“Jungkook-ah, I’ve looked through all the applications for you, but you’re ultimately going to have to be the one to decide which of these recent graduates you want to accept into your lab.” Yoongi says, as he walks into Jungkook’s office. The latter was busy writing up another project proposal for funding his latest research. There were a pile of papers stacked on his desk, and an old cup of coffee that had gone cold ages ago.

“How many did you narrow it down to?” Jungkook asks, slowly spinning around in his seat and turning his attention to the med student, who happens to be his close friend from college and doing clinical rotations at the hospital he works at.

“There were a total of 520 applications, and I managed to narrow it down to 27” Yoongi explains. “I mean, I could cut it down more, but I thought you might want to take a look at these yourself.”

Jungkook nods. “Very well” He signals for Yoongi to place the pile of applications in the empty clearing on his desk.

“How’s the proposal coming along?”

“Good.”

Yoongi nods, his lips forming a line as he fights the urge to ask about Jungkook’s visits to the psychology clinic, knowing that the neurosurgeon despises talking about it.

“Thank you, Yoongi” Jungkook suddenly says, surprising the humble assistant. “You’ve saved me a lot of time filtering through all those applications. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Yoongi feels a brush of warmth spread through his chest. It wasn’t everyday that Jungkook would express his gratitude so openly, but whenever he did, it always felt extra special.

“Hey man, no prob” Yoongi says as he pats Jungkook on the shoulder and walks out, leaving the genius to go back to work.

…

“Hobi, you won’t believe what just happened” You say as you walk into the coffee shop where Hoseok has his head buried in his Organic Chemistry II textbook. He looked like a mess. The dark circles around his eyes was something you weren’t used to seeing on a daily basis, but being the biochemistry major he is, looking like a panda around finals week was the norm.

“Patient Dr. Jeon is MD-PhD Dr. Jeon?” Hoseok lifts his head, eyelids droopy but opening fully as he sees you walking toward the table by the window he was sitting at. There’s a faint coffee stain on his white t-shirt and what looks to be a drool mark on the side of his mouth running down his chin.

“Well I still don’t know about that, but this is even better”

Hoseok raises an eyebrow, not knowing what kind of exciting news you were about to break to him.

“I got accepted!” You shout as you pull out the letter that came in the mail that day.

“Whhhaaaaa!!!!” Hoseok’s face immediately lights up, and it was like his dark circles just disappeared. “This calls for a celebration!” Hoseok says all giddily, forgetting about the test that’ll determine if he can even graduate in a couple of days.

“Ok, but lets do it after our final tomorrow” You laugh.

...

“Dr. Jeon, are you feeling ok?” Jimin asks as he stares at the neurosurgeon sitting in front of him who has gone silent, mind spacing out, and looking detached. This was the first time Jungkook had walked into the clinic without a faint trace of hostility in his eyes and a standoffish attitude, and it concerned Jimin because such a sudden change in a patient’s demeanor meant something had probably happened. And at this moment, Jimin didn’t have a clue what it was.

“I’m fine, probably just tired” Jungkook says, voice sounding airy and loosing the firmness it used to have.

Jimin was not convinced. For one, Jungkook was always tired, and that never put a stop to his sharp words or glaring eyes. And two, the detached look in his eyes was something Jimin had never seen in any of their sessions, no matter what mood Jungkook happened to be in that day.

“Did you perform another long surgery?” Jimin asks.

Jungkook just shakes his head.

“Any new developments at the lab?” He continues to prod.

Jungkook shakes his head again.

“How have your… dreams… been recently?” Jimin asks, desperate to get something more than just a headshake from the troubled neurosurgeon.

“I stopped having them,” Jungkook says, finally bringing his eyes to meet Jimin’s.

The pink haired psychologist looks at Jungkook with surprised expression. Although he’s been working at the clinic for years, Jungkook had been one of his most challenging patients, if not THE most challenging, not only because of his guarded personality and self absorbed attitude, but also because his case was nothing like anything Jimin had dealt with before.

“They stopped at the one where I was sitting under a large oak tree, listening to a child tell a story.” Jungkook continues to explain, face still void of any emotion.

“Where you able to see the child?”

“No.”

There was a moment of silence where neither man spoke, and the only sound that could be heard in the office was the scratch of Jimin’s pen on paper.

“I can, however, feel that it’s the same person”

Jimin stops writing, and slowly lifts his head to look at Jungkook.

“I just don’t understand why he or she seems to be aging backwards”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hobi, thank you so much for driving me, I am so nervous right now” You wipe your clammy hands on your thighs as you sit in the passenger’s seat of Hoseok’s car. You were so glad he offered to drive you to Dr. Jeon’s lab because you would be running late otherwise, and being late on the first day would be a horrible way to start off and leave the most undesirable lasting impression.

“Hey, no prob, I wanted to meet this guy anyways” Hoseok says, head still turn towards the road in front. He was wearing his sunglasses, so you could only see the upward curve of his lips as he grins.

Traffic wasn’t too bad since most people were already at work around 10 in the morning.

It was a huge hospital building that looked very new and modern, with parts of the walls made of glass. The windows reflected the bright sunlight, and there were potted flowers and other shrubs near the main entrance. A round fountain with an abstract design was flowing with shallow water, and people were walking in and out of the automatic revolving door. It definitely seemed like a busy place.

“Whaa” Hoseok looks around in awe as the two of you walk in.

“His lab is on the 7^th floor,” You say as you and Hoseok walk towards the elevator.

“Hey, do you think I can apply for an internship at this hospital? I think it’ll look good on my Med school application.” Hoseok says as the two of you walk down the hall. Hoseok was clearly amazed by the layout of the building, and you could tell he really liked it by gleam in his eyes and the excitement in his voice.

“Yeah, go for it! Then we can maybe even see each other sometimes!” You exclaim, forgetting about your nerves for a couple of seconds, but that doesn’t last long as the two of you close in on the lab entrance.

They were a pair of double doors, reminiscent of most biological labs, and on the wall to the side was a plaquer that had the words:

Dr. Jeon Jungkook

MD-PhD

Cognitive Neuroscience

You take a deep breath, trying to quell your pounding heart. Hoseok puts a hand on your shoulder, knowing how nervous you must be feeling.

When you push open the doors, you are immediately greeted with the smell of sterilization fluids combined with a faint whiff of various chemicals. The light in the lab room is white, and the room is very spacious, with rows and rows of bottles, petri dishes, flasks, and boxes of newly ordered supplies. There were a couple of scientists dressed in their lab coats, pipetting liquids into test tubes, others working under the hold for either maintaining cell cultures or working with hazardous chemicals, and a few sitting at desks, hard at work on their computers. There were the loud noises coming from large freezers in the back, and you even notice a whole area dedicated to different types of microscopes.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Dr. Jeon Jungkook” You say to one of the researchers closest to the door.

“New student?” She asks, removing her gloves and shaking your hand as you nod. “He’s in his office, come” She guides you and Hoseok past the neuroscience lab where it was connected to another lab, in which you recognize as a genetics lab from the obvious PCR machines and the gel electrophoresis equipment set up. You finally reach an area where there is carpeting on the floor and some office rooms.

“Dr. Jeon, your new student has arrived” She announces after she knocks on the already opened door to his office.

You notice that the office room is very tidy; especially for a researcher since most of the time they don’t bother to keep their workspace neat. But then you remember that Dr. Jeon is also a neurosurgeon, which requires him to be very meticulous and precise. There’s a window with its blinds open to the left of Dr. Jeon’s desk, revealing the baby blue sky with a few white and fluffy nimbus clouds here and there, and a plant, which looks to be a juxtaposition of succulents that form a mini forest, sitting on the windowsill in a glass fishbowl-like pot.

Your eyes glaze over the stacks of papers next to the printer, and the shelves of medical textbooks and science magazines on the wall opposite to the window. After slowly soaking in the details of his office, you finally let your eyes land on THE Dr. Jeon Jungkook, the guy that Hoseok and you have basically fangirled and fanboyed over for the past few weeks.

His shoulders are evidently broad, forming a 90-degree curve where his white lab coat continues to drape down. His hair is dark brown, verging on black, and neatly combed, bangs half parted to the side.

Dr. Jeon slowly turns around in his seat, head still facing the computer, eyes glued to the screen for an extra few seconds before they land on you.

And at that precise moment, it was like time lingered for an extra millisecond, as if something powerful had momentarily disrupted it’s normal flow, because you forgot to inhale, and your lungs were confused by the sudden drop in oxygen levels as your heart skipped half a beat. It was like nothing you had ever experienced before, and you barely hear Hoseok’s “wow” come out as a whisper, as the both of you watch Dr. Jeon get up from his seat and walk over to greet you.

His enchanting dark eyes were mesmerizing even behind his thin-rimmed glasses, and the size and shape of all of his facial features, including his full lips, thick eyebrows, and sculpted nose was the perfect ratio to the size and shape of his overall face, everything perfectly aligned, but with a flaw here and there, as if acting as a reminder that he’s still human.

“Y/N? Is it?” Jungkook says as he approaches you and Hoseok, reaching a hand out to offer a handshake.

He’s towering over the two of you now, long lean torso straight as a pole despite years of being crouched at a desk either studying or writing up research papers. You realize that if you look straight, your line of sight only reaches his chin, and although Hoseok is taller than you, he’s still a good few inches shorter than the neurosurgeon.

“Oh, uh yes. It’s very nice to meet you Dr. Jeon” You say, as professionally composed as you can manage. You reach out your own hand to shake his. Upon contact you’re immediately reminded of how cold and clammy your hand is because of the striking contrast to Jungkook’s warm and dry hands.

“And this is…?” Dr. Jeon turns and looks at Hoseok, who is standing next to you.

“I’m Jung Hoseok. Very impressed by the research you do, sir” Hoseok says, grabbing Dr. Jeon’s single hand with both of his own hands and shaking like he’s meeting some sort of celebrity.

Hoseok has this wide grin on his face, and Jungkook returns it with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, like he was just doing it to be polite.

Jungkook dismisses the female scientist and proceeds to show you around the lab. Hoseok is just quietly following behind, not wanting to be a bother but also curious to see the research going on.

“We share some of our equipment with Dr. Ryu’s genetics lab and vice versa,” Jungkook says as he leads you past the lab you previously walked through to get to his office.

“Here is where we maintain cell cultures for experimentation, and it’s also where we grow our own Purkinje cells from neuronal stem cells. Be extra careful when you’re dealing with these because environmental factors play a large role in the formation of their dendritic arbors.” Jungkook says as he continues taking you on a tour of the lab.

He ends up showing you almost everything, ranging from where they store fluorescent dyes to how to operate the confocal microscope with an argon laser. You listen intently trying to absorb all the information Jungkook is throwing at you, and mentally scold yourself for not bringing a notebook to write all of this down.

He finally ends the tour by bringing you to your work area, which is relatively empty compared to the other areas of the lab, except for a set of pipettes and a box of 1.7mL test tubes.

“I’ll go over the project with you tomorrow” Jungkook says, as he notices you’ve gone silent due to the sheer volume of information you have just been given.

“Ok, thank you Dr. Jeon” You say, the sound of your own voice seeming out of place after the long tour of only Jungkook talking and you just nodding your head while following him.

He nods and walks back to his office, leaving you standing there alone and wondering where in the world Hoseok has ran off to.

........