THE TIME IN BETWEEN winter and spring is the most beautiful, in Hoseok's opinion. The time where cherry blossoms bloom for the shortest while before falling accordingly, littering the streets in a bed of pale pink petals, where the healthy green of plants can be seen blooming despite the chilly weather. This is the time when he sees him and feels the most alive he has in ages.
Hoseok stands still, with his gloved hands stuffed into his pocket, as he stares ahead at the beginning of leaves on the otherwise bare tree. The tree is all twigs, bony and he feels a warmth in his chest when he imagines all the leaves that will adorn the tree in the matter of a week or one more. He finds it wonderful, the transition between winter and spring, a perfect equilibrium of cold and warmth, of loss and life.
You lose everything in winter and you regain it in spring. Because nothing was ever lost for eternity, it finds its way around.
He switches his attention to his phone, lips tugging down when he sees that there have been no new notifications. Unlocking the device, he sends a quick text to the only friend he can think of at this moment. Except, he isn't really a friend. An acquaintance, perhaps, but not friends for the simple reason that someone like Jung Hoseok couldn't be friends with a person like Min Yoongi.
Within ten minutes, an expensive black car is parked across the street, honking three times consecutively to get his attention. As Hoseok jogs towards the vehicle, he is filled with some sort of expectation. And as he climbs into the passenger seat and turns to the driver, the butterflies at the pit of his stomach flutter their wings, taking flight.
"Hey." Yoongi has the same quirk of his lips which he adorns every time he sees the slightly younger boy.
"Hi." Hoseok breathes, his chest constricting as he forces his gaze forward.
Without further delay, the car begins to move, slowly at first and then picking up quite a bit of speed until Hoseok knows that they are driving well above the speed limit without even having to look at the speedometer. But this was Min Yoongi, and so he expected nothing less from the resident bad boy of the town.
"Trying to get rid of me that quickly?" Hoseok jokes, keeping his tone light and airy.
Yoongi doesn't laugh. Instead, he takes an abrupt turn, driving away from Hoseok's house and towards his own.
"You're not going home though."
"My parents will be worried."
"Call them. Tell them you're staying over at a friend's house." If it was anybody else, Yoongi would have surely poked fun at his last statement. But this was Hoseok and so he couldn't do that.
With shaky hands, he retrieves his phone from his back pocket, lifting off the seat slightly. Scrolling through the contact, he takes as much time as possible, trying to keep his nerves at bay. He skips his dad's familiar number and settles on his mother who picked up just after two rings. In hushed tones, he tells her that she shouldn't wait up for him and that he is going to stay over at a friend's house.
"Which friend?"
He stumbles when he answers. "Taehyung." He settles on someone that he knows his mother likes but Taehyung is a new friend so she wouldn't have his home number or anything to contact him with.
"Alright, be home before 10 tomorrow." He doesn't miss the slightly suspicious tone on the other end of the line so he chirps out a reply to soothe her worries.
When he puts the phone back into his pocket, Yoongi is glancing at him with a bemused smile. "Taehyung, huh?"
Wincing, Hoseok struggles to find a proper reply. "I- uh- I'm sorry if it offended you. It's nothing against you, I swear! My parents are actually quite strict and they probably wouldn't let me spend the night with a friend that they don't know- or at least, I think they wouldn't and I didn't want to take the risk so I'm... sorry, I guess." His cheeks flush as his rambling comes to an end and he sneaks a glance at the boy behind the wheel, the tips of his ears reddening even further when he finds him sporting a grin.
"This is it." Yoongi says pulling up into a large, two-story building. He stops the car, undoing his seatbelt and turning over to the back seat where he runs his hands through the leather, trying to find the black remote to the garage door. When he finally does find it, he turns back into his seat, pressing the single gray button making the first door open up. Hoseok watches as Yoongi moves the car forward until it's parked before exiting, waiting for the other to show him the way.
Soon, both boys are inside the house and have discarded the extra layers of clothing. It's still cold but you can get away with wearing two or three layers whereas in the depth of winter, Hoseok wore five at least to get some warmth on his skin.
Yoongi is in the kitchen preparing hot drinks for the both of them while Hoseok is seated on the couch the in the first living room. From here, he can see the blonde boy opening cupboards and getting out two mugs and he is absolutely entranced with his every movement. His eyes follow his steps until they approach him, setting down both mugs before taking a seat beside him.
"So, are you going to tell me why you were in that park alone in the cold?"
There is a silent pause, where Hoseok wonders if the embarrassment of telling him is worth it or not. Finally, disregarding his worries, he says, "I was ditched."
"Oh, by who?"
"This boy. He texted me, asking me out to that restaurant a couple feet in front of the park but he never showed up." Hoseok rolls his lips inside his mouth.
Then to his surprise, Yoongi says, "It's his loss anyways." Yoongi is looking out for the red that envelops his cheeks and a muted smile curves his lips when he gets what he wanted. Then, he asks, "Why did you call me?"
"Oh, were you busy? I'm sorry if I bothered you or something-"
"No, I just want to know why."
He shrugs, avoiding Yoongi's gaze. "Don't know. You came to mind."
He didn't tell Yoongi that he had been thinkingabout him for a long while, even before his date skipped on him, he had beenthinking of him. And now, even after, every inch of the boy sitting beside himwas etched onto his mind, an image in his mind to be pondered over when hethought of him, which would come to be a rather large fraction of his life.
