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Jimin supposes he shouldn't be surprised when Taehyung is claimed as a child of Hades, but he is.
"Unclaimed," Taehyung had said on his first day after successfully surviving a car chase with some empousa. Jimin's not entirely sure how they drove, considering their lower half is entirely comprised of a snake trunk, but Taehyung assured him they were hard to throw off his tail.
"Do you have any idea who your father is?" Jimin had asked. He remembers quietly dabbing a wet cloth at the large scrapes on Taehyung's face and wondering if he should ask about them, too. He didn't.
"An idea." Taehyung's smile had been grim. "But I don't think anyone here would really like to know."
For an entire year, Taehyung stayed in the Hermes cabin, collecting a huge group of friends, acquaintances, and friendly acquaintances, and all of them vanish in a single evening.
"Kim Taehyung," Chiron's voice had boomed last night, in the middle of dinner. "Son of Hades."
Taehyung had just stared at the evil looking bone sword that had materialized in front of him, gilded with gold and fixed with jewels and jagged-looking obsidian, and that same smile was on his face. Like he knew his time was up.
The other Hermes kids had all leaned away at their table, like he was something too dirty to touch, and Taehyung had stood and grabbed the sword from the air, held it up and bowed his head dutifully in thanks before walking out the door. His half-eaten meal was still sitting on the table.
Jimin wasn't on clean-up that day, but he'd borrowed a cloth and wiped the dust off of the lonely black table in the back of the dining pavilion.
There's a week that went by when Jimin didn't see Taehyung talking with anyone, sparring with anyone, laughing with anyone, because no one would come near. In the early light of the morning once Jimin has decided it's finally time to sleep, he sees Taehyung lugging his small pile of belongings across the green to the Hades cabin. Taehyung smiles at him but his eyes are tired.
"I don't see why it bothers you so much," Hoseok comments, pulling his arrows from the bullseye in the heat of midday. "You've only talked with him once."
Three times actually, but Jimin doesn't bother correcting him. "I don't know. It just seems silly that he's well-loved one day and a pariah the next."
Namjoon is fumbling with his bow and Hoseok snatches it out of his dangerous grasp before anything bad can happen. "Something tells me he knew it was coming," he says absently, letting Hoseok demonstrate how to properly hold the weapon for the nth time. Namjoon has been a camper here for long enough to become the Athena cabin counselor, but archery has always been his weakness. And cooking. He's a terrible cook.
And maybe Taehyung did know it was coming. Maybe his idea about who his dad was was more than an idea, a fact. But out of all of the gods in the world, Hades would have been Jimin's last guess, if not for the fact that Taehyung were so reluctant to admit it.
Taehyung smiles like the sun and makes friends easily and he's beautiful in the way that summer mornings are beautiful. Bright, warm, soft, happy, easy. A mantra that plays in the background as he walks past.
Not that Jimin thinks about it.
After that first day, when Jimin was helping heal him in the Big House, they went their separate ways. Jimin is also friendly, wouldn't have minded being close with him, but Taehyung ran in different circles, and the Aphrodite cabin had enough people lingering around that Jimin felt silly pursuing someone who didn't seem interested.
It's been a year since Taehyung arrived at Camp Half-Blood, and Jimin has talked with him three times.
The second time was after someone had been trying to get Jimin's number for approximately half an hour.
"You're too polite," Taehyung had told him.
Jimin remembers jumping, surprised, because he hadn't know Taehyung was there. He'd just popped up like a shadow in broad daylight.
"He's a nice guy," Jimin had replied, blushing slightly at being caught in an embarrassing situation. The boy's name he couldn't remember, but he'd invited Jimin to hang out at his house at some point once the school year started, which would have been fine except that it was not fine and Jimin certainly wasn't going to travel that far out of politeness. He's a year-rounder, nowhere to go except for camp and, supposedly, this relative stranger's house.
"Nice guys get the hint after the fourth soft pass." Taehyung sat down next to Jimin where he was arranging flowers and picked up a flower sitting in front of them, a delicate white camellia, the stem poking out between his fingers as he handed it over.
"I could have been rude," Jimin had answered firmly. "I decided not to be, because I'm also a nice guy."
Taehyung had laughed. His long fingers had picked up a bizarre collection of flowers, things that shouldn't go together, and made it into something beautiful. For a moment, if Jimin wasn't aware that Taehyung's mother was an overly-busy paralegal somewhere in the midwest, he would have guessed that Taehyung's godly parent was Demeter.
He looked at home there.
"I think it's so weird that Taehyung is a son of Hades," Jungkook says, throwing a javelin at the bullseye and hitting it with little to no effort.
"Why?" Jimin asks, flipping his knives in his hands. His aim wasn’t as good as Hoseok's, the son of Apollo, and his strength wasn't as strong as Jungkook's, the son of Ares, but he wasn't any less deadly. "Does he seem too weak?"
"Too happy." Jungkook goes and pulls his weapon out of the target with a grunt. The arena is empty except for them. Jungkook is competitive but shy, and often feels at odds with his more rowdy brothers and sister, so they often train together during free time out of the public eye. "All of the other children of Hades I've met or heard of are--"
"Deadly?"
"Miserable." Jungkook stretches his back and picks up Jimin's bow, testing the weight of the string. "They've got...darkness around them. The death thing, you know."
Jimin isn't sure why he feels so protective. "You're a son of Ares but you cry whenever you have to attack anything."
Jungkook has been at camp for nearly as long as Jimin, sometime before Jimin started spending his falls and winters here. He'd come up over the hill dragging a girl on his back, a girl named Yuna, his same age friend, and he'd been covered in blood and crying. It's one of the most vivid memories Jimin has.
The younger boy never likes being reminded. He grimaces, fiddling with the tip of an arrow. "I suppose that's true." He bites his lip and looks at Jimin. "But you're a son of Aphrodite and you fit the bill."
"I was unclaimed for a long time," Jimin tells him softly, taking the bow and arrows back. "People thought I was a son of Apollo because I could sing and that I was a son of Hermes because I have a big skill set and that I was a hundred other things because of a hundred other reasons."
"You fit your parent," Jungkook tells him.
Jimin hits the target. "Not everyone does."
Kim Taehyung certainly doesn't.
The third time Jimin spoke with him, Kim Taehyung was covered in mud and slime and locked out of the bathroom.
"Do you..." Jimin had hefted his clean laundry up on his hip. "Do you need help?"
He remembers Taehyung had turned around, eyes wild. "Sorry."
Jimin doesn't know what Taehyung was apologizing for. Being dirty, maybe, or trying to break into a bathroom in the dead of night. "Is the door locked?"
"I think it's jammed but all the Hephaestus kids are asleep and I'm too tired to muscle is down," Taehyung had whined cutely. Gangly and lumbering and covered in mud but he was cute, even in the dark. "But all of my stuff is in there. I just want to shower!"
It was late. Jimin has shushed him, held a finger to his own lips and reached into his laundry basket, pulling out a towel. Not the white one, his favorite, but the next one he could grab, and tossed it to Taehyung. "I'd tell you jump in the lake, but it's not safe at night." He nibbled on his lip. Jimin remembers that because he only does it when he's nervous. He doesn't know why he was nervous. "Maybe if you flirted with a naiad they'd protect you."
Taehyung had smiled. "Thank you." He'd bowed his head. "This will do." He hangs the towel over his head, a cute linen ghost. "Your name is Jimin." It wasn't a question.
"You're Taehyung." Jimin remembers smiling. "Sleep well and do your laundry in the morning."
Taehyung's laughter followed him even after he'd shut his cabin door and convinced himself to sleep.
But that was a different time.
There hasn't been a son of Hades at camp for a while. Usually, unusual offspring are treated like novelties, experience a short burst of popularity before they melt into the social life of the other demigods. Despite having already cemented himself in the social hierarchy, it seems as though Taehyung’s standing has been shuffled and displaced in the span of a single night, and every day things look grim.
"They'll get used to it," Seokjin, his cabin counselor, had told him when Jimin pointed out Taehyung training alone, eating alone, being alone. "Once they do, he'll have his old friends back. It's an adjustment for everyone."
It's surprising how easy it is for people to be assholes. People sneer at Taehyung and Jimin wants to say something but holds his tongue. The son of Hades isn't bothered by the words. It's when he's left alone that he looks the most tired.
At the campfire, Jimin saves Taehyung a seat.
"Taehyung!" Jimin calls when he sees Taehyung heading towards the outside of the circle. "Tae!" he tries again, because he heard his flock of friends call him that before. Taehyung looks at him, blinks slowly, and Jimin pats the seat beside him pointedly.
The other campers aren't silent, but there is the pressure of several eyes causing goose-bumps on Jimin skins. He just smiles wider and pats the bench more firmly.
"Is this a trick?" Taehyung asks once he's standing in front of Jimin.
"We're too far from the fire for me to push you in," Jimin assures him. "Don't be so paranoid."
Taehyung sits gently on the wood beside him. He smells like strawberries and woodsmoke. It seems like it should be at odds but it's not. It suits him. Jimin isn't sure what a son of Hades should smell like but strawberries fit, so he supposes that's what a son of Hades smells like. What Taehyung smells like.
"I didn't realize we were friends," Taehyung says, and although it does sound slightly paranoid, it doesn't sound accusatory.
"If I say we're friends then we're friends." Jimin hands him a marshmallow with sticky fingers. "You're sitting on my friendship bench. We're friends now."
Taehyung grins so bright and it's the fourth time Jimin wants to kiss him.
The first time was when he'd been cleaning blood off of Taehyung's face in the Big House.
The second time was after someone had been trying to get Jimin's number for approximately half an hour.
The third time was when Kim Taehyung was covered in mud and slime and locked out of the bathroom.
For a fourth time, in the light of the campfire, Jimin controls himself.
"Friends," Taehyung agrees, popping the marshmallow unroasted and whole in his mouth and giving him a sticky grin.
There are gifts that Aphrodite bestows upon her children. Charm and beauty and grace and empathy.
Jimin has always been able to sense the promise of love, like a smell on the wind. Another gift.
Tonight, love smells like strawberries and woodsmoke.
Jimin smiles and tells himself he'll wait. He's patient.
The eighth time they talk, Taehyung tells Jimin something secret. "I spent my childhood in the Underworld." He smiles as he stirs his porridge. Jimin is sitting at the Hades table even though it's not allowed. No one tells him he can't. He smiles at the people who look at them weird, even though his hair stands on end.
He smiles at Seokjin and Seokjin smiles back. Jimin pops a grape into his mouth and focuses on Taehyung. "Why?" The Underworld is no place for children.
"I didn't have anywhere else to go." Taehyung shrugs. "At 7 I made Cerberus sick because I accidentally fed him chocolate, and Persephone convinced my father to put me into foster care." He laughs. "It was a bit of a downgrade."
"How did you end up here?" Jimin asks.
"I ran away." Taehyung frowns. "Several times. The last time I just...let myself be led here."
Jimin swallows his breakfast and the lump in his throat. "I'm glad."
Love smells like maple syrup this morning, heavy in his mouth.
The fourteenth time they meet Jimin makes Taehyung a promise. "One day I'll tell you what I can do."
"I want to know now." Taehyung almost falls off of the lava wall, he's so busy whining. There are other campers out here right now, paying them too much attention. Taehyung seems to have hit the novelty stage. It probably has something to do with the fact that he conjured skeletal soldiers to help him win during Capture the Flag and then made them do a victory dance.
"I'm not cool like you are," Jimin tells him. "Can I bring the dead to life?"
Taehyung grimaces. "I can't do that either. That'd be fucked up."
Jimin just laughs and doesn't warn Taehyung when a cinder flies onto his shirt and burns a hole. "One day, I'll tell you."
Love smells like humidity and sweat.
The twenty sixth time they meet, love smells like wet dirt and a storm, and Jimin still wants to kiss Taehyung, son of Hades, and Taehyung lets him.
"I can smell the possibilities of love," Jimin tells him later.
"That's fucking weird." Taehyung kisses him again.
"Yeah," Jimin agrees, smiling at nothing.
"Are we in love?" Taehyung asks when they meet for the thirtieth time, his head resting in Jimin lap as they sit under the big tree at the top of the hill.
"I think we might be one day." Jimin plays with Taehyung's hair.
Taehyung grins up at him. "What does love smell like today?"
Jimin sighs, and he's happy. "You smell like strawberries."