“His name is Yoongi, and he’s a close friend of Dr. Jeon’s” Hoseok begins to explain after you had pretended to not know who he’s now in a relationship with, and asked him about it.

“I see” You answer; trying to act like this is all new information.

“Hey, I have an idea! Why don’t you come and meet him?” Hoseok says, face lighting up and bouncing in his seat. He was driving you home from lab because he got off his shift just as you had finished your experiment for the day.

“Oh no, I’ve met Yoongi before” You quickly reply, not wanting to dig a deeper hole for yourself.

“You have?”

“Yeah, he comes to see Dr. Jeon quite often, and I’ve ran into him a couple of times.”

Hoseok nods, eyes still fixed on the road. You thought the conversation about Yoongi had ended right there, but seconds later, Hoseok proceeds to convince you to properly meet Yoongi.

“I want you to officially be introduced to him. He’s my boyfriend, so it only makes sense. Plus, you might be seeing him more often from now on.”

You try to come up with an excuse, but Hoseok is right, you are probably going to be seeing a lot of Yoongi. It can’t hurt right? You run through all the things that could run haywire with such a situation and it comes out clean, like running a virus scan on your laptop and not detecting anything. I know Yoongi, Yoongi knows me, him and Hoseok are a happy couple, just the three of us…hanging out…nothing can go wrong….

…

You wake up Saturday morning to the sound of someone frantically knocking on your door. You groan and cover your face with your bed sheets, not wanting to get up yet. Saturday was one of those coveted sleep-in days, who would come looking for you now?

The knocking doesn’t stop, so you slowly crawl out of bed, despite the little voice in your head that tries to convince you that whoever it is will go away if you pretend you’re not home. You wobble out of your bedroom, past the living room and open the door only to find Hoseok’s smiling face, brighter than the sun, beaming at you in the doorway.

“Ready to go?” He voices excitedly

“Hobi, look at me” Your voice sounds low and your eyes are squinted because they haven’t adjusted to the light yet. “Do I look like I’m ready to do anything right now?”

“Well, you should hurry and get dressed. I told Yoongi we’d meet him at the café in an hour!” Hoseok says while walking into your apartment and pushing you inside along the way.

You shake your head to clear your mind, still not feeling completely awake yet. You had completely forgotten that you would agree to “meet” Yoongi today, but technically Hoseok had not given you an exact time, so it wasn’t completely your fault that the two of you might be running a bit late.

It only takes you ten minutes to get changed and twenty to finish your makeup because it’s not like you had to look amazing in front of Yoongi, since he’s not your boyfriend and all. If anything, Hoseok was the one looking sharp and ready to impress. He even did his hair up today, and you had to admit, the guy cleans up nicely.

“Is that all?” Hoseok says, while looking at the oversized hoodie you’re wearing and the minimal makeup on your face.

“Since when did you start judging my appearance?” You walk past him and seat yourself in his car, not bothering to even consider what Hoseok was suggesting.

“I’m just saying, you could’ve put some more effort for this date?” He says as he turns on the engine and backs out of the parking spot.

“Hobi, it’s your date not mine. I’m just eating with you guys, and I’ll be out.”

“What if…you know, we see other people.”

“Like who?” You look at him; his eyes are still focused on the road.

“Oh, I don’t know.” He pauses, trying to come up with something. “Like students from our graduating class or something.”

You roll your eyes. “Who cares”? You seriously can’t believe that Hoseok would think you’d be worried about seeing your classmates from last semester. It’s not like you had never gone to class some days with no makeup at all, in fact, you always did that when you had 8am lecture and refused to give up that extra half hour of sleep in the morning.

When Hoseok finally pulls up to the café, you hear him mutter something as he texts, who you assume to be Yoongi. It was a quaint little shop at the corner of a not so busy street. The building had large windows, and you could tell it was pretty empty with only a few couples enjoying lunch on a Saturday. The delicious smell of freshly brewed coffee hits you as the two of you walk in.

“They-..I mean he’s on the second floor,” Hoseok says, while quickly walking over to the stares. You raise your eyebrow, wondering why he’s acting so strange, but shrug and follow him anyways.

And it’s when you get up to the top of the steps, look around the room, and see Yoongi that it all comes together. Of course it wasn’t the image of Yoongi that make your eyes widen and your heart skip a beat, but the guy sitting next to him that made you want to grab Hoseok’s arm and squeeze it until he lost blood circulation.

“Yoongi!!” Hoseok shouts as he runs over to the table before you could even react.

Yoongi looks up from his phone and waves at Hoseok. You stand like a statue as the guy sitting next to Yoongi also looks in your direction; the pair of chocolate brown doe eyes is unmistakable. Jungkook. He’s still focused on Hoseok, but Yoongi notices your presence a couple of seconds later, which subsequently causes Jungkook to also look your way.

You walk over while smiling as naturally as you can possible manage. You give Hoseok a scolding look as you take a seat right next to him, which places you directly across from Jungkook, and Hoseok just smiles and pretends that he’s done nothing wrong. You could feel the discomfort in the air, like it was some sort of cloud that was hovering above the table the four of you were sitting at. You had no idea what you were going to do now; it’s so blatantly obvious that the whole thing was set-up by Hoseok that you’re sure Jungkook and Yoongi feel just as awkward as you do.

“Y/N, Yoongi, Yoongi, Y/N” Hoseok cuts through the silence, as if he’s the only one unaware of the rising tension.

“We’ve met before” Yoongi says as you nod in agreement. Clearly his goal today wasn’t to “meet” you but rather have Hoseok properly meet Jungkook, so of course he wasn’t expecting any of this either.

“We’ve also met once,” Jungkook suddenly says to Hoseok, making you jump a little in your chair.

Hoseok laughs nervously. “I thought you know, the four of us could get to know each other better.” You mentally facepalm at Hoseok’s lack of EQ, and begin to question why you’re even friends with this guy.

“Because there’s an inherent need for that” Jungkook cuts in, before either you or Yoongi can respond. He was clearly being sarcastic by the look of the smirk on his face, and it almost makes you more comfortable that he knows this was all Hoseok’s doing and that you played no part in this whatsoever.

“Actually, I just remembered Yoongi and I have something we need to do today.” Hoseok says, while standing up and grabbing Yoongi’s arm. “We’ll see you guys later!” He shouts as he pulls Yoongi out with him.

You stare in the direction those two just disappeared off to, utterly dumbfounded.

Did that really just happen?

It’s Jungkook’s laugh that snaps you back into the reality of the situation you were still in. “Well, looks like you’re going to have to eat the waffles Yoongi ordered.”

You turn around and look at him smiling at you. It’s hard enough to see him all handsome and formal in lab, where the formality of his apparel and demeanor really emphasizes the whole professor-student relationship, which is really the main thing keeping you in line. But seeing him now, dressed all casually and looking undoubtedly young and hot was not helping the situation at all. Especially now that you’re alone with him, on a date that was set-up by your so-called best friend. It was like you were seventeen again and can’t control your raging hormones. You close your eyes and sigh. You can do this. Just act natural and everything will be fine.

“I like your hoodie” Jungkook comments while gesturing to the oversized top you were wearing.

“Huh?...oh thanks…” You didn’t think the old piece of clothing was worth a compliment, especially not one from Jungkook.

It was not long before the two of you get a casual conversation started, and it was good because it took your mind off of the fact that this was technically a date of sorts. When your nerves finally go away, you’re able to relax and just talk about random things like favorite foods, movies, music, travel destinations… and each time he tells you some detail about his life, his preferences, or something about himself you can’t help but think about how similar he is to the him you used to know.

He’s really that person.

He still exudes that comforting aura of warmth and that feeling of home. Yeah, in this universe he’s a genius and really just owning life, but the more you got to see the sides of him that he normally doesn't show to the world, the more your able to see what he truly represents and understand why you fell in love with him so long ago.

After the two of you finish lunch and chat until the café is empty by mid afternoon, Jungkook suggests going for a walk in the park. Although you were getting really comfortable around him, you were still surprised by his suggestion because you assumed he would want to get going, since he’s always really busy. But of course, you agree since you secretly also wanted this day with him to last a bit longer.

“I like to try and enjoy nature whenever I have time, since I’m locked up in sterilized buildings most of the time.” He chuckles a little.

He leans in, eyes focused on yours, and the gleam in his pupils is so tender and sparkly that it’s almost like you’re back on that colorful beach in your dreams. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, and the smell of his cologne is sending your brain into overdrive as your heart pulses at a rate in which you didn’t think was even possible. It feels like you’re being thrown in the silence between stars, soaring amongst the vibrant particles of tiny universes, a thought which would normally make you feel ridiculous for thinking of such nonsense, but at that moment it was precisely how you would choose to describe it.

You squeeze your eyes shut, flinching a little, and perhaps Jungkook takes it as a sigh that you’re not ready yet, because he clears his throat and pulls away, leaving you feeling cold once again.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook whispers, looking down at the ground. His body looks tense, and he’s clearly trying to make sense of what had gone over him a moment ago.

No don’t be.

“I-uh, think we should probably get going” He says, still avoiding eye contact with you.

No, I want to stay a bit longer.

But you find yourself lacking the courage to say any of those things, so you just nod, allowing the silence to continue strangling you. You didn’t know why you were being such a coward, you know you have feelings for him, and you think that he might reciprocate some of those feelings, but your afraid. You’re afraid that your memories of him will always dictate your actual perception of him, that even if he is the person, he’ll never remember you and even if he does, what if you don’t live up to his expectations? And that’s why you find yourself trying to let go.

.......