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Their first encounter goes a little something like this.

***

“Jeon Jungkook!” 

His father’s deep, stern voice roused him, and he jerked himself from the half-asleep, drowsy state he was in. “Hm?”

His father was looking at him from across the table, a barely concealed look of disgust on his face. “Would you stay focused for just one minute?” he snarled at his son. “We are in a meeting.”

Jungkook blinked hard, shaking his head a bit as he straightened.

He was at a Jeon family meeting, a gathering of some of the more powerful men and women in their group -- friends, family, acquaintances, strangers. It didn’t matter who exactly they were to him (hell, he could barely name the faces in the room who were peering back at him), but what mattered was that he was there, and how every one of them were to play a part in the years coming as he was to inherit the empire locked under his father’s first.

Not that he particularly cared.

“I’m sorry,” he said back, because he would rather do so than be confined to the stuffy environment of the room any longer than he already had to be. “What was it that we were talking about?”

His father grumbled, and the men in the room shifted, uncomfortable as the tension jumped. “Jungkook, you are no longer a child. You should be preparing every day to eventually take control of this entire empire.” He pounded his fist against the table. “But instead, you slack around every day, with your extravagant little parties and cars and girls .”

Some of the men chuckle, but quickly shut up when his father shoots them another glare.

Jungkook sighed. “I’m not slacking off that much.”

“You should be partaking in the day-by-day of our mob by now, yet you still fail to play a significant role in any operation we conduct. What should I think, when my son doesn’t show up to our meetings and instead has a new girl hanging from his neck every other weekend?”

He was silent, staring back into his father’s eyes as he felt the glare of many others on him. He knew what they were all thinking: jealousy, contempt, anger, that he was destined to be the heir when he never made any effort nor will to do so in the first place. 

“I’m going to introduce someone to you.” His father turned and nodded behind him. Jungkook watched as a man with harsh eyebrows and awkward round glasses walked over from where he was previously sitting in a chair by the wall. He was smiling a bit, but not at Jungkook. His pink mouth was tight and slightly upturned at the corners as he looked at Jungkook’s father, and Jungkook could hear the shuffling all around the room as the men got a better look at who the newcomer could be.

“Kim Taehyung,” the man said, still smiling, and still addressing his father. “My name is Kim Taehyung.”

His father turned to him, finally leading Taehyung’s eyes onto Jungkook himself. “This man here will act as your teacher, or consigliere if you wish to call him so. I have invited him to stay with you these few weeks so that you can quickly adapt to the ways of the mob.”

Jungkook frowns. “Who is this man?”

“Kim Taehyung, sir.” He smiled. “Former consigliere of the Jung mob empire.”

Jungkook still did not recognize his name in particular, but he did recognize the empire he named. An empire that disappeared five years ago in a series of conspiracies and government investigations. Their entire legacy, wiped out in a matter of days.

He hadn’t remembered anyone in the more esteemed positions surviving to tell the tale, even less someone as powerful as a consigliere, but perhaps he was mistaken.

“I’m Jeon Jungkook,” he introduced himself. He got up, as his father had taught him to do when he was young to greet new business partners, and strode over slowly. “I look forward to working with you.”

Kim Taehyung held his hand out, still smiling, the other on his black tie. He had a sort of strange glint in his eyes, like he was testing him somehow. It irks him; Jungkook doesn’t think that being a consigliere meant presiding over the heir of the empire he worked for, but for the sake of time and face, he chooses to ignore it. 

They shook hands. “And I with you as well.”

***

Kim Taehyung was a strange mixture of a man, Jungkook came to find.

On one hand, he did exactly what his father instructed him to do. Jungkook was woken up promptly the next morning in his private penthouse by a rude shaking of the shoulders, and immediately, even before he could even open his eyes, Jungkook grabbed the gun under his pillow and tried to point it at his attacker.

‘Tried’, because he didn’t get his hand even above his head before another hand was closing around his wrist, twisting it back onto the sheets with frightening speed and strength. 

Jungkook opened his eyes.

“Apologies,” Taehyung said, his hand still locked around his wrist tightly, his face a few inches away from his. “Please don’t shoot me when I’m just waking you for breakfast.”

Jungkook blinked blearily, then relaxed and twisted his hand back out of the other’s grasp, though he did leave the gun to him. “Fuck off, please.”

“Good morning,” Taehyung said, unfazed. He straightened, and through Jungkook’s blurry vision, he could see the other man straighten the tie around his neck. It’s an exact copy of the outfit he wore the night before, but unlike how he looked at the meeting, he no longer had a jacket around his shoulders, and, thankfully, he had switched out the awful glasses he had on for a rounder, softer pair. 

In the dim morning light, Kim Taehyung looked better, even if his ears still jut out from the sides of his black hair.

Jungkook rolled over. The man had moved into his penthouse right after his father had made them shake hands, taking up the guest bedroom down the hall from him, and while he hadn’t extended any other conversation other than the basic necessities, Jungkook wasn’t optimistic about what they would have to do in the days following.

“Breakfast,” the other man said, a bit more stern now. Jungkook groaned. 

“I’m coming. Just let me change.”

Kim Taehyung nodded, and as he backed out of the room, he smiled and tapped his fingers against the door. “Your father has instructed that I begin training you in the ways of a mob boss. I expect us to get along fine in the coming days.”

“Perfect. Maybe I’ll be able to drive our empire into the ground like your last one,” Jungkook said, carelessly into the pillow, not really to hurt, but not exactly with any other intention either.

However, rather than some shocked gasp or stunned silence, he heard Taehyung laugh softly. “I’ll try to prevent that from happening.”

The door shut with an irritating click, and Jungkook groaned, already imagining the loss of freedom he would have.

***

Taehyung was, to put it plainly, so boring and so painfully like all the other teachers he’d ever had, that a few hours after working with him, Jungkook was already sweating from the stress of trying to stay awake.

Taehyung noticed this pretty quickly, and he rapped him on the back. “Pay attention.” He pointed to the numbers on his laptop screen. “What numbers do these represent again?”

Jungkook squinted. “... profit?”

Taehyung sighed. “Transportation expenses, so not close at all.” He set his laptop onto the glass coffee table. “Have you been listening at all?”

Jungkook leaned back. “What do you think?”

“I think we both know the answer to that.” He got up and walked to the kitchen. “Water?”

“I’ll come grab it myself,” Jungkook grumbled. His mood was spoiled from the boring, terrible morning he had had. “You’re not my servant, Kim Taehyung. I can do this myself.”

Taehyung laughs as Jungkook crosses him, shoving the glass under the spout of water and filling it to the top with ice water.

“You know, for such a bright and quick-witted person overall, you really are quite shit at remembering how to run an empire.”

“I don’t want to learn,” Jungkook grumbled, and drank half of his water in one go. “There are so many better things to do in my life.”

“Oh? Like what?” 

Jungkook paused, the cusp of the glass by his lips. 

A long, long time ago, his father had taken him and his mother to see a ballet at a big theater in Seoul. Jungkook remembered seeing the beautiful dancers, moving out some darker version of Swan Lake, legs and arms and bodies all flowing together. He had been enraptured, and had asked his father if he could take classes the morning after.

His father had said no, and he had left it at that.

“None of your business.” He sets the glass down harder than he probably should have.

Kim Taehyung was looking at him with a sort of small smile on his lips. His skin was the colour of honey, he noticed.  “I doubt it would have mattered anyways, what you would have wanted.”

The slight sadness in his voice grated against his ears, and Jungkook grit his teeth. “Let’s get back to work.”

Kim Taehyung watched him pace out of the kitchen. Jungkook couldn’t see him, but he could feel his eyes peering after him, burning into his back.

***

When Jungkook’s mother was still alive, she used to tell him that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. 

Jungkook never disagreed. After all, even if he had had his childhood marred by bodies of dead men and had learned to shoot a gun at the ripe age of thirteen, he was rich, his father was one of the most powerful men in all of South Korea, and he was good looking. And that, at least for a teenage boy growing up, was enough in his eyes.

He wasn’t without playmates either. His father made sure that he was properly acquainted with the son of one of their subordinates, a quiet, calm boy named Min Yoongi. And while the first few playdates they had were awkward and uncomfortable with adults and bodyguards watching their every move, it had turned out fine in the end.

So it was Min Yoongi who Jungkook called after his first few days with Kim Taehyung. The man picked up after ten rings, and Jungkook rolled his eyes. 

When he finally answered with a “Hello?” Jungkook cut across him. 

“If you and Jimin are in the middle of something gross, then just call me back later.”

“Rude.” Yoongi sounded amused. “But you’re partially right, at least. He just stayed over last night.”

“Of course he did.” Jungkook rolled his eyes. “How is he?”

“Gorgeous,” the other responded quickly, as if he was delighted Jungkook asked him. “But irritating.”

“So perfectly normal.”

“You could say that,” Yoongi laughed. “Why are you calling me and disrupting us, then?”

“Kim Taehyung,” he told him. “Do you know anything about him?”

“Oh, your new consigliere? My dad told me a bit about him. He was part of the Jung empire that collapsed, wasn’t he?”

Jungkook rubbed the corner of his shirt between his fingers. “Yes, I know that. But do you know anything else? Weren’t the people from the Jung Empire supposed to all have died out?”

He can almost hear Yoongi shrug through the phone. “Beats me. All I know is that he only appeared again around a year ago, and that he went right for your dad’s empire.” He lowered his voice. “They all say he’s a snake.”

Jungkook jerked back. “He ratted the Jungs out?”

“No, stupid. I said a snake, not a rat,” Yoongi scoffed. “Two-faced. Sly. Snake. That’s what they say about him. Think about it: he just somehow popped up out of nowhere after being part of a collapsed mafia empire -- who, by the way, are supposedly all dead now -- unscathed , and he goes right for the most powerful group to climb his way up.”

“Maybe,” Jungkook hummed. “But … then why would my dad hire him?”

“Well,” Yoongi said, slowly. “Because he’s a damn good consigliere, isn’t he?”

When Jungkook thought about consiglieres, he usually thought of the tall, hardened, terrifying men who hovered behind his father and whispered in his father’s ear whenever a client said something a bit out of turn. They all had stern voices that rumbled over everyone in the room, and they all seemed to have something about them that made them all too unapproachable and terrifying, even to Jungkook. 

Kim Taehyung, with his soft glasses and simple suits and deep, soft voice and playful banter, was nothing like that. The only thing, perhaps, he thought a bit uncomfortably, that he had in common with them was the hardened glint in his eyes. A side effect of being too jaded by business deals and the workings of the mafia, he supposed.

But as he set his phone down and wished his friend a good night, he heard the other man’s rapping at the mouth of his door. Jungkook turned around to see Kim Taehyung, still in his simple suit and tie, smiling at him, a pair of chopsticks in his hand. “Dinner, sir?”

“Coming,” he said, and went out after him.

***

What else was that, with Kim Taehyung now intruding in his life, not only did Jungkook have to adapt to yet another teacher drilling lesson after lesson into him, he had to, begrudgingly, allow someone else into his private life as well.

As the son of a mafia boss, he should perhaps have already been acquainted with someone by his side all the time anyways. Most of the men had personal bodyguards, and on top of that, many staff who looked after their daily lives if they didn’t already have wives. 

Not Jungkook though. He had made it very, very clear to his father that if he allowed anyone into his residence without Jungkook’s consent, he would refuse to do anything for him again.

It was a game of tension, but Jungkook won in the end. His father relented (perhaps because he knew how Jungkook felt after that had happened), on the condition that Jungkook live in a highly guarded area, with guards stationed around his building and just outside of his penthouse.

But now, with Kim Taehyung being rudely forced into his life, Jungkook had no choice but to accept him in his privacy. 

On the bright side, Taehyung wasn’t hard to live with. The man woke him up for breakfast, cooked their meals, and ate with him at his too-large dining table. He folded his clothes after a maid dropped them off, even if Jungkook told him again and again that he wasn’t his servant, and even sometimes knocked on his door in the evenings asking if he needed anything to eat or drink.

And sometimes, Jungkook would come out into the living room to find Taehyung sitting on the couch, reading, staring at something on his laptop, watching television, anything.

“What’s that?” he asked him one night, looking at the cast of strangely dressed characters on the screen. 

Kim Taehyung’s frowning face didn’t turn away from the screen. “A show.”

“Oh? What’s it about?” Jungkook usually watched sports (or dance, if he was sure no one was watching).

“They solve murder mysteries,” Taehyung said vaguely. He sipped at a glass of some amber coloured liquid. “It's a fun show, and keeps my mind sharp.”

Tonight, rather than the standard suit Kim Taehyung was dressed in a soft teal hoodie and plain jeans. It made him look a lot younger, for sure, and a lot less intense. Though the hard way he was looking at the screen perhaps meant otherwise.

“Boring,” Jungkook commented, then pulled on a jacket.

Taehyung finally tore his eyes away from the screen. “Watch it a few times and you’ll probably think differently. Where are you going?”

“Club,” he grunted. “I need a drink. It’s a Friday.”

Taehyung was immediately on his feet. “Alone? Without guards?”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve gone out,” Jungkook huffed. “I’m not a child.”

“Whether it’s the first time and whether you’re a child or not won’t matter if you get gunned down in the street.” Taehyung pulls out his cell. “I’ll call a bodyguard.”

Jungkook didn’t know what possessed him, but he was by Taehyung’s side in an instant, grabbing his wrist and slapping his other hand over the fingers on the phone. “No. Don’t.”

Taehyung turned from his phone and met his gaze. He had very, very dark brown eyes; Jungkook wondered how he would look without the glasses that softened his face, and, for some reason, suppressed the urge to swallow at the thought. 

“What do you propose then?” They were only a few inches apart. “Will you stay home then?”

“Come with me,” Jungkook exclaimed, before he could stop himself. “Come with me. I’ll show you that it’s okay.”

Taehyung frowned, and in the back of his mind, Jungkook felt a prickle of irritation at how calm the other man still seemed to be. When he himself somehow didn’t feel the same way.

“Your father won’t be happy,” the other man finally said, after a brief moment. “I could lose my life over this.”

“Okay, and? Don’t you do that all the time anyways?” Jungkook pressed him. 

There was a moment of silence as Kim Taehyung considered it. He didn’t move his eyes away from his face, but he did purse his lips and scrunch up his eyebrows a bit more. 

Jungkook expected the man to ignore the offer, and was almost ready to see the other take his hand away and call for a guard anyways, when Taehyung nodded. “That is … fair.”

“So you’ll come?” Jungkook said in disbelief.

“After I get changed.” Taehyung glanced down. “I don’t think-”

“This is fine,” Jungkook interrupted hastily. For some reason, the thought of Taehyung in the stiff suit again irked him. “I’m wearing something similar, see?” He gestured at his shirt, jean jacket, and jeans with his free hand.

“Yes, but you’re much more-” Taehyung said, then stopped. His mouth slapped shut, and he pressed his lips together. Jungkook frowned. 

“I’m much more … ?”

Taehyung shook his head. “Forget it.” He nodded at their locked hands quickly. “Are you going to let go of me?”

Jungkook looked down, and quickly yanked his hand back. “Shit, sorry.”

He retreated back, pulling his jacket all the way over his shoulders. But in the corner of his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder if Taehyung had changed the subject on purpose with the mentioning of their hands. Not when he hadn’t mentioned it at all leading up to that point. 

***

While to the rest of the world, Jeon Jungkook was the son of one of the most powerful men in all of South Korea, the heir to the vast Jeon empire, to his acquaintances and peers, he was nothing more than the pretty playboy who liked to drink and liked to dance.

He was greeted that way, at least, when he walked through the doors to a club he frequented, Kim Taehyung trailing just behind him. 

“I told you that we’d get here fine, didn’t I?” he called behind him, a bit smug.

Taehyung sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Consider yourself lucky.”

At that moment, two girls Jungkook saw often passed by them. They waved hello to him, and Jungkook grinned, tilting his head casually to the side. Taehyung raised his eyebrows.

“Friends?”

“Yeah, I see them around here often.”

“Popular guy,” Taehyung commented, and Jungkook snorted.

“Don’t be like that,” he protested. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

The pulsing music and blue and red strobe lights above them washed over the room, and Jungkook let himself drown into the setting, even if it was just for a second. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that he was just some other normal kid, heading to the club after a week of college classes, ready to drink and dance, without a gun in his jacket pocket.

But then, he heard Taehyung’s voice, painfully close to him, echo around him. “Okay. Let’s go.”

He opened his eyes. The gun was still in his pocket.

***

“To be honest, Jeon Jungkook, you’re actually pretty good at running this business when you’re actually trying,” Taehyung said around his fifth glass of scotch. 

Jungkook looked at him through swimming eyes. For such a slim, soft man, he had a frighteningly high alcohol tolerance. Jungkook, on the other hand, was on his fourth drink of the night, and was already feeling the effect of the alcohol thrumming through his system. “I’m pretty shit.”

“No, you aren’t.” Taehyung nodded at the bartender, who came and filled up his glass again. “I thought you were shit on the first day, but you outperformed again and again in the days following. You’re a very fast learner.”

Jungkook shook his head. The music was still too loud. “I’m not good at this, trust me. It doesn’t feel right.”

Taehyung hummed. “It doesn’t feel right, but that doesn’t prevent you from being damn good at it.” He leaned back in his tall chair. “The only question is, why didn’t you try before?” He raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t you want to try?”

Taehyung is too fucking smart , he thought through his muffled brain. Then, in a more silly tone: B I N G O .

“It’s too boring,” he replied truthfully. It’s not exactly a lie, after all. “There is so much more I could be doing that’s not figuring out how I’m going to keep a criminal empire together.”

Taehyung laughed loudly this time, so different from his usual soft chuckles. “The way you put it, it sounds like the most exciting job in the world rather than the most boring.”

“I’m young,” he grumbled, then squinted at the other. “How old are you, Taehyung?”

He hummed. “How old do you think I am?”

Jungkook squinted harder. “Well, you look really young, but judging by your past and by your mannerisms, I’d say you’re in your very late twenties, maybe early thirties.”

Taehyung smiled, amused. “Is that so?” He leaned towards him, elbows on his knees. “Well, I’m twenty-three.”

Jungkook jerked back. “Twenty three?!” His head swam. “But … I’m only twenty-one!”

“So that makes me two years older, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah … but …” he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. 

“I don’t act my age, I guess.” Taehyung leaned back, seeming a bit too satisfied. “For the record, you seem a lot older than you actually are as well.”

“Do I look old?” He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel if Taehyung said he looked thirty.

Taehyung shook his head. “No, you look your age. But I suppose you seem much older than you really are too.”

“I see.” He sighed. “Maybe that’s normal. Mafia kids, after all.”

“Perhaps,” Taehyung said, but his voice was low.

Wanting to leave the subject, Jungkook straightened up, nodding all around the room. “Okay, I brought you here for a reason. What do you think about the people here?”

Taehyung followed his gaze and frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“The people here,” he repeated. “Any cute ones you see?”

“Jeon Jungkook, I-” Taehyung began, then sighed. “Don’t you think that that’s a bit unprofessional to ask?”

“I’m here in a club with you, unsupervised, drinking too much, and you’re worried about being unprofessional?”

“Yes,” Taehyung said. “I am.”

Jungkook raised his eyes, leaning closer to him. “Come on. Narrow it down just a bit. Is there really no one you see here you like?” Then, as a note tacked on at the end. “I’m just trying to get to know you better.”

Taehyung studied the dancing men and women in the room. “They’re all … fine, I guess?”

“Fine?” Jungkook laughed. “That’s a good word to use. Boys, girls? Do you have a preference?”

He shook his head. “Not particularly. Just anyone I think is cute.” He smiled sheepishly. “Though, unlike you, I definitely haven’t had too many partners before.”

“Unlike me?” Jungkook laughed again. “I love that. Do you take me for a whore?”

Taehyung sighed. “Jungkook.”

“You just implied that I was a whore.”

“I’m not saying that you’re a whore,” he protested. “I’m just saying that a lot of people,” he gestured to Jungkook, “would be incredibly attracted to this .”

Jungkook had received probably well over a few thousand compliments in his life before, from genuine to fake to superficial, but for some reason, this is the one that makes him feel his ears burn up. 

“What about you then?” he demanded in return. He looked at him angrily, up and down. “Why would you cut yourself any slack?”

“Me?” Taehyung seemed surprised.

Jungkook snorted. “You’re joking, right? Have you looked in the mirror? You’re fucking gorgeous, and your eyes are really big and pretty. I want to see what they look like without glasses. And you have a nice nose. I wish I had a nice nose like yours.” He babbled into his arm, frustrated that Taehyung seemed to think Jungkook was blind enough to not realize how hot his consigliere was.

“You have a nice nose-”

“Not as nice as yours,” he insisted.

Taehyung was silent, and Jungkook, realizing what he had just said when his mouth was too loose from alcohol, made a face at himself. “Fuck, sorry, I’m drunk.”

He dipped his head down, rubbed at his eyes with one hand and swirled the last of his own scotch with the other. He wasn’t sure where the words had suddenly burst forth from, but he suspected that it had been a cumulation of more than three weeks of having Kim Taehyung’s large eyes and pretty nose and honey skin and slim build hovering around his penthouse like a both welcome and unwelcome presence. 

Finally, he heard Kim Taehyung call out softly. “Jeon Jungkook.”

“Yes?” He looked up. 

“I’m taking you home. Come on.”

Taehyung’s face was unreadable as he got to his feet. But as he came closer to him and reached across him to gently take the glass from Jungkook’s hand, Jungkook couldn’t help but stare at the long lashes framing his large eyes. He could smell his cologne from how close the man was to him, a light fragrance of vanilla and cedarwood dusting his hoodie collar. Jungkook thought he liked it.

“Did you really not find anyone else attractive back there?” he asked him, a few minutes later, as they were taking a taxi back home. 

He didn’t remember exactly what Taehyung said, because the car was dark and he could barely hear him from how quietly the other answered, but when he woke up the next morning, in clean pajamas and in nice smelling sheets, he thought that Taehyung had said something along the lines of “no”.

***

The days blended into weeks blended into months, and soon, despite his reluctance at doing so, Jungkook found himself nearer and nearer to the heart of the mafia empire he was born into, Kim Taehyung helping him every step of the way.

Just as Yoongi had suggested, as Jungkook got more and more familiar with the inner workings of the business, Taehyung’s brilliance as a strategist and teacher shone more and more. 

He would dutifully show him how to manage the stocks they were involved in, how to most carefully carry out a drug trade, how to make a business deal that he wouldn’t be able to lose in. There was more too, stuff that he was familiar and good at before, but was honed even more under Taehyung’s careful watch. Stuff like just how his mafia organization was structured, the nature of their competitors, the workings and roles of every man and woman in the business.

This was all stuff that Jungkook knew about before he had met Kim Taehyung, but that he had never thought of approaching the way Taehyung did. And if he was being honest, he was sure that even people like his father, who had made himself a throne in the heart of Korea’s crime, would be stunned by Taehyung’s thoughts as well.

“You’re really fucking good at this,” he said to him, one day after they had finished planning out a specific drug deal a branch of their group had to carry out. “Maybe you should be the one in my position instead.”

Taehyung smiled. “Me? No, not really. I’m just a teacher. I’m a thinker. But I don’t have the gut or skill you have when you actually do these things that I’m listing out for you.”

“You’re joking,” Jungkook dismissed him, and got up from the couch to pour himself a glass of juice. 

“I’m really not. What did your father tell you this afternoon?”

Jungkook paused, frowned. 

Earlier in the day, he had left for his father’s house for a private meeting with him to discuss his teachings and operations so far. Taehyung had stayed behind, waiting for the housekeeper who always came to tidy up as usual.

“He said … that I was doing a fine job.”

“Ah, and ‘fine’ … that’s a pretty good descriptor, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.” Jungkook pulled open a drawer and found a handful of candy to munch on. “But that doesn’t make me some mafia boss prodigy like you’re describing.”

“First of all, even if you’re still pretty young, ‘prodigy’ is too old of a word for you. Second of all, how much do you think your father is going to stroke your ego to make sure you keep it up?”

Jungkook popped a candy into his mouth and came back around to sit on the couch by him. Taehyung was dressed in his standard suit again, though, since it was the evening, his tie was a bit looser around his neck. “I’m going to ignore you.”

Taehyung laughed. 

“Well, what did you do this afternoon?” Jungkook asked, munching on his candy.

“Well, I had a lovely conversation with the maid who came to tidy everything up and check on our living conditions. Wonderful old lady. Said that she’s known you for over a decade now.”

“Oh, did she?” He hummed. “Well, a lot of the older caretakers around here have worked with our family for a good number of years now. What’d she say?”

“Said that we were living pretty neatly, happy about that.” He shrugged casually, but Jungkook, watching the way he leaned back on the couch, could tell that something more serious was coming up. “Said that she wasn’t used to tidying up for two people. Said that you’re usually here alone.”

A cold feeling spread across Jungkook’s skin, and he resisted the urge to clench his teeth together. “Is that so? Anything else?”

“Said that you like being alone. That you even threatened to leave the mafia if your father let anyone else into your private space.”

He has balls, at least , Jungkook thought, already on his feet. “Do you have a problem with that?” He had his fists clenched by his sides, though in the back of his head, he registered that his reaction was too exaggerated, too harsh, too obvious of how uncomfortable with the idea of his safe little space being violated all too suddenly.

Kim Taehyung looked up and met his eyes evenly. His usually honey skin was much more clear now, letting a bit of the red in his cheeks peek through. His face was very calm. “I don’t. I was just letting you know what we talked about.”

Jungkook opened his mouth for a retort, but then, reminding himself of how strangely worked up he must seem to the other, shoved the mass of ugly discomfort back down his throat. He turned, keeping his back straight and stiff. “I’m going to go take a nap.”

Just like on the first few days he moved into his penthouse, Kim Taehyung stared at him as he left the room. Jungkook couldn’t see him, but he could feel his piercing gaze burning through his shirt and all the walls he built around himself, right into him.

***

In the years he spent neglecting his duties as a mafia heir, Jeon Jungkook was still allowed many hobbies.

Not dance, his father made sure of that very firmly. Not music, not singing, nothing too improper, or at least, improper in his father’s eyes.

But he was allowed to do other things. Martial arts. Swimming. Boxing.

Boxing was the one that stuck with him the most, mainly because Jungkook liked the feeling of being able to pummel something with his fists until his hands were throbbing and his body was aching with healthy exhaustion and sticky with sweat. 

It was like that that Taehyung found him one day, beating away at a punching bag, shirtless and unclothed from the waist up apart from the headband around his head and the tape wrapped around his knuckles.

“Jungkook-” Taehyung began, just as he stepped in the doorway, then stopped.

Jungkook stopped his punching for a moment, and slicked the sweat off his hair and face and to the side. He turned, swallowing away his tiredness. “Yeah?” He paused, frowned.

Taehyung was staked, rooted on the spot, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. There was some paper in his hand, but it was hanging limply from his hand as he gaped at him.

His eyes were on him, and, inexplicably, Jungkook felt a pool of heat in the pit of his stomach from the other man’s eyes trained on him so intensely.

“Taehyung?”

The other man jerked himself, blinking a few times. Then, to his surprise, red bloomed across his cheeks in the dimly lit room.

“Jungkook … I was … I’m sorry for intruding on you while you were-”

“It’s good,” he said too quickly. He felt his own cheeks heat up at the way the other was still staring at him, but resisted the stupid, stupid urge to cover himself up. “I was just boxing. I do it a lot.”

“Yes, I know, but-” Taehyung began, then cut himself off. He shook his head hard, and seemed to compose himself a bit. He brought the paper up to his waist. “Reports from your father on this month’s transactions. I thought we could go over them together.”

“Oh- Okay.” Jungkook nodded stupidly, then gestured awkwardly around him. He was still sweating, though he wasn’t sure if it was for the same reason as before. “Let me just … let me just shower. Get changed. I’ll come.”

“Yes, alright, okay.” Kim Taehyung stood in the doorway for a few more seconds, his cheeks reddened, his eyes losing some of the composure they usually had. He was still in his standard suit, his tie looser around his neck, his glasses softening his face, but somehow, Jungkook couldn’t help but think that he looked better in it than he usually did. 

Then, he turned and hurried away as fast as he could, leaving Jungkook with his cheeks and stomach and chest flaming.

***

Boxing, however, wasn’t only useful for when he wanted to see the usually so composed, bright and light-hearted Taehyung act that way.

Jungkook was coming back from a late night trip to the supermarket in their community, a trip that he often made at two or three am, unbeknownst to anyone else and even Kim Taehyung. Taehyung slept later than he did and woke up earlier, and Jungkook didn’t know how he did it. But still, the man was usually asleep before one.

He was walking back, a bag of snacks in his hand as he scrolled through his phone. Yoongi and Jimin had gone on another sweet, romantic trip again, and despite his complaints to both of them earlier on in the day when they called him, he couldn’t help but smile at how happy and in-love his friends were with each other.

He turned a corner, not really caring to keep a look-out. He had never really had to do so, after all, with his father barricading the community so well, and with so many guards pacing around the gates of the apartment so closely.

But then, all of a sudden, he sensed something coming from his side.

In a flash, he slammed himself back behind a corner as the street exploded with gunshots. He swallowed, his heart pounding in his throat, and tore his own pistol out of his pocket as he whipped back to look.

There. At the end of the street. A man with a slim pistol pointed right at him, looking a bit upset that he hadn’t been able to finish him from the first round.

Jungkook didn’t wait for him to reload before shooting at him, aiming at his hand. The first bullet grazed him, but the second shot his hand, and the man grunted in pain as the gun was knocked out of his hand.

Jungkook punched him then, ramming a fist into his face. In the back of his head, he thought he could hear Taehyung remind him: take your prisoners alive. You don’t know who they might be working for, and dead men tell no tales .

The man, despite having a bullet wound in his dominant hand, was still stronger than him, however, and he grunted again as he hurled himself back, socking Jungkook across the face and sending him tumbling back. He stumbled, grit his teeth as the man swung at him again.

This time, he could move fast enough to dodge him, and when the man punched at him, he darted to a side and yanked his arm forward enough to expose his back. He brought his knee up then, and kneed him so hard in the stomach he felt the man retch.

The man grappled at him, grabbing his arm and pulling him into him, punching him again. Jungkook fought back harder, kicking him and punching him again, grabbing his wounded hand and pressing down as hard as he could.

The man yelled in pain, and Jungkook took the opportunity to punch him one more time in the temple, this time, harder than he had before.

The man slumped down with a resounding thud, leaving Jungkook with a hand covered with his blood, throbbing cheeks already aching to be bruised, and a pounding heart thumping so fast that he felt chills run through his body.

Jungkook stumbled back, leaning against the wall again as he caught his breath, trying to calm himself down. In his thrumming consciousness, the only thing he could think of doing was getting his cellphone out as quickly as he could, trying to ignore the blood that coated the screen, and dial the first number that came to his mind.

“Jeon Jungkook? What is it?” Kim Taehyung’s voice was sleepy when he answered.

***

“Absolutely ridiculous,” his father rumbled. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

Jungkook tilted his chin up. The room had no one but himself, his father, his father’s closest confidantes, a handful of guards, and Taehyung, standing with his arms crossed in the corner.

“Did you find out who he was in the end?”

“Hired assassin from a rival mafia group,” his father thundered at him. “Thought they would try to pick the heir of our group off while they still could.”

Jungkook frowned. “How come they didn’t act before?” He had been part of assassinations before, but that was for … various other things that he didn’t like to think about. And they were never targeted specifically at him. 

“You weren’t a threat before. You’re getting better at this, my son. I can see it, which means that everyone else, including our rivals, can too.” 

“So what do we do?” Jungkook bit the inside of his cheek. Is this what you wanted?

“We increase security. Relocate you to a safer location that’s smaller and with more guards.” He looked directly at Jungkook, furrowed his eyes. “And we get you a personal bodyguard.”

He felt his jaw tighten up; he expected this to happen. “No.”

“Jeon Jungkook,” his father said coldly, slowly, with danger in his voice. “You were just nearly assassinated. It is no longer your decision.”

“Fine, then respect the promise you made to me before. You get me a bodyguard in my personal life, and I quit the family business.”

“You’re a foolish, stubborn boy,” his father snarled. “That is out of the question. You must listen to me.”

“Father,” he responded icily, his voice thin. He felt his entire body go cold, stretched tight with even more danger laced through his veins than he had when he was facing down his possible death in that street. “I promised. We had a deal.”

For a few, suspended moments, everyone held their breath. Jungkook stared his father in the eye, daring him to press him any farther. And at the moment, he was completely serious. If his father continued on with his suggestion, he would leave, taking the future of the entire empire with him along with all of the secrets lying inside of it. He had never been this serious his entire life.

However, rather than press him any more, or even concede to his demands, his father nods to the corner. “If you are so opposed to others invading your privacy, then how come when I placed consigliere Kim in your company, I didn’t hear any complaints?”

Jeon Jungkook could see Taehyung’s eyes widen a bit, but only for a second before he resumed the usual, icy, calculating presence he had in the company of those he considered dangerous. He ground his teeth together, feeling his jaw tighten up even more.

“Consigliere Kim, as his name decrees, is my consigliere . He is to guide me in my daily work and duties, and often, we work late into the night for it. He is necessary for my conduct of this business. A bodyguard isn’t.”

“Is your life not something worth that as well? Why must it only be your duties that you care about?” his father asked him, voice razor sharp.

He met his father evenly. “Is that not what you wanted?”

The room was silent, the tension miles high. But Jungkook felt nothing. He was empty, looking into his father’s eyes.

Then, finally, his father sighed. “Fine. Have it your way. But security will be increased. And not relocating is out of the question. And,” he shot Kim Taehyung a dark look, “the work you produce with your consigliere must be on par with someone who speaks of the mafia business with such … passion .”

Jungkook nodded. “Naturally.” He stuck out his hand, and his father eyed it only for a second before shaking it. “Taehyung and I will be taking our leave.”

“The guards will escort you to your new place. Everything from your old residence has been moved over. You will never step foot there again.” He crossed his arms, tilting his chin up, much like how Jungkook had done before. “You may be dismissed.”

Jungkook walked over to Taehyung and, ever so slightly, raised his eyebrows at him. He still felt nothing inside. Taehyung met him levelly, and nodded gently before following him out the door.

***

If Jungkook had to describe Kim Taehyung (and he had to before, many many times, as he detailed the man’s mannerisms, his appearance, and his composure to Yoongi and Jimin), many things would come to mind.

Calm, collected, frighteningly smart, respectable. But also gorgeous, humble, strikingly dull to his own charms. And happy. Always so damn happy and bright and light-hearted, even when Jungkook pressed at him too hard.

But sensitive? Jungkook had never seen Kim Taehyung cry. Really, he hadn’t seen him act anything other than serious or positive around him.

However, on the night they moved into their new penthouse, Taehyung quickly excused himself to his own room, saying that he was tired and that he would sleep earlier than usual that night. Jungkook let him go without much more thought, spent the next few hours watching some awful rom-com on his laptop, and finally, trudged his way to his bedroom.

It is when he’s in the hall with Taehyung’s room in it that he hears him.

Soft, trembling sobs, muffled by the door but also by how Taehyung must have been stuffing his mouth with his blanket. Jungkook stood there for a few moments, drinking the sounds and his shock in, before turning and knocking. “Taehyung?”

“Jungkook?” Taehyung answered, and God , his voice was wrecked, even if the other seemed to be trying to control it. “I’m about to go to bed. What is it?”

Jungkook pushed the door open without any more thoughts. “Are you okay?”

Kim Taehyung is hunched over the bed, his blanket wrapped around him. His glasses are off his face, set neatly at the counter by his side, and, just as he had thought, his hands are shaking around the corner of his blanket. If Jungkook squinted, he thought he could see a dark spot on it, stained with the other’s saliva and tears.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung said softly. “Please.”

“Are you okay?” Jungkook was by his side in a second, kneeling on the bed and grabbing his hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

Jungkook snorted. “Do people go into this state just from ‘nothing’?”

Taehyung said nothing.

Jungkook took the blanket away from the other’s hands, sitting himself more firmly onto the bed sheets, taking Taehyung’s trembling hands in his own as he peered into his face. Taehyung’s face was red and his nose was running like crazy, but, stupidly, in his head, he couldn’t help but think of how handsome he looked without the soft glasses on him. Made his beautiful eyes look even prettier.

“Kim Taehyung,” he said, very softly. “It’s okay to be sad once in a while. What’s wrong?”

Taehyung’s mouth trembled. He blinked hard. “I don’t want you to see me upset.”

“Why are you upset?” he asked gently. “You can tell me.”

Taehyung closed his eyes for a flicker of a moment, his hands shaking in Jungkook’s grasp. “You almost died,” he finally whispered.

“So?” Jungkook tried to reassure him, though, with the speed of a bullet, his chest had exploded in heat from what Taehyung had just told him. “Mafia men get attacked all the time. I’ve nearly died so many times before; I’m sure you have too. Don’t worry about it.”

Taehyung blinked, screwed his eyes together.

Jungkook watched him, frowning, frightened all of a sudden. It was so different to see Taehyung this broken looking, this afraid, this sad. Before he could stop himself, he was pushing forward, enveloping his slim build in his arms.

“It’s okay to be sad,” he said gently, patting his back. “I’m okay, aren’t I?”

Taehyung stiffened when he first hugged him, but very quickly, he tucked his face into his shoulder, his hands holding Jungkook close to him. He didn’t sob again, but Jungkook thought he could feel his tears stain his shirt.

***

“At my last job … something very similar happened to the man I was acting as consigliere to,” Taehyung said softly, when they were no longer tangled together, but just sitting, side by side, against the headrest of the bed. Jungkook still had a reassuring hand on his arm, though if he was being honest, it was more so to calm himself for how wrecked he felt by the crumbling Kim Taehyung in front of him.

“I grew up there, after my parents died. A mafia brat, sort of, side-by-side with the son of the Jung family. I wasn’t part of the family, but they took care of me. And they let me learn about the mafia with their son.”

“Their son … he was my closest friend. He was by my side at every moment. We grew up together. And when he was made the heir of the empire, he chose me as his consigliere.”

“You’re a good consigliere,” Jungkook said, swallowing.”

“That’s what he told me too.” Taehyung smiled, but it was a much more twisted smile than the usual, sunny ones he adorned his face with. “Said I was the best , which was why he chose me.”

“He was right.”

“No. He just said that because he wanted me by his side.” Taehyung laughed. “He was insufferable like that. Always laying it on too thick.” He paused for a few moments, swallowed. “And he loved me.”

Ah .

“I … I don’t know how I felt back then, but maybe it was the same as how he felt for me. What I knew was that we were always going to be together, and that we were going to protect each other, and that we would one day be happy together. I cared about him, but maybe I didn’t think about feelings in that way yet, because it was so permanent. He was so permanent. I didn’t have to think about them yet.”

“Then, one day, he went out with a couple of our guards. Had something to do that afternoon, and I was supposed to be joining him, but he told me not to. I was a bit sick that week, so he wanted me to get some rest at home. I agreed, and went to bed.”

He swallowed. Paused for a very long moment.

“When I woke up again, the guards and advisors that we had worked with for so long were shaking me awake. They told me that on their way back, my boy had gotten ambushed by a rival group. My boy, the person I held the most dear to my heart, who I thought was never going to leave. Gunned down in the street like a dog.”

Jungkook watched as Taehyung tightened his fists around the sheets of the bed, felt his own fingers dig into him as his chest tightened.

“I ran. They told me that no one was safe now that the heir was dead. So I ran. Disguised myself. Left the country. And when I was in Japan, a few days later, I saw that his parents and all the higher-ups of the empire were dead too. I was the only one who survived.”

“Did you ever know who did it?” Jungkook couldn’t help but ask.

Taehyung shook his head. “Does it matter? This is the mafia. We aren’t good people. We are trapped in this cycle of death and crime and danger. He was never going to live anyways. That’s what mafia empires do: they die. They crumble away into dust with every body that hits the floor. And people forget about them.” His lips trembled. “But I don’t. I didn’t forget.”

“And now, when I’ve come back, and when I thought I could be a part of this business again, to somehow avenge him in my twisted fantasies, and when I finally thought that you were here to stay as well, you almost got shot in the street. Just as he did.” 

Taehyung wept, and Jungkook was on him in a second, wrapping his arms around him the best he could.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he told him, holding him close. “I’m staying right here. With you.”

***

Jeon Jungkook isn’t a boy. He had had crushes before, and he’d even felt bouts of something he’d describe as love, all warm and fuzzy feelings in his chest.

But with Kim Taehyung, everything is so different that all of a sudden, it’s like he’s eight again, nervous about sharing his toys with the pretty girl he used to meet at his father’s meetings. Nervous, because he’s out of his element, and with so much disorder and ruin in his life, what he needs is a bit of control, a bit of power in his hand to make sure nothing else will fall apart.

Taehyung ruins that. He makes Jungkook scramble for every bit of what he has left with something as simple as a glance towards him, makes his heart pound each time he learns towards him.

And after confessing his past to him, Taehyung is even more comfortable, somehow, though they don’t talk about it again. 

He’d wake him up as usual, but this time, would stay a bit longer than he usually would, fondly looking down at him as he grouched and grumped around in the morning.

They’d eat breakfast together, and Taehyung would offer him pickled vegetables, offer him another bowl of soup, and Jungkook would say yes, only to have Taehyung reach over the table entirely, looking right at him with a subdued intensity as he handed whatever it was to him.

They’d work, and it’d be as smooth as it was before, but with more little comments in between, more personal conversations. Perhaps it was the result of them truly becoming acquainted with each other, but with how much more often Taehyung touched him, was that really the only thing?

And then dinner. Then an evening spent together. Clubs. Restaurants. Parks. Drives. 

Jeon Jungkook always had two faces. The hardened, reckless, but terrifying heir of the Jeon mafia group. The careless pretty playboy with a new girl or boy hanging from his arm every few weeks.

But with Kim Taehyung he was neither of those.

Once, Kim Taehyung drove the two of them to the ocean shore nearest to their new apartment. But at first, he hadn’t told him where they were going. Jungkook had teased him: didn’t you say to never go with someone who won’t tell me where we’re going?

And then, when he parked the car, Jungkook looked out and saw the night sky reflected in the beautifully still, dark ocean surface, and he felt his heart warm with the way the other was looking at him and the sea behind him.

They spent the night running around in the sand, running into the waves, dumping each other with water, laughing and playing around in ways that a twenty-one and twenty-three year old man who were coincidentally the heirs of the largest mafia group in the entire country should not have been playing. Taehyung scooped a handful of salt water and flung it at him, and in retaliation, Jungkook picked the other man up and dumped him into the waves, laughing the entire time.

At the end of the night, when the sun was rising again, the edges of a rosy glow spreading across the sky, and when the two of them had retreated back to their car, sitting side by side on the sand, watching the day break open in colors once more, Taehyung leaned towards him and asked, very quietly, “what was the thing that you wanted to do but didn’t get to do?”

It was the question he had asked before, when they had first met. Jungkook hadn’t trusted him then -- he hadn’t trusted anyone --, but now is not then, and he isn’t the same person as he was before Taehyung stumbled his way into his life.

“I wanted to be a dancer,” he said softly. “I wanted to dance.”

The mafia is a place of lost dreams and trapped souls. It’s a place of false hope and power and wealth so meaningless that the people part of it crumble away from the disillusionment that comes with it. Jeon Jungkook killed his first man when he was fifteen, and he’s never allowed himself to look back ever since.

Kim Taehyung understands; he’s been a part of the same system. Has seen the same sort of desolation and desperation as he has, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

With Kim Taehyung, he could be himself.

***

But love is dangerous.

He got the photos in an envelope at the foot of their door, when he was out putting the trash in the hall, and happened to stumble across it under his feet.

He picked it up, frowned, and opened it.

He felt his blood chill.

Jungkook went back to his room, locked it behind it, shoved the envelope into a drawer after painstakingly sifting through them again.

His heart was pounding, his back sweating, panic lodged in his throat.

Taehyung called him, and he breathed before swallowing, adjusting himself, and going out to join him again.

***

With money and power, it was easy to find people to handle the sender of the letters, and squash the threat as quickly and efficiently as he could. It was a good, quick operation, but it wasn’t good enough for Kim Taehyung. He was too smart to be put off by that.

He returned from their personal gym one day to find Taehyung in his room, his back turned towards him, shoulders trembling in front of his desk. And even before the other could turn to face him, Jungkook knew that he had seen them.

“What are … what are these?” Taehyung raised the hand of photos into the light. Pictures of them together. At restaurants. In shopping malls. On walks. By their apartment buildings. Photos.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything.

“When … when were these taken?” he asked, voice shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Don’t worry about them,” Jungkook said gruffly. He walked over and took the photos from him, stared down at him, then ripped them apart onto the floor.

It was like he had lit a bonfire.

“Did you hide them from me?” Taehyung was in front of him in a second, hurt and anger flashing through his usually so calm and soft eyes. “What the fuck were those? Did they … did they send them to you to blackmail you?” Something dark crossed his face. “Or was it someone after me ?”

Jungkook still doesn’t say anything. But Taehyung was too smart for that.

“It’s the latter, isn’t it?” Taehyung pressed so close up to him that he could feel the quick breaths escape his lips and onto his skin. “Someone from my past found me. Wants me dead.”

“Want ed ,” he said gruffly. “It’s taken care of now.”

“ Taken care of? ” Taehyung snarled. His voice was angry, cracking at the edges, beside himself with fury. “Someone was threatening my life and you didn’t tell me? Someone from my past? Someone who could … who could figure everything out?”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Jungkook told him. He backed up against the wall, pressing his back to the cold surface. “I didn’t want you to be too worried for me.”

“Well, you underestimated me. Because I found out anyway. And you’re right. I’m so fucking worried about you. But, you selfish prick, why would you fuck around with something from my past before even telling me about it?”

Taehyung spat the end of the sentence at him, poison laced in every word. “Fuck. How much longer until someone else finds me? How much longer until they come back, and you can’t deal with this shit anymore?”

Taehyung backed away from him, his fists clenched at his sides, shaking, trembling. “I have to go.”

“No,” Jungkook said immediately. He lunged forward, grabbing Taehyung’s arm. “You don’t need to take care of anything. It’s over now. They’re all gone.”

Taehyung yanked his arm away from him; he glared at him through his glasses, his jaw so tight that his entire face was trembling. “Is it really? You might think it’s over, but it’s only a matter of time until someone else finds me. Whether it’s from the group who tried to kill me last time, or from the family I ran away from, or from anyone else I fucked up in the years abroad before coming back to Korea. It’s only a matter of time now. I have to leave. Now.”

Jungkook dug his nails into his palms. “We can figure that out later. You’re not going anywhere. Not when I can protect you -- I can protect us -- right here.”

Taehyung stared at him, took a step towards him so that he’s directly in front of him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I’ve heard that promise before.”

“Then are you just going to leave?” Jungkook grit out. “Leave, after all we’ve been through? After how much we’ve grown and gone through together?”

“Do you want us to die together?” Taehyung growled back. “Is it only when you’re dead that you’re happy?” He turned, prepared to leave the room.

“No!” Jungkook lunged for him again, blocking his path to the door. “You can’t … you can’t …”

“I can do anything I want to do, Jeon Jungkook. Get out of my way.”

“But … are you okay with leaving everything behind?” Jungkook demanded him. “Are you okay with leaving this behind, everything we’ve worked for. Are you …” His voice broke. “Are you okay with leaving me behind?”

And then, all of a sudden, the force of too many memories he had kept carefully hidden away, carefully buried under the layers of himself burst forward, and in Kim Taehyung’s eyes, he could see a scared fifteen year old boy reflected back to him, having just killed his first man, having just been left all alone in the world, having just discovered … having just found …

Jungkook can’t stop the tears that trickle out his eyes, trickling down his cheeks and into the corner of his mouth.

“Jungkook?” Taehyung is on him in a second, supporting his suddenly collapsing form with his arms locked around him. 

“Please don’t leave me,” Jungkook choked out, and then, all of a sudden, he’s crying, too many tears and too many feelings and too many memories all flooding him at once. “Please, please, please don’t leave me.”

“Jungkook-”

“I promised to stay with you and protect you. Why can’t you stay with me as well?” Jungkook clings to him with every fiber of his being, willing him to stay back with me. “You’re the only one … the only one …” He chokes, crumbling in Taehyung’s arms, expecting to fall away altogether.

But Taehyung holds him. He makes sure he doesn’t fall away. He doesn’t leave.

***

They were in his bed, the blankets tucked up all around them, when Jungkook started talking again.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Taehyung asked gently, though he knows that he knows the answer already.

“Hiding it from you. Not telling you about the photos.” He swallowed. “I didn’t want you to …”

“Leave?” Taehyung shifted so that his head was propped up on his hand. “Well, that sort of backfired, didn’t it?”

“Are you leaving?”

“Maybe.” Taehyung reached over and pressed his finger to Jungkook’s cheek. “You don’t want me to leave.”

“No, I don’t.” 

There were a few moments of silence, Taehyung looking at him again. His glasses were off again, placed carefully on the table beside them, and he looked so handsome and so soft and so beautiful that Jungkook felt his heart clench on itself. He looked at him, as if he was waiting for him to say something again.

“My mother tried to kill me when I was fifteen,” he said finally, his voice trembling. His entire body was trembling, bubbling with memories he had kept locked away, repressed away for six years now. “She had … seen my father with another woman, and that, combined with their already crumbling marriage, just sort of tipped her over the edge. She was a woman who was brought into the mafia when she didn’t know what it was about, and she lived her life like that, horrified by what my father did everyday. But unable to leave.” He clenched his fist. “She thought that the best way to get back at him was to take away the thing he had cultivated so painstakingly, and had protected so carefully. His heir.”

“It was so easy for her too. She just told me to go with a guy, and waved at me as we drove off. I had no idea.” He laughed darkly. “I only realized when the man parked, turned, and had a gun in my face.”

“I don’t know how I survived, but in a few seconds, my gun was in my hand, I had a bullet graze on my arm, and the man was dead in his seat.”

Taehyung reached across again and took his hand in his. He pressed his fingers to him. “And then?” His voice was so careful, so gentle.

“My father dealt with it. My mother got taken away -- killed, locked up, I don’t know. I got taken back. Lived with my father for a while, but couldn’t handle it, and moved out as soon as I could. He didn’t try to stop me.”

“In the years that followed, I thought I would be okay. The mafia is brutal, and shit like this isn’t unheard of. It was already a small miracle that I had survived to that point, and something like this was natural, passed over. But Kim Taehyung, I didn’t feel okay. I cried, I wondered, why did she do it ?”

He let out a shaky breath. “I was so close to her. I thought she loved me. Why did she do it? Why did she put getting back at my father above me ?”

He cried, and Taehyung was there again, sitting both of them up, holding him close to him as his heart splintered apart all over again. Thinking of his mother’s face as she waved to him good-bye. Had she felt anything when she sent her only son to his death? Did she feel anything when she heard he had survived? Had she loved him at all?

Did anyone love him?

“I spent … so many years, spent so long protecting myself. Making sure that I wouldn’t be hurt like that again. Spent so long making sure no one could come close to me and tear down everything I rebuilt with my own hands all over again. I did that so well, but then, you come in, with your deep voice and smart comments and pretty eyes. Why did I feel so comfortable around you ?”

He’s sobbing again, clutching Taehyung close to him, because he’s the only person he loves -- that he can love --, and if Taehyung leaves too, he isn’t sure what he’ll do after that. Or if he can even rebuild himself again. 

“I love you,” he said softly. Very, very softly. “I love you. I love you so much. Please … please don’t leave me.”

Taehyung holds him tight for a moment, then pulls away for just a moment. Jungkook trembles, reaches for him, but then, Taehyung’s hands are on his face, and Taehyung is kissing him, and he allows himself to melt into him, the most vulnerable, pitiful parts of himself on full display, his heart in Kim Taehyung’s hands, everything his.

When finally, Taehyung breaks away from him, Jungkook can feel the other man’s hands tremble around his face.

“Don’t die, and I promise I won’t leave,” he mutters against his lips. “Promise that you’ll be here, and I won’t leave.”

He holds him tight, and it feels right. But maybe that’s what was supposed to happen anyways.

***

Jeon Jungkook has felt pain. 

He’s felt anger so hot that it felt like it was burning him alive from the inside. 

He’s felt desolation that crushed him from the inside out, loneliness that pierced every inch of his body until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He’s felt agony that ripped through him so acutely and so brutally that he was hunched over, clawing at himself because that seemed like the only way he could stop himself from hurting on the inside.

He’s felt so many horrible, twisted emotions that for a while in his life, he didn’t even feel human anymore.

But today.

Today he feels happy.

Taehyung holds his hand as they leave the auditorium, fingers interlocked with his as they make their way through the crowd, sunglasses and masks on their faces to hide their identity. But even through the mask, Jungkook can tell the other man is smiling: his large, pretty brown eyes are glimmering at him through his soft glasses.

“Good performance,” he tells him, his voice soft and gentle and smart and everything Jungkook loves about him. “Good idea, Jungkook.”

If Jungkook closes his eyes, he can still see the beautiful bodies of the dancers move behind his eyelids. And he can also see the way Taehyung looked at him in the theater, happiness in his eyes as he watched Jungkook marvel over what he loved most. It’s a good look; it makes him feel like he’s loved.

“But now that we’ve done one of your good ideas, how about we do one of mine?” Taehyung stops at the edge of the water by the auditorium, tugs his mask down and reveals an even softer smile than Jungkook thought was possible.

Jungkook watches as Taehyung fishes in his pocket and retrieves a simple paper flier. He watches as the other man shakes it out a bit, uses his other hand to flatten it from its previously crumpled state. But then, Taehyung holds it up to the light, and Jungkook can see what’s written on them.

Dance Classes: Hip Hop, Contemporary, Latin, Ballet

Jungkook takes it with trembling fingers, looks down at the beautiful dancers on its surface, feels his heart thrum with so much love and hope and sadness, then feels Taehyung’s arms around him again.

“I love you.”

With Kim Taehyung, he’s starting to think that he can love himself too.