Work Text:
“This is awful. None of my parts move the way they should.”
“Hey, those are my parts and they move just fine, thank you very much.”
“Maybe they move fine for you, but… why does anyone need this much leg?” Jimin asked, gesturing down at Namjoon’s legs with Namjoon’s hands. “This is really unnecessary.”
“Are you kidding? I’d love a little extra leg right about now.”
“Watch it. Those are my legs and they’re just fine.”
“But how do you get anywhere on time without running? I had to practically jog to make it across campus in time to catch the bus. And what’s with these hands? My coffee cup barely fit.” Namjoon waved Jimin’s hands in front of Jimin’s face. Well, his face. That Jimin was wearing. It was all very complicated and unsettling.
“I leave on time, instead of getting distracted by theoretical impossibilities that might need to be documented for future research, Namjoon, like a normal person.” Jimin crossed Namjoon’s arms across Namjoon’s chest and pouted with Namjoon’s face.
“Look, those theories are what keep us in business, so you should be just a tiny bit more grateful, alright?” Namjoon tried to sound stern, but it was hard when he had to use Jimin’s sweet voice to do it.
“As though the business of academia made us rich or anything.” Jimin, on the other hand, had no problems conveying his displeasure.
“It keeps us travelling, which is almost the same thing!” Namjoon threw his arms in the air.
“Be careful with those. I don’t want you to break anything,” Jimin said, running Namjoon’s hands through Namjoon’s hair, which was much less satisfying than being able to do it in his own skin.
“So, did you run into anyone?” Namjoon asked, barely resisting the urge to look around suspiciously.
“Yeah, like seven different people on the walk here. Your feet are somehow programmed to find every little crack in the pavement.”
“No, I mean people we know. Did you have to talk to anyone? Pretending to be me? Did anyone realize that I wasn’t me?”
Jimin took a long sip of his tea just to watch Namjoon squirm a little longer. It wasn’t as fun as it usually was, because instead of Namjoon’s usually gangly, dimpled self, Jimin was watching his own face, badly contorted with concern. “Stop squinting at me like that. You’re going to give my face all kinds of wrinkles, and I’ll have to live with it.”
“That’s assuming we can figure out how to switch back,” Namjoon said, but took a deep breath and tried to smooth his face. Jimin’s face. Whatever.
“Anyway, I only had to talk to Mrs. Yoo in the lobby, and that was only because I hit myself in the face with the door. You’re stronger than you look, you know.”
“Oh no. Did you ask about her cats? I always ask about her cats and if you didn’t she’ll know for sure that something weird is going on.”
“Calm down, she started talking about the cats about half a second after she chastised me for thinking too much and not looking where I was going. I just thanked her and tried to do that dimple thing you do so she would let me go.”
“What dimple thing? I don’t do a dimple thing.”
“Are you serious? You most certainly do a dimple thing. It’s adorable and people get distracted and give you whatever you want.”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to right now.”
“Well, regardless, it’s alright, because she invited us to tea next week. You know she’s convinced that we’ll starve to death.” Jimin chuckled and tried to pitch his voice higher. “ Two bachelors cannot abide in the same home without disaster .” Jimin scrunched his nose and shook his head.
“Was that supposed to be Mrs. Yoo? Because that was a terrible impression,” Namjoon said with a chuckle.
“It’s not my fault. It’s your stupid deep voice. It sounds better when I can do it with my own voice.”
“Speaking of which,” Namjoon started.
“I’m ignoring that pun,” Jimin interjected.
“I didn’t intend to pun, so obviously I’m ignoring it, too. What I’m not ignoring is the fact that I’m currently wearing your whole skin like a costume and that’s definitely starting to impact my day.” Namjoon rested his head, which was Jimin’s, in his hands, which were also Jimin’s.
“Of course. Walking around with your face certainly hasn’t been the highlight of my week either, but I’m not sure where to start.”
“Well we have to fix it.”
“Of course we have to fix it, but how? We were both so slobbering drunk last night, I don’t think we could find that shop sober.” Jimin drained his tea and began pouring a second cup.
“We could go back to where we started and retrace our steps. I’m sure things will look at least a little familiar. We started somewhere familiar, didn’t we? The little cafe by the university? We had dinner and then… I don’t remember. This is going to be harder than I thought.” Namjoon pulled Jimin’s cup towards him and drained it.
“Slow down. We had dinner and then you wanted to show me the book you’d discovered, but we got sidetracked because you wanted to see that new movie, and so we tried to head to the movie theatre, but you lost your way and we ended up in at least three different bars asking for directions, but then we had to drink in each of them, and surprisingly, your sense of direction doesn’t get any better after the liberal application of liquor.” Jimin slid his cup out of Namjoon’s hands and refilled it again.
“Right. It was a fascinating book. The future the author is advocating sounds terrifying, but I don’t find any particular flaw in his logic. We should use all the technology at our discretion to improve the human condition, but the repercussions of a fully automated society are staggering.”
“Namjoon. Focus.”
“Don’t say that with my voice. It’s disturbing.” Namjoon shuddered. He didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the strangeness of having a conversation with himself in this way. There weren’t adequate words, not in any of the languages he spoke.
“I’m sorry. I want to fix this, too, before either of us have to do anything… unseemly in the other’s skin, but since we haven’t isolated the actual cause--”
“It was the old woman! It had to be. She put something in that wine and now we’re like this!”
“We suspect that’s true but we don’t have any proof.” Jimin ticked the points off on his fingers.
“We were too drunk to see straight, our memories are compromised, the transformation occurred sometime while we were sleeping and that leaves us with a lot more questions than answers.”
“This is why we’re a team. I have the ideas and you--”
“Do the real work of making them into reality?” Jimin said sweetly. Or he tried. It sounded much more like a sultry entendre than he intended, but that was just Namjoon’s voice.
“I was going to say do the research, but yes. That, too.”
“There is the possibility that this is only temporary. Maybe we can sleep it off the same way we… slept it on?” Jimin shrugged. Being optimistic was a terrible amount of effort.
“We should sleep in the same places then, just in case. Reduce the number of variables as much as possible.”
“But I don’t want to sleep in your office. That chair is a nightmare and my neck always gets stiff.”
“My neck does just fine, and since it’s my neck that will be in it, you really shouldn’t complain.”
“Good point,” Jimin nodded. “Should we also get blisteringly drunk again? For consistency?”
“An excellent idea. I think a drink or nine will help me forget that I’m short.”
Jimin raised his hand and thanked the inane transformation for giving him the reach to rap Namjoon sharply-not too sharply, he didn’t want to leave a mark-on the top of his head. Namjoon grunted and rubbed his scalp.
“That was uncalled for, Jimin.”
“Do you have to call me hyung since I’m in your skin?”
“I’m not going to, no matter what the rules of polite society dictate. I’m still me, no matter what body I’m in, which means you should really be calling me--”
“I don’t know if that’s really true. I concede the point that you’re still you, but this is the older of the two bodies, so it deserves the honorific.” Jimin grinned. He hoped he was doing the dimple thing. Namjoon deserved to see what it was like to be on the receiving end of that cheeky smile.
“You’re not giving respect to the body, you’re giving it to the person, and if this little experiment has proved anything it’s the absolute existence of a soul in some capacity as a separate entity from the physical brain and body, which means that you still have to call me hyung.”
“Not until I’m good and drunk, though.”
“Agreed.”