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jungleass: you think he eats babies?
minnielicious: who?
jungleass: two rows down. four seats over to the left. mop head. lots of eyeliner. looks like he raided a 2013 hot topic.
minnielicious: kim taehyung?
jungleass: no bitch, freddy krueger.
Jimin locks his phone, then turns his head across the aisle to glare at Jeongguk. His roommate flashes a thousand watt smile. There’s a piece of spinach stuck in his teeth and Jimin grins back for all the wrong reasons.
They’re sitting right on the edge of the rows opposite of each other. Usually, Jimin and Jeongguk sit next to each other in their finance lecture with their shoulders smushed together, breathing in seconds old carbon dioxide and the body wash that they share. Today they’re on best friend strike, according to Jeongguk, and they have separated themselves with a foot of carpet between them.
Jimin thinks that it is undoubtedly counterintuitive because Jeongguk keeps looking over to try to talk to him.
“Focus on the lecture,” Jimin mouths to him discreetly behind his hand and turns to the front to pretend to listen to their professor. Dr. Kim is asking for volunteers to answer the exam practice question. He immediately avoids eye contact with her. The dirty, used-to-be white shoelaces threaded through his sneakers have become quite interesting.
A balled up sheet of notebook paper lands smack in the middle of his opened binder. One wrong move and it would have fallen off. Jimin hates these tiny, shitty auditorium desks.
Jeongguk gestures comically at his phone, whispering, “Messages.”
With a sigh, Jimin quickly glances at the professor to make sure that they haven’t drawn any attention to themselves, which is quite difficult since they sit so close to the front. Not to mention they both have obnoxious, brightly colored hair: Jimin flamingo pink, Jeongguk orchid purple. Their nails are still stained with dye.
He unlocks his phone, swipes to his messages, huffing slightly.
jungleass: sorry for calling you a bitch.
jungleass: but yeah, kim taehyung. i don’t like him. he’s fucking scary looking.
minnielicious: what are you, 12 years old? didn’t i teach you better than to judge ppl?
jungleass: but hyung, what sane person gets their face pierced 20 different times? plus, he has a billion tattoos.
minnielicious: you have tattoos, too, idiot.
jungleass: i don’t have them on my face like him tho.
minnielicious: you are so stoopid.
jungleass: sehun-hyung said that he does coke in the bathroom before class.
minnielicious: he doesn’t .
jungleass: he does.
Jimin pauses. Kim Taehyung could, though. Distantly, Jimin remembers one of the girls in his econ class whispering about Taehyung walking out of a party bathroom with red eyes, fingers twitchy, spasming and speech on level 100.
He quickly sends an angry emoji to Jeongguk because he doesn’t like admitting that Jeongguk could be right.
Jeongguk looks over snootily, saying under his breath, “He does.” When he locks his phone, the haptic sound grates against Jimin’s eardrums. Cat nails on chalkboard.
“He doesn’t,” Jimin says, rolling his eyes. Instinctively— you know, because they were just talking about him, not for any other reason— he begins to watch as Taehyung lifts his arm up to lazily scratch his back, showing off the sleeve of black ink covering his entire right arm. The veins on his forearm bulge obscenely. His shoulders sit solid and square.
Hot hot hot hot. Kim Taehyung is hot and buff and sexy and has so many tattoos and hot and hot—
Jimin mentally groans then tells his mind to shut up right away.
Almost on cue, Jeongguk texts him more nonsense about Taehyung, and Jimin shuts it all down because rumors will be rumors. The last message fizzles deep in his gut.
It’s not like he’s defending him because Jimin is close to him or has some connection with Taehyung outside of acknowledging his existence in an academic setting. There was just something wrong about talking shit about someone who hasn’t done any harm towards them, someone who was only a few seats away from them.
Someone who was turning around right this second to look over their shoulder and— yeah, now Jimin was making burning-hot-prickles-up-and-down-his-spine eye contact with the school’s residential metal-head.
Taehyung holds the stare. His lip slightly twitches upwards, not in the hot bad-boy way that Jimin would probably fall for, but like he can’t control whether or not his face jerks around and convulses, Jimin notices, and then time slows down when he does not avert his gaze. Three seconds later feels like an eternity, dragging the moment forever and ever.
Jimin holds his breath, stomach simmering on low heat on a stove, until Taehyung turns away, sniffling. He’s got three rows of lobe piercings, silver metal stuck at all angles in his cartilage.
Holy fuck — if looks could kill, Jimin would be six feet under.
A snort snaps him out of the funk he’s in, and Jeongguk’s smirking like he knows how flustered Jimin is now. He should probably tell him he’s got veggies in his teeth or he’ll extend the best friend strike for another day.
Woah, Jeongguk mimics himself getting hanged, tongue lolling out and eyes rolling back into his head.
Jimin flips him the bird under his desk. The shit-eating grin Jeongguk still wears is infuriating, and he feels his cheeks heat up.
“He eats babies. ” Jeongguk’s big eyes crinkle around the edges and Jimin’s waiting for the bunny ears to come sprouting out his purple, damaged bowl cut.
Jimin nods. “Babies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Definitely looked like he wanted to take a bite out of Jimin, too.
Class ends promptly, and Jimin goes home before his roommate to get ready for his shift at work, taking the bus. It’s a route that he takes quite often, so frequent that he can typically recognize the passengers. Around this time of day, there’s no more than six people that come this way on the bus, and at this point of the semester, he’s not even sparing a second glance at them.
So imagine his surprise when Jimin, two stops from his apartment, hears a particularly loud cough and so that makes him turn his head to see a mess of black hair and clothes and ink of a man sitting adjacent to him. Jimin can’t help that the memory of their brief eye contact in class rushes forward in his mind.
Staring out the window with his headphones on, lips resting downturned, Taehyung seemingly appears to have a dark cloud surrounding him, but to Jimin, all he can see is how the setting sunlight makes his face glow brightly.
Almost like he was glowing from within.
Jimin thinks about that the entire ride home, even after Taehyung gets off on the stop before him, stopping to thank the bus driver with a smile that Jimin’s sure no one at school has ever seen before.
—
Friday nights at Barry’s are nothing new to Jimin. For new and older servers alike, the rush hour at the cosy, knock-off Italian restaurant could get pretty overwhelming, but Jimin lived for the rush of it all.
The frenzy of workers rushing around him in the kitchen, the adrenaline pumping inside of him to get the side dishes out as quick as possible, hell— even getting into a yelling match with the cooks was fun to him. Not to mention the attention and praises that he’d get from customers that definitely wanted to fuck him.
What can he say? A libra man is a libra man.
Tonight, though. Tonight was chaotic. Worse than the time he ran into oncoming traffic chasing after his stupid dog that got loose. Worse than when he got lost in a frat party that was at a uni three cities over, drunk and without a phone. Way, way worse than when he slapped his ex-boyfriend in front of said ex-boyfriend’s massively extended family during Christmas dinner.
Jimin’s in the side station, a tray of drinks balanced steady in his hand, thinking about all of the tasks that have been asked of him by the guests, teeth chattering and sweat soaking through his black button up— Jimin is in the weeds, deep in them bitches. Also, he’s pretty sure that his toes are pruned up from the disgusting amount of sweat that he’s accumulated over his shift. Everything sucks, can tell it in his face, the way it’s pinched like he’s sucked on a lemon.
Standing in the doorway of the side station is Namjoon, tall like an evergreen and just as sturdy in his work uniform. Namjoon inhales cause he’s going to speak, but before he can even ask the question balanced on the tip of his tongue, Jimin’s shutting him down, whisking right past the host.
He doesn’t have time for this.
A strong hand grabs his bicep, stopping him in his tracks. If Jimin thought that he was a sweaty mess, well then Namjoon takes the cake.
“No,” Jimin hisses, trying to shake his hand off and failing. His head is repeating the orders over and over again, pounding. Chicken parm, side of broccoli, table 312 needs more ranch, have to ring up 315’s ticket, refill drinks refill drinks refill—
“Please, Jimin. You’re the only one who can take this table,” Namjoon pleads, breath winded from running around the establishment like a chicken with its head cut off. Jimin sneers up at him and Namjoon does his best not to poke his own eyes out.
That’s absolute bullshit, Jimin thinks heatedly, but keeps it well to himself. There’s no point of blowing up in Namjoon’s face when they’re all stressed to the max. “Why me? I’ve got four tables already— one of them isn’t even in my section!”
Behind him in the kitchen, he hears a crash of dinner plates hit the ground, and one of the managers yelling at the top of her lungs, serving to only make Jimin’s anxiety worse.
“Everyone else is busy—“
“I’m busy, too!”
Namjoon says, “But you’re the only one here that can handle it. Too many rookies scheduled, man. They can’t pick up more than two tables.” That’s right. The joint hired four new servers just about last week, and this was the week that the seasoned vets decided it was a great idea to fuck off an vacation.
“That’s not my problem.” Quick side step to the left. Namjoon follows. To the right. Namjoon also follows. With a grunt, Jimin practically slams the drink of trays on the counter, throwing his arms up in the air. “Joonie! We’re cool, but kindly, fuck off. ”
Wrong move because Namjoon shoots him a concerned look, the same one he gave Jimin when he was spiralling after spilling a liter of watermelon sangria on a guest, and he had to talk him down to a calmer place. Daffodils and daisies and springtime meadows. The shit on the front of a laundry detergent bottle.
“Hey,” Namjoon says in a softer voice, picking up the tray and handing it to Jimin, who clutches it with white hands. He’s really got to mellow out before he pops a vein or two. “It’s a two top. A dad and his daughter. They look nice. Low maintenance. You’ll probably forget about them until they’re askin’ for the bill.”
For a few seconds, he contemplates on walking out tonight and quitting, but a little voice inside of his head tells him that would not be good for his bank account. Besides, rent was due in a few days. “Okay— yeah, Put me on. But this is my last one. You talk to Boss and convince him to let me off early because I'm not taking anymore tables.”
Throwing his arms around Jimin’s shoulder in a tight embrace, almost knocking over the drinks like a clutz, Namjoon lets out a hoot. “Thank you! I’ll pay you back. Fuck, you’re the best!”
“Hyung, please,” Jimin says, voice pinched. “We’re sweaty. Stinky. Raw onion type of stank.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Namjoon apologizes profusely, letting go to step out of Jimin’s path. “Table 311 by the way. Not in your section but close, ya’ know. A few feet over and—”
“I know, Joonie. Been working here longer than you, remember?” Jimin reminds him, patting his friend’s protruding chest. A button is holding on for dear life. “Let me run these drinks.”
The time between him dropping off the drinks, ringing up the bill for one of his tables with the credit card in his server’s book, and going to greet his new table isn’t more than five minutes, but when Jimin is high amped, time doesn’t make much sense to him.
Without looking up from his server book, Jimin chirps in his brightest voice, “Hello, welcome to Barry’s. I’m Jimin and I’ll be your server tonight—” Using the tip of his pen, he taps his metal name tag. “Can I start you off with something to…” This is when Jimin finally takes a look at his table, sentence dying off into utter disbelief.
A very familiar face offers him a smile, lip ring glinting under the dim mood lighting. Presumably his daughter, the cute munchkin with pigtails sitting in the booster seat in front of him, colors quietly with the crayons that the restaurant gives to little kids. Taehyung quickly smooths out the coloring pages so it is easier for his baby to fill in her picture and she giggles when he tickles her chin.
“Jimin-ssi, didn’t know you worked here,” Taehyung says. “They let you work with pink hair?”
Jimin’s free hand reaches up to crunch the strands of fried hair between his fingers, as if he had forgotten what color his hair was. Obviously Taehyung was attempting to make a light joke to dispel the awkward tension of running into a classmate at their job. However, all Jimin could blurt out of his stupid mouth that never listened to his brain is, “Like you’re one to talk.”
Why was he like this? He wonders, briefly, how much it would hurt to stick his head into the soup station.
“Got me there,” Taehyung grins beautifully and Jimin averts his eyes to stop the blush that is starting to heat up the tips of his ears, focusing on the grain of the wooden table.
“That was— that was r-rude, uh,” Jimin stammers, pressing the notepad into his stomach. Mayday, mayday, abandon ship immediately. “Forget I said that.”
“You’re good.” Taehyung says without blinking, all the while letting his daughter play with his skull rings.
“That’s your kid?” Jimin smacks himself in the forehead with his palm. Seriously, what was up with him tonight? “Sorry, again. Sorry I keep apologizing. I don’t know how to talk apparently.”
“Don’t worry about it!” This Taehyung is completely different from the one that Jimin’s seen at university. He leans forward on the edge of his seat and has relaxed shoulders, mouth in a constant smile as if he physically can’t help to smile, as if the world is so beautiful that he just has to. “Drinks, right? I’ll get Sprite.”
“Baby,” he tries to get the attention of his daughter, tapping a black varnished fingernail on the coloring page. “What do you want to drink?”
She puts down the purple crayon after drawing a wobbly sun in the corner of the paper and says with grabby hands towards her dad, “Juice! Yunhee wants juice.”
“Orange juice or apple juice?” Jimin asks, unable to keep the gentle coo out of his voice when he speaks to Yunhee. She is so endearing with her chubby cheeks and rainbow barrettes in her hair.
“Apple juice.” She picks up the crayon again. Taehyung clears his throat expectantly and she makes a small sound like she forgot something. Quickly, she adds, “Please!” Back to her masterpiece, her eyes glimmering.
He jots it down nervously. The two of them make a strange pair. But who is he to judge? “Did you want to order her meal first, in case she gets fussy?”
“ Please. You’re a lifesaver. She hasn’t eaten since lunch at school, ” Taehyung nods, grateful that Jimin suggested that. He rattles off something from the kids menu, asking for extra grapes on the side (of course Jimin’s going to comply), and Jimin writes it all down telling them that he’ll be back soon.
Taehyung catches his arm as he’s turning around, dropping it because he feels as though he may have overstepped a boundary. Jimin wants to tell him that it’s fine.
“I don’t know if this is weird, or—” he gives him a once over, hand making to reach for his shoulder as if to wipe something away. Jerking his hand back to his chest, Taehyung mutters, “Cheese. Got cheese on your shoulder.”
Jimin laughs at that, brushing the cheese onto the ground. Jesus, they were both so awkward. “Thanks, Taehyung-ssi.” The way that he says Taehyung’s name has the other man’s face splitting in half from his grin and Jimin excuses himself once more, legs jittery.
They are an easy table. After getting their meal, they don’t need him other than to ask for the check. With the extra time that Jimin has to spare, he uses it to take care of the rest of his guests and has them up and leaving, sated. One more to go.
Yunhee is asleep with her head resting in Taehyung’s lap, her dad stroking her hair whilst humming a tune low enough for her to hear, and she snores softly. Coming up to the table, Jimin passes him the check, their hands brushing against each other for a second. The skin contact is electric and Jimin bites his lip to keep himself from making a weird noise. Touching new people made his teeth hurt.
“Are you okay?” Taehyung asks. The corner of his mouth twitches as it did before in class, but this time it also forces his eye to twitch, too. Jimin must be staring hard, since Taehyung says out of nowhere, “I can’t help it.”
“Help what?”
He points to his face, cringing. “The twitching.”
“Ummm.” Jimin’s flounders. Fingers pull at his black, starchy collar.
“You were staring.”
“Oh, I wasn’t—” Jimin puts his hands out in front of him, waving them furiously. The noise and the rush of people has dissipated to the quiet music of jazz and bussers cleaning up tables, silverware clinks echo— reminds Jimin of windchimes in his old backyard. “I didn’t mean to stare. Or be rude. Or judgy.”
“I—” Taehyung stops himself. Starts again. Words start to pour out of his mouth like a broken water pipe. “I know what people at school say about me. That I do,” he covers Yunhee’s ears even though she is sleeping and won’t be able to hear him, “ drugs,” he whispers. “But, like, I can’t, uh, help it. It’s a tic. But everyone thinks that I’m some sort of druggie. I’m not. I’m really not—”
“Taehyung-ssi—”
“I’m not a pothead or do coke or smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do any of that because of…” he glances down at his daughter and Jimin gets it. Like really gets it. He can’t imagine how it must look to an outsider, Taehyung dressing and looking the way that he does and having a kid, especially at such a young age.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Jimin assures him, eyes bright and glossy. A bit of guilt eats him up. Jimin rubs his nose. “Doesn’t bother me at all, Taehyung-ssi.”
“For real?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Are you sure?” Taehyung plays with the corner of a napkin, stops, then flexes his fingers. Yunhee shifts ever so slightly in his lap, snuggling her face into his stomach. Taehyung’s wearing the same holey band t-shirt that he had on during lecture.
Jimin understands that Taehyung is insecure about this part of him that people instantly judge him for, even before getting to know him. Constantly seeking assurance that he is okay— normal. Most of his own life has been that way, as well, and he berates himself for assuming that the nasty rumors about him were true. “Positive.”
He whispers, more like rumbles, a low, “Thank you.” There’s that light again, from the bus, making Taehyung’s face glow bright. The apples of his cheeks rise like bread dough in an oven. He should smile like that more often so Jimin could get his fill.
It takes Jimin a moment to realize that whatever was tugging at his heart, pulling him towards Taehyung, was more than a little crush or attraction that he had thought that it was. He was not sure if he wanted to know what it was. Some things were just too terrifying.
Taehyung eventually hands him his credit card to pay for their meal, and carries Yunhee out of the restaurant in his arms, still sleeping soundly. Discreetly, he tucks her drawings in the back of his jeans so that he can hang them up on his wall later.
And at the end of the night, when Jimin’s sorting through the receipts to cash out and leave, he finds the one for Taehyung’s table, crinkled in the center, and at the bottom near the signature, it reads, “We’ll be back to see you again. Promise.”
He must have looked like an idiot, repeating the words back to himself, tracing Taehyung’s messy scrawl with his finger. Jimin didn’t even care that the ink stained his skin.