Chapter Text
There are honestly times when Taehyung really wants to get mad. Like, it’s not physically possible for him to be angry for long but—right now? He really really really wants to be.
Jimin is moping behind him, falling back a few paces and Taehyung finds that he can’t muster the energy to find that happy, slightly quirky medium in him that never fails to make Jimin smile that familiar, sunshiney happy smile. It’s frustrating him to no ends and he slows down, wanting to aggressively nuzzle his head against Jimin’s. Maybe forcefully absorb all the sad puppy vibes he was giving off. Taehyung honestly wants to go find a bat to beat all the unhappiness away from his best friend.
He thinks longingly of his Naruto episodes he wants to watch but. Best friend.
He falls back, again, to put a hand around Jimin’s drooping shoulders, slight miserable sniffles the only audible noise between them.
“Jiminnie…Jimmie…ChimChim…” he coaxes, drawing out every nickname, and a few more he keeps making up on the fly. He usually always comes up with new ones and Jimin never fails to answer brightly to each of them, helpless to smile. Taehyung pouts, as Jimin doesn’t reply, hunkering down even further. They’re hardly walking now that Jimin is supporting most of Taehyung’s weight, halting in the middle of the street.
Taehyung honestly wants to drape himself over Jimin forever and shield him from everything that might hurt him and protect him from anyone who ever tries to bully him. If it was biologically possible, he'd try to find a way to fuse himself to his side, to prevent that same exact look of sadness from ever gracing his features again.
“Jiminiiiiii….you know I can’t help you if I don’t know why you’re sad.”
Jimin shakes his head silently and Taehyung knocks his chin against his skull lightly.
“Is it someone from our class? Is someone bothering you?”
“…No.”
“Is it a teacher? I will talk to them for you!” Taehyung offers readily.
Jimin peeks at him from his fringe, eyes clouded with sadness.
“No, it’s alright, Taehyung. I’m alright.”
Taehyung almost wants to cry himself. There’s no way Jimin was alright, not if the tear tracks down his face are any indication.
Taehyung spots their favourite jjajangmyeon place and tugs at Jimin’s sleeve. Jimin follows without a protest, a resigned smile on his face. Taehyung greets the ahjumma with his usual smile and requests her to make two bowls. He seats Jimin on the farthest table and comes back, whispering to the ahjumma who looks worried at Jimin’s downtrodden state. Her face crumples in worry. Taehyung asks for a milkshake for himself and Jimin, paying her as she keeps darting worried looks in Jimin’s direction.
Taehyung returns, setting Jimin’s butterscotch milkshake in front of him and takes the seat beside him. Jimin yields to the unspoken invitation and leans onto Taehyung’s shoulder, eyes gazing listlessly into the glass in front of him. Taheyung slurps loudly, waiting for Jimin to find his moment and speak to him.
“I got rejected today.”
Taehyung twitches, lowering the glass with a startled sound.
“What?” Honestly, who would be stupid enough to reject his best friend? His best friend had it all-- the popularity, the personality, the looks, the talent. Everyone practically adored him even if they liked to shove him around and bully him. So it was like, some sort of a violation of a universal law. You simply don't make Jimin sad, not if you weren’t some kind of a psychopathic supervillain. Who likes kicking puppies for fun. It was just not done.
"Who was it?" Taehyung wonders if he should ask but it slips out in his bewilderment. Jimin shrugs, slowly pulling out his phone.
Taehyung plucks it off his hands and thumbs in his code, looking up questioningly. Jimin mutters something under his breath and Taehyung pulls up his Instagram. He ignores the Taeyang pics littered in his newsfeed with some difficulty and moves down further, stopping to gape at random pics. Jimin sighs and takes it from him, typing in 'GoldenGuk' and hands it back to him.
Huh.
Jeon Jungkook.
Taehyung's brain screeches to a halt. His mouth goes dry and he feels the beginnings of what seems like a stomachache.
Jeon Jungkook is smoking hot. Scorchingly sexy and his round adorable eyes and his cute bunny teeth and that smirk--oh no. Fuck.
His stomach goes weird again. He drops the phone on the table, like it’s a hot potato, and clutches his stomach. Jimin looks up, eyes wide with concern and glassy with the lingering hurt and Taehyung feels sicker.
"Tae--"
"I think I have indigestion." Taehyung informs him mournfully, clutching his stomach and looking down at it in betrayal. Jimin blinks at him with a blank look on his face and Taehyung cringes.
Jeon Jungkook is officially on his top 10 enemies list. People to be absolutely avoided, no matter what. Overlooking the fact that the jerk had rejected his best friend, he was bad for Taehyung’s brain. Taehyung would start entertaining all sorts of thoughts if he sees him and forget that he is supposed to hate him. Jeon Jungkook is fucking dangerous for his mental health.
“Taetae-ah, do you need help?” Jimin’s worried face makes it all worse and Taehyung feels guilt catapult inside him. He grimaces and covers it up with a smile, determined not to look at the phone on the table.
“Yeah, it’s alright. I’m fine.”
“I told you eating all those chips was a bad idea.” Jimin sounds like he is about to face palm. Taehyung takes a moment to remember how many packets of chips he’d gone through in the entire day. Wondering when he actually lost count, he shrugs and laughs at Jimin.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him before, Jimin?” Taehyung asks, propping his chin on his palm. Jimin darts his eyes away from him, studying the table intensely.
“I’m sorry, Taehyung. I kept putting it off because it was so…it was kinda embarrassing.”
Taehyung would argue that they have shared much more embarrassing things before, naked baths taken together since they were kids to their fumbling first kiss where they both weren’t able to look at each other in the eye for almost a month, walking in on each other when they were jerking off to porn—the point was—Jimin and Taehyung had a bond strengthened by all the humiliation and fun they had experienced together. Jimin should have known that Taehyung wouldn’t have judged him.
Jimin probably sees everything on Taehyung’s face because he rushes to console him.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you or was scared about something. I was just—I felt like it was something I needed to figure out by myself. Like I needed to keep it to myself for just a little while.”
“It’s alright, Jiminie. We’re allowed to keep secrets.” No, they weren’t—Taehyung pouts on the inside. Jimin looks guilty as hell and that shakes Taehyung out of it. Who was the one who got their heart crushed? Bad friend, he scolds himself.
“How did you…?” Taehyung waves a hand towards the phone, reluctant to even think of the person that shall not be named because he’s public enemy number one.
“He helped me with my choreo a few days back in the studio. He was so cool, picking up all my moves better than I have ever…” Jimin’s lips twitch up in a small smile and Taehyung resolutely doesn’t think of how Jeon Jungkook looks while doing body rolls. Absolutely not.
“He’s so cute, Taehyung. His smile just makes you want to curl up with him and hug him and never let him go. Did you know--he’s an ulzzang too?”
“Jimin, whatever you think of ulzzangs, we really don’t have weekly Ulzzang Committee meetings where we meet up and admire our faces.” Actually, Taehyung doesn’t even know how he got his ulzzang status considering his fashion sense often makes others cringe even though it is, like, totally awesome. In fact, the majority of his Instagram consists of him making some really weird expressions and dubsmashes—he wonders how people even think of considering him as good looking, when he clearly isn’t? He often tries to forget the fact that he is, in some bizarre way, popular on the Internet.
Jimin makes a face at him. Taehyung puckers his lips at him in return.
“So why exactly did he reject you? Is he not into guys?” Taehyung asks as he watches Jimin swirl his straw in the milkshake dejectedly. Jimin shrugs, looking at him beneath his eyelashes.
“I don’t know. I left him a note in his locker—telling him about my feelings—“
“Dude, are you in second grade? What in the actual hell, Park Jimin?”
“AND HE CRUMPLED IT AND CHUCKED IT INTO A DUSTBIN WITHOUT BOTHERING TO READ IT.” Jimin finishes loudly, ignoring Taehyung’s sputtering. Taehyung decides to let it go—fuck has he been showing Jimin too many shoujo animes or shit, who does that in real life—totally ignoring the fact that there is a significant amount of flowery smelling love notes dedicated to him, getting shoved between the spaces of his locker on a daily basis. Besides, this is about Jimin. His one and only best friend. Who had never ever asked anyone out on a date because he was too shy to. Who had probably worked up a lot of nerve to ask a guy out he’d secretly liked so much that he didn’t even tell Taehyung about it –Taehyung is definitely not salty about that, thank you very much for your concern--who actually got rejected in probably the worst possible manner by the same asshole.
Jimin’s face is red with embarrassment and his eyes are shiny with unshed tears. He keeps carding his fingers through his fringe, pushing it back in an attempt to keep himself together in front of Taehyung—even when he knows he doesn’t need to—this is Taehyung, his best friend, his blood brother sworn by spits exchanged within secret handshakes in their childhood. Taehyung kinda feels his heart break into millions of little pieces, scattering around in his chest with sharp pricks of pain radiating from them.
Yep. Jeon Jungkook is definitely the devil’s bastard spawn.
“You know, I bet he gets those kinds of messages everyday. He probably thought it was from one of his admirers and trashed it without bothering to read it.”
Jimin looks at him dubiously. Whoops. Taehyung reminds himself that Jimin probably counts himself in the minority of the devilspawn’s ring of admirers too.
Prayer circle for Park Jimin’s soul, he dedicates in his mental to-do list. He’d trawl Pann for some kind of antis club who jumped at anything to anti-stan—figuring he’d drop breadcrumbs leading to Jungkook’s profile. With that kind of single-minded dedication—he’d probably have a army to command with the right words.
Honestly, he’d never even consider putting someone through the kind of shit that fills the online forums and is enough to damage their reputation and self-confidence forever. No one deserves to go through that. Unless--he grimly reevaluates his priorities—they hurt Park Jimin. They hurt Park Jimin and they’ll have the worst kind of Taehyung on their hands, gunning for their heads.
He is going to obliterate Jeon Jungkook.
Jimin looks up at him with an alarmed wince like he knows what Taehyung is thinking.
“No. Taehyung, don’t. It’s all right, it was just a crush, you know? These things happen everyday. It’s not serious enough to bring out the big guns, alright?”
Taehyung twitches in his seat. Jimin lays his head down on his arms, facing him with a beseeching look in his eyes.
“Taehyung, don’t do anything. I just need to have you with me for now, that’s enough. I’ll get over it. He’d probably wouldn't have returned my feelings anyway, so it’s for the best.”
What.
Someone who would not return Park Jimin’s feelings?
Taehyung quickly reevaluates everything again. He chucks out all the mad, rain hellfire on Jungkook-the-devil-spawn’s existence, revenge-the-dish-best-served-cold evil plots. Nope.
There was a new mission objective in place.
He looks at Jimin with wide eyes, an eager gleam in them. Jimin’s face contorts into a vaguely terrified expression—going pale in the face of Taehyung’s excitement. Taehyung clenches his fists in determination, looking straight into Jimin’s distraught, wounded eyes.
Fuck it.
He is going to make sure Jeon Jungkook falls in love with Park Jimin by the end of the month, even if it kills him.