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“You have a good voice.”
Jimin straightens and turns in surprise to see a young man leaning against the doorway.
He has a beanie pulled low over the hair partly covering his eyes and a scarf partly covering his face.
“Thank you…? Um, are you supposed to use this room? Sorry, I’ll just gather my things.”
“No need,” the stranger says. “I just peeked in when I heard someone singing.”
With that, he leaves as Jimin looks on in bemusement.
Over the next few days, the strange meeting stays and keeps on replaying in Jimin’s mind.
He’d been looking (covertly) around the school but he never sees the stranger again.
“We need to stop meeting like this.”
Jimin stops singing and turns to the door to see the same stranger he’d met almost two weeks ago. “Um, hi…?”
The young man smirks and Jimin sucks in a surprised breath at the picture it makes. This time the stranger isn’t wearing anything to disguise his features. The result is pale skin, brown hair, a smirking mouth and sleepy eyes.
Jimin’s heart beats just a little bit faster.
The stranger keeps smirking as he enters the room and plops down into a chair across Jimin. “What were you singing?”
“Oh. Just…just something I wrote for the composition class.”
“Let me take a look.”
Jimin clutches the paper tighter. “Um, no…? It’s my first time so it really sounds weird and not…good.”
The other just raises an eyebrow and extends an expectant hand and Jimin doesn’t know what possesses him to show something he hadn’t even shown his best friend (even though Taehyung had all but begged on his knees) to a stranger but he reluctantly ends up handing the first song he ever wrote to someone he’d met for only the second time.
There is a long moment where the stranger reads and Jimin fidgets in his seat.
“It’s not bad for a first try,” the stranger finally says. “If you keep working on it, you’ll probably be decent in the future. Maybe.”
“Oh, thank you!”
The other man shrugs, hands the paper back to Jimin and starts to walk towards the door.
Jimin stands and says, “Wait! What’s your name?”
The stranger stops at the doorway, looks at him strangely, and his lips pull up in a smirk (Jimin starts to think that that’s his signature look). “Well, that’s for you to find out, Park Jimin. I really do like your voice, by the way.”
“He’s not here.” Jimin says and sighs in disappointment. “Does that mean he isn’t student here?”
Taehyung stops making weird faces at the mirror and turns to him. “Maybe he’s a serial killer who became obsessed with your voice and wants to secretly steal your face.”
Taehyung says this with such a serious expression that Jimin is left speechless.
“Maybe I need to check the graduates? He could be a visiting alumnus.” Jimin says after a beat.
“Or maybe,” The weirdo he has for a best friend continues blithely, “he’s a student here who died years ago because he committed suicide since nobody ever complimented his song writing and so he spends his days complimenting other students who’re trying their hand out in composing!”
Jimin shakes his head. “Tae, be serious. He knew who I am so he must be a student at our school, right?”
His best friend just scrunches up his nose and shrugs. “Everyone knows who you are Mr. I-won-in-a-nationwide-dance-contest-and-have-a-fanclub-to-prove-it.”
At Jimin’s grimace, Taehyung laughs and shrugs again. “Well, the school also offers night classes so he might be a night student?”
Jimin thinks back to the two meetings they’d had and realises that they did happen past six in the evening. “Tae, you’re a genius!”
“Of course I am.” Taehyung deadpans and Jimin is much too excited to hit him over the head for his arrogance (even if he was technically saying the truth).
“What do you mean you don’t have a class list for the night students?!”
Jimin reddens as the clerk’s eyebrows raise so high they almost touch the place where his forehead ends and his hair begins.
He clears his throat and says in a much calmer voice, “I mean surely you keep track of the students in the night classes, right…sir?”
The clerk sighs deeply and looks him in the eye. “Look, the night classes are sort of a cram school and most of the students pay cash on the day they actually have time to come here. So, we don’t actually have a finalized list.”
“What about applications or enrolment forms? The ones with pictures? You have them, right? Can I just look at them real quick, sir?”
The older man’s gaze is so judging that Jimin feels like he’s getting smaller and smaller.
And it did not help at all that Taehyung is snickering at the end of the hall.
So much for supportive best friends.
“That’s against the law. Client confidentiality and all, you know.” The clerk finally says, making a shooing motion with his hand. “Now, if you don’t mind, I really need to get on with my job.”
“What’s so important about finding this guy anyway?” Taehyung asks, filching a chip from Jimin’s snack.
They’re studying, or rather Jimin had begged Taehyung to help him study and his best friend agreed, but they ended up playing games and eating instead.
As usual.
Jimin mourns for his Chemistry grade.
It’s been another week and all he could talk about was the stranger from the music room. He’d tried all the ways he could think of to discover someone’s identity with only descriptions of how they looked like and he had had no results.
Taehyung was obviously getting tired of it.
Presently, Taehyung swallows and burps without shame. Jimin forgives him only because they’d known each other since they’d been in diapers (and possibly even before, considering that their moms were best friends as well).
“I mean besides from the fact that you have a crush on him. Don’t even try to deny it.”
Jimin blushes but he deflates under Taehyung’s raised eyebrow. “He said he liked my voice and I…just, there’s something about him, okay?”
Taehyung sighs. “Jiminie, tons of people have told you they liked your voice, myself included. I don’t get why this guy’s so important.”
Jimin groans and wonders if he’d ever get to know his stranger’s name or not. “Just…drop it, Tae. And help me study. For real, this time. My Chemistry grade needs your help.”
“You have an A- in Chemistry.” Taehyung says as he flops down and stretches his (long) limbs. Jimin loves him but really, why’d Taehyung have to grow up so tall and he…not.
Jimin frowns. “I need an A+ if I ever want to get accepted into SNU like you want me to.”
“That’s like, two years away.” Taehyung grunts. “And besides, you’ll get accepted. All your other grades are fine.”
“Says the man who has A+ in all his subjects,” Jimin mumbles. “Without even studying, I might add.”
“Genius,” Taehyung says, tapping his head. “You’ll be fine.”
Jimin sighs.
Taehyung really is one of the smartest people he knew and there are times when Jimin envies his brain but then, there are also times when Taehyung starts talking about aliens and water life-forms that could enter your nose and take-over your person and Jimin realises that he’s contented with his.
Their next meeting is a month later and this time, Jimin is dozing inside the music room, music sheets clutched in his hand and earphones plugged into his ears.
He wakes up when he feels them being pulled out.
“Wha—“ His eyes widen as he sees the same stranger he’d been looking for. “You!”
The other man grins. “Me.”
“What’s your name?”
The stranger just laughs and Jimin can’t help but notice the way his eyes crinkle and the way his gums show.
“You still don’t know?” The other teases and stands up after shoving a flash drive and a piece of paper into Jimin’s hands. “Well, that’s a shame. See you next time, Park Jimin.”
“Wait!” Jimin stands up and trips over his feet as he rushes towards the other man. He’s still getting his bearings and the other is already at the door. “At least tell me if you study here! Or give me a clue!”
The stranger actually winks—winks!—before he chuckles and raises a hand in farewell.
“Where would be the fun in that, though?”
Jimin just stands there gaping as the stranger walks away; until he remembers the items that had been pushed into his hands.
Curious, he plugs the drive into his laptop and opens the audio file, eyes widening in surprise as he hears his song, tweaked in a few places and sounding much better than the original. He opens the piece of paper to see lyrics scribbled there, the handwriting almost ineligible.
At the very end of the paper is a single line that stands out from the rest.
‘The song was good but I changed a few things and I’m looking forward to hearing you sing my version.’
“You owe me for this, Jiminie.”
“I know, Tae. I love you and I am eternally grateful.”
“You are also treating me to burger and fries every week until classes end.”
“Tae! That’s like…twenty weeks!”
Taehyung just smiles. “Do you want lover-boy to hear this or not?”
Jimin raises a hand to cover Taehyung’s mouth. “Don’t call him that! And yes, fine I will treat you until classes end if you can convince Mino-hyung to play the song over the campus radio this Friday.”
“I knew I loved you for a reason,” Taehyung croons and waggles his eyebrows as he takes the flash drive from Jimin and skips toward the multimedia room. “And it’s twenty-two weeks, Jiminie!”
Jimin sighs and trudges toward the music room, placing a sign against the window and hoping that the janitor wouldn’t notice and remove it before the person he intended read it.
‘mysterious stranger who refuses to tell me his name: listen well to this Friday’s broadcast’
Three hours later, another young man stops by the music room, reads the note and walks away smiling.
“Hey, I know that tune,” Hoseok says, as a song starts to play over the school’s speakers. “Yoongi-hyung, wasn’t this song the one you were working on last week?”
Min Yoongi shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips.
“That’s Park Jimin’s voice isn’t it?” Namjoon comments next, eyes trained on Yoongi’s barely there smile (which was a very big thing, indeed, because Yoongi smiling? Were pigs going to fly next, really?).
“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Hoseok says. “Did he ask you to write a song?”
“That’s his song, actually,” Yoongi grunts back. “Now keep quiet, I want to listen.”
Namjoon and Hoseok exchange looks but dutifully fall silent.
When the last note fades away, Namjoon clears his throat and says, “Okay, spill. How come he’s singing a song I’m sure you were composing a week ago, hyung?”
“I told you, it’s his song. I just tinkered with it a bit and then gave it back to him.”
“How come we never knew you two were close enough to exchange songs?” Hoseok demands. “I didn’t even know you had other friends aside from us and Jin-hyung!”
Yoongi shoots a glare and a piece of his bread to Hoseok, doing the same to Namjoon as the taller male snickers.
“Shut up. It’s none of your business.”
When Yoongi refuses to budge even as the other two badger him relentlessly for the remaining of their lunch hour, Hoseok huffs and tells him that they’d find out sooner or later.
Yoongi thinks about Park Jimin’s admittedly bold (and surprising) move and silently agrees.
“I liked the way you sang.”
This time, Jimin is prepared. When he hears the low voice, he immediately stands up and latches onto the other man’s arm.
“You are not leaving until you tell me your name.”
Another sardonic, raised eyebrow before the familiar smirk is back. “Min Yoongi—and that’s hyung to you, Park Jimin.”
For a moment, Jimin doesn’t know how to react, after all he’d never expected his stranger—Yoongi—to actually tell him the truth so easily.
“Well? Cat got your tongue?”
Jimin shakes off his surprise and releases the older man’s arm. “Er…right. Yoongi-sunbae?”
“I told you, it’s hyung to you.” Yoongi corrects, smirk still in place.
“Um, right.” Jimin clears his throat and moves towards his seat. “So, you heard the song…hyung?”
“Didn’t I just say I liked it?” Yoongi asks, plopping down on a seat, resting his feet on the table and tilting the seat back so that it only rested on two legs. “Of course, I heard it. It was playing through the school’s speakers after all.”
“So, you are a student here?” Jimin exclaims, eyes wide. “How come you’re not in the official registry?!”
Yoongi laughs, something that brings back the gummy smile and crinkled eyes and Jimin gulps.
“You looked through the school registry?” Yoongi laughs harder as Jimin’s face gets progressively redder.
After a while, he calms down enough to answer. “Yes, I am a student here and I’m repeating my senior year so I guess that’s why I’m not in the roster. Hm, come to think of it, I better have that checked before graduation.”
“Oh.” Jimin figures that made sense. “Why were you held back, hyung?”
Yoongi looks at him with something akin to fondness. “I underwent an appendectomy and missed like more than half of the school year because of it so…”
“Oh.”
Yoongi laughs again.
“Why didn’t you tell me your name when I asked the first time?”
“Because it was fun.”
“That’s not a reason, hyung!”
Yoongi chuckles. “Well, that’s my only reason so take it or leave it.”
Jimin pouts and crosses his arms.
Yoongi laughs again and admits, not for the first time, that Park Jimin is very, very cute.
“Wait, did you just say you’re Min Yoongi?! The Min Yoongi who composed the track I danced to at the nationals?! That Min Yoongi?!”
Needless to say, Taehyung was a little disappointed to know that it wasn’t a stalker or a ghost after all. Still, he made Yoongi laugh so hard people stared when he started telling the senior about the lengths Jimin went to just to find out his identity.
Jimin, cringing from the side lines, wonders if it was too late to find a new best friend. Maybe the incoming freshman he’d met during his usual breakfast run, Jungkook, would be a better choice than the one he had now.
Beside him, Yoongi snorts and Taehyung recounts another embarrassing anecdote revolving around him.
But then Yoongi shoots him a smile and it so fond that Jimin decides he can forgive Taehyung this time.