Platonic.

12

🎶

Namjoon loved the Botanical Gardens in  Claremont for obvious reasons. So on days like this when the weather was nice and he wasn't bogged down by homework or exhausted from practice, he would stop by Barnes & Noble for a journal he'd been eying and sneak away to the suburban area.

Among his peers, Taehyung aside, Namjoon was always praised for his eclectic tastes and hobbies. Besides his vast interest in science and plants, Namjoon excelled athletically because of his broad frame and stature that allowed him to move with strength and agility on the courts. He excelled academically, his strengths outside of science being in written literature and poetry. He loved music of all kinds. Rap, Hip Hop, Jazz, R&B. He even kept an impressive vinyl collection in his off-campus apartment that Yoongi loved thumbing through on the nights he'd come over .

He dabbled in poetry as well and often wrote some of his own when no one was around. There was a tattered shoebox full of journals hidden in the darkest corner of his closet that was filled from to cover by his endless drabbles. Some of them were so old and worn through, the binding was barely holding the book together. When he was younger he entertained the idea of being a rapper or a spoken word poet but was always too shy to recite anything he expressed in ink for others to hear.

That was a part of him he kept to himself.

There was a slight breeze that blew through the trees that made the leaves fall in the most artistic way. They set ripples off over the water and they spread slowly, altering the rhythm of the leaves dance as the stream carried them away. Namjoon stared mindlessly at the sparkling pond from his seat at the table surrounded by others that were empty. He had his orange scone and half drunken herbal lemonade from Starbucks set aside and his hand rested against the first blank page of the journal.

He'd been sitting there for half an hour, grateful for the silence since it was early on a weekday and he fully intended to mellow out so that he could write down some of the things he'd been feeling throughout the week. Sometimes his life was overwhelming and any slice of silence he could find was essential in order for him to decompress. Normally this was the perfect environment for him to do so.

But for some reason, he just felt.......hindered. Uninspired.

Lost.

Namjoon sighs heavily, taking off the glasses he only wore for writing to set them down on the table. After staring at it for several seconds, he closes the journal with the pen tucked in between the pages.

He removes his beanie to run a hand through his recently low-cut coal-black hair and decides to use the remainder of his time at the garden to finish his drink and scone. He had some time before his next class anyway. After finishing off his drink and clearing the space he occupied at the table, Namjoon stands with is a backpack in tow to head for the patch of grass at the edge the pond.

He stands there, watching the tadpoles wiggle on the shore with mild interest as every other part of his brain swam with pestering thoughts. What he had to do when he got back on campus. What he needed for his plants at home. What he'd eat after practice. What to get his sister for her birthday. Lab notes. Study guides. Random song lyrics.

Everything and nothing all at once.

A minnow swims onto the shallows, making the idling tadpoles and tiny bugs scatter and he smiles softly at the pleasant distraction for the noise in his mind if for only a moment. He squints up at the climbing sun before glancing down at his watch. He should get going if he didn't want to get caught up in any traffic on his way back into the city. The strap of his backpack slips from his shoulder a bit as he turns away from the water and he's distracted again from what was going on around him.