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Hair: check.
Leather jacket: check.
Aviators: check.
Converse high: check.
Believing he had everything he needed for the day, Namjoon headed downstairs, ready to walk to school. The campus was walking distance from their house so he knew he could take his time. It was a good thing that there was this huge-ass mirror near the front door so he could check himself out one last time before going out.
Shit. I forgot the pants.
Namjoon scrambled back upstairs in his boxers.
“Yeah. You don’t have to worry, you got the right answers anyway, right? So what if they took away your paper early because you were causing a ra—what the hell?”
Jungkook turned around to see what his Seokjin hyung was looking at and once he caught a glimpse of it, he doubled over in laughter. Seokjin stayed rooted in his spot because of the shock. “Is that—“
“N-Namjoon h-hyu-haAHAHAHA—“
“Hey.” Namjoon did the ‘sup’ nod. “How’s it going?”
Yeah, keep looking. Namjoon smirked at anyone who he thought was looking. I know I’m cool, he thought to himself as they walked to the cafeteria. The usually crowded hallway was parting like The Red Sea when the trio gathered after third period to eat lunch. The students huddled in crowds and started whispering to each other. Some groups of girls even started giggling so Namjoon decided to look in their direction and – for the love of God – wink. They made their way to the cafeteria with Namjoon in front, making the two look like bodyguards flanking him. He pushed the double doors and headed right into them when they didn’t budge. Only then did he see the ‘pull’ sign near the handles, making him groan while entering the facility.
“Why is he acting all cool?” Seokjin quietly asked Jungkook from behind Namjoon.
“I know, everyone was already making fun of him,” Jungkook snickered.
Seokjin sighed. “Good thing nobody saw what happened with that door just now. Wouldn’t wanna ruin the image of our so-called genius here, right?”
“Wait, no—“
“Yeah.”
“Is that—“
“Yeah.”
“It ca—“
“Nope. It can. It is.”
“Oh go—“
Because of the huge classroom windows, everyone could see everything that was happening in the hall. This particular day, Wednesday, Jungkook and Seokjin were in the music room, waiting for the bell to ring so that they could start their music class. It was actually the only class the three of them, including Namjoon, had together. Just before the bell rang, however, Seokjin looked out the hallway window just in time to see—
“What in the world is THAT?”
“Uh... do you like it?”
Seokjin was baffled. “I have no words for it.”
Namjoon’s grin stretched until it reached his ears. This confused Seokjin even more but he was more intrigued by what was on Namjoon’s arm. The bell rang and everyone had to go to their proper seats. Namjoon was about to walk to his when Seokjin grabbed his wrist and whispered to him, “Cover it up. Please,” just before their teacher walked in. He quickly put on his jacket and headed straight for his seat.
For the rest of the period, Namjoon was looking as red as his converse was. Not because of him uttering Seokjin speechless when he saw his arm, but because he couldn’t get rid of the sensation Seokjin’s whisper sent to his body. He felt tingles and goosebumps rising all over his arms and the back of his neck and kept smiling like an idiot at random times throughout the entire lecture. It was a good thing Seokjin was seated nowhere near him. He would have thought Namjoon was sick or something.
“You got a tattoo?!!” Jungkook excitedly jumped up and down.
Namjoon put a hand over his mouth. “Shh!! Not so loud! And, for your information, no, I did not get a tattoo. I got a henna,” he smirked triumphantly. Jungkook stopped jumping and rolled his eyes at Namjoon. Namjoon sighed and took his hand off of Jungkook’s mouth. “I didn’t want to get a tattoo, okay? And besides, those things hurt like shit,” Namjoon pouted.
Jungkook sighed and rolled his eyes once more. “Ew. Don’t do that. Stop. Well, anyway, it’s fine. But if you didn’t want to get a tattoo, why’d you get a henna? What in the world would make you think that that was a good idea?”
“Excuse me, YOU in the world made me think that it was a good idea.”
“WHAT? Hell no, I wouldn’t have told you to get a henna. You don’t even want to get a tattoo! You suck.” Jungkook stuck his tongue out at his hyung. “How could I have given you that idea?”
It was Namjoon’s turn to roll his eyes at his dongsaeng’s words. “You don’t remember? You told me that if I wanted to get Seokjin to like me, then I should dress up or become a bad boy. So, here I am.” He straightened himself and tried to pose like one of those ‘gangster’ boys you see in dramas.
Jungkook sputtered. “W-what? When did I—“
“I admit I think I know what hell feels like when I’m wearing these pants and this god-awful leather jacket, which I shouldn’t have even bought in the first place, but I think it’s worth it. I think he actually notices me more right now and, yeah, okay, I know we talk all the time but I think this is the first time I’m making an impact, you know? I mean, he noticed the henna right away when I got to class. Well, okay, half of the school noticed first because I had my sleeve rolled up and our classroom was at the end of the longest hallway on campus but who cares, right? He—“
“Who noticed what?” Seokjin cut Namjoon off. His Calculus class just finished and he was starving. “What’re you talking about?” he asks as he takes a bite out of his sandwich.
Namjoon’s mind began to race. “Oh, n-n-nothing. I-I was j-just telling K-Kook-kie that, um…”
“That he’s getting all this attention because of his getup nowadays. You remember, like that time we went to the cafeteria with him. Yeah, that kind of attention." Jungkook butted in to save Namjoon's sorry ass.
“Oh,” Seokjin glanced at Namjoon, “yeah, okay. I get it.” He snickered to himself and sat beside Namjoon. “Do you like getting all the attention you’re basically hoarding?”
“Uh, I don’t―I don’t really know.” Namjoon didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know if he knew how to think anymore. Seokjin was smiling right beside him. He didn’t know how to talk to angels in their true forms. “I’m not really doing it for the attention…”
That seemed like a very bad thing to say because now Seokjin was very interested in what Namjoon had to say. “Oh really now? Then what’s all this for? Extra credit in Psychology or something?”
Jungkook snickered beside Namjoon. “Releasing your inner self, hyung?”
Too busy thinking of something to say, Namjoon didn’t really understand that they were already making fun of him. Instead, he proceeded to say, “Yeah, it’s a project.” He looked at Jungkook with a talk-and-i-won’t-help-you-with-math-anymore look in his eye. “No one really told me to do this but I think it’s gonna help me get something big when I’m done.”
“Well,” Seokjin started, looking thoroughly convinced. “Good luck with what you’re doing. Just please don’t hurt yourself more than you already did.” Namjoon guessed he was referring to the (fake) tattoo he got. “And maybe you can top it all off with a gangster-style motorcycle or something.”
Somewhere in the midst of Namjoon’s mind, a switch was flipped and a light bulb turned on.
“Be right back.”
The rest of the week consisted of Seokjin and Jungkook not seeing Namjoon anywhere except for the classroom. They tried catching him after classes and in between breaks but Namjoon seemed to be avoiding them quite well. Namjoon avoiding Seokjin was understandable but Jungkook couldn’t understand why he was being like that towards him as well. Jungkook was going to get to the bottom of it, even if it meant skipping 4th period and waiting outside Namjoon’s classroom to confront him.
Of course, Jungkook underestimated the power of the bell, the majestic bell signaling the start and finish of their classes and how students like him waited and lusted for this bell to ring like their lives depended on it. So when it rang, students didn’t just come pouring out of their classrooms; they flooded out. And, in turn, even if he was standing outside the classroom, Jungkook still lost Namjoon.
Lost him, until Jungkook spotted a bleached head amongst the black-haired students in the hallway. Struggling to get through the ocean of people, Jungkook had to physically restrain himself from screaming and calling out to Namjoon by covering his mouth. After 5 minutes of squeezing through the corridor, Jungkook ran to where he last saw Namjoon turn and followed him stealthily from there. Namjoon turned several times, making Jungkook turn several times as well, but when Jungkook got to the exit where he was sure Namjoon went through, he was gone. The parking lot only had a handful of people and none of them were as tall, as lanky, or as clumsy-looking as his hyung was.
Jungkook had only two theories: one was that Namjoon had finally perfected the art or science of teleportation, and the other one was that he bolted after he got out of the exit fast enough for Jungkook to lose sight of him. Either seemed impossible, and Jungkook’s head was starting to hurt, so he gave up and just looked for his Seokjin hyung so they could go home together.
As Jungkook walked away, somewhere near the exit and out of Jungkook’s earshot, shuffling could be heard from inside a fake wall, concealing a janitor’s closet. A tall man with bleached hair was doing a bad impression of the tango with a mop in an attempt to keep himself hidden in the room that was clearly only meant for keeping brooms and cleaning equipment. A sigh escaped from his lips 20 minutes after hearing the faded padding of footsteps walking away from where he was struggling to keep himself silent (20 minutes because he had to make sure) as he hid. He stepped out of the broom closet with 3 or more brooms stepping out with him as well. He checked his watch and found out that he was already 10 minutes behind schedule so he tripped over the nearest mop bucket and dashed out the exit (after apologizing profusely to the inanimate object, of course).
A good 2 hours after the end of classes, the scream of a frustrated janitor by the name of Min Yoongi couldn’t be heard because he saw the mess in his broom closet and chose to just scream in his head because he was just tired and just done.
Friday rolled around and Namjoon was still nowhere to be found. Seokjin and Jungkook had given up since Thursday and agreed that Namjoon was like a lost pup; if he wanted to find his way back, all he’d have to do was smell their trail. Which, in most cases, led to the cafeteria.
So that morning, when they made their way to their usual table, Jungkook found a note stuck to the middle of the table. He read it and turned to Seokjin. “Must be from Namjoonie hyung.” He proceeded to sit down and start munching on his food, leaving Seokjin confused and wondering why he was friends with these kinds of people.
“Mind telling me what it said?” He said as he sat down opposite the hungry boy.
“What?”
Seokjin sighed. “Mind telling me what Namjoon wrote on the note?”
“Oh! Yeah!” Jungkook had the decency to wipe his mouth with his napkin before resuming. “He said to meet him in the parking lot after class.” Seemingly satisfied with his own response, Jungkook went back to devouring his lunch.
“That’s it?” Seokjin frowned. Namjoon didn’t even say sorry for disappearing half the week? He was so going to get it later. But right now, Seokjin needed his food.
A number of giggling and laughing students passed them by as they were on their way to the parking lot. Some of them were talking about idiots and red scooters, but Seokjin and Jungkook paid no attention to them because they didn’t really think it could actually be related to them.
Until they found the idiot people were talking about, sitting down and waiting on his red scooter with a pink helmet in his hands.
Seokjin didn’t have to worry about Namjoon ruining his reputation as a genius.
There was no reputation to talk about anymore.
“Uh, Joonie?”
Namjoon looked up to see his two best friends, one of them the love of his life, in front of him, and he immediately regrets everything. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way ― he was supposed to be on a huge-ass Ducati sporting aviator shades and a badass helmet, but all he got was a secondhand scooter and the helmet he borrowed from his little sister. He should have just let the ground swallow him up when he was 14 and he got stuck in quicksand during their vacation.
Wordlessly, Namjoon stuck out his hand holding the helmet, motioning for Seokjin to take it. Seokjin looked at the helmet, at Namjoon, at Jungkook beside him, and back at the helmet. He was so confused.
“Wha―?”
“Just take it, hyung,” Jungkook said as he pushed Seokjin towards the scooter.
After having put on the helmet and hoisting himself onto the scooter behind Namjoon, only then Seokjin asked, “Where are we going?”
Namjoon turned the engine on and let it purr softly before answering. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
An hour and a half later, they arrived at the hillside that overlooked the town, the horizon stretching to where the river flowed out to the sea. They got there with only a few problems, like how the scooter struggled to climb up at almost a 40-degree angle and how they could have just walked up with how slow they were going, but it was all worth it. Because this place just happened to have Seokjin’s favorite view.
“Wow, this is amazing.” Seokjin closed his eyes and felt the wind rejuvenating him as he lifted his arms and lost himself in the moment. “How did you know about this?”
“Well, uh,” Namjoon was leaning on the nearby tree, fiddling with his hands. “You told me, once, about how you used to go climbing this hill with your hyung when you were kids and how you couldn’t do it anymore since he was going to college and you don’t have anyone to go with anymore.”
“I told you that? Really? But my brother’s got his own family now, so I must have told you that―”
“When we were kids, yeah.” He looked at Seokjin and met his eyes. “You told me that when we were at the playground when I was 7 and you were 9.”
Seokjin felt the wind get knocked out of his lungs. He couldn’t say anything but the tears that were starting to form in his eyes should have been enough to tell Namjoon how touched he was by the gesture. He was certainly missing something from his childhood recently, especially since college applications were everything to him now and he couldn’t get a grip on life since it was always in a rush, but he didn’t quite know what it was.
But Namjoon did.
“I,” Namjoon started, “kind of. Um. Like you.”
Seokjin blinked.
“Hyung.”
Seokjin blinked twice.
Namjoon sighed, willing his heart to calm down. “I’ve liked you for as long as I can remember and it’s starting to make me think that maybe I’m actually in love with you.”
When Seokjin still didn’t respond and kept staring, Namjoon started to panic. “Is that bad?” He cast his eyes downwards because he could handle rejection, just not rejection staring at him directly in the eye.
Seokjin broke out of his reverie at the insecurity in Namjoon’s voice. He smiled. “No, because I like you too.”
Namjoon’s head snapped up in a way that probably could have killed him, but it fortunately didn’t. “What?”
“Yeah,” Seokjin giggled. The birds and crickets were chirping, the breeze a bit cooler than it was just minutes ago, and the sun was painting the sky the most beautiful sunset Namjoon’s ever seen. The world just got a little better.
“So you mean it worked?”
“What do you mean? What worked?”
“This?” He gestured to the leather jacket he was sporting and the rest of his outfit.
“What do you mean that?” Seokjin stepped forward, gesturing to his clothes as well.
“Jungkook said you were into bad boys and I thought―well, I thought…”
Seokjin sighed. He really did wonder why in the world he was friends with the kid. “Don’t listen to a word he says. You’ve known me longer. And besides,” he poked Namjoon’s cheek. “I thought you were the genius?”
No matter how tanned Namjoon was, he still blushed a deep red and stuttered so bad that Seokjin no longer had a choice but to laugh at him because it was just too cute. In the midst of Seokjin’s laughter, though, Namjoon gathered up all his courage and grabbed Seokjin by the waist, shutting him up by pressing his lips to the elder’s.
The kiss was awkward, messy, and just downright wet, but hell, they’ve been waiting for a long time.
The ride home was a mess - talking through the wind rushing past your ears was hard but explaining where Namjoon had been for 3 days was harder, especially how he worked a part-time job hoping to rent a decent motorcycle for them to ride but all he could afford in the end was the miserable old scooter and no helmets. Nevertheless, it made Seokjin smile and laugh, so everything was definitely worth it.
“That’s not a real tattoo, right?”
“No.”
“Good. Those things hurt like shit.”
And for the nth time, Namjoon fell in love. Again.