Yoongi remembers being notified by Irene that she was looking for a new receptionist. The last one ate a minimum of four muffins a day at her desk, leaving everything within a two foot radius of her covered in crumbs. Not to mention she had a habit of being short with people on the phone, which is quite literally the opposite of what one looks for in a receptionist.

But now, in their lobby, exchanging a few words with the parent of a new student - a young, cute kid named Jungkook - but not listening to his own voice, he wishes he'd known what exactly to expect.

"So, yeah. He's um...practice. And stuff," he mumbles, smiling a twitchy, would-miss-it-if-you-blinked smile. He's aware that he looks confused and sounds inarticulate as , but all that matters right now is the fact that the front desk is now filled with the presence a blondie, with warm eyes and an amazing disregard for the way you're supposed to sit in chairs.

Jungkook's dad gives him one last slow nod, which tells him, okay, you seem stoned, but thanks. Which is fair, Yoongi thinks.

Then, the man makes his apprehensive exit with his bug-eyed kid in tow, leaving Yoongi free to do whatever his adult self pleases. He chooses to look over at their new, star class receptionist. To watch the guy until finally, he feels himself being watched.

"Yoongi," greets Jimin, tilting his head up and sending him a smile, and holy , did Yoongi accidentally mention the open reception job last time they talked? Or is the universe really throwing him this curveball just for the sake of ing with his mind?

"Hey," he says, approaching the desk with slow steps, and wow, everything's going to be really weird. Having to pass Jimin every time he wants to go to that pizza place next door will be weird, Jimin peeking around his door to ask a question will be weird. "What are you doing here?"

"I️ needed some part-time work." Jimin shuffles a stack of papers between his fingers, and Yoongi watches his knuckles move against white and inked black. "There's a girl filling in for me Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays until five. Then I'm here all of Tuesday and Friday."

The blonde seems at home slouched in that rolling chair, surrounded by almost two dozen colorful pens and printed schedules fanned out on the L-shaped desk. Yoongi watches him inch back to slip a paper in the shredder, making a stupid, high-pitched sound effect with his mouth, but he can't find a reason to be mad about this.

It's a surprise, and surprises have a tendency to be bad things in his everyday life, but this one is different. It could mean that he won't feel the need to hide in his room when his students are sporadic and he's not really doing anything. This surprise might coax him out into the lobby and into a chair, to look at Jimin, to and talk to him.

If the last time they were together is any indicator of what this might be like, he really has no reason to be mad about this.

"Well, welcome aboard, ," the words are out before Yoongi really thinks about saying them, and he doesn't know why, but he kind of wants to ruffle Jimin's hair right now. It looks really fluffy and soft and ruffle-able. He settles for holding his hand out.

Jimin gives him a cheeky look, and accepts the handshake. "At your service, captain."

Yoongi frowns, retracting his hand. "Don't say it like that."

"Why not?" Jimin asks, smiling, rolling his chair in the general direction of the disgruntled piano teacher.

Yoongi grunts, reaching over to steal a pen from Jimin's desk. "Sounds ," he explains, gently thwacking the pen on the blonde's wrist before turning around, into the hallway.

"Hey, gimme my pen back!" Jimin calls, affronted.

Yoongi snorts. "You have a billion pens," he calls back.

, , ,

"Sorry, Mr. Min. He likes his work a lot."

That's little Jungkook's explanation for why his dad still isn't there to pick him up from his piano lesson.

Yoongi's just walked out into the lobby, twelve minutes past their lesson's end to check if the tiny brunette's still out here in his favorite chair, and he's both glad and disappointed to see him sitting there. He doesn't want to judge, but this is the third time the poor kid's dad has left him waiting.

"Does he normally come late to things?" asks a concerned Yoongi, watching the young boy kick his feet back and forth in the lobby chair.

"Yeah. I guess," Jungkook mumbles, flipping through the pages of his piano book. "My lessons and soccer games, mostly."

The rolling of a computer chair sounds behind them, a noise Yoongi has become partial to. "Hey, kid," Jimin addresses, the look on his face b with sympathy. "We should play a game together."

Yoongi becomes a witness to the most innocent exchange Jimin must've ever been a part of, watches Jungkook set his music book flat on the floor, nodding. "Can Mr. Min play too?" his small voice asks, and with every word he becomes less visible due to his piano teacher's thigh. It's his go-to hiding spot.

Jimin nods to the half of Jungkook he's able to see, wearing an unusual smile void of mirth or mischief. "Let's all play together," he proposes, pulling out one of his desk drawers to reveal a full, large bag of gummy bears.

Yoongi's jaw hits the floor. "Where'd you get that?"

"Irene bought it for me," he explains, smoothing out the plastic front so the pair can read all the flavors, despite the barely existent difference between them. "Here, watch," he adds as he tears away a strip of the bag, tosses it aside, and pulls out a green gummy.

Yoongi and a half-hidden Jungkook watch him toss it against gravity. Then, when it sails back to his level, the blonde doesn't have to move his chair to catch it skillfully in his mouth. "You guys wanna try?" he asks as he chews, edging the bag towards them on the desk.

"Throw them for us," Jungkook suggests, enthusiasm finally catching up to him and lighting up his almond eyes. "We can stand back here, and whoever catches more wins."

Jimin looks to Yoongi, who shrugs his shoulders. "Sounds good to me," he says, so Jimin scoops up a handful of colorful bears and readies his throwing hand.

Yoongi's really ing good at this.

Somewhere in between his third and seventh catch in a row, he realizes this.

"Mr. Min," Jungkook whines, literally down on his knees because he's dedicated and Jimin doesn't throw very high, "Stop making me lose."

A guilty smile settles into Yoongi's lips, and he ruffles the kid's shaggy hair like a father - one that wouldn't make his kid wait thirty minutes to be picked up from his extracurriculars. "Sorry, buddy," he says, and the next time that Jimin lobs a little bear to him, he tries to subtly dodge it, allowing it to hit the floor without so much as bouncing off the corner of his lips.

"Mr. Min, you did that on purpose," Jungkook grumbles knowingly when the orange bear bounces on the carpet, and he folds his arms across his chest. "You should go against Mr. Park instead," he mutters, pouty and defeated as he drags his feet up to the desk.

"You sure?" Jimin questions, sympathy returning to his voice. But when Jungkook lolls his head up and down, picking up the gummy bear bag and sneaking two in his mouth before scooping up a throwing pile, Jimin raises himself out of his chair to join Yoongi.

Jungkook's not a bad pitcher, they soon find.

They also find that Yoongi's not the only one who's really ing good at this.

"Holy cow!" Jungkook squeaks when Jimin trots back four feet and squats down to catch a long distance throw with expertise.

The blonde lets out a whoop of triumph, clapping his hands together as Jungkook stares at him like he's been his personal hero since birth.

"Jesus, Jimin. Do you ever give up?" Yoongi mumbles, watching him stand up back to his usual height.

"I could if I wanted," replies Jimin, cheeky because he can be, "I'm winning right now."

Yoongi sends him a look so dead it could probably kill flowers. "No, you aren't. We're tied."

Jimin shakes his head, satisfaction glowing in his perked cheeks, "You missed two. I'm winning."

"No I didn't. I only missed one."

Jungkook takes a good eleven second stare between the both of them, weighing his options before chiming in, "I think Mr. Min is right," causing Yoongi to replicate Jimin's clap of victory, "I think you're tied."

"You too?" Jimin huffs in exasperation as Yoongi beams next to him. "I thought you liked me, kid."

Yoongi decides he loves Jungkook. He's as close to giddy as he can physically get when he sends a wink in his student's direction, and the little boy looks so pleased as he tosses another gummy bear to him - a gummy bear which is impressively stopped between teeth, but not Yoongi's teeth.

"There," Jimin remarks, smacking his lips once he's dived in front of Yoongi and plucked his victory right from his personal space. "Now I'm winning."

Jungkook's gaping, but Yoongi wears nothing but frown lines and a scowl of indignation. "That's not how it works, pri- uh, idiot," he argues, stopping his lips before they form a nickname of more potency. There is a child present, and for once he's not talking about Jimin.

"We didn't set any rules," goddamn Park Jimin points out. The way his eyebrows perk up with the knowledge that he's right is irritating to Yoongi. Cute would also be a suitable word.

Jungkook eats another two gummy bears, shaking his head. "Mr. Park, that's cheating. You can't..."

Jungkook mysteriously loses his voice in the middle of that sentence, limbs growing still and attention fixing itself on something beyond the windows. A sudden stop is put to their shared debate when Yoongi and Jimin simultaneously look through the glass to find a middle-aged man pulling the door open, cell phone held to his ear.

His eyebrows quirk in gesture as he holds the door open with his shoulder. Jungkook, he mouths, motioning with his hand to come to him.

The little boy's face deflates like a week old helium balloon, crestfallen enough to make his lips droop towards the floor. He looks miserably to his piano teacher and the receptionist. Clearly, he'd rather stay here with them, play games and listen to the muddled sounds of other kids hitting black and white keys, but his father's wish is his command.

Yoongi bends down to retrieve Jungkook's piano book from beside his favorite chair, managing to feel sorry for the kid as he tosses it to him. It's stopped precariously between the heels of Jungkook's hands, and before he leaves the desk, he picks out two more gummy bears and pops them in his mouth.

"Bye, guys," he murmurs, waving as he joins his father.

Yoongi and Jimin wave back, mutually realizing how their proximity might look to Jungkook's dad like two people in a relationship. Oops.

"Bye, Jungkook," Yoongi wishes, scooting a centimeter's distance away from Jimin, raising a hand to scratch the back of his neck.

"See you next week, kid," Jimin tells him, smiling. He doesn't notice the new space between his and Yoongi's feet.

, , ,

It's Tuesday.

Yoongi forgot it was Tuesday until his alarm jerked him awake at 6AM instead of 7, and he let out a miserable sigh that warmed his pillow, and in turn warmed his buried face. It was Tuesday, and his brain was trying to instruct his limbs to move. He willed himself not to hit the snooze button. Good will never come out of that.

On Tuesdays, he heads to work at the crack of dawn in order to practice on that huge, flawless grand piano in Chanyeol's room. No one's ever there when he gets in on Tuesdays. It's just him, the piano, and the colors of sunrise through the window, reflecting off of the instrument's black surface.

Someone is already here this Tuesday.

Yoongi absently hears the birds chatting with each other, pulls on the glass door, wondering why he thinks he can make out the outline of a person. Then he realizes it's because there is a person.

It's a person who's curled up and over their desk with their face pressed against the inside of their elbow, their breaths a slow, steady rhythm. It's a person who's passed out by their keyboard with a pencil stuck behind their ear, eraser brushing against strands of fluffy blonde hair. It's a person who's Jimin.

Call Yoongi creepy for quietly walking up to the sleeping receptionist, taking a second to contemplate waking him up. He's got a million questions running through his mind, about how Jimin managed to fall asleep like that and stay asleep through the night, or why the last person out chose to leave him sleeping there instead of poking him awake.

It's rude to stare, but you get a free pass to be rude when nobody's around to see it. Yoongi, because he can, stares to his heart's content at the fibers of the gray sweater Jimin was also wearing yesterday, and the few strands of blonde hair that are attracted in a different direction than the rest.

His eyes flit over Jimin's short fingers, curled and rested on the edge of his keyboard.

There's a prominent mark on one of his smooth knuckles that catches Yoongi's watchful eye, makes him lean a little further over the desk. It's purple, circular, branding his otherwise flawless skin. The deep hue tells Yoongi that whatever happened hurt like a .

Did he punch something? he wonders to himself, wanting to carefully pick his hand up and study it closer. He isn't even remotely sure if ramming one's fist into a given rigid object would leave a mark like this, if he's honest.

Jimin stirs, taking an uneven breath, and Yoongi feels a strange ache in his chest that comes in pangs as he listens to a few far away words leak from his lips. Whimpers of, "Don't," at different volumes, twice, three times. Five times.

Something wells up in him and makes him place a hand on Jimin's shoulder, gently shaking him from slumber. "Jimin," he murmurs, kneeling down so they're at eye level.

The disgruntled whining starts to break apart, gradually dissolving into silence, and after a few seconds that feel stretched into centuries, Jimin's eyelids start to crack open one by one, revealing two halves of a glazed look.

His head lifts a small distance from his arms, and he looks exhausted. There are a few creases imprinted on his red cheeks from sleeping with his sleeves pressed into his face.

But he looks happy to see Yoongi. Despite his eye bags and presence here before eight in the morning, he's happy to see Yoongi. "Hey, peach," he whispers, his hoarse voice a complete contrast to the sleepy smile on his face, his eyes a Bassett Hound type of droopy.

"You fell asleep here," Yoongi remarks in a voice bordering on a whisper. His hand never moves from Jimin's shoulder.

The smiley boy laughs in a manner that's almost slap-happy. "Guess I did," he sighs, letting his head fall back into his arms.

Yoongi doesn't think it's nearly that funny. "Don't your hips hurt from slouching over all night?" he asks, resting his elbows and head on the table's surface in front of Jimin's.

Jimin hums, eyes shut again. "A little," he concedes.

Yoongi opens his mouth without a plan of what to say, then closes it again when Jimin's stomach groans loudly, yelling at him to go nourish himself. It's been hours. More than hours.

"Let's go get something to eat," Yoongi suggests, choosing not to and opting instead to rub the shoulder he's never taken his palm off of.

Jimin shakes his limp head. "I don't have enough money," he mumbles into his sweater. Sleepy Jimin has nothing to give but honesty. It begs the question of whether or not he'd say that to Yoongi fully coherent.

"Jimin," he sighs, trying to recall how much money he has in his beat-up old wallet, "You need to eat something."

A quiet grunt sounds from the back of Jimin's throat. He's not going anywhere, so Yoongi gently pats him one more time on the shoulder before hoisting himself up off his knees, looking to the exit.

Two things tug him backwards when he turns to go. One of them is latched onto his heart, wanting to stay and sit with Jimin until the sun is spilling over the trees and people started to filter in. The other is on the back of his shirt, a grip on the hem that stills his leg muscles and all the other muscles in his body. He turns around, finding sad eyes.

"Don't," Jimin tells him, shaking his head. "It's okay."

It's not okay. Yoongi knows it isn't, and that's what's making his conscious itch like he's laying in a patch of dead grass. There's something off about this, and he can't pinpoint what it is; Jimin is a hard worker when he desires to be, so why wouldn't he have fallen asleep at his desk? It's believable, and yet it doesn't seem right. Yoongi must be crazy.

Jimin deepens his look, begging Yoongi with his eyes to let him take care of himself. That's his job, he seems to communicate. It's frustrating.

Yoongi looks away. "Okay. I won't go," he tells him in earnest, and Jimin lets go.

Not fifteen minutes later, he goes anyway.

Jimin gives him some sort of pained look when he walks through the door with food. It's asking him why, even after he told him not to. Yoongi tries ignore it as he places pancakes in a plastic case in front of him, then balances a fork on top. "It's fine. It's not expensive," he assures Jimin as the blonde looks like he might just burst into tears, staring down into the plastic and not bothering to straighten his slumped back.

Yoongi's heart aches again as he returns to his knees, pushing back the cord phone and its dock in order to set his own pancake meal on the desk. Jimin won't even look at him, his ruffled bangs hanging low over his pupils, and it's ing Yoongi up.

Opening the plastic case in front of him, he regards Jimin's fork in his hands as he pokes the food listlessly a few times, then cuts off a piece, raising it to pretty lips.

Jimin eats slowly. Yoongi spends the time trying to figure out whether he really feels that guilty, or if he's savoring it. Appreciating it.

He's starting to think maybe it's both.

, , ,

Yoongi leaves his room just before nine, wrapping his coat around himself so tight it's a wonder he doesn't cut off his circulation. Last time he was out, it was polar cold with 13 mile per hour winds to boot, and he hates goosebumps. They make him feel like a plucked chicken.

He fishes around in his coat pockets in search of his keys. Tonight he'll have to lock up, no doubt. He can see as he makes his way down the hall that the lobby is half dark, meaning it's probably void of students or parents. When he clears the hall, he confirms his suspicions, noting also that the room is void of teachers, laughing with each other in hushed tones that Yoongi isn't meant to hear.

It is not, however, void of people.

The clacking of a keyboard stretches to the edges of the room, and Yoongi studies the artificial white glow cast over Jimin's tired face, his eyelashes creating shadows on his skin.

"Not going home yet?" he asks, letting go of the keys he'd found in his pocket.

Tired Jimin glances up at him, registering the deep, velvety voice. He perks the corners of his lips and shakes his head. "I'll see you tomorrow," he says, and the keyboard clacking resumes.

Yoongi's legs are stiff with the urge to stay here by Jimin's side while we works, watching his soft hair tickle his cheek, tossing sarcasm at him and waiting for it to be thrown back. It would feel good to be there to gently shake him awake if he dozes off against his desk. It would feel good to stay, but he doesn't.

With one last glance behind him at Jimin, typing and actively holding his eyelids high enough to see, he walks out the glass door.

____

a/n

this chapter is kind of a long boi. i hope y'all liked it tho cause i worked really hard to try and  make it good gjhdfk

okay like seven year old jungkook is the cutest concept though thank u jesus