Every time Taehyung drags Jimin through the ether, he swears his life flashes before his eyes.

It’s always snippets of third grade when he accidentally turned Frankie Wilson’s hair vomit orange after tripping on a chair leg. When he made it start snowing on their class field trip to the natural history museum, because Alex Lowell had looked at him for more than five seconds. The time he sneezed during recess and melted the jungle gym and became the pariah of his elementary school forever.

Okay, so, technically not his whole life. Just the parts that scarred him permanently before he learned to control the magic running through his veins.

Which wasn’t easy. Like, at all. Because even though Jimin wasn’t the only freak around, it’s not like the books or the movies where there’s a special school for the magically inclined that everyone gets invited to. No secret club, no mystical castle, not even a ing batcave. Isn’t that lame? Jimin thinks it’s lame. Or did, at least. The learning center he went to after classes most days hadn’t been the most exciting hole in the wall, but it’s where he met Seokjin and it was certainly better than nothing. Better than unintentionally hurting himself or others whenever he so much as twitched wrong. Better than never understanding why he was different.

Actually, Jimin still has trouble understanding that. He can conjure a tiny galaxy in the palm of his hand and probably literally move mountains, but he can’t talk to cute guys on buses who look at him like he’s more than just an oddity. Like maybe he’s the magic instead of it just being something he’s sort of good at.

Jimin thinks about what Taehyung said a few minutes ago and tries not to feel too overwhelmed. It’s not his fault he grew up in a microscopic, nothing town and didn’t know how far behind he was until he took his first proficiency exam. Now this? He frowns at the moss-covered ground under his feet. He probably found a way to break the laws of magic by breathing too loudly.

“Hey, slow poke, hurry up. I don’t even know if he’s home,” Taehyung shouts from further along the driveway.

Jimin sighs and walks faster. He’d be lying, though, if he said things hadn’t improved drastically since Taehyung happened.

“Don’t you two have some kind of direct demonic link?” he asks, falling into step with him as Hoseok’s old house appears behind a knot of even older trees.

“Yup. But he’s not answering.”

“And we’re not concerned, because…?”

Taehyung bounds up the front steps onto the wide porch and narrows his eyes at the door, gently running his fingers over the wood grain. Various runes appear under his touch, glow faintly, and then fade. The tense line of his shoulders softens almost immediately.

“Because Hoseok and I go way back and if something was wrong, I would’ve felt it,” Taehyung murmurs, giving him a brief, boxy grin. Jimin can still see the concern in the crease of his eyebrows.

It’s all for nothing, as it turns out, because Hoseok himself flings the door open before Taehyung can lift his hand to knock. He looks more than a little haggard in his rumpled t-shirt and boxers--red hair sticking up at weird angles, one sock mysteriously absent from his right foot.

“Awful timing as always, Taehyung,” Hoseok sighs.

Taehyung balks.

“Excuse me? I called and you didn’t even pick up!”

“Did it ever cross your pea-sized brain that there was a reason for that?” Hoseok shoots back, scowling.

“Well whatever you were doing can wait,” Taehyung argues. “This is important.”

They stand there in the doorway staring each other down for the longest ten seconds of Jimin’s life; Taehyung defiant and Hoseok annoyed but thoughtful. He can’t decide if they’re about to start pulling each other’s hair or just make out.

Hoseok stares at Taehyung a little harder and must find whatever he’s searching for, because he deflates a moment later and rolls his eyes. “Everything is important.”

Beaming, Taehyung leans in and smacks a kiss against Hoseok’s cheek, then strolls into the house without another word. Although Jimin suspects Taehyung is still talking, judging by the ghost of pink creeping onto Hoseok’s face.

“Hi, Jimin.” Hoseok bobs his head awkwardly in greeting and steps aside.

“Hey,” Jimin blurts. He tells himself not to smile too big and not to let his foot catch the door jamb like he did last time. “Sorry, um...sorry for intruding.”

Hoseok pats him on the shoulder, his lips twitching wryly.

“Don’t sweat it. I just feel like I’ve been trying to take a nap for the last decade.”

He laughs. Hoseok’s smirk widens. They hear a crash in another room and now Hoseok is groaning, leaving Jimin to hover in the foyer alone.

“Damnit, Tae, if you broke something again I’m gonna break your neck.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine!” comes Taehyung’s strained reply.

Jimin breathes deep, lets it out in a rush. The old house creaks around him and then the door swings shut all on its own. He can even feel the wards sealing them in. The magic woven into each particle, from the stone foundation to the flimsy weather vane perched on the roof. He adjusts his backpack on his shoulder and clenches his fingers, willing himself not to be nervous. Because it’s not that he doesn’t like Hoseok. It’s that Hoseok is basically a god among sorcerers and Jimin lives in fear of disappointing him.

Padding further into the house, he follows the sound of their bickering with caution, trying not to get distracted by all of the bizarre artifacts littering dusty bookshelves--hiding under side tables, hanging from the walls and the ceiling. There are probably more tucked away in closets and drawers and one day, Jimin’s going to ask for Hoseok’s permission to wander. One day definitely not being this day.

“I swear to every god you’re like a destructive toddler,” Hoseok grumbles. He’s cradling mangled pieces of silver and copper to his chest, Taehyung beside him with a hand over his mouth and eyebrows curved in guilt.

“I’m sorry!” Taehyung whines through his fingers. Then he quickly crosses his arms, sticking both hands into his armpits. “I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

Hoseok snorts and spares him a sharp look. “That’s a lie.”

Jimin knows they know he’s lingering in the study doorway, but they haven’t acknowledged him yet. He isn’t really in a hurry to be acknowledged, anyway, still dreading the conversation they’re here to have in the first place.

“Please don’t be mad,” Taehyung pleads, moving into Hoseok’s space and ducking down to catch his eye. “I’ll get you another one.”

“This is more than two thousand years old, you idiot.” Hoseok laughs once, shaking his head and meeting Taehyung’s gaze directly. “If--” he cuts himself off, chewing on his lip.

They fall silent, continuing the conversation in private. Jimin watches the subtle play of emotions over each of their faces until he can’t take being the invisible third wheel anymore and gently clears his throat.

Hoseok jumps, plastering on a grin so cheery his eyes disappear. “Right. So. You guys needed to talk?”

He pretends not to notice how gross they’re being and moves to sit in one of the large, overstuffed chairs that smell like lemongrass and herbs he doesn’t have names for. Taehyung leans against the edge of Hoseok’s desk, smiling in the way Jimin has categorized as his Smile. The one he uses when he’s about to gleefully throw Jimin under the bus or force him outside of his comfort zone.

“Actually, Jimin needed to tell you something.”

“What? Why me?” he protests, even though a part of him definitely saw this coming.

Taehyung’s eyes flash gold.

“Practice.”

I hate you so much right now, Jimin thinks, hurling the thought as aggressively as he can.

You’ll thank me later, Taehyung replies smoothly. He’s looking more smug by the minute.

Jimin scoffs out loud.

Fat chance.

“Well?” Hoseok asks, glancing between the two of them, already exasperated as he drops the broken artifact onto the desk. “I can bend time, but I can’t make more, let’s hear it.”

, he thinks to himself. Pressure builds in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety and the irrational fear of failure, but that’s stupid when all he has to do is tell Hoseok what happened. Right. Because what happened isn’t totally ed up and probably my fault. Jimin squirms in the chair, clutching his backpack tightly. He doesn’t predict this going very well.

“Um--” he starts and stops, then tries again. “So, I-- we, uh, we were on the bus, right?”

Hoseok’s expression doesn’t shift from blank attentiveness and Taehyung’s eyebrows are starting to furrow. Come on, loser. Just unclench.

“Sorry.” Jimin coughs, screwing his eyes shut. “We were on the bus, and Taehyung realized someone was watching him that shouldn’t have been able to.”

When he cracks his eyes open, Hoseok is still blank-faced, but his posture has changed--body tilting forward slightly in interest. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? Jimin keeps going, telling Hoseok about Namjoon approaching them, but not the way his heart had leapt into his throat like it wanted to abandon a sinking ship. Not the way his insides felt like they were disintegrating every time the strange boy opened his mouth to speak. Instead, he focuses on explaining how Namjoon had never seen a familiar before, never met anyone like them, was sensitive to magic. Jimin’s magic. He refrains from mentioning his little display. The last thing he needs right now is a lecture on top of a lecture, this is already a big deal.

But all Hoseok does is stand there, mouth turned down at the corners just enough to be noticed. Jimin grips his bag tighter and attempts to prepare himself for the inevitable reprimand.

“You forgot one small but crucial detail,” Taehyung adds before Hoseok can say anything.

Jimin makes a face. “What are you talking about? No I didn’t.” If Taehyung rats him out, he’s going to--

Except Taehyung interrupts Jimin’s plans for revenge, amusement living in every single one of his atoms as he bounces on the balls of his feet.

“The spark, you nerd. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

To be honest, he thought forgetting about it had been the best course of action. Jimin stares down at his fingers, flexing them back and forth. They still tingle. Just a tiny bit.

“What spark?” Hoseok asks, arching a brow.

“When…” He draws in a calming breath and tries to figure out the best way to put this. “When we shook hands. There was a shock of electricity or something. Kind of like static, but more painful.”

And just like that, Hoseok’s face takes on a life of its own--lips pulling into a pucker as he falls back against the desk, clarity seeming to hit him all at once. “Oh,” he exhales.

Hoseok regards Jimin so intently that Jimin has to turn away. Wild heat prickles underneath his skin. He wills the tidal wave of anxiety into a formless puddle.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Yes, Hoseok, why are you looking at him like that?” Taehyung asks. And then, more excitedly, “You know, don’t you.” But that’s not a question.

In his periphery, Hoseok offers a lazy shrug.

“I’m surprised you don’t, actually.”

“Not all of us are an omniscient pain in the ,” Taehyung counters flatly.

Jimin catches Hoseok reach up to pat Taehyung’s cheek as he stands.

“Don’t worry, you’re halfway there.”

Barking with laughter, Taehyung attempts to kick Hoseok and misses by a mile. Under different circumstances, he might be more entertained by their weird, never ending mating ritual, but he’s a bit more concerned about the nervous churning in his stomach. About Hoseok’s nonchalance while he scours the bookcases for something specific, long fingers dancing over aged spines. Taehyung drifts towards Jimin to settle on the arm of the chair and squeezes his shoulder.

You’re freaking out.

He tracks Hoseok and his slow migration over the shelves. The suspense is killing him, how could he not be freaking out. Jimin sends Taehyung a mental frown. So were you.

Yeah, but that was earlier, Taehyung answers simply.

And for him, it really is that simple. Sometimes Jimin envies Taehyung’s ease of being, because everything always rolls off of him like droplets of rain.

Do you think it’s gonna be bad? he asks, the thought small. Quiet.

Bad? Nah. Taehyung squeezes his shoulder again and grins. Hoseok didn’t look like he was pissing himself.

Jimin laughs slightly. You’re both disgusting, by the way.

Taehyung’s squawk of offense is cut short when Hoseok’s triumphant “Found it!” fills the room. He freezes immediately--breath hanging suspended in his lungs. Even Taehyung’s ever-present buzz of energy seems to taper off into a soft hum.

“It’s incredibly rare, but not unheard of…” Hoseok murmurs, balancing a giant tome in one hand, the other trailing over brittle, yellowed pages as he reads. “Ancient magic, blah blah, only a few cases in recorded history. Some warlocks used to think it was the same reincarnated souls meeting over and over again, but nothing’s been proven. My first mentor had a few theories that were really interesting, now that I think about it, she--”

“Hoseok,” Taehyung interjects.

“Mmm?”

“Get to the point.”

“Oh. Yeah, of course.” Hoseok snaps the tome shut and looks up, smiling. “He’s your soulmate.”

Jimin’s sense of reality folds in on itself.

“My what?” he asks. His voice sounds hollow to his own ears.

“Soulmate,” Hoseok repeats, hand weaving blithely through the air. “Y’know, meant for each other? Written in the heavens. The red string of Fate, all that good .”

“Oh my god, this is so cool,” Taehyung gushes.

In the next moment, Jimin feels his heart seize in his chest--once, twice--then a surge of panic floods his body and the oriental rug in the middle of the floor bursts into flames.

“Sorry!” he cries, leaping out of the chair. Hoseok extinguishes the fire almost as soon as it starts, but the rug is already singed black beyond repair. Jimin worries that it could’ve been another antique. Something irreplaceable and priceless. A second avalanche of panic threatens to crash into him. “I’m-- God, I’m so sorry.”

The only thing he can do is run so he doesn’t inflict any further damage, leaving them both wide-eyed and speechless, blindly finding his way outside onto the porch.

His ears are ringing, body thrumming from the unexpected magical outburst. Jimin walks laps around the house until he can form a thought that doesn’t involve the words idiot and worthless. Although it’s easier to beat himself up for his lack of control than think about the fact that he has a ing soulmate. How the hell is that even real, anyway?

Releasing a frustrated huff, he stops halfway through a loop and plops down on the edge of the platform. Jimin stares out at the old, gnarled forest. It’s been twenty-one years of struggling to accept his powers, how is he supposed to accept this?

The house creaks. A breeze groans through the trees. He senses Taehyung’s approach before his thick-soled boots hit the wooden planks.

Jimin doesn’t say anything when his friend and familiar sits down beside him, arm and leg pressed against his own. Taehyung doesn’t say anything, either, just radiates tranquility. Radiates heat and the kind of intimacy Jimin didn’t realize he’d always wanted until Taehyung suddenly existed. His teacher, his protector, his confidante. He supposes that’s a version of soulmate. A sliver of something Jimin isn’t prepared to unravel.

He lifts his hand, fingers swaying. Jimin idly reconstructs constellations from memory and lets them hang in the air--pinpricks of light that shimmer and glow. He used to do this whenever he couldn’t sleep, because it gave him something to focus on that wasn’t everything else.

Taehyung nudges into him. “You’re really good at that.”

“It’s not that hard,” he mumbles.

“That’s what I mean,” Taehyung insists. “You make it all look so easy.”

Jimin barely restrains the urge to roll his eyes.

“Stop trying to make me feel better about setting Hoseok’s rug on fire.”

“He’s not mad.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He said he’s always hated that rug, anyway.” Taehyung shrugs, casting him an amused glance. “Said it didn’t tie the room together.”

Surprised laughter rockets out of his mouth at the joke and the pinpricks of light change color, going turquoise and red and warm shades of purple when Taehyung chuckles along with him. Jimin doesn’t feel like he’s drowning so much anymore, at least. Because if Jimin is good at making things look easy, Taehyung has always been really good at saving him. That might seem dramatic, but that’s exactly how it feels, and he doesn’t think he deserves that, either.

Pushing the thought away, Jimin pulls more magic from within, using it to paint a nebula amongst the cluster of dancing stars. Taehyung watches and occasionally sends a smoky ribbon of orange into the mix.

“Tae…”

“Yeah.”

Jimin breathes in, lets it out in a rush. “Why me?”

“Because you’re awesome?” Taehyung replies without hesitation.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Taehyung laughs. Then he frowns and it’s so unsettling Jimin has to elbow him in the ribs to make it go away.

“But I dunno, man. I’m still learning, just like you,” Taehyung continues, swinging his legs. “And I might be old as , but the universe loves to keep her secrets. There are things I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Like why artificial grape flavoring tastes nothing like actual grapes. What is up with that? Talk about false advertising.”

Jimin isn’t sure whether he’s supposed to snort at that or not. With Taehyung it’s always hard to differentiate between sarcasm and sincerity, so he settles for patting him on the knee.

“What would you do if you were in my shoes, though?” he asks a moment later. He’s trying to process what all of this amounts to. “I don’t know Namjoon. Even saying his name feels weird.” Jimin drags a finger through the nebula and the delicate clouds disperse. “What if-- what if we hang out and he doesn’t like me?”

Taehyung gives him a wry look. “Pretty sure that’s not how soulmates work.”

“Shut up, I mean it.” Jimin sighs. “Why does being soulmates automatically mean we have to be crazy about each other?”

“Why don’t you call him and find out?”

“But--” His eyebrows knit together tightly, head full of a dimpled smile and that low, rhythmic voice. “How will I know if it’s real?”

“Don’t tell him,” Taehyung suggests. Jimin definitely snorts now.

“Lying to my soulmate right off the bat sounds like a great idea, thanks, Tae.”

Turning to face him fully, Taehyung’s large hands land heavily on his shoulders along with the weight of his gaze. This is sincerity. Jimin can tell, because his toes are curling and it’s always harder to hold.

“Just...meet up with him,” Taehyung says, gentle but also unyielding. “Grab coffee, whatever, just go and if it feels real, then it’s real. You can tell him later.”

Jimin swallows and stares down at the moss-covered ground. He doesn’t understand why this is a choice he has to make when there are more important things looming overhead. His next proficiency exam. Classwork he’s been neglecting, because sometimes he forgets that he has to be a normal twenty-something college student as well as a sorcerer. Life is pretty strange in general. Jimin’s lips twitch into a tiny smile, remembering the hint of amusement in Namjoon’s voice when he said that.

“Yeah, okay,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s arm curls around him and his smile grows. The constellations flicker, winking in the gray afternoon light. It feels like it’s going to rain.