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yoonieper · 2 years

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Secrets of the Sea— Part 2 | MYG

❂ Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

❂ Genre: Mermaid AU Keeper AU, slight enemies to lovers, fluff, angst, future smut

❂ Rated: I for INFORMATION!!! [❁, ❅]

❂ Warnings: nsfw themes are discussed *wink wink nudge nudge*, lots of information is learned, Yoongi finally starts spilling the tea, Y/N is extremely confused, they’re very cute in this chapter

❂ Word Count: 27.1k

❂ Summary: A summer vacation you had planned with you and your friends turns into the unexpected when you happen to discover an otherworldly creature in your own backyard. Is that… is that a merman? What starts as a clash between species, turns into an unforeseen research project when you both become curious about your two completely different cultures. Land and water, two different worlds on the same planet. Maybe they can come together…?

❂ Author’s Note: This took a while but it’s finally here! This might be the longest chapter in the whole series, I say that and jinx myself lol, but the other chapters should come out a lot sooner! Also sidenote, I keep changing the banner lol >.< Sorry if you're reading through this all together and you keep seeing different ones lol~ This is actually fanart I made for the story that I might post in it's unblurry version here one day :3 Anyway, thanks so much for waiting, enjoy the story!

❂ Beta: Thank you so much @chemicalpink for looking over this mess :,)

If you have trouble loading the story, please check it out on ao3! I also posted it on there! Link to my profile on my about me page!

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | To be continued~

No reposting, modifying. Translating is not allowed unless given explicit permission. Thank you so much : D

[Bold words are Yoongi speaking in his language]

Eggs.. no… What if you had—... no, no you don’t have that either. Your fridge was empty. You had been hoping to cook some actual breakfast for once, but the only thing you really had in there was a bunch of fish you had bought for Yoongi and some bottles of water. None of that really screams breakfast.

You sighed.

You had spent the day worried about your new fishy friend. It was now the next day after the big transformation and he still hadn’t woken up… The only reason you hadn’t had a complete meltdown was in the fact that you remembered how exhausted he seemed after the whole thing. You were just a bit on edge as the hours turned into the following day, up to the point where one could only hope he was ok.

Deciding between heading to the store or just having more ramen like you had been doing for the past few weeks, a sudden thud takes you out of your thoughts. The first place your mind went to was Yoongi who was in the room up above.

Uh oh.

You dropped your ramen and ran up the stairs to him.

“Yoongi?!” You panicked as you opened the door. To confirm your suspicion you found the poor man on the floor.

“What happened?” You questioned as you hurried over to help him but quickly shielded your eyes realizing both the blanket and towel had slipped off his form.

“Why is walking so hard?” He sighed, making you realize what had happened.

“Sooo you still can’t walk?” You asked and he scoffed.

“Do humans learn to walk in a day?” You quickly apologized for your assumption.

“I just wondered if maybe that was a temporary thing…” Yoongi rolled his eyes at your comment and sighed.

“I’ll get there eventually.” He grabbed onto the edges of the bed and lifted himself back up, shooing away any attempts you made to help him.

“Yoongi?!” You cried trying to cover your poor eyes once again. Legs were spread and you were seeing WAY too much. “Please grab the towel, blanket, anything please!” Your words turned his attention to see your flushed face, making him confused once again. What was the matter with you?

“Human please explain why you are acting this way?” Yoongi questioned very nonchalantly. He was curious in the way you would react everytime you would look at him like this, always insisting to cover up, a concept he obviously has yet to fully understand and one you were quite unsure of how to explain.

You thought for a moment to make sure you worded this right. “Clothes are kinda important to us humans. I don’t imagine it’s the same where you come from, so I’m sure that’s gonna take some getting used to.” You chuckled nervously.

Your words still made no sense to him. “I don’t see why… they seem restricting if I’m being completely honest.” He did have a point. “And why is there a need for this cursed fabric anyway?”

You thought a moment before answering. “I think it started as a way to keep warm in times when it was cold. I don’t know, somehow they added on covering up uh, certain parts.” You cringed at the last words.

“Certain parts?” Yoongi questioned looking down “What certain parts? I’d imagine everything was important and it’s certainly not cold by any means...” Behind your hands you were starting to panic, realizing his questions were backing you into a corner.

Taking you out of your thoughts was a sudden force pushing you forward, confused, you lowered your hands to reveal that you were now standing right in front of Yoongi.

“What the…” you mumbled, but was taken aback when you felt his hand grab your wrist.

“Show me.” His tone was innocent and genuinely curious, but his words sounded like pure filth considering the situation.

You quickly backed up. “Uh, I don’t think I’m the one who should explain that…” You decided to toss that conversation for whenever Seokjin and Jungkook show up. Yeah…. they definitely need to have a guy talk.

“Um anyway, I’ll be back. Let me get the clothes.” You quickly exclaimed and rushed out to your room. You took a moment to cool off with a few deep breaths before you grabbed the clothes you had set on the edge of your bed, and prayed this would actually work.

As you approached his room you realized this probably wasn’t gonna be a simple handoff type of situation. He was probably gonna need some help.

Shit.

With a deep breath you walked in to see Yoongi attempting to stand again. His hands on the nightstand assisted his much shakier legs. “Look human~” He happily exclaimed, proud he had managed to stand.

You watched the terrible sequence of events unfold as he let go, but almost immediately fell over back on the bed.

“Yoongi?!” You ran to his side. “You ok?” He ignored the question and used the nightstand to stand up again. “I have to keep trying if I’m going to get any better.” He said plainly as he fell back down again.

A sigh escaped his lips at the obstacle. He’ll get there eventually.

His attention then focused on the fabric you had folded in your hands.

Oh no.

“Human, what is that?” He questioned. “Clothes,” you answered, to which Yoongi gave you a sour look.

”If you’re gonna stay here, you're gonna have to put these on.” You laid out plainly.

He pouted, which had you screaming to yourself at how cute he looked but he grabbed the clothes anyway, despite the protest.

“How do you even…?” He held up the flimsy fabric uPSidE down, leading you to make the decision you really were gonna have to help him.

“Lift your arms.” You say to which he complies. The shirt slid on easily over his form. You smiled and then chuckled at his confused expression. You could immediately tell he didn’t like it. “It’s even worse than I thought.” He cringed.

“Well you're gonna have to deal with it for the time being. You still have to do the pants you know.” You said holding out the other piece of clothing, handing it to him.

“Just put your feet through the holes at the bottom, I can help you stand so you can pull them up.”

Turning around, you could hear him struggle behind you. You honestly had to stop yourself from laughing quite a few times.

“Did you get it yet?” You asked after you’re sure a good five minutes had passed.

“I—I think so,” you heard him say. Suddenly an arm was rested on your shoulder. He used you to hoist himself up, making you very aware of his presence behind you. You felt his breath tickle the back of your neck, letting you know how close he was. The thought of it had your face feeling a bit warm.

“Ok, I think I got it.” You turned around and was shocked.

He looked really good. His fluffy disheveled hair had you wanting to run your hands through it. The outfit also looked surprisingly normal despite it being your clothes.

He smiled when he saw your shocked expression

Yoongi was still pretty close too. Both his arms rested on your shoulders, no more than a foot in distance.

He looked good. Almost too good….

“Is this right?” He questioned, but you were too dazed to answer.

“Human?” He called out again, finally snapping you out of it.

What was wrong with you? You quickly asked him to repeat his question, he laughed a bit and continued, “I asked, is this the way it should look?” He looked down at his attire. Clothes would never be something he liked, but seeing the way you looked at him felt like the torture was worth it in the end.

“Yeah you did it right.” You said honestly it was a big surprise considering the way things have been going. You could even say you were proud.

All in an instant the moment was ruined when he accidentally let go and landed right back down on the floor.

You sighed. “You’re seriously gonna have to be more careful.” you said as you helped him up onto the bed. “Failure leads to success, does it not?” He said. You looked over at him. He did have a point. “You’re right, it’s just I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

“I’m fine, I’ve experienced worse.”

“Mmm, still though, you’re human now. You said it yourself, your abilities aren’t as enhanced. I don’t want anything happening to you and then this army comes after me.” Yoongi snickered to himself about that comment. If something happened to him, they’d definitely do a lot worse then just sending the royal guard.

“Anyway, let’s head downstairs for some breakfast. You’re probably hungry~” you said helping Yoongi stand. Despite how terrible he seemed to be at walking, your trip downstairs wasn’t as bad as what you were expecting. Going up yesterday was a nightmare, you were sure going down would be even worse, yet you could tell there had been an improvement. He definitely seemed a lot sturdier.

“You’re doing great Yoongi~” you praised, shocked at the progress. A proud smile was sent in return. “I told you human. Each time you fail, is one step closer to success.” You both laughed at the irony.

You quickly helped him over to the table. “What’d you wanna eat?” You opened the fridge, showing the array of fish that was inside. Despite this, Yoongi’s eyes drifted over to the ramen cups you had sitting on the counter.

“Mmmm, what about that?” He pointed to the ramen. You were shocked. Did the transformation have an effect on his diet?

You decided to ask. Let’s see if he’ll talk this time…

You picked up the ramen. “This? I’ve eaten it in front of you before, yet you never expressed any interest in it on all of those occasions. Does this switch have anything to do with the transformation?”

Yoongi laughed. “No human, this doesn’t relate to that at all, at least I don’t think so. I just figured now was probably the best time to get a taste of some of the food humans eat, being here with you and all. I’ve been curious about the information you’ve told me over these past few weeks.”

He is talking.

Yes!

THEORY: Diet changed because of transformation. (NEGATIVE???)

You made the mental note of writing that down in your notes later.

“Alright then~ I’ll fix both of us some~” It only took you a second to have the two steaming cups on the table, ready to be eaten. You went to grab some chopsticks for the both of you, only to realize that he probably didn’t know how to use them.

“Ummm, I can get you a fork if you want.” You said handing him the utensils. You watched as he examined the two metal sticks with perplexity.

“It’s ok, I’ve watched you use them, it doesn’t look too hard.” He said nonchalantly. You gave him a wary look, but watched as he attempted to hold them. You were shocked to see him holding them right, it definitely wasn’t perfect, but he was doing (extremely) better than the typical novice.

“Easy~” he smiled when he noticed your expression. “Ok then, I’m impressed~” you chuckled and took a seat right across from him. “Dig in I guess!”

You watched closely as he took his first bite. Part of you was thinking he’d spit it out and say he hated it, but no words were spoken as he continued to his third, forth, fifth bite, seemingly enjoying it with no complaints.

You happily ate along with him, silence filling the room for a while until you suddenly felt like you were being watched. You looked up from your phone to see Yoongi looking at you with pleading eyes. “Can I have more?” He asked in a way that reminded you of a child. You almost wanted to laugh because it was so cute.

You quickly fixed him another cup, unable to stop the chuckle when he practically ripped it from your hands. Breakfast continued like this for a while until out of the corner of your eye you noticed something. Yoongi would always need to push his hair up every time he needed to bend down to take a bite. The sight gave you an idea.

“Hey Yoongi~” You called out in the sweetest voice you could muster. He looked up at you, bangs hanging over eyes. “Would you mind if I did your hair? I noticed it keeps getting in the way… I could tie it up for you if you liked~” Yoongi thought about it for a second “Go ahead human.” He said and continued to eat.

Wow, ok! You didn’t expect him to say yes…

You ran up the stairs and grabbed a comb, brush, and a couple of hair ties you had brought with you and ran back down.

Part of you wanted to ask if you could wash it and do the whole nine yards, but you quickly decided not to push your luck.

You came to find him happily still eating away~ Ok good, he’s still in a good mood~ Let’s make this quick before that could change.

You set your stuff on the table. You were hesitant but started feeling the strands between your fingers. Yoongi paid you no mind as you patted him. It was seriously as soft as it looked. You were amazed but it only added to the list of questions you plan on asking later.

What in the world could their hair products possibly be?

Why in the world did they have hair anyway??? Human hair at that… It looked and felt identical 🤔

When you decided to run your hands through it was when you noticed it was a lot more tangled than you expected. Oh boy, you were glad you decided to bring your comb with you.

You then realized that the beads Yoongi kept in his hair would probably get in the way. You tried to gently pull them off but no matter what you did they wouldn’t budge at all.

“Hey Yoongi, how do you get these beads off? They seem like they’re glued to your hair or something…??” Yoongi chuckled at your words, part of you feared your joke might be true but he said “Sorry, I’m the only one who can take them off, hold up~”

You were confused about what he was gonna do differently that made him the only one who could remove them, when suddenly you watched as all of them fell everywhere. You watched in horror as they rolled in every direction, the distinct sound they all made as they bounced across the floor, filled the room.

“Yoongi!!!” You panicked as you hastily worked to pick them all up. You knew for a fact you’d never find them all.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t—I—” you were nervous, but when you turned to Yoongi he didn't look phased at all. “Relax human, why are you apologizing? I forgot where I was… It doesn’t work the same when I’m up here.” He said shyly, rubbing the back of his ear. A habit you noticed he did often.

“I’ll try to find them but I’m not sure I can get all of them…” You said looking around. “I got this,” he said, making you confused. “How I—“ you were shocked when you heard the pitter patter of the beads hitting the table. When Yoongi opened his hand, there, in entirety, were all of the beads that had fallen to the floor.

“Problem solved~” He said plainly and went back to eating his ramen.

What just happened?

What just…

“Yoongi, how did you…” you pointed at the beads. “Ummm, it’s a bit complicated?” He responded.

THEORY: Water manipulation, Disappearing? -> ADD WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU JUST SAW 😶

You seriously have no grasp of his abilities.

“Maybe you could explain later?” You asked, Yoongi thought about it “Yeah, maybe I could? I don’t know, there’s a lot of information you need to know about to even make sense of it, even then, you probably still may not understand.” Yoongi pointed out.

Oh boy were you in for it… if only you knew what you’d find out later.

Moving past this you got to work on Yoongi’s hair, making sure to take your time combing through it, fearing you’d hurt him. All was good until you noticed something peculiar.

Was he… purring? No, that’s not exactly it, it was a bit different. Darker, if that makes sense?

You couldn’t help but giggle at this. “That’s adorable” you realized way too late you said that out loud. Yoongi turned back to you, face a bright red.

You had no idea the real reason. In the midst of your combing, while it was relaxing, the other side of his mind was wandering off to something a little darker…

As much as you were trying to be gentle, there was always some sort of pain mixed with pleasure that had him thinking back to past moonruts. He remembered one of his partners liked to pull on his hair hard, it wasn’t the same but for someone who hasn’t been touched for as long as he had, the gesture had him thinking things.

Part of him wanted to tell you to go harder…

He was so thankful when you finally put down your comb. He was way too close to actually doing it.

You ran your hands through the locks once more. Much better, you thought to yourself~

Your combing had straightened his hair out a bit, losing some of the waves it had. It was slightly longer than before.

“When was the last time you cut this?” You chuckled, playing with his hair a bit.

Yoongi thought about it. “It’s been awhile, I don’t even remember at this point…”

“It doesn’t get in the way?” You asked curiously, Yoongi shook his head “Not really… I’ve just kinda liked it being this long.” He mumbled the last part.

You smiled. You can’t deny this hairstyle really suited him~ Thinking back though, your questions and his responses made you realize you never asked him a question that was extremely important.

“Hey Yoongi…” He hummed in response “I don’t know if you even know this, but do you know how old you are?”

Yoongi put down his chopsticks and seemingly began working it like it was some kind of problem… ok?

“If I remember correctly and did the math right, I think the equivalent would be 24 of your human years.”

“Equivalent?” You said both in your mind and out loud.

“Yep. I guess in actuality I’m….. maybe 122 years old? I don’t know, kinda hard to remember at this point.” Your jaw nearly fell to the floor with that number. You had so many questions…

At 122 years old, that is only 24 years in equivalence…..Waaaaa?

He almost seemed like he forgot his age? Why? How do they calculate years?

Average life expectancy?

“So you’re telling me you were born in 1903?”

Yoongi’s eyes lit up. “That’s it, that’s what they told me it was. 1903 was definitely it.”

So, so many questions….

“Ok wait, so how long do Keepers live for? I mean, if that’s the equivalent for 24 years, I’m curious what’s the time people start appearing older? What’s a year to you? And you mentioned math, is there a formula?” You threw out all the questions that were flying around in your head.

Yoongi sighed. “I knew this would happen… I answer one thing and the questions don’t seem to stop.“ He looked at you and noticed your pleading look, almost begging for answers. He found it endearing at how interested you were in his culture. It made him feel proud in a sense.

After some silence had passed he continued “1) Depends on how strong their connection, which is a completely different topic, but the average Keeper lives for about 500 years. People in similar positions as I, will likely live longer, however. 2) We measure the span of time the same way you humans do, by the amount of time it takes to revolve around our sun. 3) One year for us, I’ve been told, equates to about 5 revolutions, so 5 years for humans. Did that answer your questions?”

Your mouth hung open. You were buzzing inside with the new allotted information. Fuck, did that answer your questions??? You actually are starting to piece things together. Part of you was confused by this and a bit worried. He used to get annoyed by all your questions and would say something mysterious that would just leave you confused and having even more questions. You wondered what made him change his mind…?

You tried your best to keep your cool. “Yes it did, thank you very much. Knowing this now I have to ask. Connection, what’s that, and I was wondering if you guys have a similar calendar?”

“Our months and weeks are closely related to your calendar, but there are some variations in a couple of our months. Our days, despite this, still equal 365.25 by the end of the year, as they should if you live on earth. Explaining connections is something that requires a lot of context…” even though he couldn’t see your face he could tell you were listening closely, soaking up every word he said “that I’m sure you’ll ask about…”

“Wait, ok, before you explain anything else let me finish real quick so I can write down everything,” you explained ecstatically.

Quickly you pulled his hair back, gathering it, and tying it into a man bun. A style you had on your mind since he said yes to you doing his hair.

“Turn around for me~” you instruct. When he does, you almost fall right over.

With his hair finally pulled back you can see the glorious forehead and eyebrows you’ve been missing. The added knowledge of his plentiful tattoos had you nearly rolling on the floor.

Damn.

H.O.T

“You look amazing…” you played down. You totally weren’t screaming in your head right now. Totally…

Yoongi shyly smiled at your compliment. “Thank you” he mumbled quietly.

Ok you were gonna lose it the longer you stand here. “Ok, let me head up real quick. We’ll continue our conversation in the living room.”

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

“Human what are you doing?” Yoongi sighed from his place on the couch.

You were opening up your Disney+ account and searching for a title that you weren’t sure how it would go.

For science… he’ll understand that, right?

Yoongi stared curiously at the primitive technology in front of him. He almost busted a lung when you explained to him the purpose of the box in front of you.

When you finished going through the list of it’s functions, Yoongi couldn’t help but think ‘that’s it?’ Technology up here was really as unadvanced as they taught him in school.

Yoongi’s eyes widened when you clicked on the title ‘The Little Mermaid’

“Human wha—“

“Before you get mad, I wanted to use something to orientate my questions. It’s a starter place using something I grew up thinking your kind was like.”

Yoongi eyed you suspiciously, but his eyes then trained to the screen, looking at the picture for the movie and scuffed.

“Human I can already tell you, just from this, it looks ridiculous.”

You looked at him to continue but he just sighed and turned away.

“Well let me know along the way the inaccuracies as the movie plays~” Yoongi sighed but watched as you hit play and ran over to the couch. started the opening of the movie.

As the opening of the movie played you could hardly focus on the screen, too busy looking at the man beside you. You were waiting for any little reaction that should tell you to pause the movie so he can explain. You were determined to learn as much as you can before he was gonna leave.

Your face dropped at the thought.

Yeah, he was gonna leave soon… His wounds by now were pretty much healed to the point you were sure he would be alright to venture back out on his own in only a few days. He had very little difficulty moving, no infections, you had plans to remove his stitches maybe sometime later on today, meaning only a small amount of care is needed for those wounds, and whatever the issue was you saw the other day, would better be handled in a place that was more familiar with this type of stuff, aka, back where he came from.

It’s weird but in the two weeks you’ve known him, somehow he’s managed to squeeze his way into your life that you know it’s gonna be a little hard to say goodbye.

“What the actual fuck is happening.” Yoongi said, feeling ambivalent about what he was seeing on the screen. Why the hell was this crab talking? Why do they look like that?

He noticed your eyes on him, making him realize he accidentally switched back to his language.

Yep, you were definitely gonna miss him.

“Human, what am I seeing?”

“I guess now would be a good time to stop…” you chuckled, grabbing your remote to pause the movie.

“So I guess my first question, it may sound silly, but I’m genuinely curious.” Yoongi signaled for you to continue. “Can you talk to sea creatures?”

….

Wait, wait, wait, did he hear you right?

“Human, what—what did you say?”

You immediately could tell the question was as ridiculous as it sounded in your head. You already wanted to take it back.

“Ummm can you talk to…. sea creatures?”

He didn’t know if he was angered by your assumption or found it hilarious. Is this what humans really thought of his kind?

“Human, why would you think that….? Do I look like an animal to you?” He laughed but you could sense he was offended by your comment.

“No, that’s not what I meant… it’s just a lot of movies up here like to suggest you guys have some special connection to sea life. I was wondering if it was true.”

“Seriously?!” Yoongi was shocked. “Well I guess the fact that you guys are so off, means we’re doing our job.” He smiled and turned to you, who was so lost.

“Look human, I can do a lot of things, but talking to animals is something that even I am not capable of.” You quickly wrote that down on your iPad. “What about anybody else?”

“No one is talking to animals.” He put it plainly and you added that to your notes.

Can they speak to animals? - Concluded negative

“I will say the only thing I’ve seen right so far is the cave.”

“Cave?” Yoongi nodded slowly.

“It’s far deeper than what they display here but the tribe resides in a cave close to the ocean floor.”

“Do you know how far down?”

Yoongi looked to the side thinking for a moment “I don’t know in any of your units of measurements… Just know that, judging from the technology I have seen, you won’t be able to reach it.”

“What about the mermaids themselves?” You said, referring to the scene you stopped at. The recital.

“Human you've seen me. You know the answer.” Yoongi turned back to the TV, already tired of this movie.

Dull? The fact he mentioned you have seen me, means that the others must closely resemble. You thought back to that first day, when you got sight of his friends. Even though you could only make out their top halves, they did have the similar light gray tones. You wondered if there was any differentiation from there… You wanted to ask him, but you knew he was done with this conversation. You made a note in your notes to come back to the question later.

Clicking play, the movie continued on to introduce the main character, which you could immediately tell he didn’t like, judging by the angry mumbling under his breath.

“What’s up?” You chuckled lightly.

The movie was now at the scene where Ariel was looking on the ship, infatuated with the humans.

“Someone like her would be immediately considered a threat to the tribe.” He rolled his eyes.

“Really?”

Yoongi nodded “She’d be locked up immediately. Behavior like that puts every single one of us at risk.”

This discussion suddenly gave you another question.

“You’ve never had anyone with the same interest in the surface?”

“Of course we have. There have been people who have deserted their tribes in order to live out their life on the surface.” Now you were confused.

“You made it seem like they were such a danger, yet you just… let them go when they leave?” You asked curiously

Yoongi chuckled slightly “I know it makes no sense, but as much as we wanted to do something, most of the time we are always told it’s the better option is to let them go. The rational being, ‘it puts more people at risk trying to get them’. We try and stop this behavior as much as we can, as anyone who is suspected of being a deserter is taken to a special facility, but they slip through the cracks occasionally.”

You hummed in compliance at his answer. It was weird logic but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As the movie continued on, Yoongi slowly became less grumpy with it. You doubt he was enjoying it, but he became more invested as the story progressed.

When the scene where King Triton was destroying Ariel's collection came around, Yoongi couldn’t help but get hung up on a line he said.

‘Have you lost your senses completely? He's a human! You're a mermaid!’

Despite the offensive term, Yoongi couldn’t help but glance over to you. No way, never in a million years would he find himself in that position. Your worlds were too different, if he ever did like you like that, to work. He knows his place. Back at the tribe and you are here. Even entertaining the idea was insane. Has he lost it?...

The rest of the movie was relatively uneventful as by the time Ariel was on the surface there was nothing to talk about as it was pure fantasy.

“Anyway… what’d you think?”

“I hated it.”

“I figured.” You laughed and grabbed your iPad off the table.

“So, like I told you. I had us watch this so I could better calibrate my questions. This was a kids movie and something I’d already figure wouldn’t be the most accurate thing, but it did give me an idea of some of the things I need to ask you.” You started setting up your keyboard.

“Were you watching me the whole time or something?” Yoongi asked, a little flustered.

“That’s my job, I’ve already seen this a billion times, you’re what I want to see.” You smiled.

“Alright.” He changed the way he was sitting a little bit and moved the blanket closer. “Ask away human, you’ve been dying for me to answer you ever since I got here. The time is now, and there’s only so many hours in a day.” Yoongi motioned for you to start speaking.

“Ok. First… why are you answering my questions in the first place?” You asked and for some reason the question shocked him.

“I mean we’ve known each other for two weeks and I hardly know anything besides the basic field observations I’ve gathered. Anytime I would ask you a question you would respond with something vague or you would always say ‘how if I was meant to know I would.’ Whatever you were not telling me must be secret or something you didn’t feel comfortable sharing. I was honestly expecting you to leave without ever giving me any type of information. Now that you’re human, you wanna talk? I’m finding it hard to believe you just had a sudden change of heart about me or the information you weren’t telling me suddenly became ok for me to know. I guess my first question is why? And please be honest…” Your eyes were pleading and you were honestly confused and a bit worried.

Why was he talking to you now, what changed?

He was taken aback by how desperate you seemed to want the answer.

“I don’t know how to answer you human…”

“Please don’t say that. Something’s changed, and I’m sorry for being a little scared. I just want the answer to know I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Human I—“ Oh gosh… how was he supposed to tell you?

“Y/N… Over these past few weeks I’ve avoided your questions. You’re right… they are secrets that aren’t really my place to tell, something that I shouldn’t be telling you. It literally goes against everything I’ve been taught. But… I don’t know… you seemed so interested in learning about me, I felt bad that you were giving me all this information without me telling you anything. I shouldn’t tell you, but I’m doing it anyway. Now that I’m human, I’m a lot more vulnerable than the water. You’re giving hospitality in looking after me, and not taking advantage of that fact. Besides, we made an agreement a few weeks ago and I’ll deliver on my part. Please don’t look into this too much.”

That’s it. Tell her most of the truth.

It’s just you don’t know he has to remove your memory of this whole thing when he leaves. The reason is his feelings about it coming into words, he didn’t understand quite yet why he was telling you. It just creates more work for him to do when the time does come to go. That’s why he didn’t say anything originally. Now though… Why was he telling you?

He saw your smile slowly start to grow and he couldn’t help but do the same.

“Um… well then. That’s nice I guess~ I’m sorry I was worried that maybe you would have to kill me or something, but….” You looked into his eyes “I trust you're telling the truth.”

“Who knew you could get sappy~” You giggled as you started typing.

Yoongi smiled. He didn’t know either.

“Anyway, moving onto actual information. Ok so… as you’ve seen in this movie, humans have absolutely no clue what you guys would be like and we tend to dramatize things because well… all we believe you to be is a story, a work of fiction. I already told you I study marine biology, and even before that my parents taught me a lot. I’m sorry, but nothing about you seems like it should exist. This is likely going to be a throw away question, but I’m curious to know if you might have an idea. I mean, you seem smart, you should know you don’t exactly fit into the natural world. How exactly are you possible? And your resemblance to humans also doesn’t fit into the equation. Are you like a subspecies of human or umm… Well I don’t even know if you would know but umm yeah, any answers to that?”

“Yes actually.” Yoongi turned toward you and you stared at him wide eyed. “We don’t make sense do we.”

“Not at all…”

“We mostly kept to ourselves all of our history, but it didn’t take us long to figure out something wasn’t right. That’s honestly why um… one of the reasons why we believe we are so much better compared to humans. We are descendants of the chosen.”

You were hastily typing everything down, until he said the last part. The chosen?

“What does that mean?”

“Well to make this brief, I don’t want to bore you too much with a history lesson, but it all started for us 11506 years ago exactly.”

An exact date?

“At some point in time there were just humans that existed. Around that time they were just starting to settle and create the building blocks of civilization, we were one people until a voice called out to a few of those humans.”

A voice….

“They were called to the sea. For 7 days and 7 nights they traversed through harsh landscape to answer to the calling. Scriptures say that their families and friends tried to break them out of it but it was a trance. They walked without food or water, but they never stopped. That was until they made it to the shore. Upon getting close, many people gathered to see that they lined the seas, tribes of humans that have never met, all stood and watched as the humans walked into the water never to be seen again. Those people became the Oown, the first of us.” Yoongi stopped for a second to see you staring at him, clearly hooked onto his words.

“They were transformed, instead of legs, they had tails, instead of air, they could breathe in the ocean. All of this was possible thanks to the Zale.”

“The Zale… is that like a religious figure?”

“You could say that. We treat it like a religion, but it's a religion without the blind following.” You looked intrigued.

“We are living proof. Our existence counters the natural world. There is no way we should exist or live the way we do by explainable means. We have no idea what the Zale is, but all we know is that it guides us in the right direction. It’s allowed us to thrive in the deepest parts of the waters, it’s allowed us protection from the seas, we are all the proof we need. Plus well, I’m one of the few people who saw it happen.”

“Wait… what?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain but, yes I’ve seen it myself.”

“You weren’t there were you?”

“No, I just umm… saw it happen.”

You looked at him trying to figure out how this was possible. “Yoongi we’re gonna have to come back to that because I have questions.”

“Yes I knew you would.. anyway back to what I was saying. The Oown were a little different from us. They had powers that for some reason fell out as the generations continued to progress. But it allowed them to survive as their bodies changed. A light led them farther down, away from land. All with one goal in mind. Keep the secrets safe.”

“Secrets?”

“Our existence. We were meant to thrive away from humanity on land. The secrets we kept down below were never meant to be known to humans.”

“And what exactly is down there?”

Yoongi eyed you. “Umm, I don’t know if I’m comfortable discussing those details yet.” You nodded, honestly a bit reassured there was some information he was withholding from you.

“So let me get this straight… 11506 years ago a voice called out to the human populations— they were put into this trance-like state as they were guided to the nearest body of water. For 7 days and 7 nights they traversed the land until they reached the water. When they arrived they walked in and disappeared, never to see their families again. They were led down into the depth of the water by a light. The Zale, being that light. These people became what you call the Oown, and were the first of your kind. They had abilities that allowed them to survive in the ocean that started to disappear as generations continued to pass.” Yoongi nodded at your summary.

“It’s a surface level explanation, but one I feel like your human brain could handle the best.” You tried your best to ignore the insult as you continued to type away.

There were still so many things you wanted to know…

“So um, more about the Zale…”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you… I really have no answers.”

“Um, I don’t really want answers with this one, but just a bit of speculation. You speak highly of the Zale but do you ever question its intentions? I mean, just from what you tell me, I could see a conflict of morality. Yes the Oown got special powers and were able to live in the sea, but they were separated from their families on the surface. You don’t think that’s a bit… and well, do you know why?”

Yoongi stared at you. You were a bit worried you accidentally offended him, but he just smiled. “You’re not the first person to wonder.”

“It’s definitely a complicated subject. It’s been debated throughout our entire history about if what we were chosen for is good or evil. I think this honestly connects back to how we treat the Zale like a religious figure. This is where the blind following comes in, everyone just wants to believe that what we are doing is for the right reasons. I guess, I mean especially since we are a product of that being, to know you are a pawn in a big game of evil would be… well I don’t think anyone would like that. As for why, you’re as good as me to guess. We have no idea why any of this has happened..”

You were furiously typing away.

“What do you think? Do you think the Zale is good?”

Yoongi sighed and stared out the window at the ocean, a sense of reflection coming up because of your question. What did he think… What did he think?

“I haven’t explained all of our history to you human, and the Zale has done much good for us, but that doesn’t stop the bad from plaguing our history. Wars, genocides, all in the name of the Zale. Even me for example… I mean, why am I here with you?”

He stared at you to see you staring at him wide eyed.

“I’m one of those bad things huh…” You tried not to show that his words hurt, but well they did. It should be expected though. Yoongi has made it clear about how keepers have a strong distaste toward humans. You’ve only known the man for 2 weeks, what were you expecting? I mean even besides that, an event like this is so unexpected, there would be no reason really why he would think of your meeting as a good experience.

You had no idea why that made you sad. Part of you wanted him to like you, even just enough to stand your presence, maybe even become friends. Even after these two weeks, part of you held out that hope, but this really was just toleration until he could leave.

Yoongi looked at your face as you continued to type, wondering why you were so upset.

“Isn’t this an inconvenience for us all? You have to put up with me and well I’m here speaking with the one creature I’m told I should despise.”

You couldn’t keep your emotions boiled down at this point. “Well I’m sorry Yoongi, but you have been the opposite of an inconvenience for me. I’ve had a lot of fun these past few weeks. Of course you think of me as an inconvenience…” you scoffed and turned back to writing your notes.

Yoongi is a meanie >:(

You made sure to make it bold.

You were way too into being upset to notice how shocked he looked and how his cheeks had started turning red. You seemed so hurt by what he felt like was the obvious. It made him flustered to see how much you seemed to hate the fact. It was… this is a new feeling.

“Anyway, let’s just move on…” You sounded so defeated. “Tell me about yourself… you’ve been speaking in the general sense pretty much this entire time, but you hardly have told me about you. I know you’re the son of some higher up official but that’s about it. Tell me more or that might be an inconvenience.” Oh he hated this. No, he really hated this. The enthusiasm had been drained out of you so quickly. You really cared that much about what he thought about you?

He was honestly confused, but found it oddly endearing.

“Human, maybe we should take a break…”

You looked up from your laptop.

“What why?”

“Because… you’re clearly upset. I don’t know exactly what you’re writing, but I’m sure even you know that outside influences would mess up the results of your investigation. Let’s take a break so you can record your information accurately.” You just stared at him.

Part of you knew that from a scientific perspective he was right, but at the same time, did he just call you emotional?!

“Maybe we could watch another movie? Something less ridiculous this time.” You folded your arms.

“Why would you wanna do that? I’m an inconvenience…”

“Human, please! You know exactly how I meant it. I don’t hate you.” You didn’t even have to say it, he knew that’s exactly what you were thinking. How could you ever think that after he shared that information that he hated you. Made absolutely no sense.

Now he seemed upset. What was happening?

When you didn’t say anything he scooted himself closer, now sitting directly next to you instead of the other side of the couch. You looked over at him, now extremely confused as to why he was so close.

Woah.

“Aren’t you gonna do something?” He looked at you like you were crazy for just sitting there. “Why—Why are you so close all of a sudden?” You stammered.

“Another piece of information— because of how cold it is down there this is just normal to keep warm. Don’t think about it too much, I’m just trying to survive. It was cold over there.” He mumbled and laid his head on your shoulder.

WHAT!!!!!!

“Anyway, pick something better.” Luckily you couldn’t see him at this angle. This was normal but seeing how surprised you seemed made him feel a little flustered.

You tried your best to concentrate but you were a bit overwhelmed with him so… close. At some point you just gave up and decided on stranger things on netflix. You were about to hit play when Yoongi lifted his head, getting even closer, almost burying himself in your neck before he ultimately pulled away.

“You smell nice…” was all he whispered before settling back on your shoulder.

What was happening? This can’t be the same guy who called your meeting an inconvenience. He was so soft and… adorable? This can’t be the same guy. Then again though he did tell you about how behavior like this is considered normal where he comes from so, maybe this doesn’t at all cross any boundaries of being overly affectionate. This could be the same as just sitting close together for him and you were being weird for not understanding the cultural differences.

You made a mental note to add this to your notes later but this is just honestly something you’ll likely have to observe.

Instead you focused on the show in front of you. For a moment it honestly felt like this was normal and all the prerequisite events didn’t happen at all. It was nice. Yoongi definitely seemed to enjoy this a lot more, and it also provided a little light on some aspects of human culture back in the 80s. You ended up watching the first 3 episodes of season 1 before you were starting to get a bit sleepy.

When the credits rolled you paused the episode and gently ran your hand across his arm. “Maybe we should stop here for today, I still have more questions to ask you and I’m getting sleepy…”

He whined. “But—” he was clearly into it.

“Questions first, we can watch more tomorrow.”

He lifted himself up, a cute pouty expression on his face. Seriously, how was this the same man?!

You quickly picked your laptop up.

New observation: Yoongi is a lot more affectionate than I previously thought, he can even be cute too. It’s honestly hard to believe this is the same person who said I was an inconvenience but he just seems to have his sides. Requires more observation considering cultural differences he mentioned, but was being really cute and cuddly today and idk what’s happening.

Another thing you didn’t notice till later, you weren’t mad at him anymore. If anything, that seemed like so long ago, a forgotten memory lost in time. Maybe him showing you this side of himself was because of this, because he wanted you to forget that you thought he hated you.

“Okay, before all this, I wanted you to start talking about yourself. You have already made points that you differ slightly from the average member of your species, please go more into depth with this, maybe even give a little backstory. I’m sure out of the 122 years you’ve lived you must have a lot to tell!” You said enthusiastically but he just laughed.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting but I can say it will likely not meet your expectations.”

“Anything you say goes beyond my expectations. Everything you say about the Keepers is interesting, I don’t think you’re any different.” Yoongi’s face felt a little warm.

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know… maybe talk about that position you were talking about earlier. Like um, what are you in line for exactly?” You got your fingers ready.

“I will become the advisor to my friend— he’s the next king of our tribe.” His words shocked you so much you had trouble finding the words to write down.

“Advisor? Wait and you’re friends with….”

“You saw him the other day, when you rudely interrupted the conversation we were having.”

…

You hid under the blanket that was in your lap. “Yoongi what the fuck?! Is he gonna come after me for taking you, what—” You were a bit panicked but he just found it cute.

“No human, he isn't coming after you.”

“You don’t know that! I stole his advisor away, I think that automatically puts a target on my back!” Just your eyes were poking out and you saw him laughing at you.

“You’re fine, I already told them about the situation.” Now that he thinks about it. His friends were likely expecting his return soon or at least a call…

Uh oh.

“But Yoongi… the KING seriously, do you know how scary that sounds?!”

“You already met the scariest person you can meet, don’t worry, you’re fine.” His words were meant to reassure you, but if anything that made you even more terrified.

“What is that supposed to mean?!”

Yoongi sighed. “Ok hierarchy lesson. Like I mentioned, Keepers have slowly begun to lose their abilities as time continues to pass. That was true for a majority of us, but a few in each tribe grew stronger and maintained their abilities. These few take a seat on the council— the government I guess you would say here. There are always 31 seats at the council. People have different ranks and statuses within the council but the top 3 positions all deal with the strongest connections to the Zale.”

There’s the Zale again ok…

Yoongi could sense you were confused. “Council members’ strengths and abilities all come from the connection they have to the Zale, the more they can do. I guess that’s the simplest way I can explain it.”

“It makes sense I guess, the 3 strongest would have the highest positions. I mean think about it from the point of view of the average keeper, knowing they were the ones in charge would bring a strong sense of protection.”

“Precisely.”

“What are you #2 or something and like I’ll have to get through you to ever get to him?”

“That is true except I’m number 1.”

…. Another sense of just utter shock you could not fathom.

“I’m sorry you’re what now…?”

“I’m 1 by a long shot, human there are a lot of things I can do. My job will be to protect my king and the tribe. That itself requires that I must have a lot of power. Please if you know what’s best for you don't even think about trying anything, I’m not scary unless I need to be.” He honestly didn’t want to scare you, just set up where he stands in this dynamic. Really he didn’t want to hurt you. If anything he hated violence, not really something he tried to do unless he felt necessary. He was usually an easy going guy.

But, you didn’t get the message he was trying to send and he could sense your fear.

He could feel you were shaking. He honestly hated this. You aren’t the first person to fear him, the few occasions he would go out into the city and he would introduce himself, the amount of strange looks people would give made him sad. Everyone knew who he was, the advisor’s position especially being kept in the media, and well, the fact that his coronation day was brocadested all over the place, there really was no place he could hide. He could sense their emotions anytime he’d walk by. There was respect masked behind fear. Every Keeper knew just how powerful advisors can be and there have been cases where there has been abuse of the power. So they were scared, scared not to set him off and see that for themselves. It was sad and he hated it.

The surface was honestly the only place he could escape this burden, but already he’s managed to instill that same type of fear in you as well. He merely wanted to set up a boundary, not scare you. It made no sense, you were the one person he should scare, but he still found he hated the feeling it admitted.

His powers can be beautiful as well.

He looked around the room and spotted your glass of water on the coffee table. Yoongi grabbed your cup off the table.

“Please, you really don’t need to be scared of me.” He watched you intently as he waved his hands and the water lifted out of the cup. Your eyes widened as the water formed a new shape. It only took a second for it to be clear what it was.

It was a rose.

He saw your features light up as he handed you the water flower. You were hesitant but took it in your hands. The water seemed to sparkle and shimmer as you twirled it between your fingers.

NOTE: Powers seem to be extensive (described by the creature as such). Has the ability to manipulate water— can make float and manipulate it (e.x. formed a rose in front of my eyes). How this is possible is beyond me, but it sure is pretty. Texture is that of a liquid still, but somehow I am able to hold it without issues. The water also glows— water came from the sink (clear), but as soon as Yoongi started doing something the water glowed a bright blue. It also seems to contain little objects that make it sparkle. Hypothesis: something about these crystals is what is making this possible.

Your smile was giddy and it made Yoongi so happy to see you smile again.

“Yoongi this is amazing…” You awed and he smiled back at you.

“How is this possible?” You wondered out loud, not really expecting him to say anything, and was surprised when he did.

“That’s what I can’t tell you.” You understood and respected it. Silence passed between you two for a second.

“You know this is kinda romantic…” You giggled. “Did you do this on purpose?”

“I just remembered the pictures you showed me a while ago. Made me think about you for some reason.” Yoongi said nonchalantly. You looked up shocked.

At this moment you couldn’t stop the weird fluttery feeling hearing him say he thought about you when conjuring up this breathtaking creation. He probably didn’t mean it like that, but still, you felt incredibly special in this moment.

“This is so sweet, Yoongi. Wish I could keep it forever.” Yoongi looked up at you. He really didn’t know why he just wanted to go the extra mile to impress you.

He grabbed the empty vase that sat on the coffee table for decoration and pulled it closer. He asked for the flower back.

“Time’s up already?” You pouted.

“No. You said you wanna keep it forever so…” He held his hand under the flower and snapped his fingers. Right before your eyes the flower began to freeze, turning from a light blue, to a stark white, those same little specs made the ice shine and sparkle.Yoongi smiled when the frost made it to the top.

“Don’t worry, it won’t melt or—” He lifted his hand up and dropped the flower on the floor. It looked like ice, sounded like ice too when it hit the floor, but it wasn’t. Not a single crack, it didn’t break at all.

He picked it back up. “It won’t wilt either so…” He placed the flower in the vase. “A flower that lasts forever.”

Your mouth was hanging wide open. This was beyond reality. None of this felt possible or real. Were you stuck in a dream or something. The stuff you saw in just these past 2 weeks of knowing this man, you can’t imagine if you got more time with him.

Your face began to fall at the thought.

Yoongi noticed immediately the sudden switch in your mood.

“Human, you seem upset, did I do something—”

“No… No, it’s not you. Just hearing you say that made me think how you’re probably gonna leave soon. Your wounds are healed to the point you probably could leave at any time. This… all this… I know this might be an inconvenience to you, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and not to get sappy, but I’m gonna miss you ok.” You leaned back on the couch and folded your arms.

“At least I’ll have this now to remember you.” Your eyes were stuck on the flower.

Yoongi didn’t say anything as he leaned back as well. He needed to leave. He’s already been gone for a month, he had people and responsibilities to get back to. His heart still felt funny when you actually said it out loud. It felt like he just got here.

And just feeling how upset you were.

“Human, ask me another question. You seem to like doing those.” He tried to be nonchalant about it, but he wanted to lift the mood again.

You sighed realizing he was right.

“Alright ummm, tell me about those other positions you were talking about.” You grabbed your laptop again.

“Right ummm, top 3 positions… there is the king or queen who is the leader of the tribe.”

“How come you aren’t the king? You mentioned how you were #1 when it comes to this connection and if it’s so important and yours is the strongest, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to be king.”

Yoongi shook his head.

“It’s a matter of division of power. Being the leader puts a target on your back, especially when it comes to wars, the king is a vulnerable position. The ruler can lead the people safely if one of the most important aspects to a tribe is kept safe away from danger. Advisors simply give advice and help guide the leader in the best direction.”

“So you’re like the brains, they’re the face?”

“Kind of, it’s not like they aren’t capable, but with the connection being so strong, advisors usually know things that will help decision making etc.”

You nodded and wrote it down.

“So the King or Queen is #2… who’s 3?”

“The Zaleon. Another person you saw that same day.”

“Jeez Yoongi, you’re seriously friends with all the most powerful people in your tribe?” You asked but he nodded.

“I know a few other upcoming council members that are higher up on the food chain. We grew up close, I’ve known them all my life. I’m honestly closer to them than my own brother these days.” Yoongi laughed weakly.

“You must miss them huh… I’m sure they missed you.” Your smile was sad, but it just made you feel worse for trying to keep him here.

“I do… they did…” that somber mood was back and he didn't like it.

“Anyway, the Zaleon. I guess they're similar to a priest up here. Their job is conducting ceremonies, hosting praises, and talking with the Zale.” Your eyes widened.

“Talking?”

“Yep, they can hear it. Their connection is stronger than mine in that sense. It’s just that advisors are a little more… logical and analytical to their approach and the Zaleon is always a little more on the spiritual side.”

“Is there ever conflict because of that?”

“Sometimes… but we usually see eye to eye about things, we just do it a little differently. It doesn’t happen as often as you think it would.”

You nodded and wrote it down.

“What about your other friends?”

“Chief Innovator and Head of War. 1) They deal with a lot of technological developments within the tribe and 2) Leads the royal guard.”

You were impressed and that made him proud. His friends were impressive, weren’t they…

“So how do you guys get appointed, I’m judging by what you told me awhile ago, that you don’t go around and campaign.”

He laughed. “It’s hereditary. The chances are always between siblings. The Zale will choose from there.” He could sense the question incoming.

“Also something I prefer not to explain too much in depth.” Your words were on the tip of your tongue but you stopped yourself.

“Alright new subject… I’ll come back to this later but I want to cover as much as I can before… before you leave.” You were said again but your incoming

He could already feel your embarrassment before you even asked the question. You were struggling…

“Um, please… um please…” you were getting so quiet

“Human, what are you trying to say?”

Just gotta be professional about this.

“I’m honestly curious about your biology. Like we both know Keepers don’t fit into the natural world and just from my observations before you transformed… well I’m honestly struggling to know how you would possibly… well how would you make more of you.”

Oh.

This was hilarious.

You could already see Yoongi struggling to contain his laughter at your awkwardness.

“I seriously don't understand why humans are so weird about this subject. You’re making ME feel weird about it.” He shivered.

“As a researcher I can understand your curiosity. Please don’t make this awkward.” You blushed at his words. You were the one being weird about it. Professionalism, it’s all about professionalism. You’re just a curious scientist looking for an answer. Why so awkward? He was right. Just… all it takes is professionalism.

“Ok. Well I’m glad to see you’re not awkward about it. In that case please explain in as much detail as you’ll tell me about Keepers…” ughhh you were faulting. “About how we have sex?” Yoongi finished your sentence for you, he was blunt and seemed to hold no shame at all.

“Yeah, what you said…”

Yoongi rolled his eyes at how you were still being weird about it.

“This honestly will be a bit hard to explain…” He rubbed his fingers along his chin as he thought about it.

“Is it graphic?” You worried accidentally aloud.

He shook his head. “It’s just, uhhhh, you can use your imagination, right human?”

“Yeah…” You answered a bit worriedly. What was he about to say, imagination?

“Alright, good, alright. Ok so your original question about reproduction— I guess first to answer that you would need to know how sex works.”

You got your fingers ready for typing and snuggled under your blanket further, trying to conceal how flushed your face had gotten. You knew he knew, but still…

“I’m sure you can guess that it’s not going to be traditional. Far from it actually so please, I don’t know how well I can possibly explain this in Korean but, please bear with me as I try and help you picture it.”

You felt your heart flutter. Oh gosh.

“Unlike most living creatures, physical intimacy is not how we do things.”

….

“Through the Zale we are able to—“ He stopped for a second trying to find his words. There just really weren't the right words to explain this properly in any human language.

“It’s a spiritual experience. You’re transported somewhere calm and peaceful as you indulge in the pleasure your partner is giving you. It is an experience that is likely hard for you to understand and I struggle with telling. It really is just one of those things that you have to experience to get the full picture.”

You were definitely struggling to fully understand what he was saying.

“Ok ok ok, help me understand… so you said you’re transported?”

“Yes.”

“Ok but where though, is this a place you go to?”

“No— what, it’s more like… you don’t go anywhere. A mental oasis.”

“So you’re still in the same place?”

“Yes human.”

“Alright alright…” You typed away.

“And about the uh, the pleasure wait, so… help me, you said no physical intimacy but… how?”

“The Zale. You’re in this space between and it just allows you to feel everything and anything your partner is feeling multiplied by a billion. It’s overwhelming.” Yoongi was starting to feel funny. Just speaking about this with you made the memories of all the times he found himself getting able to experience it, flooding back. And you were here, you… what is he thinking?

…

“Ok yep it’s still not making any sense at all…” You sighed, eyes trained on his trying to see if you could get it. Maybe your imagination wasn’t as good as you thought it was.

Yoongi groaned and moved closer once again, but this time he was just inches away from your face. “It would be easier to show you…” he whispered. The silence in the room was felt as your face turned warm.

Did he just ask you to—

Suddenly he moved back over and started laughing hard.

“Your face— human your face!” He rolled back as it just got too funny the more he thought. You weren’t laughing however.

“I was joking! Humans don’t do jokes or something?” He whipped his eyes, tears having spilled by now.

You tried your best to join in on the hehe and hahas, but you were still trying to recover from the way your heart just seemed to stop, how close he was, and the fact that for a second you thought he actually wanted to…

Ok….

The thing is you didn’t know exactly why this was so funny to him. Yes your face was hilarious, but he also went through a split second where he wasn’t joking. He intended it to be a joke but the minute he got close and that familiar welcoming scent from you came to him, for just a millisecond he kinda hoped you would say yes. It was bad and hilarious to him all at the same time. What was actually happening to him. FOR A SECOND HE ACTUALLY THOUGHT—

This topic was dangerous and he’s too… broken to be thinking straight right now.

“Anyway, um yes, about your actual question. The Zale will bless a wanting couple with a child.”

You quickly tried to recover. “Ummm please elaborate.” You were confused.

This was another difficult one to help you contextualize without you actually being there to see it.

“That’s kinda the best way I can describe it. A couple will just… um want a child. If the Zale feels they are worthy, an egg will appear—“

“Ok wait, you’re moving too fast. So… a couple just wants a child and… poof?” You stared at him trying to see if he knew how ridiculous that sounded. “They don’t need to do anything but… want?”

“I mean they do have sex, and if the couple wants a child, the Zale will grant them their wish. It’s a ceremonial procedure that involves a ritual of sorts. I’m not quite sure what happens because I’ve never been through the process. But yeah… you just need to want a child.”

You stared at your laptop baffled. “Yoongi Keepers seriously are… wow.” Everything, everything about them made no sense. But as a scientist that pushed you to discover the impossible and solve this mystery. Yoongi could sense this and he couldn’t help the little smile.

“You also mentioned an egg?”

“Yes.”

“Soooo… eggs… That’s how the child will develop?” Honestly out of everything you heard this was the most normal thing he’s said so far.

“Yes.” You nodded slowly.

“I’m curious… since your lifespan is so long, how long is the gestational period? Is it longer?”

“It’s 9 months for you humans, isn’t it?”

You nodded.

“It’s definitely longer then. Average is about 2 and a half years.” You wrote that down with exclamation points. This definitely might be the longest period recorded in history, rivaling that of elephants and blue whales which have always been known to hold that record.

“If I can, I definitely want to come back to this subject but there’s still so much to explore just in this one area. Tell me um…” You were back to being nervous.

Professionalism.

“So I’m curious, do Keepers only have sex to have kids or is it for fun as well?” Your face was warm but your voice was calm this time.

Yoongi giggled a bit, you couldn’t get it past him. “You’re really curious about this, aren’t you?” He teased making that little bit of confidence drain in just a second.

“It’s not that— I, you know I have to re—“ He laughed harder at your stammering.

“I feel like this is a great opportunity to tell you about the moon ruts.” You tried to calm down and get ready for this new information.

“Please explain…”

Yoongi looked around. “Do you have more water? I feel like I have to show you this…” Your eyes opened wide and you hurriedly got back up to refill your glass.

“Tradition is that when peace between tribes is established, a biannual ceremony will be arranged as part of the treaty.” Yoongi grabbed the glass from your hand. He put his hand over the water and pulled back, making the liquid come out of the cup into a ball. You saw with your own eyes as the water changed color as it joined the ball— again, the clear liquid was gone, now a glowing blue. He then put the glass back on the table and then put both hands around the ball of water. He brought his hands out and the ball got bigger, forming a hollow inside.

What in the…

Yoongi leaned back, his hands in his lap now. “In a celebration of peace, Keepers will come up to the surface, the location always being the midway coordinates between tribes.” It was then that little people started swimming up from the bottom of the ball.

Your eyes widened, unable to fathom that was happening to you in real life. Moments like these are always beautiful scenes in movies, or the moments in books where the imagery is so strong you can practically see it right in front of you. But this was reality for you. This was real and no book or movie could have prepared you for the beauty in front of your eyes.

Distracting you from what was happening in the sphere was what was happening around it. 4 points around the sphere glowed harder than the sphere itself.

“What are those?” You pointed to the point closest to you.

“Stationary points. As you probably can assume and have questioned, how can all these Keepers come up to high level waters and no one detect anything.” It was a question that was dancing around your head as you watched the sphere continued to fill with more and more people. Even though you assumed that these locations were far away from any shore line, they were right at the epipelagic zone or more commonly referred to the sunlight zone. They were close enough to the surface where in Yoongi’s little diorama you could see where the water ends and air starts, they were right there. Someone would have to notice an event like these.

“Trainee advisors of the tribes will be randomly drawn to take these positions. We are tasked with keeping a protective barrier around the event so we remain undetected and unseen. Don’t even try and think about looking for any moon rut, you will never find us no matter how hard you look.” You nodded, this would be enough anyway.

“Have you ever had to do that?” You asked.

Yoongi nodded. Oh if only you knew how many times he was one of the unlucky 4. It was tourture really, how we would just stare at the green amps he had to hold while right in front of him people were having the time of their lives. It was one of the reasons why he hasn’t got the opportunity to participate in so long. Anytime he was well enough to go, he would always get picked. He felt lucky that he was ever able to actually participate with how things had gone for him.

“Anyway, skipping ahead a bit…” The events inside the sphere sped up like he hit the fast forward button. “When we first arrive it’s a time of reunion and peace. You meet friends you don’t get to see often, you catch up on events that you haven’t had time to talk about, etc etc… Now that's where the fun starts.” The people that had gathered now formed rings, hand in hand. You tried to lean in and see what they were gathered around. Something was right in the center.

“Like I said it’s a ceremony so, there’s a lot of details that are ritualistic and would take a while to explain the purposes and meaning, but I will talk about the biggest one.” The sphere zoomed into the center to reveal it was another Keeper with what looked like a drum.

“Trainee rulers are tasked with leading the ceremony. At the end they beat that drum and well… see for yourself.” Yoongi motioned to the sphere. You watched as the little person hit the drum, part of you was surprised but a bit relieved knowing this little show couldn’t make any sound. Anything seemed possible so you really didn’t know where the limits were but at least there were some. Water wouldn’t be able to make that sound.

You saw the people who had gathered around the person, their demeanor started to change. From what he has shown you this was relatively calm, nothing that you would flag as weird, but as the figure in the middle continued to hit the drum the keepers seemed to completely change. They became eccentric. The process happened so fast, they looked a lot less like people and more like… animals. Then suddenly, everyone just seemed to be on each other. The rings had been broken, it was just a mass of people out of control.

You watched in horror. You hardly knew what was happening but it was just so rough and intense. When you looked over to Yoongi however, he was the complete opposite of you, he looked into it. It was subtle but the way his eyes were trained on the mass of people, let you know how much he was enjoying this.

Of course he would, this is normal for him, but…

Your eyes went back and things only seemed to have gotten worse. What the actual fuck was happening?!

“Yoongi… what is happening?” You finally asked, just getting more and more confused as time continued to pass.

He finally seemed to snap back when he heard your voice. “Oh right… um this is the moonrut. It lasts until sunrise.”

“What are they doing?”

“Uhhh I don’t know what the word is in Korean… It’s an orgy, uhhhh lots of people having sex together… is there a word for that?”

What…

You just looked at him shocked.

“Human? Hello… I asked a question.”

“So… what you’re saying is that a moonrut is a giant orgy?” Saying it out loud made you realize how obvious it was by the name.

“Ahhh is that what it’s called? Yes, that’s exactly what this is. I can sense you have a lot of questions so let me just explain first something you need context. Keepers tend to pride themselves on the fact that we are so far advanced compared to humans both mentally, physically, and technologically. We consider ourselves even more civilized than the barbaric practices we heard have occurred here. But… Well, the moonruts are meant to be a way for us to embrace that animalistic side that is still very much so present in every animal that lives and breathes. It’s like umm… a way to relax, let go of stress and be what we truly are.”

“The switch was quick…” You pointed out.

“Ahh yes, that’s what the drum is for. It helps channel the energy. It’s really fun, honestly, everyone looks forward to going as soon as they turn of age.” Yoongi thought back to it.

He remembers being in school when it was nearing time for the people in his group were close to becoming of age. It was really the only thing anyone seemed to talk about. Of course with Yoongi having possible responsibilities moonruts to him for a while only meant that coronation day would have happened. But behind the anxiety he still was excited. For most Keepers this was the big event for when you were of age. He remembers when the 2nd moonrut of the year happened and how some of his classmates had their birthdays so they were able to go. It only seemed to become even more of a hot topic. The amount of people who were trying to hook up with others to prepare themselves for the intensity that comes with going to the moonrut. It was a hectiness that even he got to witness as he was preparing for the coronation.

By the time classes had ended everyone in his group had attended except him. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to go, but the minute he was picked to be the next Advisor, lots of training came and he just didn’t have time. It honestly took a while for him to finally attend his first one, with training and work, leaving for a day seemed like too much. Then well, things finally started easing up for him, but he kept getting picked to post at one of the Stationary points. It was honestly the worst experience. Part of him was glad the first time since unlike his peers he didn’t have time to do the whole hook up before you go part, so he thought it would be nice to be able to experience it first before actually partaking. But then, somehow, out of the 12 trainee advisors that were part of the pact, he kept getting picked. It really hit low when Hoseok and Namjoon were able to actually participate before he did.

“What’s it like?” It took you a second to realize how weird that question was. “I mean, this looks really really intense, and I mean, you’re saying it’s fun, I was just wondering if it’s different than how it looks.”

Yoongi didn’t suffer the same type of embarrassment that some humans would get discussing topics revolving around sex. Keepers never had that same history that humans did with it that made it become the taboo subject that it is today. But this question in particular made him a bit red in the face realizing he would have to talk about his experience with moonruts. This has never happened before…. Not the talking part but getting flustered the way he did around you. Maybe you were starting to rub off on him or something….

“I guess probably from your perspective it’s a bit much. Even Keepers who haven’t attended can be overwhelmed, but in the moment....”

Yoongi’s first time being able to go was the 1st moonrut of the year, right after Namjoon went for the first time. The stars seemed to align that day, training was opened up (after a bit of persuasion) and he surprisingly wasn’t picked that time for the stationary point. At that point he had attended but watched on the sidelines a few times and that anxiety of seeing the whole process was gone. He had thought about and imagined what it was like, the excitement of the moment still getting to him as well. Nothing could have prepared him for actually participating.

“It’s… it’s…” His eyes darted over to you who was listening intently. He hated how he pictured you as he thought about this.

“It’s lust like you’ve never experienced before. Then again I don’t exactly know what it’s like to do it the normal way, but it’s just… When you hear the drums beat your whole body comes alive, your thoughts and worries are gone, and it’s like a hunger that can’t be satisfied. Leading up to it, is just… you can hardly wait to get your hands on someone and then when the beat signals for it to start the only thing your body can seem to do is reach for the nearest person next to you and…” The sensation was hard to describe. At this point he was definitely starting to feel a little funny.

It’s just been so long since he’s been touched.

“Sometimes people might coordinate and stand close together on purpose to make sure that sometime throughout the night they end up together. I personally never had the time to do that so I’ve gotten the chance to be with a variety of different people. It’s a lot of fun human. You go back home looking like you've been in a fight, bruises, bite marks everywhere, but everyone is smiling. It’s one of those things that’s definitely hard to understand looking in from the outside, I understand that.”

He really must be broken because the thought came back of having you as a moonrut partner if the world was a little different. He wondered for a second what you would be like. Maybe you’d pull his hair hard like that girl from the Rezone Tribe or maybe leave him marked so everyone could see like that guy from the Isa Tribe. His thoughts were racing and it was making him feel funny. Why was he thinking about you like this?! It made his skin crawl yet at the same time excited him to no end.

This was so wrong, so so so wrong. Yoongi made a quick mental note for later to make sure to log this as a possible result of the attack. This went beyond just the fact he’s been awhile since he’s been able to go, because ALL he could picture was you by his side. How you would feel against him as the beats from the drum controlled you and the pleasure. That had to be it, this was not normal at all.

Yoongi’s face had started getting red again as he battled his confused brain, but you were so into the information he was giving you didn’t notice at all.

You had so many questions with this information he gave you knew there would never be enough time to cover everything. It’s like every answer resulted in ten more questions, it was insane.

That looming feeling returned. Suddenly all your questions were thrown out as only one really mattered at this moment.

“Yoongi…” Your voice cut through the whirlwind he had thrown himself into.

He gripped the pillow he had in his lap a little tighter. “Yes human.”

“When are you leaving?” Your tone was timid and scared. What if he said tomorrow?

It was obvious the question shocked him.

“I’m just wondering… You keep telling me all this cool stuff and it just makes me more curious to learn about you and the Keepers. But…” It hurt you to say the next words. “I don’t think we should keep going if you’re leaving tomorrow or something, you’ll just leave me with more questions unanswered. We have hardly covered all the topics I wanna discuss with you, but… I just need to know is it even worth it to keep going.” You were sad, not ready for the answer at all.

The change in mood was so sudden. It was a saving grace in the sense that it saved him from his mind, but the question and answer were difficult.

There were so many things that came to him as he thought about it. His friends and parents were waiting for him back at the tribe, he missed home, he had a lot of responsibilities that he needed to attend to. If this was a normal situation, not like any of this situation is normal, but he would have been home. But well… What exactly happened to him, why was he terrified of the ocean? He has also started field research on you and the humans, and you. You especially… for some reason he didn’t wanna leave yet.

Maybe he felt indebted to you? As much as Yoongi tried to talk about the fact he would have been fine if you hadn't found and helped him, the thing is… He was in no condition to fend for himself against the elements, plus he could hardly move when he woke up. The question if he would have been fine without you is one that’s not as obvious as he tried to say it was. You could have possibly saved his life, you had been nothing but nice to him over these last few weeks. He was grateful even though he would never tell you that. The fact you were also so into him and his culture made him feel so proud, he loved how fascinated you would get anytime when you found out something new.

He needed to get back, had to get back eventually… but what was the rush? He was likely never going to get an opportunity like this again. Maybe he could enjoy himself a little longer… just a bit.

It was at this moment he made a pact to himself. The minute he figured out what these nightmares and weird feelings he got that made him absolutely terrified to go back to the water that he’s called home all his life… the minute he can figure this out… or get over it, he’d go back home.

In the meantime he can learn a little more about you and why you were making him feel this way.

Yoongi looked back over to you. “Teach me to walk.” He said flatly.

You looked at him confused by the sudden request. “I’m sorry what?”

“Teach me to walk, I wanna know how to do it.” Yoongi scooted to the edge of the couch to let you know he meant now.

It took a minute for your mind to connect the pieces. You couldn’t hide the giddiness. “Does that mean…”

“There are too many things I need to figure out before I leave and my field study hasn’t concluded yet. I think I still have enough time to stay longer for your questions to continue. Teach me to walk though because… this will get annoying after a while.” He chuckled lightly.

He could feel the happiness radiating off of you. It made his heart all fluttery. Were you really this happy?

You happily stood up and held out your hands. “Alright, it’s a deal then~” You helped him to his feet.

By now the sun had begun to move back down towards the horizon. The sky was now a fiery orange and it shone in through the windows. The time you had been hoping to get as many questions in was now switched to full gear on teaching Yoongi how to use his legs.

If this moment taught you anything, it was that he was determined… and an extremely fast learner too. You spent the next few hours helping him walk across the floor of your house, even making a couple trips up and down the stairs. You saw first hand the transformation happen before your eyes. He was shakey at first, but with your encouraging words and a shoulder to lean on if he ever needed it, the quickness that he seemed to improve definitely wasn’t ordinary.

Based off your hypothesis.Yoongi in particular or maybe all Keepers were great at observing. He paid close attention to the way you walked, even back to the chopsticks, he just watched and was able to replicate relatively quickly. Honestly, your guess is that it was less about him learning to walk and more so him building up the leg strength in order to carry himself properly. Then again though, he did have some type of abilities you didn’t quite understand, so that also could have something to do with it.

It went from shakey steps, to him slowly walking behind you (being a safe distance away), to him being able to carry himself across the room.

It was fast considering the task at hand, but you worked on this for hours. The sun had completely set at some point. The time seemed to fly though. You laughed and joked as you walked around the house— a chemistry indescribable in the air. It was the first time that you felt like Yoongi really might not secretly hate you. You just felt like two friends hanging out.

Despite your different worlds it seems like there is a lot more common ground then you originally thought. Similar life experiences, emotions, and feelings all were a universal topic as you chatted. The first true sparks of friendship were in the air.

A moment in particular that continued to linger in your mind was when he nearly tripped. At this point he had been walking ok on his own, but the living room rug did what rugs do and had him stumbling over his own feet. He was relatively steady, but the sudden trip up was too much for him, still getting used to moving around on legs. Luckily you were close by to catch him but well…

He was so close.

He had his head on your shoulder and your arms were wrapped around his torso. In a haste you didn’t think about it too much until the moment seemed to continue, the shock from the event began to wear away. It was like you were giving him a nice hug.

He was warm… a lot different to what he felt like in his previous form. He had also grabbed onto you so he could help him steady himself. This was the closest you had ever really gotten to him.

It was funny because it really lasted a second before he was trying to find his footing again, making you realize an occurrence like this likely didn’t phase him. From what you had learned earlier, closeness wasn’t something you should dwell on too much. This was probably nothing in his eyes.

You tried to treat it as such, you quickly helped him to his feet and laughed at the moment as did he. You really tried, but your mind kept replaying it over and over again. You thought about how nice his embrace felt and how much you wanted to feel it again.

You didn’t know why this was getting to you, but maybe the fact that you knew now he was going to stay for a little while made you a little excited. Something had changed.

You and Yoongi worked hard on getting him to be able to walk for the rest of the day. By the time dinner rolled around, he could walk pretty comfortably on his own. He was a bit shaky sometimes and running you both had yet to test, but you at least didn’t need to worry as much as you used to.

You went to your fridge ready to start dinner when you realized once again you had yet to go to the store to get actual ingredients to make anything or even just a microwave meal… It was fish and water just like before.

You sighed. “Hey Yoongi… so I forgot to get food. Might just go out and get something, I could cook your fish when I get back.” You turned to him who was leaning on the counter behind you.

“I want what you’re having, human.” You were a bit surprised.

“You sure your appetite didn’t change?” You teased as you closed the fridge.

“It’s just curiosity, I thought you would understand…” He pouted. Too cute…

“I do, I—” You stopped when an idea popped into your head.

“Yoongi, would you like to ride with me? I just realized you haven’t really left the area around the house. Might be fun to do a quick trip out~” You suggested.

You watched the gears turn in his head. “It’ll be quick I promise~ Plus, we can go pick something out together!”

You moved a little closer and grabbed his hand, lightly pulling him toward the front door.

“Fine, research might be good anyway.” He sighed. Honestly he really was a bit curious about what it was like past the walls of your house. Yoongi had swam past it sometimes before he transformed, but your house was quite isolated. The only thing he saw were trees and an empty beach in the range he swam.

You had told him about some of the things that happened to you whenever you would leave the house but it was always hard to picture since he really didn’t have too many points of reference. Your house was the only “human” thing he’s seen in person.

The only reason he was hesitant to leave was because well… you were an ok human but what about the rest? Blending into the crowd is something Keepers train for since they are young but when actually faced with the task, it was a bit worrisome, especially since he’s learned so much in the time he’s been up here that was never covered in any of his classes. The worry that he wasn’t ready or something would happen that would make him stand out and then…

You happily gave him one of the jackets your dad left behind, the cool sea breeze now making the air chilly. He wasn’t wearing any shoes but, you didn’t think too much about it since you didn’t have any plans of him getting out of the car.

You then guided him outside to your car.

“What is this human?” He questioned as he walked around the vehicle.

“My car— or not really mine, it’s a rental but you get the point.” You looked at him, expecting a snarky remark about how primitive the technology was but instead he seemed almost fascinated as he ran his hand across the hood.

“What’s transportation like where you come from?”

He looked back at you when he heard your voice.

“Nonexistent.” He chuckled, shocking you.

“Wait you mean to tell me your people that are sooo advanced as you like to put it, don’t have any forms of transportation?!”

He nodded. “I guess when you say it like that it’s hard to believe.”

“But… why? I mean, just from what you told me, Keepers are definitely capable. The ocean is huge so I don’t know why I assumed that would be something you processed. Do you know why?”

“There are multiple reasons but most involve the sense that being in the water, the perks that you experience don’t really do the same down there. Also transportation risks secrets possibly getting out, and well I guess it’s pride and tradition. Lots of ours involve commuting, having a machine do that for you isn’t the same.”

He gave you the answer but it still didn’t make any sense— or well it did, but just thinking about it made you tired.

“Huh, guess I can show you something new after all.” The feeling was new. Anything ‘new’ you ever really tried to show him was always laughed at and deemed primitive. For once you have the upper hand.

You happily went over to the passenger side and opened the door for him. “Your ride sir~”

Yoongi looked at you funny but still got in. You bounced over to the drivers side and got in.

You watched as he examined the vehicle a little more, an adorable sense of wonder in his expressions.

“Alright, buckle up! It takes a little while to get into town but just sit back and enjoy the ride. Luckily for you, you have an amazing driver behind the wheel and Jeju is beautiful at this time of night.” You smiled at him before you were backing up and on your way.

You were right. Yoongi for a while kept his attention out the window. At first it was just fauna but the closer you got to town, the bright neon lights, the night life all were marvels.

Yoongi has seen video and pictures of what the surface was like long before he came here, but just experiencing you and seeing everything for himself made him realize once again, the heavy bias in what they would teach. Humans were meant to be bad, you even yourself said that you were indifferent about the statement.

He hasn’t even spoken with anyone else but you, but he was starting to feel even more funny about continuing to believe that, like there can’t be exceptions. You. You were an exception…

Yoongi just watched as you continued to drive. It really was nothing like what he’d been taught.

You eventually stopped the car. You turned toward him.

“Alright, I’m getting jjajamyeon and I know this amazing place. You sure you still want the same thing as me?” You questioned as you grabbed your little backpack.

Yoongi nodded.

“Will you be alright waiting here for me?”

He nodded again.

“I’ll be back soon, the place is just right there.” You pointed to the little stand right across from where you parked the car. “You should be able to see me~” And with that you were shutting the door and getting in line.

It was just him now. He watched you for a little while before turning his attention to the car again.

He took out his system ready to take some notes about the structure. He was never really the type of person who was that into the engineering aspects of machinery, Jimin would always be the one to take that lead, but from what he observed the technology should be simple enough to understand.

Yoongi could feel the presence of some of the components but he was honestly interested in taking this apart and figuring out all the aspects of what makes this work.

But well, while he was distracting himself, it didn’t stop the fear. Being alone was something he did many times. If anything, he thinks he may thrive that way, but ever since… Well ever since the dreams and the feelings started happening, being alone became a little bit of a fear. You were always there to distract him, but you were gone and it allowed his mind to wander.

What if something happened? No… stop, don’t think about that.

Wandering was hard and his imagination was too vivid. His job required it to be. But he just wanted to turn it off for one second.

The pain… the arms… the pain… the pain…. the pain.

It was coming for him. Stop.

Yoongi again tried to turn his attention toward figuring out the components of the car and their purpose, but just imagining the pain.

This wasn’t working.

He anxiously looked up to you, who was chatting with the stand owner. It looked like you knew each other. Yoongi smiled as he watched you laugh with the lady.

Right. Focus on you. He didn’t feel so alone that way.

You. Right, he knew how to do this. He got busy on starting an independent study on you. You made him so curious, it was worth separating his notes slightly. That’s what he told himself at least.

Eventually you came back over but with the lady from the stand. Your hand carried a bag as you both chatted and smiled your way over. When Yoongi noticed he felt his anxiety surge.

You opened the door with your free hand, your laughter becoming prominent.

He saw the lady from the stand’s face change when she saw him.

“Now who is this young man?”

You smiled. “Uhh a friend of mine, we’re on vacation together.” Was this a lie?

“A friend?” She gave you a funny look and you already knew what she was thinking. You both just laughed, you being clearly flustered by her assumption.

You opened the back door and she put the bag she was carrying in the back.

“Anyway, nice to see you Y/N, hope to see you soon! You and your friend have a good time alright~” You hugged her real quick before she ran back to her stand.

You got back in the car with a sigh, relief knowing that dinner had been gotten. Your attention turned back to Yoongi who was looking a little strange.

“You alright?” You questioned, worry immediately consuming you.

“Yeah… just, let’s go back ok.”

As much as you wanted to push further, from the past few weeks you’ve known him, you knew he wasn’t going to tell you anything.

You started the car and began your way home. It was hardly 2 minutes into the ride when you felt him grab your free hand and intertwine his fingers with yours.

You panicked again, but he never once looked at you but kept his hand in yours.

You were worried but your face was warm. You wondered if this was another one of those things you shouldn’t really look into too much, but the moment felt so intimate. His hand in yours as you drove through Jeju. You heart skipped a beat just thinking about it, but again, you were worried about what exactly caused this odd display of affection.

Is he ok?

By the time you got home things hadn’t really improved at all. He was still distant and not really talking to you. He tried to pretend though which was even more concerning. As you started taking the jjajamyeon he tried to make small talk but even when he laughed you could tell there was something behind this mask he was trying to create.

You were REALLY worried. But again, you knew he wouldn’t tell you unless he was ready. Hopefully he will tell you tomorrow.

Dinner was nice though overall, he seemed to enjoy the dish you gave him and you both chatted lightly over the meal.

It was now time for bed. You guided him up the stairs, still a little worried he might fall despite all the progress he made today.

You went to his room and started getting the bed ready while he watched.

“What are you doing human?” He finally asked.

“Just tryna make the bed a little more comfortable. Wanna make sure you sleep well tonight.” Maybe whatever was troubling would go away after a good night of sleep.

You were busy and didn’t see the way he smiled at this.

“Alright! Hop in~” You ushered over to where you had pulled back the covers.

He took a seat on the bed.

“You don’t have to go to bed now if you don’t want to. I would stay up a little longer, but I’m a bit sleepy after all we did today. Just turn off the lights when you’re ready, I’ll be close by if you need anything~” You turned around and were headed toward the door when a mysterious force pulled you back so you were right in front of him, just like this morning.

You looked down, extremely confused. “Where are you going?” He reached up and lightly grabbed your hand.

Dun dun.

“Um… just to my room, it’s the door right beside this one.” Your heart was pounding in your chest but you tried not to let it show. You were oddly suspicious that he knew though.

“You’re not staying?” He questioned, making you a little confused.

“Why would I stay?”

You noticed the little pout on his features. Oh what was happening…

“Because I’m a—” It was at this moment he realized exactly where he was.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware humans didn’t practice this as well.” Now you were curious.

“Practice what?”

Yoongi sighed. “People usually sleep together to keep each other warm, for the same reason as before. Sorry I didn’t know…” He was embarrassed, a faint blush on his cheeks.

You smiled and made a mental note to write that down later. “It’s alright, it was cute~” You brought your hand up to ruffle his hair. By now the bun you had put it in earlier had come down, his bangs now cascading down his face again.

You have no idea what came over you to say or do what you did, but your smile got bigger when he seemingly melted in your hand.

“Alright, night Yoongi~” You tore yourself away from his grasp and made your way out the door, softly closing it behind you.

It was at that moment he regretted not trying to convince you to stay with him. That feeling of being alone returning all too quickly.

Part of him considered heading to your room later, but the fact you didn’t seem interested in staying with him, told him you probably wouldn’t like that too much. Or would you? Yoongi was usually good at reading people, he remembers hearing how your heart seemed to speed up the minute he made the suggestion.

Oh gosh, please don’t tell him you were scared by the thought?!

Yoongi sighed realizing he shouldn’t care how you reacted or even thought about his proposal. It happened, it was embarrassing. The end.

He tried to get himself situated under the covers. It was so warm, warmer than any pod provided. It was nice. He turned toward the empty side of the bed.

He really regretted not asking you to stay. The bed was too big for just him and just imagining how much warmer he’d feel with you by his side. Yoongi felt a warmth spread all over at the thought.

You were so warm. This bed, the covers, and you right next to him.

…

You. What was happening to him? Ever since he’s turned human, he can’t seem to escape the passing thoughts and curiosities about you.

He sighed once more and picked up his system that was sitting on the nightstand.

He was tired, but his thoughts kept the sleepiness from taking ahold of him. Instead he opened up his notes he started earlier and started writing everything down. You, you, you, why couldn’t he stop thinking about you?!

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

The following morning was interesting to say the least.

You woke up to greet Yoongi like you always did. You were a bit surprised to find Yoongi was still fast asleep, but it did offer you a great opportunity. It was cute. You found he still retained some of his habits before he transformed. He had wrapped himself in the covers and had curled into the blankets. You had to stop yourself from taking a picture.

As you were eating breakfast later, Yoongi mentioned he wanted to switch back eventually, which was fine. You hadn’t thought too much about it until he said he wanted to try out the pool outside.

This led to a conversation about why he was so hesitant to go back to the ocean that didn’t really go anywhere. He wasn’t telling you something and that worried you, but it was just one of those things he wasn’t going to answer.

Then you moved onto the issue of the fact that your pool wasn’t salt water, something you automatically assumed would cause some type of issue. Yoongi also confirmed that it would be an issue.

Now you found yourself standing at the end of the pool, Yoongi by your side, as you were trying to figure out a way to fix this issue.

“Yoongi I’m sorry but I don’t know how I would do this. I would need to drain the entire pool and then go back and forth with buckets from the ocean. Nothing about that sounds like a good idea.” You looked at him worried.

“Can we try my idea then?” You had been hesitant to hear him out. At the end of the day this was your parents’ summer house and the last thing you needed was for them to hear you did something to the pool while they were away.

“What’s your idea?” You finally gave in.

“Did you still need this water?” He questioned, pointing down at the pool.

“Please, my parents would kill me if we drained the pool…” You panicked.

He nodded. “I swear, I always thought if I were to tell a human about my abilities they would take advantage of them. You human, don’t use me enough.”

Yoongi bent down to grab his knife, already having had a feeling he would need it.

You watched intently as he stretched out one arm and used the other, with the knife facing downward, and began to draw a rectangle.

The pool water began to glow that beautiful blue that you saw earlier around the edge as he traced. Woah…

When he got around the entirety of the pool he switched the hand he was holding the knife with, brought it down and slowly began lifting it back up. With it, a perfect rectangular prism that was the pool water lifted up.

Your mouth was wide open as the water lifted higher and higher, it now floating high above your head. It was beautiful.

Questions, questions, so many questions.

“Is it the knife?” You blurted out, for some reason, that being the question that kept popping into your head. He’s had it with him since he came, even though you were sure it was a lot longer at some point…? Though, yesterday he didn’t have it with him when he made the diorama and ice rose.

“No. It’s just me and the Zale. The knife stops me from going overboard with bigger things like this. I figured you wouldn’t appreciate it if your pool ended up in space accidentally.”

He chuckled lightly at the look of shock on your face.

You took more notice of the knife now. The hilt was a dark blue with inscribings all over it. Jewels decorated the guard, which seemed to glow. The blade was a shiny silver, you weren’t exactly sure about the shape of it, not being that knowledgeable in weaponry, but it came to a fine tip and was relatively thin. It was a beautifully crafted weapon.

“Is there a place to keep this?” He asked after the water made it up to a substantial height. You looked around the patio.

“Uhhh would over there work?” You led him toward the stairs down to the beach. The area beside it was nothing, the house blocked it from any passerbyers (though there weren’t many), and the trees that lined the stairs made it less visible to anyone on this side.

He nodded, seeing the space you meant.

“Alright…” He pointed the knife in the direction of the space you pointed out and the prism slowly floated over in that direction.

“Yoongi, you’re so cool,” you admitted, the confession coming out accidentally.

You didn’t miss the little smile on his face.

But his expression changed quickly as he used his free hand to make a sliding motion with his finger, making something come up from the ocean and fly into the prism. It happened so fast.

The look of concentration on his face as the water seemed to battle with whatever was inside. It was hot, a shameless confession seeing the way his features seemed to change completely, the soft dollish-like appearance into one so focused and determined. It was hot.

The battle was fast though before he snapped his fingers and ice shot out directly from the center, quickly encapsulating the water inside.

Yoongi lowered his knife, the ice also binding to the ground.

As things settled down, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It wasn’t the task that was difficult, this was very easy, ridiculously easy. This normally wouldn’t have taken so long, but true to his abilities, he could feel your eyes. He could feel how he seemed to excite you as he worked, it made focusing incredibly difficult for a reason he didn’t quite understand.

“Am I now?” He finally responded with a smile.

Your mouth couldn’t seem to close at how impressed you were.

“Very, very cool.” So many adjectives and that was the least fitting. This was impressive beyond any word your brain could come up with.

You turned back to your now empty pool. “What now though?”

The process was repeated once again. Yoongi moved so he was standing at the edge of the patio, overlooking the ocean. Another prism came over the railing, and settled into the pool.

You were surprised when Yoongi’s hands were down, seemingly done, but the water’s color was clearly not that of the ocean. It was bright and incredibly clear, it looked as if it came from an island instead of the water from down below.

“There, think that solved the problem!” He beamed when he noticed how proud you looked.

You went closer to the pool, bent over, and dipped your hand in. The water made you smile. It was no different than anything else, maybe it was just your mind playing tricks on you after you saw what it went through, but it was just this feeling that it gave you. It was indescribable.

“Did you wanna get in?” He asked, sitting next to you and dipping his feet in the water.

“Kinda in the mood to go back for a bit.” He added.

This prompted you to run back inside, grab your ipad and record the process.

He explained that he had a little time to make the process quicker (whatever that meant) and so instead of the 2 hours you sat before, he was back in his fins in 45 minutes. It was kinda incredible. Later when you cross referenced your notes from the first transformation you learned that the process was EXACTLY the opposite of what happened before. It was like you were watching it in reverse.

While you were waiting with Yoongi you guys did a bit of chatting, he gave you a bit more information about the transformation.

Time Limit?: You wondered and was honestly a bit concerned that there was some sort of time limit to how long Yoongi could stay on land. Your worries were relieved when he answered no, but he did also provide you with additional information you had yet to consider.

What Came First?: Yoongi explained to you that in all technicality, he was a human playing the part of a fish person(?). Keepers were humans before anything. They just possess this mysterious connection with the figure they call the Zale, which allows them to mutate into something else. That was the reasoning he used for the lack of binding contract that came with the ocean.

Before you knew it he was back in the water. You smiled as you watched him get used to it. Luckily for him in this situation, your pool was pretty big and deep. Anytime your parents weren’t playing with you down at the little beach because the tide was likely coming up a little too high, you were up here on the patio in your pool. It was here you learned how to swim. You remember they told you how they invested a lot of money into the pool because of you-- how they wanted it to be a place you loved no matter how old you were.

The pool nearly took up the entirety of the patio, leaving a little room for chairs to sit along the side. It was deeper than what you typically would find in a backyard pool. It started at 3 feet and toward the far end went up to 10.

You were grateful to your parents, he didn’t look too cramped like you feared.

You watched as he swam around a bit before he was coming back to your side.

“You should get in with me.” He looked up at you so cute. It was almost like he was pleading.

“I wouldn’t get in the way?” Yoongi shook his head.

“Join me.” He was trying to be nonchalant about wanting you in with him, but he was really hoping you’d say yes.

“Alright then~” You got up and quickly brought your shirt over your head. Ever since Yoongi first came you got into the habit of wearing a bathing suit under your clothes, prepared for any moment with your fishy friend. You normally would just get in, but this wasn’t a shirt you were interested in getting wet, so it was just a bikini top and swim shorts for you.

Yoongi was watching in the water as this went down. He was a little shocked the minute you removed your shirt. Skin was never really a big deal for him… Nobody wears clothes where he comes from. But seeing you exposed like this for the first time made him feel a little funny.

You didn’t notice his stares and came around to the stairs of the pool. You got in, squealing as the cold water came up to your thighs.

Yoongi swam over to you and watched as you made your way in.

Your smile was big when it made it up to your chest.

“Is that how humans swim?” He questioned.

You laughed. “No, I was just walking.”

There was a bit of a pause. “Do you know how to swim then?”

“Of course I do… hold up.” With that you picked yourself up and started swimming to the other side. Not to brag, but you consider yourself a pretty good swimmer. You were doing it ever since you were young thanks to your parents, but you were also part of a competing swim club in middle and high school. If you go to your parents house in Busan, back in your room, you even have medals to show for it.

That’s why you didn’t think too much when you started making your way to the other side. But the minute you did and you saw Yoongi struggling not to laugh you realized you could not compete with someone who’s lived 122 years in the ocean.

Yoongi was right next to you faster than you could and that’s when the torment started.

He could barely talk, trying to tell you how ridiculous you looked. Normally you would be offended but again, coming from someone who lives in the ocean, you can only assume if the positions were switched you would be doing the same thing.

After a while though it did get kinda annoying, so you did what you must.

SPLASH

It took a minute for Yoongi to realize what you did. He was confused as the water dripped from his hair.

He turned to see you smiling.

Many thoughts about how to proceed. His heart was warm and many of those thoughts he couldn’t even believe had even come to mind. He settled with the simplest.

He splashed you back.

This basically started a war, or well a very uneven war. You tried your best to get him but for someone with water abilities and who can breathe underwater, it made doing any actual damage very difficult. You, however, were soaked. Just wave after wave.

“Wait time out, time out.” You finally called. Yoongi swam back over, a bit worried when he saw you rubbing your face.

“This isn’t fair, how am I supposed to win?” You pouted. He finally breathed when he realized you weren’t hurt.

“You started it…” He trailed when he noticed you were coming closer.

You brought your hand up to his cheek, that same pouty expression on your face.

Dun dun.

What were you doing?

A moment passed as he stared into your eyes wondering what you were doing. His mind was racing, his body almost crying out to do the thing that he has been trying not to think about. You were so close. He thought you were, he really thought you were about to do it when…

SPLASH

Your other hand was used to create a wave. Nothing compared to the damage he did, but it was enough to have you laughing and cheering when you noticed the look of shock.

“I won, I won, I won!” You cheered. You know you didn’t. If water fights had scores, yours would be barely over 5 while Yoongi’s would be in the hundreds, but it was that look that made it feel like you did. You really didn’t think too much of the interaction, you just assumed that gestures like these wouldn’t be a big deal like he claimed so many of the others weren’t. You were just hoping to shock him enough to execute your plan.

What you didn’t know was how wrong you were in the fact that it was a big deal and just how badly it got to Yoongi. He was thinking the opposite in the fact it was just a difference in culture between you two, but things like this were usually taken in a different way.

He really thought you were gonna… how badly he had wanted you to lean in further. How he continued to feel that was even after you gave him a face full of water.

He thought about it. Going up to you and kissing you like he had resisted the entire day.

What was wrong with him? This wasn’t right at all. He had hated you a few weeks ago and now he was going against everything he’s been taught, even going as far to want to… No. He had to get to the bottom of this.

For now though he just relished in the way you laughed and cheered. You looked so happy.

He really liked seeing you happy.

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

The next few days were relatively uneventful. You both would talk pretty much most of the day, continue watching stranger things, rinse and repeat. It was nice in the sense that somehow these days started to establish some sort of routine.

Yoongi felt right being here. No longer was this worry about his intentions, or even the fact he could be leaving soon. He was here and you got used to it.

You would have never pictured this is where you’d be in your time to yourself. Even though it was kinda nice having the house to yourself, you figured it was going to bore you out of your mind after a few days. On your way here you kept counting the days until Seokjin and Jungkook were meant to be coming. But Yoongi turned the whole thing around in the best way possible. You really liked having him here.

Yoongi though has been doing some investigating anytime you weren’t doing something together, he was trying to figure out what was happening with him, because it only seemed like the problem was worsening...

HYPOTHESIS:

The attack and whatever happened to me in the unaccounted month had an additional effect—> causing unexplainable feelings for the human.

EVIDENCE:

A fews weeks ago I had my knife to her throat. Now I’m getting weird urges to pull her close. While my feelings for the human are docile, I do not feel the way my body is pulling me toward.

There’s some sort of attraction going on. It’s an unexplainable pull, a need to be close. At first I just believed it to be my habits from my life, but I’ve definitely crossed boundaries in my standards. It feels uncontrollable, I push myself away but I always find myself at her side.

Weird urges to bring her to the moon ruts.

My feelings for humans have never been romanticized.

Feelings are all mainly physical—> lacks proper backing. Described more as a weird craving than a desired taste.

None of this is making sense.

COUNTER:

She did “save” my life. Might be a possible byproduct of the act.

The feelings have no correlation to my attack or what she did. These are completely natural.

He tried not to think about this too much. Even if this was an effect he would eventually be leaving, solving this issue. It’s simple. If his counter arguments were true (he highly doubted it for some reason), that poses a bigger issue. No matter what he tried to push the topic back and focus more so on getting things done.

It was mid afternoon one day and you had come upstairs to grab something. Yoongi was up here as well, having excused himself earlier to work on something. You were curious but let him go. You really had no plans on questioning when you were about to head downstairs. The angle let you see into the room a bit as he had the door cracked open. The room was dark but a faint blue glow came from the door.

You were curious so you pushed the door open a little and… well you definitely weren’t prepared for what you saw.

Yoongi was right in the center of the bed, crisscrossed, hovering. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be chanting something silently as he moved his hands in his lap. The blue glow had been coming from the orbs that floated around him.

Overwhelmed by the scene in front of you, you squealed, making whatever focus Yoongi had fly out the door. He ended up falling back down on the bed and the orbs (they were made of water) came crashing down.

You obviously startled him.

“Human what the—” he stared at you peeking in through the door.

You quickly ran to the bathroom to grab some towels to clean up all the water.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” You were frantically apologizing.

Yoongi flopped back on the bed and sighed, seemingly not caring the bed was drenched.

“I was so close too…” He sighed, running his hands through his hair.

“Close to what??” You looked toward him.

He just looked at you for a second before laying back down.

“I was working, like I told you I was.”

“Working… on….” This was not the time to really be asking questions, but well, after what you saw you were looking for some answers.

“Well if you must know…” Yoongi sat up once again. “I do have responsibilities that I am forgoing by staying here. I was already gone for so long, so I thought it’d be good to do as much as I can from here till I leave.” You nodded understanding his reasoning.

“What were you doing though?”

Yoongi thought for a moment on how to explain this. “I was building.”

…

He could already feel the slew of questions coming.

Before you could even say anything he interrupted. “I know you’re going to ask ‘what’ human and I will already tell you I can’t explain it or the process really. I can say that I’m working on efficiency, improvisation, and innovation, for some of my abilities. Again the what and the how I can’t tell you.” He hoped that cleared up a majority of what you were about to throw at him.

“Wait so you can work on your abilities?”

He nodded. “It’s my legacy, what I will pass along to my kids one day. For now though I’m more so preparing for when I take over.”

You hummed, for some reason the answer making you smile.

“I can see why you guys want to keep this all a secret.” You randomly said out loud.

Yoongi looked at you.

“I already feel like I haven’t seen half of what you can do and just from what I did, power like that…” You were worried. You never really knew what you were going to do with all the notes you collected from Yoongi’s stay. If you published the study it would certainly land you a level of recognition even higher than your parents. The whole world would know your name.

But you knew the reaction from the public might be mixed, not even going into what the government would do. You could already see people trying to search to find the tribes. You can’t even imagine what would happen if they did. Yoongi’s power and the other Keepers…

It was in this moment that you decided that this study was never to see the eyes of anyone but yourself. This was going to become just a way to look back and remember the time you spent with him. You wanted to remember every detail.

Yoongi noticed your daydreaming. He was curious what was on your mind, feeling the indifferent energy coming from you.

You didn’t give him long to wonder because you were standing back up in a second. “Alright ummm, I guess I should work on getting these sheets dried.” You sighed.

“No need, I need this water anyway.” And with that Yoongi placed his hands on the bed and started to lift up, with his hands came all the water in little droplets. He did some motions before they turned back into the orbs that surrounded him when you walked in.

Your eyes were wide as they began to float around the room.

Yoongi’s eyes were on you as he watched your eyes sparkle with amazement and wonder. The blue glow from the orbs highlighted your features and he felt his heart skip a beat when you laughed as you reached out to touch one of them.

At this point he really couldn’t tell if this was part of the effect or his own heart playing him like this. This felt different. The difference scared him.

“I’m sure you still have a bunch of questions. I don’t have too much time, but I will answer what I can.” He said suddenly, needing to distract himself from the way his heart was beating out of his chest.

You looked at him and smiled. “I should leave.”

Yoongi was shocked and he couldn’t ignore the way his heart dropped when you said that. “You didn’t have more questions?”

“I do but I feel like I’m imposing. I don’t want to get in your way.” You had to practically tear yourself from the orbs and head to the door.

“I’ll see you at dinner later, alright?” Before Yoongi could answer you shut the door behind you, leaving him alone in the dark room.

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

You were humming along to your favorite song as you were doing your nightly routine. It wasn’t much, but just a face mask you decided to do on a whim.

After you managed to get it on you went out to your room to sit on your bed. The view from here was mesmerizing. The moon reflected off the water and the night sky and sea seemed to stretch for miles. What made today particularly beautiful was the storm clouds up above. From here you could see the raging storm clouds as they were getting closer.

You and Yoongi had been trapped inside all morning thanks to the rain. It cleared up this afternoon, but like the weather had predicted, a storm was coming in now that the sun had set.

You honestly enjoyed storms like this for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that it always reminded you of the summers you used to spend here with your family. Whatever it may be, you smiled at the view.

You stayed there for a few more minutes before you went back to the bathroom to finish your routine. You were in the bed before you knew it. You smiled, the storm outside continuing to rage away, while you were in the coziness of your own bed.

Perfect.

Lights were off, you were ready for bed, peace.

You listened to the storm outside, the waves crashing in, it was so soothing. A little paradise. Living out here was so nice. The summer house was private, no neighbors anywhere. When you were a kid you liked to pretend you lived on a private island, that it was just you, your parents, and the open ocean.

Sleep was coming to you quickly, but it was always the moments when you were the coziest that would always get interrupted.

Scaring you half to death came Yoongi crashing in your room and quickly hopping on your bed. You hardly had any time to react before he was burying his head under your covers.

“Yoongi?! What the actual fuck??” You have to admit you were a bit harsh, but you were sleepy.

He didn’t say anything.

You waited some time before you decided to do anything, just waiting for this to be some sort of prank. Yoongi was never the pranking type, but you figured that’s what was happening tonight. But nope, no punch line, no “gotcha” moment.

You reached out your hand to pat him slightly. It’s when you realized the fact that he was shaking. Shaking hard. Your mind immediately went to the worse.

“What’s wrong, did something happen?” You asked, panicked. It had to be bad, Mr. Stoic, shaking?? No that doesn’t happen.

He didn’t answer again and that’s when you realized he wasn’t going to talk for some time. Instead you just rested your hand on his back and rubbed it gently. Whatever happened clearly startled him. You’ve seen and experienced many things during these last few weeks. Nothing has affected him like this.

Your eyes were starting to tear up for some stupid reason. You were scared, you were terrified.

“Yoongi please talk to me…” You pleaded gently. You didn’t want to poke and prod, but your mind was running a million miles an hour.

It was finally then that Yoongi poked his head from under the covers. Your heart skipped a beat seeing how terrified he looked.

“What is it?! Please!”

Yoongi’s gaze looked toward your window. “The sky… why is it so loud?!”

…

Your face fell in an instant. This boy seriously was about to give you a heart attack over some thunder. Instead of getting upset you put yourself in his shoes. He had told you that he lives far down underwater— he might not hear the storms that come overhead. This might be a completely new and terrifying experience. The best you do for him right now

You quickly wiped your eyes and put on a comforting smile. “Have you not heard thunder before?”

The sky rumbled again and you watched first hand the fear in his eyes as he saw the lightning flash before the loud boom right after. This really was a big deal to him.

“It’s not that… it’s just… I never knew how loud it could get…” The projection of the surface level water did not come with sound. They would be able to see the rain, but for a multitude of reasons, sound wasn’t included. Anytime Yoongi ever came up for moonruts, storms never seemed to happen. It could just be a terrible coincidence or the Zale planned for it that way, but he never knew just how loud it was.

You resisted the urge to laugh and instead worked on soothing him. No matter how adorable you found this, you hated seeing him shaken up.

Yoongi melted at your touch. It reminded him of when he first woke up. So soft, so warm. And smelled so nice, comfort, a warm hug. It’s what possessed him to take the big leap.

Your eyes widened when you suddenly felt two arms wrapped around you. What was happening?

Yoongi didn’t even think before he was pulling you in tighter. It felt so right, so good. His mind was on autopilot at this point.

“Can I stay with you?” It shocked him as well when it came out of his mouth. What was he doing? What was he saying?

“You wanna stay with me?”

Yoongi nodded. “Don’t wanna be alone right now if that’s ok with you…” He didn’t want you to know how desperate he was for you to say yes.

Your arms wrapped him. “Would that make you feel better?”

“Yes.”

You were also on autopilot. “Alright, if that helps then you can stay.” It was the fact that you agreed is what finally made the realization dawn upon him. You said yes, he was going to be in the same bed with you.

He released you and it was then that he was able to see you properly. The moonlight was coming in through the windows, hitting your back, dulling your features. The lighting was so intimate…. He felt his cheeks light up. He would never get flustered about things like this.

Yoongi hurriedly scooted away so there was actual space.

“Uh… thank you human.” He suddenly regretted the bold move he made. He honestly considered leaving back to his room, but the sky boomed again and that was enough to remind him he was bold for a reason. He really was that desperate for someone by his side. He was desperate for you.

It was awkward. Yoongi had moved to the far edge of the bed and you had also snuggled up on your side. You both were just staring at the ceiling as the storm raged outside. You were tired beforehand, but your mind was racing.

You’ve only slept with one other guy. It was your first boyfriend and— your face warmed realizing how wrong it sounded. You meant in the bed, not… not that, well also that, but that wasn’t what you meant. It’s been so long now that you’ve completely forgotten what it feels like to have someone by your side like this.

It was kinda nice.

Yoongi on the other hand was fitting his urges hard. He didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable. He’s only been here for a short time but he’s gathered information about which of his customs seem to make you a little uncomfortable. He’s great at reading emotions, it’s part of his job, so it wasn’t hard to pick up on the various social queues that made you tense. He tried to avoid them or provide some context to make the situation a little less awkward, but these days he just tries to avoid it altogether to avoid miscommunication.

He had already explained the significance of sleeping together to you, but well, he didn’t realize how hard it would be to keep that urge under control.

He’s been by himself for a while. It had been some time since he moved out of the main house. Yoongi was honestly used to being alone, he didn’t think it would be a big deal.

Everything with you seems to be a big deal.

He wanted to pull you close. Instead of his imagination, you were here, you were right beside him and how easy it would be to…

Yoongi scooted over a little to get a feel for how your reaction would be. He listened to the rhythmic beat of your heart and how it didn’t seem to go noticed at all.

Good sign.

He continuously kept moving, waiting for you to notice or say something, little by little until another crash of thunder suddenly had him clinging to you for dear life.

You stared wide eyed when you realized. You had been laying on your side at this point, so when he moved over, he basically ended up spooning you. His face was buried in your neck and his arms were wrapped around you pulling him close.

Silence filled the air for a while, both of you too scared to say anything.

…

“Do you mind if I stay here?” Yoongi finally asked. “It feels nice…”

You recalled back to when he told you about how this was a common practice where he came from. This was probably natural for him. That did not stop your beating heart however, and he noticed.

As soon as he got closer, your heart sped up so quickly. Despite how scared he was, that honestly made him more worried. Was he making you uncomfortable?

“I can move back… sorry this just feels right.” He chuckled nervously. Everything about you in his arms felt right. Your warmth, your sweet scent… fuck, you smelled so good.

You thought about it for a second. You knew immediately you probably weren’t going to get much sleep like this, you being way too excited for your eyes to close anytime soon. But he was your guest and you wanted to make him feel comfortable, if the raging storm outside was bothering him, and you being in his embrace helped, of course you should provide that comfort. Plus… he was right, this did feel right.

“You can stay, it's alright, I understand.”

A little bit of silence passed.

“I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable…”

“No you’re—“

“I can hear your heart… please don’t lie.” You eyes widened at his words. Alright, that’s more new information. But enough, it wasn’t time for the scientist.

“I’m not lying… sorry, just been awhile since I’ve slept with someone like this.”

Your words had his mind racing? A while? There was someone else before him?

“Who?”

“My ex— been so long I forgot what it felt like.” You chuckled, fully expecting him to laugh along with you, but it was silent.

“He used to hold you like this?” The words were dangerous, he knew that.

“Kinda… like the way you’re doing it more though. Feels good.” Yoongi couldn’t stop himself from bringing you closer. The thought of someone holding you like this… normally it wouldn’t affect him, this wasn’t deemed romantic where he comes from but knowing it did where you come from. He hated that.

“Anyway, we should try and go to sleep. It’s pretty late.” It was, it was 2 in the morning if we were trying to be exact.

“Sleep well human.” Yoongi mumbled.

“Night Yoongi~” You were trying to sleep, but as you thought before, it was a hard time trying to finally get your eyes to close.

Yoongi however really made no effort in trying to sleep, at least for a while. Here you were, your body pulled close. Fuck, if you lives were different. Why were you human? He would love to have you as a moonrut partner. Just imagining what that would be like with you— Yoongi felt his face warm.

You just smelled so good it had his mind feeling a bit fuzzy.

This seemed to be the perfect antidote to take his mind off the real reason he came in here. The storm was terrifying, yes, he was not used to hearing it be that loud before— but if that was it, it would be a little sad. No, the dark clouds, lightning flashes and finally the crashes of thunder were enough to invoke that same hopeless feeling that he kept experiencing in his nightmare.

It made him think about it. How it was coming for him. He knew it. It was coming. The storm was a sign, he was sure of it. How could he be alone when a fate Yoongi knew he couldn’t avoid was getting closer and closer.

The moments have only seemed to increase since he woke up. Part of him thought that when he would turn human that this would go away, but no, if anything it’s gotten worse. There was just no escaping it.

It was scary. He was scared.

But you… you always seem to make it better.

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

Something weird happened today. Something really weird happened today.

After spending a month with your friend you didn’t think you could be surprised anymore. The impossible was possible when it came to him. As a human being it amazed you, as a scientist it perplexed and challenged you. No matter what side you looked at you were always eager to find something new about the Keepers, about Yoongi.

But something happened today and you were scared.

Considering what you’ve seen these days, you shouldn’t be shocked. You were sure what made this different is the fact that Yoongi looked just as scared.

You looked over at him, his eyes glossy, his hair was wet, droplets continued to drop down his face, as he gripped the towel wanting it to provide some sort of protection. He was shaking. It was obvious. You had pointed it out, but he just said he was cold.

He was lying, you knew that.

What happened? The once playful evening in your pool had turned south so quickly. Part of you wondered if this was your fault, could you possibly be the one that caused it?

What was worse was the little voice in the back of your head that was telling you to say what you needed to do. You hated the thought, but after what you saw today…

It happened about an hour ago. You had the bright idea of trying to teach him how to swim while he was still in his human form. Nothing wrong went there, it was just playful banter as he continued to degrade human design as he struggled for a while, getting out of his old habits. You eventually came out of the pool to relax for a second as you both started to get a little tired. You were about to head in but you thought it’d be funny to push him in one last time.

With a smile on your face and one hard shove, he went flying over the edge. You expected him to hit the water and immediately start bashing you— by then you had pretty much dried off so you knew it would be just one of those annoying moments. What you didn’t expect was that after you pushed him, there was never a splash. It happened again. He got stuck.

You stared wide eyed as he floated over the water, you could still see the look of surprise on his face. It was as if time stopped right before your eyes.

You didn’t know what happened, at first you wondered if this was his doing. You immediately knew something was wrong when you started seeing the tears stream down his face.

“YOONGI!!!” You screamed, your own face was wet now. It was as if you hit the play button all of sudden. He came crashing down into the water like you expected him to minutes ago.

The look of fear on his face as he scrambled out the pool reminded you of when he came into your room for the first time. Right, the first time. You didn’t stop him the next day as he followed you in and you haven’t stopped him yet.

You enjoyed it actually.

But this already made you think that there must be some sort of connection between the two. This is the second time you’ve seen it happen. You’re not even there with him all the time to know.

What you do know is that something is happening here. He still hasn’t said anything to you since he came out. He looked terrified and you were worried.

As of now you were both still out here. Your feet hung in the water as you stared at the moon and stars that hung above the both of you.

You wrapped your arm around him. “Yoongi… if you want to talk about it, I’m here, ok?”

He didn’t want to talk about it with you. He honestly didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. He felt like he was going crazy, he would have believed he did if the missing month of his life wasn't proof enough that something did happen to him.

He didn’t want you to know that something was coming, that it needed him. This feeling of dread, it was like he was staring death right in the face.

No. You didn’t need to know.

“Human it’s fine.” It wasn’t but he needed to put on a brave face. Apparently he wasn’t doing too well on that because you didn’t look convinced.

“I’m not gonna force you to talk, just know I’m worried about you ok. This wasn’t the first time something like this has happened. As much as I like having you here Yoongi, if there's something happening to you, I’d feel better knowing you were around people who are more familiar with this type of stuff. I thought I was being obvious in the fact that I care about your well being. I hope you know that.”

Your words made his cheeks warm.

“Human I understand… just, you don’t need to worry. I’ll figure this out on my own.” He probably would never, but he sounded more confident this time. It seemed to work better as your face started to relax.

“Just know you can talk to me, alright?” You stared him down in order to prove your point.

His face got even more warm.

“Of course, human.”

Silence passed between the two of you for a moment before a thought that had been dancing around in your head got too antsy and you said it aloud.

“Are you ready to go back?” Your heart sank as soon as you said it. Even just the thought of him leaving was making you feel funny. “I’m sure you have people you miss, plus I’m sure you have apprentice things you need to get back to.”

“Human…”

“If you’re worried about your injuries, you’re definitely healed. You probably didn’t need me to tell you that, but if that’s what you were waiting for…” Your voice was shaky.

You suddenly felt his hand on yours. “Calm down, I swear human you’re so dramatic… I’m not leaving, not yet at least.”

“But— But why? Just a few weeks ago you hated me and now you suddenly want to stay when nothing is keeping you here anymore?!”

“Nothing is keeping me here.” Yoongi scoffed. He still wouldn’t tell you the main reason, but to say that’s the only reason why he hasn’t just braved it out and hoped for the best would be a lie.

“Human, you’re right. Sometimes I wish I was back and I want to put this whole thing behind me, but you don’t know what it was like before. This is honestly a breath of fresh air.” He looked over to see your eyes wide, clearly intrigued by this information. He chuckled knowing he should have expected this from you.

“Believe it or not but I am or was sick.” Yoongi had made note of this a long time ago. The symptoms that kept him trapped in his house had disappeared completely. This was honestly the first time in a while he felt normal. Even when things were ‘ok’ they were never completely gone. Yoongi had honestly expected this might be a chronic condition that he’d have to deal with for the rest of his life. But here he was, feeling better than he had felt in so many years.

“What do you mean?”

Yoongi sighed and lied back so he could look up at the stars. You followed.

“It’s the reason I’m here in the first place. Ended up trapped in my home for a while, stressed out of my mind, just wanted to get away, you know?”

“Can I ask what was wrong or is wrong?”

“Kinda hard to explain it. It’s not like I was dying or anything, but it was hard to live. I had been sick for so many years I forgot what it was like to feel normal.”

“Something changed?”

“Ever since I woke up on the beach I’ve felt fine. It’s kinda funny, I can tell you’re thinking it. ‘If they’re so advanced why couldn’t they cure me?’”

“So you read minds now?” You both laughed. “But yeah, I mean, we haven’t discussed medical advancements yet, but I imagine that would be one of the things that you would always seem to have an answer for.”

“And you’re right. We do have an answer for pretty much everything. What I had was completely unknown to them. I was subjected to tests and tests and more tests, plus dealing with my apprenticeship.”

“They never found answers?”

“Nothing, I honestly thought I was just gonna have to deal with it for the rest of my life. Part of me’s a bit scared that when I leave, things will go back to normal. I left for a reason, that’s the last thing I want, honestly.”

You nodded understanding his reasoning.

“Not only that but I feel like this will be the last time I come on land. Just want to experience it all before the responsibilities and prying eyes of everyone make it impossible. I’m not in any rush honestly, you don’t need to worry human.”

“What about everyone waiting for you?”

“They can wait. It’s just us for now.” Yoongi wrapped his arm around you and pulled you close. You couldn’t resist the smile forming on your face.

He rolled over and buried his face in your neck.

You were trying to stop your beating heart and reminding yourself this was just part of his culture. So many moments like these that have your heart feeling all fluttery when in reality this doesn’t mean the same to him as it does to you. You honestly have to stop even thinking about the alternative and see it as it is. You and him? That wouldn’t work, you come from completely different worlds, he’s leaving one day for goodness sake. That wouldn’t work. Just keep your eyes on the prize, learning about a sub human species that only you’re aware of. That’s enough, right?

Yoongi cuddled even further into you, your scent at this point addicting. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with you? The closer he got the less he wanted to pull away, if anything, what he was trying to fight off was the urge to lead you into the pool and take you right now. The desire was carnal. Something so animalistic in what he wanted to do to you. You just smell so good. It would be so easy to give into temptation but Yoongi knew better, whatever was happening he could overcome it.

That didn’t mean it was hard.

His mind continued to play with different scenarios as he tried to focus on just how nice it was having you by his side. That wasn’t right either…

“I’m gonna miss you…” Your voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

Yoongi lifted his head and looked you right in the eyes. Your words made it worse, for a second the desire, the urge, the temptation was almost unbearable. He wanted to show you how much he would miss you too. He wanted to kiss you, to stop you being so worried. All these thoughts dancing around his head became too much, he sat back up so he was facing the pool.

“I bet you would.” He tried to chuckle and make it not a big deal like he always would.

Your eyes were wide while you tried to calm your heart once again. For a second there you seriously thought he would…

You sat up with him, extremely embarrassed about your sudden confession.

“Sorry if I—“

“No, no, you’re fine uh… I’ll be working on the car if you need me.” In a haste he got up and started making his way to the front door. He hated himself, why couldn’t he just say it back?

He would miss you. Probably even more than he may realize. Now he’s just made things weird…

Get it together Yoongi…

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

Yoongi stared at his system, intrigued by his findings. He had made it his mission to figure out the inner workings of your vehicle. Like he told you, transportation technology remains unexplored despite their progress. It was a fun little side quest that he tasked himself with.

His findings were unsurprising. The technology was rudimentary as he found everything up here to be. The mechanics, the parts, he’s never seen a car before and he’s sure he could put one together himself, blindfolded.

That’s honestly not what attracted him— what made it exciting was the thought about driving it. He had observed you once working the machine, plus with a little bit of an analysis of the mechanics it was pretty simple knowing how it would work.

He had already asked you to test drive it, the final stage of analysis. You said no, saying something about needing a license and the fact that it was a rental— whatever that means. All he knew was that you were firm on him not going to test it out.

So instead, he continued his study in both further understanding the vehicle and figuring out ways he could improve the technology, possibly even adapting certain concepts to propose to the council for use back home. He highly doubted it would go anywhere, but if nothing else worked, he could always try and make one when he went back…

Going back…

Yoongi was out here trying to distract himself from you and the remainder of the fact that he needed to leave. He knew that. Leaving felt wrong. He hadn’t known you for long but he knew that departure would be hard. You were his friend, the thought about saying goodbye felt wrong.

Taking him out his thoughts was the blaring sounds of his system, letting him know someone was calling.

Uh oh

He didn’t even need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Without a second thought he answered.

In the holographic projection the familiar 4 faces popped up, the background letting him know they were at their usual meeting spot.

Today was not the day, he wasn’t in the mood…

“Yoongi?” Jimin questioned.

“Hi everyone.” He put his tools back in the box you gave him, his stance was awkward.

He followed their eyes knowing they were looking at where he was and he mentally prepared himself for the earful he was about to get.

“I’m confused why you aren’t here? You’re still on land…” Namjoon finally broke the awkward silence.

“I already told you.”

“Yoongi I’m worried—“

“You have no need to be. I’ll be back.”

More silence.

“It’s just… I don’t understand. I know you explained it but…” Hoseok started but trailed off as he continued.

“Please just know there are certain factors that are keeping me here. It does not deal with the human, it’s personal. I will come as soon as I can understand my situation.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m worried. What is this situation? Why aren’t you going into detail?” Taehyung worried. No he hadn’t told them either, for the exact same reason.

“Please just trust me. If I can’t solve matters on my own I will tell you but for now, I want to keep it private—“

“Yoongi!!” You called out from the front door. Everyone’s attention was on you.

Your eyes widened realizing you were interrupting. “Just wanted to tell you dinner was ready, come in when you can… uh sorry…” You were quick to try and shut the door, but Yoongi stopped you.

“You’re fine, I’ll be in soon.” He gave you a weak smile. You tried not to think about it too much before you closed the door behind you.

Yoongi turned his attention back to the judging eyes of his friends.

“You’re looking awfully comfortable with the human.” Hoseok pointed out.

“Don’t. It’s not like that. She’s just being hospitable. I have no issues with her.”

“She’s human, I think that's enough of an issue.” Taehyung added. Yoongi’s fist tightened.

“I’m simply staying until I can figure out this personal matter. Unless anyone has any more questions I think that’s enough talking for the day.”

He was in a haste to hang up before Jimin called out. “We’re just worried about you, we haven’t seen you for 2 months, we’re just antsy.” Yoongi sighed knowing he couldn’t be mad at them. If the positions were switched he would do the same.

“It’s alright, just don’t doubt me. I’ve already handled the most pressing situation, I’m continuing my studies here in the meantime. There’s no need to rush. I can’t wait till we can meet again as well, but this needs to be handled first. Alright?”

The pressing situation had already been handled, the big possibility of war coming was now extinguished. He had already spoken with his parents. Everything was fine now, they were just eagerly awaiting the return of their missing son.

The boys gave each other wary looks before nodding.

“Call us soon, ok?” Jimin said and Yoongi nodded. They talk almost everyday. He really did miss them.

With that the call ended and Yoongi was heading inside to where he saw you in the kitchen getting the plates ready.

“Everything ok?” You questioned and he nodded.

“They just miss me.”

You smiled at the thought. You didn’t ignore the pang of sadness, once again reminding you he will need to leave.

Instead you chose to focus your attention on the moment, enjoying a meal with your friend. Instead of dwelling so much on the future you should focus more on the here and now. Save the sadness for when the time comes.

While you both were enjoying dinner, maybe if you weren’t so in the moment you would have noticed the fact that your phone was ringing. Maybe you would have picked it up, realizing that it was Jungkook. Maybe you would have remembered what day it was.

Maybe you would have remembered that it wasn’t just you and Yoongi but your friends now as well. They were coming. They were coming tomorrow.

124 notes · View notes

minyoongisjiminie · 4 years

Text

너는 나 나는 너 (neoneun na naneun neo)

ship: jikook, idol!jungkook x broke literature student!jimin

genre: fluff and angst, kind of slowburn

rating: pg-13

disclaimer: language and alcohol

plot: jimin and jungkook were childhood friends and with jungkook training to become an idol, they both lost contact. jungkook however did never forget what Jimin once promised him: “If your pinky is bigger than mine, then I give you the allowance to marry me.”

inspo: a beautiful fanart that i saw on insta some time ago. it made me brainstorm for a good amount of time :)

a/n: please be nice to me :’) I haven’t written stuff in such a long time and I’m so out of it…so pretty please cut me some slack :) constructive criticism is always allowed tho.

a big thank you to the closest mutual i have: @sugaforyou for beta reading and just being a helpful hand! i’m sure I was a mess… :’) I’m sorry for that and I love you!

word count: 12,8k

Jimin despised waking up early every day and then continuing to trot to the bus station. Did it even matter in the first place? School made him even more unmotivated than he already was in this part of life. In fact, there were no interesting and helpful topics he learned there and, furthermore, he thought that attending school was more something he fulfilled for his parents. They were always so proud of him when he brought home a good grade. So proud, that he always concealed how depressed school actually made him. Going to school for so many hours to then attending the tuition classes and as if that weren’t enough also continuing studying at home, was that place that essential though? It just made him already completely weary when he wakes up on a Saturday. The only passion and hobby that he possessed was taking dance lessons, but even for those he rarely had time. He wanted to continue to attend them, but he was too overwhelmed with school that he was absolutely tired. On top of that, none of his friends actually tried to offer him a shoulder to cry or were even there to cheer him up.

They did not realise how it was to live up each day to the expectations of others, how it was to live for others, just how it was to be so damn dependent on someone. Of course, he wasn’t the only one that had parents that were expecting so much. However, the friends that he established were all free spirits and some of their parents were even condoning that.

Oh, how he envied them.

Why was he even so dependent on the hugs from his parents when he brought home an A, or just a simple “I’m proud of you” or “i love you”. It made him do things that he wouldn’t normally do. He was not expecting that just from his parents, but also from his friends. If he got these compliments and showers of love, he felt like it was okay to suffer. Maybe that was the reason why he was so lonely. He put himself into the moulds that people in his environment created for him. It ended up swallowing him up.

Nowadays, those he once called friends were ignoring him as much as they could, and his family didn’t really care about him. As long as he received good grades and didn’t protest, they were fine with him. To be honest now without any distractions whatsoever he could completely concentrate on school, with his friends having stopped calling him on Friday nights to ask if he would come hang out with him on the weekend/following day.

They already knew he would find a pathetic excuse why he couldn’t attend. He was on his own.

Just as if someone like Kookie didn’t exist…

Kookie, or by his full name Jeon Jungkook, was his younger neighbour.

He was a few years younger than him and every time when Jimin was miserably trotting to school, the little one would always sprint his way up to him. Like Jimin’s puppy “Doraemon” trying to play with the little kids by running after them. Now after realising that, Jimin couldn’t stop thinking that they sort of looked similar to each other. That made him forget his sorrow for a little while, and he couldn’t stop smiling.

When Jimin was younger he always thought that Jungkook behaved that way because he looked up to him. Considering he was a few years older than him. Maybe he needed an older brother figure? Nowadays however Kookie comes to check if his pinkie grew out to be taller than the one of the older one. This cannot happen overnight of course, but Jungkook didn’t quite seem to understand how the mystery of time and patience worked.

“Hyung, just look! If my finger outgrows yours..! Then you need to marry me. You promised me!”

Jimin smiled gently. He actually stated that a few months back, because Jungkook wouldn’t stop bragging around that he was marrying Jimin soon. At first he thought it was cute, but after a while it started to get on Jimin’s nerves because he wouldn’t stop. So, the only option he had was to tell him they were still too young, and Jimin liked boys bigger than him.

To the surprise of the little one of course. He was absolutely bamboozled, his doe-like eyes grew even bigger in that moment, and he asked if he really needed to become taller than him, in order for him to take the older one’s hand in marriage. Jimin quickly grabbed the younger one by his hand and softly stated: “It’s enough if your little pinkie is bigger than hyung’s. And that needs some time, doesn’t it?” Kookie nodded shyly, examining the black and white converse chucks that the older one was wearing.

Looking back to it, he always ended up snickering a bit. The boy was truly a gift to the neighbourhood, everyone in the area loved him. Even though he was already growing up to become an adolescent, for all the neighbours he was still the little cute and gifted maknae, Kookie. A lot of his classmates that came to visit him were all trying too hard to look cool, which was normal for that age, but Kookie was still acting like a little adorable brat.

But dare you to recognize him and adore him back, face to face, then he turned into a big whiny mess.

Jungkook was indeed a once in a lifetime…

Jimin didn’t even know why Jungkook was so hellbent on “marrying” him. They were so young and Jungkook so tiny. You wouldn’t tell he was twelve.

However, Jimin couldn’t stop feeling a bit flattered by the compliments and promises the little one gifted him. Even though it was “just his younger neighbour kid”.

“I firmly promise.” He hooked Kook’s little finger with his own, pulled his thumb onto his and made them touch. “You can trust your hyungie right?” Kook was already shyly staring at the pavement. Oh wow, now HE was the one that needed to be intimidated? “Of course, hyung.”

Jimin couldn’t contain himself, he chuckled. Jungkook was just such a… cutie pie.

To be honest, Jungkook isn’t 10 years or even 5 years younger than Jimin. The age gap consists of 2 years. That was completely alright. However, the height difference couldn’t be overlooked. Jungkook could reach Jimin’s chest at the moment, and the older one was sure that he would grow. However, the reason why Jimin was keeping his distance with his dongsaeng, was surely not the height difference. But rather that he would not stay right by his side. He wouldn’t continue to chase him down before school, ask for his pinkie in a cutely manner, or even give him the puppy eyes, to bribe him, so he could buy him his candies and banana milk. He would disappear in thin air. Just like his friends once did.

And that was bothering Jimin more than he would admit.

“You need to promise me that you’ll always give your best. Fate always brings those together that deeply care for each other. Okay?”

Jimin grabbed Jungkook by his shoulders, a bit tougher than he actually wanted, and he had a weird feeling in his guts telling him he wouldn’t see him again. He was indeed sure in his bones of the fact Jungkook would find someone better to look up to and adore.

In the end, Jimin was a loser, who wasn’t brave enough to run after his own dreams. And that sucked. Of course, it did. Jungkook shouldn’t stay here, though. Nothing should hold him here. Not even his first childhood romance.

If you could even call it like that..

“I’ll do that.. But if you forget me…!”

Jimin noticed the tears building up in Kookie’s big doe eyes, and he couldn’t contain his own sadness. It was so odd to see him in such a condition. He thought he would make some stupid jokes and then just say bye. Now looking at him like this, was concerning him.

“Hey… Oh Kook-ah!” He gently pushed Jungkook’s back into his arms, to embrace him into a hug. With one hand, the older one was caressing his little head while the other one his back.

“Hyung, will always be there with you. You cannot see me, but I’ll be right there by your side, alright?”

“I will miss you so much hyung.” the younger one replied with a trembling voice.

“You need to return quickly. You need to know if this one,” He showed his little pale pinkie. “Of yours, grew up to become bigger than mine, huh?” Jungkook’s lips finally formed a little smile, even though his eyes were still watery and red. “I promise. But when I come back you need to promise to marry me. Don’t you dare forget.”

Even though he wouldn’t admit it now, Jimin’s eyes back then were also filling up with tears. He caressed Jungkook’s head once more before moving away from the little one and facing him.

“This is a promise.”

Yet again they gave each other their little promise gesture. And then Jungkook was gone. Vanished, you could say without even leaving a trace. He did not forget a single thing. All his toys and plushies he loved, he kept. That was a bummer. Jimin hoped to have something from him to always keep him in his memories.

The first few years, Jimin welcomed home some letters. Or messages on his phone. After some time, however, even those stopped.

~ a few years later ~

“Jimin, you owe me more than one soju bottle for doing this…?”

Yoongi massaged his own lower back, after carrying a few boxes up to Jimin’s new place. He was not born to help him out, along with it, he also wasn’t born to carry heavy boxes like that. Why did Jimin even ask Yoongi from all the people he knows to help him out? He isn’t helpful in any way.

“Dude you brought up 2 boxes. You shouldn’t even get half of a soju bottle.” the younger one replied while lying down on the cold wooden plank. He was exhausted and didn’t even know why he was still going to college. He fucked up his first semester because he chose to listen to his parents and studied hotel management. Hotel management? From all the subjects the world has to offer, he chose fucking hotel management? Thankfully, he found his better half in the same classes and funny thing is he also seemed out of place.

His parents were not so happy to hear that. But in the end they accepted his choice and let him study whatever he wants. As long as he still went to college they didn’t care anymore.

In a way he was happy, but he was also fucking tired and disappointed in himself. Why did he even listen to his parent’s advice in the first place?

“I’m your sunbae, and the most important thing is that I’m your hyung. So, don’t be such a disrespectful piece of trash and be thankful that I was there to help you out.”

Yoongi scoffed back while he poked Jimin’s chest with his pale finger.

The younger one rolled his eyes and made some space for Yoongi to lay next to him on the floor. Even though there was a cheap sofa just a few meters away from them, on this hot summer day the best and also free thing was to just lay down on the floor. Jimin wasn’t rich in any way, so therefore he couldn’t afford an AC.

“Taehyung was too busy with his girlfriend. Hoseok hyung was too busy with his college work and the others were out partying.”

Yoongi shrugged his shoulders and took a sip from his lukewarm beer that Jimin bought him on their way to get here. He wasn’t necessarily into partying, especially not when it was that hot outside. Jimin was also the only one he was cool with, hanging out with him didn’t get on his nerves. That was a plus. And as long as he got his soju, he gives zero fucks.

“I’m the best hyung you have. Just sayin’.” He stood up pretty quickly from the cold wooden floor and offered his hand to the now blonde-haired boy. “Soju time.” Yoongi stick out his tongue and squeezed his eyes. Jimin couldn’t prevent himself from laughing. This hyung got some fairly good aegyo talent if alcohol was in play.

“Cheers!”

It was pretty late now. Jimin was starting to get tired and was unsure if he could pay for all the soju bottles they were destroying. “Hyung, how about you slow down a bit? I don’t think I can pay up for all of this.” Jimin was starting to count the tteokbokki and the soju bottles that they already devoured. 1, 2, 3, 4… no. It was impossible. He already was broke. He was happy that he could pay for even one bottle.

“Don’t worry too much. I knew you would say that. I asked for one bottle so just pay up for one if you want to.”

Jimin looked at him suspiciously, uncertain in what he was up to. Soon after he just gave up and stopped assuming that his older friend expected something from him in return. He was too drunk in the first place, thinking shouldn’t be an option.

“Come on, let’s get home. You look so drunk.”

“Am. Not?”

Jimin has always gotten pretty sassy and showed his big temper when he was drunk. It made Yoongi laugh, so he just played along.

“Okay, little one. Let’s go. Tomorrow is Uni-Day.”

Jimin tried. Standing up was hard, he felt like his eyes were coated with tiny little clouds. And his head was starting to ache really bad. “Hyung, please. Help me…” He pouted while searching for his hyung with his hands.

Little did Jimin know, Yoongi was actually paying for the food and the alcohol, snickering as he glanced at the helpless little blonde boy. It was always a different kind of entertainment to watch Jimin being drunk. And he adored that.

“Come on!”

Yoongi dragged Jimin out of the bar and linked his arms with his. Just to be careful. He could never be sure if he’s up to something. Drunk people are like kids. You can’t read their thoughts, and suddenly they’re crying because they’re doing something stupid.

“Hmm, which Bus should we take..?”

While Yoongi was looking through his phone, Jimin started observing his surroundings. It was pretty dark and refreshing to stand outside after drinking so much, with the weather tingling him. And he realised how happy he was that he didn’t barf tonight. It was an improvement for him.

The night still was young, one could never know.

While Jimin looked at all the posters glued on the windows and doors of the neighbour’s bars and restaurants, there was a specific one whom caught his attention.The boy on the poster looked so familiar…

Oh no. The boy on the poster… Is none other than…

That was damn Jeon Jungkook!

Jimin felt the puke climbing its way up to his throat, and he was so not welcoming it.

“Hyung… I think.. I need to..”

There we go.

“FUCK.”

After last night’s encounter with poster Jungkook, Jimin had such a bad mood that nothing on this planet could have cheered him up. And that fucking sucked.

His friends tried their best, but as they realised that even Mr. Kim’s class was not cheering him up a bit, they became worried.

“Jimin, you want some boba? I could buy some boba!”

Hoseok was really good at cheering up. He was such a funny spirit and always used his best words. But not even Hoseokie hyung’s jokes and cuddles or boba could cheer him up. If the older one could mix some magical powder in his boba, so he would forget all the heart-breaking memories he had with Jungkook… Then he would sure as hell take it.

“No, I gotta head to work. I’ll just drink coffee there.”

He grabbed his bag and trotted his way to the cafe where he worked part-time. Why was he even miserable in the first place? Jungkook was just a little boy back then –12 years old to be exact– thinking he was in love with him. That was it. How could a child know what real love was? Besides, why should Jimin care in the first place, when he already knew it was just a kindergarten love?

His headache was still not gone, and he was sure it did not entirely just come from alcohol…

“Hello, Noona.”

Jimin bowed towards his boss and grabbed his apron. Working in the cafe wasn’t even bad. He loved it to a certain amount. It was relaxing and soothing to create drinks and serve cakes and macarons. But he doubted that work today will help him overcome his past love.

“What’s wrong? Did you fail a test or something?”

Yoona washed her hands and prepared everything for Jimin to take over. She was two years older than him, and he was thankful for that. Jimin had no clue how to interact with people that were either way older than him or way younger than him.

“Nah, it’s just my brain.” He raised his index finger, pointed at his brain and took a deep sigh. “Overthinking.”

His older friend smiled lightly and tapped on his shoulder. “I don’t know what the problem is. But you will eventually overcome it. I promise.”

He nods, starting to cut some fruits to prepare some boba tea. It helped him to ignore Jungkook who was desperately trying to contact him in his head. Repeatedly knocking on his brain and crying out his name like a mantra: “Jiminie hyung!”

If that wasn’t bad enough.. Yoona forgot to tell him that there was a fancafe event today.

For Jungkook himself.

Jimin felt how his heart started to burst. Why was he so dependent on him? He didn’t see him for years and now suddenly after so many years he was following him around?

“Uhm, sir?”

A young girl, who was definitely still a high schooler, stood in front of the cash register and looked him straight in the eyes.

“We got permission from the Lady who was working here before. Just.. to be clear.”

He nodded, tried to smile, and gave her the permission again. Complimenting how beautiful the cafe looked and that they were doing a good job.

What should he even do? Be mad at the girl for being a fan? No. It wasn’t her fault.

“If you need help or anything. Say so.” He quickly continued and made his way to his best friend Taehyung, who was already sitting at his table.

“The usual?”

Tae nodded while glancing around at the cafe now full of Jungkook’s face. The tables were plastered with cups and cupcakes with Jungkook’s pictures, his name and birthdate. Of course, it was Jungkook’s birthday today. He completely forgot…

“Can I get my latte with this cup?” Taehyung tried to imitate Jungkook’s expression on the cup and gave the expression a little silly twist. Thankfully, the girls were busy putting posters on the wall, that they didn’t acknowledge him at all. The last thing he wanted, was a mob full of teenage girls getting at his nerves for disrespecting their “oppa”.

“Don’t ruin the fun for the fans. If that’s the way they want to show their love, they should.”

Taehyung looked up to him, confused. Since when was Jimin so nonchalant about events like that? He was literally the first one to complain about these girls or even boys who came to decorate the cafe with the handsome faces of the idols. The blonde-haired boy even went that far to call them “the slaves of the rich”.

“Anyway..” He stood up and followed Jimin to his working area. Taehyung would always order the same thing. A latte, a turkey sandwich, and a piece of the famous walnut cake. Jimin sometimes wondered if he wasn’t bored with picking the same order over and over again. But what did he care? As long as he was near him and could watch over him being an emotional mess and maybe even interfere if he were doing too much nonsense, he didn’t care at all.

“Did you see these girls? They are putting the posters up there like their lives are depending on it, it’s just a goddamn birthday of some self-centred sexy looking boy.”

Taehyung took a big sip of his latte and gave a disgusted expression.

Oh boy if you knew..

“Ah, by the way, I actually got to know the ‘self-centred-sexy looking boy’.

His best friend choked on the latte and stared at him, completely bewildered, and gave him a look. “No way..?!” Jimin shrugged his shoulders and put his food on the glass table in front of him. “Not a big deal, we were good friends back in Busan.” He casually responded as if it were the most normal thing that could happen to someone.

“And when did you think it was appropriate to tell me ?” Taehyung took a bite of his sandwich and skilfully avoided any eye contact with the smaller one. Jimin did not even need to look at him to know that he was probably pouting while eating to give him a guilty conscience.

Why should he feel guilty though? Everything happened way back in the past. Sometimes it’s better to let the past go. And the same rule was also directed to Kookie.

“You have something to say to me?” Jimin responded after a while. Shouldn’t it be Jimin’s choice to choose when to talk about specific things? Why is everyone always coming at him when he hid something from them? Doesn’t he have the right for privacy?

“Nah nothing. I was just wondering how you’ve gotten to know him. He’s pretty popular nowadays.”

“We were childhood friends.”

Taehyung raised his eyebrows and his eyes widened. He didn’t expect that Jimin was friends with the upcoming next ‘Taeyang’. Funny how one always discovers something new about their best friends.

“And you’re still in contact?” Taehyung suddenly started to welcome the idea of his best friend knowing a famous idol, that could open so many doors for them. Dreamily, he put a fork full of cake in his mouth. Just thinking that people would try to be friends with them and act like they are celebrities themselves made him cheerful. According to Taehyung, they weren’t exactly losers or anything, but they weren’t associated with the cool kids either. Jungkook could open so many doors for him.. and Jimin of course!

“Nah. He stopped writing me back.”

It was actually Jimin that stopped. But the questions on “why” and “how” would be too annoying for him, so he realised lying wouldn’t be that bad.

“Aw shit that sucks.”

After Jimin’s confession, they both stopped talking for a while. Taehyung confessed that he still had some schoolwork overdue and that he would concentrate on that, and Jimin stated that he was still in preparation for today’s work. However, both were still in eyesight to each other. Here and there they shared some moments, but overall, they did their own thing.

That was refreshing to Jimin.

Maybe he was selfish for being so demanding and wanting Taehyung to be near him. And also wanting him to be silent and letting him do his work, without interruption. Yet, at moments like these, he realised how much he actually respected their friendship and also how they’re both complete opposites from each other.

Taehyung was a pretty outgoing, friendly, and charming guy. Girls loved him and were undressing him with their stares when he was walking around campus, and guys wanted to be his friend, sending him invitations to notorious parties. In addition, he was also humble and disagreed with the fact that he was in any way “popular”. He was that clueless that he would make plans on how to get into parties that were from popular seniors but hasn’t realised that he indeed was literally the most treasured and desired boy in the whole campus. The majority of seniors weren’t interested in him, however they knew him. To the point that he would receive cute messages from pretty noonas.

Okay, maybe the seniors were indeed interested in him, but they had a big ego, and wouldn’t give him invitations, nevertheless.

A typical case of not knowing what is in front of your nose but wanting something that you’ll never get.

Jimin however… He was a hopeless loser.

Girls didn’t give a single shit about him, guys were ignoring him and would only greet him when Taehyung or his senior friends were next to him. He wasn’t interesting and he realised that fact one too many times. The only thing he was good for was when his colleagues wanted to get close to his friends through him. And that was nice for both sides. Jimin’s friends knew whom to ignore from now on, and the girls and guys who were trying had the hope to get closer to them.

What a shitshow.

The only great thing about college nowadays was that he actually had some real friends he could count on.

Thinking about the way his friends knew little of Jungkook made him feel glum. They pretty much knew a great deal about him, he told them everything. His relationship with his younger brother, his parents, his assholes of friends back then. But he always let Jungkook out. Even though he played such a big part in his life once.

And still does.

Yearningly he looked back to Taehyung, who had his earplugs in and typed something in his MacBook. He wanted to tell him how much he actually missed Jungkook. How much he loved him back then, and how sorry he was that he stopped replying.

The guilt in his intestines was driving him wild.

Maybe that was the problem. He was running away from the responsibility over their relationship. Why was he even scared? He had no clue.

Why did he stop replying? He knew how shy and insecure Jungkook was back then. He even wrote to him once, that he felt like crying whenever his fellow trainee-hyungs were interrogating him about his interests. And that he would look himself up just to take a long deep breath. After all the confessions the younger one made, Jimin just stopped replying? He was disgusted. And disappointed in himself.

Perhaps that was the reason why he was so remorseful and so careful to bring him up.

This was the first time he had friends. And he didn’t want them to leave him too.

On the other side, he felt guilty. Wanting to know if what he did was really that bad, or that maybe in any way, his friends would understand and forgive him.

“Taehyung-ah?”

Jimin raised his voice slightly. Not wanting to gain attention from Jungkook’s fans. He assumed the girls were nearly done with their work. They decorated the cafe in pastel colours and all the posters were already hanging on the wall. Apparently the only thing they still were working on was the TV, trying to connect it with their phones, possibly to put on some music videos.

“Tae?”

He raised his voice one more time. Again, not getting an answer.

“Now or Never” he thought.

Taehyung was his best friend, the only same aged friend he had to be exact. Why couldn’t he just be a hundred percent honest with him?

The blonde-haired boy walked towards the little table that was plastered full of Taehyung’s books, a notebook and his MacBook. He hoped for Taehyung to understand him and maybe even help him out to forget Jungkook. After so many years the younger one would’ve forgotten about him anyway…

“Something’s wrong?” Taehyung saw Jimin’s agonized expression and it worried him. He surveyed the restaurant. No one. The guests were perhaps put off by the girls that discussed vocally about the pictures that should be taken and didn’t even dare to enter the little cafe. Due to the minority of guests, he grabbed Jimin’s wrist and made him sit next to him.

“Finally! Will you tell me what’s been bothering you for so long?"

It sounded like he impatiently spitted these words out, but Taehyung was just worried. And maybe even a bit annoyed. Jimin wouldn’t keep things from him for so long. Most of the time he would write him a message, and Taehyung helped him out by cheering him up. Of course, there were also times where that wasn’t enough. Then, he would come pick his friend up without him realising, drag him to the closest "McDonalds” and have a late snack together. That’s just how things worked out between them.

Now seeing that his best friend was hiding something from him, and that it was overall bothering him to the point that he was spreading this bad mood around… Was especially concerning to him.

How could Jimin even decline Hobi hyung’s offer to boba?!

“There is so much that I didn’t tell you. And I feel fucking guilty. Seriously…”

Jimin’s voice started to break, and he needed to fight against his tears. He was so frightened that his friend would end this friendship, when he found out that he let the 13-year-old Jungkook back then, down. Mostly, because Jimin was kind of the caretaker of their little friend group. That also applied to Taehyung’s girlfriend who also was a pretty close friend to Jimin. If they find out about Jungkook maybe they’ll stop trusting him altogether.

“Bro.. that’s okay. Tell me. You make me all scared right now.” Taehyung grabbed Jimin’s cold hand and put his own two hands on it. “Does it have something to do with that Jungkook guy?” Jimin gulped. He needed to be completely honest with him about this. About his feelings and in general, about the relationship he shared with his once younger friend.

“Yeah, actually it does.” Jimin responded, while still staring at their hands. It helped him a lot to feel Taehyung’s hands on his own. He once noticed how much tanner he was than him. And he remembered once again how different they are from each other. Even when it came to things like outer appearance.

So then, after recollecting his thoughts, he spilled everything out. How they both shared this deep-rooted relationship, and how both shared the mutual trust and love in each other. He revealed every single point, and how Jungkook made him feel. Even though, back then, he was younger and smaller than him. Kookie was the only one that understood him and stood by his side.

Jimin was sharing all these intimate moments that he had with his dongsaeng, while he didn’t recognize how Taehyung was smiling widely about the way he mentioned cute little habits that Jungkook possessed and even the grimaces he once did to cheer him up. Talking about these habits eventually helped Jimin to overcome his tension about this topic.

“I told you that he stopped replying, remember?"

Taehyung still extremely interested and who seemingly forgot that he had schoolwork to do, nodded while rubbing his thumb on Jimin’s outer hand.

"Well, that’s not the entire truth… I was the one who stopped replying to him."

His friend was in point of fact a bit surprised, but he wasn’t angry or disappointed. More rather he wondered why Jimin did that to be exact.

"It’s just so complicated. He was writing to me about his hardships and I had this weird feeling that I couldn’t help him out. I also missed him so much and every time I would start a new letter my hands always mindlessly wrote the words "just come back home Jungkook-ah, hyung misses you”. Even though it was selfish of me. Then I–”

He finally gained the courage to look his friends in the eye. “I just stopped replying whatsoever.“

Now, it was over. He said everything completely honest and every single word that was spoken came out of his heart. The desperate wish that Taehyung would understand was still booming in his head.

"Jimin-ah… That’s okay."

Was everything that came out from his better half. And even that seemed enough for a second.

It was now time to head home. Taehyung insisted on bringing him and on the way they could order some food. The black-haired boy knew that Jimin wouldn’t eat anything if something was bothering him, and he always remembered how his mom constantly told him that eating some delicious food was always a good way to forget about all the small melancholic things in life. Even if it was just a few hours.

"Let’s order some chicken with some beer. That’s perfect for this ugly weather."

Even though it was blazing hot yesterday, today it was heavily raining. Without Taehyung’s umbrella they sure as hell would have a problem.

After their conversation, Taehyung wanted to actually strangle Jimin for even thinking he would end this friendship just because of some idol boy. He made some jokes to cheer him up, and told him numerous times that it was alright. There was a solid reason why he didn’t write back, and if there was ever going to be a moment where Jungkook and Jimin eventually meet, from the way Jimin was describing him, Jungkook would understand.

"I just want to let this go, you know. But I don’t know if screaming out of my lungs or breaking stuff will help me.” Jimin stated sadly, while nibbling on his fried chicken. He actually was hungry, but eating was exhausting to him.

All he had in his mind was Jungkook.

In one picture, little Jungkook who was crying and repeatedly asking why he abandoned him, and in a different picture there was Jungkook, all grown up, ignoring him on purpose and burning all the letters that he ever sent to him.

“This might be a super stupid idea… But how about you write him a letter, telling him in all details what happened ? Like, why you stopped writing back and stuff."

In all honesty, that sounded like a good idea to the blond. He can imagine how just writing down the words "I’m sorry” will clear up his guilty conscience. There was also no possible way that Jungkook would read it, either way. He was such a popular idol nowadays, he definitely received tons of letters every day.

“No, I actually think that may help me…"

Taehyung gifted his best friend a boxy smile while he put some fried chicken on his own plate. He always had a strong appetite. Looking at his friend eat so happily made Jimin full in a second.

"When you finish writing, send me your letter if you want.”

Jimin looked at him like a scared puppy. How could he possibly show him this side of himself? All sensitive and vulnerable?

He would rather stab himself.

“No, that’s fine. I’ll just write what comes to mind and send it."

Taehyung gave him a thumbs up with a pout. A cute habit he had while eating. Jimin smiled brightly and gave him one of his fried chicken that was sitting on his plate for some time. Eating wouldn’t calm down his stomach, which was now full of little butterflies.

03:00 am.

Jimin was laying on the wooden floor. Slightly banging his head repeatedly against the tile, hoping something good will pop up in his brain.

As soon as Taehyung left, Jimin mindlessly, started to walk around his little apartment. Wishing with every step, for something good to pop out of his head, maybe some artistic poetic words? A simple sorry wouldn’t be enough, that’s all he knew.

Just like that, time passed.

Jimin didn’t know what to say. He was too inflicted with himself and thought that no matter what he wrote, he could never be forgiven. Right there at this moment he wondered what Jungkook did right now. It was definitely ridiculously hard to be an idol, especially nowadays where K-Pop started to go viral around the globe.

When he was younger, he always imagined while writing letters to his younger friend, what Jungkook was doing right at that moment. Back then it felt like the letter was even more sincere.

So, what did he think Jungkook was doing right now?

He imagined him playing around with his guitar or game till sunrise. Jungkook was always a night owl, staying up pretty late and coping with the fact that he rarely slept. Even though he would feel how his eyelids start to fall on their own, he would still stubbornly, force himself to stay awake. That was something they both had in common.

The older one remembered the times where he would sit in front of his house trying desperately to finish off his homework, while the younger one would walk up to him all ninja style and annoy him with questions. All of it happening at midnight of course.

The desperate wish of Jimin was that Jungkook was still like, well.. Jungkook.

Humble, adorable, funny, dorky.

As he thought of his past love, he immediately grabbed his pen and wrote down a sincere letter. Being honest with him, telling him how his life went these couple of years, finishing off with a confession, that the younger once always wanted to hear him say:

"I once wholeheartedly loved you, and I still do."

"Aw damn.."

Hoseok stared at him like the emoji with the big eyes, that was perfectly matching to him. Jimin finally had the guts to confess to his other friends what actually really happened, and surprisingly they were all super nice about it.

Deep down, he knew they would understand. However, it still made him happy to see that they were so invested in his little complicated love story.

"You could literally make a whole movie about this…?” Jin stated while looking afar and making a weird gesture, implying a camera. “It would be like "The Notebook” just reversed.“

"I don’t really want to see this in movie theatres though, that would just be weird."

Namjoon always acted a bit awkward when it came to romantic stories or even love stories in general. He would always listen to their stories about their hook-ups or their genuine crushes, but he never gave a weird noise off himself, like a high-pitched “aww” or something, that he thought something was cut. Just simply listened, maybe gave some advice, and then he would go on correcting Jin on his bullshit.

Classic Namjoon’s.

"I don’t even think he will write back or something… I wrote him, yeah that’s true.. But I don’t expect a reply."

All his friends at the table stared him down. Ready to kick his small little ass.

"Jimin you stupid fucking moron.” He glared at the pale boy who was finally eager to state his own opinion on this.

Min Yoongi in his whole presence.

Just a few minutes ago, he was all uninterested, poking in his salad and asking random people for advice on a history exam he had in a few hours. Likewise, Jimin also tried not to give two shits about his advice whatsoever. So why did he suddenly catch interest in it?

“If you really think he wouldn’t reply, then that makes you again the weaker person."

Trying not to look too engrossed, he gave his leftover fries to Taehyung’s girlfriend, Jess, who happily devoured them. He was absolutely good at avoiding eye contact, his hyung could try everything to lock eyes with him but he would never let him.

"You described him as the nice, funny and understanding guy. Do you really think he didn’t wait every day for you to write him back?"

Fuck, he had a point there. Rather than giving in, Jimin rolled his eyes and continued to stroke his untouched burger with his index finger. "I don’t know. There might be a chance that he changed."

Yoongi’s little scoff was loud enough to witness and in the corner of his eye he could see him resting his hand on his forehead. His face screaming: absolutely irritated.

"How would you know? You might haven’t even changed at all? What kind of hypocrisy is it in making yourself believe that he changed just because he got his share of fame? Have a little trust in him, would you?"

Now Jimin started to get a bit frustrated. What did he even expect from him in the first place? That he would wait all day till the mail arrives and then cry his eyes out after realising Jungkook didn’t write back? He was not even expecting that, so why should he drive himself into doing it?

"Hyung how about you mind your own business, huh?"

Yoongi rolled his eyes, grabbed his notes and backpack while staring at him in disbelief before leaving.

The atmosphere now was absolutely awkward.

"I know you don’t wanna hear this… But Mister Min has a point there.”

Hoseok broke the silence. Thankfully, all the others sighed in relief and nodded their heads.

“Have a bit of trust in him. I’m not saying that you should wait for him every day to write you back or something. But just…”

His lips closed, teeth clenched, and his eyes twitched due to him urging them to close. Waiting for his brain to come up with a good word.

“Patience!”

He screamed, pointing at the confused Jimin who was now sliding back into his seat. Extremely embarrassed.

“Sorry.” He chortled. “Was I too loud?”

Tae brushed it off by making a gesture to make him continue his started speech.

“Anyways… You need to stay patient. Find a balance. Don’t be too disappointed every day, but also don’t give up on him. Give him his time.”

Everyone who was seated, slowly started to get up either going to classes or getting back to the dorms. Except for Jimin and Taehyung.

Jimin’s best friend was just staring at him. Hoping to see some kind of change of heart. He wanted the best for him, after all Jimin was always there for him too.

“And?”

Taehyung broke off the silence once again, while coughing the word out.

The blonde-haired boy peeled off the etiquette on his “Gatorade” bottle, and just nodded. What else should he even do at this point.

He knew that they were actually saying the right thing. Even Yoongi hyung. Nevertheless, it was hard to stay calm about it. Jungkook was always someone he wanted to be close with, but he never had the guts to do something about it. Not to mention, playing it off, telling himself that it was just a kindergarten crush. When in reality it wasn’t.

“Stay strong dude. See you later?”

Giving him just one last little pat on the shoulder, he left.

Letting Jimin drown alone in his thoughts.

And like that the days went by. Pretty quickly, even Jimin needed to admit to that.

College, work, hanging out with friends. All of that. Everyday.

Jungkook creeping up in his thoughts here and there, but never to such an extent as he expected. When he ate something, whereas he knew that Jungkook once loved too, he would think of him for a brief moment. And that was all. Smiling for a bit and then erasing him from his thoughts for the rest of the day. After days full of insomnia and lack of appetite… Finally, he felt like he could let go.

It turned out that it was easier for him to let Kook go, even though he was sure that there was simply no chance that he would have read the letter the older wrote for him.

Still… something about just writing his thoughts on a sheet of paper made him feel absolutely relieved.

It felt like he sent these feelings and honest thoughts to Jungkook. Just in a weird and telepathic way.

“Do you have the notes from that one lecture… uhm.. where we talked about 'The Catcher in the Rye’?”

As always Taehyung was grabbing Jimin back into reality.

“Huh?"

Jimin took his airpods out of his ears. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, confused as to what he wanted from him.

They always studied together, especially when it came to the exams from Mr. Kim. Even though he was extremely awesome and an outstanding professor, he also expected thrice as much.

Taehyung grabbed his notes, that were uhm… not really there?

Jimin chuckled, going through his hair while searching for that one specific lecture where Kim was discussing Holden Caulfield’s character and if anyone felt the same as him in a specific time in their life. The blonde remembered that he was discussing with him a lot about that issue yet being careful about touching any parts that matched Holden’s character to his.

He loved analysing the characters, and deep down he also loved to take a harsh comparison to them with himself.

Holden was such a free nature, he never listened or cared about his environment and what they thought was the right thing for him. He just did what he needed to do, maybe even exaggerating a bit, in the process of finding himself.

Jimin was actually the counterpart of him. He always cared and wanted to be accepted by his friends and family. Mentally, however he also felt like Holden. Trapped in a society where you needed to fulfil someone else’s dream, or someone else’s path. But what if one’s path was different? What if he doesn’t want to go to school, be an ace student and marry some women and create his own family? What if he just wants to do his own thing? Concentrating on just being happy?

"Here we go.” He handed his friend a perfect 5-piece sheet of notes of all the analysing points Kim addressed. Just as Taehyung was grabbing the notes, his eyes started to glitter full of relief.

“What would I ever do without you Jimin-ah!” Jimin winked at him, while offering him some honey butter chips. “You would terribly suffer.” He replied while trying to imitate a darker voice.

Like that, they continued their work, helping each other out if there were some specific questions, reading out the passages of J. D. Salinger’s novel, and repeating all the points Kim addressed.

“Ah shit.” Taehyung looked at his phone, quickly packing up his things and closing his MacBook.

Jimin smiled, he forgot the time once again and realised he needed to go to some date with Jess.

Typical Taehyung.

“Hurry up or I’ll snitch on Jess the next time and make you bad!” Jimin replied quite happily, while smacking his friend’s ass with his book.

“Dude don’t. That woman will stare at me with her medusa eyes!” He continued while grabbing things with a rushing panic, throwing it into his bag.

Of course, it was all jokes and fun, and Jess would always forgive him no matter what. Due to Taehyung being extremely loveable of course. They had the best relationship, Jimin could think of. Both were the most amazing human beings, and their relationship was so healthy. He wished that one day, he would meet that one person too. And fell head over heels for someone. Hopefully once again. In the near future.

“Ah Jiminie…"

Jimin, who was still laying on his bed, looked over to the door frame where Taehyung was standing and still in the process of wearing his shoes.

"I’m so happy that you are doing better."

Jimin just smiled lightly as a reply, waving with his hand, indicating that he should leave already. A quick "love you, bye!” and then he was gone.

The blonde went back into laying on his stomach, grabbing the novel. It looked horrible, completely read out and crinkled. Showing how much, he actually loved it.

Just like that, the late afternoon turned into an early night.

Taehyung came along with him after a lecture they visited together. They both ordered food, as always, and then started to switch their notes. Of course, Jimin was more thorough when it came to writing notes, but it didn’t bother him at all to help his friend out. Tae was amazingly good at analysing. Thoughts that he never imagined would come up in Tae’s brain in an instant.

Such an intelligent but absolutely lazy boy.

Now it was already past 8pm. The thought of needing to eat was alarming in the back of his head. But he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

After a quick search, he found a single pack of Ramen. He quickly put the pot on the stove and waited till the water heated up.

Suddenly, he heard someone knocking on his door.

His doorbell stopped working for some reason, so therefore his friends would just message him that they were there. Taehyung was the only one who would knock, but first, he was already gone and secondly, he had a weird knocking style.

He would abuse his door as a percussion to be exact.

“Who is it?” He anxiously raised his voice a little. But still no reaction.

“Whoever that may be. Can you just tell me who you are?"

Still no reaction. After a while, the person started to knock again.

Jimin was prepared for moments like these. He quickly grabbed a pretty unsharp butter knife and put his ear on the cheap door. He could swear he heard someone snickering. His heartbeat was increasing rapidly.

One hand was wandering from the door to the knob, while the other held tightly the grip on the knife.

Slowly he opened the door, his heart stopping momentarily, after seeing someone who seemed to be dressed completely in black.

Thank god, the person had some great taste though that’s for sure.

First he saw the shoes, just some plain black converse chucks, then his eyes wandered up to the person’s pants. Also black, with some chains dangling around the area where the pockets were. Once he found his way to the person’s torso, the man was grabbing him by his arms.

The smaller one from both of them, who seemingly was Jimin, started to shut down his eyes. Completely terrified.

"Hyung? Can you just stop the games and look me straight in the eye?” The taller man broke the silent awkward atmosphere.

For some reason, the voice sounded so familiar but at the same time completely foreign.

Jimin opened his eyes slowly, looking up to the man, still squinting.

“It’s me. Jungkookie."

Silence.

Awkwardness…

Now sitting in front of each other, Jimin felt completely bamboozled.

Was this some reality show?

"Your tea is getting cold… there..” Jimin raised his index finger and aimed for the little teacup.

“Ah yeah. That’s fine. I’m not really here to drink tea to be honest."

The younger one, took a sip from his tea while staring, confidently, at the older one.

Jimin quickly looked away, feeling how his heart started to go crazy in his chest.

"Hyung, how have you been?” Jungkook came closer to him, dragging the chair as close as possible to the table, staring at the nervous hands of the older one.

“Nothing much. Just college stuff."

Biting on his under lip, he realised how happy he felt but at the same time his guilt started to come back and nagged on his intestines.

"Oh hyung.” Jungkook rolled his eyes while grabbing Jimin’s tiny hands. It was an unexpected gesture. Kook’s hands however, were so warm. Jimin’s hands in comparison were freezing cold. Jimin realised that he appeased himself more.

“I’m sorry, Kookie…"

Here he was. Sitting in front of him. Holding his hands, as if he was the one that fucked up. Even though it needed to be the other way around.

"I fucked up.”

He couldn’t handle the emotions that were starting to tear him apart. The complete opposite sides of emotions were clashing with each other, overwhelming him. Happiness on one hand, since Jungkook finally found his way back to him, but sadness because he felt like he did not deserve it. Relief, as it seemed like Jungkook came back to accept his letter, but on the other hand also guilt. Since it was not fair of him to believe that he would gladly do that.

“Hyung…” Jungkook’s grip on Jimin’s hands was tighter now and while he looked at him, smiling softly, seeing the tears flowing down on the pale skin of the older one, he couldn’t overcome his heart bursting. Seeing him like this was not his aim. Not at all.

Jungkook closed his eyes, pulling Jimin’s hands closer to him. Dragging him softly to him, so that Jimin had no choice but to slightly get dragged up on the table.

Softly, he kissed Jimin’s hands. Making Jimin just sob even louder than he was before.

“No, you didn’t.” Jungkook’s voice broke.

Jimin looked at him. Frightened that he made him cry as well.

The black-haired boy was still covering his face with Jimin’s hands. It felt so natural, and there was no sign of weirdness in the air. Something about this touch felt too familiar.

And then he realised…

When they were younger, Jimin would always grab Kookie’s hands and lay them on his cheeks. It was something he always did when Kookie would run behind him before school. And quickly, Kookie would turn silent. Acting shy.

What both never really knew was, that both of their hearts were beating strongly. Together.

“I’m so sorry too."

Finally looking up from the older’s hands. "I missed you a lot."

Jimin smiled. Standing up, while still having Jungkook’s hands intertwined with his. Jungkook followed his action, also standing up. The height difference made him chuckle even more. And quickly like that the tears were forgotten.

"I missed you so much.” Jimin replied, while falling onto the younger’s chest.

So many years, both of them were silently loving each other. Trying to forget, trying to erase all the memories. But it was impossible. And now both of them were here, standing in Jimin’s crappy apartment holding each other in their arms and forgetting the hurtful years that they lived without each other.

“But wait a second!” Jungkook broke away from the hug, quickly wiping his tears, and then grabbing Jimin’s hand once again.

“Hmm let’s take a look…"

"Aw come on. Really? Still, to this day?"

Jimin just chuckled, while Jungkook was testing out if his pinkie was finally taller than Jimin’s. And of course, it was. There was no need to even look. Jungkook’s hands were enormous in comparison to Jimin’s tiny hands.

"You know what that means?"

The blonde just laughed and quickly hit the younger one’s chest rapidly.

"First we need to have some dates. Don’t you think?"

Jungkook rolled his eyes, while dragging the younger one back into his arms. "So many problems along the way. Horrible!” He joked, while grabbing Jimin’s head softly, dragging him onto his chest.

The older one took the chance to take in the beautiful smell of Jungkook. It was hard to describe, something sweet but in the same way not extremely intrusive. Rather delicate, soft. He could swear somewhere while smelling it, he could sense… lavender? And in an absolute weird way… He swore that he also smelt the only perfume his mom would wear back then.

While his head was still dug into Jungkook’s chest, he felt how his eyes formed tears once again. He felt like he smelt all the mesmerizing things again that was once everyday life. Jungkook smelt like Busan, like his dog “Doraemon” and like all the cherry popsicles they both blissfully devoured.

He smelt like home.

Jimin realised how much he missed his hometown. He had the urge to go back and just relive everything with Kookie.

All these thoughts rushed into his mind, and it made him feel hopeful for the future.

He looked up to the black haired boy who was still snickering cutely, and Jimin had the urge to poke his cheeks. He was so adorable, the way he smiled, had the same impact on him like a single shot of soju. It loosened his nerves and he felt like he wasn’t as tense anymore.

He had a feeling that he could fight every problem that would come to tackle him, eye to eye.

“Do you want to stay overnight?"

Jimin silently asked. Wishing he would accept his offer.

Jungkook hugged him even tighter, as if Jimin would run away from him, if he said no. "I wish I could say yes… But I can’t. Not today."

Jimin nodded, while poking his nose against the younger’s hard chest. "I cannot wait till you can."

The light of the sun was shining through the thin curtain. Sun rays tickling the blonde’s face, waking him up softly.

Jimin was confused. It was already morning? He would normally wake up in between his restless sleep, sometimes he would even lay in bed and stop wishing for sleep. Just accepting that he won’t sleep.

His dear old friend insomnia.

However, yesterday was different. He fell asleep right there, as if somebody were using a remote controlling him. Pushing the "off” button.

It felt like weeks where Jimin was last sleeping peacefully. It was a relieving feeling. No headache was awaiting him, or the urge to chug down 5 cups of coffee to get through the day.

Of course his problems were still awaiting him nonetheless. Yet the anxiety… was on a way lower level. He felt like he could easily confront his frustration as well as his insecurities.

He was hopeful.

And just as that, he realised how much time he actually had left. Enough to take a longer shower, and even enough to eat a little breakfast.

Normally “breakfast” wasn’t included in his life. Time was always running, and he rarely had time to dress up.

Today was an exception whatsoever.

While making him a little breakfast that included coffee, eggs some tomatoes and bread his phone vibrated quite aggressively on the kitchen counter.

Quickly, he grabbed his phone, at the same time also trying to manage his eggs who were really close to burning.

“Jimin-ssi, did you sleep well? I want to see you. Let’s meet up shouldn’t we? I will be there next to you sooner or later. Wait for me. I want to surprise you.”

P.S: Also here is a little something for you :3"

Jungkook always drew little sketches back then in Busan, and would deliver it to Jimin in all different ways. It was a cute habit, and Jimin was sure he still had the sketches somewhere in a box.

The sketch that Kook drew this time, involved someone who seemed to smile shyly. His cheeks were all smudgy, probably on purpose to give it a cute look. The eyes of that person were covered by someone else’s hands. Who that person was, is not known. You couldn’t really see the body of that person, just the hands that were caressing the smiling person’s eyes.

The person was no one other than Jimin himself.

He was awed by how good Jungkook’s sketch looked. It was drawn quickly, but he seemed to work on the details after the first outline. Like the smudged grey pencil stains on the cheek, or the shadows that he must’ve drawn quickly afterwards.

It made him feel cherished.

Jungkook took the time out of his own busy life to draw this little painting of them, and it made him fall even more in love with him.

* “Damn, Jimin is everything alright?” Jin went through Jimin’s blonde hair, then caressing his forehead checking as if he had high temperature. In return he rolled his eyes trying to push Jin’s hands away. “He seems so cheerful and motivated today? He even contributed to Ms. Hwang’s class… Puhhh..!” Jess dropped her backpack on the table and continued to rub her temples. Ms. Hwang was an old grumpy lady who wasn’t born to teach at all. There was no respect to her students whatsoever and anything that she liked, was mostly the same opinion she had, or people who just kissed her ass for the sweet extra credit. A horrible prof, how it should be presented in the dictionary. “I don’t know. It’s just nice. I feel like things are getting better for me… I don’t know..?” One by one, everyone started to take a seat. As if they telepathically saw Jimin with good mood, and couldn’t believe it. “So how is Jungkook?” Yoongi asked, quite interested. That was completely shocking to anyone who sat at the table, they looked at him as if they were worried. “You really care?” Jimin asked, once again avoiding eye contact. “Yup. I wouldn’t ask, if I didn’t care.” He grabbed an apple and bit into it, directly looking at the younger boy. “He is absolutely amazing."

* After spending some quality time with his friends, he was preparing himself to go back to work. Normally Taehyung would join him, just keeping an eye on him and spending some alone time with his friend. Today however, Jimin told him that it was fine. That he did not need to come along with him. Jimin always felt bad for needing Taehyung in such an excessive manner. His best friend had a girlfriend and he should spend some quality time with her too. They both were heavily interested in art, therefore Jimin gave them two tickets for a well-known atelier opening that one of his classmates gifted him. Jimin helped that particular classmate out with a literature exam once, so he wanted to thank him in return with them. They both deserved it. They were always there for him, now it was time for Jimin to give back. As soon as he started his work, he became even more relaxed than he already was. He wished that this feeling… Being hopeful about the future… would eventually stay. Jungkook was also a big part of it, it felt like he showed him all the good parts of life, and he welcomed that. One by one all the known customers were starting to give their order. Normally, there wouldn’t be that many new customers, the cafe was near college and it was mostly either college kids who want to work peacefully or the elderly who want to kill time. All in all, pretty peaceful. Today, however, there was someone wanting to take an order that Jimin never met before. He tried to remember but there was no way that he knew that person. That specific person was wearing glasses and a bucket hat, wearing completely black. After working on that order and putting it onto the glass counter in front of that unknown person, he heard a familiar giggle. Jeon Jungkook. Of course. "Oh my god. What are you doing here? Isn’t that a bit too risky?!” Jimin whispered while nervously taking the money from Kook. “That’s all fine. People rarely look at me, when I come with this attire.” He responded while showing off his clothes. Jimin couldn’t contain a snicker.

What a stupid idiot he was…

“Is that what you meant with 'surprise’?"

"No, my surprise is actually a picnic in Han river. I wanted to see you. That’s all.” The blonde couldn’t stop himself from putting his hand on his chest. His heart pounded loudly, and this time it didn’t come from panicking. “When?"

"Whenever. I don’t have any schedules today and tomorrow. I just had a comeback a few weeks ago. It was simple, so the promotions aren’t that long. My company is also pretty nice and let me take some days off.” Jungkook took his food, without even looking back and waiting for an answer, he quickly sat down on the next best table. Of course it was a table that was right next to Jimin. The blonde rolled his eyes, yet wholeheartedly accepting the risk that they both put themselves into. He trusted Jungkook, and he felt happy to be next to him.

Looking at the old clock right next to his working space, he realised that his shift was ending sooner than he expected. “Ready to go to the picnic?” He asked Kook who was still managing to look like he was reading. “Finished already?” He quickly put down his book, his grimace looking like he was so disappointed that he needed to stop reading. “Do you know that you are an idiot?” Jimin responded with a slightly rougher tone. Jungkook smiled while taking off his sunglasses, even though he still wore a mask, Jimin could see the skin next to his eyes wrinkling. Without a proper response, he gently grabbed Jimin’s hands and put back his sunglasses on. And like that both left the establishment, making the customers question themselves who that good-looking man was, who has Jimin wrapped around his little finger. * “Ughh, I’m so full…” Jimin stroked his stomach, while looking at the leftover food. It was nearing the end of the day, and he realised how today felt like a quick catch of breath. The whole time, they were spending together, seemed to be packed in indulging their childhood and missing the time where they couldn’t be one. “Really? Already? You were always a bad eater..!” Jungkook responded while quickly grabbing the leftover spring rolls and tteokbokki. “It’s so good to dib it into the sauce, ahh you’re missing out.” “I really did.” Jimin said to himself while looking at the hungry Jungkook devouring the last bit of food. He closed his eyes and felt how fresh the wind was feeling on his skin. The night was still young, but he already felt how tired he actually was. This day was an improvement to the last couple of weeks. But he knew that he needed to improve more; to be the person he always yearned to be. For some it might feel far-fetched to say that Jungkook was the reason why Jimin felt better. And maybe it even was. Nevertheless, wasn’t it normal when specific people in your life made you feel better about yourself? Wasn’t it the case in a healthy relationship ? “Thank you, Jungkookie.” The black-haired boy was looking up from his food, midst slurping his noodles. Tilting his head like a confused puppy. Jimin caressed the crumbles on the corner of his lips away, and locked eyes with his lover. Jungkook quickly finished his noodles, before coming closer to the blonde. Jimin took this as a chance to grab Kook’s chin to face him again. And there it was. The soft shy smile the younger, once gifted him. Right there at that moment, Jimin knew what he wanted. “I love you.” It was as simple as that. Jimin pecked Jungkook’s lips softly, tasting like all the sweet promises they gave each other. “I thought you would never say that.” Jungkook replied while kissing him right back. A bit rougher, but still soft enough. Without them even realising it, the sun went down, both of them finally admitting their deep-rooted history. Waiting for such a long time, made the kiss even sweeter, Jimin thought to himself. Sometimes you find people in a state of life, when you need them the most. And sometimes the people who were once your hope, come back and decide to stay all over again. They both kissed for such a long time that Jimin didn’t notice how his phone was vibrating aggressively on the blanket underneath them. Until finally Jungkook let go of the kiss, smiling shyly while pointing at the phone that was still annoying the peaceful state they were in. “You wanna take it?” “Ughhh.. who is the cockblocker, do I need to kill him…” Jimin whispered more to himself, while grabbing his phone and checking the messages. “Ah fuck, I completely forgot..” Jimin stood up quickly, searching for his keys and bag. While Jungkook was still sitting on the blanket, cross-legged, patiently waiting for him to give a proper response. “My friends have that night where we all meet up at our favorite bar to drink and eat while talking about all the shit we went through. We mostly do that once in a month.” Jungkook raised his eyebrows, still looking at the confused and panicking Jimin. “It’s okay, if you need to go. I’ll clean this up and we meet up tomorrow?” Jimin laughed, acting like it was the dumbest idea he heard. “No, no, no. Sir! You are coming with me. You will meet them!” Jungkook quickly stood up from the blanket and looked at him all shocked. His doe-like eyes widened. “Already?” Jimin nodded, quickly cleaning their little spot and putting the plastic into the next close trash can. “They will love you! They are a bit chaotic but that’s actually endearing, trust me!” He grabbed Jungkook’s hand and dragged him with him. This is going to be an interesting night, that’s for sure…

The club where they meet up once in a month was the city’s hottest place. Every college kid wanted to spend their Friday nights there, it was heavily crowded, therefore you mostly needed to reserve a table beforehand. That job was actually Jin’s, but he usually forgets, so thus Joon took over. Whenever a month was coming to an end, they all meet up, talk about their experiences and drown their worries with alcohol. It was a tradition all of them enjoyed. And Jimin knew that they all wanted to get to know Jungkook, so why not now? “Ah, I heard of this place.” Jungkook screamed, now wearing his whole attire again, hoping to prevent any potential fans catching him. He hoped he could get a glimpse of Jimin’s friend group, who told him a lot of things about them but it was so crowded that it was extremely hard. “They are all up there, we have an own lounge. So you don’t need to wear all of this!” Jimin screamed back, the music was too loud down there and he was happy when he could meet his friends soon. The younger was obedient and let himself drag around the club, while looking at all the different things that were happening. Jimin couldn’t contain a smile, Jungkook was so precious. “Guys! HEY!” Jimin first saw Yoongi, then Hoseok then all the others. They were all dressed fancily, and Jimin quickly felt like he was way underdressed. “Oh, hey guys!” Hoseok catched that both of the boys were still holding hands, and quickly smiled brightly. “You need to be Jungkook?” Jimin saw his look so he quickly let go, feeling embarrassed. His face rapidly getting tomato red. Jungkook quickly took off his mask, bucket hat and glasses with one hand, while the other was still shamelessly taking a hold onto Jimin’s waist. Which made Jimin blush even more. “Yes, I am. Hello!” He bowed, and went back into holding Jimin’s waist. The others were all smiling brightly, indeed happy about the outcome of Jimin’s known backstory with him. “Take a seat. You are the youngest, so you don’t need to buy anything!” Jin quickly chimed in, while pointing at the free seats next to Taehyung and Jess who were both laughing uncontrollably. Gosh how he hated his best friends sometimes. “So you are Jimin’s boyfriend?” Yoongi dropped the bomb as soon as they were taking a seat and Jimin wished he didn’t choose to come. It must’ve been so uncomfortable to Jungkook.

Because it sure as hell was for him. Besides, both of them didn’t really talk about being officially together, what made the situation way more awkward. “Yes. I am. As long as Jimin is content with that decision?” He quickly looked at Jimin who was shocked. Here was dominant boyfriend Jungkook again. Jimin felt how his cheeks were burning. He just nodded. Not knowing how else to reply with. The black-haired boy was now freely putting his arm around his now “boyfriend”. It felt surreal to be called that way. And even though it wasn’t really romantic how he asked him, it still felt amazing that he did it in front of his friends. The closest people to him. He wasn’t even doubting this question one bit. “Ah okay. That’s nice to hear.” Yoongi responded softly, while still keeping his eyes on Jungkook. He was protective of Jimin, everybody knew that. However, something about Yoongi looking at Jungkook that way, made everyone accept Jungkook even more: Yoongi smiled. He smiled while looking at the youngest of the batch, accepting it fully. As long as Yoongi was accepting of someone, everybody else in their group of friends trusted that person as well.

Kind of like the mom of group. The couple of hours they all spent together was magical. It felt like Jungkook always was a part of the group, his humor was the same kind as that from the group and even Taehyung was happily accepting him as a member of their little squad. Jimin and Jungkook were also the only ones who denied any alcohol. They both were already intoxicated of this beautiful relaxing night, that they didn’t need any of it. Who thought it could be that easy? Jimin definitely didn’t. A couple of weeks ago, he wouldn’t have thought in a million dreams that Jungkook would sit right next to him, an arm around him, kissing him and asking him if he was alright, while all of his friends were present. It was like a fever dream. Just entirely positive. “I think it’s time for us to go. Thank you guys for today.” Jimin openly said to the little group, some already highly drunk while others were nodding happily back. He waved them all goodbye and before he could leave for good, along with Jungkook, there was a hand on his shoulder making him stop. “Hey, wait a minute.” It was Taehyung. “I just wanted to say how happy I am, that you guys met up again. There is nothing as precious as loving and being loved. But never forget…!” His gaze now hit Jungkook, who was severly confused. “If you ever manage to hurt my baby boy here…!” Taehyung, heavily tipsy, laid his head on Jimin’s shoulder, while pointing at Jungkook. Giving him a clear warning. Of course this was absolutely cute and of course no bad feelings were intended. It made the couple chuckle and they both gave him a goodbye hug before they left. On their way to Jimin’s apartment, hand in hand, the older realised what actually happened today. Also in what kind of head space he also was. It wasn’t perfect, here and there he still tried to control his anxiety but he felt better, he felt hopeful. They both talked for a while, after arriving at Jimin’s little home and continued to giggle about the response Jimin’s friends gave them. The butterflies that once annoyed Jimin when he thought of Jungkook, were now fluttering inside his stomach again. Now, however, he was accepting it. Completely intoxicated by love, for once he welcomed the future that was awaiting him. * The next morning started like the day before. The sunlight was dancing once again on Jimin’s face, welcoming him for today. He opened his eyes, trying to cover his eyes with his small little hand. Next to him, his boyfriend. Still sleeping peacefully, eyes twitching here and there. “Kook-ah..” Jimin softly whispered while kissing him all over his face. Covering him, with tiny little smooches.

“Hmmm..”

There was not really a response, but Jimin smiled whatsoever. He loved sleepy Kookie. He was even more adorable in this state.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” He said like a mantra, finally making Kook respond with the biggest smile. “Say it once more!” Jimin shook his head, acting like he was angry, ready to jump off the bed. “Hey, say it again..!” Kook quickly grabbed Jimin by his waist dragging him back to bed, kissing him directly on the lips. “You are the only one that tastes still so sweet in the morning, how are you doing that?” Jimin chuckled while kissing him right back.

There are so many obstacles that are awaiting me…

The anxiety will maybe never leave me…

And the uncertain feelings about the future will probably continue to haunt me…

I have a long way to go… But with you it seems like a quick walk to the store…

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