I called Rina at ten the next morning, after messaging her and the boys to ask if we could do a call in the evening. They were all fine with that, and my excitement grew and grew over the next few hours. I was slightly absentminded at work, which did not go unnoticed by my neighbouring colleague, Jiho.

"What's up with you today? You're all excited and fidgety." He commented.

"Oh, um. It's nothing, just... nothing."

"Suuure it's nothing. It's a guy isn't it?"

"No."

"Oh, come on. Spit it out."

"My friend is moving back after living away for a while, so I'm really excited."

"Nice!" He picked up his phone and held it out to me. "Hey, can you tell that the bacterial growth has been inhibited in this picture or is it too similar to the previous one?" He flipped back to the previous picture. "Should I do every forty eight hours instead of every 24?"

"yeah, use every 48 hours. It'll be clearer, even if you have fewer readings. It'll look better on the presentation."

"Okay." He turned around. "Oh, y/n?"

"Yeah?"

"Your phone is ringing." He pointed to my phone, which was charging next to my laptop. I had put it on silent, so I hadn't heard it ring. I grabbed it and accepted the call without bothering to check caller id.

"Hello? Y/n?" Yoongi's voice seemed suddenly alien after us not meeting for so long.

"Hi, what's up?"

"You wanna meet after work today before we call Taehyung? It's been a while since we met."

"Sure, where do you wanna meet?"

"I'll be near your office building by four thirty, so I'll just wait downstairs."

"Sure, I should be done a bit before five, so that works."

"You want me to grab you guys some dinner on the way?"

"Nah, you don't need to buy dinner. I already kept some stuff aside for dinner tonight."

"See you then!"

"See you, bye!"

I set my phone down on the table to meet Jiho's amused eyes. "I knew it. You have a new boyfriend, don't you? I totally called it"

"That was not my boyfriend. I don't have a boyfriend."

He put on a bad imitation of my voice "nah, don't need to buy dinner, I already kept some stuff aside for dinner tonight."

"Oh, shut up. You do know I moved in with my brother recently, right?" It was a dumb lie to mislead him by implying that I was talking to my brother, but I wanted to finish my work right now and not have to put up with Jiho's teasing for the next few hours.

"Shoot I forgot. Oh my gosh that's so embarrassing, sorry," he turned around and continued to work on his charts.

"Huh. No problem." I turned back to my desk and continued working.

***

At four forty five exactly, I gathered all my things and walked out. Since Yoongi hadn't called yet, I guessed he wasn't at the building yet, which meant that I could do a quick trip to the coffee shop across the street to get us both some coffee and snacks by the time he came. 

 However, as the doors to the elevator slid open, revealing the downstairs lobby area, I saw him standing there, leaning against the counter, with a coffee in each hand. He seemed to be chatting with the receptionist, a pretty girl around my age or a year or two older who had joined about a month ago. 

I couldn't recall her name, since we hardly ever talked, seeing that we were in different floors and her shift only started in the afternoon, but I made a mental note to talk to her more often and get to know her.

I walked over to them, my sneakers squeaking on the tile, and Yoongi looked up at me, smiling. "Hey, y/n, I was just about to call you. Here." He handed me the coffee. "I hope you don't mind I took the liberty to buy you a small size."

"You read my mind, I was going to buy us coffees" I replied. "I hope I didn't interrupt your conversation," I said awkwardly, to both him and the reception girl.

"Oh, no, that's okay. He was just asking if I knew who you were. I wasn't sure, I got you confused with the other girl who left, but now I know who you are, which is great." She chirped sweetly. "I'm still getting the hang of this place. I planned to try and socialise, but the building is a bit confusing, especially the part that connects to the next building. I don't want to get lost." The poor girl looked so worried about that.

 I could sympathise- I was late for almost my first whole week of work here because I kept getting lost- every single hallway seemed to look the same.

"Well, I know you come in around the time of my lunch break, I can introduce you to people tomorrow? I can show you around as well, if you like." I offered

"Wow, thanks y/n!"

"No problem, uh..."

"Ara. Lee Ara."

I smiled at her. "Well then, I'll see you tomorrow, Ara!"

"Bye!"

Yoongi put his arm across my shoulders and steered me out of the building. We walked out onto the footpath, and I sipped my coffee, which had a little too much sugar in it, but I wasn't going to complain.

"So, what do you want to do until the call?"

"I haven't come to your new place yet, so I figured I'd invite myself over."

"Oh my gosh! You haven't come over yet? Wait, you haven't even met him since he came back?"

"Nope."

"What the heck. You're coming now." I grabbed his arm and steered him in the direction of my new place. We reached the in a few minutes, and I could tell that he was excited to see the place, and meet my brother.

When we reached, it was like I didn't even even exist. Yoongi's grin was as wide as I'd ever seen it, and even my brother was as excited to see him as he had been to see me.

"Hyung!" Yoongi barrelled across the room to give him a bro hug. "Ohmygosh! It's been so long! How are you?"

They fell into conversation, and it was like he'd never been away. They completely ignored me, so I washed up and changed into home clothes, and came out to give them some food. They were laughing hysterically to the point that it was mildly concerning, but I let it slide.

"Here," I said, laying down some food and milk on the little coffee table.

"Thanks y/n" Yoongi smiled at me.

"Ew, milk. I don't want milk," my brother whined. "I don't need it anymore I'm fully grown."

"Stop complaining, and just drink it. I'll give you cookies if you want but you need to drink it."

"You made cookies?" His eyes widened. "When?"

"Last night just around when you went to sleep."

"What time did you sleep? Don't sleep late."

"Ten thirty, its fine. It only takes me like fifty minutes to make them."

"Can I have some? How many did you make?"

"Sixteen. Well, fifteen. I ate one."

"Gimme."

"Okay. I'll get two for you. Yoongi, how many do you want?"

"Uh, one?"

"Okay I'll get two."

I went over to the box to take out the cookies, and glanced at the time. It was still before dark, and we had around two more hours until we needed to call Taehyung.

"Yoongi?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to go for a walk after this? We can be back before it gets dark and then you can have dinner with us if you want."

"Sure." He bit into a cookie. "Holy shit. This is good."

"Wait wait wait. Hold up. You just asked him if you could go for a walk." My brother said, holding his hands up in a wait gesture, his eyes narrowing. "Just the two of you."

I rolled my eyes. I knew where this was going, it happened way too often. I opened my mouth to say no, we are not dating, when he said-

"And you're not calling me along? How rude."

Oh. "Uhm, well, do you want to come along?"

"No."

I glared at him. "Then why should I ask you?"

"Because. I'm here, you can't just invite one person and not the other, that's really mean."

"Ugh." I smacked his arm.

"I love the way you two fight," Yoongi commented, leaning back against the couch and surveying the two of us. "It's so... I don't know. Wholesome. But you should come, hyung, if you can."

"I can't, I have to submit the application form by tonight, and I don't want to take any chances on it going late."

"Application form?" He asked. "What for?"

"Y/n didn't tell you? I'm applying for my PhD."

"You're what? That's the shit, hyung! Nice! In what?"

"Same as my major. Biomedical engineering. For cancer research from tech view"

"That's hella cool, hyung."

"Yeah, it's gonna be a hella lot of work though, I'm just about to apply. Then I'll be free for four weeks until they get back to me. Then hopefully I can start straightaway."

"Okay, so Yoongi, whenever you're done, you wanna go?"

"Sure." He stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth and got up. "Let's go."

We grabbed our jackets and left the apartment, walking towards the park. Since it was quite early, there were actually a few families around. 

Two kids, a boy and his little sister probably, ran past us, him squealing in delight every time she got close to him and tried to catch him. They reminded me of my brother and myself- when he was in second grade or so, he and one friend and I would play 'run away from y/n' in the play area of our neighbourhood. I smiled at the memory.

"Why are you smiling? It's kind of creepy." Yoongi said.

"those kids there. They kind of remind me of myself when I was younger."

"You know, I'm kind of jealous of you guys' relationship. I mean, when my family came over, my sister and I didn't even argue much."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"It would be, but it's almost like we're strangers. She's so polite with me, where you guys are like...family. I don't know. It's the little petty arguments that make you guys so much closer, you know? It's like if you and Rina never argued. Wouldn't that be weird?"

"Yeah, I guess. But if you feel like that, why don't you do something about it?"

"I don't know what to do. We've drifted so far apart, it's been so long since we've lived together."

"Just because you haven't lived together it doesn't mean you can't become close again. Look at me."

"Yeah, but you guys were close before, no?"

"Yoongi, you're overthinking it. You guys are siblings. Just reach out to her more often, it'll be fine."

"Okay," he grumbled. "But if I call you and ask for help, you have to help me."

"Of course I will, I'm not evil."

"You kind of are."

***

"Come here," I said, throwing my arm around Yoongi's shoulders. He tried to wriggle out of my grip.

We had been out for quite a while now, and the sun was starting to go down. We were walking on the sidewalk back towards home.

"Yah! Why are you like this? No wonder people think we're in a relationship."

"it's fine, so what if they think that? These are strangers. I only find it weird when it's people I actually know," I replied.

"Is this your way of pretending that you're in a relationship?"

"Yep, kinda."

"You don't even need to pretend, dude! You got out of a relationship not too long ago."

"Yoongi, first of all, Junsu and I were never technically in a proper relationship. Junsu never ever even held my hand! He's so against skinship. That's really not what I want in a significant other."

"Well, don't let your brother get the wrong idea. That'll be too awkward."

"You think? I live with him! He'd never let me go if I dated one of my family friends from childhood! Of course that'd be awkward!"

"Speaking of him, how's his love life going?" Yoongi asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"As far as I know, it's non existent."

"After all this time? He's not been interested in anyone?"

"Yeah. I don't know. I think maybe...He might be aromantic. I don't know, and I guess if it's not something he wants to share, then I'll let it go, you know?"

"Yeah." He put his arm around me as well, "that's considerate of you."

Pulling me closer, he said,  "you're right. It's nice to pretend that you're in a relationship, even if you're not." I knew who he was thinking about.

Of course, there was nobody to think about but her in his mind, though I couldn't help but wonder how he'd forgiven her after all the times she had hurt him. Just thinking of her put me off, so I shifted my thoughts to something else.

"Yoongi?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there anything specific you want to have for dinner, or are you okay with what we have at home?"

"I'll eat at home? Unless you only made enough food for the two of you. Then I'll order from out."

"No, it's fine. I made a bit extra by accident, actually, so it'll be fine."

"Plus there's always the cookies you baked."

I grinned. "Yeah."

With that, we walked back to my building, my heart full of excitement for the surprise to come.

A/n: so I actually came back and edited this a second time, and although it's now a bit shorter I feel like it'll go more smoothly into the storyline that I have planned up ahead. Happy thanksgiving, if you celebrate, I just wanted to say that we can make every day a day like thanksgiving if we just stop for a moment and appreciate all the beautiful things around us. 

Anyways, thanks for reading, and don't forget to vote and comment! Much love to you, wherever you are <3

PS, who do you think 'her' is? The one Yoongi thinks of? Tbh I have no idea where that is going, but stay tuned!