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Jeongguk hates prom season.
Granted, this is only his second year experiencing prom season now that he’s a senior in high school, but still. It grosses him out. The stigma that everyone has to have a date for prom, how the air is filled with anxiety and excitement all at the same time. It was like this last year, although everyone knows junior prom is ass and no one ever goes. But senior prom? You only get one senior prom. So everyone is trying extra hard not to fuck up their promposals.
Especially not Jeongguk’s best friend, Taehyung.
“I’m telling you, Jeongukkie, this will work. ” Taehyung says as they sit in the courtyard during lunch on a breezy May afternoon, two weeks before prom, to be exact. Jeongguk has heard so much about prom from Taehyung he might as well be on the goddamn committee with Taehyung.
“Hyung no offense,” Jeongguk starts, brushing the residue of bread from off of his fingers, “but I don’t think purposely falling into Yoongi hyung in the hallway so that you can get his attention is going to make him want to go to prom with you. I think it’ll just make him mad.”
“It’s gonna work!” Taehyung exclaims. “Yoongi hyung loves me. Why would he ever want to go to prom with anyone else?”
“Because the two of you have only talked like, three times this whole year and the only reason why he tolerates you is because you’re great at science and he always copies all of your write-ups in lab?” Jeongguk raises a brow, earning him a piece of popcorn being thrown at him from Taehyung.
“Shut up.” Taehyung grumbles and shoves a handful of popcorn in his mouth. When he swallows he turns his attention back to Jeongguk, saying, “you’re just mad because you’re too scared to ask Jimin to prom and you know he wouldn’t go with you anyway.”
Jeongguk freezes.
He feels the tips of his ears getting hot with a blush, and the high points of his cheeks prickling with blush too.
“I don’t like Jimin,” Jeongguk says.
“Okay.” Taehyung replies.
“I’m serious.”
“Okay.”
“And I don’t want to go to prom with him, prom is stupid. And Jimin is stupid.”
“Okay.”
Jeongguk is about three seconds away from pushing Taehyung off of the bench that they’re sitting on. Except he looks up and sees Jimin coming over to where they’re sitting, backpack slung over his shoulder and black hair ruffling in the breeze. Jeongguk doesn’t look. He doesn’t like Jimin.
“Hi Tae,” The oldest of the three of them greets his best friend, sitting down next to Taehyung on the bench opposite Jeongguk. “Hi Jeongguk.”
“Jimin, do you think Yoongi hyung will go to prom with me? Like, he’ll definitely say yes if I ask him. Right?” Taehyung cuts right to the chase. Jeongguk doesn’t say hi back to Jimin.
“Um, I’m not completely sure he’ll say yes, Tae, but you can always give it a go.” Jimin shrugs, pulling a water bottle from his bag and taking a few sips. Jeongguk tries not to look at Jimin’s lips, or the column of his neck when he tips his head back to drink. Because he doesn’t like Jimin. He’s so busy staring that he doesn’t even notice that Jimin’s lips are forming words, and they’re directed at him.
“Jeongguk?”
“What?” He blinks a few times and sees Jimin looking at him expectantly and Taehyung smirking at him.
“I asked if you had a date yet?” Jimin says.
Taehyung answers for him. “Jeongguk thinks prom is stupid, so he doesn’t want to go with a date.”
“I don’t want to go at all,” Jeongguk grumbles, but it’s useless. Taehyung is part of the prom committee, so there’s no way the elder is not letting Jeongguk show up at prom. He’s being forced. Before Jeongguk can even consider the words leaving his mouth, he says back to Jimin, “do you have a date?”
“No,” Jimin replies, thankfully not noticing Jeongguk’s inner crisis about blatantly asking Jimin if he had a prom date. Because why does Jeongguk care? He doesn’t. And the last thing he wants to do is give Taehyung any form of satisfaction. “I want to go, but I’m waiting for someone to ask me first.”
“Maybe I should wait for Yoongi hyung to ask me, maybe I should do that instead.” Taehyung contemplates.
“If you do that, you’ll never make it to prom.” Jeongguk says.
Taehyung throws more popcorn at him.
***
Jeongguk isn’t sure what he did in his past life to have to be obligated to do Taehyung favors, but he will gladly go back to his former self and fix whatever it is that he fucked up. He’ll do anything. Anything , but this. He’s positioned in the main hallway of the science wing of the building, standing in front of a row of tall blue lockers and a note in his hand. Taehyung’s note, to Yoongi, consisting of his promposal. The whole ‘falling into his arms’ thing didn’t go so well, like Jeongguk had predicted, and now Taehyung was getting desperate for acceptance. It was only a week before prom, after all. So while Taehyung was in lab with Yoongi, he texted Jeongguk to ask him for a favor.
Jeongguk should’ve just said no.
He doesn’t even remember the locker number, he’s so frustrated. He doesn’t want any teachers walking in the halls to catch him milling around when he should be in class. He’s not risking getting detention, even if it is for Taehyung. So he shoves the note into the locker that he’s pretty sure is Yoongi’s, the number is 2504. That’s what Taehyung said, right? 250 something. Jeongguk doesn’t even have his phone to check the text, so there’s a chance that he could be wrong. Or he could be right. Jeongguk decides to be optimistic and go with the latter choice. The envelope gets stuck a little bit, however, when he tries to put it into one of the slot openings, so he resorts to trying to slip the paper through the underside of the metal door.
Then he hears footsteps.
Shit.
He frantically tries to stuff the envelope inside and thinks dammit, why is this not working?
“Jeongguk?”
He freezes.
Because that’s Jimin’s voice.
“Uh,” he says intelligently, looking up into the eyes of the orange haired boy with confusion in his gaze. “Uh, hi?”
“What are you doing at my locker?” Jimin furrows his eyebrows.
What?
“What?” Jeongguk replies, standing up slowly and leaving the envelope on the ground without realizing. “No, this is Yoongi hyung’s locker.” Jimin shakes his head.
“His is one down, 2505.”
Okay. Maybe Jeongguk should’ve taken his phone with him. Maybe he should’ve read the text a little better. Jimin bends down and scoops up the envelope that’s folded in a little bit at the edges due to Jeongguk’s constant shoving, and Jeongguk can literally see his 18 years of life flashing before his eyes.
“Don’t open that!” Jeongguk hisses, making to grab the envelope from Jimin’s hands but the elder is quicker and already popped the seal open.
“Is this yours?” Jimin starts to smile, eyes sparkling with mirth.
“Give it back.” Jeongguk demands, reaching for it again but Jimin holds it out of the younger boy’s reach.
“Ah, ah,” Jimin teases, “respect your hyung, Jeonggukkie,” the orange haired boy smiles and turns his back while reading the note that’s typed, and not handwritten, because Taehyung’s handwriting looks like shit and Yoongi probably wouldn’t understand that Taehyung was trying to ask him to prom. Jimin turns back around and looks up at Jeongguk’s blushing face and worried eyes.
“Okay, wait this --” Jeongguk starts, but Jimin is too busy throwing his arms over the taller boy’s shoulders and embracing him with a bright smile on his face.
“Of course I’ll go to prom with you, Jeongguk!”
And, like. What.
“You’re so cute, you look so nervous about this!” Jimin exclaims and Jeongguk is stunned. Because he really did not think there would be miscommunication to this degree when he stepped into the hallway to put Taehyung’s stupid note in Yoongi’s locker. “Although, this promposal sounds a lot like something Taehyung would come up with. You’ve been hanging around him too much.”
Tell me about it, Jeongguk thinks. Jimin pinches one of Jeongguk’s cheeks as the bell rings and bounds off excitedly to his next class, leaving Jeongguk standing in the middle of the hallway like an idiot. Taehyung comes out of lab, holding Jeongguk’s bag and his phone in his hands, handing it to the younger boy.
“Did you do it?” Taehyung looks expectant.
“I did something, ” Jeongguk mumbles, taking his phone and glaring at the row of lockers.
***
“So let me get this straight,” Taehyung says around a mouthful of fries. “You put the note in the wrong locker. And now Jimin thinks you’re his prom date?” Taehyung’s big eyes stare right into Jeongguk’s as he waits for the answer.
“I mean. Yeah. I’m sorry, hyung. I didn’t mean to mess this up for you.” Jeongguk rotates the straw inside of his milkshake slowly. “I just have to find out a way to tell Jimin I don’t want to go with him.”
Taehyung almost chokes on a fry.
“Oh my god,” Jeongguk says once he’s done patting Taehyung’s back and getting him back to normal. “What the fuck, hyung?”
“What the fuck are you saying! You have to go to prom with Jimin!” Taehyung exclaims, causing several people in the diner to look over at them for being loud. Jeongguk gives Taehyung a confused look, and the elder rolls his eyes and eats another fry before continuing. “Jimin really wants to go to prom. But he won’t go unless someone asks him, and Hobi hyung was going to but someone asked him first and he said yes because he didn’t want to make them feel bad. So you are Jimin’s only hope.” Taehyung takes a dramatic sip of his soda. “Besides, it’s not like you don’t want to go with him anyway.”
“I don’t, ” Jeongguk protests. “I told you I don’t want to take anyone to prom.”
“So when Jimin accepted the promposal, why didn’t you tell him right then and there that he misunderstood?”
“Because he wouldn’t let me! He was too excited and too busy talking to pay attention.” Jeongguk is the one turning heads now due to his tone, but he ignores the stares. If Jeongguk is being completely honest, part of the reason why he didn’t deny Jimin is because he didn’t want him to feel bad. And he knows Taehyung is right about Jimin really wanting to go to prom, it’s the only thing he and Taehyung have talked about for months. He sighs. “Fine, whatever.”
“‘Whatever’, what?” Taehyung says.
“I’ll take Jimin to the stupid fucking prom.” Jeongguk grumbles and sips his milkshake hard, hoping he’ll get brain freeze.
“That’s the spirit!”
***
Okay. Jeongguk likes prom.
Well, he doesn’t like it, (he’ll never give Taehyung the satisfaction) but it’s not bad. It’s at a large venue off the water a good distance from their high school, set up prettily with a ton of lights and leading off into a garden courtyard. The inside is huge, tables everywhere and the entire senior class roaming around with their dates. Jimin and Jeongguk decided to come separately, because Taehyung wanted to drive Jeongguk to the venue himself.
Jeongguk finds it a bit weird that during the whole ride Taehyung says nothing about Yoongi and what their status is, but Jeongguk doesn’t bring it up in case Taehyung is doing it for a reason.
Jeongguk keeps an eye out for Jimin once he gets there, Taehyung poking fun at him the whole time. Jeongguk just doesn’t want to be seen alone and have people think he doesn’t have a date, that’s all. They see Hoseok first with his date, a girl in Jeongguk’s literature class, Yongsun. They look good together, he decides, the two of them coordinating in all black ensembles and walking towards them. They all make idle conversation for a while, Taehyung making a small noise beside Jeongguk when he sees Yoongi walk in and towards them.
“Hey.” He says to the whole group, all of them greeting back, but his eyes are trained up on Taehyung. Jeongguk is a little confused, especially when Taehyung wraps an arm around Yoongi’s waist and the elder leans in to Taehyung’s side, and Jeongguk is a lot confused. He snaps out of it though once he feels a pair of arms wrap around his midsection, making him jump and turn around and away from the group.
Jimin has a sheepish look on his face, but the laughter threatening to spill from his mouth ruins it.
“Hi,” he says, flashing a bright smile at Jeongguk. “Didn’t mean to scare you, sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Jeongguk clears his throat. Jimin is wearing a white suit, just like Jeongguk, because they decided wearing black at the end of May was a bad idea, so they went with white. His orange hair is nicely parted to the side and his cheeks are a bit pink, perhaps from the lighting of the room or something else, Jeongguk doesn’t know. He just knows Jimin is glowing and he’s having a bit of a hard time breathing. “You, um. You look good.”
Jimin raises a brow at him.
“Thank you,” Jimin looks Jeongguk up and down a few times causing the younger to blush slightly before saying, “you do too.”
Taehyung notices the appearance of his two best friends together, everyone in the friend group cooing over how cute they look in their matching white suits. Jeongguk wants to melt into the floor.
The night continues on, a whole long stretch of socializing and dancing, and Jeongguk finds himself really enjoying all of it. It makes him have a bit of a melancholy feeling, of how this is one of the final nights he’ll be with all of his friends in one big nice place before they all go away to college in the fall. Jimin is just as radiant as ever by Jeongguk’s side, making him laugh throughout the night and introducing him to some of his friends.
He hopes that no one can sense his (huge) crush on the elder.
As long as Taehyung doesn’t say anything about it, Jeongguk doesn’t mind.
Towards the end, the two of them take a break and sit outside in the garden on a long bench, enjoying the cool night air as listening to the muffled thrum of the music inside.
“Are you having fun?” Jimin turns to Jeongguk, a flush high on his cheeks from moving around so much and his eyes sparkling. “I know you said you kind of didn’t want to come.”
“No, it’s...it’s nice. But don’t you dare quote me on that, especially not in front of Taehyung.” Jeongguk says and Jimin laughs, nodding his head in agreement. “Are you having fun? You wanted to come really badly.”
“It’s literally the best night of high school so far,” Jimin sighs dreamily.
“What about graduation?” Jeongguk smiles.
“That’s why I said it’s the best night so far, ” Jimin laughs again and Jeongguk loves the way Jimin’s front teeth are crooked, and he knows that Jimin knows but he likes that Jimin is always smiling anyway. At the back of Jeongguk’s mind something is nagging at him, at the fact that he didn’t really mean to take Jimin to prom, even though they’re both having a good time.
“Jimin, I have to tell you something.” Jeongguk turns towards his hyung, a serious look on his face. A smile quirks at the corner of Jimin’s lips like he knows what’s on Jeongguk’s mind.
“If you’re gonna tell me that you brought me here kind of by accident, it’s okay. I already know about it.” Jimin says.
What?
“What?” Jeongguk says back.
“Taehyung told me.” He should’ve known. Taehyung can’t keep secrets for shit, no matter who it’s from or who it’s about. “He kind of set it up. He texted me at the end of my class to say that he wanted to meet me at my locker, but I found you instead. And I knew something was up when I actually read the promposal, because I know you would never write anything as remotely cheesy and gross as Taehyung did for Yoongi hyung. You guys are best friends but it would never rub off on you that much.” Jimin takes a pause to giggle a little bit.
“But wait, aren’t you mad?” Jeongguk is confused. “Or like upset? Because no one wanted to take you to prom?” It comes out a little harsher than Jeongguk means, but if Jimin notices, he doesn’t say anything.
“Jeongguk, if you really didn’t want to come with me to prom, you wouldn’t have come. I’ve known you for a long time, remember?” Jimin says. “Even though you didn’t really ask me, you still took me. So it works out. I got to come to prom and as a bonus I got you as my date.”
Jeongguk tries to turn his face away a little bit to hide his blush, because Jimin is so stupidly sweet sometimes it makes Jeongguk sick.
“Uh, thanks.” Is all he can think to say. It’s quiet again, the two just sitting side by side. Jeongguk feels dumb. Jimin was nice enough to give him a compliment and not be mad about their whole situation, so Jeongguk feels like he should really say something. Jimin turns to him at the same time that he opens his mouth.
“Hey --”
“I like you.”
They speak at the same time, but Jeongguk knows Jimin heard him. His eyes widen a little bit, but only for less than a second, because he’s also smiling a little smile and he says, “Aw, I like you too, Jeongguk.”
“No, I mean, like, I like you.”
“I do too.”
“No, like--”
And Jeongguk is finally shut up by Jimin’s mouth, a small soft chaste kiss, no more than a press of lips but leaves Jeongguk’s heart and stomach fluttering. With their faces to close together he can feel the warmth radiating off of Jimin’s cheeks, the small puffs of his breath coming from his parted lips.
“I like you too, you idiot,” Jimin shoves Jeongguk, the latter almost falling off of the bench but both of them laughing.
“Don’t,” Jeongguk clears his throat to cover up his nervousness. “Don’t tell Taehyung that I said that, by the way.”
“What, that you like me?” Jimin is smiling again, one of those smiles, where his cheeks get really big and it looks like his face is going to split open.
“Yeah.”
“What? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you I think you need to say it again a little louder.”
“You’re making me regret this.” Jeongguk deadpans and Jimin is doubled over with laughter, but Jeongguk can’t even bring himself to be annoyed at it. Jimin grabs his hand, small fingers wrapping around his wrist and pulling him up to go back inside. When they reach the door, Jeongguk pulls Jimin close to him and places a soft kiss on Jimin’s soft cheek.
“I’m glad you got tricked into coming to prom,” Jimin says, flush spreading across his face.
Jeongguk looks at Jimin’s pink lips and pink cheeks and the way he looks against all the pretty garden flowers, and he’s kind of glad he came too.
(But don’t quote him on that,
especially
not in front of Taehyung.)