The thing about Jimin and Taehyung was that they were best friends. They'd known each other practically as long as they'd been alive. They learned to walk and talk together. They lost their first teeth within weeks of each other. They were in the same class every year of school until ninth grade, and they didn't have any secrets between them.

As frustrating as it was to hear Taehyung tell Jimin to just go talk to his neighbor, even if Jimin didn't actually let him say it, Jimin trusted Taehyung and Taehyung's gut. If Taehyung felt like talking Hoseok was a good idea, it probably was.

Which was how Jimin found himself standing on Hoseok's front porch again. It was dark out and freezing. The wind was blowing, too. Jimin was all bundled up with a scarf wrapped around his neck under his hoodie and his sleeves pulled over his hands so only the tips of his fingers peeked out inside his pockets.

He'd been standing there for nearly five minutes. He'd had to screw up the courage to make the trek across the snowy lawn, through the hedges, and up to the door. Then he had to work up the nerve to ring the doorbell and then to stay put while he waited a century for Hoseok to actually open the door, which he eventually did but dressed in more shorts and an even more revealing tank top.

“Jesus, Jimin, it's freezing out there. Come in, come in. What the hell were you thinking, leaving the house without gloves and a proper coat?” Hoseok scolded Jimin as he ushered him inside.

Jimin thought about answering, but his teeth were chattering so hard his whole head was vibrating. Instead, he took in his surroundings.

Hoseok's floorplan was identical to Jimin's. Nearly every house in the neighborhood was exactly the same. Hallway straight ahead leading to the kitchen and living room, staircase on the left leading to the bedrooms, and through the kitchen would be the garage. The difference was in the way each person filled the space.

Jimin had gone for simple. His walls were slate blue, accented with white baseboards and doors. The doorknobs, drawer pulls, and cabinet handles were brushed nickel, and his furniture was all black wood and charcoal upholstery. The carpet was grey, the granite countertops were grey, the curtains and even the sheets in his bedroom were grey. Everything looked nice, but it was rather cold and boring, sterile.

Hoseok's house was the complete opposite of Jimin's. The walls were painted different colors from room to room. The kitchen was a vibrant red, the hallway sky blue, and the living room was a sunny yellow. The curtains were sheer and deep, chocolate brown, matching a hideous, obviously second-hand couch with overstuffed cushions that looked far too easy to sink into. There was artwork on the walls, paintings of cobblestone streets lit by old fashioned street lamps and landscapes of trees changing colors in autumn.

Everything about Hoseok's house was warm and inviting. Too inviting. It felt like a trap.

“You must be frozen solid. Can I get you some tea?” Hoseok offered. Jimin just stared. He didn't know how to answer. It would be impolite to say no, but he hadn't planned on staying. Besides, Hoseok was practically a stranger and definitely strange. Maybe Jimin had been wrong about the supernatural thing, and Hoseok was just a regular old serial killer offering him poisoned tea.

“Umm…” Jimin attempted when Hoseok had been waiting for an answer for far too long. “Yes, please. Tea would be nice.” Better to go for polite, he thought. At least the mug could warm his hands, even if he didn't drink any.

“Have a seat.” Hoseok gestured to the barstools at the kitchen counter as he filled the electric kettle with water. There was a spark when Hoseok placed the kettle on the base, and he yelped, jerking his hand away quickly. “Static,” he said, at the tip of his middle finger as he laughed dryly. Jimin tried to smile sympathetically but wasn't sure he pulled it off.

Jimin was surprised when Hoseok pulled out a little tin of loose tea leaves and two tiny, cat shaped infusers. He watched Hoseok fill the little kitties with the tea, hoping it would help calm him, seeing it happen, but his panic level was rising. Poison, his brain screamed. At least packaged tea bags would have made him feel a little safer.

Another spark shocked Hoseok as he grabbed the kettle to pour the water, but this time he barely flinched. “Do you take sugar or cream? Honey?”

“Honey?” Jimin repeated before realizing Hoseok meant for the tea. “Oh, yes. Honey please.” Heaven help Jimin.

Hoseok reached into the cabinet and pulled out a glass jar of honey with actual honeycomb inside. It had a little wooden dipper and everything. Hoseok very carefully drizzled a bit into Jimin's mug, somehow managing to get the dipper to and from the jar without spilling a drop.

The tea smelled heavenly. As the steam wafted Jimin's way he noticed hints of herbs, chamomile and orange blossoms, though that might have been from the honey, actually. He really wanted to take a sip, to let the scalding brew burn his tongue and warm his belly, but he remembered to be cautious. He waited, blowing on it instead and cradling the mug in his icy fingers until Hoseok took a drink first.

Hoseok slurped his tea as he drank, cooling it a bit before it hit his tongue, and when nothing bad happened, Jimin sipped his own. The effect was immediate. No, it wasn't poison; it was the elixir of the gods. Every part of Jimin thawed, leaving him loose and relaxed. He practically melted into the barstool. He might have slumped against the counter too, but there was still a little voice in the back of his mind reminding him not to get too comfortable in a stranger’s home.

“Good, right?” Jimin, embarrassingly, moaned his response, earning a raspy chuckle from Hoseok. “I get it from a friend. He owns a flower shop with a little greenhouse out back. He grows and dries all the herbs himself. This is my favorite blend. It has lemon and lavender. But I know you didn’t come for the tea. What brings you here, Jimin?”

Oh. Right. Why did Jimin come here? Because Taehyung told him to, but he can’t tell Hoseok that. Can he? No. No, that would be weird.

“I just… wanted to talk? You’ve lived here for months and we’ve never talked so… yeah. I came to talk.”

“Just like you came to say hi last week?” Hoseok asked, and Jimin nodded, feeling the heat of his blush in his cheeks. “You’re not going to disappear into the bushes again, are you?”

“No, no. At least I don’t think so. You were just,” handsome, gorgeous, y, his brain unhelpfully supplied, “intimidating. Well, I was intimidated anyway,” Jimin corrected when Hoseok raised his eyebrows and pointed to himself as if to say ‘me?’

“I’m sorry. You caught me just as I was about to start working on some transcriptions. I might have had my work face on. I promise I’m not all that scary. I’m just… highly focused.”

Jimin nodded again and took another sip of his tea. He swallowed and sighed, and then he did lean against the counter a bit. “So what do you do? Medical transcription or something?”

“Oh, no. Nothing as fancy as that. I’m… a scientist? Sort of. Agriculture.”

“Like your garden out back?”

“You’ve seen my garden?” Hoseok sounded surprised.

“Well, my bedroom window looks right out over it. You must have some green thumb.”

Hoseok laughed. “You could say that. It’s really all about having the right fertilizer and balancing the pH of the soil. I’ve been working on ways to extend the growing season for vegetables. You know what the best part of my work is though?”

“Mmm?” Jimin hummed. His tongue felt too loose in his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he could actually form words.

“I get to eat everything I grow. Everything. I’ve been living on that squash out there for weeks. It’s delicious.”

Jimin giggled and went to take another sip of his tea, but before he could get the mug to his lips, Hoseok was pulling it from his hands.

“I know it’s good, but it’s pretty potent. I’m not sure you can actually handle the whole cup,” he explained, though it didn’t really explain anything to Jimin. He tried to draw his eyebrows together to convey his confusion but found that they wouldn’t cooperate. It should have scared him. He should have been rushing out the door, through the hedges, and back to the safety of his own home, but he didn’t budge. His face split in a wide grin, and he sighed.

“I like you, Hoseok,” he confessed, completely unplanned. “You’re,” handsome, gorgeous, y, “nice. I like nice.”

“Well thank you, Jimin. I like you, too. You’re nice. And cute. And I like nice and cute, but I think it’s time for you to be going home now. You look like you’re about to fall asleep in my kitchen. Don’t you think a bed would be more comfortable?”

Yep, your bed, Jimin thought, but he didn’t say it or (thank goodness) act on it. He let himself be bundled back up, though a bit tighter and warmer than he remembered being bundled when he left his own house, and then Hoseok led him to the door and told him goodnight.

“And that’s really the last thing you remember?” Taehyung questioned. He’d been grilling Jimin for details of his encounter with Hoseok for nearly twenty minutes already. He hadn’t even gotten to drink his coffee. It sat on the table, right where it had been when he'd arrived at Jimin's house, so cold it might as well be iced.

“That’s it,” Jimin confirmed. “He said goodnight and nudged me toward my house, and the next thing I knew, it was morning.”

“You don’t remember actually getting home or changing your clothes or going to bed?”

“Nope,” Jimin shook his head.

“Are you sure he didn’t poison you?”

“I’m sure, Tae,” Jimin assured Taehyung again. “He didn’t poison me. That tea was wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well.”

“Sure, but drugs can make you sleep like a ing rock too. You’re positive he didn’t-”

“Tae, I’m positive. Now can you drop it? I’d much rather talk about how he said I’m cute.” Jimin got a glazed over, dreamy look in his eyes, and Taehyung knew any further interrogation was a lost cause.

“See? Didn't I tell you he'd be bragging to his friends about his cute neighbor? So are you gonna go over there again?” Taehyung tried to convey his concern through his tone, but Jimin was lost in his own little world of Hoseok and his magical tea.

“I like him, Taetae. I really want to see him again. I think I’m gonna ask him out. What do you think?”

Taehyung took a sip of his cold coffee to buy himself some time to contemplate his options. Jimin trusted Taehyung. Despite the way they bickered like an old married couple, never seeming to agree on anything and sometimes arguing just for the sake of arguing, Jimin would likely take Taehyung’s advice seriously.

There were alarm bells ringing in Taehyung’s head. This Hoseok might not be a vampire or a werewolf or a demi-god, but he had some kind of power over Jimin. He wanted so badly to tell Jimin to avoid Hoseok like the plague, to never speak to Hoseok again, but he also wanted his friend to be happy.

“I think you should ask him out.” The moment the words left Taehyung’s lips Jimin squealed and jumped up from the table to run around it and latch onto Taehyung’s back. “There’s a condition though.”

“Ugh, Tae, you got my hopes up for nothing.”

“Not nothing. I do think you should ask him out, but you will not go out with him alone. If he says yes, which he definitely will, the two of you will be joining me and Joon. Promise me you won’t spend any time alone with this guy again until I’ve had a chance to talk to him.” Jimin crossed his arms over his chest and pushed his lower lip out. He thought his pout had power over Taehyung, but he was wrong. “Well? Do you promise or not?”

“That depends.” Taehyung lifted his eyebrows questioningly. “Do you promise not to embarrass me?”

Taehyung scoffed. “When have I ever embarrassed you ?”

“Uh… how about that time in college when you were so into making out with your date that you didn’t even notice you were interrupting me and my date… getting busy until you were sprawled out on top of us on my bed?”

“Oh.” Yeah. Now that Jimin had brought it up, Taehyung did remember dragging some drunk guy home with him sometime in the middle of Junior year and letting the guy back him into the wrong bed. “Huh… well, do you plan on ing this guy in my bed?”

“IT WAS MY BED!”

“No, I mean… nevermind.” He decided this was a battle he’d choose not to fight. “Yes, I promise not to embarrass you.”

“Then fine. We have a deal. I will not be alone with Hoseok until you’ve had a chance to talk to him and our first date we’ll double with you and Joon. You’re really no fun, you know?”

“I know, but I’m your best friend and I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimin waved him off, but the pink in his cheeks made it obvious to Taehyung that the love between them was completely mutual. “Now get out of my kitchen. I’m gonna go get me a date.”