Work Text:
In all his life that he’d known Kim Sooah, there had never been a scenario where she hadn’t shown him a good time. Whether it was the first party with the popular kids she’d invited him to, the first drink she’d peer pressured him into drinking (and later apologised for after he’d regained consciousness), or even when she’d smuggled in alcohol to the first Big Hit party after they’d become a group - Kim Sooah knew how to crank it up.
Therefore, when she convinces him to meet her after an evening shoot instead of going home, despite how tired he is, Jimin can’t help but oblige.
He reaches the spot she’d texted him and looks around, frowning when he only sees a half-empty parking lot with a couple of dim street lamps. Fishing out his phone, he scrolls to his chat with her.
“Hey!”
Jimin almost jumps out of his skin and his phone tumbles out of his hand. “Shit!” he gasps, catching his phone just before it hits the ground and turning around, heart racing. “What is wrong with you?”
Sooah grins, head and shoulders popping out of the silver car right behind him. “How come you didn’t recognise my car?” she demands, resting her forearms on the window.
“Because it’s… silver. Like every other car here,” he answers, turning around on the spot to make his point. “Why are you…” He looks at the entire image, including the deserted parking lot “... lurking?”
“I was waiting for you,” she explains, opening the door and stepping out. “You really couldn’t tell it was my car?” she repeats, sounding hurt.
“No! Of course I could,” he corrects himself, knowing how proud Sooah was of her brand new second-hand car. “I just… forgot. I would’ve recognised it if I’d seen the inside,” he adds immediately, laughing when she glares at him.
This car was her baby, as she put it, her first big adult purchase. Jimin had tried his best to persuade her to just let him buy her a car but she wouldn’t hear of it. After over a week of searching, budgeting and arguments that always ended in one or both of them sulking, they had compromised on Sooah buying the car and Jimin paying to upholster and redo the interiors.
Now, gesturing to the plush, beige faux leather seats, Sooah turns to him. “I have a plan for tonight and you are going to love it,” she declares.
Behind her, Jimin can see two bags of burgers, fries and diet coke on the seat, along with a folded blanket, and he understands. “Oh, are we throwing it back to the Incheon highway night again?” he asks fondly, placing an arm around her shoulders and squeezing affectionately. “Maybe this time you won’t slip off the bonnet.”
Sooah slaps his torso lightly. “No, but remind me of that again. No, it’s a different plan - I’m throwing it way back.” She smiles up at him, with a little too much knowing.
Jimin returns it, a little uneasily. “Uh, okay… is it the time we had sex in the backseat of my car twice in the same night? Because I gotta tell you, I think we’re committed enough to do that indoors.”
“Further back, Park Jimin.”
“I give up. Are you going to tell me? Or are you driving me?”
“I could… but we’re already here.”
Jimin looks around again. “You have to give me more of a hint, baby. Do you even have a plan? Or are you just making it up as we go along?” he asks kindly. “Because this is the road down to our high school and I don’t think we’ve ever -” He stops abruptly, noticing Sooah’s growing, brilliant smile. “No.”
“Oh, yes.”
“We cannot sneak into our high school!” Jimin hisses, looking around in half a panic. “We could get in trouble! We could -”
“What? Get detention?” Sooah shakes her head and grabs bags of food while he sputters. “You perform in front of thousands on five hundred calories, Park Jimin. This is should be a piece of cake.”
Ignoring his feeble protests, she begins walking towards the school, turning only to give him the same blazing smile again, lips red and hair shiny. “Trust me, Jimin.”
Trust me, Jimin. A seventeen year old Sooah had said the same thing, hair in a high ponytail and spiky fringe covering her forehead, as she handed him a pastel pink cocktail in a plastic glass. She was so incredible, so confident and beautiful and exciting, that seventeen year old Park Jimin had taken a deep breath, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and drunk the cocktail without objection.
“Only because you’re you, Kim Sooah,” he mutters, jogging up to catch up to her as she laughs in delight. “I suppose you have a better way for us to get in that isn’t the front gate?”
As it happens, she does. Meandering through a stealthy route including a space in between the boundary walls, a door with a broken lock and several thickets of bushes where they have to walk crouched, they finally enter the building.
“Is this -” Jimin follows her as she opens a door and saunters inside. “God, you are cheesier than you pretend to be, jagiya.”
Sooah makes a face but smiles anyway, backing into the chemistry lab and hitching herself up on one of the tables. “I wanted to bring you back to the beginning, to remind you of what you have here,” she says simply. “Before you leave and forget about all the things you left back home.”
“Oh, you mean like all the hot chicks I’m sure to run into in the army?” he says sarcastically, taking off his jacket and joining her. It’s nothing but the moonlight streaming in from one of the windows, but it’s more than enough. “I’ll be sure to tell them all about my first kiss with the Kim Sooah in the chem lab.”
“You better,” she says, sliding off the table she was sitting on to stand before him where he’s leaning backwards against the opposite table. “In fact, you can tell them about everything else you’re going to do in the chem lab as well,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him.
Jimin kisses her back eagerly, tugging her close to him. Her lips are plush and taste of cranberries, and her tongue is warm and teasing. Her hands slide up his t-shirt and a pleasurable shiver goes up his spine at the feel of her palms flat on his torso, running confidently over the muscles still activated from his rehearsal.
She sighs into his mouth and his body reacts; he helps her slip her jacket off and brings a hand to her breasts, squeezing them gently while she moans in response, biting his lip when he tugs her thin top down and brushes his thumbs over her nipple.
“This is the kind of thing you were talking about?” he whispers in her ear, before kissing her neck below. “Because I don’t think anyone has done anything like this in the chem lab before.”
“Probably,” she agrees in a sigh. Slipping her hands out from underneath his t-shirt, she reaches for his hand and brings it down to between her legs. “We can be the first,” she says, eyes squeezing shut when he squeezes her cunt through her jeans.
Deftly undoing the button of her jeans and unzipping them, Jimin slides his hand down over her underwear, feeling himself harden even more when he feels the warm, damp cloth. “Can’t believe you’re mine, Kim Sooah,” he murmurs, loving her so much as he gently turns her around and slips his hand into her underwear, one finger entering her.
Sooah bites her lip and moans in pleasure, pressing her back to his chest and kissing his cheek. “Mhm,” she hums when he adds another finger and massages her clit, strokes tender but firm. His other hand goes up her body again, squeezing her hips, her waist, her breasts and rubbing her core as he holds her close, not stopping until she cums.
Jimin lowers his head and tugs the sleeve of her top down her shoulder slightly, kissing the exposed skin as he retrieves his fingers. He’s painfully hard in his track pants, he acknowledges as Sooah turns around in his arms, looking deliciously ruffled. Wordlessly, she kisses him - and as if having read his thoughts, her hand snakes up his thigh to palm his crotch.
“Your turn,” she whispers sweetly against his lips, before lowering herself to her knees.
“Damn,” says Jimin after a while, stretching out on the chair and stretching his legs out on the desk in front of him. “I can’t believe I just got a blowjob from the Kim Sooah in the chem lab. I’d high-five my fifteen-year-old self if I could. You know what -” He slaps one hand with the other.
Sooah leaning against a windowsill with the moonlight giving her a pale, otherworldly glow, laughs and chucks a fry at him. “I definitely like this more than when Hyeri and Sol and I snuck in to smoke behind the football field. And I think I should be the one saying I hooked up with the Park Jimin. That’s the one that will really grab headlines.”
“That’ll be a hell of a headline.”
“Oh, speaking of -” She takes a sip of Diet Coke and raises her eyebrows. “You might want to tell Tae to cool it with the home videos with his girlfriend accidentally-on-purpose in the reflections. Twitter is starting to figure out that an adult man may be having intimate relations with a woman.”
Jimin, still reeling from the fact that this isn’t the first time Sooah has snuck into their old high school, frowns belatedly. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“I obviously have Google alerts on all your names,” she says nonchalantly.
“Obviously,” he repeats.
“I like seeing how fans are thirsting over my boyfriend,” she says simply, smiling when Jimin grins involuntarily, his cheeks getting hot. “Chae was actually the first one to do it. She was paranoid that her brother would see something about Hobi online and, like, guess that they were banging or something. She’s an angel, but I swear to god, it’s almost like she needs something to worry about all the time. Either it’s this, or her skincare, or that the shop is out of almonds so she can’t make her morning smoothie with the exact correct ingredients as this one Instagram reel she found.” She rolls her eyes. “This morning, she texted me to ask the longest I’ve gone without doing yoga and if that impacted my flexibility any.”
“So in other words, you miss her.”
Sooah laughs. “Guilty as charged,” she answers honestly. “I’m hoping I can just continue affording rent and utilities by myself until she returns so I don’t have to get another flatmate. Unless she decides she likes Dilara more than me and decides to just stay in London,” she adds dramatically.
Jimin gives her a look. “First of all, Dilara is in Seoul right now. And I’m getting a bit insecure here that you might miss Chae more than you’ll miss me.”
“Never. Why do you think I planned this tonight?” She gestures to the dark chem lab, swinging her legs off the windowsill to face him. “We don’t have a lot of time and this…” She shakes her head, a fond smile appearing on her face. “This is one thing off the bucket list.”
“Bucket list?” Jimin frowns. “Sooah, I’m not dying.”
“No… but I guess I didn’t think I’d have to deal with seeing you leave.” She shrugs, her smile fading a bit. “You know, we were - what? Twenty-one when we last broke up? It was too much to imagine that we’d somehow make it to almost thirty, together, to seeing you off -” She breaks off when he gasps. “I just mean - it’s not in a bad way,” she adds quickly. “It’s not like I didn’t have faith - I just didn’t want to let myself hope.”
“Not that,” Jimin exclaims, jaw dropping. “You just called me thirty!”
“What - I said almost thirty. And you are almost -”
“If I’m thirty, then so are you,” he shoots back, crossing his arms across his chest.
Sooah scoffs. “Actually, my birthday is after yours.”
“Ooh, I’m Kim Sooah and I follow the international age system,” he mutters sarcastically, rolling his eyes and diving for another fry. “I can’t believe you would say that to me. And it could be the last thing I ever hear from you before I leave - how does that make you feel?”
“I don’t know. I guess you’ll find out when you come back for a break.” Sooah dodges the playful flick Jimin aims at her temple and brings their clasped hands down. “Haven’t your friends already come back for at least one? No, wait, Seokjin has,” she remembers. “What about Yoongi? Have you talked to him at all?”
“You mean since he just up and left without a word to any of us?” Jimin shakes his head, feeling his mood sour at the memory. Everything had changed after that one farewell party. He can’t imagine what Yoongi might have seen or who he might have talked to, but after that night he had shut down completely. The rest of them had got exactly one message from the company saying Yoongi’s departure would not be filmed, and that was that. “I’m not holding my breath,” he mutters.
“It doesn’t really sound like him, though, does it?” Sooah ventures, tilting her head and squeezing his hand. “Actually, maybe it does?” she guesses after a pause.
“I don’t know. God, I’m gonna kick his ass the next time I see him,” Jimin says, recalling how his phone calls had gone unanswered before he’d remembered that Yoongi wouldn’t have his phone for the first few weeks. “Yeah, and I’m going to assemble a team to join me. Not Jungkook - he’ll just cry. But Tae - Tae will be pissed. Maybe Namjoon, too.”
As he says it, something occurs to him. Going by the look on Sooah’s face, it seems to have occurred to her, too. “Namjoon having no idea why Yoongi left seems unlikely,” she states evenly. “But you know them better.”
She’s right. “I’ll talk to Namjoon. I’ll force him to tell me what he knows,” he says with conviction. “With my words, not my hands,” he adds when Sooah raises her eyebrows. “Now that he’s working out again, he’s built like a tank.”
He’s not wrong; in fact, in the dim lighting of the bar that Jimin meets him in an hour later, with an oversized hoodie and hunched over something at a corner table, Namjoon looks more like a gigantic muscled boulder than ever. Jimin makes his way over to the table, bopping his head to the low R&B music playing on the speakers. The leader looks up just as Jimin reaches him, his phone on the table and lit up to what looks like a voice note.
“What are you -”
But Namjoon simply points to his phone and increases the volume, looking amused. Jimin frowns and leans forward, hearing what sounds like shouts and screams and laughter. After a few seconds of bemusement, Namjoon finally provides context.
“Kaya went out partying with her friends last night,” he explains, “and at some point accidentally left a voice note recording while she was out. So now I have about -”He checks his phone “- twenty-four minutes of a night out in Amsterdam by a bunch of students who leave the library twice a year.”
Jimin chuckles. “Kaya parties?”
“More than you think,” he answers, bringing the phone closer to them. Jimin leans even closer, now able to discern Kaya’s voice through the laughter, interspersed with at least three or four other equally drunk voices.
“- can’t even see it! Stop - oh God -” There’s laughter and screaming, followed by music getting turned on in the background. “- looking for Andrew and he’s not here with the tequila yet. Wait what? Where? The tequila’s here - shots!” A chorus of shots, shots, shots comes through the speaker, followed by the music getting louder and the piercing sound of an electric guitar drowning them all out.
“Pour some sugar on me!” Kaya shouted in a sing-songy voice, followed by a bunch of other voices cheering, laughing and singing along to an English rock song, everyone clearly drunk on tequila among other things.
“Future mother of my children,” says Namjoon proudly, pointing at the phone. He pauses the voice note and places the phone down. “I’ll listen to the rest at home. What’ve you been up to?”
“Had rehearsal, hung out with Sooah - the ush. Hey, speaking of which - what’s the deal with Yoongi hyung just ghosting the hell out of us and disappearing into the barracks?” Jimin says everything in one breath.
Namjoon blinks. “Wow, I did not see that coming.”
“So you do know something.”
The leader raises his eyebrows and shrugs innocently, all while Jimin muses at how terrible Namjoon is at lying. “I’ve already told you everything I know. We’ve talked about this, Jimin,” he says, giving him a look and pulling his beer closer to him.
“No,” says Jimin at once, having expected this. “No, we haven’t. We all wondered on the group chat, and then you said to give him space. And right now, I can’t remember why we didn’t double down on that.”
Namjoon sighs. “Look, I - I really don’t know what to tell you. If you’re asking if I know why he left without a word, I genuinely don’t know because he left without a word to all of us.”
“Yeah, but you don’t seem as concerned as we do,” points out Jimin, reaching for the beer without permission.
Namjoon watches him take a sip of the beer, looking contemplative. “I’m not… not concerned. I just know him and I know that we’re not going to get a word out of him until he wants to reach out. So there’s no point pushing him.”
“Because you know him,” repeats Jimin, waiting for Namjoon to nod. “Because you guys rapped together before any of us were BTS lived together for thirteen years?"
“Yes,” Namjoon answers deliberately, snatching his beer back. “And that’s why I’m advising you - let it go. He’s fine - he said so himself when I asked.” Too late, he seems to realise what he said.
Jimin pounces. “A-ha! I knew it!” He slams his palm on the table. “When did you ask him and what did he say?”
“It was before he left! I - I didn’t - I mean, I don’t know why -” Namjoon breaks off and sighs. “It was a few days before his farewell and he looked… not okay.”
“In what way?”
“In a… physical way, I guess? He sounded normal but he… kind of looked like he’d been mugged.”
Jimin frowns, something occurring to him. “The bruise on his face? I knew it,” he breathes, sitting back and running his hands through his hair, recalling the fading blue spot he’d seen on Yoongi’s face right before they were to film a dance challenge at the studio. “He told me he got that because he fell. He got mugged?”
“I said he looked like he’d been mugged,” Namjoon corrects him quickly. “I genuinely have no idea how he got hurt and he refused to tell me. Kept saying he was fine and that he already had a good concealer in his bathroom.” He shrugs and rolls his eyes. “And he also asked me not to tell anyone,” he adds deliberately.
Jimin shakes his head. “This is crazy,” he mutters. “What could have happened that made him just disappear?” He looks up to see Namjoon frowning at nothing in particular. “What?”
“I just remembered…” He trails off before looking up at Jimin. “I just remembered that we haven’t checked with the last person he spoke to. She has to know something…” He muttered, reaching for his phone and presumably messaging the aforementioned person. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. If anyone knows something, it’s her.”
Jimin is about to ask the obvious, when something at the bar catches his eye. “Is that… Taehyung?”
Namjoon looks up and frowns. “Yeah. Isn’t that why you’re here? I thought he called you. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m here because you’re here. He called you and asked you to come?” Jimin asks, craning his neck to watch his friend order a drink, his elbows on the bar and head bent low. “What kind of sad ass hangout is this?”
Namjoon chuckles and goes back to his text. “He didn’t invite me. At least I don’t think he did. I invited myself.”
“Classy, hyung.”
“He called me and said something about getting out of the house and getting a drink. Asked me for recommendations or something…” Namjoon shakes his head. “He sounded weird. And we can’t afford anything public right now, not so close before we all leave… so, yeah, I guess I’m just staying close.”
Jimin stares. “Weird how?”
Namjoon gives him a look. “I’m dealing with Yoongi,” he reminds him, holding up his phone. “Why don’t you deal with Taehyung?”
Holding his hands up and sliding out of the booth, Jimin jogs down the staircase towards the bar, pulling his cap lower over his head as he does. Despite this place being one of the few upscale bars in Seoul where celebrities have known to be able to hang out without being disturbed, Jimin keeps caution.
“Taehyung?” Jimin stops next to him and tilts his head to get a look at his friend’s face. “What are you doing here?”
Taehyung only points to the bartender in response who, on cue, places a tumbler of whiskey in front of him. The smell almost makes Jimin gag, but Taehyung takes a sip without flinching. “Smooth,” he murmurs, placing the glass back down.
Jimin frowns and takes a seat next to him. “Taehyung,” he tries again, giving him a gentle shake on the shoulder.
At this, Taehyung looks up at Jimin, his eyes slightly unfocused, as though just realising he’s there. His hair had grown longer in the last couple of weeks since Jimin has seen him; they fall into his eyes elegantly and effortlessly, his eyes heavily-lidded under them. Still so handsome, Jimin thinks off-handedly.
“Hey.” Taehyung speak finally, as though the word took him some effort. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I just came to meet Namjoon hyung, to ask him about… never mind.” Somehow, Jimin did not think Taehyung would be very useful right now in deducing Yoongi’s intentions. “Um, are you okay?”
Taehyung simply holds up his glass and takes a bigger sip. “Have a drink with me.” Before Jimin can respond, he’s already calling the bartender over. “One vodka with cranberry juice, please.” The bartender gives Jimin a glance, who nods in confirmation, before moving away to make the drink.
“How come you’re here?” Jimin asks lightly, hoping the question is open-ended enough for Taehyung to spare details, for Namjoon was right: Taehyung is certainly… off.
Taehyung raises his eyebrows. “Oh, no reason, really. Felt like a drink, that’s all.” He blinks and for a moment his eyes look red, like he hasn’t slept. “What’s going on with you?”
“Um… I was with Sooah just now. She says hi,” he adds, not recalling if she had said anything of the sort, but it seemed like the normal thing to say.
Taehyung cracks a half-smile, his gaze going back to his drink. “Date night, huh?”
“Something like that. We, uh… oh, we actually snuck into our school. Remember the chem lab?” he says, hoping to get some life into this conversation for something is wrong. “Choi Han and that jackass Daehyun had an arm wrestling match in there and knocked over that bunsen burner?”
Taehyung’s hollow smile widens just a sliver. “Hyeri’s skirt caught fire. The whole class got punished for that.”
Jimin chuckles at the memory as well, remembering a time when they were all skin and bones, with pudgy cheeks and high school crushes on the popular girls. His drink arrives then, a calming shade of red-pink, and he clinks his glass with Taehyung’s before taking a sip. “Wow,” he mutters, shaking his head as the liquor burns his insides. “How’s your night going? Isn’t Dilara here?”
“Do you remember that one team we worked with for some performance, where we had to do three sound checks before we could get on stage?” Taehyung asks as though he hasn’t even heard Jimin. His eyebrows are scrunched together; he looks incredibly handsome, Jimin thinks, momentarily sidetracked. “They always had these long calls before any decision and even Namjoon was pissed off with them. What comeback was that for?”
What? Jimin hesitates, then plays along. “Um… I’m not sure. Where was it?”
“Here,” he answers, sounding more engaged than he has so far, although his eyes are definitely red. “We were wearing… black. The jackets and those gold high-top sneakers.”
“Telepathy?” Jimin guesses. “It was in Yeongam, in the summer.”
“Yes!” Taehyung’s forehead clears and he purses his lips in what could be a pained smile. He claps Jimin on the shoulder and gestures for another drink as he finishes his first one. This one arrives immediately and Taehyung drags it towards him, taking a sip. Jimin watches as he places the glass back down and his shoulders fall again, as though this conversation has sapped him of all energy.
He’s about to ask when he sees movement and looks up to see a woman approaching them. Blond, possibly part foreign and about their age, she stops next to Taehyung. When he doesn’t look up, she locks eyes with Jimin.
“Hi,” she says in English, giving him a small wave. “Me and my friends are just over there -” She points vaguely behind her at a table where two or three other girls are standing around a table and dancing to the R&B track playing, close to where other patrons are also dancing. “We were wondering if you’d like to join us? For a drink and maybe a dance?”
From her tone, Jimin can’t immediately tell if she recognises them. When her eyes dart between him and Taehyung, who still hasn’t looked up from his drink, Jimin decides she doesn’t. She’s very pretty, but it’s with some pride that Jimin shakes his head apologetically. “I have a girlfriend. So does he,” he answers preemptively. “But thank you,” he adds to be polite.
The girl’s smile falls slightly but she nods. “Alright, no worries. Have a good night.” She places a hand on Taehyung’s arm until he looks up, as though just registering something happening. With a small squeeze, she drops her hand and walks away.
“Good to know we’ve still got it,” says Jimin dryly, chugging another fourth of his drink, cold and sweet. “Does it make me conceited to say I’ll kind of miss the attention when we go in? Not all of it, of course - but sometimes it’s nice, don’t you think? People appreciating you on the streets, knowing you’ve…” He shakes his head with feeling and clenches his fist while taking another sip and feeling his head swim pleasantly. “... really done something, impacted someone with your art - hey, where are you going?”
Taehyung, who’s already hopped off his chair with his drink in his hand, turns to look back at him. “I’m just…” His eyes dart around randomly and he blinks rapidly a few times, swallowing. “I was…”
His eyes are definitely red; for a wild moment, Jimin wonders if he’s on something. “Taehyung…” Jimin hops off his own seat and steps toward his friend, squinting. “Are you okay?”
Taehyung stares at Jimin, breathing very slowly and deeply. He’s biting his lip and when his eyes flicker, he looks like he’s about to cry. But the moment passes as quickly as it appeared and he downs the last of his whiskey. “I need a pick-me-up,” he mutters, pointing vaguely behind him. Before Jimin can respond, he places his glass on the bar and drifts into the area where people are dancing.
“What just happened?” Jimin asks no one. Something is definitely wrong - and if Jimin knows his friend, this is either an enlistment issue or a Dilara issue or both. He cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of his friend but instead sees the girl who had approached them earlier, and an ancient fear grips at his heart.
No, says a voice firmly in his head. He wouldn’t, not again. He makes his way through the dancing crowd which seems to have doubled in the last five minutes, keeping his head low so as to not be spotted. He doesn’t catch sight of Taehyung until he’s almost at the end of the bar and he spots him through the window in the alley outside, head ducked low, shaggy hair covering his face and only the bright flaming tip of the cigarette giving him any indication of what was happening.
When he reaches Namjoon, who’s still sitting in the same booth and scrolling through his Instagram, he stays standing. “I’m tagging you in,” he says, tapping him on the shoulder.
Namjoon looks up. “What happened?”
“He’s smoking outside, and smokers need the company of other smokers. You know, not people who do care about their lungs,” Jimin quips, dodging Namjoon’s playful punch.
“I can only take crap about that from so many people, so unless I’m related to you by blood or sleeping with you, you don’t get to lecture me,” he tells Jimin, standing up and sliding out of the booth.
Jimin grins and flicks his hair. “Just name the time and place, handsome,” he shoots back, laughing when Namjoon gives him a startled look. “Oh, relax. I prefer my dates petite and yoga-fit. You know, the type to sneak into educational institutions to smoke up.”
Namjoon gives him a confused frown but evidently decides he doesn’t want to know. “I’ll take care of Taehyung… and I’ll let you know.”
“Okay, thanks. Wait - what about Yoongi hyung?”
He holds up his phone as he walks backwards. “I’ve dropped the text. Just have to wait and see now. Don’t worry about it. Go home to your girlfriend, Jimin,” he says good-naturedly, in a way that makes Jimin momentarily sad for him. “One of us should.”
—
The cool evening breeze hits her face and she breathes in deeply. After being holed up indoors for at least the last ten hours, fresh air feels like an underrated privilege. She sips on her iced coffee, knowing she’s in for a long night of work.
Her phone pings and she grabs it with haste, heart slowing when she sees a group text from her boss. Any minute now, she thinks, for the call she’s expecting is very unlikely to be late. As if on cue, her phone rings and she sees a familiar name flash on her screen. Heart stuttering slightly, she answers.
“Hey,” she says, taking a sip of coffee to calm her nerves. And why am I so nervous?
“Hey.” Seokjin sounds almost breathless, like he’s been running. “Thanks for taking my call. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Nari frowns curiously. “Oh, you’re absolutely disturbing me. So much so that I think I’m going to have to hang up if this isn’t worth my time.”
There’s a pause, then he chuckles. “Duly noted. I’ll try to make it worth your time. Actually, you might have to make it worth my time,” he corrects, then immediately backtracks. “Not - not worth my time, but… I don’t know, I think you might be the only one able to help us make sense of some stuff right now.”
Nari nods, taking a seat on a bench outside the hospital. “You said it was to do with Yoongi?”
“Yeah… Namjoon says you were the last person - probably - to talk to him before he left?”
“I don’t know about last, but…” She recalls the cryptic text she’d received from him all those weeks ago, the one she’d considered for a moment as being some strange joke but had then decided was probably genuine. “Yeah, I did meet him a couple times before he left. Did he really not tell you?”
“Looks like the only person he told was Namjoon,” he says, but Nari doesn’t detect any resentment in the statement. “Or at any rate, Namjoon knew… and I’ve been elected to follow up because… well, because it’s you. It’s not like Yoongi to leave like this,” he says after a moment.
Nari nods. She’s glad he didn’t beat around why he was the obvious choice to speak with her - it feels less like he’s been pushed into it. “What do you want to know?”
Seokjin sighs, sounding tired. “I guess… when did you meet him? What did you talk about?”
She winces, knowing that any information she has will sound like cause for alarm. “Okay… just know that I did advise him to tell you guys, but -”
“He’s Yoongi,” they finish together.
“Yeah.” Nari bites her lip, wishing suddenly that they were having this conversation in person. It had been too long since the last time they spoke. From inside the hospital, at the entrance, Jason and Daeun wave at her. She holds up a finger before turning away.
“Um… okay, so I got a text from him - I guess it was about a week before he left? And all he said was that he needed some medical advice but couldn’t quite come to the hospital because he didn’t want to be recognised. It was weird but I went and…” The image of his bruised face had made her stomach fall; despite seeing worse on a daily basis, seeing someone she knew look like that had been different.
“Okay, Nari, you’re making it sound really bad.” Seokjin interrupts her memory. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” she says immediately. “I mean… I don’t know, Jinnie, he asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Yeah, but I’m not anyone,” he says at once. “So? Come on. Tell me.”
I’m not anyone. That, combined with her slip of tongue with Jinnie, almost makes it feel like they’re still friends, like before. It spurs her on, her stomach flipping faintly.
“Okay, but… try not to tell anyone else, okay? He had a - a bit of a black eye. And some bruising on his chest,” she adds, powering through Seokjin’s exclamation.
“A black eye? Like someone punched him?”
“Almost definitely,” she confirms, somewhat relieved that she’s finally able to tell someone. Yoongi had been adamant at keeping it between them, requesting her for only her medical advice in case he had any broken bones. “And a few bruised ribs. He basically wanted to know if he had to go to a hospital or if he could take care of it by himself. I advised him, very strongly, to go to a damn hospital and get an x-ray in any case but he wouldn’t hear of it,” she adds firmly.
“And he didn’t listen, obviously.” Seokjin exhales heavily. “Jesus Christ. Did he really not need a hospital, though? I mean… is he okay, do you think?”
“Honestly? Yeah,” she confirms, nodding. “His face would be fine with a few days of icing and his ribs were definitely not broken. And I did check in on him the day before he left and both injuries were a lot better.”
“Okay,” he replies uncertainly. “I mean… God, I don’t even know where to start. Why didn’t he tell us?”
“Well, I think Namjoon may have known because Yoongi referred to him a couple times,” she points out. “But other than that… I don’t know. I mean, my guess is that he didn’t want to worry you or get the company involved? He really didn’t seem to want to talk about it.” Ironically, that made me the best person to call.
Seokjin seems to be on the same train of thought. “Well, he certainly achieved that. He doesn’t even have his phone for a couple more weeks,” he adds, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
“I really do think he’s okay,” she ventures. “Physically, at least. Other than that… just a guess, but this had something to do with a girl.”
“What girl?” Seokjin asks automatically, but the answer seems to dawn on him almost immediately. “Oh. From that night?”
Nari nods. “Best date of my life,” she confirms wryly. “But, yeah. There is no way that was a one-night thing. I don’t know how it panned out, but the way he looked on the last day… he looked heartbroken, Seokjin.”
Seokjin sighs, but doesn’t respond. Nari waits, allowing him to digest this. She’s almost certain she’s right - that girl she had caught Yoongi kissing in a coat closet, right before storming out and being stopped by Seokjin, almost confessing things that could have changed everything… She squeezes her eyes shut.
“I won’t tell,” he says, after almost a minute. “Not if Yoongi didn’t want to tell us.”
That surprises her. “That’s… mature of you. Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he says, sounding troubled. “I can’t promise I won’t regret it later, but…”
“It’s Yoongi,” they say together, again.
Nari bites back a half-smile. The words had been on the tip of her tongue that night, her face and her heart in his hands. “How are you doing?” she asks softly.
He takes a beat before answering. “Same old,” he answers, his voice lowering a bit. “Not counting down the days as desperately as I was at the beginning.”
“Sounds like progress. You can scratch it out on the wall of your dorm room like in Shawshank.”
“And dig my way out? I’ll get discharged way before that happens.”
“Won’t be as exciting, though,” she teases, glad when he chuckles in agreement. “Seriously, though. You’re doing okay?”
“Yeah, of course I am,” he says easily. It sounds believable but she can’t be sure because he sounds so… grown. It’s Seokjin - and it’s her Seokjin, too - but he’s just out of reach. She doesn’t know him as well as she once did - the thought makes her deeply sad.
You aren’t asking me to wait for you, but that’s what you want, she’d guessed correctly, the last time they had met. And I didn’t, says a different voice, but you knew that.
“Seokjin,” she begins, tentatively, then pauses. This shouldn’t be so hard. “I don’t want you to find out through someone else, but… I’m - I’m kind of dating someone.” When he doesn’t immediately respond, she continues, not wanting to lose her momentum. “It was already testing the waters, I guess, back when we last… met.” She remembers the kiss, and his confession after. “And now it’s… yeah.”
“A relationship.” He says the word she couldn’t. “Nari… it’s fine. I figured as much.” It’s there again, the voice that makes him sound so much older, so grown. “Jason?” He asks lightly.
“Mhm.” She picks on a loose thread at the seam of her scrubs. “It just happened. And the pressure from my mom is kind of at an all-time high right now, so… anyway. I thought you should know.”
Seokjin doesn’t answer right away and Nari suddenly wishes she hadn’t said anything about her mother. It wasn’t news to him - in fact, if there was anyone in the world who knew the extent and the exact kind of pressure her mother put on her regarding this, it was Seokjin.
But it’s real now, the pressure and what it might lead to. Nari wishes she could share her trepidation with Seokjin, that she suspected Jason would propose and she would say no - or worse, that she would say yes and never know if she fully meant it.
“You’re happy, though?”
Nari’s eyes sting. She grips the coffee cup, the condensation pooling around her fingers. “He’s a good guy. You’ve met him,” she reminds him softly. “He’s kind and he makes me laugh.” And my heart doesn’t hurt when I’m around him. That had been the primary thing about Jason when they had started dating: how easy it had been. Nari had almost forgotten what normal attraction could feel like without missed opportunities and words lost in translation.
“That’s good. I’m glad…” Here he trails off.
Nari tries to guess. I’m glad you’re happy? I’m glad you told me?
“... you got what you wanted.” There’s silence at the other end for a moment. “I’m gladdest for your mom, though.”
That makes Nari laugh unexpectedly. “No kidding. She was convinced I’d die a spinster. And then she would die of shame.”
“Like that one time she thought you were a lesbian because you said you were going on your graduation trip with your college roommate?”
“Yunjin,” she remembers, shaking her head. “I really thought her brain would explode right there.”
“That’s a lot of pressure on Jason, if nothing else. Fun story for the wedding toast, though.”
Nari bites her lip. She’s too old to never have pictured it. A white dress, candles, a groom in black. It looms, and she knows Seokjin knows. Of course he knows.
“I don’t think we’re there just yet,” she says quietly.
“All in good time. He’d be a fool to wait too long, though, I suppose.”
Damn you, Kim Seokjin. “Will you come, do you think?” she asks lightly, partly in humour. She doesn’t need to specify where.
“If you want me to,” he replies, in a way that makes her heart clench. “You’re my oldest friend, Nari.”
She knows he means it. I would’ve given up everything for you.
“Yoongi will be fine, you know.”
“Yeah. Thanks for looking out for him.” There’s a finality to his statement; their moment is coming to an end.
“Always. And…” She sighs, wishing once again that they were having this conversation in person. She wanted to hug him. “Take care of yourself, Jinnie. Eat well and sleep and… it’ll be winter soon, and areas like the barracks are primed for hypothermia and pneumonia.”
She can almost picture him nodding indulgently. “I’ll keep an eye out for hypothermia and pneumonia,” he promises. “I need to hand my phone in a bit and I still need to call my mom, so…”
“Yeah, of course. It was so nice talking after so long,” she adds, meaning it.
“I know.” There’s a pause. “Be happy, Nari. Talk to you soon.”
There’s a click and the call ends.
—