Chapter Text
The first time he’d fallen in, had been one day before Namjoon’s final assignment was due. It was, in all honestly, a restless night where Namjoon’s fingers rarely left the squares of his keyboard’s keys and his ass from the uncomfortable swivelling chair gifted to him by his parents on the first day of college.
He wants to die, honestly.
Namjoon’s not a procrastinator, actually, he’s rather far from that. He starts his assignments weeks before the final deadline and paces himself when working on it. He's rarely ever found himself in a situation where he's late or handing in something that's crappy and worth a fail.
But this assignment, fucking hell, he’d rather cut off his arms.
He’d finished it a week before- typed, edited and sent it out for printing. He doesn’t like to email assignments, always fearing that it would get lost somewhere in the infinite Internet server and never make it to his lecturers. Call it nerd syndrome, but he liked to print out sixty, seventy maybe even hundred pages worth of an essay and hand it to his lecturers.
Now the problem had started here. Namjoon had gotten a call from the person he usually printed from and the old uncle on the other line had cheerily told him that his assignment couldn't get printed on time since the machine broke.
And Namjoon, being Namjoon, smiled over the phone saying in his best voice, “Its okay! I have a backup copy!”
He doesn’t. He’d deleted that file, assuring himself that it would be printed, bound and handed over to him the next morning so he could submit it.
So he’s now found himself, furiously redoing an already perfect assignment in hopes that it would not only be better, but it would be completed in time.
Serves him right for trusting the powers of the universe.
His fingers hurt because he’s typing with such ferocity, he’s half expecting the keys to break off or the keyboard to stop functioning. He types, deletes, switches between Word and Safari and processes.
Namjoon takes a pause at page sixty five, still less than halfway done with the work and leans back in his black chair. The backrest moves backwards along with his body and he closes his eyes, feeling the sting of moist eyelids over a dry eyeball.
That’s when he hears it the sound of a tree branch, the crunch of leaves and wood. He turns his head, the exact moment someone falls in.
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He can only stare at the mess of a human being- at least from what he can see it's a human being- dangling haphazardly from his window sill. Namjoon enjoys working with the windows open because he can smell the night air and rely on the natural night breeze instead of the faulty air-conditioning in his dorm room. He's been warned, more than once, not to leave it open but his campus was generally a safe habitat and he didn’t have to worry too much about intruders breaking and entering into his dorms.
That and the fact that he actually does lock his windows right before bed.
His lips hang open for a moment, staring at the person. He can make out a grey t-shirt and dark brown, nearly black hair. The person's dangling, upper body inside his room and legs outside.
Namjoon lives on the third floor, it's a wonder how this person's able to climb this far up.
He's actually a little afraid of approaching the person. From what he can see, this person's not entirely stable (no stable person would climb three storeys and fall into someone else's dorm room anyway). He'd reeled back when the person had suddenly come in, nearly smashing himself against a wall. He's partly thankful he didn’t follow his friends and set up his workspace near the window and instead picked the opposite corner of the room.
Namjoon takes a hard swallow, feeling a little bit of anxiety in his veins. Come to think of it, the person wasn’t moving.
Was he dead?
Namjoon gets up cautiously, making sure every step he makes is quiet and soft like air. He's never been a graceful person so he masks a hard and loud step with a, "Uh hello? Excuse me?"
There's no reply.
He's standing in front of the person, hands wrapped around his own upper arms. Namjoon stares at the back of the person's head where his hair's moved into a downward direction because of his position. It's a he Namjooon assumes, because the muscles of this person's back seems broader and structured like a man's would be.
Also, come to think about it, this position must be incredibly uncomfortable for the person. Namjoon reaches out as a last resort, long and slender fingers slightly curled and hesitant.
He's about to touch the person when he jerks up, head lifted and ah it is a guy but he's smiling sloppily and his eyes, a nice slant, glitter with something akin to humour. Namjoon's taken aback, staring at this strange mass of a person, who's still dangling dangerously from his open window.
"Rap monster," he blurts out suddenly, his voice melodic and sweet and incredibly laced with large amounts of alcohol, "It's a rap monster, do you hear that?"
Namjoon blinks in a statically quiet room. In fact, there's white noise in the time when the both of them are silent. He gives the strange person a look, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head indignantly. He's got an assignment due in roughly seven hours so he really doesn’t have the time to deal with a drunk college student hanging dangerously from his window.
If he were to push him off would he die? Namjoon considers this for a moment before the weird kid starts speaking again.
Well not speak, because he’s mouthing off words and it takes Namjoon a full forty seconds to realise that he’s rapping horrendously.
"Can you hear that rap monster? And all that glitz and glam and the fashion. And all the pandemonium and all the madness. There comes a time when you fade to the blackness. And when you're staring at the phone on your lap and you hoping but them people never call you back but that's just how the story unfold-"
"Are you seriously rapping Airplanes to me right now?" Namjoon interjects, unable to tolerate the bad attempt at rapping. He stares down at the person, one eyebrow raised sardonically.
"What doyou mean?" he slurs, his eyebrows pulling together and his lower lip jutting out, "Can younothearit?"
Namjoon once again takes a few seconds to process what he's slurring. His words are all connected together like string and his eyelids seem to be drooping.
Namjoon really does not have time for this.
That and the fact now Airplanes is playing in his head and he really does not need anymore distractions. He moves forward, grabbing on to the upper body of the person (it's really awkward because the person's heavy and Namjoon isn’t particularly strong and the person reeks of alcohol) but he manages to haul him inside, falling over in the process and groaning when his butt hits the floor too hard. The drunkard on the other hand suddenly bursts out laughing and keeps laughing and laughing like life's a joke and Namjoon supposes it is because at this rate he can kiss his dreams of graduating with honours goodbye.
That and meeting the deadline for his assignment.
He's heaving, considering kicking the shit out of the drunk person in his room. If he can’t finish this assignment, he’s going to scour the halls of the campus finding this bastard and beat the crap out of him.
"Fucking hell." Namjoon mutters, bringing a hand to his face and pressing it over his eyes. He closes them for a moment, enjoying the darkness behind his eyelids. He can hear shifting but ignores that to focus on his breathing. He imagines a circle and with every inhale it contracts and with every exhale it expands. Eventually his annoyance simmers into something last harmful so he opens his eyes.
And stares right into his reflection. Technically not his reflection because it's just himself in the dark unfocused eyes of the drunkard.
Namjoon yelps, falling backwards.
The drunkard starts laughing once again, mumbling the lyrics of Airplanes over and over and over again. Namjoon decides to wait it out like a sickness. If there's one thing he knows about drunken fools, is that they'll eventually ride out the alcohol in their systems.
So Namjoon waits, mentally writing out the remainder of his essay. He's comparing books, picking off the similarities and differences and putting them into structures. He thinks of further points, explanations, evidences.
Kim Namjoon is a genius. And he hates it.
He doesn’t believe he’s a prodigy or a brainiac, he just knows how to study for himself and he knows how to write out his essays. Namjoon knows what to do to do well in his classes and he knows how to ace his tests.
He's a bit of an outcast because of this. No one wants to be friends with the nerd, no one wants to hang out with their greatest academic rival. Namjoon doesn’t mind this, because his classmates do interact with him and he does have friends.
It's just that he sometimes wishes that he has to try to get grades. Maybe he's an idiot to think so, maybe he's just truly dumb. But Kim Namjoon doesn’t like being called a genius, because it breaks his heart that others don’t think as highly of themselves.
The drunkard eventually quietens and Namjoon peers at him, noting that his eyes are closed and his cheek's pressed awkwardly against the carpet of his room. There's a paleness to him, Namjoon notes, but writes it off as the alcohol. He's got a corner of his upper lip slightly lifted as well so Namjoon can see a hint of his teeth and is that drool?
He rolls his eyes, revelling in the quiet. It's back to white noise and the soft hum of his macbook heating up on the other end of the room. Namjoon gets up, shuts the window and then crosses over to get a blanket for the drunkard passed out on his dorm's floor.
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Namjoon's half dead the next morning. He's done with the assignment (hooray!) but his body's as stiff as a board and his fingers are sore from five hours of intense and violent typing.
God, is this the reason his eyesight's starting to deteriorate?
He rubs his sleep deprived eyes, feeling the scratch of his moist eyelids. He's only vaguely aware of the person sleeping all too comfortably on his floor. He wonders if he should be hospitable, considering- he lifts his head to take a peek at the sleeping brown head- that he's still unconscious. Maybe he just likes the floor, when Namjoon first came in he'd thought the floor was really nice too. It's a purple and blue carpet.
That's about it. Now come to think of it, Namjoon doesn’t really find anything special about his goddamn floor.
God, what's he thinking.
That's it Kim Namjoon, you're losing your mind.
He gets up anyway and heads for a shower, solely because his heater's broken and cold water will wake him up. He spends ten minutes in there (he's trained himself for this) and then gets out. A quick look tells him the drunkard's still asleep so he gets into a fresh set of clothes. When he catches his reflection in the mirror he grimaces. His white-blonde hair's falling over his face in a messy almost uncharacteristic manner. His eyes are brown and cold, rimmed with darkness from the lack of rest. Even his skin's suffering, dry and breaking out in places. He sighs grumpily, before getting his comb and gel.
It takes him fifteen minutes to get ready which means that there's still another hour before he actually has to leave his room. He goes to his coffee machine (another gift from his parents who'd said, and he quotes "You'll need that extra kick if you want to be the pride of the family! Haha Namjoon, don't take it so hard!"). Miraculously he finds a second mug, tucked away in a corner and then fills that up with coffee.
The drunkard's shifted positions, so now he's curled into a little ball. Namjoon notes that there's colour back in his cheeks, which is good. He didn’t really want to have to haul this guy's ass all the way to a hospital.
Namjoon pokes at him with his foot, and when he merely just mumbles, Namjoon pokes at him hard enough to move his shoulder.
The drunkard actually grabs on to his calf, pulling his body closer to his leg and snuggling up to it. Namjoon doesn’t know why, because there's no one that’s actually seeing them, but he feels the crawl of awkwardness slip up his spine and his cheeks burn scarlet. The unconscious guy's smiling, rubbing his cheek against the fabric of Namjoon's jeans. Namjoon's not really sure what to do, he's never been very good at covering up his embarrassment or dealing with anyone snuggling up to his calves before.
He tries to shake him off furiously, and to his relief the sleeping guy's grip loosens and he rolls back, the smile along his face elongating. Namjoon doesn’t want to admit it, but he's got some rather, pretty features. His cheeks aren’t thin and crafted, but softer with nice curves. His nose is short, upturned just the slightest bit and his lips are the colour of strawberry milk.
Namjoon shakes his head, as though getting rid of those thoughts before cautiously moving his foot forward. This time he gives him the hardest shove he can manage while trying not to spill two cups of boiling coffee on himself.
The guy's eyes flash open and then his brows pull together, as though confused.
"Good morning sunshine." Namjoon deadpans. The guy on the ground shoots up, groaning and rubbing his eyes. Namjoon eyes him, standing rather awkwardly beside him. Namjoon's always been a little bit too tall, so no matter who he's with he just feels like he's out of place.
"Where am I?" he asks, his voice still that same melody, but this time curled with sleep. Namjoon looks around his dorm, noting miserably for the first time in days how messy it is and clears his throat, attracting the other dark haired boy's attention before he can turn around and take a look himself.
"My dormitory." Namjoon says, deciding that this was the best time to give him coffee so he hands the second mug down to the person on the floor. The dark-haired boy grins, his cheeks rounding and accepts the cup thankfully by reaching out and wiggling his fingers.
Namjoon's trying his hardest not to judge him, really.
"How did I get here?" he asks, taking a sip of the coffee and making a face.
Namjoon eyes his now shut window and presses his lips together, "You were drunk."
"Really? Cool." his eyes widen, eyebrows lifting. He turns his body around, surveying the room much to Namjoon's dismay. If the mess bothered him, he made no indication. In fact, he looked more bewildered that he'd somehow managed to crawl into someone else's room while still drunk. Namjoon wonders about this too.
But really, he could have died if he fell.
"Really," Namjoon repeats, "Uh, by the way, don’t you want to get to your dorm? Classes start in less than an hour." he checks his watch, notes the time and begins mentally re-calculating what time he should leave.
"Really?" he asks again, pouting, "Well guess I should skip again."
Skip? Namjoon's brows pull together. There were students out there willing to give blowjobs and sell their souls to satan just for a perfect GPA and here this bastard was, talking about skipping classes like he was mentioning the weather? If there's one thing Namjoon hates it's a-
"Slacker." he blurts out, directing his line of vision at the drunkard. He looks up at Namjoon, blinking a few times before his face cracks into a smile. He's got crescents for eyes when he's grinning and his chin sharpens.
Namjoon doesn’t know why this annoys him, but it does. Here's some slacker who gets himself drunk on schooldays, climbs through random people's windows and then skips classes?
Namjoon shouldn't have made him coffee.
"I'm Park Jimin by the way." he says clumsily as he gets to his feet with a huff. He's significantly shorter than Namjoon, but he's better built. There's something pleasant about him, like his steps grow flowers and his voice drowns blackness.
"Uh," Namjoon blabbers, "Kim Namjoon." he doesn’t proceed to give his hand for a shake, mostly because he doesn’t think he'll see him ever again. Now that he's got a name to put to a face, Namjoon says, "You should still get to class."
"Should I?" he's smiling again, showing off a set of white teeth. Namjoon eyes one tooth that's slightly out of line, but Namjoon thinks that it suits him.
"Whatever," Namjoon quickly counters, turning away, "You should get out or I'll be late."
When Namjoon walks over to his front door, he can hear the tinkle bell of Park Jimin's laugh.
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