Chapter Text
7:04am. On the dot. Every. Single. Weekday.
It starts with the ungodly sound of a bicycle, its chains rattling and a ghostly screech emitting from the brakes, making its way up the path and crashing like a pair of cymbals every time it hits the slightest bump. Then it scrapes to a halt, and a few seconds later the external door of the apartment building opens, and closes with a bang. By this time Taehyung is wide awake, and he lies there in bed listening to the footsteps climb the two flights of stairs, with occasional 5 second pauses to make deliveries. The person comes up to the top floor for their final stop, which from time to time includes a delivery to Taehyung’s apartment, and then makes their descent. Then it’s the bang of the external door again, and soon the bicycle is squealing away to claim its next victim.
Taehyung has always been a light sleeper, but it must be the acoustics of this apartment block that makes the daily post delivery to their building particularly loud and intrusive. By the time sound of the bike had faded into the distance, Taehyung was pretty sure he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. He rolled over and looked across the room to where his step-brother was still fast asleep. Jimin was such a heavy sleeper that Taehyung wasn’t certain he didn’t actually slip into a coma during the night.
The clock displayed 7:08am and Taehyung decided there was no point in lying in bed doing nothing. Besides, he had an essay due for his 10am class and he wanted to read over it and make sure there was nothing he missed when he’d stayed up late to finish it the night before.
The first thing Taehyung does, every morning, is make himself coffee. The whir of the machine as it grinds the beans helps wake him up, and the smell of the drink brewing is comforting. One advantage of his early awakenings is that he can take his time, sitting at the kitchen bar, sipping at the deep brown liquid and letting his mind wake up. This was his favourite time of the day; a small piece of tranquillity before Jimin woke up and Taehyung got caught in the energy and busyness of a college day.
As soon as he’d finished the coffee, he went to get dressed and then read through his essay. The new college year had been easy going for the first semester, but now they were back from the Christmas break and Taehyung’s music technology professor had decided to kick in with the hard work, setting an assignment of some kind every week. In Taehyung’s case, he’d done a little too much slacking off during the start of the year and was now had to push himself to make up for it. He read through the work, but apart from few grammatical mistakes, it wasn’t too awful. He edited a few lines and then printed it.
His phone told him it was almost 8am, so he decided to wake Jimin. It was always a risky process, and Taehyung made sure to move any potential weapons well out of Jimin’s reach before he attempted it. As much as Taehyung was a morning person and thrived in the early hours, Jimin was the complete opposite.
It took a few minutes to get his older step-brother out of bed and functioning like a normal human being, but Taehyung managed to drag Jimin to the kitchen table and place a cup of strong black coffee in front of him.
“Thanks Tae,” Jimin mumbled, eyes still half closed, lifting the drink to his mouth and taking a deep gulp. “You’re like, a really awesome alarm clock. Alarm clocks don’t usually make you coffee, that’s why. Don’t you think someone should invent an alarm clock that makes you coffee?”
Taehyung has had plenty of experience of Jimin’s morning ramblings, so he just nods and smiles. After they’ve both eaten a bowl of cereal and are dressed and ready for the day, Jimin is a lot more awake and coherent. He also has a class at 10am, so at 9:30 they get into Taehyung’s car and he makes the 10 minute drive to campus.
Jimin’s class is in a different building so they say goodbye to each other and Taehyung crosses to where Hoseok is waiting for him outside the technology department.
“Hey, can I look at your assignment?” Hoseok asked as soon as Taehyung reached him, and they started to walk into the building together. “Obviously I did mine, it’s just”-
“You didn’t do it, did you?” Taehyung cut in.
A guilty look flashes across Hoseok’s face. “I wrote a little bit,” he mumbled.
“Can I see?” Taehyung asked, one eyebrow raised.
Hoseok’s shame deepens as he digs into his bag and passes Taehyung a sheet of paper.
Taehyung glares at it. “This is just your name in the top left of the page.”
“Yeah but it’s something,” Hoseok whined.
Taehyung rolled his eyes but couldn’t help laughing. He’d had music technology classes with Hoseok for over a year now and he never failed to forget to complete the essays.
They walked into their classroom and sat down in their usual two seats in the back left of the room. Taehyung pulled his own essay out of his bag and handed it to his friend. “You owe me though, okay?”
Hoseok nodded earnestly, and started to furiously scribble down sentences from Taehyung’s essay, with the words jumbled just enough to disguise the fact it was copied.
The fifty minute class passed without much event, apart from Taehyung almost falling asleep a couple of times, and then he moved to the adjacent building for a seminar.
Taehyung enjoyed college mainly because he loved learning. He’d been top of his classes in high school, but had never felt particularly challenged by the work, or like his need for knowledge was being filled. College had instantly felt like the place he needed to be, and he was still enjoying it just as much in his second year.
At 12:30 he went with Hoseok to meet Jimin and Namjoon at a nearby café. Jimin had befriended Namjoon right at the start of his first year, as they shared all their visual communications classes together. Taehyung had met Hoseok in a similar way, and therefore it hadn’t been long before they all become friends.
“Did Yoongi tell you guys about the auditions?” Namjoon asked them through a mouthful of pancakes.
These particular auditions were to decide on acts to be considered for the big summer event, the highlight of the college year that showcased everything the students had produced during the year. For the music and dance groups, the auditions were in February to allow them time to rehearse.
Jimin nodded. “I suppose he’ll want us in for extra practise?” he asked.
“I think so,” Namjoon said. “He’s pretty serious about it this year, especially after those guys in his year got talent scouted at the last one.”
Taehyung remembered these guys, the group of five who’d performed at loads of small college concerts throughout their three years but had never auditioned for the summer event. Eventually they were specially invited by one of the organisers to perform, and immediately after their song they had been approached by an entertainment company who wanted to sign them. It had caused a big buzz throughout the college, and therefore Taehyung wasn’t surprised that Yoongi was even more motivated for the year ahead.
As soon as they’d all finished eating, Jimin and Namjoon had to leave for an afternoon class. “See you at rehearsal tomorrow,” Namjoon said. “Oh, and Yoongi says he’ll kill you if you’re late again.”
Taehyung laughed. “Noted.”
~
It was a Tuesday, which meant it was Taehyung and Jimin’s movie night.
Tuesday movie night had been established back when they were 13 years old. It was the night where both of their parents had been out working very late shifts at the hospital, and they had nothing to entertain them. They’d taken to buying loads of snacks on their way home from school, and then shutting themselves in their bedroom for hours and watching whatever lame film they could find in their parents’ DVD collection (or, by the time they were 16, in the deep dark corners of Netflix). Somehow, the tradition had lasted 6 years and it was now a permanent fixture in their weekly schedule.
“When was the last time we even missed a movie night?” Jimin mused as they scrolled through Netflix for something to watch.
“Probably back in the winter of 2010,” Taehyung said after thinking for a moment. “You had that girlfriend, you know the one I hated?”
Jimin laughed. “Yeah, Sihyun.”
Taehyung wrinkled his nose. “Ugh, yeah, her. You came home from school on that Tuesday and announced you were going out on a date with her that night. I was so mad that while you were out, I went onto your computer and deleted the history assignment that you’d spent weeks working on.”
“Then I got home, and was so upset when I found out that I started crying,” Jimin recalled. “Then you felt terrible about it and let me hand in your essay as mine, and you told the teacher you hadn’t done it.”
“Yeah, and I got ten hours of detention for it,” Taehyung scoffed. “Catch me doing that again anytime soon.”
They eventually settled on some random cowboy movie, which was just as awful as they expected, but was far from the worst film they’d watched over the years.
~
7:04am. Taehyung’s eyes slowly focused on the very familiar time on his clock’s display. He vaguely wondered how the hell this person managed to keep their delivery so damn punctual. It seemed to be timed down to the second. Maybe one morning they would accidentally miss their alarm and Taehyung could be spared the disruptions for just one day.
His morning passed much the same as the previous day had, until 3pm when he and Hoseok walked to the drama rooms right on the edge of the campus. This was where the music group met.
Seventy six people attended the group every Wednesday and Saturday, to learn dances and songs and to rehearse them as one or two large groups. Some people who attended would form their own sub-groups, such as the five guys who’d been talent scouted last year.
When Taehyung and Jimin had first arrived in the large drama hall back in the very first week of college, they’d been terrified. Everyone around seemed to be more confident, more talented, more capable than themselves. It had taken a while for them to even talk to anyone else, let alone make friends. After five weeks they invited Hoseok and Namjoon to come along with them to a meeting, and, to Taehyung’s relief, they had enjoyed it and began to start coming regularly.
It wasn’t until November that the four of them befriended Yoongi and Seokjin. They were both in their second year of college, and were well established members of the music group. Yoongi wrote and mixed amazing music, and Seokjin had the voice of an angel to accompany it. Taehyung used to sit and watch Yoongi at the mixing console as he created music with effortless ease, rapping under his breath and scribbling onto a piece of paper as he did. Not to mention the fact that Taehyung might have had a slight (okay, massive) crush on Seokjin, who had known Yoongi since childhood and had been dating him for five years. It would be safe to say that Taehyung had been pretty jealous of Yoongi right from the beginning.
Then, one afternoon, the four of them were sitting in a practise room playing around with the mixing console and singing along to whatever sounds they produced, when they heard someone enter the room. Yoongi was watching them, a thoughtful expression on his face. When they stopped, he shook his head and signalled for them to continue. He watched them for another fifteen minutes, before leaving the room without saying a word. The next day, Seokjin had approached them and asked them if they would consider contributing some vocals to one of Yoongi’s recent songs. Ever since then, the six of them had worked as a team, and Taehyung didn’t mind saying that they were pretty damn good.
When Taehyung and Hoseok arrived, the other four were already sitting in their usual practise room. Yoongi raised an eyebrow when they walked in.
“You’re not late,” he said as they sat down. “Guess you’ll escape certain death for today.”
“I appreciate that,” Taehyung replied, and Yoongi smiled.
“Ok, so auditions are two weeks on Friday and we need to think about what song we’re going to do. Seokjin suggested a few, so if I could get an opinion from the rest of you”-….
Rehearsal passed pretty quickly, and the six of them decided to go for dinner together afterwards, so Taehyung and Jimin didn’t get home until almost ten. Taehyung knew he should get started on copying up his notes from class that day, but a great fatigue had suddenly come over him. He fell straight into bed, certain that he would slip immediately into a deep sleep.
~
It was 6am and Taehyung was staring at the ceiling. He’d slept fitfully throughout the night, waking several times an hour and then struggling to get comfortable again. This time his body was blankly refusing to shut itself back down, so Taehyung settled down into an in depth analysis of the brush strokes in the paint on his ceiling.
At 6:20 he couldn’t stand lying still any more. He got up and went to the kitchen and took inventory of every packet they had in their cupboards. Then he wandered into the bathroom and considered cleaning the toilet to kill some time, but decided that might be going too far. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, angrily poking at some of his pimples before walking back to the lounge. Despite the massive size of the apartment, which their parents had easily parted with thousands and thousands in order to afford, there wasn’t much to do there. Sitting at the kitchen table watching the seconds pass on the clock was the best thing he could find to do.
When it reached 7am, he decided to go back into his room. Maybe he could take all his clothes out of his wardrobe and refold them, which was better than any alternative.
At 7:04am he heard the familiar sound, and if Taehyung hadn’t happened to be standing by the window at the time, he might not have even bothered looking out. But he was, and he did.
A boy was cycling down the path, head down and legs moving steadily as he slowed down and pulled his bike over. Taehyung watched as the boy reached out to open the building’s external door, raising his head slightly, and- shit.
A mop of black hair crowned the prettiest face Taehyung had ever seen. The boy had wide brown eyes and a narrow face shape that accentuated the gentle curve of his mouth. In less than a second he was gone, disappearing into the building holding an armful of post. Taehyung carried on staring, until a minute later the boy remerged and there was only one more glimpse of the beautiful face before he disappeared.
Taehyung stood there staring for another 5 minutes, scared to look away in case he forgot what the boy looked like. Even when he did manage to tear himself away from the window to start getting ready, the image of the black hair and pretty eyes wouldn’t leave his mind. Something about the boy had drawn him in, intrigued him, and now he couldn’t forget him.
However, it was a Thursday, which meant Taehyung had a full day of classes and no free time at all, so he was soon lost in a whirlwind of all the work his teachers were throwing at him. When he got home at five he copied up his notes from that day and the day before while Jimin decided to order pizza. After they’d eaten, they sat and watched TV until Jimin started to fall asleep on the couch, at which point Taehyung dragged him from the lounge into bed and left him there. It wasn’t until Taehyung was lying in his own bed staring into space that the image of the boy drifted back into his mind, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d set his alarm for 7:03am.