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"What the hell was that?" Tony says flinging the accusatory words and she walks inside, hearing them echo in the stairwell she led them to.
All throughout rehearsal he kept staring at her, by the end of the hour Tony was pissed since he didn't even make the pretense of actually participating. Tony had to call for a break or she might strangle him for being so obvious that he had a beef with her, which he shouldn't in the very first place and that finally set Tony off. There was nothing between them, she didn't have a responsibility to tell him that she's been seeing her arranged date the last few days and they were hitting it off. He didn't have any right to know about it or to even look at her like she was a lying scumbag for cheating on him because that would mean they had something and they had absolutely nothing. That was what Tony was telling herself as she tried to tamp down her irritation at how badly she handled the situation. After all she was the adult here, but damn it to hell and back she never led him on. Just because she let him kiss her that one time when she was dealing with hang over feelings over her ex-almost-fiancee didn't mean there was something between them. Christ, what a mess. Tony thinks as she scrubs her face as she remembers the night she met Cris.
----
"Can we talk?" Jungkook asked her as she was getting inside her car, she didn't want to be late so she nodded and told him to get in.
The cafe she was going to was just around the park adjoining the complex, it was less than ten minutes away near enough that his group members could pick him up after they talked. Tony really hadn't been able to attend their rehearsals that day, since she was still trying to catch up on the work she left when she decided to take off yesterday. She wasn't really avoiding him or anyone else for that matter and to postpone explaining her actions would just complicate things and right now she doesn't need that kind of aggravation.
Jungkook gets in and Tony starts the car.
"I was running after you yesterday." Jungkook tells her quietly.
"I knew you heard me, why didn't you stop?" He asks looking at Tony as she pulls out of the parking slot.
"I was running late." Tony tells him for lack of a better excuse since she really did bolt out of that studio while he was recording.
"Were you running away from me?" Jungkook asks ignoring Tony's reply.
"I wasn't running away from you. I was---" Tony begins to say a little defensively after a while.
"Is it because I'm young?" Jungkook says gripping his hand tight, his knuckles turning white.
Yes. Her brain was screaming but she knew how prideful teenagers were at that age. That capricious line between being a child and considered an adult.
Tony pulls over at the park, halfway to her destination.
"I was running away from myself." Tony says the honest words tumbling out of her mouth as she faces Jungkook and leans back on her seat
"I was not really good company at that time and I didn't want to ruin the session, you just laid down a song.. and it brought too many.. memories." Tony says softly.
Jungkook knew she was referring to her ex-almost-fiancee, the song Yoongi hyung composed hit too close to home borne out of a conversation they had with Tony. Tony even gave them the lines for the lyrics, he knew because he sang them before she bolted from the studio.
Tony closed her eyes as she remembers how she went running away yesterday and ended at the Han river. Her phone chimed and she saw the message from Yoongi which she ignored as she put her phone in the pocket of the jumper she managed to snag on her way out. The wind was whipping her hair away from face as she stands at the river bank making the tears unable to fall as the wind picks it up and tosses it back. Welcoming the chill of the wind, Tony closed her eyes only to see the piercing gaze of Jungkook as he sang the words which came out of her soul. It was cowardly at her age to actually be chased from her own place of business nonetheless, but run she did. Self preservation and the instincts of an animal cornered whether to fight or flight spurned her to scramble out of there as fast as she can not caring that it was the middle of the day.
"I could help." He says quietly, breaking Tony's reverie.
Tony sighs and starts the car again.
"I really could help." He repeats again more firmly this time.
Tony spares him a glance and shakes her head. "It's not that." She tells him gently seeing how worked up he was about it.
"I could, just let me." Jungkook tells Tony as she pulls inside the parking lot.
Tony takes the key off and Jungkook moves as he unclasps his seat belt even before she turned the ignition off.
He scoots closer and simultaneously leans over the console to lift his hand to her cheek. Tony who was in the act of removing her seat belt startles at his sudden movement.
"Let me try." He tells her in a breathy plea before he dips a kiss into her partially open lips.
Eyes wide Tony gets kissed by Jungkook at a parking lot under the shade of the trees. She really didn't know why she let him, maybe it was because she needed to feel wanted, he caught her in a weak moment, the moon and the stars. Whatever it was Tony closed her eyes against the stark reality that she was kissing a minor. A barely legal man-boy.
This one time she was closing her eyes against all that and accepting what Jungkook was offering. Just for a while.
Tony closes her eyes as she released her seat belt. Her hands free she lets herself savor the given kiss. He swipes his tongue over her lips as if tasting and asking her permission and she closes her lips on him. She reaches up and puts her hand on Jungkook's shoulder slowly going to his face. She responds to him as the kiss remains steady and sweet, broken by sighs Tony nibbles on his lower lip and gently pulls away before it could change into something she was not prepared to go to.
She rests her forehead against him as they both recover. Tony backs away to look Jungkook in the eye, peering at his half shadowed face. She sees the silent appeal in those dark dilated eyes and knows as the adult she has to have to be the one to draw back even if every fiber of her being wanted to just stay.
"I can't." Tony tells him and opens the door and the overhead light floods the car dispelling the shadows, she turns her back on temptation that was still sitting there, eyes drowning with desire, lips reddened and slightly parted, and arms just waiting for her to succumb to.
"I have a date waiting." Tony tells him and climbs out of the car.
The sudden darkness as Tony closes the door stirs Jungkook enough to finally move and he climbs out of the other side of the car.
Tony reaches for her phone and coat at the back of the car where she tossed it and calls Yoongi to tell him to pick Jungkook up at the cafe by the park.
She locks the car and and go in for her pre-arranged date with Cris, scared to look back lest she change her mind and stay. She really didn't think they'd hit it off considering the events earlier that evening. She was strung out, emotionally and physically drained but somehow by the middle of dinner she found herself forgetting all that and enjoying the meal. Cris was the perfect gentleman and frankly they had the same aesthetics regarding business and life in general that Tony found herself agreeing to lunch the next day. She found him stimulating not just on an intellectual level but he was really good company as well.
----
And now here she was calling for a break knowing that she had to do something about things. She knew she had talk to Jungkook before things could go from bad to worse as she contemplates and stares at her sprained hand.
She finally approaches him and gives him a signal to follow her as soon as he lifted his head up. So here they were in a stairwell where she knew no one would go to.
"What the hell was that?" Tony asks as soon as the door closes, the words coated with enough temper as it echoes around the silent stairwell.
Tony turns around and takes an in drawn breath seeing Jungkook's pain filled eyes at her words. She softens at that and takes a calming breath.
Tony had just been through an emotional ordeal herself (if having your heart stabbed and stomped on could be called an emotional ordeal more like murder if someone asked her) recently to recognize betrayal when she sees it reflected on somebody else's eyes. He was so young and even he if towered over her he looked so vulnerable and she wanted to so badly reach out but held herself back and held on to her arms instead.
"Stop looking like I kicked you and took your favorite toy away from you." She tells him looking away as he stands there hands in the pockets of his pullover.
"I-I-" Jungkook stammers and Tony looks back at him face impassive and holds his gaze stare for stare.
"Pretty soon the others would notice it and ask you, they'll ask me, is that what you want?" Tony asks him trying to tone her voice down even as impatience threatens to bubble up.
"I'll survive anything thrown at me, but will you?" Tony tells him and he looks down and she sighs again as she sits down on the stairs suddenly tired and rests her arms on her knees as she lets her head hang in between her shoulders waiting for Jungkook to speak. Tony knew, well, she was recently informed of how people in the industry, in particular the Korean entertainment industry handled relationships, calling them "scandals". The word itself was extreme enough to caution someone that they take the personal lives of celebrities and their life and personal choices very seriously, expecting a certain norm or standard of behavior from them and to digress would call for censure. Tony was reminding Jungkook who he was, an idol for pete's sake, not to mention an underaged boy, a minor which is actually the main point. She was an adult, her job or lack of it would never be an issue since she can and does have another life away from the industry unaffected even if she gets involved in a "scandal" with him. The way he was acting would only get him, the celebrity in this picture in deep shit, probably career ruining and possibly and certainly life changing.
Tony feels him sit beside her and she lifts her head as he reaches for her hand and Tony closes her eyes and tugs her hand away giving another sigh.
He is going to be the death of her. This man-boy who is barely legal will surely be the death of her. He's just so stubborn and--
His quiet voice interrupts her thoughts as Jungkook quietly asks her. "Can't I hold your hand?"
Hell. Tony thinks. She knew he was asking for more than just holding her hand. She rakes her hair in agitation, this was not going anywhere.
"Stop it--" Tony begins in a collected tone, knowing that she had to proceed carefully but firmly. Being nice really sometimes only got you too far.
"Are you and that guy together now?" Jungkook interrupts and Tony stands finally frustrated. Her relationship with Cris or the lack of it was something she really didn't want to talk to him about but if that's what it took to make Jungkook get the message then so be it.
"Yes, is that what you want to hear?" Tony says in a burst of temper instantly regretting it as she sees Jungkook visibly crumble, shoulders drawing inwards as if her words were a physical blow.
Tony relents and comes closer crouching on the step below him and with her good hand allows herself to hold his cheek as he keeps his head bowed down.
"We're not together," She tells him honestly. If there was something she hated it was seeing anybody in pain, she'd rather be the receiver than giver. Call her a masochist but she really doesn't enjoy the idea of prolonging the agony of someone, having experienced having her heart torn apart, she finds it better to just rip the band-aid off rather than cover the wound up. Right now though it was tearing her apart as Jungkook raises wet eyes to Tony. She sees a glimmer of hope start in his beautiful doe eyes and Tony goes in for the kill.
"But right now, he makes me happy and I don't know what the future holds but he's making the present better." She tells him in a rush holding his gaze, not allowing him to duck his head as she continues holding his cheek in her hand and crouching above him.
Without warning Jungkook catches her lips in his trapping her hands between them in a move so fast Tony didn't even have time to offer a protest much less a sound as he wraps his arm around her and uses his right hand to anchor her head to him.
Tony straightens trying to get away but Jungkook merely followed her keeping her anchored to him as he refuses to let her separate them now that he had her in his arms.
The desperation of his kiss more than the force he used made Tony keep still and stop resisting as she waits him out, not resisting or responding. She could push him but her right hand had a sprain, she could probably outbalance him but it was a stairwell and unless she had eyes at the back of her head they might end up with more than aching butts. So she waits it out, letting the kiss she knew she shouldn't be allowing to gentle until he slowly lets her go and turns his face at the crook of her neck as he keeps his arms around her.
"I dont think about him as much as I used to." Tony continues softly as she rests her chin on his shoulders. The bastard who made a mess out of her.
"Cris, he makes me forget." Tony tells him and Jungkook tightens his hold on her.
With her good arm Tony tries to sooth him, "I'm not the one for you." Tony croons as she rubs Jungkook's back.
"Someday... you'll find someone who'll want you.. as much as you need them." Tony tells him holding him tightly as much as she can.
She lets go and slowly and pushes with her injured arm for space. Jungkook finally lets go and Tony lifts his chin and looks at his painfully beautiful doe like eyes. Eyes she could drown in if she wasn't careful.
"One day you'll find your someone." Tony kisses Jungkook averting her face on the last minute to kiss him on his cheek and take the final step back and reach for the door to step out.
She leans back against the wall as the door closes composing herself for a minute before she heads back to cancel his group's rehearsal for the day. If she could do something, that much at least she'll do.
She tells her co-director to cancel rehearsals and looks up as Yoongi approaches her.
"What can I do for you?" Tony asks him, a polite smile on her face.
Yoongi looks at her carefully as he asks her to step away with him for a minute. Tony knew from his careful tone that he knew something and she nods at him as they go to a corner far enough not to be overheard but close enough to be in public view.
"I don't know what's going on but talk to him." Yoongi tells Tony.
She really didn't have to pretend and ask him who they were talking about but answers him instead. "I already did." Tony tells him and Yoongi nods at her.
"And.. nothing's going on. I told him that myself." Tony adds not really wanting to say anything but feeling like she should.
"Tony," Yoongi tells her as she was about to leave. "Just because Jungkook's young doesn't mean he doesn't know what he wants. He may not be an adult yet but he's old enough to know what he feels." Yoongi adds as Tony narrows her eyes and nods at him turning her back on something she doesn't really want to hear much less think about.
Because frankly it was the notion that he was just a kid that's stopping her from taking what Jungkook has been repeatedly offering. Condemn her for it but she was only human, weak, and so very tempted.