“I’m gonna write it!” Taehyung yelled as he lept up from the couch and began to dash across the living room to grab his laptop from his backpack.

“NO!”” Jimin protested, throwing himself onto the ground to grab on to Taehyung’s legs.

“I am, I am, I am!” the standing boy chanted manically, dragging Jimin across the apartment floor with him.

“Tae, please” Jimin fake cried. He looked up at his best, pouting his thick lips and trying his damned hardest to get his eyes to well up. He managed to squeeze out one unconvincing tear, but before it had the chance to run down his cheek a childish smirk crept across his face.

“Aish, stop with the crocodile tears! It’s gonna be fun and you know it!” Taehyung laughed as he looked down as his petulant friend.

“You look dumb lay here on the ground, Jimin-ah. Get up and give me some inspiration!” He continued while gently shaking Jimin off his leg.

“Hey this is your stupid idea. You can write it but I will supervise to make sure you don’t make me sound like a total desperado” Jimin groaned, giving up and loosening his clutch on Taehyung’s calves.

 

Taehyung sat the laptop down on the kitchen table and began to smile his infamous boxy grin. After a few moments he jumped to his feet and ran to his bedroom to fetch a few items he claimed were ‘essential’ to the task at hand.

He returned wearing a pair of circle framed glasses, a small reporter’s notebook and a pen.

Taehyung sat down at the table and opened a Word document before looking up at Jimin, smiling happily

“And what are you doing?” Jimin quizzed in a condescending tone to mask the nerves that were consuming him. His stomach was already the home to a colony of butterflies and words had yet to be typed.

“Sit across from me Jimminie, let me get a good  look at you” Tae demanded.

“Tae, there is no prescription in those lenses” Jimin mocked, sitting down and doing as he was told.

“Hmmm, well, let me see here…” Taehyung pondered, his imaginary beard with his right thumb and index finger.

“What?” Jimin asked impatiently.

“Patience! My good man” Taehyung snapped in response.

“Tae, if you’re gonna have to go full method actor for this then let me know when you’re in role...I’m gonna go study for finals” Jimin started, getting up from his chair.

Jimin had no patience for Taehyung at times. You see, Tae was an acting student and he took the roles very, very seriously. So seriously that at one point Jimin had to eat dinner with Rafiki for three weeks.

“Alright, kiss goodbye to pretty train boy..” Tae sighed, moving his hand to close his laptop.

“Wait!” Jimin shouted, lunging towards the laptop to stop the laptop from shutting.

“Let’s just…start again” he continued, slowly sitting back down into his seat.

If there was any hope of not seeming desperate it, well, that ship had sailed.

 

Tae grinned at Jimin smugly across the table.

“Okay. How tall are you Jiminnie?” Taehyung asked, looking up at his friend with the same smug grin on his face.

“177cm” Jimin said confidently.

“Yah, in your dreams buddy” Taehyung laughed loudly.

“Hey you’re supposed to be helping me!” Jimin frowned at his friend, knowing fully that he was significantly shorter than the height he’d claimed to be.

“Okay you’re 170..” Tae said as he began to write down in the notebook.

“No way! I went to the doctor’s office six months ago and he told me I was 174cm!” Jimin protested.

“Oh fine 173....At a push” Taehyung mumbled, scribbling a 3 over the 0.

“Now, what were you wearing on the day you saw your beloved?” He continued.

“Why is that important? I mean I was wearing what I usually wear...hoody and some jeans… but it can’t be too obvious...And don’t call him that!” Jimin answered defensively. He did want to be noticed, who was he trying to kid afterall? but his shyness was starting to get the better of him.

“Do you want him to know it’s you or not?!” Taehyung asked bluntly.

“Well...yeah...but I don’t think he’ll even see it anyway and... he’s probably never noticed me before” Jimin mumbled quietly, his eyes lowered to the floor.

 

“Okay lets take the focus from you, then. After all it’s got to describe him since its about him, right? What does he look like” Taehyung asked.

“I’ve told you before, Tae! But… Ah.. He’s got blonde hair…” Jimin started.

“Gonna need more than that bro..” Tae looked at Jimin disappointedly.

“Fine. Recently he’s been wearing a snapback, a black hoody with ‘SUGA’ in a white bold font printed on it” Jimin said, finally giving his friend something to work with.

“Suga?..What does that mean?” Tae asked, pushing up his glasses and looking off into the distance (aka the kitchen) inquisitively to contemplate the possible meaning.

Some moments passed as detective, matchmaker, whatever he was this time, sat in wonder.

“Earth to Tae?” Jimin said monotonically. His words came out harsher than he planned on, but his friend took no notice anyway.

“Nah, I can’t think of anything…” Taehyung finally groaned.

So, does he do anything interesting that you’ve picked up on during your journey?” he pressed.

“He’s usually reading a magazine... Blink magazine if I recall correctly” Jimin replied, slightly worried that his observations could come across a bit stalkery.

“SUGA the photographer!” Tae exclaimed in a Eureka! type fashion.

“Yeah maybe..” Jimin smiled to himself quietly.

“Ah” he continued. “I haven’t seen him finish a page of the magazine actually...he usually looks at the pages for a few minutes before putting it away and looking a bit off color” Jimin remembered.

“He always picks up the free newspaper, though...hence why we’re...trying this” He added.

“Interesting.” Taehyung wondered, pushing the glasses further up his nose.

“I just figure he’s travel sick or something” Jimin said sadly. As the words left his mouth he caught himself wondering why he felt concern for a stranger.

“I have enough information Jiminnie, you’re dismissed” Tae said, motioning with his hand for his friend to get up and leave the room.

“You’ll let me know before you post it, right?!” Jimin asked worriedly, slowly standing from his chair.

“Maybe...Anyway get out there’s a submission deadline of 8pm!” Taehyung grinned as he wrote down more notes on the paper.

 

“Yah Tae I’m going to class now, I’ll meet you at the pizza place in Itaewon later ok?” Jimin called through Taehyung’s bedroom door.

Some muffled grumbling presumably from the other boy could be heard through the wood. Jimin assumed that was a confirmation that their plans were still on for Taehyung’s belated birthday dinner that evening.

“You’d better be there after all the fuss you made” Jimin shouted through the apartment as he was leaving.

 

Classes were slow and each hour that passed made Jimin wonder exactly why he’d chosen to major in Public Relations. A mixture of something he excelled in and what his parents wanted him to do, he figured. Either way he was bored and all he could think about was whether or not the subject of his submission to the ‘Rush hour crush’ section of the subway newspaper had read the entry Taehyung had posted last night. Jimin hadn’t actually read it yet but he trusted Taehyung, as extra as he could be...he wouldn’t write something totally offhand. Or would he?

 

When classes finished Jimin made his way to Hongik university station to catch the train into Itaewon. He felt a slight feeling of apprehension as he boarded the train. The train was pretty full as it was a Friday evening rush hour. It was always around this time that the blonde stranger would board the train at the next stop, so the tension coursing through what felt like every fibre of Jimin’s body was raging.

He sat down at one of the seats that came with a table and set his backpack on top of it. Useful, he thought. This way if the handsome stranger got on board he wouldn’t be able to see him.

Calm down, he told himself as the train started up again and began to chug along.

“Let’s assess the damage then” he mumbled to himself, thumbing through the newspaper to the relevant section.

 

And there it was...

 

Pretty blonde guy in the snapback reading Blink magazine. You looked a little travel sick, I bet I could make you feel better. Coffee sometime, sugar?

• Tall guy with the cute eye-smile, Seoul.

 

Jimin closed his eyes began muttering to himself like a madman.

“Oh my god. Oh...My god”  he said quietly, wiping sweat off his brow. He didn’t supervise, and he looked like a desperado.

The train halted and the next batch of passengers boarded the train. Jimin put his head in his hands and rested his elbows on the table in front of him. This couldn’t actually be happening.

After a few minutes he opened them again to see what could only be described in the moment as his worst nightmare. The blonde, reading the newspaper, less than a metre in front of him.

Jimin quickly ducked his head behind his backpack and slammed his eyes shut again.

“This isn’t happening...This isn’t happening...I’m ed if he reads that” Jimin was screaming at himself in his mind.

 

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzz.

Jimin’s phone began to ring and none other than the culprit himself, “Tae Tae” was displayed on the caller ID.

“Hello?” he answered the call abruptly.

“Hi my sweetie how was your day?” Taehyung said in a high pitched, teenage girl-esque voice before cackling obnoxiously down the phone.

“I can’t talk right now” Jimin spat down the receiver.

“Whyyyy?~” Taehyung whined, maintaining the same girly tone.

Jimin looked up at the boy sat in front of him reading the newspaper. He was reading a different section, so far, so good.

“Where are you?” Jimin asked, calmer this time.

“I’m at Itaewon station waiting for you, loser, was your train delayed?” Taehyung kidded.

“No it was..” Jimin began.

The boy across from him turned the page, reaching the section that he’d either ignore or realise an entry was about him and file a restraining order against Jimin and Jimin would have to quit university and his parents would disown him.

“On time” he continued, his words were semi-strangled coming out of his throat.

“Ooooh Jimminie what’s going on?!” Taehyung taunted, probably getting the feeling that had just got real.

“Nothing nothing” Jimin replied in a fake upbeat tone, smiling as he said it to make it more believable, even though his friend couldn’t see his face anyway.

 

That’s when all of a sudden he noticed the boy in front of him flash him a quizzitive look.

Out of politeness and sheer awkwardness, Jimin smiled sweetly at the blonde to make the moment a little less weird. Was it weird? Or was it all in his mind? Probably the latter but at this point it really didn’t matter. Jimin was already trying to find ways to explain to his father that  PR wasn’t for him after all and he’d rather work at the family cafe instead.

 

The blonde looked down at the paper and then back up again to Jimin and smiled.

“Jimin?...Jiminnie? Jimminie babo~” Taehyung was calling down the phone.

“Oh, sorry, yeah, I’m almost there. I’ll be there soon” Jimin said calmly as he ended the call.

 

After a several minutes of looking around the cabin and out of the train window, anywhere else to avoid the eyes of the boy seated across from him the train halted and they had reached Itaewon station.

Jimin put his head down to continue his act of avoiding the blonde and began to collect his things. As he looked back up to sling his backpack over his shoulder, the boy had gone but there was now a scrap of paper on the table that hadn’t been there before.

Jimin let the rest of the passengers pass him before letting curiosity get the better of him and snatching up the paper.

 

“You’re cute. Call me, sugar.” it read, with a number scribbled underneath with a single initial, Y.