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The thing about this town is that nobody stays. Ironically, that’s exactly what keeps it alive.
People come and go as they please, each for their own purpose. This town has seen births and deaths, lovers to enemies and enemies to lovers, people finding their life purpose and people losing theirs; It feeds on what makes us humans human.
Yoongi taps nervously on the steering wheel as he drives past the big green sign on the side of the road that says Welcome. To where? Nobody knows. This town didn’t give itself a name for fear of disappearing.
Namjoon, for one, refers to it as Idle Town. Which, as stupid as it sounds, seems most apt. “Trust me, hyung,” he said, “it’s the best place to wind down.”
Yoongi groaned. “I don’t need to wind down; I need to finish my mixtape.”
“And you’re not gonna be able to do that if you’re burnt out and pent up.”
As much as he hates to admit it, Namjoon was right. So he shut his mouth and packed his bags, and the next thing he knew, he’s driving eighty miles per hour on a Tuesday night. And he didn’t even get to pack his equipment, no—Namjoon forbade him to even bring his laptop along.
“Vacation. Two weeks,” he insisted. “I’ll keep your studio clean until then.”
Yoongi has a feeling he might come back even more stressed than he already is, considering work is his drug of choice and two weeks without it means having withdrawal symptoms. But he’s already halfway there, and it’s getting really late, so he figures might as well stay the night.
But two weeks? Yoongi scoffs. Let’s just hope he won’t completely lose his marbles by then.
There’s a lore.
It is said that the town knows exactly what you need, exactly what you’re looking for. Whatever you seek, you shall find.
Yoongi calls bullshit on this. There’s no way blocks of concrete buildings could know what he needs, let alone provide it. Certainly him finding a coffee shop just when he starts to crave for his morning caffeine is just a coincidence.
Right?
A bell chimes when Yoongi pushes the wooden door open. As soon as he steps in, his senses are overwhelmed by the smell of freshly brewed coffee and croissants and some jazz fusion song playing in the background. What a cliché. Doesn’t mean Yoongi has anything against it, though.
“One iced americano, please,” Yoongi places his order without even looking at the menu. After all, what kind of café doesn’t serve americano?
The cashier is a bubblegum pink-haired boy, perhaps a few years younger than Yoongi. He wears a smile Yoongi has only ever seen on magazines, only warmer and more genuine, and Yoongi wonders how the hell does he do that at eight thirty in the freaking morning.
“Anything else?” the cashier chirps. His nameplate says Jimin with a smiley face at the end. “Something to eat, perhaps?”
Yoongi takes out his wallet, almost shaking his head, but it’s hard to say no to that smile. He wonders if that’s why he’s put on cashier duty. “What do you recommend?”
“Well,” Jimin beams at him. “The chocolate croissants just came out of the oven.”
Yoongi hates chocolate. “One chocolate croissant, then.” He stretches his lips, hoping it would pass as a smile.
“Awesome. That’d be 9,000 won…”
“Yoongi,” he says when he notices Jimin holding up a sharpie.
Jimin scribbles his name on the plastic cup. “…Yoongi-ssi,” he smiles.
Yoongi hands him a ten thousand won bill, somehow getting the impression that this town doesn’t accept cards (it doesn’t). Jimin hands him a thousand won in change, which Yoongi puts in the tip jar. For the smile.
Yoongi chooses a window seat, puts down his small pouch of charger and wallet on the table, and heads back to the counter to pick up his drink as soon as he hears his name being called. He’s decided he likes the sound of it in Jimin’s voice.
He watches as the pink-haired boy prepares another order, the smile never leaving his face. He seems to be humming, too. Yoongi thinks he can pass the day just like this, watching his side profile and his smile and hearing his voice when he calls out people’s names.
Ever since more and more people started to listen to his music, Yoongi has been extremely careful at choosing who to associate with. One wrong move, one drunken mistake, one slip of a tongue and he’s done for. That’s why—as Namjoon has pointed out—he’s so pent up. Casual sex is out of the question. People brag. People enjoy the thrill of telling the story of fucking someone famous more than the actual fucking.
But lucky for him, he’s in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Nobody knows his name here, and even if they do, there’s an unspoken rule that what happens in Idle Town, stays in Idle Town. At least that’s what Namjoon had told him. This might actually be his chance to get lucky.
So he shoots his shot. He downs the last of his coffee and surprisingly bearable chocolate croissant, waits for the new customer to finish ordering, and walks back to the counter. “Hey,” Yoongi clears his throat. “Can I get—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Jimin already hands him a piece of napkin. “Here you go, Sir!”
Yoongi’s brows furrow. “I wasn’t going to—”
Jimin leans forward over the counter, close enough so that Yoongi can pick up a whiff of peaches and cream. “I get off work at four,” he whispers. “See you then?”
Yoongi’s eyes flicker. He looks down at the napkin Jimin handed him and finds a string of numbers written in sharpie on its back, and then back up at Jimin, whose lips now have curled into a smirk.
Maybe the town does know what he needs after all.
It began to pour sometime around noon, and there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Yoongi has no choice but to return to the café with his car.
At around ten past four, Yoongi spots the wooden door swinging open, and he takes that as his cue to get out. He opens his umbrella and walks towards the entrance where Jimin greets him with a smile.
“A gentleman,” Jimin remarks, stepping under the umbrella. “I’m impressed.”
Yoongi smiles. “Mission accomplished, then.”
“What’s the mission?”
“Make a good first impression.”
Jimin laughs, throwing his head back. Yoongi gulps, trying to hide his nervousness with a smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. He makes a mental note to make Jimin laugh more often, even if it makes his stomach flip.
“Come on, don’t wanna catch a cold out here, do we?”
It’s a short walk back to Yoongi’s car, but it’s enough time for Yoongi to register the sweet smell coming from the pink-haired boy, the same one he had picked up earlier this morning.
Jimin smells exactly how he looks: like pink, whatever the hell that means. Soft and sweet and dreamy, and it makes Yoongi wonder when is it acceptable to nuzzle into his neck.
Yoongi can’t remember the last time someone has such a strong grip on him with such minimum effort. Jimin literally breathed, and Yoongi is already forgetting how to. He turns away, maintaining a safe distance between them to physically stop himself from sniffing his pink hair.
“Where are we going?” Jimin asks, putting on his seatbelt.
“Depends. Are you hungry?”
“Could eat a horse.”
“Where in this town do they sell horse meat?”
“Mmm, Jin’s.”
Yoongi’s face falls flat. “They actually sell horse meat here?”
“You think you’re the only one who’s fluent in sarcasm?” Jimin chuckles. “But for real, let’s go to Jin’s.”
“Yeah, one problem,” Yoongi shifts the gear. “I have no idea where that is.”
Jimin’s eyes widen. “You’re that new in town, huh?”
Yoongi flashes a thin smile.
“Just start driving, I’ll tell you when to turn.”
Jimin is twenty five, a Libra, and, to Yoongi’s surprise, a bachelor in biochemistry. He wouldn’t have guessed. “You don’t look like one,” Yoongi argued.
“You mean like a nerd?” Jimin rolled his eyes. He gets that a lot.
“Not that anything’s wrong with looking like one…” Yoongi corrected himself.
Jimin chuckled. “Relax, I know what you mean.” He carded his fingers through his bubblegum pink hair. “This screams more like wayward art student, doesn’t it?”
Jimin likes puppies, and cats, and baby animals—basically everything cute. He dyed his hair pink because someone said it wouldn’t suit him so he wanted to prove them wrong and did it out of pure spite. He thinks he rocks it—Yoongi thinks so, too.
“Turn left here,” Jimin says in between sentences.
He’s been around for a little over three months now, hence his job at the café. Just because this town is a haven doesn’t mean food is free.
“Three months?” Yoongi frowns. He heard from Joon that people usually stay for a couple of weeks, a month max. What Joon didn’t tell him is that there are… the unusual ones.
Jimin nods. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“Two weeks. Why are you still here?”
Jimin drums his fingers on his thigh. “Have you heard of the lore?” Yoongi nods. “Well, supposedly this town knows what I need, right? Turn right here, it’s the pink one on the left.” Yoongi nods to both. “I haven’t gotten it.”
“What you need?”
Jimin nods.
“Why?”
Jimin shrugs. “The universe works at its own pace.”
Yoongi almost scoffs, holding it back right in time lest he offends his passenger. The universe, he said. Yoongi rolls his eyes internally, but he isn’t about to tell Jimin that he thinks the lore is bogus.
“This is my last month, though,” Jimin adds. “If the universe won’t let me have it by the end of this month, I’m taking matters into my own hands.”
“Shouldn’t you just do that in the first place?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Jimin smiles. Yoongi thinks his smile alone warrants his belief in supernatural forces. “Now let’s go, I’m ravenous.”
Jin’s, Yoongi comes to learn, is a diner, sorta. Depends on the time of day. After dark, it’s a disco.
The man who runs the place is—to no surprise—called Jin. But Jimin said he doesn’t own the place. Heck, he didn’t even name it. “Nobody owns anything here.”
Jin himself is a handsome man in his early thirties, but Yoongi can’t spot a single fine line on him. He could pass as a college student just fine. “Rumor has it he’s a vampire,” Jimin leans closer to whisper once Jin has taken their orders.
“I can hear you!”
So the rumor doesn’t bother him at all.
“How long has he been around?” Yoongi asks.
Jimin shrugs. “No one knows for sure. Everyone who had come before him has left.”
“Is that allowed? Staying that long?”
“There’s no rule to this town.”
“But nobody stays.”
“…After they get what they need.”
“Are you saying…” Yoongi trails off when he sees Jin walking back with a tray of their orders.
“One cheeseburger and fries for you,” he puts one plate in front of Yoongi, “and one diabetes for you.”
Jimin pouts. “I’m not gonna get diabetes.”
Jin throws him an incredulous stare. “Maybe stop eating pancakes and bacon for a day and I’ll believe you.”
Yoongi’s eyes follow Jin as he walks away, his brows furrowing involuntarily.
“Nice ass?” Jimin says between bites of pancake. His voice has a sharp tinge to it.
“Jealous much?” Yoongi teases. Jimin rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his water. “I was just… wondering.”
“What he could possibly need that it takes the universe so long to grant it?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi nods faintly. And why he still buys into the lore. Why he still wakes up every day and chooses to stay. Why, instead of taking matters into his own hands, he still trusts the universe to give him what he needs.
At last, after he has finished the last of his fries, Yoongi comes to realize: he might be waiting—God knows for what—just not for the universe.
Yoongi has to admit when he landed his eyes on the pink-haired boy at the café the first time, he was simply looking for a good fuck. The pink, to Yoongi, is a clear measure that the boy knows how to have fun.
But now, after sharing a meal with said boy and driving around town in the rain so he could show Yoongi his way around—where to get groceries, good food, clothes, drinks, and his hair done—Yoongi doesn’t have it in him to reduce Jimin to a one night stand.
As much as he wants to put Jimin’s plump lips to good use, watching him talk about this and that and pout as they bicker back and forth somehow gives him more satisfaction, a different kind that puts out the flame in his lower belly and ignites something in his heart. Every time Jimin giggles, that’s another breath taken away from Yoongi. The farther he throws his head back when he laughs, the more beats Yoongi’s heart skips.
“Eyes on the road!” Jimin squeals when he realizes Yoongi has been staring at him for a little too long. “You’re gonna get us both killed.”
Yoongi chuckles, turning his head forward. It’s hard to keep his eyes on the road when Jimin is sitting right next to him, giggling and telling stories with his eyes on the passenger seat.
“I’m pretty sure I already died and this is heaven.”
In the peak of summer, the sun is still up in the sky even after the rain ceased. They stop by a nameless hill, where the grass, to Yoongi’s surprise, is dry.
Jimin calls it the Sunset Hill. “Because the sun always sets here, get it?” he explains as if the name isn’t a clear tell. Yoongi finds it adorable.
They sit on a patch of grass by the concrete stairs, watching as the sun slowly sinks below the horizon. When it’s completely out of sight and the sky turns dark, Yoongi feels something soft pressing on his arm.
Jimin starts humming a tune, and Yoongi is once again snapped into reality. He had left his work back home, but while he doesn’t miss the stress that comes with it, he does miss making music.
“What song is that from?” Yoongi asks.
“The one in my head,” Jimin says softly, humming again.
Yoongi pulls away, holding Jimin’s shoulders so he wouldn’t fall. “You mean you came up with that?”
Jimin looks at him weird. “I guess? Why—”
Yoongi pulls out his phone in a hurry, his fingers jittery. “Sing it again,” he tells Jimin, pressing on the record button.
Jimin does as told, trying his best to remember it as he sang it before, but of course, it differs slightly. Yoongi doesn’t seem to mind; he has a smile from ear to ear.
“Hold on,” Yoongi says, typing fervently on his notes app. When he’s done, he tosses his phone to the ground and lets go of the breath he had been holding since he started typing. “Done.”
Jimin tilts his head, not quite understanding what had just happened. “What were you…”
Yoongi huffs like he’d just run a marathon. He picks his phone back up and hands it to Jimin. “A song.”
Jimin scans each line. The further he goes down, the bigger his smile blooms. “You wrote this? In two minutes?”
“Might have to make some tweaks later, but yeah.”
Jimin’s eyes light up in wonder. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
Yoongi shrugs. “I should at least be good at my job, right? And besides,” he grins, pulling Jimin to lean on his shoulder, “it’s all thanks to you.”
Jimin, however, has another idea. He leans much further back and lays his head on Yoongi’s lap. Yoongi doesn’t protest, welcoming gladly the weight on his thigh.
It’s hard to imagine that Yoongi has known him for less than a day. Perhaps time works differently here, but it sure feels like he has known him all his life. Meeting Jimin for the first time was like saying hello to an old friend, like playing his favorite song and rereading his favorite book already knowing how it ends.
Jimin feels, above all, familiar.
The touch of his hand, the smell of his hair, the sound of his laughter and the way his eyes disappear when he smiles, Yoongi is so sure he’s sensed them a thousand times before. Was it in his dreams? Or perhaps in his previous life?
The way Jimin’s fingers fit perfectly between his, the way they run through Yoongi’s hair and down Yoongi’s cheek. The way he knows exactly what to say to make Yoongi blush and his heart warm—there’s no way he hasn’t done this before.
“I have a question,” Yoongi says as he cards his finger through Jimin’s hair.
“Shoot.”
“How do people know what they need?”
“They don’t,” Jimin says. “Only the universe does.”
Yoongi scrunches his nose. “Then how come people leave when they think they’ve got what they need, if they don’t even know what they’re looking for in the first place?”
Jimin doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he lets the silence set in for a while. All Yoongi can hear now is the rustling wind and Jimin’s soft breathing. When he looks down, Yoongi finds him smiling with his eyes closed.
“Hyung,” Jimin finally says, his voice ever so tender, fingers reaching for a strand of Yoongi’s hair, “do you believe in destiny?”
Yoongi believes in himself. “Why’d you ask?”
“Isn’t it comforting? The concept that no matter how far you stray, fate will find a way to bring you to wherever you’re meant to be?”
Yoongi finds it both comforting and disconcerting. “What are you trying to say?”
“People come here with a uniquely shaped hole in their hearts, hoping they’ll find something in this town to fill the gap. And when they do,” Jimin reaches his hand out to the sky, as if trying to pick one of the stars, “that’s when they leave.”
When their gazes meet, Yoongi could swear Jimin somehow managed to catch the star and hold it captive in his eyes.
“When you find it, you’ll just know.”
Namjoon’s call comes sometime around midnight. Yoongi turns on his bed, groaning, having lost all sense of time after he hit the sack.
“What?”
“Is that how you greet your friends?”
“You mean friends who call me in the dead of night? Yes.”
“Isn’t this office hours?”
“In case you forgot,” Yoongi sits up on the bed, “I don’t have my work with me. So the fuck do you want?”
Namjoon chuckles. “Just wondering how’s your first week there. Anything interesting?”
Yoongi swivels around to catch a glimpse of Jimin’s sleeping face, serene and unbothered, and his small hand that’s curled into a fist. “Yeah,” he says, this time softly, “definitely interesting.”
“Did you finally get laid?”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Is that all you think about?”
“Hey, I care about my friend’s… wellbeing. Which reminds me, I should probably go there again sometime soon. Wanna meet up?”
“Actually,” Yoongi scratches his nape. “I might be going back home sooner than expected.”
“Oh?”
“I think…” Yoongi sighs. “I think I’ve found it.”
Yoongi can tell Namjoon is smiling on the other end. “Good for you, man.”
“Yeah, um, Joon,” Yoongi says after a long pause, “can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why do you keep coming back here?”
Silence.
“Joon?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry, um,” Namjoon clears his throat. “For my fix?”
“Thousands of people in Seoul and you have to get your fix here?”
There’s a shift in the air that Yoongi can feel even through the line. The way that Namjoon’s voice softens when he says, “It’s different.”; Yoongi can almost see his lips curling into a smile, his gaze hazy as if he’s looking into the distance and yet at the same time back at a treasured memory.
So Yoongi doesn’t press further.
“Alright, I’ll see you when you get home, then?” Yoongi says.
“Yeah,” Namjoon says. “Yeah.”
“Oh and,” Yoongi almost forgot. “Have you listened to the demo I sent you?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi hears a creak. Namjoon is probably leaning back on his chair. “It’s crazy good, but you sure you wanna throw a ballad in there? Shouldn’t you just, I don't know, keep it for someone else to sing?”
“Someone else will be singing it. Just— yeah. I wanna include it in the mixtape.”
There’s a short silence, followed by Namjoon’s laughter. “Man,” he sighs. “All this is no coincidence... Just, just, by my feeling... The whole world is different from yesterday... Just, just, with your joy…” he recites a part from Yoongi’s song. “You really have found it, huh?”
Has he?
People come here with a uniquely shaped hole in their hearts, hoping they’ll find something in this town to fill the gap.
Maybe.
All he knows is that, for the first time in his life, he finally feels complete.
“All set?”
Jimin puts on his seatbelt and nods, Yoongi’s cue to start the car.
They have all their stuff in the backseat—duffel bags and random trinkets Jimin has collected these past three months. For Yoongi, this might have been a short getaway. But for Jimin, this place is almost his home.
“Hey,” Yoongi places his hand gently on top of Jimin’s when he notices how the boy seems all giddy after only a few minutes’ drive, restless on his seat. “You alright?”
“It just feels a little… weird. Leaving this town, finally getting what I need…” Jimin trails off, biting his bottom lip and looks up at Yoongi. “You know?”
In Jimin’s eyes, Yoongi finds everything he’s been looking for.
“I know.”