14-Interlude: April
"Holy shit," Yoongi said after a minute. "Hyung, that's - seriously, the FDA? That's fuckin' amazing, holy shit, congratulations—"
"That's awesome," Jimin breathed, a huge proud grin starting to stretch over his face. "Jin-hyung, wow, that's like... that's really, really big!"
"Huge," Jin said, voice quiet as he stared down at the paper. "It's huge. They invite less than a hundred people every year and there are no guaranteed spots for international applicants. I figured - I figured that there was no possible way, you know?"
"Um," Hoseok said slowly, swinging the fridge closed. "Wait, so like... the US?" Yoongi glanced up at him but Hoseok wasn't looking at Jin as he spoke. "That far away? Wow."
"Yeah." Jin shook his head. "The United States. Washington DC."
Hoseok whistled a long, low, descending note - and Yoongi was struck, suddenly, by the realization that Hoseok had always been a bit of a canary in a coal mine, predicting how things would go and picking up on how things already had gone and knowing exactly what was happening at all times even when everyone else was (sometimes literally) in the dark. He'd act like a goofball but he always seemed to know what to do and when to do it and what to say (and, for that matter, what not to say) and now for some reason he was beginning to look a little bit green. A little bit worried. A little bit like he was starting to inch toward the door out of the kitchen and into the corridor. But why...?
"What the hell?"
Namjoon's voice.
Yoongi turned his head, and figured out all at once what Hoseok had been watching when he'd spoken a moment ago.
"What the hell, Jin," Namjoon said again, standing up from the table. His cheeks were flushed with something that looked for all the world like fury and his hands were shaking at his sides and his voice was coming out strangled and hoarse. "Jin what the hell, you never - you never said a goddamn thing about this, why the fuck wouldn't you tell me you were applying for this? I'm the president and you're the vice president, why the hell—"
"Joonie," Jin said, looking up from the letter in his hands for the first time since he'd opened the yellow envelope. "I don't know if—"
"No," Namjoon said, swiping a hand in front of him like he was swatting a fly. He looked desperate and confused and almost like he was about to throw a fit or yell or maybe just start crying, and Yoongi had never once seen him like this. Not once. He'd been mad before, sure. He'd been frustrated and angry and sad and confused and embarrassed but this was something new and different and unbelievably uncomfortable to witness. "No, god damn it, no, Jin - Jin, we talk to each other about shit like this, that's like - that's the deal, and you're just gonna apply for some kinda fuckin' post-doc program overseas and not even mention it? What the hell are we supposed to do without you?"
"Hire a cook like all the other frats," Jin shot back, starting to look a little bewildered. "Joonie, you knew I was going to be graduating soon, I'm up for final defense next term, I've been talking about it since—"
"But you were going to stay in the country." Namjoon raked both hands through his hair, bent a little at the waist, tried to breathe. "You were gonna - I mean I figured you would at least - you belong here, Jin, why didn't you even tell me—"
"We should go," Hoseok hissed into Yoongi's ear, looping a hand around his elbow. "We should go downstairs. Like right now."
"Last I checked," Jin said, raising his voice a little as he set the letter down on the counter next to him, "I'm my own person. I don't belong to this university, I don't belong to Beta Tau Sigma, and I have certainly never belonged to you."
Yoongi hooked onto Jimin as he and Hoseok ducked past, making for the basement door as fast as they could. "What the hell is happening?" Jimin whispered, voice high, eyes huge.
"Mom and dad," Hoseok hissed back, pulling the door open and gesturing frantically down the stairs, "are fighting."
"I never said you belonged to me," Namjoon was saying, yelling almost, as Yoongi shoved Jimin through the door into the dark of the basement, scrambling on the wall for the light switch. "I never fucking said you did, but for fuck's sake when the hell did you apply to go to the fucking United States and why the fuck didn't you tell me? Why did you keep it a secret? Did you think I'd be mad?!"
"I didn't think you'd be mad," Jin yelled back, "because I thought you were a reasonable human being, but apparently I was wrong!"
"Oh shit," Hoseok muttered under his breath, closing the door behind them and taking a deep breath.
The yelling was muffled now, enough that they couldn't quite piece words together anymore beyond a few fucks Namjoon threw in from time to time (baritone voice humming in the floorboards), and Yoongi stood on the stairs holding tight to Jimin's bicep and staring up at Hoseok. "What the hell," he said quietly. "What the hell was that."
"A ticking goddamn time bomb," Hoseok sighed, taking a step down the stairs and shoving Yoongi and Jimin down in front of him. "That's what it was. I just... thought we had more time."
"You knew?!" Jimin threw a look of shock and horror at Hoseok over his shoulder as he tripped down the stairs and onto the creaking landing at the bottom. "You knew this whole time that Jin-hyung had applied for the program, and you didn't—"
"Hell no," Hoseok cut him off, pushing past and flopping down onto one of the big arm chairs set up in the vast basement space, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. The basement used to act as additional bedrooms a couple years ago when the frat had more active members living at the house, and now it was just a big unfinished room filled with couches, extra storage, space that Hoseok had slowly started taking over a year ago to work on his research projects. "No clue. He probably sent that in like last summer or something, knowing how those things work." He rubbed both hands over his face. "Jesus, this throws a wrench into just about everything."
Yoongi sank down onto the couch, dragging Jimin down in next to him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Look, it's..." Hoseok flinched as a particularly loud shout echoed down the staircase. "It's complicated, and I'm... not really sure about all of it."
"Not really sure about what?" Jimin curled his legs under him. "Why is this a time bomb? What 'everything' is there to throw a wrench into?"
"You know how everybody was convinced Jin and Namjoon were doin' it until like February when it turned out they weren't?"
Jimin and Yoongi glanced at each other. "Well," Yoongi said cautiously, "yeah, but—"
"They weren't," Hoseok interrupted, waving a hand. "And I'm like ninety percent sure they still aren't—"
Jimin goggled. "Only ninety percent?"
"—but something has been coming for a while." Hoseok shrugged. "I figured it was going to happen around the time Jin graduated, but... yeah, I guess not." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You think you know people..."
There was a sudden, huge crash from the general direction of the kitchen and all three of them froze in the complete silence that followed. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen, and then there was the sound of someone stomping out of the kitchen, down the corridor, up the stairs.
"Are they throwing things?" Jimin whispered.
But then the door to the basement opened and Jin's voice, careful and even and clear, floated down the stairs: "Yoongi?"
Yoongi flinched and screwed his eyes shut, feeling Jimin's hand tighten protectively on his upper leg. "Yes?"
"Could you come up please?"
Climbing the stairs only felt a little bit like walking to his own execution. It could have been worse - at least now he knew that Namjoon was upstairs, gone, and he wasn't walking into a virtual warzone - but still Yoongi wondered what, exactly, Jin could possibly need him for that he couldn't do for himself. When he reached the top of the stairs Jin was standing there holding the door open still wearing the COOKING MAMA apron and staring tight lipped at the floor.
"Everything okay?" Yoongi hazarded, knowing even as the words left his mouth that it was the exact wrong thing to say.
Jin's eyes flickered up briefly - just enough that Yoongi could see the shine of tears caught in his lashes - and he shrugged, grinning slightly. "I don't ever know what the deal is with Joonie," he said, voice quiet. "I need your help, one of the—"
Yoongi stepped in close, worry twisting in his gut. "Did he hit you? There was a big noise, and..."
But then - the look Jin shot him was nothing short of shocked, skeptical, annoyed. "What? No, god, Yoongi—" He rolled his eyes and brushed his bangs out of his face a little. "He pulled out a chair to sit down and one of the legs came off. Barely caught himself before hitting the ground." He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. "You're the handy one around here, do you think you can check it out? See if you can fix it enough to use until we can find time to replace it?"
"He broke a chair," Yoongi said. "Namjoon broke a chair. On accident."
"Right." Jin gave him another funny look. "I mean - we were arguing, sure, but do you really think he'd lay a hand on me?"
"No?" No, he didn't. Not really. But for a second he'd been scared. "It was... it was a really big noise." Yoongi wet his lips nervously. "And you... what do you mean, you never know what the deal is with Joon-ah? You two are like..." He held up crossed fingers, suddenly at a loss for words.
"Yeah, well," Jin said. "I guess not."
And then he burst into tears.
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