Archive of Our Own ^beta

There were only three things that Kim Taehyung had been able to register when his dignity came crumbling down around him in significant, assumably irreparable pieces.  First, the distinct sound of a camera shutter quivering in response to its owner’s ministrations. The second was the not-so-uncomfortable afternoon breeze drifting lazily across the bare surface of his ass.  And the third, the demented snicker of none other than Park Fucking Jimin, planted firmly on the other side of the quad, bent over hysterically in a position not so much unlike Taehyung himself. The preceding events are as follows:

No one ever thinks that university will be hard when they sign up for it.  And why would they? High school is hard. It's a straight up shit-show of spoiled rich kids that are pampered to the gills in brand name clothing and devices and evil teachers that think that they know what's best, all while fruitlessly battling one’s surging hormones and mood swinging, pendulum-esque emotions and having more personal freedom and simultaneously not enough.  That is hard. College entrance exams are hard, too. They tell you that.  They prepare you for that shit, but that's about all they prepare you for.  After that, after you've gotten your acceptance letter and they can sleep well knowing that they've done their jobs, you are most certainly on your own with a big, fat, capital O.  No one ever has the decency to warn you what's in store for you after all of that.

Taehyung, adequately high-achieving twenty-year-old that did get into a good college (thank you very much), did not, in no uncertain terms, know how the fuck he was supposed to take care of himself, even after he'd already technically been doing so for more than a year already.  Really, how was one supposed to get through the day without constantly calling their mother for assistance? How did one go about applying for a job, or renting an apartment, or settling a neighborly dispute over newspaper claims with the dickhead next door? How did taxes work? Which do you put in first, the milk or the cereal?  How do you manage to feed yourself and not flunk out of your classes at the same time? And perhaps most importantly, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to release Taehyung into the throngs of adulthood completely unequipped? He always knew that god had a funny sense of humor. And maybe that was it, wasn't it? Maybe Taehyung had been a serial killer in a past life.  Or a sketchy lawyer for serial killers.  A complete and utter bastard and this was some sort of sick retribution because-

“You're totally going to flunk your econ test at this rate.”  Park Jimin sat on the other side of the fiberboard desk resting so conveniently (and really because it was the only place for it) at the foot of Taehyung’s bed.  Taehyung, alternatively, was positioned on his stomach in the middle of the mattress, his face pressed into a textbook as he considered the validity of his life choices.

He lifted his head unceremoniously in acknowledgement before lowering his eyes to the object he had been using as a pillow rather than a learning tool, only to come face to face with the confirmation of Jimin’s previous statement.

“Fuck, you're right.”  And with a sigh, Taehyung tucked his head back into the sporadically highlighted and still marginally damp pages.

“Do you ever think that maybe you're not cut out for this whole college thing we got goin’ on?”  Taehyung twirled the highlighter uselessly around his index and middle finger to his ring finger, then back again.

“You mean the thing you're paying nearly seven million won a year for?” Jimin questioned somewhat innocently, a knowing expression dominating his childishly handsome features.

“Yeah, that thing.  It's even worse when you put a price tag on it, don't you think?”

“I guess, Tae,” he replied mildly, “but I don't seem to have the same kind of love-hate relationship with it that you do.”

“And to think, you don't even have to be here.  You could start working right now if you wanted to.”  

Not that he was jealous, particularly, but he couldn't help but think Jimin might be a masochist to opt for a college education.  He was a dancer, a damn skilled one at that, and Taehyung didn't really think that performing a few times a year in showcases for the school’s fine arts department would make him that much better.  But Jimin's parents were more than glad to pay for it, and a few more years studying wouldn't hurt him, Taehyung figured. Though he wasn't sure that it was so beneficial for him .

“I would like to think that I put a little more effort in for my career than that.”  He shrugged easily, flipping through the pages of his identical textbook, though admittedly better maintained than his roommate’s.  “Besides, I always have economics to fall back on.” He grinned as he finally settled on the correct page, glancing up briefly to stare at Taehyung’s untidy mop of brown hair.

Taehyung grunted when he lifted his head again.  “Just because you’re somehow not failing the exams doesn't mean that you're any better at it than me, and since I'm shit at it, you might want to figure out a different backup plan.”  He rubbed dutifully at his temples as if to physically ease the tension there.

“Hnnn, I could always be a stripper.  But as my husband, I feel like it might threaten your masculinity if I make more money than you.”

“I'm just glad you're finally thinking about using your ass for more than just picking up pervy upperclassmen.  Though I think it might hurt Yoongi’s masculinity if you keep referring to me as your husband.”

Jimin waved a hand dismissively in Taehyung’s direction.  “He should be used to it by now.” After seeming to consider for a moment, he spoke again.  “And for the record, my ass doesn't just work on upperclassmen. It works on the professors too.  How in the hell do you think I'm passing economics when you're not?”

Kim Taehyung dropped back down into his textbook with a poorly stifled groan.  Kim Taehyung hereby gives up on his pursuit of higher education.

For all of his fanfare, Taehyung did return to classes the next day with the same stubbornly determined-not-to-go-crawling-back-to-his-family attitude that had always offered him the proper encouragement before.  And despite his treacherous ways, Jimin was right there supporting him the whole time.

In all fairness, Taehyung and Jimin didn't have the most average of friendships, which was perfectly suiting in its own right given that they had not met in the most average manner.  It was back in their first year of high school, both having just barely made it into their school of choice—a common theme for the two, it seemed—when they suddenly found themselves thrust into a situation that was entirely not their fault.  Jimin had only gone into the restroom to do his business in peace and then leave just the same, and Taehyung had only come in when he heard the very loud shattering noise from the hallway. Neither were sure what Kim Namjoon, their fellow classmate and student representative, had done in order to break the sink in half, water sprouting and gushing from every orifice, but he had somehow managed it and no teacher was willing to believe that Namjoon, despite his noble pleas and explanations, was capable of such destruction.  

No, Asshole Teacher Lim decided.  Taehyung and Jimin, still strangers at the time, must have been goofing off together at best, and deliberately vandalizing school property, worst case scenario.  The two served their undeserved punishment cleaning the school valiantly, and had bloomed a sort of inseparable bond in that same timeframe. Namjoon, too, had since become one of their best friends, and even though he had sold out for a massive scholarship to study linguistics at another nearby university, he was forgiven.  He was still loved.

Becoming Jimin's roommate had been the most logical course of action to Taehyung.  In the five years following the mishap of Namjoon’s unrefined ways, Taehyung and Jimin had shackled themselves into a very brother-like affiliation with all of the benefits of having a legitimate brother, plus acquiring someone to cheat off of on tests when the need so presented itself.  By the time their final year came around, Taehyung's parents considered Jimin an honorary son, and, likewise, Jimin’s mother had automatically started setting an extra place at their dinner table each night. And thankfully enough, the exams had worked out in their favor, Jimin making an agreeable enough roommate, if not the cleaner and more responsible part of the duo.  And everything was good and fine and fucking dandy, except for the actual college and college classes part.

“Are you even paying attention right now?”  Hoseok, a senior that had taken Jimin—and by extension, Taehyung—under his wing from the first hour of orientation, sat across from the famous pair at their usual lunch table in the cafeteria, picking away unhappily at his cran-walnut salad.  The restrictive dancer diet was rather usual for him as of late. The scowl, however, was not. Taehyung liked to think that one was probably the result of the other.

“I wouldn't take it personally, hyung.”  Jimin popped a chunk of spicy chicken into his mouth with a cheeky grin.  His lips were stained from the sauce, matching the brilliant, Disney mermaid red he had dyed his hair.  “He's been doing that a lot lately.”

“Sorry,” Taehyung mumbled, picking up a bit of his own japchae with the end of his chopsticks.  Hoseok seemed to soften. “It's just all of these classes, you know? Sort of kicking my ass.”

“Shouldn't have fast tracked your psych degree then, huh?”  Hoseok pushed another piece of lettuce past his teeth, grimacing as it went down.  “Should've been an underachiever like me.”

If there was ever anything Taehyung was absolutely sure of, it was that Hoseok was one of the least underachieving people he had ever met.  But he also figured that there was a point to be made there.

“Oh, I think he's figuring it out.”  Jimin supplied helpfully, reaching across the table and spearing a vegetable from Hoseok’s plate in pity.  He replaced it with a few cut pieces of his grilled chicken.

“Believe me, I'm kicking myself for it now.”  

And he was, if anyone was concerned.  Taehyung had never had any issues in school, after all.  He was the type of student that could pull good grades out of his ass with very limited amounts of effort and make it look like it was nothing at all, so of course he had chosen a career largely based in an academic environment because, really, how much worse could it possibly be?  High school had falsely promised him ideals of grandeur and ease. Essentially, a degree without having to actually work for one. In retrospect, Taehyung should have sensed that something was off there.

“Well if you're really so stressed out, you should have been listening.”  Hoseok picked up a bit of the chicken and chewed it with a pleased hum. “I was telling you two that Namjoon texted earlier while I was at practice.  He and Jin hyung are having a party tonight, said to drag your asses over there an hour before so we can get a head start on the booze.”

“Because no one wants to host a party sober,” Jimin stated rather knowingly.

“Exactly.  I'm bringing one of the underclassmen in my dance class too.  Poor kid’s a real straight arrow, never been drunk in his life.”  Chewed on some more of the younger’s food, swallowed. “So Yoongi and I are gonna get ‘em fucked up.  You guys in?”

Taehyung glanced over at the male beside him quite pointlessly.  He was already jittering with excitement, tapping his feet and twisting his fingers like he thought no one would take notice, and that was enough of an answer for Taehyung.

“Oh yeah, we’ll be there.”

Taehyung, thankfully, had no more classes on his roster for the day after his lunchtime discussion with Hoseok, and only one the next morning.  Which was great given his intentions for that afternoon. Jimin, similarly, would be free to get shitfaced before the party, so long as he was sober enough to get them home in the early hours of the morning.  Taehyung certainly wouldn't be.

He smiled as he pushed open the door to his standard, and quite cramped, sophomore dorm room.  If there was one redeeming quality about the college experience, Taehyung liked to think that it was the room.  Even despite how small it was, it was his first independent home away from home, his first taste of the freedom that had so thoroughly alluded him throughout his high school career.  He could do what he wanted and say what he wanted. He could stay out until five in the morning drinking and, though he wasn't necessarily the type, screwing any and every thing that moved.  Well, most things, anyway, and there was hardly anyone that had the capability to reel him in quite like his family living hours away did. Besides the capacity for debauchery, having Jimin’s rather endless supply of advice and expertise at his disposal was also a perk, he supposed.

Taehyung dropped the backpack he was carrying at the foot of his bed and offered a loud, exaggerated stretch as Jimin ambled in behind him.  He tugged at the end of Taehyung's shirt in passing—because Taehyung had somehow grown enough in the last few months for the flat surface of his stomach to protrude when the too-short fabric lifted—with a snicker.  He sat down at his desk to no doubt begin the homework that he had no problems keeping up with.  Taehyung grunted, flopping down on his mattress with a decidedly graceless thunk.

“So who d’ya think Hoseok is bringing to the party?” he questioned, his eyes drooping languidly while his hand flip flopped openly above his chest in an indecisive manner.  He adjusted his head against whatever pillow he had managed to throw himself down on.

“Don't know,” Jimin replied easily, glancing up from the well organized pile of printed notes to take in his roommate’s state.  “Seriously? Are you looking at stealing Yoongi’s ultimate lethargic title or what?”

Taehyung shrugged.  “Yoongi doesn't need to worry.  He's the master of sleeping anywhere.  No one can take that shit from him.”

Jimin nodded.  “Fair enough.” He turned fully in his chair, more amused than judging as he stared over at Taehyung.  

“Anyways,” the hand flicked again, “he said some guy from dance.  Know who that could be?”

Jimin leaned back in his chair, tipping his head in thought.  “Maybe Taemin? Or Minghao.” He crossed his legs at the ankles.  “It would have to be a freshman, wouldn't it? Can't imagine many of the older guys being so moral that they've never had a drink.”

“He didn't say that.  He said the guy's never been drunk.”  Though Taehyung couldn't say how many of those he knew, either.

“Same difference, Tae.  How many college freshmen do you think have had just one drink before?  None. That's because we're known for our frequent lapses in judgement and excessive drinking styles.”

And if that wasn't the truth, Taehyung didn't know what was.  He supposed that there were perhaps other students with more restraint, more integrity than he or Jimin, but how many of them could resist a nice, cold somaek after a long day of classes?  Who could resist maybe having a few more? Not a whole fucking lot, Taehyung was willing to bet.

“Sound reasoning.”

“It is.  And anyway, I guess we'll see who it is tomorrow.”

“Or we'll already be too drunk by the time he gets there to figure it out.”

“That's the spirit.”

Kim Namjoon and Kim Seokjin lived in an apartment complex five blocks east of their shared university campus in the heart of the city.  It was an upscale neighborhood, innovative, artsy, even a little bit swanky, but affordable enough for two well-off students making it on their own.  Taehyung and Jimin stepped out of the subway station some twenty-five or so minutes after first leaving their dorm, each lugging a weighted plastic bag of their own after them.  It was customary, at least by this point, to pitch in with the snack and drink supply for the party. Their group generally took turns with it. Yoongi and Hoseok one week, Jimin and Taehyung the next, and whatever Seokjin made or ordered Namjoon to run out and buy supplemented in between.  But for a big party like this, where it wasn't just the six of them getting together for a soccer game or—god forbid, with Hoseok or Jimin around—indulge in a horror movie or two, they all went in on the goods.

“How about we play a game tonight,” Jimin suggested, the beer bottles in his bag making clinking and clanging sounds as they thunked against his leg with each step.  Taehyung's held the chips and dip that they had picked up from the convenient store on the other side of campus because Jimin didn't trust him with the liquor , which was just pretty fucking unfair considering his own track record.  But Taehyung did have the lighter bag, after all.  He couldn't really protest that much.

“What game?”  He swung his bag between them, suddenly happy he wasn't a trustworthy drinker.

“The phone number game.”  They turned a corner from the station, the apartment complex already visible down the street.

“You only want to play the phone number game because you always win it.”

“Never stopped you before.”  Jimin laughed, punching Taehyung squarely on the bicep.  Taehyung rolled his eyes.

The phone number game was not one of their own invention—in fact, Taehyung was certain that just about ninety-three percent of self-respecting bachelors have played it at least once in their lifetimes—and consisted of one very simple concept.  Get as many numbers as possible by the end of the night, by any means possible. Taehyung and Jimin had first began participating in said game back when they were sixteen, just barely old enough to bribe their way into a local nightclub every now and then with a particularly forgiving and persuadable bouncer.  

And yeah, Jimin had generally won most of the time.  It was something about his face, so helplessly innocent looking, just the right balance of squishy and manly that had women convincing themselves he was already legal and therefore fair game.  Pervy noonas and upperclassmen were their goddamn bread and butter. And Taehyung did well enough on his own. A crowd favorite, if you will. But Jimin had won enough that he was starting to lord it over him, and Taehyung wasn't about to concede.

“Yeah, fine.  I'm game. Maybe Hoseok or Yoongi will play.  We can get a pool going like last time.” Hoseok had tied with Taehyung, Yoongi was malleable to the will of his boyfriend, and Jimin went home with an extra sixty thousand won in his pocket and a shit eating grin on his face.

“Why not?  I'm ready to clean out your wallets again.”  They made it to the building, continuing in through the lobby and to the bank of elevators without bothering to stop by the comm system on the wall.  “Twenty again?”

Taehyung pressed the up key on the panel beside the elevator door.  “Thirty. I'm feeling lucky.”

“You're always feeling lucky.”  The doors opened with a ding .  Jimin smirked as they shuffled inside.

“I know.”  He laughed, pressed the little round button with the five on it.  “I have to be right at some point, huh?”

The couple’s apartment inside was just as nice as the block outside, if not more so.  The building had once been home to a small time manufacturer of wristwatch mechanisms back when it was first built, before being transitioned into a furniture distributor’s warehouse, only to be stripped down to the studs and remade into family units years later when the university kindly enforced encouraged a district-wide rebranding.  Community facelift was the name. Enrolling new students in mass was the game.  At least, that was what Namjoon had told him about it, in between brief lectures of how most buildings like this one were simply torn down whenever people no longer found the same kind of use for them as they did before, and how so many more could be saved and repurposed if the plebeians in charge could only see their potential.

And, yeah.  Okay. He may have been onto something there, because no one walking into the couple’s apartment building would ever be able to muster the words, it should have just been demolished , after actually seeing the place.  It was industrial, yes, but in a grand, wealthy aesthetic kind of way, with its exposed brickwork and pipes and raw woods and legitimate marble backsplashes (quite unlike the awful pinkish ceramic tiles Taehyung had grown up with) and those twinkly Edison bulb lights that, come on, everyone wants in their homes.  Even the floor in their entryway—where Jimin struggled to take off his shoes with the bag of liquor weighing him down on one side—was a kind of cement, the same kind that could be found in every room of the apartment, that didn't look like the normal, cheap kind of cement. So, yeah. Namjoon was usually right.

“Tell me about your troubles with this so-called shithead econ professor, Tae Tae.”  Seokjin drawled from the other side of the island counter that just barely separated the kitchen from the dining and living areas.  He placed a lime on the frozen margarita he was so graciously making for the younger. His own cup sat off to the side, but Taehyung could tell from the airy quality to his voice that it had not been his first of the night.  

“Oh, this again!” Jimin quipped, sauntering up beside Taehyung with a hard lemonade clutched within his comically-sized dainty hand.  He took one of the two unoccupied bar stools at his side, while Yoongi stood behind, fingers dancing over the nape of his boyfriend’s neck in a comforting manner.

Taehyung groaned, head propped up on a hand which was propped up by an elbow on the black quartz countertop, his left eye twitching distinctly in irritation.  “It would be more time efficient to tell you the problems I don't have with the shithead professor.”

Seokjin passed him the freshly prepared drink in consideration.

“That's the truth.”  Jimin snorted into his own drink as Namjoon, previously engaging himself in a drunk conversation on the merits of the nation’s political system versus those of first world countries abroad by the piano, joined them in the kitchen.

“You, zip it.  The teacher’s favorite doesn't get input here.”

“If he's doing so much better than you, why don't you just study and help each other out?  You live together for god’s sake.” Yoongi continued to stand behind Jimin, fondling him with subtle affection whilst flattening his lips together at Taehyung in apathy.

Yoongi, well, Min Yoongi was a rough-around-the-edges kind of guy.  He was likeable, if you were acquainted properly, and a real stand-up person if you knew him well enough.  And so Taehyung had learned to bypass his sometimes brusque or off-putting remarks in order to look at the undertones there for what they really were.  Yoongi liked him. Yoongi liked them all. Because if Yoongi didn't like you, he wouldn't waste his time mildly insulting you with the tone of his voice or the look on his face.  He'd tell you to go fuck yourself. As it was, Taehyung felt loved.

“That would be too simple, wouldn't it?”  Jimin smirked, entirely too pleased (at least in Taehyung's opinion) by the current predicament.  Yet, instead of attempting to correct the unjust pleasure he seemed to have regarding his best friend’s emotional distress, Taehyung just groaned again, and dropped his head onto the counter.

“It doesn't matter how much I study for that dillweed!  He always finds some flaw in my essays that he doesn't in other people’s, even if we're making the same goddamn point by drawing the same goddamn conclusions.”  He said it just loud enough for his friends to hear, although all he really wanted to do was shout it from the rooftops for the whole city to hear because, really, just fuck that guy.  

“He brushes me off whenever I ask questions and says that if I'm really struggling with the concepts, which I fucking am not, then I can get myself a tutor like everyone else.  He won't even have a decent conversation about it with me.” Weeks of this jackass. Weeks upon weeks and Taehyung was so done with nearly flunking a class he desperately needed to not flunk.  “And I don't have Jimin’s ass!”

Taehyung was considerably distraught about the situation.

“Ah,” Seokjin hummed understandably, “I know that pain.”

“I like your ass.”  Namjoon stared at his boyfriend from the other side of the kitchen, seemingly offended by the very thought of Seokjin’s displeasure.  

He was a good boyfriend like that.  He had always been rather sweet with Seokjin, really, and proud to show him off, even if the world they lived in wasn't quite ready to acknowledge their relationship as something legitimate.  

Namjoon had been fully aware of that when he first asked Seokjin out in his final year of high school, because they had met on Namjoon’s first tour of the university in second year and Seokjin, a freshman pre-med student helping out on the tour, wasn't about dating minors.  So they waited. And waited some more, all while Taehyung and Jimin (yes, already friends of Seokjin) were forced to hear about him as if their relationship was some sort of Greek tragedy for over a year before it finally ended.

So of course it all seemed like a small price to pay for Namjoon when he lost a few friends, got a few more looks when he went out in public with his hand wrapped snugly around his boyfriend’s.  He didn't mind it. How could he, when Seokjin was there with him, smiling like Namjoon was the sun of his whole universe? Then came his parents’ reactions, and Taehyung was well aware how difficult that had been on the couple, because their relationship with Namjoon had virtually ended the very moment he decided to bring another man home for Chuseok.  The latter point was somewhat a bone of contention for Namjoon, given that his parents had never actually met Seokjin before, or bothered getting to know him since.  But they were doing alright. They still had their apartment.  Still had their trust funds. Still had each other. That was better than most people were doing.

“No, they're right,” Yoongi said with a prideful gleam to his lazy, kind-of-smile.  “Jimin has the gold standard of asses. Don't feel bad.” Yoongi continued to pet his boyfriend subtly.  Namjoon frowned, halfheartedly pissy.

The younger nodded from his place at the bar.  “It's a cross I must bear. Not everyone can handle that kind of power.”  He smiled kindly up at Seokjin, who, in return, patted the boy’s hand and prepared another margarita.  “But at least you can graduate knowing you have more integrity than Professor Baek, Tae.”

“If the fucker even lets me pass his class.”

“Wait.  What's going on?”  Namjoon shook his head, being entirely too notorious for his low alcohol tolerance.  Not that he got drunk very often, but when he did, it was generally accepted that at least eighty percent of what was said would go right over his head.

“I'm going to fail and die all alone,” Taehyung supplied, never once lifting his cheek from the counter, making his words muddled and only partially intelligible.

“Oh no.”  Jin muttered, finishing off the drink and moving straight onto the bottle of tequila and a novelty shot glass he picked up from his last study abroad trip in the UK.  “No, none of that.”

He poured the glass to the brim before pushing in front of Taehyung's face with the tips of his fingers.  “You're handsome. You're successful. You're Kim Taehyung, and you're not going to mope around like some kind of kicked puppy.”  He ignored Jimin's affronted cries of what kind of sick bastard would kick a puppy? and continued, his voice just as calm and strangely authoritative as before.  “You're going to have a good time tonight with your friends, then you're going to buckle down, figure it out, talk to your coordinator or even the dean if you have to, and leave his class with the kind of grades you could shove in his face if you wanted to.”

Taehyung inched his head slowly off the surface with each word of encouragement offered, his eyes set on Seokjin’s, fierce.  Determined. “I want that,” he said breathlessly. “I really want that.”

“Yeah?  So you have a plan now.  Problem solved.”

Taehyung nodded, more to himself than anyone else in the room.  It was simple. That simple. Why hadn't he talked to Seokjin about this before?

“You're right.  I can totally do this shit.”  Picking up the shot around the rim, he tossed the bitter liquid back, managing to cringe in disgust at the taste for only a second or two.  He grinned. “Thanks, Mom.”

“No problem, babe.”

“I'm still confused.”  Namjoon sloshed the remainder of his drink around in its glass, relying largely on the wall at this point to keep him standing straight.

“Then stop drinking.”  Yoongi grumbled plainly, seemingly put out by the whole conversation.

Namjoon looked down at the half-emptied glass in his hand, suddenly sober.  He pursed his lips in thought. Taehyung pondered briefly how many drinks he'd had before that.  “Yeah. Thanks, gramps.”

“Don't call me that, you fuck.”

Jimin turned slightly on his stool, placing his hand on Yoongi’s waist in what appeared to be a warning, and the haughty male was momentarily pacified.  Taehyung snorted none too discreetly into his margarita.

“What are laughing at, soon-to-be-dropout?”

“Ah, that's not fair.  You know he's sensitive about that.”

The front door opening is what cut off Jimin’s half-assed defense of his best friend, and likely what stopped Seokjin from jumping in as the motherly referee again.  There was what appeared to be the sound of someone kicking their shoes off by the door, for which Seokjin was probably secretly thankful, before Hoseok appeared around the corner, a smile on his face, a leather jacket draped stylishly across his shoulders, and his own bag of party beverages hanging precariously from two of his fingers.  A young looking guy, a freshman, or really the freshman he had been going on about before, followed in behind him, a thick mop of straight, black hair covering most of his lowered face.

“My loyal subjects!  Your king is here!” Hoseok threw his arms open wide, striding purposefully into the apartment with the bag of breakables still barely holding onto his flailing appendage.  

“Applause is expected,” he continued regally, “gifts necessary, and any tears wept in my presence should be in either jealousy or admiration.  You may now bow before me.”

Seokjin tilted his head innocently.  “Well, how ‘bout a margarita instead?”

Hoseok shrugged.  “Eh, that works too.”  He moved into the kitchen, leaning onto the counter beside Seokjin, overlooking the alcohol operation.  The freshman shuffled in behind him, hovering somewhere in the doorway and shifting on his feet anxiously.

“Everyone, minus Yoongi hyung because he already knows him, I present to you: Jeon Jungkook, my junior at the university and resident dancer extraordinaire.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help us get him shitfaced tonight.” And when this Jungkook guy glanced up shyly at the praise, his bottom lip tucked between teeth and his cheeks just the faintest tint of pink, Taehyung swore that he could feel the strangest fluttering sensation in the pit of his stomach.  His eyes opened wide, his fingers clammy and tingling as the very moisture was sucked from his mouth.

The freshman, Hoseok’s freshman that he had so clearly failed to bring justice to with words, was quite possibly the finest specimen of man that Taehyung had ever been witness to.  He was perfect. And no, Taehyung was not mentally exaggerating this point. Jeon Jungkook was fucking hot. He had these eyes, you know? With deep creases and long, dark eyelashes that complimented the rich, brown pigment of his irises.  His complexion was clear and just barely tan, soft tan, not quite like Taehyung's skin but darker than Seokjin or Yoongi, and his figure was nice, too. Thin, but well muscled. At least, from what Taehyung could tell by his black skinny jean clad legs and the plain, white shirt hugging his torso.  Taehyung liked men that still looked dangerously attractive dressed in simple clothing. He really liked them.

Jungkook lifted a hand in a friendly, slightly awkward wave, before seeming to remember his Korean-instilled manners.  He bowed formally at the waist. “Hello, I-”

“Don't bow, kid.  We're not really the type here.  Come take a seat.” Yoongi mustered, his tone just about as pleasant as anyone who was not Jimin could get out of him.  He gestured at the only remaining barstool, right next to Taehyung. Great. Just fucking great, he thought. Just the right time to hyperventilate.

“Oh. Okay.”  He started for his predestined seat before pulling up short, seeming to remember something.

“I, uh, brought this.”  Jungkook lifted his other hand, and along with it, a convenient store bag, filled with an assortment of junky snack foods.  The kind Taehyung’s mother had never allowed him to eat growing up. He didn't know if his mouth was watering now because of the food, or because of the boy holding it.

“Thanks,” Namjoon said this time, suddenly tuned into his surroundings again.  “You didn't need to do that.”

“Yeah, I already gave him the spiel, Joonie.”  Hoseok assured, seeming to ignore his diet for the night as he downed half of his cocktail in one go.  He grinned in appreciation.

“It's okay.  I wanted to.”  Jungkook chuckled slightly, more under his breath than a part of it, and good god.  Even his laugh was cute. He set the bag down on the counter, right beside Taehyung, and sat down on the stool.  Their shoulders brushed against one another.

“Besides,” he went on.  “I'm kind of crashing. It's the least I could do.”  He was close enough that Taehyung could smell his breath as it ghosted over the side of his face.  Damn him and his perfectly pepperminted eupnea.

“The more the merrier, kid.”  Taehyung just barely managed to bite back a comment about Namjoon calling this Jungkook guy a kid when he was really only one year older than him, but he refrained.  After all, he supposed that Jungkook might've looked just a bit younger than he or Namjoon did as freshmen, though he was still fairly certain that Jimin had yet to hit puberty at that point.  Jungkook didn't look young , of course, because that would just make Taehyung feel all kinds of creepy.  But, youthful, maybe.

“Yep!” Hoseok smiled, popping the p at the end.  “And that's my cue for introductions.” He took another gulp from his glass, throwing a pointed finger out in Namjoon's direction.

“This is Kim Namjoon.  Philosopher of the group-”

“You know I'm studying linguistics-”

“As I was saying, the philosopher.  Real deep thinker, but sometimes he asks stupid questions and breaks shit.”  Namjoon pursed his lips in a sour kind of expression as Jungkook nodded assiduously, like he was sitting in on a class lecture rather than the tipsy ramblings of his sunbae.

“This one,” he gestured widely, “is his boyfriend, and essentially our mother, Kim Seokjin.  He’s usually the one to patch us all up when we do stupid shit, and is the only one of us who can cook.”

“I can cook,” Jimin interjected petulantly.

“You could burn water,” Yoongi said, smoothing a hand over his boyfriend’s dyed head.  Jimin frowned, but didn't make much of an effort to deny the accusation.

“And that brings us to our next couple.  Of course you already know this grump-”

“Fuck off, Hoseok.”

“But I'm not sure you officially met his boyfriend yet.  This is Park Jimin, our ballerina who's a little full of himself sometimes.”  He raised his hand to stop the boy’s protests before they came. “And we love him anyways.”

“Yeah, I'm full of myself,” he grumbled.

“And finally, I bring you to Kim Taehyung.  His role, the traditional college student, though not necessarily the hackey sack circle on the quad type-”

“Where do you think we are?” Namjoon questioned, only slurring his words a teensy, mostly unnoticeable bit.  “Nineties America?”

“Ramen noodles and beer appears to be his primary food group at times,” Hoseok went on.  “He also hates life because he was stupid enough to take too many classes.”

“I'm on a fast track.”

“And his mother definitely doesn't know about some of the shit he's been up to since he left Daegu.”

“Alright, hyung.  I think you've covered it.”

“Seriously, I passed him a brochure on AA meetings the other day and he just kind of stared at me with these dead eyes, you know?  It's a problem, really.”

“Hyung!”

“Alright!  I jest, I jest.  But seriously. Consider the meetings, Taehyung.”

Taehyung was glaring.  Taehyung never really glared, at anyone.  He was a nice guy, a generally pretty happy guy when evil professors weren't trying to torture him with research projects, and generally pretty happy guys don't glare at people.  But he was now. And his face was certifiably the color of a ripe tomato.

Jungkook sat beside him, glancing between the two with his mouth wide open.  Seriously, fuck Jung Hoseok.

It took a moment for the silence to really sink in.  Before Jimin laughed. Like, really laughed.

“Huh.  He's got you pegged, Tae.”  Two people. Kim Taehyung, a generally pretty happy guy, was glaring at two people tonight.

“Ah, lay off my dongsaeng.”  Seokjin patted his head in a way that was really only acceptable for him to do.  It soothed the growl that was forming in the back of his throat.

“You're wearing makeup,” Yoongi said, observing Hoseok with a frown as Namjoon stumbled meandered his way to the bathroom door.

“Er, yeah.  A little. That hot noona I was dating last month, Boa, she got me into it.”  Hoseok rubbed a little at the edge of his eye, further smudging the thin line of charcoal that was rimming it.  He looked like he was wearing bb cream too, though not in such a noticeable way if you weren't close to his face.

“Fuck.  What is this circle coming to?”  Yoongi rubbed a hand over Jimin's shoulder, nursing a beer that Taehyung had yet to notice until now.  He wasn't much of a cocktail drinker like the rest of them.

“What are you talking about?  Your boyfriend wears makeup too.”  Hoseok nodded at Jimin, whose eyes were similarly drawn in black.

“Your arguments are feeble!”  Namjoon suddenly shouted from the bathroom, the sound of the sink running in the background.  Seokjin shook his head subtly, exasperated.

“What the-  Who in the hell let him drink this time?”  Hoseok questioned, glancing between Taehyung and Jimin as if they were always the culprits.

“It's all on Seokjin hyung this time.”  Jimin replied, looking mildly provoked by the ordeal.

Seokjin stood by the sink, seeming to contemplate his decision.  “It's not nice to make him the DD all the time, you guys.”

Jeon Jungkook continued to stare at them in shock.

Yoongi looked over at him from his place behind Jimin, another one of those lazy, barely there smiles on his lips.  “You'll get used to us, kid.”

“Huh?” Jungkook said intelligently, blinking his eyes a few times.

“They're loud, and rude.”  Yoongi stated simply. “But you get used to them.  And me. It'll seem normal at some point.”

“Oh.”  He coughed, looked around, stopping perhaps a little longer on Taehyung.  Or he might have been imagining that.

“How long does that take?”

Yoongi snorted.  “As long as it does.”

“Yep!  Once someone brings you into the circle, you're a member for life.”  Jimin added, skimming his finger along the neck of his bottle.

“That's true,” Seokjin confirmed.  “Namjoon brought Jimin and Taehyung in after we met.  Jimin brought Yoongi. Yoongi brought Hoseok. Or, well, everyone kind of invited Hoseok.  And now, he brought you.” He smiled, one of those calming, motherly smiles. “So get used to us.”

Jungkook continued to stare, but when he ducked his head and nodded, Taehyung could swear there was a smile on his face.

Namjoon appeared from the short hallway again, already more stable on his feet.  “What'd I miss?”

“Not much, I'd say.  We were giving Jungkook the low-down.”  Seokjin took a chilled bottle of water from the fridge and slipped it into Namjoon's hand with a kiss on the cheek.  “Pace yourself.”

Namjoon just grinned and leaned in for another, pleased when Seokjin kissed him chastely on the lips.

Jimin smiled to himself, turning away from the couple to look at Hoseok, who was sticking his tongue out at the display.

“Hyung, we're playing the phone number game tonight.  You two in?”

“Hell yes!” Hoseok shouted over his drink.  His freshman ducked away from him with wide eyes

“What's the phone number game?” Jungkook asked, recovering.  The way he spoke was louder now than it had been the first few times, but still meek in comparison to the rest of them.  Taehyung got the feeling that Jungkook could be loud, if he wanted, if he was comfortable enough with you. Hoseok didn't tend to make friends with quiet people.  When he did, they didn't stay quiet for long.

“The phone number game, my dear Kookie, is simple.  During the party, you flirt with as many people as possible to get their numbers.”  He wiggled his eyebrows rather suggestively. “It doesn't really matter how you obtain them as long as you do, and at the end of the night, we count them.  Winner takes betting money. We play it often in this circle.”

“And I always win.”  Jimin grinned slyly from down the counter.  “But Taehyung here keeps betting me anyway.”

Taehyung pursed his lips, conveniently avoiding eye contact with Jungkook.  “Nothing wrong with confidence.” Although his seemed to be on the steady decline the more times he decided to bet against Jimin.  It was the ass. Jimin was blessed. One day he would be able to accept it. Just, not today.

“Uh huh.  So, you wanna play?” Jimin redirected.  He crossed one leg over the other as he awaited a reply, sweeping a hand through his fire red hair.  It, sadly, made him look pretty fucking handsome, in a devilish kind of way. Which was only suiting to his personality, of course.  

Jungkook had his bottom lip tucked between his teeth, quiet as he thought about it.  Finally, “Who's judging what counts?”

“Generally Namjoon or Seokjin hyung.  Depends if they're playing or not.” Hoseok motioned vaguely in their direction.

“I'm not this time.”  Seokjin said, twirling his glass in one hand, the other stretched around Namjoon's waist.

“I'll pass.”  Namjoon added, settling into Seokjin’s grasp.

“There you have it.”

“Okay then,” Jungkook replied slowly, a dangerous twinkle to his gaze.  “I’ll play.”

Jimin didn't seem to catch on to the look, because he just stared at them, his lips slotted in a wolfish grin.  “There's the spirit, Jungkook-ah. Looks like you have more competition, Tae. Ready for fourth place?”

“Fifth,” Yoongi replied evenly.  “I'm playing tonight.”

Jungkook glanced passively at Jimin then, and at Yoongi, before moving on to settle his eyes fully, intently, on Taehyung.  He hoped that the younger couldn't see the way his throat bobbed in response, or his face reddened under his attention, but Taehyung knew that if Jungkook was the least bit observant, he would know.

“Hey, hyung,” he prompted, and damn his perfect voice that was just a little bit gravely now, like he secretly knew how much Taehyung liked it.  “Can I see your phone for a second?”

“Huh?  Oh, uh, yeah.  Sure.”

Good going, Kim Taehyung.  Way to speak.

Despite Taehyung’s stuttering mess of a garbled response, Jungkook accepted his pre-offered cellphone with a smile—a small one, but it was a start—and leaned against the counter, quietly tapping something off on the screen where the rest of them couldn't see it.  Hoseok narrowed his eyes, Jimin huffed, Namjoon blinked his eyes in several rapid successions for whatever reason, and Taehyung, well, short-circuited. That was his phone.  What in the hell was this model-esque demigod, no, Jeon Jungkook, doing with his phone?  After a moment, he handed it back.

“There,” his said, his eyes dancing with mirth.  “Now you have a head start.”

His mouth was open.  His mouth was open and now Namjoon was laughing this startled cackle, and even Yoongi cracked a smile.

“Wait a minute.”  Jimin’s mouth was open too, but for a different reason.  “That's not fair!”

His indignation only made Namjoon laugh harder, and when he finally managed to calm down again and glanced over at Seokjin, they both shrugged, grinned, thoroughly amused.  “We'll take it.”

It wasn't as common as you might think, dragging a freshman piss-drunk through campus in the middle of the night (or, well, now early morning) to a dorm that wasn't his own because he was so drunk that he wouldn't, or maybe couldn't, say which one was his and it was just too much damn effort to track it down at the moment.  No, most people, even rebellious freshmen, have their limits. But then, Hoseok and Yoongi had promised to get the kid fucked up, and Taehyung had never seen them not keep a promise before.  

“Fuckin’ rock.  Tryna trip me up.  Fuck you, rock.” Jeon Jungkook hunched over himself, his hair hanging limply over his eyes and his unsteady legs working double their normal effort just to keep him upright and walking, despite the bug-sized pebbles that sometimes got in their way.  Taehyung and Jimin held him up at either side, his arms wrapped around their shoulders and theirs around his waist.

This would have been a prime example of a time when a promise most certainly should not have been kept.

“Jesus.  You really haven't been drunk before.”  Jimin said—okay, grunted—under Jungkook’s weight, completely astounded.  

“Nooo,” he drawled.  “Well, sorta.”

“Sort of?” Taehyung shifted more of Jungkook’s weight over to himself, momentarily pleased when Jungkook snuggled into him just slightly.

“Yeah.  I went to this one party back in high school.  Whole dance team was there, down on the beach at night.”  

He stumbled a little, but managed to pull himself back up in time with their added assistance.  They could see the Towers already, which was where most of the underclassmen on campus lived. At least the ones that didn't feel like paying inordinate amounts of money on living arrangements.  And Taehyung thanked whatever deity was willing to listen that there is such a thing as elevators. He couldn't imagine attempting six flights of stairs whilst lugging the equivalent of a very large, very squirmy sack of potatoes with only Jimin to help.

“And you didn't drink?” Jimin prompted.

“Did, but s’one called the cops.  I ran with a friend through the city.  Had to call my hyung to pick me up.” Jungkook laughed then, sloppy and uncontrolled.  “He was so pissed, guess he could smell the beer on me. When I got home, my mom… teacher, ya know?  She made me write an essay ‘bout it. Why not to get drunk.” His voice was over articulated for a moment there, like he thought he was making more of a point that way, and the southern satoori of his home city licked at the tones of his words.  

“My dad,” he continued, scuffing the toe of his brand name shoe against the ground, snorting.  “He jus’ made me drink a lotta soju and do push-ups in the yard.”

“Harsh,” Taehyung commented mildly.  Though he's not entirely sure that his grandfather wouldn't have done the same thing to him back in the day.

“Nnnn,” Jungkook grunted in return, tightening his grasp around Taehyung.  His legs were moving more sluggishly now, stumbling in time with the elder two as they meandered slowly up the paved walkway to the dorms.  Once they made it to the lobby, having just barely managed to get past the guard without any issue, Jimin grunted again.

“Almost there, Jungkook-ah.”

“M I goin’ home?” He murmured as they propped him against the wall of the elevator.  Taehyung reached out, pressing the button for his floor almost as an afterthought.

“There's no way in hell we’re leaving you alone like this, even if you can remember where you live.”  He said, reaching out again and reclaiming Jungkook's arm to hook around his shoulders.

“I can remember.  It's …”. There was a rather significant pause.

“Yeah, you're coming back with us.”

Jungkook stared at them for at least a full minute as the elevator crawled up the shaft.  His eyes were fixed, maybe a little bit glassy, and his bottom lip reddened, caught wistfully between his teeth.  The bell dinged.

“M’kay.”

That was easier than he might have thought.

It might have been easier, but then, Taehyung had a dick for a roommate who most certainly knew about his crush by this point and considered it in good form to drop the drunk freshman unceremoniously onto Taehyung's bed.  And Jungkook, bless him, was too fucking plastered to care.

“Nnnn,” Jungkook groaned, half muffled by Taehyung's pillow.  The pillow he slept with, every night.

How in the hell was he going to go about this?  How was he going to wake up (if he slept at all, of course) in a bed sized for one singular person, without pressing his morning wood against this very hot stranger?  Oh god. That happened, right? That was a normal enough thing. But he couldn’t sleep on the floor, either. Then he really wouldn’t sleep, and honestly, it was kind of disgusting down there.

“Sorry, Jungkook-ah.  I move around a lot in my sleep.  You'll probably be more comfortable with Tae Tae.”  

“Mmmm,” he hummed, burying his head further into the nest of plush and linen on the bed.  Taehyung liked to think that it was alcohol rather than common sense that had Jungkook falling for Jimin’s sad ass lies.  But, okay, Jimin was kind of convincing. Sometimes.

Jimin patted Taehyung on the back with a wide, thousand watt grin, before grabbing his shower basket off the top shelf of his desk and a set of two-day-old pajamas from the back of his chair.  “I'll go clean up first. Be back soon!” His lighthearted, singsongy voice followed him right out the door.

And Taehyung stood there, staring.  Because, yeah, that was a little awkward, even a little bit creepy, but there wasn't much else to do.  He still didn't know what he could do.

“Hyung,” Jungkook moaned from the bed.  Yes, moaned. Well, sort of. It was close enough for Taehyung’s hormonal, practically still teenaged body.  

He was beginning to question the benefits of sleeping on the floor.

“Hmmm?”  He didn't trust himself to speak right at the moment.

“I don't feel good.”  He didn't lift his head from the pillow.  And that was better, even if Taehyung was currently staring at his ass, because that wasn't a sexual topic.  That was reasonable.

“You're drunk.”  He moved now, only to begin untying the laces of Jungkook’s sneakers and tugging them off.  It couldn't have been comfortable, and when Jungkook wiggled his finally freed toes in satisfaction, Taehyung knew that it had been the right choice.  He couldn't see Jungkook getting up anytime soon.

“Hyung,” he whined again.  “Stay with me.”

Taehyung's mouth parted in surprise.  It took his brain a moment to find the right words.  “I'm not going anywhere.”

Jungkook made some kind of noncommittal grunting sound again.  He moved closer to the edge of the bed that was farthest from the wall.  “Then lay down with me.”

“Uh … what?”

How many times can a brain malfunction in one day while still being deemed healthy?  Was that just a part of being in the same vicinity as the young dance prodigy? Should Taehyung have been more concerned than he was?  Maybe that was like, the brainwashing aspect of it all. Jungkook was compelling him not to care that he was malfunctioning on a physiological level, and wasn't that just a great thought-

Jungkook lifted his face from the pillow, barely, and turned to glance over at Taehyung with a surprisingly level look.  “Stay here with me.”

It took Taehyung a minute to process, another to respond, because now he really didn't know what to do.  What do you do?

You lay down on the bed with the whiny, too-far-past-pleasantly-buzzed-to-not-still-feel-drunk-in-the-morning freshman.  And you do not do anything nefarious with your hands. Absolutely not.

When Jimin came back to the room, he examined the scene before him.  The first year sleeping peacefully in his roommate’s bed, snuffle-snoring almost silently, and his roommate lying mostly on the wall with his hands sticking straight up in the air.  He snorted, shook his head, turned the lights off, and tried to ignore the fact that yes, this was his life now, as he climbed into bed.

“You know, it actually looks worse when you do that.  Like you got caught in the middle of feeling him up.” Jimin adjusted the pillow under his head.  Taehyung frowned, but slowly lowered his hands a safe distance away from Jungkook.

“I was not doing that , thank you.”  Taehyung hissed.  Jungkook muttered into the sheets and threw a leg lazily across Taehyung’s hip.  Jimin could see the way he gulped from the other side of the moonlit room (because it had been over a year and they still hadn’t bothered to buy curtains).

Jimin snickered, pulling the comforter up to his chest.  “No, but he might be trying to feel you up.”

Taehyung frowned.  Jimin cackled. All was right with the world.

As Jimin’s laughter died down, and Taehyung's attention was drawn back to the freshman at his side, the silence took over.  It was funny how the quiet was never awkward between them, even when they were both incessant talkers. Taehyung remembered when he was young and still struggled with his ADHD, and how he had needed to talk.  It wasn't just a matter of wanting to.  It was this burning, clawing desire deep within himself to open his mouth and fill the void around him.  And just like his fidgeting, his poor attention span, the fact that he was maybe a little more sensitive than most kids, needed a bit more attention, he knew it annoyed other kids his age.  He remembered being the one that was never invited to sleepovers with his classmates. He was too loud, too … him.

And it was funny that Jimin wouldn't have cared—he doesn't think so, at least—if they had met before Taehyung managed to figure it out, to get the symptoms he hadn't outgrown under control with medication and behavioral therapy.  And he likes to think that Jungkook wouldn't have minded, either. Or Namjoon, or Seokjin, Hoseok, even Yoongi. Because it took a few years, all of Taehyung's adolescence and a few of his teenage years too, but he found the right people eventually.  The people that liked him for him.

“Hey,” Jimin said, his voice airy and pleasantly raspy.  “I won the game tonight. Again.”

“No,” Taehyung said, a little tipsy, a lot sleepy, as he stared down at Jungkook with a soft smile.  “I'm pretty sure I won this round.”

“You're still drunk,” Jimin replied flatly, but there was a sense of humor in his voice, maybe fondness.

“I'm valid,” he said instead, only taking his eyes away from Jungkook’s innocently curled form for a second to smile at his best friend, too.

“Your point is valid.”  Taehyung watched as Jimin turned away from them to face the wall.  “Go to sleep, Tae.”

Jungkook fisted a hand in the front of Taehyung’s shirt, pulling them closer together.  And yeah, Taehyung felt pretty lucky. “Good night, Min.”

Waking up on just about any Saturday morning was rough.  Waking up at eight a.m. on a Saturday morning, following a fairly substantial array of alcoholic beverages and poor life decisions, that was just plain cruel.  God was definitely cruel. And maybe Seokjin, too, with how he just kept pouring cocktails down Taehyung’s throat all night long with the knowledge that tequila and vodka did horrible things to his mental capacity and stability.  But really, the worst part about waking up, nauseated and with one bitch of a headache, was that Taehyung, for a very solid minute, could not quite piece together why in the hell he was awake at all.  And then Jimin came into view, staring down at him from between their beds with a huge, heartless smile.

“Sorry to wake you, Tae Tae.  Hoseok hyung called us in for some practice time in the studio.  Didn't mean to disrupt your beauty sleep.” He didn't really look all that sorry, in Taehyung's experienced opinion.

“Does Hoseok realize what we were doing last night?  He was there. So why in the hell?” He laid his palms flat over his eyes, attempting to block out as least a portion of the sunlight streaming in through the curtainless windows and groaned, long and deep.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks for that.”

“I thought you were pretty sober by the time we got back,” Jimin said, flicking Taehyung square on the forehead because he could, really.  Taehyung wasn't functioning well enough to retaliate at the moment. Then he took a seat on the edge of Taehyung's bed, pushing back with his body until Taehyung willingly made room, despite the fact that he had his own perfectly useful bed just a few feet away.

“Just because I was in the process of sobering up does not mean that I was actually sober, though I appreciate your confidence in my abilities.”  Taehyung sniped, finally adjusting himself back against the wall, and it made him realize that there had been someone else in the spot Jimin now occupied, should still be someone.  “Where's Jungkook?”

Maybe his voice cracked.  Maybe just a little. And maybe it was definitely not because some random freshman (that he actually like, liked, if he was being truthful) up and left without so much a word before the sun came up and had Taehyung feeling like, well, some kind of cheap one night stand.  Which was fine. Just fine. They hadn't slept together. They hadn't shared their deepest, darkest secrets with each other. Jungkook had no obligation to him. It was still, it still hurt.

“Getting ready.”  Jimin gestured in the general vicinity of the bathrooms down the hall, completely oblivious to both Taehyung's internal crisis and mostly unfounded relief.  “I let him bum some of your clothes, by the way.”

Taehyung smiled, maybe, because Jungkook was still there.  He didn't just leave without saying goodbye or thanking him.  Not that he wanted to be thanked or felt like he actually did anything for the younger to be thankful for, but it would mean that Jungkook was there, at least, that the night before had happened and that it wasn't just a dream.

And just then, Jungkook walks back into the room, looking like unmitigated death, but the happy kind, and smiles to see Taehyung awake.  Taehyung, maybe, definitely, smiles back.

“Morning, hyung,” he chirped shortly, still looking a little worse for wear but no more awkward, and maybe Taehyung was expecting it to get awkward once the booze wore off.  Taehyung and his limited expertise on one night stand type scenarios. But there was Jungkook, smiling like he had last night, like they were already good friends, just disproving his whole theory in general.

“I guess Hoseok hyung accomplished his goal last night,” Jungkook said, moving in a slow, trying not to throw up kind of way.  He stopped once he was closer to them, leaning up against Taehyung's desk with a tired grimace. “He got me drunk, anyway.”

“I think Jin hyung had an even hand in that affair,” Jimin said, putting his body weight more firmly onto his best friend’s side.  “I don't know if I'd call it a success or not. You look like hell too.”

He did, admittedly, but it could've been a lot worse.  Taehyung would know. And probably most of campus by now, what with how rumors spread from student to student.

“He got drunk for the first time and didn't puke or do anything excessively stupid.  I'd call that a success.” Taehyung reproached thoughtfully, admiring how even dark circles could look handsome on the guy.

Jungkook smiled thinly at the praise.  “I might still puke.”

Taehyung paused, glanced back at Jimin.  “He's right. We'll withhold judgement until after your practice with Hoseok.”

“Fuck,” Jimin replied, moving to stand up again.  “Yeah, we have to go. Don't spend all day in bed,” he added, grabbing the sports duffle from beside his desk before moving towards the door, Jungkook following behind obediently.

“See you later, hyung.”  Jungkook said, turning on his heel to look back at the mattress lump wrapped mummy style in his flat sheet and comforter.  Taehyung could tell it made him dizzy, if the greenish pallor he had taken on or the gentle sway of his body was any indication.  Taehyung appreciated the effort.

Dance practice, most assuredly, was going to be a bitch.

“See you later, Jungkook.”

And he did.  See him later, that is.  Kim Taehyung, the kindest, most generous soul that he was, met them on the quad just a little past ten (which was still way too early given that he didn't specifically need to be awake at all) with four cups of coffee, a bag of muffins, and even one of those big fruit cups they always kept iced in the cafeteria, because Taehyung was a good friend like that.

Upon leaving the Common Center, which housed both the cafeteria, as well as a number of general education classes, Taehyung spotted the duo almost immediately.  Jungkook sat at the bottom of the steps leading from the walkway into the quad, seeming, if at all possible, more dead than he had upon waking, but no longer the happy kind of dead, while Jimin sat tucked into his side, also seeming rather sickly.  They were accompanied by a particularly gleeful looking Hoseok.

“How is it,” Taehyung said, wandering up to the group, “that you're not at all hungover?”  

He was wearing a pair of oversized sweatpants rolled up at the waistband and a knockoff Gucci shirt his mother had gifted him the Christmas before, topped off with thousand won store flip flops and the still damp hair from his shower, which was in no way conducive to the quickly cooling autumn weather.  And yet, he was still acutely aware that he fell on the better, healthier side of whatever in the hell Jimin and Jungkook had going on. So the fact that Hoseok, normally one to drink them all under the table, always looked so miraculously fine the morning after did not go without suspicion.

“It's my superpower, Tae Tae.  Has been since high school.” He shrugged good naturedly, moving to take the cardboard tray of cups from Taehyung's already wobbling hand.  “Is that coffee?”

“Give him nothing!”  Jimin groaned, leaning more solidly against Jungkook’s knees now, or rather, practically wrapped around them.  Jungkook squinted his eyes from the sunlight. But Taehyung figured the sun, in comparison to the morning chatter of the cafeteria, was probably the better option.

He snorted.  “Yeah, it's coffee.”  Jimin scowled.

“What did you have them doing, anyway?  They're looking a little …”

“Remorseful?  They better fucking be.  Jimin walked in talking about how he won the game last night because of his ‘superior ass.’”  He added the air quotes for dramatic effect, Taehyung would assume. “Started making horse jokes about me, even got Taemin laughing about it.  That one’s an asshole, too.” Hoseok gestured widely with his index finger, over one of the coffee cups he had snagged from the holder, as if Taemin was actually listening in from his makeshift audience.

“Jimin totally insulted my manhood.  Couldn't let it slide, what with a whole room of freshies watching.  So I had them doing exercises that would shut ‘em all up for a while.”  He shrugged again, but this time for the sake of the point.

Taehyung tsked at his best friend.  “You never learn, do you?” But he passed him a cup of coffee anyway, and then Jungkook, because he looked like he needed it the most here.

Jimin at least had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed by the whole ordeal.  “Whatever. At least I wasn't the one that threw up. Think we may have to rule last night’s mission a failure.”  

Jungkook scratched the back of his neck, sheepish.  “It was all the turns. Got us out of practice though, didn't it?”

Taehyung stared at him for a moment, suddenly just a tiny bit sorry that they had let Jungkook drink so much.  Of course, Jungkook was legal. He was an adult. His own person. He could decide how much to drink in one go and when to stop, but it's not like he chose to throw up in front of his entire dance team, either.  Taehyung tried not to think about how shy, wonderful baby Jungkook must have felt as his classmates sneered in disgust. They were all a little guilty here. Jimin just shook his head.

“That's true,” Hoseok confirmed.  “The torture was much less fun at that point.”  He took a sip of the coffee before peeking inside the bag.  He seemed pleased to find the fruit.

Taehyung snatched the bag away before Hoseok could so much as grasp at his breakfast.  “I can't believe you made Jungkook do turns too. What'd he do to you?”

Jungkook’s eyes widened at that, but he seemed pleased to have Taehyung protecting him as he buried a smile in the arm of his borrowed hoodie.  Jimin shook his head again.

“He didn't defend my intentions.  I'm pretty sure he likes you two better than me.”  Hoseok replied petulantly, making toddler grabby motions at the bag.

“Well if he didn't before, I'm sure he does now,” Jimin added, pointedly taking a sip of his coffee.

“Alright, I am sorry about that.  I didn't think Kook-ah was that sick.  I made the whole team do the exercises with them.”

“Sadistic bastard,” Jimin huffed.  Which wasn't really fair, even if he had pretty much been torturing his juniors as an example of his power.  Hoseok was a good guy, a loving guy, and he seemed genuinely apologetic. Taehyung handed him the bag.

“Weak.”  Jimin mustered, but then Hoseok handed him the bag of muffins and he no longer appeared so put out.  Jimin went on to pass the bag to Jungkook, but thought better of it when Jungkook whispered a soft, traumatized, never again .

“I'd still call the mission a success, by the way.”  Hoseok said as he dropped a piece of melon into his mouth.  “Yoongi and I just said we'd get him drunk. Clearly, we did that.”

Jungkook’s lips trembled under the effort not to get sick a second time.  “ Never again .”

The next time Taehyung saw Jungkook was at Namjoon and Seokjin’s place two days later.  He was looking less like death, not so green around the edges, and he still had that same smile from before as Taehyung took the seat next to him at the table.  The group was together (kind of, anyway, since Yoongi worked weekday afternoons, Namjoon had a lecture, and Hoseok was a lying overachiever), this time without any alcohol involved.  Just studying. Lots and lots of studying, which was decidedly less entertaining, but easier. Seokjin had already taken all of their fluffy general education classes before, if they needed the help, and Jungkook, as if he needed anything else to make him more desirable, was evidently some sort of savant when it came to business and economics.  Might have been nice for god to share some of the guy’s talent, but who was Taehyung to judge, you know? Maybe he'd use them to save the world some day, or the stock market. You never know.

If Taehyung thought Jungkook was hot when he was drunk or nursing a hangover, he was damn near irresistible explaining profit maximization.  And wasn't that interesting? Even despite Jungkook's attractiveness and the undeniably fantastic scent of his cologne, Taehyung was still able to learn from him, just because he was a good teacher.  What a novel concept, really. One for professor shithead to write down in the books.

“I don't get why you're flunking,” Jungkook stated generously, flipping through the course textbook that was laid out in front of them without really looking at the pages.

“I'm not technically flunking,” Taehyung said, because, really, he wasn't.  “I'm just not as far off from flunking as I'd like to be.”

Jungkook tilted his head, peering over at Taehyung through the fringe of his bangs, his lips pursed.  “Show me your notes.”

“Er, okay?”  He picked up the binder that was sitting at his side.  It was this brilliant blue shade, filled with pages upon pages of printed, formatted, color coated sheets of study notes, each section organized by its own colorful, plastic tab.  He was working under the theory that if his materials were aesthetically pleasing enough, he might be more inclined to study. That was the theory, at least.

“Organized,” Jungkook noted.  Taehyung hummed appreciatively.

“Let me see your notes for another class.”

“Which one?” he questioned, already sifting through the backpack at his feet.

“Doesn't matter.”

Taehyung handed him the binder for his cognitive psychology course, which was much more extensive and plotted out than that of the shitshow class he had to take.  It was also purple, which was just, prettier.

“Is this verbatim?” he asked, looking through the pages of the econ binder again with his eyebrows low and scrunched.

“Basically.  I don't understand it enough to make up my own study guides.  That would be like grade suicide.” He was sure he sounded flippant about the whole thing, which wasn't entirely accurate to the inner voice bitching quite heartily in his head.  He wasn't content with the fact that he was nearly failing. He was just done with being so outright angry and mopey about it all. It wouldn't change anything.

“No wonder you're confused then.”  Jungkook closed the binder with a definite thunk .  “Your professor doesn't know what in the hell he’s talking about.”

Taehyung totally could have guessed that.  “Yeah, not really surprising. But also not like he'll actually talk to us about it rather than just lecturing in this really dry, assholey monotone so,” he waved a hand dismissively.  

Jungkook sat there for a moment, lips still pressed together, eyebrows still lowered, one finger tapping away at the wood top of their current workstation, thinking.

“Do you mind if I take a picture of this?  I have classes with the head of the department.  He's actually friends with my father.” And as if sensing Taehyung's hesitation, he added, “I won't tell him where I got it from.  But he should probably know what this guy is teaching his students.”

It wasn't like him.  Kim Taehyung, though his honor was at times questionable, was not the anonymous tattling kind, especially not when it came to possibly screwing someone over in their workplace.  But, considering the rants he had been witness to on various occasions by Namjoon on the oversights of the nation’s educational system, he also knew that it was nearly impossible to get professors fired, even when they rightfully deserved it.  So, he kind of figured it couldn't hurt the guy that much.

“Yeah, okay.  That's fine.” He glanced back down at the binder, wondering exactly how many of the notes were incorrect, and was suddenly glad that he wasn't planning on majoring in economics.  Though, he knew there were several in his class that would, which really just sucked for the future professors that would eventually have to correct all of their misconceptions on the topic.

“Ooh, Kookie.  You going to get our econ professor fired?  That's loyalty right there.” Jimin, who had previously not been bothering Taehyung with unnecessary levels of snark while he attempted to study, slid into a seat directly across from them.  Seokjin, curious about the commotion, followed seconds later.

“Don't get him fired,” Taehyung said, aware of the fact that he had yet to actually mention that stipulation.

Jimin frowned.  “You hate the bastard.”

“Oh, he can burn in hell, but preferably with his job intact.  The guy probably has a family to support. Not the kids’ fault that their dad is so horrible.”  He moved to replace the econ notes entirely with another subject that might actually impact his chosen career.  He could always worry about useless classes tomorrow.

“You're too nice,” Seokjin replied pensively, hands clasped in front of himself on top of the table.  

He had been surprised when the man decided not to join them.  In the past, whenever Taehyung and Jimin would take the train over to their part of the city, they'd always open the apartment door to the image of Seokjin stooped low over a book or stack of papers at the table, on the couch, at the counter, his fingers gripping a mug of coffee for dear life.  Namjoon, too, if he wasn't in class. It was all pretty domestic, if you asked him, and all too uncomfortably familiar with Jungkook sitting there, their thighs pressed together underneath the table.

Taehyung shrugged.  The only indicator of Jungkook's amusement was the small lift at the corner of his lips.

“I wasn't planning to get him fired, but if he teaches like this, you can't be the only one struggling in his class.”  Jungkook drummed his fingers softly. “Not to mention how many students he's had before you.”

“Most of the class is failing,” Jimin supplied evenly.  “Except me. I'm good.”

Seokjin stared humorously from his side of the table.  “I don't think that counts, exactly.”

“If we're going by my transcripts, it sure as hell does.”

Jungkook patted Taehyung reassuringly on the shoulder.

The restaurant where Yoongi worked part-time was small and easily overlooked amidst the brand name boutiques and flashing neon signs of Myeongdong, but was home to probably the best steamed dumplings in the entire city.  The owner was a tiny, elderly woman from Yanbian with two daughters and a young grandson that helped her out in the kitchen. Her face was severe, her language at times crass, and her accent harsh and out of place when speaking Korean from her years living on the border.  But she was also absurdly kind, and knew better than most how exactly to approach Yoongi, and when to let something go.

He frowned when the six of them walked in.  His boss smiled.

“Boys!”  She was already pulling out menus and making her way towards the door before Yoongi could stop her.  “I was starting to think you had forgotten about me.”

It would be difficult, Taehyung thought.  Even when they weren’t at the restaurant, she was still asking Yoongi about them, trying to send him home with packages of dumplings and noodles that she always claimed were leftover and would go to waste otherwise.  Yoongi said they were lies, but always brought them the food anyways.

“We could never forget about you, Mrs. Yang.”  Namjoon smiled kindly. “Your wonton soup calls to me in my dreams.”

Mrs. Yang laughed, clapping him gently on the cheek.  “Such a charmer.”

“What are you guys doing here?” Yoongi said, coming up behind his boss with a frown.  His eyes were narrowed, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black, half-apron.

Seokjin rolled his eyes.  “Well, we were intending to eat.  Did we come to the wrong place on accident?”

“Of course not!”  Mrs. Yang passed her employee the menus with an impressive frown of her own.  “Show them to a table. There are two in the back that you can push together.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then Jimin took a step to the side and a circled a hand around Yoongi’s wrist.  The fight visibly drained from his body with the feeling of Jimin’s touch.

“Okay,” he muttered, and seated them at the extra long table in the back.

It wasn’t especially large, the restaurant, but it was separated into smaller sections by painted rice paper screens and built in wall dividers with decorative glass lining the tops.  The squared off tables made for groups were away from the rest in their own private section, likely by design. If nothing else, it offered the illusion of privacy.

Taehyung sat down in the middle with Jimin on one side and Jungkook on the other.  Hoseok, Seokjin, and Namjoon sat opposite them with a chair left open at one end of the table in case Yoongi decided to join them.  He probably wouldn’t, willingly. Not while he was working, at least.

“Ah, you brought in another one,” Mrs. Yang observed with a significant glance in Jungkook’s direction.  “You're good for business, Yoongi-yah. Must be because you're so handsome.” She patted his cheek like she had Namjoon’s once Yoongi completed his lap around the table.

“So that’s why you keep me around,” he groused.

Hoseok snorted from behind his menu.  “Well it certainly isn’t because of your sparkling personality, hyung.”

Min Yoongi, the professional that he was, refrained from flipping them all off in front of his boss before he disappeared to get them drinks.  Taehyung personally found it adorable that he didn’t even have to ask their drink orders anymore. Though he wasn’t entirely certain that Hoseok wouldn’t end up with spit in his.  From the satisfied look on Hoseok’s face, he didn’t seem to know that. From the look on Jimin’s, he seemed to have made the connection.

“Has anyone ever told you that it’s a bad idea to piss the server off?”

Hoseok blinked.  “Why? When is he ever not pissed off at me?”

Taehyung shook his head subtly.  Some spit wouldn’t kill him. And this time, he might’ve deserved it.  Jimin grinned.

Before Yoongi could return with the drinks, Mrs. Yang slipped back into their section with two family sized plates of steamed potstickers, setting them down in the middle.

“They’re on the house, boys.  But don’t tell Yoongi. He always feels like he has to pay for everything.”  She made the universal sign for silence on the matter before slinking back off to the front of the restaurant.  If Taehyung didn’t know any better, he probably would have been inclined to think that the woman simply enjoyed fucking over her employees for fun.  And yeah, maybe that really was it, but Taehyung was taught to respect his elders, especially the legitimate elderly, and he wasn’t about to question free food.  Not a chance.

“So why did you-” Yoongi rounded the corner of the partition, and automatically settled on the quickly diminishing plates of dumplings.  “Where’d you get this?”

It only took a second before he was raking his free hand, the one that wasn’t carrying a full tray of drinks, through his hair.  Taehyung really wished he would put it back, respectively, because even if he wasn’t sitting on the end, he was still technically in the splash zone if Yoongi dropped six full glasses on the ground.

“Ah, damn it.  She does this every time.”  He set the drinks down. Jungkook seemed pleasantly surprised that Yoongi had gotten even his order correct without asking--water with lemon (damn dancers and their distrust of sugary sodas).  And then Yoongi was pulling out a pad of paper and a pen from the deep pockets in his apron and staring at them expectantly.

“Do you guys know what you want?”  

Jimin smirked.  “You.”

Jungkook laughed.  The rest either feigned indifference or rolled their eyes in exasperation.

“He wants beef and vegetables.  You know he wants beef and vegetables, hyung.  Why do we have to go through this every time?”

Yoongi stared pointedly at Taehyung.  “To annoy you, obviously.” But then he nudged Jimin’s side playfully with his hip, and Taehyung knew that it was just because he liked to hear it.

The rest ordered.  The dancers kept to their pitiful, no nonsense, no junk food routines, but Taehyung, Seokjin, and Namjoon were all personally of the opinion that carbs tasted better, so they had noodles.  

When Yoongi passed by the kitchen again, Mrs. Yang snatched the order from his hand and pointed at their table.

“Go, eat with your friends.  You’re not the only waiter here.”

He pursed his lips.  “It’s too busy for three people to-”

“It’ll be busier in an hour.  Take your lunch break now.” She tugged on the string keeping his apron around his waist, pulled it off clean and folded it neatly in her hands.  “It wouldn’t hurt my grandson to work as hard as you for once. Go relax.”

Taehyung saw the woman’s grandson listening in on their conversation as he waited tables in the next section.  He suspected Hoseok would no longer be the only one at their table with spit in his drink.

“So why are you so averse to breaks and free food, Grouch Min?” Seokjin posed when Yoongi, obviously somewhat defeated, dropped into the empty chair they had left for him.

Yoongi turned on him with a withering gaze.  “Because, if I accept these things now—the food, the unnecessary breaks—the next thing I know, she’ll be trying to pay for my cab home.  Or trying to make me take days off that I don’t actually need.”

“Oh the horror,” Hoseok gasped, his hand dramatically finding purchase on his chest.  “She has to be stopped.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Yoongi grunted lowly.  “I have to stand my ground. You don’t know how that woman works.”  Jimin quietly slotted his hand into Yoongi’s over the table in a display of solidarity.

 Her grandson dropped off a glass of diet coke at the table.  Taehyung tried not to cringe as Yoongi took a sip over the rim.  He may or may not have succeeded.

They slipped back into easy conversation after that.  Yoongi stayed out of it for the most part, though he did offer input when it was needed or relevant.  That was the thing about Yoongi. He seemed cold on the outside, and yeah, he sort of was. But once you actually got to know him, he was actually rather soft.  He always had something thoughtful to say to just about any serious conversation. He was passionate about the music he made outside of school and work, and if you needed it, he was always there to help you.  He worked harder than most people just to pay for school and studied diligently through his computer science program that was not exactly what he wanted to do but was practical and always, without fail, still managed to make time to shower Jimin with more blatant and open affection than he would offer anyone else, just so that he would know he was loved.  He wouldn’t say it to Yoongi’s face, but he was a good person, and he was definitely good for Jimin.

“So I've been wondering,” Hoseok started, and although Taehyung loved the guy, seriously, it was never promising when he propositioned a phrase with so I’ve been wondering .  It was a phrase reserved for designated shitstorms of irrelevant information and banter that, generally, ended in the group being forcibly removed from the premises or Yoongi punching someone.

“If Seokjin hyung is our mom,” he continued, entirely oblivious to the implications of his words, “Namjoon's the group dad, and Yoongi is totally the grandfather-”

“Fucker.”

Hoseok grinned.  Maybe he was aware, Taehyung silently amended.  Maybe he was a masochist.

“Then does that make Jimin our grandma?”

The table fell silent.  Yoongi sat seething, although quietly and without the use of his fists.  Good for him. Namjoon stared, his mouth gaping open like it was somehow a revelation of sorts and Jimin, well, Jimin just kind of smiled and shrugged.

“Nope.  I'm just his mistress.”  The expression was full of sugar and sweetness and whatever else the fuck Park Jimin was made out of.  He intertwined their fingers together. “Yoongi’s married to his music.”

For a moment, Yoongi just looked at Jimin.  Because Yoongi was never very great with emotions or sudden, bald-faced confessions, but he tried.  Genuinely, he did. Jimin needed that sort of confirmation that his feelings weren’t one-sided, that they weren’t wrong, so Yoongi tried for him and they all knew it.  But sometimes, he still seemed taken by how much Jimin felt for him and really understood him, how he was at heart, and that he was completely, entirely unashamed to admit it.

Yoongi looked, and the smile that worked its way onto his lips, no matter what he would claim later, was an expression that had always been owned by Jimin.  “I would marry you,” he admitted softly.

Jimin’s eyes were bright and sincere as he laughed, leaning into Yoongi’s personal space in a way Taehyung knew was subconscious at this point.

“I'd marry you too.”

No one rolled their eyes this time.  In fact, and he was absolutely not pointing fingers, but he swore that he could see Hoseok swipe a tear from his cheek when he thought no one was looking.  

Namjoon and Seokjin were sitting closer than they had been before, the next time Taehyung glanced over.  Namjoon was staring at Seokjin the way Yoongi had stared at Jimin. He imagined what it would have been like if they lived in a world where they could get married the same way as everyone else.  Yoongi and Jimin. Namjoon and Seokjin. Even Taehyung someday, he would like to think. He wondered if they would be married already, or if it was just a thought they were all having today, like he was.  He wondered if, in this alternate universe, their parents would come to the ceremonies.

“Don't do it.  He's a horrible cook.” Taehyung told Yoongi instead.  

He had never been in the habit of not saying what was on his mind, but he thought that maybe it had been the right thing to say when the heavy atmosphere broke again and Jimin started protesting about Taehyung’s bias towards Seokjin’s food.

They settled down eventually.  Yoongi didn’t even fight when his boss’ grandson set a plate of noodles in front of him.  Taehyung, try as he might, did not manage to keep the cringe from his face this time. But they talked, and they laughed, and Taehyung tried to forget about the feeling that had been weighing on his chest for a while already.

“Now I know what you guys were talking about.”

Taehyung set down his chopsticks and silently leaned back in his seat to get a better look at Jungkook.  He was staring at Jimin and Yoongi with a contemplative expression.

Taehyung sometimes forgot that Jungkook was so quiet, that he preferred to sit back and observe situations rather than jump right in and mix it up.  He wasn’t always like that, either. He did pretty well with the whole communication thing when he was comfortable enough, but he tended to revert back to his own, unobtrusive self when they were all together.  Which possibly had something to do with how loud the rest of them were.

“Huh?” he replied lamely, the intellectual creature that he was.

Jungkook spared him a side-eyed glance.  “About having to get used to you guys.” He shrugged, picked up his own chopsticks.  “I think it happened. I think I’m used to it.”

Hoseok paused around the straw of his drink, snorting eloquently.  Seokjin smiled warmly, and Namjoon reached a hand across the table to land a friendly punch on Jungkook’s shoulder.

“It’s about time, kid.”

He hadn’t realized that they were all listening before, but seeing the smile on Jungkook’s face the moment he figured out what it was like to actually be accepted into their dysfunctionally codependent little family was well and truly priceless.

He thought about it again as he stared at the creases of Jungkook’s eyes and the gentle slope of his shoulders.  Maybe his mom would come to the ceremony in this universe, too.

The next two weeks passed by in a blur.  Taehyung continued going to classes, even the useless ones.  He continued to tolerate being harassed by Jimin and, occasionally, Hoseok.  And he most certainly continued to see Jungkook in his free time, which was really about every minute he could squeeze from his schedule.  It felt kind of special really, because now, outside of class, Jungkook spent the most time with Taehyung out of anyone in their social circle, and even if it was only because he was Jungkook's favorite hyung, having something with Jungkook felt a lot better than having nothing with him at all.

He had probably always been like that, he considered somewhat pitifully. Taehyung had always gotten along well with everyone.  He was a people person. Sometimes, though, other people didn't care for him , and it didn't really stop him from trying to be their friend, or from being nice and gregarious to them whenever he had the chance, because there was nothing in the world, no bad day or sour attitude, that couldn't be fixed with a smile and some well placed time spent in the company of others.

But Taehyung had never felt so desperate for someone’s time or attention before as he was for Jungkook’s.

“Taehyung-ie?”  He startled, almost dropped the phone that had been forgotten in the midst of his wallowing.  No, that was wrong. He was just thinking. Not wallowing.

“Is something wrong?  You were gone for a moment there.”  The voice was soft, like a whisper, and, even guilty for letting his thoughts distract him again, he missed it.  He missed it so much. Maybe he was just in the mood to miss things, even things he still had or never had.

He settled back against the pillows on his bed.  “No. Sorry, Mom. Everything's okay. Just spaced off for a second.”  Which was true. The only truth, since there was nothing actually wrong with him.

“Everything okay with your classes?  I know they can be rough, especially in your program.”

“Of course.  My professors are really great, and the classes are all interesting.”  

Taehyung hated worrying his mother, even more so now that he had left his home city to study and couldn't be there to reassure her that he was fine, that he was alive and well, even if he wanted to.  It made him feel like a bad son. And being that he was her only son, he couldn't knowingly let the record be that shitty.

“I swear, I'm good.  Jimin and I didn't sleep much last night.  There was some party down the hall. That's all.”  Again, it wasn't entirely a lie, but the sporadic party hardly affected either of them anymore.  They had grown used to sleeping like rocks in spite of the paper thin walls, or, in Jimin’s case, sleeping with earbuds in.  

“You're sure that's all?  Why would the school even allow that to happen?  In their dorms?” She sighed, and suddenly, seemed much older than she had been before.  He wondered if he would notice the next time he came home. Was that the kind of thing you even noticed after a year or two?  Would she notice how much he'd changed, how much he'd aged?

“You need to stand up for yourself, Taehyung.  Tell someone that can make it stop.”

He knew he’d heard that particular lecture before, in perhaps that same tone of irrational and motherly anger.  It made him feel warm to hear it again.

“Alright, Mom.”

There was a pause on the other side of the line.  She sighed again. “I'm sorry. I always nag you when you call home.  I'm trying to stop that.”

Taehyung laughed.  He could feel that the warmth was still there, growing stronger, fonder every minute.  He hadn't realized just how much he had missed his family until then. It had been all too easy to put those things off, what with classes and studying and partying.  His past didn't factor into his new, adult life, wasn't supposed to, and somewhere along the line, he had forgotten that family isn't past tense, never could be, never will be, any more than Jimin or Namjoon could be his past.  

“I don't know,” he said, a little shaky now.  “I wouldn't know what to do if you didn't nag me all the time.  You'd seem like a stranger to me.”

“Don't be cheeky.”  But there was no heat in it, and he knew she didn't mean it.

“Are you sure you're alright, Taehyung?”  

He shifted against the pillows.  “Yeah, Mom.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?” she said softly.  “How are your friends? Did you meet someone?”

“Someone?”  He ran a hand down his face, tried to dig the exhaustion from his eyes.

“Someone special, I mean.  Did you?”

He paused considerably, dropping his hand back to the bed.  “Mom,” he asked, hesitant, “how did you and Dad meet?”

There was a sharp intake of breath.  It was quiet, almost nonexistent, but he had caught it anyways.  “Honey, you've already heard this.”

“Yeah, but, I want to hear it again.”

She laughed, and it was playful, like it usually was, but he couldn't help but hear what was actually there, right underneath it, too.  “I suppose. But listen up this time, alright?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Well,” there was a rustle on the other end, like she was situating herself for a rather long conversation.  “I was still going to university back then. I had worked very hard in high school and ended up getting sponsored to go to school in Seoul.”  

She seemed to refrain from adding like you , even though she normally did.  Taehyung knew how proud she was to have her child follow in her footsteps.  He was proud of it, as well.

“Your grandparents,” she continued, “didn't want me to be a farmer like them any more than I wanted that for myself.  They worked hard to make sure I could go, even though it meant having to work harder and take out loans they couldn't really afford.”  His mother paused. “Your father was like me. We both had to take on part-time jobs to get through school. He worked at a record store a few blocks away from my dorm.”

He remembered the way his father described it to him as a kid.  Women were more idealistic than men, he liked to tell him, so when Taehyung’s mother talked about the shop’s vintage, down to earth appeal, what she really meant to say was that it was always two safety codes away from being shut down and that it smelled like years of built up moisture.  But a job was a job, and he appreciated it nonetheless.

“I never really noticed him to begin with,” she laughed.  “He always worked in the back or stocking the shelves whenever I was there.  Then one day, I went in with a couple friends of mine to look at their new albums.  I wanted to buy one. I saved up my extra money for that, and your father, he was so handsome, but he was standing there, behind the counter with this mop of black hair, sticking out in every direction.  I thought it was charming.

“I asked him what his name was, and your father, he pretended he couldn’t speak Korean.  He said it in Chinese. He was really awful at Chinese.  I knew he was lying immediately.”

Taehyung tried to picture the man that his father had been back then.  But the image was always replaced before it could finish forming, with the man that had raised him.  He was still quiet when Taehyung was a child, and shy around strangers, but he was caring and loving and led a simple life on a farm outside of Daegu.  He wasn’t the mop headed boy that worked at the record store by the time Taehyung knew him.

“I was disappointed,” his mother admitted softly on the other side of the line.  “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of something like that though. I came back in again a week later, just like I always did, and he was waiting for me with a rose.”

He remembered how his father always told that part, too.  Remembered the look on his face when he called Taehyung’s mother the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and how he had always watched as she and her friends wandered the store on Friday afternoons but never had the courage to talk to her.  He remembered the expression of bliss and nostalgia as he talked about the flower and their first date and when he realized he was in love with her.”

“The first chance I had, I brought him home for break.  At that time, we had only been seeing each other for a little while, but, when it's right, you know it.”  Her voice was thick, and he liked to think that maybe she was was starting to tear up a bit, since he was.  “After we finished school, we moved away from the city and got married. When you were born… there was no one happier on the entire planet than him.  The only time I have ever seen him cry is when he held you in his arms for the first time.”

The fact that he was already crying now definitely meant that his father had been way ahead of him on the badass meter for a long time now, but from the sniffling he heard through the phone, he figured it was mostly okay.  He got his emotions from somewhere, even if he didn’t necessarily want them at the moment.

“I have never known your father to be a cold man, even once in his life.”  Her voice was nothing more than a whisper at this point. Taehyung’s chest ached hearing it.  “He made sure to let everyone around him know that he cared for them. He wouldn't even leave home without saying he loved us, and he loved you more than anything in the world.  Everyone knew it.”

He pursed his lips together to keep them from wobbling and swiped the sleeve of his shirt beneath both eyes.  “Is it hard for you? To talk about him, I mean.”

“It was at first.”  She paused. “But I love your father too much to ignore our memories together.”  Let out a breath. “You shouldn't either.”

By the time Jimin got back to the room that night, Taehyung had been off of the phone for all of twenty minutes.  Maybe longer. Probably longer. He was laying on his back with the phone sitting beside him on the mattress. Jimin set his things down on the desk.

“Jungkook?” he asked, taking a hesitant seat on the edge of Taehyung’s bed, right next to his feet.

“A lot of things,” Taehyung admitted with a sigh, “but he's probably about half of it.  Maybe more.” He rolled onto his side to face Jimin, choosing to disregard his likely puffy eyes and red cheeks.  “How'd you know?”

“I'm your best friend,” he replied lazily, like it was a stupid question to begin with.  “I know you. I know how you get an idea stuck in your head and let it fester until your brain’s ready to explode.”  He drew his index finger and thumb up to his own temple in demonstration, then made some vague sound with his mouth.

He thought about how much easier it would be to lie to Jimin through text or something, when he wasn’t actually there to call Taehyung out on his bullshit.

“I'm that predictable?”

“You are.”

Taehyung paused, stewed (or festered, apparently, because that’s what he does).  Then he frowned, and opened his mouth again, because why not? Really. Fuck it, he figured.  No use in lying to someone that already knows you so well anyway.

Jimin eyed him expectantly.

“I keep thinking that there are signs, you know?  Like, he likes me, and me, I,” he thought about the way Jungkook smiled at him, the way their legs rested comfortably against each other under the table at Namjoon’s and the way Jungkook had curled into him subconsciously while he slept.  “I really fucking like him, Jimin.”

“So, then what's holding you back?”

He shrugged.  “I've been wrong before.”  The laugh he let out sounded self-deprecating, even to his own ears.  But it was true, right? He had been wrong.  Once back in high school and again in freshman year.  It wouldn’t have been bad if he was just anyone else, but he was Kim Taehyung, and he was very much not like everyone else in the strictest sense of the word homosexual.  Maybe it was normal, he knew, but it was also dangerous in a place like Korea. Taehyung couldn’t afford to give out his emotions freely. It only ever hurt him in the long run.

“I'm not good at this.  I don't want to ruin being friends with someone like I always do.  It's better than,” he didn't have to say it for Jimin to understand what he was getting at.

“You don't ruin friendships.  You're not compatible with some people, and attachments don't develop.  That's normal for everyone. And might I remind you that you actually do have a few spec-fucking-tacular friends, one of which is right here.”  He smiled easily.

Even if Jimin was a dumbass sometimes and didn’t always give the best advice, sometimes he said exactly what was needed.  So Taehyung smiled and laughed, and this time it was real.

“I know.”

“You should.  It's pretty obvious.”

They fell into a comfortable silence after that.  Jimin didn’t need to say anymore. Taehyung didn’t really think he would, but he did.

“Sometimes, it's worth taking a chance,” Jimin pointed out rather sagely, the strange gleam of his gaze indulgent and familiar as it rested on Taehyung.  “Does it feel like it's worth it with him?”

Taehyung stared up at the stark white ceiling of their dorm room.  “That's what I'm trying to figure out.”

Taehyung shivered as he moved through the campus quad one early Saturday morning.  It was autumn already, had been for a while, and it was at the point of the season that he would wake up to leaf barren, frost lined trees, where he could see the moisture in his breath as it fell from his mouth in a swirling mass of fog.  He hadn't had anything to drink the night before, so for once, the only slightly overcast sun and the fact that he had actually woken up by seven was not an offense to his well being. Wasn't his plan, of course. There was some outside insistence involved on the whole non-alcohol thing (not that he drank every weekend, or that he really ever did on weekdays), but Taehyung wasn't especially opposed to the effects it appeared to have on his general health.  I.e. being able to wake up before seven on a Saturday at all.

Jungkook was sitting where he had just a few short weeks ago, ass planted on one of the steps leading towards the primary fine arts building.  His body was curled low over his cellphone, and his sweatpants clad legs bounced with some indistinct, upbeat rhythm. He looked up as Taehyung approached.

“Hyung!” he grinned.  How unfair it was that Jeon Jungkook, boyish charms and bunny smiles and all, was so undeniably attractive in the early morning light.  He didn’t even care how sappy that sounded in his head. It didn’t matter. It was just him in there.

“Jungkook-ah.  It’s cold. Why didn’t you wait inside?”

Taehyung tugged gently on the thin, springtime jacket Jungkook wore as he made to stand, tucking the phone back into his right pocket.

He made a face.  “It’s not that cold, hyung,” he said in a way that always made it obvious when Taehyung was nagging him, which was surprisingly often as of late.  Not that anyone was counting.

Taehyung made some kind of ambiguous huffing noise, but relented.  

“I’m surprised you volunteered to meet me so early,” Jungkook admitted teasingly.  The path they walked around the perimeter of the grass square would lead to the cafeteria eventually, and at some point the science and mathematics buildings, if they really wanted to walk that far.  Which they wouldn’t.

“Sunshine is good, Jungkook-ah.  Feel the breeze. Smell the flowers.  All that good shit.” He scuffed the end of his sneaker against the pavement resolutely.

Jungkook snorted.  “Wonderful life philosophy, hyung.”

“What can you do?  It’s my natural disposition.”

Jungkook’s chest shook with a kind of barely-there laugh.  His cheeks, adorable and squishy but still unjustly chiseled, were red from the cold.  He looked alive. Maybe Taehyung did, too. Jungkook made him feel alive.

Jungkook made him feel something, at least.  When he called him late at night or early in the morning, there was no irritation or inconvenience.  There was a rush, a flash of nerves and excitement, because Jungkook wouldn’t call just anyone. When they hung out with friends and Jungkook naturally drifted closer to him, he could feel the trust and attention in the gesture.  Jungkook had technically known Jimin longer, trained under Hoseok longer, but he still wanted Taehyung, even if it was just in that small of a way. And when he smiled, it was like there was nothing wrong in the world. Nothing could be wrong if someone as pure as Jungkook existed.  He knew it.

He hadn’t realized that he had been quiet for so long until Jungkook spoke again.

“Why did you decide to go into psychology?” he asked suddenly, and even the carefully arranged mask of his face wasn’t enough to hide the curiosity lilting his words.  

Taehyung, quite honestly, was not shocked that it had taken Jungkook so long to be comfortable asking what he thought were personal questions.  Because they were personal, really. Jungkook was always very good at keeping his curiosity to himself, though, and Taehyung thought privately that it must have been another way in which Jungkook showed his trust in a person, that he was so ready and willing to anticipate Taehyung’s answer, rather than fear being turned away.  His heart thumped ecstatically against his rib cage.

“My mother,” he started, bumping against Jungkook’s shoulder softly.  “She’s a child psychologist. One of the best, actually. She studied here for a while, built up a reputation, then my parents got married and they moved back to her hometown outside of Daegu.”

Jungkook nodded attentively.

“My grandparents are, well, they were farmers.  Now it’s just my mother and grandmother back home, but they were farmers, and they did what they could to support her in school.  She wanted to make a difference, help kids.” He gestured obscurely with his hand. “I grew up on my grandparents’ farm, and my mother had an office there, where she worked with clients.  The environment, it helped, you know? I got to meet a lot of the kids she worked with. A couple I practically grew up with. That… that feeling of seeing someone getting better like that.  I wanted it. I wanted to be like her.”

“She sounds amazing,” Jungkook said, his voice heartfelt.

“She is,” Taehyung grinned, thinking about his family and the farm, how hard his mother had always worked for them.  “She worries a lot about me since I’m here. It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? It’s part of her job to keep other people from worrying all the time.”

“I don’t think that kind of logic extends to your own children, hyung.”  He laughed, his own shoulder brushing Taehyung’s as they veered off the sidewalk towards the cafeteria entrance.

“Right, probably not.”

Most of the tables were empty inside.  There was only one section of the buffet line even open this early, but it didn’t matter much to either of them.  They picked up a large bowl of sliced fruit to share, two coffees, and found a table for themselves in the back corner of the cafeteria.

“So,” Taehyung said around a piece of watermelon.  “Why business, then?”

Jungkook shrugged, stabbing his plastic fork into a bit of apple.  “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do during high school, to be honest.  There was nothing that ever really stuck out to me like that.” He played absently with the fork, rather than actually eating the fruit.  “My father works in marketing for a big company. It’s a stable job, and it pays pretty well. He likes it. After a few weeks of classes, I realized that it was something I could be good at.”

“Why not dance?”

Jungkook grinned.  “My mother said the same thing last year.”  He shrugged again. “I never wanted to make a career out of dance.”

Taehyung could imagine the look on his face, because Jungkook shook his head with something akin to amusement, finally putting the chunk of apple into his mouth.  

“I’m sure that sounds strange,” he said a moment later.  “It’s just, that’s my stress relief. If there’s anything wrong, or just something I need to think through, I dance.  It’s something that automatically has the power to make me feel better. If I danced for a living, it would become the source of my stress.”  He glanced up at Taehyung through the dark fringe of his bangs. “For now, I’m happy this way.”

“I can see that.”  Taehyung picked out another portion of melon, staring at the boy sitting across from him.

“What?” he asked.

Taehyung shook his head.  “Sometimes, you just surprise me is all.  There’s a lot to know about you.” There was a lot to like about him, too.

Jungkook held his gaze.  “I’m not the only one, hyung.”

The fall semester showcase was one of the more popular events that the university put on every year.  Really, it was more of a festival than an event, with individual acts throughout the course of an entire Saturday and art exhibits and vendors, all leading up to the dance team’s final performance.  And since a majority of Taehyung’s friends were all somehow involved, it was only right that he spied on their practices. Right? Moral support. That was all.

 And if Jimin happened to give him a look, like he knew Taehyung was there for something more, well, that didn’t make his assumptions correct.  He didn’t know everything .  Even if Taehyung did spend most of his Friday mornings before class sitting in a corner of their practice room quietly watching—because he had already been on the other end of a rant from Hoseok about breaking their concentration with his excited jabbering, and he wasn’t about to look for another—it definitely didn’t mean anything.  Not a thing.

Except it did, because anyone that has seen Jungkook dance even once, no less with Jimin and Hoseok, cannot just watch it that one time.  Yeah, he understood why Jungkook just danced for fun. No pressure, no real commitment in the career-oriented sense. But he wasn’t really sure that he got it, exactly.  Not after watching it and actually seeing what Jungkook was capable of.  Much like Jimin and Hoseok, Jungkook could have become a professional dancer as it was.  So while he respected his choices and understood them, however vaguely, he couldn’t really help wanting to wake up early just to follow Jimin to his practices.  He couldn’t help the way his eyes automatically searched the room for Jungkook and stayed on him. His expressive face, his tight, toned muscles, and everything else that was him.

He also couldn’t help but consider it at least a little bit unhealthy how readily invested he was in someone that may or may not even be able to reciprocate his feelings.  It was okay. Really, it was, because the part about him being there for moral support wasn’t totally inaccurate. Jungkook still smiled everytime Taehyung visited him.

“Why do you never look at me like that?”  

Jimin stood above Taehyung in his corner, where he had been huddled for an hour already with a very tall, very dark cup of coffee.  Jungkook was practicing on the other side of the studio, his movements strong and precise while Hoseok stood behind him, correcting the most minute movements of his arms and legs and turns.  His music was loud enough that Taehyung knew Jungkook wouldn’t hear them.

“Do something noteworthy and I’ll be sure to stare.”  He glanced up shortly, just long enough to flash Jimin a slow smirk, which, on any normal day, would quickly devolve into some petty, half-assed insult war.

Jimin didn’t bitch, surprisingly.  He didn’t snark, and Taehyung was man enough to admit that he was slightly disappointed by the lack of ingenuity on Jimin’s part.  He expected more.

“You should just tell him already,” Jimin said instead.  He shrugged, like that was all there was to it. Taehyung didn’t think that someone who already had a boyfriend, had had for a while now, should be able to offer input on the situation.

“And why would I do that?”

“So you can stop staring at his ass every time he turns around and just go up there and feel it instead.”  Jimin shrugged again casually. “He has a nice ass. Not as nice as mine, unfortunately, but I bet it’d feel pretty good.”  

He made some kind of squeezing gesture with his fingers, like he did when they were still teenagers and Jimin had yet to confess that his true intentions were with the gender distinctly lacking in breasts.  Taehyung had never said anything before Jimin was ready, of course, but he had known from the moment they met that Jimin was flying a giant ass pride flag somewhere in secret. It wasn’t really news.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jungkook spoke suddenly from just a few feet away.  His hair was plastered to his temples with perspiration. His hand shook in exhaustion when he lifted his water bottle to his lips, tipped his head back and took long, sinuous gulps, his throat bobbing, mouth tight around the top.  There was a bead of sweat rolling slowly down the column of his neck.

“The time Taehyung mooned our principal back in high school.”

Shit.   Shit .  Park Fucking Jimin.

Jungkook paused, side-eyeing them with the bottle still resting against his lower lip.  He slowly placed the cap back on.

“This is new information,” he said rather thoughtfully, still looking between them.  Maybe he thought that Jimin was lying. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.

“No, it’s not.”  Hoseok chirped, throwing an arm around Jimin’s neck and squeezing.  Possibly in warning, Taehyung liked to think. Hoseok was a decent hyung, more often than not.

“I heard that story the first night I met Namjoon and Jin hyung, and at least ten times since.  Jimin exaggerates.”

“He was suspended though.”  

Jungkook’s eyes widened, and Taehyung could tell from the shit eating grin on Jimin’s face where this was going.

“Tell me.”

Jimin flashed his teeth.  His eyes twinkled. “Gladly.”

He gestured for Jungkook to sit down, that it was going to be a long story.  Which wasn’t really true. In actuality, what had happened—Taehyung’s hilarious demonstration turned grave mistake—was fairly straightforward, but it seemed to get longer every time Jimin told it.  Hoseok sat down beside Taehyung and gave him this look like, you saw it, I tried .  Taehyung smiled in return, which might have looked more like a grimace than anything.

“Where to begin,” Jimin pondered, lightly stroking his chin.  “Ah!”

Taehyung fought not to roll his eyes.  

“It was a normal Friday afternoon, Daegu, 2013.”

The urge won.  He settled back against the wall, only slightly amused at this point by Jimin’s theatrics.

“Class 2A was in self study session.  Kim Taehyung sat at the front of the room, Jimin, myself, behind him.”

“Stop setting the scene, Park.  Get on with it.”

Jimin frowned at Hoseok.  “Setting the scene is important, hyung.  Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. So we were there, studying, going about our business-”

“He never studied in class.”

“Yes, I did.  You just didn’t see because I sat behind you.   Now , it was a good day, quiet, and our teacher had left for the faculty office, just like she always did.  Taehyung, just like myself ,” he rushed to amend, “was doing his homework very diligently.  Until these guys walked in.”

“Big guys?” Jungkook asked, more for Jimin’s sake than his own.

“Huge.”

“They weren’t.”

“Hey!  Unless you want to tell the story instead, zip it.”

Taehyung held his hands up in surrender.  Hoseok smiled lopsidedly.

“So they were huge.  Beefy soccer player dudes, ya know?”  Jimin flexed his arms in front of himself like he was impersonating the Hulk.  “And they start picking on this girl, Cathy.”

“But that wasn’t he real name,” Hoseok added thoughtfully, having felt that it was an important element to the story that Jimin had forgotten.

“Right, no.  She grew up in one of those immersion schools that makes you choose a new English name for yourself.  I don’t think any of us actually knew her name. She was just always Cathy.” He shrugged a little.

“Right...”

“Right.  Okay, so Cathy was a nice girl.  She was quiet and she always stayed to herself, but she was nice.  She was probably the smartest girl in the whole school, and she was thin, like a twig.  This group of guys, the big ones, they were always assholes to her.”

“They come in, just a few feet away from her.  They start pointing and laughing at her glasses and her hair.  Then one of them, their leader, gets closer and starts nudging at her and pulling on her braids.  They usually didn’t even do this in class, but the teacher was out and Namjoon wasn’t there to call them off like he normally would.  No one else wants to step in it by trying to help her, and Cathy looks like she’s going to cry by this point.”

Jungkook leaned forward, eyes intent on Jimin.  “So what happened to her?”

“Taehyung happened.  We were all so focused on Cathy and the assholes that we didn’t even notice what he was gearing up to do.”

“There was no gearing up.”

“So Tae stands up,” Jimin said, blatantly ignoring him, “looking completed pissed off.  And the guys actually step back when they see him.  We all thought he was going to punch the leader, like, right in the face or something.  But he looks him right in the eyes, as cool as you can be, and says, “I’ll give you something to laugh at, dickhead.”  Then he just turns, bends over, and drops his pants!”

Jungkook and Jimin were rolling by this point, and so was Hoseok, who had so helpfully claimed that the story wasn’t really all that funny anymore.  Taehyung shook his head.

“And that’s when the principal and three teachers walked in.”

Jungkook hiccuped ecstatically.  Tears of mirth rolled down Jimin’s cheeks.  Hoseok was on the ground, sobbing frantically as he gasped for breath.

“Coincidentally,” Jimin panted, “that’s also how he earned the nickname Sailor Moon.”

Jungkook cackled.

“Hey!  That shit followed me until I graduated.”

“And after,” Hoseok supplied, breathless.  “Some of the students here call you that too.”

“Fuck.”

Jimin clapped him on the back.  “Maybe grad school, yeah?”

Jungkook shook his head.  “No. No fucking way. I’m never letting this go.”

Maybe he wouldn’t mind it so much, if Jungkook was the one pointing out his past indignities.  He looked at the man, his smile, the moisture gathered in his eyes from laughing so fucking hard .  

Yeah.  He was cool with it.

Somewhere along the line, beyond Taehyung’s conscious recollection, early autumn faded into late autumn, and late autumn gave into early winter.  The showcase came and passed. Taehyung sat in the audience with Namjoon and Seokjin and Yoongi as his friends gave quite possibly the performance of their lives, looking like they lived and breathed to be on the stage, in the spotlight, and at the end of the night, they ate dumplings and got plastered at Yoongi’s place of work.

Taehyung and Jungkook grew closer, too.  Maybe not in the way he wanted, exactly, but close enough to have a standing lunch date between classes twice a week.  Close enough to share a bed with on the weekends, more often than not. Close enough that Taehyung could probably tell you just as much about Jungkook’s personal life as anyone else in his friend group (expect for Jimin), maybe even more than a couple of them.  And it was, it was good. For the first time in a long time, Taehyung felt content. Even if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, it felt like something he needed. The consistency of a standing lunch date and a semi-regular cuddle partner. It felt right .

What didn’t feel right were the looks that his friends gave him when he happened to be in the same room as Jungkook, which, Taehyung would admit, happened to be a majority of his free time anymore.  Seokjin’s absent minded, brotherly pats on the head or the shoulder or the hand felt pointed as of late. Namjoon’s philosophical escapades shared a focus, and even Yoongi, blessed stoney expressioned man that he was, had delivered him several—yes, several—thoughts on the matter, which always began with grow the fuck up , and were sure to end in and ask him the fuck out .  Taehyung was not oblivious.

What he was, was patient.  He could wait it out with best of them, and wait it out he would, until Jungkook gave him a sign, some semblance of shared feelings that ensured Taehyung would not end up unintentionally alienating one of his best friends because he had caught feelings.  

That didn’t mean the his other friends, dickheads they were, would wait with him.

It was something that Taehyung—again, not oblivious—happened to notice one frigid, snow dusted Saturday afternoon as he made his way to their normal dance studio, taking great care not to bust his ass on the thin sheets of ice that littered the campus sidewalks.  Why they even still spent their weekends cramming in studio sessions between practices was beyond him. Now that the showcase was over, it seemed somewhat irrelevant. But he also didn’t happen to have a hobby that could occupy his mind or his time in quite the same way as the three of them did.  Like, he enjoyed drinking. He could do it well, but it wasn’t generally advisable to do so often. He liked eating, too. He could put away ten servings of ramen with the best of them, but he didn’t think it necessarily compared to the dedication required of hip hop or contemporary. So he kept quiet.  And usually brought them something to eat. He was a nice person, after all.

The basement of the fine arts center was just as cold as the outside.  It was nice, well decorated. The university had gotten a grant from a major music company they partnered with to do some renovating the year before, and so it was probably just about the most aesthetically appealing place on campus, but still, it was cold.  And despite this, Jungkook, Jimin, and Hoseok were sweating like they belonged in a sauna. When Taehyung opened the door of the studio, he was granted the rare sight of the three of them, semi-clothed (though Jungkook was really only missing sleeves, to Taehyung’s dismay), red in pallor, sprawled out on the wood floor like it was the equivalent of a tempur-pedic mattress, looking to be on the verge of death.

“What in the hell happened here?”

Jungkook and Hoseok glanced up at the sound, their hair matted around their faces in perspiration.  Jimin kept his eyes closed, one hand nursing his abdomen and chest.

“Hoseok,” Jimin panted, “happened.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“I think I’m dead.”  Jungkook huffed out a breath, holding out one arm as if to check on the discernibility of his corporeal form.  “Am I dead? Tae, can you still see me?”

“You caught me.  I’m the ghost whisperer.”  Taehyung stared blandly at the heap of bodies of the floor, before giving in and joining them.  He laid down somewhere between Jimin and Hoseok with Jungkook above his head, his thigh cushioning Taehyung’s neck.  “Seriously, what happened?”

“Know how I told you about that entertainment guy scouting me at the showcase?” Hoseok asked, flopping one sweaty arm over the side of Taehyung’s torso.

“Yeah, of course.”  Really, it was all any of them had talked about for a week now.  It was a scouting by a legitimate agent, and even if it came with the assumption of an audition in front of an entire panel of other agents, it was still a huge deal.

“Well, the guy called last night.  My audition is next week, said I should show my own choreography, maybe even work with a few other students here at the university.”  He twisted Taehyung is his hold, pulled him closer. “I asked Jungkook and Jimin this morning if they’d go with me.”

“That’s great news!”  Taehyung lifted his head to look at the other two, both still almost completely out of it.

“We didn’t know what were signing up for,” Jimin muttered.

Jungkook nodded.  “He’s a dance tyrant.”

Hoseok grinned.  “We had fun.”

Taehyung laughed as he snuggled deeper into his side.  Hoseok had always been a tactile person, really. Jimin too.  Jungkook wasn’t. Even if he wouldn’t go as far to call him standoffish, he wasn’t much for affection in the physical sense from anyone, which made the younger’s quiet acceptance of Taehyung invading his personal space that much more special.  When Jungkook gently began to card his fingers through Taehyung’s hair, a little too long from inattention and a little too messy from sleep, he smiled.

“Are we still on for lunch?” he asked no one in particular, because it had been an open invitation for the four of them.  Jungkook tugged lightly at a piece of his hair.

“‘Course.  I’m starving.”

He was always starving, Taehyung thought.  It was oddly endearing on him.

“Actually,” Hoseok drawled, nipping at Taehyung’s hip with his fingers.  “I think I’m going to stay here. We still have some things to work out.”

Jimin nodded with what Taehyung strongly suspected was a faux sympathetic hum.  “I’ll stay and help. Hyung can show me a better way to do that one move in the bridge?  It doesn’t feel right. You two go ahead.”

Taehyung felt Jungkook lift his head.  “You have it down perfectly though. You two are gonna end up overworking yourselves.”

Hoseok reached up to blindly pat Jungkook on what he probably thought was his shoulder, but landed solidly on his stomach.  “We’re fine, kid. We’ll be careful. Just bring us something back before you go to your dorm, yeah?”

Jungkook hesitated for a few seconds, then moved to stand.  Taehyung sat up obligingly.

“Fine.  Just don’t end up puking in the studio.  It takes forever to air the smell out.”

Jimin snorted.  “I’m sure you would know!”

Jungkook, shoulders straight and chin cocked high, flipped them all off as he walked away.  

Once Taehyung was sure Jungkook was safely tucked away inside the locker room for the time being—and by that he meant counting to ten even after he could no longer hear footsteps disappearing down the hallway—he turned his attention back to his dickhead friends.

“What in the hell was that?”

“What in the hell was what ?” Hoseok tilted his head, looking well and truly clueless as he stared up at Taehyung.  Jimin rolled onto his stomach, pouting.

“Ditching.  How long were you planning this?”

Jimin frowned.  “We wouldn’t do something like that.  Would we, hyung?”

“Absolutely not, Jiminie.”

“See, there you go.”

Taehyung narrowed his eyes dangerously.  “You two are demons from hell.”

Jimin lifted himself onto his elbows, letting his mask of feigned stupidity and innocence slip off as quickly as he had fitted it on.  He grinned, toothy and maniacal.

“Then we must really be brothers, because that’s genetic, asshole.”

Hoseok rolled his eyes.  “Oh, go have fun. Put some moves on the kid.  Sex him up.” Eyebrows waggling, he said it with as much conviction as any reasonably straight Korean man could have.  If not for the circumstances, Taehyung would have appreciated his support.

Jimin shook his head pitifully.  “Tae doesn’t have moves. Or, he has like, one.”

“Then he can do that awkward flirting he’s good at.”

He threw his hands in the air.  “Wow. Fuck you guys.”

Jimin leered up at him.  “No, fuck him. But we appreciate your enthusiasm.”

Jungkook appeared in the doorway, his clothes fresh and casual and his face towel dried.  Taehyung strongly doubted that he had heard what they were talking about, because if there was one thing that Taehyung had learned in the past couple of months was that Jungkook, once you got past the occasionally intense silence and sullen glares, was really an open book, for the most part.  If he was pissed, you could see it in his body language, from the way he held himself, as if preparing for a fight, to the way he would bite his lip and dart his eyes around the room. If he was upset, he was withdrawn, not wanting to bother his hyungs with what he considered to be inconsequential.  And if he was shocked, if he didn’t know how to handle a situation, he didn’t. He stood there looking like a deer in headlights before finally, finally making some excuse to get the hell out of the room. Taehyung had only ever seen that particular expression once, and it had quickly been resolved with a slight detour from Taehyung’s shared dorm room and a semi-heated discussion later that night on the merits of warning your friends if you intend to do freaky shit with your boyfriend in a communal space.  Following, Jungkook couldn’t look Jimin or Yoongi in the face for almost an entire week.

But Jungkook didn’t look like a deer now, headlights or not, and he wasn’t running.  Just leaning against the door with a silently amused expression that worked well to assure Taehyung that, for the time being, his crush was to be kept a secret.

“You ready to go?”  Jungkook had his sports bag slung over his shoulder.  He toyed with the strap as his gaze traveled over the three appraisingly.

“Yeah.  Let’s go.”  He looked back one last time to send a menacing glare in his friends’ direction, which he prayed worked a hell of a lot better than his threats had so far.  He didn’t hold out hope.

Jimin snickered as he waved a hand cartoonishly above his head.  “Goodbye, my children! Be safe!”

Hoseok’s laughter followed them out the door.

Jungkook rolled his eyes, adjusting the strap again.  “He’s so extra.”

Taehyung snorted.  “Oh, you have no idea.”

Without really thinking about it, he hurled his arm around Jungkook’s shoulders, drawing him in closer.  It was something he might’ve done with Jimin at a time like that, often did, and his other friends would have done to him.  It was an unconscious gesture of familiarity, and he had approximately two and a half seconds to freak out about it before Jungkook was moving even closer, his grin wide and easygoing.   That , he tried not to think about.

Finals week crept up on Taehyung with all the subtlety of a freight train at full speed.  Of course he was aware that it was coming up. It wasn’t a surprise, any more than it would be a shock to see a train barreling towards you as you stood dead center of an active track, but the very existence of the exams was one bitch of a reminder about personal responsibilities, anyway.  Contrary to popular belief, Taehyung did study. He studied well. But he wasn’t one of those “stay in the library, bent over a table until four o’clock in the morning” people either. He valued his sleep as much as Yoongi, at times, and the only reason he’d be bent over a table in the university library is if Jungkook was standing behind him.

So, for the most part, he congregated in Namjoon and Seokjin’s apartment for the week preceding finals, as well as the actual exam week, alongside the rest of his friend group.  There was a mutual understanding of the persisting silence that was required of their study sessions, and if they brought snacks, they brought enough for everyone. It was a comfortable arrangement, and one that easily enabled Taehyung to spend as much time with Jungkook as he did working towards a better version of himself, who also had better test scores than the current version of himself.

On the last day of finals week, Taehyung took the exam which he feared the most: economics with professor shithead.  By this point, Taehyung had half forgotten his real surname, because even if he had improved (most likely a result of Jungkook’s “talk” with the head of the department), he was still an asshole of a human being.  The only consolation was that Jimin would be taking the exam right there next to him.

The rest of his friends were already back at the apartment when he and Jimin returned that afternoon, bodies laden with exhaustion, minds numb with an excess of useless information.  Seokjin glanced over sympathetically from where he was standing in front of the stovetop when they walked in.

He turned the burner off and placed a lid on what appeared to be a stew of some kind.  Normally, they would have had a party on the last day of exams, but as Seokjin has pointed out days before, their university operated on a different schedule entirely.  While the rest of them were essentially finished and just waiting around for their grades before going back home over the break, Namjoon still had until the following Wednesday.  That being said, they had safely decided on a dinner and movie night together as a group to celebrate surviving another semester.

“How’d it go, guys?”

Taehyung dropped his bag at the door, kicking off his shoes as he vaguely recognized Jimin doing the same.  He walked sluggishly towards the long couch where Jungkook and Yoongi both sat, curled up at opposite ends watching a drama.  Taehyung very deliberately latched himself onto Jungkook’s side as Jimin did the same to his boyfriend, the four of them forming one large, listless pile of bodies and throw pillows.  Namjoon and a Hoseok watched in rapt fascination from the table.

“He asked but one question,” Taehyung said finally, breaking the formidable spell of quiet.  Seokjin came into the room, gingerly taking a seat in an armchair across from them. Jungkook patted his back as well as he could manage, given that Taehyung was actually lying limp on top of it.

“Which was?” Namjoon prompted.

Taehyung peeked over at him from his place against Jungkook’s neck.  He maintained the eye contact for a moment, before very solemnly closing his eyes and professing the question, “What do you think about economics?”

There was a pause.  They let the words hang between them, and just when Taehyung thought that he would have to spell it out for them, possibly in a literal sense, Yoongi reared back and fucking cackled.

“That’s seriously great,” he said, wiping at his eyes.  His laughter shook Jimin’s body in his lap, and by extension, Taehyung and Jungkook, as well.

“You must be pretty relieved,” Seokjin remarked with a pleasant grin.  He settled back into his chair languidly, and it wasn’t until then that Taehyung realized his own distress had set the man on edge.  From the way Jungkook squeezed gently at his bicep, and the expressions that Namjoon and Hoseok shot him from the other side of the room, he thought that maybe it wasn’t so much a singularly held sentiment, either.  His heart warmed with their concern and affection.

“Why is that a good thing?” Jungkook gripped at his arm a little tighter now.  “Taehyung hates economics. It wouldn’t exactly be a stellar review of the subject, would it?”  

Taehyung smoothed a hand over his chest, firm with muscles and always warm.  If he were a bird, Taehyung thought, if he had feathers instead of these muscles, they would most certainly be ruffled right about now.  He was protective by nature, but down right territorial of the people closest to him. Taehyung smiled against his neck.

“You don’t get it,” Hoseok insisted from the table.  “Tae Tae can bullshit better than anyone, in case you didn’t know.”

“And bullshit I did.”  He maneuvered in such a way that he could get to his pocket without actually removing himself from Jungkook's side.  He took out a paper, folded in fourths, bent at the edges, and slightly crumpled from his journey on the subway. He smoothed it out against his leg and proudly held it up for the rest of the room to see.  The number 98 stood out at the top, written in red and circled around twice. Taehyung smirked.

“He graded them all with the time we had left over in the exam period.”

Jimin held his own up, flashing them a peace sign with the other hand.  Unsurprisingly, his grade was no less than a perfect 100.

“Apparently, Tae didn’t even need to worry about it.  Our professor was planning on padding his grades the whole time.”  He pointed at the paper. “This is worth a majority of our semester grade.”

Jimin leaned down to plant an exaggerated kiss on Yoongi’s cheek, which the older pretended not to enjoy for the sake of doing so.  Taehyung scrunched his nose.

“Oh! And he’s counting our last project as bonus points.”

“I think it was Jungkook, actually,” Taehyung supplied evenly, nuzzling into the man with his nose.  “He was probably just worried about the department head cracking down on him. Had to do something about all of the failing students.

Namjoon shook his head.  “The national education system, everyone.”

Jimin lifted his head from Yoongi’s chest with a grin.  “I’m pretty happy with it today.”

“I’m sure you are,” Hoseok tssked.  He was the only one still left at the table.  After Namjoon’s great declaration about the state of Korean schooling, he had at some point meandered over to the living room to stand beside Seokjin, his hand resting comfortably atop his boyfriend’s shoulder, their fingers locked together.  Taehyung doubted that it was a conscious action for either of them. Thinking about his own position, he didn’t think it was necessarily conscious of Jungkook to be absently smoothing a hand down his lower back, either. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

He didn’t know if it was a sign that Jungkook was the one to curl into the side of his body later that night as they watched movies, but he decided then that even if it wasn’t, he would take it as one.  Because, as he really looked at Namjoon and Seokjin, two of his closest friends, and how they fit together like two pieces of the same puzzle, Taehyung realized that that —the familiarity, the unconscious affection—was what he wanted to have with Jungkook, even if it meant risking what they had already.  

The thing about Namjoon and Seokjin that made them perhaps the most necessary components of the group, and consequently Taehyung’s life, as it was, was that they always knew what he needed.  Really, they always knew what everyone needed in a time of duress, and they were quite possibly the least fucked up individuals out of all of them. They each had their own vices, gimmicks, quirks which made they simultaneously charming and in need of professional help.  

Jimin, for example, dragged his way out of the closet and hopped right on the goddamn train of sexual liberation, to which one Min Yoongi was the captain.  For as innocent as he had once been, how naive and childish in nature, he was now the equivalent of an alcoholic on a bender that never seemed to end, no matter how intensely tired his friends were of hearing of his insatiable sex drive.  Captain Yoongi—a mature, stoic, sometimes dour creature, who in many areas was as well put-together as Namjoon or Seokjin and had never been one (ask anyone on campus) for blatant sexual deviances or promiscuity—had evidently chosen that life for himself the minute he met and fell in love with Jimin.  Their shared quirk could only be misconstrued as charming because it was obvious how much they cared about each other in the meantime.

Hoseok, bless him, was so nice that he would never tell anyone that they had pissed him off or otherwise hurt his feelings, in order to avoid hurting theirs.  Jungkook, while lovable, could be obsessively competitive. This was evident by the fact that no matter what game they played, be it xbox, sport, or drinking, he rarely ever lost.  Though despite that, he always gave Taehyung the prize from the toy crane in the end, and never bragged or showboated, even when the situation might have called for it. And even Taehyung, though he had graduated near the top of his class (he probably could have been first, if not for Namjoon), could sometimes be the biggest fucking mess in the room.  He wouldn’t say it was something he was proud of. No one was proud of being a mess, even the occasional mess that he was. But he still did what he needed to do, maintained his near-top-of-the-class status, and just happened to be very good at blowing off steam whenever the opportunity presented itself. Who could fault him for that?

But Namjoon and Seokjin, both benevolent human beings that Taehyung was convinced his future children would call their uncles, were always there, without error, to stop him when his charming quirk of periodically fucking up turned into a more serious lapse of judgement that could see him thrown in jail or, well, worse.

Too bad he didn’t always consult them.

The halls of the dorm building were filled with boxes, suitcases, duffle bags, debris, and the sporadic oddity as students worked to clear their rooms before break officially began.  Taehyung was pretty sure that it was the only time he had ever even seen the neighbors on the other side of their room’s right wall, and was half convinced this entire time that the two were really mythological creatures of some sort.  They were lucky enough not to have nightly room checks like some of the stricter schools in the area did, but it tended towards a few handfuls of students who only lived in the dorm on paper, as a means to appease their conservative parents.  Jimin had abused that oversight on any number of occasions, but Taehyung, distressingly single since birth, had never seen much of a reason for it, besides the few times that he would crash with his friends after a party. If you’re drunk off your ass, a random couch feels a hell of a lot more feasible than a trek through the city.

Avoiding the students moving in and out of their rooms, Taehyung made his way through the sixth floor hall that held his room, before executing a detour to the stairwell when he realized that trying to gain access to one of the three elevators in the bank would be like waiting in line for a ride at Lotte World.  He was probably one of the only people on his floor not leaving today, and though he was packed—for the most part, at least—he had waited long enough to get a train ticket back to Daegu that he ended up having to wait a couple more days than the rest of the university’s southern bound students to go home. But it was no matter to him.  He had things to do.

He took the rest of the stairs two at a time, hurried and impatient as he moved towards his and Jungkook’s usual meeting place in the quad.  While the last few weeks had been unpleasantly cold, today was just shy of hell frozen over, and he knew that Jungkook would be waiting for him there like he always was.  Jungkook, who was leaving in two days to go home to Busan. Jungkook, who he would be lucky to have speak to him after today.

No, he couldn’t afford to think like that.  It wasn’t conducive to getting shit done, he found.  Otherwise, he would have told Jungkook about his monumental crush bordering on obsession some time after they first met, and yet.  But despite the mindset that yes, he did need to tell him, Taehyung had still waited until right before break to fess up, largely in the off chance that he would feel the need to seclude himself from all various forms of socialization afterwards.  It was something that he had to do, because not only was he lying to himself by saying he was perfectly okay with being just friends, but he was lying to Jungkook, as well. And frankly, the worst thing he could think of about in the given situation was being a liar in the eyes of the person he liked most.  It wasn’t how his parents had raised him.

So when he saw Jungkook sitting on his normal step, phone in hand, beanie drawn low over his forehead, it was all he could do not to turn around and run in the other direction.  (Refer to: not conducive to getting shit done). When Jungkook did look up over the edge of his screen to see Taehyung standing awkwardly some fifteen feet away, he stood, waved, and smiled.

“Hyung!  What are you-”

Taehyung held out a hand to stop him as he started to walk closer.  Jungkook paused in confusion.

“I have something to say,” he proclaimed, not very strongly.  His voice may have cracked, too, just a little. A couple of girls nearby stopped to stare, but Taehyung was entirely too focused on his current task for it to be more than a passing thought.  

“Hyung-” Jungkook began, eyes wide.

“No, let me-  I won’t be able to tell you if it’s not now.”

Jungkook closed his mouth, even though he looked very much like he wanted to keep talking.  Taehyung nodded encouragingly to himself. Now or never.

“I’m not good with words,” he began, though really, he felt like he was only stating what was already obvious by this point.  “I talk a lot, but I’m not good with the important things, okay? And there’s something I’ve wanted to say for weeks now, and I thought it might just be better to show you.”

“Taehyung-”

“It didn’t work that well the first time,” he admitted, hands balled tight against the seams of his knockoff adidas joggers.  “But maybe it’s worth a second chance.”

“Taehyung!”

Yep. Now or never.

He turned around, embracing the indomitable facade of a soldier off to battle, and, with great care, yanked his pants down just enough so that the blocky, white painted words I Love You were visible over the elastic band.

That, he would recall later, is why he was always, always supposed to consult Namjoon and Seokjin first.

Not only was he the occasional mess, Taehyung could very freely admit, but his life was, more often than not, one big fucking disaster after another.  He didn’t talk to Jungkook again after the spectacular ass confession that had sounded a lot better in his head for some reason. Not in that moment, not immediately following, and certainly not that afternoon, as he laid under the covers scrolling through social media where not one, but several of his classmates had recorded the entire catastrophe and proceeded to post it online.

The problem was that he didn’t think things through very well.  Or that he didn’t say them out loud. Because sometimes things sound completely sane and rational while they’re still just thoughts floating around inside your own head, but the minute you say them with other people present, you’re aware of how jacked it really seems.  Only, he had said the plan out loud. He had quite clearly told Jimin (whose best friend privileges were semi-permanently revoked the minute he had to flee the scene, quite literally, and take refuge in his dorm room), and Jimin had gone along with it. He had thought it was a decent enough idea to personally paint Taehyung’s ass, for starters.  And he must have thought it was decent enough to tell Yoongi, a generally rational human being. He had told him just minutes before everything went down, granted, but still. He was there at the quad. He didn’t stop it.

That was the other problem.  Taehyung relied too heavily on his friends to stop him when he made poor life decisions.  It wasn’t actually their responsibility.

And yet .

“Why did you let me do that?” Taehyung whined pitifully, his face muffled by the pillow it was stuffed into.  He had given up on social media for the time being, and really his phone all together. By now, all of his friends had heard what happened.  Although he appreciated their concern and frank criticism, truly, he did not feel up to dealing with it just then.

“Why do I let you do a lot of things?”  Jimin sighed. He could tell it was a genuine sound of emotional distress without having to lift his head, even if he couldn’t fully appreciate the conviction.  “Because I'm a bad friend.”

Taehyung groaned into the pillow.  He thought about correcting him. No, you’re not a bad friend.  You’re just a dumbass like me sometimes .  He didn’t.  It felt rather pointless.  He groaned again because he could.

“Okay, no, seriously.  Even if that may have not been the best delivery method out there—okay?—and maybe he was a little freaked at first, what with the people staring and all, but I know he cares about you.  So just give yourself a little time, then talk to him.”

This time he grunted.  It could have been a sound of agreement.

Jimin patted his shoulder.  “Well alright then.”

He didn’t see Jungkook that night either, and the more time Taehyung spent in bed, the more convinced he was that it could actually swallow him whole and it wouldn’t make much of a difference.  Jungkook would be leaving the day after tomorrow. He would spend Christmas with his family halfway across the country. He would return, only to find that they could no longer tolerate to be within each other’s presence due to the crushing weight on Taehyung’s one-sided affection.  They would dance around each other for a while out of courtesy, before finally giving in and avoiding each other entirely. Namjoon and Seokjin would maintain partial custody of the both of them, alternating weekends. That was the future he was doomed to live, written in stone.

So Jungkook didn’t show up, but Jimin laid with him under the covers, using his phone to watch the cheesiest Japanese movies they could find on Netflix.  Yoongi brought the both of them food, coming and going with a gruff pat to the back, which Taehyung supposed constituted empathy. He was touched.

Hoseok came and joined them under the covers for a while, and even Namjoon and Seokjin, who rarely ventured outside of their own neighborhood, came to visit.  They didn’t call him an idiot like he thought they might. Maybe he deserved that, as a means to learn from his mistakes and all, but they didn’t. They’d already seen the videos online.  So instead, they brought beer and hugged him when he started crying and crawled behind the three of them to sit against the headboard when they restarted the terrible movie marathon. Namjoon wasn’t really a corny person, but before they left, he hugged Taehyung again and said very seriously that it would all work out for the better.  Taehyung didn’t have the heart to tell him he didn’t believe it.

Not until the next morning, at least.

Jimin was already up and dressed and on his way out to meet Hoseok for the last time before break when there was a knock at the door.  It was almost noon, and though Jimin had made him do all of the really important things (like clothing and basic hygiene, for instance), he had immediately crawled back into bed and refused to move ever since.  Jimin went to answer the door, likely knowing full well that Taehyung wasn’t in the proper place to do so.

Taehyung shut his eyes and pulled the blankets up over his face.  Maybe if he could pretend that he was asleep, then he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone else.  

The door opened with an obnoxious creak.  Jimin paused.

“Jungkook-ah.  What are you doing here?”

Taehyung jolted as if he’d been punched, the wind completely knocked out of his lungs within the millisecond he attempted to decide whether he could make a break for the closet, or the window.  People could survive six story falls, right? It could happen, theoretically, if only he could shimmy his way out the opening fast enough.

“I, ah, I need to talk to hyung.”

Shit.  He was already too late.  Jungkook would be able to see his body shaped pile of blankets and pillows on the bed, and unless Jimin refused-

“Sure, Jungkook-ah.  Come in.”

Fuck.

The door didn’t close, but he could hear footsteps coming into the room and a mumbled thanks under Jungkook’s breath.  Taehyung debated pulling the blankets away from his face. He didn’t. He wasn’t sure if he was still pretending to be asleep, or if he was playing dead.  Neither seemed especially productive.

“Right.  So I’m going to go get a last minute work out in with Hoseok hyung.  You two, just,” he stopped. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

There was some shuffling around, then the sound of the door closing.  Jungkook stayed silent for a moment.

“Hyung.”

Taehyung didn’t answer.  His heart was pounding, breath short.  It was all he could hear.

“Hyung, I know you’re awake.  Can we talk?” His tone was forlorn.  It sounded like a plea, was a plea, when he thought about it.  He sighed.

“About?”

Jungkook snorted, incredulous.  “Are you serious right now?”

Even though he knew it was coming, Taehyung wasn’t fast enough to stop the blanket from being tugged away from his face.  Beyond the momentary blindness (because it was now the end of another semester, and they still hadn’t bothered to buy curtains), he was left staring up at Jungkook’s handsome, ridiculously perfect face.  

He didn’t look angry.  He should’ve, but he didn’t.  Just a little annoyed, a little concerned, maybe a little nervous, too.  But when their eyes met, all Taehyung could think about was the way those same eyes looked just twenty-four hours ago.  He couldn’t shake the mortified expression from his mind, and now, literally just now, was the first time Taehyung had even considered how it must have felt to be left there like that with all of those people staring and laughing while he, the one who had started it all, was running for safety.

He really hadn’t even intended for it to be like that.  In his head, it sounded funny, not embarrassing .  It wasn’t until after that he remembered how panicked Jungkook sounded, trying to stop him.  From a public confession. From the unfortunate mooning incident. From embarrassing the both of them by having to reject Taehyung in front of so many people.  But he’d still turned around. He’d ignored Jungkook’s feelings and dropped his pants and waited there until, in true jackass form, he finally decided to turn around after five long, painfully silent seconds to see Jungkook standing there with his eyes wide, his mouth gaping, and his demeanor the absolute picture of complete and utter degradation. He didn't stick around long after that.  Jungkook should hate him.

“What are you doing here?” he mumbled, looking up at Jungkook who was still, for some peculiar reason, not outwardly angry about the whole situation.

He planted his hands on the mattress beside Taehyung, and in doing so, inadvertently leaned closer into his personal space.  “I don’t know, really. What I’m doing.”

“Okay...” Taehyung sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed beside Jungkook and standing.  It was very obviously just a way to put more space between them, and maybe that was shitty of him too, since Jungkook was reaching out to him with the metaphorical olive branch, it seemed.  He couldn’t help it though. Not when he could feel the heat radiating off of his body, or when he could smell his cologne. He didn’t usually wear a lot of it, but it was earthy and nice and comforting.  His head was spinning.

“No, wait!”  Jungkook grabbed a hold of his wrist before he could make it across the room and to the door.  He wasn’t sure where he was going with that. It’s not like he would throw Jungkook out, even if he kind of wanted to, and he wouldn’t be rude enough to completely walk away in the middle of a conversation, either.

“I mean, okay.”  He gripped tighter around Taehyung’s wrist, maybe just to show that his hand was still there.  “What happened, it was… unexpected, alright? I didn't even know that you liked me—not really, I mean—and I was just waiting around for you so we could do normal stuff like we always do when all of a sudden, you were there with your pants down.”

When Taehyung tried to pull his arm free, Jungkook grabbed the other one too, holding him still.

“Just give me a minute, hyung.  I'm getting there. So that happened and I didn't expect it, but then there was just so much going on with everyone else there that I just, I guess I just froze.  The next thing I know is that you're running away, and I saw you for a minute and I saw how hurt you looked, but that's not what is was, okay?”

Taehyung stared at him quietly, trying to imagine how sweet, innocent Jungkook was the one that got fucked over and was still apologizing because Taehyung’s feelings were hurt.

“I thought I'd see you again, that you'd come and, I don't know, explain or something, but you didn't.  I kept waiting and then finally I thought, maybe you were waiting for me.”

He released his hold on Taehyung, but held his hands out in a brief, placating kind of gesture that he probably meant to say stay, don’t go anywhere .  He turned around to Jimin’s side of the room, leaving Taehyung only momentarily confused as he went to pick something up off of the bed.  When he turned back around, it was with a small bundle of flowers.

It was an ugly bouquet.  Like, wow, it was terribly coordinated.  It took Taehyung a moment to figure out that he probably hadn’t picked the bouquet, but each flower individually.  It was awful, but Jungkook was grinning because he was proud of it. It was ugly, and it was the greatest bouquet Taehyung had ever seen.

“Hyung, I wanted to tell you that these few months with you have been some of the strangest in my entire life.  I've never met anyone like you and—no, that's a good thing—and I've been really looking up to you and how you just don't care what others think about.  I always wanted to be like that.” He had one hand holding the flowers and another resting on the hem of his white t-shirt. “And I wanted to tell you that I like you too.”

Taehyung couldn’t bite back the breath of astonishment when Jungkook actually did lift the shirt, and painted along his stomach, the tight ridges of his abs, were the words Will You Go Out With Me .  A burst of surprised, hysterical laughter bubbled from his chest.  Jungkook smiled.

“It's not the same thing, but I kind of had to have Hoseok hyung help me and neither of us really felt good about him touching my ass.  It was too many words anyways but-”

He stopped himself short when he finally did glance up.  Taehyung was completely still, completely quiet, as he stared at Jungkook.  He dropped his shirt.

“What?”

“Yes.”

Jungkook blinked.  “Really?”

Taehyung nodded, and if he ever honestly thought that being in the general vicinity of Jungkook and laughing and joking with him and just being friends was comparable to the best feeling in the entire world, then he had very clearly never been kissed by Jungkook before.  It felt like drowning and flying at the same time, suffocating and breathing. And when Jungkook clasped his jaw, tilted his head, brought them closer together, Taehyung let him. He realized, a kiss had never felt this good before, this powerful, because Taehyung had never liked someone so much before.  He’d never waited this long.

Even when they broke apart, they didn’t really separate.  Jungkook kept his hand on Taehyung’s neck. Taehyung kept his on Jungkook’s waist, and his lips, slick and swollen, reciprocated every time Jungkook pecked delicately at them with his own.

“So you're not,” Taehyung struggled to pull the sentence together with his clouded brain, “put off by the whole thing then?”

Jungkook stilled, eyebrows furrowed as tried to remember what they’d been talking about before.  After a solid few seconds, he shook his head. “It was fucking weird, hyung. I'm not gonna lie. But it was also very you, in a way.  The thought was sweet.”

Taehyung dropped his head onto Jungkook’s shoulder to hide his blush.

“I didn't think about it until later that you might not have wanted everyone to know that a guy liked you, or how awkward it must have been for you whether you liked me back or not.  It's not exactly something a lot of people go out of their way to talk about here, you know?” Jungkook smoothed a hand over his back absently. “But you could just tell everyone that I'm some freak stalker that just likes painting his ass for the hell of it anyways.  They'd believe you.”

Jungkook laughed against the side of his head.  “I don't really care what anyone thinks about it, and even if I did, I think your reputation’s already taken enough of a hit this semester anyways.”

Taehyung pinched his hip.  “To be fair, I didn't have a great one to begin with.”

Jungkook pinched back.  “Believe me, I know. I've heard a lot since yesterday.”

Taehyung lifted his head away from Jungkook’s shoulder, squeezed his arms tighter around his waist.  “So you really mean it? You really, uh, feel the same way?”

“Yes, hyung.  I really do.” He grinned.  “I could paint it on myself if you want.  Just to prove it.”

“Don't push it, brat.”

Jungkook smiled, leaning in to press their lips together again.  “My Sailor Moon.”

They’re still an hour early for the party when they get there.  The apartment hasn’t really changed much since Namjoon and Seokjin first started leasing it, but some of the furniture’s been moved now.  There are twinkly lights strung up all over the place (not the Edison kind now, but the actual Christmas kind, even though it’s been months since the holidays), and the table is full of cheap liquors and mixes and snack foods.  More than anything though, it’s obvious how happy everyone is.

“I have prepared a toast,” Hoseok says, already a little bit tipsy as he holds up his low-carb beer.  He’s always saying how he has to watch his diet even more now that he’s dancing for an actual company, not just the school’s fine arts department.  The rest of them lift up their drinks.

“To 2017.”

“It’s not 2017 anymore, Hoseok-ah,” Seokjin reminds him gently.

“Then to 2018, too.  To one hell of a year, where a lot of really embarrassing shit happened, but some really great shit, too.  To Seokjin hyung, who got into the top med school in the city!”

“Hear, hear!” Namjoon shouts with an arm around his middle.  Seokjin gives them all a small, lopsided smile.

“To Namjoon, for his internship with the publishing firm!”

Seokjin cheers for him this time.  Namjoon kisses his cheek.

“To Jimin, for his amazing solo in the spring showcase, and to Yoongi hyung, for finally working on his mixtape.  To Taehyung, for managing third in his class and for not giving up on higher education. To Jungkook, for getting him there and managing to finish his first year of college without being entirely corrupted!”  

They all shout together, and when Hoseok pauses, Namjoon takes over.

“To Hoseok, for officially beginning his career in dance.”

Hoseok laughs, and maybe it’s the alcohol, but it sounds strained, a bit emotional.  “And to our little group that got a little bigger this year.” He raises his beer high in the air.  “I love you guys.”

They drink and they laugh and when everything calms down again, it’s Jimin who brings it up first.

“Phone number game?”

Hoseok’s eyes widen, like he can’t believe that he could possibly forget such a longstanding tradition.  “The phone number game,” he coos fondly at his dongsaeng. “Of course.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes in good nature.

Jungkook and Taehyung stand by the counter with their drinks, watching as the earliest of the partygoers begin to drift into the apartment.  They both know that by the end of the night, there won’t even really be room to walk comfortably.

“Jungkook,” he nudges.  “Pass me your phone.”

He frowns in confusion, but hands it over anyways.  

Taehyung takes a minute to type, before he gives it back with a sly grin.  He slides a hand around Jungkook’s hips. “There. Now you have a head start.”

“What?”  He unlocks the screen to look at the new contact.

“It's my family's landline at the farmhouse.”  Taehyung shrugs, his face a little warm. “I thought you might need it sometime this week, when you come home with me.”

It takes a second.  They’ve both had a few drinks.  And then Jungkook is closing the space between them.  He grabs Taehyung by the collar and rubs his lips against his throat, his jaw, his cheeks.  He kisses him slow and gentle, because it means a lot more than either of them will say. That they have each other, they love each other, and nothing, nothing is going to stop that.

“That’s not fair,” he hears Jimin gripe from somewhere.  “I feel cheated.”

He pulls away from Jungkook, and he sees Namjoon and Seokjin smiling at them.  They glance at each other, shrug. “We'll take it.”

Taehyung doesn’t think he’ll remember a lot about this day somewhere down the line, but he knows for a fact that he’ll always remember how he felt, surrounded by his closest friends, the people he loved when everything was starting to change.  He’ll remember the way Namjoon and Seokjin kissed at the end of the night and how Hoseok ruffled his hair like he was still a freshman and how Jimin held onto him and Yoongi actually hugged him without some pretense and how Jungkook smiled. He’ll remember who each of them were in that moment and who they would later become, because Taehyung, he’s not going anywhere without the rest of them.