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Namjoon and Seokjin are university students. As such they would like to occasionally enjoy a night of drinking with their friends while blatantly ignoring every single one of their academic responsibilities. Unfortunately, they are also university students studying science. And so such a thing is not entirely possible. Tonight finds them drinking with friends while peer reviewing each other’s theses. Or at least… what they have of them so far.

“Namjoon, you might want to rethink your recipe for your culture media,” Sunwoo says, pointing to Namjoon’s paper. “I’ve never heard of this being used as a source of nitrogen before. I don’t even think it is a source of nitrogen.”

“That’s what I told him,” Seokjin sighs, nursing his nearly empty bottle of soju.

“But it’s cheap. And my bacteria have been surviving on it,” Namjoon frowns.

“Well, it could be that they’re also utilizing something else for nitrogen,” Jaehwan suggests, leaning over to take a look. “How do you culture them? Do your bacteria naturally fix it from the atmosphere?”

“No, according to the company I ordered them from,” Namjoon shrugs, then plops his head in his arms. “Ugh, this thesis is more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I think it’s fine,” Jackson says lightly, setting down the paper and pulling his beer towards him. “Namjoon just needs to keep his samples alive for now. And in any case, it doesn’t seem like it’ll skew his results. And you,” he nudges Junghwan, who has completely fallen asleep on top of his paper. “At least contribute some criticism on my thesis if you’re going to steal my alcohol.”

“No,” Junghwan groans. He picks up his can of beer, finds it empty, and drops his head back into his arms.

“Aw, did mentoring your undergrad tire you out today?” Jaehwan giggles, poking Junghwan in the rib.

“He has no excuse, we all mentor undergrads,” Jackson rolls his eyes, picking up Junghwan’s thesis next. “And I proctored two Organic Chemistry lab sessions today, man, one of the students actually blew up their fractional distillation apparatus –”

“Listen, man. Taehyung is an experience,” Junghwan mumbles into the table. “Should put on my résumé ‘mentored Kim Taehyung.’ Instant employment from anyone who understands.”

Seokjin pats Junghwan on the head and pushes a newly opened bottle of soju closer toward him. He’s lucky he has Jungkook as an intern and not Taehyung. “Did you know that he still bribes his friends to do his work for him?”

“If I didn’t see it it didn’t happen,” Junghwan replies resolutely into the table.

“Question,” Namjoon says, frowning at Seokjin’s paper in his hands. “This has been bothering me for a while.”

“What is it?” Seokjin looks at him, hoping he hasn’t left out some critical detail in his methods or something.

“What if all this time flowers had feelings and we never realized it?” Namjoon’s eyes are wide with horror as he turns to him. “We put your gardenias in a blender, hyung.”

Seokjin grabs the bottle of soju back from Junghwan and downs the entire thing.

From: Unknown

January 25, 10:20 AM
SALUTATIONS HYUNG

From: Unknown

January 25, 10:23 AM
who am i?

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
wHO AM I???

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
I AM THE GUARDIAN OF LOST SOULS

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
I AM THE POWERFUL

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
THE PLEASURABLE

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MUSHU \(u_u)/

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
but you can call me Taehyung ^~^

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
following many attempts displaying unyielding courage and cunning on my part, Junghwan has finally surrendered your number to me! :D

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
… he also says “I’m so sorry I tried” to you

From: Unknown
January 25, 10:23 AM
can’t imagine why (^v^)

“Is he always like this?” Seokjin asks, nudging his phone over to Jungkook. The two of them are currently sitting side by side in the library, because Jungkook has midterms coming up and couldn’t be trusted to study in the apartment without falling asleep. So Seokjin had relocated them. Not that Jungkook wouldn’t be able to fall asleep in the library, but at least there’d be people to judge him for it.

Jungkook peeks over from where he’s currently writing up and highlighting his formula cheat sheet for his Physics exam. “Yes. Rest in peace,” he comments lightly, before resuming his scribbling.

From: Kim Taehyung

January 25, 10:26 AM
i come bearing news u_u

From: Kim Taehyung
January 25, 10:26 AM
BEHOLD

From: Kim Taehyung
January 25, 10:26 AM
THE MIGHTY DIONAEA MUSCIPULA

From: Kim Taehyung
January 25, 10:27 AM
Kim Taehyung has sent 1 photo.

“It seems,” Seokjin says lightly, staring at the picture on his phone. “Your friend has obtained a venus flytrap.”

The highlighter on the paper comes to a halt with a squeak. “He has a what?” Jungkook says, looking up in alarm before sighing and shaking his head. “Actually you – you know what, I’m not surprised.”

From: Kim Taehyung

January 25, 10:29 AM
THIS ONE HAS A SHARP MIND. I LIKE HIM.

From: Kim Taehyung

January 25, 10:32 AM
^_^

So that’s how Seokjin finds himself with Jungkook in Jimin and Taehyung’s apartment for the first time, peering at a Venus flytrap that has been (for reasons best known to Taehyung) named Grande Matcha Green Tea Latte.

“Junghwan told me your doctorate is in plants and that I should come to you for help!” Taehyung is saying cheerfully behind him, apparently under the impression that he’s doing a very good job of flattering Seokjin. Next to him, Jungkook has his face buried deep in his hands and looks like he’s either trying very hard not to scream in exasperation or to suffocate himself. Hopefully not the latter.

“I don’t study plant physiology, Taehyung,” Seokjin says gently, thinking of calling Taekwoon (whose Ph.D is actually in said field) but then he envisions the combination of Taekwoon’s current emotional state concerning his research setback and anything involving Taehyung and decides against it. “But I suppose you have the right medium for it, at least.”

“Long fiber sphagnum moss,” Taehyung says proudly, holding up the bag from the store. He pauses, then adds, “sounds like something that comes out of your throat when you’ve got a cold.”

“… Right,” Seokjin says, pulling a hand over his face. “Well, water it with distilled water, not tap water. Don’t let it fry in the sun for too long.”

“What about feeding it?” Taehyung asks, eyes lighting up. “It eats bugs, right?”

“Well, yes.” Seokjin straightens up. “It’s capable of eating insects at this stage of its life now… though the bugs it needs need to be alive, you see, the plant’s mechanism to close its trap won’t activate unless more than one of its hairs are disturbed. Er, that is,” he says when he sees both Taehyung’s and Jungkook’s blank expressions, “the bug needs to be struggling.”

“How are you going to get live bugs?” Jungkook says. “I doubt you’re talented enough to just nab them out of thin air.”

“I am offended by that insinuation,” Taehyung says resentfully.

“Just leave a window open once in a while,” Jimin says, coming out of his room with a protein shake in hand. “Your laundry pile already attracts enough flies already.”

“That was one time,” Taehyung protests. “And that was because I had forgotten about that bar of chocolate in my – ”

“Yes, yes,” Jimin waves a hand at him. “Sorry about this,” he says to Seokjin. “He interrupted you two in the middle of your date, didn’t he?”

Both Jungkook and Seokjin glance at each other and turn beet red at the same time.

“Uh,” Jungkook begins.

“We were studying,” Seokjin explains.

“Mhm,” Taehyung says, eyes suddenly glinting evilly. “Studying what, hmm?”

“Physics,” Jungkook supplies, eyes narrowing at Taehyung in that expression Seokjin’s come to associate with the one he gives flies back at home before he pounces with a flyswatter (such creatures may now be welcome in Taehyung and Jimin’s dormitory in the interest of feeding its newest resident, but they remain forever unwelcome back at their apartment).

“Ah, calculating the force of friction between your two bodies, I see – ”

Jungkook lunges for Taehyung, who runs away guffawing. Jimin sighs resignedly and comes to sit on the kitchen counter beside Seokjin. “It’ll be over in a minute,” he says to Seokjin, who’s not quite sure if he should interfere or not, especially when they hear something crashing in the living room. “Taehyung’s stamina usually gives out way before Jungkook’s.” He pulls a face. “Funnily enough, Taehyung doesn’t seem to remember that whenever he – ”

“Jungkook, put that down!” Seokjin shouts as Taehyung darts back into the room, followed by Jungkook who’s somehow managed to procure a baseball bat of all things. Taehyung zips by him cackling, but Seokjin catches Jungkook around the wrist just as he’s about to make it past them. Jungkook snarls and tries to swipe after Taehyung, his expression still promising violence, so Seokjin does the first thing he can think of to appease him.

He lowers them into a dip and kisses the hell out of Jungkook.

Jungkook’s struggling ceases immediately and Seokjin feels him melt a little. There’s a thud as the baseball bat drops to the floor and Jungkook brings his arms up around his neck. Jimin and Taehyung have both fallen into stunned silence.

“Better?” Seokjin says, lifting Jungkook up as they break apart.

“Hnn,” Jungkook says intelligently. There’s a tiny click as Taehyung takes a picture of them with his phone, but Jungkook makes no move to pick up the bat, just leans in to kiss Seokjin again.

“They’re so beautiful,” Jimin breathes.

There’s a happy sigh and a thud as Taehyung falls backward in a dead faint, his phone going flying and knocking Jimin’s snapback off his head.

They end up having lunch at Taehyung and Jimin’s apartment, mostly because the first thing Taehyung did post-revival was whine about how hungry he was and Seokjin’s too nice to let anyone go hungry. Jimin falls to his knees after the first bite and for a second Seokjin panics thinking he’s accidentally poisoned him with his cooking until Jimin wails that he’s been missing out on proper food this entire time and that Seokjin’s ruined him he’s ruined his life he can never go back to the campus dining halls ever again the food there will taste like sadness and disappointment from here on out (“you mean more than it usually does?” Jungkook asks with a raised eyebrow). Taehyung uses this distraction to upload the picture he had taken of Seokjin and Jungkook onto his Facebook. And his Twitter. And his Instagram. And his Tumblr. And then Kakaos it to all his friends. Jimin then throws him under the bus by showing it to the entire table.

The photo’s not bad. The angle at which Taehyung had taken it hides half of Seokjin’s face, but manages to get the entirety of Jungkook’s, whose cheeks are dusted pink and eyes are shining as he stares into Seokjin’s eyes, arms still around his neck. Seokjin thinks it’s cute. Jungkook, on the other hand, throws himself at Taehyung in an attempt to take his phone and delete the photo’s existence from the face of the earth. He succeeds, to Taehyung’s great dismay; he just fails to notice Seokjin saving the photo onto his own phone before it’s scrubbed from Taehyung’s Facebook forever.

“That was a lovely afternoon,” Seokjin says lightly as they leave the apartment, with Taehyung’s moans of pain from Jungkook’s recent ministrations echoing behind them as Jimin waves them off.

“Maybe for you,” Jungkook says grumpily, pulling out his phone. “I got absolutely no Physics done and it’s all because of some stupid plant that – you tagged me in a photo?” he says, glaring at the Facebook notification on his screen and then at Seokjin as he opens the app and the photo he had worked so hard to vanquish fills up the entirety of his screen. “You didn’t.”

“It’s a cute photo,” Seokjin smiles, putting his arm around Jungkook’s shoulders. He’s pleased to note that Jungkook doesn’t throw it off.

“You defaulted it,” Jungkook says petulantly.

“And made it my phone background,” Seokjin informs him cheerily.

Jungkook sulks the whole way home.

It comes on slowly.

He starts noticing it because Jungkook’s acting a little weird. Well, not weird, per se, but a little… out of the ordinary? Seokjin doesn’t really know how to describe it. All he knows is that he walked into their apartment and was hit with the overwhelming smell of bleach and various other cleaning products and the sight of Jungkook scrubbing furiously at a spot on the kitchen floor.

“Jungkook?” Seokjin asks hesitantly.

“Don’t worry about it, hyung,” Jungkook says, his voice cracking awkwardly as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “The kitchen’ll be clean soon so you can start making dinner.”

“O-Oh… okay. Thanks.”

From: Kim Namjoon
February 1, 5:30 PM
T________________T

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 5:35 PM
My standard deviations are over 100%, hyung

From: Kim Namjoon
February 1, 5:35 PM
100% !!!

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 5:36 PM
I’ll have Jungkook do these tests and compare his results to mine. Maybe his magic touch will get lower st devs

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 5:49 PM
Are you okay, hyung? You seem distracted

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 5:51 PM
Well, it’s just, this is about the time you give the whole lecture on “interns are here to learn something worthwhile, not to do free labor, Kim Namjoon,” you know?

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 5:57 PM
… Alright, what’s wrong

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 5:57 PM
What a good dongsaeng :D

From: Kim Namjoon

February 1, 6:00 PM
Kid probably has to study for exams u_u

Seokjin stares at Namjoon’s text for a long time, then sighs and slips his phone back into his pocket. Yes. That’s probably it. Jungkook is probably stress cleaning to get his mind off something. Seokjin’s just being overly concerned. After all, there’s nothing wrong with Jungkook upping his standards for his living conditions out of the blue, right?

Even if he does pass the kitchen on the way to his room and see Jungkook still absentmindedly scrubbing at the same tile he’s been working on for the past half an hour.

The second time he thinks something’s off is when Jungkook and Seokjin go grocery shopping together to refill their refrigerator. The two of them usually stick together when shopping so one, they can keep up their dating pretense if they happen to run into anyone they know, and second, because Jungkook knows Seokjin is weak to his puppy face and will buy him anything he wants as long as he’s within Seokjin’s field of vision.

But this time when they enter their usual grocery store, Jungkook slips Seokjin’s grocery list from his hand and says, “I’ll handle the meats, hyung. You can go pick out the vegetables and fruits.” He looks up at Seokjin’s surprised silence and says, “It’ll be faster this way.”

Again, it’s just a small thing, Seokjin reasons when he’s picking absently through the oranges. Maybe Jungkook has a lot of work to do. And wanting to complete grocery shopping faster isn’t a bad thing. And anyway, it’s not like Jungkook is obligated to stay next to him when they shop.

Seokjin discovers when he unpacks the groceries later that he’d been so distracted he had gotten peaches instead of apples. Jungkook had dropped his bags of groceries in the kitchen and retreated to the dining room with his books, which is weird. Jungkook had always helped put away the groceries before, even if Seokjin’s almost neurotic about where everything goes.

He sighs and keeps telling himself that these are small things, that he’s overreacting and that they’ll pass.

Doing work with Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung is very different than doing work with his fellow Ph.D candidates.

Over the weeks and months, Seokjin had gotten to know Jungkook’s friends very well (well, Jimin very well, he already sort of knew Taehyung and his shenanigans from a constantly distressed Junghwan). Now, as he sits in the library with the three undergraduates, he’s strongly reminded of the youthful innocence of bachelor degree candidates and how they still believe coffee can fix anything.

“I’m going on a coffee run,” Jimin sighs, taking out his earbuds and shoving his Exercise Psychology notes away from him. “You guys want anything?”

“Caffeinate me!” Taehyung says brightly, grabbing Jimin’s arm with shaking hands. He’s been studying Integrative Physiology for the past three days with very little sleep. He’s also vibrating steadily in his chair.

“… Are you okay?” Seokjin asks him carefully. Taehyung turns to face him, his left eye twitching and trademark box-smile wider than ever. His hands are shaking. His head is shaking. His pupils are shaking.

“Of course!” Taehyung says cheerfully. “I’m very okay! So okay!! I’m very very great! I am also this close,” he puts his thumb and forefinger close together, “to hearing what the color rainbow sounds like!”

“On second thought,” Jimin frowns. “I’ll get him some water or something. How many cups of coffee did you have today, Taehyung?”

“Eight!” Taehyung says proudly.

“How long has he been like this?” Seokjin asks Jungkook, peering concernedly at Taehyung.

“The whole day,” Jungkook replies without looking up from his textbook. “He pissed out straight caffeine when we went to the bathroom before coming here and I had the misfortune of smelling it from two urinals over.”

“Okay, hemodynamics,” Taehyung says firmly, staring down at the papers in his hands, which are trembling so much it’s a wonder his eyes can focus on the words. “This isn’t that bad. I can do this.”

“Maybe… maybe you should take a nap, Taehyung,” Seokjin suggests hesitantly. Or go to the hospital. But he should try a nap, first.

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask,” Taehyung half-sobs, promptly throwing aside his papers, curling up against Seokjin’s side and throwing a blanket over himself.

“Get off of my boyfriend, Tae,” Jungkook says, throwing a glare at Taehyung.

“But Seokjin hyung is so warm and comfy,” Taehyung protests, snuggling closer to Seokjin. “Broad shoulders that double as pillows, mmf.”

“Taehyung, you’re literally vibrating,” Seokjin says patiently. “You’re shaking me along with you.”

“Good vibrating or bad vibrating?” Taehyung asks.

Jungkook makes a sound that strongly reminds Seokjin of a cat that’s been stepped on, gets to his feet and storms off.

“Uh,” Seokjin says.

“Don’t worry,” Taehyung says, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders and sighing contentedly. “He’s probably getting a hammer to bash my skull in or something.”

Seokjin certainly thinks that’s something to worry about, but no sooner has he opened his mouth than Jungkook returns, dragging one of the beanie bags the library keeps for students behind him. He then lifts a loudly protesting Taehyung off of Seokjin and shoves him unceremoniously into the beanie bag.

“No one gets to cuddle with Seokjin except for me,” Jungkook hisses, throwing the blanket over Taehyung’s head before sitting down in Taehyung’s place against Seokjin.

“Oh hey, this is even more comfy!” comes a muffled shout from under the blanket.

“You’re cute when you’re possessive,” Seokjin comments lightly.

“Don’t call me cute,” Jungkook says grumpily, turning back to his books and plugging his earbuds back in. Seokjin smiles fondly and goes back to his own work.

He likes this, he thinks as Jimin returns with a small assortment of lattes, frappes and macchiatos in hand to find him and Jungkook curled up against each other and a Taehyung-shaped lump snoring lightly on a beanie bag. It’s normal, like how he and Jungkook used to be months ago. Unless there’s another variable involved, he assumes Jungkook’s strange behavior for the past few days is due to overwork.

He just hopes that he hasn’t just drawn a conclusion too early, as rookie scientists are known to do.

He’s drawn a conclusion too early. The variable, it seems, is their company (or lack thereof).

He starts really noticing it a few days later, and only because it’s never been too hard for Seokjin’s to notice things about Jungkook. He knows when Jungkook’s having trouble with classes, he knows when Jungkook’s not feeling well physically, he knows when Jungkook’s hungry, when he’s upset, when he’s happy, mostly because Jungkook usually never bothers to hide how he feels from Seokjin.

So it comes as a surprise when Seokjin realizes Jungkook’s went from becoming reserved to becoming distant with him whenever they’re alone.

Seokjin sighs and pulls his most recent data sheet towards him, shaking his head. Statistical analysis is a pain in the ass, but he’s a Ph.D candidate whose about to enter the final stages of his candidacy; he can’t afford to mess up. He’s halfway through crossing off his outliers when his stomach gives a rather displeased growl.

He is, it seems, also a Ph.D candidate who forgets to feed himself every now and then.

The sun has long since disappeared from the sky and it’s too late to start cooking anything, so Seokjin stands and grabs his keys and his wallet from the counter.

He returns to the apartment half an hour later, lugging a big box of chicken, radishes and a carton of soda with him. He had bought the fruit flavored chicken to eat; he’s seen them on ads and had been most intrigued by them.

Jungkook’s not back from class yet; his Physics recitation meets at ungodly hours at night, so Seokjin decides to eat by himself. He rummages around the box, picking out the bigger pieces of chicken and setting them aside for Jungkook for when he returns. He’s just finished covering them with plastic wrap when the lock clicks and the apartment door opens and Jungkook stumbles in.

“You’re back,” Seokjin says, surprised. “I thought you had recitation.”

“There’s no quiz this week,” Jungkook says, dropping his backpack next to the couch. “So I skived after ten minutes.”

Seokjin presses his lips into a thin line but refrains from commenting. “I bought us chicken for dinner,” he says instead, holding up the plate with Jungkook’s food. “They’re fruit flavored! See, there’s melon, banana and strawbe –”

“No thanks, hyung, I’m not that hungry tonight,” Jungkook says quietly, averting his eyes downward. He passes Seokjin without another word and disappears into their bedroom, closing the door behind him. Seokjin stares after him, blinking. He can’t remember the last time Jungkook refused food, or anything strawberry flavored. He chalks it up to Jungkook not feeling well again and brews him a cup of tea before bed. When he knocks on the bedroom door to give it to him, Jungkook refuses it politely with a bland smile.

He’s done something wrong. Seokjin’s done something wrong, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Seokjin’s in the library, tottering between the shelves in search of a book, any book really, that can explain the unique phenomenon that keeps cropping up in Hoseok’s tests. Not that he’s obligated in any way to do this, but Hoseok is a manipulative asshole, as he had found out a little over an hour ago.

“Come on, hyung,” Hoseok pleaded, eyes wide. “What if the problem’s really in their diets? Do you think heavy metals in kale are to blame?”

“Switch up their diets, then,” Seokjin said, shoving his binder into his backpack and zipping it shut. “See if that makes any difference.”

“But I can’t just propose a change in my protocol to my advisor without backing it up,” Hoseok whined. “Your whole thing is plant chemistry and stuff, surely you can explain this? Your pride as a Ph.D candidate in Pharmacognosy is on the line here!”

“What, just because this problem is something plant and health related you think I’m willing to help you?” Seokjin snapped. “‘My pride as a Ph.D candidate in Pharmacognosy is on the line,’ how vain do you think I am?”

He took a look at the expression on Hoseok’s face for two seconds before going “fuck.”

So here he is.

Really, he’s already found out more about kale than he’s ever wanted to know in the last ten minutes he’s been here and he’s pretty sure by now that Hoseok’s problem is not in the vegetables he’s feeding his test subjects, so when his phone goes off with a text he happily drops his search right away. He frowns when he sees it’s from Jungkook, who lately hasn’t texted him for anything other than lab related things.

From: Jeon Jungkook
February 5, 5:45 PM
Hyung, Namjoon’s here. He brought dinner.

From: Jeon Jungkook

February 5, 5:47 PM
Yes sir. As per your request, the fire hazard is been moved to the living room.

Seokjin stares at his phone before sighing and shoving it back into his pocket and going back to the books. If Jungkook’s still injecting humor into their conversations, he’ll take it.

The first time Seokjin’s been forced to stay overtime in lab was during his freshman year mint internship and it was terrible. It had been his first day and he had cried, because his mentor had wanted him to make cuttings for a hundred mint plants in one day and he had been stuck in the greenhouse for so long that he had missed both lunch and dinner and had gotten yelled at so viciously by the cranky evening greenhouse ahjumma until she eventually realized that no, the person she had reduced to tears in front of her was not a thug breaking into the greenhouse in search of weed, but just a poor, hungry undergraduate intern who’s very slow at mint propagation. He had also been greatly unamused when he later found out that his mentor had actually meant for the hundred mint plants to be propagated over the course of the week and had misspoken (Namjoon, however, had found the whole thing to be hilarious and takes great delight in making weed jokes around Seokjin). But whatever. Those dark days are behind him.

These days, Seokjin barely bats an eye when he has to stay overtime in lab. Even if it’s to help Namjoon. Again.

“You knew your procedure takes ten hours,” he tells a pathetically draped over his desk Namjoon. “Why didn’t you start it sooner?”

“Time is nothing more than a social construct and thus does not actually exist,” Namjoon says, holding up a finger sagely. Then he raises his head from the table and takes a long, eight-second sip of coffee. “Also our advisor wants my data with stat analysis on her desk by 9 AM,” he adds with a small sob.

Seokjin sighs and turns back to his computer, where he’s watching a zombie movie. “Well, if all goes well, we’ll get out of here by 3.”

“You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“It’s strongly recommended to not let lab members do solo work at night in a lab,” Seokjin says. “Tiredness leads to inattentiveness. Inattentiveness leads to more lab accidents.”

“Ah,” Namjoon pulls a face. “Perhaps you should stay.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Think we should check on the incubator?”

“It’s your protocol. You tell me.”

“Let’s check on the incubator,” Namjoon sighs, grabbing his lab notebook and getting to his feet. “Just to make sure my samples didn’t blow up or anything.”

Seokjin hardly thinks it’s possible for Namjoon’s samples, which are naturally accustomed to extreme temperatures and pressure from underwater thermal vents, to have blown up, but it is Kim Namjoon running the experiment so he follows.

The samples have thankfully not blown up, and Namjoon breathes a sigh of relief after he checks that everything is still running properly.

“If there’s anything that going for this doctorate has taught me,” he says tiredly as he pens down the readings from the apparatus, “it is that I will be doing none of this microbial business in the future. I will be working with visible macroorganisms that don’t have their entire homeostases threatened by a .1 drop in pH –”

“I hear medical school has a lot of those.”

“No, I love myself too much,” Namjoon pulls a face and shuts his notebook. “You think now’s as good a time as any to make that dilution of ethanol I owe Hoseok?”

“Why would you owe Hoseok ethanol?”

“Our lab ran out of ethanol the other day,” Namjoon says. “And our next shipment wasn’t due for another week. So I stole some from Hoseok.”

“You mean you stole from another professor’s lab.”

“Yes, well,” Namjoon shrugs, pulling the solvent bottle toward him. “Science.”

Seokjin watches impatiently as Namjoon makes the dilution (he had left his movie in the middle of a cliffhanger and really wants to see if the hero’s sidekick would become a zombie). They both card themselves into Hoseok’s lab when he’s done and Namjoon places the bottle on Hoseok’s bench. When Namjoon’s turning to leave, Seokjin sticks a label with “Thanks, sexy. ~ Namjoonie <3” on the bottle out of spite.

“Two more hours,” Namjoon groans as he shoves open the door to their lab. “Two more hours and – oh. Jungkook?”

Seokjin peeks over Namjoon’s shoulder to see Jungkook standing awkwardly in the middle of their lab, clutching a blanket and pillows and looking adorably lost. “Jungkook?”

“You didn’t come home,” Jungkook says in a small voice. “And you didn’t answer your phone, so I figured you were pulling another all-nighter in lab.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have it on me.” Seokjin’s left his phone in the office, where it’s currently charging. “Did you,” he swallows, “did you really bring blankets and pillows?”

He doesn’t know if it’s the lateness of the hour that’s making Jungkook brutally honest, but the intern tightens his hold on the blankets and says, “I got lonely.”

There’s about two heartbroken thumps from inside Seokjin’s chest before he’s whisking Jungkook into his office, plopping him into his chair and wrapping him up in the blankets and pouring the hot water from his boiler (which had been meant for Namjoon’s third cup of coffee but oh well) into a mug of hot cocoa and stuffing it into Jungkook’s hands.

“I’m sorry for not telling you I’m staying late,” he says to a thoroughly burritoed Jungkook, who’s normally tall but currently looking very small inside the blankets. “I thought… you know…” I thought you wouldn’t care.

“It’s fine,” Jungkook replies, blushing and looking down into his cocoa. “I’m just… I’m just being irrational and childish but I didn’t want to sleep without – sleep alone.”

“We’ll be here till 3 in the morning for Namjoon’s tests,” Seokjin says. “Then we can abandon him and go home.”

Jungkook laughs as Namjoon gives an offended squawk from in the lab. “You were watching a movie?” he says, pointing to the paused scene on Seokjin’s computer screen.

“Ah, yea,” Seokjin shrugs. “Wanna watch with me? It’s a zombie movie, though. Not really optimal for falling asleep.”

“It’s fine,” Jungkook says, scooting over on the chair so there’s space for Seokjin. “I haven’t slept properly since the beginning of college, I can probably fall asleep through anything at this point.”

Seokjin doesn’t doubt it; he’s seen Jungkook fall asleep on the floor, curled in a ball on the kitchen table, or in the middle of shoving clothes into the laundry machine. So he offers Jungkook an earbud, hits play and lets Jungkook drop his head onto his shoulder as the movie resumes.

The sidekick does indeed become a zombie and heartbreakingly so, as the protagonist is forced to abandon him and save himself. He’s watching the screen intently when somewhere along the line, a light snore cuts across the sounds of screaming and zombie groaning from his earbud and he looks down to see Jungkook fast asleep on his shoulder.

“I’m jealous,” Namjoon laughs softly, motioning at Jungkook as Seokjin gently removes the earbud from Jungkook’s ear.

“Go take your last reading, third-wheeler,” Seokjin rolls his eyes and Namjoon picks up his notebook.

The movie ends and Seokjin leans back slightly, closing his eyes as the credits roll across the screen. Jungkook makes a small whine at the change in position, readjusts his head and snores on.

It’s been a while since he’s been this intimate with Jungkook, who seems to be performing some kind of confusing dance where he distances himself from Seokjin one day and hesitantly snuggles up in bed to him the next. Tomorrow Jungkook will probably pretend this didn’t happen, but Seokjin closes his eyes anyway and pulls the blanket higher over himself. He’ll let himself have this.

Namjoon’s tapping furiously at his laptop when he opens his eyes next.

“What time is it,” he asks, groaning and cricking his neck. Sleeping in a chair leads to a very sore body.

“Nearly seven,” Namjoon says tiredly.

Well shit. They had spent the whole night in lab. Seokjin looks down. Jungkook’s head had slipped off his shoulder sometime during the night and is now resting on his chest. “How’s the data?”

“Good,” Namjoon sighs, leaning back and stretching his arms. Seokjin hears several unglamorous cricks and cracks and winces. “It’s not beautiful but it’ll do. Can probably use it for my thesis if I’m too lazy to redo the test.”

“Mmm,” Seokjin says. The morning sun’s just starting to filter in through the office window. He reaches for Jungkook’s half finished cup of hot cocoa (well, cold cocoa now), trying not to jostle Jungkook too much.

“Sent!” Namjoon says finally after another few minutes, closing his laptop triumphantly. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when it’s time for the lab meeting.” He lets his head drop on his desk with a thunk and immediately starts snoring.

“Uh,” Seokjin mumbles into his mug. “Good night.”

It really hits home on Valentine’s Day.

Seokjin wraps up his work in the lab early so he has time to visit a flower shop. He’s not really the overachiever when it comes to flowers, so he selects the freshest looking bouquet of red roses he can find and tries not to cringe too much at the price when he pays for it. He then hurries over to a chocolate and picks out an assorted box of sweets that he knows Jungkook likes. He tries not to cringe at the price on this one, either. All through his shopping he endures the curious looks of girls who are intrigued by the fact that a guy is the one buying flowers and chocolates on Valentine’s Day, and ducks his face inside the bouquet when the truth dawns on some of them and they start squealing and aww-ing.

Jungkook is sprawled out on the floor when he gets back to the apartment, buried inside an obscene stack of books and notes that look suspiciously like Biochemistry and Molecular Biology material and Seokjin doesn’t really wanna know. Going through those once is bad enough.

“Hyung,” Jungkook says, looking up. His eyes widen as he takes in the flowers and the box of chocolates Seokjin has precariously balanced in his hands. “What – what is all this?”

“Um,” Seokjin says, suddenly blushing. “Happy Valentine’s Day?”

Jungkook gets to his feet, expression still a little disbelieving as he makes his way over to Seokjin. “Seokjin,” he says, his voice soft as he runs his fingers over the petals of the roses. “Are these… are these for me?”

“No, they’re for Jimin and Taehyung,” Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Of course they’re for you, silly.”

“Thank you,” Jungkook says slowly, looking up at Seokjin, who’s shocked to see a pained expression on his face. “But – but hyung, this must have cost a lot of money… and – and this isn’t real, our relationship is fake.” He looks down. “You didn’t have to do this for me.”

Jungkook’s words cut. Because they’re the truth, Seokjin is suddenly reminded; they’re only fake dating, after all. There’s not supposed to be any feelings attached. There’s not supposed to be any feelings at all. Jungkook knows this. Jungkook expected Seokjin to know this, and Jungkook had been pushing him away when it became apparent that Seokjin doesn’t.

“I know,” Seokjin says, smiling in spite of himself. “But Namjoon’s coming over for dinner later, and it’ll be suspicious if there’s no roses or anything of the sort around.”

“O-Oh,” Jungkook scratches the back of his neck. “You’re right. I didn’t know. Sorry.”

“I’m going to put these in a vase,” Seokjin gestures at the flowers in his hands. He offers the box of chocolates to Jungkook, who takes it hesitantly. “Good luck with your courses,” Seokjin adds, nodding his head at the scattered books on the floor. Jungkook grimaces a little in response and returns to his spot among them.

Seokjin heads off to the kitchen, setting down the bouquet on the counter. He fishes out a vase from the bottom cabinet and fills it up with water before getting to work arranging the flowers. It’s very mindless work, plucking the roses out one by one and trying to squeeze them in some sort of balanced fashion into the vase. Unfortunately so. Seokjin has a lot of room for feeling. He sighs as he tucks in the last flower and washes his hands. He then pulls out his phone, forcing down the feelings of hurt and rejection he knows he has no right to feel.

From: Kim Namjoon

February 14, 5:12 PM
:D

Jungkook finishes Seokjin’s last set of inhibition tests.

Seokjin’s toying around with Microsoft Excel trying to make his data sheets visually easy to navigate so his advisor doesn’t pop a blood vessel reviewing his data (aka procrastinating) when Jungkook knocks on his half-open office door.

“Hey,” he says, and Jungkook enters.

“I sent you the data for the latest bacterial groups,” Jungkook says, clasping his hands together awkwardly in front of him. “It’s the last one.”

“Oh,” Seokjin says. He smiles at Jungkook. “Did you run any statistical analysis on them?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “You can double-check them if you want, all the formulas I used will show up in the formula bar when you click on the cells.”

“Okay, thanks,” Seokjin says, noting how his inbox has just popped up with one new email from Jungkook. He pushes his chair back and folds his hands across his lap. “Well, that’s everything for my project. From now on, you are officially Namjoon’s.” He looks up and chuckles. “That’s good, his work is a lot more exciting than mine.”

Jungkook laughs softly. “It’s not that great, he just has me frying plates of marine bacteria with UV light so far.”

“Probably because he can’t be trusted to do it without accidentally frying himself.”

“Maybe,” Jungkook hums. “Um.” He looks at Seokjin. “Tell me how uh, tell me your conclusions for your thesis. You know. When you get them. I’m still interested to see how this turns out.”

“Of course,” Seokjin says. “I’ll let you know.”

Jungkook gives him a hesitant smile, then turns around to leave.

“Jungkook?”

“Hmm?” Jungkook pauses, looking back.

“Thank you. I really… I really enjoyed having you as an intern.”

Jungkook blushes and ducks his head. “You’re welcome, hyung,” he says quietly before slipping out of the room.

Seokjin turns back to his computer screen, which is still showing the new message from Jungkook. He clicks on the email and opens the attached document. The collected data is all there, presented neatly in the values in organized rows and represented by graphs. Seokjin skims over Jungkook’s statistical analysis just to make sure his calculations are correct, then turns back to look at Jungkook’s findings.

They’re perfect and his heart clenches.

Seokjin knows going to Yoongi to drink away his problems isn’t a good decision.

Seokjin also never claimed to make good decisions.

“Jeez,” Yoongi pulls a face as Seokjin tips back his next bottle and finishes it within minutes. “What’s got you so worked up that you’re actually making an honest attempt to destroy your liver?”

“Nothing,” Seokjin says, then hiccups. “Do you have anything stronger? I’ll pay you back for it.”

“Hyung,” Hoseok says from where he’s draped over the couch tapping away at his laptop (his draft is due to his advisor the following morning, aka 11:59:59 AM). “Stop drinking.”

“It’s Friday,” Seokjin snaps, throwing his bottle cap at Hoseok. He blinks slowly when there’s a grumpy squawk of protest and realizes that he’s thrown it at Yoongi instead. Maybe he should stop drinking. “Oh. Sorry, Yoongi. I’ll like. Bake you a cake or something. Tomorrow.” He hiccups again for emphasis.

“You’re worse than Jimin,” Yoongi growls, shoving the unopened bottles of alcohol back into his refrigerator. “At least all he ever does is like, sing. And throw up.”

“Tell me about you and Jimin,” Seokjin slurs, leaning back against the cushions. “I want to hear about your relationship. Is it cute? Do you guys do cute things together?”

Yoongi takes a swig of his drink and hums. “Plenty of fucking,” he says.

Oh. Seokjin supposes that’s cute.

“We know,” Hoseok grumbles. “Jimin keeps uploading fluffy morning aftercare photos of you two on his Instagram and Snapchat. It’s nauseating.”

“Oh, does he?” Yoongi shrugs. “Didn’t know.”

“We figured,” Hoseok says, raising an eyebrow. “You’re always asleep in them.”

“Listen, man,” Yoongi grumbles. “Having sex with Jimin fulfills all exercise quotas for like, the next month in advance; the kid has the stamina of a – ”

Seokjin decides he’d rather not know of Jimin’s sexual prowess and knocks back the rest of his drink and sinking back against the cushions. Yoongi’s couch is very comfortable, even though it smells vaguely of sweat and – oh god, what if he and Jimin went at it on this very couch. Other things. Think of other things, Seokjin. If he remembers correctly, the couch can double as a bed. He slept over Yoongi’s house once or twice as an undergraduate, right? He doesn’t remember. But the couch is comfortable… he should do it more often…

He opens his eyes to find Yoongi scrolling idly through his phone. Hoseok had passed out on the couch too; he’s snoring lightly and his laptop is dangling precariously over his lap.

“Sleeping beauty awakens,” Yoongi comments. “You two are old, falling asleep so early.”

“Yoongi.” Seokjin grimaces. The inside of his mouth both feels and tastes horrible. “You’re like, almost a year older than Hoseok. And just complained about how draining sex with Jimin is not five minutes ago.”

“Five hours ago, actually,” Yoongi corrects.

“What?” Seokjin groans. “Shit, what time is it?”

“Around one in the morning.”

Crap. He’d gotten drunk and fallen asleep on Yoongi’s couch only to have its owner laughing at him for his age. Seokjin turns and shoves his face into one of the cushions. “Fuck,” he says eloquently.

“That was profound.”

“It’s one in the morning,” Seokjin raises his head from the cushion and blinks blearily at Yoongi. “I forgot to cook dinner.”

Yoongi scoffs. “Jungkook’s a grown man, he can feed himself for a night. Don’t worry.”

“No,” Seokjin plops his head back into the cushion. It’s easier to talk like this. When he doesn’t feel like his neck is supporting a bowling ball. A heavy bowling ball. A heavy, dead bowling ball. Well, bowling balls were never alive, but... “I forgot to cook dinner for Namjoon.”

“Oh.” Yoongi tilts his eyes up to the ceiling. “May he rest in peace.”

“That’s not funny,” Seokjin mumbles, groping around the cushions for his phone. He dials Namjoon’s number and holds it up to his ear. It only rings twice.

“Sup,” Namjoon answers cheerfully. Okay. So he’s alive. That’s a good start.

“Hey,” Seokjin says, putting a hand over his eyes. “Sorry I didn’t cook. Did you and Jungkook eat?”

“Yea hyung, don’t worry.”

“Okay. So my next question for you is is the kitchen intact.”

“I resent that question,” Namjoon says, sounding offended. “What, did you think I’m not capable of making food by myself?”

“Namjoon, you literally tried cutting an onion with the spine of a knife and asked me for help putting on an apron not two days ago.”

Namjoon pauses. “… Fair point. But yes, the kitchen is intact. Jungkook and I ordered takeout.”

“Good,” Seokjin sighs. “Did you pay? Were you a good hyung?”

“… I may or may not have forgotten my wallet.”

“Kim Namjoon.”

“Jungkook makes money from lab,” Namjoon says evasively.

“Jungkook makes ten thousand won an hour,” Seokjin says flatly. “All of which goes off to pay his share of the rent. Reimburse him.”

“Alright, fine fine,” Namjoon concedes. “So where did you go tonight?”

“Yoongi’s. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow, hyung –”

But Seokjin ends the call and drops his phone onto the coffee table. Hoseok twitches in his sleep then and rolls over; Seokjin barely manages to catch his laptop before it crashes to the floor.

“You’re cute when you get defensive of your boyfriend,” Yoongi smirks. He looks up and frowns when Seokjin doesn’t say anything. “You are… you and Jungkook are okay, right?”

“Um,” Seokjin says, puttering around Hoseok’s laptop trying to save his work before something bad happens to it. “Yeah. I guess. Actually I don’t know. I think?”

There’s a creak as Yoongi swings his legs off the couch and turns to face Seokjin. “Come on Jin,” he says, using the nickname he gave him when they were roommates because he was too lazy to say the “Seok” part of his name. “You can talk to me.”

“No, really,” Seokjin smiles, getting to his feet. “We’re fine. We’re not fighting. It’s just… it’s just a little weird between us right now.”

“Weird enough for you to want to drink to forget?”

Seokjin looks down and sighs. “We’re fine,” he says again. He takes out his wallet and pulls out money to pay for his share of the alcohol.

“You care about him.”

He’s not supposed to. “I do,” Seokjin says, pulling on his shoes. “I really do. It’s just … things are weird, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t – I – I think I fucked everything up,” he admits, ducking his head.

“You know, hyung,” Yoongi says, voice uncharacteristically soft even as Seokjin opens the door to leave. “A big part of going for a Ph.D is to help you learn things can still be okay even if you fuck everything up.”

“Dude,” Namjoon says a week later, staring at Seokjin’s laptop screen. “Dude, this data is beautiful.”

Seokjin doesn’t raise his head from the library table at first because one, that is definitely a lie, no data is ever beautiful, data is only ever confusing and anything but straightforward and always designed to destroy the self confidence of the experimenter, and two, he has not slept in over thirty six hours and is not yet in the mood to look at the results of his most recent ANOVA.

“Yo,” Namjoon says, nudging Seokjin with his elbow. “Really. Look.”

Reluctantly, Seokjin raises his head and lets Namjoon explain to him that wow, you could use this for your thesis, see, there’s significant differences and Seokjin, this is really nice, did you tell Jungkook yet?

“I want data like that,” Hoseok says, looking enviously at Seokjin’s Excel sheet. “Good job, hyung. You should run some Tukeys on it.”

“Yay,” Seokjin says enthusiastically before dropping his head back onto the wood.

“What’s yours look like?” Namjoon says, peering over at Hoseok’s laptop. The Toxicology Ph.D candidate has had to repeat his tests twice now in an attempt to get any statistically significant results that can defend his thesis. It hasn’t really helped Hoseok’s confidence much.

Hoseok sighs and shoves his laptop over to Namjoon because hell, Namjoon possesses the ability to destroy flasks and graduate cylinders just by looking at them but damn when he analyzes things he analyzes things.

“So… Jungkook,” he says, turning to Seokjin. “Are you guys still fighting?”

“Mmm?” Seokjin lifts his head up and rests his chin on the table as he squints at his laptop. “No, not really…”

“But something’s wrong,” Hoseok says gently.

“Yeah,” Seokjin sighs, closing out of the Excel document and shutting down his laptop. He’ll continue when he’s not so tired. “Something’s wrong.”

Hoseok doesn’t say anything further, just puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

There’s suddenly a small commotion at the library entrance, and they look up to see Yoongi and Jimin running towards them with the librarian shouting after them that running is prohibited and that she’ll throw them out if they keep it up.

“Goddammit,” Yoongi hisses to Seokjin as they come to a halt at their table, Jimin huffing and panting beside him. “Do you ever check your phone, you enormous fuck?”

“Me?” Seokjin pulls his phone out from his pocket. He had turned it off before his meeting with his advisor and had forgotten to turn it back on. “It’s off right now, why?”

“Well,” Yoongi snaps. “Your boyfriend was in… uh,” he scrunches his nose in the expression of distaste he adorns whenever someone talks science, “his uh… cheese and beer engineering lab –”

“Fermentation Lab,” Jimin hisses in his ear.

“Yes, yes,” Yoongi says, waving a hand irritably. “That. Anyway, Jungkook collapsed in class.”

“What?” Seokjin’s suddenly on his feet and shoving his books and laptop into his backpack, lack of sleep completely forgotten. “How long ago? Is he okay?”

“About an hour ago,” Yoongi says flatly, crossing his arms. “You weren’t picking up your phone so they called me and Jimin. Jungkook’s fine now but he needs to be picked up from the hospital.”

Seokjin pauses. The hospital is a bit far to get to by foot. He’s trying to remember how much bus money he has left when Hoseok stands and takes out his keys. “I’ll drive,” he says. “But no blowjobs in my car, okay?”

“Shut up,” Seokjin growls, but follows him gratefully out of the library anyway.

He’s already unbuckling his seatbelt before Hoseok’s even swerved into the parking spot and rushes into the hospital, leaving Hoseok yelling after him (“dammit, at least look before you go dashing across a parking lot, hyung!”).

Jungkook’s sitting, waiting for them in the lobby. He looks up when he sees Seokjin making a beeline for him.

“Hi, hyung,” he smiles weakly.

“Jungkook,” Seokjin says, dropping to his knees and checking him over. Jungkook looks like a wreck, face drawn and pale and eyebags darker than ever. “What happened?”

“Passed out,” Jungkook mumbles, looking hesitantly at Seokjin. “Didn’t eat or drink enough, didn’t sleep enough, you know…” he trails off at the expression on Seokjin’s face. “Aw man, don’t look at me like that,” he pouts. “It’s your ‘mad at Jungkook’ face. I don’t like ‘mad at Jungkook’ face.”

“Oh, Jungkook,” Seokjin sighs, cupping the other’s face in his hands. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just worried about you, is all.”

“I’m fine,” Jungkook says. Seokjin can see his cheeks turning pink at Seokjin’s affection in public and he releases him. “Just have a little headache, is all.”

“Hoseok’s waiting outside,” he says, helping Jungkook to his feet and taking his backpack. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Jungkook wobbles a little when he stands, but refuses when Seokjin offers to help him to the parking lot. Seokjin watches as Jungkook approaches the car, watches him accept a light flick to the forehead from Hoseok, watches him duck into the car. He feels his heart constrict a little before he sighs and follows.

He shoves Jungkook straight into the bedroom the minute Hoseok drops them off at their apartment, refusing to listen to Jungkook’s protests about “hyung, really, I’m fine, I don’t need sleep, you’re overreacting, I swear!”

“You need rest,” Seokjin says firmly, rummaging through their closet with Jungkook watching almost resignedly. “You need to recover.”

“I should at least finish writing up my lab first,” Jungkook protests as Seokjin tosses a clean pair of pajamas at him.

“You will do no such thing. I’ll have something for you to eat in a little while. Now go to sleep.”

He discovers Jungkook has other plans when he walks in later to find Jungkook stubbornly completing his post lab in bed.

“I’m going to get a zero for the lab,” Jungkook whines when Seokjin has to physically yank his lab notebook away from him. “I have to hand in something.”

“You fucking fainted in the middle of it,” Seokjin says sharply, dropping the notebook on his desk. “I’m sure the department will excuse you. And if it doesn’t, tell your TA to fight me. Now scoot over, I’m staying right next to you until you go to sleep, since you can’t be trusted to do it by yourself.” He pulls back the covers and settles into bed next to Jungkook and pulls him to his chest. Jungkook stiffens briefly, but then sighs and relaxes when Seokjin starts carding his fingers through his hair.

“That’s right,” he says. “Go to sleep.”

“Sorry, hyung,” Jungkook mumbles tiredly into his chest. “I messed up. I messed up everything…”

Seokjin looks down at him. “Jungkook,” he says softly, pulling him closer. “You messed up nothing. Now go to sleep, we’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”

Jungkook’s fist tightens slightly in the blankets before its owner lets out a gentle sigh and his breathing evens out.

“It’s my fault,” Seokjin says gently to a fast asleep Jungkook. “I let this get out of hand. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook’s fainting incident does nothing to close the gap between them. If anything, it makes it wider, with Jungkook refusing even harder than ever to be mothered by Seokjin and even going so far as to snap at him when Seokjin offers to do his laundry for him. Jungkook had apologized immediately afterwards and left the building hurriedly, leaving Seokjin behind knee-deep in dirty clothes.

Seokjin finds himself in Namjoon’s apartment a few days later. He’s supposed to be helping Namjoon review his thesis in return for Namjoon having already revised Seokjin’s (Seokjin’s up for his defense soon). Helping Namjoon review his thesis had eventually turned into helping Namjoon feed himself dinner when they discover the sun had set without them noticing.

He’s just lowered the fire on the stove when there’s a knock on the apartment door. He ignores it and continues stirring at the dubbeoki, thinking Namjoon’ll get it, but then it comes again a few seconds later.

“Namjoon!” he yells into the apartment.

“Pooping!” comes a muffled yell from the bathroom.

Seokjin heaves a sigh, turns the fire off all the way and goes to open the door.

“Oh,” he says when he sees who it is. “Hello, Taehyung.”

“Hi, hyung!” Taehyung chirps, holding up a plastic bag. “Is Namjoon home? I have a delivery from Junghwan; Namjoon left something of his behind in the Molecular Genetics Lab and Junghwan found it.”

“Is it his calculator, by any chance?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung shrugs, fishing said calculator out of the bag and holding it out to him. “How’d you know?”

“We’ve only been looking for it for the past four hours,” Seokjin grumbles, taking it. “Thanks for delivering it, Taehyung.”

“No problem! See you, hyung!” Taehyung says brightly, then turns to leave.

“Why don’t you have dinner with us tonight?” Seokjin asks. “Namjoon and I were just about to eat.”

“Oh!” Taehyung pauses mid-step and swivels around, expression lighting up. “Okay! What about Jungkookie, is he here?”

“No,” Seokjin gives a sad smile. “Jungkook’s eating dinner with one of his fellow TA’s again tonight.” Jungkook’s been eating at their apartment less and less these days, and Seokjin doesn’t want to admit how much it hurts when he sits down at the dinner table without him.

“Oh,” Taehyung says again as he drops his backpack and bends down to take off his shoes. “He’s been doing that a lot lately, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Seokjin says quietly, stepping back to let him in. “Yes, he has. Why don’t you call Jimin and have him join us as well?”

“Jimin already ate,” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “If you consider a plate of chicken breast and a protein shake a meal.”

“… Remind me to pack some food back for him before you go.”

He has Namjoon set the table once the latter finally emerges from the bathroom. But after Namjoon trips over his own two feet and narrowly avoids spilling the soup everywhere, Seokjin hastily relieves him of his duty. He’s grateful that Taehyung helps, even if he does complain loudly about his Neuroendocrinology course and his veterinary school applications.

“They want five letters of recommendations,” Taehyung whines. “Five! That’s like, all the fingers I have on one hand! And three of them have to be from my professors,” he adds glumly.

“Well, do you have three who are willing to write you recommendations?” Seokjin asks.

“I have two so far from my professors,” Taehyung sniffs as he sets down the last pair of chopsticks. “One from Companion Animal Science and the other from Careers in Animal Science.”

“What about the professor whose lab you’re interning in? The one Junghwan works under? Can you ask him?”

“I could,” Taehyung says thoughtfully. He tilts his head. “Though I’m not too sure I should. He overheard me trying to convince Junghwan to think of pimples as oily cheese bombs the other day.”

Seokjin rather starts his dinner not as hungry as he was before.

Having Taehyung join him and Namjoon for dinner is an interesting change; it certainly beats the silence he eats in when he dines alone in his apartment and the research-related conversations he and Namjoon can’t seem to stop having at the table no matter how hard they try. He’s loud and makes them laugh with his jokes and antics, and it’s a nice distraction from the slump Seokjin’s found himself in. At least, until Taehyung changes the topic of conversation to him and Jungkook.

“Hyung, it’s almost your one-year anniversary with Jungkook!” Taehyung says, leaning forward in excitement. “Are you guys going to do anything? Do you guys have anything romantic planned? Oh, the flower path behind the animal farms is in bloom right now, if you want to take a walk together there!”

“I also have more Serratia marcescens in the lab for Molecular Genetics,” Namjoon smirks. “If you want to use those again.”

“Really? What did he do with them before?” Taehyung asks excitedly.

Seokjin stares down at the table as Namjoon explains to Taehyung how he used the pigmented bacteria to write “I Love You” to Jungkook before. He’s not too sure Namjoon should be telling Taehyung this, as Taehyung will most likely file this information away for later use (which will probably involve more frustration for Junghwan).

“And since the bacteria is pigmented, it shows up as red when cultured in medium,” Namjoon says.

“That’s so cool,” Taehyung says dreamily, cupping his chin in one hand as his other lifts a dubbeoki to his mouth with his chopsticks. “Seokjin should write a small love poem this time, it’ll be so romanti –”

“It’s fake,” Seokjin says suddenly.

There’s sudden quiet from the other end of the table as Taehyung’s rambling comes to a grinding halt, then Taehyung’s dubbeoki falls back into his bowl with a muted plop at the bombshell Seokjin had just dropped.

“We’ve only been… fake dating,” Seokjin continues, looking down. “Jungkook and I.”

More silence. Then –

“No way,” Namjoon says slowly. “I know you, Seokjin, there’s no way that – ”

“It was fake,” Seokjin snaps. “We pretended to be together so I could throw Hyosang off my tail, and in exchange I would offer Jungkook housing for his third year of university.”

He’s met with another tense silence.

“But,” Taehyung says eventually, his eyes wide and for all the world looking like a hurt puppy that had done his trick, been denied his treat and instead been kicked in the side. “So… all the kissing… all the touching… but you – it looked so real!” He puts his spoon down, lip quivering. “Jungkook getting housing with you was to fulfill an agreement, not because you two are… are actually together? It’s really all… all fake?”

“Yes,” Seokjin replies. “We’re ‘breaking up,’” he makes finger quotes at the term, “at the end of the semester. When he moves out.”

Namjoon’s staring at him, looking… angry? Sad? Disappointed? Seokjin can’t really tell. He probably deserves the look, even though he feels shitty enough already. He looks up at Taehyung, whose bottom lip is shaking harder than ever. “I’m sorry, Taehyung…”

Taehyung bursts into tears and runs out of the room, sobbing “But I shipped it so hard! I shipped it!”

Seokjin sighs as the door to the bathroom slams and muffles Taehyung’s sounds of distress.

“So is that why you’ve been so down lately?” Namjoon asks quietly. “No, don’t lie to me,” he says sternly when Seokjin makes a sound of protest. “I’ve known you for the entirety of my university level education, which is getting a lot longer that I would like it to be. But the point is, I’ve known you long enough that I can tell very well when you’re lying to me.” He fixes Seokjin with a pointed look. “And I know from the way you treated Jungkook, despite whatever agreement about fake dating you had with him, that what you felt for him was real. Am I right?”

It hurts admitting it to someone, but he’s glad that at least it’s Namjoon he’s doing it to. Seokjin looks down at his bowl of soup. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s real for me.”

Namjoon sighs and goes back to his dinner. “And here I was thinking your doctorate had finally gotten to you,” he says through a mouthful of rice.

“Well, that too,” Seokjin laughs in spite of himself. “Defense coming up. The committee’s going to drag my sorry ass to Busan and back.”

“You’ll be fine,” Namjoon says, waving his chopsticks dismissively. “Although this whole entire thing is so stupid. You know what you have to do, right?”

“Hit the books until the day of defense, come up with possible questions they’ll ask, practice my presenta –”

“No,” Namjoon says irritably. “What you have to do with Jungkook.”

Seokjin looks at him. “There’s nothing I have to do with Jungkook,” he says firmly.

“What do you mean?”

“I may actually like him, but it doesn’t work both ways,” Seokjin says, sticking his spoon into his soup. “This whole thing has been professional from the start, and Jungkook never had feelings for me and never will. I just let things get out of hand.”

“Why won’t you tell him? Are you scared of rejection?”

“I’m not scared of anything,” Seokjin snaps. “I just don’t want to burden him with that knowledge. He’s applying for his Masters this year on top of his finals and everything.”

“So you’re just going to see this through to the end without telling him how you really feel?” Namjoon says, glaring at him.

“Yes.”

Namjoon lowers his eyes, then sighs. “Hyung,” he says gently. “You’re going to be the only one hurt by this. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” Seokjin replies, then gives a low chuckle and puts his head in his hands. “God, I must be turning into some kind of masochist or something.”

“You’re a Ph.D candidate up for his final defense in three weeks,” Namjoon says flatly, standing to bring the empty plates to the kitchen. “If that doesn’t secure your status as a masochist, I don’t know what does.” He trips over himself again and nearly skewers his foot with the knife that had slipped off his plate.

Seokjin resolves to buy Namjoon an entire set of plastic kitchen utensils once he gets his first paycheck.

“This isn’t really over the top, right?”

“You have asked me this a total of nine times so far in the past fifteen minutes,” Junghwan says patiently over the phone. “My answer still has not changed. It is completely over the top.”

“But chocolate-dipped strawberries – ”

“Seokjin!” He hears Jaehwan’s chirpy voice mixed in with the cheers of children in the background, and for one bitter moment he wishes he’s at the amusement park with them instead of back in his apartment preparing refreshments for his defense the following day. “Chocolate-dipped strawberries are fine.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to eat them at his defense,” Junghwan hisses.

“Hmm, true,” Jaehwan admits unabashedly. “Sorry Seokjin, I’m only coming for the food.”

“I will poison your strawberries,” Seokjin growls into his phone. “It’ll be lethal and painful and only act after seventy-two hours so when they finally find your body in a dumpster somewhere no one will suspect me.”

“You can’t do that, what if you accidentally get one of the committee members?” Jaehwan whines. There’s a bit of static on the other end of the line, followed by Jaehwan’s “Sorry Seokjin, it’s our turn to get on the ride! Enjoy your obligatory pre-defense night of stress and worrying!”

“You little shit!” Seokjin snarls into his phone, but the line disconnects with a screech of Jaehwan’s laughter and he drops his phone with a sigh.

He hears the door to the apartment open then and he assumes it’s Namjoon having failed at making himself food (as he is often known to do) and coming to Seokjin’s for dinner, so he continues carefully dipping his strawberries in the melted chocolate. He finds an ugly looking strawberry unfit for presentation and pops it in his mouth.

“Hey, hyung.”

Seokjin pauses mid-chew and to his surprise, turns to see Jungkook leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh. Hi, Jungkook.” He swallows. “Back already?”

Jungkook shrugs and sticks his hands into his pockets. “My students didn’t have any questions for me after the session. So my review was either really good or it was really bad.”

“You had mostly Pharmacy majors,” Seokjin says, turning back to his strawberries. “They probably knew everything already and just attended to laugh at the other struggling students.”

“Do you speak from experience, hyung?” Jungkook says, the corners of his mouth turning upwards.

“I aced both Organic Chemistry’s,” Seokjin sniffs, stung. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jungkook laughs, and Seokjin’s struck by how long it’s been since he’s heard him laugh. He lowers the strawberry he had been about to take a bite from.

“What are you up to?” Jungkook asks.

“Hmm?” Seokjin looks back at his tray of dipped strawberries. “Making refreshments for the committee. It’s polite to bring your audience something to eat during your defense.”

“Oh,” Jungkook says. “Right. Your defense is tomorrow.”

Seokjin hums. “Do you want one?” he asks, offering a strawberry to Jungkook. “It’s not refrigerated yet, but taste test it for me?”

Jungkook hesitates, but then pushes off from the doorway and lets Seokjin pop the strawberry into his mouth. “It’s good,” he says, voice muffled around the fruit. “Sweet.”

Seokjin smiles, a sudden thought occurring to him. “Would you like to attend my defense tomorrow?”

There’s a gagging sound as Jungkook chokes on his strawberry. “What?” he splutters, coughing as Seokjin pats him on the back. “Am I even allowed to?”

“Of course,” Seokjin says. “Namjoon is also attending at my invitation. And you were my intern,” he gives Jungkook a smile. “My thesis was made possible because of you.”

“I didn’t do much,” Jungkook says, looking down. He’s blushing. “Everything I did you could have carried out better and faster, to be honest.”

“Nonsense,” Seokjin scoffs, sticking the tray of strawberries in the refrigerator. “Don’t sell yourself short, Jungkook. My advisor showed me the paper you submitted to her for your internship; I think you’re going to be a formidable scientist in the future.” He straightens up and shuts the refrigerator door. “My defense is scheduled for 3 PM in the pharmacy building. Would you like to come?”

“I –” Jungkook says softly, looking up at him. “Y-Yeah. I’d like to, if that’s alright.” He clears his throat and looks at the refrigerator door, where Seokjin’s stuck a whole bunch of scientific papers and notes with magnets so he has something to read while waiting for the microwave or toaster. “Are you um, cooking anything tonight?”

Oh. Shit. Seokjin’s been so immersed in preparing for his defense tomorrow he hasn’t even thought about dinner. “Uh,” he says intelligently, staring at the empty kitchen. It’s already past eight, if he starts now they can eat dinner sometime around nine –

“I can order out,” Jungkook offers, pulling out his phone. “I was thinking we could eat the fruit flavored chicken again if… if you want to?” He looks hesitantly at Seokjin.

“Oh. Uh, of course,” Seokjin says in surprise. “I’d love to.”

They forgo eating at the table, instead choosing to sprawl themselves out in the dining room with their books and their chicken, with Jungkook, having just finished all his exams, planning out his next Organic Chemistry review session and Seokjin going over his dissertation almost neurotically.

“They said it’s bad to review too much the night before your defense,” Jungkook says idly as he highlights a potential practice problem in the textbook.

“I’m not reviewing too much,” Seokjin grumbles, putting down the piece of chicken he had been holding up with his chopsticks. They all taste fruity. The taste reminds him of plants. Which reminds him of his defense. Which makes his stomach feel queasy.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, and shoves a strawberry flavored chicken into Seokjin’s mouth.

“I can’t afford to fail,” Seokjin says gruffly, his voice muffled by the chicken. “My entire doctorate is –”

“You’re not going to fail,” Jungkook replies. “You’re going to pass. You’ve been preparing for this for years. You’re ready.”

“That’s all Namjoon ever says,” Seokjin grunts, swallowing his food and glaring at the paper in his hands.

“It’s because he already knows what you refuse to admit,” Jungkook sighs, pouring more soda into his cup. “That after 3 PM tomorrow, the world’s going to see another Ph.D in Pharmacognosy.” He feeds Seokjin a piece of radish with his chopsticks. “Don’t sweat it too much. Now eat.”

Seokjin eats.

They sit in comfortable silence when they’re done and all the garbage has been thrown away, buried in their respective work. They’re both scheduled to move out of the apartment in a few days, but Jungkook doesn’t bring up their impending ‘breakup.’ Seokjin doesn’t, either. He doesn’t even want to think about it now, with his defense in just a little over twelve hours. But maybe there’s something in what Jungkook said about relaxing; Seokjin had spent about two minutes panicking about something he’s left out in his methods before remembering with a sigh of relief why he did it. He’s probably burning himself out. Feels like it too, he’s so warm from the chicken and comfortable on the couch and his eyes are slipping closed…

“Hyung.”

Seokjin blinks. The kitchen and living room lights are turned off, the only light in the room coming from the lamp in the corner. He no longer has the paper he was reading in his hands and his face is squashed awkwardly against a cushion. “Hng?”

“It’s three in the morning,” Jungkook says softly, shaking his shoulder. “Come on. Time for bed.”

Seokjin peers over the couch and finds that his paper has fallen under the coffee table. Along with the rest of his motivation to review. “Yeah,” he rasps, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah. Let’s sleep.”

He and Jungkook brush their teeth together. It’s strangely domestic, how neither of them seem to mind when they accidentally bump elbows trying to fit around the small sink or how they have to wait for the other to finish with the tap. Jungkook does chase him out of the bathroom so he can pee, though. They’re not that close. And probably never will be, Seokjin thinks, even though he leaves the bathroom laughing.

Jungkook’s spent the last couple of months curled up firmly on his side of the bed whenever they sleep, but tonight Seokjin’s surprised when Jungkook hesitantly leans over to his side and wraps his arms around his waist.

“You’ll do great tomorrow, hyung,” Jungkook mumbles into his chest. “Don’t worry.”

Seokjin smiles into his pillow. “You’ll be there,” he says softly, taking Jungkook’s hand in his. “Why would I worry?”

He passes his defense.

He does run into criticism; no one ever passes a Ph.D defense without being knocked down a peg or two. But the committee doesn’t roast him too badly, merely points out a few things with his methods that could have been done better or questions certain things about his dissertation. But Seokjin manages to smile and offer sound reasoning and findings for his science, and it’s not long before he’s shaking hands with each committee member as they congratulate him for becoming a Ph.D in Pharmacognosy.

“These strawberries are delicious,” one committee member says to his advisor, popping one into his mouth and laughing. “Bit much for a mere defense, though. Your candidate, well, Doctor now,” he amends, nodding at Seokjin, “certainly puts a lot of effort into the things he does.”

“That’s Seokjin for you,” his advisor says fondly, smiling.

“You did it!” Namjoon says, knocking over two chairs and a desk before wrapping Seokjin in a bone-crushing hug. “Congratulations, man! You’re a Doctor now!”

“Thank you,” Seokjin gasps. “Namjoon, you tend to break almost everything you touch and I’m pretty sure my ribs are no exception to that rule so – ”

“Oh.” Namjoon releases him, grinning sheepishly.

“Congrats,” Junghwan says, clapping Seokjin on the shoulder. Behind him, Jaehwan nods fervently as he helps himself to an entire Tupperware box full of Seokjin’s strawberries. “Knew you could do it. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to go plan your after party. You’re not allowed to protest.” He winks and sweeps from the room, Jaehwan tottering along behind him.

“He stole my Tupperware,” Seokjin frowns.

“And your strawberries,” Namjoon adds helpfully. Something catches his attention and he nudges Seokjin in the side. “I’ll uh – I’ll wait outside.”

“Hmm?” But Namjoon’s already walking towards the door, where Jungkook is standing hesitantly. He exchanges a quick smile and a nod with Namjoon, before turning to smile at Seokjin.

“Thanks for coming,” Seokjin smiles at him as he approaches.

“I’m never going for a Ph.D,” Jungkook says as he casts a glance at the departing committee members. “They were so mean to you.”

“They’re supposed to be,” Seokjin laughs. “It’s meant to humble you.”

“Well, it humbled me,” Jungkook shakes his head. “And I wasn’t even the one presenting.” He looks Seokjin in the face and Seokjin is suddenly struck by how Jungkook’s grown so much he no longer has to look up at him anymore.

“I’ll see you later, Seokjin,” his advisor calls from the doorway, and he bows to her before she leaves the room. It’s just the two of them left now.

“Congratulations,” Jungkook says quietly. There’s something intense blazing in his eyes that Seokjin can’t exactly place. “Kim Seokjin, Ph.D in Pharmacognosy.”

“Well, I mean,” Seokjin says, blushing a little. He’s not quite used to being called Doctor yet. “There’s still the official paperwork and everyth – ”

Jungkook cuts him off by pressing his lips to Seokjin’s and Seokjin forgets all about paperwork.

He can’t remember the last time Jungkook’s kissed him like this; he can’t remember the last time Jungkook’s kissed him at all when they were alone, but there’s something desperate about the way Jungkook’s lips move against his now. It’s rough and nearly dominating at first, as if Jungkook has something to prove, with Jungkook bringing his arms around Seokjin’s neck and pushing them backwards until Seokjin’s legs hit a desk. Then it softens, Jungkook’s lips tender and, Seokjin almost lets himself believe, loving against his. It’s minutes, hours, years until they break apart, cheeks tinged pink and slightly out of breath.

“I,” Jungkook says softly, breaking the silence. He doesn’t look at Seokjin. “I’m going to miss you, hyung. When we leave.”

Seokjin’s still light-headed, reeling from the kiss with a faint buzzing in his ears. “Yeah,” he says, a bit breathless. “I’m gonna miss you too, Kookie.”

Jungkook gives a small laugh at the nickname before turning to leave. “See you back at the apartment, Doc.”

And Seokjin comes back down to earth in time to see the door click shut quietly behind Jungkook, sealing in the realization that it’s over. Seokjin had attained his Ph.D and is scheduled to begin his post-doctoral work at Seoul National University soon, and he and Jungkook are set to move out of the apartment in a few days. And their little dating charade would come to an end.

Yes, Seokjin thinks as he stares around the empty conference room one more time. It’s done. It’s over.

He’s busy packing the night before the two of them officially move out. He had just finished packing away all his stuff in his graduate student office (Namjoon had whined most incessantly about how he was leaving and how he would now be alone and been particularly clingy through the whole affair), which hadn’t so much been packing away than it had been transferring said stuff back to his apartment for the actual packing. Jungkook’s already finished putting away his things; the few boxes and suitcases he has save for his toiletries are already lined up neatly in the living room to be moved out the following day.

Seokjin’s just taped his last box shut and marked it with a sharpie when his stomach growls and he learns that earning his Ph.D evidently did not confer him the ability to pull his shit together in terms of feeding himself on time. He sighs, nudges the box off to the side and makes his way to his kitchen.

The light in the kitchen is already on when he approaches it though, and Seokjin peeks in to see Jungkook at the counter, donned in that ridiculous Princess Peach apron he had bought Seokjin when he discovered Seokjin’s (slight) obsession with Super Mario Bros. He’s diligently chopping an onion into pieces and shapes of greatly varying sizes instead of the nice, crescent-like pieces Seokjin had tried once (before the ramen incident) to teach him how to make. There’s a pot of soup bubbling beside him and Seokjin can’t help but smile as he watches Jungkook attempt to put a meal together by himself.

Until Jungkook gives a sniff and wipes at his eyes with his sleeve.

“Jungkook?”

Jungkook starts and almost drops his knife. He looks up in surprise, a tear slipping down his cheek.

“Jungkook, are you crying?”

“N-No,” Jungkook says, though his voice comes out raw and broken. He gives another watery sniff as he looks at Seokjin. “Stupid onion,” he continues, gesturing at the half-sliced onion on the cutting board. “Do you think you could –”

“Of course,” Seokjin says gently, taking in Jungkook’s red and puffy eyes.

“Thanks,” Jungkook says, putting down the knife and rubbing furiously at his eyes with his sleeve again. “I’m just gonna…” he sweeps past Seokjin still wearing his Princess Peach apron and locks himself in the bathroom. Seokjin hears the tapwater running as he picks up the knife and continues slicing the onion.

Something that sounds suspiciously like a muffled sob makes it way out of the bathroom just as Seokjin’s about to toss the last slice into the pot. He doesn’t bring it up when Jungkook emerges again. Neither does Jungkook.

“You have your train ticket? All your bags? Everything?”

“Yes, mother,” Jungkook rolls his eyes.

The apartment is officially bare, the entirety of both their belongings now situated in suitcases and boxes near the door, ready to be moved out. Jungkook’s leaving first, his journey home is a bit farther than Seokjin’s. This is their last time in this apartment; both their ID cards have been stripped of their entry authorization for the front door since morning and Seokjin has both their keys, to be dropped off at the front office when he leaves.

“Alright, I just don’t want you to go all the way back to Busan and realize you left your wallet here or something – ”

“You’re talking to me, not Namjoon,” Jungkook says, the corners of his mouth turning upwards slightly. “And besides, I’m coming back to campus in a week. I can afford to forget a box or two.”

“You didn’t sign up for more lab hours, did you?” Seokjin sighs. “You’re basically doing Namjoon’s Ph.D for him.”

“The life of an intern,” Jungkook nods solemnly. They both smile at this, but it soon lapses into an awkward silence.

They shouldn’t draw this out.

“Is Hyosang still bothering you?”

“No,” Seokjin replies. “Guess he can take a hint after all. You did a good job.”

“We,” Jungkook corrects. “We did a good job.”

“Yeah. We did, didn’t we?”

They should end this.

“So, this is it,” Seokjin says softly. “Hope you’ve enjoyed living in graduate student housing.”

“It was nice,” Jungkook comments, turning to look back at the living room. “On body and wallet. But yeah,” he says, looking back at Seokjin. “This is it. We’re single again.”

“Go forth and be free,” Seokjin chuckles.

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Hyung, that’s such a bad – ”

“No really,” Seokjin says, glancing in alarm at the time on his phone. “You’re going to miss your train if you don’t leave now.”

As if on cue a message from Hoseok flashes across his phone screen saying “KIM SEOKJIN IF YOU DON’T SEND THE FETUS OUT THIS INSTANT HE’S GOING TO MISS HIS TRAIN AND I ONLY OFFERED TO DRIVE HIM TO THE TRAIN STATION NOT ALL THE WAY TO FUCKIN BUSAN.”

“I think Hoseok’s waiting for you,” Seokjin says helpfully.

“I’m not a fetus!” Jungkook shouts, eyes flashing dangerously as he gives an outraged look at Seokjin’s phone.

“You can discuss that with Hoseok,” Seokjin says, pushing an angrily spluttering Jungkook toward the door, “on the ride to the train station.”

He had imagined his goodbye with Jungkook to be a little more meaningful. A little more… serious? Memorable? Seokjin doesn’t really know the word he’s looking for. All he knows is that the last glimpse he has of Jungkook is his offended expression at being called a fetus (but really, who the hell graduates university with a bachelors in under three years?) as Seokjin shoves his suitcase and bags into his hands and him out the door, and that the last thing he says to him is “safe travels, let me know when you make it back” before Jungkook’s dashing off to Hoseok’s car with murder in his eyes, dragging all his luggage behind him awkwardly. Seokjin watches him disappear around the corner, then turns around and shuts the door behind him.

It’s better this way.

His new work at the Natural Products Research Institute in Seoul National University does a lot to keep his mind off of Jungkook. He’s thrown unceremoniously back into the field of research, with new mentors and new co-workers and deadlines and papers on hybrid roses and their essential oils. It’s a good distraction and Seokjin’s grateful for it.

Most of the time.

“You know,” Jonghyun says, tilting his head thoughtfully. “This could be a lot worse.”

“Don’t say that,” Seokjin sighs into his hands, staring resignedly at the GC-MS instrument that’s currently spluttering pathetically and making high-pitched whiny machine noises. “One of us is going to have to tell our lab supervisor about this.”

“Ah,” Jonghyun pulls a face. “Then I suggest, to minimize collateral damage as much as possible, we send the most attractive and charming person in the lab to do it.” He looks meaningfully at Seokjin.

“You need me alive to run the petal extractions,” Seokjin hisses.

“Oh, right,” Jonghyun muses. “Okay. Yifan it is.”

There’s a thud and yelp from behind the GC-MS machine and Yifan emerges, rubbing his head and glaring at the both of them. “Why me?” he growls.

“You’re a visiting scientist from China,” Jonghyun shrugs. “There’s more consequences if you die under interrogation. Might put her off ripping into you a bit.”

Yifan mutters darkly as he returns to puttering around with the columns. “I wasn’t even the one who loaded the sample,” he grumbles. “Why can’t we send Eunji and Se – ”

“We can’t send women to take the fall,” Jonghyun says, sniffing disdainfully. “Where is your sense of chivalry?”

“I’m just saying that if Eunji and Sera had –”

“What about Eunji and Sera?”

Yifan falls silent as the door to the room opens and said women peek their heads inside.

“Nothing,” all three men say at the same time.

“Machine broken again, then?” Sera says, pushing past Eunji and stepping into the room. “That’s the third time this week. Our project’s going to be delayed even more.”

“Yifan’s working on it,” Jonghyun provides cheerfully.

“And how are you helping?” Yifan snarls at him from behind the machine.

“Moral support.”

There’s an alarming clunk from the machine as Yifan pulls something tentatively, followed by a very long, drawn out beep, then silence. Yifan peeks around the machine hopefully, only to groan when the screen still shows an error message in flashing red letters.

Sera runs her hands over her face. “Well. That’s it. Time to quit science and go back to YouTube,” she says glumly.

“You probably could. I’ve seen your song covers,” Seokjin says, turning to her. “They’re really good.”

“Thanks, but I’m not at the point where YouTube pays my bills,” Sera says flatly, straightening up. “What do we have from our first readings? Does the essential oil from the hybrid rose at least contain the therapeutic compound?”

“Not that we’ve seen yet,” Jonghyun says.

Eunji sighs tiredly, hopping up on the counter behind Sera. “Well, what does it have?”

“Limonene,” Seokjin supplies helpfully.

“What if I do this?” Yifan asks, and suddenly there’s a loud cacophony of angry beeping from the machine before it splutters and shuts down completely.

The room is silent as Yifan stares in horror at the machine, then at his hands, then back at the machine.

“I can get another extraction running, to save time?” Seokjin offers hopefully, edging towards the door to escape the scene of the crime.

“Wait,” Sera says, and Seokjin slumps defeatedly. “Eunji and I wanted to talk to you guys about something first.”

“Our friend Minha got a position at the Yangjae Flower Market,” Eunji says. “She says she can get us discounts if we visit this Saturday. So… lab group adventure?”

“Discounts!” Jonghyun lights up. “I’m so in!”

“Do you even need plants?” Sera raises an eyebrow at him, but Jonghyun’s already grabbing onto Seokjin’s arm and Seokjin’s a little unnerved that an elder is pouting and giving him puppy eyes and going “you’ll come too, right? Please say yes!”

He considers it. He doesn’t need plants, per se, but his new apartment is a bit dull; Seokjin had always been accustomed to having a few plants or so in his living and work areas and finds doing work in his apartment to be stifling without some form of botanical life around him. At least he can buy some succulents or something, at the very least for interior decoration. “Sure,” he shrugs, and Jonghyun cheers.

“Awesome,” Sera says as Eunji skips back to her side, having coerced Yifan to come as well. “We’ll text you the details. Good luck with that machine!” she blows the three of them a kiss before slipping out the door with Eunji.

“Well,” Jonghyun says, turning back to the machine with a resigned expression. “What plants do you think you wanna buy?”

“Probably succulents,” Seokjin says, leaning down to look again at the last reading. “Maybe some herbs. Stuff that’s easy to grow and hard to kill.”

“Ah. No roses for anyone special?” Jonghyun smirks.

“No,” Seokjin says firmly, refusing to remember the last time he had bought roses for a certain special someone. “Definitely not.”

“No,” Yifan moans into his hands from his position behind the instrument. “No more roses.”

The flower market is packed at this time of week, many people looking to garden or purchase plants are taking advantage of the weekend to do so (apparently there’s also a sale going on today, and the weather’s nice). It takes all their combined efforts to not step on the flower pots on the floor or knock them off their shelves.

“So I have an idea,” Sera says after a whole ten minutes of them bumping into people accidentally (and Yifan managing to bump into no less than twenty hanging pots; he’s so tall). “We split up to avoid this… this traffic mess,” she gestures disdainfully as another shopper knocks into her and nearly spills her drink. “You all text me when you’re done and we’ll find Minha. And then get the hell out. Any objections?”

Eunji takes a long sip of her frappe in response and probably most likely rolls her eyes (Seokjin can’t tell; she’s wearing sunglasses). Yifan sneezes.

“Excellent,” Sera says brightly, taking Eunji’s hand and dragging her toward the rosemary.

“Er,” Seokjin says awkwardly to Yifan and Jonghyun. “Shall we?”

Jonghyun shrugs. Yifan just sneezes again.

Despite Jonghyun’s excitement over discounts, Seokjin’s actually the only one who’s looking to purchase plants (“I tried taking care of an orchid once,” Jonghyun says solemnly. “It was awful.”), so they make their way over to the cacti and succulent stalls.

“You’re not looking to bring any of these home, are you?” Jonghyun says, peering a little fearfully up at a spiky cactus that’s actually taller than him (though with Jonghyun’s height, that’s not hard to accomplish, Seokjin’s lost count of how many times he’s overheard Jonghyun asking Yifan to grab something from the shelves for him in lab).

“No,” Seokjin says, kneeling down and peering at a small, potted tiger aloe. “I want to live.”

After a few minutes of deliberation and impatient whining from Jonghyun, he picks out a blue rose echeveria and a small variety of aloes, then stands up. “Think these’ll be enough?”

“They’re cute,” Jonghyun coos, poking an aloe leaf experimentally and flinching when it pricks his finger. Seokjin feels a sudden sense of pride for his plant.

Yifan also chooses this moment to let out an elephantine sneeze.

“Are you okay?” Seokjin asks him, peering cautiously at Yifan’s watering eyes. “Are you… allergic to flowers?”

“It’s summer,” Yifan whines, sneezing again. “They’re supposed to have stopped pollinating, what the hell.”

“You picked the wrong field of study, man,” Jonghyun says helpfully, patting him on the back.

“I wasn’t Plant Science,” Yifan says irritably. “I was Chemistry. For personal care products.” He closes his eyes, takes two sharp intakes of breath and lets out another sneeze.

“There, there,” Jonghyun says. He looks at Seokjin. “I’ll take this one to the bathroom to wash his face or something. You just want to buy some mint, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Seokjin says.

“So we’ll meet you later!” Jonghyun takes Yifan’s hand. “Come on, big guy, let’s get you cleaned up,” he says, and drags him away.

Seokjin watches them go, wondering if it’s really safe to trust Jonghyun to wash Yifan’s face (if the way he washes lab equipment back in the lab is any indication, definitely not), but Yifan’s always been a staunch defender of his face’s wellbeing so he decides not to worry.

He passes a few potted venus flytraps on his way to the mint and pauses briefly, remembering Taehyung. He hasn’t spoken with Taehyung much at all ever since they were all let out for the summer holidays (unless that video Taehyung had sent him of an exploding cucumber counts), and the last physical interaction with him had been that dinner with Namjoon where he had broken down in tears and hugged Seokjin tightly, bawling something about “I hope you find happiness, hyung, even if it’s not with Jungkook” before he left. He wonders vaguely if Grande Matcha Green Tea Latte is still alive.

It’s easy enough to find the mint, if not by sight then by the scent. Seokjin’s strongly reminded of his undergraduate years working with the plants, of how he would emerge from the greenhouse smelling strongly of mint. Namjoon would complain about always getting a whiff of it whenever Seokjin sat down next to him. Back when they were friends with benefits, Seokjin would take great delight in rubbing the scent of mint all over Namjoon until both he and his bed reeked of it.

He had only planned on picking up a peppermint plant for drinks or smoothies or something, but a few other herbs, mainly species that he had worked with before, catches his eye. The stall ahjumma, sensing weakness, takes the opportunity to showcase them to him in all their glory, even offering some to him at a discounted price. Seokjin ends up walking away with a basil, a chocolate mint and a lemon thyme in addition to his peppermint.

It’s all for science, he argues with himself as he determinedly walks away, refusing to turn around and return the plants and hurt the ahjumma’s feelings. He had studied Food Science, he likes dabbling in the culinary arts and playing around with flavors, and his purchase had been one hundred percent for science and not nostalgia for the old days when life was simple and his greatest worries were his midterms and he didn’t have any Jungkooks to –

“Seokjin?”

Seokjin stops walking and turns around very, very slowly, because the owner of that voice he knew well enough to identify anywhere couldn’t even wait two weeks after he had broken up with Jungkook to come back. “Hyosang,” he says.

Jin Hyosang, ex-boyfriend to Kim Seokjin, music composer, and apparent flower market patron, stands awkwardly wedged between various pots of very overgrown citronella. “Um. Hey,” he waves. “You uh, you bought plants.”

“I did,” Seokjin says, raising an eyebrow. “And you… haven’t?”

“I will!” Hyosang says, wobbling a little. “I mean, I’m going to. Um, would you happen to know where the roses are?”

“That way,” Seokjin says, pointing to the room that’s bursting with brightly colored flowers.

“Oh, gee,” Hyosang says awkwardly. “That’s really obvious, can’t believe I missed it, now I feel kind of –”

“What’s wrong, Hyosang,” Seokjin sighs. “And why, why are you half buried in citronella.”

“Nothing!” Hyosang says hurriedly. “Um, there were too many people walking around and I was sort of knocked into these pots and – wow did you know citronella keeps away mosquitoes? Damn useful plants, they are –”

“You’re stuck.”

“What? No,” Hyosang protests, holding his hands up. “Definitely not, I mean – ”

“Hyosang.”

“I’m stuck,” Hyosang says, pouting. Seokjin can’t help but crack a smile, he had always adored Hyosang’s pouts. He puts down his plants and offers his hand to Hyosang, who takes it, and then unceremoniously yanks him out of the mess of plants.

“Thanks,” Hyosang says, brushing himself off. “I didn’t want to move because you can’t really see the pots underneath all the leaves and I didn’t want to risk stepping on one and breaking it and I’m sure citronellas aren’t costly but their pots probably sure are and wow I don’t think citronellas repel mosquitoes at all,” he adds with a grimace, leaning down to scratch at his ankle. “I got like five bites in the three minutes I was in there.”

“Right,” Seokjin says, leaning down to pick up his purchases. “Well, good luck with that, I’m just gonna –”

“Wait!” Hyosang says, and Seokjin fights the urge to sigh because he’d been through this with him so many times, he’s not interested in getting back together with –

“I just want to say I’m sorry.”

Seokjin looks up in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” Hyosang repeats, looking a little guiltily at Seokjin. “For like, chasing after you. I didn’t really understand what you meant at the time, you know, when you said we wouldn’t work out, I thought this was one of those things where I had to really prove that I wanted it, that I shouldn’t give up so easily, but I – I think I understood what you were really trying to say. That you weren’t happy with us. And that me trying to get back together with you would only hurt you. I figured it out when I saw you kissing that undergrad at the party, you know, the one that looks really young and muscly and kind of like a bunny?”

“Jungkook,” Seokjin says, feeling a weird echoing pang as he utters the name for the first time in a while.

“Yeah, Jungkook,” Hyosang says, taking in a breath as if he’s going to continue, but then he pauses. “Uh. Yeah,” he finishes a little lamely, looking at his feet and trying to subtly scratch at the bug bite on his ankle with his shoe. “That’s – that’s it.”

“Hyosang,” Seokjin smiles. “You’ve been trying to tell me this for a long time, haven’t you?” He also gestures to the flower room, suggesting that they start walking and stop obstructing the walkways.

“Well, yeah,” Hyosang says, stuffing his hands into his pockets as they begin walking toward the gift flower section. “Took me a while, but one of my friends, you know, kinda helped me see sense. He told me that sometimes letting go is the better choice. That letting go isn’t a weakness.”

“This,” Seokjin murmurs, looking away to stare at passing display of echinaceas beside them. “This is true.”

“You’re not together with him anymore though, are you?” Hyosang asks. He doesn’t have the hint of hope in his voice Seokjin had expected, just a little… sadness? “You took down your picture with him on your Facebook.”

“No, I’m not,” Seokjin sighs, then gives a playful punch to Hyosang’s shoulder. “Stop creeping on my social media, stalker.”

“I’m not creeping,” Hyosang grumbles, rubbing his shoulder. “The home page updates whenever you change your profile picture, jeez.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Seokjin rolls his eyes.

“Well, I’m sorry things didn’t work out with him,” Hyosang says gently.

Well, technically, it was fake and there was nothing to work out to begin with. But Hyosang doesn’t need to know that. “That’s life, I suppose,” Seokjin shrugs. They’ve reached the flower section and he stops there, not intent on entering lest some other ahjumma makes him buy more plants he doesn’t need and destroys the remainder of his wallet.

“You know,” Hyosang begins carefully. “Not that I should really be talking, but my friend did also say that… while letting go isn’t a weakness, you should also know when to let go. As in whether or not you should be letting something go.”

Seokjin blinks.

“Just… putting that out there,” Hyosang shrugs. “Just because you have the general air of a heartbroken lead in a kdrama who broke up with his significant other for some really stupid reason like a bitchy rich mom who –”

“Yah,” Seokjin says, flicking Hyosang in the forehead. “I’m older than you. Respect your elders.”

“You’re older by like, twelve days,” Hyosang grumbles, rubbing his forehead.

“That’s two hundred and eighty eight more hours,” Seokjin says. “Two hundred eighty eight hours more experience, two hundred eighty eight hours more wisdom, two hundred eighty eight hours more fighting to survive in this cold, cruel world than you have.”

“Did science teach you how to multiply twenty four by twelve in your head in two seconds?”

“Yes.”

Hyosang chuckles. “Well, good for you, then. I guess this is where I part, though,” he says, turning with a little trepidation to face the flower room.

“Who are you buying flowers for?”

“My friend. He’s graduating university in like, an hour and I figured I should get him like, flowers or something.”

“Oh. Tell him congratulations.”

“Sure thing,” Hyosang says, then he turns back to Seokjin. “Hey,” he grins. “It was nice seeing you again. We – we’re still friends, right?”

“Go get your flowers, citronella boy,” Seokjin rolls his eyes and shoves Hyosang into the fortress of obnoxiously colored flower displays. Hyosang tumbles into them laughing, before he vanishes amongst the petals.

There would always be a special place in his heart for Jin Hyosang. But it’s not the same place that Jeon Jungkook had managed to fill. Admittedly though, there’s some weight to Hyosang’s words, he sighs, he needs to decide if that place, that place, filled to the brim with every bit of Jungkook’s quirks, faults, words, actions, and everything else about him he adores, is something he needs to let go of. But that’s a thought for later. He should probably work on finding his lab partners again –

Seokjin blinks when he realizes where he is. Hyosang had left him in the middle of the market’s gardenias.

He hadn’t expected to be back at the campus of his alma mater so soon, but as life would have it, Seokjin’s set to attend a conference on new discoveries in plant-based pharmaceutics amongst fellow Pharmacognosy researchers. In the very same building he had given his defense in, no less.

It’s a little intimidating to attend, especially since none of his labmates had come with him (Sera and Eunji are taking over his extraction duties for his two day absence, Jonghyun’s making a fresh attempt at fixing the GC-MS machine and Yifan… Yifan’s had enough of plants for the week) and he’s surrounded by many people who are veteran researchers within this field, but he does learn a lot and meet new people so it’s worth it.

It’s also an excuse to meet up with his friends still in university. Namjoon nearly knocks him off his feet as he flies into him, blubbering something about how he’s missed him so much (even though it’s been like only half a month) and how the new graduate student who’s taken Seokjin’s side of the office judges him so hard whenever he breaks something (even though Seokjin had judged Namjoon plenty), with Yoongi in the background grumbling about how finally Namjoon would stop moping around like an abandoned puppy now that he’s seen Seokjin again and Hoseok patting Namjoon consolingly on the back, telling Seokjin that “Namjoonie stayed up all night in lab, so he’s a little off-kilter right now.”

They enter a small café to escape the summer heat. Yoongi’s set to proctor a Calculus exam in half an hour and Hoseok’s due in lab for a meeting with his advisor, but it doesn’t stop them from catching up over bingsoo. Namjoon and Seokjin are sharing a strawberry one, while Yoongi and Hoseok (well, more like a very enthusiastic Hoseok and a slightly disgusted Yoongi) are digging into a coffee one.

“So how’s the real world treating you?” Namjoon asks through a mouthful of strawberry.

“Terrible,” Seokjin groans. “Stay forever ensconced in the cocoon of academia, Kim Namjoon.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Hoseok says. “I mean, there’s bills, taxes, basic adult responsibilities, no more eating at dining halls, cooking, cleaning, living in an apartment that actually belongs to you so you have to actually put effort into maintaining it, oh…” his face falls. “Okay, so maybe it’s pretty bad.”

“Cocoon of academia,” Seokjin repeats.

“Now I kinda feel bad about scheduling my defense,” Hoseok mumbles into his bingsoo.

“Oh!” Seokjin says, breaking into a pleasantly surprised smile. “You’re ready to defend?”

“I said that I scheduled it, not that I’m ready,” Hoseok grumbles. “But yep. Advisor said it’s good to go. Namjoon’s scheduled his, too.”

“You too?” Seokjin rounds on Namjoon, glaring at him accusedly. “You didn’t tell me!”

“Well, I just got everything sorted out two hours ago, if that helps?” Namjoon shrugs.

“What about me,” Yoongi grouches, taking advantage of Hoseok’s mouth talking instead of eating to sneak in a bite of bingsoo. “My defense is scheduled for the end of this summer, too.”

“I’m so happy for you guys,” Seokjin says, his voice cracking with emotion. “You’re all going to graduate and start earning money and oh, this is just wonderful!”

“Aw, hyung,” Hoseok laughs, “you literally just complained about how hard the real world is.”

“Yes,” Seokjin says, beaming at him. “It’s hard and terrible and awful but you’ll be earning money and getting paychecks and now you three fuckers can start paying me back for every last won I’ve ever spent on you! You,” he points to a startled Namjoon, “can start with the two years of groceries I’ve paid for to put food in your stomach every night and you two,” he rounds on a quickly paling Yoongi and Hoseok, “can start making a dent in all the money you owe me for all the alcohol I had to buy for you in our undergraduate years because you two were underage –”

“Wow gosh is that the time, my exam’s suddenly starting very, very soon,” Yoongi says quickly, scrambling for his backpack and wallet with Hoseok following suit blabbering something how his advisor had texted him to come now instead of later. “Nice seeing you again, hyung!” And they book it out of the café, nearly tripping over themselves on their way out.

“Well,” Namjoon says conversationally. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen Yoongi so terrified.”

“Anything’s possible with the proper attitude and a commanding presence,” Seokjin says primly, taking a spoonful of bingsoo. “And receipts of all your past purchases,” he adds, chewing thoughtfully.

Namjoon pulls a face. “You really holding me to that, huh?”

“Bulgogi is not cheap,” is all Seokjin says in response.

The graduate student in front of him cracks a brief smile, then sighs heavily. “Well, this is all assuming I pass my defense and graduate.”

“You will,” Seokjin says. “You poured your heart and soul and your left kidney into your research, Namjoon, you’ll be fine. And you have Jungkook helping you,” he adds without thinking, then immediately shuts his mouth and picks up his spoon again.

Namjoon glances at him from across the table, gives him a guarded stare before saying, “Yes. I suppose. Yeah. He’s a good intern. By the way, how was the conference?”

The conference itself had consisted of various presentations on new findings in the field of plants and medicinal compounds synthesized by various very un-marine organisms that are most likely irrelevant to Namjoon’s interests, but Seokjin goes with the change of topic nonetheless.

He and Namjoon part ways a little later, with Namjoon promising to text him the date and time of his defense so Seokjin can attend. Though Namjoon scrambles off back to lab, Seokjin doesn’t leave campus right away. He’s not set to go back to work for another day or so, and the campus has a different feel when he walks around as an alumni, rather than as an exam-heckled student.

He drags his feet when he reaches the campus greenhouses, letting the warm summer breeze blow through his hair, bringing with it the familiar scents of the dining halls and the fruiting trees behind the nearby animal science facilities. Scents that he’s never really fully gotten to appreciate before when he had been a student. So Seokjin closes his eyes, relaxes and lets himself appreciate the campus that had nurtured him for nearly the past decade of his life.

It turns out to not be such a great idea when he rounds the corner of the greenhouse and collides with an unsuspecting campus tour guide.

“I’m so sorry!” the tour guide blurts, scrambling to his feet and offering his hand to Seokjin to help him up. “I just – hyung?”

Kim Seokjin blinks, because here he is, Kim Seokjin, Ph.D, flat on his ass on the burning asphalt of the greenhouse walkways, looking up into the surprised face of Kim Taehyung, who currently has a tiny golden retriever puppy scrambling to lick him in his arms and an entire group of incoming freshmen behind him staring at him. Fuck.

“It’s fine,” he says nonchalantly, letting Taehyung pull him up and dusting himself off. “I didn’t know you did campus tours, Taehyung.”

“I signed up recently!” Taehyung beams, and the puppy in his arms chooses that moment to let out a high pitched, displeased whine at how it still can’t lick Seokjin. “My veterinary rotations don’t pay my rent, you know! Actually, neither does tour guide-ing, with what they pay me per hour. But puppysitting does!” he says, bouncing the puppy a little. “Why are you back on campus, hyung? Are you here to see Namjoon?”

“Conference,” Seokjin says, scratching the puppy behind the ears to appease it. “But you should get back to … ” he gestures at the patiently waiting tour group.

“Ah, right,” Taehyung says, scratching the back of his head sheepishly and bowing apologetically to his group. “I get off at 5, hyung, are you free to meet up then?”

“Sure, Taehyung.”

“Congratulations. Seoul National University, huh?”

They had sat down in an outdoor booth for one of the university’s tea shops. It’s still hot outside, but their booth is shaded and the day is particularly breezy, so it’s not too bad. Taehyung’s puppy, after having given Seokjin’s ankles and legs a thorough investigation (which just consisted of a thorough sniffing, Taehyung had already trained it to not pee on people), had parked itself underneath the table, occasionally nipping at the laces of Taehyung’s sneakers.

“Yeah!” Taehyung says excitedly, flipping his water bottle excitedly. “Jimin bet that I wasn’t going to get into their Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program, but I proved him wrong and now he owes me fifty thousand won! I hope he gives it to me soon…” he adds, deflating a little. “My rent’s due in a week.”

“You’re living with Jungkook again?” Seokjin asks carefully.

“Um, yeah!” Taehyung fumbles the water bottle and it goes flying off the table onto the floor. His puppy leaps on it and Taehyung sighs defeatedly. “I uh – hyung, we don’t have to talk about –”

“You can talk about him around me if you want,” Seokjin says gently. “Is he doing okay?”

“Um,” Taehyung says again. “Yeah. I guess? Actually, I don’t know,” he sighs. “Jungkookie’s been good, going to class, going to lab, he even cleans the toilet when he’s supposed to. But…”

“But?”

“There’s these small things,” Taehyung says carefully. “I went grocery shopping once and brought back strawberries, you know, cuz who doesn’t like strawberries? But Jungkookie wouldn’t eat a single one. Doesn’t eat anything strawberries now, no strawberry milk, no strawberry cake, nothing.” He tilts his head. “Jungkookie loves strawberries, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Seokjin watches Taehyung talk, a weird feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. It’s uncomfortable and feels very much like guilt. The puppy on the floor, having gotten bored of the water bottle, yips petulantly for attention.

“He got really drunk the other night,” Taehyung says quietly, leaning down to pick it up. “I tried to make him drink water, you know, to keep him hydrated so he doesn’t die? But he wouldn’t drink it. Kept asking for ginger tea instead, for whatever reason.”

Seokjin suddenly finds that he can’t meet Taehyung’s eyes anymore. Instead he looks at the puppy, which is now yipping and scrabbling frantically at the edge of the table trying to climb up and make its way to him.

“So I made some for him,” Taehyung continues, pulling the puppy firmly back into his lap. “To like, humor him? But he took one sip and burst into tears. Blubbered something about how it wasn’t the same before he passed out. Freaked me out a bit.”

“Taehyung – ”

“It’s not really my place to ask, hyung,” Taehyung interrupts him. He looks hesitantly up at him. “But you said your relationship you had with him was fake, yeah?”

Seokjin nods.

“Did it feel fake?”

“I – huh?”

“Did it feel fake to you?” Taehyung repeats. “Every time you kissed, every time you went out together, every time you said ‘I love you’ in front of other people, did it feel fake any of those times?”

Taehyung’s looking at him without any venom, his expression arranged into one of polite curiosity, but even so, Seokjin can’t help but feel pinned under his gaze. He swallows. “No. For me, it wasn’t… it wasn’t fake.”

Taehyung sighs and cups his face with his hands. “Hyung,” he begins. “Jungkook will probably kill me if he knows I’m telling you this, but I think you should know. Jeon Jungkook is not a crying drunk. He has only ever cried twice out of all the times he has been inebriated. The second time was the ginger tea thing,” he pulls a face at the memory. “The first was at Yoongi’s party. The one where you had to leave him for lab.”

Seokjin blanches. “Oh god, I – ”

“Nah, “ Taehyung says quickly. “It wasn’t your fault. He wasn’t upset that you had left. It was something else. Something he wouldn’t tell me. At the time,” he inhales, “I thought it was the alcohol, like, it made him emotional and sort of incoherent or something? Anyway, I had asked him if he really loved you. Oh fine,” he sighs, finally giving up on keeping the puppy in his lap and the puppy leaps across the table into Seokjin’s lap. “Go say hi to Seokjin.”

“What did he answer?” Seokjin asks, hesitantly petting the puppy’s head as it squirms in his lap.

“Yes,” Taehyung replies. “And said he,” he puts up finger quotes, “‘didn’t know how to fix it’, which you know, I found kind of strange back then but chalked it up to his drunkenness. But after that dinner we had, I think he knew what he was saying.”

The puppy whines and puts a paw on Seokjin’s chest.

“I –” Seokjin swallows, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat. “I should talk to him. In person.”

To his surprise, Taehyung breaks into his trademark box smile. “On it, hyung!” he chirps, whipping out his phone. Seokjin watches as he pulls up the number board and dials, vaguely surprised that Taehyung cares enough to memorize phone numbers.

Taehyung’s evidently put the phone on speaker, because there’s exactly six rings, then a bit of crackle before Jungkook’s voice rings out loud and clear and displeased across the table. “What.”

“Jungkookie!” Taehyung coos into the phone, “were you sleeping? Are you awake?”

“Now I am,” Jungkook groans. “What do you need me for so urgently that you find it necessary to wake me up after I spent all fucking night in lab with Namjoon?”

“I forgot my keys to the apartment!” Taehyung says brightly. “I need you to be home to let me in in,” he checks his watch, “like twenty minutes.”

There’s exactly three seconds where Seokjin almost visualizes the unimpressed expression on Jungkook’s face when he realizes that he has to stay awake for the next twenty minutes before Jungkook’s spewing a colorful string of curses into the speaker because why the hell should I do this when I told you three times this morning to make sure you had your keys because I needed to sleep the entire day away you uncultured wretch. Taehyung takes it all gracefully with an amused smile on his face, before cutting across his ranting with a “I’ll bring home lamb skewers, Jungkookie~!”

Jungkook’s threats to disembowel Taehyung cut off abruptly, followed by a terse “hurry up.”

“You love me, Jungkookie-ah~” Taehyung says cheerfully into the phone, but the line disconnects as Jungkook hangs up. “I’ll text you our address and our building entrance code. You have twenty minutes,” he informs Seokjin.

“Why can’t you just tell him I’m coming over?”

“Jungkook’s spent the better part of a whole year thinking you don’t love him back,” Taehyung shrugs. “So if he knows you’re coming he’ll have time to put his guard up and smile and pretend everything’s okay and you two won’t fix things with each other and then I will have bought him lamb skewers for nothing.”

“You use the lamb skewer bribe often?” Seokjin asks weakly, handing the puppy back to Taehyung.

“Too often,” Taehyung says, tapping away happily on his phone. “It’s not as effective now as it was a year ago, I’ve bribed him with it so much that he’s sort of become immune to it.” He frowns and pauses thoughtfully in his typing. “Kind of like antibiotic resistance. Also, you now have nineteen minutes.”

Seokjin loves Taehyung. God, he loves Taehyung to death. “Dammit, Taehyung,” he says, standing. “You’re a manipulative little shit, you know that?”

Taehyung gives him a sly grin. “So I’ve been told.”

Seokjin glances down at his phone screen, reading Taehyung’s text again just to double check he’s gotten the right apartment, before hesitantly raising his hand and knocking on the door.

He hears angry stomping and a muffled “That was more than twenty fucking minutes you miserable assfuck, twenty-six minutes to be exact, I better be reimbursed by additional helpings of lamb skewers, one for every extra goddamned minute –”

The door opens and he met by an irate Jungkook, who stops talking immediately.

“You’ve been spending too much time around Yoongi,” Seokjin says, smiling a little.

“I – uh – hyung,” Jungkook stammers intelligently, balking in the doorway. “Um.”

“Can I come in?”

“Uh,” Jungkook says again, stepping back to let Seokjin over the threshold. “Sure.”

This apartment is a lot messier than the graduate student one they had stayed in; Taehyung obviously is content with lower living standards than Seokjin is and he has a feeling the only reason Jungkook made an effort to be neat back when they lived together was because he knew Seokjin would throw a fit if he wasn’t. He tries very hard to ignore the spilled bag of chips on the floor that definitely looks to be a few days old. Or the slice of coffee cake that looks like it’s been abandoned for quite some time.

“It’s messy,” Jungkook says, reading the expression on Seokjn’s face. “I didn’t know you – I – we weren’t expecting company.”

“I… see,” Seokjin says. That much is evident, if not by the state of the apartment, then by Jungkook himself. His eyebags are darker than ever and he hadn’t shaved this morning, the beginnings of short stubble around his chin pronounced against the paleness of his skin (Seokjin makes a mental note to tear into Namjoon for making an intern stay overnight, but knowing Jungkook he had probably volunteered for it). Jungkook hadn’t even put on a shirt, and Seokjin resolutely avoids looking further down than his face; he had already caught a glimpse of Jungkook’s collarbones and that was quite enough for him.

“I’m –” Jungkook says hesitantly. “I’m going to go freshen up, if that’s okay. I didn’t really sleep last night…”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says. “Yeah, no problem. I’ll wait.” God this is awkward it’s only been two weeks and they’ve seen each other in greater states of undress before why is this so awkward. Jungkook escapes to the bathroom and Seokjin is left amongst the clutter in the living room.

He sighs and settles for picking up a little bit of the mess. Not rearranging things, he’d learned his lesson that last time he had cleaned Jungkook’s side of the room and the undergraduate had been late for a midterm because he couldn’t locate his calculator, but just picking up trash and throwing out the spoiled food. He tosses out the bag of chips along with a few cans of Coca Cola that had undoubtedly left by Taehyung. Grande Matcha Green Tea Latte is indeed alive and well and currently digesting something, as he finds out after picking a sweater up off of the floor that had been covering it.

The living room looks a bit better once he’s thrown out the last wrapper. It’s not great and he’s dying to give it a wipe down with bleach or something (or at least vacuum it, they wouldn’t begrudge him that, would they?), but at least there’s space on the couch for more than half a butt. But before he can sit, the bathroom door clicks and Jungkook emerges.

He’s cleaned himself up, showered and brushed his teeth and shaved and put on jeans and that horrible flowy white shirt that Seokjin hates because it’s low cut enough for his collarbones to be almost fully exposed and he’s had enough of that when they lived together thank you very much why the hell is Jungkook even wearing that it’s a long sleeve and it’s in the middle of summer –

“Are you okay?” Jungkook asks him.

“What?”

“You’re making this high pitched boiling kettle noise at the back of your throat –”

“I am making no such thing,” Seokjin says, clearing his throat and ceasing aforementioned noise.

“You cleaned,” Jungkook comments, looking around the living room. “Thanks.”

“There was a sweater on top of Grande Matcha Green Tea Latte,” Seokjin admonishes lightly.

“Oh, that thing,” Jungkook shrugs. “Not my plant, not my problem. Want something to eat?” he asks, waving a hand toward the kitchen. “It’s almost dinnertime.”

Seokjin can’t help the grin that comes to his face. “Are you suggesting,” he says, “that if I open your refrigerator and your pantry I’ll see something more than cereal, boxes of microwavable meals and ramen cups?”

“Um,” Jungkook blinks, fiddling with his sleeves. He’s clearly feeling hot. Hah. That’s what he gets. Dressing in that horrid thing. Punk. “We have like, two eggs. And uh… a week-old green onion. I think.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Seokjin says, heading to the kitchen.

Their refrigerator is not as pitifully stocked as he had expected, half its contents consist of normal-looking, edible food that Jungkook must have made, the other half being curiously chimeric culinary concoctions that Taehyung had probably created in his free time. Seokjin’s not quite sure if it’s a curse or a blessing that Taehyung has never enrolled in any course under the Food Science department.

“What brings you to campus?” Jungkook asks behind him as he watches Seokjin rummage around the refrigerator. “I didn’t think you’d be back here willingly so soon.”

“Conference,” Seokjin supplies, withdrawing with eggs and green onion in hand and nudging the fridge closed with his food. “Plant medicine stuff.”

“... Lit.”

“Mmm. You can get water going for the ramen. Taehyung’s bringing home lamb skewers anyway, so we don’t have to make much.”

“How do you know Taehyung’s bringing lamb skewers?”

“I met with him briefly before coming,” Seokjin says, cracking the first egg into a bowl and lobbing the shells into the garbage.

“Oh god,” Jungkook closes his eyes in a pained expression as he glares at the pot that’s being filled with water at the sink. “He asked you to make food for us tonight, didn’t he? And here the ungrateful shit insisted that the dinner I cooked for him two days ago was good –”

“No,” Seokjin says, tossing the last shell into the trash and picking up a pair of chopsticks to beat the eggs with. “I came because I needed to talk to you.”

“To me?”

“Jungkook,” Seokjin takes a deep breath. “Would you like to date me?”

“Date?” Jungkook says, reaching up to shut off the faucet. “You want to continue this whole fake dating thing? Is Hyosang still –”

“No,” Seokjin says. “Dating as in real boyfriends.”

Jungkook abruptly fumbles the pot in the sink and drops it with a clatter, spilling half the water everywhere.

“I mean,” Seokjin says, unable to look at Jungkook anymore. It’s best to be forward at this point. “The whole time we’ve been fake dating, I’ve genuinely liked you, but I thought it would be best to keep things professional, you know? It’s okay if you don’t reciprocate feelings, I – ” he looks down and crosses his arms, “I just wanted to let you know how I felt.”

He’s answered with a moment of silence save for the gurgling sounds of the last of the water swirling down the drain. Seokjin glances up hesitantly. Jungkook still has his back to him at the sink, and his shoulders are set with a tension that Seokjin’s never seen before. His heart sinks.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, hating how pitiful his voice comes out. He had feared this was going to happen. Jungkook had given up, had probably found someone else to love and now Seokjin had burdened him with his stupid attraction for him that he hadn’t been able to admit –

Jungkook lets out a sob.

“Jungkook?” Seokjin says in alarm, but Jungkook whirls around, his cheeks blotchy and eyes watery and slightly frenzied.

“‘Sorry?’” he says, his voice cracking. “‘Sorry?’” He strides over to Seokjin and raises his hands like he means to shove him backward, but ends up clenching his fists uselessly at his sides. “I’ve been trying not to like you for the entirety of the past year, I had to not like the way you taught me science in ways none of my professors did, I had to not like the way you would stay up late with me just to make sure I pulled all nighters properly, I had to not like the way you try to make sure just about everyone you know ate a full dinner every day, how you would drop everything just to help someone you barely met before take care of his venus flytrap, how you’re so fuckin’ nice you help other people with their Ph.D projects, I had to not like you, Kim Seokjin!” He takes a rattling intake of breath, running his hands furiously through his hair. “All I had to do was not like you, simple enough, right? But then you go and do things like save me the biggest pieces of those dumb fruit flavored chickens that taste like fuckin’ Fruit Loops so I don’t go hungry and brew me that stupid ginger tea that I don’t even like whenever I’m sick and you go and buy me roses and chocolate and it’s so fucking rude of you and I don’t appreciate it very much Kim Seokjin, I cried on the last day of our stupid fake dating thing and blamed it on a stupid onion because I was going to miss you so much and then you come back here like nothing’s changed and you tidy up our apartment and make us food and all you say is ‘sorry’, I don’t fucking appreciate it at all –” He stops being coherent then and sort of dissolves into watery tears right there in his own kitchen, raising his sleeves to rub furiously at his eyes.

Seokjin’s taken aback but quite frankly he has never seen Jungkook lose control like this, so he settles for pulling him into a hug and letting him weep into his shoulder.

“I couldn’t eat strawberries since you left,” Jungkook hiccups pathetically into his sleeves. “B-Because they reminded me of you, you r-ruined fuckin’ strawberries for me, hyung.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Seokjin says gently, patting him on the back.

“When?” Jungkook hiccups again. “When did you know that you liked me? I didn’t really, I wasn’t really affectionate to you much…” he hangs his head shamefully.

“From the first time I saw you,” Seokjins says softly. “You were so cute, you looked so guilty culturing E. coli for Taehyung, and then we started living together and I started knowing you, god Jungkook, you’re terribly messy and can’t chop onions for shit and don’t wash the shower when it’s your turn to clean the bathroom but you are incredibly kind, you take time out of your life to give extra tutoring to Taehyung outside your office hours, you wake up at seven in the morning to go to the gym with Jimin even though you got three hours of sleep the night before because you don’t want him to go without a spotter, and when Namjoon set you on fire I was so scared that you got hurt and then you went and fainted in class and wouldn’t accept help from me and I… I didn’t know what to do, you know? I thought it was because you didn’t want to be more than friends and that I should back off, so I let the whole fake dating end without saying anything about how I feel. But now I see that that was a mistake.” He swallows and tightens his hold around Jungkook. “I shouldn’t have let go… this is a second chance, and I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to let you go, Jungkook.”

There’s a moment of silence from Jungkook and Seokjin becomes worried. “Jungkook?”

“Can we,” Jungkook says, pulling back and looking Seokjin in the face. He’s close enough that he can see every tear clinging to his eyelashes. “Can we do this for real this time?”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says. “For real.”

Jungkook’s lips are chapped when they meet, but that’s most likely the result of working all night in a freezing lab without even a bottle of water allowed. They’re chapped and rough and a little salty from his leftover tears but they’re beautiful and they’re real and this is real. Jungkook gasps against him and brings his arms around his neck in the way that he’s come to like. Seokjin leans in further, hands going up to cup the sides of Jungkook’s face, but he’s surprised when Jungkook suddenly sways.

“Whoa, you alright?”

“I,” Jungkook says, the paleness of his cheeks suddenly giving way to a bright pink, “I really didn’t sleep last night.”

“Poor you,” Seokjin sighs, steering Jungkook out of the kitchen and toward the couch. “It’s summer and there’s no school and yet you’re still pulling all nighters for Namjoon, on top of still having to pay rent and stressing out about whether or not you’re going to get into grad school –”

“Um,” Jungkook says hesitantly as they flop down onto the couch, one of Seokjin’s arms coming to wrap around his waist as the other fluffs up a cushion for them. “I’m not. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Seokjin frowns. “I thought you’re applying to graduate school here for Microbiology.”

“I am,” Jungkook says, fidgeting as he makes himself comfortable on the couch next to Soekjin. “I mean, I did. I got accepted. I’m entering their Master of Sciences program next year.”

Seokjin stares at him, eyes wide and mouth open.

“It’s just for a terminal degree,” Jungkook says quickly. “I meant it when I said I wasn’t interested in going for a Ph.D, but I feel like undergrad wasn’t really enough to prepare me for – mmf!”

He’s cut off as Seokjin presses his lips to his once again. “So proud,” Seokjin murmurs against his cheek. “Knew you could do it. You’re amazing, Jungkookie, you’ve come so far.”

“Yeah. Almost done with undergrad. Just finishing under Namjoon now,” Jungkook yawns, wrapping his arms around Seokjin the way he used to when they shared a bed. He’d always been a cuddler.

“You’re my boyfriend, now. The only person in the future you’ll be finishing under,” Seokjin growls lowly, “is me.”

Jungkook baps him lightly on the shoulder before nodding off to sleep, his breathing evening out against Seokjin’s chest.

Seokjin sighs, smiling fondly at him. The eggs are still left half beaten in a bowl in the kitchen and there’s absolutely no water boiled in preparation for their dinner and he’s still dying to give this damn living room a thorough vacuuming, but Jungkook is now his boyfriend and they’d turned their ridiculous fake dating agreement into the real relationship it was always meant to be and everything is fine.

Yes, everything is fine, Seokjin smiles as he snuggles in closer to Jungkook and holds him for real this time.

He awakens later to the sound of a click, and opens his eyes just in time to see Taehyung scampering out of the room, holding his phone high above his head in triumph and screaming “Jinkook is real agaaaaaaain!”

“I will destroy him,” Jungkook mumbles into his chest.

“Mmm,” Seokjin murmurs, leaning down. “But kissing first.”

“Okay.”

And after five minutes, he’s confident that Jungkook has forgotten all about destroying Taehyung.