Chapter Text
yoongi wakes up cold.
he’s waken up feeling cold before, obviously, like when his heater is broken or when he forgets to shut the window in his room.
usually, he’d just snuggle deeper into his blanket until his alarm goes off and he actually has to face the cold.
but he’s feeling like his skin is really cold.
suddenly he’s finding it a little bit hard to breathe. as if there was something pressed against his wind pipes.
long story short, yoongi wakes up with a knife to his throat.
his eyes fly open, and he gasps when he spots a figure looming over him in the dark. he realises immediately that it was a mistake to take a breath. the knife just followed his throat movements, and presses a little bit harder against him. any more pressure and it would cut his skin.
yoongi’s thinking that he’s still young, he’s just about to enter his last year of university, he wants to graduate, he wants to be able to produce music, and he does not want to die yet .
he blinks the sleep out of his eyes rapidly, opening his mouth to say something that might save his life when the figure - a smuggler? a thief? a murderer? - says dryly, in a deep, baritone voice, “i don’t think you’re in the position to talk, so don’t bother.”
speaking of positions, yoongi realises in that moment that the man is straddling his hips. his cheeks flush red.
there he was, lying on his bed with a knife on his throat, probably about to die, and he’s thinking about how the man’s thighs by each side of his hip are very strong.
he’s going to die an idiot.
but before either of them can say anything, the man leans back ever so slightly, putting off the pressure of the knife on yoongi’s throat by just a fraction, as if he were listening for something. “what?”
yoongi blinks. the man had basically told him not to talk, and now he was asking him a question. “i don’t-”
the man glares at him - well, yoongi can’t really see, because it’s dark, but it feels like he’s glaring - and says, “shut up, i wasn’t talking to you.”
yoongi faintly registers the shape of an earpiece jutting out of the man’s ear, and his lips form a silent ‘o’. it was getting a little hard to breathe.
“jimin, what were you saying?” the man sounds disgruntled. the knife at yoongi’s throat was beginning to itch, now. “you’re telling me that it’s meant to be the eighth floor? not the seventh?”
yoongi blinks. the fear is starting to really creep up on him now. he was definitely on the seventh floor. he definitely lived in an apartment near his university on the seventh floor.
the man sits back - literally resting most of his weight on yoongi’s...area - and sighs loudly. “you’re fucking with me.” the knife leaves yoongi’s throat, and he is gulping down air greedily.
there’s a beat of silence. presumably, the guy on the other end - jimin - was talking.
the man on top of him sighs noisily again, and then in a movement so swift that yoongi missed it completely, his weight is lifted off of yoongi, and yoongi sees the man’s figure begin to pace around his room.
it wasn’t a big room. yoongi had the money for a bigger one, but he didn’t see why he needed a big room. this one had a bed, a bathroom, and a small kitchen that was also pretty much the living room.
“i literally just held a knife to his throat,” the man hissed, and yoongi sits up. reaches over to his bedside table, and turns on the lamp.
the man stops mid sentence, and yoongi sees his face.
he was absolutely gorgeous.
like, if he hadn’t just tried to kill yoongi, eleven out of ten would take him out on a date.
the man had slightly wavy, black hair, long eyelashes, defined cheekbones, strong jawline, straight nose, tanned skin, and dark, brown eyes that were glaring right at him.
the man narrows his eyes. “did you seriously just turn on the lamp? turn it back off, man.”
“oh,” yoongi says stupidly. and even more stupidly, “sorry.” and then does the stupidest thing he’s ever done. he turns the lamp off.
well done, yoongi, he thinks. you just turned off the lamp and now if the man tries to kill you again, you have absolutely no chance of surviving.
he sits in his bed, back straight, as the man says, “oh, for fuck’s sake, this is like, the second time this year that this has happened.” he sounded like he was frowning. maybe if yoongi didn’t turn off the lamp, he’d see . “fine, i’m getting out.”
yoongi startles as the lamp on his bedside table is turned back on. he didn’t hear the man move closer. he was barely a metre away now, by the side of yoongi’s bed.
he was quite tall - yoongi knows that even if they were both stood up, he’d still have to look up a tiny bit.
the man leans down ever so slightly. yoongi gets a slight whiff of the man’s cologne.
at least they go around putting knives to people’s throats while smelling good , yoongi thinks.
“so sorry for the inconvenience,” the man says, a smile tugging on the corner of his lips. yoongi finds himself wanting to see a full smile. “there was a...misunderstanding.”
yoongi chokes. “you think?”
the man straightens up. he has a surprised look on his face, as if he wasn’t expecting yoongi to reply. “ah, well. sorry. this was all a dream.”
yoongi scoffs. sure, the man was attractive as hell, but really, a dream? “right.” he reaches for his phone on the bedside table. “you know what, maybe i’m just gonna call-”
“oh, no you won’t,” the man says hurriedly, and then yoongi finds himself flat on his back, phone snatched from his hand, and a slight stinging sensation in his neck in the matter of a few seconds. he hears the man huff, but it’s like he has earplugs in. “there you go. sweet dreams.”
and then darkness pulls him into its grasp.
-
taehyung wipes his knife clean from the blood, and then swings himself out of the window. sure, he could’ve taken the elevator, but that was just so slow. plus, cctv cameras.
he nimbly scales down the apartment, moving from one ledge to the other before his feet lightly touch to the ground again.
he pulls up his hood, draws up his mask and then begins to walk back to his headquarters. luckily, it was only a few blocks away. he loved it when he had an assignment that was close by.
“did you do it?” jimin says into his ear as taehyung passes a subway station.
taehyung rolls his eyes. “of course i did.”
“and no one saw?”
taehyung sighs. even if anyone did see, to them, he just looked like a normal guy who was in his early twenties, going to uni, wearing sweats and a black hoodie. “of course no one saw, jimin, why do you always ask me this?”
he hears jimin sigh on the other end. “i don’t always ask you this.”
“yes you do.”
“no i don’t. anyways, jin-hyung says he’s sorry about the mistake.”
taehyung halts. it was around three in the morning, there were barely people on the streets. a car drove by occasionally. “tell him i’m gonna kick him in the ass when i’m back.”
“oooh, the kims going at each other again, i better tell jungkook,” jimin says teasingly, and taehyung begins walking again. “anyways, what are you gonna do about the guy?”
“what guy?”
he could imagine his best friend rolling his eyes. “the one that you woke up, duh.”
taehyung sniffs. “well, maybe if jin-hyung didn’t get the info wrong, then he wouldn’t have woken up!” he pauses. “i don’t know, i knocked him out. hopefully he just thinks its a dream. i told him it was a dream.”
he takes a turn into a dark alley. jimin sounds a little bit mortified when he says, “you told him it was a dream?” a pause. “right. of course you would have.”
taehyung clicks his tongue. “what else was i meant to do? i wasn’t going to kill him, he was so cute. like, he didn’t seem scared at all. well. maybe a little bit.”
he stops in front of a door at the end of the alley. he punches in a code, pulls the door open and then steps into the cage elevator that was directly behind it.
“still.” jimin sounds resigned. “we’re going to have to take care of that.”
as the elevator begins to move, taehyung leans back against its metal bars. “i kinda get the feeling we don’t have to.”
“and why is that?”
“he goes to SNU,” taehyung informs his best friend as the elevator ascends higher and higher. “i saw his ID card.”
jimin is silent for a second. “how come things always work out so perfectly for you?”
“‘cause i’m perfect.”
“don’t make me vomit.”
the cage elevator shudders to a stop, and taehyung wrenches the metal entrance open to reveal another door. as he punches in the code, he asks jimin, “can we get another elevator? this one is so...vintage.”
he pushes the door open, and steps through into the penthouse. or, as jimin liked to call it, bangtan headquarters.
to be fair, it was a penthouse. a very large one, at that.
besides living in a luxurious place, taehyung would say that they were all very low-key. it wasn’t often that they were given assignments. having jungkook out on an assignment on the exact same night as taehyung was a rarity.
in the time they wait for one to pop up or for seokjin to give out an order or an assignment, they lived separate lives.
well, as separate as assassins could live.
jimin and jungkook had their own jobs outside this line of work, as did seokjin. taehyung preferred to just ‘lurk’, as jimin would say. he occasionally got a couple jobs, here and there. he was a barista, once. then a waiter. he even got money from dog walking.
taehyung moves through the lower floor, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the marble kitchen counter before he enters a large room.
it was their main ‘office’, you could say. it was equipped with weapons, but also devices that are needed to filter through each assignment or track people. it had four desks, that were parallel to each other, and a printer in the corner of the room. in another corner, there was a fridge. it also had a playstation, because jin insisted that they had fun at all times, and a large tv screen that was situated in front of plush couches and bean bags.
he spies jimin at a desk - they all had a desk in the office - and makes a beeline for his best friend, who was typing away furiously at his computer.
“well?” taehyung demands, putting his hands on his hips. “can we get a new elevator?”
jimin snorts, not taking his eyes off the computer screen. “go ask jin-hyung.”
“where is he?”
“in the living room.”
“which one?”
“second level.”
“ugh, that’s too far.”
jimin moves his hand to the mouse beside his computer. he makes a few clicks before turning on his chair to face taehyung properly. “i won’t ever understand how you literally scale buildings for fun, but then can’t be bothered to take on a set of stairs because you’re too lazy.”
taehyung takes a bite of his apple and shrugs. “where’s kook?”
this time, jimin shrugs. “not back yet. he had to go further than you, you lazy brat.”
taehyung grins. “it’s because jin-hyung loves me more.”
the office door slams open. a broad shouldered man with jet black hair strides into the room. “that’s a lie,” seokjin declares, moving around the many stations within the room and coming to a stop besides taehyung. “i just know that you’re lazy. and what was that? you want a new elevator?”
“eavesdropping again now, are we, hyung?” taehyung sings, taking another bite of his apple.
seokjin snorts, crossing over his arms. “your voice is loud enough that i don’t need to eavesdrop. i take it the assignment was easy?”
taehyung nods. “super easy. i mean, besides the fact that i almost killed a cute guy because you got the floor number wrong.”
the guy really was cute. his name was min yoongi, taehyung remembers, from looking at his ID card. dark hair, dark eyes, pouty lips, cute nose, and really nice hands.
seokjin rolls his eyes. “oh, i’m sorry, did i ruin a potential lover for you?”
taehyung finishes his apple and chucks it into a bin across to room, smiling happily as it goes in. “score!”
seokjin pokes his arm to get his attention back. “anyways, do we need to take care of him?”
taehyung shakes his head, smile growing. “nah. he goes to SNU. classes start tomorrow, don’t they? i’ll see him soon enough. i’ll make sure he doesn’t say anything.” he cocks his head. “might need to change my course to his, though.”
jimin nods. “what’s his name? i’ll do a check and then change your schedule to match his.” his best friend, ever the ‘tech guy’.
“sounds kinda like i’m gonna be stalking him, but okay,” taehyung says with a small laugh. “min yoongi.” jimin’s fingers fly over the keyboard. “what does he do?”
jimin squints at the screen. “music production.”
seokjin lets out a loud laugh. “you sure you wanna put yourself into that? producing music is damn hard. and it’s SNU. must be a smart guy.”
“are you saying i’m not smart?” taehyung asks, crossing his arms. seokjin shrugs. “okay, anyways, smart or not, jimin can always make me pass. plus, it will be the guy’s, what, third year?” he directs the question at jimin, who doesn’t hesitate to answer.
“final year.”
seokjin laughs again. “great,” taehyung grumbles. “i actually have to look like i’m paying attention, now. make me an exchange student.”
“sure. anyways,” jimin begins, clicking his mouse a few more times before rising from his chair and heading towards the printer in the corner of the room. he comes back with a single sheet of paper. “there you go, here are your classes.”
taehyung lets out a loud sigh at the sight of his schedule. “and what about our target?”
seokjin’s smile dims.
the main reason that taehyung was going to university in the first place, along with jungkook, was so that they could spy on their ‘vip’ target and track him back down to his own headquarters. once they’d manage to eliminate their target, they would no longer have to worry about a threat from an opposing ‘gang’.
“he teaches business management,” seokjin tells taehyung, even though he knows that already. he knows that lee kangmin is a professor who teaches at the seoul national university. he knows that the man is in his mid thirties. and he knows that the man is actually the leader of their rival gang. he also knew that the man was involved with the murder of seokjin’s family, if not the person who executed it. but that’s the problem. that is all that they know.
they were always able to find out information about people that no one else would be able to - jimin was very skilled that way - but they had searched and searched, and nothing else came up.
when jungkook came back one day to report that his assignment had been blown off because someone had already killed his target, seokjin was suspicious. but then when taehyung came back, reporting that the same thing had happened to him, the older man had worked with jimin to find out what was going on.
it turned out that there was another group of assassins working against them, taking their kills and also the payment that came along with it.
the only reason they ever managed to figure out who the leader was was because another assassin - one who worked alone - had tipped them off.
when taehyung had asked the assassin why he’d given them help, the man just shrugged and said, “i want him dead too, but i’m on my own. i can’t do it alone, but i’m not looking for a group.” then the man had looked at seokjin dead in the eyes. “he killed my family, too.”
but then that was all they got about the lee kangmin. his name, where he worked, how old he was, and who he was. but they couldn’t find anything else. nothing that could tell them where he lived, where his headquarters were. how many assassins he had under his leadership.
it was frustrating, and they had never been able to tail the man because of their other assignments. but then a month ago, when another kill was stolen from jungkook again, seokjin had decided that they were going undercover.
at first, taehyung wasn’t too keen on going undercover as a university student - he hated the thought of having to study - but he didn’t really have a choice. at least jungkook was coming too.
“oh look,” jimin starts, pointing to a monitor on his desk. it showed a view of the alley that lead to their penthouse. “jungkook’s back.”
taehyung is pulled out of his thoughts as a minute later, another man strides into the room, heading towards them. jungkook chucks his knife onto jimin’s desk, ignoring the indignant “hey!” from the older man, and then proceeds to flop onto the couches.
“that took you a while,” taehyung calls out teasingly, moving over to sit on the arm of the couch jungkook lay on. “they put up a fight?”
jungkook scowls. “i had to go further than you.” the man stretches out on the sofa. “i wouldn’t say that they put up a fight, really, even though they were a cop.” jungkook had been tailing a police officer - one of many that covered up the real reasons of the murder of seokjin’s family and forged documents. “but they were a screamer.”
taehyung winces. he hated people who screamed. “oh, poor you.”
jungkook shuts his eyes. “what about you? easy?”
“oh yeah, so easy,” taehyung says, almost sarcastically. “almost killed an innocent guy because jin-hyung gave me the wrong floor number.”
taehyung was an assassin, yes. so was jungkook. and jimin, and seokjin. but when their group was formed, seokjin, as the leader, had drawn a line at killing innocents.
whenever they found a target, seokjin and jimin did thorough checks over and over to make sure that they got the right person. killing the people who had been involved with the murder of seokjin’s family. and the odd case or so when they’re paid to kill people who had committed serious crimes, because they had to make money somehow.
sure, killing people made taehyung a murderer himself. but the world was cruel that way.
the line, however, is always drawn when it comes to innocents.
taehyung has never killed an innocent in his entire time as an assassin. that was kind of the point of being an assassin, really, you only killed the ‘bad people’, as jungkook liked to say.
even for the largest sum of money, taehyung would never kill an innocent. especially not when seokjin’s family had been innocent.
even if someone witnessed him killing a person, they would find a way to prevent the witness from saying anything. a way that didn’t involve killing, because they were innocent.
luckily, there weren’t usually witnesses.
his first kill was the hardest. he stayed in his room for days after it happened, waking up from nightmares of blood splattering all over whtie walls.
but then it got easier. taehyung found a way to reason with it. aside from a few odd assignments, most of the people that they looked to track down and kill were the people who were involved with killing seokjin’s entire family. people kept cropping up, and they discovered people linked to the case more often than not.
taehyung didn’t know what family was until he met seokjin. he never knew what comfort, warmth, love and safety meant until seokjin took him him.
so, for the man that had practically raised him, he’d do anything. anything to help lessen the pain for him.
-
yoongi sleeps through the entire day. when he wakes up, it’s almost six in the evening.
he groans to himself. he must’ve been a lot more tired than he thought he was.
he reaches for his phone, but then freezes.
everything rushes back to him.
the man with the knife to his throat.
“holy shit,” yoongi wheezes, clapping his hand to the side of his neck. he winces as he feels a throb. the man had injected him with something, and it had knocked him out for the entire day.
this wasn’t what he was expecting to happen a day before his classes start again.
he grabs his phone, and dials one of his best friends.
as he waits for hoseok to pick up impatiently, he moves around his room, checking for anything missing. though, it didn’t seem like the man came to steal. more like, to kill. yoongi shudders.
hoseok picks up. “yoongles?”
“don’t call me that,” yoongi automatically replies. “hobi, the craziest shit happened last night.”
“one day before classes start?” hoseok says, tone suggestive. “you cheeky thing.”
“no, it wasn’t that,” yoongi says hurriedly, before launching into his story. hoseok is silent when he finishes.
“sounds like a good dream, yoongi,” his best friend says, and yoongi sighs, rubbing at his eyes. he knew it’d take a bit more than that to convince hoseok. he opens his mouth to talk a bit more about the man, about how there was probably al ittle bruise on his neck, but then he shuts it again. what was the point?
the man hadn’t done anything to him in the end.
yoongi hesitates. there was something so wrong with this. he should call the cops, tell them what happened, but then again, would they even believe him?
“hello? yoongi? hyung !” yoongi startles as hoseok’s voice echoes through the phone. “are you still there?”
yoongi takes a deep breath. “yeah, hobi, i’m here. sorry, i spaced out.”
“wow, was your dream that good?”
he hesitates for a split second. “yeah, man, it seemed so real, it’s kinda crazy.”
hoseok laughs loudly. “sounds like it. anyways, have you eaten yet?”
as if on cue, yoongi’s stomach starts to grumble. “nah.”
“wanna go get some food? i’ll call joonie.”
yoongi hesitates again. his mind is still in a mess. he wants to talk about what happened, because he knows that it wasn’t a dream. he knows that there was an incredibly good looking man in his room last night who put a knife to his throat.
maybe he could just convince himself that it was a dream.
before he can reply, hoseok’s voice turns serious. more serious that yoongi has ever heard him ever since he met the guy three years ago on the first day of university. “wait, hyung. what the hell? someone’s been murdered in your apartment? why didn’t you tell me?”
yoongi’s heart rate picks up. “what?” he scrambles for the remote and turns the tv on, frantically looking for a news chanel.
“- throat was slit, but there is no evidence found that could lead to a culprit, ” the news reporter was saying. “ cctv cameras did not see anyone enter or leave the room except for the resident himself. there are suspicions that the culprit indeed did leave through the window, but with the murder taking place on the eighth floor, it is likely that-”
yoongi doesn’t hear the rest. his phone slips through his hand and drops onto the floor. the eighth floor .
“oh god,” yoongi whispers, vaguely hearing hoseok through the phone. it actually happened. he knew it did, but he didn’t want to believe it. unfortunately, the news just confirmed it.
he shakes his head to try ground himself, focusing on the news once again.
“- experts are saying that this looks like an assassin’s handiwork-”
yoongi blinks once. twice. three times.
there was an assassin in his room?
he feels faint. maybe it was because he hasn’t eaten anything in for a while. he picks up his phone again and presses the device to his hear. “hoseok.”
“jesus, yoongi, how could you not tell me something like this? this is literally a floor above you, what the fuck-”
“let’s get some food, hobi,” yoongi says hurriedly, turning off the tv. he didn’t want to hear anymore. “we can talk about it then.”
there had literally been an assassin in his room last night.
“yoongi, someone was murdered -”
“hoseok, i literally just woke up, i had no idea,” yoongi snaps, pulling his phone away from his ear and then pressing the speaker button. he begins to change his clothes. “i just need to get out of here. call joon and then meet me at our usual place.”
he hangs up before hoseok can reply.
someone was murdered in his apartment complex, in the floor right above his.
yoongi shudders again. that could’ve been him. he could’ve died.
but he didn’t know what was worse. the fact that he was almost killed, or the fact that knew this assassin’s face, and didn’t have a single clue what to do about it.
tell the police?
a voice at the back of his head tells him not to. it just made it all too suspicious. the blame might be put on him.
he pulls a jacket on.
if he was thinking right, and the man from the night before had just gotten the floor number wrong, then the murder had happened right in the room above him.
he resists the urge to look up, and tries his best not to run out of his room.
-
“are you sure it was a dream?” hoseok asks for the tenth time that evening.
yoongi flips the pork that was being grilled. “you’re the one who told me it was a dream.”
hoseok huffs. “that was before i saw the news, yoongi.”
yoongi sets the tongs down, looking at his two friends thoughtfully. namjoon, the tallest one of the trio, had his eyebrows knitted together, as if he was thinking really hard. hoseok looked as if he just wanted to interrogate yoongi some more.
they all met in their first year at university. hoseok happened to be in the same hall residence as yoongi, and namjoon studied the same course.
he’d say that he knew them pretty well, after three years of friendship. there were times when he felt quite left out, like, whenever both of them disappeared for a day and then he sees entering the catering hall together the next morning. sometimes, hoseok would get a notification on his phone and then look at namjoon, and they have a silent conversation whilst yoongi just watches.
at first, he thought it was because they liked each other and were dating without telling him. he’d confronted them about it, but they denied it, and he just shrugged it off. he had to trust his friends, right?
he didn’t exactly mind, because before he came to university, he was usually alone, anyways.
“what do you think i should do, then?” yoongi picks up the tongs again, playing around with the meat on the grill. “do i tell the police?”
his friends have another one of their silent conversations. yoongi tries not to sigh. “hello?” he waves the tongs in front of their faces. “i’m right here.”
namjoon coughs awkwardly. “sorry, hyung.” he pauses. “i don’t think you should tell the police.”
hoseok nods in agreement.
yoongi wants to ask why, but because he’s best friends with the two most level-headed people he knew, he doesn’t ask. “okay, well. you mind if i stay at one of yours for a bit before i go back to mine?” he shivers slightly. “i’m not sure i can stay there until like, someone else moves in.”
namjoon nods quickly. “of course, hyung, you can stay at mine.”
yoongi smiles gratefully, and puts a couple pieces of cooked meat onto his friends’ empty plates. “thanks. we can go to classes together now, like the besties we are.”
his friends laugh, and then, to yoongi’s relief, they move on to another topic.
“last year, though,” hoseok sighs, picking up his chopsticks. “crazy, isn’t it?”
“if you mean we’re going go crazy, then yes,” yoongi responds dryly, putting food in his own plate. “i don’t think i’ll live anywhere else but in the studios.”
namjoon snorts. “i’ll be there in the room next to you, hyung.”
“ugh, does that mean i have to drag you guys out if i want to see you?” hoseok says with a dramatic flip of his hair. “and, you know, to make sure you get some sleep and eat and everything.”
“don’t be so dramatic,” namjoon replies, eyes twinkling. “we’ll be fine.”
hoseok narrows his eyes at their tall friend. “every time it gets to finals, i see you guys, like, twice a week.”
“that’s a lie,” yoongi says, wrapping up his pork and then shoving it all in his mouth.
“it is not and you know it.”
“aw, hobi, are you that attached to us?” namjoon teases, and slowly, ever so slowly, as their conversation continues, yoongi feels the fear and anxiousness from the events from last night ebbing away.
he might not have had a lot of friends in the past, but he sure as hell was glad for the two that were right by his side.
-
yoongi is quick to pack the essentials that he needs into a large duffel bag before he makes his way to namjoon’s apartment.
“thanks for letting me crash, joon,” yoongi says gratefully as namjoon directs him to a spare room. namjoon’s place was significantly bigger than yoongi’s - at first, they thought they would share a space, but then namjoon had decided not to, for personal reasons.
yoongi wasn’t someone who pried, so he left it at that. plus, he didn’t mind living alone. it gave him time to think and to relax.
namjoon smiles warmly, revealing the dimples on each side of his cheek. “not a problem, hyung.”
it was already late, so they just bid each other goodnight and went into each other’s rooms.
despite sleeping through most of the day, yoongi finds it easy to fall asleep.
he wakes up in the middle of the night to raised voices.
well, they weren’t exactly raised, but it sounded like they were right outside his door.
he turns over groggily, wishing for some earplugs.
“-keep an eye on him,” someone was hissing outside his door. it sounded very much like namjoon.
“i think we should leave everything as it is,” a different person replied, and yoongi blinks an eye open. what was hoseok doing here?
“are you kidding?” namjoon sounded angry. yoongi opens both eyes, and leans over to turn on the lamp. “you know that it was an-” the moment yoongi flicks on the lamp, the voices go quiet.
he frowns, and swings himself off the bed, heading towards the door and cracking it open.
there was no one outside.
blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he opens the door wider and steps into the short hallway, looking around the apartment. no one was there.
he walks quietly to check namjoon’s room, opening the door as silently as he could.
he sees namjoon’s figure on the bed, with slight movement to indicate his breathing. evened out breathing, like he was asleep.
yoongi retreats back to his room.
was he going crazy?
first, he sees a really handsome man in his room. even though he had a knife to yoongi’s throat. and now he’s hearing things?
yoongi gets back into his bed and turns off the lamp. maybe this was just a random dream.
even if it was a dream, he was going to need to get his shit together before his classes started. he couldn’t afford being distracted in his last year.
he doesn’t know how long it takes him to fall asleep, but it feels like he had merely napped when his alarm goes off.
namjoon was eating cereal on the kitchen counter when yoongi comes out of his room, all dressed.
“morning, hyung,” namjoon greets as yoongi approaches. “what do you want for breakfast? i’ve got cereal, but i can cook some eggs, if you want?”
yoongi has a split second to decide what he’s going to say. does he bring up last night? or does he just act normal? he goes for the latter. he can deal with his problems alone. “cereal is fine, joon. i’d rather you not burn the apartment down by trying to cook eggs.
namjoon looks miffed. “i can actually cook eggs, thank you very much.”
yoongi hums in response as he begins to make himself breakfast. “ready for our first lecture of the year?”
“absolutely not.”
half an hour later, they enter the seminar room and take their usual places. yoongi sat in a seat six rows away from the front of the room, whereas namjoon preferred to be a little closer, sitting in a seat two rows away. probably because his eyesight was horrible.
the professor wasn’t here yet, as yoongi and namjoon had arrived early.
yoongi busies himself with getting his laptop ready, placing his ice coffee on the side.
within the next five minutes, the room is occupied with about a dozen students, all scattered across the room. yoongi nods at the other students - he’s only ever had small talk with them, unless discussing work, but other than that, he sticks with namjoon.
the door opens again and yoongi knows without look that its the professor, entering the seminar room at ten on the dot.
yoongi is still staring at his laptop as the professor clears his throat. “everyone, this is kim taehyung, our new exchange student. he’s mainly here to observe, so if he has any questions, do well to answer him. i know that you guys will make him feel welcome.”
yoongi looks up from his screen, hand reaching for his coffee, as the new student is introduced.
he jerks back into his seat, and he knocks his coffee over. it spills onto the desk, narrowly missing his computer.
everyone turns to look at him, but he’s so dazed. wavy, black hair. tanned skin. defined cheekbones, strong jawline, and a straight nose. there was no mistaking it. it was him.
it was the guy from the night before.
yoongi blinks as the guy - taehyung - stares at him, like everyone else in the room was.
there was a small smirk on taehyung’s face, so small that yoongi might’ve missed it if he wasn’t staring so intensely at him.
something begins to boil under his skin. was it anger? was it annoyance? was it fear?
taehyung knew fully well what his appearance was doing to yoongi. there was no doubt about it. yoongi knew that the man recognised him. and the man knew that yoongi recognised him, too.
yoongi swears to himself as the coffee begins to drip off the table, onto the floor, creating a small puddle of brown liquid that was steadily expanding.
he hears namjoon call his name, vaguely, but his eyes are still on taehyung’s dark, brown eyes. it wasn’t a dream, after all.
i think i’d rather it be a dream, yoongi thinks helplessly, tearing his eyes away from taehyung’s piercing gaze and to the mess that he made with his coffee.
god, he was so fucked.