“I look like I’m molding,” Taehyung groans, leaning against the window. “I’m a rotting carrot.”

                  Jimin snorts from the seat next to him. They’ve both caught the last morning bus to school, because paint still marred their skin from Wednesday’s robotics takeover and they’ve spent hours trying to wash it out. He hasn’t garnered too much damage save for a couple spots on his hands, but Taehyung’s orange locks have been stained with green. It does look like mold, he thinks.

                  “I gotta re-dye it,” the guy sighs. “Can you come with me to the salon again?”

                  “Sure… but if you’re so scared of that stylist, just change salons.”

                  Taehyung looks mortified. “Well, there aren’t many places in the world where I can get this perfect hue of orange, okay? So if I have to handle that freaky grasshopper lady to get my color back, s-so be it!”

                  “Just please don’t make me hold your hand again.”

                  “No promises, bro.”

                  They hop off the bus and start toward their homerooms. The other students are more or less in the same situation, blobs of paint decorating their hair and skin. They even spot one guy whose entire face is smeared red (‘or maybe that’s a really bad sunburn’, Taehyung suggests). The school has since been cleaned up and painted over, but remnants from the war before still remain in their hearts.

                  Even through the hallways and classrooms, most of the student body is spending their morning cursing the hell out of 0206’s supreme ruler, Kim Namjoon. In particular, Jimin walks into math class right in the middle of his classmate Sanghyuk throwing a riot. “… and if I ever see that again, he’s going to feel the wrath of the entire ing anime club!”

                  “Yeah!” Junghwa nods in agreement, which is a rare sight in itself. “I can’t believe he had the nerve. We’re so lucky we can keep doing Extracurricular Week.”

                  “I mean yeah, we still have our break dance performance today,” Chanmi chips in, “but we look like a mess. My entire left arm is blue.”

                  “Better to perform like that than not at all, right?”

                  “I guess…” She notices Jimin sliding into his seat and gives him a gentle wave. “Hey. Are you still coming to see us?”

                  He nods. Then he attempts a smile, but he’s pretty sure it makes him looks constipated. “I-I’m looking forward to it.”

                  “I’m so nervous,” Chanmi says. “It’s our first stage of the year and we look like gay parade threw up on us.”

                  “You’ll do g-great!” Jimin replies a little too loudly and startles both of them. Junghwa and Sanghyuk roll their eyes.

                  The girl laughs. “Thanks… by the way, aren’t you auditioning for dance team tomorrow? Extracurricular Week is almost over.”

                  All color suddenly drains from his face, and his stomach starts hosting a circus. There goes his breakfast. “… ,” he groans. “… !”

                  “Damn, you’re more nervous than I am.” She pats his shoulder. “It’ll be fine, Jimin.”

                  “If you say so…” His phone vibrates in his pocket, so he fishes it out. “Sorry, hold on.”

                  She glances at the screen. “… So how long have you two been dating?”

                  Jimin completely freezes over, pausing mid-text while his heart stops. A million thoughts run through his mind, the most prominent being ‘how in the hell am I supposed to respond to this?!’ He looks up at her stoic expression, not knowing if she was being serious or cracking a joke. “… P-Pardon?”

                  “Sorry, I just saw the name and got curious.” Chanmi grins, a smile so sincere is stabs him right in the chest. “The caller ID says ‘Taetae-nim’ with three hearts on either side, so it’s obviously your girlfriend, right?”

                  Sanghyuk coughs loudly, “he’s single!”

                  Jimin lets out some sort of sound that’s reminiscent of a dying whale. “… My friend Taehyung changed… his contact name. He’s in no way my, ugh, girlfriend.”

                  “Oh,” she says. He doesn’t know what that means.

--

                  The text from Taehyung that morning indicated that he was going to be busy because of the jazz band performance later on, and that they’ll meet up after the show. More specifically, it read ‘jiminnnijnuhdjci band 2day come watch pls pls pls!!!!!! see u later alligator’ including an arsenal of emojis Jimin never knew existed.

                  At lunch, he goes up to the third stairwell alone. He figures it’d be better to eat before facing the crowds in the cafeteria. When he swings around the railing, Jimin rams head-first into someone’s chest. Surprised, he steps back onto air and feels gravity pulling him down a flight of stairs.

                  He braces himself as the walls blur, waiting for impact. Then he’s suddenly ed forward when something grabs at his shirt, and Jimin blinks to see an equally surprised Yoongi hovering in front of him. The older boy is holding him by an inch of cloth, barely saving him from a deep fall.

                  “… You scared the hell out of me,” the senior student breathes, helping him regain his footing. “Watch where you’re goin’, man.”

                  “… S-S-Sorry!” Jimin gripes the railing with his life. He’s still shaken.

                  “What are you doing up here?” Yoongi asks, shifting the camera hanging around his neck. “The performances are starting downstairs soon.”

                  He doesn’t want to say that he’s about to eat lunch by himself in a stairwell, so Jimin takes to shrugging vaguely instead. As a result, he’s yanked downstairs by the wrist. “What are you—?”

                  “Come with me to the Yearbook room,” the guy says flatly. “I need someone to keep me company.”             

                  “Th-Then get one of your friends—!” Jimin stammers. Even though they saw each other during the robot scare yesterday, he’s still a bit nervous around Yoongi. The older student is fairly intimidating, and he’s not entirely sure what his motives are.

                  Yoongi turns and looks right into his eyes. “I don’t have friends,” he replies. Jimin is aghast.

                  As they walk down the hall together, they spot a familiar boy wandering about. It’s Jungkook, who looks like he’s lost again; Taehyung made it a habit to imitate lost child announcements whenever they see him.

                  “Hey Jungkook!” Yoongi beckons. They approach him while he stares with his usual blank expression. “You lost again, kid?”

                  The freshman looks visibly confused. “Yes. How did you know my name?”

                  “I’m in Yearbook, we know everyone’s names. Where’re you headed?”

                  “216,” says Jungkook.

                  Yoongi rolls his eyes. “No wonder you’re lost; you’re on the wrong floor, you dummy. The first digit in room numbers denotes the floor. So 216 would be on the second floor, got it?”

                  Jungkook blinks. “Sure.” He turns on his heel and starts walking away.

                  “HEY!” The senior shouts, “at least say thanks! When I was your age, I had to bow every time an older student walked past—!”

                  “Manners are irrelevant.”

                  Jimin and Yoongi are both stunned, mouths hanging open as he disappears around the corner. “Christ, kids these days," the latter sighs.

                  They reach the Yearbook room, which is a classroom with a couple other senior students hanging around. They briefly greet Yoongi before the two are headed into a backroom with a white curtain draped over one wall and a couple lights surrounding it.

                  Yoongi points to a spot right in front of the curtain. “Put your backpack down and stand over there. Don’t move.”

                  So he stands, while the other boy just sits on the floor and stares. He’s becoming more flustered by the second, until he notices the slightest twitch Yoongi makes towards his camera. It doesn’t even take him a second to turn a full 180°.

                  He hears the camera shutter a moment later, followed by a very frustrated Yoongi. “Dammit! I was so close to taking your picture.”

                  Jimin’s heart is racing. He can’t believe he was almost caught in a photo. “… Y-You tricked me!” he cries, still facing the wall.

                  “Yeah, I don’t believe in things like being ‘camera shy’.” He clicks his tongue. “That’s bull. Turn around.”

                  “N-No.”

                  “I’ll give you a cookie if you let me take your picture.”

                  “No!”

                  Yoongi lets out a sigh. “Alright, fine. I won’t photograph you. Just turn around.”

                  Jimin isn’t quick to be sure. “… Y-You’re bluffing!”

                  “… Fine, I was bluffing!” the senior grunts. “Okay. I’m walking over to this shelf here… and I’m putting my camera down. You hear that? Now… I’m walking back… and you may turn around and speak to me like a normal person.”

                  He hesitates, and it takes him a full minute to turn back around again. His eyes flicker across the room, at the camera placed on the shelf and not in his hands. It’s safe. “… Sorry, I just don’t like being in pictures.”

                  “Whatever.” Yoongi leans against a desk, hands stuffed into his pockets. “You’re just weird.”

                  “… Thanks.” Jimin slouches, and then lights up. “O-Oh, um, I wanted to give you something,” he says, scrambling over his backpack.

                  “Yeah?”

                  He fishes out a small, pink ticket and hands it over. “… It’s uh, to say sorry for damaging your camera the other day.”

                  Yoongi squints. “This is a coupon for the bubble tea place across the street.”

                  “Yeah, it’s buy eight, get the ninth one free. I’ve already got seven stamps on it.”

                  “So what you’re saying is…” He glares at Jimin, who flinches (again). “I have to buy another drink for this coupon to be valid?!”

                  He starts trembling, because the guy looks ing scary and he is sure as hell too young to die. Plus, he still needs to finish that level of Kingdom Hearts. “… Yeah…?”

                  Yoongi’s left eye twitches, but he still shoves it into his pocket. “… Thanks.”

                  Jimin smiles briefly before a female student pops her head into the room. “Hey sunbae, do you have any more batteries?” she asks, giving Jimin a ‘hello’ afterwards.

                  “Yeah. Canon, right?” Yoongi tosses her one. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking pictures right now?”

                  “My battery ran out in the middle of the show,” she replies. “I ran all the way here so I wouldn’t miss too much of the break dance performance.”

                  Panic erupts in Jimin’s head. “… ! I have to be in the caf!” He jumps into a sprint, leaving the Yearbook room with a clumsy ‘bye’. He’s late, and the show had already started. Chanmi was going to be so mad that he missed her dance. He ed up, big time.

                  He runs all the way there, except when in the direct eye-line of any staff member (then he half-prances). There’s music playing when he arrives, and Jimin sighs of relief when he sees Chanmi still onstage with the rest of her team. He’s not too late.

                  Then the music ends two seconds later, and amongst the excited cheers of the student body Jimin wonders why the hell he doesn’t have the power of teleportation or at least, time travel.

                  He finds a spot in the back against the wall, trying to make it look like he’s been there the whole time. Hey, Chanmi. You’ve got smooth moves. Yeah, that’s exactly what he’s going to say.

                  His mind kind of blows up when he notices her approaching, cheeks glowing red and the slightest sheen of sweat on her forehead. “Hey!” she says, “how were we?”

                  “I-I-It was great…” he stutters, staring at his left shoe.

                  “I saw you come in at the end of the song.”

                  Jimin winces. “… S-Sorry. I really meant to come in earlier. I-I was tied up with Yearbook and—!” Chanmi suddenly laughs, and he’s reached a whole new level of confusion. “… You’re not angry?”

                  “No, why would I be?” She smiles. “It’s okay, man. We weren’t that great anyway… Oh but um, isn’t that your friend up there?”

                  The stage crew is making way for the next performance: jazz band. They’re setting up sheet stands while the band members pick up their respective instruments. Taehyung’s hair is almost neon in the sunlight, and the amount of attention he’s attracting by galloping across the stage with a sax under his balls is giving Jimin secondhand-embarrassment. Knowing him, the idiot is probably pretending he’s on a horse or something.

                  Taehyung is incredibly easy to read, even throughout the years they’ve known each other. Jimin knows what he’s feeling when, his every answer before the words even slip out of his mouth, and vice-versa. Like he knows Taehyung’s going to look for him in the crowd and wave like a moron, so he shrinks closer to the wall beforehand so people don’t look at him. Jimin knows Taehyung, and Taehyung knows him.

                  What Jimin doesn’t understand, with all his heart, are women. As he sneaks side-glances at the beautiful girl beside him, he realizes that he’ll never read women as well as he does Taehyung. They’ll say one thing and mean another; it’s a whole lot of hoopla.

                  He may never know what Park Chanmi is thinking, but he’s definitely taking up the challenge.