6:40 a.m.

"I'll trade you that rice ball for this Clif Bar."

"What? No, Clif Bars are fucking disgusting."

"I know. Let me have the rice ball."

"How about I get to keep the rice ball, and you get to keep your head on your neck?"

"What's in the rice ball?"

"Takoyaki," He said through a full mouth.

"I like takoyaki."

"Starve."

"Okay. What about the Clif Bar for an almond or two so I can die instead of having to work a nine-to-five under a capitalist state for the rest of my life?"

"No. Clif Bars are fucking disgusting."

"You wouldn't trade it even for just one of nature's finest murder weapon?"

"I don't want to kill you."

Yoongi felt like a big idiot with his heart soaring into the sky, eyes glued to the big-eyed baby face and the chewing puffy cheeks. Had his standards really dropped so low? The bar was in hell.

Jimin's free hand took out his only headphone and encased it, "By the way, I finished that book you gave me."

"Yeah?" Yoongi asked, brows heightened in anticipation, "What'd you think?"

He sighed.

"The writing was quite amateur, there's not enough dialogue, the sentences always run on, and nothing happened plotwise. Oskar Schell is far too two-dimensional to be a protagonist, and I highly doubt that any nine year-old boy would ever be so existentialist to his lengths. I wish I could get back the time I wasted reading this, and think that this book belongs on the banned book list for no reason other than because I said so." He uttered. "Not a personal favorite."

Jimin stared blandly at Yoongi, stretching the book back to him the same way he had received it a few days earlier. Minus the sneeze, that is.

Yoongi looked down at the novel in his hands and understood why he chose to be a manuscript editor. He had left behind more than enough marginalia for five copies of the book, countless arrows and symbols and notes tattooed onto the page with impeccable penmanship.

sentence fragment!

super unclear: what do we gain from reading this page???

OMIT paragraph. Or page.

Scrap.

This contributes nothing to the continued metaphor. Rephrase for clarity, and move to the end of paragraph 10, chapter 8.

Scrap.

Does this child have a mother?
Because this isn't realistic.

Great use of simile, but I hate this fucking book.

He edited a published book.

He edited an already published, already edited book just to spite Yoongi, who remembered telling him at some point in the past that he hated when people wrote in books because new words never fit and any idea worth remembering wouldn't need jotting down.

Except this time it was okay because it was him, each and every stroke of the cyan ink embedded in the page would always bring him to mind even if he were to open it when he was old and gray. Jimin, indelibly. Permanent in his life.

(But let's calm down on that. No need to envision himself meeting Jimin's family yet. It's only been a month after all...)

(Even though he's been resisting the urge to say "I love you" after the first day.)

(Which was actually the third month, since that's how long it's been since he changed his work route and first beheld the mean little cunt.)

Amused with his own thoughts, Yoongi smiled and rested his face in the cup of his palm, which made the younger boy's face contort into a scowl.

"You're so cute."

Jimin nearly choked on his tea, "Excuse you?"

"You're blushing! Damn, I have more game than I thought. Let me try again," Yoongi clapped in a fit of giggles. He cleared his throat and hushed himself, attempting to mimic his original sincerity.

"Jimin, you're really cute."

"Yeah, and go fuck yourself."

The younger turned away, scoffing and sipping. And the younger one hid behind his knit scarf to try and focus on not turning any redder. Yoongi pinched both of Jimin's cheeks.

"There it is! Aw, look at how red your cheeks are!" He cooed.

"It's cold out here. What did you think would happen?"

"Can't be that cold behind a scarf, cutie."

"Cutie?!" Jimin exhaled, the vapor a plume through his nostrils that reminded Yoongi of a dragon, "I am not a cutie."

"You're not?" Yoongi chuckled.

"I'm not! ... You're a cutie..." The reluctant words crumpled out of his mouth on a mutter and caught in the interlockings of red yarn around his neck.

"What?"

"I saidYou're a cutie!"

His eyes widened after the sound of his own voice, but not more than Yoongi, who was in the cross between surprise and amusement. The eyes that land on them are far too many and far too focused. Jimin didn't know what else to do but go speedwalking in the opposite direction and put as many bodies between his body and Yoongi's body as he could.

Yoongi followed.

For once in his life, Park Jimin, a man of calculation and precision and grace unraveled like a ribbon. And the worst part is that he felt it happening and couldn't think against it. Could no longer tame his unruly tongue. He wanted to yell. He slid between and around the other riders of the 6:54 and clenched his hands and his eyes and hated it.

"You're cuter!" He heard behind him.

"You're the cutest. Not just cutest. The cutest."

"Bro, honestly dude I didn't even want to have to fucking take it here. But your mom."

Jimin turned around, the buds of an unwitting grin sprouting on his face. He looked back at Yoongi and burst out into laughter in seconds within seconds.

"Oh my god, I have abs. Please." He breathed.

"Of course your fucking mom. Where the fuck d'you think you got it from?"

"Bro, honestly dude I didn't even want to have to fucking take it here. Why'd you say it like- like that one guy? Yo, what the fuck is up, Kyle? Oh my god. Oh, Oh. Oh shit." Jimin laughed til his eyes turned to squints. Yoongi stared back at him laughed too, and there it was: all the adoration, obvious, in his wide brown eyes.

The kind of happy where you're just happy to see the other person happy.

Pure and glowing, all for him.

"But anyway--" His inhibitions restored themselves. "Stop calling me cute. I'm not cute." He was careful not to yell this time, but tiptoed the fine line as his vexation brewed.

Because he didn't want to be cute to Yoongi. Nothing good could come from being cute to Yoongi.

And-- if he's not reading into this too much-- if Yoongi caught feelings there would be nothing left to do but to change his work to route and walk past him on their street like he never existed. There was no space in his life for a loudmouth blue-head because there was hardly any space for Taehyung, as it was. There was no space for all of himself, even. He knew this.

But there was a feeling. Something like a pull that always made him reply when Yoongi talked. It was a feeling. Like tea against his chest, in his hands or a healthy breakfast alone while the sunrises. And feelings observe very different laws and logic than knowledge. For a thinking being like Jimin, knowing Yoongi felt like knowing nothing. All the wisdom and intelligence accrued in twenty five years could not help him against his own sentience. This gravitation he felt.

He stared directly at the hair-ruffling coolly-chuckling Yoongi-- no point in playing coy anymore. Nowhere felt like it was right to look. Not the twinkly black eyes, not the nose, not the point in between the unthreaded brows, and definitely not the fucking lips. That would be gay. Why is it so fucking hot out? Jimin checked the weather on his phone.

"So how come I want to kiss you?"

Jimin felt a flash of electric heat when Yoongi leaned down to be in his line of view, holding the his phone.

"Stop fucking around."

Yoongi shrugged coolly.

"No. How come I want to kiss you?"

"Why do you want to...?" Jimin's eyes accidentally dropped to the man's lips, a childlike confusion genuine in his tone. They quickly narrowed to a defensive squint behind his glasses. "You're one stupid fucking cunt, you know that?"

"I know."

"And stop looking at me so hard."

"Why?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy," Jimin bit, then sighed. "Just stop, alright?"

"You gonna make me?"

"뭐?" His eyes widen.

"뭐ㅓㅓ??" Yoongi mocks obnoxiously.

"Tch," He irritatedly switched to Korean, "I wish I had my almonds. I would--"

"Kiss me again?" Yoongi stunned him to silence, his voice, too, alive with its native Korean bass. "You give good mouth to mouth by the way. Best I've ever had."

"No, y—! don't make it gay! It was mouth to mouth. And this was funny at first but now you're just crossing the line. And I'm not kissing you, so leave me alone," He yelled.

And because Yoongi ignores everything Jimin says, he reached for Jimin's hand only to be swatted away.

"I just said to leave--!"

"Yeah, yeah. Come on. You're gonna make us late to work, ya big fuckin' twink," The boy rolled his eyes, digging his hands into his pockets and boarding the monorail with a cheeky grin.

Jimin shoved Yoongi. Yoongi thought it was funny, so he laughed. Everything is such a big fat fucking joke to him.

Hope he finds it funny when I starts leaving five minutes earlier to catch the 6:48 train.

Bitch.