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Yoongi usually liked sitting in the front row of his lectures. It cut down on his tendency to get distracted by people-watching. And, generally speaking, the only other people who sat up at the front were those who showed up too late to wedge themselves in anywhere else. One of the classes he was taking this semester, however - Computer Programming for Life Sciences - there was a guy in it who always showed up early, and always sat in the front row. Not that Yoongi cared, he thought it was just a little unusual.
They had a little routine going in the first three lectures: the other guy would be up in the front row on the left side when Yoongi arrived, so Yoongi would sit over on the right, always in the same seat. (The third from the one on the end, in fact.) Then Yoongi would take notes about if statements and loops and forget all about it.
Then, the other guy changed things up for no apparent reason, irking Yoongi greatly. Yoongi showed up for the fourth lecture, and he was sitting over on Yoongi’s side! On Yoongi’s seat!
Yoongi suppressed the urge to pull his lips back into a snarl. He knew that it wasn’t actually his seat - dozens of other students sat in it, just during the course of a normal week. And all the seating was first-come, first-served. But still - what was this guy thinking? Why sit in the exact seat that he had surely seen Yoongi sitting in three times in a row? Was he trying to provoke a fight? Over line-of-sight to slides about scoping variables?
Yoongi took a deep breath and tried to get the hair on the nape of his neck to smooth back down again. At least he had his tail tucked into his oversized pants and his ears hidden underneath his slouchy, oversized beanie, so his more-aggressive body language cues were disguised at the moment. Because Yoongi wasn’t a regular human: he was a cat hybrid. There weren’t many of them around campus, so he usually kept his features covered up, just because he preferred not to have it be a point of discussion with strangers.
Grumpily, he patted his beanie down to make sure it was securely on his head and continued his walk up the middle aisle, trying to decide what his strategy would be. He considered going and sitting over on the left side, where the guy should have been, but ultimately decided it was better to pretend he didn’t care and maybe didn’t even notice this guys provocation - so he just sat two seats over from him and didn’t look at him at all. He just plopped his bag down and got out his laptop as he always did.
The guy didn’t say anything. Yoongi tried his hardest to not observe anything he was doing through his peripheral vision. But, as the lecture started, he couldn’t help but notice that he never pulled anything out and never took any notes! He finally snuck an actual look over - and saw that he didn’t even have a bag with him. Weird. Yoongi suppressed the desire to lash his hidden tail in agitation.
The lecture ended, and Yoongi was just finishing typing in everything that the professor had noted about the next homework assignment, when he thought he saw the guy (who had yet to make a move to stand up or leave, despite having nothing to collect and therefore nothing to stop him from simply getting to his feet and walking out) turn his head towards Yoongi. Yoongi looked sharply in his direction, and saw that his peripheral vision was correct: he was looking right at Yoongi, sort of eagerly and beseechingly, with big hopeful eyes.
“Hey,” the guy said quietly. “My name’s Jungkook.”
“Uh, hi,” Yoongi replied, as he shoved his laptop back into his bag. “I’m Yoongi.”
Then, unable to stop himself and his darned curiosity, as he straightened up and slung his backpack over his shoulder, Yoongi blurted out the question that weighed on his mind.
“Why weren’t you taking any notes?” he asked, puzzled.
Jungkook smiled up at him, looking particularly delighted for some reason, then stood up. Yoongi realized that he had a few centimeters of height over him, in fact. And then he realized something else that was odd: he couldn’t smell Jungkook either. Usually standing up would send a waft of air away from the person and Yoongi would inevitably get a little dose of their deodorant, shampoo, and whatever else. But from Jungkook: nothing.
“I’m the school spirit,” Jungkook said with a big, toothy grin.
He stepped forward, clearly expecting Yoongi to walk out of the classroom with him, and Yoongi automatically fell in next to him.
“What do you mean?” Yoongi asked, puzzled, as they headed back down the center of the room to the back door. “Just because you have school spirit doesn’t mean you don’t need to study.”
Jungkook giggled a little.
“No, I am the school spirit,” he said playfully. “Didn’t they tell you about the campus ghost during orientation?”
Yoongi thought back to when he started here, over two years ago. Yes, there had been something about a spirit bound to the campus, he vaguely recalled. But the spirit had supposedly been bound hundreds of years ago, back when it was a temple complex and not a school at all. He gave Jungkook another once over: he seemed like any other student: short hair but with enough bangs to flop in his face, scruffy hooded sweatshirt with the university logo on it, plain jeans, dark sneakers.
But it was true - he didn’t smell like he was there.
“Oh,” Yoongi finally said, as they walked side-by-side out into the hallway. “That’s you?”
“That’s me,” Jungkook confirmed proudly.
“Well, even if you’re the school spirit, if you’re not taking notes, then why are you in the class?” Yoongi asked practically.
“I like to audit all the classes here,” Jungkook explained enthusiastically. “I just pick one or two each semester. I already worked my way through literature and most of the sciences, and I’m using this one as my entry. The Computer Science department here is only fifteen years old, you know!”
Yoongi pondered how many years it would take to sit through every course in the catalog, at the rate of six per year. It actually sounded kind of fun - definitely less stressful than what he was doing. And no need to worry about money. Or food.
“Well, that’s,” Yoongi stammered, not sure what to say in such a situation, “you’re really a ghost?”
Then, before he could really think about what he’s doing, he started reaching out to try to poke Jungkook’s arm. He didn’t get all the way there before he realized with a gasp how rude he was being.
“Oh, sorry,” he blurted out. “Oh my gosh, that’s so rude of me, sorry,”
Yoongi jerked his hand back and clenched his hands up into fists and crossed his arms over his chest, cringing at himself.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jungkook replied easily. “People do that all the time.”
“We shouldn't though,” Yoongi grumbles.
“Anyway, do you want a study partner for the class?” Jungkook offered, changing the subject.
“Uh, well,” Yoongi replied, mind spinning, unable to conceive why a supernatural being auditing a programming class would want a study partner. “I’m not sure?”
“Okay,” Jungkook said lightly, “well, if you want one I’m available.”
Then he waved to Yoongi with a friendly smile and walked off in the opposite direction of where Yoongi was headed.
It didn’t occur to Yoongi much later that perhaps Jungkook was just trying to make friends. He thought then, guiltily, that he didn’t even know how to reach Jungkook outside of class. Surely he didn’t have a phone or something? He vowed to ask around for more information about the school spirit.
♡˚✧˖*°࿐
That evening, after doing all the studying and homework that he could possibly squeeze his brain through, Yoongi needed a break before he could get to sleep. He felt like he’d been in human form for too long, so it was with great relief that he shifted back into his sleek black fully-cat shape and hopped out of the window of his dorm room. It was long past dark by then, though the campus street lights were on. Yoongi trotted along, avoiding the raccoons that haunted the campus at night, and went patrolling around the greener areas of the campus.
There were other students still out and about, of course - some that had been out drinking, some that were returning back from perfectly innocent late-night study sessions, some probably buying drugs from each other or something. Yoongi easily avoided all notice, sticking to the shadows and slithering along silently, enjoying the smells and the fresh air and the feeling of grass underneath his paws. After he’d been poking around the landscaped bushes and lawns for about forty-five minutes, however, he came out into one of the larger open lawn areas, near the old clocktower, and was immediately spotted.
He had just poked his head out of the bush and saw someone sitting on one of the benches, partially lit by a semi distant light at the corner of the lawn. As soon as Yoongi could make out his face he saw that the someone was looking directly at him. Yoongi froze and met his eyes, one paw lifted up in the air as he pondered whether to flee back the way he came.
Then, just as Yoongi thought that the someone seemed somewhat familiar, he spoke.
“Yoongi?” the man asked quietly.
It was Jungkook. Yoongi involuntarily made a hoarse, warbling little questioning noise in his surprise.
“Yeah, I can still recognize you,” Jungkook said, and Yoongi could hear the smile in his voice.
Keeping his eyes fixed on Jungkook, Yoongi made his way around the edge of the lawn, keeping the various bushes and trees on his right side, until he’d made it all the way around to where Jungkook was on the bench, right next to the base of the clock tower. Once he was close enough to make out the delighted smile on Jungkook’s face, Yoongi stopped and sat on his haunches, pulling his tail neatly around his feet so that he looked like a little Egyptian statue.
“If you’re wondering how I can tell it’s still you, I don’t know,” Jungkook offered with a shrug. “I just can.”
He leaned down and stuck out his hand, rubbing his fingertips and thumb together, as if trying to lure an ordinary housecat over for pets. Yoongi made no move other than to slightly narrow his eyes.
“Okay, fair enough,” Jungkook said, putting his hand away.
They sat there staring at each other for a moment longer. Yoongi didn’t really know what the etiquette was - he’d never had anyone other than his family see him in cat form, and know it was him.
“I can change how I look too, you know,” Jungkook offered. “I mean, I was bound here over three hundred years ago, so obviously I wasn’t wearing jeans and sneakers then. I have to update my look to blend in every so often, but I can still go back to what I looked like…before.”
Yoongi tilted his head thoughtfully, feeling a little sad at the thought of the original, mortal Jungkook dying so young. His gesture, however, prompted Jungkook to giggle again and mutter the word “cute” under his breath. Yoongi huffed grumpily and stood up, walking past Jungkook with his tail lashing a little.
“Good night, Yoongi,” Jungkook told him with a cute little wave.
Yoongi meowed back tersely, trying to preserve his dignity as he walked away, suppressing the urge to break into a flustered jog until he made it around the corner of the building.
♡˚✧˖*°࿐
Two days later, they had their next Computer Science lecture together. Jungkook was in the same seat he had been last time - the seat that had been Yoongi’s. Yoongi sat directly next to him this time, though he didn’t look at him as he sat and thumped his backpack down.
“Hey Jungkook,” he said as he pulled out his laptop. “Want to to get together after this and work on the homework?”
He could see Jungkook smile by the shift of his entire body out of the corner of his eye.
“I’d love to!” he said.
So, after class, they walked to the nearest study hall together and sat side-by-side, peering at Yoongi’s laptop screen.
“Oh, this is so cool,” Jungkook said, eyes wide and sparkling. “I just sort of have to imagine what it’s like running programs, since I don’t have a computer of my own.”
Yoongi couldn’t help but be endeared, and also feel sort of sorry for him. He clicked the “run” button and immediately got an error.
“You’re missing a semicolon,” Jungkook said, pointing to the screen.
Then he reached down and tapped the touchpad, then the keyboard, and typed the needed punctuation.
Yoongi looked at him in shock, and Jungkook stared back at him, the smile slipping off his face.
“Oh, sorry, I should have asked first,” he said sheepishly.
“You can touch stuff?” Yoongi asked, amazed.
“Well, yeah?” Jungkook said, crinkling up his nose. “How else would I be sitting in lecture halls and on benches?”
“Oh,” Yoongi said, feeling remarkably dumb.
He turned back to the screen and pressed the “run” button again, and a sequence of numbers printed out in the rectangle at the bottom of the window.
“Huzzah!” Jungkook said triumphantly.
They worked on another two homework programs together, forcing the machine to print all the prime numbers between zero and a hundred, and then a Fibonacci sequence. Jungkook seemed to be having a great time, getting to put the little programming theory he’d learned into actual practice for the first time.
Then, another student walked past their table behind Yoongi, and carelessly brushed his backpack against his head as he went.
“Oh, sorry,” he called out - but to Yoongi’s embarrassment, it knocked the beanie off of his head, leaving his furry black ears sticking up and exposed.
Yoongi barely suppressed a little chirp of dismay. Fortunately, in the blink of an eye, Jungkook had leaned down and picked the beanie back up. He thrust out his hand and pushed it to Yoongi, though his eyes were on Yoongi’s ears. Yoongi grabbed it, dusted it off, and fluffed it open and yanked it back onto his head, squashing his ears back down. He quickly glanced around and, despite how much he was blushing, he didn’t see anyone else looking over.
“You don’t have to keep them covered up, you know,” Jungkook said, fidgeting with his fingers as if he were thinking of touching something soft and furry. “I think your ears are really cute.”
“And you don’t have to make yourself look like a modern person either,” Yoongi said mildly.
Jungkook looked at him thoughtfully.
♡˚✧˖*°࿐
A couple nights later, Yoongi found himself unbearably restless again and went cat-roaming again. He, of course, found himself over by the clocktower before too long. Jungkook was there, on the same bench. This time, however, he was in what must have been his original appearance: Joseon-era garb, nothing too fancy, just a long baeja over a plain shirt, wide baji, and rough sandals probably woven from hemp.
Jungkook waved to him cutely as soon as he spotted Yoongi, beaming. Yoongi gave him a little approving meow.
“You like it?” Jungkook asked, pleased. “This is actually one of the oldest parts of the campus, you know. So I feel most relaxed here.”
Yoongi came closer, then sat on the pavement as he did before - though only a few feet away from Jungkook this time.
“Do you see the big stones at the base of the clock tower?” Jungkook said, pointing to the building, “The ones that are a bit rougher and a different color than the rows above?”
Yoongi glanced over and saw the difference in cut and material that Jungkook was talking about, so he gave an answering squeak.
“That’s actually from one of the original temples,” he said quietly. “It got knocked down and that’s all that was left.”
Yoongi stared at it for a moment, wondering if Jungkook could remember what the building used to look like. Then, giving in to his cat instincts, he walked over and sniffed the largest stone at the corner. Petrichor, sand, dirt, grass, shoe leather, quartz, ants, plastic, raccoons, and at least half a dozen other cats and dogs. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, Yoongi thought. He rubbed his cheek against the rough edge of the stone a good four or five times, claiming it for himself on behalf of Jungkook.
He turned back to Jungkook then, who smiled at him a little quizzically. Yoongi just meowed at him again. Then he trotted over and jumped up on the bench and sat on the far side of it, curling up into a loaf shape. He figured, if Jungkook could keep him company doing his computer programming homework when he didn’t need to, then Yoongi could come sit with him in the dark at night too. He was, after all, better equipped to do this than a regular human would be. They sat and watched the moths fluttering around the streetlight at the corner of the lawn in companionable silence for awhile.
Then, Yoongi knew he really should be getting back to his room and getting some sleep, so he stood up and stretched luxuriously and yawned. (Stretching as a cat always somehow felt much more satisfying than stretching as a human.)
“Time to say goodnight?” Jungkook asked softly.
Yoongi gave the briefest trill of confirmation.
“Okay, thanks for keeping me company,” Jungkook said warmly. “Goodnight, Yoongi!”
Yoongi could see Jungkook’s fingers twitch next to his leg. He wasn’t in the mood for being petted, still, but he still felt bad for leaving Jungkook sitting here alone - even though, clearly, he must have done so all the time. So, to Jungkook’s surprise, instead of jumping down off the bench and leaving immediately, he walked the few steps over to him, and patted the back of his hand a bit clumsily with his paw.
Then he jumped down and sauntered away before Jungkook could react. Not fast enough to miss hearing Jungkook mutter “cute!” to himself again, though.
♡˚✧˖*°࿐
The semester continued apace, with more homework and a few more nighttime meetups. Yoongi thought it was kind of neat to have someone to look forward to meeting out in the quiet of the night, and he hoped Jungkook enjoyed it too. Then it got near the end of the semester and everything got very busy: reviews and exam prep and final projects due. By the time finals week arrived, Yoongi hadn’t had a chance to shift for two whole weeks. He had last seen Jungkook when they met up for a study session three days prior.
But then, he ran into him by chance, late in the day when he’d just finished grabbing a burrito and a smoothie on his way back to his room after giving his final presentation for Plant Morphology & Evolution. He was tired, his shoulders were sore from being weighed down by his backpack, and his arms were aching from carrying his food across campus. Maybe it would have been smarter to sit down somewhere at eat first, but he craved the comfort of being in the privacy of his room like nothing else.
“You look really beat,” Jungkook said with surprise when he saw Yoongi approaching.
Yoongi sighed. He could just imagine. He had been up nearly all night, trying to get his project and the slides about it finished in time. The three cups of coffee he drank so that he could get through giving the presentation in class were definitely wearing off rapidly. He wanted to get back to his dorm room, scarf down his food, and sleep for a week. Or at least for twelve hours, when he had to be up for his next class.
“Are you headed back to your room?” Jungkook asked, looking concerned. “I can walk with you and help you carry your stuff.”
A wave of loneliness and homesickness suddenly rose up in Yoongi, nearly as strong as the exhaustion and hunger and school stress. He almost, almost, asked Jungkook for a hug right there, but still had just barely enough of a filter so that he didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” he said wearily, handing the cold, heavy smoothie cup to to Jungkook.
Then Jungkook fell in with Yoongi, as they walked under all the old established trees and somewhat cracked concrete paths and they finally got back to the dorms. Yoongi clumsily grabbed his keycard from the lanyard around his neck and held it up to the door, pulling it open and then holding it for Jungkook.
Jungkook didn’t immediately follow him through, though. Yoongi looked at him quizzically.
“You have to invite me in,” Jungkook said, sounding uncharacteristically timid.
“Isn’t that vampires?” Yoongi asked, crinkling up his forehead skeptically.
Jungkook blushed a little, and smiled his sweet sheepish smile.
“This building is one of the newer ones - it wasn’t here when I was first bound,” he explained, cocking his head to the side a little and making his hair shift across his forehead. “So I have to have an invitation for me to be able to interact with it.”
“Be welcome then. Uh, come in?” Yoongi stammered uncertainly. “This building is real and so are you?”
Jungkook’s grin got bigger and he bounced on his heels before stepping forward.
“Good enough,” he said happily, and followed Yoongi inside.
Within moments, they were in Yoongi’s tiny single dorm room, and Yoongi had put his burrito down and his backpack away and got his phone and laptop responsibly plugged in and charging. Jungkook had carefully placed the smoothie cup on the desk next to his burrito. Yoongi sat down at his desk with a big, tired sigh, then unwrapped his burrito.
“Thanks for helping me,” Yoongi remembered to say before he took his first bite.
“Of course,” Jungkook said brightly, looking around the room.
“Mmm, go ahead and sit down,“ Yoongi said a little impatiently, gesturing to the bed.
“It’s okay if I stay for a bit?” Jungkook asked shyly.
“Yeah, um,” Yoongi said, equally shyly, “please.”
He didn’t look up at Jungkook, but he took a long sip of his smoothie. He could see Jungkook smile out of the corner of his eye as he sat carefully on Yoongi’s narrow dorm bed.
“So tell me about some of the other classes you’ve audited,” Yoongi prompted him. “I suppose you must have taken some that no longer exist?”
Jungkook sat up straighter and his face got brighter. Yoongi rotated his desk chair so that he was facing towards Jungkook a little more directly, and casually extended his foot just so, so that it somehow “accidentally” ended up right next to Jungkook’s on the thinly carpeted floor. Then Yoongi applied himself to his burrito, as Jungkook told him about some of the courses they used to have around traditional calligraphy and oratory. He finished off his smoothie and then wiped off his hands, as Jungkook was telling him about his struggles listening in to history courses sometimes, as his memories of the news at certain times was very different than what got taught.
Yoongi hadn’t noticed as it happened, the shift somehow too subtle to be perceived until it was complete, but after Jungkook had been talking for a few minutes he was back to his “original” form again. Yoongi thought he looked very good in traditional garb - it brought out his pleasing body proportions and emphasized his handsome face, somehow. He hoped it meant that Jungkook was relaxed and comfortable here with him.
Still listening to Jungkook telling his stories in his sweet voice, Yoongi tossed his cup and food wrappers in the trash, and then took off his beanie and threw it off in the direction of his closet. He closed his eyes and flipped his head back and forth, letting his ears uncrumple and relax. Then he reached up and started massaging them, both gently along the delicate membranes and then digging in to his scalp where the ears met his head.
He realized after a few seconds that Jungkook had stopped talking, so he opened his eyes. Jungkook was looking at him, biting his lip and fidgeting with his hands a bit.
“You’ve been wanting to pet me since the first day we met, haven’t you?” Yoongi asked him teasingly.
Jungkook nodded earnestly.
“Well, come on then,” Yoongi said, letting his hands drop to his lap and scooting his chair closer.
“Do you want to tell me about your presentation?” Jungkook asked, as he reached out with both of his hands and gently ran them over the top of Yoongi’s head to start with.
“Sure,” Yoongi replied slowly, enjoying the soothing touch, already imagining that the loneliness was getting rinsed off of him by Jungkook’s gentle, slightly cool fingers. “I think it went okay. The professor had two questions at the end and I was able to answer both of them.”
Jungkook started gently caressing his ears, trying to mimic what Yoongi had been doing. Yoongi hummed in enjoyment and closed his eyes again, and briefly described the slides he’d made. Eventually, Yoongi realized that he’d stopped talking entirely at some point. Jungkook’s hands withdrew from his head at that point, and Yoongi groggily opened his eyes, fully prepared to abandon his dignity and beg for more.
He found Jungkook smiling gently and encouragingly at him, and Yoongi couldn’t help but smile back.
“Do you want to come here?” Jungkook suggested, scooting backwards on the bed. “You could put your head in my lap.”
Yoongi was too tired to argue, so he nodded and climbed in after Jungkook. They shifted around a bit until Jungkook had his back up against the wall and Yoongi had his head resting on his thigh. A ghost thigh, he thought whimsically to himself. He’d never be able to tell the difference, other than Jungkook still not having a smell. Then Jungkook went back to gently petting over his head.
“You’ve worked so hard,” Jungkook said. “Now relax.”
And so Yoongi did. It was perhaps two minutes later that he started purring, and he was so happy and Jungkook kept petting him that he didn’t even feel embarrassed about it. Then, perhaps ten minutes after that, he realized he must have dozed off or something because everything seemed a little strange and Jungkook was looming over him.
“Is this still okay?” Jungkook asked tentatively, no longer petting him.
Of course it’s okay, Yoongi tried to reply testily, but all that came out was a sleepy yowl. That was when he realized he had shifted back to cat form, his whole body in Jungkook’s lap now instead of just his head. Ah well, he thought, and got back to purring. He thought he heard Jungkook giggling a little, but it didn’t bother him because now Jungkook’s hand was petting over his whole back and side, and it was heavenly.
♡˚✧˖*°࿐
He woke up in the morning when his phone went off, the alarm set to give him a good ninety minutes before he had to be at class. He lifted up his head and discovered that he was indeed still in cat form. He looked to one side and saw, to his slight embarrassment, that the clothes he had been wearing in human form were now folded and stacked up neatly at the very far corner of the bed. He looked to the other side and saw Jungkook sitting cross-legged at the head of his bed, back to modern-day garb, reading his Organic Chemistry text book.
“Good morning!” Jungkook said cheerily, putting the book down. “I figured I’d stay until you woke up, and then meet up with you later.”
Yoongi mewed.
“Have a good morning, okay?” Jungkook told him, hopping off the bed. “Kick butt in your finals!”
Then he leaned down and gave Yoongi a quick kiss on the top of his furry head. And all Yoongi could do was start purring again, and listen to Jungkook’s delighted laugh as he turned and stepped out directly through the wall.