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Bunnies, Mask, and Bruise.
Jungkook was scrambling up the exit staircase to his dorm. It's at moments like now that his guilt floods his advanced blood system, for lying to his boyfriend.
This afternoon he had slipped away, again, from Taehyung asking him to move in together. And Jungkook knows Tae is hurt, beyond imagination, at his ambiguity and vague answers. And it is this that makes him struggle with insomnia and nightmares behind his eyelids every time he sews them shut with force. Which has ended with him being scolded, left and right, by Mr Kim, and Namjoon hyung.
Everyone tells him it is absurd. That a year into their relationship, with a decade of friendship as a basement, makes it obvious Tae won't leave him. That, he should share his stress with him.
However, Jungkook already has lost enough because of the blood rushing in his veins; he can't lose Tae to it too. He would live better with Tae alive but angry with him than losing him beyond reality.
He peeks inside his window just in case a burglar is in there, he has had enough fainted criminals in his hands that he doesn't want one on him now. The kitchen light is turned on.
He cranes his neck and sees a sticky note on his fridge.
" Hi, bunny,
I made lasagna. And don't you dare laugh . I came by and you weren't home. Maybe you were busy.
Love you,
Taetae "
Jungkook can't help but chuckle as he walks in. Of course, he knew Tae made lasagna and was on his way. It was the many perks of being JK, the Justice Keeper.
In fact, he had done his routine set of irritating his boyfriend, who gets all ruffled like an angry kitten at the sight of the black-masked hero.
"Hey, kitty!" JK had called out perched on the top of the library balcony nearby Tae's dorm.
Taehyung didn't even show a semblance of a reaction to that and continued to walk eyes on the pavement and hands in his pocket with his messenger bag across his torso and bouncing off his ass to his gait.
"I'm sorry, please don't be pissed at me," JK said, as he catches up with the impassive boy.
Still no answer, nor a twitch on his handsome face.
JK is about to say something that will come across as friendly when his earpiece blares rather loudly, save his super-sensitive ears!
"JK, there is a sighting near the...wait." He can hear the whirling of screens (which would not be heard normally, for common people. )
"JK, how many times do I tell you? You can't stalk Taehyung even if he is Jungkook's boyfriend. Because, now, you are JK. And this can be legally filed…" Namjoon hyung is about to go on another lecture, and JK cuts it off.
He tucks the yellow rose he had picked up earlier into the open zip of Taehyung's bag, before sprinting to the nearest post and climbing it.
"OK, hyung. No need for another crash course. Now, where?" Namjoon sighs on the other end before relaying the coordinates and situation.
Now, as he cleans his fridge of leftovers he glimpses a shade of ombre in his garbage. And undoubtedly it is the rose.
"I hate that entitled jerk!" Taehyung growls to his friend, slumping into the soft pillows and plushies on his bed. He grasps at the pink bunny, a prize Kookie had won him, to his chest as he tries to calm down a bit.
"I believe it's about the city's charming hero, who inexplicably you hate, that you're talking of?" Jimin says bringing in a stack of Taehyung's freshly done laundry, all neatly folded, and placing it at the foot of his bed.
"Charmer," Tae scoffs, nuzzling into the bunny's furry belly. " More like a bully."
Jimin shakes his head as he takes a puppy pillow and sits on the bed as well."What did he do this time?"
"The fucker gave me a bunny balloon!" Taehyung exploded. Jimin raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"But you love bunnies," Jimin glanced around the room, filled with Bunny themed plushies, robes, hair bands, even stationary, and glared pointedly at the bunny smiling on Taehyung's phone.
"That is when it is from my bunny, or when I see something and am reminded of Kookie, my Bunny!" Taehyung said, now on his knees, eyes wider than the moon and eyebrows becoming part of his hairline. "How dare he get me a Bunny balloon!"
And then he crumbled down from his dramatics, Jimin was amused for a second when he realised his soul mate was actually crying.
"Oh my, don't cry Taetae," he took the younger's hands and held them in his very tiny hands."Why are you crying Tae?" Jimin was a bit worried now.
What if the superhero had really assaulted Tae? Did the black-clad crime-fighter commit a crime himself? Was Taehyung not exaggerating all this time?
" The...the bunny exploded...the nasty black slime ball.." Tae hiccupped. "Gave me a bunny and it died…." Tae wheezed a breath. Jimin rubbed on the back to soothe the panic.
"And..and then I called Kookie and he didn't answer his phone, THRICE! And I started to panic when Hobi hyung called saying Kookie broke his phone and won't be able to call me today. That sleazeball is bad and ominous. I'm not ever letting him near me again."
" That's alright. You can do whatever you want. Next time, you call me and I'll chop him up. " Jimin said, face all serious and calm.
Taehyung giggled at his tiny friend remembering the times Jimin and Jungkook used to heat up kids in kindergarten and get into trouble.
"If only the police would not laugh off my complaints," Tae snuggled into the sheets.
"Seriously Tae, that time JK had simply said a pick-up line," Jimin recounted accurately.
" And I have a boyfriend! That is technically stalking, even harassment," Jimin sighs, unable to argue on the point against the law major.
" Well, technically he has a loophole, you are always being silent," Jimin says, pointing out what he has said to the younger multiple times.
" But me retaliating or answering him would acknowledge him and his words," Taehyung rebutted.
" Remember when you and Kook danced around each other on technicalities?" Jimin pulled back the memories of the now couple pining over each other thinking the other wasn't interested just because both of them didn't have the guts to simply confess.
Taehyung winced at that.
Those were admittedly the dumbest shit Taehyung had done in his life. Even when the three of them were small he was the one with the most sense. Which is how he landed the full scholarship at SNU Law.
"No need to pull back those, even if we looked like adorable toddlers on a slide."
And they both burst into peals of laughter.
Jungkook was slamming his head against the boxing bag, and attempt to put something of sense into his clay brain. Namjoon is wrapping his boxing gloves around his palms, letting out a heavy sigh.
"Come on, enough dramatics. I told you to stop it from the beginning. I warned you when I heard Tae whining to Jinnie hyung about your lame pick up line," he tests the gloves against his palm.
"That was not a lame pick up line!" Jungkook voiced dropping to the floor in a slumped pile.
"Oh is it so? You tried 'I ought to complain to Spotify for you not being named this week’s hottest single' when you for a fact knew he wasn't single." Namjoon states, doing air quotes with his whole hand due to the gloves.
"Well.. technically JK shouldn't know of us dating.." Kook mumbled.
"Get over here," Namjoon gets into the ring. "Focus," Namjoon claps.
"But Tae hates me, I want him to, at least, appreciate me before I tell him." Jungkook pouts while effortlessly blocking a throw to his cheek.
"Corrections, he doesn't hate JK, he just doesn't drool over you in your suit like everyone else. And you are only making him hate JK rather than appreciating," Namjoon paves meticulously, readying himself for Kook's move.
Jungkook shuts up at that knowing that his cousin is correct.
But does it stop him? No.
Jungkook is leaping from building to building chasing a van that had just abducted a teenage girl. The Seoul buildings weren't like Busan ones. These were all too fancy, either glass or something that doesn't fit in your mouth. But JK wasn't bothered by this, he was only functioning in Seoul as he had only appeared after Jungkook had come to SNU along with his lifelong best friends- now boyfriend and best friend.
He sights a turn up ahead which is isolated at the moment, and throws a blade each at the wheels. He smiles as the blades pierce accurately and the vehicle starts to skid. Seems like the driver does have some sense and the brake is being applied making JK's job easier.
He lands in front of the van and braces for the impact. As the impact, lessened by the brakes and blades, comes he pushes back finally stalling the van to rest. He mentally notes to later check for any tendon or muscle damage.
After rounding up a group of average size boy-men, probably just out of juvenile and about to go back in much to Kook's disappointment, he checks for any lethal injuries on the girl.
The girl is hugging her middle and JK notices that her bag is missing. He looks on if he can find it when the police arrive and he flees the scene.
The problem with being JK is the law. Despite being a hero, he is still an illegal persona with inhuman stamina and enhanced abilities.
He is back to the library balcony checking one last time on Tae. He simply sometimes wants to make sure his baby bear is safe. Well, not sometimes but all the time.
Taehyung is coming out of the library carrying a stack of heavy books, hugging them against his chest. The position and the weight of the books are tugging at the wide collar of the baby-blue sweatshirt revealing a lavender field at the base of the slender neck, courtesy of Jeon Jungkook not having enough of his boyfriend last night.
Jungkook beneath the mask of JK feels his skin get goosebumps while feeling hot and bothered remembering how loud Taehyung had moaned under him, and later putting on a show of how to ride a horse for a single person audience.
Shaking off, he slides down the wall to sweep the stack right out of the elder boy's arms.
"Please give me back the books, Justice Keeper," Tae said with the irritation clear in his voice. " I have an exam and I don't have the time for your bullshit."
"Guess what, I don't want to waste your time either. These look heavy and I'll carry them till your dorm." JK states walking ahead with a strong gait.
He can imagine Tae biting his lower lip like he does when he is brooding over something. And after a while, he hears the soft padding of footsteps trailing him.
They reach the dorm, and Tae is sharp as a vulture when he stops JK from going ahead and moving to take the books.
"But.." JK begins a refute, and Taehyung cuts it off politely gathering the books.
"Thank you for your help, JK-ssi. But I am perfectly capable of carrying these to my room. Thank you. Have a nice evening."
"Aww, come on boyfriends are there to help," and JK remembers he is not Kookie now. And changes the sentence following, "Do you know what my shirt is made of? Boyfriend material," he puts out a smirk that he is sure that the whole city is swooning over except for his own boyfriend - civilian persona's boyfriend.
Taehyung puts down the books on the staircase and turns to the masked superhero.
" Look here Mr Black-mask-hero, just because you save people does not give you the right to flirt with anyone. I have a boyfriend. I am asking you politely to stop following me for the first and last time. Good night. " And with that, the slender boy goes up with the books.
And Jungkook thinks, uh-oh.
Jungkook is gathering his stationery and notes from the desk after clarifying a doubt he had in molecular biology when he feels slender long fingers trail up his back and hot breath released against his nape. Before he can regain his relinquished senses there is a wet trail on the shell of his right ear, and a tongue folds over his earlobe, soon being suckled on greedily.
Jungkook swirls with perfect momentum- another benefit of fighting crimes on a daily basis is you know perfectly well how to swing situations around- caging his naughty boyfriend in his arms against the desk.
Taehyung grins at him, hands moving to the first button on the collarless shirt, following in the release of more in a matter of seconds.
Jungkook shudders trying to control the beast of his desire in the fickle chains of control he had. One doesn't get the opportunity to enhance patience when a vixen taunts you.
"Taehyung," Jungkook takes hold of the criminal wrists growling, pushing forward until he is on his boyfriend spread on the desk with arms pinned above.
"Are you gonna ruin me like you did last time I stopped by?" Taehyung is quick to change his demeanor from a naughty cat to an adorable kitten, which leaves Jungkook in a whiplash.
"You want that, don't you, Kitty?" He doesn't watch his tongue. And Tae, the ever-observant, does.
"Kitty?" His bold eyebrows furrow, brushing together and forming lines. And Jungkook slaps himself mentally for running his mouth.
"I ..you.." Jungkook stumbles. Taehyung is obviously irritated by it. The expected awkward air is cut off by the trilling of Taehyung's phone. He pushes off the younger, and digs for it.
" oh, sorry Kookie. But I gotta go. The student council is having an important meeting." He hops off the desk and picks up the bag, carding his fingers through his hair, and straightening his Shirt.
Leaning forward he kisses Kook on the nose before skipping off.
Jungkook bends over his forehead pressed to the surface as he calms himself down. Consequently, cursing himself and deciding it's time to get things into a hand.
“Kitty?” Taehyung mutters heading for the library, after coming out of the meeting. It wasn’t a major meeting. In fact, he had decidedly thought of avoiding it when he had stopped by in Jungkook’s class, but the new word made him want to get out of there.
Jungkook hasn’t used ‘Kitty’ before, it’s that bastard of a superhero who does that. Why does he feel his guts twist with this feeling? A feeling of instinctively knowing something all the newspaper headlines have been talking about.
People not believing him when he says JK is an asshole, and a flirt, and saying the superhero is rather introverted. And, indeed, JK does not speak with anyone if not necessary, he simply jumps or rolls in to save the day and disappears.
Jungkook missing at odd times of the day, almost always missing in the evenings. Jungkook not wanting to move in with him. JK bringing bunny balloons, despite only Jungkook ever buying him them, not even Jimin does that.
His eyes fall on the newspaper section, with a photograph of JK handing over some smuggled drugs, and gold. And Taehyung agrees with his peers of the superhero being physically enticing but he has his Kookie.
But this feeling….
Namjoon wants to pull out his hair looking at his screens. He didn’t sign up for a babysitting job when he agreed to be the technical backbone for JK. He really didn’t. He had been honoured to be selected by the CEO and head scientist of the KIM corp.
But his story doesn’t stop there.
Mr KIM had a seriously handsome son, who had somehow noticed him, who became his boyfriend. And guess what? His designated partner in action had a best friend, who was the little brother of his boyfriend.
So, how does that become problematic?
Well, it goes a bit like this.
The best friends finally suck it up and become boyfriends. Neither his boyfriend nor his partner’s boyfriend knows of their partnership. But his partner, being the foolish-superhero-smitten-boyfriend, just went and kissed his boyfriend’s brother, who doesn’t know that the superhero is his boyfriend.
And why is Namjoon freaking out? Because he knows for a fact that all the Kims are going to screw him over. And he doesn’t like it unless it is the elder son Kim.
And now his screen is glowing with his handsome boyfriend’s picture, calling.
“Jinnie hyung! Hi!” Namjoon says jovially, hoping this call isn’t from his nightmares.
“Hi, Joonie. Where are you?”
“Um…” Namjoon’s brain is short-circuiting. “At my internship.” He couldn’t tell his boyfriend he is in the safety layer with the most advanced technologies trying to get a boy with a mask to get back his senses, from being slapped by his real-life boyfriend, Can he?
“But you aren’t here,” He can hear the elevator ding on the other end. He really needs better excuses.
“I’m in the labs today. Do you wanna get dinner tonight?” He is desperate to change the topic.
“That’s why I came here. But the reception says you don’t have your turn today?” Namjoon heaves a long breath. His boyfriend didn’t call to bite his head off.
“It's not official, just helping out.”
“Dad is working you too much. You don’t have time for me at all!” Jin whines, the car engine becomes alive, as the speakers play the latest IU hit.
Namjoon feels guilt block his oxygen.
“I’m sorry, Baby. I promise I’ll fill more of you in my timetable. Oky?” Namjoon asks in a voice reflecting his guilt. “Forgive me?”
“Whatever,” Namjoon whines at that, elucidating a chuckle from the elder. “Okay, you big baby. I forgive you. And, tonight you’re mine.” And the call ends.
Jungkook really is still feeling the pain in his bruised cheek. Or maybe it's just his(JK’s) hurt ego.
He hadn’t expected a slap from his boyfriend, as in never. Not from his sweet boyfriend who cries over puppy videos on his phone, and has bunnies in everything. But today he learned to never think low of anyone, ever.
Thinking back now, Taehyung isn’t simply doing a law course with criminology for nothing. One shouldn’t lose sight of reality in bliss.
He’s crawling in his window, as usual, thoughts deranged and remorseful of his actions. What he doesn’t notice is the lights all turned on, and the figure on his couch, sitting legs crossed with a book on lap, in silence.
“Finally,” Jungkook startles and trips over, almost. “How long do you even have these shifts?”
“I- was-How…”
“I am disappointed with you, but I am also feeling sorry for that bruise,” Taehyung says, slipping the bookmark beside him into the pages, marking it, before closing it.
“You seriously thought of me to be a fool. Didn’t you?” Taehyung stares at him. Eyes hard. “Take off that mask, for heaven’s sake,” He says in a voice filled with irritation. And Jungkook pulls off the black item, hissing a bit as he scratches at the bruised skin.
“Sit down super-idiot,” Taehyung commands. Jungkook reluctantly and obediently steps to the other chair. “Here,” Taehyung pats the space beside him.
Taehyung takes his chin and turns to examine the bruised cheek, as Jungkook sits down. He leans forward and places a gentle kiss there. Then sighs. Jungkook can feel the breath on his skin, cool. And lips brush there again, arms slipping around his neck.
“I’m sorry,” Jungkook doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what to say.
They sit like that for a while. Jungkook eventually slips his own arms around the elder’s waist, and Taehyung climbs into his lap. It’s a cocoon. Cocoon of warmth in arms and limbs and skin and silent breaths.
“I’m sorry,” Jungkook breaks the air’s regime. “I- it's just that you didn’t like JK. And..” Jungkook gulps before continuing. “I didn’t want you to dislike a part of me.”
“You thought flirting was the way to make me like an inhumanely strong stalking masked persona?” Taehyung asks after a while, softly. Jungkook winces at that. And seriously what had he been thinking?
“I know….at the time it seemed ….plausible,” Jungkook feels the fingers at the base of his skull, climbing up his roots, in soothing motions. “Like...the MJ always liked Spiderman before she got to know him..” he explained his logic.
“True, hmmm,” Taehyung hums. “But they weren't in relationships at that point. The trope was like her so let her in. Not the other way around like us,” Taehyung says, Jungkook tucked under his chin.
“I’m sorry,” Jungkook mumbles into Taehyung’s neck. He is really grateful Taehyung understands. He didn't know if he would be able to lose his boyfriend and best friends. Sure Jimin wouldn’t side with Tae, but it will be a burden to mediate.
“It's just, I thought you didn’t trust me enough, to move in with me,” Taehyung says, still in the embrace. “And then when things started to piece together, and I saw the puzzle making sense I thought I was a bit crazy.”
Taehyung pulls away, “Even now, I’m wondering how I made you feel you wouldn’t accept me. Or you didn’t trust me enough. And I’ve known you for a decade, Kookie.”
Jungkook felt relief and guilt flood him. He had to partially keep the topic away because of the tragedy that followed his blood, other than that it was his own insecurities. Not Taehyung.
“No, hyung. Taetae, baby bear. I had already lost too much due to my blood. My freedom, my home town, my father...I couldn’t lose you too!”
Jungkook cups the elder’s face as the tears fall. “Kookie, your Appa...I...I thought it was an accident, I’m sorry..”
“Shh, it's okay. It's in the past now….” Jungkook pulls back the elder into him.
“Just please, forgive me?” Jungkook asks.
“Forgive me too?” Taehyung asks with a wet voice and sniffles. Jungkook nods, vehemently.
“I forgive you,” Taehyung says looking up at Jungkook, eyes red-rimmed, nose pink, face tired. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
.
.
“But no more maniac building jumping, okay?”
“Tae…”
.
.
“How dare he?!” Taehyung is storming into the KIM corp HeadQuarters, Jungkook is scrambling behind the angry elder. Despite his lithe figure, and Jungkook being a superhero, Taehyung is a fast walker, and Jungkook is halfway jogging to keep up. Barely getting into the elevator before it shuts.
“Tae, just-” He tries to calm down his boyfriend.
“No,” Taehyung says, looking at him with blades in his eyes. Kim Taehyung is a formidable force, in anger.
“Appa has been funding and instructing you on all those maniacal suicidal ‘missions’,” He does the air quotes. “And you just told me!”
“And he knows! Knows you are my boyfriend, my LOVE!” Taehyung is breathing fast, “How dare he still send you on those?!”
“Tae, it’s not as dangerous as you think. If you ask Joon hyung, he could tell you statistics-”
“JOON HYUNG?!” Taehyung thunders loudly, incredulously.
He stares at Jungkook before he is whipping his phone out.
“Hyung? Yeah. Did you know? Your boyfriend and mine…”
Jungkook might have just signed him, Namjoon’s and Mr KIM’s lives up for hell.
But hey, it’s what happens when you’re a superhero, with an overprotective Lawyer of a boyfriend.