From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:47, May 7

BRO COME DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:48, May 7

y??? kinda busy

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:48, May 7

GET OFF YOONGI-HYUNG'S DICK AND COME DOWNSTAIRS

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:48, May 7

BRING HIM TOO

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:48, May 7

omfg im not on his dick

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:49, May 7

GET HIM OFF YOURS THEN

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:49, May 7

BRO

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:49, May 7

tae wtf r u talking abt?????

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:50, May 7

BRO SERIOUSLY JIN-HYUNG'S EX-BOYFRIEND IS HERE

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:50, May 7

THEY'RE ON THE PORCH RIGHT NOW

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:50, May 7

KOOKIE AND I THINK THEY'RE GONNA KISS OR SOMETHING

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:51, May 7

exbf?????

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:51, May 7

YEAH, JIN HYOSANG, THEY DATED FOR LIKE SIX YEARS

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:51, May 7

BRO HE GOT DRUNK ONCE AND YOU AND I WERE THE ONLY ONES WHO WERE STILL AWAKE AND HE TOLD US ALL ABOUT IT AND CRIED

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:51, May 7

WERE YOU SERIOUSLY THAT DRUNK? IT WAS SO WEIRD

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:52, May 7

.................................... holy shit

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:52, May 7

no wonder

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:52, May 7

brt, have to get off yoongi-hyung's dick

From: Kim Taehyung
Sent: 14:53, May 7

BRO THAT'S GROSS

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:52, May 7

u started it????????

From: Park Jimin
Sent: 14:52, May 7

cock block

When Jimin hit the last landing Jeongguk was standing on the step just inside the first landing, holding one finger desperately in front of his mouth. "Stay quiet," he whispered, beckoning quickly. "They're seriously right outside the door."

Yoongi came thumping down the stairs after him, looking dark-eyed and irritable. "What the hell—" But Jimin shook his head quickly, and Yoongi closed his mouth. "What the hell is going on?" he said, this time his voice hushed and quiet. "Jiminnie said something about Jin-hyung's ex-boyfriend? Jin-hyung doesn't—"

"Jin Hyosang," Jeongguk interrupted. "You remember. From the Halloween party? At the Tau Delta house? We ran into this guy and Namjoon-hyung had to take Jin-hyung home—"

Yoongi opened his mouth. Closed his mouth. Blinked a few times. "Oh. Holy shit. That actually... that actually explains a whole hell of a lot. The fuck did you find this out?"

Jeongguk gestured over his shoulder. "Tae... um..." He glanced back - the mid-spring light was arcing in through the side lights, illuminating the entryway in all of its messy glory. Roughly one thousand pairs of Namjoon's shoes were scattered across the floor, coats hanging on hooks, backpacks dumped on the ground left to lie where they'd fallen, and Taehyung was shoved up against the front door with his ear pressed tight against the wood. "Tae—"

"I can't tell what they're saying," Taehyung hissed, flapping a hand irritably. "Just—"

Jeongguk sighed and stepped down into the entryway, wrapping his arms around Taehyung's waist and lifting him easily. "Yoongi-hyung has questions," he said, setting Taehyung down again and pushing his own ear up against the door instead. "Go talk to him. I'll listen."

"Wait, so all that time we thought Joon-ah and Jin-hyung were doin' it," Yoongi muttered under his breath to Taehyung, yanking him in close by his collar, "and it turns out they weren't. But Jin-hyung is gay?"

Taehyung shrugged, apparently not bothered at all by all the manhandling. "Dunno if he's gay? But he dated this Hyosang guy for six years so stands to reason he's at least, you know, like..." He made a face and wobbled a hand back and forth as if to imply a degree of uncertainty. "... a little bit gay. Six years worth of gay. Maybe he's just like a Kinsey 1 and this guy's the exception or whatever, I dunno, it's not like human sexuality isn't inherently malleable anyway, and—"

"Hell," Yoongi sighed, shoving him off. "You hang out with Joon-ah too much." He stepped carefully down onto the linoleum of entryway to stand next to Jimin, brushing the backs of his fingers over Jimin's wrist to silently signal his presence. "Sup?"

Jimin shrugged with one shoulder, slumping slowly against the wall to try to get a better view through the side lights on either side of the solid wooden door. "Can't tell. They're standing pretty close together but I can't see their faces. Kookie?"

"Don't call me Kookie," Jeongguk mumbled automatically, glancing up after a second and shaking his head. "I can hear them, but I can't pick out any individual words that well. I think they're talking about—"

Suddenly the words filtered through loud and clear as someone (not Jin - had to be this Hyosang guy) raised his voice and said, "America? Seriously? America?!" but he quickly hushed when Jin held up a hand, running his fingers over Hyosang's shoulder.

As if summoned by the words the door down to the basement opened and Hoseok stuck his head out into the corridor. He glared over at the group of them huddled in the entryway, eyes going wide and eyebrows arching curiously. "Do I wanna know," he said slowly, "what's goin' on up here?"

Taehyung stepped lightly up into the house, propelling himself along the hardwood on slick polyester lion socks. "Jin-hyung's on the porch," he said, keeping his voice low in a stage whisper as he closed in on Hoseok. "That Hyosang guy is here, you remember - from the Halloween—"

"Jin's ex," Hoseok said. "Yeah, I know." A look of sudden terror passed over his face. "Wait, shit - he's here? And they're talking? Together? Face to face?" He scrambled up onto the main floor of the house, leaving the door down to the basement hanging open. "Shit, this is - somebody tell me Namjoon's still in his room—"

"Pretty sure," Jimin said, glancing at Yoongi out of the corner of his eye. Yoongi just shrugged, as if to strongly imply that his over-excitable roommate moved in mysterious ways. "Why? And what do you mean you know that Jin Hyosang and Jin-hyung used to—"

"Because I have eyeballs," Hoseok bit out quietly, stumbling over the step of the entryway before coming up short in front of the door - the gears in his head turning so fast Jimin could almost see smoke coming from his ears with the speed and fury of it. "Guys seriously, Jin Hyosang was the vice-president of the Tau Deltas before Beta Tau Sigma broke off and their relationship was like an open secret in the Music department."

Yoongi sputtered. "But Joon-ah didn't - and I never—"

"You weren't involved in the Music department until after Jin-hyung and Hyosang broke up," Hoseok said, tossing a look at Yoongi over his shoulder. "And Namjoon's only a genius when it comes to math and music. He's shit at interpersonal relationships." He paused, ducking over to glance out one of the side lights at the scene on the porch. "I think Jin-hyung thinks it's cute. God save the poor bastard. They haven't kissed or anything, right?"

"Don't think so," Taehyung said, glancing worriedly between Yoongi and Hoseok's faces. "Far as Kookie and I can tell they've just been talking."

"Arguing," Jeongguk cut in, ear still pressed to the door. "They mighta' started out talking but they're definitely arguing now."

"Shit." Hoseok twisted his hands into his fists as he stared out the side light as inconspicuously as possible. "Shit. Shit, we can't - we can't let 'em kiss, you guys—"

Yoongi blew a raspberry. "Hoseok-ah, Kookie literally just said they're arguing—"

"I said don't call me Kookie!"

"—since when do people start makin' the fuck out during a fight?" There was a moment of quiet, and when he caught the look Jimin was directing at him he flinched a little. "What?"

"You're still pretty, babe," Jimin said after a second, patting Yoongi affectionately on the arm before turning toward Hoseok. "Why can't we—"

"Shit," Hoseok hissed through his teeth. There was movement on the porch. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

One of the floorboards at the top of the stairs creaked, and then Namjoon's voice floating down the steps: "Do I wanna know what you're all whispering about down there?"

"God fucking damn it," Hoseok breathed. "They're fuckin' kissing."

NAMJOON
Immediately after getting back from Spring break

He'd made a deal.

It hadn't been with anyone; it had been with the air, the sea, the universe, whatever (surely nonexistent) deity might be listening, but god - god, he'd made a deal. Four days ago everything had been fine. It had been weird, sure, but it had been fine - the kind of fine that Namjoon would have given up anything to hold onto. The kind of fine that when he looked up and saw Jin overbalancing at the edge of that platform, when he was standing up and tearing his sweatshirt off before he could even think, when he was diving into the water without even considering the consequences... the kind of fine that when Jin had been lying there on the wood paneling of the pier without even the whisper of movement in his chest and his lips blue and his skin bloodless, Namjoon had made a deal.

I'll give up everything, anything, just to make sure Jin makes it out of this alive.

He hadn't thought about it then (especially not when Jin sucked in that strangled breath and coughed the water up out of his lungs onto the pier) but everything and anything technically counted Jin himself. It had to, because Jin was - Jin was something. Jin was kind of everything, in a weird way. They'd been together (they'd been friends) for four years now and Namjoon couldn't fucking wrap his mind around the idea that Jin wouldn't be constantly just a shout away, just downstairs or on the other side of a shared bathroom door or on the opposite end of the couch, next to him in the dark.

Next to him in the dark, reaching out and sleepily begging him not to leave. Next to him in the dark, firelight playing over his face on Christmas eve. Next to him in the dark, streetlights shining strange and golden-green on the tear-tracks on his cheeks. Next to him in the dark - pretending that he was the one having a hard time getting to sleep in order to preserve some semblance of Namjoon's dignity.

Next to him. Just... just next to him. It was everything, how Jin had been there next to him for the last four goddamn years, and Namjoon had never expected (had never wanted to think) that Jin might drop away someday. Might leave his side. Might leave and drift slowly distant like two ships pulling farther and farther apart in a diverging current.

Even if Namjoon hadn't made that stupid fucking deal. If he'd never seen Jin tip into the water from a great height. If he'd never done a lot of things, seen a lot of things, thought a lot of things - still Namjoon couldn't bring himself to ask Jin to stay.

He lay face down on his bed with his face buried in his pillow and the sounds of the house creaking and settling around him. He could hear voices from the ground floor (cautious and curious, that funny note of worry that painted Jimin's timbre when he was nervous about something), he could hear wind rustling in the new leaves outside, he could hear the furnace groaning and rattling to life as the temperature in the house sunk down below comfortable room temperature.

He didn't hear Jin. He couldn't hear Jin's voice. He couldn't hear Jin's footsteps on the stairs (a few people had come up and gone down again but at some point over the last four years he'd memorized the unique fingerprint of Jin's feet on the steps) and it ached. It was like he was already gone, out of Namjoon's reach.

Maybe that was for the best? Maybe he should just try to pretend that Jin was already gone, maybe it would make it easier. He could get used to the idea so when the term ended and Jin walked for his diploma and packed up his room and went to the airport and disappeared into the ether it wouldn't be so goddamn impossible to think about.

It wasn't because of anything. It had just been four years (did those four years even mean a thing to Jin? did they mean a single goddamn thing?) and even before then Jin had been taking care of Namjoon in his funny, quiet way. Taking care of him when he was just one more drunk kid in the Tau Delta movie room. Tucking a blanket over him on the couch. Making sure he ate when he was caught up in a composition, making sure he woke up on time for tests. And then when Beta Tau Sigma had exploded violently into being out of the wreckage of the Tau Delta government Jin had been there too, backing him up and having his back and taking care of the things he couldn't figure out for himself because he was smart, not experienced, and Jin always knew what to say.

It had been four years. It had been even more than four years in a way, but it had been four years since Namjoon had invited Jin to stay in his room at the Beta Tau Sigma house and they'd grown accustomed to each other (they'd gotten close, didn't that mean anything?) and now - and now what?

Namjoon couldn't bring himself to ask Jin to stay. His head buzzed and his pulse thumped in his ears and every nerve felt like it was trying to crawl out of his skin but he couldn't think of a single goddamn reason why he could ask Jin to stay. Because I'll miss you was the stupidest fucking thing he'd ever heard. Because it won't be the same without you was a close second. Because it's been four whole years with your support and I can't do this without you was quickly climbing the Incredibly Stupid Reasons list forming in Namjoon's head.

Because it's only been four years, said a voice in the back of Namjoon's head. It's only been four years and I'm not ready for this to be over. I thought I had more time. I thought we had more time. I thought if things just stayed like this forever I could have half a chance at being happy. If things just stayed like this.

That wasn't quite right, though. Not like this. Not just like this. He couldn't work out what exactly he wanted things to be like, but Jin vanishing in a puff of smoke didn't factor into that idyllic universe at all.

He lay there for what must have been hours until finally he heard it - the sound of Jin climbing the stairs.

He'd learned most of them, eventually. Yoongi climbed the stairs like he had something to prove. Taehyung ran up two at a time. Hoseok practically fell up the stairs in an untraceable tumble. Jimin's pace was even but quick, short legs pumping like he was on a stair master. Namjoon was still learning Jeongguk but mostly that was because he sounded so much like Taehyung and it was taking more study than usual to differentiate them.

Jin, though. Namjoon couldn't remember ever learning the sound of Jin's footsteps on the stairs - he'd just known it one day, no conscious effort expended, and from then on he always knew when Jin was coming or going or stopping or waiting or (on rare occasions) tripping on his own feet and falling down a little. He'd never had to try to learn Jin, he'd just known one day. Jin had slipped into his life through the back door and by the time Namjoon noticed what had happened it was like Jin had always been there and Namjoon couldn't imagine life without him.

When Jin climbed the stairs Namjoon had been lying on his bed for hours in the dark, still wearing the jeans he'd worn on the drive back up from the beach (the jeans he'd worn to check the mail, the jeans he'd been wearing when Jin announced his quickly-approaching abandonment) and unable to even consider sleeping. Jin climbed the stairs. Walked down the hallway, floorboards creaking under his weight. Paused in the space between their two bedroom doors. (They'd spent four years by each other's sides. That meant something, right? It had to mean something.)

Maybe Jin would knock on the door and come in and let Namjoon know that it had all been some kind of horrible joke. Maybe he'd read the letter wrong or something.

Please, god. Please, god, let it all be some kind of horrible joke. Please let Jin knock on his door. Please let this just be a nightmare so he wouldn't have to lie here caught in the mire of his own tortured indecision.

The sound of a door opening, hinges creaking - Jin's door.

The latch clicked, and there was silence.

Namjoon turned his head on his pillow to glance over at the clock on his nightstand. It was nearly midnight.

It was nearly midnight, and of course Jin wouldn't knock on his door. Of course Jin wouldn't want to talk to him. He'd acted like a total entitled asshole, talking like Jin was duty-bound to share every damn secret and mention every damn career opportunity and write Namjoon big long lists of any and all future plans like Namjoon was some kind of hyper-controlling guidance counselor. Why the fuck would Jin come over and talk to him?

It was nearly midnight, and Jin was leaving, and Namjoon had fucked up everything beyond repair.

JEONGGUK

The beginning of Spring term started like any other Spring term might have done - there were new leaves on the trees and the air was beginning to warm up and the jocks were starting to come out in full force in the full early-spring uniform of tank tops and obnoxious sunglasses, driving convertibles with the top down and playing bad music too loud in the middle of the afternoon. The world seemed to be waking up after winter and everything seemed fresh and new and crisp (one morning Jeongguk woke up the sound of a lawn mower somewhere down the block and was bowled over by how much it sounded like summer, creeping in under the door) and things were... things were weird.

None of them saw Namjoon for a few days, a week maybe, until one night at three in the morning Jeongguk woke up starving and went down to the kitchen only to find Namjoon at the kitchen table looking half dead with a cup of coffee in a loose grip, arms stretched out in front of him and forehead resting on the surface of the table. He'd thought Namjoon was asleep (he had to be, right?) so he tiptoed across the kitchen to dig through the fridge for something quick and easy so he could go back to bed—

"I'm not asleep," Namjoon had said, voice muffled as he mumbled into the wood of the table.

Jeongguk jerked upward, turning to stare at Namjoon's slumped, motionless shoulders. "Oh," he said, voice low and scratchy with sleep. "Okay." God, that was a stupid response. "I'm getting something to eat, do you want—?"

"Nah." Namjoon sat up, but he was turned in the opposite direction so Jeongguk couldn't see his face. "Can't eat. Think I'm coming down with something. Thanks, though."

Jesus. This was so damn awkward. Jeongguk hadn't been there for the fight, hadn't been there in the basement when Hoseok had passed on whatever cryptic information he had to give, but Jimin had filled in both Taehyung and Jeongguk that evening when they were getting ready for bed, hissing the gossip via whispers in the dark. He knew that the house had almost unanimously decided that Jin and Namjoon were together (together together) for months before finding out that they weren't. He knew that Namjoon and Jin seemed to have a kind of easy, silent mode of communication that reminded Jeongguk of nothing so much as his own parents.

He knew that Jin had been invited to a post-doctoral program with the FDA in Washington DC and that Namjoon had responded to the news with something that had looked to Jimin as something closer to panic than any of them (except maybe Hoseok) had expected, and now Namjoon had been all but absent - at least until three in the morning, coffee in his hands at the kitchen table and insisting that he wasn't hungry.

"Okay," Jeongguk said, trying to keep the note of skepticism out of his voice as he dug a banana milk out of the fridge. "I hope you, um... aren't. Coming down with something, I mean."

"Yeah, well." Namjoon slid down a little in his chair, head tipping forward slightly and hands tightening on his coffee cup. "Not a lot I can do about it, right? We're all just adrift on the currents of fate. Sometimes it feels like our lives are dictated by the choices of other people. Workings we can't control."

Ah. Here was the Philosophical Bullshit he'd been warned about. "I guess." Jeongguk peeled the top off of the banana milk back and stared into the bottle for a second before knocking it back like he was drinking to get drunk. "But I mean... don't we all kind of have the ability to steer ourselves a little? Like... getting into the frat, right?" He was too tired for this, but Namjoon seemed so strangely small and lost and confused. Like a stray kitten in the rain. "I mean... ultimately whether I got accepted or not was out of my hands, but I'm the one who asked to get in. I'm the one who earned the grades that made me eligible. Maybe in a way it was dictated by the choices I couldn't control, but I wasn't entirely powerless." He hesitated. "Not that that has anything to do with, um, getting sick."

"Yeah," Namjoon said after a second, not looking up. "You're a good kid, you know that?"

"Aren't you barely older than me?"

"Don't be a brat. I'm three years older than you."

"Yeah, well." Jeongguk shook the last couple of drops out of the bottle and tossed the corpse of it into the recycling bin. "I'm gonna go back to bed. If you're coming down with something you probably should too, hyung."

Namjoon shrugged. "You can't tell me what to do. I'm the president here. Who can tell me what to do?"

"Jin-hyung's not here," Jeongguk said, pausing in the door out into the corridor. "He's asleep. So somebody's gotta."

"Yeah," Namjoon said, but Jeongguk only barely heard his voice as he climbed the stairs. "Jin's not here."

It was another week and a half before anyone saw Namjoon again - he seemed to go to class, as far as anyone could tell; his shoes and jacket and messenger bag would be gone in the morning when they got up, but no one ever saw him leave or come back - and in the meantime Jin got quieter and quieter and quieter until it seemed like the house was almost haunted.

Laundry got done. Meals were cooked. Homework got done. But nobody knew what to do, and after a while most of them just started spending most of their time in their rooms, the common areas left empty to collect dust and ghosts.

Once in the afternoon Jeongguk wandered through the house and down the hallway to drop some laundry downstairs and saw Jin curled up on the couch in the living room with his attention buried in a textbook. A month ago it wouldn't have been notable, but just then he couldn't keep from stopping and looking, lungs constricting.

At some undefinable point over his freshman year this funny house and its funny inhabitants had become home, had become family, and now something was off-kilter in a way none of them knew how to fix. It itched in his bones, poked in the back of his head like a slowly growing bramble, and he couldn't keep from stopping and looking. From speaking.

"Hey hyung," Jeongguk said, and his voice echoed strangely in the almost-empty room in a way he couldn't remember it having heard ever before - undampened by the general buzz of the house in full erratic swing. "Getting some studying in?"

Jin glanced up, and - and he actually looked fine. His face was a little puffy like he'd eaten something salty or maybe taken a nap, but his eyes were clear and he looked okay. "Checking my dissertation," he said, a funny smile playing over his face as he sat back in the couch, letting the textbook lay to rest on his knees. "It's fine - my advisor says it's ready to go any time, really - but I guess... you want to make sure you don't miss anything, you know?"

"Yeah." Jeongguk reached up and tugged at a lock of hair behind his ear, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. "Are you - are you gonna go to the US?"

It was almost like magic, how Jin's face changed. It had been open and clear but then as the question passed Jeongguk's lips he seemed to shut down like a storm shutter, eyes going a little dark. "That's..." He glanced down at his textbook again, and Jeongguk could tell that the conversation was over. "That's a really good question," Jin said, and then didn't speak further.

The house was haunted, but not by something that had once been alive. It was the ghost of something that had never happened at all, the spirit of something so close to formation that it had almost made it through the barrier between possibility and reality, but regardless. Regardless. The house was haunted.

"Somebody's gotta do something," Yoongi said one afternoon, with all of them hanging out in near silence in the room Jimin, Taehyung, and Jeongguk shared. He was lying back on Jimin's bed on the bottom bunk with Jimin settled back between his legs, Yoongi's fingers carding through his hair. "It's been almost a month. This is bullshit."

"It's their business," Hoseok said.

"That especially," Yoongi shot back, "is bullshit. This is affecting all of us."

Hoseok just shrugged. "Lemme know if you come up with something we can do, then."

"Call an exorcist," Jeongguk piped up, meaning it as a joke - but nobody laughed.

JIN
Early May

The house seemed to be haunted, and it was beginning to get under Jin's skin.

That wasn't strictly accurate - it wasn't something that was just starting. It had been happening for a while, the odd niggling feeling of something slightly off creeping in through cracks in the window panes, settling in slow and gradual and heavy like a cat. He felt as though he always had something on the tip of his tongue, words caught in his back teeth, confessions tangled up like wires in his larynx, and it had been this way for a while.

He couldn't remember when it had started. There was no defined point, no aha moment - although maybe that was because he'd been awkward since the day he was born, and really all he'd done during his quarter-century of life was slide bumpily from one lagoon of awkwardness to the next. This one was new, though. The water in this lagoon felt cold and sharp and lonely and confusing. There were dark shapes in these waters and when the light flickered over them they looked like his deepest and darkest fears. Loneliness and not being needed and not being wanted and not being good enough, all slipping silently through the back of his head - waiting for him to make the wrong move so they'd have the opportunity to drag him down.

But Namjoon... Namjoon was the ghost, it seemed like. It seemed like that a lot, really. In the morning there would be dirty dishes in the kitchen sink where there had been none the night before. In the middle of the night Jin would hear the shower turn on and lie in the dark staring at the wall wondering what he should do. The house was haunted by the most polite poltergeist Jin could possibly imagine - dropping things on the stairs and muttering apologies under its breath; restocking the fridge at odd hours when they got low on banana milk; moving things overnight and then no one Jin got his hands on would confess to it.

It had been almost a month since they'd come home from spring break and Jin had opened the yellow envelope. It had been almost a month since they'd come home from spring break and the word accepted had knocked the breath out of him. It had been almost a month since they'd come home from spring break and Namjoon had been so strange and confused and upset that his hands were shaking, his hands were shaking, he tried to sit down at the table and the chair fell apart in his unsteady grip and he fled, breathless and bloodless, up the stairs to his room.

It had been almost a month since they'd come home from spring break, and Namjoon was a ghost. Jin had caught a few glimpses of him - through the window, mostly, like he'd heard Jin's footsteps on the stairs and scrambled to leave the house to avoid him - but he may as well have been gone altogether for all Jin interacted with him. (Sometimes Jin felt like he interacted with his dead grandmother moreso than he did with his own housemate.)

It had been almost a month and Jin was lying on his bed in bed staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night.

He wasn't proud of it, he would deny it if challenged, but he'd started tracking Namjoon's movements. Started paying attention to when the chair in front of Namjoon's desk creaked as he sat down at his computer. Started paying attention to when Namjoon brushed his teeth. Shaved his face. Took a shower. Dried his hair. Right now Jin was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark, and it was just a little past midnight on a Friday. (Well, Saturday now, he supposed.) Namjoon usually showered around now, perhaps assuming that Jin had already fallen asleep and wouldn't be conscious enough to notice it, but lately Jin couldn't sleep until he'd gotten some kind of sign that Namjoon still drew breath.

Or showered, anyway. Showering was important. Drawing breath was right up there, but nobody wanted the undead around if they smelled bad as well.

Jin bit his lip and glanced at the clock. It wasn't a little past midnight anymore, it was almost one in the morning and there was still no sign of Namjoon preparing to get into the shower. No telltale click of a latch, no creaking of floorboards, no shuffling of bare feet on tile. It was almost one in the morning and Jin was officially starting to get worried.

He shouldn't get up, right? He shouldn't. Just because Namjoon had been showering at the same time every night for the last three and a half weeks and now he wasn't... that didn't necessarily mean anything. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. Maybe he'd gotten distracted working on a composition - lord knew that had certainly happened enough over the past few years. Maybe he wasn't even home, or he was downstairs, or he'd finally decided to go find someone and talk to them about whatever it was that had him so—

The noise was almost so quiet as to make Jin wonder if he imagined it, but he was sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the mattress before he had a chance to wonder whether it was a real sound or not. The floorboards were cold under his feet, but not freezing - just enough to wake him up a little - and he glared at his bedroom door as if daring the noise to come again.

It did, just very slightly louder this time; a quiet little knocking, three taps in a row that were so gentle and careful that it sounded almost as though whoever was on the other side of the door was almost more scared of being heard than not.

God. It was probably Jimin, from the sound of it. Relationship problems maybe. Anxiety over his homework. Jin sighed and shoved himself to his feet. Wandered across the room. Paused for just a second at the door, hand on the knob. When he opened the door—

"Can we just pretend," Namjoon said, after several seconds of almost impossibly heavy silence, "that something else is happening? That we're two other people?"

"What?" Jin said back. (Was he asleep? He had to be asleep. There was no way this was happening, not after nearly a month of Namjoon avoiding him like his life depended on it.) "Two other people—?"

"It's just—" Oh god. Oh, god. Namjoon's hands clenched into fists at his sides, relaxed again, clenched and relaxed and clenched and relaxed, and he sucked in a rough shuddering breath, and his head was hanging forward and he smelled a little like soju and oh god. Oh god. He was crying a little, wasn't he? Jin had to exert conscious effort not to stumble backward, not reach out, not to mess things up even more. "It's just you're my best friend and I don't want to talk to anybody else but I'm - I'm having a really hard time right now and I don't want to talk to anybody else about it and nobody else would get it and I don't want to mess anything up but it's really late and I really want to talk to my best friend—"

"Joonie," Jin said, keeping his voice quiet. Trying to keep the knot in his chest from creeping up into his throat. Reaching a hand out, curling a loose grip around Namjoon's wrist. "What's going on?"

"I don't know who else to talk to," Namjoon repeated, choking on the words. God, he was... he didn't actually seem that drunk, really, but he seemed so messed up somehow. He seemed so messed up, confused and scared and, all right, (okay), just a little bit drunk. "You're my best friend and I don't want to talk to anyone else about this, but the person I care about most is - they're leaving, and I thought I had more time, and I don't know what to do and I don't want to talk to anybody else about it but I can't talk to you about it and I can't - I don't—"

"Do you just need someone to talk to?" Jin tightened his grip just slightly. "Yeah, we... we can pretend to be two other people. I can just listen, it's okay—"

Namjoon sucked in a shuddering breath and ran a hand back over his hair. "I don't - I can't figure out how to say it. How to say any of it. I haven't been sleeping well with, y'know, my fuckin' dissertation or whatever, and then there's this whole - this whole stupid thing." He turned his wrist in Jin's hand, the movement a curl of humiliation and regret rather than any kind of attempt to escape. "It's - it's okay. I'm okay. This is okay. I'm sorry, it's really late, this is really stupid anyway and it's not like there's really anything wrong. I'm just being stupid. It's stupid."

"Do you want to come in?"

Quiet for a second, before Namjoon jerked his head once and bit his lip. "I don't have anything to talk about," he said, still stepping forward awkwardly as Jin pulled the door open a little farther. "I don't know."

"We could just watch a movie." Jin dropped Namjoon's wrist and watched him as he stepped over the threshold. He felt like a lifetime skeptic who'd come home to find a cryptid folding his laundry as a favor. "Maybe it... maybe it'll help you sleep." He shrugged and rubbed a hand awkwardly over the back of his neck, kicking the door closed with one heel. "I have a lot of different movies and I can stream like, god, pretty much anything—"

"Do you wanna watch Ponyo?" Namjoon's voice was quiet, dampened by the way he was hanging his head to glare at the floor. "It's... it's been a while. Since we watched a Ghibli movie. You know. Together."

"I thought you didn't like Ponyo." Shut up, Jin. Namjoon the ghost had appeared in his bedroom and here he was arguing. "Ignore me. Hold on—" He clambered up onto his bed, kicking the quilt down to the foot board, leaning against the pillows stacked up at the top and adjusting his laptop on his knees before glancing up into Namjoon's face. "My laptop speakers aren't the best, but—"

"I know," Namjoon said. (Of course Namjoon knew - he complained about it every single time Jin watched so much as a short youtube video without plugging in headphones first.) He swallowed as he sat down on the edge of the mattress, gripping his knees as though he needed to keep his balance somehow, before finally scooting back against the headboard next to Jin. "It's okay. I'm just... I'm really tired. But I know I'm not gonna sleep."

Jin loaded up Ponyo. Maximized the window. Glanced at Namjoon out of the corner of his eye.

The lights were off except for the glow of his laptop and his bedside lamp and Namjoon's face was lit up strange in gold and blue. He was focused on the laptop screen (the animation swirling, the music starting) but his eyes shone and his cheeks seemed flushed and his bottom lip was pink and swollen and practically torn up from worrying at it. He was sitting nearly half a meter away, practically on the very edge of the bed. His hands were twisted in his lap and he was sitting against the pillows like he was comfortable but his jaw was set and his shoulders were tense and Jin could see the thump of blood in his jugular.

"You might not be able to sleep," Jin mumbled, trying to make his voice sound exhausted as possible as he slumped over to swing an arm over Namjoon's shoulders, simultaneously leaning over and pulling Namjoon in at the same time, "but that doesn't mean I'm not going to sleep. Make yourself comfortable." He paused, considering that for a second. "I mean for me. For my sake. Be a good pillow."

"I'm not—" But then Jin sighed and settled against Namjoon's side, pulling the laptop over so it was half on Jin's leg and half on Namjoon's, and Namjoon stuttered into silence. "Okay. Yeah. A good pillow. I can do that."

The movie played. The sound was tinny in the speakers, but for the first time Namjoon didn't complain about it. Namjoon seemed to stay still and nervous and awkward until Jin felt Namjoon's head turn, his neck bend, his face curve in against his throat—

When Jin glanced down Namjoon was snoring slightly into the skin of Jin's neck. Ponyo had barely gotten stuck in that bottle and Namjoon had practically passed out, eyes closed, cheek and lips smashed awkwardly against Jin's jawline. His breath was slow and deep and even and he seemed so spent. So exhausted. So entirely used up somehow.

Jin let the movie play. Like Namjoon had said, it had been a while since he'd seen a Ghibli movie and this one was one of his favorites (there was something about it that twisted around his lungs and blew the breath out of him) and Namjoon never wanted to watch it. (I don't like that the dad is gone all the time, he'd said, shrugging awkwardly before reaching forward to pull out a different DVD case.)

When it was over Jin tried as hard as he could to extricate himself from Namjoon - a daunting prospect: Namjoon was a loop of tangled string all by himself while asleep even without any other limbs to complicate things further - move his laptop to the floor, pull the quilt back up—

But when he straightened Namjoon was sitting up. Slumping forward, face in one hand, eyes blinking and unfocused.

"Hey," Jin said, keeping his voice quiet. "It's almost three. I was just going to go to sleep. If - if you're too tired, you can just—"

"I should go sleep in my own bed," Namjoon slurred, shaking his head blearily. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress and didn't look up to meet Jin's eye. "Thanks. For, you know... for stuff. The movie. Letting me sleep."

"Yeah. Any time."

Namjoon stood up. Shuffled across the floorboards to the door into their shared bathroom. Paused for a second, hand on the doorknob, before turning a little - not a lot, just a little, just enough so that Jin could tell that Namjoon was addressing him and not the wall - before opening his mouth. "Listen, Jin - about America—"

"You have to let me make my own decision," Jin said quietly, clenching his fists in his lap. (Part of him wished Namjoon would ask him to stay. Another part of him hoped Namjoon would respect his need to make this choice on his own.) "It's a big decision. I know it's big. Please... please just trust me to make the right choice for me."

Quiet for a second. Namjoon turned back toward the door. "Yeah," he said, voice rough. "I trust you, Jin. I just—" He trailed off, and his grip tightened slightly on the door knob. "I'm gonna miss you. When you leave. That's all."

Then he was gone (latch clicking behind him) and it was almost like he'd never been there at all - except for the warm spot in Jin's bed. The cramp in his shoulder that he'd ignored for the sake of letting Namjoon sleep. The dent in the pillows.

That night Jin didn't sleep much, but what sleep he found was in the hollow Namjoon's body had left, surrounded by the smell of Namjoon's coconut shampoo and the soap he used and something mysterious and almost woodsy that Jin couldn't put his finger on. He didn't need to - it was Namjoon, and when he rolled over into that space it was so comforting and familiar that he was asleep in seconds.

The house was still haunted, but the ghost had changed. Now the ghost was just the scent of coconut shampoo, honey oatmeal soap. Something that was almost reminiscent of cedar, dragging Jin down into dreamless sleep.

JIN
May 7

Jin hadn't slept enough. He hadn't gotten to sleep until nearly three in the morning and now he had the Ponyo theme song stuck in his head and he was still only halfway through his final round of dissertation edits (god, sometimes he wondered what on earth Past Jin had been thinking when he read over chapters he'd written the year before) and when the knock came on the front door he almost didn't register it for a second. But then it came again, louder and more insistent, and he looked up.

Over the last month he and Namjoon had divided the house without ever speaking about it - Namjoon had the top floor to move around as he pleased, to work in silence in his bedroom and not be distracted or annoyed or bothered by the telltale creaks of Jin in his own bedroom across the hall - and so Jin had taken to camping out on one of the couches in the living room. The front windows were cracked open slightly to let the gradually warming spring air filter in. The light was gentle, green and pink as it filtered through the new leaves and flowers budding and curling open in the world outside. He was wearing that ridiculous Yoshi sweater because... because he'd been finding himself seeking out small connections with the way his life had been a month ago.

A month ago things had been liminal and confusing, but they'd been steady. They'd been predictable. Namjoon was Namjoon and Jin was Jin and they were the leadership of a professional College of Music frat and everything was fine. That was the way things were, and everything was fine.

Now nothing was fine, and Jin was wearing the Yoshi sweater some other version of Namjoon had given him for Christmas, and he hadn't been able to find it in himself to take a shower and wash off the coconut oatmeal-honey cedar smell Namjoon had left tangled in his sheets, and someone was knocking on the door.

The third time the knock came it was even louder, more of a banging than anything, and through the slightly open front windows he heard the impatient creak of someone's weight shifting on the old porch slats, a sigh of annoyance, the rattle of the hinges in the door frame - so he came back to himself. Got up. Moved to the door, shuffling his slippers a little on the floorboards. "I'm coming," he called out - and down the hall Taehyung poked his head out of the kitchen curiously, a piece of dried squid sticking out of his mouth. Jin waved a hand dismissively. "I've got it. Don't worry about it."

It was Saturday afternoon and of course no one had lectures and even though it was mid-afternoon the front door was still locked from the night before, and so he had to struggle with the old rusted deadbolt for a second before it would shift and he could turn the knob and open the door and look up—

"Hyosang," Jin said, the name coming up out of his lungs like he'd been punched in the gut. "What - what are you—"

Hyosang, Jin Hyosang, stood on the front porch of the Beta Tau Sigma house with his fists shoved into his trim black jeans. He was wearing a light jacket and a thin cotton v-neck t-shirt that showed his clavicles and even now (four years later) the sight of that throat still made Jin's mouth go a little bit dry. His hair was messy and his face was pale and he looked tired and annoyed in equal measure, and his eyes went a little bit hard when he glanced up into Jin's face.

"I heard you were leaving," Hyosang said, and his voice was just like it had been four years ago. Just like it had been back at the Halloween party. Just like it had been when Hyosang had cornered him at the Tau Delta Valentine's Day party and demanded that he explain himself. "Some of the guys said you got offered post-doctoral work overseas."

If Jin were a swearing man (and he wasn't) he might have sworn then. If he were Namjoon he might have told Hyosang to fuck off. If he were Yoongi he might have just slammed the door in Hyosang's face. But he was himself, he was Kim Seokjin, and Hyosang was on the doorstep and Jin was nothing if not weak and confused and tired and upset so... so instead of telling Hyosang to fuck off, instead of slamming the door in his face, he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him.

"Why are you here?" Jin said, his tongue thick in his mouth. (It was the memories that had him like this. Looking at Hyosang now... it was almost like looking at a stranger, really. But the memories caught him by the throat and shoved thoughts of the way they used to be into the forefront of his mind and it hurt to stand here. Less than it had, of course. But the sting was still there.) "Why are you here, Jin Hyosang."

"Seriously?" Hyosang shot him a skeptical look, that mocking thing that Jin had gotten sometimes when Hyosang thought he was being stupid. "I'm here because I heard you were leaving, Jinnie—"

"Don't call me that." He bit his lips together. "Please call me Seokjin. We're not... we're not close."

Hyosang set his jaw and went silent for a second. "Seokjin, then." He wet his lips. "Look - I don't... I don't want you to go."

Something deep in Jin's chest something twisted. Something old and dry and forgotten suddenly woke up and tangled up in his lungs and when he tried to breathe he could only suck in a quick gasp before there was no more room. "You what?"

"I don't want you to go," Hyosang repeated, stepping forward. "What can be overseas that you can't find right here? At home?"

"There's a lot," Jin said, tripping backward a little. The force of Hyosang's annoyance was like a force field, knocking him back, knocking the breath out of him. "And anyway who are you to tell me whether or not I should go, it's not like—"

"I miss you," Hyosang interrupted - and his voice was soft suddenly. His eyes flickered down to the porch slats between them. His feet in sneakers, Jin in slippers still. "I just... I messed up. I know I messed up. But I miss you, I did miss you. I have missed you, this whole time, and when I heard you were leaving—" He shrugged, looking a little lost as he scratched one hand over his head. "Where's this post-doc thing, anyway?"

"America," Jin said, immediately hating himself for budging. (Was he ever going to be able to hold his own against Hyosang? Four years after everything and here he was still, giving over everything with just a look and a question.) "But—"

"America?" Hyosang's head whipped up and he fixed Jin with a look of shock and something that looked almost like fury. "Seriously? America?! Jin—"

"Quiet down," Jin hissed, reaching out to brush a hand against Hyosang's shoulder. "We're outside, but we're not alone. And yes, America. I can go where I please, Hyosang. I can make my own decisions. I'm my own person."

"But I miss you," Hyosang hissed, stepping forward and catching Jin's wrist in one hand. His grip was tight, firm, unyielding - and all Jin could think was Namjoon would never grab me like this. "I miss you, Jin, doesn't that mean anything? I know that - I know that I messed up, but I've matured a lot since then and I've been doing a lot of thinking and I know you miss me too and—"

"You're right," Jin said, staring down at Hyosang's hand on his wrist. "You're right, like you always are - I do miss you. I've missed you since... since even before we broke up officially, when you started ignoring me and leaving me behind and acting different. I've missed you for a long time, and it's been over four years and I still miss you."

"We miss each other," Hyosang murmured. "Isn't that enough? Why can't you stay? If you miss me, why can't you come back? Why can't we try again? We had something good, Jin—"

"I do miss you," Jin interrupted - and then twisted his wrist out of Hyosang's grip, quickly enough that Hyosang couldn't stop him. The something in his chest that was old and dry and forgotten and tangled up in his lungs... it wasn't nostalgia. It wasn't wanting anything back. It was anger and betrayal and the knowledge he'd never been able to face, that he deserved better than the way Hyosang had treated him - not just four years ago, but before that too. Their whole relationship he'd deserved better and he hadn't been able to face it. But now Hyosang was trying to slip back into his life and that anger was suddenly blooming in his chest like a flower. "You're right. I do miss you."

Jin looked up into Hyosang's face - and was struck, suddenly by how true that was. It was true. He did miss Hyosang; but what he missed was a version of Hyosang he'd never really had, a version of Hyosang that had never really existed. "But you can miss something," Jin said, his voice quiet, "and still not want it back."

It was the wrong thing to say (it was the right thing to say) because Hyosang's mouth went tight and he lurched forward and his hand came up, curling over the back of Jin's neck, and Jin found himself being jerked in against him, mouths crashing together in the first kiss he'd felt in over four years. It had been the wrong thing to say (no, no, he stood by it - stand by it, Kim Seokjin) because if he hadn't then maybe Hyosang wouldn't be doing this, and even though Hyosang wasn't really stronger than him physically he still felt himself cowed and scared and incapable of pulling free—

The front door slammed open, the sound of it shocking Hyosang off and back, stumbling over his feet.

"What the fuck," Namjoon said, looking exhausted and horrible and furious and looming in the front door, hanging onto the door jamb in a way that Jin recognized by now as a way of grounding himself when faced with something too confusing to handle. "What the fuck is going on out here?"

But then Hyosang came back to himself - squaring his shoulders and narrowing his eyes. "Kim Namjoon," he said, voice lilting. "I remember you. You're the president now? Congratulations."

"What the fuck is going on out here?" Namjoon repeated, voice dark and hoarse. His eyes flickered up to play over Jin's face - and there was a funny quirk at the inner corners of his eyes, something almost like recognition - before he focused on Hyosang again. "Are you going to answer me?"

"I'm here to ask Jin if he'll come back," Hyosang said. "We were together for a really long time and I messed up, I know I messed up, but I didn't realize just how much until I heard he was leaving the country. So I'm... I'm here to convince him to stay." He straightened up even more, looking up into Namjoon's face like a high school kid facing down the father of his prom date. "I miss him, and I want to make up for everything that happened, and I don't want him to leave."

"Rule four," Namjoon said after a second, eyes not leaving Hyosang's face.

"What?" Hyosang said.

"What?" Jin said.

"Oh shit," came Yoongi's voice quietly from somewhere behind Namjoon's shoulder.

"Rule four," Namjoon repeated, stepping down onto the porch. His hand was still clenched tight onto the door jamb to steady himself. He'd put on shoes, a sweatshirt. "In the Beta Tau Sigma constitution."

Jin flinched in sudden realization. "Joonie—"

"Rule four." Namjoon reached out and shoved Hyosang back. "Don't. Fuck up. With Kim Seokjin."

"Joonie, seriously, it's not—"

"It was four years ago," Hyosang sputtered out, fighting for balance. "I was a dumb kid, I fucked up, I know I fucked up—"

"Don't fuck up with Kim Seokjin," Namjoon repeated. "I don't give a flying shit if it was yesterday, last week, four years ago, the - the motherfucking mesozoic era—" He took a second to catch his breath. "Don't fuck up with him. And for chrissakes—"

"What?" Hyosang barked, face going dark. "For chrissakes what?"

"Let him make his own decisions," Namjoon said. The way he said it sounded tired. "He doesn't belong to anybody. He belongs to himself. Let him make his own goddamn decisions."

And then he was stumbling forward, tripping down the front steps of the porch onto the concrete walk. Jin lurched forward. "Joonie, where—"

"Out," Namjoon called over his shoulder. "I'll be back later. Just - just make your own decisions, Jin. It's your life."

Somewhere behind him in the entryway there was a panicked scuffling, Jimin's voice hissing babe, seriously, somebody's gotta see if he's okay, and then Yoongi tumbled out over the threshold and onto the porch between Hyosang and Jin, looking pink-faced and awkward. "Um," he said, gruff voice wavering a little. "So uh... yeah. Don't fuck up with Jin." He glanced up at Jin and blanched a little. "I'm gonna..." Then he trailed off and bolted, following in the direction Namjoon had gone.

There was a moment of quiet.

"Can I at least come in?" Hyosang said. "Just for a minute? To talk?"

Jin took a deep breath and clenched his hands into fists at his sides. "Just for a minute?" he asked.

Hyosang smiled a little, stepping forward. "Just for a minute."