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The first time Yoongi talks to Jung Hoseok, it’s over kimchi, udon soup, and rice.
Yoongi already knows Hoseok. Everyone does. He’s the ridiculously good-looking star of the dance team who seems to be friends with everyone in school, even the teachers. Yoongi has seen him walk down the hall with a stupidly blinding smile, stopping to say hello so many times it’s a wonder he isn’t late to every class. Not that Yoongi would know if he was; they’ve never had class together. Hoseok is a year below him.
Hoseok’s good at talking to people and Yoongi isn’t, so they never talk. At least until Hoseok slips into the seat across from him at the empty cafeteria table, setting down two lunch trays with a determined air. Yoongi glances up through his fringe, fingers pausing where they scribble lyrics onto a messy notebook. Hoseok slides one tray across the gray table.
Yoongi blinks.
“You never eat lunch,” Hoseok says. “You should eat lunch.”
Yoongi glances at the silver tray of subpar school food, the same as Hoseok’s. He doesn’t eat lunch because it’s too much effort to make a meal at home every morning, and he never has enough money for a school lunch. It’s not a big deal, really, but the earnest expression on Hoseok’s face shows that he thinks it is.
A few girls at a table nearby stare at them, whispering. Yoongi looks at them, then back at Hoseok. He’s smiling, eyes bright, like it’s totally normal for one of the most popular guys in school to just sit with the transfer student from Daegu who already has something of a reputation.
Yoongi pushes the tray back. “No, thanks.”
“Come on,” Hoseok insists.
“I’m kind of busy.” Yoongi gestures at his notebook.
“Are those lyrics? Do you sing?” Hoseok leans over excitedly. “Nah, you don’t look like a singer. Rap?”
“Rap. And I kind of want to focus right now.”
Yoongi goes back to his notebook, waiting to hear Hoseok leave. The scraping of his chair against the linoleum floor never comes. When Yoongi looks up, he sees Hoseok eating his lunch serenely, as if Yoongi hadn’t just been so rude. Hoseok catches him looking and smiles.
“You should really eat something.”
This time, when he moves the tray toward him, Yoongi doesn’t push it away.
The second time Yoongi talks to Jung Hoseok, it’s because he has no choice.
Yoongi takes to sitting in the courtyard after the first time to avoid him. It’s not that he has a problem with Hoseok, just that he knows they have nothing in common, and he’s not here to make friends. He’s only here to survive his last year of high school and move on.
As luck would have it, when the new courses start for the second semester, Hoseok is in Yoongi’s Health class. Because it’s only an elective, the students are a mix of all years. Unsurprisingly, Hoseok already knows half the people there, including the teacher. Yoongi sits in the back of the room with his headphones in, but the sound of Hoseok’s laugh bleeds through the music.
As soon as class starts, the teacher launches into an explanation of their first project. Yoongi already hates it. It can’t be that difficult, really, taking care of a baby doll programmed to cry when you have to feed it, but the absolute glee in the teacher’s eyes as she explains their duties kind of scares him. He wonders if it’s too late to switch to a different course.
Then she starts to call out partners, and Yoongi sinks lower into his seat. Suddenly it sounds like a much more difficult project than before. “Jung Hoseok,” she eventually says, and Yoongi’s eyes jump to Hoseok unbidden. “You’re paired with Min Yoongi.”
Hoseok looks at him and waves.
Yoongi thinks it’s high time the earth opened up and swallowed him whole.
Hoseok catches up to him after class, messenger bag bouncing on his shoulder as he skids to a stop by Yoongi. “Hey, we should trade numbers. We’re probably going to be seeing a lot of each other now.”
“We can just talk in class—” Yoongi starts, but Hoseok is already pulling out his phone. He acquiesces reluctantly.
“I’ve never actually taken care of a baby, how about you?” Hoseok says conversationally, matching pace with him as Yoongi starts walking.
“Nope.”
“It might be fun. What should we name ours? Whose last name will it take? Maybe we can combine them—Min-Jung or Jung-Min—”
“Listen, I gotta go meet my advisor. I’ll see you around.”
Yoongi beelines straight for the office.
“No switching classes,” his advisor says with unarguable firmness. “And you need an elective to graduate. Not only that, but you’re going to have to do well. Your grades at your previous school were—not so great, let’s say.”
Yoongi groans. “How well are we talking?”
“You need an A.”
It’s just a doll, Yoongi tells himself as he walks home that day. Just a damn toy. An A should be easy.
It’s not just a doll.
Well, technically it is, but it’s a little harder than that. The baby is programmed to cry at certain times, and it needs burping and diaper changes, and worst of all, there’s a recorder inside it to keep track of how they speak to it. Apparently it will cry if they yell at it. Their baby is a boy. Hoseok insists on picking the name right when they get him.
“He looks like a Jimin,” Hoseok says. “Little Jiminie.”
Yoongi really doesn’t care.
“All right, put them back in their boxes. Come get them when school lets out,” their teacher tells them. “And don’t forget to keep switching who takes care of the baby. Everyone needs to do an equal amount of work.”
They place the baby—Jimin, Yoongi grudgingly thinks---into the box that’s designed to look like a little crib and leave him in front of the classroom with all the others. Yoongi convinces Hoseok to take him home first. He spends the night blissfully baby-free, at least until Hoseok calls him panicking because Jimin won’t stop crying.
“What do I do?” Hoseok whines. The high-pitched squalling in the background is already giving Yoongi a headache.
“Did you feed it?”
“Him,” Hoseok corrects absently. Yoongi hears him cooing nonsense words at a distance before he says, “Yeah, I tried that.”
“Maybe he needs to burp?”
“Tried that.”
“Diaper?”
“Checked it.”
“I dunno, what the fuck else do babies need?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be calling you.”
“Sing him a song.”
“What the f—” Hoseok catches himself before he curses in front of the baby. “Fine. Hold on.”
For a moment there’s only the sound of Jimin crying, until at last Hoseok’s quiet voice filters through the phone. He’s singing Sunday Candy. Yoongi laughs a little. Hoseok has a surprisingly good voice, low and smooth. If he were a baby, Yoongi decides, he could fall asleep to that voice. Jimin stops crying.
Hoseok breathes a sigh of relief. “It worked.”
“You like Chance the Rapper?”
“You know him?” Hoseok exclaims, then whispers, “Wait, lemme go into the other room before I wake him up.”
It only takes five minutes to quiet Jimin, but they talk for nearly an hour.
When it’s Yoongi’s turn to take Jimin home, he kind of panics. He doesn’t know shit about taking care of kids, and Jimin’s crying sounded awful enough over the phone. It probably sounds even worse up close. “You’ll live,” Hoseok says, a little too gleefully for Yoongi’s liking.
Jimin cries at six in the evening, but stops as soon as Yoongi puts the bottle in his mouth. The water trickles out into the little hole in Jimin’s doll mouth. Yoongi begins to think it may not be so bad after all, until it hits eight and Jimin cries again. This time, he won’t stop, no matter what Yoongi does. He even tries singing, but that probably makes things worse. Eventually he just clutches his head and stares at the sobbing baby hopelessly.
That’s when he gets a text from Hoseok. How’s it going, hyung? ^o^
Yoongi calls him. “He won’t stop.”
“Woah, you sound desperate.”
“Make him stop.”
“Did you—”
“I fed him, changed his diaper, burped him, and sang.”
“Oh. Well.”
“Help.”
“I can come over?”
Yoongi hesitates. A part of him isn’t sure that’s a good idea, isn’t sure he should let himself get closer to Hoseok. Not when Hoseok’s sunshine grin already makes his heart flutter the slightest bit. “Okay.”
Hoseok knocks on his door fifteen minutes later and proceeds to charm his mother so easily a vein in Yoongi’s forehead twitches. He follows Yoongi to his room, looking around curiously. His gaze traces the posters on Yoongi’s wall, the recording equipment on his desk, the messy pile of notebooks by his bed. There’s a quiet smile on Hoseok’s face as he does and Yoongi doesn’t know what it means.
He picks Jimin up and rocks him in his arms, making faces and cooing as if Jimin is a real baby and not a doll. Yoongi doesn’t want to admit it, but it’s cute. “Maybe he’s sleepy,” Hoseok suggests.
“Do babies usually cry when they want to sleep?”
“Uh. I don’t think so, actually.”
Yoongi face plants onto his bed. “I hate this project.” His voice comes out muffled.
Hoseok chuckles. He doesn’t say anything for long enough that Yoongi turns his head, cheek pressed into the bed, to look. Tongue peeking from the side of his pursed lips, Hoseok swaddles Jimin in the blue blanket that came with his box. The sobs slow down. Once Hoseok finishes and cradles Jimin in his arms, they stop entirely.
“You’re good at this.”
Hoseok beams proudly. “Not really.”
“Here, put him in his box. I think he’s asleep.” Yoongi hands it to him, and Hoseok lowers Jimin carefully, tucking his blanket tighter around him.
“I guess I should, um, get going.” Hoseok rubs the back of his head awkwardly. Yoongi didn’t know it was possible for the lively Hoseok to feel awkward.
“It’s pretty late. You can stay the night. If you, um, want.”
He tilts his head the slightest bit, eyes locked on Yoongi’s. Then he smiles. “Okay.”
They talk until it’s too late to be talking. Yoongi readies himself to sleep on the floor, but Hoseok pats the bed next to him. Yoongi finds himself slipping under the covers by Hoseok’s side. Even though there’s a foot of space between them, the heat radiating from Hoseok’s body warms him. He doubts he’ll get much sleep.
“Hoseok,” he murmurs, sometime later. He’s lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“Yeah?” Hoseok sounds very awake.
“How come you sat with me that day? Bought me lunch?” Hoseok stays silent. Yoongi worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “You didn’t even know me.”
He feels rather than sees Hoseok shrug. “I always saw you sitting alone. Writing.” Yoongi prepares himself for the words, prepares himself for I felt sorry for you. Instead, he gets, “You looked like you knew something the rest of us didn’t. Like you had a purpose, you know?”
He’s startled into laughter. “Me? A purpose?”
Hoseok turns on his side so he’s facing him. Yoongi makes out the glint of his teeth in the dark. “Don’t you? You want to do music, right?”
Yoongi snorts. “Sure. Want to.”
“Do your parents want you to do something else?”
“They hate it, the music thing, the rap. Think it’s useless. But I’ve just gotta—just gotta get through the rest of this year. Graduate and leave and do whatever I want.”
“Making music really matters to you.”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“I feel like that with dance.”
“You gonna do something with it?”
“I want to go to school for it. Maybe K-ARTS, maybe SeoulArts. If I can get in.”
“You’ll get in.”
“Can I hear your music one day?”
Hoseok is easy to talk to. It takes months for Yoongi to open up to anyone this much, but here he is, baring his heart for Hoseok to see. It scares him. “Maybe one day.”
They meet in a coffee shop some weeks later to work on their first assignment regarding the project. Hoseok brings the baby. He orders his coffee with Jimin snuggled in his arms before joining Yoongi at a booth in the back of the shop. The barista shoots them a weird look.
“You should have brought his box.”
“He doesn’t like being in his box if he isn’t asleep.”
“Everyone’s looking at us weird.”
“Duh, because Jiminie is so cute.”
“More like because we’re two almost-adults carrying around a baby doll.”
Hoseok makes a show of covering Jimin’s ears. “He’s not a doll, he’s Jimin.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. But when the barista calls Hoseok’s name, he reaches for Jimin naturally, taking him from Hoseok and bouncing him on his knee. Jimin gurgles. Yoongi adjusts his little baby hat more securely around his head. Two girls sitting by the window watch him and giggle behind their hands. He flushes.
“You’re a natural,” Hoseok says cheerfully, sliding back into the booth with his coffee.
“Shut up.”
“So how long is this reflection supposed to be?”
“Three pages. Struggles and surprises, or something.”
Hoseok pulls out his laptop and starts to type. “Struggle number one: he cries so much I want to shoot myself.”
“Struggle number two: there aren’t enough changing tables in public restrooms. It’s a blight upon society. Like, what am I supposed to do if I’m out and he pisses?”
“Struggle number three: you and I don’t actually live together. It feels like we’re divorced parents sharing custody.”
“Struggle number four: he likes you more than he likes me.”
“Jiminie loves you, hyung. You guys are the Mini Mini duo.”
“That’s literally the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”
“Come on, it works because you’re short and he’s a baby and your last name’s Min and—”
“Say it again and I’m relinquishing custody. You’re going to have to listen to him cry every single day.”
As if on cue, Jimin’s whiny sobbing begins. Yoongi moves through the customary routine. He checks the time; it’s only one, so he isn’t hungry yet. He knows Hoseok always burps him after feeding, so that’s not it, either. Pulling on the waistband of Jimin’s pants, Yoongi checks his diaper. It’s wet with water from the morning’s feeding.
“Speaking of no changing tables,” Yoongi mutters.
“This place has a family restroom. That’s why I chose it.”
They ask the giggly girls nearby to watch their things while they head to the bathroom. Technically, they could change Jimin right there in the booth, since it’s only water and he’s only a doll, but Yoongi feels like that’s cheating. Hoseok locks the door of the single family restroom while Yoongi unhooks the changing table.
He removes Jimin’s pants and diaper. Hoseok hands him a fresh one, the only other one that came with Jimin, considering they don’t actually need to be washed. A lock of hair shaken free from his beanie brushes Yoongi’s nose. He tries to blow it away, hands busy securing Jimin’s diaper, scrunching his nose in irritation.
Hoseok reaches across and brushes the strand out of the way. Yoongi glances up, hands stilling. Hoseok blinks like he’s surprised himself. Hoping he’s only imagining the heat he feels in his cheeks, Yoongi returns his attention to Jimin.
“Hey,” Hoseok murmurs. “When this project is over, we’re still going to be friends, right?”
Yoongi takes longer than he needs to pull Jimin’s pants on. “Why are you asking?”
“You kind of give off the impression that when you get out of here, you don’t want to leave anyone behind.”
He’s too perceptive. “Am I that easy to read?”
“Yeah.” Hoseok picks Jimin up, avoiding Yoongi’s gaze.
“Come on.” Yoongi holds the door open. “Let’s go.”
Jimin never cries past nine o’clock on weekdays. Weekends, however, are a different matter.
Hoseok sleeps over the night they stay up late writing their second reflection. When Jimin’s sobs wake them, Hoseok is sprawled on his stomach in nothing but a pair of boxers, cheek pressed into the pillow. Yoongi, in contrast, wakes curled in a tight ball under the covers. He rubs his eyes blearily. With his dance competition coming up, Hoseok hasn’t been sleeping much lately. Yoongi can see the exhaustion etched into his face when he stirs.
“I got him,” Yoongi says quietly. “Don’t get up.”
He lifts Jimin out of his box and bounces him against his shoulder, murmuring comforting words. He’s picked that up from Hoseok. Yoongi fills Jimin’s bottle with water and squeezes it into his mouth, rocking him gently as he does.
He hears Hoseok shift in bed and says, “Don’t worry, Hoseokie. Go back to sleep.”
But Hoseok comes right behind him to hook his chin over Yoongi’s shoulder, sagging tiredly against his back. Hot breath tickles Yoongi’s cheek. “You’d make a good dad.”
“Really nice job, you two.” Their Health teacher hands them the graded project analysis, a big red A stamped across the top. “You took good care of your doll. Unlike some students.” She glances pointedly at Namjoon and Taehyung, whose baby sits on the desk with her head on backwards.
They turned Jimin in a week ago, but Yoongi knows exactly which box behind the teacher’s desk is his. He gazes at it a little nostalgically as he zips his backpack. Hoseok grew teary when they gave Jimin back, and Yoongi would be lying if he said he didn’t, too.
Hoseok waits for him in the doorway, clutching the strap of his messenger bag tightly. His smile is just as sweet as the day he slid into the seat across from Yoongi at lunch. A mix of hope and resignation plays across his face when he says, “So. We did it.”
It’s then that Yoongi realizes he never answered Hoseok’s question. We’re still going to be friends, right? “I’m, um—I’m performing at this club in Hongdae this weekend. You can come watch. Uh, if you want.”
Hoseok’s answering grin is laced with surprise. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”