Jimin had started the day by accidentally sleeping in. He was always a little slow in the mornings, due to his habit of staying up too late playing on his phone (a habit he shared with his younger brother) until the device fell onto his face. However, this was a particularly bad morning, as his charger had become unplugged, letting his phone die and thereby having no alarm to jolt him out of his deep sleep. On the weekends and days he didn’t have class, he slept at home, enjoying homecooked meals and late nights playing with his brother. Jungkook’s alarm often blared in the wee hours of the morning in the room they shared, since he was still a high school student with less of a flexible schedule - but the Jeon brothers were infamous for being able to sleep like the dead, so Jimin enjoyed those days he could sleep in. The irregular sleep schedule worked against him - he depended on that alarm to get him up, because his roommate Hoseok often had class before him, and he would sleep until the afternoon if allowed.

Today, he didn’t wake up until he was supposed to already be in class, so he jumped up, ran a hand through his unruly reddish orange hair, pulled on a bulky grey sweater that seemed to swallow him whole and raced out the door. He didn’t have time to eat breakfast, and he made it to class even though it was already halfway over. Due to waking up so quickly and having nothing in his belly for energy, he had a hard time staying awake through the rest of his music theory class and the following math class. His stomach growled, making the boy who sat in front of him in math lift his head, searching for the sound. Jimin sank into his seat, ducking his head in embarrassment and avoiding his glance, willing himself to be unseen. The boy with the really pretty, long hands that often tapped the end of his pencil against his collar when he was thinking… he had been distracting Jimin all semester. He sighed down at his math homework; he needed to focus on his studies more seriously if he wanted to transfer to the dance academy he wanted to next year.

Jimin was in a haze all morning until he got to his part time job at the Starbucks on the edge of campus. He shoved his face with a blueberry muffin, practically inhaling a coffee that was far too bitter for his taste in between customers. They always got pretty packed in those few minutes between classes, and Jimin had to plan his breaks accordingly, meaning that he was only finally in something resembling full consciousness around the mid afternoon, when Hoseok came in for his regular visit.

“Holding up all right? You forgot this in the room, by the way,” Hoseok handed Jimin a key chain that jingled cheerily. “Wouldn’t want you to be locked out tonight.”

“Oh my god! Thank you!” Jimin gasped, one hand reaching for his back pocket which had decidedly no keys in it. “I overslept this morning, so I’ve been off all day!”

“You nervous?” Hoseok smiled knowingly.

“Huh? I don’t think so…?” Jimin arched an eyebrow. A line of new customers pushed in from outside, bringing in a rush of the cold as well as raised voices be a history test that no one had been prepared for. Hoseok took this as his queue to go sit in one of the single seats in the corner of the room, leaving Jimin wondering what he had been talking about. At the end of the queue was one of his favorite customers, Kim Seokjin. He came in regularly, and he had stood out because he had insisted on slowly trying every single item on the menu over the first few months they had been open. He told Jimin he just wanted to try everything at least once, so he knew what he would want. He ended up going between two main drinks, a bitter Americano or a salted caramel mocha frappuccino. He always made Jimin smile, their personalities well-suited to easy-going exchanges. But today, he seemed extra excited.

“Are your classes going alright?” Jimin queried, handing him back his change.

“Yeah, just taking a break from a persuasive speech I’m working on.” He pulled a pink cell phone out of his pocket, smiling at the message displayed there. “And it looks like my brothers are here, too!”

“Oh, you have brothers?”

“Yeah, two younger brothers. They’re a pain in the neck,” Jin chuckled, “My younger brother is going to meet his soulmate today!”

“Ah, that’s so great!” Jimin beamed, his eyes disappearing with the effort. “My younger brother just turned 18, so we're not sure what his soulmate connection is gonna be!”

When Jin smiled this time, it didn’t quite look like it reached his eyes, but his tone seemed as before when he said, “I hope it’s something that makes it easy for him to find his other half.”

“Yeah, some are luckier than others…”

“Chim-chim!” Hoseok called out, walking over to lean on the counter, “Come look at this new dance practice video from-- Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, I’m done here,” Jin smiled at them both, “But Jimin, if you get a break you should come over and say hello. I’ll introduce you to my brothers.”

“Thanks, hyung, I will!”

There was a beat as Jimin watched Jin go and join his party. Then, he noticed Hoseok looking at him strangely. “What?”

“Were you flirting with Kim Seokjin?” Hoseok teased, arching one eyebrow.

“No!” Jimin protested, louder than he intended, his face flushing. “He’s just a really nice hyung, that’s all…”

“Mhm,” Hoseok smirked crookedly.

“And besides,” Jimin’s tone took on an overly sensible pitch as he rearranged some of the lids stacked just beneath the register. “I met him some weeks ago, so he’s definitely not--”

“Not your soulmate, I know. You’re so cute with your loyalty. Such an innocent little cutie, Jeon Jimin..” Hoseok patted Jimin’s round cheek at that, smiling.

Jimin flushed. He was a romantic, sure, and he had imagined himself in the most painful and angsty one-sided loves. But one thing Jimin was, was stubborn. He had decided that he would never really like anyone besides his soulmate, and he had kept himself completely innocent of everything until he met that person that was destined for him. He wanted his soulmate to have everything - his first kiss, his first date, his first time holding hands. Hoseok had when he found out - most soulmates weren’t hung up on childish things like that - but after a while, he seemed more impressed than anything else, and didn’t push Jimin for a why.

“I wish I’d kept myself for my soulmate,” Hoseok sighed. “But at least you have some idea of when you’ll meet yours. I just have a name. I could be seventy by the time I meet him.”

“So it’s definitely a him?” Jimin inquired, arching his eyebrows. A little something twinged at the edges of Jimin’s mind, like he was forgetting something important. He looked at the clock on the wall behind him, since he didn’t have his cell phone. Hm. It was about time for his break. Maybe that was it. “Jackson, I’m taking my break, okay?” He slipped off his apron and walked around to Hoseok.

“Yeah, it’s definitely a guy’s name. And not a very common family name, either,” Hoseok smiled.

“Ahh…” Jimin nodded, spotting Jin and his friends in the corner. Jutting his thumb in their direction, he asked Hoseok, “Do you mind if we go over to say hi?”

“Nope, not at all!”

They walked over and greeted Jin, who started to introduce them to the others. Jimin, meanwhile, looked around the table. There were a total of four guys seated at the table before him and Hoseok came up. Jin, of course, was as bright and cheery as usual. The man he gestured to at his side was Min Yoongi, the guy he came in with occasionally. He sat kind of slumped in his seat, watching everyone with an unreadable expression. The bleached hair guy looked really intimidating, and then next to him, of all people, was the cute long- boy from Jimin’s math class. Wow, what a small world after all! He felt his heart jolt a little at seeing him from the front for once. He had a jawline like it was cut from stone, and his mouth moved in a way that was much more enthralling than his pencil-tapping had been. But he seemed distracted.

Jin gestured for them to join their table. “This is my roommate Min Yoongi, and that’s--” Jimin felt Hoseok tense up at his side, suddenly, and then he jumped when the boy from math class jumped up, crying out.

“What?! What?! I missed it! WHICH ONE OF YOU IS IT?”

“Taehyung?” Seokjin queried. Jimin and Hoseok glanced at each other, both of them confused. Jimin noticed that Hoseok was pale, his lips and avoiding everyone’s eyes. But Jimin couldn’t help but file away the boy’s name in his mind, despite the curious greeting.

“Which one of you is my soulmate?!” Taehyung cried out, holding out his wrist. Jimin’s mouth fell agape as he noticed that the boy had a soulmate timer on one wrist.

He gasped.

That was what he had forgotten today was. How could he have been so stupid?! He had been counting down today’s date for weeks. His cell phone had a little reminder to tell him when to take his afternoon break, because he had been looking forward to meeting his soulmate today. With the bustle of the morning and the abrupt wake-up, he had forgotten to check the timer on his wrist for the first time in a year. His head spinning, he pulled back his sweater sleeve, and there it was. All zeros.

He looked up and met Taehyung’s eyes. They didn’t speak a word, but their expressions shifted through surprise, to wonder, to amusement. Taehyung’s face split into a wide box-shaped grin that made Jimin’s stomach do several flips in succession, an unbridled sort of mirth that his soulmate couldn’t withhold for the world.

My soulmate.

He leapt forward and threw himself into Taehyung’s arms, a peal of laughter escaping him as he squeezed Taehyung to him. The boy responded with a laugh of his own, and Jimin felt a shiver run through him at how deep the boy’s voice was. It was like rain on stone, it was winter’s end. It was home.

“I’m Jimin!” he bubbled happily, muffled through Taehyung’s sweater against his cheek. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

“Me, too!” Taehyung thrummed, his chest vibrating with a happy hum that Jimin could feel. He lifted his head to look into Taehyung’s face, and Taehyung dipped his head until his forehead pressed against Jimin’s, and they both smiled so hard that Jimin could barely feel the tears that were forming in the corners of his eyes. He had known meeting his soulmate would be exciting and wonderful, he had just known. But he hadn’t been prepared for how painful feeling so happy could be, as his chest felt like it was going to explode from pure joy and disbelief that he could be so lucky.

“Um…” came a voice, and the two of them blinked out of their little world after a brief delay. Jin looked about ready to explode from happiness, and he was already wiping away tears from the corners of his eyes. Yoongi was looking between the two of them, the first one to have spoken. “Congratulations, guys?”

“Th-thanks!” Jimin breathed, his hands becoming entangled with Taehyung’s as they moved to bump up against each other in little ways that Jimin knew would always feel special. They both sat down at the end of the table, their hands still clasped. “S-so, what year are you? What’s your major? When’s your birthday?” Jimin felt breathless, and figured (hoped) that Taehyung wouldn’t find his barrage of questions annoying.

“I’m a first year, my major is psychology, and my birthday is December 30th!”

“Ah, it’s coming up! I want to buy you a present!” Jimin breathed, “I’m a first year, too! But I’m studying dance. My birthday is October 13th.”

“Aw, I missed it?!” Taehyung pouted. It had been so recently, too. Jimin laughed, patting him reassuringly on the shoulder.

“It’s okay, you can make up for it next year!”

“I’ll buy you something really expensive,” Taehyung promised, smiling that warm smile that made Jimin’s chest constrict in a lovely pain.

“Well,” Hoseok laughed, patting Jimin on the shoulder, “As lovely as this is, I feel like I can only take so much more of it before my teeth rot out. I’ll let you two get to know each other. See you later, Jimin?”

Jimin nodded, barely hearing Hoseok, or the others as they each excused themselves in turn. He only left Taehyung long enough to ask for his coworker to cover the last stretch of his shift, and then the two of them went to Jimin’s dorm to talk. They were up until the wee hours of the morning, asking each other all the questions they’d been waiting to ask. They lay on Jimin’s bed, curled up into each other and staring up at the ceiling. Taehyung laughed when he found out they’d been sharing math class together, and he promised to study harder in the future just for Jimin’s peace of mind.

It was almost 3 am when Jimin felt another little silence fall between them. Hoseok, the sweetest angel, had tactfully found someplace else to crash for the night, so they were alone in the dorm room. Taehyung was slowly curling his way around Jimin’s body like he desperately needed the warmth, a kind of closeness Jimin could never have imagined obtaining with anyone else this fast. But in the last few hours they had told each other so much...had connected so closely, that it didn’t feel strange at all. Just overwhelming. Jimin took in a little breath.

“I just wanted you to know...that..I, um...I waited. F-for you.” He felt Taehyung’s hand slow against his brow. “But I understand if you didn’t, really, because you’re probably really popular and soulmates don’t usually wait for first kisses and silly things like that, but. I wanted to, anyways.”

The following few seconds were the longest of Jimin’s life, and he felt Taehyung shift up on the bed until he could look into Jimin’s face in the dim light of Hoseok’s ugly fish nightlight. Jimin saw the smile on Tae’s face, and he could have sworn he heard a sigh of relief.

“Thank god. Because I did, too.”

Jimin felt his stomach twist around in happiness, and he reached up one hand to grip at Taehyung’s collar, his lips quietly and whispering so lowly it was barely a breath. “K-kiss me?”

Taehyung bent down, pressing his mouth against Jimin’s so gently he wanted to cry again. He felt Taehyung smiling against him, the little pull of the warm lips making him wrap his arms around the boy again, pulling Tae down to lie on his chest. He was suddenly gripped with a sudden, irrational fear that Tae would vanish when he fell asleep, that today had been some sort of really strange fantasy or dream. Even if they were soulmates, nothing was guaranteed, and he wanted to hold onto this very moment forever.

He woke up with Taehyung’s arms and legs all wrapped up around him, his soft face still in a little smile. He hadn’t vanished.

~~

The next few weeks, the two were practically inseparable. Jimin felt greedy, always taking up Taehyung’s time, but the younger boy seemed just as eager, so he couldn’t even apologize properly. He felt lucky that Jin, who still came into Starbucks often when Jimin was on shift, was nice enough to hear him ramble on about the boy during the few times they weren’t together, and always seemed happy to ask questions or to hear about some new way they’d discovered that they fit each other so well.

“I’m glad it was you,” Jin said one day, with a sad little smile. “You suit him so well.”

Hoseok, on the other hand, brought up a rare distraction. It happened one day when they were going to Jimin’s house to hang out with Jungkook, since they had all successfully finished their mid-terms without dying. His mother made them a huge feast for dinner, and they were playing video games late into the night. Jimin, (quietly to himself, of course) pouted over the fact that Taehyung was taking a trip back home to visit his grandparents, along with his brothers, so he wouldn’t be able to see him again until after the weekend. They were texting all throughout the evening, however, and Taehyung sent him some particularly hilarious dubsmashes that he and Jungkook responded to in kind.

It was late by the time Jimin noticed that Hoseok seemed a little off. He wasn’t sure how to bring it up, though, so he just sat near him on the couch for a while, and they watched Jungkook lying on the floor, doodling on his arm with some of the markers he had found underneath the couch.

“Hey,” Jimin chided, “Mom told you not to do that anymore, you’re gonna get cancer.”

“Will not,” Jungkook retorted petulantly. “I checked. It would take like gallons of ink to do any real damage.”

“But either way, she told you to stop doodling on yourself.”

“He’s really good at it, though,” Hoseok commented, leaning down to watch Jungkook fill in the light of the dark purple butterfly he was tracing along his forearm, adding in crosshatched lines for the grass beneath it.

“He used to do that all the time, we’d find him just covered in ink from head to toe. But mom promised she’d buy him a WiiU for his birthday if he stopped, so he’s been clean for months now.” Jimin lifted his foot up and nudged Jungkook in the side with it, bringing out what the boy often called his ‘hyung voice.’ “Jungkook, go see if mom will let us play the WiiU in the living room.”

After some grumbling, the boy left, and Jimin looked over at his friend. He had a glazed over look on his face, like he had something that was bothering him. Normally, Hoseok was a pro at looking happy at all times, so Jimin was especially worried. “Hey, Hoseok? I’m sorry if I’ve been kind of...distracted lately, what with Tae and all...are you okay?”

“What, oh. No, don’t apologize! I’m really happy for you two!” Hoseok gave his broad beam, the one where his teeth seemed to take up most of his features. “Seriously! You two are a match made in heaven.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Well…” Hoseok scratched at the back of his head with uncertainty. “I think I met my soulmate?”

Jimin’s eyes widened. “What?! When?!”

“Well, I think I met him the same day you met yours..?” Hoseok gave a little chuckle.

“Why didn’t you tell me!? Hoseok!” Jimin smacked the boy on the shoulder, now feeling like a terrible friend.

But wait.

“Wait, does that mean…?”

Hoseok shifted, grimacing a little as he avoiding Jimin’s eyes. “Min Yoongi.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, considering I have his name tattooed on my body? Yeah, I’d say I’m pretty sure. But…”

“...But?”

“But I don’t know. What if I am wrong? What if it’s another Min Yoongi? What if it’s this one and I’m about to miss my chance? What if it’s already too late? Do soulmates expire?”

“I don’t know…”

“He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t even react when we met. I guess I just thought… he would have felt something, right?” Hoseok sighed, his shoulders hunched as though he was bearing the weight of the world. Jimin felt once again that irrational fear in his chest, the one that made him appreciate how lucky he and Tae were. He knew it was a feeling he’d have in the future, too. He laid a hand on Hoseok’s shoulder, and tried to offer him an encouraging smile.

“I don’t know if this guy is your soulmate or not,” Jimin mused, “But...I think you should find out. I can ask Jin and find a way for you to see him, okay?”

Hoseok nodded, a sad, worried smile on his lips. “Okay.”

“And if it makes you feel better, I would have missed Taehyung if he hadn’t, you know, jumped up and screamed at us.”

That made Hoseok’s smile turn a little more genuine. “Yeah, maybe I just need to find a way to bring it up to him. You might be right.”

“Of course I am!” Jimin beamed, as Jungkook came back into the room, holding the telephone.

“It’s for you, it’s your boyfriend.” Jungkook mocked, rolling his eyes at the last word.

“Oh! He said he was going to call!” Jimin leapt up from the couch, pouncing over to take the phone from his brother. Unfortunately, Taehyung’s grandparents’ house had terrible signal, so he could text now but not talk unless he used a landline. They must have just arrived. Even as tired as he must have been from traveling, he was taking the time to call Jimin during his designated family time. Jimin felt another stab in his chest, telling him to always appreciate this feeling.

“Tae-tae?” he called out, his expression warming at the sound of the now-familiar deep voice crackling on the other end of the line. “Yeah! I miss you, too! Of course I want lots of pictures!”