Fall brings a decrease of late night laughs and a rise of hurried shopping, coupled with exasperated stress. It’s their first time being away from home, an experience that they have been counting down since the early days of high school. They have so much to to do, so much to see, so much expect - and that thought alone brings on copious amounts of anxiety.

Jimin cries when he says goodbye to his parents. He desperately grips onto his mother’s yellow blouse, desperately clutching onto the remnants of their rocking chair, the ripped curtains that hung low in his room and the sweet smell of Busan sleeping on her collar. 

Jimin cries harder when he realizes that all of these realities are soon going to become memories. 

Taehyung refuses to look his father in the eye. He figures that by avoids doing so, he can somehow avoid the entire situation of farewells. He’s never been one for goodbyes, never been one who has willingly let go of someone - but here he is, at the train station, with his luggage packed to the brim with clothes and heavy hopes; ready to bid his family farewell for years to come. He hugs his mother, his sister and his father, but continues to ensure that he never establishes eye contact with his father.

They both walk toward the narrow walkway leading them to the ticket booth, looking back every so often to give a wave or a small smile. Jimin stops turning back after the heaviness in his chest matches the heaviness of his suitcase. His eyes are blood-shot, and he’s wondering why he thought going to school hours away from home would even be a remotely good idea.

As their tickets are checked, Taehyung turns to Jimin for the first time since they’ve arrived at the station. His eyes are equally as red, dark brown hair a mess from all the times he's run frustrated hand through it. With a weak smile, he looks at Jimin. 

“This will be good for us” 

✧✧✧

“And here’s the lounge,” the man gestures to the open area with an array of sofas, coffee tables and chairs scattered all around. “It’s a nice place to study, but it usually gets rowdy after 8pm, so I would avoid it”. There’s a faint smell of coffee in the air, and Jimin wonders if this is where he will spend his late nights studying, despite the warning. 

The man showing them around is their dorm adviser, Kim Seokjin. He’s a fourth year student, working on a combined major in Social Work and Domestic Law- simply keeping my options open, he later explains. Seokjin is a studious student, an organized student. He knows what he is talking about, his air of confidence comes with justification. 

“And with that, our tour has come to an end,” he turns back toward the to the two first years, “Please no flash photography”. They all laugh together, the stress of university slipping off their shoulders like the melodies slipping off their tongues. Both Taehyung and Jimin bow toward Seokjin, grateful for the tour. 

As Seokjin prepares to leave the lounge, he looks at the two boys one last time. 

“If you ever need to shower in a rush - run to Thompson residency,” he pushes the door leading to the outside world, “they never have a line”

Thompson, Jimin thinks. 

✧✧✧

Jimin and Taehyung walk toward the direction of their shared dorm, voices bouncing off of the warm coloured walls of the hallway. 

“You must be out of your mind!”, Jimin half shouts, gaining a hard shove into the nearest trash can. 

“I said he was kind of  cute,” Taehyung defends, stopping in the middle of the dimly-lit hallway to emphasize effect. “You’re making it sound as if I said I wanted to strip him right then and there and paint him blue” 

Jimin looks at Taehyung dangerously, a raised eyebrow and smirk evident on his face.  “You’re making it sound as though you haven’t said or done more questionable things. Remember when you and Jungkoo-”. 

Taehyung quickly scans around the hallway, looking for any tangible object that will aid him in giving Jimin the sweet knock out that he so desperately deserves. 

“His shoulders were a little too wide for my liking, anyway”. Taehyung’s voice is filled with authority this time; his shoulders arched slightly outward and his chin up, and Jimin decides to believe him. He knows how Taehyung gets when it comes to his crushes, knows how Taehyung becomes defensive - but this is a little different. 

“I just never knew you had a thing for people with such…interesting fingers” 

 

✧✧✧

Taehyung reaches over to turn off their alarm that has been ringing consistently for the past twelve minutes. 

8:21AM. 

Wonderful.

He glances around the room quickly, eyes still confused by the cramped confinements of their new home, or more realistically, 4 by 4 square foot box. He cranes his neck to look over at Jimin, who has somehow buried himself into a mix of sheets, blankets and duvets. He’s tempted to get up and steal the navy blue Donald Duck blanket resting atop of Jimin, but he knows that Jimin is hypersensitive, and will wake up in a fit of why would you do that to me?, and he’s just not up for that today. 

He raises himself slowly, carefully, forearms serving as support. He leans over toward Jimin’s bed, tapping the space between his pillow and his bare mattress. 

“Jimin, wake up” 

No movement. 

“Jimin”, he repeats, this time, voice two octaves lower. 

Jimin groans lowly from under his sea of blankets. His small cocoon lazily begins to come undone; blanket by blanket, sheet by sheet. When he emerges from under the last rose coloured sheet, Taehyung is greeted by a sleepy Jimin, clad in a loose fitting white tank-top. His black hair is unkempt, and bordering chaotic.

“Please,” Jimin begs, and Taehyung knows exactly where this is going, so ensures to stop him before he even begins. 

“Jimin, we’re already running late”

Jimin groans once more, frustration evident in his voice. He slides a hand under his pillow, pulling out his phone, and checking the time. 

Hazy eyes work to look at the brightly lit screen, focusing on the large font depicting the time. “Oh my god”, Jimin sits up hurriedly, tearing off the pool of blankets resting upon his leg. 

“We’re going to be late!” 
“Yeah”
“On our first day”
“We are”
“Class starts in twenty eight minutes!”
“I know”
“And we still need to shower”
“I’m aware” 

Jimin is already standing up, mind a racing mess from whether or not he should pull out his clothes or his map instead. He looks at Taehyung who is still situated on his bed, tapping blissfully away at his phone. 

“We don’t even know our way around campus”

Jimin wants to scream. If his hands weren’t desperately clutching at pants and shirts that he neglected to fold, he’s certain that they would be pressed comfortably against Taehyung's jugular. “What if our classes are two hundred yards away from each other?” 

Taehyung pulls off the blanket bunching at his stomach, revealing his faded hot pink boxer shorts. 

“Well, you packed your nikes didn’t you?” 

✧✧✧

The line at the shower is longer than Jimin expected, spilling into the hallway and finding it’s way down the first steps of their dorm’s staircase. He looks at Taehyung in defeat, wondering how this could’ve happened, how they could’ve went to bed last night without planning this far ahead. Taehyung yawns, rubs a hand through his dark brown hair before slinging an arm around Jimin’s shoulder. 

“Jimin, you know, you don’t have to shower,”. Jimin scoffs, using the tips of his fingers to grip at Taehyung’s forearms, and forcefully pluck him off of his shoulder. 

“I’d rather not have people complain about my hygiene, Tae”. Jimin adjusts his grip on his coconut shampoo. “And yet you wonder why you’re sister complains about your scent” 

Taehyung smile sinks into a frown, hands moulding themselves to his hips. 

“First of all, that smell is called au natural. Look it up”, Taehyung retaliates. “It’s also called priorities”

Jimin wants to laugh, but refuses to, for fear that Taehyung will take it as a sign of victory. Instead, he settles on a small grin and a small shove to Taehyung’s shoulder.

“Take right now for example”, Taehyung smile is large across his full lips, and Jimin can tell that what is about to follow is going to be borderline senseless. “I’m going to skip out on this shower because figuring out where my classes are located is an actual priority”. Taehyung turns around to make his way down the staircase, eyes never leaving Jimin. “But also, and more importantly, because I am a man”. This time, Jimin can’t help but filter out his laughter. 

“See you!”, Jimin manages to shout in between his airy chuckles. Taehyung looks back from the bottom of the staircase and give him a small sailor salute.  

“I’ll text you about our limited dinner options later”, he hears Taehyung call as he disappears into the crowd of students all rushing in different directions. 

As Jimin turns back to to look at the line, and analyze once more just how much of an idiot he is, he is hit by a sudden realization. The voice of a man with particularly large shoulders and uniquely-shaped fingers rings in the depths of his ear drums.

Thompson’s residency never has a line

 

✧✧✧

After thirteen minutes of mindless walking around, Taehyung finally settles on asking someone for help. He walks toward a young girl sitting on the open footsteps in front of the university centre. The girl looks nothing more than a first year, and Taehyung finds comfort in that. 

He clears his throat once he is of reasonable distance, smiling sweetly when she pulls out her earbuds to look up at him. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, but do you know where the Morriset building is?”. Taehyung pauses to look down at his schedule that is making less and less sense the more he tries to comprehend it. “I think I have COM2310 there” 

The girl looks at Taehyung suspiciously, the look he receives does nothing but heighten Taehyung’s disorientation. 

“Is Morriset right in front of me or something?” Taehyung looks around in a small sense of panic, feeling as though it’s so painfully obvious that he is a first year. The girl shakes her head, a grin painting her small features. “No no”, she begins, “it’s just that I thought you were a first year, and COM2310 is a second year course, is all”.  

Taehyung stops. 

Wait.

“Second year?” Taehyung repeats, a large coat of panic layering his words. “That doesn’t make sense”. The girl looks at him curiously,  and Taehyung feels the need to validate his confusion. “See, I actually am in first year”, he continues “so it doesn’t make sense why they would put me in a second year class.” Taehyung wants to laugh at his own misery, knowing well enough that this is the only type of thing that would happen to him. Not Jimin, not Jungkook - him. 

“You should go to the class anyway”, the girl picks up the stack of books laying beside her and places them on her lap, “Talk to the professor and figure out what went wrong”. Taehyung scratches the back of his neck, a habit he has become accustomed to doing every time he was conflicted. The girl glances quickly at her watch and looks at Taehyung, “I’d hurry though, you’re already sixteen minutes late

The girl raises herself to level with Taehyung, books in hand, and a jubilant smile stretched across her lips. “Come, let me show you the way to Morriset” 

 

✧✧✧

After asking six different people and getting acquainted with at least three different maps,  Jimin finds himself inside the Thompson residency, shower gel and shampoo in hand. He’s in the lobby of the dorm, trying to maneuver himself to the nearest sign that will lead him to the showers. The residency is empty safe for a young guy listening to his music on an open platform, visibly skipping class. He opts for a map, but soon realizes that the guy listening to music a little too loudly may be his only hope. With tired eyes and a time crunch, Jimin approaches the guy.

Jimin takes a deep breath, and dives in. “I’m sorry but,”, and within seconds, the guy is looking up at Jimin. His eyes are hard, and filled with irritation. Jimin has always been a little clueless when it came to reading people, but it wouldn’t take a genius to notice the annoyance building up in the man's temples. Jimin can tell that he is reason for the pause in the guy’s music, and the halt in the scribbling on his notepad. Nevertheless, Jimin continues. 

He hopes - prays - that the words that follow his interruption are something along the lines of do you know where the showers are or can you point me to the direction of the showers, but he can’t be sure. He watches the way the boy’s eyes soften after Jimin finishes his unconscious spiel, watches the way his his lips and opens his mouth to talk. Jimin can’t hear the words the boy says in response, can only focus on the way the boy’s lips hug each consonant, vowel and syllable. Jimin takes his eyes off the boy’s lips for a moment to focus on the voice resonating off the tip’s of his tongue. He holds onto each melody. Jimin wants to hear more, almost craves more. 

“Do you have a class soon?”. This is the first sentence Jimin hears clearly, and it snaps him out of his midday daze. 

“I actually have a class right now”, Jimin scratches at the back of his neck, laughing gingerly. He looks at down at the stale teal carpet, and back up at the boy, who is only smiling at him pleasantly in return. “I’m kind of running extremely late” 

“Do you have your schedule on you?”, he asks. The boy’s headphones are out of ears, his focus now entirely on Jimin. 

“I do”, Jimin replies, as he works to pull out his now crumpled from under his bright orange towel. He steps toward the boy, handing him the colour-coded piece of paper. “Here”

Jimin watches as the boy’s eyes run over the paper. His notes that his eyes are a deep dark brown, but they’re strong and distinct. His able to see where his irises meet his pupils, and watches where his eyes dip into soft folds at the end of his water-lid. 

“Good news”, the boy begins, idly handing the paper back to Jimin. “You don’t have that class right now”. Jimin looks up from the spot on the carpet that his eyes have grown accustomed to, face filled with confusion. “What? How do you know?” 

“We have that class together”, the boy states as he reaches to close his laptop. “First year music theory, right?” 

“Yeah” 

“Normally, we have a discussion group for that class on Wednesday’s - which is today - and a regular class on Friday,” he pulls off his snapback to run smooth hand through his light brown hair, “But since the first day of school happened to land on a discussion group day, we don’t actually have to go”. The boy looks at Jimin, and raises an eyebrow before placing his snapback back on his head. “Understand?” 

“Yeah”, Jimin begins. “Yeah, yeah I do”. 

“Good”, a smile paints his features once more, yet this one’s a little different from the one that greeted him when he first spoke to Jimin. 

“I’m Yoongi”, the boy’s mischievous smile never wavers. “Let’s kill some time before your next class” 

 

✧✧✧

When Taehyung enters the large class hall, he is greeted by what seems to be 275 pairs of eyes. He bows at the professor, manners never escaping him, even in his time of utmost anxiety. He moves towards the first seat he spots, beside a dark haired boy dressed in a black and white baseball shirt, and what seems to be a pair of worn out air jordans. The boy smiles softly at Taehyung, as he snakes out the grey chair from underneath the table. He sighs, taking off the maroon snapback that he pulled on before entering the class, and placing it on the table before him.

"Nice entrance", the boy whispers to Taehyung, “Twenty three minutes late on your first day, is that a personal best?”. His voice almost silent against the sound of the professors voice. The boy slides over a bundle of papers that were given out prior to his arrival, and Taehyung takes this an opportunity to figure out exactly what type of course he got himself into. After a few minutes of reading, paper flipping, and re-reading, Taehyung turns to face the boy beside him. 

"This really is a second year course, isn't it", he says, words slipping out more in the form of a statement than a question. 
"It is", the boy responds, voice never raising higher than when he first spoke to Taehyung.  He can tell the boy is trying to be respectful, trying to ensure that the professor isn't being disturbed by their chatter - and that alone sparks Taehyung's interest.
He looks at the time once more, and notes that the lecture is to go on for another forty three minutes, so he decides to make himself comfortable. He folds his arms onto the desk,  faces toward the boy beside him, and lays his head onto his forearms.  As the boy reaches over to collect the pile of papers he previously handed to him, Taehyung looks at his face. 

He notices how his eyes beam when his smiles, how they curve into gentle crescents, like his own personal semi-eclipse, only more remarkable. He notices how his cheekbones curve beautifully, almost artistically, desperate to make themselves apparent . But more importantly, Taehyung notices how his round lips smooth into a mind-bending, soul-feeding smile. 

"I don't think I caught your name", Taehyung finally manages to stutter out, laughing airily at the end of his statement. 
The boy's mouth arches into that captivating grin that makes Taehyung wonder how he ever knew what beauty was before seeing him. 
"I'm Hoseok", the boy offers an outstretched hand to him, and Taehyung accepts it without a second thought, "and you are?" 
Taehyung can feel his heart swell up underneath the confinements of green pullover. "Taehyung", nervous laughter creeping up at the corners of his voice "Kim Taehyung"
"Well, Taehyung" Hoseok glances over at the professor who has been talking incessantly for the past thirty one minutes "It looks like we have a long semester ahead of us". 

Maybe being in a second year class won't be that bad as I expected, Taehyung thinks to himself. 

✧✧✧

Jimin looks at Taehyung in thorough amazement. “So, i’m best friend’s with an absolute idiot" , he shrieks, falling backward onto the low mattress of their shared dorm. 

"It's only second year" Taehyung defends himself, arms crossed over his chest in sheer defence. 
"Only second year?", Jimin half shouts. "You're basically agreeing to stay a course for a guy that you met less than five hours ago" 
“Okay, nine hours ago", Taehyung throws a pillow lazily at Jimin's leg, gaining a small yah in response, "And at least I actually went to class, unlike you. Delinquent" 
"He said it was a discussion group!", this time it's Jimin's turn to defend himself. He hurls back the pillow resting atop his leg, "It wouldn't make sense to go to a discussion group before the actual class. It's logic, not delinquency”
"You know, murderers always find a ways to justify their killings", Taehyung retorts, and Jimin decides that hitting Taehyung with a pillow will no longer be suffice. 

***
Jimin decides to check his email before he sleeps. He slides out his laptop from the One Piece carrying case that Taehyung insisted on getting them both before the semester started. When he opens up the internet browser, he makes his way onto the university website and signs onto his designated email. His eyes slowly dart to the bolded "(1)" in his inbox, and upon the realization that it's an email from his music theory teacher, he opens it lethargically. 

Park Jimin
10:24 PM (23 hours ago)

Good evening all. Professor Jaekyung here, welcoming you to MUS1100. Tomorrow, though its slated for a DGD (Discussion Group), we are indeed having a regular lecture. It will take place in Fauteux 227 (one of the DGD rooms). The syllabus is available on our online database "Blackboard". I'm not sure if you have all gotten a chance to get acquainted with it, but I'll teach you how to use it tomorrow. There will also have hard copies of the syllabus available in class. I hope you are all feeling at home here, and I look forward to seeing you in class!
- B. Jaekyung

Jimin is certain that he is going to kill Yoongi when he sees him next.