Chapter Text
Friendships often start in the weirdest of places. For Taehyung, the weirdest of places means the mail room on campus. Well, not exactly. He doesn’t really meet his best friend for life or anything in there, that’s Jimin, and he’s known the other since they became pen pals during middle school. They had written each other polite, awkward letters like back in the good old times before his mother reminded him that they were in a new age of technology. After that revelation, he had arranged a video call with the other over the internet, connecting the two boys face to face from regions away. They had hit it off immediately, became so much like brothers that they had even agreed to get into the same college in Seoul in order to meet face to face, and… well, that’s not really important.
What is important is the small wrapped parcel that sits inside his little mailbox situated all the way on the bottom row, so tiny that he must lower himself to a full crouch and 90 degree head tilt to be able to access it. It is not especially heavy, nor is there a large FRAGILE stamped onto the package (he would’ve automatically pried the thing open then), but what catches his eye the most is the handwriting of the address. The penmanship is neat, curled in a way that shows utmost effort, and it almost emits the love and warmth of a family member. The recipient it is due for, however, is not him.
Kim Seokjin.
Taehyung stares at the box for a few more seconds before he huffs to himself. First of all, the people in charge of mail in this university were extremely dumb, because other than the surname, Seokjin does not look anything remotely similar to Taehyung. Not only that, but the rest of the address leads to a room on the third floor of his dormitory, which obviously meant that this Kim Seokjin was a senior. Although they both have Kim as their surname, so does about 30% of the rest of the student population, and Taehyung is not about to waste another half hour looking through mailboxes to find the right one (he forgets that he can just hand it to the people at the desk up front). He’s already wasted a few rewatching the whole Despicable Me series a third time today, and that was at least fun.
Tucking the box underneath his arm, he closes the small door and heads off. He’ll deliver the mail himself. He’s always wanted to be a mailman ever since one chucked a newspaper at his face when he was younger. This sunbae lived in the same dormitory as him, even. How bad could it be?
--
Knocking on the door loudly three times, Taehyung hears a small shuffling in the room, followed by a muffled and hesitant, “What are you doing?” against the other side of the door. It opens not two seconds later and he blesses his bodily reflexes for being so fast as he spies a flash of white. Not a second after he closes his eyes, his whole face feels like it has been hit by a water pump. His eyes and nose are plugged, his mouth opens wide to gasp for air. He drops his mail, the small box hitting the carpet floor with a small thump.
Taehyung tries to inhale through his nose, but he feels solid pushing its way through and so he quickly exhales the other way. His hands wipe blindly at his eyes as he tries to open them. Overall, the place just smells sweet.
“Oh shit,” a somewhat low (though not lower than his own, Taehyung’s pride finds the time to recognize) pitched drawl comes out. And then…
“Oh shit!” Now there’s the panic and guilt laced voice that Taehyung deserves. Thank you, second stranger who he can’t really see, for giving a shit that his face has just been caked for no apparent reason.
“I am so sorry, are you okay-- Yoongi! Apologize!”
His eyes available for use, Taehyung sees that the one standing in front of him with blond hair, Yoongi, looks at most amused at the situation. Nope, doesn’t look sorry at all. The second stranger is already reaching for his face with tissues to wipe off all the white. There are two pieces of tissue in his hand.
‘That will not be enough,’ Taehyung thinks numbly, still in shock.
“I really didn’t think someone else was going to show up at the door--”
“What the fuck is going on here?” A third voice sounds from outside the room. Taehyung turns to his left. A new man stands next to him, looking irritated and confused.
A look of horror crosses the kinder stranger’s face, but blond Yoongi-sunbae (Taehyung still has manners despite what just happened) clicks his tongue.
“Hey,” he says, “you should’ve come here a few minutes earlier. Then I would’ve been able to shove that cake in your face like I meant to instead of wasting those twenty dollars on some kid I don’t know.”
Oh, was that cake meant for him? He’s been unjustly punished!
“Yeah, sorry about that, uh…” Yoongi turns to face him again, and only then does Taehyung realize that he has just spoken out loud.
“What the fuck?!” The third angry stranger cuts in. “You meant that for me?!?! I come all the way here for this shit--” he turns to kind stranger and points an accusatory finger at him. “You bastard, you told him to do this!”
The kind stranger’s face morphs into one of anger, and it is actually quite scary, despite his looks. “Don’t push this on me, I had no fucking idea--”
“Yeah yeah, fuck off. I have more important people to deal with now that this is over,” Yoongi flips the third man off as he simultaneously pulls Taehyung into the room, slamming the door behind him so nonchalantly that Taehyung finds himself more amazed than angry at this point.
Almost immediately, the kind stranger continues to groom Taehyung’s now somewhat clean, but still sticky face. He continues scolding his roommate as the other digs inside the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of water.
“You dumbass, not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but couldn’t you have just consulted me before deciding to dump cake on the guy? There is such a mess outside, and I think we’ll have to clean it by ourselves--” The man takes the water bottle and opens it, pouring some onto a new bundle of tissues in his hand before he dabs away at Taehyung’s face.
“If I asked you, you would’ve gone all teary eyed and been like, ‘No, I’ll be the better person,’ and then I’ll have to deal with your melancholy ass for a few months--”
“Yoongi, I know how to pick myself back up after a break up, okay? I don’t need you babying me.” Ah, so that’s what it is.
“He was a fucking ass anyways. He cheated on you then had the audacity to blame you for it and laugh in your face in public. The least he deserved was shit thrown into his mouth, but I thought of you and decided to play it safe.”
“Play it safe? Are you serious right now--”
“You should’ve at least mixed some tabasco sauce or wasabi powder into the frosting. That would’ve been better. He sounds like an ass, and no ass deserves perfectly good cake,” Taehyung decides to pipe in, and the room turns silent before he sees Yoongi crack into a smirk.
“That’s a good idea, actually.”
The one in front of Taehyung sighs exasperatedly. “That would’ve been you with the burn in your eyes then. I can’t even tell you off because you’re the victim here!”
Taehyung starts laughing, his voice spilling like low rumbles into the air.
“Why are you here again? Who are you, anyways?”
He stops abruptly, so abruptly, in fact, that his whole body becomes rigid straight, and his mouth drops open as he remembers what he was doing. His actions seem to have startled the other two in the room.
“Uhh, are you okay…”
“Ah, right right. If you are Yoongi-hyung, then…” his finger points to the man in front of him, kind stranger, no…
“You are Kim Seokjin-hyung?”
Seokjin blinks in surprise, and then nods.
“I HAVE A DELIVERY!” Taehyung screams, and Seokjin jumps in place while Yoongi, now poised on his bed, flinches slightly. Taehyung quickly goes to open the door and peeks his head outside, wet locks falling in front of his eyes. The letters and box are still there, although small pieces of cake and frosting seem to have stained them, and he picks them up with a smile.
Turning back around, he smiles widely, the same smile he uses when he sees Jimin smile or watches a particularly cute baby waddling across the street, and hands the box over to the older man, who takes it hesitantly. Seokjin examines the address before he breaks out into a look of recognition. “Oh!”
“It was placed into my mailbox, and since you lived in the same place, I thought I might as well drop it off…” Taehyung’s inexplicably high curiosity gets the better of him, and he no longer pays attention as he surveys the room before him.
The two roommates must be like polar opposites, he notes. While Yoongi’s side (he assumes since the latter is laying on the bed without any shame) is covered with posters of various singers ( many of them are rap) and ripped out notebook pages with scribbles stuck onto them, little bits of crumpled balls of paper on the edge of the desk, a small shelf of CDs and a very expensive looking computer and headsets, Seokjin’s side of the room is much neater, and more mellow. His shelves have random books ranging from literature to cookbooks, and his bed is neatly made.
“--aiting for this forever. Sorry you had to bring it to me. Thanks, uh…”
“KIM TAEHYUNG! SOPHMORE!” he shouts a little too quickly, but Seokjin seems too surprised at the sudden explosion to realize that the younger was not paying any attention at all.
“Taehyung, thanks. You’re kind of loud,” he says, switching to a more informal type of speech, but the smile on his face and the wavering laughter hidden in his voice show that he means it good-naturedly.
“Thanks!” Taehyung smiles widely, before he straightens up in realization again. Seokjin only watches him with an amused smile. Yoongi does not bother looking over at all. Earphones have already been plugged into his ears, and he focuses solely on his phone.
“Ah. I should go now. I finished watching the minions and now I have to work,” he finishes sourly, and Seokjin laughs.
“Okay…” he replies with a questioning tone. “Well… nice to meet you, Taehyung-ah. Come hang around next time when you’re free.”
Taehyung waves bye enthusiastically. “BYE HYUNGS! YOU TOO, YOONGI-HYUNG. YOUR HAIR IS COOL, MAYBE I’LL DYE MINE A LIGHTER SHADE TOO.”
The other seems to hear him and gives him a lazy wave, and Taehyung exits to go back to his shared room with Jiminie to tell him of the story. He got caked today, but at least he made two friends.