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It was almost a year ago, that Jungkook met Kim Taehyung first. Ten months, four seasons, five instruments ago. 

It started with the saxophone, and in the second week of January.

His bell had rung. He’d ignored its initial interruption, because he was in the middle of his lesson and people pressed the wrong bell sometimes, so he’d pulled his student’s attention back to the drumkit and continued his explanation. But a second time wasn’t an accident, and the third short trill in quicker succession was a determination that meant Jungkook had to apologise, leave the kid to practice, and quick-step down the staircase. The culprit seemed to be on his way to a fourth try when Jungkook swung open the door, and on seeing him there something in Jungkook stilled, like the pause when he turned sheet music, like the breath before the rhythm became faster, more challenging, but also more fun.

A very pretty boy, the daydream sort of figure Jungkook would sometimes see on the edges of things, scanning the supermarket aisles at the same hour as him, waiting beside him at the bus stop, walking in the opposite direction, on the other side of a street- his appearance was instantly affecting like that, an undeniably well crafted person, but instantly very real too unlike that daydream or boy on a poster, from those humongous eyes that had shocked to Jungkook so, to his shaggy wind-swept hair, to the strap of his shoulder bag pulling down and creasing his brown jacket, the breath on his chest a pant. Real in a way that alarmed Jungkook into awkwardness he loathed and would later recoil at, and real in a way that didn’t allow for this surprise and the sudden self-conscious turn of his thoughts to how he looks, because this very pretty boy was clearly late, anxious for Jungkook to let him in, and was also already opening his mouth to talk.

“-Hi,” he’d exhaled, eyes flitting all over Jungkook. Jungkook had pressed his fingers harder into the wood of the door. He was wearing a white t-shirt, tattooed sleeve on show, his comfy black joggers with paint splodges on them, grubby shoes from walking Bam, hair messily tied… This man had exceptionally shiny shoes, and a tie. “Sorry. I’m so late, and it’s my first lesson, I know, I’m hopeless… I walked down the wrong road, and then didn’t know which door…?” He hitched forward his bag, fingers flexing on the strap. An earring glinted in the winter dark. His breath made little clouds, and Jungkook was too dazzled to remember it was cold. The flood of yellow light behind Jungkook seemed brighter, warmer, maybe in contrast to the evening but maybe in response to him . Jungkook’s reality had lurched, a waking-up sort of feeling. He was forgetting the rush he was supposed to be in to get back to his lesson. “This, er, this is definitely the right door now, right? Music tuition?”

He glanced Jungkook over again, as if he’d catch a teacup and drying cloth he’d missed before, slippers or barefeet to indicate a lumbering man from inside his own home. Jungkook bounced his foot inside the thick confines of his boot. “You’re in the right place, and don’t worry,” Jungkook had managed to say, “but, um, who are you here for? I think you pressed the wrong bell…”

Jungkook never saw those eyes so wide and sweet (until now, these nine months later-)

“Park Seo-Joon…? Saxophone?”

Gently, Jungkook smiled. “He’s number four.” Jungkook leaned forward, ignoring his stupid heart as he tapped the respective door bell. “But don’t worry, really. I’ll show you to his room.” And if this man’s eyes traced from Jungkook’s finger down his arm of tattoos, Jungkook ignored that too.

“Sorry,” he muttered again as he squeezed inside, Jungkook rather preoccupied with cursing the narrow corridors of this building as the boy’s close proximity washed warmth from the top of his head to his tippy-toes. He only managed a shake of his head in answer, eyes dropped to the carpet until he was in front on the staircase and could roll them to the ceiling, rolling them at himself, how embarrassing and eager and incapable he was. 

“It’s this room here,” and promptly Jungkook knocked, hearing the creak of a chair inside. 

“Thank you,” the beautiful boy (for Jungkook wouldn’t learn his name until overhearing it a few weeks from now) smiled, voice still a little breathy and demeaner still somewhat shaken. “Sorry again, for disturbing you…” In the seconds before the door opened, he seemed to assess Jungkook anew, perhaps wondering if he was a student, or teacher. Jungkook had been wondering the same, if Seo-Joon wasn’t going to teach all the saxophone lessons now, if he was even retiring; the young man certainly looked like the recent graduate types who taught on the side here, but he could be a student, perhaps having moved area and switching teachers. Jungkook wasn’t aware of graduates coming here to learn, but theirs were affordable classes and they still offered good expertise, Seo-Joon in particular had a residency in New York for over ten years. 

Jungkook imagined this man under the warm lights of a stage, tapping his shiny shoed foot, fingers dancing over the keys, music intricate and joyous and effortless…

When Jungkook returned to his lesson that day, he’d tripped over the leg of his stool, dropped a drumstick twice, whole leg bouncing now and mind drifting to try and hear through the three walls between their rooms. And he did hear a saxophone eventually, in a lull of the collective music school noise: it wasn’t that of a professional, of a graduate, it wasn’t intricate, effortless, and it certainly wasn’t joyous. 

It sounded like a fucking foghorn. 

Ah, teacher then, he thought. 

But then he was leading his student out from his lesson and saw the door to room four open, and there pretty boy was, no child in sight, just pretty boy bowing in breathless thanks to Seo-Joon, who told him well done and see you next week . 

And that was the beginning.

The following week: Jungkook’s bell rung again, except at the expected time. Jungkook had thought about the pretty boy since his first lesson, pondered on him as an adult beginner (a concept he’d barely contemplated) and fretted over their interaction all the way home, and then thought of him every now and then after that, considered him more consciously than he’d admit when choosing his clothes for today. In the past hour, he had thought of him a lot, whether he’d see him on the way to or from his lesson, that distraction evident in his remembering the notes he gave to this student prior, which exercises they were on, what his goddamn name was- but despite all that thinking he still wasn’t ready to see him on the other side of that door again, and this time he wasn’t alone. There was pretty boy, the parent of this kid, and his next kid, Taehyun, and his parent, all gathered in the narrow entryway, too many people to deal with (well, when pretty boy was standing there like that, a briefcase this time clutched neatly before him, a beret tilted on his head with one curl wriggled out, shoes just as shiny and all Jungkook wanted to do was stare .)

This kid had been babbling all the way down the stairs about the band and its drummer Jungkook had recommended he listen to; his words trailed off as he stepped under his dad’s hand, but all Jungkook could focus on was how pretty boy smiled at the child.

“Try Buddy Rich this time,” Jungkook latched onto a gap in the boy’s babble, overtly aware of the eyes flicking to him and incapable of not anxiously playing with the door handle, “Bonham was inspired by him, his extended solos and showmanship inspired rock drumming.” Truthfully, he’d only thought of Buddy Rich because he’d thought of jazz because he was thinking about the pretty boy who played it. “See you next week,” he nodded at the one kid with his dad (‘say thank you, Dong-ah’, ah, that’s his name ), to the next, “hi Taehyun, come in…” Jungkook kept his eyes down to the top of Taehyun’s head as he shuffled inside, but watched how those two shiny shoes stepped restlessly side to side. Left lingering in the doorway, Taehyun’s shy gaze travelled up to the man too. Jungkook wondered if he felt silly, surrounded by children. Jungkook would, but then Jungkook had always cared too much about others opinions.

“Hi again,” that deep voice soon came, and Jungkook faced him: cheeks flushed from the chill, a dark turtleback pulled all the way up to his chin, legs appearing skinny and shivering poking out from his trench coat. His hands were bare, and Jungkook felt urged to provide them with gloves. Or, failing that, hold them. “So. I might have maybe pressed the wrong button again, could you remind me which mine is…?”

“Oh. Um. Four.”

“Cool,” the man exhaled, teeth showing in this smile. Jungkook’s heart just about packed itself up and took itself on holiday. “I will remember next time.” There was a short pause as the man grinned, and Jungkook goggled. The man’s eyes seemed to become shinier than his shoes, looking between Jungkook’s and then down to his chest. “God, aren’t you cold??” And he looked genuinely offended; awkwardly, Jungkook rubbed one bare arm. He’d purposefully worn another short sleeve top, even as the attention on his body made him internally squirm.

“It’s warm in here…” Which it was, especially when the man followed Jungkook’s gesturing and stepped inside too. Jungkook, still playing with the door handle, hurt his hand when he clumsily let go and it sprung back to hit his palm. Jungkook didn’t so much cringe at the pain, but at Taehyung noticing, eyes wide and concerned. The building shook when he closed the door, ricocheting through Jungkook’s bones, and all three of them began padding up the stairs, Taehyun intermittently turning around to stare at the other young adult who’d been his side of the door. It was a new, curious sight. But if pretty boy was bothered, he didn’t show it. He took out his phone and traversed the steps slowly as he typed.

“Four…you said…?”

There was laughter in his tone, so Jungkook tentatively giggled back his ‘yes’, then did everything in his power not to stare at the man’s ass in front of him. When he turned to smile at him from the top of the stairs, presenting his phone and sheepishly admitting ‘better write it down’, Jungkook nearly slipped and fell down the stairs cartoon-style. People talked about stairways to heaven, that’s where Jungkook’s mind went looking at him smiling like that from up there. Unable to stop himself, he shyly tucked his hair behind his ear, the sides of his fingers grazing and drawing attention to the heat on his cheeks.

Jungkook fought himself not to turn back when he left the man to knock on his door, heading for his own. “How are you, Taehyun? How was school?” He forced himself to ask, and when Taehyun asked the question back he faltered. On this second week in, he was recognising how his Wednesdays were thus changed. They were now an axis of pretty boy the rest of his days would spin around. He would count down to this hour in anticipation, and end the day anticipating the next. He would probably always be an awkward bundle of nerves, have to ensure his best outfits are washed by mid-week, and Jungkook could already see the fantasies he would fall into. Jungkook might start to think about him too much, like in comparison to any actual dates he may go on. He’d likely never know if the man was gay, and the likelihood is he wouldn’t be. All Jungkook had were meagre minutes up and down the stairs, if that, but the addition they made to Jungkook’s life would be marked, and laughable. 

And so it did go: the inevitable nervous knotting in his gut, the desperate midnight hair dryer drying of his best jeans, even shirt ironing, the daydream stories he’d play out on his way to and from places, at the kitchen sink, in the shower, and the nighttime dreams he’d tuck himself up to, secretly, genuinely, a little hopeful. The guy - Taehyung (even his name was lovely) - just seemed rather close to perfect, if not it . Not that Jungkook ever pushed things, never really tried to discover if he had any speck of a chance. He just kept opening and closing that door, walking up and down those stairs with him, saying hi and bye and cultivating a slow but sure silent admiration from these moments he pieced together one by one, like polaroids on a string, one not yet cut, the images developing each time with new information about him, the pretty boy who too quickly became so much more loveable than just that.

Door open-

The sheepish smiles to boxy grins, to sleepy dimples, to nervous lip biting and furrowed-brow determination; chatty moods where the hi had an additional how are you of sincere interest, and depending on others segued or sometimes quite randomly sprung onto some small commentary or story of Taehyung’s life, offerings Jungkook greedily took and stored away like a squirrel with its treasures, even if all Jungkook could manage to outwardly respond with were mmhms and oh really and that’s cool , the amazing accordion player he’d encountered on the subway, the show he’d binged until 3am last night, the glorious breakfast he was still thinking about…to quieter moods, where Jungkook would watch his big ears spring out from his over-ear headphones, where everything would be softer, where he might not say anything but Jungkook would still gleam something new about him from other factors like…

Door closed.

Door open-

His outfits, always with a shade of teddy bear brown, berets to paperboy caps, his dark waves ever creeping too far down his forehead and into his eyes, trench coats to corduroy to denim, turtlenecks to smart shirts that made Jungkook wonder what he did for work, trousers always stylishly cuffed and shoes always shiny, he certainly looked the part of a saxophone player; and then details would catch his eye, handmade bracelets and stacked rings and spray painted designs that the more Jungkook saw the more he thought Taehyung himself had painted them, abstract and colourful and mysterious, like the boy he was in Jungkook’s dreams; spots he didn’t bother to conceal, stubble, a plaster wrapped to his index finger, textures that reminded Jungkook of Taehyung’s oh so real three-dimensionalness (and that made Jungkook jealous of the person in his life who he may call for in more hours of the day than just this one, who got to be with him in his pyjamas, who could kiss that finger better.)

Door closed.

Door open-

Icy breeze transformed to snow skidding in, softly flitting down through the dark evening, the traffic inching mutedly along the road, the snow piled untouched atop the post box, the bus stop, the railings, whilst the snow fallen on the ground criss-crossed with the imprint of various feet, small to large and to Taehyung’s, for the first time dressed not smartly but in welly boots, a bright red pair, and Jungkook’s eyes tracing up his body to his own eyes turned to the sky, gentle, peaceful, smiling, not yet aware of the door opened as he amused Taehyun catching snowflakes (‘oO this one’s a good one’, and he’d bend to show Taehyun the complex little unique structure on the back of his gloved hand, gloves Jungkook was glad to see him wearing; it was Taehyun, rather than Taehyun with a G (as shy Taehyun had started to refer to him as, Taehyung referring to himself so between them first), that noticed Jungkook first, Taehyung then turning to Jungkook with a dizzying smile and an offer to show him the ‘prettiest snowflake’ too); snow stamped out on doormats to rain shook out from umbrellas, a decidedly cheap umbrella Taehyung battled with during the rainy weeks, from turning inside-out to flying off and Taehyung having to chase it to finally breaking and being abandoned crookedly in the bin- Jungkook had given him his own that day and called it a ‘spare’; spring reliably pushing through the cracks in the pavement with daisies and other wildflowers Jungkook didn’t know by name, but Taehyung did, lamenting these blue flowers being known as weeds, because what was a weed but a plant in an unwanted place, and weren’t these flowers blooming so earnestly?; summer at last, but with Taehyung in the picture now all summer meant was the coats gone and his slender, tanned, arms exposed, meant light blue skies accompanying the light way Taehyung made Jungkook feel, meant sunbeams highlighting a boy Jungkook didn’t need highlighting, because he was already aware of him as the most beautiful, interesting thing, it was beginning to hurt…

Door closed.

Door open-

A whole life flicking like film reel in the frame of that doorway, the year passing from the lunar new year with Taehyung’s (poorly made) gift box of dasik and crescent moon deely bobbers, to Valentines spectacularly falling on a Wednesday and Taehyung there behind the door with a bouquet of flowers which in Jungkook’s wildest dreams he’d considered giving to him (Jungkook’s stomach had dropped and Taehyung had only peeked over the flowers, shrugged, and asked if there was a glass of water he could put them in, which of course Jungkook dutifully fetched even as he scowled down at the petals), to Halloween (two weeks ago, in the present day of this story…) and Taehyung already dressed as The Joker, the sculpted hair and make up, sharp eyed and permanently edging into a smirk, alarmingly attractive and causing Jungkook to blush and stutter his worst yet, his knees wobbling in front of him and his purple suit. Coming from work (what job Jungkook still didn’t know) tipsy from ‘this event’, cutely laughing at himself as he waved a hand around in description and excuse of his current state, then hushing a finger to his lips in secret, one shared with Jungkook like he really was his friend, or arriving still picking glue off his fingers from ‘this workshop with kids’ (and that he worked somewhat with kids completely made sense), to being weighed down with bags, once a suitcase because he’d be flying straight after his lesson to Jeju, and another time two supermarket bags of snacks and rapidly melting ice cream, because his best friend had just had a nasty break up and so a sleepover was required. Once, he arrived in full cobbled-together Loki costume, swishing his cape, because he and his friends were going to the film premiere tonight and he wouldn’t have time to go home so he’d changed at work, and Taehyun and Dong and every kid he’d passed had fawned over him, and if Jungkook was braver he’d have shown his appreciation too, maybe found the voice to say he was going to see the same film tomorrow.

But the main, and most amusing, changes across the year were the instruments.

The saxophone only lasted until March. And that was the longest he stuck with any of them.

Jungkook had grown used to the noise down the hall, endeared even, probably inexcusably so. He knew a little about most instruments, and so he knew many saxophone beginners found it difficult to make a sound at all, and that completely lovesick part of his brain only heard and praised that. Nevermind the way each note put his teeth on edge, even through three walls. 

And he’d grown used to the doorbell at 5.30, with Taehyung waiting behind it (well mostly, sometimes he was late, sometimes just skipping up to it…), and him largely greeting Taehyung alone, as only one person is needed to answer a door and Seo-Joon wasn’t bothered versus Jungkook who’d never been more bothered in his life. He hadn’t overrun a lesson in weeks, that was how keen he was. So he was sad when that chapter came to an end, starting with Taehyung being right there on the waiting chairs, already upstairs, when Jungkook opened his teaching room door one day in late March. 

“Big Tae!” Dong greeted, a little too loud for a corridor of ongoing lessons, “Hyung!” And Jungkook marvelled over when on earth these two had gotten on these closer terms (the boy left when Taehyung arrived, only sometimes lingering in the doorway if his dad and Jungkook had anything to say.) Dong bounded over, arms crossed around his practice book, and Taehyung turned to look at him, immediately smiling. Jungkook noticed the bounce in his leg, his bag on his knee moving with it, foot twitching up and down. Like always, Jungkook scanned him in seconds, mind noting: his hair, longer than Jungkook had perhaps ever seen it, swept back under Taehyung’s hand, his asymmetrical earrings, his graphic tee and loafer shoes squashed down at the heels. But above all (once his mind caught up to being confronted with Taehyung without those few stairs of preparation (not that they helped much)) he noted Taehyung being here, just outside his room, before 5.30.

“Dong-Man! Good lesson, little dude?”

The two of them fist bumped, then Taehyung flicked his eyes up to Jungkook stood back against the wall. Jungkook felt it like the vibrations from the kick drum.

Dong nodded absently, swaying to and fro as he stuttered in his excitement to share. “I have an exam in three weeks! But I’m really good, so it’s ‘kay. Are you doing the exams, hyung?”

Taehyung leaned forward, levelling with Dong. “I’m not. Haven’t done an exam since school and I can’t say I miss them.”

“Hey,” Jungkook found his voice, and had to find purchase against that wall when Taehyung laughed. “Exams are important…” he mumbled, trailing off. He didn’t advocate for exams himself, wouldn’t be putting Dong through them if his dad hadn’t insisted upon it, that if he was going to learn the drums he should at least get some reputable qualifications from it.

“Hyung, how old are you?” Dong interrupted. Well, he didn’t really interrupt, but it felt like it when Taehyung’s attention was taken from him. Those gorgeous, dark, sharp eyes, yet always kind. He ran his hand through his hair again, laughed anew at Dong’s question, foot bouncing a little harder.

“How old do you think I am?”

“Mmmmm….fifteen.”

“Hm. Flattering, I suppose…”

“-Fifty!”

“Okay, well, nevermind…”

“C’mon Dong, your dad will be waiting…” Jungkook’s sensible head spoke, even though he could watch Taehyung being cute with kids forever (that’s while relieving into a fly on the wall status, and a fly he kinda resembled now there against the wall, a partially swatted one, just from the impact of Taehyung’s eyes.)

“Wait- Younger or older?”

"How old do you think your seonsaeng-nim is?”

How is it a flick of eyes could feel like that? Like the jolt of a rollercoaster carriage tugged forward? It put a weight on his chest, too, like the weight of such a metal belt. Jungkook’s fingertips pressed into the matte paint of the wall.

“Forty-two!”

“ Okay, let’s go,” Jungkook huffed awkwardly, guiding Dong by his shoulders where he twisted around and dawdled, giggling with even more excitement now.

“Don’t worry, you look eight years better than me, apparently.”

Those eyes, those eyes , twinkling in amusement; his body still leaned forward, head angled down, making him look even more of a predator, and Jungkook’s been told he has bunny rabbit tendencies before.

“Or, not ‘apparently’. You look great. Um, keep yourself fit. I mean, I dress like my dad anyway, my granddad even.”

Even with Taehyung evidently tripping over his thoughts, Jungkook had to do his best not to scared-bunny hop down the stairs. He pushed on Dong lightly again, Dong waving goodbye, and then felt all that heat rise as he descended the stairs, hyper aware of Taehyung’s presence sat on those chairs above him. He didn’t know if Taehyung would still be there on the landing when Jungkook turned the corner, Taehyun plodding up to the first floor beside him, but he felt each creak of the steps with a sense of foreboding and Taehyung was still there, though approaching from the other end of the corridor was Lee Si Yeon. One of the piano teachers.

Jungkook watched curiously, walking slower, as Taehyung’s foot waggling halted and he stood up, holding out his hand. Elegant, multi-instrumentalist, part-time model Si Yeon fitted her hand to his then gestured down the hall to her room. Park Seo-Joon had been enough of a dangerous dilf. Eyes caught resentfully on her swishing skirts, Jungkook didn’t register Taehyung turned back to him until he spoke.

A cheeky half-whisper, hand cupped to his mouth, reminiscent of the day he told Jungkook he was still tipsy: “I made sure to be early this time, lest I be late for another first impression, or panic ring your bell again.”

Encouraged by the friendliness in Taehyung sharing with Jungkook like that, Jungkook found himself pausing in front of his own door and asking, copying Taehyung’s tone: “Piano?”

Taehyung pulled a face, feet now walking backwards. “My neighbour complained. Figure I might be better at piano, or at least warrant less noise complaints. I can already play chopsticks!”

And with that he winked. 

Jungkook couldn’t move for a full 10 seconds, and even then only because Taehyun asked quietly ‘Whatcha looking at?’

It was at this next chapter in things that other people started to notice Jungkook’s strange behaviour around Taehyung, or at least that Jungkook started to become more self conscious, or simply more obviously infatuated. Taehyun glancing confusedly between the two of them, Dong volleying questions his way like never before presumably because his reactions were funny in front of Taehyung (egged on so much by Taehyung’s welcome teasing that his dad even told him off once for being less than formal with Jungkook, and he brought Taehyung up in their lesson, how cool he was, and is he your hyung, hyung? Because you act differently around him, and that’s why, right? ), and Si Yeon throwing questioning looks his way when Jungkook, quite ridiculously, took to beating her to answering the doorbell, or failing that, squishing nonetheless down the staircase alongside her.

“Oh! Don’t worry, noona! I’ve got it!!” He’d say, breathlessly rushing out of his room. 

“I’ll get it today,” he’d shrug, as if it were some hardship, his leg quite strident where he’d stepped to get his foot in front of her.

“Come with me sweetheart, I’ll walk you out” he’d hold out his hand to Si Yeon’s student before Taehyung, a little girl who had an hour long lesson (typical of the piano students, who had notoriously ambitious parents - the girl whose place Taehyung had taken had apparently quit in the run up to exams), and a little girl who despite being dot sized regarded Jungkook with the most suspicion of all, frowning up at him from his ankles where he stumbled and stuttered and shyly laughed at just about everything Taehyung said. 

Embarrassingly following Si Yeon down the stairs: “Ah I’ve, um, got to talk to Dong’s dad…” Jungkook then of course having nothing to talk to Dong’s dad about, other than awkwardly mentioning that Dong is doing well and unnecessarily reminding him of the two weeks holidays despite it being literal months away. Squeezing into the narrow passage, once accidentally full on elbowing the girl in the boob: “You see Dong-ah likes me to walk with him, hold his hand…” He’d half whisper, Dong’s sweaty palm twisting out of his grip and his loud voice of course announcing that he doesn’t need anyone to walk with him, it’s not like he could get lost there’s only the one door! “Taehyun’s shy with strangers, he likes me to meet him,” and then Taehyun would be uncharacteristically bold and compliment Si Yeon on the elaborate braiding of her hair.

“Good exercise, hahaha!” He’d claim, swinging off the first step with Si Yeon stopped mid-way down the corridor, her hands on her hips, eyebrow raised. “I need to streeeeeetch-” Reaching for his toes in demonstration, toes he can barely graze with his fingertips, arching to the side like a pretzel and shaking out said legs, then jogging up to those stairs, and promptly cringing all the way down. 

Si Yeon would be there, arms crossed and eyebrow still raised, a smirk beginning to seep in, when Jungkook would reappear with the next students, Taehyung among them who Jungkook couldn’t help but stare at, couldn’t help but want to listen to most eagerly, couldn’t help but himself become somewhat animated around and who Jungkook couldn’t refuse carrying the bags of. That day, Jungkook laden down with two giant rectangular bags - paintings, though Jungkook couldn’t see through the bubblewrap if he tried - Jungkook had bustled past Si Yeon and carried the awkward objects all the way to the piano room, carefully leaning them against the wall with a promise to help bring them back down, if Taehyung wants, just ask.

He didn’t. He hadn’t actually asked Jungkook to carry them up in the first place.

One day, Taehyung wasn’t even there when Jungkook routinely rushed to answer the door. He’d thought, a little mortified, that Si Yeon hadn’t bothered this time because she figured Jungkook would answer regardless, which he would. But turned out she’d overrun with little Kim Bo Ra because Taehyung wasn’t coming, as Jungkook had found out when seeing the two of them when he came back upstairs, and when he quite shamelessly asked. Taehyung was sick, and Jungkook supposes he couldn’t hide how much he cared quick enough because Si Yeon raised another eyebrow and elaborated that it was ‘just a cold.’ Jungkook still ached thinking about Taehyung suffering at any level though. When he saw him the week after, still sniffy, his heart felt particularly out of control with how it hurt. He was just so sweet in his big jumper, with his tissues, apologising but trying not to be defeated. Jungkook wanted to make him all his best soup ever; fuck it, he’d give him his secret recipe.

Near the end of April, Jungkook found Taehyung on the chairs outside his room again. It was one of two exam days, some examiners choosing to conduct their exams here; they were on the third floor, where it was most quiet, and the exams being at all odd times had the school leaving the front door propped open for the students and their parents. It was in this busy traffic, and somewhat hushed, nervous buzz, that Jungkook saw him and stalled on his way out of his room, Dong bumping into his legs behind him. Taehyung, serenely still in the frame of the passing bodies, only his hands moving, floating, before him. Playing invisible keys. He looked up after a few seconds, smiling gently, and Jungkook thought a little sadly. He didn’t laugh so freely with Dong when he inevitably bounded up to him, and when Jungkook reappeared with Taehyun, Taehyung shrugged:

“I’m definitely not better at piano.” Hands dropping softly to his lap. “Keep forgetting which keys are which and accidentally hitting the blacks. I think I should quit.”

Jungkook was ready to protest that sadness, that insecurity, that defeat in Taehyung’s voice, Taehyung who was so confident, so sure of himself and seemed to rise above it all, who was so full of life and optimism and joy, but Taehyung didn’t leave him the space. He shrugged again, shook his head and laughed at himself. And when he flicked his eyes back up, they were still shining.

“What do you think about the violin?”

Jungkook didn’t know much about the violin, only that they were small, at least compared to the drums, fragile, and the good ones horrifyingly expensive. They seemed fiddly things without frets and always slipping out of tune and with the notes inconsistently spaced. Jungkook certainly preferred instruments that existed among the lower notes, easier on the ears than the tire screeching, cat screaming sounds a violin could produce.

But the main thing Jungkook learnt to dislike about the violin was that Taehyung’s violin lessons were at 6.15, starting in the middle of Jungkook’s lesson. Jungkook neither encountered Taehyung arriving nor leaving. He was reduced to the cat screaming through the walls. 

Fuck Lee Hyun and his stupid quarter hour lessons. At least he didn’t have the sex appeal of Si Yeon. (Unless Taehyung swayed that way, which would of course be a win, but Jungkook rather hoped any attraction in that direction veered more towards his age… Jungkook would rather not wait until his 40s to win Taehyung’s hand, though he’d probably do it.)

The beginning of summer was miserable, dragging conflicted against the rest of the country’s mood. He’d only seen Taehyung under that gorgeous sunshine for a few weeks before he disappeared, leaving Jungkook like summer romances do, except he wasn’t a fling from a holiday abroad but was still right there, three walls and fifteen minutes of overlapping schedules away. And then the summer was just sticky, suffocating, marching on as if telling Jungkook to, but Jungkook didn’t want to, couldn’t enjoy flirty nights out with his friends just as he’d predicted, couldn’t stop thinking about Taehyung and how he was probably enjoying his life in the meanwhile, couldn’t relax without this horrible, anxious gnawing at his gut telling him he’d missed his chance and Taehyung’s boat could sail one day without Jungkook even knowing it was unmoored, sails glowing white and smiling into the wind. It would be still waters, back to normal, with him gone, except Jungkook would remain forever unsettled. At the edge of this big, scary shoreline, looking out.

Unsettled, unsatisfied. How would he be able to move on? This short, stupid saga would stay with him, like nets caught on that fucking metaphorical beach, there for him to trip on, stuck and never washing out with the tide. Fuck that metaphorical beach. Jungkook hated how scary and impossible the world seemed to him at times. He didn’t know how to step out, how to break through. 

Three walls away.

Taehyung already playing back in his head like a tape having reached its end, flitting back through the fleeting cherry blossom, the falling snow, all the warm welcoming smiles, every brief brush of hands and arms, the piercing eyes, and how much Jungkook had projected onto them, doors opening and closing and opening, that first look up and down, that first hi. But time was moving fast, all too soon they’d be barrelling into winter, and Jungkook didn’t know how many more chances he’d get. Even if the chances given to him felt so hard to grasp.

It’s at 6.05, when Jungkook had said goodbye to Taehyun and peered out the door long enough waiting for his next student that Jungkook trudged back upstairs and got the phone call. Lesson cancelled, heavy traffic. He fiddled around with his phone in his room for awhile, wondering how to fill in the time before his next, and now last, lesson at 6.30, before deciding to head to the kitchenette and make tea. In the interrupted schedule, he quite forgets who will be arriving at 6.15, and that very person is there outside his door again five minutes before that.

Taehyung dropped to his knees in front of the row of chairs, unzipping a violin case with a rather harsh sound; the top of his hair bouncing as he scrambled to unhook the bow, muttering something under his breath. Jungkook watched the scene until understanding hit him: the bow lifted slowly, horrifyingly, from the case, the hairs of it so loose and dangling they resembled limp, overcooked spaghetti. A funny half whine, half sigh left Taehyung’s throat as his face crumpled. 

“Hey,” Jungkook announced himself softly, already wounded heart clenching when Taehyung visibly jumped. His humongous eyes traced up Jungkook, seemingly filled with all the sorrow in the world. Jungkook realised his body was tense, as if desperate to go fix whatever he could for Taehyung, but not knowing how or in what direction to do that. “You okay?”

His heart had quickened too, thickened into a pounding that made his blood feel frenetic. Was this the moment? The last chance? The drumming of his soul set the stage for a crescendo, focused his existence to not letting this chance slip.

But like fixing things for Taehyung, what was his actual method? What should he say, do? Confess?

Taehyung’s bottom lip was pouty, and wobbly, and Jungkook wanted to fall to his knees too before him.

“Did I disturb you? I’m sorry…” Eyes glancing behind Jungkook to his open door.

“-No. No, my student cancelled. I was just…going to make tea… Is something wrong?”

“Oh. Um.” Taehyung cast his eyes down to the bow now cradled in his two hands, the presentation of it almost amusing in how dead it made it look. But Jungkook was in no mood to laugh at Taehyung; with friends, it was always his first, most comfortable, instinct to tease, but with Taehyung he took on every admittedly silly dilemma with a silent war cry. There were bus drivers, tricky earrings that caught on jumpers, umbrellas and rain itself that Jungkook had each been prepared to fight. “Well it’s my stupid clumsy self. I dropped it on the way here, and had this horrible feeling I’d broken something so I rushed to get here early and I was right.” He blinked twice (gosh, his eyelashes were long-) then forced out a laugh. “I already broke a string. It’s not even my violin, he let me borrow this because I was getting nowhere and now…now i’ve broken the bow…”

“-Hey, hey. Let me see.” Jungkook sat down on his knees after all, reaching for the bow. He couldn’t directly face Taehyung’s big, beautiful eyes when they snapped to his face at this much closer distance, but he felt the pang of them in his heart. It was all very distracting, Taehyung’s delicate hands - the most gorgeous pair of hands Jungkook has ever seen - and the way he leaned forward into Jungkook’s space, how Jungkook was aware of his lips parting, of his eyes focusing hopefully on Jungkook’s own hands and what they could do. For a moment, Jungkook couldn’t think beyond just turning the bow around a few times, but thankfully he got ahold of himself, wracking his brain.

“This tightens it, right?” Taehyung nodded. “Maybe try? Start there?”

“You do it,” Taehyung practically whispered, and Jungkook hoped he didn’t notice his small shiver in response. “I’m scared. Don’t trust myself.”

For a second, Jungkook thought Taehyung was about to hold his arm; in his periphery, he swore he saw Taehyung’s fingers flex near it. 

Their legs almost brushing where Taehyung had shuffled around his case; Taehyung’s collar unbuttoned, his breath visible on it; the jangle and shimmer of his bracelet when he softly lowered his hand to lean on it. Jungkook could smell Taehyung’s perfume, which he’d only smelled ever so fleetingly before. Jungkook was rather particular about scent, but Taehyung’s he could imagine wrapping himself up in and never feeling more content than right there, in his warmth, in his arms. 

“Which way?” He found himself whispering back, just barely turning his head in Taehyung’s direction but still not meeting his eyes. God, his heart sounded so loud in his ears. But no one ever heard other people’s hearts, right?

Could see the resulting blush, though.

“Away from you.”

Jungkook shook out his fringe. Together, they watched the hairs tighten, and how thankful Jungkook was to see them form back into a taught, familiar line. “There,” he smiled, “it’s okay-”

“Oh no !” Taehyung gasped, finger pointing. Shoulder brushing shoulder. “It’s not . Fuck. Oh- Sorry.” He sighed heavily, then said in a small voice: “How much are violin bows?”

Jungkook couldn’t help but giggle a little this time. “You don’t need to buy a new bow,” he smiled wider, flipping the bow to examine that one, still sagging, hair. “It’s just one hair…can’t we just…”

And Jungkook plucked it, and then from the other end too. It was a somewhat stunned silence that followed. Taehyung sat back away from Jungkook, lifting his head to finally meet him eye to eye. Jungkook braved it, though he gulped. 

“Oh. You must think I’m ridiculous.”

It burst out of Jungkook, like the warmth bloomed in him.

“No, I think you’re cute.”

If Jungkook had been paying better attention, he’d have noticed that Taehyung already appeared flustered, and not because of the bow because this look had developed since. This look of parted lips, eyes that betrayed the depth to his thoughts, the slight flush. But Jungkook did notice it now and panicked.

“I-I mean- That’s kind…that you would’ve replaced the bow…”

Jungkook trailed off, averting his stare down to his hands where he’d been absent-mindedly winding the plucked hair around his knuckles. In the awkward silence he let it go, watching it slacken and spring out of the spiral. 

“Do you want this, or…?”

“-Thank you. For helping.” Jungkook raised his eyes tentatively, and Taehyung didn’t look away from them when he reached for the hair, fingers touching Jungkook’s knuckles in a way that felt knowing, whether caring or humiliating, or both. The touch reached all the way to the softest part of Jungkook, the soft, fragile beat in him that wanted that safe space and allowance to be just so, to be cared for. 

Taehyung smiled, tilting his head. He looked between Jungkook’s eyes for a long second, smile nudging wider. “You know…I don’t think the violin is for me either.”

“Oh?”

Jungkook’s eyes fell to Taehyung pocketing the bow hair - not in the case, but in his own trouser pocket.

“Yeah.”

“You…haven’t found your match? Yet?”

Taehyung’s eyes were shining now, and Jungkook shifted awkwardly on his knees, fiddling with his hands folded in his lap. 

“No,” he heard Taehyung answer, laughter in his voice, though gentle. “It seems not…”

There was a pause, and then Taehyung moved back into action, packing his bow back into the case and zipping it all up. Taking the cue, Jungkook stood, though he hesitated to go and make that tea. Taehyung stood too, hitching the violin case onto his shoulder and retrieving his phone to check the time or otherwise. Jungkook’s eyes flicked to the clock on the wall - 6.14. Minute hand ticking across the halfway mark. 

“How are you? Anyway?” The words burst forth again, even more fumbled and awkward. He darted his gaze back to Taehyung, who raised his eyebrows. 

Jungkook’s heart thud, thudding. 

The space between them widened now, the door to Taehyung’s lesson across from them. His lesson at 6.15.

Weeks of not seeing him, which could carry on into more. Could be indefinite.

Suddenly, he regrets justifying the ‘cute.’ He regrets looking down, not meeting eyes. He regrets, he regrets…

Jungkook shrugged as he pocketed his hands, trying to frame the question casually. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

“I’ve been good… I mean, other than being clumsy and stupid…”

“You’re not…” Jungkook breathed, heartbeat climbed into his throat.

“...Other than that, yeah, fine. Been a bit hot. Work’s quiet. Oh, I went to my friend’s strawberry farm last weekend, that was fun. Though now I have more strawberries than I’m capable of eating rapidly going off in my fridge. I’d bring you some, if you wanted, but…I don’t see you anymore.” Jungkook watched Taehyung’s fingertips rub over the canvas of his violin bag strap, the shadows of his stupidly long eyelashes spike down his cheeks under the ceiling light. “I miss Dong and Taehyun, how are they getting on?”

“Good. They’ve asked after you.”

Taehyung nodded for a long moment. Hitched his bag up again. Looked at his shoes, then back up at Jungkook, who held his breath.

“And how are you-?”

Jungkook opened his mouth, not sure what was going to come out, just a safe i’m fine, or a slightly more elaborate reply of been too hot, too, maybe a what’s your favourite season?, knowledge to go with his other squirrel food for hibernation, a and what do you do for work?, a question he’s yet to ask, or a recommendation for strawberry smoothie, to freeze them- 

A braver, more truthful answer of I’m okay, but i’ve missed seeing you.

But that minute hand ticked five seconds past the hour and the door opened, Lee Hyun’s door, and Taehyung turned, eyes dragged from Jungkook, to see Lee Hyun leaning out and smiling in greeting. He glanced between the two of them when neither moved or spoke for a second, Jungkook’s mouth slowly shutting, but Taehyung adapted to the halting of their conversation soon enough, smiling back. It probably didn’t mean anything to Taehyung, is the thing, didn’t disappoint him the same, didn’t make him anxious, didn’t feel like an end, like losing. 

As he followed Lee Hyun into the room, he directed that smile back at Jungkook and gave a little wave, and God how it felt like standing on a shore, like his feet and ankles caught and tied, like watching a boat he longed to be on sail away without him, how his heartbeat crescendoed still but into nothing, knocked down through his skeleton with the door closed in his face like stones on the beach disturbed and falling over themselves with the tide going out. 

He made his tea with slightly shaky limbs, thinking over their conversation, thinking over everything. And when he heard Taehyung leaving midway through his last lesson, he thought of fixing one broken string only to realise how much his own so-called heartstrings are frayed, discordant, and out of tune. 

Late August. On a Tuesday, not a Wednesday, when Jungkook hadn’t seen Taehyung for almost a month and really thought he might have had his last chance after all- Jungkook left the building at 6.05 (because he had no students after 6 that day) and saw Taehyung again, there in a slim gap: the door to Song Mingi’s room, another teacher peering in, asking something, and Taehyung there in the opening, standing tall, a bass guitar hanging from his shoulders. Really, Jungkook heard him first, his laughter, drifting down from above, and so his heart had lurched and he’d tip-toed up the second flight of stairs until he could crane to see through the banisters. 

And, fuck, had that image imprinted on him like looking up into the flare of the sun, there behind his eyes his entire commute to Yoongi’s house. The bass note ringing, vibrating, out across the air where it had been strum, then interrupted.

The wide set stance of his legs, pretty ankle bones above his sandals, pretty ankle bracelet, jean jacket wrists unbuttoned and long over his hands, fingers slim resting over the frets, hovered over the strings, nails chipping of their paint, a greeny-blue that Jungkook couldn’t decipher the exact shade of when Taehyung’s jaw looked so sharp from the angle, when his smile was so, so charming, his eyes bright as he shook out his hair, confidently laughing with the others though Jungkook could bet he’d never spoken to the teacher in the doorway before…and Jungkook had to duck, shoes almost slipping on the edge of the step, when he thought Taehyung was about to look at him. Jungkook doesn’t know if he did, even if he only saw the suspicious tufts of the top of his head, because Jungkook tip-toed right back down the stairs and then bolted down the rest, drumsticks clattering in his rucksack. 

He could feel Taehyung’s eyes on him now, an hour later, burning, as if he had seen. 

“Hey,” he exhaled, having shimmied down Yoongi’s side path and clumsily fit him and his big bag through the unlocked door to Yoongi’s self-made practice room come recording studio. Sound proofing foam and egg boxes. All the loops of long wires, the hum from his producing desk and its two desktop computers, the fairy lights Hoseok had insisted on in the otherwise dim room. The mini fridge, which Jungkook beelined for as he heavily dropped his bag randomly on the floor, grabbing a cool beer to glug halfway. “Sorry,” he panted after the long drink, going back for another sip, “bus was delayed in traffic.” It hadn’t been, he’d just been distracted and stupid enough to miss his stop and have to walk back. 

“Where we starting?” He asked, beginning to catch his breath, as he found his seat at the drums and raised his sticks. His two band mates, and best friends, were twisted to stare at him where they stood with their guitars, and stared in silence for another beat before Hoseok laughed, Yoongi following with a huff of a smile and a shake of head.

“No ‘hey, how are you, hyung?’” Yoongi teased.

“You look like you’ve run all the way here, not been sat on a bus.”

“You’re redder than Hoseokkie when he drinks-”

“-Hey. But true. You are. And you’re sweaty.”

Jungkook twizzled his sticks, self conscious. “Shut up, I’m here now, wanna rehearse or not?”

The problem was that imprint of Taehyung didn’t disappear, but manifested an even more physical presence in the room, in the space between Yoongi and Hoseok. The phantom bass player of their band, and then when Yoongi switched to play the bass for a run of songs, because Yoongi plays everything, Jungkook accidentally took to staring at Yoongi. Or through him, really. Either way, it got noticed. 

Didn’t help that his playing was way off, too. 

“Jungkook-ah, you’re throwing me off. Quit staring.” Yoongi suddenly squirmed mid song, shrugging his shoulders as if shrugging off Jungkook’s stare. Hoseok, lost in his rocking out as ever, slowly came to, the noise of his electric guitar whirring a last note all around them before he leaned into his hip and darted cheeky eyes across to Yoongi. 

“I told you he’s been weird lately. Weird like you know what… ”

“Hello? I am here-”

“-Well you are and you aren’t,” Yoongi chimed in, turning to look at him pointedly.

Jungkook scowled, huffing and moving his squinted eyes to Hoseok. “What do you mean weird like you know what ?”

Hoseok and Yoongi exchanged a glance, and then Hoseok’s mouth twisted up in a smile. “Oh our little dongsaeng, do you have a crush you’re not telling us about?”

Jungkook’s mouth gaped before he scoffed, becoming further offended, mostly in defence. Beneath it all, his heart quite ridiculously quickened. He blinked and saw Taehyung there, laughing as he had seen him through the banisters, and felt a surge of protectiveness. Taehyung was something of his secret, inner world, of his softest places, of his heart. Of his dreams, unrealistic as they may be. He didn’t like sharing about his love life at the best of times, and this could barely be categorised like that. There wasn’t anything to share, other than Jungkook being the most embarrassing 20-something in the world. 

“You get like this,” Hoseok continued, unfortunately his friend since his late teens, “weird, and all in your head. We’ve seen it before, albeit you were jumpier when you were only just out the closet, but you’re still funny when it comes to liking someone. Like, if I meet someone I get excited and immediately tell you both. Yoongi gets grouchy talking about it…” (Yoongi frowned, grumbling) “...but though he’s bad he’s still not as bad as you, you scurry around for months and then either it works out and you get giggly and obvious, or it doesn’t and you’re this heartbroken, mopey mess before we even knew there was a guy we could help you with, because we are your hyungs, you know, your two gay ones at that, we’re here to help and advice, if you’d let us.” 

Hoseok rolled his eyes, and Jungkook’s fists tightened around his sticks.

“Also you wrote that song recently, what was it? Number one , I think you called it and-”

“-No, that was-”

“-and you wrote about like, no one comparing…”

“I was drunk. ”

“...And wanting them to give you a minute, even just one… ”

“Hob-ah, stop, he’s gonna cry.”

“I’m not.” 

“Look, you don’t have to tell us Kookie,” Yoongi reasoned, eyes bored on the surface, but concerned and caring at their depths, “but we are here, if you’d like. I don’t know what advice Hoseok plans to give, given his track record…”

“-Excuse me? Says you? Mr afraid of affection?”

Yoongi’s mouth stilled in a flat line, halted and considering his next words, which ended up being: “Well most importantly we need you to play well again. We have a show in two weeks.”

For a second time, Hoseok rolled his eyes, this time at his other friend. 

Well… friend, but also unspoken friend-with-benefits, for almost two years now. And Jungkook knows Yoongi likes Hoseok more than that, his understanding as unspoken as Yoongi’s confirmation, but there nonetheless through a string of late night conversations and pining looks noticed and the questionable jealousy as well as the questionable doting. They’d already been friends when, as seniors, they’d scooped a scared gay-baby Jungkook under their wing, but maybe even as far back as then Yoongi had felt more. And not just does Jungkook suspect it to be the reason behind Yoongi only ever hooking up, or casually dating, he suspects feelings on Hoseok’s side to be the reason behind his fumbling inability to commit. Oblivious as those feelings may be. 

Jungkook sighed, tension leaving him in the comfort of their collective hopelessness. He still won’t tell them anything though.

“Trust me,” Jungkook mumbled, beating a quiet, dull rhythm in the silence, “my love life is as going nowhere as ever.”

“Well, one piece of advice, Jungkook: if you want it to go somewhere, you’ll have to communicate with any crush better than you do with us. Which means to say at all.” 

“ Says you, ” Jungkook mimicked Hoseok’s earlier words, except with his own pointed look this time. Yoongi’s jaw visibly tightened, and he widened his eyes with a threatening urgency at Jungkook, such that Jungkook ignored, focusing back on his drum kit and stamping the kick drum again, ready to restart the song. He did catch Hoseok’s confused glancing between them though, and felt dread curl in his gut. Because Yoongi was right. No point writing stupid drunk self-pitying, regretful songs about wanting just a minute of Taehyung’s time when he could, technically, still get one, create a minute or more for himself with him if he climbed those stairs, if he found an excuse, if he were brave. Why is he reducing Taehyung to a daydream when he could still see him in his day? Is he giving up already? Jungkook’s not nearly as brave as he looks, as brave as he is with just about everything other than boys - but he has been brave before, when pushed to an edge. When there really is a consequence of time, when it really is important, when there really is no one else that compares. 

And Taehyung has been more incomparable than any of them. 

It isn’t over yet. 

Jungkook couldn’t think of an excuse. He thought of going up there to ask for a pen - pesky pens, huh, can never find one when you need one! - but why would he not go to a closer room? He considered pretending his hoodie was lost property and asking around for its owner, but why would he interrupt a lesson to do that? He thought of pulling the fire alarm and getting to stand outside with Taehyung, giggle about the drama, maybe even comfort him… but that was extreme, and probably illegal. Two weeks of hesitation passed by, then finally he realised he didn’t need an excuse so much as a lie - there was no reason Jungkook had to leave at 6, not if he pretended he had a new student whose lesson ended at the same time as Taehyung’s. Conveniently. 

So a week of anxiety later, and a further 15 minutes of clock watching after his actual student had left, Jungkook slowly gathered his bag, shuffled to the door and listened for a familiar patter of feet. When he heard them at last, he almost chickened out, his own feet practically rooting to the floorboards. 

“Oh, Taehyung-ssi!” Jungkook burst forth, undoubtedly too exaggerated. But if Taehyung thought he was weird (or even sussed that Jungkook had only just held back from watching for him through the keyhole) he still generously graced him with a cute expression of surprise.

“Hi,” he said, a little breathy, feet stalling on the landing. “What are you doing here?”

“Teaching-”

“-Right, duh-”

“-I guess my last student finished same time as you.”

Even as the words left his mouth, they sounded too much like exposition, but he willed Taehyung not to see it. 

“Yeah, I just finished… Last student, are you leaving then?”

“Yup.”

“Cool.” Taehyung’s eyes darting between Jungkook’s, mouth nudging into a small smile, his everything suddenly seeming very close before him, though Jungkook doesn’t think he’s moved any further forward in the last few seconds. Maybe it was Jungkook that had drifted, gravitated. Magnetised. “Well,” Taehyung’s smile tipped over into more amusement, “I’ll wait for you, if you need to lock up, or something…”

“Oh! No, no locking up necessary, I just-“ Idiotically, he pulled his room door shut and proceeded to make jazz hands at it. “The owner, um, locks up the whole building… But I’ll wait for you! If you need to get anything, or…wee… or something.”

It took Taehyung laughing at him for Jungkook to stop the word vomit. Fuck, he could feel himself blushing already. What part of his brain told him this would be a good idea again? That he was at all capable?

“I’ve got everything, and I’m good. Are you ?” He looked Jungkook up and down…Jungkook’s bouncing leg. 

“Yes. Definitely. Looks like we’re all ready then. Shall we go?”

At this point, his tone was begging. High pitched and pinched, and how was he supposed to carry on a charming conversation now??

Nevertheless, Taehyung eyed him, smiling, as he made the first move ahead to the stairs, and Jungkook fell in line behind, cursing himself to the ceiling, which has been miserably subject to so many of Jungkook's emotions, was imprinted with them like how he used to anxiously destroy his school desk with pencil drumming. Jungkook was just trying to tame his instinctual panic, how his brain all of a sudden felt like a yo-yo bouncing in every direction, against every wall of his skull, when Taehyung twisted around to talk again, not giving him the time. He could see that yo-yo blur in his vision when faced with Taehyung again - so fucking pretty - and he couldn’t stop his eyes from goggling with it. 

“It’s the last of the long summer nights this week, I’m gonna miss them. In a few months it’ll be dark at this time again.”

How soft his hair looked, how smooth his skin, how his pretty slender fingers gently held his bag strap… His low slung bracelets, his relaxed gait, his gooey, imploring eyes… all these aspects of him Jungkook had already got to know but at times felt like he was seeing for the first time again…

“Is summer your favourite season?” Jungkook blurted, but Taehyung didn’t seem fazed.

“I don’t know. I change my mind. Maybe. Or maybe it’s winter. I really love my coat collection.”

Twisted and speaking over his shoulder now as he descended the stairs, Jungkook could feel how wide his eyes were watching Taehyung, but couldn’t stop them. He’d really gotten himself in this situation now, the present was catching up with him. And the chances were surely not infinite…

He had to remember to use his words.

“I’m sure it’s a great collection.”

“You’ve seen some of them. What about you?”

“Oh I don’t really own things with buttons.”

“That’s…oddly cute, but not what I mean. What’s your favourite season?”

“Oh…um…” Taehyung turned to him fully, eyes glistening, once he unlatched the door. “I think I like all of them.” With you. All the seasons I’ve watched out the door with you in the door frame. 

Jungkook was painfully aware of his boring answer, as much as he was aware of his boring clothes, his lack of cool cultural references that Taehyung had, his flatness on account of his shyness, all contrasting Taehyung’s unique and effervescent charm, but he couldn’t focus his brain into thinking of something to add. Taehyung was stepping backwards out the open door, breeze immediately dancing through his hair, the sky peachy with sunset behind him, and there he was in the frame then, once again, for a slowed down heartbeat of a moment: questionably real, smile a soft sunset in itself where it glowed on Jungkook. He tilted his head, like he’d done so many times before with Jungkook. It felt teasing - though Taehyung probably had no idea of this lens Jungkook was seeing him through - the way Jungkook stepped forward and Taehyung stepped back, the way he was this mirage in arms reach. 

“Jungkook-ssi,” Jungkook heard Taehyung’s voice float across to his ears, a sweetness to it, a touch of humour in it, something like he delighted in speaking his name, “which way are you going?”

“Ah-” Which way are you going? Jungkook slipped and stumbled on the door mat, unsticking his eyes from Taehyung down to his clumsy feet crossing the threshold. His mind buzzed, frantic, in the brief moment between meeting Taehyung’s eyes again, trying to think which way it was Taehyung came and left from- until his unfocused stare focused on Taehyung’s own feet, already inching slightly to the right. “Right.”

He pulled the door shut a little loudly, as if it could cover his embarrassing exit from it. 

“Oh good, me too. Do you get the bus, or walk, or…?”

Where they moved to the right at a ridiculously slow pace, people were already disgruntledly stepping around them. 

“Bus.”

Traffic busy and noisy, a cyclist zipping past. 

“Don’t tell me, that’s your stop too?”

“Yep.”

Taehyung grinned, pocketing his hands from where he’d pointed as he walked backwards again, this time to take a seat at the bus stop that was most definitely not Jungkook’s bus stop. Jungkook’s bus stop was across the road, going in the opposite direction. 

“ Yay! ” Jungkook darted a hand out, not touching but protective still against the person Taehyung was about to collide with. They avoided Taehyung quite fine by themselves, but Jungkook’s body had reacted on instinct, even if really it was others needing the protection from this silly, but lovely, boy not looking where he was going. Taehyung didn’t seem to notice. “That means we can talk more, and look at that beautiful sunset…!” 

Jungkook had seen much more impressive, but Taehyung had a way of throwing everything into a new, and better, light, however average, however boring, however many times Jungkook had seen such a thing before.

Taehyung’s bus stop was very close to the music school, Jungkook wondered if he hadn’t lied whether Taehyung would have continued walking as slowly, hesitantly, as they had been, whether he would have lingered. But as it was, they sat down on the gratefully empty bench together, Taehyung letting out a little sigh as he gazed another long second at the sunset…and Jungkook looked too, though his eyes maybe distracted to Taehyung instead, his soft hair in that breeze, his jaw like a model, his tan skin under the slightly golden light, short sleeve cream shirt appearing so fresh against it. 

“Do you teach everyday?” Taehyung suddenly asked, and now they were out of the wind beneath the bus shelter his voice sounded alarmingly close, even as the street noise continued around them. Taehyung’s eyes were still lifted to the sky, and Jungkook glanced quickly at the board behind Taehyung’s head with the bus times. He wondered if Taehyung’s bus was the one in 5 minutes, 8 minutes, or 12. Taehyung hadn’t looked at it himself. 

Taehyung did turn his eyes back on him though, when Jungkook was slow to answer. Lazily turning into that tilted head gaze, smiling gently, easily. Jungkook fiddled with his hands in his lap. 

“No. Um.” Use your words. Add something. “I teach four days a week, but it’s just, yeah, when lessons fall. I don’t have any students Monday or Friday at the moment, but I used to. I teach on Tuesdays…obviously…it’s Tuesday today…umm, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, mostly in the afternoon/early evening…” Jungkook took a breath, eyes on his feet. Taehyung’s eyes on the side of his face. Fuck, he needed to think of a more interesting topic, a fun tangent, ask Taehyung something. Confess, or at least gauge more about Taehyung’s interest…in boys, in him … How is it people flirt again?? “What- What is it you do?” His voice came out unfortunately stangulated, and he could feel his eyes wavering nervously where he braved looking up. 

He couldn’t hold Taehyung’s eyes for long at all, eyes darting away to the cute dog that passed in front of them in the slowed down car, his head poking out the open window, tongue happily lolling from his mouth. Taehyung had mentioned his dog a few times, but Jungkook had never asked over his name, breed, age, for a picture, though he’d intended to, he’d just never caught the right gap in conversation, like with everything. He should ask now, he could exchange stories and pictures of Bam, he always got into a groove talking about Bammie. Taehyung had noticed the dog before them too, giggling and waving joyously. “Cute,” he murmured once the dog had driven off all too soon. Jungkook opened his mouth but Taehyung beat him to it, drawing a breath.

“I work in an art gallery. We sell art in shop and online, and do framings as well though I don’t do that... I’m just a general assistant… It’s pretty boring sometimes but I like art and people so...and it’s a bit of an event space as well? So that’s fun. I don’t really know where I’m going with it but...yeah.” He shrugged. While talking, he’d opened up his hands and started inspecting them, picking at them. Now he tucks them under his arms with a shake of his head. “And you? Outside of teaching? Do you have a dream , Jungkook-ssi?”

A smile curled back into his voice by that last question, as well as onto his face when Jungkook glanced at it. 

“Well I…I’m in a band.”

“You are?!” He said it so brightly.

“Yeah.”

“I mean, of course you are, that makes sense. That’s so cool.”

“Thanks,” Jungkook huffed a laugh. He rubbed his nose with his long sleeve, not because he needed to but because he felt the urge to hide. He could feel Taehyung blinking at him still. “It’s not like…it’s just a hobby, really, it’s just me and my friends. We don’t need to…don’t expect to be big. ”

“But you never know. Do you write songs?”

“Yoongi-hyung writes most of our songs… How- How are your lessons going? What are you learning now?”

Bass guitar.

“Bass guitar,” Taehyung of course answered, but he surprised Jungkook in the tone he said it: grimacing, embarrassed. Jungkook twisted his hands in his sleeves and looked at him, leaning left and forward a bit so he wasn’t so close, looked at him from slightly below. The sunset streaked more vibrantly now behind Taehyung, dipping beneath the horizon. Taehyung made a face to match his voice. “Thought maybe classical music was too strict for me, and bassists are cool right? But it’s…” He shook his head again, this time slowly, side to side like in debate. “I don’t know? If it’s me?”

Because you’re centre stage, you’re the star, not the baseline in the background. You’re made to stand out. You’re made to dance off beat. 

Jungkook was back to nibbling at his sleeve without meaning to. And then his eyes caught on the flash of the arrival board and he internally cursed.

1 minute.

Taehyung followed Jungkook’s eyeline.

“Oh, that’s mine.” Damn it. “Yours too?”

And there was so much hope in his voice, in his eyes. Jungkook tensed at the crossroads: an extra however many minutes with Taehyung on the bus, but how far would he go in the opposite direction from his home for them? How long would it take him to double back?

He could already see the bus appearing in traffic at the far end of the road. 

Eyes flicking from the bus, to those big, sweet eyes, to the bus. 

“No…mine’s next.”

“Ah.” 

Was Taehyung really as disappointed as he sounded? Jungkook clenched his fists in the fabric of his sleeves, foot tapping anxiously on the ground, bottom lip now chewed into his mouth. His heart was hammering chaotically in his chest, sped up with the appearance of the bus. It ached a little with the kindness Taehyung wrapped him up in, but doubt nagged at the back of his skull - he couldn’t do it, Taehyung would reject him, Taehyung was this friendly with everyone, he was a light that Jungkook could never hold. Taehyung had always seemed to live in another world, a better world. Joining him there was like running after a moving train, trying to get a grip on a door handle. 

Taehyung stood slowly, repocketing his hands. The sunset didn’t glow on him from this angle, rather he blocked it, all dark and soon disappearing onto that bus. 

“Well.” He rocked on his heels, smiling as ever. “Get home safe…Jungkook-sii.”

There it was again: him saying Jungkook’s name with this indulgence, this…amusement?

“Hey you don’t have to, um, call me that.” Taehyung quirked his eyebrows, eyes all innocent and waiting. “Jungkook- sii .”

“Oh. Sure. But…I don’t know if i’m hyung or…?”

“‘97” Jungkook practically whispered. Taehyung looked pleased.

“‘95. Well, only if you’re sure…Jungkook-ah. Is that okay? I’m not one to be bothered by how people refer to me.”

Jungkook shrugged, nodded. Glanced at the approaching bus and motioned towards it. “Don’t miss your bus.” His voice still sounded small. His heart still ached unnecessarily. The Jungkook-ah hadn’t helped. 

Taehyung held out his arm. Then he turned back to Jungkook with a cheeky grin.

“Maybe see you next week?”

The bus sighed to a stop and Taehyung hopped on. Jungkook hadn’t found the voice to answer when he turned back a final time, waving as the doors closed. Jungkook waved back as Taehyung moved through the bus, still watching Jungkook over people’s heads, through the window frames. 

For a few long seconds, Jungkook just sat there, frozen. And then he remembered he could miss his own bus any second and have to wait up to twenty minutes for the next. Numbly, he got himself to his feet and walked to cross the road- except, of course, he then saw his bus. 

He couldn’t summon the energy to run.

So he did sit there twenty minutes, thinking over every detail of their interaction. Where he could have acted differently, where he could have said that bit more…

But, next week? 

Next week. 

Next week he would be braver. He had to try, he had to know. 

Because he could picture them together; the space where he’d fit, that he could fill. He could imagine it, them. It all felt so real in his dreams... He was brimming with so much love. Fuck, did he want to give it.

Sunday night: Jungkook was sat out on his rooftop, a little tipsy still, Yoongi and Hoseok having gone home not long ago. Idly, he’d begun playing his acoustic guitar that he’d got out for jamming, strumming quietly as the neighbourhood was asleep including his parents below. Maybe it was that Hoseok and Yoongi had teased and probed again, maybe it was the new week, or maybe it was that Taehyung occupied his brain more than anything these days, that he’d asked if Jungkook wrote songs almost like he hoped he did, but he’d started playing that stupid song he wrote when he was drunk a month or so ago. He was remembering the chord progressions and those pathetic, cheesy lyrics, adding a few new, more unique, brighter chords, when he sighed and stopped. He tilted his head back to the inky, open sky, stars twinkling beyond what the city drowned out. 

The plastic deckchair squeaked beneath him as he slid onto his back, resting his guitar on his stomach. He shivered in the night breeze, autumn creeping in faster already. He thought about Taehyung’s comment on those long summer nights, thought about him and his coat collection. Thought about where he might be right now, what he may be doing. Setting out his outfit for the next day? Was he as prepared as that, even if his outfits always did look so perfect? Was he washing the beautiful skin of his face? Sleeping? Cuddling his dog? Was he alone? Was he outside too, looking at the same stars Jungkook was? Jungkook could hear the distant wheels of cars on busier roads, the roar of a motorbike, the wheezing of a late night bus. He’d already begun planning what to say to Taehyung on Tuesday, had started thinking about it a week ago, on that very bus home he waited an extra twenty minutes for. But no doubt it wouldn’t go as planned, he’d forget his own pointers, get distracted, get scared. 

Tapping the wood on his guitar, Jungkook bit his lip. Eyes tracking a plane crossing the sky, flying away. Wonder to where?

“Hyung. I need to tell you something.”

He pictured them at the bus stop; that breeze caressing Taehyung’s hair, his patient, kind smile, the sun a warm, melting orb on the horizon, cheering Jungkook on. The world beautiful and calm and still, just for a moment, Jungkook equally collected together. Admitting something he had to admit, come what may. Telling a beautiful boy he was beautiful.

“I need you to know something,” he revised, hearing his voice speak into the lonely night, into that overarching darkness. “So I’m just gonna say it. I like you. And it’s totally okay if you don’t like me back, I expect you won’t. You’re probably taken, even. But I needed to tell you anyway. I hope it doesn’t make you feel awkward…I promise to keep my distance if it does. You never have to cross paths with me again but I just wanted to tell you while you’re here that I think you are so…so beautiful.” Jungkook paused. Blinked. “I think you are probably the best person I’ve ever met. I…think you make the whole world seem brighter. ‘Cause I don’t just mean beautiful like that, though you are, you’re- you’re not real, I don’t even know how to express how… yeah…” Jungkook laughed to himself, dropping his hand to his side that had subconsciously sprung up to try expressing what his words couldn’t either. He shook his head. “But I mean beautiful like…? Like…like I like how you smile, not just how it looks. I think you must make everyone feel a little of what I feel, because of that kindness… And I like how you try. Like with the dasik, and all these instruments, I like how you approach everything with positivity. I like your confidence. I think you’re funny, and sweet, and I like that you know the names of wildflowers, that you paint your own jackets, I like that you squash the backs of your shoes …”

Jungkook trailed off.

“I like your freedom.” He summarised, and sat with that for a second before continuing. “ And this is too long… Maybe I shouldn’t say all that but just…I like you, and I don’t even know you very well but I really want to get to know you, wanna know everything about you. So. Here’s where you let me down easy.”

Jungkook ran the pad of his index finger from string to string, hardly making a sound with how softly and slowly he did so. He felt each string indent into his finger, felt a reverberation in his heart, and closed his eyes. 

“Or maybe don’t say anything at all. Yeah.”

Answering silence.

Jungkook cracked a small, hopeless smile.

“Unless you do wanna get a hot chocolate sometime? I know you don’t like coffee.”

“He says he’s five minutes away.”

Jungkook’s eyes flicked to the time on his phone again, though he’d only done so approximately two seconds before. Five minutes would be okay. Except Dami’s dad said five minutes ten minutes ago.

Dami put her phone back atop her bag on the chair, face up, her dad’s text message still lit up on the screen, and started drumming again, brow furrowed in concentration and little lip bit under her teeth. She’d been awkward at first, when her dad had messaged to say he was stuck at work and would be late, but stopped apologising, hanging her head, and fidgeting when Jungkook came back with some cordial drink for her and asked if there was anything she’d like to keep practising or learn. And so they’d gone off book, Jungkook helping Dami learn the drums to one of her favourite songs. But now Jungkook was quiet to her side, distractedly checking the time and listening out for those slow padding footsteps in the corridor. 

Dami had asked ‘I won’t be in the way?’ when Jungkook assured her she could hang out here while waiting, muttering ‘Oh, I thought you had another lesson…’, expression turning confused, when Jungkook smiled comfortingly, telling her he was ‘in no rush’, which was true, because he always waited here after Dami left - but ten minutes later those words soured to mock him, because it was very possible right now that Taehyung would leave the building this week without him. And embarrassingly, Dami must be wondering on the way Jungkook jogs back up the stairs each week when he says goodbye to her, the way he’d lied, literally saying he had a new student, being that for weeks before he’d grabbed his bag and left alongside her. 

Anxiety started to take over Jungkook’s heart as Dami repeated over and over that same tricky pattern, kick drum punching through his chest each time. It wouldn't be a disaster, if he missed Taehyung this week. He’d been blessed with his company and conversation for five weeks now.

He’d made no progress, for five weeks now…

What was one week? What was one week when he was continuously not grabbing each of the chances they offered?

As it went, despite all of Jungkook’s scripting, it was Taehyung that directed each conversation, that asked most of the questions. It was always Taehyung leading the way, walking first down the stairs, which was probably good because Jungkook was never clumsier than he was around Taehyung, forgetting how to navigate steps let alone walk on the flat (he could also check Taehyung out head to toe with his back turned, admire the bouncing of his hair and, most importantly, his smile when he’d twist around to grace Jungkook with it.) Taehyung would open the door, and Taehyung would keep walking a step ahead - still turning to walk backwards, as if reluctant to detach from their conversation for even the few seconds it took them to walk from the door to the bus stop - and it would be Taehyung sitting down on the bench first, sometimes patting the seat beside him, and leaping into wherever their conversation may go next.

Jungkook wished he had lied about getting the same bus after all. Jungkook would follow Taehyung anywhere, however long it took, no matter how long it would take him to get back home. 

“Are you originally from Seoul?” He’d ask, quickly going ah, I knew I detected an accent, Busan, right? And from there he’d ask about Jungkook’s family, which seemed so quiet, just him, his parents and older brother within normal suburban house walls, when Taehyung’s face lit up enthusing about his own family, his stylish dad and his adorable dongsaengs, the farm he’d run around in under the long summer sun, and his halmeoni, who supported him in everything, and who was the only reason for the subtle dimming of his smile, spoken about in past tense as she was. Jungkook, somehow, for some reason, mentioned his mother pursuing and asking his dad out, which he regretted to sinkhole prayer extremes when Taehyung responded with the question: ‘And do you take after your mum, or your dad?’ Neither, apparently, being he wasn’t asking anyone out and no one was asking him, he probably wasn’t going to make it to marriage. What he actually said was ‘both, look more like my mum’, completely bypassing the obvious cheeky tone in which Taehyung had asked the question.

“So how did you get into the drums?” Taehyung inquired on the third week, where again Jungkook stumbled into territory that was less than safe, drawing attention to his fidgeting habit when he started his explanation all the way at its origins, before he ever saw a drum kit or a cool man with amazing arms playing one, but when he was simply an awkward kid with an incessant tapping habit. Tapping on the sides of his cereal bowl, drumming his knife and fork on the table or his pencils at school, forming a rhythm on the till in the supermarket queue or on the sides of his chair at the dentists or while waiting to sign a book out at the library (librarian scowling and hushing him.) Taehyung had looked ridiculously enthralled, said ‘ cute’ laughingly, and leaned his chin into hands when he asked ‘what were you like as a kid?’ Jungkook started with ‘sporty’, but then all he could think (and feel) was shy, so he said so. ‘I can see that…’ Taehyung had smiled softly, which was mortifying. And then: ‘Your eyes must’ve been massive’, which Jungkook quickly confirmed answering ‘Oh yeah, I was so embarrassing’ before realising Taehyung had said so while staring at Jungkook’s eyes right then. He’d blinked a few times and looked anywhere but Taehyung, who was shaking his head. Cute, he thought he heard again, whispered. ‘And what about you? What were you like as a kid?’ Taehyung had been happy, loud, hyperactive, weird and a bit rebellious, but Jungkook guessed he’d been popular too. Jungkook would’ve been scared to talk to him even then. 

“How’s the band going?” Where Jungkook could only think about all the cool songs he hadn’t written, and the gig they actually had coming up he couldn’t find the voice to ask Taehyung to. He’d probably be busy, probably wouldn’t want to come. To asking about the music Jungkook liked, and then the films, the TV shows, the games…and Jungkook realising he sounded like a right nerd and Taehyung must be embarrassed for him, or at least unable to relate to his simple tastes and sad late night gaming, but he’d be wrong, and wrong and too in his head with his earlier assumption as well: because though Taehyung didn’t love the superhero films as much (he’d gone to a premiere dressed up though!! Of course, how could Jungkook forget?), he did love games, even had a list of his favourites to quote, wanted to exchange levels and go-to characters, and after their rather excited discussion had sighed to an end, Taehyung seeming delighted at the exchange, bus on the horizon, Taehyung asked Jungkook if he could see him and his band play someday. But when Jungkook looked into those hopeful eyes, thought of the club and the drinking and his so-called best friends, thought of choking on stage rather than impressing, he only shrugged and said ‘if you like’, date of the upcoming show bitten back with his lip bitten in. 

On the fifth week with Taehyung at the bus stop, they did get to talk about their dogs, but Jungkook didn’t initiate it. Taehyung looked so excited to learn that Jungkook had a dog, and leaned so close Jungkook had to consciously not drop his phone when showing Taehyung photos. Taehyung’s reactions made Jungkook’s dog dad preen proudly, and he loved being the cause of his giggles. He had a whole album, with photos of Bammie from when he was a pup to him dressed in turtlenecks and glasses- but then there were also photos with him in them. ‘Wait-’ Taehyung had swiped back to one of the earliest photos, Bam as young and velvety soft as Jungkook ever knew him, hugged into Jungkook’s chest. Jungkook’s face wasn’t visible, but his arm was. His tattooed arm. ‘Sorry,’ Taehyung had quickly retracted his hand, ‘just-’ he’d explained hesitantly, ‘-that picture’s a lot.’ And Jungkook couldn’t tell if he was projecting the awkwardness, nor what exactly he meant by ‘a lot.’ He acted like he knew though, replying ‘he was so cute’ and Taehyung had nodded and told him in a small voice to go on. Though Taehyung only took over swiping again on another picture of Jungkook, this time one Hoseok took across the sofas, pissing himself laughing because Jungkook and Bam ‘looked exactly the same’, which is exactly what Taehyung said. Jungkook had laughed, ‘yeah, and also ridiculous…i’m just in my pyjamas…’ Taehyung hadn’t let him move on: ‘it’s adorable’, and Jungkook couldn’t quite convert that ‘it’s’ to ‘ you’ , though a part of him felt the compliment like it had been said for him. He really didn’t know how much he was projecting and reading into things, but he did know that Taehyung was adorable talking about his dog, Tannie. Tannie was adorable too, with his floof and funny expression of little tongue and angry eyebrows, but though interested Jungkook was much more interested in searching out the man behind the fluff, be it a hand or arm or bare knee, and how his heart keened when he was privileged with the sight of more than that, of a whole sleepy Taehyung, or the prettiest portrait of the two of them in the park, and then of a man not Taehyung at all, a bleached blonde, pretty, guy, holding Tannie up for a kiss.

Jungkook’s mind focused on that last photo more than any of the others, which tells you something about his optimism. 

“He says he’s just parking.”

Dami glanced at Jungkook’s leg bouncing. He crossed his legs. Said good. Rolled his shoulders back, sighed, and complimented her progress. 

When he heard the bell ring and Dami’s phone ding with the notification reading ‘ I’m outside ’, Jungkook had already heard those slow padding feet outside his door. The creak of the stairs from the second floor down to his, the soft shuffle of shoes coming to a pause, as Taehyung had taken to waiting if Jungkook wasn’t already outside, and then the hesitant step of them away, the creak of the stairs going down and the door shut. He’d only waited a minute. 

At 22 minutes past, Jungkook heaved himself and his rucksack down the stairs and out the door. October now, the last of the sunset was already dimmed and disappeared behind buildings, the evening otherwise dusky with dark inky clouds gathering overhead. It was cold, too, Jungkook realised, pocketing his hands as he stepped into the chill wind, thinking on investing in a coat with buttons after all. 

He really didn’t expect to see Taehyung still waiting at the bus stop. 

Jungkook practically tripped over himself, double taking and stepping backwards: a distinct Taehyung shape there against the glass, his trench coat and his long hair curled over the collar and his hands crossed on his knee, foot bouncing in the air. Jungkook’s big, immersive, over-ear headphones clattered as he clumsily tore them from his head, scrambling to shut the now distant tinny music off. Then he just stood there for a moment, stupidly. 

It took someone bumping into him, cursing, for him to move.

“Hyung!” He announced himself breathily, the awkward tension in his voice glaringly obvious to his own ears. His fingertips pressed into the cold metal of the bus stop pole he was peering around. A fallen leaf spiralled in front of his eyes in the breeze. Taehyung startled, turning to him with wide eyes.

Jungkook watched the smile break out on his face as if in slow motion, that was how beautiful a sight it was. That it stole the attention of even time itself.

“Jungkook!”

Jungkook ducked his way towards the seat, thankfully empty again today. He hadn’t always been so lucky, there had been disgruntled backs turned from them, kids with their last bouts of energy restlessly swinging around in front, huffing and puffing as wristwatches were checked. The opportunity presented to him this week was generous, Jungkook sure hadn’t earned it. But though, as every time, his little confession speech hurried to recollect in his brain and tension gripped him with this precipice of seizing the moment, a bus was arriving in two minutes, and nothing was different. 

Except - maybe - Taehyung had proved he had waited after all. 

“Sorry, my lesson overran.” Which, for once, wasn’t a lie.

“You don’t need to be sorry. I figured, heard the drumming.” And as exceptionally cute as Taehyung always was, Taehyung demonstrated his words with a little drumming motion. 

Taehyung’s excited smile mellowed and his eyes flicked up and down Jungkook. Then, to Jungkook’s horror, he shuffled closer. Jungkook stared in fear at Taehyung’s hands, now gathered in his lap which was so much closer that their thighs practically touched. 

“Hey,” Taehyung started casually, because he probably did feel casual, relaxed, platonic, not thinking at all about how this distance lends itself to hands gripping thighs or footsies or kissing even, just a turn of head, a nudge of nose away- “did you say you teach Thursdays?”

“Huh? Um…yes, yes I do.” 

Jungkook was quite sure he was slightly leaning back on instinct, eyes so wide he didn’t think he’d blinked for a few seconds and his chill exterior (if you could say he had any) was betrayed. 

“Till when?”

“Er…” His scrambled brain could only manage to grasp at honesty. “Five-thirty. On Thursdays.” And then a beat later: “Why?”

“Oh,” Taehyung slumped a little, finally withdrew his eyes and tilted his head, fingers lifting to fiddle with the belt of his coat. Fantasy took over Jungkook’s mind in a flash, how he could tug on that belt to draw Taehyung into a kiss when he stood up and turned around to say goodbye. Jungkook thinks he’d kiss Taehyung a lot, if they were together. How could he not? Grand kisses and little kisses, cheeks and forehead and the cold knuckle of his hands, good morning and goodnight. Hello and goodbye, or rather, see you later. “Well, I’m thinking of switching again.”

“Oh,” Jungkook echoed, putting all his concentration into the fibres of his brain figuring out what this information means and how it applies to him. “You are?” He says when the gap stretches too long.

“Yeah. I mean, I am switching. Bass guitar…it wasn’t me, after all. Think I need to go back to my first love, which is jazz, you know? That’s the music that really inspired me to learn so…figure I should try again.”

“Oh,” Jungkook repeated dumbly, throat gone dry. The fibres of his brain were still buzzing trying to connect it all, but his gut had beaten his brain to it, forming a feeling of dread just from the tone of conversation. “Sure. So…saxophone again?”

“Trumpet. I was listening to Chet Baker late the other night and it made my heart happy, you know?” You make my heart happy. “Felt right.” You feel right. “Like the music to my soul, or something. Do the drums make you feel like that?”

Jungkook couldn’t think about the drums, or only the drumming of his heart right now, because what was the conclusion here? Why had Taehyung asked? What was he really asking? 

“I’ve never- never wanted to play anything else… But so, you’ll still be coming here, right?”

Taehyung looked as regretful as Jungkook felt.

“Yes, but on Thursdays. At seven. It was the only time available.” 

Jungkook nodded numbly, still calculating. Shit. Why had he already said he left at five-thirty?! Was there a way to backtrack now? He could pretend he had an hour and a half of lessons he didn’t to keep seeing Taehyung like this, he could, he would…  

But maybe he shouldn’t. As a sane person, he shouldn’t. And as a person that has failed to get anywhere in literal months, perhaps he’s finally reached the end of the line-

“My last bass lesson is next week.”

“So…”

“...So I’ll see you then?” Taehyung smiled again, which actually felt like the winning punch to his stomach, the final knock out blow. 

“And then…” Jungkook was panicking, and winding up a stuttering, feeble mess.

“.... And then I guess I’ll see you around, Jungkook-ah. Though I’ll miss this.” Jungkook blinked up at Taehyung, whose smile was gentle. “But you’ll tell me about any upcoming gigs of yours, won’t you?” 

Blink again, and there looked to be a certain fragility in Taehyung’s eyes. But maybe that was just Jungkook, he could see the dark shape of himself reflected there. 

Jungkook wanted to focus on that ‘ i’ll miss this ,’ pick it apart even if all that was uncovered were very simple, bland, feelings and intent, just the beginnings of a friendship that certainly wouldn’t leave Taehyung kinda completely heartbroken if it fizzled out to nothing. Jungkook would miss this - Taehyung’s company, learning more about him, his smile and his laugh, just having him by his side - but he’d also miss this, the space he’d started to carve out for Taehyung in his world and heart that would be left empty, as foolish as doing so had been, but that at least had been out of his control. He’d miss Taehyung, because he would have missed Taehyung, and would forever feel this indented absence of what could’ve been. 

“Oh, hyung, is that your bus…?”

“Shit-”

Jungkook jumped to his feet quicker, like every time Taehyung had got distracted talking and nearly missed his bus. Selfishly, of course, a part of Jungkook wanted to ignore his oncoming view of the bus and keep Taehyung for even just five minutes longer. But Jungkook was clearly too honest for his own good, and besides...he wasn’t confident he deserved to take up Taehyung’s time like that, not when he was this beautiful creature made to fly and Jungkook was as grounded as they come, so stuck where he was, and had always been, that he couldn’t answer Taehyung about the gig once again, couldn’t be brave like that. And so he hailed Taehyung’s bus for him.

“Thanks,” Taehyung exhaled, stepping ahead, bag hitched up his shoulder. He shook out his long fringe and regarded Jungkook from under his lashes with those lovely, soft, dark eyes. The bus wheezed to a stop behind him. Jungkook pocketed his hands.

He watched Taehyung’s chest rise and fall once.

“You look good today.”

“Wha-?”

The doors opened and Taehyung turned to them, whites of his teeth now showing in a breezy smile.

“You look cute!” He reiterated, voice raised a little over the traffic, no thought for how that made Jungkook cringe but more-so how it made his heart spasm and this flush of heat burst through his limbs like lava. 

“See you next week, Jungkook-ah.”

And as every time Taehyung said Jungkook’s name, Jungkook melted. If Taehyung was going to keep saying his name like that, he should also be here with the arms to hold him together. Fuck, Jungkook felt small. Squishy. Lost. The draft from the bus leaving blew cold up his shins and another amber leaf across his vision. He didn’t know what to think.

He had another week. One more. Just one. See you next week, Jungkook-ah. The low dip of Taehyung’s voice there wriggled right the way to the very centre of Jungkook, the very knot of his fears. It felt meaningful, a promise and a proposition. Felt final. Felt…hopeful. 

Jungkook crossed the road in silence, headphones left dangling around his neck. When his own bus drew up, he saw himself in the glass and saw Taehyung in turn, heard the echo of his ‘you look cute!’ Saw those strangely fragile eyes, himself in them but perhaps not taking up all of their depths, not responsible for all that fragility. But then he blinked again, and alone dropped the weight of his head to the window and watched the world pass him by.

Taehyung knocked on his door, on that final week.

Jungkook startled, feeling caught out where he was checking over his appearance in his front camera, though Taehyung didn’t barge in. He paced once more back and forth in the small square room, then grabbed his bag and readied his smile as he opened the door.

“Trick or treat!!”

Taehyung had been a little later coming down, providing Jungkook ample time to get anxious, and that was to anxious levels higher than ever, considering this really could be his last chance…but how that anxiety skyrocketed upon seeing him. He literally stumbled back from the door, everything shrinking and disappearing around him where Taehyung eclipsed it all, demanded everything. He couldn’t step back far enough, open his eyes wide enough, to take him in.

“Happy Halloweeeen,” Taehyung sing-songed, looking a little sheepish the longer Jungkook gawped. 

But not sheepish enough. There was something different in his eyes, dark and sharp and determined on Jungkook. Maybe it was the makeup.

The Joker. Heart-wrenchingly gorgeous sculpted boy, pinning Jungkook like he’d never pinned him before just with his stare. Jungkook beyond a fool, Jungkook his victim, the very cards he’d shuffle, flip, and play with, there to be laid out before him, splayed in his hands. 

Heart collapsed in his chest, breath caught and being capsized, Jungkook treaded the sudden depths he felt plunged in to keep afloat. 

“I haven’t actually spooked you, have I?” Taehyung smirked. Hands on either side of the doorframe, leaning in. Jungkook really felt like his knees might falter beneath him, and a part of him fixated on the action of kneeling down before this man, how it seemed like the only appropriate, even possible, response.

It was a cheap typical purple and green suit, but nothing looked cheap on Taehyung, and who could look long at the suit anyway when his face looked like that? The typical white paint, darkly smudged eyes, extended red lip, but the bones beneath it pulling the makeup together to stunning effect, the man embodying the character with disarming charm. Jungkook had seen glimpses before of this power Taehyung could command, glimpses of a Taehyung under his surface of softness and smiles, the serious core to him, this quiet, contemplative, calm confidence he could own that in comparison made you feel untethered. But here was the most thus far he’d ever come to face that side of Taehyung, the Joker character seemingly bringing it out of him. 

Or, perhaps, he did want to tease Jungkook. Jungkook certainly felt teased.

“I’m going to a halloween party tonight, just in case you thought I dressed like this for fun. Well, I did dress like this for fun but you know what I mean…not for non Halloweeny reasons. Anyway so I don’t have time to go home and change so I got ready at work. Might’ve got a few double takes on the way here.”

I bet. 

Taehyung shrugged, rocking back and forth a little where he still held onto the doorframe. When he flicked his eyes back up to Jungkook’s, he raised his eyebrows. Jungkook couldn’t breathe.

The muscles flexing in Taehyung’s exposed wrists where he continued to rock, the tendons on the backs of his hands going in and out of shadowed definition; movement in his throat, the small lift of his breathing on the triangle of tanned, terrible skin visible where the front of his waistcoat gaped; his lips parted where his sentence had finished, bottom lip so full, red. 

“You ready?”

No.

But nevertheless, Jungkook heard himself say yeah and watched his feet shuffle out the practice room after Taehyung. 

He was holding onto his bag strap for dear life. 

“You, um-” Jungkook started without knowing what he was going to say, only that he should say something, “so, um-” fuck his shaky voice, shaken brain, “-party?”

His voice sounded parched. Feeble. He smiled as shakily as the rest of him when Taehyung twisted to look over his shoulder. He bounded down the stairs, sleeve of his suit flopping where it was a smidge too big on him. Jungkook’s heart squeezed because Taehyung was always so fucking endearing, even when he looked as godly, as devellish, as this. And it also squeezed and stuttered because in the gaping of his clothing Jungkook could imagine the slender body beneath, and Jungkook had never felt such a wild hot yearning to undress someone before.

“Yeah!” Jungkook watched Taehyung’s hand slide down the bannister where he’d reached the landing, eyes still bright yet dark like some frenetic creation in space. Eyes latched to Jungkook. “My best friend hosts one every year.” 

Taehyung didn’t move when Jungkook stepped down to the landing too, and Jungkook’s heart lurched into his throat. Chests so close Jungkook could experience how similar in height they were, Jungkook perhaps nudging slightly taller only due to the wedge of his boots. Mouths suddenly so close Jungkook could feel what it would be like to stand in this space and kiss him. He felt himself go somewhat cross-eyed, felt the gravity of his eyes fall to Taehyung’s lips before he could stop them- The worst of it was that in this evil, elongated second, Taehyung bit down into his lower lip and Jungkook felt that like a clamp,  like he’d taken Jungkook’s whole body between his pretty rows of teeth. 

Jungkook almost stepped back up the first step, but then he heard Taehyung inhale and there he was moving away, walking backwards as ever, arm reaching out for the door handle without looking. When he jerked it down, his body jerked with it, slanting to the left and with the slant of his painted smile he managed to look very menacing indeed. It suddenly all too keenly looked like Jungkook was being led to his death.

Taehyung gestured for Jungkook to go first. “This Joker can be a gentleman,” Taehyung murmured as he held the door open. Jungkook heard his voice creep up the top of his spine and the back of his neck as he passed, felt the low rumble of it through him like distant thunder. Felt his eyes trailing his movement, not surprised to turn back to the full flare of them on him. 

“Wait-” Sudden fear dipped in his belly, pulsed in the back of his skull. Taehyung raised his goddamn eyebrows again, slowly pulling the door shut. “S-So, are you getting the same bus then? If you’re… If you’re going to your friend’s.”

“Jimin practically lives next door. And what about you?”

“I… What? Yeah…I’m getting the same bus…as usual…”

Taehyung looked even more surreal stood out on the street, in the world, with the wind touching him. Maybe Jungkook would be embarrassed to be by him, as attention grabbing as he was, but he thought Taehyung too cool for that. And anyway, the spotlight of eyes on Taehyung never reached him, never did. Jungkook had seen people double-take at Taehyung on the street and out of car windows on a regular day; it made Jungkook feel a little insecure, like a fan with far fetched dreams of dating an idol, but strangely it also made him proud. Taehyung was so beautiful, he should be admired, people should be inspired by his equally beautiful spirit. 

“No,” Taehyung chuckled, getting closer to Jungkook again, Jungkook so hypnotised this time it was him stepping backwards and colliding into someone, and it was Taehyung’s hands leaping up to save him: lurching to grip his forearms with a reassuring, grounding squeeze. Smile as kind and caring as ever, despite the makeup, making Jungkook’s belly flip for the thousandth time. Taehyung let go slowly, as if to be sure Jungkook wouldn’t fall over; fingertips easing off him slowly, softly, and hovering for a second nearby before withdrawing to his pockets. Taehyung actually seemed taller for the short moment, probably because Jungkook was ducking his head, Taehyung’s bright, intense eyes focused on him above much too much. “No, I meant are you doing something tonight? For Halloween?”

Quite frankly, Jungkook needed to sit down as they made their way to the bus stop. He felt weak .

“Oh. No, um..well not tonight. This weekend me and my friends are having a movie night.”

Though, fuck, when he got there he’d rather keep walking - there were two teenagers, already laughing at Taehyung, let alone at Jungkook when they’d likely notice the fumbling, frazzled mess of him. 

Taehyung simply turned his back on them, continued to focus so wholly on Jungkook.

“Scary movies?”

Jungkook nodded. Fingers fiddling where both hands held his bag strap to his side, eyes flicking up down up down, to and from Taehyung and back, because goddamn was he ever so insatiably gorgeous yet terrifying. Goddamn, if he ever got his hands on him, would Jungkook worship him. Adore him. 

“That sounds fun,” Taehyung kinda exhaled. “Do you get scared?”

Why did Taehyung’s voice suddenly sound so intimate? Was it just how he was leaning in, voice mixing with the pulse in Jungkook’s ears?

“Not…really?” I get scared of you. “I’m probably-” Jungkook shrugged, shook his head where his eyes were cast down, “desensitised, or whatever. I mostly find them funny.”

“Wow, you twisted man.” Jungkook glanced up at that, eyes large with worry only to find Taehyung grinning. This time Jungkook exhaled and stared at Taehyung grinning for a beat too long. It was Taehuyng that looked away first. Jungkook’s surroundings rushed back in, more hushed, mean laughter across from them making him flinch. “I’m the same, actually.” Taehyung rolled back his shoulders, cleared his throat. “I make a point of keeping a straight face with Jiminie because it annoys him.” He paused. “Don’t like when it gets too realistic though. Or when the dogs get hurt.”

“Same.” The half of Jungkook tense from the laughter snapped back to focusing on Taehyung, while the other half of him, the distracted half, simply wanted to reach and hold Taehyung’s hand where it tapped on his knee. Taehyung’s words played back in his head and he frowned a little. “What’s too realistic? Like, serial killers? Gore?”

“The ghosts.”

Taehyung faced him directly again.

“You believe in ghosts?”

Taehyung’s mouth parted, but he hesitated. His eyes travelled over Jungkook’s face again, all the way to his hairline, and Jungkook found himself holding his breath, face hot, heart stuttering in his chest. Perhaps he wasn’t really looking, his eyes just wandering while he thought…

“And angels,” Taehyung finished quietly. 

Taehyung’s gaze curved back down to Jungkook’s eyes, smile nudging almost shyly into his cheeks. 

“That’s cool,” Jungkook offered lamely. He wanted to ask more of course, know about all of Taehyung’s beliefs, what made him passionate, what helped him get through a difficult day, but his tongue felt heavy in his mouth.

And anyway, in the next second Taehyung was glancing down and back up again, that shyness seemingly snatched from him. He regarded Jungkook from under his tilted brow. 

“Hey.” 

Jungkook’s heart panicked, lurching with one thick, hard, throb. He could feel his breath rising visibly on his chest; Taehyung seemed to mirror it, that gorgeous plane of skin that made Jungkook’s mind spiral. 

Any tittering laughter was being very effectively blocked by Taehyung’s back now. It seemed distant. Irrelevant. 

“If you aren’t doing anything tonight…you know, you’d be welcome to join us. At the party. More than welcome.”

That panic speared all through Jungkook’s body; Taehyung blinked, face quite serious and expectant though his voice had been soft, and Jungkook shifted awkwardly, trying to appear casual despite the automatic dread that pooled in his gut. He looked out to the road, wind whipping through his hair. 

“Really?” 

His voice sounded thin. He aimed a quick smile back at Taehyung, like the question and prospect hadn’t completely thrown him, and through the haze of panic that rushed through his body and brain tried to imagine himself at this Jimin’s house: knocking on his door to whoever may answer it, not necessarily Taehyung, walking around the busy rooms, hanging back against walls, pouring a drink for himself, alone, in the kitchen, searching for Taehyung, Taehyung being busy, preferring others company, of course, of course, Jungkook disappearing to cower in the bathroom… 

Jungkook being asked by a stranger how he knows Jimin, how he knows Taehyung… 

Taehyung being there with his boyfriend, or date, or meeting someone new, someone not Jungkook, and Jungkook seeing them kissing from afar…

Jungkook getting the bus home right now to quickly turn around, find a costume, find the nerve to head back out into the night-

“I don’t have a costume.”

Taehyung straightened up at those words, at Jungkook’s tentative eye contact. Jungkook had leaned his weight forward, forearms to his thighs, head hung and turned back to Taehyung nervously. His feet drummed in his shoes. 

“That’s okay, I'm sure plenty people won’t bother, or, like, you could just wear black, be a vampire or something. That’s easy, you just smear some red lipstick. If you don’t have any…I mean…” Taehyung huffed a laugh, dug a hand around in his loose trouser pocket. “I literally have some on me now.” And he held up this little black cylinder with a smirk and another quirk of his eyebrow.

More instinctual dread washed through Jungkook as his eyes fell to Taehyung’s slender fingers around the lipstick. He glanced up with a further, sharp, panic no doubt visible. 

“You don’t mean- Now? ”

“Yeah, why not.” 

The lid clicked loudly between them, the sudden reveal of bright red pulsing like Jungkook’s heart. 

Taehyung’s large palm rose up, made to take hold of Jungkook’s face…

“C’mere-”

Jungkook recoiled, the thump of his heart against his chest the most painful yet, as if it had just burst…

Taehyung giggled.

The lid clicked back into place.

“No, dummy, you could use it at Jiminie’s house. I’m not going to attack you with lipstick, though I'm sure you’d look lovely in it. You haven’t agreed to come yet.”

Not subtle at all, Jungkook exhaled and pulled his collar back from his neck. Disturbed from his position, he leaned his weight this time back against the bus stop wall, head bumping against it. His skin felt so embarrassingly hot against the cool air. The heat of Taehyung’s eyes on him more embarrassing yet.

“Umm…” He swallowed awkwardly. “Maybe.”

And fuck, was the disappointment that drained through him worse than the panic. 

“Okay.” Taehyung said lightly. Jungkook checked the bus times. “Well. Um. How about I give you my number?” Jungkook turned back to look at him numbly, a layer of him detaching from the chaos beneath; it was all moving too fast suddenly, it was all going too perfectly. An invitation, Taehyung’s phone number, endless kindness, openness, chances chances chances, falling through Jungkook’s hands… Jungkook nodded, shrugged. Taehyung held his hand out for Jungkook’s phone. “Let me know if you plan to come...and I’ll text you Jimin’s address.”

Jungkook watched his thumbs input his number with that same detachedness, his heart so fast now it was more like a blur. He couldn’t possibly look any semblance of casual anymore. 

“Cool.” Taehyung twisted to see the bus times now. Maybe it was the wind, that when he turned back he looked a little flushed, a little flustered. “And really, no pressure to come in costume, though like I say you can just come in all black. Or all white.”

Something strange possessed Jungkook then, when his hands were empty again; a voice that broke out of him as if in protest to the rest of him that shied away, that gave up. 

“Like a ghost?” He smiled, ignoring the clamminess of his skin, the slight tremble of his limbs. 

Taehyung looked briefly surprised, for some reason, but then he relaxed and smiled too. “Exactly.” His lips twisted to the side for a second, and he added: “Make me nervous.” He tilted his head, eyelashes fluttering as he looked down then back up. His fingers were tapping silently on his phone in his lap. He looked impossibly sweet again, despite his costume, he was giving Jungkook whiplash. “Or an angel.” He said, perhaps the softest yet. “All white. You could be an angel too.”

Could I make you nervous, the way you make me? 

Jungkook blinked and imagined this boy in a cheap joker costume sat close across from him in a dim, busy room, colourful lights dancing on him, eyes big and overwhelming and urging, lips parting and Jungkook leaning in…

“...just something easy,” Taehyung had started speaking again, “I mean, look at what I’m wearing. It doesn’t have to be anything prize winning.”

And there was that surge of protest in Jungkook again.

“But you look good.” 

Taehyung stilled, mouth closing but not fully. He blinked twice. 

“Really good.” 

Jungkook’s voice was throaty, something sticky about it. He swallowed, eyes latched to Taehyung’s, background anxious that he was being weird- but wasn’t Taehyung staring too? 

Jungkook motioned his head to Taehyung’s outfit, eyeing it to his makeup, his hair… “It suits you.”

Jungkook heard the huff of Taehyung’s laugh and looked to it, then back to his eyes- and there he stayed in a suspended breath, there he waited, Taehyung looking at him in return with quiet curiosity, with a slowly seeping, pleased smile.

“Well thank you…Jungkook-ah…” Something of that earlier brightness sparked in his eyes then. Excitement. Amusement. Something Jungkook could only describe as intensity. “Is it me being a villain? Or the purple and green?”

Jungkook didn’t know how to respond, how to continue this good thing he’d started, he just kept blinking and seeing them in the corner of that room, the rest of the party drowned out as the rest of the world was here…

“Or is it this beautiful smile?” Taehyung held one hand up beneath it, underlining the painted flick of it. 

“All of it. You’re just convincing. Like, I can imagine you playing him, like in that scene…”

Jungkook trailed off, voice unfortunately breathy. He could feel himself unravelling, his words along with the rest of him. 

Taehyung seemed to be even closer than before, eyes bigger than before. 

“-What scene?” He urged, picking at that unravelled thread of him. Tugging. 

“Where you ask Harley to jump into the acid, and she does.” 

Jungkook felt himself spinning under Taehyung’s stare. He didn’t know when, but one hand of his had taken to gripping the bench.

“…That’s the scene I make you think of?” Taehyung replied so quietly it was almost a whisper, it didn’t even entirely sound like a question for Jungkook to answer. He said it carefully, surprised. Wondrously. Breathily.

Jungkook was mostly thankful that though he’d fumbled saying you over the joker, he hadn’t fumbled Harley for me. 

Taehyung shook his head and laughed, looking out to the road. The headlamps of passing cars shone and winked in the increasing darkness. “I’m scared of heights,” is all he said before moving on. “I wanted to add that…well. I think you’re maybe not a party guy.” He turned back with gentle inquiry. Jungkook re-composed himself, then grimaced. Nodded reluctantly. “That’s okay. I wanted you to know that if you do decide to come, you can just hang out with me.” 

He smiled in encouragement, and Jungkook felt mortifyingly small rather than excited by that prospect, of Taehyung offering his time like that…whether he’d be able to keep to it or not. 

“And we always have games set up in the living room.”

Small, and childish.

It was then Jungkook noticed the bus in the traffic.

Taehyung followed Jungkook’s eyeline to it, but he didn’t stand up yet. 

“Jiminie can be a bit much but I promise I’ll tell him not to fuss over you, he just can’t help himself with cute guys, especially shy ones.”

And there not just did Jungkook feel small, and childish, but panicked anew. Was Jimin gay? Was Taehyung trying to set Jimin up with him, rather than being interested himself? 

Where had that brave voice in him gone, fighting the rest of him? 

The headlamps from the bus bloomed in the frosted glass of the shelter, close as it was now. The light panned up to fill the entire pane of glass then disappeared in the top right corner, like the distant, hurtling, passing of a star, impossible to hold still, to ask to wait for you, to ask to come back. The bus shadowed into place beside them. Jungkook stood up, then Taehyung too, a fraction later. 

He stepped nearly as close as he’d been at the bottom of those stairs, searching for Jungkook’s eyes.

“Will you come, Jungkook-ah?” He asked amidst the rush.

And then, in as dazzling a briefness as any star, as anything so beautiful, too good, Taehyung’s hand found Jungkook’s: or more like his wrist, reaching out to loosely touch it, pinky finger skating down the side of his hand, then squeezing. Jungkook watched Taehyung’s arm stretch out as he stepped backwards to the opening doors, not yet letting go. 

“Maybe see you there?” He let go, voice and smile too uncertain but ever kind, ever positive. And it felt like hope, how he’d spoken, as if he really did want Jungkook there- How he backed onto the bus, eyes glinting and body open as if he might’ve asked Jungkook to just follow, but thought that too much- How he waved through the window again, sinking into his seat slowly when Jungkook was out of sight.

How Jungkook’s heart clenched at his contact, stared at his name, then at the smiley…

But - because of course there would be a but - then Jungkook couldn’t stop thinking. All his thoughts muddled and spilled over and he spent the bus ride home making himself even more tense than he’d been at the bus stop, questioning himself, doubting himself, doubting how he was interpreting Taehyung, freaking himself out with the possibilities of the party, chastising himself with how awkward and embarrassing he’d already been, how the compliments he’d been brave to say weren’t even worth the bravery, weren't anything beyond a normal level of friendship…and none of Taehyung’s actions or words had been beyond that either. Not even the hand touching. 

Jungkook brushed over his wrist repeatedly, staring at it. His phone heavy in his pocket. He hadn’t replied yet, hadn’t decided yet. 

As scared as it gripped him that that was it, that was his last chance, as blessed and urgent as it should make him that that was his last chance unless he went to the party, unless he texted…beneath that tension, he was already slumping inside, incrementally, turning cold, disappointed, ashamed. Grievant. 

He entered his house, opened his wardrobe doors, and couldn’t summon the action. 

So he avoided all mirrors and threw himself under his duvet, pulling it all the way up over his head. 

They hadn't discussed it being the last week they’d see each other at the music school. For the end, it was anticlimactic, which Jungkook supposed was fitting for what he’d earned. 

Jungkook thought of an alternate him, knocking on Jimin’s door, finding Taehyung in a busy room, hanging out with him as promised, playing games, cheersing drinks, Taehyung finding his hand again and finding them that quiet corner where Jungkook would look at Taehyung, be brave, and kiss him. In the silence of his bedroom he could hear the happy noise of that house. Could see Taehyung looking around, checking his phone. Confused. Waiting. Disappointed. 

Or- Taehyung dancing, eyes closed, phone abandoned far across the room. Jungkook forgotten. 

Useless useless useless. Jungkook didn’t deserve to be that boy, he’d betrayed that part of himself. Utterly let himself down. And if Taehyung had ever, even just a speck, hoped Jungkook would kiss him, he’d let Taehyung down too. He didn’t deserve Taehyung’s kindness, not even his pity.

Months. Almost a year.

What was wrong with him? No one else would have seen Taehyung asking him to the party as anything but amazing, but the anxiety that ruled Jungkook had shut it down immediately. It was amazing. It could’ve been the beginning. Look what Jungkook’s done. 

Taehyung would be that lost love in his life after all, the unfulfilled yearning, the what if - the beach the boats had unmoored from, the ground he was bound to that would never allow him to reach the birds or stars. The open train carriage he hadn’t grabbed in time. The collision of worlds never to collide again, the parallel lines that should never have met abiding by their rules once again.

The bus leaving the bus stop, disappearing on the horizon. 

The door closed. 

Jungkook thought about texting Hoseok and Yoongi, he thought about asking them for help, even inviting them to come with him. He thought about texting Taehyung an excuse, an apology, even the truth. Thought about texting him tomorrow, or the next day. Thought about texting him a good luck and goodbye. 

But he didn’t. And then it was definitely, undeniably, too late. 

November.

Thursday. 

Just over an hour ago.

Jungkook had been falling with heavy steps to his front door, already hitching his bag forward to fish out his keys, keen to get inside, log in to his latest game, and try to forget. He was panting slightly from the hill up to his house, cold little condensation clouds forming from his mouth, and the more seconds passed that he couldn’t put his hand on his keys he huffed louder in exasperation, not searching calmly for much longer before dropping to a crouch and turning his bag upside-down. In the dark, the poorly organised contents of his bag (that is to say not organised at all, it was just one big pocket apart from the slim one for his phone, bus pass, keys- ) spilled and scattered onto the concrete ground: his notebook, pen, wallet, charger, two lip balms, large, now empty, bottle of water, hair bands, drum sticks. He stopped a lip balm rolling far away and stared in horror at the now gutted lining, no keys in sight. The dread had already developed rapidly because he’d already done this, tipping out his bag, back at the music school when it was his pen he couldn’t find - and his parents were away for two weeks, visiting friends, on their anniversary, their social and love life literally better than his.

He scanned his eyes and hand over everything once more, patting around every crevice and crease of his bag’s lining, checking jacket pockets too… His dread turned very cold, resigned. Slowly, he re-packed his bag, zipped it, and stood up to face the door he could not open. That no one could open for him. Then he turned around, and walked grimly back down the hill he’d just dragged his body up. 

Fuck him, he was nearly home, and now he had to go all the way back to where he started. 

It’s been two weeks. Just over. 

See, the thing about the bus journey home, in the dark, with limited data, was that he struggled to distract himself. The bus stop, the staircase, every door he opened to a student that of course wasn’t him... Really, unlimited data couldn’t distract him wholly, couldn’t soothe the hurt; even at home, everything was just a layer of white noise he was trying to push the sadness out with. Hurt, sadness, but also anger, at himself. Resentment, hatred. Disappointment. The most devastating crash in confidence, so much so he felt lost. And then just the missing. The quiet. The emptiness. 

He was compelled to think about him, how perfect he was, what he might be doing right now, and over and over and over how tragically he’d fucked it up, even as he believed the likelihoood was he hadn’t had a chance to begin with, the only thing really to be fucked being his own heart. He saw him in snapshots, these little framed portraits like Jungkook’s mind eye had taken pictures: all those different Taehyung’s he’d opened the door to throughout the year, all the times he twisted to look at him on the stairs, Taehyung looking up from the violin he thought he’d broken, a picture of his hand pocketing the plucked string, a picture of him laughing above Jungkook through the bannisters, oblivious to his presence, of him beside him at the bus stop, his smile and his chatty hands and him waving goodbye from so many buses, how he’d said ‘Will you come, Jungkook-ah?’ and the fleeting flickerings of light he’d seen in his eyes, shifting light that passed over his pupils like clouds to the moon, shifting light that Jungkook wasn’t sure he understood. And then there were the imaginary scenes, the could have beens, not least including the image of Taehyung waiting for him at the party. 

He was still compelled today, but more than that he was tired. Trudging back up to the bus stop he’d only minutes ago left, waiting again, dragging himself to another window seat where it started to rain lightly against the dark, as if the world was crying too over the sorry state of Jungkook and his life… He was so, so, tired. Exhausted. So as he re-traced his route, gratefully he didn’t also re-trace all those compulsive thoughts. He settled down staring out the window with his music turned loud, the bus empty around him compared to earlier, everyone else already home in the warm, and his mind tiredly wandered and skipped, circling back to Taehyung here and there but the tired haze of it all keeping the thoughts from hurting anywhere near as painfully. And sometimes, almost blissfully, though the mood was sad, he thought nothing at all.

And so he didn’t wonder on what Taehyung was doing right now; he only distantly registered the traffic and how slow it was making his journey, accepted it like karma; he didn’t think about how he’d get into the school, considering his set of keys (though he hardly had to use them, only some Saturday mornings) were on the same key ring as those for his house. He was just tired, and wanted to be home. He wanted to be home.

It’s what Hoseok had lamented about: Jungkook being heartbroken before they even knew someone had captured that fatal organ of his. Though this time, of course, they’d had the inkling. The last two weeks he’d turned up to rehearsals, but skipped every social plan; he turned up to play, and no more, though he felt the worried looks of his hyungs and shook his head at their careful offers to talk. He’d been going harder, at the drums, same as for his work outs. That was partly the anger. He ignored their text messages, hid under his hoodies, and never stayed for drinks, never longer than necessary. He kept to his responsibilities, but otherwise just wanted to be home, home, and alone. Hoseok, of the two, made Jungkook feel guilty, being that it was mostly his texts he ignored - the tentative offers and questions, the invitations to hang out, but also the funny gifs and random memes - and Hoseok wasn’t good at acting unconcerned and normal, he’d started talking to Jungkook too softly, letting him off the hook when he fucked up at rehearsals, and, worst of all, bringing Jungkook presents, mostly food but he’d also given Jungkook this bunny shaped night light he said he’d just ‘bumped into’ and Jungkook had almost burst into tears.

That night light has, coincidentally, been witness to a lot of Jungkook’s silent tears and sleepless nights, ones that Hoseok must have guessed at. 

Knowing Jungkook’s parents were away, the text Jungkook had ignored earlier today was an invitation to sleepover for the weekend, even starting tonight if Jungkook liked. But that was the least appealing offer yet, so much so that Jungkook, locked out of his house, still didn’t take him up on it when the offer of going to Hoseok’s house would have saved him all this trouble. He could’ve fetched his keys tomorrow morning, if he’d said yes. But instead here he was, still out in the cold, stuck in traffic. 

It should take him half an hour, forty-five minutes at most, when rush hour. 

It takes him almost an hour and a half.

Compared to other ‘heartbreaks’ he’d had, this really did feel like a break , even though this infatuation had been no more substantial, even less so, some of his relationships had lasted a few embarrassing months; it wasn’t a break between two people, but inside the one, and so this disappointment somehow ached more than any previous, perhaps simply because he had liked Taehyung the most, but also because of that division within himself, this battle he’d fought and lost. Compared to the other times he’d hid himself away from his hyungs, something about this time was more disappointing, more humiliating, made him feel more lonely, and maybe because it felt not just like he’d run out of time with Taehyung but was running out of time with the whole damn thing, the whole damn dream of finding that someone, of falling in love. He felt at an end of his tether, mid twenties as he was, wondering on all these failures and no longer when he may succeed, but if he will ever.

The part of him that had given up that night he didn’t go to the party had not yet got back up. If anything, there was something tectonic about this transition, and that sense of cold, resentful, doom was like a sinkhole opening wider, swallowing more. 

When he finally arrived at the school at 7.30, having left earlier at 5.30, he hadn’t managed to forget Taehyung, perhaps because forgetting him was impossible - but, exhausted as he was, he had forgotten something. 

He just wanted to get home. 

Arms hugged around himself, he squinted through the deceivingly light rain, the breeze slanting it into his face, hurrying across the road and stamping through the autumn leaves soggy and disintegrating in puddles. All the street lights and car headlamps blurred in the edges of his vision like watercolour running off a page, and when he reached the music school the warm glow of its inside lights formed an inviting strip at the bottom of the front door, seeming to bloom and recede in his fractured, rain-speckled vision. Jungkook stared at it for a moment, stood still and unfighting in the sodden downpour, as he considered which bell to ring.

He decided to just knock. Someone might be on the other side, a parent or student or teacher, who could let him in. Otherwise he could wait, and slip inside when someone else would eventually arrive or leave, stepping around him. 

Shivering, his fingertips pressed into the damp jean of his jacket, his hoodie, sticking out from underneath, equally damp and heavy against the sides of his face. He stared, unseeing, at the wood of the door, and when he noticed the shadow enter that strip of light, he politely removed his headphones, the present shocking back into him. The air, the wind. The hush of cars driving in the rain. Distant chatter. Gently tripping piano notes, high above. 

Muted movement against the carpet on that other side of the door. The sound of the latch. 

Jungkook stepped back, even though the door opened inwards, and that smallest hint to the light and warmth to be found opened and expanded into a whole doorway. 

That was Jungkook three seconds ago.

This has been his story up until now; this has been the story that flashed entirely before his eyes where someone answered, where Taehyung stood in the light, where Jungkook was back to the start except…it was flipped. 

Taehyung was in that very same, familiar, frame, but inverted. Mirrored. Inside-out, or rather, outside-in. 

Taehyung had answered his hopeless knock just as Jungkook had answered his very first accidental, lost, bell. 

Taehyung had opened the door.

Jungkook felt the flip like a coin tossed high in the air, not yet landed.

And so here he is now: in this part of the story that shouldn’t exist, finding himself amongst all those blank pages authors leave at the end of books, wandered off the page even, beyond the cover…staring at Taehyung just as he did the first time, Taehyung’s eyes never as wide and sweet until now (but perhaps that was because seeing him now felt like seeing him for the first time all over again.) 

Here Jungkook is now, in the present. 

“Jungkook-ah,” Taehyung gasps.

His eyes, wide and ever sweet and…startled, confused. Hand frozen on the door handle, one foot frozen forward. Not wearing one of his coats, but a slouchy grey hoodie Jungkook wouldn’t expect to find in Taehyung’s wardrobe. Wearing what appear to be black leggings, and funny sandals Jungkook swears he’s seen his granddad in. An undoubtedly low effort outfit. There’s even a small stain, on his sleeve. But tracing his eyes back up, there is still that cute ankle bracelet Jungkook’s seen before and wondered who gave it, or even made it for him, there is chipped purple nail polish, something is scrawled on the back of his hand and there his face peeks from between the hood, all as alive and gorgeous as he’s ever been. 

Jungkook watches his lips circle in with his next hesitant syllable, and, fuck, how his heart had lurched, how it hurts, how he’s missed him. 

What should I do now?? What do I do with this? Do I deserve this…?

“W-What are you doing here?” 

Is this real?

His first emotion is that lurching, awful yet relieving, ache. His second is a distant pang of panic where much of him is still blearily emerging from this tired, surreal cloud.

Another suspended heartbeat, and something in him directs Jungkook’s voice to reply: “You have your lesson today at seven.” It’s not what he means to say, in that it’s not an answer to Taehyung’s question at all and neither is it conversation so much as a fact, but it’s what’s just occurred to him. That’s what he’d forgotten. 

Taehyung blinks twice. “Yeah. I just finished…” 

More confusion crowds Taehyung’s eyes, or at least a confused muddle of thoughts and emotions, like he doesn’t know what to say, and as the cold sinks into Jungkook’s bones and he emerges more and more from the surreal to recognising that this is very much real, another throb of panic sears in his chest, more painful than the last - maybe that’s him coming down to the immediacy of this situation, or maybe its the guilt that’s now mixed in too, sickeningly clogging his throat, because in those crowded eyes is Jungkook coming face to face with how he hurt Taehyung? Is he disappointed in him, angry? Or just confused by being blanked, but either way isn’t sure what to say now because Jungkook ruined this ? 

What is apparent is that Taehyung doesn’t not care at all. Even if just casually, just curiously, just as a friend. 

Taehyung blinks again, and could it be the rain to blame?

“S-Sorry, come in, you’re getting soaked.”

Taehyung shuffles back to make room, and how heavy Jungkook feels following him, even as ‘soaked’ is a huge exaggeration. It’s not his body that is sodden, but his spirit. Still, guilty and uncomfortable as he is, he doesn’t turn heel and run, he steps into that narrow hallway and lets Taehyung shut out the downpour. 

Though, somewhere crossing that threshold, his heart kicks up and begins running, thumping, forward.

Because he’s wondering if this is fate at play giving him opportunity to apologise; and deep down, in a little bright, shrouded voice, he’s wondering if it’s even impossibly generous opportunity for more than that. 

A lost key where he’d locked himself out of something much more important than his house. Home , or what could be the door to it, and the most terrifying risk you take to walk up that path and find out. 

“Thanks.” Bashfully, Jungkook removes his hood and minutely shakes out some of the raindrops from his hair. Taehyung watches, and then his eyes trace back to Jungkook’s. It’s starkly quiet suddenly between these walls, late as it is and with the outside shut out; only the suggestion of the few songs being played in each room, the shapes of voices but not their words, the rain calm and accommodating when in the background, like the hush of drums in a bridge before the third, and final, chorus takes over for good. The intermittent drip of rain from Jungkook’s body…the carpet under their feet where they tentatively step around the space between them…the sound of Taehyung’s hand dropping off the door handle.

“You can get going if you like…don’t let me keep you, I'm just…I lost my keys…”

Taehyung leans back against the door, pockets his hands. Shrugs and smiles in a shy way that deepens his dimple. “Maybe I should wait out the rain anyway. Keys?”

Following Jungkook, Taehyung pushes his hood from his head, the cloud soft strands of his hair prettily bouncing free. His eyes never leave Jungkook.

“I think they fell out of my bag here.”

“Oh. Well I can help you look.”

And he’s already stepping forward.

Jungkook steps one foot back.

"You don’t have to! You don’t have to…do that.”

Taehyung looms before him, though really he’s just as gentle as ever, smile soft and eyes warm, only wavering a fraction. 

He doesn’t shrug this time, just dips his head to hold Jungkook’s eyes.

“I’m waiting out the rain,” he says, and Jungkook nods.

Heart thudding, thudding, thumping-

“So…” “So- Oh, you go-”

“-You first-”

“How are you?” “How are you? Ah ha…”

The staircase creaks a loud splinter between them, Jungkook shakily ahead on the steps and Taehyung advancing smoothly after him with keen eyes that remind him of Halloween, of when it went so right only to then go so, so wrong…when it could have, should have, been it .

“I’m okay,” Taehyung offers first, and Jungkook’s eyes flit to where Taehyung’s hand grips along the bannister, “not enjoying it getting dark so early, the days feel so short…” It’s like their conversation the first time Jungkook waited to spend time with Taehyung, like hardly any time has passed since then at all… “But yeah, fine. Was feeling like a getaway somewhere before Christmas and New Year but…maybe that was a flight of fancy…” Taehyung shrugs, nibbling his lip, eyes downcast for the last curve of the stair to the first floor. But all too soon those eyes spring back up to Jungkook. “Your turn.”

Jungkook stretches out a hum as he shoulders his way to his room, pushing his back into it. Makes like he’s thinking, like he’s also fine, when really his brain and body is in total overdrive. 

“Mmmmm… well, apart from losing my keys and having to trek all the way back here to find them, I guess, yeah, I’ve been fine too. Um. Rehearsing a lot.”

Taehyung holds the door open, stands in the doorway, as Jungkook enters the room and begins looking around the floor despite his brain not being able to concentrate at all, it’s more like he’s searching for said brain down there on the faded carpet…

“Um-”

It’s a beat where he’s thinking about apologising, but can’t quite open his mouth to let the words out. He swears his heart is loud and forceful enough to vibrate an echo from the kick drum.

Taehyung is peering inside curiously, though he’s had glimpses before, like the practice room is something personal to Jungkook. His eyes land on the drum kit.

“You think they fell out in here?” Taehyung tentatively steps in, the door swinging slowly shut by itself. 

Jungkook nods. “I…tipped my bag out…around here…”

“Here?”

“Wait- You don’t have to-”

But Taehyung’s already on his knees, face close to the dusty ground, searching the small area. Helplessly, Jungkook crouches down by Taehyung’s shoulder and raises a hand to nudge him away, replace his efforts, but Taehyung only sinks lower, now angling his head to look underneath the cabinet. 

“Ah-!”

There’s a jangle, and then Taehyung is whipping back upright and turning around with a heart melting grin. He’s messed his hair up, there’s dust in it.

Jungkook only glances at the keys (humiliating, spiderman keys) where Taehyung thrusts them forward proudly. 

It’s a small, silly moment like the rest of them, but Taehyung looks beautiful grinning at him here with the dust in his hair from searching for Jungkook’s keys…and having found them. It’s small and silly but it’s Taehyung and Jungkook’s emotions feel weirdly big. 

Taehyung’s eyes widen in a way that might’ve made Jungkook stop, but he’s already got his fingers reaching beside Taehyung’s face, softly grabbing the tuft of dust from his hair. Taehyung’s eyes snap down to the tumble of grey when it enters his field of vision. “Oh.” He looks back at Jungkook, who looks up too. “Thanks.”

Jungkook tosses the faint thing into the bin. “You didn’t have to do that…” Jungkook mumbles. Taehyung stands up, though he doesn’t step back. “...but thank you.”

“I said I’d help you look. You want them, or not?”

When Jungkook looks back, he almost goes cross-eyed at the shiny keys dangling in his face, and following the arm that holds them he finds Taehyung smiling ever so warmly down at him, head blocking the ceiling light so it glows around the edges of his hair, like a dandelion at dawn. A little mesmerised, Jungkook swallows and opens his hand to take the keys- Taehyung’s other hand takes his, and Jungkook watches as Taehyung folds the keys into his palm, his hand suddenly between both of Taehyung’s. Warm. Real. He pulls Jungkook up.

Stood so close again, under the ceiling light, eyes level with each other, Jungkook tenses with the desire to apologise, but once again the words don’t make it beyond his aching heart. 

“Hey, do you need to get going?”

Jungkook’s anxiety spikes.

He breathes in. The keys dig into his palm. Taehyung’s hands slowly slipping away, feet putting a little more distance between them... 

Jungkook shakes his head. Taehyung mirrors him with a nod, and smiles. 

His eyes look a bit ablaze again, and Jungkook realises belatedly that Taehyung is bouncing slightly on his feet. Vibrating. 

“Good. Just…while we’re here…” His arms swing by his sides. “I told you? I switched to the trumpet?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook croaks unflatteringly. He clears his throat, but Taehyung doesn’t seem to notice, eyes now moved to the drum kit behind Jungkook.

“Yeah. Well. It’s not going great. Like, if I was to introduce the entrance of royalty it could only be a queen ant. You know?”

“Sure?”

“So. Well.” Taehyung tilts his head, a sweet, sheepish smile on his face again. God, his eyes are shiny, Jungkook thinks when Taehyung looks back to him all hopeful like that. The way it had felt like a coin flipped earlier, Taehyung now is what a coin tossed high into the air looks like - this shy hope, this question poised, chance taken. 

Taehyung looks between Jungkook’s eyes. 

“Maybe I should try the drums.”

Not conscious of his breathing pattern, Jungkook’s chest collapses with this exhale. 

“They’ve been here this whole time. You’ve been here this whole time.” 

Taehyung shifts his weight between his feet for a second. 

“It’s- It’s worth a try, right?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says faintly at first, and then- “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“So? Would you show me a bit? Like a taster. Just, yeah… While we’re here.”

“‘Course. Yeah. I can do that.”

I can do this.

Jungkook gestures, and Taehyung’s bright eyes and dimpled smile tear from him as he shuffles to sit at the drums. Jungkook drags his teacher chair beside him, hesitating between a closer or further distance and deciding on closer. He unzips his bag in the relative silence, pulling out his drumsticks and at the same time pocketing in his keys and headphones. Then he drops his bag by his feet with a soft thud, and twists to Taehyung, holding out the sticks with a small smile. Taehyung, who had been tracing his eyes and fingertips around the drum skins, the cymbals, meets Jungkook with a similar expression, gently taking hold of Jungkook’s worn and rather battered sticks. Maybe it’s the funny artificial light in here that makes Taehyung’s eyes gleam and waver like that. But maybe it’s not. 

“You, er, ever played a drum before?”

“Not at all. Oh- I mean unless you count Rock Band, you know, for the PS3. My friend had a kit for that.”

Experimentally, Taehyung twizzles the sticks and almost whacks his eyes. Jungkook’s hands leap out, but Taehyung rights himself.

“It…sorta counts… Okay.” Taehyung sits up at Jungkook’s voice, listening, staring down the drums like this is something he has to do well, rather than him just playing around trying it out. “Let’s start with the kick. So…let me just show you…” Jungkook demonstrates a steady beat, then turns his head to assess Taehyung. He looks oddly anxious, fists tight around the sticks. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Taehyung takes a second to get into it, but when he does soon enough Jungkook beams. “That’s it. Keep it going. Think you can add a snare?”

“Which one’s that?” Taehyung asks at an unnecessary volume over the kick, eyes so focused ahead it reminds Jungkook of a student learning to drive a car instead. Jungkook giggles.

“On your left… Here…”

His heart is wild, in his throat, adrenaline thrumming joyously, when he guides Taehyung by the wrist, the same light touch as Taehyung had given him that one time at the bus stop. Taehyung’s steady beat stumbles a little. 

“Like this…” And with a confidence that belatedly scares him, a confidence that can only come of no planning whatsoever, Jungkook reaches and lowers both hands over Taehyung’s, melding them together in a grip to demonstrate this second part to the basic pattern. He feels like he’s running when he eventually pulls away, hands and voice shaky when he asks another ‘okay?’ It sounds in his head more like a question for himself. 

Again, Taehyung falters once left alone, but then he bites his lip, frowns, and is soon determinedly going at it. Jungkook, dazedly collecting himself to the side, snaps back into the moment when Taehyung laughs breathily. 

“You got it,” Jungkook praises, a little too quietly beneath the noise. “You got it.”

Abruptly, Taehyung stops and whips around, another grin like when he’d retrieved Jungkook’s keys, this one more flushed. “What’s next?”

“Um. Try hi-hat. Can I…?” Taehyung seems to present Jungkook with the sticks and his hands on them, but Jungkook pulls the sticks from his grip. And so he adds a hi-hat to the basic pattern, and when Taehyung goes for it Jungkook sits back again and feels his entire body light up like he’s nothing but heartbeat, but pulse. He stares, not really seeing, at Taehyung’s shoulder, the movement of his arms. He wasn’t prepared for this, he hasn’t thought about this. He doesn’t want to now. 

“Hey. Tae.” 

The affectionate, familiar name slips out. Jungkook’s heart squeezes painfully, the panic hot all throughout him, but he takes another deep breath.

“I’m sorry, you know, for Halloween.”

“Huh?”

The rhythm peters to a stop, cymbal ringing out. Jungkook feels suddenly exposed, guilt and soul bared. Maybe this is where he has to face the music of how he let Taehyung down, how he may have harboured some hatred or anger for him. Or maybe this is where Taehyung laughs and Jungkook is reminded that only he has amplified everything to do with him and Taehyung and Taehyung couldn’t care less.

Taehyung grabs the cymbal, a little clumsily, to silence it, then focuses back on Jungkook with large, patient, eyes. 

Jungkook takes another breath, feeling all too much like a little kid again, teacher and student roles suddenly swapped where they sit. He hangs his head and tries not to mumble. Whatever Taehyung thinks and feels, he has to say it. He deserves to hear it.

It should be said. 

“Halloween. I’m sorry for not coming-”

“-That’s okay,” Taehyung quickly placates. “I told you it was okay. I guessed it wasn’t really your thing-”

“-Yeah but, I’m sorry for not even texting. That was shit of me.”

“No, really, it’s okay. I had no expectations.”

That last sentence hits into the room like a pebble to a still lake, hits into Jungkook’s heart like that. He sits still with it for a moment, and then swallows. Looks up.

“Didn’t you?”

His voice sounds so small, so vulnerable. Naked. Part of Jungkook immediately wants to grab it back. 

Taehyung’s mouth parts; Jungkook’s doleful eyes from beneath his bowed head must look embarrassingly sincere going by the alarm that forms on Taehyung’s face. His mouth opens a little wider, hesitant around words. 

“I hoped you’d come,” is what he finally says, voice as soft and honest as a feather landed. 

“I wanted to,” Jungkook half whispers back, then lowers his eyes in shame again.

“Jungkook-ah,” Jungkook has missed Taehyung saying his name like that, but does he deserve it? “I was a little sad- Hey? Look at me?” Reluctantly, Jungkook does. “I was sad, but I was also sorry if I'd made you feel pushed, or, I don’t know, made you uncomfortable.”

“Wha-? No. No, I wanted to come.”

Taehyung’s looking down now, looking at their knees accidentally grazing. But at the passion in Jungkook’s voice, his lips quirk into a smile. 

“Okay. Good.” He breathes in, and as if reminded Jungkook inhales with sudden need too. “I wasn’t sure…ever…”

“I’m sorry-”

“Jungkook-ah?” 

Jungkook seems to spin at Taehyung’s eclipse, struck like something tidal with this gorgeous boy; he smiles at him like so many other times, and Jungkook holds that inhaled breath.

“Just…show me?”

He holds up the drumsticks. Jungkook takes hold of them in Taehyung’s hands again. 

They both twist to face the drum kit, Jungkook leaning closer than before, arms pressed together; Jungkook commands the kick drum, and guides Taehyung into lightly drumming the cymbal. Light. Shining, sharp. Tense. Sound like rainfall. Thigh pressed to thigh. Breath over Taehyung’s shoulder. Not knowing where to stop, where to start. 

Jungkook watches Taehyung’s chest rise, smells the shampoo in his hair, hears him swallow. He looks at the chipped paint on his fingernails, that scrawled note on the back of his hand. If he turned only a fraction he’d be able to see his long eyelashes up close, the slightly chapped texture to his pouty lower lip. He can smell his skin, can feel his warmth. He could nose the mole on his neck.

He stops the pulse. Stills Taehyung’s hands, gathers them and lowers them slowly into his lap, palms brushing gently over them. 

Not moving, he simply turns his face in Taehyung’s direction and closes his eyes.

He feels Taehyung turn to him, his nose losing touch with the plane of Taehyung’s cheek and softly brushing that of Taehyung’s own. He hears Taehyung inhale, feels him shudder slightly with the exhale. When he opens his eyes, he finds Taehyung staring at him. He says something with those eyes, something Jungkook has seen and not been able to read with so much certainty before. He waits. Tilts his chin up. Jungkook’s eyes drop to those lips - those waiting lips - and this is the dream of the boys in the corner at the party, this is the door wide open, this is the film roll come to an end because he doesn’t get to record this only feel, this is crescendo, or maybe silence, this is the ringing of that bell, this is ten months, this is how it felt to talk to the stars, this is the freedom of missing the bus, this is finding your key, forgiveness, hope, this is that coin slowly spinning to a halt, this is where he wobbles or finally, finally, says exactly what he wants. 

Jungkook puts gravity into their clasped hands, and crosses the distance - presses up into Taehyung’s mouth. 

It’s quiet. It always feels so nakedly human when he kisses someone, such a funny thing to do, such a natural thing to do, to show his affection like this, body to body. He kisses once, soft smudge pressing firm then back. Heart like a little bird in his chest. Taehyung had let himself be kissed but when Jungkook tentatively tries for a second Taehyung meets him eagerly, the brush of their noses becoming more of a bump; he sucks devastatingly at Jungkook’s mouth, like the sweetest bruise, laps soft and hard into Jungkook’s rhythm and Jungkook keens. His hand squeezes Taehyung’s and Taehyung squeezes back, only to then shake his hand off, one drum stick clattering, and find the side of Jungkook’s head. He takes the lead and Jungkook loses himself, only distantly registers that this is happening, that he is kissing Taehyung, and it is incredible. 

Taehyung gasps out of the kiss, and Jungkook blinks out of it and into the brightness like a newborn. Taehyung stares, slightly panting, at Jungkook, all over Jungkook’s face, thumb brushing his cheek. A pair of their hands are still clasped around one drumstick, Jungkook’s other dropped to anchor on Taehyung’s thigh. Nervously, he removes it now and at its absence Taehyung comes back down to earth and smiles. Laughs . 

His forehead hits against Jungkook’s and he leans his weight there, Jungkook staring googly-eyed at his smiling lips which he just kissed and his pretty eyes, pretty everything, them sat together like this in this tiny, ugly, room he’s spent so many hours in. Taehyung’s hand brushes down to cradle more of Jungkook’s jaw.

“That was nice,” he murmurs stupidly. Jungkook huffs an equally stupid laugh, dazed and bewildered. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Hm?”

Jungkook is distracted by Taehyung’s hand transformed to a finger tracing his jawline, down and round to the centre of his chin.

“You. I was never sure. I mean- I thought you were ridiculously cute the second you opened the door that first time, but I,” he sighs, fingers curling away from Jungkook’s chin in a hovering half fist, “I was seeing someone then. Anyway .” Jungkook feels Taehyung’s brow move, feels him shake his head a little, “I had already taken notice of you but I took more notice of you after that ended, but I was never sure…”

“...Sure of what?”

“If you were just shy.” Taehyung leans away, but not too much, enough that Jungkook can appreciate all of Taehyung’s face again. It makes him nervous. “If you were even gay. If I was making you uncomfortable and you were just being polite.” Taehyung hasn’t let go of his hand, still holding the drumstick, while his free hand has dropped to now scritch lightly at his kneecap. “I’d think I was seeing interest in you, but there was always doubt. I mean…did you…enjoy that?”

“You’re joking.”

“That’s not a very comforting response, Jungkook-ah.”

“No-” Taehyung’s hand stills and backs away slowly from Jungkook’s knee, other hand loosening too in Jungkook’s grip, so Jungkook grabs Taehyung’s hand back into his lap, only then both their arms are crossed haphazardly, which you could say rather appropriately visualises the crossed wires they seem to have been at, so he snakes his hand back across his lap to hold Taehyung’s hand there with both of his. Except then Taehyung follows him, placing the drum stick across his thighs so he can properly hold Jungkook’s hands where their knees meet, and Jungkook looks at them and feels silly and school girl-ish. But Taehyung is blinking at him, serious. He gently caresses up and down Jungkook’s skin again. “No,” Jungkook shakes his head, cracking a brief rueful smile, eyes flitting sideways, “I mean- because I- I had a speech prepared.”

“You had a what?” Jungkook can hear the grin in Taehyung’s voice. His gentle caressing turns a little bolder.

“I’d…” Jungkook exhales heavily, “planned. What I wanted to say.”

“And what was that,” Taehyung murmurs lowly, smirk dripping into every syllable. 

Surely this should be easier to say now; he’s kissed you , he’s admitted to being interested in you, hasn’t he? Getting used to that concept makes Jungkook’s chest bloom with the sweetest, giddiest warmth, but still he stutters.

“Just…um…” God, it had never been realistic, all those things he’d planned to say out loud. “Well, that I’d formed a bit of a crush on you.” It’s laughable, to reduce it all to that. Jungkook shifts awkwardly, glancing at Taehyung’s eyes for only half a second. They’re a pair of highly amused crescents. “And…er, yeah. I wanted to ask you? If you wanted to go out for- for hot chocolate? Sometime?” His voice sounds fucking strangulated. “Before you might’ve disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Taehyung scoots closer. “I’m not disappearing. Unless you want me to.”

“Don’t,” Jungkook breathes quietly. Embarrassingly. He can feel the awful blush high on his cheeks. 

Taehyung’s eyes curve in further amusement as he smiles, but there’s that indulgent warmth Jungkook’s seen before in them. Jungkook tries to relax, to find the safety in the affection of those eyes, of Taehyung’s hands, of the complete lack of rejection, if not a clear as clear confirmation of reciprocation. Maybe Taehyung doesn’t feel such big feelings for Jungkook, probably doesn’t, and that’s okay. What matters is Jungkook seems to have a chance.

 “Hot chocolate, you say?”

“I thought…because you don’t like coffee, right?”

“You’re right,” Taehyung beams, “I don’t. Okay. Let’s go.”

“Yeah?”

“But so what you’re saying…just, reading between the lines here…is that you did enjoy kissing me…?”

Taehyung looks at Jungkook with his head dipped like he’s unsure, though the smirk that he seems unable to stop says otherwise, and Jungkook reaches the end of his tether.

“ Hyung- ” he whines, and Taehyung kisses him.

“Mmm…” Taehyung groans, scrunching his nose as he withdraws from Jungkook. Jungkook feels, and surely looks, dazed again, and Taehyung frames that face in his hands. “Sorry. Don’t wanna stop kissing and touching you now I’ve started.”

“That’s okay.”

“Yeah? You’re so cute, my god.” Taehyung seems to have to drag his hands away from Jungkook’s cheeks. “But we should go, shouldn’t we? Don’t wanna get locked in.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right.”

Taehyung smiles, expression like a little glowing star caught in a jam jar, and holds out the drumstick in his lap. When Jungkook takes it, not quite collected back together yet, Taehyung picks up the other from the floor and then hitches his hood up and stands, tripping slightly on the metal stool leg and disturbing the cymbal. After holding it silent for a second time, he pockets his hands in his kangaroo pocket and watches Jungkook finally gather himself: sticks in bag, bag in lap, bag on shoulder, stand. 

“Got your keys?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” He shakes his bag on his shoulder to hear the faint jangle. Still, when Taehyung turns his back and they head out the door, he unzips the top just to double check.

“You don’t have a bag?”

“Didn’t have work today. Swapped my Saturday for someone.”

“Ah. That’s nice of you.”

Taehyung shrugs. “Not been going out much last few weeks anyway…”

“Oh. Why-”

Taehyung turns to Jungkook pointedly at the top of the stairs. “Jungkookie, we’re not going back to small talk.” He holds out one hand and raises his eyebrows. Stomach swooping, Jungkook takes it, and stares, stunned, at their joined hands as they traverse down these oh so familiar stairs together, same as they’ve done so many times, except now they’re holding hands…

“What I want to know is about that speech of yours.”

“Huh?”

“Well, it wasn’t much of a speech. Bit of a crush on you. Hot chocolate. Where’s the rest?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Oh?” Taehyung quirks his eyebrows again, this time at the bottom of the stairs and accompanied by another completely disarming smile. He walks backwards slowly, arm raised as he pulls Jungkook forward, almost as if he were about to initiate a dance, about to spin Jungkook beneath his hand. “There’s somebody’s confidence. Will you tell me sometime?”

Except now they’re holding hands, and Taeyung’s backing into that goddamn door and inviting Jungkook to crowd him.

“Over that hot chocolate...?”

It’s so quiet, perhaps they are the only people left in this building. 

Only people on earth. 

“Maybe.” The words are already on the tip of his tongue, inspired all over again by the boy now right in front of him, smiling like that at him- You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful. Tae, this is killing me, you’re so beautiful I can’t breathe. 

Fuck. He’s so happy.

Jungkook makes to kiss him but Taehyung grins and Jungkook hears the door handle click, hears the wind and sounds of the street outside rush in. He opens it slightly ajar, body arching forward into Jungkook to accommodate it while he makes no move to push Jungkook back.

After a long second of tension, of just that teasing smile and glittering eyes and whatever state Jungkook looks in, Taehyung pushes Jungkook back gently with a hand square to his chest, to his heart, and he opens the door fully to all the cold wind, dark night, and busy lights beyond it. It’s still raining, though lighter than before. He squeezes Jungkook’s hand, holds the side of his hood further over his face, and when Jungkook closes the door with a firm bang they dash out, leaving the music school behind them without a look back. 

So much for waiting out the rain. Maybe it was Jungkook he was waiting out anyway.

“Ah!” Taehyung laughs brightly as they duck, jogging, to the bus shelter. Jungkook finds himself laughing freely alongside him. He passes in front of Taehyung and tugs him to the bench, wanting in a wild, impulsive heartbeat to put his arm around Taehyung and hug him into him, away from the cold. He doesn’t, but Taehyung adorably raises their joined hands between them again and nudges into them like a pillow, moves comfortably into Jungkook’s space like that. Only for a moment, though, and then he’s leaning back and smiling, young and beautiful, at Jungkook again. 

“So what do you think of the drums then?” Jungkook asks impulsively instead.

By the curb and gutter, a puddle saturated with autumn leaves shimmers, and in this light it looks rather beautiful. Natural, and free of meaning; a palette of colours, the colours like sunset, or sunrise. The shadow of a lorry hushes past on the damp road and makes those reflections flicker and ripple and glitter anew, and Jungkook smiles to himself. 

“Ohh, not for me, Jungkookie.” Taehyung’s swaying slightly where he sits, as if to a song only he can hear. He’s looking at their hands, now lowered between them again and not immediately obvious but still firmly clasped. Minutely, he shifts and interlocks into the gaps of Jungkook’s fingers even further. “C’mon, me asking was obviously an excuse to get close to you.”

“O-Oh. Right.”

“I was thinking about going back to the sax. Full circle. Maybe I didn’t give it a fair try, you know? Gave up too soon.”

“Do you own a sax?”

“Only a kinda shitty second hand one…I didn’t want to buy one new until I knew I enjoyed it and would keep going with it. But I know what you’re gonna say. That’s why Lee Hyun lent me a violin.”

“Mm, ‘cos I get that but it’s always slow learning any instrument at the start, and you kinda gotta have one, a good one, to practise to get anywhere.” Taehyung hums and an amiable quiet falls between them, just the pitter-patter of the rain on the bus shelter roof, the passing cars, somebody’s hurried footsteps behind them but they’ve been the only footsteps ever since they sat down. Taehyung’s thumb begins rubbing Jungkook’s hand again and Jungkook responds in turn, watching his own thumb be affectionate to Taehyung. Taehyung sighs.

“I guess I’m like that with a lot of things,” Taehyung adds quietly, voice lost to the wind, directed downwards as it is. Jungkook feels himself catch the words and bring them back like a skittish animal, folded wings of a butterfly settling in his cupped hands; like grabbing back daisy petals whipped away with the wind, or the blown secrets of dandelion seeds. Letter or diary page written then tossed to never be read after all, Jungkook catches the fragile thing back from the cliff edge.

“Like what?”

Taehyung squirms a little, but then settles, drops his shoulders and huffs a small laugh. “I don’t know. Quitting when it’s hard, or not perfect. Like…I get excited and go all in, but then the real thing isn’t what I dreamed, I’ll find faults if they’re not already glaringly obvious, and so I never get anywhere much, they never last. The instruments, I mean. Or whatever new hobby or project I’ve picked up. I like the idea more than the reality sometimes, or the initial thrill but not- not the rest. And then I’m moving on to the next thing, Jimin says it’s like I’m always trying to fill this space.” Taehyung breathes in deep suddenly, almost making Jungkook jump. “But then I really like the saxophone. I’ve…admired it for a long time now. So…so maybe the others, the other instruments, just weren’t right.”

Taehyung’s next pause stretches too long, so Jungkook agrees. “Right.”

“-Like it’s scary, when- when you care that bit more? You want it to work out… But then it’s also worth it, isn’t it, to…what am I saying…to stick with it. Um. Try.”

Taehyung seems finished for real now, so Jungkook’s mind races to replay and understand what Taehyung has said - what he’s really saying. He can’t quite fully comprehend the muddle of it, but there’s something at the centre he recognises and can speak to, like a thorn that’s been stuck there embedded awhile and the rest has grown around. 

“I was scared. When I kissed you. Terrified.”

Taehyung lifts his head to him slowly. The shock of his eyes catapults Jungkook right back to that moment and fear he’s talking about; but in a blink he sees those eyes for everything they are, beyond the initial Taehyung-is-looking-and-listening-to-you to what it is Taehyung himself might feel. Those big eyes. Hanging on Jungkook and his word. Open and vulnerable.

“But it was worth it. More than worth it. So…try, yeah. Just…see where it goes.”

He squeezes Taehyung’s hand.

Taehyung’s lips begin to twitch into a smile again.

“Buy the new saxophone?” He teases, though it’s almost more like he’s teasing himself.

Jungkook shrugs, smiling back, thinks please do let me take you for hot chocolate.

Jungkook’s eyes dance around Taehyung when he adjusts his hood again, and when he notices the damp patch on his arm he stalls. 

And frowns.

“Hey.” Jungkook paws gently at the sleeve, examining in dismay. “I got rain on you.”

He must’ve been horrible, wet and cold, sidling up to Taehyung back in the music room…

Taehyung snorts. “I think rain got rain on me, Jungkookie.”

“No but, my arm…”

“-Are you pouting? Heaven help me. How am I supposed to go home and leave you and wait for our date when you’re like this, huh?”

Jungkook, feeling shy, shrugs. Taehyung sighs, though it sounds sorta happy. Blissful. He looks beyond Jungkook’s head to the bus timetable with reluctance in his eyes.

“Fuck, it’s soon. I could skip, wait for the next…”

“-Why is it you never look? At the bus times?” Taehyung looks confused for a second, startled from his thinking, so Jungkook elaborates: “When we waited here together, you never seemed to check when your bus might arrive…”

“Oh.” And it’s Taehyung’s turn to look shy; he chuckles softly and swings their hands a bit, looking out at the quiet road. “You’ll think I’m weird.”

“I like weird. I’m very weird.”

“It’s hard to explain, I just…like leaving it up to fate, sometimes. Not knowing. You know the film Before Sunrise? No? Well…how they end things, they leave it up to chance whether they’ll see each other again. I’ve always liked that idea. But then I regret it, like…when you didn’t come to the party, and I didn’t know if i’d ever see you again, and I regretted not seizing the moments we had, saying I liked you…kissing you…swapping numbers, so I hadn’t just left it all in your hands…”

“I’m sorry-”

Taehyung shakes his head. “But I wanted it to be you, to make the first move. Because I wasn’t sure how you felt. But then I guess you maybe felt like that too, though I thought I was pretty obvious by Halloween…” Taehyung trails off and sighs a little from his chest again, sigh transforming into a yawn. Jungkook just blinks at him from the side, wondering about fate himself. “I’m glad we met again now and not six months later, let alone nine years later with you bumping into me at my book signing where i’ve written about the cute teacher I once knew at the music school…”

“What?”

 “-But most importantly, Jungkook-ah,” Taehyung shifts up in his seat, turning to Jungkook, eyes glinting in the dark and all its fractured light, “I didn’t look because I didn’t mind if I missed my bus, like I don’t mind now.”

Junkook swallows awkwardly, thinking about fate, thinking about kissing Taehyung here and now…

But- 

“Don’t miss your bus. You’re tired. It’s cold.”

Taehyung tilts his head, smiling, and Jungkook squirms under the affectionate, curious gaze, such that he’s seen so many times this past year he wonders on how much sooner he could’ve made the move to kiss Taehyung and Taehyung would have kissed him back, how long exactly Taehyung has been waiting…

“Hey,” Tahyung’s eyes flick to the board again. “Which is your bus again? I got confused about that but never asked, ‘cos I thought you said the 1139 but then you didn’t get it one time…”

“Um.” Immediately, Jungkook is blushing, even in the cold wind. But then Taehyung’s just said he would happily skip his bus to spend more time with Jungkook, said he would’ve done it before... Perhaps he wasn’t so serious about it as Jungkook, but if the thought was there at all maybe it’s not so embarrassing to admit...

“I have a confession.” 

Of course, Taehyung’s eyebrows raise. “Oh? Do tell.”

Taehyung likes him, doesn’t he? Smiles beams of light onto him? He has a date. He’s safe, he can settle, can ground himself by the warmth in his chest, he doesn’t need to worry...

“This isn’t my bus stop.”

“What?” Taehyung laughs breathily, breath clouding into the cold air.

Jungkook inclines his head across the road. “That’s my bus stop. I literally go the opposite way, I…lied...to spend time with you.”

Taehyung is still gaping at the opposing bus stop when Jungkook finishes his sentence. And okay, there the embarrassment creeps in; he won’t be confessing to his other lies to spend time with Taehyung, kicking around in his room for an extra fifteen minutes and racing to answer the door… Maybe Taehyung was always joking, and he won’t think it romantic at all, only very very lame...

“I know it was only a few minutes ever,” Jungkook anxiously fills the silence, “but- yeah.” He becomes overtly conscious of his hand in Taehyung’s, the weight and heat of it. His words dissipate into the air and Taehyung is still staring across the road. Finally, he turns back to Jungkook slowly.

The wind whips through his hair, flutters his eyelashes, and he looks so naked and human and so very vulnerable, suddenly appearing before Jungkook with a sense of responsibility. Jungkook’s heart tugs and yearns, aches with all that love he hasn’t properly had opportunity to give yet.

Taehyung’s mouth parts and he blinks twice, hand twitching in Jungkook’s.

“I really, really, like you.”

Jungkook blushes to the tips of his ears and fingertips, warmed from the inside out, heart a simmering flame.

Taehyung says the rather innocent words with such emphasis, so earnestly.

“You’re an angel.” And then he looks like he wants to say something more, or a few somethings more, debates with himself and lands on: “Can we go for hot chocolates, like, this weekend?”

Jungkook can’t make a mental note of his diary fast enough but he nods anyway. Taehyung squeezes his hand.

“Hey, you shouldn’t miss your bus either, then. You don’t need to, ‘cos you’ll see me this weekend.” He grins all boxy and cheeky and charming, and Jungkook can see him in a blink for the child he once was. He untangles his hand from Jungkook’s where Jungkook doesn’t move. “Don’t miss it. Go.”

At the command, Jungkook comes to his senses a bit more sharply and stands, though half of his brain hasn’t at all registered where he’s meant to be going, that half is just skipping around in a celebratory dance of Taehyung really really likes you, you get to take Taehyung on a date after all, can you believe this worked out? Can you believe a dream has for once come true?

“Go,” Taehyung repeats, and awkwardly Jungkook starts to move away only for Taehyung to give him whiplash: “-Wait.” And he grabs Jungkook’s arm, pulls him back, leans up and kisses him.

Jungkook stumbles slightly, sinks down, down, into Taehyung’s loveliness, just a first hint of tongue and graze of teeth teasing the impatient heat in him for what more he could have... Taehyung pats his cheek, all too soon already sat back down and smiling up at him. “See you soon.” His hand brushes, dropping, from Jungkook’s cheek, down his chest, and Jungkook catches it without thinking, hand leaping from where both arms had been hanging uselessly at his sides. He walks backwards – of course trips – and only lets go when he really has to if he’s leaving to cross the road at all.

He keeps glancing back at Taehyung as he walks, magnetised like that, can’t help it, Taehyung is that pretty and that unbelievable, he checks like he might blink or a raindrop might cross his vision and Taehyung will disappear with it, only ever a dream from the start, a desperate, lonely, wandering out from his head; and Taehyung watches him cross the road, hand that Jungkook had held up to the last second now curled up before his smile, like he might be biting his thumbnail. When Jungkook sits down at his opposite bus stop, Taehyung waves.

And then Taehyung’s bus is arriving, and the bus stop is empty when it leaves. Jungkook stares across at the empty bench.

He gets out his phone. His fingers shake a little, giddy.

Hobi hyung, Yoongi hyung

Sooo just casually got a date this weekend with the man of my dreams and

I need help

Can you guys help me pick an outfit and make this man my boyfriend

The bus stop. The music school door, the lights inside just turned out where the owner emerges and locks it.

Jungkook’s bus arrives only a few minutes after Taehyung’s and Jungkook looks at himself in the reflection of the glass doors, in the divide of their seam, and doesn’t just see a boy freshly kissed, a happy, excited boy with the warmth of another filling his chest, a boy with the promise of a date on the weekend – he sees himself, past and present, shy, hopeless, anxious, lost, but trying, but kind and with so much love, but himself, and he feels reconciliation there, forgiveness. Ever moving forward, and moving now with direction. The doors open and his image splits away and he watches his feet step up.

Ten months, four seasons, five instruments, back to the first love, winter again, and a new year soon.

Jungkook opens his messages again.

Hobi hyung, Yoongi hyung

    And any idea how much a new saxophone is?