"Yoongi—"

"This is happening," Yoongi growled, striding forward with a beer bottle clenched in each fist. "Don't even fuckin' try and stop me. I'm gonna kill these fuckers, you don't even fuckin' know—"

"Yoongi," Namjoon barked, lurching forward to try to catch him by the elbow. "We are not killing anyone today."

Above them, the massive expanse of the Tau Delta house burned bright with the myriad expensive Halloween decorations that the fraternity put up every damn year. Music was blasting out into the night air, somewhere a mob of people was chanting something about ONE SHOT ONE SHOT ONE SHOT, someone dressed in a half-hearted mouse costume was vomiting out of an upper-story window.

"The hell we aren't!" Yoongi rounded on Namjoon, jerking his elbow out of his grip. The angrier he got the heavier the satoori in his mouth, and just right then he was only just this side of understandable - Gyeongsang-do was thick on his tongue, tones singing and vowels conflating. "The fuck do they think we are, they can just fuckin' kidnap our goddamn mascot—"

"Jimin isn't our mascot," Namjoon shot back. "Maybe—"

"We don't know that the Tau Deltas kidnapped him," Jin cut in, adjusting his costume primly. "He could just be—"

"No!" Yoongi shook the beer bottles furiously. "He's delicate! He won't survive in there!"

Namjoon rolled his eyes. "He's not delicate, his biceps are bigger around than your goddamn thigh."

"HE DRINKS BEER WITH HIS PINKIES OUT, HE'S FUCKING DELICATE."

"And he's got the voice of an angel," Taehyung added.

Hoseok leaned in toward Namjoon. "Plus he's wearing the Princess Daisy outfit."

All six of them went very, very quiet for a second as the reality of it washed over them. (In the moment of silence someone a block over took the opportunity to scream something about being a wolf.) "Okay," Namjoon said after the moment passed, raising one hand in an attempt at placating the group. "Okay, so the Mario Party theme costumes were maybe not in his best interests here, but—"

"He's delicate," Yoongi said again, the words hissing through bared teeth. "And they kidnapped him."

("But I'm dressed as Princess Peach," Jin was saying, twisting his hands together in a fretful sort of motion. "Why would they kidnap Princess Daisy? The narrative just doesn't support—")

"At least we didn't decide on the Sailor Moon theme," Taehyung mused thoughtfully, adjusting his hood. "That probably would have been worse."

Jeongguk jerked the mask off his face, choking on his own spit. "The what?!"

NAMJOON
Last May Sometime

"Hey!" Namjoon said, raising his voice. He thumped his fist on the kitchen table a couple of times, rattling the glasses and bottles scattered over the surface. "Listen up, motherfuckers, this is—"

"Namjoonie," Jin murmured, smiling up at him.

"L-listen up," Namjoon started over, leaning over the table, palms flat on the wood, face going just a tiny bit pink around the edges. "Um, esteemed colleagues and friends."

"Thank you," Jin said.

("I didn't know we were friends," Taehyung commented brightly to Jimin behind his hand. "Can you really be friends with your parents?")

"In the interests of preventing last year's Halloween debacle," Namjoon continued, shooting a strafe of glares down the table, "your esteemed Vice President and I have decided that we should prepare a concept well in advance of the day itself and then try to actually plan something for once in our miserable lives."

"Really?" Hoseok leaned back in his chair. "I thought that the Beta Tau Sigma Superhero theme was a great idea."

"Not when all of you fuckers jack my costume," Yoongi gritted out.

"I think it's safe to say that dressing as Batman wasn't strictly your idea, Yoongi," Jin said mildly, cocking his head to one side. "Although I may remind you that I'm the only one who didn't dress as Batman."

Jimin leaned forward and gave Jin a bright grin. "Your Wonder Woman costume was inspired."

"Thank you, Jimin. Your Batman costume was the only one that didn't need fake muscles."

Namjoon cleared his throat. "So anyway we're currently accepting suggestions for costume themes. Keep in mind there are six of us. Anybody?"

Silence around the table. Yoongi leaned back in his chair and gnawed on his thumb. Jimin ran a hand through his hair and rolled his eyes upward to at least give the outward impression of thought. Hoseok and Taehyung just kicked each other under the table a couple of times. Namjoon and Jin shared a Look - it was a look they'd shared a hundred times by now, a thousand times, a million - the kind of look where neither party's face moves even the tiniest fraction but still each knows precisely what the other is thinking.

Of course, it was then that Namjoon found out that Jin wasn't really thinking what he thought he'd been at all, because the corners of his mouth quirked up just the tiniest amount and his lips pursed slightly in an expression of puckish wickedness that Namjoon knew (he knew) could spell absolutely nothing but trouble and he opened his mouth and said, "Sailor Moon."

"Yes!" Jimin said, at the exact same time Yoongi coughed out, "NO," and burst upward out of his chair with explosive force.

"Jin," Namjoon choked out, face going bright red from the ears in, "okay, first off, that's—"

"There are six of us," Jin countered easily, waving a hand in a broad illustrative gesture around the table. "There are the five inner senshi and then Tuxedo Mask, so..."

"Who would be Sailor Moon?" Hoseok said suddenly, leaning forward with an almost dangerous look in his eye.

"Namjoon-hyung," Taehyung announced decisively, completely ignoring Namjoon's sputtered protestations. "He's the leader."

Yoongi was bending over the table almost as if he were about to be sick, palms flat on the wood, fingers curled, knuckles white with fury. "No. No. No. No. No. NO. WE ARE NOT DOING SAILOR MOON."

"Ah, hyung," Jimin said sweetly, reaching out and tugging kindly on Yoongi's sleeve. "I think you'd look good in a short skirt."

"No," Yoongi said again, but now he was also turning bright red and sitting slowly back down in his chair. "Jimin - I mean... shit, who would I even—"

"You would be Sailor Mars because you look good in red," Jimin said, "I'd be Sailor Mercury, Taetae would be Sailor Venus, Hoseok-hyung would be Sailor Jupiter, and Namjoon-hyung would be Sailor Moon."

"I could be Jupiter," Hoseok mused thoughtfully. "I've got the legs for it."

"And Jin?" Namjoon managed, finding his voice again.

"Tuxedo Mask," Taehyung said, thumping one fist down on the table like a gavel. "We could get him a rose and everything."

"I will riot," Yoongi growled, still absolutely beet red and fuming. He slid down in his chair, arms folded tight over his chest. "I will burn this fucking place to the fucking ground. Sailor Moon? Are you fuckers serious? Is hip hop dead?"

Namjoon pressed both palms down onto the table. "Okay, look, not that it's not a very interesting idea—"

"Thank you," Jin said.

"—but I for one think that it would probably be safer for all of us if we vetoed the Sailor Moon idea," he continued, shooting Jin a Look. (It was a very different kind of look than the one before. This one had knives in it.) "Does anyone have any ideas that don't involve Yoongi committing arson?"

If Namjoon hadn't known better he would have thought that Jin looked across the table at Hoseok and that Hoseok had made eye contact in return - just for a second, less than a second, just enough time for a flash of mutual understanding to pass between them - but he didn't get a chance to think about it because Hoseok leaned forward, flashed Namjoon a smile like the sun itself, and said, "Mario Party."

Taehyung shot to his feet. "YOSHI," he screamed. "I GET TO BE YOSHI."

JEONGGUK
Halloween, 8pm

"We have a problem," Taehyung intoned seriously, elbow looped around Jeongguk's neck. He was already wearing his Yoshi costume - it was really more of a dinosaur costume to be completely honest, formed almost entirely out of items he already had in his wardrobe: a green zipped hoodie with a printed scale pattern, white felt teeth set into the hood, a green spiky ridge sewn into the hood and down the middle of the back until it culminated in a tail; green canvas cargo pants; orange converse high tops stood next to the door ready and waiting for him.

"It's a serious problem," Jimin added, holding onto Jeongguk's elbow on the opposite side.

His Princess Daisy costume wasn't quite completed yet but was beginning to take shape: a gold mylar button-up with the sleeves hemmed off to show his arms, a white-gold collar chain linking the points of his collar with two large green stones on each lapel; white gloves closed at the wrist with matching green stone fasteners; a pair of shorts, cut just above the knee and painted gold to match the button-up with a careful application of fabric paint and glitter. The only thing missing was his crown, but that (Jeongguk knew for a fact) was just back on top of Jimin's dresser, its last coat of gold spray paint still drying. And the shoes of course, similarly gold, but those were in the entryway next to Taehyung's orange high tops.

"It's not that big of a deal," Jeongguk said, waving his free hand as well as he could. He wasn't wearing a costume at all. "I mean—"

"Nah," Hoseok interrupted, waving one hand and walking around the three of them in a circle, looking Jeongguk up and down. He was wearing a suit - more of a tuxedo, really - black and white with a blue satin vest underneath the jacket, a white bow tie with red polka dots, white butler's gloves. "Nah, it's a problem. You seriously don't have a costume?"

"I wasn't really planning on—"

"Kid," Hoseok said, putting both hands on Jeongguk's shoulders and leaning toward him. "Listen. You're one of us now."

"On a probation period," Namjoon commented over his shoulder as he wandered past the living room into the kitchen, tugging at his collar. His red oxford was still untucked and his suspenders hung around his legs.

Hoseok rolled his eyes and flapped a hand dismissively. "Ignore him. You're one of us, which means you need to have a costume."

"Koopa?" Taehyung suggested, a grin stretching wide over his face. "I think I have a backpack that we could—"

"No," Hoseok said. He reached out and pulled on one of the strings of Jeongguk's red hoodie thoughtfully. "I think I know exactly what he should be."

There were a few minutes of quiet as Hoseok went down to the basement. Jeongguk looked from Taehyung to Jimin and then back again. "So, uh... any clue what this is gonna be?"

"Shy Guy," Hoseok said, re-emerging from the basement door triumphantly, holding up a white plaster mask.

"Yesssss," Jimin hissed, pumping one arm.

"Yo princess," Yoongi barked, standing in the threshold between the living room and the front hallway. He was still buttoning up his shirt (green, with a white collar) and looked vaguely disgruntled. "Do you know where my suspenders are?"

Jimin dropped Jeongguk's elbow and went to Yoongi, hand going to his mouth thoughtfully. "Last I saw them they were hanging from your bedstead. Did you move them?"

"Of course I didn't move them, but they're not there now and the only thing I can think of is that you put them somewhere."

"Why would Jimin move them?" Jeongguk mouthed to Taehyung, but Taehyung just put on a carefully clueless look and rolled his eyes.

"They were in the way," Hoseok interrupted, pushing the mask into Jeongguk's hands and heading toward the stairs. "I hung them from the doorknob on the closet, give me a second. I need to get my hat anyway."

Namjoon came back out of the kitchen, shoving his hands down his trousers to tuck in his red shirt, suspenders looped over his elbows, newsboy cap (a big white felt letter M stuck to the front) crammed under one arm. "Where the hell is Jin? He said he'd be down in a minute."

"I'm coming," Jin's voice came floating down the stairs, an undercurrent of irritation lacing the words. "Keep your shirt on, Mario. These shorts are ridiculous."

"My shirt's on," Namjoon said, buttoning his trousers. "Are you going to come down?"

Footsteps on the stairs - and it was Hoseok, thumping down the steps with Yoongi's suspenders in one hand, a white fez spotted with red dots in the other, and a huge, unbelievably delighted grin on his face. "Fuckin' hell, you guys," he hissed. "Fucking hell. You're not gonna believe how good this is."

"How good what is?" Namjoon growled, hands going up to button his collar. "Jin—"

It took a couple seconds for Jin to come into view down the stairs, but by the time he was standing on the first landing everyone had gone completely silent. He stood there for a second and very very slowly made a face. "Yeah," he said flatly. "I know."

"Jesus fuckin' christ," Yoongi choked out. "Jesus fuckin' christ, hyung, that's—"

"— really, really fuckin' pink," Hoseok finished for him, face twisted into a rictus of glee. "That's so fuckin' pink, Jin. That's fuckin' amazing."

"It made sense when I was putting it together," Jin said, looking down at himself. His costume was pretty similar to Jimin's - knee-length shorts, white ankle socks with lace edging at the cuffs, sleeved button-up shirt with a collar chain (gold instead of silver, with blue stones in place of green) - but instead of gold the whole thing was pink. Bright pink. Brilliant pink. Lurid pink. He wore a cardboard crown on his head, spraypainted gold with blue and red stones hot-glued to the sides and affixed to his hair with a complex systems of bobby pins and hair clips. "Go get your crown, Jimin. I can't be the only one looking like this."

Jimin giggled and curtsied extravagantly. "Your majesty."

"I look ridiculous," Jin moaned.

"You look good," Namjoon said after a second, shrugging his suspenders up onto his shoulders. "I mean - fine. You look fine. And anyway you can't back out now, it's Halloween, and it's—" He brought his wrist up. "—past eight o'clock already, jesus. Okay, we're doing shots and heading out, all right? Everybody in the goddamn kitchen." He pointed at Jeongguk. "Not you. No probationary fetuses permitted alcohol in the Beta Tau Sigma house."

"I'm not a fetus," Jeongguk protested, still clutching the white plaster mask Hoseok had pushed into his hands five minutes ago. "I'm eighteen years old, and—"

"You're kinda a fetus," Yoongi commented mildly, clipping his suspenders to his trousers and snapping them into place. "Don't worry. You'll get alcohol eventually. It's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Wait," Taehyung said, looking around and patting his pockets like he was checking for his wallet. "Where's Jimin?"

They'd crashed their way through three house parties on Greek row by then, mostly for the food and the alcohol but a little bit so Hoseok could dance up on literally everyone on the dance floor while Namjoon and Jin stood by the wall splitting a plate of finger food (if it was even possible to split something with Jin, he always ended up eating everything) and attempting shouted, half-heard conversation. Taehyung inevitably dragged Jeongguk and Yoongi out to join Hoseok every time - difficult at first but an increasingly simple prospect the more beer Yoongi drank. By the third house party Jin was shouting something in Namjoon's ear about maybe cutting Yoongi off and Namjoon was shouting back something about it being really loud in here, could we talk about this later, and anyway the bass is about to drop so holy shit could we leave I'm serious it's super fucking loud in here Jin, I'm a musician, I can't lose my hearing this young.

By the time Namjoon waded out onto the dance floor and collected the Beta Tau Sigma brotherhood like a line of baby ducks and dragged them out again into the October night Yoongi was almost completely plastered and Hoseok's tuxedo was practically drenched with sweat (and what smelled a little like spilled Adios Mother Fucker) and Jeongguk's mask had had to be re-affixed four separate times and Taehyung's hood was shoved back on his shoulders and Jin had had just enough alcohol to make him just a little bit giggly, which in some ways was an extremely terrifying prospect.

"What do you mean, where's Jimin," Jin said, squinting at Taehyung. He glanced over the group of them, standing on the grass outside of the Sigma Nu Sigma Delta sorority house - hand up, fingers flickering like an elementary school teacher doing a quick head count after a particularly eventful zoo visit. "All six of us are here."

Taehyung grabbed Jeongguk's elbow and pulled him in. "But we're seven now," he insisted. "This is Jeongguk. There are only six of us, and Jimin isn't here."

Yoongi stopped short. "Jimin isn't here?" He stood stock-still on the grass for a second. "Wait, wasn't he—"

"Okay," Namjoon said quickly, raising both hands, palms out. "Let's keep calm. Retrace our steps."

"I don't think I saw him in the Sigma Nu party," Hoseok said slowly, shooting Yoongi a look out of the corner of his eye. "I figured he was just in the bathroom or something."

"Before that was the Beta Alpha Phi house," Jin said, counting down on his fingers. "And before that—"

"Before that we had the run-in with those Tau Deltas," Yoongi said suddenly. He turned on the grass and stared up the street. Two plots down was the biggest Greek house on the row, huge and white with massive plantation-style pillars along the front, lit up and glorious in orange and purple and red.

"No," Hoseok said.

"They wouldn't," Jin said.

"Could they have...?" Taehyung said.

"What?" Jeongguk cut in, completely lost. "Could they have what?"

"Kidnapped him," Yoongi breathed out, and there was fire in his eyes. He glanced down at the lawn, kicking his feet for a second before squatting down and picking up two empty beer bottles by their necks. "Those fuckin' Tau Deltas fuckin' kidnapped Jimin."

"Yoongi—"

"This is happening," Yoongi growled, striding forward with a beer bottle clenched in each fist. "Don't even fuckin' try and stop me. I'm gonna kill these fuckers, you don't even fuckin' know—"

"Yoongi," Namjoon barked, lurching forward to try to catch him by the elbow. "We are not killing anyone today."

Above them, the massive expanse of the Tau Delta house burned bright with the myriad expensive Halloween decorations that the fraternity put up every damn year. Music was blasting out into the night air, somewhere a mob of people was chanting something about ONE SHOT ONE SHOT ONE SHOT, someone dressed in a half-hearted mouse costume was vomiting out of an upper-story window.

"The hell we aren't!" Yoongi rounded on Namjoon, jerking his elbow out of his grip. The angrier he got the heavier the satoori in his mouth, and just right then he was only just this side of understandable - Gyeongsang-do was thick on his tongue, tones singing and vowels conflating. "The fuck do they think we are, they can just fuckin' kidnap our goddamn mascot—"

"Jimin isn't our mascot," Namjoon shot back. "Maybe—"

"We don't know that the Tau Deltas kidnapped him," Jin cut in, adjusting his costume primly. "He could just be—"

"No!" Yoongi shook the beer bottles furiously. "He's delicate! He won't survive in there!"

Namjoon rolled his eyes. "He's not delicate, his biceps are bigger around than your goddamn thigh."

"HE DRINKS BEER WITH HIS PINKIES OUT, HE'S FUCKING DELICATE."

"And he's got the voice of an angel," Taehyung added.

Hoseok leaned in toward Namjoon. "Plus he's wearing the Princess Daisy outfit."

All six of them went very, very quiet for a second as the reality of it washed over them. (In the moment of silence someone a block over took the opportunity to scream something about being a wolf.) "Okay," Namjoon said after the moment passed, raising one hand. "Okay, so the Mario Party theme costumes were maybe not in his best interests here, but—"

"He's delicate," Yoongi said again, the words hissing through bared teeth. "And they kidnapped him."

("But I'm dressed as Princess Peach," Jin was saying, twisting his hands together in a fretful sort of motion. "Why would they kidnap Princess Daisy? The narrative just doesn't support—")

"At least we didn't decide on the Sailor Moon theme," Taehyung mused thoughtfully, adjusting his hood. "That probably would have been worse."

"The what?!" Jeongguk choked out, pulling the mask off his face.

"It's a long story," Taehyung said quickly, waving a hand and shaking his head. "We decided on the Mario Party idea, and anyway now that there are seven of us the Sailor Moon idea won't work next year. Unless we dressed you as one of the cats...?"

"You can't just storm into the Tau Delta house with two empty beer bottles and a big enough buzz to kill a horse and expect it to work," Jin was saying to Yoongi, planting his fists on his hips. "We can—"

"He's in there," Yoongi insisted, shaking a beer bottle in Jin's face. "I know he's—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Namjoon grabbed Yoongi's wrist and pulled him back. "Okay, granted, Jimin might be in there so we'll all go in there and see if we can find him. Okay? Yoongi. Yoongi! Okay? Respond."

("I think he could make a pretty good Luna," Taehyung was saying thoughtfully.)

"Okay," Yoongi bit out.

Jin held out his hands. "Beer bottles."

("Nah," Hoseok replied. "Bleach his hair, make him an Artemis. Jin should be Luna. It fits his personality better.")

"But—"

"No," Jin said firmly, and flapped his fingers in a quick beckoning motion. "You're drunk. I'm not allowing you to take two empty beer bottles into the Tau Delta house, you might try to use them - god forbid - and then we'll all finish up the evening in the drunk tank at the police station. Or worse, the ER."

"Again," Namjoon added darkly.

"Yoongi had appendicitis," Hoseok said. "He had to get emergency surgery."

"Still. Halloween. In the ER."

"Fine," Yoongi spat, thrusting the beer bottles into Jin's hands. (Jin looked at them for a second, shrugged, and tossed them back over his shoulders. They hit the street and shattered.) "Can we just go?"

JIN

The music was loud in the Tau Delta house. It was way too loud, way louder than it ever got at home. Somewhere there was a strobe machine (two strobe machines, three, maybe sixteen strobe machines all lined up and very carefully out of sync) and somewhere else there was a smoke machine and in yet another location there seemed to be... a bubble machine? There was a bubble machine. Who on earth thought that a bubble machine at a Halloween party was the done thing? Was this supposed to be Wizard of Oz themed? Was Glinda the Good Witch going to come floating in from the North at any moment?

Come to think of it, maybe a Wizard of Oz theme wouldn't be the worst idea in the world for next year. He'd have to come up with a way to talk Namjoon into it before even thinking of letting the idea slip, though, or it would never gain any traction with any of them. Maybe if he promised Taehyung that he could be Toto...?

It was when he was stuck halfway through figuring out how he'd talk Yoongi into a Cowardly Lion costume that he heard it.

They were threading through the heaving pulsing drunken crowd like a drop of oil over water, the elbow of Namjoon's jacket sleeve held tight in one hand as he followed him through the crowd, and the music was too loud (way too loud) and the dozens of strobe machines were flickering and the smoke machine had started to cough asthmatically and the bubble machine was working about as well as could be expected and somewhere somehow in the crush and scream of it he heard Jin Hyosang laugh.

He knew that laugh. He knew it. He heard that laugh and when he took in his next breath it was like sucking ice water into his lungs; when he blinked and opened his eyes again the world had tunneled in and gone dark; his ears were ringing and he couldn't tell what the song was playing overhead because all there was in the universe was that laugh. He heard the way Hyosang's eyes disappeared with it, he heard the way his mouth curved, he heard the way his head fell back.

Jin stopped cold in the middle of the dance floor and looked over his shoulder. But he couldn't be here, right? He'd graduated, gotten his Master's and gotten a job somewhere and moved on. He had to have moved on. Why the hell hadn't he moved on?

Whatever song it was that had been playing wound down and the beat slowed and the next track kicked in, threaded seamlessly into the mix. The people in the crowd shuffled and adjusted and breathed in and out like waves, the rush of conversation and adrenaline swirling around them, and when the crowd split and the light changed and Jin finished turning on his heel he felt almost like Moses facing down the red sea—

Jin Hyosang looked up, and blinked, and opened his mouth. "Jin?" he said, blinking in the sudden light. "Kim Seokjin? What are you doing here?"

—but unlike the Bible story the enemy was in front of him, not behind.

The costume Hyosang was wearing was - it was horribly, perfectly ironic was what it was. Jin was Princess Peach (of all the stupid costumes in the world he could have ended up in, he let Hoseok and Taehyung talk him into it because it was funny) and Hyosang was dressed like a king: crown on his head, green velvet doublet, boots and gloves and perfect hair and fake rapier hanging loose on his hip. He was dashing and Jin was ridiculous.

"Hyosang," Jin said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Hyosang said. His eyes flickered for a second. "I didn't expect you to be here of all places."

"I'm looking for someone," Jin said. He cocked his head to one side, held up a hand to eye level. "His name's Park Jimin - shorter than me, round cheeks, dressed in gold. He went missing about an hour ago."

"Haven't seen him," Hyosang replied, shrugging. "I think I'd remember someone dressed in gold." But then he nodded, gesturing vaguely over Jin's shoulder with the can of beer he held in one hand. "Your boyfriend?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," Jin said, shooting Hyosang the coldest, most unimpressed look he could muster. "Jimin's not - I'm not—"

A hand closing around his wrist, jerking him backward, and then Namjoon was standing in front of him, facing down Jin Hyosang like he was going up against the final boss in a video game. Jin's stomach twisted. He'd dropped his hold on Namjoon's sleeve the second he'd heard Hyosang's laugh and he found himself wishing that he'd dropped it sooner. Seconds sooner, maybe even minutes. Wishing he'd never held onto it at all, because now Namjoon was right there standing between him and Jin Hyosang with that one look on his face (that cold blank look where his eyes were hooded and his jaw was slack and he was just waiting for somebody, anybody to say the wrong thing) and god, god, god, what if he'd—

"We're leaving," Namjoon said, his voice low and hard and cut from stone. "Yoongi. Hoseok. Go ahead and keep looking for Jimin. Jin's coming home with me."

NAMJOON

The night air hit Namjoon's skin hard like he'd jumped out of summer straight into a lake full to bursting with glacial runoff, but even as he sucked in a deep breath and saw stars he still kept on. He didn't know what Jin Hyosang had done, once upon a time. He hadn't known Jin then, not really, but he knew him now - the way Jin's spine straightened and his broad shoulders squared and the way his chin tipped up and the way his voice absolutely didn't, didn't shake when he spoke to Jin Hyosang, when Jin Hyosang popped up all over again after more than a year of being (almost) as good as dead.

The front porch of the Tau Delta house was nearly as crowded as the dance floor inside, almost as many people talking and yelling and screaming and drinking, almost as many people slamming into them and nearly ripping Namjoon's hand off of Jin's wrist. But he clenched his jaw and he held on and it wasn't until they were on the street (the asphalt littered with red solo cups and vomit) that he let himself breathe again, let himself breathe and look back at Jin.

In the sick green-gold of the streetlights the pink of Jin's costume (the pink shorts, the pink button-up shirt) looked faded and washed out, his bangs in his face cast a shadow over his eyes - but his hand was loose in Namjoon's grip and he looked wilted and tired and... and honestly kind of messed up. It took him a million years to even get a little bit buzzed and he'd only had three shots and half of one of Yoongi's beers but still he looked kind of messed up and slanted.

"Hey," Namjoon said, but his voice stuck in his throat - from that goddamn smoke machine or the sudden chill of the October night air or something, fuck - and he had to cough before he spoke again. "Hey. Listen, that dumbshit... he's not worth it, all right? The hell is he doing here anyway, fuck, I mean... Jin, hey—"

But Jin wasn't saying anything, he was just turning away and scrubbing at his face with the heel of his free hand, and in the glow of the streetlights it almost looked like he'd put glitter on his cheeks, but—

Wait. Shit.

"Hey," Namjoon said again, chest constricting. He moved in one step closer, tugged on Jin's wrist just a little bit harder. "Are you okay?"

"I really wasn't expecting to see Hyosang," Jin said after a second, his voice thick. "It really... it really took me by surprise." Then he laughed. Shook his head. "It just surprised me. We should go back and look for Jimin."

"Nah. Yoongi's probably destroying the Tau Delta house right now looking for him, we'd just get in the way." Namjoon grinned at him and tried to pretend that he hadn't seen the tears on Jin's cheeks, tried to pretend he wasn't inches away from going back inside that goddamn house, tried to pretend that he wanted to do something, anything other than punching Jin Hyosang in his goddamn face. "Listen—"

"I'm okay, Namjoonie," Jin said.

"Jin - shit." Namjoon knew that that last Namjoonie was final, a door closing on whatever the hell kinda conversation he was trying to have, but where normally he would roll his eyes and go with it (because it wasn't worth arguing with Jin when he got like this, it wasn't like he was about to change his mind) today he pushed on anyway because just right then he cared more about something other than keeping the motherfucking peace. "You're my crew, Jin. All right? You're on my crew, and nobody messes with my fuckin' crew. It's not cool, and I'm not cool with it." He took a breath. "It's great you're okay, but—"

"Well, I'm a little cold," Jin said thoughtfully, twisting his wrist in Namjoon's hand. "Wherever we're going, could it at least be inside? This costume was designed in August."

Namjoon looked at Jin, really looked at him - the pink cotton button-up was thin and he just had a sleeveless undershirt on under it, the shorts were linen and barely even reached his knees - and then looked down at himself, in his dark blue suit with red oxford, and felt like a goddamn idiot. "We're going home," he said, dropping Jin's wrist and reaching up to his lapels. In the space of a second his suit jacket was off and he was swinging it over Jin's shoulders. "But it'll take a few minutes. If you freeze to death who's gonna feed all of us? Taehyung? Jimin? We'll die of malnutrition."

Jin stared at him, expression very carefully blank for just a second before it cracked into a grin. He shook his head and took a step forward, striding past Namjoon to make his way down the street. "You can always hire a cook like all of the other frats."

"The fuck kinda hired cook has a degree in food science?" Namjoon argued, trailing after him. Shit, it was way colder out of that fucking jacket than he'd realized. He felt like an even bigger idiot for not thinking about Jin's outfit sooner. "Nobody's as good as you."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

Which is when Namjoon opened his mouth and said a stupid thing: "What did he do?"

"What did who do?"

"Hyosang," Namjoon said. "I mean - when I first met you, you two were—"

"We were close," Jin cut in, not looking up to meet his eye. "Yeah. We were - we were friends. Now we're not. It isn't a very interesting story."

"It's a story I've never heard. Shit, Jin, how long have you and I—"

"We were friends for a long time." Jin hummed a few bars of Tale As Old As Time from Beauty and the Beast. "We knew everything about each other. We did everything together. We were close," he said again, like he wasn't sure what else to say.

"Closer than we are?"

Jin laughed. "Yeah. Sorry. Way closer."

That was okay. They'd only known each other for a few years, it wasn't like - so what if Jin was the closest friend he'd ever had? That didn't obligate Jin to be the same with him. "Damn. That's... cool. Being close. Nice."

"Yeah, well." Jin shrugged, and Namjoon's jacket slid off one shoulder a little. Jin's shoulders were just a little too wide but the rest of him was just a little too thin so it fit him strangely, too big and too small at the same time. "We were friends for a long time and then we both got into the same university and he went into music and I went into food science and he made a bunch of new friends and we stopped spending so much time together. Maybe that was good," he added thoughtfully, "but at the time I took it kind of hard."

"So that's it? He abandoned you?"

"Eventually." Jin shrugged again, pulling the jacket a little tighter. "We fought a lot first. I asked him to choose, which was stupid."

"What did he say to that?"

"That I was holding him back."

The night air was freezing but for just a second Namjoon went boiling hot from the inside out, heat blooming in his solar plexus like a sudden spark at the end of a miserably dry summer. Jin was still saying something - ("It was probably kind of true, it's not like I was very helpful with his whole music thing") - but Namjoon was burning up so he reached out despite himself, grabbed hold of Jin's shoulder, turned him bodily so that they were facing each other.

"That's bullshit," Namjoon said through his teeth. "That's total fucking bullshit. You know that, right?"

Jin just stared at him. "What?"

"You're not fuckin' holding anybody back, Jin."

"Not anymore, but—"

"No," Namjoon said. "Not now. Not then. Not ever. If anybody was holding anybody back it wasn't you."

For a second Jin just looked at him, and if Namjoon hadn't known better then he would have thought that the color rose a little in his cheeks. "Sure," he said after a few seconds of quiet. He sounded a tiny bit breathless. "Sure. Thanks, Namjoonie, that's really... that's nice of you. Thanks." He reached out, smiled, wrapped his hand around Namjoon's wrist. "Let's just go home, all right? It's cold out here."

They walked the rest of the way in silence. The whole time Namjoon felt words in the back of his throat, on the tip of his tongue, bumping up against his teeth, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what they were. Whether they'd be the right words at all. If there needed to be any more words just right then.

When they got back to the house all the lights upstairs were on and a telltale glow from the kitchen in the back of the house shone through the front windows looking into the living room in a ridiculous attempt to make the house look occupied. Jin unlocked the front door. Took a second to untie his pink shoes in the entryway. Shrugged off Namjoon's jacket, handed it to him, and then froze stock-still in the front hallway, stocking feet quiet on the wood.

He glanced at Namjoon over his shoulder, confusion and just a little bit of fear flashing across his face. "Do you hear that?"

Namjoon looked at him and willed the buzzing in his ears to go down for a second. "It sounds like... singing?"

"Warbling," Jin said, wandering further back into the house.

"Oh, shit," Namjoon groaned, running a hand down his face. "Jin, is it seriously—"

"Yeah," Jin's voice floated back in from the kitchen. "You better text Yoongi before he gets arrested."

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:41, Oct 31

you can stop tearing apart the TD house

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:41, Oct 31

we found Jimin

From: Min Yoongi
Sent: 23:42, Oct 31

WHERE THE DUCK WAS HE

From: Min Yoongi
Sent: 23:42, Oct 31

WHO TOOK HIM

From: Min Yoongi
Sent: 23:42, Oct 31

WHO DO I KILL

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:43, Oct 31

okay, so in the order received

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:43, Oct 31

1. drunk under the kitchen table

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:43, Oct 31

2. the tequila fairy

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:43, Oct 31

3. no one, my prior instruction about no murder still stands

From: Min Yoongi
Sent: 23:47, Oct 31

yooooo!!!! this is Hoseok!! (づ￣ ³￣)づ Yoongi just shoved his phone at me, I think we're coming back now

From: Min Yoongi
Sent: 23:47, Oct 31

he's piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed in every sense of the word ヽ(^◇^;)/

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:48, Oct 31

great. that's great.

From: Kim Namjoon
Sent: 23:48, Oct 31

don't forget to bring Taehyung and Jeongguk too

From: Min Yoongi
Sent: 23:49, Oct 31

lol oh shit good point