Jimin hiked his bag further up his shoulder, walking unarmed through the door into certain death.

Also known as the chemistry room.

The time had come to regret signing up for AP for another sixty minutes, his teacher speaking loudly and writing on the board about things he would never understand.

This room was a dull one, with long, black tables that reminded Jimin of coffins and a periodic table poster torn at every corner. Plus, bonus, he sat right at the front where he could never get away with playing games in class.

Sluggishly, he made his way to his seat and plopped down, slouching by default. Then, with a smack of his lips, he kicked his feet up on the table. That was what he did in pretty much every class, and the teachers had gotten so tired of scolding him that they barely tried anymore.

"Not today, honey," a voice murmured from above suddenly, and when he heard the sound of long nails clacking next to his legs, he was conveniently reminded of the one teacher that dealt with his bull like a pro. "I have a new seating chart."

Jimin looked up to give her his signature please-take-pity-on-me frown. "Why?" he whined like a child as he dragged his feet off the table.

"Because," his teacher replied in the same baby voice, "We've had the same seats all year, and that's boring." She stuck her bottom lip out. "Forgive me?" she asked him.

"If you give me an A on the test next week," Jimin bargained.

"Not a chance, buddy," she told him in the voice of a parent, probably because she had a six year old of her own. "Now get out of your seat."

Jimin finally stood, and she seemed pleased with him. "It was worth a shot," he remarked, grabbing his backpack. Then, he turned around with finality, taking lazy steps that would eventually get him to the edge of the room.

Once there, he leaned up against the cabinets to wait for his new seat. Maybe he should just get some sleep in this period. If his sister started teasing him for being tired, he knew his parents would lecture him about sleeping habits again.

Thinking about tiredness and sleep soon made his jaw drop open in a huge yawn, eyes starting to water the longer his mouth was open. Last night had been a late one. And not because he was doing his homework.

"Alright, guys. I'll start up here and make my way back," Mrs. Jung announced. "So here, we have Jiho," she began, gesturing to the first seat. "Then, next to him, Hyoyeon, then Yujin, Minhyuk..."

That was about the moment that Jimin tuned her out. It wasn't anything personal. Mrs. Jung may not have taught a cool subject, but she was a cool person, and that was enough for Jimin to be friends with her.

Being friends with teachers was not his strong suit, either. Most of them found him kind of obnoxious, but again, Mrs. Jung had a six year old child, so she understood Jimin well.

It was sort of ironic that Jimin became so busy thinking about their little relationship that he failed to notice what was happening just ten feet away from him.

"Park Jimin!" Mrs. Jung exclaimed in exasperation from the other side of the room, finally grabbing his attention.

Stunned and wide-eyed, Jimin's felt his environment come back into focus, and he found himself stupidly blurting out, "Yes, ma'am?" as if he'd returned from another dimension within the past few seconds.

"You're sitting here, next to Yoongi," she told him, patting the desk to invite him over. And as he obeyed her, she chuckled to herself. "Have they done those hearing tests yet this year? I think you need your ears checked, sweetie," she teased.

"What?" he borderline shouted, obviously joking but completely straight-faced, and Mrs. Jung snorted, shaking her head before continuing to list off names.

Jimin sunk down into his new seat, staring lazily off at the board as he kicked his feet back up on the table. He wasn't especially fond of change. But as long as he could suffer through piles of information he didn't understand worth a in peace, he supposed the seat wasn't terrible.

Idly, he took a glance to the right just in time for a familiar face to walk over to his own new seat.

Oh Sehun. A class clown who was known for always smelling amazing for a reason no one could figure out, and who always took the chance to make a terrible pun.

Jimin didn't mind sitting next to him. Aside from his cheesy jokes, he seemed like a decent guy.

When he looked to his left, though, it was a different story. Jimin felt himself leaning towards Sehun, and not just because he smelled good.

Oh Jesus. This guy.

Min Yoongi. The cliché 'quiet kid' of the class.

Come to think of it, the boy still hadn't uttered a single word to anyone. All year. And in turn, no one had really tried to reach out to him. They had a naturally outgoing and noisy class that already knew each other, so Yoongi was just a piece from a different puzzle.

His own private puzzle. With one piece.

Jimin crossed his arms over his chest, studying the baggy clothes, the disheveled dark hair, the way he laid forward on the table, head resting in his arms so his black-framed glasses were pushed ever so slightly up on his face. He had in one blue earbud, the other resting on the table by his elbow, and he looked like he could've fallen asleep easily if he so desired.

A frown curled into Jimin's lips. Honestly, he found Yoongi a little frustrating. Like, in all seriousness, how could anyone possibly go this long in a class without speaking? It didn't make any sense to him, and neither did Yoongi.

On an impulse, he pulled out his phone, unlocking it and opening up the third text conversation down in the list.

jimin: 
So we got new seats in chem right

jimin: 
Guess who's sitting next to me

A response greeted him before twenty seconds passed. Not that that surprised him. The surprising part was that he'd texted her first.

so: 
omg is it that kid you were talking about the other day??

jimin: 
You guessed it

so: 
praying for you bub

jimin: 
I'm praying for me too

jimin: 
He lowkey creeps me out

That wasn't a lie. Yoongi just had that, kid-who's-secretly-plotting-to-kill-everyone-all-the-time kind of vibe. He was either distant, or observant to the point where Jimin swore he could hear the gears turning in his head.

And to make things weirder, Jimin always felt like Yoongi's eyes would spend a particularly long time on yours truly. Maybe it was just his brain playing tricks on him, but how was he supposed to tell the difference?

Another vibration from his phone pulled him out of his thoughts, and his eyes flicked back down to his screen.

so: 
if you can get him to say something and record it

so: 
I will actually pay you

Jimin paused, eyeing his phone intently to make sure he read that correctly.

A bet?

jimin: 
Wait

jimin: 
For real

so: 
swear to god

so: 
that'd be so funny

For the record, this girl - who was obsessed with both texting and Jimin - was not poor. There was nothing shocking about her making a bet for no reason other than her own personal entertainment.

But the other thing that struck up Jimin's suspicion about this Min Yoongi was the amount of times people dared him to approach the guy.

Just two weeks ago, Kwon Jiyong had dared him to try and make friends with the introverted, my-hood-is-my-house kid sitting next to him, and at that time, Jimin had just laughed, telling him the truth, which was that he'd rather ing not.

But Jimin was also broke, and truth be told, Sojin betting him cash in exchange for social interaction with an outcast didn't sound like the worst deal he'd ever made.

(That was probably the time that, when they were nine, Taehyung had promised him all of the Twix's in his Halloween candy if Jimin jumped out of the huge tree in his front yard. He broke his leg, as well as his dignity.)

jimin: 
You know what

jimin: 
it

jimin: 
I'm gonna try

Gathering his courage, Jimin found the word in him to start it all.

"Hey," he said, just seconds after he switched to his voice memos app and pressed the record button. And yes, fret not, he locked his phone. "Dude."

For the next fifteen seconds, he waited calmly, patiently, gauging Yoongi's nonexistent reaction.

Turns out his answer was also nonexistent. Jimin wasn't even given a look of acknowledgement. The glazed look in Yoongi's eyes just sat there, as always.

Jimin frowned. "Hey," he tried again. Should he try poking him in the arm? Or at least doing something to speed this up.

When the silent kid didn't respond for the second time, he tacked on a calm, "Yoongi."

And that's what was finally able to get the boy's attention, Jimin found. Yoongi turned to face him, looking a little confused, and his glasses nestled back into their normal spot on his nose when he lifted his head from his arms.

No word, or even sound came out of his mouth. His lips stayed motionless as he waited to understand why, for the first time this year, he was being talked to by someone other than his teacher.

Jimin bit the inside of his cheeks, waiting. Waiting. And then, "Are you gonna say something?" he pressured.

That pressure didn't seem to be taking any toll on Yoongi, who just continued to look back at Jimin, blinking every so often. It made the blonde feel like he was talking to a mute.

Whoa, wait. I'm not...am I?

. That would be anything but his proudest moment, and seeing as he has a lot of thoughts and negative three filter, that's saying something.

Hoping to god that that wasn't the truth, "Hey, Dead Eyes," he attempted, with maximum hesitation in his voice. "What did the comedian say when he started taking his clothes off?"

Yoongi lived up to his new nickname and stared.

"What? Haven't you ever seen a comic strip?" Jimin finished, ending the sad joke with sad jazz hands.

Sehun whipped around like someone had just insulted his mother. "Hey, that was my joke!" he accused, elbowing Jimin in the side.

With a roll of his eyes, Yoongi turned back around, putting his other earbud in.

Jimin pressed his lips into a thin line.

Usually he wasn't a thinker. He was a doer, but right then, he thought hard about another approach, since stupid jokes he'd heard from Sehun were out of the question.

There was always the physical approach. It seemed a little stupid and a little more unnecessary, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And he couldn't deny how much he wanted the rare satisfaction of winning a bet with Sojin.

This would just have to do.

Never taking his eyes off of Yoongi, he planted his feet against the table and pushed it back, gauging his reaction again. When he got none, and the table was far too close to the row in front of them, he instead positioned his foot on one of the legs of Yoongi's chair, pushing it almost a foot to the left.

Still nothing.

It was impressive. How chilled out Yoongi was, even now, laying forward on the desk without a care in the world.

Jimin's face scrunched up in consideration. Alright, time for Plan B. What's something that could piss off anyone?

Luckily, Jimin was an expert in the field of pissing people off, especially guys, so it took him barely fifteen seconds to think of his last resort. It was officially time to nail this guy.

Stealthily and slowly, he leaned over to his left towards his tolerant classmate - who had his eyes shut to try and regain peace - and wrapped his arms around him in an awkward, clingy hug.

Yoongi's whole torso jerked, more than Jimin thought was physically possible for someone so calm, and the quiet boy's breath could be heard hitching in surprise.

Jimin smirked like an evil little brat. He couldn't really say he wasn't one.

No matter how much Yoongi struggled in his hold, Jimin was a good deal stronger than him, latched onto his body like a parasite, and there was just no use. Elbow jabbing wasn't going to stop him, and Yoongi seemed to be figuring that out as the seconds passed.

Checkmate.

Yoongi turned his head all of three millimeters to try and shoot a fiery glare at his perpetrator through his glasses, but Jimin only smirked back at him.

"What?" he asked, still choosing to act innocent. The money in this bet wasn't even the best part. Getting on this dude's nerves was so satisfying. "Something wrong, man? You gotta use words."

Yoongi's pale face twitched in pure annoyance as he realized the unlikeliness of him breaking free. His cheeks dusted over a light pink of frustration and embarrassment, body relaxing. "You're an ," he finally muttered.

Jimin straightened his back and raised his eyebrows, the perfect picture of surprise. This guy had a much deeper voice than he was expecting. He was so petite, so harmless and almost delicate looking that Jimin never would have expected such a low tone to come out of him.

The victory that lit up his face became even brighter, and he finally let go of the poor kid and shifted his weight back into his seat.

"He speaks!" he had the indecency to exclaim, applauding with his weirdly small hands as Yoongi fumed beside him. He was obviously not happy about this at all, but Jimin wasn't about to care.

"Shut up," his deep voice grumbled, looking away from the obnoxiously excited boy next to him. This was just really, really ridiculous.

"Twice! Damn, I'm good," Jimin remarked, jokingly impressed with himself just to make this guy tick a little bit more.

Yoongi had nothing to say to that, returning his head to his folded-up arms, and Jimin took that as his cue to stop the recording he'd been taking on his phone. At first he was tempted to send it to Sojin in a contextless message, but it'd be much more satisfying to show her in person.

He turned back to Yoongi. "So," he began. "What's your deal, man? Why're you so quiet?"

Yoongi's head turned almost like a robot's, revealing the look of disbelief on his face. He just couldn't process the fact that Jimin was still talking to him.

The only response he had in him was a shrug, and although Jimin just nodded, he had a feeling that wasn't the actual answer.

Yoongi shut his eyes again, and Jimin frowned. Rude.

Still wanting a two-sided conversation, he tried to think of some other topic. His eyes drifted around, and soon a lightbulb went off in his head when he again saw the blue earbuds Yoongi was wearing.

"What are you listening to?" he questioned, tapping the boy's phone.

Wordless and stone-faced as ever, Yoongi picked his other earbud up from the table and handed it to Jimin, who just accepted it without question, placing it in his own ear.

And when the sounds hit him, he wondered why he felt like he was drifting into some other dimension - one much preferable to this one.

The music wasn't very complex. Just the sounds of an echoing piano and a crackly, non-syncopated beat. But something about it seemed almost like a lullaby.

"This is nice," he commented in approval, voice hushed as he shut his eyes, blocking out the lights in the classroom that were always too bright for his tired eyes before at least noon.

Now he understood why Yoongi looked so peaceful.

"Alright, sorry about that delay, guys," Mrs. Jung's voice rang out into the room suddenly, pulling Jimin out of his little fantasy world and back to the fluorescent lights and faded, cream-colored walls. "Had to help out Mr. Wu with something."

Yoongi pulled his earbuds out of his and Jimin's ears, wrapping the wire around his phone before sliding it into his pocket, out of sight. Just like nothing happened.

Jimin watched longingly as he did this. He really wished he could have just fallen asleep to that music, worries about his parents and whether or not he's going to fail this class fading into nothing. It would have been an ideal next hour of his life.

But now Mrs. Jung had begun talking about titrations and acids and bases, so it was the time to listen.

____

a/n
snarky jimin is a good time lmao. also, high school flashbacks oOoOh

hope you guys liked it! tell me what you think :) i tried to post this yesterday but it wasn't working meh