Yoongi blinks, and by the time his eyes have opened he’s standing on the beachfront at Haeundae, overdressed for this time of year, watching the last of the season’s swimmers dashing from the water to their towels.

Jimin sees him staring, “the water’s not so cold at this time of year, it’s just a pain in the keeping warm once you’re out.”

Wind whips along the beach, but it’s not the biting European gusts that he’s been enduring for the past two weeks. Autumn here is still in full fling, and grey clouds gathering out at sea do little to dull the air of unstressed bustle that has settled over Busan.

Yoongi s the front of his coat, “It’s so warm here.”

“It’s cold in Daegu?”

“I’m not in Daegu, I’m in Budapest”

“Ah,” Jimin grins, “I thought it had been a while since I last saw you.”

“You saw me last week,” Yoongi snorts, shoving Jimin affectionately on the shoulder. He’s so very real, it’s going to take a lifetime to get used to that.

The sounds of cars tearing though narrow backstreets flare up behind him, and for a moment Yoongi feels cold nipping at his finger tips. He shivers and shoves his hands into his pockets, “lets walk.”

“You’re not here right now, I can tell,” Ikje grumbles. He grabs Yoongi’s hand and pulls him down a cobbled sidestreet. The first spots of rain are in the air and the sky is already falling dark. People start to put up umbrellas as they hurry past, muttering darkly in Hungarian.

Jimin clicks his fingers in front of Yoongi’s face, “hey!”

“Sorry, we’re on the move,” Yoongi replies, the sand feels like cobbles beneath his feet.

“We?”

“Yeah I’m with my friend, Ikje. That guy from Busan I was telling you about.”

“I can hear you, you know?” Ikje snaps.

Yoongi laughs, to himself and to both of them. Jimin gives him an amused glance, then threads an arm through his and marches them both down the beach.

Budapest fades behind him, Yoongi becomes very aware of Jimin’s body heat, the weight of their arms dragging against each other. Ikje and the rain and all of Europe fade to a background concern.

“It must be pretty early here.”

Jimin shrugs, “It’s ten in the morning, it’s not so bad.”

Yoongi shakes his head, “sounds early enough to me.”

“You gotta get out here early, leave it too late and all the space will have gone.”

Jimin stops them when they’ve passed the main crowd and have an open stretch of sand to work on. Yoongi stands back and watches him go through the motions, stretching and contracting his body to warm up his muscles before he gets started.

“You should warm up too, you know,” Jimin grins at him, “I’ve got big plans for you.”

So of course, Yoongi ignores him. He observes Jimin doing what he does, watches the waves lap against the shore, and the children playing in the foam. Sometimes he finds himself in other parts of the cluster – there’s someone in Rio, another in a very small village in northern Scotland – but Jimin is the only one he ever gets to spend any real time with.

Jimin says this is because they’re both Korean, which makes it easier to connect. Yoongi’s not going to pretend to understand how this is supposed to work but he likes having some consistency to it. He’s not good with new people, and no one’s all that brilliant at having their consciousness thrown across the globe without warning, he likes having something stable to hold on to.

“You’re staring,” Ikje snaps. He’s bundled Yoongi up against the wall of an artful old building, the likes of which would make for great photography if he had his camera with him, “I can’t even see what you’re looking at but I know you’re staring.”

Rain hangs in the air, not quite hard enough to warrant pulling up their hoods but it’s going to drench them sooner or later. On a beach in South Korea, Yoongi winces against the Hungarian rain like it’s the spray from the ocean rising up to meet him.

Ikje’s shoulder is pressed into his, knobbly and insistent. It’s warmer this way, it gives him something to keep him grounded, “he’s a dancer, he comes to the beach to practice acrobatics.”

“Why the beach?”

“Because the sand makes for a soft landing.”

“Right…didn’t you say he had a nice ?” Ikje shoots him an impish smirk. Yoongi sorely wishes he could undo whatever drunken action led to him imparting such information to anyone.

He sniffs, “his isn’t the point.”

“Yeah yeah, that’s what they all say.”

“Is everything ok?” Jimin comes bounding up to Yoongi, eyes shifting nervously as if he might be able to see the man standing half a world away at his elbow.

Yoongi nods, “yeah, Ikje’s just got no patience.”

“Oh,” Jimin’s face resolves into a grin, “then better not keep him waiting.” And then he’s off across the stand, prancing and leaping and twirling through a series of moves that look as much like flying as dancing to Yoongi. He flips, he twists, he does things that look like they should be impossible.

Jimin lands for the final time and comes running up to Yoongi, red faced and out of breath, he looks so very happy to be alive, “right, your turn.”

“Ha!” Yoongi barks, “Good one.”

“I’m serious, let’s do this.”

Jimin steps into Yoongi’s personal space all too fast, so that he doesn’t know whether to step back or bop him on the nose. A hand comes up to his shoulder to hold him in place, keeping him close, and he can feel Jimin’s body heat from thousands of miles away.

“Just take a deep breath and relax, I’ll do the rest,” Jimin whisperes.

The alarm Yoongi feels must show on his face, because the next second Ikje is tugging on his sleeve, muttering furiously about how he’s happy to “do whatever to take care of that guy if you need me to,”

“It’s fine,” Yoongi tells him, though he has no idea what Jimin’s planning.

“Look at me, just breathe, ok?” Jimin says softly, and for a moment Yoongi thinks they might be about to kiss.

But then Busan falls away from under him, and all that’s left is Budapest, Ikje confused and impotent, and the persistent drizzle. Yoongi breathes deep and feels his feet step forward of their own accord. He feels so light, he feels like he could fly.

“Don’t worry hyeong, it’s just me,” Jimin laughs as Yoongi’s pulse begins to race, “I’ve got you.”

Jimin isn’t at his side or behind him or calling out from a distance. Jimin is within him, and surrounding him, and in that moment they are one and the same person.

So Yoongi moves with Jimin’s dexterity and muscle memory, runs down the lane picking up speed and feeling like he might take off at any moment. The cobbles beneath their feet aren’t as soft as the sand but they don’t need to be, they’re not going to fall.

The moment his feet leave the ground, Yoongi feels his heart fly into his mouth. It’s nothing like jumping to reach the hoop in basketball, it’s dynamic and dangerous, and as he goes head over heels in the air, quite intentionally, it’s all Jimin in control. He doesn’t even know what to call it, be it a flip or a tumble, but it’s scary and wonderful all at once and when his feet his the ground it’s all he can do to stay standing.

Ikje clatters after him, outrage painted across his face, “what was that?”

“That was Jimin,” Yoongi says, grinning, “Little that he is.”

“Are you alright though?”

Yoongi nods, and reaches out to sling an arm around Ikje’s shoulders. It’s good to put some of his bodyweight on someone else. “I’m fine, we both are.”

“I don’t understand how that works, like how come him being with you means you can jump like that,” Ikje grumbles, as he turns them around and starts walking back up the street.

“I have no idea,” Yoongi shrugs, “we’re still working out the details.”

“You’ll have to introduce us some time, I wanna see this kid’s face before I decide whether or not I trust him.”

“You just met him,” Yoongi replies. When Ikje asks what the he’s talking about, he tips back his head and laughs.