vmin - your favorite song on repeat for the hundredth time
After school, Jimin and Taehyung board a bus to go to the company. After training, they’ll go back to the dorm with the others, and in the morning, they’ll go to school together again. But it’s this moment, leaving behind the crowd jostling to make Taehyung laugh with one last joke, that always feels the most abrupt.
Taehyung is so popular. He’s beautiful and funny and charming and just disruptive enough in class to provide entertainment. Jimin has a lot of friends now, too—a bigger group than he ran with back home—but most of them were Taehyung’s first. It’s all borrowed light, and in a group, Jimin feels it.
But on the bus, in the unlikely privacy that comes from being surrounded by strangers, every watt of Taehyung’s glow is there for Jimin alone to bask in.
Taehyung keeps losing his headphone splitter, so he just gives one earbud to Jimin and keeps the other. Jimin doesn’t even particularly like this song, some old jazzy thing Taehyung’s dad taught him, but he’s listened to it so many times while they try to breathe down their nerves that he can borrow the comfort, too.
“You’re gonna do great,” Jimin whispers. They have the last rehearsal before their monthly review this afternoon. “Everyone loves you.”
Taehyung wrinkles his nose and drops his head on Jimin’s shoulder. “Let’s not think about it,” he whispers back. “Just until we get to the building. Let’s be… spies.”
“Okay, who are we spying on?”
“Hmm.” Taehyung sits up again, and starts the song over when it stops. “There’s a company creating robot super-soldiers to sell to the highest bidder. You’re the idealistic government employee who wants to save the world, and I’m a corporate spy from a rival company that just wants to steal the technology.”
“That sounds—” Jimin stops himself before he says romantic. It does, though, doesn’t it? Taehyung is spinning a love story as this sweet old song croons in both their ears.
Jimin swallows hard. “Like Jungkook,” he finishes. “Baby robot super-soldier Jungkookie.”
Taehyung explodes into giggles with a snort so loud the woman in front of them turns around with a glare. Jimin’s heart swells. Everybody was vying to make Taehyung laugh, but it’s Jimin who gets to, whenever he wants.