Archive of Our Own

“Next,” sighed Jimin, glancing at the clock on his order screen, trying to sound like he gave a crap about what kind of stupid, overcomplicated, over-sweetened, overpriced coffee the next customer ordered, which he absolutely did not. Namjoon was supposed to have been there 12 minutes ago to start his shift and relieve Jimin, who couldn’t leave until Namjoon arrived. It wasn’t possible, not with the new girl being the only other employee there due to Yeon-jin quitting with no notice and leaving no time to train a new employee. It didn’t matter that he’d be late to the seminar he was teaching—he couldn’t very well leave the shop attended by a noob. She hadn’t even learned to use the POS system yet.

This is such typical Namjoon, Jimin fumed. He probably saw a butterfly on the way here and stopped to write an essay on ephemeral beauty. And have a conversation with it. Maybe they're journaling together and he's enthralled by the butterfly's tiny pen.

Jungkook stared down at his shuffling feet and mumbled his speech to himself. I’ll get it right this time. He didn’t even like coffee, and here he was, waiting in a stupid long line so he could say, “Hi, I’ll have a—Oh, hi, weren’t you the TA for my composition class last semester? Jimin, right? So nice to see you again. Anyway, I’ll have an iced Americano. I’m Jungkook. Oh, you remembered? Great! When is your shift over?”

And then Jimin would say, “Oh, of course I remember you! How could I possibly forget? My shift is over in about 10 minutes. Take a seat and I’ll stop by and catch up for a minute, if you don’t mind? Great! See you in a few!”

Certainly Jimin wouldn’t remember the time Jungkook tried to be super fancy and intellectual by taking notes in class with a fountain pen like some Victorian nerd/genius/vampire/detective. Maybe he wouldn’t remember how Jungkook had gotten so nervous about Jimin seeing the margins of his notes filled with hearts when he walked past Jungkook’s seat that he’d dropped his fancy fountain pen on the tile floor and how luckily it had landed on the end of the barrel so the nib wasn’t damaged, but unluckily the droppage had caused a small ink explosion which leaked out of the barrel and all over Jimin’s hand when he reached down to hand the pen back to Jungkook. Or how Jimin’s hand had still had a faint tinge of blue on the palm two days later at the next class.

Nope, all of that would be forgotten and this would be a fresh start. Jimin would come over to Jungkook’s table (with a couple of fresh scones) and Jungkook would say, “Hey, listen, this is really embarrassing, but I just . . . I had such a major crush on you last semester! Isn’t that just so dumb? I never missed that class and I always looked forward to seeing your feedback on my papers, even though I’m not much of a writer. I bet that happens to you all of the time, right? I even thought about working a confession into my final essay! Ugh, so silly. Undergrads crushing on you must be part of the job description.”

And then Jimin would blush and say, “Oh, really? You really thought about that? That’s interesting. I do get a lot of undergrads making cow eyes at me, but it’s usually unreciprocated, a total one-way street.” Significant, weighty, meaningful pause. “But this time . . .”

Jungkook felt a tap on his shoulder. He had been so lost in his fantasy that he didn’t realize that it was his turn. His stomach clenched and he forgot how to breathe.

Jimin looked up at the next customer. Did he know him from somewhere? He was certainly cute enough to remember. Was he in one of Jimin’s classes? A whole summer had passed since his last semester and there was no time to solve that mystery now—he needed Namjoon to get his ass to the counter now so he could sprint across campus to his seminar and arrive all sweaty and disheveled and get a nasty look and snarky comment from that snotty girl who thought she was the smartest person in the room. In the meantime, he just  needed this cutie pie to order.

The guy smiled shyly at him, bit his pierced lip and blinked like a cartoon character, and softly said, “Hi, I’ll have a —”

He never finished his sentence, though. It’s hard to articulate words when someone has just flung a very large, very cold, very sticky coffee drink all over you. It’s nearly impossible to concentrate on what you were saying when there was some sort of creamy, cold goo dripping from your hair and nose and everywhere.

The goo flinger was standing behind the counter with his mouth gaping open, a large, mostly empty, dripping plastic cup in one hand. Jimin also had his mouth gaping open, a sight that would normally leave Jungkook mesmerized, but right now he was too distracted to notice. And damp. And cold.

Jimin turned toward the tall, bespectacled man standing next to him with the empty cup. “Namjoon! What the fuck!?” He glanced apologetically at all of the customers who were staring at the cute guy who was dripping in unicorn frappucino and said, “Sorry. I meant ‘What the heck.’ Please accept my apology.” The noob, Song, had immediately scrambled for some rags and the mop and was heading toward the customer to try to clean him up. Points to her for common sense and quick reflexes, two things Namjoon knew nothing about.

“I tripped!” the tall guy, Namjoon, said. “I was rushing because I was late and the rubber mat has a hump in it and I just— Sir, I’m so sorry about this. This is . . . Your coffee here is free for life.”

Song was busily dabbing away at the young man’s jacket with a kitchen cloth as he wiped his face with napkins.

“Oh, uh, okay,” the young man said. “I’ll just go rinse off in the restroom.” Jungkook glanced backwards as he noisily waddled toward the restrooms, leaving a trail of sticky foam behind him, his shoes squeaking and sticking to the floor, and saw that Song was following along behind him, mopping up his footprints, and Namjoon had stepped up to the counter to take the next order. Jimin was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe it’s an omen, he thought. Every time I try to make a connection . . . Maybe I should just forget about Park Jimin.

For weeks, he tried. He really did. And sometimes when he was concentrating very hard on a paper or a project or something, he did forget about Park Jimin, but when Hobi tried to give him the “There’s plenty of fish in the sea” argument, the only fish swam into his brain was a cute, little orange fish named Jimin. Since last semester, Jimin had become a brain worm for Jungkook. A cute, little orange brain worm-fish. He recalled the time Jimin had commented “Mixed metaphor” on one of his essays and sighed.

Jungkook’s “meet-cute coffee shop” trope had tanked rather spectacularly and his “teacher-student” trope had just quietly failed to launch, but secretly, in his heart of hearts, he did not abandon his crush on Park Jimin. He felt sure their trope was out there somewhere just waiting for the right spark to set it in motion.

Could Jimin be a prince? And I ’m the commoner who steals his heart? Or maybe we’re those weird wolf people who bite and smell each other?

Luckily, Jungkook’s actual classes and projects filled his mind for the next weeks, which turned into months. The end of the semester was suddenly looming, and with it, the campus’s annual Winter Carnival.

Jungkook loved snow and loved winter, so obviously the Winter Carnival had been his favorite campus event for the last three years. He’d helped organize it after his first year even though the end of the fall semester was a shitty time to be distracted by fun.

🌙°🌟❄°*✳○*❄✴°🌟❄°*✳○*❄✴🌙

A day of hard work accomplished by a lot of volunteers led by Jungkook had transformed the central campus into a winter wonderland. Bright streamers and banners and garlands fluttered in the wind. Strands of twinkling lights were wrapped around every tree and light pole. There were several areas set up for children’s activities like face painting and craft making and carnival games. Snow had been shoveled and mounded in several areas to both clear paths for walking and for use in the unofficial grand finale of every winter carnival: the snowball fight. Of all of Jungkook’s favorite things about the carnival, the hot cider, the donuts, the slide . . . The snowball fight was the absolute best.

Campus lore was that no one really knew when or how the tradition had started, but it was probably just a spontaneous, casual, fun thing among friends the first time it happened. It was firmly part of the carnival now, though. It was not approved by the university, so there were no rules, no schedule, no announcement. It started at the end of the carnival when the first shot was fired.

“Fight” is maybe a bit too gentle a word to describe what usually happened. Last year, it had ended in a lawless, Purge-like free-for-all with alliances forming and reforming until dozens of people were spattered with snow and snow piles had been redistributed, ball by ball, onto people.

In a tent near the slide (which he had helped build), Jungkook sat on a stool next to a table strewn with tubes and pots and brushes. Tae sat in front of him, a vivid and intricate butterfly painted on half of his face. He squinted and bit his tongue in concentration as he patted and stroked paint onto Jungkook’s face.

“How much longer is this going to take? They’ll start letting people in soon and I have stuff to do.”

“What stuff?” mumbled Tae. “This is important.”

“Being painted as a rainbow unicorn is not as important as organizing the volunteers. You know, I don’t even remember agreeing to this.”

“If I don’t practice, kids will end up looking like the corpses of . . . I don’t know, of something. Corpses of children. DEAD children. Which would not help establish the cheery holiday vibe the carnival is known for. And I’m painting you to look like a rainbow tiger, not a unicorn. Though if you don’t get laid soon, you might grow an actual horn. But probably not on your forehead. Ow! Get your hands off me, you animal.”

“There just hasn’t been anybody interesting,” sniffed Jungkook.

“Pfftt,” Tae replied. “I watched last week as you rejected two very acceptable applicants. You’re still hung up on TA coffee shop guy.”

“No,” lied Jungkook. “I’ve been very busy. And those guys were ick. One smelled like a school bus on a hot day. And the other one smelled like Axe body spray and could only speak in slang. All he talked about was ‘rizz’ and ‘ops’ and ‘skibidi’ and I have no idea what he said.”

“Listen, I’m busy too, very busy, but I still make time for hmpsha.” Tae’s last word was muffled by the application of Seokjin’s mouth to his own.

“See?” Tae continued. “Hi, babe.”

“I need to go,” sighed Jungkook. “You’re done.”

“Miraculously, you’re correct for a change,” agreed Tae. “But that’s just a coincidence, don’t get used to being right. Now just let me take a quick pic of your handsome tiger face . . . Say ‘Rawr!’”

“Where are the wipes?” Jungkook asked.

“The . . . what?”

“I’m not going to walk around here painted like a gay tiger. You said it was for practice and now you’ve practiced. No one is going to take me seriously like this. It better all come off.”

“I hate to be the one to break this to you,” Jin began, “but there are almost no circumstances where we take you seriously. And by ‘we,’ I mean everyone. I mean, we probably would if you were bleeding. But otherwise, no.”

“I know you have something here to wash this off with,” Jungkook said between gritted teeth.

“Are you suggesting I make errors?” Tae gasped. He turned to Jin. “Have you graduated from law school yet? Find this man guilty.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not how the law works,” Jin said. He rummaged through the bag he carried slung across his chest and pulled out a pack of makeup wipes.

“Objection! Give me that,” Tae snapped. “I’ll do it. You’re out of order. This whole courtroom is out of order. I’m in contempt. Of you both, in case that’s not clear.”

Tae fussily dabbed at Jungkook’s face, muttering about how hard it was to get the red paint off. Finally, he stood up and waved dismissively at Jungkook. “Go now, leave my sight with your handsome but boring and colorless human face. Go forth and be taupe.”

“Where’s the mirror?” demanded Jungkook.

“Crap, it’s in my car,” Jin sighed. “I’ll go get it now. I’ll be back in ten. I had to park 8 blocks away.”

“Fuck it, I can’t wait,” snapped Jungkook.

They watched him jog out of the tent and toward the tables where games for small children needed to be set up.

“For a second there, I thought you were going to tell him,” Tae said as he wrapped his arms around Jin.

“Nah, not me,” Jin answered. “I know a diabolical prank when I see one. Do me next. Paint me like one of your French girls.”

“Did you actually bring the mirror?” asked Tae.

“Yeah, the big, fancy, Snow White hand mirror is in my bag. Here.” He handed the mirror to Tae.

Tae held it up to his own face. “Ooh, look. I'm so pretty.” 

“Okay, everyone!” Jungkook said to the volunteers. “Did everyone get the text and the email with your assignment and instructions?”

A lot of grinning faces nodded back at him.

Cool. They're all excited about the carnival!

 He went briefly through a few last-minute details, confirmed that each team knew what their tasks were, then asked if anyone had any questions. No one did, so they all scattered to set up bottles for the ring toss and blow up balloons for the dart game. He headed over to the huge mound of snow next to the slide.

Hobi was already there, busily forming snowballs with a plastic snowball mold and placing them in neat stacks, fussing over each one to make sure it was perfectly spherical. Jungkook pulled a couple of hand warmer packs from his pocket and handed them to Hobi, saying, “Here, warm up for a minute while I take over.”

Hobi smiled a huge smile at him and asked, “Where were you?”

“When?” asked Jungkook.

“Before.”

“Well, I was born in Busan . . .”

“No, dumbass. Just now.”

“Oh. Tae was practicing face painting on me.”

Hobi saw Jin appear a short distance away over Jungkook’s shoulder. He was flapping around maniacally, drawing one thumb across his own neck, and making facial expressions which Hobi took to mean “Shhh.”

“Ah. Okay. That makes sense,” he said to Jungkook.

Jungkook looked briefly puzzled, so Hobi redirected his attention back to the pile of snowballs. “I think I made a pretty good start. This year, we will not be defeated by those terrible children.”

“Let’s not go overboard,” Jungkook said, looking concerned. “They’re just kids.”

“An eight-year-old enemy is still an enemy,” replied Hobi, steely-eyed. “I will have my vengeance. Remember that one kid from last year, the massive one who could throw like Ohtani? He actually tackled me so his little posse could pelt me while I was down. I had bruises for a week. If I see that kid again, it’s game on.”

Jungkook knew better than to argue with Hobi when he had a mission, so he just sighed and started making snowballs, checking his phone every so often to see if the volunteers needed help. Last year’s defeat at the hand of a mob of children had been a bit embarrassing even though he tried to convince everyone that they had let the kids win and that the real prize was the friends they’d made along the way. It was a hard sell when he was covered with snow from head to toe and Hobi was struggling to stand up after the tackle.

Suddenly, there were people streaming everywhere, heading for the carnival games or to buy tickets to the slide or for the food trucks.

“The gates must have opened,” Jungkook said. “I’m going to make a quick tour of everything and make sure it’s all going okay and no one needs help.”

The afternoon passed in a flash. Jungkook was running the whole time, grabbing more prizes from the storage tent for games, checking in at the food truck area to make sure trash was being picked up, making sure the ticket booth had change for the people who still used cash. As he was taking care of these details, he would occasionally see a child running past with Harry Potter’s glasses and lighting scar or a field of flowers or stars or a panda painted on their face. One with a rainbow tiger even stopped and yelled “Rawr!!” at him while curving his fingers to make claw hands. Before he knew it, the sun was setting, turning the whole scene a beautiful, blushing pink.

Volunteers started breaking down the games and booths and a lot of the crowd was flooding toward the parking and rideshare areas. But there were a number of people just sort of lurking around, trying not to look shifty and failing. Since the snowball fight wasn’t an official activity, it would begin spontaneously, like a compost fire. Alliances would form and reform organically, but the battle always ALWAYS ended up as adults versus kids with a smattering of teens who would fluidly switch sides depending on who was winning.

Jungkook was walking around pretending to check on the progress of the volunteers with his coat pockets stuffed full of snowballs but constantly looking around for anyone else who was clearly waiting for the melee to begin.

He glanced toward the slide where he saw the ball on Hobi’s beanie peeking out from behind the snowbank barricade that hid their arsenal, then started to walk in that direction. Casually.

When he was about 2 meters from the snowbank, a snowball made high-velocity contact with the back of his head and he dove behind the snowbank.

A few rank amateurs made a frontal attack on Hobi and Jungkook’s barricade and paid a price. They were sent scurrying away by a barrage of snowballs. Suddenly, Jungkook and Hobi were flanked by two other groups, one on each side. Luckily, just then Tae showed up to continue making snowballs to keep them stocked with enough ammo, though his (rather complicated) ethical beliefs prevented him from actually throwing snowballs.

“I am a consensual objector,” he’d explained with deep solemnity.

A few carnival-goers continued to stream back out of the campus, back toward their buses and trains and cars, making it easier to see other snowball soldiers. It was an unwritten rule of snowball wars that innocent bystanders should be allowed to clear the area unless it was someone you really hated. Then, game on. Most people were eager to clear out and to let the snowball insanity ensue.

As the crowd dissipated, the forays and sorties and attacks came faster and with more force. The kids seemed to have built an alliance early this year, perhaps having learned lessons from past years, a development that depleted Jungkook’s and Hobi’s ammo stores more quickly than planned. They were feeling like they were in serious trouble until Jin arrived with two shopping bags packed with snowballs he’d stolen from the kids’ stockpile, which they had foolishly left unguarded.

The battle wore on with each side trying various tactics. Evening fell quickly, and soon the battlefield was lit by twinkling lights and streetlamps. The volunteers had gone and the food trucks had driven away. Jungkook and Hobi had realized that the kids had centralized behind a statue—they were incapable of stealth.

“This stalemate has gone on long enough,” Hobi whispered. “Time to end this.”

“What’s the plan?” answered Jungkook.

“Tae and Jin, you need to stay here and be decoys while Jungkook and I fall back and circle around.”

“Which one is less work?” asked Jin.

“Decoy.”

“Okay, we’ll do it,” he said.

“Jungkook, we need to be fast. We’ll each take a bag of snowballs. Jin and Tae, you count to 30, then start pelting the area around the statue with snowballs, as many and as fast as you can. Tae, you don’t have to hit anyone with them—just aim in their general direction. While they’re paying attention to you, Jungkook and I will come at them from behind and annihilate them.”

“Hobi, do you want me to paint your faces blue so you can shout ‘They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom’?” asked Tae.

“Yeah, no, not right now,” Hobi said. “But excellent thought. Oh, look! It started snowing again!”

Just then, they heard adult voices coming from the left side of the battlefield. A small group of people was walking between the statue and the slide, apparently unaware that the snowball fight had not actually ended—it was just in a lull. They were discussing something with such intensity that they seemed unaware that they were on a battlefield. A metaphorical battlefield, sure, but just ask Hobi if there was real pain and real bruising involved. He has pictures that he’ll show you, even if you don’t ask to see them and were talking about a completely different topic.

In any case, these men were about to be pummeled with snowballs thrown by a bunch of kids. “What’s our stance?” Jungkook whispered to Hobi. “Friends or foes?”

“That one little one is kind of hot,” Hobi whispered back. “Maybe our ‘meet-cute’ is that I pelt him with snowballs and then later there’s other stuff with balls . . .”

“Or maybe your ‘meet-cute’ is that you save him from being pelted with snowballs thrown by a roving band of hellions.”

As the men passed through a pool of light under a streetlamp, Jungkook saw that they were all holding coffee cups. And the cups had the distinctive black swan logo of that one coffee shop where . . .

A barrage of snowballs flew from the kids’ camp, taking the trio completely by surprise. The tall one jumped and squawked, sending his coffee flying.

Jungkook recognized the tall guy as the one who had thrown unicorn milkshake all over him at the beginning of the semester and the thought Serves him right had just formed in his mind when he recognized one of the two smaller men. Jimin!

Jungkook’s mind was filled with exactly zero thoughts as he sprinted from their bunker toward the men, later realizing that he’d missed a perfect opportunity to yell “Cover me!!” to Hobi and Jin, but they were capable of rational thought, so they did that anyway, bombarding the kids to give Jungkook time to do whatever the heck he was doing, which turned out to be grabbing the two smaller men by a coat sleeve each and flinging them in the general direction of the bunker, then shoving the big one after them. He dove in behind them, managing to land on the little one who was not Jimin, who grunted, then made choking noises. Hobi quickly pushed Jungkook off the man, asking him with deep concern, “Are you okay? My friend is heavier than he looks.” He then proceeded to gently brush snow  from the man’s hat. “I’m Hobi, by the way.”

The little one who was Jimin was sitting with his back against the snow bunker, smiling with some sort of Mona Lisa/Cheshire cat energy straight at Jungkook, who had scrambled to a sitting position after being shoved by Hobi.

“Oh, no,” Jungkook whispered. “It’s you. I didn’t realize it was you in the dark. Oh, shit.”

“I know you,” he said to Jungkook. “I know I know you, but it’s hard to tell with all of the . . .”—he flapped his hands toward his own face—“camouflage. How do I know you? Don’t tell me!”

Jungkook was too distracted by the word “camouflage” to realize that Jimin’s eyes were quite twinkly.

Looking like a confused parrot, he repeated, “Camouflage? What are you . . .”

Jimin giggled and asked, “Are you somehow unaware that your face is painted like, what, a gay tiger, is it? It’s a little smeared and messy, but the only other thing I can think of is a gay badger, and I just don’t see badgers that way. I guess I need to work on preconceived notions.”

Jungkook glared at Tae (first and mostly), then at Jin and Hobi in turn. “You didn’t wipe it off? You just left it there? And I’ve been walking around talking to people all day with your fucking ridiculous gay tiger painted on my face?”

“Listen,” Tae began. “I honestly thought you’d go to the bathroom and wash it off at some point.”

“Portapotty?” asked Jin, handing the pack of makeup wipes to Jungkook. “There’s no mirrors in there, which is part of why I would never go into one.”

“I was BUSY,” growled Jungkook, scrubbing at his face with a small wad of wipes.

“Give me those,” said Jimin in a scoldy-flirty tone. “You’re missing so many spots.”

As Jungkook’s face emerged, the tall guy, who’d been simply watching the drama unfold, said, “Oh, it’s you. I know you too.”

“I guess I look different when I’m not covered in pink and blue foam,” Jungkook said with a bitterness no one took seriously.

“Well, your face was covered with pink and blue and purple and yellow paint, so I don’t know. You haven’t been back in the shop to enjoy any of your lifetime of free coffee,” the man said, following up with, “I’m Namjoon, by the way. And I’m still very sorry about that incident.”

“I don’t really like coffee that much,” Jungkook sniffed.

“Did you come to the coffee shop to get tea, then?” Jimin asked, slightly smirky.

Jungkook blushed and Hobi took mercy on him. “I’m Hobi, by the way,” he said to Jimin and Namjoon. “And these two are Taehyung and Seokjin. Taehyung is the gay tiger artist.”

“I’m Yoongi,” the third man from the trio said. “ I’m a musician. I have no idea what’s happening here or what anyone is talking about. And I’m okay with that.”

“I think they rescued us from certain death at the hands of small children,” Jimin said. “I’m Jimin, by the way.”

“We know,” replied Tae, Jin, and Hobi.

“I have pictures of my bruises,” Hobi continued. “Here,” he said to Yoongi. “Let me show you.” He pulled out his phone. “I have to warn you, they’re pretty graphic.”

“Although he hasn’t introduced himself yet, this is Jungkook,” Jimin said to Namjoon and Yoongi. “He was in my composition class last spring semester and used a fountain pen and drew little hearts in the margins of his notebook. Namjoon, you remember him from that time you assaulted him.”

“It was an accident!” Namjoon insisted, pouting.

Tae stood up and looked across at the statue. “I think the kids are gone,” he said. “I think we bored them into submission. Or it’s past their curfew. Either way, victory is ours!”

“I think we owe you gentlemen a drink for saving our lives,” Namjoon said. “God knows what would have happened if we’d just kept walking until we were out of range. We could have been home by now.”

They all stood up and brushed snow from their clothes. “I know a place,” said Jimin.

“You know all of the places,” answered Yoongi.

Jimin began walking and the rest followed. Jungkook noticed that Hobi and Yoongi had an awful lot to talk about.

Jimin slipped his arm around Jungkook’s as they walked, saying, “It seems like you had a rough day and could use something to take the edge off.”

Jungkook, looking a bit stunned, said, “The thing is, I had a great day until I realized I’d looked like a crazy person all day. When you said the word ‘camouflage,’ all of the people looking at me and smiling made sense. I thought they were all just happy, but then I didn’t feel like I’d had such a good day after all.”

“And what? Now you’ve understood that they were all happy and it was because of you? That sounds awful.”

“Yes, but Taehyung and Jin just wanted me to look like a dork.”

Jimin turned and called behind them. “Taehyung! Did you send Jungkook out painted like a gay tiger because you wanted him to look like a dork?”

Tae trotted up to catch up with them. “No, I don’t need to actually do anything for that to happen. He is a dork, but he’s my dork and I love him. It was just silly fun. I thought he looked amazing.”

“See?” Jimin said. “You made people happy today.”

“Um, so you really remembered me from your class?”

“Of course I did. I recognized you that day in the coffee shop, but Namjoon had made me late to teach a seminar and I had to run. Like actually run. I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Jungkook mumbled. “It’s probably good that it happened in the long run.”

“Why? You enjoy that kind of thing?”

“No, but I went there to, um, to talk to you. To try to talk to you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Ugh, this is so hard. I had a whole conversation planned out where I was going to maybe, like, ask you to go out with me. But then Namjoon drenched me in goo. So I guess either way I was going to end up embarrassed.”

“Well, I’m sorry the coffee shop trope didn’t work out.”

Jungkook just blushed.

“But this winter carnival tackling and flinging seems to be going your way,” Jimin added. “Here we are, arm in arm, strolling in the snow, surrounded by our best friends and heading for a bar where I plan to get to know you a whole lot better. If that’s okay with you.”

Jungkook turned to look at Jimin, sure he would find him laughing, not in a good way. But Jimin was just softly smiling at him, snowflakes caught in his lashes and cheeks so pink from the cold.

“Yeah. That’s okay with me,” Jungkook answered with a wide smile.

“You really didn’t recognize me when you went on your humanitarian mission?” Jimin asked with a smile so wide it made his eyes crinkle.

“No. But that’s good because if I’d recognized you, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Just then, they reached the door of the bar that was their destination. Jimin held it open and shooed everyone else but Jungkook in.

“Are you graduating next semester?” Jimin asked him.

“Yes, that’s the plan.”

“Your basic requirements are all taken care of? Credits-wise?”

“Yep.”

“You don’t plan on taking another writing class next semester?”

“No. Nope,” Jungkook replied, understanding where this was going.

“So there’s no chance whatsoever that you’ll be my student again?”

“Never. Never again, not ever. And you can’t make nrpht.” His last word was muffled by the application of Jimin’s lips to his own and Jimin’s hand sliding around to rest on Jungkook’s nape. They stayed that way, with various shifts and repositionings, until Hobi finally came out to haul them into the warm bar.

“Get in here! We miss you!” he said.

No one said a word when Jungkook and Jimin arrived at their table hand in hand or mentioned their swollen lips. They were pulled into the warm embrace of the group, like it had always been that way. Like it was meant to be.