Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time he’d fallen in, had been one day before Namjoon’s final assignment was due. It was, in all honestly, a restless night where Namjoon’s fingers rarely left the squares of his keyboard’s keys and his ass from the uncomfortable swivelling chair gifted to him by his parents on the first day of college.

He wants to die, honestly.

Namjoon’s not a procrastinator, actually, he’s rather far from that. He starts his assignments weeks before the final deadline and paces himself when working on it. He's rarely ever found himself in a situation where he's late or handing in something that's crappy and worth a fail.

But this assignment, fucking hell, he’d rather cut off his arms.

He’d finished it a week before- typed, edited and sent it out for printing. He doesn’t like to email assignments, always fearing that it would get lost somewhere in the infinite Internet server and never make it to his lecturers. Call it nerd syndrome, but he liked to print out sixty, seventy maybe even hundred pages worth of an essay and hand it to his lecturers.

Now the problem had started here. Namjoon had gotten a call from the person he usually printed from and the old uncle on the other line had cheerily told him that his assignment couldn't get printed on time since the machine broke.

And Namjoon, being Namjoon, smiled over the phone saying in his best voice, “Its okay! I have a backup copy!”

He doesn’t. He’d deleted that file, assuring himself that it would be printed, bound and handed over to him the next morning so he could submit it.

So he’s now found himself, furiously redoing an already perfect assignment in hopes that it would not only be better, but it would be completed in time.

Serves him right for trusting the powers of the universe. 

His fingers hurt because he’s typing with such ferocity, he’s half expecting the keys to break off or the keyboard to stop functioning. He types, deletes, switches between Word and Safari and processes.

Namjoon takes a pause at page sixty five, still less than halfway done with the work and leans back in his black chair. The backrest moves backwards along with his body and he closes his eyes, feeling the sting of moist eyelids over a dry eyeball.

That’s when he hears it the sound of a tree branch, the crunch of leaves and wood. He turns his head, the exact moment someone falls in.

 -----

He can only stare at the mess of a human being- at least from what he can see it's a human being- dangling haphazardly from his window sill. Namjoon enjoys working with the windows open because he can smell the night air and rely on the natural night breeze instead of the faulty air-conditioning in his dorm room. He's been warned, more than once, not to leave it open but his campus was generally a safe habitat and he didn’t have to worry too much about intruders breaking and entering into his dorms.

That and the fact that he actually does lock his windows right before bed.

His lips hang open for a moment, staring at the person. He can make out a grey t-shirt and dark brown, nearly black hair. The person's dangling, upper body inside his room and legs outside. 

Namjoon lives on the third floor, it's a wonder how this person's able to climb this far up.

He's actually a little afraid of approaching the person. From what he can see, this person's not entirely stable (no stable person would climb three storeys and fall into someone else's dorm room anyway). He'd reeled back when the person had suddenly come in, nearly smashing himself against a wall. He's partly thankful he didn’t follow his friends and set up his workspace near the window and instead picked the opposite corner of the room.

Namjoon takes a hard swallow, feeling a little bit of anxiety in his veins. Come to think of it, the person wasn’t moving.

Was he dead?

Namjoon gets up cautiously, making sure every step he makes is quiet and soft like air. He's never been a graceful person so he masks a hard and loud step with a, "Uh hello? Excuse me?"

There's no reply. 

He's standing in front of the person, hands wrapped around his own upper arms. Namjoon stares at the back of the person's head where his hair's moved into a downward direction because of his position. It's a he Namjooon assumes, because the muscles of this person's back seems broader and structured like a man's would be. 

Also, come to think about it, this position must be incredibly uncomfortable for the person. Namjoon reaches out as a last resort, long and slender fingers slightly curled and hesitant.

He's about to touch the person when he jerks up, head lifted and ah it is a guy but he's smiling sloppily and his eyes, a nice slant, glitter with something akin to humour. Namjoon's taken aback, staring at this strange mass of a person, who's still dangling dangerously from his open window.

"Rap monster," he blurts out suddenly, his voice melodic and sweet and incredibly laced with large amounts of alcohol, "It's a rap monster, do you hear that?"

Namjoon blinks in a statically quiet room. In fact, there's white noise in the time when the both of them are silent. He gives the strange person a look, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head indignantly. He's got an assignment due in roughly seven hours so he really doesn’t have the time to deal with a drunk college student hanging dangerously from his window.

If he were to push him off would he die? Namjoon considers this for a moment before the weird kid starts speaking again. 

Well not speak, because he’s mouthing off words and it takes Namjoon a full forty seconds to realise that he’s rapping horrendously.

"Can you hear that rap monster? And all that glitz and glam and the fashion. And all the pandemonium and all the madness. There comes a time when you fade to the blackness. And when you're staring at the phone on your lap and you hoping but them people never call you back but that's just how the story unfold-"

"Are you seriously rapping Airplanes to me right now?" Namjoon interjects, unable to tolerate the bad attempt at rapping. He stares down at the person, one eyebrow raised sardonically.

"What doyou mean?" he slurs, his eyebrows pulling together and his lower lip jutting out, "Can younothearit?"

Namjoon once again takes a few seconds to process what he's slurring. His words are all connected together like string and his eyelids seem to be drooping. 

Namjoon really does not have time for this.

That and the fact now Airplanes is playing in his head and he really does not need anymore distractions. He moves forward, grabbing on to the upper body of the person (it's really awkward because the person's heavy and Namjoon isn’t particularly strong and the person reeks of alcohol) but he manages to haul him inside, falling over in the process and groaning when his butt hits the floor too hard. The drunkard on the other hand suddenly bursts out laughing and keeps laughing and laughing like life's a joke and Namjoon supposes it is because at this rate he can kiss his dreams of graduating with honours goodbye.

That and meeting the deadline for his assignment.

He's heaving, considering kicking the shit out of the drunk person in his room. If he can’t finish this assignment, he’s going to scour the halls of the campus finding this bastard and beat the crap out of him. 

"Fucking hell." Namjoon mutters, bringing a hand to his face and pressing it over his eyes. He closes them for a moment, enjoying the darkness behind his eyelids. He can hear shifting but ignores that to focus on his breathing. He imagines a circle and with every inhale it contracts and with every exhale it expands. Eventually his annoyance simmers into something last harmful so he opens his eyes.

And stares right into his reflection. Technically not his reflection because it's just himself in the dark unfocused eyes of the drunkard.

Namjoon yelps, falling backwards.

The drunkard starts laughing once again, mumbling the lyrics of Airplanes over and over and over again. Namjoon decides to wait it out like a sickness. If there's one thing he knows about drunken fools, is that they'll eventually ride out the alcohol in their systems.

So Namjoon waits, mentally writing out the remainder of his essay. He's comparing books, picking off the similarities and differences and putting them into structures. He thinks of further points, explanations, evidences.

Kim Namjoon is a genius. And he hates it.

He doesn’t believe he’s a prodigy or a brainiac, he just knows how to study for himself and he knows how to write out his essays. Namjoon knows what to do to do well in his classes and he knows how to ace his tests.

He's a bit of an outcast because of this. No one wants to be friends with the nerd, no one wants to hang out with their greatest academic rival. Namjoon doesn’t mind this, because his classmates do interact with him and he does have friends.

It's just that he sometimes wishes that he has to try to get grades. Maybe he's an idiot to think so, maybe he's just truly dumb. But Kim Namjoon doesn’t like being called a genius, because it breaks his heart that others don’t think as highly of themselves.

The drunkard eventually quietens and Namjoon peers at him, noting that his eyes are closed and his cheek's pressed awkwardly against the carpet of his room. There's a paleness to him, Namjoon notes, but writes it off as the alcohol. He's got a corner of his upper lip slightly lifted as well so Namjoon can see a hint of his teeth and is that drool?

He rolls his eyes, revelling in the quiet. It's back to white noise and the soft hum of his macbook heating up on the other end of the room. Namjoon gets up, shuts the window and then crosses over to get a blanket for the drunkard passed out on his dorm's floor.

 -----

Namjoon's half dead the next morning. He's done with the assignment (hooray!) but his body's as stiff as a board and his fingers are sore from five hours of intense and violent typing. 

God, is this the reason his eyesight's starting to deteriorate?

He rubs his sleep deprived eyes, feeling the scratch of his moist eyelids. He's only vaguely aware of the person sleeping all too comfortably on his floor. He wonders if he should be hospitable, considering- he lifts his head to take a peek at the sleeping brown head- that he's still unconscious. Maybe he just likes the floor, when Namjoon first came in he'd thought the floor was really nice too. It's a purple and blue carpet.

That's about it. Now come to think of it, Namjoon doesn’t really find anything special about his goddamn floor.

God, what's he thinking.

That's it Kim Namjoon, you're losing your mind.

He gets up anyway and heads for a shower, solely because his heater's broken and cold water will wake him up. He spends ten minutes in there (he's trained himself for this) and then gets out. A quick look tells him the drunkard's still asleep so he gets into a fresh set of clothes. When he catches his reflection in the mirror he grimaces. His white-blonde hair's falling over his face in a messy almost uncharacteristic manner. His eyes are brown and cold, rimmed with darkness from the lack of rest. Even his skin's suffering, dry and breaking out in places. He sighs grumpily, before getting his comb and gel.

It takes him fifteen minutes to get ready which means that there's still another hour before he actually has to leave his room. He goes to his coffee machine (another gift from his parents who'd said, and he quotes "You'll need that extra kick if you want to be the pride of the family! Haha Namjoon, don't take it so hard!"). Miraculously he finds a second mug, tucked away in a corner and then fills that up with coffee. 

The drunkard's shifted positions, so now he's curled into a little ball. Namjoon notes that there's colour back in his cheeks, which is good. He didn’t really want to have to haul this guy's ass all the way to a hospital.

Namjoon pokes at him with his foot, and when he merely just mumbles, Namjoon pokes at him hard enough to move his shoulder.

The drunkard actually grabs on to his calf, pulling his body closer to his leg and snuggling up to it. Namjoon doesn’t know why, because there's no one that’s actually seeing them, but he feels the crawl of awkwardness slip up his spine and his cheeks burn scarlet. The unconscious guy's smiling, rubbing his cheek against the fabric of Namjoon's jeans. Namjoon's not really sure what to do, he's never been very good at covering up his embarrassment or dealing with anyone snuggling up to his calves before.

He tries to shake him off furiously, and to his relief the sleeping guy's grip loosens and he rolls back, the smile along his face elongating. Namjoon doesn’t want to admit it, but he's got some rather, pretty features. His cheeks aren’t thin and crafted, but softer with nice curves. His nose is short, upturned just the slightest bit and his lips are the colour of strawberry milk.

Namjoon shakes his head, as though getting rid of those thoughts before cautiously moving his foot forward. This time he gives him the hardest shove he can manage while trying not to spill two cups of boiling coffee on himself.

The guy's eyes flash open and then his brows pull together, as though confused.

"Good morning sunshine." Namjoon deadpans. The guy on the ground shoots up, groaning and rubbing his eyes. Namjoon eyes him, standing rather awkwardly beside him. Namjoon's always been a little bit too tall, so no matter who he's with he just feels like he's out of place. 

"Where am I?" he asks, his voice still that same melody, but this time curled with sleep. Namjoon looks around his dorm, noting miserably for the first time in days how messy it is and clears his throat, attracting the other dark haired boy's attention before he can turn around and take a look himself.

"My dormitory." Namjoon says, deciding that this was the best time to give him coffee so he hands the second mug down to the person on the floor. The dark-haired boy grins, his cheeks rounding and accepts the cup thankfully by reaching out and wiggling his fingers.

Namjoon's trying his hardest not to judge him, really.

"How did I get here?" he asks, taking a sip of the coffee and making a face.

Namjoon eyes his now shut window and presses his lips together, "You were drunk."

"Really? Cool." his eyes widen, eyebrows lifting. He turns his body around, surveying the room much to Namjoon's dismay. If the mess bothered him, he made no indication. In fact, he looked more bewildered that he'd somehow managed to crawl into someone else's room while still drunk. Namjoon wonders about this too. 

But really, he could have died if he fell.

"Really," Namjoon repeats, "Uh, by the way, don’t you want to get to your dorm? Classes start in less than an hour." he checks his watch, notes the time and begins mentally re-calculating what time he should leave.

"Really?" he asks again, pouting, "Well guess I should skip again." 

Skip? Namjoon's brows pull together. There were students out there willing to give blowjobs and sell their souls to satan just for a perfect GPA and here this bastard was, talking about skipping classes like he was mentioning the weather? If there's one thing Namjoon hates it's a-

"Slacker." he blurts out, directing his line of vision at the drunkard. He looks up at Namjoon, blinking a few times before his face cracks into a smile. He's got crescents for eyes when he's grinning and his chin sharpens.

Namjoon doesn’t know why this annoys him, but it does. Here's some slacker who gets himself drunk on schooldays, climbs through random people's windows and then skips classes?

Namjoon shouldn't have made him coffee.

"I'm Park Jimin by the way." he says clumsily as he gets to his feet with a huff. He's significantly shorter than Namjoon, but he's better built. There's something pleasant about him, like his steps grow flowers and his voice drowns blackness.

"Uh," Namjoon blabbers, "Kim Namjoon." he doesn’t proceed to give his hand for a shake, mostly because he doesn’t think he'll see him ever again. Now that he's got a name to put to a face, Namjoon says, "You should still get to class."

"Should I?" he's smiling again, showing off a set of white teeth. Namjoon eyes one tooth that's slightly out of line, but Namjoon thinks that it suits him. 

"Whatever," Namjoon quickly counters, turning away, "You should get out or I'll be late."

When Namjoon walks over to his front door, he can hear the tinkle bell of Park Jimin's laugh. 

 -----

Chapter Text

The second time Jimin crawls through Namjoon's window, the blonde is nose deep inside a novel, eyes tracing over the words quickly while his finished homework sat neatly (maybe the only thing in the entire room) near his bag.

Namjoon just watches him crawl inside until Jimin's stumble unsteadily across the room, appearing like a toddler first learning how to walk. Namjoon doesn’t say anything, but he's surprised that this has happened a second time. Was there something with his dorm room?

Was it a light and Jimin a moth? He's not sure but when Jimin nearly trips over, he puts his book down and then gets up, crossing over to grab on to his arm.

The shorter boy laughs, running his free hand through his hair. Jimin's ice cold, his lips nearly blue, so Namjoon sets him down quietly on his black swivelling chair and then walks over to get some boiled water. He's silent throughout the entire exchange, mostly because he's too shocked to find words.

Two times? Really?

Did he have bad luck or something? Was he cursed to be disturbed?

Either way, he finds himself grabbing a blanket. There's something about how pale he looks that puts Namjoon off. Surely it shouldn’t be healthy to drink that much, right?

Namjoon shakes his head, draping the cloth over Jimin's shoulders. He whimpers a little, then goes silent. Namjoon stares at his round cheeks, trying to find traces of colour and when that doesn’t happen decides he needs more time.

He returns to his book, laying back in his bed with his legs stretched out. It's cold tonight, which is good because that means the season's changing. Namjoon smiles into his book, flipping the page but he can’t help the smaller part of him that's peeking over at Jimin, trying to see if he’s alright. He doesn’t know him well, but he’s not going to allow some drunk kid to rot or fall sick or puke in his room. Namjoon's got better things to do than deal with a mess of a human being, but he's also not going to let said mess destroy himself further.

So when Jimin nearly topples over, Namjoon's halfway across the room, catching him quickly and feeling his soft skin and firm muscles beneath the tips of his fingers. He can feel the cold as well, which makes him frown. A quick check (the back of his hand to Jimin's forehead) tells him that there's no fever and nothing to worry about.

Which is good, because Namjoon really doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.

-----

He makes coffee for Jimin the next morning as well and the shorter boy takes it with a grateful smile, putting the mug to his lips and closing his eyes. Today, Namjoon added a little sugar to the coffee. He's not sure why he'd done that, but he did and Jimin doesn’t make a face when pulling the cup away from his lips, which are now no longer a pale grey-blue but a more salmon pink.

Jimin likes sweet coffee, so does that mean he likes sweet things as well? Namjoon's more of a bitter everything kinda guy- because it’s the easiest to make and the quickest which means he can hit the books faster and stay up a lot longer.

He might be a caffeine addict, but that's not a huge problem.

Jimin's got colour on his cheeks once again, which makes Namjoon's shoulders relax and his heart stop trembling in his chest. Jimin had looked really unwell the night before.

Once again, he didn’t need the additional work of hauling Jimin's ass over to a hospital.

"I did it again, didn’t I?" Jimin laughs and it's a warm sound. Namjoon finds himself sitting down beside Jimin this time. He can't help but survey the brunette's face. Did he have an alcohol problem? Perhaps he was truly clueless when it came to drinking.

Either way Namjoon finds himself saying, "My dorm isn’t a fucking hotel."

Jimin smirks, a small tug of the corner of his lip and he goes from sleep deprived and innocent to something darker, more rakish. There's a darkness to his eyes that Namjoon notices and it's as dark and soulless as infinity. Namjoon doesn’t want to have anything to do with infinity.

Infinity has power, and it’s far greater than any work of a mortal. Because with something as forever as infinity, there's always a sense of no control. You can never hold the vast abyss of forever in the palms of your hands, you can never graze it with the tips of your fingers because it knows you and your every move. It scares Namjoon that there are things so out of his control in the universe. It terrifies him that one day he’ll become a part of this never ending darkness.

Maybe that's why he wants control over something so he studies like an addict. Maybe that's why he can never drag Jimin out of his dorm and leave him drunk and gagging in the middle of the hallway. He's addicted to holding on to something, he's addicted to knowing he can be in charge of minute pieces of his life.

"I'm sorry," Jimin says, smiling into Namjoon's eyes, "I don’t know why I keep doing that."

Namjoon wants to ask him why he's drinking on a school night. Maybe he's just a slacker? Maybe he’s not from around campus? Perhaps he's just a nomad, someone who just comes and goes like the wind. 

Like smoke. You cannot hold on to smoke.

"What are you majoring in?" Jimin asks suddenly, taking a look around his room. There's a rasp to his voice that hits Namjoon, like a small touch again sensitive skin. He licks his dry lower lip before meeting Jimin's question with "English literature."

Jimin scrunches up his face, making little fine lines appear around his nose and mouth. His chin dimples.

Namjoon just stares at him, at a completely hungover stranger sitting on the floor of his dorm, completely unfazed or sorry for barging into Namjoon's dorm two days in a row. Namjoon thinks that with Jimin's face, he gets out of trouble rather easily.

"You don’t like lit?" Namjoon enquires, because he often receives that very same response. Why Namjoon, with your level of intelligence and grades, you could be a doctor! Or a lawyer! Why literature of all things? Are you stupid?

"Nope," Jimin pops the p sound, smiling into his near empty cup of black coffee, "I think it suits you too well."

Namjoon feels a little heat rise to his cheeks and he looks down and into the onyx of his cup, seeing his own reflection in them. He thinks of the same way he’d seen himself in Jimin's eyes the night before, seen how clear he looked in the darkness of Jimin's irises.

"Uh, thanks." he says without looking up at Jimin.

There's silence between them for a few seconds and to Namjoon it’s a little awkward because he’s not sure what to do with compliments. He’s always been brought up being told that accepting compliments made you an ass and turning them away made you an attention seeking asshole. He bites is lower lip, feeling uncharacteristically unNamjoonlike.

"Aren’t you going to be late for class?" Jimin asks suddenly and Namjoon's dragged back to his dorm where he's sitting on the floor with a strange drunkard and a cup of ice-cold coffee that's probably as disgusting as it sounds. He blinks, bringing the rest of his brain back to reality before cursing and rising to his feet.

For the second time, he nearly leaves with just the sound of Jimin's song of a laugh.

-----

Chapter Text

Namjoon's getting yet another cup of coffee when he spots the closest thing he has to a best friend across the cafeteria hall. Min Yoongi comes walking toward him, his fingers shoved into the pockets of his grey hoodie. The tender skin of his eyes are rimmed with purples and blues and his dark eyes peek up into Namjoon's.

Yoongi often looks like he snorts coke, but he really doesn’t. He’s just so pale that when he doesn’t get rest, his eyes don’t darken, they fill with reds and blues. His lips are chapped and torn and he sniffs when he stops in front of Namjoon.

"You look like shit." Namjoon says, giving Yoongi a once over, taking in that he’s wearing grey sweats and a grey hoodie with red converse shoes. He looks like a complete greyed out mess and it makes Namjoon want to laugh.

The arts majors always looked the worst out of the lot, having to pull several all nighters to complete intensive assignments. Yoongi's great at his major- in fact Namjoon's pretty sure he's a prodigy when it came to the arts- but he has a nasty habit of putting off work to the last minute and then sacrificing his sleep so that he could complete it. It's amazing how much he doesn’t deserve the high grades he gets because there are consistent students in his course who plan out and research before doing their work and then there's Min Yoongi who procrastinates like it’s his second language.

"Yeah? Well I decided to dress up as you today, happy halloween asshole," Yoongi says in the same tone he'd use when talking about the weather with an old lady. He eyes Namjoon and then his lips press down, "Is that coffee?"

Namjoon's mouth forms the beginnings of "Yes." but it never really makes it past his tongue because Yoongi grabs for the paper cup and takes a long swig of it before handing it back to Namjoon who frowns at the little bit of caffeine that's left. It’s routine for this to happen, Yoongi always stealing his coffee and Namjoon always having to go get another. It's no wonder that the coffee barista lady knows his exact order.

"Your coffee still tastes like shit." Yoongi says, stepping around Namjoon who turns to follow him. Standing in the middle of the cafeteria to have a conversation wasn’t exactly social etiquette, that and once they’d been having a conversation and someone had bumped into Namjoon, spilling cheesy nachos and Sprite all over his shirt.

That hadn’t been such a great day for Namjoon.

Yoongi begins to complain about his lecturer and then the "Useless fucking assholes in his class who don’t bother to practice." and Namjoon smiles in comfort. It's always nice to talk to Yoongi, to listen to the angry rasp of his voice when he's bitter over something. Namjoon doesn’t really hang out with the people in his class and his conversations with them are brief and fleeting, mostly consisting of "Hey so and so do you have an object?"

Namjoon's not bothered by this. He rather enjoys being by himself sometimes.

But he really really loves Yoongi's company.

They walk past the student lounges and then outside where the sun's a gentle warmth against his skin. It's not scorching, so Yoongi doesn’t have to take off his hoodie. They walk into the gardens where Yoongi pulls out a small palm sized sketchbook from his pocket and a pencil that's too short for any artist's comfort. They find a seat amongst the greenery, where butterflies danced across the air and birds sang along with soft hum of an afternoon breeze.

It’s a marvel, with bright greens and pinks and blues and violets. Namjoon's not much of a nature admirer, but the gardens in campus reminds him of home. It reminds him of his mother's rough hands against his cheeks and his father's wrinkle of a smile telling him "My son I am so proud of you."

It's been months since he's heard their voices so he makes a mental note to call them up later.

Namjoon looks up at the sky, at it's infinite blue stretching from far behind him into an indefinite future ahead. He closes his eyes for a moment, imagining himself bursting out from beneath the sky. Would he be covered in baby blue as well? Will there be traces of pearly clouds against his skin?

Would he taste like the earth? Or would he appear like the product of a man's destruction?

It’s then that he hears that same melody, the very same that he’s always leaving from and his eyes open and his body lifts itself off the bench Yoongi had chosen. Namjoon finds himself looking overhead, searching but not wanting to search for the owner of that laugh.

He finds Park Jimin kneeling in front of a bush with flowers the colour of sunshine, his fingers touching the petals so softly, Namjoon wonders if he’s actually touching it. There's a childlike quality to Jimin, Namjoon observes, in the way he’s grinning so widely at the flowers like there's a secret between them. He almost wants to tap Yoongi and say, "Maybe you should draw him." but he realises that that sounds weird.

It's not like Namjoon has any interest in Park Jimin anyway. It's just that he's rather curious since he’d stumbled into his dorm drunk two days in a row.

"What're you looking at?" Yoongi asks suddenly and Namjoon finds his face heating and his palms sweating so he starts tries to sit back down and avoid Yoongi's question.

But Yoongi, being an artist, has an observational skill that far surpasses any trained spy and his eyes land on Park Jimin's still bent form, touching the flowers like it's glass and any little force would shatter it entirely.

"He sort of came through my window... drunk. Twice." Namjoon confesses, mostly to divert any unnecessary questions that may spring up. Yoongi's lips press together and he tilts his head from side to side, as though thinking something over.

"You’d best be careful around him though," Yoongi says, going back to his drawing, he's sketching one of the bushes where a bird's nestled in the middle, surrounded by emerald leaves- a tiny speck of black and red amidst a wash of verdant- his hand's skilled and comfortable, drawing quick and mature strokes and skilful curves because the pencil is merely an extension of himself, "I’ve heard that he flirts with death like it’s his favourite lover."

Namjoon merely licks his lis and looks at Jimin, who’s now standing up, looking far beyond the ocean of greens. His hair's a little red under the sun.

Namjoon wants to know why he keeps stumbling through his window.

-----

Chapter Text

It happens as such for the next two weeks- every night (and Namjoon means every single night) Park Jimin would stumble into his dorm through his open window, flat-out drunk and barely unable to hold himself up. The first four days were weird, with Namjoon awkwardly pushing him around the room, trying to make space to accommodate the drunkard. Eventually he'd decided to put some blankets in a corner with a few pillows for Jimin to crash on.

And every morning after Namjoon would give him a steaming cup of coffee.

But Namjoon found himself forming a rather strange friendship with the brunette.

When Jimin was a lot more conscious the following mornings, he’d talk to Namjoon, get to know him. Namjoon’s a little awkward with new people, but Jimin has a smile of a thousand diamonds and his eyes are slanted and kind. He never once told Namjoon that his coffee tasted like crap or that his room was a cluttered mess.

He’d said once that Namjoon’s room was a reflection of himself. And then he’d said that his room told him that Namjoon was a study whore. Jimin always had something new to tell Namjoon. He’d tell him stories of how he’d once piggy backed three guys and had to run across a finish line, another time he had to drink vodka while hanging upside down. Jimin’s a tale of his own, a little book filled with story after story after story.

And Namjoon listened to them all.

They’d gone from awkward one word responses to describing the galaxies and wondering about what laid beyond the sky. Jimin wasn’t smart, Namjoon knew because he’s smart, but Jimin is insightful and Namjoon can’t stop thinking about how he could look into Namjoon’s eyes and tell him that he needs to take a break from reading and go outside to play.

Namjoon finds himself looking forward to Jimin’s sudden appearances and he looks forward to his interactions with Jimin. He often saw him around campus as well and the shorter boy would give him his biggest smile and wave at him.

It had been embarrassing at first but Namjoon’s grown rather fond of the drunkard.

He’s stirring milk into coffee (after much trial and error, he’s found that Park Jimin grins the widest when drinking coffee with milk and four tablespoons of sugar) while Jimin’s groaning against the floor, moaning something along the lines of, “I want to become a fucking pony.”

Namjoon laughs, turning around to find a bundle of blankets and one arm sticking out from between the material.

“You like your face too much for that.” Namjoon says, giving the coffee one last stir and then tapping the teaspoon against the edge of the mouth of the cup and dropping it into the sink. He walks over to the bundle of white sheets and gives it a good shove with his foot.

“Fuck off.” Comes a muffled reply, “I’m a sleeping pony.”

“Ponies need to eat.” Namjoon announces, giving the bundle another good shove. Jimin begins groaning and then pushes his head out from a corner of the bundle. He looks at Namjoon and then at the mug in his hand (for some reason the additional mug had become his) and then licks his upper lip, running the tip of his tongue back and forth playfully. Namjoon watches the scarlet tip for a moment before lifting an eyebrow.

Jimin’s quite cute, Namjoon thinks.

He then reaches out for it, wiggling his shorter fingers like a small child.

Okay, Jimin’s very cute.

It’s funny because he’s got such childlike qualities yet has a build of a man (he also drinks too much, but Namjoon hasn’t asked about that yet) so Namjoon finds Jimin a conflict in itself. Park Jimin is a living, breathing paradox.

Jimin takes the cup and sips the coffee. Namjoon catches his eyes close and his lips pull into a small smile. This is how Namjoon knows he likes the coffee.

Because Jimin looks like there's a quiet hum of a secret between him and the caffeine.

“Class is gonna start soon.” Namjoon reminds Jimin, and it’s something that’s become routine with them. Namjoon wonders if Jimin even misses his own room at this rate.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jimin mutters, giving Namjoon that same secret smile. Namjoon wants to claim it as his own, like that smile means his name.

What the hell is he thinking?

“Wanna hang out after your classes end today?” Jimin asks suddenly between the pauses of Namjoon’s breathing and he’s taken aback for a moment.

Hang out? As in like pals?

Namjoon doesn't usually ‘hang out’ because that eats into his revision time and then he can't finish his assignments within one night.

Sensing hesitation, Jimin stands up, the blankets falling around his feet and comes over to Namjoon. He throws his arm around the taller boy’s shoulder- an uncomfortable feat because Kim Namjoon is 1.81 metres of bones, muscles and flesh.

Jimin grins into Namjoon’s eyes and there's a small flutter in the taller boy's chest.

Jimin’s radiant in the morning light, his skin glowing with the sunshine against his face. Namjoon can see that his eyes aren’t black coffee but tea and they’re glowing from within.

“You’re not going to get kicked out of school just because you don't revise for one day, nerd.” And then Jimin’s laughing a song and Namjoon hopes he’s not blushing red.

“But not doing work for one day catalyses the effect of not doing for other days because your brain registers it as alright to do so and therefore you body relaxes with it, that’s how procrastination comes about and soon, maybe not now but in the long-term I’d end up failing my classes and having to change majors or drop out of school and work or join the military where I might get deployed to some aggressively war torn area and get killed.” Namjoon says without pausing for a breath and Jimin just blinks at him.

There’s static silence for a heartbeat before Jimin gives Namjoon two hard pats on his chest and says, “See you after school.”

-----

Jimin finds Namjoon first, which makes the taller blonde a little embarrassed because Jimin's practically jumping on the spot, his hands locked together behind his back. His cheeks are round in a smile and his eyes are little moons on his face- Namjoon isn’t exactly sure what to do with all this happiness.

"I’ve got some people to introduce to you," Jimin says when there's a crowd of students in the hallway. Namjoon's just barely out of his class when Jimin had found him and he’s stopped, trying to focus on Jimin's voice and drown out the chatter of every other student around them, "I'm glad you decided to come!"

Namjoon almost wants to tell him that he’s the one who's stopping Namjoon from rushing back to his dorm, but there's a teeny tiny part in Namjoon's chest that glows with happiness that Jimin had come to find him.

"Where are we going?" Namjoon says loudly, bending down a little for Jimin to hear him and the shorter boy grins up into Namjoon's face, positively glowing. His lips turn into something sly and Namjoon feel's Jimin's smaller hand slide around his wrist, his fingers circling around it carefully tender, but tight enough for Namjoon not to be able to break away from.

He feels this kick in his chest, a sudden burst from his heart. Namjoon's not sure what it is, but he can feel his face heat and his body go warm. Has the air always been this heavy? He's not so sure. But in the midst of all the students they’re just tiny specks of dust and no one can see them unless they’re looking and no one can see that Namjoon's scarlet all the way up to his hairline.

Jimin's quick in navigating, bringing Namjoon fluidly through the crowd of bodies. Namjoon's not nearly as graceful as Jimin, so when Jimin expertly dodges someone's elbow, Namjoon walks right into it. It's not Jimin that gets dirty looks, it's Namjoon and he's so embarrassed he feels like digging a hole all the way to the core of the earth and staying right there.

When they get out of the crowd, Namjoon feels like he can breathe all over again. There's no mess of bodies or godforsaken elbows stabbing into his stomach.

And Jimin's still holding on to his wrist.

The brunette brings him across hallways and then downstairs, walking by girls who stare for too long and lecturers who lift their eyebrows. Jimin's too fast and Namjoon's too slow so at a point, the blonde feels like Jimin's about to rip his arm right off it’s socket. Namjoon doesn’t mind this because Jimin's hand is warm and his touch is soft and there's something so brilliant and wonderful about being dragged this way across campus.

When they reach the entrance, Jimin lets go and Namjoon finally feels the lack of his touch. But he eyes a group waiting for Jimin, looking as though they haven’t slept in days, with hair sticking up in every direction and eyes heavily dressed with bags.

Namjoon lifts a brow at them, walking toward the group slowly. He’s not very good with new people and these boys look like people he wouldn’t ever associate themselves with.

But then Namjoon remembers the first time he'd met Yoongi (the silver haired guy had called Namjoon a "Stupid fucking tree!" for not watching where he was going and bumping into Yoongi) and then decides that people aren’t all that they seem. After all, Yoongi may appear cold and brooding, like he was brought up in winter and never tasted the warmth of summer but he's actually just a teddy bear on the inside.

"This is Kim Namjoon!" Jimin makes a show of introducing Namjoon, his voice pitches high with the octaves of excitement and he waves his arms as though presenting the awkward taller boy. Namjoon smiles close-lipped and lifts a hand, his fingers splayed out lazily.

There are three boys watching him and two of them grin so bright, Namjoon thinks he's looking at two other versions of Park Jimin. He blinks and then one of them is jumping on him, yelling so loudly in his ears, Namjoon thinks he's going to go deaf.

"I'm Jung Hoseok!" the person says, arms wrapped around Namjoon's neck. His eyes are dark and too close to Namjoon, so naturally he's not sure what to do. He smiles awkwardly, his lips pressed together and nods his head as if to say uh yeah hi.

The next comes another boy, taller than the first. He's got hair the colour of milk chocolate with bits of caramel inside. He looks at Namjoon up and down and then walks around him in a circle before coming in front of him.

The boy's lips crack into a wide smile and then he lifts one hand for a high five, "I'm Taehyung. Kim Taehyung."

Namjoon claps his hand against Taehyung's palm and then says, "Hey?"

The last boy just walks up to him, introduces himself as "Jeon Jungkook. I'm still in high school but I drive these idiots back home every night."

Namjoon almost wants to tell him that he’s not doing a good job since Jimin's been crawling into his room for two whole weeks and that his coffee supply is running low, but holds back because he enjoys his time when Jimin's drunk and then hungover the next day.

When they step out of campus it's dark out already. It's a vast onyx blanket, bluer in some areas and speckled with glittering stars that Namjoon often sees in Jimin's dark eyes.

Jungkook brings them over to a car and they crawl in, Jimin riding shotgun so Namjoon's crushed between Hoseok and Taehyung, who he learns are too loud and too noisy for him to bear. But they tell him stories of their adventures and that Jungkook's actually the most mature out of them, to which the youngest member in the group lifts his middle finger. Everyone laughs and it's warm like sunlight in winter. He's not used to people warming up so much to him especially this quickly and he's not used to having people pat him and ask him to talk to them.

"So you’re that genius everyone talks about around campus," Hoseok says when Namjoon tells him that he is indeed the Namjoon from english lit, "I've heard about you. You gave up medicine for lit."

"Uh, yeah." Namjoon admits, licking his lower lip, "That would be, uh, me."

"Really?" Jimin's voice comes into the conversation and he leans from the front seat, his eyes finding Namjoon's immediately, "That’s you?"

"Well you're not all that special." Taehyung laughs, sensing how uncomfortable Namjoon's become. When Namjoon had switched majors, everyone had called him an idiot. He'd heard so many Why did you do that? You're an idiot! That at one point he'd almost gone back.

He'd almost given in to hating his life rather than pursuing what his heart beat for.

"Hoseok went from psychology to college dropout because he likes to dance." Taehyung chuckles, leaning across Namjoon's body and smacking Hoseok's chest. The raven haired boy scoffs, rolling his eyes and then says, "But I'm really good." before wiggling his shoulders. It's a simple movement, but it's so smooth and fluid like a flowing river, that Namjoon's convinced that he's probably excellent in what he does.

"What's your major?" Namjoon asks Taehyung.

"Biomed." he answers. He doesn’t look like a science guy, not at all. But appearances are not what they seem so he nods and then asks Jimin who smiles slowly, returning back to face the front.

It's silent for a moment, maybe it’s not really silent because Namjoon's sure Hoseok and Taehyung had begun to do something stupid and Jungkook was yelling at them. It's not really silent, except for Namjoon because he’s waiting for Jimin's reply, he's entire body is focused on Jimin and the way he's breathing quietly, he's focused on how Jimin's eyes linger on the darkness outside the car's window.

There's something sad about him, almost like he's a teardrop. There's a sallow look to his otherwise plump cheeks and his lips are slanted downwards, just the slightest bit. Namjoon wants to reach out to him, to touch him and feel him and ask him why he’s looking outside like his life's a tragedy and Namjoon's just a passing, fleeting figure.

"Medicine." Jimin says after too many heartbeats, but just for Namjoon to hear, "I'm doing medicine but not for long." and then it's that, his voice dips at the end and he turns back to face the road so Namjoon knows not to ask any further.

Namjoon leans back instead, staring at the grey roof of the interior of the car and his shoulders deflate with the knowledge that Jimin's not just sunshine, he's also dark clouds and there's an ominous feeling that their friendship is evanescent.

-----

Namjoon learns how Jimin crawls into his dorm room.

It's not that difficult, seeing how Jimin's somehow gained superpowers while drunk. He can climb trees easily, his feet knowing exactly where to land and his fingers finding just the right spots to hold on to.

Namjoon watches from below as Jimin crawls up the tree closest to his window and then crawls into his dorm, smiling from below all the while. He then decides to take the most rational way back up- the elevator.

When he gets into his dorm room, Jimin's sitting beside his fridge, a carton of milk in his hands and a loopy grin across his handsome face. Namjoon can only roll his eyes and sit beside him, his back pressing against the cupboards with Jimin. It's quiet for a moment before Jimin's eyes close and he says, "I love medicine."

Namjoon turns his head to look at Jimin. He memorises the curve of the other boy's cheek, the strong line of his jaw. He learns the roundness of his closed eyeball, the length of his eyelashes, the little pout of his butterfly lips. He sees the upturned curve of Jimin's nose.

Namjoon likes Jimin. It's a bit more than a crush, a little less than love. In the two weeks they’d spent together, Namjoon's been searching for him in places he knows he will not find Jimin. In the time apart, Namjoon names things after Jimin, often always finding similarities between objects and the brunette. Namjoon's never been a big believer in love at first sight, but somehow he's sure that his heart's started to beat to the tune of Jimin's name the moment they’d met.

Namjoon doesn’t want to lie to himself, at the same time he doesn’t want to admit that he has a romantic interest in Jimin's soul so he doesn’t open his mouth to say anything. It wouldn’t be all too good for his heart if Jimin's heart beat for someone else.

The blonde smiles to an unseeing Jimin, he smiles because Jimin's soft and squishy and Namjoon likes him.

Namjoon likes Jimin so much that he wants to kiss him, but he's nervous and awkward so he bites his thick lower lip and looks away. He looks at his plain wall and wonders how he’d managed to live so achromatically before Jimin came splashing him with so much colour.

"Namjoonie," Jimin slurs his name and it sounds so sweet to Namjoon that he closes his eyes, levelling his breathing, "Could you hold my hand for a moment?"

Namjoon's eyes flutter open at this and he turns to look at Jimin. He's pale again, so pale he can see the darkness under his eyes and the blue of his veins from under his skin. Jimin's licks his grey lips, biting on them to turn them red again. His eyes are still closed and his fingers are too relaxed against the carton of now warm milk.

Namjoon slips his hands into Jimin's ice-cold one, feeling his shorter stubbier fingers lace into Namjoon's long and slender ones.

"Thank you," he says with a slight curve of his lips, "I really have to stop drinking."

Namjoon scoffs at this, smiling into the quietness of his room, his brain's screaming at him for not revising work, but the night had been so much fun. He hadn’t touched alcohol, but he'd danced and laughed and hugged and had released himself from all the things that could possibly tie him down. Taehyung had given him a piggyback ride, Hoseok had taught him how to dance.

And Jimin had come in, pushing Hoseok and Taehyung out of the way to goof around. It was in the midst of this, when Namjoon had grown tired and sat down that he realised that his heart was beating a different tune.

He'd just watched Jimin all night, watched him play around so hard and toss back alcohol like it’s water and like it didn’t burn down his throat.

He's so pale now, Namjoon worries for him. But he's always been better, he always gets better through the night. Namjoon gives Jimin's hand a soft squeeze and the brunette's eyes open, his lips pulling into a wide smile.

Namjoon stares at him, counting his heartbeats because it's so fast and loud it's thundering in his chest. He's rumbling, stumbling, sputtering. Namjoon doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what to do with his feelings.

Jimin scoots closer, Namjoon can smell the cocktail of alcohol on him. 

"Namjoonie," Jimin says quietly, his name stumbling from the drunk's lips like a new form of addiction on it's own, "Namjoonie, Namjoonie, Namjoonie."

And then Jimin reaches out to Namjoon, pressing his other palm against Namjoon's chest where his heart's beating too fast and too hard and Jimin smiles, his eyes closing.

"That's a strong heart you've got there." he grins, eyes drooping, "What a strong heart." and then he falls asleep, his cheek falling against Namjoon's thigh and Namjoon breathes out a whisper of Jimin's name.

-----

Chapter Text

Jimin doesn’t stumble into Namjoon's room for the next week. Initially Namjoon hadn’t thought much of it because he last time Jimin had fallen in, Namjoon had given him coffee the following morning, citing that he still looked a little chalky.

Jimin had grinned with the stars in his smile and had declared, "I'm fine." with a dismissive wave of his hand and then had laughed.

And that was that. He hadn’t seen Jimin for the next day and the day after that and the day after that. The day afters quickly turned into one week and Namjoon's nerves began to call out Jimin's name.

He would stare at his window, sometimes even look out for signs of the brunette. He'd wait and wait until his lids would grow empty and then close his window before going to bed.

Park Jimin's a no-show. It makes Namjoon uneasy because there's a lack of Jimin's presence and even around school he couldn't spot him. He’s searching and searching for someone who just isn’t there.

"Where's your boy?" Yoongi asks one day during lunch where Namjoon's staring at his plate like it's an alien. Where could Park Jimin be?

"Hey!" Yoongi finally says, snapping his fingers in front of Namjoon's face. It's been like this for over the Jimin-less week. Namjoon stares into corners without saying much and Yoongi having to force Namjoon back into the world. Namjoon feels like an idiot for this, but there's an unpleasant snake of a feeling crawling up his spine. He wants to go out searching for Jimin but he's not sure where to even start.

"Sorry," Namjoon replies sheepishly, picking up one limp fry and making a face at it, "What were you saying?"

"I said you're ugly." Yoongi deadpans, picking out his tomatoes and dropping it on Namjoon's tray. He just glances at it and sighs out loudly.

"Thanks for that." Namjoon says, shoving at the tomato with his fingernail while Yoongi just stares at him, a hint of amusement across his pink lips.

"Why don’t you go searching at his faculty? You're sure he's not here?"

Namjoon nods. Park Jimin's smoke, he's gone.

Evanescent.

Namjoon bites into his burger, feeling like he’d rather chug down some vodka instead. The season's about to change- winter is coming. He'd had this stupid little fantasy of watching the first snow with Jimin. Of reprimanding him for coming through his window when it’s too cold outside.

Namjoon's hand still remembers Jimin's and they tingle with the familiarity of his glacial touch. He still remembers the paleness of Jimin's skin the last time he'd crawled through Namjoon's window.

Was he sick? Did he catch a cold?

Where did Jimin stay?

Namjoon doesn’t want to hold on to smoke, he wants to touch Jimin's shoulders and feel the jut of his bones, he wants to touch the velvet of his skin and the little friction of nearly invisible hairs on his body. Namjoon wants to hold him, to feel his heartbeat shatter his own bones.

Kim Namjoon's a hopeless romantic at this point and he's not a strong believer in love anyway but the drunken idiot who crawls through his window makes him want to hold on to forever with him and with him Namjoon thinks he might be able to.

Namjoon doesn’t even have Jimin's phone number.

"You're a fucking mess." Yoongi laughs into his drink, a smile pulling along the edges of his face. Namjoon sees that Yoongi's gaze is soft, almost like cotton and he reaches for Namjoon, giving him a firm punch on his left shoulder.

"If you worry this much, your blonde's going to turn white."

Namjoon rolls his eyes, a small smile tugging along his lips. When Yoongi picks up his phone, Namjoon goes back to thinking of Jimin. It's Yoongi's sudden tap that brings him back and the silver-haired boy flashes his phone to Namjoon where a number's typed across his screen.

"It's a friend of his. Call it."

Namjoon grabs for the phone like it's water and he hasn’t drank in days.

-----

Taehyung comes to Namjoon looking like he hasn’t eaten in days. His cheeks look hollow and his eyes are rimmed dark. It's a usual college student look, but there's something deeper in Taehyung's expression. Something more akin to fear living and breathing from behind the panicked look in his eyes. When he sees Namjoon he's practically running toward him, throwing his arms around Namjoon like Namjoon's the only think that can make him breathe.

"Sorry," is the first thing Taehyung finds himself saying, bringing his dark eyes to meet Namjoon's. He takes a step back, straightening out his shirt and then with a fist rubs at his right eye, "Haven’t slept in a week."

That's how long Jimin's been gone Namjoon thinks, eyeing Taehyung over. Taehyung pushes his bangs out of his face and he looks so tired, Namjoon can almost feel it in his body.

"What happened to Jimin?" Namjoon blurts when he can't wait any longer. His nerves are all riled up, like springs pushed down with a finger only to be released without control. He wants to yell at something because there's so much tension inside of his body. Namjoon is just merely a ball of nerves and he is human and his heart is beating for someone he hasn’t seen in seven days.

He’s terrified something might have happened to Jimin.

"Oh, Jimin." Taehyung starts to rub at the skin between his fingers and then turns his hands over and rubs his thumb against the centre of his palm, Namjoon knows this is a nervous habit of someone trying to hide the truth, "He's been down with the flu."

Namjoon can tell Taehyung is lying so it annoys him. Jimin's his friend too. 

Jimin.

Namjoon can’t help himself when his hands snap forward, grabbing on to the collar of Taehyung's shirt. Times like these, he's almost glad he’s a giant,  because he's glaring down into Taehyung's eyes with enough venom and ferocity to make the smaller boy wince. Namjoon's nostrils flare with the widening of his eyelids and then he's seething, "Where. Is. Park. Jimin?" 

His words are biting and his fingers are curled into fists so tight he feels the strain on his wrists.

Taehyung swallows so hard his chin dips, "I-I'm not lying he really is down with the flu."

Namjoon lets go of Taehyung, allowing himself a breath to cool down before he says in the most ashamed voice he can muster, "I'm sorry. I wasn’t thinking."

Taehyung chuckles nervously, smoothing his collar while giving Namjoon a careful look, "You like him." is all he says and it has the ability to make Namjoon stop and colour and want to curl into a ball.

But he does like Park Jimin and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. Taehyung's not a snitch, that much Namjoon knows. He’s odd and eccentric, but he knows when to get serious and the look Taehyung is giving Namjoon tells the blonde that Kim Taehyung already knows what Namjoon beats for.

"Taehyung..." Namjoon starts but the shorter boy holds one hand up, palm facing out and then with the widest grin he’s ever seen on his face says, "Don’t worry too much about him. It's Park Jimin we're talking about, he climbs into your dorm."

Yes, he does climb into Namjoon's dorm. But he’s also always pale at night and warm in the mornings. He's always looking at Namjoon with desperate eyes when he thinks Namjoon isn’t looking. He’s always sleeping too well in Namjoon's room. Namjoon worries too much, he knows, but he’s worrying because he loves Jimin and if you don’t worry for someone you love, if you don’t worry for your living version of coffee, then to Namjoon it’s better not to love him at all.

"Where can I find him?" Namjoon asks and Taehyung smiles again, reaching out to give Namjoon a good pat on his chest, right where his heart beats from beneath his fingers, "Right here."

-----

Chapter Text

Ten days of Jimin not showing up, Namjoon's already functioning like a normal person. He's sleeping properly, eating well. He doesn’t look out for Jimin as often, but he finds himself in the constant company of Hoseok and Taehyung who tell him that his cheeks look like pillows and they want to keep poking at it.

They do, which Namjoon has grown used to. They’re a pair of jokers, and Namjoon likes them as well.

Yoongi comes to his dorm at night because his roommate's in a 'bad mood' and he doesn’t want to deal with that. Namjoon still keeps a second cup of coffee ready, in case, maybe just in case Jimin wants one.

He doesn’t, because Jimin never appears.

And then he does. It's a silent night, Namjoon's picking out books that Jungkook had asked for (the younger kid wanted to ace his last year in high school and said that he wanted to be smarter than the rest of his class) when he hears a familiar rustle. 

He turns his head the moment Jimin lands in, his stomach colliding with the window sill. It's familiar because this was how he’d looked the first day he’d crawled in, dangling haphazardly from the window, his legs outside and his arms inside Namjoon's room. 

Namjoon looks at the sight for a moment, wanting to press his heart into quieting down. It's leaping in his chest and he can feel a little bubble of laughter form in his throat. He’s so happy to see Jimin he's not sure what to do with his feelings. 

He puts his books down and saunters over the drunken boy hanging on his window sill and then sighs out before grabbing at him and hauling him inside. Namjoon's back aches by the time he's dragged Jimin in and then drops him carefully so as not to hurt him.

That’s when he sees a painting. Jimin's pale skin's dressed in spots of black and blue, contrasting greatly against the pale tones of his complexion. He's got scarlet blooms on his lip and from his nostrils. His eyes can barely open and he groans out something that almost sounds like Namjoon's name, but he can’t be sure because Jimin's eyes are closing and there's blood and bruises everywhere, Namjoon's hands shake. 

"Jimin! Jimin!" he finds himself uselessly calling out, getting to his knees and pulling Jimin's head up. The battered boy smiles, just a small painful twist of his lips before he mumbles, "It’s good to see you too, Namjoonie."

What an idiot, Namjoon thinks to himself as his brows pull together in torment, what a goddamn idiot.

Namjoon puts him down so carefully his fingers tremble just like the organ in his chest. Jimin looks like he can’t function and it’s making Namjoon worried. Had he gotten into a fight? Had he gotten into trouble?

What the hell was Park Jimin?

Namjoon only knows one other person who's dealt with something like this before and he's fumbling on his phone, his fingers not seeming to slide against the touch sensitive screen quick enough. There's a rumble in the room courtesy of his heart and the tips of his fingers are icy with stress. Namjoon keeps peeking over at Jimin, noting how quiet he is, noting how still his body was lying against the carpet of Namjoon's floor. The blonde swallows the bile in his throat and clicks call the moment he finds the contact he’s looking for.

The other person picks up on the first ring, just as Namjoon expects him to and then Namjoon's barely making his words comprehensible as he stutters, "Seokjin there's an emergency in my room I need you."

And Seokjin comes over in less than five minutes, his lengthy fingers curled around the strap of the first aid kit he keeps by his side all the time. He takes in the look of panic on Namjoon's face and then gives him a curt nod, allowing the taller blonde to lead him to Jimin.

Seokjin's the campus 'nurse' as everyone calls him because he's a degree holder coming back to do his masters. Everyone loves him because he’s the one to call when you’re in medical need and you can’t get to the hospital or have others find out about it. 

Seokjin's also Namjoon's really good friend because Seokjin makes a hell of a good lunch when Namjoon asks for it.

Namjoon watches the lanky raven haired boy kneel down beside Jimin, his eyes going over Jimin's body expertly before he proceeds to feel him for any broken bones. Namjoon watches Seokjin work quietly, his pulse erratic and a ball of anxiety forming in the pit of his belly. He knows that Seokjin's an expert and he also knows that Seokjin's a master at scenarios like this.

"Is he drunk?" Seokjin asks after a moment, probably to reaffirm because from where Namjoon's standing (a wide distance from Seokjin but close enough to see) he can smell the liquor.

Namjoon affirms this and Seokjin sighs, before reaching into his bag and pulling out a stethoscope.

His brows pull together when he checks Jimin's heartbeat and then he checks Jimin's pulse before putting it back into his little bag.

"Okay help me put him on the bed." Seokjin orders so Namjoon mechanically walks over, grabbing on to Jimin's legs as Seokjin lifts Jimin up from under his arms. They cross over to Namjoon's bed and place him on it carefully, resting Jimin's head softly against Namjoon's pillow.

Jimin's so pale he almost blends in with the white of his sheets. The painted colours against his skin pop out vividly. Namjoon almost wants to touch them, to make sure that they’re not real. But they’re real as they can get and Jimin's in pain from the way his brows pull together and the way his lips are swollen and bleeding.

"He's heavily drunk," Seokjin informs Namjoon, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, "So he'll need to rest it out. I'll leave you with some bandages and disinfectant to clean up his cuts." Seokjin gives Namjoon a reassuring pat on his back, "You look sick yourself."

Namjoon can’t help the nervous laugh that escapes his mouth. There must be a butterfly somewhere in his vocal chords because it feels like he just wants to laugh and laugh and laugh.

Jimin's okay. Jimin's going to be okay.

Namjoon thanks Seokjin who grins back at him, his eyes curving with his lips before taking out some things from his bag for Namjoon to clean Jimin's cuts with. 

Once Seokjin's gone, Namjoon wanders over to Jimin's side, pulling his uncomfortable swivelling chair along. He tries to be quiet and winces every time his chair squeaks, giving Jimin worried looks to see if he's awoken or not.

Jimin doesn’t, much to the blonde's relief, and Namjoon thinks his heart can stop fluttering. 

He sleeps peacefully, Namjoon notes, even when he’s drunk or covered in hues the colour of the night just before the sun rises. Namjoon wants to reach out and touch Jimin, but holds himself back because he’s nervous that Jimin might wake up, and catch him stroking his hair or something.

That's much too embarrassing even for Namjoon to handle.

Instead he grabs a book, intending to read while the brunette rests. He fails however, because Jimin's the north pole of a magnet and Namjoon's eyes are south- he can’t stop how he keeps looking at Jimin. He can’t stop even if he wants to, because everything's magnetic, so magnetic.

Namjoon's eyes catch the hollows of Jimin's cheeks, he eyes the jut of his collarbones under the folded collar of his t-shirt. He's still pale, still white.

He nearly looks like death.

And he's thinner as well. 

Namjoon doesn’t want to notice these things, but he just does. Jimin's tinier than he’d been ten days ago and he’s paler. The rings under his eyes are nearly the same shade as his bruises and his lips are so blue the sky would envy it. Namjoon reaches out to touch his skin, feeling the ice against the warm tips of his fingers and he pulls away, chewing his bottom lip.

Jin said he’s okay, Namjoon tells himself unconvincingly, and Jin's a doctor.

But Jin doesn’t know Jimin the way Namjoon does, he doesn’t know that Jimin's cheeks used to be apples and his lips used to be strawberries. He doesn’t know that Jimin's warm like a heated blanket, he doesn’t know that Namjoon sees miracles when Jimin's around, he doesn’t know that when Jimin's around Namjoon feels like he's standing on something stable.

He flirts with death like it’s his favourite lover.

Namjoon reaches forward once again, slipping his lengthy fingers into the cold palm of Jimin's hand. He stays like that, listening to Jimin's ragged breathing like there's a bird lodged in the unconscious boy's throat.

Namjoon guesses that that’s a lot better than the thousand butterflies in his vocal chords and the billion crazy bubbles inside his chest. Namjoon guesses that there are a lot more better things out there than holding on to Jimin's hand, but those things are just better and this is the best thing to be doing. Because Namjoon's fingers remember Jimin and they tingle with glee having to connect with the skin of something his heart thuds for.

Namjoon watches Jimin for hours, catching every twitch of his face. His lips part at some point and his brows pull together just the slightest bit. Namjoon gives his hand a soft squeeze and Jimin's face relaxes into his usual handsomeness. 

Namjoon feels inadequate beside Jimin. Jimin is fearless, wild. He's smoke, as Namjoon's already labelled him, a free spirit.

Park Jimin reminds him of something evanescent- here one moment, gone the next. Jimin strikes Namjoon as someone who follows his heart to the ends of the earth and sings at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night when stray cats quarrel and mothers try to calm their crying children. Jimin reminds Namjoon of everything he’d wanted to be when he was a child.

But Namjoon's a quieter soul, sticking to familiar places and routines. He prefers stability and constants which is why he's known as a genius.

Meeting Jimin just makes Namjoon want to follow along and sing at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night.

----- 

Three hours later Jimin wakes up and his sclera's webbed with little lines of scarlet and his lower lids water a little bit. He opens his eyes to warmth and comfort and when he turns his head he sees Namjoon, pale and afraid like he’s just been told his entire family's been killed.

Jimin smiles, not because he wants to reassure Namjoon, he smiles because his hand's inside Namjoon's and he feels warmth he hasn’t for so long. He can’t help giving it a squeeze and laughing when Namjoon's expression switches from concern to surprise and his cheeks pink.

He sits up, letting the blankets pool around his abdomen.

"What happened?"

"You're an alcoholic." Is all Namjoon deadpans with a frown and Jimin's laughing again, bringing their locked hands to his forehead and rubbing it against Namjoon's skin.

An alcoholic? It just makes Jimin want to laugh. He’s not an alcoholic, he just likes drinking.

A lot.

"You passed out." Namjoon mutters in a lower voice, sliding his fingers out from Jimin's. He feels colder again, emptier.

Jimin watches Namjoon walk over to his bookshelf and slide his novel back among the rest. He's so tall, Jimin thinks with a small smile, I'm so short.

He gets out of bed, feeling weak at his legs but doesn’t topple over. Namjoon turns over to look at him, eyebrows lifted before coming over to his side and grabbing on to his elbow. Jimin feels currents rush through his arm and his idiot heart sputters hard in his chest.

"You also look like shit- and didn’t I tell you that my dorm isn’t a fucking hotel?" Namjoon's chiding him half-heartedly and Jimin's just saying yeah yeah I get it. 

He bursts out laughing when he catches his reflection on Namjoon's cupboard (there's a full length mirror on it for some reason) because he looks like shit. Purple and blue isn’t his colour and so are busted lips and black eyes. He touches his lip and winces because it hurts too much.

Namjoon just sighs, bringing him over to his bathroom and pulling the lid of the toilet bowl down. He puts his large hands on Jimin's bony shoulders, frowning when he feels too much jut of his bones and pushes him down. Jimin sits without saying anything, his eyes locked on Namjoon's concentrated face.

There's no smile on him, Jimin notes, and his eyebrows are pulled closer together as he reaches for some alcohol and bandages.

He kinda looks sexy this way.

He lets Namjoon clean him up, watches the tremble of his unsteady long fingers. He pulls up his shirt, catches the slight hitch in the blonde's breathing and smiles to himself, wanting to shove his own fingers into the fluff of Namjoon's nearly white-blonde hair. It looks soft, Jimin notes, as though he’d been born with it instead of having dyed it that colour.

Jimin thinks that Namjoon's hair's like fairytales- so fair and magical, like wisps of fairy wings growing from his scalp.

He winces when the alcohol touches his open wounds, the pain isn’t unbearable but it feels like a definite bite. He'd known better than to get into fights at bars, but his heart's beating for different reasons and he absolutely loves it when the adrenaline's spiking his blood and his vision's nothing but scarlet.

Looking at the press of Namjoon's lips makes Jimin feel guilty- something he hasn’t ever felt when shoving his fist into someone's face. Namjoon makes Jimin want to smile all the time and sit with his knees pressed together and his collar buttoned all the way up. Jimin feels wild, but there's something about how mellow Namjoon is that seems to balance the crazy chemicals in Jimin's brain.

Jimin presses his fingers against the curve of Namjoon's cheek, feeling the sudden rush of warmth against his icy finger tips. Namjoon looks up, his eyes devastatingly warm and familiar and brown.

Jimin's never known what longing felt like, has never felt the pull of his heartstrings or the pressure against his chest when he’s missing someone. But in the last ten days, he’s thought he’d never see light ever again.

Jimin falls in love with Namjoon the way you dip your feet into warm water- first the toes to test the temperature and then your entire foot because it's okay. Jimin falls in love with Namjoon over ten days because he’d been looking around for him in places he’d obviously never find dark eyes and wispy fairy hair. Jimin knows he shouldn’t be falling in love this quickly or recklessly, but he trusts the failure of an organ in his chest and he trusts how it's singing Namjoon's name as he looks into the blonde's confused eyes.

Kim Namjoon is magic, Jimin decides, because he calms the storm in Jimin. He makes Jimin want to stay in one place.

Jimin's running his thumb across the smoothness of Namjoon's cheek and the other boy's lips part as if to say something. Jimin doesn’t want words, not now. He just wants to look into Namjoon's eyes and see himself reflected back in his. He's okay with the knowledge that when Namjoon looks into his eyes he’d see himself back in them. Their eyes are mirrors and Jimin's somehow glad they can see themselves in each other's eyes.

Jimin's also not poetic, and he doesn’t care for this kind of shit but Namjoon's lips are moving and Jimin can’t stop looking. His lower lip's a lot plumper, so Jimin finds himself wondering how it would feel if he bit down on it.

There’s comfort in the knowledge that life's short- far too short- so Jimin has to be quick.

"Do you have food?" he finds himself asking, pulling his fingers away from Namjoon. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Namjoon takes a few seconds to process what Jimin's saying and then he’s blinking rapidly, lips closing and parting. He looks like a fish.

"Y-yeah?" he says with the lightest touch of a frown, "Let me bandage you up first."

When Namjoon begins the process of covering up Jimin's wounds and his head's bent so he can’t see Jimin, the brunette brings the back of his hand to his face, wondering why his heart's pounding so strong and his face feels like someone's lit a candle behind it.

-----

Chapter Text

Namjoon spends more time with Jimin, it makes him happy, but for some reason he always finds himself wondering if there are unsaid words printed on Jimin's lips. He often catches Jimin opening his mouth to say something, but then the brunette catches himself at the last minute and shakes his head, saying "It's nothing."

Namjoon isn’t  frustrated by this, he just feels like an idiot thrown into a bed of flowers, except that these flowers are Jimin and Namjoon just wants to smile into air and pat himself on the back.

He’s such an idiot.

Really.

He enjoys his conversations when Jimin's drunk in his room and then hungover the next day. And when they're not together, he loves how Jimin leaves him messages and calls him during breaks. Yoongi's already calling Jimin his boyfriend and while it's embarrassing, it makes Namjoon glad.

Yoongi also tells him that he’s too ugly for Jimin which makes Namjoon wonder why they're even friends in the first place.

"Tea please," Jimin orders at the campus' pseudo-Starbucks. The coffee sucks here so Namjoon always gets his caffeine fix from the cafeteria. "And uh... coffee." Jimin's eyes narrow at the words on the board, "I don’t know just give me your strongest stuff?"

The barista eyes Jimin, her lips contorted in confusion and then says, "Is that all... er... sir?"

"Yep!" He perks, turning around to give Namjoon a grin. It's the first time Namjoon learns that Jimin likes tea instead of coffee and he feels so bad for always giving Jimin coffee the morning after he comes into his dorm completely wasted.

"You didn’t tell me you like tea," Namjoon says with a frown, heading over to their seat, "I wouldn’t have given you coffee."

"It's okay," Jimin's smiling again, a graceful pull of his lips so Namjoon can see his front teeth (he absolutely loves that one tooth that's a little bit crooked), "Your coffee's the only one I drink."

Namjoon's cheeks heat and he feels a little press against his chest. You're an idiot.

He’s such an idiot.

The season's changing and it’s getting colder, the season's changing just like the way Jimin's always around him, the season changes just like Namjoon's hair.

The season changes because change is good and Namjoon doesn’t mind that it’s getting colder as long as he can hold on to Jimin. He’s glad that Jimin's no longer smoke to him, if he just reaches out he'll find Jimin's fingers to hold on to. If he searches he’ll find Jimin once again.

Four months change a lot. Jimin's still the drunken asshole, but he doesn’t fall flat into Namjoon's room anymore, instead he jumps in with a smile on his face and a ready greeting on the tip of his tongue.

"How's finals coming along?" Jimin asks as he pours a packet of sugar into his warm tea and then picks up the stirrer, he peeks up at Namjoon from under his lashes. Namjoon holds on to the paper cup filled with liquid energy and shrugs, "Okay I guess."

"That’s what a genius would say." Jimin mocks, laughing to himself. Namjoon loves his laugh, it's like warm water.

It's a song of it’s own.

"I'm not a genius." Namjoon retorts, bringing the cup to his lips. He's right, the coffee at this sorry excuse of a Starbucks knockoff sucks but he doesn’t say anything because Jimin's watching him expectantly, looking like a glad puppy that his gift's been accepted.

Namjoon hates this coffee, but suddenly it doesn’t seem all that bad to drink anymore.

Jimin's got the cutest nose, it's not sharp at all and just sits nicely on his face. He's losing more weight, from what Namjoon can see. His cheeks are losing all the curve they have.

Every time Namjoon asks, Jimin laughs it off saying it's probably the alcohol.

Namjoon knows that it's a lot deeper than that. Jimin comes into his window pale as death and wakes up without colour now. He's almost like a marble statue with no warmth to his body. The season's still changing but Jimin wears ten layers of clothes.

When Namjoon holds his hand he can feel his bones.

But Jimin eats the sandwich he’d bought and Namjoon had asked his friends only to confirm that Park Jimin doesn’t have an eating disorder. He wants to believe that Jimin's healthy, but there's a part of Namjoon that's dark and lurking that tells him that Jimin's not as active as he pretends to be.

Namjoon doesn’t voice this, instead he focuses on his coffee and then takes out some notes for him to revise. Jimin does the same, pulling out thick books and notepads where his handwriting fills the pages. Namjoon finds comfort in Jimin's handwriting.

He watches Jimin study, watches the concentrated pull of Jimin's brows and the slight pout of his lips. Namjoon wants to kiss them, but doesn’t. He sees how narrow Jimin's shoulders have gotten and how thin his fingers are pressed against the curve of his neck. Namjoon eyes Jimin's jaw and the sharp edge of this.

Four months ago Jimin's jaw was softer, like blended pastel. Now it's a sharper edge- a line drawn out of fury.

Namjoon worries.

He doesn’t say anything.

He proceeds with his studying, half torn between paying attention to his books and looking up at Jimin. He knows Jimin's there but there's always a dark whisper in his ear warning him of Jimin's evanescence, warning him that Jimin's suddenly going to disappear. He peeks at Jimin then goes back to his books.

Kim Namjoon's a worrier but Jimin's a warrior and so the blonde thinks that he's just assuming too much. Jimin's alright, he’s healthy. He just pays too much attention to Jimin and so he’s noticed the little changes in his body.

It's what love does to you, Namjoon reminds himself, makes you and idiot.

They're working in silence and occasionally Jimin hums or checks his phone and then puts it down. Sometimes he reaches for his cup of tea without looking and Namjoon has to escort his hand to the cup so he won’t spill his drink everywhere and then have to clean it all up. 

Park Jimin's a fucking miracle and Namjoon's so glad that he’d fallen through his window four months ago on a stressful night where he’d had to complete an assignment he’d already finished.

It's in this midst of gazing the the miracle in front of him that a group of four, unrecognisable men walk up to them. They’re wearing leather jackets and black skinny jeans and Namjoon knows this isn’t good news. They look like the sort of bad guys portrayed in any action movie, with their similar coloured dark outfits and scowls.

"Park Jimin," the first one says, slamming his palm against the table. It's loud enough to rattle everything on, the teaspoons clinking against the ceramic of the saucers. Jimin looks up slowly, his eyes taking it’s time to drink in the sight before him.

If Jimin knew this people, or if he was afraid, Namjoon couldn’t see because Jimin's smiling and standing up. The man who'd slamming his fist against the table towers above the brunette and for some reason it puts Namjoon off.

He gets to his feet, finding himself uncharacteristically smirking when he notes that he's taller than the group itself.

Jimin gives Namjoon a look, it’s a quick slide of his eyes so the blonde already knows what Jimin' thinking.

"Okay, okay, okay guys." Jimin's smiling as he says this with his hands lifted, palms facing the first man in black leather. He's charismatic, that much Namjoon can give him and if it had been any other normal day, you’d think Jimin was flirting, "I was just here trying to have some tea." he lifts his brows, blinking several times to appear innocent. His mouth's even pushed into one corner and his forehead creases.

Namjoon's not sure what Jimin's doing and he sure hopes that Jimin's escape plan is pretty foolproof because there are eyes on them and whispers blowing along the static silence of the cafe.

"Now I know you and I don’t want to get into trouble," Jimin drags his words like he’s talking to a child, Namjoon catches the first guy's jaw clench, "So let us take this outside like civilised people, alright?"

"Don’t fuck with me Park," the man spits, reaching out to grab Jimin's collar. Namjoon steps forward, fists clenched by his side. It infuriates him that someone's treating Jimin this way, it makes his blood boil and the pit of his belly churn with rage.

It's Jimin's look that stops him from lashing out because the brunette gives him the smallest shake of his head as if to say stay still.

"Dude," Jimin's voice is lower, a warning, "Neither of us want to get hauled out by cops so let's just take this outside hmm? I'll walk out first so you can follow behind me, I swear I'm not going to run."

Oh he is, Namjoon nearly grins, he is so going to fucking run. 

"FINE," the guy grinds out, his eyes narrowing at Jimin's still pouty face. Namjoon watches with a soft sigh of relief as his fingers leave the collar of Jimin's shirt, leaving only wrinkles behind, "Start walking."

Jimin shrugs, turning to look at Namjoon. His cheeks are pink, his eyes glinting devilishly and then he takes his first step through the group of men clad in onyx. Namjoon joins Jimin's side once they’re close to the entrance, feeling the group follow behind them cautiously. His nerves are on fire, like someone's been strumming at them. The knot in his belly ceases to leave, a clenched fist of anxiety. He wants to reach out for Jimin, he wants to know he's there. He's not sure how serious this situation is, or how badly Jimin's messed with them.

All he knows that if they lay one finger on Jimin again, he was going to rip them apart. Namjoon's not a fighter, he's not someone who would raise his fist against anyone but this is Jimin and Jimin's his fire. He's not just going to let someone else stub out his flame.

Namjoon's not a fighter but he’ll damn well fight for Jimin.

They step out of the cafe and it's like a movie. Namjoon's heart's in his throat and Jimin's walking slightly ahead of him. He stares at Jimin's narrow shoulders, at the way his sleeves jut out too much over skinny arms. He catches a small cut along his elbow, he catches the red glint of his hair when sunlight kisses it.

Jimin's glowing, he's radiating this sort of energy you'd associate with the beginning of the universe with. Namjoon guesses that Jimin's a little universe in itself as well and he’s pretty damn glad he’s found this universe.

It's in this small window of a moment, between two beats of Namjoon's heart that Jimin spins around, a wide grin splitting across his face and his eyes narrow in this nearly insane way that's got Namjoon suddenly stunned before Jimin's hand reaches out and grabs on to Namjoon.

The blonde thinks about movies and action cliches, how heroes have this absurdly perfect window of opportunity for a getaway. He thinks how impossible it would be to do this in real life, how impossible unless you're a wild spirit and your name is Park Jimin. 

When their hands connect and Jimin's grip is firm, he takes off, pulling Namjoon along with him and then they’re flying. There's wind in Namjoon's hair and Jimin's laughing into the sky, his head tilted back and his throat's exposed. The sky's not bright anymore, Namjoon notes when they're running through the arts block and Namjoon catches Yoongi who sees him and his lips drop along with everything in his arms, the sky's a luxurious grey, almost like the fur of a British shorthair cat, it's grey like Namjoon's grandmother's hair, it's grey like Jimin's lips every morning after drinking.

It's grey, it's cold and it's a storm, Namjoon loves this. He loves how he can hear shouting behind him, he loves how Jimin's laughing like all of this is a joke, he loves how his heart's thundering with every step he takes. He loves that Jimin's hand fits almost too perfectly in his.

Namjoon's falling and falling and he's okay with that. He's okay with falling as long as it's for Jimin and it doesn’t matter that Jimin may or may not want him the same way he does, as long as Namjoon can stretch out and touch him, it's alright with him.

You're an idiot.

So what if he was?

They're through the arts block and Namjoon can feel a sharp stab in his side but he’s laughing along with Jimin and the mix of this fills up the hallways and corridors and students are looking at them like they're crazy.

Namjoon doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a fuck at all. Because embarrassing yourself alone is different from embarrassing yourself with someone else. Because being with Jimin makes Namjoon stop thinking and being with Jimin makes Namjoon want to forget about control and just waver along with his heart and with how unsure and how unsteady his life is. Kim Namjoon may be a genius, but he's also a fool and he's okay with that.

He’s okay because he’s a fool for Jimin and all he can do right now is run and run and it's okay if he falls because he knows Jimin will pick him right back up and they'll run and run and run until the ends of the earth. He doesn’t mind running to the ends of the earth with Jimin.

"HEY PARK JIMIN!" they still hear and Jimin's head turns around to see before he smirks. Namjoon feels his grip tighten and suddenly they're taking a sharp turn.

They run past the cafe again, Namjoon noticing that everyone on the inside are watching them like they're crazy. It feels like there are bubbles in Namjoon's chest, crawling up his throat and he laughs out.

He can’t stop laughing.

They sprint past the student lounges and then it's suddenly so bright and musty- the sky's ready to drown the earth, ready but not yet. Students stare at them like they’re a circus spectacle, with their eyes wide and their lips parted.

Jimin doesn’t care. Neither does Namjoon.

They step out of campus and Jimin's holding on to Namjoon until they're out past the guard post and into the street. There's a change of air, almost like it's cleaner and fresher than when they’d been inside their campus.

Namjoon's legs are killing him and he knows that Jimin's built better than him, so he's not having much of a problem running this much. Namjoon doesn’t really work out because he’s always cooped up in his room studying so this much physical activity is a shock to Namjoon's system.

But he pumps his legs, ignoring the screaming from his calves and feet because he doesn’t want to drag Jimin down and he doesn’t want Jimin to end up caught in the hold of those strange men.

They cut corners, cross streets until they see little shops.

Jimin pulls him into an alley, slamming him against a wall and covering him with his body. Namjoon squeezes his eyes shut, feeling Jimin's cheek press against his ears. He can feel the rise and fall of Jimin's chest, brushing against his own. His heart's a trapped bird, thrashing wildly in his chest and his body feels hot and cold and wet from running.

He squeezes his eyes, feeling Jimin hold on to his other hand, his body pressed up against Namjoon's and he hears the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer, calling out Jimin's name before fading off into nothing.

But they stay where they are, shrivelled up in a tiny case of time where only they exist. The universe is infinite, but in that infinity there are two people and that's Kim Namjoon and Park Jimin, pressed against each other with their hearts screaming each other's names and their hands holding on to each other's though afraid either of them might disappear.

"Are you okay?" Jimin asks first and his voice is strained and breathy, there's a sudden loud shout of thunder. Namjoon can’t find his voice because he's still gasping for air from running and from being pressed this close to Jimin, so he nods, his ears red and brushing against Jimin's cheeks. He can feel Jimin's smile.

The shorter brunette steps away, his fingers letting go of Namjoon. Jimin's pale as death and his lips are the colour of the sky. The white of his eyes nearly look yellow now and the purples and reds beneath his eyes are so obvious, Namjoon reaches out to hold his shoulders.

The jut of bones against his fingertips makes his heart shoot forward and then there's another wave of worry.

"What's that all about?" Namjoon asks, still out of breath. Every word feels like fire in his throat, but he keeps his eyes on Jimin's, watching him blink and blink and smile.

"Ah, some assholes I run into occasionally. Don’t worry too much about them." He says flippantly with a dismissive wave of his hand as he steps out of Namjoon's grip, pacing around. The blonde just keeps his eyes on Jimin, noting the unsteady steps.

It's from running you ass, if you see your own face you’d look like that too.

Namjoon honestly wants to believe that.

He feels a little drop against his cheek so his eye twitches. He dabs at it, finding a drop of liquid and turns up to look at the sky.

It rains like the sky's mourning and soon the both of them are just standing under the downpour. Namjoon's eyes are on Jimin's, and he feels a sudden gust of anger. What does he mean don’t worry much about them? Namjoon wouldn’t have to worry if they hadn’t been chased around campus, he wouldn’t have to be worried if every time he looked at Jimin he sees him covered in black and blue like some sort of traumatised sculpture.

He's so angry so devastatingly pissed off that Jimin thinks it’s okay that he reaches forward, grabbing Jimin's arm and whirling him around, meeting the brunette's relaxed gaze with a forest fire in his eyes. 

"You fucking drunkard," Namjoon seethes, grabbing on to Jimin's collar, "It's not okay. It's not okay that they looked like they wanted to kill you and it's not okay that you're fine with this!" His eyes are wide, his nostrils flared and the rain drenching him doesn’t help how miserable he truly feels. He's angry at Jimin, he's beyond pissed that Jimin takes life like it's a joke, but he's most of all upset that he can’t do anything. He’s not strong so he can’t fight for Jimin or defend him when it comes down to a fist battle. He's useless, so utterly useless.

What can he do huh? Throw a textbook at those men and ramble on and on about Shakespeare and what a boring fuck he was? Can Namjoon recite a book front to back in order to protect Jimin? Write an extremely expressive essay asking them to piss the fuck off?

He can’t and it’s this powerlessness that fuels his anger, because if he can’t protect Jimin, the other boy should damn well know not to dip his toes into the waters of trouble.

Jimin adds fuel to the fire when he smiles, and Namjoon watches the water droplets slide down the creases of his face, down to the tip of his nose before dripping off. He watches Jimin's hair strands lump together and the brown of it become darker.

He watches Jimin and his grip loosens because Jimin's almost like a ghost in the rain and Namjoon thinks he’d rather hold on to him than let him go.

"I'm sorry," he finds himself saying, "My anger is irrational."

"No it’s not." Jimin whispers and his face changes, going from cocky and playful to something more somber, darker. His lips aren’t pulled into a wide smile, instead it's a faint quirk of his lips and his eyes aren't expressive when they look at Namjoon. Jimin reaches out for the taller boy, one hand curling around the back of Namjoon's neck, "It's not irrational because I'm an idiot Kim Namjoon. And I play too much and laugh too hard and-" he rises on his toes, lips so close to Namjoon's that they’re practically brushing. Namjoon can only look into Jimin's eyes, at the seriousness residing behind the darkness of his irises, he can feel his hot breath against his mouth, feel the droplets of rain dripping from his lips, "I'm an idiot."

And Jimin kisses him, a firm press of lips against Namjoon's. Their hearts are screaming, pounding, one harder than the other. Namjoon doesn’t know what to do with his hands so they’re left gravitating, lost between touching Jimin and curling his fingers into a shaking fist. He doesn’t know why he feels like forever's not between them, he doesn’t know why he feels like Jimin's breath is too hard and his chest is heaving too much but he kisses him back anyway. 

Nothing can stop the rush of his heart or the smile that curls into Jimin's lips. Namjoon's read about kisses, have seen his friends do it a thousand times but kissing itself feels like a religion and Jimin's mouth and breath and fingers against his skin's a prayer.

Namjoon wants to take Jimin and worship him until he becomes a god in his own name, Namjoon wants to write songs and poetry about Jimin.

Fucking hell that's so lame and cliche.

It's so right, everything is so right. Even when there's a curl of darkness against Namjoon's back whispering about how love is temporary and Jimin is smoke, he disregards it, holding on to the moment.

When Jimin pulls away, Namjoon can’t think and all he can do is blink into the pale face of Jimin. His chest heaves, up and down, up and down too rapidly and when Namjoon's brain finally begins processing, he notices that Jimin's hand is no longer against him but pressed up against his own chest.

"Jimin?" Namjoon calls, realising that something's terribly wrong. His fingers are curled over his heart and he's bent over, gasping for air.

"JIMIN!" He shouts, reaching out for his shoulders the moment Jimin wavers and his eyes look up and into Namjoon's. They're red and rimmed with tears, and his lips quiver.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm so, so sorry." His tears melt with the rain and then his legs give way.

Kim Namjoon tries to hold Jimin as he falls and Namjoon hears Yoongi's voice in his head.

He flirts with death like it's his favourite lover.

-----

Chapter Text

"Congenital heart disease," the doctor says with a tone laced with darkness, "It's a birth defect so we can't do anything about it but..." the doctor looks down at his clipboard, his eyes surveying through words and charts about Jimin.

The room's too bright, as if mocking patients. Ha ha look how bright it is! Brighter than your future because you don’t have one since you're going to die asshole! 

Namjoon feels small in the room, like a shrivelled grape. There's nothing he can do here, he has no power because only the doctors know what to do with Jimin, however in this case, Namjoon thinks that this doctor himself doesn’t know what he can do for Jimin.

Namjoon keeps thinking about the way Jimin collapsed, he'd liken it to an angel falling from heaven but that would be rather graceful. Jimin fell like thunder, sudden and terrifying and rough. Namjoon never thought he’d ever witness someone close to him fall like that, he’s always thought that collapsing that way was something you saw on TV.

But it was real and it was real when he had to hold on to Jimin and feel the slow beat of his pulse while waiting for the ambulance. It was real when the EMTs came in the pouring rain and had to do CPR because his heart had stopped somewhere between Namjoon's calling of Jimin's name and begging for mercy from any god out there.

For a moment Namjoon thought he was going to die. He honestly thought that he was seeing Jimin for the last time and he'd almost said, "You can’t just kiss me and die you cunt." but he'd held his breath until someone yelled, "Ok he's back, he's back, get the stretcher."

And now Namjoon's sitting in this godawful doctor's office with his head in his hands and the doctor reading off some shit from his clipboard.

"What are you to him?" the doctor asks and Namjoon answers, "Boyfriend." without missing a beat.

There's a pause, a heavy drop of silence lingering between the both of them before the doctor says, "I'm sorry."

There's not much time if he doesn’t go in for surgery, he will die Mr Kim.

Namjoon's not sure what to feel because there's a riot in his chest and his head's a mess of Jimin please, Jimin don’t die. He's calling out to gods he doesn’t believe in to save Jimin because his heart's beating the brunette's name in a scream and Namjoon's eyes are filling with tears.

He will die.

"Thank you," Namjoon's saying without really being mentally present and he leaves the office, walking into Taehyung and Hoseok who are standing outside, looking like complete wrecked themselves. Hoseok's been crying, Namjoon notes, because his eyes and nose are the colour of roses and his lips tremble.

He's the first one to hug Namjoon, throwing his arms around the taller boy and holding on to him like his life depended on it. Namjoon can only stroke his back as he cries out, his body wracking with the amount of tears he has stored within him.

"We've known for years," Taehyung says, "Jimin's heart's weak but he loves too much and too hard."

"That bastard," Hoseok sobs, "Fucking drinking every night."

It's because he wanted to die, Namjoon thinks, he probably wanted to die.

It's silent for a while, the three of them lost somewhere between knowing and not knowing what they should do for Park Jimin.

Keep him happy and comfortable and prepare yourselves, he’s not going to last very long unless he gets surgery.

"Talk him into going for surgery," Taehyung says with a voice that shakes like a paper in the wind, "It's the only way for him."

"He might die on that table," Hoseok says, pulling away from Namjoon and wiping his eyes with his thumbs, "Taehyung, he might die."

"It's a chance we should take!" Taehyung yells, eyes wide and gleaming with unshed tears. They've probably been waiting for this moment for years, probably been waiting for Jimin to reach death's door and hope and pray that something would be different. If they want a miracle, Namjoon's not quite sure if that's going to happen.

"Why didn’t Jimin go for that surgery?" Namjoon asks, stepping between what might become a full on fight between Jimin's best friends. At this point Namjoon's pretty sure that Jimin doesn’t need his friends fighting each other. He'll need all the support he can get.

"He..." Taehyung's eyes drop, "He’s had surgeries but his heart's a weak machine. Namjoon, Jimin's meant to die."

"Fuck you!" Hoseok's screaming, nearly flinging out at Taehyung until Namjoon catches him and shoves him into a chair before stepping between them. He's unusually calm for someone finding out that the one person he loves with the galaxies is about to die.

Park Jimin's about to die and Namjoon feels a numbness spread across his chest like ice.

He rubs at the skin between his fingers as if to ease the tension in his bones.

"Fuck you." Taehyung whispers brokenly like all the energy in him has been cut off, his shoulders grow limp and he sits beside Hoseok, taking the raven haired boy's hand in his and squeezing, "I'm so scared."

Namjoon runs his fingers through his hair, walking back and forth. His mind's a furious ocean and he's just a small boat. He's drowning, drowning and drowning because Jimin's dying, Jimin's going to die and he's not prepared to say goodbye. He's not ready to see the light leave Jimin's eyes or hear him stumble into his room when he's studying. He's not ready to make two cups of coffee every morning only to realise that he's made one too extra because Jimin's no longer sleeping in front of his windows, covered in blankets and smiling into a dream.

Namjoon isn’t ready.

Namjoon wants to curse at god because god's an asshole and he can’t just give him Jimin only to take him away. Namjoon's done nothing to deserve this, he's done nothing to fuck with fate and the universe so why did he have to fall in love with someone so fragile? Why did he have to fall in love with temporary? Why couldn’t he get infinity?

Why couldn’t he get forever?

Jimin's a wild spirit and he doesn’t deserve something as morose and bleak as death. He deserves bright colours and sparkles and someone holding him at 3AM when he's awake and staring off into an uncertain future. He deserves a tomorrow and a day after and a day after that.

If Jimin was going to die, he should die with excitement, with a smile across his face. He shouldn't feel pain or darkness in his dying moments because Jimin's an actual sparkler and he shines brighter than any other star.

And damn it, winter's almost here and Namjoon had wanted to watch the first snow with Jimin, wanted to feel the snowflakes against Jimin's skin and see how red Jimin's nose and cheeks and ears go, he'd wanted Jimin to grin and laugh and say something as stupid as "Hey where's your hair? Oh it's there! I couldn't see it because it blended in with all that snow." and they laugh and laugh and kiss and everything would be alright.

Namjoon finally allows himself to cry and when he cries it’s not because life's unfair, he's crying because he can’t imagine life without Park Jimin.

------

"Hello!" Jimin greets cheerfully from the hospital bed to silence. He's hooked up to machines, tubes inserted into the delicate skin of his arms. He's pale as death again, his lips blue, and eyes rimmed with red.

The heart monitor beeps, the strikes against the screen irregular and weak. Namjoon can only look at that, can only look at how Jimin's heart is trying and trying and failing.

I’m doing medicine but not for long.

"You asshole!" Hoseok screams, rushing past Namjoon to pull Jimin into a hug, Namjoon nearly smiles because Jimin's face contorts in discomfort and he tries to push his best friend away only to have Hoseok pull him closer.

Taehyung starts to cry.

Once everyone is settled (Hoseok on a chair, Taehyung sitting near the ward's window while Namjoon's on the bed, Jimin's fingers interlocked with his) Jimin asks, "I'm gonna die, aren’t I?" so easily it almost seems like a joke to him. His eyes are shining when they meet Namjoon's and that's the most heartbreaking.

Jimin's heart is trying and trying and it's so full of love it's hoping to heal. Jimin's not going to heal, that much Namjoon knows. Jimin's heart's going to try until the very end and Jimin's going to die.

Jimin's going to die.

"I love you," Jimin tells Namjoon when it's too quiet and Taehyung's moved to hold on to Hoseok, "With all my heart."

"You can love with all your heart and still have it die in your chest." Namjoon whispers, a small smile touching his lips, "You never told me."

Jimin's laughing, throwing his head back against the pillows before his musical laugh comes to a halt and he's just staring at the ceiling. "This sucks."

Yeah it does, Namjoon thinks, it does suck.

"Go for surgery." Taehyung offers, his voice loud and bold in the quiet room. There's only the hum of machines Hoseok's quiet sobs afterwards. The air's heavy with the imminence of death and Jimin's lips are trembling.

Namjoon rubs his thumb across Jimin's bony knuckles, noting that he's losing more and more weight.

"What if I die?" Jimin answers along the hum of the machines he's hooked up to, "What if I die on that table?"

"Then you die knowing you tried." Namjoon says, voice cracking along the words he doesn’t want to say, he doesn’t want to say that Jimin's going to die, "If you get through that surgery you might live years more."

"But..." Jimin sits up, his gaze meeting Namjoon's strongly, "If I die I lose you."

Namjoon presses his lips together because he's sure he's going to start crying if he doesn’t stop himself.

"If you don’t you’ll still lose me anyway." Namjoon brings Jimin's knuckles to his cheek, pressing it against his skin softly, "I love you Park Jimin and I know that you’ve wanted do die for so long so you drank every night."

"That’s before I met you," Jimin's nose pinks, "That's before I found something to live for," and then his eyes are bleeding his sadness and it's tugging at Namjoon's heartstrings, "I don’t want to live without you Namjoonie."

"Go for the operation," because I can’t live knowing you're trying so hard but you'll die, "You'll be fine."

You're not going to be fine.

There's a fifty percent chance he'll make it if he goes under the knife, twenty percent if he decides not to. And fifty's still a glass half full, right?

No fifty's a gamble and twenty is a sure death.

Namjoon would rather gamble than have Jimin die in his arms unexpectedly.

The four of them go quiet again and Namjoon can hear Jimin's heart try and try and try. Jimin's a warrior, Namjoon's a worrier.

And Jimin's strong as fuck so Namjoon knows that no matter what happens, Jimin's going to end up good. Jimin's like that.

Jimin's always good. Jimin's a goddamn miracle.

"Alright," Jimin says, "I'll go."

And then he starts to cry.

-----

Namjoon kisses Jimin, lets his lips linger on Jimin's a little longer than necessary. He can taste the coffee he made on Jimin's tongue and smiles before pulling away. 

He feels the jut of Jimin's cheekbones against his fingertips and then goes to kiss them, listening to Jimin sigh out.

The flowers he'd brought him two weeks ago are wilting and so is Jimin's heart. Namjoon finds it fascinating how Jimin can love so much even when his heart's failing on him, he wonders how Jimin still has energy left to reach out and touch Namjoon's hair and whisper, "I love you, I love you."

Namjoon's heart's not dying but whenever he looks at Jimin, he thinks his might as well be.

He's going to die.

Namjoon knows this because his doctor's been telling him, always reminding him that the owner of his heart's about to leave and he'll probably spend the rest of his life caught between the heartstrings of Jimin's dead heart.

He knows he shouldn’t think this way, should not announce Jimin as dead before his surgery and hopeful recovery but when his eyes gloss over Jimin's thin face, at the darkness under his eyes and at the shaking of his fingers, Namjoon's not sure what to think anymore. 

You can tell Jimin's getting sicker and sicker, his heart's already malfunctioning because he's skin's yellow now and his collarbones jut out so much, Namjoon can pour water in them and the liquid will stay without pouring over

So he kisses Jimin again and again, remembering him with his mouth and fingers and eyes. Jimin forces him to take pictures with him and of him and Namjoon complies until his phone's cameral roll's just filled with images of Jimin laughing and smiling.

If you want to know what a person fears losing the most, see what they take pictures of.

Namjoon takes so many pictures of Jimin, he has to upload them into his laptop, clear his camera roll and then start again. He introduces Yoongi to Jimin one day and he tells Jimin that he's stupid.

Jimin likes Yoongi immediately, to the point where he's always messing with the silver-haired boy.

Jungkook comes by everyday to do his homework in the ward and Jimin yells at him to study hard and properly or he'll come back and haunt his ass.

The youngest member of their group doesn’t find this funny but he laughs anyway, Namjoon notes that he laughs at everything Jimin says these days. It's unlike him, but he still tries so that Jimin can smile.

All they do is make Jimin smile and when they're all gone, the brunette sits on his bed and cries because it's so hard to let go of life and it's so hard to let go of his friends. It's hard enough to say goodbye to the man who lives within the tendons of your heart, but it's harder to bid farewell to the friends you’ve known all your life. Park Jimin isn’t ready to say goodbye.

He wants more time but his heart's trying for failure and time's running out. There's nothing left in the universe to save Jimin.

His heart sputters over and over, dips and rises. Sputters.

At night he calls out for Namjoon and Namjoon comes and holds his hand. When he’s scared he kisses Namjoon and Namjoon tells him that everything's going to be okay.

It's not and Jimin knows this. He knows this because when the flowers die, Namjoon buys new ones. When Namjoon comes into the room he smiles above his tears.

When Taehyung and Hoseok come they’re laughing when the joke's not funny. Jungkook gives him gifts and Jungkook never gives Jimin or anyone anything.

Jin stops by sometimes and he cooks him meals so he doesn’t have to eat, as Yoongi puts it, "Hospital garbage."

Yoongi's his newest friend but he comes in after Namjoon and Jimin knows that he’s Namjoon's shoulder to cry on. 

So his heart sputters, loves, dips and rises.

But the universe can’t save him at all.

-----

"I'm not afraid of dying," Jimin says as he watches Namjoon bite into a sandwich. The blonde turns to give him a look, lifting up one brow sardonically.

"Liar." Namjoon replies with a smile, the contents of the chewed sandwich still in his mouth. Jimin stares at it longingly, opening his mouth playfully to ask for a bite. Namjoon sits away, rolling his eyes and chiding, "You're going for your op in three hours."

Jimin's shoulders sag and he laughs into the quietness of the room. It's a sad sound to Namjoon's ears, like he's given up entirely.

"Is everything going to be fine?" Jimin asks Namjoon, feeling the bones of his own hands, noting that it juts out more than Namjoon's, notes that it’s cold and he's broken. You can't fix a shattered teacup.

"You'll be fine." Namjoon's appetite is lost so he puts the sandwich back into his container and then smiles at Jimin, reaching out to stroke the wispy hair on his head. It's thinner now, greasier. Jimin's hair's losing it's shine, just like his eyes.

Namjoon sees the heart monitor, at how hard Jimin's heart's trying.

Liar, liar, liar.

"You’re a fucking liar Kim Namjoon," Jimin chuckles into the ears of a worried Namjoon who can only look at Jimin's face and see the result of a dying heart that's trying too much and trying too hard.

Namjoon kisses Jimin's forehead because a nurse walks in and three hours has turned into time to say goodbye. "Nothing's going to hurt you with your eyes shut, because you can see through them."

Namjoon prays to gods he doesn’t believe in, he begs, Please save Park Jimin. I'll do anything just save him.

Jimin's heart sputters, loves, dips and rises.

"Tell me I'm going to be okay."

"You're going to be okay."

Sputters, loves, dips and rises.

"I love you Park Jimin."

"You can love with all your heart and still have it die in your chest."

"It's not the time to be joking you fucktard."

" Don’t forget me okay?"

"I won’t."

"I love you Kim Namjoon."

Sputters, loves, dips and rises.

"I love you Park Jimin."

Jimin's nervous when he's sedated for the surgery, but he tells himself, "Nothing's going to hurt me with me eyes shut, I can see through them." and it calms him because he's hearing it in Namjoon's voice.

-----

He dies covered in a blossom of scarlet, right where his heart is. It doesn’t have to try anymore, doesn’t have to struggle to fill his body with blood and survive at the same time. Jimin doesn’t have to fear death anymore.

Jimin doesn’t have to worry because when he dies, he realises that’s it’s okay. Living was okay.

Loving was okay.

Everything is okay.

-----

Namjoon holds on to Jimin's still hand, even in death he's smiling and Namjoon thinks he’s never seen someone so happy to not be alive. His bones are comforting to him surprisingly and in the quiet ambience of the room, Namjoon whispers, "I love you Park Jimin."

He's been saying that a lot, repeating that over and over again as though it’s going to bring him back to life. Taehyung holds on to his shoulders, it seems that the only one that's been able not to shatter is Yoongi and that's only because he hasn’t known Jimin all that long. But even then, there are traces of sorrow in Yoongi's eyes.

Namjoon's still trapped in Jimin's dead heart, and Jimin still beats in his.

The first snow's come, just as Jimin's gone and Namjoon had wanted to see it with Jimin. He only hopes Jimin enjoys the beginnings of winter from wherever he is.

"What’s that?" Hoseok says suddenly, coming forward and taking Jimin's dead hand and flipping it over.

Six words are scrawled on the dead boy's palm, six words that's got tears forming in the corner of Namjoon's eyes and makes his lips tremble. Six words that makes his chest heavy and his pathways clog.

Six words.

Park Jimin's been one of the best things to happen to Kim Namjoon and it sucks that as soon as he's found something to hold on to, he's been taken away. It sucks that Namjoon's going to see Jimin in places where he won’t find Jimin. It's going to suck that Namjoon will wait for Jimin to fall into his dorm drunk and laughing every night, it's going to suck that Namjoon's always going to keep that stupid second mug and eagerly make coffee for Jimin. It's going to suck that he'll look back at pictures of Jimin and realise that he's just now a story to be told.

He'll say, "I love this boy." and when people ask all he'll have is old phone conversations and text messages and pictures. Because pictures and messages and phone conversations won’t raise Jimin from the dead.

Namjoon's body will always remember Jimin, always remember how he felt against his lips and his fingers will always feel that slow pulse. He'll always see how Jimin collapsed and how he smiled and how his eyes would turn into crescents.

He'll always remember Jimin whispering, "I love you."

But those six words scrawled across Jimin's palm quietens Namjoon's heart and Hoseok's smiling instead of crying because on Jimin's palm he's written:

Everything is going to be okay.

Looking at everyone in the room, at Kim Taehyung, Jung Hoseok, Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi and Jeon Jungkook, Namjoon thinks that everything is indeed going to be okay.

Because Jimin might have died, but he died loved. He'd been bigger than life itself.

Evanescent.

And Kim Namjoon will always remember him.

-----

The End