Night had drawn on but the barbeque place was bustling with energy in the corner where they were sitting.
Namjoon felt it a bit tiresome to be accompanying such energized bunch yet he found himself immersed in Taehyung and Jungkook bickering between themselves, and Jin feeding Jimin most of the good parts of the meat saying how the latter had grown thinner since he first came to the dorm.
"Is that Dior you are wearing?" Taehyung pointed to Jungkook's T-shirt with psychedelic prints all over it. "The watch in your hand looks expensive too."
"I don't steal your clothes anymore, do I?" Jungkook had a mischievous smirk on his face. Namjoon noted that it had been some time the youngest had 'accidentally' stole his outfits too.
"And you were in the dorm when we left. Where have you been getting the goods? And what do you do in your room with the laptop all day to not notice we were leaving?" Taehyung complained with a frown on his face.
"Earning money," the youngest chimed as he put a lettuce in his mouth using his barehand. "You won't understand."
"Working online? Thanks, I'm not interested either way," Taehyung sneered before turning to Jimin who had his mouth filled with food. "And you! You barely have time for me because you're always with that Sangah girl."
"Sangah?" Jin spoke amused.
Jimin quickly gulped down the food in his mouth. "Come on, I am always eating lunch with you. And I'm practically in the dorm the whole day. When did I not have time for you?"
"Who's Sangah? The girl with eyes like this?" Jungkook put his index fingers on the corner of his eyes and stretched the skin.
"Yes, the slanted cat eyes girl." Taehyung nodded to him and then he turned to the shorter again. "I won't be surprised if you two start dating soon."
A tinted hue spread over Jimin's fluffy cheeks. "She's just my friend. Why would I date her? You're giving me a migraine, Taehyung."
Suddenly it surged through Namjoon's brain, that he had broken the shorter's glasses months ago. "Jimin!" The brunette called out. "I broke your specs right? You said it helped reducing your migraine. Can you tell me what brand it was? I'll buy it for you."
"I can't believe you remembered that after months." Jin laughed out loud. "How about the handle of my frypan you broke last year? Where is the compensation for that?"
Namjoon felt himself deflating in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I totally forgot. I'll buy a new one for you."
"You don't have to." Jin brushed it off with his hand. "I was just joking." There was a cheeky smile on his face and Namjoon asked himself if Jin ever looked so joyful before.
"You don't have to buy the glasses for me too, hyung," Jimin scratched the back of his head with a shy look on his face. "Those were cheap. And I already bought new ones."
Namjoon again asked himself if Jimin felt so carefree before too. He always had a rigid, tight aura around him, as if he couldn't let himself dissolve in the new atmosphere.
Now Jin and Jimin both felt like they had found a new self and, Taehyung looked happier with their company. Namjoon mentally noted too, that he'd spend more time with the rest in the dorm.
"Can we go home soon? I'm a little tired," a meek voice spoke softly from the side. No one else noticed but Namjoon.
What he met with was Hoseok, his shoulders slumped and a forlorn expression on his face. Under his curls a pallid face could be seen as he was looking down, poking on his food with his chopsticks.
Namjoon could feel his eyebrows knit, he had never seen Hoseok like this, ever. The time Hoseok would spend with them he'd always be the brightest, most cheerful among the group.
The quietest would be Yoongi, who wasn't here.
"Are you okay, Hoseok?" As soon as Namjoon asked all attention were driven to Hoseok and the said boy looked up.
"I am...," he trailed off, his incredulous pair of eyes noticing every other pair that were staring up to him.
"You don't look okay, hyung," Taehyung retorted.
"Are you feeling sick?" Jin asked.
Hoseok ran a hand over his curly locks, looking ahead in the distance absentmindedly. "Don't worry about me. It's nothing."
"You sure, it's nothing?" Namjoon found himself asking carefully.
The disdain in the Journalism major's face turned into a grimace, his teeth gritting and jaw clenched. "I told you it's nothing. It's probably because I lost my ear buds, I don't know, okay?"
The scowl on his face dissolved into the forlorn face the very second, so fast that Namjoon thought if he was only imagining Hoseok acting up. Nonetheless, it shocked him, scared him a little too.
"I just, I'll get more food. I'll feel better if I eat more." Hoseok got up and went to the counter to place more orders.
The palpable tension in the table could be cut with a knife. So it wasn't only Namjoon who saw that. He did not imagine the sudden change in Hoseok.
"I told you Jimin-ah, sometimes Hoseok hyung acts scary," Taehyung's voice trembled a little, trying to cut the silence yet only folding into it.
"I thought he only acted up when he was drunk," Jimin murmured.
The rest were quiet. Until Jin spoke up, "Let's forget it... Taehyung, you were telling us something?"
"Yeah." Taehyung shot up in his position. "I don't think I can ever date someone. I just don't feel the tension, I've tried before. Sometimes I think I might be asexual, or aromantic, if what that's called?"
Jungkook and Jimin snorted from their seats making the blue hair frown. "Or you could be demisexual too. Meaning, you just haven't found the right one for you," Namjoon said.
Taehyung shrugged, but had a thoughtful expression on his face.
Jin again spoke up, "So you're the amoeba?"
The two boys, Jungkook and Jimin cackled louder. This time, Namjoon couldn't help but laugh a little too, though soon he sobered up.
"Not that I'm saying anything is wrong with amoeba. Amoebas are cool," Jin immediately added, a serious expression on his features. "Finding your sexual orientation is hard, Taehyung. You can get confused, and you will. Maybe, for a long time. But someday, you'll have that realization. And you'll learn to accept yourself too."
Namjoon's heart tugged hearing Jin's confidence voice. He was feeling proud, somehow really proud of the elder.
"You seem like you know a lot, Jin hyung." Taehyung's eyes sparkled. Jin busied himself cooking up the barbeque without giving an answer.
"What's going on here! Are you sunshines talking about dating again?" Hoseok came and sat down with a new tray of fresh meat and other spices in his hands. A bright and merry grin on his face. "This one's on me!"
"Hoseok hyung is the best!" Taehyung cheered, with that everyone seemingly forgot what had happened before with Hoseok.
Though it rested on the back of Namjoon's mind. And he knew it would on others too.
After a lot of bickering from Jungkook, Taehyung and sometimes Hoseok and Jimin adding in, long spiels about the food from Jin, and his occasional jokes, and eating up until there was no space for more food, they decided to leave.
It was already close to midnight. The autumn air outside was chilly, yet Namjoon felt warm with the other boys. Under the vast sky with stars adorning it like the freckles dotted on a teenage girl's chubby cheeks, or the maple leaves that were on the charcoal of the street, Namjoon walked and wanted (a little) that the road would never end.
The road ended, however. While they walked on to the porch of the bulletproof boy Scout's dorm Namjoon noticed a girl with a scarf around her neck standing outside by the gate.
Taehyung seemed like had noticed too. "What's she doing here, at this late of the night?"
The others turned around. Jungkook carefully hiding behind Namjoon's back and Jimin holding a palm close to his eyes. "Isn't that the girl we once saw before?"
"It must be so cold standing there. Is she here for any of us?" Jin shoot a question and Hoseok shrugged with his shoulder in response.
The girl turned about and started to walk away, ever so slowly, before she turned her head back once again and looked at them from afar.
"Jungkook?" Namjoon voiced out, the said boy shook his head frantically in negative.
"Yoongi hyung." Taehyung smirked, the fluorescent light of the porch directly over his head. "I saw him with her before once."
"Wow. Never knew even he could score someone," Jin opened the lock of the front door as he said.
"At the end only I'm gonna be alone." Hoseok sighed entering.
Taehyung put a hand on the curly hair's back before he followed. "Don't worry, hyung. Same here. Probably."
"Why didn't Yoongi come today?" Namjoon asked Jimin as the shorter was the last one with him outside.
"He said one of his family members fell sick. He went back to Daegu for a day," Jimin answered, Namjoon nodded.
The breeze was getting colder with the night delving into a deeper state. Yet for a few seconds Namjoon stood outside alone, looking up to the sky full of stars above.
A smile played on his lips. If he did not have a star in his sky he would rather make one.
Or maybe, he did have seven stars, including his. Because when with these boys, his mundane and lackluster life felt like it had colours, vivid colours like the journey to the distant lands he'd often wander off to in his head.
---
A/n: who's next?
How are you doing these days?
If you aren't feeling good let me tell you the other day I was exposed to a long chain of comments in my book online crush where the readers were discussing how to fck yourself with a toothbrush when you're on your period.
Sometimes the block button looks so juicy I just want to tap that ass :)