FLASHBACK

PRESENT DAY

It’s the first day of semester break, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Jimin is locked inside Seokjin’s stuffy house with no signs of the delicious café brunch he’d been promised. It’s dreadful.

“Ten more minutes, Jimin,” Seokjin admonishes, not looking up from his computer at the dining table. And okay, maybe Seokjin’s house isn’t all that stuffy, and yes okay Jimin’s a little bit jealous that Seokjin can afford nice things when he’s still stuck living in a shoddy studio apartment near university, but still. He’s bitter and hungry.

Seokjin’s couch is nice, too nice, so nice that Jimin almost feels guilty about having his feet on the cushions (almost, but not quite). “You said that ten minutes ago,” Jimin whines, rolling onto his back. At least Seokjin had the foresight to own a fabric sofa – Jimin doesn’t like the way leather squelches under his skin.

“Not my fault I’m so beautiful, how can I choose?” Seokjin says matter-of-factly. The proofs for his latest photoshoot had come through this morning, and apparently Seokjin cares more about his job than Jimin’s welfare, unbelievable.

Jimin hums, a noise somewhat on the edge of disagreement, scrolling through his Twitter mindlessly. Mostly boring drivel, unimportant updates on the lives of people he doesn’t care about enough to read, but one post catches his eye.

“You hear about Namjoon’s song?” Jimin asks mindlessly, continuing his journey down his feed. He considers texting Yoongi, but refrains – he knows Yoongi is working today and Jimin doesn’t want to contribute to distracting him, especially if it might cause Yoongi’s work to overflow into tomorrow (god forbid). He’s just so bored.

“Jimin,” Seokjin says, throwing him an incredulous look. “Are you questioning my sanity? Of course I’ve heard about his song.”

“Whatever, old man,” Jimin retorts, closing Twitter to instead let his finger hover over the messaging app. Surely one text couldn’t hurt?

For once, Seokjin doesn’t take the bait. “He won’t tell me anything about it though, as usual.”

Jimin shrugs. “I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait.” He pauses, considers his options. “Remember you told me about that one song that made you fall in love with him?”

Seokjin’s mouth twists, and Jimin grins – bait taken, mission successful. “I am not in love with him.”

“Uh huh,” Jimin says lightly, dropping his phone to instead hang upside down off the couch and stare at Seokjin. “I couldn’t find it on his blog, I wanted to hear it.”

“You don’t even like rap,” Seokjin points out, but Jimin can see the reflection of his laptop screen in his eyes – he’s navigated away from the photos.

Jimin grins. “No, but I like my boyfriend.”

“I regret telling you anything,” Seokjin grumbles, as the song spills from Seokjin’s ty laptop speakers. Jimin’s grin grows wider, even if he won’t say anything, because Seokjin totally had that file saved on his computer. What a loser, Jimin thinks, as he waves his hand to urge Seokjin to fast forward to the part where he can fangirl over another man’s voice that he could just as easily hear in person.

“Ah, I ed it up,” Namjoon’s voice suddenly cuts in, music coming to a jarring halt. An improvised piece, Seokjin had told Jimin, something unfinished.

“Are you kidding? That was incredible,” Yoongi says roughly, and Jimin’s in love. Seokjin throws him a disgusted look; Jimin just sticks his tongue out.

“Really? Thanks,” Namjoon responds finally, all soft and tender, and okay – maybe Jimin gets it. He’s met Namjoon, knows what a dummy he is in real life, but in another universe Jimin would see it too. Coming straight out the end of a hard and fast rap, vicious against a callous beat, it’s no wonder Seokjin went head over heels for a man with that kind of versatility.

Yoongi’s pretty good at that, too. Pulling Jimin’s hair one second, praising him and calling him baby in the next. ing delicious.

“Earth to Jimin, head out of the gutter please,” Seokjin says sharply, snapping his fingers in front of Jimin’s face. Jimin just gives him a dopey smile.

Seokjin groans, snapping his laptop lid shut. “Fine. Whatever. Get your shoes on, we’ll go.” He tugs on the bottom of his shirt, straightening it out. “You’re disgusting, and I wish I’d never introduced you two. I hope you know that.”

~*~

~*~

A bike ride down Han River usually helps Namjoon clear his head – in fact, it did help him, right up until Seokjin had ruined that nice, easy-going vibe for him with the world’s best selfie. Whatever. Namjoon doesn’t care. No big deal.

He wrangles his old, beat-up bike through the door of their apartment, narrowly avoiding scuffing the wall again (he can still hear Yoongi yelling at him for that one) but tipping over the shoe rack in the process.

“Need help?” someone calls out, a head peeking around the edge of the corner.

“It’s okay,” Namjoon says, roughly pulling the back wheel through far enough that the door can slam shut. “Where’s Yoongi?”

“Shower,” Jimin answers easily, backing away and bouncing on the balls of his feet as Namjoon finally hauls the bike into a less awkward position, leaning it against the wall.

Later, he decides, looking at the mess he’s left in his wake. If Jimin’s over, it’s not like Yoongi’s going to be anywhere near the front door anyway.

“I didn’t know you could ride,” Jimin says conversationally, waving at the precariously balanced bike as he retreats back to the sofa. “Isn’t it raining?”

“It helps me focus,” Namjoon answers, collapsing on the couch next to Jimin. “Good for stress, I guess.”

“Stress?” Jimin repeats, twisting to face Namjoon cross-legged. “Wanna talk about it?”

Namjoon chuckles, ruffling a hand through his hair to dislodge any lingering droplets of water. “It’s nothing bad, just a song giving me a bit of trouble.”

“The new one?”

Namjoon hums. “There’s just something missing, you know? I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s just...”

“Not quite there,” Jimin finishes, and Namjoon nods. He doesn’t really know why he’s telling Jimin any of this; maybe it’s just because Jimin’s the kind of person you can’t help but pour your heart out to. Maybe it’s because Namjoon is in more trouble than he thought.

Jimin hums thoughtfully, thumbing his bottom lip. “Have you had someone else listen to it? Maybe you’re too close to the source?”

“Yoongi has, but he can’t figure it out either,” Namjoon says, shrugging. Jimin rolls his eyes.

“Not like that, it has to be someone who’s never heard it, maybe doesn’t even have any musical knowledge at all. Intuition, that sort of thing,” Jimin explains.

Namjoon nods. “So, like a friend?”

“A friend, yeah.”

“A friend without any musical talent.”

“Well, they should at least like music. Although if you pick someone who doesn’t like rap, it might work even better...”

“Someone who doesn’t like rap?” Namjoon says thoughtfully, plucking at a loose fibre in the sofa cushion.

“Obviously someone you trust, both their opinion and with your unreleased music.” Jimin leans forward, and Namjoon suddenly feels like there’s been an underlying message in this entire exchange that he hasn’t quite understood. “Maybe that you’ve been close with for a while?”

“I think I’ve got just the person,” Namjoon muses, accidentally pulling the thread free between his fingers. Jimin gives him a hopeful look.

~*~

Jimin’s hope lasted all of 13 seconds.

“Should I be concerned?” Yoongi grumbles, poking his head in through the door. He hasn’t even bothered to dry his hair at this point, letting it hang wet and dripping against his forehead.

“Jimin’s been pretty useful, actually!” Namjoon says, leaning back in the office chair. “He’s got some good ideas.”

Yoongi shoots Jimin a questioning look that Jimin expertly dodges. To be fair, he didn’t mind helping Namjoon, even if Jimin’s intentions for that conversation had been a long, long way away.

Wait-

“What do you mean, actually?” Jimin whines. “I’m full of good ideas!”

Yoongi gives him a pat on the shoulder. “We believe you,” he says in a tone that says he absolutely does not believe him. Jimin pouts.

“Look,” Namjoon says, leaning forward to hit the spacebar and play the song out loud from the section he’d just been working on.

Jimin may not be a star producer or anything, but he’s at least comfortable with music – hell, he’s built his entire academic career around trying to understand music enough to translate it to movement. Point is, there is no reason that either Namjoon or Yoongi should be doubting his skills when they can’t even get it right themselves.

“Huh,” Yoongi says, leaning forward with his hand still on Jimin’s shoulder. “That’s actually not too bad.”

“Actually,” Jimin mumbles, but no one pays him any attention. He fiddles with his phone in his lap, gets a really terrible idea.

~*~

“Can you play it again?” Jimin asks sweetly. Namjoon shrugs – why not?

He takes them back a few bars, maybe thirty seconds worth of song, before pressing play. “You hear something?”

Jimin’s eyes are glued to his phone, holding it low against his chest as he taps away. “Nah, just making sure.”

Namjoon’s not suspicious – not until he has reason to be, at least, which appears in the form of Yoongi giving Jimin a very hard stare that causes Jimin to drop his phone. If Namjoon were clueless, he might think that Yoongi’s just disappointed in Jimin for not giving the moment his full attention (which is wrong, because Jimin’s been giving 110% of his attention to Namjoon for the past 15 minutes), but he knows Yoongi better.

Something passes between them, an unspoken conversation that Namjoon doesn’t have the tools to understands. It’s over in a heartbeat, Jimin looking guilty but pleased and Yoongi refusing to meet Namjoon’s eye.

If Namjoon were a different man, he might consider asking what the hell that was about. He’s not, though – he’s Namjoon, and Namjoon has had some experiences that make him cautious to question anything that goes on between those two. No thank-you, I don’t need to know.

~*~

~*~