Superheroes - 슈퍼 히어로 | BTS Fanfiction | Yoonmin

| Chapter 26 | 'Sunbae isn't informal enough.'

Jimin walked beside Yoongi as they neared the jeering students - not that they acted like students; more like gangsters. The delinquents had stopped in the middle of the hallway, leaning against the lockers and blocking the middle of the walkway. His heart raced faster than he could ever think, his senses on full alert. It took everything he had to keep his breath even and hide the shaking of his arms and legs.

Beside him, Yoongi's pace was even and measured, his deadpan revealing nothing. It was only through the slight tension in his right arm and the practised smoothness of his walk that Jimin could tell he was ready for action.

The delinquents were still jeering, and rightfully so. Jimin could tell that they had the upper hand, at least in terms of numbers, as Yoongi was the only one of the two who could fight - not that they knew that. It would make a brawl between them an unfair eight-to-one.

Then again, Yoongi was an associate of Zangling. With the smooth gate and almost invisible tenseness - only obvious to Jimin because he was so close - it looked like he may even have been trained by Zangling, who had a similar way of just... moving.

Just before Jimin became tempted to turn and sprint away as fast he could, Yoongi veered off to the side of the corridor, opened a locker and took some books out of it, silencing the jeers.

A sigh of relief escaped him quieter than a whisper, his shoulder relaxing minutely. "Yoongi-ah?" he murmured nervously, not loud enough for the delinquents to hear.

His sunbae's lip twitched in a half exasperated and amused almost-smile that Jimin wasn't sure he had actually seen. It took him a moment to realise how he had referred to his sunbae. "I-I mean..."

"I'll walk you." Yoongi cut him off abruptly, putting a hand on his upper back and directing him back down the corridor without so much as a backward glance at the delinquents.

"Hey, aren't you gonna say hello?" one of the bullies, obviously the leader, called tauntingly. Jimin quaked on the spot as the two of them slowed down, desperately relieved that Yoongi's hand was still resting between his shoulder blades and keeping him from turning back to look.

"Answer politely." Yoongi's breath brushed the top of his ears, his expression unchanged. A shiver rippled through him, and he only hoped it had gone unnoticed. "Good morning."

"Morning," Jimin echoed quietly.

They walked further from the bullies, who stood in the middle of the corridor, scowling and unsatisfied. Jimin almost thought he saw Yoongi smirk. Shaking it off, because Yoongi always deadpanned... or maybe Jimin had just gotten better at reading him— but no! He cut off his own thoughts and looked back up at Yoongi. His sunbae stared back down at him after a few seconds, an eyebrow raised.

"U-um... thank you, sunbae," Jimin whispered, looking down. The only indication that he'd been heard was a quiet hum, but for him, it was enough.

-

These days, Yoongi wasn't very good at concentrating, something that he attributed quite surely to a certain Park Jimin. The orange head was distractingly adorable at the best of times, but with every day spent in his company, Yoongi's ability to concentrate on anything except the cinnamon roll was at an all-time low.

That was why, apart from listening to his surroundings - and particularly for anything Jimin might say - his mind was occupied by frustratingly useless thoughts like, 'I want him to call me Yoongi again,' 'Sunbae isn't informal enough,' 'Maybe I should tell him to drop honorifics completely with me,' and 'I know it isn't appropriate to be so publicly touchy, but I don't care.'

That, and his mind sought distraction from a certain thought which stuck around like two pieces of industrial-strength duct tape to each other. Despite how he often spent time with Jimin as Zangling and himself, their relationships were quite different. Yoongi had made no effort to dispel his hoobae's suspicions about who he was - at least before that conversation with his parents - and he always made sure that he acted differently enough as Zangling that no one would link him to Yoongi. Unless he was tired, but sleep was more important.

"Sunbae?" Jimin's sweet voice interrupted the circling of his thoughts, making them screech to a stop and proceed to implode into nothingness. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." The answer was curt and short, but it wasn't something he could help, given that he was pulled so suddenly from his thoughts.

His hoobae nodded slowly and looked away, glancing back at him furtively. When they made eye contact, Jimin's head swivelled away from him quicker than he could blink. 'Cute,' he thought, even as he asked what was wrong with his customary unfeeling deadpan.

"N-nothing..."

"I'm going to be escorting you for a while. Say what you want," Yoongi grumbled. The orange head clearly wanted to say something, though he wasn't sure what. What he was sure of was that he wanted Jimin to say what he was thinking, because he was the only person whose thoughts Yoongi couldn't hear.

"Escorting me..." The words of disbelief weren't a statement, but not a question either, so he didn't say anything in response. The expected question came a moment later. "I thought you would keep an eye on me?"

Yoongi sighed, glancing around subtly. His hoobae began to ask the question again, but Yoongi cut him off and dragged him into an empty classroom nearby, ignoring his surprised protests. "I don't know how much Zangling told you." Which was a blatant lie. "But there are some things you need to know."