Trust Issues //Vkook\\

Chapter One

First Impressions

The darkened campus gleams with mingling colours: the glowing blues of lit-up phone screens, the yellow hues of paper lanterns swinging in the breeze. The occasional flash of white as drunken selcas are taken. Sweaty heads pushed together with lopsided smiles. It smells exactly like you'd expect a college orientation festival to smell: body odour that fresh-out-of-high-school students haven't quite grown out of yet pungent in the air, along with the undeniable scent of sickly sweet cruisers.

A tapping shoe, glinting turquoise sequins under the lantern light. Park Jimin smiles at passersby. Lips twitching when they glance away.

"Damn it, Tae." Short, slender fingers punch the lock code into his phone, ready to type yet another angry message to his friend. He gets three words down ("Fucking hell, Tae") before a large mass barrels into his side. He catches himself, stops himself from faceplanting onto the concrete. His phone isn't so lucky. He watches it toppling through the night air. Thinks about rental fees and food budgets and how he can't afford to replace his screen, not again.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry. I swear I left at 8:40. But then one of my professors talked to me for ten minutes and I didn't know how to get away. Then I got lost. Sorry."

The phone lands on the grass. It's a miracle, really. Jimin leans down, casts a quick eye over it, relaxes when he sees only a few specks of dirt on the screen. No cracks or other signs of distress. He can't say the same of himself.

"You've been here for a year," he says through clenched teeth. "How could you possibly get lost?"

"I don't come out at night very much. Besides, everything looks weird with all of these fancy lights and booths."

Kim Taehyung, his best friend of seven years. Bright, ruby red hair held back with a black bandana, dark brows pronounced over his soft, dark chocolate eyes. Lips pouting because he knows he's in trouble. Scatter-brained, soft-hearted, and late, so, so late.

"I've been stalling for thirty minutes, Tae. Thirty minutes. Do you know how hard it is to keep college freshman entertained? I had to give them drinks early. How the fuck am I going to get them oriented if they're drunk?"

"They'll sober up as we walk." Jimin stares blankly. Taehyung shrinks back. "Why do we even do this at night time? Whose idea was that?" Jimin turns to the tent, Taehyung at his heels. "Why not orient them in the morning like every other club?"

A heavy sigh. "It was your idea, Tae." Taehyung crinkles his nose, smiling sheepishly because he already knew that. "What were you even doing that was so important that it made you late for the only time we needed you to be responsible this whole semester?"

His friend kicks at the ground and faintly answers, "Nothing." Jimin decides to leave it be. He'll get him drunk and make him confess whatever he's hiding later. Right now, they have a job to do.

"Whatever. Let's get this over with. I'll be shocked if they're all here still."

They're not. Three of the freshman waiting in the dance club's tent for the past half hour had given up and joined the rest of the festivities. That's three potentially amazing dancers that they've probably lost forever. He can just see the trophy being handed to Blackburn University at the end of the year. Again. The smaller, silver and much less impressive second place trophy will be given to Bangtan University. Again. Jimin shoots a scathing glare at his friend. He doesn't notice. Too busy crouching over the footpath just outside the tent's entrance, rescuing a beetle that had been about to engage in a game of Crossy Road.

There are still five students left. Probably shy types, not bold enough to be the first one to get up and leave. One of them is staring at their phone, another has fallen asleep. They jerk awake when Taehyung claps his large hands together.