Archive of Our Own

noël, mon amour

It’s things in life,

Like a time gone by,

That makes us remember

What it is

To love

White.

The entire campus is frosted over in a gorgeous winter glow as Jimin watches students stumble and slide and penguin walk across the slick sidewalks and into the safety and warmth of the Arts building on campus. It’s a bit silly, watching them hustle inside to get away from the cold when in reality the building is hardly warmer than their dorms.

Snow just barely falls from the sky, hints of blue peeking out from behind the silvery clouds that promise more to come. It sparkles like galactic crystals across an already blinding shimmer, the luminous kind that it seems almost too ethereal to actually be a reality. The day is just barely beginning and it’s already a bit too chilly in Jimin’s opinion as he gathers his belongings from his car and penguins his way across the parking lot and is careful of the patch of ice he spots at the edge of the sidewalk.

It’s not even a few moments after he specifically and obviously moved around the spot that he hears someone shout and the telltale thud of someone falling on their ass. He casts a quick glance over his shoulder, covering his mouth as he snorts in laughter at the woman with papers strewn around her in a comical fashion.

‘If this were a movie, there would have been a man there to catch her, saving all her papers in a heroic display of sappy foreshadowing.

Jimin follows carefully behind the throng of bodies that enter, greeting him with smiles and soft bows as he walks past them and shifts his bag over his shoulder. The case in his hand is surprising despite the number of supplies is packed into it as he grips onto the wooden handle- really, he’s grateful for it because it was too cold for his standard briefcase with the metal handle.

The classroom is at the very end of the hall, and as he makes his way down the hallway he looks in each of the classrooms. Jimin can see the students anxiously watching as their professors stand at the front of their room; there’s one who’s vigorously writing across the board in bold white chalk and making exaggerated hand gestures while in the room across there’s the gentle-voiced chef who sets the flame too high and somehow always manages to make dishes with just the perfect touch.

But it’s the classroom at the end, the one with the double doors thrown open to allow the Christmas music filter into the hall that makes Jimin smile as he enters it to find students circled around the room. Canvases stand tall on their easels, and there’s paint splattered across various parts of the room, brushes and pencils and smocks and- oh lord what is that?- in disarray. The students are all chattering amongst themselves, though some of them have smirks plastered to their faces and their eyes glued to the door when Jimin enters.

“Is everyone excited for the break?” he asks cheerfully, eyes crinkling ever so slightly as he makes his way around the circle of students.

They’re surprisingly quick to actually answer his questions today, shouting out things about what they’re doing for the Christmas holiday. A few are going on vacation, some are escaping to the mountains with friends to take to the snow drowned slopes, and a few are cramming for the finals they have to take before break starts. It’s been a while since he’s heard what his students have to say that isn’t half-assed flirtations, begging for an extension, cheesy pickup lines, or ‘Hey, Mr. Park, how’d you fit that ass into those pants?’ every once in a while.

“You guys are answering like I actually care, I’m just glad I’ll have you brats outta my hair,” Jimin teases and sticks his tongue out at his class, rolling his eyes at a few jeers that are shouted out as he finally sits in his chair behind his desk but the room is otherwise light in atmosphere. A few students throw Christmas jokes around, trying to earn laughter from their peers, and maybe a few musical giggles from the professor himself.

All chattering stops, all eyes were drawn to him as Jimin stands to move to begin the class, halting midstep and his eyes widen as his gaze lands on the center of the circle of students.

A neatly wrapped present in silver and green wrapping paper, sitting atop the models' stool in the center of the circle.

Even with a few glances around the room, he knows it wasn't any of his students, little shits , but he can't help but think ‘Well maybe Lijun, but he isn't even here.’

Jimin takes it in stride, feeling anxiety tingle inside like a butterfly is trapped behind his ribs like a cage. The students start back up again in hushed whispers, eyes shooting glances to one another and goading and betting on who it's from. They snicker, there are the handful of students who are deaf who sign to one another across their seats and violently trying to communicate what’s happening to their friend who seems completely oblivious to what’s going on and is finishing up a project, a few calm and going about their business, and all the while seeming indifferent to the excitement that slowly builds in Jimin's chest as he nears the stool.

The gift is surprisingly heavy despite how small it is and it doesn't knock or move around when he shakes it. Maybe it's that book I wanted for Christmas?

“ Open it professor Jimin!” Sara yells, a broad smile on her face as she inclines her head to the box as Jimin places it on his desk. A few other students join in, demanding he open it and settle all of their curiosities.

And maybe he's a little bit tempted to know what it is as well.

But this is neither the time nor place and so he tucks the gift into a drawer in his desk, grinning at the disappointed groans the class utters out into the large classroom.

“You can all ask your questions after class, and maybe if you're all good I'll open it and let you heathens quench your thirst for gossip,” Jimin gives a laugh of his own as he moves to sit on the stool and pulls out a pencil, “But for now, let's get started shall we?”

The class joins in Jimin’s laughter and it brings memories of Christmas with family, the soft twinkling sounds bouncing off the high ceiling of the room when Jimin holds up the assignment for the day.

A snowman wearing an ugly sweater challenge.

Dearest Santa,

Please bring me

Someone

To spend these

Cold Winter Nights

And to Love

Until All the Christmases

Are done

Jimin stares down at the gift in his lap, dragging his fingertips across the paper that shimmers in the light if Jimin tilts it just right. It’s pretty, but just a tad imperfect with a few rips taped down and an uneven bow tied in silver ribbon. There are a few lingering students who sit at their easels, sketching the last bit of details onto their creations to be collected by him later when he finally has the time to lift himself from his seat.

The day had gone by faster than he thought, students voices and plans for the holidays all blurring together until it became a wonderful cacophony of intoxicating holiday fever. Jimin’s classroom is now proudly decorated in holiday lights strung up by playful students, ornaments taped haphazardly to strange places, candy canes hung on almost every available space. There’s a stack of cards that’s been piling up on the edge of his desk with each well-wishing student that left his class and bid him a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, while other students had lingered behind to try and find out what was in the mysterious gift he’d received; though he’s waited until the very end of the day much to their disappointment.

“Bye, Mr. Park! Happy holidays!” Jinyoung smiles as he drops off his own holiday card, bowing when Jimin looks up at him in slight surprise. His gaze drops to the present in his lap, and Jimin watches as the boys’ brows lift questioningly and he lifts his chin, “Gonna open it?”

“Not sure, I might wait until I get home,” Jimin hums, pursing his lips and setting it on the desk and shakes his head, giving a half-assed shrug. Jinyoung takes it as a dismissal, smiling softly and nodding and bowing once more before leaving the classroom. The door clicks shut quietly, and Jimin is left in an art room full of decorations and the quiet playing of music from a radio plugged in somewhere in the room that Jimin never seems to be able to find.

Standing, Jimin looks around the room absentmindedly, leaving the present behind on his desk. He makes his way to each of the easels, studying the too-realistically drawn snowmen and their ugly sweaters. There are a few students who have actually drawn their snowmen as anthropomorphic, Jimin’s nose wrinkling because maybe that’s a little bit too ridiculous.

But there’s one, he thinks it’s drawn by Jinyoung, that isn’t just one snowman. It’s two, sat side by side and between them is a small present. Their sweaters are comically ridiculous and ugly, and it’s obvious that the young man was trying to tell Jimin something. He smiles, brushing swirled fingertips over the paper.

Across the room, the gift sits unopened and waiting. The anticipation is eating away at him slowly, has been all day, and he finally rushes over to it. He doesn’t hesitate, pulling the bow away and tearing into the paper. There’s a brown box beneath it, and Jimin pulls that open, too. There’s even bubble wrap, which after popping some like the child he is at heart, is pulled and discarded to the floor as well.

Inside sits a walkman, headphones with the orange fabric attached, and a small note on the inside.

Dearest Jimin,

This Christmas all I want

Is a gift- that money can’t buy.

Such as the warmness of tender eyes

Burning like a fire- on the inside.

The pretty smile of quiet lips

Whispering “I love you”

Without needing to speak.

If for Christmas,

You gave me a kiss,

I promise, my darling

My life yours will be.

If you give me

A promise of love;

For the rest of my days,

My heart will be yours.

So shall we play a game?

Come find me.

Where everything boils down

To the moment where we meet

In a rainbow of colors

And Christmas in the air?

Love,

X

Jimin stares at the note, turning it over in his hands and studying it for any clues as to who his secret admirer might be. But there’s nothing, no name, no return address, no smudge media to give him a hint of what they even do. Everything seems hopeless, except for the music player that sits neatly in the box.

He pulls it out, pulls on the headphones and stares at the cassette in the compartment. It can’t be bad right? It’s not going to be someone’s porn audio or some disgusting trick of some ex-boyfriend fucking? Ew gross, no.

And so he gathers his courage and presses play.

Jimin wipes his face on the back of his hand, tongue darting out to taste the salt that lingers there from his tears. His heart is doing a mistimed dance in his chest, going much to fast and sending the blood roaring in his veins from the warmth that just… washed over him.

It was almost as if someone had looked into his soul, had taken his hands in their own and smiled at him like he owned the world. Like he’d whispered in their ear and told them that this was heaven like he was their everything. And perhaps, whoever this person was, Jimin was. He has so many people in his life that love him, that call him friend and soulmate and little nicknames that make him smile involuntarily and there are people that are just there in his life as if they’d been there all his life when in reality they hadn’t known each other for more than a few years.

All these people, so much love, so much happiness and yet somewhere along the line, Jimin had become more.

There was that subtle change somewhere in their relationship that Jimin hadn’t noticed and someone had fallen, had started to look to Jimin as if he were a- pardon the pun- Christmas Angel.

‘You look like an angel.’

Jimin smiles softly, the memory of going home to his family and being wrapped in warm arms and smothered in kisses and complimented on his appearance in all white.

But when it feels like this , like a light came on, knowing someone somewhere looks at him like he’s all they want. Jimin has everything at his fingertips, and yet…

How can he resist, when it feels like this?

Jimin closes the door to his classroom quietly, walkman tucked safely away in his backpack as he turns his key in the lock. The campus is still very much alive, though mostly abandoned by students there are still some who wander, professors linger behind in their classrooms to disassemble their classrooms to prevent having to do it when they return from break.

The door to the right of his classroom is open, filtering the soft orange glow into the hallway. There’s classical music that’s playing a bit too loudly, someone talking excitedly and Jimin can hear the telltale sign of pacing across the front of the classroom when he pokes his head in.

At the front of the empty room stands the Art History professor, Kim Taehyung; the perplexing man with the fire-engine red hair and elaborate if not a bit classical fashion outfits. He’s hardly ever seen without the round wire-rimmed spectacles that sit just barely sliding down the bridge of his nose as he writes what Jimin assumes is some Christmas Art history notes across the almost too full blackboard.

“If you’re going to stare, at least take some notes instead of standing there breathing too loud like some sort of- Oh!” Taehyung finally turns, brows knitting together as he squints behind his glasses and pushes the spectacles further up his face to see him better. The man’s face almost immediately lights up into a boxy smile and he throws his hands in the air- chalk flying somewhere in the exuberant display. “Professor Park! What a pleasure it is for you to join me on this late holiday evening! Care for a brandy?”

Jimin snorts, rolling his eyes as he lets the taller man wrap him in a bear hug that steals the air in his lungs and has him dropping his belongings onto the floor.

Even the man’s personality shines bright orange, happy and vibrant and just the slightest bit of a bit overexcited that has Jimin always coming to him for jokes. It’s easy when you’ve known someone since you were kids, the pair having grown up together and grown so fond over the years until they’d eventually settled into professions teaching brats the shit they’d learned at the school they’d attended.

“So, brandy?” Taehyung pulls away and makes his way across to the desk at the far end of the front of the room, rummaging around and finally pulling a bottle of expensive alcohol from the drawer and one glass.

“No, idiot, I have to drive and so do you,” Jimin rolls his eyes as he moves to sit on the wood of the desk. He stares at his friend, studying every movement, eyes drawn to the way the man’s expression changes as he does simple tasks, the apples of his cheeks making him seem almost like a smiling chipmunk. He’s adorable, and if Jimin is being honest; he kind of wants to pinch his cheeks.

“Fucking- ow! It’ll do you well to keep your paws off of my face, Park!” Taehyung scolds, jerking away from Jimin’s assaulting fingers as he glares at him non threateningly under his glasses. They grin at each other, and as it always does with his best friend, they find themselves chasing each other around the room like a couple of children.

They laugh excitedly, Taehyung yelping and jerking the bottle of brandy high in the air when Jimin just narrowly misses catching him around the waist. He takes a deep swig, letting out a puff of air as it burns on the way down.

When Jimin stares at him, standing tall at the front of the classroom with his obnoxiously colored hair, his tanned skin, and sharp features and the ever-present boxy smile on his face… Jimin could see himself loving Taehyung.

It’d be easy, falling for him. Understandable, as many were surprised to find out that they were in fact not a couple. The man knew him inside and out, a few too many drunken nights, a handful of late night talks, and maybe a couple of inhibitor-induced kisses passed between them throughout their many years.

Taehyung is orange; soft like the sun but not as vibrant nor as exhausting to look at. He’s a calm color of flickering flames or a burning candle and it warms him on the inside much as you’d expect. The man radiates bliss and contentment if not a bit of obnoxious excitement and overly boisterous personality that draws in the students who take his class.

The man is known for his enthusiastic speeches and long tangents on how ‘ Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is a fucking masterpiece even if Mona was a fucking basic bitch ’ in his classes. They loved his old words and fast flowing speech and if not all of his classical references; his art. The man loved art just as much as Jimin if not a bit more, and even other professors flocked to his classroom to watch him work when the man set to work on a masterpiece.

“And don’t quote me on this Jimin, okay, I’m already quoting Doctor Who but to me, Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved-” Taehyung talks over Jimin when he tries to voice his question in a way to get his friend to listen, but the man is set on talking about Vincent Van Gogh, one of his many topics as of late that he will spew his endless opinions on of late painters who were gone too early, ”-his command of color, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world. No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again,” Jimin watches silently as he rummages through his bag to pull out the note that had been in the present and stands to wait (if not a bit impatiently) for his friend to stop his rambling and actually listen to the things he has to say. But really, once Taehyung has started on a tangent, he really can’t be stopped until he’s finished.

“To my mind, that strange wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist but also one of the greatest men who ever lived!” Taehyung ends his rant in a flourish of waving arms and a hiccuped ending as brandy spills from the bottle onto the floor from his over-enthusiasm.

“Taehyung!” Jimin shouts this time, finally catching the slightly inebriated professor’s attention, if for a moment before his focus shifts to the note in his hands. His brows shot up under his disarrayed mop of hair as he reaches for the piece of paper that Jimin jerks out of reach. “Minnie I wanna see!”

The change in speech has Jimin giggling, handing over the piece of paper to his friend. Taehyung reads it over, his tongue poking out from behind his lips as he does so often when he’s deep in thought. He can almost see the gears turning in the man’s head as he reads it over before his lip pushes out and he’s turning to him with a watery expression as his lip wobbles. “Jimiiiin~”

Jimin has a moment to let out a laugh before he’s enveloped in another vice-like hug with a sniffling oversized tiger cub burying himself against his neck. The younger man whines against his skin and seems to squeeze him even tighter as if he is deliberately trying to crush him. But if Jimin thinks about it, maybe he’s a bit relieved when the man starts shaking his head against his neck, murmuring apologies as he pressed the note back into his hand and pulls away with wet lashes and red nose.

“Someone loves you Minne,” Taehyung seems to be on the verge of losing it again, but Jimin comforts him the best way he can and tucks the note back into his bag safe and sound and away from the tears that are starting to spill down the other mans face. “I love you too, but to compare a daffodil to a rose is basically pointless. I’m always going to be here, while your secret lover- should you find them- will blossom and grow into something beautiful.”

Even drunk, Taehyung seems to have wisdom beyond his years as he gives Jimin one last hug.

“But it’s not you, Tae?” Jimin tries one last time, raising a brow and brushing stray locks of red hair out of his friends face. It’s with a shake of the youngers head that Jimin finally accepts defeat against his longtime buddy and hooks his bag back over his shoulder with a sigh.

“No, Mr. Park, I regret to inform you that as much as you might want me to be, I am not your secret lover from afar,” Taehyung is suddenly very serious, but it’s a drunken seriousness and it only lasts a moment (read; Jimin doesn’t let it get longer than that) and he turns to leave as the room fills with the bubbling laughter of the drunken professor.

Jimin rolls his eyes as he shuts the door behind him, shaking his head as the music starts filtering out through the door behind him and he steps away. Leave it to Taehyung to have a party by himself when he should be going home to grade assignments before the break.

Loving someone

On the Holidays

Is almost as lovely

As having a

Good book

And hot tea

It warms you on the inside

While they wrap you in love

On the outside

Fire.

It’s sharp and dazzling and so very hot that even standing a few feet away can burn you. Dangerous and exciting and oh so very stupid to play with and yet Jimin finds himself walking into the kitchen of culinary arts professor Jeon Jungkook. The young professor, who graduated at the first of his class and the youngest professor on campus after beating out people who have been in the business much longer than himself, stands to flourish a large skillet. The chef is so preoccupied with flipping the food in the pan and preventing it from catching completely on fire that he barely notices Jimin enter.

“Happy holidays, Jimin,” Hoseok pokes his head around Jungkook who had him blocked from view from where he sat on one of the chairs.

Hoseok is radiant and golden, bright yellow in color as he moves away from the chef and the flame that almost seems to leap off the stove and reach out like dangerous claws content on consuming. Even his smile is sunny, a heart-shaped display of teeth as the Literature History professor bows slightly in greeting. Jimin does the same, and for the briefest second, he looks almost like a golden retriever bouncing up on the balls of his feet as he watches food be made. Everything about him is bright, colorful, and yells that he radiates cheer.

Jungkook, the young man that he was, was too preoccupied with keeping careful control over the food to actually greet him and instead settled for a low grunt in acknowledgment. It’s enough for Jimin, seeing as the flame is high and hot on the stove and probably higher than he would use if he were actually teaching a class.

They sit together on the bench off to the side of where Jungkook cooks and settle in to watch the show, Jimin taking the hot cocoa that’s offered to him in a warm mug by the elder. There isn’t music here, the open space instead occupied by the sizzle and pop of meat in a skillet, the soft hiss of vegetables, and the rough scraping of metal on metal as the man maneuvers around the kitchen with so much skill that Jimin thinks for a brief moment that he could probably do it blindfolded.

“He’s so focused,” Hoseok comments after sitting in silence for what seems like an hour, “It’s attractive.”

Jimin turns his attention from the sunshine professor and instead to the culinary artist working the machinery in front of him.

While Hoseok is bright, sunshine, goldenrod, and sunflowers; yellow. Jungkook is…. Different.

His dark hair is pushed out of his face haphazardly to keep the dark curls from falling into his eyes as those dark orbs focus so completely on the task at hand, body locked tight and muscles moving beneath tanned skin. The tattoos that cover his arms and poke out and curl around his forearms swirl with the scars that litter white ash across the tanned canvas of his body and just when Jimin thinks he is doing something risky; he corrects it with impossible skill and dexterity that has his breath hitching in his chest at the control of it. He knows his body, knows each and every move he’s going to make before he makes it, knows every little thing like a recipe memorized and passed down generation to generation. Jungkook radiates power and control and utter concentration that it completely revolts away from the luminescent yellow that radiates from Hoseok and instead becomes something dark and angry.

A ferocious color that strikes across when anger roils in your veins and takes the reins in your actions. It’s dangerous and yet oh so inviting in its velvety softness that wraps around him like silk ribbon and is as soft as rose petals.  A startling contrast to the softness of the other.

A vibrant and forceful red.

The color radiates from him in waves as he abandons his post at the stove and moves across to what Jimin assumes is a prep table lined with ingredients. Even just walking he holds poise and control in his entire body and it’s intimidating even if Jimin is older and more experienced and has nothing to fear from the actual soft-voiced young man. “Demanding, isn’t he?”

The low voice beside him is startling in the silence of the room, drawing Jimin’s attention from his wandering thoughts and to the conversation, Hoseok seems content to start.  “Demanding? How so?”

Jimin watches the smile that curves the man's lips into a heart shape, reminding Jimin again of a happy dog, and his face turning to look admiringly at the young man at work. Hoseok looks at the man for a few beats before casting his gaze to where he fiddles with the hem of his shirt in his fingers, “He demands your attention without saying a single word,” when his gaze returns to across the room, Jimin doesn’t need to ask whether one of the two was the one who put the gift in his classroom.

Jungkook’s expression is slowly softening the further along he gets, almost ready to plate the dish as he sets the stove on simmer and goes about getting the plates ready with garnish and sides. The gazes he occasionally cast Hoseok’s way are soft, almost barely there that if you weren’t looking you would miss how much love is echoed between the two men. It’s a yell, a scream in the quiet air and announcing how very deep they have fallen for each other.

Jimin doesn’t need to be a teacher to know that.

“Just looking at him, you know. On first glance, he is intimidating. Controlling. Sharp looks and toned body give off a brute of a man who got too ahead of himself too young in life. But,” the professor smiles again this time and it’s truly blinding with how radiant it is as he watches the young chef complete his meal and snap a few pictures excitedly on his phone, “Koo truly is a soft little bun. Aren’t you, my little euphoria?”

The nickname immediately catches the young man's attention and it’s almost as if the man’s entire demeanor changes, morphs into something beautiful and so very kind as he gives his undivided attention to his lover. “What, hyung? ‘M sorry I was so focused but dinner is ready!”

Braised beef, balsamic glazed vegetables, and creamy garlic mashed potatoes with gravy and a fresh baked roll on an ornately designed plate is set in Hoseok’s outstretched hands. It truly is a work of art and Jimin has no doubt that just by looking at the meal it will be delicious, though no plate is offered to him, instead finding Jungkook looking down at him in shock with his jaw slack as he stares at him with wide eyes. “Mr. Park! W-when did you get here?”

The incredulous stuttering knocks away the dark and violent red and instead settles it into a Crayola shade of happy rouge, the young professors features softening out into childlike surprise as he stares at Jimin. “I’ve been here almost the whole time, Kook-ah,” Jimin scolds, even if it is a bit lighthearted, it still has the man turning the shade Jimin imagines him as.

Half muttered apologies and some coaxing of the embarrassed young man from the endeared man beside him, Jimin finds himself enveloped in a tight, warm hug that smells strongly of cinnamon and pumpkin- which he assumes his Hoseok- and a rich musk with the subtle undertone of pine that he associates with Jungkook. Warm, inside and out, they whisper softly amongst each other and bid each other blue farewells in the gentle glow of the classroom filled with fire.

As Jimin leaves, quietly leaving to give the two men their privacy, he takes one last look at the two as they settle in on the bench huddled together. They act as if the entire world around them has fallen away, only the soft glow of a lamp in the corner of the room and the gentle flickers of flame from the burners to light their remote corner of heaven. The more he stares, the softer they become, melting into one another and balancing each other out much like Taehyung does for Jimin.

Colors swirl together, some soft and calm while the others striking and violent; but they blend together in a symphony of love that Jimin longs to feel for himself. Longs for the one who will wrap together with him and settle them into the warm and comforting scintillation that is the fire that radiates from Jungkook and Hoseok.

More than anything, he longs for love.

I didn’t choose you

But my heart did

And even in a

Different reality

I don't think I could

Bring myself to

Disagree with its choice.

The funny thing about love is that no one really knows where it will come from.

It could come in the form of the smallest and fluffiest dog or the tallest of trees that makes you wonder how a man could ever give up on something as beautiful as nature.

And then there’s the one who makes you question it all, the one who when you least expect it comes out of nowhere and they almost immediately scream that they are there to love you. You’re helpless to deny them, unable to stop as you’re swept up into the storm of them and brings you so close to knowing the very meaning of the entire world that you want nothing but to reach out and touch it.

A man such as Kim Namjoon.

When it comes to a man like that, you cannot really put that into poetic imagery.

In a perfect world where everyone got along and there was no war and famine and everyone loved themselves; Namjoon was president of the world.

Technically, he was in Jimin’s eyes.

There’s something about the marine biology professor that reminds Jimin of childhood villains; the long flowing monotone clothes to the way he walks when he enters a room as if he knows a secret the world has yet to discover, his almost infinite knowledge of everything, to the spectacles he pushes up the bridge of his nose and the way he sits in that cursed oversized office chair as if he’s plotting something. And he always, always looks damn good doing it.

The man in question is currently walking in front of him as Jimin walks outside through the snow towards the other wings of the Art building, a tad bit hypnotized by the way the long flowing shirt the other wears billows out behind him and floats in the wind almost as if he were underwater. It’s a beautiful outfit, one Jimin would find himself wearing if he weren’t so broke from spending most of his money on art supplies and expensive tea and maybe too many trips to the cafe down the street from his house.  

They walk quietly, their footsteps echoing much too loud for either of their likings as they seem to both head to the dance hall in the next wing over. It’s a luxurious hall, one with a performance theater for when the ballet has their annual holiday shows. Today is no different, with the melodic symphony of The Nutcracker filtering out through the door that’s been propped open.

Namjoon moves just off to the side, setting his belongings down as he stands at one of the private suites that look over the theater to the stage. There are dancers dressed in pastel colors and the entire room, despite the overhead lights being off, is bathed in a soft moonlit glow from the stage. It casts them into an indigo fog and Jimin can just barely make out Namjoon reaching for his hand to pull him down to sit next to him.

“You should be home in bed, Jimin-ah,” it’s not a scolding tone, but the low timbre of it has a shiver racing its way down his spine as he shifts in the velvet chair. The older males skin is warm to the touch when he curls his fingers over Jimin’s hand and rubs assuring circles into his palm. It’s relaxing, to say the least, but even in this low light, Jimin can see something lurking in the man's eyes that flicker something unsaid to life in Jimin’s own body.

Dark, enigmatic, intoxicating.

That’s what Kim Namjoon is; a tall drink of hard liquor that has no use for the soft things to mask the harshness of it. Straight to the point and open and giving no judgments, the man is as interesting as he is infuriating. Jimin has no need to beat around the bush with him but he finds himself wanting to look presentable whenever he’s in the man’s presence and yet Namjoon always tells him how beautiful he looks and offers him that dimpled smile that threatens to make his legs buckle at the knees.

A man like this radiates dark blue; contrasting indigo that invades the light space around him and absorbs it into themselves until there is nothing left except the warmth that radiates outward from the seemingly cold aura.

Now is no different with the professor leaning into his space to murmur concerns in his ear as if Jimin were his.

“You should be at home, Jimin," he repeats and it's closer this time, Jimin can feel the heat of his breath wafting over his neck. It's not that bad, how wonderful it is as he leans closer to hear the other man over the rise and fall of the music that echoes through the theater. "Do you need a ride? I can gladly give you one if you need it."

“No, Joonie, I don’t. Just staying after to.... Take care of some things,” Jimin flushes a dark red in the light of the room even though he knows Namjoon can't see if he feels a slight sense of shame as the man brushes a lock of hair from his face. It’s a simple gesture, one with no meaning to it but it flusters him nonetheless.

The music has changed away from The Nutcracker into something more sultry, a soft R&B ballad that hums out of the speakers in a slow roll like a wave. The lights have changed too, shifting from the pastel to deep red and blue hues that sweep over the theater and settle them into a deep indigo shadow. It matches the color that Namjoon radiates, something deep and soulful much like the man himself.

Like the sea, a swirl of azul and purple and just the hint of black until it dips and dives in shade and wraps Namjoon in a shadow of what Jimin imagines love would be. The man isn’t looking at him anymore, instead transfixed on the broad-shouldered man on the stage. The man isn’t dressed like the previous dancers in their leotards and fancily decorated outfits, but instead is dressed in a slim fitting pair of black ripped jeans and a loose white t-shirt with Gucci printed across the front. He’s slim, tall, and his pink hair is swept out of his face as he slowly moves to the beat of the song.

The more Jimin thinks about it, staring at Namjoon as the man leans away from his space, the man has been nothing but kind to him. No more, no less. He’s an illusion of love that Jimin himself has fallen into a certain way of comfort when he’s around the elder. There are no judgments with him, but it’s more so than with the others he’s visited this evening, and there are no questions. Jimin is free to be himself and yet still he finds himself masking some part of himself from the people in his life and that is not love.

And so Jimin sits in his seat and stares out at the stage, pressing swirled fingertips to the plushness of his lower lip and dragging across it in thought. He ponders the ways of his life, how he has come to sit in this spot next to a man who is only a resemblance of love, and how in his life he has loved and in turn become so loved himself. To find real love is to bare all to someone and Jimin hides. It’s a rainbow and yet these have been nothing but falsity. An unnecessary step in necessary guidance; to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if you would.

So if this has been nothing but a mirage, an inkling of what’s to come, how do you know when you’ve found love?

If love were a color, what would it be?

Life is a story

Years written upon our faces

Like words across a page

People enter our lives

Like characters

On a marvelous adventure

Some be friends

Others, foes

And somewhere in the forest

Dragons there be

So if life is just a story

Let’s make it a good one, eh?

If love was a color, would it be violet?

A soft gentle color that sets the scene of sunrises and sunsets, beginnings and ends. The pastel swirl of a multitude of warm colors that bleed together to create something so beautiful it’s rare to see it naturally in nature and yet it stands on the stage directing students in graceful movements that seem to flow off of the man in white like the slow swell of music that builds from a soul until it pours out in a beautiful prayer.

Hypnotizing, if not a bit distracting from the dark that bleeds from the rest of the room and instead beats it back with a fierceness that it’s hard to believe that such a soft color can be so very vicious in its existence that it morphs from dangerous to passionate within just a few variations. Jimin doesn’t think about how the entirety of his world is slowly ticking away the holiday hours, that perhaps he should be shopping or wrapping gifts and not so focused on a mere package with no title and instead brings him on a wild goose chase.

“Beautiful, isn’t he?” Namjoon’s low voice startles him from his revelations, his head turning but his eyes remaining fixated to the man on stage with his powerful voice and graceful movements, but he doesn’t need to look to see that the biologist isn’t looking at him, either.

A low hum is Jimin’s only answer. Being dragged from a thought is not what he wants, fingers reaching out in his mind to grab onto the threads of a poetic musing that slowly slips from his grasp. Even more so is the loud shouting that suddenly comes from the stage and clashes with the way the overhead lights suddenly come on and blind them both after having adjusted to the dark.

Namjoon and Jimin both abandon their spot in the balcony in favor of joining the dancers backstage, walking awkwardly through the slew of bodies that occupy the makeup stations and the costume racks as they rush to change. They can hear yelling and the sharp clack of expensive shoes against the wood of the stage and when they finally push their way through it’s to see the Director of Ballet performing an extremely complicated jump spin that is impressive even to the other students if their gasps and sudden whispers are anything to go by.

The man lands gracefully on the toes of one foot and slowly pulls himself inward in a spin before landing in a low bow. His hands are swept out to either side almost as if he’s bowing to royalty with how low he’s bent, strange for such a tall man to make himself seem so small.

Namjoon is the first to move, but only in a sharp inhale of air that jerks his body with the harshness of it. The professor is clearly as transfixed as the rest of the class, and when the director looks up, Jimin wonders if he himself has stumbled into The Nutcracker and has instead come face to face with an actual prince.

Violet slowly melts, deep and sensual mutates into something dulcet and mellifluous; the lull of lavender and pale morning skies that bleed into a vibrancy of color.

The director brushes his black hair from his face in a smooth move, and even just simple movements like that flow like water, but when his eyes land on the biologist beside him and all of that grace and poise falls away and reveals the nervous and awkward man beneath. It’s amusing to see two men of calm control and grace and intelligence devolve into teenagers in the presence of one another, and even the students around them seem to sense the change in tone and leave the room.

“U-uh Seokjin-ssi, this is Jimin. He’s in the art department as well,” Namjoon is uncouth in his introduction and his hands falter in their movements when the director's handsome face slowly melts into something endearing. Jimin smiles and nods in greeting, taking the man’s outstretched hand. “Jimin, you said something about taking care of some things?”

~~ You’re like sunrise and I’m scared that I’ll never get enough of you~~

Lyrics stumble into his mind and it has Jimin’s mind tripping to try and keep up with what the man is talking about until he remembers the heavy presence of the gift in his bag.

“Oh!” letting his bag fall to the floor, he pulls the note and the music player from his bag, holding them in his hand hesitantly but hands them over when Seokjin reaches for the note. He’s gentle with it, which Jimin is thankful for, and he watches as those perfectly sculpted brows pull together as he reads, how his lips silently form around the words as his eyes flicker their way down the page. The man's posture doesn’t falter when Namjoon steps into his space, a little too close for one to call them only acquaintances, to read over his shoulder. Their expressions mirror each other, and if they didn’t look so very different from one another they could perhaps be mistaken as old friends or siblings with how their mannerisms match.

Seconds slowly bleed into minutes, minutes into moments, and with every beat that passes Jimin can hear the way his heart slowly picks up in his chest. His eyes watch the two closely, though if one of them recognizes anything or if it’s their letter they give nothing away despite the way Seokjin’s tongue peeks from his between his teeth to swipe over the swell of his lower lip. It must be distracting because Namjoon’s attention is dragged away from the letter to watch the movement and repeat the action himself.

Love is not a question. It doesn’t make you rethink over your decisions and second guess yourself as to whether it is a sure thing or if you made some mistake along the way. And maybe the more Jimin stares at the two elders in front of him, holiday music filtering in and settling a amorous ambiance, the more color collides together.

Indigo, blue and dark and oh so tempting entangles itself in the warm lavender, the deep and sensual violet until it matures and becomes something refined.

There is love here or the soft and beginning blooms of it similar to a slowly flowering rose. There are thorns, acuminous and yet completely pulchritudinous in its image that it completes the overall aesthetic. If there is love, there may be hurt along the way if one is not careful. You may stumble and fall like an uncoordinated child in the unknown wilderness exposed to the elements and yet you will continue on knowing that perhaps somehow somewhere in this immense universe there is someone for you.

And maybe not, but this is not for Jimin to decide

The director tucks the note under his arm and turns to Namjoon, who returns the look quizzically before his eyes lower and focus in on the man’s hands gesturing quickly in his direction. It’s strange, watching the back and forth as they communicate in a way Jimin barely knows before Namjoon huggs and drags his hands up and across his neck to cut the conversation and end whatever argument they’re about to have.

“I’m sorry, darling, this isn’t mine,” Seokjin hands the note back with a somber smile. Namjoon offers much of the same response but the disappointment that Jimin expects to come never does. He doesn’t feel empty, doesn’t feel lost.

The holidays are meant to be spent with people who love you, and whether that love is romantic or platonic or anything in between; you are loved.

And if you think there is no one out there who loves you, I do.

Light and almost airy fills him instead and despite being unable to find the person who wrote the letter to him to be his Christmas love Jimin can’t find a reason to be despondent. The day has been filled with nothing but love.

Jimin has spent the day learning to love his students and himself and to love the others around him and what they bring to his life. Whether it be amazing food, a listening ear, a hug, or anything in between this holiday has become a rainbow of emotions with none of which are bad.

It’s a four leaf clover kind of love.

Maybe love unfathomable; is a kaleidoscope of colors that splinters your life into grand and marvelous things and makes you see the infinity of the world.

But maybe love is guileless and definite and completely no-nonsense that it is just that simple that there are no questions. There is no bigger picture, it is your life as it is surrounded by those who love and care about you and nothing else.

If you were to put love into words, what would you say?

Sitting next to you

Is like

Taking a sip

Of eternity

The sun, The stars, The sky

Never tasted

So good.

Everything revolves around love.

There is either an overwhelming amount of it, or there is the complete and utter absence. Light, Dark. It all surrounds our world like a veil, and some of us manage to pull it back and find the color in it all. Some find the one to love, whether it be when they are so very young, in school, or maybe even when they are very old.

It comes and goes, retracts and flows like the tide.

And maybe, maybe , if you are lucky you may just drown in it.

As Jimin steps out into the night after leaving his belongings behind in his classroom since he’ll be back in the morning, he drowns in the world that has transformed around him in a matter of hours. While before there was a thin layer of snow, the cold substance now blankets the everything around him in heavy sheets. The skeletal trees are weighed down, branches bowing under the weight of glittering beauty, occasion swirls of the white fluff falling to the wind as a bird takes flight.

The streetlamps cast a warm glow and chase away the dark, shadows darting across the white and casting faint lights that dance like fairies in the atmosphere. Jimin watches as he walks as the Christmas lights slowly flicker to life. They’re wrapped expertly around the pine trees and guide his way to his car.

Jimin doesn’t know why he parked on the very far end of the campus, far away from the art building, but he has. Instead he parked by the agricultural building, a soft smile tugging at his lips as he remembers getting distracted by the students and professors of the Agriculture building setting up christmas decorations and building snowmen together.

Now, the crowd has cleared and in their absence they have left behind a beautiful little Christmas village complete with the blow up gingerbread houses and snow families doing different activities. There’s even candy canes hanging from their arms, or lined up in front of the gingerbread houses like little fences. A few of the faculty have even put up a school with a snowman that towers over all the others and scolds the children by holding up a notebook that Jimin assumes is supposed to be a gradebook with a great big ‘C- is for Christmas!’

Jimin smiles and admires their dedication to detail while he gets closer to the parking lot as he walks on the quad, and maybe he’s become a bit dazzled with all of the holiday spirit he’s been wrapped up in. The walkman sits feeling heavier and heavier in his bag with every step, and Jimin has never been one to leave an aesthetic situation without taking full advantage of the moment first. And so he pulls the device out from his bag and plugs it in, rewinding the tape to the beginning and pressing play.

The music starts softly at first, soft and pleasant and lulling him into a sort of compliance that slowly lowers the defenses of his mind and makes him feel so calm and gentle that he almost feels like he could take a nap right here. But he doesn’t, he’d freeze to death most likely and wouldn’t that be something to come back from break too.

But then the music swells and slowly stumbles over itself and becomes something different and sultry if not the slightest bit seductive. Jimin doubts that that was his mystery lovers intention, but it’s flattering to the highest degree that whoever it is finds Jimin so desirable.

Not in a nasty, creepy, make you feel like you're covered in a sticky substance feeling. It’s febrile and irresistibly attractive in a poetic way the man words the thoughts in his mind as if he has looked into Jimin’s mind himself. That he sees every poetic musing, every slow building architecture, all the splashed together misconstruance of a lost artist trying to find himself in a world that is becoming increasingly more devoid of creative minds. Even in his own building that is home to just the arts he finds it extremely difficult to relate with his students and peers on a level that is at base with his own.

But this man, woman- god forbid a woman fall for his obviously gay ass, this person has touched him in a way that no other has with just a few scribbles onto a piece of paper and yet Jimin doesn’t even know the identity of the stranger he can find himself easily falling for whoever this mystery Santa is just from this small snippet of poetry and the simple mixtape with a few simple yet meaningful songs on it.

“Just like a star across my sky, just like an angel off the page. You appeared to my life; feel like I'll never be the same. Just like a song in my heart, Just like oil on my hands, oh, I do love you~”

The song interrupts Jimin’s introspection as a soft low voice filters out into the otherwise silent campus during a pause in the mixtape, and it’s only a few moments before he hears the accompanying piano playing softly along. The entirety of the atmosphere becomes something delicate as Jimin freezes midstep, gaze lifting to the snow that begins gently falling from the sky as he lets himself get swept up in the music. It’s one of his favorites, and he has the strongest memory of the song is one on the tracklist on the tape.

“Still wonder why it is; I don't argue like this with anyone but you. We do it all the time, blowing out my mind~”

Footsteps crunch in the snow, ice nipping at the tips of his fingers as Jimin finds himself following the sound of the music. It leads him around the agriculture building and with each passing second he can feel his throat locking up and every beat of his heart echoes in his ears when he rounds the corner and at the very end of the field that backs the large building stands a… cabin?

Jimin squints against the twinkling lights that slightly obscure the structure from view, but sure enough, it’s a cabin. Large in size and the almost entirely glass structure is fogged up from the heat inside that pours out the slightly open door. Jimin can see plants that stretch like vines along the windows and reach towards the soft lights that shine inside.

The piano’s melody, whimsical and velvet, cascades from the open door and it’s so very tender that it becomes ineffable. And maybe, perhaps, once upon a time in a life that is right now, this is serendipity. The entirety of Jimini’s day and wandering has lead him to this moment, to find someone who- even through music- matches Jimin’s soul across the universe.

Every note becomes sonorous in the building and it smells like petrichor, earthy and damp and like pine trees. Fairy lights hang along poles that travel above tables covered in pots and boxes of flowers, plants, ferns. There are small trees in massive clay vases sitting on the concrete floor, and it becomes obvious that the cabin is in fact not a cabin but instead a greenhouse.

There are a few coffee mugs scattered throughout the building, small pieces of paper plaster to walls and a hose that trails along the floor in a fluorescent orange snake that Jimin almost trips over as he moves further in. There are puddles of water on the floor, small piles of still melting snow that he assumes was tracked inside by someone coming in from outside.

The room is beautiful, full of warmth and tender care and it smells like Christmas.

But more than that; the room is green.

It slowly expands in a way that stretches across the entirety of Jimin’s vision and grows as tall as redwood trees the further in he walks and the more plants he walks past and finally, finally he reaches the middle of the greenhouse to find it surrounded by young pine trees and fir trees and there are the pine cones that smell like cinnamon scattered randomly around the dusty floor and there in the middle of it all sits a large grand piano.

The wood is old and worn and it looks like an antique and Jimin briefly wonders how it got in here but the music that comes out of it is stunning. It’s delicate and overwhelming all in a single moment as Jimin dares himself to stare at the man he can see sitting on the bench but he can’t do it.

Instead he scrunches his eyes shut and his fingers tighten around the letter in his hands while the music just continues on. It doesn’t falter, doesn’t halt in its insinuation but instead becomes a sort of infinite symphony that caresses over his skin and has goosebump breaking out across his skin even with the thick jacket he has on. The man doesn’t sing anymore and Jimin finds himself longing to hear the deep raspiness of it once again.

And then, there is nothing.

There’s the quiet of piano, yes, but it’s more than that. There’s the complete absence of everything as the world falls away and Jimin tries to listen, he really does, but everything is void of sound and touch and for the briefest second he thinks maybe the world has fallen out from underneath him.

“Jimin-ah,” the voice is nothing but a whisper over the heavy emptiness that weighs in the room but he hears it like a shout so loud that it makes him jump. Hands, large and warm and so very gentle smooth along his arms, holding him steady but far enough away almost as if the man is afraid that Jimin might run away.

But how could he, with this dream of a man standing before him and whispering sweet nothings in his ear as Jimin’s hands shake from where they’re now trapped against the man’s chest as he’s wrapped in a hug. And when he finally gathers the courage to pull away and finally look at the other; he falls.

Love is not a sea.

It’s not an ocean, nor a rainbow, nor a home, nor a theater, and it is neither a dance nor a dream.

Love is green like the richest earth and it’s fucking easy to get lost in like a forest.

It’s tall like the trees, and it’s protective like their branches and shields you from the storm that you know is almost always storming on the outside and yet you can’t bring yourself to look away because nature is beauty and nature is old and completely obsolete and it’s so very definite and easy and Jimin let’s himself get lost in it.

Green brings with it life, and with life comes all of the hardships one would expect. It’s painful and dangerous and oh so very weary and yet recharging is as easy as stepping outside into the grass and letting the sunshine bathe you in it’s warmth. And that’s what this is.

If love was a color, what would it be?

“Green.”

The man’s eyes widen and his mouth falters for a moment before he lets out a slightly confused chuckle as he steps back. He gives Jimin his space almost immediately, lets his gaze fall away while Jimin remains fixated on the young professor who Jimin has only seen in passing, but has never spoken to.

He’s never heard the man speak, hasn’t seen the man join in conversation, but has often seen him staring at his group of friends from across their table. They’d never spoken, though others had always spoken to him but he realizes now that today is the first day he’s heard the others voice.

Jimin takes the opportunity of not having the spotlight on him to observe the man, looking around at the room covered in christmas lights and christmas trees and smelling so very much like the holidays that Jimin wonders if maybe he’s walked onto the set of a Netflix Holiday special. The botanist is dressed much as Jimin would expect for someone who works in the dirt; a pair of rugged and faded black jeans, a thick grey flannel, and heavy work boots to protect his feet from the cold. His hair is auburn in color and falls in unruly curls about his head and there’s something behind his ear that Jimin isn’t exactly sure what it is but he chalks it down to being a piece of jewelry.

“S- sorry, I-,” Jimin isn’t really sure where to start, how to voice how he feels with all the emotions roaming around in his head and it’s all a little bit overwhelming the more Jimin thinks about it.

Not that he’d change it. It’s a warm sense, like he’s drowning; but it’s soft and it’s sweet and Jimin wants.

“Did you- I… w-was this you?” Jimin asks as he shoves the note towards the man, and it’s a bit more aggressive than he intends, but the man stares at it and slowly nods.

Jimin wants to demand an explanation, wants to ask why didn’t he just come and talk to him, so many questions but the only one he wants to know is; why him?

“Min Yoongi,” the man- Yoongi- finally speaks but it’s stilted and hesitant as if he isn’t used to saying it. His hands move too, but not much more than a jerk and twitch. It’s odd, and Jimin can feel anxiety starting to prick up in the base of his spine, but the man deserves a chance after baring his heart to Jimin.

“Okay but-” Jimin starts but he’s interrupted by the man's sudden hand movements as he interrupts Jimin with;

“I love you.” he signs as he speaks.

Jimin stares at the man with bright wide eyes, shocked as he stares at this man in front of him who seems to have no fear yet holds the artistic and poetic mindset of the greats inside his head and in his hands and the more the gears turn in Jimin’s hand the more things click into place.

Yoongi has never spoken when he was around Jimin, but Namjoon and Hoseok hadn’t always spoken when they were at lunch together either. Jimin was more focused on talking with Taehyung and Jungkook to realize that instead of speaking with their voices they had other forms of communication. He remembers Hoseok talking about someone Jimin might be interested but the man was terrified to talk to him because he was embarrassed about his voice, and now Jimin realizes who he was talking about and why.

Yoongi is deaf.

Or partly so, at least.

The man is nothing but handsome, extremely so. It’s daunting and so very intimidating that it’s almost as if Jimin has stepped foot into another world, where he is the only human among a world of gods. Sharp catlike eyes watch him with such precision he can feel himself curling in on himself, trying to make himself smaller in an attempt to shy away from the elder man. Even with that, Yoongi stares at him as if he is so completely precious, as though he has taken his hand while they skate along frozen ice beneath the cold swirled stars of night, pressed hot chocolate into his hands and told him that he is the creator of their entire universe.

Jimin can’t speak, can’t do anything, doesn’t have the words to describe how he feels as the elder stares at him and fiddles anxiously with his hands. Jimin can almost hear the faint high pitched screech, a ring in his left ear that burns a hole into his mind the longer he stares at the elder and he can’t take it.

It’s not easy, revealing your weaknesses and faults to someone. To bare that most sacred part of yourself to someone that almost no one else knows but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, not when half the school is full of people like him.

Like Yoongi.

Jimin reaches up with shaking hands, pushing his black hair away from his ear as he fiddles with the wire that traces along the inner shell of his ear and to the small box behind it. He fumbles for the switch, feeling along the plastic until he feels the notch and pushes it down.

It’s been a while since Jimin cut off the world, since he’s let himself fall into relying on all of his other senses when he has the gift of being in a time where he’s able to hear- where he’s able to get a device to do so- but without the hearing aid on, his entire world falls into silence. Even Yoongi, whose lips he can see move and whose face morphs into concern as he reaches up to touch the device on the side of Jimin’s head, is beautiful in silence.

Jimin can feel Yoongi fumbling with the device on his ear, but to Jimin this means more to him than words could ever convene. There aren’t enough words in the world that could make Jimin want any less than this.  

His hands close over Yoongi’s that frame his face, gripping lightly as the male stares at him with wide eyes as he slowly pulls them away and holds them close to his chest. They stay like that, breathing heavily and warmth sliding into the space between them where they’re so close but Jimin doesn’t feel it’s close enough because it’s not enough.

The man put his heart into a poem, his soul into words, and everything Jimin could ever want he can see in Yoongi’s eyes. They sparkle even in this dim light, the deep chocolate brown flecked with gold that shimmer in the depths. It makes Jimin want to drown in it, to feel that velvety softness that matches the elders skin on him, and yet he can’t bring himself to bring the man any closer than this.  He promised a kiss, wants to kiss Yoongi, but words are first.

Or rather, the lack of them.

“You love me,” Jimin drops the elders hands to sign the words, tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth to swipe along his dry lips. It’s nerve wracking as he hasn’t actually had to sign anything for a while, but he smiles as he does it. “You love me and yet you know almost nothing about me.”

The words seem to have no effect on Yoongi because he only flashes a small smile as he moves across to the piano he had been sitting on. On the top of the wood surface is a small notebook, and when Jimin looks closely he can see photos poking out of the pages.

There’s photos of Jimin, all of them from when he was spending time with their group of friends. And in every one of them, Yoongi stands somewhere off in the background. In most of them he’s either too occupied with eating something or checking his phone, others where he’s talking with Seokjin or Hoseok or Namjoon, and then there’s..

There are the ones where Jimin is busy doing something, either laughing or smiling or is distracted by something that he’s fawning over; and in those ones, the ones where Jimin seems the happiest, Yoongi is looking at him.

Even just from the photo’s Yoongi looks so endeared and so full of love that he’s finding it hard to look at them without crying.  

A subtle press of warmth dragging wet across his cheek draws his attention back to Yoongi, where he’s wiping the tear from his cheek that had escaped without his knowledge. The photobook shakes in Jimin’s hands as he stares at Yoongi who steps away to give him a moment of space.

‘Some people want it all, but i don’t want nothing at all if it ain’t you, baby.’ Yoongi signs slowly and watches Jimin’s eyes track his movements, ‘Some people want everything, but everything means nothing if I don’t have you, Jimin.’

‘You’ve been here all this time, and yet you haven’t said anything?’ The photobook falls to the floor as Jimin signs almost violently back at Yoongi’s gentle hands, face contorting as he tries to keep the tears at bay, tries to hold himself together. ‘You never said anything?’

‘What do you tell the most beautiful man in the world? What do you GIVE to the most beautiful man when they have everything they could ever want?’ Yoongi is so gentle in the way he signs to Jimin despite how frantically his heart is beating in his chest and Jimin so afraid , so worried that this is all some illusion or some cruel prank and that at any moment Yoongi is going to stop signing and start laughing at him. ‘There isn’t anything you could want in this world that I could give you. I have nothing-’

‘I don’t have you!’

This freezes Yoongi mid hand gesture, and then the world really does fall away.

The world as Jimin knows it; freezes, completely falls away. The white snow that falls outside the windows, the gorgeous sheets that layer the ground, the campus, the building they’re standing in; it all disappears.

His world narrows down to this moment, where there is no breath, no stuttered words, no deaf or hearing or blind or disabilities or anything and it’s completely and utterly magnificent and pulchritudinous. It’s overwhelming in its entirety, but lagom; the swedish word for the perfect amount.

Orange, yellow, red, blue indigo, violet… and green.

Love is a rainbow, and the entirety of it, for Jimin at least, becomes an exquisite forest green. It’s living as he knows it, the very heart beat of the earth that breathes life into the world and everything is exquisitely perfect.

For some it’s orange; with an enigmatic and excitable friend who would do anything, offer you a drink at your lowest time, take time out of their class prep to make sure that your life was going right. Who if you ever need anything will drop their problems in a heartbeat for yours no matter where you are in the world. Who will encourage you to find love in the most unique places in the world anc go after your heart full of wonder and eyes wide open.

And others it’s red and yellow; a pair who make you believe in love again. Who make you want what they have or sometimes it’s a pair who will bring you into that love and suddenly you’re surrounded by it. Drowning in it in the most delicious way and you can’t help but open your mouth and scream. It’s burns like fire but is so delicious and smells like the sweetest bakery in the entire planet that just the thought of it will give you cavities from the sweetness of it. It’s sizzling like a fire and burns over your flesh just as hot and you can’t help but let yourself burn when everything is such a delicacy.

Maybe for you it’s indigo; an intense and deep kind of love. It’s all consuming and devours you from the inside but there’s something dark and terrifying about it but still you cherish them. There’s nothing easy about it and it’s complicated and steals all of your patience and your compliance and yet you still feel obedient and warm to them. They make you powerless, steal away your desire for anything but to please them but not in an abusive way that makes you want to run away. All the while, stealing your inhibitions and instead morphing you into a better and more powerful version of yourself so you can take on the world. They empower you. Their darkness becomes yours, and your light, theirs. The simple compliment of light and dark. It’s difficult and so entirely complicated to others and yet for you it is simple.

What if it’s violet? Soft and gentle, compassionate. It’s more of a partnership than anything, where there’s little to no arguments, one of you possibly completely whipped. But it’s simple, easy, and yet maybe sometimes there’s something missing. It’s too compliant and a tad bit pastel. You fall into a state repetitiveness and it becomes routine and maybe a tad bit boring. But that is what love can be and that is what your love is. It’s too simple and uncomplicated but it is your love and when you love you love fierce and bright.

And if you’re lucky… so very rare and so very intrinsic and exotic and intoxicating it becomes something that you see in everyday life, something that gives life when others take it. Your love will be green and full of phosphenes that float in your eyes and bring light to that dark part of your life. It’s not ephemeral, it’s eloquent and comfortable, every touch lighting up under your skin and winding its way up until it curls around your heart and settles there like a home. Before you know it it’s like they’ve been there for your entire life, an impeccable and unexplainable simplicity but it’s different than before; in a way that makes you question if you’ve ever loved before by how deep it goes but it can be dirty and violent in its entirety. There are arguments and makeups while there are raised voices and breathy kisses and wandering hands and yet even in all of the shit you put each other through; you love.

There are no hand gestures when Yoongi finally moves, kicking up dust from how quickly he kicks forward. It’s as if Jimin blinks and the man is in his space, whispering things he can’t hear but what he can read on his lips must be his name, a prayer or a song in the quickly heating air between them. Jimin thinks back over the years, to every gathering, every quiet or rambunctious outing with his friends and even there Yoongi sits just on the edge of his vision. He’s like a fuzzy memory but a memory nonetheless and Jimin doesn’t want any less than this.

It’s getting harder to keep away, to keep his hands to himself when he knows a man filled with poetic musings of a caffeine addicted artist so similar to Jimin himself that he wants to fall. Terrifying and violent and so sudden but Jimin finds himself teetering on the edge of that slope as he stares into Yoongi’s eyes, let’s his own hands trace along the sharp cut of the elder's jaw, the strong chords of his neck. The man is beautiful, handsome, so unnerving attractive that Jimin is really surprised he’s been so dense this entire time and never appreciated the man for what he is.

‘You are wrong, Yoongi,’ Jimin grips the man's face between his cold tipped fingers and forces Yoongi to look at him when he speaks, and he knows his voice is high-pitched and whiny, but Jimin is so close and Yoongi is so familiar in a way that only someone who knows what is in your head because it’s what goes on in theirs can be. Jimin can see the tears that well against the elders lash line as he trembles in his gentle grip and those cursedly long-fingered, gorgeous hands fall to his waist and make him feel so small.

‘Everything about you mirrors myself, a poet and an artist, someone who can make you feel beyond just what is right in front of you and I know that that is what we will be,’ Jimin says it quickly and watches as Yoongi’s jaw moves but he doesn’t give the elder enough time to respond, to deny him, and presses his lips to Yoongi’s.

Color explodes behinds his eyelids as he buries his hands in the elders auburn hair and tugs the man closer, wants the warmth he feels radiating from the other. The beginnings can always be deep and violent, a clash of teeth and wandering hands, but this is not that.

It’s not violent and dangerous and demanding like so many of his previous lover's kisses has been but instead is gentle and swarms around him like a tide, burns him like a fire. It’s soft like a pastel sunrise as Yoongi imprints his fingers against the taper of his waist, swirled fingertips burning against his tanned skin where the elder brushes under his shirt and yet it’s not enough. The man tastes like poetry and art in itself with a hint of coffee and something bitter like earth but Jimin wants more of it, wants to drink it into his senses until he drowns in it.

Yoongi treats him delicately, unhurried and unabashed in his own feelings when Jimin admits that this is what he wants. The world slowly starts back up the longer they touch, the world slowly tilting on its axis until Jimin finds himself pressed back against the piano with Yoongi caging him in. But even then it is unhurried and so achingly sweet that he wants to cry , wants so much and maybe it’s too much all at once. In a haze, even though the emotions fogging his mind with overwhelming fury, he manages to disengage himself from Yoongi for a brief moment to turn on his hearing aid to slowly bring his world back to life.

“Jimin-ah, I-,” his name is enticing on Yoongi’s tongue and Jimin wants to taste it on his lips again, wants to feel the poetry and words that don’t need to be said that filter through when they touch. They’re a match, poetic musings and misplaced trust of lost artists trying to find their place in a world devoid of creative minds. But Jimin has no need for his words because his answer is yes and he gives this in the form of another brush of lips and a blindly wandering hand until his hands clasped over the ones that have locked over his waist and pulls them to his chest.

“Stop talking,” the words muse into the air and curl themselves like smoke around them and the longer Jimin looks at Yoongi the more endeared and lost he becomes for the elder. He is handsome and Yoongi believes Jimin to be beautiful and how could he want any less than this.

“What is love to you, hyung?” it’s a question Jimin has asked himself for so long that it has become lost in translation and has become warped and garbled in his mind, but here, now; it is nothing but sharp and clear as day and echoes like a yell in his mind.

Yoongi stares at him.

He doesn’t speak, but there are three gentle squeezes to his hands as Jimin watches the other's lips slowly tilt up at the edges into a soft smile, chest trembling before he actually hears it. Yoongi’s laughing then, a low and heady sound that’s comforting and it has Jimin joining in with his own melodious giggle and has him bending forward into the other for support.

Here in this greenhouse with an oversized grand piano in the center of the room; Jimin finds himself falling. There’s a moment where he’s standing at the precipice, looking out over the sea and in the next his world is tipped upside down into an endless sky full of dazzling stars and at the very heart of it all stands an auburn haired man in dirty flannel and earth caked hands with smudges of green across his entire image.

If love were a color, what would it be? What would it smell like? What would it mean to you?

“Green,” Yoongi signs, returning Jimin’s smile, “And smells like Christmas.”

Jimin things one moment before he throws all his inhibitions to the wind and closes the distance between them once more to be enveloped in warmth and the rainbow of color that has become his world in the last thought of poetic musings and broken architecture as his world slowly falls into place.

“Love is this.”