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school bell rings, walk me home
It’s nice, Taehyung thinks, on the first morning he walks with Jimin to school. He’ll have company every day now.
Jimin is soft spoken and smiles easily, kind, and shy. He’d warmed up a little since arriving at the dorm last week. But now he’s quiet as they make their way to the bus stop. Nerves, Taehyung realizes, but is tactful enough not to say.
It would be difficult for him, arriving in the middle of the term. They both know it. Not to mention the glasses and the accent.
“We’ll go back together too,” Taehyung tells him bracingly. “Don’t worry.”
sidewalk chalk covered in snow
Winter comes and goes before they’ve known each other a year. But in that time, Jimin becomes something he hadn’t expected: not just a friend, but his closest friend, his best friend.
lost my gloves, you give me one
Gloves, earrings, earbuds, rings. Shirts and hoodies and belts. It all blends together, the two of them, their things and what they swap between them. With anyone else Taehyung would keep a running tally, but with Jimin he’s always happy to share.
“wanna hang out?”
yeah, sounds like fun
“Don’t stay so late today. Leave early, we’ll go somewhere.”
Jimin's answer is automatic, that he needs to work hard or the company won’t keep him.
But later, alone in the practice room, he hears Taehyung’s words again. Don’t stay so late today. Leave early, we’ll go somewhere.
Jimin exhales. There's lights, music, the smell of mildew and sweat. And Taehyung.
It’s hard to ignore, that tiny spark of warmth that comes from having a friend. Someone who wants to have fun with him. Someone he doesn’t have to try with. Someone who cares.
He messages 𝗺𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝗶 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁.
Less than a minute later he gets back 𝘆𝗮𝘆!!!!!!!!!!!! and a dancing tiger sticker.
video games
Jungkook is passed out with his controller still in his hand. Jin went to bed hours ago. It’s been only the two of them for the last few levels, and Taehyung is beating Jimin’s kill count every time.
He can feel Jimin getting annoyed, but he doesn’t let up and wins the next round too. Jimin throws a pillow at him.
And Taehyung likes that too, without really knowing why. There’s something about riling Jimin up that burns hot and pleased inside him. They fight a lot, but everything gets forgotten quickly.
Taehyung scrunches his face to suppress a yawn. “Wanna go for a walk?”
It’s after three a.m. and he expects Jimin to say no; instead, he grins and says, “Sure.”
you pass me a note
When Jimin cleans out his school bag at the end of break, he finds so many of them. Sticky notes, the corners of exercise sheets, the inside covers of notebooks — all scribbled with that weird heart face Taehyung loved to draw.
“It’s you,” Taehyung had laughed, adding extra lines to emphasize the lips before Jimin had swatted him away.
It’s all bluster. Taehyung is impossible, annoying, and his favorite person in the world. He flattens each one fondly and tucks them in a pocket of his organizer. None get thrown away.
sleeping in tents
He finds Taehyung in the second place he looks, passed out in the makeup tent, with his head dangling over the back of the chair. Freshly-blow dried blue hair swings delicately with every breath in and out. His mouth is open and so are the slits of his eyes.
Cute, Jimin thinks. Cute, cute, cute…
light pink sky, up on the roof
Sun lasts so long in Los Angeles. They’ve been here a few times now and it’s always a surprise. It seems like late afternoon goes on forever here, as the sun marches slowly towards the coast in a flare of pink and orange.
The company rented a whole building (a whole building!) this time and had them do a photo session on the roof, but for the rest of the stay nobody uses it.
Taehyung loves it. He drags Jimin up there whenever they have spare time.
“It’s beautiful,” he sighs, soft with awe, and Jimin’s heart flips over in his chest.
His camera roll fills up with pictures of Taehyung taking pictures.
sun sinks down, no curfew
Late nights belong to them. It’s the time when the least eyes are watching, when they can go venture out as far as they like and be alone, together.
And there’s something else about nighttime and darkness that coaxes out secrets and dreams. He’s told Jimin so many. Everything they hope to achieve, all the reasons they work so hard, everything he wants to prove, everything he wants to have — all except one thing, and the dream that Taehyung keeps locked up in his heart, he thinks Jimin might already know.
Don't dreams come true? Five years ago in front of Fukuoka Dome, they promised each other to perform there one day, to somehow make it happen. Now the stadium is lit up with their names and sold out for two days in a row.
Maybe, his heart thumps, over and over whenever he thinks about it. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
twenty questions, we tell the truth
“This is silly,” Taehyung says. “You already know everything about me.”
Jimin sets his glass down, face flushed pink and eyes shining.
“I disagree. I think you’ll surprise me for the rest of our lives.”
Small fingers reach to tweak Taehyung’s cheek, and he feels his own face heat as his lips curl into a smile.
you’ve been stressed out lately, yeah, me too
Jimin drops onto the sofa beside him and doesn’t say anything at first. He’s been arguing with his manager about something Taehyung hasn’t heard the details of yet.
Tension bleeds out slowly; Jimin’s legs curl up beneath him and his head slumps against Taehyung’s shoulder.
“Tell me something boring,” he says, muffled. “Something stupid. One of your weird French movies.” Taehyung hums in agreement, casting his thoughts around. He settles back.
“It’s morning in Paris, sunrise, and all the streets are empty. There’s a boy going down some stairs and he sees a red balloon tied to a lamp post...”
something gave you the nerve to touch my hand
It’s soft, quiet, and slow when it happens. Nothing like how he imagined it, with big declarations or dramatic revelations. In fact, Taehyung doesn’t say a word.
They’re alone in his hotel room, just hanging out, nothing special, and joking around about something (he’ll never remember what, afterwards) when Jimin plants himself indignantly in his lap and says, “Just admit I’m right, why don’t you.”
Taehyung looks up into sparkling, crinkled up eyes and his mouth goes slack. He can’t think of a single thing to say to this luminous person who is also, somehow, his best friend in the whole world.
The silence stretches on and the laughter fades from Jimin’s face but — remarkably — his smile stays.
Taehyung watches as Jimin exhales, reaches forward and takes his hand. Jimin’s fingers, gentle and light, twist and twine with his own. A bright pink appears in his cheeks, but he doesn’t look away and he doesn’t let go.
Taehyung’s breath hitches. He can feel longing in his whole body.
He stares at Jimin’s shy smile until he can’t take it anymore, and then lays his whole heart on line and leans up to kiss it.
church bells ring
It’s late night for them and early morning for everyone else, with sun still hiding under the blue eastern edge of town, a quaint little stopover halfway between Amsterdam and Berlin.
They’ve been out all night wandering the cobbled streets, just the two of them. It was Jimin’s birthday yesterday.
He’s perched on the wall overlooking the river, Taehyung's arms wrapped securely around him. In the distance they can hear the chime of church bells; this place is like walking around inside a fairytale.
“One, two, three, four, five, six,” Jimin counts under his breath. He looks over and grins into Taehyung's sleepy eyes. “Bedtime.”
carry me home
Jimin loops his arms around Taehyung’s neck, lets himself dangle there on limp legs.
“I simply cannot walk another step, kind stranger. You look strong.”
“And yet I must demure. I myself am so weary I may drop dead this very minute.”
Jimin rolls his eyes. “I’m more tired than you.”
“I had dance practice—”
“—so did I!”
“What are you spending all that time in the gym for, anyway? You should carry me home!”
“You should carry me home!”
Pastiche roleplay stutters to a stop, and suddenly they both crack and start laughing. Jimin’s fingers fist in the fabric of his shirt as he gasps; wild, exhausted, free.
Someone takes someone else’s hand, and they walk like that the rest of the way home.
rice on the ground looks like snow
“Have mine,” Jimin says, pushing his takeout container toward Taehyung without hesitation.
Something warm and wonderful fills his chest. (He saves that feeling for later; it would make a good song.)
Taehyung pulls the lid off carefully, ignoring his own fallen container for the moment. The first bite he scoops onto his chopsticks he holds out for Jimin’s mouth.
call my bluff, call you “babe”
They’re all arguing now, a chorus of “Jimin Litmus, Jimin Litmus—” overcoming the no’s and accusations.
His mouth twitches even as Taehyung fixes him with that impenetrable stare — elusive to everyone else, but glaringly obvious to Jimin.
“Taehyung is the mafia,” he declares, and the other members immediately ham it up for the cameras, half of them yelling it’s cheating and the rest yelling of course it’s not cheating.
“Sorry babe,” he says sheepishly, and Taehyung doesn’t deign to answer, only angles his chin just so.
have my back, yeah, every day
“Itchy?”
Jimin nods.
“Okay.”
When he comes back, Jimin is lying on his stomach with his shirt bunched around his neck, and Taehyung climbs up and carefully straddles his hips.
He squeezes lotion on each of the new tattoos, dots of white on sharp black, like little stars over each moon. His fingers move down the line and spread lotion over each one, rubbing gently over their scabbed edges. Jimin sighs softly beneath him.
The moon in the middle is his favorite, a perfect round circle. He can’t wait to be able to kiss it.
“Better?” he whispers in Jimin’s ear. There’s a tattoo there he can kiss, and does.
feels like home
Their apartment is something that they decide on together. They buy it in Jimin’s name but it’s theirs. It’s a three bedroom, the master they share plus two extra rooms to decorate and argue over.
Shopping for furniture and homewares becomes a new little pastime. On free days, they spend time opening boxes and rediscovering things they had shipped months earlier.
It’s a whole year before they decide it’s more or less complete. They don’t live there — they don’t live anywhere, really. Jimin has the apartment he shares with Jungkook and Taehyung has an entire apartment for his family, plus the dorm, where they all stay when they’re working full schedules.
But they make the very intentional decision to sleep at their apartment whenever their schedules align. Neither of them ever spends the night alone there.
stay in bed the whole weekend
Jimin is sleeping the whole day away. Their first full weekend off in over three months, and he’s missing it.
Taehyung thinks about making plans, maybe going to see his parents, but he never even gets dressed. He ends up sprawled out in their bed, scrolling aimlessly on his phone, humming against a backdrop of Jimin’s snuffly snores.
There’s something about this: calm, quiet, together-but-not-quite. It’s very close to perfect.
Orange sunlight slants through the windows by the time Jimin stirs, stretches, and gives Taehyung his good morning kiss sometime in the late afternoon. Perfect.
it’s nice
to have
a friend