There’s a picture on his desk he finally spots after the twelfth spin. He sits at his desk and spins around in his chair, like that’ll accomplish anything. Like maybe there’d be a giant banner on his window that reads Yoongi and Seokjin graduated today!, and then confetti would fly out of nowhere and it’d look very fun and Namjoon would be mad because he’s not having any fun at all. He half expects to enter his room and find it completely different. He doesn’t, because his sister’s room is next to the staircase and she’s come out and question him and that’s just annoying.

Namjoon gets home and at least remembers to say goodbye to Hoseok and thank him for the ride, but as he walks up to his room his chest feels heavy, like he could just face plant onto the staircase and roll down the rest of the steps and that would be completely okay with him. The adrenaline from hugging Yoongi and Seokjin and screaming Congratulations! You’ve made it! in their faces is gone, and all that’s left is the empty banging in his head. Hoseok drives him home because Namjoon isn’t old enough to drive yet, and is glad Hoseok doesn’t try to start a conversation. Namjoon learns to love that photo, years later. Namjoon gets shoved next to a sobbing Seokjin, and Jungkook manages to shimmy his way onto his other side, and Jimin wraps an arm around Yoongi, who’s on Seokjin’s other side, and Hoseok, stupid Hoseok, slides onto the ground yelling Draw me like one of your french girls! and makes the picture that much more embarrassing. Seokjin’s mom is, well, Seokjin, but female, and probably two decades older. Yoongi’s mom is a short lady with short bobbed hair and way too much energy for her size. Seokjin is crying, that fucking idiot, and Yoongi is grinning so wide his eyes disappear into those weird moon things it always does. “No,” he confesses, just as the bell rings. Namjoon watches Taehyung pen down another song name onto the list. “It’s gonna be weird without them,” he sighs. Only he could unironically have Sistar and Kendrick Lamar on the same playlist and try to defend it. Seokjin has the weirdest taste out of anyone he knows. “It’s not my fault Seokjin has weird taste.” “Taehyung,” he sighs, “You can’t just go from Nillili Mambo to Bubble Pop.” “What? There’s Block B for Yoongi hyung, Fall Out Boy for Hoseok hyung, Hyuna for Seokjin hyung-” Taehyung looks at him expectantly, and he takes a deep breath.“Taehyung,” he says seriously, “what made you think you think this list was a good idea?” “We would,” Namjoon agrees, and looks at the list. “Jungkook told me to make it, ‘cause he said we’d probably fight with the radio the whole time.” “Song list,” he says as Namjoon sits next to him.

Taehyung scrambles to cover his paper until he realizes it’s just Namjoon. “What are you doing?” Namjoon asks a week later, in the back of the library. Seokjin’s blown in umbrella and three boy’s drenched uniforms isn’t the worst, but it was a start. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how different someone’s personality can be, as long as they can brave the worst together. They hadn’t even become friends until sophomore year of school, when Namjoon introduced them to each other one rainy day when Seokjin was the only one carrying an umbrella. The only ones who are actually graduating are Yoongi and Seokjin, but that’s the heart of the problem.

They’re going on a road trip to Busan after graduation. “We’ll use Seokjin hyung’s car! Right, hyung?” Namjoon doesn’t want to be a part of this. Jimin looks like he has this planned out, and that in itself is already worrying. Seokjin doesn’t look like he really wants to go either, from the way he’s staring at the floor. “Thank you, Taehyung,” Seokjin tells him, very unthankfully. “Not since prom,” Taehyung says, very helpfully. “He’s not seriously driving us in his mom’s SUV, right? Because I’m not going to step foot in there.” “Don’t worry!” Jimin says, “We’ll make lots of pit stops. “It’s why I walk to school instead of having my brother drive me.” Which means that when graduation comes around, when Jimin sits down at the lunch table with a loud, Let’s go on a road trip!, everyone who wants to say no doesn’t.

The problem with Jimin is that there is no problem, which means no one can ever say no to Jimin.

Cloud nine meaning jonghyun