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Taehyung curses. Damn, he should’ve stayed home and lounged around, now that he knows that it’s evident in the way he’s hair is all over the place and the vapor rub he applied can be smelled from 50-miles away that he’s sick as fuck . Now that he knows that everybody who knows him will baby him just because he’s feeling under the weather. Like he isn’t 20 years old.
He thought he could disguise his off colour state with the baggy clothes he usually wears and a beret but apparently, as Hoseok pointed out, they know his pattern of using the head accessory and concludes that whenever he wears it, it’s always on his sick days. Damn it.
Anyway, he brushes them off, his cold is slowly going away and even if it isn’t, he can’t afford to miss this school day, not when the finals are right around the corner.
“You can excuse yourself, you know, Mr. Kwon will understand,” Jin says, “plus, I’ll make you chicken soup.” Jin wiggles his eyebrows, promising good chicken soup but doesn’t ponder the offer (even though soup sounds so good right now).
“No, thanks, I feel like that will only put me in a more lazy mood. And no, Mr. Kwon’s too nice for his own good, I don’t want to take advantage of that anymore.” Taehyung thinks back to when he kept excusing himself in said professor’s classes just because he didn’t want to miss blowout sales in his favorite stores or when he just wanted to stay in his dorm because he just had to finish this episode of his favorite show. He cringes.
“Alright then but if you pass out I will not carry you home.” Yoongi said and Hoseok and Jin quickly said their ‘Me neither’s. Typical.
The first class bell rang some moments after that and they rushed to their assigned rooms.
Taehyung sat down in his chair and everything went smoothly from there.
Well, except when Taehyung had the sniffles every few minutes and his right nostril was blocked and it was hard to breathe. He still has an hour left in this class.
Mrs. Choi was droning on about history and everyone was silent to listen: Taehyung didn’t want to disrupt the atmosphere with his huffing to help out his smelling organ.
Good thing that he was near the corner of the room, so Taehyung slowly reached in his bag to get himself a tissue so he could breathe better.
This is embarrassing, he thought to himself but he had to do this or else he might just squirm and bring unnecessary attention to himself and get into trouble.
He rolled the tissue on his palm and stuck it inside his nose. When he pulled it out, he found that he still couldn’t breathe well and so he got another tissue paper, wrapped his pinky with it and stuck that inside his nose. He rummaged around and aha , there the fucker is, sick son of a bitch, booger .
Mission success! He wrapped the culprit in more tissue papers and pocketed it for later throwing. He looked around to see if anyone witnessed him picking his nose and sure enough, his classmates were still listening (dozing off) or staring absentmindedly at the bored in front of them.
Well, except for one.
His eyes landed on a guy directly across from him, staring intently at Taehyung.
Taehyung’s cheekily smiles at him, before burying his face in his hands and turning 90 degrees to his right, hiding his face away from his classmate. Oh, Lord.
-
When the bells rang for lunch, Taehyung rocketed toward the classroom’s exit that’s just 5 feet from his seat. He doesn’t look back or wait for any more announcements. He’ll just say he had to go and throw up (which is partly true). Right now, what’s more important is for him to get his tomato face and runny nose out the door.
-
He relays this later to his friends and he gets a mix of sympathy and amusement. Jin tells him to not worry about it because he’s unwell and it’s just normal for him to poke around his nose for boogers but Jimin lightly hits him.
“Taehyungie, it’s just one guy seeing you pick out a booger it’s fine. It’s not like you hacked up a cough in the middle of a grocery store in front of a crowd and spit phlegm on the scanner.” Jimin says as he sips from his juice box which earns a collective stare from their table.
“That’s oddly specific.” Namjoon says, munching on a cheese stick.
“Have you been in that situation?” Yoongi asks and it earns a blush from Jimin and this elicits a cackle from Hoseok.
“Yeah, alright,” Taehyung sheepishly smiles, “Thanks guys.”
“No problem.” Yoongi ruffles his hair.
“Mind if I clean my nose?”
They grunt in unison and move their lunch trays inches away from Taehyung and he goes ahead with a dirty, disgusting sound. Just as he’s finishing off wiping his nose, he spots a man turned to him and when he risks a glance and it’s his classmate again.
“Oh come on!” he exclaimed.
“What?” the whole table looked at him in concern.
“The guy I told you about is staring at me again.” He discreetly nodded his head towards the guy and almost everyone gasped, to his bewilderment.
“Oh, he’s cute. Yeah, you screwed yourself with this one, Tae. Imagine humiliating yourself in front of a hot dude.” Hoseok fact-bombed Taehyung, receiving a disappointed glare from him.
“You never told us that a god existed in your class.” Seokjin muttered.
“Hey,” Taehyung and Namjoon pouted.
“You’re still hot,” Seokjin reassured Namjoon, “and you, well you lost your pretty privilege when you didn’t tell us how cute your classmate is.”
“In my defense, I haven’t seen his face either. He’s probably the sleeper or something. Misses classes, that guy.” Taehyung indifferently explains, poking at his salad.
“What’s his name then?” they wait expectantly at Taehyung, who then feels hot under the pressure.
“Jeon Jungkook.”
“Go talk to him!” they urged.
“What the hell, why?” he asked incredulously.
“No, never mind, you don’t look that good today.” Hoseok said and it earned him a sarcastic ‘thank you’ from Taehyung.
-
The rest of the day was for self studying so Taehyung made his way to the library with his heavy history and calculus books and 2 rolls of tissue paper.
He sat himself down and started flipping through the pages.
He’ll be productive despite the headache that’s forming. He’ll read, regardless of the tears that form in his eyes because of his cold. He’ll focus and take notes even though he’d like to let out the sneeze building up in his nose.
He ducks down and covers his nose with his hand to catch the sneeze particles. The librarian and other students give him dagger looks and he whispers his apology.
He clumsily wipes his palms and nose and shoves them down his bag.
Okay, one sneeze out of many but this is fine.
He takes out his pen and highlighters but the pen slips through his fingers and rolls away beneath his chair.
He stands up to go get it and he’s greeted by the douche-y look of Jeon Jungkook sitting in one of the close tables.
Why, why, why , does this keep happening to Taehyung? Isn’t being sick punishment enough because he kept the air conditioning on out of laziness despite snowing last night? Why does he have to shame himself in front of the pretty boy (yes, he’s admitting that the guy’s cute even though there’s a smug look on his face and no, he’s not saying that because he agrees with his friends because they’re shit)?
He’s been staring for a good 2 moments now and it feeds Jungkook’s ego, it would seem, because he’s head tilted and has a playful look on his face.
“Hello,” he greets.
Taehyung, for a lack of words and frozen in place, makes an inhumane sound. He straightens up, pen in his hand and nods in acknowledgment and goes back to his seat, without another look at the guy.
If this is fate or something, I don’t want it , Taehyung thinks to himself. So he’s cute, so he looks like his type albeit kind of looking like a cocky bastard, but, well, even if he was nice, Taehyung ruined his chance to look presentable to the guy with his sneezing and snot and sickly condition.
Taehyung’s about to bury all the unfortunate events today and continue his reading when there’s a tap on his shoulder and a hand sanitizer appearing at the desk he’s occupying.
He whips his head around and there Jungkook is, looking hotter up close while being adorable with his doe eyes.
“Hi,” Taehyung gulps, “again.”
Jungkook giggles and bunny teeth peek through, it makes Taehyung’s stomach do backflips.
“Taehyung, right?” said boy nods in agreement.
“Yes, that’s my name.” he says awkwardly.
“You’re in Mrs. Choi’s class with me, yeah?”
“Yeah, and you’re the guy who always sleeps through her class.” Taehyung says and giggles, despite practically disliking the guy (for a petty reason, yes i.e., looking at him while picking his nose). It’s Jungkook’s turn to look shy but it’s only for a second before he says:
“At least I don’t pick boogers in class.”
“Wha- Hey!” he lightly slaps the other’s arm. They laugh silently through their banter. Jungkook pulls up a chair and sits with Taehyung.
“I’m sick, alright? Why do you keep looking at me while I clean my nose, anyway?” He asks accusingly.
There’s a stunned look on Jungkook’s face before he erupts into more giggles and if Taehyung were to be honest, it’s quite the music to his ears.
“I didn’t want to see your sick face, yeah? I wanted to wait for you to meet my eye or something so I could ask for help in history.”
“Oh,” Taehyung responds dumbly. “Well, I’m sorry, for presenting a gross face then. You should’ve just looked away or come up to me instead of staring .” Taehyung takes the sanitizer and applies it vaguely (if he’s being truthful, the smell of vanilla and lavender makes his headache skitter away, so he’s very thankful).
“My bad, then. But don’t worry, you still look pretty even with- uh…” Jungkook cuts himself off from making a compliment. Taehyung’s eyes are wide with surprise but he goes back to normal when the other clears his throat.
“So, uh, um, can you help me with the topics from page 136?” Jungkook changes the subject with an assortment of high and low pitched voices.
Taehyung softly smiles at him and helps him with what he needs.
-
When the week of the results came in, Taehyung was thrilled to see that Jungkook got an above average on his history test.
Jungkook picks him up like he was nothing and continually showers him with his gratitude. They laugh about it for a while until Jungkook kisses him suddenly.
He puts Taehyung back down carefully and timidly fiddles with his shirt and combs his hair with his fingers shyly.
Taehyung can feel his cheeks redden by the second but he takes Jungkook’s hand in his and kisses him when the other looks up.
“Wanna go on a date with me?” Jungkook whispers so nobody near them can hear, seemingly anxious.
He kisses him again and Jungkook’s tense but becomes pliant and smiles against Taehyung’s lips.
“Of course.”
Taehyung’s very glad now that his sickness is fully gone.