Title: How did you get this number?!
Length: 4042
Pairing: Jimin(BTS) x Eyah
Prompt: You left your phone number in the library book I just borrowed au
Requester: Uyujoah (aka the real Eyah)
A/N: I’m not sure how I exactly feel about my writing in this one, but I tried my best. The end feels a bit rushed (like every other story I’ve managed to finish lol) but we decided on 2000 words and mine was getting a little long xD Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it. (p.s. I think BamBam is one the best characters I’ve written so far HAHAHA)

 

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It had all started on one fateful sunny afternoon. Eyah had been sitting on a bench shaded by a big willow, it’s big branches protecting her from the offending sun. It was only the second week into the new semester and for once she was free enough to be able to take her favorite storybook in her hand as she sat in the fresh air. It was almost heaven. Her own little bubble away from the buzz and stress of the rest of the campus. However as it is very much in their nature, each bubble must burst. And the bursting of her lazy afternoon bubble came in the form of a sassy Thai fashion-ista.

“This is way too good of a weather to be wasting it, by reading that.” He pointed to the book as if it had committed a felony.

“And good afternoon to you too BamBam.” Eyah didn’t bother to raise her head, as she flicked the page, still engrossed in the story. She hoped that BamBam would get that she didn’t want to be disturbed and would simply leave her alone. However fifteen years of friendship should have been enough to warn her that BamBam simply never managed to get the message.

The slightly younger boy slipped onto the seat beside her, sipping on his cup of Starbucks coffee in as loud of a noise as he could. Just the right sound to make Eyah lose her goddamn mind. “Fine.” She growled, setting her book aside as she gave her so called ‘best friend’ the stink eye. “What do you want?”

“Go out on a date.”

Eyah could feel fall open in a scandalized way. Sure BamBam, as annoying as he was, was still a very special person to her. She would go to the ends of the world and back to make him happy. But this? She wasn’t sure how they had gotten to this. They had spent fifteen years together without either of them showing the least bit of romantic interest in the other.

“Umgh,” she didn’t want to hurt him. Of course she didn’t. But there was absolutely no way in freaking hell that she would ever agree to something like that.

“Oh God, ew,” BamBam looked at her with wide eyes. “Not like that you idiot. Ew. I didn’t mean a date with me, I meant a date in general. You need to go out. Meet someone. Your annoyingly single status is taking a toll on my social life. How do I explain why I spend time with a nerd like you to my other friends?”

Eyah took a quick breath of air, sending a quick thanks to the heavens that her lifelong friendship had not gone up in flames, before she finally gave BamBam her attention. She could tell by his tight lips that she had ‘that look’ on again. The look that BamBam liked to call the devil look. The look that could give little kids nightmares for weeks.

“Look BamBam,” she started in a sickeningly sweet voice. They both knew that she could be anything but sweet when she needed to be. “I am more than happy with my single life, and I need both you and your crazy fashion major friends to get that into your heads.”

BamBam backed away slightly, as Eyah picked up her book, leaning against the backrest of the bench as she continued to read from where she had been rudely interrupted.

“So I guess that’s a no to a dating site.”

“Well I guess that all depends on how much you treasure your new Gucci purse.”

It was clear that no more words were spoken on the matter.

 

Over the course of the next few weeks Eyah had managed to forget the encounter completely. The semester was now in full swing and she was once again cursing herself for picking such a hard course. She sat at her favorite table in the library. The books she had taken from the shelves sprawled out as she bent over her lab report. There was even a cup of steaming coffee near her hand, and she didn’t even drink coffee.

As she flipped through a particularly large cyclopedia on bacteria, she felt a shadow fall onto her. It didn’t surprise her as it quickly moved away and slipped into the empty chair beside her. BamBam hated the library, yet he had no choice but to fence it every other day as it was where Eyah, his only other friend outside his group of classmates (he couldn’t even call them friends, for really, is there ever a possibility of maintaining friends in the fashion business), hung out. Eyah was used to the sulky BamBam invading her private times, she was however not prepared for the smudged eyeliner and kicked puppy look.

“What?” she whispered, report momentarily forgotten as she took in her friend’s pitiful look.

“She cheated on me.”

Eyah sighed as she brought up a hand to take off her glasses and massage her temples. This was something she had long seen coming. The five foot seven, smiling model that BamBam had introduced to her had spelt trouble from day one. And she had been surprised as to how everyone, but BamBam himself, had managed to see that.

She wanted to sympathize with her broken friend, she really did, however she couldn’t stop from opening and hissing a short, “I told you so.”

BamBam looked appalled, and Eyah briefly considered apologizing, but that simply wasn’t her style. She instead threw her gaze down, pretending to focus on her papers. Pretty much anything that could give her an excuse to ignore her best friend. She didn’t want to be cold and passive, yet she had warned the boy against the model, it wasn’t her fault that he could sometimes be an idiot.  

After five minutes of snuffles, and Eyah ignoring the fact that her friend was on the verge of tears because she was too awkward to try to comfort him. She finally decided to call it day, gathering up her papers she shot a look at BamBam who had been glaring at a big book in his hands, as if he was willing for it to give him the answers of the world. Things were serious if he was actually touching a book for he always claimed to be allergic to them.

“You coming?”

He looked up at her, with a glaze that Eyah could only describe as devious. Slowly he pushed the library book away. “Sure.”

 

Four days later Eyah sat at her desk, frantically trying to finish the last minute lab report, which she would’ve finished at the right time if a certain someone hadn’t interrupted her. Sighing she quickly typed away at her laptop, until a short ping from her phone ruined her concentration. Think of the devil and he shall appear. She couldn’t think of anyone other than her annoying best friend who would message her at midnight so she swiftly decided to ignore him. Two sentences in the next paragraph there was another message, promptly followed by another and another, until Eyah was almost ready to pull out her hair.

The phone call that came next was the last straw, quickly snatching the phone up she shot out an angry, “what?”

“Hey beautiful.”

Eyah almost choked on her spit. Removing the phone from her ear she looked at the screen incredulously, ‘unknown number’.

“Ugh, I think you have the wrong number.” That could be the only reasonable answer as to why a random guy was calling her beautiful at 12:34.

“Oh no,” a hearty laugh, “I’m sure I have exactly the right number.”

It was either too late, or Eyah had had one too many sugar bars.

“Who is this?” part of her mind wanted to think that it was BamBam playing a joke on her, just so she’d have more reason to give him a piece of her mind, but the voice on the other side of the phone sounded far too low to be BamBam’s.

“I’m Jackson, but you can call me anything that you want, baby.”

“Look, I have no idea who you are, or how you got this number…”

“So you leave your number in a book, but now you’re playing hard to get?”

“What? What are you even talking about?” she wasn’t sounding very smart, however it was far too late at night for her to comprehend what the stranger was saying. “You know what never mind.” And with that she cut the call off.

She tried to focus on her studies again, she really did, however the boy’s words kept playing in her mind. What had he meant? Her thoughts, however were cut off buy a notification on her phone. A message from the strange number she had just received a call from. She decided to delete it, but in a second of temptation her finger slid the message open instead.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew :/

However Eyah’s focus was not on the message, it was on the picture that accompanied it. The picture was of a page from a book that looked suspiciously like a book she had been reading at the library for her lab report. But the thing that got her attention the most was not the book itself but a squibble written on the corner of the page.

Looking for a good time? Call me xxx

And under it was a number. Her number to be exact. What?!

 

“I’d like to point out that murder is a felony by law.”

Eyah snorted at that. A dry, unamused snort, as she gave the boy a dark look. After analyzing the picture on her phone for the most of last night. Going over the hand written message over and over again, because something about just seemed too familiar. It had finally hit her.

“You have some explaining to do.” She growled through gritted teeth, causing BamBam to back away from her even more. He pressed his body to the wall, as if he was begging it to swallow him full and take him away from her.

“Look before you lunge at me, hear me out, ok?” the boy gave her a scared look. “I swear I regretted it when I got home, I went to erase it the day after but someone had already borrowed the book from the library.”

“Why are on earth would you even think it would be a good idea to write my number in a library book. Are you out of your mind?!” Eyah was on the verge of screaming and they were getting odd starts from the passing students, but she really couldn’t care any less.

“Well, you seemed so full of yourself when I told you about the end of my relationship. Like you’re some love guru or something. So I just thought…”

“What?”

“I just thought it might be good for you to have a first hand experience of what it feels like. To be in a real relationship.” He was avoiding her eyes and Eyah knew he only did that when he was nervous. BamBam was always so sure of himself, he simply didn’t do nervousness.

“But leaving my number in a random library book for anyone to take isn’t going to start a relationship for me. Really BamBam, you’ve known me for how long? How could you even think that I would like a guy who looks for ‘good times’ with random numbers he finds?”

“I know. I was just so sad… I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.”

Still no looking her in the eyes. Eyah decided to drop the matter for the time be. “Let’s just go grab something to eat. All of this is giving me a headache.”

 

And the headache continued for the next week. Both she and BamBam had visited the library everyday after but the book had still not been returned and her number seemed to be spreading around the campus like a wildfire. A new text arrived on her phone every hour or so. After a very explicit message from some ert whom she wished she could find and bath in holy water, she no longer read the texts that came. Instead she opted to delete everything and decline all the calls. BamBam had reassured her that things would calm down if she ignored them, but she wasn’t quite sure how much more she could take.

The last string came as she was busy studying for a test. Laying on her bed, books and laptop sprawled in front of her, she had just started to wrap her mind around a hard subject when a loud noise almost had her dropping from her bed in fright.

It took her a second to realize that the frightening noise was just the ringtone of her phone and that an unknown number was calling her. She only needed to put two and two together to understand what that meant. Any other night and she would have just ignored it, declined it, thrown her phone out the window, anything other than what she actually did.

“Look you,” her finger slid across the screen and she was screaming into the phone before she could even fully process what she was doing. “This may be hilariously funny for you, but some of us actually have lives. So I’d appreciate it if you would just leave me alone or else I’ll be calling the police.”

“Sorry.” The voice on the other side of the phone was so weak that she had to do a double take to make sure she had heard it right. She didn't know what she had been expecting to hear but it surely wasn’t this.

“What?” Was the only reply she could come up with.

“I’m sorry, really I am. Please don’t call the police.” Either the guy had a phobia of police officers or Eyah was a great liar. She hadn’t even considered actually going to the police. It had just been an empty threat she had thrown out in the heat of the moment.

“Look, I didn’t want to call you. I really didn’t. It was all Namjoon’s fault. I swear. He borrowed a book from the library and it had a phone number in it and he dared me to call it. I told him no, but Namjoon is so stubborn… and i’m really sorry.”

“Who’s Namjoon?” There probably were a dozen more proper questions or statements she should have come up, but in the moment that just seems

“My roommate.” The boy’s voice was soft, albeit a little louder now that Eyah had stopped shouting at him. “I am truly sorry.”

“You kind of said that already.” Eyah murmured as she ran a hand through her hair. “Look, does your roommate still have that book?”

“Wait, let me check.” A rustling was heard on the other side. “Found it.”

“Do me a favor? Cross out my number. Cross it out so it won’t ever be readable again. Tear out the page. Burn the book if you have to.”

“Ok?”

“I’m serious. You have to get rid of that ratchet message.”

“I will. I promise.”

 

As Eyah was finishing up the chapter, her phone’s screen lit up.

[From Unknown number]

Good news, I didn’t have to burn the page ^_^

A picture was attached to it. A picture of the same page that had cause Eyah so much trouble. Except now the handwritten message on the page was completely rubbed out. The traces barely notable.

For the first time in days she could finally give a sigh of relief.

 

“Who are you texting?”

“No one,” Eyah tried to be discreet as she slided her phone under her notebook, but BamBam was faster than that. The phone was in his hands before she could even blink. “Hey! Ever heard of personal belongings?!”

An eye roll was her only response, he was already looking through her phone. How he even knew her password was a mystery in itself. “Who’s J?”

“What?” She hoped he didn’t notice how her voice slightly quivered.

“Eyah,” but of course he noticed. He was Bambam after all. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” She blurted as she made a grab for her phone. He made no move to stop her. After all he had already seen what he needed. He didn’t pry anymore, and she could only be thankful for that. How could she explain to him who J was, when she herself wasn’t exactly sure of it either?

 

[From J]

So how was class?

Back in the safety of her own privacy, Eyah groaned as she typed a reply. Just remembering the dissection the professor had forced them to do gave her a headache.

[To J]

Don’t ask. I don’t want to remember.

When her hand had accidentally slipped and she had sent a good morning sticker to an unknown number on her phone rather than BamBam, she could have never foreseen that it would lead to what it had.

She had been embarrassed, sending a thousand sorry texts and explanations as to how she had messaged the wrong number. She was however thankful that she had accidently sent it to the nice guy who had helped her erase her number, and not one of the freaks who had pestered her for so long.

The guy was understanding, joking about and making her feel less mortified. He seemed a lot more confident behind his texts than he had over the awkward phonecall from the night before.

One message had lead to another, and before either of them could figure out exactly what was going on, texting each other had become a daily habit. She called him J, he called her E. She didn’t know much about him, but it was nice. To be able to talk with someone so freely. He was practically a stranger to her, so she had no fear to talk to him about anything. He didn’t judge her...he made her happy. He was a friend. At least that’s what she would tell herself.

 

“I think I have to tell BamBam about you.” Friday night had her sitting in her room, phone in hand as she talked away.

“What are you going to tell him?” J was no longer shy and awkward when they talked. It was one other thing that had become a part of their routine.

“I don’t know? But I have to say something. He keeps pestering me.” BamBam knew what was up, Eyah couldn’t keep J a secret for much longer.

“Wait is this the same friend who wrote your number for the whole campus to see? Are you sure I can trust him?”J said chuckling.

He was joking but he’d pinpointed out exactly what she was afraid of. What if BamBam went ranting about J to her parents or her siblings. What would she do then. She wasn’t exactly sure what J even was to her, how could she explain it anyone else?!

“Hey, I’m kidding. Sure, you can tell him about me.”

 

It’s was BamBam who made her start to question some things. Like who J was exactly. All she knew was that he went to the same university. But there were thousands of students on campus. Had she ever bumped into him without even knowing? How old was he? Was he younger, older than her? What was he majoring in? Did they share any classes? Her mind was a whirlwind of questions.

“What if he’s a jock? You hate those.” BamBam snickered as he dodged the pillow she threw at him.

“He’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know him.” Eyah rolled her eyes as she placed a snack into .

“You don’t even know his name.”

Maybe BamBam had a point…

 

[To J]

Can I ask you something?

She had been too scared to ask J upfront the night before whilst they were talking on the phone, well as upfront at they ever got.

[From J]

Shoot.

She contemplated over what she was going to ask next. It felt like a giant step in the relationship they had going on. But was this even a relationship? She shook her head, trying to clear her head. The words were typed out before she could over think them again.  

[To J]

Can we meet up?

It took a minute for him to reply. Not that she was counting or anything… ok, so maybe she was. A thousand thoughts rushed through her head in that one minute. What if he didn’t reply? What if she’d scared him away? Had she been reading wrongly into this? What if he didn’t like her like that?

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she almost missed the sound of a notification.  Her screen lit up and she almost dropped her phone in her urgency to open it. However once she had finally managed to unlock it, damn smartphones, she couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face.

[From J]

It’s a date

 

Eyah checked her watch, ten minutes left. J had suggested that they meet at a cafe near their campus. He had said five, but Eyah being who she is, had managed to get their a whole thrity minutes earlier. As she sat waiting, BamBam’s words rang through her mind.

“You like him.”

“Don’t be silly. He’s just a friend.”

“I know when you have a crush Eyah, this guy is much more than a friend.”

That had her wondering, was BamBam right? Did she really see J as something more than a friend? What did he see her as? Did h-

“E?”

Eyah rose her head at the voice that was all too familiar. A boy stood beside her table. His cheeks ablaze, eyes almost downcast. His right hand was firmly grasping his carrier bag.

“I’m sorry I’m late. My professor let the class out later than usual.”

“You’re not.” Eyah gulped down her spit. “Late. You’re perfect.”

They boy let out a small chuckle.

“Perfectly on time, I mean.” She mentally chastised herself.

“So what’s your name?” The boy no longer seemed afraid, all previous shyness was thrown out the window as he fixed her under her stare.

“Eyah.”

“I’m Jimin.”

 

-6 months later-

 

“How do you even read these?”

Eyah slapped the boy’s hand away, grabbing the book from him as she gave him a dirty stare. “Because all of us can’t be dance majors and I have a test coming up that I actually need to study for.”

“Please,” Jimin rolled his eyes as he sprawled out the word. “You’re always studying. I swear it’s like this library sees you more than me nowadays.”

“Well if you don’t give me some peace to study, this library is going to see even more of me.” Eyah, muttered as she flipped through her notes and checked it up with one of the books.

“What kind of  girlfriend are you??”

Eyah didn’t even need to look up to picture the pout Jimin had on his face. “A busy one. Now either you be quiet or I’m telling the librarian to ban you from here like she did with BamBam.”

That seemed to silence him. Either he was too afraid of the old librarian or he simply didn’t want to miss anymore time with her.

A few minutes were passed in silence as Eyah looked through the multiple books on the table. The rustling of pages and the distant whispers of the fellow students in the hall was the only sound to be heard.

“Hey, isn’t this-”

“Seriously Jimin,” Eyah finally looked up from her book to give him another full on lecture on how important this course was to her, until she noticed what he was holding.

Jimin had a big book in his hands as he held it open. The dent of a former written message just barely visible on a certain page.

“So I guess I have this book to thank for you.”

Eyah could only smile as she shook her head. “We have to thank it for us.