Shownu rolled his eyes as dramatically as humanly possible and reopened his locker to return to his task of getting ready, completely ignoring the shirtless Gaston having an epiphany beside him. Jimin had always liked Shownu.

“What do I do?” Jin whispered, so quietly that Jimin thought he’d imagined it at first, except he had turned his wide-eyed face to stare at the pair on the bench imploringly.

“Well you go after him, don’t you?” Jimin raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Jin muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, “Yeah, I go after him.”

It took the other man a while to actually get moving, Jimin and Jungkook watching patiently while he kicked his body into gear, but when he did eventually leave they breathed a sigh of relief.

“They’ll be okay, won’t they?” Jungkook asked, “I did the right thing?”

“Yeah, Kook,” Jimin sat up and swung his legs off Jungkook’s lap, “They’ll be fine. They both needed that, it had been going on for way too long. I thought I wouldn’t get to be a best man until I was fifty. Now, it’ll probably be around thirty.”

“I wanted to be the best man,” Jungkook pouted sadly.

Jimin shrugged, “Gay wedding, isn’t it? Two best men.”

Jungkook perked up immediately and emptied the bag goldfish snacks into his mouth, standing up off the bench.

“We better go get ready or we’re going to be rushing,” he said around his mouthful of food and reached a hand out to help Jimin get up, “What were you saying about Namjoon, anyway?”

Jimin sighed dramatically and launched into his explanation, regaling Jungkook with a full detailed outline of how he had come to his Gay Namjoon awakening, and was now on a mission to woo the Prince. The younger listened obediently as he bemoaned his problems tracking down his ninja Charming while they quickly stuffed themselves into their costumes for the morning sets.

Jungkook was ready before Jimin had pulled on his boots and he tossed a quick “seeya later” over his shoulder as he raced out the door to find his Sleeping Beauty, leaving Jimin alone in the locker rooms.

Or so he thought.

A soft thud from the far side of the room alerted Jimin to the fact that he maybe wasn’t as alone as he expected.

“Hello?”

I swear to god if these locker rooms are haunted I’m going to cry.

“Jimin?”

A soft, uncertain voice called back and he knew immediately who it was; not a ghost, a hallucination.

Jimin stuffed his foot into his boot quickly and made his way to where he knew Namjoon’s locker was.

The taller man was shucking on Charming’s jacket when he came into view.

“Namjoon? I didn’t think you were working today,” Jimin said in awe, “How do I always find you when I stop looking for you?”

Namjoon looked extremely confused at that last remark, but he didn’t question it.

“Uh, yeah… um… Suho is still sick, so I got called in late to cover again.”

“I see,” Jimin nodded awkwardly and they both fell into an uncomfortable silence.

Jimin fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot, while Namjoon just stood stock still like a deer in the headlights. Both of them clearly wanted to say something, anything, but absolutely every single conversation topic on earth seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

Jimin was trying to psyche himself up to start the conversation he’d been wanting to have when Namjoon cleared his throat.

“We should go or we’re going to be late.”

Namjoon began to turn away when Jimin finally found his voice.

“Wait! Uh… I had something to say actually—”

Namjoon had stopped, half-turned and face full of confusion as Jimin spoke.

“I, um, I wanted to say that I’m sorry for the other day.”

Jimin didn’t think it was possible for Namjoon to look more confused, but somehow his face managed it.

“You—what?”

“I’m sorry,” Jimin took a deep breath, “For running into you the other day. I never apologised for knocking you down.”

“Oh.” The understanding was clear on Namjoon’s face now, but he didn’t look any less uncomfortable, “Uh… thank you. It’s okay though.”

“I still wanted to say sorry,” Jimin smiled softly at him, “It’s only polite, after all.”

The other man huffed a soft laugh and relaxed a little bit, “Well, thank you.”

Jimin could see the tension bleeding out of Namjoon’s shoulders and he was satisfied he wasn’t going to unintentionally frighten him away anymore.

“There’s actually one more thing I wanted to ask you though, before we go.” Namjoon hummed curiously and Jimin continued, “I noticed you weren’t at the beach this morning.”

“Oh! Yeah, I uh… I didn’t have time to squeeze in a surf this morning. I got called in kind of late, so…” Namjoon’s lips quirked up in a sort of awkward half-smile. The kind of smile that didn’t seem really natural, but the other person was clearly making an effort.

He probably would’ve had time to surf if it didn’t mean walking half an hour up the beach, Jimin knew.

“Right, well I actually had a proposition for you about that,” Jimin said. The little Jimin in his head was cheering him on, encouraging him to finish his well-rehearsed monologue before he lost the momentum, “I was wondering if you’d like me to pick you up in the mornings and you can come with me to back beach? That way we can both just park in the carpark there and you don’t have to walk like 20 minutes with your board from main beach. You’ll get more time in the water and you won’t have to get up so early! And if you’re not coming to work then you can just chuck me a message. Speaking of which, I should probably get your phone number. Or wait – no you should have mine otherwise you won’t be able to text me, right? That’s how phones work. Also, where do you live? I can’t pick you up without knowing where you live. Of course, that’s if you decide this is a good plan. Which, really, I think it is. I mean, I think this would suit both of us the best. Mutually beneficial, if you will.”

Why, on god’s green earth, does his mouth hate him????

Namjoon was frozen in shock and clearly having trouble processing the words that had flown out of Jimin’s mouth at an alarming speed. Jimin could actually see the cogs turning behind his eyes as he thought about whether or not several of those sentences were both necessary and grammatically correct. To be perfectly fair to Namjoon, Jimin wasn’t sure either.

“I—what?” Namjoon’s computations had clearly failed.

Jimin sighed, “Let me pick you up in the mornings.”

“Why?” Namjoon’s brow was furrowed.

“Well… I mean… you won’t have to walk from main beach then.”

“I meant,” he looked hesitantly at Jimin, “Why would you do that for me?”

Oh.

“You think I wouldn’t do that for you?” Jimin cocked his head to the side in question.

Namjoon shook his head softly, “Not really? I mean, you said “mutually beneficial”, but it really only benefits me so it’s not particularly mutually beneficial at all. It actually makes things more awkward for you, since you’d have to drive out of your way to come get me and then drop me off again.”

Jimin laughed disbelievingly, “Are you trying to talk me out of helping you?”

Namjoon seemed to smile a genuine smile at that, his lips quirking up in a relaxed grin, “I guess I am just trying to figure out your intentions in offering.”

“Oh?” Jimin couldn’t stop smiling now, “You think I have some disreputable intentions?”

Was he flirting? Is that what was happening here?

Namjoon grinned back at him, “Can never be too sure when someone asks for your address out of the blue.”

“I see,” he chuckled, “Well then maybe you’d like my address instead? As a show of good faith.”

The taller man hummed in a fake show of thought and then shook his head.

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. I might settle for your phone number, though.”

Oh.

Now it was Jimin’s turn to put on a show of pretend thinking, lifting his forefinger and thumb up to his chin and eyeing Namjoon appraisingly. The man seemed to shift nervously under his gaze. It was endearing.

“I think I could manage to find a phone number for you,” he teased and Namjoon relaxed again, laughing brightly.

“I’d hope so, since you kind of already offered before.”

He… did? Oh, he did. His damn monologue.

Oh my god I’m so stupid that wasn’t flirting holy cra—

“Yes! Yes, I did, you are right!” He giggled awkwardly.

I have completely misinterpreted this entire situation please kill me—

Namjoon shoved his phone under Jimin’s nose, a new contact open on the screen for him to fill in his details, “Go ahead! I’ll text you my address and then you’ll have my number too!”

Jimin couldn’t find it in his heart to be disappointed that Namjoon hadn’t been asking for his number asking for his number with the way the other man was grinning at him so cheerfully. His heart clenched uncomfortably at the sight of the dimples gracing the wide cheeks.

“Ah, sure,” he grabbed the phone and quickly typed in his name and number before handing it back, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning?”

Namjoon nodded, gently so as not to displace the wig on his head, “That would be really nice. Thank you, Jimin.”

He blushed under the appreciation, “Don’t thank me, I’m just trying to do something nice.”

Namjoon hummed low in his throat, “It is nice.”

They stared at each other a moment longer, both with slightly red cheeks and soft little smiles on their faces, until they both realised exactly why they were standing in costumes belonging to Disney princes in a locker room.

“Holy shit, we are going to be so laaaaaaate,” Jimin puffed as they jogged together down the hallway.

Jimin left work that day feeling far happier and more relieved than he had felt for a while. He had been visited by a sweet Swedish family that brought him a little scrapbook as a gift, and he had the most impactful interaction with an autistic boy whose mother had wept and taken a shaky video of her son speaking some of the longest sentences he had ever spoken. Jimin was so affected by the young boy that he had to take a moment to compose himself before he went back out to finish his appearance time.

His wrist and fingers were aching from all the autographs he had had to sign, and his back hurt from where a rather obese child had swung from his neck, but he was satisfied. It was a good day for him.

On top of it all, he was excited to see and spend proper time with Namjoon tomorrow morning outside of work. He was looking forward to actually getting to know him a little bit better.

And if that time happened to be spent with Namjoon in a wetsuit, then so be it.

He wouldn’t complain.

Jimin had wanted to check in with Taehyung when he arrived back at the house, but he couldn’t find Taehyung anywhere. He figured he might’ve holed himself up in his room miserably after what happened this morning, but when Jimin pushed open his bedroom door he was nowhere to be found. Even Hoseok had no idea where he’d gone.

Jimin flicked off a quick text message to Taehyung asking where he was, and when he got a flippant reply of “don’t worry about me jiminie, I’m fine! I’ll see you tomorrow!” he chose not to worry. He figured he would hear about it in the morning anyway.

❧

He set his alarm extra early the next morning to make sure he would have enough time to find Namjoon’s place and get to the beach, since Namjoon’s address was about 20 minutes out of the way, but he found that he had more than enough time after he flew through getting ready. He was buzzing with anticipation and had woken up wide-eyed and bushy-tailed like he had been pumped full of caffeine.

Jimin didn’t have much trouble finding Namjoon’s place at all, as the other man was helpfully waiting for him by the curb when he pulled up.

The house he was standing in front of was very similar to Jimin’s own. It was a little yellow shack-looking house with a couple of palm trees out the front and a blue tin roof. There were multi-coloured towels draped over the railing on the front deck and several different kinds of surf boards were propped up by the front door.

Jimin figured Namjoon must live in a really trustworthy area, since Jimin’s own neighbourhood wasn’t particularly friendly and there would be no way he left an expensive board just out in the open like that. Jimin had once witnessed several kids from down the block stealing his potted yucca from where it was placed beside the front door.

“Morning!” Namjoon said cheerfully as he opened the car door, slipping his bag down the foot of the passenger seat. Jimin could see a towel poking out of the top and what looked like the arm of a wetsuit. He tried not to think too hard about the fact Namjoon planned on getting changed in his car.

He hopped out to help Namjoon attach his board to the roof racks, his height meaning he awkwardly had to leave his door open and stand on his seat to reach the straps, and wrestled to shift the board into the right position on the car. His task was made that much more difficult by the presence of his own board already on the roof, and he had a hard time trying to get the straps around it because they kept getting caught on the other board.

He puffed breathlessly with the effort he was exerting and pushed up on his tippy toes to get a better reach.

Namjoon would’ve been better placed to attach the board – his height certainly would’ve made reaching over the van much easier – but when Jimin turned around to see where his assistance had gone, he found the other man just standing back staring at him as he struggled.

“Hey!” Jimin huffed indignantly, “Are you gonna help me or are you just going to watch my pain!”

Namjoon blushed furiously and nodded, looking very bashful at being caught.

“S-Sorry,” he rushed forward and started fumbling with the straps, and for the first time Jimin considered that Namjoon’s assistance was more of a hinderance than a help, “I got d-distracted.”

Jimin blew his fringe out of his face from where it was starting to stick to his forehead, “Distracted by what?”

Namjoon mumbled something softly from where he was tightening the end strap, too low for Jimin to hear.

“Alright, it’s done!” Namjoon said happily, distracting Jimin from whatever it was he was about to say, “Shall we hit the road?”

“Oh my god, you’re one of those people that says ‘hit the road’,” Jimin groaned, “Of course you are.”

The other man chuckled and reached out a hand to help steady Jimin as he climbed down from his precarious position hanging out the driver-side door.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Nah,” Jimin smirked, “It’s just so dad-like, I really should’ve expected it.”

Namjoon laughed outright at that comment, “Dad-like?! You think I’m dad-like?! Like your actual father?!”

Jimin was grinning as he got back into the car and Namjoon followed suit.

“I don’t think of you as my actual father, oh my god.”

“Do you see me as a father figure, Jimin?” Namjoon grinned.

“I-what? No, shut up!”

“Show your father some respect.”

“D-did you just quote Brooklyn Nine-Nine to me?”

They continued to bicker back and forth good-naturedly as they drove to the beach, neither of them letting the conversation stop for even a moment. Jimin was surprised at how easy he found Namjoon to talk to. He hadn’t really had the chance to have an extended conversation with him before, he had considered that their car rides might be uncomfortable or awkward, but Jimin found that the trip to the beach flew past without him even realising.

Jimin was unsurprised to find that Namjoon was the kind of passenger which pointed out all the animals along the way with an excited, “Horse!” or “Cat!”. This, based on his investigations of Namjoon’s character, seemed to fit perfectly. It was disgusting how adorable Jimin found it, really.

He let Namjoon change first in the back of the van after they pulled up in the parking lot. Chivalry.

“I like your car,” Namjoon said as he clambered out the side door when he was finished, bumping his head slightly on it as he went, “It’s very 70s.”

Jimin laughed, “Thanks, it was the first thing I ever bought with my Disney paycheque.”

(Which was abysmally small, if you asked Jimin).

“Oh really? Did you do all the work to it yourself or did you buy it like this?”

He was referring to the lack of passenger seats in the back and the horrific shag carpeting on the floor. There was also a beaded curtain dangling from the rear window and some fairy lights attached to the ceiling that would rattle around as he drove. It was a super dodgy hippy van.

“Ah, yeah,” Jimin was desperately trying not to look at the sight of Namjoon standing before him in his wetsuit, “It’s not the best job, but it’s legal. I had to leave at least two seats in the back though, otherwise Taehyung or Hoseok would’ve had to buckle themselves to the floor. It looks pretty disgusting, though.”

Namjoon chuckled, “Disgusting, but comforting.”

Jimin climbed in the van and pulled the door shut slightly, but not all the way. Namjoon continued to talk to him through the door as he changed.

“Have you thought about taking it on a road trip? It’s perfectly designed for it. There’s enough room that you could lay a mattress down in the back comfortably.”

Jimin grunted in acknowledgement as he crammed himself into his wetsuit. Ordinarily, during summer he wouldn’t worry about it and would just wear his usual swimming gear, but the water was still frigid this time of morning in early June even if the days were unbearable. He could hear banging around on the roof and figured Namjoon was unstrapping their boards.

“That’s actually why I bought it,” he said, zipping himself up, “I am planning on taking holidays next summer and tripping around for like a month.”

“Oh cool!” Namjoon enthused, “Will you go with Taehyung and Hoseok?”

Jimin popped out of the back of the van with a little jump, shaking his head, “Nah. I love them both but I don’t think I’d survive living out of a car with them for a whole month. More space is needed.”

“I understand completely,” Namjoon grinned.

The sun was still behind the horizon as they paddled out from shore and there was only one other surfer out on the waves. The swell wasn’t great this morning and there was a rip in the centre of the beach so it was uneven, but Namjoon and Jimin stayed out there for as long as they could. They lay back and watched the sun appear, their boards and legs bumping together with the rise and fall of the water.

It was the first morning that Jimin had spent with another person out on the waves. He avoided surfing with Hoseok and Taehyung because he liked his time alone, especially on mornings like these where it was more of a meditative experience than actual surfing, but Namjoon’s presence didn’t bother him in the slightest. He didn’t try to engage Jimin in conversation, didn’t forcefully fill the silence, they both simply floated together peacefully.

It was nice.

Jimin found Namjoon being there oddly comforting, and he was less worried about completely losing track of time or drifting too far out to sea when he was lost in his own world.

He had half expected them each to go their own ways when he invited Namjoon to carpool with him in the mornings, but he found himself happy they didn’t.

Jimin had his eyes closed and he was enjoying the first rays of sun on his skin when he felt Namjoon’s large, hot hand shaking him gently.

“Sorry,” he said when Jimin opened his eyes, “It’s time for us to head back or we’ll be late. I left you as long as I could.”

Sweet.

Jimin nodded and shook his head slightly to kick his attention back into gear. They still had a full  work day ahead of them and he couldn’t go getting sleepy again now.

Jimin dropped Namjoon back at his house with the promise to pick him up again the next morning, before rushing back home to quickly shower off the sand and salt water and pick up Hoseok.

“How’d it go?” Hoseok mumbled from around blueberry muffin.

Jimin smiled fondly, too sickeningly soft for so early in the morning, “Great.”

“Ew,” Hoseok grimaced, “You’re disgusting.”

Jimin cackled as he stripped his clothes and stepped into the shower. Hoseok was leaning lazily against the bathroom doorframe as he munched his breakfast, hoping to hear whatever gossip Jimin was willing to share.

“Did you ever find out what happened to Taehyung?” Jimin heard him ask over the loud sound of running water in his ears.

He spat out a mouthful of water before responding, “Nah, he told me not to worry about him though. No idea where he went.”

Jimin just barely caught the sound of Hoseok’s thoughtful hum.

“Did you find out what happened after Jin and Tae had that… thing… yesterday morning?”

“That thing?” Jimin laughed, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t end up seeing Tae or Jin for the rest of the day, so I haven’t got a clue. He’d already left by the time I finished my last set.”

“Do you think he’s okay?” Hoseok asked as Jimin shut off the water, holding a towel out to him when he scrambled over the side of the bathtub.

Jimin took the towel gratefully and began frantically rubbing at his hair. If he didn’t hurry up, they were going to be late.

“I’m sure he’s fine. He would’ve said if he wasn’t, Tae doesn’t like to be alone when he’s sad. If he really wasn’t okay then he would’ve been curled up here when I got home.”

Hoseok hummed, “True. I’m just worried, y’know?”

As it turned out, Hoseok had no reason to be.

Jungkook approached Jimin as soon as he walked into the change rooms that morning, not even waiting until Jimin had got over to their neighbouring lockers.

“Why were you at Namjoon’s this morning, huh?” Jungkook said, irritatingly knowingly, “I thought he was a hallucination that couldn’t be pinned down?”

Jimin rolled his eyes and shoved the younger man out the way, shouldering past to dump his bag in his locker.

“Shut up. I was just giving him a lift to the be—wait. Wait, what?” Jimin froze and spun around, lifting a finger to point at Jungkook, “How did you know I was at Namjoon’s? You haven’t even spoken to Hobi this morning.”

Jungkook winced and rubbed the back of his neck, choosing to avoid looking Jimin in the eye by busying himself getting ready instead, “Ah, yeah. I know because I was at Namjoon’s, too.”

Time seemed to slow down as Jimin struggled to process what Jungkook was saying.

“You… were…”

“At Namjoon’s. I was at Namjoon’s,” Jungkook smiled wryly, “I saw you out the bedroom window when you picked him up. I was just trying to tease you for being there. I mean, I saw you put your surfboards on the van, I know what you were doing. But, I… uh. Yeah, I forgot you didn’t know.”

“Didn’t. Know. What?” Jimin practically growled and Jungkook flinched away.

“Not like that!” Jungkook hurried, placing his hands up in front of him placatingly, “It’s nothing bad! I just meant that you didn’t know I was at Yoongi’s! And you didn’t know that Yoongi and Namjoon live together…”

Jungkook’s words slowed down and trailed off as he sputtered out his explanation. Jimin could physically feel his brain starting to reboot as be began to make sense of what was going on.

“You asshole!” Jimin hissed, slapping Jungkook harshly on the arm, “What the fuck was that?! Just say you’re at Yoongi’s, you little shit! Don’t let me go thinking there was something weird going on between you and Namjoon!”

“You thought there was something going on between me and Namjoon?!” Jungkook squeaked.

“Of course I fucking did, you numskull,” Jimin barked, “You said you were at Namjoon’s house at five in the morning, and you watched me pick him up from the bedroom window!”

“I—oh.” Jungkook’s eyebrows were furrowed together and he looked slightly distressed, “No! I meant Yoongi’s bedroom window, it’s at the front of the house. Namjoon’s room is right at the back… so…”

Jimin sighed deeply, pressing his fingers to his forehead and massaging his temples, “Jungkook, how the fuck would I know where Namjoon’s bedroom is?”

Jungkook pouted and he scrunched his nose up, “You couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Jimin rolled his eyes, “Just, maybe, be a little clearer next time? Also… what do you mean you were in Yoongi’s bedroom last night?!”

Jungkook’s eyes flew open wide and he whined, burying his face in his hands. Jimin could see his cheeks turning pink from where they were squished up in his palms.

“Jungkookie,” Jimin trilled, “Jungkookieee. Did something happen with you and Yoongi last night, hmmmm?”

Jimin tried to pry Jungkook’s hands away from his face, but he was holding them there firmly, and Jungkook was nothing if not strong.

“Come on, you owe me an explanation after the heart attack you almost just caused me It’s not even 8am yet and I thought I was going to pass out.”

“I’m sorryyyyy,” Jungkook’s voice was shy and muffled by his hands.

“Come on, bun,” Jimin said as he tugged at Jungkook’s wrists again, relieved when they gave way and the younger allowed his scarlet-coloured face to be seen.

Jungkook took a deep breath before he started to speak.

“Um… Yoongi drove me home last night, right? Like he always does but… but when I got home, Tae was there with Jin, and… well… Yoongi thought they would need space and I didn’t really want to be there, so… He took me back to his.”

…

Just as Jimin was getting the use of his brain back.

“TAEHYUNG SLEPT AT JIN’S?”

Jungkook shrieked and slapped a hand over Jimin’s mouth, but it was too late. The damage was done. There was absolutely no way that anyone in the locker rooms could have missed what he’d just yelled. All heads were turned to stare at Jimin, which was becoming a frustratingly regular occurrence for him.

He lowered his voice and tried again, this time speaking in more of an urgent hiss.

“Taehyung slept at Jin’s? At yours? And you stayed at Yoongi’s? At Namjoon’s?”

Jungkook nodded meekly and Jimin sighed.

“One of us needs to get our own place, this is like musical housemates. I’m getting exhausted.”

Jimin shuffled backwards and plonked himself down on the wooden bench, gesturing for Jungkook to join him. The younger man hesitated for a moment before taking the spot beside him.

“So, what happened?”

Jungkook cocked his head to the side in confusion before realising what Jimin was asking.

“Oh, uh… nothing R-rated.”

Jimin let out a disappointed groan and Jungkook laughed.

“It was just really sweet. Yoongi was so sweet. They have a fold-out couch, but he asked me to stay with him in his bed and he gave me some of his pyjamas and everything. He even cooked me dinner! Did you know he could cook? Because I sure as hell did not.”

Jimin grinned as Jungkook sighed dreamily. It was nice to see Jungkook looking so excited and happy.

“You and Namjoon woke us up this morning when you were banging around putting the boards on the roof,” Jungkook chuckled, “And he got up and made me coffee, and we stayed in bed for ages just talking. We didn’t get up properly until you dropped Namjoon back off again. He, uh… he kissed me when he dropped me off back home.”

“Oh my god, that’s so soft!” Jimin cooed, “Yoongi can be so cute when he wants to be! I’ll file that away for later.”

“Don’t,” Jungkook laughed, bumping his shoulder into Jimin’s playfully, “Don’t tease him with it. It was so amazing. He is so amazing.”

“Holy shit, you’re so gone,” Jimin cackled.

Jungkook grinned, “You’re one to talk! You and Namjoon are just as bad. Honestly, it was hilarious watching you try and get the surfboard on the roof this morning. You; tiny and struggling. Namjoon; entranced, staring at your ass.”

“What?!”

Jungkook was doubled over and choking on his laughter while Jimin sat there in shock.

So that’s what he was distracted by.

Huh.

Interesting.

“I heard someone screaming my name?” Taehyung popped his head around the row of lockers, appearing next to Jungkook’s open door, “What gives?”

Jimin leapt to his feet and rushed forward to deliver a swift, concise punch to Taehyung’s chest.

“What the fuck?” Jimin hounded, ignoring his friend’s pained yelp and in favour of glaring at him sharply, “How dare you appear like that when I’ve just learnt that you spent the night at Jin’s!”

His words were punctuated by a few more quick, successive jabs to Taehyung’s arms, which were now up in front of his body like a shield.

“Ow, okay okay stop!” He whined and rubbed at the abused spots, “I’m sorry! I was going to tell you this morning but Jungkookie clearly beat me to it.”

Jimin huffed, “So I take it everything went alright with your talk yesterday?”

Taehyung nodded and smiled goofily.

“Better than alright, really. He caught up to me in the break room and he seemed so nervous, but he asked me if he could take me back to his last night so we could talk. I don’t even remember saying yes, honestly, although I might’ve… I think I blacked out at one stage… Anyway, yeah! We drove me there after work and it was awkward as fuck at first. I wanted to go home so bad, we didn’t talk for ages. Eventually, I think he got panicked about Jungkook coming home and us running out of time? So he basically just asked me to explain what Jungkook was getting at when he teased me about staring at his chest, and I just… blurted. Like, horribly. I word vomited- like you do, Chim!”

Jimin rolled his eyes and gestured for Taehyung to continue.

“I basically confessed that I liked him in the worst way humanly possible and I thought I’d completely wrecked everything. He was looking at me so weird and I was so freaked out. But, um… it turns out I didn’t need to worry? Because he liked me back?”

Jungkook laughed loudly, “Yeah, no shit!”

Jimin scoffed at Jungkook’s response, “Please, you and Yoongi have been dancing around each other for just as long.”

Jungkook’s voice was low and gravelly when he murmured a dark-sounding, “Namjoon”, and Jimin slammed his mouth shut with a sharp clacking sound.

“Anyway, what happened after that?” Jungkook aimed at Taehyung.

Taehyung grinned and wiggled an eyebrow up and down suggestively, making Jungkook grimace exaggeratedly.

“Never mind, please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“I’m proud of you, too, Kook! Finally, you and Manager Gremlin are working out your shit.”

“Please don’t call him that,” Jungkook groaned, but Taehyung ignored him pleasantly.

“And Hoseok has been trying to work his magic on the barista from that coffee shop over the road. He’s horrible, but I think it’s actually working for some reason.” Taehyung rounded on Jimin, “Now, all that’s left is you and Namjoon!”

Jimin quirked the corner of his mouth up in a half-smile.

“Trust me, I’m working on it.”

❧

Jimin continued to pick Namjoon up in the mornings daily for the next two weeks. Even on the days that neither of them worked, Jimin would still show up at his door with his board strapped to the roof ready to go.

He was surprised, honestly. He had expected their arrangement to apply only on work days, but Namjoon seemed more than happy to keep getting up before the crack of dawn even when he didn’t need to. Jimin probably would’ve been doing it anyway, he surfed early even on his days off, but he knew that Namjoon tended to go later in the mornings on the days he didn’t work. So why he put up with the ridiculously early starts was a mystery to Jimin.

He had tried to ask Namjoon about it one day when he dropped him back off at home, but he hadn’t got a proper response. Namjoon had just shrugged, brushing him off as he slipped out of the car and disappeared inside the house much quicker than usual.

Meanwhile, the newfound couples in Taehyung and Jin, and Jungkook and Yoongi, were seemingly bouncing from house to house in order to spend as much time together as they could manage. Jungkook and Yoongi would frequently appear at the front window to wave at Jimin as he picked up Namjoon in the mornings, while Jimin would often stumble across a half-clothed Jin cuddling Taehyung as they made coffee in the kitchen on the weekends.

It was sweet, and Jimin was happy for them, but he was starting to lose hope in his own situation.

He and Namjoon had been growing closer and closer thanks to their carpooling, but Jimin was beginning to wonder if they weren’t on the path to just plain old friendship instead.

Which, sure, he couldn’t complain about. Being friends with Namjoon was great. Namjoon was an extremely sweet, very gentle and positive person, and Jimin knew how lucky he was to have been able to get to know him so well. It was just… well… Jimin would sometimes be caught off-guard by how much he wanted to kiss Namjoon. Or hold his hand. Or run his hands through his hair.

Whenever Namjoon stopped to examine some little creature at the beach (which was often), or when he laughed loudly and his eyes crinkled shut, or when he thought deeply about something and got a far-away look on his face, Jimin would be overcome with the strongest feeling of affection.

Jimin loved being friends with Namjoon, but he didn’t just want that.

He was starting to think all his flirting was fruitless. He had really been pumping out the soft compliments over the last few weeks, even increasing the amount of little touches and physical contact he put on Namjoon, but the other man hadn’t bitten. Instead, every time he tried to initiate something more, Namjoon would find a way to dip out of the situation entirely. If Jimin flirted, he would end their conversation in the quickest way possible while still being polite, then run off somewhere else.

Jimin was feeling so miserable and dejected lately, that he was in half a mind to just give up.

It was during one of these times, when Jimin was stuck in his own head and unable to move past his own woeful feelings, that he received a text message.

His phone vibrated from where it was precariously placed on the arm of the sofa, buzzing out a little movement before dropping sadly to the floor with a loud thud. Jimin was standing at the kitchen bench, hands covered in cookie dough, as he watched it fall.

“Tae, can you get my phone?” Jimin asked, turning his attention back to the little ball of dough he was desperately trying to get the same size as the others on the baking tray. No matter how similar he thought his handfuls felt, they would all look completely different when he rolled them up and it was starting to piss him off.

He heard Taehyung shuffle behind him, presumably moving from the kitchen table to the lounge.

“It’s from Namjoon,” Taehyung read out, and Jimin immediately turned his whole attention to him, “He asked if it’s okay if he picks you up in the morning, instead of the other way ‘round.”

“Huh?” Jimin said quizzically. They’d never done things that way before. “Uh… sure. Tell him of course it’s okay.”

He was frowning slightly as he went back to manipulating the bowl full of dough. Was it because Namjoon didn’t like Jimin’s van? They’d only had to pull over once because it had overheated, just once, and it had cooled down quickly enough. It would be hard to get two boards to fit properly on the top of a Toyota Corolla though, Jimin thought. They could do it, but it wouldn’t be the ideal way to do things. Did Namjoon even have roof racks? Maybe he had the temporary straps?

“Jiminie, he said not to worry about your board tomorrow.”

Jimin stopped what he was doing instantly.

“What?”

“He sent back a message not to bring your board,” Taehyung explained, “Or your wetsuit.”

“He—what?”

Taehyung rolled his eyes and brought the phone over into the kitchen so Jimin could see. He was right. Namjoon had really sent two more messages, one saying to leave his board at home, and another telling him not to bring or wear his wetsuit.

As Jimin was staring at the screen in confusion, a third message popped up.

“Or your towel.”

“I don’t understand,” Jimin muttered.

Taehyung shrugged, “Somehow I don’t think you’re going to be surfing tomorrow, Chim.”

It certainly seemed that way. It was, after all, spectacularly difficult to surf without a surf board.

Jimin’s forehead was creased with puzzled little lines in between his eyebrows as he watched Taehyung fire off a quick thumbs up to Namjoon. He’s certain he was missing something. As close as he and Namjoon had become, they still hadn’t spent any time together outside work or their morning carpool, and he wasn’t sure what to expect.

He went back to rolling the little balls of dough in his hands almost absentmindedly, no longer caring if they call came out the same shape or not. His heart wasn’t in it anymore.

The rest of the day seemed to crawl along agonisingly slowly and even the smell of freshly-baked cookies couldn’t pull Jimin enough from his distracted state. The fact that the cookies had turned out alright at all was a miracle in-and-of itself, given that he was barely paying attention to what he was doing. He simply went through the motions of the afternoon, one eye on the clock, watching the seconds tick down as it crept closer to the next morning.

❧

Jimin was anxiously bouncing on the balls of his feet on the front deck when he saw Namjoon’s car approaching. Or rather, what he thought was Namjoon’s car, since he couldn’t see much past the glare of the headlights and the sky wasn’t light enough yet to give any other features away.

He had taken a lot longer to get ready than he had wanted to, unable to pick out something to wear that was appropriate for some kind of mystery outing. Jimin didn’t know what to expect, thus Jimin didn’t know how to dress, and so Jimin was nervous and a little bit terrified.

He’d ended up just chucking on a loose button-up shirt and tan shorts, hoping against hope that they were alright for whatever the other man had planned, and then shucked on some sandals he had sitting by the door. Jimin’s worst nightmare was that he would misread the situation and overdress.

His hands plucked at a loose cotton thread dangling from the cuff of his sleeve in an effort to keep himself busy while the car pulled into the driveway.

When Namjoon stepped out of his car though, looking just as nervous but smiling at him so widely, all of Jimin’s apprehension seemed to vanish.

He could do this.

This was just Namjoon.

He had spent plenty of mornings alone with the other man before now, he had no reason to be uneasy.

“Good morning,” Namjoon grinned at him shyly, “I’m sorry to get you up so early without even taking you surfing.”

Jimin laughed airily, “It’s okay. I can’t say I’m not confused, though.”

Namjoon made a little noise of understanding before ducking around to the passenger-side door to open it for Jimin, “I expected as much.”

Jimin slid into the car easily, buckling himself up and bouncing his legs agitatedly to relieve some of the excess tension that was still bubbling beneath his skin. He watched Namjoon walk around the front of the car to get to his own side, his pretty honey-coloured skin glowing brilliantly in the shine of the headlights. Jimin hunkered himself further down in the seat with a little nervous squeak, unsure what to do with the warmth spreading in his chest.

After Namjoon had started up the engine and they’d began winding through the streets, Jimin realised that Namjoon wasn’t just not taking Jimin surfing, they were heading in the entirely opposite direction to the beach altogether. Namjoon was taking them further inland, towards the eastern side of the city.

“So, uhhhh,” Jimin coughed awkwardly, breaking through the silence in the car, “Where exactly are we going?”

Namjoon shot him a gentle smile quickly before turning his eyes back to the road, “I want to show you a place.”

“A place?” He scrunched his face up, “That’s all the information you’re going to give me?”

Namjoon chuckled from low in his throat and Jimin felt something tighten in his chest, “Yep. That’s all you’re going to get.”

Jimin hummed softly and leaned his head back to rest against the window, still watching Namjoon closely, “Why no surfing this morning?”

“I wanted to do something… different. We’ve been surfing every morning and as much as that’s great, I wanted to do something else with you instead. Something on land. Since neither of us have work today, I figured it would be the perfect time to do it.”

“But you won’t tell me what it is.”

“Nope.”

“Did you have to wake me up so early to do it?” Jimin smiled, slipping his shoes off and pulling his feet up onto the seat to hug his knees into his chest. He was hesitant to readjust at first, not wanting to put his feet on Namjoon’s car seats, but then he remembered the time he watched the other man knowingly tip sand from inside his towel into the front seats and he figured it was fine.

Namjoon blushed slightly at his words, which sparked Jimin’s curiosity even further.

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that. I just wanted it to be kind of the same as what we usually do. I wanted it to be sort of a… surprise.”

“A surprise?” Jimin repeated, eyes wide and disbelieving, “You want to surprise me?”

Namjoon’s face was still growing redder and he nodded slowly.

“Because you want to…”

“I want to show you a place.”

The place, as it turned out, was a Starbucks Drive-Thru.

“I can’t believe this,” Jimin muttered, face squished against the passenger side window as Namjoon placed an order for some coffees and bagels to the little voice on the other side of the speaker.

Some part of Jimin had got his hopes up for something more… romantic.

A little dark cloud was developing over his head. He could practically feel it.

“Are you okay?” Namjoon asked when they were at the window to pick up their breakfast, “You did want the bagel, right? If you don’t, I can go back through and we can get you something else. Or is it the coffee you don’t want?”

He could clearly sense the little aura of self-pity that was brewing around Jimin.

“No, the bagel is fine,” Jimin said carefully, “But you know I have been through a Starbucks Drive-Thru before, right?”

“I—yes?” Namjoon looked at him with complete confusion, “I mean, I think a lot of people have probably been through a Starbucks Drive-Thru, no?”

“I was just wondering, since it’s really odd to pick someone up at 5:30 in the morning and tell them you’re surprising them by taking them some mysterious place, and then taking them to Starbucks instead,” Jimin murmured.

Namjoon let out a startling bark of laughter which made Jimin jump slightly in fright.

“You think this is where I want to show you?” Namjoon cackled away and Jimin was starting to feel a wave of realisation and inevitable embarrassment, “Oh my god, no! That’s so cute though, you looked so sad. Is that why you looked so disappointed? You thought I’d picked you up to take you to Starbucks?”

 Jimin’s brain had frozen on the part where Namjoon called him cute.

“I—what?” Jimin stuttered, “No, um… no.”

Namjoon was still laughing when he tore his gaze away from Jimin to reach through the window and grab their order, handing it over to Jimin to hold while he got the car moving again.

“You did, didn’t you? Oh my god,” he was grinning so widely that his dimples had become giant craters in his cheeks. Jimin kind of wanted to poke one. “Why did you look so sad though, huh? When I looked over at you back there you seemed so… I really can’t find another word other than sad. Were you hoping for something else?”

There was a light, teasing tone to Namjoon’s voice that Jimin hadn’t been expecting.

Jimin frowned, pouting petulantly and trying to disappear further down in his seat, “No.”

Namjoon giggled away at Jimin’s discomfort happily, “Well you don’t have to worry. Where I wanted to take you isn’t far from here. It’s not another Starbucks. I promise.”

A disgruntled rumble sounded from his throat and he turned his gaze out the car window, hoping to swallow down his embarrassment by focusing on something else. He was also trying to squash the determined feeling of hopefulness that had reared its persistent head.

Through the glass he could see blurs of trees and headlights, as well as the occasional bright luminescence of truck stops as they whizzed past. He wasn’t sure when they had circled around this far to the outskirts of the city, but they seemed to be heading well away from most of the major built up areas. In fact, Jimin was fairly certain he and Jungkook had gone hiking around this area once before.

Their coffees were at the perfect drinkable temperature by the time they reached their final destination:

A lookout point.

Namjoon parked the car close to the railing against the edge of a sharp drop, at the top of one of the most miraculous viewpoints Jimin had ever seen.

They were clearly at the summit of some kind of hiking trail, with both a road and several walking paths leading from their little carpark back down the way they had come. Jimin hadn’t been here before, didn’t even know it existed, but it was definitely going to be etched into his mind from here on out.

He could see the whole city from here.

Or, at least, what felt like it.

The civilisation below them seemed tiny from up where they were, just a glowing ball of multi-coloured lights nestled into orange rockface, and for once Jimin had the thought that Los Angeles looked peaceful.

He leaned forward in the car seat to get a better look, when Namjoon unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed their Starbucks into his hands, popping open his door.

“Come on, get out.”

Jimin followed obediently, stepping out into the muggy warmth of the morning. The wind was blowing in off the sea this morning, so the temperature wasn’t too high, but the air was filled with sticky droplets of water that would feel suffocating by midday.

Namjoon had placed their food and coffees on top of the hood of the car and was sliding himself up to join them. He patted the spot next to him roughly, the metallic banging indicating that Jimin should follow suit.

“This is one of my favourite places to come in the mornings when I’m not working,” Namjoon said softly, fiddling with a bagel in his hands that he was trying to lather with cream cheese, “It’s why I surf later on my days off. I’m normally up here watching the sunrise. I haven’t been up here in a few weeks though.”

He didn’t have to say that it was because he had been surfing with Jimin every morning. Jimin knew what he meant.

“Not a whole lot of people know about this place, except for a few hikers, and Yoongi. He’s the only other person I’ve ever brought out here,” Namjoon’s voice was so quiet it was almost like he was whispering. “I found it during midterms my third year of college. I was stressed out of my mind and was just driving around, trying to clear my head. I had spent all night trying to decide whether to continue my major, or to drop it all and start again. I happened upon the turn off to come up here, and I ended up staying out here for hours. This is where I made the decision to go with performing arts, instead of business.”

Jimin was listening closely as Namjoon spoke, not wanting to make a sound for fear of interrupting. This is the most he had learned about Namjoon’s life before Disneyland so far that had come from the man himself, rather than snippets of information he had gleamed through Jungkook and Yoongi.

Namjoon handed him one half of the finished bagel, biting into the other half himself and staring out over the city below.

Jimin took a bite of his own, chewing away as he thought.

He understood why Namjoon liked this place. Not only was the view gorgeous, but it also gave a sense that you were an observer instead of a participator. Jimin thought that it would be easy to think objectively from way up here, almost like you were looking down on your life so far rather than living it.

“So this is a place for decisions then?” Jimin said around his mouthful.

Namjoon made a soft noise of agreement, “That’s partly why I wanted to bring you out here.”

“Oh?” Jimin turned so that he was facing more towards the other man, “For a decision?”

Namjoon’s face was contemplative, but there was the distinctive air of hesitancy and nervousness around him, like he was working himself up for something.

“I brought you out here to spend more time with you, like I said,” his voice was a little unsteady as he spoke, “But I also brought you out here because this is where I feel most confident to take the leaps I want to.”

Part of Jimin was confused, but another part of him had the suspicion he knew where this was going, and he wanted to help. He shuffled his body closer across the hood of the car, not missing how Namjoon’s own tensed up at the proximity, and lifted the food and drinks between them off to the side out of the way.

Namjoon took a deep breath and continued, still staring straight ahead, “You’re really gorgeous, you know that? I mean, I’m sure you do. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice. But you’re also intimidating as fuck.”

Jimin laughed loudly at that and the corners of Namjoon’s mouth ticked upwards in a smile.

“I’m serious, you scared the shit out of me when I first met you. You were so cool and confident. Everyone knew and loved you, and you knew and loved them. I was so excited to get close to you like they were. I thought, ‘damn, this is someone I would date the fuck out of.’ And I wanted to. So, so badly.”

Jimin’s face started to burn with a recognisable heat.

“Then the carpark incident happened, and I realised that I didn’t stand a chance. I thought I had messed up so badly, but I kind of understood, you know? Part of me felt like you deserved someone a hell of a lot better than a guy who stole your carpark and drooled after you every time you walked past.”

Jimin’s heart felt like it was throbbing. He had really made Namjoon feel like that?

“But, then some miracle happened, and you asked if you could pick me up to give me a lift to the beach in the mornings. And I really couldn’t understand why you’d done it. Like, that arrangement didn’t benefit you at all and I think you knew that. The fact that you had offered, though, was so sweet to me. I could tell, back then, that you were making an effort – not just to be my friend or get to know me better, but to actually make me feel better. Like you were apologising, even though you didn’t really do anything awful.”

Jimin growled in disagreement but Namjoon held up a placating hand, hushing him so he could continue.

“The last few weeks, getting lifts from you to the beach, made me realise that you let me a lot closer than anyone else. I mean, apart from the obvious people in Hoseok, Tae, Jungkook and Jin. You let me get closer to you than a lot of the people I had envied at the beginning. I felt pretty damn smug for a while there, not gonna lie,” he chuckled softly, “but then you started flirting. And wow. That threw me so far off-guard, I had no idea what to do with myself. You weren’t even subtle about it, like you wanted me to be completely aware that you were flirting.”

If Jimin hadn’t wanted to catch every single micro-expression that flitted across Namjoon’s face, he would’ve been hiding behind his hands in shame.

“I second-guessed myself for ages. I tried to explain it away, like, ‘Nah, no way he is flirting with you. You’re imagining it.’ But then you would do it again, and you would do it in a way that left very little room for doubt. Every time you would touch my thigh, or make some thinly-veiled innuendo, I would turn into a mess. Sure, I started out with this incredible idea when I first met you that I would woo you, but then you had to go and turn the tables on me when I had just settled for being your friend. You took me by complete surprise, and it flustered me so much that every time you did it I had to go calm down in private for like fifteen minutes.”

Okay.

Enough.

Jimin pushed himself up onto his knees and scooted into Namjoon’s line of sight, steering his chin with a firm hand to pull his eyes away from the skyline. When they locked gazes, Jimin felt like all the emotion in Namjoon’s stare might burn through him.

“You are not just ‘some guy who stole my carpark’,” his voice was firm and commanding when he spoke, like he was imploring Namjoon to believe the words he was saying, “And I don’t care if you think I deserve someone better. As far as I’m concerned, there is no one better. If there was, they wouldn’t be right anyway. They wouldn’t be you.”

Namjoon’s eyes widened and he looked like he was about to disagree, but Jimin shoved a finger against his lips to keep him quiet.

“No, listen,” he said sternly, “You are the kindest, gentlest, most thoughtful person I know. Your brain and your talent amaze me to no end, and if it’s anybody that should be insecure here, its me. The first time I saw you, I felt my stomach drop out my ass. I’m not even kidding – don’t laugh at me – I’m being completely serious. I thought you were my wet dream personified. Then the universe had to go and make me an asshole, and I thought I’d screwed it up so bad. I was so bewildered when you let me be your friend. I thought, ‘who in their right mind would forgive someone who treated them so shittily so easily?’ but you did. And you were even more incredible than I first thought. So – no, shut up – listen to me. I’m being completely serious when I say this: I want to date the shit out of you, Kim Namjoon.”

Namjoon’s face was a magnificent shade of scarlet at Jimin’s words and Jimin thought it made him look even prettier than he usually did.

Jimin leaned in slowly, revelling in the look of surprise and anticipation that flashed across Namjoon’s face, before he closed his eyes and pressed his lips against the other man’s.

It was quick and chaste, just enough to demonstrate the conviction behind his words, but it was the sweetest kiss Jimin had ever had. If he could somehow choose to redo his teenage years again and experience his first kiss here instead, he would.

Namjoon let out a little gasp of air as Jimin pulled away, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and cheeks vibrantly red. They were both shy and a little bit awkward with each other, but that was fine. They had time to work things out.

Jimin breathed out the breath he had been holding, moving back to sit once more beside Namjoon, pressing their legs together firmly.

The sun was just beginning to peak out over the horizon behind them and the sky was turning a magnificent hue of purple, slowly chasing the visibility of the stars away. The birds were well and truly awake now and all around them Jimin could hear intermingling calls and warbles. The only other sound was Namjoon’s heavy breathing and the distant hum of engines from the highway. It was peaceful.

“I’ll be honest, I thought you hated me,” Namjoon laughed awkwardly.

“Ah,” Jimin rubbed the back of his neck, “I did?”

Namjoon’s eyes widened in surprise and Jimin rushed to explain.

“I mean- I thought I did! I didn’t actually, but when you first started I had this grudge against you for getting the role of Charming after training for only a week,” he let out a high-pitched nervous giggle, which came out sounding a little maniacal.

“You—what? You thought I trained for a week?” Namjoon squeaked in disbelief.

“You… didn’t?”

Namjoon sputtered out a shocked laugh, “No! Oh my god, are you serious?! That’s why you didn’t like me?”

Jimin’s face was growing increasingly warm and he tried to hunker himself down inside his hoodie to disappear, “That’s what Jin told me!”

Namjoon was letting out large guffaws and his eyes were still huge as he poked a finger into Jimin’s side. Jimin tried to squirm away from the assault but he couldn’t get far enough away before he started to slip off the hood.

“I can’t believe this,” Namjoon chuckled, “You really hated me for nothing.”

“I-I don’t understand. You really didn’t train for just one week?” Jimin’s voice rose in pitch at the end and he sounded slightly delirious.

“No!” Namjoon laughed, “I trained for two and a half months!”

Jimin sighed, “I fucking hate Jin.”

Namjoon was still cackling away so Jimin reached out a hand and shoved him roughly, “Shut up! It’s not my fault, Jin said you only trained for a week and that you were friends with Yoongi, so I thought—”

“You thought I used Yoongi’s position to get the job,” Namjoon deduced.

Jimin nodded guiltily, “Obviously I figured out that wasn’t true. But that’s why I was so weird at the start there.”

He had his eyes cast downwards and was fiddling with his fingers in discomfort when Namjoon reached out a hand and lifted his chin, forcing him to look him in the eyes.

“Jimin,” he said sternly, “I don’t blame you for thinking that. I’m pretty sure I would’ve drawn the same conclusion. You weren’t even mean or nasty to me, I just noticed that you were avoiding me. Please don’t beat yourself up or feel guilty, because I’m not upset.”

“I still feel bad though,” he whined, his chin still locked in Namjoon’s grip and his cheeks squishing together made it difficult to talk, he sounded very pouty and childlike, “Because now that I know you, I know you aren’t like that. I didn’t even give you a chance before and it makes me angry with myself.”

Namjoon hummed quietly, “It is a little disappointing. Especially since, if you’d given me a chance sooner, we could’ve been doing this ages ago.”

Jimin made a little noise of confusion before Namjoon leaned in, pressing a quick, soft peck against Jimin’s puckered mouth. Then another. And another.

Eventually Jimin had to wrestle his way out of Namjoon’s hold, because it was clear the other man was happy to keep up what he was doing for quite a while and Jimin’s cheeks were starting to hurt.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Jimin giggled, “I get it!”

Namjoon laughed and then slid down off the hood of the car, holding out his hands for Jimin to follow, “Come on. That bagel wasn’t enough for me and I’m hungry again. Let’s go back to mine and I’ll make us some decent food.”

“Back to yours, hmm?” Jimin teased, slyly, “You’re not supposed to offer that until after the third date. Or, even the first at the very least.”

Namjoon scoffed, “I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely considering this the first date.”

Jimin had to bite his lip to try and contain the grin that was threatening to split his face in half, “Back to yours it is then. Let’s go annoy Yoongi and Jungkook.”

Namjoon held the door open for him, smiling affectionately with his little dimples on display, standing beside the car proudly as if it were some kind of chariot.

Wait.

A carriage.

Jimin was staring in awe at his very own Prince Charming, waiting with his pumpkin carriage ready to whisk him away off into the sunset, and he couldn’t help the gigantic grin that overtook his face.

Hang on a moment – if Namjoon was Prince Charming, and that was his carriage, did that make Jimin Cinderella?

Pfft.

He scoffed quietly at the thought.

Nah.

He was Prince Eric.