Yoongi eventually figured out that his college life was just going to get worse.

Nightly calls from his father complaining about his class status, and the turmoil of feelings he suddenly found himself having for Hoseok affected his work, and soon enough, his mental well-being.

The classics were "No, I can't like him. This is just a phase."

"My brain chemistry is just acting all fucked up."

"I do not like Jung Hoseok."

And every Friday night, at 8:45 pm, when he heard that soft knock on his door, his heart raced.

"The body responds to stress, worry, and anxiety in the same ways that it responds to fear and excitement - by activating the "fight or flight" system."

"At a chemical level, your body releases a series of hormones that make you hyper-alert, focused, and energized, and this chemical cascade causes increased heart rate."

Yoongi recited the passage he read in his medical notes, reminding himself that whatever he was feeling was just a chemical response, it was just his body preparing him for whatever may happen, and that developing a crush on Hoseok had absolutely nothing to do with his rapid heart rate.

But the thing was, Yoongi definitely did not like Hoseok in any way shape or form.

He would often complain about how Hoseok was clingy, annoying, and just too happy to his friends, and they would just shake their head and smile.

"Why do you keep his paintings then?" They would ask.

Yoongi always answered with, "Because I feel bad if I throw them out." He would feel absolutely awful if he ever got rid of the unfinished works of art.

But he kept them because Hoseok made them for him.

For him.

Whenever Yoongi reminded himself that Hoseok was doing this for him, his heart did that stupid fluttering thing again, and he would have to go find some medical or scientific explanation as to why he was feeling this way.

After all, Hoseok was an optimist and Yoongi was a pessimist. The two kinds of people just didn't work very well together.

But some part of Yoongi's mind wanted it to work out, he wanted to wake up to Hoseok's smile, and he wanted to have to constantly put up with his random outbursts of laughter and joy.

The third painting was just like all the others. There was the female subject, with floral arrangements either in her hair, and around her face.

But Yoongi loved it, and placed it on the wall next to the others.

~~~

"Are you ever gonna talk to him?"

Hoseok was walking around campus with his good friend Taehyung. That day, classes had been canceled, so Hoseok called Taehyung.

The two were best friends, but recently Hoseok found both of them drifting away from each other.

"No! Why would I talk to him?" Hoseok laughed, taking a sip of the coffee he got from the café down the street.

"Because you obviously have a huge crush on this Yoongi person, and it's painful watching you two ignore each other." Taehyung replied, smiling as well.

"Who knows, maybe Yoongi likes you as well."

"What is this, middle school?" Hoseok asked. "He didn't want me to talk to him anymore, and so I stopped."

"And yet you make all those paintings for him."

"They're just paintings."

"Not to Yoongi." Taehyung smiled. "I've been to his dorm before, and he has a whole wall sectioned off for the paintings that you make him."

"Well, it's nice that he doesn't just put them off to the side." Hoseok could feel his hopes rising, as if Yoongi had actually developed feelings for him, but all of it was unlikely.

Taehyung laughed out loud, grabbing Hoseok's shoulder for support. "You really don't understand do you?"

Hoseok shook his head, looking at Taehyung in confusion.

Taehyung smiled, and brushed it off. "Just forget I ever said anything."

~~~

"Are you ever gonna talk to him?"

On the other side of campus, in Yoongi's room, Namjoon was pestering him with the same question as Taehyung.

"Believe me, I would love to talk to Hoseok, but the last time we talked I basically told him to never speak to me again."

"And? Does that matter?"

"Yeah, it kind of does, you dipshit." Yoongi replied, hitting Namjoon upside the head.

Namjoon chuckled, rubbing the back of his head, and looked Yoongi in the eye.

"You're afraid to talk to him." Namjoon grinned.

Yoongi gasped in fake amazement, placing his hand on his chest dramatically.

"Oh, Kim Namjoon, thank you for pinpointing exactly why I won't talk to Hoseok, for I am afraid of him." Yoongi reached behind him and grabbed a medical textbook, hitting him over the head with it.

"Jesus Yoongi, you don't need to smack me over the head every time I piss you off."

"I am not afraid of Jung Hoseok." Yoongi replied, setting the textbook down.

"Great, if you're not afraid of him, then you have to talk to him."

Yoongi groaned. "I'm not talking to him."

Namjoon shrugged, leafing through the pages of the textbook. "Fine, be stubborn. I bet Hoseok is still hurt over the fact that you were an asshole, and now you won't even apologize. Nice."

Yoongi sat back against his bed, looking up at the ceiling. He could feel the empathy taking over his common sense, and he groaned again.

"Fine. I'll talk to him."