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6:00
Yoongi regrets getting near to no sleep last night. He can’t help it, not when inspiration hits and he just has to sit down and pour his heart and soul into his lyrics notebook, but the thing is he has early basketball practice this morning and the team is supposed to meet up and jog around the campus at six a.m. Such is the woeful life of a high school senior who’s juggling schoolwork, a position on an athletic team and a secret rapping hobby at the same time.
He arrives exactly five minutes late, having skipped breakfast, and slips unobserved into the midst of his teammates as they make their first round around the school. He doesn’t risk finding a safe place to put his backpack down, for that would make the coach notice him for sure and probably punish him with extra laps. Yoongi isn’t in the mood for extra laps today. He’s beyond exhausted, running on barely minutes of rest, and his backpack, holding a full water bottle and iPad and 640-page literature textbook, feels impossibly heavy on his shoulders.
By the third lap he is lagging far behind the others. The early morning rays are surprisingly scorching, and far more sweat is dripping down his face than usual. For a second Yoongi almost closes his eyes, but he shakes his head and snaps them open again. Must keep on going. The team wouldn’t want someone who faints just because of a little bit of morning sun.
If someone were around to distract him, Yoongi thinks, it would definitely help. He would at least be assured that if he collapses someone would catch him, and having a person to talk to would take his mind off his aching calves, the ridiculous heat, the weight on his back and how irregular his breathing has become. But the others are already far ahead, not that they’re heartless but simply because that’s the way team practice goes. Yoongi doesn’t think he even has the strength to call out to his friends on the team. Sweat trickles into his open mouth and he almost whimpers in discomfort. Panting has gradually turned into coughing and gasping.
The next thing he knows, his back is suddenly no longer encumbered and he straightens up as Jungkook the cute bunny-eyed freshman flashes by, clutching Yoongi’s backpack by the straps in one hand with a mischievous shit-eating grin on his face. Damn kid is so good at everything, stealing the attention of Yoongi’s fangirls ever since he joined the team, and now he’s stealing his backpack too. Of course goddamn Jungkook is so good at jogging that he has managed to catch up with Yoongi by being a full lap ahead of him.
“Oi, give that back,” Yoongi snaps, though his smile is fond as Jungkook flashes him a smug, nose-scrunching grin.
“If you want it, you have to come get it,” Jungkook taunts, “but you’ll never catch up to me!”
“And why is that?” Yoongi asks with an amused smirk, though he knows perfectly well that he would never be able to catch up with anyone in this state, let alone Jungkook, the fastest on the team, in the whole school even.
“It’s a secret,” Jungkook replies, jogging backwards on his toes so that he can face Yoongi from the front. “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes in his characteristic not-impressed way, but he knows that Jungkook can see that he’s on the verge of dropping dead and is sweating more than he imagines is humanly possible. The younger smiles, eyes warm, and lowers his melodic voice dramatically.
“I’ll tell you and you only, because you’re a nice hyung. Don’t go telling anyone else.” He gives his shoes a little kick, and then he is gliding away.
“The reason you’ll never be able to catch up to me is that I’m wearing roller skate sneakers.”
Yoongi barks out a laugh. “Don’t go around skating backwards, that’s dangerous,” he warns Jungkook, but his breathing is getting better, his feels more sober, and his back and shoulders feel infinitely lighter. He knows he will get through this practice session in one piece now that Jungkook has relieved him of his backpack that weighs maybe twelve kilograms or something.
He makes a note to ask Jungkook later to borrow those roller skate shoes. They look so damn fun.
**
12:00
Everyone knows that Jungkook is a rich kid. His dad gets him everything he asks for, including roller skate sneakers, a drone, two drones even, and every new iPhone the day they come out. Funny, he thinks, that a rich kid like him doesn’t have any money to spend on lunch.
He supposes that his pride is the reason—yes Jeon Jungkook your pride will be your ultimate downfall—but the situation is complicated. His mom assumes that his dad gives him lunch money—he’s rich after all—but his dad assumes that his mom gives him lunch money. The two of them never contacted each other after the divorce, after his dad’s affair with his colleague was discovered.
Jungkook knows that all he has to do is swallow his pride and ask his dad for a regular allowance instead of the lavish gifts he sends through the post every once in a while, but he doesn’t want to talk to, or even think about, that traitor, whom he no longer considered part of his family. Alternatively he can also talk to his mom, but that would of course make her fret and become mad at her ex-husband and she’s already so tired these days, all those wrinkles on her face and dark shadows under her eyes, so how can Jungkook ever bring himself to burden her even further? He can’t even borrow from other classmates because everyone knows he’s rich. It’s a paradox, contradiction, dilemma.
So Jungkook decides to just suck it up and go without eating lunch. It doesn’t work out well, he’s a growing boy who’s in basketball and track and he’s always starving by ten a.m. He knows that he won’t be able to survive a whole day without lunch.
Which is why he always finds himself making a beeline towards the table of his favorite lunch buddy ever, Seokjin-hyung. This guy packs not only two but three lunches, one for himself and two for Jungkook. He says it’s because he’s using Jungkook, a young and healthy male with a big appetite, as his lab rat for testing out new recipes, but Jungkook knows better.
Today, as always, Jin-hyung is waiting for him with a bright smile and lunchboxes full of dumplings.
“I made different-flavored dumplings,” he tells Jungkook. “Cinnamon, wasabi, eggplant, butter, and more. The best thing is that you can’t tell which ones are which from the outside. You, my dear lab rat, shall try them out for me.”
Jungkook just laughs and takes both containers. Jin-hyung is putting on his evilest smile, making it seem to any casual observer that he’s pranking Jungkook with ridiculous dumpling flavors. What the casual observer wouldn’t know is that Jungkook eats anything and everything and Jin is actually performing a charity act by saving the kid from starving.
Jungkook takes one bite from a randomly chosen dumpling. “Licorice, I think,” he tells Jin-hyung. “It’s good.”
Seokjin beams. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Really, I’m really grateful,” Jungkook says in a small voice, because it wouldn’t do to let others overhear cool rich freshman Jeon Jungkook thanking others for providing lunch, would it? “Really. What would I do without you hyung?”
Seokjin’s smile does not waver, but his big eyes show confusion. “What would you do without… Yoohyung? The football player?”
Jungkook nearly smashes his face into the dumplings.
**
13:20
Seokjin has a free period after lunch and he always spends it in the library. It’s a nice, quiet place to be, though not as much since the school recently opened its gates to the general public in the neighborhood in order to make some profits. It has resulted in smelly old men and chatty old ladies crowding up the precious studying space, taking up all the chairs and using the library computers to watch K-dramas, but as much as Seokjin hates this arrangement there’s nothing he can do to change it.
At least today there’s a good-looking guy at his table, he notices, with hair slicked back and dimples as deep as the voice of Kim Taehyung the cute junior. Seokjin sees him around sometimes, but he can’t say they’ve ever been introduced before. The guy is deeply immersed in his textbook, concentration causing a slight crease in his smooth forehead, and Seokjin knows better than to attempt to chat with someone so focused. Besides, sharing the same table is an old dude who smells like sheep oil and a homeless lady, and it’s impossible to carry on a conversation without disturbing either of them. So he reads on in silence, as does the dimpled guy.
Seokjin stands up to stretch after finishing a chapter, and heads to the restroom. He takes his bag with him, because with all those outsiders in the library who’s to say that someone wouldn’t steal his wallet and his three precious lunchboxes, but he doesn’t want the seat to be taken by someone else either, for available seats are hard to find these days after the outsider invasion, so he leaves his water bottle on the table as a placeholder, knowing that surely no one would want to steal that.
He comes back and plops down in his seat five minutes later, all refreshed and ready to start a new chapter. The old man is wandering the aisles now, and the homeless lady nowhere in sight. Dimpled guy, however, is still there. They make eye contact and Seokjin smiles by reflex because he’s friendly with everyone, and the guy and his dimples lean forward, voice impossibly low.
“Don’t drink from the water bottle,” he whispers. “When you were gone, I’m pretty sure I saw the old guy put something in it… not sure what, but… yeah.”
Seokjin stares at his water bottle. It looks no different from how he left it, but then he chances a glance at where the old man is and realizes that he’s practically staring holes in Seokjin’s pretty pink sweater. A shiver goes up his spine.
“Thank you,” he murmurs to the dimpled guy. “I wouldn’t have known if—”
“It’s all right, it would be wrong not to let you know. If this happens again—” He shakes his head. A frown creeps over his gentle features. “You know, maybe we should… study together next time…? So that we can look out for each other?”
Seokjin nods vehemently. “We should! I’m Kim Seokjin by the way. You can call me Jin.”
The other smiles, and Seokjin thinks oh my god the dimples. “Call me Namjoon, Kim Namjoon.”
**
14:10
Namjoon sits at his desk with a hunched posture and a scowl on his face. He’s in his deep-thoughts-about-humanity-and-the-universe state, and everyone knows not to disturb him when he’s in this state.
He thinks about what happened at the library, just a few moments ago. It’s wrong. It’s so very wrong. He told Seokjin that he doesn’t know what it was the man had inserted into his water, but he actually did know. It was slightly sticky, dripping from his fingers, the same fingers Namjoon was pretty sure had been in the man’s crotch a few moments ago.
Namjoon was glad it wasn’t drugs or something, but this was almost even worse. How could someone do that to pretty, innocent Seokjin? How could someone do that to anyone? What are humans? Are humans inherently evil? What makes a human human? He buries his face in his hands.
He removes his palms from his eyes when he feels something soft and furry pressed on the back of his hand. A stuffed animal? How nice. Namjoon has heaps of stuffed animals, though he doesn’t let his classmates know that because a high school student needs his dignity.
It’s not a stuffed animal. It’s a literal full-fledged ferret. Are these things even allowed in school? But Namjoon relaxes once he sees who is holding the ferret. Cute small hands, chubby fingers. Park Jimin. All the teachers love Jimin, so even if ferrets aren’t allowed in school, they’ll probably let him get away with it anyway.
Jimin giggles and he’s almost as cute as the ferret, maybe even cuter. Namjoon reaches out tentatively to touch the smooth body (of the ferret, not Jimin), worried that with his destructive tendencies he may break the poor thing in half. It squints at him and wriggles and it’s so cute. Namjoon can’t help the giant smile that spreads across his face.
“You’re smiling, hyung!” Jimin squeals.
“Anything wrong with that, hmm?”
“It’s just that you weren’t smiling. You haven’t smiled ever since you walked in the classroom. You looked so unhappy! I thought she would cheer you up,” Jimin explains. “Her name is Minnie!”
Namjoon lets the long, furry pet burrow itself into his windbreaker and wonders, which is it that made him smile so widely, the ferret or Jimin?
**
15:10
Jimin has been dreading music classes since the start of the day, which is saying something, since it’s his favorite class after all. The reason that makes today different is quite simple—his parents have gotten him new glasses, and they’re god-awful ugly-as-fuck new glasses that only uncool senior citizens would wear, but Jimin loves making everyone happy and this naturally includes his parents and he said they were lovely and yes mom yes dad he will wear them in music class because yes, mom, that’s right, he might be able to get away with squinting in other classes but he absolutely needs the glasses in music class so that he can read the score sheets properly enough to follow along with the songs.
This means that like it or not, Jimin will have to wear the dreadful glasses during music period and he feels like crying because they’re ugly, super ugly, and as stupid as it sounds he doesn’t want his classmates to see him looking super ugly.
He has been whining about this to Taehyung since two days ago, even though the only music classes they have are today. Taehyung just looked disinterested. What kind of best friend is that, excuse me? Jimin thinks. At least sympathize a little?
But Jimin knows that Taehyung wouldn’t be able to understand how he feels. Tae is naturally attractive, he looks good in anything, he could waltz into class wearing a garbage bag and everyone would still look at him in awe and maybe garbage bags would become all the rage for the next few months. That’s Kim Taehyung for you. He wouldn’t understand Jimin’s insecurities over his own looks.
“But Jiminie, you’re perfect, you look perfect,” he would always say. Which is sweet, Jimin supposes, but still he wishes Taehyung could show a little bit of understanding at least.
He sighs as he walks into the classroom. Like it or not, he has to face it. Has to face music class, wearing those stupid old-people glasses because his parents have tossed his old pair into the recycle bin, saying that now that he has new glasses he won’t need them anymore. He slips into a corner in the back—the fewer people see him, the better—and begins to sadly rummage in his backpack for the cursed pair of spectacles.
Taehyung slips into the seat next to Jimin’s. Jimin doesn’t feel like looking at him, but some other classmates start shouting and he ends up looking anyway.
Taehyung is wearing glasses. The exact same ugly pair that Jimin has, and damn he looks radiant like that. The others in the class apparently think so too.
“Are those new glasses, Tae?” one asks. Another screeches “they look so good, I want a pair too,” and yet another, the known fashionista in the year, remarks “retro is the way to go. You have good instincts in style, Taehyung.”
Taehyung grins a box at the excited classmates and slings one arm over his best friend’s shoulder, squeezing into Jimin’s seat. “No, no, I didn’t pick them out myself! Jimin did. We got the same glasses so we can match! Right, Jimin?”
Jimin gives the surrounding crowd a sheepish smile and pulls out his own pair, sliding it over his nose. The classmates all ooohed and the fashionista classmate comments “Park Jimin, you look like you belong on a movie poster”.
As the teacher walks in and taps her microphone, everyone scatters off to their seats, and Jimin still can’t look at Taehyung because he’s so radiant, but he pinches Taehyung’s butt as he slips back to the neighboring seat.
Not exactly the most orthodox way to show gratitude, but he knows Taehyung understands.
**
16:20
Taehyung loves the pool. He’s born to be in water, he thinks, and as much as he would like to choose table tennis as his PE elective with Jimin, he still ends up choosing swimming. The cool water is soothing, welcoming. It feels like home.
He doesn’t even worry when he realizes that he has a cramp in one leg, smack in the middle of the pool no less, where it’s the deepest. He will be perfectly fine. His other leg still works, and while it’s a bit hard to swim like that he should be able to bounce off the pool bottom and make his way to the poolside without much trouble. The pool bottom is a bit deep and far away so he’ll have to hold his breath longer, yes, but water is his element and he’s fine. He would probably still be fine even if the other leg cramps up too, that’s how fine he is.
By the third bounce he hears people talking not far away as he comes up for air. His classmates have noticed his strange actions.
“What’s going on with Taehyung?” someone says.
“Joking around, probably. It’s Taehyung, you know how weird he is. He always does that,” another replies.
“Looks like he’s having fun,” someone else says.
Taehyung is not having fun, and even if he were because he’s totally fine and he’s timing each breath very well so he isn’t swallowing any water, he would no longer feel like he’s having fun after hearing comments like that. It hurts, honestly it hurts more than his cramping leg.
What if, he thinks, what if he were actually in trouble, and no one would come to his aid just because they think it’s his idea of a good joke, just because they think he’s having fun? He loves being known as the class clown, as the happy smiley popular and hot one, but can’t people recognize that he has other emotions, that he is more than a happy face?
Then strong arms wrap around him, and Taehyung blinks in surprise as he is pulled to the side of the pool by someone, a fellow student he’s seen around sometimes. He looks at the sun-kissed skin and muscular arms and knows who he is, who doesn’t? Jung Hoseok, the school’s resident sunshine and dance king, always having a kind word to say to everyone and always wearing a bright heart-shaped smile.
The heart-shaped smile is not present, however, and in its place is a triangular pout. Hoseok is breathless, nostrils flaring with each gasp, brows tightly knitted with worry.
“Are you okay?” he pants.
“Hobi,” someone yells from the other end of the pool, “Hobi don’t be stupid, Taehyung’s just clowning, you know! He’s fine!”
And Taehyung is fine, it’s true that he didn’t need rescuing, but Hoseok is staring at him with intense eyes and it’s just then that he realizes how hard his heart is hammering in his rib cage. He wants to say no, he’s okay but he wasn’t clowning, he wasn’t trying to dupe Hoseok into saving him by fake drowning, he doesn’t mean it, he’s so sorry, but there is suddenly a lump in his throat and he can’t speak.
But he doesn’t need to. Hoseok reaches out and gently smooths away a stray strand of wet hair that hangs uncomfortably in Taehyung’s left eye. When he speaks his voice is soft and devoid of any of its usual cheeriness.
“Just because someone looks happy,” he says, “it doesn’t mean that everything they do is a joke.”
Taehyung looks at the tired, unsmiling face, and swallows nervously, tearfully. “You know,” he whispers. Hoseok nods, lips tugging into a sad smile.
“I know.”
**
23:00
It’s eleven p.m. and Hoseok is all alone, unplugging the loudspeakers and cleaning up the litter the crowd left behind.
The audience has dispersed, the music has stopped, the other dancers have gone home. It’s late, and Hoseok’s dance mates are all high school students who aren’t even old enough to qualify for a street performer license. Their parents want them home early.
Hoseok doesn’t blame them for leaving him behind to clean up. Not everyone has parents as lenient as his, he knows. Sometimes he wishes his parents were stricter, though, like the other members whose parents come around and watch the performances sometimes and pick them up when it’s time to go home. Sometimes he wishes they could be there for his performances, even though they aren’t legitimate affairs and just something a couple of high school dancers who dream about making it big put up together. Sometimes he wishes they could be there to drive him home, because the walk is long and there’s no bus that goes to his neighborhood at this time of the night and the boombox is heavy and he’s exhausted from all the dancing he has done.
He would never give up these street performances, he knows that. He loves the adrenaline rush, the genuine excitement in the faces of the audience, the way his body flows with the music, nailing every step and counter-step, how easily he syncs up with his teammates. But every night the time comes when the show is over, when he’s all alone and nothing but a very cold and tired high school student who doesn’t know for sure if this path he’s on will indeed take him anywhere but still hopes and still tries.
He shivers a little. It’s autumn now, the days are still hot but the nights get cold surprisingly fast and it catches him off guard. He dreads the walk home, dreads the dead leaves crunching under his feet, the dark alleys and scrutinizing eyes of whoever happens to be still outside at this time of the day.
“You look cold.”
Hoseok’s head whips around and he jumps about two feet high before noticing the small figure by the lamppost. It’s not his fault for not noticing him, Hoseok thinks, the guy’s practically dressed in all black.
“Hey, Yoongi-hyung, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Hosoek greets, not bothering to put the least amount of enthusiasm in his voice. He doesn’t need to fake excitement in front of Yoongi, he knows, they’re too familiar with each other for that. Yoongi knows about Hoseok’s aspirations and dreams of making it big as a dancer. Hoseok is one of the rare few to whom Yoongi has ever shown the works he composed.
“Hyung, you shouldn’t be outside this late,” Hoseok reproaches. Yoongi throws a scarf at Hoseok, all black like the rest of his outfit. It’s warm and Hoseok snuggles his chin into it appreciatively. Yoongi pouts.
“But I want to walk you home. It’s dangerous to be outside alone at a time like this.”
“It’s dangerous for you to be outside too, hyung,” Hoseok points out. “What if the bad guys get you?”
Yoongi chuckles softly, as if not wanting to disturb the quiet of the night. “I’ll protect you from the bad guys. I’m really fast. They can never catch me.”
“You may be on the basketball team, but I wouldn’t say you’re really fast—”
“It’s because I have a secret, Hobi.”
Hoseok kicks away a stray tin on the sidewalk. “What secret?”
Yoongi leans in, grins and stomps lightly at the ground with his sneakers. The next thing Hoseok knows Yoongi is gliding in front of him, facing towards him while skating backwards.
“I have roller skate shoes,” Yoongi concludes. Hoseok bursts out laughing.
Yoongi doesn’t skate away. He stays at Hoseok’s side and they head home in companionable silence. If he doesn’t want to talk, Yoongi won’t force him to talk. With Yoongi, he’s allowed to be not-loud and not-energetic. With Yoongi, he doesn’t need to pretend.
That’s how Hoseok knows that the smile on his own face isn’t a forced one. Right now, here, tonight, he is truly happy.