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Taehyung was apprehensive.
He had high hopes for today, but was still nervous about the outcome. He was finally going to ask Jungkook to officially be his boyfriend. He was quite sure Jungkook would say yes, but there was always that chance, so he wanted to make this day even more special. He decided to look for a small gift to give Jungkook along with asking him to be his boyfriend.
Remembering that Jungkook had started collecting a specific brand of plushies, Taehyung excitedly ran to the store to choose one.
After looking at the options, Taehyung chose a cute, pink bunny plushie that was named Cooky according to its tag. Happy with his purchase, Taehyung waltzed home.
A couple hours later, Taehyung put the plushie in a gift bag and took the subway to Jungkook’s for a movie night.
When Jungkook opened the door, he smiled at Taehyung and then his expression turned confused.
“What’s this, Taehyung?” Jungkook asked.
Taehyung shyly answered, “It’s a small gift for you!”
Jungkook looked curious and let Taehyung in.
Sitting down on the couch, Taehyung handed the bag over. As he did, he blurted out, “Willyoubemyboyfriend?” to Jungkook, who had no idea what Taehyung had quickly said.
Taehyung took a breath, looked at Jungkook, and asked again, “Jungkook, will you be my boyfriend?”
Jungkook grinned and kissed Taehyung.
“Of course I will! I’m so happy you asked!”
“Will you open your gift?” Taehyung asked.
Jungkook had a big smile on his face as he pulled out Cooky.
Hugging the plushie, he replied, “You remembered the plushies I like! Thank you so much!”
“I just wanted to make today extra special,” Taehyung admitted.
After a few more shared kisses, the two settled in for their movie night, Jungkook cuddling Cooky the entire time.
/////
Taehyung walked into the store, intent on finding something for Jungkook’s Christmas gift here. He had already tried three other stores with no luck. Taehyung wanted the best gift he could give Jungkook; this was their first Christmas together after they started dating last month. He had confidence in this shop as he had been in here before and saw some items he thought Jungkook would like.
Now he just needed to find one of those said items and that would be tricky. The store was full with other holiday shoppers. He grabbed a basket and started walking to the first area of the store where he remembered some items were.
No luck in the first spot.
No luck as he went to the back corner of the store either.
Thirty minutes later, after searching almost the entire store and having to weave his way through other customers, Taehyung made his way back to the front of the store, starting to feel quite discouraged. He happened to look up to the right and stopped in his tracks. There, right near the checkout aisles, were plushies of the same brand that Jungkook was collecting. Taehyung smiled and walked closer to choose.
After careful selection, Taehyung chose a small, brown bear with a heart sewn onto its chest. Jungkook had just a few plushies and thankfully didn’t have any that looked like this one, so Taehyung was sure he would enjoy it and that the plushie would fit right in with the others.
One week later was Christmas. After spending the day with their group of friends, they trudged back in the snow to Taehyung’s apartment to celebrate together and exchange gifts. Since they had not been officially dating very long, the two decided to give each other small gifts.
Taehyung shyly gave Jungkook the bag with the plushie inside.
“Oh, I love him!” Jungkook exclaimed as he pulled the bear plushie out of the bag and hugged it tight. “Thank you so much, Tae! He will be right at home with the rest of my plushies!”
/////
Over the next few years, Jungkook added to his plushie collection whenever he could after getting a new job that paid more. Whenever he had extra money, you could find him scouring the internet for plushies he didn’t already have, walking through his favorite stores to check out what plushies were available, and was especially happy when new plushies were introduced.
By the time the two moved into a new apartment together the first April they were dating, Jungkook already had quite a few plushies in his collection, close to 15. Jungkook used his big, puppy eyes to have his plushie collection stay in the bed; it didn’t really take too much as Taehyung didn’t mind since there weren't that many.
Each time Jungkook found another plushie to add to his collection, Taehyung was still ok with all of them being on the bed. When the two would go to bed, Taehyung did put all of them on the chair in the corner of the room so that there would be plenty of space for Jungkook and Taehyung to sleep. There were some nights that Jungkook was able to talk Taehyung into sleeping with all the plushies- “They’re just so cozy, Tae Tae!”
When they married three years after they started dating, they invested in a bigger bed to accommodate the roughly 30 small plushies that now lived in their bedroom.
/////
Jungkook’s plushie buying started getting out of control, in Taehyung’s opinion at least. Their entire bed was almost covered in small plushies; Jungkook felt bad not including each and every one in the bed.
It all came to a head one day in July, when Taehyung couldn’t handle all the plushies in the bed anymore.
“If you buy one more of these, I will kick you out of this room and you can sleep on the couch with your plushies!”
Jungkook looked astonished.
“I thought…I thought you were ok with the plushies?” he asked, starting to tear up.
“I guess I thought I was too, but it’s just too many, Koo!”
“They’re all my favorites though; I can’t not have them in here with me.”
“I know, sweetheart, I know. But we need to come up with a different plan because I barely have any space to sleep in the bed anymore,” Taehyung replied, feeling sorry for his outburst.
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch with the plushies tonight?” Jungkook sadly responded.
“No, not tonight. But no more plushies until we figure something out. Is that ok?” Taehyung asked.
Jungkook replied in the affirmative, so the conversation was tabled for the night.
The next day, Taehyung felt so bad that he started thinking of ways that the plushies could stay in their bedroom but not necessarily on their bed.
It took some searching online and a few days, but he finally came up with a solution. He ordered what he needed and it arrived the next day.
“Jungkook, I have something for you,” Taehyung called when he arrived in their apartment after picking up the mail.
Jungkook walked out of the bedroom. “What is it?”
“Take a look and see.”
Jungkook opened the mail and pulled out a small box.
“Hanging stuffed animal net?” Jungkook asked.
“Yeah!” Taehyung exclaimed. “I thought this would be a good way for us to have all of your plushies in our room, but there would be more space in the bed. I know you love your plushies, so I was thinking too that you could keep a few special favorites in bed with us while the rest are in the net?”
Jungkook looked at the net and then looked up.
“I like this idea! Then they’re all on display!”
Taehyung smiled and agreed.
That night, Jungkook looked through all of his plushies and decided who would get to stay on the bed and who would stay in the net.
Of course, the first two plushies that Taehyung gave Jungkook, Cooky and the bear, kept their honorary placement in the middle of the bed every night.