Work Text:
“Jimin and… ____.”
There was a momentary beat of surprise where you could feel several pairs of eyes in the classroom flicker to you, and your head jerked up from your notebook that was being inundated with doodles as your heard your name. When it sunk in, you turned and met the dark, sparkling eyes of the boy in question who was… now officially your partner for this godforsaken extra credit biology assignment.
Class moved by in a strange blur after that as reality attempted to settle on your shoulders. Jimin? Park Jimin? Senior extraordinaire? Renowned goalie on the soccer team who all but assured your school’s team went to regionals this year? Not only that but he was… practically inhuman! That was it, he was inhuman. An anomaly. Nobody should have been good at sports and be charming and sociable and have good grades all at once. Out of the thirty students in your class, this was who you got landed with.
Muscle-memory made your legs get you out of your chair when the bell rang. Still a little frazzled, you packed your bag and wondered how awkward this was going to be. Not because he was a bad guy – actually completely the opposite – but you were from astronomically different social spheres and had probably spoken a grand total of three times in your high school career.
“____?”
And he was standing next to your desk.
You tried to smile and not look uncomfortable; why couldn’t you have gotten literally anyone else but him?
“Hi,” you said, hauling your backpack over your shoulder.
Jimin beamed. “Hi. I have a game this weekend, so… can we work on this tomorrow maybe?”
Briefly, you ran over your schedule in your head and came up empty. Well, tomorrow it was, then.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” you agreed, swaying on your heels and fidgeting with your bag’s straps. You really, really wanted to leave. You could clear the rest of this up at lunch.
“Nice! You’ve got AP Psych next, right? I’ll walk with you and we can make the rest of the plans.”
Jimin was already strutting away, adjusting his snapback and looking utterly confident as you gaped at his back. But… how did he know your next class? What the fuck? Grimacing, you scurried to catch up with him, trying to quiet the buzzing befuddlement ramming around the inside of your skull.
Too afraid to ask how he knew and potentially embarrass yourself, you lapsed into silence, and pointedly ignored the students who did subtle double-takes at the pair of you. You couldn’t tell if Jimin noticed, or if he cared, but he seemed unfazed as he continued, “We can do it at my house, but I’ve got a little brother and we share a room, so it might not be the greatest. Would your place be cool? It’s okay if it’s not, just wanted to let you know.”
“Oh, um, yeah, my house is free. My mom works late so it’ll be quiet.”
Walking was a good distraction. Avoiding people took up enough of your attention to not quite be a mess of nerves, and eventually you were able to look up at him directly and catch his profile – his warm, soft cheeks and round face with blackberry-coloured eyes that matched his hair.
Except he was looking back, and his startling smile was directed at you.
This was insane.
“How’d you know I had AP Psych?” you blurted out unthinkingly, and his eyes widened before he laughed and made your face flush deeply. That… hadn’t been what you meant to do.
“Your key chain,” he answered with a quirked mouth, and your head tilted in confusion. He reached out and flicked the clump of trinkets that dangled from your zipper, admiring them. “I like Rock Lee. It always distracts me in class, so I see you walking down the hall all the time, and AP Psych is on the way to Gym.”
It was such a simple, harmless answer that you – suspicions unsurprisingly confirmed – felt stupid for wondering about in the first place.
“Anyway, you can just skip the bus tomorrow and I’ll drive us to your place if that’s fine.”
His suggestion made sense, so you were helpless but to nod your head in agreement.
“I’ll see you later then, okay?”
You hadn’t even noticed that you were already outside the right door, and he was waving as he continued into the stream of traffic that led to the gym. You almost ran into someone you hit the brakes so hard, weakly waving back a little bit late before stumbling into class.
You barely touched your lunch that afternoon. Your stomach twisted into incomprehensible knots, and every time you glanced at your tiny little Rock Lee giving you a permanent grin and thumbs up, you felt a little sick.
–
The next day moved too quickly. Your best friend, to your dread, harassed you relentlessly about your luck and begged you to be brave enough for just this one day to hit on “the hottest piece of ass walking around this hellhole”.
You had openly laughed at her, and then shut your mouth because the nausea came back when the final bell rang and everyone immediately burst into chatters and chairs scraping on tiles.
“Good luck, champ,” she whistled at you, giving you a playful shove.
“Fuck you too,” you mumbled back, clutching your jacket to your chest like a lifeline. You both separated at the building exit: she went to the bus loop, and you dully trudged to the parking lot.
Part of you hoped that maybe he’d forgotten, or would be too busy, or that you’d have an aneurysm on the way there–
“There’s my favourite girl!”
The blood drained from your face, and with a huge jump, Park Jimin landed enthusiastically beside you on the curb. He was still in his soccer jersey and his face was flushed from exertion; he’d evidently been practicing the last period and smelled like grass and sweat and boy-ness and your stomach flipped on itself.
“Hi?” you croaked. He had the decency to look at least a little bashful.
“Sorry, it’s hard to wind down after practice. Are you excited to get started on thisamazingly stimulating extra credit project?”
He spoke so fast and so sarcastically that the absurdity of the situation made your anxiety finally snap, and you found it in you to actually laugh – and to his surprise, you had dimples and sounded like a mixture of twittering and hiccups that was so, so cute he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Oh wow,” he half-murmured, mostly to himself.
“Wh-what’d you say?” you stammered out, still snickering.
“Nothing, nothing! I’m glad you think I’m funny. Also, I call shotgun.”
“Excuse me?!”
“Kidding. Also, hope you like Tori Kelly, I just got her new album and I’m hopelessly addicted to it.”
You didn’t know who that was, but learned soon enough that Jimin quite enjoyed listening to female singer-songwriters who warbled about the ins and outs of true love.
And, as it turns out, you apparently did, too.
–
It was a special kind of torment watching you go from rigid to overflowing with giggles and then back to nervous quiet again. Not that it was bad – just a challenge, Jimin supposed, and one that he was oddly determined to overcome.
After you both settled comfortably at your dining room table and you brought out your laptop, he surreptitiously found himself trying very hard to crack jokes that would make you forget to be anxious between research. You agreed that something on animals would be the easiest thing to do – no fancy formulas and anatomical or chemical terms to flub on – and were skimming Google for any sort of creature interesting enough to do a satisfactory project on. Amazonian mammals were the current plan, but it didn’t hurt to keep looking.
“Wait,” Jimin said suddenly. “What about bird courtship? There’s those sexy ones in the jungle with all the wild feathers and colors and they do those crazy dances to make the females fall in love with them!”
That had been funny enough to make you bite your lip and shoot back, “You mean you?”
You probably hadn’t been intending to glance up at him mischievously from under your eyelashes, and combined with the lip-bite and you leaning on your hand, Jimin felt like he’d just gone down the drop on a roller coaster.
He wondered if you had a boyfriend. Or if you knew how pretty you were when you smiled.
He… he probably shouldn’t be thinking those things.
It didn’t stop his mouth from running on without him. He smirked, “Is it working?”
A rosy shade worked its way into your cheeks, and he felt himself sigh. He wanted to make you do that again. But you were looking away, and your shoulders were locked up and he felt like the biggest jackass in the world.
“I think it’ll be better if we compare courtship styles,” you offered, and scrolled down the Wiki page in an excuse to not look at him. “Like versus penguins, or cardinals. Adelie penguins look for pretty stones to give their mate, and some songbirds like cardinals mate for life.”
“Sounds good,” Jimin said softly. “I didn’t know that.”
“Ah, yeah, I read… a thing about it a while back. It’s really sweet. I like birds.”
He wanted to ask why. He wanted to ask what you read and what other birds you liked. He kind of wanted to slam your laptop shut so you would just look at him and that way he could make you laugh again.
Jimin kept his hands to himself and went home in a strange mood, torn between butterflies and frustration.
–
You met up again the next day.
This time, you hyperventilated in the girl’s bathroom before meeting him in the parking lot. He wasn’t in his uniform this time, but that really didn’t make a difference because he pulled up, already in his car and blasting Dear No One as he serenaded you out the rolled-down window. It took a full minute for you to come back to reality and Jimin looked so guilty that you went to apologize for your behavior, but didn’t get to. Determination had entered his eyes, and as the chorus came on he started belting it out, reaching out with one hand to tug on your hair and coax you to sing along.
Somehow, it worked, and somehow, you found yourself passionately crooning out the lyrics with him in the front seat, earning attention from the other vehicles at the red light. The loud singing was exhilarating and Jimin’s voice was beautiful and light, and the music was loud enough to cover up any notes you couldn’t quite reach.
You were positively glowing by the time you pulled into your apartment complex, and your hair was a mess from, and both of you were grinning and giggling so much that Jimin didn’t even think twice when he leaned over and brushed his mouth against yours. The zap was sweet and short and all at once everything came to a halt and then the air thickened with heat and static that you could feel in your skin, and when Jimin realized what he did, he went slightly slack-jawed and you both stared at each other.
“Oh,” he said, dumbly. “Sorry.”
On auto-pilot after your first kiss, you stammered out, “I-it’s… okay! No problem. Uh, I guess we should get started, huh?”
Miracles were in no short order that day; somehow, you managed to talk and be responsible as you both sat at the table and resumed your project research. Neither of you mentioned the… the thing that happened in the car, and Jimin recovered his sprightly attitude quickly enough to act like nothing had happened at all. You both amassed a sizable amount of info – more than enough to make something decent out of – and it wasn’t until you were shutting your laptop and he was packing up to leave that the atmosphere regained its stifling, awkward energy.
“Well,” he said, zipping his bag shut, “See you tomorrow?”
You nodded, fiddling with the hem of your hoodie sleeves. “Yup. And then I guess Friday we finish up?”
“Hope so,” he quipped, smiling. “Otherwise you’ll have to see me again.”
“Man, that would just suck, wouldn’t it?”
“The worst.”
Jimin hovered in front of you, a few inches above your face, and you felt your heart leap into your throat and pound away at it so hard you could hear it in your ears. He was probably standing much too close to you, but your socks were suddenly stuck to the carpet and you found yourself holding your breath as he leaned down once more – slowly, this time – and carefully kissed you again.
It was short. So short. Too short. Jimin drew back and your eyes fluttered open to find him looking somewhat pleased – like he’d figured something out that was unknown to you.
“See you,” he murmured, and with a gentle poke to your forehead, he was gone.
–
Kissing turned into the most obtuse, unspoken game you’d ever fathomed.
The next day, and the day after, he’d delicately cupped your chin and pulled you to him the second you got in the passenger seat and greeted you with a firmer, happier version and intense “Hello.” that almost made you think he missed you all day long. But then he’d crank up the dial and you were both sucked back into the innocent, distracting trap of car karaoke, and nothing was said of your newfound habit.
Perhaps more surprising was that the project came along nicely.
–
Friday.
“Sooooo,” Jimin drawled, placing a few well-chosen penguin stickers on the poster board. “What are the chances of you making it to my game?”
An eyebrow raised at that, and you continued gluing the red and yellow cardinal pair to the backing paper. “I thought it wasn’t a home game.”
“It’s not!” he chirped. “We’re playing the Starlights. But I’m just saying, if you can make it, I’ll save a seat for you and you can chill with my family. Sound good?”
“Tempting,” you snorted; and really, it kind of was, considering you weren’t doing anything else on your birthday. Fuck, you got glue on your fingers. You frowned and rubbed your thumb against it to peel it off. “But that’s a bit of a drive, and my mom likes me home on the weekend to make sure I can watch the house. I probably have homework, too.”
“You’re no fun,” Jimin pouted.
You smiled. He was right.
“I know,” you agreed. Your cardinals looked absolutely lovely, and you centered the paper on the three-panel board before gluing it down as well.
“What the hell? You’re not supposed to agree with me! You’re way more fun than I thought you’d be. How was I supposed to know you were cool if you’re such a stick in the mud in class?”
He had been joking when he said it – lightheartedly teasing – but he had meant it, too, sort of, and that casual reminder of that truth strangled your airway like an invisible noose. All the hard-earned comfortableness that had fostered between you during the week shattered into a million little pieces, just like that, and it was almost, almost a relief to feel the crushing weight of your anxiety smothering you again, locking you up into a humiliated silence. Because you were not cool; you were not friendly, you were not funny, you were not anyone that Park Jimin should have been within ten feet of. In a moment of blood-freezing horror, you realized that maybe he had been screwing with you this whole time simply because he could, and your hand jerked so sharply that your pretty cardinals tore an inch down the page.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed out. “I’m so sorry. I was just kidding. It’s okay, ____, it’s perfectly okay, I was just fucking around, you’re… you’re not like that.”
“No,” you said without looking at him. You ignored the fact that your voice was trembling, and that your paper was torn, and smoothed your hands across it to make sure it stuck to the cardboard. “I am. Don’t apologize. No biggie.”
Jimin didn’t say anything after that.
Feeling his eyes on you, penetrating you with massive guilt, was horrible on every level, and it took some of the most intense convincing on your part – smiles and jokes and all – to make him stop and act sort of normal again.
At least the poster turned out pretty.
At eight, you were done.
“Finally,” you groaned. “Where’s the rubric… I’m gonna look over it real quick and make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
Jimin kindly passed you his own before you could go for yours, and you skimmed the assignment, checking off the requirements one by one–
“Oh my god.”
You read the line, over and over again. Essay: four pages. MLA, works cited required. At least five sources. Due electronically by Saturday at midnight.
“Oh no, what is it?”
Somehow, you croaked out, “There was an essay requirement on the second page.”
It seemed to take several seconds for that to sink in.
“…What?” Jimin asked, voice a little strangled.
“Four pages,” you said, void of emotion. “Due Saturday at midnight. Cool. Okay. Cool.”
Jimin looked utterly pained at this knowledge, and his eyes flitted from the paper to your face several times. “____, I… I have my game tomorrow.”
You didn’t even have to deliberate; shaking your head, you insisted, “It’s fine. I’ll do it. I’m home alone tomorrow, I’ll have all day to do it. You just make sure you win, okay?”
“That’s not fair to you at all! Write a page or two and then send me what you have and I’ll finish it when I get home. I can’t make you do all of that.”
“Jimin,” you said firmly. “I’ll do it. You have other priorities. Let this be mine.”
He floundered, brow furrowed and mouth opening to argue before shutting, then opening again, then shutting once more. Realistically, he knew he with the game and then team going out to dinner afterwards he would barely had time to write a page, let alone two and a works cited. You were being selfless and he didn’t deserve any of it, and he wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you yelled at him orsomething because everything that happened today didn’t sit right with him and he hated it, he despised it and he wanted to punch the wall and… and you were offering him a way out that he had no choice but to take.
“I don’t like this,” he protested, but you knew you had won.
“It’s no big deal. Really. If it makes you feel better, can you take the poster and bring it Monday? I don’t want to carry it on the bus.”
“Yes,” he answered instantly. “Of course. No problem. I promise I won’t forget it.”
Softly, you laughed, and the sound broke his heart.
Where did he go wrong?
Why were you like this? Why were you so quiet, why wouldn’t you say what you really felt, why were you always hiding all your thoughts in your mouth? Why did he have to tease the laughter out of you? Why hadn’t he said hello to you the first day he noticed your key chain sophomore year? Why hadn’t he given himself the opportunity to kiss you a million more times, to study the exact shade of your eyes in the florescent bulbs in the halls versus the afternoon sunlight on the drive home, to listen to you sing more mellifluously and on key than you realized?
Jimin couldn’t process sadness properly – instead, it morphed into anger and it took a vast amount of self-control on his part not to let it show.
He was lingering at the front door with the poster in his hands, and you were standing there, awkwardly, waiting for him to leave. He couldn’t make himself go. He didn’t want to leave things like this.
Finally, you couldn’t take it anymore. You didn’t want to say anything, because you could feel him practically vibrating with things to say, and you didn’t want to have any sort of deep conversation with him about anything at all. You just wanted him to leave. Let him go back to his friends and probably joke about how easy it was to lead you on. In class on Monday, you could both present your project and then everything… everything would go perfectly back to normal.
There was an easy way to make him leave.
You closed your eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them. Jimin looked a little nervous at the sudden intensity of your gaze and all the things hidden in it, and he was wholly unprepared when you got on your tiptoes and pressed your lips to his.
“For good luck,” you swallowed as you pulled away. Jimin felt himself go red to his ears as he just nodded like a fucking idiot and probably – hopefully – said bye before he actually left.
You locked the door behind him. Then, you went to the shower, turned the water on hot, sat down, and cried.
–
Since it was your birthday, you allowed yourself the luxury of not setting your alarm. Not that it mattered, because your mom woke you up before she went to work to kiss your cheeks and apologize for not being able to get the day off. After that, you blearily rubbed your eyes and realized you were wide awake, and it was a little after nine.
“Well,” you muttered, “might as well.”
You made yourself coffee and confetti pancakes for breakfast and watched the new Naruto release. Happy birthday.
Then it was time to write.
–
“Jimin, focus, please! What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing, Coach, sorry!”
Jimin scowled at the black and white ball that he shuffled between his cleats, trying and failing not to think of your face and how it was making his heart race more than the scrimmage. He pulled it together long enough to make some acceptable passes and get Coach Sungdeuk off of his ass.
When he finally blew the whistle, Jimin went for a Gatorade and whipped out his phone to zone out. This wasn’t good; if he kept this up, he was going to fuck up the entire team and it would be on his head. He idly scrolled down Facebook for a good minute before his eyes flickered to the birthday tab alerts, and clicked it.
Jimin stared at his screen for a long minute.
“Jiminnie, we’re getting in the van!”
“Coming,” he said distractedly, eyes still glued to his screen.
Game prep tore him away from his phone, and he wondered if maybe the date was wrong. Maybe you put in a fake birthday. The thought plagued him until he realized he could check your profile, and the phone nearly slipped out of his hands he opened it again in such a hurry – sure enough, there were a handful of happy birthday messages on your wall, and he glared at them in horror.
Reality trickled in slowly.
It was your birthday. Today was your birthday. You were going to spend your birthday writing a four-page essay on monogamy and courtship in passerines and sphenisciformes. You were going to be home alone writing this bullshit bird essay, even. All day.
The facts compounded on top of each other until Jimin was imagining you, probably in that soft hoodie you always wore with the frayed sleeves, sitting at the dining room table and typing away in silence. Or maybe you’d listen to music. He had a distinct feeling that you wouldn’t have cake, and that nobody would be coming over. And you’d be sad. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you be lonely? Resentful? Maybe you would, but even if you did, he thinks you’d bottle it all up.
It’s not like you had anyone to take it out on.
Jimin sent one text to his parents. By the time they pulled up at the school gates, he was livid. His muddled feelings had turned razor sharp and everyone on the team was startled at the volume of his voice during the pre-game chant.
His focus was crystal clear when they walked out onto the field. He did not flinch when the starting whistle blew and the bleachers erupted into cheers.
He had a good luck kiss to make good on.
–
The text on the screen blurred together once more, and you groaned, slumping forward onto the keyboard. This assignment wasn’t hard, but it was tedious and you felt so on-edge you could hardly sit still. The problem was even when you tried to take a break, you couldn’t enjoy sitting around or doing anything else at all. So, you just went back to your document, and stared at it dully, willing it to be written.
It took another cup of coffee and commitment to Neko Atsume to finally make your brain switch on and start churning out words. So, by at least the time the sun was going down, you had two-ish pages done and had gone a record time of twenty minutes without wondering, for once, how your school’s soccer team was faring.
–
4 - 0.
Bodies were piling on top of Jimin, plastering his sweaty body to the turf and filling his ears with raucous cheers and shouts of his name. He must have been pat on the ass a hundred times before they realized he was suffocating through his manic laughter, and Coach grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him vigorously before hugging him. The crowd was background noise, only a faint section of cheers from friends and family who had made it, and the home team’s side quietly applauding them for their downright massacre.
“If you keep playing like that, you’re going pro,” Coach yelled over the noise, beaming ear to ear. “I’d say you put the Berlin Wall to shame.”
Jimin laughed breathlessly, and was released long enough to exchange “good game”s with the other team. There was talk of going to a steakhouse after that bloodbath (courtesy of Park Jimin playing defense like a grizzly on PCP), and he had a surprisingly clear conscience as he told them he was bailing on this one. His team erupted into outrage and more than a few foul words of disbelief (Jimin? Turning down free food?), but Jimin brushed them all off and told them he had things to do, and had even had his family take two cars so he could go straight there.
With the promise of running laps as punishment next practice, Jimin snickered and sprinted to his vehicle, waving to his parents and hollering to let them know he’d be home late.
–
At three and a half pages, the doorbell rings.
The sound is rare and causes you to yelp and nearly fall out of your chair – you yanked your headphones off, still blasting Tori Kelly’s album, and booked it to the front door to peep through the hole.
You gasped and took a step back, hands over your mouth. What the fuck was he doing here? He had a game. But he was covered in grass stains and his hair was still damp with sweat.
He couldn’t have come here straight afterwards. But why would he? You had texted him and told him you were making fine progress–
“____, pleeeaaaase open. I drove all this way!”
Flustered, you called back, “Jimin, what the fuck are you doing here?”
You saw his concerned expression instantly turn into elation.
“____!”
You couldn’t help but smile at his giddiness. Your hands wrung at your sleeves and you repeated, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”
Hmm. You didn’t know about that.
…Who were you kidding?
You were just in the middle of unlocking the door when he added, a little hesitantly, “Please? I brought flowers.”
Sure enough, when it opened, a very sweaty Park Jimin was proferring a bundle of roses.
“Happy Birthday, ____,” he said sheepishly. “Surprise?”
The tears swarmed your eyes the same moment the smile spread across your face; with a small hiccup they spilled and Jimin stepped inside, laughing and wiping away the wetness with his palms.
“Nooo, don’t cry! Don’t cry! Ah, sorry I’m gross… Actually, nope, you know what, if you weren’t crying then I’d have no reason to be getting dirt on you right now.”
“Did you win?” you warbled, still sniffling and grinning like the biggest fool in the world.
Jimin’s eyes narrowed with wickedness, and his teeth bit his bottom lip in a feral grin.
“Well,” he purred, kicking the door shut behind him, “let’s just say I’ll be requiring your services before every match from now on.”
Your cheeks flared until you were a blotchy tomato, and Jimin chuckled at your adorably ruffled state.
“I guess I should repay you, though,” he mused, drying off the last of your tears. You smiled wryly back at him, self-consciously adjusting your hair and wiping at your face in a fruitless attempt to not look like a hot mess.
“That so?” you murmured back.
“Of course. I’m a man of honor, you know,” he pouted, and then he crept in close, the tip of his nose brushing against yours. “We went four-oh, so… four, and then one extra as a tip… and it’s your birthday, so at least one more good one… Ah, and I haven’t said hello yet.”
Your heart thumped loudly and your head buzzed with the rush of it. A little meekly, you whispered, “Hi.”
Jimin closed the gap, lips slanting across yours in a burst of heat and dizzying, overflowing passion that he could hardly stand to contain. He broke away only long enough to mumble against your mouth.
(“Hello.”)
–
Approximately a week later, the bright red 110% and ”EXEMPLARY WORK! BEST PROJECT I’VE SEEN SO FAR” at the top of your returned assignment – according to Jimin – obviously only meant one thing.
One-hundred and ten kisses was quite the debt.