Work Text:
boptothetabi
hi i really like your photography omg
takeyoutohongkong
thanks!
boptothetabi
u are actual goals
takeyoutohongkong
lol
boptothetabi
also the music recs??? yes???
takeyoutohongkong
thnx
boptothetabi
i feel like i’m weirding you out
---
Taehyung was starting to wonder if it were possible to die from eating too many chicken strips. As far as dying went, it was a pretty good way to go. It wasn’t his fault Raising Cane’s was the only (good) restaurant on campus covered by his meal plan 24/7. Really, it was the university’s fault, he reasoned. So even though it was his second time that day eating a box of strips, fries, and Texas toast, he didn’t feel all that guilty. In fact, he was feeling a little proud, considering he had finally managed to convince Jimin to get a box, too.
“You can get that shit in the frozen section of the grocery store,” he always said. “You know that’s, like, a thousand calories, right?”
And now here they were, sitting on the floor with boxes of Cane’s and half-empty soda cups and bags of chips surrounding them. Jimin was on his third chicken strip. How he had grown, Taehyung thought a little nostalgically. Taehyung deserved an award for breaking him.
“My turn.” Jimin wiped his greasy fingers and made grabby hands at him. Taehyung passed him the laptop that was currently hooked up to the TV. “Don’t look until I say you can!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He took a minute before saying, “Okay, ready.”
Taehyung glanced up just in time to see a fur-covered G-Dragon rise from a hole in the stage. “GD and Taeyang at MAMA 2014? Good choice.”
Taehyung had half a chicken strip in his hand when the chorus of “Good Boy” started, but he still managed to dance along (pretty well, too, in his opinion).This was the sixth live stage they had watched that day. If they couldn’t go to an actual concert, they might as well bring one to their room.
The thump of someone’s foot on their open door broke through the noise of the music. By now it didn’t even faze them. “Hi, Jungkook,” they intoned without looking away from the TV.
“Why are you assholes always so—wait, is that the MAMA 2014 performance?”
Taehyung scooted aside and patted the space next to him. Jungkook sat down just in time for the start of “Fantastic Baby.” He snatched up a handful of Jimin’s fries and danced along with them, complaints forgotten.
“I’m picking the next performance.” He leaned over to grab the laptop.
Taehyung swiped through his phone as Jungkook loaded the next song and said, “So, I followed this guy on Tumblr.”
“Is it another Girls Generation blog? At this rate you might as well make a sideblog,” Jimin interrupted.
“It’s not, shut up. I’m sorry that Tiffany is literally a goddess among goddesses, okay?”
“What blog is it, then?” Jungkook said.
“I’m getting there. It’s a photography blog. Like, aesthetic shit.”
“You would.”
“His URL is takeyoutohongkong.”
“Oh, Suga? I follow him, too.”
“Kookie follows a photography blog?” Jimin exclaimed. “I didn’t know you had a sensitive bone in your body.”
“He posts music reviews,” Jungkook said, defensively.
“What’s that URL supposed to mean, anyway? Is he from Hong Kong?”
“So in Korea, it’s a euphemism for making someone come,” Taehyung explained with an air of imperiousness.
“So he’s Korean.”
“Maybe.”
“What if he just really likes Hong Kong and it’s not a euphemism for anything?”
“Don’t be a baby, Jimin.” Jungkook reached out to pinch his cheek for emphasis.
Jimin swatted his hand away. “I’m not a—”
“Don’t you have work?” Taehyung said suddenly, eyes finally registering the time.
“Oh, shit!” Jimin leapt to his feet and began to frantically dig through the pile of clothes on the corner of his bed.
“Your work shirt is on the hook in your closet.”
Jimin opened the wardrobe door to find it right where Taehyung said. He stripped off his tank top and replaced it with the red “Security” polo that he hated because it puffed out when he tucked it in. Taehyung whistled.
“Gross,” Jungkook muttered. “You guys should just get married already.”
Taehyung tossed Jimin his jacket, knowing he wouldn’t dare walk across campus without the shirt covered up.
“Thanks, bye!” Jimin shouted on his way out.
---
It’s not that Jimin hated his job, just that when he read the “Campus Security” listing he thought it would entail something a little cooler than sitting at the front desk of the engineering building pointing lost freshman to their classes. No, you can’t go on the roof. No, there’s no swimming pool, that upperclassman was lying to you. He supposed as far as jobs went, it was a relatively painless one, so he probably shouldn’t complain.
A few hours into his shift, he left the desk to patrol the halls and make sure no one was fucking around in any empty classrooms (one time he accidentally caught some girls getting nasty on the desks and since then he made sure to knock).
“Lock the roof while you’re up,” his coworker, Byulyi, said. “I think I forgot.”
He climbed the many flights of stairs to get to the heavy metal door that led to the roof, pulling a crowded ring of keys from his jacket pocket. Even though nearly a month had passed on the job, he always managed to forget which key went to the roof. He was in the middle of trying all of them when someone cleared their throat.
Jimin jumped, nearly fumbling the set of keys. The guy walked like a ghost. He stood on the top stair, dressed in a black leather jacket and a beanie from which fluffy strands of blond hair protruded. He had the drowsiest eyes Jimin had ever seen and a pair of rather pretty, bow-shaped lips. A DSLR hung from a strap around his neck.
“Uh, yeah?” Jimin said.
“Can I get on the roof?”
“It’s not really open for student access. I’m locking it right now.”
“Five minutes, tops.”
Jimin started to frown. “No?”
“I’m desperate. Need a smoke.” He removed a box of Marlboro Reds from his pocket and rattled it for proof.
“Go smoke outside.”
“You’re not allowed to smoke in front of the building.”
“You’re not allowed to smoke on the roof, either.”
“Yeah, but no one will see me on the roof.”
Jimin raised a skeptical eyebrow. This guy was kind of sketchy but also he was kind of pretty, and Jimin was kind of a sucker for that.
“Come on, I’m in a three-hour lecture. I’m dying here.”
“Um.”
“Look, you can stand with me the whole time if you think I’m gonna do something weird, or whatever. If that makes you feel better.”
“Fine.”
Jimin waved him ahead. The guy brushed past, shoving open the big door with a little bit of difficulty. He smelled like coffee and soap. He went straight to the edge of the roof, lighting up his cigarette and taking a long drag.
“Smoking is really bad for you,” Jimin said cheerfully, hanging by the doorway.
Leather Jacket Guy shot him a dirty look. “Are you even old enough to be in college? What are you, like, thirteen?”
“You’re as short as I am.”
“I wasn’t referring to your height, kid.”
Jimin scrunched up his nose in irritation, stalking to the other side of the roof. The sun had begun to set, turning the sky shades of pink and purple. There were a million and one things Jimin could be doing that didn’t involve babysitting a pouty smoker. He should have just said no.
Sometime later, the snap of a camera shutter broke him from his reverie. He glanced over to see Leather Jacket Guy lowering his camera, facing him. It looked like he had finished his cigarette.
“The lighting was good,” he said by way of explanation.
“That’s creepy. I don’t even know you.”
“Nothing personal. I’m not gonna jack off to it, if that’s what you were wondering.” He headed for the door, raising two fingers in a lazy wave. “See you around.”
---
boptothetabi
so i saw in one of your tags that you compose songs?????
takeyoutohongkong
ye sometimes
boptothetabi
you should totally post them
boptothetabi
like i bet they’re so good
boptothetabi
i haven’t even heard them but i know they’re so good????
takeyoutohongkong
ye maybe
boptothetabi
do you like j.cole???
takeyoutohongkong
j.cole really is a fantastic rapper, his last album actually impressed me a lot. he’s always been great when it comes to lyrical form, but with every album the content keeps getting better, like he’s really growing into himself as a rapper. he’s been getting into some deep shit & that’s great you know, when you’re making music like that you’ve got a voice & you gotta use it for something that matters
boptothetabi
nice me too
---
“We literally look like we packed for a week-long camping trip, not one night in the library.” Jungkook lugged along the bag of blankets Jimin had forced him to carry with an expression of much suffering.
Taehyung inspected his bag of snacks full of popcorn, Oreos, protein bars (courtesy of Jimin), and various other food they had lying around their dorm. “Really? I feel like we under-packed on food.”
“We’ll be fine as long as you don’t eat everything in the first hour, Tae,” Jimin said.
“Taehyung’s stomach is a bottomless pit, there’s no way he won’t,” Jungkook argued.
“As the owner of the stomach in question, I take offense to that.”
They made it to the library and located the study room they had reserved, one with a decent-sized table and a large TV facing the glass door. It was perfectly positioned for everyone in the row of study booths outside the room to see exactly whatever they put on the TV. Jimin didn’t like that, but Taehyung thought it would be funny to see how many weird looks they could get. He was planning on keeping count.
“Remind me why we’re pulling an all-nighter in the library when none of us actually have any work to do?” Jungkook grumbled as Jimin and Taehyung cocooned themselves in their blankets.
“Because I’ve always wanted to pull an all-nighter in the library because it’s such a college student thing to do but I don’t actually want to do it when I’m stressed because then it won’t be any fun,” Taehyung explained for the fourth time that day.
“I’m hooking my laptop up to the TV,” Jimin announced. He did just that, and the screen switched on to reveal a blown-up picture of Taeyang smiling. “Oops,” Jimin exclaimed, sliding the YouTube window over onto the TV screen to cover it. “I didn’t know it was on dual screen.”
“Was that your wallpaper?” Jungkook smirked. “You’re trash.”
“Like you don’t bow down to a shrine of GD every night.”
“I do not.”
“Do you think we can get that girl into K-Pop?” Taehyung interrupted, nodding at the girl intently studying in one of the booths. “We should put up a music video. Maybe she’ll look.”
“That’s stupid.”
They were all still staring out the glass door when a group of people walked by. They looked back at them, laughed at each other, and then waved. Taehyung hesitantly raised his hand and waved back. When they were out of sight, Jimin said, “Wait, why were they looking at us like that?”
“Why did they wave?”
“Why were they laughing?”
“Do any of us know them?”
And suddenly they all turned to the TV screen to find that Jimin had accidentally dragged the internet window back to his laptop, leaving only a giant smiling Dong Youngbae on the screen.
“Jimin, what the fuck.”
“Fucking hell.”
“I didn’t mean to!”
They settled into something of a routine after that, switching between casual homework and watching videos and scrolling down Tumblr. Taehyung was only half paying attention to his dash when he noticed a new picture uploaded by takeyoutohongkong, or Suga, as he called himself. It was a black-and-white photo of a little bearded caricature scratched into a wooden table. The caption was when you’re in the library and see this masterpiece.
Taehyung froze, mouth open. “Guys.” Jimin and Jungkook, busy arguing over who was the best girl group rapper, didn’t answer. “Guys!” They glanced up. “Suga. He goes to this school.”
“He what?”
“He’s in this library. Right now. As we speak.”
“How—”
He turned the laptop around for them to see.
“How does that tell you he’s here?” Jimin said skeptically.
“Because that’s scratched into the table by the window on the fourth floor. I’ve seen it. I always used to sit there freshman year.”
“Maybe it’s a common character?”
“Doubt it. And scratched onto a wooden desk? Come on.”
Jimin leaped out of his seat. “Okay, let’s go find him.”
Taehyung followed excitedly. “Yes, okay, yes. Fourth floor. Stairs?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll watch our stuff, I guess,” Jungkook muttered, turning back to his laptop. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Taehyung made a beeline for the stairway, gesturing for Jimin to hurry. He was almost there when he looked over at the printers and saw him—a guy with a fancy-looking DSLR around his neck. He skidded to a stop. Jimin slammed into his back.
“What if that’s him? He’s got a camera.” Taehyung said.
“What? Who?”
“Taehyung! Other Jimin!” A voice called. Taehyung ripped his eyes away from the small guy at the printers to see Jimin from KSA coming toward them. She had taken to calling his Jimin the “Other Jimin.”
“Hey, listen, we gotta go—” Taehyung tried to escape, worried he would lose track of the DSLR guy.
“Shut up and hold on a minute. Are you guys coming to tomorrow’s meeting?”
“Probably, yes, why?”
“Bring food. You assholes always eat everything.”
“Yes ma’am, will do, I’ll bring a whole pizza. Okay, talk to you later!” He spun around, grabbing his Jimin’s wrist and yanking him along behind him.
The guy at the printers was already gone.
“Fuck.” Jimin said. “I don’t see anyone with a camera.”
“He’s gone. Fourth floor.”
They took the stairs two at a time. The fourth floor was for silent study only, so they tiptoed through the tables and bookshelves. Despite trying to be as quiet as possible, people still glared at them; they were probably breathing too loud. Taehyung stuck his tongue out at anyone who looked twice. He led them straight to the corner table, the large character etched into the surface visible even from a fair distance.
Unfortunately, the table was empty.
---
boptothetabi
hey what school do you go to
takeyoutohongkong
????
boptothetabi
!!!!
takeyoutohongkong
that’s weird and invasive i’m not telling
boptothetabi
I THINK YOU GO TO MY SCHOOL THE LIBRARY PIC I KNOW IT
takeyoutohongkong
ok now i’m definitely not telling you
boptothetabi
omg come on pls we should meet up
boptothetabi
come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
boptothetabi
pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
---
Jungkook pressed his nose to the window, smudging the glass. “The Simpsons Room is watching The Simpsons.”
Jimin yanked him back by his collar. “Someone’s gonna see you creeping.”
Jungkook shrugged. Taehyung and Jimin’s room faced the park, a pretty view, but Jimin loved the view from Jungkook’s room the best. His side of the building faced the apartments next door, with their balconies and enormous windows. Hardly any of them ever closed their blinds, so they had a rather unnecessarily clear view of everyone’s lives. They had started to nickname some of the rooms. There was the Sex Room, which was pretty self-explanatory. The Simpsons Room, where only a TV was visible, on which they had never seen a show other than The Simpsons play. The Frat Room, with fraternity stickers on their windows and a Vineyard Vines logo.
“Is Amy still there?” Taehyung asked.
They had looked out Jungkook’s window one day to find a sex doll standing on the balcony of a room that ordinarily had their blinds closed. Taehyung had named her Amy. Jimin leaned over Jungkook to check the balcony in question, but there was no blow-up sex doll in sight. “Amy’s gone!”
Taehyung almost tripped in his haste to reach them. “What do you mean Amy’s gone?”
“She’s still there, she just fell.” Jungkook pointed at the balcony. When Jimin looked closer, he saw a glimpse of the doll on the balcony floor, peeking through the railings.
“Oh.”
They were still looking when Jimin caught a glimpse of two boys standing on the balcony directly across from them. “Balcony Boys are out.”
They all turned to stare at the same time. The one with the broad shoulders, who had a beautiful face that Taehyung was always waxing poetic about, wore a bright pink apron. It was adorable, actually. Then he raised a hand and waved.
“Oh my god.”
“They saw us.”
“He waved, what do we do?”
“Oh my god.”
Taehyung waved back.
The other one, the one not in an apron, grinned and Jimin found himself exclaiming, “Oh, he’s got dimples. That’s so cute.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Jungkook teased, resting his elbow on Jimin’s head. Jimin glared.
Eventually the Balcony Boys returned inside, and Jimin went back to sprawling across Jungkook’s bed (and Taehyung’s lap) studying flashcards. He didn’t regret switching his major to Exercise Science, but Cellular Biology was a bitch to study. He was just getting in the groove of reviewing when Taehyung sat up suddenly, jostling Jimin from his comfortable position.
“Jimin,” Taehyung said slowly. His voice sounded weird.
“What?”
“Isn’t this you?” He held out his phone. It was a picture of Jimin, a profile shot that didn’t get much of his face. But that was his tan jacket and his fluffy hair. His head was tilted up at a gloriously-colored sunset that looked even better in the picture than he remembered. The caption was simply, stranger.
Jimin took the phone from Taehyung’s hands, not quite believing it. “Is this… Tumblr?”
“Yeah. Takeyoutohongkong’s Tumblr.”
Realization started to settle in. His jaw dropped. “Fuck. That is me.”
“You know Suga?”
“You didn’t tell us?”
“I thought we were friends.”
“I didn’t know he was Suga!” Jimin shouted back, eyes still locked on the picture of him from the engineering building’s rooftop. “He was just some dude who wanted to smoke on the roof and he had this big camera and then he took a picture of me and it was kind of weird—”
“When you were at work? The engineering building?” Jungkook interrupted.
“Yeah, he said he was in a three-hour lecture or something—”
“What day was this?”
“Wednesday.”
Jungkook and Taehyung exchanged a loaded glance. Jimin didn’t like the mischievous look they turned on him. “We’ve gotta find him,” they said.
Jimin groaned. Whenever Taehyung and Jungkook agreed, it meant trouble.
---
boptothetabi
come on plz
boptothetabi
bro i’m rlly cool i swear
boptothetabi
pretty please with a cherry on top
boptothetabi
three cherries
boptothetabi
four cherries
boptothetabi
pleeeaaasssseeeeeeeeeeee
takeyoutohongkong
dude why are you so desperate
boptothetabi
i just wanna be frienddddsssss
takeyoutohongkong
i like keeping real life separate from online life
boptothetabi
ok
boptothetabi
i’ll buy you coffee
---
Operation Hunt Down Leather Jacket Guy AKA Suga AKA the Guy With the Come URL was officially underway.
Taehyung and Jungkook slunk along the mostly empty hallways of the engineering building, passing by open classroom doors and peeking inside at the busy groups of students. They were dressed in all black (Taehyung’s idea), including beanies and face masks, and had dollar store toy walkie-talkies strapped to their belts (also Taehyung’s idea). If they were on a mission, he figured, they might as well go all out.
Taehyung removed his walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “Golden Lion to Chim-Puppy, do you read me?”
The obnoxiously loud, obnoxiously static-filled walkie-talkie version of Jimin’s voice answered. Despite the distortion, Taehyung could practically hear him pouting. “Why do you get to be a lion and I have to be a puppy?”
“You’re too cute to be anything but a puppy.”
“I am not. I want to be a wolf or something.”
Jungkook turned on his own walkie-talkie just to snort, “You’d be the least intimidating wolf in the history of wolves.”
“At least Chim-Puppy is better than Seagull.”
“Seagull is cool. Maybe you should just be Baby J because you’re a big baby.”
“Shut up, Jungkook!”
“Quiet down,” Taehyung hissed. “Or someone will hear us and then Operation Hunt Down Leather Jacket Guy AKA Suga AKA the Guy—”
“Okay, okay, we get it. Who came up with such a dumb operation name anyway?” Jimin whined.
“I thought it was a good name.” Now Taehyung was the one pouting.
Jimin’s voice changed immediately. “You’re right, Taetae, it’s a good name. I didn’t mean it.”
“You guys are so gross,” Jungkook muttered. Taehyung was pleasantly surprised. That was only the second time he’d said so that day.
“Anyway,” Jimin said. “Byulyi says the computer science classroom on the corner of the third floor has a three-hour lecture right now. Her friend’s in it.”
Jungkook started for the stairs immediately. Taehyung jogged to catch up. The corner classroom’s door was open; Taehyung motioned for Jungkook to go first. Jungkook walked by casually, throwing only a cursory glance in. When he cleared the doorway, he turned back and shrugged. Taehyung tried passing by this time, rather less discreetly, craning his neck to see inside. A few students sitting at the rows of computers stared back, but he didn’t see any Korean guys with blond hair.
He made it to Jungkook and whispered, “Try again. Go slower.”
He did. When he was past the door, he waved his arms excitedly, nodding his head so hard Taehyung was almost afraid he’d strain his neck. This time Taehyung focused on the other end of the classroom when he strolled past. By now, half the class was looking at the door. The guy who was probably Suga sat in the back corner, in a leather jacket just like Jimin had described, his chin resting in his hand. He looked like he might fall asleep at any moment.
Taehyung grabbed Jungkook and ran to the other end of the hallway, out of earshot. “Golden Lion to Chim-Puppy, do you read me?”
Jimin’s scratchy voice answered, “I read you.”
“Target has been spotted. I repeat, target has been spotted.”
“Class ends in, like, ten minutes.”
“Third floor. Find us. Golden Lion, out.”
Taehyung bounced on the balls of his feet eagerly, checking the time so frequently Jungkook snatched his phone away. He’d been a huge fan of Jungkook’s blog before meeting him, too, but Suga just oozed cool. At long last, students began to filter out of the classroom. They stood right by the doorway, carefully checking every person who left. Suga came out dead last, yawning.
Taehyung stepped onto his left and Jungkook popped up on his right.
“Suga,” Taehyung said, grinning.
He glanced between them with a rather flabbergasted expression, lip curled and eyebrows furrowed. “What the fuck?”
Just then, Jimin barreled down the hall, weaving through students, his entire face lit up with a smile. “Hi!” he exclaimed, skidding to a stop before them.
“I’m boptothetabi,” Taehyung said.
The confusion turned to a look of disgust. He glanced between the three of their eager faces. “Oh, fuck.”
---
