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Taehyung never liked Professor Bang.
He looked something similar to a pig. He was large, round, with tiny eyes and a disgusting habit of snorting at his own pathetic jokes in the middle of class.
Taehyung always liked slight, pretty things. Professor Bang was certainly not slight or pretty.
Also, he hated Taehyung. (For no apparent reason. Taehyung was a great student, as far as he cared. His scores were stellar and he was pretty and a lot of girls and boys were after him for some reason or another.)
In any case, Taehyung was never fond of Professor Bang.
And, like Taehyung said, Taehyung was smart. Smart enough to know to be observant of exactly when Professor Bang entered and exited his classroom during and after hours, and how he left his (ugly analog) phone on his desk, unprotected, during lunch period. Smart enough to know that the surveillance cameras set in the corner of the classrooms were only for show and that they were never on. Smart enough to know how to pick a lock and transfer an mp3 file to an oldass phone and set it as the ringtone. Smart enough to know to do this all in five minutes after the lunch bell rang, when the hallways were clear, right before his period with Professor Bang.
Taehyung was smart.
He settled in his seat at the very first row, very first column. Professor Bang had placed him there two days into the first semester, after he realised that everyone Taehyung sat close to would try and talk to him all throughout the fifty-five minutes they had in history. Somehow, Professor Bang thought that if Taehyung sat in the area with the least people, with the most quiet people, he would somehow magically shut up.
And somehow it worked, sitting next to the ever shy Hong Jisoo and in front of the ever silent Park Jimin.
They were both prudes, Taehyung liked to think, who didn’t speak in class and who did their homework accordingly. But Taehyung was pretty sure he still beat them in terms of scores.
Fifteen minutes into class, Taehyung felt it was getting too boring. He pulled out of his pocket a disposable phone he’d borrowed (took) from his roommate, and placed it on his table. (Disposable, because his roommate Kim Namjoon, a guy a year above him, had the tendency of breaking and losing his phones like he ate them them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some snacks in between.) He sat in a blind spot, should the surveillance camera be on, so he wasn’t afraid of getting caught. Professor Bang was a little stupid in that case.
After a series of wheedling and ass-kissing, he’d managed to get and input the contact number of dearest Professor Bang into the disposable phone as speed-dial number one.
And number one, he pressed.
Instantaneously, the sound of moaning men filled the room. Girls gasped and boys looked around, confused and, if a little, embarrassed. In two seconds, every eye was trained on the teacher’s desk, where the little, ugly, analog phone vibrated about its surface.
Little by little, students released spurts of snorts and giggles as a red-faced Professor Bang lunged for his phone in an attempt to quiet it. When he did, Taehyung pressed on one again, and the moans played aloud once more.
He was among the first to burst out laughing at the mortified teacher.
“Was that gay porn?” someone muttered in the back of the room.
Gleefully, Taehyung thought, yes, it was.
It started another bout of laughter throughout the room. He had gotten it some random porn clip he found after typing in 'gay porn’ then converted it to an audio file. He was not interested in gay porn — or porn, in general. It was an amusing and, if slightly, traumatising experience, having to replay the file over and over again until he was able to cut it the way that made the very first second the most… indecent.
He decided to ring Professor Bang’s phone for a last time before turning it off and slipping it into his pocket.
“Oh my god,” Jisoo mumbled under his breath. They watched as Professor Bang, red and sweating all the way to his hairline and down his arms, floundered to silence his phone and drop it in the drawer of his desk. The spots that formed around his underarms and neckline made Taehyung lean back into his seat in disgust.
“Jesus Christ,” Jimin breathed behind him. Taehyung was tempted to turn around and gape at him. He had never heard Park Jimin speak prior to that moment, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning over his shoulder at him and agreeing in a loud voice.
“Yeah,” he said. Jimin raised a brow. “Jesus Christ.”
The class went on, just barely. Professor Bang had stared them down for at least ten minutes, as if trying to pick out the culprit from their faces. He failed, of course. No one would admit to something like that. It would cause them a month’s worth of detention — minimum. (Detention in a boarding school was among the worst punishments to a teenager. Taehyung particularly hated detention and how he was forced to clean the second floor male restroom, or,worse, sit still in a hard, wooden chair for two hours.) Every few minutes, someone would snicker quietly, and that would start another explosion of sniggers that would leave them hunched over and breathless.
After the agonising fifty-five minutes he was forced to sit through for a grade, Taehyung quickly rushed out of the classroom. He couldn’t afford to get caught. He had to dispose of the phone he had borrowed (stolen) from Namjoon. It didn’t matter that he had actually blocked the number (because, from his limited knowledge, analog phones allowed blocked numbers but if you block a number, the number can still connect to yours, however, you wouldn’t be able to see the actual number. Quite a stupid loophole, Taehyung thought.), he still had to take extra precautions.
Shutting the second floor restroom door behind him, not bothering to lock it as no one actually used the second floor restrooms, Taehyung hurried to the end of the space and hunkered down to the floor. With deft fingers, he took apart the crappy phone.
He didn’t know much about electronics, but he had hoped that, should the school ever trace back the call, a dismantled phone wouldn’t be traceable. He kept the battery (Namjoon might need it) and the motherboard (or whatever they called it for a phone; so he could dispose of it somewhere else), and flushed the sim card down the toilet. Using the sinks as a boost, he tossed the plastic face and back out of the tiny window.
He jumped down with a self-satisfied grin, thinking he’d managed to wipe his hands clean of any evidence held against him. He pat himself on the back, muttering, “Job well done, Kim Taehyung. Another prank, successfully completed.”
When he turned around, however, he had to stop mid-step.
“Hi.”
Narrowing his eyes at the intruder, he gave the smartphone in his hands a very pointed glare. Through gritted teeth, he growled, “Hi.” Oh, fuck.
He huffed over his coffee at Park Jimin, who so very leisurely sipped on his hot chocolate —hot chocolate. Who drank hot chocolate?!— as if he wasn’t threatening to get Taehyung detention with Professor Song, wife of King-fucking-kong, for an entire month.
“Why,” he eventually ground out.
Jimin blinked innocently at him through round, wire-rimmed glasses. Taehyung hated how, even under the school-required sweatervest and neatly-parted hair, Jimin looked intimidating enough with his leather jacket and stark piercings. Taehyung only had one piercing and no leather jacket. He tried not to sulk.
“Why what?”
Taehyung also hated how soft and sweet Jimin’s voice was when he was so clearly not.
“Why are you trying to fucking blackmail me?”
Jimin smiled, all saccharinely nice. “Because I need help in history and you can give that to me.”
Taehyung scoffed. “Get a fucking tutor.”
Jimin’s smile edged wider, eyes forming dangerous slits. “Watch your fucking language. I’m still older than you.” He said this, dropping his cheek on his palm — a sweet gesture, if you didn’t see how his biceps bulged under the taut leather.
He gulped. “Okay.”
Taehyung hated Park Jimin. There was no way around it.
The older boy was small, and cute, and pretty, and everything that Taehyung would normally like in a person. But he was also strong, and smart, and fucking manipulative.
Taehyung tried calling Jimin hyung once, in their second month of tutoring, in an attempt to soften the other up with cuteness and faux respect. But Jimin had only glared at him and told him to stop fucking around.
Taehyung huffed. Asshole.
“Exams are next week,” Taehyung mentioned nonchalantly as he stripped out of his button-up. He was getting ready for P.E. It was a special day — they would be going against other year levels, including the freshies.
It would be a lie to say that Taehyung wasn’t excited and thankful for the fact that their P.E. uniforms were jerseys and shorts.
Jimin didn’t bother turning to him. “Yeah, and?”
“Have you memorised the recent modules yet? Or do I have to help you?” He might have or might have not said that bit condescendingly. Jimin took off his shirt and Taehyung tried not gape at his flexing back muscles. “I mean, it was really difficult, Professor Bang having crammed two in an hour…”
Jimin didn’t reply. Taehyung pretended not to hear the sadistic snicker the musclehead let out.
Jesus Christ. He could probably snap Taehyung in half with one arm! Why was it always the little ones who were most buff? Was it some sort of inferiority complex short people had?
Taehyung was about to make a jab at Jimin’s attempt at compensation, when other guys in their grade started yelling. Taehyung pulled a face, groaning and slapping a hand over his mouth. “What the hell is that?!”
Jimin wrinkled his nose, pulling his shirt over his nose. “It smells awful, oh my god. Like sulfur and ammonia.”
“I was gonna say rotten eggs,” Taehyung sneered, “but sulfur and ammonia, okay.”
Their classmates stampeded out of the locker rooms they shared with the seniors like animals. And, in some way, they really were animals, who were being herded by the school disciplinarian. “Get out!” he was yelling. “If I ever find out who the fuck did this, you’re facing three months of detention cleaning the gym after hours, fuckface!”
Jimin watched the rest go out with wide eyes. Taehyung thought his glasses fogged up a bit, but he couldn’t be sure as his eyes were actually tearing.
Taehyung followed after them with a sour face. He wasn’t able to change — no one was — but at this point, maybe it was for the best, he thought, sniffing at his P.E. shirt. It smelt like the pits of hell.
Coach Jung paced in front of the gather third and fourth years, glaring at them. “What happened here? You smell like you took a bath in the sewer!”
The disciplinarian, a shorter senior with pierced ears (although, he wasn’t wearing any actual piercings at the moment), clenched his jaw. “We don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know?!”
“A stinkbomb, maybe.”
Coach Jung made a face. “Alright. Get back to your rooms! And bathe. Wear perfume if you have to.” The freshies and sophies were snickering behind their hands. The bitches. “Be back in ten minutes or you’ll all get a zero and detention. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir!”
Taehyung tried not to blush from head to toe as Jeon Jeongguk, the hottest freshman to ever step foot in this ridiculous school ever, passed by him with his stupid freshman friends. He tried not to become one with the wall when Jeongguk visibly winced and covered his nose delicately.
To make it worse, Taehyung bet he looked like an actual fucking stick standing next to Jimin.
“You’re really red,” Jimin murmured after they were gone. “Are you sick or something? Because I really don’t want to catch whatever you have.”
Taehyung grit his teeth and pointedly looked away from him. “Fuck off.”
They got drunk on the roof above Jimin’s dorm.
The dorms were arranged by surname, by floor. So the first floor was for a’s to j’s, second for k’s to n’s, third for o’s to z’s. Taehyung obviously belonged to the k’s, so he didn’t have the luxury of roof-access, and only corner rooms got balconies.
He could not, for the life of him, remember how it happened, but he was pretty sure that it had something to do with midterms being over and them wanting to celebrate.
Jimin’s roommate was an older kid named Park Jinyoung who snuck in alcohol for their hall and his friends on occasions like this. He left six for Jimin alone, for, as Jimin half-slurred, his favourite roommate ever.
Taehyung — very much drunk and very much stupid — stood up when Jimin made fun of him for being narcissistic and self-centred in indignation, almost falling off the roof and slipping off the tiles, had Jimin not grabbed the back of his shirt.
“Woah,” he said, placing a hand on the side of his head. “Woah, fuck. The world is spinning.”
“Yeah,” Jimin said, taking the half-empty bottle from his other hand. “Dude, I think you should stop.”
“Stop?” Taehyung went, tipping to side, sweaty orange hair sticking to his forehead in wet stripes. “W-why?” he hiccupped.
“You’re wasted,” he stated out flatly. “Completely wrecked. You finished, like, three and a half bottles out of six, you idiot. My six.”
“Yeah?” Taehyung said, swaying. Jimin had a hand on his neck to keep him from toppling over. “Yeah — yeah what?”
Jimin rolled his eyes. “Lie down. You might actually fall and break your neck. I’m not going to be called your murderer, okay.”
They lay under the black sky in silence. Black, because, stars in this part of the city were rare as fuck, and the moon was new. Black.
“Hey,” he started, turning his head he side where Jimin sat cross-legged, chugging back what was left of Taehyung last bottle. “Hey.”
Jimin side-eyed him. “Hey.”
“You— how was your test?”
Jimin blinked at him for a while, then tossed his head back with a loud, barking laugh. “Jesus, did you seriously ask me that?”
He was confused. “Jesus?”
“Damn, you're really shit-faced, you know?”
“I— I’m what?”
Jimin shook his head. “Hey, you aren’t completely a kid, you know.”
“What?”
He rolled his eyes, facing the sky again. “Never mind.”
“Hm, Jimin.”
“What?”
He made grabby hands at his companion.
“You’re fucking with me right now, right?” he deadpanned.
“No homo.”
Jimin raised his eyebrows. “That is disgustingly homophobic, I hope you realise that.”
Taehyung’s face was blank. “Homo-what?”
He groaned. “C’mere.”
Taehyung giggled, crawling forward and nuzzling Jimin’s stomach. He laughed again when he felt Jimin take in an abrupt breath, abs inflating and deflating in seconds.
He was half-lulled to sleep when Jimin said, “You know, setting your history teacher’s ringtone to gay porn isn’t exactly the best prank you can pull.”
Taehyung’s mind was clearer than it was moments ago. “Can you please not bring that up?”
“No, seriously, idiot. That was so juvenile.”
“Yeah?” he glared up Jimin’s heart-shaped nostrils. “What’s a good prank to you?”
“Stop staring at me,” he says, shoving Taehyung’s head to the side.
“Ow!”
“Shut up, the dorm advisor might hear you, and then I'll be in really deep shit.”
“Dorm advisor? Why don’t you just say D.A.— ow?!”
“Shut up.” Taehyung sulked, and Jimin ignored him, humming. “Well, I'd say that a good prank was the fireworks show the first night here.”
Taehyung jerked up in excitement. His head spun, and he dropped down just as quickly. “Fuck, ow.”
“You’re such an idiot.”
“Fuck you,” he said, quickly getting over the jab in his eagerness. “That was the best start-of-the-year prank ever!”
Jimin hummed indifferently.
“Yeah, dude! I mean, how the fuck did that guy manage to smuggle in hugeass fireworks like that? Jesus fucking— and there was even a welcome back banner that appeared out of fucking nowhere! Genius, man. Genius.”
“Yeah. Genius.”
“You don’t sound impressed. Why don’t you sound impressed?”
Jimin shrugged. “Maybe because I did it?”
“You?!” Taehyung shrieked, jerking upwards again. He almost tipped backward at the sudden rush of dizziness, but Jimin seemed prepared, trapping Taehyung’s legs between his thighs. It was a passing thought: he could kick Jimin in the balls from this position. But Jimin would probably push him off the roof, lifetime in jail for murder or not.
“Stop doing that! You actually might fall, you know?”
“Dude! You did that? What the fuck?”
“Yeah, I did.” He looked disgruntled. “Why? Are you going to rat me out now?”
“Rat you out? Rat? You?” Taehyung gaped. “Teach me your ways.”
Jimin leant back from him. “Just,” he made a face, “if you have the right motivation, anything’s possible?”
“Was that a serious answer?” Jimin shrugged, frustratingly ambiguous. “What was your motivation then?”
Jimin scrutinised him for a moment, but Taehyung didn’t budge. He sighed. “I wanted to impress someone.”
“Who?”
Jimin blushed, looking away. “Min Yoongi.”
Taehyung shrieked again. Jimin clamped a hand over his mouth before he could start screaming Min Yoongi’s name.
“Fuck you, his room’s below mine— shut up!”
“How do you know that?” Taehyung gasped, wrestling Jimin’s hand away from his lips. “How did you know that, you fucking stalker?”
Jimin didn’t answer him, staring pointedly away from Taehyung.
“Dude, oh my god, dude.” Taehyung snickered, almost hysterically. “Min Yoongi’s the goddamned student disciplinarian. How is breaking the rules gonna fucking impress him?”
“Shut up!”
“You’re hopeless!”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
“Jimin hyung—”
“Stop fucking around. Shut up!”
“Hey.”
“…What?”
“Do you think you can help me?”
“…With what?”
“Get Wang back for the stinkbomb in the gym locker two weeks ago.”
“Wang? The Cantonese senior?”
“Yeah.”
“He did that?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t think he had the balls.”
“Please?”
“…Do you want to make all of his underwear disappear for a month?”
“Do you have that kind of access?”
“We can break in.”
“My head hurts. Details tomorrow?”
“You drank too much, you idiot.”
“Details tomorrow?”
“Details tomorrow.”