hide your heartbeat - vmon/taejoon

fact #4

1730 words//

4. He loves debate class.

He had originally signed up for three main reasons: Jungkook's presence, the chance to get in smart arguments, and the fact that it's not a real class.

It's more of a project created by Namjoon's psychology professor, and it eventually became big enough across campus and attracted students who don't even know the professor herself. As the school year has progressed, most people have stopped attending, so the average class nowadays consists of fifteen students at most.

Sometimes he regrets signing up — like today. He's late, and everyone's eyes are on him when he walks in. Jungkook is sitting in the front and sitting right in his seat is Kim Taehyung, in the flesh, whose presence in this class will definitely be a challenge.

"Namjoon," Doctor Lee greets him, and Namjoon grins at her. "We're glad you joined us."

He knows she's not being sarcastic.

"I'm sorry for being late," Namjoon apologises. "I got held up."

She waves her hand dismissively and Namjoon sits down, a few rows behind Jungkook and Taehyung. "So, what do you think of soulmates?"

Namjoon bites his lip and stands back up, leaning onto the desk. "I'm not a believer."

He would've skipped if he has known that this was the topic of today's discussion, but these topics were often brought up on the spot by students who had something prepared.

"The concept of soulmates sounds nice and all," Namjoon goes on, "but it just... doesn't make sense to me? I don't understand why only some people would have pre-destined soulmates when most people don't. And I definitely don't understand how it would even work, from a scientific point of view."

"Swans mate for life," a girl in Namjoon's row stands up and says. She's sitting close to him, with only two empty seats between them. "There are many examples of soulmates in nature."

"Humans can 'mate' for life but we choose who we love," Namjoon argues back. "It's not the mate aspect I don't believe in, it's the soul one."

The girl nods at him, and Namjoon can't help but notice that she's really beautiful, and somewhat familiar.

"Taehyung — that's your name, yeah?" Doctor Lee asks. Taehyung stands up, after getting caught in the middle of a conversation with Jungkook. Namjoon rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, that's me," he grins. "Um, I was telling Jungkook here that I disagree."

"Of course you do," Namjoon mutters under his breath. The girl two seats away hears him and coughs loudly, stifling a laugh.

Taehyung turns in his seat, facing him. "There are millions of people who have discussed what it's like to meet their soulmates. Many of them have even described ways in which the universe intervenes just to ensure that they and their soulmate don't part ways before they're aware of it."

"I know."

"You know," Taehyung repeats. "But you don't believe them?"

"Just because millions of people say it's true, doesn't mean it actually is," Namjoon says, crossing his arms. "There are thousands of religions that contradict each other with millions to billions of followers for each, and they can't all be true at the same time, can they?"

"Religion is faith," Jungkook interrupts, "the accounts of soulmates are accounts of personal experience."

"Religion isn't always faith, but that's for another day," Namjoon says, but his eyes are on Taehyung. "And accounts of personal experiences can be false, too. People often misinterpret what they go through, and sometimes it's an attempt to cope and survive. The professor taught me this, and she can elaborate in detail about it if you don't believe me."