Original idea: Obviously Hoseok's going to have some admirers I mean duh.

 

Min Yoonji didn't look that dangerous.

With a lob haircut and a small frame, she even looked... harmless. Borderline adorable.

But the reality was that she could skewer and roast you over a bonfire at a moment's notice.

She was blatantly honest and didn't care much about having friends. That didn't mean she had no friends, just that loneliness wasn't something that bothered her, so she never really tried that hard to keep up with any friends she had at the moment.

So, she only had three friends currently.

"Just go ask for help, Ji."

"Do you know how embarrassing that would be?" Yoonji hissed over the phone to her stepsister.

"It's really not that bad. You're overreacting again."

"Can't you just... come over and help me yourself?"

Silence passed over the phone.

"...You want me to drive three hours down to your campus to help you turn on your sink."

"It's not as stupid as you're making it sound! It exploded and now it's just stuck!"

"Get. Help. Like it doesn't even have to be a plumber since I know those are expensive. Find a friend."

Yoonji glared at her phone.

"O-or not a friend. A neighbor or an acquaintance or something. Get over your pride and do it, Ji, or you'll be sink-less forever."

Yoonji stood in silence for a while. Seojung waited patiently while she thought, used to most of Yoonji's antics by now.

"Bye." She turned her phone off and placed it face down on the counter, a safe distance away from the sink. She exited her apartment and pounded on the door of her neighbor. "Yo, Jackson! Wake up, it's ing 6 am already!"

 

Yoongi took a new route back to her dorm after her last class of the day (a photography class). She always liked to do this occasionally, when her mind was focused on details especially and she could find new ordinary beautiful scenes and capture them.

This time she happened to walk along the back side of the dance building, where there were a few windows into the practice rooms. She was taking a picture of a small flower growing against the wall of the building when movement caught her eye, from the window that was a little to her left. She took the shot of the flower and rushed over, aware that whoever was practicing might be done soon.

Three girls were practicing a piece that looked to Yoonji like hip hop maybe. That'd never really been her thing, but looking at the three in front of her, she decided she could definitely make it her thing. They were facing Yoonji's left, towards a mirror that covered the whole wall. Thankfully, the window Yoonji stood at was at such an angle that they didn't seem to notice her staring very creepily at them.

All three girls had their hair pulled back in ponytails and moved in perfect sync. In such perfect sync Yoongi wasn't sure they weren't just clones of each other. Even without music, Yoonji was enjoying their performance.

The one in the middle had a lean frame and was quite tall, standing around 170 cm. She had long, black hair, and was wearing a plain, white, v-necked t-shirt, standard black leggings, and black and white converse. Her movements were less exaggerated than the other two, but sharp and clean nonetheless.

The one standing closest to Yoonji had more curves than the other two, and was shorter, too. She wore a dark shirt that hung loosely on her frame and gray joggers with white sneakers. Her movements were lighter and graceful, her presence much softer than her partners. Still, they were precise and very controlled. Sometimes, she would smile while dancing, which the other two never did, and Yoonji had to admit that her smile was an adorable eye smile that she would probably remember.

But it wasn't those two who caught Yoonji's eye the most when she started watching them. It was the one dancing farthest from her. The girl had moderately long hair, the color of milk chocolate, and was quite lean as well, with a toned stomach and nice thighs that showed from underneath her dark gray, tinted blue leggings. She wore only a sports bra, which Yoonji couldn't decide was good for her own health or not. The dancer's face was slightly screwed up while she moved in what couldn't be anything but concentration. Yoonji would admit in a heartbeat that all of them were good at dancing, but the one farthest from her was the best.

Without looking, Yoonji set up her camera. Before she knew it, she was holding it up, and then taking the picture. She turned off the camera, returning her gaze to the dancers. She'd check the picture later.

The routine ended and the three walked off in different directions from the center of the room where they'd been. Yoonji moved to the right to keep out of sight, but her head betrayed her and tilted over so she could still watch.

The girl that had been closest to the window left the room. That was the last thing Yoonji saw before she snapped out of her gaze and realized what she was doing was highly stalker-like and definitely not healthy. She shook her head at herself and walked around the building, to the front where she could find her way back to her dorm along the street.

Yoonji was passing right outside the door of the building, which happened to be open, when she heard a shrill, blood-curdling shriek coming from inside. Without thinking too much, Yoonji headed inside the structure and followed the sound, genuinely concerned that there was a murderer. Surprisingly, there was no one she ran into, nor was there any difficulty finding the source as it was a fairly simple building with no locked doors in the way. It wasn't too hard for Yoonji to imagine how a murderer would've gotten in.

She found the three dancers, all in some kind of bundle on the ground in the middle of the hall, two backs being shown to Yoonji and one sprawled out on the ground. No one else appeared to be there, so either one of them was the murderer, or there wasn't any in the first place. Yoonji realized she was barging into a building that she'd never been in before, approaching people she'd never talked to before. She almost turned around to leave, except that the one laying on the ground looked close to dead.

Uncharacteristically, Yoonji said, "Uh... is everything okay?"

The girl Yoonji recognized as the dancer in the middle of the routine turned around while the one Yoonji had gawked at earlier jumped and screamed (again, since Yoonji recognized her voice from a few seconds before).

"Who're you?" demanded the black haired girl in the black and white ensemble.

"I was walking outside and I heard a scream," Yoonji confessed. Granted, it was half of the truth, but they didn't need to know that.

The other girl's eyes narrowed and she opened to say something, but the majestic brunette started before she could.

"Please help," she whimpered. She was close to tears, nudging the third girl who was sprawled out on the ground. Yoonji stepped over and knelt down.

"Did she faint?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Jiminnie..."

Yoonji racked her brain for what to do when someone faints. She only came up with one thing.

"Let's try raising her legs a bit to get blood to her brain."

Awkwardly, Yoonji and the tall girl worked together to try and follow the instructions while the other dancer let out whines of distress and caressed the unconscious girl's cheek. Within two minutes, Jimin stirred.

"Oh, Jiminnie!"

Yoongi was left with a stranger's legs while the other two rushed to attend to their friend.

"Oh, Hope, don't cry. I'm okay."

"Bull. You haven't been eating, have you?"

"As a matter of fact, I have, Jungsook."

"Really?"

"Really. I'm just... tired. I haven't really slept because of classes, and..."

"Why did you practice with us so long, then?"

Yoonji placed Jimin's ankles on the ground. "I'm gonna head out," she said softly over the other three's arguing. Hope looked up.

"No, wait! Actually, I'll walk you out."

Yoonji tried to smile but it probably looked like a grimace. Hope stood up and grabbed a sweatshirt Yoonji hadn't noticed on the floor earlier. She slipped it over her head while leading Yoonji back out and Yoonji noticed a few inches of golden skin were still visible between the waistband of her leggings and the bottom of the sweatshirt.

At the door, Hope stopped and leaned against the door frame. "Thank you." Her tone expressed simple gratitude and coolness, but her eyes were still red and slightly puffy.

"No problem. Just doing my part as, uh, a human."

Hope smiled. "You had great timing, too. It's so weird you walked by right when I screamed."

"Yeah, definitely weird."

They stood in silence for three or so second before Yoonji realized Hope was probably waiting for her to leave.

"I'll g-"

"I hope we see each other around campus sometime."

Yoonji's eyebrows raised into her hairline. "W-what?"

"You can also come by any time you'd like. I'm almost always here. If not, you know Jimin and Jungsook." She reached out her hand. "I'm Hyoseo."

 

"The ? You yell at me for not being awake at 6 am but you're in your pj's at 12 in the afternoon?"

Yoonji ignored the eccentric neighbor and kept walking, laundry basket held against her hip. Then she promptly marched into the safe, people-less environment of her dorm room.

After dumping her laundry basket on her bed, Yoonji walked over to her desk where her camera sat and turned it on to look at the photos stored there. She went through them hurriedly until she landed on the particular one she'd been looking for.

"Jung Hyoseo," Yoonji muttered under her breath.

A few days had passed, but Yoonji still had the name on the tip of her tongue, threatening to come out at any given moment during a conversation. The picture was blurry, yet Yoonji considered it her most beautiful one. She felt some kind of mental magnet trying to bring her back to the studio and take more pictures of Hyoseo, but she didn't want to embarrass herself. Which was weird because most of the time, Yoonji didn't give much of a .

Yoonji found herself going back often after her photography classes anyway. Sometimes she didn't even take pictures of Hyoseo dancing, sometimes it was just of her breathing and sweating after a routine and still looking beautiful. There was one particular shot of her that Yoonji still thought was a miracle that her timing had been so good. The picture had been taken when Hyoseo was practicing in a pretty empty courtyard with four others and was of her laughing, eyes crinkled and mouth heart shaped, looking more beautiful than Yoonji thought someone could ever be. Her baby hairs sort of stuck out of her head and her ponytail had wild flyaways screaming to be brushed away. But the lighting was perfect enough to catch what Yoonji called Hyoseo's aura, framing her in a soft and breathtaking glow. Yoonji may or may not have had that picture printed.

If Hyoseo noticed Yoonji's biweekly presence, she didn't acknowledge it. Never did she say anything about it or even look in Yoonji's direction, even when she was practicing outside where Yoonji was in plain sight (the haters who gave Yoonji dirty looks for her stalkerish technique could go off). Some of Hyoseo's dancer buddies noticed, but since Hyoseo never gave it attention, they just gave Yoonji weary looks during their breaks and kept their concerns inside.

After the whole fainting incident, Yoonji didn't see much of Jimin anymore. She was still there occasionally, but never more than once every two weeks. Jungsook was definitely there, present at pretty much 70% of the practices Yoonji crashed. Jungsook always side-eyed Yoonji, but then became focused on dancing so she couldn't speak much about it.

On a Saturday afternoon, wearing plaid pajama pants and a tank top, sprawled across her tiny college-student bed, scrolling through her camera, Yoonji realized that she had more pictures of Hyoseo over the last two months than any other saved pictures in the entire camera's life.

 

"I want you to find a muse. A subject. Turn in a folder of that subject next month."

"Is this worth anything?" asked a girl.

The TA pursed his lips. "No, it's for practice. But you should still attempt. It might help in the future," he said with a wink. "Okay, it's time. Everyone, have a good day!"

The small group of people began packing up, except Yoonji who stayed back a bit, tweaking settings on her camera.

"Are you going to shoot right now?" asked the TA. Yoonji hummed without looking up and grabbed her bag, heading to the exit of the room with her eyes still down on the screen of her camera.

"Bye." The door closed behind her.

 

The second Yoonji walked in, Jungsook was up on her feet and marching over.

"What are you doing here?" she paused. "Again?"

Yoonji looked over Jungsook's shoulder. "Hyo?"

Jungsook frowned. "Don't ignore me."

Another dancer walked over, a