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minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 41m
@hopeonthestreet hey i really love ur dance covers on youtube! ur amazing
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet - 3m
@riselikeyoungbae thanks!!! :)
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 3m
@hopeonthestreet i especially liked the big bang covers haha
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet - 1s
@riselikeyoungbae lmao never would have guessed u were a vip, mr. riselikeyoungbae
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 1m
@hopeonthestreet [blushing emoji]
---
Taehyung hunched further over the map Jungkook had unfolded across his dorm room floor. It was a standard university map, but within the past hour, they had made their own edits. Now, it was covered in thumbtacks and bold, black sharpie.
“Okay,” Jungkook said. Taehyung was pretty sure he had never seen Jungkook this focused on schoolwork.
(Not that he had room to talk. Last week, he and Jimin booked a study room in the library and spent the whole two hours debating Big Bang’s best and worst outfits. They never even opened their textbooks.)
“Everyone takes the route past the library to get to the dining hall, right?” Jungkook traced the path with his finger. “But everyone’s an idiot. We’re going to take the back route.”
“You mean the super long way? Like past the trash dumpsters?” Jimin already had a whining note in his voice. Taehyung patted his shoulder comfortingly.
“Do you wanna get killed or not?” Jungkook pulled a sock from his pocket, where he had kept it since the game’s announcement. “Because somewhere out there, someone has a very special sock with your name on it.” He waved his own threateningly.
“Fine. Back route it is.”
The week before finals sounded like a pretty absurd time to have a dorm-wide game of Assassins. In fact, when the hall director announced it, Taehyung figured no one would even sign up. Then he walked downstairs the next day and saw the sign-up sheet with names spilling well into the margins. The upcoming week, he had two papers and four exams. One of those exams was for Inorganic Chemistry, a class that made him want to die on the regular. Reasonably, he would have to study every minute of every day over the next two weeks to even consider passing.
But Taehyung Kim had never been known for being reasonable.
(And Jimin Park and Jungkook Jeon were dirty enablers.)
“We should get Yoongi to be our lookout,” Taehyung suggested. “Since he’s not part of the game.”
“I still think we should have snuck his name on the list,” Jimin said.
“He doesn’t even live in this building,” Jungkook fired back, exasperated.
“So?”
“Can we get back on track?”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Jimin flopped over onto his stomach, chewing on the sharpie’s end. Taehyung flopped next to him, slinging his arm over Jimin’s shoulders.
“We should also take a different route to get to class every day. That way our assassins won’t find a pattern.” Jungkook marked a big X over the main road that took him to one of his classroom buildings.
“I wish we could have used, like, nerf guns or something. Throwing a sock at someone to kill them is so boring,” Jimin said.
“Are you ever going to have anything of use to input?” Jungkook answered.
“Just because you’re some hotshot on Tumblr doesn’t mean you can act like a dick—”
“Says the guy who was literally in love with my Tumblr—”
“Was not—”
Taehyung smoothed his hand over Jimin’s bristling back. “It’s okay, Jimin, I think your comments are useful.”
“Really?”
Taehyung ruffled Jimin’s hair to drive away the pout. “Uh-huh.”
“Can you be gross somewhere else?” Jungkook groaned.
“You think his comments are useful, too, don’t lie.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
(They all knew he was never as grumpy as he pretended to be. He was a little like Yoongi, in that sense.)
“Anyway,” Taehyung said. “We should memorize our targets’ faces. Maybe if we camp out in the lobby for an afternoon, we’ll see them walk out, and we can follow them.”
“That’s not allowed, remember? The front desk security said they’d chase away anyone who sits there for too long because it’s cheating.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Jungkook folded the map decidedly. “I’ll make you guys copies. Just make sure to look over your shoulder wherever you go.”
“Don’t forget to stalk your targets on social media. The more info, the better.”
“And don’t go out if you don’t have to. Class, library, dining hall, that’s it.”
“Right. No unnecessary trips.”
“Not unless you wanna die.”
Taehyung placed his hand in the middle of their huddled circle. Jungkook and Jimin placed theirs on top. “Go, team, go! ”
They raised their hands with a cheer.
---
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 2h
@hopeonthestreet i’m actually an aspiring dancer so like… i was wondering if u had any advice?
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet - 5m
@riselikeyoungbae just love what u do!!!! and stay hopeful for the future ^_^
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 5m
@hopeonthestreet ah thank u that’s rlly nice u_u
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet - 1m
@riselikeyoungbae you should post a video some time, i’d love to see it :)
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 30s
I’M GONNA FUCKING NUT HE WANTS TO SEE ME DANCE
---
“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Jimin said, coat collars pulled high around his red cheeks. He sniffed. His nose was so numb he couldn’t even feel the snot dripping out of it.
“Because you want a peppermint mocha that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.” Taehyung tugged his beanie tighter over his head, pushing his fringe into his eyes.
“And you wanted fries.”
They glanced at each other, then at the road ahead of them. The wind blew into their faces, every gust like shards of ice slicing their skin. They weren’t even halfway there.
“Worth it,” they said simultaneously.
If Jimin thought about it too hard, he would probably fall to the ground in a rush of panic. He had seven papers due the next week plus a final exam, and he wasn’t even halfway through the first paper. Realistically, he shouldn’t have wasted even a moment’s time. Yet there they were, sitting in a study room, working hard, when Jimin expressed his desire to have a peppermint mocha from McDonald’s.
“Why isn’t there a McD’s on campus?” he’d whined. “I want one so bad. They’re like half the price of Starbucks.”
“Damn, I could really go for some fries, too. Cane’s never gives enough.”
“A burger sounds pretty good, too.”
“One of those giant refillable one dollar sodas.”
“Warm apple pie.”
They had stared out the window wistfully for about five minutes before Taehyung said, “It’s a forty minute walk to the nearest McDonald’s.”
“We could go tomorrow. We could wake up super early and study all day and go for dinner. We can waste like two hours, right?”
“Right.”
Jimin had tapped his pencil against the table thoughtfully. “Or. We could just. Go now.”
Taehyung stared. Jimin stared back.
Then they got up, packed their laptops away, and headed to their room to bundle up.
“We’re not supposed to go anywhere unnecessarily,” Taehyung now said, rubbing his nose with a gloved hand. They had both dressed in every article of warm clothing they could find. Forty minutes in the freezing December cold was no joke. “What if our assassins are there?”
Jimin snorted. “What’s the likelihood of that? Who the fuck wants to walk all the way to McDonald’s in below freezing temperature?”
“Us.”
“Yeah, well, we have a track record for bad decisions.”
“Come on, Minnie, you’re excited for that peppermint mocha.”
Jimin sniffed away his unruly snot once more, then sighed. “Yeah, I’m pretty excited.”
“Knew it.” Taehyung turned a triumphant eye on him when they stopped at a crosswalk. “You’re so cute,” he cooed, reaching out to clutch Jimin’s wind-bitten cheeks between his gloved hands. “You look like a tiny penguin.”
“Fuck you. I’m not tiny.” Jimin tried for a fierce tone, but he couldn’t fight the small pleased smile that snuck onto his face. It was okay when Taehyung called him cute.
“What’s he doing?” Taehyung suddenly whispered, inching closer so Jimin would hear him. Across the street, a cop leaned against a house, his car parked nearby. He had his arms crossed casually.
Jimin shrugged, walking across when the cars came to a halt. They were about to turn onto the cop’s street when he stepped toward them. Jimin unintentionally grabbed Taehyung’s hand behind their big jackets.
“Hey, boys,” the cop said cheerfully. “Mind walking on the other side of the street today?”
“Sure,” they intoned immediately, crossing to the other side as soon as they were able.
They were halfway down the street when Jimin realized he was still holding Taehyung’s hand. He considered pulling away, but Taehyung’s gloved fingers tightened around his own, so he didn’t. As they walked, another police officer drove past them.
“What’s going on?” Jimin murmured, glancing around uncomfortably.
“Stakeout,” Taehyung answered assuredly. “Look, there’s a third.”
A cop in her parked car sat at the end of the street.
“We should stay and see what happens.”
“Tae, you’re fucking kidding.”
“It’s a stakeout. Imagine what we’ll see. We can film it and show Jungkook. He’ll be so jealous.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jimin wrapped his arm securely around Taehyung’s and turned them around the corner. “Do you wanna get us killed?”
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, brightening. “We should stakeout our targets. Figure out their floors and sit outside until we’ve memorized their schedules.”
“That’s. Actually a pretty good idea.”
“I only have one class on Friday. We can do it then.”
They made it to the main road, the whoosh of passing cars turning the air even chillier than before. They huddled closer together, scarves tight around their mouths. In the very distant distance, they could see the golden arches of salvation waiting.
By the time they made it inside to the welcoming smell of supremely fried food (and maybe, vaguely, something going very wrong in the bathroom), all regrets were forgotten. The line was fairly long for a weekday afternoon, allowing them to steadily strip off their layers as they waited. Jimin glanced around him every few moments, scanning every corner of the place for any hints of a suspicious-looking college student. If he was the first out of the three of them to get assassinated, he would never hear the end of it.
“So I subscribed to this really cool dude on YouTube,” Jimin eventually said, tapping Taehyung’s shoulder to tear his attention away from the glowing menu screens. “He does dance covers. Like American music, mostly, but he did Big Bang, too.”
“Big Bang dances?” Taehyung turned a winning grin on him.
“You’re a fake stan.”
“You caught me. It’s not like I ever booked a flight to Korea to see my ultimate Choi Seunghyun when I was really drunk or anything.”
“That doesn’t count. Your mom wanted you to look up flights so you could visit your grandma, anyway.”
Taehyung scoffed. “Whatever. So did you talk to this guy?”
"Duh. I spent, like, four hours watching all of his videos ever. Of course I talked to him."
Jimin meant to elaborate further (when he said he had watched four hours of his videos, he was probably underestimating) when the cashier called for the next customer in line. He bounced up, cash in hand.
"Hi, can I get a peppermint mocha-"
"Sorry, machine's broken," she responded wearily, like she'd been telling tired college students the same thing all day.
Jimin gaped at the cash in his fist, gaped at Taehyung, and gaped at the cashier. "Fuck."
---
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae – 30m
to post, or not to post… to post, or not to post…
suga @takeyoutohongkong – 27m
@riselikeyoungbae can u stop whining all over my timeline
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae – 26m
@takeyoutohongkong if u don’t have something nice to say don’t @ me yoongi min!!!!
suga @takeyoutohongkong – 26m
@riselikeyoungbae just post it u loser he’ll probably think ur awesome or whatever
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae – 1m
@hopeonthestreet hey! here’s the promised vid of me dancing :) [attached video]
---
Taehyung had seen Yoongi laugh hard before. He laughed at TV shows and the blank look Jungkook got on his face sometimes. He laughed when Taehyung and Jimin came up with ridiculous ideas, and he laughed when one of them told a particularly corny joke.
But Taehyung had never seen Yoongi laugh quite as much as then.
"You mean to tell me," he said, still giggling, "that you ridiculous fucks walked all the way to McDonald's when it was cold as a bitch outside for a fucking mocha that they didn't even have?"
"And fries," Taehyung muttered. "They did have the fries."
This only brought on another round of laughter. Yoongi's snorting amusement drowned out the background music of one of Big Bang's older albums. After a few months of knowing them, Yoongi had quickly grown used to their music taste, although he had fought it in the beginning.
("I thought you liked J.Cole? Why don't you ever listen to J.Cole?")
"It's not that funny," Jimin mumbled, arms crossed sullenly. "I was mad."
"Of course you were, you little squirt," Yoongi chuckled, wiping a stray tear.
"I'm literally the same height as-"
"Not by one centimeter."
Jimin returned to his previous pose, arms crossed and a cute pout that was rather at odds with his bro tank and basketball shorts. Taehyung leaned over Yoongi to grab the DSLR he always had on hand, even when he wasn't taking pictures.
"Don't touch my camera," Yoongi said, but Taehyung snapped a picture of Jimin, anyway.
Any protestation from Jimin was cut off by Jungkook's entrance, marching into their dorm room. He was sporting bright blue hair.
"I dyed my hair," he said casually. "So my assassin won't recognize me."
Yoongi laughed so hard he tumbled right off the bed.
---
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet - 1m
@riselikeyoungbae yo!!!! you’re really good wow *_*
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae - 1m
@hopeonthestreet [blushing emoji] omg thank u omg
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet – 30s
@riselikeyoungbae you’re pretty cute too ;)
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae – 10s
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae – 5s
AHHHHHHHHHHHH OH MY GODDDDD AHHHHHHHHHHHH
V ☼ @boptothetabi 1s
@riselikeyoungbae i call u cute every day :(
---
They were walking into the dorm building when Taehyung saw him- his target. He stepped out of a car wearing a bucket hat and a pair of shorts, and Taehyung recognized him solely from the one picture that everyone participating in the game had been given of their target. The sharp jawline and big smile were kind of hard to miss.
Jungkook, Jimin, and Yoongi were busy arguing over the dorm building's keycode.
"It's definitely 2495."
"It's obviously not. If it were 2495, we'd be inside by now."
"Okay, 2459."
"We tried that already, asshole."
Taehyung spun on his heel, leaving them behind. He reached into his pocket for the sock he had kept with him like a second soul since the game's start. The guy was almost entirely out of the car's backseat, backpack slung on one shoulder, when he noticed Taehyung coming toward him. Taehyung saw his eyes widen, mouth open, as he registered the situation.
He dived right back into the car.
"Drive, drive!" Taehyung heard him shout to whoever else was in the car, panic clear in his tone.
Skidding to a stop at the curb, Taehyung watched the car zoom off down the road.
"I was so close!" Taehyung groaned when the others caught up. "I almost had him. Now he knows who I am."
"Let's stake out his room," Jungkook suggested, bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation. "He was obviously coming back. He can't stay out forever, right?"
"Leave me out of this," Yoongi said. "Gimme one of your room keys so I can take a nap."
Taehyung's target, he had discovered after some very intensive internet stalking, lived on the building's twelfth floor. It only took about five minutes of walking one end of the floor to the other to find his name on one of the doors just by the elevator.
They split up, Jungkook on one side of the hall and Jimin and Taehyung on the other, wider side by the second elevator. Taehyung sat on the floor of one end, Jimin on the other, facing each other with their phones in hand for Jungkook's messages. Twelve flights of stairs were a lot to climb, so they were banking on his target coming by elevator.
Every few seconds, Taehyung glanced at his phone to see if Jungkook had messaged. The elevator on their side dinged after five minutes, and his eyes shot up to meet Jimin's. They raised into crouches, waiting, tense, but a group of girls came out instead.
kookie ☠ ☠ ☠
seagull to golden lion & chim puppy, was that the elevator?
♡ ☾ minnie ☼ ☠
WHO SAID I WAS CHIM PUPPY AGAIN
and no it was someone else
Another ten minutes passed. Taehyung made faces at Jimin to pass the time. A door in front of Taehyung opened right in the middle of the ugliest face he could pull; a girl walked out, stared at him, burst into laughter, then walked off down the hall.
Over a ways, Jimin stifled his laughter in his arm.
The elevator dinged. Taehyung saw Jimin's eyes widen first. He shot to his feet just as a guy in a bucket hat stepped out. His sock was in his hand and ready to be thrown when-
"Hope on the Street!" Jimin shouted, arm raised to point.
The guy stared at him, confused, and Taehyung took the opportunity to whack his shoulder with the sock.
"Got you!" Taehyung exclaimed, whooping in victory. "You've been slayed! Assassinated! Destroyed!"
"You're Hope on the Street," Jimin interrupted. "I talked to you. I'm riselikeyoungbae."
Hope on the Street's eyebrows raised. "Oh, hey. I'm Hoseok." Then he turned to Taehyung and said, "You suck."
Taehyung grinned and waved his sock triumphantly.
---
minnie ☾ @riselikeyoungbae 2m
@hopeonthestreet wahhhh hope on the street-nim, bring me some pizzzaaaaaaaa
V ☼ @boptothetabi 1m
@hopeonthestreet @riselikeyoungbae don’t forget the ranch
hobi hobi @hopeonthestreet 45s
@riselikeyoungbae @boptothetabi i’m blocking both of you
---
