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Before anyone knew it, it wasn’t Jimin-and-Taehyung anymore, hanging out in the cheap dumpling place a corner away from school. It was Jimin-Taehyung-and-Namjoon.

Forcing a dumpling into his mouth, Jimin tried to ignore the way it stank of overcooked oil. He glanced at Taehyung, doing his best to keep a straight face while the orange-haired boy tried to squeeze an especially large dumpling into his mouth. First Taehyung tried to do it sideway, angling his chopsticks, then tried to fit the dumpling vertically, but the result was always the same. His rectangle-shaped mouth simply couldn’t open wide enough.

Jimin finally couldn’t hold it in and started cracking up. Taehyung kicked him under the red plastic table.

Namjoon, on the other hand, sat low in his seat, his glossy eyes stubbornly fixed on one of the numerous empty bottles in front of him. Jimin saw the owner ahjumma give a look to the junior from the corner of her cataractous eyes, probably wondering if she should throw him out before he starts some trouble. But Namjoon wasn’t in state to even cause trouble. He was dead to the world. Glancing at Namjoon too, Taehyung took the opportunity to steal a dumpling from the junior’s plate. Namjoon took no notice.

That’s when the battered plastic door, full of advertisements for long-past concerts, swung open and thundered against the wall. Five or six highschoolers poured in, and Jimin could see the owner ahjumma grin at the sudden influx of customers, showing all six of her remaining teeth.

“Theeeeere is your date!!!” squealed Taehyung suddenly, jumping  up from the table and striding over to the newly arrived group.

And in that group, at the very back, was a red-haired senior.

Jimin froze in his seat. The situation was so unexpected, Jimin could barely even think straight. How could Taehyung had known?! Since when??

And did Jin even count as a date?

But Jimin’s confusion ran deeper than that. Somehow, he had locked Jin into a corner of his mind reserved only for him. To see the older boy here, at Jimin’s everyday hangout, was oddly disturbing.

“Hellooooo, Neptune to Jimin, do you copy?”

Only then did Jimin realize he had been spacing out. “Ooops, sorry.”

“I promised I’d set you up with someone, didn’t I?” continued Taehyung, unperturbed. When the hell did he promise that?! wondered Jimin, but knew better than to ask. Taehyung’s answers never really answered anything, but created even more questions.

“Well, here she is! Meet Yerin!” chippered Taehyung, kicking Namjoon’s schoolbag off a chair and “discreetly” pushing the girl into the seat right across Jimin’s.

“No need to say it so bluntly,” said the girl, who Jimin figured was Yerin. Despite himself, he closed his eyes in relief. His secret was safe after all. He was tempted to turn around and check on what Jin was doing, but decided against it. It would be so awkward if Jin happened to be staring back.

Jimin started chatting to the girl, not because he felt particularly attracted but because there was not much else to do. Taehyung was busy making towers out of toothpicks, and Namjoon was too drunk to assemble a coherent sentence.

Furthermore, he wanted to stop being paranoid and thinking that Jin was staring at him, because he probably wasn’t. Jin would have better things to do, right?

He heard Jin shout his order to the toothless ahjumma. Jimin’s back turned rigid at the very sound of his voice. He couldn’t quite tell if it was fear or excitement.

“… Are you okay, Jimin?” asked Yerin, her eyes widening at Jimin’s odd behavior.

“Huh? Totally. Why do you ask?” he said with a reassuring smile, the kind that made his eyes disappear.

For a while, though, Jimin was sure he could sense a pair of eyes burning holes into his back. He tried to convince himself he was being ridiculous. Who said Jin even gave a ? He had probably been just messing around with Jimin. Isn’t that was teens do?

Yerin seemed to take a liking to Jimin, though. No matter what dumb joke he cracked, she laughed as though it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Her laugh was sweet, like bells.

It was so pleasant not to think, to just talk about random superficial and not give a damn about what the other person thought.

“… You’re really cute, you know.” she muttered after a while. She even had the decency to blush and act embarrassed. Jimin appreciated the show, although he could see right through it. Yerin wasn’t an innocent girl, that much was apparent.

Even though Jimin knew that, he didn’t expect her to be this bold. To lean across the table, cutely, and  to purse her tiny pink lips and look at him expectantly.

Why not, thought Jimin. Not like it mattered. He might even score tonight, if he plays the game right. Making what he thought was a cool-looking smirk, he leaned onto his elbows and across the table towards her. For a split second he could taste cherry Chapstick on his lips, but then-

SMASH.

Time stopped for two long, long seconds. Burning pain spread from the back of Jimin’s skull, as if a thousand needles were attacking the skin of his scalp.

Twisting around, Jimin’s heart seemed to stop.

There he was, red hair all over his burning eyes. In one hand Jin held a beer bottle – well, only half of it really, since the other end was broken. Brown pieces of glass were scattered across the floor.

Jimin could only glimpse Taehyung looking up at Jin in absolute shock, peaceful expression morphing into something wild and dangerous. Taehyung abruptly standing up, knocking over his chair and his tower of toothpicks and snatching a bottle from the pile in front of Namjoon and raising his arm to throw it.

After that, everything went black.

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