“Mr. Min, I’m being serious here.”

The only response was a low, husky laugh and a small smirk.

“Mr. Min, this is not a laughing matter.  If I were you, I’d wipe that grin off your face and for once in your life, pay attention to what I’m saying.”  The professor took off his black frames and wiped them with a corner of his white lab coat.  He put them back on with a sigh and shook his head at the sight of the faint smile still playing at the edge of Yoongi’s lips.

He gave Yoongi the sternest look he could manage.  Why couldn’t the kid understand that slacking off in college was not acceptable?  Twenty-three years old was an interesting age to be at.  Ah yes, that beautiful moment in life when a person was legally an adult but still in the process of adjusting their lifestyle and trying to act like one.  Professor Kim knew that Yoongi was just doing what any university senior would be doing.  Partying, getting drunk, not bothering to study for exams or do homework.  To sum it all up, the kid was simply enjoying his youth.  However, being a senior didn’t give him the right to behave like this.

Professor Kim didn’t understand it.  Contrary to popular belief, professors were not oblivious to rumors that flew around campus.  From what he heard of his students’ conversations, Min Yoongi had it all: filthy rich parents, fancy-schmancy sports cars, and a full scholarship to Seoul National University.  Everything he had in his life had been handed to him on a shining golden platter.  Why was he throwing it all away by forsaking the education his parents had worked so hard to provide for him?  Professor Kim sighed for what was probably the tenth time that day and tried again.

The mint-haired man, however, was not paying attention in the slightest.  He tilted his lab stool onto its back legs and watched through half-focused eyes as his biology professor rambled on and on about how important it was that he do well in school so he could find a successful job after he graduated.  The man switched his mind off and let his thoughts wander.

What the professor had wrongly assumed was that Yoongi gave a single about his grades and his future.  Well, he did care about his future, but not the one Professor Kim was talking about.

Majoring in biology had not been Yoongi’s decision-- his parents had decided that for him, just like they had decided that they would use their opulence and their social status to bribe their son’s way into Korea’s most prestigious university.  That was the way the upper class functioned.  It didn’t matter that Yoongi’s grades and test scores weren’t high enough for him to qualify.  What mattered was that his parents had a lot of money.

“Imagine what your parents would think if you got kicked out of university.  Think about how ashamed they would be.  A lifetime spent on education, all that effort and money gone to waste,“ Professor Kim continued.  The mention of his wealthy parents brought Yoongi back to the real world for a few moments.  “They won’t be around forever, you know.  There’s a certain point in life where you’ve got to take responsibility and learn how to survive on your own.  At the rate you’re going, you won’t be able to live the same extravagant lifestyle you’re living right now.  In the future, if you want to be able to afford everything you have right now, you’re going to have to work much, much harder.”

To tell the truth, Yoongi would have given up all his wealth in a heartbeat if it meant that he could leave this hellhole of a school.  He didn’t care whether he lived in the most luxurious dorm building on campus or on the streets.  He didn’t care whether he wore designer everything-- down to designer monogrammed pajamas and designer boxers-- or hand-me-downs.

The one thing that Yoongi cared about was hip-hop.  He had first tasted hip-hop in sixth grade and had fallen in love with it almost immediately.  By the time he finished middle school, he was composing his own songs on a daily basis.  In high school, he didn’t just continue writing lyrics, he began producing as well.  Yoongi was staying up into the small hours on a regular basis like everyone else his age was doing, often locking himself in his room for long periods of time and stumbling out at the crack of dawn to get ready for class.  However, he wasn’t studying like his peers were, but working on his mixtapes.  Since his parents practically had cash instead of blood flowing through their veins, he had what was virtually a professional music studio up in his room.

While his parents didn’t mind that Yoongi spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on all that equipment, they did mind that he wanted to make a career out of such a “silly, trivial hobby”.  They minded very much.

To hell with his parents and to hell with biology!  To Yoongi, it was biology that was silly and trivial-- he had never cared very much about how the Krebs Cycle worked or what the insides of a fetal pig looked like.  What was the point in knowing how to run an agarose gel if he was never going to use that knowledge outside a lab?

Music, on the other hand, was omnipresent.  Life itself had its own rhythm, its own unique beat.  Even though everyone’s life were different, music was something that connected them all.  It had the capability to capture a someone’s very soul and make them feel things they never knew they could feel.  Yoongi’s soul had long been taken over by what he considered both his work and his hobby.  Yoongi had a way with words and could mold his innermost thoughts and dreams into the most beautiful and ingenious verses.  He wasn't very good at singing, but he rapped the way other people breathed.  He would sometimes spend hours, days, and weeks at a time trying to get his voice to sound a certain way.  He would stand for nothing less than perfection.  The song couldn't have a single section that was awkwardly worded, the instrumental wouldn't sound right if there was even one beat that didn't fit in.  Tedious as the whole process was, Yoongi absolutely loved it.

The euphoria he got from telling the stories of his life was something very special to him.  What brought him the most personal satisfaction was writing songs that had meaningful lyrics.  Not all songs had to be about love and and drugs; there were so many things wrong with the world and how society functioned, and so many ways he could convey that through his music.

Transcribing all those thoughts was much more important to Yoongi than knowing that the mitochondria was the powerhouse of the cell.  He chuckled quietly to himself at how ridiculous it all was.  Then he noticed that Professor Kim had stopped talking.  His arms were crossed and he looked like he had just ingested a piece of rotten fruit.  There was a long silence as the two of them looked at each other.

"Yeah.  Yeah, sure, that makes sense.”  Yoongi made a vague hand gesture to acknowledge that he understood whatever nonsense Professor Kim had been spouting for the past few minutes.  He was more concerned about how soon he could get out of his office rather than the consequences of him not having paid any attention.  After all, he didn’t care about what Professor Kim thought of him.  He didn’t care what anyone thought of him.

Professor Kim gawked at him in disbelief before pressing his palm to his forehead and making an exasperated noise.

“Jesus, Yoongi.  What do I need to do to hold your attention for five minutes?  Chuck something at your head?  Tie you to a chair?”

Yoongi held back a snicker as he tried to imagine his geeky biology professor tying him to the lab stool.

“Min Yoongi, please.  Focus.”

“Sorry, professor.”  He shrugged and fiddled the sleeves of his blue and silver bomber jacket.  His eyes flitted to the clock on the wall.  “Is there anything else you needed?  I’m meeting up with my friend later and I’m running a little behind schedule.”

“Are you meeting up with someone to study for midterms?  You do realize that they’re coming up in two weeks, right?”

“Not exactly.  But it’s no problem, ‘course I know about midterms.”

“I certainly hope you do, Yoongi.”

“‘Course I do.”

“I also hope you realize that you’re right on the brink of getting kicked out of university.  I know senioritis can be hard to deal with, but from what your previous instructors have told me, you seem to have had senioritis since you were a freshman, and now that you’re actually a senior, it’s only getting worse.”

Professor Kim’s voice dropped in volume and his gaze softened, but his next words made Yoongi flinch, the action clashing with his otherwise indifferent attitude towards the conversation.

“Unless you can pull yourself together in time for the midterm, I hate to say it, but you won’t pass this quarter.  That means you won’t graduate on time, and I don’t imagine your folks will be very happy when they hear the news.  Unless you put in a little elbow grease, things aren’t going to turn very well for you.  Do you understand me?”

Yoongi closed his eyes for a second and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah I got it.  It’s no problem.”  But his nonchalant words didn’t match his tone of voice.  He sounded more fatigued than he had before.

“Make that a lot of elbow grease.” Professor Kim cocked an eyebrow.  “There will be a problem if you don’t show me you can change your attitude about your education.  Changing your attitude means not ditching class.  Changing your attitude means no more partying all night and getting no work done.”

Yoongi didn’t bother to correct him.  Everyone who knew Min Yoongi assumed that he didn’t show up to class because he was hungover or too lazy to be bothered with sitting through lectures.  That was partially true.  Yoongi seemed to be half-asleep during the day, whether it was in the classroom or anywhere else.  What wasn’t true was the part about carousing his days away.  The few who really knew Min Yoongi knew that he had better, more important things to do than sleep with girls 24/7 and go clubbing every other day: the music career he wanted and would always want was his first priority.

Sighing to himself, Yoongi rose and the lab stool scraped loudly against the tiled floor.  He began to walk out of Professor Kim’s office, his heart sinking with every step he took.

“Mr. Min, don’t leave yet.”  Yoongi stopped at the entrance and looked back at his professor, who had stood up as well.  Setting his glasses down on the desk again, Professor Kim looked him straight in the eye.  “I know you’re capable of being a good student.  You’re certainly smart enough, all you need to do is apply yourself.  This is something that can only be achieved through hard work.”

Something began bubbling inside of Yoongi.  The man clenched his fists at his side and slowly turned back around to face Professor Kim.  There were so many things he wanted to say to him, there were so many things he was so wrong about.  But he knew that if he tried to explain, one of two things would happen, and Yoongi didn’t want either instance to occur.  So he collected himself, hid the irritation he felt, and let out his characteristically deep rattle of a laugh.

“And why would you bother worrying about me?”  He drawled.  “You’re one to speak, aren’t ‘cha?  You’re not that much older than I am.  Don’t tell me that you had your future all planned out when you were my age.  Don’t tell me you never behaved the way I did when you were a senior.  You can’t ing tell me what to do with my life because try as you might to convince yourself otherwise, this is my future, and you can’t force-feed me your advice.  I can manage my academics and my life by myself.  Trust me.”

Kim Seokjin rose his eyebrows at his student’s blatant rudeness and opened his mouth to rebuke him before realizing that unfortunately, Yoongi was right in a sense.  He had been a slacker himself when he was in high school, graduating at the very bottom of his class.  Yet here he was ten years later, teaching at the nation’s top university.  He had been exactly like Yoongi, not caring at all about his grades until he realized for himself the importance of education. It had been a hard-learned lesson.

It was only fair that he let Yoongi figure that out by himself too because it was just one of those things that you couldn’t teach someone.  After all, he had just said himself that he was a smart kid.  With that, he let him saunter out of his office without another word, watching as the man's mint-colored head bob as he walked.

The second he stepped out of the room, Yoongi’s blood boiled over.  He managed to wait until he was outside of the biology building before sending a furious, well-aimed kick to a stone bench that was sitting nearby.  The jarring impact of his heel against the rock caused him to stumble backwards, a lengthy stream of profanity shooting out his mouth as he did so.  With a growl of frustration, Yoongi spat on the ground and stalked his way off campus, for what he had told Professor Kim had been a lie.

Yoongi wasn’t free to decide his own future, not at all.  When he found that his parents had gotten him accepted into Seoul National University, Yoongi had been beside himself with joy.  He knew exactly what he was going to major in: music.  His hopes were dashed when his parents told him that he wasn’t allowed to do that.

The only way Yoongi could pursue his dream was if he first graduated as a biology major.  Only then would parents consider-- consider, mind you-- letting him become a musician and officially release the mixtapes he had created over the years.

If Professor Kim knew what kind of future he really wanted for himself, Yoongi would have been told at least one of two things.  The first was the speech he had already heard from his parents many times over the course of his high school years, the one about how difficult it was for underground musicians to succeed.  There were hundreds of independent artists, and only a select few would rise to popularity. It was therefore a useless path to go on, one his parents would not stand for.  The second was that Yoongi should follow his own wishes and make a career out of his passion.  A conference between his parents and the professor would ensue.  Professor Kim would try to convince his parents, but that wouldn’t change anything.  It would only lead to a harsh scolding afterwards and a reminder of what Yoongi’s true priorities should be.

Yoongi already had everything he might want.  The problem was, the thing he wanted most was out of his reach in the worst way possible.  He didn’t want to write songs by himself and not have anyone else know about them.  He wanted to get his name out there, and that wasn’t going to happen unless he went according to his parents wishes.  As much as he hated it, studying biology was the only path that could lead to his music career.

What he lacked was the motivation, the mental strength he needed to bring himself to learn about the unbearable subject.  Luckily, he knew exactly where he could get some of that.

It was time to head over to the abandoned train yard.

Hi my readers/subscribers ^^

And the first chapter is up?  It's not the most exciting chapter in the world, but there's a lot of important background info, and I hope you still enjoyed it ^^ I know I said that I would wait until I finished the entire story before beginning to publish it, but I've had the first chapter completed for almost a week now and I couldn't resist... also because my poster and my background are finally up and I think they're both really pretty LOL

This feels kinda weird because this is the first time I'm writing about a group other than Super Junior... I did write a oneshot a while back that featured Jin and Dara, but it was pretty short and it wasn't the same as a chaptered fic, so I guess that doesn't really count.  But I feel like I know BTS' personalities and images well enough to be able to write a fully-fledged fic about them?  Well, not everything that I write here about their personalities is going to be accurate of course, but some things (like Yoongi's passion for music) will be.

Thank you for reading, comment, subscribe, and upvote if you haven't already, and have a lovely day everyone ^^