Chapter Text
"Deadlines are evil and whoever set them should never be able to navigate a dark room without stubbing their toe at least once," Hoseok mutters, pushing the heels of his hands against his eyes.
The gentle furor of the café around him swallows most of his grumbling. Distantly, Hoseok is grateful that no one overheard his audible descent into madness, but honestly, this is the campus café. Everyone is here eighty-five percent for caffeine and procrastination and fifteen percent to actually do the work they say they're here to do. A little bitching won't make him look too much weirder than anyone else here.
Hoseok's leg jostles anxiously. He leans back with a sigh, letting himself sit for just a second with his face turned towards the ceiling before getting back to painstakingly assembling his presentation. He just has to finish this and then he can go back home. Nice and easy. Focus on this, Hoseok, not the neatly stacked pile of trash beside him, accumulated over the last few hours of Hoseok's stay. Not on the conversation the girls at the table behind him are having. Focus. Focus.
The sooner he gets done, the sooner he can leave. Even if his slides look a little rough right now, he just has to get them to a point where Namjoon can massage them into something passable, so if he drops this picture here and shifts his bulletpoints a little so he can add a few more lines about-
"Nice One Piece sticker."
Hoseok's head jerks up before any word clears his mouth, brain spinning desperately.
The person who spoke blinks at him, eyes round and wide. They're- cute, with strong features and smooth, dark hair pulled back into a high, puffy ponytail. A few stray strands escape here and there. They try, and fail, to push them back behind their ear with one tattooed hand. If they weren't staring at him, making bold, obvious eye contact, Hoseok might have thought they weren't talking to him at all. Mostly, because he still actually doesn't understand what they said to him.
"What?" What did they just say? Sticker. Something about a sticker. And one piece? One piece of what? He blinks rapidly at the person hovering by his table, whose hands flinch and flicker in the air as their fingers flex and they shift from foot to foot, uncertainty growing with Hoseok's questioning. Their shoulders hunch. Hoseok smiles, consciously relaxing his brow so he gets rid of the little glare he gets when he concentrates. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."
It almost does the trick. Hoseok can see the stranger visibly gather themself again, taking a huge inhale and a quiet, slow exhale. The breath makes their chest swell against their loose shirt, and- well. Hoseok can't be entirely faulted for letting his eyes dip to appreciate the cling of soft black fabric to what appears to be some nice muscle. "I um. I was complimenting your... Your One Piece sticker," the stranger manages finally, voice losing all confidence they started their sentence with. Their mouth stays soft and parted.
Cute , Hoseok thinks without really meaning to. Cute and making absolutely no sense at all.
That cleared nothing up at all, except Hoseok is no longer startled and sort of wants to get this person to sit down and have some water, maybe.
Instead, he says, "Thank you," with a big smile. Hopefully it covers how Hoseok is desperately trying to think of what One Piece is, and why he would have a sticker somewhere of it-
Except.
Except?
Hoseok's eyes land on his laptop.
His laptop that isn't his laptop at all, because it's Jimin's, because Hoseok's laptop is his father's hand-me-down old work laptop, heavy and ancient and dying, and he borrowed Jimin's instead to work in this café while Yoongi fusses around and fixes the charge port of Hoseok's so he can stop holding it in place with duct tape and a spoon carefully balanced beneath the wire to keep it in at the right angle so it'll hold charge right.
Jimin's laptop, covered in anime stickers that he and Taehyung collect.
Well.
Shit.
Luckily, the stranger's entirely too-tense body has loosened at Hoseok's smile, the set of their shoulders going lax with relief, and they haven't noticed Hoseok's fumbling. Thank goodness. His darting eyes would almost certainly give away the fact that Hoseok is faking it and flailing wildly.
"I'm Jung Hoseok. Do you want to sit down? I could do with a break from this presentation," Hoseok says, hoping to pivot the conversation away from anime (which he does not know a damn thing about) and towards this stranger (who Hoseok would like to know so much about) instead.
"Jeon Jungkook. It's nice to meet you," says the not-stranger-anymore, sinking gratefully into the chair across from Hoseok. He waves there for a second, torso swaying back and forth. His eyes go wide and unfocused, aiming somewhere in the vicinity of the tabletop.
Hoseok takes a moment to pull out his phone.
"So! One Piece!" Jungkook says, shaking back into himself with fervor.
Hoseok can clearly see that there are two roads he can take here.
One, he admits the truth and tells Jungkook that this isn't his laptop. That the most Hoseok knows about anime is the one really hype Naruto opening that he loves to belt at noraebang and he doesn't know what a one piece is aside from a style of swimsuit. He smiles softly, offers to talk to Jungkook still, to flirt and make this a funny little meet-cute. But it's still embarrassing to make that sort of mistake and Jungkook most likely spooks like a startled deer and disappears into the wilds of Seoul's major metropolitan area. Hoseok stares out the window after him. And that's all. A ripple in Hoseok's day that he'll mention to Jimin and Taehyung and forget all about.
Two.
Hoseok blinks up at Jungkook. Takes in the dip of his smile and the eager shine of his eyes. The juxtaposed softness of his voice with the body and build that he has, tattoos peeking out of his sleeve and piercings glinting in his ears and eyebrow and lip. Hoseok isn't a superficial person but he also knows his type and this guy is ticking several of his boxes. Too many to ignore, really. He sets his phone facedown on the table. Nods. "Yeah! One piece! I really love the, um. Y'know. The ninjas in One Piece."
Two, Jung Hoseok doubles down and makes a fucking idiot of himself to chat with a hot guy for a little while. No harm, no foul right? He tells himself that it's somehow less embarrassing than admitting he's borrowing his roommate's laptop and missing out on his shot here entirely.
(One Piece is the one with the ninjas, right?)
Immediately, Jungkook's eyes light up. "You're caught up to the Wano Arc too? Hasn't the animation improved so, so much lately? It's making the anime actually good to watch instead of a drag, and I love how much of a focus the Kidd Pirates-"
Oh no.
Why are there pirates in the ninja show, Hoseok wonders, wracking his brain desperately for any memory of any anime at all. Oh god, he's never regretted tuning out Jimin and Taehyung's hours long blabbering sessions about the latest shows they're watching more than this very moment. He just doesn't get it! And now it's finally caught up to him. Hoseok is never going to get this guy's number and it's all because he can stand being an active listener to anything except anime talk. Botany? Great, fantastic, tell him all about plants and not about bugs and he's good. He'll ask so many questions about bonsai, ask Namjoon. Camera lenses? He's there. Focal lengths! Fascinating stuff.
Anime? His eyes start glazing over.
Hoseok just doesn't get it, despite all of his friend's attempts otherwise. And boy have Taehyung and Jimin tried. There was a period of time where Hoseok could count on being ambushed into an "impromptu" anime marathon at least twice a week.
("They're just like dramas but animated!" Jimin insisted, even though these were nothing like dramas. On the screen, a boy with inexplicable multicolored hair did something with cards that Hoseok was mostly sure was against the rules. The other boy screamed. This was all concerningly intense for a card game.
"You just have to give it a chance!" said Taehyung. Hoseok had given this a chance and he was completely lost. Going on a run would have been more fun than this. In fact-
"I'm going on a run," Hoseok announced, getting up before Jimin could glom onto him and trap him on the couch for several hours. "Let me know when it's safe to come back."
Jimin cocked his head curiously. "We're not having sex though?"
"Yeah I meant. When the anime is done." Hoseok wrinkles his nose. "You guys wouldn't actually fuck to this, right?"
Trading glances with Taehyung, Jimin tittered nervously. "Oh uh. No, of course not. But, hyung. Yu-Gi-Oh is like... two hundred episodes long. It's gonna be a bit."
"No. Absolutely not. I'm staying in Taehyung's room for the next week while you get this out of your system.")
"-have gotten lately, and Yamato, right? Were you surprised about Yamato? Do you want to know about Ace and what he was doing on Wano? I missed Ace a lot actually, which I didn't realize until I started crying when he showed up on screen for like two seconds and-" Jungkook sucks in a tight breath, wide eyes going impossibly wider.
That's the first breath Hoseok thinks he's gotten since he started talking.
"Oh no," Jungkook whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm kinda going off a lot. I just got really excited and I know I'm chattering too much-"
"No!" Hoseok bursts out. The volume of it startles the both of them and the girls behind him, all four of them jumping. Hoseok winces, waves apologetically, then taps the tabletop to gather his nerves again. "No, you're fine. I know- it's really exciting to meet people who share your interests! You can talk as much as you like."
(God, if Jimin could hear him now.)
Brushing a stray strand of hair behind his ear, Jungkook smiles. Hoseok abruptly remembers why he's doing this. That's a great smile. The kind of smile that makes a person believe in butterflies and love at first sight, even if Hoseok himself is way, way too practical for that. This isn't love at first sight, after all, just some excited flutters of attraction, the curiosity to know someone a little better.
A smile that makes a man pretend he's seen anime. Something else that Hoseok would have sworn didn't exist fifteen minutes ago.
"Still," says Jungkook. "I wanted to talk with you about anime, not just at you. So!"
Oh no, the dread is back.
It's fine. Hoseok has had to bluff his way through many situations despite being the worst liar any of his friends have ever known. He's got this. All he has to do is come up with believeable answers. How hard can it be?
"Who's your favorite Strawhat?"
Hoseok flounders. Oh god. Oh god, uh. Um. What the fuck is a straw hat. Why is he saying it like it's a person. Hoseok should have taken Taehyung up on any of his anime marathons ever, even if they would have been boring and awful and confusing and his eyes would have slid right off the subtitles or he would have groaned at the not-quite-rightness of the dubs. Then he wouldn't be in this situation. Tentatively, he ventures, "All of them?" Then, with increasing boldness, "I love them all, y'know. Can't pick just one straw hat."
Something coy and satisfied settles in Jungkook's eyes. "Good choice. The correct choice."
Hoseok lets out a sigh of relief.
The look turns mischievous. "But who is your favorite, y'know? Everyone does have one, even if it's just a little more than the others."
Shit.
Shit, stall, stall, stall. Hoseok pops his lips, hissing as he thinks desperately, trying to remember what any anime character looks like or is named. "Hmmm, that's a tough one... I'd say... it's really gotta be...." When in doubt, think about Park Jimin. Who is Jimin's favorite? Green? Sword? The reason Jimin squished his adorable cheeks into a kendo helmet and learned how to swing a wooden sword around. Zo-something. "Zoro?"
Jungkook's smile goes wrinkly-starry-wonderful and never mind this is a great plan if it gets Jungkook to keep looking at Hoseok like that. Hoseok feels like a live wire, all jittery and delighted and sparking in Jungkook's presence. "Great taste. Mine's Brook, or Robin, but I feel bad that they've been left out of the story for so long."
Hoseok reaches across the table to pat the back of Jungkook's hand. "They'll get their time in the spotlight, I'm sure of it. After all, there's a lot of story to tell."
(He has no idea who these people are. Or how much story there is left. Can he get away with doing a quick Naver search under the table? He doesn't think those big ol' eyes will miss anything.)
"I think so too," Jungkook says shyly. "I mean, Brook's just such an interesting character, and I think a lot of people disregard how tragic his circumstances are. To have watched his whole crew pass away in front of him and then to be alone for so long... I know Oda uses him as comic relief, but he's really cool. And as for Robin, we're finally getting back to the Poneglyphs again and the Void Century, and stuff that's been hinted at like six hundred episodes ago and I just want to know it all!"
Smile and nod, Jung Hoseok , Hoseok thinks as he does just that. Smile and nod and do not stop paying attention. He already knows more about One Piece in this five minute conversation than he's ever absorbed any other way. It's about pirates and the animation is really good recently and this boy loves Brook and Robin, who are now Hoseok's favorites even if he doesn't know anything about them at all.
"I agree completely," Hoseok says seriously. "Very interesting and compelling stuff. So. What's your favorite mystery about... the Poneglyphs?"
Jungkook's eyes crinkle with the force of his smile. He juts his chin at Hoseok's-Jimin-Laptop-On-Loan. "Do you have time for that? I thought you had a presentation to work on."
"I do! But can you really blame me for wanting to chat a little with a cute stranger? I, for one-" Hoseok pauses. Sighs. "Well, I really should get this done. I guess I don't have to know your thoughts on the Ponegylphs right now. But..." he trails off.
Jungkook bites his lip. He sways a little, closer into Hoseok's space. "But?"
"Well, you could give me your phone number so we can maybe talk about it another time?" Hoseok asks, heart in his throat. "Possibly on a date? If you're interested."
"Well." Jungkook's grin gets impossibly wider, Hoseok a blazing sun from within, and he trails tattooed fingers across the cafe tabletop. "I could do that, if you gave me your phone number in return. Does. Um. Does Friday work for you?"
"Friday is the best day in the world for me," Hoseok answers, immediately throwing out any plans he had with Namjoon and Yoongi. They'll understand. They'll laugh at him, but they'll understand.
"So... See you Friday, huh?" Jungkook says when they're done exchanging numbers.
Hoseok nods. Thoughts of his schoolwork have completely escaped him. Count him amount the eighty-five percent."Friday! I'm excited already. See you then."
As he heads out of the cafe, Jungkook looks over his shoulder. Edged in sunlight, the curve of his cheek and the parting of his lips prominent with the force of his smile. Hoseok's breath stutters in his chest, and he holds it, holds it, doesn't blink, until Jungkook lifts a hand in farewell and leaves.
The bell over the door tinkles as the door closes.
Hoseok breathes out.
Wow. He should borrow Jimin's laptop to study in cafes more often. Maybe he should send his dad a thank you note for letting Hoseok inherit his old laptop. A prayer of gratitude to the first set-up domino that ended in this meeting.
Raising his phone again, Hoseok types shakily.