Must be sunny

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/16574126.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Jeon Jungkook/Original Female
Character(s)
Character: Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Taehyung | V’s Sister, Jeon Jungkook, Jeon
Jungkook's Parents
Additional Tags: Angst, Rich Jeon Jungkook, Poor Kim Taehyung | V, Threesome -
F/M/M, Sexual Tension, Internalized Homophobia, Top Jeon Jungkook,
Jeon Jungkook is Bad at Feelings, Jeon Jungkook Being an Asshole,
Manipulative Jeon Jungkook, Underground Fighter Jeon Jungkook, Age
Swap, Bottom Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Taehyung | V is Whipped, Moral
Ambiguity, possibly some dub-con but not really, Explicit Sexual
Content, Abuse, Voyeurism, Power Play, Jungkook is a reaaaal ass,
dark themes, Recreational Drug Use, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of Richhood
Stats: Published: 2018-11-10 Completed: 2020-01-23 Chapters: 27/27 Words:
383888

Must be sunny
by AlainaMill

Summary

Kim Taehyung makes a hobby of observing the rich.

The rich being primarily Jeon Jungkook and his marvelous girlfriend, Julia.

The rich sometimes get bored and ironically, the poor pay for it.

The poor being Kim Taehyung.

Alternatively, Jungkook and his girlfriend make a bet out of boredom, the winner gets to
pick someone for a threesome, and Julia has her sights on pretty, poor waiter Kim
Taehyung. Things get complicated as she drops out of the equation.

Notes

First fic ever, bare with it.

Fair warning, this is a depiction of an imagined typically heteronormative ‘high society’ so

the characters occasionally use homophobic language; the ‘possibly dub-con but not really’
tag is there because there is a moment of sex that is technically paid for

Be aware of the tags

 Chapter 1

Kim Taehyung is neither here, nor there. In a constant state of a personality flux Taehyung
manages to be the very perfect and poetic definition of a wallflower one day and the most
flamboyant person in the room the other. It all depends on the company and his mood, and the
place, of course, a little bit, and what music marks the background and what he has had for
breakfast and normal factors like that, like everyone has.

But in any case, in all of Richhood, his and his sister’s choice of reference for Gangnam and its
most noteworthy inhabitants, he is invisible, to his knowledge. There, he is an outsider, but a
careful observer. He observes everyone in this bubble, he reasons with himself, and has no reason
to worry that the person over who his eyes glaze the most is Jeon Jungkook, the person on table
number sixteen on July the sixteenth right now.

"I'm bored," Julia complains, one of her first sentences in greeting. Her right leg bounces slowly
crossed over her left one whose Gucci heel rhythmically clicks on the Gangnam pavement.

Jungkook shifts his gaze to lazily look at her. She had gotten him out of bed and demanded his
attention and he does not particularly care to entertain her right then. "What?" He cocks his head
quizzically and very much ironically, lifting a brow. "Two weeks vacationing in the Bahamas is a
bore for you, is it?"

He is not exactly joyous at her return from her yearly summer trip. He had taken full advantage of
the absence of his girlfriend and spoiled himself with sex and liquor and now, the moderate guilt
that accompanied the former forces some tolerance into him so he humors her instead of snapping.

Julia does not resist an eye roll that starts from staring at Jungkook’s disinterest and ends up at
Taehyung’s unsubtle indulgence. He looks away quickly upon being discovered and she sees a
delightful redness crawling up his neck. She rests her stare on him and keeps it there with a spark
of a smirk. "There is nothing to do on the Bahamas, but tan, Jungkook. You, of all people, know I
am not that easily satisfied."

Taehyung feels her nagging eyes bore into him as he tries to move around and do his job. Unsure of
whether he has started imagining things or not, he pays a hopefully cautious glance in the direction
of the couple, skidding his eyes over Jungkook first, over his long, carefully built body, his casual
stance, and the tap of his ringed finger on the glass table. Dissatisfied with just how observant he is
of the guy notorious for being a right bastard, he moves further, landing his stare right into the trap
of Julia's. She holds it firm and pointed as she raises a manicured hand in demand of his service,
uncrosses her legs, spreading them and flashing red lace at him before crossing them again on the
other side.
Jungkook stares at her prolonged movement with the corner of his eye. He raises a brow and
scoffs, the end of which ends with a bitter smirk twisting at his features. "You think that virgin can
satisfy you?" She snaps her gaze at him and glares. Taehyung, in response to her gestures has come
near; he hears. Jungkook doesn’t care; if anything, he basks in the visible discomfort it induces.
The smirk stretched malicious on his face. He reaches a hand, big palm, callused at the top from
pull ups and weight lifting, and long fingers encapsulating her slim thigh before he pushes up at her
otherwise short skirt boldly. "Only I can satisfy you, Julia." The temper of his voice is suggestive,
only just reminiscent of a whisper, yet still pointedly enunciated — not at all only reserved to
charm his girlfriend, but seeking to petrify their waiter as well, which is a right success.

Taehyung is practically at the table when Jungkook moves brusquely. He grips the leg of Julia's
chair and pulls it into him, the metal scraping against the cement. Close enough now, he sneaks his
hand underneath her skirt and with a gasp and surprising composure after the brief slip, she loosens
her legs.

Taehyung cannot tear his eyes away from it, from Julia as she shifts on her chair, ruts her hips
slightly, almost unnoticeably into Jungkook’s venturous hand and her head lay back, her neck
craning and her mouth parting, a pink tongue poking out. Her chest pushes out with he curve of her
back at the new position, her tank top doing little to conceal and Taehyung cannot help it, his eyes
dart all over, all wide and shocked. It is late afternoon. The sun is still there, shining and
unfaltering and there are people all around. He gulps.

Yet Jungkook, shameless and unfaltering, is staring at him, at his reaction, his eyes boring into the
reddening boy.

Taehyung tries to look at him, tentatively, gaze jumping from where his hand is moving in between
Julia's legs and his expectant centered, challenging eyes. He clears his throat. "Was there-" he
struggles, breathing in, chest expanding. He wonders who’s having more trouble staying coherent,
him or Julia. "Was there something that you wanted?"

His heart thumps violently in his chest and his neck and ears are burning. Suddenly he feels as if
his body has too much blood circulating in it and it is going in all the wrong places.

"Yes, actually," Jungkook speaks calm, but tantalizing. His hand speeds up or his fingers do some
trick or something of that sort because Julia suddenly makes a sound, so feminine and desperate
and her body convulses and snaps on her chair. It is subtle, but for Taehyung it is all he can notice
now, all he can focus on. It makes his blood flow even quicker and a thought strikes him, a query,
whether she can feel the ring on his fingers and he flushes more, wants to close his eyes and maybe
just for a moment, die. "I wanted you to tell me and my pretty little Julia, here," upon addressing
her, Jungkook does it again, a snapping movement, harder than before and Julia gasps, her hand
landing on his wrist. "Have you ever touched a woman, boy?"

As his heart is ferociously beating, it suddenly stops, skips a moment of beating and drops in his
stomach. "I-" he blinks at Jungkook helplessly as he keeps fingering his girlfriend for everyone to
see if they turned their heads for long enough.

"Answer the question, boy," Jungkook instructs, the entertainment subsiding on his face to allow
for a threatening vibe to vibrate off of his voice.

Boy. It was a ridiculous way to address him, considering they had a year and some pathetic months
difference in age, but the sternness and size of Jeon Jungkook intimidates him into feeling just
that, like a boy.

"I, erm-" he hesitates. He had, technically been with a couple of girls, but just that really. No
foreplay, no anything. Both were on some of Ji-woo’s house parties where everyone is horny
enough to be immediately fucked. "No," he confesses finally, looks down as he finds he cannot
hold Jungkook’s gaze: it is fiery enough to blister his skin.

"Hm," Jungkook cocks his head. "And do you think you can make her come if you tried right
now?"

Taehyung’s eyes involuntary land on Jungkook’s hand working her into moaning and trashing just
a little, just subtly. He can see her trying to hold back, her teeth sinking into the pillow of her lower
lip, a hiss escaping her, her fingers latched around his wrist tight and whitening with pressure.
Jungkook, throughout the whole ordeal, does not move his eyes from his once.

Taehyung gulps down spit. "No," he says, just barely a whisper, his head still down but his eyes
wandering.

"Aha," Jungkook is nodding energetically, irony-clad energy as his lips curl cruel and unforgiving
a glint passing in his eye. "I agree with you on that." He pauses. “And with those conditions
straightened out, I will kindly ask you to stop fucking staring at my girlfriend and think I'm dumb
enough not to notice. You've been eyeing us since we've sat down, thinking you're all subtle, Kim."

Taehyung has no words left in him at that point. He stares at Jungkook's feet dumbly. "I... erm. I'm
sorry," he says after a moment. He hadn't been staring at Julia in all honesty. He does not
particularly care about her revealing tank top, short skirt and newly tanned body. He was staring at
Jungkook. But that is much too inappropriate to admit. "It won't happen again," he tries to promise
in a small voice and finally gathers up the courage to glance at the other’s face.

He finds Jungkook’s smirk has dropped entirely at some point. "Good," he announces and briefly
nods at Taehyung’s crotch. "Now go jerk that thing off. I don't want you serving me with it. It's
disgusting."

Taehyung obediently nods, not even daring to assume he had been more embarrassed at any other
point of his life. Was the situation different, he would not be this timid in response to the likes of
Jeon Jungkook. But sex and the likes of the aforementioned in a combination make him a kind of
nervous he has never before been and he has no knowledge how to deal with it— or the
ridiculousness of what the spoiled brat is doing because of a couple of stares too much on his part.

Julia had come at some point, but his ears are buzzing too much for him to even notice the peak of
sounds, trashing and desperation and she is now recovering with a satisfied smile on her face as
Jungkook rubs calming circles into her thighs and in between.

When Taehyung leaves, which is immediately, with quick, wide steps and a curiously positioned
trey, Jungkook turns to Julia the smirk back and more dangerous, the thrill of the kill. It gives him
pleasure, always has — the taunt. Touching Julia solely for the sake of making her come had
become disinteresting for him a while back, he knows how to work her, where to press. It is
moments like this, rarely granted by pathetic, poor boys that still give him satisfaction, a rush,
maybe even the beginnings of an erection. “Still bored now?"

Julia is breathing hard but happy. She lets out a breath of a chuckle, feeling her body tingling,
almost giddy, all over in effect of different thrills of pleasure and gratification, twisted like her
boyfriend. “You can fuck me anyway that you'd like tonight," she tells him before she seals their
lips together.
 Chapter 2
Chapter Summary

It's going to get actually interesting in a little bit, bare with it

Just a little insight on our characters for now

Chapter Notes

Let me know if you're enjoying it. Don't really know how this site works yet, lol, but I
hope I'm doing okay

“Don’t move,”Ji-woo scolds, her fingers threading through Taehyung’s hair and tightening into his
scalp. She is rough as she keeps his head straight and clicks the scissors at a scathing proximity to
his left ear. He holds back a flinch but does not shy away from a grimace and some whining.

“Aww, fuck. What do you want to do? Rip my fucking scalp of my head?” He attempts a pointed
glare, but she has his hair in such a tight grip, he has to be content with giving it to the kitchen sink
from his position on the stool.

“Well, I don’t have a goddamn degree in hairstyling, Taehyung,” she grits out as she holds him in
place by the hair. “If you want someone to give you a massage and ask you is the water okay,” and
she says that in the brattiest, most nasally high-pitched voice she could manage, “you have to pay.”

Taehyung’s eyes roll lazily, and he wiggles on the chair as she gives him a particularly hard tug. “I
ampaying you,” he points out, without too much of an actual bite.

He hears her scoff as the scissors snap by his nape. She pushed his head forward brusquely, his
chin forced into his chest. She leans in close to explore as she cuts. “Not nearly enough for me to
ask you is the water okay.”

“There wouldn’t have been any time for you to ask anyway. You literally poured it over my head.”

Another scoff. “Shut up.”

“And do you speak to your customers in that voice?” He questions as she pulls his head back up --
by his hair,because why not.

“What voice, Taehyung?”

She does end up scraping the dumb blades of the scissors on the corner of his ear and he hisses at
the immediate sensation but does not acknowledge it otherwise.

“The nasally how is the waterone.” Taehyung does his best to imitate her level of high pitch, but it
comes surprisingly like his waiter voice.

“Hm. Well, I’m actually quite lucky. I don’t really get to speak to the bastards a whole lot. They
just want their houses clean.” She’s distracted as she speaks, sorting out strands. She’s taking this
seriously now for some reason, a strike of inspiration maybe, she should get a degree in
hairstyling. Her eyes dart to his ear as she feels a warmer moisture on her finger. “Shit, you’re
bleeding now. Goddamnit, Taehyung.”

“What do you mean goddamnit, Taehyung? Youmade me bleed.”

She snatches a napkin from somewhere around her and presses it into him. “Hold it and don’t
complain. Your capillaries are weak as fuck. My scissors just barely grazed you. And honestly,
those scissors are so shit they barely cut your hair, but of course they would go through
yourgoddamn skin.”

Taehyung folds his arms before his chest and tries to drag his eyes out to the corners as far as they
would go so that his glare will be as directed to his sister as possible. “Thank fucking god you
don’t speak to clients. You would have been out of a job a long, long time ago.”

She deliberately threads four fingers through his hair and tugs, sharp enough for him to almost lose
his balance, but he untangles his arms and grips his seating at the last moment.

“And you would have been even more malnourished, Tae. Appreciate me, yeah?”

He snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

Her voice booms close to his ears next as she is bent to him and eyeing strands. He jumps on his
chair, which she wholeheartedly ignores. “Are you even watching the eggs, you brat?”

Taehyung manages his balance on the chair once again after her widely unnecessary shriek and
remembers to reach forward in the tiny kitchen, grip onto the pan, shuffle the liquid in it a bit with
desperate hopes it would have some solidity to it. It swishes, and he frowns. “Ts. The stove is more
useless at being a stove than you are as a hairdresser,” he remarks, a bit of a smirk tugging at the
corners of his lips.

The scissors snap sharply by his ear. “Tae, dear, you do realize I now have the power to cut you up
so bizarre you will not only be out of a job, but potentially hospitalized if you step foot in
Gangnam.”

Taehyung blinks, allows himself a rather genuine smile. He tries to turn around to flash it to his big
sister, but her hands grip onto the sides of his head into stillness at any notion of motion and
squeezeto get their message across. “You can do anything you want to my hair and I’ll still be
hotter than you.”

“Yeah?” A small grin plays at her lips as she stands back and gauges her work, but it’s a little off, a
little sad. Her voice draws softer. “Try not to be too hot around them, okay?”

His eyes roll naturally, but a little fondness seeps in and he feels the nature of his own smile,
previously mischievous with a slight smugness, change into something more dangerously genuine.

“I’ll be fine. I just see them in the streets. You go to their actual homesand come back alive.”

Her fingers are softer in his hair now as she lets them roam, pulling gently at strands to see if they
are at least somewhat even, releases them when she finds them satisfying and then gliding through
purposelessly. “I’m stronger than you, Tae. Always been.”

His arms tangle again and he’s pouting, subconsciously edging his head back to her touch; it’s been
rarer and rarer on her part, he’s noticed, affection that is. “Bullshit.”

She flicks him then.

“They’re not that nasty most of the time, though, are they?” He asks. He knows the answer, but he
asks, because he wants the conversation to naturally flow towards the direction he wants, to the
nastiest, to the Jeons.

She snorts. “Some are decent. Others are beyond your imagination. The parents, I mean. Jeon, for
example, is out of the world.”

“Hm. The father?”

“Yeah,” she nods and clips at something with the scissors again, straightening up behind him.
“He’s the devil, I swear. The twins are pretty horrible, too, but with a father like that I’m not
surprised the girl feels the constant need to be drugged up or get fucked or get fucked while she’s
drugged up.”

Taehyung perks up. The twins, that’s what he wanted to hear. The Taunting Twins, notoriously
entitled, quick, scathing tongues, wastefully talented to the brim of their skin, perfect on the
outside, rotten on the inside.

“Have you met her?” He questions, looking at his nails as if they matter, as if he could ever afford
to care for them. But he hasto look at something now.

“Not really,” his sister says, too engaged with strands of his hair to notice his sudden inadequate
interest. “She’s around the house the most, but she’s rarely conscious. Rarely dressed, not that she
finds nudity particularly bothering. She never says anything. I’ve never heard her speak, but I have
heard her moan.”

Taehyung grimaces. The Taunting Twins could very likely easily live up to their reputation and
more.

“She does not look particularly despicable, though, compared to Jeon,” Ji-woo continues
unexpectedly before Taehyung could slip into thoughts. “Just a bit dead inside.”

“What about Jungkook?” He says, and he registers the words have been spoken after he hears
them.

He stirs a bit, but it goes unnoticed. Ji-woo is once again too intrigued by her own interpretation of
making sure strands are even. Taehyung is personally starting to feel she is having too much fun
for this, considering she demands some actual pay in return. She hums as her fingers work pieces
of hair.

“Do you see him?” Taehyung asks now, particularly encouraged by her obvious distraction.

“I have a couple of times, unfortunately,” she replies and straightens up. Taehyung is starting to
wonder how her waist doesn’t hurt from all the unnecessary bending she is doing to fool herself
into feeling professional.

His brows raise to his hair, an expression of curiosity that is reserved for him alone, but he cannot
help it — maybe the kitchen sink appreciates it as well, though his sister is currently pushing at his
banks and he is unsure how his fully exposed forehead would be received even by inanimate
objects. “Unfortunately?” He probes.

Ji-woo scoffs a bit, by now just taking advantage of the freedom she’s given with Taehyung’s hair
to experiment with looks on him. “The guy’s a prick. He doesn’t speak to me either, but he does
look at me, unlike his sister, all entitled and condescending, has a bit of a permanent sneer.” She
pauses and lifts her hands off of Taehyung’s hair, gesticulating instead as she seems to recount
something she feels particularly moved by, eager to tell him with that annoyed irony laced in her
voice she always uses when she describes the actions of her clients. “I remember, he came home
one day when I was cleaning, and he was bleeding all over.”

“Bleeding?” Taehyung slightly twists, instinctively searching her face to find her as he expected
her: residually pissed off.

She nods, looks Taehyung in the eye and presses her lips together, before she embarks on a
particularly animated continuation. “Their whole marble hallway — they have a fucking hallway
made out of marble — all stubborn red, stinking of iron. Foolish me, decided to ask him if he was
alright, where the bleeding was from. He got a bit in my face and snarled at me, something along
the lines of,” and she lowers her voice and speaks all masculine and brusque and burly. “I’m not
paying you to know where it’s from; I’m paying you to get rid of it.”

Taehyung turns back around, reaches a hand out to grip at the pan, check on the eggs. He’s almost
positive by now they will have to drink them, instead. The stove is utterly useless. “Wow,” he
exclaims, a bit silent, mostly to himself.

“Yeah. Prick.”
“Prick.” Taehyung agrees. He gives the pan a bit of a shake. “So, you didn’t find out why he was
bleeding?”

Ji-woo opens a drawer and it clutters with contents. She carelessly drops the scissors in there,
already disregarding the frustration of having searched for them for half an hour as she never pays
much mind to where she places them – or anything else, for that matter. She shrugs at Taehyung,
eyeing him a bit with a curiously arched brow. “Kind of stopped caring after his response.” She
uses her hips to click the drawer shut and it slams with a worrying bang she ignores as she leans
into it. “Wouldn’t you?”

Taehyung replaces the pan on the stove, though he is pretty sure if he slammed his palm on it, he
would not feel heat — not really into attempting it just yet, in case his skin does come off. He
shrugs as well, eyes boring into the kitchen sink because he can feel his sister’s stare on him now
and he dislikes it, almost as much as he dislikes how badly he wants to know why Jungkook was
bleeding, despite the fact he is still borderline traumatized by his last interaction with the boy.
“Would probably be curious, is all,” Taehyung settles for after a moment of searching his mind for
a proper response.

He is curious, but that’s the problem: it is nothing new, this perpetual, infuriating curiosity. He is
always curious. Always sort of enjoyed his job because of how much it allows him to pry, to listen
in on conversations of the rich, who mostly care so little about his presence around them that they
carelessly go off into streams of gossip and unconscious self disclosure around him that he feels he
has managed to peek into much more of what these people would like him to have. He gets off on
it, a bit, of being present in their lives without them as much as suspecting he knows who spends
the nights with whom and who pays for it, sometimes.

Some of them know him. The regulars know him. The ones that frequent the night club have seen
him hang by Jimin’s side, after he dances, know he is their cleaner’s little brother, some have
flirted with him, even. Some have demanded favors from him with disregard of all common
decency that is to be at least flirtatious before you inform you are looking for some cock sucking,
but that is it about those people. They can afford to disregard any decency in their private lives at
all times and comfortably live with people like Taehyung and Ji-woo on their knees for them,
scraping their floors, shining their shoes or sucking their dicks, figuratively and literally alike.

Taehyung has always been cautious not to allow himself to go this far, considers his prevalence in
his denial a strength of his. Ji-woo considers it a weakness.

Jungkook knows him. Julia knows him as well. Kim, they call him, Kim, they call his sister. The
Kims they call their entire family, all five members, including their mentally absent father, their
little brother and their estranged older brother. The Kims, the hopelessly poor individuals that
always somehow manage to string their lives around their rich people business. Their father had
done it, their brother had done it fairly well before he got up and left, saved himself, he said, from
the sticky, toxic webs of it, now Ji-woo was folding their sheets and cleaning their underwear and
Taehyung was serving them coffee and cocktails and watching them finger their girlfriends out in
the open.

The Kims, is what they would call them before they went in circle talking shit, laughing their asses
off, made comments about Ji-woo in her uniform skirt that would offend Hugh Hefner, then
concluded with the matter of putting them in their place.

A hand falls on top of his head, making him retract his neck back into his shoulders, much alike a
turtle, snapping him rather roughly out of his otherwise unwanted thoughts. Fingers wiggle
playfully around freshly cut strands. “Be careful with that curiosity. Yeah, Tae?”

He reaches a hand, swats his sister’s away. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he lists offhandedly, betrays
annoyance in his voice and his actions, though he feels none of it, but rather something he doesn’t
particularly want to confess to himself or to her, an apprehension akin to dread he cannot quite
fathom.

“I’m serious, pretty boy. You can’t let your mind wander, or your eyes. Okay?” Taehyung is
rolling his eyes and folding his arms, forging the perfect depiction of childishness, before she can
even finish. “No, I’m serious, pretty boy. You have to promise me, okay?”

She steps around the chair, forcing herself in his line of vision, her eyes capturing his with soft
pointedness.

“Okay,” he answers to her emotional coercion.

She places one hand on his shoulder, lifts another up, curls a fist. “Pinky promise.”

Taehyung’s eyes fall on the finger, such a simple gesture it would be of him, to lift up and curl his
digit around his sister’s as he had done numerous times, but somehow his skin tingles with the
same apprehension from before and he feels weirdly as if hers does as well and joining them
together would light a spark, maybe he cannot quench.

Before he hesitates enough to worry her, Taehyung lifts his hand up and wraps his finger around
hers.
“Pinky promise.”

Taehyung is poignantly aware that Jungkook is in the Ozone that night – Julia is there as well, and
she has herself wrapped around him tightly, in a sort of VIP booth where all of them are, his arm
lazily tugged on her shoulder and her whole palm resting on his chest, one of her legs strewn over
one of his. Her nails play around the fabric of his shirt, her other hand is on his thigh and it is still,
but under the glare of the almost epileptic lights of the club it seems to tease, somehow, with the
rhythm of the heavy beat of the music.

Taehyung is poignantly aware that Jungkook is in the Ozone that night and he is giving his best not
to break his promise, but he’s had a drink and the darkness in the flash of the lights fools him into
the bravery of thinking his wandering eyes will go unnoticed.

“The little brat is looking again,” Jungkook acknowledges, his fingers tapping on the throat of his
bottle as he leisurely lays his arm on the table. Julia’s lips are gliding across his neck, soft and
teasing, above a mark she left the previous day that had made him snap at her. She appreciates it
more now.

“Let him look,” she teases into a gap at his collarbone, opening her mouth against it. His hand
hovers at her breast and she arches into him, but his fingers twitch away.

Jungkook’s eyes are on Taehyung and Julia’s are on him, watching him watch him. His tongue
pokes into his cheek and she grins a tiny bit.

“You want him to look,” Jungkook says, his voice is casual, his body is as well, but there is the
little tick in his jaw and she knows he is uneased. Competition always threatens him, no matter
how much he has it engrained in his skull that he could beat anyone into regretting the simplicity
of their very existence.

Julia presses her palm harder into his chest to force him to be aware of her, her nails creating
crescents in the skin underneath the exquisite Egyptian cotton of his brand shirt. “I look as well,”
she confesses, her eyes straying from the features of the boy she has under her palms to poor,
lovely Kim Taehyung.
He is radiant, as always, hair in his eyes, though shorter than it was a couple days ago, said eyes
enigmatic and fit perfectly into the soft, round, shapely features of his beautifully crafted face. He
may be poor, but he is a visual, lean, but malnourished, collarbones protruding sharply, stretching
pure, tan skin and she sort of wants to create crescents with her nails there as well, maybe draw
some blood, soothe it over with her tongue.

As the thought passes, so does Jungkook’s own tongue over the full pillow of his pink lips and it
occurs to her she wouldn’t mind if hesoothes the pain she draws from Taehyung.

“At Kim?” Jungkook says in a voice that implies the mere thought offends him and it does. His
arm wraps further around her neck, like a snake, and he draws her closer, caging her in as his hand
grips at hers and squeezes at her fingers. She does not deserve to mark him while she’s looking at
someone like Kim.

Julia replaces her gaze on Jungkook. He chooses to look at his bottle now.

“He’s pretty,” she confesses, voice as sultry as she finds Taehyung’s eyes to be when he’s sipped
on too much of whatever he’s having and steals a glance at their, elaborately put, embrace. It’s an
understatement, for her, as, at least while she is on E, she finds him to be positively ethereal. She
wants him almost as much as she wants Jungkook to want her.

“He’s cheap,” Jungkook enunciates, brings disgust into the spite of his voice and he almost feels it
as well, as his nose bundles up and he returns a lazy glare towards the person in question.

“You can’t afford him,” Julia teases, the twist of her mouth curling malicious.

Jungkook laughs, low and disingenuous – cold. “I don’t want him. Do I look gay to you, Julia?”
His smile stretches poisonous in that it seems to hold truth, actual entertainment as he finally looks
at her.

“Look gay?” she says, eyes rolling, “No, but he does seem to want what you have, doesn’t he? He
stares.”

“You like it when he stares,” Jungkook counters.

“You don’t.”

“No,” he confesses, “but at least he’s keeping you entertained a while.”

Julia hums, relaxes her head on his shoulder. “It’s your reaction to him that is keeping me
entertained, Jungkook.”

“You think he’s pretty.”

She nods. “He is,” she says. “And you’re hot.”

She’s overwhelmed by the combination of truths as it formulates in her head and again, maybe it’s
just the ecstasy, but she cannot imagine a more desirable pair. It’s playing tricks on her calm night
out, her heart no longer beating with the rhythm of the music, but faster, which scares her, and she
has a little bit of Jungkook’s beer to calm it down.

“You’re hot,” Jungkook retorts, taking his beer back and sipping on it himself.

“Who else do you find attractive here?” Julia is asking as she watches the bob of his throat.

Jungkook’s eyes train briefly on Julia, trail to Taehyung, and then skim around the crowd, landing
on a girl whose dress clings well enough for him to wonder how she feels underneath. He points
the throat of the bottle in her direction and Julia glances at her with immediate contemptuous
distaste.

She’s pretty, but she has nothing on Taehyung.

“Do you reckon you can have her before I can have Kim?” Julia asks and Jungkook’s fingers
tighten round hers, squeeze into the bottle as well.

He shifts. “Not fair. Kim’s already proved interest.”

Julia’s eyes roll lazily, and she worries they will remain behind her lids for a moment, but they
come back out and find a target quicker than she had anticipated, close by the bar, close by Kim.
She knows Jae has wanted her for a while, but Jungkook doesn’t. She’s sure she can have him in a
blink of an eye, a much more unfair choice than Taehyung himself, but that is information only
available to her, and she plans to keep it that way as she indicates him with a nod.

“Fine,” she sighs as if she concedes, “blue shirt,” she says.

Jungkook’s eyes scan him briefly. The guy in the blue shirt is as ordinary as they come. Standing
so close to Taehyung, he is nothing. Jungkook is satisfied with this, nods, takes a sip and lowers
the bottle.

“What does the winner get?”

Julia’s lips curl dangerously on her face. “A choice.”

“For?”

“A threesome,” she blurts.

Jungkook pauses. He untangles himself from Julia, pours the rest of the liquid down his throat then
eases off the booth. “Hope you’re ready to fuck a girl.” He turns to her, smirks, and she meets it
with a rival twist of her mouth. “Usual rules?”

“Usual rules.”
 Chapter 3
Chapter Summary

Jungkook is cheating at a game and Taehyung thinks he might be going insane.

Chapter Notes

This is really unedited, I'm sorry.

Taehyung hates the fact they sit at a table he has to serve. He eyes the pair apprehensively as they
position themselves and feels immense dread at the fact he has to approach them.

Hecannot, not after his body had decided to be treacherous in the most embarrassing way humanly
possible. It is a little sick of him, he realizes, even though on a conscious level he does not find
anything in the situation sexually exciting, especially considering the circumstances and the
message which was specifically contemptuous against him, for him to go and pop a boner.
Hormones, though, never really mind one’s personal supposed preferences and have absolutely no
consideration for appropriateness and simple adequacy, do they?

He wonders, still, what was it that made his body betray him so horridly and thinks it might have
been the adrenaline of confrontation from his object of curiosity combined with his unfathomable
wondering of whether Julia could feel Jungkook’s ring.

His fingers are thick and considerably long, look warm, though, mostly, his whole body does, and
he imagines the cold metal of the ring must be quite a juxtaposition to the heat of his skin.

He wonders if the ring feels cold and metallic now as he presses it into his lip, toying with it for a
moment, then it hits him he is watching Jungkook play with his mouth, and whips his head away,
going to check on a customer.

He is starting to question this worrying infatuation he has with observing the Taunting Twin. It is
getting rather bothersome, especially because it does not only involve looking, which is not that
surprising to do, he is a lot to look at. He is handsome, sharp featured, muscled.
It is the muscles that began it. Taehyung has always wanted to work on himself, but never really
imagined he could actually put it as a priority. Jungkook is exactly what Taehyung has always
dreamed of -- to be, not to have, Taehyung chastises the misinterpretation his flow of thoughts
could have even in the confines of his head -- perfectly proportioned, lean, sinewy muscles, skin
stretched tightly over protruding veins. He could see definition through his clothes, chiseled as the
structure of his sculpted face, are his stomach and his thighs, trousers and jeans always clinging
into the shape of him, flexing apparent as he adjusts. His arms are constantly exposed, and it is
borderline rude, Taehyung thinks, how pronounced each muscle is on there, perpetually on show
making Taehyung all… envious, he concludes.

Taehyung thinks he should dislike Jungkook more than he does, considering. He certainly should
not be as aware of him as he is. Lots of rich, entitled pricks surround him at his particular place of
work, some have been suggestive towards him, none quite as far and as bold as Jungkook had been
to prove a point, but lots have done things to make him aware of their presence. None have left
much of an impression, though.

With Jungkook, as soon as he arrives, Taehyung learns it and does not forget it, becomes more
conscious of his own movements and manners, somehow more alert as to not embarrass himself,
though he knows Jungkook does not look at him.

He doesn’t now, when Taehyung glances from the corner of his eye. He is relaxed back into his
chair, legs spread wide and possessive of the air around him, the space around him. He is on his
phone, seemingly oblivious even to Julia’s presence. Julia herself is propped up on the table, legs
crossed, sunglasses on. She appears pale to Taehyung as he dreadfully approaches.

He stops as far away as he feels he can afford and glances at Jungkook first, instinctively almost, as
he addresses the table.

“Hello and welcome. What can I do for you today?”

Julia’s lips are stretched wide at the sound of his question, but Taehyung forgets to look away from
Jungkook’s disinterest until she speaks up, voice much too sultry for the morning. “I can think of a
few things, actually.”

Jungkook’s eyes lift up from the screen with peculiar nonchalance considering his girlfriend’s
obvious flirtatiousness and he catches Taehyung in the moment he replaces his stare to the girl who
had addressed him. He struggles with an urge to gulp, feeling a warm rush crawl up the skin of his
neck and sneak upon his cheeks, securing them a red color he despised.
He pokes his tongue at his lips quickly, smoothly, a subconscious nervous gesture and Jungkook’s
stare falls on it briefly, the lazy arrogance a perpetual atmosphere he carried with himself.

“What would that be?” Taehyung asks, and he struggles to keep even the merest suggestion of
suggestiveness out of his tone of voice, but with the variance of scrutiny centered upon him, he
feels some that can be interpreted at such betrays his attempts.

Julia’s ragingly obvious self-satisfaction reaffirms the potential for this. Her smirk nags at his
nervousness as her lashes, a little full and fake, bat at him from above her sunglasses. Her lips part
slowly, and perfect pearly teeth peek along with the tip of her tongue.

“How about we start with just coffee?” Jungkook’s voice interrupts from her side. Her eyes roll
from their elicit stare at Taehyung and land a little icily at her boyfriend’s awaiting dullness.

“Will we be not keeping promises now, my love?” Julia asks, the words rolling tightly from her
tongue. Her fingers pray distractedly with her hair. She sounds somehow slow today, drowsy, as if
it takes effort for her to fully formulate coherence. The arm she uses to prop her chin up is
necessary, she appears, as holding her head is a struggle.

Taehyung gives the silence a moment in case Jungkook would decide to fill it, but the pause is long
enough for him to feel comfortable with speaking. “So,” his brows lift, “two coffees? Would you
like some milk with it?”

Her head tilts and the little view he has of her eyes disappears. Her sunglasses, fully hiding her
gaze, make him nervous. He knows she’s looking, but he doesn’t know how, and his imagination is
brining wild things into play. “I would like mine to be Irish,” she announces. Her smile is tight-
lipped and as lazy as Jungkook’s following attempt of a scold.

“It’s elevon o’clock in the morning.”

“It’s eleven pm in the Bahamas,” she replies, not missing a beat.

Taehyung does not know what influences him to do it, but he shifts his glance from Julia to
Jungkook right then. It is a search for approval that he himself rationally finds to be incredibly
bizarre in its misogyny and blatant unreasonableness. It is a reflection of his position, he supposes,
in Richhood, to seek permission in some variation of authority he finds near, however, he cannot
explain to himself what pushes him to consider Jungkook an authority over Julia.
It is a short moment that takes all three parties to realise the intent of his change in attention. Julia
scoffs, a move so animated it triggers an actual wave of her body, her back arching with it.
Jungkook replaces his eyes from his girlfriend to acknowledge Taehyung, tilting his head in an ever
so slight curiosity to betray his insouciance. His lips twitch.

He shrugs. “Whatever,” he says, but his eyes dance along the indication of Taehyung’s silent
address with the starting notion of a something and Taehyung can slightly feel it on his skin.

Julia’s voice is heinously sweet when she speaks. “He won’t give me what I reallywant, so he’ll
allow me that.”

Her tongue clicks, and she pauses, stops. Her legs are crossed, and her foot is toying with slipping
an expensive heeled shoe on and off.

Taehyung’s eyes jump to her, the red colour painting his cheeks resurfacing slightly over his
tanned skin and his body wants to flinch, but he holds it back. He chooses to nod. “Anything
else?” he asks politely. He is using his waiter voice for them, though it is a bit more pitched than
that, even.

Julia bounces her shoe into place and it smacks against her heel. “Actually—"

“No,” Jungkook interjects, short and dismissive.

Taehyung is nodding again. He is pressing the trey that he carries into his stomach protectively, as
a shield, but it does nothing to hide the crimson of his skin that is not usually there. “Your order
will be with you shortly,” he announces as custom and makes a step to leave.

He does, but he is still there to hear words he does not expect as Jungkook, still short, somewhat
cold, says, “Thank you.” It is a phrase, Taehyung realizes as he walks away, he has not heard leave
the other boy’s lips no matter how many coffees and drinks he has brought him over his work
span. It makes the colour darken on his face.
Minho is the one to bring the couple their drinks as Taehyung is stuck in the back room, back
pressed against some cases of beer and books propped in his lap, dealing with some mishap in
accountancy that the manager asked him to look over. He is good with numbers, always has been.
And he is cheap. The manager knows he will readily do it for a larger portion of his tips that day
and unfailingly trusts him with looking things over to save a few paychecks for bureaucrats, as he
constantly chides.

Minho returns as Taehyung taps the frame of his glasses against his nose, a privately personal
indication of concentration that few others are familiar with. Minho is not one of them, though he
has avoidantly witnessed it numerous times. Unaware and uncaring, he interrupts.

“Why did Julia ask about you?” Minho questions as he opens the door.

“What?” Taehyung says dumbly, barely shifting his attention, too engrossed in the consistency of a
set of numbers.

“Jungkook’s Julia?” Minho specifies, still at the door, practically hanging by the handle. “She
asked me why Taehyung was gone and pouted at me when I said you had some business to attend
to. Made sure to drop a mention that her coffee would be tastier if you were there.”

Taehyung almost drops the book he is currently propping up. He catches it last moment, but pages
suffer from his clumsy handling and he feels a couple of buck slip right through his fingers as one
tears slightly.

“She’s—” he stutters, pauses. It’s not like he has a reason.He knows nothing of why she chooses to
tease Jungkook like this, why she does it at all, except maybe to coax him into the sort of sexual
outburst that she triggered the other time a couple of days ago. He does not know what made him
her target, supposes maybe it could be how easy he is to make blush and the convenience of his
job. It is still not enough to formulate a proper answer in his head. “She’s just kidding,” he says,
finally and it feels dumb, but he can virtually think of nothing else.

“Are you friendswith Jungkook’s Julia now, Taehyung?” Minho asks.

“No,” Taehyung shrieks at the sheer incredulity of the question.

Minho shakes his head, more to himself. “You always get yourself into trouble, don’t you, pretty
boy?” he says, but he does not seem to await a response as he lets the handle go and walks away.

Taehyung sighs, concentration entirely lost and now some additionally burdening thoughts of what
it is precisely that Julia wants from him. He is a pawn, he realizes, in some game with no rules she
is playing with Jungkook, and he does not like to imagine, but feels the games will only have one
loser and it will be Kim Taehyung.

He closes the books and places them on an arbitrary industrial shelf. He stacks his glasses on top of
them as well, rubbing the heel of his palm over an eye slightly. He yawns. He has not had much
sleep, working some problems for a summer course on geometrics he is forcing himself to
complete as it would help him with his potential (though prospectively unlikely) pursuit of a
degree in architecture.

He steps out of the back room into the corridor, hands still slightly blocking and blurring his vision
of his surroundings, head pointed to the floor. He does not particularly care about being aware in
this space as he has spent so much of his time there, he could literally turn blind and still point to a
hole of a tragically misused champagne bottle drilled into the wall on the first time.

He hears steps that do not surprise him as that is the hallway which leads to the customer’s toilet.
What does surprise him is when a pair of feet stop right into the front of his downward line of
vision. Dark shoes, trimmed all the way around the soles with the Louis Vuitton logo, stand
impossibly close to him and appear dangerously familiar. The raise of his head and eyes across the
body they are attached to is almost comically slow. He takes in the perfect lines of the well-dressed
body that was subject to his rather inappropriate, but mostly envious thoughts for the better part of
the morning, skimming over blatant muscle, thick thighs, tight stomach. His eyes have barely
managed to skim past a sharp jawline when a hand wraps around near the knot of his tie and his
back meets the wall.

The force of the push is unnervingly strong, stronger than what somewhere in a restricted section of
his mind he had imagined it could be. His back collides with the hard surface it is easily tilted and
directed to and for a moment it sucks the breath out of him along with the shock of the concept of it
actually happening. It doesn’t hurt — most of the power of motion comes to do the tilting and very
little actually pushes into the collision — but it’s obstructively firm and startling. His eyes are wide
and staring as Jungkook edges closer, his grip unrelenting against the tie, which he uses to
manipulate his body to his will.

Taehyung’s hand is wrapped around his wrist without his conscious permission, flying up and long
fingers twisting around his skin, clasping. He had been right – Jungkook, about sinewy muscle, is
warm, hot,scorching. Or maybe, Taehyung is going insane, but the contact he subconsciously
makes with such a small bit of his skin feels so forbidden it does feel as if the touch burns him.
His eyes fall to it briefly before they refocus on Jungkook’s. Taehyung’s stare is wide and wild,
perplexed and doe-like. Jungkook is as it previously was – lazy and unbothered. It shocks
Taehyung, that it takes so little effort of him to throw him around like that, could still his
countenance unmoved and lazy while easily twisting him to his will. So close, he feels so small,
though in height they are not much different. It is the size of Jungkook’s very presence, though,
that is impressive and makes their difference so significant.

Taehyung hasn’t much time to mull over that fact and how it secretly makes him feel, as Jungkook
is speaking next. It distracts Taehyung that the air of his breath, smelling of coffee, hits him, along
with another peculiar scent that is as expensive as it is nice. It makes him slightly light headed, but
he is unsure whether it is not just the proximity of Jeon Jungkook that is enough to turn his brain to
the stuttering mush he feels it is, as first lazy, somewhat tantalizing words travel to his ears.
“Blushing over my girlfriend’s words, aren’t you?” It’s almost a whisper and Jungkook’s nose
almost touches his before he tilts his head. It all feels private with an inappropriate, threatening
sense of intimacy. Shivers bring out gooseflesh on Taehyung’s skin and his hand tightens
subconsciously against Jungkook’s. “You like the idea of her wanting something from you.”

Taehyung stutters, voice almost a cough. “Jungkook-nim, I—”

“Shh. Ts, ts, ts,” the sound of the shush is a wave of a breath over Taehyung’s face as Jungkook
brings himself closer. Taehyung’s heart is palpitating worryingly in his chest, beating so powerful
and vicious it’s certainly not healthy. He can feel the heat of Jungkook’s body lining up with his
own and it brings out peculiar sensations in him, all warm and somewhat vacuous, igniting, he feels
desperate to move away, but too scared to do much about it. “Excuses are pointless, I know she is
pretty.”

He pauses briefly, tongue poking out to wet pink, full lips. Taehyung raids his mind for a response,
but just as something surfaces on the edge his eyes begin a brawl with his sense of adequacy about
glancing at his mouth again and again and he finds himself slightly at a loss for words. He has not
much to say to help his case, really, does not reckon the admittance he thinks Jungkook is worthier
to look at will do a whole lot in his favor, so he keeps his tongue behind his teeth and tries to fix
his gaze into Jungkook’s lazy eyes. It becomes most troubling when said lazy eyes drop to do a bit
of an exploration of their own, moving across his face slowly and dragging along the length of his
body as well before returning to dart across his expression again.

“You arepretty, too, aren’t you?” he says, and it is somehow gentle, yet somehow vituperative.
Taehyung’s ears are ablaze, body catches internal fire at the brim of his stomach and he becomes
weirdly aware of his knees. Jungkook makes their eyes meet and his lowered lips betray little to no
expression, while Taehyung imagines his must speak a thousand words. Jungkook comes closer
still and his nose is almost nudging at his cheek. “Smell a bit good, too.”
Taehyung wants to gulp but is afraid Jungkook will feel it from the grip her has on his tie. He tries
to stay impossibly still, eyes helplessly studying the features on Jungkook’s face, falling a little to
slide across the expanse of his neck. He is so close, and it is killing Taehyung that he can smell
him and Jungkook, obviously, can as well. He probably stinks of the moist, dull smell of the back
room, some cheap product he uses to wash himself. Jungkook is only a bit divine, a scent that is
pointedly expensive, Taehyung might have smelled it before, on other clients, but it does not sit as
well, sink so perfectly into their skin, and it is combined with the little more familiar nuance of
sweat, which, ridiculously is the furthest thing from repulsive. It’s -- and Taehyung cringes as it
passes through his head – weirdly masculine.

Jungkook’s hand tightens its grip while the other raises, a finger gilding at the corner of collar and
Taehyung is now striving so hard to stay still, he forgets to breathe. “Uniform looks nice on you.”
He speaks with a peculiar mixture of intimate impartiality, low and deep and measured. “Probably
the most expensive thing you’ve had on you,” he notes, still in that much composed voice and
Taehyung needs a moment to realize he has been offended, but before he even has the chance to
think of a possible response, Jungkook is saying more.

“Well, except now, you have me.” And he takes a step, closes a gap that sucks any rationality
away from Taehyung, lining his body along with his, the similar proportions of their length
allowing him to smoothly press against him. He can feel his thighs, his goddamn thighs.

Taehyung feels a bit faint and Jungkook is looking him over with those lazy, lazier eyes, smoothing
over the other boy’s discomfort and maybe a little smugness seeps in, threatens to expose itself at
the edge of his lips, which Taehyung glances at a couple of times for the briefest of seconds
because when he parts them, he can feel the warmth of his breath fan.

Jungkook’s eyes land on his own hand, the one which is holding him perfectly in place by the tie,
and now, he scoffs, brows furrow the tiniest bit. “Of course, you’ve done it the idiot way.”

He pulls away and both hands land on the tie now, undoing the knot. His eyes focus there, on the
movements he is making, and Taehyung’s heart is beating strenuously against his chest. It worries
him how close those hands are to his heart, worried if he knew why it was beating so hard if he
wouldn’t try to rip it right out. “Listen, pretty boy, Kim, I’m here to ask you something, yeah?” He
speaks to him now with the voice he uses to order his drinks, cold, detached and condescending.
His hands work the tie still, now creating a knot of their own. He is watching his hands move and
Taehyung is watching his lips move. “If my girlfriend comes to you and asks for a favor of
anysort,” the knot is almost done, all it takes is a little tightening, his eyes lift, and Taehyung’s
instinctively meet them, “be kind to yourself,” his fist glides against the length of his tie and the
knot is done now. “Say no.”

Jungkook pats him on the chest a single time then and leaves. Taehyung lets out a breath, head
falling back to the wall. He needs a minute, maybe more, just until it doesn’t feel like he has a
handprint on his chest from heat.
 Chapter 4
Chapter Summary

Very unedited, but I really wanted to get it out there. Might revise it at some point
soon.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Ji-woo announces her entrance with a door slam that Taehyung, doing some poor attempt of
seasoning – as he refers to putting on an overly generous amount of salt -- their dinner, a dubiously
cooked omelet, fails to hear with headphones in his ears, humming to a tune. So, he is only made
aware of her presence when she takes the liberty to hit him over the back with their little brother’s
school bag.

He shrieks and spins at the attack, ready to reciprocate with both the particularly heavy salt shaker
he had stolen – or, well, borrowedas he insists – from his workplace and the spatula he used to
poke at the eggs which he kept to utilize as a microphone in the case he decided to be expressive
with his nightly performance.

“What the--?” his eyes widen as he processes the sight of his older sister’s enlarged nostrils and
narrowed gaze. His mind immediately rummages for what mistake of his could have brought upon
her current rage, but he comes up blank.

She does not leave him wondering for long, though, as in a moment, she is yelling, “Did you forget
to pick up Woowoo from kindergarten?”

Taehyung blanks further, pales, stutters next. “I—what?”

Her brows lift up at his slightly gaping mouth. “Woojin? Our baby brother, Taehyung?”

“I know who Woowoo is, noona,” Taehyung counters dumbly.

“Well, do you know why he was left waiting for 2 hours outsideuntil his teacher called me and
asked me what the fuck was going on?” she closes up on him a little as he speaks, and he feels
himself retract towards the stove, backing down and nervously glancing at the stance with which
she holds herself and the strap of their brother’s bag, so easy to swing. “Hm, Tae. What the fuck
went on?”

“I—” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He forgot. He had finished up his shift and just gone straight home,
really desperate to take a shower and clear his head a little, as his thoughts had seriously deterred in
certain directions he wanted to avoid and saw no true point in indulging. “I forgot,” he confesses,
voice thin.

“You,what?” Ji-woo shrieks, pitched, takes a step forward and Taehyung almost recoils, almost
feels the bag colliding with his body. “I told you two days ago that rent is coming up and I’ll be
cleaning at the Jungs house warming party with the agency to earn something extra as well as
agreeing to do weeklies for an additional family and all youhad to do was remember to pick up our
brother up and you forgot?”

Shit, shit, shit. He takes a step forward, arms opening. “Ji, I’m so- “

She interrupts him with a finger in the air, a loud, brisk suck of air through her nose as she resorts
to something more torturous than her screaming – her reasonable, deflated disappointment. “Do not
apologize to me, Taehyung. He’s our brother. And he was waiting for two hours.”

Taehyung shakes his head, quick and desperate. “I know. I know. I know. It won’t happen again. I
just—” and he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to excuse himself, because he reasons
I was a bit overwhelmed by those rich guys you have to deal with as much as I dois clearly not an
adequate enough explanation for replacing the memory of having to pick up his brother with
panicking over Jeon Jungkook.

Ji-woo presses one hand into her hip, runs the other over the whole of her face before she weaves it
through her hair, pulling at the roots, the action drawing strands back and baring her face, pulling
Taehyung’s attention to the dark circles underneath her eyes. She sighs. “We promised each other
Woowoo would never feel abandoned, Tae.” Her voice is one of defeat as she closes her eyes, she
will not scream anymore, not tonight, and it breaks Taehyung a little.

He places the salt and the spatula on the counter behind him and steps closer, his hands wrapping
around her biceps and squeezing, but her eyes remain shut. “I know, noona, I know. I’m sorry. He
won’t. Not again. Not ever. I’ll speak to him,” it is a mantra of promises in a gentle, soothing
voice, his eyes searching her face.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “Speak to him tomorrow, he fell asleep. Don’t wake him.” She steps away
from his touch, not meeting his eyes, and his hands drop aimlessly by his body. She lifts Woojin’s
bag on a counter, leaning against it by her palms, her elbows twisting together with how skinny she
is.

“What about dinner?” Taehyung asks, but does not attempt to physically approach her again.

“I bought him a burger to make up for your absence,” she says. “You can have whatever you made
on your own. Omelet again, is it?”

“The eggs go bad tomorrow. I wanted to use them up,” he explains. She nods, eyes still pointed
blank to the counter. “What about you?” Taehyung questions.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re tired,” he says.

Her head shoots up, eyes bore into him. “Well, of course I’m tired, Tae. I spent eleven hours of my
day, cleaning and then I had to walk to Woowoo’s kindergarten and around to find him food and
get him home.”

Taehyung knows nothing he can say will be of any true substance. Words have rarely been, lately –
lately being the last he doesn’t know how many years. Still, he tries. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Ji-woo sighs, pulls away from the counter. Her lips tighten in something akin to a smile, but sadly
it is far away from reaching her eyes. “Yeah,” she whispers, maybe because she wants to, maybe
because she does not have the strength to do more. “Me too.”

She climbs the stairs after that, skips the third as they all know it’s a weak one and Taehyung got
his leg stuck there once. Taehyung eats two bites of the eggs before he scoops them in the bin. He
thinks about sleeping on the couch for a while that night before he goes upstairs to his and
Woojin’s room. He climbs the top bunk and spends a good few hours staring plainly at the ceiling
before he manages to fall asleep.
Jungkook drops his sack on the couch when he walks in, goes to the fridge. He grabs a bottle of
beer and attempts to go for his room, walking past the study. The door of it is gaping, however.

“Did you win?” his father’s voice sounds and Jungkook’s feet pause.

“Yes,” Jungkook replies honestly, swinging a gulp.

“Come closer,” his father instructs, fingers rotating his crystal glass on top of the end table, his legs
crossed. If Jungkook did not know better, he would assume his father actually had class.

He hesitates in following the order, but does not let his father see it, allows his legs to move
smoothly towards the armchair the other man is sitting on. He stops only a few steps into the
unnecessarily big room. He makes it apparent with a conclusive stance of wide legs that he has no
intention of coming further in.

His father’s eyes skim his body silently for a moment. “Must you keep that hideous hood on?” he
speaks with distaste, sips on his drink.

“It’s raining,” Jungkook shrugs.

“It’s not raining in here,” his father deadpans. His eyes are on him, always scrutinizingly on him at
this part of the night, when he is still coherent, when he can hold his head up enough to look at
him.

Jungkook’s eyes roll, tongue pokes in his cheek. He reaches up and slides the hood from his head,
directs his stare to some piece of contemporary art that sits in their study for it is accredited by its
price tag.

His father makes a sound of dissatisfaction with his tongue that makes Jungkook’s skin crawl. “He
got you pretty bad, boy,” he comments.

Jungkook knows the bruise is already forming round his left eye, the skin angry and reddening,
flesh swelling underneath. The guy had got too clear of a jab on his face and Jungkook knows it,
does not need to be reminded of it. He also knows the skin of his stomach will be a variety of
colors of red, blue, yellow, purple. He realizes it will hurt him when fucks Julia the following day.
But he also saw the other guy fall to the ground, felt a rib crack under his fist, completely changed
the look of his nose even underneath the shots of blood, was the cause why the people he was with
had to drag his body in a corner and then away. They will have to search for someone to check on
him, see if he has internal bleeding, if the ribs will heal, while Jungkook will just have to deal with
his father today and then he gets to go to bed.

Jungkook is heavily entertained by the prospect of saying you should have seen the other guybut
holds back on it. “I won,” he says simply. “Does it matter?

His father hums, sips. “As long as you didn’t make a fool out of yourself.”

“I didn’t,” Jungkook strains too quick, throat tight around his palpable instinct to snap.

His father’s eyes flit to him with the pace of his reply. They dart across him as his son stays still,
chin tilted slightly up, so the lightning would catch more on his good eye.

“Good,” he says, but it means nothing, “Because your sister did.”

Jungkook’s teeth grind together, jaw ticks, he acknowledges the comment with a head tilt. “Did she
now?” he asks tightly.

“She failed her violin solo,” his father explains, voice detached and casual, yet lilted by some sort
of iciness that Jungkook is terribly familiar with and despises – it is an arrogant note, a despicable
note. “It is hard to play an instrument when you have snorted too much cocaine.”

Jungkook remains wordless to this, stares at the excuse for art again, though he knows the prickly
eyes of his father are searching for his with a glint of condescending self-satisfaction, just because
he wants to see it all bother him.

“Jung Byung-Chul was present for it,” he continues, lifting the glass and tilting it towards his lips.
“It was wildly embarrassing for the whole family.” He pauses, sips. “You weren’t there, of
course,” eyes are sharp on him. “Where were you?”

“I was with Julia,” Jungkook answers honestly. “And Yoongi, briefly.”

“Ah, yes. The Mins were disappointed in the absence of their son as well,” his father
acknowledges.

“We went to the Ring earlier to discuss terms. He had to be there.”

His father lets the excuse hang in the air for a bit. “Schedule your beatingsaround events from now
on, would you? I need at least one presentable child around influential people.”

Jungkook allows his eyes to finally meet his father’s, struggles to keep the contempt away from
himself whenever there is a mention of his sister in their conversations.

“Did you hear me, Jungkook?” he insists.

Tightly, he says, “Yes. I will.” His tongue pokes out, goes briefly across his lips. “May I be
excused now? I am slightly tired.”

“As long as we’re clear.”

“We’re clear,” Jungkook responds automatically. His father lifts a hand, waves it dismissively.
Jungkook bows, keeping eye contact.

He spins and goes to leave, but his father’s voice stops him in his tracks. “Oh, and Jungkook.” He
pauses, sigh on his lips, eyes falling shut.

“Yes.”

“Would you make sure the maid is paid on Sunday? Neither I nor your mother will be available,
and she takes weekly payments in cash.”

“The maid?” Jungkook pauses, thinks. “Kim Ji-woo cleans for us, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t keep account of the names of the help.”

Jungkook twists his head, arches an eyebrow. “Not even for Kim Junsu’s daughter?” he pipes.

His father lights a cigar. “Hm. Cannot keep track of the bastard’s children. Poor people do
reproduce like bunnies, don’t they? How many did he have again?”

“Four,” Jungkook replies.

“That’s four too many.”

Jungkook hums in agreement and turns. He leaves next, going for his room. Down the marble
corridor he pauses. He hesitates in front of his sister’s room, lingers, eyes root to the door. It
intimidates him in a sort of way that he is unfamiliar with and, frankly, unready to address. It takes
him a moment, but he pokes his tongue in his cheek, rolls his eyes and goes in.

She is sprawled on the disproportionally enormous bed, her body looking tiny on top of engulfing
sheets; she almost disappears within them, but he comes closer and sees her distinctively, her hair
long on her back, clad in something expensive and decent, he imagines it was demanded of her to
wear. Her breathing is slow, her pose does not seem to be too comfortable, but he can guess she is
too trashed to care.

He comes close, crouches by her bed, studies her from there. She has her head on her hands and her
eyes shut, hair ruffles from the poof of her soft breath, falls in stranded waves in front of her face.
It is instinctive of him to reach up and move it behind her ear.

Her eyes part with his touch and he pulls his arm back, lets it hover in the air above her. Her lids
bat, once, twice, before she can fully keep them opened, one slightly squished by her position. Her
eyes are bloodshot.

Jungkook lets his hand fall back to his side.

“Hey,” he says softly as their eyes meet. He stretches his lips pointlessly into his cheeks, though
they both know it is not a smile.
Hers is. It is weak and barely there, but it is genuine. “Hey, Kook,” she rasps.

“How are you,” he asks carefully, “Clo?”

Her eyes fall closed for a moment and Jungkook wonders if she briefly falls asleep just then. They
part again and dart across his face numbly. After a second of silent gazing, she moves her hand,
reaches a finger towards his face, but he flinches before she can touch him, and she lets it drop on
the bed with a soft thud. “You’re bruising,” she tells him.

He looks at her eyes, first at the both of them, then focuses on one. “So are you,” he replies.

The weak stretch of her lips is no more; her mouth recoils briefly into itself. Her stare has no focus,
but then she looks at him bravely. Her voice is all she can manage, “He only hit once, don’t
worry.”

His response is sharper than he means, almost like an exhale. “Once?”

“Yes,” she confirms, nods.

Jungkook breathes heavy, sucks his lips between his teeth. He looks away, shakes his head, darts
his eyes all across her room, her expensive, exquisite, rich fucking room, with all those expensive
thingsin it, furniture, art, goddamn vases with all these decorative flowers. He has that, all that, as
many fake flowers as he fucking wants, he can probably buy all the fake flowers in Korea.

And Clo has a bruising on her face and it is in the shape of a ring he has on his finger, one his
father has, too, one she herself owns, but never wears.

“Someday…” Jungkook says, trails off. He does not mean to trail off, he actually wants to finish
the sentence for once, but she catches he can’t yet and interrupts him.

“I know, Jungkook. I know,” she whispers. “Not today, though, Kook.”

His tongue pokes between his lips. He thinks. “Clo—”

“It’s fine.” She smiles again, but this time it is more like Jungkook’s smile. “I’m tired now, Kook.
You can go to sleep.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?” He asks.

“Probably not,” she responds, and her eyes fall shut.

He nods although she is already out of it and he gets up and leaves.

“Are you dancing tonight?” Taehyung asks Jimin as he watches him change in a private room of
the Ozone. “Or just doing the bar?” He is toying with a delicate chain that has a jewel bunny in the
end and fell off one of Jimin’s outfits, whipping it up and down with brisk motions of his wrist,
slapping it Into his forearm. It has gone red now in a circular shape near a vein. His eyes stay
centered on the angered skin.

Jimin does his buttons. “Dancing,” he replies.

Taehyung lifts a brow. “That’s three shifts in a row now,” he acknowledges with a slight pout. His
legs are stretched long in front of him, heals digging in an excessively furry carpet near a
suspicious spot. His ass is propped on the arm of the leather couch and if it weren’t for the friction
provided to his feet, he might have been toppling to the floor.

“I need extra tips,” Jimin says, fixing something on his costume. He glances at Taehyung in
acknowledgment, but the other is still too engrossed by the jewel slamming accurately in the exact
same spot over and over again. “Rent is coming.”

“So I hear,” Taehyung snorts, and Jimin lifts a brow, but there is some particular deflation in the
scrunch of Taehyung’s nose and the following expression of inexpression that keeps him off of
questioning the comment.
“You know you can actually sit on the couch, right?” Jimin asks instead, lips tilting slightly at
Taehyung’s awkward and muscle activity demanding position.

He finally receives a stare, one of glaring horror, from his friend, as his eyes, quick and wide and
bewildered meet his. “And catch AIDS?” His voice is expressively high. He returns his gaze to its
previous indulgence. “No, thanks.”

Jimin’s eyes roll naturally. “Taehyung, for the I don’t know which time, that is not what these
rooms are for.”

“Then why is there a couch here?” Taehyung challenges.

“So people can sit?” Jimin says, filling his voice with sheer, ironing obviousness.

Taehyung lets his eyes play again, this time smirking when they meet Jimin’s, lips indulging as
well, twisting at edges. He looks a bit devilish when he makes such expressions and Jimin often
thinks with the assets Taehyung was born into physically, he could play his cards a lot more
sinister. “What, while other people ride them?”

Jimin nears him, uses the fabric he has in his hands to slap at him. It sounds in the air as Jimin
laughs. “Filthy,” he calls Taehyung, eyes playful on him and smile fighting hard to spread on his
face, dubiously entertained, yet certainly fond.

“Rich,” Taehyung retorts, “coming from you.”

He grips at the fabric when Jimin attempts to hit him again, and he tugs, pulling the other forward
unexpectedly until he loses his balance and awkwardly stumbles. He catches himself by
instinctively stretching an arm, pressing it into Taehyung’s shoulder, which falters slightly under
the weight of holding him up. His legs spread, each one on each side of Taehyung.

“Do you want me in your lap, Tae?” Jimin teases, voice slick. “Is that what this is about?”

“Please,” Taehyung peels Jimin’s hand off of his shoulder easily as the other straightens up,
walking backwards. “Don’t project your desires on me.”
Jimin smacks him successfully this time. “I have to go,” he tells him. “I don’t imagine you’re
staying here?”

“No,” Taehyung stands on his feet now. “I give it half an hour until someone busts in to introduce
more curious spots on the carpet. It’s dangerous.”

Jimin shakes his head, sighs, as he’s walking out. “I can’t keep you company, though, for at least
two hours. You’ll be fine at the bar, yeah?”

“I’m a big boy, hyung. Worry not,” Taehyung assures, following him out.

“I’m not worried,” Jimin says, a little low considering they are walking towards the hard thump of
the music.

“What was that?” Taehyung hums, lips rubbing together.

“I’m not worried,” Jimin repeats. “I don’t worry.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He chooses to agree, letting as little irony as possible seep
into his response. He doesn’t worry either. It’s a rule, unspoken rule, but it’s a palpable, well-
established one. He doesn’t worry. No one here worries. No one here cares. It’s the Ozone and the
Ozone is in Richhood and Richhood is no place for the personality and inter-personal indulgences
of worrying.

When Jimin leaves him at the bar and goes to dance, Taehyung drinks as he always does. He gets
approached as he always does and he flirts as he always does. He tilts his head back, downs a shot,
pouring it down his throat, trying hard not to let the liquid make actual contact with his tongue. As
he always does.

And when he gulps it down easily and straightens up, when he shakes thick strands of hair out of
his face, he lets his eyes wander. As he always does.

He tells himself he is not searching for anything explicitly, not for anyone, certainly, though the
part of him that worries someone will steal Jimin’s tips straight out of his pocket like it happened
last week, knows very well his sights are set. He glances at a boot up on the podium, the type of
booth that they keep reserved, which tonight plays host to Min Yoongi and Jung Hoseok. It’s just
them tonight and some faceless, nameless people, Taehyung doesn’t recognize and neither Yoongi
nor Hoseok will remember.

He rests his forearm on the bar, sighs. The bartender for the night is handing him another drink
that he is happily taking.

“Taehyung,” he thinks a voice sounds over the overwhelming thump of the music. It is the type of
music that will make him have problems hearing when he leaves. The type that forces his heart to
beat in accordance of its beat.

He feels a touch to his shoulder, delicate and almost there, so different to all the shoves he has
dealt with in this night, and he tenses. A body presses in his back, flush and tight, the shape of a
woman fills in awkwardly with his back, her warm breasts too close, too relieved. Her breath is on
his neck and her arms wrap around his waist, fingers draw on his arm, making hairs stand up
before they reach his wrist. She squeezes and tugs.

“Taehyung,” she says again, and this time he is certain his name has sounded; he feels it, the
vibration rubbing into his back as she does. “I have something to ask you, Taehyung.”

Her body disappears, but her grip on his wrist stays and she rotated him with her motion. Her voice
is almost ominous with how much it feels like a whisper when it is a shout.

Taehyung already knows what he will see when he turns, but still when his eyes find Jungkook
leaning on the bar behind Julia, he tenses further.

Jungkook has one hand loose on Julia’s waist while the arm of the other is fully lounging on the
counter next to him, fingers wrapped around a glass with no ice and lots of liquid. The fabric of his
simple clothes fits into him right, tight and flattering on top of his form, buttons popped on top,
sinewy neck revealed as well as the top of his chest. Taehyung does not know if he can get used to
the sharpness of his features, to the strictness of his eyes, so blank of anything, yet utterly
demanding.

They are on Taehyung, and he can’t really think properly while that stays such, not when he is
wondering if he smells the same as he did the other day, deliciously, explicitly masculine, if, were
Taehyung wearing a tie astray, he would fix it again, if his body would mould better against
Taehyung’s back than Julia’s just did. He imagines it would, snug and hard.
Julia tightens her grip on his wrist, her nails digging into skin and he breaks eyes contact, pulls his
eyes away, though Jungkook keeps his in place. Taehyung looks at her. She looks a little dead.

She pulls at him and he follows because Jungkook spins and walks. Taehyung’s eyes stay on his
back for the duration of the awkward, panic-inducing walk. The lights are going insane to fit the
upbeat music and each time they change so do the shapes on his shirt, moving over his shoulders.

They take him to a room much nicer than the one Jimin uses to change his clothes. It has a couch
as well, some mirrors and chairs, an even furrier rug. It’s tastefully colorful, feels perfectly with
the extravagant richness of the Ozone, designed perfectly to fit the vibe and style of those who
perpetuate it.

Jungkook is the one to open the door and, after Julia takes him to the center of the room, he is the
one to close it. He does not venture into the room as his girlfriend does. Rather, he chooses to
remain by the door, leaning on the surface, hard eyes finding Taehyung and he has never felt so
trapped.

He is actually beginning to feel the commencement of fear, a cold sensation that is most palpable
in his tummy and on his neck.

Taehyung would not have been able to imagine it if it had been left to his creativity, but now with
clear lightning and the music only a numbed memory that tries to force itself through the door,
Jungkook’s eyes are worse. His continuous vibe of lazy arrogance is particularly intimidating that
day, stare hard and dark, though it holds a glint of something almost fiery. An actual expression on
his face is nearly non-existent. His features are set into the way they have been perfectly molded
and he is nearly reminiscent of a statue to Taehyung.

He holds himself so casual, back against the door, arms folded, yet his vibrates something
intrinsically dominant and captivating, and Taehyung is striving hard to look at Julia, who is clearly
after his attention. He wants to allow them to perpetuate their shared belief that it is Julia who
draws Taehyung’s eyes for inappropriate amounts of time, but the compulsion of Jungkook’s
demanding stare feels impossible to evade until she speaks.

“Have you been here before, Taehyung?” She asks, voice light and pitched and very much
rehearsed. She speaks like a character from a movie, reading off of a script, with a lilt so pointedly
nuanced into feigned innocence that Taehyung worries she is unreal.

“No,” he says and he fails to keep the shake from his voice, though he is not entirely sure he is
trying. Intimidated, he is. He is not particularly surprised at their approach, had been
apprehensively anticipating it ever since Jungkook’s confrontation in the café. “I don’t know why
I’m here now, either.”

His eyes fall on Julia’s and she smiles a smile so gentle. There is a pause as he does and he has the
instinct to look back at Jungkook, ask him with his eyes, though he realizes it is ridiculous to
expect an answer.

Jungkook has been so quiet, he is mostly a presence, an incredibly enthralling, slightly hostile,
mostly neutral presence.

“Do you think I’m beautiful, Taehyung?” She asks, still using that fabricated innocent femininity
and Taehyung gapes, at a loss for words. It is harder now for him not to look at Jungkook — he
feels he needs permission for whatever his answer might be. Julia cocks her head at his hesitance,
pouts, though she does not mean it. “I think you’re incredibly beautiful,” she tells him.

Taehyung can only blink for a bit. Eyes dart to Jungkook with one of the helpless flutters of his
lids, but it is so quick he does not properly see him.

He has been called pretty boy many times. He has never been called beautiful.

“I,” he stutters, lets the pronoun hang in the air.

“Be honest,” Julia instructs, prompting him softly.

“Yes,” he gulps, after a beat. “You’re marvelous,” he tells her and she is, but he does not
particularly care; she’s beautiful and it is undeniable, but she has nothing that captures his
attention.

“Oh,” she says, her smile spreads. She takes a step forward. “Can I ask you to do me a favor,
Taehyung?”

His heart drops. His eyes fly instinctively to Jungkook, wide and perplexed, scared, almost. He
thinks he sees the other guy’s chin move in a nod, but he could be wrong, takes it as such anyway.
“I, uhm,” he is still stuttering and it is embarrassing, though he does not think he has been anything
but in front of this couple. “What could you possibly want from me?”

He allows his genuine curiosity and surprise shine through the question. She chuckles at this, but
stops before the sound feels naturally completed. “You’d be surprised,” she tells him, bites her li,
puts her arms behind her back, stares at the floor. She forms the perfect imagery of an innocent girl
and it is borderline ridiculous that he can see her nipples through the dress she is wearing. “I want
you to watch Jungkook fuck me, Taehyung.”

His jaw drops. Her lashes bat. Jungkook does not move a muscle.

“I— you, what?”

“It’s what I want,” she says, simple as that, and in retrospect, he supposes it is simple: people do
just want things at times, independent of their opinions, what they think is right or wrong, what
they want to want. “It’s what I want,” she repeats.

He has stilled completely. He knew the answer before she asked the question, because he has no
interest in Jungkook rearranging his face.

He has not processed it well, not processed the fact that maybe he wants it a little as well, when the
word leaves his mouth, hopefully definitively.

“No.”

Julia arches a brow. “No?” Her attitude does not change despite his denial and it is a worrying
indication for him that he is not being convincing enough.

He feels hot again, is pretty sure there is perspiration layering his neck, maybe his forehead a bit,
and not just from the heat of the Ozone. His eyes peek at Jungkook for help, but find none, only
newfound entertainment at his discomfort.

“No,” he repeats.
“Why?” She says, childish curiosity layering her voice. It makes his ears burn hot.

“Because I…” his eyes find Jungkook’s again for the merest second and he wonders how quickly
he would have said no if he hadn’t approached him, if he would have said no at all. He scrunches
his brows. “Why would I?”

Julia hums, takes a step towards him. She reaches, her nail falling on his chest and teasing along its
length. Three pairs of eyes follow the motion. Taehyung’s heart is rapid underneath the feel of it
and the scrutiny it causes.

“What if…” she trails off, voice syncing with the movement of her finger. It drops off of him when
it reaches too low and their eyes meet simultaneously. He can feel her breath on him and it is
almost as tangible as Jungkook's stare. “What if you get your sister’s monthly pay for doing it?"
She pauses and her when she hums in question and begins again, her voice twists higher in a
textbook definition of manipulation. "For sitting in a chair and watching something you’re only
pretending you don’t want to because it feels wrong?”

Her eyes search his and his search hers. Wheels turn in his mind like insane.

Money. It’s the dirtiest thing she could have offered and simultaneously and most sadly, it is the
one thing to unfailingly grab his attention.

His sister’s monthly pay on top of what the both of them usually make? For them, that would be a
small fortune. He can replace the stove with that; he can pay his part for next month’s rent as well
and keep a bit for severe cases. He can buy Woowoo that toy he forgets that all the other kids in his
group have but he doesn’t.

Her palm lays on his chest and, though it is warm, it is not nearly as scorching as Jungkook’s brief
pat felt the other day. “Think about it,” she tells him, barely above a whisper.

She can see his hesitation. It is written on his face that the no from before is now shaping into a
maybe in his head. It is enough to allow the smirk to linger on her lips.

She leaves him with the words and spins and goes, a small smirk finding itself on her mouth.
Jungkook’s hand is on the doorknob, he’s already twisting it and Julia is nearly there, they have
both nearly left, each of them self-satisfied for a different reason with an underlying conviction of
their own -- one about to be broken -- and then Taehyung’s voice sounds before he has really made
 up his mind.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“What?” Jungkook snarls, snaps, head whipping and a powerful glare landing on Taehyung at the
same time that Julia spins with a much calmer “what” of her own.

Taehyung ignores Jungkook’s burning eyes and instead indulges Julia’s smirking stare with all he
has. “I’ll do it,” he repeats. “If you pay me, I’ll watch you.”

“Good choice, pretty boy,” she tells him, smiles, almost genuinely. For a second, she looks less
dead. “We’ll be in touch.” With that she spins, she leaves.

Jungkook holds the door open for her. His eyes are dead set on Taehyung and all his previous
nuances of almost fear have now gathered and shaped into a complete and utter horror. Taehyung
is terrified.

“We’ll be in touch,”Jungkook tells him, promises through gritted teeth. It is a clear threat and it
does not fail to send shivers down Taehyung’s spine.

The door slams and he jumps. With the ring of it, the fact settles into his head, that he got himself
into his biggest trouble yet.

Chapter End Notes

Thoughts? Lol

Taetae’s in for all kinds of shit

 Chapter 5
Chapter Notes

This one is a bit shorter, but oh well

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Taehyung barely manages to open the door, labeled staff only,when he is roughly shoved back
inside. The door slams shut again, but not before someone who is certainly not staff enters the
small space of the storage room.

Small?It is tiny now, feelstiny, not enough space to properly breathe actual air, as his body meets
some metal shelving, digs into skin and bones and meat. It will likely mark with the force ofthe
collision, but physical pain is not what he can focus on as a hand grips his chin, fingers cold and
bruising, much too tight on his jaw. He holds Taehyung’s face in place, makes eye contact
unavoidable as he closes in.

“What the fuck,Kim?” his voice is not the shout he was expecting, not the angry snarl from the
previous day. Rather it is a calculated demand, slow, low and chilling, deep and almost guttural.

Taehyung knew he would face the wrath of Jeon Jungkook after his rashly made morally dubious
decision, which, he reasons with himself, was the right choice. He does not know what is going on
between Jungkook and Julia and nor does he wish to – which is maybe not the mostaccurate
statement, but he settles for it. All he does know is he will get an overly generous amount of
money to satisfy a rich kid’s whim borne out of a peculiar perversion of some sort, the analysis of
which is not in his domain of interests. Where his interest lies is, he simply has to be presentfor an
act that, while admittedly potentially disturbing, will unlikely last over an hour to receive full
month’s salary. It is not like he has to partake; his conscience, as desperate as him to maybe not eat
nearly raw eggs for a day or two, dictates there is nothing illogical in the decision he made, taking
everything into consideration.

Except of course, the factor of the worryingly violent, well-muscled other party affected in his
decision-making process, who is currently shoving him into shelves and cornering him tight.

He does not touch his body to his, not this time, stands close enough to feel and put into proportion
in Taehyung’s impulsive head the sheer difference of their sizes. His shoulders are broad, and his
hold is unwavering.
His eyes are as ever demanding, hard when they bore into Taehyung, pierce into him more brutal
than the accompanying scathing hiss of his voice. One is slightly swollen, purplish and yellow, and
Taehyung has the most ridiculousintuition to ask what happened. He remembers Ji-woo telling him
of her own meddling into his hurt, that he does not particularly enjoy it – though, quite frankly, he
doesn’t seem the type-- and Taehyung has already done enough to initiate a beating for himself –
he certainly does not need to give him another reason to slap him around some more. Most
importantly, he shouldn’t careabout Jeon Jungkook’s swollen eye.

“I—” Taehyung attempts to begin, but Jungkook takes a single step forward that almost seals their
bodies together, leaves just a breath of space. Taehyung’s back arches at an awkward angle, the
edge of the shelf digging painfully into his skin. His hands grip onto the lower shelf, squeeze
tightly until their knuckles turn white to distract him from other sensations coursing through his
body.

“I asked you for one thing, Kim,” Jungkook interrupts, hisses.

Taehyung grits his teeth, attempts to shake his grip off, but Jungkook persists, tightens. “You
asked,” Taehyung confirms. The sound of his words mimics the intonation of the other’s hiss,
hostility too much for the confines of such a tiny space. “She’s paying.”

His musing from the day before are answered. Jungkook smells the same, expensive and masculine
and a little sweaty. He reeks of testosterone, Taehyung formulates, not just in his scent, in his
stance as well, all physical and threatening, gripping at him, bending him to his will. Taehyung’s
alert, aware of it, of him, of how close his body is and how warm his breath feels on his lips, how
even and controlled his breathing is despite the confrontation, juxtaposed to Taehyung’s labored
exhales and thumping heart. It annoys him, really, that he can remain so calm.

Jungkook’s proximity holds a worrying mixture of intimidation and allure. Taehyung refuses to
consciously acknowledge that the heat of his tangible presence brings more than infinite dread.

His head cocks and he sneers, “Should’ve known you would be easy to buy.” His next sentence is
alike a spit. “You’re a Kim.”

Kim. There it is. A Kim. The Kims. He’s one of them.

Taehyung’s eyes narrow. Distaste pulls at his mouth, causes his lips to edge down. “If you think
youropinion on my poverty means anything to me, you’re dead wrong.”
Jungkook shakes his head as if in disappointed disbelief, his tongue peeks out slightly, pokes at
where his upper lip meets his teeth.

“Why are the poor so fucking self-righteous?”

Taehyung scoffs. “Why are the rich so fucking entitled?” He retaliates. Jungkook’s eyes are sharp
on him when he continues. “I don’t owe you anything, Jungkook-ssi.” He tries to pull his head
away again, but Jungkook’s fingers tighten in a warning before they relax against his skin slightly,
just hold him. “Unless you pay me. Which your girlfriend will be doing, so if you have problems
with that, hit her, not me.”

Taehyung half expects to be hit at this point, almost flinches as he speaks. Instead, Jungkook
smirks. His voice drops a note when he talks next, reaches its usual laziness and more. His eyes
drop as well, dart across Taehyung’s face as he loosens his grip on it further to reveal it fully. His
touch is barely there by that point, fingers ghosting over skin and it is almost gentle. Taehyung
does actually flinch when his thumb glides across the line of his jaw, and Jungkook’s lip twitches
in amusement at his reaction. “You’re mouthy today, aren’t you?” he questions lightly, it is near a
whisper and Taehyung pauses in his venture of response, though he has a couple of things in mind,
stiffens both at the unexpected sound of it and when Jungkook’s eyes pointedly drop to his mouth,
a thumb sliding underneath it on his chin. With the same tantalizingly gentle voice, he whispers,
“It really sucks your face is too pretty to ruin. Julia would be so mad.”

His eyes dart upwards again, meet Taehyung’s widened gaze, scrutinize subtly every feature of his
face and the way they would twist at his handling or words. Taehyung feels just a bit like he’s on
fire under those eyes. They’re a powerful set, dark and deep and demanding, yet possessing the
eeriest sense of playfulness. They tease him, without even fully intending to, it seems, and
Taehyung hates them.

“You really need to sort shit out with her, don’t you?” Taehyung says, and he attempts to layer his
voice with a bite but is unsure it is successful.

Jungkook’s face is way too fucking close. He realizes the proximity of it is threatening, a statement
of its own to stand near enough to breathe on his skin, to almost brush the tips of their noses, but to
Taehyung it simultaneously feels like more, and he hates that, too.

“It’s none of your business,” his mouth says it to him, but it his eyes that spell it out.

Still, Taehyung cannot resist the rashness of his own tongue. “You’re makingit my business.” He
can’t see why not, really, Jungkook had already stated his face would not be rearranged – too
pretty.

The skin of it where Jungkook’s fingers still slightly ghost feels scorching. Jungkook’s head cocks.
The neutrality of his set face is troubling to Taehyung, who is perfectly sure he reads like an open
book, has always been cursed with expressive features, the vulnerability of which always most
palpable and dangerous in Richhood.

“You could have said no,” Jungkook says calmly, yet Taehyung can almost feel the rumble of his
chest against his, just a breath of an air, really, between Jungkook’s Egyptian cotton and
Taehyung’s polyester.

Taehyung shakes his head as much as Jungkook’s loose grip would allow him. He does not know
why in that moment he tries to genuinely reason, lets honesty soak through his words, though
Jungkook could never understand. “I needto say yes.”

Jungkook’s eyes harden. “Are you sure you’re just not using your poverty as an excuse to watch
my girlfriend naked?”

Taehyung breathes, the exhale of his angered disappointment flowing through his parted lips and
directly into Jungkook’s and he hopes the other can taste it on his tongue, though he understands
that would be giving him too much credit into the ability to empathize. His eyes narrow and as
honesty does not seem to work – and as Taehyung does not have the capacity or trust for more in
the presence of the rich – he resorts to spiteful hostility. “Maybe if you satisfied her better, your
girlfriend wouldn’t want meto watch her naked.”

It leaves his mouth and Jungkook moves quick enough for Taehyung to know it is not fully
conscious. His body closes in further, thigh forces its way between his legs as his elbow and the
length of his arm press sharply into his chest under the ministration of his hand, fingers, quick and
agile, wrapping around his neck. The pads of his digits squeeze into flesh and his palm digs
forward into his jugular. Taehyung’s hand flies up instinctively, latches around what he can of
Jungkook’s forearm, though it is trapped flush between their chests. His eyes go wide as the heat of
shock and fear grips him, running over the length of his body almost like a current. He can feel his
throat constrain around a choke, but the other’s grip is not truly hard enough to take his breath, just
brusque enough to surprise and scare, and when Taehyung’s lips part to gasp for the air he is afraid
to be rid of, instead they expel a subtle, quiet moan.

Jungkook’s mouth had previously opened to prepare for retaliation, but as the sound hits his
senses, the breath of it hot on his skin, he pauses. The boy in his rough hold visibly stiffens.
Taehyung is engulfed by nerves of a nature that is not exactly clear to him as he stares, eyes wide
and perplexed as Jungkook watches him. Those eyes, those eyes that he hates, study his face, dart
across it with a quiet, bemused interest, still not entirely rid of their lazy, arrogant indifference,
though it is subdued by a small betrayal of curiosity. They are slow in their exploration of his
features and completely shameless, unadulterated, bold, charting across as if they have the right to
be exposed to each sentiment of Taehyung’s newly emerged vulnerability.

The gaze is as scorching as the grip still firm on his neck, as the thigh still pressed into him to keep
him in place. Taehyung squeezes at the other’s forearm and it is a plea that Jungkook uncaringly
ignores. He is fully engrossed now in scanning every inch of Taehyung he can cover with his
scathing eyes, his face a mask that Taehyung loathes.

It doesn’t mean anything. None of it does, nothing in this interaction means absolutely anything,
because Taehyung said yes and no matter what confrontation he is promised enough money to
perpetuate that answer. So Jungkook’s hand on his neck and body on his means nothing; in a
moment it will be gone and then, forgotten. Jungkook won’t remember that when he squeezed his
neck, Taehyung moaned, because Jungkook doesn’tcare. And Taehyung won’t as well, because, as
much as he is aware what implications it may have, he also knows the truth of it was just a
peculiarly shaped gasp of pain and shock and nothing more.

It doesn’t matter how Jungkook’s body feels on his, because the heat is fear and the palpitations in
his heart is stress. Because no matter what twisted interest he has taken in Jungkook’s outward
physique, no matter what curiosity he feels towards him, Taehyung likes to be inside of girlsand
thinks nothing of the leg Jungkook has between his – all it is is discomfort. He thinks nothing of
how easy Jungkook can manhandle him – it’s derogatory, nothing unexpected of the rich towards
him. He thinks nothing of Jungkook’s eyes taking in his entire being right about now, pausing at
his foolish mouth through which the cursed sound had been evoked, as all Taehyung could do is
breath through parted lips and helplessly stare back.

The poor’s life is as ever in the hands of the rich. The silence kills him, and he needs to have the
other one distracted.

“I don’t care to see your girlfriend naked,” he partially says, partially croaks out, voice rough and
breathy.

Jungkook’s eyes dart up at the sound of his voice. He is still quiet, awfully quiet, though his eyes
speak volumes, which remain nonsensical to Taehyung, coded in a language he can’t learn to read.
He still voices nothing as his fingers tentatively tighten around Taehyung’s neck. He watches his
face contort, features twisting dubiously, lids struggling not to meet. He hasto keep his stare, but
teeth take his lip, bite down into the tissue until Jungkook loosens his grip.

Taehyung instinctively loosens the one he has on his forearm, realizes he might have been
squeezing there too hard, using his unevenly cut nails, and worries he might have left marks that
would remind Jungkook of this, but then reasons Jungkook is probably in the capacity to ignore
any scar if he wills it, and summon any inexistent one on Taehyung’s skin to remain in the position
he is in.

Jungkook shakes his head suddenly, nose scrunches up, creating lines between his eyes, and the
atmosphere in the room twists and bends to his bidding – as does Taehyung’s body. “What’s wrong
with you, Kim?” Jungkook snarls and releases him, steps away.

It can mean anything, and, honestly, too many things are wrong with Taehyung for him to answer,
so he remains silent, still in his position reminiscent of that of a cornered animal. He has the urge
to touch his neck where Jungkook’s hold had been, but he resists it, stares ahead instead.

“Get your money,” Jungkook tells him, cold, firm and dismissive. “After that, stop fucking
watching us.”

Us, he says, not her. And then he leaves.

Ji-woo is almost done, fortunately, when Jeon Jungkook enters his kitchen and clears his throat.

She is wearing the uniform required of her agency, playing as a docile maid, almost ridiculous and
movielike, so stereotypical it reminds her of the costume of the service in The Sims. She is wiping
at his table, body bent awkwardly, arm stretched to cover as much mahogany as possible from one
and the same position.

She straightens up at the sound he makes to announce his presence, retracts her arms protectively
into herself, instinctively moving behind the cover of a chair. Working for her particular agency,
she has met enough brats that sexualize her uniform and think fit to make advances with the
rationale they are paying. Though the few times she has encountered the younger Jeon he, unlike
his despicable father, has never laid even an eye on her, it is second nature for her to be protective
of her appearance in front of male clients. And bending over a table is a no go for her.
He’s bruised, it’s the first thing she notices. His neck is layered with several marks, reddish and
purple in color, mapped on his skin, there to stay as reminders of something privy to him and
whoever left them – and Ji-woo would assume it was Julia, but it is never a safe guess with people
like Jungkook. He is sporting a blue eye as well, a bruise of a completely different character, but it
sits less angry on his skin.

“Good day, Jungkook-ssi,” she addresses and bows down in greeting. She is slightly apprehensive
as to why he would take the time to notify her of his presence, seeing as he usually treats her like
excessive furniture.

His response is a nod, more than his father is willing to give and she attempts to pull her lips in a
smile. He steps forward, and she tells herself to stay in place. He is impressive as is his sister, both
in looks and in talent, and it is hard for Ji-woo not to acknowledge this, no matter how perfectly
cold and distant the Taunting Twins are. Of all their talents widely known, in sports, in music,
academics, thisshe is most envious of, their ability to completely detach.

He continues stepping closer and remains obediently in place until he makes his pause a couple of
steps from her. He has a presence and a stance that is naturally intimidating, fed well with his
physique, but Ji-woo has spent her entire life being intimidated and by now for her it has lost its
significance.

He reaches a hand into his back pocket, fishes out a wallet of some coarse material, all simple and
black with the expectance of the Louis Vuitton logo embraided in the corner. She goes off as she
always does, wondering for how long her family and her can survive on the price of an object as
simple as this, as he peeks at his insides, counts some notes, gathers them into his hand and then
stretches them towards her.

“This will be for your service for the week,” he tells her.

She takes them, bows again, smiles in truth this time now with the notes secure in her fingers.
“Thank you,” she says, pitched work voice easily falling through her lips. “I’m almost done. I’ll be
leaving in a bit.” She informs him out of habit, though she doesn’t suppose he cares. His penthouse
is big enough for him to avoid her presence completely if he wills it.

She bows at him again, conclusively, and twists with the intention to continue her work, though in
mind of her position, careful not to do anything that could be in any way assumed provocative. It
doesn’t matter really, the perversion and entitlement of some of the rich can sickeningly twist any
small indication into sexual. She is used to their lewdness.
She has taken advantage of it, as rare as she can, but she has. There was shame tied in with this fact
of her life once, but shame is not something she can afford.

“Is my sister in?” Jungkook’s voice is nearly startling for her. She does not expect a conversation
with him.

“I believe she’s asleep,” Ji-woo responds honestly. She had had to spit the girl’s room for the day
with her cleaning, as the Taunting Twin had been plastered on the sheets, nearly bare, her clothing
half-way off and a little ripped. Asleep, Ji-woo says, but she is almost convinced the young girl
was passed out.

Jungkook nods, and she expects he will walk away after, but he lingers. Her ears and the corner of
her eyes track his movements as he strolls towards the fridge, takes out something that sounds like
a can when he pops it opened and leans against a counter. She’s uncomfortably aware of the
younger’s presence, mainly in how atypical it is, wishes he would leave, though when she chances
a glance, she can see he is on his phone, not looking at her.

In a mediocre attempt to ignore him, she focuses on wiping his table.

“Is that how much all families pay you for weeklies?” his voice sounds and Ji-woo’s eye shoot to
him, narrowing. His are still on the device in his hand.

“Excuse me?” She straightens up, one hand automatically clutching at her hip. She squeezes it to
remind herself to be careful with him, though she can’t help the animosity that falls through her
voice. His had been neutral if anything, but to her it sounds like accusation and if he dares to
insinuate she is taking too much from them she will be ready to beat his ass with his fucking Louis
Vuitton wallet no matter how many muscles he has.

He looks up briefly. “Can’t really be enough to look after a household,” he acknowledges, and it
could have come across empathetic, but he makes sure it doesn’t.

His eyes are back on his phone and Ji-woo studies him for a moment before she decides it’s
pointless, he gives nothing away other than sheer brattiness. She shrugs her shoulders,
“Taehyungie works as well,” she tells him, though she regrets it as soon as it comes out of her
mouth. She is always hesitant in mentioning anything about her family around her clients.
“Taehyung?” his eyes are back on her and his voice is slow as he lets the name roll on his tongue.
She does not like the way he says it, does not think he has any place speaking it, especially as
ominously as he does.

“My baby brother,” Ji-woo says, though she knows Jungkook knows exactly who Kim Taehyung
is. Everyone knows who each of the Kims are, and she’s always hated that. “He waits at Rouge,”
she continues, though her client is well aware of that as well. She’s sure Taehyung has served him
enough times for him to take note that he is being waited by aKim.

Jungkook nods. The pause that follows is long enough for her to finish up the table. “Does he fuck
girls, your baby brother?”

Her brusque, sharp ‘What?’ is spluttered out of her mouth as soon as his words register. Wide eyes
search for his, but he is once again taken with his phone.

“You heard me.”

She blinks at him, at his boldness. “What sort of question is that?” her client voice is replaced by
shrillness she can’t control.

His eyes jump to hers briefly before returning carelessly to the screen. “He looks a bit like a homo,
doesn’t he?”

Her hand is back on her lips and her eyes are narrowed in a lethal glare. “Not that is any of
yourbusiness, Jungkook-nim,” she licks her lips. She’s trying to keep her anger low and under
control, refuses to hand on a platter another reason for her brother to be the talk of Richhood. His
name and salary do enough damage. “But he does fuck girls. Some I would rather he didn’t,
honestly.” She lets genuine annoyance at some of her brother’s past rendezvous’ coat her voice, as
he does tend to sleep with herfriends, hoping maybe the other would detect it.

She does not know what looking like a homo is supposed to constitute in his limit, rich head, but
she refuses to question it. Her brother, she knows, is certainly not one, not a homo and not gay,
either.

Jungkook’s brows lift on his forehead. “Hit a nerve?” he teases, is arrogant enough to even tease
with indifference.
 Ji-woo cocks her head, scoffs. “My responsibilities here are done for the day, sir, so if you’ll
excuse me.” He doesn’t excuse her, but he doesn’t stop her, either, so she gathers her belongings
from their marble hallway and leaves.

Chapter End Notes

comments are appreciated -- it is my first fic, so all feedback is welcome; thank you to
those who have left kudos and nice comments so far, it really makes my day to see
people enjoying it
 Chapter 6
Chapter Summary

This monstrous piece of shit was written in one sitting that lasted until 4 am and then
some and it is completely unedited, so, fair warning, there might be mistakes. I'll
revisit it in a bit, but for now I just want it out there. Hope you enjoy. Thank you to
those who left kudos and comments, especially comments nothing is as motiving to
write.

Taehyung was well aware of the hatred he harbored for Jeon Jungkook’s eyes, but he could have
never really imagined what the extent of it was until he met them while he was fucking his
girlfriend.

Taehyung receives a message from an unknown phone number at noon on one of his free days. As
soon as his phone vibrates, his heart squeezes in itself. He has not opened the notification yet, but
he feels weirdly uncomfortable at merely receiving it. He isn’t usually superstitious, but there is
some unpleasant giddiness disturbing his chest and his hollow stomach as he feels the device. He
straightens up in his lounging position, preps himself, once he’s sat properly, he does not feel ready
per se, but he sees no point in waiting. Then he opens it.

Letters stare at him. Bright and numbing, he sees the words on his flashing screen. It’s ridiculous
how something as simple as a text message can carry an ambiance that is this intimidating. Maybe
he’s just broken now, maybe Jungkook squeezed at his neck too hard and somehow, he popped a
braincell too many.

The words are very simple. The Executive Tower. Room 7.13. Saturday. 22.00

The message is signed a very simple ‘J’and it could mean both Julia or Jungkook, but either makes
his heart swell and tremble worryingly into his chest and drives him to be peculiarly aware of the
tonsils in his throat, which feel weirdly large in their confines. He swallows in attempt to make
them settle.

It is obvious to him what the message refers to and his eyes bulge a bit at the destination the pair
have chosen, though retrospectively, he shouldn’t be surprised. Jungkook’s a Jeon and Julia’s a
Seung. He briefly catered for an event in the Executive Tower once, knows the prices range from
400,000 won a night to about a million. A greedy, curious part of him wants to go solely for the
purpose of witnessing such luxury. He remembers he had entertained the idea of trying to sneak
into a room while he was there, absolutely fascinated and intimidated by the sheer glory of the
foyer and the restaurant. The world fancy had been engrained in his brain for the whole duration of
his busy stay in the premises, though it failed to even begin to describe the quality and nature of his
surroundings.

It is fitting, he thinks, that Jungkook and Julia could afford to bask even their perversions in utmost
luxury.

Taehyung already knows he will go. Privately, he sees no chance for him not to. Ji-woo and
WooWoo and him, they need those money. Their father has not been home for three weeks and
four days now – Taehyung counts, and he knows his little brother does as well, he sees the lines he
makes on the wooden boards of the top bunk with an especially pointy pen he has. Ji-woo has been
working her ass for lately, taking every opportunity her firm gives her to wash more toilets. He
knows she is tired, that she hardly eats so that there is more food for Woo and himself, that the
stress and desperation attached to sense of responsibility drives her into making harsh, rash
decisions which get people talking, calling her names that reach Taehyung’s ears. He knows the
rumors, knows even that some of them are true.

He hasto go. That is not what worries him. Rather it is the fact, he wantsto.

His rationale is a strange mixture of flattery and curiosity, to the extent he is willing to admit to
himself. He does not want to entertain even as privately as it is in the very personal confines of his
own brain, how much his ridiculous and inexplicable fascination with Jungkook is at play in the
formation of the realization.

He is nervous, and he is guilty. When Ji-woo smiles at him on Saturday morning before she leaves
to go to work, he feels an encompassing sensation of shame. He knows she has always made bad
decisions so that he doesn’t have to, yet here he is, wondering how to fucking dressto play a
background role in some exhibitionistic sex fantasy a rich girl can afford to have and act out. He is
explicitly aware he is nothing more than a convenient pawn that is, as Jungkook had accused, easy
to buy.

He is pretty sure most of the clothing he owns could lead to him being physically kicked out of a
place such as The Executive Tower, though Taehyung, considering his budget, is usually
distinctively well dressed. He likes clothes, he thinks, sometimes the ones catching his eye being
what most would see as ridiculous. His taste is particular. He would love to have the opportunity
to explore this peculiar passion, but rationalizes his admiration of purposefully ugly brand clothing
is at the lowest on his lists of priorities.

Especially as he enters the foyer of the Executive Tower. Filled with giddy dread, he feels small,
insignificant. He’s put on nice, but bleak clothes, yet he still feels immensely out of place.
Everything is simply grandiose, huge, towering and tangibly expensive. Radiant and luxurious, and
it does not fail to leave Taehyung’s mouth gaping and eyes impossibly wide as soon as he sets foot
on the exquisite flooring. He reminds himself not to gawk, to walk, is put at unease as people in
suits mostly, pass him, unbothered, thoroughly unimpressed.

A man bows at him as he enters, and, instinctively, he presses his palms together and respectfully
reciprocates the gesture, eyes wandering to his feet. When they return to the person’s face,
Taehyung recognizes perplexity coloring his features, brows furrowed and nose arched, his heart
pumps faster with worry that he had done something wrong.

The beat escalates further when fingers latch around his bicep, tightly, almost painfully, and thug
at him with sharpness and strength that propels him forward without a choice. He loses his balance
for barely a moment before his footing settles, body thinking quick in result of his countless
accidents as a waiter. He is now forced to take quick steps in a direction unbeknownst to him,
digits still bruisingly tight around his arm, a body close to his.

“Don’t do fucking full bows for staff, Kim, do you imaginemebowing to you?” Jungkook hisses,
speaks mostly through his teeth, lining his mouth with Taehyung’s ear just for the briefness of
saying that, but it is enough to elicit goosebumps on the other. He pulls his body away, but keeps
his grip, doesn’t trust him to fucking walkwithout assistance. He sets a pace that is just short of
running and leads him in a direction he is obviously well familiar with.

“I—” Taehyung attempts to speak, retort, but Jungkook interrupts him brusquely.

“Spare me the excuses and concentrate on walking before someone sees us.”

Taehyung’s mouth smacks shut, eyes rolling. He briefly considers making a scene just in spite of
the other’s entitled attitude but concludes he cannot risk the money at the expense of retaliation to
someone who will not even care in the end.

Jungkook only affords to let go of him when they step into an elevator that is wonderfully golden
and full of mirrors, gives Taehyung the stupid urge to take a selfie. Once the doors of it shut,
Jungkook drops his hold with exaggerated mannerisms, as if Taehyung would give him the plague
if he touches him for too long. He naturally leans his back onto a wall, props his hands on a railing,
after pressing the button, moves around the space with a comfort of familiarity that reminds
Taehyung just how different their lives are.

He does not dare lean on a wall, afraid he’ll somehow damage it, but does stand as near as the one
opposite from Jungkook as he could just so that he can be the furthest away from Jungkook that is
possible.
Taehyung’s eyes center on the floor as he simply refuses to look at Jungkook from such a
proximity, reasons he will be doing enough of lookingas the night proceeds, the twisted variation of
dread and excitement swelling inside of him as the thought strikes him again. He has been ignoring
actively contemplating what it is he is about to take part in -- or witness, he insists -- preferring to
just go with it and then forget about it, let his presence in the room be entirely physical and
momentary.

Jungkook’s eyes are on him, however. His face is as ever oxymoronically intense and indifferent,
though in a moment in twists ever so slightly, brows drawing nearer and lips tilting downwards. He
frowns. “What’s with the hair?” he says into the ringing silence of the elevator.

Taehyung’s eyes snap up, hand instinctively flying to grip at some strands at the back of his neck,
fingers scratching. He hesitates. “It’s erm, because of my brother,” he settles for after a moment.
Normally, he wholeheartedly avoids speaking of his siblings to anyone in Richhood, especially of
his brother who is still not as actively labeled a Kim. His family has always been his greatest
vulnerability and, naturally, the last person he wants to betray that to is Jeon Jungkook.

Taehyung’s hair is currently painted bright red, which had been WooWoo’s condition for him to
forgive him for forgetting about him and practically abandoning him. Supposedly, wearing his
favorite color on his hair was a testament for his dedication and love, and when Taehyung kindly
explained to him he will likely be kicked straight out of work if he showed up looking like a stop
sign, WooWoo justified he could just do it for the weekend. Taehyung agreed, not really
considering Jungkook and Julia would see him with it, because quite frankly, WooWoo and Ji are
always his number ones.

Jungkook is silent for what feels too long to Taehyung after he acknowledges the hair. His eyes are
scrutinizing, plastered on him, boldly studying his features and the strands that fall into him, and it
makes him nervous for some reason. Suddenly, he is hit with the bewildering desire to know what
Jungkook thinks of something as insignificant as his hair color. He wants to know if Jungkook still
thinks he is pretty. He hates that he does.

“I know it’s weird. I –” Taehyung begins to say, his nervousness forcing a babble out of him, but
the other interjets.

“You should get rid of it,” he states curtly. His featured have settled into their usual insouciance
again, his voice and stance betray nothing. Taehyung’s mouth smacks shut for the second and
contorts into an instinctive pout, his eyes a little wider with deflation at the response.

Jungkook hates the hair. It’s vibrant, pulls his eyes right to him, like a magnet, attracting and
gripping his attention without his consent, and he really wishes the boy would get rid of it. He does
not wish to be as awareof him, of a Kim, and he does not want Julia to be either. He does not want
for her to look at him and see how the vibrancy brings out the melanin of his skin tone, which
flatters his features, takes him a little outside of being pretty on the verge of being beautiful.

Jungkook is not blind, neither is he stupid; he is perfectly capable of acknowledging when physical
characteristics sit well together, whether it is on a male or a female. Usually, he would just not have
that acknowledgement attracting his attention on a boy as it would on a girl. Taehyung’s
unavoidable goddamn hair makes that impossible. He could probably see him from a mile away on
a crowd of people with that glaring, poignant color.

His full lips are pouting and Jungkook is distracted. “It’s too vibrant. It’ll attract attention,and it
will get you fired,” he says, and Taehyung’s face twists confused at his elaboration after a
prolonged pause. The other boy’s pout softens, and he does not really think about it when he adds,
“and we don’t want you even more desperate for money now, do we?”

Taehyung’s eyes immediately narrow, a small semblance of hope that there is a shred of decency in
the rich fuck shatters as quickly as it had foolishly sprung. He wants to say fuck you or simply
ignore him, something that will not reap repercussions. That is not what he does, though.
Impulsivity has always been a sin of his, and he knows it, as words lush spitefully to his lips.
“Why?” he speaks roughly. “Are you worried your girlfriend would want to buy more of me?”

Jungkook does nothing but stare, though a bit of something flashes in his eyes, as he cocks his
head. Taehyung is shamefully irritated the other manages to remain so much in control, he has
always taken him for the violent, rash kind, had expected to have his hand around his throat again
at the boldness.

Jungkook’s stance is casual and unbothered, but his voice is icy. “Careful with those lips,
Taehyung. You don’t want something shoving in between them to keep them at bay.”

The elevator dings and Jungkook steps out, back to Taehyung before the other can even begin to
process what had been said. He gapes after him, stunned into immobility for long enough for the
doors of the elevator to slam into his sides when he begins to step out.

There is so much wrong with Jungkook’s last sentence, every bit of it, starting from its very
implication and ending with the fact that it is the first time he says his name to him. Taehyung,
he’d called him, not Kim. Taehyung is flushed and jittery, heart palpitating as Jungkook wordlessly
leads him towards their destination. He has been feeling generally inadequate and disconnected
throughout the day, ever since Ji-woo smiled at him the morning, but now sort of settles into
reality and his fingers are twitching.
Taehyung. He sort of wants to hear him say it again, the acknowledgment of him being his own
person, not a Kim. Then again, the context of the pronunciation of his name makes him tangle his
feet a bit. Taehyung knows these small, ridiculous desires, wanting to hear his name, wanting to
know what he thinks of his hair, are paving an extremely dangerous road, but he relaxes himself,
knowing he would not walk on it for a boy, especially not for a rich one.

Jungkook never pauses, not when he reaches his desired door, even, already having fished out a
card out of his pocket. He opens the door and Taehyung has to, of course, embarrass himself in his
efforts to reach it before it slams shut, doing a small half run to catch it.

It shuts behind him.

Jungkook enters as if he owns the space, shunning himself out of a suit jacket he was wearing as
soon as he steps in, throwing it on a couch in a lounging area that is in front of a huge bed. The
room is naturally impressive, big and sterile, fit for luxury, warm brown, orange, beige colors with
a couple of bright reds for contrast. It is beyond Taehyung’s imagination really, considering he has
only ever been in a motel. It is something off of a movie for him. He refuses to allow himself to
gawk at it, at what money can buy, though he does not know what else to do, really. How to handle
himself in such surroundings. He lingers awkwardly by the door.

Julia is there. She is curled elegantly to the point of it seeming unnatural on a couch in the seating
area, adjacent to the one Jungkook used as a clothing rack. She is wearing something black that is
contrasting to her pale skin and Taehyung cannot properly distinguish whether it is a dress or a
nightgown. Her eyes drag slowly towards Taehyung and he gulps.

Jungkook approaches her, rolling the sleeves of his shirt, exposing sinewy forearms that Taehyung
refuses to look at.

“Were you seriously going to allow him to wander off to the receptionists?” Jungkook snaps,
looming above her.

Her eyes shift to him. She smirks languidly. “I don’t see why not.”

Jungkook huffs, shakes his head and walks away from her. “You’re going to get me in so much
trouble one day, Julia.”

He stalks to a cupboard underneath the flat screen TV that is fitted to a wall that is so nicely
paneled Taehyung could spend an entire day just looking at it, as he could at the embraided pillows
on the couches and the bed. Jungkook’s fingers disappear in his pocket, and he pulls a small metal
box out of it, that by itself is prettier than anything Taehyung owns. He places it on the cupboard,
opens it and hastily toys with its contents.

“You get yourself into enough trouble without my assistance, love,” Julia speaks to her boyfriend,
but her eyes are on Taehyung. He, however, fails to notice as he is too engrossed in watching
Jungkook.

“Not over a Kim,” Jungkook grinds out. He picks something metal, thin and pointed, bends over
the cupboard, and snorts.

Back to a Kim, is Taehyung’s first thought. He’s snorting cocaine is Taehyung’s second, though it
fails to genuinely surprise him. Working where he does, he has dealt with removing remains of the
white powder from toilet sits and sinks enough times to know where its pseudonym Rich Man’s
Drug comes from.

Jungkook straightens up, wipes at his nose. “Do you want some?”

“No, I want to be sober tonight,” Julia says, though the way she speaks makes Taehyung wonder if
she has taken anything else.

“Suit yourself,” Jungkook says. He does another line quickly. His eyes then fall on Taehyung, dark
and pointed. “Kim?” he arches a brow.

Taehyung blinks, taken aback. “Are you offering me?” he implies incredulity in his voice without
actually attempting to.

Jungkook’s lips stretch, twist, and he is smirking as well, all lazy and nonchalant. His body is half
twisted to him, staring at him from his side, half a profile, half en face, and Taehyung is annoyed.
Dark hair, pale skin, and sharp, rugged features. Everything about him is so prominent, muscles,
bones, beauty. He doesn’t deserve it, Taehyung thinks.

“I have manners,” Jungkook says, teases, and Taehyung knowshe doesn’t deserve it.

Taehyung’s lips crack opened. Julia interrupts, and her voice is rougher. “I want him sober as
well.” Taehyung’s eyes are forced to hers. She stares, unbothered, when she says, “Your hair is
fucking hot.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, whether to thank her or not, feels dumb when he turns to
gauge Jungkook’s reaction. He sees his jaw tick, firm. The line of it is harsh and protruding on his
face. “Julia,” he says, but she keeps her eyes on Taehyung, even when he walks towards her and
pauses beside her. “You’re the director. Say how you want this to play out and let’s get it over
with.”

She finally does entertain his presence, lifting a hand and flattening her palm against the lower part
of his stomach, her fingers long and well-manicured as they stretch out on him. Taehyung wonders
whether the lines of his stomach feel as hard as he imagines them to be. His teeth sink to his lips,
nervous and punishing of his thoughts.

“Eager, are we?” she grins and it’s venomous.

“I want this done,” Jungkook says.

“Why?” Julia’s voice is sultry and malicious. Her fingers sink lower and her palm hovers at his
crotch. “What are you afraid of?” she nearly whispers to him, looking up, widening her eyes with
innocence that is foreign to her body. She presses her hand against him.

He grips at her wrist and pulls her at her feet. She stumbles a bit, the elegance that she had been
forcing into her demeanor breaking a bit. He keeps his hold on her, placing the other hand on her
hip. He presses her into himself, something fiery sneaking into the glare she turns to him. His
indifference remains, and it is almost palpable as he looks down on her. Taehyung already knows
that indifference well enough, but he wonders what it would be like to be looked like that by
someone you tell you love.

“Tell him where you want him,” Jungkook instructs Julia, his hand lowering from her hip, circling
around until it reaches her backside. It pauses there and after a firm squeeze, settles. They’re
mouths are a breath away, words traveling from his to hers and Taehyung already feels he is
breaking in on intimacy where he is not supposed to, mostly because of the way her eyes dart
across Jungkook’s face, losing their hardness with each passing second and softening into a
vulnerable affection that lacks in the other’s entire being.

Taehyung wonders if his eyes had been as traitorous of vulnerability when words travelled from his
mouth to Jungkook’s when he had his hand around his throat and his leg between his a few days
prior.
“Here,” Julia says, she points to the couch where she had been sitting. It looks towards the bed, and
it is way, way too close to it. “I want him here.”

“Okay,” Jungkook breathes, releases her wrist for the sake of brushing a finger across her lower lip,
his thumb and forefinger cupping her cheek. He turns to Taehyung. Julia’s lips touch at his jaw.
“Can you sit here for me, Taehyung?”

Taehyung’s mouth is dry, and he does not trust his voice. It is the second time he says his name
and Taehyung is glad he had granted him with the first one as a chance to prepare himself because
he is not sure he would have been able to live through that one. He swallows nothing and nods,
tongue poking out to taste at his lips, checking to see if there is actually any moisture left.

Jungkook’s lips twist ever so slightly at Taehyung’s obvious affect and the latter hates it with a
passion. Julia tongues at a hollow dip of his jaw and throat, her lids have closed together, and
Taehyung wonders if she knows his attention is on him. Jungkook lifts a hand up, the one that used
to hold her chin and beckons with a single finger.

Taehyung has underestimated this, he realizes wholeheartedly, as soon as his feet move under the
motion, as soon as something unfamiliar and charging courses through him. He has underestimated
the unwitting power Jungkook has developed over him due to his awkward and misplaced interest.

Jungkook slides his palm in Julia’s and tugs her away. Taehyung stands before the couch they had
indicated for him. His eyes dart questioning and wide towards the other boy. He nods at him and
Taehyung drops to the cushion.

When Jungkook looks at him, it is with the perpetual indifference and some borderline distaste.
Taehyung knows what the gaze says, that it means he is doing this for Julia and that he does not
want to be there. Yet, there is a pinning intensity to his last glance that makes Taehyung forget he
is doing this for Julia(‘s money) and not because he wants to be there, there for Jungkook.

The object of his thoughts turns to Julia at last and his tone drops. He defines seduction and he
does it well, says, “Now tell me what you want me to do,” demands it softly, but firmly at the
crown of her head, brushes her skin with his lips lightly, lets them hover as his lids drop low as if
heavy, to allow his pupils to focus on her from his towering proximity to her.

Taehyung gulps.
He sees her bare skin awaken under his ministrations, gooseflesh layering her body. He
understands, imagines it would have the same effect on him, and hates himself briefly for replacing
himself with Julia and not with Jungkook, like they expect him to do.

“Kiss me,” she tells him.

He cocks his head, lets his lips hover high up on her cheek before he presses them there, kissing her
gently.

“Jungkook,” she whines, frustration oozing from her voice and traveling into Taehyung’s body.
She fists at his shoulders, her fingers gathering the expensive fabric. He hums to her in question, a
soft vibration of his chest where her fists lie. “Kiss me.”

“I did,” he teases. His mere voice is a sin.

“Properly.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” she breathes with exasperation.

She almost does not get to finish her last breath because he sucks it out of her, lips meeting hers,
parting immediately and he kisses her, properly. Taehyung stirs. He has no place there. He
shouldn’t be there. He should go. Jungkook kisses with vigor and she returns it with just as much if
not more. It’s slow, but it’s deep, it’s bold, it’s wet, it’s… erotic.

Her hands are on his biceps, on his shoulders, on his neck, in his hair, fingers threading through,
tightening in strands, tugging. His are on her body, squeeze at her waist, her hips, her ass. He
pressed her to himself, holds their body flush, uses the hold he has on her cheeks to control her
movements and she is pliant in her hands, though Taehyung knows his strength is enough to move
her even with protests.

His fingers gather the material of her gown and he bundles it until reaches above her backside,
revealing her tight, round cheeks. Taehyung watches the veins and bones in his hands and fingers
move as he does it, as he touches her skin next, digs into it, underneath it and next she is in his
arms, her bare, skinny legs strewn around his waist, high heels still tightly fit to her feet. She seems
to weigh nothing to him as he lines her body with his. Her fingers are still in his hair, he’s kissing
her jaw, her neck, her collarbones. He’s kissing her everywhere.

Her head falls back, lips gasp and part, her eyes are shut. Taehyung sees Jungkook roll his body
into hers, directing her middle with his hands as he wishes, pressing her where he wants her on
him.

He has her back on the mattress in a moment, walking her over the side so that Taehyung would
have a side view as his body aligns on top of her. Jungkook tugs on her dress and it drops off of
one of her shoulders easily, revealing a single small, perky breast. He runs his fingers over the
curve of it, and Taehyung is mesmerized by how naturally his fingers find her nipple, press and roll
it between their tips as he kisses her neck. She arches her back, releases a lewd moan, her fingers
still on his nape. She tugs on his hair

He grips her wrists, presses them into the mattress by her sides, her hands so, so small in his. His
tongue licks a stripe down her skin. Briefly his mouth simply parts against the globe of her breast,
does not touch it, rather than just allow the warm ghost of a sensation pass through her. It gets her
whining again, and he closes his lips around her nipple. Taehyung sees the graze of his teeth before
he parts with it because he is watching Jungkook move down her body rather than the way her
features twist and her lips shape around her moans.

Jungkook straightens up on his knees, looks down at her. He has his muscled ties in between hers
as her legs fall apart from their hold on him. Though he releases her hands as he looms above her,
she keeps them in the position in which he had pointedly pressed them. He looks at her, eyes dark
and low-lidded. He has disheveled her in the shortest time. They match in heaving breaths and
parted, swollen lips. Her eyes open, finally again, and she takes him in, gaze questions and beg,
why had he stopped, leaving her half naked and waiting.

Her legs press into him, and he taps the knee of one with a single finger. She parts them. He settles
his whole palm there, wordlessly sliding it across her thigh, lower and lower until it disappears
underneath her gown. It comes back out again, this time a finger hooked on a flimsy piece of
fabric. He drags it up to her knees, then moves back to allow it to fall.

Taehyung has his own hands on his knees, fingers squeezing hard into his protruding caps. His
heart is racing in his chest, mouth drier. He feels his own lids have dropped slightly, heavy, as his
eyes watch, his lips are beginning to part.

The fabric catches on her heel, but Jungkook pushes it away. He places both hands on her calves,
runs his fingers up until they reach the back of her knees, gliding them across her skin ever so
slights, then grips, holds her, Taehyung sees them dig into her flesh. He parts her knees and bends.

Taehyung sees very little, watches it like soft porn from a movie scene, her legs around him, him
fully dressed and her stretched out in the scant dressed, one breast on show. He sees him bite her
thigh first before his head dips, sees Jungkook’s dark hair between her parted thighs, sees the
muscles on his back move even under the fabric of his shirt. He wishes he would take it off. He
sees her hands finally betray their position and reach for him, tangle in his hair again, sees her back
arch more, her lips gasp and moan. One of his own hands slides down the length of her, then
diverts at her elbow. His fingers tease at her breast again, twirling around her nipple.

Her digits squeeze into his hair, tug at strands.

“Jungkook,” she says, she moans, she whines. Her head falls to the side, her face now fully
revealed to Taehyung. He squeezes at his knees harder when her eyes part briefly, tease over him,
heavy and dark and gone, she’s gone. Still, she manages a smirk, her mouth curling cruelly before a
gasp is forced out of her, her lids draw together with pressure and her teeth bare, white and
glistening as she closes them over her lower lip.

Jungkook straightens up and she whines terribly again, returning her attention to him, eyes wide to
his. He is stable on his knees while her legs are trembling around him. He runs a hand in his hair.
Taehyung feels scorching, blazing heat course through him at the sight of him. His hair is wild, and
his eyes are lazy, but dark, deep, intense. His lips are full and swollen, glisten.

Julia’s thighs press into him desperately, her eyes never leaving his face. He licks his lips and
Taehyung squeezes his knees even harder.

“Wanna suck my cock?”

Taehyung does not know how he doesn’t snap his kneecap into pieces.

Julia’s smirk turns devious. She twists on the bed, lying on her stomach in front of him. Her fingers
cup around him, her eyes following the movement of her digits for a moment before her lashes bath
and she stares up at him.

Her smile twists, the corners frowning. “You’re hard,” she tells him, feeling him.
“You make me hard,” he responds slowly. Her eyes drop to his crotch again, where Taehyung can
see the clean outline of a firm bulge. It makes his face burn, makes the blood in his vessels rush
worryingly. He keeps his eyes away from him. Julia’s twist to him and, accidentally he meets them.
She does not look at him with the same sultry zest from before; there is the strangest notion of
deflation in her orbs.

“Julia,” Jungkook calls, his fingers lingering beneath her chin. Her attention falls on him again,
their eyes connecting as she lies before him. He strokes his thumb across her jaw. “Suck my cock.”

He drops his hand from her face and instead replaces it in her hair as she brings hers forward,
fingers pulling at his belt, unfastening it quick and clean and smooth.

Careful with those lips, Taehyung. You don’t want something shoving in between them to keep
them at bay.

It rings promisingly, threateningly through his head as Julia slides his zip down. Jungkook sucks in
a breath, hisses, cocks his head. His fingers thread through Julia’s hair. Her digits disappear
beneath the fabric. She pulls his cock out and, indeed, Jungkook is hard and thick,and she holds
him, licks the underside of him, before her tongue teases at the tip, lips circle and her mouth sinks
on him, and fuck, Taehyung is hard as well.

He hates it, hates the fact that he barely feels the type of discomfort he is supposed to. Rather what
he faces is a tightening in his pants, a racing heart and heaving breaths, worst of all, running,
ludicrous thoughts, urges, wonderings – he wonders, wonders if Jungkook is heavy in her arm, if
he is hot, if the skin of him feels silky, how his skin tastes, if it’s uncomfortable to stretch her lips
like that around him, if his fingers are pulling too hard in her hair. If it hurts her.

“Good girl,” Jungkook hisses under his breath and Taehyung has to skip a breath to avoid choking
on it. She takes him well, he sees, her cheeks hollowing out around him and his length
disappearing with the bob of her head.

Jungkook gathers all her hair in one hand, shapes it like a ponytail and holds it like that, using his
grip to set and direct her pace. His head cocks, twists, and suddenly his eyes are on Taehyung and
this time Taehyung skips a full ten seconds of breathing. His eyes are blatantly dangerous, still very
much lazy, but glinting, focused, heavy-lidded and dark. His face is a peculiar mixture of relaxed
and tensed with pleasure, features sharp, but softer than usual. His lips are parted, breaths shallow
as they pass through. His jaw angles upwards, the line of it straight and cutting as he looks at
Taehyung from above it.
Taehyung leans back into the couch; he wants to be as far away from that stare as possible. His legs
part unconsciously, he does not want to put pressure on himself in case his situation gets worse and
the position allows him a little freedom. His hands now grip at his thighs, not at his knees, and he
accepts the challenge in that look. He does not shy away from it, no matter how much it burns him,
at his skin and at his insides.

Jungkook returns his eyes to his girlfriend. He tugs at her hair. “Enough,” he mutters, hissing when
she pulls away and his cock falls out of her mouth. He holds her in place by the grip he has on her,
his other hand falling to him, stroking himself languidly a couple of times. Taehyung pulls his lips
in his mouth, sucking on them, biting, hard.

“Lose the dress,” he instructs and releases her hair. She straightens on her knees in front of him,
the both of them mirroring each other on the mattress, eyes rooted into the gaze of the other, his
hand on his cock. She grips the edges of her gown, lifting it shamelessly over her head and
discarding it carelessly on the floor, not even sparing it a glance, less Jungkook’s focus escapes her
and Taehyung does not want to think of its price. She’s slim and tight and firm, her breasts small,
but full. Taehyung’s gaze doesn’t linger.

She crawls towards him, her fingers latching on buttons. They’re trembling a bit; her legs are as
well. She undoes his shirt and he watches her, but when she goes to push the fabric off of his
shoulders, he grips at her wrists.

“No,” he says.

“Why?” she whines, her hands struggling in his hold, but it is firm, causes the muscles in his
forearms to bulge.

Jungkook’s jaw juts towards the couch on which Taehyung is sat. “Hedoesn’t get to see me,” he
grunts out. His voice is rough and raw and final.

“But Jungkook—” she attempts, but in a flash he has her on her back beneath him, a hand pressing
her down in between her collarbones. He looms above her completely bare body, his own clad,
though his parted shirt allows for glimpses of bruised skin and sharp muscle and Taehyung loathes
his desire to see more.

“I. said. no,” he grinds out, pressing his hand into her harder.
Julia’s eyes harden into a glare. “Fuck you,” she breathes.

Taehyung agrees, fuck him.

Jungkook’s lips stretch. He smirks as a hand reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out a condom
that now Taehyung realizes would have been imprinted with the tightness of the back of his pants
and marvels at his boldness, to stroll around the Empire Tower with the glaring implication of a
condom. “Works other way round, sweetheart.”

He opens the packet of his teeth, because of course that is what he does. He rolls it on himself with
one hand, the other disappearing between her thighs, but Taehyung cannot see exactly what he does
from the side. Only sees her twist and gasp.

“Fuck,” she hisses. “Fine. Fuck me.”

“Gladly,” he tells her, grips at himself. He props a fist by her head and slides inside of her with a
roll of his body that to Taehyung can only be described as exquisite. A loud moan jumps through
her parted, gasping lips, answered in a grunt of his.

Taehyung’s hands gather into fists and squeeze into themselves as he watches Jungkook move. He
is ruthless, quick and rhythmic with his thrusts, moving Julia’s body easily beneath him. He rocks
into her with power and control and it drives her desperate and whining, her legs hooking around
his waist, her hands gripping at his shoulders, but he pushes them into the mattress above her head
with one of his, grips at them there and fucks into her faster.

Taehyung is throbbing. His eyes are transfixed and captivated, darting across the whole of his
body, the way he moves, rough, hard, but controlled. Taehyung hates his clothes, fucking loathes
them more than poverty in this goddamn moment. He wants to see him, wants to see his skin, his
muscles, where they dip, where they protrude, how they align and bulge underneath his hot,
glistening skin.

Jungkook fucks like it’s goddamn job.

Julia is lost beneath him, a mess, she moans and arches into him.

“Fuck,” he’s hissing, voice impossibly breathy and nuanced with pressure and strain – it’s
beautiful. “How are you such a slut and you’re still so tight?”

Taehyung’s ears burn. Julia moans.

“Jungkook,” she calls his name, desperation lacing through her shaky speech. He fucks her a bit
harder. “Is he—“ she stutters, struggles, moans. Her eyes are shut, and her lips are trapped between
her teeth. She releases them to speak, attempt to, whimpers betraying through her words. “Is he
watching me?”

Taehyung’s heart drops in his chest when Jungkook’s head turns and their eyes meet. His eyes are
permeating, sultry, demanding, glaring, and absolutely beautiful and Taehyung absolutely hates
them. He despises them, loathes them. He has never been more passionate about anything as much
as he is about his loaded hatred towards Jungkook’s eyes.

His expression is strained, more authentic, vulnerable. He is softened by pleasure, and though his
movements are controlled, composure slips through his face to betray the most erotic
defenselessness of sex and pleasure. It’s in the furrow of his brows, the tongue poking lightly
through lips as he breathes hard and uneven, but mostly, it is in his eyes.

Jungkook knows where Taehyung’s eyes are before he even turns. He feelsthem.

He knows the pair are rooted on him, haven’t left him all night, and won’t. He is well aware of the
bulge straining in Taehyung’s pants before he even sees it, though once his eyes do pass by it, his
hips stutter roughly inside of Julia.

Taehyung is sat there, legs spread wide and stretched before him, expression hooded by whatever
it is he desires, by the fact he is turned on. His face is soft and exposed, pouty mouth parted around
slow, heavy breaths. He wonders if Taehyung knows how his stare looks, how his eyes have
dropped low-lidded and alluring, beckoning and sensuous. He wonders if Taehyung knows his
want has morphed him into something completely different than the nervous mess he is supposed
to be.

His wide legs and hooded eyes make him look as if he is the one orchestrating this, as if Jungkook
is fucking for his sake. He appears domineering, possessive of the air around him, powerful,
seductive, bordering on devious underneath the vibrant red hair.

Jungkook is glad for his uneasy shift on the couch, for his tightening fists. They remind him he is
the one in power. Taehyung is there because hecan pay him, and he is there against his will, but he
still has his cock hard in his pants, wanting, struggling. Jungkook knows it must be straining
against the fabric, uncomfortable. That with the little shift of his hips just now it must have brushed
against them, teasing him. He wonders how much Taehyung has to hold back; how he much he
would like to stare right into Jungkook’s eyes with that heavy, gone gaze and reach into his pants,
pull his cock out, wrap his goddamn endlessly long fingers around it and stroke himself until he’s
spurting, maybe Jungkook’s name a breath on his pouty, desperate lips.

“Jungkook,” Julia moans and his hips snap.

“Fuck,” he curses, losing a bit of his control, his rhythm. “He’s looking.”

He spares Julia a glance, but his eyes are quick on Taehyung again.

Jungkook allows himself a smirk and sees Taehyung’s tight fist shift closer to his stomach. He
wonders if he can fuck Julia hard enough to make the other touch himself.

Taehyung’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets when Jungkook releases Julia’s arms and instead
wraps his fingers around her neck. He squeezes. She gasps her name falling through her lips, more
pitched now, her trashing is getting more desperate, her hips lifting to meet his are brusque and
instinctive.

She’s close, but Jungkook’s eyes are not on her. They are on Taehyung as he holds her neck.
Taehyung’s lips part further, lower one dropping. He’s gaping. His cock twitches, untouched in his
pants, and his legs close together on their own accord. Jungkook’s smirk stretches more, and
Taehyung is convinced he is the Devil reincarnated, but then he grunts, betrays that same
vulnerability again. His hips are rushing, snapping, rhythm dropping.

“Jungkook,” Julia whines, chokes out, more and more putty in his hands by the second.

“Come for me,” he rasps to her, putting pressure on her neck. His eyes are still firm on Taehyung
and the latter feels a bit faint. He’s hot, sweating, feels the perspiration layer each inch of his skin
underneath his clothes, and wonders how Jungkook survives with the exertion, wants to scoff at his
stubbornness.

Julia’s hips pace impossibly against his and then they still completely, pressure gripping her body
and holding it for a moment as Jungkook keeps fucking into her. She comes with the syllables of
his name loose on her lips.

Jungkook lets go of her neck and falls on his elbows, his mouth layers with hers briefly, and their
eyes meet before he turns his head. She breathes words in the skin of his neck and ear as he rocks
into her, hard and rough and unrelenting. His thrusts are snapping. His eyes are shut tight until they
are not, and he stares at Taehyung for the last time before his breath hitches, hips shove into her
and still. He rolls himself languidly inside of her a few final times. She holds his biceps and keeps
her lips on his skin.

It’s the last time that night Taehyung gets to see his eyes. Jungkook avoids his presence like the
plague when he slides out of Julia, when he pulls the condom off, when he walks off to a room he
supposes it the bathroom.

Julia, on the other hand, does not stop staring. She pros herself on her palms, breathes heavy,
fucked out and sweaty. She stares at him, naked, shameless, a handprint on her neck. She struggles
to catch her breath for a moment, disheveled, but when she does, the smirk is immediate on her
face – it’s different, though, gentle, almost, soft. He feels she is not smirking at him, but to herself
and very privately to herself.

“You’re hard,” she announces, her eyes bold and wandering to the obvious bulge in his pants.

Taehyung’s gaze instinctively falls to it, too. He shifts, clears his throat. “I—

“He’s leaving,” Jungkook appears at the door, his hard, indifferent eyes settled and firm on Julia.
“Give him the money. He’s leaving.”

He disappears inside the room again and Julia flashes a manicured middle finger at his back. She
pushes herself out of the bed and walks comfortably around the room, completely bare. She
flinches with her first step, switches her footing a bit, then walks easily. She almost has a leap in
her step as she walks over to the cupboard on top of which Jungkook’s cocaine still stays. She
opens a drawer, takes out a fat load of cash.

She’s casually in front of Taehyung in a moment and he stares at the floor.

“Come on,” she rolls her eyes, “you just watched me get fucked. It made you goddamn hard,
Taehyung. You can look at me naked.”
Taehyung blinks. “I—

She brushes a finger on his cheek, he lifts his head with the motion, following it until he meets her
eyes. “I want you to look at me naked.” She bends, next, and his heart stutters with nerves when
her lips gently land on his cheek. He stares at her collarbones, at the hair that falls in the both of
their faces. “Thank you, Taehyung,” she whispers to him before she straightens up.

He’s wordless.

She slips the money in his lap, spins and returns to the bed. “You can go,” she’s barely said, and he
is on his feet. He wants to get out of there. He wants to get rid of the fucking hard on he’s sporting,
is actually considering amputating it at this point, ponders children and sex are worth the
embarrassment of Jeon Jungkook knowing he turns him on and Seung Julia thinking she does.

“Taehyung,” she calls when he is at the door. He pauses, though he does not look at her. “What do
you think of me?”

His hand is on the handle. “I think you’re beautiful, Julia,” he tells her. Then he leaves.
 Chapter 7
Chapter Summary

A little insight into characters and Jungkook being a prick as always.

Chapter Notes

It’s been a long time, but well it’s Christmas. Merry Christmas. Thank you all for the
wonderful feedback, best possible gift.

Ji-woo comes down the stairs on Tuesday after a nap she was too tired not to take. Taehyung is at
that point humming distractedly to himself as he cooks. Bibimbap, he’s cooking, not just eggs.
He’s using nice ingredients as well, not ones that were on promotion because they were about to go
bad.

Her hands grip a ball on the rail, dig into it until knuckles turn wide. Her eyes are wide and her
voice is shrill when she calls to him, startling him into almost dropping his utensils before taking a
ridiculous defensive stance.

“Tae,” she shrieks. “Woojin steals.”

Now, Taehyung drops his utensil and it falls to the dingy floor with a loud, penetrating ring.
“What?” He responds, mirroring her alarm.

Ji-woo takes a couple of more steps down, edging closer to him. She replaces her wide eyes from
him to her footing a few times. Those stairs can’t be trusted even if one knows them well. “That
automated car toy he wanted with a remote control that three of his friends reportedly have? He’s
currently playing with it. Taehyung, he stole it.”

Granted, her voice is brimming with exasperated disappointment. The thing is, the Kims? They
steal. Their father steals. Their brother used to steal, he doesn’t anymore, to their knowledge,
though they currently have no knowledge of him. Ji-woo takes things sometimes, things she knows
won’t be missed, little, meaningless things. Taehyung borrows things from the restaurant. The
utensil currently lying at his feet, for example, he did not buy. The stainless steel got burned in a
clumsy mistake of an assistant chef, so he figured they could do without it.

They do it. However, that does not mean they don’t consider it wrong. It does not mean they would
ever endorse their little brother doing it. Ji-woo and Taehyung have promised each other time and
time again, each time their father disappears, the day their brother left for good, that Woojin’s life
would always be the furthest it could from that of a Kim.

Taehyung sighs, relieved, his eyes rolling backwards on their own accord as he waves a dismissive
hand and bends to pick up his utensil, wiping it off on his ancient, similarly burned apron. “He
didn’t steal it, noona. Chill.”
Ji-woo’s arms fold in front of her chest as she steps towards him, the scent of his cookery reaching
her senses and sneaking into her nostrils. Her brows arch. Her voice rings suspicious. “And how
did he get his hands on it then?”

Taehyung hesitates, licks his lips. He has his back to her again, but feels her edging closer. He
shrugs. “I bought it for him.”

The shrillness and incredulity return as Ji-woo speaks. “You bought it? With what money,
Taehyung? And why? Are you trying to buy his forgiveness when we still haven’t paid rent— Is
that brand fucking rice? Have you gone absolutely mad?”

Her voice raises so suddenly and loudly, close to his sensitive ears, that he almost hits her on
instinct. “My god, noona, scream any louder my ears will fall off.”

“Can you focus on the fact you’ve completely flipped out?” She chastises, backing off a bit
physically, but ready to yell some more if it needs be. “They’ll kick us out if we’re late with rent
again.”

Taehyung refuses to turn to her. “They won’t. I already paid.” He mumbles as he speaks, talks
underneath his nose, but she hears.

Her brows draw together, lids blinking on their own accord like a bat flapping its wings, rapid and
heavy. She pauses. “What do you mean you paid?” Disbelief layers her voice, perplexity as well;
she’s doubtful and confused.

Taehyung pretends the food he is cooking is in dire need of his absolute undivided attention as he
speaks. He cannot look at her when he is spewing his carefully prepared lies. He is afraid she
would be able to tell by the spark of guilt in his genuine eyes. His mouth crafts lies easily, trained
to do so by the life he’s been living, but his eyes, when it comes to his family are treacherous of all
his intentions. “A waiter spilled brewed tea on me and the restaurant paid me damages not to sue
them for potential bodily harm like the Lees did two years ago.”

Ji-woo blinks once more. A smile too big for the perpetual unobtrusive sadness of her natural face
spreads immediately into her cheeks, shining through her voice when she shrieks entirely too
differently from before. “Really? Oh my god, Tae, that’s fucking amazing. That’s awesome, how
even the fuck — I, er, I mean. I mean you’re okay, right? Are you okay?”

Her slim hand is suddenly on his shoulder, spinning him around as sympathetic eyes examine him
from the forehead to the heels of his feet, though the unadulterated happiness has not left her face.
Taehyung meets those eyes, worries his lip between his teeth, but allows the tips to twist, a grin a
helpless reciprocation of his sister’s happiness.

“I’m fine,” he says, placing his hand on a spot on his stomach which he randomly chooses. “I just
have a big red blotch right about here, but really I’d take a couple of more oolongs if it means I get
to see you and WooWoo smile like this.”

He’d watch anything Julia wants him to to see his siblings shine like this.

Ji-woo swats at his shoulder. “That’s shit, Tae.” She tries to remove the grin from her face, but it
seems impossible for her to fight it. “Did he really smile?”

Taehyung’s nodding hurriedly. “He was beaming. You should have seen him.”

“I wish I had.” In a sudden outburst of movement Ji-woo wraps her arms around Taehyung’s
middle, cheek pressing tightly into his chest, and she rocks them both to the sides gently. “God. I
can’t believe I’m actually happy you got boiling tea spilled on you. I’m bad.”

Taehyung’s smile changes slightly, grows fonder and more vulnerable on his face as he eyes down
the girl clinging to him firmly. She’s warm against him, but he holds his arms spread wide apart to
accommodate her, doesn’t really hug her back. It’s been so long, he realizes, since he’s been
embraced like this. It feels warm and weird, but good.

He’d fucking join the rich brats for this.

He grips at his sister’s shoulders and gently peels her away from him, suddenly even more
uncomfortable at holding her when the thought hits him. His cheeks burn slightly, blood running
hot on the inside of his skin as prospective images cross his mind, vision of Jungkook moving
above Julia, him shunning his shirt this time. Him touching Taehyung this time

He should want to be inside of Julia, he realizes. And he does, a bit. She’s tight, Jungkook had said,
igniting a fire in Taehyung with the desperate breathiness of his strained voice, and for a moment
he imagines the roles to be reversed, him fucking Julia and Jungkook’s ungodly eyes focused on
him, forced on him, all his undivided attention reserved solely for Taehyung. Would it turn him on
like it did Taehyung? Would he be tempted to reach inside his pants, tug himself out, fuck his palm
with the fire of his gaze engrained on Taehyung’s body?

“I have to finish dinner.” Taehyung announces, clearing his throat. He turns away from his sister,
swarmed with a variation of guilt that is entirely new for him. He’s never hidden something like
this from her. Ever. She has dedicated her entire life the past couple of years to taking care of him
and WooWoo. And what does he do in return? Wonders what a Jeon would look like masturbating.

Lies. He tells dirty, stupid lies. Lets himself get bought. What would Ji-woo think if she knew?
She falls low for money as well, she does – he doesn’t ask, but he knows. Still, he thinks she would
throw away their dinner and WooWoo’s toy straight away if she knew how he’d bought them.

She’d still allow him to pay rent, though. She can’t afford to be that disgusted.

“You do that,” Ji-Woo smiles at him and an empty sort of hurt bugs at his stomach instead of the
burnt that is supposed to be there. “I’ll go play with WooWoo until dinner.”

Taehyung nods and she turns to leave, a hop in her steps as she bounces up the stairs energized. She
halts at the top, turns to look at her other little brother. “Taehyung,” she calls. He hums in response,
focus on his food. “Thank you,” she says softly.

She disappears then completely and so does his smile.

Jungkook’s eyes roll almost naturally. Annoyance pricks at him and his voice is akin to a scoff,
when he lazily drawls. “How many times?”

Julia’s fingernails skim across a bruise her own lips left that he allowed out of regret. Now, that he
has been previously punished for it, he flinches away from her touch and her hand drops to his
shoulder, the fabric of his shirt exquisite, but not nearly as his bruised skin is to her. “As many as it
takes to convince him,” she replies as she pulls away. She takes Yoongi’s lighter from where it is
lying on the table on the Mins’ roof garden and smokes. Her fingers tremble a bit as she tries to
hold the thin cigarette and it could be because she hasn’t taken anything this week. “A bet is a bet,
Jungkook.”

She leans back again, but not into him this time. She props herself on soft outdoor pillows and
blows smoke, legs crossing and her eyes focusing on Hoseok who is in swimming trunks, trying to
shake the girl who passed out in the hot tub awake. He gives her exactly two nudges on the
shoulder before he gives up and lets her droop.

“I hate that,” Jungkook voices distaste, layering it on his face as well. “You’ll get the stench on my
clothes.”

Julia sucks on her cigarette firmly. “I’ll buy you new clothes,” she dismisses.

Yoongi walks leisurely towards the hot tub, a colorful drink in his hand with a funny straw. He is
wearing trunks as well, and dark sunglasses to hide his red eyes. His body is dangerously skinny,
skin pale and sweating. “At least drag her body out of my tub, Hob. I’m not swimming with
carcasses.” He swings his bony legs into the water and sinks in, placing his drink on the side.

“Carcass is only used for animals,” the girl’s friend says, her head tilted back to look at the clouds.
Or maybe she can’t properly hold her neck up.

“Whatever,” Yoongi says. He turns his head and lets his lips find the top of the straw. He sucks the
liquid until it’s slurping, and it disappears, coloring his mouth and tongue loud, neon blue.

“Corpses,” her friend says. “You don’t want to be swimming with corpses.”

“I don’t,” Yoongi confirms.

Hoseok grips underneath the passed out girl’s shoulders and pulls up until he can wrap his arms
around her stomach and easily lifts her from the water. He lies her body down on the nearest chaise
lounge.

“Be a doll, Hobi,” Yoongi calls. “Make me another drink.”

Hoseok clicks his tongue. “Suck my dick,” he says.

Yoongi’s lips stretch lightly on his face. “Okay.”

The other rolls his eyes, stepping into the closed glass space on the roof garden where Yoongi’s
personalized mixologist bar is. “One of these days,” he mutters, though it’s heard loud and clear.
“I’m actually gonna put it down your throat.”

“Until I’m choking, please,” Yoongi says, smirks.

Julia finishes her cigarette and puts it out on the glass layer of the end table in front of her. “Make
one for me as well.”

“He was hard last time,” Jungkook says privately as he watches the skin of the thin passed-out girl
glisten with the water from the hot tub before it dries underneath the sun.

“He was,” Julia nods, a smile teasing at her lips.

“He’ll cave soon,” Jungkook continues.

“Eager?” Julia drawls, cocking her head and cozying her eyes towards him. She wants to touch him
again, but she feels he will flinch and Yoongi is here now. He will notice and she hates to let him
see.

“To be rid of him, yes,” Jungkook nods, speaks rough but lazy.
Julia clicks her tongue, hides her smirk, though her eyes glint with eerie, sultry mischief as words
roll out her tongue almost cunningly, “If I ask nicely enough.” She licks her lips with intent, with
insinuation, “maybe he’ll agree next time. Do you think he wants me?”

Jungkook clenches his teeth. “Yes,” he grinds out. His eyes blink away from the bare girl and focus
instead on Hoseok who returns to Yoongi and teases him quietly before handing him the drink.
“I’ll be the one asking, though.” He announces.

Julia’s brows arch, head cocking further. Entertainment stretches her mouth suspiciously. “You?”

“I don’t want you getting too cozy with Kim,” Jungkook says, purposefully lilts his voice with a
condescending form of disgust when he explicitly mentions the boy. “He’ll be out of the picture
soon,” he promises.

Julia’s eyes roll tediously. She lets his palpable distaste hang in the air between them, pauses. Her
eyes are on Hoseok’s approaching form as she speaks. Her voice is numbed in a deadpan. “You got
hard from eating me out, Jungkook. You. He gets you off as well.”

Jungkook’s eyes finally shoot to her, accusatory and scathing as his glare settles on the side of her
head. “He—“

“For you,” Hoseok’s permanently cheery voice invades his ears as his physique blocks the sun
suddenly, looming over the pair. His ears buzz.

Julia takes the suspiciously colorful drink he has extended to her with her manicured figures. The
straw in it is ridiculous as is the umbrella he has stuck in it. Her lips ignore the straw as they latch
onto the glass and her head tips.

“What’s with you, Kook?” Hoseok’s eyes have skimmed to him, studying the glare he’s focused on
his girlfriend, atypical for Jungkook to put so much of anything into his countenance.

Jungkook’s tongue pokes into his cheek as he rolls his gaze to his face, losing the heat of it in the
movement. “Drop the questions, Hoseok hyung, and go fuck your girl.”

Hoseok grins widely. “She’s unconscious,” he says.

“Yoongi hyung’s, then.” Jungkook smirks.

“Yoongi hyung, then,” the boy in question calls from the hot tub, craning his neck, arching his
entire back, his arms spread on the edges of the tub. His drink is finished again.

Hoseok props himself on a leg he lifts to the table, bend by the knee. “One day,” he tells them all,
“I’ll actually fuck you like a pussy.”

Yoongi turns fully then, his lips spreading into a lazy grin. He’s still chewing on his straw, though
liquid from his glass is long gone. He shakes his wet hair out of his hooded eyes. “Homo,” he
laughs.

Hoseok laughs as well and Jungkook does, too.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” are the first words that foolishly leave Taehyung’s lips when
his eyes lift from the accounting books at the sound of the door to the storage room opening and
closing and widen with recognition and alarm as the broad, threatening and inconveniently familiar
shape of Jeon Jungkook invades the privacy of his room.

Taehyung straightens up from the regretful for his back position he has previously taken, slumping
over the printed numbers with his ankles crossed. He places the papers behind himself on the
storage unit Jungkook had pressed him into the last time the two had shared the air in this room.
He leaves the pen he had used to underline inaccuracies as well and watches it awkwardly roll to
the floor behind the unit and out of his reach.

Jungkook pauses a few feet away from him, though his presence is enough to make Taehyung’s
heart palpitate worryingly into the cage of his ribs. His gaze, stoic, dark and lazy, focusing on him
as he casually struts into his space with his arms crossed and bulging in front of his chest is all it
takes for the uppermost layer of Taehyung’s skin to suddenly become alive and buzzing.

The other’s head cocks, an authoritative arrogance dripping from his voice. “Should I even dignify
this with an answer,” he says.

Taehyung scoffs, his eyes rolling instinctively. He shouldn’t probably, none of his managers would
make much of a problem if they find a Jeon in the back. Rather, they would likely be proud they
have enticed his curiosity enough for him to explore, scared it is too dusty for his brand clothing,
shiny shoes and shinier presence.

“What are you doing here, Jungkook-ssi?” Taehyung asks, carefully. A pang of fear is coursing
itself through his veins, through his voice as well, if he has to be completely honest. Julia was done
with him, after all, and now there was nothing stopping Jungkook from rearranging his face until
his own sister wouldn’t recognize him.

Jungkook ignores the question completely, taking leisurely steps towards where Taehyung stands,
and he physically recoils with a flinch without fully meaning to when Jungkook reaches out a hand.
It passes by him, however, fingers delving into the papers and listing through pages distractedly.
He eyes Taehyung briefly as the other recovers and attempts to hide there was anything to recover
from altogether. He fails and judges it by the nearly inconspicuous smirk that graces Jungkook’s
lips.

“Are you an accountant now as well, Kim?” Jungkook asks.

Taehyung blinks, hesitates. He is as physically taken aback from the question as he was from the
approach. “Erm…” he prolongs the sound, rummaging his head for what the right thing to say is,
scared to be honest, but unable to think of a lie. “I’m just helping out is all. I’m good with
numbers,” he settles for, finally.

Jungkook is close now, though his eyes are on the paper. It is distracting for Taehyung to have the
other in such proximity. Presence is unnerving enough, but proximity is downright dangerous.
Especially when he can smell him.

“You like Math?” Jungkook asks, nose arching upwards with a bit of a distaste.

Taehyung shakes his head. He can’t take his eyes off of Jungkook’s face, but he desperately wants
to. “No,” he replies. He does not know why, but he continues speaking afterwards, clarifying as if
Jungkook could ever care about his interests and endeavors. “Architecture. Math comes with it,
though, unfortunately.”

Jungkook’s eyes skim to his, his fingers pausing and instead just resting there, close to Taehyung’s
head. His body is angled towards Taehyung’s while the other’s is pointed straight, and his other
side is completely free and potent for escape. He still feels trapped, though, locked in space with
his feet immobilized just because of the heaviness of Jungkook’s gaze.

“You know this is illegal, right?” Jungkook says, edges a bit closer and, though his face does not
betray it in any way, Taehyung swears entertainment flashes through him as Taehyung pales. He
gulps.

Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod.

“I—” panic laces the single syllable loud and clear, but before he can say anything else – and he is
not necessarily sure what his mouth is going to blurt out – Jungkook interjects.

“Relax,” Jungkook instructs, voice demanding, yet peculiarly calm, hissing. He is used to holding
authority, it is clear in his merest requests. “I’m not going to get you in trouble with the law, Kim.”

“No?” Taehyung perks, word tilting curiously, and he follows Jungkook with wide shiny eyes as he
edges closer still, extending another sinewy arm to prop near his waist on the other side, essentially
trapping him now, but remaining a distance, his arms both stretched fully, keeping him away.

“No,” Jungkook confirms, nodding his head. His voice drops an octave lower, or it feels to
Taehyung as if it does. As if he speaks rawer now, from his chest and through his throat. “As long
as you answer a question that is?”

Taehyung’s tongue pokes out, wets his lips. Jungkook’s eyes briefly drop to it, attracted by the
motion, before they lift to hold the other’s gaze. “Okay,” Taehyung breathes carefully, slowly, his
agreement holding a question in itself.

Jungook pokes into his cheek with his tongue, his lazy, captivating eyes boring into Taehyung’s
face. He’s studying him, the younger realizes, again and again, he is under the constant,
exhilarating scrutiny of Jungkook’s powerful eyes. He breathes and he speaks, rough, but easy,
unobstructed and Taehyung wants to die. “Did you get yourself off afterwards?”

His eyes widen even more, helpless, innocent and shocked, before they change shape and narrow.
He backs up, recoiling further into the storage unit behind him, pursing his lips, mouth a thin line,
but the pair of them still perky and full and pink on his offended face. “Jung— “

His voice is not far from the breath of a beg and Jungkook already knows before he hears it that it
won’t be an answer he finds satisfying. So he takes a step, instructs softly but firmly. “Tell me.”

Taehyung’s cheeks burn. His heart is irrational in his chest by now, dangerous, but he can’t help it
in the clutches of Jungkook’s eyes. The skin on the back of his neck is tingling uncomfortably, as
well, red with memories and truths he refuses to voice to himself let alone to a Jeon. “What’s it to
you?” He asks and it is spiteful, defensive in the way it attacks.

Jungkook’s brow arches at the tone he uses, but other than that, he preserves the ambiance he
forces with his calm demeanor of authority. His voice is light, but dismissive. “Curious,” he says,
though he does not sound it, does not allow himself to betray any interest at all, even though he
claims it, and Taehyung yearns a bit for the vulnerability of him that he only got to witness ones.
That shone through his eyes in the hotel and then through Taehyung’s mind when he desperately
and shamefully got himself off to recent memories in his cheap bathroom. He’d leaned his forearm
on the tiles, pressed his eyes onto it, onto the bone, engulfing himself in darkness and jerked
himself off, biting on his lips punishingly, until he’d spurted on the tiles with a strangled cry.

He’d scrubbed his skin even more desperately after that, almost to the point of pain. It was red and
angry when he was done, and Taehyung deserved it.

Taehyung is silent and nervous and Jungkook gets antsy and impatient with waiting within a
minute. He murmurs and it gives his voice a gentle note that forces intimacy in the breaths they
share, though space between them is still not scarce enough and much too small at the same time,
“Did you?” Jungkook tilts his head, he parts his lips and leaves them such, drawing a glance from
the other boy. His own eyes fall to Taehyung’s mouth when he feels the puff of his warm breath on
his skin. Jungkook chases a smile away from his lips when he watches him subconsciously shiver
and he draws closer still. “What did you think about? Did it play out in your head?”

He whispers the mind numbing questions with suggestive conviction and Taehyung is afraid he
nodded without realizing. He presses himself further back into the unit and the smirk that graces
Jungkook’s sharp, handsome features is unquestionable, tugging at his mouth and mocking
Taehyung with its teasing, smug quality. Jungkook’s unaffectedness in all of their interactions is
unmeasurably frustrating. It makes Taehyung want to tear his hair right out of its roots.

Jungkook’s provocative and he knows it. Taehyung, if he allowed himself to theorize about his
behavior, which he doesn’t because dwelling on it, indulging him, would only makes things worse
— the Taunting Twin haunts his thoughts enough, did so even before his girlfriend and him took
this unbearable interest in him — Taehyung would then think he was enjoying it, doing it on
purpose to coax a reaction out of him, literally using him as a toy to go on a little power trip. The
rich have always got off on what they hold over the poor, on their manufactured superiority. It
gives a certain high, he imagines, and maybe this does, too. The affect he so easily draws from
Taehyung with the meters form of attention he pays to him must be satisfying in a sick sort of way,
one he would expect from someone nicknamed Taunting.

Taehyung hates he’s so easy to rile up, despises the fact he allows this satisfaction to breach
Jungkook at his expense, that he’s just that pliant to toy with, cheap to boy, quick to react.

Now, he’s flustered and unease under Jungkook’s crafted simple — so fucking simple —
ministrations, heavy eyes and whispered words. His steady breath filtering over to fan across his
reddened skin coerces Taehyung’s own into quickened unevenness.

Jungkook takes the tiniest step, but Taehyung notices, his body acknowledging it without his
explicit permission.

Jungkook tongues at his lips. Taehyung’s breath stutters as it leaves his. “Did you envision other
things you wanted me to do to her?” Jungkook asks. He’s closer now, too close. Taehyung refuses
to respond as meaning reaches his ears, irks at his skin, his blood, which feels heated. He turns his
head away and stares at the floor on his side, his arms close to his body, rigid and uptight. He’s
scared he’ll feel Jungkook’s fingers on the skin of his chin again, but it is worse. He feels his
breath on his cheek, instead, his own picking up again, hopelessly, the heat of his body closing up
on him. He sees his feet, his fancy, shiny shoes almost touch the tip of his worn out, borrowed
ones. Sees his elbow bend as he moves. Taehyung senses the pattern of Jungkook’s breath shift
with the words he taunts him with, coy and slow at his cheek, by his ear. “Her riding me?”
Jungkook arches his voice into a question. Taehyung struggles to breath, images flashing through
his naive, creative stupid poor head. Jungkook’s mere voice is a sin. It’s peculiarly erotic against
his skin. “Me fucking her in the ass?” He says crudely, yet so softly it’s like he’s whispering sweet
nothings into his ears.

Taehyung’s head turns sharply and their noses brush before he pulls back, growling through gritted
teeth with treacherous frustration. “Stop it,” he grinds out. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

Taehyung refuses to allow himself to be used for the personal entertainment of the rich. The last
person he would allow to tickle his ego with his responsiveness is Jungkook. Not when he
desperately wants the other to be affected as well, affected by him, by their proximity.

Jungkook’s voice drops some of its teasing eroticism, but he keeps himself in his space. He
switches to a casualness that annoys Taehyung further. Why is he allowed not to care? He shrugs.
Jungkook fucking shrugs, nonchalant and easy. “I’m not doing anything in particular just making
conversation.”

Taehyung wonders how quickly will Jungkook hospitalize him if he finally flips out and hits him.

“What made you come here then?” He speaks with unhindered animosity. His eyes are narrowed in
a glare, but it is soft and hooded, affected, regretfully. Jungkook’s proximity, his words, their
blatant sexuality and the raw eroticism he forces into his whisper and even the vibrations of his
body, they do something to Taehyung.

Jungkook is blunt. “Julia wants you again,” he tells him and Taehyung blinks, confused.

He wants to cross his arms but he is afraid he will brush Jungkook’s if he moves and he doesn’t
want to touch him because of how much he yearns to touch him. He arches his brows. “Why
doesn’t Julia tell me herself then?”

Jungkook allows a lazy smirk to sneak onto his lips again. “I volunteered,” he confesses idly.

Taehyung’s mouth opens and closes dumbly. Something spikes through him at the prospect, at the
fact Jungkook is not here to order him to refuse, but to ask him to come. Taehyung wants to say
something, but Jungkook interrupts, rearranging his footing. The tips of their noses are close, too
close. Jungkook’s lids are low on his fiery eyes, which dart across the features of Taehyung’s face.
Sultriness crosses his words again. “And if you tell me what you want, I might do it to her.”

White, hot anger spikes through Taehyung. Anger, it is. “Shut the fuck up,” he grunts. His voice is
more leveled than he expects, than he feels and he’s glad.

Jungkook’s lips twitch. “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?” His brows arch, his head tilts.
Taehyung’s heart pounds and he pushes his head back in the gaps of the shelves, taking it as far
away from Jungkook’s as his neck would give. “What do you want me to do her, Kim?” He
questions. His nose brushes his cheek for the briefest moment before he pulls away and watches
him instead.

Taehyung wants to die. “Leave,” he tells him, begs him almost. “I have work.”

“Your work is worthless compared to what we’ll give you,” Jungkook dismisses quickly,
arrogantly. “Tell me,” he instructs. “What do you want, Taehyung?”

His name on Jungkook’s lips forces a shameful shiver to run through his body. His eyes don’t miss
it, dart across the length of him, to his face again.

“How do you want me to do her?” All Taehyung can do is breath. Jungkook’s close, so close, too
close, and he’s caging him with his body, muscled arms, broad shoulders. “Or do you want her? Or
do you want—?”

The door slams open and Minho’s voice startles Taehyung, his head tilting to him immediately,
though Jungkook doesn’t even flinch. “Taehyung, Jung-nim wants you to— Oh. Jungkook-ssi. I
apologize.”

Minho’s eyes widen and search Taehyung’s in question as he bows at Jungkook’s back
instinctively. Granted, only someone like Jungkook would get apologized to for interfering with his
trespassing.

Jungkook sighs. He drops his arms from Taehyung’s sides, but remains in the dangerous
proximity, still keeps his eyes on him, though now they betray annoyance instead of their previous
suggestiveness. It doesn’t mean Taehyung can relax. He’s still burning.

“It’s alright,” Jungkook says, voice enviously leveled and holding a neutrality that makes
Taehyung ache. “I was just checking something.”

Jungkook’s hands raise and Taehyung’s breath hitches in his throat, eyes return wide and
questioning with alarm. His fingers settle at his neck, catching at the fabric, undoing the knot of his
tie before he redoes it, eyes falling on his handwork as Taehyung stares and studies as his face
helplessly.

“Okay...” Minho says, prolongs. He is hesitant and bewildered, eyes darting across the two as
Jungkook skillfully and quickly ties a perfect, textbook knot right around the other’s neck. His hand
fists at the bottom of the knot and glides slowly up until it reaches the top, securing it tight.

Jungkook leans forward, lifting his eyes slowly from where he was tracking his illicit motions to
meet Taehyung’s eyes. He speaks privately when he does, speech reduced to a whisper, though it it
just low, not as suggestive. “You really need to learn how to do that,” he tells him and it is enough
to make something cold run straight down the line of Taehyung’s spine.

He gulps, his throat bobbing. Jungkook places a palm on his chest, the touch igniting a small fire
with its shape. He leans closer still and Taehyung tilts his head away. His lips are close to his ear,
coaxing goose flesh. “Saturday,” Jungkook whispers. “Same time. Same place.”

There is pause that is loud and buzzing for Taehyung. Jungkook steps back before Taehyung
realizes he has nodded. The rich boy moves away, leaving behind a gaping coolness as Taehyung
stills in his place. He brushes over Minho as he leaves, not paying him a single glance, sharp jaw
held high as he struts away, leaving with no further word or look towards either of them.

Taehyung follows him with his eyes and when he disappears completely from view he looks at the
empty space he has left behind.

He ignores Minho’s questioning, perplexed gaze and quickly gathers the sheets behind him, eyes
falling desperately to the numbers.
 Chapter 8
Chapter Summary

Another night at the Executive Tower.

Chapter Notes

Feedback has been amazing. I have read and reread comments and just smiled to
myself. They're so inspiring and helpful, so thank you thank you thank you, and sorry
for the slow updates, but exam and holiday season has been rough and yeah. I got a
couple of people asking me if I have twitter or Tumblr, and I didn't, but I figured I'd
try it out. So I have a twitter account now. It's https://twitter.com/AlainaMillkovi1, so
if you wanna come talk, feel free.

Once again thank you for the amazing feedback. I am very new to this whole fan
fiction thing, so naturally I am almost nervous and doubtful of what I post, but people
have been so nice. Nothing makes me happier really.

Taehyung finds himself in the uncomfortably luxurious suite, same time, same place, as instructed
and paid for, and Jungkook is not there. He’s sat, legs pressed tight together, hands in his lap with
his long fingers tangled and clumsily intertwined, tugging at each other absent minded, palms
rubbing together. He’s leaning forward by the elbows, body folded in on itself, eyes focused on the
carpeted floor.

Julia is there. She’s sprawled on the bed on her stomach, her ankles crossed and lifted into the air.
She’s propped herself on her elbows, chin in her palm and she appears as if it is hard for her to hold
it up just on her neck. Her hair is disheveled; it’s everywhere. Her eyes are intense on him,
focusing and losing it every few seconds as her lips, maybe dry, for she tongues at them a lot,
stretch lazy and sultry on her pale face, teeth shine whitened in between. Her lashes bat slowly,
illicitly. She’s somehow suggestive in the very way she lays on her bed, skin mostly bared.
Taehyung is once again not convinced the crimson piece of branded fabric on her body is not
simply underwear, but he hasn’t been looking at her enough to judge fairly.

He is afraid the sound of his gulp rings around the room, that she can hear his breaths and his
moistened skin rubbing together as well as he can hear the sheets rustle with her merest
movements and small sighs he feels she makes on purpose. They’re soft and unnecessary and
border on moans as they are expelled through her parted, dried lips.

“Are you nervous, Taehyungie?” Julia says and it sounds like a sigh as well, breathy and leisurely.
His eyes shoot to hers. Only his sister calls him that and he feels her mouth dirties it, he does not
want to hear it again. “I— no,” he replies, and it is a lie so blatant it is unnecessary to even attempt
to convince. He keeps his chin up though, nose high. “It’s not like I have to do anything,” the
justification falls through and it is voiced for his own sake and not for hers, but she smiles.

“You don’t have to,” she’s amused when she pauses, something new is flashing through her eyes
now as they dart across Taehyung, scrutinize his traitorous body language. Her tongue coats her
lips again as they stretch cunning and cold. “You canif you want to,” she finishes and Taehyung
pales.

A “What?” slips through his mouth, brusque even to him. It’s mostly through his teeth, near a
gasp. It’s breathy as well, but different to hers, listed by disbelief. His eyes search her for teasing,
to see her break character and laugh at him for falling for her implications.

Her body rolls to the side, her whole body stretching, and he swears he hears her purr, like a cat,
her entire behavior is feline, he concludes in a suggestive, nearly perverse way. “Don’t you want to
touch me, pretty boy?”

She’s offering herself, it occurs to him, and Taehyung’s blood runs hot with the immediate question
of what would Jungkook thinkinvading his head. How would he look, his eyes, would he even
react, or would that completely bypass him as well, allowing him to remain calm and collected,
keeping that cool, utterly frustrating demeanor? Taehyung wonders were he to lift up off the couch
now, look at his girlfriend straight in the eyes and say yes, he wants to touch her, wants to do
everythingto her, spread her on the bed they pay for, would it at least tug at his goddamn rich kid
pride if not at his probably inexistent emotions?

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he swallows nothing, presses his lips together tightly and shakes his
head. “No,” he voices, brief and soft.

Julia straightens on her knees and the mattress barely dips under her weight. The strap on her
shoulder slips down her arms, collarbones protrude underneath her pale skin. Her lips don’t hold a
smile anymore. They’re set in a line. Her eyes are lidded low, narrowed. “You’re lying,” she
accuses darkly.

Taehyung does not know how he would have replied necessarily, but he doesn’t get to, anyway, as
that is the moment Jungkook barges in. The door slams slightly into the wall and Taehyung
flinches instinctively. Even the walls are expensive here and it is simply disrespectful to treat them
like that, but Taehyung quickly forgets all about that, because Jungkook vibrates. He literally
carries with himself an energy of frustrated rage that is atypical for the Jungkook Taehyung has
directly experienced, but akin to rumors he has heard of him, the violent, vituperative Taunting
Twin, the one who likes to hurt, can’t help but hurt, as much as his sister enjoys doing it with her
mouth, he supposedly does with his fists.

He shuts the door behind himself with his entrance, and the automatic lock clicks brusque, abused.
Taehyung almost flinches again in his place, his eyes sealing compelled on the other boy, who
walks in somehow possessive of the space that surrounds him, of even the last string on the
intricate carpeting. He disregards Taehyung’s presence completely, but he can hardly take offense,
as Jungkook does not acknowledge his girlfriend either as he strides towards a cupboard, fishes out
of it a bottle whose shape and label scream expensive to Taehyung. He moves some more, takes
out a glass that Taehyung has seen enough movies to know is for whiskey.

What Taehyung senses is off about Jungkook, Julia must as well, because her eyes fall dead on
him, and she falls into complete silence, allows for the sound of him opening the bottle to penetrate
the tense air, the liquid pouring down, him gulping it in one go, before he fills the glass again. He
relaxes into the counter after that, crosses long legs and holds the glass light and casual as if his
jaw does not keep ticking, as if his eyes don’t flicker with pent up something, that irks at
Taehyung’s curiosity with power he cannot explain.

As much as the alcohol by his waist screams expensive so does everything about Jungkook. His
posture, his skin, the thick ring on his finger, the watch strapped around his wrist, the belt high on
his waist, the fine dark trousers hugging his legs, and the darker shirt pulled at his muscles. He’s
strewn with elegance, with quality, and Taehyung wants to know what is on the verge of making
that careful front burst.

His dark eyes dart to Taehyung, and he blinks away, quick and obvious, as if burnt. He’d be
embarrassed, but Jungkook, for as many bad qualities as Taehyung can assign to him doubtlessly,
does not seem stupid. He is aware Taehyung watches;what he watches he cannot be sure of, as
Taehyung himself is not entirely sure, but that his eyes are almost always on him is obvious.

Jungkook’s eyes pry away from Taehyung and instead center where they should, on his scantily
clad girlfriend so demandingly focused on him, it must scorch. His lips are tight and thin today, a
fine line; it parts as he sips golden liquid as if it a refreshing drink and not a burning spirit, and
then, then he smiles. It is a dangerous, dark tug of his lips, malicious and predatory as turns his
glance, glinting with something unspoken, yet felt, felt in the pit of Taehyung’s stomach and seen
on the tips of Julia’s skin.

“Shall we begin?” Jungkook breaks the silence, voice like lead. It’s low and hard. The corners of
Taehyung’s eyes are darting to him again, and then again, until he’s fully staring at Jungkook as he
approaches, slow leisurely steps, and once again Taehyung’s watching, but he cannot bring himself
to care – they payhim to watch after all.
Julia is still on her knees, close to the edge of the bed. Her eyes follow her boyfriend in his stride,
but they have taken some open, wide, wet vulnerability that Taehyung immediately has to look
away from. “Jungkook…” she pronounces, trails off.

“Take off your dress, Julia,” Jungkook instructs in a voice that would have got Taehyung to shed
his clothing too, if addressed. He pauses close to where she is kneeling and watches her, a hand in
his pocket, the drink in his other one.

She seems reluctant for less than a second, their eyes firm on each other, before thin fingers grip at
the hem and she lifts the fabric up and over her head, drops it on the floor near the bed and once
again meets his gaze, her own challenging, but her lips shut. She’s slim in her lacy underwear,
breasts small, but perky, nipples hard above her ribcage.

Jungkook takes the small necessary step forward to be almost touching her. He watches her for a
moment from the new proximity before his head drops, lips seal to her neck. Julia’s mouth falls
open, a small sound exhaling through, akin to a hiss at first, and then it is not; it’s a sigh. Her hand
flies up, grips into the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder and her fingers stay there, digging into it
hard. Jungkook’s hands remain as they are, one in his pocket and the other gripping at his whiskey
and Taehyung doesn’t know what to make of that, but Julia’s eyes fall shut and her teeth take her
lower lip into her mouth, so he supposes there is nothing to make of it.

Jungkook’s lips bruise her. They’re almost systematic in the way they leave a trail of love bites on
her paling skin, marking down the line of her long neck, before they skim at collarbones and dip
further lower. When his teeth wrap around her nipple, her fingers dig hard into his shoulder, her
other hand flying up and grasping at his slim waist.

His fingers leave his pocket, and he reaches in between her legs instead, rubbing two long fingers
across her once. It makes her shudder and it makes him pull his head away.

“You’re already wet,” he hisses. A breathy, uncomposed “shit” leaves him, and Taehyung finds it
exhilarating, the frustration he obviously has built up inside him, snapping and adapting into sexual
tension. Jungkook’s voice is rough and exquisite when he continues, dark eyes focusing on his
girlfriend as her head dips back and she moans. Taehyung has limited vision over Jungkook’s broad
shoulder, but he thinks he sees one of his fingers push her underwear to the side. He brushes his
knuckles over her, moves one finger languidly across her, but teases, doesn’t fully touch. “You get
off just on thinking about this, don’t you?” Jungkook asks. His head cocks, and he presses his
fingers against her past a tease, a real touch, before he takes them away again. “Is it for him or is it
for me?” He rasps, tongue poking out to skim at his lips. He almost looks hungry now as he sizes
up his pray, then those eyes, dark and starved, turn to Taehyung, interrupt his breath – he nearly
chokes with the amount of air he sucks into his lungs – with a single, short, indicative jut of his
sharp jaw. “Bet your boy toy’s turned on, too.” Taehyung’s ears are ablaze, and he gulps – he
wasn’t, a mere minute ago maybe he wasn’t, but the way Jungkook speaks, somehow, he manages
to gather all his previous anger and conduct It into raw sexual energy whose allure courses straight
through Taehyung’s blood. Jungkook suddenly pouts, and then he whines with structured irony.
“Did you start without me?”

Julia’s nails dig into the fabric of his clothes. Her head shakes. “Never,” she breathes.Never,
Taehyung confirms in his head.

Jungkook smirks. “Be a doll,” he says, voice sultry. His head tilts again and the corner of his eyes
briefly catches on Taehyung’s unwavering stare. “Take off my shirt.”

Taehyung flushes, rubs his palms on the length of his thighs, then catches his knee caps, holds,
squeezes. His palms are sweating, and his heart is thudding in a way that is familiar to him, in a
way he allows himself to feel every once in a while, mostly for prudish, simple reasons, never
because he was about to see a man shirtless. He’s… excited.

He abhors it, is absolutely furious with himself at what pricks at him as Julia’s fingers, agile, but
trembling readily work Jungkook’s buttons. She is quick, and Taehyung is glad for it, stupidly
afraid Jungkook might change his mind and stop her. She untugs the material from his belt then
reaches for his shoulders, pushing at it. He lets it fall down his arms, replacing his glass from one
hand to the other to allow the shirt to fully slip from his body.

Taehyung’s breath hitches, his thighs drawing closer together. He lets his eyes roam. Skin, there is
so much skin, smooth and perfect and stretched over muscles and bones that shift and protrude.
He’s admiring his shoulder blades, his arms, he’s admiring the goddamn dipped line of his spine.
Julia is running the palms of her hands all across the skin and Taehyung has the most despicable
urge to replace her hands with his.

Jungkook steps closer to her, presses his front to hers, his lips on her skin again, obviously
oblivious of Taehyung’s silent begging desperation for him to turn around, so that he can see. The
fingers of his free hand seem light and feathery as they explore the skin of her back for they own,
caress down the length of her spine until they dip low. Taehyung’s wishes completely shift as
suddenly he hopes Jungkook never turns for he is taking such a ridiculous position on the couch to
follow those ringed fingers. He cups at her cheek for a moment before he slips a finger sideways
into her panties, close to where her ass meets her back; he slides the length of his finger beneath the
fabric before he allows it to twist, close together, and her panties gather as he pulls up. She gasps as
fabric digs into her, between her legs unexpectedly, cheeks fully exposed know with the lace of her
panties tugged in between under Jungkook’s ministrations.
He pulls his lips away and readjusts his grip on her underwear, holding it with two fingers and his
thumb. He gives it another tug and watches, sees her mouth part as another strangles gasp escapes.

Taehyung cannot imagine how this is anything but uncomfortable for her but the way her thighs
shift, so similarly to how his unconsciously move, betray she is just waiting for more. He is
positively mesmerized by the way Jungkook is able to work her so well, his eyes glued to the boy,
to his sharp, broad back, so full of skin, to his wondrous, wandering fingers, to the line of his lips,
the glint in his stare.

Julia’s hips are making the tiniest movements and Taehyung wonders if she is even aware she is
grinding slightly into the fabric Jungkook holds for her, pulls for her. He tips his head, lines his lips
with her ear, briefly teases at its lobe with pearly white teeth, then he’s murmuring in her ear in a
voice too loud to be simply for her sake and Taehyung can’t help when his mind wanders with
curiosity of why Jungkook is so much more adamant on putting on a show for him today. “I’m
tired baby,” he tells her. “I’ve had a long, hardday.” His tongue teases at the cleft behind her ear.
“So, I want you to ride me.”

He tugs on her panties one final time, before he lets her go. He replaces his grip on her wrist and
pulls her of the bed, and she follows, willing and obedient. With her feet on the floor, he faces her,
sideways to Taehyung and he can see a nipple. He swallows nothing and almost chokes on it.
Jungkook’s fingers tug a stray strand of hair behind Julia’s ear as she watches him as if there is
nothing else in the world worth watching and it is so eerily gentle, what transpires between them,
that is makes Taehyung feel more out of place than Jungkook demanding she rides him.

“Can you do that for me, baby girl?” he says. And she nods, she smirks, and she is Julia again,
smirking and suggestive, low-lidded and so illicitly sexual. She grips at his arms, wraps her fingers
right around his biceps and Taehyung wonders just how hard they must feel.

She turns him and he allows her and Taehyung and Jungkook’s eyes would have met right then if
Taehyung’s hadn’t immediately drop to explore with a slight heat made apparent in his tanned
cheeks. He is perfectly aware he ogles, but it cannot be helped as his eyes follow the hard, defined
lines of his well-relieved stomach before they slide across his chest, his nipples, small and pointed
on his bulked chest. Taehyung’s jaw loosens slightly and his tongue pokes out, skims across the
oval shape the part of his lips create before they close, thin, and his chin sets, eyes meet
Jungkook’s, and he’sglaring.

He’s glaring because Taehyung is supposed to look vulnerable, like a deer caught in the head
fucking lights, he’s not supposed to be low-lidded, gaze heavy, and doing that thing with his mouth
whatever the fuck that thing even was. He’s not supposed to be setting his jaw, and he really
shouldn’t be allowed to be that fucking pretty. It’s annoying, really. He’s a man. What is a man
doing being pretty? His hair is blonde now, not red, but it is still so glaringly light that eyes seal to
it irrevocably, and Jungkook is angry again.
Julia pushes him to sit and he does. He spreads his thigh on the bed wide, mirroring Taehyung’s
position perfectly, but he can’t lean on the back of a couch. Instead, he uses his hand, twists his
wrist and leans on a palm, the whole weight of his upper body dependent on it, and Taehyung’s
eyes trail to it, dart across the places it bulges with muscle.

He looks away, forces his eyes on Julia. If that is the position they will stay in, and it looks like it,
as Julia drops on her knees in between his spread legs, Taehyung is not sure he will survive the
night. Blood is already rushing in places it is not welcome to, heart palpitating. His legs are shifting
on their own accord, betraying his discomfort as knees bound to sides, but he just can’t seem to
keep still. He doesn’t hear what Julia says, doesn’t hear what Jungkook replies, his ears buzz, but
then she is pulling his cock out and he is half hard as she holds the weight of it, licks the underside
slow and tantalizing, eyes looking up to meet Jungkook’s and he is staring at her as well, even as
he brings his drink to his lips and sips on it. His neck seems longer when his chest is bear, when
his head tips back to accommodate the glass and Taehyung wonders if he would look better if he
was arching back to moan.

“Don’t tease,” Jungkook grinds out and it sounds almost like a warning. It sends Taehyung
wondering once again, what if she does, what if she does tease, what would Jungkook do, then.

He sees the back of Julia’s head moving, hears the explicit, wet sound of her going down on him,
notes a stutter in Jungkook’s breathing pattern, in a small pause of his chest when they fill out to
inhale. Taehyung wants to cross his legs, but he is afraid it will create a tightness harder to resist
and his hips will just shift into it; he does not trust his hormones enough to make friction so
tangibly attainable.

Jungkook’s hips shift and he allows himself a slight grunt. “Fuck, you take me so well.” She
makes a sound around him, readjusts on her knees. Taehyung supposes he should be staring at her
ass, perfectly on show, emphasized by the way she sits on her calves and arches her back to reach
Jungkook. Instead, he’s focused on the barest movement of the other boy’s thighs, on the exposed
skin of his stomach and chest, on the muscle that bulges in his arm, the one that ticks at his jaw.
Jungkook, however, is watching the way Julia trembles on her knees, the way her thighs tighten
together as Taehyung’s crave to do. “This is getting you off, too, isn’t it? Always so hungry for my
cock.” Jungkook finishes his drink and rolls the glass on the bed until it falls to the carpet with a
dull thud. He sits up, threads his fingers through her hair. “And he’s watching,” Jungkook’s eyes
lift up and Taehyung’s heart pauses in his chest. His tongue pokes out, wets his lips. Then he
smirks, holds Taehyung’s gaze with those loathsome, compelling eyes and speaks some more,
“He’s looking at you, baby. I bet you can’t wait to show him how good you ride me. I bet he’ll
imagine it’s himself.”

Shit. Shitshitshit. His mouth is sinful, and his words are dubious. Leave so much room for
interpretation, too much room for interpretation. Taehyung’s throat constricts on itself.
Jungkook wraps his fingers tight around her hair and pulls her away. Taehyung doesn’t see her
face, only Jungkook’s when he glances down at her and smirks, again and again. “You ready to
fuck yourself, baby?”

Julia’s fingers grasp on his thighs. “Please,” she says, voice hoarse.

“Come here,” Jungkook says, nearly soothing. She’s on her feet next, dropping her underwear to
the floor and stepping out of it. He is fishing his wallet out of his pants, a thin Louis Vuitton. He
takes out a package and tosses his wallet away carelessly, eyes shifting to Taehyung briefly, but the
other is keeping his on him.

Julia wordlessly takes the condom out of his hands. She straddles his hips easily, comfortably, and
Taehyung wonders if Jungkook ever does have sex without any of his clothes. Julia doesn’t seem to
mind his pants stay on as her thighs are on his. Blocked from Taehyung’s view, she rolls the
condom on Jungkook. Her fingers remain on him, stroking him, and she looks at it briefly, focused,
before her eyes lift up to Jungkook’s, wide and wet and darkened with unbidden arousal. “Can I?”
she says, she breathes.

Jungkook nods. “Of course,” he whispers to her.

She holds him as she lifts her body up on her knees and now Taehyung can see, between her legs.
He sees her hand that grips him, that lines him carefully with herself as the other holds onto his
bare shoulder. She sinks on him slowly, so unnervingly, frustratingly slowly, and Taehyung’s legs
stutter to and fro by the time her ass rests on him again. Her mouth is wide opened and she’s
whimpering, ever so softly.

Jungkook leans back on one hand again, fondles at her hip with the other. “Move,” he says, short
and dark, and she does. She lifts her hips up and slides down on him again, and again, and then,
she’s fucking herself on him.

I bet he’ll imagine it’s himself.

Taehyung swallows. Jungkook’s cock is long and thick and it must be stretching her out, and she
moans on him, she loves it, she moves confident, but hungry and Taehyung can barely look at it.
It’s harder this time, so much harder with Jungkook fucking facinghim. With his sultry, dark eyes
filtering over to Taehyung as Julia closes hers, arches her neck, her back, brushes the tips of her
breasts on his chest.
Her eyes are screwed shut and his are wide opened and Taehyung has his lip in his mouth, biting
on it hard. His hands are on his knees, he’s squeezing them so hard, they’ll likely bruise. He bruises
easily. His back bruised from Jungkook pressing him into the storage unit, when he was on him, so
close, he could feel his thighs. The thighs Julia uses for support as she rides him.

“You’re so wet,” Jungkook speaks to her, sighs.

Julia wraps her arms around his shoulders, tips her head forward. She wants to meet his eyes and he
allows her, tears them away from Taehyung and catches his girlfriend’s primal stare. “All for
you,” she tells him, whispers to him, bringing her forehead close to his so she can speak in his
mouth and there are the first words spoken not meant for Taehyung, but he hears, anyway. He
hears their breaths as well, heavy, getting heavier. He sees her move, her hips, systematic,
experienced, the way her fingers dig into his shoulders.

Jungkook trails his hands across her thighs, slow and pointed; he fondles, grips into her flesh as if
she belongs to him, and, frankly, Taehyung reckons she does – with the way she moves on him, the
way she calls his name, most of all, with the way she looks at him. His palms trail to her ass and
she squeezes, both cheeks at the same time, coerces her movements into a certain pace by the grip
he preserves on it and Taehyung watches the way her flesh dents and the thin bones of his hands
protrude. He wonders what the fuck’s wrong with him, why the hell he is more focused on the
back of Jungkook’s hands than he is on the tight ass of a girl.

Jungkook looks as if it is intrinsic for him to get pleasured, confident and domineering even in the
way he sits, the way he seems to control her with his very gaze, the way he makes Taehyung’s
breath stutter each time he teases his eyes in his direction. It fits him, being pleasured, Taehyung
concludes, but still, he is still too composed; he’s different from last time, but he’s not nearly as lost
as Julia is bouncing on him.

He sucks on her neck, on the side he left unmarked, he teases her breast with his mouth, with his
teeth and his tongue. She moans, she digs her nails in his nape and he hisses at her, squeezes her
ass hard as a warning.

Jungkook’s stare darts to Taehyung in a moment he readjusts quite obviously on the couch. His
hair is in his eyes, punishingly teasing, and his mouth twitches. He smirks and looks away, pulls
Julia up by the grip he has on her until he slips out.

She whines, her palms spread on his chest. “Jungkook,” her voice trembles and so do her thighs as
her knees hold her up.
“Patience,” Jungkook chides, tsks. “Hold like this for me, baby.”

“Why?” she’s whining again, but she remains up as Jungkook’s hand dips. He brushes his fingers
over her navel, light and feathery, and she retracts from the touch a little. He presses into her next,
between her legs, slips a finger inside of her.

“You really are fucking wet tonight,” he grunts to her and she sighs, holds onto his shoulders as her
hips push into him, into his hand. He pulls it away, slipping his digit out of her, and she seems
ready to throw a tantrum in his lap, but in a moment he’s pushing in her ass.

She gasps, fingers digging hard into him and her hips snap forward, almost brushing into his chest.
“Jungkook—” she startles, though it’s breathless, disheveled. She’s biting her lips as they’re
forming an excited smile.

“Wet enough for me to fuck you in the ass,” Jungkook’s saying and he’s meeting Taehyung’s eyes,
whose are wide, so wide and bulging, his knee bouncing up and down; his jaw is loosened, lips are
parted. Oh god. Ohgodohgod. Jeon Jungkook is simply cruel. “Would you like that, baby?”

He rubs his thumb into her front and moves up to the knuckle into her back and she fucking falls
into it, allows her thighs to set back gently, carefully, pushes herself into his fingers. “Yes,” she
grinds out, and there is something primal in the way she says it.

She sinks into it, grinds into it, and Taehyung’s eyes are finally sealed on her, on the fact she seems
uncomfortable for about a nanosecond before she appears to be enjoying it, rubbing herself onto
Jungkook’s glistening fingers as he gathers more of her natural wetness and slips in a second one.
A sound escapes her, but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t even pause.

“Just like that,” Jungkook murmurs. “Fuck yourself on my fingers.”

She’s moaning and he’s slipping a third, the one with the ring.

Taehyung gulps, swallows. His knee is going wild and he’s not sure he can properly breath at this
point. He hates Jungkook, that much is certain, but he loathes himself a bit, too, because his
fucking body is tingling all over and his goddamn mind is wandering to places so derailed from
where they should be.
He shouldn’t be here at all. He shouldn’t. But WooWoo had been so happy with his toy. Ji-woo
hadhuggedhim. She’d thanked him.

“You ready for me?” Jungkook leans, whispers in her ear and she cannot see his dark eyes briefly
dart to Taehyung.

“Yes,” she hisses.

His palm lands on her ass with a smack. “Get on your knees,” he instructs, and she only takes a
moment, to pout, before she’s climbing off his lap and onto the bed. She faces Taehyung for the
first time in a while and he makes sure their eyes meet, makes sure he’s watching her, licking his
lips. Makes it obvious he thinks she’s mesmerizing, worthy to look at, at all times, then Jungkook
pushes at the back of her head and she presses it into the mattress, and he looks away.

Her arms stretch forward, face in the duvet as Jungkook directs with subtle touches before he
positions himself on his knees behind her. He grips at her ankles and parts them a little more,
glides his hand across her back, squeezes firm at her hips. Taehyung’s eyes are glued as he probes
at her with his fingers for a bit more, before he grips at himself, presses the head at her and ever so
slightly pushes, she gives and he’s sliding inside her.

Taehyung’s teeth are pressing so hard into each other they might snap. He’s too focused on this, on
the fact Jungkook is sliding his cock into an ass, to really notice the other is watching, dark eyes
dancing over a twist of his mouth, sultry and malicious and smug, oh so smug.

“She has one hole free, you know.”

Taehyung’s eyes snap to him, head moving so fast he nearly gives himself a whiplash and he stares,
open-mouthed and dumbfounded. He wants to say something, but one has to breathe in order to
make sounds and his lungs are failing him, brain as well, worse than his family tree. He can’t even
stutter a pronoun. Can’t even sound afuck youthis instance.

They never address him during this. They talk about him, about the fact he’s watching, but they
don’t address him, they can’t; no one warned him they would – that Jungkook would be shirtless
and balls deep inside of someone and looking at him and speaking to him, in that rugged, rough
voice, with that tantalizing, horrible smirk.
Jungkook is still inside of her, and he can’t tell if he is waiting for her to adjust or for Taehyung to
respond. Jungkook’s head tilts and the smile at his mouth turns positively evil, makes cold sweat
run all across Taehyung, makes his heart thud. “You wanna join, pretty boy?” he says. He says,
and Taehyung almost runs, but doesn’t.

“Jungkook,” Julia speaks, pressing her cheek into the bedding. “Fuck me already. Please. I want
you.”

She presses her hips back into him and Jungkook glares at her. He grips at her, holds her still.
“Patience, I said.”

He shakes hair out of his eyes and looks at Taehyung again, the cruel entertainment settling back
into his sculpted features. “You wanna touch yourself at least, pretty boy?”

He does. God, he so desperately does. His cock is aching in his pants and it’s getting worse and
worse with every single syllable that falls through Jungkook’s lips. Pretty boy. If he calls him that
again, he’ll burst.

“Come on, I can see you’re hard from here. You can if you want to” Jungkook continues nodding
at his crotch and Taehyung’s hand jumps across it instinctively, an effort to hide it from the other’s
penetrating eyes, but he touches himself ever so slightly and he’s hissing. Something flashes in
Jungkook’s gaze. “Do it,” he challenges. Taehyung’s head shakes but his hand itches. “You
know,” Jungkook’s head is cocking to the other side – he looks lazy again, lazy and teasing and
way too fucking smug, “I won’t move until you do.” Julia whines, her hands gathering into the
fabric, fisting at it until her knuckles are white. Jungkook’s lips arch and they are pouting. His
places his palms on his girlfriend’s back, glides them across, presses into dips and crescents.
“You’re being cruel to our horny Julia.”

“Taehyung, please,” she moans as if on cue and his name feels wrong, so very wrong in the context
of this.

Jungkook raises his brows. His own hands are tight on her flesh, this must take a lot of willpower
for him, too. Still, he manages to tease. “You got her begging,” he says.

Taehyung is very explicitly aware of the hand above his crotch. It feels warm and it’s twitching.
His hips are a moment away from thrusting into it, and he’s so goddamn hard it’s starting to hurt.
Most of all, he reads the challenge in Jungkook’s eyes and he sees doubt. As provocative as he is
being, Taehyung knows Jungkook likely believes his coercion won’t fall through.
“Your pants must be tight. Straining,” Jungkook is saying. He’s laughing at him, at his prudishness
or something else, at some inside joke he has with himself and Julia’s moaning underneath him.

“Jungkook,” She’s whining. He’s shaking his head, turning to her, gripping at her hips. He’s
readying himself and the smirk on his goddamned mouth is so fucking annoying.

Taehyung is pretty sure all his braincells have evaporated when he snaps the button of his pants
and pulls the zipper down. Jungkook’s smile falters, he stills, for barely a moment and then his
eyes turn to Taehyung again, and the other does not shy away. He looks straight at him when his
long fingers dip into his underwear and pull him out. Jungkook’s jaw ticks, tightens. His lids drop
as his pupils dart across him, fall towards his hand that wraps around himself.

Taehyung’s hissing, sighing, finally reaching some notion of physical relief. His lids drop as well,
mirroring Jungkook when eyes trail back to him. His mouth parts, tongue pokes out for a second.
He cannot help his expression, is too far gone with what he doesn’t know to even care.

Jungkook struggles not to swallow air. He forces the smile back onto his expression and it irks at
Taehyung, so much. “There you go,” Jungkook says softly, gently. He grips at Julia, finally moves
his hips ever so slowly and she’s whimpering contentedly. “Yeah. You’re making my girl all kinds
of happy. Come on, now, pretty boy.” At the endearment Taehyung’s eyes narrow. He pauses his
movement, reaches his hand up and stares at Jungkook dead in the dark, teasing eyes as he slowly
drags his tongue right across his palm. Jungkook’s hips shove into Julia, his hooded eyes glaring as
Taehyung reaches for himself again, wraps his moistened palm around his cock and slides it.

It feels good. Amazing. There is a rush going through him, scorching and alive and it laces over his
skin and traces underneath as well, setting a fire inside him, the pit of his stomach and over his
blood and it all begins and ends in Jungkook’s fiery eyes that are on him as he touches himself. It’s
an excitement, an unfamiliar adrenaline mixed in with a challenge, an unspoken competition of a
sort he is doomed to lose because no matter how much he surprises Jungkook he is too far gone
just for being in his presence. He does not want to focus on that, though. Not now. Instead, he
focuses on pleasure. He focuses on Jungkook. On his face, his eyes, his lips, his jaw. On his body,
his arms, his chest, his stomach. On the way he moves, the way he speaks.

And he’s speaking now, speaking to Taehyung. “You set the pace,” He says, eyes trained on the
motion of Taehyung’s hand across his length. His fingers are so thin, so long, so elegant. Even his
hands are pretty, and they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t but they are, and he wants to punish him
for it. “Just so you know, she likes it fast.”

Taehyung listens. Eyes narrowed and one hand dug tight into the cushion next to him, he takes his
lip into his mouth and he tugs at himself, sets a pace, jerks himself off, and Jungkook, now he
watches. He has to, to match the pace and he does. With the same rapid motion that Taehyung
snaps his wrist with, Jungkook thrusts into Julia, unforgiving and thorough.

Taehyung hates him all over again. Hates him because Julia is moaning and he is wondering, why?
How is that comfortable, let alone pleasurable, having something shoved into your ass, what is it
like, how does it feel? A finger? Two, three, a cock? Hips slamming into her, Jungkook’s hips
smacking into her thighs, her ass every time he completes a thrust, every time Taehyung’s fist
reaches the head of his cock.

He’s breathing hard. He’s breathing so hard and his heart is about to jump out of his chest.

“Faster,” Julia moans and he’s thankful because he needs to go faster, lest he bursts.

“Faster,” Jungkook repeats, for a moment blinking away from Taehyung’s motions to look at his
face when he pauses the instruction. His eyes pause, stare, and what’s he thinking, Taehyung
desperately wants to know what he is thinking.

At that moment Taehyung himself cannot think. He just moves, simply fists himself, presses his
thumb into his slit when he manages and he sees Jungkook’s hand reach forward, brush between
Julia’s legs and it remains there, rubbing. Taehyung’s hips are restless on the couch at this point,
no matter how much he wants to preserve at least the vulnerability of helplessness to himself, hide
it away from Jungkook’s prying eyes. He can’t. He’s gone. He fucks his fist and bites into his lip
so hard, the skin breaks, but he will not, he refuses to, absolutely refuses to make a sound.

Jungkook wants to hear him. He knows it will torture Taehyung if his mouth betrays him, if he
moans, and he thinks it is proper punishment for him, for being like this, for looking like this. He’s
a Kim and he’s poor and he’s a man, and he’s pretty. Pretty when he’s turned on, too, those fine
dark eyebrows knotting together, forehead creasing, lips turned white. His eyes are wild and so, so
vulnerable Jungkook almost pacing.

“Will you come for me?” He says, and then he turns to Julia. Julia. Julia. He wants to see Julia
come. “Come for me.”

Julia. Julia. Taehyung reminds himself. He wants Julia to come for him.

Still. Still. His hips stutter violently, hand moves so fast over his cock, so desperate. His mouth
almost bleeds and he looks at Jungkook. Jungkook, Jungkook, fucking Jungkook. And he comes
for him. Comes with a choked, swallowed noise and he comes so hard for a brief moment he loses
sight. He’s spurting, fist still rapid, but slowing over him as he rides his high, making a mess on his
shirt, but he doesn’t care he feels so damn good. He has no limbs for a brief few moments.

Julia must be coming as well because Jungkook is talking. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ah. Good girl.”

She’s moaning, she’s saying his name, and she’s fisting the bedding. Taehyung doesn’t really care.

He’s spent, trying to catch his breath and calm his heart, chest raising and falling.

Jungkook comes as well, slamming his hips into Julia’s and twisting his face beautifully, features
tightening and head tipping back. He allows a sound, a groan, and it’s not nearly enough, nearly not
what Taehyung wants to hear from him.

He slides out of Julia and stands, taking the condom off of himself and walking towards the
bathroom. Julia lets her hips fall to the bed, stretches. Her thighs are trembling with aftershocks and
she’s moaning into the sheets, feeling them with her hands.

“God. I won’t be able to sit for a week.”

She seems tired, too tired to speak to him, at least, because with him she would have to put up a
front, and he is thankful for that, as he cannot speak to her either. He’s too confused, too spent, too
much back on earth now, can sense the come staining his shirt sink into his skin as well. He feels
dirty; he’s dirty. And an idiot. He doesn’t know what he did, why he did it. He’s panicking. He’s
tugging himself back into his pants, doing the button with trembling hands, and, oh god, he’s
panicking.

What would his sister think? He has the scent of come on his hand, the stain of it on his shirt. What
did he do? What did he do?

He’s panicking and Jungkook is walking out of the bathroom. He’s not ready to face him, not at all,
let alone bare chested, but he’s there, as Taehyung stands up, there he is in all his shirtless, cruel
glory standing right in front of him.

“Here,” he says, and he stretches out money, practically shoves them at him, expression gone and
slipped into a cold neutrality that is ironically so palpable it almost hurts. Taehyung’s fingers wrap
around the fingers and Jungkook’s hand draws back so quick they almost fall in between them.
“And here,” he speaks again, and this time shoves a shirt at him, the one that he had worn that had
been disregarded to the floor. “This one doesn’t have come on it,” he explains, though it is with a
scathing disinterest and he steps away, and Taehyung thinksgood, good because he should not be
allowed to stand so close to him, shirtless.

But then, he has his shirt in his hand and he’s mouth is parting, stuttering. Are you sure, he wants to
say, because this is expensive surely, brand clothing, the most expensive article he’s probably ever
held between his fingers. I’ll give it back,he wants to say, because that is what he should say.
Thank you, he should thank him.

Instead, his dumb mouth speaks, asks the question that has been running through his head ever
since Jungkook set foot in the room, obviously angry. “Are you okay?” Taehyung says, and
Jungkook’s head snaps in his direction.

Julia’s head lifts off the bed, eyes rolling towards them, but she remains silent.

“Am I okay?” Jungkook snarls and he takes a step towards Taehyung and he immediately takes one
back. “Am I okay?” Jungkook’s laughing, humorless and cold and Taehyung is flinching. “Get the
fuck out of here, Kim.”

And Taehyung does. He hesitates, a passing moment in which their eyes meet and his heart
trembles, but he does leave. He takes his shirt off in the elevator, wipes himself, puts Jungkook’s
shirt on, the fine fabric that smells like him, the one he takes off as soon as he steps into his house,
where he goes to bed, but doesn’t fall asleep until the early morning.

“Jungkookie! Hey, how are you?” Jungkook knows the voice, recognizes it the second it hits his
senses, yet he does not expect to hear it here, now, a few blocks away from the Executive Tower
where they’ll be waiting for him. He does not expect to hear it pitched this way, either, excited and
cheerful.

It makes sense when he sees her, the way she is draped over some mildly familiar man, her hands
all over him, legs stuggling, and dress offensively high on her thighs. Jungkook briefly wonders if
he has seen that guy with Kai and it makes his blood run cold. It makes sense when he sees her
eyes, pupils blown wide and all gone, incapable of focusing on one thing.

“Clo,” he addresses, trying to keep his voice in line. His eyes fall to the way the man wraps his
hand around her hips, falls near to her thigh, and he wants to bash his skull in. “What are you on?”

Her hand’s wave around her dismissively and she puts so much motion into it she nearly stumbles,
and he reaches, despite the grasp the man has on her. He wraps a hand around her wrist, steadies
her, squeezes just for the sake of it, the sake of giving her some sensation of him being there,
because although she speaks to him, he is not sure she is aware. “Nothing new. Nothing new.” She
falls a bit with the words, and he tugs her, until she slips from the man’s hold and has to steady
herself with her palm on his chest. The man glares but says nothing. “What are you doing here at
this hour, Jungkook-ah?”

“I’m meeting Julia,” Jungkook says quickly, simply. He squeezes her wrist, tries to coax her into
speaking again. “Clo, tell me what you took, yeah?” He’s gentle, slow.

She’s brusque and fast, hitting her hand into his chest “Nothing new,” she insists. She isn’t looking
at him. She isn’t looking at anyone. Her tongue pokes out, licks over her mouth and it draws
Jungkook’s attention to it. Her lips are so dry, they’re peeling. “But hey do you know what is new,
what I found out today. Seokjin sleeps with older women for money. Remember Seokjin? The one
with the morals.” She laughs as she says it, spits the last word more so than she says it – it offends
her. She cackles. It is loud, short, forced, and so ironic is physically pains him. “Well, he fucks sad
hags for money.”

Jungkook turns his head to the man beside her, trying to judge if he is bothered she speaks of
another man, but now as he sees him, he is convinced he has seen him with Kai.

He tightens his grip on her wrist and tugs, “Clo, come home with me now.” He asks, low, through
teeth, but it only coaxes her to try to pull away. She’s too weak to successfully do it, limbs useless.
She settles for shaking her body, like a child throwing a tantrum.

“I thought you had a thing with Julia,” she says, even smirks. Her laughter rings now as if the mere
notion of having a thing with Julia is purely hilarious and her head tips back, the sound of it dying
down as soon it does. She moans instead, a whine that’s almost indicative of pain and Jungkook
tugs at her again.

“That can wait, she can wait, come with me.” Jungkook says and he means it. Julia can wait.
Taehyung can wait. She’d have enough fun with him on her own, he doesn’t care.

“But I need to go to the Ozone cause Seokjin wanted to talk.” She laughs to herself then, teeth
baring. She has too much saliva in her mouth. Her eyes are wet and glossy. “You reckon he’s going
to charge me?”

Jungkook’s teeth grind together, jaw ticks. “I thought you promised oppa you wouldn’t speak to Jin
again, Clo.”

Julia scoffs, glares at him with such conscious passion that throws him off enough that when she
attempts to shake his hand again, he lets her. “And you promised you wouldn’t let him hurt me
again two years ago, Jungkook, but I still get black eyes, don’t I?”

His mouth parts, but it falls shut again, as soon as it does. He’s wordless, speechless for long
enough that she falls a few steps back, back into the arm of the man who holds her up where
Jungkook failed to keep her in his grip. Her eyes soften on him, the glare glosses over with the
wetness. His voice is a breath, a plea. “Clo—” he attempts.

She doesn’t allow it, though. “Leave, Kook.” She says. “I don’t blame you.”

And he doesn’t. He stays. But soon, she’s gone and all he can do is watch the man take her away
and hope Seokjin does find her, does speak to her, despite their father’s wishes.

And when she finally completely disappears from his sight, he does leave, but not before he beats
his helplessness into the nearest trashcan, breaking it apart, piece by piece.
 Chapter 9
Chapter Summary

Jungkook might and might not be an asshole.

Chapter Notes

Well this is a lot longer than intended xx

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Ji-woo had felt something was wrong from the very first crash she heard. She had flinched,
grimaced, eyes falling shut and a breath of loaded exasperation had expelled through her lips, but
that had been it. She kept cleaning, just as rigorously scrubbing at the shelf, if not with even more
intent now, suddenly overcome with the desire to leave as quickly as possible. She had a room to
complete, though, and it was a comparatively huge one.

Everything is huge in the Jeon’s home, if she has to be honest. It’s bountiful and luxurious,
unnecessarily enormous and shiny, some ornaments elaborate and sophisticated, while others
modernly stylish, contemporary, yet still showy, all having their own particular beauty as separate
objects or pieces of furniture, but altogether poised and tasteless. It all just gives the notion, to Ji-
woo, personally, that the eldest Jeon has an exceptionally small dick.

She had tensed when he had entered, as she could hear, even with her back to him, his steps were
clumsy and uncoordinated; she just needs her ears to recognize a drunk – experience teaches. So,
she knows, as soon as he enters, she grows increasingly aware. She always is in homes that belong
in Richhood, especially in ones whose owners she suspects of having tiny penises and scarred egos.
Entitlement reeks off of men like Jeon. Over possessions, over behaviors that go unpunished, over
people he can afford, and he can afford her.

And today, a shiver had run down her spine the moment she noticed his presence.

She did not entirely remember what had transpired.

He’d stood near behind her, she’d startled. A crash had sounded as she’d spun, instinctively, her
fingers opening for the barest second needed for the ornament in her hand to slip right through.
She’d faced the towering man, his eyes bloodshot and gone. The slap to her cheek had followed,
ringing eerie in the way it so easily bounced off of the walls, familiar to the room.

As he grips her elbow tight by the bone and gets in her face, pupils dilating and large, nostrils
widened and mouth snarling in an ugly rage, she’s terrified, white, hot fear rushing through her
blood, her heart thumping in her chest in a steady, but escalated rhythm. She keeps her head
averted, to where it points automatically with the force of the slap, and doesn’t move. Her
breathing pattern is the only evidence something was wrong. She knows to keep her calm.

She’s scared and she knows it, but he doesn’t have to. He’s entitled to a lot, but not to her fear, and
she won’t give him it, knows it will only aggravate him further, egg him on, urge him to do more to
her, hit her again. Her fingers tremble and so do her lips, but her body keeps still, thankfully.

His digits tighten around her arm so viciously were he a little soberer her bone might have snapped.
He uses the hold he has to shake her, her whole body moving with his drunken stupor. He says a
number, slurs it passionately, face red, a number that she easily forgets. “That’s how much
yourfuckingmistake just cost.”

It’s his fault. He snuck up on her, startled her. She doesn’t say it, never would.

“I’m sorry,” she says cautiously, struggles not to let her voice betray her affect, but her tongue feels
incredibly dry when it touches the roof of her mouth and she’s afraid it shows.

Not that he would notice, as he shakes her again. “Clumsy bitch,” he snorts, distaste as obvious as
his drunkenness, “Sorry doesn’t pay me back.”

“I—”

“You either leave with no salary, or,” her eyes screw shut before he finishes, a single tear rolling
down her cheek past her dried lips, squeezed white into each other until they’ve disappeared. She
doesn’t know when it gathered in her eye, but it doesn’t matter. Her heart is crashing against her
chest now, about to burst, crashes in tandem with her back as he pushes her and she stumbles,
cornered into a wall. She knows how the sentence will finish before he opens his smirking, twisted
mouth to speak. “we will have to find another way for you to pay.”

It still strangles out a sob from out of her as he rounds up at her, like a vulture its pathetic prey.
Final hope diminishes as the words reach her ears and breath escapes her entirely. Her ribcage
closes up on her heart, on her insides as she sucks in air so desperately, she almost coughs.
Her head shakes, and the word no is a mantra on her lips, though she does not know if she whispers
it aloud or it just stays private to herself. She has done things, been offered things, and accepted, to
keep food on the table, to pay rent, she has. But she can’t, physically can’t do this, with him, not
when the mere thought of him makes her want to retch, when she can even now feel the bile rise in
her throat. She’s afraid if he touches her, she’ll vomit, and she’ll go home moneyless and jobless.

His hand is reaching towards her – she doesn’t look, but she feels it. She’s digging herself so hard
into the wall, she actually hopes for a blind moment it will dematerialize and let her fall through,
swallow her whole.

Naturally, it doesn’t. But he doesn’t touch her either.

“Leave her alone.”

The voice is cold, almost firm, firm enough for her, and it is close.Her eyes open instinctively, and
Jungkook is there, and she had never, ever, not even in her bravest dreams in which she’s a
worldwide famous billionaire, imagined she could be glad to see Jeon ungkook.

He stands near in a simple white t-shirt, arms crossed, an unreadable expression set on his harsh
face, directed at his father. She has never seen him so casual in attire, so pointed in emotion, but,
though it is little and dwindling, he has it. It’s unrecognizable to her, maybe she has never felt it,
maybe it was never even given a name, but his eyes betray something, and it is passionate in the
way it oozes off of him onto the elder Jeon.

“Mind your fucking business, Jungkook,” his father slurs, his eyes fixated on Ji-woo. He attempts
to take a step towards her, and he stumbles, arm reaching out to support him, plastering loud and
echoing right next to her head. She recoils, her shoulders lifting with her flinch and remaining there
to uselessly shield her.

“This ismy business.” Jungkook insists through teeth, his jaw ticking. He steps forward, arms
untangling. “Get off her.”

He reaches forward and grips at his shoulder, but his father brushes the touch off roughly,
stumbling even more forward with the brusqueness of his motion. His other arm raises, and it
presses into Ji-woo’s waist, digs into her flesh. He’s not touching her for the sake of it as much as
in attempt to hold himself up, but the sensation of his heat on her still sends her heart into
overdrive, makes it spiral with disgust. She wants him gone, gonegonegone.
She breathes, nearly chokes on it.

“Go to your room, ungrateful piece of shit.” He edges close towards Ji-woo, his body nearing, his
face inching dangerously. She can smell the liquor on his breath, and it makes her light headed.
Her heart is thumping. Silent tears are falling freely now, wetting her cheeks as she squirms. His
hand lifts off the wall, it graces her chin. She has the encompassing urge to gather as much saliva
as her dry throat can hold and spit in his red, distorted face. “Daddy wants to play.”

It hasn’t fully reached her ears, she hasn’t allowed herself to panic yet, when the man is ripped off
of her and shoved away. Jungkook stands nearer now, almost in front of her, his body a shield to
hers. His fists are gathered tight together, knuckles bulging, and he stands, eyes narrowed, legs
poised. “I told you to get the fuckoff of her.” His voice rings changed and unrecognizable. It is
close to a yell, and now when he doesn’t speak so leveled, so lazy, so sinister, there is something
strangely melodic to his anger.

There’s only spiteful hostility in his father’s when he manages his footing, surprising them all,
even himself when he finally straightens. “You’ll get yourself in trouble, little boy.” The threat is a
slurred whisper, and, though it is not directed at her, it entices a shiver in Ji-woo, raises the hairs on
the back of her neck, which feels explicitly cold now, layered with the moistness of sweat. His
father reaches forward and pushes him back, but it is futile.

Jungkook reciprocates, delivers a shove to his shoulders, but he is obviously careful, only to push
him away. His father stumbles, snarls – his mouth curls so ugly and vituperative. He charges
forward with clumsy steps. The hit he delivers to Jungkook’s chin is thankfully drunken, but not at
all held back. “It’s past your bedtime, Jungkookie.”

When his fist draws back again and swings, Jungkook swiftly captures it in his, squeezes.

“Don’t bring her into this,” he says; his voice has dropped, not for a lack of anger lacing it
anymore, but it seems to seek privacy. The other emotion, the one from before, the one that was
coloring his eyes, now strings through it, forces into him some sort of ill-tasting vulnerability and
he seems to push it away, his head shaking, as he pushes his father back as well and this time, he
does it with power. His father loses footing, drops foolishly to the floor – it fits him, Ji-woo thinks.
Jungkook looms over him, replaces the previous eerie emotionality with a firm harshness that nears
the melodic yell again. “You do not want to bring more people into this.”

Taehyung’s sister. It’s flashing through his head; it’s been flashing through his head ever since he
saw her trembling against the wall. She lookslike him, a bit, not nearly as pretty, as memorable, but
she does, and his father, he cannotbring more people into this mess of his. He cannot bring
Taehyung’s sister into this, and maybe it is too late for Jungkook to protect his own, to protect the
most important woman in his life from the pure heinousnessof his father’s whims, of his
disturbances, but it is not too late for him to protect Taehyung’s, and he will.

His father glares at him in a way that promises future regret, but Jungkook only stares back for a
moment. He is drunk, and it will be hard for him to get on his feet without assistance, but he has
done worse things when he was drunker and Jungkook needs to get Ji-woo out of there.

Jungkook’s fingers wrap around her wrist and pull her as she stares in shock. “Shit, come on,” he
mutters underneath his breath, giving her a firm tug that forces her into motion. Despite his
intentions, he is rough with her, brusque, his digits too tight and powerful, too controlling, and she
wonders if he has ever held someone gently, if he even can.

The steps he takes are large and pointed, and she follows. He does not give her much of a choice,
leading her into that marble hallway. The collision of their feet with the expensive stone rings
around the room, hers more regularly than his, until they pause. Her heels root into the ground, but
she stumbles a couple more steps after him with his initial inertia.

“Wa-wait,” she implores, and she stutters. She never stutters, and she hates it for a moment, but
doesn’t care the next. Can’t afford to care as he turns, still as brusque, eyes hard as they fix on her.

“Fuck, what?” he snaps, hands releasing her wrist and she surrounds it with her own digits
instinctively, fingers wrapping around skin in a subconscious need to soothe it, and his eyes fall to
that, too, almost seem to soften before they dart to hers again, as set and as harsh as before.

“I can’t — I can’t afford not to finish my shift. I, Tae and WooWoo need me to finish this.”

Jungkook blinks, eyes widen. “Are you fucking serious right now?” His stare darts to the door
behind him. They can both hear the fabric shuffling along the floor.

“No, I—”

Jungkook interjects, states firmly. “You have to drop our weeklies.”

“What?” she breathes sharply, sucks in air. It’s still hard for her, heart still dangerously uncalm.
She had been close to hyperventilating moments ago. She’s not rationally surprised by what had
happened to her, but she is irrationally still in shock of it. She gathers thoughts, tries to voice them.
“No, I can’t. WooWoo—”

Jungkook sighs, breathes. He’s exasperated, and it shows. He’s never seemed to her like a patient
man and it is very unlikely that he can be one, but he tries to reason now. “You have to before he
fires you. If he fires you, you get a bad name. You drop out, it won’t be that bad. Clashing hours,
unpredicted inconvenience, you’ll think of something.”

She shakes her head, her mouth opening and closing dumbly for a moment, and she feels she is
much uncharacteristically reminiscent of a fish. They can’t fire her. “I need the money,” she tells
him, though her voice is a plea. “I won’t tell anyone he hit me. I won’t, I swear.”

Jungkook blinks for a moment, staring at her, before he pauses, eyes fall shut, jaw ticks tight and
he breathes through his nose. When they open again, it is with a start that he hides well, as the two
are both alert to the fact they no longer hear shuffling, but steps. “Go,” Jungkook instructs, hurried.
He touches her shoulder as he urges, but when she flinches at the touch, he easily drops his arm.
“Go now. I’ll find a way to pay you for today later.”

She listens, leaves. He closes the door behind her, and she thinks in another world she might have
thanked him.

“You still on lunch break, Tae?” Jimin’s voice sounds clear and familiar through the phone when
Taehyung presses it to his ear. He relaxes back onto the edge of the stool after shifting to fish his
phone out of his pocket and crosses his legs.

He swallows the apple in his mouth. Jimin always scolds him if he speaks with his mouth full,
disgusting, he calls him. “Wouldn’t have answered if I weren’t, babe.”

Jimin’s gasp sounds on the other end of the line as Taehyung eyes the half-eaten apple in his hand
a little sadly. He wants to eat already. “You wouldn’t pick up even if it’s me?”

“Nope.” Taehyung rotates the apple in his hand, carefully plans when his next bite would be
placed. If he has to wait, then he will reward himself with a supple one after he hangs up, finally.
“And what if it is urgent?”

“Nothing’s urgent enough to get me fired, hyung,” he answers easily. He has now located the exact
spot where he desperately wants to sink his teeth into. He can almost taste it in his mouth.

“What if I’m dying?”

“Make sure your funeral’s on a weekend if you want me to make it.”

“I hate you,” Jimin snorts.

“You love me.”

“I might just,” he replies, and it lingers. The door to the kitchen where Taehyung is taking his
lunch opens, and he instinctively lifts his eyes up. Minho walks in, carrying a tray with empty
glasses on it. He meets his gaze immediately. Taehyung lifts his eyebrows into his hair,
questioning silently, and Minho raises his arm, taps at his wrist a couple of times.

“What’s up, Jimin?” Taehyung asks into his phone as he pushes off the stool and nods in his
coworker’s direction. “I have to go.”

“Come with me to the Ring tomorrow,” Jimin spews quickly, his voice rapid and slightly childish,
hurried, likely because he knows what the answer will be.

“What?” Taehyung hisses sharply. “The Ring? What the fuck would we do at the Ring?”

“I’ll dance and you’ll support me because I don’t want to be alone,” Jimin explains firmly, as if it
is a given already as Taehyung starts to walk out of the kitchen. Taehyung’s features contort with
questioning confusion even if Jimin cannot see him, but the other elaborates anyway, a pinch of
annoyance shining through his voice. “The brats are so bold they’re now collaborating with the
Ozone for illegal goddamn fights. My boss’ got me on duty cause I deal with them best.”

“Why do they need male dancers for a boxing fight anyway?” Taehyung asks, incredulous. Of
course, they would have the nerve to hire professional staff, associated with an actual club to an
underground fight. Only Richhood youth goes to the Ring really, and a few others, desperate or
brave enough to be their prey, he can’t know for sure. He’d been there once, briefly, and he’d
regretted it. “Don’t they only need exceptionally busty girls in their underwear?”

“It’s a final of a championship or some shit, so it is an event.” Taehyung can practically sense him
rolling his eyes with the sigh he expels. “We’re doing an actual routine.”

“A routine?” Taehyung questions with an almost amused skepticism.

“Well, as close as it gets to it, Tae. I’m not filming a freaking K-pop MV, obviously,” he sounds
aggravated and Taehyung knows he’ll take pity on him. He’ll agree. “Point is, I have an actual
fucking choreography, I’m not just shaking my ass shirtless tomorrow and I want you there, cause I
have a dance in the beginning of the night and in the end as well, and I’ll fucking die in the middle
if you’re not there.”

Taehyung snorts. “I’m pretty sure you’ll find someone else to entertain you, hyung. You always
do. Especially on nights you dance.”

“Idon’t find them. Theyfind me.”

Jimin and Taehyung’s relationship first and foremost prospers as such because of how much they
are capable of understanding each other’s most dubious motivations. Park Jimin is almost a Kim in
his successful, unobtrusive way to sneak into the premises of Richhood before it is too late to kick
him out, though, quite honestly, no one would attempt to. Jimin’s a name that people know as
simply that, his first and given name, he does not have the label of a family attached to him – he is
alone in who he is, and it is a fitting reflection of how he has spent most of his life. Not alone, but
lonely, trying to scorch loneliness with movement, with sensation. He’d never been as settled as he
currently is, never before been somewhere long enough to have a reputation, but now he does.

He is Kim Taehyung’s friend. But above that, he is a dancer in the Ozone. He engraved his
position with a natural sultriness and a calculated quality of salaciousness, oozed just right, in the
most pragmatic direction. Jimin is consciously titillating in the most shameless and, consequently,
dangerous sense possible. It gets him places, gets him things, gets him money. It is exhilarating
and gratifying in a way that is not entirely familiar to Taehyung – more a state of callous, ill-tasting
accomplishment that his sister can relate to, but he understands it.

Jimin has always insisted Taehyung had the asset to play the game of being poor in Richhood
similarly, but Taehyung almost never caves, because Jimin would understand, but Jimin is alone.
Taehyung is not. Taehyung is the only remaining man in Woojin’s life, only figure he has access to
look up to if he were to venture into masculinity and some scant shape of honor, he has to be there
to incline him to believe it is possible. So, Taehyung almost never caves.

Sometimes, it’s too easy, though. Sometimes when Jimin dances and he’s alone by the bar in the
Ozone, someone would inevitably approach him, buy him a drink. He would smile at the girl that
wants him inside her, look her over – he would be slow, unsubtle in a way that would make her
reciprocate the nature of his smile, lucidly provocative. He would simply suggest she could have
him, never promise, and his long fingers would pat at her palm, her wrist, her own digits,
immemorable jewelry easily slipping off and into his pocket. It shines bright, but he shines brighter
and, in some moments, very few, negligently few, he allows himself to know it.

Nothing compared to Jimin who now asks of him to come, again. He’d have more luck trying to
convince him in person, work his tricks on Taehyung as well, though he understands him much too
well for any of them to work. What does coax Taehyung into considering it is the repressed
fondness tugging at him, one Jimin would outwardly reproach.

“Who’s fighting, do you know?” Taehyung asks, maybe it’d be someone interesting. Curiosity has
always been Taehyung’s greatest sin.

He suffers from it now again as he exits the kitchen and pauses behind the bar to finish the
conversation. He suffers in the way both his footing and his breath slightly halt with Jimin’s reply.
“Taunting Jeon and Yunsik.”

Jungkook’s fighting. For a moment Taehyung thinks he might have heard wrong, his imagination
playing tricks on him, because it is too damn comfortable for it to be him. But then again it simply
makes sense. Of fucking course if it’s a championship, he’d be the one on the Ring. Taehyung tries
to remember all the things that had encapsulated his burdening curiosity and shifted it to the
Taunting Twin, exactly, and he knows one of them was raw, enviable talent. He has a talent for
everything unrelated to sensitivity; he supposes it spreads even to violence.

“I have to go, hyung,” Taehyung says into the phone. “My shift is starting.”

“Are you coming?” Jimin pipes with finality.

Ironically, it’s the exact moment he sees him through the window. “I’ll see.”

Taehyung ends the call. He puts his phone away with one hand behind the bar and throws away his
half-eaten apple with the other.

Jungkook is unsurprisingly there and it makes Taehyung’s throat feel awfully dry and constricted.
Fortunately, he’s, firstly, sans Julia this time. Instead, he’s with Jung Hoseok, who seems a
wonderful alternative to Taehyung. In daylight, that particular rich kid can almost be pleasant. He
is the only one who is actually capable of smiling, does it quite a lot even, other than Seokjin,
though Taehyung, despite his diminutive knowledge of the newcomer feels it would be offensive to
place him in the same category as the likes of a Jeon and his most trusted company. The second
fortunate aspect of Jungkook’s daily visit is that he is not sat at a table Taehyung has to serve, so,
theoretically, he should be fully able to avoid contact.

It reminds him it is Julia who’s targeted him from the two, and though with the situation as such
Jungkook has taken a liking to playing with him, he does not have a genuine interest in Taehyung.

It’s weirdly dejecting.

Taehyung ignores it the sensation when it swells up in him, wholeheartedly avoiding any plausible
implications that could derive from it, but he cannot ignore how conscious he is of the knot of his
tie. He fumbles with it, carefully inspecting it before he sees a couple sit outside in his area and he
gathers some menus, goes out to do his work.

He hates the tense awareness he feels when he walks perfectly in Jungkook’s sight. He hates how
badly he wants to know if Jungkook acknowledges his presence, if without Julia around, he spares
him a glance. It is a destructive headspace that he wants to escape, but his heart still beats one pace
too quick when he takes the couple’s order.

He doesn’t recognize the woman, just the man, but today, he isn’t particularly interested in who
either of them is.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything to him as he saunters by, and he tells himself he doesn’t
purposefully slow his step to give them both a chance to look at each other. Mostly he tries to
convince himself that because when he can’t resist anymore, and he steals a glance, it is
unreciprocated. Jungkook is engrossed with whatever it is that Hoseok is saying, and though he
does not seem to like it one bit, his attention holds firm and set.

The pang of deflation that surges through him is unwelcome, and unlasting.
He lets the door fall shut behind him automatically, pays no mind when he doesn’t hear it close.

What inevitably does capture his attention is the voice that calls his name. “Taehyung,” it lilts
familiarly behind him, extracting an immediate shiver, throws him off a bit and he visibly takes a
step too close to a client. The voice is no longer a problem in a moment, as an arm snakes along his
lower back and a hand grips on his waist unnecessarily, intuitively; there’s something familiar and
natural in the way Jungkook’s fingers assert themselves on Taehyung, something instinctive and
borderline possessive, and it could be an unhealthy combination of his innate sense of entitlement
and the fact they have seen other orgasm. Whatever it is, Taehyung’s immediately reaches to it,
about to push it off, but it disappears on its own. “Hey. Chill. I’m not doing anything. I just want
you to give this to your sister.”

His hands raise of him completely as Taehyung only half turns to address him. His eyes, however,
fall on a small stack of money in Jungkook’s outstretched hand, something immediate and hostile
washes over him. “My sister?” He voices with a sounded clasp of his teeth, animosity seeping from
his tongue and his narrowed eyes alike when he questions, “Why the fuck are you giving money to
my sister?”

Jungkook’s brows lift, likely he does not expect Taehyung to be this aggravated, but Taehyung is
still ridiculously bothered by the fact he cared Jungkook didn’t even spare him a glance. “Cause
she cleans my house?” Jungkook suggests; it comes off taunting, and Taehyung rolls his eyes. He
takes the money without allowing their skin to brush and ducks behind the bar. Jungkook doesn’t
leave, though, as Taehyung drops the menus in their place. No, Jungkook leans, he crosses his
arms, presses himself onto the bar and he leans. “Relax. Julia and I don’t have her booked on
Fridays or something.”

Taehyung’s eye roll only manages to complete now, and it finishes with a blank, open mouthed
stare pointed at Jungkook’s amused features. “You don’t actually think this is fucking funny, do
you?” he snaps at him.

The entertainment dwindles, but it isn’t replaced entirely by his typical lazy boredom. There’s
something else when he asks, “Would it bother you,” and then he pauses, cocks his head in half a
nod, indicative of Taehyung’s own expression and stance, “this much?”

Taehyung doesn’t skip a beat. “Yeah.”

Jungkook’s tongue clicks. “Why?” he ventures, and Taehyung is spinning around before the word
even finishes.
“Cause,” he deadpans with his back to Jungkook.

Taehyung pointedly strides into the kitchen, though it remains unbeknownst to him why he had
even for a moment figured Jungkook wouldn’t follow. It’s an attempted escape from the
interaction, but, if anything, it deteriorates the situation. It’s an hour at which they don’t serve food
and the dish washer is nowhere to be seen, so what Taehyung does is he essentially leads him to
privacy, space in which he thinks the entitlement of people like him amplifies with the
unprecedented impunity it grands them.

Moments prior to this, Taehyung had loved the particular time of the day which allows him to take
his break in peace and quiet. Now, he abhors he.

“That’s not really an answer,” Jungkook saunters in as if he owns the place, and Taehyung forgets
to be surprised at his audacity as he turns to direct his annoyance.

Jungkook pauses near by the door and it allows for some space between them, which Taehyung
appreciates, because he himself had stopped near a counter, and the prospect of having an
unmovable surface behind him when Jungkook lingers close by unnerves him.

“I’m working,” Taehyung declares emphatically, but all it earns him is a shrug.

“That’s not an answer, either.”

Taehyung looks away briefly, his tongue poking out to brush at his lips, wetting them. His arms
cross and in a venturous moment, he is speaking. “You don’t pay me to talk to you, do you?” he
meets his eyes firmly. “You pay me to watch you have sex. So that’s all I owe you, really.”

He turns to face the counter he had paused by, removing the cloth he keeps at his belt to clean
tables with and slams it onto the surface with zest, simply to give himself something to do, to
distract himself. If he focuses himself entirely on Jungkook, he’ll get lost, and it won’t be pretty,
not for him.

Jungkook takes a step now and Taehyung senses and hears it all alike. The other does not seem to
be in any way fazed by the attitude, nor is he discouraged from confidently demanding more.
“What do you do with the money?”
Taehyung glances at him over his shoulder. “What’s with the interrogation?”

Jungkook takes another step. It’s a small one, languorous, he somehow makes it seem natural that
he has to step forward. “I’m just...” he trails off, and now that seems, while not unnatural per se,
atypical, “curious.”

Taehyung hates Jungkook being unexpected in an unexpected way. He’s used to the other
surprising him, but in a particular way – he’d learned to expect the unexpected from this man. Yet,
his hesitance catches him so off guard, it evokes an actual response. “Rent.” Taehyung says at first,
scarcely, and he doesn’t mean to say more, but Jungkook is quiet, and Taehyung needs to feel that
silence. He notices a spot on the tiled counter in front of him, a full-on blotch, one a health
inspector would not be happy with. He’s glad to be able to scrub at it with his towel as he
distractedly speaks, lists for him, his previous animosity a bygone. “Clothes for my brother, school
supplies for my brother. I’m thinking of replacing the stove, but it will be hell explaining that to my
sister.”

Jungkook is taking another step forward behind Taehyung’s back. “Don’t you buy anything for
yourself?” he asks; he does so with indifference, bordering on a hint of curiosity, but as long as he
isn’t malicious, as long as he isn’t teasing, Taehyung keeps talking.

“Well,” He shrugs as he scrubs, “My potential education into architecture fond did suddenly
become abnormally large. And I might have bought a couple of shirts for myself. Oh.” He glances
behind his shoulder again, tries to be casual, but his eyes are flitting all over Jungkook when he
realizes his proximity, and the topic he is about to go onto makes him tingle, so, incapable of full
on nonchalance, he settles for steadiness, “By the way, how do you want me to return yours?” He
turns back to inspect if the spot’s disappearing. It’s been long gone, he supposes, but he just wants
to make sure. His next words are quiet. “I don’t reckon you want it in front of people.“

Jungkook’s eyes roam over him, over his back and stance, at the unnecessary, quick motion his
long, thin fingers make, scrubbing back and forth at the surface that by now is practically so clean
it glitters. Jungkook shrugs. “Keep it.”

Taehyung’s brows arch, lift into his hair and he can now see it from the side as he stands beside
him, presses his hip into the counter next to him. His eyes grow wide; he has big eyes, Jungkook
supposes. When he bats them with sheer incredulity and only faces him slightly, only with a tilt of
his neck, angling his body consistently away from his, he notices the lids are different. “Keep it?”
he questions.

Jungkook nods. “Yeah,” he confirms aloud, near a hum. He doesn’t particularly care for the shirt,
doesn’t even remember which one it was that he gave him – just a shirt, but Jungkook knowsit
smells of him, reminds him of him, even if he were to wash away Jungkook’s skin, the fabric
would remain too fine, to nice, the shirt a size or two too big to be Taehyung. There’s something
peculiarly alluring in having a piece of his clothing in Taehyung’s house, Jungkook concludes for a
twisted reason that doesn’t spark familiarity in him.

“It’s Hugo Boss,” Taehyung informs him, slowly, enunciates it, those different eyes still wide with
disbelief.

The brand means nothing to Jungkook. He has a lot of shirts with that label, none particularly
distinctive to him. He’d probably give them all to Taehyung if he asks him nicely, but the other’s
face and voice spell it out for him he finds even Jungkook’s current suggestion abysmally
preposterous. Jungkook’s shoulders lift casually, hands in his pockets. “Sell it then,” he tells him.

Taehyung eyes him slowly, cautiously, before his head cocks and his upper lip curves in a way that
would have been unattractive on anyone else, but Jungkook is starting to accept it is simply not
physically possible for Taehyung not to be frustratingly pretty. He’s still pretty when he shakes his
head and once again turns his back fully on him. “Do you really don’t want to touch something
I’ve worn that much?”

“No,” Jungkook replies, short, simple and straightforward. His arm reaches instinctively, hand
pressing in the side of Taehyung’s waist that is nearest to him, and he pushes at it slightly to tilt
him, draw his attention. His flesh is soft underneath his grasp, and the touch lingers. “How old is
your brother?”

For Taehyung, every grace of Jungkook’s firm, subtle touch feels scorching. He takes a step back,
out of his reach, out of his grasp. He does not particularly like the way Jungkook simply angles his
body as he sees fit, the way he readjusts him; he reminds himself he currently owes the other
nothing, except a shirt, maybe, but certainly not the will to be manhandled. “Stop touching me, will
you?” it slips out of his mouth as his hands lift up, defensive, though with no particular intent.

Jungkook replaces his hand back in his pocket calmly, and Taehyung allows himself to shift back
towards the counter, but he simply fingers at the gaps between the tiles, staring down at the
emotion of his own digits. “How old?” Jungkook repeats.

“Six,” Taehyung answers, before he sucks in a breath, looks at Jungkook again, but not at his eyes,
more at his nose. His nose’s the easiest part of his face to look at if he can resist glancing at his
lips. “Listen,” Taehyung starts, and he tries to be firm. “I don’t want to speak about my family with
you.”

Jungkook’s brows raise, his mouth tilting slights and Taehyung fails, he steals a glance at full red
lips, which shape words with the tiniest bit of amusement. “What doyou want to speak with me
about?”

“I —” it catches Taehyung off guard. Stupidly, the answer to that is just about everything. His
curiosity often adventures to places of simply what it would be like to hear Jungkook speak, to
share, opinions, thoughts, ambitions, interests. Anything. “nothing,” Taehyung replies. “We don’t
exactly have any tangent lines, do we?” And he asks the question pointedly, including his eyes as
well in the manifestation of that particular thought – he wants to be proven wrong, but he knows he
won’t be. So, he adds, “Won’t you be the first to say?”

Jungkook moves. “Sure,” he says offhandedly, the voice coming from straight behind him and the
hairs on the back of his neck inadvertently raise, minutely aware of the other’s presence. It
escalates, the pestering awareness does, and so does his fragile heartbeat, when Jungkook’s sinewy
forearms come into view as he places his hands on the edge of the counter, trapping the other
between his intimidating body and an impenetrable piece of wood and granite. “Do you need more
money, Taehyung?” Jungkook asks and his voice has lowered

“What?” Taehyung breathes out. His eyes focus on Jungkook’s fingers, the ring on them, the bones
on his hands. They appear loose in the way they are plastered on the counter, yet Taehyung
doesn’t dare try to escape.

Jungkook shifts on his legs and it sends Taehyungs heart into overdrive. “I’m speaking about the
one thing we have in common,” Jungkook informs him, casual, nonchalant, but then when he
speaks next, his voice comes much too close to the shell of Taehyung’s ear and he has to censor a
visible shiver, stares forwards, blank and dump. “When I said, you could join,” Jungkook pauses
pointedly and it reaps a result that coaxes a smirk out him; Taehyung sucks in a breath.“I meant it,”
the other finishes dangerously, malignantly.

Taehyung’s head is shaking. “Jungkook-ssi,” he spells out, just above a whisper, his voice not
dissimilar to a pant, though he does not have much else to say, not at this current point – his brain
struggles and so does his mouth.

Jungkook lets out a sound that borders on a snort, but his voice is still hissing in a teasingly,
suggestive way when it waves over Taehyung’s ear. “For fuck’s sake, you can call me hyung.”

“Hyung, then,” Taehyung acknowledges, but his head keeps shaking. “Sex for money.” He says,
outlines it as clear and simple as it it, out loud. He needs to hear it to realise it, it seems, because
the moment he does, something stirs in his chest, a discomfort that is profound and disarming in a
way it is entirely withhimself, with whohe is. “That’s...” he continues futile and forward, “that’s
prostitution. I — no.”
When Jungkook’s hard chest presses against his back he feels his heart skip a beat. The sensation
of Jungkook fitting himself so physically, so palpably against him, aligning their bodies together, it
almost strings a gasp out of him, but he sinks his teeth into his lips and swallows it safely until it
closes on his throat. “Don’t do it for money then,” Jungkook’s whispering now, and Taehyung has
to squeeze at the cloth to remain calm. He can feel his breath on the back of his head, ruffling
strands of his hair. “Do it cause you want to.”

Taehyung twists his fingers with utmost lack of coordination and the cloth rips in his hands. He
stares ahead, eyes wide, lips no longer worried between his teeth, for his mouth gapes with his
stutter. “Wha- what? I don’t, I don’t want to.”

He wants to speak clear, say more, but it is practically impossible when his whole back is on fire
pressed into hard, burning chest. It’s ridiculously difficult for him to concentrate on words and their
actual, transpiring meaning when he has to put so much of his composure into not pressing back
into the heat of Jungkook’s body.

It becomes harder still when Jungkook’s lips brush at the shell of his ear. He cannot stifle a shiver
now. It rocks through his body electrically and Jungkook does not remain ignorant to it, mouth
curling cunningly as he murmurs to the other boy. “Come on, Taehyung,” he lets the name roll out,
slow and long and teasing and Taehyung seriously loses knowledge of how people breath. “You
came so hard,” the other continues, illicit and explicit in his ear. Taehyung feelsthe words rumble
through his chest, vibrate on his back, before he hearsthem. “You can’t tell me you don’t want…”
he pauses and something lingers palpable between them, something unspoken, yet nevertheless
exchanged, “Julia.”

“I... don’t.” He’s honest, he figures he can’t be anything but when his head is spinning as much,
thoughts fragmented and fraudulent, but sensation there to envelop. He doesn’t want Julia. He
never has.

“No?” Jungkook breathes out, quick with forged disbelief. Taehyung shakes his head. He can feel
the shape of his nose against it as he does and there is something scathingly intimate about that
proximity. “You don’t want to be inside of her...” Jungkook’s thin fingers reach forward from the
right, touch Taehyung’s fidgeting digits, brush over them, and Taehyung watches, entranced – his
ring feels cold, “just a thin piece of skin separating you from me?”

That does it for Taehyung. He bursts. “Stop,” he exclaims, orders, as he pushes Jungkook’s
dauntingly gentle fingers off of his roughly. He spins in his grasp, knocks his shoulder into his
chest, before he shoves him away with his hands. “Stop.stop stop.” Taehyung begs. He’d been
right, he’s in no state to be dishonest at that moment, so he has no other choice but to shove him
away, because if has to answer, does he want that, does he in some twisted, borderline degenerate
shape or form want Jungkook? He does. But Jungkook doesn’t want him. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.
Taehyung has to remind himself that he doesn’t so he asks, as Jungkook settles a good two feet
away from him, regressed back to his previous condescending boredom, he hasto ask. “Why do
you— why would you even want this?”

This time when Jungkook’s shoulders lift in a shrug, Taehyung’s slouch with unwarranted
disappointment. “I don’t,” Jungkook answers as if it is simple, as if it explains things. And it
doesn’t. It confuses them.

And Taehyung gapes, bewildered. “What?” he questions, and there is a shrillness to his voice that
to his own ears rings with piteousness.

“I don’t,” Jungkook repeats with that mind-numbingly frustrating ostensible indifference, and
Taehyung breathes in, closes his eyes. Jungkook finishes and it is as if he delivers a blow. “Julia
does and I lost a bet.”

“A bet?” It’s choked, and Taehyung’s eyes open wide again as an unfamiliar type of nuanced
disgust roots into him, curls his mouth into an unflattering grimace. “Is that what I am?”

Jungkook scoffs. “Please.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest and cocks his head, the
condescension now seeping in waves. “Don’t tell me you have enough pride to be offended.“

Taehyung wants to laugh. It plays in his voice when he speaks next, a dejected, disbelieving
laughter. “Oh, so I’m poor. I’m desperate. I must be shameless then as well.“

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tries to interject, but it’s built up now. It overwhelms him, the fucking need
to just scream. He doesn’t, but his voice still raises high and he moves, steps right and steps left,
needs to let off some of what is bubbling inside of him.

“Fuck you, Jungkook,” he proclaims, points a single finger at him. “You. Your girlfriend. And
your money. Fuck you.”

“Taehyung,” he attempts again.

“Stopsaying my name like this,” it’s the loudest he allows himself to get and he looks at the ceiling
as he does, his arms raised in exasperation, voice shrill and vibrating with his anger. He’s angry, he
recogonises that, though he’s not as angry with Jungkook as he is with himself, because first and
foremost he is something he never expected to be in relation to him and Julia. He is hurt. He meets
his eye and speaks almost normally again. “Go back to Kim. I prefer Kim.”

This time when Jungkook begins he does not allow himself to be interrupted before he finishes it,
completely disregarding Taehyung’s last request. “Taehyung, your sister will drop our weeklies.”

Taehyung’s mouth opens and closes. “I— What? Why? What did you to her?” His eyes narrow,
fists curling,.

Jungkook’s head shakes. “Nothing. Listen—"

“No,youlisten,” Taehyung grinds out through gritted teeth and he takes a step forward; it’s small, a
gesture more so than anything else. He enunciates, “Just stay away from me and my family.” Their
eyes meet and Jungkook’s obsidian fucking orbs probe into him, oxymoronically penetrative and
dull, and Taehyung really wishes he were in the position to hit him. “Okay?”

Jungkook’s jaw clenches. It ticks. He seems to swallow some words before he opens his mouth and
announce, “Saturday.”

Taehyung blinks, confused. “What?”

Jungkook speaks calmly. “If you change your mind, we’ll be there Saturday,” he says coldly and
with it, he spins, and he leaves, and Taehyung desperately searches for something in his reach to
throw behind him.

Taehyung thinks not only will he not be there on Saturday, but he is not even going to the boxing
fight with Jimin. He wants to be in at least a fifty-mile radius from Jungkook, Julia, and all of
fucking Richhood.

All it takes is a single conversation with his sister for Taehyung to go to the boxing match.
He goes with Jimin. The only other male dancer who is called in tonight drives a car that has the
passenger seat missing, but he always welcomes Taehyung for a lift if he needs it. The Ring is
naturally not particularly close to neither Taehyung nor Jimin’s places, so Baekhyun is kind enough
to pick them both up. Taehyung sits at the side of the passenger seat, shoulder pressed to Jimin’s
warm arm, as his legs are much too long for the driver’s side to accommodate him. It will never
not be weird to have the front of the car empty, but it’s certainly not what’s prickling at Taehyung
with foreboding anxiety, what makes him rub his palms together in between his thighs and keep his
lower lip vacuumed into his mouth for most of the trip.

Jimin eyes him wearily when Taehyung inadvertently draws his attention to himself when he
subconsciously rocks into his seat. He watches him for a moment, parts his lips, then shakes his
head and turns away.

Taehyung follows Baekhyun and Jimin into a dressing room that some bulky European with a
folder points them to. It’s situated in a tiled corridor that makes Taeyhung wonder how it doesn’t
repel its usual spoiled, fancy occupants. It’s dim and long, has several doors all similar in shape and
size. Min Yoongi is the sole current inhabitant of the space, other than them, as he steps out of a
room, closes the door behind himself and walks confident and unbothered down the length of it
without looking up from the glaring light of his phone once.

He’s so focused on whatever the screen holds that Taehyung allows himself to trail his eyes along
him, turn his head to stare after him as he turns a corner and disappears. Taehyung’s gaze replaces
to the door from which he had materialized. He’s instantly curious as to what hides behind it, has
his suspicions.

The room they enter is simple. Benches, lockers, showers all in the same tiled room. There are a
couple of girls there that they greet, they know them – other dancers.

Taehyung does not want the front row standing spot that he gets. He feels he stands out like a sore
thumb at the ringside, rigid and most obviously uncomfortable. The room is loud.It’s boisterous
and filled with the vibration of excited conversation, laughter, screams. The skin of the people
around him glistens, the pupils of their eyes are huge, and their smiles enormous. He sees perfect,
straight white teeth everywhere he turns, legs of girls, countless pairs of bare, thin legs, and hair
sticking to moist skin.

He sees Jung Hoseok and Jung Hoseok sees him. He’s relaxed into a chair, long legs forward, the
ankle of one thrown over the knee of the other and he has his arm strewn over a girl with bare legs
who is comfortably tugged into his side, her fingers drumming suggestively along his chest.
Hoseok’s pupils are wide and black and his dark hair sticks tight to his glistening skin, and his
teeth shine bright and sparkly with the width of his smile. It falters when it lands on Taehyung,
visibly contorts all features of his face, and Taehyung looks swiftly away, centers his gaze on the
Ring, where it shouldbe in the first place.

Jimin’s dancing.

Taehyung’s heart paces with directions in which his mind is wandering. He is overthinking and he
knows it, but he can hardly help mulling over the obvious attitude Hoseok had towards him. Lack
of indifference always disconcerts him in the premises of anything Richhood, and he allows
himself to think maybe Jungkook mentioned him, but then he remembers he is a Kim, and that is
enough to provoke distaste.

Jimin stands next to him, shirtless, in jeans, and with some glitter on top, when the fight begins.
They don’t talk – Taehyung doesn’t. He just watches.

Everyone does as the two man climb into the ring. Yungsik walks in alongside five other people
when he does, moves his shoulders unnecessarily and stares straight, stares dead, underneath a
hood. He kisses a particularly thin girl on the lips chastely before he slides in between the ropes.

Jungkook walks in with Min Yoongi alone and the other leaves him wordlessly to saunter over to
Hoseok before he even reaches the Ring on which Yungsik is now bouncing, raising his gloves,
visiting corners. As Yoongi approaches Hoseok untangles himself from the girl beside him and
whispers something to her that makes her face drop, a frown coloring her features. She almost
stumbles as she folds her arms and leaves, a snarling expression directed at Yoongi as he passes by
her. He does not spare her a glance as he falls into her seat and nuzzles his shoulder underneath
Hoseok who smoothly positions his arm on the back of his chair to accommodate him.

The crowd cheers louder when Jungkook throws his leg over the ropes, though he does not seem
like a pleaser. He doesn’t egg the audience on in the same movie-like way that Yungsik had. He
simply climbs onto the ring and stands as shouts erupt around him. Taehyung’s eyes zero in
hopelessly on his build form and they root. He’s got a dark hood over his raven hair as well, an
unzipped, sleeveless piece of material covering his back.

The intensity of his obsidian eyes is ground-shaking for Taehyung, and they are not even fixated
on him.

He takes the cloth off with a backward motion of his head and then a roll of his shoulders. It’s
attractive in a bizarre way, makes Taehyung swallow around nothing. He has never seen Jungkook
like this, so bare. He’s just in shorts and shoes and gloves. His calves are on show, muscled and
spread slightly in a stance that if it were directed at Taehyung, he is not sure he would keep
consciousness. His broad chest is bare, back as well, relieved stomach. There is nothing
expensive on him, and he seems different, primal. He has a strand in those eyes, his jaw his
chiseled. Taehyung finds even the bone structure of his face threatening.

The gloves are a lot thinner than they are in actual boxing. Taehyung’s lower lip is sucked back
into his mouth.

Yungsik is bigger.

Taehyung’s heart thumps in his chest.

He doesn’t fully register words though he does see other people move around on the Ring,
someone making announcements. A European girl in bikini. She passes too close to Jungkook,
skids her eyes across the whole of his body, bites her lip.

The fight starts. The crowd is alive, a wave of passion, and Taehyung doesn’t understandwhy. He
wants it to stop as soon as it begins.

Yungsik is bigger. Jungkook is quicker. And he’s restless.His expression is gone, dark. He hits
with passion. He looks the way he looks when he fucks, if not even more moved. He’s fervid,
animalistic. He’s terrifying. His eyes do not leave his target once. He’s alive on the ring, agile,
rapid and unforgiving. Taehyung’s breath hitches each time Yungsik manages a hit.

The fight has nothing to do with what Taehyung has seen on television. There’s nothing that can be
interpreted as hugging, barely any distance between them at any moment. It’s pure, clear cut hurt,
hurthurthurt.

Sweat layers Jungkook’s body from the exertion of movement. The strand before his eyes wets, his
chest expands and contracts heavy with breaths, but they are steady. He is still under control,
always under control, though with the way he delivers powerful punches it is borderline disturbing
that he can be so aware of himself, so conscious and rapacious, while inflicting such violence.

Both men are vicious. Neither holds back and the crowd simply loves it.

Everything’s so loud and bright and violent and it feels dystopian to Taehyung.
The fight ends in the second round when Jungkook knocks Yungsik out cold with a jab to the chin
that would be certain to fracture. He stands over the lifeless body in his feet, catching his breath.
His lips are parted, and his head is tilted downward, eyes darting across the unconscious man. His
chest fills out and sinks rapidly and he takes a step back, falls into it more so than he takes it,
balance barely attainable, and Taehyung sinks his teeth into the flesh of his mouth, hard,
punishing, because he’s fucking concerned, and of all things,that is simply unacceptable. Jungkook
pokes his tongue into his cheek, wipes at his mouth with his forearm and it comes off crimson. The
color glares at Taehyung.

And then in the next moment so does Jungkook.

His head tilts, eyes shoot up into the overwhelmed, screaming crowd and they bolt right into
Taehyung. His heart minutely stops in his chest.

Jungkook’s eyes remain fixed, still containing in themselves a dark, animalistic quality that burns
through Taehyung with penetrative intensity. A man catches Jungkook by the wrist, lifts it up into
the air and Jungkook takes a couple of more breaths with his eyes perilously fixated on Taehyung’s
before he averts them, tilts his whole head and he really looks at the crowd now, lifts his other arm
up, pulses it into the air, announcing himself champion. It drives everybody wild, and no seems to
notice the thin girl trying to pull Yungsik’s body of the ring on her very own.

Jungkook leaves shortly. Taehyung’s eyes trail after him as crowd parts in front of him and hands
reach for his back. Bodies coalesce once he passes through, and it swallows him entirely until he
disappears from view.

Jimin has to dance again. Taehyung turns to his left. Yoongi’s eyes are closed shut and Hoseok is
focused on him, hands on his shoulders, shaking him from left to right with a concentrated
expression.

Taehyung takes a chance. It’s not particularly easy to reach the hallway with the dressing rooms,
but it’s not as difficult as he expects it to be, either, and he manages, relieved to be free of countless
bodies, greedy for violence.

He pauses when he does reach it. The space seems to be glaring at him, challenging him. He takes
a breath, one that is quick and short and makes his shoulders lift and fall. He disregards the need of
a mental pep talk, figures it is best to just walkand he does, because he went there for a reason and
he’s not going to leave empty handed.
Taehyung halts in front of the door Min Yoongi had come out of and he takes a chance. He raises
his hand, turns the handle, and it swings opened, and he had been right.

Jungkook is there, sat on the bench in the middle of a room, identical to the one given to Baekhyun
and Jimin. His thighs are spread wide, and he leans on them, both elbows digging into the firm
muscle underneath his shorts. His hands are busy uncurling a strung fabric that had been
protectively wrapped around his wrists and palms. Taehyung’s feet are rooted in the doorway by
the simple way he glances up, captures him with his piercing eyes.

The primality of his fighting countenance has evaporated, and he has sunk back into his
emblematic languor, but the intensity to his eyes is not yet lost entirely as they fix over Taehyung.

He waits, it seems, but Taehyung is silent.

Jungkook’s tongue darts over his lips. “Did you come by to see me shirtless one more time?” his
voice rings.

Taehyung leans on the side of the doorway, ignores the way the words make him flush. “I’m here
because of Jimin,” he states firmly.

Jungkook returns his attention to his wrist, proceeds to uncurl the fabric. “I know,” comes his
simple reply.

It surprises Taehyung that a single line of teasing is all Jungkook serves to him. His eyes dart
across the other, the cut underneath his left eyebrow, the smudge of red beneath his mouth.
“You’re bleeding,” Taehyung announces suddenly, dumbly. He shouldn’t notice. He shouldn’t
care,but Jungkook just sits there with an open cut, and this isn’t the cleanest place that there it.
Woojin’s cut infected once and it wasn’t pretty.

Jungkook’s brows lift and he speaks with a condescending laughter in his voice, when he responds.
“I know that as well,” he says and allows himself a smirk. “It happens.”

Taehyung blinks away at the patronizing superiority the other insists on forcing into the exchange
as he pointedly talks to him like to a child. He huffs to himself, shakes his head. He really doesn’t
care about his stupid cut.
So, he gets to the point.

He exhales and it is after a laborious silence that his voice feels the vacant room again. “Jungkook,
why is my sister dropping her weeklies?”

The other looks up at this. He stands, steps forward. “She is going to do it, after all?”

“Yes.” Taehyung presses as Jungkook nears. The angle of his body suggests he is not walking
towards Taehyung, as much as he is about to walk by him, but the directed steps still unnerve
him, stir something within him. “Yes, she is.” Jungkook’s close now, and he is about to step over
the threshold, but Taehyung with sudden bravery, or stupidity, he can’t be sure, shifts right in his
way. “Why?” he demands.

Jungkook glances at him, the dullness of the stare somewhat annoyed, as if Taehyung’s a pest.
“She won’t tell you?” he questions, and attempts to sidestep him again, but Taehyung’s set on it
now. He blocks his path.

“Did you hurt her, Jungkook?” he asks loud and clear and it lingers in the air between them, which
scant, space is lacking.

Jungkook’s eyes narrow slightly at the question, at him. They fall on his indignantly, and he sets
his angular jaw, makes the bone at the edge of it tick. “Get out of my way, Taehyung,” he instructs
authoritatively, lowering the timbre of his voice, which emphasizes its current deepness.

Taehyung swallows, musters up courage, but he doesn’t obey. “Did you?” he insists.

Jungkook’s eyes roll, his tongue first invades his cheek and then clicks along the roof of his mouth
before he centers his dark gaze on Taehyung again. He crosses his arms, leans forward a bit and his
hot breath washes over Taehyung when the other whispers, malignant yet soft. “If I did,” he begins
and his pupils roll over Taehyung’s entire body, takes it in as it treacherously heaves with the effect
of his teasing breath, “what are you going to do about it?”

Taehyung really does not know what in the world compels him after what he had witnessed barely
minutes ago, maybe sick hopes that his prayers would summon Jungkook’s exhaustion, maybe his
intrinsic impulsivity that, if it escalates in similar patterns, will border on lunaticity, but he swings.
It catches Jungkook and his crossed arms off guard and he manages a single jab, but anything after
that, the initial betrayal of what his intentions are, every attempt on his side is futile. Jungkook
recovers from the first hit so quickly Taehyung has to wonder if he even landed it. He steps back
from the second, ducks from the third and at the fourth time, Jungkook, in a single motion captures
his wrist.

Taehyung fights dumbly. He fights with frustration. He’s grunting as he attempts to free his arm
foolishly. He attacks with the other as well, not even curling his fingers into a fist, just slapping at
him, and he is so wound up, he knows the frustration which he now channels is not just at this, not
just for the sake of his sister – it’s for anything and everything, for the very fact of Jungkook’s
existence, and he just wants to fucking hit him again, hurt him, but he can’t because the other has
encapsulated his other wrist as well.

Taehyung struggles against the hold, and it reaps no results, but this isn’t boxing, there are no rules,
so he lifts his leg up, knees somewhere around Jungkook’s hip and the other hisses in pain, finally
makes a move of his own.

Jungkook never hits him back. He just contains him, pressing him against the wall and lining his
body with his, trapping his legs into place between his strong thighs. He walks him back towards it
with firm, long steps and Taehyung almost loses his footing. Jungkook releases one of his wrists,
slams his palm into the wall instead to balance both of their bodies upright and Taehyung
instinctively reaches for him to hold himself up, captures the warm dip of his waist with his long,
cold fingers.

His back hits the wall, and so does his wrist that Jungkook still has clenched between his digits.

They’re close now, proximity inebriating for Taehyung, and his heady scent is words, and
Taehyung can’t breathe. He’d breathed out all his frustration and now he can’t still his chest; it
raises and falls, rhythmic, but hard, quick, rapid, not dissimilar to the way his heart pounds within
it, uncontainable.

Jungkook’s breathing is strained, too, with holding himself back, with getting Taehyung to just
fucking relax. He has him now, firm and still against the wall, he has him.

They’re too close. Taehyung’s breath will never return safe to his lungs if Jungkook is at such a
distance. They’ve been in the same position before, with Jungkook being precariously physical in
all he does, and Taehyung begs he can get used to it, but he can’t. Especially not when Taehyung’s
releasing weeks’ worth of frustration canalized in an aggression to akin to savagery he does not
associate with himself, and Jungkook’s so bare.
He’s hot, scorching even, to the touch and Taehyung has his hand on him, on his thin waist, palm
holding him solid and curled. His bare upper body still glistens with the perspiration from the
boxing fight, and it accents the definition go his stomach and chest.

But Taehyung’s stupid. He wishes he was looking at his chiseled body, but he isn’t. He’s staring at
the features of his face, darting all across them, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. All across, his own
expression almost one of pain as his focus falls on the pink tongue that pokes out.

Taehyung’s pants expel and propel right into Jungkook’s parted lips.

So do Jungkook’s words when he breathes, speaks intimately, barely an inch from Taehyung’s
mouth. “I didn’t,” he confesses, and Taehyung’s brows raise, perplexed, his head blank and eyes
rooted to lips. “Hurt her,” Jungkook provides and Taehyung’s gaze liftes to meet his. “I wouldn’t.”

Taehyung lets his head fall back onto the wall. “Why do I find that hard to believe?” he murmurs.

Jungkook blinks at him, pauses and sighs. “Can’t blame you, can I?”

Taehyung’s calm now. There’s no need for Jungkook to hold him, but he does, his hard body
keeping him in place, and he’slooking him, so closely and somewhat intimately in the way their
breaths tangle, that it just reminds Taehyung how much he wishes he wasn’t just a bet.

The thought courses through him with venom and he tugs at his wrist to free it, nearly whines as he
demands, “Get off of me.”

Jungkook doesn’t, though. He stays put, stays on him, and he presses forward, with his hips that
tame Taehyung’s lower body, and his pelvis almost rolls into his, and Taehyung gasps a sigh so
shamefully lewd it almost reverberates into a moan. His fingers clench into Jungkook’s waist,
squeeze at the heated flesh, and Taehyung wonders, what are they even doing there still? “Is that
really what you want?”

Taehyung gulps. He hates that question, hates it, because in that moment in that moment Taehyung
wants something ridiculous, He wants to kiss him.

It’s such a strange urge to him, but it’s intrusive, unavoidable, makes his lips fucking tingle, and he
wonders, with the way Jungkook is still pressed to him, the way he looks at him, teases him, just
how gratifying he would find the bodily damage he inflicts on him if Taehyung does move an inch
and seal their lips together.

Or maybe—

A throat is cleared and Taehyung pales, removes his hand from Jungkook’s waist with admirable
quickness, slapping his palm into the wall behind him.

Jungkook, to his surprise, only retracts himself a little, just so that he isn’t touching him anymore,
and does not mirror his wide eyes and panicked retrieval of limbs. Instead, it is with lazy
annoyance that he turns to look at the intruder.

When Taehyung himself turns, he thinks maybe Jungkook was able to recognize the person just by
the sound they had made to announce their presence, because there in the doorway with one arm
thrown across the frame and her head leaned on it, stands his sister, pupils dilated, body glistening,
legs exposed, and smile bright.

“Ring girl asked for you,” Jeon Clo Eun says, as indolent as her brother, if not more. Her eyes dart
towards Taehyung lazily, and an instant discomfort waves over him, so he presses his hips firm
back into the wall, lifts the thigh closest to her up a little. She appears to take effort in closing her
eyes and opening them again to look at her brother. “I thought I’d tell her where she could find
you. I know you like to fuck after you fight.”

Taehyung sucks in a breath harshly.

Jungkook pushes off the wall and moves himself away from Taehyung entirely, and Taehyung just
has to wonder, was it so cold in here before. “So good to me, aren’t you?”

Taehyung blinks at the both of them, the exchange bewildering him first and soaring an uncanny
twist through the pit of his stomach next.

He’ll go, Taehyung realizes despondently. He’ll really go and fuck the European girl in the bikini
that made eyes at him. And Julia probably won’t even find out about it.

Clo Eun follows him with her eyes as he moves towards the door. “Yoongi passed out.
Someone has to manage your sex life.”
 Jungkook huffs half a laugh as he pauses by her. He twists his neck, looks over his shoulder, a final
glance sheering over Taehyung, and he utters a single word. “Saturday,” he says, and Taehyung
looks away, looks at the lockers, the bench, anywhere, but not at him.

He saunters out of the room and Taehyung begs the other Taunting Twin would leave with him,
but she lingers.

“Aren’t you a Kim?” she questions, voice lilted by unhidden curiosity.

He glances at her from the side. “Yes,” he answers shortly.

The girl cocks her head, idly scans him from the bottom of his feet to the top of his hair. Then she
pushes off the doorway, turns and leaves, but not before she utters a final appraisal.

“Interesting.”

Chapter End Notes

Thank you to everyone who reads and leaves kudos or comments. Feedback feels
incredible, criticism as well. I enjoy writing this, so I hope you enjoy reading, but it is
my first fanfic so of course it will be far from perfect.

I incorporated Tae's last two hair colors, but blue just won't do in this context, would
it? Taekook have been amazing lately, and if anyone thinks there was too many waist
touches in this chapter, blame them.
 Chapter 10
Chapter Summary

Everything, basically. Everything happens

Chapter Notes

this is a fourteen thousand word product of sleep deprivation and fascination with
taekook. it's also filthy as fuck, so beware

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Ji-woo is not the type of person to get nervous,so when she feels a slight empty disturbance to her
stomach as she most pointedly struts, much more in fashion of her typical character, she is
perplexed.

The night at the Ozone has not yet began, it is entirely too early for people such as them, who are
likely still recovering from whatever they had consumed or injected themselves with the previous
night. It’s so early the lights are still on and the space around her would look unrecognizable if she
hadn’t helped clean it as many times as had. That is what she is supposed to do now as well, but
she grows aware of a certain someone entering and desire for confrontation nags at her.

She knows why he’s there, both him and Min Yoongi, as they sit on one of the VIP exclusives
boots, though it itself looks much less impressive when light shines upon it. It’s the 12thof August,
which in Richhood equates to Seung Julia’s birthday and loyal, model boyfriend Jungkook has to
make sure everything is right: music, setting, people.

Ji-woo feels incredibly underdressed and straightforwardly poor as she approaches the both of
them. On this particular night they have gone out of their way to look rich. Undeniably, they
appear beautiful, perfectly exquisite, rivaling on marvelous with a fancy touch of elegance to both,
legs long, waists thin, materials sewn explicitly for them, tailored to their chests and arms. Ji-woo
wears a uniform that is, fortunately, not her lewd porn-esqueone, but something that indulges a lot
more in being simply sanitary and disposable.

The both have drinks in front of them, Jungkook’s unattended, Yoongi’s drained to the last bit.
Their conversation is quiet, but ongoing, and she feels her voice sound a notch too loud than she
intends it. “Why did you give me the money through my brother?”

It’s a sharp, short question, and she doubts it necessitates a proper address, so she skips that part,
shoots straight.

As two pairs of eyes drowsily shift to impose on her with paradoxically half-assed scrutiny, she
folds her arms and cracks a hip to the side. She stands her ground, always does.

Jungkook’s arrogant. He sits arrogantly, looks arrogant, speaks arrogant. He is dismissive in the
way he acknowledges her, and she hadn’t known such a combination was even possible. His elbow
on the table, his ringed fingers close to his lips. He lifts one as he arches an eyebrow. His chin is
held high and it does not help his condensation and how easily Ji-woo is made to feel small with
the way the boot is platformed and she’s leveled with their ankles, their feet. He looks at her from
above; she supposes he always will. “Cause he works in a cafe which I frequent?” he says it as a
question, voices it as if it bewilders him she’d even ask and beneath his words underlies an
obvious, why are you wasting my time.

Ji-woo supposes she should be thanking him. But it is a lot more in her nature to narrow her eyes,
purse her lips. She tries to force a warning in her following demand, though she does not imagine
any variation of her voice could ever appear threatening to him. “Stay away from him.”

As she says it, she spins, and she leaves. She has no use of witnessing the way they would mock
her – she’s said what she had to. She has not forgotten Jungkook’s prying. Jungkook taunting, he
looks like a bit of a homo, doesn’t he? She never wants to be a reason why someone like the
younger Jeon would approach her brother, no matter what he saves her from, even if he rescues her
from allof the more fucked up versions of himself in Richhood.

Yoongi rarely has what can be perceived as interest depicted on his countenance, and what sits on
his face now is not exactly it. It’s close enough to curiosity, however, and he speaks. “Her again?”
he addresses. “This is starting to smell, Jungkook.”

Jungkook separates his eyes from her retracting form and faces Yoongi. “Don’t bother your lazy,
little head with it, hyung.”

He says it with a smirk stretching on his lips, one that is positively devious. He doesn’t need to go
to Taehyung; no, not at all, because tonight Taehyung will come to him.
It’s the 8thof August, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a Saturday and that does.

Taehyung has never been more mentally split. Honestly, thus far, for what it’s worth, his life has
been fairly easy. Being as poor as he was, raised as a Kim, it is simple to go with the flow, to
follow his name, to only ever face moral ambiguity when he slips jewelry in his pocket and
utensils in his jacket, but to never really mull over the ambiguous aspect, as quite frankly, he is
aware enough that the rich, supposedvictimswon’t care, so why should he? He shouldn’t, he won’t.
He doesn’t.

He bounces a ball to the wall as he feels the laundry machine vibrate uncomfortably underneath
him. He has taken to sitting on it when it is his turn to wash up, as otherwise it makes attempts to
bounce through the wall, and the plaster suffers horribly. It’s an old machine. He wonders why it’s
becoming more vigorous with the years instead of losing power, but as long as it keeps his clothes
clean, he deems it senseless to complain.

This is new to him, Taehyung acknowledges as he captures the ball, the doubt, the impugning
apprehension of deciding. That’s what Richhood does to you, makes you question everything you
know, instills an unsettling unfamiliarity of your own self. It’s him that is put at a test now,
his sense of morality, which dwindles, has been dwindling since he first stole food and he was just
four when that happened. It has always been out of need, as he chooses to interpret it, though he did
not need to keep that one ring he has in the seams of his mattress. It’s different now, though. This is
terribly different, leaves an actual ill taste in his mouth as he works his tongue over his teeth, over
some hollows and crevices of his dried-up tissue.

He’s aiming the ball too hard at the walls, doing as much damage as the laundry machine would.

He can’t go.

Just a thin piece of skin separating you from me.

Taehyung trembles slightly as he sits on top of the machine and blames the sporadic shiver of his
body to the vibrations underneath him, no matter how withering it had been. The memory of the
words washes over him, like a promise, but like a threat, as well.
He won’t go.

Taehyung kicks his heels at the door of the laundry machine in unintended rhythm, drawn out from
the frustration of uncertainty. When he does it, he certainly does not expect the machine to
reciprocate, but it jostles so suddenly after the motion of his kick that Taehyung, startled, topples to
the ground.

“Fuck.”

They need a new laundry machine. It happily digs into the wall after it has securely removed
Taehyung’s thwarting weight from its surface. He straightens on his feet, expels a sigh, and
chooses to lean on the wall instead. His ass is pulsing from the vibrations, and he figures it is not
worth the discomfort – the plaster is already in tragic condition. The suffering of his ass is a futile
sacrifice that will fail to save it.

Taehyung used a fair amount of money to replace the stove. More importantly, he did a fair amount
of lying to afford it, which, regretfully, earned him a few slaps around the head. “Gambling?” Ji-
woo had been shocked and appalled. She’d actually forgotten to be happy this time, did not gift
him with another one of those rare, curious hugs, though she did at least smile, which was
rewarding enough. Having a stove that actually cookswas rewarding enough.

As much as he abhorred deceiving the sole person in this world who unconditionally cared for him,
he had been satisfied with that particular excuse of his, because it incorporated a certain important
quality: it was reusable. Though, he did not see himself coming into any more money, as he simply
wouldn’t go.

Do it cause you want to.

He hits the ball so hard on the floor it ricochets into the ceiling. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t.
He’s conflicted. He’s so fucking conflicted, and there is only one person to blame and it is not
Julia.

He wishes he could ricochet the ball into Jungkook’s smug, deadened face.

They need a new laundry machine. And Woojin would need new clothes for the winter, he’s
growing so fast, and, yes, maybe he could reuse Taehyung’s, but Taehyung’s are already hand-me-
downs and ripped a little, and just not good enough. What if it’s cold? And rent, they need to pay
rent. Rent is due. It’s always due. Rent and bills. Bills, bills, bills. So many of them, phones,
electricity, water, heating. God, last time Ji-woo was dismissed from a weekly they had gone
without electricity for threedays, and their father had even been home at the time.

And Jungkook and him will only be separated by a piece of skin.

Taehyung has to go.

He piles clothes out of the laundry machine, sticks them in the drying one, though it hasn’t
properly dried anything for about two years, and he charts up the stairs. It’s 7:34. If he leaves now,
he can make it.

Taehyung hates himself. For every single moment he takes to take off his sweat pants, his tee shirt,
he loathes himself. For every moment he takes to put on a shirt, black pants, he despises himself.
He knows it will be worse when he gets home. It had been last time; he’d felt dirty, nearly used. He
hadn’t slept that night and he won’t sleep this one, either. He will be used tonight. He’s a bet, that’s
all he is. It tastes so bad in his mouth, his stomach, his mind. For a short, petulant moment, he
wants to cry, but he doesn’t, he won’t. Ji-woo never does. He hasn’t seen her cry in twelve years.

A lump sits tight and heavy in his throat as he trudges down the stairs, skips the dangerous one.
He’s so close to the back door of the kitchen. And then, he hears a voice.

“Hyung, can you play with me?”

Taehyung whips around at the voice, at a small hand that tugs at the sleeve of his shirt. He retracts
his arm back instinctively, wraps his fingers around his own wrist. He doesn’t want WooWoo
touching him, not when he knows what he was about to do. He feels it on his skin, reckons it is
guilt, but it might as well be disgust.

Woojin stands there, dressed in clothes Taehyung’s probably worn before, and he stares at him
with big brown eyes. They are wide and gullible and young, so young. He holds a joystick in his
small hand, extending it a bit forward, a suggestion.

Taehyung closes his eyes, blows air through his nose and it ripples a strand of his hair. “Shit,
WooWoo. You scared me.”
“I’m sorry, hyung,” Woojin murmurs and it breaks Taehyung’s heart a little bit. He hadn’t scared
him, he couldn’t. It’s himself that Taehyung has been afraid of lately, what he’s been becoming.
“You just—You bought this, but you never play with me.”

Taehyung huffs. “That’s cause you never want to play Overwatch.” He removes some hair from
his face with a shake of his head.

Woojin perks up. “We can play anything you want.”

Taehyung’s lips purse. He fishes his phone out of his pocket, checks the time. If he doesn’t leave
immediately, he’ll be late. “Why don’t you play with Ji noona tonight? I have to be somewhere,
Woo.”

Woojin’s eyes find the ground and his lips form a pout that is too much for Taehyung. He’s weak
when it comes to certain things, incredibly and admittedly so, and WooWoo’s pout is one of them.
His brother speaks in a small voice, keeps his gaze on the parqueting. “Noona’s room is locked,”
he informs quietly. “She has an important meeting and says not to bother her.”

A deep sigh leaves Taehyung’s chest. He looks at his phone once again, before he secures it in his
pocket and crouches down, levels himself with his brother. He reaches an arm, cradles him by the
shoulder to regain his attention. Their eyes meet and Taehyung arches his brows, asks softly,
carefully, “Someone’s there?”

Woojin’s gulping a bit and Taehyung’s eyes fall shut when he hears the whispered confirmation.
“Yeah.”

Taehyung breathes. He doesn’t think. He’s past thinking when he sucks his lower lip into his
mouth and nods. “Okay,” he says. He parts his eyes, repeats, “Okay, Woo. I’ll play with you.” He
straightens on his feet, reaches a hand down. “Come on.”

Woojin’s small hand comfortably slips into Taehyung’s and he doesn’t feel he dirties his little
brother with the touch.

“Thank you for this, TaeTae,” Woojin tells him as the game loads and it is all worth it.

“It’s fine WooWoo,” Taehyung assures as he looks at the way the boy looks excitedly ahead at the
flashing screen. He can’t help himself, reaches a hand, pats at the back of his head, and his neck,
his touch lingering and his eyes remaining focused on his brother even as the game starts. “Always
for you, okay? When I can, always for you.”

Taehyung doesn’t know what to expect. It’s Monday and he’s working, and he has to see them,
most likely, and he has no idea whether they would acknowledge his absence at all, and if they
would, he dreads it. Any confrontation with Jungkook, he dreads.

He gets under his skin, palpably, annoyingly, indelibly. Before this whole perverse fiasco had
commenced, Taehyung used to look, to watch, he admits. But he didn’t think. Out of sight, out of
mind, it was, and he was comfortable with that. If the twin was at the café, at the Ozone, he would
slide a glance, let it linger, but once he was gone, he was gone. Now, Jeon Jungkook constantly
lurks in the twisted confines of his mind, and they simply must be twisted to skew Taehyung’s
thoughts in the directions in which they do so constantly he has to wonder what he even had to
occupy his attention previously.

He’d have to physically pry him out of there, it seems. He gladly would. He attempts to busy
himself. Plays Overwatch, works, talks to Jimin, to Baekhyun, even. It doesn’t work, though,
because thinking is just so frustratingly easy. So, he goes off, doing just that, wondering not if
Jungkook fucked that European girl, but how, wonders if he thought about him there, watching
him, if for Jungkook he remains a bet, or he likes having him there. He seems to, in a degenerate,
deprived way, he does. He wonders other things as well, stupid things, like what does Jungkook
do? When he doesn’t brood, or does he always brood. He imagines he has interests, explores his
imagination for what they could possibly be, but falls short, because he’s so far from
understanding Jungkook, he is.

So, he doesn’t expect fingers tight against his wrist to pull him into the hallway, leading to the
storage units.

He doesn’t expect the burning digits to release him as soon the door falls shut behind them and
piercing, obsidian eyes to glare into his, surprisingly treacherous of some dubious, undecipherable
emotion.

He doesn’t expect Jungkook to look at him and almost accusingly, but mostly flatly, dully, state,
“You didn’t come”.
Taehyung blinks. He’s still not fully comprehending he’s been dragged into the hallway, let alone
that he is being confronted. His heart beats weirdly when he does, when he allows his eyes to meet
Jungkook’s intense stare. “Observant,” Taehyung mimics dullness. He attempts dismissiveness; he
might not be able to chase him away from his thoughts, but maybe he can eradicate him from his
life.

“Why didn’t you?” Jungkook asks, and it’s simple. So simple. He’s asking as if they’re pondering
the weather. As if his expression isn’t set and his eyes don’t attempt to probe through Taehyung
and then inside him, with the way they scorch across him.

Taehyung crosses his arms before his chest, pretends he hadn’t almost opened the door to leave
that night, to go to him. “I told you I want nothing to do with you,” he breeds a hostility in himself
he hardly feels. It’s not animosity that charges him truly, but a deeply rooted frustration, a
sensation that he attempted to literally beat into Jungkook, but of course he quickly put an end to
that to instill a whole new wave into him.

Namely, the mind-hogging wave of wondering what it’d be like to kiss him.

It’s such a stupid thing to want, Taehyung realizes, to press his lips against his. It’s nothing and it’s
everything. It’s so utterly simple, yet so overwhelmingly difficult.

Jungkook is glaring, but he is silent, as Taehyung drops his gaze to his lips, unintentionally,
instinctively, but he can’t really stop himself, doesn’t fully regret it. They’re pretty lips, they’re red
and full and he keeps them glistening. Taehyung runs a tongue over his. The frustration that now
almost perpetually resides inside of him resurfaces tangibly and embodies itself into a grunted
question. “Why don’t you drop me already?”

Jungkook’s impartiality irks at Taehyung’s insides. He’s dragged him in a hallway against his will
to question him, glares at him as if this means something, then speaks as if Taehyung’s still just his
waiter and he’s ordering himself a cocktail. “Our bet was for a threesome,” he has the audacity to
shrug, “I owe her.”

Taehyung’s aggravated. He lets it seep into his speech and his motions as he spreads his arms to
two sides, exposing his chest, puffing it out. “Why don’t you find someone else then?” he asks,
and he doesn’t mean it, but it sounds a bit like a challenge as well. His hands drop, lay motionlessly
by his pockets, as he follows with a statement that is true in a way that does not sit well with him,
“Loads of people would be up for it for free.”

In a situation like this, Taehyung is dispensable at best, and he knows it perfectly well. Jeon
Jungkook and Seung Julia could persuade anyone into their bed, even their shared one. Fuck, if
they pulled it on Jimin, he’d probably agree. It makes Taehyung nervous. He worries a lip between
his teeth, tries not to show it, but what if they did exchange him. He hates that it inexplicably
bothers him, but it does, the idea of another man entering Jungkook’s life like that, his intimate life.
That European girl was one thing. Julia is a whole other. But the prospect of a guyirks him
unfamiliarly, yet discernably to an extent he can almost physically feel, in his stomach.

Jungkook’s stare manages to preserve the intensity of a glare while filtering in the frustration of
languor. His lids are low and his head tilts back slightly in a motion that centers Taehyung’s
attention to the pronounced line of his jaw, strong and chiseled. “She wants you, pretty boy,”
Jungkook tells him, speaks idly.

The nickname falls from his lips easily. He’s used to saying it – Taehyung’s not used to hearing it.

He ignores it, arches a brow. “Does she?”

Jungkook’s eyes are unwavering on him. “Yes,” he says.

The words drop out of Taehyung’s mouth, unbidden and exposing of a certain vulnerability he
prays would remain for himself. “You wouldn’t mind?” he asks, you wouldn’t mind exchanging
me?

Jungkook’s stare falters. He blinks at Taehyung. Once. Twice. And he looks away. His arms cross
as his tongue pokes in his cheek. “Don’t expect anything from me, Kim,” he says caustically as his
gaze returns, tone and eyes are different now – they’re colder, and Taehyung’s chest hollows,
“you’ll be disappointed.”

Taehyung nods. He nods a lot, stares at the ground and just nods, and then he breathes through his
nose, looks Jungkook straight in the eye. “Don’t worry. I never would.” He says – he lies – with
something belligerent behind the words spoken and he leaves to finish his shift and Jungkook lets
him, staring at the empty space in which he’d just stood.

Taehyung hasn’t seen Ji-woo cry in twelve years, and he does not suppose she will allow him to
witness such a sight now, but it does not mean he can’t recognize her utter devastation as she sits
on the table when he comes down the stairs and into the kitchen the very same night.
He just wants some water.

Instead he gets to hear her suck in a sharp breath, gather her shoulders together, when she
recognizes the distinctive sound of him approaching. One of her hands holds her head, brushes
irritably, weakly, underneath her nose. The other holds paper, sheets and sheets of paper.

He knows the look in her eyes as she stares down at the contents of what she reads, he recognizes
desperation when he sees it, and that is exactly it. Her eyes glisten weak and wide with exhaustion,
too much of it for her to appear composed. And he supposes he catches her of guard with the way
she shifts, she tries to gather herself, straighten on the chair. Her head lifts to Taehyung as he walks
and her fingers gather paper nervously, squeeze into it with vengeance.

Her lips play at something, at some game of happiness and smiling, but they lose. They are tight as
they stretch on her face, much too tight, and dry. “Hey,” she greets, her voice rasps and thickens.
He hears her swallow, sees the bop of her throat as she tries to clear it.

“Hey,” Taehyung says back.

It’s only in moments like these where Taehyung allows himself to acknowledge the hate he harbors
for his own family. His older brother and his father. Anger thugs at him in the form of hate, as he
witnesses their doing, what they left behind; Ji-woo, now the oldest, with the whole weight of the
world on her shoulders.

“Are you alright?” Taehyung asks after he begrudgingly gulps down the onslaught of feeling with
the cold water he pours himself. He draws a chair and sits by her, tries to search her with his eyes,
but at the moment, she won’t allow him. She always has to be strong, for him and Woojin. She
promised them. Taehyung wishes she would take it back.

“Yes,” she says. She chokes, “No.”

Taehyung pushes his glass towards her, and she sips it, quietly. He listens to her gulp down the
liquid in silence until the water is drained and she sets it back down. She breathes, wipes at her
mouth.

“What’s going on, Ji-Woo?” Taehyung asks. He has an instinct to reach out and touch her, but on a
rational level it seems inappropriate to him, so he holds his own elbows as he folds his arms on the
table and leans.

She shakes her head. “Everything,” she says. “Everything is going on, Taehyung. I’m looking at
numbers, I – I don’t think I can drop the Jeons’ weeklies.”

She leans back into her chair, licks her lips. She still does not allow herself to cry, not in front of
him. She chews on her lip, drops her hand on the table with a slam and proceeds to repeatedly hit
her fist against it, small, measured punches to the wood. Her eyes are not on him, they are on
nothing, scrunched together to maybe keep the glossing inside, not allow it to formulate into tears
that would drop. Her voice strains when she speaks, stretches around a gulp in her throat he
recognizes in the mere strength it takes her to speak coherently. “I don’t know what to do,
Taehyung. I don’t want to go back there. Jungkook said—”

She cuts herself off, brings one hand to her face, but Taehyung latches on. “What?” he demands
sharply, sharper than he had intended. “What did he say, noona? What did Jungkook do to you?”

Her eyes find him with a focus of some incredulity only she knows. He, on his part, is wildly
confused. The look in her eyes is almost offended. “Nothing,” she says. “Okay, Taehyung? He did
nothing to me,” she stresses. There’s too much emphasis, he thinks. Something’s wrong, he knows.

“Then why do you want to drop their weeklies so badly?”

She sighs, breathes so deeply. “It’s just—I can’t go back there, Tae. They’re a lot. They’re too
much. I can’t. I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” Taehyung starts slow. He adjusts on his chair, looks at her tentatively. “Okay. What if I
tell you you don’t have to?”

She meets his eyes, shakes her head. “It’s impossible,” her fingers latch around the cursed
numbered papers and she tosses them at him. “Look at this. We have factored in another two
weeklies at the Jeons for this month. It’s impossible to pay off everything without them.”

Taehyung licks his lips. “What if I told you I lied?”

Ji-Woo lifts two brows, cocks her head. “You lied?” the skepticism hurts, because of how much it
is undeserved. Taehyung nods. “And what did you lie about, Taehyung?”
“The amount of money I gambled—

“Tae, you piece of—”

“It’s double,” he interrupts firmly, and she halts what was narrowing to be an outburst.

“Double?”

“Double.”

Ji-woo’s eyes shut, she exhales heavily through her nose and lips alike. “You mean to tell me,” she
pauses. Her eyes open slow and dangerous as they focus on him. “That you played with your whole
fucking salary?”

“I mean to tell you, Ji-woo,” he leans towards her slightly, speaks slowly, cautiously, running his
tongue across the surface of his lips, “that I doubled my whole fucking salary.”

“I don’t know if I should tell you I love you or beat you the fuck up.”

He smiles. “You can do both.”

She shakes her head. The slide of her chair across the floor is rough to his ears. “You’re fool,
Taehyung,” she tells him, looking at him from above with glossy eyes and a soft expression. He
knows she wants to scream at him. He knows she’s too tired to do it. “You’re lucky, but you’re a
fool.”

“I know,” Taehyung nods.

“Don’t do it again,” she says sententiously. His eyes stray from hers, drop to the numbers. “I mean
it, Taehyung. You could have lost it all.” She digs a forefinger into her chest, presses it tightly.
“And it is my job to save your ass, okay?”
Taehyung shakes his head. He stands. “No, Ji-woo, no. It’s not okay. You’re as much my
responsibility as I am yours. And I make my decisions.”

Ji-woo’s jaw sets, eyes narrow. She seethes, “You make stupid decisions.”

“Ihaveto,” Taehyung snaps, focuses a gaze of passion towards her, too much of it for this time of
night, too loaded to be pointed to his own sister. “I have to. Just like you do. We’re Kims, Ji-woo.
We survive on stupid decisions. They save us. This time’s no different.”

The tension in the dance of challenge between their similarly unmatched eyes burns through the
small kitchen. It’s Ji-woo’s that falters first. “I’m going to bed,” she announces. “Thank you,” she
tells him, she whispers to him. “Thank you for saving my ass, but I’m going to bed.”

He follows her with his eyes as she skips a step and climbs to her room. He sighs to himself when
she disappears, falls into his seat again. He’s tired, exhausted. And it’s draining in more ways than
one that once again, he lied. Taehyung has no money, not enough for sure. He needs money. And,
for better or for worse, he knows exactly where to get them.

Ji-woo hasn’t cried in twelve years. And he may not be as strong as she is, but he won’t cry, either,
no matter how much it tugs at him.

Taehyung is glad a girl is hitting on him quite determinedly that night because he needs all the
liquid courage that her bank account can offer at the striking prices of the Ozone.

He downs a shot and settles it on the bar at which he leans. She speaks, but he doesn’t listen. He’s
concentrating, targeting.

Jungkook is dancing tonight. It’s a considerably rare sight, though Taehyung, with his regretful
experience of constant, curiosity-bidden observation has previously witnessed it, studied it. Though
before, he could not realize that the sensuousness of Jungkook as a dancer is reminiscent of his
passion as a lover. His sense of rhythm is remarkable. His clothes are tight on him tonight, permit
for the illustrious agility of his body to appear, to tease with the fact he is talented in this, too. It’s a
peculiar thing to possess a flair in, fucking clubbing, but of course, he would. There’s a titillating
quality to the way he moves, and Taehyung is as always obnoxiously, ineluctably captivated.

The other man sweats. It’s unsurprising. The heat of bodies and dancing would do that, but it’s
distracting, because even perspiration sits well on him, on the fringe of his hair and the lines of his
jaw. It reminds him of when Jungkook fights and it reminds him of when Jungkook fucks.

Julia is in his arms. She ensconces between them with the ardent ripples of her own body, and they
coalesce together in a pattern that is betraying of just how well they have explored each other, how
familiar they are to this. Something malignant grows inside of Taehyung, something acerbic that
has no place in him, none at all. She presses her back into his chest, crevices filling. Her neck
arches, she holds his nape in her palm, arm stretched. She’s saying something to him, and she
leaves him among bodies for the third time that night.

Taehyung doesn’t know for how long she will be gone this time, so he downs another shot. It
stings on his tongue, his throat, but he ignores it, excuses himself from the rich girl who bought it
for him. Alcohol invigorates him to move. It’s a foolish technique to muster up courage, a
vulnerable one, but necessary, it seems.

Reaching Jungkook is a strenuous exercise, one that requires of him to come into contact with a lot
of bodies he certainly wishes he could avoid. When he finally squeezes to his side, he runs his
fingers over his bicep, presses into the muscle that lies underneath, a physical call for his attention,
as he deems an audible one useless at first. As indolent, hazy eyes flutter towards him he retracts
his hand demurely. There’s something indecent in touching the other while he’s like this.

Taehyung’s figure stands still and rigid, incongruous in the midst of an electric wave of dancing.

There’s something to Jungkook’s eyes that night, to his expression as a whole. The surfaces of his
orbs glisten reddened around dilated irises. His lids fall almost half across them in a hooded,
alluring gaze that settles on Taehyung with unbidden intensity. His lips are slightly parted, pink
tongue poking in between to run over white, sharp teeth. The perspiration is more obvious now,
bright on his skin. He’s high but beautiful.

Jungkook’s arm reaches instinctive towards him. His wrist rests on the crevice of his shoulder for a
moment before his fingers curl, extend to the back of his neck, his palm cupping at his nape. It
spreads a fiery sensation across Taehyung’s skin, each outline of a digit scorching where it touches.
His own hand moves, pushes at Jungkook’s elbow, gathers his shoulder together until the other’s
palm drops, leaving a lingering fire in its wake.
“What happened between you and my sister?” Taehyung shouts close to him.

Jungkook arches his neck, tilts his head slightly, lets his ear be close to Taehyung’s mouth as their
shoulders brush. He still moves, still dances. Taehyung’s eyes fall on the ear he’s given him, study
its shape as he moves his lips closer to it, licks them.

“What happened between you and my sister, Jungkook?” Taehyung repeats. He needs to know.
Before he does anything too stupid, stupid even for him, he needs to know.

Jungkook’s parted lips spread into a lascivious smirk, the tip of his tongue poking in between still,
teasing. He tips his head some more, so that his own mouth is close to Taehyung’s ear as his is to
his own. “Dance, pretty boy,” he speaks beguilingly, breath washing over Taehyung’s cheek in a
thrilling wave that almost produces a shudder.

His head shakes. “No,” he stresses. He stares ahead, looks at other people dancing now, as he does
not trust himself to look at Jungkook, not at the brazen suggestion. He has to remind himself of
certain things, Taehyung does. That Jungkook is currently high as a kite, and that Jungkook is a
manipulative prick, working him for a reaction. He does not want Taehyung to dance, not in the
same way he had Julia between his arms, pressed fully, securely, most lewdly against him, at least.
It’s an entirely different dance that he wants to see from Taehyung, a swift repetitive rotation
around his little finger.

“No?” Jungkook quirks. His own low-lidded eyes flutter across the side of Taehyung’s face, chart
over his body, stoic and rigid as he shakes his head again. The discrepancy between him and
Jungkook on the dance floor is palpable when they stand so close together. Jungkook wants to
quench it. “Why not?” He lifts a hand, presses it lightly against the other’s waist. Taehyung shifts
at the contact, a single step forward, away from it, but inadvertently closer to Jungkook. He runs
his hand across his back shortly, furtively. The touch in such a setting is inundating to Taehyung,
sends his heart into overdrive. “You’ve been such a good dancer for me until now, Taehyung.”

The words are unequivocally sensuous as they travel in between them, Jungkook’s lips brushing
his ear for the barest of moments. He’s stopped dancing almost completely, but still stands there, in
Taehyung’s space, reeking of himself, musky and expensive. Taehyung hates how it makes him
shudder.

“This is not a game for me, Jungkook,” he gulps through the sentence. He wonders just how high
the other must be not to care, someone might be lookingand if people look, they will talk. A Jeon
speaking so closely to a Kim on a dance floor. Jungkook holding a Kim by the waist, a boy by the
waist.
Nobody seems to be capable of paying attention, though. Music palpitates in the beat of hearts and
people seem too lost in each other to care about bystanders. Taehyung supposes his bystanders are
their own people, with their own lives, their own dances to dance. But then again this is Richhood.
Privacy is public unless you can pay for it not to be.

Jungkook’s eyes are rapturous, appetitive in the way they dart across the whole of Taehyung, take
him in, make his breath race. His own heart does not beat with the pulsing sound of the music. It
drums to a rhythm set by the intensity of their interaction, bold and fast.

“Pity,” Jungkook tells him and he feels it across the line of his spine. “You can make a good
player.” His lips touch to the lobe of Taehyung’s ear again, and it’s not an accident this time, it’s
not, a second later something else brushes over the cartilage, above, something teasing and firm,
the tips of teeth, bared through his parted lips, and Taehyung presses a palm into Jungkook’s chest,
pushes him back.

He can’t breathe with him so close, can’t fucking focus. He’d rather scream his lungs out to make
sure Jungkook hears him than give him an excuse to speak in his ear.

Jungkook’s lips finally seal shut, pull tight against each other. He’s completely still himself now,
like Taehyung, the both of them standing with locked stares. His jaw ticks with the way his teeth
press together, and his eyes fall hard on Taehyung, skimming across him with their typical languor,
though its slightly different today, almost petulant post-dismissal, somehow whiny.

“What happened with my sister, Jungkook?” Taehyung asks again, voice as firm as it would pull
through.

To his utter surprise, Jungkook’s following response actually relates to the question, though it’s
wildly unsatisfactory for Taehyung’s purposes. “It’s not my story to tell,” Jungkook tells him. “It’s
her you need to pry it from, Kim. Not me.”

There’s a certain distance in the way he addresses him, calls him Kim, a distance he supposes he
put there when he pushed him away. Taehyung tries to ignore that – he prefers Kim to pretty boy,
anyway. He focuses on the response, on what it could mean. The purposeful ambiguity irks at him,
in toll with the way there seems to be something peculiarly noblein Jungkook’s evasiveness.
Chances are, it’s fake, but it’s all Taehyung has to work with. He’s not entirely sure what exactlyto
believe, but he does trust Jungkook did not hurt his sister.
So, he summons up all his courage (read: alcohol), chases away every last notion of pride his body
might possess, and he pronounces, “I’ll do it.”

Jungkook’s reply is terse, sharp, a hiss. “What?” His eyes flash.

He knows Jungkook hears him over the boom of the music. “If you and Julia still want… me, I will
—” he swallows, literally swallows down pride, “I’ll do it.”

The next question that leaves Jungkook’s mouth, Taehyung certainly does not expect. “Why?” he
asks, just as cuttingly.

It’s striking enough for Taehyung to hesitate, but he composes himself into a response. “You know
why, Jungkook.” Money. Of all the things Taehyung remembers from time to time to hate, maybe
money sits on top of the list, a devil of greed and a devil of need, and, sadly, hopelessly, Taehyung
falls perfectly into the second category. It is his unbidden devil, always chirping at his shoulder,
forcing him like a notorious Kim to make stupid decisions, as he does now.

The duel of their stares falters following several moments of Jungkook’s heavy silence. It feels
quiet to Taehyung, which is borderline ridiculous, considering bodies still dance, music still
charges them, loud and powerful.

Jungkook’s tongue runs over his lips, his eyes roll, and then he’s leaning, back in Taehyung’s
space. His fingers are on him again, dig into him this time, in the bone of his hip, harsh into the
flesh. “Tomorrow,” Jungkook says into his ear, accentuates his words with a squeeze of his hand
that elicits a helpless whimper from Taehyung that he fruitlessly tries to mask. “Come
heretomorrow.” There’s a newness to his voice and it is cold and sharp, cruel, “It’s Julia’s
birthday, and you, pretty boy, will be the perfect gift. She would love to unwrap you.”

He releases him then and before Taehyung can form a coherent thought, he disappears, leaves him
lost and somehow stranded in the middle of the pulsing body of dancers. The music is loud again.

Jungkook lifts his arm off of Julia’s bony shoulders as she climbs out of Min Yoongi’s rooftop
terrace hot tub. He trails eyes after her lazily as she makes a show out of habit, swinging her hips
from side to side salaciously as she struts towards a chaise lounge. She settles on her stomach,
folds her arms, places her face in between them.

The roar of the hot tub is loud as water bubbles. She’s considerably far away. Jungkook’s gaze
roots on Yoongi’s scrawny form as he sits, arms spread long on both sides and his neck craned
uncomfortably as he stares at clouds. He likes clouds, he always says it.

“Yoongi,” he calls. The older hums in acknowledgment but does not bother to move a muscle. “Do
you know of Kim Ji-Woo?”

His reply comes idly. He speaks slow today, drowsy, has trouble formulating sounds that do not
slur, and he hates to slur. “Kim Junsu’s only daughter is she not?”

Jungkook nods. “Very same.”

It’s perhaps enough a striking of a name drop as Yoongi actually moves for it, lifts his head off of
where it relaxes and focuses his eyes calculatingly on Jungkook. “What of her?” he questions.

“She cleans,” Jungkook states simply.

“Okay.”

“I want you to hire her.”

Yoongi’s head cocks, brows arch. “I already have a house keeper.”

“Fire her,” Jungkook responds rather coldly. There’s a determination in his voice. A finality.

Yoongi pauses, ponders, but it’s for mere seconds. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Jungkook nods. “Subin might want to sell to you again. I’ll talk to him.”
A slow smile stretches on Yoongi’s features, as he relaxes back into his previous position, half
submerging his face underneath water as he props the back of his head on the edge of the tub. His
eyes fall shut as the sun glares down on his face, and he appears for a moment to be in a perfectly
euphoric state. “I love you, Jungkook,” he slurs this time, uncaringly.

Jungkook snorts. “You love drugs.”

“I do,” Yoongi says. “But I love you, too. You and even Hoseok. I love love love you.”

Jungkook jostles him when he thinks he might fall asleep, but he’s gone already, so Jungkook slips
an arm underneath his legs, one underneath his shoulder, carries him to the bathroom. He sticks
two fingers in his throat until Yoongi throws up, and then puts him to bed.

When Yoongi wakes up an hour later, Hoseok’s there, and he makes him a cocktail.

Taehyung’s presence in the Ozone that night is not acknowledged for a good hour before Clo Eun
approaches him.

“Jungkook told me to give you this,” she tells him. She’s sober and it’s downright weird. He’s
never witnesses such a sturdy focus to her yes, such coherence and straightforwardness in her
words, such enunciation. Not that he’s witnesses too much of her closely,still, it’s a peculiar sight
to see.

Her eyes are unnerving. They rake over him with a calculatedness akin to that of her brother,
though she lacks some of the condescension and adds to the idleness. She holds herself with a
conscious stoicism that makes him slightly envious. Makes him wonder what sort of life both her
and Jungkook have to lead to be that composed and amputated of emotion.

She slips an envelope between his fingers, and his eyes fall to it instinctively. He’s not even looked
at it properly, hasn’t entirely processed the scenario, but she’s disappearing already, walking away
with ominous, charged words. “Mind your step, Kim,” is what she says as she struts away.
Taehyung’s head snaps up, gaze trails behind her as she saunters over to Seokjin. They don’t touch
each other as they leave the club, but they walk side by side and their shoulders brush.

The envelope holds a key card, asks him to go to the hotel and wait there. Granted they do not
want him for the birthday party itself – just need him for desert. He cannot fool himself into being
surprised. He was actually staggered he was allowed into the Ozone in the first place; on a night
such as this, people were incredibly filtered. It was no place for a Kim. Even Jimin was dismissed
for the night.

Waiting at the hotel is a real test of character. His phone is simply not entertaining enough to take
his mind off of the bubbling nervousness, the growing shame he tries to lucidly ignore, but it’s
there, baleful to his stomach. He scrolls, he texts, watches a game stream. None of it helps, not
when the bed is glaring at him. It taunts him. He hates how nothing, but a mere piece of furniture
can intimidate him so, make him want to pull strands from his hair off of his head.

How is this even going to work?

It’s a question he chooses not to dwell on, gags on a swell of apprehension. There is a dread in his
stomach, in his chest. There is. But it’s not enough. There’s something else as well and the
audacity of its presence magnifies the dread and gives it a new focus, a new target.

They come so late it’s early and Taehyung’s a jittery mess, but he won’t show it. They don’t
deserve it, any of it, any of him, but he’ll give himself to them anyway, because he has no choice,
but to. He’s already told the lie, promised money; damage’s done. He can’t escape this.

The both of them are flashy tonight in a way that is admittedly beautiful. Julia’s dress is wondrous,
sits well on her. Her hairstyle is elaborate, but she pulls at a long, elegant stick that pokes through
the bun of it as soon as she steps into the room, releasing it in gentle curls that fall over her
shoulders. She dismisses a scarf from around her that falls on the armchair beside him.

He sits, stunted with her immediate approach. She looks down at him, her eyes narrowing,
expression fierce. She says nothing to him, though, but her blatant expectation, her unavoidable
focus unnerves him.

He hesitates, but he does end up meekly saying, “Happy birthday.” It’s inappropriate in more ways
than he can count, but he has nothing else to tell her, really. It produces a smirk on Jungkook’s lips,
one that Taehyung fails to notice.
She crosses her arms. “I was hurt, Taehyung,” she announces, and it annoys him. They shouldn’t
be entitled to expecting anything from him, especially not something like this.

He doesn’t voice this, however. Not to Julia. Were it Jungkook trying to be confrontational, he
probably would have, but for Julia he remains silent. He has no desire to discuss this, anyway, in
any way, shape or form. A discussion is an acknowledgment, makes this whole thing real and he
doesn’t want it to be. He can ignore it, he can get it over with and he can ignore it.

He is not the first person in the world to sell sex, his body, himself. He certainly isn’t the last.
Some people do it every day. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s not. Taehyung is pretty sure his sister
has indirectly gone through this before. He suspects Jimin might have. Not so explicitly, not a done
deal, not such a forward exchange, not a currency after they are done, but gone through it
nonetheless.

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” she continues, her voice is whiny.

He wonders if she sometimes forgets they pay him. If she likes to pretend they don’t.

But they do, and Taehyung caters. He swallows down a wave of something in his throat, gulps
visibly, and Jungkook follows the bob of it with scheming eyes. “I do,” Taehyung says vacuously.
Jungkook’s eyes return to his face, they narrow on his features.

A smile stretches on Julia’s face. It’s slow and crooked, but high and genuine. She extends her
arm, which twists at the elbow with how skinny she is, palm spread and opened towards him. He
eyes it for a moment wearily. He fights an instinct to look at Jungkook, who hangs by the door
silently a few feet away from the exchange. He’s awfully quiet and it brings a new turmoil of
frustration to Taehyung.

For Taehyung, this is between him and Jungkook; this whole game they have been the major
characters and Julia has been a plot device. He constantly strives to find proof that for Jungkook he
is at least acharacter – and he is, he knows he is, but he also knows Jungkook plays a different
game. He does not play against him. He plays with him, more like an instrument, he feels, because
Taehyung has so far, elicited all the right notes, the sounds he strives for. Except, perhaps, on
Saturday.

He begs his uneasy reluctance does not show when he slips his hand in Julia’s and allows her to
coax him to his feet with a gentle tug. Her fingers are cold and slim, and too small. Their hands
don’t fit, but he follows her, stupidly hopes his palm isn’t clammy. He doesn’t care, he shouldn’t.
She leads him to the bed. The intimidating bed that had glared at him for hours with the memories
of what he had seen and the anticipation – apprehension, he corrects himself – of what had been to
come, what now is. For the merest moment Julia has her back to him, and Taehyung’s eyes
compellingly stray. They drift to the boy at the door, slide across him. He’s exquisite tonight,
clothes tight pressed and simply beautiful. Taehyung’s repressed appreciation for fashion could
admire him, really, but he is entirely too busy posing a question with his eyes as they cross
pathways. Why is he impartial and quiet, why does he remain by the door?

Jungkook’s eyes are as ever hard, dark, inundating and challenging. He seems sober to what
Taehyung can judge, sober and composed. His gaze follows the interaction between his girlfriend
and him, an interaction that he allows stoically, as he lingers in his position with his arms crossed.
Taehyung is surprised how quickly their stares fall together, how immediately they meet.

Julia quickly forces his away. She spins him, presses her fingers lightly on his chest, just above her
nipples, and he can mostly feel her prickly nails. Her touch pushes, directs, and he obeys, falling
onto the bed, right onto the spot at which Jungkook sat as she rode him the previous week.

Taehyung’s heart drums. His eyes trail back to Julia, whose focus is reserved to Taehyung’s face.
She lifts a finger and it ghosts over Taehyung’s chin, her thumb grazes over his bottom lip and she
whispers, “So pretty.”

She drops her hand, next, but not her eyes, they stay rooted on him and he keeps his head tilted
upwards, watching her, striving to ignore the scorching sensation on the side of himself which
excites and teases with the suggestion of Jungkook’s own gaze situated on him.

“Can I undress him, Jungkook?” Julia pipes without looking away, some feline, feigned innocence
seeping in the way she contorts the pitch of her voice, the pout of her lips.

She demands Jungkook’s involvement now, and Taehyung has to struggle even more not to look at
the other boy, though a curiosity to study his reactions wages a war within him. His breath hitches
for a moment at the insinuation of her question, but he quickly releases it, allows himself to breath
at least steadily, although heavily. His mouth sucks in the lip she had touched, and he has to fight
his knee’s desire to nervously bounce.

It’s happening, he thinks, it’s starting. He still does not entirely feel like a participant, not with the
way Julia regards him as an actual present she can open up, with the way she seeks Jungkook’s
permission, but not his.
“Just a bit,” Jungkook’s voice sounds rough and raw for the first time that night and it triggers a
shiver in Taehyung. The older leans against the door, lining his shoulder blades with its surface as
his calculating, permeating eyes dance across the whole of Taehyung, his rigid position, the
nervous bulk of his throat.

Julia’s fingers touch his neck briefly as they land on a button, and he sucks in a breath sharply,
hisses. Her eyes chart to his, blink at him, all sultry and dangerous. “Relax,” she coos at him,
presses at him a bit more until he leans on his palms and releases a labored exhale. She works his
shirt. Her gaze drops to follow the pattern of her motion as he tries to level his breathing. Her digits
wrap into the cheap fabric, tug at it until it slips from the confines of his trousers.

“Enough,” Jungkook says and Julia turns to him with a petulant glare. She can see the length of
Taehyung’s skin now, the melanin that stretches over his bones and chest, his small nipples, but
Jungkook can’t and he does not want to.

“Jungkook—”

“Don’twhine,” he demands warningly, in a voice so set and domineering Taehyung’s skin prickles,
and her mouth seals shut. Jungkook tilts his head, nods his chin simplistically. “Get on him,” he
instructs, and Taehyung struggles to keep breathing. “Knees on each side.”

Taehyung can’t do this. He can’t. He thought he could, but this is too much to take, not with
Jungkook fucking narrating it, in that goddamn authoritative voice, with those piercing, idle eyes
searing as they explore him from the side.

Julia is docile when it comes to this. Her fingers slip beneath the collar of his shirt on his shoulder
and rest there, tighten as she uses him to support herself as she positions herself above him. She
does as Jungkook dictates, positions first one knee on his side and then the other. She’s close to
him now, so close, proximity hot, but not what he wants. She does not completely straddle him as
he expects, she hovers first, though the weight of her eyes is enough to him, her fingers are on his
skin, and her knees touch to his thighs.

“You can touch her, Taehyung,” Jungkook teases, addresses him, and his eyes shoot to his leaning
form inadvertently. He is watching with a neutrality that somehow palpably represses something
and when their gazes meet and his lips twitch, Taehyung supposes it is entertainment. “She doesn’t
bite too hard,” he doesn’t miss a beat.

“You can touch me,” Julia whispers above him and he cannot tell if the demure innocence is fake
or not anymore as he hopelessly returns his eyes to hers. “Touch me,” she says.
He does. He has no excuse not to. Considering he will have to be inside her in a matter of minutes,
touching her may be a start. He palms at her waist. It’s small, and the fabric of her dress feels
exquisite underneath his skin. He firms his touch, cradling at her, his fingers tightening. She
relaxes into it, pushes herself against the cup of his palm and lowers her body into his lap.

She fits herself over him, the dress riding up on her thighs as she pulls her knees apart, until it
bundles almost at her hips. The crevice of the middle of her thighs is snug on him, on his crotch,
and he wonders how she manages to position herself so swiftly so perfectly over him. She does not
settle singularly, she moves over him, rotates herself in place with a languid motion of her hips that
stirs something in him. The revealed lace of her panties ruts against the fabric of his trousers.
There’s a heat between her legs that she presses over him.

“Does she feel good?” Jungkook’s voice startles him. He looks at him again, while Julia’s gaze
refuses to falter. His eyes are dark, so dark they’re black, completely and entirely. The lids are low,
and his chin is still tilted, jaw set, tight and sharp. There is a permanent challenge etched into his
countenance today. One that Taehyung is uncertain he can uphold.

The hesitation is clear in Taehyung’s demeanor as his lips part and expel a futile pronoun. “I,” he
stutters out, pauses. Julia teases her hips over him; it’s barely a motion, but when they are lined so
close together, he feels it, every slight motion of her. “Yes,” he grits out.

It’s what she wants to hear, and it is not exactly a lie, a warm, soft heat grinding directly across his
crotch can hardly feel bad.He knows, however, that is conscious of half of the sensation because of
the way Jungkook speaks to him. It makes him aware of the way she fits over him, feels over him.
It increases the sensitivity of his body, the tingles on his skin, the laboriousness of the action of
breathing.

Jungkook pushes away from the door, straightens on his legs. Julia grinds into Taehyung’s lap and
he squeezes at her harder when Jungkook shuns himself off of the luxurious suit jacket he had
adorning his shoulders. It’s in perfect sync with the motions of her hips, and Julia sighs over him.
Jungkook disposes of the jacket on the couch as he struts about the room. His dress pants are high
on his waist, accentuate his figure, which is alluring, at best. It’s dangerous, beautiful. He’s built
so temptingly, and Taehyung supposes Julia is as well, but maybe she is just not his type.

There is an air of superiority in the way Jungkook carries himself about the room, something that
attracts Taehyung’s supposedly otherwise occupied attention, and binds it to him. Long strides
pause close behind Julia. He centers his own gaze to his wrists as he undoes the cuffs of his shirt,
first one, then the other, nimble fingers work them opened. He pushes the sleeves of it upwards,
revealing wiry forearms, each lined with a protruding vein that Taehyung wants to trail a fingertip
over.
Jungkook’s head raises, fiery, powerful eyes meet Taehyung’s. “She’s warm, isn’t she?” He’s
smug.

Julia moans in a way that is attention-grabbing more than it is needy. “He’s getting hard,” she
voices. Frustratingly, it’s true and he squeezes into her side when she ruts her hips into it.

The smirks that stretches across Jungkook’s face is positively devious. There is something
menacing, yet suggestive that flashes across his eyes. They’re glinting and compulsive, and it’s
what Taehyung stares into when his own lips part slightly to betray a first sound.

Jungkook’s lids flutter at the softness of it. It’s reminiscent of a whimper, quiet and unsolicited, but
there sounding through the air and reaching Jungkook’s ears, whose tips heat peculiarly. He filters
out a breath and it irritates him that is slightly shallow.

He’s not doing anything. There is nothing there that should cause his breath to stir and shake. For
Christ’s sake, he’s had to be solidly sucked into an erection for the past two years, by his own
girlfriend, the one woman that should always get him excited.

“Of course, he’s getting hard,” Jungkook seethes more than he intends. His teeth grind together.
“He’s a little slutjust like you.”

Taehyung’s eyes widen, and he’s fucking offended, he genuinely is. His own teeth clamp together
with the brief anger that surges through him, his blood and his mind, but there is something else,
something uncanny and largely uninvited, personally disturbing in the way it makes his pants
tighten. Julia’s hips stutter on top of his, soft grinds into his crotch. Her gaze is on him, on
Taehyung as she rotates onto his hardening cock, but his glare is unrelenting on Jungkook.

He bites back words, a caustic remark that sits on his lips just at the edge of his teeth. He’s hesitant
to interrupt this, wants it over and done with, and he does not want, for some reason, to reveal what
he now has the audacity to say to Jungkook in front of Julia. Is not that their interactions have
developed, not at all, but maybe they have altered, and he wants to keep the particular direction in
which they have made alteration private to the two of them. He wonders how blatantly ridiculous
Jungkook would find his thoughts, one moment, doesn’t care next, as he glared. He charges his
gaze with as much viciousness as he can. He is pointed and he feels Jungkook understands.

Because Jungkook’s lips twitch. He steps closer. “He wants it,” Jungkook says. Taehyung feels he
uses ambiguity on purpose, narrows his eyes even more because of it.
Taehyung does not understand his own motivations, cannot comprehend what invigorates him, but
he uses his other hand, palms over Julia’s thigh, spreads his fingers wide on top of her cool skin
and sinks his digits into her flesh in a forward motion that propels her closer to him, speeds up a
grind she was already in the midst of. “Yes, Julia,” he breathes. He replaces his eyes on her. “I
want you.”

The beginning of a smirk on Jungkook’s face subside, disappear. His expression darkens as Julia
sighs on top of Taehyung, rhythmically nestling her crotch against his.

He steps forward, takes quick, sure strides and then he is behind Julia, towering over Taehyung.
He’s between his legs and his eyes are so daring, so intense Taehyung is actually glad to have the
girl serve as a barrier between them.

Jungkook slides a hand into his pocket, settles into a pretense of coolness, of detachment, that
speaks of the composure of dominance in the situation, but he keeps the glare in his eyes
passionate, likely cannot control it, and it makes Taehyung harder. “Pretty boy is eager, it seems,”
Jungkook mocks. He lifts his free arm, wraps the fingers of it against the back zipper of Julia’s
dress, and he pulls. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”

He undoes the dress as Taehyung swallows. Maybe he is taking on something he can’t handle,
answering to Jungkook’s taunting challenge.

“Take off my girlfriend’s dress,” Jungkook instructs.

Taehyung is reluctant and it is obvious. Jungkook is observant, anyway. There’s no point in

pretending, really. He presses his hand upwards on her thigh, slides it across her skin until it
reaches the hem of her dress. He replaces his other arm as well, takes lifts her dress up and over her
head and she helps him, raising her arms and throwing it on the floor.

She remains in stockings, heels and lacy panties, and it seems like Jungkook is satisfied with her
state of undress as such. The stockings are the definition of sexual, salacious, and she grinds into
him wantonly, but Taehyung’s attention is explicit on Jungkook. Even when he doesn’t look, he is
conscious of him, even when he trails his eyes across Julia’s newly revealed body, so bare and so
close. Her skin is hotter now, when he presses his hand against her waist again. Without the
restraints of her dress she fits better against him, more closely, the heat of the inside of her thighs
inviting against him, slightly wet, and he rolls back into her. Any friction is delicious.
 Jungkook’s eyes snap to the motion. They prickle at where Taehyung and Julia’s bodies connect
and then return to the other boy’s, who isn’t looking at him. He is trained on Julia, venturing,
exploring, skimming every naked inch of skin that is revealed before him and Jungkook locks his
jaw, reaches forward. He curls his fingers against Julia’s neck, brings the digits forward, the tips
on her trachea, and he squeezes only indicatively. She relaxes her head back, tips it, and it rests on
his hard chest.

Taehyung’s eyes draw to Jungkook’s thick fingers, lids flutter as pupils concentrate on the metal of
the ring as it tightens over Julia’s neck. His lips part. Julia’s do as well, in unison, and she moans.

Jungkook holds her as he removes her from his chest. He leans down, brings his red lips to her ear.
He is close now, so damn close to Taehyung with that stare, unrivaled, feral, scorching, most
importantly, on him. Though he speaks to Julia, he watches him, and Taehyung can hardly keep
coherence of thought, let alone of movement, of speech. “Do you want to ride the poor, pretty boy,
my love?”

From his position over her shoulder, Jungkook can see Taehyung, he can see the revealed tan skin,
stretched over his flesh, which appears soft, but firm. He looks so smooth, so clean, not a single
defect on the length of it. His nipples are hard, and his collarbones protrude, stretch the melanin
above them sharply and Jungkook wonders how it feels, wants to trail his finger over it, dip in the
crevices his clavicles create, imagines just what sort of reaction it would coax out of him, if he
presses into it, if he rolls the tip of his digit on the buds atop his surprisingly solid pectorals.

“Can I?” Julia whines, twisting her head onto Jungkook’s shoulder now. He squeezes lightly into
her neck again.

“Anything for you, baby, anything you want,” Jungkook murmurs in her ear, chest vibrating onto
her. “It’s your birthday.”

It elicits a moan from her, an erotic sound that Taehyung sees, hears, and feels when she releases it.

The one hand that is not wrapped around her throat, glides across her back. His fingers press into
the line of her spine firmly, dragging downwards in a revelation he knows her body just right, as
she arches, moaning. He dips lower and lower, the twist of her back follows the motion, her chest
curving into Taehyung’s, hard, perky nipples brushing against him illicitly.

“Isn’t that right, Taehyung?” Jungkook addresses and Taehyung twitches.

He still cannot look at him with a gaze different to a hooded glare, he cannot meet his eyes without
feral animosity, but he wonders if it is enough to cloud the other sensations he feels, the other
things he wants to foolishly communicate to the other boy.

He nods acquiescently. He’s paid to.

“Are you wet?” Jungkook asks, low, raw, as he slides a finger in the back of her panties. “Hm?
How does his cock feel under you, baby?”

Taehyung almost chokes. Jungkook is filthy, of course he is, everything about this is such, lewd
and filthy and borderline wrong. The way he dips his fingers in her underwear is wrong. The way
her hips stutter in Taehyung’s lap at whatever his ministrations are, is wrong. The way Taehyung’s
cock twitches is certainly wrong.

“Do you want it?” Jungkook continues. The tone of his voice is pure sin. It evaporates all proper
function directly from Taehyung, makes him ravenous for something.

“Yes,” Julia hisses. She seems as gone as Taehyung feels, head thrown back, breathing ragged and
words rasped. “He feels good, Jungkook. He’s big, I can tell. I feel him when he twitches.”
Jungkook inhales sharply, his lids flutter, and he tightens his fingers around her neck, slides his
other ones across her as she lifts of Taehyung’s lap to accommodate her boyfriend as he slips a digit
inside of her. She is wet. “I want him.”

He releases her neck and wraps his arm around her waist instead, pulling her back slightly so that
he can work her more comfortably with his other hand. She’s gasping, reaching an arm back
herself, slipping fingers between strands of his hair. She tugs on him as he moves inside her.

“Take it out then,” Jungkook tells her softly. He skims his teeth across the lid of her ear, takes it
between, teases, then releases. He dips his head more, mouths at the side of her neck, skims his
tongue across it, and she cannot seem to focus on his command as he overwhelms her with
sensation.

Taehyung is brimming as well, with something, with everything. He cannot comprehend any of
what is going on, of the fact Jungkook is fingering a girl that sits in his lap, he can almost feel the
motion of his digits as they thrust inside of her, just above him. That Jungkook is kissing her neck,
trailing his tongue on it, his teeth, but still looking at Taehyung, dark, glorious eyes settled on him
with a destructive libidinousness.
He watches the way his lips move, explore her revealed skin, and Taehyung wants; he desires
things he is not ready to admit to himself, but he cannot part his eyes with the way tongue, teeth
and red mouth moves wet and sultry over her. And Jungkook watches Taehyung watch him.

Jungkook’s previous instruction seems to register with Julia when he thrusts a finger hard enough
to makes her jostle. She fidgets, her fingers jittery, but still agile, experiences when they reach
towards him. Nails scrape across the skin above his trousers and he exhales sharply, tugging his
stomach away from the sudden touch. She undoes the button, pulls down the zipper.

As she pulls out his cock, Taehyung heaves a breath. He gulps. He is relieved when she frees him
of the confines of his tight and tightening pants, but he is undeniably fucking nervous.

Jungkook separates his lips from Julia. He straightens up, head tilted down. His eyes hood over,
drop over Taehyung’s cock.

Taehyung might collapse. Julia runs a fist over him, and Taehyung’s hips jerk into the sensation,
but as he leans back on his palms, he looks at Jungkook. Jungkook, fucking Jungkook, whose
goddamn eyes are on him, unrelenting and exploratory. Taehyung tingles, all over, he burns.

Jungkook’s face is a mask. Taehyung can’t tell anything of what the other is thinking, what runs
through his sick, rich head. He stares, reticent and still, the motion of his fingers inside his
girlfriend slowed.

Is he disgusted? It tugs at Taehyung balefully. Fuck, he probably is. Taehyung is overcome with
rapid, encompassing deflation at the prospect, but he figures, sudden and wrenching, that it is only
logical that he would be. Rich, spoiled, masculine boys, fighter boys, they tend to be disgusted by
dicks, don’t they?

Jungkook’s eyes lift, meet his. He’s scared his vulnerability sits on his face, exposes his current
fragility.

“Lay down, pretty boy,” Jungkook instructs.

He removes his hand from Julia, and she whines, audible and lascivious, his name falling from her
lips.
When Taehyung doesn’t move, Jungkook cocks his head. He orders, “On your back.”

Julia presses her free hand, the one that isn’t teasing lightly over his cock, on his chest and suedes
him into Jungkook’s instruction. “Listen,” she hisses. Her fingers are tentative on his dick, sure on
his chest, and he slides back to his elbows, then some more. He’s on his bad, pliantly, just as
Jungkook wants him.

He hates it, but he doesn’t all the same.

Jungkook undoes the buttons of his own shirt and Taehyung supposes maybe he should take
keener of an interest in the way Julia strokes his cock than the way Jungkook’s fingers move
across the fabric, but he’s entranced. He reveals skin, inch by inch, and Taehyung watches, gulps
as with fluid motion, Jungkook takes it off of his shoulders.

His bare upper body is marvelous to Taehyung, built, strong and relieved. His shoulders are sharp,
everything on him lean and defined and it hits Taehyung that Julia could never look like this. No
woman could ever look like this.

Jungkook props a knee on the bed, in between Taehyung’s spread legs and the other boy’s chest
rises aggressively, searching for breath, desperate for it. The older’s fingers are on Julia again. He
presses his chest to her back as she hovers over Taehyung’s back, as Jungkook stands between his
knees. He palms at her ass cheek, fondles the flesh lightly in a single squeeze and then it moves to
tug at her panties.

“Are those expensive?” he murmurs.

“Yes,” her voice is breathy. Her fingers grow firmer on Taehyung’s cock and he has to bite his lip,
sinks teeth into it. He fists at the sheet, the fabric exquisite underneath, but he cannot care.

Jungkook sighs, pauses. Then he grips at her underwear with both hands and in a smooth motion
rips it right off, muscle in his arms momentarily bulging.

“Unnecessary,” Julia hisses, and she pouts. “They were so pretty.”

“I’ll buy you prettier ones,” he promises. “You would’ve had to stand up.”
Jungkook does what he did last time, rubs the tips of his fingers in the front, slips two inside of her
briefly, before he pulls back and prods at her other entrance. He keeps his eyes on Taehyung, all
fucking night long, he keeps his eyes on him and Taehyung has long forgotten why he’s doing this,
he’s forgotten everything, really, everything but the masked lust in Jungkook’s dark eyes.

Jungkook uses his free hand to undo the buckle of his belt. He slips it form across his waist, lets it
clutter to the floor. He pops the button, tugs his own cock out. He’s hard, Taehyung notes with a
swallow, with a gulp. His breath shallows as he only pries away his gaze from Jungkook’s to
observe the motion of his ringer fingers as he wraps them around his length, strokes over his
erection idly, like he does everything, and Taehyung releases his lip, parts his mouth, runs a tongue
over it.

Jungkook’s eyes drop to it before they harden, narrow at him.

Taehyung almost cringes as how obviously wanton he must appear – the other must really be
repulsed.

Repulsed, but firmly palming at his cock, fisting at it with languid stroked. Taehyung wishes Julia
would fist over him with the same pace, mirror the motion.

“Are you hard?” Julia asks, and there is something to her voice, something indecipherable to
Taehyung, but bordering on incredulity. She twists her head slightly to glance at him over her
shoulder, her hand slowing on Taehyung.

Jungkook thrusts his fingers in her with power that makes her arch forward. She grunts, keeps
herself up with a palm that props on the bed near Taehyung.

Jungkook does not reply to her. He lets go of his cock, lets it hand limp and hard, reaches for his
back pocket. He hands her a packet, a condom, instructs. “Put this on him.”

Julia’s lips pull, sinister and taunting as she teases salaciously, “Don’t youwanna do it?”

Taehyung’s breath hitches. She squeezes at him.

Jungkook’s motions are a flash as he slips his digits out of her and retracts his hand. His palm rings
against her skin when it lands on her ass, send her forward with a jolt and a gasped shriek that
inadvertently escapes her smirking lips. His fingers venture to her neck again, wrap around it, more
centered around the underside of her jaw, and tug her upwards roughly, pressing her back against
his bare chest. He levels his mouth to her, jeers close by, “Don’t be a fuckingbitch, if you want to
be able to walk.”

Taehyung simmers. His blood runs hot and quick in his face, and his cock is aching.

She swallows thickly around the hold he has on her and nods. Jungkook releases her.

“Now be a good girl, put the condom on him, and sit on his cock, okay?” With mocking
gentleness, he brushes all her hair from one side to the other, plays singularly with strands as he
instructs, and pats on them. The tips of his fingers brush at her nape and she shivers.

Jungkook holds her hips with both hands when she does as he says. She slides the condom on
Taehyung, and he waits, apprehension, anticipation, whatever it is, he’s hard, he needs release, or
he will burst, and he cannot handle Jungkook’s fucking eyes anymore, his presence. The way he
speaks, the way he moves, the way he handles himself in the space around him. It is driving
Taehyung insane, actually freaking mad, every single demoralizing sentence of this fucking
exercise, this play on nerves and sanity. He’s losing, he’s lost, and there is nothing he can do about
it. This is the moment, this is it, this is when he officially loses all respect for himself.

This is his goddamn inauguration in becoming a Kim. Julia slides down on top of him, on the
length of him, slow and wet and hot, and tight. Jungkook was right, she is tight, and he lets out a
soft grunt, can’t help it, and his initiation is done and fucking complete. He’s part of the family
now. Bets they’d all be proud of him, lying there pliantly on his back, while a Seung sinks on his
cock, pays him to, and he allows her, and he watches the man behind her when her eyes drop shut
and she tilts her head back with an open-mouthed moan.

Taehyung hasn’t slept with anyone in a while. An it feels good. It does. It’s sex, and he’s hard,
what the reason is for him being so desperately turned on does not need to be revealed to Julia.
And Julia does not need to reason for her to feel good when she fucks herself on his dick.

His hands move to her thighs subconsciously, dig into flesh.

She’s good at it. It comes to no surprise to him that she is, that she moves in a way that is rhythmic
and pleasurable. But his concentration lies on the fingers that squeeze at her waist, the dark eyes
that peer at him from behind her.
Jungkook watches Taehyung’s face twist. It contorts, eyes narrow, features tighten. He’s pretty.
He’s so fucking pretty he actually wants to beat it out of him. Prettiness can be demolished. It can
be broken. He can wreak destruction on that face, he can. But not now, now he looks.

Jungkook presses his mouth to Julia’s ear again. “Baby,” he breathes and her acknowledgment’s a
moan. He flexes his digits into her waist. “Can you take me as well? Do you want me?”

“Yes,” she gasps. “Yes, Jungkook. Please, yes.”

“Okay,” Jungkook says. “Good girl, okay.”

He releases her waist, slips a moistened finger in her ass again, and when it goes in easily, he
allows himself to add in a second. “Bend over for me,” he whispers.

Taehyung hasn’t had sex in a while, Julia feels good and warm around him, and if Jungkook keeps
talking like that, Taehyung might actually come.

Julia places her palms on Taehyung’s sides, bends. It switches the angle of the way she rides him,
but she adjusts to it quick, ruts her hips against him, rotates in patterned figures. Taehyung keeps
his hands on her thighs, raises his own to meet her in her thrusts.

Jungkook opens another packet, slips the wrapping back in his pocket from where he took it. He
slides it on him, and Taehyung is frustrated, because he can’t watch. Julia is above him, blocking
view and demanding attention, demanding his eyes, because hers are on him, and he can’t not look
at her, though he has absolutely no desire to.

Her hips still for a moment when Jungkook holds her in place, slides inside of her, slow, and
Taehyung feels her somehow tighter,as the other’s cock squeezes into her other hole. He places his
other knee on the bed as well, fully now settling between his legs.

Expect that Julia’s between them.

It’s exhilarating to think the slide of Jungkook’s cock adds to the tightness he feels around himself.
It steals his breath. He wants so desperately to look, to see him. He’s technically above him,
hovering over him, and he starts moving. Starts fucking, slow and deliberate, and Taehyung doesn’t
see it, but he does feel it.

It’s Jungkook that sets the pace, of course it’s him. He grips her hips and fucks into her. The
motion’s over Taehyung’s own cock are repercussions of Jungkook’s thrust, and conceptually, it is
too much to handle.

He picks up quickly, goes hard, goes rough, and Julia is crying out.

“I’m so full,” she moans, her palms give, and she is on her elbows next, forearms a line against the
sheets and her forehead falls on the mattress beside him. Her face is close to his, incredibly close,
he can feel it with some thrusts, and he can sense her entire body at all times, hot and almost flush
with his, breasts rubbing against his chest.

But he doesn’t care, really, because now she is out of his way. His hips stutter.

He has an excuse now, an excuse to look at Jungkook, above him, thrusting in earnest, hard and
rough and powerful. He feels it, and he sees it. Sees the way his features contort with pleasure in a
way that is by now familiar, but entirely new again, so exquisite, explicit, so hot.Hot in a different
way to how Julia’s is, hot in a way that is erotic, sensual. Hot in a way that scorches him and
imprints itself into his mind.

Jungkook bites his lip. He seems concentrated, face tight and pointed, narrowed with pleasure.
He’s not looking at Taehyung now, he’s staring down at where his body meets Julia, and
Taehyung realizes he must see him as well, his dick sliding in and out of his girlfriend as he tries to
respond to the pace Jungkook sets.

“Yeah?” he strains. “You like it? Like riding pretty boy’s cock while I fuck you in the ass?”

Julia whines in Taehyung’s shoulder, in lost confirmations.

“Fuck. Of course, you do. My little whore, loves getting stuffed.”

And his eyes lift then and there and meet Taehyung’s and he could just die.
Julia responds with something, but it doesn’t register to Taehyung. If it does with Jungkook, he
doesn’t acknowledge it as well. He holds Taehyung’s eyes. It’s brief; it’s so brief before he’s
looking away, gives him his jaw instead and looks ahead, stares at the wall.

It’s brief, but it’s better than when Julia first slid on him, turns him on more, makes his cock
twitch.

Taehyung wants to see his eyes again, does not want his freaking jaw; it’s pretty, it’s beautiful,
but’s nothing on his eyes, absolutely nothing, not with the way they pin Taehyung down, pierce
him, entice him and threat him all the same.

Jungkook’s picking up pace. He goes hard, fast. Taehyung has to wonder how Julia doesn’t hurt,
why she only keeps moaning, crying out beside him, writhing. She’s absolutely lost to sensation.
He supposes maybe she does, maybe she just doesn’tcare. Maybe if there is pain, it’s worth it.

She groans. “Jungkook,” she’s desperate.

Taehyung hates how she is allowed to say his name.

“Yes, baby?”

Taehyung bites his lips. He squeezes into them hard, almost breaks skin.

“Can I come?” her head turns, and her begging breaths come as whiffs to the side of Taehyung’s
head, tease over his skin. “It’s so much, Jungkook, I need to come. Please. Fuck. Please.”

Jungkook’s thrusts are merciless, he fucks her, and it causes her to fuck on Taehyung. It’s too
much for him as well. He’s squeezing onto her thighs, hard. He’s going to break the skin of his lip,
he knows, but he cannot face the vulnerability of moaning.

“Anything you want, baby. Do you want to come?”

His voice is soft, though raw and breathy, juxtaposed to the way he relentlessly fucks into her.
He does something next, something so simple.

He touches Taehyung’s thigh, just above the knee. He lets go of Julia with one hand, places it on
him, light at first, barely there, just the ghost of sensation. If he means to coax a reaction, he
succeeds. Taehyung’s lips betray a whimper, his eyes widen and search his evasive face, but he
does not concede, stares ahead.

“Ye-yes,” Julia moans, she begs.

Jungkook’s fingers close more firmly over Taehyung’s thigh. They squeeze into him, dig right into
the flesh with a single, searing, breathtaking motion.

And then his eyes drop, hooded, dangerous and irresistible. They meet Taehyung’s wide,
questioning eyes.

“Come for me,” he says.

And Taehyung does. His hips gyrate into Julia’s with a raising thrust, his back arches slightly of
the bed and his head falls back, press tight and uncontrolled on the mattress. His eyes seal shut,
hopeless, and he moans. He can’t hold it back, not now when his world fucking spins with
sensation. His muscles contract, hold, as he spills inside the condom, pleasure washing over him,
pleasure that numbs his mind, captures him completely.

Julia comes with him, her orgasm heightening his as she squeezes around him, but that is all he
cares to see of it.

Jungkook’s hand disappears as he has to grip onto the girl’s hips again, hold her tight as he slams
into her until he comes as well and Taehyung’s too gone to witness it, though he tries, cracks his
eyes opened, but the other is not looking at him again. He just sees the tightening of his jaw, the
veins that bulge on his neck.

Jungkook slips out of Julia, grips her elbow and tugs at her until she straightens. “’M tired,” she
whines. But she lifts herself despite it, this and her trembling thighs, off of Taehyung and his cock
falls limp on his stomach.
He can’t catch his breath. Hair sticks to his forehead with a small layer of sweat covering it. He
breathes heavily, chest rigorously moving up and down and lips parted and he tries to look at
Jungkook, but the other won’t allow him.

Julia curses. She touches herself lightly between the legs and swears again. She slides the condom
off of Taehyung without an acknowledgment before, during, and after as he hisses. She ties it up,
takes Jungkook’s and saunters into the bathroom. He’s surprised she can walk, sees a falter in her
step.

When he returns his eyes for trailing after her, he catches Jungkook’s on him before he rips them
away. Jungkook tugs himself back into his pants, strides towards his disregarded jacket. Taehyung
takes advantage of his sudden departure to do his own pants as well. He sits up, wants to get up
next, but he doesn’t get the chance to do it on his own.

Jungkook grabs him by the wrist, tugs him on his feet. They’re both disheveled, harbored breaths
in rhythm still lined with what they just did, the same pattern of sex. There’s something terribly
erotic in even standing before him, right now, Taehyung feels. Their pants expel into the air
between them, from a pair of parted lips into another, chests glisten, stomachs hollow.

There’s a moment. For whatever Jungkook means to say, to do, he pauses, and it is not deliberate.
It’s a moment in which he loses himself a bit, glances at Taehyung’s mismatched, heady eyes, at
his pink, parted lips, the way his neck and throat heave with the weight of his fucked out breath.
Something lingers palpably between them, something Taehyung doesn’t understand, but he senses.

Taehyung’s gaze darts across the other’s face, skims across his mouth. It’s almost painful not to
kiss him. It’s a stupid urge, condemnable urge. He needs to get rid of it. He needs to leave.

Jungkook stretches a neatly rolled up stack of money. “This is for your service,” he tells him,
breathily, dismissively, he stresses. Whatever had transpired had been entirely imagined, he proves
to Taehyung. “You’re free to go.”

Taehyung blinks, once, twice. He forces his mouth closed, sets his jaw tight; it heightens the
exposure of his muscles at the end of it. They tick and then relax. He looks away, at the floor, the
carpet. He nods. He’s nodding, small, irritated shakes of his head up and down. He holds the
money as he does his buttons. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay,” he says. And he’s fumbling. His fingers
are not doing it properly, failing at a task so simple as doing buttons, and he walks, he walks away.

It is a single step that takes him to evade Jungkook. He brushes his shoulder into him, roughly,
hears him inhale, slow and deep, but then he walks away. He doesn’t finish the buttons, doesn’t
 wait for Julia to step out of the bathroom. He paces out of the room and slams the door shut.

Chapter End Notes

I don't know what happened once again and how this turned out so long, but it is what
it is, I guess. there have been more comments and kudos on this than I have ever
imagined getting and I love, love, love you for it. support and feedback keeps me
motivated, kinda makes the aforementioned sleep deprivation worth it

sorry for the excessive amount of Julia, this just sort of needed to happen cause it was
my original concept and I'm stubborn af; now that it is out of the way, on with the
taekook
 Chapter 11
Chapter Summary

Shit all over the place

Chapter Notes

its shit. i need sleep. im sorry kim taehyung.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Taehyung is at the Ozone and he hasn’t looked at him, once, for a period longer than would
circumstantially have to be considered accidental. It doesn’t matter, really. He’s completed his
punishment for losing the bet and has no more use of poor boy’s interest in him other than personal
entertainment, which if he’s frank Taehyung’s consistent reactions to him provide quite
religiously.

So, okay, maybe it irks at him only slightly that his eyes don’t burn into him tonight. Jungkook
reads people, he has always been quite efficient at it, and he just knows Taehyung’s participation in
this short game he played with Julia stretches beyond his need of money. At least, he suspected it
does.

Whatever this annoyance is that Taehyung looks content enough only sticking his eyes to the
dancer Park Jimin tonight, he decides it won’t be too hard to ignore it, not when Julia returns from
the line she does in the bathroom and settles her thin ass in his lap. She’s been extremely overly
generous with him post the completion of his punishment and imagines she would just delight in it
if he asks for a quick suck in a cubicle.

Jungkook does notice when his girlfriend begins her return to their booth. He rests a hand on
Hoseok’s knee, swiftly bringing his attention to himself and away from whatever he was
whispering in Yoongi’s ear. The elder leans his head invitingly in acknowledgment, offering his
own ear to Jungkook’s mouth, though his arm still resides extended on the cushion of the booth
around Yoongi’s shoulders. “Hobi,” Jungkook says to him, voice curling with a playful malice that
should not exist in combination, “wouldn’t you fancy a lap dance from little Jimin tonight?”

Hoseok’s features narrow. His fingers tap absently at Yoongi’s shoulder as the other sucks quite
contentedly on an elaborate straw. “No,” he replies, slightly embittered. “I only joke, Jeon. I don’t
actually—”
“I know, hyung. I’m not implying you’re a homo.” Julia is getting closer. “Little Jimin looks quite
like a girl, tonight, though, doesn’t he? Keep him busy.”

“Jungkook—”

“I’ma sking you to,” Jungkook stresses, squeezes his fingers over his knee cap slightly and
Hoseok’s distaste falters slightly on his face, morphs into a softened perplexity before it sinks into
a neutrality. It takes a moment, but he nods, and Jungkook nods back, it’s a thank you. When
Hoseok begins to lean away, to detach his arm from the cushion of the booth, when he makes to
stand, Jungkook tightens his digits in last indication, “Don’t tell Yoongi.”

Hoseok leaves with a lasting look of curiosity just as Julia returns and Yoongi pouts slightly at the
departure.

Her ass is bony when Jungkook wraps a hand around her elbow and tugs her into himself as she
tries to sit, but cocaine would do that to you, he supposes. Her eyes, dilated and glistening, slide
over to him with a silent question, a gasp dying on her mouth from the roughness of him
manhandling her in place with no adequate warning when he threads fingers through her hair and
squeezes them around strands, bringing her lips down on his.

She meets him with her mouth open and she kisses him like somebody who’s high, which she is.
She kisses him wet and wanting and vigorous, she kisses him well. And Jungkook wonders if
Taehyung’s watching.

He pulls her mouth away from his by the grip he keeps on her hair and she exhales, eyes
immediately on his, hands fisted at his chest. “Jungkook—”

“I want you,” he tells her. And he is supposed to, to want her. He does, he tells himself. He wants
to take her to the bathroom and fuck her throat as her knees bruise, but mostly, he wants to make a
spectacle out of it. He wants Taehyung to know she’s sucking his cock in the bathroom, to think
about herlips stretching around his dick, though his own lips are rather prettier than hers, fuller,
pinker. Jungkook’s fingers tighten in Julia’s hair at the unbidden thought. “Now,” he adds.

She easily allows him to take her away. She’s out of his lap in a moment, clutching to his forearm
and pulling him up. It allows him a glimpse. His eyes fall on Taehyung just as Park Jimin says
something in his ear, his arm wrapped around Hoseok’s waist, who lingers beside with no
decipherable expression whatsoever. As the dancer speaks, Taehyung’s mouth falls slightly
opened, those pink lips parting as he looks marginally confused, face a bit blank. By the time the
other is pulling away, however, his mouth shuts tight, jaw slackening and his eyes narrow as quick
as they move to directly and unquestionably meet Jungkook’s.

The glare glints with embittered passion even from across the dance floor and Jungkook meets it,
relentless and smug. He smirks, watches as it deepens, as a grudge forms in his pupils, glittering in
the epileptic lights of the Ozone, and raises his glass, a toast, before he takes one final sip and
allows his eager girlfriend to pull him away.

That sparkling glare follows them across the club as they move and Jungkook doesn’t like to think
how it excites him more than the lips that shortly close around his half-hard cock.

His nickname doesn’t come from thin air, Jungkook promises himself. He’s always loved to taunt,
he’s always loved to tease, to play, and Taehyung is just another game, and this is it. Jungkook
promises himself.

Taehyung supposes he has always underestimated himself as a cook, because, as it turns out, his
interpreted recipes don’t taste half bad when the products aren’t reduced due to impending expiry
dates and he actually has a functional stove and oven at his disposal.

Ji-woo says so as well, though it is one of her favorite things to pick on him for, his culinary
escapades. Namjoon had been the cook of the family, even if when their mother had still been alive
long, long ago he had been practically unable to cut an onion without her assistance, and Taehyung
had felt quite safe about being fed. Namjoon, after all, had always been resourceful, and, therefore,
reliable. Until he up and left them, that is.

Taehyung grew into the position of a cook quite forcibly. “You work in a restaurant,” Ji-woo had
exclaimed one night, quite aggravated as she pulled on her hair, and chucked a packet of ramyun at
the wall. “For God’s sake, you must have picked up something.” Most of their exchanges had been
filled up with exasperation at that particular point of time. Both of them were brimming with
tension, with Namjoon leaving naturally everything they had strained to build had deteriorated into
a colossal proportion of horseshit. Quite a few of their interactions were fueled by anger, not
directed at each other particularly, but they were only outlets they could know.

It was a rough patch, but they always get through those, always. They’ll get through this one as
well, through the one that has Ji-woo eyeing Taehyung wearily if he goes out at night, every time
he buys anything. She’s scornful of what she believes he has done, but Taehyung is well aware it’s
best she thinks he’s dumb fucking enough to gamble than for her to know he practically prostituted
himself to a Jeon and to a Seung.

Not that Jungkook did much to him, really, except of course, make certain Taehyung felt like
absolute shit, a delusional one at that.

Good food is quite efficient at soothing the tension, it turns out, especially when Taehyung is the
one to deliver it.

“Can’t believe the onetime I make something delicious, WooWoo won’t be here to taste it,”
Taehyung remarks as his tongue runs over his spoon. His voice sounds easily over the hum of the
TV. Some drama is on, but it’s the first episode of it he’s seeing, and he has no idea what’s going
on.

Ji-woo adjusts the bowl in her lap for a moment, propping it up with one hand to make sure it does
not spill over the worn-out couch, as she checks her phone when it vibrates for the fifth time in a
roll. “Well, he’s not like us. He has friends.”

Taehyung slurps quite disgustingly. He eats too fast. One benefit of Woojin’s absence is there’s
more for them, though, so he’s unforgivable towards the food in his bowl. “I have friends,” he
insists.

“Jimin doesn’t count,” she says as she smacks her lips together.

“How come?”

“Cause it’s convenient if he doesn’t,” she replies typing something away on her screen, a bit slow
because she can only use one hand. “I might have to make a call.”

“You have friends,” Taehyung replies.

“No, I don’t. I have people who I party with.”

“And when I sleep with them, they suddenly become your friends and I’m bad for doing them?”
Taehyung speaks pettily with his mouth half full and Ji-woo sends him a look that spells she is
grossed out by his pouty, open-mouthed chewing.

She is too distracted, however, to verbally scold him as her eyes quickly return to the device in her
hand and she makes to lift off the couch, leaning forward to place her bowl on the coffee table and
knocking Taehyung’s feet off of it simultaneously. “Yes, that is also quite convenient. I do have to
take a call.”

Taehyung’s pout deepens as he glares after her retreating form and stuffs his mouth as he most
comfortably returns his legs to their previous position, strewn across each other with his heels
pressed close to her bowl. He hears the muffled sound of her conversation, but she is strategic in
how far she goes so that he would not be able to hear. She is well aware he has some tendencies of
eavesdropping, and if she means to hide something from him, she easily can.

She returns shortly, knocking his legs right of the table with a single kick of hers that almost
startles him into choking. She falls onto the couch, body angled towards his, propping an elbow on
the back and starts talking without much of an acknowledgment of his narrowed eyes.

“So,” she begins conversationally but her voice is pitched high and a smile that previously wasn’t
there is tugging at her mouth, hiding still, but sure to spread momentarily; if Taehyung didn’t know
better, he’d say she’s excited. But it’s Ji-woo and Ji-woo doesn’t have an excited bone in her body.
“The weirdest fucking thing happened,” she pauses. For impact, he supposes. “The Mins requested
my service.”

Now the choking hazard is even bigger for Taehyung. He splutters. “I’m sorry,” he says,
perplexed, as he lowers his own bowl on the coffee table. It is unsafe in his hands. He lifts two
brows, “the Mins?”

It’s absurd. It’s absolutely fucking absurd that someone of the worth of the Mins would as simply
and suddenly request Kim Ji-woo. While Taehyung has no doubt that his sister is incredibly
efficient at what she does and has a perfect work record and ethic, it is just incomprehensible to
him that the Mins, one of the families that embody the very concept of Richhood, would willingly
invitea Kiminto their house.

“Well,” Ji-woo says with a bit of a shrug. She raises a hand, atypically gesticulated, lifts a finger.
“Just the one. The kid. Min Yoongi,” she explains, and Taehyung’s brows proceed to furrow as her
animated speech continues. “He has his own penthouse in Gangnam, and he wants me there.” She
pauses again, but then continues with her voice even more lilted. It’s obvious to him she finds the
situation incredulous as well. “Several times a week, not just once. Apparently, I have been
recommended.”
“Recommended?” Taehyung’s jaw slackens slightly. It’s obvious to him she does not mindthe
incredulity of the sudden interest. He does.

“Yes,” she nods. She’s almost smiling at this point, and it’s too disheartening to him to ruin it with
his downright suspicion.

But he cannot keep the tension of his voice when he asks, “By whom?”

“The Jungs,” she suffices. Something lingers in her own tone as she feels the need to add, “They
told me it was the Jungs.”

Taehyung doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like it one bit. But he supposes it is a steadier and healthier
income than his other techniques, so he supposes he will just have to live with it.

Jungkook does not like to be kept waiting, especially by people like Subin, who is aware of it and
smug about it. He pulls the chair across the cement and it grazes with a scathing sound before he
sinks into it with those god-awful sunglasses that are constantly perched on his nose. He relaxes
into the seat, spreads his legs wide and unnecessary and crosses his arms, a smirk almost perpetual
on his mouth. “Since when do you want to meet me at Rouge?” he asks, and he is snide about it.

Jungkook himself sits with his legs crossed at the knee and his face set. He’s terse. “Since now.”

“Can’t exactly sell you here.” Jungkook hears him say and tries to pay attention to it, to look at
him, not to glance as the passing waiter to check who it is.

He already caught a couple of glimpses of Taehyung, knows he’s there and he’s on shift, as the
boy strode around all docile and respectful with some menus, some drinks, and a couple of fake
smiles and deep bows.
“I’m not buying,” Jungkook informs him. He’s playing with a lighter he took from Julia, his fingers
rotating it around meaninglessly and his eyes centering on the motion for a longer while than he’s
genuinely interested in. “We’re talking.”

Subin’s brows reach above his shades. “About?”

Jungkook looks at him then, lifts his eyes with his head slightly angled in a manner he knows
people like Subin find slightly intimidating. That he knows Subin finds intimidating “I want you to
start selling to Yoongi again.”

The other’s brows lift significantly higher this time but that is all the indication of surprise he
allows Jungkook to read. Jungkook really despises sunglasses as dark as his, though he cares very
little about Subin’s reactions. “I thought you wanted him to quit.”

“He won’t.” His fingers light a flame before they smack the thing shut. A waiter passes by and his
head turns instinctively at the motion. Human’s attention is naturally drawn to movement. “He’s
found a new dealer. He was better off with you.”

Subin slides a tongue across his lips. His digits tap at his elbows where he has his arms crossed. He
stopped selling Yoongi for a reason. And that reason had partially been the Taunting Twin
himself. He cocks his head, says, “Tell your sister I say hi.”

Jungkook’s eyes draw to him darkly, yet he remains mostly inexpressive. Even his voice is void of
any real bite, when he replies, “Tell her yourself.”

“I haven’t seen her in record time.” Subin shrugs and, though Jungkook is halfway midst turning
his head to study another moving body, he tilts at this.

“What?” he actually conveys surprise and it breeds a cautious smirk on Subin’s face.

“Her new…” and he pauses; he’s careful, “friend, Seokjin?” he arches his voice, waits for
Jungkook’s nod and it annoys him he feels he has to seek permission, but he would rather it than
having another break to his nose. “I don’t think he likes it when she comes to visit me.”

Jungkook uses the elbow he has propped on the table to lean just slightly, just to let the other know
he’s trudging around territory where he has no place. “Clo and Seokjin are not friends,” he speaks
slow, enunciates his words,“nor could she ever give a fuck what he dislikes.”

Subin withholds a snort as his upper lip lifts curiously towards his nose. “Here I was thinking I was
being sensitive by implying they’re friendly.”

Jungkook’s eyes dart across Subin’s entire lanky form, he sizes him up, says, casual, but pointed,
“I think I’ve heard enough of your commentary on my sister.”

“Ah,” Subin adjusts on his chair, shakes his head, “you Taunting Twins, I wonder sometimes. What
would you do if she kills a person?”

Jungkook shrugs, and this time when he turns his head to follow the motion of a waiter, it is
Taehyung, but he is walking towards the inside of the café instead of outside. He catches another
man clad in the same uniform by the elbow to get his attention, says something to him, and when
they talk, he does not let go of the much unnecessary grip he has on his arm. “I’ll bury the body.”

Subin’s smirk stretches into a smile and he nods, air leaving through his nose that is close to a
chuckle, though he isn’t exactly brave enough to laugh. Jungkook’s attention is not snapping to
him at this, though, remains fixated on something else, and he attempts to follow it with his eyes.
“It there a problem, Jungkook? You seem…” and he really has to be careful now, assuming Jeon
Jungkook’s mood shortly after he has made remarks about his sister,“distracted,” he chooses.

“No.” Jungkook replies curt and dismissive as Taehyung releases the guy’s arm and sinks behind
the bar before he disappears into the kitchen. The man himself turns, meets Jungkook’s eyes
quickly, too quickly, and begins a stride in their direction. “No problem.”

The man bows at them when he reaches them, greeting them, wearing that same respectful and
fake smile that tends to adorn Taehyung’s face when he works. It is so fucking sweet it is actually
sickly. “Are you ready with your order?”

“Vodka,” Subin says, his eyes on Jungkook while the other darts his own calculatingly across the
waiter.

“Size?”

“Generous.”
The waiter parts his mouth to speak, but Jungkook interjects. “Isn’t this Taehyung’s table?”

The guy replaces his attention to him. “Yes, usually,” he responds, his voice so annoyingly polite.

Jungkook leans back into his seat fully, his fingers snapping the lighter, on and off, on and off. “So
why isn’t he serving me?” Subin personally would not enjoy it if Jungkook spoke to him like that,
looked at him like that. There isn’t anything too distinctive about it, no highlighted emotion or
point, but the younger Jeon’s perpetual air of threatening superiority suddenly escalates past his
detached insouciance.

The waiter obviously hesitates, cautions a brief look behind his shoulder before he responds,
arching his words at the end questioningly, “He’s currently otherwise occupied?”

Jungkook’s brusque, “With?”

The guy blinks a little blankly, “I’m not at ability to disclose—"

Subin’s hissing, clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, shaking his head. Rookie.
Jungkook’s laughing, cold and humorless and short. “I suppose you don’t know who I am.” He
straightens on the chair and he lifts a brow and the tilt of his mouth makes him look so falsely,
ironically friendly Subin would have probably shat himself were it directed at him.

Poor guy shakes his head, tries to explain himself, “No, I’m new. I—"

He interrupts, “What’s your name?”

“Bogum. Park Bogum.”

“Well, Park Bogum,” and Jungkook almost leans towards him now, eyes trained on his, demanding
undivided attention, “I want a Corona,” he spells it out, speaks slow and downright eerie, though
the waiter does not seem particularly affected and Subin deems it a mistake of lack of experience,
“and I want it served by Kim Taehyung.”
The waiter’s parted mouth seals and he’s pausing. He’s careful. Subin wonders if when they train
them here in Gangnam, they go through specific instructions on how to deal with the regulars.
Flirt with a Pyeong if you want an extra tip, make sure Min hasn’t taken too many pills before you
serve him alcohol in case he passes out without paying, and never, ever, mouth off to a Jeon. He
figures it’s blatantly cruel not to. “I’ll let him know then,” new boy replies smartly, and Jungkook
dismisses him solely with the assistance of his facial expression.

Subin wants to snort. More than that, he wants to ask, Kim Taehyung? But he’s not brave enough to
laugh and he’s certainly not brave enough to enquire into Jungkook’s business with a Kim. He
didn’t even buy from his elder brother when he was still in town, and Namjoon sold some good
shit.

So, he settles for territories that are allowed for him. He settles for substances as he lifts a brow,
“A Corona?” Western beer, Mexican beer, 4%, almost not alcohol. “Are you not drinking again,
Jeon?”

Jungkook’s eyes dart to him. “I was talking about Yoongi, weren’t I?”

“Yoongi.” He nods. “Yes. Why don’t you get his new dealer to stop selling him, too? You can be
quite… persuasive.”

“He’s been buying off of Kai,” Jungkook replies tightly, but in a moment his eyes are detaching
from him.

“Oh.” Subin pauses in understanding. Then he releases a breath of laughter, shaking his head,
saying, “Keep forgetting how fucking rich you all are.”

But Jungkook isn’t paying attention to him. He doesn’t even dignify him with a reply. Taehyung
carries their drinks without a trey, has one in each hand and has his eyes set on the table. He’s
moving quickly, too quickly, feet barely lifting off the ground as he comes, bends, places the
orders on the table.

He looks at neither of them, doesn’t smile, nothing, and it isn’t uncommon, for a waiter to try to be
nearly invisible as he delivers drinks, but he has completely dropped all semblance of courtesy, and
it irks Jungkook the wrong way. Taehyung is not supposed to ignore him, he never has. Pretty boy
always looks.
He doesn’t seem particularly nervous, either. Frankly, he appears as neutral to Jungkook’s presence
as Jungkook is supposed to be to his, though he knows there is something off about Taehyung’s
behavior as a moment ago he was smiling and polite, like a good, trained waiter boy at Rouge is
instructed to be, paid to be.

It’s the audacity, Jungkook concludes, that bothers him, the audacity that poor boy now thinks he
can get away with being impolite to him. He almost has a goddamn attitude as he clicks the
glassware onto the table and immediately straightens without as much as a glance, and Jungkook
doesn’t really think, doesn’t actively contemplate his actions when he reaches out and catches his
wrist.

“Is that all?” Jungkook speaks slowly, darkly, and Taehyung’s finally meeting his eyes.

And no, Taehyung is not neutral. He’s borderline hostile, and it is something he easily recognizes
in him, as it is a layer over nervousness in most of their interactions, and usually a result of
Jungkook actively and most consciously aggravating him into animosity. Taehyung arches a brow
above glinting eyes. The sun looks good on his face, highlights his features. “Did you order
anything else?”

He tugs at his wrist indicatively and Jungkook allows him to release himself because fucking Subin
is there, watching.

“No,” he replies.

“Then that’s all,” the boy announces with finality and he walks away and there is not much that
Jungkook can do other than trace narrowed eyes after him, because anything that Taehyung does is
meaningless to him.

When Taehyung volunteers himself to cater at the Executive Tower he does it with burdening
apprehension at the mere fact the event would take place there. The mention of the hotel itself
causes images to resurface in his mind, images and feelings alike, and they are staggeringly
frustrating. It is good pay, though, and with his head slightly hogged with uninvited thoughts, he’s
there.

“Are you good, Taehyung?” Bogum asks him, a hand warm as it squeezes into his shoulder, and
Taehyung shakes his head, then nods, grits his teeth a little because it is Bogum’s first event like
this for Rouge and he’s supposed to be attentive to him, walk him through it, not have the other
pull him out of unsolicited dazes.

“Yes,” Taehyung says. He’s lying.

A rational part of him wants everything related to Julia and Jungkook out of his life, especially the
latter. Whatever it is that draws him to the twin, it’s toxic. It’s simply not fucking adequate that he
felt worse about the fact Jungkook had been dismissive towards him after what happened on Julia’s
birthday than about what actually happened. Taehyung knows he lives a life in which morality is
hardly a priority for him to indulge in, but he had thought better of himself, honestly, thought he
would be more bothered by selling sex than by a rich, spoiled Jeon giving him an attitude.

He’d warned him, don’t expect anything from me, he’d said. But Taehyung, courtesy of how
fucking good his sister is, is naïve. He can’t exactly pinpoint what it is that he expects, that he
wants, but he is sure he needs to drop any and all ideas related to it because harboring such is
simply destructive.

It annoys him that it has got to the point where even setting foot in the Executive Tower results in
an onslaught of memories. Jungkook, Taehyung concludes, is an actual bitch. There was no
fucking need for him to touch him, none whatsoever. Taehyung was already there, already giving
him and his girlfriend what they wanted. Jungkook had already won. But because he is an actual
bitch he just had to go and touch him, then look at him like that, then make him feel like a
common whore.

Taehyung had thought he’d seen something.

That something had obviously been some very privileged and petty interpretation of sadism.
Jungkook does like to taunt it seems, to play, but it’s bordering on cruelty and Taehyung hates how
easy of a victim he is.

Still, he’s human, he’s dumb. He has an irrational, visceral part of himself. An irrational part that
pays too much attention to Jeon Jungkook, that reads into the fact he made Hoseok take Jimin
away from him, wanted him to bring him his goddamn Corona, touched his fucking thigh while
they were both inside the same girl. That irrational part of him likes to ignore that Jungkook by
nature appears to take pleasure in the misery of others. It assigns to him a humanity that he doesn’t
deserve and causes him to monopolize Taehyung’s thoughts at any given time.

It is that same irrationality that stirs something inside of him when he sees him.Taehyung’s not
even surprised he’s at the event, if he has to be honest. A Richhood event without representatives
from the Jeons is hardly complete and they are there, full package, both parents, both twins,
looking absolutely ethereal with elegance and beauty. He’s particularly exquisite today. He’s
dressed to impress and impress he does, every single layer of overpriced, brand clothing on him
black and presses perfectly into the shapes his body forms.

Taehyung has been doing so well not looking, being residually pissed with Jungkook’s unnecessary
attitude has made it quite easy for him, made avoiding him almost automatic and animosity a
natural reaction as soon as he set his sights on him.

Taehyung hopes he’s glaring now, though Jungkook doesn’t see him, but he knows he isn’t.

“Him again?” Bogum’s voice sounds as the two of them distribute platters of appetizers.
“Jungkook, right?”

It’s easy to trace Taehyung’s stare to where Jungkook is standing by his sister, posture nonchalant,
but elegant, important, as he sips lightly on a glass of champagne and speaks to who he knows to
be Jung Byung-Chul and his wife, whose name he forgets. Byung-Chul does not seem to care for
her all too much, either, though, if Taehyung can judge by the way he has his eyes inappropriately
rooted on Clo Eun.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, swallows. He returns his eyes to where they should be, on the appetizers
he’s laying out. “That’s Jeon Jungkook.”

Bogum nods. “I’ve heard about him,” he informs Taehyung as he assists him in the arrangement of
the plates – they have to look all pretty and perfect. Taehyung hums, who hasn’t. “I’ve heard he’s a
prick.”

Taehyung snorts. “You’ve heard right.”

“What does he want from you?” Bogum asks. He’s nice. Bogum’s nice. Taehyung almost feels bad
for asking him to take care of his tables without as much a warning, but he hadn’t exactly expected
Jungkook to get confrontational.

“To make my life living hell, basically,” Taehyung says. He believes it as well.
“Why?”

He shrugs. “He gets off on it, I think.” It’s the only explanation Taehyung can find for his
continuous interference in his life.

“So, he really is that much of an ass, huh?” Bogum straightens after they finish with that table. It’s
the last table to be arranged. “Pity. He’s quite hot.”

Taehyung’s eyes slide over to his coworker, an eyebrow quirking at him inadvertently. Jungkook is
hot, Taehyung would be the first to attest to that, but it’s not something a boy openlysays about
another boy in Korea, certainly not in Gangnam.

Bogum’s response to the curious gaze features a small smirk. It’s different to any Jungkook’s ever
sent him, it’s mild and teasing, but in a way that is friendly, maybe even slightly flirtatious. “Don’t
worry,” he tells him. “You’re hotter.”

Taehyung bristles at first proceeds to full on laugh in a moment. He sidesteps Bogum, going for the
kitchen, but he does tap his shoulder on the way out. “Not so bad yourself, hyung.”

Bogum makes good company for distraction, it turns out, but it does not erase the impending doom
of interaction. It comes surprisingly quick when Taehyung is the one trusted to replace the bottle in
the cooler at the Jeon’s cocktail table of choice.

Taehyung is actually pissed he has no alcohol to assist him in mustering up strength this time. He’s
admittedly nervous. Every single Jeon at one table is a recipe for the misery of a Kim, of him. He
establishes it is highly unlikely that Jungkook would as much as look at him in the presence of his
parents, however, the twin has repeatedly proved himself to be completely unpredictable and
considering the rumors of who those people are he would expect that they would all enjoy making
an embarrassing mess of him in one way or another.

He trusts the nature of how Jungkook has chosen to embarrass him in particular would prevent him
of taking advantage of it in public, at least.

And he has no choice.

So, he walks there, apprehensive and quick. He tries to be ghostly, reach there, replace the bottle
and disappear, but the motion of his approach attracts eyes. The adults gathered at the table simply
slide their gazes towards him for the time that it takes to establish the reason of his presence, but to
them staff is of the same use and importance as the table is. The eyes of the twins, on the other
hand, linger.

Taehyung does not mean to look back. He is simply compelled, wants to see if Jungkook is as
handsome tonight up close as he is from a distance, and it only takes the single glance to realize
that, yes, he is, and also, he’s looking back, and their gazes are locking. Jungkook’s eyes widen
slightly, briefly, his brows shooting up before they settle too close to his eyes again, features
aligning in a hard, set frown, whose vulnerability is only betrayed by his lips which remain ever so
slightly parted.

Taehyung’s immediate reaction is to bow, palms meeting by his knees.

Clo Eun’s sober and staring. Her eyes drift calculatingly from Taehyung to her brother, who is
looking away now, taking his eyes off of the waiter, but not focusing them on Byung-Chul
immediately after like he is supposed to. He darts them around, briefly, jaw ticking, before he falls
into his previous and constant composure and for the barest moment he seems slightly awkward.

Clo Eun’s head tips. Her lips thin, curl downwards.

Taehyung is not surprised at the lack of any acknowledgment different to the quick albeit lingering
gaze. Still, somehow, he manages to be foolishly deflated. He straightens and turns. He leaves.

It is close to the kitchen that Jungkook catches up to him. He’s turned a corner and he’s out of sight
of the Jeons, close to a highly unnecessary column that is likely there simply for the glamour of
design when fingers wrap around the bone of his elbow, digging into it, hard. The digits are
bruising as Jungkook squeezes, tugs Taehyung and settles him into a position he deems fit with a
single motion, a forceful reminder of his physical strength and authoritative audacity.

Taehyung spins, is spun, and his feet stop just short of Jungkook’s shiny shoes, he notices with a
glance to the floor as he tries to catch his footing. He lifts his eyes to narrow them at Jungkook just
in time to witness the tick of his jaw as he hisses, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m catering,” Taehyung stresses, pulling his arm away from Jungkook’s hold and the other
allows it with a cautious look around. They are still at the event, and Taehyung cannot help it. He
looks around as well. His fucking boss might be watching, and he certainly does not need to be
caught lingering behind columns with one of the guests. He only catches one person passing by,
only Bogum, who does quite obviously look at them, but continues on with his trey without
pause.“I didn’t come here for you,don’t worry. I’m doing my job.”

Jungkook’s snicker is cold and short and his following words come with a snarl. “You and I both
know how you really make money.”

Taehyung scoffs. Fuck him. “Fuck you.” He attempts to walk away, attempts to, honestly, he is in
no way obliged to listen to the prick; he’s going to have to find another victim for the night if the
event bores him that much. Of course, it’s wishful thinking to believe he would just allow him to
leave so suddenly and of his own accord. His fingers are back around his elbow, still bruising,
maybe tighter. Taehyung’s teeth clench. “Let go of me. I have to get back to work.”

“Listen,” Jungkook says, he sighs. He’s not as malicious now with the way he speaks, though the
grip he has on Taehyung is, “how about you handle the other end of the restaurant?”

“Why?” Taehyung sneers with something akin to a breath of a laugh at the finalizing vowel. “I
thought you wanted me to serve you.” His head tilts and he’s angry enough to take a step forward.
“Or is it too hard for you to pretend you don’t pay me to fuck you when your parents are around?”

Jungkook’s eyes sear into his with staggering vehemence. He growls, “I don’t pay you to fuck
me.”

Taehyung doesn’t know what in the particular situation summons his bravery, maybe he’s had
enough of it, but he’s completely rid himself of a filter even if he is well aware audacity with a
Jeon equals stupidity. “I suppose you didn’t get Min Yoongi to hire my sister as well.”

He’s surprised his bones don’t snap with how hard Jungkook’s fingers dig into them. “The fuck are
you implying, Kim?”

Eyes search his with palpable rancor, and Taehyung thinks he returns it quite well, does a solid job
of seeping the spitefulness into his voice as well, when he tries to free himself with the statement,
“I have to go back to work.”

“No, you’re coming with me.” Jungkook’s jaw is tight and he immediately begins his stride,
pulling Taehyung along, of course he does. He likely thinks he is entitled to simply manhandling
just about anyone who is of worse social standing than he is.

“Why?” Taehyung grits out and attempts to press his heels into the floor, but Jungkook’s muscles
are not just for fighting, not just there to make him enticing when bare, they’re there to further his
power, and it is child’s play for him to drag Taehyung’s struggling body along.

Taehyung’s movements cannot be overly flamboyant in his attempts to stay as well; he cannot
afford to drag attention to himself, can’t make a scene, not in these circumstances.

“Cause I said so,” Jungkook announces simply and he presses the button to an elevator.

“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Taehyung is saying, glaring at his nape before Jungkook
turns to allow him to meet his eyes, which most annoyingly have receded back to their usual
infuriating superior composure.

“It should, or your sister might lose her job as quickly as she got it,” he says, he threatens, a glint in
his stare and a darkness to his voice. He allows Taehyung to shake off his grip when they step into
the elevator.

Taehyung’s glare hardens on his, before he looks away, breathes. He shakes his head. He’s shaking
his head, biting at his lip. He’s so fucking defeatedevery time it comes to Jungkook, and he hates it.
His frustration is growing into exasperation and he wonders if he is ever going to be rid of him, the
monetary power he holds over him, and the ambiance of control he’s gained through the
unsolicited effect he has on him.

Taehyung’s fingers dig into the flesh of his own arms punishingly as he crosses them. He holds
onto himself tight, urges himself not to lose his fucking grip. His head snaps to Jungkook, to
Jungkook who is watching him as he grows into the quintessence of frustration, and his teeth
release his lip, which pouts out fuller and pinker from the abuse. “Why’d you do it, anyway?”
Taehyung demands, his brows shooting up. “Make sure I actually got money now, so that the
whole fucking you thing becomes virtually unnecessary? Do you get off on me suffering or
something?”

Jungkook, of course, of fucking course, Jungkook simply shrugs his shoulders, eyes on Taehyung,
eyes all over Taehyung, who is wearing his shirt. “Yoongi needed a new house keeper. I heard the
Jungs referred your sister,” he lists as if it is simple, and most natural. “Not everything is about
you, Kim.”
Kim, he calls him Kim and Taehyungs wonders what will happen if he punches him again. “Then
why am I being dragged off now?” He says and he’s not harsh, he’s breathy and pitched, and he
doesn’t know what he is, really. The elevator stops and his eyes dart to the number. Seven.
“Wheream I being dragged off?”

Jungkook steps out, gives him his back, and he’s so unnervingly confident that Taehyung will
follow, and he does, because his threat is too realistic of a risk. “The room,” comes the response
and Taehyung stiffens even if he had a feeling that was where they were heading.

The walk down the familiar hallway itself gives him goosebumps. “Do you have that room
permanently reserved to lure people?”

“I own it,” Jungkook says and he touches the key card to the door to 7.13, and God, thirteen really
is a cursed, condemnable number.

“Of course, you do,” Taehyung snarks sardonically and the door closes after him, clicks shut, and it
is such a loud sound, penetrates through the whole of his skin, his largest organ and seeps into his
blood, launching a fire.

Taehyung’s suddenly obnoxiously aware of where he is and who he is there with. Alone.

“And no one lured you, Taehyung,” Jungkook spins to say and his eyes now, though not incredibly
expressive, just chargingly intense, pin him to his current position just at the entrance. “You came
to us,” he insists, voice firm.

“I had no choice.” Taehyung supposes his eyes hold a certain intensity as well if he can properly
judge by the passion that seizes his blood and his tongue.

“Yeah?” Jungkook exhales. He’s close, and then he’s closer, but Taehyung’s so high with the pure
testosterone of confrontation that he doesn’t even consider the proximity, does not retract from it,
easily stumbles into it instead. “You wouldn’t have come to us if you weren’t desperate for
money?”

It’s somehow wildly satisfactory for him to spit, “Precisely.”

But then Jungkook’s all too close and there is a door behind him, and he has nowhere to run.
Jungkook’s voice is liquid, it drips with cruelty, and something else, something disturbingly
salacious and captivating. “What if Julia wasn’t there?”

Taehyung’s stumped. He’s frozen into place at the question, because Jungkook can observe it, but
he is not allowed to address this, certainly not now. His heart palpitates dangerously in his chest
and all he can do is watch Jungkook take that one other step closer that allows him into the
intimacy of his personal space, that causes his familiar scent to invade his senses. His pink tongue
teases over militant lips and, really, all Taehyung does is watch.

Jungkook’s head cocks. “Hm?”

The hum is as soft as it is malignant. The lids of his eyes are dropping and he’s studying Taehyung,
notices the pattern of his pupils as they dart across his face, as they hood themselves. Jungkook’s
demeanor is dubiously provocative.

Taehyung has always been jealous of how fucking strong Ji-woo is. He’s also always hated how
loving she is, because it’s made him weak. He’s weak. He’s not ready for Richhood, hasn’t
suffered enough, but he thinks Jungkook wants to make sure he will.

His eyes capture his. He’s so close, he can feel him breathe, the exhales gentle, but striking on the
skin of his face, of his neck. “Would it still be only out of desperation?” Jungkook asks and it is but
a murmur, and that slightly rational part of Taehyung wants to laugh.

He almost does, but he can’t channel enough energy to, so he simply shakes his head, watches his
mouth and breathes through his, “I don’t understand you, Jungkook.”

The other’s lips part, and he stares entranced as they form words, falsely, deceptively soft, “I never
asked of you to understand me.”

Taehyung’s eyes chart to his and he endeavors to fill his voice with the same determined
vociferousness from before, but he fails. It strains as it leaves his throat and it resembles a plea,
“Then what do you want from me?” he asks, he begs, “Your bet is over and done with, what do
you want from me?”

It’s unhealthy. Jungkook’s unhealthy for him and he cannot keep making himself part of his life.
Taehyung’s never thought his curiosity and wandering eyes would ever lead him to here, to this.
He’s breathing hard, as if he’s ran, though he hasn’t, and he isn’t now even if he should be.

Jungkook doesn’t answer. He ravages Taehyung with his eyes, sliding them across the whole of his
body before he slowly returns them to his imploring ones, rid of all vehemence. “You’re wearing
my shirt,” Jungkook announces simply.

He’s inhaling sharp as well, chest filling out and falling in, deep and unsteady, but Taehyung is too
lost to notice.

“I—”he struggles. His shirt, yes. He hadn’t washed his uniform and he needed a shirt, a simple
white shirt, and Taehyung hadn’t really thought when he’d slipped this one on. He tries to narrow
his eyes. “You told me to keep it.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook asks, but he is so absent with it. His hands reach and Taehyung flinches, elbow
hitting the door and it just reminds him how trapped he is here. Jungkook’s fingers touch the
material of his tie in an action that has grown somewhat familiar, but it does not fail to make
Taehyung’s heart thunder as he easily and swiftly undoes the pitiful knot.

“Yes,” Taehyung’s teeth knock together with assertiveness. He wants to pull away, but he has
nowhere to go. His eyes drop briefly to where Jungkook’s own focus lies, the digits that move so
close to his neck. “Is that what you want?” Taehyung breathes. He expects Jungkook to redo the
knot the way he likes it, but he doesn’t. He tugs at the fabric and lets it slither along Taehyung’s
chest and to the ground, atop their feet. “You want it back?”

Jungkook’s eyes peer at him. “Maybe.”

His hands do not drop, they linger, and they pop a first button and Taehyung cannot fucking
breathe, not with his fingers lingering so close to all parts of his respiratory system. But Jungkook
is undoing the second button, too. Taehyung’s chest sinks sharply, breath inhaled through teeth.
His eyes search Jungkook’s face helplessly, but Jungkook’s own seem entirely entranced by the
motion of his finger as they dip lower and part buttons. He’s slow, overwhelmingly deliberate, and
it’s so easy for reality to slip away from Taehyung.

And Jungkook is entranced, because Taehyung’s skin is fucking golden. He doesn’t know what
he’s doing, doesn’t really care, just as long as he gets to see more of it, stretched over bone, muscle
and flesh. It seems soft, so very smooth and unpolluted, so perfect that Jungkook just wants to
touchand he wants to scar.
The shirt cost him a fortune and naturally the material of it is exquisite, but it cannot begin to rival
what it reveals as he parts it, because what’s underneath simply must be priceless. Taehyung’s tan.
His clavicle is sharp and protruding, but the sight of it bare is peculiarly provocative. His nipples
are perky, small, so dissimilar to Julia’s but sit so well on the expanse of his alluring skin above
the hinted outline of his ribs.

Taehyung’s not bulky in any way, but his shoulders are broad, and he, Jungkook knows as he
undresses him, is most certainly a boy.

“It’s too big for you,” he notes softly, through a breath mostly as he tugs the remaining fabric out
of his waist line and pushes it off his shoulders, leaving his entire upper body bare.

Taehyung nearly gasps as Jungkook’s skin brushes his lightly when the removes the shirt from him
entirely and perplexingly allows it to drop to the floor.

It’s a waste, Taehyung thinks, though currently thinking is not something he can pronounce himself
efficient at. That shirt is too nice. It does not belong on someone like him.

“It’s too expensive for me,” Taehyung whispers, unintentionally matching the tone of conversation
that Jungkook sets. It forces a strange intimacy between them, between their parted lips as they
breathe words to one another. They’re so close.

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head. He gives into it, he touches. “It suits you.” His hand is on his
waist and Taehyung hisses, sucks in a breath. His stomach hollows out and then fills sharply. The
touch is scathing on his bare skin, scorching. Jungkook’s calloused hand has a heat attached to it
that burns through him when he slides it across him, still very much deliberate, very much slow.

It’s so simple. It’s nothing. He’s just running his hand across him, cupping at his waist, at his ribs,
and why Taehyung is more turned on than he’s ever been with any girl in his life is beyond him.
Jungkook’s hand edges higher, a single thumb brushes over his nipple and Taehyung’s sigh is
almost reminiscent of a moan.

His skin is as smooth as Jungkook imagines. He’s never expected a boy could be so gentle, so soft.
Softness, he’s always been taught, should be reserved to girls. But he is. He’s different, there’s no
globe of a breast, his rib cage is wide, his chest is so different, broad and shapely. He’s different,
but the curves of him are so inviting, so nice underneath Jungkook’s wandering touch. He cannot
help the brush across the bud at his pec, and Taehyung recoils from it with the immediacy of
automaticity before he curls against it, a tender, panting sound elicited from his parted, pink lips.
Even his goddamn nipples are pretty. He runs a forefinger against it, too.
Jungkook hates him. He absolutely fucking loathes Taehyung. He wants to ruin him.

This exploration of Jungkook’s hands on his bare body is lethal. It’s firm, teasing, but gentle, so
incongruous with who he is as a person, and it is just so unfair.“What do you really want from me,
Jungkook?” Taehyung asks, breathes, because he has to.

“Right now?” Jungkook’s eyes spring to his, brows shift.

“Yes, right now,” Taehyung says. He can’t take this. “What do you want from me in this fucking
instant?”

Jungkook grips at him with both hands, holding each side of his waist. It’s firm, it’s burning, and
so is his breath on his neck when Jungkook draws closer. He pulls him into him, has him stumbling
a step that aligns them in a way that is physically dangerous. Taehyung can feel him, all of him.
He’s hot. He’s scorching. His lips are brushing at his ear as he’s tilting his head. “You really want
to know?” There’s residual cruelty clouding his voice, but it is overpowered by its sheer eroticism.

Taehyung swallows, for a short moment he only manages to nod as he tongues quickly at his lips,
dried from staying parted for this long. “Tell me,” he exhales.

Jungkook’s hands tighten on his hips, muscles contracting and unconsciously bringing Taehyung’s
body closer still, until there is not even a breath of air between them, and he’s so warm and soft
beneath him, so pliantly curling himself against Jungkook’s hold, whether he does is purposefully
or not, he falls into it with ease, and he just fucking fits into the crevices of him so unnervingly
well. He’s wearing dress pants, dress pants that leave nothing to the imagination and Jungkook
surprises himself at how he is not repulsed when he feels him distinguishably harden slightly. He
fucking likes how hot it feels against him, how shapely, the very concept of it, of Taehyung’s
resolve in opposing him failing to give way to arousal.

It turns him on. The other boy’s fucking scent does as well, when Jungkook’s nose brushes his
cheek, eyes studying every inch of him from the angle, his clavicles, his throat, his goddamn ears.
It’s poor, so pointedly inexpensive, fruity, maybe, but distinctly masculine. And he’s not supposed
to fucking like how a boy smells and it’s so fucking unfair.

Jungkook’s fingers are bruising on his hips and his mouth is scathing at his cheek. “I think I want
you on your knees.”
Taehyung’s breath stutters, skin flushes heated and red. The blush of crimson dances all across
him, ventures down his neck, the back of his ears. He closes his eyes, seals them shut. Jungkook is
playing with him, must be, because it is simply impossible that he would want him.

“You’re sick,” Taehyung hisses. And truth is, Taehyung must be fucking sick too, because he
wants to, wants to drop to his knees. Taehyung blames it on the disturbingly extensive level of his
curiosity, he blames it on that and blames it on Jungkook, the way he touches him now, the way he
holds him, grips at him, breathes on him, teases him – the way he speaks, he demands, compels,
but it’s so alluringly soft. It’s cruel, but it’s gentle, the paradoxical epitome of tender vengeance.

“I’m rich,” Jungkook murmurs and Taehyung can feel his lips move on his cheek when he speaks,
and it knocks all reason straight from his head. He pauses, he’s pausing, and he’s moving, keeps
his body still by the tight grip he has on his hips, and brings his own forward. He’s on him, presses
his pelvis slow yet unyielding against his in an almost circular motion and Taehyung’s hand flies,
grips at Jungkook’s wrist and clenches, a regretful whimper evading his lips “I’m hard.”

He is. Taehyung can feel him. He can feel his cock as it patterns around him and Jungkook might
be playing, but he’s hard. Julia is not here. No woman is here. No one else is here. It’s for him.
Jungkook is hard for Taehyung and it will be the death of him.

Jungkook pulls his head away, retracts enough to give himself view of Taehyung’s face, to study it
and Taehyung’s eyes crack open at the sensation of the motion. It’s a mistake, really, it’s his
biggest mistake yet, because he meets Jungkook’s gaze and it breaks him.

Those eyes, he loathes those eyes with ambiguous passion. They’re piercing, they’re intense, and
they’re black, pure obsidian, gone and hooded and deadly.

Jungkook’s tongue darts across his lips and he whispers with the rhythm with which he clenches
his fingers around him again, “Get on your knees.”

And Taehyung fucking does. He allows Jungkook to take a single step back, separating their
bodies and before he can feel the cold abstinence at the loss of his touch, he bends and drops,
settling his on his knees on the floor.

His tongue is instinctive, pokes out, darts, wets at his lips as he stares up, holding the stare in which
Jungkook’s compulsively captured him, dark and unyielding until pupils drop, study the motion of
his tongue as it teases around his mouth. Jungkook’s jaw tightens, ticks, a muscle at the very end
protrudes almost threateningly.

His eyes are rough on him, glaring, yet hooded in a way maybe he simply can’t help, and
Taehyung waits.

Jungkook keeps a challenging hold on Taehyung’s stare as his fingers venture to his belt, to the
button of his trousers. It’s such a distinctive sound, the unbuckling of a belt, archetypically lewd in
nature, it seems, at least from Taehyung’s current position. Makes his ears buzz.

Taehyung swallows, gulps down thin air and saliva and his throat bobs.

He’s nervous. His heart rages. He’s never done this before, because Taehyung likes girls and boys
who likes girls don’t suck cock, but he wants to, he will, just for Jungkook. Peculiarly, it is with a
surge of power that the reality distorted with arousal hits him, as it will be a fact. He will suck
Jungkook’s cock and Jungkook will have to live with the knowledge of it, the memoryof it, that he
got hard touching Taehyung and got a boy to drop on his knees and get him off, got Kim Taehyung
to wrap his lips around his dick.

Jungkook shakes the blazer off of his shoulder and allows it to drop onto the floor, before his hand
reaches and fingers cradle at the underside of his jaw. The intensity of the glare of his eyes is so
intrinsically different to the delicacy of the touch as he proceeds to glide a thumb across his pouted,
parted lips, a single soft brush, quick and fleeting, yet it makes Taehyung’s mouth tingle.

“Open your mouth for me,” Jungkook says and the thumb dips, slips in between just lightly and
presses onto the top of teeth, the tip at the moist edge of his tongue, Taehyung’s lips parting
significantly at the gesture, at the words that hold an oxymoronically gentle authority.

His other hand makes its way into his pants, frees his cock and it is there, thick and real, a man’s
cock and Taehyung’s eyes fall away from Jungkook’s compulsive hold to explore it.

Jungkook’s thumb drops from his mouth, moves to his chin, and Taehyung moves forward boldly;
he’s had this done to him, he’s seen this done, watched fucking porn – his tongue teases out and at
the head and Jungkook hisses, two fingers digging into the bone of Taehyung’s jaw as he blinks up
at him.

Jungkook’s teeth are clenched. He glares. But the vulnerability of arousal is spelled out on his face.
Taehyung reaches a hand, touches the base of him, and it chases Jungkook’s own fingers away, as
his wrap tentatively around it, his thumb brushing along a vein it feels over the silky texture of his
length. It’s heavy in his grip, hot, and different to his own.

His fingers are so long, so thin.

He bends forward, props his other hand on Jungkook’s thigh, the muscle hard and tightening
underneath his timid touch and then Taehyung’s tracing his tongue over that same vein and
Jungkook’s hissing again and he replaces the grip he has on his jaw to thread punishing fingers
through his hair. They squeeze, tense into the strands and Taehyung’s gasping a bit at that, shifting
on his knees, the sensation edging from his stomach to his own bulging cock.

“Don’t fucking tease,” Jungkook growls, punctuating the words with a constrict of his fingers that
pulls deliciously at Taehyung’s scalp. “Open your mouth,” he instructs again, and Taehyung does
and Jungkook layers his fingers over his, directs his length into the crevice and sinks into it with a
sharp exhale.

Taehyung loosens his jaw as much as he possibly can, presses his lips into his teeth and feels the
alien length slip onto his tongue and down. His mouth stretches and the very pronounced scent and
taste of skin reaches his senses, but it’s not uncomfortable, nor is it unpleasant.

Conversely, Taehyung wants to fucking do it, he likes it.

Jungkook’s hips stutter into his mouth at the sudden warmth of it, only lightly, not enough to hurt
him, the head of his cock pressing into the beginnings of Taehyung’s throat and all the reaction he
gets of it is Taehyung’s fingers tightening into his thigh and tongue pressing upwards into the skin
of him.

So, he does it again.

Taehyung replaces his second hand on Jungkook’s other thigh, keeps palms opened for balance and
does his best to loosen his mouth, tongue at his cock, hollow his cheeks. He bobs his head only
slightly, a simultaneous rhythm with Jungkook’s thrust, and he looks up, meets Jungkook’s gone
eyes and the contortion of his face, features twisted and narrowed, traitorous of his affect, and it
nulls any possible discomfort – he’d do this and a lot more to have Jungkook stare at him like that,
to drive him to such vulnerability.
He has always been a pleaser, for his boss, his sister, his brothers, his parents when they were still
around. Taehyung has always enjoyed the power of pleasing others, never really in the current
sense, but the raw sexual nature of how he pleases now causes something fiery to surge through his
blood. The way Jungkook’s hold of his hair burns into his scalp spikes tingles of arousal within
him, he hums around his cock and Jungkook’s hips stutter. Taehyung’s own digits are tight in his
muscly thighs, digging into flesh over the exquisite fabric of his dress pants.

Jungkook’s all so prim and proper, tie still in place, shirt still buttoned, dress pants on and all, but
apart from that, he’s fucking disheveled. His face is gone, his thrusts peak up, relentless, almost
make his throat hurt, but he bears it, the burn of it is inexplicably gratifying.

The sound of it is obscene, sound of saliva, yet there is something salaciously naturalistic about it,
something so raw and Taehyung finds its pure crudeness overwhelmingly hot.

Jungkook is getting rougher with his thrusts, still not entirely processing that he’s having
Taehyung suck his cock.

Naturally, he’s not skilled at it. He’s wonderful at it, though. He’s warm, hot, and pliant. He’s so
putty and eager to satisfy, allowing anything that even the merest movement of Jungkook’s body
suggests, allows his own to be manipulated and adjusted just as Jungkook would like it. He tries
hard, hollows his cheeks, flattens his tongue, makes his throat perfect for Jungkook to fuck and use
and it’s Taehyung. When Jungkook glances down — and honestly, he can’t rip his eyes away from
it — it is Taehyung’s red lips stretched out wide and uncomfortable around his cock. It is him on
his knees, getting light bruises as a reminder of this, of the fact he was on his knees for Jungkook
— it is his shiny eyes glittering with concentration as they stare forward or shimmering enticingly
when Jungkook tugs at his hair and forces him to look at him. He looks almost innocent with his
eyes wide and glinting and Jungkook can’t pace his own hips.

Half the sensation, Jungkook thinks, comes from the fact and sight it is Taehyung. It is that pretty
fucking boy almost gagging on his cock, giving it his all, his absolute fucking best to try to satisfy
Jungkook, and Jungkook would honestly rather this than the most skilled dick sucker in history.

It feels dirty to fuck the mouth of a Kim, of a boy. To see the pretty, pouty lips of a man glisten
with stretched saliva and his precome. But Jungkook has never had less control of his body in a
sexual situation. He has never been so needy and desperate as he is watching Taehyung be needy
for his cock.

He takes pleasure in holding Taehyung by the hair and pulling his hard, pulsing cock out of his
mouth just to see the younger boy try to search for it with his lips again, poking his tongue at the
head at the slit. Jungkook hisses. Taehyung looks up with hooded, gone eyes, question in them, as
he licks swollen lips. A string of saliva that attaches his mouth to his cock breaks as he does and
Jungkook shoves his dick back into his mouth with an almost animalistic growl. Taehyung takes it,
readily, hungrily.

“Fuck,” Jungkook curses as Taehyung swallows around him once he takes his cock again. “Fuck,
Taehyung.”

Taehyung’s eyes flutter and he moans. And God, it’s so good, so hot, wet. And then it hits him he’s
said his name; he’s practically fucking growled poor boy’s name and shit. Shitshitshit.

This shouldn’t be about Taehyung. It shouldn’t. It’s just a mouth, it’s just a mouth, it’s just a
mouth. Jungkook’s just hard and that is just a mouth, and this is punishment, because he can’t be
that pretty and have skin this soft and not be on his knees. And this was supposed to be degrading,
but it Jungkook who is absolutely humiliated with how fucking hot he finds this, how he loses
every ounce of composure as his hips stutter towards the mouth that is supposed to be just a mouth.
But it’s not, it’s Taehyung, and Taehyung’s fucking gorgeous like this. He shouldn’t be, he should
be pathetic not gorgeous, but he is and no matter how hard Jungkook snaps his appetitive hips into
him, no matter how harshly he pulls at the soft locks of his hair, he can’t ruin it.

Tears brim out at his eyes, make them all glossy and shiny, and Jungkook has the fucking
ridiculous urge to reach a thumb, wipe them away as one drops at the delicate line of his nose. His
glance up must be fucking coy, it’s so titillating and wet.

He’s going to come. His hips are snapping relentlessly and Taehyung’s taking it, he’s doing so
well, so perfect, and it hasn’t even been that long, but Jungkook’s going to come. He’s grunting,
tensing.

Fuck. He’s beautiful. He’s not pretty. He’s pure fucking beauty. Jungkook comes, hard and
blinding. Goddamn memorable, shaking fucking orgasm, eye-clenching, vein-popping, toe-curling
fucking orgasm at the mouth of a Kim.

When he comes, he doesn’t give him a warning because he doesn’t deserve one, doesn’t say
anything, but instinctively flexes his fingers into his hair, pulls him back a little as his hips slow.

Taehyung watches as Jungkook’s head arches backwards, exposing the attractive length of his
neck, and it’s all Taehyung gets to see; he’s not allowed to know his face when he makes him
come, when fingers pull at him warningly, though he tightens his grip at Jungkook’s thighs and sits
still, lets him fill his throat until he retracts his hips, slips a softening cock from his mouth.
He swallows down what he can, feels some moisture on his lips as well. Jungkook glances down
and meets his exploratory eyes just as his tongue pokes out to gather and lick, and he suddenly
releases his hair, brusque, so quick. He steps back, he curses under his nose, looks away, looks
down, at his feet, drives both his hands through his hair and he swears, aloud, so loud.

“Fuck,” his voice thunders as he pulls punishingly at the strands of his own hair. “Fucking fuck.”

Taehyung recoils from the boom of his voice, sits back on his calves for a moment and feels the
door at his back. He props a palm into it and stands, knees sore, throat sore. He’s sore. He’s
ignoring that, though, forgets everything for the sake of watching Jungkook who tugs himself back
in his pants, who’s taking steps, such large steps around the room and away from Taehyung, who’s
doing his button fervently with almost tangible vehemence.

Taehyung’s nervous all over again. He feels so empty. Jungkook’s immediate retraction turns his
insides into something he cannot explain, something intense and bilious. He doesn’t really know
what to do with himself, scrambles to get his shirt off the floor, gathers his tie as well. He puts it
on, does buttons as he sees Jungkook stride over to a drawer.

He sees him pull out something, watches with parted lips and wide, glossed over eyes. He can’t
make it out, and then suddenly he can and his heart lifts from his chest and travels right up to his
trachea, to his throat in which he can still taste Jungkook and he wants to vomit it right out.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung asks and his voice trembles with distinct deflation he can’t even
bother to try to control.

Jungkook’s striding over to him again, arm extended forward, and he’s saying, his voice tight with
something heavy and repressed, he’s saying, “Here that should be enough,” and he’s pushing
money at him with one hand, the other running through his hair again and again, and jaw ticking.
He doesn’t look at Taehyung, refuses to, eyes dart all across, but not at Taehyung who’s staring
right at him.

“I’m not taking them,” he responds, soft, but sure.

Jungkook’s eyes snap to his, fierce. He speaks through clenched teeth. “What?” He rasps with a
step forward that is pure threat, reeks of violence, but Taehyung stands still.

“I’m not taking your money,” Taehyung is firm. He’s angered by hurt and it fuels his stoicism, jaw
equally tightens, though his eyes cannot reciprocate the belligerence of Jungkook’s.

“Taehyung, everything that happens in this room you’re paid for,” he says almost as if he’s
spitting.

Taehyung shakes his head. “Not now.”

Jungkook’s palm smashes into the surface of the door right next to his head, loud and aggressive
and his voice edges, nears a shout. “Yes, fucking now,” he breathes, shoves the money into his
chest. “Take them.”

“No.”

His voice booms, juxtaposed to the firm, yet tentatively gentle denial of Taehyung’s. “Take the
fucking money.”

Taehyung shakes his head, hand reaching for his shoulder, to keep him still. “Jungkook—”

But he pulls away so fast, as if burned, as if he’s allergic to Taehyung. He takes steps back and
Taehyung’s hands linger and fall futile and dumb in the air. Jungkook’s own spread to the sides,
arms lifting, and he’s ranting immediately, a mantra, “Don’t touch me. Okay, Taehyung? Don’t
fucking touch me.”

And Jungkook’s breathing heavy, like he’s panicking and there it is, Taehyung thinks, finally,
that’s what can break his composure, that’s what can make him tick. Taehyung’s mere touch.
Something sits in Taehyung’s throat, tight and constricting. He has entirely hollowed out from the
inside, he’s completely and pathetically hurt.

His lips part, but Jungkook’s speaking again. “You’re just a warm mouth to me, okay?” His voice
is rough, but it shakes, chest lifts and falls so hard; he’s like a man disturbed. He’s lost all
semblance of control. His words reek with emotion, and suddenly Taehyung wishes he would go
back to his indifference, wishes he never triggered this, because he’s saying, “Make no mistake
you’re just a warm fucking mouth to me, a poor one, a poor throat that I can buy.”

Taehyung swallows, bites at his lip. It’s pathetic, he’s pathetic, but he tries, reaches again, begs,
“Jungkook—”
As soon as his hand touches him, Jungkook’s own reaches forward, catches at his shoulder and
clavicle and pushes back with force that sends him right back, that surges him straight into the
surface of the door, whole body flush into the crash with it, head bouncing off, and now it hurts
physically as well.

“Fuck,” Taehyung curses, hand cradles at his head at where the pain is emphasized most, features
contorting, and Jungkook’s eyes are wide then, though still set.

“Shit, shit shit shit.” Jungkook’s saying, it’s basically exhales, exhales of shit and that is all he can
manage. Jungkook breathes fucking shit. He’s screwing his eyes shut, then opening them again.
“Taehyung. I didn’t mean to —” And he stops himself because what, he didn’t mean to what, push
him against the fucking door? He’s a fucking man, he can take it. Jungkook doesn’t apologize to
boys when he pushes them, he rams into their jaws until he knocks them out.

“To what?” Taehyung’s eyes suddenly open glaring into his. He’s staring with new fire. The
gentleness has dropped, the tentativeness disappears, and he bares his teeth when he speaks now,
passion etching into his words as he bites them out, gaze narrowed and determined. “To hurt me?”
His brows shoot up in a pointed challenge that Jungkook does not accept. It just makes him clench
his teeth harder, jaw ticking. It’s a pause long enough for Taehyung to charge again, while the
implication of his last words lingers echoing in the silence. “Hit me,” he pronounces, enunciates
and Jungkook’s eyes darken. “Hit me, push me again, Jungkook, just take your fucking money
away.”

He might do it, Taehyung knows. He might hospitalize him if he wills it, he’s witnessed it by now,
but Taehyung doesn’t care, because he’s not going to allow him to make this into a transaction.

Jungkook’s fists land onto the door on either side of him with charge and Taehyung flinches, eyes
almost shutting, but he strives to keep them opened and glaring. He searches Jungkook’s face as
Jungkook’s searches his, trapping him against the door. Neither of them speaks for several
moments, only breaths are exchanged, breaths and hard glares, tension physically tangible between
their aggravated bodies, and suddenly Jungkook’s moving again, but he’s not hitting Taehyung.

No, he presses the money into his palm with just three fingers and moves both hands towards him.
Taehyung’s breath stills in his throat, eyes not dropping to follow the motion as Jungkook still
glares at him, and he needs to return it. And Jungkook, with his heated gaze not dropping once,
does the knot of his tie the way he likes it, tightens it around his throat, until Taehyung’s prim and
proper as well, though he still feels the taste of Jungkook in his mouth. His hands don’t lift
immediately after, though. He reaches a thumb, with a single motion wipes at the corner of his lip,
and Taehyung realizes, he wipes at his come.
 Jungkook sucks at his own thumb so briefly and naturally Taehyung almost doesn’t notice it,
before his hands drop from him completely and the heat of his body disappears as he steps back.

“Fine,” Jungkook says, and it’s cold, so figuratively cold that it actually makes Taehyung
physically shiver. He slips the money in his back pocket and looks away. “Go back to work.”

And with a final lasting glance that can no longer be classified as a glare, Taehyung does.

Chapter End Notes

people are so active and nice in the comments and a few reaching out on twitter it fills
my heart, I love love love reading anything that anyone has to say about this honestly,
negative or not, so thank you for staying involved

I might actually completely drop my real life and move online people here are nicer

anyway, hope you enjoyed, have a nice day and listen to scenery cause wow
 Chapter 12
Chapter Summary

I don't know how to summarise this shit.

Chapter Notes

This is starting to get so fucking long smh sorry

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“So,” Clo twirls the straw in the vibrantly colored cocktail that Hoseok had passed to her
previously before he ventured off to wake up Yoongi, deeming three o’clock in the afternoon a
good time for him to finally be summoned into consciousness. Jungkook’s brow twitches at her
tone, but he does not acknowledge her with a look as she wraps lips around her straw and speaks
most coyly, “what’s with that boy?”

Jungkook keeps his body stoic, face unrestrained, but reticent. He keeps himself casual, eyes
closed, and head arched to the sky, the hum of the hot tub so common his senses have adapted to it
beyond registry. “What boy?”

Clo’s eyes narrow just slightly, with something akin to offence. “Don’t play with me, Jungkook.”
Her voice rivals a scoff. “What’s up with Kim?”

He tells himself he does not care for his sister’s expression as she probes into his personal life, but
it’s a lie, and he straightens lazily, puts the weight of his head onto his own neck and shoulders and
cracks his eyes opened, strained and hurting under the powerful light of the afternoon sun. Clo has,
as is to be expected, her features dulled into a virtual inexpression, simply sitting there with coy
expectancy that is vibrant and pointed. She does not appreciate being fooled, it’s one of their
common characteristics. Another one being their adoration for their personal privacy and lack of
taste for disclosure of their own matters. So, Jungkook does try to fool her, as frankly, she has no
business sticking her nose in hisshit.

“Julia has a thing for him,” he replies slow and measured and their eyes lock now, similar in the
intensity of their un-intensity.

Her head cocks. She releases the straw from in between her lips. “Julia only has a thing for you,
Jungkook,” she states. “And you always seem to disappear when he’s around.”

“He’s nothing, okay?” Jungkook replies trying to string his tone of voice away from animosity that
trudges by its edges. “Don’t bring him up.” He relaxes his head onto the tub again, but his eyes
remain opened.

He’s nothing. Jungkook believes it. Poor boy’s nothing. He’s nothing but a warm, pliant mouth.

Jungkook releases a breath, a sigh. His fingers tighten into a fist that clenches underneath the water,
away from his sister’s view. He’s not going to think about this.

Clo does not skip a bit, voice slithers around her question, “Why shouldn’t I bring him up if he’s
nothing?”

He is nothing. Jungkook’s thoughts never resonate around the meaninglessness of the things he
fucks. He fucks after fights and he fucks sometimes on drugs, and sometimes when he’s simply
tense. And if it is not Julia, then it is nothing relevant. It is never about the person, always about
the act, about release, relief, it’s about sex, and what sort of a horny teenager would he be to dwell
on the simplicity of details of past sex, keeping ridiculous mental images to toss off to. If he wants
sex, he can get it.

“He pisses me off,” Jungkook says simply, and because he senses her mouth opening again, he
tries to be firm, demanding, “That’s it. Drop it.”

He doesn’t want to think about him in any context, certainly does not want to entertain the fact that
he has been paying enough attention to him to make it suspicious. He doesn’t want to know that
Taehyung is likely going to ignore him even more now after this. He hadn’t contemplated it when
he’d told him to get on his knees, and when he’d pressed the money into his chest. He doesn’t
usually tend to think about the consequences of his actions when it comes to sex, when it comes to
most things, because ordinarily he doesn’t care about them.

He doesn’t this time as well. He’ll make sure of it. He’ll lose a fight if he has to, let his father beat
care out of him.

Clo leaves her glass on the edge of the tub and straightens. Her eyes look tired, skin pale, but
circles dark underneath her irises. She covers it up, usually, but not in this company, not with him.
She used to be more beautiful when she wasn’t simply sober, when she had never started. She
speaks with certain distaste, “I don’t like that you’ve targeted Namjoon’s little brother, Jungkook.”

And Jungkook lifts his head up and speaks with even more of it. “Fuck off,” he says, he spits, and
lets his eyes roll with all the pointedness he can manage. He reaches for her glass and removes the
straw, tips it over and drains it off liquid, practically inhales it.

Clo pauses, but not for long. “Jungkook—"

“What?” He says sharply, straightening his head again to pin her with a glare that comes to him
naturally. His voice toys with a narrow tinge of humor that is more cruel and cold than it is
anything else, though he does seep in the suggestion of incredulity, “You want to start a fucking
fundraiser for your precious Kims?”

Clo remains typically calm to the pointed animosity of his slight outburst as she asks, slow, but
confident, “Is it about Namjoon?”

“No,” Jungkook snaps, because it isn’t. “It has absolutely nothing to do with Namjoon,” he
declares with a little more passion twisted into bitterness than he would like to admit. It strikes him
as offensive, somehow, inexplicably, that she would suggest this thing with Taehyung would have
to do with his brother. It doesn’t. It has to do with Taehyung only.

He forgets it has to do with Julia as well.

“I’m just saying,” Clo is atypically careful. She trudges on sensitivity, and it is something the two
of them do not cope all too well with. “Don’t project—"

“I’m not projecting anything,” Jungkook interrupts harshly. He stands up, water dripping down him
somehow loud as he looms above her, face pointed and hard. “They’re all the same fucking lot.”
He steps out of the hot tub, saunters away to make himself another drink. “Would do anything to
get ahold of some money.”

“You still blame him,” Clo says, keeping her eyes still on where he used to be, the space now as
vacant as the direction of their conversation, as the direction of most of their conversations in the
past couple of years.

Jungkook scoffs easily as he walks away, “Of course, I still blame him. Kims are fucking pests.”
All Kims are simply fucking pests, nesting in places where they don’t belong, on their streets, their
houses, their cafes, work places, and most inexcusably in Jungkook’s fucking brain.

Jungkook rarely fucks her in his own bed, but when he does, it’s usually hard.

This time it’s harder. He’s inside her as she’s sprawled on his godly mattress, fucking her into it,
fast and good. He hovers above her, palms by her head as he uses them for leverage to keep himself
up, looking down, bangs moving heavy with sweat with the force of his thrusts.

She’s keening, moaning, arching into him, her thin legs wrapped around his waist, keeping her
eyes set on his, so set, because he rarely allows this for so long, rarely initiates and perpetuates eye
contact from start to finish but ever since he pushed her down onto his bed he hadn’t ripped his
gaze away, and it makes her melt into the velvety sheets.

He’s fucking her fast and good, fast and good, of course it’s good, it’s always good. He’s a talent,
talented at everything physical, everything primal and fucking is not an exception, he’s
exceptional. But there is something indisputably mechanical about the way he does her tonight, a
repetitive rhythm of him slamming his hips into her while he hovers above her. It’s a good rhythm,
good depth, hits all the right places, knows just how to make her moan and whimper.

But there is some terrible dispassion in the way he moves into her as he gazes into her eyes.
Maybe, she realizes, maybe it’s too good, too fast and good, too hard, too much just the way she
likes it, too perfect, controlled, balanced. Machinal.

But then after a slow release of breath, his elbows bend. His forearms straighten into the mattress
and he comes closer, body brushing against hers, and though it takes his eyes away from hers,
though he has to look away, it’s suddenly different. His head twists away, gaze disappears to stare
at nothing in particular, maybe his eyes screw shut, she imagines, and his breath hitches by her ear
and the sound of it is deliciously uninhibited.

He falters once in his rhythm in a snap of his hips that feels unrestrained and punishing in all the
right ways and it makes her gasp. He’s still fast, still good, but now he’s more frantic, now he
seems purposeful, seeking his own pleasure as well as simply grinding into her. He groans, he’s
growling, chest rumbles against her as he presses his forehead onto a pillow and fucks her,
frustrated, frustratingly.

It’s different now. It holds something. It’s better now. His hips gyrate, sink into hers, arch. The
rhythm is not as set, it seems he feels it rather than controls it, and it makes her lose herself in him
that he seems to have lost himself in this.

She calls his name when she comes, telling him how good he makes her feel, gripping onto the
back of his neck, treading fingers through his hair and helplessly cursing at him in a pleasured
mantra of rephrased thank yous.

He himself is atypically silent, foul, demanding lips shut and bitten as he comes afterwards. His
teeth sink into the pillow of his flesh hard, too hard until the red is white before it cracks and he
releases it before it turns crimson again, before it bleeds, a licentious groan traveling raw and
beautiful in her ear as he empties himself into the condom with final movements of his body.

The heat of him evaporates quick, so quick. He’s up and off of her, out of her, before she can
properly weave her fingers into his hair like she means to. He disposes of the condom in a bin by
his bed as he sits on the edge of it, legs spread wide, elbows pressed into them. He’s hunched over,
tense, regardless of what they just did. He’s running palms across his face, as If he’s scrubbing it
with water, then his own fingers sink into the strands of his hair, restless and firm as they tread and
pull onto them.

Julia straightens on a single elbow, eyes fixed on her boyfriend.

“Are you alright, Jungkook?” she asks, slow and cautious.

His back tenses, muscles rigid under his smooth skin before he straightens, shoulder blades
relaxing. He twists slightly at the waist, arching a pointed eyebrow at her, quizzical, “Yeah?”

There’s a suggestion in his demeanor, a suggestion that she’s imagining things and it offends her
slightly that he believes after all those years he either thinks he can still fool her or doesn’t care to
try. She grips on a sheet, layers it protectively over her body. “Don’t fucking look it,” she says,
only a bit harshly.

He sighs, leans back. His head cocks and his eyes venture away from hers again. “The rumors
about Clo and Seokjin,” he addresses and pauses until he notices her resolve change with the barest
notion of hesitance. “I don’t like them,” he finishes.

It’s a pattern she knows well, but still lacks the capacity to fully comprehend, because it’s a very
well manufactured form of manipulation for him to stir clear of actual discussion. Jungkook has
long ago established his sister holds a tender spot in his heart, inaccessible by others – he has long
ago deemed conversations about her taboo but has allowed Julia into the privacy of his insecurity
revolving around her. She’s allowed to know, but not to address, not to comment on. So, whenever
Jungkook is unnerved by anything he does not want talked about, he simply brings up his sister.

If Julia knows this, she never addresses it as well. What she does say is, “You think about your
sister and that newbie when you fuck me?”

He looks at her again, and with an intense conviction and honesty that she cannot help, but trust, he
claims, “No.”

The word carries an idiosyncratic weight that she cannot fully decipher, only feel.

She yearns to address it, lips parting, but then the door cracks open and his mother is there, smiling
and unbothered. Her son sits naked and exposed on the edge of his bed, his girlfriend sprawled
behind him, barely covered, and the scent of sex punctuates the air.

His mother’s eyes venture to Julia and widen in recognition. Her hands clasp together, fingers
intertwining as her palms press tight and a smile spreads on her face. “Julia,” she addresses, pitched
and short, “wonderful. I thought I’d heard you. Would you stay for dinner, darling?”

Julia’s eyes venture to Jungkook instinctively, though she is nodding and saying of course. The
answer is always of course.

“Perfect,” his mother announces, and she saunters off, a dismissive motion of her hand as it hangs
in the air. “Min Su, would you change my son’s sheets?”

Taehyung does not know what it is precisely that transpires inside of him when Jungkook appears
at Rouge with Julia, but he can tell it is peculiarly vindictive. It’s the first time he sees Julia after
the night of her birthday, but it does not properly register with him, because he’s too busy
processing the fact it is the first time he’s seeing Jungkook after he got on his knees for him and
allowed him to come in his mouth.

It sits irritably with him that their first encounter post the incident has to feature Seung Julia before
he bitterly remembers all of their encounters were supposed to feature her.

And she is his girlfriend.She’s the one supposed to suck his cock, not him, she has every right
sitting on that table with him, trailing fingers across the sinewy lines of his forearms, dragging nails
playfully across his thighs, the very same thighs Taehyung held onto as Jungkook fucked his
mouth.

It is Taehyung who does nothave a place there. He has to serve them and that is it, that is what he
does, but as he carries the menu, he also carries the knowledge that he did make Jungkook come,
and he had moaned his name moments before he’d spilled into his mouth, and it had had nothing to
do with Julia at all and the fact of it is cruel and twisted in the way it grants him a sense of
gratification and empowerment. He almost feels smug which is ridiculous and borderline petty, but
he does.

They’re sat on one of his tables, and though Taehyung suspects Jungkook would not make a scene
againand in front of Julia he cannot afford to ask Bogum to deal with anything more related to this.
He already seems suspiciously involved with Jungkook and he does not want to provide leverage
for questioning. What is more, he does not want to simply avoid Jungkook, especially not when
Julia is around. He can insert himself into their situation and not shy away from it, not run away
flustered and hard. He doesn’t have the upper hand in this, but he does have a hand and he’s set on
proving it, for the sake of his own sanity and internal well-being.

It does not mean the presence of Jungkook does not resonate with a sensation of hurt, especially
when his smirking, perpetually salacious girlfriend is currently occupying his attention, a reminder
Taehyung never truly does. She touches him and he watches her. She smiles at him and he smirks
at her and it tugs at Taehyung, because the shape in which Jungkook’s lips twist may not
necessarily be a smile but it closer than anything Taehyung dreams to be awarded with.

It’s beyond ridiculous, honestly, that he would crave a smile from Jeon Jungkook, but he does want
an array of the strangest things from him. When Julia leans and her lips meet his, Taehyung starts
walking. He walks towards them, he has to bring them their menus, take their order, and to order,
they need to break apart.

He still wonders what a kiss would feel like, but he abhors seeing it.
“Taehyung,” Julia says as her lips immediately twist with a familiar, titillating curve that is very
much a smirk and very little a smile. Taehyung is not surprised at her address, at the pitch of it and
the bat of her lashes as her eyes slide away from her boyfriend and over to him. He doesn’t much
care for it. He does, however, feel irritated at the fact Jungkook is not looking at him. No, he has
his phone out now and he’s fucking scrolling through social media and completely ignorant of
Taehyung’s presence and there he is, with Julia’s attention on him, though her palm on Jungkook’s
thigh, and Jungkook full-heartedly ignoring him and it is square one. Deja fucking vu. It’s not like
this anymore. It shouldn’t be. It should be more, he should be more now.

“Is there anything I can get you to start off with?” Taehyung speaks and he knows he says it
tightly, it registers in his own ears and he hopes it does in Jungkook’s as well.

Julia’s lips spread. “Hmm. So professional, Taehyung.”

He does not like the way she says his name, like she has some claim over it. “I’m working,” he
states simply, strained in his endeavors to not be overtly brusque with her and to keep his eyes
away from Jungkook, though he’s like some interpretive magnet for them, claiming his attention
inadvertently, regardless of the fact his own is utterly lacking.

He gives her a door, he supposes, and she sticks her foot in it and cracks it opened, saunters right
in. “If you ever get tired of this working and need a little extra money, Taehyung,” She trails off,
her smirk transforming into something he interprets as positively evil though it is mostly
suggestive. Her brows lift and fall swiftly. “Or if you’re ever fucking bored.”

Taehyung swallows around his words, “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, blinking towards the other
man, whose thumb is aggressive as it perpetuates a continuous, absent scroll. “Anything to drink?”
He tries to be leveled, tries not to sound frankly and simply pissed. Maybe he fails.

“A double coffee and a San Pellegrino,” Julia says and somehow even that manages to slip through
her lips with an air of something teasing.

Taehyung nods and his eyes naturally slide to Jungkook and he waits. The other does not deign him
with a look before he speaks, before he asks, “And for you?” Not before he adds, “Sir?”

Jungkook’s gaze does wander to him then, languorous and tantalizing as it slides to his from under
brows, under lashes. There’s some hardness in it as he captures Taehyung’s firm, set glare.
“A coke,” Jungkook says and Taehyung cannot know if he imagines the tension or it is truly
palpable and then his eyes drop to his phone again. “No sugar.”

Taehyung nods, licks at his lips. “Will that be all?”

Julia’s lips open, but Jungkook cuts her off, succinctly, “Yes.”

Taehyung is dismissed,technically, and so, he leaves. He walks into the café, places orders, places
them to Bogum who’s behind the bar today, to Bogum who has his eyes scrutinizing his face,
studying the all too obvious disgruntlement that encapsulates his pretty features.

Bogum’s leaning his elbows on the counter of the bar as Taehyung slips behind to make the coffee
himself. He appreciates the distraction of having something to do with his hands, something that
requires his attention, because otherwise it begrudgingly misplaces, seals onto the couple.

“He’s here again,” Bogum acknowledges and Taehyung’s eyes dart to the person in question,
automatic and regretful, as Jungkook has forgotten his phone and is present now, present with her.
“What did he want from you, the other day?” Bogum continues after Taehyung only lets out an
annoyed noise of affirmation. “You kind of, disappeared for a while.”

He’s cautious with his wording and Taehyung senses it, appreciates it, though he does suppose it is
done more for Jungkook’s sake than it is for his.

“Just to rough me up a little bit,” Taehyung replies as he works the espresso machine with the
automaticity of longitudinal familiarity. “Told you he gets off on making me suffer.” He says and
the coffee is done, so he makes to bring the drinks to the couple, but Bogum is on the other side of
the bar and has the trey in his hands as soon as Taehyung places the porcelain onto it.

“I’ll take care of it,” he informs him and when Taehyung attempts to protest, he interjects mid-
spin, “I’m closer.”

Thanks, Taehyung means to say, but he doesn’t, just nods. He watches as Bogum places the drinks
on the table, as Jungkook’s head twists to look at their waiter and then eyes, sharp and intense,
center on him through the window.

Taehyung refuses to award him with the satisfaction of a reciprocated look, so he replaces his gaze
to Bogum, follows him as he returns and as he places the tray onto the counter. Work is slow today,
it’s chill. It’s an hour during the week at which people are usually busy, it’s a money-making hour,
but Julia and Jungkook do not have to worry about making money, just spending it.

“Can I ask you something?” Bogum leans against the bar again. He is casual, but tangibly
bordering on some intent, tiptoeing around actual points, while focusing on nonchalance. As
Taehyung mimics his position on the other end of the counter and their elbows brush, he adds,
“Don’t get offended.”

Taehyung’s drive to show indifferenceinvigorates him to seal his eyes onto Bogum though they
practically itching to check if Jungkook’s are still on Julia. “Yeah, no worries,” he tries to focus on
this conversation, with this person. He meets his eyes. “Few things can offend me.”

Bogum’s lips twitch before they straighten. He clears his throat, shakes some hair from his face.
“Do you deal to him?”

“What?” Taehyung asks a little bit sharply, a little bit blankly. It’s a lot more surprising to him than
it is offensive as Bogum had worried, and his brows shoot into his hair, features twist with the
confusion of the question.

“I just.” He’s playing with something he finds on the bar, some object that Taehyung does not
exactly know the purpose of, but it’s small and metallic. Bogum hesitates as he lifts his eyes from
the movement of his digits and looks instead at Taehyung, “I heard a Kim sells around here and I
thought it might be you. Thought it might have to do with your…” he chooses carefully,
“misunderstandings.”

“Ah,” Taehyung exhales, tongue tapping against the roof of his mouth, features tight as he nods,
once, twice, he’s shaking his head. His fingers clasp together and squeeze into each other. “That
would be my brother.” He straightens up, but he realizes he has nothing to do with himself, really,
so he stretches his back and leans onto the bar again. “He’s gone now, though. He went away.”

“Oh.” Bogum’s eyes widen slightly, genuinely. It’s refreshingly rare. “Sorry. I—"

Taehyung waves a hand. “It’s fine.” He grips onto his own elbow and allows a bit of a smile to
tease at his lips. “You really don’t know much about Richhood, do you?” A new variation of
fondness touches his voice at the end.
Bogum’s brows arch curiously, “Richhood?”

“Gangnam.” Taehyung responds, laughs, shoulders shaking with it as he drops his head and twists
it side to side. He says with a breath under his nose, “Christ.” Then lifts up to look at his coworker,
slapping a palm over the curl of his shoulder definitively. “Okay, Bogumie hyung. You work in
Rouge, you need to be educated in order to survive.” He enunciates pointedly, then
announces,“You’re coming with me to the Ozone.”

A smirk spreads on the other’s face, friendly enough but a little teasing as well. “To the Ozone,
yeah?”

Taehyung nods. “Yeah.”

Bogum lifts his brows up again, but this time differently, this time with suggestion, though it
remains pointedly playful, “Are you asking me out, Taehyung?”

Taehyung snorts, eyes rolling easily. His conversations with Bogum flow; they’re easy, casual. It
relaxes him slightly, to finally have something like this. Sometimes he feels every moment of his
life is burdened with a type of unspoken tension, bred from his clear-cut status of poverty. “No, I
just want you to see them in their natural habitat, snorting coke and dirty dancing and all that.” His
eyes dart unintentionally to the smoke-snorting, dirty-dancers in question, but he is quick to return
them to Bogum.

“Dirty dancing?” Bogum grins all wicked. “Is that what we’ll be doing?”

Taehyung buries his face in his hands, prolonging vowels as he whines, “Hyuuung.” Everything he
says can be used against him apparently, so he settles for nothing but a whine.

Fingers thread through his hair for the barest moment, ruffing it up, fluffing it, before they are
removed. “I’m just teasing, Taehyungie.” Taehyung straightens, his eyes naturally darting to
Jungkook as he regains vision of the background behind Bogum, a bit of a residual pout on his face
as he leans his chest and whole body on his fists against the bar. “Though, I wouldn’t particularly
mind.”

It takes Taehyung a moment, he needs to pause, because his gaze lingers and it does because it
does not meet the side of his head as expected, it meets his eyes, set and penetrative. But Taehyung
does remove his, speedily. He meets Bogum’s. “Keep going and I’ll report you for harassment,” he
jokes. He tries to keep it light, this light is the only one he is allowed to have, and he clings onto it.

But then Bogum’s smirk softens into a smile. It’s small on his face, and he is no longer staring at
Taehyung, so Taehyung looks away as well. “You look at them a lot,” Bogum announces. He says
it simply, quietly.

Taehyung nods. He knows he does. He always has. “Observation’s preservation.”

He settles for this, though currently Jungkook’s magnetic pull to his eyes does anything but keep
him safe. Conversely, it exposes truths he does not want to acknowledge.

“Who’s that with him?” Bogum asks, his chin nodding indicatively.

Taehyung’s tongue runs across his lips. “Seung Julia,” he says, looking around for something to
do. He desperately needs to be busy right now. “She’s his girlfriend. They’ve been together for
like…” and he realizes with a small sigh, “ever.”

Bogum nods, leaning backwards against the bar, scanning them over briefly. “She’s pretty, isn’t
she?”

“Gorgeous.” He makes another coffee, this one for himself, offers Bogum one, but he shakes his
head, so he makes himself a double because it takes longer.

“They look good together,” Bogum acknowledges, and Taehyung pulls at a lever a bit too hard,
begs he wouldn’t notice.

“Yeah,” Taehyung hits his finger on the machine with a movement that is too brusque and
uncoordinated, hisses, sucks on it briefly. “They fit.” He says.

It’s convenient when three people only two of whom Taehyung recognizes sit at a table that
Bogum has to serve because it effectively ends the conversation that Taehyung is not sure how to
stir. He doesn’t even like coffee.

He shakes his head, at himself, to himself, figures that with how slow the day is going it is not a
crime for him to go to the toilet when he is not on his break, so he slips away, ventures into the
hallway and then towards the bathroom. He stares at his own self in question when he washes his
hands, fills his cheeks with air, his chest and releases it in a large burst through circular lips.

He cups his palms, fills them with some water and chucks it at his face, and then he leaves.

His pause is immediate when he sees he is not alone in the hallway.

His steps halt unintentionally, eyes dart across the familiar figure of Jeon Jungkook as the door
shuts behind him, he’s clearly just come into the space as well. Taehyung’s chest fills with a breath
he struggles to take, but then he manages and drops his gaze to the floor with a small nod of
acknowledgment and he walks.

He means to walk past, pace quick and pointed, but of course, of course, fingers lock tight against
the bone of his elbow and Jungkook tugs him into a position that is not too close, not too far away,
that makes him face him with at least half of his body. Taehyung’s eyes narrow. His glare burns at
where Jungkook’s digits coalesce with his body, then up along the length of his arm and settles
into his own hardened stare.

Jungkook’s teeth are tight pressed, but he still manages to speak with insouciance. “You’re not
gonna tell anyone about what happened, right?” he says, and at the address of thisTaehyung’s
surprised into flinging his brows up into his hair.

He’d never expected Jungkook to voluntarily bring it up, with words, though not naming it, per se,
but instilling the fact of it happening into the tension of the space between them.

Jungkook only does it because he wants Taehyung to think about it when that other poor bastard
runs his hands through his hair again.

“What?” Taehyung hisses, because Taehyung is pissed, pissed because he can’t ignore him when
other people are around, then fucking seek him out and speak to him with the notion of a
threat.And if Jungkook wants to talk about it now, well then, he will talk about it, the way it was,
“That I sucked your cock?” He takes a single step forward, it’s brave and it’s stupid and he takes it.
He lets the ring of his words linger in the air of the quiet room. Then, he says, “I know I must be
somelevel of masochistic to talk to you, but I don’t go around looking for a good beating.”

Jungkook’s eyes shift away from him then return, jaw tightening. His free fingers, the ones that do
not attempt to bruise the memory of their hold into his flesh, tap repetitive and quick against his
own hip. “I mean Julia,” he tells him.

Oh, Taehyung thinks. “No,” Taehyung says. He does not manage to stray from embitterment, when
he promises, “I won’t.” He can, he could,thinks maybe she won’t kiss him so readily, won’t touch
him so freely, so often, so possessive, so confident in her possession, if he did, and he could spill it
to her in details because it’s sealed in his mind, engrained and visional, sensational. He could
probably rehearse every word, most importantly, the way Jungkook had said fuck, then, fuck again,
and then Taehyung, and then he’d come. But he won’t.

And after he concludes that, after he informs him of it, he glares away from Jungkook’s searching
eyes, reciprocal to his, and he attempts to walk away and for a moment the fingers around his
elbow are loose enough that he’s allowed to take a step.

Then they tighten, and they squeeze with suddenness that has him stumbling into his previous
place.

Taehyung’s eyes dart to Jungkook again, seal onto him with the unspoken, but obvious, what now,
what does he want from him now.

Jungkook’s voice is indecipherable, but perceptibly constricted. It holds something sour, and
impugning, though he seems to force into it a casualness that does not fit the glint of his eyes and
the tick of his jaw,“You making a new friend?”

Taehyung’s brows lift, eyes blink, and is he implying something about Bogum, he scoffs. His face
deadens and he jostles his arm away from his grip. “Fuck off, Jungkook.”

He says and he walks away and Jungkook lets him, he has to let him, because any determination in
this case would signify bother, and he is most certainly not bothered by the fact Taehyung walks
away from this conversation and falls right into one with whoever the fuck this Park Bogum is. He
ignores the way his fingers twitch with encompassing irritability and stalks back to his girlfriend
slipping into the set neutrality his sister and him have an unspoken rule to perpetuate.

When Jungkook revisits Rouge the following day when Yoongi says he wants to talk, he tells
himself the destination has nothing to do with his curiosity of whether Taehyung would let Bogum
touch him again, and a lot more to do with the quality of the coffee, though he does not order one.

“I don’t think Subin is selling me clean,” Yoongi is saying, and Jungkook is willing himself to pay
attention, but Taehyung and Bogum are speaking inside, and it does not appear to be a professional
discussion, not one of co-workers, because co-working certainly does not require giggling and that
is exactly what Taehyung is doing.

His smile is so wide his eyes almost disappear, teeth fully exposed as his lips spread in a shape that
is almost rectangular, and some of his prettiness dwindles, his face dysmorphic with the purity of a
grin that reaches all aspects of his features. It’s not pretty, no longer pretty, but it is still attractivein
some sort of way that makes Jungkook want to put his fist through it until it’s ugly, as ugly as what
he feels when Taehyung flashes that frustrating smile simultaneously as he pushes Bogum by the
shoulder with discernable playfulness. Their interaction spells out reciprocal teasing, and, frankly,
Jungkook does not think Taehyung deservesit.

“Jungkook,” Yoongi presses and he realizes he might have made a mistake bringing him here,
because he is sober and when he is sober, he reads Jungkook almost as well as his sister does.

“No, he’s not,” Jungkook returns his eyes to Yoongi’s lazy, measured stare.

It narrows slightly. “And why is that?”

Jungkook shrugs in a way he knows infuriates his hyung. “Cause I told him not to.” He slides his
eyes briefly away, glancing through the window of the café, where Taehyung has his fingers on the
middle of Bogum’s forearm, other hand curled around his ear and he is whispering, and what the
fuck would they even have to whisper about. It is highly unnecessary, as is the hand that Bogum
keeps on Taehyung’s back when they talk.

“I’m not a baby, Jungkook,” Yoongi says with filtered aggravation.

Jungkook blinks back to him. “Then why do you cling to substances like a baby to its mother’s
tit?” He arches an eyebrow. He’s cruel and he knows it, but Yoongi is not one to take offence, and
Jungkook is not one to tiptoe around his friends, especially not when he is particularly ticked like
he is today.

Yoongi’s head cocks and his tongue drips venom. “I’m not that good with words. Why don’t you
ask your sister? She’s eloquent for an addict.”
Jungkook’s eyes flash brief and warning with the way he tilts his jaw. His tongue pokes into his
cheek. “Careful,” he says.

Yoongi laughs. “With who? With you?”

“Are you ready with your order?” And it is neither Bogum nor Taehyung who asks this because
the two are too busy laughing.

“I want something colorful,” Yoongi says, glancing up with a close-lipped smile that makes the
crescents of his eyes thin.

“Colorful?” It is a waitress that lingers with a worried arch of her eyebrow.

“Yes,” Yoongi nods with ready satisfaction before he adds, “And strong.”

“Do you have a preference for the spirit?”

He shakes his head. “Surprise me.”

Jungkook orders a diet coke, and she walks away and Yoongi grips at his knee where he has his
legs crossed one on top of the other and uses the hold he has to arch his body slightly, look the
waitress over. “I kind of want to fuck her, don’t you?”

“No,” Jungkook says. “Glad to hear you can get hard again.”

Yoongi scoffs. “You’re one to talk. Julia shares.”

“My dick’s limp out of boredom, not out of drugs, and I always deliver.”

Yoongi’s eyes trail smirking over the length of Jungkook’s body and his lips twitch. “Yes, Julia
shares about that as well.”
Jungkook tries not to be distracted by the fact Bogum’s hand still lingers on the back of
Taehyung’s waist and it seems to have dropped inappropriately lower. His fingers drum atop the
table, tongue poking into his other cheek as well.

“Do you think you’re taking care of me, Jungkook?” Yoongi’s voice carries gentle, deep, and
slow. It’s always relaxing. Jungkook used to love to just listen to him speak, when he had any good
thoughts to share.

He turns to him now with a pointedly questioning expression, raising a single eyebrow. “Huh?”

“I’m your hyung,” Yoongi says, still clad in languor. His throat must be dry; there’s no moistness
in his words. “I’m supposed to take care of you.”

Jungkook chooses to stare at his frustrated fingers, jarring and restless, tap tap tap, as they knock
against the surface of the table. “It’s just age, hyung,” he tells him, “It’s just numbers. It doesn’t
matter.”

“But it does,” Yoongi declares and it means something else as well, but Jungkook doesn’t catch it
because Taehyung’s brining their drinks over.

And they’re fucking walking together. Jungkook’s jaw slacks, teeth pressing rigid. It’s so goddamn
annoying.They’re working, not out on a fucking date, yet they both grip treys in their hands and
walk close to each other, shoulders brushing, speaking even as they do their job, as if their
conversation could possibly be so engaging as to not want to leave it even for a moment enough for
them to properly do what they are paid for.

They have to part ways for them to deliver to different tables, and Taehyung has the nerve to
fucking pout. Like a child. He looks ridiculous. He is certainly not paid to do that. Jungkook does
not appreciate servers that slack off on the job for the purpose of personal entertainment, workers
that are unprofessional enough to display their relationships with their colleagues. He does not pay
18% service fee for Taehyung to have fucking fun, in a largely unnecessary manifestation of some
misplaced codependent affection for the new person who’s in this with him.

Taehyung slides the tip of the trey onto the edge of the table, reaches to place Yoongi’s drink in
front of him. He’s actually quite skilled at balancing the trey so that is takes up minimal space,
experience has bred in him some professionalism, though he disregards it for the sake of a newbie,
and really, it’s shame that Jungkook feels the need to stretch in just that moment. His fingers pause
their tap and his hand glides across the surface and knocks into the trey, disturbing its tentative
balance, and it twists and slips, Jungkook’s coke toppling to the ground, breaking into pieces and
spilling over.

“Shit,” Taehyung’s hiss is a murmur, but it is immediate. His eyes are brief in the scathing glare
they lift to burn into him, before a mantra of swear words string from his lips in the breath of a
whisper and his gaze falls, concentrated and searching. He falls to his knees so naturally on the
cement, holding a palm opened and piling shards of glass into it and Jungkook is swarmed with a
wave of pleased satisfaction at how much better he looks on his knees between his legs than he
does standing up next to Bogum. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He apologizes so quick and worried it must be instinctual, automatic. Jungkook supposes the
belief, the customer is always right, is one of God’s ten commandments in a place like this. He
realizes Taehyung must not mean to say sorry to him, but very likely feels he has to. It’s gratifying
in a way he is debauchedly familiar with, that it must be internally killing him to fall on his knees
and to apologize for it, but that he has no choice.

After the first quick, fiery glare he focuses on gathering the glass mostly, does not portray his
distaste in any way that is clearly visible, but Jungkook is starting to know Taehyung. He can feel it
virtually pulsate off of his skin, vibrate in the erratic motion of his hands, too quick, too sharp. He’s
buzzing with it. Jungkook wonders how much he would like to be able to afford to stand up and hit
him right then, but he can’t.

Yoongi studies the smirk etched into Jungkook’s features as he seals a cruel gaze on the poor boy
that gathers glass with his bare hands. It’s more pitiless than is typical for the younger man, who,
though is far from being particularly kind, usually does not care enough to be callous with staff. He
has always considered it beyond him, has never sunk into that specific pettiness of being rich.
Yoongi says nothing of it and he tries not to think anything of it as well.

“Taehyung,” Bogum, playing fucking Superman or some ridiculously pointless shit like that, calls
his name with concern, and angles closer, slipping his own now empty trey beneath his shoulder to
permit himself the mobility of helpinghim.

Jungkook lacks a filter. “Oh, don’t worry,” he says. He sits with his legs spread wide, possessive of
the mere air around him, and when Taehyung looks up at the sound of his voice with something
that is more confused and vulnerable than it is glaring, with lips slightly parted, he looks from in
between his knees and it is a pretty imagery, indeed. “He’s used to this.”

Taehyung’s lips clasp with resolve and he notices the bob of his long throat as he swallows. He
pauses as his eyes narrow and harden, his features twisting in a combination that perfectly depicts a
loaded aversion. “You wish,” he says slowly, he says petulantly. It’s such a simple thing to say, so
fucking schoolground, but it strikes Jungkook wrong, tugs at him, and he really wishes they were
alone.

He means to respond with something that is primal enough to not have consciously formulated in
his head as impending speech, when a person smartly dressed, smart, but cheap, practically flies
out of the restaurant, hands up in the air and clinging together. He speaks with the feigned drama of
business, screwing his features to convey textbook remorse, brows tight together and forehead
creased. “Jungkook-nim,” the man, much older than he is addresses with a voice that cannot
naturally sound this pitched, “I cannot even begin to communicate how terribly appalled I am that
Rouge has allowed this to happen. I will take measures—”

And he reaches down to take Taehyung by the elbow and Jungkook interrupts the ass-licking
sleaze. “If you fire him, I’ll fire you.”

There’s a concrete pause after the statement, and it annoys him how the sound of it lingers, so he
dismisses. “Just clean up this fucking mess and bring me another coke, yeah?”

Taehyung does take Bogum to the Ozone. It’s a Friday night, and the club is most naturally
buzzing. Jimin dances on Fridays, always does. Tips tend to be generous in the end of the week
and he could never deny the generosity of rich kids, so he passes by, introduces himself, politely
slaps Taehyung right in the middle of the ass cheeks and excuses himself as he climbs on a
platform near the bar top.

Bogum’s eyes slide across him as he leans into Taehyung, palm cupped at the small of his back.
They’re close, the space in a place like the Ozone requires it, people fit together tightly, and if they
have any intention of hearing each other, they have to deal with merging proximity.

Taehyung has one hand wrapped around a bottle. He’s drinking beer tonight and it tastes bitter, but
he doesn’t want to do shots around Bogum just yet, considering he is most certainly a lightweight.

“Well, Jimin is certainly dirty dancing tonight,” Bogum jokes in Taehyung’s ear as the two share a
glance with lifted eyebrows before they refocus gazes on Jimin, who is definitely working for his
tips. Taehyung has watched him many times; he is no longer surprised by the pure eroticism of the
way he moves. It’s always an elaborate dance, it’s not simply seductive, not only sexy, it’s heavily
technical, body twisting complicated and sensual and so perfectly with the rhythm set by the
boisterous music. But still, in the end of the day, it fascinates with sex appeal, with the way Jimin
is not afraid of eye contact – he endorses it, perpetuates, lazy, wandering eyes as his hips basically
thrust into nothing. Taehyung smiles softly when his friend’s seeking gaze lands on him. He raises
his bottle lightly and Jimin has to look away to fight off a break in character for a sneaking
fondness.

Taehyung’s forehead almost touches the side of Bogum’s as he speaks, “He’s good, isn’t he?”

Bogum’s fingers tighten a bit onto his back, an indication he wants his attention as he speaks. A
smile stretches on his face, one that shows off his teeth, but is consistently playful as well. “He’s
contagious,” Bogum says, something teasing lacing around his voice.

Taehyung leans away, shakes his head, bites his lower bit as he stares at the ground. “Sure, he is.”

He runs a hand through his hair, spreads it in two at the forehead and does what he’s really trying
to force himself not to. He looks around. He already knows Jungkook is there. It’s Friday and
Jungkook and Julia never skip Fridays. Today is no exception.

Taehyung only manages to look at them from the side, only from the corner of his eyes as he
replies to other things that Bogum says. He’s laughing, he’s smiling, but he glances at the couple.

They’re at their booth, the booth that might as well have their names fucking engraved into it.
She’s sat so close to him, she might as well be in his lap and has her head twisted, jaw exposed,
murmuring something in his ear. He has an arm around her, fingers hovering over her breast.
Hoseok, Yoongi and peculiarly enough, Seokjin are also at their table, Hoseok with a girl he
doesn’t recognize twisted around him with tangled limbs, lips on his, tongue in his mouth —
Yoongi’s watching. Seokjin has a girl next to him, too, and her body is quite overtly angled
towards him, but he has his gaze rooted on Jungkook who sits opposite him and the other returns it
with its typical insouciant intensity.

It’s as if he senseshim. Jungkook’s eyes stir away from whatever duel they’re fighting with
Seokjin’s and slide lazily and so directly to his that he simply must have known he would be there,
he would be looking. There are hundreds of people in the club. It’s a Friday, but Jungkook’s eyes
are on his with powerful immediacy.

And just as immediately, Taehyung blinks away, heart palpitating in a different beat now, one he
thinks is reserved as a rhythm for Jungkook. He’s still smiling, teeth bared and eyes dancing with
the entertainment of his current conversation and he deems it a vulnerability he does not want to
award him with. He grins at Bogum, who says something funny. Bogum is funny. It strikes
Taehyung he rarely laughs lately with the way Bogum gets chuckles out of him ever so often.
He pushes lightly at his shoulder, looks at the ground. He looks shy, and he feels it, too, but
Bogum stares at him with confidence, angling his body differently, so that they are front to front
and now his hand twists, doesn’t hold him casually by the back anymore, he holds him intimately
by the waist, his palm cupping over in a touch that is unnecessary and intentional.

Taehyung recognizes he is being hit on. He’s not dense. Bogum is still incredibly friendly, but he’s
walking on boundaries, testing waters to see if Taehyung is hot or cold. He’s not interested, per se,
but Bogum’s pointed interest is flattering. He’s not pushy, he’s careful, and he is undeniably
charming, so Taehyung lets himself go a bit too much then he expects of himself, with a man.

Though, he does figure his set preference for women is a bit out of the window, considering he
sucked a boy’s cock, which is not something a lot of straight people pride themselves on doing.
Taehyung still does not know what to think about it. He wanted to do it, so he did it. He is attracted
to Jungkook, he’s not going to lie to himself; it’s physical and a little bit beyond that, maybe.
Jungkook has an allure. But a large part of him thinks it is not really boys, as much as it is
Jungkook.

But he is not opposed to the way Bogum flirts. He does not necessarily want to act on it, doesn’t
really crave to kiss him, press himself into him, doesn’t really want to drop to his knees and suck
his cock. But when Bogum suggests they dance for the fourth time, he agrees with a shake of his
head.

The Ozone is one of the few places in Gangnam where all types of promiscuity and salaciousness
is allowed. A boy dancing with a boy is not as scandalous, though it is viewed upon with the
connotation of something perverse. The rich, however, have always been allowed their secret
perversions in certain contexts. The poor are not allowed perversions, but they are allowed
shamelessness, and that is what they display.

Bogum slips his hand to his back again, but it’s different. He presses him forward, beckons him
with a body movement and meets his eyes. His smile is small, it’s close lipped and it borders on a
smirk. Taehyung shakes his head again, more to himself because he’s raising his arm, resting it on
Bogum’s shoulder. They dance differently to the way people around them do, there is no grinding.
It is playful, teasing, but still somewhat distant. Taehyung keeps it friendly. He keeps it friendly
until he remembers Jungkook’s fingers around his elbow, punishing, his teeth pressed as he
seethes, “You making a new friend?”

And then something flips inside of him and he spins. He gives Bogum his back and the other’s
eyebrows raise, the smile on his mouth completely morphing into a smirk and he sneaks his gaze
all across of what is now exposed to him, the whole length of Taehyung’s body, and he offers it, so
he does not shy on the look, he drags his eyes across, the dip of his back, the curve of his ass. He
places his hands on his hips, bony and warm and niceunderneath his touch, and he holds him, he
presses his fingers into the flesh of it pointedly.

Taehyung backs into the touch, he allows his body to brush Bogum’s and there’s some spark of
excitement inside of him at it. It’s impure in the way it is not about the dance itself, not even about
the people involved, but it charges Taehyung in a way similar to that of the beer and he permits
another brush, then another, until they touch more than they don’t.

He does not know what he hopes for, does not fully think of what consequences might be. He’s
aware he’ll stop after a dance, cannot allow himself to lead the other on more and with the way he
breathes a laugh against his ear that is heavy with the start of something he should probably really
stop.

He stops. He’s stopped.

Bogum’s body flies into his a little brusquely before he spins. Someone brushes past him with
unnecessary roughness and both Taehyung and he turn, him with a word on his mouth that falls
unspoken when he recognizes the culprit.

Jungkook’s eyes fix over Taehyung with a piercing intensity. It’s pinning and pointed, the direction
of it speaking in an unknown language before he takes them away, rests his elbows on the bar and
orders. Jungkook has no need to go to the bar. His booth is served by waiters. No one expects the
VIP’s to walk and queue for drinks.

Bogum’s gaze falls away from him and turns to Taehyung, a question lingering in his voice, “Tae--
?”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow. He looks at Jungkook when he says, “Let’s dance.”

Bogum’s tongue graces his lips. “Taehyung…”

Jungkook’s eyebrow lifts slow, his head turns slower, and now he’s looking at Taehyung as well,
but Taehyung is no longer looking at him. He turns to Bogum, clutches at his arm, “I wanna
dance.”

Bogum’s lips part, but the next words Taehyung hears don’t come from him.
Jungkook’s fingers wrap around his forearm tautly, start at his wrist and slide up until they circle
into flesh and squeeze. His chest presses into Taehyung’s shoulder, hot, but not as scorching as his
breath feels on his jaw and neck when Jungkook orders in his ear, “No, I think you need to take a
piss.”

“What?”Taehyung hisses, teeth clasping together with the power of it.

“Bathroom,” Jungkook simply says and then he releases him and walks away.

Taehyung’s eyes pathetically follow as he strides not in the direction of his booth, but towards
where they both know the bathroom to be. He glares at his receding form, heart beating in his
chest, blood pulsing in his veins. He hates how he gives him a choice. He would much rather have
Jungkook drag him away by force and threats like he did in the hotel, so that he does not have to
deal with the internal embarrassment of choosing to go to him.

For the first few moments after he loses sight of him completely, Taehyung’s mind is firmly set on
the conviction that he won’t go. In the following few, he is excusing himself, “I think I need to take
a piss,” and he’s walking away.

He reaches the bathroom, sparkly and clean and stylish, so unlike that of most clubs, with a
repressed excitement and an overly enhanced dread. The door closes behind him and the powerful
sound of the music dulls and fades into a vibrating background. It’s him and Jungkook, and they
are alone.

Jungkook appears almost leisurely, back pressed into the polished counter of the sink, legs crossed,
arms, too. He lifts his head up at Taehyung’s entrance, eyes find him and cause a halt in his
movement. Taehyung pauses at the door, lingers beside it as the silent glare zeroes on him and he
speaks before he thinks.

“I need to take a piss,” he announces, pries his eyes away and ventures into a cubicle. It’s a pitiful
attempt at trying to retain pride; they both know that is not the purpose of his presence. Still, he
forces himself, pisses some of the beer out. He walks out of it silent and Jungkook shamelessly
follows him with hard, sinful eyes as he treads to him to wash his hands.

The streak of water is loud, and Taehyung does everything in his power not to return the look that
is so palpably seared into him. Pupils seal into his barest movement, and it again makes him
nervous, and he hates it, every bit of it. He feels peculiarly electric in Jungkook’s presence.
Something buzzes over his skin, something slithers through his blood underneath. It’s verging on
discomfort, but in a way that is disturbingly addictive.

When he turns the tap off and spins to direct his body to the door is when Jungkook gets tired of it.
He straightens from his position, with a single stride pins himself right in front of Taehyung and
inch or two before him. Taehyung stutters in his gait, taking a step back and his ass presses into the
counter of the sink.

“What?” Jungkook’s voice’s a bite, and Taehyung remains silent. There is a violent vehemence to
it that raises hairs on his body. “Do you officially like men now?” It’s caustic, vindictive, and filled
with a dripping irony that mocks him as he stretches arms and places each hand on a side of
Taehyung. There is something unnervingly oxymoronic in the casualness that his posture keeps as
his voice bathes in malignancy. “Are you really going to be such a little whore?” Words burn
through Taehyung as he enunciates them properly, so properly, speaking in a drawl that stretches
every vowel to hit hard. “You were fucking flirting,” he announces with a finality that demands an
answer.

Taehyung swallows, raises his jaw high, nose higher. He hopes his voice comes clean and reticent.
“What’s it to you?”

Jungkook blinks. He can practically hear his teeth grind together. “I want you to stop,” he says, he
demands, eyes so bold in the way they take in all of Taehyung as he speaks. His next word is a
breath, “okay?” And his next borders a growl, “You’reours.”

Taehyung’s body ignites. A fire blooms through him. Ours, ours, he says as if this is about him
and Julia, and not about him and Taehyung. The claim burns through him depraved. It carries an
offence, an insult. His own teeth clash together, and he sneers, “You don’t owe me, Jeon. You
borrowme. Outside of that I can do what I want.”

He makes to walk away, if that is fucking all, straightens and paces, but Jungkook is pressing a
hand into his chest, pushing him back into place somewhat weakly, with a word that is somehow
weaker, “Please,” he says, and it almost makes Taehyung choke. It’s airy, breathy, and his jaw
slacks so pointed after it that Taehyung wonders if it slipped through unintentional, if it’s purely
accidental. When he speaks next once Taehyung is safely pressed into the counter, his voice is
hard again. “Don’t.”

Taehyung studies him. He tries to but he cannot learn anything. He has to ask, and he does,
“Why?”
Jungkook’s stare blinks away from the hold it has on him before it returns. “It bothers me,” he
states simply.

Taehyung’s teeth grind harder together. He presses, “Why?”

But Jungkook doesn’t answer. He simply rolls his eyes, juts his chin. “How much for you to stop?”

Taehyung’s voice softens with the desperation of speaking to goddamn wall. He darts his eyes
across the whole of his face, taking in every feature, every handsome feature that is misplaced on a
person as horrible as him. They linger on his lips. “You can’t buy exclusivity from me, Jungkook.”

“No?” His tone drops as well. Something sensual pulsates off the way Taehyung stares at his lips
from such a proximity and it sneaks into the ambiance of the conversation.

Taehyung’s eyes lift to his again. He’s so close. It’s a mere whisper when he says, “You can say
please again.”

And it breaks. Jungkook straightens. He scoffs. “Fuck you,” he says, voice hardening again.

Taehyung reciprocates the harshness, features narrowing as he makes his second attempt to leave
with an announcement. “Actually, I’d rather fuck Bogum.”

He gets nowhere. He is sent right back into the counter and it’s forceful enough for it to hurt when
flesh digs into the dark marble of it. Taehyung hisses with the pain of it, but Jungkook doesn’t care.
He closes in, steps into his space and digs cold, hard eyes onto his face.

“Please...” his voice teases gently over and Taehyung’s chest recedes back, ribcage closing in and
expanding with a harrowing sharpness. His skin tingles and his eyes are wide as they stare into
Jungkook’s. Something’s bundling inside of him, a narrow, twisted hope that feels new and hot and
exquisite, but Jungkook rips it right out of his chest, his stomach with a move that almost
physically hurts, “wear a condom. Julia wouldn’t want to fuck you with herpes.”

Taehyung’s eyes fall shut. His exhale is sharp, and he tries to walk away again, because he cannot
listen to this. Jungkook doesn’t let him though. He has him trapped, body stoic and unmovable.
Unbothered.
“Let go of me, Jungkook,” Taehyung demands and it’s almost a whine; he feels petulant with the
way he tries to trash into an escape, but it’s childish of Jungkook to keep like this as well, so
Taehyung compromises. He spins, angles his body towards the sink because he simply can’tlook at
him, but really it’s no good, because all he does is twist to a view of him between Jungkook’s arms
in the mirror.

“Why?” Jungkook asks sharply, in his ear. He doesn’t spin him back, just moves closer to him,
closer until he’s so close that there is no space, presses into him, fills each crevice and all
Taehyung does is watch it happen in the mirror, his breath hitching when he feels him. Jungkook’s
warm, he’s hot. His body on Taehyung conducts an energy that cannot be properly put into words,
not now at least, not by Taehyung because he’s about to lose his fucking mind again, he can feel it
slipping, and he doesn’t want to. He presses his lips together. He says nothing, he stares ahead,
stoic and firm. Jungkook’s voice saunters to dangerous territories, dropping low and soft. It’s a
breathy exhale and he speaks to Taehyung’s nape, forehead almost pressing into the back of his
head as he whispers, “Why when you don’t want him anyway, Tae?”

Taehyung’s heat skips a beat, and he screws his eyes shut. “Shit, don’t call me that.”

“You don’t want him.” Jungkook repeats, firm, but still soft, enticing. He presses his fingers into
Taehyung’s hips, the way that Bogum had, but it feels so different. His digits burn scorching into
the bones that hide beneath Taehyung’s flesh.

A breath slips through Taehyung’s slips, a breath that is much too reminiscent of the words, of the
confession, “I don’t.”

He keeps his eyes close because looking at his face as he allows this to happen is torture. Looking
at Jungkook as he does this to him is impossible. He feels his lips at his ear, a murmur that ruffles
his hair, “You want me.” Jungkook exhales it and Taehyung sucks in sharply, heart violent in his
ribcage. Fingers press harder into his hips, he’s squeezing into him so hard and Taehyung bruises
so easy he might have the remains of his fingertips there tomorrow, an imprint of his already
unforgettable touch. He pulls him closer to himself, though it is not much possible, lines himself
with the globe of his ass as he presses forward and Taehyung can feel every bit of him, hard,
poised chest, hot stiffening length. And yes, he does want him. His cock is stirring, mind is
blurring, and Jungkook is demanding in the softest whisper, “Tell me.”

Taehyung swallows, but he doesn’t speak. He won’t tell him. No matter how much he does,
Jungkook doesn’t deserve to hear it. His teeth find his lower lip, bury it in between. He’s set in his
resolve, and Jungkook knows it, so he grips onto him harder and presses forward, rotating his hips
into the warmth of him in a motion that emphasizes his shape against Taehyung and pushes him to
rub into the marble of the sink. A gasp betrays him, strung from him at the sudden onslaught of
sensation.

He has the lewd urge to press back into Jungkook. He wants to feel him some more, wants to know
the sensation of him growing hard and harder against him. It’s exhilarating, feeling him like this,
but he keeps his hips still, chides at himself, won’t allow him to use him again, won’t be just a
warm mouth for him.

He just needs a couple of moments to gather strength to push him away.

But then Jungkook’s hand slips. It travels past his hip and teases over his sensitive stomach before
it dips, and he shamelessly pops the button of his jeans. “I wanna make you feel good,” he breaths.

Taehyung’s eyes snap open, finding Jungkook’s in the mirror and he is looking at him with
something primitive and intense, something that pierces through his resolve as fingers glide across
the fabric on top of him in a motion that has his hips snapping back and rubbing into him. “What?”
Taehyung exhales.

“I wanna make you feel good, Tae.” And it is as lascivious as it is purely cruel. It’s frustratingly
tender, his breath slithers along Taehyung’s sensitive skin, his lips grazing ever so slightly at the
tip of his ear, eyes preserving their torturous hold on Taehyung through the mirror now that he
made the mistake to allow him to capture them. The way the nickname Tae slides from his alone
feels indecent. His sister calls him that, brothers call him that, and Jimin, and that completes the
list. But there is Jungkook now taking away his childhood out of it and instilling something raw
and vengeful, that has a lot less to do with familial affection and a lot more to do with wanton
promises. “Will you let me?”

Jungkook’s fingers close tentatively over him as pulls him back, detaching him from the counter of
the sink and pressing him fully flush against himself instead. Taehyungs fights a small gasp and
loses dramatically, cursing when it slips past petty lips, which he then punishes by digging his
teeth into them. Damage is done and Jungkook is smirking. The touch of his fingers is light, digits
grazing, not holding, but it does drive Taehyung mad, because in his logical perspective Jungkook
would never touch him.

Taehyung is retrospectively not too surprised with how their last lasting encounter had played out.
He has to remember sex is more a weapon than it is an act around people like them, a tool to put
him in his place, and though he’d gone on a little power trip watching Jungkook lose himself, he
imagines the other planned it to be the other way around and maybe for him it was.

But this is about Jungkook touching him. It surprises him; it scares him. Scares him how easily he
sucks in a breath through the teeth harsh on his lip and nods, he nods, “Shit, yes. Okay, yes.”

And anyone could walk in, anyone, anyone, but Jungkook is doing this with such confidence,
Taehyung would not be surprised if he has done some of his richmagic tricks to make sure no one
does, to make sure he has him to himself to torture and bend.

Jungkook’s fingers pull the zipper down, so tortuously slow, and Taehyung stares at the motion of
it in the mirror as Jungkook steadfastly studies his face. His body feels deliciously hard against his
back, every bit of it, every shape of it that he can feel.And his digits are sneaking down his pants
and he’s pulling him out.

Taehyung’s breath hitches and pauses in his throat for a worrying time. Jungkook releases him,
brings his hand up, palm spread. “Want it wet?”

Taehyung stares at it with rapid heart, and he hesitates, not really because of hygiene, but because
the last thing Jungkook touched was Julia’s knee and he wonders if her skin has a taste that clings
to Jungkook. But when Taehyung darts his eyes up, meets Jungkook’s and leans, sliding his tongue
along the length of his palm with the same excruciating pace that the other previously used on him,
all he can taste is musk and Jungkook. It’s the first time he’s tasting him, but it’s terribly distinct
and Taehyung is afraid it locks right into Taehyung’s memory.

Jungkook’s eyes narrow slightly in the mirror, the hand that holds Taehyung’s hip tightening and
he presses forward into him, nestling himself against Taehyung’s ass. Taehyung does not know
why that should be stimulating in any way, what is erogenous about the globe of his ass, it’s not
like it’s his dick, but Christ he wants to push back into him, wants to feel more of him, because
Jungkook is getting hard and the shape and heat of him against him is addictive.

His hand falls again, and fingers meet light around Taehyung, tracing veins, before his palm fits
over him near the head, a thumb gracing over the slit at the tip. He squeezes, it drags out a hissing
fuck out of Taehyung’s lips, because he can feel his goddamn ring, cold against him unlike the
warmth of the rest of him, and a bead of precum that he spreads over.

Taehyung expects Jungkook to be at least some variation of shy about this. He’s straight, straight
like most people, not like Taehyung is straight with a special dent for the man that now has him
gripping at the edge of the sin counter, knuckles going wide.

But of course, he has confidence with this as well, the confidence to exhale by his ear, to meet his
eyes in the mirror, to drag his fingers all the way to the base, then up, to squeeze at all the right
places. It feels tremendously different to when Taehyung jerks himself of. It makes him feel like
he’s about to spasm, and he knows it is about the whole configuration of it happening, of Jungkook
pressed against him and capturing his eyes. Of this being a public place, where anyone could walk
in. Julia could walk in, because Jesusif Jungkook has made someone keep guard, it is no one
Seung Julia cannot pass through.

Taehyung knows he’s also high on the adrenaline of this being a repercussion of him
flirting.Jungkook is territorial, it seems, does not like sharing.

Jungkook who is speaking to him, growling in his ear, “Wanna call me sir again?” It’s heavily
laced with irony, but with his slick hand fisting over him, he cannot help but whine.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung’s voice strains, and his name is all that he manages. It is supposed to be a
warning of some sort, or a plea, don’t bring shit up, but it comes out as a moan.

Jungkook’s head drops and he runs his lips along the side of his neck. He’s whispering into his
perspiring skin, “I think you like it.”

Taehyung’s words are a breath, a hitched, tense breath, and he wants to close his eyes, but he
simply cannot look away, the image of him between Jungkook’s arms. It does not look as wrongas
he expects; he does not appear that cheap.“What?”

“I think you like it,” Jungkook murmurs close over the bump of his throat as he swallows nothing.
“How rich I am, how I can hold that over you, how I can buy anyone, but choose you.”

Taehyung’s heart races. Shit, shit. He cannot say anything. Has nothing to say, because Taehyung
hadn’t thought about why Jungkook is doing this and he hasn’t thought about why he is doing it,
either. It’s not about money, Taehyung knows, not directly about it at least, though he does feel
monetary prowess has shaped Jungkook into what Taehyung craves now. He’s so powerful and
Taehyung is so powerless yetlook at Jungkook abandoning his girlfriend to stroke his cock in a
bathroom. It’s not about money, but Taehyung cannot exactly tell him that.

“I could probably have him if I tried,” Jungkook hisses cruelly by a vein of his neck that stretches
emphasized beneath skin with the pleasure that courses through him. His teeth bite into it, graze
over it, and it is subtle, but also it is not and he’s teasing his tongue over it, but then his lips are
detached.

Taehyung’s heart sinks all rapid and primal, because Jungkook can fuck faceless girls all he wants,
Julia’s a brick in his wall, but he cannot touch other boys. He cannot be interested in other boys,
and Taehyung’s growling, “Jungkook, don’t.”

He tries to spin a bit in his arms, only the upper part of his body, seal into him a glare that is real
and palpable and not a reflection in the mirror, but as Jungkook straightens from teasing by his
neck, he looks so much softer than he looks in the mirror. His lips are parted, wet, and glistening,
eyes heavy and hooded, and glinting with undeniable lewdness.

His words are cruel, but his face is not; it’s soft. Taehyung’s own melts into a different expression,
less set, less angry, more wondrous.

“Sh,” Jungkook whispers to him directly, breath fanning across his face and Taehyung’s eyes drop
to the shape his lips make around the words. “I don’t want him,” he promises and something in
Taehyung fucking snaps.

It snaps, it breaks and Taehyung, bold and stupid, leans, leans in desperation to find a craving his
represses daily, what if feels like to kiss him. And he can feel his breath inside his mouth before he
cannot feel it at all and something breaks harder.

Jungkook pulls away almost with a jolt of his neck. “Don’t,” he growls, but his eyes are still soft on
him. His hand still moves across him and Taehyung can hardly breathe let alone think.

He swallows, “You said you wanted to make me feel good, right?” His brows arch, and he asks for
it, fucking asks Jeon Jungkook tokiss him and he does not know what sort of an alternative universe
he has ventured in. “Well, this will make me feel good.”

“No.” His chest rumbles with it and he snaps his hips with a force that settles him back into his
previous position. Taehyung moans with it, still overload with sensation, and Jungkook speaks, he
spills blatant sexuality into what they are doing, he speaks with an eroticism that drips, takes away
the connection to feel it with primitive, simple sex, pleasure. “Am I not making you feel good,
Tae?” he uses that name again, and it sounds wrong, but it sounds good, like everything with
Jungkook does, and then he’s humming by his neck. “Hm, aren’t you going to be a good boy and
come for me?”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck. Taehyung’s fucked. He is. Conversation and sex should be separate with
Jungkook, because Taehyung is right. Sex is a tool. It’s a tool Jungkook knows how to use well,
and something that Taehyung only does when he’s tipsy and horny.
Fingers depart from his hip and clutch into his jaw, and he forces the position of his head, makes
sure Taehyung is looking at them through the mirror. “Look at yourself,” Taehyung does. He’s red,
wet, eyes gone and hooded. He himself is sexual, his reflection alone. He wonders if Jungkook
know how avidly his hips rub into his ass. “So pretty like this, aren’t you?” Taehyung’s crying out,
moaning because pleasure sears through him as his hand speeds up, as his hips grind into the back
of him, and because he calls him pretty boy, but he never tells him he is pretty. “Bet you’d be even
prettier bent over.”

And Taehyung doubles a bit and he comes. Jungkook finishes him off, well, good, pumping his fist
around him as he spurts into the sink, and Taehyung’s eyes fall shut and crease, but Jungkook’s
stay opened and they watch him.

He does not know what possesses the final line out of him, he does not know what brings any of
this over, and maybe it’s that Taehyung’s ass fits supple and hot so much better than Julia’s.
There’s something feminine, and not in the sense of female,in the sense of something that is
associated with femininity, gentle, teasing, wet and cold in the way his back arches so pliantly.
Maybe it’s the way his face contorts with the pleasure of it, so frustratingly beautiful.

Jungkook lets go of him and he steps away.

There is something tangibly cold in the departure. Taehyung’s back misses the heat as he tries to
gather himself, breathing in and out. Taehyung expects another outburst, but he doesn’t get it as he
begs his heart to settle down.

An outburst is not what he gets, but he sees Jungkook’s hand, reaching for his back pocket, and he
whirls around, not even caring his dick is out.

“Don’t you dare pull that fucking wallet out,” he seethes, teeth baring, and, honestly, he has no
chance of taming his heart until Jungkook is out of sight.

Jungkook’s head cocks, and his hand continues the motion. “I wasn’t going to,” he says and instead
fishes out a handkerchief that has his father’s initials ingrained in it. He hands it to Taehyung and
watches as he accepts it with clear-cut hesitance and then wipes his dripping cock with it.

Jungkook juts his jaw to the bin afterwards and does not take his eyes away from the fabric until it
disappears. Taehyung tugs himself in.
 Taehyung’s tentative. He’s almost awkward as his eyes shy over the length of Jungkook’s body.
“Do you want—"

“I’ll get Julia to take care of it.” Jungkook cuts off, and Taehyung’s eyes narrow. Oh, his face
literally speaks, says, oh.

Taehyung huffs a breath. He rolls his eyes. He’s the definition of deflation and then he is the
definition of annoyed and he starts walking. “Where are you going?” Jungkook tries to take his
arm, but he doesn’t let him, turns half of his body around to look.

“Bogum’s waiting for me.” He announces simply and then he leaves.

He leaves and Jungkook has to bite his lip and look away as the door closes, because that fucker’s
name strangles something out of him.

He spins, looks at himself in the mirror, washes hands, throws some cold, awakening water in his
face, hands running through his hair, squeezing thoughts out of his brain harshly. Since when is he
that possessive of his toys, he thinks.

And then he also thinks maybe he should have fucked his mouth again so that if Bogum dares to
kiss him he would taste Jungkook on his lips.

Chapter End Notes

Hope you enjoyed. People have been so encouraging and nice to me and I never want
to not write by now which is a bit problematic. haha. love everyone
 Chapter 13
Chapter Summary

well, shit, basically

Chapter Notes

People told me they like longer chapters, so this one is ridiculously long lol

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Bogum gets on the subway at around 4 or 5 in the morning and he walks Taehyung home, though
he lives nowhere close to him. After coming out of the bathroom, Taehyung lets himself go a bit,
allows himself some actual alcohol, though he is most definitely a lightweight compared to what
the bodies of the typical Richhood resident has grown accustomed to with the naturally demanded
consumption.

At the point where they decide to leave, Taehyung is okay. He is still drunk – tipsy – but is
nowhere at the intoxication level to require actual assistance. He’s used to having to sober up
before he goes anywhere, because Jimin would never walk him home; it’s just not something Jimin
does. He goes home with someone else that night. He often does on Fridays, and Taehyung never
questions it.

Bogum is different.He’s not from around here, he does not care much for implications, and he
walks Taehyung home. The trip sobers him up additionally, though he can still feel notions of
intoxication discoloring his thoughts, making him giggle more than he would.

Bogum is distracting.Which is exactly what Taehyung needs, so he giggles at half the things
Bogum says, lets his head rest on his shoulder when they sit together in the almost empty subway,
and invites him in when they reach the back door that enters into the kitchen.

Taehyung never invites people into his house, mainly because he has no one to invite there, but
also because the condition of it is borderline embarrassing. He does not feel the tinge of
humiliation his family home sometimes makes tug at him, and he doesn’t know if it is the fact
alcohol still laces through his judgment or the fact that Bogum puts him at ease.

Taehyung presses his forefinger to his lips and shushes Bogum through a chuckle that makes his
eyes crease, then he lets him in. He does a quick check as Ji-woo sometimes falls asleep on the
couch because the TV calms her down, but it’s empty, coast clear, and he returns to where he left
his guest in the kitchen.

“Clear,” he announces, though he makes sure he is still quiet, walls are thin in this house. “You
want coffee? It’s not as good as at Rouge, but I have some.”

“Won’t turn it down,” Bogum smiles. He leans elbows on the kitchen counter on the other side of
where Taehyung stands. “So, who are we quiet for?”

Taehyung heats up water using his very functional stove, thank you very much. “My older sister
and my little brother, right now. Usually my father lives with us as well. He’ll be back in a couple
of weeks probably.”

Bogum nods, and Taehyung can feel the desire to pry radiate off of him, but he doesn’t, and for
that, he’s thankful. He feels certainother people would not be as respectful of his boundaries, but he
forces his thoughts to stir away from anything in the lines of that. He thinks he succeeds, but when
he hands Bogum a mug, he reaches a hand and brushes a finger on his neck.

Taehyung almost flinches back from it, but Bogum’s touch disappears as soon as it signifies a
certain spot. “So,” and he cocks his head and the smile he pops is a little different,slightly
ingenuine, “he just likes to rough you up, huh?”

Taehyung’s brows twist, forehead creasing. “What?”

Bogum straightens up, fishes a phone out of his pocket and reaches a hand again, pushing at
Taehyung’s jaw with two fingers to make him twist his head, and then snaps a picture of his neck.
He rests elbows on the counter again and flips the phone. Taehyung’s eyes widen as they see his
own skin, angry and reddened in a shape that is distinguishably circular. It’s a small mark,
incomplete, and Taehyung’s hand instinctively flies, palm slapping over it.

“It’s—” Taehyung stutters, but he has to lie, because just with what brain did Jungkook think to
mark him, “that’s not from him.”

He supposes he speaks with certain panic lacing his voice, because Bogum straightens again,
shakes his head, he tries to calm him. “Taehyung, it’s okay—”
“Nah,” he shakes his own head in a very different manner. “No, it’s not. God, if he even heard you
implying—”

Bogum’s brows draw together. “Oh, it’s really not him?”

“Do you want to get some bones broken?” Taehyung triesto be convincing and judges by Bogum’s
expression that he is managing a good job. The guy shakes his head.

“No, Taehyung, I—”

“Then another lesson for the day,” Taehyung interjects quite passionately, though he keeps his
voice to a rough whisper. “Don’t imply that Jeon Jungkook would touch me in that way. You’ll get
yourself deformed.”

Bogum nods. “Okay,” he nods again, exhales. “Okay, I won’t – won’t mention it again.” And
Taehyung nods, too, and he almost says thank you because Bogum shouldn’t mention it again, for
his own sake and Taehyung, because Jungkook might not hit him, but if any of this gets out, he
certainly won’t touch him again.

“Julia doeslook pretty scary,” Bogum says, and it’s a joke, an attempt to ease a tension that he
unintentionally forces into the conversation. “I mean, her nails.”

“Julia,” Taehyung says as he sips on his own coffee and leans his back by the stove now,
comparatively far away from Bogum, admittedly bothered by the fact he walks around with marks
on his body he is unawareof, and just what was Jungkook thinking.“Julia,” Taehyung says, “is the
least of your worries. You haven’t seen Jungkook fight.”

“He fights?” Bogum lifts brows. His eyes fall over the space that Taehyung keeps between them
even from across the other side of the counter. When Taehyung nods, he breathes through his nose
and glances down at his the black, cooling liquid in the chipped mug that Taehyung gives him. “Of
course, he fights.” He shakes some hair from his eyes and looks up. “He’s good?”

“He’s amazing,” Taehyung says before he really thinks. He’s not bothered by the fact of it, he
knows that Jungkook is amazing. He dislikes the enthusiasm of his voice. His own eyes fly to his
coffee, and he fingers nervously at the edge of it. “I mean, I mean, he’s good, he’s a Jeon.” He
likes to bring things down to that, to simplify them to the facts. Jungkook’s a Jeon and that pretty
well defines him, and Taehyung is a Kim and that’s almost ninety per cent of his identity.
“You’ve seen him?” Bogum asks, and the answer is quite obvious, so Taehyung does not avoid it.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Can I?”

Taehyung’s eyes lift, bore into Bogum. “What?”

“I want to see him fight,” Bogum says, and he straightens fully now, walks over the counter and not
into Taehyung’s space, but the kitchen is small, and he is ridiculously close. “Kind of want to see if
he’s really that scary, if the suggestion of him touching you gets you that jumpy.”

Taehyung turns to his side, leaves his mug on the countertop next to him just to give himself a
reason to look away for a bit. “Bogum—”

“Because honestly he must get hit pretty badly over the head if he thinks touching you is something
bad.” And he says it with emphasis that makes Taehyung blink towards him again, and maybe he
is tipsier than he thought he was. Bogum is close now, and he has a quality to his face that is
unfamiliarly genuine, although his words are a clear-cut line. Taehyung does not know how to
judge his own feelings for it.

Bogum has a nice face, nice body. Bogum is certainly charismatic. He does not make his heart
beat, does not make his blood rush and skin tingle and flush red. He does not turn him on at the
perverse drop of virtually nothing. And maybe that is good, and Taehyung still doesn’t know if he
is gay, but he does not think he minds the way Bogum is with him.

“Bogum,” Taehyung says, and he chuckles again like he has done so many times tonight. He plays
if off as a joke, a flirtatious joke, but a joke nevertheless. Bogum flirts a lot, he just does, but he’s
closer now, and there is something different to his voice, drawn out and raspy, as it drops lower.

“I’m serious,” Bogum insists and he comes closer still and now he is in Taehyung’s space. “It’d be
a fucking honor to touch you.”

It’s flattering. It’s so unlike anything that anyone ever says to Taehyung that it startles him into a
silence that maybe Bogum interprets as an invitation. It’s not that exactly. It’s dumbfounded and
it’s still a little tipsy, so he’s slow. It is in fact so flattering, that Taehyung cannot help but feel it
slip into something disingenuous, some adulation.

It causes a pause in his own motions, own words, and he feels Bogum’s hand at the back of his
head, fingers slipping gently around his neck, and he studies him with his eyes very carefully, darts
gaze all across Taehyung’s blank face and then he leans, and he kisses him, simple as that.

It’s nice. It’s okay. It’s fine. Taehyung breathes through his nose and he closes his eyes and after a
moment, he allows himself to gingerly kiss him back. His lips are soft, and he smells well, sweet.
He is sweet. Bogum is a sweet boy, who walked him home, and who really leaned so slow,
Taehyung had all the time in the world to pull away, but he didn’t.

But then again, Bogum is a boy. He’s tall, shapely, and he’s not Jungkook and he’s kissing him in
his kitchen. Not that Taehyung would want Jungkook to kiss him in his kitchen. Honestly, the last
place he would even want to see Jungkook is his kitchen, but Taehyung wants to kiss him, despite
the fact he is a man, and maybe Taehyung had the very, extremely dumb desire for Jungkook to be
the first boy he kisses, though he would probably not grant him that, ever.

It is the main thing that goes through his head as Bogum kisses him in his kitchen, and he cannot
focus on the sensation of it, cannot lose the rationality from the fact that he is a boy and then a
though hits him, a thought that makes his blood run cold, because what if Ji-woo wakes up, what if
Woojin does?

Taehyung presses a palm into Bogum’s chest and pushes him back lightly, and he detaches his lips
from him easily, though he does expel a gentle sigh just before his mouth stretches to the side in an
exaggerated smile and he backs away, eyes parting and focusing on Taehyung’s face once again,
replacing his hand on his shoulder instead of cupping his neck.

“I—” Taehyung begins, shuts his eyes briefly again, before he breathes and opens them. He’s
awkward, and he knows it, but he feels slightly awkward. “I don’t—I’m not. I don’t kiss guys,
Bogum. I mean, I haven’t. I’ve never.”

“Oh,” Bogum says, and his hand fidgets where it is on his shoulder. He moves it lower. “Oh. Did
you – you seemed to… Did you hate it?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “No, no. I didn’t hate it.” He says and he is honest. He doesn’t know
how he feels about the kiss, but he certainly does not hate it.
“Did you,” he pauses, he hesitates, but he smiles, “perhaps,” and his hand sinks lower on
Taehyung’s shoulder, “like it?”

“I—” and Taehyung gapes, and he feels a bit stupid, but he confesses, “I don’t know, Bogum.”

“Well,” he says as he pulls away and it becomes a bit colder. “Maybe we can do it again sometime
when you’re completely sober and you can decide.”

Bogum is pouring the rest of his coffee, which is less than a sip, in the sink and he is starting some
water over it. Taehyung can tell by the angling of his body and its language as a whole that he is
planning on leaving. Taehyung stands where Bogum leaves him, not moving, not even politely
telling him he’d take care of his mug like he supposes he should. Instead he’s saying, “Okay,” and
he’s swallowing. “Maybe we can.”

He shoots him a smile and it’s all that Taehyung thinks Bogum is, charming and boyish and so
genuine that is just has to be dubious in Taehyung’s head, which is used to people with intentions
worth hiding, with masks worth putting on.

“Okay,” Bogum says and he puts the mug with some dishes that haven’t been washed yet because
Taehyung hasn’t been home. “Okay, Taehyung. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

They have a shift tomorrow, so Taehyung nods. He has to. “Yes,” he replies. “You’ll see me
tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Bogum repeats and he comes close again, and his face is close again and his lips are on
Taehyung’s cheek, so quick and short and soft and they disappear. “Go to bed, Taehyung. You
look tired.”

Bogum leaves after that and Taehyung, who is tired, washes the dishes because he cannot have Ji-
woo waking up to unwashed dishes. And as he scrubs at some quite suspicious stains, he
contemplates just what the fuck is wrong with him?
The sound of expensive cutlery clattering together, an overpriced fork uncomfortably occasionally
brushing into a porcelain dish, is loud and obnoxious in Jungkook’s ears in a way that is
disturbingly familiar, but he prefers it to the conversation he knows is impending.

His mother always insists on speaking during those family dinners, which he does not understand.
He doesn’t understand why they have to do this at all. From all the unnecessary shit his family
puts him through, this is the one he comprehends least. It’s a pretense of having a family time a lot
more than it is a family dinner, done much more for the sake of being able to claim they are
capable of sitting at a table together, just the four of them, of having a tradition, albeit
manufactured. It’s not tense necessarily, though putting Clo and their father at the same table is
bound to build some sort of tension, but it has a peculiarly palpable ambiance that he is perfectly
comfortable with avoiding.

Jungkook is extremely set on chewing slowly. He wants to give himself something to do, his
mouth occupied until the very end of this, so he is not expected to give an opinion on whatever his
mother deems interesting to discuss, or more accurately narrate about, that night. He chews a lot,
and he drinks his wine even slower, and he has the trim of the crystal glass to his mouth when his
mother smiles charmingly and ever so politely says, her own glass making a distinct sound when
she places it gingerly on the table, she says “So, I hear one of the Kim’s gay now.”

It is bad that Jungkook has his own glass tipped to his lips at precisely that moment because the
liquid that sloshes down his throat almost traps and chokes him. He swallows, sets his glass down.
He is aware, though his mind is alarmingly ticking, his demeanor does not change one bit, so he
wants to know why Clo is suddenly so incessantly watching him, eyes searing into the side of his
head as she stares. She studies his profile with a varied intensity as she has her own glass to her
lips. She doesn’t eat, never eats during these, an interpretative form of a strike against these dinners
at the start of them and just a bodily dysmorphic habit of her polluted brain after a while.

“That’s priceless, isn’t it?” Their mother’s lips stretch so wide. Her teeth flash impossibly white
between her nuanced lipstick. “A Kim? Gay. It’s been a while since we’ve had someone gay.”
Jungkook wants to snort at how she’s excited over it. Her plate is almost full much alike her
daughter’s.

Their father on the other hand is inhaling food. “How?” He rasps, voice rough and escaping
through munching teeth, tearing mercilessly into red meat. “How’d you hear?” Jungkook likes
looking at his father in situations such as these, as simple as eating, because it reminds him he has
nothinginherently gallant about him, does not have a thread of gentlemanliness, a natural bone of it,
though he’s always poised in front of company, always so infuriatingly presentablejust as he likes
his children to be.

Clo plays with her fork even if she doesn’t use it for its proper purpose. She pokes it in the pillow
of her fingertip to discover with a pout it is much too dull to hurt her. She blinks at her brother who
keeps his gaze on the table, set and firm and as dull as her fork. “He isn’t hiding it very well as far
as I know.” She says bored and lazy and Jungkook’s eyes dart to her for the merest moment,
becausewhy is she talking about this now? She leans a single protruding elbow onto the table and
lets the fork dangle from her fingers. “He kissed a boy in public.” Clo watches him as she speaks,
all she sees is him breath, though she does catch his digits tighten slightly into their hold of his
glass. “The new waiter.” She details unnecessarily and his tongue pokes into his cheek, quick once
into the one before it shifts into the other. “Park Boyeoun? Boseok?”

“Bogum.” Jungkook interjects instinctively. His eyes root to his sister now and he watches her
smile all fake and cruel and nod with feigned enthusiasm.

“Yes, that’s the one,” she announces, gaze fixed on his, before he takes it away. He knows she sees
nothing on him, he betrays nothing. He has learned to remain neutral in any and all contexts his
family can put him in, years of experience and hard work, but he’s mastered it now. But his mind is
buzzing, because what the fuck is Taehyung doing, telling him he doesn’t go around looking for a
beating and then kissing boys in public? And since when do Bogum and him fuckingkiss? Lips on
lips, hands on waists, eyes closed shut, the image surges unbidden in Jungkook’s surprisingly vivid
imagination and formulates with such detail that Jungkook has to force a bit of meat in his mouth to
have something to chew on, something to destroy right at that moment. He clearly remembers
Taehyung saying he doesn’t want fucking Bogum, minutes before he came so easily from
Jungkook’s touch.

And he’s supposed to be into girls. Into girls and into Jungkook, and Jungkook tries to chase that
thought away before he remembers he enjoys toying with the attention, so, yes, he is supposed to
be into Jungkook, and there’s nothing inherently bad about Jungkook wanting his interest reserved
for him. It’s a curious game to play, with a boy, how far he can push, how much Taehyung would
bend. But Park Bogum fucking ruins all the fun, and Jungkook wants him out of the picture. He
came up with the game. He gets to set the rules.

All he’ll do, anyway, is get the both of them beat up. People like Jungkook, they hit hard. They’ll
ruin Taehyung’s face, break his spirit, before Jungkook gets to.

Jungkook’s father splutters food out of his mouth when he speaks, “And he kisses him in public.”
He says it with offended incredulity, as if it is some pointed attack at his person. He aids his gulp
with a thick swallow of whisky, his fourth glass for the night. He sighs with it, loud and obnoxious
and with a disgruntled, moist mutter underneath his colorful breath, “Disgusting. Brings their
fucking gayness onto my dinner table while I’m trying to eat.” Jungkook’s fingers twitches round
his glass. It’s not Taehyung’s gayness bringing anything to his table, but his wife’s incessant
gossiping and all of Richhood’s vendetta against the Kim’s. “Jungkook,” his father addresses
gruffly, wiping at his mouth, “maybe you should teach the boy some decency.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says, “maybe I should.” And he wonders how his father would feel about the
behavioristic reinforcement practice of making him suck his cock again for punishment, because to
Jungkook it seems like a rather fine technique.

The third time Bogum kisses Taehyung he has to think about Jungkook because Jungkook is there.
He doesn’t dare kiss him in public again, not after Taehyung pushes him away and reasonably
panics and he has to wonder in what sort of a perfect utopian world Bogum lived prior to coming to
Richhood to deign to attempt such things in front of actual people, but he doesn’t care all that
much, because he should get out of that habit quick.

He doesn’t know how he feels about the habit of him kissing him altogether. It’s not much of a
habit, considering it has only happened three times, but it feels like more. It starts to feel like a
thing, and he does not particularly mind the kissing. It does not feel wrong or anything like he half
expects it to every time he senses it approaches. It doesn’t feel much like anything. It’s a kiss from
warm, soft lips, and it’s nice to have someone who would want that from him.

They’re in the hallway that third time, coming out of the storage room after inventory of dry
ingredients.

“Are you still mad?” Bogum questions with an innocence to his voice that makes Taehyung
slightly guilty.

“I’m not mad, hyung,” He says, and he pauses in the hallway. If they’re going to have this
conversation it’s going to have to be there,though he does not feel particularly interested in talking
it through. He’d much rather be left to his work and just not be kissed in compromising situations.
“I just wish you’d get how this works.”

“You overthink, Taehyung,” Bogum tries. “No one cares.”

“No,” he cuts him off, firm. “No one should care. But they do. And even if they don’t, I do, and
you should care about that.”
Taehyung understands that Bogum doesn’t understand. You have to live in Richhood to truly get
Richhood, to capture the essence of what gossip does to you, of how easily it can ruin you, of how
there are enough rumors surrounding the name Kim, all of them somehow negative. He’s a leech,
pretty boy, meddlesome leech, poor and envious, he’s greedy. His brother was a drug dealer, his
sister is a slut, and their father is the worst. He does not want another label to his family. He
doesn’t want to be the gay one.

“Okay,” Bogum says. He’s okay with everything, Bogum is. He steps towards him. “Okay, we can
talk about this.” He also likes to talk about things, talk them through, and it is not a practice
Taehyung is familiar with. It sits uncomfortable with him, that someone would expect him to
disclose what goes on in his head, expose his thoughts like that. It would make him vulnerable.
“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Taehyung shrugs, much more out of desire for the topic to be concluded than the truth
of it being fine.

He has his arms crossed before his chest as he stands in the hallway quite rigid. They’re working,
and his current on shift manager is not all that pleased with him because he had to get threatened
by a Jeon because of him and his panties are probably still trembling from the animosity of it, so he
would much rather go back to his duties than have this conversation right now.

The Jeon in question is inthe café, just a couple of doors separating them now, and Taehyung
might be imaging it, but he feels he traced his motion with his eyes when Taehyung disappeared
into the hallway with Park Bogum and a folder. He has not said a word to Jungkook or perpetuated
eye contact for more than a second since he was with him in the bathroom in the Ozone, the
amount of interaction being terribly disproportionate to the amount of time Jungkook occupies
Taehyung’s mind, both in terms of simpler things, innocent things, just thoughts, and then other
images, ones that make him blush, especially since Jungkook had suggested he’d look prettier bent
over, and he just cannot get the idea of that out of his hormonal, delirious mind. Ironically, he
deems the latter safer. They are easier to explain, the fact he very much enjoyed his hand on him,
physically, than the fact he wonders what detergent Jungkook uses that shapes his scent like this,
when he’ll fight again and if he’s ready, what his relationship with his sister truly is.

Bogum places gentle fingers on his folded forearm, traces them gently. “Can I kiss you?” he says,
“I’ll always ask, I promise. Even in private.”

Taehyung’s shoulders lift and deflate with the breath he takes, so heavy. His eyes dart to the door.
He has a bad feeling about it, but he’s sighing. “No one’s watching,” Bogum’s saying, and he’s
nodding.
“Okay,” he’s the one saying okay now, though the word is growing to irritate him, slightly.

Bogum swallows, nods. He lifts a hand and holds him by the cheek, thumb on the underside of his
jaw, and he leans and kisses him, despite Taehyung’s body remaining rigid with the discomfort of
doing this with that door to the world so close and glaring at him. Bogum closes his eyes, tilts his
head a little bit so his nose brushes Taehyung and he just kisses him, lips moving slow and meek
against his, wandering and questioning, as if Taehyung is a china doll, he might break with
incessance, with force, and it’s another first for him, to be treated like this.

It’s a bit of a lie, he feels. It’s a promise that can’t be met, that he would get to be handled so
gently, so carefully. It’s a lie he doesn’t need, but one he lets Bogum feed him, and maybe himself,
because Taehyung thinks Bogum is just a bit too nice and gullible to realise things like this have no
place in Richhood, and Taehyung feels a bit good to realise he is not the most naïve one around.
It’s closeted and filtered, the way he kisses him, the way he kisses back. It’s slow. It’s conscious
and self-conscious.

He likes that Bogum kisses him like this. He wouldn’t have it any other way with him, but he
thinks with his repetitive desire for Jungkook to kiss him as well, he would hate if the other kisses
like this. He imagines something much more raw, more powerful, something naturalistic and
angry. Jungkook’s touch always radiates with certain honest anger, some at Taehyung, some at
himself. It’s an anger that translates to him so palpably he forgets if he just absorbs it from
Jungkook or it originates from himself as well.

He hates he thinks about Jungkook when Bogum kisses him, but he feels it might go away with
time. He’s just such a nagging presence in his life currently, but he can’t imagine a Jeon in the life
of a Kim would last, and he ignores the disappointment that tugs at him as the thought invades.
He’s naïve, but he’s not that naïve, to think Jungkook won’t soon get bored and tired of this game,
move on to something better, when Julia finds another target.

Taehyung feels ridiculously guilty it’s his ceaseless thoughts that summon him when the door
opens and Taehyung flies back from Bogum as if burned. It’s like some fucking jokethat Jungkook
would walk in on this, though retrospectively he is not all that surprised he would appear,
considering they haven’t talked since last time Jungkook addressed his relations with Bogum,
making it quite clear he was dissatisfied with them, and now he had watched them disappear
together.

Taehyung hears Bogum sigh, sees the roll of his eyes as he removes his body from his frantically
and turns with eyes slightly widened to his side. He doesn’t much care Bogum is potentially
annoyed with him for pulling away so brusquely, because his heart is too angry in his chest now
for such pointless considerations and he stares at Jungkook pause at the door, fingers lingering
where they hold the handle.
Jungkook’s eyes harden when they land on Taehyung. He does not spare Bogum a glance, does not
even dart his gaze towards him, they seal powerfully onto Taehyung and he feels as if he has
committed some major transgression when he knows realistically, he has done nothing wrong.

He shuts the door. He shuts it slow and calm and he speaks in the same manner when he talks in a
moment, though his voice holds another quality, something cold and achingly chilling. “I don’t
think they pay you for that,” he says, and Taehyung swallows, breathes. He does not like the
direction his words take, payment accompanied with the concept of kissing.

“The fuck does it matter to you what they pay us for?” Bogum asks unfiltered and offended, and it
draws Jungkook’s eyes to him now. Slow and languorous, the balls of his pupils slide over to him
and he cocks his head at him, tips his upper lip in an arch of distaste.

“Bogum,” Taehyung warns, “don’t.”

Jungkook is a dictionary definition of condescending when he tilts a single eyebrow. “I’m currently
paying customer service for my girlfriend to wait twenty minutes for a soda while you homos fuck
around.” His lip twitches when he witnesses the damage of his vulgarity – Bogum’s as if punched
and Taehyung really feels jealousy sneak up on him that he has thus far lived in a context where
something as derogatory is surprising. At the same time, he appreciates the fact words don’t affect
himthe least bit. It’s Jungkook, he says what he says for the impact of it. “It matters.”

“I—” Bogum attempts.

“You—“ Jungkook interrupts, crossing his arms; he stands with haunting confidence, superiority
transpiring into the ambiance of his presence just from the very way he stands, “should probably
go get her a soda. She gets antsy when she waits, you’ll find if you work here long enough, though
it doesseem doubtful.”

He laces a threat through his words so easily and naturally and Bogum is looking at Taehyung
now, in question. He’s taught silence at this point, learned scarcity of words is only his friend,
never an enemy. There’s not really a point in being defensive with Jungkook, it will just be more
harm done, so Taehyung nods at Bogum, juts his chin indicatively towards the door. “Go,” he says.
“I’ll finish up inventory.”

He watches his evident reluctance as he leaves, his pointed attempt to walk as far around Jungkook
as possible when he passes by him and through the door. The door shuts firmly, and words are in
the air momentarily with it.

“I heard about this but part of me still thought you weren’tstupid enough to actually do it,”
Jungkook’s voice is dead and rough.

Taehyung gapes a bit at this, lips parting and eyes widening. “You heard—”

That’s bad, that’s so fucking bad that he would hear, though news travels faster to Jungkook than it
would to his sister and maybe she won’t know at all. It’s not all hope lost.

Jungkook takes a step, a single step, he interjects the question that attempts to fall through
Taehyung’s lips, and this hallway is really all too narrow. His voice feels louder, though it still
reserves its scathing neutrality, but it has something lined underneath it. Taehyung has learned to
distinguish it by now. “Is he your boyfriend now? I thought you weren’t fucking gay.”

“I’m not,” Taehyung says, “He isn’t my boyfriend. It’s just—”

Jungkook’s eyes are unwavering, a test on his, so demanding, and he doesn’t know what to say,
because no matter how much Bogum enjoys talking things through, he doesn’t, and he has no idea
what they are doing. It’s kissing for now, just kissing, but he doesn’t know how to explain that
because it is not sex, but it is not a relationship, it’s not love, and basically it is nothing.

“Just what?” Jungkook bites when Taehyung hesitates into a blank stutter. He’s still silent, and
Jungkook presses, “I thought you didn’t wanthim.” He says it in a way that only spells out the fact
of it and erases completely the context of the conversation in which he’d said that particular
sentence.

Taehyung looks away, he glances at the side, at nothing. “It’s different,” he says and virtually it’s
meaningless because he cannot bring himself to finish the sentence for what it’s truly worth, for the
fact that he means to tell him that he does not want Bogum like he wants him, doesn’t want him
blindly and irresponsibly in the bathroom of a club, not like this. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to
spend time with him, that he doesn’t want to try.

Jungkook scoffs. He shakes his head and a bit of a previous distaste that he seeped in for the sake
of informing Bogum of it very much pointedly now finds its way into his expression, lip arching,
nostrils broadening. “All you Kims do is go around looking for attention,” he says in tone with
how he shakes his head, “for some good fucking bone breaking.”
Taehyung wants to scoff at him as well. Instead he just grips at his elbows, mirrors the distaste.
“Kim again?” He nods at air, nods to himself. “I’m Kim again.”

He likes to bring things down to the fact that he is a Kim and Jungkook is a Jeon, but he absolutely
abhorsit when Jungkook does it. It means something else entirely.

“You’re always Kim,” Jungkook’s eyes are hard. Voice is hard. He no longer makes use of the
pretense of neutrality, so he allows a tame version of disgust to color his words in tow with his
features. “Bet you call up your brother once in a while, ask for fucking tips on how to be a fucking
Kim.”

Taehyung’s teeth grind together. “My brother,” he says with much necessary emphasis, because he
refuses to let the conversation stir in the direction of this, has absolutely no desire to have his
brother at the mouth of the walking, breathing, flesh and bone representation of what he suspects
drove him away, “has nothing to fucking do with you.”

Jungkook’s head whips, his eyes widening slightly. “Are you fucking serious?” he asks, and he
asks with a pointed passion that makes Taehyung wonder if he should be as genuinely serious as he
is. Still, he doesn’t hesitate when he nods his head, mouths the word yeah and Jungkook’s brows
draw together and he dares to be confused. “You are?” His brows lifting up now as it registers with
him that Taehyung has absolutely no idea how his brother would connect to him. He pauses. He
shifts on his feet, adjusts his body towards him in a way that almost appears threatening, although
Taehyung doesn’t think Jungkook scares him anymore, not physically at least. “Your brother,” he
pronounces with fervid distaste,“gotmy sister into drugs and she’s been a fucking vegetable since.”

Taehyung’s lips part and seal dumbly, resembling that of a fish minutely, before he manages actual
sounds, and when he does they are accompanied with narrowed eyes and disbelief at the
insinuation, “He… didn’t.” He is well aware his brother sold drugs, sold them to people who
wanted them, who asked for them, readily. He certainly wasn’t one to coax anyone into buying, or
trying, and Jungkook simply must be mistaken,“Namjoon wouldn’t get –“

Jungkook interrupts with violent eyes and a ticking jaw. Jungkook interrupts with a layered emotion
that Taehyung simply does not expect. “Why don’t you fucking call him and ask him?”

And Taehyung answers with that very same emotion, a specific, visceral sensitivity that is reserved
for a hurt only his family can cause, only people he trusts. He hates how he allows it into his voice,
but the fact he finds in Jungkook, who suggests his brother might be cause of it, draws it from him,
bares it all. “I don’t even talk to him, okay?” He says and his voice raises with it, arches with the
rawness of his throat. “I haven’t spoken to him since he left.”
Jungkook starts to say something, but his mouth closes for a moment and his eyes bind onto
Taehyung’s expression, slide across with unwarranted scrutiny that chills Taehyung but not as
much as the sudden nuance his voice takes, a breathy curious softness, “You haven’t?”

Taehyung swallows around the lump that attempts to build in his throat and meets Jungkook’s
eyes, though he feels strangely naked as he fixes his gaze into his. “I don’t even know where he
fucking went,” he confesses, and he hears the dying lump in his own words.

As Jungkook’s stare relaxes from its animosity, inadvertently so does Taehyungs. The atmosphere
of their conversations softens and with the poise of a threat entirely departing from Jungkook’s
body his proximity seems daunting in an entirely different way. There’s nothing sexual behind it,
but now there’s nothing violent behind it as well, no confrontation, and they are just soft and close
and it’s new. “Why?” Jungkook asks, and it’s not gentle,per se, but it borders on it.

Taehyung shakes his head. Looking at Jungkook’s face like that, so drastically human, draws some
honesty from him he doesn’t like all that much. He never really talks about Namjoon. With Ji-woo
it’s a subject taboo and she is the only person in the world he trusts enough to discuss him with. “I
don’t… I don’t know. Apparently, I don’t know him as well as I think I do.” There’s something
defeated in the confession. Namjoon is a fresh wound. He thinks he might always be one.

Jungkook looks at Taehyung and then he looks away. He sighs. A hand goes through his hair,
pulling at the strands, before it drops and his eyes are back on Taehyung and somehow, he feels
closer, though he doesn’t move a step, and Taehyung figures it must be something about the way
he watches him. “Your brother did some stupid shit, Taehyung,” he tells him in a voice Taehyung
hasn’t heard him use before. “Got mixed up with really shitty people.”

The question is immediate from Taehyung’s lips. “Like who?” he asks. He knows so frustratingly
little about this. Namjoon did not want neither he nor Ji-woo privy to this world and he supposes he
understands because he never knows Woojin to know what he does for money, either. It still
overwhelms with his thirst for a goddamn reason,for more of an explanation.

“Like Kai,” Jungkook says and Taehyung’s heart drops in his chest. “Like my sister and me.”
Jungkook’s pausing and he’s allowing the silence for long enough for the other to speak, but as
soon as Taehyung opens his mouth, he realizes he can’t answer his questions, so he won’t allow
him to ask them. He interrupts with a subconscious step forward, keeps his eyes firm on his face.
“Just don’t repeat his mistakes. Smart people learn from other people’s mistakes, don’t they?”

It generalizes the conversation, stirs it away from his brother, because Jungkook doesn’t know
enoughto share, and just rubbing salts in wounds is pointless. Taehyung is thankful Jungkook
closes the door on the topic, but he doesn’t want to leave just yet, not with the way Jungkook draws
closer, with the way he speaks to him with no intention to hurt or to take. He just speaks, voice
ringing pleasant, though a bit lower than what he thinks he has heard from his casual conversations
with his friends or Julia.

Taehyung swallows something else as he studies his face. He tongues at his lower lip, breathes.
He’s cautious. His voice escapes with a subtle breathy quality. “So, I should stay away from you?”

Jungkook’s eyes drop to the pink tongue that so invitingly wets lips before they lift to Taehyung’s
tentative gaze, “Probably,” he says. He should probably stay away from him as well. The bet is
over, and this is nothing. He certainly should not be having a heart to heart about his brother with
him.

Taehyung nods, his eyes darting across every single feature of his face. “If I do,” he begins with his
gaze on his lips, “if I stay away from you,” and his eyes lift to his own, dig into his, “will you stay
away from me, too?”

Jungkook blinks at him and he’s never before contemplated the fact that they are actively not
staying away from each other, can’t really trace back why they interact so much, when the last time
is he saw Taehyung somewhere and did not somehow approach him, or had the other approach
him. The consistency of their interactions tugs at him now, and he wants to say fucking yes, he
will, and it will be easy, won’t even be a task, just a natural progression of events, but the image of
Taehyung kissing Bogum tugs at him worse. It’s one thing hearing about it, another thing seeing it,
and yes is not what Jungkook says.

“Don’t know if I can promise you that,” he confesses and Taehyung’s chest fills with a breath that
he doesn’t witness him take, because he doesn’t know if he can stay away, but right at that moment
he feels the need to walk away. “Still not bored of you,” Jungkook adds for the sake of adding. He
says it behind his back, does not see Taehyung’s face change with it. Then he leaves the hallway
entirely and goes back to his girlfriend and he kisses her as he sits down, and she doesn’t ask him
what took him so long.

Jungkook ties the hand wraps around his palms and wrists, careful, but quick in a motion that has
become heavily automatic with the habit of it. Yoongi has left the dressing room to do some final
negotiation with his opponent and it leaves Jungkook alone with his sister, who has her back
pressed into the wall opposite him and her eyes rooted to her nails as if she has some genuine
interest for their appearance. She hasn’t spoken to Seokjin for more than a week, Jungkook thinks,
and it’s bothering her visibly in a way he’s witnessed few things affect her prior.

He tightens the wrap on one hand with a final conclusive pull, but he focuses his gaze on it as if it
requires his conscious attention. “Clo,” he addresses and receives the acknowledgement of a single
hum, “do you still talk to Kim?”

Her eyes shift to him, but he refuses to reciprocate. “I thought you didn’t want me to talk to him”

He looks at her from underneath focused eyebrows as she gives him a door for confidence.
“Precisely,” he says.

She returns to her nails. “Not in a while, no.”

Jungkook waits. Then, he asks, “Do you know where he went?”

Her eyes dart to him, sharp like razors. She hesitates and the reluctance lingers in the air between
them, but she confesses, “Yes.”

Jungkook doesn’t skip a beat. “Where?”

“What is this?” Clo’s eyes narrow with avid suspicion.

Jungkook allows his to meet her with their overbearing neutrality to punctuate the truth of his
words when he answers, “Curiosity.”

Clo blinks. She studies his expression carefully for the semblance of something, but he remains
reticent and she has nothing to call him out for. “Abroad,” she answers.

“That’s vague,” Jungkook accuses.

“You’re vague,” Clo shoots back, quick and firm, no underlying hesitation this time. “When you
figure out why you want to ask, Jungkook, ask me again, and I might tell you,” she says and as if on
cue Yoongi returns, curiously satisfied and it effectively concludes the conversation.
Taehyung takes Bogum to the Ring because he cannot think of a proper enough reason to feed him
with of why he shouldn’t. He feels exaggeratedly nervous. It’s the second time he purposefully
meets with Bogum outside of work, the first time post their newly developed kissing habit and it
scares him the other might interpret it like a date, which would be downright weird.

Taehyung has in the entirety of his life never been on a date. Dates cost money, and dates build
expectations and he has never been good with either when it comes to people outside of the narrow
circle of his family and Jimin and parts of the expectations that feature his friendship with Jimin is
that there are no expectations between them.

The potential label of a date worries him, yes. The fact that it takes place in Jungkook’s most
violent niche magnifies that worry to an extent that makes his leg bounce incessantly. Baekhyun
and Jimin join them because Taehyung crafts a reason of why their presence will be helpful,
translates it to Jimin as a transportation need and stirs far away from mentioning that he wants to
keep this as un-date-like as possible. He certainly does not say anything about kissing in relation to
Bogum.

Jimin likes the Ring, he enjoys the bloodshed, watching people that get off on making him
miserable or making use of him tear each other apart, and he is easy to convince. Baekhyun is
easier.

The atmosphere at the Ring is similar to what it was last time, but it is a few decibels calmer. No
championship this time, just fight night. Several fights are set to take place, Taehyung comes to
learn, all personally arranged by the fighters for reasons that remain unbeknownst to him, but he
suspects they have do with either money or some dick-measuring pride gags.

He knows Jungkook is in on it tonight, because when a champion fights it’s fast news. When the
champion is one of the notorious Taunting Twins, it’s even faster.

Jimin talks excitedly to Taehyung about some older woman who bought him a watch that he thinks
he can pawn for the worth of his rent for at least two months, describes explicitly with a terrifying
grin what he did exactly to deserve the watch and Taehyung laughs at some quite inappropriate and
flattering comparisons he makes between his tongue and a laundry machine.

Talking gets harder and proceeds to become virtually impossible as the night progresses and the
actual fighting starts. Taehyung only recognizes one person in the first couple, but he knows both
opponents from the second.
Bogum’s shoulder brushes into his as they stand. They’re not as close to the ring as they were last
time, but still closer than he would prefer, close enough that his face would be recognizable to
someone who scans the audience, upon Jimin’s insisting and convincing ways. He feels fingers
hesitate by the small of his back before they gingerly press into the line of his spine and then he
has breath by his cheek, warm and almost unnoticed with the amount of heat that swallows the
space. “Who gets off on this shit?”

Taehyung tilts his head to bring his lips closer to Bogum’s ear. “Jimin,” he says with a playful grin
as his eyes slide indicatively to his friend who is currently brimming with enthusiasm, knocking his
fist against his spread palm in cheerful nagging, as he watches a guy he particularly dislikes -- that
Taehyung cannot fully recognize with the way his face swells and bleeds -- get the shit beat out of
him. “And everyone else here.”

Bogum’s brows lift. “Do you?”

Taehyung bristles at the suggestion. “No, hyung. Worry not.” He pokes a finger into his side, once,
twice, and Bogum flinches away from it, pats an arm over it.

“Though I suppose you wouldn’t mind watching that pounding get done to our dearest Jungkook,
eh?” Bogum laughs,and he knocks their elbows together with the same slightly brutal playfulness
that Taehyung had previously addressed Jimin’s out of character thirst for blood. He forces the
smile back onto his face, pulls at all his features tightly, as soon as it dares to drop against his
conscious volition.

“It won’t,” Taehyung says, and he hopes the octave of his voice translates to Bogum in a
disappointment that Jungkook is simply too good to get the living shit beat out of him, pity, instead
of the much more genuine fear that he might not be.

Taehyung tries to imagine Jungkook bloodied and bruised like that, struggling to get on his knees
like the guy on the ring currently is, and something terrifying swells in his stomach, raises through
his chest and directs to his throat. He swallows around it and pushes it down, represses it, because
he refuses to worry Jungkook might get physically hurt in something he choosesto do.

Bogum’s fingers tighten a bit into the fabric of his t-shirt. “Is he really that good?” he scoffs, clicks
his tongue. His eyes roll and he is the very depiction of annoyed and Taehyung hates how it annoys
him. Ideally, he should hope Jungkook gets his ass kicked as well, but the damage done on that
Ring with no rules is simply too gruesome for Taehyung to even attempt to wish it upon him.
“You’ll see, won’t you?” Taehyung responds and he forces out a chuckle that struggles to escape
his throat.

Another pair of fingers brush into his shoulder before they swiftly travel the length necessary for a
hand to wrap against his bicep and he jumps in place – it startles him and does not cease to unnerve
him as lips move close enough to his ear to speak to him in the chaos of the Ring. “Bold boys,” a
voice teases before the person moves away and drops their touch.

Taehyung’s head whips and his eyes widen to find the departing coy smirk of Clo Eun. She leaves
with haughty eyes and her arm tangled with Yoongi’s thin elbow. The guy’s own gaze skips over
Taehyung, but it does not linger. The pair saunters to where Yoongi had sat with Hoseok last time
and join him now as well. Yoongi’s mouth levitates to Hoseok’s ear immediately, the other’s arm
lifting and nesting behind him until his palm cups his shoulder. When Hoseok’s lids bat and open
to meet his stare, he realizes he’s made the mistake of tracing eyes after them.

He snaps his head forward to the Ring. The appearance of Yoongi and Clo Eun can only mean
Jungkook’s fight will follow. If Bogum notices Clo Eun’s short stop in acknowledgment, he does
not mention it. Taehyung knocks his elbow against him purposefully. “He’s next,” he informs.

His opponent comes first. It’s the same type of crowd pumper as the previous one. Most of them
are, engaging and throwing hands up in different corner of the rings. He comes with entourage, no
hair and lots of muscles. Lots of tattoos as well, one particularly distinctive one, a detailed snake
that slithers across his shoulder and down his chest, wraps around his nipple. Taehyung is not
entirely sure, but he has some memory it’s a testament to an affiliation with an underground gang.

“That guy’s fucking scary,” Bogum whisper-shouts in his ear and Taehyung swallows around the
truth of it. He doesn’t respond. His focus is taken, eyes darting to where the crowd parts for
Jungkook, who comes even more alone this time, completely by himself. People cheer for him and
Taehyung’s heart beats aggressively. He climbs between the ropes with confidence and stands tall
and poised in his side of the ring, dressed in a similar sleeveless sweatshirt. Bogum is leaning to
him. “Why do people like him?” It’s a question he has to ask with the way people around them go
crazy for him without even being coaxed into it. He does not engage.

You’ll see.Taehyung wants to say again. Few people truly like either of the Taunting Twins, but in
certain contexts they appreciate them, because they deliver. These people are here with the thirst
for a fight, they want to watch blood spill, and they want to see it done well and thorough. The
crowd is here for a technique of violence, for cracked bones and knocked out teeth. That’s what
Jungkook gives them, and he does it beautifully.He does not fight solely with the strength of his
punches. It is animalistic, but it is not purely that. It is an artistry, just where to punch, just when to
duck, just how.
He’s an impressive fighter.

This time Jungkook sees him before the fight. His eyes catch Taehyung’s when he shakes the
material off of his shoulders, and they linger with a glint that is visceral underneath the flashing
lights of the club. A different European girl is passing on the ring, shaking her hips with emphasis
and glancing over Jungkook, but his attention is set. Bogum is saying something to him, in his ear,
hand on his back, but it is not properly registering with Taehyung. His heart thunders.

The gaze drops as quickly as it captures him, and the fight is starting. This one is worse. Jungkook
is worse. He’s relentless. He hits hard, hits precise. His eyes are narrowed on his opponent, brows
furrrowed and creased in concentration at some angles and completely flattened and relaxed at
others.

Jungkook teases. After a couple attempts of his opponent to hit him that fail miserably, he drops
his guard and bounces enticingly on his feet, chin jutted out invitingly, chest open, head open.
When the guy swings, he bobs and weaves, jabbing him at the underside of his jaw. His footwork
is magnificent, quick, swift, accurate. His punches are hard. Taehyung can see it in the way the
flesh of his opponent bends, the way his eyes lose focus and grow heady, the way they draw blood.

Bogum whistles at a particular jab and Taehyung hears it in his ear.

He tries not to hiss when Jungkook is on the receiving end. It’s rarer, but it happens. He takes one
to the side of his head, a few to his stomach. A hook. A cross. Taehyung is not sure, but he thinks
he sees the cut underneath his brow open with the friction of a particularly punishing hit.

His opponent clearly fights with power, not with technique, so the times he manages to land a hit, it
does damage. Taehyung things a good few of the jabs strike Jungkook simply becomes he insists
on preserving an attitude in this fight, a teasing cockiness that plays him badly, but not badly
enough, and the crowd fucking roars with every pattern of this game he dares to play on the ring.

He always plays games; the Taunting Twin does.

He taunts on the Ring as well, and still, he wins. He wins by knocking his opponent into bleeding
unconsciousness. He wins sure and confident and with animalistic but precise violence, with
depraved but calculated hits. He sweats with it, grows red with it, eyes go wild with it, but he wins
with it, blood trickling from the side of his head where Taehyung now knows his wound opens,
and he smirks with it.
His hands pump to the air now, an announcement of his victory, one of his wrists in the hand of
their referee.

“He’s fucking vicious,” Bogum is saying in his ear.

“I know,” Taehyung nods. He’s nervous. Jungkook’s smirking gaze hasn’t found him yet, but he
feels it will. The other guy’s limp body lies behind their feet, he has no girlfriend to pull him away
and his entourage is slow with it. The most representable man out of them is bent by Yoongi,
saying something in his ear.

His eyes do meet him, but they don’t linger. They only land on him for the duration of a single
indicative jut of his chin that Taehyung might as well have imagined, a tilt in the direction he
knows his dressing room to be.

Jungkook leaves soon after his fight like he did before as well. Crowd parts for him like the
fucking Red Sea and swallows him up, closes around him, hands on his back, his shoulders, praises
in his ears. Taehyung follows him with his eyes and buzzes with the idea he might want to follow
him physically as well, but he doesn’t dare fully assume it, so he stays put.

“Okay,” Bogum is shouting in his ear. “I’m disappointed but impressed.”

“Yeah. Told you,” Taehyung returns his attention to Bogum, tries to, but it incessantly wanders,
shifts to the direction in which Jungkook has disappeared, and he wonders what’s the harm in
checking if Jungkook had wanted him to follow. He figures it’d be better for him to go without
Jungkook beckoning him originally then leaving Jungkook hanging because, well, post witnessing
thishe wouldn’t want to piss him off.

“Listen,” Taehyung is saying before he has fully rationalized it to himself. He knows he wants to
speak to Jungkook as well, was too distracted by the peculiarity of their previous interaction to
express his displeasure with the fucking love bite he’d left on him unannounced. There’s unspoken
protocol with marks like these and he has yet to confront him, so okay, maybe he has to go.
“Bladder’s calling. You fine with Baek and Jimin?” he lifts his brows up.

“Yeah, sure,” he’s nodding. “Want me to come with?”

“Nah, I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” Taehyung smiles at him and Bogum chuckles, head
shaking.
Taehyung pulls away, the stretch of his lips dwindling from his features. He captures Jimin by the
shoulder, leans to his ear. “Hey, take care of him, yeah?” He juts his chin towards Bogum.
“Doesn’t know shit about Richhood yet.”

Jimin nods. “Boy’s under my wing. Where are you going?”

“Toilet.”

His brows shoot up. “Just after the fight?” Taehyung nods, informs him it is pressing matters.
Jimin snorts. “Good luck, I’ll be expecting you in about an hour if you make it.”

Taehyung’s response is a pointedly dissatisfied expression and a cock of his head, but he leaves
with it. It actually bodes well Jimin is skeptical he’ll be quick with it, gives him the excuse of time.
Reaching the dressing rooms is easier than reaching the bathroom. The most major influx of people
is in that direction. It’s still a considerably demanding task, but he manages, finds himself in the
depressing, slightly chilling hallway.

He has no way to know if Jungkook is in the same room he was last time, but it is the only lead he
has, so he treads towards it. The repeated state of nervousness feels emphasized in the
lonesomeness and silence of the corridor, where he can hear his own paces and recognizes the beat
of his heart is rapid despite the dulled music. A striking annoyance with himself for being like this
invigorates him into just walking,not that much thinking. He promises himself, he’ll find him, see
what Jungkook wants, tell him to never mark him like that again, as if he belongs to him and walk
away.

After his small, but vigorous internal pep talk it is anticlimactic to find the room empty. He sighs,
ignores the nuance of deflation and strides into the hallway again. He passes by exactly two doors
before one opens swiftly and a hand is wrapping around his wrist, pulling him inside.

His back slams into tiled walls and he grunts with it, but the scorching touch that forces him into
place departs immediately. The door is shut, loud and clear, and the very distinctive sound of a
lock turning penetrates the air and nestles into Taehyung’s ears with apprehension. This room is
slightly different, only has showers lined up at the walls, and it has a lock, a lock that Jungkook’s
turned and now he looms before him from a small distance, sinewy arms crossed before his chest
and the very fact of it appears somewhat threatening. He’s still in the attire from the match, chest
bare and glistening, and it seems wider than it truly is like this, because it’s so clearly outlined by
muscle.
Gone is the victorious smirk from his face, and instead he seems slightly pissed, features narrowed,
yet so very typically reserved into a general nothingness.

His features aren’t traitorous, but his voice is, or maybe it is pointed, because he speaks with the
charge of enmity. “What’d you bring him here for, Taehyung?” he asks, and Taehyung’s mouth
opens then closes.

He straightens up next to the wall, removes his back from it and instead stands tall on his two feet,
gives himself all of the inches of height he can before Jungkook, and he stands leveled and fair.
“He wanted to see you fight,” he announces the truth.

“Oh?” Jungkook’s head tilts, brows arch, and he drowns his voice in an ironic mockery. “Does he
want to know how I’ll bash his head in if he gets mouthy with me again?”

Taehyung mirrors the position, arms closing together, and he holds himself by the elbows. He
flattens his words as best as he possibly can. “Can you stop fucking threateninghim?” He doesn’t
know what precisely summons the defensiveness, but if the excuse of a conversation is going to
revolve around pointless threats and Bogum, then he might as well leave now.

Jungkook’s eyes shift into an undeniable glare, his step forward sounds clearly into the tiled floor.
“Do you like his face that much?”

Taehyung shakes his head with the futility of trying to speak to him. “Well, I—"

He interjects, words twist cold and low. “You should really consider keeping him away from me if
you like it in its current arrangement,” he presses, and it strikes Taehyung just how much Bogum
has been a catalyst for their recent interactions. In fact, there has not been a time for a while in
which he hasn’t been, and it must seem like he’s shoving him in his face, especially by bringing
him to the Ozone, then here, places that inherently belong to the Rich, to Jungkook. From his
viewpoint, Taehyung supposes, he wanders into his territory, brings someone along and allows him
to play with his toy.

Taehyung knows people like Jungkook faultlessly grow up to be possessive, territorial. They grow
up to be entitled. Bogum is the perfect tool to question and shake Jungkook’s authority over him,
except that he is not a tool, he is a person, and Taehyung should not have a hard time forgetting
that, because it would just make him more alike Jungkook than he dares and cares to realize.
“He’s not my goddamn dog,” Taehyung says. “He’s new. He simply wanted to—”

“Iwant you—“ Jungkook begins to declare with such pointed emphasis on the pronoun that
addresses him, forcing into it all the power and authority that Taehyung tries to forget into a single
syllable that denounces him, “to stop kissing him.”

The request, demand, washes over him with a peculiarly wakeful sensation, it teases over and under
his skin. His eyes narrow, they harden, fingers squeeze into the bones of his elbows and he feels
them up. “Until when,” he presses with some reciprocal acrimony, “until you get boredof me?”

He spits the words, laces them with that mocking irony that is signature of Jungkook’s speech,
holds a certain doze of petulance that does not retrospectively bother him because it fits the
maturity of the conversation, and he watches him roll his eyes.

“Don’t play games with me, Taehyung,” Jungkook says, pokes his tongue into his cheek in a brief,
fluid motion.

Taehyung bristles with the forced suggestion of incredulity. “That’s all you fucking do.”

Jungkook takes a step forward and the neat folding of his arms falls apart, revealing him whole,
bare and wide and strong. “I can afford to play.”

His eyes roll. It’s true to some extent Taehyung feels he’s able to deny for a few minutes at a time.
So once again petulantly, he says, “Fuck you.” And then he pauses, and because it bothershim and
it so perfectly fits right now with everything other than the fact that he is a Kim and has virtually
no leverage in front of a Jeon, he spills before he manages to filter, he spills with all the scathing
bitterness of the fact of it, he spills, “You get to kiss Julia all the time.”

It lingers in the air boldly. Julia is the one thing that can essentially not be removed from the
situation between them, because it will suggest the situation is, in fact, between them.Julia is a halo
for Jungkook, she is his intention, she is his reason for Taehyung even having a name in his mouth
other than Kim. Julia is not another person, like Bogum is. Julia is essential.

There’s a natural pause that descends heavily into the stretched air between them after the sound of
the words rings conclusively from the tiles of the walls and the flooring. Jungkook watches him
with his eyes still fixed in the glare of before, but his face mostly slave to its usual master of
reticence.
Taehyung’s heart beats loud and then louder, his ears buzz with the proclamation of Jungkook’s
following words.

“I’ll stop,” Jungkook says as if it is simple, so simple.

All Taehyung can do for a moment is breathe and blink. Then, most blankly, he asks, “What?”

“If you don’t kiss him, I won’t kiss her,” he says, a deal. And it’s simple, so simple, and Taehyung
supposes maybe it truly is because all Jungkook promises is he won’t press his mouth to hers. He
does not say he won’t touch her, fuck her, have dinner with her, coffee with her, talk to her, smile at
her. He does not suggest he won’t be her boyfriend, that he won’t be affectionate in all other ways
possible, that he won’t pound her for a good night’s sleep and then sleep next to her and wake up
next to her. He doesn’t say that, because he doesn’t mean that. “Just stop kissing him, touching
him, stop fucking looking at him, okay?”

His downright jealousyis exhilarating to Taehyung, even if he is perfectly capable of rationalizing

it with just who Jungkook has grown up to be. He forgets to do it now, instead lets himself the
naivety to believe that this is not about Jungkook’s flaws, but about Taehyung. He doesn’t say yes,
though, no he breathes heavy, and instead he suggests it with a question that sounds weak to his
own ears, “So, I don’t get to kiss anyone?”

“Who do you wantto kiss?” Jungkook questions with steadfast exasperation.

“You,” it falls through his lips like a reaction. There is nothing voluntary in the confession. It is an
impulse he represses every time Jungkook looks at him from such a distance, proximity once again
at play, every time he licks his lips, pokes a tongue into his cheek, every time he fucking breathes.
It’s pathetic, really, how much he wants to kiss him.

Jungkook’s eyes drop to the floor after the declaration fills the air.

“You know, Taehyung,” and he’s closer still, and then his hands lift, press into his hips and for the
merest moment Taehyung doesn’t know how to breathe, but then he’s okay, it’s okay, everything’s
okay, except for the voice that Jungkook speaks with which falls to be so deliberately and
torturouslysoft, like his touch is, “my father said I should beat the shit out of you,” the brutality of
his words both loses an aspect of its power and retains and emphasizes another with the way he
pronounces it so strikingly gently. His eyes lift from the floor, stare straight into Taehyung’s and
the glare is an apparition, a memory of the past; his eyes glint, they shine, “teach you not to kiss
boys.”

Taehyung’s heart races. One of his hands settles above Jungkook’s in indication, fingers wrapping
tight against his wrist. His skin is hot, heated and searing. His tone levels with his, words border a
whisper, “And who will beat you up for touching me?”

Jungkook’s father. Notoriously, the worst Jeon. Taehyung has the luxury of going through life not
thinking much about him and the way he handles Jungkook, the way he impacts Jungkook. For
him, it is a personal consideration when he decides not to bring the fact maybe he enjoys kissing
boys to his family. It’s something he’s not ready for, a confusion he deems unnecessary with the
extent to which everything is already pure shit,a label he doesn’t want for himself. He cannot,
however, imagine ever sharing this, sharing Bogum, for example, with his sister and receiving
anything different than support. Jungkook, she would mind because of the context he comes with,
not because of his gender.

But Jungkook’s father deems a boy kissing boys worth beating up. He wonders what else is a good
enough reason for him. He watches Jungkook and he wonders if he hits, if he strikes both verbally
and physically. He watches Jungkook and he thinks he might.

“Him, probably,” Jungkook shrugs and he keeps the same softness in his voice as he studies
Taehyung’s face, pupils darting across the entirety of it as Taehyung’s remain fixed and entranced
with the glint of his eyes. “If he found out, you know what he would probably do?” His gaze lifts to
his and easily meets his waiting eyes. He indicates the question with a swift raise of his brows,
before he returns his stare to the Taehyung’s lips and he speaks to them. “If he found out I touched
you, he’d probably break my fingers so that I can’t touch you again. He’d probably snap my cock
in half, just so that you never turn me on again. If he found out—"

“Well, he won’t,” Taehyung interrupts firmly and Jungkook’s eyes snap to him. He feels a very
distinct, curious hurt strain at him, makes it hard to swallow. A desire washes over him, something
rebellious and charged, and he wants Jungkook to touch him, he wants to turn him on, wants to do
everything with him, wants to go back in time and enjoy wiping his cock on the handkerchief with
their family crest a whole lot more.

“What?” Jungkook says with a genuine confusion that pauses the softness for a bare moment,
though it remains atypically secured into the features of his expression.

“He can’t,” Taehyung breathes, and his fingers tighten over Jungkook’s wrist, their eyes finding
each other easily. “Find out.” His tongue teases over his lips in a pause for mustering up bravery,
and he is not internally rationalizing much of what he is saying. Words drip from his mouth, fall
through like sighs, “You can do anything to me, and he won’t know.”
Jungkook’s fingers grip into his hips, adjust their position to capture him more thoroughly and he
pushes him the one step necessary for the top of Taehyung’s back to press against the tiled wall,
his hips tilted slightly forward into Jungkook’s hold. The contact is painless, slow, he suggests
Taehyung leans on the wall, rather than commands it with force, and he chooses to remain aligned
with it, digits squeezing over Jungkook’s wrist once and dancing upwards along the line of his
forearm. Jungkook’s eyes fix over him, so piercing and heavy. “He’d like to see you bruised,” he
tells him as If he confides in him, so personal and intimate in the small space that remains between
them.

“Bruise me then,” Taehyung exhales. It’s a permission of many things, an invitation of many.
Jungkook can hurt him now, hit him now. He can bruise him in any way he sees fit, because
Taehyung does not only allow it, he invites it.

And Jungkook glances at him with a challenge, and then he does because he wants to bruise him as
well, mark him all over so that Park Bogum just knows not to touch.Jungkook dips his head
forward, ducks down with the agility he used to evade punches all night long and he seals his lips
over the mark he’d left on Taehyung’s neck, the one that starts to fade. The contact of it somehow
still feels sudden, new, peculiarly violent, though it is nothing but soft, and it coaxes a gasp out of
Taehyung, his fingers snaking to Jungkook’s elbow and tightening there. Jungkook moves with the
compulsive, charging impulse tolayer all his skin with the dents of his teeth, the purple of his
punishing lips; he squeezes at him hard with fingers, tight and digging into the flesh of him,
because he wants to leave hand prints all across him. His father is right, anyway; he needs to be
bruised. He does not deserve skin that is so utterly flawless, not when he himself is so imperfect, so
impure, a poor, little idiot, kissing boys, touching boys, boys who aren’t Jungkook.

Jungkook works the skin of his neck, bruises him. He uses his lips, uses his tongue, and he uses his
teeth. It has a notion of expert composure the way he is skilled with the abuse of his neck, but it
also has an element of deprivation, a cloud of something lustful and lewd with the way his mouth
opens and exhales, and the way his tongue trails, with the way his teeth skim, tease, and dip
minutely, something in the sighs it draws from Taehyung, sighs that do not register with him, but
they fuel Jungkook, make his fingers reach to his waist, where he is softer, where they can sink
into flesh.

Taehyung is supposed to be scolding him about marking him like that, not inviting more of it and
basking in the sensation of cool, cruel lips on his skin. But Jungkook’s teeth are fixing over his
protruding collarbone, his tongue is dipping in between the clavicle at the curiously elegant crevice
of his throat and Taehyung is gone with it.

Taehyung is painfully aware that Jungkook refuses to kiss him the way he’d wanted it. He wants
his lips on his, their individual breaths abandoned for the sake of taking each other in, but
Jungkook won’t give him that and it comes with the bundling of a frustration he’s never known
before. He’s never wanted something like that before, so simple as a kiss, yet so devastatingly
complicated in the context of who they are and what they share, what they don’t.

Jungkook’s hands move and Taehyung’s hold on him is forced to drop. He hates he does not get to
squeeze his frustration into him, but the feeling subsides when fingers fist at the fabric of his shirt
and tug it up, rough palms unnecessarily snaking across his skin underneath. He raises his arms up
and lets Jungkook pull it over his head, disregard it on the floor, and he’s bare like him now.

His eyes take, take him all in, roam all over the skin he exposes. His eyes are hooded, dark and
piercing, and Taehyung remembers he hates them and then forgets it all the same. His hands are all
across him as well, touch searing and firm, but with a quality of reluctant softness, exploratory like
the last time he studied his bare chest, his stomach, so unknown and unfamiliar to him. Jungkook’s
hands are calloused. They’re rough. They touch almost gently but are coarse to begin with and it’s
uncommon for who he is. The rich prefer to have the poor get the callouses for them, doing dirty
work.

Jungkook bends and his mouth is on him, open, heavy and wet and exquisite. Taehyung tries to put
his hands on him, there is something instinctive and needy in the way he reaches and attempts to
lace them over his shoulders, his neck, he wants to put his fingers through his hair, feel if it is as
soft as it looks.

He doesn’t getto. Jungkook halts his endeavors with all the impressive skill he has displayed for
the night, capturing his wrists easily between strong fingers and forcing them to the wall, to the
side of his head in a motion that brings his body closer, the heat of it invading Taehyung’s senses,
but he forgets it for a moment, narrowing his eyes in a lost glare at the restriction he’s pushed
into. “No touching for you,” Jungkook commands, voice a titillating breath.

Taehyung’s chest expands and falls rapid and full. “Why?” he whines. He does not, however, to
his own surprise act against Jungkook in any way, not even when the other releases his wrists and
grips at his hips again, tugging his pelvis into himself roughly. No, Taehyung does not even
consider the option of acting out. He settles for a whine, for a glare, purses his lips in the
semblance of a pout, but that is all the reaction that comes to him naturally, his hands lingering
where Jungkook instructs them.

“For now,” Jungkook says with a pinning stare that by itself is dangerously provocative. It remains
on Taehyung’s face for a couple more moments even as his lips dip again and he focuses his touch
on his exposed body. He mouths at his shoulder, under his clavicle and he bruises all across,
fingers squeezing. He leaves marks on his chest, propels Taehyung’s body forward with subtle, but
powerful ministrations of his hands, arches the bottom of it into himself and they almost touch, and
then they touch, and then they don’t again.

Taehyung’s hips seek the heat of it, of his body, as Jungkook mouths at him. His blood pumps with
the promise of the word ‘now’, the suggestion of a ‘later’ and wonders if the arousal of a
substance-induced high can rival the delirious excitement of this, and he doubts it.

Jungkook’s tongue twirls around his nipple and it tears out a gasp from him. It is so
unnecessary,cannot in any way bruise him there, leave a mark. Still, his tongue toys with it and
then his teeth grace around it as it easily hardens, fingers treading to the dips of his ribs, fitting
there easily and he can feel the cool of his ring contrasting the wrecking warmth of his touch.

Taehyung is so far gone, and maybe Jungkook is as well, and he seems to realize it. It bothers him,
maybe, it does something to him. Maybe it hits him just how unnecessary it is to tug at his nipple
with his teeth like that, maybe Taehyung moans a bit too distinctively and it wakes him up.

It triesto. He straightens and he drops his hold and Taehyung’s eyes open all too wide and
vulnerable and curious. There is something wet that glints over them, underneath strands of fluffed
hair, makes them glisten as his full lips do. It’s striking to Taehyung just how goddamn coldthis
room is.

“I’ll go now,” Jungkook says, and it is tight. It strains. He says it as if he doesn’t mean it, and
Taehyung latches onto it even if the danger remains that it is just a mirage of his clouded
imagination, laced with vey human wanton.

“Why?” he asks, dreads the suggestion of involuntary panic that treads through. The naked truth is
he doesn’t want Jungkook to leave him, not now, he’s getting hard for him, he’s turned on for him,
and the prospect of his departure now comes with a certain humiliation he does not want to face.

Jungkook’s tongue which up until now explored every inch of Taehyung’s upper body with fervor
ghosts over his lips. His head cocks. His eyes are still pinned on Taehyung, studying the damage
he has done, the beginnings of bruises, the rare arcs of his teeth, the glisten of his saliva. He begs
for it to be off-putting, on some level at least, but on any and all, it just makes him want more.
“You know I like to fuck after fights,” Jungkook says, he excuses. He should get himself out of
there before he does something stupid again.

Taehyung breathes, once twice. His nostrils flare, and there is some underlying anger, but mostly it
is brazen, depraved determination when he pauses and then proposes loud and clear, “Well then
fuck me.”

He’s thought about it, thought about it ever since Jungkook told him he’d look prettier bent over
and he’d started kissing boys, and he’d grown curious. What would it be like to get fucked, he’d
wondered, what it’d be like to have someone inside him, well, frankly, what it’d be like to have
Jungkookinside him? When he offers himself so blatantly, it is not backed up by that rational
curiosity, by him reasoning he should explore his sexuality. No, the words fall purely because he
wants Jungkook to fuck him.

It’s a strange thing to want, considering he does not even know what it constitutes in its entirety,
that in the suggestion of it lingers the possibility that it will hurt, that it comes with an array of
consequences, that the desire for it comes with a vengefulness towards a man he does not even
know. But in that very moment he is incapable of fully comprehending that, only knows that he
wants, and he supposes that is what lust is and there is a reason it’s such a tragic flaw, such a
dangerous sin.

Jungkook blinks. His heart skips a beat and his cock fucking twitches, and he cannot estimate
whether this is some sort of a sick joke, and all he can say is, “What?”

Taehyung is tentative. He touches the side of his waist, just barely, just enough to give himself the
leverage to just arch his hips forward in the way Jungkook had previously held him. He had felt
the heat of him, is perfectly aware Jungkook is affected, much like he himself is, and he wants him
to remember that. “Fuck me, Jungkook,” he says, says it softer. His eyes search his, teeth bite his
lip, and he adds almost subconsciously, “Please.”

It’s a whisper and Jungkook does not know whether it is it or the way he says his name that does it
for him, but something in him snaps and he loses a fight with himself he does not know he’s
fighting. He curses, “Fuck.” The word is strangled out of his mouth, vehement and conclusive and
it’s done, he’s done.

His hands find Taehyung’s hips again and he spins him. He captures him firm and pushes his front
against the wall, traps his arms between the tile and his body as Taehyung raises them protectively.
He grunts, curses in return. There is nothing soft about the way he handles him now, the
underlying anger and frustration that comes with his usual touch so emphasized now. It reminds
Taehyung that every time he even looks at him suggestively Jungkook goes against so many
things, and it makes him feel wanted in such a depraved, forbidden way.

He’s wanted and he wants. And now it will happen, the pain from colliding with the wall comes
with the satisfaction of that knowledge. They will fuck. Taehyung has never in his life been on a
date and consequently, he has never before had sex that matters -- though he has not generally had
that much sex -- in any way other than the physical gratification it grants, for any reason other than
that it satiates certain desires. He thinks now should not be much different, though he knows it is.
He knows he’ll care after it’s set and done, but he offers himself anyway, because he wants it and
he certainly does not want Jungkook to go to someone else.

Rationally, he knows that whoever else Jungkook goes to that night won’t be anyone he
remembers, but selfishly, he wants him all to himself, for tonight at least. He knows he won’t give
him much more, and he knows this is just sex. This is physical. He knows Jungkook sleeps with
people who aren’t Julia and then he goes back to her, always. He suspects she’s aware of it,
everyone is. All Taehyung can hope for is that he is slightly bit different to him, more memorable,
and he knows he will be, because he is a boy.

Jungkook presses himself against Taehyung, indulges in the way his ass feels, comfortably thick,
round, so soft and perfect. He lines his hips with it, slides himself boldly to ensure Taehyung can
feel him, all of him. He allows himself to enjoy the sensation of him against his cock. It’s just an
ass, Jungkook reminds himself. He’s horny because fights get him horny and he always fucks after
fights, always people who aren’t Julia, because she never comes to these, and this is no different.

This is not special. It has nothing to do with the way he is unable to resist after Taehyung so
pliantly offers himself, because he is simply not trying to resist. What would the point be?He’s
hard. Jungkook’s hard and the way Taehyung immediately pushes back against him gets him
harder. His hands snake to his front, pop the button and he pushes his jeans down underneath the
globe of him. Denim is hoarse and thick, and it prevents him from fully feeling him and he wants it
out of the fucking way. Taehyung gasps when he presses into him now, when he nestles the shape
of his cock between the fabric of his underwear and he can feel himself sink into the dip of his
cheeks now, his boxing shorts not leaving much to the imagination, and it is terribly exhilarating.

He just really wants to fuck him. He would very much like to just shove his pants down, shove his
cock in and fuck the daylights out of him, because he deserves it, for being so, so salacious. The
way he’d asked him to fuck him with his lips parted, eyes glinting like that, so deceptively
innocent, so frustratingly erotic, enticing. So pretty.

He wonders how much it will hurt him if he does it, if he’ll beg him to stop or if he’ll take it just
for the sake of having Jungkook fuck him.

“Open your mouth,” Jungkook tells him and watches him with hard eyes as he rests his cheek
against the wall and follows through. His profile is just as beautiful, even when squished against
the tile like this, and he dares to make eye contact as his lips part, and Jungkook exhales, rotates his
hips into him and watches his face change with it.

He squeezes fingers of one hand punishingly into the soft flesh of his waist and lifts the other up,
slides two fingers into his waiting mouth. The ring with his family crest brushes cold onto his lip.
“Get them really wet, pretty boy.”

Taehyung moans around the fingers, closes his lips around them and tries to do as told, for his own
sake. He realizes he will hurt, but he’s a bit too far gone to care, his hard cock brushing deliciously
yet torturously into the tiled wall against which Jungkook so thoroughly traps him. The shape of
him fits into Taehyung with suggestion, with promise, and his heart hammers, blood boils. He does
not think sex ever came with the prelude of this, with such build-up, such excitement.

He pushes back into Jungkook, swirls his tongue around his fingers and keeps their eyes locked.
Looking away feels impossible. He’s mesmerized.

Jungkook’s entranced. He does not want to look away from Taehyung. He presses his fingers into
his tongue, under his tongue, wants him to secrete as much saliva as possible. He’s never done this
without the lubrication of a woman and there’s something marginally uncomfortable in the idea
that he will hurt him, but he gets off on it a bit as well, because he remembers he is meant to hurt
him. Would not his dearest father just be fucking proud?

His fingers feel wet enough, but he knows saliva dries. He draws them out of his mouth and
Taehyung’s lips remain parted and suggestive, and he really fucking wants to shove his dick into
him.

He releases his waist for a moment, for the sake of tugging his underwear downwards, eyes
dropping compulsively to peek at the skin he reveals, the globe of his ass so predictably yet
frustratingly perfect. Taehyung watches Jungkook scrutinize every new inch of him, swallows
some invasive nerves. There’s nothing judgmental about the way he looks at him, takes him in, but
there is an intensity that makes Taehyung’s skin flare and heart pound.

He moves his fingers quickly, probing at him and Taehyung’s eyes screw shut, he presses his
forehead into the wall and inhales deeply. He can take this.

The tip of a single finger pushes past the rim and he expects the slight discomfort at the stretch of
it. He does not expect Jungkook’s voice, set and demanding, hard and rough, it’s rough. It has
abandoned all softness and replaced it with sternness, but the connotation of what he says is
different. He says, “Tell me if I hurt you, Taehyung.” Taehyung gulps and hums as his finger dips
to a knuckle. “Okay?”

He’s careful, he’s slow, but he’s also impatient and needy, and used to taking when he wants, and
he wants now, so desperately does. He presses his whole finger inside of him, watches his hips
stutter with it. He’s tight, wonderfully tight and hot, and Jungkook feels himself twitch, his patience
wearing thin and Taehyung is not answering him.

“Are you listening to me, Tae?” Tae. It falls off his lips easily, too easily but he chooses not to
dwell on it as he currently has a finger up the boy’s ass.
He still does not answer, just trembles with the motion of Jungkook’s finger and it pisses him off.
He rotates his other moistened finger along the rim, pushes the tip of it and watches him squirm
around the stretch of it, basks in his gasp, in the way he notices his brows furrow from the side
view he allows him, face buried in the wall. “Fuck,” Jungkook grunts, when Taehyung only bites
his lip until it goes white, “do you wantme to hurt you? Has life fucked you up that badly?”

His second finger slides fully in and with it Taehyung gasps. “No,” he says, and oh, he speaks, tight
and strained and maybe a moment ago, he simply couldn’t force out a response, but now he can.
He gulps, releases a breath. “You did,” he finishes and Jungkook’s fingers thrust into him almost
punishingly.

Taehyung means it. Safe from the occasional stealing, before Jungkook had entered his life, there
was nothing particularly questionableabout it. Now everything is. He appeared and he fucked it all
up, fucked him all up. Thiscertainly is questionable, just what the fuck is he doing. He pushes
against the fingers, pushes against them because they stretch him out and feel downright weird
buried inside of him, but not in a way that is wrong, no, he wants more of it, it draws out his
curiosity. It’s a demanding sensation, steals his focus. Jungkook does as a whole. He forgets most
of everything else and just focuses on him, on his scorching presence behind him, the shape of his
cock that now presses against just one of his cheeks. He wants to feel more of it, more of him.

Jungkook says nothing to Taehyung’s accusation, simply shoves his fingers inside of him harder.
He’s exploratory with the way he moves into him, never having done this with a man. He wants
Taehyung to live with the fact that Jungkook makes him feel good,wants the other to keep wanting
him, so he aims to please, curls his fingers, presses up. Taehyung’s hips snap, a sound drifting
through his lips and he curses and Jungkook presses into him again at that very point and watches
his fists tighten and his teeth bare more where he uses them to press down into his mouth.

Gratification slams inside of Jungkook at the sight of it, sight of repressed pleasure and his lips
curve with a smirk, though his eyes remain narrowed at the younger boy as he works him. He’s still
so impossibly tight. Jungkook slides his fingers out and his smirk stretches when Taehyung whines
with it. He lifts a third finger to his mouth. “Open.”

Taehyung slicks it as thoroughly as he can, allowing his eyes to meet with lewdness and prettiness
that strips Jungkook off of his smirk and he does not give him much time before he sinks three
fingers inside of him. He stretches him out, aims the curve of his digits into that spot that makes
him moan.

He reaches into his pocket, fishes out the condom that was reserved for the random girl of the
night, relieved he has one with extra lubrication because he doesn’t always want to bother.
Working Taehyung up is different, it’s gratifying as its own experience, making him squirm, seeing
him struggle not to moan and failing miserably at hiding the fact he enjoys it.

Still, Jungkook’s so painfully hard.

“You ready, pretty boy?”

Taehyung’s eyes crack opened at him and dart across his face. He releases his lip for the sake of
speaking, of teasing, “Didn’t think of you as one to ask.”

Jungkook’s jaw tightens and he takes his fingers out, shoves him by the back into the wall until
he’s flat against it, arms trapped, and he grips at his hips. “I’ll take that as a fucking yes,” he says,
he growls at him, brings his lips close to his ear to make sure he senses it all when Taehyung
shivers at the sound of it.

He tugs his shorts down, just enough to get his cock out, tears the package with his teeth and
shoves the remains of it in his pocket as he slides the condom down his length. It’s such a relief,
the sensation of it, of having himself out – he’s so painfully hard. He strokes over himself with one
hand, grips tight into Taehyung with the other.

He tugs at him, so his back arches and his ass gives. He’s bent. The line of his spine twists with
peculiar elegance, and for a dumb moment he wishes he wasn’t fucking him in the shower room of
an excuse of a club, where he is expected to return in moments. Christ, people are probably already
looking for him, but he wants to take his time with this, indulge in it as much as the circumstances
allow it.

There’s nothing more fitting than the fact he fucks him here, now. There’s no other context for
him to be with him, no other reason. This is a consequence of circumstance, not something they
seek out from each other. It cannotbe something they look for.

He takes a breath, and he slides inside of him. Taehyung’s teeth grit and his eyes screw shut. He
hisses through the sensation of it, the burn of it. It stretches him out – he’s thick, but it’s not half as
bad as he expects, and he takes it. Jungkook is slow with it, he is careful, and a part of Taehyung
wants to tell him to just shove it in and fuck him already, and another is thankful he’s actually
considerate of just how much that would hurt.

He fills him so well and Taehyung learns he likes the sensation of being full. It comes to him
unexpected, but he basks in it, in the way he makes him feels. His skin tingles and his heart races,
and he’s just so hot. He trembles with every touch and he represses a very ridiculous compulsion to
beg Jungkook to move.

He does. He moves. He starts slow, rocks into him, but he starts off gentle, and it is very much
contrasting to how his fingers clench at him, squeezing into his hips tight and controlling adjusting
him and Taehyung is almost entirely sure he’ll have the prints of his grip shaped into his skin and
it thrills him. He savors every mark, everything that seals the experience into a material memory, a
physical proof, not that he could possibly ever forget. But Jungkook won’t be able to, either. Not
with the way he colored his neck.

His fingers curl over his bones and he grunts with a thrust that propels Taehyung’s hips forward.
He moans into the wall, his forehead pressing into it. He would very much love to watch
Jungkook, wants to angle his head to allow himself to at least peek at him, but the next movement
is slightly forceful, though he still does not bury himself fully inside, and Taehyung has a hard time
keeping his eyes opened.

Jungkook’s breath teases by his ear when Taehyung bottoms out. He fills him, Taehyung feels his
hips against his ass, and he speaks to him, low and raspy, “How does it feel?”

Taehyung’s features screw. He tries to catch his breath and fails, grunts out, “It hurts.”

Jungkook’s hips retract and they fall back into him with the mutter of, “Good.”

“You want, uh—” he struggles, pauses, Jungkook gathers the confidence to move inside of him
and it is so unfamiliar, but good, and he cannot wrap his head around it, around the fact Jungkook
fucks him, “you want to hurt me?”

His hips do not still once they build an initial pace. “I want to ruin you,” Jungkook confesses
roughly as he shoves himself inside of him.

Taehyung’s teeth latch around his lip, but then he releases it, tilts his head, and he manages to open
his eyes for the barest moment, but it is enough for him to meet Jungkook’s depraved gaze and tell
him, “You’re gonna have to try harder then.” He’s going to have to because yes, it hurts, but the
sting of it is terribly delicious.

Jungkook grunts and he does try harder, fucks him harder, lets himself go and fuck him with the
abandon that he craves. He forgets how it hurts. He fucks him senseless and careless and Taehyung
moans with it. Maybe life has really fucked him up. Maybe Jungkook really has, because he pushes
back against the sensation, moves with the direction of his bruising fingers, and he makes the most
mind-numbing sounds, lost and gone and pretty, so pretty. His voice is deep, much deeper than
Jungkook’s, it’s manly, but it’s so beautiful.

Taehyung is surprised how easy it is to lose himself in the sensation of something that his brain has
always pegged as slightly unnatural for him. The concept of getting fucked by a man seems so
rationally emasculating, but when it happens, it feels just right. Jungkook is purposeful in the way
he gyrates his hips to hit a certain spot, finds it impressively quickly and focuses on it and
Taehyung wonders why he ever had sex in any other way.

“Fuck,” Jungkook groans to him and his lips are so close to his nape. Taehyung wants to feel them
again, he misses them, but he doesn’t grant him that. “You’re so tight.”

Taehyung’s skin flushes with it. It feels like a praise, sparks something warm within him and he’s
moaning out. He’s saying, “No one’s ever been inside me.”

Jungkook growls. His head presses into the back of Taehyung’s forehead in his hair, and it only
lasts a moment before he straightens, but it happens. His fingers move up and down, his hips, his
waist. They squeeze into him.

Yes, no one else has ever been inside of him, and he doesn’t want anyone else, not like this.
Jungkook is so thorough. He’s so good. He’s so wrong, but so good, and the hurt is almost all
gone. It’s such an overwhelming feeling, to get fucked, feels so real and raw and encompassing.
The sounds that betray Taehyung are not subject to his control. He’s lost that, must have, to be in
this position. He keeps only a semblance of it, a pitiful semblance that represses his desire to look
at Jungkook, to try for a kiss he knows he won’t receive.

Jungkook pulls his hip backwards until he’s fully bending, and he takes his forehead away from
the wall, presses his forearms into it instead. He fucks him like this, snakes his hand forward and
fists at him, slips his fingers around his length and strokes, and God, how is Jungkook so
thoughtfulwith this.

Taehyung keens. He whimpers. “Jungkook.” It’s a deformity of the name, what escapes his lips,
but it is distinctive enough and it coaxes another groan from the other, a thrust that is desperately
out of rhythm. Taehyung loves the fact he has an effect, being so thoroughly wrecked himself. It’s
only fair that the other loses himself as well. “Ngh, Jungkook.”

His hand is quick over him, skilled, thumb running over the head, palm soothing over veins. His
hand is fucking enough, but the whole combination of it is enough to destroy. His arms move
across the wall, fists clenching, he’s clenching and Jungkook moans with it, and it’s such an
exquisite sound.

“Jungkook, I’m gonna—”

“Come for me,” he breathes.

And Taehyung does. It’s pried from him with the ministrations of Jungkook’s hand, the gyration of
his skilled hips. He comes, comes so hard it eradicates all thought. He brims with the sensation of
it, overwhelmed, tensing one moment, releasing the next. He comes on the tiles of the wall and
Jungkook fucks him all through it.

He fucks him harder then, fucks him faster, with purpose and Taehyung takes it with his eyes
screwed shut and his body almost numb. He fucks him until he comes as well. Comes with a groan
and a slam of his hips. He grips at Taehyung, stills him forcefully and rocks into him until he
pushes into him with the thrust that drains him, and he empties into the condom.

The silence that fills with their exhausted, satiated breaths falls heavy on them. Taehyung keeps his
eyes closed, forehead to the wall, trying to fucking gather himself until Jungkook slips out of him.
He whimpers a bit at it, at the emptiness. It hurts when he slides out.

His fingers leave his hips after a moment too long and then touch has left him altogether. Taehyung
gulps. He has to open his eyes, straighten, face this. He takes his time with it, takes the time
necessary for him to blink away the slight tears that gather at the brim of his eyes from mere
sensation. Takes the time he thinks will allow him to stand without wincing, though his face still
creases when he straightens.

Jungkook has his side to him when Taehyung gives him his side as well and he’s tying his shorts
with unnecessary concentration, chest heaving, up and down, with what just happened. His skin
glistens.

Taehyung tugs himself in, does the button on his jeans. He bends, winces, gathers his shirt and
slides it on.

He runs a hand through his hair, hopes it sorts it out a bit. He breathes. “I should probably go,” he
tries.
 “You should, yes,” Jungkook is saying before he even has the chance to finish, and Taehyung
thinks he expects nothing and still feels somewhat deflated.

His throat constricts. He nods. This is so fucking complicated. He should probably go. Bogum,
Jimin, and Baekhyun, they’re waiting for him, and he prays the Ring is dim enough to hide his
marks for at least that night until he figures shit out. He has so much shit to figure out.

It takes something for Taehyung to tear his eyes away from Jungkook’s profile, but he manages.
“Right,” he says. He hesitates, gives Jungkook the chance to say anything, but he doesn’t, doesn’t
even look at him. “Right,” he repeats. Then he goes. He leaves.

He does not see, but Jungkook does look then, looks as he turns the lock and disappears and slams
the door shut, and Jungkook can finally breathe. He releases a breath so powerful it hurts his
lungs, hollows his cheeks. His hands run wild through his hair and he walks frantic to the showers,
eyes to the floor. He turns the shower underneath which they fucked, turns it so it washes away
Taehyung’s come, and he turns the one next to that as well, the one next to that, and in the third
one he allows himself to stand with his shorts still on.

He turns the cold water, makes sure it freezes and steps underneath, lets the power of the water
beat into him, and he holds his head, pulls at the strands. He scrubs at himself, washes himself, but
he can’t, can’t wash this off.And no, okay, Taehyung may have left, but he still cannot breathe. He
tries to.

When Jungkook fucks people other than Julia, those people don’t matter. They’re faceless.
Taehyung is not faceless. He has a face and it is beautiful and it is etched into Jungkook’s memory
with the attachment of utter hatred.

He may have fucked Taehyung, but no one is more fucked than he is.

Chapter End Notes

wow I love you. people here are genuinely awesome, I never expected so much
engagement with this story, but wow there is. I love reading comments, here and on
twitter, and I love both opinions and some theories people have for this. I genuinely
cannot stress how amazing it feels to witness someone actually care and engage with
something I create, I truly appreciate it. thank you x
 Chapter 14
Chapter Summary

This is one is essentially a blurb and one scene that lasts 4 years

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

To Jungkook’s memory, he used to enjoy nights where the Ozone afterparty was taken to Yoongi’s
rooftop a whole lot more than he is right now. He uses Yoongi’s snuff kit tonight, as he bends
down by the bar, for hygienic purposes. He typically has trust that the surfaces in the penthouse
are thoroughly cleaned and suitable for the spread of a line, though he does not know if Kim Ji-
woo is already as accustomed to the necessity of incessant scrubbing as Yoongi’s previous house
keeper was. On nights like this, however, there is enough human shaped pollution on the premises
for Jungkook to worry it dirties the tables, so he sneaks the custom kit and does his lines on the
snuff mirror.

He inhales what he can of it, straightens up and knocks his head back, arching his neck. He prods a
finger at his nostril, it stings, but it hardly matters, and he wipes off some residual powder that
gathers at the edge, because his hands are shaking a tiny bit and he doesn’t get it all in, the tube
trembling with his fingers.

He brings his head back down with a sigh and he states to Hoseok who has been curiously
hovering around him for the past couple of hours, and he tries not to show it’s pissing him off. He
states with avid determination, “I want to find a girl,” he extends his hand on the bar and curls his
fist onto the surface. The music is quieter here than it is in the Ozone, but he still speaks as if it
vibrates just as powerfully around him. His ears buzz. “And I want to fuck the shit out of her,” he
announces. He very expressively thinks to himself and then he looks at Hoseok’s dulled features
directly. “You know what?” He pauses briefly. “I want to find two, I’m feeling like a threesome
tonight.”

Hoseok cocks his head, raises a hand and pats at Jungkook’s shoulder. “Slow down, kid, you’re
snorting more than Yoongi.”

Jungkook scoffs loudly, with his whole face, shaking the hand off with a roll of both his shoulders
because he’s currently incapable of only rolling one. Then he rolls them again just because it feels
good. “Yoongi doesn’t even like coke,” he says, and he prods a finger at the bar top repeatedly.
“What’s your point, hyung?”
“My point is, Jungkook, that you’re going to knock yourself out at this rate and the only thing
you’ll be balls deep in will be my nerves.”

Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, once, twice, just to have something to do with it. He’s
feeling awfully jittery. “I’m not asking you to take care of me, Hobi,” he says, only a bit through
teeth. He would put more of himself into it, but it hurts his jaw to keep it tight and the inside of his
mouth feels numb.

“You wouldn’t,” Hoseok says, “But you would take care of me.”

He doesn’t entirely know what to say to this, doesn’t want to deny it, but he is not about to attest to
it either, so he keeps silent, his fingers tapping at the surface of the bar top in the same rapid beat
with which his heart slams against his chest, or at least it feels like it.

Hoseok sighs, turns his head away from Jungkook to observe, but does not spare himself an eyeroll
before he focuses on the plethora of people that crowd in Yoongi’s penthouse. “What about her?”
he juts his chin towards a girl who sleazes her eyes over Jungkook quite pointedly and Hoseok
figures he can get her to do what he wants even in this state.

Jungkook traces his gaze towards the girl Hoseok references, meets her eyes and then immediately
sees her startlingly white teeth as her tongue coats over them. He averts his attention. “No,” he
says simply.

Hoseok arches a brow. “No?” Jungkook nods and he keeps nodding, small bobs of his head, before
he catches himself doing it and stops. “She’s fit.”

“She’s short,” Jungkook declares. He watches his fingers tap.

Hoseok’s nose screws. “Since when do you give a fuck about height? Won’t change the fact she
might be tight.”

Jungkook groans, buries his fingers in the front of his hair and latches them around a strand, pulls
at it to see how it would feel. “Don’t rhyme, hyung. It hurts my head.”

“Jungkook—”
“Now,” he says, “since now. I care since now. I want a redhead.”

Hoseok’s brows arch skeptically onto his creased forehead. “A redhead?”

“Yes,” Jungkook nods. His legs shake a tiny bit, knees coming together before they go apart. “I
want to fuck someone, I want to fuck a girl whose hair is red,” he states with hurried conviction. “I
would also like a shot.” As soon as the idea sparks in him, he raises his hand, snaps his fingers and
has a shot in front of him in a couple of moments, and the eyes of a weary bartended sliding over
him for less than a second. Choosing this particular surface to prop Yoongi’s snuff mirror on is
borderline genius, he thinks.

He grips the shot, throws his head back and pours it down his throat. A little bit of the liquid slides
down his tongue before he swallows it, and he seeks the burn of its taste, but his buds have frozen,
feel numb, and he only gets the heat of alcohol when it settles in his chest. He wipes at his mouth
with the back of his wrist.

“There is no one with red hair here, Jungkook.”

“Fine,” Jungkook grumbles. He’s grumbling, he’s petulant, but he feels fucking good. His body
tingles, fingers shake, and he senses it to be borderline amazing though his mind is running, runs,
runs, runs, at some crazy miles an hour which he cannot determine. “Someone with a real nice ass
then,” he insists. Yes, that’s a must for tonight. “Round,” he says, “perky.”

“Okay,” Hoseok nods.

“Have you ever seen how bony Julia’s ass is, God, there’s literally nothing to hold.I want to put my
hand on something, you know? I want to, I want to—” what does he want, he was going
somewhere with this, he swears.

“Yes,” Hoseok says, “but she’s Julia,” he emphasizes as if it means something, as if it means
everything,

Jungkook scowls. “And I’m Jungkook,” he responds. “And you’re Hoseok hyung. And I want to
fuck someone with a nice ass.”
He says that, keeps saying that, but no one is fucking good enough, not one ass that night captures
his attention, his attention which is everywhere, so he keeps saying it to Hoseok all night long and
then he passes out at one of Yoongi’s chaise lounges and Yoongi puts sunglasses on him and some
sun scream before he puts some on himself and lies on the chaise lounge next to him.

The sound induces some anxiety and a reflex for Taehyung to pick up a lengthy umbrella on the
way as he takes tentative steps towards his front door, because a) no one has come in through the
front door in at least a couple of years and b) no one has ever knocked before they’d entered.

Not that the sound produced on the door is actual knocking. It’s a lot closer to the definition of
banging, rapid and incessant on the fragile surface of the Kim’s wooden door that makes winters
cold and summers scorch. The nature of the sound only serves to pick up his heart rate further,
when he’d just been comfortably taking advantage of the free house, still in his work clothes, sans
a belt, socks, and his tie, playing video games that were supposedly for Woojin on the couch.

When he does open the door and steps back a little with his umbrella readied, his heart rate spirals
out of control. He freezes in the position he takes, and he runs his eyes over the guest, a double
take, a triple take, and he still feels the ridiculous cartoon-movie need to rub his eyes to check if he
perceives reality or he has taken to hallucinations because of too many video games.

Because certainly Jeon Jungkook cannot be standing at his door. Taehyung, if he had to bet, would
quite confidently venture a guess that he has not even heard of the neighborhood Taehyung lives
in, let alone that he pays the occasional visit. Taehyung stares at him, dumbfounded, eyes wide,
lips parted, as if he’s an apparition of some sort and he simply must be, because a Jeon would
consider even the air in this area too unworthy to breathe, the ground too dirty to walk on with
Louis Vuitton shoes.

But someone that looks strikingly alike Jungkook leans his arm at the edge of his doorframe and
looks mind-numbingly relaxed while he’s at it. He dresses like Jungkook, brand names labeling all
of his clothes, and he carries the same ambiance as him, smells like him, which is a scent
Taehyung does not want to admit he recognizes, but he does, it’s inscribed in his memory painfully,
attached to instances, to moments, he cannot allow himself to think about. The guy’s eyes slither
across Taehyung’s body under a skeptically arched brow, as he stands holding the umbrella with
confusion outlined on his features and Taehyung feels his heart palpitate in that very familiar way
that only Jungkook can evoke.
He straightens up. “Can I come in?” He sounds like him as well.

Taehyung feels rather eloquent when all he can produce as he lowers the umbrella and Jungkook
brushes past him without waiting for an actual permission is the exclamation of, “What the fuck?”

Jungkook steps past the threshold of his house as if he has been cordially invited. Taehyung angles
his body sideways to let him through without allowing his shoulder to brush his chest, because
quite frankly, his presence scares him. He has not laid an eye on Jungkook for about a week and a
half, because he has not been in vicinity for the time being. The last time he saw him was beneath
that shower and ever since Jungkook has been AWOL, nowhere to be seen, not at the Ozone,
certainly not at Rouge. If Taehyung didn’t know any better, he’d assume Jungkook was
specifically going out of his way to avoid him. He’d been about ready to be petty about it, certainly
not enjoying how he went to work every single day with the anxiety of potentially seeing him
again, and not knowing how to fully act if he does appear. He knows he has no specific right to act
out in any way, but it does not remove the frustration from overthinking and planning and then
wretchedly feeling ridiculously disappointed when another day passes without Jungkook.

When he settles on an attitude of sheer pettiness, he only knows how to apply it on a waiter-client
basis in the frame of his mind. He certainly has never pre-imagined a situation in which Jungkook
comes to his house, without any warning whatsoever. Not that were he warned, Taehyung would
heed it, as simply it strikes him as a plot of some alternate universe.

“I can’t be home right now and Hoseok and Yoongi can’t know,” Jungkook speaks as he walks in,
his eyes scanning the space he ventures into, head tilting in all directions.There’s something
slightly different to his voice. Taehyung thinks he moves his tongue too quickly. Jungkook turns to
look at him hover at the door, the door he refuses to close, because he refuses to accept Jungkook
will actually linger. He looks at him pointedly, expressively. It’s so uncommon. “And it’s
ridiculously easy to find out your address, wow, this is a shithole.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung says as he finally gives the door a push and hears it snap shut. He ignores
the fact Jungkook found his address, is not too surprised it’s out there, considering, flattens his
expression slightly at the very much unnecessary comment about his house, but remains
surprisingly unbothered by it, which he largely justifies with the fact it is entirely unsurprising. He
slips the umbrella back into place. “Are you alright?” He isn’t, he can’t be, if he’s here. Something
must have gone horribly awry on a neural, synaptic level for Jungkook to have made the decision
to seek out Taehyung’s house and enter it.

“Don’t know,” Jungkook shrugs and he’s fucking restless with the way he marches off to different
corners of Taehyung’s living room, “haven’t snorted that much coke in a while.”

“Jungkook—"
“Christ,” he interrupts with some questionable passion and charges wide eyes at Taehyung for a
moment before he allows them to continue their rapid exploration of the room, which he regards as
if it is extraterrestrial,“how do you commute every day? I’d move in fucking Rouge if I were you.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung tries to get his attention again, walking towards him and taking a toy
figurine that he bought for Woojin out of Jungkook’s unwelcome grip. He tries to look at his face,
because when has Jungkook ever moved with such borderline childish energy, tries to find his
eyes, but as soon as he meets them, they are gone, scrutinizing every bit of the space. “What about
Julia?” he asks, because why would he come here, even if Yoongi and Hoseok are not an option,
surely Taehyung’s fucking house is not the next best place.

“Julia?” Jungkook contemplates somewhat animatedly. He’s incredibly chatty, tone light and lifted.
He’s peculiarly breezy and it bothers Taehyung how out of character it is. He has no preconception
on how to deal with this Jungkook, and just how much cocaine did he snort. “Julia’s in Paris. She
wanted a pain au chocolat. Really craved it, she says.”

“Oh,” Taehyung says. He glances down at the toy he now he fingers anxiously. He acknowledges,
“she’s gone.”

Jungkook does rest his gaze on him then, now that Taehyung is not looking. He skids his eyes over
him, dropping them to watch the way slender fingers toy with the figurine. “She wanted me to
come with.”

Taehyung’s eyes lift to his face, but Jungkook’s remain entranced on the digits that twirl around
the piece of plastic. “But you didn’t,” Taehyung says and mostly, it’s a pointless statement. For a
moment Jungkook’s gaze slides upwards and Taehyung can see the width of his dilated pupils
before he takes them away.

“No, I’m off carbs,” he dismisses. “I have to say I did not picture the Kim residence like that.”

Taehyung’s brows shoot up on his forehead. It creases. “The Kim residence?” There is some
humor in his voice as he repeats questioningly. He’s weirdly entertained by the phrase, by the way
Jungkook says it as if he means humor, which is just as bizarre as the very fact he is physically
inside the Kim residence.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods. He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and taps the tip of his
forefinger on his chin and Taehyung has genuinely never seen this much expression on his features
if it is not formulated in a threat. “Looks quite homely,” he shrugs and then shifts a pointed look to
Taehyung. “Still a shithole, though. It could use a renovation.”

Taehyung’s features dull as he returns Woojin’s toy to its rightful place. He expects himself to be
more bothered by such comments, by the very fact that something as expensive as Jungkook is
inside his, admittedly, shithole of a house, an exposure to his monetary vulnerability, perfectly
placing himself in the position to judge and to mock. “I barely have enough money to pay rent,”
Taehyung says because he struggled and sacrificed his sensibility to replace a single stove. He’s
not about to do a fucking episode of Fixer Upper because Jungkook suddenly decided visiting
times are open.

Jungkook’s face shifts to something that is more familiar to Taehyung. A smirk graces his features,
though his pupils are wide enough for the glint in them to appear different. It could be only that, or
it could be intention as well, but Taehyung is sure it must be only the former. “Yeah?” his lips curl.
“Want some?” and then, so very casually, with half a shrug, he adds, “You could always suck my
cock.”

An unbidden color coats Taehyung’s cheeks as his eyes roll, a sigh immediately ripped from his
chest, his mouth, and he does not know precisely where he attempts to go – he cannot escape him
in his own house -- but he does mean to walk away from him, the slight concern, drastically
unwarranted, dwindling from his awareness of Jungkook. He manages a step and a half past him
before Jungkook’s body twists to follow his motion and his fingers, warm, latch securely around
his wrist and tug him back, tug him closer.

“Wait,” Jungkook says as his hand briefly trails after Taehyung before he pulls him back and
Taehyung falls into a position that is literal inches before him. “I didn’t mean that.” His eyes find
Taehyung for a moment and he dares to simulate exasperation, “Don’t get offended on me.”

Taehyung’s eyes land on the grip Jungkook perpetuates, his thumb sliding lightly across the apple
of his palm before he follows the gaze to where they touch, and he releases him. Taehyung sighs
again, sighs differently, tiredly, before he glances upwards and allows himself to study Jungkook’s
face again. “Why can’t you go home?” he asks softly.

He’s conflicted. He does not necessarily want Jungkook to leave, but he doesn’t want him there
either, in his home, in his comfort zone, still acting and holding himself with utmost confidence
even if the coke makes him peculiarly bubbly. He says a lot, yes, more than he usually would, but
he does not show much more than he typically does and the frustration of lost communication, of
his reticence characteristically grained into a cool neutrality now animated into chatter, remains.

He does not understand why Jungkook is there and he hopelessly wants to.
Jungkook pries his eyes away. He takes a step, another and he hovers around the couch Taehyung
was sitting on when he was so rudely interrupted. “Clo needs to have the house,” Jungkook says
with absolutely no semblance of being actually informative. “Can I sit?”

“Erm,” Taehyung hesitates, lingering at the other side of his coffee table. He crosses his arms. He
has never expected Jungkook to ask him for permission for anything, let alone twice in one day and
incidentally, this time he actually waits for a response. Taehyung swallows around it, for some
reason it strains to leave his throat, “yes.”

Jungkook easily drops back onto the couch, bouncing once onto it as if he is testing it and he looks
around again, his head finding what the furniture faces, and his features deform with something in
the midst of horror and confusion. He lifts a finger to indicate and he only lets the horror seep into
his voice as he asks, “What is that?”

Taehyung scans his eyes across the room to find what could possibly evoke such a reaction,
moving subconsciously closer in effort to narrow his line of vision with Jungkook’s. His voice is
dead with his reply when he recognizes Jungkook could only be pointing to one object. He blinks
at his guest. “A TV.”

Jungkook leans back into the couch, placing his ankle on top of his knee and for some reason
Taehyung looks at his socks, and God even they look as if they are too much of a luxury to exist in
this neighborhood. He relaxes a single arm on the length of the back of the couch. His posture
annoys Taehyung. Were the places reversed and on some unthinkable instant Taehyung ventured
into Jungkook’s home, he’d probably not make it past his infamous marble hallway without asking
verbal permission to take a step further.

“Ancient,” Jungkook notes and Taehyung groans.

He takes the one step necessary to reach and plops himself down onto the couch too, a hand
running through his hair. He makes a point to sit on a separate cushion, but he angles his body
towards Jungkook nevertheless and looks at him. “Seriously,” he says, “why can’t you just go
home?”

Jungkook clicks hit tongue. “Can’t,” is all he delivers.

“Why?”
He does not look at Taehyung, gives him the side of his face so all Taehyung is allowed to notice
is the pull of his jaw, the muscle at the edge of it ticking by his ear. “She feels crowded,” he says,
voice smaller, quicker. He gets it out as if it physically pains his lips to formulate the words. His
tongue pokes out, skims as his lips, “She just needs Seokjin right now.”

“What?” Taehyung asks, his brows furrowing, body involuntary edging forward as he attempts to
catch a glimpse of Jungkook’s expression. There’s something tangibly ominous about the way he
only delivers bits and pieces of information with a heaviness not akin to him. It gives rise to an
awaking concern within Taehyung that he prays to chase away, but it tangles dangerously with his
everlasting curiosity and it is a stimulating combination. “Why?”

Jungkook pauses. He adjusts his position, gets both feet flat on the floor now, knees spreading, just
so he could lean on them to secure his expression as even less visible. “He helps her when she gets
like this,” he says, speaks fast, jaw unhinging and tongue dancing at the relief of his teeth as he
stretches out a silence when he formulates words in his mind, “when she panics. I used to help her
best, but now he helps her better, and she’s better off with one person.”

“She gets attacks?” Taehyung is asking before he really gives himself time to think it is intrusive.
He certainly would not be answering those questions readily if they were falling from Jungkook’s
lips in relation to him, so really, he does not expect much of an answer.

He gets more than he would bet on, though it is much more typically laconic. He gets a shrug. He
gets a mumble of, “Sometimes.”

Jeon Clo Eun gets panic attacks. Perfect, composed, sculptured in every aspect, cruel and beautiful,
Clo Eun who is a Jeon and who always appears so utterly ethereal, who can get men of all ages on
their knees. Clo Eun who is a prodigy at the violin and has whispers in the musical world about her
from professionals who do not give a damn about the name attached to her but are still capable of
acknowledging her potential for classical prowess. Jeon Clo Eun who is Jungkook’s sister. Stone
cold Jeon Clo Eun who is a Taunting Twin. She gets panic attacks.

“That’s—” Taehyung begins and with that he ends. He does not know what to say, how to express
what he is thinking because quite frankly he does not consider his shock that her perfection is
imperfect appropriate. He wants to say sorry, but he is very consciously aware sorry is a piece of
shit word to say when it comes to this. Sorry sounds insincere, stupid, textbook, not something he
would want to hear about Ji-woo if he’d share something like this about her. What Taehyung
settles for is just as stupid and meaningless, because all Taehyung manages to get out into the air
between them is a short, “oh,” a dumbfounded exclamation of realization.
Taehyung doesn’t know much about panic attacks, but he knows more often than not they do not
spiral out of thin air. They carry a history and carry a meaning. Taehyung forgets sometimes, that
the Jeons can hurt as well.

Jungkook turns his head, turns it for barely a moment, and Taehyung does not manage to catch
much, but what he does detect is that Jungkook has receded back into something more guarded
than before, but it feels less cold than it typically does. It feels as if it is not for the sake of
instilling a sensation into Taehyung, not a flash of reticent superiority, but for the sake of shielding
Jungkook himself. “You don’t have to say shit,” he tells him, and he turns his face to his own
hands which meet between his knees. He prods at his ring, slips it off of his finger before he rolls it
on again and Taehyung’s eyes are hopelessly drawn to the motion of it as well. “It’s okay. She gets
better,” he twirls the ring around his second knuckle. His gaze roots to it as if it necessitates his
dedicated concentration. “Just needs him to tell her he loves her.”

Taehyung must have lost his sense of a filter because he allows words to slip too easily, “Can’t
you?” he asks. “Don’t you?”

The only thing that Taehyung has in his life that he knows he can count on are his own siblings.
He’d thought it was all of them, thought he could count on Namjoon as much as he would allow
Namjoon to lean on him, and for him, he’d bend over backwards. He assigned to him a security he
is too careful to entrust into people because people are fluid, they change. But maybe Namjoon
simply did not love him as much as Taehyung loves Namjoon. He loves Ji-woo, he loves Woojin.

Taehyung does not know if Jungkook is capable of love.

Jungkook’s eyes snap to his and they don’t glare, but they do recapture some of his more
characteristic intensity that makes Taehyung fidget. “Love her?” he says, and his voice is hard for
the duration of the question before his gaze reseals to the motion of his own fingers and it softens,
lowers, “Love her more than anything else, but it’s been getting harder to prove.” He straightens a
bit. “He does it well, he calms her.” He shrugs. “It’s fine.” He shrugs.

Taehyung feels a desire prod at him to press further, see how much he would give, but it is almost
palpable how he closes off more and more with every atypical shrug. He shifts his curiosity in
another direction.

“Why can’t Yoongi and Hoseok know?” he asks because he is more comfortable intruding into his
relationship with his labeled friends than venturing into the territory of his family. Maybe he
projects his own sensitivity on the subject onto Jungkook, maybe he just feels his in the rising
tension of his posture.
Jungkook leans back into the couch again, turning his whole head around to look at Taehyung with
the confidence of insouciance that securely erases any and all affect from his features and allows
them to flatten into a slightly hostile boredom. “You ask a lot of fucking questions, don’t you?”

Taehyung gives a short scoff. His eyes narrow and he is pointed. “You came to my house.”

The other’s head falls back, the whole of his throat exposed and Taehyung’s gaze graces over it,
white and pale, untouched, while his still has a single dwindling mark to remind him of Jungkook’s
touch. “Yeah,” he notes slow and meaningless. “What do you do around here?”

Taehyung watches him for a moment, stares at his jaded eyes as they comfortably fall on his face
and just dart all over. Taehyung feels a sort of defensive animosity that could easily be cause of the
simplicity of Jungkook’s very presence in his house, which conceptually is more unnerving than he
feels it to be, but he senses it grow with the frustration of Jungkook letting him have a taste of
sincerity before slipping into a Jeon, and then immediately recede with a peculiar tug of pity.

Taehyung looks away and allows the enmity of his own eyes to dissipate. “Well, when my family
is out –”

Jungkook’s brows lift. “Your family is out?”

He nods. He honestly does not know how either Jungkook or he would have explained his presence
to Ji-woo had she been there, but in earnest Jungkook would probably not have made it past the
door if she were. “My brother’s at a sleepover,” Taehyung says. He pauses, ponders, a quick poke
of his tongue at his lips. “My sister’s at a different kind of a sleepover.”

Jungkook does not shift a muscle, relaxed onto the back of the couch, his body almost slacked in a
posture not entirely as graceful as himself. “So, it’s true, she is a slut.”

Taehyung’s eyes snap to him, flashing with an offended warning. His teeth click together as he
pronounces his name, “Jungkook –"

“What?” Jungkook interjects and lets his palms fall on the cushions of the couch around him.
“There’s nothing bad about it.” He uses them to prop himself up and sit a little straighter, but his
eyes do not shift away from Taehyung’s face. “I’m kind of a slut, if you haven’t noticed, fuck
pretty boys when I should be fucking my girlfriend.”
Taehyung has his lips parted and tongue readied to snap, but instead his jaw slackens. He goes
blank for a moment, keeps his glare firm on Jungkook. He has no proper response formulating as
his mouth clicks and his blood rushes at the fact Jungkook would as much as mention it after
disappearing for a week and a half. Jungkook confuses Taehyung, confuses the fuck out of him and
he frustrates him, and angers him, and turns him on and makes him goddamn curious about
Jungkook and about his own self, and he simply doesn’t know what to do with that.

So he turns his head away, looks at the TV, answers his previous question, “I was playing video
games” He adjusts on the couch, puts the ankle of one leg underneath the thigh of the other. “You
interrupted me.”

Jungkook’s head cocks. “Video games?” his voice lilts lightly.

“Are you going to insult that about me as well?” Taehyung says dully.

“No, actually…” he fully straightens now. He pauses, so visibly hesitates. “What were you
playing?”

Confuses him. Taehyung frowns. Jungkook is the most perplexing individual he has ever met.
Taehyung is almost cautious as he pauses, mulls over the potential repercussions of answering such
a simple, easy question. “…Overwatch.”

He does not know what to expect as a reaction, but he certainly did not imagine Jungkook would
perk up. But he does. His eyes grow a tiny bit wider, brows shoot up and lips press together
appreciatively. “Really?” he quirks. “Shit. I haven’t played in months.”

Taehyung blinks. “You play Overwatch?”

And the pattern begins again. Perfect Jeon Jungkook, stone cold, untouchable, unattainable,
underground fighter Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook who is so constantly and pointedly bored because
he cannot be seen entertained by the peasantry of those around him, who spends his pastime
snorting coke and fucking girls (and Taehyung, maybe), and knocking people out. Taunting Twin
Jungkook plays fucking video games.

It’s such a normal thing to do. Taehyung doesn’t only forget Jeons can get hurt. He forgets
sometimes they’re people as well and can’t only fill their time with being rich and being pricks.
Still, how does Jeon Jungkook play fucking Overwatch?

Jungkook adjusts on the couch and he scoffs a bit, speaks with a bitterness that is not reserved for
this conversation, “Not since someone cracked my rib once and my father blamed it on video game
overdose and not the fact the guy was double my size.”

Taehyung’s eyes dart across Jungkook as he takes his face away from him with that final
adjustment on the cushion. He doesn’t have anything to say to this as well, though he doesn’t figure
voicing the slight pity that reemerges and thwarts his attempt to give way to the distaste at having
Jungkook in his house, but he simply cannot find in himself as desperately as he searches for it.

He flicks his brows up even if Jungkook isn’t looking at him anymore. “Want to play?”

“Fuck, yes.”

Taehyung stands up, gets a second joystick, sits back, unintentionally sits a bit closer on the
cushion next to him as he holds the joystick close to his lap to take it to him. Jungkook takes it as if
the two of them can on any level be truly casual.

The game loads. Taehyung licks his lips, hesitates. Then he speaks. “So, your father knows you
fight illegally?”

The game starts.

“Oh, he’s a fan,” Jungkook laces the words in a sour irony. “He doesn’t much care for the word
illegal. It’s explaining my injuries at luncheons and gatherings that bothers him, mostly.”

There’s something about the attention of both of them being reserved entirely on the flashing
screen that makes thinking less enough for the conversation to have some peculiar flow that is
almost ordinary.

“That’s shit,” Taehyung states, genuinely.

“Yeah,” Jungkook grumbles out. His thumbs move on the joystick easily. “Being rich is not always
a walk in the park, either, Kim.” He gives him a side glance short enough to smirk with the sound
of his family name.

Taehyung’s eyes roll. “Yeah?” he clicks on his joystick passionately. “I’ve actually heard your
father is the biggest piece of shit in all of Richhood.” His pupils dart to the side and return
immediately to the screen. “No offense.”

Jungkook remains focused on the TV. “None taken. Your sister is entitled to think he’s a piece of
shit.”

“She?” Taehyung’s brows crease. His head shifts for a moment long enough to see Jungkook nod.
“Why?”

Jungkook’s teeth find his lip and maybe it’s in concentration. “Don’t you talk?”

Taehyung shrugs. He feels a compulsion to look at Jungkook, but the motion on the screen is
gripping enough for now. “We used to,” he confesses, “Now, not much more than you and your
sister do, I suppose.” He says it, pauses, thinks. Jungkook does not reply, not immediately, and his
eyes seek him out. “Sorry, I—"

“It’s fine,” Jungkook interrupts. There’s a part of him that inexplicably wants for someone
Taehyung trusts, someone like his sister, to stress to Taehyung just how much of a piece of shit his
father is, so that he knows for sure that Jungkook means it when he says his father would be the
type of person to slice of that which dictates him a man if he knew the last few times Jungkook
fucked his own girlfriend who has been accredited as the perfect woman he thought about
Taehyung. “God,” Jungkook exhales a bit as the game loads for a moment again and Taehyung
looks at him feel the controller around in his hands, staring down at it with a somewhat innocent
hint of fascination that manages to break through the walls he now builds. “I haven’t held a
joystick in so long.” He glances up. “I’ll still beat your ass, though.”

The game has loaded. Taehyung scoffs, his head shaking as he sits more comfortably, leans on his
knees to give the TV the full concentration it deserves. “No chance, rich boy,” he clicks his tongue.
“All the time you’ve spend licking ass at luncheons I’ve spent practicing.” And the game has
started. “I’ll own your ass.”

Jungkook reciprocates the scoff, furnishes it with a tug of his lips, a smirk that is somehow crafted
and not warranted, a smirk that is for the sake of conversation. “Please,” he stresses. “I already own
yours,” He says and Taehyung presses on a button with his thumb much too hard and the joystick
almost slips from his hands, but he firms his grip at the last moment. “Allow yourself some self-
respect and keep your mouth shut before you embarrass yourself.”

Another loading screen and Taehyung’s eyes are back on Jungkook, always on Jungkook as the
both of them sit on his couch, the couch of the Kim Residence in mirroring gaming postures
swearing they’ll beat each other’s asses on a game.

And Jungkook’s head snaps to him, “What?”

Taehyung blinks, pauses. “What?”

Jungkook’s chin juts at him a little. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Like what, Taehyung wants to say, but he doesn’t because he already knows his eyes are a bit too
wide, and his lips part when they don’t need to. So instead of preserving an attitude, he simply says
softly, he voices his thoughts, “You look so fucking out of place here.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook indicates with his whole face, with his brows, his tongue poking in his cheek
and then his attention returns on the screen because the game has loaded. But Taehyung just keeps
looking at him, at the protruding skin and flesh at the side of his face as his tongue prods at it from
the inside. His mouth seals shut, and he takes a brief moment. “I don’t feel that out of place.”

Taehyung loses the next game.

Taehyung does not know how much time passes, but it feels incredibly short when the alarm on his
phone goes off and then another sound rings around from the room under the stairs. He reaches for
his phone to shut it off which, incidentally, is between the cushions of the couch on the other side
of Jungkook. He aims for it so reflexively he does not factor in it will demand for his body to layer
and hover over Jungkook’s lap as his fingers feel around for the device. Jungkook leans back,
stares at the screen and Taehyung stares at it as well before he clicks the one button necessary for
the phone to shut up and he discards it again somewhere on the soft surface.

Taehyung’s straightens up and stands and if reaching over Jungkook’s lap so casually is a
transgression of some sort neither of them addresses it. “Laundry’s done,” he says in justification.

Jungkook’s forehead creases. “Laundry?”

“Yeah?” Taehyung nods, widens his eyes on purpose as he animatedly explains, rotating his
forefinger in the air to simulate the motion of a washing machine. “You know that thing that gets
your clothes clean.”

Jungkook glowers at him, though it holds little of the typical intensity of a Jungkook glare. “I know
what laundry is, Taehyung.”

Taehyung is walking towards the room where the washing machine and the drier are situated and
surprisingly, Jungkook gets up to follow. “Good then,” Taehyung directs behind his back, “you’re
not completely imbecilic.”

He saunters in and Jungkook leans at the doorframe of the inexistent door because there hardly is
enough room for Taehyung and the laundry basket he keeps on top of the washer, let alone the both
of them, inside. He crosses his arms as relaxes the side of his bicep onto the wood. “Careful,” he
says, eyeing Taehyung as he kneels in front of the drier.

“Why?” Taehyung says and he feels humor but speaks flat. “Thought I was too pretty for you to
break my face,” he challenges just a little snidely. He allows his eyes to meet Jungkook’s under
strands of his bangs, a stilted playfulness residing there to be masked over by dullness.

Jungkook shrugs as Taehyung piles clothes in his basket. “You have a lot of bones.”

“Okay,” Taehyung says as he shuts the door of the drier and puts the basket on top to have space to
straighten up, “but I need them to do laundry, so please, refrain.”

“Can’t you do it later?” he asks, but there are not enough drugs in the world for him to add,because
I want to play video games with you now.

“No,” Taehyung says and looks at him as he speaks, tries to articulate his point with his features as
well as if he is partaking in a completely normal conversation, “clothes were in the drier. It will
start to stink, water comes back down the pipe and gets the fabric wet again and keeping it in a
closed space is not pretty. “

“That’s information I will forget,” Jungkook informs him as Taehyung refocuses to inspect the
clothes for any missing socks.
“Doesn’t suit you to know it, anyway,” he mutters to him as he feels around the basket and scowls
down at some moist fabric that brushes his skin. “Shit,” he breathes through his nose, some
underlying exasperation, “half of those are still fucking wet.”

Jungkook taps a finger on his forearm, raises his eyebrows. “Need a new machine?”

Taehyung’s head snaps to him, his eyes growing immediately wide and the exasperation is
anything but underlying now. “If you tell me to suck your cock, I swear—"

“I wasn’t,” Jungkook interjects, but he is smirking, and Taehyung does not know what Jungkook
would have suggested exactly, but he is certain he would have not liked the sound of it. Maybe the
feel of it, yes, but that’s a whole other story outside of the frame of any sort of payment.

Taehyung slumps his shoulders as he places both his hands on the handles of the basket. “I need to
sort these out,” he tells Jungkook. “Upstairs.”

He secures the basket in his grip and pushes past Jungkook, who angles his body easily to let him
slip through, trailing his attention after him.

“Okay,” he replies and uncrosses his arms, extends a motioning hand in front of Taehyung in a way
that is ridiculously gentlemanly, and Taehyung wants to roll his eyes, “lead the way.”

He glances at him. “You’re coming?”

When Taehyung turns and walks, Jungkook follows with a shrug. “Want to see more of the Kim
residence.”

“Fine,” Taehyung says with a careful glance behind his back as he leads him to the kitchen. “Don’t
trust you to leave you here, anyway.”

Jungkook captures his eyes for the short amount of time he gives them to him and accompanies the
contact with another small smirk. “When have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”
Taehyung almost chokes on the snort that follows as he pauses on the bottom of his stairs because
it is unsafe to be walking up and processing Jungkook’s last joke at the same time. Taehyung
allows all of the incredulity he contemplates into his expression as he shakes his head and starts up.
“Coke makes you fucking weird.”

Jungkook shrugs as he trails behind. “Sometimes.”

Taehyung tries hard not to be entertained as he climbs up. “Mind the second step,” he warns.

“Renovate,” Jungkook says.

“Fuck you,” he replies, realizes the door he’s opened at the second the words depart his mouth and
he turns at the top of the stairs, sliding a momentary glare towards him to see the clear intention on
his face as he glances at it. “Don’t say anything.”

Jungkook raises his brows, once, twice, the smirk secured on his face, but he does remain silent as
Taehyung walks the two steps required to reach the room Woojin and him share.

“Is that your room?” Jungkook asks as he ventures in, eyes scanning the space immediately.
Taehyung strolls over to the closet and cracks the door opened, settling the basket on the lower
bunk that is right next to it.

“Yeah,” he says, his focus on the laundry, as he tries to swallow down some peculiar nervousness
that settles in his stomach and the hollow of his chest. He has not had anyone in his room in literal
years, not since he was a child, and he realizes the room itself tells more than he would like to. It’s
been the same ever since he was born, the furniture inside of it as well, and each sticker on the
doors of the closet, the walls, the scratches onto wood is a piece of memorabilia by itself. There
are stickers from a variety of his and Namjoon’s anime phases, a few too many Naruto ones on the
window sill. There are toys he used to play with that now Woojin uses. There are the lines that
Woojin makes on the desks of the top bunk with his math’s compasses to count the days for which
their father disappears.

There is no way for Jungkook to know the meaning of those lines, to understand their treacherous
vulnerability, to know that Taehyung counts them as well when he tells Woojin goodnight, but he
still feels overly aware of the corners of this room which are usually privy to him and his family
alone now exposed to Jungkook’s eyes and he does not shy away from taking, gaze exploring.
Taehyung focuses on laundry because he cannot look at Jungkook look.

“That’s a fucking bunk bed,” Jungkook says as if its existence offends him and tosses himself onto
the double bed propped by the window, adjusting both pillows to hold his head up.

“Saves space,” Taehyung shrugs as he folds some of the clothing that doesn’t need ironing.

Jungkook taps a palm on the cover sheet he lies on as he fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Who
gets the double?”

“Namjoon.”

There’s a pause and Jungkook’s eyes lift from the screen they’ve newly found to glance at
Taehyung who proceeds to sort out fabrics. “Oh.”

“Think you’re the first person to lie down on it since he left,” Taehyung confesses more for his
sake than to be informative to Jungkook. He shifts his gaze to the other as his fingers fumble with a
sock that has attached to a t-shirt. It seems nearly unnatural to have someone lay on Namjoon’s bed,
let alone the likes of Jeon Jungkook.

Jungkook’s brows lift a bit into his forehead and he shifts, straightening, “Are you waiting for me
to get up?”

Taehyung shakes his head, returns his attention to the clothes. “No, it’s fine.” He starts on the
socks, placing a pair together and rolling it into a well held up tight ball.

Jungkook’s brows go further up towards his hair and his nose scrunches. “The fuck are you
doing?”

Taehyung is just as confused as Jungkook appears. “Sorting out clothes?”

Jungkook readjusts the pillows underneath him for a second time. A third. Fucking picky. “That’s
how you fold socks?” he says, exclaims almost.
Taehyung shakes his head, sighs, chases away the small smile that attempts to tug at his lips. “Of
course, you don’t even know how to fold fucking socks.”

“Hey,” Jungkook says, his returning to the glaring device in his hand as he speaks, “you don’t
know how to tie a tie. I don’t know how to fold socks. I don’t know how to work a laundry
machine. You don’t know how to knock a guy out.” Taehyung glances at him, but he is firmly set
on typing a message. “To each their own.”

Taehyung has little to say to that. He does not really want to verbally agree with Jungkook on
anything, figures it useless. The day has been conceptually traumatizing enough. He allows the
words to linger in the air and returns to his folding, lets Jungkook adjust the pillow for the nth time.

He gives him his back, reserves his whole attention to his closet, so he fails to see the fatal
readjustment. All he is aware of next is that Jungkook’s shuffling on the bed, but then he is not, he
is on his feet.

“What is this,Taehyung?” And it is his voice, so familiar, so much more like the Jungkook he
knows that makes Taehyung spin with alertness not the memory that he is a forgetful idiot.

No, that only comes when his eyes land on the object that Jungkook’s got in his hand, the one he
himself put under Namjoon’s pillow earlier this week because he knows it is the only place in the
whole house that is secure from Woojin’s wandering hands and Ji-woo’s inspections. The object
he’d desperately wanted to remain secret that now resides most comfortably in Jungkook’s raised
hand.

Jungkook who is capable of some striking duality as moments ago he appeared so normal, a bit
petulant, weirdly chill, playing games and marveling at sock folding skills, now glares, poised. His
whole posture is different, stiffer, tighter. He is much more underground fighter Jeon Jungkook,
rich ass prick Jungkook than he is the guy who plays video games.

“Shit,” Taehyung drops a sock back in the basket and reaches for it, but Jungkook raises his hand
up and back as if he is preventing a child from getting its toy, “put it down.”

Taehyung tries to get it again, but it necessitates contact with Jungkook’s body. He would have to
lean a hand on his chest to keep balance if he reaches for it, so his efforts are futile, yet the space
between them is still erased in Taehyung’s mindless endeavor to take it from him. His skin is
flaring. His heart thumps and, god, he wants to fucking hide. It’s granted that Jungkook’s presence
in his house should induce some embarrassment, but he expected it to be more a consequence of
Jungkook further focusing on the fact it is a shithole than this and honestly, he’d rather take
Jungkook by the hand and show him every place in which this house falls apart but this.

Jungkook’s jaw is tighter now. His words articulate careful and hard, puncture through Taehyung’s
skull. “That’s fucking lube.”

Taehyung swallows, his hand still up in the air, but it falls, drops, it’s hopeless. He means to take a
step back but Jungkook just takes it with him, trails forward, and they’re still inches apart. “Yes, I
–”

“Who the fuck do you need lube for?” Jungkook seethes and Taehyung still wants to back away,
but he has Jungkook’s free hand, the one that does not hold his idiocy on glaring display, has the
fingers on the other one searing into the flesh of his forearm and holding him in place.

Taehyung tries to look away, formulate a proper sentence as his lips hang opened around unspoken
words, but Jungkook does not allow him much of that as well, tugging at the arm he holds to keep
his undivided attention to himself. Taehyung’s running fingers through his bangs, pushing them
back, opening his forehead and then his eyes, stares at his bare feet and Jungkook’s fancy shoes
and then looks up, meets that glare with something imploring, with an underlying beg of fucking
drop it,“Myself,” Taehyung confesses,“okay?”

Jungkook’s fingers tighten and relax onto his arm. Their pupils seek each other out in a searching
game of darting around that starts to feel as if they have an invisible string attaching them together.
“Yourself?”

Taehyung takes a deep breath in attempt to exhale some of the embarrassment that bundles in his
chest, but it simply does not work. “Yes,” he strains out.

“Just you,” Jungkook elaborates, eyes compelling and voice an oxymoronic mixture of soft
hardness.

Taehyung’s tongue pokes at his lips; they feel dry and his throat feels impossibly so as well. “Just
me,” he promises. His lids tremble on top of his eyes, fluttering over his pupils as he falters, “I –
wanted to try something after…” he trails off, sucks his lower lip into his mouth, “your fight.”

“Try something?” Jungkook’s eyes drop, watch Taehyung’s teeth violate his pillowed lips.
“Yes,” Taehyung gulps, the other’s gaze observing the bob of his throat, the almost unnoticeable
mark next to it there unrecognizable for what it is anymore, except Jungkook knows. The fingers
on his arm feel heavy and he tries to pull away.

Jungkook allows him to lose his grip but makes him regret it immediately because he replaces his
hand on his waist instead, fingers snidely slipping in the gap between his elbow and his body and
sealing into the curve above his hip where his palm settles as if it belongs. Jungkook has got a bit
too used to holding him like he would a woman when he wants his attention. “Try what?”

The motion of it brings him closer and now Taehyung instinctively reaches, places a palm on hard
chest to keep a distance he desperately requires right now, because Jungkook’s eyes are charged
now, a tension rising from seemingly thin air. He looks away, looks at the floor, protects the
vulnerability of his blush from the invasive, intense eyes – they’re shameless. They always take so
much and give so little. “Jungkook,” Taehyung says simply, but it rings like a plea. drop this, drop
this, drop this.

His fingers cling a little more than he intends at the fabric of his shirt.

“Just tell me,” Jungkook coaxes in a voice that he lowers so expertly, fills it with a titillating
quality he’s painfully a master of. It teases at the sensitive skin of Taehyung’s reddened cheek.

Taehyung heaves a breath. Jungkook’s hold tightens on him and Taehyung pushes harder at his
chest, yet somehow, they draw closer. He takes his time, hesitates, says in a voice that trembles as
it sneaks through his lips, “With my fingers.”

He burns with the confession but allows himself to say it, nevertheless. He does not see Jungkook
as someone who would give up, and he wants to rip it off, like a band aid, but he also feels the
provocative internal compulsion to tell, to let him know. It’s faultlessly ridiculous, but it’s there
prickling at him from the inside, tainting his blood, clouding his sensibility.

Jungkook does not skip a beat. His eyes are all over Taehyung at the way he tries to avoid any
contact with him, whether it be physical or just the path of their eyes that pull. “Do you like it?” he
asks, the sound of it dripping as lewd as he intends it.

Taehyung needs a breath, he needs to close his eyes shut for a moment, but he does manage a
response, fingers of his both hands fidgeting. “It felt better than I expected, when you,” he pauses,
and it trails off as he swallows around the words he means to say. He blinks and he finds his gaze
on Jungkook’s face, on his cursedly handsome features that currently mask under something that to
Taehyung would have been indecipherable some time ago but now speaks of an awakening arousal
“– to have something inside of me.”

Jungkook’s fingers draw together on his waist and his palm slips, moves, glides ever so gently
around the small of his back, eliciting a shiver as it graces over the tail of his spine before the touch
dips, bold, and then the hand is venturing over the curve of his ass. He handles him with
confidence, as if he has a right to feel him up like this. His palm curls over the flesh and, fuck, that
was what Jungkook had meant when he had hopelessly demanded someone with a real nice ass.
He has the urge to squeeze, the sensation of it so enticing beneath the warmth of his hand, but it
would be too brusque. Taehyung’s obvious embarrassment coils into hesitance, and he has to be
tentative.

With his touch, not his mouth. “When I fucked you,” he stresses boldly, takes advantage of
Taehyung giving him his eyes and meeting them, holding them, the current sealing between the
searching gazes, “is that what you wanted to say?”

Taehyung exhales, “Yes.”

There’s something mildly relieving about being able to share this. He is aware people learn about
themselves their entire lives, but it is undeniably frustrating that he is just now exploring a part of
himself he cannot reveal in front of anyone, not Ji-woo, not Jimin. There is some comfort in the
disclosure of it, in the fact that when he breathes the word Jungkook’s hand tightens on his ass and
the lids of his eyes droop with some undeniable headiness.

Jungkook’s head cocks in a way that emphasizes the line of his jaw to Taehyung’s wandering gaze.
His voice, quite frankly, should be illegal in the way it drawls with such intention, such vibrant
salaciousness. “Is that what you think about”

Taehyung turns to the floor again, his fingers curling in the precious fabric of the brand shirt.
“Jungkook,” he nearly whines.

“What,” he stresses tightening his fingers over flesh in a gesture that makes Taehyung squirm, his
eyes forced back to Jungkook to attempt a half-hearted glare, “do you think about? Guys? Me?” As
he indicates his hand slips lower, kneads into the flesh and neither of them really knows why
that would feel so questionably good. Jungkook’s tongue layers over his lower lip before it retracts
into his cheek and the motion of it emphasizes the bone structure of his face, and Taehyung’s eyes
take as selfishly as Jungkook’s tend to, “Do you think about me?”
Taehyung’s teeth press together. He feels the lids of his eyes hover more heavily as they take him
in from just inches apart. “Yes,” he grinds out and gets drawn closer still with the motion of
Jungkook’s hand possessively curled at the flesh of him. The last tug is brusque, fingers slipping
from one cheek towards the other and hover over where he’s most sensitive and Taehyung’s hand
charges there on reflex, fingers sliding around Jungkook’s wrist.

“Yes what?” Jungkook asks, but it vibrates from his chest more like a growl underneath
Taehyung’s palm.“Guys,” his brows lift and fall. His eyes glint. “Bogum?”

“No,” Taehyung denies much quicker than he likes, it falls off his lips almost in an exclamation,
and then his voice softens to fit more into the ambiance of the exchange, “not guys.” And because
Jungkook’s proximity, his touch, and his eyes spark some unhealthy incapability of lying in
Taehyung, he proceeds to confess, “You.” And he gulps with it, darts his gaze across every detail
of his face, the scar on his cheek. “I thought about you.”

Jungkook steps closer and he can almost feel him now, easily senses the heat that comes from his
body. There is no space for Taehyung’s arm between them anymore so the hand slips, glides across
the hard length of his chest and stomach and curls instead a bit around his hip to have leverage to
push away, he justifies.

“How does it feel?” Jungkook asks and the sensation of his palm over him makes Taehyung
dangerously aware of himself, of just exactly how it felt, how it can feel.

“Good,” he exhales earnestly. Jungkook’s breath fawns across his face, his lips, and it coaxes lost
confessions out of him, forces him to fall in into a mirroring manner of speaking, so undeniably
charged with a tension of want, pries answers from him that Jungkook doesn’t even seek, the
following sigh that escapes through him, “It feels so good.”

Jungkook’s palm and fingers feel so unbelievably hot even over the safety of the fabric of his pants
and he prays to god he does not unintentionally arch back into the grip like a small part of him
urges to do.

“Better than me?” Jungkook challenges, demands, along with a motion of his hand, kneading back
into him, and Taehyung’s gasp falls from his lips and slips right into his own.

“No,” he shakes his head. “No,” he says because Taehyung did entertain for a bit the salvation
from Jungkook could come if he could manage to make himself feel good like that, like he hadn’t
before, but even with his thoughts constantly shifting to the way he’d fucked him against that wall,
it’d been nowhere near. “Incomparable,” Taehyung breathes because Jungkook had been just that,
incomparable to any experience of the sort he had had before, and it makes Taehyung helplessly
crave a relief he knows comes with a burden that is not really worth it.

But Seung Julia said something very simple in the beginning of all this. It’s what I want, she’d
said, and she’d shrugged as if it were simple. It’s what I want, she’d repeated, so easily. And
Taehyung? Taehyung wants Jungkook.

“Why?” Jungkook asks, his tongue slickening over his lips. He curls his palm almost offensively
over Taehyung’s ass and tugs him closer, the other easily falling into the step he forces him to take
and he’s pressing into himself now, bodies smoothing together. “Why, tell me?” His words come
quicker now, with a quality to them that appears atypically ravenous for the pure fact that hunger is
a need so deprived of control.

There’s something entirely encouraging in the crack of composure. Taehyung latches onto any
reciprocity of affect and he is certainly far away from being collected. It burns into him that
Jungkook slowly slips out of that as well, though he supposes he must have been slipping long
before, when he touched Taehyung, when he made the decision to come to his house. “My
fingers,” Taehyung stutters with it, the arousal of it, of having Jungkook’s hard body pressed into
him like that, his scorching hand fondling over him, is not enough to erase the embarrassment of
verbally addressing something so personal he has not even communicated fully to himself, “they,
they are not…” he pause, he’s pausing, he’s sighing, “enough.”

Jungkook inhales audibly, his gaze so powerful with the way it dances over Taehyung’s face. The
intensity of his eyes is unrivaled in the way it manages to make Taehyung lose his mind.

There’s a beat. “Can you show me?”

And Taehyung’s heart is beating, running, crashing. His chest closes in and he almost jokes around
it, jokes around the “What?” that escapes through his mouth so sharply as breath is pried out of
him so savagely.

It’s instinctual that as his body grows so alert, he tries to pull away, his fingers tightening over
Jungkook’s wrist and pushing by his hip, but Jungkook is stronger, he does not allow him to move,
to escape. He holds him where he likes him and voices darkly, demandingly, voices in the way
he’d orchestrated and directed their nights with Julia, with an authoritative dominance that so
naturally slips him. “I want to see.”

Taehyung’s insides boil with the prospect of it, but his mind does as well, boils and sears into a
useless fucking mess and he cannot think straight. Cannot think straight past the way he so firmly
says, “No.”
No. no no no. It’s ridiculous how a man who’s fucked him can make him blush so easily, like a
fucking schoolgirl.

“Taehyung—”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to know what it felt like for her?” Jungkook murmurs to him and the feel of the
words hits Taehyung’s lips. “Why she wanted it so much? To be watched.”

Taehyung needs to take his eyes away because Jungkook’s are lethal. “Why would you,” he says,
he tries, he stumbles, “why would you want that?”

In Taehyung’s mind there is something so discernably gay in this. Feeling is one thing, he thinks,
that when Jungkook fucked him he felt him, took pleasure in it himself, and it was different, not
Taehyung on the spot, exposed and vulnerable. No, now Jungkook wouldn’t be feeling he’d only
be looking and what if it looks disgusting.

“I want to see what you do to yourself,” Jungkook’s voice seems worse now that Taehyung takes
his eyes away, because he moves to speak in his ear, whispers so gently by it, his words dripping
with coaxing eroticism that might as well be poisonous. “It’s only fair. You’ve seen what I do when
I think about you.”

Taehyung’s brows crease. His head shakes. “No, I…” he attempts but it trails over into oblivion
with the way Jungkook’s hand fondles into the flesh of his ass.

Jungkook’s lips press at his ear then, cool at the lobe of it, and his words are practically a breath, a
breath that knocks Taehyung’s own out of his body. “I fuck my girlfriend, Taehyung.”

“Shit,” Taehyung mumbles. Shitshitshit. It’s absolute fucking shit. He’s lying.

“Let me see,” Jungkook’s saying. Taehyung’s heart is hammering. He is speaking in his ear and
then he is not because his mouth is busy, his teeth taking the lob of it lightly, applying just enough
pressure to elicit a surprised gasp out of Taehyung. “Please,” Jungkook’s voice rings as he cocks
his head, his tongue skimming at the shell of Taehyung’s ear. “I know you’re getting hard,
Taehyung. I can feel you,” he mumbles to him, discards the lube onto the bed so his hand can cheat
at this, palm at him.

Taehyung’s breath stutters, his hips chiding forward into the touch.

“Don’t you want to make yourself feel good?"

He does, with the way Jungkook’s palm fits over him so easily, over his growing hardness, the way
he is so aware of his own ass, pulsating with the lingering touch over it.

Taehyung pushes him away and only manages an actual result because Jungkook certainly does not
expect it.

“Okay,” Taehyung breathes. His chest lifts and falls heavily. “Okay, but you will sit.”

Jungkook’s lips part, the beginnings of a protest, but then they seal. His eyes seem darker
somehow. “Where?” the word drops, strikingly conclusive.

Taehyung swallows. “Here,” he indicates the lower bunk. “You’ll sit there.”

There’s a pause. There’s a challenge between them, a challenge that lurks in the fact Taehyung
gives a direction. He sees Jungkook’s teeth line together with the press of his jaw. “Okay,” he says.
He takes a step and Taehyung takes one back, knocking his back into the poll that holds the upper
bunk and his breath catches as Jungkook stands before him, so close yet again. “Okay,” he simply
repeats, and he does, spins almost on his heel and he sits down onto his brother’s bunk bed.

Taehyung’s gaze hopelessly falls onto him as he stares back unforgiving. He almost understands
why Jungkook had almost sounded offended in his indication of the bunk bed. The sight of him on
it is incredulous. He sits with that posture of possession that naturally comes to him, knees
spreading wide and muscular thighs claiming the space.

Taehyung gives him his back as he steps forward and Jungkook’s eyes shamelessly roam over the
globe of his ass, so perfect. He stands, staring at the coming darkness outside the window as he
undoes the cuffs of his shirt. He pulls it out of the confines of his pants. His fingers tremble slightly
with the way he moves. His heart refuses to calm in his chest, but he does it nevertheless, pops the
button of his trousers, slides them down his thin, long legs slowly.

He is undeniably nervous about doing this, but in a way that is curiously exciting. It is with a
thundering adrenaline that he feels Jungkook’s eyes scorch into him as he slithers the fabric lower
and lower, his body bending.

Jungkook finds Taehyung simply enthralling. It is the first time he sees that much of him, first time
he sees his legs and fuck, even they are pretty. His skin is just as flawless, his thighs much meatier
than Julia, in a way that makes his hands want to reach and squeeze. He keeps his shirt on as he
steps out of the pants and it looks so big on his as it droops over narrow shoulder. Let loose now it
hides the curvature of his behind, as he bends and as he straightens and Jungkook has to chastise
himself into patience. He does not want to seem eager, enough is enough.

His teeth find his lips, and he watches, watches as Taehyung hesitates with the way his fingers fit
into the bands of his underwear, watches his chest raise and fall as his back expands with his
ribcage even underneath the loose shirt at the loaded breath he takes. He is so excruciatingly slow
in the way he takes them off and he has to hold back, hold his tongue back, hands back, does not
want to give him a reason to stop.

Taehyung steps out of the underwear as well as he straightens and, shit, Jungkook hates that shirt.
He wants to see, see if bare his ass is as good as it seems, as it feels, as round and thick. Taehyung
is skinny, but the curve of him after the gentle dip of his back is so eloquent, he cannot help but
admire. Any woman would be envious of him.

Jungkook leans forward, places his elbows on his thighs. It is an incredibly uncomfortable position
for him, makes the fabric of his pants press into his hardening length, but he cannot care for a
moment. “Do you get on your hands and knees?”

Taehyung’s head turns, he looks at him over his shoulder, gaze unbelievably sultry underneath the
light strands of his hair and he probably doesn’t even know it, doesn’t realize to Jungkook he
appears blatantly seductive with the way he shows so much, yet so little, stands there with his long,
pretty legs on show and the shirt hiding everything else, giving him this innocent, bratty over the
shoulder glance, blushing like this. His fucking lids bat.

It makes Jungkook almost as angry as it turns him on.

“I—once, yes. Once not.”

Jungkook’s brows lift. “Twice? Have you done this twice?”

Taehyung nods. Jungkook breathes.

“Did you like it on your hands and knees?”

Taehyung takes his head away. “Yes,” he hisses out and the frustration of it is visible in his
shoulders.

“Get on your hands and knees, Taehyung.”

Taehyung swallows, his throat bobbing with it. Jungkook makes this so much easier for him,
telling him exactly what he wants, because he has the inadequate urge to deliver, exactly as he feels
it would rid him of a sense of inadequacy in this case. He climbs onto the bed palms first, crawls
onto it. He hopes his elbows don’t give.

The shirt rides up with the way his back naturally curves with the position he takes, the back of
him exposed.

Jungkook breathes. “Show me,” he urges, the lisp of hunger still coating his lips.

Taehyung reaches for the discarded bottle as he holds himself up on the other before he relaxes
onto his calf for a moment long enough to squirt some amount on his fingers. He drops the object
that got him into this onto the bed again, rubs his fingers a bit to heat it up, having learned from the
first, the second time. He tries to pretend Jungkook is not there, not scrutinizing him with those
heavy, loathsome eyes, that he’s simply horny and lonely and wants to try some stuff out.

It’s impossible, though, because he feels himself arch his back more, take his time. He wants to
please, desperately wants for Jungkook to like what he sees. He props a palm on the bed, bends on
hands and knees and he screws his eyes shut, tries not to think what he exposed of himself and
reaches. His circles a single finger around his rim, lets it slip, feels his lips part with the pressure of
it, releases a breath when it falls in fully.

He’s slow but he manages, gets it to one knuckle then the next. He tests the feeling of it, pulling it
out almost to the tip before he presses it back in and then again. He picks up a tentative rhythm
with it, his skin burning, heart thundering. His mind pulses with Jungkook’s name, he’s so aware
of him, his presence, his eyes, his opinion.

He feels himself putting on a show he’s not rehearsed for, something he does not know how to do.
He naturally falls into the pattern of it, of throwing his head down and moaning when he doesn’t
need to, of rocking his hips back onto his fingers when he still hasn’t got into it. He represses a
compulsion to look at Jungkook, knows it will only make him shake again and he’s just barely
learned to stand straight. In his mind he understands this has grown to be for him, for Jungkook, but
he wants it to appear as if it is for himself, his own sake.

He stills his ministrations to press the tip of a second finger. He eases it into himself, careful. He
slides both thin fingers in. Jungkook’s had been thicker the first time he’d opened him up and
Taehyung feels himself miss that thickness, crave it as he works himself. He curls the digits inside
of himself, tries to find the spot that makes his moans real, parting his fingers to seek some of that
missing thickness.

His cock pulses, feels heavy, and at this point he would have probably touched himself, were he
alone, but he holds back, fucks himself with two fingers and slowly it’s starting to build up into the
reason he’d started doing this, the pleasure growing tangible in parts of him, his bones, his skin, his
blood. He’s truthful when he says it feels good to have something inside of him, the stretch of it
still burns slightly, but it’s easy and it’s gratifying before it is anything else.

He thrusts his fingers forward, moves his hips back. His head arches onto his shoulder and when a
sound escapes him this time it’s genuine. His breath traps in his chest, then in his throat, it catches.
It gets harder to control as he fucks himself with his fingers as Jungkook watches.

Maybe Taehyung does understand why Julia had enjoyed this, there is something incredibly
pleasing about feeling so desired, something drastically disarming, so bittersweet, in revealing
himself like that, doing something so intimate and private for the eyes of someone else. Taehyung
does know, though, it is only because it is Jungkook, he’s conscious of it no matter how much he
wants to pretend this is all some long journey of discovering his sexuality and along with it
latching onto a couple of kinks. He is perfectly aware kissing Bogum had felt nothing like anything
that Jungkook had ever allowed, that him merely fixing his tie takes his breath away more.

He knows he would not be bending over like that for someone else, because nobody else hold this
unwavering authority that Jungkook does, this inexorable dominance that bristles off of him in
waves and coaxes Taehyung into a strange obedience.

He grinds onto his fingers harder.

“Won’t you add a third?” Jungkook’s voice sounds and, fuck, he will. He does. Halts for a moment
long enough to slip a third finger inside of himself, does not slide it in carefully enough, but he
doesn’t care, he wants to keep going.

He moans with the feel of it – it stretches him. And then he moves.

And Jungkook’s on his feet. Jungkook’s on his fucking feet, and he means to turn around, tell him
to sit, but he doesn’t. He allows him to come closer, feels the bed dip as Jungkook raises a knee,
presses it onto the mattress next to Taehyung’s calves.

A hand is on his ass, on one cheek of it as Jungkook pushes his shirt away and Taehyung’s eyes
screw shut tighter.

Fingers knead into the flesh of him and he keens, a strangled sound escaping from his throat as he
attempts to hold himself up.

“You’re so fucking hot, Taehyung,” Jungkook growls, voice so naked and depraved, and
Taehyung’s hips stutter. Were he to turn, he’d see his gone eyes, glazed over with the darkness of
pure wanton as he watches the pretty boy fuck himself on his fingers for him, make a show, give a
show, back so gracefully curved, the line of his spine so gentle it could only be feminine. But it’s
not, he’s not. He’s a boy, pretty boy, pretty beautiful boy, who works his ass opened. “Fuck
yourself so good for me.”

Taehyung’s breath leaves him in sighs, in grunts. He lets Jungkook watch from so close. It feels
exhilarating to know he’s behind him, to feel him touch him.

Jungkook’s fingers slide closer to where Taehyung’s are until they brush the skin of his wrist and,
god, he’ll just about die.

And then Jungkook’s digits are squeezing into his cheek and his other hand raises, stills
Taehyung’s hips.

“Taehyung,” he’s saying and all he does is whine unintelligibly in response. “Taehyung,” he’s
breathing, “can I fuck you?”

The pause stretches long, too long. It’s heavy between them, tense, and every inch of Taehyung’s
skin feels as if it’s on fire.

He cranes his neck, takes his fingers out, bites his lower lip. And then he says, “Please.”

Jungkook’s undoing his belt before the word has fully left his mouth, fingers almost clumsy with
the way they work it and he has not felt like this since he was sixteen. Taehyung leans on both
palms now and his back dips with the new position, ass arches more, arches better, and fuck him if
it is not a sight to behold.

Jungkook wonders if he should do another line before he fucks him, makes everything more
intense, but maybe less real and he decides he doesn’t really want that, not now, he’s still high
enough, at least feels like it with the way his heart thunders and blood pulses, though he thinks he
would much like to do a line of his ass, the curve of it beautiful. He’s so impossibly perky and it
fucks with Jungkook’s mind, boys are not supposed to be built like this, but there he is.

Taehyung’s gaze on him reserves that inescapable sultriness he deems him unaware of as he bats
lashes and waits, bent over. But then his voice drawls as seductive as those eyes, dangerous eyes
that maybe fuck with Jungkook’s mind as much as his ass does. “Can you take off your shirt?” he
asks and Jungkook really wants to fuck that curious innocence out of him because it has no place
sounding at his lips when he’s bent over ready to be rammed like a girl. “I like your body,”
Taehyung tells him.

Jungkook does not say anything, simply reaches for his buttons, undoes them slow, but not painful,
and he lets the material slip from his shoulder, basks in the way Taehyung’s eyes layer over him,
attesting to his claim as they dart all across, pausing at every dip of muscle, at the lines and veins
that lead lower, that disappear into his pants and Jungkook makes sure he is still watching when he
undoes them, slips his cock out with a breathy exhale of relief.

Taehyung’s tongue pokes over his lips. Suddenly he recounts how heavy the length of him had felt
on his tongue and he’s captured off guard by the rising desire to put it in his mouth a desire that
will in no way serve him, but he thwarts it because he feels so fucking empty and every bone of his
urges him to do anything to get the delicious stretch again, to be filled.

Luckily, Jungkook appears desperate. He fishes his wallet out of the pocket of his pants, takes a
condom out and throws it on the bed, easily the most expensive thing that has freely roamed this
house, but he doesn’t give a fuck, because Jungkook is tearing the condom opened, slips the
wrapping in his back pocket and rolls it on.

One of his hands returns to Taehyung’s ass, cupping over the cheek and pushing at it, spreading it
opened as he holds himself, fisting over the length casually before he lines himself up. Taehyung’s
well stretched out, lubed up, not like before, not with just spit, but Jungkook still feels so incredibly
thick as he presses the tip past his rim that Taehyung’s elbows finally do give, and he leans on his
forearms, has to, features contorting with the pressure of it.

His lips crack opened, a silent moan hanging in between them as he stares at the sheets, grips at
them with whitening fingers, with the feel of Jungkook entering him.

He fills him up so well, so much better than his fingers ever could.

He’s less careful this time, he’s still slow, still allows Taehyung to adjust to the thickness and
length of him, but he starts rocking lightly so soon, fingers unforgiving as they hold him, one hand
punishing on his ass, the other replacing on his hip once he’s fully directed his cock inside.

He thrusts once, twice, picks up, much more confident to set a pace this time. Taehyung’s whining
at the feel it, trying to bite his lips, keep sounds down, but they’re cracking through despite his
resolve. The stretch of it is what he had shamefully craved when he had first got the chance to try
this out himself, reaching an oxymoronically frustrated relief, because it had just been so almost.

There’s nothing almost about this. It’s everything.

Hands secure around his hips and Jungkook is so quick to fuck him in earnest that Taehyung does
not know what to do with himself. He picks up a punishing rhythm, practically pounding the
frustration of his despicable desire. Jungkook’s wondering if he can fuck Taehyung hard enough to
never want him again, if he can ram him out of his system. He tries to do just that, does not admit
to himself that he’s aiming to angle his hips so he can press into that spot that gets Taehyung to
forget his resolve of keeping quiet.

Jungkook feels he starts nearly slamming his hips into him much too soon, his thighs knocking into
the back of Taehyung’s into crease of the cheeks of his ass, an ass that Jungkook thinks would look
even impossibly better if it had his fingertips all across. But Taehyung just falls on his elbows and
takes it.

Jungkook’s features tense. “How do you take me so well already, fuck?” He can’t be, not with how
fucking tight and warm and wet he feels around him, he must be hurting, at least a little bit, and
Jungkook wants to see,to know it, but Taehyung doesn’t let him. He shows so little now, head
directed now, the shirt hanging loosely over his body.
Jungkook hates nothing more than the fact he does not feel entirely satisfied with watching him
from behind, watching him so impersonal. No, he wants to see his face, witness the sight of what
he does to him betrayed on his expressive, pretty features that he cannot repress no matter how
hard he tries to swallow sounds.

Taehyung presses his forehead into the mattress, keens, but then he has fingers in his hair,
unrelenting strong fingers that pull him up, tug at strands. He moans with it as he straightens under
their command, the sting of it delicious.

“Come here,” Jungkook’s saying, groaning at him, but he’s not giving him much of a chance to do
anything else. He wraps an arm around his middle, muscle of his bulked forearm pressed into his
stomach as he allows Taehyung’s back to lean onto his chest. His teeth catch at his ear for a
moment, rhythm unrelenting. “You like that,” he nearly growls, “you like when I tell you how
good you are for me?”

Taehyung says nothing, bites his lip. The angle is so different, he does not expect the way it
reaches into him, the way it creates more pressure inside of him. The feel of Jungkook’s chest
sliding against his back is ruinous. Taehyung does not lie, he loves Jungkook’s body, the way it’s
so crafted and built and the muscle of it looks good but feels better. The fabric of his thin shirt does
little to mask the heady, heated sensation of so much of his bare skin being pressed into him.

He does not know what to do with his head, has the urge to rest it back onto Jungkook’s shoulder,
but it seems somehow intimate, he realizes it will bring their faces close, raise the foolish desire for
his lips again, a desire he so desperately tries to suppress.

The fingers tighten in his hair when all he does is grunt through savage teeth. “Of course you do,”
Jungkook’s telling him, in his ear, the breath all across his cheek, his neck, the vibrations from his
words rumbling from his chest onto his back, heat swallows him entirely the shirt sticking to him
with the growing perspiration of clear-cut raw fucking, and if Jungkook wasn’t holding him up in
so many ways he might have collapsed. “No one ever tells you, do they?” Jungkook’s groaning
into the shell of his ear, but Taehyung still seals his teeth over his lip, and it drives him insane. His
hand releases his hair, circles his body and starts at his chest, slips up until fingers close around the
beginnings of his throat, like that one time in the storage room in Rouge, and it strangles a gasp out
of him, mouth helplessly parting. “A Jeon’s never told you.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung pleads though he does not know what it is he asks for, to be let go or not.
He gives up on holding his own head up, cranes his neck back into the crease of Jungkook’s, into
the gap at his shoulder, his hair attaching to his skin with the sweat of it.

Jungkook keeps moving and Jungkook keeps talking, his fingers ever so lightly applying pressure
where they wrap around his neck.
“You’re so good for me, fuck” he grunts out as he snaps his hips up inside of him, voice still as
depraved, lustrous, gone, he’s gone and there is something so visceral about the way his lips brush
Taehyung’s ear as they form strung out words, “the prettiest thing I’ve been inside.”

Taehyung’s gone, just as gone, if not more. The hunger that levitates from Jungkook feeds into
him, into his own and escalates it and it’s already dangerous to start with in the way it obliterates
the chance of actual thought.

This is not about thinking, though. It’s about feeling, so that’s what Taehyung allows himself to do,
sex, it’s about sex. Jungkook is the only one who can do him like that, the only one who knows
that Taehyung wants it, why Taehyung wants it. And Taehyung is the only one who can know this
about Jungkook that he also wants to be inside a boy, so really, they’re alone in this, but alone
together and they might as well.

“You’re so good for me,” Jungkook’s whispering to him and in his ears it sounds vicious. Like a
promise or a threat, because if Jungkook likes something, Jungkook fucking takes.

And Taehyung’s struggling to breathe and struggling to say, to confess, to himself and to Jungkook
alike, he tells them, “You’re so bad for me.”

He is, horrible for him. But he’s still inside of him, he’s still fucking him, fucking with him. “Then
why are you letting me do this to you, Tae?” He’s asking, voice deadly, intent lethal and he’s
snapping his hips inside of him so hard, there is not way for Taehyung to be coherent, not when he
calls him Tae like that, while he’s so pressed into him, he can feel his chest, his thighs, his arms,
his breath, both as it forms in his body and as it waves over his cheek. “Why?”

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be letting him touch him at all, but he is, and Jungkook is selfish so
he’ll take it. And he genuinely wonders, why would someone like Taehyung let him inside of him
like that, why Jungkook, Jungkook who cannot even take care of his own sister, not anymore.

Taehyung doesn’t know, knows nothing, just this that it’s happening. “I don’t know.” He breathes,
the fingers burn on his neck. “Fuck. I want you.” He says it because it is all he knows. “I want
you,” he confesses and then, just because he is so terribly aware of who is making him feel this, he
whimpers, “Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s breath seems to hitch and still before the next whisper comes in his ear, “I want you,
too.”
Taehyung does stop breathing for a moment, his heart palpitating aggressive in his chest. You have
me, he wants to say. You have me, but he won’t, because yes, Jungkook has him, right now, in that
moment, but he doesn’t deserve him, not now and not at all, not at grand, and he simply cannot let
him know that he does.

So, he doesn’t say anything, nothing but his name, again and then again, and Jungkook seems to
love it. His hand is sinking lower around his stomach until it’s wrapping around him, fist closing
over the length, the base, then it’s on the tip and he’s jerking him off, steady, but fast, so fast as fast
as he’s fucking him and he’s fucking ruining him. And Taehyung’s moaning, coming.

He comes, hard, presses his teeth into his lip punishingly as it tries to part to let out a name again.
His eyes are screwing shut, body trembling. He comes so good, feels so good, a relief so different
to that he can bring to himself even if he’s realized now that he prefers having something inside of
him than jerking off.

Jungkook hates those teeth ridding him of the downright pleasure of hearing that deep voice drawl
his name in such an abandon, but he feels too much to do anything. Taehyung closes around him
when he comes and he fucks into him hard, harder, he’s lost all semblance of a rhythm now that he
sees Taehyung finish, let’s his body do as it wills, let’s it take what it wants and it does manage to
pry Taehyung’s mouth opened again. He’s crying out and Jungkook has to wrap an arm around him
again to hold him for himself as he grinds into him.

He’s coming as well, snapping his hips, once, twice, hard, he’s gyrating inside of him then,
grunting and he might be telling him he’s so good and tight for him as well, but he might just be
thinking it really loud, pulsating in his brain just how good this boy feels.

Jungkook stills inside of him. Taehyung cannot catch his breath yet and neither can the man behind
him, chest rising and falling so hard. He presses his forehead onto Taehyung’s hair, his exhales
ruffling the strands at the beginnings of his neck and it makes him stifle a tremble all over again.
He’s still holding him, arm still draped across his stomach, cock still inside of him.

Taehyung does not know how much longer his knees can hold him up. He’s cracking his eyes
opened, looking at the mess he’s made of Namjoon’s bed, the mess he’s made of himself. He
constricts around Jungkook, does not feel his body is ready to be left to fend for its own. His head
is still gone, but it’s slowly coming around, and he knows reality will start to set in soon.

He knows probably as soon as Jungkook is out of him he’ll be out of his house, so he clings on the
sensation of him draped all over him like this, pressed inside of him, because Taehyung knows
what this is and it is sex and there is effectively no reason for them to stick around each other, but it
does not erase the uncomfortable whim for Jungkook to choose to stay. He cannot even process
what exactly has led to Jungkook ramming inside of him from folding socks.
It takes more than a minute for Jungkook to pull out and Taehyung savors it. He slips out slowly
and Taehyung feels it, all of it, flinches with the sensation of it. Hands leave him next and he wants
to be the one to move first so no matter how much his thighs tremble, how much he just wants to
collapse forward he gets up, off the bed.

Jungkook steps off with his motion, having been just at the edge and Taehyung is stripping the
sheets off of the mattress, needs to get rid of the fact he allowed this on Namjoon’s fucking bed.
He gets them off, tugs them all off, roughly and he’s going down the stairs and around, not even
caring much about the fact he’s completely bare underneath the shirt. He stuffs the sheets in the
laundry machine, turns it on. He cannot be sure Ji-woo is actually going to stay the night wherever
she is, and he certainly cannot think of a way to explain come stains on the bed sheets that have
been touched so rarely since his departure they might as well be considered sacred.

He certainly does not expect that when he walks up the stairs Jungkook would be lying on top of
the duvets that had remained unharmed, appearing as casual as he had before he’d found the lube,
legs crossed, arm propped and one hand holding his phone as he scrolls away with it.

When he senses Taehyung’s presence, which lingers by the door with the surprise of the sight,
Jungkook’s eyes shift to look at him and he does nothing but stretch, his bare chest raising with it,
arms extending to the side, one brushing on the mattress next to him almost indicatively, and
maybe it’s subconscious, but Taehyung’s gaze draw to the natural motion of the gesture.

“Let’s chill here,” he’s almost groaning with the stretch and then he retrieves his previous position,
resting his phone on his stomach as he returns his eyes to the screen. “I’m too lazy to move.”

He’s coming down from a high, Taehyung’s thinking. He should have come down a long time ago,
but then again Taehyung doesn’t know how much he’d snorted and just what quality it
was.Taehyung doesn’t snort, but he knows enough about Richhood to observe that when they do
lines, they need to revisit the bathroom at half an hour, or hour intervals to keep the high
going.He’s still at the door, watching as Jungkook relaxes into the position he takes and tries to
ignore the slight escalation of the pulse of his heart. Whatever it is that rises almost physically in
his throat, like bile, and he swallows it down.

“Okay,” he says, walking in finally. He walks towards his cupboard, makes a very careful squat in
front of it that allows his shirt to cover him and gets his current notebook out with the handout he’s
been working on. “I’ll do some work.”

“Work?” Jungkook’s brows arch as Taehyung tosses the sheets onto the bed by his crossed feet.
He is reaching for his underwear next, mouth opening to provide a response, but Jungkook is
cocking his head, clicking his tongue. “You don’t really need those, do you?”

Taehyung slides his eyes to him, goes almost whiny, “Jungkook.”

He shrugs, returns his gaze to his phone. “Your shirt leaves enough to the imagination. Just do your
work.”

Taehyung sighs, drops the fabric onto the floor just because he doesn’t want to wear the same pair
and is all too worn out to find others. He lies himself on the bed where he’d thrown the paper,
propping on his elbows as he presses his stomach on the mattress, body in reverse to Jungkook’s
and keeping his distance.

He filters the papers out, seals his gaze on them, and tries to pretend he is not as aware of
Jungkook’s body next to him as he is.

“So, what’s work?” Jungkook asks though his attention is on his phone.

Taehyung hesitates for barely a moment. “I’m trying to get in this architecture night school course,
but I need to pass a math exam for it, so I’ve been doing some problems.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook hums, head bobbing. “You’re good with numbers.”

“I’m good with numbers,” Taehyung repeats, confirms. He tries to focus on those numbers.

He lets him do this in silence and again Taehyung does not know how much time passes before
Jungkook gets bored from whatever messages he’s writing on his phone, whatever media he’s
scrolling through, because he actually manages to fall into his work. He does not necessarily enjoy
the mathematical part of it, but he understands why it’s such an integral part of what he wants to
do, and it does help he is truthfully efficient at it.

He has gone through several problem, hand incessantly scribbling on the pieces of paper, eyes
darting from the handout copies of the textbook he cannot afford to buy and back to the patterns
his own fingers make with the pen.
He almost doesn’t feel it when a warm hand touches at the bottom of his spine, ventures boldly up,
revealing the expanse of his skin as he takes the fabric of his shirt with it.

“Jungkook,”Taehyung says, the suggestion of a warning coloring his voice, but his eyes remain
fixed.

“What?” the other plays innocent, gaze falling over the line of his spine as he reveals it. It’s so
gently curled, dips so beautifully before the arch of his ass. The skin is smooth, dark, soft, and he
enjoys skidding his calloused arm against something so exquisitely velvety.

Taehyung does not respond, ignores him, hand scribbling viciously along the paper, and he may be
concentrated, but Jungkook is bored. He lowers himself forward, urges to feel the skin with his
mouth as well, and he presses up, near his shoulder blade, teeth sinking into the flesh of it.
Taehyung hisses, but keeps his tongue behind the line of his own teeth, and it pisses Jungkook off
a bit that he can ignore him so easily. He sins his teeth lightly around the skin lower on his back,
tongues at the line of his spine.

He lifts himself up, skimming his eyes across Taehyung’s neck.

“The marks are starting to fade,” he tells him, because he’d given Jungkook the right to bruise him,
but the evidence of it is starting to sink into nothing and it irks at him enough to mention.

Taehyung finally sacrifices some attention, tilting his head over the protruding bone of his
shoulder, down which the fabric of his shirt so provocatively rides. He blinks at him bitter, his eyes
pulled sharp.

“I haven’t seen you in over a week and a half, Jungkook,” Taehyung says, and he strives for
something soft, conversational, simply a statement, a fact as numerical as the problem he’s solving,
tries desperately to remain behind the border of accusatory.

He fails.

And because he fails, he does not allow him to see his face much more, turns back to his work,
seals his eyes over it, but now numbers feel blurry.

They feel blurrier when Jungkook’s hand slides low, lower, then fingers layer over his cheek and in
between, a single one, the one that holds that despicable ring, gracing its tip ever so lightly over the
rim that’s still so sensitive it causes an almost embarrassing reflex in Taehyung’s hips against the
mattress.

“Are you sore?” Jungkook’s asking and then, then Taehyung has to bite his lip because he is
slipping that very same finger in, inside of him, and Taehyung’s still stretched from having his
cock – it’s easy, but he feels the drag of it so enunciated inside of him.

He holds his elbows, tight, hard, knuckles going white with the strength of his grip as his head
droops between his sinking shoulders. He withholds a sound, tries a scold, but Jungkook is
speaking again.

“You’d feel so good like this, lying down,” he murmurs. “So tight.”

Taehyung tries to ignore the snap of his own hips, the grind against the surface underneath him,
where is so tightly pressed. “I’m working,” he grinds through teeth, strives for an almost
threatening pointedness.

Then Jungkook’s voice sounds different. “Did you end shit with him?”

And Jungkook is dragging his finger around him, so slow, leisurely, trying to reach again that spot
that would make him keen. His ass looks so good, the skin there as pretty as on the rest of him, and
Jungkook is still behind the idea that the mark of his fingertips would look marvelous on top of it,
maybe even the ink of his name.

Jungkook presses his finger into him harder, a punishment for evoking such a ridiculous thought in
him. Jungkook used to be rational, once.

Taehyung bites back grunts, bites back any acknowledgement his body is starting to crave for him
to rut into the bed like a fucking teenager. “With him?” he’s asking into his own chest.

“With Bogum, Taehyung,” Jungkook presses the finger right into that spot as his voice snaps.

Taehyung grunts. This is unfair. He cannot be trying to have a conversation like this while he
moves that finger inside of him, that cold finger teasing at his rim every time he thrusts lazy, but
sure, and Taehyung is so, so focused on keeping his hips still. “Why do you even care?”
Jungkook’s jaw ticks, dark eyes layer and glint dangerously over Taehyung’s back, at all that skin
there, that pretty, untouched skin. “I like having things to myself,” he says, pulls his finger back
out and slams it in, rough. “I like it when you’re tight.”

Taehyung’s shoulders quiver. He tries to steady his breath. “I’m not a thing.” He’s spiteful in the
way he pulls the words out through his teeth, and he knows it, he means it.

“I know.” Jungkook works that fingers against him in more ways than one. “Doesn’t mean I want
to share.”

Taehyung cries out with the next thrust and it is not of his volition, but he’s sensitive, so sensitive
and the mattress pressed like this into his cock feels good, but he thinks he has himself restrained.
His head rolls into his shoulder. “You’re so spoiled, Jungkook.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook’s brows lift as he fucks his finger into him. “Who’s getting spoiled now?”

Anything would be spoiling to him, Taehyung does not know luxury, though he is much too
beautiful to live in oblivion of what luxury is. He could be one himself, with the way he looks, so
irreversibly ethereal. Anyone can look good if they have enough money for it, Jungkook has
realized, but Taehyung looks better without it. He wonders just how beautiful he can be made with
pretty clothes and shiny jewelry. He’d fit it so well, he thinks. He’s the prettiest thing Jungkook’s
ever seen and he’s Jungkook’s to fuck.

The thought is striking for Jungkook, because it forces the reality of the fact, he’s fucked him
already, done him once, and now twice, and he’s sticking around, and he’s never fucked the same
person twice, only Julia, only his girlfriend. The only one he lies around nearly naked with after,
rehabilitating before fucking again. He knows by the way Taehyung ruts into the bed that he’d let
him have another go, and he wants another go, and he needs to get the fuck out.

He’s slipping his finger out of him. He’s getting on his feet.

Taehyung turns his head over his shoulder, his eyes are wide, questioning, brows furrowed.
“Jungkook?” he’s saying, saying his name and it’s with a palpable curious vulnerability that almost
makes Jungkook climb back into the bed. But he can’t, for the sake of them both.

Because as much as he should not want to climb back in that bed, Taehyung should not want him
to, either.

Taehyung is sitting up, letting the shirt fall down, cover him. “Jungkook, what—"

“I came down from the coke, okay?” Jungkook interjects. He bends, takes his shirt, slips it over his
shoulders. He’s running a hand through his hair, strands still sweated from how hard he’d fucked
Taehyung. “I’m going.”

And Taehyung just stares, stares with those eyes so wide and vulnerable until they are not, until
they darken, they narrow, and he bends, grips his underwear. He’s pulling it over those long legs.
“Yeah,” he says, brusque, embittered, “you know go.” He’s slipping his pants on as well and then
he’s standing up to do them properly, to do the zip and the button, and because he is a man, he is as
tall as Jungkook, the glare is right into his eyes. His voice is calm, yet it drips venom as he tongues
overs his lips. “You should really fucking go. Reminded me I wanted to make use of the empty
house to get Bogum to come over.”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tries, does not know what he tries. Maybe it’s intended as a warning, but
maybe it is something else.

“Bye.” Taehyung is saying and this time his voice cracks, grows louder, before Jungkook can
figure out what his intention is when he calls his name. He starts to walk, circle past him, but he
stops in front of him, so unbearably close to him. “But before you go, thanks for opening me up for
him, wouldn’t wanna waste time.”

Jungkook’s tongue clicks. He mirrors that bitterness, those beginning nuances of rage. “You’re
growing a fucking mouth, aren’t you?”

Taehyung’s brows lift, nostrils flare. “Needs to be big enough for you to fuck it on a whim, doesn’t
it?” And he continues to walk, but he’s stopped again, this time by Jungkook, by that perpetually
searing hand latching over his forearm, fingers digging so hard into flesh, as hard as they had been
pressing inside of him.

He pulls him back, seeks his eyes out, captures them and there is something uncharacteristically
genuine, almost begging in the way he pronounces his next question with the frustration of
something nearly desperate. “What do you want from me, Taehyung?”

He asks because he’s already told Taehyung he should want nothing, expect nothing.
 He should, they both should, so Jungkook does not know what it is that washes over him, so cold
and vivid, when Taehyung looks at him dead in the eyes, swears, “You already gave me all I
wanted from you. You reach my prostate quite well.” He frees his arm and Jungkook lets him,
snaps his fingers into a fist once they’re not around him anymore. “Now you can let yourself out.”

Taehyung walks away, goes in another room in this house that is familiar to him, this space that is
his. The door slams shut, and it rings in Jungkook’s ears as much as words do. He leaves. He lets
himself out.

Chapter End Notes

it's a little different, still my type of length, took long because I had the busiest week of
my life, so it may need to be revisited and heavily edited. despite that, I hope you are
still able to enjoy; I love all discussion this story provokes, it's very inspiring, makes
the hours I spend writing seem worthwhile, love all the support, and even enjoy
(appreciate?) reading the somewhat critical comments, so thank you everyone who is
involved

ps I know that's not how overwatch works but I don't have time for field research on
video games so assume it does
 Chapter 15
Chapter Summary

im very consistent with this 17k worth of shit I don't know why its not planned

Chapter Notes

10 k of those were in one seating so beware its a product of a 14 hour sit down, I might
edit later on, been very busy lately, but I wanted to get it out, so here goes

A part of Taehyung expects that Jungkook’s absence will be repeated, but that part is proven
wrong. Jungkook is there. He sits across from Min Yoongi on table sixteen and they have a slow,
but flowing conversation, interrupted only by their own intended pauses.

Yoongi sits incredibly straight on the chair for his usual habits, seems to have actual control of his
spine for the time being. Taehyung knows they are in no need of menus, but he is obliged to bring
them out anyway and he does. He walks over with indignation that he hopes he represses into
professional indifference.

The first to notice his approach is Yoongi and he does it with a tilt of his head, a lazy nod in
acknowledgment. “Kim,” he drawls out. His eyes skim across Taehyung and it makes him slightly
nervous. His gaze is heavy and previously he has not deigned to be so attentive of his presence, nor
greet him by his name. “Heard you’re pretty gay now,” he says, and though he seems completely
unmoved, he adds a dull, irony clad, “Congratulations.” He watches Taehyung’s mouth open and
then shut, notices his eyes narrow. Yoongi’s head cocks. “Wonder if your sister knows.”

Taehyung swallows, lips thin. He notices from the corner of his eye, Jungkook’s head shifts to
him, though he cannot know with what expression the other skids his gaze across the bop of his
throat as he refuses to return the look. His heart thuds angrily in his chest, a heated adrenaline
coursing through his blood at the last sentence, and he struggles to ignore it. “Would you like to
look at the menus or will you just have drinks?” he speaks tightly.
Yoongi’s brows lift into his hair. He adjusts on the chair, brings his face close to Taehyung. “You
know,” he begins, utterly conversational, tone light, “She’s been doing me a real good service as of
late.” He pauses and with the same casualness, states, “Looks really nice bent over.”

Taehyung has to gnaw at his own lip in an effort not to snap. His finger taps at the menu, eyes dart
to Jungkook, Jungkook who slides his own back to him for the merest moment before he takes
them away. His finger taps at the menu. His mouth parts, and he means to speak, but Yoongi is
interrupting again. Taehyung is unsure he has even heard that much from him before.

“Though she’d probably look better sprawled open.”

Taehyung’s finger stills at the menu. His mouth snaps shut, teeth knocking together, his jaw
ticking. Something flashes in his eye. He can feel his ears buzz with it, but then the sound sizzles,
stops, and is replaced with the familiarity of Jungkook’s bored voice.

“He’ll have the Piña Colada,” his words ring firmly. “I’ll have a diet coke.”

Taehyung’s eyes bore into Jungkook’s for the short moment he allows them to. He lets his jaw
loosen, skids his tongue at his lower lip and tilts his head at Yoongi to give him a chance to deny
it. He simply leans his elbows on the table, lifts a hand and makes a twirling motion with a single
finger in the air. “Make sure you get me one of those funny straws.”

Taehyung nods, barely shifts his head with it, abandons all professional politeness and swiftly just
leaves. He leaves, and he goes into Rouge, long legs taking quick steps. He lets the door fall shut
so frustratingly slowly because of its mechanism behind him and he moves to the bar, throws the
menus on top.

“Piña Colada and a diet coke for table sixteen,” he nods at Minho. “I’m taking my lunch break
early.”

He does not wait for a response and barely awards Bogum with one when he wheezes past him as
he works the coffee machine and asks him if he is okay. Taehyung is okay. He tells himself that as
he storms into the back corridor and runs fingers of both hands through his hair, gathers the strands
from his forehead and back and pulls, squeezes.

He breathes, he tries to breathe. He hates this, hates how powerless he is, how he is uncapable of
protecting his own sister for the sake of his job. He knows what Ji-woo would say, ignore it, she
would. But Ji-woo is mature, and Taehyung just wants to spit in Yoongi’s fucking funny straw.

He is having a fit. He is having a fit and Jungkook walks in and it is the last thing he wants.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook sneaks behind his back, startles him into spinning to face him. Taehyung
watches with narrow eyes as Jungkook shuts the door on the dreadfully wrong side of it.

Taehyung steps back. “I have nothing to say you,” he says with the temper of his fit, pulling his
hands away from his hair and letting them hang by his sides, fingers clenching together.

“Tae,” Jungkook tries again as he moves towards him and Taehyung knows him by now, his body
knows he will reach for his hand before he consciously does and he pulls it away, lifts it into the
air, brusque.

He seethes, eyes as challenging as his words, “You don’t want to be seen with someone pretty gay,
do you?”

Jungkook’s gaze traces behind the hand his instinctively reaches for as his fingers close around
nothing. He does not attempt again, lets his shoulders droop with the promise he won’t touch. He
sighs with it, with his next words, which he says low with the connotation of privacy. “Listen,” he
begins, and Taehyung rolls his eyes at the pure demandingness of the word. “Before you pull
something stupid and get him angry,Yoongi would never tell your sister.” And he hesitates.
“About,” and he takes his gaze away for a moment, looks at the floor, runs his tongue across his
lips, “about Bogum and you.” His eyes are back on Taehyung, and there is nothing to tell, he
thinks, but he won’t let him know that. “Neither would he touch her. That wasn’t for your sake. It
was for mine.”

Taehyung does not understand what that means, does not know if Jungkook’s word can be taken as
true, but he likes to pretend he doesn’t care. He likes to think maybe this has tired him out too
much to care. It is tiring, it’s exhausting. He crosses his arms across his chest, does not let his
expression soften, though he feels the fatigue of it all seep into his voice. “How come even when
something is done for your sake, I am the one who takes it up the ass?”

Jungkook’s face sets now, features tighten as his eyes seal onto Taehyung with something achingly
familiar. “You kissed a man in public.” He is abundant in accusation as he takes a step forward.
“It’s on you being this fucking careless.”
Taehyung scoffs first and defends second, with a necessary amount of vehemence. “He doesn’t
know how Richhood works,” his teeth snap. “But he won’t do it in public anymore.”

Jungkook is taking another step, but Taehyung is past the time in which he would have responded
with a step back. So Jungkook steers close, closer, brows raising in his hair and eyes widening on
his face in a pattern that almost carries the implication of offense. “In public?”

Taehyung takes his eyes away, snaps them up at the ceiling as he inhales sharply through his nose,
begs the frustration away. He hates this jealousy that Jungkook has, this jealousy that is such a
double-bladed knife, such a teasing liar, tricks Taehyung into the illusion of Jungkook potentially
caring, then swiftly taking it away with the reminder he is possessive by nature and nurture, likes
to have his things to himself.

“I don’t even owe you an answer to this,” Taehyung says as he brings his head down, shakes hair
out of his eyes.

Jungkook’s tongue pokes into his cheek, stretched skin and flesh. He pauses. He tries for neutral,
but it comes out tight. “Are you actually fucking him?”

Taehyung blinks. “He’s better for me than you are.” He knows it’s ambiguous, knows it leaves all
the room for assumption and with the bitterness he says it with he feels a part of him does it on
purpose.

The other’s jaw ticks, once. “Better?”

There is something typically condescending in the single word, in the arch of his eyebrow under
his bangs that fuels Taehyung’s spitefulness. “Yeah,” his mouth curls, but it’s not a smile and it’s
not a scowl, just an expression. “He fucks me better.” And Ji-woo may be mature, but he certainly
is not.

Jungkook’s eyes flash and jaw snaps again, but it’s momentary. He is still, apparently calm, though
something else entirely radiates off of him and between their rigid bodies. He keeps his voice
composed, low. “That fucking mouth on you, Taehyung,” he says, gaze shifting leisurely low on
Taehyung’s face as his own lips slightly part.

Taehyung’s head cocks, own eyes lowering to observe the tongue that slithers across the relief of
Jungkook’s teeth. “What about it?” he questions a little challenging and a little absent.
Jungkook takes a single step and leans, lips coming closer to his ear though his body remains at
some distance. “Honestly? I wanna fuck it till you gag.”

Taehyung feels something cold cascade down the line of his spine and it is almost entirely
irritation. He wants to curse him out, but he also doesn’t want to waste more words on him, not
today. He does not deserve his mouth. So, what Taehyung attempts with a labored exhale is a
sidestep, but Jungkook mirrors it. He holds the silent promise not to touch, keeps his hands to
himself, but still gets in his way and remains stoic and stubborn even with the chilly glare that
almost automatically comes his way.

“Where are you going?” Jungkook demands, voice laced with something not entirely nameable. It
does not sit well with him that Taehyung works with Bogum, not at all, wonders how long
Taehyung will be mad at him if he gets the prick fired.

“Unlike you, Jungkook,” Taehyung grinds out, “I need to actually work to have money.” He tries
to step around him again, but the other is in front of him again, proximity between them somehow
increasing. With their height so similar they’re face to face, eye to eye, glare to glare.

Jungkook’s tongue clicks and he hisses, ironic, through closed teeth, an imitation of sympathy that
is borderline bitchy. It somehow suits him and doesn’t. “Yeah,” he cocks his head. “Must suck to
know I can hire your ass full time for me to fuck and you wouldn’t have to wash a dish in your life
again.” His voice is icily low, almost murmuring, soothing, but the meaning of the words is
vicious, sharp, sharp enough to puncture to Taehyung’s own composure.

He tries to mirror the calm with which he’s spoken to helplessly, but he’s almost growling. “My
ass is not for sale,” he says with his chest, through his teeth. Their eyes are locked together with a
connection that is almost palpable, a current of animosity transpiring vivid from pupil to pupil.

Jungkook’s words are still more of a whisper, but they feel like a snarl. “That’s a different song
you’re singing now.”

Taehyung never sold his ass, never his mouth, never let anything inside of himself for money and
he wouldn’t. Still, the reminder of what he did do for money rings with hurt. Shame swallows his
first attempt to speak, but the memory of Woojin’s smile invigorates his second.

“Old song’s forgotten now. Just like you can forget about my ass.”
Jungkook fakes a chortle, short and ringing and it irks at every inch of Taehyung’s skin. His face is
close when eyes narrow and words travel from mouth to mouth in a tone that is almost threatening
in its nature of a promise. “I make you hard, Taehyung,” he says, enunciates, makes sure every
syllable is felt, “I always make you hard.”

Taehyung nods his head, the upper part of his mouth, teeth bared, hovers over his lower lip as he
lets out a breath of a snort. “Yeah?” his lip twitches. “Is that it?” He challenges. “I can jerk off my
own cock.”

He can, he does it, and it doesn’t matter he thinks about Jungkook when he’s at it. His face will
fade away, eventually, it will. Every person who is not in his family does, sometimes his family as
well.

Jungkook’s eyes dart across his face. “You can pretend it’s the same all you want, but you said it
yourself.” There’s something dauntingly piercing to his stare, “I’m incomparable,” he spells it out
with his mouth, says it so slow and pointed, Taehyung almost flinches. Neither of them knows
when their mirrored breathing patterns escalated as they did, but chests rise and fall too heavy for
the simplicity of conversation. Next sentence practically peels off of his tongue, hangs accusatory
and smug, “You wantme.”

Not an inch of them touches, but Taehyung feels Jungkook’s presence burn into his body.

“Yeah?” he cocks his head. “I do,” he admits, takes a step closer, one that almost eradicates the
distance, almost. He admits it loud and clear and indulges in the way Jungkook’s eyes fall to his
lips as he does it. He admits it because it is the one thing he can afford that Jungkook can’t.
“Probably as much as you want me,” He tells him and nearly smirks with the way the other’s eyes
snap back to him. Before he allows a response, he steps back again, two steps this time, away from
him. “I’ve got to work, Jungkook,” he shakes hair out of his eyes. “Get Julia to get you off. I heard
she’s back from Paris.” This time when he sidesteps him, Jungkook allows it. “See if that’s the
same.”

He allows him to step away, but he spins with the movement as well, just as Taehyung is about to
reach the door. “Haven’t fucked Julia in a while, Taehyung.”

And Taehyung pauses.

“Why?” he asks because for a moment it is the only word he knows. He doesn’t understand why
Jungkook would tell him this, why he hasn’t fucked Julia in a while, and why something warm and
stupid washes over his bones when he hears it.

Taehyung’s left shoulder is aligned with Jungkook’s right one, but he watches them both as he
shrugs. “Doesn’t feel fair to her.”

Taehyung bristles but his tone is biting, “What?” He shakes his head with unadulterated
disbelief.“You’re suddenly all righteous. You cheat on her all the time.”

Jungkook turns to him fully, and it is back on, he’s stepping towards him and the whispered tone of
the conversation drops as his voice raises, “And what do you think you know about my
relationship?” His arms lift in the air as he pauses, gives him a small door for an answer, but
Taehyung doesn’t take it. “Julia fucks other people as well. She knows about the other girls,
Taehyung.” His arms fall and so does his voice. “She doesn’t know about you.”

You, he says in a manner that is coated with pure blame, some underlying anger.

Taehyung blinks, once, twice, his head retracting back. “Well, there’s nothing to know about me, is
there?” He’s saying, and he aims for the door again, but Jungkook’s fast, fingers wrapping around
his wrist and pulling him close, tries for the nth time to manhandle him into place.

“Taehyung,” he starts, and his mouth remains opened, but words don’t fall, because Taehyung is
rippinghis hand away brusquely, he’s stepping back. He’s raising his own voice now.

“Stop,” he fills with all his frustration from Saturday on, releases it in a single word that makes his
deep voice twist ugly, before he gets ahold of it, “hogging me around like this, thinking I can never
do it back.”

Taehyung pauses not for the sake of Jungkook, but for himself. His chest expands and retracts
angry and fueled by that very same frustration. He stares at Jungkook hard and harsh as the other
swallows down his previous thought and licks at his lips, face minutely blanking.

He doesn’t speak, so Taehyung does, charged with exasperation. “I’m a man, Jungkook,” He tells
him, pokes his own chest, once twice, three times, four. “Just because I don’t bash people’s skulls
in does not mean I’m not a fucking man.”
Jungkook still just stares, with eyes so full and empty at the same time, eyes that seal so bold and
calm onto Taehyung as he barely catches his breath, taken by nothing but emotion. He can’t look at
them, they’re engrained in his brain enough, he sees them sometimes when he closes his own. “I
am a man and you like to fuck me,” Taehyung announces with finality. “That’s the fucking tea.”

Taehyung leaves after that and Jungkook just watches. He goes in the toilet, washes his hands and
wipes them on his trousers when Yoongi can see him. He sits and he watches, and it only takes
Bogum a few minutes to make Taehyung smile and maybe it is not enough for Jungkook to know
he only needs a few minutes to make Taehyung come, because he cannot watch that smile,
however innocent it is.

Taehyung taps his fingers on the kitchen table as Ji-woo murmurs under her nose, says numbers.
Her eyes are wide and wild as they look over all the papers strewn across the surface.

He’s done with his part of the pile, props himself up on an elbow, chin held in his palm and he
watches her, looks on as she fervently sorts through bills and numbers as she insists she’ll help,
though he’ll just do it quicker on his own. He looks at all the passion she’s ready to pour into this
family.

And he says, “Ji-woo.”

“I’ll do it, Tae. Shut up.”

“Okay,” Taehyung nods. “But that’s not it.”

Her focus remains on paper. “What is then?”

He hesitates. “Why did you drop the Jeon’s weeklies?”

Her head snaps, eyes locking on him as wide as they were on the bills. She opens her mouth, closes
it, looks down again. “I told you, Tae,” she says, she lies, “Timetabling.”

“Noona,” Taehyung calls and she allows their gazes to meet again, simply has to with the way he
reaches a palm over her hand and closes it gently around. “It’s you. You don’t have to lie to me.”

Ji-woo’s eyes search his, find only softness. She sighs, breathes, takes her hand away and relaxes
back into her chair. “Fine,” she says. “Get some soju, make sure Woo’s asleep and we’ll talk.”

She promises and Ji-woo always keeps her promises.

Jungkook’s shirt sweats into his skin when the elevator arrives on his floor. He’s managed to get
his breath under control now, though he’s not done this for a while, almost forgotten how much he
loves the high and pain of a good run, having abandoned most cardio for the sake of strength. He
wipes at his forehead, walks through the hallway, his shoes dirtying the marble, the parquet
flooring of the living room. He steps into the kitchen, reaches directly for the fridge.

He doesn’t notice her behind the island until he gulps down half a gallon of water and shuts the
door. When the fridge closes, however, for a moment his heart drops, his face blanks. When he can
feel his blood pump again, it’s quick, hot, runs through his veins with the nature of sheer panic.

He doesn’t remember crouching, dropping to the floor, only feels his bare knees against the cold
tiles. His fingers reach for her cheek, he tries to be gentle, tries to be soft as he pushes hair away to
look at her face, but his hand trembles a little bit and he doesn’t know if he should be allowed to
touch her. “Clo” his voice shakes more. “Clo, Clo are you okay?” He’s frantic and he know it, tries
to repress it into calm – she does not need him frantic, does not need him scared. He can’t be
scared. “Can you look at me? Did you take anything?”

Her lower spine is pressed into the door of a counter, but the rest of it is curled, arms wrapped
around her slim legs as she props her forehead on her knees, hair falling over and closing her off
from view.

She lifts it easily and he can breathe again as she relaxes it back onto the counter. Strands fall
across and away from her face and he can see her eyes now, but maybe he preferred it when she
couldn’t. They’re empty. Her lower lip is cracked in the middle and saliva has gathered at the
corner of her mouth.

Somewhere in the room her phone starts to ring, buzzes with a vibration in the rhythm with which
her ringtone breaks through the silence.

Jungkook ignores it.

“No, I didn’t,” she shakes her head lightly. Her voice is as vacant as her face as she looks away
from her brother, lets her head roll and fall away on one side, eyes choosing the floor. “They’re
going on vacation now. He doesn’t want to see me.”

Her phone stops ringing, but then it starts again. The buzz of it sounds angry, but not as furious as
the blood that makes Jungkook’s ears ring as the panic resurfaces again, slams like a wave, wet
and powerful.

“What did he do to you, Clo?” he asks, begs, says, he doesn’t know what he does, but he knows she
won’t answer, not to this. She would never give Jungkook a detail, never, because Jungkook
cannot handle knowing without acting. But Jungkook has seen the pattern as well, he realizes their
father only travels when he is swarmed by rare occurrence of guilt. Inducing guilt in his father is
only achieved by his own greatest transgressions, and Jungkook does not want to imagine what he
did that he cannot bare to look at his daughter. So, he closes his eyes, squeezes them shut until all
he sees is black and not that red that tries to lens his pupils, opens them, new question on his lips.
“Why?”

He searches her for an answer, fingers still on her cheek, lost in her hair. His thumb instinctively
pats over her cheekbone, under her eyes, and she flinches away from it. He retracts his hand,
presses his palm into his knee. She’s looking at nothing but the pattern on their Italian tiling when
she says, “There are rumors about me and Jin.”

Jungkook’s tongue licks at his lips as he sucks air, looks away for a moment, to contain his own
self. He’d warned her about this, about being with Seokjin, but this is not the point. He stares at her
again and wonders if his gaze can communicate half of his conviction. “There won’t be any
tomorrow, okay?” he promises eyes searching her face as she rolls her head again, allows her eyes
to fall on him. “Do you hear me? Anyone who speaks your name and his in the same sentence will
get their own shit fed to them, get their mouths too stuffed to speak, okay?”

Her eyes are wet, but she doesn’t cry.

Her phone starts ringing again and he hadn’t even noticed the silence.

Clo Eun nods her chin at the kitchen island. “Get it to stop ringing,” she asks, voice atypically
weak, a variation of her speech very few people would recognize as hers, but Jungkook would
know it in his sleep.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, once, nods. “Okay,” he says a second time as he realizes he has not
actually moved. He gets on his feet, straightens, reaches for the phone.

He only means to look at it to click it shut on the screen, because he does not trust his thumb with
the button on the side. It is not intention to look, but his eyes find the name, seal on it, and he feels
his fingers stop trembling. He stills. He recognizes a Japanese area code and he recognizes the
name.

“It’s Namjoon,” Jungkook tells her, voice void, as he lets the call end on its own. “I thought you
said you didn’t,” and he looks at her now, “you didn’t talk to him anymore.”

He tries hard to keep any judgment out of his voice, any anger. He knows nothing he says, neither
the manner with which he does it, though, can fool Clo Eun into not seeing through his demeanor
and into what lies beneath.

“I don’t,” she answers. “I called him now.”

Jungkook does not skip a beat. “Why?” He’s brusque, no matter how much he tries to stifle it.

There is onething to Clo’s eyes now. They’re tired as she looks up, at him. She shakes her head in
an answer to an unspoken question. “It’s not drugs, Kook,” she promises. “If I wanted drugs, I’d
call Kai.” Her lids screw shut, and she breathes. She seems to need the darkness as she speaks next.
“I want a friend, Jungkook. He’s the only friend I ever had.”

Jungkook’s stomach feels curiously hollow. He knows this, knows no girl in their surroundings
would want to be friends with someone as apparently perfect as Jeon Clo Eun. He swallows. “What
about,” he licks his lips, hesitates, “what about Seokjin?”
“He loves me, Kook,” she tells him, and she opens her eyes to try with them to convey something
she cannot with simply words, because she knows he doesn’t understand what she means when she
says this, he can’t, not yet, and his chest feels hollow, too. So does his head. “It makes him
selfish.”

What about me, he wants to say, but he doesn’t.

He walks over to her, squats down, levels his eyes with hers. “Okay,” He rests the phone on her
knee, and she flinches away from that touch, too. It makes him pause, brief, before he nods, “okay,
if you want to talk to him, I’ll leave, let you call him in private.”

And he leaves the device on the Italian tiles next to her and makes to stand, but suddenly he has
two hands, ten fingers, clutching to his forearm, squeezing into flesh. “No,” Clo says. The naked
desperation of the word tugs at him. It hurts. “No don’t leave. Stay.” She repeats, “Stay.” And then
with their eyes connecting she mumbles, “Please.”

Jungkook swallows, shakes her grip off of his arm. He turns, stands next to the counter and slides
down until he’s on the tile as well, back propped like hers. He reeks of sweat and so does she, and
they stay like that for a while.

Jimin works the bar tonight, but Taehyung is not here for him, though does lean on the top and
indulges him in distracting chatter between clients as he waits for Bogum to come.

He’d texted him some ten minutes ago to apologize for his lateness, promised his presence in
about half an hour or so, but Taehyung doesn’t mind waiting. Not when he’s at the Ozone and
Jimin is working the bar.

He sips on a Piña Colada, in a club, which is borderline ridiculous, but he’d had such a craving
when Jimin had offered to get something for him on the house, he just couldn’t resist. Jimin has no
funny straws tonight, so he has to settle for a regular one.

It is a Thursday, an off night for many of the typical Richhood residents, because it’s DJ night at
Octagon and they move there, though it’s much harder to do lines in the bathroom. He’s glanced at
a certain designated booth several times from the corner of his eye, when Jimin gets busy, and it’s
empty. His Piña Coladas are safe.

“Sorry I can’t pay too much attention to you, baby,” Jimin tells him as he pretends to wipe at the
bar top near him.

Taehyung sucks on the last bit of his cocktail until it slurps. “It’s fine,” he releases the straw after
he chews on it a little bit. “Bogumie hyung is coming in a bit. He’ll keep me company.”

Jimin selects a spot and pretends there is something there that is particularly nasty to clean as he
scrubs. “Keep forgetting you now have more than one friend.”

Taehyung narrows his eyes at Jimin, bites at the straw again and uses his mouth to point the other
end of it towards Jimin’s comfortably awaiting ear.

“He’s my only friend actually,” Taehyung says as he perches one foot onto the foot rail. He smiles.
“Unless you get me another cocktail.”

Jimin’s brows raise as he scrubs vehemently. “You’d sell yourself for a Piña Colada, huh?” he
smirks.

Taehyung tries to shoot him with whatever remaining liquid he can gather from his drained glass.
His teeth release the straw. “You’d sell yourself for less.”

Jimin most eloquently flips him off and leaves him to tend to his bar, but he does sneak by to
wordlessly place another Piña Colada in front of him. Taehyung relaxes his elbows onto the bar
top, now atypically clean, and wraps his lips around his straw, sipping happily. Yoongi’s a bitch
but he has nice taste for cocktails.

He does not expect hands on his hips, certainly not a body pressing against his back, and it nearly
makes him splutter when he feels him, rhythm of his heart speeding, goes sporadic, and he knows
just who is behind him, just by the way his skin immediately tingles, his mind snaps alert and
awake.

The press of it is familiar, he knows it, his body knows it, that treacherously addictive heat that he
loathes with how much he sometimes craves, is palpable as crevices are filled and forgotten with
the way he molds into him. Taehyung straightens up, spine goes rigid.
Bodies here are close, lights are dim, music is loud, much too loud, for anyone to really care about
a back pressed into a chest. Space is naturally scarce, the nature of the Ozone, but Taehyung’s
heart tremors, skin ablaze. His eyes widen with the surprise of it, the unexpectedness. It’s an off
night, Julia’s not here, Yoongi’s not, Hoseok’s not. Jungkook’s not supposed to be here either.

But there he is, body molding so illicitly into Taehyung’s and then his mouth is by his ear. He can
feel his breath and it almost makes him lose his.

“There you are,” Jungkook exhales, lips brushing the sensitive shell.

Taehyung’s eyes dart to Jimin, the palpitations of his heart begging for him to be busy and he is.

He angles his head different and the next exhale hits his cheek. “Me?” his lips part, lids blink. He
wants to spin, look at him, does not like this disarming proximity, the sensation of Jungkook
against him is a weakness he has learned to know, but not accept. The corner of his eye almost
catches his face, but he scares it tilts their lips too close together when he feels him on his tongue
through the gap of his mouth and he takes his head away.

“You,” Jungkook confirms, still so close to his ear. “I’ve been looking for you,” he says, voice
rushed. There’s a tinge of the beginnings of something desperate that makes Taehyung furrow his
brows in confusion, induced along with the meaning of what he says. Looking for him. He gulps,
waits for some kind of explanation and it comes with his next hurried breath, a lick of his lips that
moistens the lobe of Taehyung’s ear and it almost coerces him into a flinch. “Come with me to the
back room.”

“What?” Taehyung breathes before he thinks, moving instinctively in a fidgeting motion that he
instantly regrets, because all it does is make him feel Jungkook. He retracts forward again, tries to
take his body away from the sensation of the touch. He hisses, “I can’t.” And then,“I won’t.” He
tries to look at him again, glare at him, but it is futile, so he channels all the animosity he can
muster in his tone of voice, “I’m not your fucking booty call.”

A hand squeezes on his hip. “Yeah?” Jungkook’s head tilts, breath falls on his neck, and then
hands are falling over him as well, fingers gliding over his thighs and Taehyung has nowhere to
run. “I don’t even have your number,” Jungkook tells him with a frustration of something private,
and maybe he really did look for him. His palm fits over the pocket of his jeans that bulges with the
shape of his phone. His fingers slide upwards, contact pointed and unnecessary and then his hand is
slipping into the tight denim. Taehyung gasps with it, with the surprise and the feel of it alike, but
as soon as hot fingers touch him like this, they disappear, taking the device along with them.
He raises the phone on the bar top, lets Taehyung watch through gritted teeth as he opens his
password-less screen and types his number in as if he has every right to, dials himself and hangs up
once the call goes through.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung attempts to filter his name with a warning and some distaste, and he
manages, but Jungkook simply doesn’t care.

He says nothing to acknowledge Taehyung’s weakly attempted protestation, the elbow that tries to
poke back into his ribs, as he simply maneuvers himself more comfortably behind him, locks the
phone and slips it back into his pocket. He does it slow and pointed, a manner that is very much
unnecessary and it elicits a small disgruntled sound from Taehyung’s prying lips, a sound that
escalates when Jungkook’s hand does not leave, not immediately, it soothes over the fabric once
the device is securely in, presses his thumb on top to slide it in fully, while the rest of his fingers
twist, make a detour, grazing near his zip, tips coercing tingles as Taehyung’s hips instinctively
retract from the unexpected touch, away from the digits and into Jungkook’s own.

“Come with me,” Jungkook is demanding in his ear again when he takes his hand away, puts it on
the bar top instead, caging him in and Taehyung already has nowhere to go to.

His eyes drift back to Jimin, still as wide. Jimin’s busy. “If you don’t move,” Taehyung says,
speaks through teeth, as he grits them, thinks – he tries to, it’s hard when Jungkook’s touch so
easily stirs his body awake and wanting, but he ignores that, ignores the peculiar charge of
Jungkook’s voice when he demands almost frantic, “someone will see.”

The one hand that remains scorching onto Taehyung’s hip layers over the bone and squeezes in
indication as he urges, “So,” he pauses, shifts closer as Taehyung moves towards the bar, refuses to
let him escape so easily, “come with me.”

“Shit,” Taehyung curses when he feels Jungkook’s thigh attempt to slither in between his legs, the
relief of his crotch rubbing into the flesh of one of his cheeks. “The fuck is up with you?” he snaps,
a little breathier than he intends, than he likes, careful gaze seeking Jimin again, though his lids
begin to droop, then narrow.

Jungkook’s sighing in his ear, the pointed exhale of it ruffling Taehyung’s hair, chills over the
sensitive skin of his neck. “I need to not think, okay?” he tells him at the brink of frustration. “Just
come with me,” it’s almost a plea, almost a demand, but whatever the nature of it, it holds some
sort of hurried desperation that just barely skims the edges of the whole conversation.
Taehyung absolutely abhors the part of him that allows him to be slightly worried.

“Jungkook, I—”

“Just come, Taehyung,” Jungkook murmurs and another thing Taehyung loathes to the bone is he
still feels it in his knees when he says his name like this, so close, half a breath, half a word. “I
need this. Need you.”

“Shit,” Taehyung curses again the sound of the two words in combination disarming him more
than the feel of his muscled thigh between his legs and his body on his. He spins now, presses his
elbow into Jungkook’s chest and pushes him enough to allow himself to turn in his grasp. His arm
slides across, fingers and palm spread opened to replace on his chest and he can feel him breathe,
feel his heart beat. “Fine.”

Fine, he says, because his worry escalates, because Jungkook would never be saying that if he
himself were fine and by the bar top in the Ozone while Jimin works is certainly not the place to
deal with that.

Fine, he says, meets Jungkook’s eyes and then he has fingers latching tight around his wrist that
hovers over Jungkook’s chest. He pulls him away and Taehyung follows, blind to the sight of
Jimin turning just then, trailing his eyes behind them as he trails behind Jungkook.

Passing through a crowd is easier when you have Jeon Jungkook pulling you along and Taehyung’s
heart beats with the twofold nervousness of possible observing eyes and the anxiety of what is to
come. The digits burn into his wrist, harder than they need be when he follows so pliantly.
Taehyung tries to promise himself he’ll get Jungkook to talk, not fuck, but he knows that’s naïve
with the way Jungkook seems desperate.

The room he takes him to is the one Julia used to tell him about her request that first time, seems so
long ago now, so surreal that there was a time in which Jungkook had only touched him twice,
hadn’t been inside of him at all. The door is barely shut when Taehyung’s back is on it, pressed
against it, tight and flush.

Jungkook’s eyes stare into his, a distance between their chest as a powerful arm settles stretched
next to his head, but there’s no space between Jungkook’s thigh and his legs as he pushes against
him, muscle of it nestling comfortably in between his and Taehyung almost forgets his resolve to
attempt to speak with the way it rubs right against him. It’s barely a moment of breathing and
exchanged glances, Jungkook’s set almost into a glare, puncturing, dark and compelling, then he’s
taking it away, lids falling shut as he leans and tilts, goes immediately for his neck.
Before lips can touch his skin, Taehyung’s palm is back on his chest. He presses onto him firm and
pushes until he straightens, eyes open, now definitely set into a glare, hard and heated, but he
doesn’t press back, allows Taehyung to move him away and only asks the question with that fierce
stare. “Are you high?” Taehyung says, his own eyes darting all across his face for the signs of it.
Lights are dim, shining neon purple in the hues of the Ozone, and he can’t tell if his pupils are
wide, if he sweats.

“Yeah,” Jungkook breathes, adjusts his thigh closer to him, his knee fully sliding between
Taehyung’s legs and pressing into the door until it physically can’t come closer. It’s warm against
him, thick, and he has to strive to keep himself still. “What does it matter?” he says, quick and
rough.

Jungkook isn’t high. There is not a bit of his mind that is clouded by a substance. He may not feel
sober,but it’s not drugs. But Taehyung doesn’t have to know that.

He attempts to lean again, but Taehyung’s hand is surprisingly persistent on his chest. “I don’t
think I wanna do this with you if you’re high.”

Jungkook’s sighing, eyes are rolling, the breath of his exhale hitting tingling lips as he presses
closer, thigh digging into him. “Doesn’t matter, Tae,” Jungkook shakes his head as he practically
murmurs over the dulled sound of music, free hand sauntering just over his hip and pressing into
the flesh above it, fingers squeezing, indicative and enticing as he coaxes him closer in the rhythm
with which he presses further against him. “I want you,” he tells him, sure and demanding, and
God, for a moment Jungkook thinks maybe he is high, and at the same time Taehyung’s wondering
if he can get high on the sound of this, “Doesn’t change anything. I’ll remember it tomorrow.”

It’s the third time he leans to the side and Taehyung’s fist clenches over his chest and soon it’s
trapped against his chest as well, because this time he gets close, so close, lips hovering over his
jaw when Taehyung’s eyes first screw shut. His whole face contorts with it, with the effort to push
him away again, and when he says his name it rings like a plea, the same way Jungkook’s had a
few moments ago. “Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s eyes cascade over that face from the side as the features of it twist as if this is
somehow painful. “Please,” Jungkook murmurs and he knows it betrays a vulnerability he’s later
going to hate, but he needs to shut off everything that goes inside his brain and the only way he
knows how to do that is to get inside of Taehyung because then he can think of absolutely nothing
else but the exhilarating feel of it. “I want you so much,” he confesses, adopts the assumption he’s
high, feels like it, and just spills, presses against him, his chest into his closed fist, those clenching
pretty fingers, and his thigh between his legs, “Just thinking about you makes me hard, Tae.”
Taehyung’s teeth suck his lip into his mouth and Jungkook watches, sees the full pillow of it
disappear, go white, he glances down, takes in his collarbones, his throat. He speaks, “Your lips,
your skin, your ass, the face you make when you come, god, you get ten times prettier.” He layers
his own lips over the bone of his jaw. “So handsome.”

Taehyung’s fingers close around the fabric of his shirt. “Jungkook —” he attempts the beginning of
coherent speech, but Jungkook is adjusting his thigh again and it shifts against him in a delicious
friction he can hardly fight against, and he pauses, swears, “I, fuck.”

“Can you feel me?” Jungkook utters in his ear and it feels to him borderline dirty, what with the
way he can actually feel him, growing harder against the bone of his hip, the way Taehyung can
feel himself as well, length of him pressed against Jungkook’s fucking thigh. “I feel you,”
Jungkook tells him and he knows, Taehyung knows, because he’s getting regrettably hard, and
with the way the muscle rubs against him it is beyond his control.

“Jungkook, please,” Taehyung says because the configuration of those two words are all the
eloquence he’s capable of, fingers twitching with their hold of the shirt. He presses his knuckles
into it, attempts a weak push, and the other actually leans back with it, and he hisses. He can
breathe.

For about a moment.

Because next moment he is sighing a sentence that almost makes Taehyung convulse. “I wanna
suck your cock.”

His eyes snap open, wide and disbelieving, search Jungkook’s face, looking for any sign that this is
some elaborate, cruel joke, but he sees none, only nuances of determination. He begs Jungkook
doesn’t feel him twitch. “Fuck, what?”

“I want to, pretty boy,” Jungkook says, licks his lips lewd and provocative and Taehyung’s gaze is
helplessly drawn to it, “Will you let me?”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow with all that is left from his dwindling resolve. He gives his best to be
firm, then, to be petty, “That’s pretty gay, don’t you think?” he bites, his grip loosening on
Jungkook’s shirt before fingers clench tighter into the fabric.

Jungkook’s eyes seem liquid, dripping poisonous lust that seeps from his to Taehyung’s with the
way he stares with such confidence, whispers shameless and breathy, “I’m pretty gay for you if you
haven’t noticed.” Those eyes flash, he leans. His breath hovers over Taehyung’s parted mouth,
gaze studying the whole of his face as Taehyung just watches those deadly eyes. “And now,”
Jungkook’s lips open, tongue grazes over before his teeth clasp, and he speaks with almost whiny
conviction, “I want to suck your cock.”

Taehyung blinks. His mouth opens and then closes, and all his fingers can do is squeeze. His mind
goes blank with the prospect of it, the idea, and it still rings to him as a joke, a joke that makes all
his blood pump faster. That should be it, though, he’s allowed himself to be turned on by
Jungkook, admitted it, accepted it. He has not allowed himself to care about what alters his
demeanor to the extent he would actually speak that previous sentence, that one that goes through
ears to his brain and roots, readying for continuous obsession once he’s at liberty to think.

Silence stretches, so Jungkook moves, angles his head so he can speak by his cheek, lips brushing
into the skin as his thigh presses against him, makes him squirm. Taehyung feels the ridiculous
need to grind into it, the friction teases into insufferable frustration, but his voice is even worse
when he murmurs, “Don’t you want me to get on my knees for you?” Taehyung’s head falls back,
hits the door, eyes screwed shut. This is some contemporary fucked up form of torture, must be,
and he cannot take it. “I’ve never been on my knees for anyone else.”

He hates he’s shown enough of himself to give Jungkook leverage to know exactly what to say
because the last of his words make him crumble, when he puts it like that.

Jeon Jungkook. On his knees. For Kim Taehyung.

“Yeah,” Taehyung sighs as his teeth unlatch in a deep exhale. He has not yet allowed himself to
agree, breathes the word only half in response, and half gets it coaxed out of him under the
ministrations of Jungkook’s leg between his, so subtly on him, yet the tension of it is ridiculous as
it brushes Taehyung firmly. He knows at this point his own hips are not entirely still. “Shit,” he
spits and it’s for himself as much as it is for Jungkook, but then his eyes are cracking open and he
nods as he swallows, “Yeah.” He meets his eyes, a final chance for him to pull out of this fucking
joke. “Yes,” he hisses.

Jungkook’s thigh grinds into him along with fingers squeezing his waist at the final sound and he
grunts with it, cannot help himself. Lethal stare does not leave his as he leans, forward this time, so
close he can feel his hair brush on his forehead, and Taehyung’s heart skips a stupid beat. He looks
into his face, breathes into his lips, though he’s panting more than breathing. He’s so close, he can
feel him on his tongue again, his exhales more leveled than Taehyung’s own, but loaded
nevertheless. Jungkook’s eyes dart to his parted mouth, swiftly jump to his own and Taehyung
grows hopeful.

It’s in less than a moment that Jungkook has his tongue in the crevice between his collarbones,
eyes shutting and leaving. Taehyung’s next breath is a sigh as he relaxes his head back on the door
again, screwing his own lids shut. He’s stupid, Taehyung is so fucking stupid.

Jungkook’s fingers squeeze into his waist one last time, bring him close, before they lift along with
his other hand, move towards the collar of Taehyung’s shirt, pop the first button. Taehyung’s own
arm is in the way, he moves it, hesitates with what to do with it, but Jungkook’s teeth nip lightly at
the skin he reveals, and he instinctively latches onto his waist, fingers digging there.

Jungkook is quick but not hasty with the way he works his button, mouths over every new patch of
dark skin he reveals as he goes down the length of Taehyung’s front and soon, he has to bent,
taking his thigh away, which coerces an embarrassing whine out of Taehyung’s lips. He sinks his
teeth into the bottom one. His hand falls off Jungkook’s waist as his shirt is almost undone and his
fingers are pulling it out of his jeans, then circling around to hold his own waist, now sliding across
bare, sensitive skin, carrying with themselves a certain current that makes him fidget, almost flinch
away from the touch, but the other does not allow it, holds him firmly.

Taehyung is not built like Jungkook and he knows it; his stomach is flat, but soft, fleshy, yet not an
ounce of insecurity he silently anticipates washes over him as Jungkook’s tongue dips, mouths very
gently over his belly button and Taehyung gets the urge to hold his hair. He gets increasingly
sensitive the lower Jungkook sinks, his stomach retracting with sudden, sighed breaths and then,
without taking his lips away, Jungkook gets careful and slow on his knees.

The fabric of his own jeans is not meant for the stained floor of the back room of a club, even if it
is the Ozone. Taehyung’s jeans are worn out, imitation denim, faded, hand me downs from
Namjoon, almost ripped in places. He can be on his knees. Jungkook’s are brand, expensive, raw
De Nîmes; they’re new. He has no place on his knees.

Taehyung lifts his head off the door, tilts it down, his lids lowered but eyes hazy with fascination.
He thinks he might be dreaming, because the reality of this is certainly dubious, Jungkook on his
knees, for him. He glances up as he senses him look, gaze still as puncturing and callous, still can
be attributed a very Jeon authority, yet his mouth hovers over the bulge in Taehyung’s jeans, breath
there labored and teasing, and he's on his knees.

Jungkook brings his hands forward, does not separate them from his skin for even a moment before
he has the nimble fingers at the front, popping the button, pulling down the zipper. Taehyung can’t
take it, knocks his head back again, shuts his eyes. There is something so conceptually and
physically overwhelming about Jungkook on his knees.

“Want my shirt off?” Jungkook asks, staring up at him, and Taehyung nods, too readily. He hears
the shuffle of the fabric as he sheds himself off it, but his eyes keep screwed shut.
“Won’t you look at me?” Jungkook’s saying and his voice resonates innocent yet still ridiculously
composed, only falters at the end. Taehyung adjusts his chin, separates his lids, takes him in again,
heart racing angry and dangerous. Jungkook teases, “I know you like to look.”

It’s granted he does, this is how all this began. If it weren’t for Taehyung’s curious, wandering
eyes, Jungkook would now not be on his knees for him. Jungkook is on his knees for him.

Taehyung breathes, slicks his lips, then he forgets how to breathe again for a moment, because
Jungkook’s hand is dipping, fingers wrapping around the length of him, and taking him out of his
pants.

“Do you want me to look?” Taehyung mumbles.

Jungkook’s response is a hum that borders on the imitation of a moan and Taehyung wants to hear
it again. His mouth nearly dries as he watches Jungkook lick a stripe down the length of his palm,
never separating his eyes, before he wraps it around Taehyung, leisurely pumping his fist over him
as if every touch doesn’t make Taehyung lose his mind.

It’s a struggle for Taehyung to keep his head straight, gaze tilted, but Jungkook’s question holds an
underlying challenge and he takes it, always does.

Jungkook’s hand is almost lazy with the way it fists over him, a fucking tease, of course he is,
breath layering over sensitive skin as he pants, lips so close to the tip that Taehyung has to
withhold a hiss, eyes morphing almost into a glare as he stares down. “Don’t know how to do this
for you, Tae,” Jungkook speaks over him and Taehyung is about ready to die, the sigh of his voice
hitting him warm and powerful, and maybe Taehyung is not prepared to have his actual mouth on
him, though at this point he’s almost trembling with the need of it. “You have to tell me what feels
good.”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow, teeth grit as he continues this slow, elaborate torture. “Thought you could
do everything,” he hisses at him, voice screwed with the tension of waiting for this, brimming with
arousal, and a certain animosity towards the ploy of it.

Jungkook’s lids blink, so slow. “So much I can’t do,” he sighs words that are not part of this
conversation, words that make Taehyung skip a breath. Jungkook does not allow a moment to pass
after the slip of something so peculiarly genuine, wraps his mouth around Taehyung’s tip, and he’s
gasping, teeth falling over his lips. He tilts his head back, eyes screwing shut for a bare moment
before he forces them open again, looks down, stares down.

Fingers hold him at the base as lips stretch over him. Jungkook is careful as he sinks his mouth
down further, then up, again, perpetuating an eye contact that is as beguiling as the warm sensation
of his lips, his tongue, the heat of his cheeks on the inside.

Taehyung struggles to breathe evenly, to look as Jungkook’s lips reach his fingers and then move
back. He does it slow and methodical once, twice, three times, before he speeds it up, does it faster,
more confident. He does not take him all in, does not attempt to. Taehyung can feel the back of his
mouth at some of the bobs of his head, knows any further would probably make him gag.

His fingers give in, lift to his head and tread in his hair, squeeze, just a bit. He needs something to
hold onto to fucking survive this. Taehyung has only ever had one person suck his cock before in
his life and it was nothing like this, not nearly as exhilarating and mind numbing.

There is some subtle hesitance to Jungkook’s movements at first, atypical and somehow
reassuring, but it disappears with the clench of Taehyung’s fingers in his hair.

Jungkook’s free hand slides to the hem of Taehyung’s jeans, tugs at it, pulls them down until they
are at his thighs, and he follows with his underwear as well, fingers gripping onto the fabric and
yanking them downwards, before he reaches up, palms at the bare skin of his ass, the tips of his
digits pointed towards the line between his cheeks.

The hand at his cock grips him firmer and he pulls his lips away, saliva stretching and Taehyung’s
hissing. The sight of it is borderline unbearable. There is something so obscene about a man on his
knees, a line of spit connecting his mouth to Taehyung’s length and all Taehyung can think about is
how he wants to shove it back in, ininin. Jungkook’s hand fists over him, pumps as the fingers of
his other one dip, brush over him and he flinches.

Taehyung’s digits squeeze into Jungkook’s hair, questioning and begging alike, because he needs
to get his mouth back on him, right now.

“Can I?” Jungkook says, a finger slipping indicatively between his cheeks and Taehyung’s breath
stirs.

“Yes,” he hisses, hand tugging and releasing onto the strands he grips. He knows what this implies,
means he’ll fuck him after, and it is exactly what Taehyung wants, but first he needs to get his cock
back in his mouth.

Jungkook’s hand leaves his ass, the other pauses on his length as he reserves all his concentration
to bring his fingers to his mouth. Taehyung’s fingers tighten so harsh into his hair when he makes
him watch, sucks on digits instead of on his cock, holds his gaze firm and unwavering as he gets
them slick for him. Taehyung has his teeth on his lip, almost drawing blood, jaw clenching with the
clasp of it.

He teases short, but it is enough to drive Taehyung insane. He takes his fingers out of his mouth
and as it gapes to allow them to leave, he replaces it back on his cock without closing it once and
Taehyung sighs, lids fluttering and falling shut for a weak moment of indulgence as the sensation
returns. Jungkook’s hand circles him again, as his mouth swallows him, tongue flattening below
and pressing upwards into the length, cheeks sucking him in.

The tip of a single finger hovers over Taehyung, presses lightly as his palm flattens over his cheek
again, skin so warm it burns. Taehyung grunts at the sensation of it, upper lip curling, exposes his
teeth. His eyes squeeze shut again – he can’t take it, not with the overwhelming combination of a
warm mouth and thick finger.

He swallows, tries hard to relax in the feel of it, the stretch of it. It still burns slightly, no matter
how slow Jungkook is, how careful. It is impossible to register discomfort, however, as it such a
struggle for Taehyung to compose his visceral urge to snap his hips forward. He forgets to care
about looking, as much as he somewhat twistedly basks in the sight of it, he cannot handle it,
seeing and feeling this all the same, not when the finger presses in to a knuckle.

Jungkook’s mouth pleases, his finger teases, and Taehyung is all lost. The digit drawls in and out
slow but certain.

“Fuck,” Taehyung hisses. “Jungkook,” he pants. He hates how whenever he has Jungkook on him
in any sort of way he is so tangibly aware it is exactly him that touches him, himhimhim, Jeon
Jungkook. It’s all that goes through his head, that very fact, as he can hardly process actual
sensation, just falls into it, moans with it, gives into it, insatiable.

Jungkook acknowledges with a hum that triggers a shimmer in Taehyung’s hips, nudging forward
and Jungkook strains with it a little, half a choke. His finger shoves harder into Taehyung in
response and he grits his teeth, tries to stay still.

A second finger prods at him and he keens. It hurts, then it feels good, then it hurts again, and then
it hurts so good. He knows the discomfort of the stretch, but the drag of Jungkook’s skin inside of
him is delicious enough to make it worth it, only interrupted by the colder sensation of that ring.

“If you don’t stop,” Taehyung says, tries to, eyes cracking. It’s breathy and weak and filled with all
the lewdness of getting his cock sucked and ass fingered in the back room of a club, “I’m gonna
come.”

Jungkook’s eyes are dangerous when he swallows around him, once, twice, head bobbing before
he pops out with a wet sound. Taehyung throbs at the loss of it, though Jungkook’s fist layers over,
languorous yet firm, two fingers pressing hard inside of him and stilling.

“I think there might be some lube in this room,” he rasps, his tone of voice wonderfully fucked out
and Taehyung cannot believe he finds something like a sore throat hot, but he does, makes him
twitch in his hold.

He ignores the fact of his words, though he would very much love to shove it into Jimin’s face that
those rooms are designated exactly for fucking.

He doesn’t think when he speaks, just basks in the pressure of Jungkook’s fingers inside of him.
“No,” he sighs, almost hurried, nearly desperate, and maybe he is on the verge of it, pulses with the
need of some release now that Jungkook’s hand pauses on him as well. “I don’t need it, I like it
when you hurt me.”

He says it thoughtless, quick and honest, but his skin burns with the confession, not as much as
Jungkook’s eyes do, dark and scalding. They narrow almost glaringly, and then that gaze nears, he
stands. Taehyung hopelessly follows the stare that so compellingly summons his attention until its
but a breath away.

Jungkook’s fingers draw back, still as the tips pause at entrance and Taehyung mulls on his lip,
can’t think, can’t bring himself to ask him to shove them in, like his body implores him to do.
“What else do you like?” Jungkook speaks rough and raw, and it hits Taehyung’s mouth. He’s so
close again.

He attempts speech, but the fingers prod back in, tips slipping both at the same time and instead,
he’s whining, his hand that fell out of Jungkook’s hair with his repositioning now clutching
helpless to his bicep, just above the elbow.

“Do you like it when I tell you what to do?” Jungkook whispers, demands, and Taehyung,
Taehyung shakes his head no, though the gulp of his throat feels like a yes.

Jungkook’s free hand grips into Taehyung’s own elbow, spins him with just that hold, firm and
quick, shoves his front into the door. Taehyung’s cheek presses into it, he grunts. He releases his
hold, and Taehyung watches him from the side as his gaze drops down, takes him all in, eyes as
bold and ruthless as ever. His hand palms over his cheek again, pulls at it slightly as the fingers of
his other one push in. Taehyung screws his lids shut, cannot take the scrutiny of this. Jungkook’s
fucking filthy.

His voice sounds in his ear. “Do you like it when I feel you up?”

Taehyung shakes his head again, bites his lip.

Jungkook’s brows crease, eyes venturing to his face. “No?” His fingers shove in hard, gets him
flinching, moaning.

“Do you like this?” Jungkook’s hand draws back, lands on his cheek, light, but ringing, unexpected
and it elicits a gasp.

Taehyung’s eyes snap open, and fuck him, “Fuck you,” he says, he grunts. He shoves at him,
though he misses his fingers as soon as they leave him. He spins around, shoves him again. “Fuck
you,” he repeats. “You shouldn’t get to even touch me.”

“Please,” Jungkook huffs, teeth baring. “You crave it.”

“Yeah?” It’s the final shove that has Jungkook on the leather couch. He adjusts back onto it, glares
up at Taehyung as he leans onto it comfortably, legs spreading and elbows propping as it were his
decision to sit. “And you don’t?”

Jungkook’s tongue pokes into his cheek, jaw slackens, and Taehyung tries not to follow the motion
of his hand as it travels to his bulge, adjusts him in his jeans. “I can deal.”

Taehyung looks down, eyes shimmer, something very petulant and something very rebellious in
the way they glint, the way he repeatedly nods, small shakes off his head, the way his nostrils
almost flare. “Okay,” he nods, he breathes. Then he kicks his shoes off, shoves his pants down, his
underwear, glad Namjoon was a size above him and jeans fall without resistance, kicks them to the
side. If Jungkook is surprised he doesn’t wear socks, it’s not the place to comment as Taehyung
stands just in his parted shirt. “Okay, then you’re not permitted to touch.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow, they glower, but he feigns casual as he shrugs, another challenge. “Okay,”
he says, tongue layering over his lips.

Taehyung’s head cocks. “Okay.” It’s the final okay before, invigorated by an unhealthy mixture of
petulance and frustration, he takes that one step necessary, gets both his knees on the couch on the
sides of Jungkook’s thighs and kneels.

Jungkook’s eyes go wide, so wide, and Taehyung is almost smirking at the shock of it, that he
allows for a few moments, but it is enough for Taehyung to know. Jungkook shifts into a glare,
scoots his hips back into the couch, teeth over his mouth. His gaze darts everywhere, almost
frantic, but he manages to somehow keep it subdued. He swallows. “What are you doing,
Taehyung?”

The slight panic that laces his tone is satisfying to Taehyung, feeds him, as he stares at him, forces
an innocence into the look that he does not feel with his next intention. He says nothing when he
opens his mouth, swallows around his own fingers, thrusts them into his mouth, once, twice, just
like Jungkook had been bobbing on his cock a moment ago and then he reaches back, raises on his
knees, and slowly sinks them inside of himself.

He prefers Jungkook’s. They’re thicker, and though Taehyung’s are longer, he loves the stretch.
But Jungkook’s expression is worth it as he fills himself up, parts his lips and moans a moan he
does not entirely feel. He keeps his fingers still, instead moves his hips down, his thighs brushing
Jungkook’s.

Jungkook’s features twist, and Taehyung recognizes anger. He props his free hand up, places it on
Jungkook’s shoulder and digs his fingers in, uses it as leverage to move himself more efficiently,
and Jungkook just about loses it.

He can’t just watch him from so close, feels every inch of his body, the heat of him, he’s never had
him so naked, so close, face to face, features contorting with lustrous pleasure. It infuriates him, he
infuriates him, puts on a show, exaggerates each motion of his hips, each gasp that leaves his lips.
He’s so beautiful from so close. Jungkook keeps hoping that if he stares long enough, close enough,
he’ll see some imperfection, but he doesn’t. He sees a mole on his nose, but he finds it kind of
fucking cute, sees the lids of eyes are different, but it just makes him all the more unique, and
Jungkook kind of wants to fucking pound him until he cries.
“Let me,” he says, moves his hand before he thinks, squeezes it around his hip.

But Taehyung shoves it with his elbow. “No,” he fucking pouts.

Jungkook’s eyes narrow. “Fine,” he’s saying. Fucking fine. He takes the hand back to himself, over
his jeans, pops the button open, shoves the zipper down. Taehyung’s gaze seals onto the motion as
he pulls himself out, wraps his palm over himself and jerks.

He stares until he doesn’t, returns his eyes to Jungkook’s just in time as Jungkook murmurs.
“Wouldn’t that feel better inside you?”

Taehyung’s begrudging, but honest, hisses, “Yes,” yet still rocks his hips on his own, makes no
indication of anything else. Their eyes lock in a challenge. Taehyung wants to get him to beg as
much as Jungkook wants it, too. They touch themselves in a similar rhythm, both so frustratingly
slow, but they’re distracted now.

Taehyung’s distracted, because Jungkook’s face is so close. His eyes soften on him, he knows it,
feels it as he takes him in, guard slowly slipping as he studies it. His hard eyes give as well as
Taehyung’s gaze loses its spite, lips part. He can feel him breathing, both from his chest, his
mouth, his parted mouth on which his stare latches and does not let go for a moment too long. His
lids blink, pupils seek Jungkook’s again and he does not find that previous challenging
determination as Taehyung’s hips almost still and he’s taking his fingers out, resting his hand on
Jungkook’s thigh instead. No, there is something very different, very new, and it’s a bigger liar
than Jungkook’s jealousy because it tricks Taehyung into leaning down.

He does, tilts his head, leans down, heart palpitating with a dangerous urgency, slamming in his
chest as if trying to escape, and it beats harder and harder, so angry against the cage of his ribs, but
then it pauses, stops for a moment with the taste of disappointment that is so spoiled and deflating
on his tongue it almost reaches his eyes.

Jungkook pulls away, looks to the side, Taehyung’s lips nearing his cheek before he stops himself,
moves back. He blinks, he’s blinking. He wants to curse. He wants to get off him, but he can’t
bring himself to acknowledge a kiss matters so much.

“Tae, don’t,” Jungkook’s saying as he twists away, the cruelty of what his motion feels like to
Taehyung masked over by a scathing softness.
Taehyung’s hand squeezes into his thigh. “Why?” he asks, eyes seeking Jungkook’s, but he won’t
let him have them. “Why not?” he demands. “You had your mouth on my cock and you still won’t
put it on my own.”

Jungkook huffs a breath, shakes his head. He has his hand on Taehyung’s waist, but his eyes
somewhere on the length of the couch. “Just drop it, okay?” he dismisses, pushes on his waist
toward the pillows of the couch in indication. “Get on your knees.”

“No,” Taehyung stays firm, and he pauses, pauses for what he means to say next, begins to speak
one sentence, but stops, changes and hopes defeat does not shine through his voice. “I want to ride
you,” he whispers to him instead, squeezes his hand onto his shoulder before he lets it drop, fingers
gliding across his chest before he wraps them around his cock lightly, “Let me.”

Jungkook’s eyes replace back to him, to the motion of his hand, though Taehyung stares at his face,
so closed off as if it is that same day that Julia first asked him. He shifts a bit, gets his wallet out
from his pocket with the hand that does not hold onto Taehyung’s waist. “I prefer doing the
fucking,” he tells him through teeth as he uses them to rip the condom open.

Taehyung takes it from him as Jungkook reaches down.

“You let Julia ride you,” Taehyung murmurs as he rolls the condom on him. He grips onto him
after, adjusts his hips over it. God, Taehyung falters. He underestimated how close he must get to
him like this for this work, and he has to pause, exhale. He bats his lids, looks into Jungkook’s
eyes. “Is it because I’m a boy?” he says, lines himself up, he speaks through a grunt as he slowly
sinks down. “I’ll still be a boy no matter in what position you fuck me.”

The stretch of it hurts, Taehyung can’t take it with his eyes opened. They screw shut as his mouth
parts, a silent, prolonged moan that is mixture of burning satisfaction and bittersweet pain. He sees
black, dark, it’s all he sees, he does not get to see Jungkook’s face, only hears him when he says, “I
know. You’ll still be Taehyung.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung’s eyes part and he feels his thighs against the back of his. “Yeah, I’ll still be
Taehyung.”

And then he moves. He starts slows, so very slow. He’d only had two fingers inside of him, only
spit and a lubed-up condom, and it hurts, but he’s too fucking tense to wait, just wants to give into
what this is, a fuck, just a good fuck. He squeezes his fingers into Jungkook’s shoulder and rocks
onto him, at first only grinding.
Jungkook isn’t looking at him. No, he’s staring at that damned cushion of that damned couch and
Taehyung hates it. His own eyes are rooted onto Jungkook’s face, on the muscle, bone of his jaw,
the creases in his brows, his lips, hissing when Taehyung moves against him.

He brings his mouth to his ear, breathes. “Didn’t you want to see my face?” He gets ten times
prettier, he’d told him just moments before, so handsome.

“Shit,” Jungkook curses, head shaking, and then both his hands are on Taehyung’s hips, squeeze so
hard, almost punishing, eyes on him. “yes, but not from so close, no,” and as his gaze filters over
his face, he repeats, “no.”

Taehyung moves on him, breathes. He shakes his head and he himself does not know what he
means when words first leave him. “I don’t know how to do this,” he whispers.

Jungkook’s fingers squeeze, “You’re doing fucking amazing.”

Sex, okay, he accepts it, they’re talking about sex. Taehyung just does what feels natural, what
feels nice. He tries to angle himself so that he reaches into him the way he usually does, speeds up,
moves quicker. He lifts himself more, rather than just grind, and sinks back on, grunts with it,
moans with it. “I’ve never done this,” he gasps as Jungkook’s fingers dig into him harder, his hips
slamming up.

“No?” Jungkook’s brows arches, the tension from before dissipating into something entirely sexual
as they both try to fuck it into such. He thrusts up into him, fucks into him as Taehyung grinds
down. “Don’t ride Bogum, do you?”

Taehyung’s hand squeezes into one shoulder as the elbow of his other arm stretches over the other.
He bites on his lip as hips slap up into him but releases it with a whine. The rhythm escalates so
well, he fills him up so good, slams inside so relentless and quick, “No, Jungkook,” Taehyung
shakes his head, fucked into honesty, a part of him craves to disclose this to Jungkook, the same
part that made his heart skip a beat when Jungkook told him he hadn’t fucked Julia for a while.
“Only you, you’re the only one who’s been inside of me.”

Jungkook’s hips abandon the rhythm they have found for a single, hard shove before they fall into
it again. “Yeah?” He says, shakes sweating strands of hair away from his eyes to stare into
Taehyung’s. “Only one,” he repeats, savors the truth of it on his tongue.
Taehyung grits his teeth around a moan. He nods. “Yes.”

Jungkook fucks into him hard after that, Taehyung slams right back. They fit well, do this well,
sweat and fuck each other. There’s some impeccable intimacy about fucking like this, facing each
other, seeing faces and staring into eyes the whole time. Taehyung can feel his breath on his
mouth, see every crease of his features, every indication of pleasure from this spelled out on his
face. He can’t hide, not this, not now, not when he is allowed to look, when he forgets what line of
perspiration is his and which is Jungkook’s.

They fuck like this until Jungkook wraps his hand around Taehyung’s cock, pumps him and tells
him to come until he’s spilling, some on his chest and some on Taehyung’s own.

He moans with it, tilts his head back, shapes Jungkook’s name on his mouth, loses vision with the
pressure of it, and he is not even fucking done, when he’s in the air, Jungkook holding on the
underside of his thighs as if he weighs nothing and then his back is slammed onto that couch.

Jungkook’s hands leave his thighs, grip onto his wrists instead as he shoves them off of him onto
the cushion and he holds them there as he fucks him with abandon. He slams into him senseless,
rough, Taehyung’s back is arching off the cushion, chest pressing into Jungkook. He feels like he
could come again, knows he can’t, but he’s gasping with it. He has the urge to wrap his legs
around his waist, but if Jungkook won’t even let him touch his shoulders he doubts he’ll allow that.

Jungkook does not know what comes over him when he flips him, fucks a boy missionary. He used
to like fucking Julia like this so he could watch the pleasure he gives overtake her features, got off
on the fact he made her get off, but he doesn’t now. No, he buries his head in Taehyung’s neck as
he fucks him, because he can’t look at him, not at his face, certainly not at his eyes, not like this.

He fucks him until he comes, hard. His teeth sink into Taehyung’s shoulder to silence Taehyung’s
name.

He stays like that until he can breathe. Then he gets off of him completely. Taehyung flinches at
the absence, feels the residual pain he’s grown accustomed to as he’s no longer soothed by the fill.
Jungkook doesn’t look at Taehyung as he gets rid of the condom and Taehyung doesn’t look at him
as he gets his underwear and jeans back on. Gets his shoes, ties the laces off one that has gone
awry clumsily.

He doesn’t until his hand comes into view, expensive watch and stupid finger on it, a bunch of
tissue in the fingers as they reach over him. Taehyung trails his eyes to his as he takes it, wipes the
come off his chest, as Jungkook slips his arms into his shirt.

He might have said thank you, but he doesn’t because it is at that point the door opens.

Jungkook’s and Taehyung’s head whip to it with a similar urgency, eyes of them both of them
bulging, but not as wide as Bogum’s who simply gapes, paused at the door.

It’s painfully obvious what they did, utterly undeniable. The room reeks of sex, hair of them both is
a mess, Jungkook’s from Taehyung gripping it as he swallowed around his cock and Taehyung’s
from those final moments on the couch, both stuck with the sweat of it. Their shirts are parted,
breathing labored and Taehyung still has a tissue with his fucking come on it.

He only remembers to dispose of it when Jungkook lunges.

“Jimin said—"

“Close the fucking door,” Jungkook’s seething, but he’s not giving Bogum the chance to actually
do it before he slams it shut, and has him against it, forearm pressing into the length of his chest.

“Jungkook—” Taehyung tries, lifts off the couch hurriedly, throwing the tissue in the trash nearby,
that holds so much evidence of this happening,

“Get fucking dressed, Taehyung,” Jungkook practically barks at him as he shoves into Bogum once
with his arm before he drops it. He doesn’t step back and Bogum doesn’t move, either, simply
stares, eyes wide and vulnerable, throat bobbing with an uncomfortable swallow around nothing.
Jungkook’s fingers fall to his buttons but his eyes remain on him, fierce and unrelenting, the way
he looks at the people he fights. “If you tell anyone about this, I will rip your tongue out of your
throat and blame it on Kai. Won’t fucking be able to speak a sound ever again.”

Bogum says nothing, just stares, eyes filtering over to Taehyung, who struggles with the buttons of
his own shirt.

Jungkook’s palm slams next to his head and it rings, draws his attention back. “He can’t help you.
He means nothing to me.”
Jungkook sees him glance behind his back again, back at Taehyung, and Jungkook is jealous, so
fucking jealous of this right, because he cannot afford it now, can't look back, can’t see Taehyung’s
face. He breathes, shakes his head, looks down at his feet. He tongues at his lips, straightens, grips
at Bogum’s forearm and pulls him away, shoves him over to Taehyung before he opens the door,
leaves.

Taehyung takes a moment of clear, cutting hesitance, before he goes after him.

“Taehyung,” Bogum’s fingers latch on his wrist. He says nothing more, but the gaze is clear, are
you serious?

It’s the very same question that rings in his head repeatedly when he frees his hand. “I’ll talk to
you later. I promise.”

He only manages to catch up to Jungkook outside of the club. It’s too late for lines. It’s empty, the
street is completely empty and Jungkook has all the room to yell at him.

“What the fuck are you doing, Taehyung?”

“Jungkook—” he tries as Jungkook spins to him, gives him his wide eyes, arms opening wide as
well, lifting in the air with the surprise of his presence. His nostrils flare, chest expand and fall. He
looks as angry as Taehyung feels.

“I just said,” Jungkook punctuates, slow and though teeth, taking unconscious, harrowing steps
towards him, looks right into his eyes from as close as when they were fucking, when he spells it
out for him, “you mean nothing to me.”

“I know,” Taehyung breathes. “I know you said that to him. I heard it.”

Jungkook’s pausing. He bites his lip, shakes his head, and looks away for a moment, looks at a
lamp post, then at the starless sky. He breathes through his nose, looks back at him. “Taehyung—”

“Bogum won’t tell,” Taehyung spits out before he can say whatever it is he wants to. “Okay?
That’s all I came to say, Jungkook. Don’t do something stupid, because Bogum won’t tell.”
Jungkook’s eyes are all over him, his face, his body, his own eyes; they stop there, root. “That’s all
you came to say?”

“Yes.” Taehyung nods, swallows.

Jungkook nods back. “Okay,” and it is when Taehyung angles his body back towards the club that
he continues speaking. “Wanna get out of here?”

Taehyung’s head shoots back, neck almost snaps with the brusqueness of its motion. It’s his turn to
study him now, eyes skim all across, dart to each and every inch of him for the sign of what he
does not know. But Jungkook does not falter, does not say anything more. He just waits.

And Taehyung nods.

When Jungkook takes him to the Executive Tower a few blocks away, Taehyung turns back. When
he shuts off his protests and takes him to the roof, however, he is in awe. He refuses to sit on the
edge like Jungkook does, even watching the other dangle his legs off gives him anxiety that he
doesn’t voice. Heights makes him nervous, but that is just another thing he can’t let Jeon Jungkook
know.

But by the way Jeon Jungkook smirks, he probably guesses.

“Fine, don’t sit,” he rolls his eyes, as Taehyung pauses at the hatch door. “Just come closer for a
minute, see the view.”

Taehyung’s steps are hesitant, but he does, begrudgingly walks over to where Jungkook sits.
Jungkook’s eyes sleaze over him when his hand trembles to reach for the edge, but he allows it,
lets him take his time. When Taehyung finally has the confidence to stand near enough to see, he
certainly doesn’t regret it. It’s fucking beautiful.

And compared to everything in his life, it’s so pleasingly silent.

Jungkook’s voice has a calming quality to it now, as he speaks in a manner that does not disturb the
setting. “You can see almost all of Seoul,” he says.
“You can see all of Gangnam,” Taehyung notes, for the first time when Jungkook’s around eyes
not entirely reserved for him, because they venture fascinated all across. “All of Richhood.”

“Yes, that fucking shithole." Jungkook nods. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Taehyung layers his eyes over Jungkook now. “Sadly,” he says. Jungkook hums at this and if he
feels his gaze on him, he doesn’t indicate it.

He only turns his head to him after a moment. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit?” he arches his
brows, that smirk from a little while before reappears as he adds, “I’ll catch you if you start to fall.”

“I don’t trust you,” Taehyung tells him, voice low. He does want to climb on, though, give himself
the extra height to take in the view.

He places his hands on the roof edge and they tremble when he attempts to lift himself up enough
to get his legs up. Jungkook’s fingers wrap against his wrist and hold it down, stable, until he
manages, releases it immediately after his ass is on top, and answers, “Good call.”

Taehyung keeps his knees to himself, sits as close to the roof as the space would allow him and
wraps his arms around his legs, peaking over. He does not like the proximity he subconsciously
chooses to Jungkook, but he does prefer having him closer just in case he does topple over.

His heart beats a bit sporadically in his chest. They’re silent and he takes his phone out of his jeans,
texts Bogum to ask him if he wants him to come back tonight or he doesn’t want to see him before
he puts it away.

Less than another minute passes when Jungkook reaches his arm forward, one finger pointed.
“That thing there above the very lit one is my apartment.”

Taehyung looks on. He can see from here he indicates a penthouse, two floors probably, and as
dark as the sky. No one’s home.

“Your apartment,” Taehyung chews a bit on his mouth. He hesitates, keeps his eyes on that
apartment. “My sister told me about what happened.”
Jungkook’s hand drops in his lap, heavy. His gaze is rooted on that building as well. He’s lived
there his entire life in that apartment his father bought. His father who tried to hurt Taehyung’s
sister. His father who hurts his own sister all the time. “Yeah?” he asks. He sinks his teeth into his
lip.

“Yes,” Taehyung says. He has the urge to look at him, but something makes him hold back, feels
peculiarly as if he would intrude on some privacy if he does in that moment. “Thank you.”

Jungkook sucks in a breath so sharp Taehyung almost feels it himself, and he looks away from that
apartment, looks to the other side, brings his knee up and rests his cheek on it, takes away the mere
chance for Taehyung to look.

“You know,” he mumbles in his own knee and Taehyung doesn’t know if he is even meant to hear,
“one time my mom threatened to leave my father and he went all soft and manipulative on her. I
don’t think he’s ready to face the public embarrassment of a divorce, of failure.” He pauses, he
gulps. His voice has never been as soft, his words never as harrowing, “He said he did not hit as
hard as his own father did.”

Jungkook does not know completely what fully compels him to say this. He does know, however,
he had no one else he can say it to. Yoongi, Hoseok, Julia. They all know his father sucks. None of
them know he hits. And Ji-woo does. Taehyung does.

He turns his face on the other cheek, and Taehyung feels it, turns as well, meets his eyes. They
glimmer. His voice barely sounds, “I don’t want to become that, Tae.”

Taehyung’s knees fall apart, legs dangle off the edge as he turns as much of his body towards him
as he can, and he speaks before he thinks. “You won’t,” he promises with palpable conviction.
Jungkook’s brows raise a bit, he lifts his head, rests it on his chin instead and he watches
Taehyung’s eyes as he shakes his head and keeps talking.“Like, don’t get me wrong, you’re a
fucking ass, Jungkook,” he says animatedly, nodding with it. “A condescending, entitled, sort of
selfish fucking ass,” he lists, “but you’re nothing like your father.”

Jungkook drops his knees as well, straightens. He looks away, looks ahead, back at that apartment.
Taehyung watches his tongue coat his lips, his lids blink. “I’m a lot like my father.”

Taehyung shakes his head, “No,” he isn’t, Taehyung really believes he isn’t. “You’re rich and
young and it makes you kind of dumb, kind of shameless.” Jungkook is shameless and Jungkook is
stupid in a way that has nothing to do with intelligence. So is Taehyung. “And I’m poor and young
and it makes me kind of dumb, kind of shameless.”

Jungkook looks at him. His legs dangle and swing back and forth like that of a child and they are
young, so fucking young, maybe it’s a good enough excuse for now to make the mistakes that they
do, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s time they grow up and stop, but on that rooftop, there is room for
one more and Taehyung stares at Jungkook as he makes it. As he admits, “And you make me kind
of dumb and kind of shameless as well.”

Jungkook blinks over glistening eyes, they shine from the wind, and it’s ridiculous how Taehyung
wants to kiss him more now than when he was just about to sit on his cock.

Taehyung looks away, down at his lap. “It happens to young people,” he whispers, more to himself
than to Jungkook, but he hears it as well.

“It happens to sad people,” Jungkook says before his posture changes, voice does as well. He
spreads his knees open a bit more, relaxes back onto his wrists. “Your brother is in Japan.”

“What?” he asks in a single sharp breath, brows furrowing and he’s sure he heard wrong, he must
have.

Japan, Taehyung's brain speeds, Japan is so close, yet so fucking far away.

“At least calls from a Kyoto area code,” Jungkook elaborates as much and Taehyung’s heart beats
faster. Questions ring through his mind, though he’s unsure whether he wants them answered,
knows Jungkook is not the person to ask. When Jungkook pauses he knows he’s said as much as he
has to offer. He speaks again, but it’s distinctively different. “When Clo OD’d for the first time, he
was the one to sell it to her.”

Taehyung doesn’t look at him, he can’t. He knows Clo Eun takes drugs, everyone does. He knows
his brother used to sell them, everyone does. But the fact she overdosed, not once at that, it hits him
more than he expects. Taehyung cannot imagine Ji-woo so close to gone, the mere thought of it,
hypothetical as it is, breaks his heart a little. He realizes he will never find it in himself to blame
Namjoon for this, he still cannot blame him for leaving, but he imagines Jungkook would, anything
so that he doesn’t blame Clo Eun, anything to escape his own guilt.

Because if something like that happens to Ji-woo he would never be able to forgive himself for it,
for not shielding her better.

“I never hated him cause he was poor, I hated him cause of that,” Jungkook says and it feels soft,
feels like a confession, though his voice rings as it normally does, peculiarly melodic, but firm.
“The only thing I knew of your family was him and that your father is a con man, fools expensive
women into making him an expensive man.” He turns his head to him, his eyes coating over
Taehyung. “And then the way that you were looking at my girlfriend.”

With Jungkook’s eyes so scorching on him, he turns to look back and makes another mistake. “I
was never looking at Julia,” he confesses. He glances away before he even finishes the sentence,
does not want to see Jungkook’s face when it sinks in.

Jungkook says nothing about it and Taehyung doesn’t know if he appreciates it or hates it, though
he does suppose his words mean nothing that begs a response. They mean nothing at all, just that
his eyes wandered over one rich kid in a hollow curiosity and not another. The silence stretches.

Then Jungkook gets on his feet on the fucking edge and Taehyung almost has a heart attack with it.

“Get the fuck down,” he’s saying, rushed, eyes wide as they turn to look up at him.

“Relax,” Jungkook smirks, casually fucking hops off the edge and onto the roof as if he didn’t just
risk his life. “Wanna see what an actual TV looks like?”

“What?” Taehyung asks, drawing his knees back onto the surface and scooting back. Suddenly a
wind blows at him from the side that Jungkook kept warm and the anxiety of sitting like this
washes over him again in a wave. He turns his body back to face the other, face the roof, face
safety.

“My parents are out of town,” Jungkook tells him. “I say we go play something on an actual TV.”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he processes the suggestion, his parents out of town, actual TV, Jeon
Jungkook is inviting him to his goddamn penthouse apartment. Taehyung has never in his life set
foot in a Richhood apartment, not for the lack of ridiculous irony-fueled stories of riches and glory
he’s heard from his sister. Taehyung’s hand reaches back, stretches and he says with all the
incredulity he feels as he points to Jeon Jungkook’s fucking penthouse. “In there?”
“Yes,” Jungkook says, crossing his arms, “I saw the Kim residence. Tit for tat.”

“The Kim residence,” Taehyung begins as he props his hands on the surface, eyes the floor beneath
him cautiously as begins to carefully scoot, “is largely unimpressive, and you were hardly invited.”

Jungkook’s arms uncross as he watches him struggle and he takes a subconscious step forward but
pauses when Taehyung manages to jump down the small distance off the edge. “I liked it,” he tells
him.

Taehyung shifts his gaze to him. “You said it was a shithole,” he deadpans. “Multiple times.”

Jungkook clicks his tongue. “Well, it kind of is, but the residents are welcoming.”

Taehyung shakes his head, huffs in disbelief. Jeon Jungkook is the weirdest fucking person he
knows. “What about Clo Eun?” he asks.

The other shrugs as if it doesn’t matter if she just comes home and sees him playing games with a
Kim on his couch in their living room. Or gaming room, they might have a gaming room.
Taehyung wonders if people have gaming rooms, sometimes they do in movies. “We’re worse off
if she catches us here,” Jungkook tells him, taking steps backwards towards the door hatch as if
Taehyung has already agreed. “That’s her roof.”

Jungkook spins with it, makes to leave and Taehyung checks his phone to see it notification-less
before he follows.

Living a walking distance away from the Ozone is freakish enough, but what Taehyung certainly
isn’t ready for is that the hallway, without any exaggeration, is made out of marble. White, glaring,
beautiful marble.

The apartment is marvelous, and Taehyung is afraid to walk on it with his dirty shoes.

Jungkook saunters in with confidence, and for the first time, he actually does own the place.
Taehyung trails behind, feels uncomfortable being there on his own.
The room he takes him to is architecturally impressive, though the interior design falls a bit heavy.
He lives for decoration, but art pieces clash, some appear tasteless in their surroundings, though on
their own they’re certainly credible. The modern art does not surprise him, people with penthouses
seem to love it, but some items astound him. An incredibly well-made impressionist imitation
hangs over a digital fireplace and his eyes root there as Jungkook walks over to it.

“Didn’t think I’d see Renoir at the Jeons,” Taehyung notes as Jungkook’s hands lift the frame.

“A Reno-what did you say?” Jungkook huffs, gets something from underneath.

“The artist,” Taehyung juts his chin up as Jungkook settles the painting back into place and adjusts
the frame.

“Is it good like that?”

“A little to the right,” Taehyung makes a motion with his fingers. “Someone must have a penchant
for art.”

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head. “A penchant for price tags.”

“Ah,” Taehyung nods to himself. “That would explain it. What’s that?”

“Key to the consoles,” Jungkook explains, snorts. “Father actually thinks I don’t know where it is.”
He walks over to a TV cupboard that has some authentic vintage look to it on a background of
contemporary pieces of furniture, squats down and uses the key to open it. “Do you like art?”

Taehyung shrugs. “Some.”

They go to a different room that combines a living room and a dining room. It lacks the attempt of
artistry of the previous one, and although it still intertwines vintage and modern it is much more
tastefully done.

“A designer did the whole place,” Jungkook says as he sees Taehyung look. “But my dad went
after in his drinking room and added shit and fucked it a bit.”
“It’s beautiful,” Taehyung confesses genuinely.

“I’ll let the designer know.”

It’s beautiful, but it is sterile, and Taehyung knows what Jungkook meant now when he’d called
his house homely.

Jungkook falls back into a couch with a controller once he sets it up and pats the cushion next to
him. “Don’t be shy now, pretty boy, let’s play.”

“I’m not shy,”Taehyung bites, sits down where Jungkook had indicated, though it’s a little close.

Jungkook snorts. “Okay.”

Taehyung picks up a controller. “You’re a bitch.” The game loads, his eyes go wide. “What are
those fucking graphics?”

“Told you yours wasn’t an actual TV,” Jungkook says and he almost breathes a laugh with it, and it
makes Taehyung feel a bit funny. “Bet it’s older than my dad’s antique dinner table.”

“Fuck you, let’s play.”

They do play, play for nearly an hour with Jungkook making comments every now and then that
make Taehyung flip him off or tell him to fuck off. They play and Taehyung loses mostly and
blames it on Jungkook distracting him with the shit he spews, and he complains, says his name,
drawls it out, long and petulant.

“Jungkook,”he’s grumbling, body angling towards his as he stretches with the sound of it after he
loses, again, because Jungkook won’t stop talking about how he would be better at folding socks
than Taehyung is at gaming, which is completely false.

“You’re so fucking whiny,” Jungkook says, his tone light with it as he turns to smirk at him, and
Taehyung has enough of it, throws the controller to the couch and instead grabs an elongated
decorative pillow that he simply slams into the side of Jungkook’s head.

Jungkook nearly gasps. “I can’t believe you just—You little bitch.” Taehyung cannot believe it
either, because he just hit Jeon fucking Jungkook, no matter it was with a pillow, he hit him, and oh
god, he hit Jungkook.

“Come here,” Jungkook mutters under his breath, grasps at the pillow and tugs at it, but Taehyung
grips harder. It’s the only soft thing there for him to protect his body with and he wraps his whole
arms around it, presses it into his chest.

“No,” he says, holding tight, his back almost on the cushion now as he pulls back, but Jungkook
tugs and it simply isn’t fair how much muscle mass he has on him. Taehyung has to use his whole
entire body to fight just two arms. He actually lifts his legs up, presses the feet of them onto
Jungkook’s thigh and pushes like this, but Jungkook deals with that quick and unproblematic,
simply grabs his ankles and spreads them apart.

Taehyung uses the advantage of his hands leaving the pillow to deliver another hopefully
disarming hit to the head, but all it manages to do is dishevel his hair and aggravate him further. He
grabs onto the pillow again, tugs so firm and quick it slips right through Taehyung’s thin fingers
and he almost shrieks as his body loses the soft protection.

Jungkook is on him then. Taehyung tries to shield his face, crosses his forearms in front of it but
Jungkook just circles his fingers around his wrists, presses them into the cushion.

Taehyung doesn’t laugh, but his chest and throat feel like he has, and he has only a bit of a hard
time catching his breath as they settle, he gets forced to settle. He stares up and Jungkook looks
down, eyes supposedly glaring, but mostly they crease and glint with some silent entertainment,
the corners of his lips setting up. Their bodies don’t touch too much, but he is technically between
his legs, above him, holding him down.

Jungkook’s gaze lifts, his eyes darting up at something in the room, then down again, up again,
and Taehyung tries to tilt his head to follow, but all he sees is the arm of the couch, so he glances
at Jungkook instead.

“What?” he asks, brows furrowing a bit.

Jungkook looks down, his teeth tease his lower lip at just one end of his mouth. Something very
childishly naughty takes over his expression, a certain mischief in his eyes, his eyebrows, the curve
of his cheek. He hesitates, adjusts himself a little over Taehyung, the thumbs of his hands making
circles over the apples of Taehyung’s palms and it makes the skin there tingle. “Kind of want to
fuck you on my dad’s antique dinner table.”

Taehyung’s heart tremors, speeds, though it has still not entirely calmed from the exertion of trying
to fight Jeon Jungkook. He kind of wants to get fucked on his dad’s antique dinner table as well,
wants to get fucked over every piece of furniture his father prizes. His lips draw downwards, and
he most animatedly contemplates. “Well,” he clicks his tongue, “that can be arranged.”

And then finally, he does, he does laugh. It’s short, very short, but it makes all his teeth show and
his eyes crease, and Jungkook hinders for a moment, before a small chuckle that bundles the skin
above his nose escapes him as well.

“Bend me over?” Taehyung suggests and it's only half a joke as he lifts a brow, bites his lip.

Laughter swiftly disappears when Jungkook accepts the preposition, yanks him up and takes him to
the table, Taehyung’s phone slipping from his pocket somewhere between the cushions. Despite
the atmosphere with which it starts, Jungkook fucks him like he always does, hard and rough and
passionate, presses his bare chest into the surface of it before he pulls him up by the hair, fists over
his cock and commands in his ear.

“Come on it,” and Taehyung does, cries out, and spills all over with all the overwhelming pleasure
of a Jungkook-induced orgasm and some other eerie satisfaction.

Taehyung remains by the table, fists pressed into it as he tries to recover, tries to catch his fucking
breath as Jungkook saunters over to the couch to struggle to find his. “Want to play another first-
shooter?” Jungkook asks through a pant and then he jumps a bit, squirms. Taehyung looks behind
his shoulder, cracks a smile at his obvious discomfort. “Jesus,” Jungkook exclaims as he lifts off a
bit and pats the cushion beneath him until he finds the culprit. “That vibrated right in my ass.”

Taehyung turns fully, cocks his head at him as he runs hands though his hair, which, thanks to
Jungkook’s incessant tugging, is in complete disarray. “Are you saying that to me?” he asks,
incredulous, because quite frankly after the pounding his ass just took, once again, courtesy of
Jungkook, he has not right to comment.

Jungkook’s eyes dart to him warningly before they return to the device as he turns it over in his
hand, grumbles. “Well, it’s your fucking phone.” His thumb clicks on the side button with a pace
that seems instinctive when you grab on a phone and his gaze falls down. His face changes. His
voice drops. “Bogum wants you to go back.”

Taehyung pauses in his stride to the return to the couch, hand halting in his hair. “What?” he says
dumbly.

Jungkook’s eyes return to his. “Bogum,” he says, slowly, enunciates. He gets on his feet, stretches
the phone out towards Taehyung’s chest, but he doesn’t immediately take it. “Wants you to go
back to the Ozone.”

“Oh,” Taehyung’s fingers wrap around the phone. “Well, I – have to.”

Jungkook looks away with the motion of an eye roll. “You don’t have to, Tae,” he says and there is
something bitter on his tongue that Taehyung tastes on his own. “But you will.”

Jungkook brushes past him and Taehyung spins with it as well, scoffs. “Isn’t this the part where
one of us leaves, anyway?”

“I guess it is,” Jungkook says, bends down, picks up his own shirt and Taehyung’s. He stretches
the fabric towards him.

“Jungkook—”

“It certainly isn’t the part when you explain yourself to me like you’re my fucking girlfriend,
Taehyung,” Jungkook interrupts, voice curling angrier and louder. It shuts Taehyung up. “Just
leave.”

Taehyung swallows. “Okay.” He has to. He made plans with Bogum, he has to. Staying here is
dangerous anyway, for many reasons. “Okay.” He puts his shirt on, texts Bogum back, thank you,
he says, though a big part of him wishes Bogum took longer to forgive.

He leaves and Clo is with Jin, who loves her, and she won’t come back tonight and Jungkook’s all
alone in this big ass fucking designer penthouse.
 Chapter 16
Chapter Notes

hey, this was one of the most difficult chapters to write, but it's done and its
ridiculously long, it could be its own fic

people have been incredible about this, I had actual fan art (@verriesandcream) made
and a playlist made, and a few have reached out specifically to talk to me about it and
it is such a wonderful feeling, so I would like to say thank you

ps fuck you afnan

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The words come with the impact of Bogum turning the chair around and slamming it onto the table
top a little too hard as the two of them close down Rouge together. “So,” he begins and maybe
attempts some nonchalance, maybe he sees no point, but either way the result is a palpable
tightness as it leaves his throat, palms propped on the table and eyes fixed on Taehyung, “You tell
me not to kiss you in public, yet you fuck him in the back of a club.”

Taehyung is wiping at a table with a cloth, usually something he half asses at this point of the day,
worn out and without the motivation of the scrutiny of a supervisor, but now he scrubs steadfastly,
his attention aimed at the circular motions of his hand, thin bones protruding. “The room has a
lock,” is what he says, unsubstantially, swallowing down some distaste that rises on his tongue.

This conversation that he knew was impending had been successfully avoided back at the Ozone,
as it is rare that at the hour he returned there one would be able to hear their own thoughts, let
alone participate in a conversation that is layered with as much grudges and tension as this one
would be. In all honesty, Taehyung has absolutely no desire to take part in it, not only at the end of
a day which he spent licking asses of Richhood residents, so he is naturally not in the brightest of
moods, but at all. Jeon Jungkook is not something he verbally addresses for a reason, and quite
frankly, he would like to keep it that way.

But the way Bogum narrows his eyes, in some ill-placed determination that is a borderline waste of
his time, tells him that it’s a discussion he will unfortunately pursue. His tone is challenging,
accusatory,as his gaze follows the illogical trajectory of Taehyung switching to a table much
further away. “Jimin has a key and he saw you.”
Taehyung lifts his eyes up, once. Blinks. “No one asked you to turn that key.” He bends to the table
and scrubs. He’s a little sore in the ass. Every instinct he has pushes him to snap at Bogum for
meddling, but he swallows down a natural harshness that resides just behind his gritting teeth. He
knows he’s earned that unspoken accusation that underlies the words that Bogum does say.

Bogum who now straightens up and crosses his arms. Bogum who deadpans, “The door wasn’t
locked.”

“It –" Taehyung stands fully as well, the beginnings of that snap that so naggingly threatens to
escape, but he ravishes his mind for the memory of a turned lock and he comes up short and so
does his breath with his sigh as he brings a hand across his face, kneads his palm and fingers over
his eyes, his forehead, “shit.”

They’re dumb. Jungkook and him, they’re dumb as fuck, Jungkook had him pressed against that
door as he sucked him off yet neither of them bothered to lock it.

“Does Jimin,” Taehyung gulps, releases his face for the sake of looking at Bogum, voice smaller
than before, “did you, did you tell him?”

His gaze must sufficiently translate his worry because Bogum’s eyes soften. “No,” he shakes his
head.

Taehyung nods, gnaws a bit on his lips and returns back to scrubbing. “Thanks,” he says to the
table.

And then as Taehyung converts from one table to another and Bogum follows with unyielding
eyes, a frustration fills his voice, a frustration that raises it to something Taehyung hasn’t heard
before from him. “You said you weren’t gay, Taehyung.”

He had, to get Bogum to stop kissing him, not because it was true. Taehyung shrugs, attention
zeroes in on a particular table he figures needs a good scrub, and he starts on it. “It was easier,” he
says low, says it like a confession and it is.

Bogum’s hands fists and the knuckles of them crack when they press into the table he is by as he
leans, body poised with that perpetuated rigidity of accusation. “Is that how it is for you?” His
tongue is sharp as it moves in his mouth, brows raising, for his own sake of expression as
Taehyung is simply not looking at him. His head cocks, words grow sardonic, “Choose to lie to
save yourself trouble?”

Taehyung settles his gaze over him now, eyes in the midst of a blankness and a glare. He aims for
pointedness, “I don’t owe you anything, Bogum.”

Bogum’s fists readjust on top of the table and another knuckle cracks. “I’m not saying you need to
somehow repay me. I’m saying it’s a choice you made.” It’s with an ambiance of disappointment
that Bogum speaks that truth and Taehyung can only think maybe he should have got to know him
better before he decided to like some made up version of himself -- a concoction of his looks, a
very slight circumstantial bit of his actual personality, and some other traits he conjured up. Liking
this imagined self of him, apparently, is some cause of expectation Taehyung cannot meet and
doesn’t want to. He isn’t good with expectations when it doesn’t come to bringing home a salary
and putting dinner on the table.

Taehyung says nothing.

Bogum sighs and turns away for a moment, his chin on his shoulder and teeth worried into his lip.
Maybe he considers giving up on this, but then he sucks in air and he turns back. There is palpable
hesitation in his intention as his eyes drift between Taehyung’s hands and his face. “What are you
doing with him, anyway?”

“Erm—” Taehyung begins and something lodges in his throat, so he has to clear it. He plays with
the cloth in his hands, before he brings one up, scratches the skin behind his ear, “Sex.”

Bogum’s brows furrow. “That’s it?”

Eyes fix on him again, hard. “I meant it,” Taehyung makes sure to enunciate, “I don’t owe you
anything.” He circles past him, bents and appears on the other side of the bar.

Bogum turns with him, the poise of his body dropping as his hands are now behind him, front
exposed and bent back. “I’m just trying to talk to you.”

Taehyung pauses at the coffee machine. His eyes bat at him again, cautious more so than glaring,
though a certain hardness is permanent in their energy. He returns them to the machine he means to
clean. “Sorry,” he says, he mumbles, tongue coursing over his lower lip.
Bogum lifts off of the table, strides over, his palms falling on the other side of the bar top that
separates them. Still, he’s close, and he looks at Taehyung different now, looks with some
imploring pity that is a stem of his voice as well, “He’s a piece of shit, Taehyung.”

Taehyung’s next gaze is sharp and instinctive. “You don’t know him.” He hates the tone of his
own voice, curled with ambiguous animosity.

It makes Bogum draw back, almost reflexively, almost in recoil, but then he fires back, “Do you?”
Taehyung meets that question with the glare of his previous statement, but he replaces it back on
the coffee machine when his mouth parts, but words don’t fall.

Bogum gives him time to respond, to say anything, but Taehyung is silent. It hits him then and
there how much he would like to avoid that conversation most purely because it is one he has not
yet had with himself. He strives hard to ignore thoughts about Jungkook that are not entirely
sexual, but it has been getting harder and harder; it verges on impossible.

Bogum nods at his silence as if it is a claim. “You like him,” he states blankly. His arms lift off
the bar top and cross with the step he takes backwards.

“I—” Taehyung attempts, tries a denial, but it doesn’t pull through his lips. He huffs a breath out, a
breath that almost forces itself out of him and he slaps the cloth down in front of himself, leaning,
facing his feet. “I don’t, I don’t know, never liked anyone before.” He runs a hand through his hair,
“I just,” he hesitates, then he whispers, “I want him.” He lifts the cloth again, starts wiping gingerly
around the machine.

A silence stretches and it is too long and too short all the same. “Want him how?”

Taehyung’s hand halts before it continues with new vigor. “Lots of ways.” He mutters, he’s
muttering words that are confessions to himself as much as they are to Bogum.

Bogum’s next sentence comes soft and Taehyung knows he does not intend them to be cutting,
only truthful, but the effect of it is just the same, “Ways in which Julia already has him?”

“No,” Taehyung says suddenly, he says sharply, in an exhale. But then he pauses, leans on his
palms and tries to breathe and think, but his elbows give, and he drops on them, body folding over
and palms opening to accommodate his face as he buries it in them. “Jesus, I’m fucked.”
Bogum watches him and his lips crack open, fall shut again as Taehyung straightens, wipes
habitually across his mouth and resumes his cleaning. His expression closes off as effectively as
Jungkook’s would. As he stares at him communicate with just the straightening of his eyebrows
and the neutrality of his eyes that this short pseudo outburst would be his only acknowledgment of
the previous fact, Bogum cannot help but think maybe Taehyung and Jungkook are more alike
than he had realized.

He certainly doesn’t know both of them, as much as he does not know Jeon Jungkook, he has no
idea who Kim Taehyung is either. He takes another step back, relaxes onto the table. His head
shakes with a sigh, and he says soft and disappointed with the memory of Taehyung wiping his
own come off of his chest. “You told me you hadn’t even kissed a guy before.”

“I hadn’t,” Taehyung’s voice pulls through his lips tightly as he moves to wipe at a side of the
coffee machine that effectively hides his face. The features of his expression disappear, but those
of his words tug loud and clear with a hesitant but layered hurt. “He doesn’t -- we don’t… kiss.”

The pity seeps back into Bogum’s voice and Taehyung thinks maybe if he wipes hard enough he
can push the coffee machine over and break it into pieces. “He doesn’t kiss you?”

Taehyung wipes at it veraciously for a moment more before he simply throws the rag over his
shoulder, dirtying his white shirt. “I don’t want him to kiss me,” he says, he lies, “It’s just sex.
Machine’s done.” And he’s almost at the door of the kitchen when Bogum’s voice reaches him.

“You’re gonna get yourself hurt, Tae.”

Taehyung pauses and a sentence lingers on his throat but it’s short and maybe Bogum doesn’t even
notice. “I have the keys. You can go if you want.”

Taehyung has never been more honest than in that fleeting moment on the rooftop when he’d said
that Jungkook makes him kind of dumb and kind of shameless, except of course that the dumb part
isn’t ‘kind of’ -- it’s supremely. Because it demands a new, out of the ordinary level of stupidity
combined with his borderline toxic curiosity to pull the type of pure shit he does.
When he gets off two stops too early on the subway to walk around, clear his head, he is very
aware he will cross by the part of town that Kai’s older brother resides in to live in a suburbia
house reminiscent of a mansion and commit consistent tax evasion effortlessly. When he sees
Jungkook in the area, he is very conscious the only possible place where he could be going in this
neighborhood would be somehow related to him. And it is with that clear knowledge that he makes
the turn away from the path that leads to his own home and traces after Jungkook’s own footsteps.

He stands out, Taehyung thinks as he strides from a distance. The surroundings are not a
background for his clothes, for his stance, not a background that fits. Taehyung is much more
suited for a space like this yet as he trudges after, he gulps down the knowledge they are heading
to a destination at which he does not belong.

Taehyung hears voices that make him slow his step, voices that increase in decibel and then
completely still after a sharp order of shut up, as Jungkook turns a certain corner. A corner
Taehyung does not dare follow behind as Jungkook’s steps echo along the cement for a few
moments and then stop.

Taehyung presses his shoulder against the wall behind which Jungkook disappeared and commits
his greatest folly of the day, he glances over it. He sees Jungkook now slightly sideways and
closer, but it is not that which makes a lump settle in his throat and his skin and ears tingle and
warm with the realization of utter stupidity. Because Kai’s brother, Sooho,is there, of course he is,
what other business would Jungkook have around here. Taehyung curses his never-ending
curiosity, curses Jungkook for choosing exactly this day for making this visit. Sooho leans on a
brick wall and has two other people in vicinity, a considerably large male with hair styled to
accommodate the tattoo that swears his dedication to Kai on the side of his head and a much
lankier individual who has his etched into his bicep.

With Jungkook’s approach, Sooho pushes off the brick wall he leans on and the two others present
are at his sides with the immediacy of practice. “Well, well, well,” he speaks, a smirk curling on
his features as his eyes scan Jungkook from his head to the toe of his overpriced shoes, “what
deigns walk here?” He meets his gaze. “What do you want, Jeon?”

Jungkook retains that picture-perfect neutrality that used to be the constant mind-numbingly
frustrating ambiance of his each and every interaction with Taehyung, an impartial languor that
borders on offensive with the way it almost makes him seem bored in a condescending fashion.
“Just a few words and I leave you to your circle jerk.”

The burly man with a questionable hairstyle who takes Sooho’s right hand side falls a step forward
with the poise of threat, the muscles in his jaw playing with his growl of, “Careful.”

Sooho presses the length of his arm against the unfamiliar person’s ribcage and pushes him back
with the dynamic of transparent authority. “Leave it.”

Jungkook eyes the person who now stares at him with his teeth bared almost animalistic before he
returns his cold attention to Sooho. “You’re Clo Eun’s contact, no?” He cocks his head. “I want
you to stop selling to her for a few weeks.”

Sooho cocks his head, layers his eyes over him calculatingly again and ponders. He speaks slow
when he does, “Kai is the one who takes in such requests, Jeon.”

Jungkook hums and Taehyung thinks the lanky person’s head twitches in his direction so he slams
his back against the building, presses his palm against his own mouth and nose, heartbeat
escalating in his chest. “Thought you were part of headquarters as well,” Jungkook drawls and
Taehyung cannot see him, but imagines he perpetuates his attitude visibly as his voice does.
“Excuse me for overestimating you.”

He hears the huff of a laugh that is glaringly forced. “Backhanded compliments will get you
nowhere with me.”

Taehyung slowly removes the hand from his mouth. He breathes deliberate and hard just to test it.
“I know,” Jungkook says. “That’s not what I offer. I’ll pay you more.”

“She pays better,” Sooho is replying and Taehyung can practically hear the teasing self-satisfaction
drip from the uttered words and he hates how he wants to know Jungkook’s reaction to that, hates
how he gets brave thinking that in their dick-measuring contest they’d be too focused on each
other, absolutely abhors it, because it is that which triggers him to peak again.

It’s a mistake. It’s a numbingly stupid mistake. As soon as his eyes find the men, those of the lanky
individual are immediately sealed onto him in a bilious glare. “The fuck you spying on?” he spits
and it thunders in Taehyung’s ears, makes blood rush so worryingly in his veins and then everyone
is turning, everyone is watchingand Jungkook’s bored eyes fix on him for a moment before they
double in alarming recognition.

Taehyung means to turn back away but he forgets how to. Paranoia freezes and so does the
indecipherable widening of Jungkook’s fucking eyes.

He stutters a pronoun, but that is about it that he manages before Sooho steps to one side to get a
better look at him over Jungkook’s shoulder and his eyes narrow, but smirk widens. “Isn’t that
Joon’s little brother?” he questions and the slight excited entertainment that laces in his voice with
it rings warningly to Taehyung. Sooho prods at the burly guy’s shoulder. “Hey, bring little Kim
over here for me,” he instructs, and the larger person is immediately moving.

Taehyung contemplates the extent of moronism that running away would constitute but he has no
time to consider, in truth, because he’s barely managed to process his own fear, thumping heart and
widening eyes, when he’s got rough fingers wrapping around his elbow and tugging him
mercilessly where the others stand and watch. He finds a safe space, at first, in focusing his wide
eyes to Jungkook’s own, however, as for Jungkook it settles in just whohe is, his gaze narrows and
obtains its piercing, glaring animosity, as it trails over Taehyung, as it drops somewhat
threateningly to the hand that jostles him forward. When Taehyung looks away from that it is
almost with shame purely because it is a suitable and immediate response to how Jungkook’s glare
holds almost an accusation.

An accusation is, frankly, what Taehyung deserves, as he gets himself into this. He should know
better than to venture into this territory, better than to follow Jeon Jungkook.

Sooho’s eyes layer over him as well, slither across him with some eerie satisfaction that sneaks into
the smirk that stretches over his lips as well. “What you looking at, little Kim?” He jeers.

Taehyung deems it safer to avoid Jungkook’s scolding, scorching eyes. He glances at his feet
instead, evasive of all stares fixed at him which are those of all men that surround him, all of whom
are in a certain way dangerous. He replies small and careful, “I was just walking home.”

The lanky one cocks his head at him, gaze studying him with some peculiar determination before
he smacks his lips and speaks, “That’s the waiter one, right?” His brows lift. “Heard he never
minds his own business.”

The fingers around his elbow tighten before they release him and the person next to him snickers,
“Which one of them does?”

Sooho nods his head, eyes rolling at some sub textual conversation the three of them lead. “Joon
sure didn’t.” His tongue ghosts over his lips and there is something recognizably menacing in the
way he now roams his gaze over the intruder. “He minded Kai’s, and Kai never liked that.”

“You think he knows where Joon went?” The lanky one perks up.
Sooho snorts at the suggestion, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. “Probably,” he says, his mouth
curling in some exaggerated disgust. “Remember how tragic Joon was?” He pauses, then
pronounces with scornful irony, “Family oriented, fucking endearing.”

“Maybe if we send greetings by this one,” burly guy says as he lifts his hand up, slaps Taehyung
between the shoulder blades, once, twice, and he flinches with each touch, “he’ll suddenly appear,”
he concludes and with that he repositions his fingers, lets them circle around the back of his neck,
making the skin under them crawl.

Taehyung does best to avoid Jungkook’s eyes, but he cannot ignore his voice when he seethes,
“Don’t fucking touch him.”

Attention drifts momentarily away from Taehyung and to Jungkook who now has those obsidian
eyes rooted onto the man besides Taehyung. He is discernibly composed in his overall demeanor,
as he always fucking is, but a tension comprises his countenance, the tightness of his jaw and the
belligerence of his glare.

“What’d you say?” The burly guys ask with the beginnings of violence laced in his voice as he
takes half a step forward in Jungkook’s direction, his hand dropping off of Taehyung, maybe for
the purpose to draw a fist, maybe that lethal gaze has its wanted effect.

“I said,” Jungkook begins most evenly, but the underlying tone of his cold calm elicits a shiver
down the line of Taehyung’s spine, “don’t touch him,” he angles his body completely towards the
guy now, but he does not mimic that step, simply cocks his head, “but what I meant was if you
touch him, I’ll position your spine so that you can permanently perform auto fellatio.”

Taehyung’s heart pumps blood at an alarming rate. It pumps with some fear, but it pumps with
some peculiar excited flattery as well. He does not mean to be a reason for Jungkook’s composure
to slip, not in circumstances like this, and he also doesn’t see why he would be, but the shift in his
glare is obvious. The insouciance dwindles.

Before the person whose fists visibly tighten with the effect of Jungkook’s threat has the chance to
reply with what Taehyung can only guess would not rival in color, Sooho is huffing out a laugh,
summoning attention to himself, “You come to me to ask a favor and you threaten my men because
of a Kim?”

Taehyung is used to that spitefulness accompanying the sound of his name. He is used to being the
one to respond to it. His lips gape, strive to struggle aloud another half assed justification for his
presence, more so for Jungkook’s sake than for Sooho’s, “I—”
He doesn’t manage, however. Jungkook interjects with a growl, a warning shift of his stare in his
direction, “Taehyung, shut up.” He returns to Sooho next, with his address, speaks with more
aggravation than his Jeon-typical calm, “He’s got nothing to do with Namjoon.”

Sooho cocks his head. “So, I suppose you have nothing to do with Clo Eun?”

As Jungkook begins to speak, the lanky guy interrupts with a jut of his chin in the direction of
Taehyung. “Why protect the boy, Jeon? Your sister fucking him as well?”

Sooho’s mouth curls at that, a bristle of laughter leaving his throat. “Probably, less people out there
that she doesn’t fuck than that she does.” He stands straight, so straight, pushes comparatively
unimpressive chest out like a peacock its feathers and cackles, eyes so bold as they focus on
Jungkook, “Wouldn’t be surprised if she even fucks you.”

Taehyung’s eyes skid towards Jungkook wearily, he half expects an outburst, but the most he gets
is a tick in his jaw, before his tongue cracks out and he almost speaks through a smirk of his own.
“You’d like to watch that wouldn’t you, a cuckold pervert like yourself.” Sooho’s eyes flash with
the taunt and Taehyung suspects Jungkook strikes a nerve he’s dangerously aware of. “Always
dreamed of sucking your own brother’s cock.”

Sooho looks away then, teeth capturing his lip, his knee bouncing along with his foot and
Taehyung can practically feel him trying to remain calm before his eyes find his. Gaze layers over
his face and suddenly he’s speaking again, voice verging on an anger that transpires in the way his
body now seems restless as much as it drips from his tongue. “You know you talk about cock
sucking so much today, I can’t help but want to fuck little Kim’s mouth,” Taehyung’s eyes narrow
with the offense of it though it is not something he hears for the first time, not with the way he
looks and the position he’s in, as they trail after a hand that lifts to reach for him, “look at those
lips.”

The impact is barely there for Taehyung, goes through one ear and leaves through the other. It’s an
empty statement coming from someone like Sooho, but for Jungkook maybe it’s not. He moves so
fast Taehyung barely sees it, but in the moment that follows his shoulder lines in front of Taehyung
and his skin slaps against Sooho’s fingers latching around his wrist with a tightness that is visibly
painful as they sink into the flesh of it before he manages to reach Taehyung.

“Told you not to fucking touch him,” Jungkook says, nearly growls, eyes dangerously fixed on the
side of Sooho’s head as his own slither to him slowly, shift to him with an offended vengeance at
the interruption of his intentions.
“What are you gonna do?” Sooho snickers as he rips his arm off of Jungkook’s hold and shifts
forward with a step, impeccably slow and reeking of impending violence. His teeth bare, chin juts,
“Box me to death?”

As Jungkook’s arm falls back from the hold, Taehyung’s hands instinctively wrap around his
forearm and he tugs at it as lightly as his own consternation allows him. “Jungkook,” he mumbles
to him in some attempt of privacy though a part of him knows it’s useless for him to plead, “let’s
just go.”

It registers with Taehyung that as indestructible as Jungkook seems to him, as much as an unfailing
winner he is on the Ring, Sooho is right to tease the boxing like that, cannot rival the cruelty of a
street fight with someone who works for Kai, who’s related to Kai. He’s outnumbered as well,
because Taehyung knows damn well he himself would be useless in this. If anything, he’s be a
limitation.

Sooho’s smirk stretches so menacingly on his face. “Bet it’ll teach Joonie not to leave Kai hanging
if he gets thaton tape.”

Jungkook ignores Taehyung, glowers at Sooho. “I honestly advise you to shut the fuck up.”

“I’d rather find creative ways to shut him up. If he’s half the slut his sister is, he’s gonna fucking
love it, won’t you little Kim?” He tilts his head at this, looking behind Jungkook’s shoulder and
right at Taehyung. His eye drops in a wink and his hand reaches again, aims for Taehyung’s hair
and it is at this point that Jungkook flips the fuck out.

He punches Sooho right in the head before any of them register it. He strikes back, but Jungkook is
faster, brings his knee up in his stomach, elbow at the back of his neck when he folds over.

There’s three of them, three, is what runs with alarm through Taehyung’s mind as he watches on
with wide, horrified eyes, and what the fuck is he thinking.

It is straight up luck they make a mistake.

Their mistake is in the lanky fuck. He is admittedly defenseless against Jungkook and his size and
life on the street has probably taught him the instinct of seeking a weapon, so that is what he does,
picks up the closest object in vicinity which is reminiscent of a metal pipe. Distracted by Sooho,
Jungkook fails to notice it, until it is bashing against the side of his head.

Taehyung’s throat rips with his attempt of a warning. “Jungkook,” he yells, tries to step forward, to
meddle, as is his job as a Kim, though he has no place in this, cannot help him in any way, but the
need to try is striking in his chest, his mind, his knees and arms as they move on their own, until he
has hands wrapping around him, burly guy pulling him back.

Jungkook hisses with the pain of it, head knocks back and Taehyung’s heart hammers, ears buzz, as
the wound shapes so immediately, skin breaking. But it is that fucking pipe that saves him against
the number advantage, because at his next swing, Jungkook wraps his hand against it. He doesn’t
box, no, he kicks his leg out, Louis Vuitton raising to where lanky guy’s chest meet his stomach
and he delivers a strike powerful enough to sneak the breath out of him. He releases the pipe as he
doubles over, folds into himself and presses his arms instinctively layering over his stomach.
Jungkook slams the pipe across his back and he topples to his knees. The next time he meets the
sole of Jungkook’s shoe it comes right for his face.

Sooho’s on his feet again, but the pipe is on his head, knocking him right back down. He hits him
so hard Taehyung wonders how it doesn’t crack him open, maybe it does.

Jungkook turns next, fixing his glare over the person who holds Taehyung. He raises the pipe, eyes
flashing dark and animalistic. “You hit him,” he spells out in a vicious snarl that is still somehow
chillingly calm in the way it is so low and guttural, “this goes through your fucking skull.”

“Fuck this,” burly guy says, pushes Taehyung forward and away from himself and moves towards
Sooho instead, falling on his knees beside him, shaking him by the shoulder.

Taehyung stares down with horror at the bleeding mess that is his head. Fuck, his mind
screams,fuck fuck fuck. Knocking out Kai’s brother is bad, very fucking bad.

Fingers wrap around his wrist. They tug at him, but he finds it hard to separate his eyes from the
damage done. “Come on, Taehyung,” Jungkook urges through teeth, his own eyes rooted into the
side of his face. “Walk with me, Tae.”

He tugs him again and this time it is hard enough to make him stutter a step, another, before he
turns, and he walks.
It is risky to take him to his house, but Jungkook is fucking bleeding, wound open and glaring and
it is deep enough for him to get infected if he doesn’t do anything about it all too soon, so in his
head there is no other practical option.

It is sort of his fault that Jungkook got hit over the head with a metal pipe anyway. Were he to
finally mind his own fucking business for once, this predicament would have been avoided, and
though Jungkook could not have acted in the most testosterone fueled way possible and swung like
this, he does feel marginally guilty for causing this.

They barely say anything on the way to his house after Taehyung announces he needs to clean the
wound and Jungkook begrudgingly agrees.

Taehyung leads him to the upstairs bathroom, pushes him indicatively towards the edge of the tub.

“Sit,” he mutters as he crouches down to the cupboard below the sink and starts rummaging for
what he needs.

Jungkook does, he sits with no verbal protest, but a little bit of an all-important stare that Taehyung
blatantly ignores. His knees almost press against Taehyung with how tiny the bathroom is, and
maybe he should have thought it through prior to forcing him in the room, but as of late thinking
hasn’t been Taehyung’s strongest suit.

The question comes, of course it does, and it stifles Taehyung’s clumsy rummaging for a brief
moment. “What were you even doing there?” There is some underlying exasperation in his tone of
voice that makes Taehyung’s rummaging even clumsier.

“I saw you,” he replies simply as he pushes some rolls of toilet paper to the side, and the small
bottles he is looking for peek at him from behind.

Jungkook’s eyes narrow at him slightly, brows furrow together. “You followed me?” he points out
loud and clear and it rings around the tiles of the bathroom.
Taehyung pulls out some cotton, the bottle of saline and stands up for a moment to wash his hands.
“Maybe,” he shrugs, avoids Jungkook’s eyes before he wipes himself on a towel and wets some
cotton. He drops down again, settling on his knees beside him.

Jungkook sighs, head shaking. “Your curiosity, Kim Taehyung,” he shifts a bit as he pauses,
adjusts on the edge of the tub, “is going to get you in some serious fucking trouble.”

Taehyung folds the cotton wool over, moistens it all well, but so that it doesn’t drip. Most
importantly, he keeps ignoring him until he feels cold fingers wrap around his jaw and tug at him
roughly, forcing his attention on Jungkook. Dark eyes capture his as he almost gasps with the
rapid, unexpected sensation of his touch, a curious mixture of gentle and rough and maybe
Jungkook is just that, but he’s scowling at him now. “Don’t do that again, okay?” His jaw presses,
and Taehyung tries to take his gaze away, pull his head back, but those fingers tighten on the bone
of his chin, keep him in place. “Hey, stay away from anything and everything that has to do with
Kai, Taehyung. I mean it.”

This time when Taehyung tugs away, Jungkook lets him as he feels his hand raise to push him by
the wrist. “You’re not my father,” he mutters, straightens as much as he can on his knees to gain
height and wiggles closer to Jungkook, eyes squinting at the wound. “Can you lean a bit?”

He leans. “If you minded your own business, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

If Taehyung minded his own business, the only conversation they would have ever had would be
Jungkook ordering cocktails and diet coke.

Taehyung’s eyes narrow as his hand raises. “Well, did you have to fucking hit, Jungkook?”

“I was defending your honor,” Jungkook grits out, ironic, as he hisses when Taehyung presses
against the wound. He is careful with the moistened cotton, wants to get any potential debris and
dirt out from it before he calms it with saline.

He taps at it gently, speaks brusquely. “You don’t need to defend my honor I’m not your fucking
girlfriend.” Jungkook hisses again and maybe Taehyung presses a bit too hard. He feels him pull
away, eyes coating over him, up and down, careful and pointed at the bold reference and Taehyung
meets their accusation, brazen.

Taehyung lifts his hand gingerly towards him after a moment of this, and Jungkook leans into the
touch.

“My girlfriend has no honor,” he mutters and partially it feels like a joke.

“Yeah?” Taehyung’s brows raise. “Neither do you.”

Jungkook makes some noise with his throat, but other than that gives no verbal reply. His eyes are
on Taehyung, though, watching as the tip of his tongue pokes out between pretty lips as he narrows
his features in concentration.

Taehyung speaks as carefully as he works the cotton over the side of Jungkook’s cheek to clean
some of the dripping blood. “Why do you let Julia fuck other people?”

Jungkook’s pausing, eyes still unyieldingly trailing after Taehyung as he folds on his legs, sitting
down on his feet to get a new piece of cotton wool. “She loves me,” Jungkook says simply as
Taehyung lifts up and reaches to the sink without getting of his knees, “other guys don’t matter, it
just matters how I react to them.”

Taehyung squeezes the wool lightly so that it doesn’t drip. With his next blink his eyes are
meeting Jungkook’s. His voice is low and measured, almost shy, “It seemed to bother you with
me.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow, head cocking just as Taehyung attempts to reach for the side of it again.
“She was interested in you,” he declares, and his tone curls with the notion of anger, though
whether it is pointed at him or not, Taehyung does not know.

Taehyung slides his gaze to Jungkook’s in question as he lifts the cotton indicatively, and Jungkook
seems to hesitate, rolls his eyes with it and there is an almost sigh at his lips as they part with a wet
sound, but he leans. The moist cotton is back on him, tapping softly around the edges of the wound
– there’s still some dirt gathered there where the skin reliefs.

“And she lets you fuck other girls...” Taehyung trails off as he folds on his knees again. He stares
after his own hand as he disposes of this piece of cotton before he gets another one. Then his eyes
get brave, they zero in on Jungkook’s, Jungkook’s who do not leave him once. “Because you love
her,” he finishes, says it as if it is as simple as Jungkook’s previous declaration suggests it is,
though it tugs at him different, so different, in his chest and in his throat. It’s weird how he can feel
words, feels them all over, on his knees, and his thighs, on his palms and his eyes.
It’s ridiculous, really, him sitting there healing his wounds while making his own.

Jungkook’s eyes morph, allow some tension to dissipate from their perpetual hardness and
suddenly they’re just eyes, just soft pretty eyes, not an intense challenge, not a double-bladed tool
for seduction. They’re just eyes. “I do love her,” he says, and Taehyung sees his tongue when his
mouth parts. Jungkook’s head bows down. He wraps two fingers around the ring with his family
crest, slips it off, before he rolls it on. “Known her since I was a kid. I don’t remember not knowing
her. I love her.”

Taehyung nods with a swallow of nothing but saliva, and he tears his eyes away, lets Jungkook be
the only one who watches that ring. He doesn’t know why Jungkook chooses to say this, what he
means entirely when he does, but he does know it stifles some of the unease that envelops him, for
one reason or another, all not ones he wants to actively entertain. He gets the saline instead,
carefully moistens the piece of cotton wool with it.

Jungkook’s attention gravitates to him again when he straightens on his knees and reaches for him
again. He curls a brow as he leans into the touch without verbal or physical instruction this time.
“You sure you know how to do this?” he questions.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says as he works around the wound first, eyes staring at it now that it is clean of
dirt and, honestly, that pipe must have fucking hurt. “Woo’s a kid,” he offers, his tongue poking
out to the side of his mouth, “kids get a lot of fucking cuts.”

Taehyung taps into the wound itself and the other flinches, head retracting away from him. “Mm,”
Jungkook groans softly, “ouch.”

Taehyung’s free hand wraps around the underside of Jungkook’s elbow and he pulls him towards
himself, not really considering his actions as much as simply doing what feels entirely natural.
“Stop being a bitch about it,” he hisses as he touches the cotton to the wound again, this time
slower. His fingers loosen but remain gingerly draped around his arm.

The touch of the tip of his fingers is teasingly soft over Jungkook’s skin. “Being a bitch?” he
grumbles, feigning a glare in his direction as much as their positions would allow them. “I saved
your fucking ass.”

It is true. People like Kai rarely speak just to speak. If Jungkook weren’t there he would not be
surprised if he was used as a doll to get at Namjoon. They would not have batted an eyelid forcing
him on his knees and taping him with a cock in his mouth, not at all for the purpose of sex or
pleasure, entirely for its correlation with humiliation.

Taehyung huffs. “You’re just doing yourself a favor saving my ass,” he says as he lowers his hand
to explore the wound, make sure there aren’t any residual particles of cotton left in there. He clicks
his tongue. “Can’t live without it.”

As Taehyung lowers back to sit on his feet, Jungkook’s head cocks and even with that gaping
wound he smirks, frustratingly devilish. “Does your ass want to make it up to me for getting my
pretty face ruined?”

Taehyung’s eyes dull as he scoffs at him. “I’m the pretty one,” he reminds him, though he is well
aware Jungkook is terribly and undeservingly handsome, even with his head cracked opened. He
disposes of the cotton in the bin, speaks through it, “Ji-woo might come home soon.” He wonders
when it became a discussable topic, them having sex, something Jungkook allows himself to
suggest so blatantly and casually, and as much as he would love to take him up on the offer to let
his ass proclaim its undisputable gratitude, it’s risky enough that he lead him to the house. “Will
you let me patch it up?”

“No,” Jungkook’s brows furrow as he adjusts on the tub again, spreads his knees open. “That’s
enough,” he dismisses, and though Taehyung feels it would be much better to put something over
the wound, he says nothing more. “What would she do, you think, if she knew about me?”

Taehyung heaves a breath as he ponders. Exhales, “I don’t think she’d mind me fucking guys.” He
drapes his elbow over Jungkook’s knee because it’s so close to his face and the floor is not exactly
comfortable. He leans his head onto that raised arm, his face so casually nearing the inside of
Jungkook’s thigh. “But she’d mind me fucking you.”

Jungkook nods, his brows raise up. Figures, the motion of them says. The leg that Taehyung
doesn’t use as a hanger for his body bounces a tiny bit. “But she doesn’t know about the guy thing
either?”

Guy thing, gay thing. Taehyung’s fingers find a lose string on his t shirt and he bows his head
down to look at them play with it. “I don’t need another adjective to my Kim, Jungkook, and she
doesn’t need it either.” He lifts his head up, meets his eyes. “They already call me a cocksucker in
the metaphorical sense, don’t need them to know I actually get off on it.” He shifts a bit on his
knees, grumbles under his breath. “But she’d never admit it, probably invite him over for fucking
dinner or something.”
“Him,” Jungkook chews over, lids lowering a bit as he watches Taehyung adjust between his legs.
He likes him in that position, he thinks, does not like the suggestion of the conversation. “Bogum?”
he names, and the single word lingers bilious on his tongue.

There is something challenging in Jungkook’s eyes, and Taehyung does not understand why
Jungkook’s brain keeps twisting to overestimate what he and Bogum have, and though it gives him
an advantage in this foolish game they keep restlessly and instinctually playing, in moments like
this he feels the peculiar compulsion to reassure him Bogum means nothing. “Well,” Taehyung
shrugs as he glances down at the string of his shirt again. “Anyone but you, really.”

Jungkook’s free leg continually bounces. He looks at it, focuses his pupils on the motion of his
knee instead of on Taehyung’s face. He speaks low. “Why did you text him while you were with
me?”

Taehyung’s head jerks up, eyes falling over Jungkook’s disengaged face. “What?” he pipes, almost
reflexively.

His head turns, eyes flash at Taehyung under those heavy, lowered lids. “He more fun than I am?”
It’s biting and it’s caustic. It laces with a curious disbelief, one that is almost offended, and it layers
the glint in his eyes as well, and Taehyung’s looking away again.

His eyes choose his own fingers, this time on the other hand, the one that droops off of Jungkook’s
knee and his following breath hits the inside of his thigh, almost makes him flinch with it.
Taehyung murmurs when he speaks, spreading his palm open and exploring it closely as if he sees
it for the very first time. “He doesn’t treat me like shit,” he confesses. It is a fact that Taehyung
acknowledges to himself as rarely as he can, that Jungkook consistently dismisses him like he’s
nothing, acts sometimes as if he is just a Kim.

It’s not like anyone has ever done much better for him, though Bogum might. But he doesn’t want
Bogum.

Jungkook murmurs as privately and intimately as Taehyung had, breathes it as much as a

confession, “I wasn’t treating you like shit that night.”

He hadn’t. After he’d called him nothing, that is, he’d taken him to that roof, then to his home,
played video games with him, given him a goddamn brilliant orgasm and then proceeded to
suggest more video games before he’d seen that text, which’d made him flip the switch.
“Yeah?” Taehyung cocks his head as he lifts off Jungkook’s knee and shuffles a bit forward on his
own, already between Jungkook’s parted legs now getting dangerously close to him. He follows
him with his eyes, a slight tilt of his eyebrows, but remains silent, lets him come nearer, spreads his
legs wider to accommodate him better as he reaches. Taehyung angles the elbow that droops off of
him differently, allows the length of his arm to stretch over Jungkook’s sinewy thigh, savors how
hard the muscle feels underneath his tentative touch. “If you’d asked, I would have stayed.”

“I can’t ask you that,” Jungkook whispers low, distracted enough to be genuine when Taehyung
touches him like this and maybe it is what he aims for.

Taehyung looks away from him, stares at his own fingers, stirs the conversation away from this.
“You know, you’re sort of okay when I’m making you come,” he tells him.

Jungkook’s other leg stirs, stops its bouncing. His gaze slides over Taehyung’s face before it
studies carefully across the touch. His fingers are light on him, but the feel of them is intense, he’s
so tangibly aware of the way they hover over him, the way they barely make contact, and
nevertheless raise the skin underneath the layer of his pants awake and hot. Those thin, pretty
digits glide over a part of him that is sensitive, rarely touched, the flesh of his inner thigh in
scathing proximity to his crotch.

He swallows down air and replaces his stare to Taehyung again, forces his intent of a warning
within it as he allows his eyes to hood over and barely glare. If he plans on starting something, then
he better be ready to finish.

“Maybe I should…” Taehyung adjusts better on his knees, sits on them straight and Jungkook
cannot help but wonder how his ass looks from behind, must be supple as fuck. His hand curls,
twists, palm cups over the whole of his thigh as long fingers reach forward, almost grazing his
crotch. “You really did talk a lot about cock sucking today,” Taehyung shrugs, tries to appear
fucking innocent as he glides those goddamn fingers across him, as he sneaks the tip of his pink
tongue over his bottom lip, “kind of want to now.”

He’s anything but innocent, those lips sit there, do nothing, just shape words, but they are utterly
irresistible and Jungkook wondered at what point he transitioned back into his pre-teen stage when
he got erections at the mere thought of something sexual. He scoots on the tub, narrows his eyes
down at him. “After the shit I went through to prove you’re not a cock sucker, you want to suck
cock?”

The edges of Taehyung’s lips arch downwards, he scowls. “Don’t want to suck cock,” he pouts, his
hand shifts that one bit over and his fingers are now making a very direct but insufficient contact
with his crotch, tease right over the shape of him, which nearly twitches under the ministration.
Taehyung’s lids bat, lashes peculiarly full and then his gaze, glinting and explicit, filters over to
Jungkook’s. “I wanna suck your cock.”

“Mine?” Jungkook begins calm, finishes grunting as Taehyung closes his hand over his length
above the fabric of his pants, and his legs embarrassingly spaz to the sides. It’s subtle, he doesn’t
even know if Taehyung himself notices, but he does, notices himself slip from control at something
as simple as a warm palm above layers of clothes.

Taehyung’s tongue coats over his lower lip, gets it wet and glistening. “Yeah.” His fingers tighten
over Jungkook’s cock as his eyes droop to it with salacious languor. He studies the motion of his
own hand, takes in the look and feel of him hardening with the effect of his touch, a little high on
the pride that tangibly surfaces, teases over his skin in tingles, over his heart in a more excited beat,
over his own cock as blood rushes to it.

“So,” Jungkook begins, slightly breathy but firm, his hips readjusting barely visibly at the edge of
the tub. He arches his neck back, looks at Taehyung over the relief of his shapely jaw. “I was right
to defend you, you’re not a slut.”

Taehyung squeezes around him, glances up at him, at the sharp structures of his face, the gracious
tilt of his neck, and he confesses, “Just for you.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow, lips curl offensively. When Taehyung attempts to take that deceptively
pure gaze away again, his hand reaches on its own accord, fingers slipping in his impossibly soft
hair, tightening roughly between strands. He tugs, merciless, makes sure those coy eyes are on his
own. “That fucking mouth, Taehyung,” Jungkook growls at him, glancing at that mouth in
question, watches it part as the boy dares to smirk, positively devilish.

“Yeah,” he kneads his hand over him, teases his teeth over the lower pillow of his lips without
actually applying pressure, “what about it?”

Jungkook’s voice rings guttural, that constant anger that filters all their interactions tangling into
the sound of it as he instructs. “Put it to good use.”

Taehyung has his cock in his mouth in moments, undoes his pants with both hands, kind of clumsy
with the plain hunger of it, dips those long fingers in his Armani fucking underwear and pulls him
out. He doesn’t tease now, simply wraps his lips around him, hand around the base.

Jungkook struggles to breathe, struggles not to jerk his hips into the delicious heat of his mouth as
he sighs with the feel of it, eyes falling shut and head fully arching back now. He doesn’t expect
him to get into it as quick, loses his mind with it.

Taehyung pulls away with a wet sound, and Jungkook’s eyes immediately part, seal onto him as he
speaks, breath falling over the sensitive head as he holds him close, pumps him lazy but firm. “Is
this good enough?” he murmurs, and it nearly makes Jungkook shiver. His tongue pokes out,
circles around the head and fuck, that boy is a quick learner, sucks cock for the second time and
does it like he does it for a living, or maybe it just feels so because it’s him, “To pay you back for
the macho heroism?”

Jungkook stares down at him, looks at him, at fucking Kim Taehyung and he says, through a
heaved breath, “Anything you do is good enough.”

Taehyung’s lips curl beautifully before he sinks down on him again, bobs his head and Jungkook
lets him, allows his own pace, own rhythm. He lifts off, traces his tongue evenly across the
underside, his eyes dropping to study his own actions. His lips smack shut at the end. He blinks up.
“You think I can make you come fast enough?” He barely says it and his mouth is on his cock
again, sinking as low as he can before he reaches the limit of the back of his throat.

Jungkook grunts. “You have no fucking choice at this point,” his hips thrust a slight bit towards
him and maybe, just maybe, he does it on purpose. Taehyung’s nearly choking, free hand flies up,
presses into his inner thigh again, eyes refocusing up, one hot glare landing onto another. “Dare to
pull away and I’m bending you over that sink, don’t care who comes home.”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow some more, but he looks down, keeps his mouth moving.

He’s slow with it, almost lazy; there’s something curiously comfortable about this and it certainly
isn’t the edge of the tub digging into Jungkook’s ass or the fact that Taehyung’s knees are probably
bruising on those tiles, no, it’s something familiar, and though Jungkook cannot discern what it is,
he is aware it is dangerous, for him and Taehyung both.

His fingers tighten on Taehyung’s hair and he tugs at the strands. “Look at me,” he tries to say, and
it leaves his mouth a groan. Taehyung is obedient, blinks up, and his eyes seem bigger like this,
glisten with the pressure and stretch of having a cock in his mouth, peeking through his bangs.
Jungkook’s teeth fall over his lips, dig into them hard as he tries to catch his breath. His next
sentence comes a hiss, “You’re so fucking hot.”

Taehyung moans around his cock, squirms on top of his own feet, and Jungkook almost comes
with it. His eyes are beguiling, he’s a fuckingminx, that’s what he is by definition, so titillating and
simply erotic in the way he looks. His pure eroticism incongruous with the background. He kneels
on the floor in a toilet in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Seoul, yet he looks like he’s paid for,
expensive, so beautifully salacious, like he’s made for this, but he’s not, absolutely isn’t. He can
sink into this, this raw sexuality, but he can slip out of it just as easily. There is still that deceptive
innocence in his eye as it glints with the true nature of this, of a full clothed, hurried blowjob
because the both of them are apparently constantly ready to sneak in an orgasm in each of their
interactions, dismiss the effect of the rest of it, of Taehyung saying he would have stayed that other
night if Jungkook had asked, of Jungkook hinting on the nature of the love he feels for his
girlfriend.

Jungkook lets him suck him off, groaning with it, cursing through teeth, until he can’t take it
anymore. His fingers tighten in his hair again, and he’s whispering under his breath. “Pull away,”
he orders, and Taehyung does, lowers himself around him as much as he can take before he gets
his mouth off of him entirely, saliva stretching between his cock and his lips, full and wet with this.
He holds his hair and pulls him back. He looks straight into his eyes, hooded and gone, heavy and
so wondrously sensual, and he presses the head of his cock on the tips of his parted lips, jerks his
own length as he finishes himself off. His own mouth parts, helpless breathy sounds leaving as he
comes, coats his lips, his cheeks, his chin, comes on his face as Taehyung gapes his lips some
more, lets as much of it as possible fall on his tongue. “—Ah,” Jungkook groans, spent, loses grip
of his hair to place his thumb and forefinger on his chin instead, twists his face up, “fits you so
well, pretty boy.”

It does, he looks beautiful like this as well. Jungkook wants badly the thoughts running through his
head to be that he looks like a goddamn cum dump for him, that he looks cheap, covered with
fucking semen. But he still seems too expensive for Jungkook to afford to have, still is so utterly
ethereal.

Jungkook’s thumb moves up, presses into the soft pillow of his lower lip and Taehyung closes his
mouth around it, very lightly sucking over it as he swallows down whatever went onto his tongue
and Jungkook thinks he might get hard again just from this.

Taehyung fucking moansaround it, adjusts on his thighs, his hips thrusting lightly into nothing and
Jungkook’s eyes fall down to the motion of that, lips twisting with the satisfaction he’s got him
hard enough to grind into air.

He cocks his head, smirks at him almost cruelly. “You horny now?” he teases, shifts his leg, brings
his knee up and ever so slightly presses the sole of his shoe into the bulge at Taehyung’s front. The
boy keens, teeth clamping together as Jungkook removes his thumb from in between. His knees fall
apart, thighs stretching to the sides, and it exposes him more, gives Jungkook more space to apply
pressure and he gingerly does.

Taehyung’s fingers wrap around his calf, his ankle, cling to it with the beginnings of desperation.
“Jungkook,” he whines, eyes screwing shut.

Jungkook breathes, “Bet I could make you come with just my foot.”

And Jungkook himself just came, got what he could from this, from him, yet he already has
fucking images of Taehyung humping his Louis Vuittons. He wonders if he can get him to do it,
just as he sits like this, fingers digging into his leg.

Taehyung’s eyes part and his teeth are pressed so hard together Jungkook worries if he’s in pain,
begins to pull his foot back, but his fingers tighten, and he stays put. “Ji-woo will get home soon,”
he sighs, exhales with a struggle.

Jungkook leans forward, grips at his chin again. “I just need a couple of minutes.”

And their eyes tangle again, tangle as always, connecting almost physically, and Taehyung is just
about ready to agree to anything that Jungkook wants to do to him, when he hears the very
distinguishable sound of a door opening and slamming shut right after.

“Tae?” Ji-woo’s voice sounds over along with her steps and those of Woojin as well, both painfully
familiar to Taehyung, he can recognize them in his sleep, in this house with paper thin walls, paper
thin floors, paper thin everything. “Tae, you don’t have to cook tonight,” Ji-woo keeps speaking,
because she knows no matter in which corner of the house he is, he’ll hear.

“Shit,” Taehyung curses under his breath, tries, and fails, to get on his feet, eyes widening in the
sheer panic of this, his heart hammering. “Shit, shit, shit.” He lifts off almost successfully, using
Jungkook’s thighs to get himself up. He presses his palms in his chest. “Get in the tub.”

Jungkook’s eyes bulge, his nostrils as well. “In the tub?” he whispers sharply, in the midst of
tucking his dick back in his pants. “What will I do in the fucking tub, Taehyung?”

“Just get in,” Taehyung glowers, gives him another shove and Jungkook half falls in, glares, but as
Ji-woo’s voice rings again, he gets in completely and Taehyung pulls the shower sheet before he
turns to the sink, runs it, wipes the goddamn come off his face, wonders very briefly if it could
potentially be good for his skin.

“Taehyung, what the fuck are you doing?” Ji-woo shouts at the clutter of Jungkook falling in the
tub. Her steps sound and with each distinctive sound of her climbing the stairs, his heartbeat
escalates.

“I’m wondering the same thing,” Jungkook grumbles low from the bath tub.

Taehyung straightens up from throwing water in his face, hisses, “Shut the fuck up.”

He’s barely finished speaking when the door opens and she checks, she always checks, and
Taehyung knows that, so he most logically shoves Jeon Jungkook in his tub and hides him there.

“Oh, noona, hi,” Taehyung says, greets most innocently as he glances at her over his shoulder,
pretends he isn’t refusing to angle his body towards her to hide his erection.

Her eyes scan over him skeptically, brows calculatingly furrowed. “Hey,” she says, “what was
that?”

Taehyung scrubs at his hands, looks at them. “What was what?” he asks.

There’s a moment of silence and Taehyung is afraid she’ll hear Jungkook breathing. “I thought I
heard something,” she tells him, and Taehyung just shrugs, shakes his head. “Okay, well, you
don’t have to cook tonight. Woo and I brought over some take out.”

“Perfect,” Taehyung says, turns his head to her once again to stretch his lips in a forced smile.

“Okay,” she nods, “see you downstairs in a bit. Hurry, though, I’m hungry.”

She leaves then and doesn’t even fully close the door and his teeth clench.

He lets the sink run for sound as he turns to Jungkook. “You cook?” his brows perk up.

“Shut up,” Taehyung breathes, an almost chuckle dying on his lips as he shakes his head, back and
forth, a small air of disbelief. He whispers, “Window at the end of the corridor? You’re leaving
though there.”
Jungkook uses the edges of the tub to push himself up, face comes closer to Taehyung than he
expects, and he steps back, and how the fuck can a little proximity still fluster him when he sucked
his cock some five minutes ago will always remain unbeknownst to him.

“What?” Jungkook hisses, stepping out.

“There’s a dumpster underneath, you can make the jump. I have, Namjoon has, Ji-woo has.” He
cocks his head, mumbles hurriedly, “Pretty sure Woojin will be making it by next year.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Fucking fine,” he breathes, cannot believe he will be sneaking out of
windows for Kim Taehyung. He takes one step to the side, before his eyes focus better on his face.
He lifts his hand, his thumb briefly wiping at the corner of Taehyung’s mouth. “Still have come,”
he murmurs when Taehyung flinches.

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“Hey,” Jungkook drops his hand, “it was your idea to suck my cock.”

Taehyung sighs, concedes, “Okay, okay.” He taps at his elbow, ushers him, “Leave now.”

“Okay,” Jungkook nods, has the weirdest fucking urge to peck him, which, thankfully, makes him
leave faster. He gets a scratch on his shoes when he lands on the dumpster and lets Taehyung deal
with his boner on a family dinner, as much as the Kims can have family dinners.

The Jeons certainly should not be having family dinners, but days roll and the weekly one comes.
A slight hope raises in Jungkook that their father would not actually have the audacity to return as
early and the reoccurring reincarnation of torture dungeons on their antique table would be omitted
from pulling at his nerves, for once, but that is wishful thinking and he knows it.
The pattern is repeated. The Jeons around the dinner table with clinking silverware, their mother
smiling wide and clowny, potentially dozed on a bit too much prescription meds and the elder Jeon
at the head of the table, where he belongs. Jungkook sips on his wine, surprised at how he almost
feels giddy every time their father rests his bare skin and Rolex watch on the surface which had
days ago been soaked with a mixture of Taehyung’s come and sweat after he’d fucked him on it.

It is with a glowering satisfaction that Jungkook wonders, how would his father react were he to
know his plate is right on the surface a Kim’s hips had desperately grinded into while his one and
only son, pride and joy of stereotypical masculinity, fruit of his bigoted loins, had pounded him and
fucking loved it.

Fuck, he’d loved it so much, it’s hard for him not to pop a boner at the memory, though the fact
their father would so calmly sit at the same table with his sister without as much as a word of
apology, does fairly well at stifling any imagery of sex that materializes in his head.

“Where’d you get that fucking thing on your head?” his father grumbles roughly through his
swallow of a large piece of bread, bread he puts directly on the table that has the memory of
Taehyung soaked into it, not even on the placemat.

Jungkook lowers his glass, finds Clo’s eyes on his own and readjusts, stares down at his food.
She’s said nothing, hasn’t even looked at their father, just sits calm and refuses to eat, in a silence
that cuts him, she’s lost her attitude even, her will for pettiness, and though this is no matter to be
petty about, it is hertechnique to shrink it to such unimportance to compartmentalize into
something she can live with.

“Kai’s big brother got me with a pipe,” he says, sees no point in the details it was one of Sooho’s
minions and not the man himself and shoves some beef in his mouth.

His father’s eyes shoot over to him as Clo’s own narrow. “What business do you have with Kai?”
his father grunts with a distaste he makes sure is obvious.

Jungkook’s head cocks and without an ounce of emotion and an abundance of bitterness, he speaks,
“Buying some quality opiates, so I can sit through dinner with you.” He juts his chin across the
table from himself, “Got the idea from mom.”

His mother’s smile thins, lines, her eyes flashing in a warning and as it is etiquette that at least one
person on the table smiles like an idiot for no apparent reason, Jungkook does, winks at his mother
and grins wide and clear and as fake as she had.

His father’s voice is a little above a hiss, poisonous and disdainful as he glares at his son. “You
appear here after you’ve been pounded like a little bitchand you dare be disrespectful to me.” He
raises a finger in the air, a warning, wrist probably heavy from that watch that he prizes more than
his children. His tone attains that soundthat used to give him shivers years ago. “Watch your
tongue, boy.”

It doesn’t anymore, not when it is directed at him. Jungkook presses both his wrists into the edge of
the table, leans towards his father from his right side where he puts him, and he seethes, “Or
what?” his eyebrows shoot up, animating his disrespect as much as he can with facial features
because words are simply not enough. “Gonna bash me in for symmetry?”

His father’s mouth parts and his tongue shows and Jungkook is giddy in his expectation of what is
to come, fucking begs him to hit him, but his mother’s shrill voice is what fills the air next,
disengaging them from the battle they fight with only their eyes, “The one time I ask for civility,”
she takes in a breath as she manages to interject, “is these dinners. Please.”

Jungkook replaces his stare to her, drifts his pupils across her face, her pleading face, and leans
back into his chair.

Their father leans back as well, but with the motion of exaggerated martyrdom, he fishes his
custom made lighter out of his pocket and presses a cigarette to his mouth. “Apologize to your
mother,” he instructs with the first exhale.

Jungkook blinks at him, once, twice, rolls his eyes and refocuses them on his mother again. She
stares at him with the plea of expectation, with the beg for peace, and he hates how her gaze
reverberates with some uncommon emotion. He shifts on his chair with the naked discomfort of it,
pokes his tongue into his cheek and brings his attention down to the food in front of him. “I’m
sorry,” he mutters.

A silence stretches. No one eats for a moment, all they hear is the sound of their father exhaling
smoke. Then Clo Eun lifts her sticks, pokes into her food and eyes trail after her with wonder. She
picks up some rice and actually puts it in her mouth, chews on it.

Jungkook and his mother both follow, until he makes the mistake of resting his hand on the table.
His father sucks on the bud of the cigarette, exhales a cloud and through it lowers his hand,
chooses a spot where Jungkook’s thumb meets his hand and the meat is most fleshy and, merciless
and simple, presses the lit fag into it, rotates it well and thorough, taps it into the skin a couple of
times, just like he would with an ashtray and then flicks it out and onto the floor.

Jungkook’s teeth grit, press tight the moment he feels the burn of the touch. It hurts, and his
features twist with it momentarily before he tries to relax them, refuses to make a single sound in
acknowledgment of this as it happens, takes it. When the cigarette lands on the floor, he shifts his
eyes to the red, angry skin, to see the center of it peeled, pink and yellow meat underneath as a
crimson circle forms around.

Jungkook says nothing, no one says anything. He lifts some more food to his mouth with his left
hand, before he calmly places the chopsticks on the table, stands up and leaves.

He goes into his room, slams the door shut and gets on the sheets of his bed, shoes and all, he
doesn’t care, he’s not sleeping there tonight. He doesn’t know whereyet, but it is certainly not
there. Yoongi’s, Julia’s, Hoseok’s. He gets his phone out, toys with it on the surface of his chest,
flips it around in his fingers, unlocks it once, locks it again, and he does that two times before he
finally types.

Can I see you, he enters in and as soon as he sees the way the words appear on his screen, he
deletes it, replaces it with wanna do something? His thumb hovers over the send for a moment too
long, but he sighs and he presses into it, watches the blue line of it traveling fill up, up, completely,
and it disappears, it’s sent.

He locks the phone and throws it onto his chest, face down, chooses to stare at the ceiling instead.
He half doesn’t expect a reply, certainly doesn’t think it would come as quick as it does.

Tae

What

Jungkook adjusts on the bed, presses his back against the bed post as types with one hand, still
hurts to move the thumb of the other, fuck>?

Taehyung replies quick and Jungkook smirks, how tempting

gonna pretend you don’t want to again?

Tae

keep up the arrogance, really gets me hard

 I know it does

Tae

fuck you

other way round pretty boy

Tae

not tonight

No? gonna finger yourself thinking about me instead of letting me fuck you

Jungkook doesn’t know what he expects as a reply, but certainly not what he gets, the idea of
which nearly makes him half hard.

Tae

Mm might slip a finger

doesn’t mean i’ll be thinking about you tho

Say whatever you want you and I both know you’re just trying to rile me up so I’ll fuck you hard
when you finally let me

Tae

who says you’ll get to fuck me anytime soon?

why punish yourself?

Tae

not fucking you is a punishment now?

precisely

I know you like pretending you don’t want me

 but I can have you under me, moaning my name like a little bitch in the matter of minutes

Tae

wanna prove it?

just tell me where

Tae

come over?

Perfect, Jungkook types in and tries not to think about the fact this will be the third time he goes
over to his house.

Tae

Back door

didn’t know there was another option with you

Tae

Youre not funny

“Jungkook,” his eyes lift off the flashing screen, smile he hadn’t even realized had formed on his
face disappearing into thin air as he finds his sister hesitant at the door. “Do you, uhm, want
something for the burn?”

“No,” he says, throws his feet on the ground and stands. “I’m leaving, anyway,” he tells her as he
paces to the door.

“Julia?” she asks as he gets his wallet out, checks it for a condom.

“No,” he says, final and dismissive and his phone dings with a notification.
Tae

hurry or I start without you

do that and youre not walking for a week

Tae

doesnt sound too bad

but who will bring tou diet cokes

Jungkook rolls his eyes at the screen, does not omit a small smile that has Clo Eun’s stare fixed on
him with furrowed brows.

“I’ll see you, Clo,” he says, as he puts his phone into his back pocket, “Call me if you need me
tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods, but thinks as he watches him leave, that he is certainly not taking any calls
tonight.

Taehyung has barely opened the door for him when Jungkook has him front sealed against a
counter, mouthing at his neck and pressing his hips into his ass. “Ji-woo’s out,” Taehyung
manages through a grunt as Jungkook slides his body against his, fitting himself over him
deliciously, “but Woojin is asleep, so we’ve got to be quiet.”

Jungkook exhales into his neck, lips gliding pressureless across the skin as he speaks, “Well, that’s
up to you, isn’t it, pretty boy?” he teases as if they aren’t both vocal with each other, his hand
venturing dangerously to the front of Taehyung’s pajama pants, which, if he weren’t so horny he
would have commented on.

“Not here,” Taehyung grits out as he tries to spin in his grasp, pressing a palm into his stomach and
pushing him back. Jungkook’s arm automatically slithers around his waist, keeping him close and
pressed into the counter even if he allows him to turn and face him, Taehyung’s palm sliding up on
him and resting on his chest. “Upstairs,” he mutters to him, his other hand curling around his bicep,
“I need lube, still a bit sore from you.”

Jungkook’s free hand ventures downwards, positions itself possessively over his ass, “Lube’s not
gonna help you with how fucking hard to get you were playing.”

“Oh?” Taehyung’s brows raise challengingly as his fingers squeeze into him, rough with promise.

Jungkook’s eyes fall over his face, sporadic and suggestive, voice is a whisper of a breath across
his skin, his lips, “Gonna fuck you till you cry, Tae,” he says it so soft it almost loses its meaning,
but every inch of Taehyung is stirring to life.

“If you wake my brother up, you’re never fucking me again,” Taehyung proclaims as he wraps his
hand around Jungkook’s own, his palm and his fingers, not exactly holding his hand, but holding
his hand, nevertheless, and pulls him up towards what used to be his father’s bedroom.

It’s an empty threat, and Jungkook does make him cry, only a little bit, partially because he tries so
hard to stay silent as he pounds him from behind, his face buried in the pillow.

“Can’t fucking move,” Taehyung whines, twisting his head to lay sideways on the pillow to give
himself space to breathe. He pulls at the wet sheet underneath him, pushes it off the bed and flops
down, curling his arm around the second pillow.

Jungkook has one knee on the bed behind him, watching him wiggle to comfort as he tugs himself
into his underwear, ass still looking inviting under his t-shirt though he just fucked him to half-
consciousness. “You asked for it,” Jungkook smirks as he does his belt. He feels almost as
exhausted as Taehyung looks, would very much love to plop onto a soft surface and nod off.

He collapses next to him, as far away as the bed permits, just until his breath evens.

“I’m not complaining,” Taehyung mutters through a groan, his hands tightening over his pillow as
he brings it a little underneath him. He’s positive he cannot feel his limbs. He angles his chin
down, nestles carefully into the pillow and he opens his eyes to glance at Jungkook’s profile,
darting across slow and lazy; he’s too fucked out to care about staring. “Subway doesn’t open for
another couple of hours,” he says half into the pillow, looks on as Jungkook’s eyes blink once and
pupils replace to meet his from the corners, head still facing up. “You can stay here for a bit if you
want, but I gotta warn you I’ll probably hug you.”

Jungkook’s brows raise, the tip of his mouth almost does too, the hint of it twisting into his cheek
stifled in the very last moment. “Hug me?” he questions. He officially fucked Taehyung into
nonsense.

Taehyung stretches his legs out, spreads them a bit, then a lot and Jungkook just has to wonder
how he sleeps on his tiny bunk bed if he so naturally takes up this amount of space. “I hug things in
my sleep,” Taehyung grumbles softly as his arms let a bit loose of the pillow, he’s wrapped them
around. “It’s not of my own volition, it just happens.”

Jungkook adjusts his head, almost tilts it towards him, eyes dragging all over his face, pressed half
into the pillow. Taehyung’s cheeks appear fuller like this and he is not as orthodox in his beauty,
but still somehow undeniably stunning. “You hug in your sleep?” Jungkook huffs out.

His shoulders curl together lightly into response. “It helps me,” he whispers softly. “Basically no
matter what I do, we’d end up like…” and he dismisses the pillow, shifts into a single full roll over
the surface and droops his arm across Jungkook’s chest, face pressing into his shoulder, as his
fingers fall loose over the other, his knee raises over Jungkook’s own a bit, and apparently the
position is complete, because he takes a breath, washes his eyes across his face and exhales, “this.”

Jungkook doesn’t like cuddling, always sleeps on his back, simply does not have the habit of
turning towards Julia in his sleep, and quite honestly, body heat bothers him excessively when he
tries to sleep. But Taehyung’s not hot, he’s just warm and the touch is just short of overwhelming,
but not necessarily in an unpleasant way. No, on the contrary, there is something marginally
comfortable in the weight carefully distributed over him, just enough to hint at closeness, but not
too much to be heavy or imposing.

And it brings Taehyung close, brings his face close, his breath close, his skin close. There is
something gingerly intimate in the way he laces himself over him, body limp and fragile from what
they previously did, chest still rising and falling in a pattern that reminds him of it, perspiration still
making the scant t shirt cling to him. His eyes felt intense from the small distance of the pillow,
now they are nearly unbearable.

Jungkook looks down at him, at where he fits himself into the gap of his shoulder and neck, and
he’s staring up, eyes darting easily across the features of his face, and it takes him a moment, but
Jungkook bats his at the ceiling again.
“Whatever,” he murmurs, shifts, and Taehyung takes the hint, rolls onto his back, and Jungkook
ignores how he misses the weight and warmth of his limbs over him. He sits up. “I’m not staying.
I’ve got my car.”

Taehyung’s arms find the pillow again and he pulls it to himself as Jungkook stands. Pillow feels
soft compared to him, too soft, dips so easily and he has to fold it in half. “Mmm,” Taehyung
mutters lazily, trying to regain comfort, “keep forgetting people have cars.”

Jungkook looks back at him as he does the buttons of his shirt, wonders just how it is possible for
something so granted for him to be so foreign for Taehyung. He replaces his eyes to his fingers as
they work.

“I think you fucked me to sleep,” Taehyung confesses as his own lids fall shut, too heavy to keep
up, limbs too limp to move with the precision required to properly function.

Jungkook walks around the bed, leans to the bedside table closest to Taehyung to gather his
disregarded wallet. “Just go to sleep then,” he tells him.

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head, basically just rubs his chin against the pillow as he nestles into it
even more comfortably. “I need to get to my room. Noona can’t find me here.”

Jungkook pauses by the side of him, slips his wallet into his pocket and looks down. “Get the fuck
up then.”

“Can’t,” Taehyung sighs. “You need to carry me,” he announces.

Jungkook snorts, lips tilting without his permission as stares down at his body curling into itself.
He’s light enough, Jungkook imagines it would be quite easy for him to either scoop him up or
throw him over his shoulder, but he is definitely not fucking carrying him to bed, especially after
sex. “You a princess now?” he snickers.

Taehyung’s eyes crack opened and meet Jungkook’s waiting ones. He grins, cheeky. “A prince,”
he corrects.

Jungkook shakes his head, blinks away from him. “You’re such a fucking baby, Tae.”
He walks around the bed and Taehyung rolls himself around to follow him with lazy eyes, ends up
on his back, knees raising and spreading a bit. His arms lift off the pillow, stretch backwards and it
lifts the hem of his t-shirt, silky, dark thighs exposed.

“What sort of car is it?” He asks through a yawn that makes Jungkook want to yawn as well.

“Wanna see it?” he offers, pausing at the foot of the bed. He tries to hold his eyes on his face,
really does, but he keeps stretching with his yawns and it just exposes more and more of him.

“Mm,” Taehyung whines, after he closes his mouth, smacks his lips, once, twice, “too lazy, not
worth it.”

Jungkook cocks his head. “Would it be worth it if I gave you a ride?” He has no exact motivation
behind the offer, just kind of wants to show Taehyung his car, because Taehyung doesn’t have one
of his own.

“Depends on the ride,” Taehyung grins. “My ass still hurts from last one you gave me.”

Jungkook’s eyes roll most naturally, and he gives up on keeping his lips still, allows them to
twitch. “Around the block, Tae.”

He breathes out and it’s a downright fucking moan, and then he stretches some more, hands raising
far above his head, sleeves of that oversized shirt rolling down, hem shifting up, so much soft,
glistening skin exposed, and he is borderline soft porn, could probably make money looking like
this, enticing. “So, that’s a hard no to carrying me?”

Jungkook’s teeth clench. He simply must be doing this on purpose, so simple, yet so hot. He’s that
dangerous mixture again, deceptive innocence and subtle eroticism. His knees spread a bit wider as
his foot slides across the mattress and Jungkook could so easily see himself between his legs, no
matter how sore he is.

He leans a bit forward, slaps the flesh of his calf. “Get the fuck up, in that position you’re just
asking to be fucked again.”
“Ouch,” Taehyung pulls his legs back. “Unnecessary.”

“Wanna see my car or not?”

“Yeah.”

“Then get that ass up.”

“Fine,” Taehyung whines, pushes himself up on his wrists, “Let me just get some clothes on.”

Jungkook bends, grabs his pajama pants and chucks them at him. “Come on.”

“Well, this is fucking beautiful,” Taehyung exclaims, in much visible awe, as he slides his cartoon
character pajama pants across the leather seat of Jungkook’s SUV. His eyes are wide, words are
rushed, and he bounces a bit as he clicks his seatbelt.

Jungkook shakes his head, adjusts on his seat. “Can’t believe you’re getting that excited over a
car.”

“Hey,” Taehyung turns and glares, “you got excited over sock folding, let me be.” He’d glare at
him longer, but he is too busy studying the interior. He cannot tell for sure, but he would guess the
display in the front is larger than their TV.

Jungkook cocks his head, starts the car. “You’ve already used the sock folding thing, you need to
freshen up your repertoire.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes and when he feels the car purr to life, he refocuses his attention on
Jungkook again. “Put your seatbelt on.”

“I’m just taking you around the block,” Jungkook says.

“Okay,” Taehyung nods, once, twice, three times. “Now put your seat belt on.”

“Jesus, you’re annoying,” is what Jungkook breathes as he slides the seatbelt over his chest and
clicks it.

It’s nothing o’clock and streets are empty, especially void of cars in this part of town and there is
something incredibly relaxing in purposeless driving that Jungkook often forgets about because
where he lives it’s always busy, busy, busy. “You know,” he says, taking Taehyung’s attention
away from the display for a moment, where he explores with utter fascination a three-dimensional
satellite map of the area, “this is my in-city car, I can show you my out of city one sometime,
you’ll love it.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow, voice expresses his wonder perfectly. “You got a specific car you drive
out of the city?”

Jungkook shrugs, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping gingerly on the hand rest. With cars
thinking so much for their own, he really only has use of one hand, could do whatever with the
second one, could in practice, use it to still the bouncing of Taehyung’s thigh, up and down, purely
because it is distracting. “This is too heavy for highways.”

Taehyung bristles, shakes his head to himself. “Rich asshole,” he mutters, though it doesn’t hold
the anger any of the words should have in connotation in the context of the mouth of a Kim.

Jungkook takes a turn, and it is not in the direction of his house.

There’s a silence and it is curiously comfortable as Taehyung stares off the window at everything
beside them pass in a flash. His voice is shy, soft, his voice is careful, and he stares at Jungkook in
the reflection of that window instead of looking at him directly. “Why me and not Julia?”

“What?” Jungkook asks, almost sharp, yet still doesn’t damage the ambiance that has taken over.

Taehyung’s arms cross, tongue skidding over his lips. He turns his head to him. “Tonight,” he
stresses. “Why me?”
Jungkook’s eyes narrow at the street. “Your ass is tighter,” he dismisses.

Taehyung exhales, heavy, gulps nothing, and turns to the window again, trying this time, to avoid
the reflection he sees. His teeth sink into his lip, harder than he intends. He blinks much more than
he needs to. His fingers cling to his own elbows. And he says nothing.

Jungkook glances at him from the side, waits for him to say something, anything, some remark, get
offensive or get defensive. He doesn’t; he just keeps staring from that window, away from
Jungkook, and Jungkook is the one to speak. He mirrors the softness and it is not because he
chooses it, but because his voice naturally seeps into it. “You distract me better,” he tells him and
seals his eyes onto the street as he feels his gaze return to him. “You’re not…” he roams his mind,
what is he not, what is he, “Richhood,” he settles. It’s largely unsatisfactory, but it’s all he can
think of that he is willing to say. Then his voice picks up again, speaks through a breathed chuckle,
“You get fascinated by fucking cars.”

Taehyung huffs out, an almost laugh breaking past his lips as he looks way, looks down at
Jungkook’s fingers which rest between them. “You’re a bitch, Kook,” he tells him as his smile
begins to dissipate, eyes darting across Jungkook’s hand.

He does not realize the name falls through – it feels too natural to say for him to pay any actual
attention, but Jungkook’s chest fill up with too much air. He releases it, skims his gaze across
Taehyung briefly, softly, before he returns it to the road.

Taehyung’s own lifts up, just in time, studies his profile. “Is it your dad?” he whispers carefully,
barely parts his lips with the question.

He stares at the tightening of his jaw, the pull in the muscle at the edge of it. “It’s always my dad,”
he sighs.

Taehyung nods, hesitates, tonguing at his lips, “Is it that on your hand?”

Jungkook’s eyes dart to his and then immediately back at the road. “What?”

“The burn.”

“You noticed a burn on my hand?” his brows raise; he keeps his gaze religiously sealed ahead.
 Taehyung feels himself leaning towards him a bit, settles back against the seat, forces himself to.
His mouth parts and some words are on his tongue, but he swallows them, replaces them with a
small smile. “You use those hands to fuck me,” he tells him. “I’m very attentive of them.”

Jungkook says nothing, absolutely nothing, and Taehyung’s eyes fall over that glaring wound
again, evidence of just who his father is, what a sociopathic piece of shit. Taehyung’s own father
has many vices, many, but he’d never lay a hand on them, never judge them. Taehyung’s father is
poor and desperate, but he is not a cruel man.

His fingers act on their own accord, lift off his lap and grace across the hand rest before the tip of
one brushes gingerly over Jungkook’s warm skin, a small distance away from the burn mark.
Jungkook’s own digits twitch at the contact, concentration falling as his gaze drifts to look at his
own fingers gather instinctively into a fist on the rest. “Does it hurt?” Taehyung’s whispering as he
touches his wrist instead, barely, but tangibly, makes a small pattern that alone elicits gooseflesh
before he retracts it.

Jungkook wonders if it wasn’t a reflex for his own hand to curl into a fist, would have Taehyung’s
lingered.

“Yes,” Jungkook confesses. He stops the car before Taehyung can reply. “Got a license?”

Taehyung’s brows furrow in confusion, shoulders lifting, but he answers. “Yeah, Namjoon insisted
I got one for emergencies. Why?”

Jungkook’s head cocks, just one corner of his lips curving subtly into his cheek. “Wanna drive us
to your house?”

Taehyung’s eyes widen, all of his teeth, every single one of his fucking shiny teeth appears with his
smile. “Fuck yes.” He is already pulling his seatbelt off.
Taehyung is not ready for the actual onslaught of a desire to put rat poison in the elder Jeon’s
champagne when he caters at another overly prestigious event. He lingers by the table that holds
the glasses, the ones he is now assigned the job to distribute, out of sight of the pricks in suits and
dresses, and debates if he is immature enough to actually feel satisfaction from spitting in a drink.

After short but worthwhile consideration, he decides he very much is. He wraps his fingers around
the stem of a crystal glass, brings it up to his lips, gathering as much saliva as he can on his tongue
before he quietly lets it dribble from his mouth and mix into the bubbly liquid.

He is beyond startled when a voice, in retrospect admittedly entertained and painfully familiar,
rings in his ears from behind him. “What are you doing?”

He nearly loses hold of the glass, spins around with a widened gaze, thrumming heart, and an
almost seizure of his rotating body. He does not expect any of the guests in this corridor, they have
no business there, but here he is, Jungkook, in all his expensive, over-priced, tight-pressed,
waistline-emphasizing clothed glory. He’s incredibly fancy, every bit of him luxurious, looks
terribly different to that guy who let him drive his car, but he smirks the same, glances at
Taehyung the same, as he leans fingers spread out opened on the table beside them and awaits a
reply.

“I, erm—” Taehyung hesitates, shrugs, “this is for your dad, actually.”

Jungkook’s brows raise. “Oh, yeah?” Taehyung’s heart races with the possibility he’s overstepping
a boundary or two and his eyes are completely stolen and captivated by Jungkook’s incessant stare
as he moves. He reaches a hand, carefully wraps his fingers around Taehyung’s, every digit gliding
soft but firm over his own, and still keeps his stare perpetual and demanding on his as he leans
down, leads both their hands up and spits into the drink as well. “Now it’s better,” Jungkook
concludes as he straightens, lets go completely of Taehyung’s hand.

“Perfect,” Taehyung grins, puts the glass on the trey he’s left on the table, a distinctive distance
away from the others.

“You didn’t tell me you were catering,” Jungkook tells him, as if between them there is room for
the fulfillment of such expectations, of letting each other know of their whereabouts in advance.

For a moment Taehyung pretends, there could be, cocks his head at Jungkook, borders on playful,
“You didn’t tell me you were attending.
Jungkook scoffs. “Please,” he says with the pretense of an all-importance that he usually prefers to
naturally radiate. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world. I’m Jeon Jungkook.”

His tongue drips irony and Taehyung lets his next exhale hint at laughter, shakes his head to
himself and angles the front of his body to the table, piling as many champagne glasses as his trey
can comfortably hold. He does not like the spike in his heart and breath when the hand Jungkook
has propped on the table nears him, when his body closes in from his right, a little from behind,
tilts into him, not touching him, but coming near, the heat of it reverberating into Taehyung – its
natural pull immediately rising some repressed instinct for Taehyung to draw closer, to press into
him, fit into the hardness of the lines of his now so familiar body.

They are in public and, though they are in a corridor that is kept from view and not an inch of them
touches, it is much too inappropriate for someone of Jungkook’s status to breathe in such
proximity to a waiter, unless, of course, he is a female with a short skirt and pinchable buttocks,
which is almost entirely factually false. This is either brave or stupid, or both, and it is not
something either of them can afford, but as Taehyung feels his piercing eyes slide over the side of
his face, he cannot find it in himself to tell him to be careful, simply focuses his power – his
weakness – on leveling his breath and waiting. His own eyes lift off of the glasses, scan with panic
over the guests for anyone missing, fall furtively onto Jungkook’s father as Jungkook murmurs to
him.

“Tell me you’re bored, and you can slip off,” he says, and it carries the vibe of a plea, sends
shivers all across the back of Taehyung’s neck, which feels peculiarly wet and hot.

He shakes his head, whispers back, “I’m working.”

“Well,” Jungkook begins and presses into his side before he pulls away and lingers from the
dangerously nothing of a distance still, “one of the very important guests requires your personal
service.”

Taehyung glances at him briefly. “Speak to my manager.”

Jungkook shrugs. “Okay,” he says, begins to side step him, and Taehyung spins immediately, both
hands wrapping around his wrist and pulling him back, before he realizes that he is touching and
lets go.

“Don’t you dare,” he warns, flashing a short glare in Jungkook’s direction as he settles on his other
side now before he returns his stare to the table, angles his whole body that way. He takes a
moment, hesitates, puts a glass on the trey that doesn’t really fit, not with the way he positions it.
He speaks to the trey, speaks low and reluctant, “I really don’t want to go to that room, anyway,
Kook.”

Jungkook’s eyes watch him put that glass on the trey and off of it again and again, as he refuses to
return his gaze back on him, studies the nothingness on his profile, his features uncommunicative
but soft, genuine. Jungkook doesn’t want to take him to that room. “Not that room,” he promises.
“My place.” Taehyung’s eyes do turn to him now, shining with the alarm he’s earned with the
preposition, but Jungkook shakes his head. “They’re all going to the Jungs after.” That solidifies
them four hours, at least.

Taehyung knows it’s stupid how desperately he wants to be able to just agree, how much he savors
every time they consciously plan to be together and it doesn’t just happen, how he wishes to just
drop the stupid champagne and go to his apartment again, judge a bit more of the art, fuck him on
another possession his father prices, then maybe play a couple video games, pry into his life and let
him pry into his, just for a moment, just subtly, then turn it into sex again if it needs be, for now.
He knows it’s stupid, but he does. He wants to go so bad he almost feels it physically and not in the
shape of a hard on, which he would begrudgingly accept. No, it is something else entirely.

And Taehyung has never had feelings for anyone before, but he supposes maybe this is it, what
this unpractical curse constitutes, this giddy, jittery thing that roams his stomach at the prospect
Jungkook wants to spend time with him, fuck him and not just anybody else.

But what he says is, “I can’t just leave,” and he turns back to the treys.

Jungkook exhales with his cheeks, looks away. “Fine,” he says, and Taehyung tries to swallow
down the plain, raw deflation when he pulls back, steps away. He looks at him one last time, “I
want red wine, by the way.”

Taehyung nods, trails his eyes behind him once Jungkook spins and takes his own away. He sighs,
shakes his head to himself, puts the glass onto the trey successfully this time. He captures the trey
with both hands, goes around tables, bowing and repeating, complimentary champagne, at each one
as he has been instructed. When he passes by Jungkook’s he attempts eye contact, but he’s got his
attention firmly at his phone, and maybe he’s texting Julia, passes begrudgingly through
Taehyung’s head and his gaze sets into a short glare, before he leaves, goes to get his wine, like the
good waiter he is.

He registers the order, gets the glass and strolls back, follows every and each etiquette except for
the fact he oozes bitterness. “Your wine,” he says with all the professionalism he can muster.
He knows something is off the moment Jungkook opens his mouth to say thank you, because
Jungkook never fucking says thank you, especially not in front of his father, but the next moment,
he spins, knocks the glass right off the tip of the table and the liquid, crimson and poignant, spills
all over Taehyung’s white shirt.

“Shit,” Jungkook mutters as if there is an ounce of this that isn’t on fucking purpose as Taehyung’s
hand reaches instinctively, fingers closing around the glass before it falls and breaks. His mouth
gapes with a repressed gasp, body retracting as his arms lift into the air. He blinks once at nothing
and a second time at Jungkook, eyes bulging and glaring before he has the hands of his supervisor
wrapping around his shoulder and pushing him away with a plethora of apologies.

“Jesus, Kim.” He leads him towards that same corridor. He runs a hand over his face, wraps two
fingers around his nose and looks at Taehyung as if he is a walking disaster, which, in this context,
he supposes he is. “You can’t work like this.” He shakes his head, clicks his tongue. “I’ve got no
shirt replacement.”

Taehyung’s mouth parts and he’s began the excuse already when a voice interjects from the side
and Taehyung jerks his head with the most scorching glare his eyes are physically capable of.

“This was completely my fault,” Jungkook speaks, so respectful, and fake, with his eyes all wide
and innocent, “I apologize. I am utterly embarrassed by my own clumsiness.”

“Oh, no, no.” The supervisor spins and bows as Jungkook approaches. “Please. That’s absolutely
fine. It happens, especially in this business.”

When Jungkook stills beside them and waits, discomfort covers every feature of his supervisor so
visibly its almost comical. He switches his attention between Taehyung and Jungkook for a bit,
mouth gaping with some words he cannot speak, he can’t exactly shout at him in front of Jeon
Jungkook, unless the guest initiates it himself.

“Just,” he hesitates, turns to Taehyung, “just, get out of sight for the guests okay, you only get half
commission for this.” He bows to Jungkook again, breathes a few apologies, and excuses himself,
walks off to the room he is meant to be supervising, and leaves Jungkook alone with Taehyung’s
glare.

He lifts his brows up, dares to be suggestive. “Can you leave now?”
Taehyung shakes his head, breathes, and turns. He walks and Jungkook follows. “You’re the
biggest bitch I know.”

“I’ll compensate you.” Jungkook says, as he slips his blazer off of his shoulders, drapes it
wordlessly over Taehyung’s to cover his wet shirt. “Promise.”

Taehyung pulls at the edges of the blazer to cover him better. It’s windy outside as they step out
and it’s cold with the thin fabric over him so drained. He doesn’t verbally acknowledge the gesture
because he doesn’t want to hear the excuse Jungkook has for it. “Couldn’t you have waited until
after the event.”

“Apartment is free now.” Jungkook shrugs. “If you want the hotel room, though, just say the
word.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Taehyung walks easily, remembers the direction towards Jungkook’s home.

“Don’t have any games there, anyway, so your ass would suffer more.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “You’re such a spoiled brat, honestly.”

“We’ve established that,” Jungkook acknowledges, nods. He turns to Taehyung, eyes skimming
him from the side, his face, his body. “You deserve a little spoiling as well, you know, doesn’t suit
you, this waiter thing.”

Taehyung returns the look. “What suits me?” He cocks his head. “Being bent over?”

Jungkook’s lips curve on one side, an easy smirk captures his features. “Only if it’s for me.”

Taehyung shakes his head, scoffs in a feigned disbelief though he almost expects the words even
before they leave his mouth. He turns back to him, asks, “How’d you explain your disappearance
anyway?”
Jungkook looks at the street instead. “Parents still accept I’m being a prick over getting used like
an ashtray, so I can venture off undisturbed.” He kicks at a stone that is in the way of his Hugo
Boss’s. “Daddy dearest gets nervous when he leaves obvious marks.”

Taehyung takes his eyes away. Maybe he should have really put rat’s poison in that drink.

He’s braver walking into that apartment this time, knows his way towards the room he expects
they’ll be in. “By the way, I choose the game because you’re a prick and cost me vital money,” He
informs him, removing the blazer from his shoulders and dropping it onto the couch.

“Whatever you say,” Jungkook tells him as he wraps his fingers around his wrist, pulls him away
from the couch and towards some other corridor, “but come here a sec.” He drops his arm after
he’s made his indication clear, turns and walks and Taehyung follows.

“Is that your room?” Taehyung asks, eyes bulging and roaming around the big, monochromatic
space he saunters into, fits the entirety of the house, spacious, contemporary and depressingly
sterile.

“Yeah,” Jungkook hums as he slides the door of a closet that takes up an entire wall, height and
width. It’s strictly enormous.

“That’s a lot of fucking fake plants,” Taehyung notes as he walks into the room. He’d feel more
uncomfortable, he figures, if there was any sign of Jungkook in that room, but it could easily be
that suite in the hotel, no stickers, no pictures, no scratches on the furniture, no character, only one
thing stands out, a single camera that lies on a white desk, pushed against big windows with the
drapes closed shut.

“My mom insists on them,” Jungkook says. “Come here,” he instructs softly, though he doesn’t
wait for Taehyung to follow through, reaches for his arm again and pulls him over. He stutters in
his step, takes his eyes away from that camera, but falls into place beside him, gaze now shifting
towards the items neatly placed into the closet, mostly in the same hues as the room, but a few
colors sticking out, pretty, fabrics upon fabrics and his fingers itch to touch.

Jungkook releases him, waves his hand in front of the opened door instead. “Choose one as a
payback for ruining yours and for you only getting half commission because of me.”

Taehyung’s eyes shoot to his, wide, brows raising. “Are you serious?”
He nods. “I’m not even aware of most of them, honestly. Anything you want, it’s yours.”

This is stupid, too, stupid that his eyes linger on Jungkook’s face for a lot longer than he means for
them. That such a warm feeling spreads inside of him because of a shirt, an article of clothing that
genuinely cannot mean anything to him, to Jungkook, he has so many, endless. Taehyung has so
few, even less that belong to him and aren’t hand me downs from Namjoon. He loves clothes much
more than he can afford, settles for what he can get his hands on.

He forces his eyes on the closet and it is easier than he expects. They roam with utter fascination
over every fabric, every color that stands out. He is afraid to touch, maybe he’ll ruin something. He
washed his hands at the hotel, but still, he doesn’t know. He reaches out, gingerly runs the tips of
his fingers over the sleeve of one shirt and when no prints are left, he lets his hand get braver, catch
more firmly onto the fabrics. What makes this difficult is the fact Jungkook remains by his side,
scrutinizing his every move, eyes ghosting over his face as avidly as Taehyung’s dart across the
clothes.

He wraps his hand with little pressure around the sleeve of a satin fabric.

“I like this,” he says softly, biting his lower lip as he turns to Jungkook for approval.

Jungkook hums, glances at the shirt before he returns his gaze to Taehyung. “That’s a pajama top,”
he tells him with a small scrunch of his eyebrows.

Taehyung lets go of the sleeve. “I like it,” he shrugs, a little shy.

Jungkook looks at him for a moment more before he reaches into the closet, strips the shirt off of
the hanger. He extends it before him, glances over it. “Clo got it for me,” he tells him, “I wore it
once to please her, not even sure it’s been washed.”

“Don’t care,” Taehyung shrugs again as he watches Jungkook leave it on the bed. If anything, it’ll
smell like him for a bit before he washes it.

“Do you want the bottoms as well?” Jungkook asks him as he steps before him again. “They’re a
pair, after all,” he tells him when Taehyung stares at him a bit blankly.
Taehyung swallows, nods. Jungkook is a little close. Then Jungkook is a lot close; it makes
speaking hard, thinking harder. He’s used to sexual proximity by now, but this is different, still
makes his stomach do flips. He doesn’t know if Jungkook will ever not make him some kind of
tangibly nervous. Eustress, he thinks it is, may be, each part of his body is aware and awake, but
it’s not with discomfort, just with abundant sensation, sensitivity to touch, to breaths, and glances
and words. His hands lift up, and Taehyung’s chest recedes, falls back into him before it extends
again, as Jungkook’s fingers reach for his neck.

Taehyung stays still, motionless, with pulsing heart, and unsteady breath as the fingers touch his
tie, start on the knot, careful and slow.

“You really are tragic at this,” Jungkook mumbles softly, his eyes straying away from the motion
of his fingers to catch Taehyung’s which are locked on his.

Taehyung doesn’t know why he whispers, but it doesn’t feel right not to, even if they are in a huge,
empty apartment, with no one and nothing to hide from. “Maybe you should just teach me how to
do that at some point,” he says, his ears filled with the pattern of his own breathing, mingling with
Jungkook’s.

Jungkook breathes calmer, and as his eyes replace back on the knot as it is undone. He says, “No.”

He lets the tie fall on the floor, starts on his buttons.

Taehyung’s head tilts ever so slightly to one side. “No?”

Jungkook pushes the drained shirt off of his shoulders without touching his skin, raises his eyes to
him again, confesses, “Then you won’t need me to do it for you.”

Taehyung’s next exhale lodges in his throat and stirs, stays, but thankfully Jungkook doesn’t see,
because he pulls away, lifts the shirt Taehyung chose off the bed and hands it to him, eyes sealing
onto his body, studying every bit of naked skin, skimming past ribs and nipples, the emphatic dip
of his clavicles, the surprising softness of his stomach.

Taehyung stretches his arms through the sleeves, indulges in the way the fabric feels against him,
so very real and luxurious. He allows it to hang off of his shoulders, doesn’t bother with the buttons
as he runs his fingers across the side of it, feels its silky texture.
“Fits you better,” Jungkook tells him.

Taehyung’s eyes lift up from the trail they follow of his own fingers, capture Jungkook’s for a
moment. “Does it?”

“Yeah,” he breathes. Jungkook is well aware Taehyung probably has a lot of potential to do with
numbers, would probably make a wonderful architect if he is as dedicated to it as he is to his
family, but he cannot ignore thinking he could easily be a model as well. He’s truly ethereal, makes
that silly pajama top appear out of a magazine.

His eyes continuously roam over him, and he cannot help himself, takes a step forward, slides the
palm of his hand under the fabric of the open shirt and a little above his hip, into the soft flesh of
his waistline. He twists his fingers into him indicatively, teases him into falling a step forward.

“You like my body, yeah?” he whispers to him, something Taehyung has told him before, places
his other hand on him as well and holds him like this. “I like yours, too.”

Taehyung’s eyes drop to Jungkook’s parted mouth, as breath teases past it and into Taehyung’s
own. “You like mine, too?” he mumbles softly, gaze slightly wide, gaze slightly vulnerable. His
hands adjust their hold on him, on his bare skin, palms and fingers feel lethal, scorching.

“Yes,” Jungkook exhales.

“Not just my ass?” Taehyung asks, eyes searching his face for a small moment, darting across
every familiar feature before they fall back onto his lips.

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head, squeezes into his sides in a way that brings him closer. “No. I
love your ass, but I like your whole body.” His stare falls, lids batting slow and somehow gentle,
“Like your chest,” he whispers, and he steps a bit close, “your stomach, your shoulders.” He lists
and Taehyung watches his lips form every word of it, from such painful, delicate proximity, he
feels every syllable form on his own lips, the vibration and exhale of their speech palpable enough,
close enough for the sensitive skin on them to tingle with each sound. “Like your cock.”

Taehyung nods, he’s nodding, such small bobs of his head and his eyes lift as his licks over the
pillow of his lower lip, follow Jungkook’s as they watch the motion of his tongue.
Taehyung doesn’t know which breath is his and which is Jungkook’s. Taehyung doesn’t know
why his heart beats like this.

“You like my mouth?” he’s saying, he’s begging.

This time Jungkook nods, Jungkook snakes his tongue across his lips. “Yeah.”

He’s close, he’s so close. Taehyung can see every single detail on his face, every imperfection, that
scar on his cheek, that freckle on his nose, he can count his lashes if his wished, those lashes that
droop low as his lids almost touch. He’s so close that Taehyung cannot look anymore, can almost
feel him, can almost sense his lips on his own. His every exhale is inhaled from him, they share
their breath. Taehyung’s head tilts, he can’t look. He closes his eyes.

And suddenly he’s cold. He’s freezing.

“Good for fucking,” Jungkook says, dismisses, shoulder brushing into him as he sidesteps him,
goes to a different part of the closet.

Taehyung’s eyes open – they sting – lips closing, thin, shut, pressing together until they go white
and disappear, and he angles his body after him as he releases them. His tongue runs over his
mouth different now, runs quick before it presses into the edge and he lets himself scoff with his
whole entire body, his shoulders and his chest and his eyes as he seals them onto Jungkook, as
merciless as he is.

He isn’t cold, next, he’s on fire. “Why?” he asks, he demands, he compels.

Jungkook turns to him, just from the side, eyes snapping, teeth snapping as if each feature of his
face alone blames him for having the mere audacity to speak that word. “What?” he challenges.

Taehyung turns his whole entire body to him now, not just a shoulder and he does not let his eyes
waver as he speaks, hates the way his voice trembles slightly at some sounds, “Why don’t you
want to kiss me, Jungkook?”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook glowers, chest rising, falling deeply. He’s angry. What fucking right does
he have to be angry? “Drop it,” he commands, like he had last time.
He means to look away, but Taehyung says one word that summons his attention. “No,” he says
firm. “Why do you want to fuck me but not kiss me, Jungkook?”

Jungkook exhales, breathes so uneven, takes a single step towards him. “Sex,” he stresses, nostrils
bulging, eyes glaring, “Sex is different. I fuck you to make myself come. Kissing is for—”

“What?” Taehyung interjects sharply, with the way he steps forward he almost charges and for the
first time Jungkook is the one to take a step back. “Intimacy?” he names, dark eyebrows shooting
up. He pauses, he waits, then he nearly yells, “Don’t you think being inside of me is intimate,
Jungkook?

Jungkook doesn’t like to think of it like that, like being inside of him. It’s sex, it’s pleasure. He’s
shoved his cock in a lot of people, a lot of girls, doesn’t really think of what it constitutes rather
than an orgasm. Inside inside inside, it rings in his head more powerful than he expects.

He angles his body fully to him now, teeth clenching. “Stop,” he grits out, both hands raising,
fingers spread, tense, until they curl into fists as he pleads, “saying my name like that.”

“Like what?” Taehyung snarls.

Jungkook’s teeth bare, fingers keep tightening, curling into those fists close to Taehyung’s head,
“Like fucking…” he tries, he growls, but he can’t find anything, “stop,” he begs, before he lowers
his arms, turns away, walks.

“Why?” Taehyung demands, walking right after. Jungkook doesn’t turn, doesn’t fucking
acknowledge him, and Taehyung reaches out, wraps his long fingers around his forearm, repeats,
lower, more desperate, voice still so loathsomely uneven, he repeats, “Jungkook.”

And Jungkook flips around and Taehyung only manages to see those lethal eyes once before they
shut close and his lips are on his.

Taehyung’s heart might as well burst through his chest.

Taehyung’s eyes fall shut, he cannot breathe, his breath is stolen away, swallowed by Jungkook as
he kisses him, kisses him hard. Hands are on his neck, holding him tight, holding him rough, but
his lips are worse, punishing on his, moving from the moment they touch, wrap around his upper
one, then lower, open, as his teeth replace them instead, press hard onto the pillow of his lip and
sink, draw blood.

He pulls away, pushes him away, opens his eyes. They’re raw dark, so wide and so angry as he
stares right at Taehyung’s, breath as heavy as his, chest rises and falls, rises and falls, as if he’s
running, as if he’s fighting.

“There,” Jungkook’s voice roars. “Are you fucking happy now?”

And he still breathes like this. And Taehyung cannot say anything, cannot think anything, and
Jungkook’s eyes fall on the trickle of blood that rolls down his chin, up to his own, down again, up
again,downagainupagindownagainupagain.

And he’s on him. One arm snakes across his waist, the hand of the other wraps around the back of
his nape, fingers threading through hair and he kisses him, tilts his head, presses his nose into his
cheek and kisses him.

He still kisses him hard, but he kisses him careful, swallows the blood and runs his tongue over his
lip soothing, moves his lips over his, and they’re soft, so soft.

Taehyung’s hand is on his shoulder, for leverage, he doesn’t know if he can hold himself up on his
own, and his eyes screw shut so tight, all features on his face do, as if he’s in pain, and maybe he
is. He doesn’t know what he feels, just knows he does, he feels, so much, it’s so overwhelming, it
swallows him whole, and he cannot breathe, but he is ready to sacrifice breath for this, any day,
any time, any moment.

Jungkook presses himself into him, draws him closer, fills every crevice in between their bodies.
He kisses him.

He kisses him.

Why has he never kissed him before?

He parts his mouth, Taehyung parts his own. They breathe each other in, tongues tangling and the
moment they touch, they grow desperate.

It happens so quick. Jungkook can’t fucking stop.

His hands are all over him, appetitive, taking. And Taehyung’s are as well, feel all over his back,
his arms, his neck, his shoulders. Jungkook kisses with abandon, wet and rough and desperate. He
kisses voracious. He sighs into his mouth, forehead creasing, kisses him again, again, again.

Taehyung’s blood rushes, heart hammers. His mind has never been as blank.

Jungkook pushes at him, one step, two steps, three steps. He pushes him onto his bed, a bed that
has only ever had him and Julia on it and hates to separate his mouth from his even for a second.
He climbs onto him, puts all his weight on him, kisses him.

Taehyung’s legs spread, fit Jungkook in between them. He’s never had him so close on the front,
but he does now, every inch of them touches, every single, and he wants more, wants him naked.

He feels him so well, his body, warm, hard, fits just right against him. He is hardening against him,
Taehyung can feel his own length on his, as it brushes. The sensation is new, curiously exquisite
with the background of all they have done to each other, with each other, something so intimately
erotic in the fact they feel the same, rubbing together, hips pressing, Jungkook sighing into
Taehyung’s mouth, Taehyung moaning into Jungkook’s.

They grind on each other like fucking teenagers, but it’s okay, because they never got to do this,
no, they set unspoken rules for everything, always controlled their desperation, put limits on the
expression of their want, but neither of them can now, neither of them wants to and they let
themselves feel each other as feels right, even if it’s eager, a little horny, even if it’s messy, like
they’re doing this for the first time, for the last time alike.

Jungkook pushes at Taehyung’s shirt as Taehyung works the buttons of Jungkook’s own, his pants,
shoes, socks, everything. They strip each other off, every single article of clothing, which they
never do, never, because it’s easier to leave when they have less clothes to replace. But they strip
each other bare.

Jungkook leaves him for a moment and Taehyung whines, clings onto his arm as he gets something
from his drawer, gets a bottle of something that can function as lube.
“What do I mean to you?” Jungkook says as he lies on him, as he kisses him.

“What?” Taehyung asks against his lips, only separates them long enough to breathe the word
before he pushes against them again, finds his tongue with his own.

Jungkook pulls away, lips hovering and eyes parting, eyes capturing his, “What am I to you, Tae?”
And it sounds like he’s in fucking pain and it hurts Taehyung, but he shakes his head, wraps his
fingers in the strands of his hair and reassures him.

“Nothing,” he says, it breaks off from him more difficult than he expects, “You’re nothing,” he
tells his lips, “I promise.” He kisses him.

“Promise?” Jungkook closes his eyes again, kisses him.

“Yes,” Taehyung lies.

Jungkook slips a finger inside of him and Taehyung’s face contorts with the pain of it, but
Jungkook’s mouth is on him, soothes him with an open-mouthed kiss, as his licks between his lips,
spreads him with the kiss as much as he is with his fingers. Taehyung’s hips push into him, he
moans as Jungkook slips a second finger in, works him open, so good to him with his fingers,
though quick, hungry.

Taehyung wants more. His fingers cling to his biceps. “Jungkook,” he whines to him as he pulls
away for the breath of a moment, “Fuck me.”

Jungkook’s off him again, opening that drawer.

“Fuck,” he curses, runs his fingers through his hair that’s a mess from Taehyung’s own desperate
hands. “Don’t have any condoms Tae, used them all on you."

“Don’t care,” Taehyung says, pressing his fingers into himself with one hand to open himself
faster, tugging on Jungkook with the other, “fuck me.”

He pulls him in, and he does it because he trusts him, knows that if Jungkook had any reason to
worry about this, he’d tell him, doesn’t want a fucking condom even if Jungkook has one. And
Jungkook does this, because he has never done it before, doesn’t trust Julia enough to fuck her
without a condom, but he knows Taehyung doesn’t let anyone else inside of him.

Jungkook’s body slides over his, fits into him again. He strokes himself, lubes himself, as
Taehyung spreads his legs for him, Jungkook’s free hand wrapping around a silky thigh, as he lines
himself up, lies over him, fully, as fully as their bodies allow him. He presses into him, presses
slow and Taehyung’s fingers squeeze into his arms, his teeth bite a little at his own lips and a little
at his.

“So tight,” Jungkook grunts as he pushes in, as Taehyung bottoms out. He feels so exquisite, skin
on skin, so hot, so wet. Jungkook could come from just this, from fitting himself snugly inside of
Taehyung, fucking him bare.

“Yeah?” Taehyung sighs, captures his eyes for just a moment before he has to squeeze them shut
from the pressure, whispers against his lips, “Cause you’re the only person who gets to fuck me.”

“Yeah. Fuck,” he curses, draws his hips back, hand digging almost painfully into his thigh,
“You’re mine.” It falls through his lips and though he hopes his immediate hard thrust inside of
him can erase it, it’s between them, between their mouths, as Jungkook lets him swallow the sound
of his words before he kisses him again. He shouldn’t be saying this not when he himself belongs
to someone else. Not at all, not to Kim Taehyung.

He is, though. Taehyung doesn’t want to let Jungkook know just how much he has him. He doesn’t
let anyone else touch him, but even if he did, no one else would be able to dishevel him like this,
ruin him like this, claim him without even trying

Jungkook fucks him hard. It’s not as fast as it usually is, thrusts into him measured and deep and he
has him a mess underneath him, but he’s a mess as well, so it’s only fair.

He wants him, wants him so much, he craves him, on his back below him, underneath him as he
fucks him into the mattress. He’s never fucked him like this before, only ever had him for a
moment on his back in the Ozone, but it’s different now. Taehyung’s wrapped around him, his legs
lock around his waist, draw him in with every thrust, Jungkook’s hand digging into the flesh of his
thigh, pulling him closer as if it is possible. Taehyung's hands are on his bare back, feeling the
muscles shift with exertion, then they are in his hair, tugging at strands, then on his back again and
Jungkook thrusts his hips right into a spot that makes him keen and his dull nails dig into his skin.

Jungkook’s never fucked him raw, never fucked anyone raw, but he never wants anyone else like
this, anyway, doesn’t believe anyone else like this.

“Kiss me,” Taehyung moans into his mouth.

“I am,” Jungkook breathes, lips gliding pressureless over Taehyung’s own.

Taehyung begs, “More,” tugs his head down.

He kisses him until he cannot breathe, then pulls away, looks down at his face, at his eyes, that are
so bold and genuine as they meet his.

Jungkook fights carelessly in a ring with no rules, no weight categories, he fights men, large and
vicious, with nothing to lose. When he was seven, he saw his father hit his sister for the first time
and he bit his arm and when his father tuned on him, he stood and watched and took it. When they
were sixteen, Clo overdosed for the first time and he was the only one who knew, the one who
took care of her until their aunt showed up. But Jungkook has never felt so irrationally scared in his
entire life.

Taehyung’s cock rubs into Jungkook’s hard stomach, into his own. He doesn’t need to be touched
to come. Not when Jungkook fucks him so well, bare inside of him, raw, skin on his. Not when
Jungkook kisses him. Not when Jungkook looks into his eyes.

He moans his name shameless when he comes, comes harder than he remembers he ever has; he’s
almost fucking crying. He doesn’t care, doesn’t remember ever feeling anything as intense in the
entirety of his life.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook’s groaning, “Fuck.”

He feels his hips pull away, wraps his legs around him tighter, “Come inside of me,” he whispers,
breathless.

Jungkook does, his name on his mouth again, a broken moan. His hips stutter, arch into him, slam
into him, and he takes it, takes it as he does, comes inside of him, lets Taehyung watch his face
contort with the pleasure of it, allows him to see how he relinquishes absolute control of every each
feature.
 Jungkook does nothing but breathe over him as he stills above him, lets go of his thigh to hold
himself on his elbows. He tries to catch his breath, fails at it. He draws his hips back, attempts to,
knows he’s made a mess inside of Taehyung, that he needs to pull away, but he doesn't get to.

“Don’t leave,” Taehyung moans, voice embarrassingly desperate, and he clings onto him, tightens
his legs around his waist as much as he can, squeezes him into place, before he realizes what he’s
doing, relaxes his hold. He glances up into his eyes, and he’s afraid to do this now, after this, after
they're done, after Jungkook's come, but when he does, when he manages, it’s not scary, not scary
at all. Jungkook’s eyes are soft. “Please, no yet. Just, just give me a moment.”

Taehyung’s legs are trembling around his waist, whole body shaking underneath him, Jungkook
holding him is keeping him together and he simply cannot leave him, not yet.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

He leans down and presses his lips into his lightly, gingerly, before his mouth parts, tongue tastes
Taehyung’s lips before it graces his teeth, sinks into his mouth. They kiss slow, a little wet, they
kiss so honest.

Taehyung knows he can’t stay. They’ve made a mess of each other, of sex, such a mess. He knows
they only have hours, that he needs to get the fuck out of there before his parents come home, that
the sooner he leaves the better, but he ignores this for now, runs his fingers over Jungkook’s back
and kisses him again just because he can.

Chapter End Notes

this is fairly intense, I think, hope you enjoyed for now

 Chapter 17
Chapter Summary

basically shit happens

Chapter Notes

sorry for taking so long but its been hard to write it and I have been incredibly nervous
to post, rewriting parts, wondering if I should write it like this at all, but it was my
original idea and im going with it

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Taehyung had been honest. It takes him exactly a moment of dozing off for him to wrap himself
around Jungkook. He does almost precisely the same as he’d shown him, strewns his arm across
his chest until his hand falls over his shoulder, one leg nesting in between Jungkook’s when he
bends the knee of his right one. His stomach presses into his side, his whole entire body seals onto
him.

Jungkook doesn’t know how his arm ends up under Taehyung’s neck, wrapping behind him,
fingers reaching over and dancing along the skin stretched over his bicep, small hairs rising there
in the wake of his digits. He looks down at him, at the way he so naturally fits himself over him
without speaking a word, just making some soft sounds, easy and somehow blithe, as he turned into
the sheets when he felt Jungkook lying back down into them and simply, so simple, slips around
him.

He wonders if he is asleep, if it is possible for him to fall asleep next to him, because Jungkook
himself has a hard time sleeping next to people, though he imagines it would be quite easy to shut
his eyes now. Taehyung won’t hurt him, even if he hurts himself through him.

Jungkook’s fingers lift off of the shapeless pattern they’re making on his arm and slip into his hair,
strands soft, some a bit perspired. They weave through, moving absolutely on their own accord. He
just looks at them, feels them, has no control over them, he has no control over anything, if he did,
he wouldn’t let Taehyung lay like this in his arms. Or if he did, he’d live in a world where
Taehyung lying in his arms would be okay.

He lets this be, lets this be until he can’t anymore.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been of just that when he speaks, could be minutes, could have
been an hour or more. “Tae,” he says, murmurs, soft and careful. If he is asleep, he doesn’t want to
scare him. He brushes a strand over his forehead gently.

Taehyung places a hot, a scorching palm that makes his heart race, just above it, just on his chest,
fingers so casual spread around his nipple. Taehyung touches him in a way that is intimate and
familiar in a way that is not even slightly sexual. He almost has to look away when Taehyung tilts
his head up, eyes fluttering opened as they meet his, chin a little above his hand, again on
Jungkook’s chest. He’s all over Jungkook. “I need to go, don’t I?” he whispers as soft as Jungkook
had, because Taehyung hopes if he says it low enough it will erase the truth of it.

He doesn’t want to leave. This is foreign to Taehyung. He’s only familiar with pillows, doesn’t
even hug his own sister, not anymore, not since Namjoon left, just rarely, so rarely. Touch that is in
anyway affectionate is simply a ghost in his life, but this is so surprisingly easy. He’s touched
Jungkook so much, touched him everywhere and he’s touched every inch of him back, he knows
the heat of his body, fits into it almost magnetically at this point, enjoys the soft skin, soothing
fingers, and hard muscle, juxtaposed in a way that promises (lies) of intimacy and security, draws
Taehyung in and traps him and he allows himself, or forgets how not to, to feel safe for those short
moments.

Though he’s in a lion’s den, the apartment of the fucking Jeons. He’s anything but safe and he
needs to fucking go.

Jungkook doesn’t formulate it into words, just pauses and nods and Taehyung’s head faces down
again, tilts onto his chest and drops, takes his eyes away, face away. And Jungkook is thankful
because it makes standing up easier. He unfolds his arm from under him, scoots down the mattress
and sits at the edge where he finds some of his clothes disregarded.

Taehyung watches him from the second he has to hold his own head up, from the second his legs
are forced to untangle from in between his. He turns on his back, props himself up on his elbows
and tries with all he can manage to be casual about this, even if he has to speak to Jungkook’s back
as he slips on trousers.

“Which station is closer, do you think?” he asks mostly for the sake of speaking, of having
something in the air between them, and because last time he’d left this apartment he’d walked over
to the station closest to the Ozone before he figured there might be a closer one. Not that he minds
walking. He minds Jungkook turning his back to him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jungkook says as he lifts off of the bed, walks over to a different section of the
closet and picks out a black t-shirt from there. “I’m driving you,” he announces as he slips it on
over his head, body now only sideways to Taehyung’s. He can see some of his face, though he
cannot see much on it.

Taehyung scoots to the edge as well, gets ahold of the shirt, Jungkook’s pajama shirt that he throws
over his own shoulders, does the buttons. “You don’t have to,” he says, looking down at his own
fingers as they do the shirt, when a fabric hits over them.

“I’m driving you,” Jungkook declares conclusively as Taehyung wraps his hands around what he’d
thrown at him to discover it is the bottoms to the shirt he’s wearing. The corner of his lips threatens
to twist, but he stops it in time, pushes it down.

“Okay,” he tells him because he has little else to say that he can afford to and gets his own trousers
on. He worries his lip between his teeth, eyes venturing around the room as he does his fly.
“What’s with the camera?”

Jungkook angles his body away. “I used to take pictures, sometimes.”

“Used to?” Taehyung’s brows furrow.

“Yeah.”

“Of?”

“Stuff,” he offers nothing more as he shrugs, and Taehyung doesn’t feel in place to ask for more, so
he shuts up.

Things, Jungkook thinks, beautiful things, and if that camera wasn’t there because he was getting
ready to throw it away, if he still had it in him, maybe he’d take a picture of Taehyung. It’s stupid,
that’s maybe the stupidest thing he’d thought in the last hour and his mind has been an absolute
pile of shit for the time being.

“Come on,” he says, he leaves.

The car ride is silent. Jungkook asks him to wait in front of the building and goes to the garage
himself. He debates for a little bit whether he should get his out of city car now, but he knows he’d
be tempted to take him out on the highway with it, he knows himself, so he picks him up with his
SUV and Taehyung keeps his pajama bottoms in his lap together with his hands.

Jungkook looks at the road, straight through the windshield, and Taehyung does too. This time
Jungkook doesn’t keep his hand between them, wraps them both around the wheel and drums his
fingers on his own thigh at traffic lights.

It’s late and traffic is scarce, but Jungkook drives slowly, still reaches quickly. Too quickly.

Taehyung looks through the window at the glaring door of his house, runs his tongue across his
lips. He stares down at his fingers clutching the fabric that belongs to Jungkook in his lap,
swallows down a building bump of hesitation and when he snaps his head to Jungkook, he catches
his eyes for the bare moment that takes the other to look away, back to the windshield.

His thumb hits repeatedly onto the steering wheel.

“Do you want to come in?” Taehyung breathes out, knows his voice fades at the end, but he sighs
with it, closes his lips once and opens them to speak with new confidence, new nonchalance. He
shrugs. “I don’t really have any parents right now, so.”

This is normal, he’s invited him to his house before, this is normal. Taehyung feels an almost
ridiculous fear of separating from him tonight, is overwhelmed by some dread he cannot fully
formulate in his own head, but the tension of it layers in his heart and over his skin.

Jungkook keeps looking forward, and Taehyung absolutely abhors it. He’s not fucking driving and
he deserves to be looked in the goddamned eyes, but the side of his head is what he gets. He sees
the tick of his jaw and it’s such a familiar sight, he doesn’t know why it’s worse to witness each
time. “Ji-Woo,” is the single word Jungkook says as if it means everything and anything.

Taehyung rotates in the seat as he undoes his belt, starts speaking with more animation than he
means, more hope, “Well, she—"

“No, Tae,” Jungkook cuts him off, brushes him off, and his eyes are fluttering to him now, once,
twice with hesitant miniscule tilts of his head, but he helplessly ends up staring at the front in the
end. His tongue pokes at his cheek and Taehyung watches as the skin and flesh of it expand under
the ministration with his own chest expanding with the rising breath of frustration.

Taehyung speaks in a way that is indisputably shy, disproportionate in nature with consideration of
what they are, but he can’t force himself to be firm, not when he is still vulnerable and inundated
from all that happened that night, though he is unsure he can process it, he’ll ever be able to
process it. He looks a bit down, a bit at the hand rest between them before his eyes dart up and he
talks, small and soft but uninterrupted and sure. “Can I kiss you at least?”

Jungkook turns to him now, turns to him fully, face reticent except his eyes. They wander across
his face, so quick and so hesitant, though Taehyung’s own are unwavering, on his. He’s shy, but
he’s determined, and his heart hammers. Jungkook’s rejected a kiss time and time again, but this
feels different. The rejection of it would hit differently as well, he knows, he’s sure. He blinks.
Jungkook blinks.

Taehyung is holding his fucking breath and he is waiting for the sheer, cutting deflation of the first
no to escalate with the second into pure, empty hurt. He’s ready, but he’s also not, cannot possibly
be, as suspense stretches vivid in his bones, and he sighs with the silence, with the way Jungkook
just stares. He starts to turn, doesn’t really need to hear the rejection itself; his hand is almost at the
handle when Jungkook’s is in his hair.

He tugs him close, over that hand rest, whispers, “Come here,” just before his eyes fully close and
his lips touch his own.

Taehyung’s heart stills, then races. His own hand weaves over Jungkook’s neck, his thumb
brushing that muscle in his jaw that always ticks like this. His head tilts, and he melts into him,
parts his lips for him, finds his tongue with his. Taehyung’s mouth opens easily, pliantly, when
prompted. He doesn’t kiss him slow, but he doesn’t kiss him fast. His fingers are curled in his hair
where they hold him, they’re tight. They hold him roughly, but he kisses him gently, as gently as
Jungkook is capable of, with the way he seeps some frustration from his mouth into his.

He can feel him breathe and he can feel his lips move, can feel his cheek brush his when his head
tilts a certain way and he cannot believe he’s allowed to do this now, though he asks,but Jungkook
doesn’t say no. He kisses him deep, and it’s short, too short. The pace of the kiss slows, and
Taehyung is pulling away.

He pulls back, but not far, still feels Jungkook’s breath on his lips, flutters his eyes opened, careful.
He darts his gaze all across his face, takes in every detail. Jungkook’s own eyes part, they part
slower. They look at each other now, breathe a common air. They pause. Taehyung’s hand falls
down his shoulder, his arm but Jungkook’s stays in place, grips into his hair until it squeezes so
hard.
It squeezes hard, but his lips land on his harder, his eyes screwing shut as he draws him closer
again. He kisses him with his mouth shut, presses against him hard. Taehyung’s fingers clench
around his elbow, eyes widen and then fall closed, not before they take in the way Jungkook’s
forehead creases, his eyebrows furrow.

Jungkook kisses him almost painfully. Then his mouth parts and his body surges forward, pulls
Taehyung closer by his hair. He breathes him in before he fully kisses him, tongues tangling
together as their lips open into each other. They move faster now, heads tilting and mouths
intertwining in all ways that feel possible. Some underlying passion that is wistfully desperate
practically swallows the way Jungkook holds onto him, the way he moves his tongue between their
mouths and his mouth over his, the way Taehyung reciprocates it fully.

His heart thumps barbaric against his chest as Jungkook takes like this, takes everything he so
willingly offers. His lips are soft, unfairly so, the kiss is not, not anymore. It’s hungry, ravenous
and starved, though they kissed so many times tonight, kissed more than Taehyung has ever kissed
in his life, but somehow, it’s not enough.

He can’t imagine it will ever be enough, not with the way it makes his blood run different. He
presses into Jungkook, mouth appetitive, some visceral quality in the way they coalesce into each
other through their lips.

It slows. They slow, but they don’t stop. Taehyung’s want, the want that seems to always wake
with Jungkook’s touch, shifts into savoring. He basks in it when their lips separate for breaths of
moments and then link again, because there is some teasing, cruel feeling that spawns a fear into
him, a fear that this is too good to last, that Jungkook cannot be like that. The way his fingers cling
so harshly to his hair feels so frighteningly like a goodbye. Taehyung pours his need for it to be a
start and not an end into the way he kisses him.

Jungkook tastes so distinctly like Jungkook.

It slows until once again, it stops. Their lips part and Jungkook’s fingers grow weak in his hair.
This time Jungkook opens his eyes to stare at the hand rest between them instead, not at his face as
Taehyung’s own beg, futile. Jungkook presses his lips to his one final time, short, too short for a
response. It’s not a peck, but it’s not a kiss. And then his fingers leave completely. The palm of his
hand slithers to his neck, to his arm, then departs from his body entirely as he sits back, presses his
back into the seat with an exhale.

Taehyung’s body stays tilted to his for a while and he waits, but he doesn’t know what he’s waiting
for.
Jungkook doesn’t look at him.

“So,” Taehyung hesitates, hand on the handle again, “I’ll see you?”

Jungkook doesn’t look at him.

He lets the hopeful sentence linger between them for a while. His tongue runs over his mouth. He
nods.

But he doesn’t look at him.

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else as he opens the door with a look over his shoulder. He doesn’t
speak the word goodbye because he doesn’t want to. He walks to his house, pauses at the door, tilts
his head towards the car one final time before he goes in and sees his sister sleeping on the couch
without a blanket.

Jungkook doesn’t look at him.

He doesn’t look until he hears the door shut and then his whole body turns, eyes watching that door
as if he can see through it somehow. His fingers wrap around the steering wheel and hold it as tight
as they had clutched on Taehyung’s hair. He exhales, deeply, presses his forehead into the wheel
stays like this for minutes, glaring at his knees. Then he drives to Yoongi’s house.

“Jungkook,” he hears the voice of his sister as he rubs a towel into his hair, drying what he can of
it, so he doesn’t drip in her room.

He lowers the towel, looks at her slowly sit up on her bed. It’s 6 pm and she’s just waking up, but
that’s fine, that’s okay, as long as she still has the will to wake up, he’ll take anything. “Hey,” he
says to her, voice naturally low when he sees her like that. Her fists raise, rub over her eyes as if
they can erase the darkened circles that patch on her pale skin underneath. “Sorry I used your
bathroom, I broke the tap on my shower.”

Clo’s lips curl softly at the edges, drowsy as she props herself on her hands as she sits on the
mattress, legs curled into her. “It’s fine,” she tells him, clears her throat after she hears her own
voice.

He nods, turns to walk away, but her voice stops him. “Jungkook,” she calls, almost gingerly, and
it’s unlike her, but he credits it to the fact she’s just gained consciousness. “I spoke to Kai.”

Jungkook’s shoulders and back visibly tighten with the tension of the simple statement, and he
turns, sideways, fits his eyes over her. He tries hard not to narrow them, but it is simply automatic
at the mention of the name, especially at his own sister’s lips. “Why?” he asks, and it involuntarily
escalates into demand. “Why did you speak to fucking Kai?”

Clo Eun gives him a moment, only blinks at him until she sees his shoulders relax, if only a little.
“He called me,” she says, keeps her speech fully informative and void of any other emotion, though
there is some cautious hesitation at the tip of her lips that rings atypical. “He apologizes for his
brother’s behavior.”

Jungkook’s tongue coats over his lips, eyes scanning his sister carefully. “Apology accepted,” he
nods and begins to turn, wants to end the conversation at that.

But Clo’s voice rings loud and clear behind him, “Sooho told him, Jungkook.” She pauses, watches
the tension in the muscles of his back return so obvious and sudden. He doesn’t turn to her this
time, keeps his body angled away, face towards the door. “He told him what happened.”

He does turn now, turns fully and laces his forearms together, folding them before his chest, water
trickling down. His eyes harden, his voice is scathing, but not to her, not to Clo. “And what
exactly,” his tongue pokes to his cheek, “did Sooho say?”

She takes a beat. “You protected Kim Taehyung,” she declares. She pronounces it simply, but there
are too many things on her lips that she does not yet utter.

Jungkook shrugs. “Technically,” he says. He roots his eyes to her, makes sure to never look away,
barely blinks, because he knows her; she’ll interpret something as trivial as the dart of his eye to
the corner of the room as a weakness. He says nothing else.

But Clo shifts on the bed. She’s awake now. She stands, barefoot like him, in a dress she wore the
previous night to the Ozone. Her own arms fold over as her eyes return the look, firm and pointed.
“Why would you fight Kai’s brother over a fucking Kim, Jungkook?”

Jungkook’s head cocks and he does what he does best, answers an attack with an attack. “So rich
coming from you.”

Clo’s tongue smacks against the roof of her mouth. “It’s richer reaching people’s ears,” she tells
him, speaks so quick and then so slow, enunciates every syllable as it drags with the effect of its
full significance from her mouth. “If Kai speaks about it, everyone does.”

Jungkook’s hands fall to the sides, chest exposed. “He was getting shit on because of your fucking
Namjoon, okay?” he speaks, brusque, and regrets it, forces his voice into apparent softness, into a
neutrality he used to survive on that lately seems so hard to front. “He didn’t deserve it.”

His sister’s initial reply is a scoff. Her eyes roll and return to him dull. “Since when do you care
whether a waiter deserves a beating or not?”

Jungkook’s careful. He hates how much he has to think, before he speaks, doesn’t tend to. “That’s
what you would have wanted, isn’t it?” he asks, shifts on his feet.

“Me,” she emphasizes, “Not you. You don’t owe Namjoon anything.” Her eyes dart across him
with a challenge and then her teeth grit. “And I wouldn’t have hit.”

Jungkook shrugs again. “I warned him first. He was being disrespectful.” He says as if it justifies
nearly cracking his skull with a pipe. “Sooho,” Jungkook pronounces slowly, his brows raise,
mouth cracks opened with the half-smirk of some petulant, overly testosteronal cockiness, “needs
to know his fucking place.”

Clo Eun swallows down one response, aims to be careful. “Okay,” she speaks slowly, nods her
agreement. “But it is Kai’s fucking job to keep him in his place. Not yours.” Her eyes flash as her
head now shakes. “Not over Kim Taehyung.”

Jungkook lets out a huff of a breath, nearly a chuckle. “He was being a piece of shit.” He spreads
his arms out, “I’d do it again.” Especially, he thinks, over Kim Taehyung.

He begins to turn again, as this conversation is, on his part, finalized, and he does not want to have
Clo Eun probing more, asking more questions. “Jungkook,” she stops him again. There is
something new to her voice, a halting pointedness, borders on sternness. She has no use of his
alpha male attitude and neither does he, there is no one in this room to whom he has anything to
prove. “If Kai is talking about it,” she says and her tone lilts slower, more careful. Her tongue
pokes out with the tension of hesitation and it bothers Jungkook how much it is unlike her, how it’s
contained within a stifled worry. “It could reach our father,” she breathes out with finality.

Jungkook searches her eyes for a moment and then he does what he promised himself he wouldn’t:
he looks away. His eyes find a fake plant in her room and he wonders how even it, made out of
plastic, seems like it’s dying in this apartment, leaves flopping down. He doesn’t know what to say
to this, hates how his sister speaks with such implication and he has to repress his instinct to be a
prick, because with her it will be nothing but counterproductive, so he swallows it down.

“Okay,” he says finally, and maybe, it means nothing. He spins, walks to the door.

“I sincerely hope you know what you’re doing, Jungkook,” she murmurs to his back and it almost
makes him shiver.

He leaves her room with too many thoughts running through his head, too many and too
overwhelming for him to open the door to his own room and find his girlfriend lounging on his bed
as if she belongs there, on her side, head propped on one hand as she scrolls on her phone with the
other.

She’s lucky his maid has changed the sheets.

Her eyes do not even shift to him as he shuts the door behind himself. He walks into the room and
as he nears, she does look up, blinks up with the expectation of approach, but he pauses at the foot
of his bed, does not edge closer. “What are you doing here?” he asks, arms folding over.

She flutters her lashes much slower than need be. “I let myself in since you don’t invite me,” she
shrugs, and since she has no pockets in the dress she’s wearing, she slides her fingers across her
chest and slips them, lazy and suggestive, into the fabric of her bra, and lifts up what she aims for
with thin, manicured fingers. “You gave me a key.”
Jungkook breathes out and it’s almost a scoff as he turns, begins to walk over his closet. He
certainly is not the mood for her on his bed with the ideas that are an onslaught in his mind after
his sister so blatantly charges them at him. Her eyes trail after him as he gives her his back, sliding
over the skin of it.

She straightens slightly on the bed, extends her whole arm to prop herself up. Her eyes narrow as
they scan over him. Her voice is so dull it isn’t. “You have marks on your back,” she announces.

“What?” he says, turns, hides his back from her view.

“You fucked someone in a position that allowed them to touch your fucking back,” she seethes
almost, now, getting on both her knees on his bed as she folds her arms forward.

Jungkook says nothing, shakes his head and walks over to his laundry basket to drop the towel he
used on his head there.

It’s a mistake because it gives her another view of his back and her eyes seal onto the skin, nearly
burn through it with the way she so boldly stares. “The bitch must really do something about her
nails.”

It’s a mistake because it gives her the chance to wrap her fingers around his wrist as he returns, and
she tugs him to herself, in front of her, and he stands much taller in front of the bed then she does
on her knees on the mattress, but the power of her glare feels towering. “Who was she?”

Jungkook’s silent and she doesn’t wait for long. “Huh?” she cocks her head, spits vituperatively.
“Did you gaze down in her fucking eyes?”

He says nothing, says nothing again, because he did, stared down in Taehyung’s eyes as he fucked
him, right on this bed at which she kneels, stared down as he came and as he dug those marks into
his back, not because his nails are sharp like Julia’s but because he squeezed so hard, he left a
print. Her own nails now dig into the skin of his wrist to secure his attention on her. “Who was it,
Jungkook?”

They never do this, never speak about the other people they fuck unless it’s a part of a game, a bet,
a who scores first. They never mean to hurt each other. And Jungkook knows, he knows the truth
of this would hurt her, he didn’t only fuck someone, right on that bed, he fucked a boy, a boy he’s
slept with again and again, and wants to sleep with again and again. A boy’s he’s taken a pipe to
the head for, who healed his wound, who kissed him, who he kissed.

I sincerely hope you know what you’re doing, Jungkook.

He doesn’t. He has absolutely no fucking idea what he’s doing, why he’d doing it, what he expects
to happen. Nothing more can happen, all that is allowed between them has already been, and more,
so much more. It can’t be like this, shouldn’t be like this. If Julia knows, if his father knows, a pipe
to the head would be equal to an orgasm compared to what he’ll be put through. What Taehyung
will be put through.

Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck.

His ears are ringing and Julia’s speaking. “Why haven’t you fucked me since—”

His voice booms, scathes. “Stop fucking talking,” he says between a shout and a hiss and he
presses his teeth together tight to keep himself quiet, stares at her, searches her eyes, her face,
watches as her lips seal shut and she looks at him, bratty and pissed.

“Yeah?” she whines as she releases his wrist and draws back, presses both her elbows onto the bed
and slithers her body across it until her spine curls against the sheets. Her eyes are dead on his,
blinking titillating, as she slowly, teasingly, presses the foot of one leg down and then the other, far
enough for Jungkook to have perfect view of what’s in between. She spreads her legs for him, and
he perpetuates the stare into her eyes as she challenges, as she attempts to seduce, “Drop that towel
and fuck me and maybe I will.”

Three days. It’s been three days since Jungkook had Taehyung on that bed, the marks on his back
still there to prove it. Three days since he’d spread his own legs for Jungkook and Jungkook fucked
him as he kissed him until he let him fucking cuddle him, played with his hair as he did.

On this very bed. And now Julia is on it, with her knees wide opened.

“Close your legs,” Jungkook tells her, his eyes not departing from her own once and he realizes it’s
easy; there is not an ounce of temptation in him to cast his gaze downwards, to touch her. “I’m not
in the mood.”

She scoffs, gaining more height on her elbows as her knees press into each other. “When were you
last in the mood, Jungkook?” She scoots until she is on her hands and when he does nothing but
look away, but start to walk towards his closet again, she gets on her knees again, slithers her hand
across him, from his chest, to his neck, and cups him there, holds him there. “Want me to get on all
fours,” she says and it’s a question, a genuine question, if he says yes, and an attack, a challenge if
the answer is no, “let you do me up the ass?” Her eyes search his face, darting all across with some
budding desperation that makes guilt rise baleful in his chest, his stomach. Her tongue runs quick
across her lips, she’s losing the lustrousness, edging on anxiety, “I know you like it.”

“I told you to shut up,” he tells her, speaks it softly, asks it as a favor for the both of them as he
uses the back of his hand to prompt hers off of his body.

Julia’s whole entire face falls, drops, every feature of hers loses its resilience of a protective front
of cold salaciousness and seeps into his largest weakness. Her face becomes genuine and he looks
away. Her voice is soft, “Can I kiss you at least?”

The question rings familiar, so familiar. It’s so different falling from his lips. It’s so ironic that
when Julia says it all he can think about is how he wants to kiss him again.

Jungkook shakes his head, can feel her breath on his lips with the way she stands on her knees, so
he pulls away, steps back. “Not now, Juls.”

He doesn’t see her eyes when she sits back on her calves, when she wraps her arms around herself
protectively. He does hear her voice, however, as he drops his towel and slips on underwear. Her
voice is so small it’s almost unrecognizable for Seung Julia. She’s as scared of vulnerability as he
is, yet it oozes as she asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jungkook says, rushes out through his teeth with a breath as he pulls on a pair of dark
jeans. He puts all his clothes on facing the closet until he has no more excuse to look away and he
turns.

She looks smaller than usual, sitting back on her calves, her spine curling forward. She always has
the posture of a lady, keeps her shoulders straight, but now they slump. She seeks his eyes, licks
her lips, and tells him, “I love you, Jungkook.”

And he takes a step towards her, brushes his thumb on her cheek briefly, but she curls into it
almost immediately. “I love you, too,” he whispers.
She pauses, blinks up at him. She tries again, “I’m in love with you.”

Jungkook smiles because he has nothing else to do. He touches her cheek again, cups it with his
whole hand. “I said Yoongi I’d meet him at seven.” He glides his thumb across the soft skin of her
face. “Come along.”

And then he drops his hand, steps away to put away his other towel as well and his forced smile
leaves his face.

“Hey, Tae, can you pass me that?” Jimin asks as he stands in front of the mirror, rearranging his
currently pinkish hair, estimating where the best space for him to part his bangs is for the night.
One of his arms stretches out behind him, a single finger loosely rising as his wrist wiggles in the
direction of a can of something that’s been thrown on the couch next to the handle at which
Taehyung props himself.

Taehyung hears the mumble of words but doesn’t necessarily register them. His head is tilted
down, the screen of his phone glaring in his face in the dimmer light of the back rooms of the
Ozone with his attention sealed onto it. His thumbs type, a message to his sister that has no other
substance than him checking whether he has service and not just Wi-fi.

When it goes through, he closes the tab and opens Seung Julia’s public Instagram, but her last
upload is from Paris, and she has added no story in the last twenty-four hours. She had one
yesterday, cocktails at some roof terrace, positioned at the edge in front of a sunset, but that was it.
The cocktails were four, not two. It’s unlikely it was a date. The day before that she had a mirror
selfie with a Gucci shopping bag. He viewed both from his sister’s phone.

Bogum’s eyes dart over him from where he leans on the door and when he realizes Jimin’s request
went through one of Taehyung’s ears and then escaped right through the other, he pushes off,
grabs the can and presses it into Jimin’s extended hand which automatically grips onto it.

“Thanks, Tae—oh, hyung,” Jimin turns, just his head as he nods his gratitude, then his body twists
more when he finds Bogum next to him. “Hey, Taehyung,” Jimin calls as he sprays some product
in his hair. When Taehyung’s only reply is a hum as he’s checking to see if Clo Eun still has hers
on private, he chucks the can at him and it bounces off his shoulder and onto the floor.

“Aish,” Taehyung’s eyes dart to him for a brief but pointed moment. “The fuck was that for, Jimin-
ah?” He prolongs offended, but then his eyes are back on the device in his hand and Jimin folds his
arms over, keeps his stare to him as Taehyung is simply not the type to zombie away on his phone
like this. He’s had a decent phone for a while – paid by Namjoon’s drug money, but Taehyung
does the bills for it himself – however he has never had too much of interest in what it’s appstore
offers.

“Are you alright?” Jimin asks, head tilting to the side as he steps closer, tries to get a view of just
what could be so engrossing that Taehyung would ignore him. “You’ve been too absent minded
even for your standards.”

Taehyung’s thumb clicks the side of his phone shut and he slips it furtively into the pocket of his
sweatshirt along with his hand as it wraps around it and holds it in case it vibrates.

“Yeah I’m fine,” he says, stretches his lips at Jimin, his knee bouncing up and down repetitively.

He’s not fine. It’s been five days since he has last seen Jungkook. He’s not counting, he just knows
it. In those five days Jungkook has not set foot in Rouge, nor at the Ozone, at least while Taehyung
has been there. It gives him a strange taste in his mouth, a curious sensation in his stomach and
were he to pinpoint it, he’d say anxiety.

He’s anxious, constantly anxious. When he’s at Rouge, he’s turning his head like a meerkat
standing post. A newcomer appears and his eyes seal on them, but it’s never Jungkook. He clings
to his phone as well, in case he texts again, because texting is easier and maybe he’ll settle for that.
He doesn’t. Taehyung’s palm squeezes into the device. It’s fine, he promises himself. He’d
disappeared for a week when they first had sex, then when he reappeared it became easier.

His knee bounces more. It was easier waiting last time, though, so much easier. There was never
this unsettling fear to perpetuate his thoughts and his teeth as they dig in his mouth, his legs
sporadic and restless, his stomach randomly feeling empty when he wastes too much time mulling
over it. It’s weird. It is overwhelmingly similar to when Namjoon first up and left, the never-
ending question of why and until when.

Jimin takes a couple of steps closer to him when he tilts his head down, looks at his own lap. Small
fingers tap under his jaw lightly, once, twice, and he lifts up under their gentle instruction to stare
into Jimin’s eyes. “You sure?” he asks him gingerly and there is a flash of concern and Taehyung
must really seem out of it for Jimin to show the notion of worry.
“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, tries to smile again and this time there is something marginally genuine in
the stretch of his lips at the unexpected hint of affection. Jimin and Ji-woo and everybody, they
have always been stronger than him.

“Okay, Taehyungie,” he tells him and attempts to boop his nose, but Taehyung expertly moves
away. “First drink is on me, mkay?”

Taehyung’s teeth show now as he perks up. “Anything I want?”

“Anything you want, just tell Baek, he’s on bar tonight. I’m dancing.” Jimin pulls away, turns
around. “Gotta go now, boys. You staying or leaving?”

Taehyung gets on his feet. “Think I want my free drink now before you conveniently forget.”

Jimin flashes an innocent smile behind his shoulder as he opens the door. “Don’t know what
you’re talking about,” he shrugs, hand at the door. “See you when I get off.” He exits and leaves
the door open for them.

Taehyung shakes his head, the smile remaining on his face although it grows small. He steps
towards the door as well, but then the door moves, almost shuts, but not completely. Bogum stands
before him.

“Tae,” he begins and when Taehyung’s eyes fix over him, he pauses, gulps. “Are, erm, are you
sure you’re alright?”

Taehyung lets out a breath of laughter, shrugs it off. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be alright? I was, I was
just distracted before—”

Bogum interjects, “Is it him?”

Taehyung pauses with their eyes in line, then shakes his head down. “No. No, it’s nothing.” He
takes a step forward. “Can we go dance now?”
Bogum takes a step forward as well, palms lifting almost defensively in front of him, but not
touching Taehyung. “Listen,” he begins almost with a sigh, “I know you feel like you can’t speak
to Jimin about it and I came across…” he hesitates, lips puckering, “judgmental about it.”
Taehyung’s eyes slide over to him again as he gives his sentence another moment. “But if you ever
– ever need to just talk about it, you know, get it out.” His arms pan out, fall to the sides. “I already
know the worst of it, don’t I?”

The other studies him carefully, gaze exploring his welcoming, open face, and maybe Bogum
really isn’t fit for Richhood. Taehyung’s tongue cascades over his bottom lip. He nods. “Okay,” he
says, “Maybe. Some time.” Never is what he thinks as he takes a step back to allow Bogum to
move away from the door. “Can we go dance now?” he repeats and this time Bogum nods, and
they do. Lying is easy.

Taehyung doesn’t really dance, though, no, he latches onto the bar, orders a double vodka for his
free drink, though he tends not to drink the particular spirit clear, and seals his eyes onto the Booth.
Everyone is there, Hoseok has Yoongi’s leg strewn against his lap as he speaks to a girl. Yoongi’s
back is propped onto Clo Eun’s shoulder as she roots her eyes on her phone, and damn if she likes
her phone thatmuch, maybe she should unprivate her fucking Instagram account. Seokjin is not
there, but he comes about in an hour or so of Taehyung glaring at the table and Clo forgets she has
a phone. Julia is there as well, speaking mostly to some girl who looks strikingly like her, clothes,
hair and makeup. Everyone is there, but Jeon Jungkook.

Taehyung is too distracted by his glaring observation, he barely notices when a shoulder brushes
against him as some person reaches over him to wrap fingers around a colorful drink. He means to
move away, make some space, be a good member of society, but does not once think to actually
look at the person. Not until they speak.

“Kim Taehyung, aren’t you?” The person, the man, says as he sucks on a straw and Taehyung’s
attention replaces on him with alarmed immediacy, though he is mostly residually pissed off.

“Yeah,” he shouts back with a nod, not caring at this point how many people know him just
because of his name, but then for the brief moment Taehyung does look at him, just before he
manages to go back to his original area of study, his eyes zero in on the tattoo around his neck.

Taehyung’s gaze roots to him next, darting up to his face as he tries to force some recognition, but
fails. He doesn’t need to, no because as soon as the guy sees his eyes widen, his lips curl cruel, and
he introduces himself. “Nice to meet you,” he says, briefly touches his waist in gesture before he
angles his body away. “I’m Kai.” Taehyung’s eyes blink. Kai, but Kai is banned from the Ozone.
But Kai wouldn’t care. Whether the person is really who he introduces himself to be or not, his
eyes scan over Taehyung with a scrutiny that makes his heart tremor, especially as he takes in the
tattoo of affiliation curl with the movement of his neck; it almost comes alive. Lips stretch a final
time as all Taehyung does is stare. “See you around,” are his final words, and they ring ominous in
Taehyung’s ears.

It’s on day six in the morning that Jungkook receives the first text.

Yoongi, Hoseok and himself are inside because the sun is bad at that part of the afternoon and they
cannot afford to expose their skin to it. Jungkook lounges on a leather couch that annoys him when
he moves, but he’s much too lazy to join them because he has to stand for it. They’ve got notes of
pounds that Yoongi won recently on poker night and some won contribution from Hoseok spread
around on a pin wall. They’ve each got a number of darts in their hands. Whoever scores the largest
sum gets to keep all of it.

Jungkook doesn’t follow the game. He is too distracted by the variety of fishes that swim in the
illuminated wall-sized tank that separates two parts of the room they’re in. Kim Ji-Woo seems to
be taking good care of it even if the decorations and species inside of it are probably the same
worth as her house.

“You know,” Yoongi begins as he aims, tongue stuck out in concentration, “Kai asked me about
Julia on poker night.” He throws and scores a ten-pound note, mouth curling downwards in a scowl
as he eyes the number under the sharp end of his dart.

Jungkook’s eyes slide away from the enormous fish tank and towards Yoongi, who has his back to
him, currently watching Hoseok as he takes his turn, feet spreading apart as he raises his hand to
target. Jungkook’s eyes narrow, voice leaves him condescending when he is not even trying, “What
did he say?”

Yoongi curls just his neck, gives him just his face. “Asks if she’ll be free anytime soon.”

Jungkook scoffs, already has words on his tongue when his phone vibrates and lights up from
where he has it on the glass table in front of him and his eyes drift to it instinctively. He’s opened
his mouth to retaliate but his gaze captures the name that pops on his screen and it falls back shut.
His teeth sink into his lower lip, as he contemplates.
Voices pass over his head, but his eyes remain rooted on that screen as it shuts off and then lights
up again as it does with iMessages, nagging at him, screaming at him, and he can’t resist, hand
reaching forwards.

“Oh,” Hoseok’s head cocks as he watches Yoongi put one foot in front of the other, readying to
shoot, his hand bouncing back and forth as he estimates, “he cares about relationship status now.”
He humors, the irony so palpable as it drips from his mouth and into Yoongi’s ears. His next words
are a snarl, “Big jump from not caring about consciousness.”

Tae

where have you been?

Yoongi shoots and narrowly misses a fifty for a twenty. “He sells roofies,” he rolls his eyes and
they land on Hoseok “Doesn’t use them.”

Jungkook’s thumb taps onto the screen but when the keyboard appears his fingers hover
pointlessly over letters and he types nothing, closes the screen and presses a fist to his mouth.

“How is that any fucking better?” Hoseok’s eyes narrow and he shifts to him fully, arms folding in
front of his chest. “He probably doesn’t need to cause he threatens his girls out of a job if they
don’t give him the occasional suck. When are you going to stop hanging out with the little bitch?”

Yoongi holds his elbow, raises his hand up and twists his fist as his eyes find his fingernails. “It’s
called networking,” he claims, voice mostly bored, though Hoseok knows well enough what his
disinterest means: discomfort.

Hoseok scoffs, angles his body away, though he remains close to his friend. He throws his dart in
the air, it spins, he catches it and lands it perfectly onto a hundred-pound note. “Networking my
ass,” he turns to him again, gaze holds an obvious mockery in which underlies concern. “It’s called
one step closer to heroin.”

If Kai is talking about it, Jungkook’s mind chides, it could reach our father.

He pulls right, deletes the notification from his screen, clicks the phone shut and replaces it back
on the table, this time facing down the glass.
He throws his legs on the floor, stands. He takes Yoongi’s last dart from his fingers, looks in his
eyes. “Julia isn’t free. In fact, since Kai likes filming stuff so much, tell him he can subscribe to our
upcoming porn collection.” He shifts forward. “If I now hit more than you collectively did on your
last three turns, you give me your last purchase,” he says, cocks his head to see Yoongi nod and
then lands his dart right underneath Hoseok’s last one.

It’s been a week when he receives the other texts. This time the sun is setting, and they allow
themselves to sunbathe on Yoongi’s terrace. Julia lies next to him, their chaise lounges separated
by a table that has their cocktails on it and Yoongi’s snuff kit. Clo Eun puts a towel on the edge
and lies there, at the very end and Jungkook imagines the calm position would give Taehyung
anxiety. He remembers how he trembled when he climbed at the edge of the rooftop of the Empire
Tower, Jungkook’s fingers wrapped around his wrist to keep him more stoic.

Yoongi’s head rests on Hoseok’s shoulder in the hot tub. Every now and then Hoseok gives it a
shake to check he’s awake and they slip into a mumbled conversation, the only two speaking for
now.

Jungkook is scrolling on his phone mindlessly, barely paying attention as he props it up on his
stomach. That’s when the notification drops down from the top of the screen.

The name glares, makes his chest rise once more than it needs to simply breathe, a hitch and a
stutter.

Tae

are you gonna ignore me now?

Jungkook reads it, clicks it shut and relaxes it on his stomach, hands cupping over it.

It vibrates again after a few minutes and he promises himself he won’t look. The resolve fails so
quick it’s embarrassing even only in the confines of his own mind.

Tae

i wont kiss you again

okay?

Jungkook clicks the phone shut again, slams it against his chest. His head falls back into the chaise
longue. He closes his eyes. And that’s not the fucking problem – that he kissed him, it’s not. The
fucking problem is that Jungkook wants to kiss him again, wants to see him, fuck him, yes, that too,
but not only that, just wants to see him. He misses him and it’s ridiculous and with each stupid
message he misses him more. But he can’t have Julia suspecting, Clo suspecting, Yoongi
suspecting, Kai talking. He can’t because this is Richhood.

Clo must read minds, Clo must be reading his fucking mind, and honestly his is so loud he
wouldn’t be surprised if she does hear it. His mind is screaming, and theyare twins, maybe they do
have some sort of twisted telepathy because right then at that moment she decides to engage.

“Did you hear Kai was in the Ozone two nights ago?” Her voice comes lazy from where she lies on
the edge, her knee pulled up and the calf of the other resting on top, bouncing gently.

Jungkook’s phone is vibrating again, on his chest, and his ears are buzzing with it.

Kai in the Ozone. He certainly didn’t go there for the music and some good time and with a person
like him there are rarely ever coincidences if at all. There is absolutely no chance he didn’t go
there for a purpose and Jungkook doesn’t like Kai wandering in into his territory without him
knowing his aims.

There’s too much Kai in his life right now, way too much Kai. Kai’s presence always makes him
nervous, one of those few things that are completely out of Jungkook’s control and he hates it,
though he is currently lying by three lines spread of his product.

This time he lasts even less before he checks his phone and Taehyung’s name flashes on it again.

just don’t fucking avoid me

He reads it, he reads it and he can imagine him saying it, half angry, half soft, similarly to the way
he’d asked him if he could kiss him, can imagine his dark brows drawing together and making a
small line crease in his forehead.

“He was where?” Hoseok chimes, borderline offended. “The fuck was he doing in the Ozone?”

Jungkook hears more than sees her shoulders shrug. Her sunglasses cover almost the entirety of
her face and he cannot make use of her features. He straightens on one of his shoulders on the
chaise lounge.

He does another line.

“Find out,” Jungkook says as he knocks his head back, voice coming out rough.

Hoseok turns to him. “What?”

Jungkook presses a single finger against his nostril. “Yoongi hyung or Clo, one of you find out
what he was doing at the Ozone.”

Jungkook wants to explain the beat of his heart with the cocaine.

He gets up because he cannot lie down anymore, feels he has the energy to run all across
Gangnam, maybe all across to Kai, ask him personally what the fuck his business was in the
Ozone.

“Why haven’t youbeen in the Ozone this week at all?” Clo Eun asks him later as they put clothes
on to move there and he says no. Her eyes feel worse when his heart beats with the rhythm of
quality, pure cocaine, Kai’s cocaine that Yoongi gave to him.

And Jungkook knows if he sees Taehyung, if he looks at his face as he asks him not to ignore him,
he’ll cave. Been there, done that, he’ll cave. And if Taehyung approaches him, and Taehyung will
approach him, Jungkook will probably fucking kiss him or some dumb inexcusable shit like that. If
Taehyung asks, and he asks, always does, how the fuck is he so brave? How the fuck is he so
stupid? His mind races so much. He needs Taehyung to not approach him, never approach him.
Jungkook hates Kai, but he’s never had cocaine that’s cleared his mind like this.

“You know what?” Jungkook cocks his head. His mouth feels like a desert, he needs to down some
pink cocktail that Hoseok made for Yoongi at the bar. “I’ll come.”

She looks a bit like him, Ji-woo does. She’s here, which means Taehyung’s home. Someone must
be with Woojin. She looks a bit like him and she’s pretty, but she’s not beautiful. She has a body
that Jungkook would have probably convinced himself he’d been interested in some time ago, her
clothes fit her well even if the material shines cheap from all the way across from where he
watches. She’s thicker than Julia, probably doesn’t do half the drugs his girlfriend does.

She is near the bar, cannot afford a reservation most probably and her friends and her share one of
those vodka bottle and juice bottle deals and he wonders if it is enough to get her even tipsy. No
one from his group can be affected by that amount of alcohol especially if they plan on mixing it
with juice and sucking sips from it all night to keep their place at the bar.

“Jungkook,” his own sister says, her fingers wrapping around his wrist when he lifts off his seat in
the booth. He angles his head towards her, gives her his eyes when she asks for them, his pupils
dilated and the white all red. She only pronounces that, his name, but her fingers twist and cling
around his bone and skin in a silent consideration, a warning. “You’ve done enough.”

Jungkook shakes her hand off and steps off the booth. Julia’s not here. Julia went home. And it’s
perfect, this is perfect.

He walks over to the bathroom, not giving much of a fuck who he bumps into. He’s well aware
he’s been high for too long, perpetuates his own high with alcohol that slows the effect of coke
wearing out, leaves it in his blood for longer. He knows his body cannot keep up with the euphoria
for this long and has started to tumble into that half-pleasure, half-panic, the one that makes his
thoughts worst, most frightening.
He still buzzes with the high of it, still feels so good, incredible. He doesn’t know with what his
heart beats so strenuously, with the pleasure that runs through his blood and clots in certain places,
or the panic of his unbidden thoughts, that feel so easy to shrug off with one step and then with the
next they completely overwhelm every synapse in his brain.

He snorts on the counter and rolls it up a tube with a money note, straightens the line of the powder
with it as well, because Yoongi took too much convincing last time and he has no room for
persuasion. Cannot waste it on his friends. He lifts up the packet, darts his pupils over it as he taps
it with his nail to roughly estimate how many lines he has in it. His eyes have a hard time focusing,
so he rolls them, slips the powder in his back pocket.

He walks after he leaves the bathroom. He presses a hand to the back of his neck, stretches it out,
feels a bit like his head might drop off his shoulders, but at least he feels that. He feels nothing in
his mouth, doesn’t know if his tongue is still there, but then he speaks and sounds come out, so
everything is okay. His tongue is there, behind his teeth, ready to be unleashed as he walks directly
to his target.

He touches her waist first, touches it lightly and then removes his hand immediately, simply
gathers her attention, but does not aim for disrespect, though with the way she’s dressed, the way
she dances, the way her eyes slide over to him as she turns, lips curled, maybe disrespect is what
she expects. He doubts her being a Kim she has ever received much else.

Her smile closes off a little when her eyes shine with recognition. She bows at him, “Jungkook-
nim,” she greets.

“No need,” he says. She’s older than him, he hasn’t earned this with anything. He doesn’t think she
hears him, so he simply shakes his head. He eases into it, wraps his fingers gingerly around her
elbow to see if she will pull away but she doesn’t, so he leans down, speaks in her ear. “Hope
Yoongi’s treating you better.”

She smells different to Taehyung, more of perfume, sweeter, but there is a familiarity that he
processes, even in that state of mind, that comes from the peculiarly welcoming scent of the Kim
Residence, a bit like laundry, a bit like real plants.

“That’s not really difficult,” she speaks back in his ear. “Is it?” She smirks and he moves his hand
to her waist again, lightly. She allows it.

“Guess not,” he cocks his head. “But he’s messier.”

She laughs. Her teeth are quite white, but not as whitened as most people here have them. They
don’t hurt his eyes in the flashes of the Ozone. “I’d take a mess any day.” She closes her mouth
and her next smile is close-lipped. It’s fond. “You should see my brothers.”

There had been a bit of a mess in her house, he thinks retrospectively, all times he’d been over, but
it had been a comfortable sort of chaos, much unlike Jungkook’s own apartment’s perfect order and
glistening cleanliness.

He’s seen more of her brother than she will ever know, and he doesn’t want to think about that.
He’s seen every inch of him, touched it as well, most probably. He sees him sometimes when he
closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about that.

It’s hard, hard when she brings him up, hard when her lips almost stretch as square as his when she
smiles. Almost, it’s not enough. Not his smile. Jungkook has earned that smile a couple of times
now.

He asks her to dance and hopes it gives him an excuse not to look at her face.

“Why me?” she asks, though she’s smiling.

He shrugs. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he lies.

She agrees and he knows it is partially because of his name, the wallet that comes with it, partially
because of the favor he did her, and partially because he’s good at this, always has been. He’s
attractive and arrogant enough to know how to ask to receive, who and when.

She gives him her back, and he has her hands on her hips. She’s the one to press back into him first
and he allows it. He screws his eyes shut because the lights in the Ozone are too glaring, epileptic.
He screws his eyes shut because he thinks his head pulses less when he doesn’t see, maybe it
erases the facts of his actions.

He’s doing everyone a favor. A favor. Himself and him, both. Neither of them can afford this to
escalate any further, and it’s already too deep. His fucking texts are proof of it. The resilience he
needs to muster to not answer and go fuck him and kiss him and then talk to him about their life
and youth and another good for nothing topic he cannot afford to think about and let him cuddle
him like they’re playing at fucking boyfriend and girlfriend or some other ridiculous, borderline
delirious shit.

He presses his lips into his sister’s neck when he feels her movements become pointed, and he
whispers, “I doubt you want to go mine.”

“Yeah,” she turns in his grasp and smiles, her eyebrows lifting, teasing. “Wanna see how the Kims
live, Jeon?”

He’s been to every room in her house except hers. He’s even been in the tiny, square by square
room under their stairs in which they do their laundry.

“Lead the way,” he says, and his heart beats so fast from the coke.

Taehyung lies in his top bunk, Woojin soundly asleep underneath. His face is illuminated by his
phone almost religiously at this point, his thumb hovering over a pinkish circle, as Julia has a new
story and he desperately wants to watch it, but he doesn’t want to do it from his account. It’s Ji-
woo’s turn to go out, however, and he has absolutely no idea when she would be back, probably in
the morning. He doesn’t know if he can sleep without watching it. He’s tried putting his phone
away and sleeping three times by now, but when all is dark, he starts thinking, gets restless. He
shuffles so much in his bed, more than usual. He’s not comfortable on his left side and on his right
one. Not on his tummy either.

He watches videos instead. Lies on his back, sticks his one working headphone in his ear and
simply watches anything that would distract him. He doesn’t want to know how much mindless
footage he’s watched, roughly put as mostly he spaces out with his eyes rooted to the screen, the
past few days, but anything is better than simply actively obsessing over the fact Jungkook won’t
answer one fucking text.

He needs time, Taehyung thinks. It’s Jungkook, he won’t just come to terms with whatever the
fuck it is they did overnight. He refused to kiss him for so long and then he did. Taehyung knows
it’s scary, he’s scared, too, scared absolutely shitless. And if he could just see him.

He hears the door open and he perks up, maybe it was boring tonight and Ji-woo’s friends and she
came over, got some much cheaper vodka from the corner store to finish and he can sneak
downstairs, mug some off of them, pretend to flirt and get his hands on her phone.
But if it was them, he’d already be hearing voices. He doesn’t, hears just two pairs of footsteps, the
sound of keys dropping on the table and then a chair scraping, the table scraping as well.
Commotion, breathing, and oh, he realizes with a pink heat sneaking up his neck and ears, she is
with a man.

It happens sometimes, she brings the guys over sometimes, and as long as he’s got headphones and
Woojin’s asleep it’s all good. But only one of his handphones works because headphones are a
piece of shit scam, and as he hears the much recognizable sound of them make their ways up the
stairs, he begins to protectively wrap the pillow around his ears, fists pressing over with awaiting
horror.

He already knew this was going to be another long night, but he wasn’t exactly prepared for this.

Even with the shield of the pillow he can hear distinctively the shift of fabric of dropping clothes,
of a belt, of a body falling into the springs of his sister’s ancient bed.

“Not gonna lie,” his sister is saying, breathless, and he wants to barf, “been thinking about this
before.”

The man doesn’t respond but a different sound comes, and she moans after it. Taehyung presses
the pillow onto his ears harder.

Muffled sounds continue and then another body joins on the spring, a pause, and he hears a grunt, a
breath.

And then Taehyung’s spine runs cold.

Because Taehyung can recognize the way Jungkook breathes during sex even through the wall.

He’s delusional, he thinks. Delusional, he’s starting to hallucinate him at this point, because he
wouldn’t, Jungkook wouldn’t—

“Ugh, Jungkook.”
Taehyung forgets how to breathe.

Taehyung feels pathetic. Absolutely, utterly, and completely pathetic. It downs on him, it downs
on him so slow and yet so sudden. It downs on him, but at the same time it doesn’t, because he
simply cannot wrap his mind around it, cannot comprehend it, as his mouth drops on its own
accord into nothing. He’s thoughtless, for a dull, numb range of moments he just listens, hopes
desperately he has heard wrong, that this is a nightmare he’s having because of the sheer amount
of time he has spent rewinding and rewinding every each second of his last interaction with
Jungkook. He hopes until he’s hopeless. He knows how Jungkook sounds, has it engrained in his
skull, written on patches of his skin where his lips hovered as he breathed into him, moved into
him.

And maybe Jungkook wouldn’t, but Jeon Jungkook certainly would.

He registers with squashing, destructive finality that This, this is how he hears of Jungkook after
one week of his complete disappearance, fucking his sister through a wall.

Taehyung straightens on his bed, a motion he doesn’t think about, just does. They’re getting into it
now, getting into it and with the one handphone in and the pillow over his ears he can still hear.

He has been victim to Jungkook's cruelty time and time again, but it is all marked trivial by
Taehyung's rationale as he presses his hands over that pillow on his ears with all his physical and
mental might to try to numb the sounds, those petrifying fucking sounds, coming through the paper
thin good for nothing walls of this collapsing house and his collapsing heart.

It is excruciating in more ways than he has known before. Taehyung is not as strong as Ji-woo and
Jimin and everyone, slightly unfit himself for the world he is thrust in. He’s been hurt before.
Namjoon hurt him. His father sometimes hurts him. Jungkook repeatedly hurt him. But this pain is
new. It is round and overwhelming, coming from up and down and below and inside.

It is his sister in the room next to his, wailing and moaning and screeching and meowing and
making all sounds nameable in the history of humanity and every each one, each syllable that forms
Jungkook’s name pierces through his skin and his bones and his blood and his heart.

She’s not actually, not loud, doesn’t even border on it, but it feels like it, when her voice forms his
name.
It is a new kind of hurt, a consuming, blinding, vengeful hurt. Taehyung has never wanted to hurt
someone as badly as he now hopes he could hurt Jungkook. But he can’t, he knows he can't.
Jungkook simply doesn't care enough to suffer so much on account of Taehyung and he is right
there, one wall away proving that fact in the cruelest, crudest way possible and that just pinches at
Taehyung’s hurt even more if there even is room for more pain.

He’s not going to cry. He presses his head as hard against the wall as it would, tries to hurt himself
through it. He wants to feel, wants to feel something very, very physical, something entirely
physical because that he knows how to deal it, it’s bearable and it seems to have an end. He screws
his eyes shut. He’s not going to fucking cry.

Taehyung has to leave. He has nowhere to go, but he has to leave. And not just this house, not just
now. He has to leave Jungkook for once and for all and rid him, the spoiled emotionally
unavailable prick, of the continuous torturous joy of allowing him to play him like a pianist the
keys, making every sound he willed him to make and be bending and straining under his fingers.
This is it. It is done, over and done and for good.

Taehyung is done.

He doesn’t understand how he forgot how this started, that Jungkook shoved money at him the
first time he sucked his cock, that he has him in his life because he lost a bet, that Jungkook doesn’t
kiss him in his bed and speak to him on rooftops, he doesn’t let him drive his car and gift him his
pajama top, the one he is currently wearing. No, Jungkook’s cruel, he’s Jeon Jungkook, his father’s
son and he was fucking born to hurt.

He made it so easy to forget.

First floor, Taehyung thinks. First floor is better. He gets off his bunk, gets downstairs. The steps
he takes are mostly a blur, but he doesn’t cry. His hands grip onto the kitchen sink, tight, maybe
that can hurt him as well, maybe he can hold hard enough. His knuckles turn white, the length of
his digits twists unnaturally with the way he clings onto the rusty metal. His shoulders hunch
together, curl so uncomfortably and he wonders if he can snap them if he bends low enough.

He can still hear.

He turns the sink on. Turns both the hot water and cold water tap as much as they would give, the
streak the hardest it can go, and he doesn’t care about the price. Let Ji-woo fucking pay the water.
He cups his hands under the water, feels the burn of the hot as it overwhelms the cold. He allows it,
before he bends his body more, gathers the water that has pulled in his palms and throws it in his
face, runs his fingers over it in the aftermath, feels it all wet and hot. He throws water again, but his
elbows tremble when his hands don’t hold onto anything and he gets it all over him, drips down his
neck and chest and it’s uncomfortable, but he cannot find it in himself to give a fuck.

He presses his palms onto the two sides of the sink to stop the way his elbows shake. He screws his
eyes shut again, head tilted down. He tries to breathe, slow, inhale, exhale. This shouldn’t matter,
shouldn’t matter at all. He should have kept in mind that Jungkook is a piece of shit. He’s angry at
Jungkook for being who he is and he’s angry at himself for being so gullible, for forgetting so
easily, thinking that some conversion, some smiles, and a kiss would change anything.

He rubs the heel of his palm over one of his eyes. His breath evens, and he feels a calmer hurt, not
the rage from a moment before. It felt so real. I’m not going anywhere, he’d told him, and
Taehyung had fucking believed him. It sounded so honest, so genuine.

He doesn’t know for how long he’s stood there when he hears footsteps. He’s turned the water
down, poured himself a glass to try to swallow, and his skin has dried. He hears the sound of a belt
buckling. It’s over he knows, lasts so short, an hour at most and even that’s an exaggeration,
because he’s currently incapable of judgement of something as trivial and senseless as minutes,
and he wonders how something like that, something that cannot even fill an hour can do so much
damage. It took less than a minute actually, to reach its full impact. Less than a second.

He hears the steps fall down the stairs, and he stills, shoulders and back straightening with the
rigidity of an animal growing instinctively aware of a predator, and he’s not breathing again,
stilling his breath in case it betrays. He’s freezing, frozen. He tries to move, but he can’t. He wants
to get away. He knows well enough both how his sister walks and how Jungkook does to be sure it
is him.

The shower starts. Ji-Woo is showering, always does on nights like this.

He doesn’t want to see him. It’s ridiculous, he spent a whole weak desperately seeking even a
glimpse of him and now he dreads the very possibility.

He gives the stairs his back, begs desperately that Jungkook would have the common decency to
not approach him after this, just leave.
He is aware of his house, how it sounds, can judge by the creak of the stairs how he walks, that he
skips the third one like Taehyung told him to some time ago, when he reaches the last one. That he
halts there. Taehyung stands with every hair on his body awake, lower lip sucked into his mouth as
his mind still chants with the promise he won’t cry. He made it so far and he won’t lose now.

The pause of Jungkook at the stairs is tangible, creates some trajectory of tension from the shape of
his body to that of Taehyung. He is as unready to see him as well. The sight of Taehyung’s back
curled over his kitchen sink is strangely startling for him, almost sobering, eyes stretching even
wider than they are from everything that spoils his blood so.

He is wearing his shirt.

He hasn’t seen him in a week, a whole damn week and he missed him.

He doesn’t have any particular aim when his lips part and pronounce, “Taehyung.” That, just that.

Hearing his voice, now, hearing it raspy from fucking, hurts, and Taehyung’s compelled. He
breathes through his nose, sharp, lifts off the sink and turns but as soon as his eyes find him there, a
bit disheveled with his shirt parted, such a familiar sight with him, for him, but now it wasn’t. He
tears his gaze away and starts walking, he wants to get out, outoutout. He wipes at his mouth with
the back of his hand, strides towards the living room, legs carrying him with no conscious
instruction just the pure need of him to not be in Jungkook’s presence.

He’s almost flying past him when Jungkook moves, taking the final step necessary for them to be
on one ground and he’s reaching forward, fingers, too nimble, wrapping around his elbow as he
tries to run away from this. “Taehyung,” he calls again, tries to pull him back towards him and
Taehyung doesn’t know with what fucking audacity.

He spins back, finds his face with his eyes so wide and vulnerable, forehead creased, and he circles
his elbow around, frees himself with the brusqueness of his motion and pushes Jungkook’s palm
away before it can squeeze around him again. “Don’t touch me,” he says, he warns, and he can’t
recognize his own voice, and neither can Jungkook.

He’s walking backwards now, steps slow and careful, avoiding a trip, but he doesn’t want to lose
Jungkook from sight now, in case he tries to touch him again. The sensation of it almost makes
bile rise in his throat. He doesn’t even know how he manages to look at him, but once his eyes land
on him more permanently it’s more difficult to blink away – it’s like a car crash happens right
before him as he finds his face, his own eyes, so dilated and corners slightly red.
He’s walking backwards and Jungkook moves with the same pace, as slow, as careful, towards
him, like a predator, prey. There’s something marginally cruel about the way he watches him. His
eyes are nothing, speak of nothing. None of the features of his face tell anything to Taehyung and it
makes his heart drop even lower in his stomach.

“Why?” Jungkook asks, the question almost an exhale from his lips as he unfailingly mirrors
Taehyung’s gait, following him predatory with eyes sharp but drunk. He asks it as if that wasn’t the
point of all this, to lose his privileges over touching Taehyung.

Taehyung’s voice twists, and if it had the power he tries to summon with it, it would have been a
screech, but he can’t find it. It chokes out from his throat. “What do you mean why?”

Jungkook’s hand reaches to him again when he is forcefully stilled by the end of his couch. “Come
here,” he says, and there is something torturously soft about it, there is an actual expectation in the
stretch of his fingers and Taehyung almost trips trying to avoid it, body uncoordinated and clumsy
with the way he’s shaking, the way his whole entire consciousness is reserved for Jungkook.

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head, small, repetitive shakes that he cannot help as he stumbles to get
further away from him, walking between the couch and the coffee table now and almost walks into
a cable of a charging joystick. “Shut the fuck up,” he’s saying, snarling, eyes on Jungkook, darting
and searching so desperate for some explanation, but blind to anything, really, with the way they
have to blink so often. “You’re fucking high,” he’s barking, announcing it because it’s the only
thing he knows of him, the one thing he can truly detect in his eyes, but that’s not an explanation,
nor an excuse, it’s nothing, just a fact. He sees his hand lift again and he’s almost bellowing then,
“I said don’t touch me.” He begs, “Leave.”

Jungkook almost feels sober, must be, must be coming down because the way the residual
euphoria trickles down and disappears and so suddenly replaces with an emptiness, the crash of the
comedown, the anxiety of it, but maybe that’s just all Taehyung’s eyes. “Taehyung,” it seems to be
the only word he knows at that moment. He speaks it so differently to the other’s hoarse tremble.
He speaks it plain for the first syllable and with the edge of alerted panic at the second. The name
curves on his tongue as Taehyung’s resolve to keep him away grows more vivid with his
movement and his voice, with the contortion of his features.

Taehyung’s voice leaves his lips so fast and raw, it almost makes his tongue twist. He speaks with
his throat. “Take all your shit and leave,” he demands, his glare more scathing in the way that it is
vulnerable, naked, than as the intent it has directed on Jungkook. “Leave here,” he lists, “Leave me.
Leave my life.”
Jungkook tries again with some firmness that feels throaty as well, something rustic and paranoid
in the edges of his name, which he says again and again, though he doesn’t know what he wants of
it, “Taehyung—"

“Here take this,” Taehyung interjects with an uneven sputter, as he bends to the device his
controller is connected to, the PlayStation they played together on, ripping the cables off of it
roughly, and he thrusts it at him, but it ends up on the couch. “I bought it with your money,” he
declares. “Take this as well.” And he strips off the shirt of his shoulder, Jungkook’s fucking shirt
that he has been wearing this whole entire week, because it fucking smelled like him and he wanted
to keep it around, a reminder of him, but now he just wants to forget. He looks straight into his eyes
as he takes it off so rough and shaky, he rips a single button. He presses it into Jungkook’s chest
and Jungkook curls his arm over the fabric only in attempt to put his hand over Taehyung’s, but it
slips right through his fingers. “Take everything,” Taehyung’s almost yelling at this point, his
voice bouncing off of walls and straight into Jungkook’s ears, distorted with something that makes
his heart race in a way very different than coke does. He feels a panic much more real than that
induced by the comedown of drugs. “I don’t care,” Taehyung’s shrugging, eyes darting all across
and he bends again, grips at an object and chucks it at Jungkook. “Take my fucking little brother’s
toy car,” Jungkook loses his eyes for the moment it takes him to move out of the way then he
captures them again to witness a new vehemence. “Everything,” Taehyung says and his voice
cracks at the end, arms spreading out before they drop to his sides. The next sentence is weaker,
almost a plea. “Take everything and go away.”

Jungkook drops the shirt on the couch, frees his hand. He wants to touch him. He wants to calm
him. “Tae, come—"

“Don’t,” Taehyung takes a step back,“call me that.”

Jungkook follows that step, chases him mindlessly, and he reaches for him and manages, because
Taehyung has nowhere else to go. He pulls him to himself by the wrist and their chests almost
touch. “Why—?”

“I said don’t touch me,” Taehyung warns, ripping his wrist away from his hold and wrapping his
own hand around it, scrubbing his finger along the skin to wash away the memory of his touch of
it, but Jungkook worries he held him too tightly and he’s trying to soothe pain, and his forehead
creases with the thought. “I don’t want to ever see you again, Jungkook,” Taehyung declares and
this time it’s from so close, Jungkook can see every feature on his face so well, so clearly. Every
feature spells a feeling, an abundance of them swallowing his face, and Jungkook’s own resolve is
fading. He should be pushing him away, that was the point of it: make sure Taehyung never
approaches him again, but he wants to pull him closer, tell him he is sorry, that he didn’t mean to
do this, that he did he did it for them.“Go away,” Taehyung whispers and the breath of it hits
Jungkook’s chest with the way he angles his face and it’s worse when he whispers.
“Tae…”

Taehyung looks up, fists curling, and he pushes at Jungkook’s chest lightly with his next words.
“Go away,” he says more firmly and Jungkook’s fingers are wrapping around his wrists again.

He tugs him closer, tugs him so they almost touch, and he swallows, starts again, tries to be even,
tries to be hard. “Why are you so hurt, Tae?” He isn’t supposed to be; he’s supposed to hate him,
yes, but he’s not supposed to hurt, to have his eyes glaze over like that, glisten. To have his voice
twist in his throat.

It’s cruel. It’s so cruel that he would ask him, and all Taehyung can say as his eyes narrow almost
into slits at him is, “Fuck you.” He says it so slow, enunciates every letter as deep and drawled as
he can.

“I thought you didn’t —"

“Fuckyou,” Taehyung spells out even slower, emotion dripping from his tongue and even with
Jungkook’s hands holding his wrists he presses fistx into his chest, with each curse he speaks,
“Fuckyoufuckyoufuck you,” he glares at him.“I despise you,” his mouth curls around it so
definitive, so certain, so hurt. “Leave.”

Jungkook doesn’t understand. He’s spent his whole entire life being flipped out, being told to fuck
off, because Jungkook is a Jeon, a Taunting Twin, he’s always in it for the taunt. The effect of
others’ hate on him is usually a smirk, neutrality at best. He’s never been particularly bothered
doing this, consciously earning hatred. He doesn’t understand why each fist that Taehyung lays on
his chest, each half blow, feels like it penetrates through his skin and strikes at his insides. He can’t
comprehend why he wants to ask Taehyung to take the declaration back, tell him that he doesn’t,
doesn’t despise him.

And he’s angry, Jungkook’s angry, because this was not how it was supposed to work. It was
meant to be easy, like ripping off a fucking band aid, gone and forgotten in a moment. And it’s all
Taehyung’s fucking fault because he cannot watch him get hurt.

Jungkook’s fingers squeeze around him harder and this time when he pulls him, they do touch,
bodies lining up. He crashes into him, hard and scorching, the sensation of him so familiar and
easy, but not like this, not now. This time the dig of his digits around his wrists is painful, but not as
painful as that of his eyes as they narrow back, as they glare and study into his own, pupils
aligning, hard and unforgiving. “You said I meant nothing to you, Tae, you promised.”
Taehyung’s jaw slackens, teeth grinding together and simply glowers for the next moment. He
breathes through widened nostrils, curls his tongue over his top teeth and then, then he snarls, so
slow and so pointed. “Well, I fucking lied.”

He rips his wrists from Jungkook’s hold and he lets him because for a moment he loses the
strength in his fingers and that to look at his face.

Taehyung steps back. “You knew I was lying,” he tells him and it’s calm and eerie, but it still
trembles, coarse from his throat. “You asked me to lie.”

He steps back more, away from in between the table and the couch where he is essentially trapped
with Jungkook so close. He walks back and he walks forth and a hand laces in his hair, pulls at the
strands as he watches his feet move and when Jungkook says nothing, his head snaps back to him,
eyes zeroing in, voice high again, voice mad again. “What was this?” his arms raise and then fall,
slam limp into his sides. “Final fucking level?” he questions, and that anger dwindles, it replaces
with helplessness and Jungkook wants the anger back. “The final boss?” His head cocks. “Bang the
Kim sister?”

Jungkook’s eyes spring to his. He breathes, “What?”

Taehyung swallows, arms wrapping together before his chest, palms pressing into his ribs as he
effectively hides as much of his bare body as he can. “Who won this time, huh?” his chin juts with
accusation, eyes flashing. “You or Julia?”

Jungkook’s body turns to him entirely and he wants to touch him again, promise him that it wasn’t
like this but there is a couch between them, and he can’t. “Taehyung—” he tries to say, his own
eyes losing every ounce of hardness as he looks at him like that.

Taehyung interrupts. “Was it a bet as well?” the crack of his voice is different now, comes from
his chest and his throat and he chokes on it, needs to pause, to gulp. “Make me—” he hesitates,
brows shifting together, forehead creasing as he tries to gather words, but fails, because he cannot
say this, “make me fucking…” he tries again, but he cannot finish the sentence, there is a
confession in the continuation of it that he simply can’t speak, that Jungkook doesn’t deserve to
hear and that he shouldn’t be feeling, “And then just—” he gesticulates helplessly and then, then a
tear sneaks past the rim of his eye and rolls down half of his cheek before he wipes it away with his
whole hand. “Fuck,” he chokes out, looks away.
He wasn’t supposed to cry, especially not in front of him. And he’s not crying, he’s not. It’s just a
tear, just one, he wipes it off and sucks it up.

Jungkook blinks, lips parting. A tear. There’s a fucking tear. Shit. What did he do, whatdidhedo?
what the Fuck Did He Do? He doesn’t know if Taehyung hates him, but he sure as fuck hates
himself.

Jungkook looks at the way his features twist, and he wants to take back time. He wanted Taehyung
to hate him, needed it, at least he thought so, but he cannot take this, cannot have him look at him
like that. His eyes are ruinous and ruined, ruinous in that they’re ruined. And he caused this. His
heart beats angry with the fact of this, he’s responsible.

And he wanted Taehyung to hate him, but he never wanted him to feel like a bet, like a game.
Taehyung has probably never in his life felt up to his true, whole worth, because he’s a Kim.

“Tae—” Jungkook tries again, tries in a whisper, but he’s interrupted by Taehyung’s sharp intake
of breath.

“You wanted to prove I don’t mean shit to you?” he speaks, and as he speaks, he walks, walks
towards the door. “Congratu-fucking-lations,” he says as he pauses beside it, looks at Jungkook’s
eyes for the final time that night before he continues, “Mission complete.” He glances down then,
glances down as he pulls at the handle and pulls the door open. “Now leave.” He nods to the door,
speaks with a mixture of certainty and defeat and looks at the floor. “I’m done.”

Jungkook looks at the parts of his face that Taehyung allows him to see. He’s beautiful when he’s
like that as well, sadness sits tragically gorgeous on his face, but Jungkook wants it gone. He’d
rather have him hideous than sad, though he knows that can’t be. He can’t be certain for how long
he lingers, until he walks and when he first pauses before Taehyung it is not to leave. It’s to speak.

He raises his hand tries to touch his face, but Taehyung twists away, doesn’t allow it.

His hand falls limp by his side and he watches Taehyung’s throat curl with his swallow. Jungkook
‘s teeth sink in his lip and he can’t find words.

He reaches for the handle and watches Taehyung’s own fingers disappear from it as if the touch
would burn him and it’s what Jungkook wants. He closes the door on his own when he leaves, so
Taehyung doesn’t have to.
Taehyung lingers by the door longer than he wills himself to before he walks into the kitchen and
rummages. Soju, there’s just fucking soju and he wants something stronger, so he fucks it, pours
himself a cold glass of water and slumps into a chair, elbow pressing into the table and hand
immediately raising to accommodate his forehead.

His eyes screw shut again and down drips the second and final tear he will allow over the likes of
Jeon Jungkook.

It’s a fucking joke that Taehyung has only been allowed a couple of minutes before the shower
stops and Ji-Woo, inevitably, appears, pauses at half the stairs in her towel only to be able to look
at him on the kitchen chair.

“Taehyung, did I hear yelling?”

Taehyung is gulping down water when she speaks, needs to, because his throat feels so fucking dry
and he hopes the force of the water and his swallow will take down the lump that builds and holds
strenuously in his trachea. He sets the glass down as carefully as he can muster, stares at the sink
when he speaks. “Did he kiss you?” His voice comes rough and tight, lump still trapped there.

Ji-Woo’s brows fold together in a triangle, one of her hands on the railing and another clutching on
her towel. “What?”

Taehyung’s tongue runs over his lips and he turns, looks at her. “Jungkook,” he details, blinks,
“Did he kiss you?”

“Oh,” her brows fall apart as she clears her throat, readjusts her towel. “You saw him?”

Taehyung sighs through his nose, closes his eyes for longer than he needs for it to be simply a
blink. She only notices now that they glisten and swim. “Can you just fucking tell me if he kissed
you?” he asks, some exasperation intertwining with his tongue as he does.

Ji-Woo shakes her head, taking a step down towards him. She’s barefoot, but he worries her. “No,
he didn’t,” she answers, “I don’t—Tae, are you alright?” The chair scrapes as Taehyung stands as
he turns to the back door and takes a few steps. “Taehyung, where are you going?”
Nowhere. He stops, one hand on his waist, the other cups his mouth. And he turns, walks back,
walks to the bottom of the stairs. He drops his hand, reveals his face and looks at her, fully, eyes
reddened and unblinking.

“Why did you fuck him?” it lingers, simple and hurried.

Ji-Woo takes another step. “You mean Jungkook?” she asks and there is a tinge of familiarity in
the way she speaks it that tugs offensively at Taehyung in the gut.

Taehyung’s eyes close again and his breath is sharp. “Don’t say his name,” he begs her before he
can look at her again.

“Taehyung—” she begins with another step, but he interrupts.

“Why him?” he demands, “Why did you have to fuck him?”

“Why are you so upset, Taehyung?” her voice raises a bit, her arms crossing before her chest now
and she slips into defensive at his particular emphasis. “He’s hot,” she shrugs, “he’s a Jeon,”
another roll of her shoulders and she is so casual, he wants to throw the glass of water at something
more and more with each evidence of indifference that fluctuates between her body language and
the way she so carelessly speaks. “And he was a good fuck, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Taehyung chortles and his lips curl almost ugly with the way he smiles with utter bitterness,
“I know he’s a good fucking fuck,” he declares, his teeth snapping together unintentionally with
the pace with which he speaks,“I’ve been fucking him for weeks.”

He enjoys the damage that it does on her face too much to regret it. She blinks, lips parting, some
incomprehensive sound coming in between them. Her eyes fix over Taehyung, wide and pointedly
confused, stretched to their brims so much it grows past perplexity and akin to horror. He can see
her mouth open further and maybe she wants to say something, but for a long while she can’t. Her
neck pulls back, head retracting as if someone was physically reaching for her.

She blinks once and her head starts to shake. “Taehyung,” she says, voice hesitating uneven, “if
that’s some sort of a joke,” she speaks with warning, “It’s not fucking funny.” She falls another
step forward.
“Not a joke.” Taehyung clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, shakes his head and cocks
it, almost puts it on his shoulder. His eyes narrow. He parts his lips and scrutinizes over his sister
with some forced, sarcastic calculation. Then he strikes crudely, “You know I’ve been wondering,
is there anyone you wouldn’t fucking sleep with?”

Her voice is a breath. “What?” she whispers, and Taehyung doesn’t know why a cruel pleasure
twists inside of him when he witnesses her features pull with the beginnings of bewildered hurt.

“I mean,” Taehyung stresses, lips puckering and pulling down in some deliberately dubious
consideration. “Why do you have to be such a slut?”

Ji-Woo hugs the towel around herself as her brother watches with merciless eyes from below.
“Taehyung,” she shakes her head weakly, “that’s unfair.”

Taehyung laughs sudden and it’s not more than an exhale of it before he’s speaking, “Life’s
fucking unfair, isn’t it?” He throws his hands into the air and keeps watching her, keeps at it, gaze
relentless but wrists twitching.

She’s saying nothing, says absolutely nothing. She has hardly moved since Taehyung’s confession
and now she seems to have completely lost the function of speaking, because all he sees her do is
breath and swallow and look at him with eyes that hold much, but he’s seeing red, doesn’t really
know what it is her eyes try to convey.

He stares at her until he can’t anymore. His hands drop, hit over the fabric of his pants and he looks
at his feet. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, starting to move, getting his sweatshirt off the counter where
he left it when he first got home. “I didn’t—you’re not a, you’re not,” he shakes his head
conclusively. “I just, just can’t hear your voice right now.” He shrugs the fabric on his shoulders
and does the zip.

He can’t because it’s her fucking voice that sounded so blood curling in his ears through the wall.
It’s not her fault, he knows, it’s unfair, she’s right, because it’s not her fault, but it’s still her voice.
Taehyung shouldn’t be as affected by this as he is, shouldn’t flinch at the mere voice of his sister;
this should be nothing, absolutely nothing. But he’s never felt anything for anyone like this and
never had it blown apart so cruelly and he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. He feels
something very akin to a loss. He’d gotten used to there always being a prospective next interaction
with Jungkook, they’d gone as far as to start making goddamn plans with those fucking text
messages, and there is something empty in the fact that’s gone. And what will happen to the time
Jungkook used to occupy his mind and his time, what will happen next time he inevitably comes to
Rouge, and Taehyung has to see him, serve him?
 He can’t be having these thoughts, can’t be thinkingat all. It makes the lump slowly start to build
again.

“I’m staying at Jimin’s,” he announces, starts walking, gets some slip-ons at the door he’s not even
sure are his.

Ji-Woo speaks now, but still doesn’t move to stop him. “Taehyung,” she says, “it’s late. The
subway is not working.”

“I’ll walk,” he says and she’s in a towel, can’t chase him and has to watch him slam that door and
disappear.

Chapter End Notes

okay, this is a necessary evil

 Chapter 18
Chapter Notes

beware this isn't edited but I need to sleep

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Do you want coke?” Hoseok asks.

“No,” Jungkook says, sunglasses on, eyes staring up at the circular shape of the sun protected and
emphasized by a cloud in the sky.

Hoseok’s head cocks. “A cocktail?” He says as he slurps on his very own, the foam of it filtering
almost disgusting as it travels through his straw and to his tentatively arched down lips, a scowl
that is mostly evidence of his calculation as he studies Jungkook than anything else.

“No,” Jungkook replies. His thumbs tangle together as he rests his fingers on his chest, palms
almost touching.

He releases the straw. “Are you becoming a monk?”

Jungkook’s head tilts slightly to look at where Hoseok hovers over him, sat on the table between
the chaise lounges, hunched over in his bathing suit. “No,” Jungkook says, and the fact his eyes
remain under those sunglasses and he can’t see him is only a tad frustrating. He sucks on his straw
again.

“Do you know a word different to no?”

Jungkook faces the sky again, “No.”

“Jungkook,” Yoongi moves, readjusting a little, on the chaise longue on the other side of Hoseok’s
ass. “You haven’t had an emotion the past three days,” he announces. “The fuck is up with your
moody ass? Suck it up and have a Piña Colada.”

“I don’t want a Piña Colada,” he replies simply.

Hoseok straightens up a bit, twists at the waist and raises his eyebrows at Yoongi when he finds
him with his stare. “I think he’s not drinking again. How long do you think that will last?” He
raises the hand that doesn’t hold his drink, opens his palm and spreads his five fingers opened.
“Five days? Six?”

“Hobi,” Yoongi pronounces slowly as he peels his own sunglasses down his face, positions them
right above his lips. “Why don’t you make one of your Piña Coladas and if he doesn’t want it, I’ll
sacrifice myself and have it.”

Jungkook listens with one ear as Hoseok narrows his eyes and begins bickering with Yoongi over
his laziness and continuous lying down pose, claiming he has doesn’t spend more than an hour a
day on his feet, but he hardly processes what they speak about because he keeps thinking about the
fucking Piña Colada and how badly he doesn’t want it.

He thinks about the amounts of times he’d sworn himself off of substances, that he’d failed.
Himself and Hoseok, they do this from time to time, say they’ll quit, Hoseok generally after
Yoongi has a breakdown. Jungkook, generally.

Because he doesn’t like who people are on substances, the decisions they make. He doesn’t like
that his father makes the decision to hit his sister, that his sister makes the decision to swallow
another pill, that Yoongi makes the decision to mix his pills with a cocktail until he passes out, that
his mother makes the decision she wants to be even number and submerge in a surrealistic world
trapped in her brain, that he decided he wanted Taehyung to hate him.

Jungkook lifts his phone up, stares at the glaring screen where it’s opened, perpetually opened at
the messages with him, stares at the last message, the one he sent.

can I talk to you?

He’s not replying. Of course, he’s not replying. Jungkook clicks his phone shut and he doesn’t look
at it, but he still sees it. He still sees his face, still sees that fucking tear roll down it. He’s been
sober for three days, but he doesn’t feel like it, feels like he’s having a three-day hangover. His
head hurts, almost permanently, and he needs to take some of his mother’s valium before he goes
to sleep, in his bed.

He sleeps there the first night, but the second he can’t because he lies down in the exact position in
which he was when Taehyung wrapped himself around him on instinct and then he can’t get it out
of his head that it will probably never happen again. He cannot comprehend how he can possibly
miss something that only happened one and a half times, barely fucking happened, but he does, so
he takes another Valium and goes to Yoongi’s and asks him his opinion on some topic that
interests him and listens to his voice until he falls asleep.

On the third night he goes directly there, and he doesn’t take any pills. Yoongi asks Hoseok over
and they speak to each other quietly while Jungkook pretends to sleep until he falls asleep.

It’s hard not to think when his eyes close and he’s alone and he absolutely abhors thinking.

He’s never had such an urge, such a need to speak to someone. It is almost physically palpable, sits
at the top of his chest, how much he wants to explain, even though he can’t. He does something
he’s never done, only ever heard about, preplans what he could prospectively say if Taehyung did
give him the chance to speak in his mind when he lies and listens to the murmur of conversation.

Nothing that he comes up with sounds enough, not in any of the hypothetical situations that his
mind projects for him does Taehyung not look at him the way he did when he asked him if he was
just another bet and there is something exhausting enough about that on the third night that he
doesn’t need the Valium, even if it eases the fact he hasn’t been close to a substance since he came
down from it that night.

Jungkook checks his phone again as Hoseok, despite his complaints towards Yoongi’s laziness,
lifts up and strides over to the bar to make another proportionally incorrect Piña Colada for him.
Taehyung has not responded to his text, just like he didn’t respond to his.

“What’d you got on that phone, Kook?” Yoongi’s voice carries over in a drawl. He’s watching him
as Jungkook clicks it shut and presses it into his stomach.

“Nothing,” he says. He readjusts a little on the chaise longue and his phone buzzes, hand flies
towards it but as soon as his eyes widen, they hood over, pissed. It’s just an Instagram notification
and he thought he stopped those. One of Yoongi’s brows raises, but he says nothing. Jungkook lifts
an arm, fits his fingers over his forehead to push back hair. “Kai still won’t say more?”
Yoongi blinks away. “Nope, just says he was checking something.”

“Okay,” Jungkook says, but it’s not okay, not okay at all.

“You coming to the Ozone tonight?”

“No,” Jungkook replies, quick and easy.

Yoongi sighs with his whole upper body. “You’re coming on Saturday, though.”

“Why?”

Yoongi tilts his head to him again. “Don’t you think it will be a little suspicious if you skipped
your own birthday?”

Jungkook has never in the entirety of his life cared about anything less than he does about his
birthday. He wonders briefly, foolishly, if Taehyung would care it’s his birthday. It’s a pathetic
thing to latch on, but it passes through his head and he cannot help it. He has a whim, a stupid,
ridiculous whim, to see him on his birthday, but he doesn’t know if he can look at him in the eyes.

“Okay,” Jungkook says.

Hoseok returns with the Piña Colada and him and Yoongi fall into a conversation and Jungkook
closes his eyes and cups his palm over his phone.

Taehyung really doesn’t understand why it’s the fourth time he’s done one problem and still cannot
figure out the sine of a fucking angle. He needs to have those ready as soon as possible. It’s almost
September and he has his exam ridiculously soon. He has completely submerged himself in
preparing for it, but there is such a frustrating disbalance in the effort and time he puts into it and
the fruition and productivity.
Not getting distracted every few minutes has proven impossible, but he grits his teeth and tries
again. Numbers, numbers, numbers, that’s all he has space for in his head, right now, all. It is his
only focus. It’s a lie, blatant to the point that it is ridiculous, but he likes to tell it to himself again
and again.

“Tae,” Jimin says as he steps over his legs where he sits with the pair of them extended on the
carpet of his apartment. “You working today or not?” he asks as he grips a light jacket that hangs
by his door and shrugs it on his shoulders.

Taehyung releases the pencil he holds between his teeth as he looks down at the shape on his paper
which he swears made more sense a minute ago. “Do I have a choice?”

Jimin fixes his eyes over the trail of saliva that follows from the tip of Taehyung’s chewed on
pencil to his mouth. “You’re disgusting,” he scrunches his nose up.

Taehyung folds one leg at the knee, props his folder on it. “You think I can get a job at the Ozone
with you?” he asks, eyes finding Jimin. “It doesn’t clash with my shifts.”

Jimin fixes his arms through the sleeves better. “And you’ll sleep when?” He cocks his head.
“You’ve been doing nothing but math for the past four days. You need a fucking break.” He
doesn’t sleep much anyways, and it would probably be better if he made money out of it instead of
just the headaches he deals with now.

Taehyung shrugs, taps the pencil on his lower lip. “I like math.”

Jimin scoffs. “No, you don’t. No one likes math. You like art and buildings and shit like that.”

“Yes,” he nods in response, sighs, “and my exam is coming up and I want to make as much money
as possible before in case I do get in and have to go to actual school from October.”

“It’s just an evening school.”

Taehyung clicks his tongue, flashes him a pouty, short glare. “More than you can fucking say.”
Jimin is bubbly. Jimin speaks a lot and most of what he spills out of his mouth is meaningless shit
and Taehyung has learned to appreciate this immensely. Shortly, Jimin is distracting.

“I gotta chip in for double rent now,” Taehyung teases when Jimin responds with a finger.

He tilts his head down to do the zip of his jacket but does lift his eyes to properly convey his
annoyance, lids slightly lowered, gaze dulled. “Taehyung,” he begins with a sternness that doesn’t
fit him, “I told you, if you try to pay me, I will annihilate you.” He pauses when the other shakes
his head and returns his eyes to the paper in front of him. He’s careful when he speaks next. “But I
do think you should go back home.”

Taehyung halts as he adjusts the folder to properly fit in the junction of his lap and thigh. His eyes
remain fixed on the diagrams as he hears Jimin open the door. “Soon,” he says, his tongue flashing
over his lips. “I will.” And because he feels the trickle of tension slide across his back, stem
dangerously in his stomach and he knows it’s a dangerous path for his mind to trail on, being in
any way serious about anything other than his prospect of going to school, he bristles a chuckle
that is half forced, “Though I much prefer the location here.”

He expects a laugh and a goodbye and the door to be shut. It’s not what he gets. Instead it’s a voice
that is startlingly familiar and the trickle that had started to form blossoms and attacks, spreads all
over his spine and grows quick in his stomach.

“Is that true?” his sister says and his eyes, wide, are on her before it fully registers with him he’ll
see her standing at the doorframe. “You’ll come home?”

Taehyung’s teeth clench, face turning away as he flips the folder carelessly off of his body and gets
on his feet. “Oh, fuck off, Jimin,” he glares at him first, because he knows this is his doing, as
Jimin steps away completely unsurprised by her appearance, moving away to allow her to step in.
“I will actually end you,” he threatens, not entirely emptily as he folds his arms over his chest.

“Sorry,” Jimin throws behind his shoulder, stepping past the threshold. “Bye.” He doesn’t shut the
door behind him as he disappears, because Ji-woo lingers. She hasn’t fully stepped in and maybe it
is with effect of the way Taehyung’s eyes almost pulse with warning.

He stares the utter description of pissed behind his friend before the glare replaces on his sister. His
voice travels soft, “What do you want?”
Taehyung hates how in every moment he has dealt with this, he comes off defeated.

Ji-woo steps in, closes the door, and it’s final, they’ll have to speak. “To talk to you.”

His sigh is immediate, his eyes prying away as they stare dumbly at a wall. He has the urge to
walk, to move, pace, but Jimin’s apartment takes about three full steps to cross and it’s pointless.
“Listen,” he brings his gaze back to her, “if you want to apologize to me or some shit, don’t.” His
head shakes. “Because I’m not mad at you, you just,” he swallows, the lids of his eyes fluttering
helplessly before he glances at the floor instead., “just remind me—"

She takes a step and it takes actual exertion for him to not step back. “I just want you to be able to
talk to me, Tae,” she tells him, pleads with him almost, “I want you home. Woojin—"

He looks again, meets her gaze and settles the warning in his again. “Don’t work me through
Woojin. I’ll come home, soon, but don’t guilt trip me through our brother.”

“Taehyung,” she exhales and there is something notably tired about it. This is the third time she’s
attempted to speak to him since he left that night and it’s exhausting for her, because he says
exactly half a sentence about how he’s not mad before he shuts her off completely. So, she has to
ask Jimin to help her trap him, has to shoot as soon as she gets the chance. “Why would you be sad
over Jeon Jungkook?” Her shoulders raise and fall, her pupils darting over his face with a pity that
makes him look away again.

He doesn’t like the sound of his name. Especially when she’s the one to speak it.

He taps a finger over his elbow as he squeezes into it harder than he needs to. He takes his time to
formulate the question, to convince himself there is actually any point in asking. His voice is small
because with the wording that tips at his tongue he knows he ventures a territory that scares him,
but he cannot avoid it, “Have you ever actually cared about any of the people you’ve slept with?”

She stares. “No,” she confesses.

Taehyung blinks up. “Don’t know how to explain that to you then.” He meets her eyes and he can’t
take that fucking pity that resides so palpably in the way her eyes hood, so he spins, walks, goes to
the part of the room that’s separated as a kitchen and stands behind a counter to stay further away
from how she looks at him.
She looks to the side as he does, but her chin angles towards him again with the pace of
determination. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks first, but then she doesn’t let him answer before
she speaks what really matters,says it with the due beginnings of disgust.“Why him?”

Taehyung presses his fingers into the counter and stares at them. “Because you’re asking me why
him,”he replies.

“Yeah,” Ji-woo nods, merciless as she steps forward, “and maybe I have good reason to, he slept
with me,” she’s at the other end of the counter when she hesitates, when she sees the way he
almost physically reacts, flinches, as the fact of it leaves her lips. “Although,” she clears her throat,
and an awkwardness takes over her voice when she attempts to speak as he attempts not to
think.“he, um mostly took care of me. He didn’t—“

Taehyung’s head shoots up, tongue sharp. “I really, really don’t give a fuck what type of sex you
had,” he grits his teeth. “Please,” he asks in a voice that morphs the notion of pity in her eyes into a
wave of it, “please don’t speak to me about that. I just want to fucking forget it.”

She allows him the pause she feels he needs before she breathes in. “And him?”

He hesitates with a pause that he instigates on his own. “What about him?”

This time she doesn’t even skip a beat. “Do you want to forget him?”

His mouth opens, but he doesn’t immediately speak. Yes, the answer is indisputably yes. He wants
to forget him so much he sometimes wishes he never passed his eyes over him. At the same time
something pathetically foolish in him wants to cling to the memory of his experience. He has never
had anything like Jungkook, anything as exhilarating and charging, anything he’s wanted so much,
that has made him feel so much.

“Yes,” he says finally and truthfully, “but I can’t, yet.” He looks at her with a heaviness she barely
recognizes in him and then he straightens up from the counter, folds his arms again, chooses a tile
to watch now. “Listen just, give me a few more days, okay? I’ll come home.”

Ji-woo’s head shakes at the nth time he so brusquely takes his eyes away from her. It’s frustrating.
It’s so unbearably frustrating for her that he does this, that he chooses to stay at Jimin’s because of
Jeon fucking Jungkook, because it’s her that should come first, her and Woojin, and though he still
does what he’s promised for the household, he can’t simply avoid her. “I don’t understand why
you can’t look at me because of a boy, Taehyung,” she spills, “It’s just a guy, just sex. Everyone
sleeps with everyone in Richhood.”

She gets what she wants now. He looks. He glares. “I don’t,” he says, and it sits on his tongue to
call her a slut again, but he won’t because he knows she’s right, partially. “I was just sleeping with
him,” he confesses because it’s true. Ever since Jungkook asked him to not touch Bogum anymore
he hasn’t as much as looked at someone else. He never wanted to.

Ji-woo’s lips curl in disbelief at her exhale of a quick, surprised laughter. You can’t be serious,that
laughter says, and it prickles at the back of his neck. “You can’t be loyal to or expect loyalty from
anyone that isn’t in our family, Tae,” she states, conclusive and pointed. “I thought you knew that.”

He looks away again, small shakes of his head as his tongue pokes out. “You know,” he tells her,
“that mindset exactly is why there is no use in you asking me why.” There isn’t absolutely any
point because Ji-woo is exactly what he yearns to be: impartial, rid of any expectations of the
people she’s with. He always promises himself he’s that, too, doesn’t want people to expect
anything from him and to expect anything from people. He doesn’t know how his exception to that
rule became the least reliable person in Richhood. “I was—” he struggles to get out and he doesn’t
mean to say it, not really, but it rips from his throat. “I was fucking ready to be loyal to him.
Okay?”

“Taehyung,” she says, says as if she scolds and pleads alike and she’s the one leaning on the
counter now. “He has a girlfriend,” she breathes, her eyes desperate on him, because he tries to
understand, she does. “He’s been with her since they were thirteen. They’ve probably figured out a
wedding date. Where do you think you fit in that?”

He feels stupid when he speaks, but his reply is automatic. “He isn’t in love with her.”

It means so much to him and nothing to her. She asks so quickly. “So?” She asks as if it’s obvious.
“You think their parents are in love with each other?”

Taehyung’s just blinking for a moment. “I—"

She interjects, speaking quick. “His father was ready to hitme, an outsider, a woman.” The
implication resonates loud and clear, imagine what he must do to them, who owe him
something,and Taehyung knows. He’s seen it, saw the mark of the cigarette, as he circled his finger
around it. “Even if Jungkook ever had the intention to be with you, which I doubt, do you think he
could afford it?” she pauses, but she doesn’t expect an answer. “He’d have to give up on
everything, his family, probably his friends, his reputation, his settled future. He relies on his
father’s money for everything. The only money he makes on his own he does with boxing and he
probably spends it all on drugs.” She speaks so quick and so sure and he wishes to press his palms
over his ears again. “He’s going to inherit his father’s business because that’s what he’s been
preparing for his entire life just like his father did from his own, marry Julia, they’ll forever be the
epitome of the ultimate Richhood couple and have some Richhood material children.” Taehyung
blinks. His eyes feel bitter. Her voice sounds so bitter. “Where do you think you fit in Jeon
Jungkook’sworld? The best you could have gotten out of that is what, him occasionally fucking
you cause he can barely get it up for girls? Is that what you want for yourself? To be a Jeon’s
fucktoy?”

Taehyung sucks his lower lip in his mouth, and he moves. He’s blinking so much, staring at the
floor. It pinches at his eyes, and he cannot look at her. He doesn’t need to hear this. He’s over and
done with Jungkook, but he doesn’t need to hear this.

He wasn’t his fucktoy, he knows that. Jungkook always took care of him, sexually, too, got on his
knees for him and the second time they kissed, the last time they kissed, there was nothing sexual
about it, nothing to do with fucking.

“If anything,” she’s still speaking and he hears it through buzzing ears as he bends, gathers the
papers from the floor and pushes them in a bag, “he did you a favor.” He shoves them in, shoves
them in so brusque he wonders how the cheap material doesn’t fall apart under his motions. He
presses the back of his palm into one of his eyes almost painfully, stifles the bitterness. He does it
for the other, too, straightens and slings the bag over his shoulder. He can do more problems in his
break. “Tae,” Ji-woo calls after him, but he doesn’t say anything, just walks, gets his own jacket
off the hanger. “Tae,” she tries again, “I’m only telling you this because I care about you.”

He knows. A part of him does, at least. But that part is buried so deep he can barely find it, because
all that sounds repetitive in his ears is now, he did you a favor, a fucking favor. He blinks again.
He’ll marry Julia.

He will. He probably will. Taehyung doesn’t know how the fuck that hadn’t registered in his brain
before. Whatever he and Jungkook were, no matter how colossal it felt for him, was objectively
nothing. He was never brave enough to entertain the concept of future because in any way that is
reasonable, Jungkook’s future and his were undeniably apart. Taehyung had grown so accustomed
to only thinking about a day in advance when it came to him. Will I get to see him tomorrow, and
that was it, all it could ever extended to.

Taehyung supposes it had to end. Sooner rather than later. But it didn’t have to end like this.

And he didn’twant it to end.

“I have to go work,” he tells her. “I’ll come home in a few days.”

Her lips part. “Taehyung.

He looks at her, actually does, a final glance just before he exits and leaves her in Jimin’s empty
apartment. “Don’t talk to me about him and we’re good, okay?”

It’s unfair, most simply put, that when Taehyung wanted desperately to see him, he didn’t have to
right to, because he couldn’t force Jungkook to be anywhere. Now Jungkook sends just a couple of
texts that he can ignore before he appears in a place from which Taehyung cannot escape.
Jungkook comes to Rouge.

He sees him and he has the urge to fucking quit. He won’t, he can’t. He’s stuck and it does nothing
for the way his heart drops right in his stomach when his eyes catch that first glimpse.

He knows Jungkook will follow as soon as he gets the chance. He’s alone, he came absolutely
alone, and he came specifically for this and Taehyung knows it. It scares him, scares him the way
his heart beats so hurried and worrying because if the mere sight of him hits so physically, how
will he act when he approaches.

Taehyung goes to that hallway on his own because he cannot prolong the dread of waiting for him,
cannot deal with the way he startles when someone passes too close to his back and he worries he
decided to start this in public. He goes pointless into that hallway and has to wait for less than a
minute when the door swings.

Taehyung stands as close to the opposing wall as he can without pressing himself into it. There is
something trapping, in that hallway, something suffocating, and he struggles with one breath,
especially with the way his back is so close to a border, and when Jungkook steps in and pauses
very briefly before he closes the door, Taehyung feels the room swallows him.

He stares at his shoes not at his eyes, though he can sense Jungkook’s own fix unbearably on him,
palpable on the side of his face, which feels slightly as if it burns. His very presence in the same
room holds something overwhelming that is not entirely unpleasant, but so tangible it makes
Taehyung feel it on his skin.

When the door closes Jungkook doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t move, does not come closer, just
stares at him. And it’s been barely a moment, but Taehyung cannot take it as it rolls so timeless and
slow, and he clings to himself, crosses his arms, and lifts his eyes. They radiate to his face with a
magnetic pull, but as soon as he recognizes the other’s they shift to look at the space behind him.

Taehyung blinks. His eyes feel wetter than he likes. “You disappeared before when I wanted you
here and now what,” he shrugs meaningless and speaks with a rough accusation; his voice is
almost foreign to his own ears when it twists unexpectedly, but he manages to waver it to
something he is comfortable with, a flatness that still blames, “you come to laugh in my face?”

“No,” Jungkook says with his whole body, moves an instinctive step forward as he repeats, “no.”
His head shakes and Taehyung can judge that from how he watches the air behind him, but he
cannot see his expression, the way his brows fold and forehead creases, “I want to talk.”

He wants to speak to him, sober, he wants to explain. He just wants to see him.

Taehyung almost steps back as he closes in, but he manages to halt him in his approach with the
impact of his flinch at something as mere as the suggestion of proximity. Jungkook has to struggle
to stay in place, but he wants to give him that, space. “I’ve nothing to say to you,” Taehyung tells
him, head tilting down, finds his shoes. There is something small in his voice as he does, a
weakness.

He does, though, he has so much to say to him.

Jungkook fails. He steps forward. “Tae,” he says with one step, his eyes searching for his face,
asking his to meet his own, but he refuses. “Taehyung,” he calls with his second step and with his
voice, Jungkook’s voice, saying his name, and Taehyung presses his lids closed, tight, before he
can look at the floor again, “Won’t you look at me?” Jungkook asks, speaks with a torturous
softness; it barely carries between them, a murmur at best.
Taehyung feels the cement of the wall behind him with his back, but still does not press into it
fully. “No,” he shakes his head, mirroring the soft tone, but his isn’t gentle, isn’t careful. It’s frail.
“I don’t want to see you,” he whispers back to him and when Jungkook takes another step, when he
comes into his space, when he reaches for him, he flinches again, flinches away and recoils into
himself more. “Don’t want you to touch me,” he tells him, his tongue running across his lower lip
to bring some moisture to his drying mouth as he watches Jungkook’s hand hover between them
briefly before it falls next to his brand belt.

The logo glares at him and he glares back at it.

He feels the small shakes of Jungkook’s head, feels his breath on his cheek, as he nears, comes so
impossibly close, so arrogantly close. He has no right. “You don’t mean that, Tae,” Jungkook
murmurs and something rises in Taehyung’s stomach. He’s watching his neck now, watches the
skin stretch and twist with the motion of him speaking, of telling him so soft and intimate, “I want
you.”

Taehyung flinches again, head falling back onto the wall. His eyes screw shut, and he curses,
“Fuck.” He pleads, “Don’t.” He promises, “I don’t care.”

Jungkook edges closer, and he doesn’t touch him, but his body is so close it radiates pure
Jungkook,and Taehyung doesn’t know if he can take the way it almost brushes against him, the
way he can smell him. “You want me, too,” he says, and his lips are almost at his ear and
Taehyung’s eyes peel open.

He looks at him, finally does, stares right into the abyss of Jungkook’s cursed eyes. “I don’t,” he
says and his teeth clash with it. “I mean I do, but I won’t,” he promises them both and with each
syllable his voice grows stronger, ravenous for conviction. “I’ll stop,” he vows. “I can fucking—
cleanse myself off of you.” He looks at him all over, at his shoes, his trousers, the logo at his belt.
He can clean himself from that, from all of it, and it is fucking poison. It reeks onto him. He
pushes him away. “Don’t stay so close to me,” he warns, because Jungkook tries to trick him
again, lie to him again, with that numbing proximity.

“Tae—” Jungkook tries as he falls the step back, but Taehyung’s eyes are too hot on him.

“What did you think was gonna happen?” he asks with some rapid fierceness that draws from his
chest. He does have something to say to him, to scream to him, so much. And it drips. His head
tilts, he’s the one to step closer now, but his back is away from the wall. “You act a bit seductive,”
his eyes narrow, “offer some sexual favor and I’ll be back at your beck and call distracting you
from your abusive father with my tight ass?”
Roles reverse and Jungkook gapes simply for a moment, mouth parted before his eyes fall to the
ground. No matter who looks away, they cannot look at each other in the eyes. “You always —”

Taehyung’s teeth almost bare as he snarls, “I always what?” He blinks at him. That thing, that thing
that rises in his stomach like this escalates, fills him to the brim. “Forgive you?” his brows raise,
with challenge. He pauses, very brief, but it lingers somehow. He nods to himself, to Jungkook as
well, his tongue clicks on the roof of his mouth and he speaks bitterly. “Yeah, I guess that’s my
fault.” Jungkook looks at him and this time their gazes hold prolonged. There’s a heaviness in both,
but a different kind, unnamable kind. Taehyung shakes his head. “Not this time, though.”

Jungkook is silent. He’s silent and every truth that rises in Taehyung’s throat drips from him. His
voice is honest and raw, leaves his mouth as if doesn’t reach his lips, just spills straight from his
chest, through his trachea.

“I’m not an emotional punch back for you to channel your frustration over your inability to protect
your sister from your father, okay?” he tells him with that voice, strikes low with what he says, but
he can hardly find it in himself to care, not when he now has the audacity to look at him right in the
eyes.

It’s so frustrating, so fucking frustrating, because Taehyung feels something whenever those eyes
are on him, especially when they look at him like that, with some apparent genuineness, when they
are mostly so soft, almost asking him of something unspoken just with them, just like that, looking
silent, rattling.

His voice is still so overwhelmingly soft. He’s gentle as he speaks. As raw and naked and throaty
as Taehyung is, Jungkook is as careful, soft, almost timid. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says, he
swears, and it’s the bare truth. It was never his intention, but it is the result and it’s so unexpectedly
haunting. Jungkook has never known how to deal with such human guilt.

Taehyung’s face contorts, his brows narrowing together, his expression grows pained again, so
similar to how he was looking that night, and Jungkook can barely stand to look at him, but it’s
harder for him to speak to him with words, so he tries to do it with his eyes.

“Why then?” Taehyung asks, a vulnerability seeping through as his voice drops. He has been
asking himself that again and again for days, he has lost sleep over it, zoned out because of it,
pressed his forehead to the shower wall, squeezed his eyes shut and ran cold water over himself to
drive it out of his mind, then hot water, scorching water, burn it away from his skin, but he can’t.
It’s almost all he can think about, because there must be a reason. “Why did you do it then?”
“For the both of us,” Jungkook says once, loud and quick this time as it tears out of him with a
small step forward that he charges. He presses fingers into his own chest, his eyes darting all
across Taehyung’s face, trying to convince him. “You and I,” he begins, head shaking, “we’re
getting too deep into,” he hesitates, “into that,”he says, into each other, he means, but he cannot
speak it aloud and he sees the miniscule change in Taehyung’s face when he calls them a that. “I
thought—” his hands drop, loose by his body. Everything he had planned that he wanted to say to
him slips from his mind. He has so much to say, and suddenly, forgets what he meant to promise
and what he meant to explain. When he speaks, he’s begrudgingly settling for words, “I didn’t want
anyone to dosomething to you.”

Taehyung blinks. Taehyung almost wants to laugh. He stares and hardly manages to process what
Jungkook tries to imply when the breath of disbelief has escaped his mouth, following an almost
offended scoff. “Do you actually believe this?” he asks, because he himself does not trust his ears,
half expects Jungkook to suddenly erupt in laughter and tell him it’s all a big joke, but his eyes still
hold that unbearable genuineness, still dart all over him as if they’re speaking to him. Taehyung
talks brusquely as the realization settles, “You actually fucking think you did this in any way for
me?”

Jungkook’s mouth drops open, and he’s about to confess to him that yes, it was Taehyung running
through his head through all of this, every single moment, and he still is, but he can’t because
Taehyung interrupts.

Because Taehyung still hears Ji-woo’s words, still knows there is a cold, harsh truth to them. Jeon
Jungkook has too much to lose to be with Kim Taehyung. “You did this for yourself,” Taehyung
steps forward and his face twists almost ugly, every feature narrowing as his eyes try to squeeze
together to stay dry and he’s digging a finger in his chest. “Yourself, yourself, yourself,” he says it
as if it’s a curse, and Jungkook simply takes it, lets that digit dig repeated and rapid into him until
the hand it stretches from folds and a fist rests exhaustedly against him, Taehyung’s face relaxing.
He speaks much calmer, but somehow Jungkook feels it more striking and sharper than that finger.
“And you did this to hurt me.”

Jungkook shakes his head. No, he didn’t. He fucking didn’t. His hand wraps around Taehyung’s
wrist, the one that almost presses into his chest. He clings onto him and Taehyung lets him even if
the skin burns. “I didn’t,” he implores with his eyes now, but his words remain unfailingly hesitant.
They trap in his throat once, stumble on his tongue before they fall, and they are so frustratingly
unsatisfactory even to his own ears. “I didn’t know another way to—to keep you away.”

He feels Taehyung’s fist clench tighter against him. “To keep me away?” it slips from him
incredulous as he stares with painful eyes. “So,” he rips his hand from Jungkook’s hold and presses
it to his hip, wipes his wrist into the fabric there to clean the memory of the touch from the way his
skin pulses. His head cocks, and he speaks bitter, “to sum up, you did this to me cause you don’t
want me around, but you’re too fucking horny to stay away from me yourself?”
His brows raise and his eyes and tongue feel to Jungkook like prickly daggers. He has had
Taehyung angry so many times, but it’s so different when he mixes it with hurt. It still spills from
him in waves, his animosity is wounded and Jungkook swallows his own words, because they
sound stupid in his mouth.

“You’re cruel,” Taehyung tells him, still speaks with that icy calmness that tells Jungkook he
believes in what he says, “you’re a cruel person.”

And he tries to leave. There is something very conclusive about his last statement, so simple and so
true. He’s cruel to Taehyung, and he’s cruel to himself. Taehyung’s attempt to side step him and
leave, again, and he hasn’t properly seen him in so long, hasn’t touched him at all, triggers
something not entirely conscious and he spins with him, and just as Taehyung opens the door, he
slams it shut. He presses his hands around him, essentially traps him against that door, but keeps
his distance, and the other keeps his back to him.

If that’s all he deserves, Jungkook speaks to his hair.

“Taehyung, I made a mistake,” he admits. A mistake, that’s what it fucking was. He never wanted
to do this. He never wanted to hurt him, never wanted to lose him in a way that feels so permanent
and rightful.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Taehyung tells the door. “It was a decision.” Because if Jungkook had the
mind-numbingly stupid justification that he should do this to keep Taehyung away, to end things
between them, then a decision is exactly what it was.

“I was drunk,” Jungkook says, and speaking to the back of his head is easier, because he doesn’t
lose all sense at the sight of the moisture that layers his eyes, “and on coke, I wasn’t thinking
clearly. I wouldn’t touch anyone else sober. I don’t want to.”

He’s confessing now, confessing things that he promised himself he would to him. He’s wanted to
tell him, had the urge to ever since he kissed him and told him he was his when he was inside of
him, that he doesn’t want anyone else, that he is more than enough.

But Taehyung’s head is shaking. “This means nothing to me,” he tells him, though it’s not entirely
true and he imagines how purely exhilarating it would have been to hear those words before. It still
is, but it’s not pure, it’s stained by bitterness.
Then he turns in Jungkook’s trap and his eyes are fierce again. “You know what it feels like?” he
raises his brows as he asks, laced with irony and still that inundating hurt. “Feels like you made a
fucking list of what would hurt me most and settled for the one that would feel fucking worst.” He
tells him and Jungkook wishes he would turn away again. He can barely stand to look at him.
“You did that intentionally to fucking hurt me,” he continues. His arms lift in the air and almost
touch Jungkook’s, but he’s careful. “Just to prove something? Because of a kiss?” He pauses after
he says it, because that’s it. That’s what started it, lips touching lips. Taehyung waited so long for
something so simple and when he did get it, it felt so worth it, but then Jungkook had to tear it all
apart. “What next, hm?” Taehyung’s arms fold now and he steps towards him. “Say you do want
me,” he begins as if it is hypothetical when Jungkook has never been more regretfully sure. “Say I
want you back,” he continues as if it is hypothetical when he has never been more regretfully sure.
Taehyung shrugs and his shoulders fall from it, brusque. “What are you going to do if you
accidentally laugh at a joke I make?” his head cocks. “Dig up my mom’s body so that you can fuck
her?”

Jungkook’s arms drop from around him, and he’s stepping back, running a hand through his hair.
“It wasn’t just the kiss, Tae.” He tells him first. “That wasn’t a kiss,”he tells him next, head
shaking.

And Taehyung’s voice finally raises, booms around the hallways. “What was it then, Jungkook?”
He knows it wasn’t a goddamn kiss. “What was it?” He steps forward and Jungkook steps back.
He knows what it was, to him, but he wants to hear him say it, and with the way his eyes are for a
moment he dares to hope maybe he would. “Tell me what is was.”

Taehyung is growing so frustrated again, because Jungkook cannot just hint at acknowledgment
and then back away, not when Taehyung deigns to speak to him. And a part of Taehyung is so
desperate for Jungkook to tell him, it wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just a kiss.

But he still just stares. His mouth parts and his chest lifts and it almost seems like he will speak, but
his chest recede with a heavy exhale and Taehyung no longer cares for that side of him that thinks
Jungkook’s genuine eyes deserve a chance to talk, because his lips never will.

“Fuck you,” Taehyung tells him for making him think he will actually say something that matters.
“Find someone else to experiment on your homosexuality with.” This is tiring. It’s draining and
Taehyung tries to reach for the door again, but Jungkook presses a hand in his shoulder to keep him
from facing away and drops it immediately.

“It’s not about sex,” Jungkook swears. He hates he allows Taehyung to think he is just an
experiment, a game, a bet. But it’s all his instincts force him to reduce him to. “It’s about you.”

“Me?” Taehyung repeats with a nod, two, three. “Okay,” and he faces him fully again, sardonically
challenges. “Let’s talk about me. You say you want me?” he looks right into his eyes. “How do
you want me?” As a fucktoy, Ji-woo’s words ring, that’s all he can be to him. “What do you want
from me?” To occasionally fuck him because he can’t get it up for girls. Taehyung knows he made
himself easy, he’s perfectly aware of that. “To be at your beck and call for when you want a fuck?”
Jungkook opens his mouth to speak, but Taehyung isn’t done yet. He raises his brows and then tilts
his head, elaborates harshly. “From me that is not from my sister.”

Jungkook’s lips fall shut. His voice still sounds so agonizingly raw. And Jungkook’s attempt at a
response is stifled by the unadulterated onslaught of regret that courses through him as it hits him
so suddenly that actions persevere. Sex usually doesn’t. It happens and it’s over. Meaningless
things dwindle and fade and Kim Ji-woo is meaningless to him, separated from the fact of
Taehyung and she was supposed to dwindle and fade. But she won’t. Taehyung has to live with the
memory of it, and Jungkook has to, too, because it will always be what lost him Taehyung and
Taehyung could never dwindle and fade.

And what does Jungkook want from him? What can he afford to ask of him? Nothing more than
what they already had, not now, and he remembers the storm that was his mind before he did what
he did. He’s started to forget with his obsession to undo, to take it all back, so Taehyung doesn’t
hate him. So Taehyung wants to touch him again, not even sex, just to fucking touch him without
wiping his hand afterwards as if his touch contaminates.

If anything, he did you a favor, his mind screams at him as it downs on him Jungkook won’t ask.
And maybe he did. “You know what?” Taehyung starts, chin jutting as he looks at him. “Thank
you,” he says and the other’s face twists with confusion, brows furrowing and his eyes molding
with perplexity, darting from one of Taehyung’s to the other, from one different lid to the other as
they show when they lower, hood over a soft glare, because he can’t keep them up. He’s
exhausted. “Thank you for opening my eyes I was starting to forget what you are.” Jungkook’s
brows straighten so immediate with the impact of his words, neck drawing slightly back, he’s
almost flinching, too. “You’re disgusting.”

Taehyung pulls away from the door again. He really wants to leave. He can’t do this anymore,
can’t look at him, but Jungkook’s fingers curl gently around his elbow. “Tae,” he whispers, and
with the motion of Taehyung walking forward to give himself enough room to open the door it
comes too close, to the side of his head.

Taehyung keeps his body away but turns his face to him. He’s so tired and Jungkook’s expression
is so soft and unfamiliar from this distance, but every feature that molds it is, imprinted in his
mind. “I just wanted to see you last week,” he tells him with the memory of it, of the frustration of
not even being able to see that face, of him convincing himself that Jungkook just needed time to
come to terms with it all and come back to him. “I just wanted to kiss you,” Taehyung confesses as
his eyes fall over his lips.
Jungkook’s reply is so immediate, breathy and instinctive as he moves to him. “You can kiss me,”
he exhales. Please, kiss me, he thinks, but Taehyung is taking his eyes away, lips away, face away,
looking at a nothing in the end of the hallway.

“I don’t want to anymore,” he lies, and Jungkook’s whole entire face falls. It’s a lie, because he’s
not there yet, but he will be. The goddamn permission, the offer tugs at him, because why did it
have to take this for Jungkook to so readily allow him that. Why couldn’t he just—?

Taehyung inhales sharply through his nose, moves his own hand down the length of his arm until it
chases away Jungkook’s touch and he looks at him from the corner of his eye, speaks more firmly.
“If you went through all this trouble to make me stay away from you, the least you could do is stay
away from me.”

Jungkook steps away when Taehyung’s shoulder brushes past him and he begins to spin for the
door for the nth time and he can tell he doesn’t have the energy for more, so he will let him go, he
will.

“I just—” he starts, and it dies.

Taehyung gives him his eyes for a final time. “You just what?” he asks and it’s not even bitter
anymore. Just empty.

Jungkook shakes his head, teeth sinking into his lip as he looks away, but then draws his eyes to
him again, right to his own. “It wasn’t a game and it wasn’t a bet, okay?” he promises because he
needs him to know. “It was just you, I just wanted you,” he steps back, to give him room to open
the door. “I want you,” he says it simple and short. He doesn’t know what that I want you has
become for them, what it has grown to mean. It’s the only thing they’re brave enough to confess to
each other, even if it never only means sex, hardly means sex at all.

He doesn’t expect Taehyung to stay, and he doesn’t. He blinks at him a final time and he leaves.

Jungkook spends as little time in Kai’s territory as possible, but with his absolute refusal to
elaborate on his intentions, going to his club feels necessary. He needs something to do as well,
lying around feels ironically tiring. He works out more than he ever has, previously, but Yoongi
claims he cannot find him an opponent, currently, so the best he can beat is air.

And he has a repressed compulsion to hit, hit something hard enough to make his own knuckles
bleed, but he has never been one to punch walls, and he’s not about to start now. He’d much prefer
to try to break a jaw. A bottle of Valium pills clutters in his pocket; he just likes to hear the sound.
He hasn’t taken any in the past three days, but it calms him to know he could, if it got too much, if
he wanted something to calm his nerves.

Partially, he walks into Kai’s club, so different in the daylight, with a promise to himself to remain
calm no matter how much the bastard attempts to provoke him. But there is some underlying urge
that prickles at his knuckles and he closes his fist over the bottle of pills to make them stop
cluttering with his pace, some twisted and frustrated hope Kai will give an excuse enough to swing.

He’s never punched a wall, and he’s never punched Kai. But he’s always wanted to punch Kai,
that’s the difference.

He sees him and his blood curls and sears where it moves beneath his skin, rapid in his veins. It
churns more than usual at the sight of his back as he props himself at the bar, looks down at a
folder, does goddamn paperwork to pretend he’s an upstanding member of society, because
Jungkook very desperately wants to blame him and his incessantly running mouth for the actions
he himself took, blame anything and anyone until he doesn’t have to live by the trickle of clashing
pills in his pocket to be able to sleep.

Kai hears the steps of his approach, and Kai turns. The smirk is so immediate on his self-satisfied
face that Jungkook wonders if he will even need words to trigger him to swing. He despises him
with every fiber of his being, but as soon as Jungkook thinks the word despise his shoulders slump
a tiny bit, his gait loses the underlying attack, and he wishes coke did more for memory loss
because he cannot stop replaying in his head Taehyung so clearly and firmly declaring he hates
him.

“Oi, birthday boy,” Kai drops the pen he holds and lets it roll a little on the bar as he turns fully,
gives Jungkook his full, undivided, very much patronizing attention. Jungkook feels that fucking
snake around his neck smirks and its eyes glint as much as the person on whose skin it resides so
taunting, the resemblance of their eyes striking. Kai’s head cocks as Jungkook nears him across the
empty dance floor, his tongue poking out quick and subconscious to lick at the corner where his
lips meet, that fucking tick he’s had for the past three years. “Came to make a wish?”

Jungkook stops at a reasonable enough distance, too far to sporadically hit him. He crosses his
arms, while Kai stands exposed, casual yet declaratively possessive, both elbows propped on the
bar behind him. “Came to find out what the fuck you were doing at the Ozone,” Jungkook tells
him. There was never any use in going around circles with Kai.
Kai’s smirk twitches. He tongues at the corner of his lips again. “Checking to see if anything
changed,” he says with all the cockiness akin to Jungkook, “since I’m planning on making my
return soon.”

Jungkook scoffs, a brow lifting up as he folds his arms. “You delusional now, Kai?” Every
interaction with him feels like a confrontation.

Kai huffs the shortest laughter and even that rings with condescension. “No,” he shakes his head,
“but you must be,” his head straightens now and the snake at his neck stares at Jungkook, “if you
thought you could fuck a boy and it wouldn’t reach me.”

Jungkook’s eyes drop to the floor minutely before they fix over him again. “That’s just a fucking
assumption,” he says, airy, still tries to perpetuate some laughter in his own voice, deem the
assumption ridiculous.

“Is it?” Kai’s brows perch higher on his forehead. “Then how come whenever the two of you cross
paths you suddenly disappear?” He watches Jungkook as it settles for him that Kai did some
digging, this isn’t solely based on Jungkook hitting his brother over him; he’s always had eyes
everywhere. “Bathrooms, social gatherings, yours and Julia’s back room of the Ozone,” he lists so
sure, “You’re fucking him, Jungkook.” The tongue pokes at the edge of his slow smirk. “Can’t fool
me.”

“He fucks me,” Jungkook lies. It’s the first thing he thinks to say as he watches the glint in Kai’s
cruel eyes. Taehyung may be right, Jungkook is cruel, but Kai is Kai. “I’m the one who takes it up
the ass,” he emphasizes, “so if you have anything to do, do it to me.”

Kai shakes his head. “I couldn’t give less of a shit about your sexual orientation,” he pushes off the
bar, steps towards Jungkook with a wide gait that is almost playful, makes himself all the more
comfortable and probable to hit. “But I bet your daddy does,” he smirks so wide, cocks his head
again. “So, if you don’t want him knowing his son is a goddamn pillow biter, and for a Kim
nonetheless,” Jungkook presses his teeth together, clenches them as he strives to perpetuate the
indifference on his face, “I would like you to undo those strings you pulled, so I can sell in the
Ozone again.”

Jungkook watches that tongue poke out to the corner of his lips and his own mirrors, coats the
surfaces of his own, as he considers. “Okay,” he says, and Kai’s brows strike up again, a small
surprise, but there is no other way out of him, and Clo and Yoongi find ways to buy off of him,
anyway. “Okay,” Jungkook repeats. “No roofies,” he details, firm. “And just,” he hesitates, hates
he would do it in front of someone like Kai, “keep himout of it.” He worries how much of a risk it
is posing specifically that instruction, as he knows the way Kai works, will probably focus exactly
onthat, but the two of them for the lack of any other civility have always been good with terms and
conditions. “We’re not like that anymore, so there’s no point getting him involved.”

He almost hits him then and there. “Aww,” Kai prolongs, a feigned expression of compassion
coating all the features around the smug curve of his lips,“did your boyfriend break up with you,
Jungkookie?” he speaks as if he’s talking to a child that just lost its toy, sickly sweet. “And right
before your birthday.” He straightens his head just to cock it to the other side. “Hmm,” it vibrates
from his chest and Jungkook is so aware he won’t like the next ounce of shit that leaves his mouth,
“Does that mean he’s free now?”

He doesn’t want to be too defensive, he doesn’t because it can potentially simply make him a
target, but with aggression Jungkook is impulsive and he’s taking a step forward that by itself is a
warning, his arms unfolding and a finger in Kai’s face. “If you fucking—” he grits out, but Kai
interjects.

“Relax,” he drawls. “I don’t bend over for anyone,” he tells him and Jungkook wonders if he
sounds like that much of a piece of shit from the side. Kai purses his lips, looks up as if in some
deep, important thought. “Though if I can get him to spread them…” he trails and Jungkook wants
to bash his face onto the surface of his won

He nearly grows, but it’s has its residual hints of being measured, from when Jungkook knew what
composure was, “Kai.”

“He looked quite pretty that night in the Ozone.”

Jungkook takes another step and he’s in his face. “If you wanna get back in there,” he close to
seethes, “Stay the fuck away from him.” He darts his eyes across his expression, notices the snake
shift with his swallow. If Kai pisses him off, he stands no chance against Jungkook, physically. He
has no concept of technique and with no weapons lying around, he’d give him a pounding harder
than any of those he’s given to Taehyung. He adds, “And from Clo.”

Kai’s mouth thins as he studies the rancor from so close. It takes him a moment, but speaks again,
just firm now, any teasing mockery escapes him, and he speaks like Jeon Jungkook is meant to be
spoken to. He speaks carefully. “I’m the one making the ultimatums, Jungkook,” he tells him and
himself. “You have nothing over me right now.” His tongue darts, pokes into the corner of his lips.
“And it pisses you off that you can’t add Yoongi to that instruction, doesn’t it?” He twists his
voice, his words, but Jungkook’s face remains reticent, safe for his continuously tightened jaw.
“Because I don’t need to go to Yoongi. He comes to me.”He speaks with enmity now, and
Jungkook knows if Kai drops the tone of the taunt, he’s nervous.“Bet I can get the same treatment
from that pretty twink.”
Nothing over me, he says, and Jungkook wants to fucking laugh. He edges closer. “Stay away from
him,” he commands, because Kai does not deserve to as much as look in Taehyung’s direction, let
alone call him a name. “Because no matter who you tell about who I fuck, nothing’s gonna change
the fact, you, me and Namjoon all know it was your product with which those girls were roofied.”

It wasn’t him who did it, Jungkook knows that, Namjoon knows that, and Kai knows it, too, but all
the evidence would point to him.

Kai’s eyes narrow. “I fall, you fall.”

Their gazes cross so similar in nature. Jungkook speaks to him slow and deep. He pronounces
every word so clear and chilling. “You can sell again in the Ozone, but if you go anywhere near
him or my sister and that includes fucking calling her, Byung Chul learns what happened to his
daughter.” He pulls away, walks backwards as Kai glares after him. “Namjoon may not be here,”
Jungkook says finally, “but I still have his statement signed.”

He spins and gives him his back, crosses the dance floor towards the exit.

“Happy fucking birthday,” Kai yells after him and Jungkook acknowledges it with his middle
finger up.

Taehyung is there. It’s the first thing Jungkook notices when he sits in the booth. He’s late, but he’s
paying, so anyone hardly cares. Yoongi has his eyes on Hoseok whose back is pressed on his
shoulder, but has an unknown girl in his lap, her lips on his neck, so it takes him a minute to notice.
He moves his attention to him when he does see him, glancing between the edge of the booth at
which he sits and the other end which hosts his girlfriend, who had intentionally left space for him.

Her eyes are on him, too, staring straight and questionable, and when he doesn’t return the look,
she swallows, one of her lids faltering. She looks around almost awkwardly, searching for prying
eyes, to see if anyone has witnessed the humiliation of a lack of acknowledgement, before she fixes
the fallen strap of her dress and downs a shot.
Jungkook sits two people away from Yoongi, unreachable.

Someone saunters in front of him, blocks his view of Taehyung as he greets him, arms opening and
slapping his hand with his. Jungkook returns the gesture, cups his hand around the guy’s own and
squeezes, listening to his congratulations with inexpressive nods, but that’s not new.

What’s new is he doesn’t have Julia in his lap, just has his attention behind the person. Other
people greet him, but he’s dismissive, even for himself. Typically, he’d be drunk or high, or
something that makes him the least bit more agreeable to people who want to tell him cheers, to
give him a reason to drink more.

He’s sober. He has a drink in front of him just to have it, but he doesn’t sip it once, slips some of it
onto the floor that has enough liquid spilled on it to stick already.

Julia waits for him, too prideful to go to him herself in front of so many people. But he doesn’t
come. Because at one point Jimin leaves and Taehyung is solely and only with Park Bogum.

Jungkook doesn’t drink, but Taehyung almost drinks for the both of them and it shows, in the very
way he tries to dance, he smiles, but not at people, up at the ceiling, throws his head back. He
drinks more than he can pay for and Jungkook knows that feeling of when you pass too many
drinks to care, though it could never matter to him. Jungkook tugs a waiter that only works their
table by the wrist, as if he orders, and he says he’ll pay for him, for half, because Taehyung doesn’t
need to notice or to know.

Taehyung dances with Bogum, he dances against Bogum, almost dances on him, and Jungkook
knows what that is, merely a distraction, but still it gets to him, bothers him, because he doesn’t
know how distracted Taehyung is willing to get, what extents he would go to, especially when his
judgement is clouded, because he drinks, and he keeps drinking, and Jungkook doesn’t like the
decisions people make on substances. He hates them.

Taehyung has not looked at him once that night, until he does, and it all stops. He stills.

Taehyung has grown used to not seeing Jungkook in the Ozone. He hasn’t been there in so long.
But then he’s there and he looks at him, once, on a whim, and he finds it so hard to look away.
Intoxication, he kept thinking, would make it easier, but it doesn’t. It’s supposed to make it all
blurry, and make it spin, and it does, but that holds true for everything except Jeon Jungkook’s
face.
He stops dancing and their eyes lock and it’s such a tiny moment in time, so far from enough, when
Bogum leans and says something in his ear, and Taehyung rips his gaze away. Whatever Bogum
asks, Taehyung nods, and he takes him by the fucking hand, and they start making their way
through the people, leaving their glasses on the bar top.

Jungkook’s eyes trail helpless and unbidden after them, sealed onto the back of Taehyung’s head.
His hand tightens around his glass, fingers squeezing around it hard enough for him to worry the
crystal will snap. He begs himself to look away, he wants to look away. Taehyung wants him to
stay away, and he should, that was the purpose of all of this, free them of each other, but he doesn’t
want to, and Bogum is taking him to the fucking bathroom and Jungkook is on his feet.

He reaches easier than them, quicker than them.

They’re talking when he opens the door, but stop when he comes in. They face each other propped
against the dark marbled counters of the sinks, where Taehyung’s hips pressed that first time
Jungkook touched him, when they were there because of Bogum again, when Taehyung had told
him he didn’t want him. It’s still true, Jungkook knows, it must be.

He is too close to him.

Taehyung turns half his body to look, his legs losing footing for a mere moment and Jungkook
almost reaches to straighten him, but Bogum has his arm on his shoulder first, quick, because of
how close he stands.

“Jungkook?” Taehyung’s brows furrow. For a moment he had thought he had imagined him, but
there he fucking is. Always is everywhere, except when he wants him there, then he’s not, he’s
only in his mind, inebriating him more than all the alcohol he consumed tonight.

Bogum’s eyes fix on him as well, narrow, but Jungkook drops the door shut. He ignores him, steps
towards Taehyung.

“Taehyung,” he speaks. He’s never been sober in this bathroom. It seems so fucking bright. “Can I
talk to you?”

Taehyung shifts to fold his arms and Jungkook wants to thank him because it almost
inconspicuously shakes Bogum’s hand off of him. “Oh?” he’s bitter again, there’s something brave
and full in his chest as he glares at him now. “Cause our last excuse of a conversation went so
well?” he bites sardonic.

Jungkook shakes his head, taking another step, and he’s almost as close now, because Taehyung is
moving away from Bogum as well, his body spinning to line his chest with Jungkook’s and it’s so
obviously unconscious, and the very fact of it sparks things in Jungkook he cannot explain, nor
define. “Just for a few minutes, Tae,” he promises.

Taehyung’s mouth parts, but another voice sounds. “Taehyung,” and two heads snap to Bogum.
Just like Jungkook hadn’t been looking at Bogum, he has his eyes reserved for Taehyung. “Don’t
fucking go.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow at him. “He’s drunk,” he states, loud and short.

Bogum’s attention turns to him slow and he speaks, empathic. “Exactly,” his teeth sound with it.

Jungkook wants to scoff. “Yes, exactly.” His body angles away from Taehyung, he gives his
shoulder to his chest and faces Bogum, the other almost remaining behind his back. “So keep your
fucking hands off of him.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung tries, and it almost gives him shivers, how close to his nape his voice
sounds.

Some guy none of them recognizes comes in and as he opens the door the music sounds louder. He
pays attention only to the urinal which he stumbles to.

Bogum doesn’t care. “Why don’t you look after your girlfriend?” he speaks through the sound of
the guy undoing his zip. “He is not yours.”

Jungkook eyes the guy briefly, before his glare returns hostile on Bogum. He doesn’t care either.
“You wanna take advantage,” he mocks, cruel, through the sound of the guy pissing, “be his
fucking rebound?” Jungkook stresses the word spiting, because he cannot let anyone in this room
even the guy who pisses out an ocean believe that Bogum could be anything else to Taehyung.

The guy zips his pants up. He leaves in the middle of Bogum’s brave, stupid declaration. “I want to
treat him right.”
Jungkook scoffs, his shoulders shaking with the exhale of laughter the sound of it constitutes and
he steps forward again, Taehyung remaining completely behind his back. “You’re not treating him
any way cause you’re not fucking touching him.”

“That’s his choice,” Bogum says quick.

“And he doesn’t want you,” Jungkook says quicker.

Bogum’s brows lift. “Oh yeah?” He challenges. “And he wants you?” He asks with such self-
satisfied irony, and Jungkook supposes he deserves it, but it makes him angry.

Mostly he’s angry a week ago he could have easily said, yes, he wants him, Taehyung wants him
back. But he lost the privilege of doing that. He can’t have him anymore. It’s a realization that rises
in his mind and blood and chest several times a day, but now he has to glare at the face of man who
is allowed to touch him when it swallows him, and Jungkook’s seething, “You really have no
mercy for your own fucking face, do you?” He takes a step forward, threatening, and he didn’t
make his knuckles bleed on Kai’s skull, but maybe he will on Bogum’s.

“Jungkook,” he hears Taehyung’s voice. He feels his hand, the touch on his shoulder so tentative,
but the sensation of it extends and runs down the line of his spine. The muscles of his back tighten
under the light brush of fingers, shoulders curling back, arching into it so instinctively. “Stop.”

Jungkook knows no matter what he says aloud, he won’t make his knuckles bleed on Bogum’s
skull, not with Taehyung behind him.

“How is he any of your business?” Bogum’s still speaking, still demanding.

“He’s my business,” Jungkook begins and to his sense, it needs no continuation, full stop,
Taehyung is his business, Taehyung is his, but that’s stupid, that’s wrong. Taehyung can barely
stand to look at him. So, he finishes,“if you’re taking him to a fucking bathroom when he’s drunk.”

Bogum’s chest fills with a short laughter. “You’re such a saint, aren’t you?”

Jungkook’s head twitches in one direction as he clicks his tongue. “Never said I was,” he says, “but
I bet it’s all that’s running through your do-gooder head.” He tilts his head back, gives him the
sharp angle of his chin as he stares at him with all the disdain of a Jeon. “You really wanted to save
him from me, didn’t you? Play fucking hero.”

Taehyung’s fingers tighten on him, fold over in the fabric of his shirt and it is an actual touch. He
tenses. He cannot believe how quick he’s redeveloped this unbearable sensitivity to Taehyung, but
maybe he was never used to the exhilaration of having his hands on him. He simply knows to
appreciate it more now. “Jungkook.”

The other is pausing this time, his eyes narrow more, Jungkook struck a nerve, but he won’t
acknowledge it, and they all know it.“He didn’t need me,” Bogum shakes his head. “He’s come to
his senses, I hear.”

“Come to his senses?” Jungkook’s next step is instinctive, but he only manages half of it before
Taehyung’s hand squeezes indicatively and he draws back again. “Try me more,” he dares, “I beg
you.”

Bogum’s chin juts, but his fingers are twitching, his eyes darting to the hand on Jungkook’s
shoulder. “Your fist your only argument?”

Jungkook shakes his head. “No,” he tells him, “But I don’t owe you anything else.”

Bogum takes a step forward, too and a part of Jungkook feels like he wants to make him hit him,
here, in front of Taehyung, but whatever he means to say, or do, is cut off, falls short. “Jungkook,”
Taehyung’s voice sounds firm from behind him. “I’ll come.”

Jungkook spins just as Bogum tries to catch a glimpse of him, bending to the side.

“What?”

“What?”

Taehyung’s hand drops from his shoulder when he has his attention now on him, eyes immediately
losing the power of their glare and widening soft and wonderous as they find his face, as they
search for his own. Taehyung awards him that, glances at him, but his own eyes are hard. “This is
your fucking birthday present,” he tells him, and Jungkook’s heart feels like it skips a beat. He
knows.He cares. Jungkook’s chest expands with something indecipherable and he can say nothing,
just darts his eyes across his face. His mouth opens to release whatever it is that fills his chest like
this and the shape his lips form as they part are almost a smile.

But Taehyung takes his eyes away so quick. He turns to Bogum. “I’ll see what he wants, and I’ll
come back,” he tells him over Jungkook’s shoulder, and Bogum hesitates, but nods.

Jungkook’s chest empties as sudden as it had filled. There is some striking deflation in the
understanding between them. Because it is supposed to be him and Taehyung understanding each
other over protective shoulders, them against people, against his dad, against Bogum, against his
friends, against his sister, Taehyung’s sister.

Taehyung’s fucking sister.

“Where?” Taehyung asks him, but he never returns his eyes to his.

Jungkook’s tongue pokes in his cheek. “The room,” he says.

They walk towards it almost separately with the distance Taehyung keeps.

They’ve been in that room twice before this. They’ve had sex on that couch Jungkook stands closer
to as Taehyung stills almost at the door.

He looks at him and he speaks, short and firm. He has his eyes on him, but they are clouded over
by the glisten of alcohol, pupils dilated before they can accustom to the lightness of the room
compared to the darkness of the Ozone. “What do you want?” Taehyung asks.

Jungkook’s teeth fall over his lower lip, chew into it. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead, just
didn’t want Taehyung drunk with Bogum in the bathroom of a club, not today, not on his birthday
and not so soon. He wants to be the type of person to allow Taehyung to move on, but he isn’t, not
yet and not like this, not rebounding at the first chance he gets with someone who has been hitting
on him for a while, someone who previously kissed him, and who works with him. Not while
Jungkook’s watching.

“Just—” He begins, and he steps forward. His voice has lost the animosity of speaking to Bogum
and it rings almost vulnerable with the edge of hesitance that coats it. “Not him,” he says gingerly,
“just not in front of me,” he continues because he doesn’t want to ask him to never be with anyone
else, no matter how much he doesn’t want him to be with anyone else.

But it’s wrong. He phrases it so wrong, because it makes Taehyung’s blood boil. His nostrils flare
and his eyes widen so much, he’s never seen rage form so quickly on his face, but he’s drunk,
inhibitions lowered, and the feeling simply overtakes.

“Are you fucking serious?” He says and it is on a border of a hiss and a yell. “Not in front of you,”
his voice is offended and scathing, and so is his face, features narrow with animated disgust, lines
of it creasing and it’s agonizing to merely look.“You fucked my sister, Jungkook,” he pronounces
so loud and so clear and Jungkook almost takes a step back from how he sounds. “In my house,
while I was there, while I listened.” Taehyung takes a step forward this time, the contortion of his
face relaxing, but it doesn’t make his expression easier to look at – it’s still a concoction of
emotion. “You don’t have the right to ask me that. You don’t have the right to ask me anything,”
he exhales.

Jungkook has words in his throat, but they can’t reach his tongue and lips no matter how much
time Taehyung gives him, staring at him with a challenging expectation. This is the part where
Jungkook defends himself. But he has nothing to say in his defense.

Taehyung looks away with a breath that he swallows before he returns his eyes to him, as
punishing as before if not even more. “It’s fucking pathetic you saying this, you know?” the words
tumble out of his mouth with the hurried slur of alcohol. He takes another step forward. “Because
how would it have been it was fucking reversed, hm?” He’s walking still, so slow, but sure, he’s
getting closer, his eyes are getting closer and they are worse from such a proximity. He can see the
glint in them like this. “Would you have enjoyed it if I’d let him pound me as hard as you pounded
my sister?” Taehyung bites with teeth clashing awkwardly together and Jungkook replaces his gaze
to the floor, “Would you have wanted to listen to it? Listen to me say his name, while he says
mine?”

He has to stifle a flinch. “Stop,” he begs. He doesn’t want to imagine it, it makes his skin crawl.

And Taehyung listened.

“You want me to stop?” his voice trembles, and it sounds wet, somehow. He steps forward some
more and leans, tries to catch Jungkook’s eyes, because he wants to look at them, needs to. They
are as petrifying as always, but the quality of it is different. It’s naked and it invigorates him to
speak more. “You think I didn’t want you to stop when I could hear you breathing while you were
with her?”
Jungkook’s head snaps up and he gives him the eyes he asks for and he’s closer than expected. “It
wasn’t about her,” he promises. That wasn’t sex, it was nothing, not like it would be for Taehyung
if he was with Bogum. “There wasn’t a moment that was for her.” He searches his face, and he
strives to gather his thoughts, explain, because he doubts Taehyung would give another chance,
he’s having a second one already, and he’s failing. He didn’t even deserve one.

“Yeah?” Taehyung snaps. “Let’s break even, then. I’ll fuck your sister.” He claps his hands
together. “No, better yet let’s get Clo Eun a strap on, let her do me up the ass. You can watch. I’ll
pay for the fucking popcorn.”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook says, pauses. He struggles, “If someone found out—"

“What?” Taehyung’s teeth clasp and Jungkook hears it even with the dull sound of the music with
how close he is. “If someone found out what?” He darts his eyes between his, from the right to the
left. “They’d beat the shit out of me?” he raises his brows, his shoulders, then he lets them fall,
slump. “I’d take it,” he tells him, he means it. “Any fucking day I’d take it over what you did.”

Getting hit lasts moments. Physical pain is fucking child play. Taehyung steps away from him. He
paces. His eyes sting again, because he’sthinking again, he’s reminded again. And that’s exactly
why he’d prefer a pipe to his own head than this. He doesn’t know how long this will last. It will
stop, at some point, it has to, but not yet. It’s still so raw and poignant, still makes him almost
physically ill, and he’s so desperate to feel something else, anything that isn’t this somehow hollow
pain, a deflation that makes him feel as if his organs have evaporated and he’s empty inside, and he
doesn’t know if he can be full again. He hates how much it just forces into his mind an idea of
pointlessness, because he was never one to consciously look for a point, in anything, just wanted to
keep going, make his little brother happy. He never had a point, so he doesn’t understand why it
feels like he lost it. It’s numb. And numbness never felt so overwhelming.

“You know what?” he says into Jungkook’s blatant inability to answer as he pauses in his gait and
turns to him. “Hit me.”

Jungkook’s eyes fly to him. “What?” he asks blankly. He blinks.

“Come on.” Taehyung is moving towards him again. “Hit me,” he challenges and his lips curl back
with it, bare his teeth. “I’m a homo, aren’t I?” His head cocks, eyes are destructive. He starts with
such irony, “I have feelings for you,” he licks his lips with it as he says it and Jungkook wants to
look away from him, but he can’t; he wants to hear him say it again, but he doesn’t want to hear
him say it like that, “and that makes me a homo and your dad would want you to beat me up,
right?” his brows perch up. Then he’s nearly yelling. “Be a good boy, do as your fucking dad
wants, as Kai would want, and Yoongi and all your fucking friends.”
Jungkook can just look, he can hardly speak. He shakes his head. He won’t hit him, he’d never hit
him.

“That’s why you did it, right?” He leans his body to the side with his next harrowing step. He can
almost feel him breathe now. “You were scared they were going to hurt me, so you protected me.”
He twists the word so much, forces it to sound as ridiculous in Jungkook’s ears as it feels to him.
His next sentence, so loud and clear and almost sober makes Jungkook flinch. “Why’d you have to
rip my heart out while you were fucking at it?”

Jungkook shakes his head again. He didn’t mean to do that, he never wanted to do that. He can’t
believe he did that. He never wants to see his face like this, eyes like this, hear his voice twist and
break like this.

“Hit me,” Taehyung steps forward when Jungkook says nothing, pushes at his chest. He’s saying
nothing, and Taehyung has never wanted to provoke anyone more, anything more. He just wants to
feel something different than this and he wants to hate Jungkook more. He doesn’t want to feel
anything else when he looks into his eyes and sees the shakes of his head. Just blind hatred. “Come
on,” he pushes at him again, “I’m not a girl just hit me,” he begs, “hit me like you want to hit your
dad but you never will cause you don’t have the balls.”

At his next push, Jungkook has his wrists in his hands, he pulls him against him. “I don’t want to
fucking hit you,” he grinds out, forcing his eyes on his because if he can’t trust his words it’s all he
has left.

Taehyung stops. He stares back at him and stops. For a moment he looks at him like he always did,
vulnerable and wondrous, darting his eyes all over his face, like he’s seeing him for the first time
now and never wants to stop seeing. His mouth parts with small exhales of heavy breaths that make
his chest rise and fall uneven. And for a fleeting moment Jungkook allows himself to think maybe
it’s over. Maybe Taehyung will hear him, maybe he’ll forgive him.

But then his eyes narrow. “Well fuck me then,” he says with that same torturous voice and
Jungkook’s blood runs cold. “That’s what you want, don’t you? To fuck me?” he asks sharp and
takes a step forward and Jungkook has to take one back.

“Tae—”

“You fucked me,” Taehyung enunciates, and it pierces right through Jungkook. “Fucked me over
real good, you want to keep at it? Come on then, fuck me, fuck me better.” He keeps getting nearer
closer, voice taunting, and Jungkook recognizes a bit of himself in it, sans the underlying trigger of
clouding emotion. “It’s why you brought me here last time.” With the last pace, Jungkook loses
footing, falls back onto the couch, the exact couch he fucked him on.

He looks up at him as Taehyung towers over. “It’s not about this.”

He’s drunk, Jungkook thinks. He’s drunk and he doesn’t mean any of this and he isn’t like this.
This is not Taehyung.

“Not about this?” he leers, mouth contorting, and he stands between his legs. “What is it about
then, Jungkook?” his head cocks. “You want my mouth, is that it? I keep forgetting I’m just a
warm mouth for you to fuck, isn’t that what you said at the hotel?” His voice spirals to
unrecognizable dimensions for him. He sounds so different. He’s drunk. Jungkook thinks.

But that’s not it. It’s not alcohol. It’s hurt. It’s pure, unadulterated hurt that makes him like this,
that changes him like this, and it’s all Jungkook’s fucking fault.

At the hotel, he says, so long ago. Jungkook’s almost forgotten he ever said this because he can’t
even imagine meaning it, but Taehyung hasn’t, and Taehyung won’t. How many times did
Jungkook hurt him and not fucking notice? Something in his stomach twists. How did this happen?
His own mind screams, how the fuck did this happen? Why does it hurt so much that hehurts?

Taehyung is bold when he’s hurt. He props one knee at the side of Jungkook’s thigh, tilts his chin
down with his head tilted and he’s almost pouting in a pretense, but his eyes are still traitorously
harsh. “Won’t you fuck me, Kook, hm?”

Jungkook closes his legs slightly, pulls his thigh away from the pressure Taehyung’s own slightly
applies, because it burns too much even through clothing. He swallows something bitter on his
tongue before he shakes his head. “No,” he says.

He’d never touch him when he’s so drunk and hurt and drunk on hurt.

“Why not?” Taehyung says and then his other knee is on the couch and he’s lowering himself on
Jungkook. “You can take me raw,” he tells him in a rough exhale, borderline salacious, as he
moves into him slowly, his face still towering, but now from so close. He stares at the mole on his
nose. “I never fucked anyone but you,” he says stronger, more angry than sexual, more honest, and
his lips are almost at his mouth.

Jungkook presses his back into the couch, tries to pull away, look at the side, but Taehyung lifts his
hand up, presses it into his jaw and cheek and makes him face him. “Tae—" he tries, but his breath
stirs and halts when Taehyung leans to the side of his head he’s not touching, and he hovers his
lips over his jaw.

“What?” he breathes onto his skin before he presses his lips onto there firmer, almost a kiss, but he
doesn’t move them like this, doesn’t apply pressure, just parts them and mouths gingerly over him.

Jungkook can’t breathe and Taehyung’s moving his body forward, pressing onto him until they’re
flush, until he’s on him. He settles over him, but doesn’t still his hips, still adjusts and it teases into
Jungkook. His teeth ghost over the skin of his neck, just under his jaw, press there gently.

Jungkook’s hands find his hips and squeeze in warning. “Get off me, Tae,” he says, tries to be
firm, but Taehyung moves and his voice strains.

“Why?” He straightens from the ministrations on his neck, gazes down into his eyes again and the
torture of it is so much worse than the touch of his lips, those same lips that now almost brush
against his, while his thumb glides softly over his cheek and his jaw. He whispers right into his
mouth, “I thought you said you wanted me.”

The discrepancy between the way he touches him so sensually and gently and the intent of what he
says and what he does is almost unrecognizable in Taehyung. It’s almost cruel, and Taehyung isn’t
this.

This shouldn’t be like this, Jungkook thinks.

He says it. “Not like this,” he whispers back into his mouth with a shake of his head, his eyes
falling over his lips briefly as they breathe into him. He doesn’t know which exhale is his and
which is Taehyung’s.

“Not like this?” Taehyung moves, his body grinds, and Jungkook’s fingers squeeze into him to try
to keep him still. “Didn’t know there was another way?” he keeps talking, murmuring so intimate
and private, right into his parted mouth as he stares right into his naked eyes.
He relaxes the elbow of his free arm onto Jungkook’s shoulder, curls the forearm back on the line
of his back, traps him like this and angles his lower body with a roll of it, so that Jungkook can feel
the heat of him against him.

He can’t look at him, but he’s too close to look away from, so he closes his eyes. “No,” he says and
feels those pressureless lips against the muttered word.

“No?” Taehyung asks, lower body still moving, rotating into him lewd and rude and Jungkook can
hardly think. “You want to,” Taehyung’s saying and it’s getting almost whiny against his mouth,
his brows furrowing as he presses himself firmer and digs his fingers into the skin of his cheek. “I
can feel you, you’re getting hard for me,” he says it with a whimper, his voice thinning and
reaching higher, as if he himself is turned on, as if he himself is desperate for something.

It’s true. He’s not hard, yet, but his body is starting to react, always reacts to Taehyung. But there
is nothing sexual about this, not a bit of it has to do with sex, not for him and not for Taehyung
either. Because this is not an advance, it’s an attack.

A part of Taehyung expects Jungkook to flip him on that couch and fuck him like he asks him to. A
part of him needs it, needs it because nothing will perpetuate his hate towards him more than that.
He wants Jungkook to take advantage of this, of him, prove him for once and for all he is a piece of
shit and this is all just sex.

But he doesn’t. He opens his eyes, looks straight at him and he says, “No.”

Taehyung’s teeth press together. “Come on, Jeon,” he dares, he challenges. His fingers release his
face, and his hand is wrapping around Jungkook’s own, squeezing against it and bringing it back,
pressing the palm into his ass and layering his own over it. “I’m horny and I want you to do me.”
He pulls his head back, and Jungkook almost trails his lips after his. “Isn’t that how this works?”

“You’re drunk,” Jungkook says. He can taste it on his breath, and he can see it in his eyes.

Taehyung scoffs. “You were on drugs half the time.” He moves over him again, leans forward,
presses the hand he keeps onto him harder against himself. “Fuck me,” his voice has lost all
breathy seductiveness. It’s rough, commanding and desperate in a way that is not at all sexual.

He’s just desperate because he’s losing moves, can’t think of anything else and Jungkook still says
no, still won’t give him the proof he needs that he does not deserve an ounce of his attention, never
did, that he’s just a piece of shit, and this was all just sex to him.

Jungkook tries to slide his hand from underneath and pull it away. Taehyung catches his wrist in
the air when it slips from underneath his palm and clings onto it there. “You’ll regret it,”
Jungkook’s eyes dart between his.

Taehyung’s dart between his own. They narrow. He’s speaking harder again, honest again. He’s
speaking with the rawness of hurt again as his face twists. “Like you didn’t fucking regret it every
time you touched me,” he almost spits it with the way he says it so sharply.

He lets his arm loose and then Jungkook is the one catching his wrist, holding their hands together
in the air around his body.

“I don’t,” Jungkook speaks before he thinks; it’s an instinct, telling him this. “I don’t regret you.”

Taehyung stills in his lap, and for the second time that night he actually recognizes Taehyung’s
eyes when they look down at him. For a moment they just stare at each other with only the sound
of the dull music and their breathing filling the room. For the second time Jungkook thinks maybe
he’ll be allowed to say more.

For the second time it’s gone in a flash.

Taehyung charges again, moves again. “Get your fingers inside of me then,” he speaks in his neck.
Taehyung’s lips are there again, coating over a vein, with his teeth and his tongue, because he can’t
look at Jungkook’s lying eyes anymore. They’re soft and open, and he simply can’t.

“No, Tae.” Jungkook holds their hands firm in the air when Taehyung tried to push them back
towards himself. He’s still stronger than him, physically, though he feels so incredibly weak in that
moment.

“Why not?” Taehyung’s teeth nip at the skin of his neck. “Come on. We can do it without your
fingers if you want, tear me open why don’t you?” He pecks at a vein. “Bet it’ll hurt.” His body
moves so familiar into him. “Want you to hurt me, Kook,” he exhales. “Isn’t that what you want as
well?”

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head and Taehyung’s lips fall away. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Never
again. He never wants to hurt him again.

Taehyung pulls his head up from the crevice of his neck, pulls it in a motion that allows his breath
to layer over the skin of his jaw and cheek and lips. He’s so close once more. “You won’t fuck
me?” he asks and it’s softer. It’s calmer. It doesn’t seem as much as a challenge, just a question.

Jungkook swallows down nothing. He answers with the same loss of vigor, shakes his head slow
and gentle, tells him as softly, “No.”

Taehyung’s tongue layers over his bottom lip as his lids lower, pupils flashing towards Jungkook’s
mouth. He heaves a breath, lets it out, and darts his eyes upwards again, meet Jungkook’s, which
just wait for his patiently. Taehyung swallows, too, gulps. He adjusts on his lap, sits back, thighs
on thighs, leaves room between them. He heaves a breath and with the end of it he asks, “Would
you kiss me?”

Jungkook pauses, for a moment even his chest stills in the wake of his breath. He stares at him,
tries to see what this is, if this is a game, but Taehyung’s brows just furrow on his forehead and his
eyes just glitter so pretty, so hesitant as they glance between his mouth and his own gaze, not the
boldness from before. So Jungkook can’t reject him now, not for this. He breathes, “Yes.”

Taehyung’s lids flutter as he stares down and there is a moment, two, of just that, just staring. Then
Taehyung bents down and kisses him, kisses him like he wished to be kissed all those times.

He presses his lips onto Jungkook’s, settles his upper one between his and applies little pressure,
only once. He waits a second, almost pulls away, then he does it again, kisses him so lightly it’s
barely a kiss. The third contact of his lips is longer, firmer, wetter and when he goes to take that
away too for another fleeting moment, Jungkook chases after, wraps his own lips against his lower
and tries to press into him quicker, firmer. It’s instinctual for him to try to take from that kiss, to
domineer into it, but as soon as his back moves forward from the couch, he loses contact
completely.

Their eyes open and meet simultaneously when Taehyung frees his hand from his own and presses
it into his chest, pushes back, separates their mouths with a wet sound. “My pace,” he whispers
against him in warning as he slides his hand up and cups it against his neck. “This is for me,”he
insists.

Jungkook stares into him, breathes as if he has run a mile and nods. Then he relaxes back onto the
couch, folds his second hand over Taehyung’s hip, too, ginger and light, and he waits.
Taehyung takes his time to lean back down. At first when he does Jungkook tries to reach forward
and he has to retract, pulls away. Their eyes study each other in a silent repeat of that same
conversation and Jungkook presses his lips together and stills against the couch. In another moment
Taehyung’s eyes flutter closed and his lips are back on him.

He kisses him so slow and experimental, as if he kisses for the very first time. He kisses him like
he deserved to be kissed all those times, and he kisses him simply for the sake of kissing. It’s
almost chaste and it’s loud, but then Taehyung breathes sharply through his nose, and his hand
tightens around Jungkook’s nape, head tilting and his mouth opens against his.

The pace almost doesn’t change. It’s faster, but it’s still slow. Jungkook’s patient, takes anything
that Taehyung gives, though his fingers tighten irreversibly on his hips when he feels his tongue
slide against his. There’s something incredibly warm about just kissing Taehyung, something that
excites the hairs on his skin, something that makes his heart race.

His face tilts, and he kisses him deeper and one of Jungkook’s hands slides slow and careful on his
back, palm open. He moves closer and they almost touch again, Taehyung’s body arching under
the palm of that hand. He kisses him with his forehead creased and his brows furrowed. It hurts to
kiss Jungkook. And it hurts to kiss Taehyung.

Taehyung wants to take from this what he deserves, want to kiss him as he’s always wanted to, but
he knows any kiss with him is all he wants. He doesn’t want him to be gentle, or chaste. He just
wants it to be him. And Taehyung hates him, he absolutely abhors him, because he wants this so
much, loves this so much, wants to be able to kiss Jungkook and touch Jungkook and be with
Jungkook, but he can’t, because he had to rip it away, take it from him.

And another wet sound separates them with that thought, Taehyung’s hand sharper and quicker this
time when he presses into him and pushes him away. He draws a distance between them this time,
a real distance, half an arm’s length and he’s saying, “Enough.”

Jungkook follows his hand without question and sits back, opens his eyes. He looks at him.

Taehyung’s eyes are so obviously searching his, but he doesn’t know he’s looking for. Neither of
them does. His voice is small when he speaks, thumb patting subconsciously over layers of
clothing and it almost makes Jungkook shiver. “Was it that hard?” His brows raise and they fall,
and he looks so utterly defeated it dishevels Jungkook in ways he didn’t know he could be. “That
was all I wanted from you,” Taehyung says, “all.” And then he shakes his head with finality,
speaks firmer, louder. “Now I want nothing.”
He feels him get up, he senses the way he starts to lift off of his thighs, and he reacts on impulse.

Jungkook’s hands settle firmer over his hips and squeezes, holds him in place, as he voices
shameless and desperate. “Tae, don’t leave.” He’d told him once, when he was patching him up in
his bathroom, he’d told him if he’d asked him to stay, he would have, so he tries it. He thought he
couldn’t. He thought they didn’t extend to this, but he’d do anything now, because he knows
Taehyung won’t give him another chance to speak. Once was a stretch, two times more than
anything he deserves. A third is a delusion, especially with how conclusive his declaration of
nothing rings in his ears.

“Itwas hard. I’m sorry, but it was one of the hardest things I ever did,” he pauses. His head shakes,
“I’m so sorry.”

Taehyung’s face relaxes and blanks. “I didn’t know you were capable of saying sorry,” he tells
him, and it strikes Jungkook that it is the first time he’s said it after what he did. He has it in his
mind so much, sorry, sorry, sorry, so fucking sorry, he never realized he never had it on his mouth.

“I am,” he says. “I’m sorry, Tae.” He thinks he’ll say it as many times as he’s willing to hear it.

He doesn’t know what he expects. What he gets is nothing. Taehyung looks away. He looks at the
ceiling. “Get your hands off of me, Jungkook.”

He hesitates, but he does. He lets him go and he watches him leave, watches him probably get
back to Bogum. Jungkook can’t watch him go back to Bogum. Jungkook doesn’t give a fuck about
his birthday. He goes home.

Taehyung doesn’t go back to Bogum. He goes to his house, his own house, where Ji-woo and
Woojin sleep. He strips himself off and turns the shower on cold. He presses his forearm onto the
tile, presses his forehead against it, screws his eyes shut and jerks himself off with his teeth
bruising his swollen lips. He falls asleep easy, he’s tired, exhausted.

Jungkook has his arms stretched over the counter top in his kitchen island and he wills himself to
do anything, to move, but he can’t. No, all he can do is think.

Because this is it. That was it. He’s not getting another chance. He lost Taehyung.

And when Jungkook gets the urge to cry, it is not only over the fact that he lost Taehyung. No, he
wants to cry about all the things that went through his life that turned him into the type of person
who would take the steps necessary to lose Taehyung. He wants to cry over all the choices he made
that resulted in this. And Jungkook has not cried sober since that one time he bit his father and he
turned on him. He has a lot of choices to regret, and not much else. He doesn’t have much else.

He doesn’t have Julia because Julia has never had him, not like she’s meant to. He loves Clo most,
but Clo probably loves Jin more, after everything they’ve been through. He certainly deserves it
more. And Clo and Jin, they’ve been through a lot, but they’ve always had a balance. Neither of
them is a perfect person. Jin used to sleep with older women and whisper to them they were
beautiful for money and Clo has always tried to nullify her own experiences at home with
substances and promiscuity. Though they have been unfair to others, they have always been fair to
each other.

Jungkook was never fair to Taehyung. Jungkook went head first into this with the belief he was
dealing with a Kim, someone who was intrinsically below him, he went into this with the firm
conviction wanting a boy, at least for him, was entirely wrong. He went into this blaming
Taehyung for being beautiful, for being enticing, for being provocative, when he was doing
virtually nothing, just being himself. He went into this playing a game. And it is not just how
Jungkook ended things that was unfair to Taehyung. Every single thing he did, from how it started,
to how it unfolded, to how it ended, none of it was what Taehyung deserves even if he himself has
been continuously walked over enough to allow it.

He doesn’t treat me like shit, he’d told him. Thank you for opening my eyes, he’d told him.
The tear rolls down half of his cheek and falls on the counter, when the door opens. For a moment
his heart races, blood sears, hand immediately pressing into his eyes to chase any moisture way, as
he spins, presses his back into the counter again. But it’s okay, it’s nothing. It’s Clo Eun.

Her own eyes are bloodshot and it’s weird she’s here, weird she wasn’t at his birthday. He never
saw her, but she doesn’t give him even half a chance to ask before she’s in front of him, hurrying,
her eyes widening.

“Jungkook,” she says, and she tries to find his eyes, concern vivid in hers, but he folds over almost,
bends his head down, looks at the floor.

“I fucked it up, Clo,” it spills out of him, quick and irrational. “I fucked up.”

Her hands are on his arms, as he lifts up his own, tries to hide his face away from her. “It’s okay,
Jungkookie,” she promises, but her voice holds a panic. She hasn’t seen him like this since they
were children. Few things hurt Jungkook. He’s spent his life making sure of that.

He just shakes his head and when he does attempt to speak, he almost chokes on the lump of his
attempting not to cry.

Clo’s fingers squeeze into his arms and she tries to find his, reassuring. “It’s not unmanly to cry,
Jungkook.”

His eyes snap up and meet hers just as bloodshot. And he takes a moment of looking at her like
this, the face of his sister, Clo Eun. He trusts so little people, but he trusts her. So, he lets it all go.
“I reckon it’s not unmanly to fuck boys either, is it?” It stings on his tongue to say it, feels awkward
when she takes her hands away from his. But she doesn’t look at him different. If there is any
surprise, it’s not at the fact of it. It’s that he’s admitting it. “It’s not unmanly to cry over boys?”

“Taehyung?” she asks, slow and hesitant. She’s careful; he’s fragile.

And there is absolutely no use in denying it. He knows she knew. “I hurt him,” he confesses, and it
tugs at something within him just to say it aloud. “I hurt him a lot. I always hurt people, but—”

“Sh,” she soothes, steps closer and wipes a tear that drips down his chin when he tries to speak so
quick and so honest. “Jungkook.” Her hand falls on his shoulder, fingers there digging a shape.
“The amount of times Jin and I have hurt each other, and we still love—”

“I fucked his sister,” he interrupts in a flash, and her mouth shuts loud and clashing. He lets it rest
between them. He says, “In his house. I made sure he heard.”

He looks down and this time it’s not to hide tears. It’s because he can’t take the way her face
changes.

“Jungkook…” she trails.

“I thought,” he’s stuttering.It’s hard to cry. He doesn’t know how to breathe and cry at the same
time. “I thought if he hated me, no one would ever find out and we’d both just get out this, scathe
free, get back to our lives, he hated me before, why couldn’t he just hate me again.” He gulps,
presses back harder against that counter top. “I wasn’t thinking,” he whispers.

Clo listens to this, listens tentative and attentive but she shakes her head. “If you expect me to
excuse this,” she tells him. “I won’t.”

She won’t. He knows she won’t, but he also knows she’ll understand, because Jungkook and Clo,
they always do this, self-sabotage at the first notion of something good and genuine in their lives,
probably because they don’t think they deserve it, probably because it feels too good to be true,
probably because they’re afraid of losing it, of it being ripped away from them, so they take it
away themselves.

“I don’t,” he shakes his head, looks at her again. “I don’t expect that from you.”

“Then you shouldn’t expect it from him either.”

He shakes his head more, faster and deeper. “I don’t,” he confesses that, too. He doesn’t expect
that from Taehyung. “I don’t think I would feel the way I feel about him if I expected him to
excuse this.”

He glances down again, stares at his feet. “I don’t deserve him,” he says in a voice so small, his
own sister barely recognizes him, “do I?”
She’s shaking her head, even if he isn’t looking. “I can’t tell you what you deserve, Kook,” she
tells him. “But he doesn’t deserve this.”

He replies quick and short, a single breath “I know.”

He stares at the marble tiles beneath his brand shoes. He doesn’t even know what fucking brand
he’s wearing today, his mother bought them for his birthday. And his head snaps up again. “Why
am I like this?” He asks her, but he also doesn’t. He just says it, gets it out from inside of him.
“Why couldn’t I just pull him to the side tell him, hey, Tae ,you know I think maybe we should be
more careful, yeah? Not just fucking...” it’s getting harder to say instead of easier. He can’t admit it
any more. “He said I ripped his heart out, he looked at me like—I couldn’t recognize him today he
was, acting like, like one of us.”

He doesn’t like to think he could have broken him, changed him. Taehyung doesn’t need to change,
he needs to stay exactly like he is.

Clo’s hand squeezes into a tense muscle of his shoulder. Every muscle in his body brims with
tension. “You always want to protect people,” she tells him; she’s been on the other end of it so
much, from that first time he bit their father’s arm, “but you never know how to do it.”

Jungkook’s sighing. His head is shaking. He knows this, but he also knows it is ridiculous of him
to think this was in any way protection. “You know,” he looks at her and his eyes are almost dry
again. “I kept thinking the world is screwing me over when it comes to him, but it’s all fucking me,
isn’t it?”

“Jungkook—”

“I’m hurting Julia as well,” he interrupts. It doesn’t matter how she tries to calm him, what she tries
to make him believe, though Jungkook and her, they’ve always been merciless with each other.

Clo sighs, too, her shoulders falling. “At least do for her what you didn’t do for him,” she offers.
“Speak to her.”

“I should,” he nods. “I should tell her.” He looks away, looks at something and nothing behind her.
“I’m not made to love her.”
Clo pauses. “You’re gay,” she says.

He adjusts on his feet, shifts, glances down at them first. “I don’t know what I am.” He tells her as
he looks up. “But I—” it traps in his throat as it tries to leave, but he clears it, fights it, and he
forces it out. “He means something to me,” he says, “He means a lot to me. And I ruined it.”

Clo’s tongue darts on her lips. She gives him a moment, hesitates, “Does he—” she’s almost
stuttering, too. She’s never seen Jungkook like that. “Does he really mean a lot?”

He looks away, stares at an unmoving clock on the wall. It’s just there because it’s pretty. “More
than I can take, apparently,” he spits bitterly, bitter at himself, angry with himself.

“Have you told him that?” she questions.

And he has to shake his head. “Never,” he tells her. “I couldn’t.”

“Stay away from him, Jungkook. If you care, just leave him alone.” She chases after his gaze for
affirmation, but he won’t let her have it, so she speaks again, draws his attention to her. “Promise
me?”

He looks now. “I will,” he nods. He sucks in a breath, releases it. His head is pulsing, and he
wishes he head valium on him, but Clo Eun is better. “I know it’s,” he glances at his fingers, “it’s
good that I pushed him away, that he won’t be around me anymore because I will just fuck him up
more. I just wish I hadn’t… done it like this,” he meets her eyes, “I just wish I hadn’t hurt him.”

To him the concept of sexual loyalty is foreign. Julia and he, they have always agreed sex with
other people means nothing, but that is no excuse, none, not even the start of an excuse. Because
he could take Julia fucking someone else, but the mere thought of Taehyung with someone else
tears him apart. He can’t imagine how it would have felt.

The notorious Jeon Jungkook never thought he could feel enough that by breaking a heart he could
break his own.

“I don’t want to be a taunting twin anymore, Clo.” He says and he reaches forward, wraps his arms
around her and hers instinctively follow. “Can we be something else?”
 “You know Jungkookie,” she pats a hand at his hair, “you’re the person in this world I love the
most, okay? We can be whatever you want. You and me.”

Jungkook pulls away, looks at her. You and me. They haven’t said that to each other in so long.

“I don’t think I deserve you either,” he confesses that, too, because he absolutely doesn’t.

“Too bad because you’ll always have me.” Her lips twist at the tips. She’s almost smiling, and he
would, too, but he doesn’t have the energy. Her own dies on her face when she looks at his
expression. She blinks. “Do you want to tell me what happened with you and him?”

He takes a moment, he needs a moment. It’s scary. It’s all so fucking scary to say aloud because it
makes it all true, and he’s just a coward, nothing more. He scares easy. But he swallows it down.
He nods, “Yes.”

And as Jungkook pours himself a glass of water before he begins to speak, she fishes her phone
briefly out of her pocket. She types a single text.

Your brother is sad.

Chapter End Notes

this is getting much more attention than I expected, so thank you all for the feedback, I
know it takes weird turns, but I never thought it would have to cater to many tastes; I
seriously advise if the tags are not for you, don't read

I still really appreciate all the feedback and support

 Chapter 19
Chapter Summary

long talks and bad things

Chapter Notes

sorry for taking so long, writer's block and being busier than usual is a bad
combination; thanks for all the support and comments, some people comment 'I don't
know if you'll see this' like I don't read every comment twice, I do and I really enjoy it

“Are you mad?” Taehyung asks, carefully twirling the straw around blocks of ice in his glass. He
doesn’t exactly want to look at Bogum behind the bar. He readjusts slightly on the barstool. He’s
never sat at Rouge as a customer before, but the only other place he can go is home, and he prefers
trying things for the first time.

“No, I’m not mad,” he tells him, preparing another drink for someone outside as Minho comes in
with orders. It’s late and few people are at Rouge at this time of the day for drinks, mostly for
food, so Taehyung is the only one sat at a barstool, which he deeply appreciates. “Don’t really
think I expected much else.” Taehyung feels his eyes on him but keeps his own on the path he
makes with the straw around the ice. “You always go to him, don’t you?”

Taehyung sighs. “That was the last time,” Taehyung says, he hopes. “I’m done with him. But
Bogum.” He blinks up this time, feels like he owes him a look in the eye. “If I am in any way with
you right now, it will probably be because of him.”

Probably, he says, to be soft on the truth. The current truth is he cannot separate kissing, touching,
fucking from Jungkook. He can’t separate feelings from Jungkook. If he lets someone touch him,
he knows if he closes his eyes, he’d probably see Jungkook’s on the back of his lids when he sinks
into darkness.

Bogum gets the plate placed at the counter through the gap leading through to the kitchen, hands it
to Minho and waits for him to be at a certain distance before he glances back at him. “Listen,
Taehyung,” He comes closer, stops right before him. “I like you, but I don’t like you enough to get
myself hurt over it, yet, okay?” His brows lift up and his eyes become searching, so Taehyung
drops his own back to the ice.
“Okay,” he says, tongue running over his lower lip. His arms cross, shoulders folding together as
he leans forward on the bar top. “I just felt you should,” he hesitates, “you should know.”

Bogum leans down, tries to seek his eyes, but Taehyung is simply too focused on that ice. “And I
just feel you should try something healthy, with a guy,” he pauses, cocks his head, and straightens
up when he realizes he won’t get the attention he subtly bargains for. “With me,” he finishes
tentatively. “Slow,” he promises.

Taehyung’s mouth parts, but he says nothing for a moment, glances at the side. He shrugs. “I don’t
know,” he shakes his head. “It’s—” he struggles. “Soon,” he settles for it, but it is not the only
reason he doesn’t want to try with Bogum. He doesn’t want to try anything with anyone right now.
He only wants to learn not to think about Jungkook.

Bogum breathes, pushes away and gets an order from Minho. “I told you he’d hurt you,” he says
without looking back at Taehyung as he does, simply starts making another drink, clinks the ice
too loud in the glass.

Taehyung’s fingers circle around his own glass. He lifts it up, drinks from its tip instead of from
the straw, throws his head back with it. It makes it easier to dawn it quicker. “Yeah,” he says
simply as slams the glass down harder than he means to.

It’s the most useless thing to hear, the most frustrating to listen to. I told you so. Taehyung didn’t
need to be told anything. He knew it perfectly well.

“How did he do it?” Bogum asks, close by as he pours a draft beer.

Taehyung’s heart does a thing, a small, striking convulsion that it does unfailingly at the memory
of what Jungkook did. He swallows it down. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” he says,
confesses. He doesn’t want to talk, think. He just wants to drink.

Someone, someone who is getting much too close speaks from the side, interjects careful but
confident in the conversation as if they have the right to. “You sure?” a woman’s voice rings and it
makes Taehyung almost flinch. He snaps his head in its direction, eyes fix over the newcomer and
the sight of it is foreign. He doesn’t think he’s seen Jeon Clo Eun in Rouge before, for whatever
reason.
“For fuck’s sake,” Taehyung’s breathing out, air trapping in his lungs minutely and angrily before
it departs from his nose and the stool shakes with his attempt to get up.

But Clo Eun is just like her brother. She has her hand on his wrist, the one he rests on the bar top to
balance himself as he stands, and she holds him indicative and bold.

“Wait,” she says, drifts her eyes to his when he turns to glare from the first look he pays to her hand
on his. “You get to set the boundaries,” she promises, voice simple and genuine. “Just for a
minute,” she says, and it grows softer with the sound of it. He blinks and she does, too, and he
looks away next, climbs back onto the stool with a nervous poke at his lips with his tongue. He
sets his gaze forward, face so pointedly pissed, and he is, he’s pissed. Because he wants nothing to
do with Jungkook and Clo Eun has everything to do with him.

She climbs on the bar stool next to him. “I’ll have what he’s having,” she nods at Bogum. “And
you can get him another one.”

Bogum glances at him with his head once again cocked, a silent question and he hesitates, but he
nods. If he’s about to speak to a Jeon, he could certainly use the encouragement of more alcohol.

Clo Eun’s knees are directed to him instead of to the bar. His bounce unstoppably. “You like him?”
she says, voice low as she juts her chin to Bogum when he moves away to make drinks.

Taehyung wants to scoff. “What,” he begins, teeth almost clanking. He speaks with an animosity
that he directs at Jungkook, not at her, and he hates how he can just tell by the way she stares at
him that there is nothing casual in her presence, her approach. He can tell she knows more than she
did last time she layered her eyes over him. So, he does not shy away from assuming, “did he send
you to find out if I’m hooking up with Bogum now or something?”

“No,” Clo Eun shakes her head. He hates how softly she speaks. Clo Eun is supposed to be cruel.
She’s supposed to be an utmost bitch. That’s what rumors have her pegged as. But Jungkook loves
her, he remembers, loves her more than anything, and maybe, maybe she isn’t. “He doesn’t know
I’m here.”

He is not necessarily skeptical of the claim, because frankly, messengers have never been
Jungkook’s style around him.
Taehyung wonders at this point, how many people know he slept with Jungkook. How many
people know, and they are okay, Taehyung has not had his skull bashed into anything. And Clo
Eun speaks as if she is much more okay than Ji-woo is. She speaks a lot calmer, a lot softer. She
speaks more careful. She doesn’t tell him he is a fuck toy.

Still, Taehyung can only border on civil with the way he speaks to her. He doesn’t want anything
Jungkook related around himself and she feels like a projection of him, sitting there with tranquil,
but calculating eyes. “What do you want then?”

Bogum places their drinks before them and lingers, but Clo Eun’s eyes shift to him, brows dart and
for a second, she does seem like the bitch he is promised. Bogum glances at Taehyung, but his own
attention remains studious at Clo Eun’s expression, her features commanding, silent and
authoritative so much alike her brother’s. Bogum steps away with a shake of his head and her
countenance relaxes, bitchiness evaporates.

She returns to him. “To see how you were,” she says, pauses. She breathes in harder and he deems
it hesitation, but her lids bat only once before she is back on him. “I know your own sister can’t be
too easy to look at right now.”

He blinks. His knees still their bouncing on the stool for the moment it takes him to breathe out,
“You know?” a surprise narrowing his brows together. Then, they’re bouncing again, bouncing
quicker. His fingers wrap around the glass again, his tongue and throat itch to drown it.

She nods. “He told me,” it somehow comes out even softer. “Everything,” she adds, and he
wonders what everything means. Wonders if she knows how Jungkook was with him the first week
of this and then how he was the last, how he refused to kiss him, and then how he refused to stop.
How he looks at him, with those eyes.

Those eyes.

Taehyung stares into hers. “You’re not too easy to look at either,” he confesses, his voice slipping
low and powerless. He loses any sign of enmity. “Your eyes are almost his,” he tells her, but the
key word is almost. She’s not him.

He blinks forward, tips his head, the glass. He drinks. No one will ever be him. “You wanted to see
how I was?” he sets the glass down and looks at her again. His knees still, this time for good. “I’m
fucking miserable,” he tells her. “You can report that to him if it makes him happy.”
She shakes her head quicker, her body inching forward, folding over to get closer to him. “That
wouldn’t make him happy, Taehyung,” she says, uses his name as if she knows him, and he
realizes it doesn’t seem that foreign leaving her mouth. He feels like he knows her as well,
vicariously through how much Jungkook has spoken of her, he senses he has the right to speak to
her by name as well. “He doesn’t—"

“Honestly,” Taehyung interrupts, lifting a palm in the air to ask her to shut the fuck up, because he
can’t take this. “I don’t care. I don’t want to hear about him or talk about him, see him or speak to
him.” He shakes his head and promises everyone for the nth time, “I’m done with him.”

More importantly he promises himself.

Her mouth lingers opened, but then her lips touch. “Okay,” her head turns away. She sips on her
drink for the first time since it’s put in front of her. She swallows. “Okay, if you’re really done, if
you have no intention of ever giving him a chance, can I ask you to stay away from him?” She
finishes with her eyes gingerly setting over him again and he simply gapes for a moment.

His lips part. “Me?” it rings loud, almost screeches. He doesn’t like several parts of that sentence.
He likes none of it, in fact. He doesn’t like that if, the fact she leaves room for distrust in his
previous promise that he is so desperately set on keeping, the fact she puts it as giving him a
chance, as if there is a prospect for this, as if there is some formulation in what a chance would be,
as if what he and Jungkook had could in any way be put into frames, as if it could be repeated in
another chance. It couldn’t because there is no definition to what a chance of them would
constitute. They were nothing concrete. It was a continuous progression, no moment was ever the
same between them, every word propelled into another, every moment escalated, no two
interactions the same, and they reached their boiling point, they boiled, and it is Taehyung who got
burned. Burned so bad.

It built up until it reached that scorching climax and he wonders what the climax was, the kiss or
the result of it. He supposes both are climaxes of different stories.

“I know it sounds so hypocritic for me to ask youthis,” she starts quick as he blinks with the
suggestion of incredulity. It’s not hypocritic what he has in mind. It’s ridiculous. “But I think a part
of him hopes you’ll forgive, and I just want him to move on, okay?”

Taehyung’s next breath’s a laugh that is so humorless and forced it hurts his throat with the
bitterness it relinquishes down the length of it. “That I’ll forgive?”

It’s ridiculous. This is all ridiculous. His eyes appear glassy when they bulge at her.
“I know you kissed him on our birthday,” she tells him, and Taehyung looks away, stares forward.
That kiss was a mistake and he knew it as he leaned down and as he placed his lips on his. That
kiss was a mistake, but Jungkook owes him so many kisses, and he felt it was his right to take it.
Taehyung says nothing and she speaks to the side of his head. “You’re not like us, Taehyung. I
know you don’t want to play games with him, especially ones that have no end.” She pauses for a
moment, chooses her words. “Leave him alone,” she asks him, and he doesn’t like the suggestion
of it, but her words are so tentatively spoken, he finds it hard to be anything but defensive.

“He came to me,” he says, turning to her, poking his own finger into his chest. “I don’t want him
near me anyway.”

She stares at his eyes, and he really hates how similarly penetrative they feel. “I really hope one
day you can say that and mean it.” She tells him still as soft, but it offends him how she assumes.
Mostly it irks at him how she’s right. He’s not genuine when he says it. What he does want is to
not want him near him, but that will take time. He looks away and he knows the fact of it is a
communication of affirmation to her dreaded assumption, but he can’t be bothered pretending.
“He’s going to stay away from you now, he promised.”

His eyes snap to her again and he tries so hard to ignore that pang that worries his chest. “He is?”
he means to say aloud, clear and simply informative, but he whispers instead. He searches her face
for the indication that it is a joke, a test of some sort. She’s testing him for disappointment and
she’s doing it marvelously, because it spreads to his every bone and blood cell like wildfire.

“Yeah,” she nods. Brilliant, he thinks, that’s what this should be, brilliant. This is what he wants; it
should make forgetting him that much easier. Taehyung will stay away, and he will stay away, too,
and they will have no excuse to see each other, absolutely none. He’ll be out of his life, for good.
“As long as that’s what you want,” Clo Eun adds, and yes, the rumors are true, she is cruel, though
she might not even realize it.

He swallows. “It is,” he says. He’s lying. It seems like he’s constantly lying.

“Okay,” she tells him again. “I know you don’t want to play games,” she tells him again, as if that
is what him being near Jungkook again will constitute. She’s right, he doesn’t want to play any
games with him, other than maybe Overwatch or some other first-person shooter. “Don’t want to
challenge him, don’t want to push to see how far he would bend,” she continues and she’s still
right. He wants none of that, just wants to see his other car and teach him how to fold socks and the
only challenge he wants to pose is to push to see for how long he would allow him to use him as a
pillow. “That’s him, not you.” Don’t reverse your roles, he hears, although she doesn’t formulate it
into words, saves him the accusation it would form if she did, as she has no right to make it. Move
on from them.
“Is that him?” Taehyung asks and watches her brows furrow.

“Hm?” she asks.

Taehyung looks away, stares at his fingers as he plays with them. “Is he like that?” he questions.
One of his knees begins that bouncing again. “At times,” he licks at his lip, begins with a struggle,
he speaks without thinking, because a silly part of him thinks Jungkook is not that either.
“Sometimes he seemed like,” he trails off because he doesn’t know what he aims for, doesn’t make
sense to have that conversation anyway, not with Clo Eun, who certainly knows a different
Jungkook to everyone else, “he seemed different.”

Clo Eun doesn’t reply and he doesn’t give her time to do it; he does not want to hear what she
thinks of this hopeful, stupid sentence. He turns to her. “Are you going to tell him you talked to
me?” he certainly does not want the vulnerability of his somehowwretchedly perpetuated opinion
that Jungkook is not a complete sadistic piece of shit to reach him. He doesn’t understand why
there is still this fleeting defensiveness of Jungkook’s character whenever someone else makes
implications about him, even if it is his sister, who he feels by the fact she is there, by what she
asks of him, reciprocates the love Jungkook irrevocably and unconditionally feels for her full
heartedly.

Her head tilts gently. “Do you want me to?”

He shakes his own. “No.”

She swallows her lower lip into her mouth briefly and releases it quickly, mirrors the small shake.
“Then no.”

Taehyung’s following nod is the only thank you he is capable of giving her, tightens his hand
around the glass and raises it to his mouth to give himself something to do with it, a reason to look
away from her again. He holds the glass to his lips as he speaks. “He hurt me,” he confesses into
the liquid and the ice of it, the exhale of the words fogging the surface of the glass on the inside.

Clo Eun nods, her lips pressing together tightly, a line forming on her face. She’s pale. It’s tanning
season, but her face is almost paper white, except for dark circles resting beneath her eyes. He has
to wonder why she doesn’t hide them. He’d expect from a Jeon to want to shield their
imperfections. “So,” she cocks her head, “you want to hurt him back?”
Taehyung brings the glass lower, coats his tongue over his upper lip that has the sugary remains of
a gin and tonic irritating the skin there. “Is it,” he gulps down nothing, not gin and not tonic, just
swallows the fact of his words, “is it bad that I don’t?” He turns to her again. “I don’t like the idea
of him hurting,” he speaks softly, yet so palpably regretfully. He regrets that this is true, but it is.
He knows that kiss was a mistake simply because he could feel it hurt them both.

Clo Eun is the one to take her eyes away, blinks to look at Bogum hand a plate to Minho. She can’t
look at him much more, cannot look at what her brother lost, what he could have had. “If it means
anything,” she says and then her gaze falls to her lap. “I don’t think he wanted to hurt you.”

He can’t hear this again, doesn’t want to hear it again. It doesn’t hurt any less when it’s not from
his lips. Taehyung shakes his head, looks away, too. His teeth sink into his lip, chide at what he
feels so tangibly; he’s not made any progress, it seems. It’s been days since he last saw Jungkook,
almost two weeks since it happened and it still pains him as if it’s a fresh wound when he focuses
on it too much, still makes his lips twist and his brows still furrow. It still forces words he doesn’t
want to say outside of his throat, still makes him ask himself at least once every hour, what he now
says aloud, “What did he want then?”

Jungkook’s answer to that question was simply not enough, and he was too angry to hear it. He
doubts any explanation provided could be.

Clo Eun shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she speaks with compassion, but he supposes it is better
than his own sister’s pity. “To push you away,” she shrugs.

Taehyung does not intend to slam the glass on the bar top, but liquid does spring and spill from it
when he returns it brusquely to the surface. “Why?” he demands, because Jungkook never truly
told him that either. They were getting too deep, the words ring angry in Taehyung’s memory, the
excuses do. He didn’t want someone to hurt him.

What’s that? What fucking good isthat?

Clo Eun doesn’t say that, doesn’t tell him it was some ill placed attempt at protection. She says
something else. She presses her forearm into the length of the bar top and leans, tries to find his
eyes, his face. She looks at him, does something that is so typical of her brother and she tries to
promise him truth through her eyes, because maybe her words don’t hold a lot of worth. “Cause
you scare him,” she tells him, voice low, breathed and private. Her eyes briefly cascade towards
Bogum almost cautiously before they return. Her head shakes. “He doesn’t like being scared, he
doesn’t know how to handle it.”
Taehyung regards her silently, shortly. He gives her what she wants, his eyes, but when she speaks
and she reeks of this insolent genuineness, he blinks away. Scared, she says, and Taehyung’s teeth
press together, as if Taehyung does not have fear etched into his every bone. Jungkook fucking
terrifies him. Nothing is as frightening to Taehyung as what he feels for Jungkook, what he wants
from him. He’s scared of who Jungkook is and who he is around Jungkook. He’s scared of ways he
wants him and scared of the ways he could have him. He’s absolutely terrified. But he didn’t sleep
with his fucking sister.

It registers with her quite quickly that she won’t receive a verbal response. Her voice falls soft and
airy and she starts to speak smooth, almost like she tells a tale. She speaks quiet and intimate to
him, only to him, a story only for his ears. “You know,” she begins gingerly, “when my dad hit me
the first time,” Taehyung’s eyes jump to hers with alarm at the way she professes it so factual and
shameless and she gulps around the statement, nods small and quick, “I know you know.” She
pauses until he looks to the bottles at the back of the bar again. It’s easier for the both of them if he
does. It sinks to him then, Jungkook really did tell her a lot, about them, spoke to her of some
conversations they had, of things he confessed to him. “When he hit me the first time, Kookie bit
him to distract him.” She swallows, waits. “And when he hit me the second time, he was so drunk
that Jungkook was too scared to do anything. He felt helpless, I think.” The last pause was for the
sake of Taehyung. This one is for her own. “But he was a lot more scared to face me after that
because he was ashamed he didn’t protect me. He spent a week at Yoongi’s house. He can’t handle
scared, not like this, not of people he cares about.”

Every word she says makes him feel nothing but blind rage. Taehyung is angry. Taehyung is so
fucking angry because she makes it easy to remember why he jumps to defend Jungkook’s
character so readily and easily. He’s angry all over again, because Jungkook had to go and entirely
ruin himself for Taehyung, when Taehyung had been dumb enough to look at Bogum when he
called him a piece of shit, tell him, you don’t know him, because Taehyung stupidly believed in
him.

She makes him remember why he did. But he can’t forget why he doesn’t anymore, not when it
comes to himself, and it wages a storm in his head until he can feel the veins in it pulse. Maybe he
drank too much gin and not enough water.

“And I’m not saying this because I’m asking you to forgive him,” she’s still speaking and it’s
making him angrier. “I wouldn’t ask you that. I’m saying this because I think you have the right to
know that he cares about you,” she concludes, and it makes him the angriest.

Taehyung does stand up then, makes the stool scar the floor, the legs of it screeching as angry as
him along the floor. He thought it was hard hearing from his sister that Jungkook couldn’t care
about him, but it is dimensionally more painful hearing from his own that he does.
“If he wanted to push me away,” Taehyung speaks as he watches her pull money out of a brand
purse she wears, “he did it.” Taehyung presses his hand into his back pocket, fishes out some
pitiful notes of money. She says his name imploringly when his intention registers with her. “If he
wanted to hurt me,” he glares. “He did that, too,” his teeth smack together with his own conclusion.
He slams the money onto the bar top. “And I can pay for my own drink,” he tells her and before
she can properly stand up, reply, he leaves.

Dealing with siblings, Taehyung thinks, is more exhausting than he could imagine. And when he
mulls over his imagination, he figures it must be playing tricks on him, because what he sees when
he nears the step of his back door, certainly could not be reality, no, he’s officially gone insane.

Because life simply can’t be that much of an asshole as to have Namjoon sat at that step, not
tonight, not now. He’s still swallowing down residual feelings from one conversation with a sibling
tonight, he certainly cannot deal with another. He’s not in the right mind to process that Namjoon
is there, on his doorstep, on their doorstep. Maybe someone slipped something in his drink and
he’s hallucinating. Wouldn’t be atypical of Richhood.

He hasn’t seen him in months,and his hair is slightly different, but the sight of him on that step is
not unfamiliar. On the contrary, he’s witnessed it time and time again, he’s sat next to him on that
step, when their mother died, every single time their father leaves, they sit on that step and they
talk.

It fills his chest with something, looking at Namjoon sitting there, and it is marginally warm, but
above that it is still that sizzling anger from before. Taehyung has never been as continuously
angry in his life, but he thinks it might be all he is these days, sporadically, indisputably angry.
He’s angry at Jungkook, at Ji-woo, at Clo Eun, at himself, and now, now he’s angry at Namjoon.
Has been repressedly so since the moment he realized he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

He figures it is better for him to be angry than sad. He can deal with anger better.

Deals with it now as he stops dead in the track of his walk and simply stares, tries for maybe a
minute to establish whether what he is seeing is part of the material world. At the halt of his
approach, Namjoon’s eyes lift, fall onto him. He says nothing, watches him as if he’s as shocked to
see him as he is, and that somehow makes Taehyung angrier.
He looks and suddenly he stands, he’s up, taller than Taehyung, his hyung, his big brother, big
brother who left him.

“What are you doing here?” Taehyung asks. For all these months he’s been questioning why
Namjoon left, but now as he looks at his eyes, all he can ask him is why he’s back.

Namjoon’s lips twitch, a small smile colors his features, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and it
dwindles slowly from his face. He’s awkward. “The door was locked,” he says, rubs a hand behind
his neck as he points the other to the door and then drops it loose by his body, shuffling against the
fabric of jeans Taehyung hasn’t seen before. “I don’t have a key anymore.”

Taehyung’s arm lock together. He does not intend the way his voice raises. “I don’t mean on the
fucking back step, Namjoon.”

It’s foreign on his tongue to address his brother and he never thought that could be.

Namjoon’s pause is long and he allows his face to completely drop the façade of that forced, dumb
smile. He glances at him briefly before he chooses his feet, watches them shift his whole weight.
“Your brother’s sad,” he says.

Taehyung blinks, perplexed. His brows move close together. “What?”

Namjoon kicks at a stone that rests beneath him with shoes that Taehyung hasn’t seen either and he
supposes that drug money serves to do much more when they don’t have to take care of rent and
feed a family. He looks up. “That’s the text I got from fucking Jeon Clo Eun in relation to you,
Tae.”

Taehyung blinks again and fuck, he’d thought the only place Jungkook had left tonight was in his
mind, not on his mouth, thought he was done with that, and he doesn’t think he can take the Jeons
and Namjoon in the same sentence.

Fuck this, he thinks, shakes his head, and he saunters in his house, stepping around Namjoon and
pushing the key only he has out of the two of them in the lock. Anger makes him slower and
clumsier, but he can’t help it.

Namjoon turns after him, speaks as he fiddles with the lock with the growing frustration of his own
clumsiness. He hates how goddamn dumb emotions are at time, how anger makes you angrier.
“Can I come in?

Taehyung turns only his head to him as he finally works the door opened. “It’s your house as much
as its mine, isn’t?” he asks palpably sardonic and crosses over the threshold.

“I know,” Namjoon says as he looks after him, follows him with a gaze as he walks in with
confidence and comfort, throws his keys on top of the counter in the kitchen with the motion of
habit. He steps over the threshold, too. “I just thought—"

Taehyung spins. “Thought what?” he cuts him off, still so very bitter. “That you’d lost your right to
freely roam when you up and left us?”

Namjoon steps forward, door falls shut behind him. “Taehyung—” he attempts, he tries. He speaks
so levelled, so unbearably mature, like always, the actual man of the house, the reasonable one,
resourceful one, the one who wanted to keep everyone out of his shit, yet he left and practically
buried them with it.

“And you come back because of a text?” his forehead creases with the question, eyes too as his lids
narrow, but it’s hardly a glare. It’s much worse.

He lets him have this outburst, pauses in hopes to give him a moment to relax. “It’s Clo Eun,” he
says, stepping to him again as if proximity will make him more rational. “Texting me.” His hands
cling to his own chest. “About you, Tae, being sad.” It does seem as surreal as his voice suggests it
is and Taehyung wonders if that is enough to shock him into coming back, he wonders how he
would feel knowing Jeon Jungkook pounded him on his bed. “What the fuck do you have to do
with Clo Eun?”

Taehyung takes a breath through his nose, meets his eyes. “I am,” he states, “I am sad,” he
confesses, head shaking, “but I don’t know if I trust you to tell you why.”

He doesn’t know if he trusts him in this house at all, because if Woojin, who’s likely asleep
upstairs, sees, he’ll get his hopes up, hopes that he’ll stay like he does every time their father comes
home, and he can’t have that. And Taehyung does not know how he feels about Namjoon standing
there, in their kitchen, at all.

Frankly, he wants to hit him.

He doesn’t, though. Settles for unleashing that anger on him instead. “Why did you leave
Namjoon?” he asks, nearly yells. He takes a step forward and his voice comes through his teeth,
fueled by more emotion than he likes to have, than it’s healthy to have, than Kims are allowed to
display, “Why did you fucking leave me?”

Namjoon takes his eyes off of him as the question rings so loud and clear and scathing. He looks at
those new shoes again. Taehyung recognizes shame when he sees it, but he hardly cares. He’s had
it with people thinking regret could seal wounds.

“We had to readjust everything,” Taehyung begins as Namjoon faces those shoes he couldn’t have
bought if he’d stayed. “Every way in which we cope, had to do a goddamn Kim residence paradigm
shift to do without the money you were bringing in, to find a summer long kindergarten for Woojin
because both Ji and I work days cause we don’t sell fucking drugs,” he’s afraid in the back of his
mind he might wake up Woojin with a yell, so he sinks into a hiss.

“What about,” Namjoon lifts his head almost, looks back down, and then on the second attempt he
manages to meet his eyes. He licks his lips, “What about dad?”

Taehyung bristles with the complete absence of humor and the very pointed presence of scorn.
“What about dad?” he bites. “He’s on another con mission again, Joon,” he tells him. His arms lift
and fall weightless to his own worn out jeans with his next emphasized shrug. “Who knows how
far he went this time to find a woman who doesn’t know he’s a fucking Kim and what that means
for him.”

Namjoon’s mouth parts, but then it closes shut, and he takes his eyes across the kitchen, studies
every bit of it that is the same, except for that stove that sits awry and shiny, and Taehyung shifts
to look at it too. He wishes he could pry it out of where it was installed, wonders if he should
satisfy Namjoon’s obvious curiosity and tell him how he bought it.

He turns to him again at the silence. “You gave no warning, hyung,” he sucks in a breath through
his nose, “no warning. One day you were dreaming about escaping this place like you always do
and the next you were fucking gone.”

There is something terribly desolate in Taehyung’s eyes when he stares at his brother. Namjoon
can hardly respond.

“And now you come back because Clo texted you?”

Taehyung is unaware he gives bits and pieces away simply by the way he so comfortably and
familiarly calls her Clo, but it’s what Jungkook always calls her; he’s used to it.

Namjoon shakes his head repeatedly, comes closer. “I came back because of what she texted me,
Taehyung.” He promises him now, speaks firmly almost like he does when he scolds him, it’s his
way of instilling his opinion as true. “I came back for you.”

Taehyung’s mouth parts with his scoff, his tongue poking at the edge of where his lips meet. He
nods, he’s nodding. “Do you know why she texted you?” He asks and it almost starts calm, but it
escalates into the danger of waking up Woojin again. “Do you know how much I needed you,
these past two weeks. Cause we?” His brows raise, his fingers showing Namjoon first and himself
second. “We’re Kims,” he says, “and we’ve only ever had each other, and I lost Ji-woo, I lost her,
and I had no one.” Words trap in his throat as he tries to get them out, the realization of it etching
in his mind as he has to speak aloud. He pauses to swallow, but it doesn’t get the bitter taste off his
tongue, and it shows in his next sentence, “I got my heart broken and I had no one.”

Namjoon has always been the type of person who has a lot to say. He’s stifled into silence now,
and Taehyung cannot judge what goes on through his head as he does nothing but stare, and he
realizes he has a hard time pinpointing what goes through his too when he confesses of his broken
heart. What he does know is he cannot be the one to break the silence again, not after his last
proclamation. He’s honest when he says he doesn’t know if he trusts Namjoon to tell him why he’s
sad anymore, doesn’t want to disclose of a part of himself so vulnerably intimate and he wonders
where along the way his brother became such a familiar stranger in his head.

“What do you mean lost Ji-woo?” Namjoon chooses to ask, does not comment on that last sentence
that seems more torn out of his chest than said. He shakes his head. “You can’t lose Ji-woo?”

Taehyung blinks. His voice has lost all its power, but it’s still scathing when he looks away and
murmurs more to himself. “Yeah, I thought I couldn’t lose you either.”

Namjoon’s lips part and he edges closer, almost reaches for him and Taehyung knows he’ll speak
this time, but he isn’t sure he wants to hear what he has to say, not yet. “You know what?” He
interrupts, hands lifting up, palms spreading opened in defense. “I can’t,” he shakes his head, takes
steps back. “I can’t do this right now. I’m going to bed.”

He leaves like that, goes upstairs and what can Namjoon do but let him as he turns and walks away.
He tells him he’s leaving at least. Namjoon had not had the same courtesy.

What’s utterly and frustratingly ridiculous, however, is that he wants to call fucking Jungkook, or
text him, or see him. He wants to tell him about this, and it’s absurd, but he has the very clear
impulse to do it. He has the inkling Jungkook would understand. He’s always felt the two of them
are quite similar when it comes to their siblings, besides he’s the only person outside of Ji-woo
who he’s spoken to about Namjoon before. And he hates him all over again because he really had
to go and ruin himself for Taehyung and ruin every single thing he’d confined in him and vice
versa. Taehyung cannot separate him from what he did.

If this had happened before he would have slept with him as an excuse to see him, then either just
used the distraction from his presence, or talked. He’s said little to him about Namjoon, shouted
about him in that hallway in Rouge, but by the way he was with him on the rooftop when he told
him he was in Japan, Taehyung knew little had to be said for him to get it. From the few
interactions he has now had with his sister, though, Taehyung understands why it would be so easy
for Jungkook to almost so un-Jeon-ly empathize with him on this. Clo Eun, Taehyung thinks,
reminds him of Namjoon. And considering who their father is, he supposes the twins can’t help
but love each other the way they do. The way he loves his own siblings.

He texts Jimin instead, and Jimin asks him if he wants to come over after he finishes at the Ozone,
but Taehyung says no, can’t keep running away from how it is at his own home, because if he
doesn’t have that, he has absolutely nothing left.

Namjoon sleeps on the couch that night and when Taehyung wakes up, he realizes he’s the last one
to do so. Namjoon is making breakfast and Woojin has seen him and Ji-woo has too, and both eat
his food as if he didn’t disappear for months.

Woojin is ecstatic.

Ji-woo is not. Taehyung wants desperately to know her opinion on the sudden return, as
uninformative as his rapid departure, but he still can’t talk to her. He’d asked her not to speak about
Jungkook, but they have stopped speaking altogether. Her voice makes him flinch and her eyes feel
judgmental.

Namjoon sees him first when he pauses at the bottom of the steps. “Tae,” he says, a smile that
makes a dimple on his cheek subsiding as he watches him. “Do you want breakfast?”

Ji-woo turns, Woojin turns. Three pairs of eyes layer over him. “I have work,” he says. He leaves.
Jungkook, as promised, doesn’t come to Rouge. He hasn’t seen him since the twins’ birthday.
He sees Namjoon again that same night. He’s sat at the kitchen table that Taehyung has to pass by.
Ji-woo is picking up Woojin from a friend’s house and Taehyung knows that, knows they are
alone. He doesn’t hesitate at the bottom of stairs this time, attempts to pace right past him as he
aims for the back door, but of course nothing is as easy.

“Where are you going, Taehyung?” Namjoon asks, so ironically brotherly.

He feels like a petty teenager again, but he doesn’t really care. “Out,” he says simply, through an
eye roll, for which he specifically turns, pays him more mind than he means to.

Namjoon’s got his goddamn glasses on, a book in front of him, but he isn’t reading. They make
him look older. “Does out constitute drinking?”

Taehyung’s brows raise as he shrugs his shoulders, arms folding together. “What the fuck else
would I be doing out?”

Namjoon takes those glasses off, but before he can start looking his age, he starts speaking through
his ass. “Then I guess you’re staying in.”

Taehyung almost chokes on his snort. “What?” He bristles, lips twisting comically to the sides, a
contorted smirk twitching at his features.

It’s as if the attitude completely escapes Namjoon; he ignores it wholeheartedly and answers as if
Taehyung wasn’t taking this as some sort of a joke, but was genuinely asking him a question,
seeking information. “One thing I’ve learned for substances,” he says as he stands up, “you do
them when you’re happy, you do them when you’re with people, fuck, you do them even cause of
peer pressure, but never,” he moves around the kitchen with familiarity, opens the cupboard that
holds their glasses, “ever, do them cause you’re sad.”

Taehyung watches him take the glasses out, pour water from the sink in one and then the other.
“What, you’re gonna play my father now?”

Namjoon moves towards the table again, sets both glasses there and with the ring of them meeting
the wood, he states, “I’m your hyung.”
His brother’s head cocks, the smirk only dying at one side of his mouth, but staying strong and
bitter at the other, “Conveniently now you are.”

He doesn’t know if his goal is to aggravate Namjoon with the near brattiness, but had it been, he
would have miserably failed, because Namjoon remains absolutely unbothered. Ever so calmly, he
pulls the chair right back, doesn’t even scrape the floor with the motion, and simply sits back in his
place. “Come here now.”

“What?” Taehyung says again with a twitching eyebrow, almost as ironic.

Namjoon speaks as he closes the book conclusively and moves it aside as if it’s a given Taehyung
will come. “If it’s easier for you to talk with a glass in hand, pretend that’s alcohol.” He pushes the
second glass closer to where Taehyung stubbornly stands and his eyes trail over.

“With the amount of chemistry in pipes in this neighborhood it might as well be.”

Eyes lift to his, “Taehyung.”

“Who said I wanted to talk to you?” he asks, louder, clearer, and much, much more honest than his
previous play at snarkiness, his arms falling apart from their hold to lift to the air around him, and
he feels like such a child.

“You need to talk to someone,” Namjoon says and Taehyung really doesn’t see how they gossip
about him sticking his nose in everything and anything when Jeon Clo Eun herself has so
colossally failed to mind her own business.

He breathes through his nose. “I’ll talk to Jimin,” he tells him, but he won’t, he can’t.

And Namjoon knows it. “Jimin doesn’t like talking, does he?” he asks, brows shifting quizzically
towards his hair.

Taehyung looks away. “He doesn’t.” He looks back. “But he’d do it for me.” Taehyung only says
it to say it, but a part of him does think there is truth to it, no matter what silent arrangement they
have to mutually not care about anything that actually matters, if Taehyung really needed it, Jimin
would be there, in one way or another.
Namjoon’s fingers wrap around the bottom of the glass, and maybe it does help with honesty. He
speaks more softly than before. “You always liked to talk to me, Taehyung,” he says.

“Yeah,” his brother nods, accuses in earnest, “Cause you always pretended to be the wise big
brother,” he steps closer, leans over the table, fingers digging onto the surface, “but then you
abandoned me and who do you think I had to talk to about that?”

Namjoon looks away again then, and Taehyung thinks he has him falling back into that reticence
of the discomfort of shame, but he just pulls his book back, shrugs. “Fine.”

Taehyung’s brows shoot up and he doesn’t like how his voice is pitched. “Fine?”

“Can’t force you, can I?” He opens his book again and looks at it but doesn’t even think to put his
glasses back on and it’s all a fucking ploy that tugs so accurately at Taehyung’s very last nerve.

“Okay,” Taehyung pulls the chair in front of him back and his does scrape against the floor. He
falls into it. “Let’s talk,” he says with hurried, angry eagerness, drops his forearms onto the table
and tangles his fingers together like a schoolchild. “Why did you leave?”

Namjoon looks up. “Taehyung—

“You said you wanted to talk.” Taehyung interrupts as he notices his tone drifts and trails. He
reaches forward, picks his ass off the chair briefly and takes the book right between his fingers,
slams it shut as he sits back down. “Talk.”

Namjoon stares at the table. He’s quiet for so long and Taehyung realizes he can feel himself
breathing, harder and louder than he wants to. It takes about a minute for him to roll his eyes, to
snicker once and shake his head, to start to stand back up, but at the first notion of his chair
scraping, Namjoon is speaking. “Taehyung,” he starts heavy, hand falling over his brother’s
forearm to keep him in place. He’s looking at him again, eyes darting from one of his to the other.
“I could be traced to what happened to Byung-Chul’s daughter and her friends.”

“What?” Taehyung’s breathing out in a hiss, his arm almost instinctively retracting back from
underneath Namjoon’s and into his chest.
Namjoon’s palms open, fingers spreading in defense and reason and he starts quickly. “I don’t have
anything to do with it,” he says, imploring and with a promise and Taehyung relaxes into the chair,
so Namjoon does, too. “Several people could be linked to it, though, and we all know poor boy was
gonna get it worst.”

Taehyung’s eyes dart across Namjoon’s face. He’s never been one to lie, just hide the truth.
Taehyung is the one who tells most lies, and he only sees signs of genuineness on Namjoon’s
creased forehead and wide eyes. He drops his hands to the table again, narrows his own. “And you
couldn’t fucking say anything?”

“The fewer people know the better,” is his immediate answer and here he goes again, shielding
him from truth, and maybe himself as well, because it does seem reasonable now with Taehyung’s
experience with Sooho and his people, as he does suppose from what Jungkook had said about his
brother mixing with bad people that Kai plays a role in this. Kai always plays a role. It was
certainly safer for Namjoon Taehyung being oblivious in that moment with Sooho, though it was
definitely safest that Jungkook was there.

He chooses not to ask. He doesn’t want to know, not now.

And this conversation is truly not about this, either. Because Namjoon came all the way from
Japan because of that text and he is most definitely not going to be satiated without an
interrogation.

He begins lightly, carefully. “You’re not involved with her, are you?” he asks, eyes fixing over
Taehyung.

But he ignores that. He wraps his fingers around the bottom of the alcohol-free glass and stares at
them. “Why?” His shoulders shrug on their own accord. “Would it be that bad,” he blinks up, looks
up, “to be involved with a Jeon?”

Namjoon’s eyes drown him with a sudden onslaught of compassion at what the question suggests
and he’s back to staring at his hands. “She loves Jin, Tae.”

“I know,” Taehyung nods, bites briefly at his lip, releases it for something much more spiteful.
“And she’s a Jeon.”

Namjoon cocks his head, shakes it. “Yeah, she’s a Jeon, so what?” Taehyung’s gaze darts upwards,
searches his face for the indication it’s a joke, because yes, he’s been absent for months, but he
couldn’t have forgotten what that name means. “We’re Kims,” Namjoon continues with only
factors of earnestness, “are we actually the leeches they say we are?” He pauses and Taehyung
realizes, he cannot fully grasp what Taehyung means. A Jeon can be different to what they are
portrayed as by perpetual gossip, yes. But a Jeon can’t be gay. “She’s still one of the most honest,
good, and caring people I’ve met in the entirety of my life, in and out of Richhood. Just because
she carries her father’s name—"

“What about Jungkook?” Taehyung interrupts.

Namjoon blinks. “What?

“You know him, too, right?” Taehyung speaks, leaning back into the chair and further away from
him. His arms fold over his chest, tightly.

His bother hesitates, “Jungkook and I,” he trails almost awkward, searches for the way to put it,
and finishes with a brief shake of his head, “we don’t get along.”

“Yeah?” Taehyung’s tongue slicks his bottom lip. His head tilts. “I probably wouldn’t get along
with you either if you’d sold Ji-woo enough drugs for her to almost kill herself,” it shines through
his voice that his bitterness has not completely died down along with a silly grudge of
defensiveness over what in his head labels as Jungkook’s sister.

Namjoon’s eyes flash, lids pulling to their corners in enunciated surprise. “How do you—” He
stammers, interrupts himself, head shaking again, this time slow and continuous. “Taehyung, what
the fuck have got yourself into?”

“Just,” Taehyung starts, refocuses on the table again; it’s much easier to look at old wood and
cigarette burns that go back to before their mother’s death than Namjoon’s expressive, caring eyes,
which he hasn’t seen in so fucking long, “just what do you think about him?”

For a moment he says nothing, simply stares at his younger brother, but then he’s leaning back
again. “Well, from what I know. Clo and him?” his brows raise, and Taehyung should have
guessed his area of expertise in this would have revolved around his twin. “They’d die for each
other.”

Taehyung knows that’s a bold statement, but a true statement. Still, his chest fills with indignation
and so do his words, “You think he’d die for anyone other than himself?”

He’s still not looking up, choosing the table, and Namjoon is still staring and pausing as if he
means to read his mind before he settles for an answer. The silences unnerve Taehyung, but then
Namjoon is speaking. “Jungkook,” he says, “I think rarely loves but when he does, it’s with a
passion, and he certainly loves her.”

Taehyung’s fingers twitch over each other where he holds them on his elbows. For some reason,
his heart also does. It twitches; it tugs. He says nothing. He has nothing to say. His eyes focus on a
single cigarette burn so hard, his vision blurs.

Namjoon’s still talking and it makes his ears ring. “Sometimes I feel like he loves, hates or doesn’t
care at all, I don’t think there’s an in between for him,” he speaks so conversationally, can never
guess that Taehyung feels every word. Jungkook for him is just Clo Eun’s brother. Jungkook for
Taehyung is—he doesn’t know what he is.

“When he hates, he hates,” Namjoon continues as Taehyung’s lids bat quick and repetitive to try to
clear the stinging blur of his eyes, “when he loves, he loves.”

He finally talks. “He must really hate me then,” he says, simple and empty. There’s a fullness to
the void in his words that skips past Namjoon, for now.

He’s still so obliviously casual. “He hates all Kims,” he nearly chuckles. “He thinks he does.”

Taehyung blinks so fucking much. His fingers and palms raise, tighten over his biceps instead, he
squeezes. “Yeah,” he manages barely, and angles his head away from Namjoon, stares towards the
door. His teeth sink into his lip, bite on it as hard as the pressure his fingers exert, digging almost
painfully into his own flesh.

The effect of his almost chuckle that resides on his lips in the form of a curve dies on Namjoon’s
mouth as he observes his brother. “Taehyung,” he calls, and his voice rings more careful now. “Did
you get in his way somehow or—"

“You could say that, I suppose.” He tilts his head down now, stares at his lap, anywhere but at
Namjoon’s eyes, because if he does, Namjoon will see his, and he can’t let that happen.
“Taehyung,” Namjoon says that, only that, only his name, but it is Namjoon that says it, his hyung,
his family, the one who made it all easy, his father’s departures, his mother’s death, poverty. He
only says his name, but he asks so many questions, pries so much out of Taehyung, who is so
constantly on the verge, of what he does not know, but he is, and it spills.

He does look at his eyes. “I slept with him,” he says, confesses. “Several times,” he adds. “I was
sleeping with him.”

“What?” Namjoon breathes, brows furrowed, but eyes wide. “With Jungkook?” he’s lost his voice
it seems, can only speak with air, gaze darting all across Taehyung’s face. His mouth parts futile,
closes. Then it does again, and he finds sound and firmness, but it’s still a clumsy stammer of
speech. “You, you slept with Jungkook?”

Taehyung nods. “Yes.”

Namjoon leans on the table, extents his body forward, fingers spreading and tapping on top of the
surface as if to test the physicality of the statement. “As in sex?”

Taehyung breathes through his nose, his shoulders, which he only now realizes are curled into him
with tension, slump low. “No, we had pajama parties,” he rolls his eyes, but they end back at
Namjoon. “We fucked, Namjoon.”

He leans back into the chair, arms dropping off the table. “You’re gay?” it’s a bit of a question and
a bit of an exclamation.

Taehyung sighs, his own arms unfolding and spreading over the table. “I don’t know.” He shakes
his head, touching the tips of his fingers together and stares at the motion while Namjoon still
stares at him. “Maybe a little bi,” he shrugs, “but I like guys.” He pauses, thinks. “I prefer guys. I
prefer him.”

The current status of his sexual orientation is way too much Jeon Jungkook for him to be able to
soberly rationalize whether he doesn’t like girls at all. He doesn’t want to necessarily label himself,
anyway; he had, and he had been wrong. If he wants someone, he wants them, simple as that.

Namjoon’s back presses fully into the back of his chair. “Wow,” he chokes out in a startled breath,
looking away from Taehyung and blinking at the distance, at nothing. “I never expected Jungkook
to touch a man.” He glances at Taehyung, at the way his eyes fall to his lap and leans forward
again, starts speaking with his hands, gestures loud and emphasized. “Like, even if he wanted to,
I’d expect him to be the type to remain in the closet for the whole of his life.”

His brother’s head shakes. He speaks under his breath. “He probably will.”

“What?” Namjoon’s brows furrow. His voice is atypically high, nearly squeaks. Taehyung can read
his discomfort, but he’s glad at the size and nature of it, more colored with surprise than with
judgement. He can take surprise.

“He got rid of me,” Taehyung says as simply as he can.

“Rid of you?” His perplexity grows, creases his forehead more, purses his lips.

It feels so incredibly silent to Taehyung when he speaks next. The space is quiet, the kitchen,
where he stood to wait it all out as it happened, is mute, and his voice rings so loud, ricochets off
the walls and back to his ears, he hears it again, and it guts him all over again. “He slept with Ji-
woo,” he tells. “Here,” his eyes look up, glare at the ceiling that holds their upstairs. “While I
listened.”

Taehyung’s teeth worry his lower lip, his upper lip, he bites at them, squeezes at himself again.
He’s blinking too much again. His chest raises and falls and Namjoon can only watch.

He’s stumped. “I—” he begins, but it dries on his tongue and he doesn’t finish.

Helpless. That’s howTaehyung supposes Namjoon feels. It’s the way he himself felt when
Jungkook told him his sister had had a panic attack at the couch a few meters away. “You don’t
have to say anything about that,” Taehyung sucks in a breath through his nose, but he’s still staring
up, upupup, helps everything go down his throat. “I don’t want to think about that.”

“Taehyung,” Namjoon is saying after a moment. “I get you were… sleeping with him,”
Taehyung’s lids squeeze together, and they don’t part again, not for a while. “Were you,” he
hesitates; Taehyung can hear his feet shuffling underneath the table, “do you care about him?”

His head drops back, he’s facing his brother again. His eyes open and he stares once again at that
worried compassion in Namjoon’s familiar foreign eyes. A moment passes of just that. And he
breaks. “So fucking much,” he rasps, throaty, and his elbows dig into the table, fingers clutching at
his hair, palms rubbing into his expression to hide it from Namjoon.

Namjoon’s hand reaches forward instinctively. He feels fingers at his elbow. “Taehyung.”

He pulls at strands harder. “I’ve never cared about anyone like this, Namjoon, I don’t know what
to do.”

Fingers wrap ginger and futile around his forearm. “Tae,” Namjoon murmurs so softly, and
Taehyung hates he’s in a state where all those fucking siblings need to be careful with him. He
hates he’s fragile, but he appreciates it anyway, prefers it to Ji-woo.

He pulls his arms back, releases his face, and hurts his brother with the way his eyes bulge and
glisten. “And he tells me he fucking wants me after that, tells me he’s sorry.” He wants to laugh,
but he doesn’t have it in him. His eyes suddenly crease, lids almost touching and his whole
countenance contorts with it. His head shakes with every following confession that he absolutely
detests. “And I want to be with him,” he says, because it’s true, gets those urges to call him and to
see him, so inappropriate and common, “but he’s so fucked up, he is going to drain me, drain every
last bit of me if I am and I don’t think I’m ready to give up on myself to be with him no matter
how much I –“ he pauses, searches his mind, “feel for him.”

“He wants you?” Namjoon asks because he doesn’t know what that means, but Taehyung doesn’t
either, so he just says what he does know.

“He said he never wanted to hurt me, that he was drunk and on coke, that he would never touch
anyone else sober,” he recites with sardonic disbelief. “That he thought he was protecting me by
pushing me away.”

Namjoon is stunned into silence once again. He cannot imagine Jeon Jungkook speaking any of
those words.

Taehyung’s calmer now. He’s too exhausted to prolong any outburst. He rests his arms by their
length on the table. His stomach feels terribly hollow. “Being with him, I think would be
masochism, but being without him and watching him from the side when he tells me he wants me
feels like it too and I really don’t know what to do.”

He doesn’t know if he asks for advice or just speaks, because Namjoon is the first person who
actually offers, sits there and listens. He lets him speak. Partially, it feels like a lie what he says,
because he is so very convinced that he only wants to forget Jeon Jungkook. But partially, it feels
like he is voicing truth for the first time.

“Clo talked to me,” Taehyung says as he looks up, meets Namjoon’s eyes again. He surprises
himself with how suddenly calm and measured he gets to be now, post the small, yet powerful
breakdown, almost feels himself rational. Almost. “She said he promised to stay away now, as long
as that’s what I want, so it’s up to me really.”

Namjoon heaves a breath. “And what do you want?”

“What do I want?” Taehyung blinks. His lips purse, head shakes, and he runs a hand across his
face, forehead, left eye, left cheek. “To turn back time and erase what he did,” he says. “How do
you forgive that, Namjoon?” it’s rhetorical, really is. It’s simple—you don’t. But Taehyung’s eyes
search his as if they hold an actual answer.

Namjoon’s head turns back and forth. “I don’t know, Tae,” he says, “I don’t know. But if you ever
want to try, it’s up to you, okay? No one can decide for you if he’s worth the try. Not me, and not
Ji-woo and not anyone else.” Taehyung wonders briefly how the interactions between Namjoon
and their sister played out ever since his return, but he doesn’t care enough to ask.

And Taehyung supposes Namjoon only says that, that there is even room for an attempt, because
he doesn’t know the whole story, doesn’t know how it all started, with money and Julia and honest
perversion, that Jungkook refused to even kiss him for so, so long. Taehyung’s shoulders fold up
and fall, heavy. “He’s fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon nods in a breath. “Fucked up people tend to get you fucked up in them, too.” He
reaches forward again, touches his forearm and Taehyung’s eyes draw to the sensation, but he
allows it this time. “But you know, Tae.” He pauses until he has his gaze fixed on his. “It might
seem impossible to you now to think of someone else like that. Time does heal everything. You
can fall in love again, maybe not as hard, but better.”

Taehyung’s mouth parts. “Love?” he says the word as if it comes from a foreign language. He
almost thinks he doesn’t say it correctly with the way it feels on his tongue.

“Aren’t you in love with him?”

“I’ve never—" he’s never thought about it like that, never been brave enough to truly attempt to
conceptualize what it was that drew him so unforgivably back to him, only ever thought about
intensity, undefinable intensity, but he never tried to put in a spectrum, because it was never really
very definable to him what he felt for Jeon Jungkook. It was always supposed to be nothing. He
hesitates, looks down at the table where he twirls his fingers together. “He treated me like shit like
sixty or seventy percent of the time.”

Namjoon’s sighing with repeated shakes of his head that reminds Taehyung it’s still probably hard
for him to believe any of this is reality. “It’s Jungkook,” he almost gasps it, “with a boy.” He
pauses. “I’m surprised he didn’t treat you like shit a hundred percent of the time.” He tries to find
his eyes again, says with that ever-returning softness, “I’m surprised you stayed around him for
long enough for this to happen.”

Taehyung tongues at his lips. They feel impossibly dry. “He got better as time passed,” a small
laugh chokes out of him, “not the best.”

No matter how hard Namjoon tries to meet his eyes, he refuses. There is some shame in the fact of
it, the fact he stayed for that long, kept going back to him. He looks at the shelves, at the dishes
that are left to dry. “Why do you care about him then?”

His lips purse, shoulders lift and slump. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

This has always been so taboo to address, even in his own head. He’s curious and attracted, and
that’s all he’s cared to admit, but then Namjoon finally finds his eyes as they pass across shifting
from the sink to the fridge and he’s speaking, airy, comes to his own ears as if he is submerged
underwater.

“He’s interesting,” he starts, and his hands move nervously on the table with every word, wiping
from one end to the other. “Challenging. When I’m around him, it feels…” his hands lift off and
cup air as he tries to formulate it in his mind, but he miserably fails, so he drops them heavy on the
surface, “I can’t even tell you how it feels, I don’t know if there’s a word for it.” He pauses, thinks,
shrugs. “He can be funny,” he admits, begrudgingly, “he’s smart, talented, honestly, brilliant at
times, when he fights, it’s fascinating to watch and I fucking hate violence. He cares about his
sister as much as I care about you, and Woojin, and Ji-woo. And um,” he’s stopping again and
breathes a short sound, reminiscent of a laugh, through his nostrils with a brief motion of his head,
“did you know he likes video games? And he let me drive his car, and he doesn’t want to become
his father, and sometimes he makes me feel, I don’t know, like I have more worth.”
“Worth?” Namjoon’s gaping. “Taehyung, you have worthwithout—”

“I know,” he interjects, meets his eyes just to promise it is true, like Clo Eun and Jungkook do. “I
know. But Jeon Jungkook wantsme, me,” he presses his fingers to his chest,“a Kim,” and that’s
step one for him, that’s when it was all okay, bearable, but then it wasn’t, because, “He thinks I’m
pretty, he tells me I’m pretty, I’m handsome, so much, tells me pretty clothes fit me, his clothes fit
me, that being a waiter doesn’t, that I distract him better than Julia, and when he started treating
me different, when he started treating me decent there was something… special that he was
different for me, you know.” He meets his eyes wide, asks him to understand, but then he’s
dropping the hope in a moment, shakes his head, and glances down at the table. “I don’t know. It’s
stupid. I’m stupid.”

Namjoon’s head tilts, his voice reaches its softest. “You’re not stupid, Tae.”

But Taehyung doesn’t believe him. He can’t, not when his fingers are making a rapid pattern
around a burn on the table and he’s shyly admitting, “I really like kissing him.”

To give himself something to do he raises the glass in front of him to his lips, downs it all in one
go. Namjoon’s mouth parts, but he doesn’t know if he wants to hear what he has to say. He needs
to snap out of it.

So, he places the glass back down. “The sex helps as well,” he says, lips almost curling with the
way Namjoon’s face changes. “A lot,” he speaks with an unnecessary motion of his tongue, nods
his head for emphasis.

Namjoon’s look is of pure horror. “Jesus Christ, Taehyung.”

Taehyung’s lips do curl, and he stands up, moves to pour himself another glass. “By the way,” he
says with the beginnings of a smirk and he thinks that is the first time he has had anything even
remotely resembling a smile on his face in a while, “he fucked me on your bed.”

Somehow, somehow Namjoon appears even more horrified at that as he tracks Taehyung with his
eyes. His jaw drops, then teeth clack together when he speaks, “On my bed?”

Taehyung turns the tap but doesn’t really look at his hand holding the glass under the running
water, because he would much rather take in Namjoon’s comical expression. “Pounded me so hard
on it.”
Namjoon’s the one running hands through his hair now, head shaking. “I’ve never wanted you to
shut up more.”

“Thought you wanted to talk?” Taehyung quips, head tilting.

He’s back to squeaky, hands falling apart from his face and hanging open beside him in the air,
“Not about where you fuck.”

Taehyung shuts the water off. “Wanna talk about how?” he suggests, brings the glass up to his lips,
but doesn’t tilt it until he makes sure to inform him, “There’s a lot to tell there.”

Namjoon shakes his head, threatens. “I’ll go back to Japan if you don’t shut up.”

Taehyung gulps in the water as the small smile disappears, and he’s looking down. He says
nothing of Japan, doesn’t indicate he knew already that Namjoon was there.

He watches the edges of his glass, asks, “Are you going to stay?” He wants him to stay. Namjoon
has always made hard moments easy. He wants him to stay.

“I don’t know,” he gathers his hands in his lap, shakes his head differently now. “Don’t know if I
can.” Taehyung nods, brings the glass back to his mouth. “But I don’t want to leave you, Tae. Not
now.” He pauses, looks down and takes a short, loud breath before his eyes lift up, “What if—"

That is when his phone rings.

Namjoon rolls his eyes, sighs, but he moves forward on the chair and fishes it out of his pocket. He
stares at the screen, before he glances at Taehyung who already has his expectantly fixed on him.
“It’s Clo,” Namjoon tells him.

Taehyung’s heart skips a beat. “Pick up.” He readjusts on his feet.

“Are you sure?”

He sets the glass down. “Pick up,” he says more firmly.

Namjoon nods, whispers an okay beneath his breath and this time the chair does scrape as he
stands. He presses the device to his ear. “Hey,” he greets calmly, but then his eyes are widening,
“What,” he turns, gives Taehyung his back, hides his expression, but Taehyung already
knowssomething is wrong, because that is not Clo Eun’s voice on the other end of that phone call.
“What?” he asks again. “Hey, slow down, slow down.” With every word he says, Taehyung’s own
heart beats more rapid. His fingers tighten around the glass on the counter. “I don’t understand—”
Namjoon’s voice is worried, and then he says, “Jungkook, calm down,” and Taehyung’s heart
nearly bursts out.“Okay. Did you call your aunt? Okay. Okay.” Taehyung’s walking towards him,
he wants to hear more of the other person other than an unintelligible muffle. “I’m in Korea. I’m
home. I’ll come.”

Namjoon is hanging up, moving immediately. He presses the phone back in his pants, walks for
keys, walks for a jacket. And Taehyung follows suit.

“What?” He’s asking. There’s panic in his voice. He’s scared all over again. “Jungkook? Did
Jungkook call you?” Namjoon just keeps walking,ignores him,and Taehyung remembers he wanted
to hit him yesterday. “Namjoon,” he demands, hand reaching for his shoulder and coercing him to
spin. “Fucking answer me.” He’s finally stopped that incessant walking. “Why did Jungkook call
you?” Taehyung presses, “Why did he have to calm down, what’s wrong, what’s going on?”

He doesn’t like Namjoon’s eyes. Doesn’t like his face at all, every feature tugging with concern.
“Clo’s bad,” he tells him. “Clo’s really bad,” his head shakes. “He doesn’t know what to do.”

Taehyung doesn’t think. “I’m coming,” he says.

Namjoon shakes his head harder. “Taehyung, don’t—"

But Taehyung is determined, grasps at the keys that hang loosely in Namjoon’s hand. “I said I’m
coming,” he repeats, and he’s out the door before Namjoon can say much else.
They both know the way up to the Jeons’ penthouse. The door is open. They both know the way to
the corridor which hosts the rooms of the twins. Namjoon is boldly hurrying towards Clo Eun’s
while Taehyung falls in step slightly, his heart beating nervous, eyes coating over the lightly
cracked door of Jungkook’s.

He shakes his head, ushers forward, turns over the frame of Clo Eun’s room and stops there, hand
clinging to the wood until his knuckles are white. Namjoon walks towards the en-suite bathroom
and Taehyung can see, he watches Jungkook on the floor of it at an angle, sees only part of Clo
Eun’s back which Jungkook’s hand is wrapped around.

Jungkook’s eyes snap to Namjoon at the sound of his approach. Taehyung has never seen his eyes
like this, and it makes him want to squeeze his own shut. “Kim,” Jungkook is speaking, voice a
demanding exhale, edging so terrifyingly on desperate. Taehyung’s heart drops to his stomach,
then the length of his thigh, and to the bottom of his feet. “I—I,” he’s stuttering, trying to get all
words out quickly, but it makes his tongue clumsy and he needs to pause and swallow. “I think I
made her throw up most of them, tried to count in her vomit, but I don’t know. I don’t know, and
she’s still not coming about.”

Taehyung’s ears buzz. It resonates like a dream, like a nightmare.

“Okay,” Namjoon breathes, and he squats down next to him. “What did she take, do you know
what she took?”

Jungkook is shaking his head. “Some of my mother’s prescription pills, but she takes off the labels,
so Clo doesn’t know which is which. I don’t know which is which, Kim. I don’t know what to do.”
He’s still shaking his head, so vigorously back and forth, and then his whole body is rocking with
it, and so does his sister’s in his arms.

“Is she breathing?” Namjoon’s asking. His own voice shakes, breaks, but compared to Jungkook,
he is almost calm.

Taehyung’s frozen at that door.

“Yes,” Jungkook exhales, nodding now. “She’s breathing, she is, barely so.” His hand runs
soothing down her back, so incongruous with the way his body shakes. “Can you help her?” he
asks with his voice almost strong. “I don’t know how to help her,” he says with his voice weak.

“Give her to me.”

“No.”

“Jungkook,” Namjoon grips at his shoulder, stares right in his eyes. “She might need CPR. And I
need to keep her awake and upright if she comes to, and you’re fucking shaking, okay?” He
squeezes at him. “Just, just wait outside, close the door and calm the fuck down. You’re no use to
her like this.”

It’s a short moment, but it feels long, until Jungkook’s nodding and transferring her to Namjoon.
He stands, looks wobbly on his feet and Taehyung is immediately releasing the doorframe, falling
in steps towards him. He doesn’t see him until he closes the door. Then he looks up and Taehyung
is frozen all over again.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook whispers, shaky, and that’s all he says, not a syllable more.

“I—” he’s stammering as well, “I came with Namjoon.”

Jungkook stares at him with wide, glistening eyes. His pupils are almost as large as when he’s on
coke, but the misfocus of them is different. They blur over with a wet glint, and he blinks. He
doesn’t answer. He presses his back to the wall next to the door and slides down until his ass hits
the floor.

Taehyung hesitates. He’s very slow, very careful as he moves, and Jungkook’s eyes lift from the
floor, follow him as he walks, as he lowers himself in front of him, some distance apart, mirroring
his position, lifting knees up as he presses his back into the edge of Clo Eun’s bed.

Jungkook watches him until he settles, until it’s obvious he’s there to stay. Then he replaces his
stare to the carpet between his feet. His eyes are enormous and though they stare so firmly, they
stare at nothing. He’s barely blinking. Taehyung cannot look away.

He hears water running.

He hears Jungkook speaking. “I’m gonna get her out of here,” he promises, head shaking.
Taehyung doesn’t know if he is even meant to hear, if Jungkook even fully registers he is in the
room, but next he blinks up next, finds Taehyung’s eyes and speaks to them with harrowing
conviction. “As soon as I can, I’m getting her out of here.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow. He doesn’t know what that means, so he doesn’t know what to say, how
to say it. Before he’s properly thinking, his lips are moving on their own. “You’re going to leave?”
He hates the way his voice lilts with panic.

Jungkook’s head shakes. “I’m going to come back,” he says, voice still so very breathy. “My place
is here. Hers isn’t,” he tells him. He almost sounds like Jungkook now. His chest almost raises and
sinks calm enough to let his words fill with his voice and not just with his exhales. His eyes fall so
dead on his, and they, like his sound, are almost his again, almost recognizable, remind Taehyung
of how he looked at him at the roof and that last time at the Ozone. “Nor is yours.”

Taehyung’s arms are wrapping around his knees, and he squeezes himself tightly. His teeth sink
almost painfully in his lip and he tries not to say anything, but he is spluttering out. “How is yours
here?” he asks, there is something almost offended to the sound of it, to the lines of his forehead
and the narrowing of his eyelids.

Jungkook’s head won’t stop fucking shaking. “I’m spoiled rotten, Tae,” he says, and with the way
he’s looking at him, Taehyung almost wants to look away, but he can’t. “You’re not.”

Taehyung’s arms fall apart, hands stretching out with opened palms into the air for moments before
they drop to the soft carpet. “You’ve started to,” he tells him, speaks eager to get it all out, as quick
as possible to have Jungkook hear it and understand it, because he can think Jungkook is a piece of
shit all he wants—Jungkook hurt him, and he’s entirely entitled to that, but if Jungkook goes down
that road, he is just going to get worse. “You’ve started to, but you’re still not rotten all the way,
Jungkook.”

Jungkook looks at him with his eyes still as wide, but then his lids lower, weaken, and he chooses
the floor instead, glances at Taehyung’s fingers treading through the carpet. “You seriously need to
get yourself out of here if you think that.” His voice matches his eyes, weak and low.

Taehyung stares at him unfailingly and he desperately wants to reassure him that’s not true, but it
lodges in his throat. So, he settles for something else, something he is brave enough to say that
would secure his place here. “I can’t leave Woojin,” he tells him, head shaking.

Jungkook brings his eyes back up to him and then he’s speaking with more power, with that same
urgency that Taehyung held a moment ago, trying to get across what he means to say, as quick and
as pointed as possible. Jungkook speaks to him as if he really wants him to leave. “Woojin’s
young,” he says to him. “He still has the chance to stay away from all this in the first place. You
don’t,” he shakes his head, presses it back onto the wall as if he can’t hold it up on his own.
“Richhood would just fucking finish you.”

Taehyung sucks in a breath, runs a palm over his mouth, wipes at it and keeps his fingers there,
cupping the bottom of his face. He only talks when he thinks he’s sure his voice would come out
leveled, but he fails. It’s frail. “Then why would you stay?”

“Taehyung,” his name sounds gentle falling from his lips, but his next words come rough and raw
and bitter, “I’m part of it.”

Taehyung’s head sways back forth. “You’re not,” he says, and he’s almost angry again. Something
is rising in his stomach and then his chest and it is warm and cold at the very same time, like water
that is so scorching it feels freezing to the touch. “You’re a product of it.”

Jungkook’s laugh is wet. “Yeah?” his head cocks and every feature on his face twists painful and
pained. His chin juts towards him. “Look at you, Tae,” he says, and his voice builds with every
syllable, raises, pitches. It grows demanding, but it is not pointed at Taehyung, “Look at what I did
to you.” It builds and then it drops, cracks and breaks uneven, forehead touching to his knees as his
eyes screw shut and Taehyung is almost thankful he takes them away. “And look at my sister,” he
says in a broken, contorted tone.

He breathes, heaves through his nose, loud and ugly, and then he is picking his head up again, eyes
misfocused when they take Taehyung’s face, with his parted lips and sympathetic eyes. “I,” he
nearly sniffs the word out, “you know I thought if I told Sooho not to sell her now, it would be
okay. She would get over it without drugs. I didn’t know what else I could have done, but she still,”
he isn’t looking at Taehyung anymore, probably not even talking to him at this point. His
mannerisms are jerky, his eyes stare into a distant nothing. “She looked so exhausted, even on our
birthday,” his head shakes, “her eyes were red, she didn’t show up, but I just, I was so focused on
myself I didn’t even—” he chokes on it, “I was so fucking selfish, fucking obsessed with myself.”
His head falls back down, knocks into his kneecaps. “I could have stopped her.”

Taehyung doesn’t know at what point he gets on his knees, when he starts crawling, only knows he
shuffles on the soft carpet until he is in front of him. “Jungkook,” he calls, and the name trembles
on his tongue, he spreads it out, licks across his lips, and tries again, but Jungkook isn’t paying
attention. His hands lift, palm cupping at his knees and he tries to pry them apart. “It’s not your
fault,” he says, his head shaking and eyes begging for him to meet his, but he refuses.

Jungkook is many things, Taehyung thinks, many horrible, destructive things. But Jungkook is not
a bad brother. This is the one thing he is certain in. Jungkook is not a bad brother, and this could
never be his fault.

“Hey,” Taehyung calls, louder, pushes at his forehead as his knees fall apart and he crawls closer,
so he won’t be able to squeeze them back shut without him in between. His head raises, but he still
tries to stir it away, and Taehyung’s fingers venture instinctive, palm releases his knee and slides
over his jaw and his cheek. His long digits take so much of his face and they dig in, flesh of it
molding under the pattern they make as they hold him. “Jungkook, look at me,” Taehyung pleads.
“Listen to me,” he’s almost yelling at him, but he can’t tell. His eyes are red when finally has no
option but to look at him and he can see them glisten, but he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t let himself cry
and Taehyung almost wants to cry at the fact of it. “This wasn’t your fucking fault,” he yells. His
thumb pads softly over his cheekbone, makes a soothing circle over the skin. His head shakes.
“This wasn’t your fault,” he whispers.

He’s looking at those crimson, piercing eyes until he can’t anymore, and he releases his face,
wraps his arm around his neck instead, twists it at the elbow and shuffles even closer in between
his spread knees, presses the bodies of them both to each other because Jungkook doesn’t dare
move when Taehyung is touching him, and he has to do it for both of them. He tugs Jungkook’s
head into his neck and buries his own in his own arm around his shoulders, squeezes his eyes shut
and squeezes him close.

Taehyung hugs him. It’s not something he’s done in a while, so drastically different in nature to the
way he wraps himself around him in bed. He hasn’t done it in so long, and it feels foreign, but
somehow it is the only thing he thinks to do. He wraps himself around him firm and tight as much
as kneeling in between his spread knees would allow him and he just sits like this, feels his breath
on his neck. He raises his other hand up, cups it over his head, make sure to show him he’s allowed
this, allowed to keep his head there, for now, because Jungkook is so hesitant, doesn’t touch him,
doesn’t reciprocate this at all.

It’s just Taehyung holding him.

But then it isn’t. Jungkook’s arms raise, both circling around his waist, wrap around him and pull
him in tighter. He feels his nose as his face readjusts in his neck. There’s a blink. He senses his
lashes, and it’s silent but wet. It is singular, he knows he blinks once and then squeezes his eyes
shut, like he has his own. He smells like sweat and Jungkook and he is almost boiling to the touch,
suffocating, but Taehyung doesn’t want to let go.

And it is that fact that makes him pull away.

He retracts his arms, places his hands at his shoulders and pushes him lightly, carefully, until arms
are unlocking from behind his back and falling futile to side. Taehyung sits back on his calves,
briefly, before he is getting up, getting on his feet, and stepping away from in between Jungkook’s.
He stands up and he wipes the back of his hand on his eyes, his nose, his mouth, wipes it all away
almost awkwardly, and he’s walking back, keeps his hand there again.

Jungkook’s eyes seal onto him, trail after his every step as he moves away, walks. He turns, gives
him his back. “Can you—”Jungkook starts, but stops, takes his eyes off of him and instead looks at
his fingers as they move to fix the sleeve of some brand sweatshirt he’s wearing, he clears his
throat, “Can you stay?” and when Taehyung spins back at the question his eyes dart to his again
with compulsion he can’t control. “Just for a little while,” he asks. “Can you?”

And Taehyung wasn’t planning on leaving, not yet, but he supposes his sudden pacing must seem
that way to Jungkook. And he wants to say yes, he’s not going anywhere, but he doesn’t like what a
promise like that would entail, so he says neither yes nor no. He shakes his head. “Jungkook,” he
begins, tongue running quick across his lips as his eyes briefly take to the corners of this room, just
as full of fake plants. “This,” he says. “This doesn’t mean anything,” he pauses, “for us.”

“I know,” Jungkook promises. He nods. “I know it doesn’t.”

Taehyung nods, too. “Okay,” he sighs. “Okay.” He folds his arms before his chest, pauses where
he had previously stood, near Clo Eun’s bed, a safe distance away from hugging Jungkook and he
slides back down, sits on the carpet.

It’s silent for a moment, only the sound of running water coming through the door of the bathroom,
the surface at which Taehyung’s eyes root. It feels longer than it truly is.

When Jungkook speaks next, it’s so light and small at first Taehyung thinks he imagines it.

“I miss you,” Jungkook murmurs, and Taehyung blinks away from the door and at him.

His lower lip falls into his mouth and then drops out. His brows draw closer above the crease of his
eyes. He pauses, and it stretches. “I miss you, too,” he tells him in a whisper that matches his.

Jungkook’s head shakes. “You hate me,” he speaks, still in the same soft, disheartening manner.

This time there is no pause. “No,” Taehyung says, “I don’t.” He exhales through his nose, then
takes a deep breath through his mouth, fills his chest full. “And if I ever leave, Jungkook,” he
continues, “you’re leaving, too.”

Jungkook’s forehead lines, eyes narrow and as his lips begin to form words, the front door opens
and shuts, and footsteps sound through the apartment.

Jungkook’s getting on his feet, using the wall to prop himself up as quickly as possible, and
Taehyung is following suit, pressing his palm into the bed and standing up. His heart hammers and
his eyes turn wide at the door, but then people pile in and he is almost relieved.

Hoseok and Yoongi don’t seem to even notice him as they step towards Jungkook, asking him if
he’s okay, both of them in swimming trunks, and Hoseok without even a shirt.

Julia, however, sees him. She stops in her tracks, pauses at the door. “Taehyung,” she says, simple
and short, and her voice rings too loud within the walls of the room.

The others turn to him as well, pairs of eyes fixing over. Hoseok is confused. Yoongi is glaring.

Taehyung, however, looks at Julia. He hasn’t seen her from so close in a long while, and for some
reason the sight of her now makes him have to swallow down guilt. “I came with Namjoon,” he
supplies, though he doesn’t know if it means anything to her.

Yoongi’s brows furrow at that as well, perplexity coloring his features, too, and his head turns to
find Jungkook. “Namjoon?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods, his chin indicatively turning towards the door. “He’s here. Last call in her
phone,” he explains, and it is something Taehyung had been meaning to ask as well, why it was
Namjoon who he called first, and there it is, simple as that. Jungkook returns his head to them.
“Kai can’t know,” he stresses. “Namjoon’s with her.” And then he’s looking behind their shoulder
and in between them before his eyes fall on them again. “Where’s Seokjin?”

“He’ll come.” Hoseok is nodding, hand raises and squeezes into Jungkook’s shoulder. “I’m sure he
will.”

Jungkook blinks, nods, eyes dropping at his feet.

Yoongi takes a step forward. “Can I-?”

“Please,” Jungkook interrupts, glancing now at him, and takes a step to the side, so his body is no
longer in the way to the door to the bathroom.

Taehyung feels like an intruder. Here he is in between people who understand each other with half
nods and only semblances of words and sentences in such a vulnerable moment. And no one called
him. Clo Eun is his sister and their friend, and Taehyung is no one, absolutely nobody. And Julia’s
eyes on him are so fucking suffocating. “I’ll leave,” he announces and he’s walking.

It is silent when he does. He can hear the dull sound of his footsteps on the carpet, and he watches
that, looks at his feet, and he can see Julia’s move as she steps away to make room for him to leave
through the door. She steps into the room and he is about to go out of it, as it all should be, as is
right, because she is Jungkook’s girlfriend and he is just a nobody in this. Just a Kim.

But he stops at the sound of a voice.

“I want you to stay,” his voice says, and he stops dead.

He still watches the floor. He can’t look at anything else, certainly not at Julia in that moment.
Something washes over his back something cold and warm at the same time, trickles over his
spine, and he almost shivers. And with everything that’s happened lately he can’t believe this is
what seems most surreal, that Jeon Jungkook would tell him he wants him there, to stay, now, in
front of Julia, in front of Yoongi, and in front of Hoseok.

When Taehyung musters up the bravery to slowly turn his head and look at him, ask him with his
eyes alone if this is all some kind of a joke, Hoseok is the only one who seems surprised. Julia is
glaring at her feet, at the carpet, but there isn’t a shred of shock. Yoongi looks at him as Jungkook
used to always look at him, indifferent and almost lazy.

Jungkook is, of course, the worst to look at. His eyes are soft, and they look merciless and
inexcusable straight at Taehyung from in between shoulders as he stands so close to his girlfriend.

Taehyung turns his head to the door again, bites at his lower lip as his upper one tugs up at the
corners of his teeth. He’s contemplating, not entirely sure he is about to leave, but when he takes a
step forward, another voice sounds.
“Taehyung,” Fucking Min Yoongi says his name. They’re all saying his name now, Jungkook, and
Julia and Yoongi. No one calls him Kim anymore. “Please,” Yoongi says and Taehyung takes that
step back, turns his body halfway to look at him. “Just for a little while.”

The pause is pregnant. The request lingers, but Taehyung’s nodding again.

“I’ll stay until Namjoon has to leave,” he tells them all because that makes most sense, and he
glances at Julia, but she is looking at Yoongi now, won’t return it.

Yoongi nods and that is it. He seems to forget about Taehyung, replaces his attention to Jungkook.
He speaks to him differently, speaks to him softer. “I’ll go see her now, okay?”

“Okay,” Jungkook exhales and finally he takes his own eyes off of Taehyung.

Hoseok’s hand skids across Yoongi’s back, starts low and edges up and between his shoulder
blades. “Do you want me to come with you?” he asks, lowering his head a little to be able to talk to
him more privately, look at his eyes.

He shakes his head. “No,” he tells him, fingers closing over the bicep of the arm that touches him
and squeezing lightly in silent reassurance. “The fewer people the better,” he reasons. “You go to
their mother’s cabinet, try to see what’s missing and how much of it. They’ll need to know what
she took.”

Hoseok says okay, looks at Jungkook for permission and he awards him it with a small nod.
Yoongi opens the door to the bathroom gently and closes it behind him even gentler. Hoseok walks
past Taehyung, briefly fixing his eyes over him with a palpable curiosity.

When he steps past him and out of the room, it leaves him alone with Jungkook and Julia.

He hasn’t been in a room alone with Jungkook and Julia since that last time in the Executive
Tower, but everything between them has so colossally shifted that it is the furthest thing away from
his memory. Still, he feels a growing discomfort within himself, something hollow in his stomach,
because he no longer feels he can say anything to Jungkook, can go closer to him, can touch him.
He hardly feels he can look at him.

Especially when Julia starts walking. She looks up from her feet and takes careful steps towards
him, eyes fixing over him. Taehyung’s gaze darts up at the motion of her moving. His lips part on
their own and suddenly, he can’t not look at her walk up to him.

“Hey, Kook,” she calls to him softly. “Jungkook.” Her eyes seek his from underneath as she stops
right before him, the tips of her shoes almost touching his. Both her hands crowd his face, slip over
his cheeks, one exactly where Taehyung's had been, but it’s smaller, can’t hold his whole jaw and
cheek like his own had. Taehyung watches their eyes meet “She’s going to be okay. She always is.”

Taehyung remembers he used to be able to look at Jungkook with Julia. He used to be used to the
sight, but now it seems awry, and he cannot exactly stand it. He thinks jealousy should be
completely absent for a situation like this, and maybe it is, maybe that’s not what this feeling that
waves inside him is; it could be something else entirely, but for whatever reason it burns at him
and he is speaking before he has fully made the decision. “Okay,” he breathes, sighs, runs a hand
through his hair and shakes it off of his forehead. “I thought I that I could, but I can’t. I’m going.”

Jungkook grips at Julia’s hands, cups them gently with his own, and he lowers them from his face.
He looks past her shoulder and at him. “Tae,” he calls imploringly, but doesn’t say anything else
and he doesn’t really get the chance to, because Julia is freeing her hands from his and turning her
head to him.

“He broke up with me.”

Taehyung blinks. His heart skips a beat. His eyes peel and they blink from her to him and he’s
looking at him too until the moment their eyes lock and he’s looking away, whole head tilting at
the floor and he sees his bottom lip tuck underneath his teeth.

“He broke up with me,” she repeats and Taehyung’s head shifts to her. “I’m just being his friend,”
she tells him, “like I’ve been the last fifteen years, so,” and he sees Seung Julia hesitate, her hand
raises, gestures with her fingers spread at a nothing in the room, “so just, sit down or something,
and stay here.” She meets his eyes, “Please.”

Taehyung doesn’t sit, but he doesn’t leave either. He stands speechless in the doorway and Julia
only breaks eye contact with him, replaces his eyes to the carpet as well, when the door of the
bathroom cracks opened.

Yoongi steps out first, goes immediately to Jungkook, but Namjoon appears as well. He finds
Taehyung with his gaze, walks towards him.
“Jungkook,” Yoongi is addressing quietly, “remember what we talked about?” His brows raise.
“Last time.”

Julia stands beside Jungkook, close enough to feel her presence, but she doesn’t touch him.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods somehow absently and as Yoongi’s eyes fix over him more incessant and
demanding, he moves his head firmer. His throat clears. “Yes,” he answers.

“And?”

Jungkook falls silent and Namjoon reaches Taehyung then. He presses his hands into the fronts of
Taehyung’s elbows and pushes him, walks him backwards towards the door, but Taehyung seals
his heels into the carpet after the first successful step he forces out of him, tilts his head to look
over Namjoon’s shoulder and at the others’ exchange.

There is something tangibly tense in Jungkook’s silence. And then something even tenser in his
question, “Can you drive?”

Yoongi nods. “Of course,” he says and Jungkook is disappearing into the bathroom with him
following there. Julia stops at the door, but Namjoon is pushing him away.

“Taehyung,” he calls, a weak attempt to get his attention, because Taehyung is nearly standing at
his fucking toes to try to look past him.

“What?” he says, momentary darting his eyes to Namjoon, a small attempt on his part to make
them linger, and focus, but he fails and tries to stare futile at the bathroom, but the angle is awful,
and Julia’s body is in the way. “What’s going on?”

Namjoon grips at his elbows firmer. “Taehyung,” he stresses and he’s almost managed to push him
into the hallway now. “Let’s go home.”

Taehyung turns to him when he completely pushes the door out of sight. “But where are
they going?” he demands, teeth clanking with how he urges the questions out of his mouth, and
Namjoon is as ever so frustratingly calm, just taking him away, without explaining why, he never
does explain why, and Taehyung is in a marble hallway now. “What’s happening?”
Namjoon speaks so levelled, drastically juxtaposed to the way Taehyung’s voice increasingly curls
with the onset of panic. He doesn’t know anything, and it scares him, and Namjoon is pushing him
away more, and he hasn’t even had the chance to tell Jungkook he’ll go. “They’re going to take her
to a hospital,” he finally gives him a semblance of an explanation, the only way to attempt to calm
him down.

Taehyung’s eyes snap to his. “What?” he chokes out.

Namjoon’s fingers squeeze and he bends the short amount necessary to find his gaze, stares at him
beneath furrowed brows. “She needs to stay there for a little while.”

“What?” Taehyung says again, blinking sporadically, “But, But Yoongi takes as much drugs as her
if not fucking more?” he tries to reason. He tries to, really does, because if they take Clo Eun
away, Jungkook will be alone, completely alone in this apartment with that father of his. And
Taehyung knows Yoongi and Hoseok don’t know the full story, don’t know he hits, he puts
cigarettes out on them when it’s convenient. And whatever they know about Jungkook and
Taehyung, it’s not enough. They know nothing. Only Clo Eun does.

“Yoongi,” Namjoon presses, his teeth grinding together as his voice sinks low, whispers,“has
never been on the verge of killing himself, Taehyung.” He tells him and it shuts his mouth off,
shuts his brain off as well. He just stares at Namjoon, waits for him to make it all better. “She’s a
danger to herself. She can no longer judge her own limits,” he mumbles to him calmly. “Let’s go
home, Taehyung.”

“But I—” he wanted him to stay. Jungkook asked him to stay and if Namjoon keeps pushing him,
he won’t even get to say goodbye, won’t get to tell him he would, for this. Julia can be his friend,
and maybe, maybe for this he can be, too.

“He has his friends,” Namjoon says louder, firmer. “This isn’t about the two of you.” He knows it
isn’t. There isn’t a the two of them right now, but there is a Jungkook, blaming himself, asking him
to stay. “Let’s go,” Namjoon gives a final push and Taehyung spins, walks down the marble
hallway and back to the subway.
 Chapter 20
Chapter Notes

also I wrote a one shot for Yoongi and Hoseok as I mentioned on my twitter if anyone
hasn't seen that yet and is interested

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Tae—” Namjoon tries, again, but Taehyung’s eyes are riveted on the outlines of their house, his
stride towards it as determined and as pointed as he can muster.

“Taehyung,” he calls, uses his big brother voice on him, gets it deeper, yet louder. He matches his
pace perfectly, and when yet again he receives silence and a clenched back, he picks up his speed,
wraps fingers around his elbow, pulls him back. “Listen, if you have something brewing, get it out
here where we can’t wake up Woo.”

He turns only because the force of the pull is unexpected. His glare is fixed before he’s even
caught his eyes. When he does, when he glances back at Namjoon’s expression, his almost softens.
He breathes, pupils darting to the corners of his eyes, as his tongue tugs into his cheek in sync. He
does look to him again, tries not too be too brusque, when he jerks his elbow back, when he speaks.

“Why didn’t you let me at least say fucking bye?” He shouldn’t care, not as much as he does. The
anger that so constantly sizzles at his skin is so frustratingly frustrating.

Namjoon goes softer on him, speaks quiet, head shaking as if he had no other choice but to tell him
exactly what to do. “Tae, it wasn’t the place.”

Taehyung’s chest burst with a singular sardonic bristle. His arms fold, eyes roll, almost beyond his
control and the mere way he talks sounds like a scoff, “You come in here after months and tell me
what place is for what?”

“Taehyung,” Namjoon presses. He tries to be firmer. He’s different than just a couple of hours ago,
his voice strains more, and his patience wears thin on his tongue and attitude and Taehyung does
know it wasn’t an easy night for him either, even if he doesn’t precisely what went on in that
bathroom. “I’m your brother,” he insists as if it still means anything.
Taehyung scratches at his eyebrow, head shaking continuously. “It seems the only things you’re
good for, my brother, are all related to drugs.”

Namjoon’s arms raise, gesture wildly with the evidence of his own frustration. “It was better for
you to go—"

“Yeah,” Taehyung interjects, presses an open palm into his chest. “Please,” his tongue clicks with
it, drained in bitterness, “tell me it was for my protection. Last time someone did that for me it
went really well.”

Namjoon takes a step forward to match the one he takes backwards, body angling to the door. “Tae
—”

His arms lift, bent at the elbows, palms spread in defeat. “Good fucking night,” he tells him,
decides to end this for now, as, although few people seem to understand, he is very much entitled
to making decisions for himself.

They’re exhausted, and this is meaningless. Taehyung does not like how he’s acting, but his
inhibitions are lowered enough, he’s drained, for him to not have any control of it, and he simply
needs this day to just finish.

He has his palm on the door, when Namjoon tries again, but he’s too tired to make him stay,
“Taehyung.”

He opens the door, but turns to him to raise his brows, “Don’t you think its past my bedtime,
hyung?”

Taehyung always used to look too much. Overthinking was never really that problematic for him,
but lately he simply can’t shut his mind of. Not at home, not at work, not when he does math
problems and not when he practices shading. He can’t help wondering what Jungkook will do this
fucking time. He wonders if he’s going to get drunk and on coke and pull some dumb shit that will
be destructive both for him and for people around him.
He wonders that night, barely gets a blink of sleep, tosses and turns, and he wonders the morning
before his afternoon shift as he gives his best to focus on pyramid design and perspective but
sketches a shadow on the wrong side, and he wonders when he goes to work and slams his hip on
the edge of a table that has clients on it, and their drinks spill from the impact. He loses a tip.

He contemplates texting him the following night, but he gives up on it quick. He hears Ji-woo and
Namjoon argue numbly through the floor boards, and he presses his back on the wall, props his
sketchbook on his legs and practices shading with both headphones in his ears even if only one
works. His exam is in two days.

Hearsay at Taehyung’s tables in Rouge claims Jeon Clo Eun is at a musical competition in Austria,
and her parents travel with her to offer support. Jungkook stays home, perhaps because his
semester starts too soon for Europe travelling. But Jungkook doesn’t come to Rouge, doesn’t go to
the Ozone. Taehyung wonders where the Jeons have really gone to cover for Clo Eun’s admission,
but mostly their absence nags at him with the implication that Jungkook is entirely alone when he
is at home.

Seung Julia does come to Rouge. She doesn’t typically get anything to go, doesn’t have much
responsibility in the summer, nowhere to hurry to, but she clicks her heels to the counter in Rouge,
an exaggerated hat and oversized sunglasses on even inside, and she orders an Ice Americano to
take away.

Taehyung bows slightly when the person in front of whom he is placing a drink thanks him, but his
eyes are forever fixed on that unavoidable hat. He presses his tray to the side of his body, tries to
make his shift in direction to the counter as nonchalant as it could be. He catches her as she presses
her customized credit card to the POS terminal.

He gets his tray on the counter, doesn’t angle his body to hers. “Hey.”

Her head turns to him sharply. Her tongue is sharper. “Don’t.”

“Julia, I—”

“Taehyung,” she interjects, “I will be civil to you if we run across each other. But frankly, I’d
prefer to avoid you as much as humanly possible. Okay?” Her lips stretch in a single, tight smile
that disappears in less than a moment. She moves along to the pick-up spot and Taehyung tries
hard to be subtle when he follows, pulling his tray along.
“I just,” he hesitates, eyes shifting to Minho, hopes the grinding of beans and machines would be
loud enough to cover his voice. “I just wanted to ask how he was,” he shrugs in a hopeless attempt
to make this casual.

Her head tilts back, ever so gracious, even in her bitterness she knows to be gallant. She laughs
briefly at the ceiling, and it rings pretty, before she turns to him, lowers her sunglasses from her
face to regard him with permeating eyes, and he wonders what intimidates him more, his reflection
in the cover of her Gucci's or the glint in her gaze. Her grin is scathing. “You saw it fit to ask me
how the man I love who realized he doesn’t love me because of you is?” her head shakes, grin
dwindling until her lips are just crimson outlines of her white teeth that part a little helpless. She
turns to the counter. “I don’t want to see your pretty face, pretty boy.”

It takes Taehyung a moment. Guilt churns at him, though that remaining anger screams that she
brought him into this. He can’t tell her that, not here and not now. He’s angry at her, too, angry
exactly because of that fact, it was her who started it all, her and her whims. He might have had his
eyes on Jungkook before, but Jungkook himself barely acknowledged his existence, before she
brought him to his attention.

He doesn’t say all that. He simply glances at the floor, whispers, “He does love you.”

“I know he does,” she tells him, silent, “But not the way I want him to.” She shakes her head and
he’s struck quiet again. And he can’t find it in himself to tell her anything of what sparks in his
head, because losing Jungkook after barely a month and some pathetic weeks breaks him, and he
can’t imagine what it would be like to lose him after having him for years.

“Was it him?” Julia asks, her manicure tapping into the counter.

Taehyung looks at her plainly. “What?”

“This whole time,” her fingers tap quicker, and she turns her face to his, “were you looking at
him?”

He blinks, mouth swallowing his bottom lip. He glances away. He nods. “Yeah,” he admits.

She nods, too, nods slow and long and to herself. “So,” she hesitates, eyes rolling down the length
of him in a curious exploration, as if she sees him for the first time, “it’s mutual?” her gaze raises,
blinks at him. “This thing between you? You’re like that, too.”
“I—” his brows narrow together; he blinks, head shaking, helpless, “I don’t know what he told
you.”

Minho places the drink on the counter. “Ice Americano.”

Julia wraps her fingers around it, slides her sunglasses back on, shrugs, and she leaves.

People never knock on the door of the Jeons’ penthouse in Gangnam. First of all, because there is a
bell attached to a system for atypical spontaneous visits, and second of all, because no one ever
comes unannounced. Especially when Jungkook is home alone. He tends to be the visitor, not the
visitee, considering he likes to spend time he would classify as enjoyable as far away from this
apartment as possible. He most certainly doesn’t want Hoseok and Yoongi around, associated with
his life at home, prying into his life at home.

He doesn’t imagine it could be somebody else, but he can hardly imagine it can be them either. He
already turned down going to the event they are at tonight, no matter how much they claim it
would be a distraction. Standing in as the only representative of the Jeons tonight in front of
Byung-Chul and other of his father’s associates is not the type of distraction he wants.

He places his book down and stands. His feet feel cold on the marble.

He opens the door, and he barely has time to distrust his eyes and breathe out, when he has
something shoving in his stomach.

“Taehyung,” he nearly marvels.

“Here,” he hears the word brusquely spoken, and has a box pressed into his ribs. Taehyung’s
tongue turns quick in his mouth as he speaks to him, every word cut short with urgency, as
Jungkook stands, gawking, “I brought your shirts and pants since you refused to take them.”
He doesn’t know if Taehyung means to step past the threshold and walk further into the corridor,
or he does it out of necessity to move, but he’s walking, makes Jungkook’s body twist with him as
he instinctively clutches the small carton box to himself after the other releases it.

“Taehyung,” he tries to catch his attention again as he lets the door go, hears it click shut, autolock,
but Taehyung has barely ended his last sentence before he starts a new one.

“I would have brought the console as well,” he explains nearly frantic, arms twisting with
unnecessary gestures. He shrugs, shakes his head, “But Woojin loves it too much.”

Taehyung is pacing further into the apartment, and Jungkook still cannot figure out if that is
intentional or he is simply at a complete loss at what to do with himself.

“I also bought a stove,” he continues, just as rapid, “but I can’t exactly give you that, can I?”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tries again.

He’s crossed the threshold of the open door to the living space, when he seems to understand he is
walking, and he spins, faces the exit again, and, consequently, Jungkook.

“What?” he asks with his pause, arms folding as his body closes off slightly as soon as he registers
he’s so deep into the apartment, eyes landing on Jungkook first, before they shift to sporadically
drift across the room, stop at the dinner table, and then move on to Jungkook again.

Jungkook, who is moving. He bends slightly, places the box on a soft surface by the door he’s
positive no one has ever actually sat on, despite the fact he has no plans of keeping its contents.
Taehyung is taking them right back to his house, and if he doesn’t want to touch them, that’s fine,
he can throw them away, lock them away, but Jungkook simply can’t have them anymore.

He straightens, locks his arms in front of his body as well. “Why are you here?” he asks him,
because he knows by the fact Taehyung is in the living room and not in the elevator already that he
doesn’t simply want to return a couple of shirts and some pants.

Taehyung breathes, maybe for the first time since he has arrived. His lips part, but he says nothing,
instead runs a pink tongue over the surface and pauses. His fingers clutch to the elbows of his own
arms and his eyes blink away once again, choose a fake orchid that is potted by the door.
Taehyung doesn’t answer right away, because his mind is so full it’s blank. His exam is tomorrow
morning, but he cannot fucking concentrate and quite frankly, he has no fucking idea what he is
doing whatsoever.

He’s worried. He’s worried Jungkook will do something dumb and then regret it. He’s worried
Jungkook will turn to substances. He’s worried Jungkook is lonely without Clo Eun around. He is
utterly and selflessly worried about him.

But he doesn’t say that, because he doesn’t like what the pure, unadulterated worry could
insinuate. So, he makes this about himself, on an instinct.

“Why did you break up with Julia now?” he asks him, not simply because he doesn’t want to
confess his concern, but also because it’s another burdening, burning question that refuses to stop
torturing him. “Why now?” he insists, slides his eyes back up to Jungkook’s boldly, and traps his.

Jungkook hesitates. “I—” he starts empty. He,he, yes, he, this is about his actions, his
responsibility. But he can hardly explain them to himself let alone to Taehyung. “I thought I owed
her the truth.”

He thinks it’s the right thing to say, the most honest one, nevertheless, but maybe it isn’t because
Taehyung’s eyes narrow. He splutters, “Oh, she gets the special treatment,” his voice cuts cold, “a
shred of actual decency.”

Jungkook isn’t familiar with forgiveness. He doesn’t know how to give it, and he doesn’t know
how to ask for it, either.

He hardly knows how to communicate any of what he feels. Hobi and Yoongi don’t talk about
feelings. Julia, he thinks, he had afraid of even attempting to save herself from the humiliation of
getting perpetually shut down. Were he better, he thinks, maybe Taehyung wouldn’t feel the need
to stand 10 feet apart from him to speak. And he wants to try, for him, he wants to; as much as he
owed Julia the truth, he owes him a proper apology. But words fail him. “Taehyung, I wish I had
done that for you. I—”

Taehyung’s head shakes. “I don’t think I believe you.”

And that’s where Jungkook falls short. He is completely inadequate at making him believe. His
skills with people, albeit ostensibly impeccable, rely on something terribly more superficial. He
speaks instinctually to him. “I don’t lie to you, Tae,” and he feels it is true. He was bad for him,
bad with him, but he rarely ever lied to him. He implores with his eyes, but his voice grows weak,
automatically as he confesses something that his brain screams in recognition of vulnerability.
“Only when I said you meant nothing to me.”

Taehyung stares at him for a long moment with his lids losing their tightness. His gaze retains a
certain deceiving softness right before he pries it away, and shakes his head again, but different,
harsher. “Fuck you,” he says, half through his nose, a breath that is disbelieving and offended.

Jungkook doesn’t know what else to say to him. His head is a storm of words, but none are on his
tongue, none tie together well enough to make sense, to fit what he wants to convey to him, and he
abhors every moment that passes in his silence, but he would rather that than saying something that
would hurt him again.

He is silent for long enough that Taehyung’s foot twitches, steps, and Jungkook’s stomach drops
with a sudden fear he will leave. For whatever reason, Taehyung is there, and they are both
comparatively calm and completely sober, for the first time since the night he fucked it all up, and
Taehyung is giving him a chance to actually speak to him, but he’s as always royally fucking it all
up.

Jungkook’s arms unfold instinctually, body poising; he knows he’ll reach for him, has the bad
habit of speaking with his body, but Taehyung’s foot retracts back, and he angles himself to him.
“You know if you mean it,” he starts, chest pulling back and falling with his exhale, “why don’t
you give me that decency now, okay?” His lips press together, curl downwards. The very way he
asks it, with a pulse of his head downwards, with clear cut skepticism, drips with doubt. “What’s
the truth, Jungkook?

Jungkook’s lids flutter. For a moment, he’s glancing away, tongue coating over his lips with
reluctance. “Taehyung—”

“Just tell me what you told her.” Taehyung’s shoulders curl and then fall. “There’s one truth, isn’t
there?”

Jungkook’s eyes blink back to him. Maybe it should be that simple.

“I told her I fucked you,” he tells him. Taehyung’s lips straighten, eyes relax and Jungkook watches
his throat bob as he gulps. “I told her I kept thinking about you when it came to sex. I told her you
sucked me off, and I liked it, and I told her one time after my fight I didn’t bend a random girl over.
I bent you over. She slapped me, asked me if those were your nails denting my back. I told her yes.
She asked me if it was all sex for me.” Jungkook pauses, his pupils darting between Taehyung’s. “I
told her no.”

Taehyung takes his eyes away, drops them to his shoes. He doesn’t say anything to this.

And now that Jungkook has started talking it feels harder for him to stop, but his tongue is getting
clumsy. “She told me to go fuck myself. I told her I did, fucked myself over, fucked you over. Told
her she didn’t have to worry about dealing with it, because you want nothing to do with me
anymore. She, erm, she asked if I wanted anything to do with—with you, and I, I told her, I told her
yes. But I—”

His speech stammers and halts, and Taehyung is looking at him again, but now he is the one
looking at shoes. Taehyung is wearing Converse that maybe once used to be white. “But you
what?”

“I—You deserve different,” Jungkook glances up, catches his eyes and steals them for himself.
There is nothing explicit in the way Taehyung stares at him, nothing definable. It’s so plain, but yet
it’s overwhelmed and overwhelming, and it simply pries words of Jungkook’s mouth, not ones that
he has offered to Julia. They are just for Taehyung. “The truth is, Taehyung, that, you deserve
something, someone,” he corrects himself, eyes jerking away for a bare moment, because it tugs at
his guts awry to admit it; he can separate knowing from feeling, but the fact he knows Taehyung
deserves someone else, does not erase the blinding possessiveness he feels over him, does nothing
for the fact he wants him for himself. “Deserve someone,” he tries again, “who isn’t…” he
swallows, “scared—to kiss you.” He pauses. It’s ridiculous—he’s scared of the word scared. He
licks his lips. “Who stays with you after he fucks you, who doesn’t talk down on you. Someone
who lets you fucking cuddle them, and, uhm, who treats you like an equal, someone who doesn’t,”
he looks to the side, to a fake orchid, “doesn’t tell you they can buy you. And—yeah.”

“And yeah?” Taehyung’s head cocks, brows furrow. “That’s it?”

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head, “more,” he tells him, “someone who talks to you, listens to you.”
His eyes jump back to him. He is bad with words, so bad, always used them as a weapon, never for
expression. “Taehyung, more, just, just more.”

Taehyung’s eyes on him feel blank. They’re wide, bare, and when he moves a bit, they almost
seem glossy, but there is some unbearable frustration brewing in Jungkook, because he cannot tell
what they express. He used to be such an open book, but now a spiteful numbness seems to have
etched into his features, and only the tremble of his voice gives away affect, “What if I want that
someone to be you?”
Jungkook barely hears it, but his heart jumps, body moves. He’s taking a step.“Taehyung, I want it
–”

But he’s taking a step back, solidifying that distance between them, and no matter how many times
and in how many places Jungkook had been punched, it never felt this breathless. “Don’t come
near me,” he says, somewhere between a warning and a plea, and Jungkook’s feet become one
with the floor, stomach dropping.

His eyes are changing, morphing on his face and as they become easier to read, they become so
much more difficult to bear. He can’t get used to seeing such untainted pain. “I want it to be you,
but it shouldn’t be you,” Taehyung bites out, words tumbling out of his mouth, forceful, because
his voice slightly fails him. “It can’t be you, you don’t know how to.”

Knowledge and feeling start that war inside of him again, and he very well knows that Taehyung is
right. No one ever taught him that, he could never promise that – it’s not in his nature, not in his
nurture – but feeling pushes him forward, puts words on his tongue. “I can try—” he starts, and
Taehyung isn’t moving away this time, but it is his voice that rings around stiflingly.

“I’m not an experiment,” he declares, teeth clashing with the end of it. Jungkook stops and as
Taehyung stares at him, the pain gets tainted by a glare. “I can’t do trial and error with you. Your
errors are fucking…” he looks at him, looks at him all over, from his feet to his head. “They’re
destructive,” he finishes softer.

It’s enough of a scathing fact for knowledge to hold him in place again. He looks away.

Silent stretches, but it short before Taehyung’s voice fills his ears again. “Why have you stopped
coming to Rouge, to the Ozone, even before,” his tongue pokes out, coats at his lips with slight
hesitation that shows in his rolling shoulders as well, “before Clo?”

Jungkook’s eyes dart to him again. “Isn’t it easier for you,” he almost stops there but doesn’t, “to
not think about me, when you don’t see me?”

Taehyung’s lips purse, pull down at the edges. His head shakes. “No, it isn’t,” he tells him and if
Jungkook knew a bit more about feelings, maybe he could define what it is that swallowed him up.
“Clo said you promised to stay away.”
He nods. “I did.”

He takes a moment longer to speak again. His face relaxes, features slipping into nothingness.
“How is she?” he asks him.

“Angry,” Jungkook says, honestly, because he truly has no reason or desire to lie to him. “But
better.”

Taehyung’s eyes find the orchid. He speaks quieter when he ventures, “And you?”

Jungkook breathes in. “I’m reading,” his gaze instinctually gestures to the case book that lies
haphazardly across the couch. “Semester’s starting soon.”

Eyes slide back to him. “That’s not an answer.”

“What do you want me to say to you?” Jungkook’s arms fold across his chest, protectively,
shoulders lifting before they fall helpless.

Taehyung’s lids lower halfway over his pupils. His head shakes, and Jungkook thinks he hears him
mutter nothing, but he isn’t sure. He does hear his deep exhale, does witness him look away,
cannot miss his announcement of, “I’ll go.”

He’s walking as soon as he’s said it, and Jungkook hardly has the nerve to stop him. He trails a
glance behind him, centers between his shoulder blades and looks at him leave him again, and he
has half a mind to ask him to stay, but if he didn’t stay when Clo was half-dead, he certainly isn’t
staying now.

“Tae.”

He pauses, turns slightly to look at him over his shoulder. “What?”

Stay.
“Take that box,” Jungkook tells him after a beat. “Burn it if you want,” he speaks as he moves back
to where he sat on the couch, “but take it.”

Taehyung says nothing, and Jungkook only listens to him leave, doesn’t watch it, because he’s
afraid he might call out to him again, but once he hears the door click shut again, he glances up,
finds the box gone.

“Taehyung,” Namjoon appears in the doorway of the room they are supposed to share. But he still
sleeps on the couch despite Woojin’s attempts at persuasion, and Taehyung has a hard time
figuring out for whose sake he’s truly doing it.

He darts his eyes to him in acknowledgment as he stands in front of the opened closet, staring into
the mirror on the back of its door, trying and failing to properly fold the fabric of his tie on top of
his uniform. He is utterly hopeless at this.

“How was the exam?” he hears Namjoon ask as he keeps a certain distance, steps into the room,
eyes scanning over furniture littered with stickers, gaze falling onto his bed.

Taehyung doesn’t look at that bed, doesn’t like to. “Good,” he says, scarcely, but he finds some
stickers lined around the mirror, stickers he and Namjoon put there together, and his shoulders
slump a little. “Surprisingly good actually,” he elaborates. “I don’t wanna jinx it, but I think it went
well.”

Namjoon pauses. “I’m glad.”

“Yes,” Taehyung darts his eyes to him again, “Listen, I have like, twenty minutes before I
absolutely have to leave for my shift, so—”

“I need to talk to you,” he interjects, firmer.

His brother turns to him fully. It looks so natural and yet paradoxically awry to have Namjoon
stand next to his own bed. Taehyung folds his arms, brows draw upwards. “About?”

Namjoon fills his chest with nothing but air, Taehyung sees it pile underneath with the raise of his
ribcage. His tongue briefly taps at his lips, and his gaze strays, but then it is back on him, and it is
wide and honest. “I can’t stay here, Taehyung. And I want to talk to you about that. I’ve spoken to
Ji, I need to talk to you, too.” He pauses, allows him a moment to protest, but Taehyung just
watches with the cover of blankness. “I need to talk to you about Japan.”

There is something he doesn’t like about the way Namjoon approaches this. It feels heavy,
strained. It feels loaded, with more. He gulps down the raise of unease, presses his fingers tighter
into his forearms, and nods. “Okay.”

As much as Jungkook had not expected to see Taehyung when he answered the door the previous
night after that incessant knocking, nothing compares to his shock, when he simply opens the door,
to go out himself – Hoseok and Yoongi are waiting for him, though they are very much enough for
each other – and sees him standing in front of it in his uniform.

He looks as shocked to see him as Jungkook himself feels, lips immediately parting uselessly, not a
sound coming out, not even a stutter. His eyes seal onto Jungkook. They are wide for a moment,
then lids lower as his lips join again, and his pupils roll over him slowly, just looking, taking, and
he is completely and utterly silent with his scrutiny, not even attempting to justify his presence. He
just stands there.

Jungkook considers hallucination as an option. Maybe he has started seeing apparitions of

Taehyung. With the amount of drugs he’s done in his short life, and the seemingly timeless
hours he spends thinking about him, conjuring excuses to speak to him, he wouldn’t be surprised if
he started seeing him with his eyes opened as well, not just in his imagination when he lowers them
shut.

But he looks so fucking real, smells real. He can recognize the scent of his fruity, cheap shampoo,
the hints of sweat that waitressing even in late summer under the sun with a shirt forced on is
bound to cause. And he feels real, because Jungkook gets that, that thing in his stomach and on top
of his skin, that thing that only the very material Taehyung can entice from him.

“Taehyung,” he says, when he simply stands there, looking at every bit of him as if he’s trying to
memorize him. His own voice wavers when he tries to even it, comes out breathy, “What are you
doing here again?”

His eyes dart up, focus on his and he tries to judge by his pupils if he’s alright. It’s always the first
thought with Jungkook, look at the pupils. And Taehyung has his eyes wide, exposing the whole of
his irises, but other than some urgency in the way they dart so wildly, there is nothing concerning
in them. In his mouth, however, there is, as words that leave it push Jungkook back to
contemplating if he’s a hallucination.

“I wanted to see you,” he mumbles, syllables falling hurried.

Jungkook’s brows furrow. He does not like the way his heart speeds up, slave to a single nothing of
a sentence. “You wanted to see me?” he repeats, and as he discards thoughts of dreaming and
hallucination, because it simply cannot feel so real, he swallows down the bitter prospect that this
is some torturous shape of revenge. He’s playing with him, and Jungkook is not ready to play, he
can’t, not with Clo in the hospital and not with the way his heart races in his chest.

Taehyung’s eyes drop to his shoes before they lift up again, meet his. “Are you going out?”

He’s playing with him, must be. But he’s here. “No,” Jungkook shakes his head, opens the door
wider. “I don’t have to.”

Taehyung’s own head shakes as it angles to the floor, more sporadic, repetitive, as if he’s
mumbling to himself as a tongue teases past his lips. “You’re obviously going out. I—”

Jungkook doesn’t know if he’s authorized to touch him, but his hand reaches out instinctive,
fingers are light and merely suggestive on his elbow as his mouth parts. “Shut up and come in.” He
tugs him in and releases him before he’s had the time to think about it, shuts the door pointedly
behind him.

He looks at him stand in front of his closed door, for the second night in a roll. It gnaws on him
that he is there. He probably shouldn’t be, and that urgency with which he speaks to him both
today and yesterday is undoubtedly concerning, but Jungkook is much too selfish to tell him to go
home.

“Okay,” Taehyung mutters after a moment of already standing in the apartment, eyes still sealed
onto him so peculiarly.

Jungkook walks to the living room, presses his phone to the charger again, if he’s not going to go
out, and turns. Taehyung still stands at the doorway in his marble corridor.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Jungkook asks, returning that study from head to toe. He’s
acting weird. He’s acting fucking weird and it makes him uneasy.

He shakes his head. “No,” he says. He walks. He comes closer, distance closing much more than
Jungkook expects it to. And when Taehyung seems to stop the proximity is enough for Jungkook
to feel the need to pull away. He lowers himself, sits on his couch, and Taehyung’s eyes follow the
motion.

They’ve sat on this couch before. Taehyung hit him with a pillow on this couch. He smiled at him
on it.

He eyes the couch for more than a casual moment before he sits. His stare roots to the TV in front
of them, so uselessly huge.

“Tae,” Jungkook tries gently when the other still says nothing, head cocking to try to study his
face. “Is something wrong?”

There’s something borderline eerie about his presence there. His eyes dart to him first, almost
cautiously, from the very corners, before they bolt down almost shyly. His mouth opens and closes
once before he properly speaks to him.

“I just,” he shifts on the couch with a heaving breath, exhales. His body angles towards Jungkook,
the first motion subtle, but the second pointed, and he scoots closer. His eyes blink, lids flutter
pretty and with their next trepidation he’s looking at him. “You haven’t touched me in so long.”

Jungkook feels a physical tug in his gut. His eyes switch between his so rapid, and the whisper of
his next breathless attempt of a word sounds as urgent as Taehyung previously did, “What?”
“You haven’t,” Taehyung murmurs to him and he shifts closer still, and touches his knee to his, but
then that is nothing, because his arms are raising and his hands ever so lightly try at his shoulders
before his palms sink, layer, slide slow and tentative and almost ghostly over his chest. He follows
the motion of it with his own eyes briefly before he bats them up again, catches Jungkook’s own so
ruthlessly. “I miss it.”

Jungkook’s heart swells under the sensation of Taehyung’s warm palm. His touch is fiery, he
grows so immediately and irrevocably aware of it. “Taehyung,” he speaks with bidden alarm,
continues after he gulps down the syllables of his name on his lips, breathes with disbelief, “are
you hearing yourself?”

He must be playing with him, absolutely must be, and Jungkook never took him for someone like
this. His heart palpitates under the dubious instruction of the panic of that thought, because no
matter the rationality behind it, there is the hope Taehyung merely wants this that is also at fault
for the way the organ hammers.

There is something about that urgency in Taehyung’s eyes that keeps the flame of that hope alive,
about the way he scans him so closely.

“Maybe,” Taehyung scoots again, tonguing at his lips as his gaze falls to Jungkook’s own, mouth
parting to mirror the gap in his, which he needs to simply breathe. “Maybe just touch me again,”
his eyes shift back up, drop back down, “just once.”

He offers himself for the second time since Jungkook screwed it all up, but it’s so different to the
time in the Ozone he demanded of him to fuck him. He’s not obscene. He’s gentle, hesitant,
stuttering. His hands are wonderous across his chest, palms ghosting over his nipples, and
Jungkook can’t take it.

“No,” he says firmly, shakes his head, hands raising. He closes his digits around his wrists, and he
means to pull them away, really does.

But Taehyung’s fingers clench onto his shirt, take the fabric with it, and his eyes open so wide, he
doesn’t think he’s ever seen them so white. A layer of something wet that coats them as he
stretches them so much makes them glint with a curious innocence, and the combination of them
like this, so vulnerable, with the airy, soft fear of his next question is nearly deadly to Jungkook,
“You don’t want me?”

Fuck.
Want him? Jungkook wants to laugh. He fucking craves him. There’s a difference between
wanting and craving. Wanting is so simple, he wants so many things. Craving, on the other hand.
The craving hangs at your fingertips, creates an illusion of touch, of scent, of taste. The craving is
such an explicit desire, so palpable, so impossible to ignore, it’s a trick of an almost, a nearly,
almost feel him, nearly taste him. And Jungkook craves him and craving hurts.

But because craving is so damnably particular, craving dwindles with time. Time kills the
explicitness of such detailed, summonable memories, or at least makes them harder to obtain, and
Jungkook knows doing this will just reignite everything he craves to do to him, like this, and it will
be starting all over again. It will be him looking at Taehyung close the door to his house after he
dropped him off when he fucked him in his bed. It will be him trying to stay away in every way
imaginable, not because he wants to, not anymore, not this time, but because Taehyung says this is
once, and he’ll be back to stuffing himself with anything that promises ignorance all over again.

And he won’t stay away. He’s selfish. He’s a spoiled, selfish, brat. If Taehyung gives him a finger,
he’ll try to bite his whole hand.

So, Jungkook shakes his head to his vulnerable eyes, tightens his own fingers on his wrists. “Not if
it’s once.”

Taehyung’s moving closer, his lips are moving closer. He can truly almost taste him. His mouth is
right there, red and beautiful, and Jungkook still wonders how he had the willpower not to kiss him
for so long. He should have kissed him at the start, or he shouldn’t have kissed him at all, but now
the desire to kiss him is not a wanting, it’s a craving, and his hold on his wrists turns almost
bruising.

“You said you thought staying away kept me from thinking of you, yeah?” Taehyung’s tongue
runs over his lips, and the miniature layer of saliva that remains in its wake makes them glisten so
alluring. Jungkook stares at his eyes instead, tries to figure out what the fuck is going on, but he
fails, miserably. “Wanna help me?” The exhale teases over his lips, “Help me get you out of my
head, out of my system.” And his fingers release his shirt with it, spread on him again, the tips of
one hand reaching the bare skin of his neck, nearly makes him shiver.

Jungkook’s hands push now, pry his fingers off of him and he presses his knuckles into
Taehyung’s own chest when he does because that is all the space between them allows, barely
enough to fit their hands. “This,” Jungkook stresses, teeth pressing together with the internal
exertion not fucking kissing him demands of him; he shakes his head, “won’t help you.”

Taehyung’s fingers coil into fists in Jungkook’s firm grip, go white with the pressure, skin
stretching tensely over his knuckles. “How would you know better than me?” he asks, and the
question falls hard, eyes dig into his harder, but then he’s whispering again, almost lifting off the
couch as leans above their hands, “Just once, final time.”

Jungkook pats his thumbs over his knuckles once before the presses them firmly over his fingers.
“I’m not good with moderation, Taehyung,” he tells him, searches his eyes, brows furrowed. “I
can’t just touch you and—” he shakes his head, looks all over him, every inch of him, he shakes
his head, “stop.”

Taehyung’s teeth align tightly, eyes rooting onto his so pointed, and he nearly sounds like he’s
begging, speaks so slow to him, every word enunciated as it escapes between the press of his teeth,
“I need to get you out my head.”

The other sighs, nostril’s enlarging with it, and he’s prying his hands to the sides, holds them in the
air around them, frees the space between their chests and uses the angling to press him firmly back
on his ass on the couch, so he isn’t leaning towards him anymore. “Is that why you have me in
your head,” he demands, louder than he means to, but he’s fucking sizzling with this. “Sex?” He
bites the word out like it’s offensive, searches his eyes. A moment passes, two, and his voice loses
all hardness as he stares at him, eyes soften before he even realizes he has them narrowed. “It’s not
why I have you in mine.”

Taehyung’s own lids relax, shift, and he blinks, once at Jungkook, and then a second time, away, to
his lap. The determination slips easily from his expression, lips press together lightly. He wiggles
his wrists, and Jungkook lets them go. He watches him rub his own fingers where his had been, and
then he shifts entirely, scoots away from him and angles his knees forward. He stares at his digits
wipe at his skin.

Jungkook keeps his stare helplessly to him even when Taehyung turns so fully away, even if he
remains in his seat. He watches his own wrists with lost eyes, his lips almost pouting. There is
something shy and there is something sad about the way he proceeds to hold himself as they
simply breathe in the silence, let the tension of this attempt dissipate into the air.

He takes his eyes all across him, gauges him. He wants desperately to ask him what that was, why
that was, now that he seems calmer, but there is something marginally shameful in the shyness
with which he twitches his wrists between his fingers and can only manage to keep his stare at his
lap, so Jungkook lets it all go, but still cannot rip his gaze, so incessant on him. It coats over the
darker layer of fabric laying on top of his white shirt, and he almost wants to laugh, cocks his head,
sighs at the mess of it.

“I—” Taehyung begins as the release of breath reaches him and he turns his head to him, sharply,
but then, whatever it is he means to say, slips from his lips, his mind, and his brows draw together
at the expression on Jungkook’s face, staring just below his chin, so reminiscent of fondness.
“What?” he asks, confusion shining through.

Jungkook shakes his head, clicks his tongue at the roof of his mouth. “That tie, Tae,” he exhales,
blinks up to him.

Taehyung’s chin draws back, folds in his neck and he tries to look down at his own mess of a knot.
His lips part softly, almost tug at the corners. When he meets his eyes again, there is something
Jungkook wishes to read as relief in them. “I came from work,” he says, the hurried pace lost in his
voice. He only speaks now. “Had an evening shift.”

Jungkook nods, shifts a bit in his seat. “Do you want me to teach you,” he asks him, soft and
tentative, “how to do it properly?” His eyes slide over his, down through the length of his neck and
indicatively at the clumsy knot of his tie.

For a moment Taehyung only bats his lashes. His brows draw together when he questions in return,
“Do you want to?”

He shakes his head, but he says, “I probably should.”

Their voices have slipped to something unnecessarily intimate. They whisper. There is no one
there, they’re all alone in the huge penthouse, but they speak to each other in breaths.

He sees his throat move when he swallows. “Okay,” he nods to him, lips barely parting with the
word, but then they remain like this, slightly opened with small exhales escaping in between. Each
of his breaths is so very distinct to Jungkook in the silence of the rest of the apartment,
accompanied by the emphasized motion of his chest raising and falling.

“Come here,” he whispers to him, because he can’t be the one to approach him, needs him to do it,
to come closer, and Taehyung does. He angles his knees to him again, shifts closer. Jungkook
raises his hands cautiously. His eyes fall to his own fingers, root there and he needs to do this
completely right on the first try. He undoes Taehyung’s pitiful attempt of a knot, glances up at him
briefly, but almost fails to stare back down when he meets his eyes. “Look now,” he instructs him
and starts moving his digits over him. It would be easier to put it on his own neck, show him there,
but he won’t get an excuse to brush his fingers on him, sit close enough to feel him breathe.

He does it slow and meticulous, murmurs an instruction or two under his nose, but Taehyung has
his eyes more on his face than he does on his hands. They study the concentration in his own, drop
to the tongue that sits between his teeth, visible between the frames of his parted lips “And you tug
here,” he says, “and you’re done,” he glances up, lashes blink, and their gazes find each other
again, unfailingly.

Taehyung shakes his head lightly. “I don’t think I got it,” he tells him, voice still just above a
whisper.

Jungkook’s fingers are still on him, on his tie, his eyes sealed onto his faultless face, and he can’t
help himself, isn’t thinking, when his thumb reaches up, brushes so quick and momentary across
his chin, close to the corner of his lips, but he takes it away as soon as he feels his skin. “That’s
okay,” he mumbles with the motion of the subtle touch, before he gets his hands back in his own
lap, traps them between his thighs to hold them still.

He can’t keep his eyes at bay, though. Not when Taehyung’s tongue pokes out, skims across his
lips reluctantly, and he blinks, looks away from Jungkook entirely, but his body remains tilted
towards him.

“You know,” he starts speaking, hesitance cutting through his sentence, but he breathes and
continues, “the first time we had sex,” he says and blinks up again, continues to detail a reminder
as if Jungkook could ever forget, “In the showers after your fight.”

“I know,” Jungkook nods, sinks his teeth briefly in the flesh of his mouth to feel that instead of the
peculiar anticipation that spreads through his body.

It makes Taehyung pause for a moment, but then he nods, too, and he continues, “You told me
there,” he tongues at his lips again, “that you wanted to ruin me.”

“What?” Jungkook breathes out sharply, eyes on him, as his body so instinctively charges towards
his.

He did. He knows he did. He’d forgotten he’d spoken those exact words, but it spirals so vivid in
his brain when Taehyung says it, when he begins to explain.

“You asked me how it felt,” he begins, “and, and I said it hurt, and you said good, that you wanted
it to, wanted to ruin me,” Jungkook’s mouth opens, head shaking, but Taehyung keeps speaking,
incessant and louder, wants to get this out, “and I keep thinking,” he presses, pins his eyes down to
his fingers because he can hardly look at him as he confesses that in case his eyes betray there is a
truth to it, “you orchestrated this whole thing,” he exhales, “that it was all one big game and you
won.”

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head. His hands don’t listen to him anymore, his palm latches onto his
knee, cups around it and squeezes, tries to speak with his body again, promise honesty, but he takes
it away the second Taehyung’s gaze shoots to it, widens. He leans, bends at the waist as he
attempts to catch his lowered eyes. “Taehyung, no,” He swears once he manages to find them. “I
didn’t mean that, I hardly remember saying that.”

He knows why he said it, said it because he was fucking angry at him, because he couldn’t hold
back from touching him. It was mostly aimed at himself, that teasing rage, but he channeled it at
him, because he needed someone to blame, and who else than Taehyung, who was so unbearably
irresistible. But he doesn’t blame him anymore, doesn’t want not to want him.

Taehyung takes his eyes away once again when Jungkook straightens. “I remember every word
you’ve said to me.”

Jungkook’s gaze softens, head tilts when it grows heavy to keep it straight. “Tae—”

“I’ve been watching you for years,” he stares at his fingers, sees them twirl around distractedly in
his lap. “I don’t know why,” he shrugs his shoulders quickly, “but I have. You’ve always been
most fascinating to me, out of all of Richhood. Maybe it was attraction, I don’t know. I’ve always
paid attention to you, and I guess I wanted you to pay attention to me, too.” His eyes get brave.
They blink at Jungkook. “I could count the words you’d said to me on my fingers before that.”

Jungkook squeezes the cushion of the back of his couch with one of his hands to stifle his urge to
reach for him.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook starts, tongue poking at his cheek before he manages to fully speak. “When
I agreed to do the bet with Julia, I knew she’d choose you. If she’d picked someone else, I
probably would have found a way to call it off.” He sees Taehyung’s eyes dart between his, lids
falling over them much more than they need to. He sees his brows shift together, sees the crease in
his forehead under the strands of his hair. Jungkook tells him in a breath, “I think I might have
wanted an excuse to pay attention to you.”

Taehyung shakes his head at him, his voice trembles with warning, “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” Jungkook promises. “I’m not saying it was the type of attention you wanted from
me. I wanted to play, yes, back at the very start I did.” He did. Jungkook likes playing with pretty
things, and Taehyung was fucking beautiful and a goddamn Kim and was constantly looking, and
he had all the incentive he needed to play. “But I told you before and I’m telling you now. It
wasn’t a game. I wanted you. I didn’t want to want you, but I did.”

Taehyung’s phone buzzes. He doesn’t move, stares at him, at Jungkook. It’s a long moment, but it
passes quickly, and his lips part, and maybe he’ll speak.

His phone buzzes again, and his mouth closes. He sighs, looks away, readjusts on the couch to take
it out of his pocket. Jungkook breathes through his nose, looks away. His teeth clench together, jaw
ticking with the ministration of it, but he says nothing.

Taehyung’s screen shines in his face. He clicks his tongue, seemingly annoyed. “Fuck,” he
mutters, pulls his thumb across whatever message he got and types a reply.

“What’s wrong?” Jungkook drifts his eyes back to him, lowers the arm he’s extended to the back
of the couch back at his side.

“Nothing,” Taehyung says as he sends the message. “It’s stupid.” His eyes roll.

“Okay,” Jungkook nods. He closes his mouth for about a moment, but then it opens on its own
accord. “Tell me.”

Taehyung blinks up at him, sighs as he puts his phone away. “Namjoon, Woojin and I were
supposed to have movie night, see the new Avengers, but they’ve started without me, because Woo
has to go to bed soon.”

Jungkook thinks he can offer to drive him so that he doesn’t miss much of the movie. But it’s not
what he says. He shrugs instead, hesitates instead, suggests instead. “We can watch it.”

“What?” Taehyung seems to do a double take, eyes darting over Jungkook as if the proposition is
absolutely ludicrous and maybe it is.

He shrugs again, juts his chin in the direction of the huge flat screen that stands impressive a few
feet away from them. “Not to brag,” he says, forces his voice into something casual, which is
everything they’re not, “but my TV is better.”

Taehyung’s eyes layer over him with warning. “Jungkook,” he pronounces simply.

And Jungkook shakes his head, drops that forced nonchalance and instead speaks soft but genuine,
his eyes holding Taehyung’s. “It’s just a movie.”

Taehyung’s gaze narrows slightly, darts across him with pointed skepticism. “Do you even know
who the Avengers are?”

Jungkook’s lids lower at him first, before he sighs, relaxes his head back and lets it dangle tired
from his neck. He talks to the ceiling. “I can’t believe you genuinely still think my life just consists
of glaring, boxing, and doing drugs.”

“Alright then,” Taehyung challenges, his voice filling with something firmer. “Who’s your favorite
Avenger?”

Jungkook straightens his head, glances in his eyes and answers without skipping a beat. “Iron
man.”

He doesn’t expect the other to scoff, to roll his eyes. “Of course,” he says, head shaking
repetitively.

“What do you mean of course?” Jungkook cocks his head at him.

“Rich and foul mouthed with narcissistic tendencies?” Taehyung’s brows shift up, disappear
underneath his hair. “It was either him or the Hulk.”

Jungkook scoffs, too, breathes out offended, but the corner of his mouth is helplessly twitching.
“Okay…”

Taehyung taps a finger on his own chin, shrugs. “Maybe Thor as well, you know, since you think
you're an actual God.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Jungkook rolls his eyes. He speaks to him pointedly, defends his superhero
opinions, “I like him, cause he’s just human and is still a fucking Avenger.”

“Yes,” Taehyung says, bounces his brows back up in clear cut irony, with a quick, sarcastic nod,
“right.”

“Shut up,” Jungkook huffs. This feels so surprisingly easy.

“Why,” Taehyung’s head cocks, “you gonna go Hulk mode?”

“Okay,” Jungkook breathes out, nods affirmatively to himself, “I’m playing the movie, that might
actually shut you up.”

Taehyung nods, too, glances to him, eyes prolongedly skimming across his face, and he gulps
nothing. His voice recedes back to soft, and so does his gaze, and after a moment he tells him,
“Okay.”

Jungkook doesn’t know why a word as simple as this startles him, but it does. He blinks. “Really?”
he searches his eyes, tries to establish if this was just a slip, if he’s about to leave.

But Taehyung’s head shifts down again shortly. “Yeah,” he breathes out with his tongue coating
somewhat reluctantly over his lips. His shoulders lift and curl. “It’s just a movie,” he says softly,
looks away from Jungkook.

And he doesn’t question it again, because he doesn’t want Taehyung changing his mind. He gets
up for the remote and Taehyung shifts on the couch until he’s propping his elbow at the handle at
one end and Jungkook very well knows it’s not for comfort. He wants to be as far away from him
as possible. He gnaws at his lips, but he won’t say anything. When he slumps back into the couch,
he gives him the courtesy of sitting at the other end, but he lifts his legs up, turns. He folds them at
the knees, so they don’t reach close to him, props a hand to hold his neck up, arm twisted at the
elbow, and he lays himself back on the cushions.

Taehyung’s eyes dart to him, skim over the position, but he seems to be satisfied by the knees
raised protectively as a barrier between them, and he looks back at the TV.
Jungkook pays for the movie because it’s too new to be added to any of the streaming services he
subscribes to, and Taehyung snorts at that, but says nothing,

The movie starts and Jungkook only then allows himself to glimpse at Taehyung in between his
knees. He has his eyes fixed on the screen with interest, but his lids droop low and in barely a
minute he’s yawning. Jungkook has to stifle a yawn himself, doesn’t want to make it terribly
obvious that he’s staring.

“You’re tired,” he says aloud, though he means it to be just a thought.

Taehyung nods. “Had my geometry exam today,” he tells him, “and then work.”

“You had the exam today?” Jungkook’s brows shoot up. There is some very uncalled for
excitement in his voice; he doesn’t understand what summons such a bewildered, genuine interest
in a fucking geometry exam, but he opens and closes his knees repetitively and stares at
Taehyung’s profile. “How did it go?”

“I did everything,” he starts distractedly, eyes still on the screen. “I was afraid my time would run
out, cause I would get unconcentrated or something, but I solved every problem. Now I just have to
hope they’re correct.”

“When do results come out?”

“In like, three days.”

“That’s quick.”

“Yeah.”

He wants to tell him he’ll get in, but it’s a stupid thing to say, and not something he can promise, so
he just keeps his mouth shut and turns to the movie. He’s wanted to see it for a while, and perhaps
it is a much better distraction than going to events. Following the plot does a good job of stifling
incessant thoughts of regret and guilt that he practically incarcerated his sister, almost as well as
working out does. Taehyung’s presence does, too. When he doesn’t focus on the movie, he focuses
on him, steals glances of him yawning, stretching, reacting to certain things, his eyes growing
curiously big and his lips parting, forming a circular shape.
He manages to sit through about half an hour from the movie, before his lids seems to grow too
heavy to hold up. His head tilts to one side, his breath evens, and Jungkook doesn’t want to wake
him. He sits upright for several moments before his body starts to drift down towards Jungkook’s
knees.

Taehyung moves a lot in his sleep, Jungkook has realized by now, and his body naturally seeks the
comfort of lying down. He lowers his knees, lines his legs forward and allows Taehyung to fully
spread out on the couch. Half of his body ends up tilted on top of Jungkook’s, and as much as he
doesn’t want to, he attempts to slide away. The second he moves underneath him, however,
Taehyung’s arm circles over one shoulder and his neck, and he grunts a soft a whine, moves even
more of himself over him.

His cheek is completely on Jungkook’s chest, head raises and falls with the motion of his breaths,
which ruffle the top of his soft, light hair. His weight is so tangible on top of him, warm. The smell
of Taehyung is poignant in his nose, and no matter how much he wills himself to, he doesn’t push
him away. He lets him sleep. He’s tired.

Taehyung wrapped around him with his head on his chest has somehow grown familiar to him. It’s
a calming familiarity, and though at the initial motion of him settling himself on top of him, his
heart races with the panic that there is something forbidden about allowing him this, once its beat
soothes, the weight on him grows relaxing. He’s asleep. Taehyung is unconscious and he won’t
know any of this, so Jungkook lets himself be indulgent for a moment. He raises his hand, touches
his hair, pushes some of it away from his forehead where it rests just beneath his chin.

He touches the skin of his face, briefly, just barely permits his thumb to brush his slightly parted
lips, feels the tip of his thumb tingle, before he lowers his hand, cups it around the small of his
back and rests it there.

His breath morphing into him so leveled and relaxed reminds Jungkook he’s tired as well. The
rhythm of it makes him go helplessly drowsy. And with Taehyung asleep on him with a movie
playing in the background, he feels the biggest amount of regret he ever did for pushing him away.
It’s not that he can’t have sex, it’s that he can’t have this from him that suddenly strikes him,
swallows him, with guilt. He’s never had this. Julia never cared about movies, never cared of
superheroes. Her body was never this heavy, didn’t drape over with such security and warmth, and
she never did fit herself so incessantly on him, he never had the urge to allow it, and she never had
the audacity to try it. And she never made him feel that thing, that terribly unfamiliar sensation in
his stomach and on his skin and pulsing in his chest.

He doesn’t want to allow himself to fall asleep, and he doesn’t expect himself to. It’s hard for him,
not impossible, but certainly hard, without valium or the voices of his friends, but he can’t help it.
It catches him off guard. His eyes close and his breath evens with Taehyung’s.

He’s only startled awake when he hears a sharp intake of breath on top of him.

Taehyung’s eyes open, lids blinking lazy, once, twice, three times, before his pupils can actually
focus on anything and he can call himself into consciousness. His back tenses and relaxes with
wakefulness, a soft grunt leaving his lips, and he tightens his whole grip around whatever he’s
wrapped himself this time. He’s comfortable and warm, even feels his chest perspires a bit from a
very tangible heat. He readjusts himself, draws closer. There is a heaviness wrapped around him,
that drapes secure and warms his back as well. His neck twists on its own, buries his nose
instinctively in a hardness he feels below him, and he breathes it in. It’s familiar and pleasant, and
he’s so very comfortable until his brain nearly spasms with the realization of what that familiarity
describes.

His lids pull back to their sockets, he sucks a sharp breath through his nose, and he pulls his arm
back from where it wraps, instead presses a palm into hard chest and lifts himself up, eyes staring
down wide at Jungkook’s face, so very close to his.

The arm that slides across his back flexes, its hand clings to his waist, subconsciously, just as
Taehyung attempts to stand, and Jungkook’s eyes are darting opened and immediately staring into
his.

Taehyung doesn’t give him time to fully wake. His knees are in between his legs, and Jungkook’s
arm is wrapped around him and he cannot stay like this, can’t take it. His heart hammers, and he
tries to haul himself up again. “I have to go,” he whispers to him with urgency.

His attempt fails. Jungkook’s hand wraps around the wrist he uses to prop himself up and presses it
firmly down on his chest, holds him there even if that scorching arm around his waist does him the
favor of removing itself.

“No, wait,” Jungkook’s fingers squeeze around it, a silent question along with his spoken words.
“You can stay over,” he offers, eyes rooting into his. “Just, just sleep,” he says, and his mouth parts
to yawn, and Taehyung has to get the fuck out of there. “It’s late.”

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head rapidly. “I can’t.”

He sits back on his calves, pulls himself away from him, but Jungkook follows. The hand that
doesn’t hold Taehyung’s wrist props back into the cushion of the couch and he lifts himself up,
goes close again, the thumb of his occupied hand, venturing a pattern over Taehyung’s skin.

“You can sleep in a different room to me, you don’t have to—”

Taehyung tugs his hand away as soon as he feels the skin tingle under the touch, presses it
protectively into his own chest. “I said no, Jungkook,” he tells him firmly, sharply, eyes almost
glaring.

Jungkook gazes at him for a moment, two. He blinks. He sighs, looks away, the hand that now
remains useless rubs into his eyes, still tired from sleep before he drops it into his lap. “Then let
me drive you at least,” he says. “It is late.”

He stares back at him, slipping into a tense silence of contemplation. This is dangerous; he knows
that, but it gives Jungkook the opportunity to get out of this apartment and he did ruin his plans for
the night. He swallows, looks down. “Okay,” he tells him, and he gets himself up and away from
him, tries very hard to stand without leaning on his legs that stretch around him.

“Now?” Jungkook asks from the couch.

The movie’s over and there are automatic pictures bouncing around the screen.

“Yes,” Taehyung nods.

Jungkook grunts, rubs into his eyes some more, and stands. “Fine,” he mumbles. He takes his
phone from the charger, his car keys from the table. He’s wordless and Taehyung is as well,
simply trails his gaze across him as he moves. “Come on,” he tells him, head nodding towards the
door.

They get into the elevator and Jungkook presses a P that asks of him to present some sort of a chip
as well, takes him to the parking with him this time. He doesn’t speak to him, and he stares
forward. He still appears drowsy, and it makes him look somehow softer, and Taehyung has to
internally chide at himself not to look every time he yawns or rubs at his eyes.

He follows him to his familiar SUV. A car parked next to it, steals his glance. It’s low to the
ground, long, and absolutely black. It shines pretty, clean, and leave it Jeon Jungkook to have a
fucking Aston Martin. Taehyung wants to touch it, but it glistens too much for him to try, and he
supposes this is one of those things that pushed Jungkook to the decision to fuck his sister.

“This is my other car,” Jungkook tells him when he notices the stare he has on it. He misinterprets
that unfailing glance for curiosity. “We can take it if you want,” he offers as he sees Taehyung look
at it unblinkingly, but his eyes are rooted on it not because he’s terribly fascinated that he has a
supercar right in front of him, though that holds true for a couple of moments when he first notices
it. But it drifts into something else, the longing fixation onto it does, because it’s just a reminder
that Jungkook could never sacrifice a luxury like this for Taehyung, and he knows damn well his
father wouldn’t let him keep them both.

He pries his eyes away from it. “Isn’t it not for out of city?” he asks.

Jungkook watches him carefully, watches him observe the car, and watches him look away from it.
“We can go out of city,” he suggests, so very quietly, and Taehyung’s eyes dart up, meet his.

“Where?” he asks.

Jungkook’s shoulders twist, head shakes. “I don’t know.”

Taehyung’s next breath is a sigh and he’s looking away again. “Just take me home.”

Sitting in the SUV is familiar. He stares ahead, looks blankly at the road. He says nothing and
neither does Jungkook for the length of the drive, which at this hour at this time of the week is
short. Traffic is scarce, and Jungkook’s foot seems to press hard into the pedal.

Taehyung doesn’t know why he doesn’t get out of the car immediately when Jungkook pulls up in
front of his house. He doesn’t know why he gives him enough time to look at him, to hesitate. He
gives him enough time to lick at his lips, to shift in his seat, to start speaking.

“Can I—” he begins, but Taehyung doesn’t make the same mistake of letting him finish.
“No,” he says firmly, and although he feels the other’s burning gaze seal onto him, he keeps his
eyes straight on the street before him. His belt is still clicked into place, and he doesn’t know why.

Jungkook pauses, lips thinning. “You don’t even know what I want,” his head shakes as he
whispers softly to his profile. But he does, he knows very damn well, and it makes his breath
stutter for a moment, makes him focus on the empty street in front of them even more because he
knows seeing him and saying no would rival impossibility.

So, Taehyung still doesn’t look. “You can’t kiss me,” he simply says and Jungkook blinks, takes
his eyes away. He rotates his body to the front again, fully, presses his elbow by the window of the
car and props his head on it, as far away from Taehyung as it would go. He hears him gulp and he
hears the length and depth of the breath he next takes.

But he is still not taking his seatbelt off.

“Tomorrow, I…” he starts, but it falls flat on his tongue. He clears his throat and starts again. “Ji-
woo and Namjoon won’t be home, so I,” he hesitates, drops his head down to momentarily stare at
his lap, “I have to take care of Woojin.”

Jungkook’s head shakes, the breath labored as it leaves through his nose, mouth pressed enough to
sharpen the line of his jaw. “Why are you telling me this?” he glances at him again, eyes sliding
over. He’s tired.

For the first time, Taehyung looks at him, too. When his head angles away from his lap, his gaze
finds him and lips part. “I won’t,” he starts, stops, starts again. “I won’t come,” he blinks, eyes dart
all across his face, every feature. “You’ll be alone.”

Jungkook’s shoulders shift, he shrugs. His knuckles wipe across the window of his car, up and
down and up and down. “I can go to Yoongi’s,” he tells him.

The reply is automatic. “Or you can come over.”

Jungkook’s brows furrow. He pauses, and his knuckles still as well. His own eyes study Taehyung
drop to his lips and his nose and then to his eyes, too, and he waits for him to take it back, but he
doesn’t. “You’d want me in your house again?” he asks, voice ghostly as it leaves his mouth,
breathless with disbelief.
Taehyung’s head shakes slowly. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

Jungkook’s teeth graze over his mouth, sink. “Is that why you come?” he asks, head cocking.
“Yesterday and tonight?”

Taehyung blinks. “I don’t want you to be alone,” he repeats.

And Jungkook is looking away. His jaw pulls tightly at the edge, a muscle flexing and relaxing as
his eyes blink at the road. “Don’t come to me because you feel like you have to,” he tells him, and
Taehyung has the urge to deny it, but he won’t. He wants to see him, it’s simple as that, especially
tonight, he felt like he needed to see him, after he spoke to Namjoon. “I’m not alone.”

Taehyung breathes in. He’s the one looking at his profile now, before his eyes fall on the hand that
rests between them, at the leather rest. He hesitates, but he reaches. He’s careful, only extends one
finger as he brushes at the skin above the scar of the cigarette burn. Jungkook’s hand twitches,
digits instinctively rolling into a fist, but he doesn’t take it away. He lets him touch, glances at him
from the corner of his eyes. “Yoongi and Hoseok,” Taehyung begins, studying the motion of his
own finger as it circles around the redness of the skin. He wonders if it will be there forever, a
reminder. “They don’t know about this, do they?” he asks, blinks up.

Jungkook takes a moment, and when he speaks it’s low, but it’s honest. “No.”

Taehyung’s tongue runs over his lower lip quickly, soothes it before he bites it with reluctance.
“And they don’t know about me.”

Jungkook’s head shakes. “Not really,” he says, “just,” his shoulders lift, fall, “assumptions.”

Taehyung nods, removes his fingers from his hand, and, finally, he takes that seatbelt off. The
sound of it snapping back into place is loud in the confines of the car. “I’ll be home tomorrow,” he
meets his eyes. “You know. Back door.”

Jungkook nods. “I know,” he tells him, and once again Taehyung leaves.
Taehyung shuts the door behind himself. He needs a breather. Woojin is still playing inside, though
he is instructed to go to bed after one final game, doesn’t much miss his presence for the moment
as Taehyung had been honest – the boy loves the console enough for it to be borderline worrying –
and he allows himself to sit on his and Namjoon’s step at the back door of their house.

He’s pitifully disappointed. He knows he didn’t tell Jungkook an hour, and with that he doomed
himself to an endless night of blind anticipation. It should be a relief that he hasn’t shown up.
Taehyung is trudging along a dangerous, backward path with those nightly meetings, but he has the
ridiculous need to know he’s okay.

While he can.

But realistically, Jungkook has no reason to be there. He knows he won’t get sex out of him, knows
Taehyung’s little brother will be there, so he can hardly even get him alone. So, why would
Jungkook come?

Taehyung swallows down the saliva that gathers on his tongue.

There is no moon, currently, it hides behind a cloud, but it’s warm, so he sits in his black shorts,
black t-shirt, blends easily with the darkness of the night and he doesn’t mind. The air is fresh
despite the heat and the late hour makes it even more refreshing in comparison to the last heat
waves before the onset of fall, and Taehyung likes very much that he can simply sit on that step. It
means more to him than he has previously realized. Since yesterday everything around the house
feels like it does.

He is scared of how physically his body reacts to the sound of footsteps. His heart thumps aware in
his chest and a tingle skids across different spots of his skin. He feels it at the back of his neck,
somehow cold and wet. He senses it as borderline suspenseful and when a figure so molding with
the darkness appears, his stomach hollows.
There is something peculiar in seeing Jungkook dressed so casually. He wears a simple dark
sweatshirt and he could almost fit the background of the neighborhood if it wasn’t for a small,
almost negligible label that spells Balenciaga at the right side of his chest.

Taehyung blinks at the outlines of his body, and then he finally feels what he has been trying to
summon in himself for the entirety of the night. He feels relief. Jungkook is there.

His eyes layer over him, skid all across where he pauses just a couple of feet away from him. He
drags his gaze from his shoes through his body and ends at his own eyes. “You’re here,” he
exhales, and he knows it probably betrays his now fulfilled hope that he would come.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods. He stares back down at Taehyung for a couple of moments before he
glances at the empty space next to him. He doesn’t sit at the center of that step. Taehyung is used
to having Namjoon next to him on it, and, instinctively, he’s left room for him. When he notices
Jungkook stare, he juts his chin, nods as well. And Jungkook sits just when a cloud moves slightly
to reveal the corner of the moon. “I’m sorry it’s late,” Jungkook says, “I had to talk to my aunt.”

“It’s not late,” Taehyung shakes his head. “Why your aunt?”

There is something about moonlight, Taehyung thinks, that propels him into soft honesty, and
maybe it does so for Jungkook as well. There is something about him tonight, something about
him ever since he signed his sister in the hospital, something calmer, and Taehyung thinks it might
be exhaustion.

Jungkook shakes some hair from his face, fixes it with a hand. He brings his knees up closer to
himself as Taehyung sits, but while with every inch of the moon that shows that illuminates the
two of them sitting on that step, blending with darkness, Taehyung looks at him more and more
closely, Jungkook simply stares ahead. “Remember on the roof when I told you my father thought
it was an excuse that his own father hit harder?”

Taehyung nods. “Yeah,” he mumbles to him. He wasn’t lying. He believes he genuinely

remembers every word Jungkook has said to him, certainly every sentence that was reminiscent of
a confession, every one that allowed him to peek a little deeper in his life and what made him this.

He’s sighing. There are dark circles under his eyes and Taehyung wonders if they show because
the moon makes him that much paler in the background of the night. “My aunt is my father’s
sister. She had to live with my father and grandfather both.” He shrugs. “She’s the only one who
knows what to say to Clo, really.”
Taehyung is nodding again. He does imagine the helplessness he would feel at the inability to
properly convey sympathy for something like this, because most of what floods his mind is
questions, and he is quite certain Clo Eun would not want to answer them. He supposes it’s best to
have someone who has the replies all ready, could help her best, someone who has gone through it
and escaped from it. “How does it feel,” he licks his lips briefly, “the apartment without her?”

Jungkook glances up at the moon. “Empty,” he says, and then he stares at his feet, “but it’s the best
for her,” he voices, and Taehyung thinks those words of reassurance are mostly for his own sake.
“That way she can get rid of all this. Who knows,” his brows shift up and his lips stretch briefly
into one of those smiles that are just bundles of nerves breaking out before they completely thin,
press together. “She might actually be able to pursue what she wants.”

He can’t stop himself. “Which is?” he’s asking. He hasn’t stopped looking at Jungkook, but
Jungkook hasn’t looked at him once, and he wants to know why.

“Fashion,” he says, still choosing to keep his eyes on his feet as he shuffled them in front of
himself. “But not like wearing it. Making it.”

Taehyung wraps his arms around his knees, presses his cheek to them as well, head tilted towards
him. The moon has now completely escaped from that cloud and it shines bright down on them; it
feels just a couple of days of being full. “Thought you all considered that industry a cheat,”
Taehyung tells him. Everything that involves models and actors has always been talked down on
by clients in Rouge. “Not very Richhood.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods. “It’s why she can’t afford my father knowing she even breathes around
Seokjin,” he says, and he lowers his head again. Taehyung’s fingers tap on his kneecap.
Occupation, then, is enough to cause a restriction from the elder Jeon. Taehyung does wonder, as
the both of them fall quiet after the words are spoken, can’t help but imagine, how gruesome of a
scene it would be if their father ever knew about him. Jungkook breathes loudly, legs shuffle again.
His voice is firmer when he next talks, lighter. “Hoseok and Yoongi fit the stereotype much more,”
he tells him. “They wanna finish their Management and Marketing thing and buy the Ozone
together, and maybe a hotel.” His fingers spread, palms opened, and he makes a lined pattern
through the air with his hands. “Property owners,” he announces, “that’s what the dream has
always been. Much more Richhood, isn’t it?” His lips twitch. “Even if Hoseok wants to tend to the
bar himself.”

He’s almost waffling, and the more words leave his mouth, the more that Taehyung senses his
voice is dry, throat constrained as sounds depart from it in halves. He was with Clo before he came
here.
“And you?” Taehyung asks him, head lifting from his knees, eyes still sealed onto him. He seems
to need to talk right now, and that’s okay. Taehyung still has so many questions he wants to ask the
Jeon Jungkook he has always watched. “What do you want to do?”

His forearms fall, land on top of his own knees. “I’ll finish my degree to have it on paper,” he
starts, his tongue darting quickly over his upper lip, pauses at the corner of his mouth. He gestures
with his head, tilts it briefly to one shoulder as he shrugs only it; it’s obvious, he means, it’s a
given. “And start in the law firm on the corporate wing until the Jeon in the partnership stands for
me and not for my father.”

Taehyung looks closely enough to see the short, miniscule moment in which his jaw tenses. He
lowers his own knees, exposes more of his body to the moon. “I didn’t ask what you were going to
do,” he tells him softly. “I asked what you wanted to do.”

He watches him blink. His lids fall over his eyes and open, once, twice. He opens his mouth, then it
closes, and he breathes through his nose, he sighs. His head shakes when his neck cranes down.
“Honestly,” his shoulders, lift palms open again. “I don’t know.” His shoulders fall. “Never really
had a dream, you know,” he confesses, and Taehyung has the urge to shift closer, but he wouldn’t.
“I used to like to take pictures, but I don’t want to spend my life taking pictures. I like boxing, but I
don’t want to spend my life boxing, not illegally anyway.”

Taehyung’s lips part and only a whisper seems to fit the privacy of what he asks him. “There’s
nothing that you think you’ll want for the rest of your life?”

And for the first time that night Jungkook looks at him. His head raises and tilts, and his eyes catch
onto his. The moon makes them glint, a circle of light sits just at the corner of his pupils, stands out
from the background of dark irises, like the moon glares down from the sky. Those eyes glisten as
they layer over him, as they dart across, look at his arms, his neck, his lips, his nose, and his eyes
again. They rest there, capture his own stare. Jungkook’s lips close to allow him to swallow
nothing. Taehyung watches his throat.

His eyes feel so heavy, so damn heavy he actually feels their weight in his own chest, and this time
he is looking away.

Jungkook follows, stares in front of himself again, at the back of another house in this
neighborhood he should have no reason to be in. “I don’t know,” he says, “You?”

And Taehyung himself has so many dreams, because when you can’t have nothing, you’re bold
enough to wish for everything. He has gone through so many, ever since he was a child, but they
shape through the years.

“I want to have an atelier for all sorts of art and that includes clothes, by the way,” he says,
pointedly, because clothes are art, and in another world maybe he and Clo Eun could cross paths.
He rests his hands back, leans on them, and stares at the moon. “But I also don’t mind the
architecture. I love it, actually.” He shrugs. “Much more prospective. And I think I could be good
at it.”

He feels his eyes on him again, senses with the corner of his own when he turns his head, when he
looks at him look to the moon.

“You could,” he hears him say. He pauses. “An atelier would fit you.”

Fit him, Taehyung doesn’t like the sound of that, and at the same time he loves it.

He draws a breath, curls his head downwards. “What types of things did you like to take pictures
of?”

Jungkook’s lips pull. He shrugs. “Beautiful.”

Taehyung’s eyes roll on instinct. “Well, that’s elaborate,” he glances at him and with that very
same instinct, he lightly nudges his shoulder with his before he draws back. “Come on, I need to
know if they would fit my atelier.”

The only thing less likely, Taehyung figures as he says it, than him opening an atelier, is him
sharing any minuscule part of his future with Jungkook. It feels constricting in his chest to think it,
but the moon sucks it out of his lips.

He’s still hesitant, takes him a moment, but he tells him. “I mostly took pictures of Clo, Julia,
Yoongi, and Hobi.”

Taehyung’s brows raise, fall. “Why’d you stop?” He imagines if Jungkook still allowed himself to
have passions like this, he could potentially be less angry with life. He’s also as ever unfailingly
curious. He doesn’t know what else would let him pry as much into that life that he has always
observed and wondered about than those pictures that exist, somewhere. He doesn’t think the two
of them have enough time left for him to convince him to show them.
“I don’t know,” Jungkook shrugs. “I only did it when we were teens. They all seemed most
beautiful smiling, and I don’t think they’ve been doing that too much lately.” His head angles
down again. He shakes it, runs a hand through strands of his hair. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just
don’t, like,” he straightens, rolls his shoulders again, “get the urge to anymore,” he finishes, and his
eyes end on Taehyung again.

“Yeah?” he breathes, looks at him, too. He thinks he understands, the way he says urge. There is
something about art that has to do with the urge to create. It’s why he’d pick simply drawing over
perfecting figures and shading for architecture any day.

“Yeah,” Jungkook mirrors that breath that escaped Taehyung’s lips. “Well, except I kind of wanted
to take a picture of you.”

Taehyung’s mouth parts, and he’s looking away. A sensation spreads through him so immediate,
and though it is a mixture of many things, most palpably recognizable for him sits that familiar all-
encompassing anger.

“Wanna go in?” he asks, speaks with his voice leveled much above the intimate whisper they had
unwittingly set to fit the ambiance of the moon and the night. He’s already on his feet, doesn’t wait
for an answer. “I cooked,” he tells him.

Jungkook follows when Taehyung touches the handle. “You cooked?” he raises a brow behind
him, fills his tone in to fit with Taehyung, but he doesn’t end there. He adds, “I’ve been wanting to
try your cooking since that time we almost got caught in your bathroom upstairs.”

And Taehyung is so, so very angry. He presses his teeth together, heart pulses in his chest, and he
means to turn back, means to say don’t, because he can’t do this, cannot remind him.

He has halfway turned on his feet when he hears the thump of running, so familiar he’d recognize
in this sleep.

“Taetae,” Woojin pauses further than he would usually, his eyes rooting onto the person next to his
brother as soon as he notices and whatever he means to say falls on his lips. He seals them shut,
shyly, stares at him for a couple of moments, before he turns his head down to blink at the floor.
Jungkook’s brows shoot up, a small curve shaping at the corner of his lips. He glances at the short
boy briefly before he arches those brows at Taehyung, his head tilting.

“Woojin?” Taehyung genuinely wants to be surprised when he sees him, but unfortunately, he can
only narrow his eyes with annoyance. “I thought I told you to go to bed.”

He should have actually given that console to Jungkook, he doesn’t need his little brother
becoming a zombie, but he’s safely on his way there.

He thinks blinking and opening his eyes overly wide as he bats his lids across would somehow
placate Taehyung’s annoyance. “I just wanted to play another game, Taetae,” he whines, chews a
bit on his lip as he stares back at the ground, placing two hands one in front of the other, one still
clutching a controller, a depiction so perfect of shame Taehyung just knows he feels none of it.
“I’m sorry,” he pouts a pout that would never work on Ji-woo, but it never fails to soften up
Taehyung, and he’s already sighing when Woojin has the bravery to ask. “Who’s that?”

And right at that moment Taehyung realizes how much that feels like two words clashing. He
glances up at Jungkook and waits for apprehension to wave over him, a fear of introducing a Jeon
to his little brother, because he is all he and Ji swear to protect him from. But it doesn’t come. He
remembers there was a time when Taehyung dreaded even speaking his little brother’s name in
front of anyone he associated with Richhood, but now there he is, Richhood incorporated
smiling down at Kim Woojin and Taehyung does not feel even an ounce of what he expects.

He doesn’t trust Jungkook, he doesn’t even want to think that, but really, in this, he does. He knows
he poses no harm to Woojin, knows even if he’s a Kim, he won’t treat him badly.

It’s not striking to Taehyung that he is introducing Woojin to a Jeon as he feels it should. It’s
wondrous to him that he is unveiling, even after all this, yet another page in his life to Jungkook.
He already knows the rest of his family and now from this moment on, he’ll have met them all.
He’s introducing him to his little brother.

He turns back to Woojin. “That’s Jungkook,” he tells him simply. And because Balenciaga means
absolutely nothing to an almost seven-year-old, so he doesn’t have to be a Jeon today. He can just
be Jungkook.

Woojin blinks at him. “Why is he here?”

Trust the little kids to ask the worst questions. Taehyung can certainly not formulate into words
why Jungkook is there. He cannot fully explain why he asked him to come, and he can definitely
not know why did show up. He hesitates, tongue pokes at his lips. He’s cautious when he speaks.
“Cause he’s…” he trails at his mouth with reluctance, arms folding before his chest, and finally,
finally, he finishes, “friend.”

He hears Jungkook make a sound that is dangerously reminiscent of a snort as soon as the word
leaves his lips and he doesn’t shun him off a glare, irises chiding and warning in the corner of his
eyes, and Jungkook’s face straightens, lower lip disappearing into his mouth.

“Go play one final level of whatever you’re playing and go to bed, okay?” Taehyung instructs.
Woojin is quick to nod. But before he runs of again, he turns fully to Jungkook.

He still keeps his hands modestly placed in front of himself, one holding the controller. “I’m
Woojin,” he says, bows down.

Jungkook bows, too, for a fucking six-year-old. “Nice to meet you, Woojin,” he says, lips
stretching, and Woojin absolutely beams before he spins and disappears. Taehyung hears him jump
on the couch and he wants to yell at him that he’ll break it and he’ll have to replace it himself, but
he knows it’s useless, so he lets him be.

And besides he has to deal with Jungkook now, whose eyes are sliding to him, and whose brows
perch high on his forehead. “I’m your friend?” he asks, mouth twisting with the cautious
beginnings of a smirk, and it does sound as ridiculous as the incredulity in his voice suggests, but
there is no word to describe what Jungkook is to him and for the sake of Woojin’s innocence, he
settles for friend. They’re nothing more right then, anyway; they can’t be. “Taetae?” Jungkook still
teases, and there is something mildly refreshing about that, although he is inevitably careful,
modest and leveled, and not completely Jungkook, and it hurts all over again that he ruined himself
for Taehyung, even in something as simple as the fact that he has to hold back in the most
elementary interaction.

Still Taehyung rolls his eyes. He glares. “Shut the fuck up,” he tells him, and he walks, moves
towards the stove he bought by having sex with his girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend now. “Come tell
me if you’d eat this,” Taehyung instructs, lifts off the cap of the pot.

Jungkook follows. “I’ll eat anything,” he says, comes close. It’s necessary, the kitchen does not
allow much space, and Taehyung asks him to come, but he still feels his body tense with his
approaching. “I’m starving.”
Jungkook’s eyes fall to the shift of his feet on the floor when he walks over and he angles his body
differently, doesn’t go behind Taehyung to peak over at what he shows him, but across from him,
and it does allow for some distance between their chests, does not demand for Jungkook to press
his front over Taehyung’s back like his initial suggestion would. Maybe he is thankful. He glances
at him. “It has carbs.”

It’s Jungkook’s turn to return a halfhearted glare before he drops his attention to the contents of the
pot. Taehyung tries to gauge Jungkook’s reaction to the food, but in typical Jungkook fashion, his
expression betrays nothing.

“I’ve fucked any and all diet at this point,” Jungkook tells him, hand pressing into the counter.

“Really?” Taehyung asks, eyes darting to him. “Have you been eating?” It’s dumb, but now that he
considers it, he’s concerned about that as well. His parents are gone, his sister is gone, and has he
been fucking eating.

Jungkook’s head cocks at him and his mouth parts, but he’s interrupted by footsteps.

Woojin arrives once again. “Taetae,” he says.

He takes his eyes off of Jungkook, glances at his brother. “What now, Woo?”

He smiles, rocks a tiny bit on his heels, and Taehyung just knows the little brat thinks he’s the
cutest. “Wanna play Overwatch with me?” he bats his lashes, and he grins wide enough for his
dimple, as deep as Namjoon’s to show on his cheek.

Taehyung starts to speak, but Jungkook’s quicker. “Overwatch?” his brows shoot up and he stares
at Taehyung with his eyes suddenly considerably larger. “Can I play?” he asks, and he nearly
sounds excited, and Taehyung can only blink for a moment. He thought he was only dealing with
one child for the night.

His next exhale holds some laughter, shoulders shrugging. “Sure,” he tells him, lips twitching. “If
Woojin doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Woojin chirps immediately, bouncing higher on his heels.

Taehyung shrugs when the both of them look at him as if for permission. “Okay then,” he says,
gestures with his hands.

Jungkook pushes away from the counter starts to walk behind Woojin as he leads away from the
kitchen and into the living space. “Must be so tiring playing with your brother,” he tells him, his
voice a tiny bit tweaked when addresses Woojin so directly. “He fucking sucks at it.”

Taehyung had just started turning to the food when it reaches his ears. He spins after, yells out,
“Hey, don’t say fuck in front of him.”

Jungkook pauses in his stride, turns to him with his eyes still so wide. “Well, don’t repeat it,” he
warns him. “It slipped.”

Taehyung simply shakes his head. “Shut up and go play with my brother, silently,” he stresses,
gestures to the pot,“while I get us food.”

Taehyung leads into the kitchen, carrying the glasses, and Jungkook follows with the dishes.

“I can’t believe,” he begins, putting then in the sink and Jungkook does it as well, brings their
bodies closer still, but Taehyung is still having too hard of a time contemplating the night to really
pay attention to this; he turns to him, “a Kim is going to grow up thinking Jeon Jungkook is cool.”

Jungkook played fucking video games with Woojin, won some of the rounds, impressing him
thoroughly, and then let him have the rest. When Taehyung first told him to go to bed, he joined
him in whining incessantly until he let him do one final game. He made his little brother laugh. He
ate the food Taehyung gave him, with no complaints it wasn’t from grade level restaurants with
gluten-free, fat free, overpriced, brand products. He simply ate it, nodded to himself as he did,
slurped down everything that Taehyung put in his plate. And he proceeded to make Woojin laugh
some more in between bites.
And all Taehyung could do was sit there and fucking gawk.

When they finally sent him to bed, Taehyung started gathering dishes, and wordlessly, he helped.

And now he stands in the kitchen before him and shrugs after he straightens from putting the
dishes in the sink, as if he isn’t being fucking weird. “Yeah, who knew one of the Kim siblings
could actually stand me?”

Taehyung stares at him, tries and fails to conceptualize Jeon Jungkook helping him with the
housework, let alone deal with the fact of witnessing it. It makes his voice pitch, makes his
gesticulations unnecessarily emphasized. “It’s just so fucking alternative universe, you,” his brows
shoot up,“playing games with a kid, even letting him win. I—” he glances away, eyes the dishes so
neatly stacked in the dishes, and his teeth sink into his lower lip. His head shakes, “What are you
doing, Jungkook?”

He looks at him as if this is all normal, shrugs, as if everything is just chill. “What do you mean?”

Taehyung bristles, air escaping sudden and powerful from his mouth. “You’re playing games,
putting away dishes, you’re…” his chin moves back and forth, “what are you doing? Why are you
even here?”

Taehyung’s forceful, but Jungkook’s careful. “You asked me to come.”

“And you came?” Taehyung’s shoulders fold, fall.

Jungkook is the one to scoff half with laughter now. His tongue pokes into the side of his chin, his
own head shaking as if it is Taehyung being ridiculous. He’s almost rolling his eyes, but whatever
motion his irises, too, they end up on his, so pointed and piercing. “Any fucking chance to be
around you, I’d take.”

Taehyung’s lips part. He gapes. “What?” he breathes.

Jungkook stares at him with his eyes hard for a moment more, before a sigh falls through his
mouth and he is stepping closer. “Tae,” he says, voice so much softer, voice like it was before on
the doorstep when they whispered to the moon. “I know I can’t make it up to you,” he tells him,
and he stops where their feet almost touch, “for what I did, but I want to be around you, okay?” he
has his eyes in a trap, and they are same height, both standing straight and those eyes are so
dreadfully unavoidable, right in front of him. Taehyung’s hand lies limp by his body, but then he
feels a finger, a single finger, brush it, ever so gently, the tip runs across the skin of his palm, and
his own digits twitch, coil into a fist that aims to chase the touch away, but it just raises, trails
subtly over his wrist and it nearly makes him tremble. It’s so feathery, so small, and it elicits
tingles on the surface that it barely caresses. “And you can have me in any way that you want,” his
speech rivals the kiss of his touch, so tenderly scathing. “Any,” he repeats. “If you want me as a
fucking baby sitter, you’ll have me as a fucking baby sitter.”

He is helplessly searching his face, loathes every feature that appears so strikingly genuine, and it
hits him like a bullet that this was a mistake. He thought he could handle him, thought he could
simply distract him while Clo Eun’s in rehab, thought he could see him some last couple of times,
and maybe, perhaps, they could say to each other what hasn’t been said. But he’s failing.

He can take Jungkook talking about sex, can take him telling him he wants him, coaxing him into
admitting he wants him, too. But he can’t take this.

Taehyung’s forehead creases, brows furrow, and he keeps darting his gaze all across his painfully
familiar face. He has studied every line of it by now. “Why?”

“Cause,” Jungkook says, his shoulders curl. He doesn’t seem to know either. His finger runs across
his wrist down to his own, the nail scraping over skin teasing it awake. “Cause it’s you.”

Taehyung’s eyes screw shut. He takes his arm away, puts it behind his own back.

Aren’t you in love with him? Taehyung really fucking hates that question. Namjoon should not
have asked that fucking question. He himself would have never assumed that he was stupid enough
for this, never been bold enough to consider he could feel something like that at all for someone
outside his immediate family, sans Jimin.

But now that Namjoon puts a fucking word in his mind, he cannot stop thinking it. Taehyung
knows of a few extremities that are absolutely given, and love and hate are certainly dominant. He
thought himself entirely capable of hatred when it came to Richhood. He never thought he’d have
to consider the other end of the spectrum, but the feeling that spreads through him like wildfire is
way too intense, too overwhelming and numbing not to be an extreme.

It hurts too much not to be an extreme.

He opens his eyes again. “You said you didn’t want to hurt me.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen, dart so desperate between his. “I don’t,” he promises. “I don’t.”

He is glaring at him. His eyes are fiery and deadly, he glares. He accuses, “Then why are you
fucking doing it again?”

“How?” his voice scrapes past his teeth. “Taehyung, I—

He’s nearly yelling. “Why did it take thatfor you to—” He heaves a breath and stops himself. He
damn well knows the answer to this. It’s not a question really. It’s a curse, a swear. It’s anger, all
over again. He looks away, stares at his dishes. He speaks much calmer now, though he feels none
of it. “Namjoon wants me to go with him to Japan.”

Jungkook’s next breath is a sharp hiss of, “What?”

His next thought is a storm. He feels actual panic rise in his chest.

“You heard me,” Taehyung says simply, eyes darting to his again, and yes, he did, but maybe he
heard wrong.Maybe Taehyung forgot to add, for a couple of days, maybe he didn’t say anything
about himself at all. Maybe that sentence had entirely to do with Namjoon, with goddamn fucking
Kim Namjoon.

“What about Woojin?” he asks, latches on the one thing he knows Taehyung refuses to leave
behind, because he knows he can’t fucking say, what about me, “and, and Ji-woo?”

Taehyung’s fingers slip to the edge of the counter behind him. He squeezes, knuckles going white
with exertion, and he speaks so calmly, as if this is a discussion and not the beginning of a
confrontation. “They’re gonna move to an apartment,” he explains with monotony and Jungkook
knows those words are recited, put in his mouth. “We don’t need to pay for a house that can host
all of us and our parents when no one lives here.”

What about me, his ears ring, what about me, I’m alone. But he desperately doesn’t want to be his
father, doesn’t want to add manipulative self-victimization to the list of ways he’s attempted to play
him.

“What about architecture?” He says.

Taehyung isn’t looking in his eyes when he explains. “There’s a similar thing there, I just need to
push back semesters—

But Jungkook isn’t listening. He goes deaf to his words the second he realizes he has a reply ready
at his lips, because his ears are still ringing and so is his brain.

His brain that has wheels turning, spinning, setting in place. Oh.

“Is that why you wanted to sleep with me last night?” He can’t hide the layer of disgust that coats
the question as he asks it, face turning, blood churning.

And Taehyung’s lips don’t answer, but his eyes do. They bounce to his, widen, and one hand
releases the counter, grasps at his shoulder. “Jungkook—"

Jungkook’s head shakes, gaze darts all across him, begs any feature of his face to show him he is
wrong, Taehyung just missed him, Taehyung just wanted him. But it downs on him that he is
right, and disappointment cuts sharp like a shard of glass. “You weren’t going to tell me, were
you?” Jungkook accuses, steps away and Taehyung’s arm drops.

He doesn’t touch him again, but he follows. “I’m telling you now.”

And okay, if he wants proximity in this, Jungkook will let him have it. He steps back towards him,
hates, absolutely hates that he can’t use his height as intimidating with him, because there he is,
tall, broad shouldered, a man. He has words, all he has are words, and he knows how to use them to
hurt others, but he doesn’t know how to use them to tell him he hurts him. And he goes primal,
raises his voice, stares right at his fucking eyes, and he demands, “Was that going to be my
goodbye?” He stands near enough to feel him, so that Taehyung feels him. “A literal fuck youfor
farewell?”

“Hey,” Taehyung mirrors, picks up pace, he presses a finger in his chest, hard, and digs his eyes
harder in his own, “You fucking told me to leave,” he accuses, voice just along the edges of
breaking but holding up when he keeps it so loud, “You put the idea in my head.”
Jungkook doesn’t mean to yell at him, but his eyes and finger pry it out of him. “And what was
your answer to fucking that, Taehyung?” his chest heaves with the question and he has to grind his
teeth together tightly to stifle anything else that could slide in between them.

He has the audacity to think the explicit reminder but not to say it, if you leave, I leave. And what
happened to that, was good was fucking saying that?

Taehyung seems to lower on his heels, some confrontation dropping from his stance as his finger
retracts from Jungkook’s chest, and he draws back. His eyes are searching, darting boisterous
between Jungkook’s, and while his voice softens, his expression doesn’t. “I thought that was what
you wanted,” he’s nearly whispering now.

Jungkook’s not. He wants to laugh. He scoffs with his whole chest. “What I wanted,” he bristles
out, callous. “That had nothing to do with what I want.” His feet shuffle forward one step, and
Taehyung has nowhere to go; this kitchen is so fucking small. There is less than an inch between
their eyes. He tried to be careful with him, tried so fucking hard, but he’s rough and raw when he
speaks, when he leaves him nowhere to go. “If it had even the barest bit, I would have had you all
to my fucking self.”

If it were up to him, really, he’d fuck him to sleep every night, be the one to wake him up in the
morning, buy him a fucking art atelier and probably keep him in there most of the time, because
more often than not he looks like fucking art himself.

Taehyung’s hand instinctively raises, palm pressing in between his shoulder and his chest to keep
him at a certain distance. His fingers curl over, nails dig above his clavicle and he arches his back,
finds the only space between them he can. His head shakes. “You have no right to be angry at me,”
he says, voice tight, but low, the tremble in it negligible for what it could have been.

Jungkook wants to tell him that yes, he does. That what he did ruined everything they had before,
but it didn’t erase it, that if he was going to leave, he needed to at least say something, owed him as
much, that he couldn’t simply show at his door, get himself some closure with a quick fuck, and
not even tell him why. But in the context of him claiming he wants him all to himself, he shakes his
head, too, pokes his tongue in his cheek and glances away. He says, “I know.”

Taehyung’s hand edges higher, clutches to him different, lighter, but it doesn’t let go. “I haven’t
decided yet.”
Jungkook huffs, a sardonic half laugh. “You’ve clearly thought out the logistics,” he says. And he
blinks, he forces himself to look at him again, to swallow down everything that he so instinctually
wants to say to him, wants to swallow down the voice of his father hanging at the back of his throat
that floods him with ideas he is entitled to having him here, to being angry, to offering to buy him
that fucking atelier and locking him there. “It would be good for you,” he tells him instead. He
raises a hand and pushes away a single strand of hair that gets in his eye and moves with the flutter
of his lids. Taehyung doesn’t flinch, but he barely gives him time to. The touch is so quick it feels
imagined. His hand drops. “Getting out of here.”

He sees the lump go down his throat, notices him swallow, notices the way his eyes still can’t rest,
explore every bit of his face. Taehyung nods. “Probably. “

“So,” Jungkook puts a fist on the counter behind him, squeezes his fingers together to hold back
from touching him again. “I wouldn’t get to be around you,” he voices. He knows it, but hearing it
feels different, more real. “In any way.”

He hadn’t gone mad and imagined that Taehyung would still want to see him like this, just the two
of them, after his sister got out. But he did think he’d see him in Rouge, in the Ozone. That maybe
they could do this in reverse.

Taehyung’s palm presses harder into his shoulder. “No.”

His jaw ticks. He nods. “Can you,” his tongue runs across his lips, “can you tell me? When you
make a decision?”

Taehyung’s eyes are dancing between his, the features softening as Jungkook’s voice does. His
hand holds onto him, but it doesn’t push; it clings. Jungkook really has to wonder how he has
witnessed people dresses in the most fascinating clothes, styled by artists, so expensive, every bit
of them touched and altered to be at their best, and yet Taehyung just stands there in a black t-shirt
that has a whole by the shoulder, with his face bare and soft, and he’s the most beautiful person he
has seen.

“Okay,” Taehyung says, and the first time he does, his lips shape the word, but no sound escapes,
so he closes his mouth, summons his voice and tries again, tries firmer. “Okay.”

Jungkook’s fist tightens on that counter. The urges to touch him grows, just his cheek, or his lips,
just for a moment, while he still can, while he’s still here. “Are you going to forget about me?”
“That’s the plan,” he tells him, just above a whisper, and Jungkook feels a spark inside him.

He can’t. It’s not fair. Because Jungkook will think about him every time he goes to Rouge, every
time he goes to that fucking hotel, every time he lays in his own bed. It’s not fair because Jungkook
won’t get to forget, and he doesn’t want to. He spent a lot of time thinking he wants Taehyung to
had never happened to him, but that’s a delusion. He doesn’t want to forget. He regrets a lot of
what happened with him, but he doesn’t regret him.

He wants him.

His hand is restless at the counter until it’s squeezing at his waist. It surges through him, powerful
and monstrous, the audacity to touch. He buries his fingers in his flesh, tugs at him, as he presses
himself forward, and with the curl of Taehyung’s back he can press himself entirely to him. His
whole body lines, chests touch. He doesn’t know if his fingers hurt, can’t take control of his own
grip. He pulls him close and presses closer, head moving, so his lips hover by his ear, and he’s
hissing.

“I should have fucked you then,” he gets it out, raw and gruff and forceful, tugs at him again with
the words that follow, “fucked you so you never stop feeling me inside you.”

Taehyung’s hand tightens, head turns. He gives him the side of his face, gives him his cheek, eyes
press shut and so do his teeth. “Jungkook, don’t,” his voice strains out. Jungkook thinks he can feel
his heart hammer against him with the way he holds him to himself.

He blinks. His eyes ravage his face, take it all in, the furrow of every feature. He blinks. His fingers
unlatch from his waist, release him. He pulls them away, doesn’t even return them to the counter
behind him. He keeps his hands to himself, draws them back and hanging by his own thighs. He
moves his whole body, feet shuffling backwards. “I’m sorry.”

Taehyung’s eyes part again, lids flutter, and he turns to him tentative. He layers his gaze over
Jungkook, careful and slow. “I’m sorry, too,” he tells him.

It doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t change anything, but Jungkook nods. He’s taken away his right
to do anything else all on his own. He’s silent as he gazes at him, wonders if his face could ever
fade from his memory, and he really wishes he had taken that picture.

He’s looking back at him, as quiet, but his mouth parts, air brushes over Jungkook’s own when he
breathes, and it draws his attention down, eyes dropping to skim across the shape of his lips.

Taehyung’s hand moves, cups over his neck instead, long fingers curling across, gentle and subtle,
and Jungkook feels the skin there raise awake. He wonders when the last time he’ll see him will be.
Whether it will be today, tomorrow, or next week. He wonders why there has to be a last time. He
doesn’t want there to be a last time, ever.

Maybe Taehyung will stay. It will be good for him to go, he reminds himself, to leave. He doesn’t
want him to leave him.

His thumb moves, pads across his neck, and he’s speaking as softly as that finger soothes, “You
can—“

The touch disappears as quick as lightning when the door opens. Jungkook doesn’t want to angle
his body away, he wants to keep looking at him, wants to hear him finish that sentence, wants to
kiss him.

But he’s lost him already. Taehyung’s eyes settle wide over the door, which doesn’t shut again. So,
he bends, he turns.

He doesn’t have a choice, the voice that speaks through teeth clenched tight addresses him.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Kim Ji-woo says as Jungkook turns his body halfway.

She lingers in the doorway with Namjoon towering behind her. She has her hand on the knob,
squeezing it tightly, and her eyes give meaning to the fear of looks being able to kill.

Jungkook glances back at Taehyung, but he has his stare now fixed at his feet. He seals his eyes on
him when he informs her, “Leaving.”

“Good,” Ji-woo stresses. She lets go of the knob, pushes at the door with her whole hand to open it
wider. “And you’re not fucking coming back.”

Namjoon takes a step towards his sister, tries to touch at her arm, voice low and private when he
calls her by name. “Ji-woo,” he tries. It’s fruitless. She shakes the attempt off.”

Jungkook’s pausing. He doesn’t want to fight her. “That’s his call,” he says, fists curling to keep
his tone even. He’s turning his whole body away now, towards her.

Taehyung remains behind his back. He raises his eyes when he senses the shift, runs them across
his back, his neck, his hair. They fall on his hands, he sees his thumbs snaking in and out of in
between his clenched fists.

His sister scoffs, and his gaze jumps to her over Jungkook’s shoulder, which he hides behind. “He
certainly doesn’t want you here.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook’s head cocks, irony laces through. His voice is hard but subdued. He knows
what Jungkook is capable of, and that is not it. “Try talking to him for once.”

Ji-woo is walking. She charges through the room and when Namjoon tries to reach for her again,
she brushes him off without a second glance. “Don’t you dare patronize me about him.”

He sees Jungkook’s shoulders raise and fall with the deepness of his following breath, and he
knows he already has his mouth opened when he takes a step forward himself, steps closer behind
his back. “Hey,” he draws her attention to himself, his hand raising subtly, palm cupping over the
elbow of Jungkook’s arm, squeezing into it momentarily. “I asked him to come.”

Her glare turns to him. “What?” her teeth clash with the end of the word. “There’s enough shit in
our house without Jeon Jungkook here, Taehyung.”

He opens his mouth, but Jungkook’s first.

“Don’t worry,” Jungkook says. “I’m going.” He pushes Taehyung’s hand off of himself with his
free one, starts walking, as Ji-woo gestures to the door, her lips pulling in a callous smile.

Taehyung’s hand trails after him when he moves and he tries to close it around him again, but
fingers clutch at air. “Jungkook.”
He’s stepping after him, too, and he spins, stops him. He touches his arm instead, just briefly
scrapes his fingers over it. “I don’t know if I’ll be home tomorrow night,” he tells him, only speaks
to him. “If you want to see me, just call me, okay?” his finger touch more firmly, for a moment,
and then they disappear completely.

Taehyung swallows, nods. “Okay.”

Jungkook leaves after that and Ji-woo is the one to shut the door behind him. She’s turning
towards Taehyung the second she has secured it closed, her arms raising in the space around her.

“Call him?” her voice raises.“Have you gone mad? Taehyung, have you gone absolutely insane?”

He shakes his head. “No,” he tells her simply. He rubs a hand into the back of his own neck, arm
stretching, twisting at the elbow. He turns away from her, turns to the sink. He wants to do the
dishes and go to sleep.

“Then why the fuck was Jeon Jungkook in our house again?”

Taehyung drops his arm. He sucks in a breath, releases it slowly. “Because I wanted him to be.”

She’s taking a moment, and he doesn’t see her, but he can see her pace. “Namjoon’s right,” she
starts. “You should go to Japan. That boy’s fucked reason out of you.”

“Hey—” Namjoon tries, but Taehyung is spinning.

“Listen,” he stresses, voice raising to match hers. “I’m going through a hard time. I’m not acting
rational a hundred percent of the time. That’s what happens with people who are not entirely
devoid of emotions.”

He sees her mouth part, gape, and Namjoon is trying again.

“Taehyung,” he says this time.

 But their sister is just short of shouting. “Namjoon, stay out of it.”

“There’s nothing to stay out of,” Taehyung says, head shaking. He turns to sink again, presses his
hands into the edge. “I’ll do the dishes. You go to bed.”

He starts the water. He doesn’t know for how long the two stand there and watch him scrape
cutlery in silence, but eventually, they leave.

Chapter End Notes

thank you for all the comments, lots of love

 Chapter 21
Chapter Notes

I am now a changed person, I type as someone who has officially been to a bts
concert. I would like to thank my mom for buying me the ticket.

also, thanks for the comments, I love love love reviews, especially long ones, I have
seen a few people apologising for leaving longer reviews, when I absolutely live for
them

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Are you going to call him?”

Taehyung knows very well it’s his big brother sneaking up on him as he sits on that very same step
he shared with Jungkook last night, yet instinctively he still cranes his head, twists his whole body
at the waist and peaks up at his approaching form. He meets his eyes momentarily before he shifts
forward again, pressing his elbows to his spread thighs. He spins the phone between his fingers.

It feels heavy in his hands.

“I don’t know,” he says. He sighs. A moment passes before he can hear Namjoon close the door,
before he can sense him step forward and lower himself on the step next to him. He simply sits,
remains silent, while Taehyung internally begs for advice, and in a minute, he drops his head
between his shoulders, shakes it. “I know nothing,” he confesses. He wipes at his mouth and nose
louder than he means when he straightens, looks ahead at the back of a house that falls apart as
much as theirs does. “I’ve never been this confused my whole life.”

Namjoon takes this is in silently as well, simply listens, and it gives Taehyung the courage to speak
even the last of his thoughts. His head snaps to his bother. “Ji-woo is right, isn’t she?” he says,
eyes searching into Namjoon’s profile, before he turns to him, mouth parting and his own gaze
studious and quick in reciprocation. “He’s fucked reason out of me,” Taehyung finishes brusquely,
sucking his lips in after the last exhale of a word.

He’s got a bandana tied around his forehead, pushes his hair back and it exposes his face fully,
every bit of his expression, every glint of moisture that layers his wide eyes.
“No,” Namjoon starts, “Taehyung, you’re not—”

But Namjoon doesn’t know enough to reassure him, really, so Taehyung impulsively tells him. He
pulls his head away again. “I asked him to sleep with me the other day,” he admits.

There’s a pause. There’s hesitance. He deserves the way his brother’s mouth lingers loosely
opened before it releases a sharp, perplexed, “What?” and he knows it.

Taehyung stares at his phone as it spins between his fingers, bounces his thighs, opened and closed,
the fabric of his shorts dancing around. He’s incapable of stillness. “When you offered Japan,” he
begins, sucks in a breath, “I panicked. I thought I would never get to see him again because he
promised to stay away from me, and after work I went straight to his apartment and spent the first
fifteen minutes of my stay there thinking it’s a good idea to try to get him to fuck me one last
time,” he gets it one batch, low and bitter under his nose. Half of it rivals nothing but a mumble,
and it bears too much humiliation for him to attempt to do more. He drops his head between his
knees once more, shakes it to try to jolt away shame. He drops the phone on the soft dirt beneath
him, presses fingers and palms into his face, rubs the digits firm into his eyes, but they can wipe
nothing away. “Thank fucking god he said no.”

He doesn't know what would have been harder to look at if he'd said yes, his reflection or
Jungkook's eyes.

He knows Namjoon stares. He can feel it, whether the tension he feels on the curl of his spine and
the back of his neck is imagined or real, he knows that his brother’s eyes are rooted on him. “Oh,”
he hears him exclaim.

Taehyung almost wants to laugh. His body folds over more, hands rub up from his face and slide
angry and punishing into strands of his hair. “Can’t even believe it, can you?” his chest rattles with
a single false chuckle. He glares into the phone on the ground when he shakes his head again. “It
was so fucking dumb of me.”

“People do dumb things when they’re in love,” Namjoon’s saying soft and so quick it seems to fall
out of his mouth instinctive.

“Don’t,” Taehyung’s cutting him off, sharp and begging,his palms releasing his hair for a moment
as his fingers simply stretch into the air, useless and frustrated,“say that word to me again.” His
voice drops, he speaks softer, he whispers, “I’m not in love with him,” he shakes his head. “I don’t
want to be.” Then he breathes and his eyes screw shut almost painful. “How do I get it to stop?”

He doesn’t know if he finds the hand that cups at his back a little beneath his shoulder blade as
reassuring as it aims to be. He almost flinches away. Namjoon hasn’t touched him like this since
he came back, and it is so overwhelmingly brotherly. The hand drifts up and falls down smoothly.
“It’s why you need time away from all this,” he speaks as careful as he touches.

Taehyung drops his arms forwards and they hang limp but straight in between his legs, stretched
fully past his knees. He lifts his head as much as he has the will to, shakes it. “I don’t want to run
away.”

Namjoon shifts closer, fingers pause on his back. “It’s not running,” he tells him.

Taehyung’s gaze shifts forward again, shoulders shrugging and carrying Namjoon’s touch with it.
“It feels like it,” he says, tongue running swiftly over his upper teeth as his jaw hangs loose with
his exhale of a chortle. “Feels like I’d be running away from Ji-woo and Woojin, Julia, and,” he
pauses; he swallows, “and Jungkook.” He faces his brother again now, grows simultaneously
demanding and imploring in his speech. “Why do we always run away, Namjoon?” He lists, “You,
our dad. Our mom.” His eyes dart between the other’s. “Is that what we do? Is that what the Kims
do? They run away.” He blinks and it changes his whole entire face. “How do I tell Woojin I have
to go, Namjoon?” he asks him and a part of him begs for an answer, because he would like to think
he has the option, but most of him knows it is rhetorical. His eyes are bulging. “How?” Namjoon’s
hand slides down, falls off of him entirely. “Because I’m never going to just leave him like you did
without saying anything.”

Taehyung’s eyes pry away. “I don’t want to start a new life. I want to fix my old one.”

Namjoon’s sigh is heavy, but his impending silence is heavier. Taehyung cannot help the
accusation that lingers in the back of his expression. He imagines everything would have been
different, had Namjoon never left. “I can’t stay,” he says now as well, says he will leave again,
and though Taehyung knows this, it tugs at his gut to hear it. “Can’t even go somewhere where Kai
has eyes.”

“Why?” he insists with his teeth.

He receives what he supposes he will. Namjoon turns away. “Don’t get involved in this.”
The urge to laugh sits so permanent on top of his chest. He only allows himself the huff of one
sardonic breath. The silence stretches and then he asks, “Is Jungkook involved?”

“No,” Namjoon answers firm enough for him to be convincing and Taehyung has to stifle any
external hint of relief. “He’s aware but not involved,” his brother elaborates. Taehyung nods,
though it takes Namjoon a minute more to turn to him. They sit in silence on that step for the time
being, and though there is nothing more familiar than this, the comfort, although still present, is
not the same it used to be.

“Are you going to call him?” Namjoon asks when he finally turns, when he studies his little
brother’s profile.

Taehyung’s eyes jerk down to his phone. “No,” he swallows. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he
admits. “It’s not really fair to him, is it?” He has this as consideration in the back of his head not
because he believes Jungkook deserves him to be fair to him, but simply because he does not like
the repercussions of being unfair. He doesn’t want to be a cause for any of what he himself
currently feels.

“What?” Namjoon reads in the edge of his voice. “You don’t want to stoop to his level?”

Taehyung reaches in between his legs, distractedly wipes at a little dirt that clings to his phone
case. “He’s been good lately,” he says, “careful.” He instinctively presses the side of the screen
and it lights up, his background and the time staring at him. “I’m scared it will last only as long as
his sadness does.” He sighs in the end of the mumbled statement and before Namjoon has the
chance to conjure up an answer, he stands. “I’m going to go see if Woojin wants to play with
anything that isn’t the console.”

He doesn’t like her eyes. He doesn’t like how something glossy so obviously swims in them,
doesn’t like how the lids of them seem to droop and hold them more closed than her usually
calculative, permeating stare. Half of the game are the eyes. Both himself and his sister have
always made too much use of the simplicity of their gazes. They’re an asset and a weapon and he
doesn’t like how hers seem weak.
The circles under them have always been there. She does nothing to camouflage them in the
hospital. She has no makeup on, no sunglasses, and her hair isn’t done. It almost looks frizzy, so
opposed to its typical sleekness. Her skin looks even paler with the white, loose clothes they’ve put
on her, and in comparison to all the girls he witnesses in the end of tanning season, her skin almost
appears ghostly, the contrast of it sharp with the dark hair that frames her face.

“Are you eating well?” he hates to nag, and this is the third time he asks her, but it slips through his
lips because of the way the bone at her wrist bulges.

A warmth spreads through him when her eyes retain some of their sharpness. “Yes.”

“Sleeping?” he presses.

Clo Eun’s slim arms fall before her chest. “Jungkook,” she says, and though her voice is dry, her
tone is very much her. “I’m not a child.”

“Okay,” he concedes, shuffles in his seat across from her on the round white table where they ask
him to sit if he wants to see her. Everything around them blares in such bilious bright blinding
white. “How are you?”

She lifts her shoulders. “Not much to do around here.” And she lets them drop heavy. “I’m bored as
fuck.”

His hand taps at the surface and he regrets it because it draws her attention to their motion. Her
weary eyes seal onto the ring that adorns his finger, the crest in it expensive and glaring, and he
instinctively coils all digits into a fist, takes it away and presses it into his thigh. “Are you still mad
at me?”

Her gaze flashes back to him. “I’m not mad at you,” she says almost as if she sighs. “I’m mostly
mad around you.” Her head shakes and so does her stare, it colors around the room, takes in
surroundings that she has been confined to for every breath she took in the last week. “I probably
would have done the same for you,” she tells him before she pointedly looks. “Though you would
have been mad at me.”

There is some underlying appreciation in her last words, softly spoken, and though it is undeniably
frustrating to feel as imprisoned as she has vocally protested she does, he knows she recognizes this
as a gesture and not as punishment.
Jungkook’s head cocks. “The first time you woke up you yelled for a good half an hour.” As soon
as she could find her voice, she had been tearing her throat in attempt to tell him she is fine, and he
needs to take her back, back home, she can sleep it off; she had pipes to her veins, sucking off
whatever she had poisoned herself with. He remembers her fingers wrapping around the string,
aiming to rip it off. Jungkook stood and watched, hollow to the core as Yoongi spoke to her softly
and cupped his hand around hers to stop her.

She scoffs, lifts her hand up and curls it at the wrist, presses her forefinger to her thumb to blink at
her naked nails. She does not address the first time, speaks of the second. “They wanted me to go to
group therapy.” Her palm smacks loudly into the table. Her brows tease into her forehead. “I’m
pretty sure I can catch something just by sitting in that room.”

His eyes roll. “This is a private institution, Clo.” He raises his brows. “They are attentive to
hygiene.”

She blinks in time with a motion of her head forward that by itself is inquisitive. “And I’m attentive
to my senses and they do not wish to be exposed to group therapy.”

Jungkook’s arms fold over. His lips twitch. “You sound a lot better,” he confesses.

Her nose scrunches, mouth parts. She looks positively obnoxious, a picture-perfect bitch. He
adores her. “Disgust would do that to you.”

A single breath of laughter shakes his shoulders. “I’m glad you have the will to be disgusted,” he
nods, bows his head a little to depict his appreciation that she is adding new variations to the
emotions she displays in front of him since he signed his name on her admission papers.

She blinks. Her face straightens, the over emphasized prissiness falling from her features. Her lips
press together before a tongue escapes between them, coats over. Her mouth looks a little white as
well, a little too dry. He can see it peel at the side. “Jungkook,” she starts, voice heavier than
previously and his eyes pull to hers. “I’m sorry I put you through this.”

His hand is instinctual where it falls over hers on that white table, his body folding on the chair to
lean closer to her. “It’s not your fault,” his gaze searches her face. “Alright?” His lips smack, brows
perch upwards. “I’ve told you once and I’m telling you again, don’t ever fucking apologize to me
about any of this.”
Her stare is short, but it cuts deep before she sneaks her hand from underneath his and blinks away.
She folds her arms into herself, crosses her legs too, and he can feel her calf bounce under the table.
“Have you seen Jin?”

Jungkook relaxes back into his chair, but there is nothing calm about his eyes, about his words,
“He still hasn’t come?”

Clo’s calf bounces higher. “No.”

Air leaves through his nose and he shifts on the chair, looks away to hide the press of his teeth, but
she still sees the clench at the side of his jaw, the muscle where it meets his neck furtively ticking,
pointed and angry. “I’m going to beat that motherfucker up,” he declares.

“Jungkook.”

“I’m serious,” he vows, nostrils flaring slightly as he returns his attention to her sharply, voice
building up with the conclusions of his promise, “he will never be able to work with his face
again.”

His sister’s head cocks. “Easy on the violence,” she clicks her tongue. She nods, her subdued eyes
falling to the grown. “He’ll come,” she says, quiet and sure. He doesn’t know how she is so sure,
he always makes her so sure, she always believes in him, and in the end he always comes.

Jungkook’s jaw unhinges. He hesitates, glances to the side. He studies the white walls with the
green pictures, so many pictures and they are all so green. His tongue washes the threat away from
his lips and he speaks with her softness. “Taehyung has.”

She perks up. “What?”

“He came over,” Jungkook explains. “Twice.” He taps his fingers on his thigh now. “Asked me to
his one time.”

There isn’t a single picture that doesn’t have the color green.
“Well, that’s—” she stops herself. She blinks confused, maybe tries to read his face for an answer,
but he can’t even give himself one. He hardly knows what Taehyung truly wants from him.
“Maybe he wants to try.”

“No,” Jungkook’s head shakes and he returns his gaze to her finally, can only hold it for a moment
before he drops it to her bouncing calf. “He wants to say bye.” He slides the ring off of his finger,
spins it in between the tips of digits distractedly as they rest on his thigh. “Namjoon asked him to
go to Japan with him.” He blinks, he’s blinking. “He’s going to leave me.”

Me, he says, as if they have each other to leave, when they're nothing.

It feels heavy to say, heavier than it would have been a few days prior when his hope had been
utterly driven away from his mind. Then Taehyung knocked on his door, and then Taehyung took
his clothes back as he asked. Then Taehyung fell asleep on him and asked him to his house,
introduced him to his baby brother and let him share their dinner.

His eyes feel bitter. His voice feels strained. His words surge out of his throat when his gaze raises
up again. “Clo, I don’t want him to leave.” He doesn’t slide the ring back on his finger, he clings
onto it with his palm as he fists over his thigh. “I want him to stay,” he confesses. And he
fruitlessly asks, “How do I make him stay?”

Her lips part, and her mouth hangs open loose. She has nothing to say to this and he knows it, yet
she still tries. “You can talk to him,” her shoulders shrug useless as her words offer, futile.

“And say what?” His own shoulders raise, and they fall. He presses back his back into the chair,
slides the ring back on his finger where it should be. “Stay with me so I can occasionally see you
behind my father’s back? Behind almost everyone’s back?”

He shakes his head to himself, drops his eyes to the floor, to his shoes. He’s casual today, just
Versace Chain Reaction sneakers; he can truly afford to buy everything with a price tag right now.
“I can’t,” he says, and swallows what raises in his throat, “I can’t ask him to, I have nothing to offer
him.”

Her calf stills. Her legs untangle and he feels her lean, draw closer. “Well, what do you want from
him?” she asks.
For a moment, he blanks. In the next, he says, “Him.”

His sister blinks, confused. “What?”

“Him,” he repeats, eyes jumping to hers. “All of him. Every bit of him.”

Jungkook knows it’s a flaw of his to be consuming of what he wants, to be all or nothing. He
knows this, but it does nothing to change who he is, only sparks in him the idea to try to stifle and
control, not unleash as primal as he always has.

Clo Eun’s mouth opens and maybe it is to reprimand, but he cannot know. A knock sounds and the
person doesn’t have the decency to wait before he parts the door, leans his head through it.

“You have another visitor,” he informs with a gulp as two pairs of Jeons’ eyes fall onto him part
glaring.

“Who?” she asks.

“Kim Namjoon.”

Jungkook’s phone screen reflects the endless shit he scrolls through between the frames of the
sunglasses Julia bought for him from Paris. He adjusts on his feet, presses his back more
comfortably on the side of his SUV, parked, only slightly illegally right in front of the door of the
center.

When he hears it open and close, he clicks his phone shut, slides it in his pocket.

“You should be careful where you go out,” he says as he straightens, gaze moving over Taehyung’s
big brother underneath the dark rims of his glasses.
Namjoon pauses just before the entrance, not a step more. “I wanted to see her,” he tells him.

Jungkook’s head cocks. He’s silent for a moment longer than he originally intends to be. He
glances away, taps a palm on his car. “Want me to drive you to yours?”

The other’s arms fold, eyes dart curious and with attempted calculation over Jungkook, but there is
nothing to study there. Namjoon’s careful. “Taehyung’s not there,” he notes.

Jungkook nods. He knows. It’s Thursday, it’s afternoon. “Yes,” he says, “he’s at work.” He slips a
hand in his pocket, fishes out the keys to his car. “Want me to drive you to yours?” he repeats.

Namjoon walks down the three short steps slowly with his eyes still sizing Jungkook up. It’s
borderline annoying how cautious he is of him. His eyebrows raise up. He’s almost challenging.
“You’re planning on intentionally crashing?”

Jungkook snorts, eyes rolling underneath his glasses as he moves to slide into the car seat. “Like
I’d crash my car to get rid of you.”He beckons with his head.“Get in.”

Kim Namjoon, of course, has only barely clicked his seatbelt in place when he most boldly
addresses. Jungkook would like to be surprised. “You know,” he starts as Jungkook pulls out and
gets on the road, eyes on the street, and from the side now, Namjoon has view of them beneath the
shades, “of all people I thought I’d have to pity once you realized you and Julia were just playing
house, I never thought it’d be my little brother.”

Pity, he says, and Jungkook has the instantaneous urge to snap, to belittle, to tell him people around
him are the once who have to fear Kai just by association. They are worth of pity; he’s only good
for drugs. He presses his teeth into his tongue. What he did to Taehyung is entirely worth of pity.

“Believe me,” he starts to say, “I never expected this either.” Who could have when put into words
it sounds like a joke? Jeon Jungkook and Kim Taehyung. He shakes his head. “Never wanted it.
Life would be much easier if I could just be in love with Julia.”

He feels Namjoon’s eyes on the side of his face, but he has to keep his on the road. “Yeah,”
Namjoon nods, and something soft and bitter laces through. “Figured you’d want that.”
Jungkook’s jaw presses. His eyes dart across the traffic before him. So many cars at this time of
the day. His gaze briefly jerks to Namjoon from the very corner. “Not exactly,” he mumbles
mostly, speaks privately to him of this.

Brows raise. “Meaning?” the other’s asking.

Jungkook’s pausing. He’s thinking. But then he’s shaking his head. “I don’t want that,” he
confesses, his foot on the break as he stops at a red light. His eyes are free now, but they keep on
the road. He takes the glasses off, cases them underneath the hand rest. “I never would have
wished for your brother to start with, but I don’t want to not want him now. I don’t want to erase
experiencing him.” He stops, uses one hand to tug at his seatbelt, loosen it a bit. He feels as if it
presses into him too tightly. It cuts through his chest. “I’ve never had this before,” he breathes.

The light hits green. They’re moving.

Namjoon’s still cautious. “What if you could have that with Julia?”

Jungkook’s face contorts, though he doesn’t know if Namjoon sees. It’s an instinct, brows furrow
and nose scrunches. “No,” he shakes his head. There is something borderline offensive about the
question as it strikes him. “No, it isn’t a thing that there is to have, with someone. It’s,” he
hesitates, tongue pokes out to stroke over his lips, but he gulps nothing and says what he thinks.
“It’s him. He’s what’s different.”

He feels him nod more than sees him. Namjoon takes a moment before he speaks. “Yeah,” he says,
“My brother is kind of cool, isn’t he?”

Jungkook glances at him with a brow slightly raised, eyes blinking with their due confusion. He
doesn’t understand why Kim Namjoon isn’t cursing him out like his sister did. “Yes,” he turns
back to the road. His tongue clicks, head cocks. “Though, I think I can appreciate him in several
more ways than you, not gonna lie.”

Namjoon’s next intake of breath is so sharp it’s almost comical. His hand lifts, palm and fingers
stretched flat and preventative into the air. “Do not even start,” he says, his voice as fueled by
drama as his manners. “I don’t want to hear that again.”

Jungkook’s brows pop up again. His mouth twitches. “Again?”

Namjoon’s hand drops on the leather rest with a loud, almost painful smack. He turns to Jungkook
with his whole head, nostrils a little flared and eyes wider than they need be. “You think he’d miss
the opportunity to tell me you fucked on my bed?”

Jungkook sincerely doubts he has laughed in Kim Namjoon’s presence in his life. But the chuckle
is forced out of his chest as it sinks to him just why Namjoon is so dramatic about this. “Oh,” he
says, his teeth pressing into his lower lip to stifle and tame that smile that attempts to stretch; it
tries so hard to grow because of the memory of it and the fact that Taehyung spoke about it, and he
simply can’t afford to smile at this, “that was a fun time.”

“Don’t make me call Ji to punch you,” Namjoon warns.

Jungkook shakes his head. “I’m not talking about fucking him,” he explains as he takes a turn, but
he can’t help it, he mentions, “although that was very fun.”

It had been, immensely so, Taehyung had taken him so well, with the lube and on all fours.

“Jungkook—” Namjoon starts, but the other’s sighing.

“Relax,” he brushes off, head shaking, that’s not what he means. “The whole day was kind of fun,”
he shrugs, focuses very much on the street ahead of him, teeth teasing over the pillow of his lip. He
feels eerily shy, speaking of it like this. He feels like a fucking teenager. Taehyung does make him
feel like a teenager a lot, horny and silly and confused and scared. He shrugs again, shrugs it all
off. “I think that was when I had to admit to myself it wasn’t just sex, like,” his hand lifts off the
wheel, palm gesturing unnecessarily through the air. “I knew it before but that day he left me no
choice.”

Namjoon does him the courtesy of letting him deal with that confession in silence, but maybe it’s
bad, because Jungkook starts thinking. He thinks about the fact he had went to him not expecting
sex, the fact he for some reason didn’t feel uncomfortable when he spoke to him of Clo’s panic
attack, the fact he suddenly grew curious of laundry, and the fact it was not an instinct for him to
leave after he fucked him. Other words sneak up on him as well, thanks for opening me for him, he
remembers, the thunder of jealousy erupting in his chest at the prospect. “You know he can be
sassy as fuck, your brother that is,” Jungkook glances at Namjoon, eyes blinking to him and then
away.

That particular day, he went off.

The other snorts. “Oh, yeah,” he snickers with small repetitive juts of his head back and forth,
“believe me, I know.”

Jungkook’s eyes dart to him again. He nods, lips gingerly twisting before they straighten, pressed
together tightly. His fingers drum on the wheel, and then he’s exploring traffic when he doesn’t
need to, bending forward to look at an empty street to keep himself in motion in some comical
attempt to hide his hesitance. “Has he,” he starts, “erm,” he can’t believe he’s asking Kim Namjoon
this, “has he spoken to you about another guy?” he gets it out, finally, quick and smooth.

He senses Namjoon’s attention on him, but he still refuses to return it. “No,” he hears and his chest,
full of that reluctance to speak, empty with a breath of relief. “I don’t think he has.”

Jungkook’s palm tightens against the wheel, adjusting against it as his fingers curl around its
handle and squeeze. “There’s this Bogum character,” he says, then his teeth press, muscle of his
jaw straining at the very edge where it meets his neck. “He’s kissed him a few times I’m not sure
how many,” he tells him, and he has to physically swallow down the bitterness with which his
mouth fills as he speaks the fact of it.

Namjoon’s head cocks, brows shuffling upwards into his hair in surprise. “You’re jealous?” he
asks, and there is something borderline reminiscent of laughter in there and Jungkook’s hand
tightens more.

He hardly stifles a scoff. His lids fall and lift heavy, eyes rolling underneath, but not pointed,
instinctual. “Of course, I’m jealous,” his tongue tugs into a fold of his cheek before it quickly kicks
in his mouth. “He’s kissed him,” he repeats, not as a means to inform Namjoon of it, but because it
tumbles out of his mouth on its own, empty, yet so loaded. “And—” his lips linger open, tongue
presses into the roof of his mouth. It falls shut. He swallows, “He can do better than me.”

He feels Namjoon’s head turn away, gaze falls to the streets. “That’s true,” he concedes with a
singular jut of his head to the side.

Jungkook’s glare on him is mostly out of habit. It’s short before he refocuses it on the road ahead.
“They work together,” he continues. “They see each other. They have to.”

He sees him every single working day, spends time with him, and probably with every minute that
passes he is more and more assured of the simple fact that Bogum would treat him better.
Namjoon is watching him. He knows it, feels it. The older studies his profile silent and soft. His
mouth parts and his head shakes. His voice is as soft as his gaze, and it sounds very much like a
confession. “He hasn’t spoken to me about him.”

Jungkook’s knuckles whiten. “Yet.”

“He’s only ever mentioned you, Jungkook,” Namjoon insists at the prolonged jealousy, the
sourness that spikes his words in some primitive possessive instinct that clouds his judgement and
sharpens his aggression. He hardens his own voice, tells him very truthfully, “He said you broke
his heart.”

It’s a very short sentence, yet it manages to drown any and all petty jealousy that threatens to take
over his tongue. It’s drowned and replaced with the striking cold water of guilt. He said that to him
as well, Taehyung did, he yelled, screamed a pitch that made his blood curl, why did you have to
rip my heart out why you were at it?

“For what it’s worth,” he starts, chest expanding and falling, heavy with something almost
physically under his sternum. “I really thought I was doing us both a favor, saving us from each
other, you know,” he says, and he says with all the honesty that he can muster. Namjoon is so
much easier to speak to than Taehyung. He can think around him, doesn’t have to deal with his
hurt, doesn’t feel the nagging, hardly resistible impulse to reach out and touch him. He gets to stare
at the road, and he gets to be honest albeit stupid. “Ripping off the band aid for both of us,” his
shoulders droop slightly. He feels smaller in his seat. “I never considered whether he could forgive
me after, because I never thought he would have to, never thought I’d want to ask him to. I thought
it would be all over and it would just remain a summer indiscretion.”

Namjoon does scoff, eyes shooting to him, slightly dull. “You thought my brother would be an
indiscretion?” He pronounces it as if it is offensive, and it is, to attempt to reduce him to this.

But he’s Jeon Jungkook. His glance towards him is short and pointed. “You know me,” he says as
his eyes return to the road. “Don’t act surprised.”

Namjoon looks ahead, too. “Don’t know if I know you,” he tells him. “You seem kind of
different.”

A breath leaves him slow and long. He turns to the side, to the window of his car, darkened on the
outside. He looks at nothing, his tongue escaping his mouth, coating over his lips when his foot
presses into the break lightly. “My sisters in the hospital, Kim,” he says silently. His voice is full,
not a whisper, but it carries just barely above it. “I lost Taehyung. I hurt Julia.” He shakes his head,
his hand raising and trudging tightly through strands. He squeezes into them, muffles in a disbelief
as if it strikes him all over again just as he sits in his car at a stop light with a Kim in his passenger
seat. “Clo’s in the fucking hospital.”

Namjoon turns to blink at him for a moment or two, before he shakes his own head as well,
tonguing the corner of his lips in such tangible reluctance. It takes a final sigh for him to start
talking, but he’s staring out the car window now, too. “I don’t know if you lost Taehyung.”

Jungkook’s mind makes him want to laugh. His heart, however, tremors different for a bare
moment in his chest. He tries hard to evade bitterness, tries to speak only with neutral civility he
deems Namjoon deserves from him. “You’re taking him away, aren’t you?”

“He told you?” Namjoon asks, voice arches with the pitch of surprise. “He hasn’t said yes.”

Yes, he’d said that to him, too. He hasn’t decided, yet, but it doesn’t matter, absolutely doesn’t, to
the question of whether he’s lost Taehyung or not, it’s simply irrelevant where Taehyung is
geographically. He presses the accelerator. “He couldn’t ever be the same with me,” he shakes his
head. “Even if he stays, even if he somehow lets me touch him again, even if he keeps talking to
me after Clo gets out,” he lists all those ifs, so many uncertainties, “it will always have happened.
He won’t forget it,” Jungkook’s voice cuts, he’s speeding, but the traffic barely allows it and he
has to stop again, “and neither will I.”

At that Namjoon shrugs. “Well, I’m fucking glad it won’t ever be the same,” he tells him so
simply. He turns to him just in time Jungkook’s eyes slide to him with slim notions of anger. “I
hear you treated him like shit.”

It takes that sentence for the anger to grow tenfold, but it’s not at Namjoon now, not at all.
Jungkook’s teeth grind together, head whips to the road ahead. “Yeah,” he says and it lodges in his
throat. “You heard right.”

He doesn’t know when they reach the Kim residence as he had so eloquently titled it, but it no
longer feels odd to pull up in front of that useless front door.

Namjoon speaks through the sound of his seatbelt snapping back in place. “Thanks for letting me
see her.”

“She wanted to see you,” he replies with utter honesty. “I’m trying to respect my sister’s wishes,
you know.”

The other’s eyes flash, but there’s nothing in them. “Don’t get petty.”

His hand is at the door. His fingers press into the handle and tug it.

“Namjoon,” he calls out; it seems to be beyond his control, but when Namjoon halts, when he turns
and looks with expectation, he surprises himself that he speaks. He shakes his head, mumbles to
him with a soft promise, but it’s firm, it’s true, “I’m not going to treat him like shit if he stays.”

Namjoon’s eyes dart between his, his lips thin as they press together. “I’m afraid of that, too.”

Jungkook blinks, once, twice, his brows furrow and crease his forehead. “What?”

Namjoon sighs and tugs at the handle until the door opens fully. His eyes close as he looks away
from Jungkook, looks to his own house where his brother will be in a few hours. “He’s only going
to bite onto you more, but he’s always going to be a secret if he’s with you, isn’t he?” He glances at
the other a final time, taps at the exclusive leather of the hand rest between them with his palm.
“Thanks for the ride, Jungkook.” His head cocks. “Nice car. Must be worth a lot.”

He has a chance to speak, but he doesn’t know what to say. He drives away.

It has been a while since he’s seen him at Rouge and at the first moment when he lifts up his head
as he senses with his peripheral vision a customer approaches when he works the counter on his
morning shift, Taehyung has to do a double take to ensure he is not imaging things.

“Jungkook,” he says empty sans the sneak of surprise when the other pauses just before the
counter, as if he’s just the next client, there to order.

Taehyung knows his eyes are wide and his lips shape a circle over nothing. He knows he was doing
something with the pen he taps at the notepad prior to his appearance, but for the life of him he
cannot remember what it was he wanted to write down.

“Hey,” Jungkook greets, head nodding slightly in acknowledgement. “Double espresso to go,” he
orders. He looks as important as ever, has a shirt pressed tight and dress pants on, gone is the
Jungkook with the simple hoodie. The watch on his arm glares at Taehyung and he even has a strap
to a briefcase draped across his shoulders.

Taehyung blinks. He twists the pen with in his fingers, gesticulates his perplexity with the notepad
that is now useless in his hand. “You came for coffee?” he specifies, brows raising on his forehead.

“Yes.” Jungkook confirms, coming closer still. He presses his elbows into the countertop, arms
twisting and fingers gingerly tapping over his biceps. “Also,” he clears his throat, raises one hand
and briefly scratches behind his ear with his forefinger. “You didn’t call,” he finishes softly as his
palm drops back to his forearm.

Taehyung nods, his face relaxing. “I didn’t,” he tells him, and he dismisses the pen and the notepad
on the counter to start up the machine. It’s barely been used today, needs to heat up again.

“You didn’t want to see me?” Jungkook asks, somehow ginger in the way he speaks the question,
his eyes trailing behind Taehyung as he moves away from directly in front of him to make him the
coffee that is such an excuse of an excuse to see him now.

Taehyung works the machine with his stare on it mostly, but the tone of his voice draws his
attention. He glances at him from the corner of his eyes, his head tilted slightly downward as he’s
supposed to watch the movement of his fingers. His lids flutter, and his gaze falls back to beans
and hot water. He confesses to him what he feels right at that very moment, with Jungkook’s eyes
on him and his own yearning to bat back to him and study every feature of his face. “Seeing you
confuses me.”

Jungkook doesn’t reply right away. He doesn’t reply to this at all. He hears the shuffling of his
movements after a short sigh. His elbows lift from the counter. He undoes the button of his
briefcase. “I wanted to give you something,” he mumbles as he moves.

Taehyung’s eyes turn back to him the moment he hears an object slide across the countertop,
Jungkook’s hand extending to him. He lets the machine fill the take away cup he puts below it,
grasps at the object and lifts it to his face. “This?” he questions, brows raising. It’s a game for
console that he doesn’t recognize himself, the price tag at its corner clumsily but sufficiently
scratched off.
Jungkook’s nodding. “Woojin mentioned it the other day,” he provides as if it is explanation
enough, as if it’s enough for Woojin to mention something to earn it. Why does Jungkook even
keep note of what the youngest Kim says? Taehyung’s heart thumps weird in his chest. He stares at
the back of the game before he presses it back on the counter, slides it towards him.

“Jungkook,” he blinks to his eyes, his own wide and stern, “I’m not going to take more things from
you.” He shakes his head, gaze falling back to that simple object in between them because seeing
him confuses him.

Jungkook presses his fingers over his, stops him, and Taehyung’s glance jumps up, startled from
the curtain of the simple touch. “It’s not for you, is it?” Jungkook tilts his head, eyes now darting
between Taehyung’s when he’s finally captured them, even for a moment. “It’s for your little
brother,” he says softly, urges with a jut of his chin towards the game, “so shut up and take it.”

Taehyung’s grumbling a, “Fine,” a moment later, without actual consideration put into it. He slides
his hand from beneath his, drags the game along with it. Touching is worse than seeing. He puts
the box behind the counter, moves away. He’s only made one espresso and Jungkook ordered a
double, though he highly doubts he cares.

A moment passes in silence. The muffle of the rest of the clients speaking is worryingly
unintelligible. It seems Taehyung’s ears have sharpened and focused only on every sound that
Jungkook utters.

“I could show him how to play,” he is suggesting quietly.

Taehyung keeps his eyes on the coffee. It’s so unfair how he’s swarmed with something entirely
warm. He shakes his head. “He’s pretty good at figuring those things out for himself,” he
dismisses. His eyes do not resist, they bounce to Jungkook just in time to see his lip tug into his
mouth, his lids lowering to the counter. He nods, fingers massaging into his palm, a loose fist
forming. Taehyung hadn’t planned on telling him the small truth that sneaks past his teeth without
permission the moment he sees his face, “He asked me about you.”

His lids peel back quickly, pupils jumping to his. His fingers still. “He did?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, a small twitch at the edge of his lips, because his little brother actually
does currently think Jeon Jungkook is cool.“You’ve got yourself a fan.”
“First one around your house,” Jungkook mutters. “Everyone else thinks I’m shit, apparently.”

“Jungkook.” Taehyung glances up at him as he speaks. This is the slowest coffee made in the
history of Rouge. “Ji-woo hates you cause you hurt me, she hates you cause you used her to hurt
me, and she hates you cause your last name is Jeon,” he lists before he returns his attention to
where it needs to be. “You tick all the boxes, really. “

A trey slaps onto the counter a little louder than necessary. When Taehyung’s gaze draws up again,
it meets Bogum’s eyes from across the counter. “I thought you were done with him,” he speaks to
him directly, a small indicative nod of his head towards Jungkook, who stands by his side, though
he does not in any way address him.

Jungkook, of course, does address him, most pointedly and bitterly at that. “Not that it’s any of
your fucking business,” he slips so easily into a haughty animosity, teeth pressing together between
syllables as his body angles towards the waiter, “but I was just buying coffee.”

Bogum turns to him then, whips his head around, scoffs. “Incidentally,” he nearly snickers the
word out, “when he works the counter.”

Jungkook’s head shakes, once, twice, many times, fingers running through his orderly hair. “Jesus
fucking Christ,” he mutters, before his eyes zero into Taehyung. “How do you take everyone
treating you like a goddamn child?” he asks, voice loud enough to attract attention, but he doesn’t
stop, simply turns back to Bogum, seeps unadulterated aggression in the mere way he speaks, “He
has a mouth—"

“Yes,” Taehyung presses, and two sets of eyes turn to him. “I do,” he looks at Jungkook, head
tilting. “Okay? I have a mouth. I can speak for myself.” His pause is purposeful; he waits for
Jungkook’s guard to shift, for the borderline threat to slip and drop, and it takes a moment, but
Jungkook’s lids drape shut as if it causes physical exhaustion to stop this, and he turns his entire
body to the counter again, isolating his stance from Bogum.

Taehyung replaces his eyes to the other man. “I’m just making him coffee,” he tells him.

Bogum’s guard takes longer. In a moment, he concedes, nods. “Okay then,” he says, slips his trey
away from the counter. “Are we still on for tonight?”
The chuckle that leaves Jungkook’s mouth is brusque and poignantly cold. His fingers tap into the
counter, quick and punishing. Taehyung’s eyes slip cautiously to him to see him looking away with
the corner of his eyes, looking at nothing. His tongue pokes angry into the flesh of his cheek and
his knee, raised at the foot rail, bounces his whole body into motion.

“Yes,” Taehyung says slowly, and Bogum smiles. He walks away with content that Taehyung
didn’t want to give him, not for this.

He’s barely out of earshot when Jungkook’s eyes land on Taehyung with a stifling glare.

“Still on for tonight?” he questions pressingly, each element of each word tumbling out of his lips
with pure poison.

Taehyung’s head shakes. “It’s not like—” he tries, he starts.

But Jungkook’s straightening up, his hands and arms leaving the counter. “You’re leading me on,”
he accuses, cutting him off, short, so plain and simple.

It makes Taehyung’s tongue twist. His teeth clasp when his mouth squeezes shut. “What?” His
brows fold. “No, I’m not,” he refuses sharply, his own eyes wide with the confusion of the claim,
but the glint of a glare forming, nevertheless.

“Yeah?” Jungkook’s head cocks, sardonic. His mouth lingers opened with the formation of the
word; his face is borderline bitchy. He grips onto the edge, fingers squeeze and then he starts,
voice full and angry. “Leave me, Jungkook, touch me, Jungkook. If I leave, you leave. I’m going to
fucking Japan.” His fingers dig harder into impenetrable material and Taehyung’s eyes helplessly
draw to them whitening with pressure. He can’t look into Jungkook’s eyes. He wonders if
Jungkook tries to pour all his violence into that single grip, so it doesn’t slam onto Taehyung
himself. “Sound fucking familiar?” His voice is hard, lingers between them and Taehyung’s saying
nothing. Jungkook’s body leans, face lowering as he tries to ask Taehyung for his eyes, but he
refuses to give them. He hisses, “And now you’re going out with him?”

Taehyung sighs, looks away shortly. “Do you really want to talk about this now?” he asks, “Here?”
he stresses, his eyes darting all across Rouge. They’re people there.

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head, his fingers loosening a bit, “but I want you to admit it to yourself,
because when I was doing it to you, I at least acknowledged it.”
And Taehyung’s snickering now. “You think it’s comparable?” he glares, both of his hands
gripping onto the counter, elbows straight arms extended. He won’t be surprised if he gives
Jungkook cold coffee at this rate.

Taehyung does suppose, somewhere in the back of his head, where he doesn’t care to currently
delve in, there is room for comparison. Jungkook jerking him in the beginning around was purely
nasty, it was borderline cruel, however, disconnected.But Taehyung’s back and forth comes at a
time where both of them are much more vulnerable. Jungkook played at egos and last names and
Taehyung plays at emotions.

But he doesn’t do it intentionally, there’s a difference.

He simply has no idea what he’s fucking doing.

“Not that I owe you an explanation,” he starts, speaks slow and clear and tries not to shy away from
Jungkook’s stare anymore, “but I’m going out with him and Jimin and he said that just to be an
ass.” He tells him the complete truth, shakes his head, dismisses, “I have no interest in him.”

Jungkook’s eyes are hard, as ever. Taehyung doesn’t think he will ever be entirely and completely
used to the magnitude of the effect those eyes have on him. But he can get used to dealing with it.

“You feel like you do, don’t you?” Jungkook’s chin juts, challenges, arms folding bold before his
chest.

Taehyung blinks. “Like I do what?” he asks.

It’s simple, yet excruciatingly slow. “You feel like you owe me an explanation.”

He blinks again, his head pulling back. Fuck, is his very first most eloquent thought. Fuck, because
it’s true. Fuck, because it made him uncomfortable to say yes to another man in front of Jungkook,
felt inappropriate. Fuck, because after Bogum left his immediate instinct was to reassure Jungkook
that it was not like that. Fuck, because Jungkook’s jealousy was the easiest to tug at when this was
just starting, only testimony to his mutual affect, but he doesn’t want to make Jungkook jealous.
Fuck, because Taehyung still feels an indecipherable, illogical loyalty to this boy, as if they owe
each other something, when he repeatedly pronounces what they have as over.
Taehyung looks away. He wraps his fingers around the carton cup, places over it a small cap and
puts it on the counter that is meant only for payment.

“Your coffee,” he says.

Jungkook stares at him for a moment too long not to be with an intention. He sighs shortly, slips a
hand into his pocket and fishes out a wallet. He takes out notes, glances up. He extends his hand
and Taehyung does as well, but just before he manages to close his fingers around the money, they
disappear. “You going to the Ozone?” Jungkook asks.

Taehyung fixes his eyes over him. His teeth press. “Yeah,” he says, honest.

Jungkook slips the money into his hand easily. “See you there, then.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung tries as the other simply wraps his fingers around the cooling coffee.

“You’re not getting drunk around his thirsty, petty ass alone,” he announces, unbothered, as he lifts
the cup, presses it immediately to his lips. He’s walking away, and Taehyung is stuck behind that
counter.

“Jungkook,” he stresses more, but the other simply waves the cup at him.

“Tell Woojin I said hi,” he says, last sentence he allows to be just private to the two of them before
he steps too far for Taehyung to speak without customers hearing.

He has to watch him leave, incapable of protest.

Jungkook hasn’t set foot in the Ozone since his and Clo’s birthday. As he fingers weary around a
glance of whisky that someone poured for him without explicit communication, he remembers
why.

Not drinking or snorting is hard.

Not drinking or snorting in the Ozone is borderline fucking impossible.

He’s seen Taehyung, and Taehyung has seen him, and if it wasn’t for his concentration on just
what distance there is between him and Bogum, he might have been swinging the drink in his hand
already. I’m going with him and Jimin, Taehyung had said, but Jimin is working and although he
did stop by, shirtless and with glitter all over his taut body to deliver a smack right to Taehyung’s
ass, for the majority of the time he’s either dancing or flirting with clients.

Which, in turn, leaves Taehyung and Bogum alone. The older puts a drink in Taehyung’s hand and
when it finishes, he puts another. Taehyung drinks the second slowly, really slowly, and glances at
Jungkook with almost every miniscule sip he takes.

Jungkook drinks when someone at the table says cheers. He drinks every time Bogum tries to
touch Taehyung and he lets him.

They dance, but it isn’t anything explicit. They don’t distinctly dance together, and it’s a Friday.
It’s not the type night when two boys can afford it. The Richhood population is dense tonight.
Yoongi and Hoseok are there, Yoongi atypically aggressive with his approach to women, currently
with a hand up one’s skirt at their booth, his tongue down her throat. Hoseok, on the other hand, is
atypically timid. He has a girl on his hand, but he doesn’t touch. Mostly, he drinks.

Jungkook likes sitting at the edge of the booth, always has. He certainly does not appreciate a girl
snidely fitting herself next to him without seeking permission, nestling under the stretched arm he
has draped over the back of the seating. He recognizes her. She’s one of Julia’s pets that she takes
along to nights out and parties for company when Jungkook mixes too much with the guys. He
cannot pinpoint a name, he wonders between two, but he doesn’t give it much effort, simply stares
at her for a moment before he tries to look past her.

He can’t find Taehyung.

“I heard you broke up with Julia,” she’s leaning to him, yelling over the music.
He can’t find Taehyung nor Bogum.

“Yes,” he says, eyes searching the club.

He feels her shuffle closer. “Wanna try something new?”

“No,” he says, and now he does consider remembering her, purely for the sake of telling Julia she
went for him without batting an eye. He tries to see behind her head, but she moves with him and
his teeth press. “You’re blocking my view.”

She has the audacity to scoff. “Ass,” she says, but she doesn’t remove hers from his edge of the
booth from which he had previously so comfortably been looking at Taehyung.

He twists his head and there they are. Right below Jimin’s podium.

He finds Taehyung.

“Oh, how you’ve hurt my feelings now,” he drawls without affect, raises his glass to his lips
instinctually. He doesn’t want to drink. The burn of the whisky down his throat is so familiar and
hot. It’s so relieving. He should not be drinking.

The girl is rolling her eyes. He glances at her for a moment, briefly scans his gaze across her to
search for any distinctive feature he can use to identify her to Julia. He is well aware Richhood is
just short of being a snake layer, knows Julia herself has her tongue split in two, but he can’t have
someone so boldly going behind her back.

“Why do I bother?” she asks, whom, he does not know.

He shrugs. “It’s a mystery,” he confirms, eyes sealing onto Taehyung.

“You know,” the girls starts with him, her head cocking and he can tell by the initial pitch of her
voice that she is about to show horns, “I thought Julia was the only person who could stand your
cheating ass, but looks like even she’s better than that.” Her lips mold, twist, a smile on her face
that drips with liquid pettiness. “You’re gonna die alone,” is her conclusion.

His hand tightens around the glass, but he can’t let her see. His eyes are on Taehyung. He can’t let
him go out of sight again. He can’t lose him again.

“If not getting fucked makes you that bitter,” he speaks to her without shedding her actual
attention. “I could put in a word for you with Hoseok. He’s drunk enough not to have standards.”

The girl’s head shakes. She’s finally lifting off of his space. “I’m done.”

He shrugs, head tipping with the last gulps in his glass. “I never started.”

Taehyung realizes venturing off to the bathroom is practically inviting an approach, but he’s
drinking Coronas tonight and they do damage to his bladder. He turns Bogum down when he
suggests to come with. Going alone is an invitation, but going with him is borderline begging for
confrontation, considering just who he has to deal with.

He takes a piss with just one other guy in the bathroom with him, wipes some cold water across his
face from the sink. Friday nights at the Ozone are terribly crowded, heat colors his skin, his cheeks
slightly flushed. He runs fingers through his hair, wets strands as well, his digits parting it at the
forehead. He is almost at the door, surprised he is about to leave the bathroom with no
intervention.

But then again, he thinks too early.

The second he opens the door and makes to step out he’s shoved back in. Hands grip at the folds of
his elbows, press him into the room until he is solidly in and then release him.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook says simply. Taehyung’s eyes go straight to his, fixing over his pupils.
They’re wide, but it could do with the change of lighting, still expanded in accommodation to the
darkness of the Ozone and receding now in the more lit bathroom.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung returns.

“Hey,” Jungkook exhales. He seems peculiarly out of breath as he speaks, his eyes darting all
across Taehyung, from his feet to his face. Taehyung made sure to give him no reason for
interaction tonight. He’s sober, he’s not letting Bogum touch him too much. Jungkook shouldn’t be
there, scrutinizing him all over, approaching him in a room that bears memories.

Every place around Richhood seems to, though. Jungkook is impossible to escape.

“Are you drunk?” he asks.

“I’m tipsy,” Jungkook corrects and his hands attempt to raise to Taehyung’s elbows again as he
steps forward, but Taehyung pulls back. “Listen.”

Taehyung’s arms fold before his chest. “You’re drunk,” he accuses, head shaking.

Jungkook’s tongue clicks, head nods. “If you say so,” he dismisses, his feet still paddling after
Taehyung as he attempts to step away until he has nowhere to go. His back presses into the counter
of the sink. How it is precisely the same sink Jungkook made him come on that one time is a
mystery to him. Jungkook halts, a step of space between them. He doesn’t draw too near and
Taehyung’s thankful. “Listen,” he repeats pressingly, and a slightly bit excited, and it’s curiously
worrisome, “I just had a brilliant idea.”

Taehyung’s brows shift together with pure skepticism etching into the features of his face. “Your
ideas tend to be a little less than brilliant when you’re drunk.”

“Tipsy,” Jungkook insists, teeth lining with the stress on the word.

Taehyung sighs a doubtful, “Okay.”

“Listen,” Jungkook demands for the third time, his voice almost hissing, but with his eyes wide and
tone light, he appears utterly harmless. Taehyung’s almost comfortable where he leans against the
sink. “You and I,” he gestures between them, “should go on a date.”

And, okay. Jungkook is never harmless. Taehyung’s heart clenches, he blinks, he blinks so much,
disbelief painting over as his jaw loosens, mouth cracking open. He gapes at him, waits for him to
laugh or something. He’s still blinking. “I’m sorry?” his voice pitches.

“A date,” Jungkook repeats with a nod as if Taehyung simply hadn’t heard. He stares into his eyes
with utmost conviction that his suggestion is sensible and Taehyung scoffs.

“Okay,” he starts, straightening from the sink counter. “You’re high,” he announces, head shaking
as he attempts to sidestep, “I’m not talking to you when you’re high.”

“No, I’m not, Taehyung,” Jungkook denies, his voice leveling more to his usual tone with him, and
he turns to follow the direction of Taehyung’s body, his fingers slipping around his elbow. He
squeezes into the bone of it once, asks him with the motion of it to stay and lets him go in case he
wants to leave. His gaze into Taehyung’s eyes is still wide, lids bearing their glossy surfaces. There
is something marginally desperate to the way they root into him, and Taehyung’s feet refuse to
move. “I want to be normal,” he says, pauses with the impact it seems to have on him to let it out.
His eyes search Taehyung’s face for a moment more, before his lips part and he keeps going, “I
don’t want to be a Taunting Twin, I don’t want to be a Jeon. I want to be normal and there is
nothing more un-Jeon-like than a fucking date.”

Taehyung returns the study, his eyes darting over him in search of honesty, and whether Jungkook
means it or not, right at that moment he seems to believe that he does. “Jungkook,” he starts, his
own voice softer than before, “you and I, we’re not normal,” he stresses. He does not like to see
Jungkook’s eyes desperate, hates to hear his voice twist like this, too, and that is what makes
seeing Jungkook so frustratingly confusing; any resolution he has, drops. “And I’m trying to go
back to staying away from you, not going on fucking dates with you.”

“Just once,” Jungkook promises, lifting a single finger up between their chests, “one date.”

Taehyung’s gaze drops to that digit. One, just one. His head shakes. “This is ridiculous, Jungkook,”
he says, because it is, “you said you were going to stay away, not ask me out like we’re in high
school.”

“Yes,” he confirms, a tiny bit of harshness sneaking in his voice; he’s sounding less high, more like
Jungkook with every past syllable, and it has to down on Taehyung that he is serious. He wants to
go on a goddamn date. “But then you gave me fucking whiplash, and now you might forever
disappear to another fucking country, so I’m taking my fucking chances.”
His teeth clasp together with the finality of what he says, and he speaks brusque enough for
Taehyung to be thrown off into a silence of his own. He blinks, turns away. It never gets any
easier, looking at Jungkook.

“One date, Taehyung,” he promises again into Taehyung’s reluctant quietness. He’s firm and
unwavering with the proposal, but the notion of harshness slips as ghostly from his intention as it
had appeared, the sound of his suggestion soft. “We’ll take the Aston and I’m getting you take
away from any restaurant you choose.”

Taehyung’s eyes roll back to him. “We’ve established you’re rich already, okay?” he says, because
this isn’t about his car or the food he can buy him, isn’t about the fact he has the means to satisfy
his brother’s every material whim.

Jungkook doesn’t speak when someone enters, pisses with his hand propped against the wall and
leaves without washing his hands.

The door shuts behind him and Jungkook’s voice sounds immediate and nearly imploring, yet it
holds the firmness of demand as well. “You have to fucking talk to me again before you leave,” he
says, his eyes relentless as they take Taehyung’s so boldly.

The other shifts on his feet, features narrowing on his face. “I have to?” he pronounces skeptically,
yet Jungkook doesn’t dither, doesn’t take it back.

“Yes,” he nods, convinced. “Please,” he adds. “One date. I’ve never been on a date.” His lids blink
pretty, and his eyes bore so unforgettable into Taehyung. “Be my first,” he asks him softly.

Taehyung isn’t surprised by the fact of what he says. Him and Julia do not exactly strike him as the
dates type of couple. Yet still as he mentions it, it makes his stomach flutter. He gets to be few of
Jungkook’s firsts, he’s done it all, and curiously, he wants to be. The first always lasts, in some
shape or other. He’s never been on a date as well, never in his life has he had anything remotely
romantic.

Taehyung wants Jungkook to be his first date.

He blinks at him, pauses. “Ask me again tomorrow,” he says and after a few beats, Jungkook nods.
Taehyung returns to hardly drinking with Bogum and Jungkook slips back into his booth.

“Jesus, Kook,” Hoseok’s voice carries way too light and loud from where he lounges on the chaise
longue, parallel to Yoongi’s. “I don’t think I’ve seen you eat as much this in my life.”

Jungkook says nothing. He is too busy on the chair, gnawing down the gourmet burger he got for
himself. He has never before had burgers for breakfast, but walking over to Yoongi’s penthouse,
his nose caught a whiff of it from a boutique burger shop and he simply could not resist. His
bowels were screaming and turning in his stomach.

“Leave him,” Yoongi says as he lowers the pinkish cocktail from his lips, sucking his own down a
lot quicker than Hoseok’s identical drink. “I think he hasn’t had coke in too long.”

Hoseok drinks his cocktail with his left hand. Yoongi drinks his with his right. They both keep
arms on the hand rests between them, the length of their forearms pressed together, skin sweating
and sticky under the power of the sun, but neither seems bothered.

“And he’s still withdrawing?” Hobi’s brows raise above his sunglasses. “It’s coke,” he turns to
Yoongi.“The beauty of coke is the short withdrawal.”

“It has a short crash,” Yoongi speaks with another sip. “But with the amount and time he took it,
it’s going to take weeks for it to go extinct from—”

“Shut up with this,” Jungkook nearly growls, feral to finish his burger, but their constant narration
simply takes the pleasure out of eating. “It just makes my head hurt more,” he says as he lowers the
food on the table, settling it down for the first time since he bit into it. And it is only for the sake of
sparing them a full-on glare. The sun is too burning on his nape for him to be halfhearted with his
annoyance. “I’m not having withdrawal. I wasn’t fucking addicted. I have it under control.”
His last word sounds and then the shuffle of his wrapper does as he gets the burger safely between
his fingers yet again and lifts it to his mouth to once more meet it halfway with his readied, bared
teeth.

Yoongi clicks his tongue. “See, baby,” he turns to Hoseok, gesticulates towards Jungkook with his
almost empty cocktail glass, “irritability is usually a symptom,” he explains and Hoseok timidly
nods to show he follows with almost religious studious interest, “but we can’t exactly tell with our
Jungkookie,” Yoongi shakes his head, his forefinger raising from where it holds the glass to move
side to side in the air, “because he goes out of his way to be insufferable on day to day basis.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jungkook barely swallows. “I’m here.”

Hoseok readjusts himself, turns to almost lie on his side as he faces the other, fully immersed in his
nonsense. “What else then, doctor Min?”

Jungkook’s eyes roll. His voice whines, weary, “Don’t start with the fucking roleplay.”

Yoongi rests his glass down on the other hand rest, taps a finger on his chin and pitches his voice
purposefully, “Hasn’t he been more tired lately?”

“Why,” Hoseok entertains this with a smirk, “I think he has?”

“Fatigue,” Yoongi notes, nods.

“Withdrawal,” they both say at the same time, heads turning in unison to look at Jungkook.

Those two spend way too much goddamn time together. It’s truly borderline unhealthy. “You’re
actual fucking clowns,” Jungkook tells them, wipes at the grease on his mouth with a napkin.

“Mm,” Yoongi considers with a hum, his expression tentatively thoughtful. “Really irritable,” he
concludes.

Hoseok is nodding his avid agreement, “I think he’s in for a prescription, doctor.”
“You know what else is a symptom?” Yoongi speaks then, his voice dropping slightly, altering
barely distinct, but Jungkook notices,because he recognizes that slip, the smooth departure from
playfulness, sees the way he relaxes fully into the chaise longue as well. “Reduced sexual desire.”
He can practically feel his eyes from underneath his shades. “Haven’t fucked anyone for a while,
have you?”

Jungkook’s teeth grit. “Don’t,” he warns.

The other cocks his head, bold. “I don’t even know who you last fucked.”

“What?” he’s harsh, but he doesn’t care. Yoongi himself isn’t conspicuously harsh, but he is very
discreetly cruel. “You keep a list?”

The last person Jungkook was with was Kim Ji-woo, and it is likely one of the biggest mistakes of
his life, and he cannot be reminded of this because the memory of the contortion of Taehyung’s
features in the moments after takes a physical toll on his body.

Yoongi’s lips part, “Jungkook—"

“Don’t fucking start with this, hyung.” His eyes are as hard as his voice is cold. “I have also not
fought in a while and I’m really in the mood to break a nose.”

Hoseok straightens forward on the chaise longue, his own tongue callous with the tone he pours in
his voice, “Irritable doesn’t fucking cut it.”

“Enough, Hobi,” Yoongi intervenes before Jungkook can redirect, his palm fitting over Hoseok’s
where their arms rest together in between them. He reduces to cautious. Jungkook knows him as
well as he knows him in turn. He wanted to check for affect. He received; he’s done. He won’t
press.

“He doesn’t have to fucking threaten you,” Hoseok turns to Yoongi, but he relaxes his back into the
chaise longue again despite the protest of his speech. Yoongi’s thumb grazes lightly over the
knuckles on his hand and Jungkook pretends he doesn’t notice. “I don’t give a fuck he’s PMSing.”
“I didn’t—” Jungkook starts, dumbly. He’d never threaten Yoongi. “It’s not about—” he tries
again. He really fucking sucks at apologies. It’s good neither of the people present would care to
hear them. They know he’s sorry without him having to explicitly say it. “Any hints from Kai?” he
switches direction. “About Namjoon?”

“None,” Yoongi shakes his head, answers without further commentary on what had transpired,
undoubtedly tense for what they can usually take. “But the sooner he leaves, the better.”

Jungkook nods, his fingers tapping over the device that feels heavy in his pocket.

Hoseok calls out. “Wanna get in?” His jaw jerks to the tub. “It’s the last of warm days. Might chill
you out a bit.”

“I’m good,” he replies. It’s late enough, he deems. He slips his phone from his pocket. His thumb
finds Taehyung’s name easily on the screen.

He sees his last messages unanswered and his finger hover over the keyboard hesitantly, screen
glaring into his face just as he glares down at Taehyung’s promise not to kiss him. He grits his
teeth, starts to type.

i’m asking again.

The seven minutes that take Taehyung to reply feel endlessly long.

Tae

you’re sober?

Jungkook blinks at the message.

its 11 am

Tae

so?

He wants to roll his eyes at the suspicion, but then again Hoseok and Yoongi both have cocktails
prepped, Yoongi’s naturally downed already, he notices now as he slides his gaze to them.
im sober yes

Tae

an hour

Jungkook’s heart pounds. Hope is such a dangerous thing.

what?

Tae

the date

it lasts an hour

“I’m telling you his period is approaching,” Hoseok’s distinctive voice carries over the murmur of
the tub as him and Yoongi slip inside it with freshly made drinks. “The bastard’s fucking
smilingnow.”

ill pick you up at 8?

The next message takes four minutes.

Tae

ok

He gets there at 7.54 and does a circle around the block with his car, pulls up in front of the door at
7.58.
He contemplates texting after a few minutes, but just then Taehyung appears from behind the
house, hands in the pockets of an old denim jacket Jungkook feels he has seen on Namjoon before.
He approaches the car swiftly, the steps he takes large, yet he keeps his gaze on the ground.

He’s quick, too quick, as if moving any slower would make all of this material, and he aims to
desperately avoid that. He only looks up when he has to open the door of the car.

“Hey,” he greets simply, eyeing the saloon of the car from where he stands outside of it. He makes
no immediate move to get in, only slides his gaze curiously across it, a gentle awe slipping into his
expression.

He doesn’t look different tonight, but his presence strikes Jungkook differently. He’s beautiful.

“Hey,” he greets in return, voice soft. He feels he can scare him away if he’s brusque. His house is
still so close and he refuses to get in the car. There is still a chance he changes his mind, turns back
and leaves him. “It’s okay,” Jungkook says lightly, “you won’t scratch it. Just get in.” Taehyung’s
eyes jerk up to his, meet them for the first time tonight. He nods, his throat moving with the
ministration of his swallow. He turns his head, spares his house a final glance behind his shoulder
and then gingerly lowers himself into the Aston. “I got us Shunmi, but if you want something else
—”

Jungkook starts the car before his seatbelt is even in place. He needs his house out of sight, out of
mind. It’s just them.

Taehyung fixes the strap of the belt along his chest, both his hands palming at it to adjust. He turns
to Jungkook, one of his dark brows arching up into his forehead. “You got Japanese?”

There’s an airy chuckle in his voice, but it’s got nothing to do with humor. Jungkook’s fingers
rotate around their clasp on the wheel. “Yeah,” he says, as he realizes that he did, in fact, get them
Japanese. His shoulders shrug. “We can pick up anything you want.”

“It’s okay,” Taehyung turns away, stares to the road as he realizes Jungkook is driving out of Seoul.
He prefers looking at street markings than the other man’s profile in the confines of this small car.
Space is tight, and he is close. He can distinctly smell the leather of the seats, but above it his nose
catches onto the pleasant, unobtrusive scent of Jungkook’s cologne. “I’m not about to throw away
food,” he tells him, legs adjusting in the long space before him. He has never ridden in a car as
elongated, low and spacious. The very position in which the seat of it reclines, with his knees
raised high feels rich. Jungkook’s hand slips suddenly between them and Taehyung’s head jerks to
the motion, instinctive, fearing of a touch, but he’s just wrapping his palm around a stick between
them. Taehyung purses his lips. “You got a manual?”

He’d guess a Jeon would be too lazy for gearbox transmissions.

Jungkook’s shoulders lift and fall. “I like switching gears on the highway,” he explains.

Taehyung scoffs, just a bit, tongue poking into the corner of his lips as he shakes his head for a
moment. “Of course, you do,” he says, folding his arms together before his chest as he turns his
head to gaze out of the window at the final buildings of Seoul. It strikes him he didn’t even ask
where he’d take him, simply got in the car and closed the door behind. “You’re such a man.”

“Hey, it accelerates faster,” Jungkook elaborates in an almost whiny justification and Taehyung has
the urge to peek at him, see his expression, but he keeps his eyes on the passing scenery.

“Sure does,” he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, nods. “Are we going somewhere or
just driving around,” he asks, stifles the twitch of his own lips as he realizes he can see Jungkook’s
reflection in the window as the sun recedes, “switching gears?”

He sees and hears the shift of his neck as he turns to him for a moment, eyeing him with lowered,
dulled lids before he returns his attention to the road ahead. “Going somewhere,” he tells him,
pauses. “Well,” his head cocks, he’s adding, “it’s kind of nowhere.” Taehyung loses against
himself, stares at his reflection in the window unfailingly. “There’s this one spot in Inwangsan
mountain, you can reach by car. It’s so desolate, but you can see all of Seoul.” Jungkook’s turning
to glance at him again and without a moment of hesitation as he spins, he catches his stare in the
reflection. Taehyung’s breath stills in his throat, an audible hitch and he blinks away, blinks to his
lap. “Clo and I used to go there all the time when I first got my car,” Jungkook mumbles softly to
Taehyung’s own reflection that now faces away. He blinks to the road. “It’s got the prettiest view
of the Namsan tower at night.”

Taehyung’s fingers toy with the hem of his jacket where he notices a small tear, he rubs his tips
over a loose string. “Clo and you?” he ventures faintly.

It doesn’t process in his head at all that they are on what Jungkook labels outwardly as a date.
He’d imagined, not entirely consciously because he’s never been naïve enough to dream of
romance, that a date would make him feel tingly in the stomach, a current on his skin. That a date
would make him feel warm with nerves, not entirely unpleasant, but poignant, nevertheless. A date
would have something hopeful resting in his chest, bubbling through his lips. He would nearly feel
giddy, heady.

But a date cannot feel like this with Jungkook simply because he always feels like this with
Jungkook. He always hopes for more, for a better ending, always feels his skin tingle under his
gaze, always is aware and attentive of his very presence, of his every move, always gets curious
urges and whims, always swarms with nerves off all kinds, always something dubious resides in
the air between them.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says, nods.

Taehyung feels all this now, a teasing trickle of something in his chest and on his skin and on the
back of his head, down at his nape, at the idea that Jungkook will take him to a place he shares
with Clo.

He twirls his finger around the string of his jacket. “Ji-woo took me to Namsan once,” he says,
reciprocity of Jungkook’s memories nagging to slip past his lips. It’s not an instinct to exchange;
it’s an instinct to share that he doesn’t quite understand.

“She did?” the question leaves his throat tightly, the mention of his sister steering the tension in the
car.

Taehyung nods, his chin tucked in his neck. “I hardly remember it,” he confesses. Truthfully, the
memory is washed over and vague in his head, but it’s warm in his chest. “I was little,” he details
on impulse. “It was when my mother left my father after she found out about those women, well,”
he stops, corrects himself and looks up at the road, “woman. It was just the one at the time.”
Jungkook’s eyes dance to him, and he blinks once, returns the glance briefly before Jungkook has
to redirect his attention to driving. “She showed me a love lock our parents made there. You know
they have those love locks there all over.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jungkook nods. There is hardly any noise on the roads outside of Seoul. The only
sound is that of the car in motion, and it’s a quiet car, nearly soundless and it rides smoothly
despite how close it is to the ground. Jungkook doesn’t press the engine. He drives slowly, almost
offensively slowly considering the nature of the car, or perhaps it only seems like it to Taehyung.
Their voices carry gently in the space between them. Taehyung can’t decide if he’s whispering or
not, the line thin, but they slip into it naturally, though it coaxes an intimacy in ambiance of the car,
which Taehyung is afraid to have there. “You’ve never mentioned your mother before.”

Taehyung’s lips press together, form a thin line. He thinks. He speaks. “There’s nothing to say
about her,” he shakes his head. “She’s been dead for six years and before that I barely knew her.
She was only around the house when she was pregnant with Woowoo and she was considering
coming back. She died like,” he has to pause to tell him accurately, “six months after he was born.”

“Six months?” Jungkook’s voice raises with surprise, his eyes briefly darting towards Taehyung,
brows knotted together almost reminiscent of second hand concern. “How’d you take care of
him?”

“Our dad,” he replies and Jungkook’s brows arch further, a nuance of skepticism sneaking into his
features. Taehyung presses his head back against the pillow of the seat. It’s more comfortable than
his couch. “He’s not a bad father,” he tells him something he truly believes, “as far as bad fathers
go,” he continues with a drop in his voice, the insinuation lingering between them, but he doesn’t
expand on it no matter how much he wants to. “It’s why Woojin hates it when he leaves,”
Taehyung says, head tilting back down to the loose string, mind venturing to the lines his brother
makes in the boards of his bed, so many of them now, probably the most they have ever been. “But
he’ll come back,” he adds, mostly for his own sake, unadulterated optimism slipping in his tone,
small shakes of his head accompanying the empty statement.

Jungkook’s silent for some time that follows, eyes on him, though he lets him have this moment to
himself, so palpably his own, and maybe his brother’s. He runs a tongue across his lips, cocks his
head. “Wanna come out?”

Taehyung’s head whips up, eyes wide. “What?”

“Get out of the car?” Jungkook gestures with his brows and chin. “I’ve parked.”

Taehyung’s gaze drifts, head turns as he glances out of the car and finds Jungkook’s words are
true. He didn’t even notice. “Oh,” he says.

Jungkook unclasps his seatbelt, lets it whir back into place, sliding across his palm. He stretches
back, gets a bag of take out from in between them and clicks his door opened. “Come on, Tae,” he
urges gently.

Taehyung’s chest raises, full of breath that fills his cheeks as well. He puffs it out, literally braces
himself, but he steps out of the car as well.

“Oh, wow.” It’s an instinct for his lips to shape it. He’s quiet with his fascination, doubts that
Jungkook even hears as he already strides forward right to the railing.
It truly is the middle of nowhere, pulled up in one of the rougher turns on the highway through the
mountain, high, but not high enough for the roads to be only reserved for hiking. There is an
extension of the road, ends with a railing just before the mountain dips and drops the hill, a security
measure for cars to take the sharp turn safely, and there is enough space for Jungkook to park.

Seoul is full of light. He can see the downtown from here, lit up beautiful enough for him to stutter
a wow in awe. Namsan tower stands tall and bright from across. Taehyung’s eyes helplessly seal
onto the enthralling colors that circle it like a ghostly aura all around.

It’s so quiet. The city looks so incredibly large, loud, alive. It is so bright and vibrant, as if it
forbids silence, permits only constant motion, vigor. But Taehyung can only hear the wind, so
incongruously whistling to accompany the sight of the screaming city. He doesn’t know if it makes
him feel disconnected or connected, somehow oxymoronically both at the very same time. He
watches with his lips slightly loose.

Jungkook turns when he senses him linger. “Come over here,” he suggests, arm extending to him,
and only know does Taehyung realize he has actually paced forward a bit. He can see the lights of
the city sparkle in the darkness of Jungkook’s eyes, and it makes it all the more harder to say no to
the hand he extends to him.

But Taehyung’s eyes suddenly drop, focus on the railing and what’s below it, the hill steep and so
tall. His throat bobs with a nervous swallow and he retracts from the hand defensively, arms
tangling together before his chest as his back arches with his recoil.

“I’m good here, thanks,” he nods to him, wary, the pitch in his voice immediately traitorous.

Jungkook’s hand drops to his thigh, palm smacks opened. “Are you scared of that as well?”

“It’s very simple,” Taehyung explains, cocking his head and nearing a scoff. “If it’s high, I’m
scared.”

“There’s a railing,” Jungkook tries, indicatively raising the bag with their food onto it.

Taehyung’s fingers coil around his elbows and grip, shift into them anxiously. “Still,” he presses
his teeth together.
Jungkook sighs, his free hand running across strands of his hair that just expose his forehead more,
accentuate the chisel of his features. He glances from the view to Taehyung and back and he
reaches again, taking a step towards him as his hand goes for his elbow, brushes against his own
fingers. “But it’s so fucking beautiful,” his digits latch around him and he gingerly tugs, “look.”

“Hey,” Taehyung unfolds his arms, brushes away Jungkook’s touch and steps back. “Don’t,” he
asks, voice fluctuating with apprehension. “I’m close enough to the edge.”

He would love to see the view from the very end of the hill, but he doesn’t trust himself he’ll look
if he moves any closer. His heart races at the very idea. He can’t.

Jungkook’s eyes capture his. From this angle, the lights of the city no longer catch at his irises, yet
still they seem to nearly sparkle, shine with something entirely theirs, a reflection of nothing. “I
won’t let you fall,” he promises in what feels to Taehyung like a whisper, his head shaking lightly,
just barely.

Taehyung’s lips have difficulty parting. “I don’t trust you,” he says.

He remembers the first few moments when it was dawning on him that it was Jungkook in the
room next to his, with his own sister. He remembers how it was his very first instinct to disbelieve,
to be absolutely sure it wasn’t him, to shake his head and deny, to think Jungkook wouldn’t. He
remembers trusting Jungkook won’t do it and that blind, lethal conviction breaking and dwindling
to ruins, that foolish expectation falling unfulfilled that was what felt so utterly excruciating.

Jungkook’s eyes seem to soften, but maybe it’s a trick of the curl of his head, the switch of the way
dim light falls onto their surface. His pupils dart between Taehyung’s, lips falling open just enough
to let a small breath cascade between them. His head drops.

“Okay,” he says, voice full again, normal. He raises the food, moves back towards the car. “Come
here then,” he beckons with a nod of his head, and then, most carelessly, he presses his palm into
the car and lowers his ass onto it, legs stretched before him.

Taehyung gapes, stare widening. “What?”

“Clo and I usually sit over there,” Jungkook points a finger to a sturdy rock, just outside the railing,
“but you’d be too fucking scared for that,” he summarizes quite accurately and takes the take out
boxes out of the bag as if he isn’t leaning with his whole ass and weight on a goddamn supercar.
“So, we’re sitting on the car.”

He extends one of the carton boxes to Taehyung and the other takes it, but shakes his head,
nevertheless. “Nuh-ah,” he says, “I’m not leaning on that car.”

“Lean,” Jungkook presses, propping his box on his thigh as he begins to open it. He raises his head
to him briefly, his palm indicatively on the space next to him. “It’s comfortable,” he promises,
already fixing the chopsticks between his fingers.

Taehyung proceeds to do the same, though it is largely unpractical to open a takeout carton box in
the air, standing up. “I’d rather lean down the hill.”

“Come on,” Jungkook’s fingers reach out, wrap around his slim wrist and tug. The action takes him
by surprise, and he loses footing, stumbling slightly, regaining balance much closer to Jungkook
than he would like, feeling his warm thigh press into him, “you’ve done more than lean on me
before and I’m much more expensive than the car.”

Taehyung shakes his head disapprovingly, tongue clicking, but he spins himself slightly and props
down on the car to evade the heat of Jungkook pressed up even at a patch of them meeting.
“You’re such a bitch,” he makes sure to inform him, though he needs his mouth free for a moment
or two because as he manages to open the box fully, a smell divine enough to make him salivate
invades his nostrils. “And you’re not actually.”

He stuffs his mouth with the first bite and has a hard time withholding an audible moan that
threatens to rise and escape, the taste every bit as exquisite as the scent promises.

“I beg to differ,” Jungkook says, gesticulating with his chopsticks in the air. “My insurance says
different,” he finishes matter-of-factly and shoves food in his mouth.

Taehyung swallows, his brows raising. “You have life insurance?” he speaks, incredulous. He uses
his own chopsticks to point down to the contents of his takeout box with eager shakes of his hand,
voice enthusiastic. “I don’t even know what that is, but it’s fucking delicious.”

“I know,” Jungkook muffles with his mouth full and Taehyung’s eyes shoot to him with a small
glare, an instinct to scold from his life with Woojin, but he figures it really isn’t the place or the
person. Still, Jungkook chews diligently into his food, gulps it down before he speaks next. “I’ve
got two,” he specifies. “You don’t?” And he shoves some more into his mouth.

“I can’t afford life insurance,” Taehyung spreads his arms out, some sauce falling from his
chopsticks and onto his pants, but they’re dark enough that no one would notice, “and I don’t plan
on dying.”

Jungkook nods his head to the side as if to convey, fair enough, makes a sound with the back of his
throat to signify he’ll be speaking, but doesn’t actually start until all the contents of his mouth have
descended down his throat. “You know,” he starts, informatively, “life insurance has interest and if
you stay alive for a certain amount of time you can monetize your existence.”

Taehyung snorts. “That’s fucking ridiculous.”

Jungkook raises his hand, taps his knuckles on the side of his head. “It’s clever.”

Taehyung is practically inhaling the food that was given to him. “Thought you were too rich to try
to monetize your actual state of breathing,” he comments.

Jungkook shrugs. “Rich people need to stay rich,” he says and Taehyung figures that sentence
might as well be the motto of every single Richhood resident. All are willing to stay rich at the
expense of anything, at the expense of people like Taehyung and certainly at the expense of
decency. “And you think there is something my father won’t monetize?” he raises brows, shakes
his head, “There’s nothing sacred.”

Taehyung takes longer with his next turn in the conversation. He gnaws down on something
particularly delicious which he is entirely sure came from water, staring down into the contents of
his box. He hesitates, but strives to make his question casual by shoving something in his mouth
right at the second he finishes speaking, “Where are your parents now?”

The response surprisingly comes with no reluctance. It comes bitter, scoffing, but it comes
immediate and the ill taste of the tone carries indifferent to the two of them; Jungkook channels it
into his stare forward, into nothing, into Seoul, perhaps into Richhood, maybe to the luxurious
penthouse he has grown up in. “Our villa in Saipan,” he pronounces poisonous, “fucking chilling
like it’s not their fault Clo’s in rehab.” He stuffs his chopsticks into the food, places the carton on
the lid of the car behind him, and cups his palms to his face, wiping briefly at his features before
he folds his arms together. “He hit her again,” he says after a sigh, “that same day.” He doesn’t
specify which, but Taehyung knows by the twist in his voice he means the day of her overdose. He
isn’t certain when his gaze latches onto Jungkook’s profile, but it refuses to shift as he watches his
expression mold with the colors of the lights of Seoul. “Slapped her, in front of Seokjin.”
“What,” Taehyung quips and tries hard to lower the pitch of his surprise, placing his own food
behind him, “in front of him?”

The mention quite spectacularly sheds him of any and all appetite for food purchased with the
money of a Jeon.

“Yeah,” Jungkook exhales, tongue coating over his lower lip, quick and angry. “They got into a
fight after. Jin thinks it was the first time he laid a hand on her. She thinks he should stay out of it.”
As if Taehyung’s eyes are magnetic, Jungkook’s own turn, fall immediately onto his. “But she
doesn’t actually want him to,” he shakes his head, “not really.” His lips press together tightly, form
a single, flat line before he speaks again. “She only told me this yesterday.”

“Did he do anything to you?” Taehyung’s body adjusts on its own accord, hip pressing into the car
as he turns to Jungkook more, resting one palm on the lid to keep himself up. “When he found out
you admitted her?”

Eyes slip over him, study the stance he takes, drag across his body and dart curiously across his
face. It seems to take Jungkook a moment to realize Taehyung asked him an actual question. His
answer comes apparently honest, yet peculiarly distracted. “No, because I pitched him the Austria
story.”

He still gazes at him like this, almost perplexed, almost in disbelief and Taehyung cannot help but
address, his own brows furrowing with his confusion. “What?” he asks.

Jungkook hesitates. “It’s just,” he starts, dropping his head down to the ground between them. “I’m
not used to talking about this to someone who isn’t Clo.”

Taehyung's lips press. Oh. “I’m not going to tell anyone,” he promises softly.

“I know,” Jungkook meets his eyes again. “I trust you,” he tells him, and Taehyung’s chest heave.

He pauses, licks at his lips with a crumbling hesitance as for a moment he glances away, eyes tear
through the distance. But then he gathers a breath, he straightens completely, on his feet, returning
his attention undiluted to Jungkook. “Maybe you should,” he says, and he tries to stifle the vigor in
his suggestion, but his tongue is forceful as he speaks. “Tell someone.”
Jungkook’s eyes mold as he shakes his head to a meaningless distance, staring at nothing,
bouncing rapidly between endless lights, expression contorts as if he has heard something entirely
ridiculous. “Who?” he almost fucking cackles with a pitch of hopeless hurt.

“An authority,” Taehyung can’t get it out of himself fast enough. “Jungkook,” he presses, taking an
involuntary step forward with the passion of his name, boring his eyes into his profile because it is
all he would give him. “This is abuse,” he stresses, studying every feature of his face for the
merest sign of a crack. “It’s punishable by law.”

But Jungkook is pressing his teeth, he’s shaking his head. “We’ll lose everything,” he says, nostrils
flaring slightly. His jaw lines and thickens. Taehyung counts his blinks and he knows they are
more than he needs. “He’s always,” he clears his throat, stresses, “always given us anything we’ve
asked for.” One of his hands escapes the confines of his crossed arms, lifts into the air and cuts
through it with gesture as he speaks. “He’s made sure we have the best of everything, education,
clothes, fucking cars. He puts the food on our table. There are worse fathers out there. And my
mother doesn’t work, she just smiles. If it weren’t for him—”

Taehyung doesn’t know just who Jungkook is trying to convince, for whose sake he’s spewing this
bullshit that he is absolutely certain his father does his best to instill as pure truth in his head. He
tries to make himself irreplaceable, tries to brainwash his children into false gratitude, a moderate
obedience that sates him in exchange for the car that Jungkook leans upon, the meal that he bought
for the both of them, the clothes that press into him and their useless labels.

His teeth grit. He is angry, furious, because Jeon Clo Eun is right. Jungkook is scared, and it is
partially what lead him into sleeping with his sister. And it leads him into being this person, this
person who can be inexcusably cruel, detached, who doesn’t dare bare himself in case someone
takes a swing at him.

“He’s buying your fucking silence,” Taehyung interrupts with the rage snidely fitting into the bash
of his tongue against his teeth. “None of that gives him the right to hit you, Jungkook,” he insists,
gaze still helplessly searching his face, though falling minutely on the skin of his hand that is angry
and scarred, used as an ashtray, “or to tell you who to fucking fall in love with based on what?”
And because Jungkook’s eyes jerk to him so wide and glossy, he adds. “Their job?”

He speaks about Seokjin and Clo. This is about Seokjin and Clo. Taehyung’s heart thunders in his
chest.

“I know,” Jungkook returns, less powerful, shakier. And Taehyung knows he does. He can’t not
know, after everything that happened between them, after what happened to Clo. He knows. His
heart thuds harder and then, in a moment, it thuds quicker. Because Jungkook starts with a but, a
fucking damnable, loathsome but. “But Clo and I?” he bores his eyes into Taehyung’s now, so
wide and so piercing. “Who are we without him? What do we have?” he asks as if he hopes for an
answer and then continues as if he’s forever damned to a lack of such, voice and eyes falling. “His
name is my past, my future, and my present. I’m a Jeon.”

Taehyung’s shoulders curl, his lips so quit to protest. “But—” he starts and he stops.

“But what, Tae?” Jungkook bristles with underlying exasperation, eyes ever so searching, begging
Taehyung to give him a sound answer, but so wholeheartedly doubting he can.

His shoulders slump futile.

The forcefulness leaks away from his tone and it drops, slipping into something gentle and
pleading on its own, his gaze softening as it studies every bit of the man before him as well.
“You’re also Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s eyes focus on one of Taehyung’s, then the other, his lips parted but quiet. His
shoulders shake with his rough chuckle. “What is that good enough for?”

Taehyung wonders if it is also their father that instilled that idea of worthlessness in the twins, just
to secure their natural tendency to self-sabotage to steal away any progress they could potentially
make into an area outside of confines he puts around them, protective and sure, until they recede to
their utter dependence on him. Drugs, attitude, and bad decisions, both of them have always been
known for pushing everyone and everything away. Previously, Taehyung himself was wired to
think it was result of their condescending entitlement and while he is still unready to shed the
belief that plays a role into how they act, he sees the layer of Jungkook, now peeled to the surface,
that so blatantly trusts he deserves little, he is little, behind that name that guards him that comes as
a given.

“Well, that’s up to you isn’t it?” he tells him, because he is certain Jungkook doesn’t start and end
at Jeon. He wouldn’t have coaxed him into coming here exactly with his wish to rid himself of that
name for a moment if he was. “Taehyung means nothing, too, doesn’t it? I’m a nobody.” His
shoulders raise and fall again, his arms lifting a little into the air around him. “It only depends on
me if I ever make something of it.”

Jungkook shakes his head side to side. “It’s different,” he says.

Taehyung shakes his harder, more insistent. “No, it isn’t,” he swears. “If you boycott your father
now, you have as much as I do. Just because you’ve got one path paved for you, doesn’t mean you
can’t lay your own bricks for another.”

Jungkook tears his eyes away. He gazes at nothing, feet shuffling beneath him as he adjusts
himself on his car. “Wise man,” he speaks, terse but soft.

Taehyung’s hands drop, brush against the fabric of his clothes. “Namjoon’s been home for some
time now,” he says, all the intensity that had forcefully summoned itself dropping with Jungkook’s
subtle dismissal, “it’s rubbing off on me.”

The other is saying nothing, still staring ahead, his knees bouncing nervous and his tongue tucked
in his cheek, and Taehyung’s own unleashes once again. “You won’t do it, would you?” he asks
and tries to still the bitterness that sits so tangible at the end of his throat. “Won’t give up on your
father?”

“For what, really?” Jungkook asks, voice bordering on straining as his eyes root still into the
ground. “It’s not like I have a dream of my own.”

And it’s not like he has Taehyung and it is not like he has any future worth the sacrifice.

“Funny,” Taehyung scoffs, humorless and almost petty, “never thought you’d be one to settle.”

Jungkook’s eyes do shoot to him then, the lids of them slightly narrowed, though the gaze lacks a
particular animosity. “That’s easy for you to think,” he speaks, coarser, “You have nothing to give
up on.”

Taehyung blinks. “Yeah?” his head cocks. He doesn’t have any money to lose, that’s true, doesn’t
have a promised future, doesn’t have a silver platter. He’s forceful but unbitter, his passion mostly
burns from his need to convince, not the need to accuse, yet he is past shying away from honesty.
“How about my sister because I won’t concede she’s right about you being a piece of shit?” he
speaks with his eyes as well, fixes them demanding onto Jungkook’s. “How about fucking self-
respect just to be around you and from the very start of this as well?”

It’s decision he makes, Taehyung knows, his responsibility, which makes it taste even more sour,
makes him have to scrub himself harder in the shower and sheds him the ability to look for long
into his own sister’s eyes. But he makes those decisions, and he knows this conversation is not
about the sacrifices that they have to make for them, because there is no them. This is about
Jungkook, but words still spill.

He had so much to swallow down to bear his presence, and he did. He has to now, too, but he’s
there, because Jungkook asked him to. And it is intrinsically selfish, in the end of the day, because
Taehyung wants to be with Jungkook. But it is him that makes those sacrifices necessary. Jungkook
sleeps with his sister and Jungkook used to treat him like shit.

And now he is the one who insists Taehyung has to speak to him before he leaves, and Taehyung
concedes, swallows some more shame that tastes bitter, and gets in his fucking expensive car.

“I—” Jungkook's lips gape.

“You tried to pay me the first time I touched you, Jungkook,” Taehyung says, voice coarse as it
escapes his throat. He still remembers, at that hotel, wanting him, thinking Jungkook wanted him,
too, for himself and then having money shoved in his chest without any warning.

“You freaked me the fuck out, Taehyung,” Jungkook’s voice raises. The narrow of his eyes
spreads, his lids pull back and he lets his eyes peel wide and glinting. “You were a boy,” he
stresses, “you were a Kim.”

“I still am,” he tells him, quiet.

Jungkook seems to be pulled on his feet not of his own volition, a force dragging him up and right
before Taehyung. “I don’t care about that anymore.”

He does that thing again, that thing where words seem to trap in his mind so he stares at him as if
he can tell him everything with his eyes.

Taehyung blinks away this time. “Why did you want me to come out here with you?” he asks
softly, tongue at his lips before it draws back heavy in his mouth.

He returns his eyes to him as moments pass in silence, finds his gaze gingerly scurrying over his
face, the power of his last statement slipping from his features to replace with caution, and
Taehyung does grow accusatory this time, because if he is going to be around Jungkook, then
Jungkook should at least act like fucking Jungkook.
“I’m not fragile,” he bites. “You can actually fucking speak to me. I know you’ve been holding
back with me.”

Jungkook’s lips smack, nose sniffs air, and he breathes, chin nodding with a jut, as if he’s bracing
himself for a fight. “Speak to you?”

“Yes,” Taehyung’s teeth press together.

Jungkook’s brows raise. “Want me to tell you what I think?”

“Please,” Taehyung jibes. “Be my guest.”

“The truth?” the other cocks his head.

He nods, inviting a fight. “For a fucking change.”

The pause is short. Taehyung almost expects to be cursed out. And then, his heart stops.

“I don’t want you to go to Japan.” It rings loud and clear in the silence and intimate privacy of the
mountain. It is just Taehyung and Jungkook, the city left behind, and every word comes spoken
sure and strong. Taehyung’s lips part, eyes softening, bewildered as they gaze into Jungkook’s
stoic, certain face. “Stay here,” he continues leveled, though pitched, though dancing with the
chances of a tremble. “With me.”

Taehyung’s lashes bat. He searches Jungkook’s face, inquisitive and borderline desperate. “What?”

He knows Jungkook doesn’t want him to go to Japan. Yet, he never expects for him to ask him to
stay. With him.

He waits for him to take it back, to switch fucking gears, since he likes it so much, to dismiss that
one silly demand.
He doesn’t. With his full chest, he repeats.“I want you to stay.” He gives him a beat, slicks his lips
with his tongue, and then he starts talking, starts spilling, hands uselessly moving next to his body
along with his words as he seeks the precise ones he needs. “I thought it made me a good person or
some shit to let you go, but you know what?” He raises his brows, raises his arms, drops them at
the same time with the impact of his sentence. “I’m not a good person,” he shrugs, “not a fucking
righteous one at least.” He stares at Taehyung shameless. “I want you here in Seoul.” All he spares
him is another brief pause. “And I don’t want to stay away from you, either. I don’t want anyone
else to touch you, I don’t want not to know where you are, what you’re doing, how you’re feeling,”
he lists, and Taehyung doesn’t know if he has lost his mind or Jungkook has lost his. “There are
many things I’m not fucking ready to give up on and you’re one of them.”

The fold of Taehyung’s arms loosens, but he does not untangle them completely. He shakes his
head dumbly, voice a mere exhale. “What are you—”

Jungkook takes a step forward when there are no steps to take between them. “Taehyung,” his
fingers wrap gingerly around his forearm, the touch barely there, yet as always utterly fiery, “you
scare the fuck out of me,” he says into his eyes, not for a moment allowing Taehyung’s to escape
their ceaseless, compulsion, “but what scares me more is no one will ever feel to me like you do.”
Taehyung’s heart pounds. It pounds so fast, rapid and dangerous against his ribcage. Feel,
Jungkook says, and he doesn’t know why a word as simple as this means so much to him. What
does Jungkook feel, he wants to ask, for him, how does he feel to him. “I don’t want to lose you,”
he tells him, voice receding to a whisper with how close he now stands, the breath of his words
fanning over Taehyung’s parted lips and coercing teasing tingles onto them. “Have I?” he darts his
eyes down once, glances at his mouth, then steals his gaze again. “Have I lost you?”

Taehyung’s forehead creases, countenance distorts as if he’s in physical pain. “I don’t know,” he
shakes his head, and he forces his voice into a whisper, too, to save it from cracking, but it
trembles, nonetheless.

“Tae,” fingers squeeze around him firmer, “do you want there to be a last time in which you see
me?”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung exhales, begs, and turns his head away, gives him his cheek, but the digits
release his arm, raise to his face. He presses just two fingers softly into his jaw, spins his head
back.

“Just,” he swallows down. There seems to be a current of building frustration just on the tip of his
lips, of his fingers, to touch more, to say more, to take more. “Be honest,” he asks. “The truth, we
said,” he reminds him. “Do you want there to be a last time in which you see me?”

A breath escapes Taehyung’s nose and mouth with his sigh, pours straight into Jungkook’s. “No,”
he shakes his head lightly.

“You don’t want to leave Woojin,” Jungkook says and that’s not a question, but a reminder again.

“No,” he shakes his head firmer, quicker.

And Jungkook’s shaking his head, too, in toll with his. “You’ll lose more than you’ll win if you go
to Japan,” he promises him, the tips of his electric fingers still brushing gently into the skin of his
cheek. “You don’t even know where you’re going, what will you do in Japan?” his voice raises
slightly, shoulders folding, too, but he doesn’t move away from him, stands there, as close as he
would have him. “Where in Japan? Do you even know what fucking city?” something borderline
angry folds into the words as they leak, seamless and hurried. “What you’ll do there? Where you’ll
live there? Do you even speak the language?” he opens his mouth for more, but his eyes linger
more focused on Taehyung’s face and he presses it shut, tries again calmer. “You don’t, do you?”

He doesn’t. He puts all his trust in Namjoon for this, and sometimes he forgets in moments he
doesn’t trust Namjoon either. He thinks so much about escaping here, he barely acknowledges he
would be going somewhere.

The fingers move on his cheek, a thumb joining the two, and he cups gingerly at his chin. “If
you’re only going there to forget about me—” his eyes chase after every crease in his expression.
“Do you want to forget about me?” His chest fills and draws out, his exhale heavy, but soft and the
words coat all over Taehyung’s lips.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t say anything. He stands there, listening to his heart, his heart palpitating
and rushing blood into his ears, stifling every thought.

“Do you regret me?” Jungkook grips onto his chin firmer, head tilting slightly to draw closer
without touching him, though their foreheads almost brush.

He’s silent.

“Won’t you miss me?” he keeps asking and there is something sad in that question, something
genuine, as if Jungkook truly believes there is a marginal chance Taehyung can go to another
country, full of regret that he had him, and not miss him all the fucking time.
“I will,” it pries out of him. “I do.”

A hand slips around his waist, fingers curling familiar and gentle into the fold above his hip.
“Stay,” Jungkook implores and he almost feels his lips move against his.

He turns away, just slightly, just until they don’t share air. “I wanted you to stay so many times,”
he confesses in a quick murmur, a hand raising up and curling in a loose fist by his shoulder to
keep their chests from touching.

“This is different,” Jungkook shakes his head, hand falling from his face to cup around his nape,
fingers toying with some strands there, instinctive. “This is not about wondering whether I will see
you in the coming week. This is about knowing I won’t.”

“And stay why?” Taehyung lets a single breath of laughter as if it's all a joke, though really, he just
wants a reason. “So, we can go back to you fucking me when you want to?”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tugs him closer despite that hand that rests between them. His eyes are so
perpetually unforgiving with their coercion, “you and I both know last time we were together like
that,” he pauses, he breathes; he speaks so slowly, so clearly, so emphatically, “I didn’t fuck you.”

What then, he yearns to ask him with the way the weight of that sentence, so plain in semantics, so
plain to anyone who isn’t them and wasn’t there, didn’t feel that first kiss, that second, that one just
before he promised he wasn’t going anywhere, makes him feel, what did you do to me then?

He wants to ask but he’s not brave enough because he only wants one answer.

Taehyung’s teeth snap. He remembers those moments so vividly and painfully. Happiness, he
thinks, is a very curious thing. It has nothing to do with smiles, nothing to do with laughter, and in
that moment when Jungkook kissed him and fucked him in his bed, he wasn’t smiling, not at all; he
was frightened and nervous, and it bordered on hurt. But weirdly, he was happy.

He nods bitter. “But you sure did fuck my sister a week after.”

Jungkook’s fingers tighten on his nape, thumb grazing there as if he aims to comfort. “There isn’t a
moment in which I don’t regret that,” he promises, head shaking.
His nose brushes his with one of the timid shakes. Breathlessness folds Taehyung's chest.
Breathless, he asks. “Why?”

“Why?” he mouths back.

“Yes,” he raises above the murmur of their exchange, demands, “I want you tell me why you regret
it.”

Jungkook pulls back to look at him and the fear that he will back away now washes colder than he
expects it, reminds him just why this is all so dangerous. But his eyes just search, and, in a
moment, he speaks, gentle and low, his voice deeper than it is with other people. “Because it hurt
you,” he tells him, features screwing as if the fact of it hurts in turn. His fingers bury in his hair,
squeeze around strands. “Because it took away my right to touch you,” his hand spreads on his
waist, digits extending as far as they would go, to take as much of his current permission to touch
him as he can, “to tell you you’re beautiful,” he murmurs and Taehyung’s eyes screw shut; he can’t
feel, hear, and see at the same time. But it does nothing, does absolutely fucking nothing, because
in the next moment he senses lips, the full pillows of familiar, sizzling lips, brush the bone of his
cheek, so unnaturally tender right beneath his sealed eye, “to do this,” he hums as he pulls away
after a short, light touch, “and this,” he adds, and presses his lips lower, in the center of his cheek
now. It’s firmer and it’s longer. But the graze of them lifts off and he whispers in a breath right
against his skin, still brushing as he speaks, “and most of all, this.”

Taehyung has time. He knows what he will do, and he has time to pull away. Jungkook lingers with
his lips by his cheek, gives him it.

He stays right where he is.

Jungkook presses his lips to his. He is tentative, slow, tangles his fingers more into strands of his
hair, and simply holds his lips against his, molds them together. He doesn’t move them for a long
moment, only keeps them there, motionless and light. Taehyung’s hand uncurls on his shoulder,
digits fist into his shirt. His heart is ramming at his chest now, mind is screaming, but the
palpitation is too loud, and he cannot hear. Jungkook's lips peck, once, the sound of a kiss so
distinct, yet Taehyung can barely feel it. It’s chaste, but it lingers. The next one comes sooner. His
lips never leave entirely, just press harder, just move.

He folds his lips against his upper one, kisses him there, then wraps them against the pillow of his
lower. Taehyung’s lips are as if frozen under the ministration, and Jungkook has to pry them gently
with a firmer kiss.
They part, allow Jungkook’s upper lip to hover between them, his breath coating over his chin.

It lasts a moment. Then, Taehyung’s lips move.

He kisses him back, lips tangling together, moving smooth as they part and meet. They’re slow in
one second, faster in the next. They only kiss each other on the lips, the sound of it wet in the
silence. Jungkook’s hand slides when he feels him return it, ventures to his back and spreads there,
cups him fully and presses him forward until his back has to arch to accommodate the hand he rests
between them that now almost painfully grasps onto Jungkook’s shoulder, the fabric of his shirt
wrinkling underneath.

Jungkook exhales into the motion of Taehyung’s lips, sighs into him and sinks into him with new
vigor. He wants to taste him. He probably tastes like Japanese, but he doesn’t give a fuck. He
wants him to part his mouth more and let him have a taste, but he’s not bold enough to try for this,
doesn’t want to scare him away, just wants to keep him against him for as long as he’d let him.

But then Taehyung sighs as well, so airy and gentle, with his distinct, deep voice, and it borders on
a moan, and Jungkook’s tongue teases over his lips, slides in between when he parts them to meet
his.

He doesn’t mean for it to grow hungry, but it does. He is.

Jungkook’s head tilts around him, he locks their lips firmer and kisses into his mouth. His fingers
are desperate into the strands at his nape, the other hand attempting to press him, closer, closer,
until space feels like a figment of their imagination.

The hand drops low on his spine, the kiss grows more demanding.

Taehyung can’t breathe. He shouldn’t be doing this.

He always imagined a date should end with a kiss.

This is not a date. Jungkook and him, they can’t go on dates.

Jungkook’s lips separate from his only for his head to turn and for them to wrap into him more,
deeper. But Taehyung’s hand loosens on the shirt, presses into his shoulder with the heel of his
palm digging pointedly into his clavicle, eyes parting, but his lids are so heavy, he can only look at
his mouth, waiting to taste it again. “Stop,” he whispers against his lips.

Jungkook kisses him so briefly next, barely presses his lips against his before he draws back.
“Why?” he hums to him and then he kisses him firmer.

Taehyung’s lids flutter, but they don’t fully drop. His lips kiss him back once, treacherous, but the
next press of his lips is unreciprocated, and then the next. “Stop,” he asks again, mutters into his
lips, his brows creasing into it, as Jungkook keeps fucking kissing him. “Jungkook, stop,” he
demands firmer, presses his palm hard against his clavicle and pushes, and Jungkook’s stepping
back, allowing the push as far as it will take him, hands lifted up in the air, until he’s at an arm’s
length from him.

Taehyung drops his touch from him completely. His hand raises, the back of it pressing into his
mouth and wiping at his lips, as if he wants to get rid of the feel of the kiss on his lips.

Jungkook still feels him on his, he wants to savor, not erase. His face twists with the sight of
Taehyung rubbing his skin so rapidly against his mouth. He thinks his heart is in the heel of his
foot.

He thinks. He speaks, “I did something wrong.”

He doesn’t realize he says it aloud until Taehyung’s eyes turn to him.

“I did something wrong,” he corrects, voice loud, breaking the tentative silence the desolation of
the place instills in them.

Jungkook’s head shakes. He tries to step towards him, but it’s a singular attempt; he cannot take
the deflation of watching him step back. “But you—”

“I need to think,” Taehyung cuts him off, because he does. He cannot simply ask him to stay, with
him, and then touch him, kiss him. He shakes his head, too. “And I have the bad habit of not being
able to do that when you touch me, it’s how we got into this shit.”
Jungkook keeps silent. He gives him this moment and only stares, sees his fingers drag across his
face, his chin, his lips, pull through strands of his hair. He’ll let him calm down, and then, then
they can talk.

Taehyung’s eyes seal onto him again. “Can you drive me home?”

His heart raises back to his chest just to slip into the other foot. “You gave me an hour,” Jungkook
says, words tumbling out of his mouth faster than he intends them to. “It hasn’t been an hour.”

Taehyung’s eyes soften. His hands drop from his head, fall heavy by his thighs, rocking slightly
side to side. “Jungkook,” he pleads to him only with his name, apologizes subtly in the very same
breath.

Jungkook’s teeth press together. He breathes sharply through his nose and looks back to Seoul, to
the lights to which he has to drive him. He doesn’t want to be angry, he really doesn’t. His jaw
tightens, the edge of it ticking. He slips his tongue across his lips, gives himself a moment to calm
down.

He moves. He gets the back from their food, pushes the boxes inside with one motion and
straightens.

“Get in the car then,” he says, chin jutting to the Aston. He feels Taehyung’s eyes trail over him,
but he doesn’t return the stare. He slides into the driver seat, waits for the sound of Taehyung’s
door shutting and steers the car into gear.

The ride back is silent. It’s a heavy silence, tangible between them, the air tight and tense.
Taehyung’s lips part once, seal shut. He attempts it a second time. Jungkook speeds, and it makes
him slightly nervous considering his current mood, but he presses his teeth, keeps quiet.

Jungkook pulls up in front of his house a lot quicker than it had taken them to get to arrive first.
Taehyung’s lingering in his seat and he doesn’t know why. Jungkook’s saying nothing and really,
there’s nothing to say.

He slips the seat belt off, pulls the door open. He stands. He is just about to shut the door, when he
calls him.
 “Taehyung,” he says, and he leans into the hand rest, eyes finding him for the first time since he
looked away in the mountain. He pauses with his hand on the door, fingers clinging onto the
material. He meets his gaze, waits. Jungkook’s tongue grazes his lips, a final slip of hesitation.
“I’m sorry I took so long to kiss you.”

He doesn’t know if he means tonight, if he means at all, he doesn’t know what Jungkook means.

Jungkook does. He means he kept wondering if his mistake was not kissing him at the start or
kissing him at all. He doesn’t anymore.

Taehyung only nods. He doesn’t speak. He shuts the door and he goes home. He once again so
terribly confused, his head a mess, his body a mess. He is a mess, and Namjoon is fucking right.
Taehyung is in love with him.

Chapter End Notes

thank you for reading and staying engaged through this mess
 Chapter 22
Chapter Summary

with the smallest things Taehyung learns what love is

Chapter Notes

this was supposed to be half a chapter, but it was soooooo long, so it's a whole chapter
now, hope you enjoy

With the smallest things, Taehyung learns what love is.

“You like that game, Woo?” Taehyung asks as he falls into the couch next to his brother easily
with the bowl of popcorn he promised the boy. Half remain seeded, unfortunately, but with their
microwave it’s tricky, it’s either that or coal. Taehyung sinks a palm into the bowl, grabs onto a
whole handful.

He is begrudgingly aware that the game on the pathetic screen is the one Jungkook purchased for
his brother. It’s something incredibly simple, and for someone as wealthy as him, it’s such a small
gesture, yet Taehyung stares at the tiny characters on his TV.

“Yes,” his brother chirps, his thumbs clicking at the controller. “Very much,” he nods; his legs
cannot even reach the end of the cushion. “I want to say thank you to Jungkook hyung.”

His name at Woojin’s lips is unfamiliar and more striking than it needs to be. He stretches forward,
places the bowl on the coffee table in front of them. He stuffs his mouth with airy popcorn, jaw
moving vigorous with the incentive to chew affect away.

“I can do that for you,” he swallows. “I’ll thank him.” Taehyung wipes his palm against his pants,
something he’d usually rather not do, but he’s strangely distracted.

Woojin turns to him with eyes wide and bright. “But he can come play and I can thank him,” he
suggests enthusiastically and Taehyung’s heart flutters. His memory is etched with the sight of
Jungkook’s face when he himself proposed to come teach him and Taehyung simply turned him
down. “I’ll let him use my character if he wants to,” his brother promises energetically, legs
bouncing a slight bit on the cushion. He has even paused his game for this negotiation.

Taehyung presses his elbows in the back of the couch, purses his lips with a cock of his head. “You
want to play with Jungkook?” he asks, concentrated on the mere way he pronounces his name as if
the way his lips shape it alone would confess to his six-year-old brother.

“Yes,” Woojin insists with a prolonged ardent, ‘s’.

Taehyung’s lips pull forward more before their tips curl downwards. He pouts. “Not with me?”

“No,” Woojin shakes his head, mouth mirroring Taehyung’s as his eyes widen. “I want to play with
you, hyung,” he promises hurriedly in defense, “but I want to play with him, too.”

Taehyung’s lips release, tilt more naturally at the edges, and the teasing slips from his voice,
features soften. “You like him?” he asks, quiet and curious, though he already knows the answer.

“Yes,” Woojin nods firm and deep, “he’s really cool and he’s really strong,” he announces, and
Taehyung cannot help but wonder whether Jungkook would care he’s influenced his little brother
into this opinion. He’d definitely use it as ammo against Taehyung himself, and this particular type
he doesn’t think he’d mind. “He lifted up the couch with one hand when I dropped my toy,”
Woojin continues, gesturing with his tiny arms a bountiful exaggeration of the motion that
Jungkook needed to make to slightly lift up the edge of their couch.

“Yes,” Taehyung professes, though honestly Woojin is so utterly fascinated with the bare
minimum, “Jungkookie is really strong, isn’t he?”

He is strong, Taehyung knows. Physically, he’s a master of his own body, he is impressive in his
strength. From the fights he’s watched, to the times he’d been on the end of his entitled
manhandling at the beginning of all this, he knows.

“He could lift you up, too, Taetae, I bet,” Woojin pronounces with a small assured nod.

Taehyung scoffs with his whole chest. “Listen,” he begins, brows raising up in his forehead that
creases with the offence, “I know I’ve put on some weight, but I’m still lighter than the couch,
Woo.”
“But he only lifted up the couch a little,” his brother says, and Taehyung’s lips press together, pull
in a smile. So, he does know Jungkook didn’t lift up the whole entire couch for his toy. “He could
lift you up and carry you like my character on the game carries the dead bodies.”

An urge to laugh sits at his sternum as he watches over his brother. “Okay, what is this game and
why does it have dead bodies?” his brows alone are chiding and inquisitive with the way he arches
them at him when he tilts his head down, but Woojin merely shrugs. Taehyung knows all of the
siblings he is the least intimidating. He shakes his head, glances away. “And Jungkook doesn’t
want to carry me around.”

It bothers him that Woojin so involuntarily and casually tugs at notes, fishes out memories. He
hasn’t even properly known Jungkook that long, yet in any conversation something would sneak up
to remind him with no warning whatsoever. He remembers that third time he’d had Jungkook over,
when the burn mark from his father’s cigarette was fresh and pulsing, meat underneath exposed,
pink and teary. He’d pressed his head in the pillow and let him take him as hard as he willed it,
until he’d drained every last bit of him, the final time he touched him before kissing him, just
trudging along the threshold of the danger of all this, but not stepping past it.

Taehyung had wanted to be carried.

“Why?”

Taehyung turns to him, the smile on his face a little tighter. “Because I’m not a princess,” he tells
his little brother.

Woojin’s lower lip tucks into his mouth and for a moment he seems to ponder deeply before he
concludes with another firm nod. “That’s fair.”

Laughter does bubble out of him this time. “What?” he asks through it. “You don’t think I deserve
to be carried?” he accuses with a feigned shock lacing through his voice as he presses a palm on
top of his chest, absolutely appalled.

“Well,” Woojin cocks his head, presses a tiny finger in the small dimple of his chin, “you should
be thankful you’re not a dead body,” he grins absolutely satisfied with himself and Taehyung’s on
his feet.
“You little…” he begins as he charges, wrapping his arms around Woojin’s waist and pressing his
stomach into his shoulder unexpectedly before he straightens up, the little boy dangling over his
back, hands flailing. His first instinct is a very pitched yelp, but it morphs into giggles fairly
quickly and Taehyung’s lungs brim with warmth. “See,” he tosses him into place at his shoulder, as
Woojin juggles between laughter and a whiny mantra of I’m sorry, Taetae’s,“I can carry you. Am I
not strong, too?” He bounces him a little again and it only coaxes a higher giggle out of him. “Hm?
Do you like Jungkook better than me now?”

“No,” he feels Woojin press his palms into his back, attempt to climb onto his spine. “I like you
best of all people, hyung,” he promises, and Taehyung just wiggles him on top of his shoulder
more.

“You sure about that, brat?” He jostles the boy and attempts to be stern, but fondness sneaks
treacherous on his shoulder.

“Yes, Taetae, promise. I’m getting dizzy.” Taehyung tosses him a final time, before he returns him
to the couch, right into the sitting position he picked him up from, letting him bounce a little of the
cushion.

“You promise?” Taehyung crouches down in front of him, darts falsely stern eyes over his
brother’s beaming face, but with the more he stares at his smile, the more his own breaks out onto
his face.

Woojin’s missing a tooth and his eyes almost disappear on his face when he fully grins, like
Jimin’s, and his cheeks are still so chubby, chubbier when his lips stretch like that. He has a
dimple, deeper than Namjoon’s and his skin grows slightly red from the laughter and the time he
spent upside down.

He truly doesn’t understand how Namjoon left him. With the smallest things, Taehyung learns
what love is, and he certainly loves his little brother to death.

“Yes,” Woojin nods, confirms again, but just before Taehyung can pat his hair in praise, he
continues. “but he’s better at games and at lifting things,” he pauses, and with a small smile that
Taehyung just knows he stretches when he means to wreak havoc, he concludes, “You fucking
suck.”

Taehyung gasps, mouth falling opened as Woojin’s face gets redder, and he buries it in tiny palms.
“What did you just say?” he asks, own voice pitched higher, as he pries his hands away from his
face to look at him, this time with an actual attempt at a small glare. The boy allows him to take his
arms, blinks at him with his chin hidden in his chest, pouty and all so innocent. “You don’t use that
word, Woowoo,” Taehyung shakes his head, voice firm, before he aggressively boops his nose as
punishment.

“You use it,” Woojin proclaims, lifting his nose higher up in the air, arms folding together over his
small body. “It’s a free country,” he says, and Taehyung cannot help the short, snorted chuckle that
escapes him.

He shakes his head, pressing his palms onto his brother’s knees to hold himself crouching. “I don’t
know if it will be good for you to play with Jungkook if you already talk to me like this,” he tells
him.

“Why,” Woojin starts, his arms untangling with a small panic. His brows furrow, “don’t you like
Jungkook?”

Little kids always ask the most complicated questions.

“No, no,” Taehyung hurries to shake his head into the innocence of Woojin’s question. “He’s just,”
he tries once, fails, lips fall shut and he has to glance away, blinks towards the kitchen and thinks.
“He’s complicated,” he murmurs after a silent moment, returns his gaze, soft, to smile slightly at
his little brother.

His big eyes blink with insecure wonder. “But you like him?” he presses once more.

He doesn’t want to say no. He’s honest when he says complicated; it is, Jungkook is and this is, but
he frankly doesn’t want to bring the reasons behind it into his brother’s life. Ji-woo only knows the
bad sides of Jungkook, and maybe, Woojin should only know the good, for now.

Most of all, he doesn’t want to lie.

He so inadvertently makes his gut tug at him with such a simple question. Taehyung feels an
undecipherable type of anxiety raise his chest, which is blatantly ridiculous. It’s just Woojin,
asking questions. He’s as curious as Taehyung, doesn’t really care much for borders at this point in
his life, too early to know the dimensions of inappropriate extend past nudity and profanity.

Taehyung smacks his lips together, runs his tongue over the lower.
“Yes, Woo,” he says, voice dropping an octave, low, calm deepness coating it, “I like him,” he
confesses, palms tightening into Woojin’s knees with a reassurance that he mostly needs himself,
and as if compelled his tongue speaks more, eyes dart to the floor. “A lot,” he says, merely a
whisper.

Were he not speaking to a six year old maybe he would have received the silence he intuitively
asked for, but he is, and it is not registering to Woojin just the weight of what Taehyung is saying.
His brother simply shuffles forward onto the couch, enthusiastically coming forth with more ideas,
“Huh, maybe you can invite him for a sleepover like I do with my friends.”

Taehyung’s chuckle is short, and he mostly lets it out for the idea of it, before he glances back up
at Woojin, lips pressed together tight. He wonders how much his brother can judge at this age, if
he knows Taehyung’s eyes are sad when they dart across him. “Jungkookie and I shouldn’t have
sleepovers, Woojin,” he tells him simply, head lightly shaking.

“Why not?” Woojin asks, whiny and a bit disgruntled. “He can sleep in Namjoon’s bed.”

“I think he’s done enough in my bed.”

Taehyung’s head shoots up. He doesn’t realize how he didn’t hear two people coming in from the
back door, whether it’s fault of the soundtrack of the video game Woojin has on pause or the thump
of his own heart in his chest that pumps loud blood in his ears, but it doesn’t matter. His heart beats
different when he sees his sister, wary and once more anxious. He pushes of the floor, straightens
on his feet, gaze sealed onto her and he cannot help but beg they heard little of this conversation.

She stands a few paces in front of Namjoon, her arms folded, and a gaze stern and cold enough for
Taehyung’s earlier attempts to seem absolutely comical. Her lips press together, but safe for her
eyes which are undeniably sharp, her features sit simple on her face, reticent and cool.

“Woojin,” she starts, and her voice is as cutting as her eyes, “isn’t it time for you to go to bed?”

He says nothing discernable, just a muffled groan, but he knows not to verbally go against their
sister when she uses that voice.

“Come on, Woo,” Namjoon steps forward, his hand outstretched and inviting. “I’ll tuck you in,” he
suggests as if it’s something they habitually do.
Woojin lifts off the couch, eyes the hand a little too pouty for Ji-woo’s current patience. “Can’t Tae
do it?” he asks, his head turning back as he blinks imploring at his other brother.

Taehyung means to agree. Ji-woo has other plans. “No, Woo,” she dismisses, short and firm. “I
have to speak to Tae,” she proclaims, and Taehyung’s attention shifts from where Woojin stole it
back to her.

“Come on,” Namjoon beckons softly, fingers and palm pulsing in the air with invitation until
Woojin slips his small hand in and lets him lead him upstairs.

“Oh,” Taehyung half scoffs, eyes narrowing slightly at his sister. “You’ll speak to me?” he coats
with a generous amount of irony, which to him, she only has coming. Her attempts at conversation
with Taehyung have been nothing but pathetic. Her attempts at listening – or lack thereof – even
more so.

She does not deign acknowledge Taehyung’s bitterness, instead directs to him her own. “You
introduced him to Woojin?” she questions, incredulous.

Him, she says, so judgmental and poisonous. Him, she says with enough disgust for Taehyung’s
eyes to narrow more, for his heart to drum, offended and defensive.

“Yes,” he answers, nearly hisses, teeth pressing together with the shameless finality of his
response.

Her brows arch, head cocks. “Behind my back?” she pronounces, accusing.

He wants to scoff again. His shoulders lift, shrug. “Didn’t know I needed your authorization to
introduce people to my brother,” he doesn’t want to direct such animosity to his sister, never
imagined he would have to, but his instinct is to mirror.

And she speaks to him as if he is stupid, as if he is a child, and as if he has committed treason all
the same. “When it’s Jeon Jungkook you do.”

He releases a heaved sigh. “Enough with this Jeon thing already,” he demands, borders on
desperate. His mind swims with Jungkook pairing himself unfailingly to that cursed name and his
blood churns with the memory, and really the danger is in the smallest things, the smallest. “I’ll
still get who you mean if you say Jungkook. You know, it’s just the one,” he sasses, hands opening
before his fingers clap into his palms.

Ji-woo doesn’t much care for the attitude. She only straightens her head. “Don’t bring a Jeon to my
house.”

“Our house,” he corrects. He pays as much as she does. He glances away, shakes his head a little,
tongue poking in the corner of his mouth before he returns the gaze to her, insists simply, no anger,
no accusation, he just tells her, “He’s not going to do or say anything bad to Woojin.”

But she doesn’t listen.

“Yeah?” her chin juts, mouth parts, and she tucks her lip above her teeth. Her feet adjust. “Bet you
didn’t think he was going to sleep with me either,” her tongue whips, strikes.

His own mouth parts, loose. For a short moment, he’s crestfallen she’d use this against him. In
every moment that follows, he’s angry. “Why are you like this?” he asks, he almost shouts but
doesn’t, because the frustration of that question makes him want to rip strands out of his head.
“Why do you have to fucking bring that up?”

He hates that Jungkook did that. Hates, hates, hates. He doesn’t think he’s ever hated anything as
much as this, and in his angriest, most vulnerable moments, he forgets he hates the action and not
the people, not Jungkook and not Ji-woo. The memory is still physical. Still makes it hard to
breathe, especially when she uses it like that. On her mouth as a weapon, it holds more impact than
when Taehyung unintentionally and helplessly returns to it, when he reminded Jungkook himself
the other day. Jungkook’s fingers on his skin made it possible to breathe through the memory. His
whisper of regret almost made it easy.

Ji-woo offers no consolation. She hardens her eyes, sharpens her tongue. “It’s my fault for
mentioning it and not his for doing it?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “You know what your problem is?” he starts, and she beckons with her
chin shortly tilting to her neck, ironic, I’m all ears. She doesn’t really listen, but he tells her
anyway. “You don’t know anything about him other than his last name. You don’t know what
went on between us at all, and you don’t care to find out, yet you compare it to how he would treat
our baby brother,” he says, features contorting with a perplexed sadness he instinctively shows to
her, because it’s his sister, and she has always been at his side. “He’d never—”
“He’s a Jeon,” she interrupts, firm. “Why would I need to know anything else?”

Emotion is pried out of him when he doesn’t want it to be, but her stubbornness sucks it out of him
in waves of frustration. “Because I want you to,” he presses a forefinger into his chest, eyes wide.
“Okay?” his brows shoot up. “Because I care about him.”

He doesn’t expect her to reciprocate, but her throat strains with her response. “Well, you
shouldn’t,” she yells, her arms falling open, palms stretching into the air and her whole body
shakes with the wave of it.

“I shouldn’t?” he stresses, her choice of word etching into his brain.“Fucking why?”

Her chest heaves into a breath that she sucks long through her nose. “Because he’s rich,” she
releases with frustration. “He’s an ass,” she lists, “He’s everything we promised each other our
brother won’t be exposed to. He’s a Jeon.” His mouth opens so immediate when she says that
fucking name again, but she speaks more, and his teeth clank shut.“And he’s a man.”

He stares at her. Stares with his eyes more shocked than hurt, because he never expected this from
her. “A man?” he says, a spitefulness he can’t control oozing through. “What, it suddenly matters
to you what genitalia people I sleep with have?” he stops, stares some more, speaks again, speaks
harder, “I like it up the ass, so what? That only has to do with me. No one’s making you take it up
the ass.”

Her eyes swim with something. They’re no longer cold. They’re soft on him, vulnerable. He
recognizes his sister in those eyes, and he sees her take her time with this now. She says nothing
more of his gender, gnaws at her lips while he speaks, and he just knows had it been another man it
would not be like this. She’s so fucking desperate for it to not be Jeon Jungkook, that she’s pulling
at every pathetic card up her sleeve. She places a wrong one at the table and holds back with the
next.

She’s silent for a couple of moments, speaks softer the next. “Taehyung, he hurt you.”

“You’re doing it, too,” Taehyung tells her. “And you’re fucking trying to.”

She breathes sharply, tries to harden her voice again, but it’s shakier now, trembles when it raises
higher. “Well, you’re doing it to me as well,” she accuses. “You’re supposed to be my
partner. We’re in this together,” she reminds him, says things they promised each other again and
again when Namjoon first left. “And we’re against people like him.”

“We don’t even know them, Ji-woo,” his own voice raises smoothly; his own claim is sure. “We
keep complaining they’ve labeled us as Kims and that’s enough for them to decide who we are,
and we’re doing the fucking same.”

Her head shakes. “They’re right about us, though, aren’t they?” she asks, shoulders lifting and
falling in a shrug that is almost defeated. “Namjoon’s a drug dealer who plays with the big guys
and gets burned. Our father is a con man. I’m a slut,” she lists as if it is all so simple. “And you
can’t keep your nose out of rich people’s business.”

Taehyung’s laugh is short, a single breath, his eyes charging away for a mere moment to roll. “You
trying to tell me each of us has one quality or…?” he trails. “Yes,” he says, does not shy away from
agreeing that yes, all she claims is true, and, “Yes, he did sleep with you,” it hurts that it is true,
and he hugs himself as he says it aloud, hands clinging to his arms, but it’s history now, part of
who Jungkook is, and he can't just ignore it. “The rumors about him have a lot of truth to them,” he
confirms. “You think that makes a whole person?” His shoulders shrug, too. “He boxes, he cheats,
he drinks, as people say he does." He finds her eyes; he shakes his head.” But he cares about his
sister a lot more than you care about me.”

It’s scary for Taehyung to think that Ji-woo cares more about what they built together and the
words they said to each other out of fear, that she cares more about this household functioning in a
very, very Kim way, that she sees him now as a partner in this more so than a brother. And he
doesn’t want to blame her because he knows she’s scared all the foundations they built will fall
apart because he cares about the wrong person, he knows she considers keeping this family going,
feeding Woojin every day, three times a day, as her top priority.

But he does. He blames her for not trying, not attempting to listen. Because Jungkook isn’t that.
Jeon Jungkook maybe yes, but Jungkook hides in the small things, in the layers. And just because
Taehyung allows himself to know this does not mean he forgets what this family means to him as
well.

“Taehyung—” she starts, but he’s interrupting.

He interrupts, because there is no other way to get her to shut up and listen. “And his sister is in
the hospital right now,” he tells her. “She OD’d,” for the next moment he gives her a chance to
speak, but she doesn’t. “And he has no one around him who knows why she felt the need to
swallow as many pills as she did. Only me.” He presses a curled fist to his chest now, taps it
against it. “So, fuck you,” he says but he’s calm, he doesn’t shout, doesn’t raise his voice; he’s so
calm, “he can play a fucking video game with our baby brother, it’s more attention than you’re
ready to pay to him, anyway.” He presses his fist back into the fold of his arm, where the inside of
his elbow curls. “Can I say goodnight to Woojin now?” his brows raise. “Do I need your
permission for that as well?”

He doesn’t wait for a reply when he zooms past her and up the staircase, and she doesn’t attempt to
offer one either.

“Yeah,” Jungkook lets the door close behind them, Julia walking confident and comfortable into
the apartment before him, “a literal clone of you. Looked like she had something done to her lips.”

It is both familiar and so incredibly strange to have her strut her heels along the marble of his
hallway. He has had her there very few times since he fucked up things with Taehyung. Three, to
be precise. Once, in which he explained, tried to. Twice, when Clo OD’d. Third time, when she
came to pick up some handcuffs and make up she kept at his apartment.

They speak, but it’s rare. It’s weird. She avoids people, keeps her sunglasses on more than usual
and drinks a slightly bit more. Now exactly, she struts, hips shaking to the whisky cabinet in his
father’s drinking room, picks out his father’s crystal decanter, engraved with that very same crest
that Jungkook has forever carved on the ring of his finger, and easily unclogs it. Her manicure is
perfect, but her hand shakes a bit when she pours in her glass of choice.

“I think I know who you mean,” she says, keeping her back to him as he follows her into the room.
She raises the glass to her lips, tips it slightly. None of her perfect red lipstick stays on the surface.
She purses her mouth. “Macallan?” she asks, eyes falling to the amber liquid.

Jungkook folds his arms, standing a little before the painting that he now knows is Renoir.
“Eighteen years old,” he specifies.

“Only?” he imagines she perches a brow up in her forehead.

He nods, and she doesn’t see it, but she concludes. “So, he won’t miss it.” Her body turns now,
eyes fixing onto him as she presses her slim fingers to the intricate end table that holds his father’s
most cherished alcohol. “What were you doing in the Ozone?” she asks. “I thought you didn’t want
to be around that for until Clo gets out at least.”

Jungkook shrugs his shoulders. “It just happened.”

Her perfect lips curl so crookedly on her face, the crystal of the whisky held low below her chin as
her hands now raise, fold. “Taehyung was there,” she says, blinks. She sips.

As soon as Jungkook and Julia break up something between them snaps. A barrier falls and
crumbles to pieces. She isn’t cautious around him anymore. There are no more subjects taboo. As
bold in tongue as Yoongi is with him, she becomes. She no longer fears his rejection. She faces it
every minute of every hour. It’s a given. So, she’s brave with her observations, more meticulous
than he imagined he’d be if she ever let her tongue loose.

He nods. “He was,” he admits, plainly.

She nods as well, downs her glass. Pours another.

“You know,” she speaks as her eyes scrutinize the liquid as it slips into the glass, “In moments I’m
glad that it’s him.” She sniffs the air, wraps her palm and fingers loosely around the crystal glass
and turns back to Jungkook. “Always kept wondering what it was that I missed,” she tells him,
voice edging in its pitch, higher, almost giddy, and he recognizes it well enough, the slight panic of
something not going her way, the slight panic of affect, “that I couldn’t give you.” Her voice coats
with a quivering emotion, but she holds her glass straight and walks forward with the click of her
impossible heels. She swings the glass, gulps, and he watches. “Turns out it’s a penis.” Her eyes
fall back to him.

“Julia,” he starts, voice low and warning, but she interrupts with a cackle that seems to tear through
her throat.

“You don’t understand how fucking happy I am it’s not another woman,” she says through the
forced, nervous laughter. But then she shakes her head, then she says honest and firm. “I would
have never forgiven you if it had been a woman.” She sips, extends the glass to him as she grows
closer. “Whiskey?” she offers, nearly pressing her fingers into his chest.

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head, but he wraps his own fingers around the glass and takes it out of
her fingers, bending slightly at the knees to put it at a low table beside them.
Her digits curl together after as if they need to clutch at something. “You know what’s fucking
ironic, Jungkook?” her voice pitches and tips, a glint in her eyes as she forces them on him. He can
see her nails dig into her palm. “I remember after you both fucked me, I kept wondering if I could
get you two to touch each other,” she does not wait for his response. She never seems to stop
speaking, words pry from her throat like vomit, a string of sentences that get higher, shakier.
“Thought it would be hot. Is it? Is it hot, is that why you kept at it? How hot must it be for you to
risk so much to fuck a boy?”

Her voice breaks and so does her countenance, losing any firmness and contorting too ugly for her
to handle him looking at her, so he does her a favor, closes the space between them and wraps a
single arm around her slim shoulders, presses her head into him.

“Julia,” he glides a hand over her shoulder blade when he feels it tremble, curls his palm over her
bone and squeezes to steady her.

Her forehead presses into his clavicle, head shakes, once to the left, once to the right, a single time.
She breathes. “I love you,” she mumbles into his shirt. “Who the fuck is going to replace you now,
Jungkook?” she asks, for a moment there is anger, one of the hands that curl into fists, slamming
next to her head, but then it’s weak again. “You replaced me.”

Jungkook tightens his hand on her, grabs at both of her shoulders and pushes her back to find her
eyes. “I didn’t replace you,” he promises once she gives them. “He’s nothing like you. You are
irreplaceable to me, okay? Julia.” She’s glancing away, raising her hand, rubs one finger under her
nose, one under her eye, careful to keep all her make up in place. She cannot afford to look
distraught when he can see. She takes a step back, his hands falling away, and he straightens.
“You’re one of my best fucking friends,” he tells her as he watches her bend to the glass, raise it
again. “And I miss you.” She drinks. “Why have you stopped coming to Yoongi’s?”

“I don’t want to see you in front of people,” she says, keeps her body angled away from his now.
She sucks in the embarrassment from almost breaking down audibly. “Can’t have anyone see I’m
upset, can I?” she sips once more, but her gulps are smaller now. Her throat clears. “How is he?”

Jungkook blinks up from her glass to her profile. “Who?”

She swallows, but she hasn’t sipped again. “Taehyung,” she says.

He’s looking away. He glances at that painting behind which are the keys to the consoles. “I don’t
know.”

She eyes him as he hides his face, but her gaze slips before he could potentially return it. “He was
worried about you.”

“We don’t have to talk about him.”

“No, it’s—” she stops herself, hesitates. Her next breath is deeper. “If he’s going be a part of your
life, I better get used to it,” she pauses, drinks again. “Before I embarrass myself. More,” she adds
with some buried frustration.

Jungkook’s eyes return to her. “You still want to be a part of my life?”

This time, she meets them again. “You said it,” she shrugs, she’s softer. “You’re one of my best
fucking friends.” The edge of her lips tilts, then falls, then she speaks like herself again. “Also, the
friends I made through you are obviously lesser snakes than my own.” Her attention turns to the
liquid in her drink, which she slushes around as if the contents hold any interest. “You’re kind of a
package deal with Yoongi and Hoseok, and I can’t live without the shitheads, so.”

He stares at her, nods. He slips his hands in his pockets, squeezes them into fists there. “If it’s any
consolation,” he starts, trying to keep the tightness out of his voice, but it sneaks up on him, lodges
treacherous in his throat. “I don’t think he’ll be a part of my life.”

“It’s not a consolation,” she says, quick but quiet. Her head shakes and strands of her hair slip
across her face when she lifts it up to look at him again. “It would only be consolation to me if you
chose him not to be.” Her lower lip briefly tucks into her mouth as her eyes dart across his
expression, but in a moment her drink is more interesting once again. “And I can tell by your
fucking voice you want him.”

He doesn’t know what else to say to her, and he promised her truth from now on. So, he nods.
“Yes,” he replies, “I do.”

She nods, too. “Right,” she mumbles under her breath, tips her head back and swallows down the
rest of the liquid. He waits for her to pour down some more, but she leaves the glass empty. “Why
doesn’t he want you?” she ventures, curiosity slipping into the question, unadulterated. “He came
to me,” she says, for emphasis she adds, “had the fucking guts to come to me,” her eyes find him
again, “to ask how you were. He seemed like he cared.” Her voice drops slightly, and she studies
him as if she tries to read the answers on his face. “What did you do to him?” His gaze is sealing
on that fucking painting again. “Jungkook.”

He shakes his head. “I told you I fucked up.”

“Yeah,” her chin tilts “you told me you fucked up. You didn’t tell me how.”

“It’s—” his heart hammers, he wishes his own nails were longer, to break the skin as they dig into
palm punishingly. With the next motions of his head, hair falls across his forehead more, strands
move with the repetitive blinks of his lashes. “I fucked up, okay?”

Julia is silent. Then her voice is softer. “Don’t you owe me that at least?”

His eyes shoot to hers. Maybe she’s not curious. Maybe she’s worried, with the way her eyes layer
over him, the way they seem to raise from studying the restless ministrations of his hands in his
pockets, which he lied to himself were subtle. He owes her this, he figures. Not because she’s his
ex. But because she’s one of his best fucking friends.

“I, uh—” he struggles. This gets harder to confess. The guilt from having done it doesn’t lessen
with each day, it seems to magnify, instead, it seems to take more shape, grow more solid and
permanent, because it doesn’t pass away, he doesn’t forget. Taehyung doesn’t. Ji-woo doesn’t. No
one forgets. With each time he’s with Taehyung and things don’t go right, don’t go back, his need
for them to grows even more. With each time he gets to speak to him, he feels more and more
helpless, because nothing he says has the power to change anything. “We slept together this final
time, but it was…” he hesitates, he searches for a word, “different,” he settles, and the word as a
word does not do it justice, but perhaps she gets it. “And I got scared,” he admits, he shrugs,
“ignored him for a week. Then next time I made an appearance in his house, which he had allowed
me into several times, it was to fuck his sister in the room next to him,” he says it quick and sharp
and cruel, because that’s how it was, and it tastes so utterly nauseating on his tongue. “He
listened.” His shoulders raise, fall, dejected. “I made sure he’d listen.”

She stares at him. She stares at him for so fucking long and he can’t return it. He watches his feet.
He doesn’t even know what brand he’s wearing anymore. He doesn’t give a flying fuck.

It takes her more than a minute. But she says, nearly hisses, something vituperative in her tone of
voice. “You’re a fucking ass.”
He swallows. “I know.”

“Why?” she demands. It’s harsh. It’s almost hurt. He supposes if anyone other than Taehyung can
imagine what it felt like being on the other side of that wall, it is her.

Jungkook’s eyes fly to hers, wide. It’s an instinct of his to try to be defensive, “He scared the fuck
out of me.” He presses his fingers to his chest. “I’d never—"

“Never felt that way during sex?” she guesses. Guesses right. She nods, doesn’t shy away from his
eyes. “Yes,” she tells him, “it’s scary.” Her lips smack shut and so does his. Things really would be
much easier if she could get him to feel that way. But then he would have never known Taehyung.
“Did you say sorry?”

“Yes.”

She glances away and for a several moments more it’s silent again. “Are you alone?” she breaks
it, her arms folding in front of her. “Will your parents be away the whole time Clo Eun’s in rehab?”

“They’re in Korea already,” he tells her, “just not in Seoul. Byung-Chul wants my father on stand
by for some car company client, they’re selling their label. They’re staying like an hour away.”

He doesn’t comment on her first question, but she presses again, “But you’re alone here?” her
brows raise, eyes fixing over him once more. “Yoongi says you don’t sleep at his.”

He shrugs. “I was considering at first, but I stay here just in case.”

He forgets she no longer cares when his vagueness is pointed. She asks, “In case of what?”

Jungkook releases a breath through his nose, presses his teeth together, jaw pulling tighter, but he
promised her truth. “Tae came over,” he shrugs, “twice. He might—” he hesitates, his tongue
slipping out and coursing over his mouth, “feel like it again.”

Her brows perch higher. “Tae?”

“Taehyung.”

“Yeah,” she nods, her eyes growing harder. “I took a fucking guess.” It’s something so small that
gets her aggravated, a goddamn name, but Jungkook supposes the intricacies are in the small
things. Her red lips part and he sees the tip of her tongue layer over her teeth, the edges of her
mouth tilting. Her shoulders jolt briefly with the short, cold laughter that escapes her. “What has
that boy done to you?” Her head shakes and she looks away from him. She has to look away from
him. “Waiting around in case he shows up. Jesus,” she exclaims, and it seems to run over her whole
body, from her toes to her hair. She shakes her head once more. “You know, I need more time for
this.”

He hears her walking, the sound of her heels so familiar on his floor, much before he sees it.
“Julia,” he calls, but she doesn’t turn, raises a dismissive hand.

“See you at Yoongi’s,” she waves her skinny fingers. “At some point. Tell Clo I miss her.”

Tae

my brother suggested I invite you to a sleepover

Jungkook

I sincerely hope you don’t mean namjoon

Tae

that would be an interesting turn

but no it’s your fan

Jungkook

are you inviting me to a sleep over?

Tae

No

but can you come play with him sometime

 Jungkook

with him?

Tae

yes

Jungkook

yeah whenever before the semester starts

Tae

I got into that architecture thing

Jungkook

of course you did

proud of you pretty boy

looks like youre smart too

Tae

did you doubt?

Jungkook

no

Tae

really?

Jungkook

god gives and god takes

Ypu cant suck at games this much and not be good at math

Tae

bitch.
 Jungkook

can I see you again?

not a date just

see you

I won’t try to touch you

wont mention japan

Jungkook

sorry

Tae

when?

Jungkook

whevever

your call

Tae

what are you doing now?

Jungkook

Im at yoongis
 you could come

Tae

uummmm

Jungkook

they don’t bite

Tae

yoongi scares me

Jungkook

me too but hes harmless

Tae

and youll explain me how?

Jungkook

they wont ask questions

and if they do

Ill just

tell them

Tae

no

too richhood

Jungkook

Okay what about you come with me to the gym after?

Tae

the gym?
 Jungkook

yes, my building

Tae

you got a private gym?

Jungkook

did you doubt

Tae

no

Jungkook

So?

wont try anything I promise

No touching, no kissing

Tae

you know

you could come play with my brother now

he’s nagging

Jungkook

your sister?

Tae

out

“Joon,” Taehyung lingers at the staircase as he steps down, just above the faulty second step. He
slips his phone in the back pocket of his pants.

His brother lifts his head from the book he’s reading. That used to be a familiar sight, too.
Namjoon at the kitchen table, the ankle of one leg propped on top of the knee of the other, a book
resting at some angle on his lap or at the table, his glasses on. Namjoon is one of the few people
Taehyung knows that still reads. And that still chooses to sit at actual chairs. Taehyung himself
always prefers lounging, picks the couch. His spine curls a little every time he sits.

“Yeah,” Namjoon addresses, his eyes only slightly magnified beneath the lens of the glasses
adorning his face.

Taehyung trudges down the last two steps, nears the table. “Um,” he starts. It’s awkward. He pulls
at a chair near by him because when he stands he cannot help swinging slightly at his heels. The
legs of it scrape over lines in the flooring that have long ago been made. He plasters his ass on it,
has to slip his phone back out. He rests it on the table face down in case a message lights up the
screen. “I wasn’t with Jimin the other night,” he confesses.

Namjoon’s brows raise above the dark frames. It takes him about a second, which Taehyung
supposes he deliberately takes just to screw his forehead enough, to venture a guess. “Jungkook?”

Taehyung nods. “Yeah,” he pronounces softly, his eyes fixing over the device that sits on the table.
Jungkook, whom he is going to see again, just because he asked over a fucking text message. But
Taehyung wants to see him, all of him, now that he knows,now he doesn’t lie to himself, now that
there a label, a stamp on what he feels for him. His curiosity is once again a hazard. He wants to
see if he will look at him differently. He wants to see if he will feel differently. He can’t imagine it
possibly being more. “He took me out.”

His brother’s eyes lower, furrow. “Took you out?” He asks. “What, like, a date?”

“No,” Taehyung’s head shakes, because it didn’t feel like it, it was just another interaction with
Jungkook. “He just wanted to talk. It wasn’t. I mean, he wanted to call it that, but—“

“It’s okay,” Namjoon is kind enough to interrupt his stuttering, does not really need a specification,
and Taehyung is quite frankly glad. He has never been able to truly describe any of his interactions
with Jungkook, any of what the two of them were, and until recently, any of what he felt for him.
“You talked?”

Taehyung swallows nothing. “Yes,” He starts, “and um,” he hesitates, pokes a tongue to the side of
his cheek, but he continues, “we kissed.”
Namjoon’s head pulls back, chin tucking into his neck. “Oh.”

“It was just,” Taehyung tries to justify, for his own sake, because for some reason, he feels guilty,
as if the kiss was just a next sin, though when it started it felt nothing like it. Kissing Jungkook, he
thinks, could never feel wrong, “a short one, it was nothing.” His head shakes as he dismisses, and
his veins pulse with the pure dishonesty — every shift and press of his lips against his felt
exhilarating, so demanding,in a way he cannot properly formulate. It was not nothing. Yes, it was
small. A small thing, miniscule, tiny, lasted a little over a minute, how could it ever matter. Just
another one small thing in disguise in the construction of something so incomprehensibly huge, so
grandiose, so consuming.

It’s the small things, Taehyung learns, always the small things, lips on lips.

“Tae, are you…” Namjoon’s eyes seek around the features of his face, head shakes a little
atypically helpless at finding continuation, but finally he settles, “going somewhere with this or?”

Taehyung gulps once more, gives himself a second, then two, gives himself thirty. “Where would
we stay?” He asks suddenly, more forceful than he intends, his eyes sealing onto his brother. Every
single question that Jungkook asked him that night rams into his brain, channels from his heart to
his head like second blood running and he is scared. Scared of the unfamiliar, scared of leaving
Woojin, scared of the fact a decision is impending, scared of the fact he is so desperately clinging
onto every reason as to why he should not leave. “In Japan?”

Namjoon does not hide the perplexity that slips into the tug of his features at the change of a
subject, but he cocks his head, speaks informatively. “A small residential area near Kyoto,” he tells
him, and Taehyung remembers the mention of Kyoto both when Namjoon and him discussed
previously and when Jungkook told him for no reason other than his personal decision that he
called from a Kyoto area code on that rooftop. “But I have business in Kyoto mostly.”

Taehyung nods. He cannot stifle bitterness as it laces his tongue. “You sell there?” It’s not a
question, really, but he says it as if it is, simply because he wants the fact he will still live with
drugs if he were to leave this place pointed out, loud and clear.

Namjoon’s teeth tease over his bottom lip. He takes a moment. He nods. “Yeah.” He presses the
tips of his fingers on the frames of his glasses, strips them off of his face and folds them on the
table next to Taehyung’s phone. “And I’ve found two places that would be suitable for you to
study,” he tells him; he’s quick with it, slips some enthusiasm in his voice that feels uneasy to
Taehyung. “You could do a full-time course. You don’t have to immediately start working or you
could do part-time. I make enough money.” His lips pull to his cheeks, one dimple, so similar to
Woojin’s, pulls at the left.
The chuckled breath seems to only pass through his chest. “Through drugs?”

“Well,” he nods, fingers toying restless with the glasses he means to leave at the table. “Yes.”

Taehyung glances away, tongue poking into his cheek. He cups his palms at his elbows and fixates
on the sink. “I don’t even know if I speak Japanese well enough for this.”

Namjoon’s knuckles knock repeatedly into the table. “You have a strong base,” he reassures,
“you’ll get it.”

He doesn’t mean to snap. “No, I’m not you,” he does as his eyes return to him, wider, teeth
bashing, “I can’t just get it.” His glance to him is short before he takes it away again, finds the
sink. His fingers squeeze into his elbows for a moment. “When would we have to leave?”

He knows Namjoon watches as his jaw sets, pulls. “The sooner the better.”

His heel lifts off the floor, toes press, and his knee starts to uncontrollably bounce, fingers tapping
restless. Stay, his ears ring. With me. His ears ring. The sound pauses, stills. He hears his own
voice. “Jungkook wants me to stay.”

“Of course, he does.”

He drags his eyes back to his brother. His own wait. “I want to stay, too,” he tells him, more honest
than he expects from himself, before he drops his gaze to the table, stare at his phone. “I don’t
know if I should,” his head shakes. Namjoon is saying nothing and he feels his ears might be at the
verge of buzzing again. “Ji-woo really hates the idea of me and him.”

Namjoon lets his glasses be, taps at the table instead. His chin nods. “Yeah, she does,” he
acknowledges, and Taehyung hates how he cannot judge anything by his voice.

“And you?” He cocks his head.

He shakes his head this time. “I don’t want to influence your decision.”

A breath leaves him, almost a scoff. “I can think, okay?” He says, fingers opening loose around his
elbows. “I just want my big brother’s opinion, that’s all.”

Namjoon’s teeth gnaw into the flesh of his lips again. He’s cautious. Namjoon is always cautious
and Taehyung is so jealous. He forgets cautious when he as much as thinks Jungkook. “Listen,” He
exhales. “I don’t know how much it hurt,” he says and unlike Ji-woo, he spares him, doesn’t spell
it out, and somehow like this Taehyung can take it because it sounds like a mistake and not like a
decision. “What he did. I can’t imagine it.” He stares into Taehyung’s eyes seemingly expecting a
permission to continue, only speaks again after observing a prolonged blink. “But I know some
parts of Jungkook, and I think if he accepts he cares about you, and I think he has, he will do his
best to never hurt you again,” he lets that linger, but it’s too damn short before his head shakes and
he continues softly, “But I’m not sure his best is good enough,” Taehyung’s eyes slip so discernibly
dejected to the objects on the table. Namjoon’s hand reaches but he doesn’t touch him. “Taehyung,
he is not about to tell his father about you.”

He’s scoffing, something vile and bilious raising in his chest, his throat, his mind. His head shakes,
vehement. “I don’t expect him to tell his father about me,” he says, a spitefulness undirected to his
brother. A while ago he believed he hated Jungkook. Now he knows he hates his father. “I don’t
want him to. The piece of shit will just hurt him if he does.”

“Okay,” Namjoon nods with a feeble tension, “you don’t expect that. But his father will expect
things from Jungkook,” he pauses, eyes linger on Taehyung as if he needs it, and he doesn’t
because he knows this, but he does, because it still feels so wrong. Namjoon’s head shakes. “And
he can’t simply say no.”

It’s a fact. No matter what Taehyung allows Jungkooknow. No matter what he allows himself to
do, there will always be a future, that does not in any way depend on him, them, Jungkook, as long
as he chooses to live the life that promises any security.

And he knows Jungkook has no plans on betraying that security of wealth, not now at least, not
until he has nothing to give up on it for. He wants desperately to find something to promise him
instead, but he can’t promise him himself, first because he simply cannot, second because of the
fear if he does, he will not be enough.

He can’t be enough. He can offer, what? Sex and conversation. He can offer himself. But that is
nothing. He cannot offer clothes, food, cars, cocktails, hotels, future.
Namjoon’s phone buzzes loud and he fishes it out of his pocket as if he’s been waiting. His eyes
fall on the screen that glares in his eyes.

“I have to do a run,” he says, digging his phone back into his pocket. It’s two models above
Taehyung’s. His eyes dart to his. “You’ll be good with Woo for now, right?”

Taehyung’s upper lip tips, brows tip. “You’re asking me that?” He asks with due incredulity.
Namjoon glances away, head tilting as he silently agrees it’s ridiculous for him to question
Taehyung’s capabilities with Woojin. “Isn’t it dangerous for you to run now?”

Namjoon shakes his head. “It’s just one guy,” he dismisses. “I trust him.” He taps his knuckles into
the table again, this time firmer. “Wanna leave more money before I leave this time around.”

“Hey,” he greets softly when Taehyung parts the back door.

Seeing him does feel marginally different. It’s once again, small, but certainly not negligible.
Staring at him in his doorway, would always make his heart race, but Taehyung thinks the pattern
of the beat is different now. It’s slower, but it’s harder.

“Hey,” he nods to him, eyes coating over as Jungkook returns it. They allow each other this
silently, without addressing it, taking the other in carefully, what they’re wearing, how their hair
parts on their foreheads, the circles under eyes. Taehyung, steps away, pauses his exploration and
allows him to close the door himself. “I’ll get Woo.”

Eyes dance over him. “Right away?” his voice lilts, a little sharp.

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, lip folding into his mouth. His gaze on him feels slightly different, too,
the tiny charge of accusation that glints in his irises makes a rush course through him, some
curious guilt that pushes him to elaborate with a shrug he begs is casual. He releases his lip. “He
keeps nagging.”
“That’s why you asked me to come?”

Under his eyes, for the first few moments Taehyung feels as if he has lost all the progress he has
made since the first time Jungkook actually paid conscious attention to him. He remembers how
striking those piercing eyes had been when they had so unnaturally chosen his as a target. He
remembers how his mere stare was enough to overwhelm with its certain quality to make him
anxious and excited, to erase thought and raise goosebumps.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, meeting the eyes that challenge him now, without even trying to. He is
scared looking at him so directly will let him read what his is thinking, allow him to perceive the
screaming mantra of confessions that buzz in his brain as he sees him for the first time since he
realizes. But though he feels like this is starting all over, he cannot let it show. He went a long
fucking way to let something as small as two blinking eyes drag him back to fearing the effect of a
stare. “I told you.”

Jungkook’s lips pull. They press together, form a line as he hovers near their kitchen table while
Taehyung lingers at the bottom of the stairs. “Okay,” he says. It’stight.

Taehyung’s eyes fall to Jungkook’s feet, raise to his face. “Thought you wanted to,” he starts, “you
said a few days ago—”

“I said okay,” Jungkook interrupts and Taehyung’s mouth snaps shut. He nods. He climbs up the
stairs, gets Woojin.

Taehyung has his legs crossed when he sits on the cupboard facing them. For the most part he tries
to look at his phone. For the most part, he fails.

“Story mode’s good, but versus is so underdeveloped, don’t you think?” Jungkook’s head shakes.
Woojin looks so ridiculously tiny on the couch next to him, but Jungkook turns to him, head
cocking and brows tilting with curiosity as if they are about to fall into a deep, profound discussion
about Assassin’s Creed.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung raises his eyes, forgets to pretend he isn’t paying attention. “He’s six.”
He receives dull, pointed looks from the both of them. “Well, he can still have an opinion,”
Jungkook tries to justify, fingers wrapped around his controller.

Woojin nods next to him, mirrors the tone of voice and the way Jungkook fucking sits on their
couch. “And I’m almost seven,” he protests, replacing his eyes from his brother to the man next to
him in a seeming search for accreditation.

He turns back to him, too. “Yeah?” he raises his brows; his voice doesn’t even change when he
speaks to him, he doesn’t baby him like most instinctually do, but it is softer, it’s a slightly bit more
careful. “Is it your birthday soon?”

His little brother starts to most enthusiastically nod, so Taehyung has to interrupt. “It’s in a month,”
he elaborates, resting his forearm on his knee, phone dangling useless and uninteresting from his
fingers, “it’s not that soon.”

Woojin’s lips pouts, his arms crossing brusque before his chest. “A month is soon, Taetae,” he
insists.

Jungkook angles his head back to him, corners of his lips quirking. “Yes, a month is soon, Taetae.”
A tension that had so tangibly forced itself between them when Taehyung first opened the door,
seems to dissipate in the presence of his little brother. The child’s innocence and ignorance does
magic to stifle the pressure of their eyes. He puts them both at ease. They have to behave, for him.

So, Taehyung lets the teasing slip, only sends a half-hearted glare to Jungkook. “I’ll kick you out.”

The corners of his lips only perk up at this, he spins back to his brother. “What do you want for
your birthday, Woowoo?”

It’s the first time he calls him that, Woowoo,and there is something horribly endearing. He doesn’t
know if he does it on purpose or if it just slips on instinct from hearing Taehyung address him like
this, but it sits surprisingly comfortable at him lips, which Taehyung cannot look away from now.
He’s warm. Small things make Taehyung learn so much.

He almost forgets to process the rest of the sentence, but then it downs on him. The softness of his
gaze that studies the pillows of Jungkook’s lips as they gently host his little brother’s name, morph
into a warning. “Jungkook, don’t,” he presses.
But Woojin is already dreaming aloud. He is still a child, still like Taehyung when he was little,
wishing a lot, wishing for everything. He doesn’t realize Jungkook can actually give him any
single thing that money can buy. “I want to be a part of the game.”

Jungkook’s head twists, lips pulling to the side in thought. “Well, that’s a little impossible,” he
comments then shrugs, “Could get you a VR set.”

Taehyung’s phone starts to buzz in his hand, and he spins it around, looks at Jimin’s familiar face.
“You’re not buying him anything,” he warns as he slips down from the cupboard, pressing his
thumb against the green circle on his screen as he moves to the kitchen. “Certainly not something
expensive.”

“Hey, Jimin,” he presses the phone to his ear, finds a counter to lean on.

“Hey, babe,” he greets, a faint sound of music coming from the other end, but his voice is loud and
clear through the speaker, “you busy?”

Taehyung cranes his body to the side, peeks through the empty doorframe to glance at his brother,
who now for some reason is handing Jungkook a pen. “I’m on Woojin duty,” he says as he
straightens.

“Oh, you get afternoon,” his friend acknowledges, “does that mean you’re free for evening?”

Taehyung hums, thinks. “Depends.”

“On?”

“Why are you asking?” he raises dark brows at nothing and no one.

He can hear Jimin roll his eyes on the other end. “Dancing tonight,” he tells him, “and need to
pretend to flirt with someone so that hag Sooyo would leave me alone.”
Taehyung slips a hand in his pocket, ankles crossing. He presses his lips tightly together as he
ravages his brain for a memory of her previous mention, until he takes a guess, goes for Jimin’s
most recent predator. “The golden tooth one?” he asks.

There is a click of a tongue. Distaste. It coats his voice as well. “Same.”

Taehyung’s lips curl now, edges curving into his cheeks. “She’s cute,” he teases.

“You’re cuter.”

Taehyung scoffs on his end, readjusts to lean more comfortably as he speaks with due upset.
“Putting me on a comparison scale with her is offensive to me.”

Jimin breathes a ringing laugh. “Whiny,” he comments.

“Always,” Taehyung promises.

“So,” Jimin delves back into the matter at hand. He can hear him walking, cars passing. “Will you
come?” He pauses for a moment, but before he hears an answer, he starts again. “Bring Bogum,
too,” he offers as if the proposition is meant to somehow appeal to Taehyung. He wonders if he
does make it look like he wants Bogum around him. He wants to peek at the living room again but
holds back. “Just don’t make it look like you’re with him.”

“I’m not with him,” Taehyung defends, a little too forceful than he intends, but pulls out of him
instinctive. He doesn’t want any confusion, anywhere, from anyone. He is not with Bogum.

“You know what I mean, Tae,” Jimin says lightly. “Boy wants you.”

Taehyung huffs a laugh. “He can want.”

Jimin’s laugh is longer. “You sound like me.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“Subject to interpretation,” he dismisses. “Will you come?” he presses once more.

Taehyung doesn’t even think. “No,” he shakes his head. “I can’t tonight.”

He hears the impending groan on the other side, merciless to his ears. He pulls the device away
slightly, spares himself. “Why?” Jimin moans into his phone, vowels prolonged.

“Whiny,” Taehyung scolds.

“Always,” his friends teases, then he presses again, firmer now, “Why?”

Taehyung hums, mulls it over. “I have plans,” he says.

The scoff on the other side is immediate. The attitude is palpable even through the phone. “What
plans could you have that don’t feature me?”

Taehyung’s eyes dull as they glaze over the familiar furniture of his kitchen. “That one’s definitely
an insult.”

“It’s a question,” Jimin corrects.

It only serves to dull his expression further, but Jimin cannot see, so after a moment of glaring at
nothing, he speaks up. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Will you actually?” Distrust laces through, almost borders on irony.

“I don’t know,” Taehyung shrugs, and he thinks Jimin could perhaps hear it in the shuffle of his
clothing with the motion. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”
“Listen,” Taehyung is sighing into his end, pushing away from the counter he leans on as he slips
his hand out of his pocket. He exchanges the phone from one palm into the other, presses it
between his cheek and shoulder next as he moves to the fridge. “Find yourself a nice girl to flirt
with tonight,” he instructs as he scans his eyes over the contents, slips out some juice, “preferably
rich, and we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Jimin says through the sound of Taehyung gulping. “But seriously, though, have you even
told Bogum you’re straight?”

Taehyung’s lips press. He wipes at them with the back of his palm. Straight. He wants to laugh.

“I said tomorrow.”

“You have plans?” Jungkook asks when he hears him walk back into the room without lifting up
his attention from something in his lap. Woojin is not there. Jungkook’s hand is making an almost
sporadic motion to where his eyes are sealed.

“Yes,” Taehyung says. “And don’t eavesdrop, it’s rude.” He slips his phone in his pocket, nears
the couch, but Jungkook still keeps stare into his lap, brows furrowed mildly.

“You were speaking loudly,” he defends without much passion and then his head tilts, eyes narrow
slightly at whatever he is hiding down there, almost judgmental. His tongue clicks. “What plans?”

Taehyung hesitates, tongue running across his lips once. He pauses further away than his curiosity
beckons him, too. He wants almost desperately at this point to take a peek at whatever Jungkook is
hiding on the other side of the back of that couch, but for what he says, he needs his distance.
“Wanna see your gym,” he tells him softly, and this time he manages to draw his attention, head
lifting and turning. “Can I?”

Jungkook’s expression is mild at best, not conveying much. His lips part slightly, eyes glide almost
cautious across Taehyung where he pauses. His lips touch. “Didn’t think you’d want to be alone
with me,” he tells him gently. When he turns his head back to his thighs, a faulty strand falls over
his lashes, but they don’t blink it away. His eyes gaze a little deflated downwards.
Taehyung’s head tilts, a small breath leaving his nose. He takes steps forward again, almost
compulsively. “Jungkook,” he calls, getting closer to the couch. He bends forward, leans his
elbows on the back of it, eyes drawn and stuck to the side of his profile, despite his surging interest
to know what rests in his lap so occupying of his attention. “I didn’t ask you here just because of
my brother,” he shakes his head, says it out loud, so it is explicit, even if they both know it is true
without the verbal mention, though Taehyung is afraid Jungkook’s conviction of such simple truths
is starting to fade, slip, doubt seeps in with Taehyung’s own uncertainty constantly a lodge
between them, and that question that nags at him which he asked, what is that good for. “You don’t
believe that,” Taehyung whispers with the shake of his head. Jungkook finally seems to blink.
“Where is he?” Taehyung asks, voice picking up again.

“Bathroom,” Jungkook answers and Taehyung’s eyes finally succumb to the the compulsion of his
curiosity. They dip down.

His head tilts, lids drawing closer as his brows furrow. It’s a piece of paper. “What’s this?” he asks,
putting more weight on his elbows as he shifts towards him with no conscious intention.

Jungkook presses a palm over it, fingers spreading to hide it.

It’s a drawing.

“That’s for him,” Jungkook insists, voice hurriedly defensive as his head turns brusquely to
observe Taehyung’s face as it nears.

He takes advantage by the shift of his attention. He’s taken by his face, and Taehyung’s hands are
free and unobserved. He reaches forward quickly, snatches the piece of paper from under his palm,
unexpectedness working in his favor, as he immediately moves back.

“Hey, the fuck are you doing?” Jungkook’s teeth press, the question almost a growl between them.

Taehyung presses the paper protectively into his chest, stepping backwards, eyes wide. “I want to
see.”

He figures the fact Jungkook is on the other side of the couch should be to his advantage, but of
course that’s wishful thinking with someone like him. He simply presses one palm into the back of
it, grips tight and then jumps faultless and easy on Taehyung’s side without as much as glancing
away from him in the process.
“It’s not for you,” Jungkook warns, low and deep, closing the small space of his small living room
that remains between them with a quick approach, footsteps wide.

Taehyung has nowhere to go, impulsively raises the hand that clutches at the drawing up in the air
when Jungkook reaches forward to grab at it. The paper slips right between his fingers, the sound
of it scraping carrying through the air as he stretches it up, and Jungkook’s empty fingers continue
forward missionless, pressing into Taehyung’s chest with a motion that brings him the one step
back necessary for his body to collide with the wall. The touch lasts less than a second, Jungkook’s
hand flying back as if Taehyung’s skin burns through his.

I won’t try to touch you, the message flashes visible in his mind, he can almost see it, no touching.
Taehyung wants to tell him it’s okay, he can touch him, lips part to try, but he doesn’t know how to
put it, what to say to him exactly, so he pretends that he isn’t overcome with a sudden, scathing
emptiness when the touch departs, only a lingering sensation left behind, the heat of Jungkook’s
skin, molding through his shirt and burning through his chest.

He closes his lips, raises his hand higher. “You’re not giving papers to my brother with no
supervision of the content.”

Jungkook’s palm lifts again, presses into the wall behind him as he uses it support himself,
reaching for the paper without allowing for any part of them to even brush. “Give it back, you’re
gonna get it all wrinkly.”

His attention is up on his target, but Taehyung’s is on him, eyes darting over the familiar features
of his face, as ever handsome, jaw pressing tight. He can sense the distinguishable scent of
Jungkook invading his nostrils. This sense he’s allowed, at least, he’s only deprived of touch, and
he wants to keep him close for longer.

“I just want to take a peek.”

“It’s not for you,” Jungkook’s eyes shift to his, half a glare running over him, and his hand seems
to still in the air. Maybe he just now realizes how little space there is between them.

He’s moving back, Taehyung can feel him moving back. There’s something physically cold about
his retraction, so Taehyung makes this childish, like it is supposed to be. “He’s going to let me see
it, anyway.”
“What if I ask him not to?” Jungkook challenges, borders on petulant as well as his fingers move
again, but Taehyung raises his other hand up, grasps onto the paper and switches arms.

He scoffs at the question. “He still prefers me to you, you’re not that cool,” he tells him and finally
pries his eyes away, glances at the paper. “What is it?” he says, lowers it down to the side where
Jungkook isn’t reaching for, and the other sighs, drops his arms altogether. “Did you just draw
this?” Taehyung’s voice peaks, brows jumping to his hair as Jungkook steps back once, allows him
to satiate his curiosity. His eyes dart all over the paper, it’s rough and there are hesitant lines
everywhere, but taken together they form a man, a strong, lithe man, dressed in a similar fashion to
the characters of the game the two were playing, but the face isn’t western, it’s familiar, though
sharper, a dimple popping in a cheek as the man smirks up at him with haughty eyes. “Is that him?”

Taehyung is impressed. Not only with the skill, the skill is there, undeniably. It’s just a simple,
rough sketch, but one can tell. His heart does not swell, however, with the fact that Jungkook
reveals yet another talent. No, it swells with reasons that Jungkook now lists almost meekly,
almost embarrassed.

“Yeah,” he nods, his arms crossing together before his chest, “he said he wanted to be in the game
and you’re not letting me buy him a VR set, so we’re settling.” Taehyung’s eyes cannot leave the
drawing, studying small details, that dimple, the smile so similar to Woojin’s. “Though if you’re
gone on his birthday, I’m buying him one, you have no more say.”

Taehyung’s eyes shoot to him, fascination clinging to his voice. He’s not actually listening to what
Jungkook is saying. “That’s actually fucking good,” he tells him before his attention returns to the
paper. “Why are you good at that as well?”

Jungkook’s arms untangle. He reaches for the paper again. “I don’t want you looking at it,”
Taehyung moves it away when his fingers almost clasp around. “Give it back.”

With his next attempt to pull it away, Taehyung presses his thumb too hard, actually wrinkles it a
tiny bit, so he shakes his head, stretches it forward to him.

“Fine.”

“Thank you,” he says tersely as he straightens the paper out between his thumbs, pats them over
the wrinkle that Taehyung regrets.
He doesn’t move back more, and Taehyung doesn’t remind him to, observes him from this
proximity, head tilting slightly as he darts his eyes curiously over his face, so attentive at
straightening it out. Taehyung locks his arms behind his back, palm on palm, pressing against the
wall. His teeth sink gently into his lower lip as he gazes at him with a reluctance, his head ticking.
The buzz in it feels like a clock, on a countdown, time coming down as with each second that
Jungkook still glides his fingers over that paper, it seems to run faster, Taehyung’s hesitance
evaporating.

The alarm is his voice. “You really like video games, don’t you?” he starts, bouncing off of his
palm on the wall and returning to it once more. Jungkook’s eyes shift, dart away from the paper
and up towards him, just in time to watch the bob of his throat as he swallows. “And like, the
characters as well, that Woojin would fit in so well with the rest.”

His head cocks. “Your point?” he asks, defensiveness already palpable.

But Taehyung started. He’ll finish. “More interesting than corporate law, aren’t they?”

The eyes that layer over him now feel sharper. His lids narrow and his teeth press together,
gingerly for now, but it does cause a tightness in his features. His voice holds a tangible warning.
“I feel like you’re at the beginning of chatting shit, so stop.”

“No, come on,” Taehyung lifts off the wall completely, takes a step closer, too close, “You were
trying to talk about an underdeveloped feature to a six-year-old, you drew a character so quickly,
you’re obviously interested.”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook’s eyes find his, hard, He spells out, slow and firm, “forget it.”

Taehyung has nothing to lose. “Why?” he demands.

“Because I said so,” Jungkook snaps, roughly, this time his teeth press together tightly, jaw ticking
with the pressure.

Taehyung’s chin tugs, head draws back as he stares over his features. “Sorry,” he bites
sardonically, “forgot about your heavy fucking word.”
He moves away, steps around him, a very sudden anger pulsing through him, not really at
Jungkook, more at him for hoping for a second, that he had found a loophole.

He hears him sigh, hears him turn after him, but he doesn’t reach for him, doesn’t dare to.
“Listen,” he says, and waits for Taehyung to turn on his own; he can almost feel his fingers
wrapping around his wrist, tugging him back into place, summoning his attention. Taehyung does
turn, only half of his body, but all of his head, gives him his eyes once more. “There’s no point in
wanting even more things that I can’t have, okay? Let it go.”

Taehyung’s lips part. They have almost shaped the word no, when the cheery sound of enthusiastic
footsteps interrupts him. Woojin advances energetically down the steps, skipping the second one,
and though there is already space between them, Taehyung retracts, takes a cautious step back,
away from the other man.

“Can we play one more game?” Woojin’s voice carries easily between them and the thread that
seems to connect their eyes snaps, breaks.

Jungkook is the first to look away, glances down at Taehyung’s little brother, “Yeah.”

They go back to the game and Taehyung goes back on his cupboard.

He doesn’t even pretend to be interested in his phone this time. His eyes bore into Jungkook until
he notices there is something more subdued about the way he acts with his brother. Dark eyes dart
back, snap to him and don’t yield until Taehyung looks away.

He raises his phone, slides the screen opened and starts mindlessly clicking on and closing apps,
holding his head in his palm, elbow pressed in the knee of his crossed legs.

He straightens up like an animal, instinctive when he hears the distinctive sound of the back door.
But he has lived in this house long enough to know its residents by the mere way they walk.
Namjoon appears at the doorway just as he slides off of the cupboard.

His older brother’s eyes seal on Jungkook, who is already looking up, staring at the sound of the
approach with expectation. Namjoon does nothing but this, draw his eyes all across him.

“Hey,” one of them says.

“Hey,” the other does, too, and Taehyung does not know who starts and who finishes, but
Jungkook goes back to the game and Namjoon slips in the kitchen with a small nod to Taehyung.

He doesn’t know if he is meant to follow, but he does.

Namjoon’s words are almost whispered when he turns back to him, catches his eyes carefully. “Ji-
woo’s gonna be back in an hour, maybe less.”

Taehyung nods, he remembers when her shifts end. “We’re leaving in a bit, anyway,” he dismisses.

“We?” Namjoon’s brows raise. “Both of you?” he specifies.

“Just…” Taehyung starts, shoulders folding together, he waits for that guilt to come, guilt that he
chooses to spend time with Jungkook, but he remembers the lilt of his voice when Taehyung told
him he’d get Woojin right away, and his guilt surges in a different direction. He lets his shoulders
fall, nods once more, “for a little while.”

Jungkook takes him to his building with the SUV. He doesn’t give the drawing to Woojin, and
when Taehyung asks why, he tells him it wasn’t finished. Taehyung thinks this is only half true,
but he says nothing of it.

The gym is two floors below his penthouse and has Jungkook’s name written on it like it it’s an
office. He opens the door with a keycard that he fishes out of his wallet, which Taehyung notices is
different than the one he used to see all the time, albeit quite similar. He remembers vaguely a year
or more ago, Ji-woo did mention a gym at the Jeons’ , had to clean it, too, for a while.

It’s not too huge, although considering it should only serve one person Taehyung does not see the
need for duplicate facilities. But he has two of everything, two ellipticals, two treadmills, two
bench presses, things that Taehyung cannot actually name. Cardio equipment is pressed up against
a French window that overlooks Richhood. The rest is mirrors. Mirrors, mirrors, everywhere, and
Taehyung cannot escape his own reflection, but worse than that he cannot escape the sight of
Jungkook behind him.

There’s a lot of grey, there’s a lot of silver, and then there in the middle there is red.
Taehyung’s eyes fall onto the punching bag with memories of Jungkook fighting flooding his
mind. Last time he saw Jungkook on the Ring was also the first time he fucked him.

He approaches the object, presses three fingers into it and attempts to swing it slightly, but it won’t
budge at such a simple touch.

“You practice boxing here?” he asks, fitting his palm over the surface, giving his eyes anything to
watch but those mirrors.

He supposes watching Jungkook fight would feel different now. The very thought disturbs his
stomach with an unnamable anxiety. He remembers how his heartbeat escalated each time his
opponent landed a punch at that last fight. The prospect fills his mouth with too much saliva, and
he has to swallow down. He wonders if Julia never went to those fight because she couldn’t watch
him get hurt. He kept thinking the Ring was simply beyond her, but Taehyung is once more struck
by such a small thing, a consideration that comes seemingly out of nowhere. All he sees is a
punching back, but suddenly he brims with apprehension.

His hand closes in a fist against the smooth surface. He doesn’t want anyone to hurt Jungkook,
ever.

“Occasionally,” he says behind him and Taehyung’s eyes slide to those mirrors, watch him come
closer, yet keep a distance, “It’s easier with a partner.”

Taehyung pushes at the bag, lets it swing a little, turns to faces Jungkook. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” he hums, then he moves away slightly, goes to a misshapen, quite modern shelf that hosts
numerous amounts of weights, but he chooses something red from there as well. He raises the
boxing gloves in the air. “Wanna try?”

“What?” Taehyung laughs, “Hit this?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Hit me.”

Taehyung’s face screws. “No.”

Jungkook arches a brow, head cocking. “I mean just my palm, Tae.” He darts eyes across him,
keeps them mostly at his face, then he drops the gloves. “You know what,” he starts as he
approaches, pauses at an arm’s reach. “Raise your hands, make fists.”

“What about gloves?” Taehyung asks as his fingers coil together, a tentative fist forming.

“They’ll just make your hands sweat. Your elbows are low,” Jungkook seems to act on an instinct
when he stretches one hand out, taps its palm at one of Taehyung’s elbows until he raises it higher.

“Raise your hands like this,” Jungkook instructs, parting his legs slightly as he positions his own
arms in proper guard before his body, a little tighter than he usually does it on the Ring, but now he
means to show, not to taunt. Taehyung does his best to mirror the stance, pulling his feet apart,
bending his knees slightly. He feels like a fool when he first tries, doesn’t factor in that he has to be
opposite to him, so he has to readjust, but Jungkook just waits. “Yeah,” he nods when Taehyung
finally stands in a way that remotely resembles him, though it feels awkward, unnatural. Jungkook
straightens slightly, reaches for him, fingers pressing very light and momentary into him to direct
his hands. “Keep this one close to the chin, this close to the head. Don’t spread your legs too
much.”

Taehyung’s head tips. “Never expected to hear that from you.”

Jungkook’s eyes dart to him, lips twitch, but he doesn’t return a comment. He wraps his fingers
around Taehyung’s fist, pulls it forward slightly, “Not here,” he says as he readjusts, “here,” his
fingers tighten indicatively before he releases him, taps briefly at the side of his eyes, “you protect
here.”

Taehyung clicks his tongue. “My whole head is exposed.” He only protects his face like this, a
little of the side of his head, but everything else is open to attack.

“In boxing, the back of your head is off limits,” Jungkook explains as he presses one of his
shoulders back a bit, so the other will come forward. Taehyung allows his body to follow any
indication the other makes with the lightest touch of an instruction.

“Really?”

He nods. “Too big of a risk for concussions, vital things under that skull of yours,” he tells him,
eyes studying him to judge if his stance is proper. “Very few areas permitted in boxing,” he says,
presses the tip of his fingers into Taehyung, just below his stomach, just above his crotch, then he
raises it up and touches at his hairline, each brush of his finger so miniscule, ghostly. Jungkook
refuses to really touch him. “Here to here.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw you hit someone right about there,” Taehyung taps his palm against the back
of his head before he gathers it into a fist again.

“In the Ring we don’t do boxing, we do fighting,” he explains, and he has to reposition Taehyung’s
hand again, because he returns it different to his initial instruction. Just maybe he does it on
purpose. “You use the style of the game, but not the rules.” He meets his eyes briefly, but they hold
something significant, and Taehyung does remember Jungkook’s opponents having to be
physically dragged out the Ring, limp and lifeless, like the dead bodies on Woojin's game. He
doesn’t think they permit that in boxing, either. “Now, if you hit someone around here, the
underside,” he taps his chin, his jaw, “just right, you have a chance of knocking them out, even if
your punch is flimsy, so always protect the chin.” He glances at him pointed, then presses at the
shoulder he has in the front once more, “You can use your shoulder as well, tuck your chin in.”

He takes a step back, returns his hands to his own body, and ravages his eyes all across, from
Taehyung’s feet to his forehead. He says nothing, spreads his own legs just a bit and raises one
hand. “Hit my palm,” he tells him.

Taehyung hesitates, blinking over Jungkook’s expression, and he thinks he sees a slight nod,
maybe reassuring, maybe imagined. He pulls his fist back, refocuses his attention entirely on the
spread palm before him, and does his best to land a hit. Jungkook’s arm barely retracts from it, still
hovering firm and tense in the air. Taehyung would think he didn’t even hit him, but he heard it,
skin on skin.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, “another thing. You’re only swinging with your arm.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow. He wants to straighten slightly, but he doesn’t know if he will get
properly in the position again, so he stays put. “Am I not supposed to?”

Jungkook’s head shakes, “Your arm is weak.”

Taehyung scoffs, and this time his guard does drop, fists fall to his thighs, “Well, I’m sorry I don’t
have your free time, Mr Muscle.”
“My arm is weak, too,” he says, unbothered, circling past Taehyung and towards the punching
bag, “in comparison to the potential of my body.” He gets so easily into a stance himself, bounces
slightly at his feet, and retracts his whole back when he swings, fist curling in the air. He does it
again, switches arms, hits once, twice. Taehyung just stares. There is something about it that just
looks incredibly correct. He has rarely seen Jungkook so concentrated, but then again, maybe he
has. He rarely seems to do anything, but when he finds a goal, he is so fascinatingly thorough.
“You have to jab with the strength of your whole upper body, okay? That’s why footwork is
important, not just for speed,” he tells him, bouncing slightly on his feet as he turns to him. “Try
again.”

His palms raise and Taehyung swings. He wants to do well. Why, he does not even know, but the
need for it surges through him.

“Better,” Jungkook says when Taehyung’s fist retracts. “Angle your fist while you swing now.” He
does, tries to, does not hit him straight, but gains even more momentum by curling his hand while
he moves it through the air. He pulls his whole shoulder back, aims with it. “Good,” Jungkook
praises, and Taehyung has to keep his lips from curving. “Good,” he repeats. He feels
warm. “Switch arms, like I did before,” Jungkook instructs and raises both palms.

“Like this?” Taehyung asks, bounces on his feet as well and hits one palm then the other.

Jungkook’s tongue clicks, head juts. “Try again.”

“Better,” he breathes, a slight chuckle in his voice. His hands drop, eyes fall to Taehyung’s feet.
“You bounce too much.”

Taehyung straightens. “They do it in the movies,” he shrugs.

Jungkook shakes his head, mouth curving, eyes closing as he steps away. “Of course, they do,” he
says. “Feel free to punch anything you want while I work out.”

Taehyung angles his body after him, trails his eyes as he reaches a silver locker close by the door.
“I kind of wanna punch you now,” he tells him. It’s curiously charging, swinging your fist through
the air. He doesn’t necessarily want to hit Jungkook, certainly doesn’t want to hurt him, but
perhaps he wants his attention for a little while longer before he goes to what he actually came here
to do.
“If you do it too much, I might have to punch back,” Jungkook warns, smirking eyes finding his in
the mirror.

“Okay, so I stick with the bag,” Taehyung nods, slaps his palm on the punching bag.

Jungkook chuckles. “Good thinking,” he says, opening the locker, and the door hides his reflection
in the mirror and now Taehyung only sees his back, and the lost of his eyes makes him feel braver.

“You know,” it pries out of him, “you seem to care about this, too.”

“What?” Jungkook asks, going through some fabrics.

“Boxing,” Taehyung says, shoulders shrugging. “Actual legal boxing, as a sport.”

Anything, his mind yells, anything that isn’t given to you on a silver platter, anything you want by
choice. Anything that doesn’t require your father.

“Taehyung,” he turns, eyes fall onto him sharp. Tongue is sharper. “Why are you on some fucking
mission to search for my passions today?” He asks, demands, head cocks then, and he seems to
speak even sharper, eyes hard as they dig into his from across the room. “I don’t have any.”

His eyes challenge for a moment and then he gives him his back again. For a second, Taehyung
does actually want to punch him, maybe it will finally earn his attention for long enough. He really
is thorough, Taehyung has to admit, and stubborn as a brick wall. When he decides to be a dick, he
has to be thorough as well.

Taehyung presses his lips together, watches his back move. Jungkook’s hands reach, fingers touch
at the hem of his shirt and Taehyung swallows nothing.

“You just gonna strip now?” he asks with a scoff.

Jungkook turns his body half to his, eyes darting over his scandalized expression. He does not only
strip. He looks at him, while he does it, wraps his fingers firmer in the fabric and drags it swiftly
over his head, Taehyung’s gaze trailing after the hem of it as every motion of it reveals more and
more skin, familiar, but forbidden.

“You’ve seen me naked, Taehyung,” he says simply as he throws the shirt carelessly in the locker,
moves his hands to his belt and starts on that, too.

The sound of it is so distinctive, triggers memories.

Taehyung forces his eyes up, does not want to watch his skin and bones move with the motion of
parting that belt, but there is nothing safe on that body. Jungkook today feels to Taehyung a lot like
Jungkook in the beginning, unreachable and exquisite, and flooding his mind with unbidden
thoughts. He feels somehow new to him, though it is all so unbearably familiar, at the same time,
exhilarating as if it is for the very first time, and familiar with the heaviness of memory. Just a tiny
bit overwhelming.

“Yeah, but that was different.”

“If you’re shy,” Jungkook says as he pulls down his zipper, “don’t look.”

Taehyung shakes his head. He slams his knuckles into the punching bag.

Jungkook takes off his watch, puts it in the locker. He takes off his ring, puts it there as well.

Taehyung loses interest in the punching bag quite quickly. He gets tired as well, doesn’t know how
Jungkook does it. He chooses a bench, sits on it, stares when he deems it safe, when Jungkook has
clothes on. But really it is never safe.

He puts on a black tank top and it is lycra, it clings. And he sweats. He starts off with cardio,
jumps rope, stretches, runs. Taehyung doesn’t even make the effort of pulling his phone out. He’s
entertained enough. The skin of his arms glistens, layers with sweat, highlights the relief of the
muscles that tense and stretch with the motions of his arms.

He’s wordless when he moves from cardio to strength training, and Taehyung’s attention is
trailing.
Jungkook lays on the bench press, fits his fingers and palms comfortably around the metal barbell
that holds weights he previously had adjusted and lifts it easily. The muscles of sinewy arms bulge
with the exertion, but he makes it look effortless, pulsing the weight up in the air above him
repeatedly. His motions are smooth, there is no struggle as he charges it upwards, but with one of
the pulses, Taehyung hears him, a puff of breath that isn’t as rhythmic as the rest; it sounds more
like a hitch, a groan. He strains.

He is quiet when he works out. Taehyung knows of men that breathe loudly, growl animalistic
during weight training from when he accompanied Jimin to the gym several times each time
pretending to be his first, so he gets a first time free until they caught on and banned him. Jungkook
is so silent, until that groan, the hitch of his breath, audible and distracting in Taehyung’s ears. It
coaxes an onslaught of memories to barge in his head.

He speaks, he has to. “Woojin thinks you’re stronger than me,” he tells him, crossing his arms
before his chest as he lifts his chin a little higher in the air, blinking at him with a pretense of what
he does not even know, but anything that isn’t truly what is going on through his head.

“Well,” Jungkook fits the barbell back to its confines, the metal clinking loud as it falls into
position. He straightens onto the bench, stomach tensing with the motion. “I am stronger than you.”

Jungkook hasn’t cut his hair in a while, Taehyung notes now. It’s longer, currently in disarray, not
the way it is typically presentable, almost wavy as perspiration slips into the strands, the moisture
curling it around his face. It’s strangely pretty. His mouth parts, allows small puffs of air to leave
as his chest lift and fall with it. It is a consolation that he is, in fact, human. He’s tired, affected. He
sweats and his breathing picks up. What continually is bothersome to Taehyung is that this middle-
of-the-exercise weariness is attractive.

He cocks his head, juts his chin to the bench press. “I can lift that, too,” he announces, again
leaning on petulance to repress rising thoughts, to stifle a tension that tries to force itself into him
with childishness.

Jungkook arches a brow. “You think so?” he challenges. His lids fall slightly lower over his irises
when he breathes like this, makes those eyes appear heady, almost lewd.

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, firm.

Jungkook swings one spread leg to join the other on one side of the bench press, lifts off. “Come
over here then,” he says. Taehyung takes a moment, gulps, but there is no room for hesitation now,
hesitation would be sucpicious. He gets up and walks over, and Jungkook uses the time to get a
bottle of water, sip on it. Taehyung doesn’t look. “Lie down,” Jungkook instructs as he closes the
cap, his voice more of an exhale.

Taehyung’s eyes slip to his as the words leave his mouth, but the other simply nods, indicative to
the bench press. Taehyung closes his lids for a bare moment, sucks in a breath to muster up
courage and follows, sits first, before he extends his body backwards, adjusting so he lies beneath
the metal stick that holds the weights.

Jungkook leaves the bottle on the floor beside them, steps behind the bench press, legs close to
Taehyung’s head, thighs close to Taehyung’s head, though they are securely hidden beneath loose
shorts. He lifts his hands up and Taehyung watches his ringless fingers tap gingerly into the metal
barbell. “I’m going to hold my hands under it in case you can’t lift it when you get it down, okay?”

“I—” Taehyung starts, raising his hands futile in the air.

Jungkook leans slightly over, glances down at him from between parted, wet strands. “I know, you
don’t trust me, but I promise, I won’t let it fall on you,” he tells him, his voice almost completely
even by now, any evidence of the workout Taehyung witnessed gone, but the sweat remains,
pressing his clothes tighter onto him.

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head. It’s true and he’s told him that, told him that when Jungkook
promised he won’t let him fall at the rooftop, told him that when Jungkook promised he won’t let
him fall at the hill, but coming from his own mouth it sounds wrong. “I was going to say I don’t
know how to hold it.”

Jungkook’s chest lifts and falls again, with a small, airy laugh. “Have you never worked out in
your life?”

Taehyung brings his arms down, curls them defensively over his chest. “I have neither the
resources for a gym membership nor a private gym,” he informs him, “I only do like squats and
shit. Push-ups sometimes.”

Jungkook’s elbows press into the barbell, he leans, the tips of his lips curling teasing into his
cheeks. “Yeah, I can tell about the squats.”

Taehyung feels vulnerable with the other hovering above him like that, pretty hair framing his
face. “Jungkook,” he warns, eyes flashing up. He’s on the verge of blushing, and, honestly, it’s his
fault entirely for letting his mind run.

“What?” Jungkook’s palms open in gesture, “It’s straight facts you got a nice ass, I’m just being
objective.”

“Jesus,” Taehyung exhales, sitting up on the bench.

He does not want any conversation venturing in such directions, but maybe it vibrates out of him
that he thinks about it, about the fact that Jungkook has a nice ass as well, nice hands, arms, abs,
thighs, lips, eyes, everything.

“What?” Jungkook says, less light, more firm. He hears him circle around to face him before he
actually sees him. “That’s what started it, wasn’t it?” he says as if it is simple, shoulders raising
and falling. “You like my body, I like yours,” he proclaims plainly, eyes still seemingly hooded,
lids lower, too low, heavy as they fold bold over Taehyung.

He gnaws teeth into his lip, shakes his head. “That was before.”

“Before?” Jungkook pronounces, brows bouncing up, and he doesn’t laugh, but with the way the
word gasps through his lips, he might as well have. “Feelings don’t erase the fact it’s physical, too,
Taehyung,” his voice rings heavy. His eyes are, as ever, worse. “This,” he nods at him, “us. It isn’t
about sex, but sex is a part of it, don’t forget. You want me.”

Taehyung knows this is his fault. Physical, Jungkook says. He should have guessed the two of
them could not separate physical from physical. In retrospect, he should have realized a place like
this would be dangerous, a place that would allow for any of Jungkook’s intrinsic primality to
glimpse through. A place that would remind Taehyung of his own.

But he rolls his eyes, he scoffs, he stands. “Still can’t step on fucking Earth, can you?”

“Me?” he tilts his head slightly, gaze dancing, daunting, over Taehyung. “You want to tell me, me,
sweaty,” he exhales the word, “breathing like this,” his lips part, his eyes pierce, “doesn’t remind
you of me pounding into you?” He says it so light, and Taehyung is burning. “A lot went on since
this began,” Jungkook’s head shakes, “but you can’t deny you kept coming back because you liked
the way I was touching you, liked even the sensation of me fucking pressing you into things,
pushing you up against walls, because you could feel me.”
Taehyung glares. “You’re right,” he nods, speaks tightly, “A lot went on since then.”

Jungkook’s tongue runs over lips, helplessly drags his attention towards the smooth motion, it
seems teasing, seems mocking. “Doesn’t change it,” he insists. “You like me and sex together. Still
remember how fascinated you were first time you got to watch me, didn’t look at girlfriend
genuinely once.”

Taehyung laughs. It’s true, but Taehyung laughs. It’s so true, that Taehyung has to laugh, to hide it.
“Fascinated?” Taehyung’s brows raise, “With you?” he chuckles, ironic, as he edges closer, feet
working on their own, pulled towards him like a magnet, in this confrontation. “You didn’t even
take off your shirt then, Jungkook,” his lips twitch, curl. “You were so scared of me looking.” He
cocks his head, “Suppose it’s cause it excited you more than your girlfriend did.”

“Still bitter over that?” Jungkook’s eyes color all across his features, each dart strikes a tension on
his expression, like laser beams attempting to puncture skin, get underneath. He’s already so deep
under it, it’s impossible to dig further. “Don’t really hide from you anymore,” his lips are curling
once more. He’s so obnoxiously cocky, fingers grasping at the hems of his shirt for the second time
that day and peeling the fabric off of him, languid and cruel. “You can watch me shirtless all you
want,” he speaks with a challenge, discarding the material to the side.

Taehyung does not give him the pleasure of looking.

“Yeah,” he says, “I watched. You paid me to. You’re the one who wanted me to touch myself
second time round,” he accuses, edging closer still, voice coiling around nuances he does not
voluntarily seep in; there is acrimony, but there is suggestion as well, in his eyes, too, and in those
steps he takes towards him. “Made up the whole thing of me setting the pace, to what? Have an
excuse to look at my pretty face while I stroke myself?”

To Taehyung this conversation feels like roleplay, release of the frustration that builds in both of
them from not touching each other for so fucking long, the energy of conversations they snuck in
the hallway of Rouge, in the back room at Rouge, the dance floor at the Ozone. And Jungkook
plays Jeon Jungkook, and Taehyung plays Kim Taehyung.

Until Jungkook says, “Yes.” Because Jeon Jungkook never would.

Taehyung blinks. “What?”

“Yeah, I wanted to see you,” he shakes his head, eyes unyielding. “Not denying it.”

It feels like game over, it feels like he’s honest, so Taehyung shakes his head, too. “You tell me
you won’t try anything, but you’re making this about sex.” He’s prying his eyes away, finally.

Jungkook’s own are unrelenting. “No, I’m not,” he presses. “This, Taehyung, is talking.”

Taehyung’s lips part, tongue glides slow over his upper teeth, as he stares up at the ceiling, head
shaking side to side. He turns to him. “Yeah?” he exhales, and his eyes do dart towards his bare
skin then. “Why are you shirtless, then?” he challenges, voice running lower, smoother on his
tongue. He’s close to him, he’s so close to him. There is space between their bodies, but their faces
are so close. Taehyung has a guess. He has a hope, he breathes, he’s bold. His hand shoots, fingers
wrap between his legs. He’s right. Head cocks, chin jerks. “Why are you getting hard?”

A subtle sound leaves Jungkook’s throat, seemingly not his lips, and Taehyung’s taking his hand
back, folding his arms together over his chest, digits squeezing at his elbows.

Jungkook huffs, tongue pokes into the flesh of his cheek. “You turn me on,” he tells him
shameless, slow. “I can be turned on around you without trying to bend you over.” Taehyung takes
a step back, eyes finding gym equipment. Jungkook follows, pupils sealed onto the side of his face
that he allows him to see. “I don’t know why you’re acting like you haven’t been making eyes at
me since I first broke a sweat,” he accuses. Taehyung’s teeth press together. Of fucking course, he
knew. “Sex started it, Taehyung. You can’t just fucking ignore it.”

“Julia started it,” he corrects with some vehemence, head snapping back to him. “And she asked
me to ignore her, so.”

“Julia was a catalyst; she wasn’t a reason,” Jungkook says, low, but steady, and it makes
Taehyung’s heart pound harder. “Why was I most interesting to you, Tae?” his feet adjust, body
closing in. “We’re all rich, all expensive,” he lists. “Why not Yoongi, why not Hoseok? Why not
even Jin, he’s a fucking model, he’s pretty as fuck.” Jungkook’s eyes pry into his, pupils layering
all over his face, somehow languid, yet quick, every single feature subjected to that scrutiny.
“Doesn’t have my body, though, does he?”

“I don’t know how attraction works, Jungkook,” Taehyung shakes his head, meets his eyes to stifle
his bold exploration. “If I did, I’d gladly redirect myself to Bogum, or Jimin and he doesn’t even
like fucking boys.”
Jungkook’s lips thin, feet readjust again. He steps back. “You’d do that?”

Taehyung doesn’t think. He’s frustrated. He just answers. “Any day,” he says, nearly growls. He
can handle them. He can never handle Jungkook.

He’s right. He can’t. Can’t deal with the way his heart escalates further when Jungkook takes
another step back, then drops his eyes, lids face the ground. He’s walking around him, to the bench
press again. “I wouldn’t,” he mumbles.

His voice changes so quickly, loses all the challenge from their previous dynamic, and slips into
something small, almost defeated, and it’s another small thing that to Taehyung is pure torture.

“Jungkook, I didn’t mean—” he tries, but he is sidestepping him already. Taehyung turns, eyes
snap after him, “Hey, fucking listen.”

Jungkook bends to the water again, looks at his fingers as he untaps it, but his mouth moves. “I
know they’d both be a lot easier to be with, don’t worry,” he tells him. He shrugs. “You don’t have
to explain yourself to me. I know I don’t deserve your explanations.”

Taehyung’s eyes coat over him as he tips his head back, drinks. He runs his gaze all over him, from
his head to his toes, and he doesn’t understand how he suddenly doesn’t care one bit about his bare
chest. “That word deserve, Jungkook,” he starts, lips parting, and he takes a moment to finish,
drags his eyes all over him again, head shaking. “You need to get it out of your mouth.”

Jungkook fixes the cap bag into place. His shoulders lift and fall with the small laugh that escapes
him, a snort, a snicker, as if what Taehyung suggests is ridiculous, and he wants to punch him
again.

He says nothing for a moment, leans down to return the bottle to the floor. “Just lie down, would
you?” he asks as he moves behind the barbell as well. “You kind of killed the onset of my hard on
when you said Bogum, so we’re all good.”

Taehyung does move back to the bench, a laughter escaping him sooner than he expects after the
snap.

“Was that funny to you?” Jungkook asks as he peeks down at him when he slides into position.
“Yes,” Taehyung says, pressing his palms into his chest, “relatable, mostly,” he shrugs, lips
curling. “Bogum kind of kills my boners, too.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen, mouth parting. He blinks as if in fascination, shakes his head with
appreciation. “This is one of the three best things you’ve said in your life,” he proclaims.

Taehyung’s lips stretch more, pulling over his teeth, exposing them. His eyes crease with that
smile. Jungkook’s expression softens above him, a gentle curve of his own mouth as he gazes
down at the curl of Taehyung’s. “What are the other two?”

Jungkook leans on the barbell again, propping his chin on his hands. “Wanna guess?”

“Hmm,” Taehyung ponders, tapping his fingers at his chest. “I kind of want to suck your cock
and,” he roams his head for something exact that he could have begged Jungkook that would
particularly appeal to him; he settles for something simple, straight-forward and repetitive, “fuck
me.”

Jungkook’s eyes dull as they watch him, “Who’s making it about sex now?”

“Isn’t it?” Taehyung pipes, lids pulling back to expose all of his eyes.

Jungkook’s head shakes on his hands. “No,” he tells him softly.

“Oh,” Taehyung exclaims as a memory returns to him sharply, “when I said bend me over when
you wanted to fuck me on your dad’s antique table?”

Jungkook’s grin breaks onto his face seemingly without his permission. He shakes his head more.
“Still sex, though that would have to make it in top five. But,” his lips line, though their edges still
curl, “no.”

Taehyung flattens his arms on his chest, speaks to him with a softness that mirrors that final no.
“Tell me then.”
“Although this might surprise you,” Jungkook talks as he straightens a little bit, picks his head up
and wraps his fingers around the barbell, doing a very unnecessary half push up as he grasps onto
it, “I was joking and I don’t actually keep a compilation of Taehyung’s best lines,” He moves
closer once more, presses his chest into the barbell and leans his head past it, as his voice drops,
slips into something more private. “but two that come at the top of my head are I was never
looking at Julia and you’re nothing like your father.”

Taehyung’s elbows dig into the bench. He raises on them slightly, but he’s careful, doesn’t get too
close. “You are nothing like him,” he murmurs to him, head shaking lightly, eyes coating over
every feature, studying him different now that he is upside down. He thinks he can recognize him
in any way by this point, pick out every little bit of him no matter how it is twisted, where it is put.
“He hits your sister, and he runs away,” his eyes fall on his lips; he wonders how they would feel
upside down, but he remembers to speak, “You fuck my sister and you, and you…” he trails,
empty.

“And I?” he urges, expression twisting.

“You say sorry. You talk.” His eyes screw, brows screw, face screws.“I still can’t fucking believe
you actually talk.” He remembers that Jeon Jungkook from the hallway at Rogue, the back room at
Rouge, the dance floor at the Ozone. He didn’t know shit about him.

“What else can I do?” Jungkook whispers back. Taehyung’s eyes flutter, pupils still searching his
face as Jungkook returns it, thorough in this, too, taking in every bit of Taehyung's expression. “I’m
actually asking you, Tae. Tell me what else I can do, and I’ll do it.”

Taehyung’s heart swells. He wishes he knew.

He sinks down on his back again, straightens his elbows and reaches up for the barbell.

“Hold this so it doesn’t fall on me,” he asks him gingerly, naked eyes staring up, swimming.

Jungkook presses his teeth in his lower lip, straightens. “Yeah?” he nods. “You trust me for this?”

Taehyung pauses, but he doesn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he tells him.

“Okay,” Jungkook breathes, eyes never losing sight of his as he rests his palms under the barbell.
Taehyung wraps his fingers around it, firm, tight, until it feels right. He forces a quick, puffed
breath, once, then pushes up. It’s heavy as fuck. His muscles strain tangibly, a pressure
immediately settling in his chest. For a moment he thinks if he lets it fall down, he won’t ever get it
up again, but Jungkook’s hands hover beneath his, guide him, and he isn’t scared. He folds his
elbows, brings it down until it almost touches his chest and then he pushes it up, a lot slower than
Jungkook had, struggle obvious and breath shallowing with the very first lift, but it’s going up,
steady. “You’re actually fucking doing it,” Jungkook exhales, a hint of a laugh in his voice.
“You’re stronger than you look, pretty boy.”

“Tell that to Woojin,” Taehyung strains out as Jungkook guides the barbell into place.

“I’ll make sure to mention it next time we run across each other in the Ozone.”

Taehyung slaps his palms over his chest once more; it raises and fall heavier. “You can come over
again, shithead. He actually really likes you for some reason.”

Jungkook’s mouth parts, but then his phone rings. He sighs, both his head and Taehyung’s turning
to the locker from where it buzzes. He taps a finger on the metal above Taehyung, a silent apology,
a subtle I'm here, before he moves towards it.

Taehyung sits up, eyes trailing behind him. He is looking down at the phone, debate clear in his
face, teeth pressing together.

“You can pick up,” Taehyung urges softly.

But Jungkook clicks the red circle, slips his phone in his pocket. “It’s just Yoongi,” he dismisses
with a shrug, stepping towards him again. “Saw enough of him today already.”

Taehyung’s eyes fall to the outline of the phone, then they dart up once more, cautious as they bore
into Jungkook’s. “Were you serious about telling him?” he asks, because that is just one of those
tiny, minuscule things that Jungkook says that make his heart thunder. “Them?” his brows shift up.

Taehyung is honest when he tells Namjoon he does not expect Jungkook to invite him over for
dinner or some shit, tell his father about him. He’d never ask him that. He’d likely never ask him to
admit Taehyung happened to him to anyone, and he isn’t. It’s Jungkook that suggests it, and it
strips Taehyung of the feeling he clings to something flimsy with this, promises him some sort of
permanence. Min Yoongi and Jung Hoseok and Jeon Jungkook have always been together. It’s
dangerously exhilarating for Taehyung to think he’d want to share him with them.

“He already knows something’s up,” Jungkook says, “Just doesn’t know what. Hoseok, though,”
he chuckles slightly to himself, “utterly clueless that boy.”

“Wouldn’t they,” Taehyung clears his throat, “I mean wouldn’t that change things between you?”

Wouldn’t they look at you different, he wants to ask. He supposes the mindset that boys being with
boys is wrong is instilled in all of them. Masculinity, he knows, is important in Richhood. Which,
in turn, makes it fragile.

But Jungkook does not hesitate when he shakes his head. “No,” he tells him. “I thought it would a
while ago. Now only thing I’m scared of is it could change things between them.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow. “What do you—” he tries to say, but Jungkook’s phone chimes again.
Taehyung’s chin jerks to it. “Seriously, pick up.”

Jungkook’s eyes roll, but he does fish it out of his shorts, giving Taehyung his back as he spins.
“Yeah,” he presses it to his ear, annoyance coating his voice.

Taehyung’s gaze drops to his own feet, an attempt to give this conversation privacy, which seems
impossible with all those mirrors around. Jungkook gives him his back, but if he chose to, he could
see his face from every angle in this room.

“Not exactly, but it’s okay,” Jungkook says into the speaker. “Taehyung,” he seems to answer after
a moment, and Taehyung’s eyes jump up at the motion. His back seems tenser than it did a moment
ago and when he compulsively glances to a mirror, he witnesses the press of his jaw. “Because,” he
says a little stubborn, a little biting.

His next breath completely steals Taehyung’s attention. “What?” he exhales sharply. His eyes
widen in the mirror, nostrils flare. Taehyung can see his the fingers of his free hand coil onto a fist.
“What did he say?” The question falls dark from his lips, nearly animalistic, a growl that once
again reminds Taehyung of when he only knew the upper, defensive layer of Jungkook, the one
that so repeatedly attempted to intimidate anyone into backing away. “Fuck,” his fingers release
the fist, run into his hair, digits clinging at strands. “That fucking,” he tries, the darkness still there,
but at the last syllable his voice cracks, and Taehyung’s hard drums. “Okay,” his eyes squeeze
shut, “Okay.” He pulls at his hair. “I’ll take care of it.” He doesn’t wait for a reply.
“Is something wrong?” Taehyung’s asking as soon as Jungkook’s hand falls to his thigh, fingers
clinging around the phone. “Jungkook,” he pronounces carefully when he receives no answer, and
at the sound of his name from Taehyung’s lips his whole face seems to change.

Features twist nearly ugly, screw together and his hand raises again, eyes open and he glares into
the ground as he charges the device in his hand at it, with a brusque, torn shout of, “Fuck.”

He launches it so hard, the screen snaps into pieces, shattered, sharp glasses swimming in its wake
as it slides smoothly across the clean surface of his private gym.

Taehyung doesn’t know when he gets on his feet, when he touches his arm. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
he tries to mumble gently, fingers tentative as they reach for him, but Jungkook is turning away
more, body curling into himself and he presses his hand into his face, fingers digging into his
features as Taehyung tries to take a glimpse. “Jungkook,” he tries again, his fingers pulsing onto
him, a single, soft squeeze into warm, familiar skin.

Jungkook’s hand falls from his face and he turns to him, forces his hand off of him. “Kai says at
poker one of his eyes saw someone who strikingly resembles Kim Namjoon by the subway
yesterday,” Jungkook bites out, each word bitter, each word wet as it is dragged painful from the
bottom of his throat. He spins away from Taehyung again, a continuous, compulsive mutter falling
through his lips, vindictive as he charges towards the lockers now. “Told him to be fucking
careful,” he curses, fist slamming onto it until it shakes. “Fuck,” he breathes; anger seems to
actually drip from him, ooze off of his body, vibrate after each swear, but Taehyung follows after
him, nonetheless. “That fucking, necrofucker,” he shouts, and, “and his whole fucking clique of
sick fucking bastards, fuck them, I’ll fucking end him, all of them, cockroach after cockroach,
those fucking—”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung begs through slips of the cursed promises that fall heinous and ruthless
from his lips. “Jungkook,” he pleads, fingers reaching for his shoulder, “calm down.”

Jungkook’s eyes are feral when he spins to him, wide and red, full of blood. “Don’t you understand
he’s gonna fucking take you away now?” he can barely recognize his voice. It scrapes in the walls
of his throat, and Taehyung can almost feel his own tear and peel. He has to physically swallow.
“Your fucking brother is going to take you away.” Visceral eyes bounce from one of his to the
other, and there is nothing Taehyung seems to be able to say, and in one moment Jungkook is
shouting, in the other he is muttering, back pressing against the locker and he slides down, droning
almost unconsciously as he does, “Clo’s away and he’ll take you away and I’ll just eat my father’s
food, drink my father’s drinks and pretend everything’s okay for the rest of it all.”
Taehyung needs to gulp again, so that he can properly make his name out. “Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s head shakes; he blinks away. His eyes are wet. “You should go.”

“No,” Taehyung exhales, gaze sealed onto him, frozen onto him. He feels frozen on his feet as
well, fucking drilled into place, in the floor next to Jungkook.

Those eyes dart to him again, charge at him, like that phone to the ground and his tongue whips as
well. “Go,” he says forceful.

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head, “I don’t want to leave you.” He doesn’t just mean now. He
means never. He doesn’t want to leave. The sight of him on the floor like this, eyes like this, voice
like this, it makes his head throb, heart squeeze.

Jungkook’s voice is sharp, but it’s not cold. It’s raw and burning. “You’re just gonna fucking do
that anyway so just do both of us a favor and make it quicker.” His eyes scorch into his for a
moment after the words do, before he takes them away, digs them into the floor. Taehyung’s knees
crack when he bends, lowering himself before him, and Jungkook is shaking his head before he
can even fully squat. “Go,” he repeats, rough and heavy, arms wrapping around his legs, “I don’t
want you to fucking pity me.”

So wrapped up into himself, clinging to some defense, folded and pressed against the locker, Jeon
Jungkook seems so small.

And he loves him.

“Jungkook,” he whispers to him softly.

“Made my bed,” he continues, still so forceful, “gotta fucking lie in it now, don’t I?” His lids raise.
He blinks. His eyes turn to Taehyung again, but he can only skim past, takes them to the other side
of him instead. “Just leave, Tae, go tell your brother he has to get his ass out of here by the end of
the week.”

Taehyung straightens on his legs and Jungkook’s head follows the motion, eyes wide.
But Taehyung doesn’t go. He presses his back on the locker beside him, slides down until their
thighs press together, fully aligned.

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, a threat lingering behind the curve of his pitch.

“Sitting down,” Taehyung says simply.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook turns to him, now from so close, Taehyung think he can see the blood
vessels in his bulging eyes, the saliva that glistens on his bared, readied teeth. “I can’t look at your
face.”

“Don’t fucking look at it then, no one’s making you,” he snaps back, prying his own head away,
nodding forward, “Plenty of things to look at.”

He senses with his peripheral vision when Jungkook finally does turn as he asks, but Taehyung
knows all he finds is what he himself sees, the two of them pressed against each other, sitting on
the floor in all of those gigantic mirrors, even in the window. It's dark outside, and even the
supposed view of Richhood just holds their reflections together.

Taehyung tries to give them both a moment. Wants his breathing to calm down, wants his heart to
stop palpitating, but it only seems to grow more sporadic in the trap of his ribcage with every single
moment he doesn’t tell Jungkook the words that blare in his mind, scream in his mind.

“Jungkook,” he tries, fingers wrapping around his forearm. He wants to look at him, wants to see
his eyes. He wants to tell him.

Jungkook readjusts his arm, forces Taehyung’s fingers off of him. “Please, don’t,” he mumbles,
head pressing into the locker, eyes screwing shut.

“But I—”

“You’re making yourself harder to let go off with every fucking moment.” Jungkook’s head spins
on the locker, rolls to the other side, so far away from Taehyung when he can feel the length of
their bodies pressed together still. “Please fucking leave.”
“You’re hiding from me,” Taehyung whispers, his eyes frantic as they dash all over, but they get to
see nothing

He sees the back of his head. “Told you I didn’t want to look at your face.”

Taehyung’s voice hardens for the break of a moment. “I didn’t want to fucking look at yours,
either.”

He hears the expel of a sigh. Jungkook is slow, turns to him in segments and Taehyung waits,
allows him to take his time, until he pauses, gazes forward into their reflections.

“Hey, look at me.” Taehyung’ hand ventures, dips over his arm and to his chin; he presses his
fingers to his jaw, his cheek, tilts it to himself, until they share breath and his eyes capture his, and
he lets him go, places his hand on his arm. Taehyung’s head shakes gingerly, a motion so small. He
whispers assuring, “I haven’t decided yet.”

He wants to tell him he won’t leave, wants to promise him he’ll stay, but this is not the moment to
make a decision like this, because once more Namjoon is right and people do dumb things when
they are in love. He’s afraid of making a promise he can’t keep, to Jungkook of all people. He’s
afraid of only feeding him what he would want to hear, because he is enveloped by a desperation to
make sure he’s okay.

And Taehyung remembers how it felt when Jungkook murmured in his mouth, I’m not going
anywhere, and then ruined it all. He’s not doing that to him, even if Jungkook doesn’t feel half of
what he feels for him.

“You’re going to have decide damn quickly now,” Jungkook tells him, voice almost levelled until
it dips, falls again. His hand raises, warm palm fits over Taehyung’s hand, fingers skidding across
before he cups over it fully. Taehyung’s eyes slip to that, too, lips parting. It’s such a small,
unforgiving gesture. He learns so much through the small things. “Please say bye if you go,”
Jungkook’s breath fans over his mouth and he glances up again, eyes finding his, “Proper bye,” he
whispers, “Please.”

Taehyung says nothing.He doesn't imagine he can say goodbye to him.

“Promise?” Jungkook’s brows lift, voice perks, prompts.

Taehyung breathes. “I promise.”
 Chapter 23
Chapter Summary

hmmm Idk what to say here, thought it would be 10k, but of course its not, enjoy

Taehyung stares at drawing all the way home. Give this to your brother, he’d said, don’t think your
sister would let me give it to him when it’s finished.

It’s rough. Such a rough sketch, but it is so distinguishably his little brother, Kim Woojin.
Taehyung has seen him grow up, but he is only six, still so little. Taehyung remembers at that age
he still saw his mother sometimes. But he hardly remembers when, what for, what she did, what
she said, how she was with him.

And what if Woojin forgets him?

You’d want to see Woojin without me there? Taehyung had asked.

Jungkook draws him quickly, but he draws him so distinctly as him. There is the very obvious hint
of talent in the rough strokes he made on the piece of paper, the flair to capture individual
characteristics of his face and put them down.

Well, he’d taken his time, yeah. I want him to have it.

Taehyung wants to give Jungkook more reasons to draw. He wants to give his brother more
reasons to smile. He wonders if he leaves and comes back, and he can’t not come back, will
Jungkook have drawn another picture, taken another photo, or will have just snorted more coke. He
wonders how it would feel, peeling those layers of Jungkook and then coming back to see them
closed solid around him. He wonders how it would feel sleeping in a room every night without
Woojin underneath, on the bunk below, without the sound of his breathing, the occasional soft
snore.

He stares at that drawing, the eyes of the character almost disappear with the smile.
The smile so curiously alike Jimin’s. He wonders if Jimin would miss him. Jimin doesn’t like
talking about those things. Jimin won’t tell him, he’ll make it a joke. He’ll miss Jimin a lot.

He stares at it until he feels it stares back with accusation.

He promised he’d say goodbye if he left. He can’t say goodbye.

“Fuck this.”

“Namjoon,” he barges in, strides towards the couch, where his older brother is wrapped around a
plushie he uses for an extra pillow. “Namjoon,” Taehyung repeats more forceful when he doesn’t
get as much as a groan. He hovers above him, demands, “Get the fuck up.” This time he receives a
muffled sound, moaned into the neck of the plushie, but it’s not good enough and it sounds
suspiciously like protest, and Taehyung has no time for this. He grabs at Namjoon’s calf, both
hands firm around, and he gives a very brusque, surprisingly efficient tug.

Namjoon’s body is loose with sleep. It follows easy and unsuspecting, rolls once and topples
satisfyingly to the ground. The groan this time is enough. Especially as it follows with Namjoon
pushing up off the flooring, one wrist propping him up, the other rubbing at the beginning of his
ass, the end of his spine.

“That was highly unnecessary,” he comments, half opened eyes attempting to glare at Taehyung,
puffed up underneath and full of sleep. He has the lines of the fur of Woojin’s plushie printed into
his cheek.

Taehyung folds his arms across his chest, the one below helplessly clutching to the drawing
hanging safely from his fingers. “No,” he shakes his head, “it was highly necessary. I need to tell
you something.”

“Can’t it wait till morning?” Namjoon proceeds to groan and once he’s tended enough to the
forming bruise on his ass, he relaxes back onto the floor, not even attempting to climb back onto
the couch for the purposes of drifting off again. “I was asleep.”

Taehyung’s eyes dull, stare unrelenting onto him. “Namjoon, it’s not even fucking midnight, get
your lazy ass up.” He needs him to get up. Needs it now. His heart is thudding, drumming,
numbing. His head pulses. He needs him up.

“What do you want?” Namjoon whines, but he’s hauling himself up, hands grabbing onto the
couch and the coffee table.

Taehyung blinks. His knee is bouncing even when he’s standing. “Kai saw you.”

Namjoon’s eyes fire at him. “What?” he stutters it out, voice still gruff with sleep.

“Remember Min Yoongi?” Taehyung cocks his head as he waits for Namjoon to replace his ass
from the floor to the couch.

“Jungkook’s addict friend?”

“Same,” Taehyung nods, swallows down nothing. “Kai told him at poker night that an eye of his
saw you yesterday by the subway,” he tells him, says exactly what Jungkook did, in case there is
any room for hope he himself can’t grasp at. His nails dig in his arm.

Namjoon blinks at him once more before he lunges his eyes to the floor, neck snapping as he
throws his head down, sliding hands at the back his head, his neck. “Fuck,” he curses, somehow
loud, somehow breathy.

“Fuck indeed,” Taehyung’s teeth grit their frustration, so he doesn’t squeeze at the paper with his
fingers. “You need to get out of here,” he tells him, head shaking, “You need to get out of here fast.
You—”

Namjoon’s head lifts, arms fall on his thighs as he sits on the couch. “Relax.”

Taehyung’s eyes bulge. “The fuck should I relax for?” He splutters out, quick, feels spit leave his
mouth unintentional, but he doesn’t care.

“Kai won’t come for me this quickly,” he shakes his head, too. Taehyung does not like how calm
he is. While not entirely collected, he does not appear even half as unnerved as Taehyung is,
Taehyung, who can’t catch a coherent thought, it seems. “He doesn’t know what to do with me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” His shoulders shrug, lips snarl at the lack of co-panicking. “He
can just get rid of you.”

It’s Kai.

“I don’t owe him just money,” Namjoon gazes at him, speaks leveled and soft, as if he tries to ease
Taehyung just with the smoothness of his voice, but it does nothing for him. “He wants something
from me, and he doesn’t know where I keep it. He can’t risk offing me before he finds out.”

Taehyung blinks. He’s blinking. He knows this is deeper than he is allowed to know the details of
and he knows it has to do with Byung-Chul’s daughter, but he’s pulling blanks right then. He
expresses what he knows. “Jungkook said—”

“Jungkook knows this as well,” Namjoon interrupts, tongue running across his lips. His hands
press into each other between his legs, palms lining. He intertwines his fingers together, pulls at
them tightly. “Bet he didn’t say I should pack my bags and leave tonight, did he?”

Taehyung rummages his brain. “No,” he shakes his head. “He said by the end of the week.”

Namjoon glances away from his brother, chooses the table in front of him and brings his hands up
to his face, lips pressing into his knuckles. “Yeah, I guess that would give him time,” he mutters,
and Taehyung feels he no longer speaks to him, but simply voices thoughts that venture across his
mind. Sleep seems gone from him, teeth pressed together, eyes blinking rapid. His mouth curls.
“Fuck,” he swears once more, head shaking on top of his hands, “I should have been more careful.”

“Yes, you should have been,” it flies unbidden and bitter out of Taehyung’s mouth. He doesn’t
want to be angry, but he is. He is angry, and worried, and scared, and his head is starting to hurt
from stifling it all down, from keeping it in a large, sour lump that lodges in his throat.

Namjoon breathes through his nostrils, releases his hands to pat a palm at the length of the back of
his neck. “Knew it was going to happen sooner or later,” he ducks out of its hold, gets on his feet.
“I left for a reason. Guess it’s time to do it again.” He steps, just for the sake of pacing a bit, subtly
restless just like Taehyung. His eyes are on the floor. “At least I’ll have you this time.”
Taehyung’s lips part. He says nothing.

They part a second time.

His voice sounds foreign to his own ears. He hears it more than says it.

“I’m not coming.”

Namjoon’s eyes flash. Head strikes up from the floor, gaze fixes over Taehyung. “What?”

“I’m not going to Japan,” Taehyung repeats. He attempts to sound firm, but he knows his voice
wavers. “I’m staying here.”

Namjoon’s next pace is pointed. He steps towards him, eyes studious. “Taehyung—”

There is some tangible variation of pity resting in that brotherly gaze, sympathetic and cautious,
and grown-up and mature, and thoughtful, and Taehyung’s tongue unleashes. “Did you know
Woojin started making lines for the days you were gone too, like the ones he carves for dad?” he
asks and shuts up. He shuts up and he stares. He waits for thoughtful, careful Namjoon to say
something back, but he doesn’t. Namjoon didn’t think of that, didn’t take care of that. “If I leave as
well, he doesn’t have any fucking bed boards left.” He shakes his head, lowers his voice. “I’m not
going anywhere.”

Namjoon exhales through lips that remain parted as he keeps those eyes on his brother.
“Taehyung,” he starts, “you’ve been so confused lately…” he trails, head shaking with that all-
consuming sympathy that is hard for Taehyung to take.

“Yes,” he says, “because I—I had no idea what I was feeling.”

“You still don’t.”

“No,” he denies. He repeats, “No—When Clo texted you,” he runs a tongue over his mouth, feels
dry, “that I was sad, when she thought I needed you. That was before. It was true. I needed you,” he
remembers, the particular night Namjoon came back. It was still such an open wound then, he still
looked at Jungkook and saw what he did, and not who he is. It still happens, it will always happen,
glimpses of what he did, reminders, but it’s not him, not all of him, a part, yes, an action, cruel,
irresponsible, clouded, and more confused than Taehyung himself is, but just an action,
nonetheless. “But I don’t want to go to Japan. I don’t know why I should go to Japan, and I’m
holding a fucking miserable piece of paper in my hand that is reason enough for me to stay.”

He extends his arm to him, fingers trembling in the edge of the paper, but he holds it carefully. He
doesn’t want it wrinkled.

“What is it?” Namjoon takes it, gingerly pressing his fingers to the edges at first until Taehyung
sees he’ll handle with care and he lets it loose from his own. Namjoon’s neck tilts to it, eyes falling
to the character on the paper. “Is that Woojin?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung exhales. He sees it as well. It’s not just him. Jungkook really did capture the
features of their little brother in that simple drawing. Jungkook really looked at their little brother.
He remembered.

Namjoon’s eyes bounce to his. “Did Jungkook draw this?”

“Yes,” he nods, “he did.”

His brother falls silent, fingers stroking into that bit of the paper that Taehyung regretfully and
irreversibly wrinkled with his rough handling. But the rest of the drawing is intact and that is
what’s important.

“Namjoon,” Taehyung calls, gingerly, as he watches him watch it. “I know Ji-woo never has,” he
shakes his head, “but have you ever been in love?”

Taehyung, personally, has no fucking idea what being in love is, exactly, but he does feel that
Namjoon could only possibly understand why that piece of fucking paper is so important if he can
at least somewhat imagine the ridiculous, foolish intensity of what Taehyung feels.

He does not expect Namjoon’s eyes to soften as they stare at the picture, his fingers to grow more
careful as they soothe over the single wrinkle of the paper. He does not except a raw chuckle to
snark from his throat, past his lips, for them to curl into his cheeks with a curve that is too weak to
be happy. “I still am.”
He does not expect that. And at the same time, he does. Because when Taehyung speaks of
Jungkook, Ji-woo panics and Namjoon understands. When forgiveness lingers at his lips, Ji-woo
reminds him he hurt him, and Namjoon reminds him he’s not all black and white.

Taehyung’s surprise lasts a bare moment, short enough for him to blink, for him to notice how the
smile is too small to draw out a dimple, the lids are too low for his eyes to really see the drawing he
seems to stare at with such softness.

“With who?”

Namjoon’s slouching. His back curls forward, shoulders fall into each other. He extends the paper
back to Taehyung. “I bet you can take a guess,” he tells him, the smile curling louder, sadder. His
eyes dance to his. “They’re a difficult family to fall out of love with.”

Taehyung’s fingers latch around the paper on an instinct. His brows crease his forehead when they
narrow on each other. “You’re in love with Clo?”

Namjoon’s eyes fall away from his the moment her name leaves his mouth. “And she’s in love
with Seokjin,” he licks brief at his lips. He shrugs. “Sometimes it’s like this.”

“I didn’t know,” Taehyung shakes his head. He knew Namjoon cares about her a lot. It was hard
for him to suspect it was anything different. She’s beautiful, he knows. She’s special, she must be,
with how Jungkook cares about her himself. But Namjoon was so composed when she was limp
and drugged. He was so calm. He helped her so well. He tries to imagine Jungkook like this and it
sets a fire to his heart, to his head, to his bones and his breath. He could never truly help him in a
moment like this, he's too impulsive, too affected by every emotion Jungkook seems to display.

Namjoon sighs, and Taehyung wonders how he can still keep that small smile etched into his
features, too. “It starts to show less and less as you get used to it,” he tells him, a short shrug,
humble shrug. His lips pull straighter, gaze darting across cigarette burns on the coffee table from
when their mother used to live here. Taehyung rests the paper on top of them, his fingers too
nervous to hold it. “You know I thought after being away for so long in Japan, it would have
disappeared?” he trails off as a question, looking at his little brother. “Dwindled?” He shakes his
head. “But I just got used to it. They’re difficult to fall out of love with.”

He makes it look so embarrassingly easy. Taehyung almost wants to scoff. Just standing there,
admitting that he loves someone, a Jeon, even if she doesn’t love him back. Taehyung’s almost
envious. At the same time the very idea of Jungkook not wanting him gnaws at him from the
inside, and all envy dissipates.
And he figures, maybe it isn’t easy for Namjoon. Maybe it’s as heart wrenchingly difficult as it is
for Taehyung. He looks at his throat, and he watches him swallow, gulp it all down and muster up
strength. He watches his eyes as they need time to look around before they can find Taehyung’s.
He watches his lips that are on the margin of being bitter and being soft.

It’s not easy, but he does it anyway, tells him, anyway, because Taehyung asks, and because
Taehyung needs to hear it, and Taehyung isn’t thinking. He is speaking.

His eyes zero in on Namjoon, his lips open. He tells him.

“I love Jungkook.”

His heart seems to stop for a moment. Then it proceeds with newfound vigor, banging against his
chest. The words sound pleasurably foreign on his lips, unfamiliar but not unwelcome,
accompanied with a rush that is scary, yet exciting, just like it felt to kiss Jungkook for the first
time.

Namjoon’s eyes stay on his. He lets the words linger, in the very living room in which Taehyung
threw Jungkook's shirt at him, ripped the PlayStation from its cables, threw the toy car at him, told
him to leave, told him he’s done. In the very living room in which Jungkook told Taehyung about
his sister the first time and drew Woojin a picture.

“I know,” Namjoon says.

Taehyung’s throat bobs. “I’ve never said it before,” he admits.

His brother nods. “Okay,” He eases into a step forward, searches his face. “Do you feel better
now?”

He shakes his head. His eyes feel like they’re stinging. His lip feels like it wants to tremble. “I
don’t know,” he tells him. He loves him, but that doesn’t erase anything, not the fact he slept with
his sister, not the fact Clo’s in the hospital, not the fact he thinks Taehyung will leave and he asked
him to stay, not the way he looked so small against the lockers even after he showed him just how
strong he could be. “I want him to be okay and he isn’t.”
“Taehyung,” Namjoon calls him softly, his fingers squeezing into Taehyung’s bicep carefully.
“They’re not only difficult to fall out of love with. They’re difficult to love as well. It’s hard for
them to be okay.” His fingers tense. “You see what Clo does, you see what he does.”

“I think I fell in love with him after what he did.”

Namjoon’s brows furrow. “What?”

“Or at least,” Taehyung pokes his tongue at his lips; they feel dry, but his throat feels dry as well,
the lump in it is rising, “I fell in love with him more. Every time I’ve seen him since then, I think it
—” he fumbles with his thoughts, searches for a definition, an explanation, but there is word vomit
in his mind, that lump in his throat and it all threatens to spill, “grows. Shouldn’t it, shouldn’t it be
reversed? I—”

Namjoon’s hand tightens more around him, voice stern as Taehyung’s grows weaker, “Tae—”

It twists and breaks and it’s borderline pathetic how flimsy he sounds and how bitter his eyes feel.
“I really want him to be okay.”

“I know,” Namjoon says. In a moment he’s looking at his brother’s face, but then he feels he
chokes, and he’s looking at his shoulder, then at nothing. Namjoon cups the back of his head,
presses him forward until his forehead rests on his shoulder after the first and only sound of a
broken sob.

Taehyung’s hands fly, grip at his shirt, fingers squeeze. He doesn’t touch him, just clings to the
fabric of his shirt and pulls it, holds it, as he screws his eyes shut and lets the lump fall in the shape
of words, sporadic and unhinged. “I want you to be okay, too, and I want Ji to be okay, and Clo as
well, but she is in the hospital, and why is everything wrong?” his chest heaves. His breath hitches
once, stutters, ribcage receding and expanding with no pattern. It feels like a cough. It feels like he
can hardly breathe. “Everything is wrong.”

Namjoon’s hand pats across his neck. “Taehyung,” he calls him soft.

He sniffs. “I want everything fixed. I want you to stay.”

“It will be,” Namjoon promises falsely, the palm soothing and unnerving all the same. “Everything
is going to be fine.”

Taehyung’s fingers squeeze one last time before he releases. But he keeps his head there for a little
while longer, his eyes shut, too, because he can feel how wet his lashes are. He doesn’t want to cry.
He’s not crying. “I’m so tired and Ji-woo hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Namjoon pulls back himself, attempts to find his eyes, one hand on his
shoulder now, but Taehyung’s hands lift, palms rub into the hollows of his eyes. “She doesn’t
understand you.”

“I don’t fucking understand me, either,” he confesses, palms digging into him hard as if he can
press hard enough for his eyes to swallow back the tears. “I’ve never been in love before. It fucks
with my head.”

“Yeah, it tends to.”

“She’ll never,” he sniffs through his nose, draws his palms down and looks at them, wet, too. He
wonders if his eyes are red. He can feel they swell, feel them puff. He can feel the tears dry into his
skin, except the ones that cling in drops to his lashes, “she’ll never be okay with it, will she?”

Namjoon’s head shakes. “I can’t tell you that.”

A new wave of something hits and Taehyung presses his fingers into his eyes this time. His head
shakes, too, vigorous. “He’s not a bad person.”

“I know,” Namjoon reassures.

Taehyung finally gives up. His hands fall. He lets Namjoon look. It’s just Namjoon. “I don’t think
he does. I don’t think anyone’s told him.” He pauses for a breath, his eyes shifting and lingering all
across his brother’s expression, as if he can read the answer to the question that impends to slip
from his lips. His eyes sting from the bitterness. He asks, “Does it start to hurt less?”

Namjoon stares at his eyes, speaks to him softly. “What?”

He takes his lip in his mouth. “Not being with Clo?”

Namjoon’s sigh is long. It’s heavy. His shoulders angle different and he shows once more, it isn’t
easy for him, isn’t easy at all. He blinks away. “At times it doesn’t hurt at all,” he says, but next his
head shakes and his eyes venture back to Taehyung. “But it’s different. She doesn’t want me. She
is with who she needs to be.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow. “He’s with no one.”

His lips press, pull to the sides, edge of them curling downwards as he dashes his eyes to the small
pout of his brother's mouth. “I don’t know how long It will take him to allow himself to be with
anyone else,” he tells him carefully.

Anyone else. Honest to god, it hadn’t even crossed Taehyung’s mind that in a post-Julia world, he
needed to consider that Jungkook might move on to someone else, that if Taehyung moves away,
he might not come back to Jungkook being a Jeon again, but to Jungkook having found someone
else to push him not to be a Jeon. That he knows what he lacked in Julia now, so he might find it
somewhere else. The jealousy that strikes him isn’t blinding, but it’s stifling. It’s there. He’s
jealous of some hypothetical non-person.He doesn’t want to wish him loneliness. He never would.
He realizes it is in his loneliest moments that Jungkook himself reaches for a substance, and he
doesn’t want that. But he cannot find it in himself to wish him someone else either.

Jungkook fooled him into forgetting he could possibly replace him. He always speaks as if
Taehyung is the only boy that he could want. But he isn’t. Jungkook is hard to love, but he is not
hard to want.Taehyung is aware he could easily get someone else, somebody he hasn’t hurt. He
really wishes he was mature enough to want that for him. To wish him a better start.

He’s not. He’s more alike Jungkook than he lets himself show, at moments. He’s immature and
he’s possessive. He doesn’t trust anyone else to properly know Jungkook, to always distinguish his
family name to him, to remind him he can break apart from it, to allow him to care for his sister
more than he cares for anyone else.

He doesn’t want Jungkook to be alone, but he doesn’t want Jungkook to be with somebody else
either.

His teeth gnaw almost angry into his lip. “He doesn’t need to be with anyone else,” he says. “He
can have me.”
Namjoon’s eyes worry over him. “Taehyung,” his voice rings with a distinct caution, though he
pronounces his name slow and tentative, “were you with him, when Yoongi told him?”

Taehyung releases his lip. “Yes.”

“He—” he hesitates, brow twisting, “He didn’t take it well?”

Taehyung’s head shakes, voice small, “No.”

“Sleep on it, Tae.”

He sighs. He is well aware of what Namjoon suggests; seeing Jungkook like that affects him, pulls
his feelings for him on the surface, strips them naked, bare, exposed and vulnerable. He knows
this. It is why he didn’t tell Jungkook he wanted to stay in that gym. But he sighs and he says, “I’m
not staying just for him. It’s just,” his shoulders slump. “He was the only thing I wanted to leave,”
he shakes head once more, “but I don’t want to leave him.”

Namjoon’s eyes slim. He licks a stripe across his lips. “This whole community’s dysfunctional.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods. “Most are. And I don’t want to leave Woowoo in it.”

“He’s got Ji-woo.”

“She’s going to teach him some things I don’t want him to think.” He blinks and one of those
gruesome tears escapes the brim of his eyes, slips down his cheek. He wipes at it with a finger.
“Fuck,” he curses, frustration palpable, bringing away his hand to stare at the unbidden moisture
on his skin. “The fuck is wrong with me?”

Namjoon’s stare slips over him, careful. “When did you last let yourself cry about this?”

Taehyung wipes at his eye with his whole hand, removes any residual wetness that has gathered
there. “When it happened,” he admits. He does not like the way Namjoon phrases it. Let yourself,
he says, and Taehyung is reminded of all the stupid urges he gets, the lumps, the bite in his eyes
that he has to blink away.
“Tae,” Namjoon says, head tilting to the side as he gazes at him softly, “don’t hold shit like that
in.”

Taehyung huffs. “Ji-woo hasn’t cried in twelve years.”

Namjoon breathes slow and loud. He glances away, at nothing in particular. He tells him quietly,
“Ji-woo cried the night I came home.”

Taehyung’s lips seal. He stares at his brother, tries to judge by his expression if it is a lie, but he
finds no reason for it to be.

Namjoon’s hand raises, pats on the side of his shoulder.

“Sleep on it, Tae. Okay?” He tilts his brows at him, eyes glinting with something as they find his.
“That’s all I’m asking.”

They don’t say good morning to each other. Taehyung eats cereal at the table after Namjoon takes
Woojin to kindergarten. It’s safe, he assures him, sleep some more. Taehyung argues muffled into
his pillow for a few moments, but he lets him go. He couldn’t fall asleep last night, but he did
manage to drift off before Ji-woo came home.

Namjoon takes Woojin away before Taehyung can give him the drawing and it watches him now
as he eats, plastered onto the table in the kitchen.

He hears her walk down the steps, skip the third one, the weak one. They don’t say good morning
to each other. He keeps eating as she pours herself cereal as well, some skimmed milk.

She presses herself to the counter and eats standing up, the bowl fit in her fingers. But her eyes are
on the table.

“Is that Woojin?” she asks, curiosity curling her voice as her head tips slightly, lids squinting so
she can see better.

Taehyung nods. “Yeah.” He shoves the spoon in his mouth.

She pushes herself of the counter, draws closer to the table until her hips touch the edge. She tilts
her head down, eyes fitting over the paper as a negligible curve forms over her lips. “You haven’t
drawn something that isn’t a shape in so long. I forget—”

“I didn’t draw it,” Taehyung cuts her off, the sound of his spoon cluttering into the now empty
bowl ringing around them. His chair scrapes when he stands. “Jungkook did,” he tells her before he
starts the sink. “Woojin told him he wanted to be a part of the game.”

She says nothing. He dries his hands in the towel by the counter and leaves.

The solitude of his shower brims his head with as much thoughts as that of the night did. So, he
pushes it all away, screws his eyes shut, wraps a hand around himself. He tries not to think about
anything, just feel, just release a little of the tension that coils into the muscles of his body, but he
makes himself come to the thought of Jungkook at the gym, grabbing him back, fucking him
against one of those mirrors while he watches their bodies move together in all of the rest,
especially in that window that is meant to overlook Richhood, but it just reflects Jungkook pushing
inside of him.

“Hi.” It feels stupid. It’s such a simple word, a dumb greeting. But it feels so stupid. He has nothing
else to say, though, as he stares at Taehyung linger in his doorstep. It doesn’t shock him anymore.
No, the sight is not necessarily a surprise. With itself, however, this time it carries a dread,
apprehension that makes him curiously aware of his bowels as if they move around in his stomach
like the snakes that wrap around Kai's throat.
“Hey,” Taehyung returns, eyes skimming across him. He looks at his feet, and he looks at his own
eyes, and he drags his gaze over everything in between.

Jungkook pushes the door more, steps away from the threshold with it and beckons with his chin.
He stares at Taehyung’s shoes as he seems to fidget in them before he takes the one step that takes
him inside the apartment. He follows him to the living room, a different common path for him than
for Julia.

Taehyung’s jeans are faded and too big for him, a light color. His t-shirt is loose on broad
shoulders, opened wide at his neck, narrow bones stretching enunciated underneath tan skin,
clavicles meeting pretty and sharp at the dip of a long throat. The sleeves are close to reaching his
elbows and there is a slight tear at the hem of one, just where the thread that finishes off is.
Jungkook wonders if Taehyung even knows this. His hair looks sleek, soft, as it falls over dark
brows, some strands touching his lashes. His fingers almost twitch with the urge to reach and brush
some away, uncover more of his face then lose themselves in silky threads.

He doesn’t touch him, though, and he keeps his distance, tips his head.

“Came to say goodbye?”

Taehyung feels Jungkook’s eyes on him. They pierce through him somehow heavier than other
times or maybe it is just his own intention that lingers in his chest, that sears his blood, which
gives them this unforgiving weight.

Jungkook says the word goodbye and Taehyung’s eyes narrow.

He folds his arms over. “What do you want from this goodbye?” he asks him.

Jungkook’s eyes narrow more. His lips pull back, teeth are shiny and white as they show for the
moments he takes to speak with animation. “I don’t want it.” His expression isn’t soft, but his voice
somehow is. His lids lower. His stare seems to linger everywhere tonight, at every bit of him.
“Want you to stay.”

Taehyung takes his eyes away, rolls them across the entirety of the room as his lips part without
having an actual intent of speaking. He tightens his arms where he clutches them in front of his
chest. “What do you expect from it then?” he rephrases as he catches his gaze once more. “What’s
the point of this?”

Jungkook darts his eyes, now only over the features of his face, his concentration sealing there. “I
just—” his tongue indents his cheek, a sight by now familiar to Taehyung. His hesitation pulls
between them. His shoulders fold together. “Something final?”

Taehyung’s brows shift. “Final?” he tastes it on his lips. This, this, whatever the fuck this is, them,
it does feel incredibly incomplete. It had a starting point. Several, Taehyung thinks, each one
launching something new, the first look, the first touch, the first night at the hotel, the first time he
called him Taehyung, and the first time he called him Tae. The first time they had sex and the first
time they kissed. Each of those is a beginning on its own. None of them have ends.

“Yeah?” Jungkook’s voice curls as he says it, his own brows shoot up slightly.

Taehyung’s lips press. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

Jungkook’s head shakes. “I don’t want it.”

It’s too late, Taehyung thinks. “I promised,” he tells him. He needs to learn to keep his promises.

“It—” Jungkook shifts on his feet. Maybe he wants to come closer. Taehyung wants him to come
closer. “It’s soon.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods. He tugs his lower lip over his teeth, breathes, exhales deeply only through
his mouth. “I think it’s too soon, too,” he confesses. It’s true. It’s the truth. It’s too soon for this. He
doubts he’s ready. However, his shoulders shrug. However, his eyes seal helpless onto him and he
wants him to come closer. “But what’s the point in waiting?”

Jungkook’s laugh is curt and sardonic. His hand raises, palm rubs into the back of his neck as his
eyes fall away, head tilting down. “You getting me out of the way, then?” he asks, fingers tight
with the pattern they squeeze at his nape.

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head. “You’re the one who wanted a goodbye,” he accuses.
“Yes,” Jungkook answers, eyes snapping up. It’s almost a hiss.

Taehyung doesn’t sound indifferent, but he doesn’t sound too attached, either, and it wages a storm
inside Jungkook’s chest.

“How does it go?” Taehyung’s asking. “For you,” he shrugs, “how does it go? Why did you want
it?”

He tries to stifle the anger. He can’t be angry with him. It’s better this way. It’s better with
Taehyung separated from this, then with Taehyung sad. Jungkook tries to swallow frustration.
There is a lot he wants to say to him, show to him, if this is final, if this is goodbye, if this is
honestly his last chance. So, he cannot afford to have his judgment clouded by anger. It happens to
him, sometimes, happens to him a lot. Anger turns him slightly cruel, and anger always lingers,
appetitive to drive him to a wrong decision.

Anger isn’t beckoned. It comes with no invitation. And Jungkook knows he isn’t special in that. No
one wants anger, even if they anticipate it. Just like he never wanted many of the things he feels
when he’s around him. It shouldn’t matter. He thinks. It should matter that he can press it back
down in his chest and his stomach, keep it away from his tongue, his lips, his feet and his fists.

He has other things he wants at his lips. He has no plan. He did not imagine this in his head. It is
enough he has to go through it once. He does not expect it so soon. Namjoon has time; Kai is
known to be careful. Kai is cruel and meticulous.

But Jungkook isn’t given time. He takes some now, after Taehyung asks, he pauses. But
essentially, he’s given no time. He isn’t prepared. He doesn’t think he could ever exactly be. So, he
blurts, honest, “I’m sorry.”

Taehyung’s head cocks, eyes slither over him. “You’re sorry?” he repeats.

Jungkook’s lips press together, the tip of his tongue trapped in between. “Yes,” he nods.

The other’s brows furrow. “That you asked me for this?” he specifies, the tip of his head growing
deeper.

“No,” it’s breathy. His step forward is unintentional, but he can’t exactly take it back. He lets it be
just one, just one step closer to him. “That you feel that you have to leave. I’m sorry for what I
did.”

Taehyung’s lids lower, eyes soften. Apologies, he has learned from the several times he has heard
them from Jungkook’s lips, apologies go a long way, especially with someone like this, whose
behavior has always been unapologetic and unpunished. But apologies don’t erase anything.
“You’ve said sorry,” he mumbles, gaze drifting to the floor.

“No, I haven’t,” Jungkook’s head shakes and Taehyung is forced to look again, confused. “I said
sorry for a part of what I did,” Jungkook tells him as Taehyung’s eyes dart across. They appear
larger like this. His eyes are so big, perplexed. His eyes seem to glisten, and maybe it’s the light,
maybe it's not. They have this perpetual natural glow. “But I’m sorry for other things, too,”
Jungkook keeps talking. It is a war of who is less prepared for this. Neither wins, they both lose,
but Jungkook speaks anyway. “I’m sorry that I didn’t even use your name for I don’t know how
long,” he starts. Kim, it seems so far away now that he called him that, that he used to detach him
from his personality and attach him to his name, like he does to himself all the time. But it gives
Taehyung hope, because if he can do it for him, perhaps he’ll be able to do it for himself. “I’m
sorry I kept bringing up how much money you had as if it made you. I’m sorry I put Julia between
us for so long.” Taehyung’s lips part, neck cranes. He wants to tell him it’s okay, that was different.
It hurt, but it was different. Jungkook’s head shakes. “I’m sorry I tried to pay you the first time we
were alone," he tells him and Taehyung's lips press shut, "I’m sorry I kept leaving and then coming
back, expecting you to just—” he looks away, shoulders shrug, “yeah.” He runs out of words,
perhaps, but Taehyung is surprised he pulled that many out in the first place. Jungkook’s teeth
worry over his mouth before his head shoots back. “I am sorry I took so long to kiss you,” he says
and maybe the pause was to fill his voice again because it comes stronger. “I’m sorry I tried to
push you away after that. And I’m sorry about how I did it. And I’m sorry I never really
said sorry.”

And that thing that Taehyung confessed to Namjoon that he hates, that he doesn’t understand, it
happens again. He thinks he falls in love with him one bit more.

He wonders if love can be even be measured. If it can be more or less, grow or dwindle. Or once
you love, you love, and it is why Namjoon cannot escape the clutches. It’s probably different for
different people. For him it grows. It grows powerfully and Taehyung wonders if it will have a
peak, or it will just continue on and on like this and with every time he looks at him, he will fall in
love more.

“This is supposed to be a goodbye,” Taehyung shakes his head, “you get nothing out of being
sorry.”

Jungkook’s eyes dart across him, the way they expand in toll with his nostrils after a short bristle,
it’s almost offended. “I don’t expect anything out of it. I just want you to know that I am.”
Taehyung blinks. The swallow feels constricting in his throat, so he clears it, adjusts his arms
together in front of his chest. He squeezes so hard into his elbows to remain like this. “That’s what
you wanted to do? For this goodbye?”

No, Jungkook thinks. Not really. It doesn’t feel enough. It doesn’t offer any closure, especially
with the way Taehyung remains: soft, but detached. He doesn’t know what he expected, but he
hurts, and Taehyung doesn’t seem to and though the last thing he wants is to hurt him, that just
hurts more. “Yes.”

Taehyung takes a step forward. “And what do I do?”

“You…” It’s stupid. What he wants is stupider than that godawful ‘hi’ he said to him. But he gulps
it down. He wants it. “You kiss me goodbye,” he says. He’s embarrassed. He didn’t know he had
in him to be like this, but he is. He licks his lips, glances to the floor. “Can you?”

“No.”

Jungkook’s head snaps to him. “Why?” it draws out of him before he can stop himself. He
shouldn’t expect Taehyung to agree, but he does. Taehyung doesn’t owe him this, but he wants to
take it. What’s more, he’d allowed himself to think Taehyung would want it, too. He made him
wait for a kiss for so long. Too long.

He watches lashes bash over glistening big eyes. He watches his tongue skim over a full bottom lip
before it pauses to rest hesitant in the corner. “You asked me to stay,” he says.

Jungkook’s heart escalates. He tries to calm it, keep his mind in control of his tongue and his body,
and not that drumming heart. Taehyung is doing nothing but recapping what happened. He nods,
pronounces slowly. “Yes, I did.”

Taehyung’s lips part and for a moment Jungkook only watches his tongue linger pressed over the
roof of his mouth as he is saying no words. His eyes are fitted to the floor. The inhale he takes is
sharp, but his eyes feel sharper when they blink up. “What if I do?”

Maybe he took this moment of reluctance to gather his voice. But he fails. There is an edge to that
voice. It quivers. It feels like it’s climbing.
What if. what if. What If. He says what if, but it doesn’t exactly seem to register with Jungkook’s
body if one can judge by the steps he takes towards him, the cruel bash of his blood as it pulses
through veins. “Tae…”

Taehyung’s voice climbs more and more, charges for that edge. “What happens if I stay?” it’s
asking, “What do you want from me in that case?”

“Anything,”Fuck. Jungkook is touching his face. He doesn’t even know when he reaches him. He
keeps his body away, but his hand raises, fingers brush across his cheek. It’s nothing solid. It’s a
ghostly touch, digits hovering over him more so than holding him. His eyes are wide, he’s trying to
speak through them once more, chin tilting into his neck. “Anything you want,” he tells him.
“Anything you’d give.” He hears the words after he says them, but he means them, so it’s okay. It’s
okay. He’s struggling to even his breath, but it’s fine. He sounds desperate, but that’s okay, too. He
is, so it’s fine. “Taehyung, are you serious?” he’s asking, “Are you staying?” He can’t seem to
wrap his head around it. “Is this hypothetical? Because if this is just scenarios—”

If it is, if Taehyung is playing at scenarios, what if this, what if that, Jungkook doesn’t think he can
take it. Not now. He’s always liked games, and he supposes he deserves for someone to play. back,
but he can’t take it. Not when the possibility of Taehyung staying feels so utterly exhilarating. It’s
physical. It pulls him forward to where he is almost touching him now, tips of his fingers
occasionally brushing into his cheek. It’s physical. It pulls words from his brain straight to his
tongue.

Taehyung’s voice climbs some more. The palm of his hand is warm when he raises his hand. His
fingers fit around the wrist that hovers close to his jaw. “I’m serious.”

“I,” He steps closer. He steps closer. He feels stupid all over again, inadequate almost, and he’s
always hated inadequacy. His father would deem it laughable. He can’t find in himself to care. He
steps closer. “I’d do anything, okay?” His brows furrow as he searches his face, from so close.
Taehyung isn’t pulling away. He’s allowing him a proximity like this. He takes it. “I’ll kiss you all
you want,” he promises because he still hasn’t forgiven himself he said no to him so many times,
“kiss you anywhere you ask me to, kiss without you asking me to. Just…” there are no more steps
to take forward, it seems, “Stay,” he exhales. “Okay?” He hears himself soft in one moment,
demanding in the next. “What do you want?” he asks him. “What do you want? Tell me, Tae. I’ll
give it to you.”

Taehyung’s voice finally topples over that edge it threatens to. “Just…” His face morphs. Whatever
this fucking front is, it slips, falls, and his face changes, features screw, sharp, familiar features
twist and contort into an expression that speaks of difficulty, and it is in turn hard for Jungkook to
look at him like this, but it betrays an affect that makes Jungkook’s blood run hotter. His head tilts
slightly, cheek chasing after the heat of Jungkook’s palm, and he cups his face more boldly. “Just
be with me.”

“I am,” he says. “I am.” He promises. “I’m here, aren’t I?” His thumb grazes at his cheekbone; his
skin is so soft, immaculate and Jungkook’s calloused fingers probably should not be allowed to
touch. “I’m with you.”

Taehyung’s head straightens, lifts from his hold and his fingers tighten over his wrist, as if to make
sure he’s there. His thumb brushes across bone and skin. “I don’t—” his gaze coats over him,
tongue runs over his lips; he’s hesitant, almost scared. “I don’t mean just now, in the moment,
Kook.” Taehyung squeezes at his wrist again, fingers clutching for some security. “I mean.” He
swallows, eyes fall down to his chest before he chances them at his own. “Be with me. With me.
Like, you and I, together.”

Jungkook’s pulling his hand away and Taehyung’s fingers are forced to uncurl, hang loose in the
air, folded in the pattern of Jungkook's wrist. His brows furrow. “Be together?” he pronounces,
tastes it on his tongue, and it seems to taste ridiculous with the way it sounds from his lips.
Something bilious settles itself unforgivingly in Taehyung’s stomach at the sheer bewilderment
that drafts through the other’s features, his voice. “You want me to be your…” his eyes search as
he takes a step back and perhaps he waits for Taehyung to fill in, but Taehyung is just watching
him with wide eyes, so he does it himself in the end, “boyfriend?”

He doesn’t say it disgusted, but he says it so perplexed, and Taehyung’s chest feels empty all of a
sudden.

“I—"

Jungkook’s taking another step back and it feels like a punch to the gut. “Have you gone mad?” he
breathes.

Taehyung’s features twist. He shakes his head, wraps his arms around himself again, protective. “I
thought you said anything.”

“Anything,” Jungkook pronounces sharply, teeth clashing together, “that is fucking possible,
Taehyung.”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow. “This—” he says, “This is possible, Jungkook. You just. You’re just—"
“What?” Jungkook interrupts almost thunderous, but then his voice falls, drops. He presses a
spread palm to his chest. “I’m just what?” he urges, urges with his words and with his whole face,
eyes asking Taehyung, brows asking Taehyung, lips asking Taehyung. “Scared?” he guesses, he
finishes. It’s obvious. “Is that what you want to accuse me of being?” the question in itself borders
an accusation of its own. “Cause yes,” he says, fingers digging in his chest harder. “I’m scared,” he
confesses, a single almost unnoticeable quiver of his voice forcing itself into his words. He extends
his free arm backwards, points at the door to his fucking marble hallway. “Because if I walk in my
house and tell my father that I’m no longer with Julia cause I like fucking poor boys in the ass now,
he will not just disown me. He will probably goddamn kill me just in case it ever gets out, cause
he’d rather have a dead son than a gay son.”

His eyes feel penetrative as they dig into his. Taehyung would tell him he doesn’t want that,
doesn’t expect it. Not his father. But the deflation from Jungkook’s immediate reaction spirals into
anger and his lips seal shut. He waits, offers no reassurance to that, because he wants to see, see
how it is for Jungkook, what the fuck anything means to him.

Jungkook stares back into Taehyung’s silence, chest raise and fall, before his arm drops. His head
tilts. “Can’t we…” he slides over to him again, voice slips softer, his fingers prod gingerly into
Taehyung’s forearms which his keeps closed protective in front of himself, “can’t we just be like
before, but better, see each other, kiss each other, just be with each other, okay?” He searches his
eyes, “Not together?”

Taehyung untangles his arms, pries them away from his touch. His eyes narrow, he scoffs. He
wonders what that fucking word, together, means to him that it scares him so much. Taehyung
doesn’t want to goddamn marry him, doesn’t want Jungkook to tattoo on his forehead that they’re
together. He only wants his security, his word, he wants it explicit that Jungkook doesn’t have the
right to fuck someone else and justify it in his head that they are nothing exclusive, that Taehyung
doesn’t have the right to be hurt because he lied to him that they were nothing to each other. He
wants them together for them, not for an audience.

“And I suppose you wouldn’t want me to see, kiss and be with other people, would you?” he’s still
scoffing. It all sounds like one big angry, disbelieving scoff.

It’s more questioning his concept of what he wants from them than anything else, but Jungkook’s
features pull. “Do you want to be with other people?” he asks, voice smaller.

Taehyung’s eyes search his. “No,” he tells him, as firmly as he can. “Okay?” his brows lift. “Shit,
no.” He shakes his head, moves back, paces slightly through the room. “But I don’t want you to be
with other people, either. And you won’t ever fucking grant me that, will you?” he throws a hand
in his hair. “God,” he bents slightly to the floor, twists at the waist, and he laughs, because isn’t
this funny, isn’t this fucking hilarious, “you’ll probably be engaged to Julia in a few months.”

Anything, Jungkook says. Anything that wouldn’t require for him to drop his fucking Aston
Martin, Taehyung thinks.

“Julia and I are over, Tae,” Jungkook’s voice carries soft over to him, “You know that.”

Okay, one thing, he gave up one thing.

“Some other rich girl then,” Taehyung shrugs. “And I?” he presses his thumb in his chest, eyes
widening as he stares into his. “I will be stuck being your exclusive, dirty little secret. Probably
fucking cater your wedding. We can go for a quick romp before the ceremony.” He huffs, breathes
through his nose. He runs that one hand deep through his hair before he drops it by his thigh in
defeat. “If being a poor boy, if being a Kim has taught me anything, it’s self-preservation,
Jungkook. And being around you?” his brows lift. “It’s the fucking opposite.”

Namjoon, Ji-woo and him, the three of them have always known a lot about surviving, little about
living. And with Jungkook, Taehyung allows himself to live, at a cost, and maybe that is a mistake
considering just who they are.

He doesn’t really mean to sound final, doesn’t mean to seem like he’s going, because with or
without Jungkook, he’s staying in Seoul, and he needs to know whether this ends or begins, but
Jungkook misinterprets his step, fingers curl around his arm. He pulls him to himself. “Don’t
fucking leave,” he says and it’s breathy, it sounds like a please. “Hey,” he calls in an exhale, eyes
studying each line of his face. “You don’t have to worry about self-preservation, okay?” he nods to
him, desperate. “Even as my secret, I can buy you anything you want. I can buy you an atelier, I
can—"

“I don’t care about money, Jungkook,” Taehyung interrupts, he’s almost yelling, “I care about you.
Obviously, we’re incompatible for this one,” he shakes his head, tells him softer.

Jungkook’s words are hurried, so hurried. “That’s not true, Tae. I—"

“You what?” he challenges. “You’re possessive over me, yeah?” his expression contorts, almost
offended, mostly pained. Jungkook can’t take it. “Over your things.” He can’t hear him calling
himself a thing, either, especially when he talks of his perception of him. “Rich and spoiled since
birth, right? You don’t want anyone playing with your toys.”
Jungkook’s fingers squeeze, his teeth grind together. “You’re not a toy to me, Taehyung,” his voice
tugs, layers with emotion, and he fucking hopes it registers with him. He thought Taehyung knew
that at least, he tried to tell him so many times.

“Fine,” his jaw slacks, teeth clashing together “But why is money so important to you?”

Jungkook swallows, tongue courses over his lip. His eyes dart to their corners for the breath of a
moment, before he chances a look back at him. “Money is what brought you to me, isn’t it?”

Taehyung’s always needed money. He’s always hated money. Right now, he loathes them.

“Julia needed to buy me, Jungkook,” Taehyung shakes his head, eyes coating over him, somehow
softer. “Not you. You’ve always had me for free. Now, too. There’s no use in trying to buy me
now.” He takes a step back and Jungkook doesn’t know what for, but he panics.

“You’re not walking away,” he tugs him back to himself, close, as close as he’ll have him. “Listen,
listen to me.” He slides his grip lower on his arm, from his elbow to just above his wrist and he
wraps as much as he can of his hand and fingers around him, holds him there, softly, lightly.
Taehyung doesn’t pull away, presses a fist to his chest to keep a distance, but he doesn’t pull away.
And Jungkook doesn’t know what Taehyung means by together, but he promises anything he can
give without losing his family. “I’ll be with you, okay, yours.”

Yours, he murmurs, and Taehyung’s heart flutters. Mine, he used to call him, but it never went both
ways. Taehyung was his and he was Julia’s. “You get rights over me,” Jungkook keeps speaking
and Taehyung’s fingers curl onto the shirt at his chest. He feels they are no longer there to keep
him away, but he isn’t sure yet. “All the fucking rights,” he promises, he lists, “to ask me where I
am, who I’m with, to call me, to text me, to kiss me whenever you want, to see me whenever you
want, to talk to me about whatever you want. Okay?” Taehyung senses fingers press into the shape
of his waist, insubstantial, careful, so he presses against them. They squeeze with almost ghostly
pressure in return. “It won’t be like before,” Jungkook shakes his head, the hand around his arm,
falling lower. The tips of his digits tease over his palm. “I’m not holding back from you, not giving
you bits and pieces, not pretending I don’t care.” His fingers slip some more, tentative as they tap
at the gaps between his. Taehyung’s own fingers part, and Jungkook’s hand falls into his fully,
digits intertwining, pressing their palms together. His thumb closes over the back of his hand, pats
at his knuckles and rests there. “You don’t have a public title or some shit, but you have me. All of
me.”

Taehyung’s forehead creases and Jungkook wants to press his against him, straighten the lines out.
“All of you?” he repeats back to him, hungry for confirmation. It’s barely a breath and it’s just
against his lips, slipping in between them, in him, this particular promise a part of him now.

“Yeah, all of me,” he says again, and it falls easy from his mouth. He has always expected from
himself that a promise of dedication like this would feel like a sacrifice. He has always been
reluctant to give something like this to Julia, and in turn, she was as well. But it doesn’t. He doesn’t
mind giving Taehyung permission to have all of him, doesn’t mind talking to him about Clo, or his
father, doesn’t mind getting his texts, only sleeping with him. He’d warned him a while ago not to
have any expectations from him, but he wants Taehyung to expect things from him, to want things
from him.

He tightens his fingers around his, holds his hand better. “I don’t want this out because I’m scared
of what it would do to the both of us. Not because I don’t want people to know, okay?” he pats his
thumb over his, tips his head closer. “I want them to. I just don’t trust them.”

The apartment is big, huge, enormous. They only need a tiny portion of it, really, to have this
murmured conversation.

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes charting all over his face, from so close, the closest he could be
without touching, and he wants him closer still. “I don’t expect you to tell people like your dad,
Jungkook,” he tells him now, when he is calmer, when he listens. “I just,” he fits his fingers harder
into his shirt, hesitates, but he speaks, “I want to know you won’t, like, go to the Ring and fuck
someone else after you fight. I don’t want to be constantly hiding this, just seeing you in back
rooms for quick fucks.”

They don’t shout at each other now, they talk. And it works, somehow it works.

“Hey,” he bends his head slightly, chases after his eyes when Taehyung attempts to glance at the
floor. He doesn’t let him, captures his eyes with his own and clutches onto them, wide and bare.
“Ever since the first time I touched you, I haven’t been with anyone else, except…you know.” His
lips pull tight, jaw ticks, and he doesn’t say it. It pangs with livid shame in his chest, and he keeps
going, gets past it. “Not even Julia,” he shakes his head. “I don’t want anyone else. Not after I
fight, not ever. I just want you,” He squeezes at his fingers and he squeezes at his waist. “And I’ll
tell Yoongi and Hoseok, and you can meet them and see Yoongi’s not scary,” he tells him. He has
every intention of fitting Taehyung into every area of his life in which he’s allowed to, not just
bathrooms and back rooms. “And Julia knows and Clo does.” He adjusts his feet in some blind
effort to come closer when he realizes it’s not entirely possible. “Everyone I trust,” he elaborates.
“You’re not a secret. You’re not dirty.”

Taehyung’s teeth work into his bottom lip. Jungkook has his eyes in a trap and he can’t look away.
He doesn’t want to. His eyes seem so painfully honest. Taehyung waits for the doubt. He waits for
his chest to sink with the fear he is lying. But words keep falling from Jungkook’s mouth, words he
wanted to hear, but never knew it precisely. And he believes him, mostly because Jungkook
doesn’t promise him some utopia, he promises what he can genuinely give. Taehyung wishes
things were different, that he could ask for more and that Jungkook could offer more. But for now,
all he wants is him, and he offers him that. He wants to take.

His big eyes blink. “And I get all of you?”

“Anything you want to take,” Jungkook starts, in a breath, a breath that swiftly finds itself mingling
with Taehyung’s own. His nose brushes his and his head tilts, gives him room to come closer, until
he can feel his blinks against his cheeks, “it’s yours.”

Jungkook doesn’t know if he’s allowed to kiss him, but with the way large eyes glisten at him and
full lips part, he can’t not. He’s so close. He’s so infuriatingly close, and their breath is already
one, so he figures it shouldn’t be a problem if he steals it away completely. Taehyung said no to a
kiss goodbye, but this is anything but. So, he takes a chance, he brushes his nose against his cheek
and presses his lips to his.

Taehyung sighs into him at the very first motion of his mouth against his. He sighs and his eyes
fall shut, his hand falling from in between them to null the distance from chest to chest. Jungkook
doesn’t have to probe like last time, doesn’t have to urge. Taehyung’s lips mold and move
immediately with his. His fingers fit around his waist as his mouth opens against him for a new
taste, a new one, a new one. Each feels new.

Jungkook’s tongue brushes against his bottom lip, touches the tip of Taehyung’s.

He feels his head shake.

“What are you doing to me, Jungkook?” he asks, and neither know whom precisely he asks, but the
words are there, between them, so Jungkook answers.

“I’m just kissing you, Tae,” he whispers in his lips, lets go of his hand to wrap it at his waist with
the other, pulling him closer.

“Why?” Taehyung questions, brows furrowing together over closed eyes, but it is not a protest. His
lips respond to every suggestion of Jungkook’s own.
He wants to know why this kiss feels so different. He wants to know if it is because he kisses him
for the first with the very clear knowledge in his mind that he is in love with him. He wants to
know if it is because of the things they said to each other. One way or another, he feels
overwhelmingly secure in this. Kissing Jungkook never felt wrong, but it always felt like a risk. It
doesn’t anymore. It just feels.

Jungkook’s lips press firmer against his. He pulls them away for a second, but still keeps close
enough for him to feel them move when he says, so simply, “Cause I want to.” He’s on him again,
head tilting, lips taking.

“I hate you,” Taehyung whispers in his mouth. “I hate you so much.”

He loves him, he screams in his head, he loves him so much.

“I know,” Jungkook murmurs right back, the vibration of his voice delicious on his chest and in his
lips, and Taehyung wonders if he knows of what he says or of what he thinks.

He wants the words in his mouth to be the same as the ones on his mind. He wants to tell him, but
he’s frightened it will only push him away. Steps, Taehyung promises himself, steps. They were
never ones to take steps, not as they should be, at least, but he’s terrified of terrifying Jungkook.

His lips feel too good on his own. They’re scalding, they burn, but it’s good. It’s mind numbingly
good. He forgets to think. He just kisses him back, kind of messy, kind of wet. Very honest. He
pours thoughts into his mouth, hopefully he does, pours himself into it.

And he touches him firmer. He grasps at his shirt, gives it a tug. He wants it off. He wants to feel
his skin. Jungkook’s arms don’t raise, he doesn’t assist him, and Taehyung’s impatient. His palms
are slipping underneath, gliding greedy along the smoothness of his back, fingers dipping in the
line of his spine, where he senses with the tips of his digits the definition of sensitive bone. He
presses into him, digs his fingers deep across the dents, while he slides his hands easy, almost
lethargic. He wants to feel every patch of skin, memorize how it feels under his own. He wants to
be able to touch any part of him and be able to tell, with his eyes closed, that it is Jungkook he’s
touching.

“Tae,” Jungkook exhales through a kiss, as he feels the intent of Taehyung’s touch, his own hands
lingering at the top of his waist, tentative in the fold of it above his hips, over his clothes, “we
don’t have to,” he tells him. The next press of his lips onto his is close mouthed, a peck.
Taehyung shakes his head, opens his mouth against his, fits Jungkook’s bottom lip between his
teeth and tugs gently, his tongue sliding in with the gap he creates for himself, a groan elicited
from the other against him. His hands grasp at him firmer, pull him closer, fingers mold into his
flesh, but it’s still not enough. Taehyung wants Jungkook. “I want to,” he mumbles to him, hands
curling over his shoulder blades, “but I want it like—” he slides his palms lower, blinks his eyes
open and all he can see is Jungkook, “like last time.”

They could take it slow. It’s best to take it slow. But neither of them is really good at doing what’s
best. And Taehyung? Taehyung can’t tell him that he loves him. He’s scared just like he accuses
the other of being. So, he’ll show him. He’ll show him. That, he can do. They’ve always been
better at this. At expressing each other through something physical.

“Always,” Jungkook’s teeth pull back. They bare, skim across Taehyung’s lower lip and press, tug,
like a promise. He’s gentle. It’s pressure, not pain. His eyes are screwed shut so tightly, “Okay?”
His hands squeeze into his waist, “always like last time.” Jungkook’s forehead presses into his for
a moment, he shakes it. “Never treating you like you’re worthless again, okay?” He pulls him
closer. His hands still linger modest where he touches him, but he lines his body with his, the heat
of the press distinctive and familiar, but it’s been so long, and it feels new. He wants more.
Jungkook’s lips chase after his when he pulls back to breathe. “Never taking you for granted
either.” His mouth opens against him, “Not gonna treat you like a fucking hole.”

One of Taehyung’s hands sneaks from underneath his shirt, cradles at his chin, his neck. “Good,”
he kisses him, the sound of it loud in the room, the tip of one of his fingers prodding distractedly at
the lobe of his ear. “But don’t treat me like I’m gonna break, either.” He tilts his head, presses his
lips into the corner of his, before he pulls back slightly, lids lifting hooded over his eyes. “I won’t.”

Jungkook blinks his own eyes opened, stares into his. “Yeah, I know,” he raises one of his hands
too, pats a thumb brief on his cheek before he slides it into strands of his hair, tightens fingers as he
dives for another kiss. “You’re stronger than you look,” he murmurs into his lips before he seals
them together with his once more.

One hand in his hair, the other moves from his waist and the dip in his back and Taehyung’s body
curls against his. They fit, he thinks. His body lines with his so easily, so perfectly. He used to
believe he wanted to be the taller one, have someone small pressed against him, but now he figures
that wouldn’t be enough. He likes that Jungkook is as tall as him, as wide as him, as big as him,
likes that he is stronger than him, too. He loves how the press of him feels, how snugly they line
with each other, how his fingers grow either bolder or hungrier in his hair as they pull at threads
when he presses himself closer.

He likes how big the arm that drapes around him is. He likes that there is something about this,
about them, when they kiss each other like this, that feels very curiously equal. He feels similar to
him, his body is so similar to his, yet with such intricate differences, each so worthy of exploration.
He loves the slide of his tongue against his, loves parting his mouth to allow it, loves sneaking his
own into his in return. He loves that when he breathes in, he breathes in Jungkook. It’s the last of
warm days, and Jungkook sweats, and he smells a bit of it, but it’s faint. He smells musky, as
always, expensive, but Taehyung only cares because it is distinctly Jungkook.

He lives for the way they match, for the way Jungkook’s hunger for his pulses into his, grows into
his own. His lips grow more appetitive, and his hands seem to as well, but they are slightly
hesitant. The hand on his waist slides down a little and pauses, seems to wait for permission. So,
Taehyung lets go of his chin, reaches behind himself, fingers clutching at Jungkook's wrist and he
pushes it down.

Jungkook’s fingers curl against his ass and he kisses him harder, Taehyung’s lips opening in a tiny
gasp when he squeezes into him. Jungkook presses closer, bolder. He pulls once at his hair before
he slides his other hand down, too, fits it all across his back before he grasps at him with it, snug
against the curve of him. He layers his palms over both of his cheeks, feeling him, before he twists
his fingers below, bending his body slightly as he grabs at his thighs.

Taehyung gasps louder. The touches are indicative, but he is too lost in the kiss to really tell before
his feet lift off the floor. His head draws back with it, a miniature, momentary fear, before he wraps
his arms around Jungkook’s shoulders, his legs around his hips. Jungkook mouths at his jaw at the
separation, tongues at his throat, Taehyung has to exhale softly at the sensation, the other's lips hot
as they work on his neck.

Woojin is right. Jungkook lifts him so easily, hands hoisting him up in a position that is
comfortable for him to hold, before they fit at the crevices below the globe of his ass, clutch
mostly at his thighs, as he locks his legs around him. He presses him into his stomach like this,
Taehyung has to spread his legs, press his crotch into the lines of his abdominals, and he feels
himself slide across the muscle beneath his clothes when Jungkook readjusts him in his arms.

He can feel Jungkook, too, just where his legs spread, where the cheeks of his ass part. He wants to
feel more. He’s wanted him like this for so long. He never stopped wanting him like this, no matter
how begrudgingly and guiltily, if Taehyung thought about sex, his mind and body immediately
flooded, screamed Jungkook.

Jungkook carries him to him room, doesn’t need eyes. He knows this sterile fucking apartment like
the back of his hand. He keeps his attention entirely on Taehyung, on kissing him, his lips, the
sharp line of his jaw, his neck, his collar bones. He slides his tongue over crevices, presses open
mouthed kisses. But he doesn’t leave marks. He wants desperately to nip at his skin, claim him.
His throat is so long, his clavicle so pretty, and the tan skin over it all so smooth and begging for
him to leave a pattern behind, but he doesn’t.
He clutches at his thighs, squeezes into them. He’s skinny and light, but his thighs are broader than
any woman he’s been with, fuller, he absolutely loves them closed around his waist like this. He
feels him against his stomach. With the squeeze of Jungkook’s fingers against his flesh, he allows
himself a movement, grips onto his shoulders tighter and charts his hips subtly into his, sliding
himself across the muscles in his stomach, clenched tight to support his weight.

Jungkook’s lips helplessly curl into his neck at the motion. The small sound that escapes him when
he does it is so utterly delicious, and he wants to hear more. So, he’ll make him moan more.

He wants him as disheveled as he feels, head a mess, lips desperate, hands desperate. He wants to
touch,touchtouchtouch. Everywhere. Taehyung lets him, he allows him when he is scared to allow
himself, urges, and makes himself too irresistible not to touch.

He lowers him onto his bed and feels his lips on his. Taehyung kisses him, starved, kisses him so
open-mouthed and hungry it’s almost obscene, but Jungkook has his tongue chasing after his
immediately. His legs don’t uncoil from around him; he keeps him close, locked in, but he shifts
himself back on the bed a little to create space between them, just enough from his hands to trail
from his shoulders to the hem of his shirt, just above his belt. His shirt has buttons, but Taehyung
doesn’t seem to care. He pushes at it, wants it off.

Jungkook draws back, knows the shirt is fitted too right, tight and especially for him around his
arms, so he needs to undo the buttons, can’t just pull it over his head. He blinks at him, when he
moves his fingers rapid over the infuriating clothing, realizes he has the fucking honor of having
him on his bed for the second time. And last time? Last time he fucked up.

He won’t do it again. This time he is not fucking up. But as he looks at his lashes bat pretty over
his cheeks, his eyes glisten, hooded and sultry, his full lips, swollen from him, part and gasp for
breaths. He’s so fucking beautiful. Jungkook wonders if he even deserves a second chance to fuck
up.

Taehyung’s eyes dance from where they stare at his fingers awaiting up to his own. They blink at
him. What’s wrong, they seem to ask as Jungkook’s fingers pause, where he’s on his knees
between his legs on that bed. He knows he doesn’t deserve a second chance.

“Are you sure?” Jungkook asks, chest raising and falling more rapid from using every spare breath
he has to give it to Taehyung, to kiss him.
Taehyung’s brows furrow. “Jungkook—"

“Are you sure you want me?” he blurts into his confusion.

“Yes,” Taehyung nods, sitting up more. “I told you,” he says softly, “I want to.”

Jungkook’s head shakes. “I don’t mean sex.” He has no doubt he wants to sleep with him. He feels
it in the way he kisses him, the way he touches him, the way he practically grinded on his stomach,
the way he looked at him the other day in the gym. “I mean me.”

Fuck, Taehyung’s eyes fall over him. He wants to tell him that he loves him so fucking much.

Taehyung presses a palm in the bed, raises up more as he scoots himself closer, legs parting as he
folds over to reach him. He clutches at the hem of his collar, pulls him down. “Of course, I want
you,” he kisses gingerly at his lips. “You can touch me,” he mumbles to him as he swipes his
thumb across his clavicle underneath before he fists fully at his shirt, pulls the sleeve brusquely off
of his shoulder. “Please touch me.”

Jungkook helps him shun the shirt entirely off of his shoulders. “Where?” he asks him as he kisses
him back, almost vicious, his hand raising to cup at his neck, fingers reaching below his jaw and
curling at the back, falling in with strands.

“Everywhere,” Taehyung returns the murmur, returns the kiss, just as appetitive. “I’m—” he
hesitates, laps at his own lips and his tongue touches Jungkook’s, so he kisses him again. “You get
all of me, too.”

“Fuck,” Jungkook breathes, presses his free fist into the mattress next to him and leans over him,
crawling closer as Taehyung relaxes back onto the bed. He’s kissing him with his lips, his tongue,
his teeth, small nips at his bottom lip.

Taehyung slides a hand across his chest. He’d wanted to touch him so badly the other day at the
gym, run his fingers all across his bare skin, feel the dips of his muscles. He rolls his palm against
his nipple, basks in the small sound that escapes his lips and falls into his. He moves his hand
down, glides a thumb across him experimentally, touch firmer and braver.

Jungkook lowers his body slightly, fits himself between his legs, until he’s lining up, until he can
feel the heat of him pressing against him. Taehyung’s moan is unsubtle when he feels him, snugly
sliding over the length of him, the shape of his arousal solid under unnecessary layers of clothing.
His head tilts back, lips separating from his for the bare moments it takes them to shape a sound in
abandon. Jungkook uses the moment their lips part to let go of his neck, not before he presses a kiss
to the end of his jaw, grip at the oversized t-shirt and lift it off of him.

He catches him at the waist next, pressing his lips back into his. Taehyung can’t get enough of
that, of just kissing him. He tastes so perfect – he has not definition for that perfection, cannot
associate the taste with anything else, but it is all he wants right now, and he opens his mouth,
takes it in. They kiss shirtless, hips tilting into each other as Taehyung’s legs spread more, beckon
him to fit between them further and he does. Taehyung grapples at his ass, pulls him into himself,
coaxing a rut out of his hips against him, grinding down as his own snap up, stutter into his. The
sound of him gasping against his lips, moaning against his lips is perpetual now. He’s completely
lost himself in this and he doesn’t hold back, doesn’t feel a need to.

He swears he could easily come like this, just kissing Jungkook, toying with his nipples and pulling
him between his legs. But he doesn’t want to, wants him inside of him.

“Jungkook,” he whines into his lips, fingers teasing at the hem of his pants, wanting to slide under,
feel the skin over the curve of his ass.

Jungkook hums against him, curls his hand over his waist and slides it over his stomach, palm
pressing down at his navel to separate their hips for a moment. His fingers sink lower, snap the
button of his jeans easily, pull the zipper down. He parts his pants but doesn’t touch him.
Taehyung’s hips jerk up, chase after his hand, but he’s flattening it against his stomach again.

“Jungkook,” he tries again, “it’s been so long… Just—”

“I know,” Jungkook kisses his cheek, his jaw, his neck. He teases his fingers over his underwear,
touches him, coaxes a whimper, before he grips at his jeans, tugs at them. “I’ll take care of you,
promise.”

Taehyung lifts his hips off the bed, helps him pull the jeans off of his legs. They’re big on him,
come down easy, and he kicks his shoes off. He palms at him over his underwear, cups his hand
under his balls, palm rotating before he grips firmer at his length. It has him keening.

Taehyung’s hands are ushering at Jungkook’s pants, undoing his belt, and he lets him. Taehyung
snaps it open, fingers trembling under the sensation of Jungkook touching him like this, but he
wants to feel more of him naked. He slides his hand under his pants, under his underwear, grips at
his ass and pulls him forward, lips finding his again.

Jungkook kisses him briefly before he’s pulling away, getting on his feet and away from
Taehyung. He doesn’t let him, clings to his bicep, locking his knees around him. “Jungkook—”

“Just getting you something, Tae,” he seals the words with a kiss and Taehyung parts his legs, lets
him.

He reappears in moments, just goes to his drawer. He throws the bottle he get on the sheets, slips
fingers into Taehyung’s underwear and slides it down over long legs, painfully slowly. Taehyung
has to bite his lips not to whine more.

“Keep your knees like that for me,” Jungkook instructs softly, coaxing his legs apart more with
gentle touches to his calves as he kneels between them on the mattress.

Taehyung does, he presses himself into the bed, opens his legs and looks as Jungkook’s eyes drop
to him exposed. They hood over, blink to him salacious and hungry, and Taehyung does feel a sort
of vulnerability, spread for him like that, but it only serves to turn him on more. The hand that
clutches at his waist, just over the curve of his ass where he folds his leg up, thumb pressing into
his hipbone, is rough. He jostles him into place, bringing his thighs closer to his calves, so his ass
raises more. He loves the grip of those fingers as it grows sure on his body.

Jungkook squeezes lube on his fingers, rubs a thumb into his digits to warm it up slightly before he
brings one closer, circles the tip tentatively around his rim. Taehyung’s hips jerk to him, beggingly,
teeth sinking into his lip. The finger probes once more over him before it sinks into him.
Taehyung’s body pulls back from it instinctively before he goes a little deeper and he relaxes into
the touch, hissing slightly, lips curling over his teeth, baring them.

“Fuck, so tight,” Jungkook groans out, head tilting as he shifts forward on his knees, observing his
finger tease at Taehyung. He moves it slowly inside of him, holding his waist with his free hand to
keep him from instinctively scurrying away. When he presses deep and Taehyung’s hips don’t
recede with a breath, he replaces the grip to his thigh, digits digging into the flesh until it molds
with the pattern of his hold of Jungkook. He presses so deep, slow and thorough, and Taehyung’s
own fingers clutch to the sheets, head tipping back into the mattress as his lids meet each other.
“Have you even touched yourself since you last had me?”

Jungkook watches him, watches the small, subconscious jerks of his hips, the exposed line of his
throat, which he wants to pepper with marks, the way his lips hopelessly open but say nothing, just
breathe. Sweat slips into the strands of his hair and they gather together in threads with the
wetness, curling slightly into waves from the moisture and it shows more of his forehead, more of
his face. Jungkook’s hard as fuck and the sight of him like that makes him twitch, but he could
honestly do this for hours.

“Not like this, no,” he shakes his head with an exhale.

A second finger prods at him and he stills his hips for a moment, Jungkook slides it in careful, and
his neck cranes more with his moan. Jungkook’s grip tightens into his thigh, pulls him closer and it
lines him on his fingers more.

Touching himself like this was firstly incredibly elaborate for him to so consciously pursue, and
secondly was directly begging for his brain to summon memories of Jungkook. So, he gave himself
time, for that, reduced sex to careless strokes under the shower that still, inadvertently, coerced him
into thinking of Jungkook. He slipped a finger, a curious finger, for some moments under the bash
of the water over his head, but it was never more than that.

Taehyung wishes he could take him without this. Wishes he could take him immediately, but ever
since he last had Jungkook inside him, he hasn’t even touched himself like this. He needs those
fingers. And they feel good, they feel amazing, but he wants Jungkook closer. He wants more of
him.

And he wants Jungkook to feel this, too.

Jungkook is patient, fucking him open carefully with those fingers, watching him with lewd,
alluring eyes that feel heavy, so heavy, as they drag from where digits disappear inside of him and
over the rest of him, the expanse of his thighs, the stretch of his stomach, the raise of his ribs with
the sporadic sighs of his chest. Jungkook is patient and Taehyung is not.

His hips are almost restless on the bed, but every time they shift into his fingers, Jungkook’s grip
grows tighter on his thigh, holding him in place as he works him to his pace. He presses a third
finger at him, Taehyung’s breath stilling. He sinks teeth more into his lip, holds like that for him,
holds docile as he presses inside of him, the stretch delicious, but the pressure so much.
Taehyung’s hand flies, unbidden, locks around Jungkook’s wrist, grasping onto it tightly as he
rocks himself experimentally against him. Jungkook lets him, for a couple thrusts, before he snaps
his fingers inside of him, listens to Taehyung whine with it.

The drag of calloused, thick fingers right against his skin is satisfying in most primitive, sexual
way. But Taehyung wants to feel more than that, more than the pleasure of something that is
unquestionably physically gratifying. He wants to share this with Jungkook, and he wants to touch
him. He wants him too close not to touch. He wants him inside of him, wants him on top of him,
wants him everywhere.

And maybe Jungkook himself isn’t as patient as he seems, if Taehyung can judge by how clumsily
he tugs his pants down with one hand, releases his thigh, shuns himself of the rest of his clothing
and then dips a palm in the mattress next to his head, coming closer. He keeps his fingers working
him open, but he slides his body against him, in between his legs, his length lining with his own,
and he breathes a labored exhale in his mouth just before he kisses him again.

Jungkook pries Taehyung's lip from in between his teeth with his own, rolls it in, before he sinks
his tongue in his mouth. Taehyung’s hand shifts from his wrist, slips from underneath Jungkook to
allow him to come as close as possible while he still stretches him with his fingers. He slides his
hand up his back, touches at his shoulder before he clenches it into his hair, tugging at strands
helplessly when he thrusts into him harder.

“You want a condom?” Jungkook breathes against him, pulls away slightly to look at him with the
question.

Taehyung’s fingers loosen in his hair as he blinks long lashes at him, toys lighter with the strands,
threads through gentler as he shakes his head. “No, wanna feel you.”

Jungkook’s next exhale hitches against him, brows furrowing as he darts his eyes all across his
face, some utterance of disbelief slipping into his features as he stares down at Taehyung. He looks
almost confused one second, almost angry the next. Taehyung’s fingers dig into his nape,
questioning. His head shakes lightly, briefly, “I fucking—” he starts, voice arching with something
not necessarily nameable, but brutish with emotion, nonetheless.

Taehyung’s lids peel back more over the orbs of glistening eyes when Jungkook cuts himself short.
He searches his face. “What?” he breathes. Whatever it is that Jungkook fucking—he wants to hear
it, he’s desperate to hear it.

Jungkook surges lower, moves his fingers more vigorous inside of him until Taehyung’s curiosity
morphs into panted moans. “I want you,” he murmurs in his mouth, kisses him wet.

Taehyung’s hips stutter, breath stutters, but words urge even, “Take me then.”

Jungkook’s groan is guttural. He slips one finger outside of him first, then the other two, wraps his
lubed digits around himself, touching Taehyung, too, where they press together, slide against each
other. He gives himself a tug before he adjusts himself on the mattress, moves his body lower. He
lines himself up, eyes blinking, glistening at Taehyung. His fingers are so soft in his hair. He seems
to ready himself, breathe. He grabs at his thigh, pulls him into him, and slides himself inside.

Taehyung’s head tips, falls back on the mattress, as the features of his face screw with the pressure,
swollen lips gasping so pretty, falling open wide and Jungkook can see his tongue pressing low at
the bottom of his mouth, eyes drifting shut. Jungkook is careful. Taehyung is tight. He thrusts
slightly when he is only halfway in before he moves his hips further, Taehyung’s legs spread so
illicit around him, for him. He takes advantage of his parted lips, opens his own against him as
wide, distracting him from the stretch by tangling his tongue with his, distracting himself from the
need to ravage as he kisses him most lasciviously. It’s almost vulgar how they kiss. He loves it.

Just as he loves how he fits inside of him. His fingers latch helplessly harder into his thigh, own
forehead screwing with the need to just fuck him. It’s been so long, so fucking long, and he feels
his skin, the actual texture of being inside of Taehyung, no fucking plastic or latex or anything
between them. He feels the heat of him, the snug fit of him, as he stretches around him, and he’s
moving.

His hips draw back and push in, mouth parting against Taehyung and he’s not kissing him
anymore, just breathing into him. He starts slow, for the sake of them both, Taehyung falling into
motion with him. His fingers slip back into his hair, cling there tight, while his other hand sneaks
over Jungkook’s bicep that tenses with an effort to hold him up. Taehyung tugs at his elbow and
Jungkook folds it, falls over him so he no longer keeps him at an arm’s length above him. He’s
almost fully pressed into him now, and this, this is what Taehyung wants.

Jungkook’s fingers move down on his thigh, close around the crease of his ass, and he hauls his
leg up slightly until it closes around his waist, brings him closer as he fucks him.

“You feel so good,” he groans in his mouth, tells him as he rocks into him. He’s squeezing at the
junction of his ass and his thigh, the curve there so exquisite, and he fucking hopes his grip leaves
marks. He wants his fingers etched into his body, not bold enough to bite possession on his neck.

Taehyung perhaps attempts a word in return, but he can’t manage. His voice is a broken moan, and
Jungkook wants him closer, closer, but it’s not physically possible, not like this. So, he grips his ass
tighter, slides his fingers over the flesh of it until the tips of them almost touch where he fucks
inside of him and he straightens up, taking his body with him. Taehyung gasps, latching his leg
firmer around him, slides the hand that fingers at straining muscles and curls it around his
shoulders, holding onto him.

Jungkook sits back on his calves, Taehyung hoisted over his thighs, lips gaping as he sinks deeper
onto him like this. His own thighs twitch around him, the feel of it exhilarating. And it’s the closest
they can physically be.

Jungkook layers his eyes over his face, slightly above him like this, and he looks up as his lashes
flutter opened and he gazes at him, rocks against him. Taehyung curls his fingers over his shoulder
blade, grinds against him, fits himself more comfortably in his lap and raises slightly, sinks lower,
rides him. His hips chase after any sensation that rutting against his own would give. He fucks
himself onto him, sinks as deeply as he can, as fully as he can, wraps himself around him entirely.
He's given some control over his that he is not entirely ready to take, too lost to take, too hot.

He remembers when there was a time when Jungkook refused to be like that, look at him from so
closely when they fucked, let him ride him like this. He looks up at him now, lips parted and eyes
glinting and stares at him with a width to his eyes that is enough for Taehyung to be so utterly
overwhelmed. He tangles his fingers solid in his hair, pulls at him to show him he’s there, because
Jungkook is looking at him as if he’ll fucking disappear, slip away from him and leave, and he
wants to show him he’s there.

“I missed you,” Jungkook tells him, eyes darting all over.

Taehyung’s lips curl. “Missed my ass?” he teases, groans with the end of it, when Jungkook’s hips
snap up, almost punishing him for the question. He wraps an arm firmer at the bottom of his spine,
presses him further into him, traps his cock between them, brushing against his stomach with every
thrust and Taehyung doesn’t know whether he wants to grind down onto him or slide up more. He
brims with sensation.

“Missed you,” Jungkook whispers so genuine, presses a kiss, small and short to his shoulders, and
Taehyung’s features contort. He can’t do this.

“Get on top of me again,” he begs, seeking his mouth with his own, tilting his neck to capture it,
and he lets him.

He needs Jungkook to move into him, because he can’t. It’s too much. He wants him above him.

“Okay,” he speaks into his lips, straightening on his knees before he lowers him back onto the bed.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to,” he tells him hips gyrating into him with a soft motion before he
thrusts inside of him rougher, Taehyung’s fingers flexing into him, breath hitching.
He needs several moments to get accustomed to the new angle he fucks him at, the pressure
delicious, before he swallows down a throaty moan, confesses in his lips, “I want you to tell me
what to do.”

Jungkook’s next thrust is harder, hauls him upwards on the bed. “Yeah?” his brows perk.

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, almost shy, but very honest, sliding his hand back over his arm.

Jungkook lowers himself onto him fully, his stomach brushing teasingly into Taehyung's cock. He
parts his mouth over his. “Say my name,” he tells him, snaps his hips inside of him harshly and
earns the moan of his name that helplessly falls from Taehyung’s lips.

He fucks him more and he’s disheveled. Taehyung is so utterly disheveled underneath him, but he
wants to ruin him some more, give him some more.

“Spread your legs,” he tells him next, uncoils the leg that wraps around him as he moves himself
back again, cock sliding out of him, catching briefly at the rim before he pulls himself out
completely, and Taehyung’s whimpering, fingers clutching into him.

“Jungkook,” he drones, voice twisting pretty with his name sitting so well on it, as he heaves his
hips up, jerking them into him, brushing into his stomach again, absolutely desperate, but he
doesn’t care. He wants him back inside, he’s squeezing around nothing with the desire to have him
back in, ininin.

But Jungkook is pulling away, moving lower on the mattress. He presses his lips into his
collarbones, mouths at the definition there before he sinks lower, teases his teeth around a nipple
briefly, coerces a quick hiss that sneaks past. He keeps sinking lower, mouth relentless as it
explores the length of his body, each spot of his skin.

He presses a hand under his thigh, hauls it up until he has to bend it and press his foot in the
mattress. He gives him another jostle like this, pushes the thigh even further into him. “Get your
knees like that, okay?” he breathes into his skin, follows with a searing kiss over a dip between his
ribs.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung asks, a slight alarm edging in his question at the direction of his
open-mouthed kisses, as he insists on keeping him spread out like that.
“Relax, put your hands back,” he instructs, fingers circling around his wrists as he presses them
back in the mattress indicatively, tensing his hold over him once in a silent warning to stay put
before he continues, kissing over his ribs, his stomach. His hand catches on his hip again, shuffles
him closer with a firm tug, Taehyung almost folding over. It raises him slightly off of the bed, his
spine curling, and he just knows where this is going as Jungkook’s tongue keeps lapping over and
over, licking a single stripe at the length of him pulsing against his stomach, a touch that makes
him twitch.

“Jungkook,” he exhales, chest raising and falling. “You don’t have to,” he shakes his head weakly
against the mattress. He’s so gone in this, he is desperate for anything, but he can’t help feeling an
ounce of insecurity when Jungkook slips lower.

“Shh,” he breathes onto his navel, the exhale making him shiver. He kisses there, nips there. “Keep
your legs spread for me,” he commands softly, hands curling around his ankles and he forces them
into a place he seems fit. He bends lower still, presses a palm in his thigh to push it apart and he
fucking kisses him between the legs.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung hisses out, a whiny screech to the quiver of his voice as he straightens his
neck up a big, gazes at him there, longish hair in slight waves with perspiration. He shakes a strand
away as he senses his eyes, blinks at him from in between his spread thighs.

“No need to be shy,” Jungkook speaks into him, the vibration of his voice so exhilarating against
him, “you’re pretty here, too.”

Taehyung’s head falls back with a disheveled moan pried cruel from his lips. He’s sensitive and
stretched and begging, so on edge, and even the mere sensation of him speaking with his mouth
this close against him makes his thighs tremble.

“Fuck,” he groans.

Fuck, he’s fucked.

Jungkook’s lips press against him. His forearms wrap against Taehyung’s thighs, and he hoists him
closer still, mouths at him with no reservations, tongue slipping in easy with how stretched and
fucked out he is, and yes, Taehyung’s fucked.

He’s careful but not hesitant. He’s bold with the way he presses his mouth into him, tongue onto
him. He guides himself by what makes Taehyung's hips snap, what makes his teeth dig into his
lips, what makes that deep, beautiful voice of his go whiny.

He holds his thighs firmly, so he doesn’t fidget away, kisses him, tongues at him. Taehyung, had
he enough of a mind to piece together thoughts could have been self-conscious, about how he
looks, how he tastes. It’s such an intimate spot, but Jungkook’s touch is so sure, he’s humming
against him, and Taehyung feels nothing but blind pleasure. He feels himself grinding into him.
He'd be embarrassed, but it feels too fucking good. His tongue is sliding into him, almost thrusting
into him, more powerful than he could imagine it could be and he's not intentional when he works
himself against the sensation, grasped by an anomalistically human lust as he allows himself to
undone like this, under his touch, trusts only his touch to ruin him like this, so intimate and carnal.
He gives himself up to the sensation of his mouth against him, lips teasing, tongue prodding.

He knows it’s experimental as he laps against him, slips the muscle of his tongue inside him, no set
rhythm of anything, just testing out what he can do to him, how he can kiss, how he can use his
mouth on him there, how deep he can press, how much he can twirl, what reaction he can coax out
of him. And he has his back arching, head pressing back into the mattress.

Conceptually, if he can leave sensation for the bare moment to process the concept, merely
conceptually, it is elating that Jeon Jungkook is fucking eating him out.

He’s doing it well, at that, for as much as Taehyung can judge, seeing it is the first time anyone has
ever done something like that to him. He wants to look at him, the sight of him between his legs so
lewd and satisfying, and he glances a couple of times, but Jungkook seems to sense it, darts dark
eyes up to him again and he unfailingly ends up with his head slacking into the mattress, moans
sneaking past his lips.

Taehyung can barely take it. His toes are curling into the bed, veins on his neck straining. He
buries his fingers in his hair, tugs at it, pulls at it. “Jungkook,” he calls, wrapping his other hand
around his wraps and pulling him up. “Fuck me,” he pleads, because if he keeps this up, Taehyung
is going to come, and he wants Jungkook inside of him when he does.

Jungkook looks up at him, kisses him one last time just where he puckers before he lets him pull
him up. Taehyung parts his legs for him, sliding his feet lower on the mattress until Jungkook
brings his lips back to his own and he wraps his thighs around him.

He’s sliding back into him, fitting himself between his legs, so snug, and Taehyung’s hips are
jerking helplessly. He clenches around him, a deep sound elicited from his throat. The second
Jungkook’s stomach brushes into him, the second hard muscles presses into his cock, he’s spurting,
lips gasping. His neck cranes, legs trembling, and he’s coming. He's moaning with it, trashing with
it, stimulated so much by the tongue that lapped so hungry at him that the mere press of him back
inside is pushing him over the edge. He's fucking coming, cock twitching between them and he can
barely process it, entirely lost to the sensation of the pressure reaching such a tipping point,
wrecking him. He doesn’t expect it. He knows he’s sensitive as fuck, but he’s barely been touched.
He takes it. He closes his eyes, throws his head on the bed and he takes it even when Jungkook
slides into him with clear intention. He comes hard, so much harder than those petty, pathetic jerks
in his showers. He comes with Jungkook inside of him and he comes aware of it with every fibre of
his body, ever muscle clenching and releasing.

He hears Jungkook speaking before he brings himself back to earth, chest heaving so powerful
with the impact of this. Good, so fucking good. “Fuck, Tae, I—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, interrupts as he gasps for a breath, head shaking, and he pulls into him
more, because this isn’t about an orgasm; he wants Jungkook and he hasn’t had enough of
him. “Fuck me.”

He does. He glances at Taehyung, looks for a moment, and moves. He can’t not. He’s so hard he
hurts and although he wants to dedicate every moment of this to Taehyung, he needs to fuck him,
especially when Taehyung asks him to in that fucking fucked out voice.

He pulls his hips back, then pushes back in, hesitates once or twice, but Taehyung is wrapping
himself around him more, limbs all over, pulling him in with the heels of his feet, and he with the
coercion of his body, clingy and perfect when it drapes around him. He fucks him in earnest. He
grasps at his waist with one hand, presses the elbow of the other next to his and fucks him into his
mattress.

Taehyung squeezes into his shoulders, presses his teeth into his lips, body arching upwards, spine
curling against him. He’s taking him good, taking him hard, snapping his hips just right, angles
them differently and gyrates into a spot that makes him quiver, breath heaved against him, forehead
held against his shoulder as he moves.

Taehyung’s whimpering in his ear. He feels so much. He thinks he’s hard again, doesn’t know if
he ever softened, but he feels himself chase after something more with this. The sensation of
Jungkook pounding into him is more overwhelming than he remembers it being, and maybe he
forgot, but maybe this is different. He’s so intensely sensitive, and with every slam of him inside,
he feels the stinging shape of tears brim the corner of his eyes.

He snaps into him harder than the rhythm he fucks him in is and Taehyung’s legs tremble around
him. He cries out, voice verging with something unnameable but intensely desperate, broken.
Jungkook pulls his head back at the wrecked sound, stares down at him, searches the moisture that
gathers at his lashes.

He slows down inside of him upon the witness of those glinting tears, fingers squeezing into his
side, eyes darting over him with avid concern. “Am I hurting you?” he mumbles.

Taehyung digs his fingers into his shoulders, desperate. “Don’t stop, please,” he keens.

“I can—"

He stills his hips to let him breathe, but Taehyung’s own rotate into his as he does, lifts into him.
“Please, please, keep going.”

He’s sensitive, so fucking sensitive, but that’s it. It doesn’t hurt. It borders on it, it’s so much, but
he loves every minute of it. “Please,” he begs more, and Jungkook saunters a calculating gaze over
him, bites at his lip, before he moves again.

He moves relentless and Taehyung is whining a mantra of almost tortured ‘please’s and Jungkook
kisses him to swallow it from his lips. Taehyung is pulling him in, hands all over his shoulders, his
back, curling over his ass, palming at him there as he tugs him desperately inside of him.

“Want to feel you come inside me,” he’s moaning in between his lips and Jungkook is almost
losing it.

The sound of them fucking is so rudely distinctive. Skin slaps against skin. Gasps, moans, hitched
breaths, skin against skin, Jungkook’s hips against his ass, the lube squelching when he drives
himself into him. It’s a raw sound, vulnerable with how lost they both are, something erotically
naturalistic about it.

Taehyung’s so desperate and it rubs off on Jungkook hopelessly. He’s desperate for his
desperation. He fucks into him raw and passionate, thrusts growing sporadic. He has no control of
this whatsoever. He’s seeking sensation, chasing Taehyung, feels like this is the highest he has
been, high on the fact it is Taehyung with him, again. He thought he’d never have him again.

“You’re so fucking—” he gasps in his mouth, can’t finish, doesn’t know how to. He’s so fucking
what? Fucking everything. Fucking Taehyung. “Taehyung,” he groans to him, “Fuck, I—Fuck.”
“Yeah,” he returns, voice so lost. He’s moaning his name back to him, sounds that escape him
unintelligible.

Jungkook’s hands tightens on his waist, bruising, holds him down against the mattress and ravages
him, the fingers of his other one fisting into the sheets next to him.

“I can’t—”

“Jungkook,” he clutches onto him, moans into him, “come inside me.”

He holds him harder, fucks him harder, and he does as he asks. He’ll do everything he asks, keeps
going until he’s spurting inside of him, neck craning, head thrown back. Taehyung runs a calming
palm across his back, gets his other hand between them and pumps himself, the sensation of the
other pulsing inside of him pushing him to another edge, and he can barely touch himself without
his hips jerking sporadic, his cock twitching, but he’s coming more, or coming again, he doesn’t
know, but he feels himself about to burst as Jungkook slows his hips inside of him.

Taehyung’s legs are twitching as he does. His body seems to flinch with every sensation, small
jerks. He’s breathing so hard. He can barely breathe. He feels good, amazing, tired, but amazing.
He’s catching a breath, struggling to and running his hands all across Jungkook, every inch of his
skin that he can touch, running into his back, his shoulders, his hair. He’s arching his head up,
kissing his parted, panting lips. And he’s hardly coaxing a response from him, Jungkook still can’t
fucking wrap his mind around reality but he feels tiny pecks littering across his lips, fingers
slipping calming in his hair, and he does his best to answer to every press against his mouth.

He responds too late at the first few, so when he can finally breathe, he makes up for it, presses
Taehyung’s shoulder back into the mattress and captures his mouth, moaning with that kiss as well.
He’s getting his come all over himself like this, but it is impossible for him to care, just wants to
kiss him some more. He’s afraid of letting this be over, afraid that if he lets Taehyung go, he’ll
change his mind, so maybe they’ll have to stay like that forever, and that’s fucking fine with him.

He kisses him until his heart beat calms down, until Taehyung is tilting his head back slightly,
trying to catch a breath. He kisses his cheek then, his jaw, his neck, then simply presses his lips
against him, applying no pressure and rests himself there, head buried in the junction of his neck.

He is afraid, but the fingers that Taehyung runs through his hair calm him, put him at such illogical
ease. He simply lays himself on top of him, wraps his arms around him as much as he can,
softening inside of him. He draws his hips back, listens to Taehyung hiss as he slides out of him.
He doesn’t move away, though. He feels the wetness between them, but he doesn’t care.
He lies his head back down, lets him play with his hair.

“Mm,” he mumbles into his neck, “you smell like Taehyung.”

Taehyung lets out a soft laugh, short laugh. “I am Taehyung,” he tells him, feels the nuzzle of his
nose into his skin, feels his lips subtly press into him.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” Jungkook shakes his head, rests his chin on his shoulder to look at
him. Taehyung feels his eyes layer over, blinks down to meet them. “Why are you here?” he asks
so quiet he barely hears him, but he feels the vibration of his throat when he speaks, and he knows
it isn’t imagined.

Taehyung shakes his head back at him, swallows. He moves his fingers to his forehead, brushes
his hair away from his eyes before he slips back between strands. “I feel miserable when I’m not,”
he confesses softly, “I’ve started to lose sight of why I shouldn’t be.”

It’s true. It’s entirely true, and he says it, and the fact there is more to it does not make it false. He
knows he is additionally pushed by a fear, a fear that not getting a second chance will push
Jungkook back to his previous behavior. The way he was before, it always got him what he wanted.
Cruel, harsh, demanding and unforgiving, it always got him what he wanted. It got him Taehyung
in the first place, so he’s at fault for reinforcing that as well. But Jungkook is softer now, modest.
He’s more patient, lenient. He doesn’t only speak; he hears as well. Taehyung doesn’t want this to
be the Jungkook that gets nothing, has nothing, while the other had everything.

It’s almost selfless.

But at the same time, it’s so selfish, most primitively so. He feels miserable when he’s not with
him. He constantly feels like he is waiting for something, for time to move back in reverse and
erase what happened so he can touch him again without feeling guilty for wanting to, or for time to
move forward to a point where it doesn’t hurt anymore so he can touch him again without feeling
guilty for wanting to.

With Jungkook draped on top of him, warm and solid, he feels like he is waiting for nothing. He
feels like he’s there.

Jungkook’s chin lifts up off his chest. He moves on him. “Tae—”

“Started to,” Taehyung interrupts, fingers pausing in the motion they do in his hair, “Not lost it.
I’m only doing this once, Jungkook. If you hurt me again, like that, I’m gone.”

“I won’t,” Jungkook shakes his head, vehement, pulls himself upwards on his body. “I won’t,” he
feels the need to repeat, searches his eyes all over his face, so tranquil now, so pretty, features soft,
and he deserves to look like that all the time, not the way Jungkook had forced his features to twist.
“I still remember your fucking face, I— I don’t want you to ever look at me like that again. I don’t
want to hurt you. I never wanted to,” he denies passionate then rests his chin back down, speaks to
him softer, “I want to take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself,” he tells him, threading his fingers through his hair one last time before
he drops it onto the mattress, “though I suppose that kind of clashes with being here.”

Jungkook misses those fingers, but he lets them slip. “No, it doesn’t,” he shakes his head once
more, curling his hands into fists as they press into the mattress and he pushes himself up on them,
molds his lips against his once more. “I’ll prove to you it doesn’t.”

Jungkook’s eager with the kiss. Taehyung’s lazy, responds to him leisurely and comfortable.

“Okay,” he mumbles into his demanding mouth.

Jungkook lifts up more, feels the drip down his body and sighs. “I’ll clean you up,” he tells him.
“Can I do that for you, at least?”

“Mm, yeah,” Taehyung hums, his lids batting heavy and slow over his eyes. “Don’t think I can
stand just yet, anyway.”

Jungkook kisses his lips once more, his jaw once more, his neck once more and stands.

He picks his phone off the ground as he saunters to the bathroom, glances at the screen to check
the time. It unlocks as he looks at it, and he sees Yoongi’s name flash above some notifications
from Instagram.
 Yoongi (priv)

Kai’s club

Brit fighter, pays in pounds. 7k

Jungkook cocks his head at the message, types as he wipes at his chest with toilet paper.

how about 10?

Though he had taken some time to respond, Yoongi’s answer comes immediate.

Yoongi (priv)

Wants to speak to you

Jungkook glances at the door parted, he can see Taehyung’s feet stretching over his bed from
where he stands. He still can't properly process Taehyung is bare in his bed, there, wants him back,
offers to have him back. He thinks he will have to wrap his mind around it anew every tingle time
he looks at him with the realisation that he is allowed to touch and to kiss.

im busy

Yoongi (priv)

Too busy for 10k pounds?

yes

Yoongi (priv)

Just come for half an hour shithead or they’ll call it off

Hyungsik wants him for 7 anywyay

im champ

Yoongi (priv)

Brits here for a week, wants it arranged today doesn’t give much of a fuck

get your ass here

He leaves it on read and walks back to his room, glances at Taehyung spread himself over the bed
and he cannot understand for the life of him how someone who takes up this much space usually
sleeps in a bunk bed.

His eyes are shut, though, his breaths are even. He looks asleep.

One hour, Jungkook thinks, ten grand in pounds.Ten grand of his own, own money, money with
which he can do as he wishes. He can buy Woojin a fucking VR set if he wants to. He can buy
Taehyung something pretty, to fit him.

“Hey, pretty boy,” he calls softly as he wipes come off of his chest and stomach. He only hums in
response, stretches himself more on the bed. “I have to get arrange my next fight with Yoongi.”

At that, he seems to have his attention. A hand reaches for him, pulls at his bicep, tugs him down
and Jungkook stumbles slightly. “No,” he whines, eyes still closed, and he yawns with his next
attempt at speech, “don’t leave.”

Jungkook yawns back as he watches him, chuckles slightly as he peels his hand off. “Sh,” he
whispers, crawling over him to answer, a weird urge to press his lips at his forehead; he doubts he’s
ever done that before in his life, “You’re asleep,” he mumbles into his skin. “You can sleep. I’ll be
an hour at most and I’m coming back, okay? You stay here.” He pauses over him, waits, but he
receives no response, and he prods at his shoulder slightly. “Is that okay?” he asks, and Taehyung
is only whistling a hum in response, breath evening even more, but Jungkook is not leaving without
his permission and knowledge. “Tae. Stay with me for a moment, “he shakes him a little. “If you
want, I’ll say no, and I’ll stay.”

Taehyung groans softly, parts his eyes lazily up at him, blinks. “An hour?” he asks.

Jungkook nods. “Tops.”

Taehyung breathes. “Go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“Go,” Taehyung whines, pushing his hand off of his shoulder, “you’re annoying me, I need a nap,
you exhausted me. I’ve never come twice.”

Jungkook’s lips curl a little at that, head cocking as he gazes down at him. He really wishes he
wasn’t the type of person to feel the tug of pride of that, but he is, and he wants to make him come
so many more times, watch him unravel.

“Okay,” he nods, straightening on his knees, “an hour. Take a nap.” He warns, “I hope you know
I’m waking you up when I come back.”

Taehyung nods sleepily. “Okay,” he murmurs, and his eyes almost fall back shut, Jungkook almost
completely steps away from the bed when he calls, “Wait.” Jungkook pauses, immediately turning
back to him, gaze questioning as Taehyung pushes himself up on one arm. “Come here,” he
whispers, uses his free hand to reach for him and as Jungkook follows right away, he slips his
fingers at the back of his neck. He presses his lips against him, once softer, just presses them there
and breathes him in, eyes falling shut, but then he kisses, moves against him. Jungkook tilts his
head, kisses him deeper. The sound wet around the room before Taehyung pulls back. He pats his
palm down to the beginning of his back. “I can do that whenever I want?” he asks, eyes glinting up,
wide and shining.

“Whenever you want,” Jungkook whispers back and he needs a couple of minutes to just watch
him lie back down with a newly stretched smile on his face. It’s a close-lipped smile and his eyes
shut again, too, but they smile too, the crests of them do. He looks so content and beautiful, and
Jungkook is taking the first t-shit he can see from his closet, shrugging jeans on, get to Kai and
Yoongi faster just so he can return.

He has his face set, inexpressive when he struts into the office of Kai’s club. Yoongi is sitting
down, talking to two Europeans, Kai perched up next to them, leaning casual on his desk next to
his translator.
“Jungkook,” he cocks his head, smiles, and Yoongi turns back at the address, peeks from his seat to
layer his eyes over Jungkook. “I’m surprised to see you here,” Kai continues and Jungkook simply
loathes how fucking smug he seems. It submerges him with apprehension, and he’s too fucked out
to hide it well. “Soohoo saw your boyfriend going to yours just a few hours ago.”

Yoongi’s brows lift, eyes part wider. Jungkook ignores him. He adjusts on his feet so his legs
spread more, makes himself look bigger and he closes his arms across his chest.

“Couldn’t care less what your brother thinks he sees,” he tells him simply before he angles his
head to the people sitting across from him, by their build it’s obvious who’s the boxer and he sizes
him up, jaw pulling tightly.

But Kai simply won’t let him. “You know,” he starts, picking up something useless from his desk
to twirl around his fingers, head tilting towards it, following the nonchalant motion, “he’s a
vengeful bastard, my brother, always complicates my relationships with my associates.”

Jungkook’s eyes slide back to him. The dread climbs, raises in his chest and catches at them fuller.
“The fuck are you trying to say, Kai?”

He lifts his gaze up, fits it so infuriating and haughty over Jungkook, so cold. “The latest thing I
had to discipline him for was going through my phone.”

Jungkook cocks his head, puffs a short, ironic laugh out of his lips. “I should give a shit about your
brother’s wandering hands?”

“You should,” Kai smirks wider, “It was to get your father’s number.”

Jungkook should have known. He should have. Kai does not simply offer a contact like this, who
pays this much, when their last interaction was so tight. He should have fucking known, and he
should have just got back into bed with Taehyung, wrapped his arms around him and stayed
fucking put. So, what he’s asleep? He could just fucking watch him sleep.

It downs on Jungkook, downs on him quick.

With the way he grew up, with the way he lives, with the way he makes mistakes, Jungkook
thought he knew all dimensions of human fear. He knows people sometimes say it’s cold. It’s not.
It’s freezing. His eyes stare wide at the smiling snake on Kai’s neck. And he freezes. His blood
runs cold, a chill runs across his nape, down his spine. For a moment his heart stills.

Then it pumps blood, such loud, screaming blood in his ears.

“Fuck,” his palm slaps awakening into his forehead. Yoongi stands, but he doesn't see, doesn't
care. “Fuck,” his fingers slide into his hair, pull.

His feet tug at him.

A hand stops him, digits frustrating around his elbow. “Jungkook, where are you going?” Yoongi’s
brows are shifting together, eyes searching over his expression, the panic on it susceptible. “We’ve
barely—”

“The fucker called my father,” Jungkook grinds out.

Kai’s eyes glint.

“So—”

“Yoongi,” Jungkook steps closer to him, hands curling over his own chest in fists. He tries to speak
to him, his eyes darting wide and wishfully explanatory over him. He tries to make him understand.
“My parents are a fucking hour away,” he tells him; he doesn’t skip a beat, doesn’t hesitate, just
licks a tongue over dry lips, “and Taehyung is naked and asleep in my bed.”

Yoongi’s brows straighten, head pulls back with a small tilt of his chin. “You are actually fucking
him?”

“Yes,” he says. “No,” he shakes his head, eyes fall shut as he breathes through nose. “I mean yes,”
he parts his lids, “I sleep with him, but it’s not—”

Yoongi’s hand squeezes into his elbow, draws his attention. He nods at him once, his blink too
long to be just that. “Okay,” he tells him. “Go,” fingers leave him and Jungkook does.

He gets the fuck out of there.

He doesn’t know what he will do once he gets there. He has no fucking idea, but his feet have a
mind of their own. His heart beats in his chest, thunders. He doesn’t know what he will do, but he’s
not losing Taehyung.

He just got him back. He’s not losing him again.

Taehyung hears the sound of the front door and his lips twitch in a soft smile. Until he hears two
sets of steps, one of which heels, and his heart fucking stops.
 Chapter 24
Chapter Notes

this is very unedited and will be for a day or two, I apologise

thank you for all the comments and feedback, means more than I can say x

Underwear. He needs underwear. The carpet is gentle on his knees as he scraps to the floor,
grappling at a discarded piece of fabric. He spins, drags it clumsy across the length of his legs,
grabs at a shirt, Jungkook’s shirt. He sees it first, first shield he sees, and he puts his arms through
the sleeves. No time for buttons.

His heart pounds.

The bed is fucking contemporary. There is barely enough room underneath to fit a mouse, but he
falls on his knees and elbows to check, nevertheless.

His heart pounds. He can hear those fucking heels click against the marble hallways.

The closet. The closet is too fucking full and too tidy for him to hide. Everything is made to fit
perfectly, to the brim and so well ordered, and whoever designed it apparently doesn’t know shit
about rich people. Always leave room for a badly placed lover in a compromising situation.

His heart pounds. The door is slightly opened, and he has to be quiet. He can feel his palms sweat,
his feet sweat into the carpet. His ass is on the bed, his head is turning everywhere, everywhere,
ears perched. They buzz. All his blood is in his head. The heels. He doesn’t know if he’s lost his
ability to pair sound with space. But he thinks they’re getting close. He thinks they’re getting so
fucking close.

They stop. The heels stop, his head shoots up. His heart stops, too. He doesn’t remember ever
being this scared in the entirety of his life.

His palms grip tight at the sheets, his chest raises and falls, but his breath is quiet.
The eyes that stare back at him are tiny at first but as they fall over him, they grow as wide as his
own. Her hand rests at the handle and she stands still in the doorway, eyes darting all across
Taehyung as he sits at that bed. His head begs, an array of pleads, a hopeless stream through his
mind and maybe it reads in the glassy stare of his gaze, lids peeled back as his pupils sit restless at
the globes, yet absolutely pinned to the figure that lingers.

He’s seen her, seen her many times from a distance. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her eyes. It has
always been beyond her to deign to glance in his direction. He’s all she’s looking at now. She
looks at all of him, drapes her eyes from his feet, all through his naked legs, his stomach, his chest,
and then his own.

He knows how this looks. He knows this is painfully, painfully obvious. He knows she knows. Her
eyes are sealed onto him until they are not, until she turns them to the bathroom door. Once, then
twice, her chin nodding to it subtly too. His panic doesn’t allow him to follow the indication the
first time, but when she does it a second, more pressingly, he blinks. He understands.

Taehyung’s head turns to the bathroom. The door is slightly cracked. He can sneak in without
making a sound if he presses himself to the wall. He looks back at her, nods, moves to get on his
feet.

But the shadow that appears behind her, followed by a figure stops him dead in his tracks. He’s
barely lifted off the bed. Her eyes fall shut, an exhale departing through her nose. He doesn’t see
whether she opens her eyes again or keeps them squeezed together, so she doesn’t have to witness
this. Because Taehyung’s gaze jumps to the new figure, his heart jumps to his throat and now, now
he’s even more scared.

It’s Jeon. It’s Richhood personified, douchebaggary incarnated, cruelty on fucking legs, the human
form of privilege induced partial sociopathy. Taehyung doesn’t understand how he can hate
someone he has never spoken to as much as he does, but when he looks at him he sees Jungkook,
sees him at his lowest, hears the way he used to speak to him, sees the burn mark on his hand, the
money he shoved in his chest, hears the sound of him fucking his sister, sees him with his arms
wrapped around Clo Eun when she’s unconscious on the bathroom floor. Hatred strikes first. The
fear comes second, but it’s powerful, so fucking powerful. He lingers half lifted off the bed,
immobilized. He feels his limbs, but he doesn’t know if he can move them, his brain cannot send a
command, because all he can process is blind, cold, white fear. He doesn’t know how the simple
shape of a person in a doorway can be so utterly terrifying, but it is. It is.

He takes a step around his wife and Taehyung instinctively falls back to the bed. His mere steps are
eerie, frightening. They are slow, they ring around the room.

Taehyung is not ready to hear his voice, but no one gives a shit. He isn’t ready to face him at all,
isn’t ready for anything, and he’s never wanted Jungkook with him more, but still a part of him
hopes he never comes home. A part of him wants to put this all on pause so he can call him, tell
him to stay the fuck away from here.

His mother’s hand wraps further around the handle, squeezes.

Taehyung’s eyes seal onto his father now. He can’t look away as the man steps towards him, so
slow and torturous. His voice is worse. It drawls out, more controlled than he expects it
considering the state of his eyes, the eyes that glare under an arched nose as if he has found an
offensively large cockroach sneaking underneath the bed after he had thought he’d stomped it to
death. He watches him as if he got his shoe dirty but is still running around restless and invasive.

“And who the fuck would you be?” he pulls in between teeth that press together, daunting, and the
sound of it crawls wet over every inch of Taehyung’s skin.

Taehyung’s jaw unhinges. His tongue feels so heavy in his mouth. He doesn’t know if he can
speak. He tries, but it takes him time. “I—” he stutters out after a few moments.

“What’s your name, boy?” the man asks as he nears and Taehyung’s head tilts up, upper, following
his face as it gets closer, higher, bigger, more frightening. “Answer faster,”he instructs biting and
commanding. His voice is cold and hot at the same time, freezing and scorching.

“I’m—” he starts, he swallows. His elbows are trembling where they try to hold him up on the bed.
“My name’s Taehyung,” he gets out, gets it out clumsy and quivering, but he gets it out.

Jeon’s head tilts. He’s so close now, almost standing between his legs. He’s close enough to reach
out for him, to touch him if he suddenly decides. “As in Kim Taehyung?” he elaborates, his family
name as coated by disgust on his lips as it used to be on Jungkook’s.

“Ye-yes,” he swallows with his nod. He hates that he stutters so much, but at least he is pulling
words out. His heart thuds angry and afraid.

He closes in further on him, eyes forever fixated on his trembling target, even as he adjusts on his
feet, a small rotation around the part on the bed Taehyung clings to helplessly. “What are you, Kim
Taehyung, the gay one,” his brows fly, mouth curls, “doing in my son’s bed?”
There is an edge of calmness in his voice that rings painfully ominous to Taehyung. He can see in
the ferociousness of his eyes, in the coiling of his fingers, the thumb gliding across the ring with
the family crest, that he is anything butcalm. Yet, he does this, he teases tranquility, hints at
conversation, like a shark that circles its victim before it absolutely devours it.

“I—” he curls his fingers into the bedding because of his need to just hold onto something.He
wants to cling onto some hope, but currently he sees no room for such. He swallows, “He,” he
tries, “I— I was trying to,” he gulps once more. “He doesn’t know I’m here,” he shakes his head,
eyes widening in his attempt to plead his denial, “I was trying to—to get him to sleep with me,” he
lies, shakes his head again, shakes his head forever. “He doesn’t know I’m here, I swear.”

His father’s head tips, his tongue clicks. “No?”

Taehyung shakes his head still, growing more avid in his story as it unfolds in his head, lie upon lie
scattering out of his mouth, tumbling off his tongue in a clumsy attempt at protection. “No,” he
promises. He is almost certain he will get hit at this point, for admitting, well lying, he tried to
seduce his priced son, but he doesn’t care, “he, he hardly remembers my name, but I’ve been
watching him—”

When he interrupts, thunderous, it’s the first time anger slips into his voice as well as in every
pattern of his presence and it’s absolutely stifling. “Then why does the room reek of cum, Kim
Taehyung?”

He presses his elbows down lower onto the bed, tries to make himself small as his speech does,
fails. His sentence cracks, “I don’t know.”

He feels his eyes sting, layer with bitter wetness out of this pure fear. They squint with the shake of
his head, the drop of his voice.

His neck cranes over him as he looms, voice booms, but it is so slow, each word so clearly
pronounced, etching them into Taehyung’s brain with their full meaning, their doubtlessly
impending consequences, “Did you fuck my son?”

His reply is immediate, pried out and automatic. “No, no, no,” he denies as a mantra, prays as a
mantra, with each word his head shaking.

His mother still has her eyes closed shut. He wants desperately to shut his own, too, perhaps he’s
dreaming. Maybe he’s having a nightmare. Maybe if he closes his eyes and opens them again, this
will all disappear. But he can’t look away.

“Are you lying to me?” He’s closer. “In myapartment?” He’s so close, touching his chest offended,
eyes ravenous with anger on him. He isn’t replying anymore; jaw is stuttering, and he just keeps
shaking his head. He couldn’t be closer. “Told J a while ago he should teach you some decency,
but maybe it should be me teaching you both.”

He expects it, yet it still takes him off guard. The ring getting closer and closer to his eyesight,
adorned over big, folded knuckles, it’s near, so near, he can no longer see it, it’s a blur. Then
comes the pain.

Jungkook has that same ring on his finger. Always, all the time, constantly. Taehyung feels it a lot.
He feels the cold silver when he touches him, feels it when his fingers are inside of him, catching
at his rim. Taehyung never thinks about the ring. It’s just something that’s there. It’s hot. Jewelry
looks good on Jungkook. The contrast of its coolness is thrilling inside of him.

He’s never felt it like this, up front, smashing into the cartilage of his nose and into his cheek. It’s
heavy, and cold, but he neglects the sensation of the chill because of the brutality of the punch. It’s
a punch. He hits him. Taehyung has never really been hit before. The brutality is more in the
intention than the physical pain, at first at least. It hurts. Undoubtedly, it does. His head flies back,
turns away and he sees exactly four small drops of blood splutter to the perfect Egyptian cotton of
the sheets. He watches the crimson with shock ridden eyes, darts them wildly over it.

He doesn’t turn his head back to his father. He can only stare at the fact of what’s happening
staining the sheets. He knows Jungkook’s father is abusive. He knows that. But hearing it and
feeling it, it’s entirely different things, and although he knew it, he doesn’t really. He has no idea
how to handle it. It comes with an abundant doze of humiliation. Being hit like this with an
inability to return it. He can’t do anything, at least in his own mind he can’; he’s not making the
case worse both for himself and Jungkook by acting out.

He’ll take it, he thinks. He should take it. It’s just physical, he thinks. It’s just a bit of pain.

Fingers marked by that beautiful, cruel ring grip tightly into the collar of the shirt thrown clumsily
over his shoulders. They dig into it rough. His tug is rougher. He pulls Taehyung forcefully
towards himself, raising him over the mattress as Taehyung’s own digits dig just as tightly into the
blood-stained sheets. It’s just four tiny drops. Four tiny drops, but in his head it feels like an ocean
of indication to who this person is.
He has no choice but to look at him. The tug is absolutely commanding, his head snaps to him, the
wildness still doting his eyes as they land on his face. Jungkook’s father is an attractive man, an
attractive man turned so utterly and hopelessly ugly by the cruelty drawn on his features.

“Wearing his shirt, I see,” his father’s eyes grow slimmer, turning into slits at his face as his head
cocks. His thumb swipes over the fabric of his collar with the same motion with which his tongue
coats over his lips, “bet you fucking love how expensiveit feels.” Fingers of his free hand curl over,
a promise sitting on the shape of the fist they form. “Tell me if it’s worth it later.”

Taehyung turns his head away on an instinct, eyes squeezing shut, teeth pressing together tight as
he tenses with expectation.

But nothing comes, except for a voice. It’s such a familiar voice. It’s the most familiar voice, and it
makes Taehyung’s face relax, lips parting and eyes reopening, staring wide at those four drops on
the white sheets. His heart pauses in the marathon it’s losing, then it speeds again, sprints.

He wants him there, but he wants him gone. He thought he couldn’t be more scared, but currently,
he is. He doesn’t know how he will react to this. Everything he did to Taehyung, he did it so his
father would never find out about him. When Jungkook himself is scared, he makes decisions that
hurt Taehyung. He doesn’t know what he expects him to do, but prospects raise a fear that is
entirely different to that of a fist.

He doesn’t fully understand the words that Jungkook says at first. But those words are tight.
They’re scared, teeth pressed, but above that they are demanding,fierceness lodged between the
grinding teeth of his command.

“Let go of him,” is what Jungkook says.

He’s breathless in the doorway, heart racing. His mother’s hands latch into his, keep him in place,
one arm stretched over his chest and stomach to prevent him from what his feet pull him to do. She
squeezes her fingers indicatively into him, digs her nails in, but his attention is reserved for his
father.

His eyes are narrowed onto him, whole face molding into the glare that he seals onto him. He
didn’t know what he expected of himself when he came here, but the second his gaze lands on
Taehyung each and every instinct screams at him to do everything in his power to get him the fuck
out of there.
His father straightens, his fingers still latched into the collar around Taehyung’s throat, but his body
angles differently.

“Look who it is,” he snarls, lips pulling cruelly downwards to his jaw. “If it isn’t my homo son!”
There is an irony of a cheer in the exclamation as he layers his eyes over his son. His now gay son.

Jungkook’s heard that word many times. He’s used it many times, it’s always been thrown around.
And he thinks he isn’t allowed the privilege to be affected by it, always lived around people to
whom words mean nothing, actions mean little. Sex means nothing, but still love means less. And
this time, this time it is striking.

It’s striking not because it offends him, not because it means anything to him. It’s striking to him
because he knows right now, this, that word, is all he will be reduced to in his father’s head.
Always accompanying his name in there, a fucking seal of that word stamped onto his forehead
when his father looks at him, permanent label, a constant epithet. Two syllables that went
meaningless in his life for so long, two fucking syllables, from this point on will indubitably be
what he is first and foremost in his father’s eyes.

He’s been a lot to his father throughout the years. Useless. He’s been useless. Weak. A little
bastard, that’s what he called him when he bit him. A cocky son of a bitch. All those allowed for
other things to follow. He’s also been a good boy, with a good jab, the son of the family, the
important one, a track champion in high school, a scholarship holder. He’s been able to be those
things simultaneously to his father. One has managed to peak over the other.

He doubts anything would ever replace that label. He cares and he doesn’t. He’s hurt and he’s
happy. He’s hurt this is enough but he’s happy this is enough because it makes hating him that
much easier. At the same time it hurts it’s that easy to hate him.

It’s a forever spiral of dissonance, and it makes his head hurt, makes it harder to breathe. But he
hardly has time to think. His father’s proximity to Taehyung obliterates all thought. He needs to get
him out of here.

His fingers coil in tight, pulsing fists. His legs are begging him to move. “Fucking let go of him,”
he snarls right back, attempting a step forward, but his mother’s pleading hands won’t allow it.

“Jungkook,” she’s whispering to his shoulder, lips close there, attemptedly soothing as they brush
into his t shirt once. “Don’t make a scene,” she asks him quietly.
He doesn’t respect the privacy of that whisper, tries to charge forward again, jaw ticking as he
glares infinitely into his father, eyes darting towards Taehyung with a desperation to ask him if he
is okay, but his head is turned away. He’s not looking back. “I’ll make more than a fucking scene
if he doesn’t get the fuck away from him,” Jungkook swears and he will, he knows he will.

He is not letting his father touch Taehyung. It’s his fault. It’s Jungkook’s fault Taehyung was there,
alone. It’s Jungkook’s fault Taehyung was there at all. It’s his fault for asking him to stay here
where people like his father are threateningly near. His fault for being so selfish and wanting him
when he shouldn’t. But he is about to get one bit more, more selfish. He is about to do just
whatever the fuck he has always wanted to do.

“Why should I?” His father’s head cocks. His shoulders shrug in a challenge so lazy and casual
Jungkook can feel each and every of his veins inflate with the heat of blood surging in anger.

“If you don’t,” Jungkook warns, fingers fucking growing ticklish with his absolute desire to smack
the pretense nonchalance off of this man. He knows his father respectfully pulses with boiling
anger. He knows his father and his father knows him and this so quickly becomes a game. “You’ll
get first-hand experience of how I get my own money.”

His father scoffs, the challenge growing agitated as his father’s anger starts to peak into loss of
control. “You wouldn’t dare hit me,” he shakes his head and turns away from Jungkook, scorching,
raged eyes moving back to Taehyung, and Jungkook is about to topple over control as well because
he simply doesn’t have the right to look at him. “You never hit back, you’re not about to do it over
a fucking slut.”

His feet move forward instinctive, jaw twitching and his mother clings at him so desperate. “What
did you call him?” he snarls.

Name calling. The typical offensive of his father. He gets off on degradation, releases his anger
with it, too. Jungkook is so irrevocably and sadly used to it. He no longer reacts at his father’s
tongue. When it comes to him, but the fact of it is, Taehyung is there, and he is hearing this, and he
doesn’t want him to.

“Jungkook,” his mother squeezes at him, “please.”

“I’ll deal with you when I’m done with him.” He sees the back of his head as it cocks over
Taehyung. “Now—” he starts.
It’s then that Taehyung finally turns his head. It’s then when he looks at him and Jungkook’s eyes
drop from his father with the immediacy of his fluttering heart, falling to his own. He catches
Jungkook’s eyes and Jungkook sees. Sees the trickle of blood from his nose.

All the heat evaporates from inside of him. His face falls. His blood runs cold.

“Did you hit him?”

He hears himself ask it. He hears his voice, as cold as his blood. His eyes blink from Taehyung to
his father. There is something detaching in the coolness of his question, equally detaching in his
gaze. It snaps. Something snaps inside him and something snaps between them.

The ring feels heavier on his finger, weighing him down, pulling him to the ground, and under.

Taehyung is bleeding.

Taehyung is speaking. He hears his voice for the first time since he gets there. It calms him down
for a moment, makes his heart race worse when he sees the trickle fall over his lips as he parts
them to talk to him. “Jungkook, it’s okay.”

His lids bat down to the stain of Taehyung’s mouth. He wipes it off with the back of his hand and
Jungkook watches before eyes fly back to his father.

Next, he’s not cold. He’s hot, so fucking hot, boiling, burning. His teeth grind together, he watches
his father through the red of the blood that surges through him, the blood that coats Taehyung’s
lips, lips that are made for gentle conversations and kisses, not bleeding, and he is demanding,
“Did you fucking hit him?”

“Jungkook,don’t,” his mother is begging, but he’s pulling away from the hold of her arms.

He pushes him first, gets his fingers off of Taehyung and he doesn’t know what happens next, but
his father is on the floor and he is on top of him, knees digging in his ribcage to keep him down.

Jungkook never hits back. He never hits his father. When his father looks at him like this, the way
he was looking at him just now, he always forgets he’s not a little boy, having to fucking bite him
to get him away from his sister. He recedes mentally to that little boy. He’s scared,fear can be
immobilizing and when his father looks like that, it is. And he’s always wanted his father to
forgive him. If he lets him beat it out on him, take it out, he forgives next. There was never a point
in hitting back. He was never brave enough to hit back.

He doesn’t want forgiveness now because there’s nothing he is guilty of, not in front of him. In
front of Taehyung, yes, so many things. And he desperately does not want to add another one to the
list. He’s guilty of nothing now, nothing he needs to ask for forgiveness from his father, he’s done
nothing wrong. Taehyung is not something that’s wrong.

He sees red. He actually fucking sees red. His blood pulses in his ears. He’s lost his shit. The type
of violence he grows hungry for is nothing he has experienced before. It’s so different than when
he is on the Ring. This is pure aggression.

He hits him once and gets high on it. He hits him twice and he can’t fucking stop. Crashing his
knuckles into his face, no technique, no nothing, just rage. He used to think there was never any
point in hitting. But right now, he thinks there is no point in anything else. This is what his father
teaches him because this is what his father understands. If Jungkook says something, he won’t hear
it. If Jungkook breaks his jaw, he will have to fucking feel it.

“That cause of him?”

The question registers with him when he has his fist raised, lifted off. He thinks it is the exact
moment it dawns on him that it is his father he is bashing his knuckles in. He feels pain shoot
through his hand. The viciousness of his punch makes it careless, makes it hurt.

He layers his eyes down over him, over his father. And there is a moment in which his fist doesn’t
come down again with the sight of the blood that clothes his face, clods the breathing in his
nostrils.

But then in the next he is slamming into him harder.

“No, that’s cause you’re a piece of shit,” his teeth grit and words land with the same brute force of
the punch. “That’s for every time you’ve hit my sister,” he’s yelling. He’s yelling and it tears his
throat out. He’s yelling and it rips straight from his lungs, or maybe his heart, maybe right now he
speaks and breathes with his heart. He’s yelling and his voice is booming and it’s making
Taehyung flinch, but he can’t notice because his eyes are forever fixed on the face underneath him.
He wants to watch him in pain.“My sister,” he raises somehow higher, “that’s for every time
you’ve hit my mother,” punch, “that’s for every time you’ve hit your daughter,” punch, “and for
your wife.” Punch. “And that’s for Taehyung,” a fucking punch,“and it’s all cause you’re never
again fucking touching a person I love.”

The sound of his fist smashing into his father’s face is duller than he expects. It’s such a dull
sound, more the sound of skin than anything else, of flesh. It sounds almost natural. It becomes so
easy after he loses sensation in his own hand, becomes the easiest thing ever when he thought it
would all be so hard, but he supposes, even in his drunk state of power and aggression, this is easy
part of all this, the part ruled by rage, not by reason, the part lead by a desire bred into him by that
exact man that he needs to punish.

“Jungkook,” he hears Taehyung, feels Taehyung’s hand touch at his arm, pull at him, “Jungkook,
stop.” His lips are close to his ear, mumbling into it, private, breath brushing chilling over the lobe
of it, over his neck, and he’s blinking. He turns to him. Taehyung is on his feet, jeans on, but
undone, pulled clumsy over his legs. As animalistically primal it feels to hit his own father, so does
a rapid desire to answer to Taehyung, so when Taehyung pulls, he raises lightly, when Taehyung
whispers to him and keeps stringing him along as he moves back he moves completely. “if you do
more damage, you’re going to regret it.”

“No, I’m not,” he snaps his head back to his father, glowers at him with a glinting, glaring gaze,
graceless gait, a growl, “I’m going to fucking bask in it.

Taehyung’s fingers are wiping at something at his chin and lips. They come back red. Splutters of
his father’s blood spurt up at Jungkook with the power of his hit.

Taehyung’s own heart is running miles. He is not exactly thinking, mainly acting. He doubts it’s
possible for him to actually process, but he doesn’t want blood on Jungkook’s face or his knuckles,
certainly not his father’s. He still cannot believe he hit him. For a moment there, when he was
alone with his parents, he almost feared Jungkook’s return would result in him hitting him, just to
prove to his father he’s loyal. But that’s not at all what’s happening, not at all.

Never again touching a person I love, it rings loud and clear and as angry as Jungkook had spit it
down at his father in his face, and he knows he means Clo and his mother and even himself, he
knows that, but it still makes his heart thump even faster, more dangerous in its palpitations against
his ribcage. He can just tell by the strain of his throat when his voice tears out of it, breaking and
heartbreaking, for how long he’s kept this in, drowned it down and let it surface in Jeon Jungkook,
a hurtful, hurt, entitled brat.

Taehyung is wiping away all of his father’s blood from his face with his own fingers, makes a
mess of himself, but he doesn’t much care.
Jungkook’s mother takes the handkerchief with their family crest out of her pocket, shakes it
graciously between her fingers, and goes to wipe the blood from his face, easily squatting down
next to him on her heels. She swipes the handkerchief twice before he gets on his elbows, pushes
her away and she stands, folds it and waits.

“I’m your fucking father boy,” he snarls from the floor.

Jungkook’s eyes glare into him one final time, voice rough and raw. “I’d much rather call
him daddy, not gonna lie.”

He turns to Taehyung next, entirely ignorant of his father’s reaction to what he says, of his father’s
glare and his attempts to lift off the ground without his wife’s assistance.

“I’m so sorry I left you,” he whispers to him, voice dwindling quiet, not because he doesn’t want
his parents to hear, but because this is private to Taehyung and to him. He swallows down the
roughness of his tone and mumbles to him soft, naked and honest. His eyes search the entirety of
his face, any sign of hurt over it, any sign of bruising, and sign of anything, his hands lifting to cup
both his cheeks when Taehyung tries to angle his chin down.

“I told you to go,” he’s murmuring back, face so intimately close to his, words slip from mouth to
mouth. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so near to him outside of just the two of them. Taehyung’s
own eyes are helplessly attempting to trail over to his parents in a silent warning, but Jungkook is
incessantly holding his attention to himself.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to in the first place,” he’s shaking his head, stepping even closer, eyes
slipping down over his nose, his lips.“You’re bleeding,” he says with a regretful alarm clouding his
tone, as a new trickle drips down the curve of above his mouth.

Jungkook’s palms move, his fingers lift, on his part the trickles of blood from his own face, but he
is also brushing the pads of his digits against his cheeks, his eyes, and only then does Taehyung
realize there are also rolling tears to dry away.

He shakes his head, swallows his bottom lip as his eyes in turn dart wild and wide over Jungkook’s
face, emotive and brimming with emotion, and Taehyung can barely take to gauge his features with
the way they now contort, crease with seamless feeling, so much of it on such a small, one singular
person. “It’s nothing,” he assures him with a whisper, his cheeks molding deeper with the palms of
his hands, the callous skin of them so familiar to the touch of the smoothness of his own.
Jungkook is in turn, shaking his own hand, blinking him in, taking him in. “I’m sorry he touched
you, okay?” He’s still buzzing with words, buzzing with regret and Taehyung’s lip falls out of his
mouth, quivers with the shake of the other’s voice. “I’m sorry he hurt you.”

Taehyung’s hands fall away, bury in the sides of Jungkook’s shirt and squeeze there, squeeze hard,
to throttle the shakes of his body with the exertion of holding onto something. “You hurt me,” it’s
bursting out of him, choking out of him, with the tremble of his lip, his own speech, because it
absolutely does not matter to him that his father hit him, “You hurt me more.”

His face is coming closer, the whisper of his voice a scattered brush across the heated skin of his
face. “I know,” Jungkook is sighing. He’s no longer wiping tears and blood away from him, just
gingerly holding his face between his palms, his thumb padding across the globe of his cheek and
down to the line of his jaw, taking in the contortion of Taehyung’s expression, breaking so severely
as the confession tears out of him, and Jungkook’s chest is heaving. “I know, pretty boy,” he tells
him, moving closer still. He wants to stop the quiver of his lip, he wants to turn back time; he’s
never wanted so many things utterly independent of him, completely separated from his personal
capabilities, and with holding Taehyung’s face comes an overwhelming helplessness that makes
his breathing recede, shallow. He’s desperate to express something, but he doesn’t know what, he
has no idea what, so he tries again with, “I’m sorry.” He’s sorry, but it’s not it, not that, when he
looks at Taehyung, it is certainly not just regret. It’s so much more. “Never doing it again,” he
promises shakes his head. So much more, so goddamn more. His chest is heaving, heart is wild, an
imminent build up forming and surging within him. He doesn’t realize it is it, until it tears out of
him, stumbling and unrestrained like everything he says that night, entirely true,nevertheless, like
everything he says that night. “I love you.”

Jungkook hears a cruel chortle, but he ignores it, pupils desperately darting all over Taehyung.

Taehyung’s own eyes widen, blink. His lips stop trembling in their need to part, jaw unhinging
loose. He thinks his mouth makes patterns that are an attempt at silent speech, but the first couple
of times he fails to summon his voice and with his struggle to articulate any thought and Jungkook
has to wonder who’s more shocked, himself or Taehyung.

In an exhale with searching eyes, he’s asking, “What?”

And Jungkook is himself shocked at what he says, but the harder his father’s cackle rings in his
ears and the more he stares into Taehyung’s eyes, the more he it hits him those are not just words.
It’s a realization pried from his lips and he blinks once, draws his head back, looks at him more,
looks at him clearer. “I love you,” he repeats, some perplexity brushing over his features as he
speaks it, as he believes it. His hand replaces, cups at Taehyung’s waist, tug him, as the fingers of
his other slip into his hair and grip. He barely realizes he’s speaking aloud when he repeats it once
more, clearer and firmer. “I’m in love with you.”

Taehyung’s features contort more, forehead creasing, “Jungkook,” he’s whispering, head shaking,
“shut up, your dad—” his eyes try to dart away from his, but Jungkook won’t let him, squeezes into
his hair. He wants Taehyung to believe him. He hates doing this now, but he doesn’t plan it,
doesn’t know it until then. It’s out now, out and it’s important that he knows it, that Taehyung does
as well, because he likes his money, likes his cars, likes his clothes, but he loves Taehyung.
“You’ll lose fucking everything,” Taehyung’s whispering, private, his fingers latching harder in the
fabric of Jungkook’s t-shirt, palms clinging almost painful into him.

Jungkook’s shaking his head, too, in sync with his. “Don’t care,” he promises him, and in the very
moment it is true. He is too blind with Taehyung to process consequence. He wants to kiss him, but
he doesn’t know if he will let him. “I’m not losing you,” he tells them both, himself and Taehyung,
and he tells his mother and father, and he tells everyone,“I just got you back,” he’s circling his arm
more around his waist, just keeping him there, wrapping himself around him, “I’m not losing you
again.”

The next chortle he cannot ignore. Loud and disgusting, it comes from his father, now shaky on his
feet, blood smeared but mostly wiped away from his face.

“Oh, look how he holds him!” He’s exclaiming cruel and sneering, eyes turning to his wife for a
moment to receive a small nod before he How fucking romantic!

Jungkook unwraps himself from Taehyung for the sole purpose of stepping in front of him,
shoulder ahead, protective, but he still curls his arm towards him, behind his own back, knocks his
knuckles into his elbow before he lowers his hand, trailing on the length of Taehyung’s forearm
and finds his fingers with his own, digits intertwining together until their palms line and press.

“Shut the fuck up,” he’s growling to his father, eyes immediately setting into a sizzling glare, so
different to the softness with which they had fallen onto Taehyung.

Shu the fuck up, he’s commanding, because he’s so fucking tired of hearing his voice, not only
when he speaks, when he thinks. He has it engrained in his fucking skull, but he will rip it all out,
all the words he’s tried to instill into him.

His father wipes a continuous strip of blood trailing from broken capillaries in his nose with the
back of his hand. “You love him, you say,” he pronounces sardonic, as if it is ridiculous, as if it is
hilarious. As is if it is offensive.
Jungkook’s feet are launching at him again, but Taehyung is pulling him back. “Yeah,” his teeth
clash, “I love him,” he’s back to torn yelling, and Taehyung is squeezing his fingers around his
until his voice lowers. “Fuckyou,” Jungkook says, impassioned, and with the rhythm of that fuck
you, he continues firm and pointed, “I love him.”

His father’s head cocks, eyes flash. “What now then, Kookie?” his voice twists with the tremble of
anger, every syllable of it malicious. Jungkook can see him try to be cruel rather than furious, but
he knows his very skin is burning with the chance to topple right off the thin edge into loss of
control. “What will you do now?” he insists, teeth bare, usually so white and polished, but now
they’re trimmed with watery blood, mixed with saliva. “Move to the United Gays of America and
marry him?” he sneers at him, laughs at him. “Are you gonna bear the children or is he or are you
gonna take fucking turns?”

Jungkook’s free hand squeezes into a fist, fingers pulling together. He doesn’t have a what now, he
doesn’t have anything, really, but nothing is better than this. “I don’t even wantto have children if I
have to give them your last name,” he snarls at him, forceful.

The tension must be a current on his body, must be palpable, vibrating on his skin and into
Taehyung’s. He’s moving closer to him, touching his chest to his back, mumbling in his ear,
“Jungkook.”

He turns to him briefly, lips brushing against the side of his cheek for a quick mutter. “Just hold
my hand,” he asks him softly, pulsing his fingers indicatively into his.

His father’s voice interrupts, forces them back into harsh reality. “You don’t want my name?” his
brows tweak, lips twist more. “You know he’s a little Kim slut, giving his ass for money. Don’t
look at me like that,” he juts his chin almost offended at the change of the affect in Jungkook’s
restless glare, “I can tell by the way he sits you fucked him, hard I have to give it to you.” He dares
to look at Taehyung as his head tilts down to the floor and Jungkook is moving his body even more
in front of him. He wants to hide him entirely from view, but he can’t, he’s too small to. “But do
you think he’s in your bed because of you?” his father scoffs with all his body, his chest and his
shoulders and the challenge of the question pierces right through Jungkook. He swallows as he
listens, hopes his throat does not betray the fact of it. “He’s there because of me,” his father lists,
presses a ringed finger into his chest as he insists, “my last name, my money. The bitch wouldn’t
touch you if it weren’t for my bank account.” He feels Taehyung’s nose bury in his shoulder blade,
senses his lips press there, assuring, but his father is ruthless. He is never done.“Tell me, son, have
you ever given him money, gifts, offered more?”

Taehyung lifts his mouth to the back of his neck, speaks there, his lips moving out of sight of his
father, but his mother watches them subtly form words that draw shivers, that bring small hairs to
life. “Jungkook, don’t listen to him.”

Jungkook squeezes into his fingers again. “Do you really think you raised me to be so easily
manipulated?” he forces his tongue to click against the roof of his mouth, tries to slip into the
haughty Jungkook of the early summer, but animosity is too layered on him, hurt and anger too
much of a mixture in his stomach, on his skin, in his head and his intention. “You disappoint me.”

“I thought I raised you to be a man,” his father pronounces with the sneer of such self-satisfaction,
Jungkook imagines he must really think he pours salt in a deep wound, but if manliness is bravery,
if manliness is courage, than telling Taehyung he loves him is probably the manliest thing he’s
ever done.“You’re just a fucking embarrassment.”

He ignores the pang. He doesn’t want the pang to be there, doesn’t want to care what adjectives his
father attaches to him. Objectively, his father is too much of an irrational, bigoted prick to deserve
a reaction to his opinion. But objectivity is hard to find when he physically feels it in his gut.

“You raised a coward and an addict is what you raised, you fucking piece of shit,” he growls at
him, the surface of his hurt is anger and for the first time he’s glad it is. “Your daughter is in
rehab, does that mean nothing to you?” he tells him nearly feral, responding to the tightening of
Taehyung’s fingers subtly behind his back. He breathes through his nose, a mimicry of some
sardonic laughter. “Obviously so much less than the fact I’m gay.”

His father’s head draws back visibly, teeth bare more, almost animalistic in his next reprimand,
“Don’t say that.”

“What?” Jungkook’s breath is of disbelief and of laughter still, prying more easily through his
nostrils at the appalled expression his father decays to; it’s honestly borderline funny how scared
he is of the word. “That I’m gay?” he tilts his head, nearly smirks when he watches him twitch.
“Does it embarrass you?”

His father looks on with almost gruesome disgust at the word, at the suggestion, stares at him for
long enough to determine he won’t back down, to realize he’s gaining an advantage with this, and
then he blinks away, he glances behind him, speaks suddenly calmer. “What if I offered to buy
your house for you?”

Jungkook swats his eyes over him, confused. “What?”

“I’m talking to Kim,” his father dismisses with a quick look. He takes a step, wobbles on his feet
and chooses to sit on the edge of the bed, head curling up to look at Taehyung peaking behind
Jungkook’s shoulder. “If you never touch my son again, I’ll buy your house for you. You never
have to pay rent again. I can even pay you a monthly allowance to stay away from him.”

Taehyung’s eyes grow wide at this. He feels the heat of Jungkook’s body pull away slightly as he
angles himself differently to gauge his reaction, gaze fixing onto his face, soft immediately but
narrowing with moments of silence. Taehyung’s lips part and gobble with wordlessness at nothing
but pure shock.

He hates Jungkook’s father. He absolutely despises him.

Jungkook’s body is pulling away further, fingers loosening around Taehyung’s until they’re
brushing knuckles, slipping away. His teeth press. “You’re fucking considering it,” he rumbles out
of his chest, voice a quiet growl as he attempts to make this accusation, or fear, private between
them as well.

Taehyung’s eyes jump to his wider. He’s misinterpreting his shock as hesitance. “No, I’m not,”
Taehyung shakes his head, slips his fingers forcefully back between Jungkook’s and squeezes,
turning to him entirely, speaking to him.“Are you fucking insane? I’m not fucking considering it, I
would never.”

He loves him, he loves him, he loves him. He wants to tell him he fucking loves him, couldn’t give
a damn about money, but not now, not here, he can barely say anything now and here, and
although his presence here stirs this storm up, this has little to do with him.

His father’s lips are curling. He’s observing with a brutal smirk slipping over his broken features.
“Of course, he’s considering,” he interrupts, but their eyes remained sealed together, unspoken
promises coursing from the gaze of one into that of the other. “The boy knows priorities unlike
you.”

“I’m not,” Taehyung insists again with a bite, his fingers latching more secure around Jungkook’s
own, his thumb swiping a gentle pattern on the veins at the back of his skin, lowering his voice
once more as he promises him softly, “I’m not fucking considering.”

He’s addressing Jungkook and Jungkook only, but his father is boldly addressing him, “Don’t tell
me you’d pick my useless son before your family. You didn’t even tell him that you love him
back.”
Jungkook’s head turns away, jaw slackens. Taehyung can see that familiar tick at the edge of it,
just below his teeth. He can imagine his teeth grind within the protection of the flesh of his cheeks,
and this time he does look at his father. He turns at him with venom in his eyes and dripping on his
tongue. “My family can survive without your fucking money, thank you very much.”

“How the tables have turned,” Jungkook is slipping away again, walking away, leaving his father
struggling to get on his feet as he steps into the marble hallway, hands cupping the back of his neck
as he ducks his head down, glimpses through fluttering eyelids at the precious stone beneath him.
“I’m the one that’s up for sale now.”

Taehyung trails behind, gripping at his elbow, spinning him to face him and he lets him, but his
eyes remain avoidant, buried in that floor, the truly useless floor. “Shut the fuck up,” he’s scolding
him almost, he wants to engrain this in his skull, “you’re not for fucking sale.”

He hears heels that make the hair on the back of his neck stand up again. He hears a voice behind
himself, but keeps his own attention centered on Jungkook, eyes seeking his as he keeps them
hidden away. “For you not. His father still puts a price on him.”

The fact of it feels somehow cold as it reaches Taehyung’s ears, as he leans slightly back away
from Jungkook when he straightens up and blinks behind his shoulder at his mother. It feels eerily
wet. It hits Taehyung then clean and clear that he always thought he himself was worth little as a
Kim and Jungkook always thought he was worth nothing but green notes as a Jeon. He struggles to
assure him that he means a

His mother’s voice is not a whisper, but it is low enough to only reach the confines of the hallway,
keep this to the privacy of the three of them. “You realize you’re no longer welcome here, if
you’re with him,” she says and Taehyung lifts his head slightly, turns. He gulps down nothing but
discomfort, attempts to move away, feeling awkward having this conversation whispered over his
shoulder.

Part of Jungkook’s answer is to get ahold of Taehyung’s hand again, fingers tangling together. With
him, he tells them both silently as he senses the curve of Taehyung’s body, the shuffling of his feet
almost clumsy across the floor, he’s with him. The other part is to cock his head, to scoff, “No
shit.”

Taehyung is tugged into Jungkook’s side and he remains there under the silent instruction of his
arm.
His mother’s eyes fold over where their shoulders brush, down to the length of their bodies, the
two almost molding together. Her lids bat at the intertwined fingers. Taehyung’s heart beats with
apprehension; it has been into sporadic, overwhelming overdrive since Jungkook’s lips spoke the
word love. He has no hope for taming it, even remotely.

She blinks up. “Go to your aunt,” she says, voice low.

Jungkook’s gaze darts, his words come forceful. “And you?”

Her voice does become a whisper then, almost sharp. “What about me?”

“You’re staying?” he pronounces incredulous.

Sentences slip between them quick and breathy and Taehyung almost fails to follow.

“Where else would I go?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Your sister needs a home to come to.”

Jungkook’s teeth press then. His speech turns into a grow. “She’s not fucking coming here.”

His mother’s voice curls quicker on his lips, drags sharper, more brusque, though it lacks any
directional animosity. “And where is she going since you have it all figured out?”

Taehyung slips his gaze over to him, clinging onto his hand, scared in any moment the truth will
fall upon Jungkook and he will realize he has, in fact, absolutely nothing figured out. The fear of
this particular abyss of a future outside of the financial support of his father is precisely what has
been driving force in Jungkook’s cruelest decisions. The silence that follows, the emptiness of
Jungkook’s parted lips just makes the apprehension slip from the blood pumped by his heart into
the marrow of his blood, but he finds with quiet hope the determination of his eyes.
It takes a moment, but Jungkook speaks. “Seokjin has a loft all to himself a little outside of
Gangnam,” he informs with a nod that maybe serves more to assure him than anyone there. “He’d
want her there. If not, she goes to our aunt’s and I—I figure myself out.”

His mother’s lips press together, form a thin line underneath her close lidded exhale. “Jungkook,”
she starts, her voice holding enough warning for it to resonate almost like a threat, “remember
Seokjin’s father is an exception, not a rule. Don’t think you can succeed after getting disowned just
because you’re brave.”

Taehyung vaguely knows the story of Seokjin’s father. He does, however, know well that he was
disowned because of his determination to pursue a career. He had a future planned. Jungkook is
giving up on his silver platter to a dark, cold unknown.

It’s not what Jungkook says, though. No, he simply tells her, “Depends on what you think success
it.”

Taehyung wonders if Jungkook knows how hard he’s holding his hand.

His mother’s mouth thins more before she parts it. “Are you—”

She doesn’t stop speaking at the interruption of a voice. The mere steps on the marble are enough
to seal her lips shut.

He walks with a small limp, blood clothing in his left eye, yet still he carries himself with the
importance of a Jeon, still speaks as if he owns everyone and everything. “Get your whore out of
my apartment so I can speak to you,” he demands and even after so many years in Richhood
Taehyung feels minor discomfort at the easiness with which degradation slips from his lips.

Jungkook’s body surges forward, his eyes vituperative as he lunches, but Taehyung squeezes, pulls
him back, and he settles for a growl, “Fucking call him that again, I dare you. You won’t be able to
properly stand—"

There is not an ounce of emotion in his father’s voice. He doesn’t skip a beat, just interjects cold
and simple, “Then I’ll have something in common with your whore.”

His eyes flash. He’s pulling forward with naked teeth and Taehyung has to grip at his arm with
both hands, cupping one around his elbow to draw him back to himself, pulling his shoulder to his
chest. “Jungkook, stop,” he begs him, because he doesn’t want to see him like that again. The
initial punches were a release and they were a statement. Any more would just be him sinking to
his level.

His mother is in front of him, too, her palms flattening where they can on him as she prods him
back. “Leave,” she says nearly weak with repetitive shakes of her head, though Jungkook is
watching above her, watching his father lean on the wall to support his footing and flash him red
teeth in a crooked smirk, “Just leave.”

He brings his gaze to her, the tick in his jaw as ever prominent. “I was planning on it,” he mutters,
bats his eyes behind her again. “Fuck you,” he proclaims loud, clear, so very well enunciated, and
lets go of Taehyung’s hand for a moment, glancing down at his fingers as he strips one off of that
cursed ring. He meets his father’s eyes a final time as he drops it to the floor, clashing metal with
marble, scaring the stone on the first impact before it rotates hesitant and falls flat.

He recaptures Taehyung’s hand, which meets him waiting in the air and walks once more to the
sound of an eerie cackle. That laughter is worse than anything Taehyung himself can imagine, but
Jungkook is tugging him forward, leaving it behind, even with his shoulders tense and the hair
awake on the back of his neck.

His mother follows Jungkook’s stride, calls his name, but he does not stop, doesn’t halt until the
door, until she does not only speak his name, but murmurs something else after.

“Jungkook, thank you.”

The pause in his pace is sudden, Taehyung’s chest crashing into his shoulder. He turns his head to
her, drags his eyes over her entire face before he speaks through a sigh that comes of nearly tired, a
new weight to the heaviness of his voice. “You should get the fuck out of here, mom.”

She shakes her head, glances at the floor once before she finds him again. “As long as you and Clo
Eun have somewhere to go, it’s okay.”

“He won’t stop hitting,” Jungkook says simply, informatively almost. Taehyung thinks he reads
mostly pity on him as he speaks to his mother, their connection appearing ocean’s apart to what ties
Jungkook and Clo.
Her lips press. “I’ve stopped bruising,” she says and when Jungkook’s mouth parts to attempt a
reply her eyes skim past him and to the boy he clings to with a hold that makes his veins bulge. She
coats her gaze over him, swallows. “You’re Kim Taehyung,” she says.

Taehyung instinctively looks to Jungkook first, a moment enough to see him turn to him, too,
before he nods. “Yes.”

Her lips twitch. The thin line of them curls for the briefest, weakest moment. It is a pathetic
attempt of the polite smile she is thought to form at introductions. “Sorry to meet you under such
circumstances,” she drags over her tongue, with some seeming difficulty.

The mention seems to ignite a new hurry into Jungkook. He’s tugging at Taehyung again, finding
his ear with his lips, clumsy, but he manages to mumble to him. “Come on, Tae,” his fingers pulse
between his. “Wanna get you out of here.”

Their goodbye is a nod. She slams the door hard and conclusive and Taehyung is sure his father
hears as well.

There is nothing where they are but windows, huge windows glaring with their reflection, more
marble and an elevator that will even more conclusive than that slammed door denounce Jungkook
from being Jeon Jungkook and he is aiming straight for it.

Taehyung is watching it in panic, his ears ringing with the slam of that door.

Get your whore out of my apartment so I can speak to you. His father had wanted them to speak.

He digs his heels in the floor. “Jungkook, if you walk out—”

But Jungkook is interrupting the alarm in his voice before he can even think it fully.

“Hey, hey, Tae,” he turns to him entirely, starts soft and careful. “You wanted to find me a passion
that will be worth getting out of here, right?” he gazes into his eyes, darts his own, searching
almost desperate beneath raised brows that crease his entire forehead. He only receives Taehyung
gnawing nervous on his bottom lip, so he jostles him slightly, urges. “Right?” He releases his lip,
gulps, and he nods, yes, fuck yes. The shake of his head releases a lock of hair that falls over his
eyes, but he has Jungkook’s fingers brushing it away, tucking it behind his ear before he even
realizes, because Jungkook doesn’t want any border between their eyes when he tells him, “You’re
enough, okay?” he squeezes his hand, “ And it’s enough that Clo won’t come back here. And it’s
enough thatIwon’t. Okay? Let’s get out of here.”

The subway stinks of sweat and beer and piss at this hour, at this time of the year. It’s nearly
empty, just Jungkook, Taehyung and the girl at the end who wears a face mask and eyes them
suspiciously.

Taehyung has to wonder as he yet again stares at their reflection in the dark window, their
shoulders pressing together, entire side of their bodies lined, each inch touching, he has to wonder
if Jungkook has ever before been in the subway. Perhaps it is his first time and perhaps he has no
concrete direction

He angles his body to his. “You can come to my house.” His eyes blink at him, wide. “Come to my
house,” he urges firmer, voice piping up.

He doesn’t want to leave him alone. Not now. Not ever, really.

Jungkook’s palm slips over his leg, cups at his knee and squeezes. “I have to go to my aunt’s, Tae,”
he shakes his head, chin tilting into his neck as he stares into his lap.

In all honesty, he wants to go to Clo. He wants to talk to her; he wants to hug her. He wants to ask
her if she’s okay, if he did okay, if she’s mad at him, if he made a mistake deciding this for both of
them like this, to tell her it will be fine, it’s him and her together, to hear her say it back to him,
assure him. He wants to tell her he gets it now, gets why she always goes back to Seokjin, why she
had to call Namjoon and not him when she was at her most desperate. He wants to tell her he loves
Taehyung, he simply does, there is no other way to explain it, to label it. And he understands her
one bit more now. But he can’t visit during the night. Regulations don’t usually stop him. There’s
always enough money to annul any regulation, but he supposes he has to get used to not always
buying anything he wants now.

He turns to Taehyung when he feels his thumb brush gingerly over his own where he holds his leg.
He angles his hand differently when he senses his hesitance, presses his palm to his, lets him hold
his hand in the subway with another person there. The girl could be anyone. The girl could very
well know who Jungkook is, follow him on Instagram or some shit. He holds Taehyung’s hand.

“Make sure she’ll have me,” he elaborates to him, “that I’m not entirely homeless and explain shit
to her.” His fingers draw a pattern over Taehyung’s. “I’ll come see you tomorrow after your shift,”
he suggests, “can I?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung breathes with some eagerness, legs shuffling on the seat in some clumsy
attempts to get closer to him, swallows it, nods to him. “Yes.”

Jungkook nods back before his eyes hood, lids lower. He glances at the hands on Taehyung’s leg.
“Is your sister gonna be there?”

The other shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he tells him. If Jungkook can face his father with this,
Taehyung can face Ji-woo with anything. “I think she’s at work, but it doesn’t matter.” He studies
every inch of him, but he appears timidly inexpressive, gaze mostly facing downwards, chin
tucked in. His eyes seem bigger than ever when they blink down at his lap. There is something
vulnerable in the way his lids peel back to expose glassy surfaces, almost childish, not in a way that
is petulant, but a way that is small, a way that is nearly innocent, the curious scared wonder some
children possess when the world bewilders them too much when they see something new.
“Jungkook,” Taehyung calls him softly, observing him from a light distance, allowing him some
breaths of space if he needs them. “Are you—” okay, he wants to say, but it’s stupid, fucking
ridiculous, of fucking course he’s not okay. “How are you?”

His head lifts up, drifts forward, the back of it resting against the window behind them as he stares
at the one ahead, the two of them sitting together in the subway. “You know,” he starts, his tongue
coating over his lips, but Taehyung doesn’t know. “I’m—” he sighs, some frustration breathed
through his nostrils as sentences fail him. “I’m—I don’t know,” he shakes his head. “I don’t know
what I fucking did. I think I’m—” he searches for a word, eyes darting all over the subway as if it
will be spelled out somewhere there before finally the only answer he finds is Taehyung’s own
lingering gaze. “I think I am fucking relieved,” he tells him when their eyes lock, instinctive. He
stares at him for a moment more before he gives a sharp nod. “I am. Like, obviously I have no
fucking idea what I’ll do now,” he laughs humorless and scared and turns forward again, head
forever shaking, “but anything is better than thatfuckingapartment.”

Taehyung’s eyes skip wary to the girl in the end of the subway before he presses his jaw together,
turns to Jungkook next to him. “You’ll figure it out, okay?” he tells him, lips almost compulsively
meeting his shoulder where he kisses gently. “You can do anything,” he says, and he believes it,
slips his free hand around him and grabs at his jaw, fingers holding him carefully there before he
presses his mouth higher on his shoulder. “You’re so thorough,” he kisses the beginning of his
neck, “and talented,” he kisses him again, upper, “sport,” again, “art,” again. “You can do
anything,” he breathes to him, lips parted against the skin of his neck. “Anything.” He trails his
mouth, hovers over the line of his jaw. “You’re so impressive, so capable, you don’t need him, you
don’t need your father. I promise you, you don’t,” he mumbles against the skin of his cheek, eyes
studying him for a flinch, waiting for him to pull away, but he doesn’t. “And Jungkook,” he
caresses with his thumb over his jaw where he holds him, swats his tongue over his lips as he pulls
back slightly, lids fluttering. “About, about the things he said—about me.” Jungkook’s glances at
him as his discomfort grows palpable. “About money and gifts. You know that’s not true, right?”
he begs with his gaze, “I wasn’t considering anything. I would never—"

His eyes tear away. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay.” Taehyung is angling his face back at him. He very much would like to do this
some other way, perhaps he would like it to do at least half romantic, but that’s just a bit absurd.
There is nothing romantic whatsoever about him. It’s love, it’s not romance, Taehyung learns they
are two completely different entities and one can easily exist without the other. He supposes people
aim for both, should aim for both. He himself aims for Jungkook, and that in itself is perhaps
absurd, but he is incapable of judging that for himself.

So, finally, in a subway that reeks off of beer, piss and sweat, he tells him.“Jungkook, I love you.”
Jungkook tells him that first, Jungkook is not running away now, yet still as he says it his heart
hammers wild in his chest at the confession.

He doesn’t know what he expects of him now as he stares at him, as he blinks at him, but he
doesn’t expect him to tear his gaze away once more, settle it to his lap again. He does not expect a
small mumble which he feels at the palm of his hand where he cups the underside of his jaw. “You
don’t have to say it just because I did.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow, eyes screw together, worry over the side of his head as he chooses to
give that to him and jesus fuck that hurt.“Jungkook, look at me,” he asks, a tremor in his voice, an
incessant flutter to his eyelids as he tries to bring his attention back to himself. “Look at me, you
asshole,” his teeth press as he demands when Jungkook refuses to turn the first time, does the
second with the tug of his hand. He has his eyes then, he has them searching his and he is adamant
on not letting them go. “I love you,” he pronounces, slow and clear but with the quiver of perfect
honesty. “I fucking love you,” he repeats, his fingers curling over his jaw. Somehow it becomes
easier and easier to say. Somehow it becomes impossible not to say. “I was scared to tell you. I’ve
been trying to show you,” he darts his eyes between his, tells him softer. “I love you.” He shakes
his head, splutters, “Please, fucking believe me.”

Jungkook stares at him and he stares right back, relentless. He’s not backing down until he believes
him.

He hears his sharp inhale of breath first, almost a hiss, feels lips on his own second. Taehyung’s
brows jump, lids fold back, his eyes meeting that of the girl at the end of the subway with the tilt of
Jungkook’s head until he tilts it more and all he can see are his lashes, so he closes his eyes, kisses
him back.

It’s short, but lingering. It’s just lips nothing else, just lips folding together, lips kissing. For some
moments Jungkook just fits his bottom lip between Taehyung’s and rests it there, tastes his upper
lip, savors it, kisses it and pulls away.

Taehyung’s eyes flutter back open, their lashes brushing together before he finds his irises. “I’m
sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he shakes his head. He doesn’t care about the girl in the end of the subway. “I do love
you.”

Jungkook glances down at his lips, up at his eyes. “That’s why I’m sorry,” he whispers and steals
Taehyung’s response with another short kiss. “I have to get off here.”

Taehyung fumbles with something to say when the door opens and Jungkook stands. “Okay,” is all
he manages before the doors close and it’s just him and the girl at the end of the subway, Jungkook
looking on from the other side of the window until the train leaves, but he can’t see him because
it’s too light where Taehyung is, too dark where Jungkook is.

Taehyung stares at the ceiling.

Jungkook

You still awake?

He stares at the ceiling.

I love you. I’m in love with you.

Tae

Guess

Jungkook

Go to sleep Tae

He stares at the ceiling.

I love you. I’m in love with you.

Tae

Not until you tell me you’ve got a place to sleep

Jungkook

Talked to my aunt

I can stay here for now

I love you. I’m in love with you.

Tae

Mmm where

Jungkook

has a guest room, clos stayed before, good reviews

Go to sleep

He stares at the ceiling. Woojin moves in the bed beneath him.

I love you. I’m in love with you.

Tae

I can’t

I love you. I’m in love with you.

Jungkook

Try

For me?

Want you awake tomorrow

Tae

I’ll see you?

Jungkook

You will

I love you. I’m in love with you.

The text comes when he’s fresh out of the shower after his shift, loose clothes on and a towel
rubbed in his hair. He chucks it at nothing, skips down the stairs and walks right past Namjoon,
who, an adult, is eating cereal standing up at 5 pm.

He ignores the question in his stare, then covers it completely, opening the back door in his face.
There he is. He’s there. He’s alright. One night down and he’s okay, looks good in his doorway as
Taehyung scans his eyes over him once, twice, make sure it’s really him and he’s in one piece,
focuses his attention on his face, searches for paleness, for dark circles under heavy lids, for
bruises. But he’s alright.

Taehyung’s lips quirk with his exhale. “Hey,” he greets softly.

“Hey,” Jungkook returns, reciprocates the scrutiny as he rolls his eyes all across Taehyung,
squeakily clean, fresh and smelling of fruit, hair curling in disarray as it is left to dry on its own, a
little darker than usual with the wetness still in it, and he looks absolutely beautiful, fucking
typical, and it takes Jungkook a moment to remember he is allowed to kiss him. Not only, but he is
practically beckoning him with the way he parts his lips, the way he layers his eyes over him as if
he has waited all day to see him.

Jungkook waited all day to see him.

Taehyung sees the focus of his pupils fall over his lips, reads the intention on his face as he steps
past the threshold and he tries to warn. “Jungkook—” he starts with a word but ends with a poorly
hidden moan as fingers fit over his waist and lips mold with his.

He’s surging forward to him, pushing him further back, stepping fully into the kitchen as he kisses
the frustration of his whole day into Taehyung, quick and demanding response, fueled more to pry
one out of him when the return of the affection is honest but timid. He waited all day to see him
and he wants a proper kiss.

Taehyung grips at his wrists by his waist, tries to squeeze around them in communication, but
Jungkook is too determined in his resolution.

He only perhaps realizes he should slow down when the door closes behind him on its own and he
hears a throat clear.

He opens his eyes with his lips still on Taehyung, turning only his pupils to the side to see the
source, but still reluctant to pull away completely. When he feels the squeeze of Taehyung’s digits
and makes eye contact with a full mouthed Namjoon, he finally steps back, hands jumping away
from Taehyung’s waist and raising defensively up. “Oh,” he exclaims as Namjoon chews with
attitude, “didn’t know he was here,” he says to Taehyung then turns to his brother, atypically
sheepish, “Sorry.”

Namjoon swallows. “It’s okay,” he says, dropping his spoon in the bowl with the clank, done with
his meal as he proceeds to walk around them and to the sink. “Guess I’m going to have to get used
to seeing you together,” he speaks, turns to them and answers into Jungkook’s raised eyebrows.
“Taehyung told me,” he says as he crosses his arms, leans more comfortably on the counter. “Not
gonna lie, thought it would seem weirder.”

“You um,” Jungkook hesitates as he angles himself to face Namjoon entirely, standing next to
Taehyung, a finger pointing between the two of them as he moves close enough for their shoulders
to brush, instinctive more than anything, their bodies seemingly magnetic; space is unnecessary,
“you okay with this?”

“Honestly?” Namjoon perks his brows, a small cock of his head before he shrugs. “I think you
should have whooped your father’s ass sooner.” His shrug deepens, his lips twitching slightly with
the beginning of a smile that he does not finish. “I’m okay with it, yeah,” he says, his eyes dancing
between the both of them as it is an answer that they both ask for.

Jungkook nods, an appreciative motion. He leans himself back on their kitchen table, arms
spreading to the sides, one stretching behind Taehyung, who follows the position, fits himself
almost in the gap under his shoulder.

Namjoon really believed it would seem weirder. They look good, though, they look natural. They
are natural. There is no discussion in this, no preplanning. It probably hasn’t been done before.
Their bodies just find ways to tug together, subtly enough yet feeling each other, fitting against
each other.

“As ridiculous as this is in offer from a Kim to a Jeon,” Namjoon continues after he pauses for a
moment to quietly observe them. Taehyung’s hand falls on the table, too, slips towards Jungkook’s,
his fingers brushing his wrist. “Do you want any spare clothes?”

Jungkook shakes his head, his hand inching one bit closer to Taehyung’s and he raises his pointer
finger off of the table, circles a pattern with the tip of it over the vein that bulges on Jungkook’s
wrist. “My mother brought me a suitcase this morning. I’m good,” he nods his thanks.

Taehyung’s eyes jump to him. “You spoke to your mom again?”

“Speak is a generous word,” Jungkook turns to look at him, too, his voice seeming to drop an
octave, somehow deeper and calmer when he addresses Taehyung directly. “I’ll have to speak to
Clo, though, soon. Tell her.”
Taehyung’s body gravitates to his, closer still at the mention of his sister. “Yeah,” he mumbles,
briefly touching the tip of his chin to the edge of his shoulder.

Jungkook tongues at his lips. “Wanna come with me to the rehab center?”

Taehyung pulls his head back slightly, coats his eyes over the entirety of his face. “You want me to
come?” he ventures, genuinely surprised. His curiosity to the dynamic of the two of them rivals his
initial interest in Richhood, but he has learned not to pry. He’s never witnessed them together from
proximity, apart from the time he first watched Jungkook box and she came to announce she’d
practically arranged him a woman for the night.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods, his body making a small rocking motion towards Taehyung’s, knocking
them together than apart. “She mentioned a couple of times she would have liked to get to know
you better if I hadn’t—” he admits, stops and swallows before he remembers there is a third person
in the room, eyes jumping to him briefly. “Namjoon likes you, apparently, gives good feedback.”

“Apparently,” Taehyung shrugs, a small curve at just one edge of his lips at the attempt at
lightheartedness. He wishes they could have more of that, just something normal, just some
moments that are normal, where the air isn’t heavy with their history, but how could that be when
the heaviest parts of their history date to the previous night. He needs Jungkook to initiate it and is
glad he does. Jungkook is the one who had his whole world crumble to pieces barely hours ago.
“Yeah,” he nods, “I’ll come.”

Jungkook nods back, the tiniest curl of his own lips for the breath of a moment before he turns to
Namjoon for longer. “You can visit her, too, you know,” he tells him, shrugs some nonchalance
into the conversation. “She wants to see you.”

Taehyung turns to his brother sharper than he intends just in time to see his eyes slip to his with a
silent warning.

“Erm,” Namjoon’s attention returns to Jungkook. “I tried to see her once more after we ran into
each other there. Ran into Seokjin this time,” he tells him, fingers tapping into the counter behind
him as his head ducks towards the floor. “He kind of told me to get lost.”

Jungkook’s brows furrow. “Weren’t you two friends?”

Namjoon raises his gaze, speaks tightly. “We had a misunderstanding.”

Jungkook cocks his head in direction of Taehyung’s and they almost touch. “You’re being
purposefully vague, so I’ll do you a favor and drop it.”

Namjoon’s brows fly up in surprise at the considerate announcement. “Thank you.”

Jungkook’s arm that is behind Taehyung moves, hand shuffling on the table and it comes closer to
him. He rests his fingers seemingly on the edge of a chair right by Taehyung’s waist, but his palm
is practically at his hip. His arm is wrapped around him, length of it shamelessly flush against the
curve of his back. “By the way,” he starts, still speaking to Namjoon, “I’m doing something about
Kai.”

Namjoon readjusts almost fidgety against the counter, arms crossing tighter together. “What?” he
asks, skepticism layering his voice and his eyes as he narrows them slightly at Jungkook.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits, shoulders lifting in a quick shrug before he shakes
his head firmer. “But he’s the one who got my father home and I’m not letting him get away with
this,” Jungkook vows, determination filling his words. “He thinks I’ve gone soft and vulnerable
cause Clo’s in rehab, but I’m fucking him up for this.”

Taehyung knows him enough to sense the underlying anger both in the pattern with which he
speaks and the barely noticeable shifts in his body. He offers no words of his own to calm him, but
he does angle his back to press it more to the side of his chest, feels him answer the motion with
one of his own.

“He knows?” Namjoon asks.

Jungkook scoffs, eyes rolling as they shift to look at nothing concrete in the room, simply
venturing about in the repression of his annoyance. “Of course, he knows,” he confirms. “Half the
people in rehab, he’s sent them there. He’s practically friends with the staff, gives them that much
clientele.” He shakes his head with quick small thrusts as if to release himself from the frustration
of his comments and then presses his teeth together, jaw tight as he settles his attention once more
on the person opposite them. “Namjoon,” he starts, heavy, “is it here or is in Japan?”

Namjoon’s eyes pulse wider, lids opening and retracting as his gaze skips to Taehyung and returns
back to the other with an obvious warning. “Jungkook—"
Taehyung cranes his neck fully, blinking at Jungkook with furrowed brows. “Is what here?”

Jungkook reserves his attention stoic and pointed to his brother. “Tell me.”

Namjoon’s lips part for a moment, tongue lifting in his mouth, but he seems to switch direction. He
breathes. “It’s here,” he says with some finality, his teeth clanking when they meet.

Jungkook readjusts, feet shuffling as he straightens and unwraps himself from Taehyung to run
both hands through his hair. “You’re so fucking careless.”

“Is what here?” Taehyung repeats.

“Jungkook—" Namjoon stresses with caution.

“I’ll tell you later,” Jungkook dismisses with a promise, lips moving closer Taehyung’s ear where
they’re still almost huddled together by the table.

“You’re not telling him anything later,” Namjoon insists, straightening up from the counter and
nearing them both.

Jungkook’s eyes flash, tongue grows sharp. “He’s not a fucking child.”

“He’s—” Namjoon’s phone buzzes then, interrupts him and he fishes it out of his pocket hurried as
if he expects it. The screen beams at his face as he reads whatever message. “I have to go,” he
announces, slipping the device back in his jeans as he moves.

“Careful,” Jungkook warns when Namjoon moves.

“I know,” he nods with a brief gaze of acknowledgment as he whirls past them.

Taehyung straightens himself up from the table as Namjoon reaches the door, his hands thrown in
the air beside him as he trails his eyes annoyed after his brother. “You didn’t even wash your bowl.
It will fucking stick.”
Namjoon throws him a glance over his shoulder. “Wash it for me, yeah?”

Taehyung grunts after the slamming door, eyes rolling, but he moves towards the sink besides the
obvious frustration, starts it with a most petty sharp motion that has the potential to just about rip
the sensitive faucet.

Jungkook follows after, stepping into the space between the counters, hovering close to his back
before he tucks his chin over his shoulder that rattles with the motion of his scraping. “Leave it for
him to do when he gets back,” he mumbles, the vibration of his voice palpable where his jaw and
throat brush Taehyung.

“It’ll stick,” Taehyung complains, lower lip curling downwards in a small pout. “I’m done
anyway,” he announces, clicking the bowl into place beside the sink as he moves to wipe his hands
with a towel.

Jungkook moves back from him as Taehyung spins to face him, unwrapping the carelessly bundled
fabric with his fingers.

“Can’t you just get Kai arrested?” he asks, drying in between his fingers where a drowned
cornflake somehow sneaks. He’s sick and tired of all this, sick and tired. He just wants everything
to be okay, Namjoon to be home, Jungkook to be alright. “If Namjoon has something that Kai
doesn’t want him to, he can just give it to the police—”

Jungkook is shaking his head before Taehyung even has the chance to finish. “If Namjoon hands it
in this late, he’ll probably considered an accomplice,” he explains, pressing himself against the
counter opposite Taehyung. “Plus, your brother is not exactly the type of person that can just waltz
into a police station. If Kai goes down, Namjoon goes down with him. And Kai can get a better
lawyer, believe me. I’m currently in no position to help Namjoon.”

Taehyung thrusts the towel in the air, lets it spread opened with a frustrated motion. “If this is such
a domino situation then why the fuck is Kai after my brother?” he glances up as Jungkook’s eyes
can offer any answer, but he only meets a soft gaze. “Fuck, Kai always saves his ass from getting
jailed.”

“Realistically, Namjoon is the one who has to worry for police. Kai is scared of Byung-Chul and
he’s right to be. Prison would be kind to him.”
Taehyung sighs, some defeat settling itself in his stomach and his mind as he falls short of
suggestions. He has nothing to offer to this; he’s not informed enough of the situation, anyway. He
rolls the towel in his hands, shakes it up to get it comfortable for him to fold, lets his mind wander
away from this, one abyss into another.

“You know,” he starts with a glimpse downwards, studies the motion of his hands as they
automatically fold the towel over and position it carefully back into its place at a handle of a
drawer beneath the sink. His teeth nibble almost shy onto his bottom lip, “you could, like,” he
shrugs, “stay here for a few days.”

Jungkook’s lids flutter with the jerky motions his eyes make all over Taehyung, a small sigh
sneaking past his lips. “Your sister would kick me the fuck out if I tried to linger and you know it.”

Taehyung steadies his fingers over the towel, pads them across unnecessarily. It’s just a towel and
he’s never been a perfectionist. “Okay, but—” he swallows, focuses his attention to his nails as he
mumbles, “I’ve never woken up next to you.”

Jungkook pulls himself straight on his feet with a fluid motion against the counter, takes a single
step towards him. “What?”

“Uhm,” Taehyung leans back against a counter now, gives himself some space as his eyes dart up,
meet his, “it’s stupid.”

It’s stupid, but it’s all he’d been thinking about that morning when he woke up in his bunk bed,
alone with Woojin’s whistling breath beneath him. A privilege of people that are together, he
imagines, is that they get to fall asleep with someone, wake up next to someone. Taehyung likes
having someone there when he sleeps. The few times he’s been allowed to wrap himself around
Jungkook, he’d found him incredibly comfortable for his slumbering tendencies, the heat of his
body calming and addictive. He wants that, wants it so much. It’s a simple thing to want, small,
probably a nothing, but it’s tiny, mundane things like this that forge a relationship, that outline
what two people are to each other, what they bring to the everyday of each other’s lives, and it is
what they missed before, when they snuck in fucks and pretended they didn’t care.

“No, tell me,” Jungkook beckons, voice gentle, eyes gentler.

Taehyung’s gaze dances over him before his chest lift with a single heavier breath and he speaks.
“I want to see what it’s like to fall asleep and wake up next to you, without fearing that you’ve left
or that I have to leave because someone will catch us. I just—” he glances down, shrugs as he
looks at the tiles of his own floor, dirty beyond cleaning and cheap. “I want to wake up next to
you,” he concludes it as simple as he thinks he is, a little above a whisper.

Jungkook’s eyes are restless on him in an endeavor to take him all in, his feet, his legs, his hands,
his chest, his face, every strand in his drying hair. He looks at him and he simply wonders what the
fuck it was he thought he felt for him before because right now it’s impossible for him not to know.

He breathes, exhales. “I swear you’ll be the fucking end of me one day.”

Taehyung’s lids flutter up, eyes meeting his, innocent and glowing. He seems to want to prove this.
He seems to want to end him then and there, because with a ponderous pucker of his lips, he’s
slipping into another conversation Jungkook doesn’t know entirely how to handle. “You know,” he
starts, thrusting hair away from his eyes with a quick motion of his head, “this kitchen is where I
had my first kiss with a man.” His eyes glint and it sits like a challenge on his tongue. Jungkook
has to readjust on his feet, shuffle to swallow a reaction, the heat that sparks so quick inside him
acknowledgeably petulant and he wants it gone, but Taehyung seems to want it there. He’s
sayingmore. “I was standing right here. Bogum was standing right where you are.”

The mention of his name finds that heat and bursts it into flames within his chest. “Oh?”

He repositions himself on his feet, does not want his shoes where Bogum’s once were.

“Yeah.”

Jungkook’s stepping forward, body edging closer to Taehyung’s. “He was here?” he pronounces
slowly, carefully, dares Taehyung to speak more of this.

And Taehyung takes it with a nod. “Yes.”

“He kissed you,” he continues with another step, voice slipping deeper.

Taehyung’s response is a little above nothing, but it seems somehow wicked. “He did.”
Jungkook’s head cocks as he stops before him, an inch apart. “How was it?” he bites, another
challenge from his eyes right to Taehyung’s.

Teeth tease at Taehyung’s bottom lip as he pauses for a moment, but when he does speak, voice
bordering on salacious with the way it slips and curls, it offers no consolation to Jungkook’s
wounding pride. “It was my first kiss with a man.”

His eyes narrow. He’s plain accusatory with his next question. “You liked it?”

Taehyung clicks his tongue as he releases his lips, presses it into the fold of his cheek as if he’s
thinking about it before he announces. “I didn’t dislike it.”

He dances between yes and no, but the room for a dance is enough to ignite the flames in his chest
to a brimming point until they’re spilling out of him.

“Bet I can replace that memory.”

“Wh—” he expects the lips and he doesn’t all the same. But Jungkook is sucking all words
Taehyung can think of right to his mouth. One hand is slipping in his hair, cupping behind his
neck, the other is gripping punishing into the side of his waist, fingers squeezing possessive and
bold. There is no reluctance to his touch, no caution and pauses like last time. He takes.He’s
pushing him against the counter, pressing himself flush against him and kissing him ardently, touch
burning into his body with the sizzling hunger with which he grabs at him.

Taehyung lets him swallow his words. They escape his mind nevertheless when he feels Jungkook
all over. He forgets himself, always does. Forgets Bogum as well, right away. This kiss is so
different, so much more scorching, so needy and passionate, but he forgets to compare, too. He
doesn’t need to compare. Jungkook is a stand-alone for him. He is enough.

“Bet I can make you forget about any and all men,” Jungkook tells him, his teeth pulling at his
bottom lip, a breathy determination in his voice as he presses himself impossibly closer.

He’s touching him until he’s eliciting whimpers, until Taehyung is challenging more. “Make me
then,” he urges hot against him and it has Jungkook pulling on his hair.

Jungkook is stripping himself off a shirt, because Taehyung likes his body, and his body is better
than Bogum’s. He’s stripping Taehyung of pants and underwear and hitching him on the counter,
right on the counter he says he was at when he had that first kiss.

“Jungkook, my sister sometimes eatshere,” he’s whining in his mouth, but his lips are nevertheless
answering any suggestive insinuation Jungkook’s make when they part against his. He’s still
wrapping his arm around his bare shoulders, spreading his legs to welcome him in between them.

He summons Jungkook’s primality with the challenge of what he’d said, and he has to bear the
consequences of it, wants to, needs to, to tear them both away from what happened the previous
night, to rip them away from Kai, from his sister, from Richhood, and just remind them that they
have this,each other.

So, Taehyung protests in words, but smiles in the kiss when Jungkook only prompts his legs further
apart with brave, bold hands, fits himself between him and whispers to his lips, “Don’t care.”

A quickie in the kitchen, with nearby baby oil and spit as lube, maybe inappropriate in the midst of
the storm they’re in, yet in terms of them somehow very, very fitting

Jungkook fucks him on the kitchen counter until his legs are shaking around him, slithers his
mouth over his neck and bites possession on the frail skin, because Taehyung is fucking asking for
it. He’s not tentative with him this time. There is not an ounce of hesitation to his touch. Taehyung
agitates him into this, and he slips into it easily, loses himself in being with him like that, the two
falling into some of the roots of how they began.

Distraction. Release of frustration. It’s what they were to each other, what they can still be for each
other if the other needs it, and they both need it now. It’s different. He’s rough with him, like he
used to be, but it is confined to sex. He soothes roughness with his lips. It’s different. He’s jealous
for him, territorial for him, like he used to be, but it is more envy than anything else, not borne out
of unbidden fear Taehyung will turn to Bogum to punish him for treating him like shit. It’s envy
that he wasn’t the one in the kitchen, kissing Taehyung. He wants to be Taehyung’s first kiss with a
man, regrets he did not experience it with him. He had the chance, so many opportunities to be that
memory for him, but he isn’t, because he’s a fucking coward.

Taehyung is his own first kiss with a man and there is something almost crudely exciting for him
hidden in that truth. He likes that for once there is something that he has only given to Taehyung
and to no one else. He’d give him more if he asked him to. He’d probably give him anything he
asked for.

Right now, he’s practically begging to just get fucked, hard. And he’s giving him just that.
For Taehyung this is exhilaratingly them. He loves the security of being able to do this, to just
abandon any and all control like they used to with the comfort of the knowledge that Jungkook
won’t leave after, to know that those are roles they are playing more so than who they are, to know
that he can kiss him.

He kisses him.

Just because he can, he kisses him.

He tangles his fingers in his hair and tugs his mouth away from his skin where it is appetitive in
leaving marks, scattering himself all across Taehyung, biting promises and pictures with his teeth.
He tangles fingers in his hair and pulls his mouth to his own, kisses him wet and sensual, tongues
chasing tongues as bodies seek sensation.

It’s exhilarating that Jungkook can be almost punishing with how he makes him come, push him
over an edge, overwhelming and unforgiving, yet still pour himself in his mouth with a kiss that
promises much more than the orgasm does.

Taehyung is wrapping himself around him more, arms around his shoulders, lips against his, and
he’s moaning for him, assuring him there is no one else, it’s him. It’s fast. It’s messy. It’s sweaty.
There are moments in which it hurts, the counter stiff, the thrusts punishing, the way they hold
onto each other almost bruising. Taehyung is not even sitting, he’s propped against the counter,
angled and clinging almost entirely onto Jungkook so that he can be inside him.

Taehyung can barely breathe when it’s over, exhausted. Drained, he’s drained, but he pulls more
out of Jungkook then he realizes when he predisposes him to such loss of control. He stripped him
of the pretense of collection and bared him to the vulnerability that has been constantly on the edge
of slipping recently. Because Jungkook’s fingers turn trembling in their hold of Taehyung, turn
desperate.

“This is all that happened in this kitchen. Okay?” he’s telling him, still inside him, a palm cupping
over one cheek as he brushes hair away to glimpse into his eyes. “This,” he insists, a quiver in his
voice as it topples passionate out of his mouth. “That’s what happened here,” he tells him, and
Taehyung knows it’s not the image of Taehyung kissing Bogum in this kitchen that bother’s
Jungkook. It’s the image of Taehyung hunched over the sink as Jungkook lingers on the first step.
“I kissed you,” Jungkook lists hands gentler than his voice, “I fucked you, and then I told you I
loved you.”
Taehyung’s eyes search his. He’ll never get used to the sound of that, to the way it makes his heart
race different than the most powerful orgasm can. “Did you?” he asks on the border of weakness,
Jungkook’s vulnerability somehow his own.

“Yes,” Jungkook nods, once, twice. Jungkook nods. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” It’s the first time they get to do it like this, say it complete privacy and exchange
it, share it, promise it. It’s easier than both of them expect. It’s thrillingly gratifying, to hear it and
to say it. It courses electric currents through Taehyung’s veins.

“This is the only thing that happened in this kitchen,” Jungkook repeats, pressing his lips to his for
a moment, “only thing that matters, okay? Only thing I mean.”

Taehyung cups his hand around his neck, rubs fingers against him in attempt to sooth. “Yeah,” he
says to his lips as Jungkook kisses him clumsy and loud. It’s the only thing that matters. He presses
his thumb at the edge of his jaw where it ticks when he’s angry and kisses him more. Jungkook is
inside him, yet he’s surging forward to get him closer. Taehyung cranes his neck, tilts back to let
him do this, kiss him as he wills it, and it’s perhaps the deepest he has kissed him yet.

“Yes,” Taehyung breathes firmer when their lips part for a moment but Jungkook just angles his
hand different and sinks into him, kissing him so honest it simply must look crude, sounds crude.
He’s cradling the back of his neck, holding him with eyes screwed shut and sealing each and every
apology with a kiss until he can’t any more, until he’s kissing his cheek instead, his jaw, his neck,
his shoulder.

He lets go of him, wraps his arms around his middle and holds him like this, burying his face in his
shoulder and his neck. His lips are wet against his skin, but his eyes are wetter, and it makes
Taehyung’s heart stop.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you, Tae,” he says in his neck, shoulders rippling with it, “I’m so fucking
sorry.”

Taehyung has seen Jungkook vulnerable, seen him hurt, seen so much of him already. He hasn’t
yet seen him truly cry,not even when they were outside Clo’s bathroom, and hecertainly hasn’t
held him crying in his arms. He knows everyone has a threshold, knows that Jungkook tries to hide
how scared he is of what he lost, how hurt he is they let him go, because no matter who his parents
are, he still must have harbored some desperate, stupid hope.
He knows everyone has a threshold, but he is not ready to witness Jungkook’s. It feels too much as
if he is tripping past his own.

“Hey,” he flattens a hand over his shoulder, smooths it down his back. “Hey,” he treads fingers
through strands of his hair, “It’s okay,” he’s whispering to him, afraid any harsher sound would
make it worse, afraid any harsher sound would betray the quiver in his own voice, the fact he has
to bite his lips between words to swallow down his own need to break, “I know, I know.”

Jungkook is shaking his head. He feels him blink and then follows the sensation of a single tear
roll down Taehyung’s neck and under the collar of his t-shirt. “I was so scared in the Ozone when I
saw you,” he continues and Taehyung knows he has his eyes opened against him, staring into
nothing but skin. “You were acting so—” he trails, can’t finish. “I was so scared I fucked you up. I
don’t want you to change.”

“I’m not,” Taehyung promises, palm patting a gentle pattern over the length of his spine. “You
didn’t. It’s okay.”

He sniffs, shakes his head more and announces suddenly louder, “I’ll change.”

“No, no, no,” Taehyung is shaking his own head now, some panic in his voice before he forces it
off of his lips when he presses them into the top of Jungkook’s head. “Hey,” he mumbles there
once more, “no changing,” he pleads. “Just some sides of you you need to control, okay?” he
pauses, but Jungkook only answers by tightening his arms around him. “No changing, please, no
changing.” He applies gentle pressure with his lips at the crown of his head, tells him once more, “I
love you.”

He’ll tell him as many times as he’ll hear it.

“I don’t deserve you,” he mumbles it so softly, so snidely against his skin that Taehyung cannot
help but think he is not even meant to hear.

The fact it may be just this, just for Jungkook’s sake, just him reminding himself only hurts more.
Taehyung squeezes his fingers almost roughly in his hair. “Shut up, please.”

But he’s still talking, narrating into Taehyung’s chest. “And it was useless,” he says with a weak
shrug of his shoulders, voice pitching unfamiliar. “Hurting you was useless. I wanted to make it so
you would never have to see him. He would never have to see you. I didn’t want you to face him,”
he’s stopping. He’s gulping with difficulty, eyes blinking almost dry against Taehyung’s skin.
“Ididn’t want to face him,” he confesses finally, every weakness that would embarrass his father
bared to the surface of the broken voice he says it with.

They ask each other not to change, yet with every moment they change each other. Hurting people
changes them and Jungkook would be the first to know that.

Loving people changes them as well and Jungkook doesn’t know what changes him more, loving
Taehyung or Taehyung loving him.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung starts tentative, curling a single lock of his hair around a finger, “if you
hadn’t done what you did,” he swallows, “do you think you have walked out that door with me?”

He’s finally lifting his head up at the question, glassy, wide eyes charting almost startles up at
Taehyung. His lips part, empty air hitting over Taehyung’s mouth as Jungkook shakes his head
with a searching gaze. “I would have never let him hit you.”

“I know,” Taehyung assures him. “I know,” he repeats and he does, he knows, because he
remembers one of the first foundations of who Jungkook shaped to be in his eyes was built on the
fact he protected Ji-woo, a girl who was a nobody to him, from his father. “But you wouldn’t have
walked out on your family like that.”

Taehyung knows Jungkook would not have let him hit him. But he also knows if this had happened
before and Jungkook’s father had sauntered in with the words get your whore out of my apartment
so I can speak to you, Jungkook would have taken that chance.

Jungkook’s next breath is in nature reminiscent of laughter, in essence probably the weakest sound
he’s made yet. It comes through his nose and he presses his lips together, looks away from
Taehyung and stares instead into nothing at the blotched wall behind him. “I don’t have a family
anymore,”

“Jungkook—”

He stands a bit straighter, tears drying on his face. Taehyung is surprised the fact he’s soft inside of
him does not feel weird. He doesn’t really want to pull away. “Did I ever have a family?”
“You do,” Taehyung promises, fingers still working soothing through his hair. “You have Yoongi
and Hoseok and Clo and Julia. And me. And even Namjoon,” he adds, a small shrug. “We don’t
pay as well, but—"

“Do you wanna meet them?” Jungkook interrupts, eyes returning to his as his tongue licks prickly
salt off of his swollen lips.

Taehyung’s fingers still in his hair. “I don’t know.”

“Yoongi’s really small up close, I promise,” Jungkook speaks, nearly eager and Taehyung is
slightly thrown off by the fact he sounds almost excited. He thought an introduction between them
would be a sacrifice on Jungkook’s part, yet it seems now like it is something he genuinely wants.
“Not scary at all,” he shakes his head, assuring. “Plus, I already told him, so—

“You told him?”

“Yeah.”

Taehyung presses his lips together, glances down between them, his shirt soaked with his come, a
great big barrier shaped underneath. “Wouldn’t it bother them?” he ventures as he slips his eyes
back up. “That I’m,” he shrugs, “you know.”

“You’re what?” Jungkook’s brows furrow. “A Kim?”

“A boy.”

Jungkook’s eyes soften, dart over him as he leans closer, wraps arms around him again. “They’re
not like my dad,” he promises gently. “They’re both reasonable,” he says. “Comparatively,” he
adds. “They wouldn’t care as long as it’s not—not them, you know?” he doesn’t know, he can’t
know. Jungkook barely knows himself. “And I don’t care if they do,” he decides with a small
shake of his head even if he is sure Yoongi will always understand. “I love that you’re a boy,” he
tells him, eyes falling over him, dragging across the entirety of his body, propped against the
counter. “I love how wide your shoulders are,” he lifts a finger, brushes the tip of it gently over his
collarbone, “your chest,” he continues, lets his hand slip down, cup briefly over his length before
he curls it over a thigh, “love your whole body.” He lifts his eyes back up again, meets his, “Love
your face, you’re so handsome. Love how you talk to me, love how you’re in this together with
me, how you understand, love who you are. Doesn’t really matter that you’re a boy, does it?” he
concludes, slowly peaking to the realization as he peaks, leaning until his lips brush over his.
“You’re just Taehyung.”

The next kiss is slow, incompatible with the tremors of Taehyung’s heart.

Then it is none at all because the back door opens, Namjoon striding confidently in.

“Tae—” he starts calm, halfway in as Taehyung presses himself snider into Jungkook to hide as
much of himself as he can, gripping into Jungkook’s pants and pulling them up and over the globes
of his ass. It is when Namjoon thinks to lift his gaze up from his phone. “Oh, Jesus fucking
Christ,” he throws his head back, halting in his step as if he is hit square in the face with medicine
ball, palms cupping over his eyes. “Does it have to be in the kitchen?”

“Uhm, Namjoon,” Jungkook clears his throat as Namjoon keeps standing there with his eyes
shielded from the view, “we’d gladly get decent and all, but I’m kind of inside your brother and we
didn’t exactly use a condom, so—"

“I do not need to hear this, see this,” Namjoon starts listing, screwing his eyes shut and extending
his arms forward to feel for the wall, speaking with a pitch Taehyung has never heard before from
him. “I do not need to know this. You have scarred me for life. This is lifelong damage you have
caused. I will never be able to feed myself again. I—” he’s got one foot on the first step when
suddenly he’s looking at them with both eyes wide open and Taehyung is shuffling his thighs,
hiding where their bodies meet, “why the fuck aren’t you wearing protection with my little
brother?”

Taehyung groans, the position rather uncomfortable. “We’re kind of exclusive, Joon, and we don’t
really get pregnancy scares.”

Namjoon seems to think about it and Taehyung doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or yell at him.
“Right,” he nods suddenly, gets on the second step, stutters, “yeah, okay, yeah.”

“Mind the third step,” Jungkook calls out to him as Namjoon continues up, waving a finger back
and forth in the air for a reason unbeknownst to them.

Jungkook turns to him after his brother disappears up the stairs, eyes creasing and nose bundling
with a sudden burst of laughter tearing through them both. It’s short, but it’s enough, has a residual
effect on both their faces, a grin resting on Jungkook’s expression after the sound of it dwindles.
It’s so refreshing to see a smile on his face, hear his laugh even if just for a moment.

Taehyung hardly knows if he’s smiling at the situation or purely at Jungkook’s smile.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, pretty boy,” Jungkook prompts, finally slipping out of him. He helps
Taehyung slip out of the stained shirt in the small laundry room, speaks more when his head comes
back out after he removes the fabric.

“Do you want to come sleep at my aunts?”

Taehyung blinks, his hair all up in disarray from sex and static electricity alike. “What?” he
breathes.

Jungkook smooths his hand over his head, brinks some of the strand hairs back into place. He
shrugs. “Ji-woo doesn’t want me here, we all know that. You want to wake up next to me,” he
shrugs, speaks as if there is only one obvious conclusion. “Come stay the night,” he suggests. “Just
this once. Woojin has one brother and one sister here already.”

Taehyung dabbles his eyes over his face. “I’m sore,” he tells him.

Jungkook’s head cocks. “Who the fuck said anything about sex?”

“So, essentially,” Taehyung crosses his arms, a small curve helplessly forming on his lips, “you’re
just inviting me for a sleepover.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook admits without skipping a beat, following his own fingers as they try make
sense of the mess of Taehyung’s hair.“You calm me down, Tae,” he says, voice soft. “Guess I
wanna wake up next to you, too.”

The apartment is nice. Small but nice, a lot homier than Taehyung expects from a Jeon. The
kitchen is in the living room which is another thing he finds atypical. And there are books, so many
books. The whole interior design of the place is based entirely on fitting as many shelves possible
to store as many books possible.

They arrive exactly three minutes before his aunt returns from work, clacking in heels, high enough
to be elegantly professional, not high enough to be fit for Richhood.

She knows to expect him. Jungkook texts her before they leave because Taehyung insists, yet
when she pauses behind the counter of her kitchen, Taehyung still hides himself slightly behind
Jungkook’s shoulder as they approach.

“Hello, boys,” she greets wondrously easily, uncapping a bottle of water as she does, and Taehyung
fails to see how she shares even the smallest bit of DNA with Jungkook’s father. “When’d you get
in?”

“Hey,” Jungkook greets, “Just now.”

When she raises the bottle to drink, her eyes saunter over Taehyung, hovering nervous, palms
rubbing together a little behind Jungkook’s shoulder.

“Introductions, Kookie?” she settles the bottle down, presses her palms in the countertop.

Jungkook turns slightly behind himself, locates where Taehyung hides and tugs him forward until
they stand together across from her counter island. “Tae, my aunt, Mei Su. Aunt Mei, that’s
Taehyung, my boyfriend.” Taehyung has his eyes politely and timidly fixed over Jungkook’s aunt,
nodding along in agreement until it hits him what Jungkook says.

He snaps his head to him, eyes wide, lips twitching and Jungkook doesn’t even seem to notice. He
stares ahead at his aunt, entirely ignorant to the rapid pink blush that for some reason spreads warm
over Taehyung’s neck and cheeks.

Getting caught naked on after fucking on a kitchen countertop doesn’t make him blush, apparently,
but the word boyfriend does.

“Ah,” she interrupts the threat of an onslaught of thoughts with an exclamation that drags his
attention to her, “good to finally meet the reason a Jeon does something smart at last.” She turns to
him fully, a smile tugging at her lips. “Hello,” she greets more officially, returning his bow with a
nod of her head. “He said a lot about you last night,” she tells him, eyes teasing over Jungkook for
a moment before they return to him, “but I doubt he’s said much about me.”

“Mei,” Jungkook warns, gets mercilessly ignored.

It only makes Taehyung’s blush deepen that Jungkook talked about him.

“Not really, no,” Taehyung shakes his head, truthful.

“It’s okay,” she dismisses, a small wave of a well-manicured hand. “I like being the least talked
about Jeon. Have you eaten boys?”

“Yes.

“Yeah.”

“Good,” she nods, “cause I don’t know how to cook to save my life,” she addresses them both
before she concentrates on Taehyung once more. “I hear you’re staying the night.”

Taehyung’s eyes dart to the side then ahead at her. He fumbles. “Jungkook said it’s okay, but—”

“It’s fine,” she interrupts, a smile breaking out once more. “If you’ll excuse me,” she straightens up
then, gathers her water bottle and points indicatively to a door on her right. “I want to lose the
heels. You can show him to your room, please,” she stresses as she begins to walk, “be quiet. I
have an early start tomorrow.”

Jungkook shakes his hand behind her at the insinuation before he sighs, taps two fingers at
Taehyung’s elbow. “Come on.”

The room is small, full of books, too, an open suitcase on the floor. Taehyung barely notices
anything, though, but Jungkook notices Taehyung is not entirely there with him.
“What?” he asks him, screwing his nose up slightly at Taehyung’s expression.

“What?” he counters, defensive.

Jungkook brings his brows together, studies him almost apprehensive. “What’s with the dumb
grin?”

It only makes said dumb grin grow wider on his face. “You just called me your boyfriend,”
Taehyung tells him, almost teasing, almost childish.

“Ah,” Jungkook’s lips part, his head cocks as he seems to think back to his introduction. “Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh well,” he shrugs, circling one arm around Taehyung and tugging him closer, “slip of the
tongue. I take it right back.”

Being in a place where they haven’t been before, Taehyung thinks, a place that belongs to a woman
who has manages to slip herself away from Richhood, curiously makes it easier not to constantly
concentrate on the fact almost everything’s in ruins.

“No, don’t be a bitch,” Taehyung whines, clicking his tongue as he knocks a gentle fist against
Jungkook’s chest, pushing him away, but it only makes him wrap his other arm around him two.
Jungkook catches his own wrist behind Taehyung’s back, brings him closer like that.

“Mm,” he pecks him once, twice, “sorry, pretty boy.”

Taehyung flattens his palm against his shoulders instead, accepts he’s imprisoned between his
arms. He chooses to look at his fingers smoothing over there when he asks, quiet, “Am I your
boyfriend?”

Jungkook tips his head, bends himself a little to wordlessly ask for his eyes and doesn’t speak until
he has them. “You’re whatever you want to me.”
It doesn’t matter anymore, really. He lost what he had to lose. A label means nothing to him, never
really did. He called Julia his girlfriend for years, but they were a little more than a front, outside of
being friends. Taehyung can call himself whatever he wants, and it won’t change the fact he’s with
him and him only. If a label makes him happy, he can have it.

“Then, I’m your boyfriend,” Taehyung beams, announces, taps Jungkook’s elbows to ask him to
release him and he does, watches him as he sits on the edge of the bed to shun himself of shoes.

“Okay then you’re my boyfriend,” Jungkook agrees, nodding as he cocks his head, a little smile
breaking on his face. “Am I your girlfriend?”

Taehyung looks up at him as he slips his thumb in the heel of his shoes and tugs down. “Do you
think that’s funny?” he flutters his lids at him pointedly.

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head, but the small smile remains on his face.

“Good call,” Taehyung says as he slips the second shoe off successfully, gathers them with his
fingers and stands to put them beside the door.

Jungkook’s body spins with him, eyes trailing behind his head, slipping a little lower when he
bends to leave the shoes on the floor. “Hey, boyfriend,” he calls.

“Okay, enough of that.”

“Okay, hey Tae.”

“Yes.” Taehyung straightens, turns to him fully.

“Can you fold my clothes?” Jungkook asks, almost sheepish. Almost. “Mei won’t do it for me.”

“I’m confused,” Taehyung starts, ironic, lacing his fingers together before his chest, “did by
boyfriend you mean cleaner or wife from a few decades ago?”
Jungkook clicks his tongue, letting his head fall back on his shoulders. “I don’t know how to
properly do it,” he whines, pointing at a few failed attempts in the open closet. “Everything I fold
takes so much space and gets all wrinkly.”

Taehyung glances at the closet, almost offensively smaller in comparison to his other one, where
he has practically ruined two beautiful shirts that are only meant for a hanger. He shakes his head,
presses two fingers between his brows. “You’re fucking useless.”

“Hey” he bristles, “if you want any advice on merging companies, I’d be happy to provide it to
you.”

“Hm,” Taehyung taps sarcastic at his chin, perking his eyes up at the ceiling as he feigns deep
pondering. “Let me just decide which one of my independent labels I would like to merge.”

“I was thinking,” Jungkook starts, reaching forward in the small room and grasping at his forearm.
He tugs Taehyung easily to himself, not much resistance offered from the other side as he releases
him and instead slips his hand backwards, fingers teasing at the side of his waist before they drop,
curl suggestive at the globe of his ass. Taehyung really should not be allowed to bend over. It puts
too many ideas in Jungkook’s head. “You merge your lips with mine.”

Taehyung snorts. “That was borderline cringy,” he remarks, but when Jungkook makes a motion
with his wrist, makes him stutter forward, he meets his lips without protest.

“Borderline,”Jungkook stresses, emphasizes the importance of it with a firm squeeze of the flesh
of his ass that almost has him gasping. He takes advantage of the small gap between his lips, teases
over it with his tongue, touches his tip to his briefly before he kisses him fully.

Taehyung plans to allow it for a moment, does it for two or three because the heat of Jungkook’s
palm feels good and his mouth is instinctive when it chases after his. His first protest is barely
such. He’s still half kissing him when he speaks. “Your aunt’s here and I’m still recovering.”

“I’m just kissing you,” Jungkook argues, and, true to his word, kisses him.

“And fondling my ass,” Taehyung sighs against him. “You’re gonna get me hard.”
“If I do,” Jungkook solidifies with another squeeze, “I shall bear the consequences and suck you
off.”

Taehyung’s lips stretch helplessly. This is easy, he thinks, this is so fucking easy. “How
responsible of you!”

“You simply must be, in this business.”

“Mm okay,” he moans slightly against him, “teach me more about this business.”

“Gladly,” Jungkook nods, parting his lips more, head tilting to kiss him deeper.

He hates that knock, absolutely abhors it, mouth pausing open, tongue halfway into Taehyung’s
before he slips it back into his, pulling away with a reluctant sigh. He waits for his aunt to walk in
without giving her permission. He knows he will. He stares ahead with dull eyes, pointedly keeping
his hand on Taehyung’s ass to warn her she should be quick.

His eyes peel open more and his hand drops just when he sees her face. She has a very special
expression reserved for everyone who carries their last name.

“Jungkook,” she starts, eyes finding the floor, “your father is here.”

A pang of guilt hits him chilling and sudden when he follows her gaze down to her feet. He hates to
bring him back to her life. She cannot stand to see him.

And he doesn’t want him here, not where Mei is, not where Taehyung is.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung tries, just says his name. He has not much else to offer.

He shakes his head, stops him. “Stay here,” he asks, a lasting glance towards him before he walks
to the living room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Mei does not raise her head as she walks to her room. He doesn’t blame her, because there he
fucking is.

He stands behind the counter where Mei herself had stood, dressed to impress even though his eye
is swollen and bloodshot, upper lip cracked and bruised blue and big at one side. It doesn’t show in
his manners; doesn’t show in the way he looks at him from above his nose. Jungkook can tell by
the mere composure of his presence that he hasn’t been drinking. He almost wishes he had.
Alcohol makes him aggressive, but it also makes him stupid, makes him slow.

Jungkook considers pausing in front of the door, but he changes his mind quickly. He doesn’t want
to seem too protective of what’s behind it. He doesn’t want to seem scared. “What do you want?”
he demands as he nears him, stops on the other end of the counter, arms folding over tight.

He prays he can keep his voice straight throughout. He begs he doesn’t notice his throat when he
swallows impending tremors and ill tasting fear.

His father’s scrutiny feels worse than usual as perpetually critical, condescending eyes scan him all
over. “I have yet to publicly address this and inform my lawyers and Byung-Chul of my change of
inheritance,” he informs him, the detachment of his business relations seeming warm in
comparison to how he speaks to him now.

Jungkook shrugs. “So?”

“Jungkook,” his father starts with a heavy exhale, a crane of his neck as it this is an exhausting
burden to him, “your mother has reasoned with me, and as it is most sensible to avoid a scandal, I
have decided I will allow you to entertain your perversions in private and fuck boys.”

Jungkook’s eyes bulge, jaw unhinges and false loose. He had thought his father had ran out of
things to shock him. “Excuse me?” he breathes.

“It will not be the first time in history, won’t be the last,” his father narrates as if rehearsed. “Even
the ancient Greeks preferred their partners women, their bedmates boys. Sicknesses happen. We
could put you in therapy, when you’re ready.”

“Sicknesses?” Jungkook chortles, can’t help it. He must be joking. “Ancient Greeks?” he
pronounces just as incredulous, eyes searching his father’s face for any sign he suddenly decided
after years and years of nothing but coldness that he had some sense of humor. He knows it’s
hopeless. “Do you hear even half the shit that comes out your mouth?” he asks, voice pitching, but
he knows the reason he’s appalled slips right past his father, unnoticed and uncared for. “I’m gay,”
Jungkook says and he will say it again and again just to see the bastard visibly flinch. “Okay? I like
men. Not just as bed mates or whatever the fuck. I like men. And I don’t mean I just like ass, or
dick. I fucking likemen. I fucked Taehyung on your dinner table. And I jacked off to gay porn in
your fucking office. And I—"

“As I said,” his father interrupts the tirade, his eyes falling shut for a moment until Jungkook has
swallowed down the continuation of his sentence. “I will allow you to fuck boys.”

Fuck, he says, fuck, he insists. This is a kink to him, a perversion. This is sex to him, nothing more,
nothing less.

“I’m in love with him,” Jungkook presses, stresses, teeth knocking together, “not with his
genitals.”

“See this is the problem,” his father breathes a sigh. “Him,” he pronounces in shockingly layered
disgust. “Those boys,” he continues as if he expects Jungkook to bend and agree in a minute or two,
already setting terms, “must be neutral to you. I will not stand for you fucking a boy you pretend to
love.”

“Pretend?” The word sits so horrible on his tongue.

“I have not raised you to fall in love, Jungkook. Both you and I know that.”

Jungkook shakes his head, tongue poking quick and brief at the side of his cheek, stretching the
flesh there before he speaks. “You haven’t raised me to properly communicate love. You can’t
raise me to an incapabilityof love, and thankfully being amputated of it is not genetic, cause
otherwise I’d be fucked with a shit like you as my father.”

“What kind of game do you think you’re playing with me, son?” His father sighs once more,
presses four spread fingers to his forehead. “Is this because of your sister?”

“No. I’m not playing a game.”

“Jungkook,” his father lowers his hand, looks straight into his eyes, “if you want my attention, this
is not the way to get it. Now, I want you to promise you will never see him again and come home
with me.”

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head, definite.

His father breaks, voice raising sudden and booming as the last of his feigned diplomacy slips and
gives way to his temperament. “Why would you throw away your life for a whore?”

“I’m not throwing away anything,” Jungkook says, speaks more heated than he initially wanted to,
but he can’t help it, doesn’t care. All his life he wanted to yell at him, so finally, he does. “I want
nothing to do with you. I want Clo out of that fucking apartment as well. And he’s not a whore. I
love him and he’s fucking mine.”

“Mine,” his father repeats, smacking his lips together, some cruel satisfaction settling into his tone
as he tastes the word on his tongue, lacking the charged vehemence with which Jungkook claims it
on his. “You’ve been repeating that word since you could speak, you know,” he tells him, eerily
proud as he taps his fingers on the countertop, the ring on one of them glaring at Jungkook. “Mine,
mine, mine.”

“He’s not yours, Jungkook,” his father shakes his head as he watches impact settle onto his son,
eyes slipping away from glaring into his and falling to the floor. “I raised you incapable of love and
I raised you impossible tolove. You’re a piece of shit, just like me,” he outlines, calm and clear.
Jungkook is staring at his feet, lips mouthing the word mine. He doesn’t see the switch of his
attention to the space behind him. “Whatever he feels for you, he’ll stop confusing it for love soon
enough,” he pauses, cocks his head and his next words force Jungkook’s eyes right back up.
“Hello, Kim Taehyung,” his father’s lips twist and Jungkook’s head spirals, gaze widening as he
sees Taehyung in the doorway. “Call me the first time he hits you. I want to be the first to know.”

“Don’t talk to him,” Jungkook growls, turning back to glare at his father. “Don’t fucking look at
him. Get the fuck out.”

“I’m leaving,” his father proclaims, Jungkook’s anger serving to calm his own. “I’ve said what I
said,” he says with finality, meeting his son’s eyes. “It’s a standing offer,” he details before his
gaze continues, moves over to Taehyung. “For both of you.”

Before Jungkook can bruise his other eye, he leaves.

Jungkook’s shoulders curl together, hunch as his head drops down between them, arms spread to
the side at the counter, back visibly tense even beneath the fabric of his shirt.

Taehyung takes a step towards him. “Jungkook,” he calls tentative as he approaches, if perhaps he
needs space.

But Jungkook is turning right back to him, walking over, distance closed in seconds, both hands
circling around the back of his neck as he locks his eyes with him, pointed. “I would never hit
you,” he tells him, voice full and hurried, voice terribly passionate, “I promise, Taehyung. I would
never fucking hit you.”

“I know,” Taehyung says, lifting one hand, wrapping the fingers of it around his wrist. He pats his
thumb over the end of his bone where it protrudes. “I know.”

“And I love you,” Jungkook keeps going, eyes boring into his. “I swear I do. I love you.”

“Listen,” Taehyung tries, calls. “Listen to me. He’s not saying that to make me doubt you,” he
shakes his head, “He’s saying it to make you doubt yourself, so I need you to fucking believe that
you deserve me, okay?”

“But I—"

“Jungkook,” Taehyung interjects before doubt makes its way between them. “Tell me,” he asks.
“Tell me,” he demands with a shaky swipe of his tongue over his lips, his own voice curling with
emotion, but he doesn’t want to let it slip. “I don’t want you pushing me away again because of
shit like this,” he reminds him, eyes blinking so much, too much. “Tell me. Just tell me.”

“I love you,” Jungkook starts, that part seemingly easy for him, surprisingly easy for him.
Taehyung never imagined a confession like this would slip so easy, so often from Jungkook’s lips,
but he supposes Namjoon’s right once more. When he hates, he hates. When he loves, he loves.

“Okay,” Taehyung nods, an urge for him to continue.

“You love me, too?” that comes much harder. It comes slower and it twists like a question.
“Yes, I love you.” Taehyung says it firmer. “And you deserve it, okay?” he insists. “Tell me.”

Jungkook’s eyes dart over his face, hands relaxing on the back of his neck, fingers drawing
tentative patterns. He gulps nothing before he speaks, but he speaks. “I deserve it.”

“Yeah, you do. Come to bed now,” he slips his hand into his, pulls him away. “Fuck him.”

“Fuck him.”
 Chapter 25
Chapter Summary

bit of a filler ngl

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“I’m so glad you bent me over that motherfucker’s antique table, you have no idea,” Taehyung
shakes his head as he unfastens the belt of his jeans. It comes surprisingly natural to him, stripping
with Jungkook in the room.

He wishes there was more he could do. He wishes he himself could profess an elaborate fuck you
to Jeon. He deserves it. Taehyung is not vengeful, not nasty. Although he is admittedly immature,
spit-in-your-drink, stick-your-tongue-out immature at moments, it does not tend to build to him
actually wanting to do any actual harm.

When Jungkook hurt him, he had so much opportunity to hurt him back. Bogum would have been
glad to participate, probably volunteered as main director. But it’s not him. It just isn’t. He never
wants to avenge something done to him. He does, however, feel his blood swirl with appetite for
hurting the guy for doing this to Jungkook. It’s the same type of protective defensiveness that
courses through him whenever people speak of his brothers or his sister.

“Fuck him,” Jungkook repeats, pacing in the small room. It allows exactly three wide steps before
he has to turn back, take them in the other direction. “Really fuck him,” he cups his hands at the
back of his head, shakes it. “I don’t—” he starts, pauses, in walking and talking both, then
continues speaking but drops the vehemence from his voice. “He’s not going to give me anything
anymore.”

Taehyung folds his eyes over him, brows drawing closer as sympathy physically tugs at him, paints
on the features of his face. “I’m sorry—”

“No, Tae,” Jungkook drops his hands to the sides, peaks up, perks up, eyes meeting Taehyung’s
wide and there are the beginnings of curves on the edges of his lips. “He has nothing more to offer
me,” he speaks the revelation, which Taehyung would figure is conceptually terrifying to him with
suspicious exhilaration. “If I don’t give you up,” he starts, moves closer with a shaking head,
“which I’m not, he’s not giving me his partnership with Byung-Chul.”
“I—” Taehyung’s brows furrow further, eyes darting across the other’s features in sheer confusion,
“why do you sound excited?”

“Because that means I don’t need Byung-Chul anymore,” he tells him, the peculiar enthusiasm
building as he dismisses his entire preplanned future with one sentence and Taehyung has to
wonder if he has finally gone hysterical under the circumstances. “I don’t need to be civil with him.
I don’t need to reach him through the police anymore.”

Taehyung is blinking, shaking his head, searching it for clues, but he’s coming up short. “What do
you mean?”

Jungkook steps closer, his hand finding Taehyung’s elbow and cupping around it, mindless and
natural. “I mean Kai made a strategic mistake giving me nothing more to lose,” he tells him
slower, lowers his voice to a more careful whisper, although the eagerness of his realizations
which Taehyung still does not fully comprehend still marks its pitch. “I mean I think I can hand
him to Byung-Chul without your drug runner of a brother having to step foot in a police station.
Byung-Chul won’t give a flying fuck Namjoon’s hand prints are all across it. He’ll only care it has
Kai’s trademark.”

“What?” Taehyung asks as Jungkook’s thoughts slip into nonsense to him. “What? Slow down.”

He does. Slows down until he’s pausing entirely, licking at his lower lip and pulling away with a
shake of his head. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

Taehyung breathes sharp through his nose, eyes dragging away from him to a corner of the room
before they return pointed. “I really am not a child,” he reminds him of his own words.

“Yes,” Jungkook nods, “but Namjoon has a point. You’re important to him and to me both, makes
you such a convenient target.”

“Not knowing what’s going on won’t save me, will it?” He lifts his shoulders, lifts his arms as he
challenges. What stopped Sooho from hurting him was a pipe to the head, not the fact he genuinely
knew nothing about Namjoon. “Just tell me,” he drops his shoulders down, “I want to know.”

Jungkook is looking away, pressing his teeth together slightly and Taehyung cannot properly judge
if it’s in determination or lack thereof. “But—”
“You’re important to me, too,” he interrupts before Jungkook can figure it out himself. “You and
Namjoon both,” he tells him, softer. “I want to know.”

The target is on his back by default, glaring red, hit here and you get all the points. Automatic
victory. Kai does not really care what he knows and what he doesn’t.

Jungkook’s eyes close as he draws a breath, briefly pinches at his nose before he looks again.
“Okay,” he sighs, nods to the bed and beckons with his head. “Sit,” he asks, and Taehyung does,
sits on the bed that is unmade, likely because Mei Su didn’t want to do that for him, too. Jungkook
pulls at the chair in front of the desk, settles it before the bed and lowers himself on it, legs spread,
elbows on his knees as he leans forward. The position alone floods Taehyung with apprehension.
With another breath Jungkook readies himself, starts with a question. “How much do you know
about what happened to Byung-Chul’s daughter and her friends?”

Taehyung shrugs. It’s one thing his ever-present curiosity could not fully cover. People love
talking about this, they do. And naturally, he’s listened in on countless conversations that mention
it – the bastard got what was coming to him, why did they use the girl, though, it’s horrendous, it’s
justice, it’s only fair, I’d like a round with her, too. All he ever heard was mindless assessments,
adjectives and opinions. No one ever truly knew the details.

“All they reported that was on the footage and their suspected motives,” Taehyung says, recites it
mostly how it came in the news. “A rival of Byung-Chul paid to have her brought to him, so he
could—” his tongue pokes at his lips as he struggles to put it sensibly even when there is no one
there to hear him, “he could rub it his face that he’s been with his daughter.”

Jungkook’s eyes flutter to the ground, then bounce back up. “You know there’s footage?”

“Yes.”

He straightens a bit on the chair, wipes his palms at his pants. “I don’t know how much of that was
on the news,” he shakes his head, eyes roam the ceiling for a moment or two. “I forget, I don’t
think they mention it all, but on that footage,” his eyes snap back to find Taehyung’s that are
religiously rooted to his, “there’s a bag,” he tells him slowly, voice low, “the bag that has the rest
of the drugs, the roofies they didn’t use, which have Kai’s trademark on it.”
Taehyung’s forehead creases, “Trademark?”

“Your brother does this as well with pills he sells,” Jungkook explains. “They mark them, put
signatures, claim their own product, basically, while promising a quality check.” Taehyung nods
even if the folds on his forehead increase, but Jungkook doesn’t drift away more, returns to the
bag. “The bag,” he says, “has unused roofies and the money Kai was supposed to get for providing
them, essentially all the evidence that leads to Kai.” He pauses, leans back completely on the chair.
“In the footage, someone hooded takes that bag.” His tongue dents his cheek before he rests it back
in his mouth, inhales and with the exhale tells him, “That someone is your brother.”

“What?” Taehyung exclaims. He expects it, somehow, and yet, he doesn’t. “Why would he--?”

“I’m telling you,” Jungkook interrupts, leaning forward again, his voice indicatively soft when he
interjects, a warning for him. He presses his palm over Taehyung’s knee, smooths it gently over the
inside of his thigh, intimate, but not sexual, not at all, and it makes such a familiar touch foreign. “I
don’t know why your brother was there that night,” Jungkook promises, catching his eyes,
soothing them with the energy of his. They pass sympathy between each other like a tennis ball. In
a sudden onslaught of a something Taehyung wishes he was someone else, but then he comes back
to earth when Jungkook’s fingers apply pressure on his thigh, a squeeze of reassurance, “but I do
know he called my sister after he left. And I do know he did not realize what was in the bag he took
until later when they released the news about it. He didn’t know it was happening while it
happened. He only thought he was stealing from Kai, not stealing evidence from a crime scene. He
realized he needed to get out of here when he saw what it was, because he knew he would be
associated with it. And he handed Clo a statement that confesses. Kai thinks I have it, it’s why he
keeps off the Ozone.”

Jungkook is deliberately slow in his telling of the story, pauses often and makes sentences short, so
Taehyung can breathe in between, process in between, but with every full stop he raises hundreds
of question marks.

“Why would Kai be scared of a statement signed by my brother?” Taehyung starts there, perplexity
perpetually etched onto his features. “What worth is his word?”

“It describes exactly what the bag looked like, where it was at the time he took it, and how he was
dressed as he did it,” Jungkook explains, his fingers and palm finding a pattern over Taehyung’s
leg. “Details that you and I don’t know because it was not released to the public.”

Taehyung shakes his head, a surge of disappointment coursing through him. He spreads his legs
slightly, until Jungkook’s touch falls away, leans back, his hands pressing into the mattress as he
searches his eyes over Jungkook. “You knew all this, and you didn’t tell anyone—”
Jungkook sits up more, scoots to the edge of his seat, his knees fitting themselves between
Taehyung’s legs. “My father did not want me or Clo Eun speaking a word about this incident to
Byung-Chul,” he shakes his head, too, eyes staring wide into Taehyung’s, “ever.” He tongues at
his lips, blinks, once, twice, blinks much more than he needs to, mouth parting in palpable
hesitation before he speaks. “And all the evidence links to Kai. But it always seemed unfair to hand
it in, cause he didn’t do it.”

“What?” Taehyung cocks his head, sits straighter himself, presses his thighs into Jungkook’s. It’s
almost frightening how quickly he misses feeling him, how fast he regrets pulling away from his
touch. “You’re confusing me again.”

“Well, he did,” Jungkook drops his head between his shoulders, runs his hands through his hair
before he looks up again. “Technically, he was a part of it. He sold the drugs. It’s his product in
that bag, the money he made for it,” he elaborates, and then he stops, changes direction, head
shaking, “But he didn’t know what it was for. He did not touch Byung-Chul’s daughter. He had no
direct contact with the people who did it, either. It’s why Namjoon got to the bag first. They
dropped off the bag. Kai was supposed to pick it up. Namjoon wasn’t supposed to be there at all.”

“You told me you didn’t know enough to tell me anything about why Namjoon left,” Taehyung
says, attempts to cross his arms over his chest, but Jungkook captures the hand of one as he tries to
move it, grips it between his and brings it down in his lap, fingers of one wrapping around his
wrist, while those of the other slip over his palm.

“I didn’t know where he went, Tae,” he tells him softly, rubbing the tips of his fingers into the back
of his hand. “I found out on accident and I told you immediately after. And I didn’t know what he
was doing there, what he’s got to do with Kai, what he owes him, why he chose to steal from him,”
he explains truthfully, head shaking gingerly as he speaks. “I knew he was in a mess, and I told you
that. I didn’t lie to you,” he promises.

Taehyung’s eyes blink once at the floor, then up at him. He rubs the tips of his own fingers into his
hand, adjusts himself on the bed, sits closer to Jungkook, silent expression that he believes him, it’s
okay, it’s not that important. His sighs as the brief silence allows him to feel his exhaustion. Days
seem to be so long lately. He lifts his other hand, trails a bulging vein on Jungkook’s forearm with
his finger, soothes it over, gaze following the slow motion, watching as nearly invisible hairs stand
up in the wake of his digit.

“I want to give the bag to Byung-Chul.”

Taehyung’s eyes flash up, lids bearing them to their sockets. “What?” he exhales, a palpable panic
laced through the single word.

“Your brother gives it to me, and I give it to him. Namjoon is never mentioned. Police is never
involved. Byung-Chul takes care of Kai,” he lists as if Taehyung asked for the technicality of it all,
as if it is simple.

Jungkook is getting rash. It’s understandable, Taehyung thinks. He has virtually nothing now, at
least in his mind he doesn’t. He has nothing to lose, and, unlike him, vindictiveness to the brim of
him. He wants to punish Kai, Taehyung knows that. He’s desperate to do it, to punish anyone who
brought them to this, and it’s bound to make him irrational. Nothing makes you want to act as
demandingly as helplessness does.

Taehyung shakes his head, grips firmer at his hands and pulls them to his own lap, practically
tugging his attention to himself. “And you explain to Byung-Chul that you have the bag, how?”

“I’m saying I’m the one who took it,” he says readily, words energetically tumbling out of his
mouth as if he has it all figured out. “My father asked me not to give it to him not to risk him
assuming I was involved, which he did, technically. And like a good boy, I listened to my daddy,
but I no longer associate with him, because I love you, so there I am,” his shoulders, lift, shrug,
fall, and he might as well have clapped his hands together. Done and done.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung stresses, “he will be angry you hid this for so long.” He shakes his head.
“There is no way you get out of there scathe free.”

Jungkook sighs, leans back into the chair, his hands slipping from in between Taehyung’s and
Taehyung has to squeeze his owns into fists to resist chasing after. “Maybe he has me beaten up
once to teach me a lesson on manners,” Jungkook dismisses, his shrug casual, but his voice not, “I
can handle a beating.” His eyes fall away. “His people have hit me before.”

“What?” Taehyung asks sharply, his fingers curling together tighter.

Jungkook shakes his head with an exhale of humorless laughter. “My father wanted to save me
from them, play a hero.” He spells it out airy, with the incredulity it's due, eyes blinking up at the
ceiling as if it hits him then and there that it’s true. “People are cruel, and others have it worse,”
Jungkook shrugs and lets his gaze fall to his lap, his whole head tilting with it. “He’s kind and
gentle in comparison. He’s always worked with comparison, my father.” He blinks down.
Taehyung knows this already, partially. He’s honest when he tells Jungkook he remembers every
word he’s said to him. He remembers on that rooftop when he told him how his father thought it
was an excuse his own father was more brutal. “Who hits harder.”
Taehyung washes his eyes over him, his lip curling in on itself and he’s scooting over more, a
sudden urge to get closer, wrap himself around him arising chargingly within him. “I don’t want
you to give it to him,” he tells him, and he thinks Jungkook must feel him, because when Taehyung
extends a hand forward, Jungkook wraps his fingers around his wrist and pulls at him. He stands
for a moment, Jungkook presses his legs closer together, Taehyung’s inner thighs pressing on the
outside of his and he settles himself on Jungkook’s knees, his arm wrapping behind his neck when
Jungkook’s own comes to rest behind his back. “I don’t want anyone to hit you.”

“Tae,” Jungkook pats a palm over his spine as Taehyung glides one across his chest until his
fingers curl over his collar where fabric meets skin. “If I get rid of Kai, that means your brother
gets to stay. That means Kai is out of my hair. That means he never touches Yoongi again, never
touches Clo, never tries to work me through you,” Jungkook lists, searching his face. When he
speaks now, the whispers of his voice brush tangibly across his lips, “What’s a cracked rib
compared to that?”

Taehyung drops his eyes to his fingers, watches them as they lift off his shirt and touch the heat of
his skin. “Maybe I can give the bag to him.”

“No,” Jungkook says, sharp, his hand pressing firmer into his back, a statement on its own.
“You’re staying out of all this.”

Taehyung looks up, eyes pleading, “But I—”

“No, Taehyung,” the other interrupts, meeting his gaze just to remind him how piercingly
demanding it can be, “I said no.”

Taehyung’s sighing, words scrambling out of his mouth before Jungkook can cut him off again.
“But I’ve never done anything illegal. I’m not in danger of the police,” he justifies imploringly.
“Maybe I can say I took the bag that night, but I didn’t know what it was because they never
released that information to the public and then I talked to you and I realized, so now I want to—”

“You’re staying out of this,” Jungkook presses, his teeth meeting each other, that familiar pull at
his jaw that Taehyung does not want to be a cause of ticking as he speaks with words that may as
well be set in stone. “Your name is staying out of this as well. You’ve never been to Kai’s club.
You’ll never go there, and you will never have even allegedly been there.”

The look in his eyes is as determined as his voice when he speaks. The short stare off is fruitless.
Taehyung knows he won’t win, not when it comes to Kai. He’s sighing, moving forward on
Jungkook’s lap, as the fight departs his face. He wraps his second arm around his neck as well,
locks his hand around his own wrist and lets them dangle from his shoulders. “You’ll get yourself
hurt,” he murmurs, apprehension layered in his chest just at the idea. He cannot imagine sitting
somewhere, waiting for Jungkook to return with God knows what injury, expected to be calm
while his mind swarms with visions of Jungkook deliberately letting himself get hurt.

“I’ll be careful,” Jungkook promises, fingers lifting. They brush a stray strand away from
Taehyung’s cheekbone, tug it behind his ear. Both of them could use a haircut really. It’s the last
thing on their minds.

“I don’t like this,” Taehyung shakes his head, breathes.

Jungkook’s lips curve a bit at the edges. The smile is soft, small, but irresistible. He’s never had
this sort of intimacy before. Having someone in his lap has always been erotic to him, each motion
heavily sexual in connotation, but as Taehyung shifts, it’s different. He just wants him close. He’s
never been able to have a conversation like this, completely and utterly honest, while being
physically affectionate at the same time. The heaviness and warmth of him makes it easier to
speak. He usually regrets oversharing, likes to keep things to himself, always has a what if in his
head. What if they tell someone, what if they use it against me? With Taehyung, he doesn’t. This is
all genuine, the worry that creases his features, the softness of his voice, the hands that wrap
around him and the security of the heaviness of his body on his own.

“It’ll be okay,” he promises him, pulsing his own arms around him, squeezing him between his
elbows to ask for his eyes without letting go of him. He tilts his head slightly, captures his gaze
from underneath, lets his smile spread. “You’ll patch me up again, yeah? Maybe I can get a happy
end again, like last time.”

Taehyung lets go of his own wrist to slap a hand on his chest. “It’s not funny.”

“Don’t get pouty,” Jungkook murmurs when he sees his bottom lip tug forward. He leans forward,
the inch it takes him, presses his mouth over the pout, kisses it gingerly. He doesn’t exactly know
how to do this, really, how to be his boyfriend, so he just lets himself follow every miniscule urge
he has for him. He wants to kiss his pout, so he does. “Let’s go to bed,” Jungkook suggests, lips
applying gentle pressure to his own. “Sleep on it, yeah?”

“Okay,” Taehyung nods, kisses him a tiny bit firmer.

Jungkook wraps his hands firmer around him, props them at the underside of his thighs and stands
for the one second it requires before he can lower him back on the bed instead of the chair. He
presses him to the mattress, lips almost automatically finding his.

“Not now,” Taehyung whispers in this kiss. He wonders how he grew so quickly accustomed to sex
starting with a kiss. He wonders how they could do this without kissing at all.

“I know,” Jungkook returns, kisses him a final time and lifts off the bed to get rid of his clothes. He
sheds his shirt, his pants, and Taehyung looks, shameless.

He watches him strip himself down to his underwear, reveal muscular thighs, shapely waist,
relieved stomach and chest. He strips himself to the notion of perfection he’s carved out of himself.
Physically, he honestly is spectacular, flawless, really, and Taehyung has all the right to look, to
touch if he wants to.

As Jungkook slips in next to him, however, shuffles himself to the inside of the bed, the part where
it presses to the wall, it is hard for Taehyung to forget Jungkook works so hard on himself because
he has so many expectations to live up to. He knows even with his physical appearance, he has
always tried to be satisfactory for his father, bulked up enough to have his arms heavy for fighting,
legs muscled for running, but never overly burly to still look decent in a smart suit.

He lies on his back and throws his arm behind Taehyung’s pillow almost expectantly, familiar with
the way Taehyung prefers to wrap himself around him, and Taehyung does, shifts closer and rests
his hand on his chest, his head on his arm.

“Jungkook?” he ventures carefully, smoothing his hand over the surfaces of his chest, warm and
hard underneath. He watches the motion of his own palm as it comfortably and familiarly slips over
him, until his arm is draping halfway around him.

“Yeah,” Jungkook blinks down at him, finds he can only see his eyelids from there, because he
chooses to stare at his hand.

“I’m sorry your father speaks to you like that because of me.”

Jungkook is sighing, he’s moving, slipping his arm more around his neck, his shoulders, tugging
him into himself more. “It’s not because of you,” he tells him. “He’s a fucking narcissistic piece of
shit. I don’t need him. I’ve saved enough from boxing to live for now. I’ll fight more, fight this
Friday.” He runs his palm over Taehyung’s bicep, tickles the tips of his fingers over the smooth
skin there. “I’ll figure shit out.”

“Still it must…” Taehyung glances up, dashes his eyes over Jungkook’s features as he struggles to
get out what he’s thinking, “It must—”

“Suck?” Jungkook tries.

It’s not the word he would have gone for. It’s excruciating in some ways, relieving in others. It is
the greyest thing it has happened in his life. It’s a perfect mixture of black and white, having no
future, but having Taehyung. Having no family but having freedom. Most broadly, it sucks.

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods on his shoulder. “He talks like you exist for reputation.”

“He sees me as reputation,” Jungkook shrugs, careful not to move too much. Taehyung looks
comfortable. “I was raised to be his reputation. Clo as well. He did a good job. All the rumors used
to say we’re perfect.”

Taehyung bites his lips lightly, angles his head down once more. “Well, you’re not,” he says with a
small tug at his lips. “You kind of suck.”

He does. Jeon Jungkook is as absolutely every single person on this planet flawed. Some parts of
him suck. Some parts of him suck so much they turn destructive, for him and for people around
him. And Taehyung thinks it will be good for him not to forget that, even if he makes it so easy. He
also likes to remind himself how much of that was a product of his home, how invalidation made
him cruel, cruelty crueler.

“Hey,” Jungkook jostles him a bit and Taehyung’s looking up.

“But you’re kind of cool, too,” he tells him, placing his hand higher on his chest, his whole head
tilting to see him better. They have a night lamp on beside them and it’s considerably dim, but it’s
enough to see his features, enough to meet his eyes. “Woojin thinks you’re superman or something,
and he’s never heard anything about your reputation. It’s all you.”

It’s all Jungkook outside of that home, and Taehyung needs to remind him that as well.
“And you?” Jungkook’s fingers drum over Taehyung’s arm and pause. His voice is small when he
asks, the vibration of his chest with the words subtle, yet tangible where his body presses into his.

Taehyung folds his fingers at the knuckles, draws a circle a little above his nipple, watches his
chest recede under the tingling sensation of such a fleeting, teasing touch. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he
says, the whisper of it carrying over the skin of his neck.

“Yeah,” Jungkook gulps, eyes blinking at the ceiling, then at Taehyung, “but—”

“But what?” Taehyung urges softly.

He takes a moment, lids fluttering over his eyes as he stares down at him. His voice loses all
strength, comes more of a sigh when he slowly, almost innocently requests in a murmur, “Can you
tell me again?”

He’s playing with his fingers at nothing, gaze falling away from Taehyung as he finishes speaking,
and Taehyung thinks he sees some heat slip over his neck and his cheeks, but he can’t be sure.

He taps at his chin, presses his elbow into the mattress and raises on it slightly to capture his eyes.
“I love you,” he tells him firmly. He doesn’t know how many times Jungkook has been told that
before. Perhaps he has already told him more times than he has collectively heard it previously and
he’s ready to tell him again and again. “Not cause you’re a Jeon,” he shakes his head, “Despite it.”
He presses his lips into his once, short, Jungkook’s hand instinctively cupping at his neck, before
he pulls away and lies on his chest again, allowing fingers to slip into his hair. “He’s kinda right,
though,” Taehyung acknowledges, glancing down at their bodies fitting together.

Jungkook’s fingers toy mindlessly with soft strands. "Who?”

“Your dad,” Taehyung says, his tongue darting at his lips, and as he feels Jungkook tense beneath
him, he continues before he can speak. “Where do we go from here?” He asks, shrugging. Every
motion of his body curls into Jungkook. “If we’re like that, we won’t ever get to, like,” he laps
firmer at his mouth in a brief hesitation, “get married, have kids, normal shit like that.”

He lets the insecurity of future hang between them because he can’t really not. He wants children,
he’s always wanted children. Jungkook’s father does have a point in the fact they don’t live in the
States or even in the West. They don’t live in a space that will allow them to be any more official
with each other than they already are, and there is not really anything they can do about it.
Jungkook swipes his thumb across Taehyung’s arm, cups his hand at his shoulder briefly, squeezes
once. His fingers curl over the skin, draw a pattern downwards on his bicep and then up again,
gentle and slow, the tips of his fingernails teasing.

“We have Woojin,” he tells him and it elicits the reaction he wants.

Taehyung’s shoulders fall looser into him, lose some tension. He laughs, briefly, his head tilting up
to once more meet Jungkook’s eyes. His laughter is quick, but the residue is a soft smile and it is
enough for now.

“What,” his lips spread, “you want to adopt him now?”

Jungkook shrugs, Taehyung’s body moving along with the motion. “Perhaps.”

Taehyung shakes his head with the smile growing smaller and more to himself with passing
seconds. He rests his chin on Jungkook’s chest when his lips fit into a line, curling himself more
until he’s mostly lying on his stomach, arm still draped across Jungkook’s own waist. “You wanna
talk about it?”

Jungkook adjusts his hold on Taehyung with the slight repositioning, trailing the fingers of his
hand to where his shoulder meets his back. “What?”

“Whatever,” Taehyung says. “Everything. Anything.” He pauses, swallows. “Your mom?”

He is characteristically curious about her. He knows she motioned for him to hide. He is certain,
absolutely certain if he had managed she would not have given him away. She brought Jungkook
clothes, nice ones at that if Taehyung can judge by the closet. Whether it is for endeavours to
redeem reputation or out of good will, she did it. She cares about Jungkook. It is slightly cold, the
way she does it, very distant, but still a mother’s care, there, palpable and honest, much more
genuine than her affiliation with his father.

Jungkook is sighing, shaking his head as his eyes find the ceiling. “I don’t even know what to think
about my mother,” he confesses in a breath that fills his cheeks.
Taehyung brings a hand from in between them to his chest, drafts distractedly to distract him,
pointless shapes on his clavicles and beneath. “Why did she marry him?” He wonders aloud.

“Hm?” Jungkook’s head rolls on the pillow. He blinks back to him.

“It’s just…” Taehyung hesitates, glancing to his finger, a single shrug as he tries to formulate
exactly what is going through his head. “In movies and books, like, you often see women – and
men, sometimes – married to these awful people and don’t you just wonder why, how did it
start…” his lids lift, peel back. He meets Jungkook’s eyes once more, asks, “Why did she marry
him?”

“You asking if he used to be like me?” Jungkook returns and by how calmly he speaks it,
Taehyung almost doesn’t catch the insinuation of the words, “If he didn’t want to turn into his
father?”

Taehyung raises his chin, head vehemently shaking, “No, I—”

“He was always his father,” Jungkook interjects, still calm but tangibly bitter. As his eyes drift
back to the ceiling again with the voicing of his thoughts, however, Taehyung knows the acerbity
is not directed at him. “She didn’t marry him for him. She married him because it was convenient
and financially promising.” He smacks his lips. “Prestige,” he pronounces caustic, borders on
disgust. “It’s such a ridiculous thing, prestige, isn’t it?”

Taehyung rests his chin on him once more, but as he feels he turns to look at him, he finds himself
lowering his lids to just stare at patches of skin. “I don’t know,” he shrugs. Perhaps it is, maybe
yes, ridiculous, but he has always been utterly and indisputably fascinated by prestige. “When you
don’t have it, you kind of want it. It looks good from the outside. You can’t help thinking, it just
must be better, must be amazing,” he speaks thoughts that have always been with him, that used to
saunter uninvited in his mind every time he looked at Jungkook. He correlated with utmost prestige
in his head before. He’s just Jungkook now, just Jungkook, yet so much more. “Beautiful skin,
beautiful clothes, beautiful hair, beautiful everything.”

“You’re beautiful, too,” Jungkook murmurs, adds to Taehyung’s list and he’s almost rolling his
eyes this time. That's not what he means.

“I look like a walking rag outside of work clothes,” he shakes his head, voice falling and drawling
out dull.
“Clothes don’t matter, Tae,” Jungkook says, lilting it with peculiar passion, his eyes catching at
Taehyung’s face as he turns towards him more, tries to seek out his own gaze to do this thing he
always does, speak through the ambiance of his stare.

But Taehyung is interrupting more ardently than he means to. “That’s easy to say when you don’t
only wear hand me downs.” He gives Jungkook what he wants, gives him his eyes to come through
with the words, but they are different to what Jungkook expects, more angry than insecure.
Taehyung darts them across Jungkook’s expression for a moment with his pause, chin lifted off his
chest before he shakes his head, glances down. “I don’t mean that the dream of my life is to have
pretty clothes,” he says calmer, but not exactly calm, articulate at best. “It’s not, not about the
clothes, but being constantly surrounded by people like you, constantly talked down by you, it just
—“ his fingers open in the air, grasp at nothing as he tries to explain to the last person he expects to
really understand. "I’ve always been taught to just bow my head down to those that have that
prestige. Say one thing wrong to you, lose my job. So I just let myself be a fucking doormat.
Prestige is power.”

There is silence for long enough for Taehyung to think this is futile. He doesn’t think Jungkook
won’t try to understand. He just thinks he couldn’t. Can’t understand never having anything
because you want to, only ever tings that you need. Counting sips on a night out, counting days
until products are about go bad so you can get them cheaper in the market. Flirting with people just
for a few more free sips of a drink, eyeing shiny things, thinking they won’t miss it. They won’t
even notice. Jungkook said it himself, when he gave Taehyung the shirt. I don’t even know I have
it, he shrugged. Shrugged. Taehyung is well aware of his every possession. It’s not difficult, he’s
not bragging. He has few things, fewer that are only his and the fewest that have only ever been
his.

His thoughts might as well show on his face with the way Jungkook’s eyes mould as they take him
in, head tilting, brows creasing. Taehyung might be imaging it, but he thinks underneath him his
heart beats just the one bit harder than a moment.

“It is ridiculous, then,” Jungkook says. “That’s ridiculous,” he insists, eyes darting across
Taehyung’s features, guilt uncomfortably lodging in his throat. He remembers, he does, talking
down at him, unable to speak to him without a sufficient layer of condescension. “It made me
believe I could treat you like a doormat, too,” he says aloud, softly, his hand almost instinctive as
he reaches for him, brushes hair away from his forehead, sees more of his face.

He never did think being a waiter fit him. Though he does suppose, he is a waiter. It shouldn’t
make much a difference. Waiter or not, poor or not, Kim or not, he is still the same person.

“Yeah,” Taehyung mutters, settling his chin on top of Jungkook once more, letting one arm drape,
while the other he folds over in front of himself. “Guess I don’t blame your mother for wanting it.”
Jungkook’s brows shift closer as he looks at him, his fingers still sliding across strands. “You don’t
—“ he hesitates. That’s not longing in Taehyung’s voice, he promises himself, it isn’t. “That’s not
what you want, is it?” He asks, voice slightly shallow. “I’m not a stepping stone for you?”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow at him. He does not speak a response, just raises up once more to allow his
arm some mobility. He moves his hand forward, flicks mercilessly at the underside of Jungkook’s
chin.

His neck draws back away from the pinching sensation, face screwing almost comically, nose
rising higher, bundling. “What was that for?” He moans prolonged, voice atypically whiny.

Taehyung’s expression dulls as he stares at him rub his chin where it gets a tiny bit red from his
nail. “Every single time you say shit like that you get punished,” he explains loud and clear.

“Funny.” Jungkook opens his eyes once more, washes them over Taehyung as a small smirk twists
subtly at his lips. “Thought you’d want me to punish you.”

Taehyung scoffs demonstratively, rolling his eyes as theatrical as he can muster before he remarks
with a hidden smugness of his own, “You’re the one who wants to call me daddy.”

Jungkook clicks his tongue, head falling back on the pillow completely. “Oh, fuck off.”

Taehyung lets the entertainment from victory sit on his features for a moment longer before his
expression softens, fingers beginning another play at eliciting teasing distraction at Jungkook’s
skin, drawing patterns with a feathery touch. He’s only half reluctant to speak, moving his eyes
down, voice shy, “I do kind of like it when you’re rougher, though.”

The other is craning his neck once more, gaze finding Taehyung as his own hand begins a
gentle ministration where it slips over his back, just below his neck. “You do?”

Taehyung sends a pointed, short stare before he’s watching skin once more. “You know I do,” he
murmurs, spelling with his fingers the letters of his name a little to the side of Jungkook’s nipple as
he utters quiet confessions. “When it hurts a bit, when you tell me what to do, when you show me
what to do.” He glances up again, finger pausing. “But, in sex, you know. Just in sex.”
Jungkook does know those things. He used to almost use them against him, not consciously
entirely, not with the point to be against him, more so for himself, but he did know how to appeal
to what he liked. Problem is, he kept the hurt and roughness going outside of sex, too.

“Yeah,” he nods, resting the whole of his palm on his back to feel the warmth of his skin. “Just in
sex,” he promises. His teeth press into his lip, he pauses, then shrugs. “We have time, we can try
things, see what we like.”

Taehyung’s head cocks at this slightly, brows curling up to his hair. “You wanna try things?”

Jungkook makes a point to shrug once more to come with his nods. “Yeah, if you want to.”

“Have anything in mind?” Taehyung asks and for a moment Jungkook thinks he’s teasing, but he
realises it is genuine curiosity, a question fuelled solely by interest.

“I don’t know,” he says, eyes folding over Taehyung’s as he runs a single finger down following
the line of his spine, watching his back arch with it slightly. “Wanna explore this more, though,
with you,” he elaborates. “Used to be scared of liking it, but I used to be scared of many things.”

“I don’t scare you anymore?”

“You scare the fuck out of me, but not like before. Was afraid to want you then. I’m afraid to lose
you now.”

Jungkook says it through a yawn, voice small and drawled, but he means it all. He’s aware it’s
brutally ironic. He’s aware if he hadn’t been so scared to have him he wouldn’t have charged his
current fear of losing him with an array of mistakes. So he tries to be more honest with his fear,
perhaps that is step one.

“You’re sleepy,” Taehyung comments, his neck buzzing on Jungkook’s ribs as he speaks, warm
evidence he’s there, lets him feel his presence.

“Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” Jungkook stretches out into another yawn. It’s an
underestimation really. He barely caught a wink of it, his brain a beehive, his body restless.
Taehyung presses his lips to his skin, hot and soft against his chest. “Go to sleep,” he mutters into
it, the lids of his own eyes fluttering low.

“I can stay awake if you want to talk,” Jungkook shakes his head, but he feels his body grow
heavier on him with the idea of sleeping planting in his head, the need for it registering and hitting
in a sudden wave. He’s comfortable, and warm, and tired. He’s exhausted. His blinks are long, lips
are smacking, but he makes a point to open them every time. “Just make me coffee.”

“What I want is for you to sleep,” Taehyung whispers in his skin and well, he is not about to deny
Taehyung what he wants.

“Okay,” he says through another yawn, his head rolling on the pillow as he looks down at
Taehyung with his lids almost closed. “Not used to someone sleeping so close to me,” he notes
aloud as he realises it, the corner of his lip tugging too subtle for Taehyung to notice. “Julia never
did it.”

“I can move—” Taehyung suggests, beginning to roll over and away, but Jungkook is grasping at
his bicep, agile and almost panicked, pulling him closer, draping his arm across his stomach.

“No, hug me,” he asks, shameless in his fatigue. Taehyung blinks at him almost startled as
Jungkook’s eyes drape shut, as his lips smack with content and his breathing shallows almost
immediately, chest lifting and falling rhythmic underneath him.

He watches him for a few more fleeting moments before he realises this isn’t stolen time anymore.
He can get this again and again. He can ask for this, and Jungkook won’t say no. Jungkook has one
hand on his back, another on his elbow. He’s here, they’re here, warm flesh with blood running
underneath.

Taehyung’s never slept with someone so close to him, either.

He wakes up barely minutes before Jungkook does, eyes blinking a sleepy haze away as his lips
part in a lazy yawn. He has adjusted very little throughout the night, and is not surprised. The grip
Jungkook has on him does not allow much movement. Taehyung lies in some timeless dimension,
cheek pressed into chest, head swimming with a lot of things and nothing all the same.
Timelessness only lasts minutes. Jungkook is stiffening, chest raising different. His eyes are
fluttering open, lids opening once, twice, before they part more permanently, pupils settling on
Taehyung through the small gaps the heavy lids allow.

“Good morning,” Taehyung says, not moving one inch.

“Mm,” Jungkook sighs, groggy, head rolling slightly on the pillow as he lifts his arms, stretches
them towards the wall behind him with a long lasting yawn and lets them drop, one snaking its
way across Taehyung’s shoulders. “Morning, pretty boy.”

Taehyung’s eyes part more at the greeting, lips curling as he lifts his cheek off his chest, presses
his chin to it instead. “Am I pretty in the morning, too?”

Jungkook clicks his tongue. “Stop fishing,” he groans, wiping the palm of his free hand into one of
his eyes and then the other before he blinks them open, meets Taehyung with his lip tugged
forward, curled down into his chin. “Don’t pout,” he groans stronger, bringing his hand forward to
prod at his lower lip, return it physically back to its usual position. “You’re ethereal.”

Taehyung chuckles, somewhat raspy. “Don’t overdo it,” he shakes his head, straightens up a tiny
bit to brush some hair away from his forehead. His voice is even deeper in the mornings, Jungkook
thinks, so levelled and calming, and he finds it hard not to fall back asleep. Taehyung feels around
the bed until he finds the bedside table, flips one of their phones around and reminds them both
why that can’t happen. “I have work in an hour,” he whines.

“I have to meet Yoongi,” Jungkook reminds himself, informs Taehyung.

He nods back to him, cocks a head, suggests. “Come to mine after my shift?”

“Okay,” Jungkook says, eyes darting across the features of his face, because no, he wasn’t
overdoing it, Taehyung is absolutely gorgeous in the mornings as well, even with lines of sleep
crossing his face, cheeks more puffed out and his hair in disarray. He starts to feel him pull away,
start to get on his knees to up and leave, so he tightens his arm around him, tugs him back down.
“How is it?” He asks.

“What?”
“Waking up next to me.”

Taehyung’s lips part in understanding, his gaze folding over Jungkook as he readjusts his elbows to
hold himself up. His smile is subtle, but it’s there. “You’re very comfortable,” he tells him,
reaching a hand up to move a strand away from his forehead.

“That’s it?” Jungkook’s head moves away from the touch, eyebrows shooting upwards. “I’m more
comfortable than your ancient bunk bed? That’s all you’ll give me?”

“Who’s fishing now?” Taehyung accuses, his expression dulling for barely a moment before he
rocks himself forward on his elbows, his arms pressed up against Jungkook, lips pressing to his,
short, too short. “It’s indescribable, okay?” He asks softer as he moves away, eyes fitting down
over Jungkook. “I couldn’t tell you if I tried.”

“You’re overdoing it.”

“I’m not,” he promises, kisses him once more, soft and slow and intimate before he’s pulling away,
crawling beneath his arm to sneak past its hold and getting on his. feet. “Wanna brush my teeth and
I have to leave.”

“And you say I’m useless,” Jungkook’s face scrunches as he wraps his whole hand around the
fabric of the tie, uses that grip to pull him forward as Taehyung makes pitiful attempts to do the
knot in front of the door. “Didn’t I teach you?” Jungkook scolds, eyes falling to his hands as he has
to undo the damage Taehyung has inflicted on the fabric.

“I told you I didn’t get it,” Taehyung moans, his knees shaking to convey his irritableness and his
rush. It’s Jungkook’s fault, really, he’s in such haste. The second Taehyung had managed to get on
his feet, he’d promptly tugged him back in bed and had his tongue in his mouth within the minute.

“Guess I’m gonna have to do it for you all the time, then,” Jungkook shrugs, doing the knot
expertly, eyes flashing up to tease at Taehyung.
It’s then that Mei Su’s clicking heels enter the room. She’s dressed smart, but not Richhood smart.
She’s a journalist, Jungkook tells Taehyung, another profession that is not up to par with Richhood
standards.

She sneaks a glance at them at the door as she strolls to the kitchen, pulls out a stovetop pot and
some ground coffee. “Never pictured you as such a good wife, Kookie,” she remarks, pouring water
into the pot.

Jungkook slides his eyes momentarily to her. “Fuck off.”

“Language,” she warns.

“Are you serious?” Jungkook groans, but she pretty much ignores him as she turns the stove on,
directs her attention more towards Taehyung.

“They still make waiters wear ties at Rouge?” She asks with a quirk of her eyebrow.

Taehyung’s lips jerk almost snide to their sides. He’s still not wearing his apron, so Jungkook even
spoke of his job to her. Taehyung blinks at him, raises his hands to his neck, fingers fixing the
collar of his own shirt. “Gotta look presentable for Jeons and the Jungs and the Mins and the
Seungs,” he lists with the small smile still on his features.

Jungkook grabs at his hands, lowers them between them. “Okay, we get it, pretty boy,” he nods,
forcedly bitter, “you can shut up now.”

“Speaking of presentation,” Mei Su joins again, her eyes rolling over Taehyung, or more
particularly, his neck, “want some foundation for those?” She offers, chin jutting in his direction.

Taehyung’s hand slips away from Jungkook’s, jumps instinctively to his neck where it rubs at the
skin as if it can erase the marks. “Could I get some?” He asks, the grin on his face morphing
sheepish.

Mei Su’s following smile reminds them both terribly much of Clo. She nods, moves to rummage
through a purse nearby and slips out a small bottle of product. She offers it to him, arm stretched.
“Keep it for today,” she says as he takes it. “I don’t think they appreciate hickeys at Rouge.”

“Thank you,” Taehyung says with a small bow. “And thank you for letting me stay here.”

“It’s okay,” she smiles.

Taehyung slips the foundation in the bag he has with him, turns to Jungkook who is still
distractedly playing with the fingers of the hand Taehyung did not rip out of his grip. “Gotta go,”
he announces, attempts to move away, but he tugged right back in.

“Hey,” Jungkook whines or warns, or both. He grasps at his tie again, yanks at it pointedly, and
leans, head tilting until his lips are covering Taehyung’s. He kisses him shortly, more for the idea
of kissing him goodbye than the actual feel of it, but Taehyung is startled nevertheless by how
atypically sweet it is. He parts his eyes that close on instinct, gaze searching, and he, of course, has
to smirk, has to speak. “Would you look at that,” he gloats, “I am a good wife.”

Taehyung shakes his head, pulls away. “See you after work?”

“Yeah.”

Taehyung waves his goodbye to Mei Su, nods once more in silent gratitude before he disappears
through the door. Jungkook’s eyes are curiously set on it until his aunt pulls him out of it.

“You suck at him like a vampire, don’t you?” She accuses, arms folding before her chest as she
leans a hip on one counter.

“They look good on him,” Jungkook declares, almost gruff, moving away from the door and more
into the room.

Mei Su sighs, her chest lifting with it as she trails her gaze after him. “Don’t be too possessive with
him, Jungkook,” she shakes her head, speaks soft but firm. “You don’t want him to feel like a
belonging.”

Jungkook’s eyes jump to hers. “He is mine,” he insists, pointed. He knows he’s not a possession.
He’s a man, but he’s his man and that is that. “I’d tattoo my name on his ass if he’d let me.”

“Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s lips part to snap, but he finds the words dying on his tongue. He stops at the counter
before her, glances down at the patterns on the tile of it. “I’m trying,” he promises, quieter, calmer.

Mei Su cocks her head, eyes skeptical but not distrusting necessarily as they layer over him. She
tries to speak to him without accusation, more so with reason, but Jungkook knows that’s a struggle
for her, too. She sees too much of his damned father in him every time she settles her eyes upon
him. “Even if you walk him to the door,” she shakes her head, “saying you’d brand him like
livestock doesn’t sound too much like trying to me.”

Jungkook sucks in a breath through his nose, head picking up as he glances to the side of the room,
skims across bookshelves to avoid looking at her. "There’s this guy at his work who wants him and
is incapable of taking hints.”

His aunt considers for a moment, then asks, “And do you think Taehyung wants him back?”

“Well,” Jungkook shrugs, “no—”

“Then?” She interjects, brows curling high on her forehead. “What, you don’t trust him?”

“Of course, I trust him,” he says in a flash, eyes shooting towards her defensive. His teeth layer
together, touch, press. “It’s that leech I don’t trust.”

“What does he matter?” Mei Su demands. “Taehyung can make decisions."

And he knows, he knows that. Knows damn well that Taehyung is an autonomous, thinking human
being, that he can make decisions on his own and that his mind can easily change. At any given
moment, he can realise his sister’s right, Jungkook’s father’s right: Jungkook is a piece of shit and
he’s proved it to him, especially to him, time and time again.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods, his lower lip sucked into his mouth. He glances down, stares at his fingers
tap away at the surface of the countertop. “He can.”

Mei Su shifts slightly at her feet, head cocking as her eyes narrow at him with observation.
“Jungkook,” she prods carefully, “Are you alright?”

It takes a moment, takes two, but his gaze shoots back up to her.

“Would you forgive?” He asks, a new charge to his voice, emotion twisting it tangibly. His leg
bounces in place as he shifts his eyes from one of hers to the other, darts across her expressions
restless. "If someone did to you what I did to him,” he speaks it out, as concrete as he can put it —
he strays away from any detail, “would you forgive?”

“Jungkook,” she breathes out soft. She’s the one blinking away from him now.

“Be honest,” he demands, eyes opened to their fullest, tongue lapping at his lips. “You wouldn’t,
would you?” He shakes his head, at her, then to himself, then down at the floor, at his bouncing
leg, propping his other hand at the counter, too, to hold himself up.

“I’m a different person to him,” she stresses, head cocking more to try to ask for his eyes, mirroring
his position on the other end of the counter. “I like being on my own. You can’t just ask me that. It
has nothing—”

“He can do so much better than me,” Jungkook is interrupting again in a voice small enough that
she can easily assume the sentence serves more as a reminder for himself than as a confession to
her. He blinks down at his fingers, keeping his gaze away from hers as he lets the insecurity slip.

It makes it hard for her to see his father in him, hearing his voice like this, seeing the vulnerability
allowed thoughtless and genuine on his face and into the conversation. She sighs, her voice
matching his, slipping softer and tentative. She moves her hand so that he can see it on the counter,
but doesn’t touch him, just makes him aware of it. “You can’t change your past, Kookie,” she tells
him.

His eyes flash up, lips part in process. “But I—”

“Do you regret leaving your father?” she stops him, asks firmly.
The shake of his head is immediate. “No, Mei.I—”

“Do you regret hurting Taehyung?” She asks just as sharp.

His mouth closes, lines. He gulps nothing but a lump in his throat. “Yes.”

“Let those answers dictate what you do in the future, then,” she tells him, straightening herself
away from the counter, arms locking together once more. “You think he deserves better?” She
twists an eyebrow and watches his mouth part, but promptly interrupts. “Be better. Don’t give him
reasons to look for someone else.”

Jungkook pauses again, mouth shutting for a moment before he speaks, “I’ve already given him
enough, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

Mei Su shifts her gaze away briefly, eyes finding her books, so many, dashing across titles. She
shakes her head. “This boy knows how to forgive, Jungkook.” Her eyes return to him. “You don’t.
Not even when it comes to yourself.”

Forgiving himself, he thinks, is just short of ridiculous. It’s easy for her to suggest, but she wasn’t
there, she didn’t see his face, didn’t hear the actual tear in his voice. She didn’t hear the words
Jungkook forced out of him. She doesn’t know how alike his father Jungkook really is. She mostly
knows the side of him that cares for his sister, so she allows him into her apartment, supports him
when it comes to Taehyung.

She doesn’t know how much he hurt him, really.

“He told me I ripped his heart out,” he mutters once, then louder, he repeats for them both to hear
and hopefully she can feel how much it hurts he hurt him, “Ripped his fucking heart out.”

Mei Su tightens her arms, recedes. She tilts her head gingerly to the side, the energy of her gaze
shifting slightly when she begins to speak to him in a leveled, careful voice. “He’s a smart one as
well,” she tells him, eyes narrowing with her consideration. “Your father knows you, he knows you
well, knows how you’re with Clo.” With Clo, she says, the only other person she’s absolutely sure
he loves. “You never try to push her away as much as when you regret you don’t protect her.” She
is tentative, but it feels naggingly like an accusation, still. His eyes fall away and for a moment so
does her voice. She’s pausing, watching him, the tick in his jaw, a squeeze of his fingers. She’s
adding in a breath, “You used to be a lot more openly closer when you were younger, you know.”

That much is true. Jungkook does know, of course he does. There was a time in which they weren’t
scared of affection. They didn’t flinch at each other’s touch if it got too gentle. With the years his
father tried to teach them that their love for each other made them vulnerable and touches became
scant, long conversations rare and hugs extinct. It did not erase their love for each other, never
could, but it made them hesitant in expressing it, especially Jungkook. Jungkook who loved her so
much but never showed it, never told her, because what sort of a person allows somebody that they
love be treated like the way their father treated her, for so fucking long. He simply didn't have
the right.

“Yeah, I know,” he nods. “We’ve been better lately,” he tells her. They have, not entirely who they
were as children, but closer than before. Jungkook can’t help but think Seokjin and Taehyung both
play a role in this, remind them affection is not an expression of weakness, just an expression of
love which is not always an intrinsic vulnerability. “I miss her,” he thinks aloud.

Mei Su nods, eyes scanning over him. Her lids blink, head pulls up and she exhales, shakes off
thoughts about Clo Eun. She hates to think about where the girl is now, why she’s there. It brings
back memories in a scathing flash through her mind. “You were right, though,” she speaks, her
throat clearing as she attempts a gingerly smile. “He’s really pretty.”

Jungkook glances up, own lips twitching. “He’s beautiful,” he tells her, his nod small and almost
private, somehow. His shoulders lift and slump with a heavy expulsion of breath that follows from
his mouth, his nose. He laps his tongue across his lip, tilts his head, allows his eyes to wash bolder
over his aunt. His voice picks up, perks up, rings lighter and more typically melodic, the tension
slipping away. “You know for someone who’s sworn off human relationships you’re pretty good
at advice and shit.”

“Ah, well,” she smirks a smirk worthy of her last name, but it’s amused, not nasty. She shrugs.“The
coach doesn’t play.”

Jungkook huffs a short laughter, lets the smile still sits on his lips as he says, “I’m sorry I gave him
reason to come to your home.”

“It’s okay, Kookie,” she promises, glimpses down at her feet as she does.

“Did you ever—“ he pauses, shifts slightly on his feet, “were you ever like me and Clo? Were you
ever close?”
Her breath is sharp, her answer quick. “No,” she shakes her head. “Wish I could tell you there was
ever a good man somewhere inside your father, but I would be the last person to do it. The only
man I’ve hated more than him is my father.”

The coffee boils. She pours it in a thermos and leaves for work.

Jungkook picks him up from work. He doesn’t confer, just comes to Rouge a few minutes before
his shift ends and waits there. He doesn’t try to touch him, doesn’t pointedly approach him as he
works alongside Bogum. He just crosses his arms, leans on a post and waits.

There’s no point in it, really. He doesn’t have the rights to a car anymore. They have to take the
subway together, but it makes Taehyung embarrassingly giddy anyway. He’s been in the
neighbourhood. Yoongi lives a walking distance away from Rouge. So he thought, why not?

They walk together, but they don’t touch. They talk, he asks him how work was, seems
suspiciously energised, too. He makes a face when Taehyung tells him he promised Jimin he’d go
to the Ozone tonight, but only complains for a moment or two before he accepts Taehyung won’t
get blackout drunk and Bogum is not invited, not that it matters, Jungkook, but he is not, and he’s
decided to go, so he will.

They’re bickering about that in particular, he hasn’t even got round to asking him how it was with
Yoongi, when they enter the Kims’ Residence and are interrupted shortly by a very small, yet very
angry Woojin.

He appears in a flash at the sound of voices, a pout on his lips, his arms folded and his foot
stomping.

“Taetae, where were you?” He demands halfway through Taehyung’s own sentence, glaring up at
his brother in a rather cute attempt at intimidation. “I had to sleep alone, and I didn’t even know.”
Taehyung crouches down on the kitchen tiles, levels himself with Woojin to make him feel taller.
"I just wanted to spend some time with Jungkook,” he explains, voice lilting with the specific tone
he always uses with his baby brother, especially when he’s apologetic. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
He rubs a hand on his shoulder, hopeful to rub the pout away from his lips. “You and Ji-woo
weren’t home yet when I left.”

Woojin’s eyes flicker up to Jungkook hovering behind Taehyung, his lips twisted slightly, his
attention focused on the interaction between the youngest Kims. He glances back at his brother. “I
want to spend time with Jungkook hyung, too,” he huffs, not entirely accepting of the excuse as he
lifts his nose higher in the air. “You could take me with you.”

Taehyung hears Jungkook snort behind him and flashes a quick glare before he returns to Woojin,
head cocking as he searches for a way to properly say what he aims to. “I want to spend a different
type of time with him,” he tries.

Woojin’s pout grows accompanied with confusion. His brows, as dark and full as Taehyung’s own,
bundle together, forehead creasing. "Isn’t he your friend?” He asks, then proceeds to energetically
nod to himself, “I can be his friend.”

Taehyung tongues at his lips, hesitates as he rubs firmer into his shoulder. “Well, no, Woo,” he
shakes his head, “not exactly.” He pauses. He’s reluctant to label this for his brother, but he blinks,
delves in his mind for a rational reason not to do it, and falls short. So he says, “He’s my
boyfriend.”

The little boy’s brows almost meet where they furrow. “Boyfriend?” He tests.

“Mhm,” Taehyung hums, squeezing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Woojin cocks his head, eyes squinting in suspicion. “Aren’t you supposed to have a girlfriend,
Taetae?”

Jungkook shrugs behind him, mutters as he knocks his knee into his back to grab his attention,
"Told you I was your girlfriend.”

Taehyung’s head whips back to him, eyes flashing in warning. “Hey, shut the fuck up.”
“Don’t say fuck in front of him.”

“Well, don’t repeat it.”

“Tae?” Woojin calls and Taehyung turns back, pulling his lips straight to conceal a small smile.

“No, Woo,” he tells him slowly, shaking his head. “You’re not supposed to have anything. Okay?”
He tips his brows, his chin, waits for him to lose some of the confusion from his features. “There
isn’t a rule about this,” he elaborates. He wonders when did the world manage to program a six
year old to think relationships were only valid between a man and a woman.

Woojin doesn’t fight him on this, though. No, he suddenly sticks his chest out, proud, a smug grin
shaping on his face as he promptly announces, “I have a girlfriend.”

Taehyung’s brows shoot up, head drawing back in exaggeratedly ponderous surprise as Jungkook
squats beside him, their knees touching. It’s Jungkook that challenges with a cock of his head, "Oh,
you do?”

“Yeah,” Woojin nods, his grin only widening to summon dimples as he gets Jungkook hyung’s
attention at his level now. “She’s from my kindergarten,” he proclaims sure and boastful.

“And how is she your girlfriend?” Jungkook enquires, tone slipping into something very matter-of-
factly. Taehyung looks at him through the corners of his eyes. He wonders how he can keep his
face straight.

“Well,” Woojin huffs in a breath, brief and thoughtful, before he continues, “she kisses only my
cheek from all the boys,” he tells Jungkook, smug and grinning. His eyes narrow slightly in the
next moment, and almost sceptically, he asks, “Do you kiss Taetae’s cheek?”

The obnoxious pride seems to rub off on Jungkook. His lips pull in a smirk, the lids of his own
eyes lowering slightly, brows shooting teasing in his forehead, “I kiss Taetae all over.”

Taehyung’s eyes bulge, his head spinning to him. "Jesus Christ, Jungkook.”
“I’m joking,” he mentions to Taehyung, acknowledging his wide stare with a shrug of his
shoulders that almost says, it was too convenient not to, before he turns to his brother, answers like
a normal person. “Yes, I kiss his cheek,” he nods, takes the liberty to show it as well. He props his
hand on the floor between them for balance and leans, eyes falling shut for a second as he smacks
an unnecessarily loud kiss on the skin of his cheek. “See,” he parts his lids, looks at Woojin as
smug and proud as the six-year-old is and Taehyung cannot help but shake his head, chuckle. “Can
he be my boyfriend?”

Woojin seems to consider for a moment, blinking between them. “If you’re nice to him,” he settles
finally with a nod to himself.

Jungkook quirks a brow. “Always?”

“Yes,” the boy confirms sternly.

Jungkook allows his forehead to crease, slips into whiny. "But sometimes he likes when I’m a rude
boy.“

“Okay,” Taehyung’s voice rings loud throughout the room and he grabs at him, pulls him up by the
arm and away from Woojin. “You’re officially not allowed to speak to my brother,” he warns,
prods a finger to his chest.

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jungkook says, sheepish, slipping his arms around his waist as if holding
him is an apology in itself, and maybe for someone like Jungkook it is. “No more references to
that,” he shakes his head.

Taehyung lifts his brows with a challenge, the finger on his chest turning into a palm, his hand
finding home on Jungkook instinctive. “You promise?”

“Yes,” Jungkook stresses, his arms tightening and then releasing around him. “I’ll be nice.”

Taehyung shakes his head some more. “Bitch,” he mutters and instead of getting offended,
Jungkook takes advantage of the hold he has on him, finds his lips with his eyes and tries to lean.

“Hey,” Taehyung exclaims in a hushed warning, finds more use of his hand to push him back
away.
“What?” Jungkook asks, whole face creasing with sudden perplexity.

Taehyung’s teeth press together and he attempts to mutter in between them, his gaze darting
pointedly towards his little brother, who has already taken an interest in a toy truck halfway into
the living room. “Not in front of him.”

Jungkook’s eyes roll, face dulling, but with his sigh, he exhales a “Fine.” He runs his tongue across
his lips, tries his luck, “can I get a cheek?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung allows, turning his head slightly to give him a comfortable angle.

With the smack of lips on his skin, he also feels and hears a ringing smack on the left cheek of his
ass.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung nearly squeaks, scolding.

“Didn’t specify which cheek,” Jungkook defends with utmost conviction and a rather mischievous
shrug.

It’s Taehyung’s mistake to forget that Woojin’s presence automatically means someone else is
home as well.

“So what?” Her voice comes in a snicker from the top of the stairs and Taehyung feels Jungkook’s
arms unfold automatic from around him. Her hair is wet and her tone is bitter as she takes a step
down, towards them as they both tilt their heads to look at her approach, breaking away from each
other. “You’re officially together now or something?” She says scornful, says it as if it is somehow
comical to think.

“Um,” Taehyung swallows, eyes sealed onto her as she comes closer, “yeah.” He pauses, head
shaking, “And I know you don’t want me to be with a man—“

“Be with a man, Taehyung.” She interrupts as she skips the third step, gets on their level, arms
locking before her chest. “I don’t care if you’re with a man,” she tells him loud and clear, but he
knows for a fact it is not entirely true. “But I would recommend whatever you’re with, at least try
to make it marginally healthy.”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you know about healthy?” He asks, not an attempt to dispute her in
this, exactly, but quite frankly, he stands behind the idea of don’t take criticism from someone you
won’t go to advice for and Ji-woo is the last person he would find himself consulting on anything
to do with sex and relationships, considering for her it is one and the same. He doesn’t want to call
his sister a slut, necessarily, but she would be the first to confess to it. Her closest contact with a
relationship has probably been spending the night instead of leaving the moment after everyone
present orgasms or pretends to.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tries softly, standing near his back, his hand finding his forearm, “you can’t
exactly tell her she’s wrong.”

“Oh, you acknowledge it?” Ji-woo snorts, her shoulders bouncing slightly with it. “That just fixes
everything, doesn’t it?” She readjusts on her feet, tips her head to the side, eyes narrowing on
Jungkook now. “Hear your sister's in rehab,” she says and Taehyung feels the hand around him
squeeze into the flesh of his arm. “I’m sorry. I hope she gets better,” she continues, perhaps not
disingenuous in this, but it erases any potential intention when she turns to her brother next, “Wish
there was rehab for clinging onto people like him as well.”

Jungkook’s fingers fall away from his arm. Taehyung shakes his head, tells her calm but defensive.
“You don’t know him.”

“I know enough,” Ji-woo declares. “But it’s your decision. You want to completely drain yourself
emotionally?” She shrugs, cocks her head and purses her lips in mock contemplation. “Go ahead.”

She strolls out of the room into the living space, her voice shifting entirely when she calls over
Woojin. Taehyung watches her squat down herself, pretend to be fascinated by something he
shows her on the truck.

Jungkook’s watching, too. Taehyung tugs at his arm. “Come on, let’s go to my dad’s room."

He’s barely shut the door when Jungkook’s speaking. “Do you think she’s right?”

“No.”
“No?”

“No,” Taehyung nods, prods his tongue at his lips as he tries to formulate his thoughts into words.
“I think we’re doing the best we can given our circumstances,” he shrugs, honest. “Was it fucked
up before you entirely fucked it up?” His arms raise in the air with the passion of the question and
he lets them drop, bouncing into his body. “Yeah, fuck yes. You crossed a line it opened both our
eyes and—“ he pauses. There’s a physical distance between them for this conversation, but their
gazes lock nevertheless. “Listen,” he sighs, puts it as simply as he can, “before, every time I let you
be with me I felt like shit afterwards. Now, I don’t. I don’t feel guilty being with you. I feel good
and I love you and that’s that.”

“Tae—“

“I’m not saying we should just forget everything. I couldn't if I tried. But, like, learn from it, yeah?
Learning’s better than regretting, you know.”

Regret’s really worthless without learning. Mei Su would agree.

“Jimin and Baek are parked and waiting,” Taehyung protests.

“But I want to make out.”

“We’ll make out tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he whines, disgruntled as Taehyung props a hand on his chest and pushes himself up.
Jungkook makes a small protest of his own, remaining on the bed as he continues to complain.
“Why did we have to watch a movie first, anyway? I didn’t even get what it was about except, you
know, arson.”

Taehyung opens the door to a half empty closet, steals a forgotten shirt from his father that is
terribly oversized on him and fixes his hair in the mirror on the door of the closet all the while
flashing Jungkook a semi-annoyed look. “It wasn’t about arson, and maybe you would have got a
little bit more if you didn’t try to feel me up the whole time.”
“You were distracting me. You should have paused the movie, let me feel you up in peace and then
we could have continued.”

Taehyung scoffs, undoing some of the top buttons on the shirt.“Excuse me for attempting to
understand the movie.”

“Listen, pretty boy,” Jungkook starts as he gets on his feet, tugs Taehyung towards himself by the
fabric of the shirt and starts doing the buttons again. “You can pretend you get something adapted
from Murakami all you want, but no one ever truly will.”

“What are you doing?” Taehyung’s forehead creases. “I don’t even have cleavage.”

“Yeah, but your collarbones are hot.”

“Jesus,” Taehyung rolls his eyes, undoes only some of the buttons again and picks up a nagging
phone. “I’m coming,” he stresses into the speaker.

“I’m not,” Jungkook shrugs, receives a scathing look.

“Hurry the fuck up, baby,” Jimin’s voice comes from the other side. “We’re in the middle of the
street.”

He hangs up with the instruction. Taehyung slips the phone in the pocket of his pants as Jungkook
glares at his buttons as if they will do themselves up under the look. “Let’s go. Jimin’s frightening
when he’s angry.”

Jungkook’s eyes bounce up when he gives up on the buttons. “Why does he call you baby?”

“I don’t know,” Taehyung swings the door opened, starts down the hallway and the stairs. “Been
calling me that for years.”

“He also spanks you from time to time, doesn’t he?” Jungkook asks as he skips the third step.
“Yes,” Taehyung gets his keys from the table, aims for the door.

“How delightful,” Jungkook remarks. “Could I get his phone number?”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung turns to him, his hand at the handle.

“I’m joking, Tae,” he tells him, voice layering softer, more genuine. “But I would like to, you
know, meet him at some point.” Taehyung’s mouth parts, eyes charting to the side for a moment,
but Jungkook interrupts before he can really say anything. “I’ll be nice, I promise. No
interrogations about his choice of pet names and wandering hands.”

Taehyung breathes a short laugh, head shaking. “You can meet him whenever you want.”

“Okay.”

Taehyung turns and starts through the yard, circling around the house to get to the street when a
September chill whistles through them. Jungkook feels gooseflesh raise on his naked arms, a
thought flashing in his mind.

“Shit,” he curses, “forgot my jacket.”

Taehyung turns to him with a look that’s almost offended. “How do you forget a Façonnable
jacket?”

Jungkook himself appears marginally confused. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck.”

The jacket is an early bird fall collection leather jacket that Julia got for him as a surprise gift when
she went to Paris for croissants. He was never even too good at pronouncing the French brands.

“Go get it,” Taehyung urges with another blow of the wind, “It’s cold.”
With the finish of his sentence, a car horn sounds startling from the street.

“No point in you waiting,” Jungkook tells him. "I’m taking the subway anyway.”

Taehyung seems like he’s about to protest, but the car sounds again. This time longer and he
flinches. “Okay, fine,” he says, taking a step towards Jungkook, hand going for his neck. He cups
it easily, meets his lips halfway.

“Have fun and be careful,” Jungkook tells him in between three short kisses.

“Yeah, yeah,” Taehyung waves it off. “I can text you when I get home if you want.”

“Yeah, do that,” he nods, presses his lips into his a final time under the melodic sound of another
prolonged car horn. “Bye now.”

“Bye.”

Jungkook walks back to the house, up the stairs, finds his disregarded jacket on the bed. He slips it
on his shoulders, arms easing through the sleeves. He fixes the cuffs as he walks down the stairs,
figures he really doesn’t give much of a fuck about the label on it. If it weren’t a gift from Julia,
he’d let Taehyung have it.

Maybe if he wins this Friday, when he wins this Friday, he can actually get him something of his
own entirely, not something that was once his father’s or Namjoon’s or Jungkook’s, something
nice that was only ever his.

But what? He humours for a moment the thought of asking Julia for advice. She’d probably slap
him again if he asks. He really, really wants Clo out of rehab already, can’t wait to visit her on
Thursday. She’ll help. Even from there, she’ll help. She pronounces brands as smoothly as
Taehyung does.

He closes the back door, steps once more into the yard. He’s too much into his own head to really
notice the diminutive light that shines a few paces away from him. “You know if you care about
him and you agree with what I’m saying,” a voice starts, starling him for a moment. His eyes flash
up as he hears her approach, feet scrunching a few fallen leaves that have been blown to their yard.
She nears enough for the light coming from the kitchen to hit her. She’s wearing the denim jacket
Taehyung had on when he took him to the mountain and it makes him all the more want to get him
something for his own. She has a cigarette perched in her fingers which surprises him a bit. He
doesn’t think he’s seen her smoke before. It looks like she rolled it up on her own and she holds
like it’s something she is used to. “If you genuinely do,” she speaks after a short pause, “why don’t
you just,” she shrugs, “break up with him, let him go now before he bites onto you more?” Her
gaze challenges into his silence as she brings the cigarette to her lips, exhales her smoke to the side
of them.

She seems to wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. He is done trying to protect Taehyung
from himself without as much as talking to him about it. He did it once, hurt him more than he
could imagine, did it once and it is one of the biggest single regrets of his life.

“You’re not going to do it, right?” She continues, lips twitching as if the fact of it somehow
satisfies her, “Cause you’re selfish and you want someone to fuck, someone who apparently will
forgive the worst."

Jungkook shakes his head. “It’s not like that."

“You’re like that,” she says so quick it has to be reflex. “It can only be like that.”

Jungkook glances away for a moment, prods the muscle of his tongue into his cheek, sticks his
hands into the pockets of his jacket. Calm, he has to just stay fucking calm. “You said it before,”
he returns his eyes to her, “It’s his decision. If he wants me out of his life—"

“He’s not going to dump you,” she interrupts her own inhale on the butt of the cigarette to cut him
off. “He pities you too much.”

Calm.

“Pities me?” He tweaks a brow, cocks his head.

“Yes,” she replies merciless, “pities you,” she repeats, “and you’re just making yourself more and
more worth of his pity, tying him to yourself.”

His mouth twitches, fingers as well in his pockets and he coils them together, squeezes. “That’s
what you think I’m doing?”
She shrugs, smokes. “Even if it’s not the purpose, it’s the result.”

He glimpses at his feet for a moment. Pity. He never did think Taehyung could now be tied to him
out of pity. He runs his tongue across his bottom lip, meets her eyes again. “Why do you hate me
so much?”

She sucks on the last of her cigarette, lets it fall to the ground and stomps it as she moves a bit
closer, folding her arms together. “For a long time while Namjoon was gone Taehyung was
literally all I had,” she tells him as she nears, voice scathing. “And you and I both participated in
hurting him. Except I didn’t even fucking know. And now?” Her shoulders shrug and she untangles
her arms, raises them to the sides and then drops them In angered defeat. “He’d choose you over
me any fucking day.”

“First of all,” he shakes his head, holding her eyes as he speaks, “that’s not true.” He swallows. If
she thinks Taehyung wouldn’t go to any length for his family, then she’s seriously starting to lose
touch of who he really is. “Second of all, if you care about him,” he pauses, darts his gaze across
her set expression, “don’t ever make him feel like he has to choose. Can’t even begin to tell you
how fucking horrible it feels.”

He’s calm, as calm as he can be, but it only seems to draw more animosity from her.

“Yeah,” she breathes, prolongs sardonically with a petty nod of her head. “Namjoon told me what
you did. He worded it as if I should absolutely forgive anything you’ve done before because of it.”
She forces out a laugh, humourless and as chilly as the wind. “Can’t even hate you now without
being an ass."

“You could easily hate me without being an ass,” he tells her, knows perfectly well he’s far from
the innocent one in this. She has incentive enough to hate him, but she could try doing it without
comparing Taehyung’s attitude to him with his twin sister’s accidental near suicide. “You just need
to be an ass to me.”

The tip of her tongue touches the corner of her mouth, stretching her lower lip over her tongue. Her
eyes roll, head shakes once more. “Do you even remember how you spoke about him the first time
you ever mentioned him to me?”

He does. It was long ago, but he does. His curiosity towards Taehyung had just started to grow. He
thought he sensed his eyes too much on himself, not enough on Julia. He was starting to wonder,
almost hope, maybe Taehyung wanted him. It pissed him off and interested him all the same. He
wanted Taehyung to want him. He certainly wasn’t ready to think he could want him back at the
time.

“I,” he tries, first instinct to go into defensive, but he shifts. “Yes,” he says instead, admits it. “I
wouldn’t speak about him like that now.”

“About him, no, perhaps,” she entertains the prospect, although not with a lack of scepticism.
“What about other people? They’re still beneath you, aren’t they?”

Jungkook breathes through his nose, head shaking. His lips jerk to the sides. “You think I’m
actually dumb enough to believe people are beneath me? What do you think this is, fucking Harry
Potter?”

He knows money makes a societal distinction between people, knows he could afford to get away
with a lot more than both Taehyung and Ji-woo could because he had money and status and they
didn’t. It’s straight facts. There is a distinguishable difference. He doesn’t, however, genuinely
think that in some way positions them beneath him in their quality as people.

Ji-woo shakes her head, her eyes narrowing still. “Don’t be the self-righteous one in this
conversation. It really doesn’t fit you,” she tells him, acid dripping on her tongue. She pauses for a
moment, skims her gaze all across him, sizes him up and starts again with all the moral haughtiness
she can muster, “How much into your regret do you think it expires, anyway?”

Jungkook blinks. “What?”

Her teeth bare in a huffing, short chuckle. “You can’t honestly try to tell me this whole you treating
him right thing doesn’t have an expiration date,” she tips her head, rocks once on her feet, “same as
that of your guilt.”

It stings. The question physically, tangibly stings. The prospect she might plant the seed of this
thought into Taehyung’s head as well is worse. The fact she has a point is the worst. His guilt
makes him careful, tentative, but this attitude won’t diminish, he promises himself. He won’t let it.

He narrows his eyes right back, cocks his head. He makes sure not to skip a fucking beat. “What if
I prove you wrong?”
It is a surprise to him and not at all at the same time, when her body relaxes a bit, and she only has
one last, vehement thing to say before she returns to her house and goes to check up on her little
brother. “I beg you, Jeon. Prove me wrong.”

Taehyung was never really a texter, but that is precisely what he finds himself doing as he sits on a
barstool. He’s been sipping on a cocktail Jimin got for him since the night started, not particularly
interested in getting drunk or being chatted up. When Jimin catches a break from orders, he does
pay attention to him, like he always does, but in between he is much more interested in the fact
Jungkook found a collection of Murakami short stories among the thousand books his aunt has and
is sharing his rather ridiculous interpretations with Taehyung through text.

He’s writing more than he is reading at this point, scandalised at every couple paragraphs. It’s
actually quite entertaining, looking at his reactions as he purposefully chooses to read it from a
lens that completely disregards the genre and pretends the author tried to sell it as actual realism.

Jungkook

why would you let a fucking crow decide if a sharpie cake is good

I’m now hungry for sharpie cakes

what are sharpie cakes?

Tae

They’re fictional

Jungkook

oh

any cake will do then

Taehyung shakes his head, smiles down at his phone. He knows him sneaking grins down at the
screen is suspicious behaviour to Jimin, but he doesn’t really care. If Jimin asks, he will tell him.

He wonders when the last time Jungkook had an actual cake was. After all, cakes are quite infused
with copious amounts of carbs. He soon stops wondering because as Jungkook flips through pages
and reaches a story Nausea 1979, which tells of a man who sleeps with his friends’ partners and
vomits every day for a year, he decides it’s appropriate to comment:

Jungkook

lol imagine if you threw up for a whole year cause we fucked when Julia and I were dating

Tae

I genuinely think it’s time for you to go to sleep

Jungkook

not until I know you’re home

Taehyung finishes his cocktail and, Jimin justifies as this time he took so long to drink it, he gets a
second one for free. He just gives him a bottle of Soju this time around. It’s cheaper, he shrugs, and
it starts playing with his bladder.

He’s at the sink, washing his hands, doesn’t pay much mind to the door opening and someone else
entering until the person decides to speak.

“Well, hello there.”

Taehyung’s eyes lock with his in the mirror. The snake sits glaring on his neck. It’s the first time he
sees him in such distinctive lighting, but recognition flashes immediate to him.

And here he thought Jungkook was being ridiculous worrying if he will get home.
Taehyung stops the sink, heart racing in his chest, but he hides it, ducks his head down, turns,
walks, attempts to step around him, around fucking Kai. “Bye.”

“So soon,” Kai steps easily in his way, feigns a pout that sits almost comical on his face. “That’s
rude.”

“I’m done with the bathroom,” Taehyung says, stealing a pointed glance towards his eyes before
he tries to walk away once more.

Kai’s grip on his arm is instant, hard. He grasps a little beneath his shoulder, squeezes him into
place, the pout dropping scarily quick from his expression. It hardens, voice does as well, as he
insists, “I’m not done with you.”

“Don’t touch me,” Taehyung rips his arm away, steps back and when Kai follows with one pace
forward, he continues until his back presses in the damned counter of that sink. It’s not first time,
but this instant he wants with the core of his being to get the fuck away from there. His heart
hammers and this time he does look at Kai, seals his eyes onto him. He’s not losing that snake out
of his sight.

“Feisty,” he comments, his brows quirking annoyingly casual. Taehyung supposes, though, scaring
people to dead is day to day activity for Kai. “Relax,” he raises palms in a peace offering that
Taehyung doesn’t trust one bit. “I just want to talk,” he reasons, head tilting and voice careful,
calming him like a hunter its prey if it gets too close, not to scare it away. “Although, I’ve always
wanted to play with something that belongs to Jungkook and Julia would never let me.”

Taehyung shakes his head, locks his hands on the edge of the counter and squeezes to keep himself
levelled. "You have less of a chance with me.”

“You sure?” He cocks his head.

“Yes,” Taehyung grits his teeth, grips tighter at the counter, channeling all his fear into that touch,
“fuck off now.”

“Aw, but why?” Kai circles closer, nears, raising a hand up towards his face, but Taehyung
flinches away and he lets it drop. “Why does Jungkook always get the prettiest toys?” He asks,
smirks and watches Taehyung with some personal expectation, but he could not give less of a shit
for entertaining his rhetorical musings. Flattery sits repulsively ill in his stomach when it drips
from his lips. “You not gonna defend yourself,” Kai challenges, “say you’re not just his toy.”

Taehyung pulses his fingers against the countertop. “I don’t care what you call me.”

Kai’s brows bounce upwards for a moment before his face sets once more, a nerve-racking smirk
deep on his features. “Mm,” he hums with a nod. “Okay. But see, I think it’s unfair he’s the only
one who gets a toy,” he says, and his hand ventures to his back pocket. Taehyung’s eyes trail after
with alarm. He gulps. Please don’t let it be a gun, he begs internally, please don’t let it be a
fucking gun. “I want to offer you one,” Kai surprises him. He raises no gun, no weapon. He raises
something small, in a transparent resealable package, something round and pink. He raises a pill.

Taehyung’s eyes pry away from it, land immediately back on Kai’s. He shakes his head. “I don’t
want it.”

“No?” Kai quips, his very expression mocking. “You don’t want to see what it feels like,” he
elaborates, slow and voice soft, teasing and alluring all the same, but it does nothing for Taehyung
other than creep the fuck out of him, “what Clo Eun sees in it, what Yoongi does,” he lists, shrugs,
“you know they are the two people in the world he probably loves the most.”

He doesn’t specify a he, but he doesn’t have to. Taehyung knows this is on account of Jungkook.
He cannot guess what he aims precisely with this.

“It’s not because of this,” Taehyung nearly hisses, his eyes sending a glare towards the pill perched
in his hand so comfortably. “It’s despite it.”

Kai’s chuckle is inhumanely cold to Taehyung’s ears. “Jungkook loves trouble, Kim Taehyung,”
he says, shaking his head slow and meticulous, as if with pity for a naive child. “Gets off on
protecting broken people to satiate his conscience for breaking others.”

Taehyung’s hands clench once more at the counter. He doesn’t care for Kai’s evaluations of
Jungkook. He doesn’t. “Stay away from him.”

He snorts this time. “You sound like him now,” he tips his head again, smirking at something
private to him. “You know it’s funny,” he adjusts on his feet slightly, eyes falling to Taehyung’s
neck. He did not bother bringing foundation to the Ozone. The sweat from the heat wipes the
product away and the hickeys sit as telling and pointed as the snake on Kai’s own. “He told me
you’d dumped him.”

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head, arching his neck the tiniest bit, not hiding from the judgmental
scrutiny of his gaze. “I’m his.”

“You’re his?” It pulls sudden, genuinely surprised from Kai’s throat, eyes opening wider before
they settle, his lips twitching. “He’s taught you well, hasn’t he?”

“Stay away from him.”

Kai sighs as if this is growing tedious for him. “See, I usually would,” he gestures with his hands,
hissing as if to denote a casually tricky situation, "but I feel like he doesn’t particularly like me
now that I technically outed him to his father, so you,” he raises his brows, “my darling, are a
precaution.”

Taehyung’s not sure he wants to know what that means. “He’s not focused on you, Kai,” he tells
him. “He wants nothing from you. Just, reciprocate, yeah?” He speaks as if Kai is a person that can
be reasoned with. “Leave him alone.”

He cocks his head, the eyes of the snake on his head turn into slits with the folds of his skin. “How
do I know you’re not lying?”

“He’s got bigger problems, wouldn’t you guess?” Taehyung locks his arms before his chest.

“Tell you what,” Kai sighs, “I’ll cut you a deal.” He points his fingers briefly to Taehyung, draws
them back, textbook salesmen, out of a movie salesmen. “You prove to me you’re reliable, and I
will actually leave your boyfriend alone.”

Taehyung’s forehead creases, chin lifts up slightly as he looks upon him with due suspicion. “And
how do I do that?”

Kai raises the pill once more, dangles the package in front of his eyes, taps at it with a fingernail to
see it shake. “Keep a hold of that for me for 48 hours, and then come give it to me in my club.”
He’s too ready with the proposition. It makes Taehyung wary. The mention of his club makes it
worse, especially considering Jungkook doesn’t want him to even have allegedly been there.

“In your club?”

“Yeah.”

Taehyung eyes the dangling, dancing pill apprehensively. “And if I don’t?” His arms fold firmer,
slither against each other like the snake does on his neck with every motion of his head. “If I don’t
show up in 48 hours?”

“What?” He sneers near a cackle. “Did Jungkook forbid you to visit me?” The tilt of his head
deepens. The thin lipless line of the snake’s mouth seems to smile, too, mirroring him so perfect
and emotive. ”You got a set of rules like a good little toy?”

Taehyung hopes Kai doesn’t see the twitch of his fingers as they clutch at his arm. He knows
Jungkook well. “I just don’t think you’re reliable enough for me to step in your fucking layer, Kai.”

Kai dashes his eyes across him calculatingly for a few moments. He chooses to move away from
this, answers his question instead. “If you don’t come, then it’s like this conversation never
happened,” he promises, somehow calmer as he extends the packet once more towards Taehyung.
“Keep it,” he shrugs. “It’s a gift.”

He watches dripping malice as Taehyung’s fingers tap into his elbow with reluctance. They are
twitching to reach forward and take it. It will end this, he figures. Kai will have got what he wants
and he will get the fuck away from him. With a rash, optimistic motivation he snatches the packet
away, slips it in the pocket of his jeans.

Kai’s chuckle is short, a single huff. His smirk, however, lasts until he leaves. “And there’s lots
where it came from in case you come to like it,” he tells him. Taehyung’s phone chimes in his
pocket. He still hasn’t answered Jungkook’s message from before he went into the toilet. Kai’s
eyes fall to it, saunter up again. “Say hi to your brother for me, by the way. Long time no see.”

Taehyung’s brows furrow. “My brother?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Kai shakes his head, tongue clicking disappointed in his poisonous
mouth. “Jungkook’s never been into bimbos.”

“If you mean Woojin,” Taehyung starts levelled, careful, “I doubt he’d care. If you mean
Namjoon, he thought it would be saver if I didn’t know where he went.” He slides his eyes
pointedly over Kai, lets the fear seep through, allows himself to gulp, for him to watch the nervous
bob of his throat. “I see what he means how.”

Kai’s head tips back, neck baring and snake dancing with the shake of his throaty laughter. “Hate to
give it to Jungkook, but I’m right.” He straightens. “He’s always had good taste. Makes everything
so much more fun,” he says. It sounds like a warning. Taehyung thinks his eyes glint, but perhaps
it’s just the glare of artificial lighting. “I’ll see you around, Kim Taehyung.”

Taehyung stands alone in the bathroom, breathing heavier than he previously realised. The mere
sound of the next guy taking a leak rings ominous to him. He returns to his barstool, orders another
bottle of Soju which he actually pays for. He checks his texts. One complains about the raw vegan
cakes his aunt likes. The other one came several minutes after.

Jungkook

everything ok?

Taehyung stares at it for a couple of moments. He presses his thumb to the bubble that draws the
keyboard up.

Tae

Yes mother

Jungkook

daddy*

Tae

that would be me
“What,” she says when he walks in, eyes on his phone, “you not even gonna say hi to me
anymore?”

He looks up, catches her sitting on the table. He has fear in his blood, alcohol in his blood. He cock
his head. “Not if you’re going to act like a bitch at any given opportunity.”

“I’m acting like a bitch because you’re making a mistake,” she says, chooses now to try to speak
like a person. He doesn’t understand why should make the effort to wait up for him to come home.
She hasn’t done that since he was eighteen.

“And you always have it right?” He snorts.

“Taehyung,” her fingers tap into the table. "I just care about you.”

“You saying Namjoon doesn’t?” He challenges. "Because Namjoon isn’t being a bitch.”

She sighs, her free hand raising, rubbing sleep away from her eyes. She’s wearing that shirt she
sleeps in and he wants to know why she’s awake, why she’s downstairs where he has to walk past
her. “The only reason why Namjoon is supportive is to justify the fact he’d jump Jungkook’s sister
who is just as fucked up as him at the first chance he gets.”

Taehyung’s head draws back, surprise paints on his face. “You know about this?”

“Mm, for two years,” she nods. He forgets sometimes that before Namjoon left the two of them
were the older ones, they were the closest ones. “And he still won’t let go of her and you’re
digging yourself the very same grave.”

Taehyung glances down, teeth worry into his lip. “It’s not the same,” he says, shakes his head. “He
loves me, too.”

“Loves you?” She nearly splutters, voice raising in humour laced disbelief.
Taehyung’s teeth grit. “Yes.”

“Too?” She presses, eyes widening as she leans slightly forward on the table, “You love him?”

His teeth grind. He nods. “I do.”

Her head shakes as her fingers catch at her forehead, eyes closing.

Taehyung has to look away. “You’re being a bitch again.”

Her hand falls on the table, draws his attention back as her digits tighten in a fist. “I just want to
understand why, Taehyung.” Her eyes dart between his, fall over the rest of his face, searching but
hopeless. “Why would you go back to the one person who’s probably hurt you the most in your
entire life?”

Taehyung’s lips press together. The thing is, love is not necessarily a thought process. There isn’t a
formula. It’s not like he sees this person and there is this checklist of things and he covers them,
check, check; you add this and that and you get love. Charm and humour, sprinkle good looks, and
you’re gone, gonegonegone. Add one to one and you get two. Math is simple and Taehyung’s good
with with numbers, but love is nowhere near that. It’s illogical, sometimes. Complicated, always.

So when someone asks him why, why do you love him, he can’t really answer. There is no clear
cut because. There are things he loves about him, but why he loves him with all that’s happened in
their past will forever be unanswerable.

Taehyung raises his shoulders, let them fall. He speaks to her with no charge, only speaks, softly,
calmly. He speaks almost tired. “He’s also the one thing I’ve wanted most in my life and we never
allow ourselves to want, let alone take what we want.”

Ji-woo’s face contorts, brows shift closer. “What?”

“We never make any choices do we, Ji?” He sighs, meets her eyes, “We always settle, whatever is
handed to us we take, breakfast, lunch, dinner, jobs, people. We always fucking settle,” he tells
her, draws a chair back, lets it scrape across the floor. It’s ruined, anyway. Everything in this house
is ruined. They settled for it as well. “Do you want to be a housemaid?” He asks, doesn’t wait,
"No. Do you know what you want to be, though?” He asks and this time he pauses, waits it out. He
watches her watch him until her gaze drops. “No,” he shakes her head, answers for them both.
“You never even ask yourself what you want because it seems ridiculous to imagine you can have
it.” Taehyung doesn’t want to be a waiter, either. He will try to be something else, though, he will.
I’m a girl, she’s always told him. It’d be a lot harder to just suddenly make something out of
myself. “We’re just fucking surviving at this point. I want to live. I want something hard to get,
something I have to work for and work with,” he lists, voice building as he alcohol unleashes his
honesty. “I don’t just want something that I like, that I’m okay with, something mediocre. I want
something, at least one thing I love that isn’t family, one thing I’m allowed to be passionate about,
that I chose.”

He stares at her. She’s silent for longer this time. He thinks perhaps he gets to her. It’s drunken
foolery. She shakes her head, tells him no as she straightens up.

“And you choose him?” She asks. “You get excitement for the first time in your life and you call it
love, Taehyung,” she sighs. “He’ll always be Jeon Jungkook. You ask me not to separate him from
the Jungkook, I ask you not to separate him from the Jeon. It’s his instinct to hurt people.”
Taehyung’s lips part, but she doesn’t stop. “And the fact he does it because he himself is hurt is
just a fact, not an excuse. But you’ll excuse anything he does because he’s learned to tell you that
he loves you after and it will fucking ruin you.”

“It’s possible I'm making a mistake. It’s possible I'm not. Consequences are mine to deal with, not
yours. I can’t really know at this point. If I don’t try with him, though, I’ll spend my life wondering
what if.”

Something starting bad does not mean it’s going end bad. Takes work, though. He doesn’t only
think of Jungkook when it comes to this, thinks of their lives as a whole. He doesn’t want to end up
how he started. He puts his own value above this house in ruins, this life in settling. Being a waiter
doesn’t fit him.

“Of course you’re going to justify anything you fucking do. That’s how humans work. We can
twist anything,” she gives up, too. She stands, angles her head down at him. ”It’s your life. Fuck it
up if you want to. But I want him as little around Woojin as possible.”

Taehyung’s hands fly, one at the the table, one at the chair, body twisting after her, head shaking.
No, no, no. “Ji-woo, he’s always—“

"Woojin is my responsibility,” she interjects. “You’re not using my little brother as therapy for your
boyfriend. And I don’t him influencing him in any way.”
“Jungkook, think about it. I know when you left first it was under adrenaline fuelled
circumstances, you weren’t thinking clearly.”

“Mom—“

“Your father is offering you a chance to come back home.”

“Mom—“

A hushed whisper. “You could still see him in secret, like you used to. You just have to be more
careful.”

“Mom,” he presses vehement, interrupts her. “The more I think about it, the more I don’t want to
go to that apartment. And I’m not keeping him a secret, not getting myself a beard. He’s—no, just
no.”

There’s a pause. “Okay.”

“Do you want to meet him?” Jungkook swallows air. “Properly.”

A moment. “No.”

“You’re not hanging up.”

“You aren’t, either,” she says and he has nothing to offer to that, so he waits for her to speak again.
“He’ll probably cut off your phone bill soon.”

"Hadn’t thought about that.”

“You haven’t thought about a lot of things, Jungkook. You think the hard part is over, but you have
a lot to learn.”

“I know.”

“Is it worth it, do you think?”

“Yeah. I’m ready to hang up now.”

“Okay.”

They stay on the phone a little while longer. She waits for him to do it. So he does.

Taehyung’s nervous and Jungkook telling him, don’t be nervous, doesn’t really make him any less
nervous. He’s not only meeting Min Yoongi and Jung Hoseok. He’s doing it in their territory.

He’s at Min Yoongi’s penthouse. He’s heard about it, but he’s never really seen it before. It’s one
of the top Richhood destinations that he never managed to secure himself a glimpse into. Hearing
about it is different than seeing. It’s an elaborate place, obviously designer place. It has a few bits
more character than Jungkook’s apartment.

It has a pool table, has a bar. The most gorgeous part of it is undoubtedly the terrace, huge and
infamous and with a sight stopping view. He’s heard a lot about it as well.
It’s also the one place in here he fears most. He sees them as they step towards it. They’re sitting
on an outdoor couch seat pressed up against the edge of the terrace behind a glass table, furniture
Taehyung has only seen in hotels and catalogues. Both of their heads rest back, Hoseok’s arm
stretched behind Yoongi and Yoongi’s resting on top of Hoseok’s.

Taehyung feels a bit like it’s his first day in school. He’s fumbling with his fingers, heart it
thundering and he walks a few paces behind Jungkook.

“Hello, Kookie,” Hoseok greets with a droning voice, eyes still fixed on the sky.

Jungkook has to clear his throat when they stop.

Their necks twist in sync, both pairs of eyes landing on Taehyung. Yoongi looks at him for about a
second before his gaze shifts to Hoseok, watches him as he straightens, sits up and forward with his
brows slightly perched.

“That’s Taehyung,” Jungkook says, stretches his arm behind him and pulls him a few paces
forward so he’s standing next to him.

“I’m aware,” Hoseok answers. “The fuck is he doing here?”

Jungkook seems to search for words, tongue pricking at his upper lip. “He’s with me.”

“Ooookay?” Hoseok prolongs, leaning his elbows on his knees as he bends forward, head tiling
quizzical. “I see that as well,” he informs him.

Jungkook breathes, glances to Yoongi for a moment then back to him. “I mean, with me,” he says
firmer, presses his hand to his chest. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Ha,” Hoseok exclaims, his palms slapping together where they hang between his spread thighs.
He looks to one side, then the other. He waits. No one says anything and his upper lip pulls back,
nostrils flare. “Is that a joke?” He asks, doesn’t stop, not for a second, demands more forceful,
“What sort of a joke is that, Jungkook?”
Jungkook shakes his head. “It’s not a joke,” he tells him calmly.

Hoseok gets on his feet. Yoongi sits on the seat behind him. “This isn’t funny,” Hoseok insists,
eyes fixated on Jungkook.

“Good,” he answers, “because it’s not a goddamn joke.”

Hoseok flips his eyes between them, stares at Jungkook, stares at Taehyung. He seems to still wait
for them to tell him it’s a prank. But it isn’t and he knows it. There was a reason Jungkook was
acting different, talking about nice asses, getting higher than Yoongi, a reason why he spoke more
often of the Kims, when more often to Rouge, why he is no longer with Julia, why Taehyung was
there when Clo OD’d and everyone asked him to stay.

“You’re gay?” He breathes, near a sneer, gaze still shifting between them. “You’re both just
fucking openly gay now all of a sudden?”

Jungkook presses his teeth together, looks at Yoongi for a moment again, then back to him. “It’s
not all of a sudden,” he pauses, exhales, “but yes.”

“So, so,” Hoseok tires to get words out, but they seem to tangle on his tongue and he raises his
hands in front of himself to articulate better, “you’re gay and in a fucking relationship?”

“Yes, hyung.”

He shifts his hands to the side. “And you going around telling fucking people about it?”

He interrupts himself even, throws his head back in a loud, short laugh.

“Hobi—“ Yoongi moves forward on the cushion of his seat.

“Is that why you broke up with Julia?” Hoseok snaps his head back to them. “You decided you
were gay?”
Jungkook’s jaw ticks. His eyes flash. “I didn’t decide anything, Hoseok.”

He isn’t listening, though, he’s waving arms through the air. “This is ridiculous. This is just—
fucking wow. I’m just.” He places his fingers to his eyes sockets, presses. “I— Fuck.” He shakes
his head. He walks away.

“Fuck,” Yoongi repeats, too, starts after him.

Taehyung feels worse than he felt on his first day at school, much, much worse. He turns to
Jungkook, fingers still tangled together.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Didn’t do anything wrong,” Jungkook shakes his head. He wants to wipe the frown away from his
face, but he doesn’t touch him for now, just catches his eyes. “He’ll be fine, okay?"

Yoongi catches up with him at the bathroom door, hand wrapping gingerly around his elbow.
“Hey,” he calls.

“Don’t touch me,” Hoseok snaps, head turning back as he tears his arm away, glares. He glares
until Yoongi is glaring as well.

His eyes change, caution slipping out of them in seconds. “Fine,” his teeth last together. “I won’t
touch you,” he promises, voice hard, intention worse, “but if you say that exact sentence, the exact
one,” he stresses, “to either one of them, ever, I’ll fucking punch you.”

Hoseok blinks. He’s blinking. Yoongi’s angry with him. He told Yoongi not to touch him.
“Yoongi,” he tries, hand reaching, but he pulls away.

“Fucking coward,” he shakes his head.

“Yoongi.”

He shakes his head harder. “Pull yourself together and come meet the boy,” he tells him. “He’s a
lot better than the girls we fuck. Okay?” He doesn’t raise “You will either be a friend or get the
fuck out of my apartment.”

“Yoongi, I didn’t—“

“And you don’t have to worry about me touching you, I don’t want to anyway.”

“Don’t think we’ve ever officially met,” Yoongi returns to the terrace, plasters to his face a smile
that only gets this wide when he’s swallowed enough pills. He would shake his hand, but it’s too
much. He settles for a nod. “Min Yoongi,” he introduces himself.

Jungkook, he’s doing this for Jungkook. Jungkook who is standing right next to Taehyung,
shoulder to shoulder, watching him. He doesn’t know how to be nice, but he’ll do it, for Jungkook,
the best he can. Jungkook’s been through enough, he doesn’t need this, too, doesn’t need Hoseok
having fucking panic attacks in the bathroom at the discovery that homosexuality does exist, not
only in the west, not only with the poorer. Boys can be more than fucking friends.

He grits his teeth underneath his smile.

Taehyung nods back. “I’ve served you drinks,” he offers, shrugs.

“Yeah,” Yoongi nods once again. Nodding, it turns out, is a very easy semi-friendly activity. He
clears his throat, raises an arm, dunks it at the elbow to scratch behind his neck. “Feel like it’s
necessary to mention I don’t perv on you sister. I was just checking something.”

“Yeah?” Taehyung cocks his head. He remembers this as one of his very few interactions with
Yoongi, telling him that his sister looks nice bent over, Jungkook telling him later that it is not on
Taehyung’s account, but on his own. “And were you right?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Yoongi shrugs. “You’re welcome here, by the way,” he says as an
afterthought. He nods. He nods a lot, Taehyung thinks. “Though,” his eyes stray to Jungkook, the
smile on his face less full-toothed, more genuine now. “I suppose that won’t be my choice only
soon.” He nods once more, this time to Jungkook. “Have you told him yet?”

Taehyung turns to him, furrows his brows. “Told me what?”

Jungkook swings his hips a bit, knocks them into his from the side, just to touch him, no PDA, not
nothing, just a single touch. He smiles. “Found myself a more permanent home, pretty boy.”

Taehyung blinks, lips parting loose.

Yoongi speaks and his wide eyes shift to him. “Kind of lonely, this penthouse,” he tells him, but
his gaze is locked on Jungkook, a smile tucked into his cheeks. “Too big for just me, honestly. I’ve
offered before. Finally he has no choice.”

“Wait,” Taehyung’s nearly gasping, “really?” He’s grinning too and he doesn’t even fully know
why, but it’s all he knows how to do with his face now. He wants to hug him, a little bit, kiss him,
a lot, but it’s all too much, so he settles for smiling, blinking almost astonished towards him.

Jungkook tilts his head to Yoongi, glances at him with the corner of his eyes. “Everyone has a
roommate period, don’t they?”

“He stays here a lot anyway,” Yoongi adds. “Gonna start paying rent now.”

They hear steps and Taehyung grows glad he’s not hugging Jungkook, the smile halfway dying on
his face.

“Hobi,” Yoongi says instinctive when he sees him. He tries to swallow disappointment away at the
sight of him with a jacket, but it is too poisonous on his tongue.“You leaving?”

“Got chilly,” he shrugs. His hair is wet, pulled back, droplets of water still on his face. He pauses a
little further away than the rest of them, looking mostly at the floor. “Anyone want a cocktail?”
He asks, glances up at Taehyung.
He hesitates, turns slightly towards Jungkook for help. “Um.”

Hoseok’s eyes slip to the floor once more. “Got one that’s my own recipe, if you want,” he
proposes with another shrug. This one shrugs a lot. “Gotta warn you, though. It’s a little sweet.
Yoongi has taken to calling it Suga,” He looks up, meets Yoongi’s eyes, lip twitch for a moment,
but fold back in. “Gonna get it on a menu one day.”

Yoongi looks away first, glances at Taehyung instead. Hoseok’s eyes follow.

“Yeah,” he nods, too, then shrugs. They’re contagious. “Sure, yeah.”

“One for you, too,” he points to Yoongi, then turns to Jungkook, “and what do you want, Cuba
Libre with diet coke?” He guesses.

Jungkook shakes his head, which raises eyebrows. “Nah,” he says, “get me one of those as well.”
He rubs at the top of his stomach. “I’ve been craving something sweet since last night.”

Taehyung needs to hold back a snort.

“Coming right up,” Hoseok says, turns on his heel and disappears, but not before he steals another
glance at Yoongi, one that he himself doesn’t catch.

He’s refocusing on Taehyung once more.

“So, you wanna do architecture, I hear?” He settles back on a lounge chair in front of the glass
table, waits for Taehyung’s nod as he gestures towards another seat, offers it. “Tell me,” Yoongi
starts, “what do you think about my fish tank wall?”

Judging by Jungkook’s facepalm, this is a continuation of a conversation. Taehyung cocks his

head, ponders, “Well—“
It’s Ji-woo’s night out, so Taehyung asks Jungkook to come have dinner. Namjoon’s actually
slipped back into the old habit of cooking, so there’s food and it is likely that it is good.

They only stay for one drink at Yoongi’s. Hoseok doesn’t apologise, or say much until he asks
Yoongi if he’s taken anything.

“A few pick me up pills, that’s all.”

“A few?”

“Like,” he shrugs, “a couple.”

Yoongi talks a lot. He finishes his cocktail in minutes. It’s an admittedly good cocktail.

Woojin’s decided that in order to pay him back for abandoning him for a whole, long night,
Taehyung will host him in his lap for the duration of this dinner. Jungkook does not miss the
opportunity to tell him it’s his turn tomorrow, but both Namjoon and Taehyung send him a look
and it shuts him up.

It’s curiously natural to have dinner, just them. Taehyung allows himself to forget about the pill in
his pocket, the thoughts Ji-woo plants in him, fucking Kai, the fact the most random of Jungkook’s
behaviour is a result of the fact he is currently very much lost and his sister is in rehab.

An iPhone rings and three people put down their utensils. Jungkook raises a finger, finishes
chewing.

“It’s me,” he says. “It’s Yoongi, probably about the fight.”

“Take it outside, would you?” Taehyung asks, nodding down at the boy in his lap. “Don’t want
him hearing, it’ll get him excited."

If he hears about Jungkook fighting, they’re never hearing the end of it.
Jungkook swallows, stands. “Of course.”

He picks up as he leaves, doesn’t completely shut the door as he goes into the yard.

“Gotta say, Joon,” Taehyung sighs with content. “I missed your cooking.”

Namjoon snorts. “You missed not having to do the cooking.”

Taehyung nods to the side, considers. “That, too. And not having to listen to people complain
about the cooking,” he adds.

The door pulls and Taehyung raises his head to look. “That was quick,” he starts to say but
someone interrupts, someone who is definitely not Jungkook.

“Excuse me, why is there a guy in a Hugo Boss suit who very much resembles the Jeon twin in my
back yard?”

Taehyung’s eyes bulge. Namjoon’s food slips from his mouth. Woojin is jumping out of
Taehyung’s lap, little feet paddling excited towards the door.

“Dad?”

“Dad.”

“Dad!”

He knows the drill, spreads his arms and bends the one bit necessary for Woojin to comfortably
jump between them. He straightens on his feet, hugs the boy comfortably, while his hands settle on
his shoulders.

Woojin stretches the hugest grin and with his whole chest, he most proudly announces.
 “Jungkookie is Taetae’s boyfriend.”

Said Jungkookie chooses that exact moment to enter.

Their father looks at him, brows flying to his hair. “He’s his what now?”

Namjoon falls limp back to his chair, stares ahead with his hand clutching to his hair. “I think I’m
having an aneurysm."

Chapter End Notes

never thought this would be so long, but its nearing an end, thank you for sticking with
it
 Chapter 26
Chapter Summary

I apologise for disappearing for ageeeees, I hope this still has some following cause
otherwise it's a wasted 20k words, but anyways. hope you enjoy, its been a long time
and it could be a more exciting chapter but im getting back into writing after a long
time of not having written a line, so here goes

Kim Junsu jostles his youngest son in his arms, settles him more comfortably into his hold, while
his eyes find Taehyung. Taehyung himself struggles to focus, his gaze chasing motion as Jungkook
closes the door behind him and saunters careful and slow into the room and boldly towards
Taehyung as he slips his phone in his pocket, his own attention sealed restrictively onto his father.

Junsu cocks his head, twists a brow. Taehyung doesn’t know what to expect of him, but he does
know there isn’t the tightness of a cold apprehension even remotely close to what he felt facing
Jungkook’s father. Potentially, the reasons could be twofold. One, his father is certainly not as
much of an unreasonable bitch as Jeon, and two, to his own testament, he owes his father
absolutely fucking nothing.

Jungkook edges closer to Taehyung, his hand reaching, touching subtly somewhere at his shoulder.
Junsu’s eyes trail after the movement. His tongue clicks and finally, and most casually, he deepens
the tilt of his head and he speaks. “You gay, Taey?”

Taehyung’s shoulders lose some tension he was not aware of, slumping with Jungkook’s palm
curled over their shape. A breath escapes him, short and shallow. “Hello to you, too, dad,” he
drawls, relaxing into the chair and further into the warmth of Jungkook’s hand as he locks his arms
before his chest, eyes still studios of his father, waiting.

“Last time I left you grew out your hair,” Junsu ponders, smacking his lips together a bit as he takes
a step into the room, Woojin still securely wrapped around him. “This time you grew out your
sexuality.”

Taehyung’s eyes roll, head shaking the tiniest bit. He feels Jungkook’s fingers tighten on his
shoulder, kneed slightly into it, half reassuring, half tense.

“Is it a problem?” He says, Jungkook does. His voice is as tight as his hold, rigid almost. Taehyung
resists a negligible urge to glance at him, instead keeps his eyes on his father, waits. He imagines
Jungkook has his teeth pressed, terse, the corner of his jaw pulling at his skin.

“Well,” Junsu begins, jostling Woojin once more, using his entire body this time, not for comfort,
but just for the sake of it, toss him a bit, get a smile out of him. “I don’t know,” he says, says it in
his Woojin voice, pitched and gummy, lip pulling downwards in a childlike pout as he rips his eyes
away to glance at his smiling son. “Woowoo will tell me,” he announces. “Woowoo, is it a
problem?”

Woojin blinks, head tilting. He’s grinning to the point of radiance and Taehyung wishes deeply he
could be as happy about this reunion, but he can’t, not for years now. “What?” The little boy asks,
innocent and confused. He’s not really following this adult talk, mostly staring at his father’s face,
so close and attainable now, as it should always be.

A part of Taehyung is glad the mere presence of his father can cause such joy for Woojin. A part
of him loathes it because it drowns him with what this is a consequence of.

“That Jungkook,” Junsu starts, shedding a brief questioning glance in Jungkook’s direction to perk
a brow, “did I get that right?” Jungkook takes a moment when he’s addressed, blinks, confused, but
nods. The interaction is entirely foreign to him, Taehyung imagines, so colossally different to
anything he associated with his father and with any reaction to their relationship. Junsu turns back
to Woojin, unbothered by the hesitation, as he continues with his question, “is Taetae’s boyfriend?”

Woojin fists his hands somewhere around his father’s collarbones, his fingers pulling at the fabric
of his shirt as he bites his lip and vehemently shakes his head. “No,” he says, once more firm with
his blessing, “he’ll be nice to him.” He assures, “He told me.” Woojin turns to look at Jungkook
now, finally managing to separate his beaming eyes away from his father, instead leaning his head
on his chest and at the crook of his shoulder. He gnaws slightly at his lip, still somewhat shy to
look at Jungkook directly, even as he brings his fist close to his mouth and declares, voice muffled
and vibrating into his father’s skin, “I like Jungkookie hyung.”

Junsu’s lips pull down in consideration, his attention switching to his other son now that Woojin
has released it. “Well,” he shrugs, gives Woojin a final jolt in his arms before he bends his knees
with a groan and settles him on the floor. “It’s not a problem then,” he continues as he straightens,
his hand finding its way to Woojin’s hair, fingers gentle as they push through strands. “Best judge
of character, the little one.” He pats at him, ventures a smile before he skims his eyes to Namjoon
who has since resumed his eating and Taehyung who does little else than stare. “Rest of you need
work.”

With the deciding statement, Kim Junsu pulls a Kim Junsu and simply struts into the house as if he
only left for work this morning. He rubs Woojin’s hair a final time, so impossibly fatherly, and
proceeds to stride to the fridge, swinging it open to examine its contents. Taehyung’s eyes trail,
glued to him, mouth dangling open.

His chair scrapes when he stands, Jungkook’s hand falling away as he does. His palm presses into
the door of the fridge. It barely misses Junsu’s nose as he clicks it shut right in his familiar, yet
foreign face.

“Dad,” he says, teeth clinking together. He’s more demanding than he needs to be, but his father’s
dismissal feels terribly unfinished. He can’t simply just be okay with it and that’s that. “I am gay,”
he insists when he captures the gaze he asks for. His father looks at him like he always looks at
him, a little bit tired, a little bit plain, a bit too much as if he sees him every day. Taehyung’s hand
falls from the fridge and instead raises in the air with the other in stuttering gestures as he tries to
articulate. “Like, I, I am,” he says, eyes almost twitching as he searches Junsu’s expression for a
reaction, something, some disgust at least, distaste to show him he is taking him seriously. “This is
not—“ he struggles, "a joke, or a current thing. I’m—“ his mouth falls open blank, what is he? he’s
gay. He’s said that already. There’s nothing much else to it right now, he realises. ‘I’m gay.”

There is something final in the slump of his hands as they fall to dangle by his hips with his very
last confession. Still, his father gives him a few more seconds to potentially gather something else
to say. He doesn’t. So Junsu speaks himself. “Good,” he nods, not in a childish voice this time, not
looking at Woojin. He’s looking at him, right at him, eye to eye. “I’m straight,” he tells him, as
simple and conclusive as Taehyung’s own last statement. He lets it hang there, between them,
before he pulls slightly away, tilts his body more towards the room, asks. “Anyone else want to
share with the group?”

Silence stretches. Taehyung’s blinking. It can’t be that simple. The quiet is poignant to a point
Taehyung thinks he hears his lids meet each other, somewhat wet, lashes tangling and untangling
as his eyes peel back.

Woojin has the nail of his thumb in between teeth, the muffled click of his nibbling the only other
sound that registers to Taehyung’s ears.

Then there is a a shuffle of clothes and Taehyung’s neck twists. His eyes double as Jungkook raises
his hand slightly. “I’m gay,” he shrugs and his hand falls back down. It’s so simple.

Junsu opens the fridge, this time uninterruptedly, and takes out one of Namjoon’s Red Bulls. “That
would have been a bit of a plot twist there if you were straight, my guy.”

He sips thirsty and unapologetic out of the can, a loud sigh following out of his lips as Taehyung
turns back to stare.
Namjoon prods at his food, eyes on the Red Bull, his Red Bull. Even he has more rights to claim
belongings in this house than Junsu does. “Yeah, but could have been bi or pan or something,
though,” he mutters through a shrug.

“Ah,” their father turns to him and suddenly he is the one to have overly friendly fingers patting on
his head, but at the third pat he is ducking away from the touch. “Namjoon, smart boy,” Junsu
says. “I see you’ve grown some balls and returned.”

Namjoon’s attention departs from the Red Bull and instead shifts back to his food. “Yeah,” he nods
as Taehyung’s and Jungkook’s eyes coat over him alike, Taehyung’s ostensibly sharper as they dart
across, searching, “we’ll see.”

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Junsu offers, with a somewhat smug grab of his shoulder. “Said I’ll
always be with you on your birthdays, didn’t I?”

Taehyung’s eyes spread wider, land apologetic on his brother. ”Oh, shit Joon— I completely.”

“It’s okay,” Namjoon waves a hand, lips pressing together and curling down, coaxing a dimple in
his cheek. He holds his fingers to the edge of the table, looks up at his brother. “We don’t do
birthdays, right?”

Taehyung’s lips are a line. He nods, tightly. “Right.”

“We do my birthday,” Woojin protests excitedly from his spot.

“Yes that’s right,” Junsu draws a chair, lets it scrape along the floor, flipping it around while he’s
at it. He plasters himself on it, legs spread on either side as he presses his chest to the back of it.
“And we do Namjoon’s this year, too,” he announces in a wicked voice than turns to his youngest,
shifts back to baby talk for a moment, “Can you go upstairs and fetch me a lap top, little guy? Play
him a happy birthday song, yeah?”

Taehyung and Namjoon are rolling eyes as if on cue, Jungkook left confused at their simultaneous
sighs. Their father trails his gaze after Woojin, who immediately trudges up the stairs, almost
falling over even as Taehyung calls after him to slow down.
It all shines clear to Jungkook when Junsu barely waits for Woojin to disappear and pokes a hand
inside a hidden chest pocket of his jacket, fishes out a familiarly white package out of it and
proudly presents it on the table, the widest grin contorting his expression. “I brought him some
real, Columbian powder.”

Taehyung locks his arms together, walks a few paces and bends to check if Woojin isn’t at the top
of the stairs, pausing when his back would obscure view of the table were he to come down. His
teeth grind together as he releases in a hushed hiss. “Dad, not here.”

Jungkook, surprisingly, eyes the packet as he follows Taehyung with some of his naturally
condescending scrutiny. When he snorts, even his shoulders raise at the motion. “Columbian?” He
lifts a brow.

Junsu perhaps mistakes it for awe. He taps proudly at his chest, looking up at him bold and
grinning. “That’s right, my guy. Straight from the source.”

With another step forward that aligns his shoulders perfectly with Taehyung, Jungkook observes,
“That’s ground in Kurosawa.”

Junsu blinks. His lips tug back to their restful places. “I’m sorry?”

“Package,” Jungkook says simply, nods to it.

There’s a short silent moment. Taehyung looks between Jungkook and his father but he only
manages one exchange before the grin returns full-hearted on Junsu’s face. “You know your
powder,” he announces, somehow proud at that, too. “Expected Joonie to be the one to call me
out.” He tries once more to pat at some arbitrary point of Namjoon’s body, but he slides away from
the touch. Junsu pays it no mind, only cocks his head at Jungkook, uses his other hand to flick a
nail across the powder. "Want some?”

Taehyung tries to be subtle both as his eyes seem to instinctively narrow at his father with the way
he slips his gaze to Jungkook to gauge his reaction. He wonders not if Jungkook will accept it or
not as much as he wonders if he wants to accept it, if the white powder on his table, bouncing with
the flick of Junsu’s finger, entices him. How much will power it takes him to resist.

“I uh,” Jungkook starts and maybe Taehyung really sucks at this subtle thing, because his eyes shift
to him, lock together with his pondering gaze, before he shakes his head, says, “no.” And then
firmer, “No.”

“Come here.”

Taehyung shuts the door to his father’s room hurriedly, releasing Jungkook’s wrist after practically
dragging him up there and pushing him inside, very much in Jungkook fashion. He hears the lock
click and turns, tongue padding at his lips as he readies himself to speak, chest full.

Jungkook interrupts when he meets invigorated eyes, raises his hands in the air, a step away from
him. “While I’m not saying no exactly,” he begins, evoking a confused furrowing of Taehyung’s
brows. “I have to say,” he continues with a tone of diplomacy in his voice, a shake of his head, “I
don’t think it’s a good idea for us to fuck while your whole family is in the house. Especially
Woowoo, I—“

“What?” Taehyung screeches, features pulling together. “No, Jungkook,” he shakes his own head
vehemently, stepping forward. “My father,” he tries.

“Yeah, him, too,” Jungkook nods, once more interjecting despite the urgency of Taehyung’s voice.
“But I think we don’t have to prove to him I’m your boyfriend.”

Taehyung groans, hands raising up, somewhat by his head, fingers squeezing air in frustration.
“Shut up,” he gets out, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

He has the nerve to look taken aback, chin pulling into his neck as his lips tilt downwards. “What,
you don’t?”

He says it so dejected, almost pouty, and Taehyung kind of wants to kiss him or slap him. It is two
polar urges he used to have with him a lot, but these hit different. Never would he have imagined
he would want to slap his pout away. “I mean, not right now,” he specifies to get rid of it instead,
taking another step forward. “But Jungkook, my father.”
“You said that already.”

He’s taking another step, words stumbling out. “He does it,” he says, eyes imploring and wide with
urgency as finally, he elaborates. “He gives Byung-Chul the bag.”

Jungkook’s face changes so rapid. His teeth click together, a firm line behind pursed lips. His lids
narrow. “Not that again, Tae,” he shakes his head, neck tilting back as he raises an arm, twists it at
the elbow and rubs at his own shoulders. “I don’t want you involved.”

Taehyung’s stepping swiftly forward, tongue once more dancing over lips. “No, this could work,”
he insists, voice quick before he meets his eyes, he slows, he speaks and explains, asks with his
very gaze and pace for him to hear him out, and, albeit with skepticism seeped into every feature of
his face, he does. “Jungkook, there’s nothing atypical about Kim Junsu stealing a bag full of
money, nor is it weird for him to be in Kai’s club,” he justifies. “He’s been there before.” He
pauses, almost waits to be interrupted, then takes a breath, keeps talking, sentences speeding now
that he has his attention, bubbling out of him. “We say he found the money, used them for travel
expenses and to create a persona for himself to con another woman and returns now when he runs
out and he’s been found out and/or he’s drained her.” His lips shut for a moment before another
thought hits and it flies out the next. “Timeline fits pretty well, too. He left shortly after Namjoon
did.”

“Why would he suddenly tell Byung-Chul?” Jungkook asks in his turn and gives no time for reply.
“How would he even find out about what the pills in the bag were?” He pauses this time but it’s
short, before his eyes close, head shakes, dismissive. “Tae, it’s best if I—"

“No, listen.” Taehyung’s hands fist, press into Jungkook’s chest from a distance with his demand.
“You’re my boyfriend now, right?” He cocks his head, nods to himself, sees Jungkook nod, too,
almost instinctively it seems, with the way his eyes seal onto Taehyung’s face and simply follow
the pattern of each motion that he makes. “Here’s what happened,” Taehyung’s palms spread,
fingers curling over Jungkook’s shoulders for a moment before he uses his hands to gesticulate his
thoughts, lightly lifting them off of him and patting on his chest. “He returns. You’re here in my
house when he does — as it truly is — we ask him where he was and shit like that — as we always
truly interrogate him anyway.” He thinks as he speaks, trying to convince himself as much as he
works on Jungkook, solidifying the idea in his head as it formulates into a plausible plan, an
excited, yet subdued internal chant of thiscouldwork, thiscouldwork. “He says he ran across some
money in a bag, you being here, as my boyfriend—“

Jungkook’s lips twitch as his ears catch onto the specification for the second time, head tilting in a
shallow cock. “You really like saying that, don’t you?” He teases, eyes skimming the entirety of
Taehyung’s impassioned face, his skin awake with subtle warmth after the seemingly unconscious
ministrations of his hands.
Hands that once more lift and fall on the surface of his chest, this time harder, as Taehyung slightly
flushes, and it could be frustration, but Jungkook chooses not to see it as such. “Shut up—“

“You’re blushing.” He’s smirking.

“Shut up,” Taehyung knocks into him once more, fingers digging to accompany his words. “You
being here—“

“As your boyfriend.”

Taehyung pointedly only spares a look, but otherwise ignores this all together, continues as if
uninterrupted “—connect the dots and realize it’s the bag. My dad, being my dad, goes to Byung-
Chul to pretend he’s perfectly kind and wants to share this new finding for him and asks him if he
doesn’t deserve a reward for doing it, in typical Kim Junsu fashion, pretending more money is the
motivation for the sudden kindness.”

Taehyung pauses on his own accord this time, shrugging his shoulders somehow casual and
somehow confident. It does make sense. Kim Junsu exists in Richhood fullheartedly with the
connotation of a greedy leech. If his reputation does him justice, it is entirely impossible that he
would ignore money if he found it, nor would it be the first time he proposes to exchange a
supposedly kind gesture for monetary reward.

That is not what Jungkook says, though. No, Jungkook cocks his head. He says, “I think you watch
too much television.”

“Jungkook.”

Taehyung strips the hands from his body, instead crosses his arms with the smoothness of a
tantrum over his own chest and because Jungkook misses the way the palms burn against his
shoulders, he softens his eyes, apologetic.

“Ok,” he says, and it’s not just an okay, it’s a promise; he’s considering, he’s listening. He folds his
arms together, too. “And what actual motivation do we give your dad to go to Byung-Chul’s
fucking layer?”
“He’ll want to make up for being gone. He always does. I never ask for anything.” He declares,
determined. “This time I will.”

“Tae—“

Taehyung interrupts him with forearms on his chest, stepping closer and making fists a little
beneath his chin. “Please, you don’t get hurt that way.”

Jungkook instinctively catches him at the elbows, cups his palms around them and teases gently the
tips of his fingers over the skin above. They’re eye to eye, breaths mingling, and with the proximity
and the suggestion of concern behind Taehyung’s soft plea, Jungkook can raise his voice to little
above an intimate whisper. “You know it’s a little hard for me to never get hurt, physically.” He
tells him, glides one palm up over the muscle of his bicep, squeezes. “Right now my only source of
income is getting hurt.”

Taehyung steps away with a small sigh, a smaller pout. “I don’t like thinking about it.”

“You’re going to have to this Friday,” Jungkook tells him, head cocking, eyes exploratory over his
expression. There is something incredibly warm about concern. “Are you coming?” He asks him,
sits down at the edge of what he knows to be his father’s bed. He’s fucked him on it, before, he
remembers, with what now is a scar on the back of his hand a fresh burn back then. He took him on
a drive after and Taehyung, even then, circled the tip of his finger around the open flesh, worried.
Even then.

Jungkook relaxes back on his palms, cranes his neck up and admires the way him sitting and
Taehyung standing gives him height. He likes looking up to him.

Taehyung comes a step closer. “Do you want me to?” He asks.

“Yes.” He says, sits up straighter. Taehyung’s presence by the Ring could be a distraction, but he
thinks for him, it is mostly a hungry drive to be impressive. “I think I do, yeah.”

Taehyung comes a step closer. He looks at his feet, shrugs. “Julia never went.”

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Jungkook reaches forward, fingers clasping around his wrist. He tugs
him closer. He pads his thumb across the heart of his palm and cranes his neck up some more,
searches his face until he gives him his eyes. “You’re not a replacement to Julia. This is completely
different.”

“Why didn’t she go?”

“She didn’t want to.” Jungkook shrugs. “I never asked her to.” He is the one to ask for his eyes and
he is the one to break their contact. He chooses to stare at where he holds his hand, confesses more
quiet. “The first time I slept with someone else was after the first time I won. Adrenaline of the
victory.”

Taehyung’s fingers flatten, rigid. “Oh.”

Jungkook grips his hand harder. “But I’m asking you to,” he insists more forceful, looks back up.
Then, softly, “I want you there.”

Taehyung’s head cocks, his lips purse, and he shakes his hand off of Jungkook’s grip. For a
moment he looks down at him with some undecipherable challenge and Jungkook’s heart tinges
with the fear he doesn’t trust him. It coaxes from him a wide-eyed, lips parted response and he
probably looks like a fucking child for a moment, a moment in which he almost speaks, urges
Taehyung to say something himself. But then Taehyung is interrupting, moving closer and
methodically, deliberately slow and pointed in every shift of limb, slates himself over his lap,
sitting more on his thighs than anywhere else. “Why?” He asks when he seems to have found a
position he deems appropriate. “To watch a girl in what I’m offended to call bikini flirt with you?”

Jungkook’s brows hitch up to his hair, a short moment of surprise and a prolonged aftermath of a
smirk that fully borders on a grin as he takes in the haughty, nearly prissy tone, the almost
unnoticeable flutter of a nostril and the ever-so-slight bitchiness behind his words.“Are you
jealous, pretty boy?” Jungkook asks, and as he judges Taehyung’s sudden choice of seating as a
private mark of possession, he allows his hands to circle around him.

Taehyung crosses his own arms in the little space between their chests. “Perhaps,” he shrugs with a
half-assed attempt at nonchalance.

Jungkook palms at his sides, squeezes in a silent urge for him to scoot closer, but he resists, so
Jungkook leans instead. “You have no need to be,” he murmurs, brings his lips to his cheek. “I
want you there, ringside, so you can give me the only prize I actually want after I demolish the brit
to a point of humiliation.”
“And what would that be?” Taehyung mirrors his tone of voice, tilts his head so his breath would
wash over Jungkook’s lips that attempt to tease his skin, but end up tingling in response to him
instead.

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

With each syllable, they seem to draw closer until the feel of lips to lips is almost tangible.
Jungkook wants a kiss. Taehyung pulls away.

“More precisely?” He insists, unwrapping his arms to press a palm on Jungkook’s chest, rest an
elbow on his shoulder.

Taehyung’s confident enough to tease, uses every feature of his face to be tantalising in some way
and Jungkook could never know for sure but he thinks the eyes are the worst. There’s something
almost devilish to the expression, but what matters is that he’s made him confident enough to tease
and it is so simple and yet so scorchingly hot.

Jungkook chases after lips, anticipating that he pulls away and he does, head moving back and
falling right in the trap of Jungkook’s palm. He holds him still, presses forward, but he doesn’t kiss
without permission, just holds his mouth close enough to brush against. “Wanna get down from the
ring and come fuck you with the adrenaline from that victory,” he parts his lips slightly, flicks his
tongue just once over the bottom and it tastes distinctly of Taehyung for the barest moment, before
he finds his eyes and grips them, “before anyone else even thinks to try with me.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, his lids falling low. The hand on his chest unclasps a button, then two, he
pushes the fabric a little away from Jungkook’s shoulder. “Cause you’re mine,” he’s saying and in
a flash of atypical possession, he leans, lips pressing at his shoulder.

Jungkook’s hand follows as his head tips, fingers slip between the strands of his fingers and clutch,
perhaps a little hard, but he doesn’t seem to care. “All yours, pretty boy,” Jungkook agrees with a
sigh as he feels him shift forward, as he senses a warm tongue in the cleft of his collarbone. “All
yours.”
Despite the part he chooses to play, Taehyung is tentative with the pressure he applies on his
shoulder. It is wet and hot and Jungkook loves it, but it is short and painless, and Taehyung
straightens up much too quick.

The facade seems to break as he eyes the angered skin, wipes the saliva off of it with the tip of his
finger and confesses in a small voice, “I’ve never left one of those.”

Jungkook lowers his hand from his hair to his neck, raises his brows in a short surprise. “Never?”

He shakes his head. “No one I’ve been with has ever been mine.” He taps the pad of his finger over
it, shrugs. “I’ve never wanted them to be, either.”

“Why’d you do it on my shoulder?”

He meets his eyes. “It’s easier to hide.”

Jungkook used to hate when Julia left any mark. It was a shape of punishment for her, to leave a
trace. It was an unspoken rule between them to be scarce with declarations of claim to each other’s
bodies, for a long, long time. It excited him, Jungkook remember when they were younger and
discovering this, for him to bite possession on something, on her, but he never did enjoy when she
returned the favour, and he thought himself too important to pinpoint the lack of reciprocity in this
a problem, because most of his relationships were not based on balance.

But he wants Taehyung’s nails denting his back, wants his skin under his nails, wants his lips
swollen with him and wants his lips on his skin leaving a mark.

So Jungkook cranes his neck, taps gingerly somewhere near his pulse point, says. “Want one
here.” Taehyung watches him a little skeptical, eyes bouncing between his own and the patch of
skin Jungkook indicates. It takes a moment but he leans.

His body seems to move with him, scooting closer, warmer. Jungkook takes his hand away,
replaces it back to the back of his neck and holds him there as he works tentatively at his skin.
“Don’t be scared,” he whispers, eyes falling shut as Taehyung seems to move in instinct until
they’re brushing against each other. “You can do it harder.”

It seems to be the only encouragement he needs before he bites, ever so slightly, sucks, tongues
and then kisses open mouthed upwards, a breathy, scorching line against his neck and Jungkook
wonders if Taehyung has scooted close enough to feel him stir at something as simple as neck
kissing.

He makes his way up, pauses at his jaw, where the skin is more elastic, nibs at it, taking it briefly
back. With Jungkook’s layered exhale, he thinks he feels him smirk, and somehow that feels hot
too, Taehyung proud enough to smirk at him, subtly, to himself. He kisses his cheek and then he
kisses his lips.

Jungkook meets him halfway even with his eyes closed shut, and it is incredibly rewarding after
Taehyung’s push and pull. He sighs with it, head tilting, lips immediately parting. When he tastes
him like this, the memory of the sensation of his warm tongue on his neck feels like a tantalising
promise and his blood sizzles with getting it fulfilled.

With a breath through his nose he kisses him harder, grips at him harder, pulls him to himself.
Taehyung cups his hand around his neck, arches his back and presses against him as close as he
can. And it is close, but not close enough and Jungkook simply wants to feel more, so he scoots
further back, and lies down, taking him with him.

Taehyung comes willingly, never once detaching their lips unless it is to change the angle slightly,
to kiss deeper. He falls on top of him and shifts, moves to straighten his legs, allow Jungkook to
move upper on the bed. Their legs tangle as he spreads himself out on top of him completely, until
every inch touches. Jungkook treads the fingers of his one hand at the beginning of his hair,
nestling between enviously soft strands. The other he moves over the folds of his back, cups it over
his shoulder blade and slides it down, tracing his spine.

Thoughtlessly, he parts his legs and Taehyung settles in between them, body instinctively moving
to seek out the strongest chances for sensation and like this, he feels him. They feel each other.
Jungkook doesn’t know if Taehyung is too lost in this to realise, he is the one to call the shots, to
set the pace, of the way they kiss and how much they are allowed to move against each other.

Jungkook tangles his fingers further in his hair, tugs and Taehyung pulls back with a whiny moan.
His eyes part but settle on his lips, staring after them in a way that almost sucks Jungkook’s will to
tease right out of him. He summons it and speaks. “You like being on top of me, Tae?" He asks,
breathier than he expects himself to be, his chest raising into Taehyung’s and then falling down.
He curls his hand lower, in the dip of his lower back and holds him still as he raises his hips into
his. “Like being between my legs?”

Taehyung lifts wide eyes away from Jungkook’s lips and into his own. In a moment he blinks,
presses down his own hips, confesses and leans, “Yes.” The word is in a hiss of a breath before he
sucks Jungkook’s bottom lip between his own and dips down to kiss him fully again. He lifts off in
a moment, blinks down with that hoody, devilish stare. “I still prefer you between mine, though.“

He’s barely said it before Jungkook has him on his back. He does it mostly to catch him off guard,
not necessarily because he wants a switch of positions himself and the little sound that escapes him
when Jungkook settles on top is entirely worth it. “You prefer it like this, hm?”

As he looks down at him now, a strand of hair dips past his ear and into his eyes but Taehyung’s
fingers are soon there to push it back, slide to the back of his head and hold it there. “Yeah,” he
murmurs almost shyly, blinks, “You?”

“Anything for you.” Jungkook leans down, kisses him once almost chaste before he parts his lips,
dips his tongue in his mouth, kisses him twice, entirely vulgar. “I’d do anything to you, for you.”

He presses down against him firmer, rolling his his hips in a motion charged with intent and it does
feel entirely delicious, but Taehyung is speaking through kisses. “Thought you said it was a bad
idea to have sex now.”

“Changed my mind,” Jungkook shakes his head, slides a hand against his thigh and pulls it up,
around him. “It’s been too long.”

He tries for a kiss and Taehyung allows it for a short moment. “It’s literally been like two days.”

“That’s too long,” he exhales, searing lips sealing with his.

Taehyung flicks a thumb across his cheekbone, smiles into the kiss. “You’re so horny.”

Jungkook pulls back just to glare for a moment. “Whose fault is that?” He accuses, his voice
falling back to a murmur as he moves down again. “You started this, got in my lap and all.”

Taehyung cranes his head. “That’s all it takes?”

Jungkook pulls back again, a little pissed. He props himself on his elbow, catches his jaw and
holds him in place. “When it comes to you, yes,” he declares and he finally gets the kiss that he
seeks. He presses into him hard, but short. “You’re hot when you’re jealous.”
Taehyung snorts, moves up to return the favour, murmurs in his mouth. “You’re insufferable when
you’re jealous.”

“And a little hot?” Jungkook tries.

“No,” Taehyung shakes his head and he is the one chasing after his mouth now, but Jungkook pulls
away.

“Hm,” he contemplates, presses his palm into Taehyung’s collarbones and pushes him flat down on
the bed. “Pegged you as a better liar,” he murmurs, less than an inch away from his lips and
Taehyung’s lips are parting into his but still he keeps away, the ghost of a touch as he hovers over
him. Taehyung is craning his neck and when he can’t reach him with his mouth, he beckons with
his tongue a single flick against his bottom lip and Jungkook lunges forward.

“Delusional,” Taehyung murmurs and Jungkook punishes him for the remark by kissing him
harder, fitting his lip between his teeth, light but tangible. He has no incentive to retort, however,
as he inhales through his nose and kisses him with more fervour now, fingers tightening in his
thigh as he moves into him with a motion that so explicitly defines what he wants. He slides against
him, feels him, hot and jutting, as ever deliciously responsive, his hips lifting up in tandem.
Jungkook thinks he is fucking vibrating.

He doesn’t realise he is actually vibrating, until Taehyung tries to slide his hand in his pocket
against him, prying his mouth away.

“I need to go move the laundry to the drier.”

Jungkook helps him slide the phone out of his pocket only to get a hold of himself, tosses it
somewhere on the bed. Neither notices the other object that slips behind it and falls on the
mattress. “Oh, fuck laundry,” Jungkook groans, leading down once more.

Taehyung pulls back. “I need to—“

Jungkook pushes forward. “No.”

“Yes,” Taehyung mutters against insisting lips, tightens his legs around Jungkook and presses his
palms against his shoulders, with the right amount of pressure at the right them, flipping him over
until he’s straddling him, sat up looking down.

They’re both panting now that they’ve broken apart, having been thoroughly breathless and
invested with that kiss. Jungkook stares up, relaxes slightly the grip he has on his thigh, glides his
hand up and down instead, and allows himself to smile. “Look who’s strong now."

Taehyung’s own lips spread wide, and he leans down, presses a short, final kiss to his mouth and
leaves with a promise. “Stay here, I’m coming back in a moment.”

Taehyung has to adjust himself as he hurries down the stairs, the remnants of a smile still imprinted
on his face, mind wandering, and he doesn’t even notice the presence until he’s spoken to.

“Tae—“

He looks up startled, body already tilted towards the living area but he takes a couple of steps back,
looks. “Oh, hey.” He gulps, raises his arm and somewhat awkwardly bounces it between pointing
up and to the laundry, wondering if he wants to explain his presence with the chore or his previous
absence with the fact he just went to grind a little on his boyfriend. “I just—”

“I moved the laundry to the drier if that’s what you’re here for,” his father says. He sits alone on
the table, hand palming the energy drink he stole off of Namjoon, attention now fixated on
Taehyung.

“Um,” Taehyung hesitates, arms locking together. He ventures a single step forward, presses his
lips together and nods. “Thanks.”

“You’re usually a lot more interested in my return,” Junsu remarks and proceeds to ask with
animated waves of his arms. “Where’s the interrogation, the glares?”

Taehyung raises brows. “You want some?”

Junsu returns his hands to the table, one finger tapping on the surface too soft to make a sound. He
gauges his son’s expression in silence for a moment on two. Taehyung’s lips are pulled thin,
pressed, his eyes void of anything, really, and perhaps it is worse than him glaring. But Junsu
shrugs. “Could do without.”

Taehyung sighs, eyes rolling slightly with a shake of his hand. “What’s the point of glaring, dad?”
He asks, untangles his arms and drops them to dangle futile by his body.

Junsu nods. He looks at the can before him. “No interrogation as well, though,” he says, returning
his eyes to his son. “Joon wasn’t up for it, either.”

“Well,” Taehyung huffs, pettiness dribbling out of his lips without his conscious intent as he fixes a
pointed look at his father, “he’s been on the other side of it now. It’s a family trait,” he says,
ironically cheerful with the sudden discovery, before he chooses to specify more with the bitterness
he truly feels, “the abandoning thing, I guess.”

His father’s gaze softens on him as he stretches himself forward on the table. “Tae,“ he stresses,
teeth pressing.

“I know,” Taehyung says, dismisses. He knows his father doesn’t want this conversation for the
nth time, and he doesn’t either. “I just—“ he slides a chair back, sits himself down on it. “I wanted
to tell Jungkook something. I was going to come back,” he tells him, and in his defence that was
his original intent, but with Jungkook things rarely go to plan. “We got a bit carried away,” he says,
sheepish, and begs his erection away.

“About that,” Junsu catches, cocks his head with interest. “You scored yourself a Jeon?” The
corners of his lips twitch slightly. Taehyung can read on his face all the previous connotations of
that family name that he had rooted in his own head.

“Dad. It’s not—“ Taehyung breathes, pinches at his nose for a moment as he searches himself for
the proper words. “I mean, he isn’t.”

“Ah.” Junsu interrupts, seemingly thoughtful as he sits up straighter on his chair. "Let me guess.
His father doesn’t approve, which, I suppose is partially why you expected me to lose my shit even
if you’ve genuinely never expressed an interest in girls and the only crush you’ve ever had I was
aware of was Sasuke.”
Taehyung’s first conscious instinct is to protest, but a genuine surprise precedes it. His brows
bounce to his hair, voice travels out of him airy, “You remember that?”

Junsu’s expression softens. “What dad wouldn’t?” He says and Taehyung rips his gaze away at the
sentimentality, chooses instead to stare at a memorabilia of defects on the table.

“It wasn’t a crush,” he remembers to protest now. “It was an appreciation of character arcs.”

“If you say so,” his father nods, not even with a half-assed attempt at sincerity. He cups his hand
around the bottom of the can, rests it there, lifts it up and puts it down in a passing moment of
reluctance. “Has he now lost all his perks of being a Jeon?”

Taehyung looks up, one eye bigger than the other as he arches a brow. “Perks?” He pronounces,
largely unimpressed but not yet offended.

“Well,” his father shrugs, finally tips the drink to his lips even if Taehyung knows by the sound it
makes when he lifts it that it is empty. “You can’t deny it.” He sips on air to give himself
something to do and lowers it, studies it, “Is he staying with us?”

Taehyung turns his attention to the logo as well. “No, with his aunt for the moment.”

To his surprise, Junsu exclaims, “Aw, Jeon Mei Su, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Taehyung nods, sparing him a glance of interest. “Do you know her?”

“She slapped me once.” Junsu reminisces. He scratches at the side of his head, scrunches his nose.
“I forget why.”

Taehyung snorts. “I’m not surprised.”

Junsu gives him a look, but he has long since lost authority for it to mean something, so he keeps it
short and half-hearted before he speaks. “Why isn’t he staying here?” He asks, sounding more
casual than Taehyung knows him to be. “My room certainly missed attention while I was gone.”

“Don’t worry,” Taehyung tilts his head, squints his eyes in mocked exaggerated sympathy as he
confesses with sickish pride, “we gave it some.” He pauses next, tongues at his lips with a moment
of hesitation. He locks his ankles together underneath the chair to stop his knee from bouncing.
“But um, Ji-woo doesn’t like him all that much.”

“Well,” Junsu considers, “he is a Jeon. We tend to mutually dislike each other.” He waits for
Taehyung to agree. That is the place for a remark, for the little to belittle, but all Taehyung does is
nod tightly, sigh in silent agreement. Junsu studies him in the prolonged quiet, eyes darting across
the guarded expression of his son. A single thing alters in his tone of voice, lowers it to a certain
softness as he asks, “How did you even end up with him?”

“That, dad,” Taehyung starts with a breath as he relaxes himself back in the chair to give himself
some distance, his arms splayed on the table, fingers finding each other to begin a fruitless,
distracting play, “is a long story with a lot of shame.”

“I have no shame.”

“I know.” The coldness in the gaze that Taehyung flashes him with a single blink is short-lived, but
haltingly poignant. “But I do,” he adds, shuffles more in his chair and glides his hands across the
tabletop, palms and fingers spreading as if he can actually use them to help himself explain.
“Listen, it’s complicated and—“ he looks at the table, then at his father; his tongue wets his bottom
lip quickly — he thinks he can still taste Jungkook on it, “and he’s done some bad things to me, but
I, please don’t laugh,” he enquires with a charted look of wider eyes, more vulnerable eyes, but he
doesn’t give his father time to respond before he splutters out quickly, “I love him and I’m staying
with him.”

He blinks almost nervous between his father’s forehead and his nose, never at his eyes. He really,
really doesn’t want to be made fun of.

“Wouldn’t laugh at that, Tae,” Junsu tells him, voice hushed, with such surprising honesty that for
the better part of a minute Taehyung does think he’s being made fun of. “Bad things?”

Taehyung looks away, whole head tilting to the side, to the sink, hand reaching for the back of his
neck. He curls his fingers there, runs them in attempts to soothe. He almost thinks he can see
himself there, shoulders slumped, so he closes his eyes, he opens his eyes, it’s just a sink and he
confesses and accuses in one breath, “I guess you’ve taught me to forgive really shitty stuff, dad.”
Junsu doesn’t look away when Taehyung’s eyes return. Instead he tells him gently, “I always come
back.”

Taehyung nods. “I know.” He unlocks his ankles, extends his legs underneath the table, heels
burying in the ground. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he dismisses, “about what Jungkook did. This
is his second chance and last chance with me. But, so far, I’m glad I gave it to him. And that’s all
you need to know, okay?” He asks, and then, assertive, he demands. “No questions.”

And he hates sometimes how his father is absent enough for them to struggle and present enough
for him to know them. Because Junsu releases the empty Red Bull, slides his hand across the table
and it is close to Taehyung’s when he mutters, “He really hurt you, didn’t he?”

“No questions,” Taehyung repeats, less firm.

“Tae,” he calls from upstairs. Jungkook calls his name and Taehyung has lived enough years in this
house to be able to locate him with confidence, but as he comes down the steps, he still has to beg
he didn’t hear. “I have to go in like half an hour,” Jungkook tells him as he eyes him, and
exclusively him. “Subway’s closing, can you—“

“I’m coming,” Taehyung reassures, turns to see him where he’s paused in the middle of the
staircase.

Jungkook spares Junsu a glance before he returns his eyes to Taehyung, nods to him and mouths an
empty, ‘okay’. His body turns again, one foot moving to the upper step when a voice interrupts
him.

“Why don’t you come sit with us?”

Taehyung’s head snaps, eyes wide with communication that his father understands but completely
ignores. “I think that’s unnecessary."

“No, come here.” Junsu waves it off. “First time a child of mine gets one of you, so I don’t exactly
know what protocol is on how this goes, but I should probably meet you properly.”
Jungkook is reluctant at the steps, but when Taehyung doesn’t turn to flash a warning look at him
and instead roots it to his father, he continues down slowly, giving opportunity for him to stop him
at every step.

He doesn’t. He focuses on Junsu. “I’ve never met any of your girlfriends.”

“In front of my girlfriends, you’ve usually died in some horrible accident, suffered some
traumatising disease, or you were never born,” Junsu reminds him with a smile as Jungkook pulls
at the chair closest to Taehyung, adjusts it to be even closer to Taehyung, and sits. “So,” Junsu
turns to him, “you’re Jeon Jungkook?”

Jungkook scoots himself to the table, rests his elbows on top. “Yeah.”

Junsu beams, a grin more dripping with irony even than his previous one. “Your dad must have
told you such nice things about me.”

“Mm,” Jungkook hums, lips pressing as he nods, “he really reaches to the very corners of his
vocabulary to describe you.”

“Feelings are mutual,” Junsu returns. Pauses. “No offence.”

Jungkook is quick to shake his head. “None taken. I’d probably be more colourful than you,” he
assures, true to the truth.

They nod at each other for a moment more, Junsu starting to appear to Taehyung like a fucking
bobble head and he is just about to tell him to stop, when he does. Flat and still, he says, “I hear
you hurt my son.”

Taehyung’s hissing, “Dad.”

Neither man spares him a glance. “I did,” Jungkook admits, nods. Taehyung darts his eyes across
his profile, wishing for something telling on his features, but he has slipped into a reticence that
seems to naturally grip his expression in the presence of a stranger. “I hear you did, too.”
Taehyung’s jaw unhinges. He turns to his father.

“I did,” Junsu admits on his own turn. “And I’m sorry.”

Jungkook exhales through his nose. “So far, we have a lot in common.”

“I also love my son,” Junsu says. It sounds like a challenge.

Jungkook takes it. “Expanding the list.”

“You gonna hurt him again?”

It’s Jungkook’s first pause. His lips form a line and the jaw finally ticks. “No,” he shakes his head,
short and clear. “Not intentionally, no. Never.”

“I’ll choose to believe you because my son really likes you.”

“I love him,” Taehyung corrects, more for Jungkook’s sake than his father’s.

Junsu clicks his tongue. “I meant Woojin, Taehyung.” His features twist together, head shaking.
“Don’t flatter yourself, you make questionable decisions.”

“What are you snorting for?” Taehyung turns to Jungkook when he fails to hide a sound. He swats
him on the thigh beneath the table, keeps his hand there after. “You’re my most questionable
decision.”

“Well, boys,” Junsu interrupts when Jungkook turns, lips parting. “I’d certainly love to chat, but
I’m kind of tired.” He stands up, stretches his arms in the air in a yawn too textbook to not be
orchestrated after 300 millimetres of Red Bull down his throat. “Oh, and I promised Woo I’m
sleeping in your bed tonight, Tae, so my room is still free and your bed is busy,” he remarks, brows
jumping up quickly with insinuation. “I’ll talk to you more tomorrow, yeah?” He cocks his head. “I
missed you.”
Taehyung wants to snort now. Instead he locks his arms together, sits back and looks up almost
haughty in his skepticism. “You missed me?” He repeats.

“Yes, Taehyung,” Junsu stresses. "I missed you.”

Taehyung releases a light huff, eyes removing to his lap. “Save that for Woojin, dad.”

Junsu hovers where he stands for a moment or two, his attention on his son, but he refuses to return
it. Junsu nods. “Right,” he mutters, sighs his defeat and starts up the stairs. “Good night,
Jungkook.”

“Good night."

As Junsu disappears with a final look that Taehyung doesn’t return, Jungkook’s hand seems to
levitate on its own, drawn to Taehyung’s nape. “You okay?” He asks, fingers massaging into his
neck.

Taehyung leans back into the touch, his lids coming closer together. “Yeah,” he sighs. “He is—“
he starts, stops, swallows. “That’s how this works,” he says finally, unsure of how to articulate
something like that. “Doesn’t hurt anymore,” he shrugs, “when I know what to expect of him,
really.”

“For how long do you think he’ll stay?” Jungkook applies more pressure with his massage, watches
Taehyung’s brows fold together, lips part only slightly.

“Can never guess,” he says, a small exhale interrupting his speech. “Hope it’s longer. For Woojin.”

Jungkook nods, agrees, keeps rubbing into his shoulders and Taehyung’s expression keeps
moulding with it, getting more beautiful by the second, and Jungkook is announcing, “My wallet’s
upstairs.”

Taehyung opens his eyes fully, a small grin shaping on his lips, teasing, though he’s already getting
to his feet. “Is that on purpose?”
Jungkook drops his hand, scoffs as he follows him up the stairs. “It fell out of my pocket when you
were grinding onto me.”

Taehyung makes sure he closes the door fully, diligently as Jungkook actually does seem to search
the sheets for a fallen wallet. Taehyung hears the shuffle of fabric, but it seems to stop brusquely,
halfway across a motion.

“Taehyung, what’s this?” Jungkook’s voice rings pitched with something indistinguishable to
Taehyung, loud and high and with too much air in it.

“What?” Taehyung asks confused, approaches Jungkook from the back. He has one hand clutching
on a sheet, another holding something up to his face, but his shoulder is obstructing view.

Taehyung doesn’t have the time to reach him fully, his hand already lifting to curl over Jungkook’s
shoulder when Jungkook spins, and Taehyung sees. “What the fuck is this?”

His heart thuds. It has been long since he’s seen Jungkook’s eyes like this, the pill lying on his flat
palm. Taehyung raises his own, defensively, “Don’t raise your voice, Woojin is—“

“I won’t raise my fucking voice if you tell me what the fuck this is and why it’s here.” Correction,
Taehyung doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jungkook’s eyes like this. He’s seen him angry, definitely,
and anger seeps into him now, too, but it’s not pure. His voice trembles in his throat before it
leaves his mouth. He’s scared.

“It’s—“

“It’s ecstasy, Taehyung,” Jungkook closes his fist over the packaged pill, comes a step closer to
Taehyung. “That’s what it fucking is. It’s Kai’s ecstasy. And I want to know what it’s doing here.”

“You’re almost yelling,” Taehyung murmurs, eyes locked to his.

“Yes, I’m almost yelling because I’d rather you become bffs with Bogum than even fucking look
at this.” His fist grows tighter, squeezes at the pill. “Okay?” Words splutter out of him, his tone far
from evening. “I’d rather you braided each other’s hair on the dailies than—“

“Jungkook,” Taehyung interrupts, firmer, hand raising to assist in gripping his wandering attention
to clutch at his wrist. “I don’t want that,” he promises, with his eyes, his hand a reassuring squeeze,
his voice genuine.

Jungkook’s pupils dart hurried all over his face, skimming every feature in his first pause for a
breath. He exhales, voice lower, but just as grippingly hard. “Good, because it’s a fucking dead
trap.”

Taehyung unwinds his fingers from around his wrist, locks his arms together instead with a short
scoff. “Like you haven’t spent half your life on coke and you just said no to it, so.” He means to
back away, but Jungkook follows. This is not how he imagined their last half hour together for the
day.

“I’m not saying if you touch it, you’ll get immediately addicted. I’m saying you won’t touch it.”

This gets Taehyung’s attention back, fully. He digs his finger in his own chest. “First of all, you
don’t get to order me around—“

“Fine,” Jungkook cuts him off, the hand clutching the pill drawing a sharp, definitive line through
air, “I’m not arguing about this. On anything else, fine, yes, I won’t, no ordering around,” he
fumbles, but he manages, head shaking as he concedes, obliterating Taehyung’s fervour. “But you
will only touch a drug over my dead fucking body,” he continues, eyes blinking, and when they
reopen they seem wetter somehow. “Not even then, okay? Not even if I’m buried six feet under.”

Taehyung hesitates, tongue in cheek. He returns a step towards him, swallows his frustration. “I
don’t want to touch drugs.”

Jungkook raises his fist again, releases the package slightly to dangle it between fingers much like
Kai had. “Then what the fuck is that doing falling out of your jeans?”

Taehyung’s mouth opens, tongue heavy now. He runs it across the inside of his teeth, flutters his
eyelids with hesitation, but finally, he speaks. “Kai said if I kept that save for him for a while, he’d
consider leaving you out of his shit.”

“Kai?” Jungkook mouths back, chin tilting up as his face changes with realisation. “You spoke to
Kai directly?”

“He came to me,” Taehyung justifies with a quickness and a pitch that announce themselves a
result of unrealised guilt somewhere in the back of his head. “In the Ozone,” he continues, calmer.
“He said he’d stay away from you if I kept this for a while and then gave it back to him.”

Jungkook’s brows raise higher. “He’d stay away from me?”

Taehyung shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Tae,” Jungkook says through exasperation, his free hand raising to rub at his cheek and his eye,
rub away the frustration. “The only thing I truly want from Kai is to stay the fuck away from you,”
he tells him, hand dropping. “Don’t go to him.”

“I only wanted to do it for you,” Taehyung confesses, a little above a whisper.

“Well, don’t,” Jungkook says it sharp, too sharp and with the way Taehyung’s expression
immediately changes, he feels guilt physically swarm his mouth.

“I was going to tell you,” Taehyung defends, his own voice raising now, his face is screwing,
brows furrowing. “I wasn’t about to just—“

“Hey,” Jungkook calls, steps closer, cupping his elbow in his palm to draw his attention to himself,
“hey, Tae. Let’s,” he licks his lips, searches for the right words, “if we do things for each other,
let’s consult each other first, right?” He suggests, running his hand higher, lower, soothing. “That’s
how this should work. We talk.”

Taehyung’s lips press together. He looks away and back. “But I thought I—“

“Listen to me,” Jungkook steps closer, hand squeezing lightly in the flesh of his arm, until their
bodies are aligned, “Listen. You can’t trust Kai. This,” he raises the pill, packet jiggling from side
to side almost menacing in the space between them, “this is a ploy. He either gave it to you
because he wanted you to take it and enjoy it,” he pauses, studies Taehyung’s face briefly to see if
the impact of his meaning gets through to him, “or because he wanted me to think you’ll take it.”
Jungkook is unsure if he can articulate to Taehyung how much it would just fucking scare him if
Taehyung started this, too. “If Kai comes to you, you come to me, okay? And I’m not ordering
you, I’m asking you,” his hand runs over him gentle, but his eyes are softer. “Just for Kai, just
Kai.”

Perhaps he doesn’t need to tell him, though. Perhaps Taehyung knows him enough by now because
he squeezes his lips together, nods. “Yeah,” he breathes, “okay.”

Jungkook nods back, squeezes firmer at his arm before he releases him. “Thank you.” He moves
away, back to the bed to find his wallet, slipping the pill in his own pocket.

Taehyung stares after him, brings his thumb to his lips, the nail of it sliding in between the tips of
his teeth.

“He reminded me of you, you know,” he says plainly in the air, his voice ringing different after the
moment of silence, “how you used to be to me,” he specifies. “He likes games, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook releases with a breath that easily tells Taehyung this is not the first time
Jungkook has been at the end of that comparison, whether by others or by himself. “I’m pretty sure
there’s an alternate universe somewhere in which Kai and I are best friends.” He slips his wallet in
his pocket as he speaks, turns to him. “I probably forever believe I’m straight and visit with doctors
for my erectile dysfunction at the age of 25 or something.”

Taehyung pouts. “You don’t notice me in that alternate universe?”

“Nah, you still work at Rouge, yeah?” Jungkook walks towards him, arms circling around him
until he catches his own wrist at the small of his back.

“Yes,” Taehyung nods, resting his arms on Jungook’s shoulders, folding them around his neck.

“And I look at you a lot, because you’re really pretty and have the best ass in the country.”
Jungkook’s fingers slip lower, trace the raise of his back where his curves begin in a motion that is
electrifying in the way it is so modest. “And then I realize that thinking about your ass and your
lips and your eyes works better than the Viagra they prescribe me.”
Taehyung pulls one of his hands back, traces a finger over the mark he left by a collarbone, his eyes
following. “But we never get together?”

Jungkook keeps his gaze on him, a small smile pulling at his lips, a little fond, a little sad. “I don’t
know,” he confesses.

Taehyung’s shoulders raise as high as they can go before they drop and his eyes lift, capture
Jungkook’s. “That’s a shitty universe, then.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods, leans, his lids drooping lower with every millimetre until he’s only seeing
a blur of the beauty mark on Taehyung’s nose. “The shittiest,” he murmurs against his mouth
before he frames his upper lip with his, kissing there with little pressure, drawing back before he
can get lost in it. “I have to go soon, Tae.”

“No, but I want you to stay,” Taehyung protests, locking his arms behind his neck again, tighter.

Jungkook shakes his head with a humourless exhale of laughter, his own arms unfolding from
around him. “Your sister is not going to enjoy breakfast.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung starts, assertive, “you’re not scared of your dad. I’m not scared of my
sister.” He’s the one to lean now, head tilting slightly as he presses a firmer kiss to his lips, moves
back. “Please stay. I’ll deal with her. And we’ll go see yours tomorrow, yeah?” He tangles a single
finger in a lock of hair, twirls it around. His hair is growing longer. “But for now, we have
something to finish, don’t we?” He teases, brushing his nose to his.

“Mm, you’re so tempting,” Jungkook groans, his hands itching to relocate back where they belong.
On his ass.

Taehyung breathes, his teeth capturing Jungkook’s bottom lip, tugging. “Say yes, then,” he sighs,
soothing the bite with the tip of his tongue.

Jungkook might have shivered but he doesn’t know for sure. “Let me text Mei,” he exhales and
Taehyung finally releases him, allows him that with a proud, little smirk.
Jungkook steps back to have room to get his phone out of his pocket. “By the way,” he says as he
types. He remembers he needs to get himself a new sim card not charged to his father before the
end of the month every single time the screen shines in his face. He needs a new everything, really.
“We’re doing your birthday this year.”

“What?” Taehyung cocks his head, eyes him skeptically.

“Your birthday,” Jungkook repeats, looking up and returning the phone to his pocket, right next to
Kai’s pill. “We’re celebrating it.”

Taehyung’s eyes narrow slightly, arms locking as his chin lifts with challenge. “You don’t even
know when my birthday is.”

Jungkook mirrors the position, his chin tilted even higher. “What if I do?”

“You don’t,” Taehyung insists, sure. He himself has a whole list of Richhood birthdays uselessly
fixed in his head. He’s catered to some, wondered what’s it like to be at others. And Jungkook may
have learned a lot about Taehyung by now, but he has never explicitly asked for his birthday and
there is simply no chance he was ever aware of it throughout their years of reluctant acquaintance.

But as Jungkook does, Jungkook surprises. His lips spread to his cheeks and with his full chest, he
says. “December 30.”

Taehyung’s arms untangle. “The fuck?”

“You have it on your Instagram,” Jungkook shrugs.

“You don’t follow me —“ Taehyung starts, features pulled with confusion, when suddenly they
shift with amused realisation, “did you stalk me, Jungkook?”

“What?” Jungkook snorts, sharply. “No, I just, I, I looked at your pictures and stuff.”

Taehyung grins, a step closer. “So you stalked me?”

To a trained citizen, this would sound like a joke. Jeon Jungkook stalked Kim Taehyung’s
instagram account, shared usually with all his 119 followers.

Jungkook scoffs. “You have like, 5 pictures, it’s not worth stalking.”

Taehyung comes closer still, teases, “Then why did you stalk?”

In once more a surprising, short moment of honesty, Jungkook shrugs, quickly lets slip, “I missed
you.” He shakes his head in a moment, does not allow a second for Taehyung to process, let alone
answer, “If you don’t want me to stalk, go private. Actually, I think you should go private.”

Taehyung lets the only response to the muttered confession be a shift in the nature of his grin.
“Why?”

“So others don’t stalk,” Jungkook answers simply.

Taehyung presses a finger to his chin in the pretence of consideration. “How will you stalk then?”

“I’ll follow you.”

“Who says I’ll let you?”

“Fine, don’t let me,” Jungkook says, paddling forward until space is minimal and his hands are
back on him, tame at his sides, but promising with the way they tighten. “I’ll take pictures of you
on my own,” he proclaims, voice dropping lower. “Take some of a you only I get to see.”

Taehyung falls into this, easy, hands instinctively finding their own way to Jungkook’s body. “Is
that so?”

“Mhm,” Jungkook hums, eyes seemingly entranced with the movement of Taehyung’s lips.
Taehyung runs hand up on his chest until his fingers are brushing naked skin around his neck.
“What’s a me only you get to see?” He whispers, because it’s the only sound the intimacy of the
space between them permits.

Jungkook’s eyes flash up from his lips, meet his instead with a glinting hint of excitement sparking
them. “Can I trust you to be quiet?”

Taehyung’s brows furrow. “What?”

Before he can properly process movement, he finds his elbows instinctively pressing into his chest
as his forearms bounce into the bed.

“Fuck,” he says, startled before he chuckles, climbs some more on his arms, his back arching, but
he remains on his stomach on the bed even if he tries to shake some hair from his eyes, look back
at him. “Eager.”

Jungkook gets a knee on the bed, slides his body with ever surprising agility over Taehyung’s, not
touching yet, but hovering above with promise, his palms the only support he needs as he brings
his lips to Taehyung’s ear.

“Have been subduing an erection for half an hour,” he pants, once, before his teeth tease along the
cleft of his ear, drawing down to the lobe and pulling ever so slightly. His hips shift down, finally
making contact as he fits them easily over him with the way Taehyung is lying down. His head
tips, mouth finds his neck and layers over with gentle, open kisses. His breath is hot, body hotter,
and Taehyung feels his coming to life underneath. Talking to a usually absent father is a decent
way to repress an erection, but Jungkook pressing against him, grinding down subtle, but sure is an
even more decent and quick way to send all his blood running.

He lets more of his weight rest on Taehyung, the twist of his hips against him pointed and smooth.
He holds himself up on just one palm, the other catching at Taehyung’s side, fingers squeezing in
request. His lips are still working, searing and imprinting on the sensitive skin of his neck.
Taehyung would be embarrassed by how quick each and every ministration makes his breath
shallow, his lids heavy, if he couldn’t feel Jungkook harden against him, didn’t know his body
enough by now to know when it stops being conscious of itself and starts rolling in a chasing
instinct.

His hips raise the slightest bit, his hand pushing Taehyung’s shirt up, palm and fingers running
over the revealed skin.
 “Wanna see if I can make you come with just my mouth.” Jungkook says, eyes scolding as they
follow the motion of his fingers when they tease over the band of his pants. “Can I?”

Taehyung’s breath comes in sharp gasps. “Yes, please.”

“You’re so pretty,” Jungkook murmurs as he strips him off of clothes.

Taehyung’s back arches, head turns with strands falling over and into his eyes an innocently proud
smile that somehow manages to make him prettier. “I like being pretty for you.”

“Yeah?” Jungkook cocks his head in challenge, fingers teasing over his skin, dipping. “Do you like
this?”

Taehyung faces the mattress, inhales there at sudden sensation. “Like everything you do to me,” he
confesses in a lost murmur.

“I did well last time?” Jungkook asks, or urges, fishes for a compliment or two and Taehyung is
glad to give a little as he is so happily receiving.

“You did so well. It was so good.”

“I figured,” he teases with a harsher touch as his voice grows softer, “you came all over yourself.”

Taehyung glances over his shoulder again, eyes glinting. “Don’t get cocky.”

“You like it when I’m cocky,” Jungkook leans, not missing a chance to kiss him in between.
“About this.”

When he makes him come all over himself once more, Taehyung is too tired to return the favour in
any way different than a lazy handsie, but it’s perfect. Comfortable and easy and he rests his chin
on his shoulder, drapes his thigh over his own and tugs at him like that, murmuring innocent and
filthy things alike in his ear, and it’s not Jungkook’s most powerful orgasm, but it’s certainly one of
his favourites.

They don’t say good morning to each other until they’ve both come. Jungkook wraps an arm
around his stomach and they wake up like this. There is something overwhelmingly easy about
morning, wordless, lazy sex. It’s leisurely and slow, quiet. There is something promising in it, an
entirely different intimacy to what they’ve known from each other so far, but Taehyung can
certainly get used to it.

Jungkook’s breath teases the hairs at the back of his neck as he sighs into it when his hips relax.
“Good morning,” he murmurs lazily into his nape and the pressure he applies with his lips is
ticklish and wet, stretches a smile across Taehyung’s face.

“Good morning,” he mumbles back.

“Hey,” Jungkook calls to capture his attention, waits for him to turn to chuck the object at him,
basks in the slightly surprised expression that captures his features as they morph with quick
recognition, “Thank you for testing my boyfriend’s reliability.” Jungkook approaches Kai slowly
in his club as he turns away from another man to give the newcomer his undivided attention. He
walks deliberate and confident, strides still very much as if he has the whole of Richhood behind
his back, wrapped around his finger, which he doesn’t, but he can’t have it show in his demeanour,
not even in the motion of his eyebrows. “He’s reliable,” he announces loud and clear as he comes
to a stop inches before Kai, who clutches his pill at his chest, stares at Jungkook with hard,
growing interest. Jungkook nods at the packet. “You can shove this up your ass.”

Kai’s lips smack together, fold into each other as he mulls it over briefly, cocks his head and with
flashing, irritable eyes, seethes, “Little bitch told you.”

“Watch your mouth,” Jungkook warns, instinctive. “He’d tell me anything, so don’t try him.” He
closes in on him with another step, lifting just one foot and placing it on the ground towards him,
the stance subtly allowing for his legs to part, for him to be ready. “He also mentioned you
touched him.”
Kai makes the mistake of being proud and condescending. His lips twist into a small, cruel smirk
that tugs at every of Jungkook’s muscles. “I did,” he says and that’s when Jungkook pulls his hand
back and hits him stark across the jaw.

His lower teeth smash into his upper ones, the force of the punch causing the vulnerable skin inside
his mouth to break, around his cheek and gums. A few trickles of blood hit the ground as does Kai,
caught off guard more so than hurt. He props his elbow, falls in it mostly and it will bruise,
Jungkook knows that. It will bruise and Kai will feel it, for a while. He will remember.

Jungkook takes his hand back, relaxes it by his thigh. His knuckles ache slightly, but there is
something satisfying to the burn. “If you do it again, it will hurt more.”

Kai touches his lips with three fingers, takes them away and eyes the blood on their tips. He blinks
up at Jungkook, glowering as he growls, “I literally just touched his fucking arm, Jeon.”

Jungkook presses his palms over his kneecaps, leans slightly over him. “When I say don’t touch
him, I don’t mean don’t fuck him. I mean don’t touch him.” He straightens up, speaks at him from
above, jaw titled upwards. “Stay in your lane. If you as much as come near him again intentionally,
while I’m not with him, especially with one of those, Soobin will be the only one selling in the
Ozone and in the Ring as well.” He gives him a nod, a smile wondrously empty of spite and he
spins on his heel, leaves with the parting sardonic indifference of, “Have a good day.”

Kai watches after him until he’s disappeared through the door, before he pushes up on his palm.
The man on the other side of his counter is quick on his feet, has his hands fitting urgently around
his elbow before Kai has even fully attempted to stand, but certainly not before Jeon Jungkook
could be witness of Kai needing help.

“Kai,” he hisses with alarm, grips at him with support.

“It’s okay,” Kai shakes off the touch when he’s standing, eyes still rooted on that door. He has
crimson drops spotted on his chin, but he doesn’t care to swipe them with his hand. No, he tastes
them instead, sucks at his bottom lip and swallows down the blood in his mouth, the metallic taste
familiar to his buds, but never at the hand of a Jeon. “The little bitch has him whipped,” Kai says,
head cocks and eyes narrow. The snake around his neck cranes its own body with the motion, its
slit eyes thinning. "I love it,” Kai pronounces, deep and slow and it coaxes surprise in the face of
his company.
Kai turns, picks up his pen again, finally allows his hand to wipe the dribble of saliva and blood
that irritates at his chin. “Things would be a lot more fun if he didn’t have said bitch trained,” he
mutters almost petty, staring down at numbers.

The man beside him leans. “He’s loyal?”

Kai looks up, humourless mockery soaked into his expression. “Straight up called himself his.” He
forces a hissed laughter. “He feels a lot more secure with him than Julia did.”

“Can’t blame him,” The man says, cranes his own neck further to check Kai’s face for remaining
splutters of blood. “He’s never hit you before,” he says it soft and easy, stirs away from being
brusque with the reminder, but Kai’s teeth are still pressing together.

“I need Jungkook out of that family and Namjoon gets easy.” He chucks the pen, presses his
elbows on the counter and locks his fingers together, ignores the way it rolls over and falls down
next to the useless pill. "The Kims are such fucking pests,” he sneers.

The man straightens, nods. His fingers tap at the counter top. “What about the child?” He ventures.

Kai turns to him sharply, brows etching closer. “What?”

“There’s a child, isn’t there?” The man says, walks back around the counter to his rightful place
behind the bar as he speaks. “Younger than the gay one.”

Kai’s face relaxes with comprehension until the tips of his lips tighten, spread to the sides. “That’s
right. Woojin.” He nods to himself, his mouth drawing back, curling over bare, shiny teeth,
coloured with the remnants of washed out blood. “If you mean Woojin, the little bitch said,” he
recounts.

“Don’t know the name, boss,” the man shakes his hand, fishes out another pen out of his pocket
and places it careful and secure in the dip of the sheets where it stays put, “but I think he goes to
kindergarten with my nephew."

Kai lifts his chin up, eyes broaden, glint. “You,” he says with zest, a finger pointing towards the
man. “Always knew fate brought you to me,” he tells him, sinister satisfaction gripping the
features of his face as he stands up straighter, shoulders broad, arms spread wide. The man permits
himself a smile, proud and hidden as he tilts his head downwards to the contents of the pages
before Kai’s expression changes, brows drawing together and as an afterthought he asks, “What
was your name again?”

The first Taehyung hears of Clo Eun again is the never-ending chatter about her, her name
incapable of leaving mouths even in a place like this.

“Wonder what that Jeon twin smells like between her legs,” someone says, nasty and proud and
accompanied with the sound of them gathering saliva in the back of their throat before the
distinctive sound of spit violates Taehyung’s ears.

He turns immediately to Jungkook, whose presence in the centre is likely the provocation for the
comment, as he hears his feet shuffle along the floor. He straightens on the chair, hand on the table
top, ready to push him to stand, but he never does.

He follows his gaze. The first he sees of Clo Eun is her hand fisting in the hair of a man with a
distorted smirk and glinting eyes mocking at Jungkook. She erases the expression in a single,
unexpected motion, her thin hand stronger than it looks as she pushes it down, fingers still tugging
at strands and she smashes his nose loud and painful into the table until even his forehead meets the
surface.

“Clo Eun.” A mechanic voice calls over a speaker, a starting reminder to Taehyung that this
institution is in the end of the day, very similar to Richhood. Everyone has names on their lips and
they are subjected to the constant scrutiny of surveillance. “What did we say about responding with
violent behavior?”

Clo releases the man, leaves him groaning, and looks up at a corner of the room where she
probably knows a camera to be. She lifts her hands innocently to the sides, shrugs. “Oops.

It is her only semblance of apology before she sidesteps the man’s spit and without another glance
proceeds towards the table where Jungkook and Taehyung wait, muttered insults on her breath.
She looks at her palm as if his hand has dirtied it, wipes it out in her dress. “Cucky, good for
nothing pervert—“ when she finally looks up and pauses in her tracks, “Taehyung?”
Her eyes are wide and white. The skin below them is pale as her entire face. There are remains of
darkness and puffiness beneath, but it is almost gone. Her lips are void of lipstick, cheeks are void
of blush, and lids are void of colour, but her face is soft. A different kind of pretty to her usually
sharp, striking beauty. Taehyung remembers the last time he saw her, through the gap of her
bathroom door.

She looks so different. She looks so alive, even in her gaping shock, focused on Taehyung.

“You cut your hair,” Jungkook notes calmly, his attention now entirely reserved for his sister, gaze
fitting over every inch of her, starting from her bare calves, but remaining finally at her face.

It’s true. One of the main reasons she appears almost beyond recognition is her long, perfect hair is
now cut to the line of her chin. It isn’t as sleek anymore, has more volume and some frizz to it as
well, but she pulls it off, if Taehyung is the one to judge.

“Excuse me,” she turns to her brother, shrill. She pulls at a chair and sits her self down, her wide
eyes never leaving Jungkook as she keeps a whole palm spread to point at Taehyung sat easily next
to him, “can you focus?”

Jungkook glances at him, the corner of his lips tipping up almost hidden. “There have been some
developments,” he says.

“You don’t say,” She deadpans with atypical pitch, arms locking together as she sits uncomfortably
straight on her chair. Her eyes are, to Taehyung, wondrously expressive. “What the fuck
happened?”

Jungkook fills his chest with air, his exhale prolonged and loud as he dips another side-look to his
boyfriend before he words it for them both, “Dad caught him in my bed.”

Clo darts her eyes to Taehyung with a short, humourless exhale of laughter before she turns to her
brother again, shoulders slumping in a subtle attempt to get somewhat closer, adopt a bit of
privacy. “Jungkook,” she starts, much too animated for Taehyung’s expectations, “I’m sure you’ll
excuse the question,” he is slightly taken aback when she turns to him, addresses him directly, “but
what were you doing in his bed?” She blinks her shock as her arms untangle to assist her. “I mean,
last time I spoke to you, to either of you, it didn’t seem like—“

Taehyung must have something on his expression because she interrupts herself, her mouth parted
with another sound that dies on her tongue. She lets her hands fall in her lap, her posture relaxing.
Her head shakes, short strands falling in her face. “You don’t have to answer,” she tells him.

It’s okay. “It’s okay.” Taehyung is shrugging and he tries to keep his attention on her even when he
feels Jungkook’s head tilt to him, his eyes almost tangible on his skin. “I couldn’t see myself
leaving,” he says after a moment of hesitation. It’s the simplest way for him to put it and perhaps if
there hadn’t been a question about going to Japan, Taehyung wouldn’t have reached the point yet
where he would be ready to give Jungkook a chance, but the more he lets himself be with him the
more he realises that would have been wasted time. “It’s different now,” he voices in a hurry before
he slips too much in retrospection. “Trying to do this sort of the right-er way. I mean as right as it
gets in Richhood.”

Jungkook looks away from him and straight with a nod of his head, a slight bitterness to his voice,
“We’ve upgraded from fucking in bathrooms and not otherwise talking and also forcedly come
out.”

“So,” she turns to her brother and once more surprises Taehyung with her caution; she pauses
between words, seems to need moments to formulate them and he cannot distinguish if it is for her
own sake or Jungkook’s but perhaps it’s both, “he knows—“ she pronounces it ominous and short
and cold, and that is that. She gulps. “Our father, he, he knows about you?” Her eyes dart across
her brother’s expression in a worry that Taehyung deems she is only capable of, the only one who
can come close to imagining what it means that he knows, no matter how simple it sounds.

Jungkook’s response is quick and singular. He meets her eyes and nods, twice, one time more
shallow than the other. To her it seems to speak volumes.

She relaxes back into her chair, flattening against it, her gaze ever studying of him in silent,
straight-cutting sympathy. “Thought they were away,” she murmurs, quiet, whispered.

“They were,” Jungkook says tightly. Then he turns bitterly scathing, “Until Kai got them back
here.”

“Kai?” She gapes.

He exhales, nostrils flaring. “Fucking Kai.”

Clo presses her lips together, curls them inwards to her mouth until they disappear. Her eyes never
once leave her brother, though shades and glints in them alter. They narrow down in a short-lived
spur of anger, but her teeth dig in her lip and she relaxes her face. Her eyes soften. “Sorry it had to
be that way, Kookie.”

Jungkook straightens up, looks away from his sister and at nothing in particular, chasing shapes
along the room. He throws an arm at the back of Taehyung’s chair, but doesn’t touch him. “Had to
happen,” he shrugs, head shaking. “Don’t think I would have ever instigated it myself and neither
would he,” he turns to Taehyung now and instinctively, Taehyung returns it, “so, part of me is
glad.”

“Well, but—“ her face screws, eyes minutely turn to the table before she’s looking between them.
“What happens now?” She asks, then louder, quicker. “What the fuck happens now?” Her gaze
layers with perplexity, darting across helpless and panicked. She bends over the table, her ribs
digging in the rim of it as she gets her face closer. “Did he kick you out?”

“Shh,” Jungkook hums and moves closer, too, one arm aligning with the table while the other now
rests against Taehyung’s back. “I’ll live with Yoongi for a bit, or for long,” he says, “make as
much money as I can off of fighting, but the rest of it—“ he looks at nothing for a moment, shakes
his head to himself, “it needs figuring out, not gonna lie.”

Her head tips, lips try to smile. “We’ll figure it out, then,” she assures.

There is a moment in which their eyes lock and Taehyung wonders if twins are actually capable of
telepathy. It’s the first instant where he feels he is intruding on something largely intimate in a way
he is familiar but currently seems far away from him.

It’s Jungkook who breaks it, his voice more assertive. “You’re staying with Jin after you get out of
here. I don’t want you going back to—“

“I’m staying with Mei after I get out of here, Jungkook,” she proclaims, loud and sure, her eyes
flashing as her chin lifts up, whole expression shifting in a second. “Neither you, nor Jin can tell
me who I’m staying with.”

There’s a beat. Jungkook cocks his head, lets his lips dip on the sides. Each feature slips into
fondness. “By the little spark in you eye I can tell you’ve already had that conversation once.” The
tilt of his head deepens, eyes curious. “At least.”
Her mouth tips, too, but the width of her eyes and the tightness of the press in her lips suggests a
frustrated irony. “Second time today, third time overall.” She says, her eyes drawing to the table.
“He probably wants to be a saviour now.”

Jungkook leans. “Well, I get him.”

“Well, I don’t need a saviour.” Her eyes shoot up once more, pointed. “I need a brother and I need
a boyfriend, okay?”

Her gaze is a challenge and Jungkook accepts, but it only seems to take a moment, before he’s
somewhat begrudgingly nodding, “Okay.”

She holds his eyes for one more beat, narrowing her own with scrutiny. She shakes some strands
away from her face, raises a hand up to draw a particularly stubborn piece of hair behind her ear
but it seems she cut it too short. It falls before her eyes the instant she moves to turn towards
Taehyung with a very sudden smirk.

“So,” her lips twist, "speaking of boyfriends—“

“Oh, he loves that word,” Jungkook interrupts, his expression turning scarily identical to hers, lids
tilting to the sides.

Taehyung’s eyes roll, even if he enjoys the subtle way Jungkook’s fingers choose that moment to
tease a patternless trail over his shoulder and back. “Fuck off, Jungkook,” he simulates a glare, an
excuse to fully look in his direction, gauge just how bothered he is. “You just like focusing on it,
cause you fucking love it.”

Jungkook shrugs, his fingers lifting for a second when he spreads his palms in concession. “I never
said I didn’t.”

Taehyung’s lips are already parting when Clo Eun interjects, “Can you flirt later and explain a bit
more of this now?” She points between them with a single finger, her eyes going a bit wider again.
“You’re together?” She pronounces and Taehyung may perhaps be imagining it, but to him she
sounds bewildered and excited. “As in together, together?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook’s smirk widens with a nod, "he’s promoted me from asshole to boyfriend.”
“Nuh-uh,” Taehyung corrects, his hand slapping on Jungkook’s knee under the table for impact.
“One does not erase the other. You are simultaneously an asshole and my boyfriend,” he turns to
him, smiles sickly sweet and moves his hand an inch higher, squeezes. Jungkook returns the look
with an ironic grin of his own, nose and eyes screwing.

“He’s your asshole?” Clo Eun offers, cheesily enough.

Jungkook turns to her again. “No, I just like to ruin his asshole.”

“Jesus fuck, again with that mouth,” Taehyung says with exasperation, shoulders slumping
weakly.

“Gotta get used to it,” Clo Eun shrugs and Taehyung faces her with an exaggerated expression that
calls for sympathy.

“He speaks that way in front of my baby brother, too,” he whines. It is striking to him, how easy he
finds it to fit in this situation and it could be Jungkook’s fingers assuring on his back or Clo Eun’s
eyes, attentive and easy on him, the smirk on her mouth more playful than Richhood.

She shakes her head lightly, her eyes briefly closing. “I’m disgusted but not surprised.”

Jungkook turns to Taehyung in an equally as whiny protest, “I told you I would stop doing it in
front of him.”

Clo Eun props herself on the table again, her forearms crossing, one on top of the other, head
cocking. “Am I going to get to number 2 in your heart now, Kookie?”

It gets his attention back, his eyes layering over her, in her hospital dress, her closed bare legs, her
thin arms, prominent bones on her fingers and wrists. He catches her eyes. “No,” he shakes his
head, “worst that can happen is shared first.” His hand cups Taehyung’s shoulder and he glances at
him apologetically from the corner of his eyes. “Sorry, pretty boy.”

“That’s okay,” Taehyung dismisses with a shrug of his own. “I like Woojin better than you, too.”
“To be fair,” Clo speaks in poignant consideration, slow and announced; she hisses through her
next words, delivers with feigned regret, “I think I like Taehyung a bit more than you."

Taehyung snorts the first second, nods the next as he straightens on his chair and effectively moves
away from Jungkook’s hand. ”Same,” he seconds, holding his chin between his thumb and
forefinger, very much pondering, “You’re starting to grow on me, yeah.”

“Okay,” Jungkook starts and despite what he says next he wraps his arm around Taehyung’s
shoulders again and pulls him back to the chair before he hangs his forearm over his chest, “if
you’re gonna gang up on me, I’ll just leave you to it, shall I?“

“Oh, don’t be a bitch,” Taehyung nestles in some more with Jungkook’s attention more demanding
now, though he tries to keep it casual. He tips his head up to look at him, says still teasing but
quieter, softer with the way he grows honest, “You know I love you.”

Jungkook’s eyes slide to him, his own voice a bit more above a murmur, “Love you, too, but I will
require proof from you tonight.”

“Wait,” Clo Eun is spluttering on the other end, “you love,” she says through a double take, “did
you say love?”

“Well,” Jungkook grows almost comically awkward, shifting a quick glance from one to the other
and Taehyung feels some nervous awareness raise in his stomach at what appears to be hesitation,
but Jungkook stifles it when he raises his shoulders, drops them easy and says, “yeah.”

Clo claps her hands together, fingers intertwining over her knuckles, a grin spreading wide on her
lips. Jungkook gives her a look at the announcing sound of the clasp at her palms and, innocently,
she slumps her elbows down to her lap, head cocking. “I wanna say awww, but I don’t think either
of you will appreciate that very much.”

Jungkook tips his head in line with an eyebrow, hair almost mingling with Taehyung’s.
“Surprised?” He prompts.

“I mean, kind of,” she starts, palm pointing to Jungkook again, hands releasing each other. “Like, I
knew you loved him,” she says with a curve of her shoulders, “I just didn’t know you knew you
loved him,” she concludes and rests her hands in her lap again, turns to Taehyung and somewhat
expertly explains, “Jungkook’s a little slow like that at times.”

“Clo.” Jungkook warns despite being slightly distracted by his ringing phone. He slips it out

She turns to her brother sheepish, leans to pat his free knee with a palm twice, assuringly. “I mean
when it comes to sharing feelings, Kookie.”

He relaxes back into the chair, looks her over once more, always looking her over, his eyes coating
over her entire body and Taehyung expects from him more of a protest, but it doesn’t come. Instead
he says with controlled softness,“You look better.”

She blinks, leans. “I feel better.” Her emphasis looses strength as she has to glance down to
Jungkook’s pocket where his hand is once more fumbling with a ringing phone.

Clo sighs, eyes rolling. “Just take it already and come back,” she urges.

Jungkook fishes the phone out, looks at the caller ID and tilts his palm up as soon as he sees it,
hiding the screen from his sister, but not doing much to shield it from Taehyung’s naturally prying
eyes. Mom, the phone reads simply, no picture, no nothing.

“I’ll be short,” Jungkook nods, stands.

Taehyung trails eyes after him, but Clo focuses on him, doesn’t spare her brother a glance as he
goes out, doesn’t get to witness the way his palm cups over the head of guy who already had a face
full of table because of Clo, digs his fingers in and in a motion quite similar to his sister, slams the
dude straight into the surface. Clo Eun doesn’t make him bleed, but Jungkook does. The guy is
cupping his nose when he lifts up, blood chortling out of his nostrils, but other than groaning he
says nothing when he eyes Jungkook’s receding form, glare glinting but lips sealed.

By the small twist of Clo Eun’s lips, Taehyung thinks she doesn’t need to know to turn to know
what the source of the bang and the groan is.

The door shuts after Jungkook as he takes the call into a corridor and Taehyung fidgets slightly on
his chair, glances down at the tabletop when he starts to speak, his tongue poking briefly at his
upper lip. “This might sound a bit dumb and whatever,” he waves a hand, dismisses this before he
says it even, worries some redness could show on his cheeks, “but you knew he loved me?”
Clo Eun’s smirk grows bigger and Taehyung has to tip his chin to his lap, lids fluttering. “I’m his
twin,” she tells him, simply. “Know the guy better than he knows himself.” She relaxes slightly
Into her chair after she announces that and her next words come more hesitant, lose the smug
cockiness of her previous tone, “He, uhm,” she clears her throat, raises a finger to wipe at a non-
existent something in her eye, “he cried,” she says; it draws Taehyung’s attention automatic, head
up and gaze on her. “And we don’t do that,” she shakes her head. “Don’t cry because of boys.”

In a short blink of a time, Jeon Clo Eun reminds him of his very own sister, very own sister whom
he has not witnessed shed a single tear in years. And perhaps the Jeons grew up in a penthouse in
Gangnam, whereas the Kims grew up in a falling apart house in outskirts, but somehow they all
managed to live with this instilled twisted perception of strength.

Taehyung taps his nail on the table, stares after the motion. “You ever cried because of Jin?” He
asks.

He half expects her not to answer, but she shrugs. “Last time was last week,” she confesses. “I
suppose it’s easier to tell,” she starts somewhat absently, her eyes drifting to a pale, white ceiling,
“the love thing,” she clarifies with a blink, “when it is not something to learn, but something to
recognise.”

She draws his eyes back to him, soft, a little sad. There is a spark in them and Taehyung’s glad to
see it. Clo Eun to him, out of all of the Richhood kids, has always looked the deadest.

“Your hair looks good,” he tells her and he means it. She looks different, less like Julia, less like
girls that Hoseok and Yoongi keep around.

“Thanks,” she says, a small sweet smile forming on her lips for a short moment. “I felt like I
needed a change.” He feels she wants to keep talking with the way she inhales and her mouth parts,
tongue hovering between her teeth; the silence stretches longer than either of them expects. “Was it
nice,” she asks finally, her eyes darting searchingly over Taehyung’s face, “officially meeting my
father?”

Taehyung tears his gaze away, voice low and careful. “We don’t have to talk about your father.”

“No, I want to,” she says, her teeth meeting each other in resolve although that is the only sign of
anything she allows to say in her face. “I want to know what he was like.”
Taehyung’s eyes shoot up to hers, dart between them. “Terrifying,” he tells her. If he had to put it
into one word, he couldn’t think of a better one. His palm slaps on the table harder than he expects
it to as words starts to tumble out of his mouth. “I’m so sorry it happened like this. If it were up to
me, he would have never found out. I—“

“It’s okay,” she waves a hand, head shaking. “It’s not your fault,” she says it softly. “Not
Jungkook’s either.” With more charged vehemence waking and extinguishing, she adds, “It’s his
fault.”

“He lost everything, though,” Taehyung’s voice sinks to be little above a whisper. “Jungkook.” He
falls back into his chair, his his head shaking. He finds himself blinking to his lap again. “Your
father said he could have it back if he got rid of me, so it,” his eyelids flutter as he glances up at her
somewhat beneath brows, “it is me, breaking him apart from,” he pauses, lips touching, “this.”

“Taehyung,” Clo interrupts with a large inhale, shakes short strands away from her face, “has
Jungkook ever told you that I never tell him what my father does?” She stops, gauges his
expression to get the answer for herself before she slips into pained enumerations that sound as if
they only touch the surface of her mouth, “Where he hits, how hard, what he says, what he grabs.”
She shakes her head, her tongue coating over unnecessarily over wet lips before she pokes it into
her cheek. “Jungkook doesn’t know. If Jungkook did, Jungkook would have left a long time ago.”

Taehyung blinks, eyes searching under furrowed brows. In a sharp exhale and with rising bile
constricting his throat, he asks, “What?”

“My father is a dick to Jungkook,” she says, leaning forward. “But he is not half the dick he is to
him than he is to me.” Her lips thin, eyes deaden for a moment and she is Jeon Clo Eun. “See,
Jungkook is a boy, an heir, he has a use. Me?” Her brows raise, a humourless short laughter
escaping her. “If I’m not the hand piece to who he wants me to be, I’m a whore. I’m a whore and I
don’t even spread them for the right people,” she deadpans, her back meeting her chair, arms
folding.

“Clo—?” He starts, but has nothing to say, and she doesn’t need him to.

“Just…” she waves a hand before she slaps it back over her elbow, “don’t feel bad you broke him
apart from him,” she insists, her eyes meeting him strong once more. “Jungkook was on his way to
fucking becoming him and I myself can get over a lot of things, but not this, never this.” Her head
shakes. “Cars aren’t worth it.”
“He wouldn’t have,” Taehyung defends on an instinct. “Loves you too much.”

“He wouldn’t have ever become physical,” she answers. “But you’d be first to tell he was on his
right way to becoming just fucking cruel.”

Taehyung dashes his eyes across her face, simple and honest. Her lips hover together slightly
parted, her gaze gentle as she allows it to rest on Taehyung’s. He tightens his neck, relaxes,
increasingly aware of the way his chest raises and falls. “Was he ever like that to you?”

“No,” she shakes her head, “not to me, to Yoongi or Hobi.” She takes a moment. “But he was
starting to be like that to Julia and that is just a beginning of a downfall.”

Taehyung’s lips part. In all honesty, in his experience with this he has thought strikingly little of
Julia, her part in all this and the fact Jungkook was perhaps more at fault for how shit their
relationship was, no matter that they both slept with other people. And as much as it hurts to admit
it, she probably was the first sign of him deteriorating into a less physical but not less bitter
semblance fo the cruel man his father is.

He walks back in, falls back in to his chair, arm immediately circling over Taehyung’s shoulders
and he is immediately grateful he doesn’t have to answer, to think about what could have been.

“I’m back,” he announces himself as he slips into his chair, stealing a glance at Taehyung which
coaxes him to brush a finger across a strand of stray hair. “What were you talking about?”

“You,” Taehyung confesses, his eyes slanting over.

“Shocking,” he says, nods to his sister, “Hair looks good, Clo.”

“Yeah,” she replies, falls back into her previous demeanour without as much of a blink, “if you
don’t cut yours soon, though, we’ll end up with the same haircut.”

“I know,” he agrees, blows at a few hairs that trickle down his forehead, “but haircuts are
expensive.” He turns to Taehyung. “Where do you get yours cut?”
“You want advice on being poor?” Taehyung has to laugh, his brows perching to his forehead. “Ji-
woo cuts my hair and I wouldn’t recommend her to you because I’m pretty sure she’d cut off your
ears.” Jungkook gives a tight, ironic smile, nods with an exhale of agreement. “But there are
normally priced haircuts outside of Gangnam, you know.”

Jungkook screws his face in exaggerated perplexity, leans towards him. “There is life outside of
Gangnam?”

“Very funny.”

Jungkook sits on the edge of the weight press, legs spread. He looks at his mother as she looks at
herself. The mirror in front of her shows Jungkook only partially, but she focuses on her own face,
her breathing pattern consistent, exhaling when she needs to, her hands tight on the elliptical.

“I told Clo,” Jungkook says. “She plans on staying with Mai for a bit.”

She speeds up, her hands tightening. Her chin tips up high, nostrils wide. “And I spoke to Doctor
Jung.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow. He adjusts the way he sits, arms folding. He clears his throat “What?”

Her head shakes, her gaze never leaving her shape in the mirror, her legs never resting. “It is all
confidential, you do not have to worry."

Jungkook’s head cocks, voice hardens. “I mean, what would you speak to him about?”

“Your condition,” she answers simply, her left leg skipping a turn, rhythm disturbed, but she gets
right back into it in a heartbeat. “He thinks it can be helped.”

Jungkook’s arms unfold, spread, hands falling on his knees. “Mom—“

“Moreover,” she interrupts, voice raising loud over his, “it is his opinion that parents have the right
to correct behaviour in attempts to impose heteronormative behaviour and masculine core gender
identity to move towards procreation and avoid social cruelty,” she’s listing words put in her
mouth, terms she barely understands herself that probably make her feel better with the authority of
a doctoral label plastered behind their initial mention. Jungkook’s eyes roam over her, brows
drawing nearer with each second she keeps on going, his stomach emptying. “He says there is even
better chances for your correction as you display a sort of healthy homosexuality.”

“Healthy?” He echoes somewhat breathless.

“You’re not effeminate,” she details coldly, neck elongating as her chin tilts higher still. “He was
interested whether you were insertive or receptive—“

He is on his feet before he realises it, hands digging in his hair, tugging at strands. “What the hell
are you asking me?”

Her left leg skips another turn. She inhales out of rhythm. “Under the aegis of a specialist—“

He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but he hears it bounce off of mirrors, “I don’t even fucking
know what that means.”

“It means—“

“I don’t give a fuck, mom.” His hands raise away from his hair up into the air, spread wide. He’s
moved to stand behind her and she can’t not see him anymore; his arms frame her body, come out
of her own shoulders in the reflection until he lets them drop. Her legs have stopped spinning. “I
thought you just wanted to see me,” he says it, voice lower now.

“I do,” she tells him, head cocking and he does come into view now for her, “I want to help you.”

Exasperated, Jungkook asks, “Have you ever even been in love?” He knows she doesn’t love his
father; no one ever could. So he cannot help but wonder, could she ever really understand.

She turns, finally truly looks at her son. “I love you.”

“You nervous?” Taehyung cannot help but ask as he watches Jungkook, eyes focused on what he’s
doing, legs spread to support his elbows in an appropriate position. He is diligent and precise in the
way he does the wrapping around his knuckles.

Jungkook raises his head slightly, looking at him under brows where he’s leaning against the wall.
He snickers, lips tipping cocky, eyes glinting as his lids lower, dart over Taehyung. “I’m never
nervous,” he announces, and Taehyung would have rolled his eyes if his stomach wasn’t fluttering.

“I’m nervous,” he confesses, arms tightening together. His fingers tease over his own ribs to soothe
others sensations of his body, eyes studious over Jungkook’s physique to try to force down himself
that same confidence Jungkook has in every fibre of his being.

“Don’t be,” Jungkook shakes his head. He gives his wrapping a final tug, squeezes his fist to make
sure it is tight and gets on his feet, moving towards Taehyung. “To me, fighting is like fucking,”
he continues, slipping his fingers over Taehyung’s own, enticing entirely new feelings over them.
Taehyung unwraps his arms, lets Jungkook come closer, allows his hands to cover his sides. “I’m
as determined to knock him out as I am to make you come.” Cockier by the second, he smirks,
brings that smirk closer to Taehyung’s own lips. “Now have I ever failed to do that?”

Taehyung hums in consideration, finding place for his arms as well, around Jungkook’s own waist.
“If you lose, you don’t even get to try,” he teases, eyes layering over every inch of Jungkook’s
face, in case it gets broken in a few moments.

Jungkook squeezes at him, pulls him closer. “Is that so?” He asks, lips hovering close over his.

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods, the tip of his nose brushing over his. “I’m going home with the winner.”

“Well,” Jungkook considers, inhaling and it sends a rush over Taehyung, the way the breath he
draws is Taehyung’s own, “now it’s simply impossible for me to lose.”

His lips part, touch lightly to Taehyung’s, eyes falling shut before they are forced open by a voice
very much uninvited.

“Jungkook, save your energy, yeah?” Min Yoongi makes his way into the room shameless in his
interruption. “Can’t deal with the public humiliation of representing someone who walks on the
Ring with a boner.”

Jungkook exhales deeply. His head tips in disappointment, before he moves a step back, faces the
intruder. “At least I can get one now.”

Yoongi remains unimpressed. “Congrats, but you’re measuring skill tonight,” he deadpans, eyes
down to Jungkook’s pelvis that remains stubbornly close to Taehyung’s own, “not girth.”

Jungkook cocks his head, hisses his disagreement before he clicks his tongue. “You’re terribly
misinformed of my plans for the later night.”

“There’s no point,” Yoongi smiles, nods his chin forward, “I can tell from here Taehyung’s
bigger.”

“Hey,” Jungkook exclaims, points a finger forward, “I’m a grower.” He says it, childlike almost
with how utterly genuine he is. He turns to his boyfriend, disgruntled, “Tae, tell him.”

Taehyung breathes a laugh, rests his forehead on Jungkook’s shoulder as he murmurs, “Jesus fuck,
can’t believe I was intimidated by you guys.”

In a few moments, they both remind him why he was.

Yoongi walks a few steps behind Jungkook as he struts towards the ring, his head raised up high,
mighty. He appears taller than he is. Jungkook is as menacing as he always is, hood on, pace even
and shoulders wide, but Taehyung’s heart is beating different. He’s barely glanced at Jungkook’s
opponent from where he’s stood next to Hoseok right on the sidelines. He cares surprisingly little
someone could notice where he stands, too focused on Jungkook climbing the ring, on Jungkook
standing in the middle, shedding the sweatshirt. His fists have nothing but the wrappings. They’re
fighting gloveless tonight and it only makes Taehyung all the more nervous.

Yoongi comes to stand next to them, his shoulder brushing Hoseok’s as he takes his place, any
semblance of teasing gone and forgotten from his own expression and Jungkook’s.

Jungkook on the ring looks like Jeon Jungkook. His face is stone cold, eyes are freezing, jaw
pulled tight and ticking. He bounces on his legs, faces the man before him without any theatrics
and it is the first time Taehyung allows himself to check him out, too, with a swallow of gathered
spit.

He is considerably burly, hair trimmed and eyes strikingly blue. He stands cockier than Jungkook,
not too theatrical himself. His head is tipped back, gaze fixed on Jungkook empty, his hands fit in
his pockets. He looks twice over Jungkook, up and down, down and up, and a small smirk appears
and Taehyung begs Jungkook wipes it right off with his knuckles. Make that smirk bleed. He
catches himself blood thirsty, like the booming crowd, and he cannot seem to stifle it as he watches
the haughtiness with which the brit observes.

It’s a moment of their gazes locking, each sizing the other up, Jungkook’s confidence appearing to
Taehyung much less obnoxious, but perhaps he’s biased.

The fight starts and Taehyung’s breath hitches.

Round one is brutal and round two is worse. A girl passes in Taehyung’s view, her heels high
enough for her head to obstruct view for a moment and he looks over, but fortunately she settles
next to him in a second and the ring is clear.

“Hey,” she’s calling over noise, her hair twirled over her fingers. Her body is turned to his and not
the stage, but he barely notices, his eyes shining with the reflection of Jungkook punching the guy
square in the face. Taehyung is too nervous to smile, too anxious to feel an ounce of celebration.
“Haven’t seen you around.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods distractedly, hand rising for him to fit the nail of his thumb between teeth.
He cannot pry his eyes away from the ring. “I don’t come often.”
The girl is twirling hair still, comes a step closer. Taehyung’s attention is drilled into place. “What
made you come tonight?”

Yoongi leans his head down, eyes the girl first, Taehyung’s face second before he returns his gaze
to the Ring, a small grin curling on his lips.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung answers.

“So,” she continues with a prolonged ‘o’, adjusting on her feet, sound of her heels dulled by a loud
cheer of the crowd as Jungkook’s ducks impressively, lands an even more successful punch right
after and Taehyung squeezes the fist by his face in silent celebration, “you’re just here for the
fight?” Her head cocks, she bites her lip. Every trick in the book. “What are you doing after it
then?”

Jungkook, he’s tempted to answer but doesn’t.

“Got an afterparty,” he dismisses.

The brit is on the ground, a knock down, but not a knock out. He catches Jungkook by the knee as
he falls and Jungkook moves back to give him space to get back on his feet without touching him.
His eyes raise, meet Taehyung’s. He winks first, a smirk forming on his mouth before a hand
touches Taehyung’s bicep, asking for attention. Jungkook’s lips thin.

The guy is on his feet and the fight resumes. He’s barely up when he receives a drilling punch to
his jaw.

“Hm,” the girl comes closer, raises lips to his ear. “Maybe you can bring a plus one.” Her hand
tightens. The harder she holds onto Taehyung the more vicious Jungkook hits. “See what happens
after the afters.”

The next time Jungkook gets the guy on the ground, he’s knocked out cold, his blood staining the
ring. The crowd erupts, but the champion has not much interest remaining on the ring. He’s sliding
between ropes after a second of pumping his fist in the air to announce himself victorious.
“Hands off,” Jungkook growls. He grasps at Taehyung with two bloodied hands, pushing him back
a couple of paces to get him away from the girl, one hand digging in his hair to keep him in place.
Taehyung’s brows are drawing closer, lips are parting with confusion, and Jungkook takes perfect
advantage of that to quite literally shove his tongue down his mouth.

Jungkook kisses possessive and hungry and for the first moment it seems to become wretchedly
silent even if Taehyung’s ears are buzzing. Taehyung hears a ‘what the fuck’, he’s pretty sure he
hears an ‘ew’, and he’s pretty sure he hears some cheers. He fails to return the kiss even if he
allows it for a bit, before he grips at Jungkook’s shoulders, urges him away, his heart somehow
beating louder than during the match.

“What are you doing?” He asks, eyes darting between Jungkook’s.

Jungkook’s fingers tighten in his hair. He doesn’t look away from Taehyung, so he doesn’t either
even when he vibrates with the urge to look around, check if the eyes he feels are really on him.
“You’re the prize, right?” Jungkook asks, silent and private, which is everything that the moment
isn’t.

Taehyung swallows, murmurs as if someone else could hear him over the crowd, “Everyone’s
watching.”

“It’s Richhood,” Jungkook tells him. He kisses him, soft and short. “Everyone is always watching.
They probably already know,” he dismisses before he pats his head once, uses his hand to slide it
inside of his instead. “Come on.”

He tugs him along and Taehyung follows. Getting through the constantly-charged crowd of a
space like the Ring, people high on life, violence, drugs, and rumours, is a lot easier when one has
their fingers intertwined with Jeon Jungkook’s. He doesn’t stop, look back or around until they are
in the hallway, alone, where they can finally hear each other.

“You are insufferable when you’re jealous,” Taehyung remarks as he they walk towards his
changing room.

Jungkook opens the door, leads him in and only then releases his hand, for the sake of facing him.
“Won me the fight, pretty boy,” he says, layered with sweat, and a particular post-fight glow that
he always retains after a win. It draws a confident smile out of him, a glint in his eyes as he closes
the door behind a stern looking Taehyung.
“Aren’t you worried about everyone knowing?” Taehyung’s asking, eyes trailing incredulous after
a very much buzzing Jungkook who pauses before him, distractedly undoing the unwrapping from
around his hands.

“Everyone who saw this also saw me knock a guy out in two rounds,” Jungkook says, wiping the
blood from his fingers with the fabric. “No one would touch you if they have self-preservation
instincts.”

“I don’t mean that someone would beat me up, Jungkook,” Taehyung protests, eyes skimming over
Jungkook’s form. “The more people that know, the less chance you have of making something out
of yourself without your dad.”

“We can’t know that, can we?” Jungkook cocks his head, dropping the wrapping on the floor
dismissively. He takes a step forward. “What did she want?”

“I’m sorry?” Taehyung asks, his brows lifting up.

“That very confused girl,” Jungkook says, a snide layer of possessiveness smudging his voice as he
comes closer still, slides his eyes across Taehyung, “what did she want?”

Taehyung takes a moment to ponder the change of subject, whether he should return to it.
Jungkook’s being impulsive, perhaps too much, but he can’t lie to himself — there is a rush to
kissing the champion in public as he gets off the ring, to the declaration that Jungkook makes that
chases people away from them both, makes a statement, a very much reciprocal one. It feels
flattering that the first thing he does as he steps down is kiss him.

So Taehyung allows it, for now. He shrugs, answers, “Asked me what I was doing tonight.”

“What are you doing tonight?” Jungkook asks, head tipping.

Taehyung answers simply. “You,” he says.

Jungkook’s lips jump to their sides. “Obviously,” he murmurs, a step closer, “What else?”
Taehyung cocks his head, resting it back on the door as he exhales. “I’m tired,” he confesses. “We
can put on another movie?”

Jungkook nods. “Good, but I’m tired, too, so we’re watching something less pretentious today.”

It coaxes a scoff out of Taehyung as he leans away from the door, steps more into the room. “Are
you saying my taste is pretentious?”

“Are you about to argue it is not, because you will lose that argument,” Jungkook says as he cords
his eyes after him, tracks him across the room as he strides through it with big steps, craning his
neck in all directions until he settles his attention on a very particular shower. He gives it his back,
spinning back to face Jungkook.

“This is where we fucked the first time, isn’t it?” He asks, voice ringing different as it bounces off
tiles.

“Yeah.” Jungkook nods, stepping forward, walking Taehyung back against that wall. “Wanna do it
again, but better?” He asks, tone lowering and sliding into something that he has now reserved
exclusively for Taehyung’s ears, gentle and alluring. “Have yet to fuck you up against a wall,” he
says circling closer to him, eyes sizing him as hungry as they were for victory. “As you are aware,
winning makes me so horny.”

Taehyung clicks his tongue in pretended disappointment, allowing his lids to lower, gaze to darken
as Jungkook comes closer and closer. “You’re always horny,” he murmurs back, his hand reaching
behind, sliding over Jungkook’s back, his neck and in a smooth motion finding its way into his
hair.

“Yeah,” Jungkook whispers absently as Taehyung’s fingers squeeze and tug, bringing him forward
and to Taehyung’s mouth. For once he doesn’t tease. He kisses him immediately, slowly, just on
the lips first, gives himself a moment to breathe and then again, deeper and longer, mouth parting,
Jungkook responding compulsively. He tilts his head, gives one chaster kiss once more before he
flutters his lids open a tiny bit, his attention drawn to swollen, red lips.

“Watching you win makes me horny,” Taehyung admits with the pause before he kisses him again.
And it is true, Taehyung can feel the adrenaline of the victory bounce right off of Jungkook and
into himself. He swells with a particular type of pride that is inexplicably electrifying. It’s also a
consequence of a very physical relief. Jungkook won. Jungkook is alright. He promised he’d win
and he did and Taehyung has a sort of vigour within him that is excited to both congratulate and
thank. He deserves it.
“He’s paying me in notes, you know,” Jungkook says, pulling away slightly with a mix of saliva
between them that he shamelessly chases away with his tongue. He skids simmering eyes over him,
touches with pulsing fingers. “Enough to fill a bath tub,” he tells it with an exhale that coerces a
soft sigh out of Taehyung’s mouth. He breathes into the idea a curious eroticism that makes
Taehyung’s blood run hotter.

“Does that turn you on as well?” Taehyung asks, his fingers squeezing harder in Jungkook’s hair
when he comes closer. He feels his body press into him and he can smell his sweat, almost taste it,
and it comes with a connotation of his victory again and he wants to make him sweat some more.

“How about you?” Jungkook whispers, skimming his lips across the skin of Taehyung’s cheek
until he’s got them at his ear. He raises a thigh, so scantily clad in a nothing of a piece of fabric,
nestles it between a pair of legs that part, ready and hungry. He murmurs, “Kind of want to bathe
you in money.”

“Jungkook,” Taehyung gasps as Jungkook’s knee moves up.

“I made it,” He keeps talking in that exclusive, sultry voice, breath chilling as it descends over
Taehyung’s sensitive neck. “My money,” he insists with a shove of his leg that makes Taehyung’s
back arch. “It will fit you so much. Don’t think you know how expensive you should be.”

Taehyung tugs at his hair indicatively, tilting his head to face him. “Just won me, didn’t you?” He
asks, aims for a kiss, but Jungkook’s shaking his head.

“No,” he says, runs a hand across Taehyung’s side lightly, eyes dancing all across him, savouring
the sight of him after a win, all he wants to see after a win. “I take it back. You’re not a prize,
you’re priceless,” he tells him and he kisses him, again and again, and again. He’s never depriving
either of them of that compulsion again. He basks in the sensation of it, wants to pour the
indescribable rush of being in that ring right into Taehyung, share it with him in every way he
knows how.

But then again that would be too good to be true. Jungkook pulls away slightly, Taehyung chasing
after before he speaks. “You’re vibrating again.”

Taehyung’s eyes open wider, confused. He lets out a breathy, “What?”

He feels as if he is vibrating, too, but he didn’t know Jungkook could physically feel it.

“Your phone,” Jungkook clarifies with a step away.

“Oh,” Taehyung exclaims, a pout shaping on his lips as he quickly fishes his hand in his pocket
with every intention to hang up and proceed to get fucked when he notices the caller ID, his entire
face screwing as he looks up at Jungkook.

He blinks, more perplexed by the second as he feels the distinct vibration in his hand. “It’s Ji-
woo,” he says, watches as Jungkook’s features contort to mirror his confusion.

“She’s calling you?” He asks, his head tipping to inspect the phone on their own. The call ends as
they stare at the screen, immediately starts to ring again. “Pick up then,” Jungkook urges.

He accepts the call, raises phone hesitantly to his ear, the opposite from the one Jungkook was
whispering in. He starts with a gulp. “Hey.”

The second sound registers through the other end he has a plethora of words seeping urgent and
alarmed, “Taehyung, please don’t tell me you were dumb enough to take Woojin to Jungkook’s
fight”

“What,” Taehyung’s confusion deepens, an easy sensation replacing everything he previously felt
with striking velocity, “of course not.”

Jungkook steps further away at his tone of voice, head cocking and arms locking together as he
worries his teeth over his lips. His forehead creases, eyes relentless as they study his expression,
draw anything out of it.

“Okay,” she’s gasping, “I changed my mind, please tell me you are.”

“Ji-woo,” Taehyung tries, the name falling past his lips with awakening panic.

“Please,” she begs, a desperate strain in her voice as it thins and cracks with every syllable she
manages, “please, tell me he’s with you, I won’t even be angry.”
“Ji,” Taehyugn raises his voice, demands, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t know where he is, Tae,” she says, she breaks. She splutters, “I don’t know where our baby
brother is.” She chokes out a gasp, gathers a single breath and spills through it all she can manage,
“They told me his uncle picked him from school, he doesn’t have an uncle. I went over to all
houses he’s slept over but he’s not there. He’s not. He’s not, so I thought it was Jungkook.” She
inhales once more, chokes through it again. “Please, please tell me the uncle is Jungkook.”

Taehyung’s face collapses. His body, a second before alert as he listened, leans limp and drained
against the wall, an incorporation of deflation. Colour fades from his skin abruptly, eyes roaming
over Jungkook. Jungkook who is here, in the room with him, Jungkook who is not with Woojinn.
Taehyung’s head shakes. “It’s not Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s gaze grows even more questionable as he hears his name, almost imploring with the
way it fits over Taehyung, chin jutting forward in a quick motion that pleads answers and when he
gets them he wishes he hadn’t.

“Woojin’s gone.”
 Chapter 27
Chapter Summary

so this is a mess and it drained me, but I wanted it out, I've had it written and put off
for ageeees because I don't know if i'm happy with it really. I might revise it later on.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“Yoongi confirmed,” Jungkook clutches at his phone, his teeth grinding together. His lids are
fluttering, lashes wet, but cheeks dry and tight with how hard he is working his jaw. “It’s Kai,” he
pronounces after a pause he finds necessary to level his voice. He isn’t allowed a breakdown, isn’t
even allowed a crack in his composure, not in front of these people piled around the kitchen. All he
permits himself is the tight squeeze of his fingers around the device in his palm, grasping at it until
his knuckles are turning white.

Silence.

It’s Taehyung who breaks down first. His hand falls from clutching, pulling, grabbing at his hair in
senseless punishment and utter helplessness, slams loud and heavy in the poignant silence flat on
the table. His arm stretches long atop the surface, palm in the middle between Ji-Woo and
Namjoon. Their father stands behind them, faces away.

“It’s all my fault,” Taehyung shakes his head, sniffles, before he brings his hand back up to his
face, traps it into his palms, hiding away, fingers pressing. “It’s all my fucking fault,” he hisses in a
breath before his voice seems to rapture through his throat and his eyes, red eyes, are on Jungkook.
“I know,” he’s saying, “I’ve learned,” he’s stressing, words tugging pained from inside of him, “I
can’t have good things without paying for them,” the pupils surrounded by poisoned crimson drag
over the entirety of Jungkook’s body, take him all in, before Taehyung slumps on his chair, before
his gaze tames and his tone sinks to a whisper again, “thought I already paid for you.”

“Listen,” Jungkook says, teeth releasing. His mouth feels dry and he can sense the bit of saliva
gathered at its corners, stretches when his lips part loose, but need a moment to form actual words
as he lunges forward, “listen,” he repeats, his hand grasping firm but modest at Taehyung’s
shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” he pronounces carefully, boring his eyes into his, insisting with the
way he leans that he looks at him, believes him. “It’s my fault. I went over to him. I—“

“If anyone has brought Kai to this family,” Namjoon interrupts, raising his own eyes from digging
them in the faults of their table, “It’s me.” His tongue swipes at his lips, chest fill with air for a
moment and then release. He shakes his head. “I went away for a reason.”

Taehyung whips towards him, Jungkook’s hand easily falling away from his body. “And you came
back because of me,” he tells him, wide-eyed and powerful. His tongue is quick and his
movements rigid. He presses a finger to his chest, again and again and again, punitive repetitive
motion that says memememe, “because I couldn’t handle being hurt, because I needed you.”

Jungkook’s hands flare about. “Well, I made you need him, didn’t I?”

Ji-woo’s own chin straightens, raises into the air. Her voice might just about be the worst out of
them all, hoarse and forced out, her eyes dry but swollen, lips pale. “You wouldn’t have needed
your brother if you had your sister, and I—“

Jungkook turns to her, sharp and quick and yet so incongruously soft as his eyes dare to capture
hers, “I took that away,” he says, “not you.”

She allows him to ask for her attention, gives it to him, faces him with equal challenge as her words
fall sporadic through her lips, “It was me who was too focused on hating you to care about him.”
Her eyes bounce to her brother, dart over him searching. “And I’m family,” she says quieter, head
nodding as she sucks her bottom lip in, bites onto it. “I’m a Kim. He should be my fucking first.”

Namjoon reaches for her, doesn’t touch her hand, but rather chooses to dance his fingers around her
wrist, tentative at first, but wraps them around when she doesn’t pull away, squeezes. “No matter
how many things went on it will always stem to that fucking bag.”

He’s barely explained to Ji-woo and his father what that bag is, and it sits now heavy and glaring in
the corner of their kitchen, Kim Junsu’s eyes forever fixed on it.

“Throwing blame everywhere won’t bring my son back,” he speaks. It is the first time he does
since a lousy greeting from him when Jungkook and Taehyung returned. He’s been silent and
facing away for the entirety of this nothing of a conversation, staring at the object Kai is apparently
ready to exchange for a child. When he talks, his voice comes surprisingly even. When he turns to
his children, his features are eerily collected, though he seems paler, a certain natural playfulness
that is usually etched into the subtle corners of his expression erased. “You all love him, I know,”
his arms lock before his chest. He manages to speak so calmly, “Can you all put aside your inner
turmoil for a moment, so we can fucking work together?”
Ji-woo’s neck snaps with the way she turns, but she ignores it, her eyes narrowing at her father. It
is the first Jungkook witnesses of an exchange between them and the way her gaze is vituperative
and her tongue vicious, he supposes the tension there is the strongest. “It’s easy for you to put
away your inner turmoil, Junsu, isn’t it?”

He watches her, remains levelled despite the way her eyes burn. “We’re all guilty of something.
We’re people.”

His daughter’s eyes roll. Her voice is lower next, with the tip of her head, deceptively whispered,
scathing, airy and light but carries over with haunting truth and accusation. “Some so much more
than others, though.”

“You can’t just erase guilt cause we’re all faulty, dad,” Namjoon shakes his head from his chair.
His own expression holds a ghost of sympathy to his father’s stand, unlike his sister’s. “It’s you
who taught me that.”

“I’m not asking you to erase anything,” Junsu slips, the sentence hot, scalding, before he presses
his lips together and speaks even once more, “I’m asking you to put it aside to help save my son.”

Jungkook’s feet shuffle on the floor as he straightens to his full height. “I’ll get him back for you,”
he says, tight, but determined. And he will. He’ll get the boy back. He knows he will. “Kai will
want something in return, but he won’t hurt Woojin,” Jungkook tells them, shakes his head and
repeats, more for his own sake than for theirs, promising himself. “He wouldn’t hurt Woojin.”

“I know you want to be a hero now, my guy,” Junsu turns to him, pitch heightening at the end, “to
cope with whatever you’re going through,” he continues, his eyes drifting briefly to Taehyung at
the table, who has his fist pressed to his mouth, his teeth gnawing at whatever flesh they can find
at his finger, “but my son is not your sole responsibility.”

Jungkook breathes through his nose. “Kai doesn’t want Woojin. For the past year, Kai has wanted
Namjoon and that bag.” Namjoon’s eyes fall back to the table as Jungkook’s finger raises accusing
towards the damnable bag before his wrist twists and his hand presses to his chest. “For most of his
life, he has wanted me. I’ll get him back.”

An elaboration comes from the person he least expects. “And stop saying my son,” Ji-woo scolds,
the legs of her chair screeching as angry as her eyes when she stands, when she looks at her father.
“Fucking Jungkook’s done more for him in the last year than you have,” she accuses without a
pause, without a look to anybody else. “Fucking Jeon Jungkook.”
She makes her exit shortly after, her stare short but intense on Junsu before she fully rips her eyes
away and starts on the stairs. For a moment the only audible sound is the rhythmic trudge of her
steps as she walks, but as a ringtone cuts the air she stops, legs aligned.

She doesn’t turn back, doesn’t look, only stares up as Taehyung turns to Jungkook, fingers twisting
into tight fists atop the table. “Who is it?” He demands as Jungkook slips his hand in his pocket,
fishes out his phone. “Is it him?”

“No,” Jungkook says, voice little above a breath. “No,” he repeats with the shake of his head and
his gaze wanders up to meet Taehyung’s, “it’s my father.”

Taehyung’s lips part slightly, eyes fitting over Jungkook with a rise of sympathy. Intent is clear on
his features, tongue almost moving, body almost shifting towards him, and Jungkook’s heart beats
curiously not so much at the unexpected call as with the delicious anticipation that Taehyung will
reach for him.

It almost happens, but then there is a bang on the door and the moment is over. Taehyung is
standing up, but he is charting towards the sound, eyes forgetting Jungkook’s and focusing onto
any possibility the knock will be even remotely related to his brother. He opens the door in a
breath, chest heaving, but when he swings it, the face that is revealed is only familiar. Park Jimin
stands at the threshold, his eyes that Jungkook is not used to seeing under regular light are now
illuminated by the bold lamp on the kitchen ceiling. He looks different. He’s fully dressed and
completely honest. There is no charge in his gaze, it’s not hooded and lined with subtle dark make
up, and it is not wandering salacious among a crowd of people. It is solely reserved for his
boyfriend.

“Taehyung,” Jimin exhales as his only greeting.

“Jimin,” Taehyung returns.

Without any other communication, simply the utterance of their names, Jimin lunges towards
Taehyung, arms wrapping around him securely. Taehyung expects it, he’s ready for it, anticipates
it. He reciprocates within a moment, comfortably fitting the other boy against himself, head
propping on his shoulder and twisting familiarly towards his neck.

Jungkook watches them hug and says nothing. They cling to each other, limbs all around.
Jungkook hasn’t hugged him yet. He’s barely thought to touch him since he got that call. He feels
weirdly as if he doesn’t have the right. It’s easy to be his boyfriend when he doesn’t need solace.
Currently, he feels as if he needs worded permission to be close, to touch; he feels he needs an
explicit invitation. The mere brush of his hand would be reminder for them both.

Jungkook is used to jealousy, but not of this sort. It’s usually charging, outward and angry - he
doesn’t like someone to touch what is his. Currently, it’s so soft, inward, he likens it to envy. It is
envy, he realises, something much more unfamiliar to him, consciously at least. He wants to be the
type of person that can hug, swipe fingers and palm over the back of his head like Jimin is doing,
tell him it is all going to be okay. It is not his instinct to hug. Watching them embrace takes
Jungkook back to the night he found his sister lying on her bathroom floor, remembers Taehyung
wrapping about him even then when the tension between them was stretched to its finest string of
durability, and he realises perhaps that was what Taehyung needed now, too. He’s touched nothing
but his shoulder since the call, made proclamations, but offered no physical comfort whatsoever.

Jimin and Taehyung have never been the talkative type of friends, but it never did mean they were
incapable with the expression of affection. Jimin has never liked anything in his life to be explicit,
so he rarely tells Taehyung he loves him, he’s there for him. He prefers to show it, the occasional
butt slap, the constant availability, the way he knows him and the way he hugs him. They don’t
hug a lot, but when they do, it comes incredibly natural; they know how to fit against each other.

Jungkook feels his eyes are invasive, so he shuns them, swallows down something of a nothing and
fixes his stare to the floor, to his shoes, still so glaringly contrasting the surface they step on.
Expensive is all he has, all he can borrow from Yoongi and Hoseok.

“Jeon?” His eyes pry away from his shoes and back to Jimin at the sound of his vaguely familiar
voice. He has confusion clearly etched onto the features of his face, his body still half tugged into
Taehyung’s.

Jungkook’s attention bounces from one to the other. His lips part. He doesn’t know how much
Jimin is aware of what he and Taehyung are, doesn’t know if the situation calls for a greeting or an
explanation. His tongue is futile in his mouth as he glances to Taehyung when he senses him turn
to him, latches onto the chance for help.

“Can you wait for me upstairs?”

Jungkook’s lips smack closed. Oh. He wants to be with Jimin now. That’s okay. It’s okay. He just
— he just wants to be with Jimin now.

“Yeah,” Jungkook nods, hates how tight his chest feels, as if his ribcage is shrinking onto his
lungs, “whatever you—“ he stops, tugs the corners of his lips to the side in a pathetic attempt of a
smile he forsakes within a moment, “Yeah.”

Jungkook types several texts to Yoongi and proceeds to delete them after seconds of his thumb
hovering over the send. He opens his chat with Taehyung as well, debates just checking in, but it
feels really fucking dumb. He’s downstairs. And if he wants to talk to Jungkook, he can very easily
make it happen. But no, he wants to talk to Jimin now. Jimin hugs him.

He hates this. Whatever it is. He’s scared. For Woojin, mostly, except he knows Kai won’t hurt
him. It’s not fun for him. He’s scared. In general. His chest still feels tight and he has a physically
bitter ball settled right at the beginning at his throat. He tries to swallow it down, but it is fruitless
and it only seems to get bigger with each attempt. His leg is bouncy, his stomach empty, and his
fingers restless, tapping at his chest, at his phone, at apps, at letters.

Jeon Jungkook is anxious. It’s so unfamiliar and so uncomfortably physical. He tastes it and he
feels it. He’s changed the position he’s in four times the last ten minutes and he keeps looking at
the clock on his phone, but the numbers simply don’t seem to change at an adequate pace. A
minute is an hour.

Such raw and conscious insecurity is unknown to him. He’s so incredibly fidgety, all the way until
the door opens and Taehyung walks in.

Jungkook straightens on the bed when he does with an immediacy that would embarrass him on a
good day, but he has slipped into pure reaction at this point and he hardly cares. He swears he
shouldn’t be so aware of his heartbeat.

“Tae,” he pronounces softly as he sits up, his eyes greedy as they take him in. He’s there.

Taehyung closes the door behind him, but he doesn’t move closer to Jungkook. Instead, he
manages to get further away, pressing himself into the surface, body slouching tired. He props his
hands behind him as well, shoulders curling together and Jungkook is looking at him but he is
looking at the floor.

Before his eyes snap up. “Did you know this never crossed my mind?”
“What?” Jungkook breathes, eyes darting all across, trying to gauge anything they can out of him.

Taehyung shakes his head, pushes away with a sharp exhale but he doesn’t step, stays put, a hand
dragging across his face. “I can’t believe I never once thought something could happen to Woojin,”
he confesses, his voice raspy, low as if he said it any louder it would add more truth to the words.
“I didn’t think about this once,” he tells him clearer, throwing the hand down, nothing shielding his
face anymore. “Every time Kai was brought up, I was so worried he would do something to you.”
He does take a step then, then three. “It was a constant Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook. I had like a
thousand scenarios of how he could fuck you up,” Taehyung says, voice raising more forceful for a
moment before it drops weak again with the shake of his head. “I never for once stopped to think it
could be Woojin.”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tries, not standing up, but shimming across the bed until he is sitting in
front of him. He opens his eyes as wide as he can will them, leans his body forward as close as it
can get. “I didn’t either. No one could predict—“

“It’s not your job to worry about my baby brother,” Taehyung interrupts, words racing. “It’s mine,”
he cuts. “He’s my number one priority. I’m raising that kid. He’s fucking everything to me. He’s
always been.” His head is shaking again, lightly, just the tip of his chin turning. His eyes hold
something Jungkook has only seen a variation of before. He can’t really recognise them, not on
Taehyung, but he does know so tangibly the guilt inside them. “And I said his name,” Taehyung
continues, his hands raising in frustration in the air as if he struggles to make sense of something,
of this, of everything, “in front of Kai, because I was so, I was so, so focused on you, on acting in a
way I thought you’d want, in the possibility that he would leave you alone, and that you and I
could run off in the fucking sunset.”

His hands drop limp to his thighs and Jungkook can just stare. He needs to get it out. He knows he
does. He knows this, the self-bashing, the senseless, painful retrospection, the what ifs, the
mistakes, the frustration. Jungkook will make it go away. He will, because he will bring Woojin
back — that is certain. He knows so damn well Woojin is not what Kai wants. But saying that over
and over again won’t do anything for Taehyung’s current thinking, for the onslaught of what’s
currently an unredeemable guilt.

Jungkook has to wait and bring him back.

“You were right,” Taehyung’s spine suddenly straightens, shoulders a line in a stance that is perfect
and curiously ominous, as he stares at him from above his chin, “to push me away when you did.
Us together has fucked everything up so far, hasn’t it?”
Jungkook’s heart, as close to literally as he can imagine, drops.

“No, I wasn’t. Taehyung, you’re panicking,” And Jungkook is panicking as he is saying it, his
voice trembling, his heart hammering.

“Of course, I’m panicking,” his voice raises as his eyes widen, puncturing into Jungkook’s with
their naked, guilty focus, “my little brother is gone because of me.”

“Taehyung,” Jungkook tries. He wants to touch him, just at the wrist or the elbow or something.
He’s always felt entitled to touching whatever he wants. He settles for shaking his head instead.
“It’s not because of you,” he says it low and slow, returning the uninterrupted attention Taehyung
now offers, tilting his head slightly with the attempt to best level his words, to convince him he
means it. He’s as careful as he can muster, as pointed, and still he is scared it will not be enough.

And it isn’t because Taehyung pries his eyes away. He shakes his head, raises his arms and catches
his hands at his nape for a moment as he exhales angry, then calmer, his gaze fitting to the ceiling
as he cranes his neck back. Jungkook can see him blinking, too many blinks for him to count until
his eyes shut for a more permanent moment. “Forget about it,” Taehyung releases his hands and
drops them weightless by his body. “I need a shower,” he announces, moving back to the door,
reaching for it.

“Tae.” Jungkook is on his feet.

He blinks at him. His eyes are wet, but there are no tears in sight. “What?”

“Are you—“ he can’t speak. He gulps, the words You were right playing in Taehyung’s voice like
a mantra again and again in his stupid, stupid, anxious head. He hasn’t felt like this since he was a
child. He hardly remembers he’s ever felt like this, erased all memory of stuttered anxiety and fear
to be a big strong man and now? Now, he has absolutely no idea how to deal with it and it’s
bursting inside of him in waves.

“Am I what?”

The anxiety pries straight from his stomach, past the bile in his throat and lands worded on his
tongue. “Are you gonna break up with me?” He swallows, the gulp of the sentence nauseating.
Taehyung’s arms grows looser in the air between his body and the door handle, his chest receding
with an exhale that coaxes his eyes closed. “I don’t have the energy for this question, Jungkook,”
he sighs the sentence out.

“I—“ Jungkook starts an ‘I’ that doesn’t have an end and he is glad Taehyung’s eyes open for him,
interjecting.

“I love you,” he says, loud and clear and probably stronger than Jungkook could ever muster. “I
chose you,” he insists. “I’m not leaving you.” He shakes his head, voice lowering once more,
growing softer as his eyes do, too, trailing over Jungkook. “Sit down,” he prompts. “You can
shower after me and we’ll try to sleep.”

“You want me to stay?” Jungkook asks softly. They hadn’t spoken about this and he refuses to just
assume.

Taehyung’s lids lower over his eyes. “I have absolutely no idea how to do this without you,” he
confesses before he disappears through the door, letting it slightly cracked opened behind him.

Jungkook knows from movies more so than from life that relationships aren’t really just about
regular sex and joking about. He knows he has to be there for him, now, too, when things are bad.
Julia never expected this from him and he never expected this from her, but he wants so
desperately to be able to. He’s good at everything, he’s always been. He feels so utterly inadequate
now.

The door creaks. “Tae?” Namjoon asks, his palm pressed into he surface as he hovers at the
threshold.

“He’s showering,” Jungkook offers.

Namjoon nods and falls silent, but he doesn’t pull away. He stands there, halfway into the room
and halfway outside of it. He’s quiet for long enough or maybe Jungkook is just that much into his
head that when Namjoon speaks again, his voice is startling. “He’ll want the bag, won’t he?”

Jungkook stares ahead where he is sat at the bed, not at the man at the threshold. He locks his
fingers together, thumbs playing in rhythmic circles around each other as he rests his elbows on his
thighs. “He’ll want more,” he says.
A pause follows once more. Then, “I don’t think he’d hurt him, either.” A consolation for
Namjoon and Jungkook both.

And Jungkook has to look at him now. “Maybe we’re being wishful thinkers because it’s our
world,” he tells him and he knows Namjoon’s mind is not as blank as his eyes are as they focus
and then blur on Jungkook on his father’s bed. “Kai,” Jungkook continues, swallows, wets his lips
with his tongue and adjusts, still so fidgety on the mattress. “He’s ours. Not your sister’s, not
Taehyung’s. Woojin has absolutely no place being in it.” Namjoon’s eyes drop to the floor. His
foot lifts and toes knock into the boards of the old house. Jungkook glances at his fingers, tries to
get his voice to layer with his typical detachment; it used to be so easy. It used to be harder to be
anything else. “He’ll speak to Min Yoongi about terms.”

Namjoon raises his attention again. “Not to us?”

He shakes his head. “It’s best Yoongi does it.” His lips press together to hide how his teeth grind,
but he knows the pulse in his jaw betrays it easily to anyone who cares to notice. He has to shake
hair from his face. “They’re friends,” Jungkook pronounces bitterly.

“Friends?” Namjoon pronounces skeptically. His brow edges upwards and his expression contorts
with some haughty disbelief that doesn’t really look to good on him, but Jungkook understands it.

“The type of friends you have in my world,” he elaborates, straightens up on the bed. He’s been
hunching for so long his back starts to ache, but he thinks he feels his stomach hollow less when he
arches his spine like this. It’s open to sensation now and all he feels is it’s empty. “They’re
contacts,” he makes it simple. “They’ve known each other so long.”

“You’ve known him longer,” Namjoon remarks.

Jungkook’s hands glide over the sheets, shuffle along the material before his fingers dig into it
slightly. “Things between me and Kai fell apart a long time ago and you know it.” Things between
him and Kai fell apart for the exact reason Jungkook has always lived with an animosity for
Namjoon himself and the truth of it seems to settle heavy and palpable in the air between them
now. He doesn’t want it there. It doesn’t have place being there, anymore, he thinks. If Namjoon
can forgive him for what he did to Taehyung, than he supposes he can forgive him for enabling Clo
for so long. “Do you want me to leave?” He asks mostly to change the subject. He knows this night
belongs to the Kims and they should be together, but Taehyung wants him to stay, so he’s staying.

“It’s okay,” Namjoon dismisses with a small shake of his head. He pulls his hand away from the
door and uses it instead to distractedly run fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his
forehead, getting his face bare. “Ji-woo is already in Woojin’s bed. Junsu is in Tae’s. Room is
yours,” he tells him and his hand drops. Jungkook thinks he can feel him hesitate. He definitely
sees him swallow and it is Namjoon’s fault for exposing his face like this, every feature and for
allowing Jungkook to witness it. But then again, maybe Namjoon doesn’t care to hide. “How’s
your sister, Jungkook?”

His voice is certifiably different than a moment before. It has a certain heaviness attached to it,
distinct from the worried anxiousness that carried in it previously. “She’s better. Jin is good to
her,” Jungkook confesses and Namjoon shakes his hair back to his forehead with a single motion of
his head, “good influence, cares so much, and he’s not afraid to show it.”

Namjoon locks his arms before his chest, glances down at his feet as they now both touch to the
floor firm and rooted. “I’m glad to hear that.”

He’s silent, but he’s still standing there and Jungkook once more feels the urge to proclaim, to
promise, bundling out of him.

“I’ll get him back, Namjoon,” he says, whispers. When it is just Namjoon, he whispers, because
Namjoon understands, he has seen Kai, he has played with Kai.

“I know you will,” Namjoon nods, gaze picking up to meet Jungkook’s determined eyes. “I just
wonder at what cost.”

Jungkook feels the words put a new weight of anxiety on his shoulders as they actually, physically
course through his body. His lips part and he has not much to offer, but still he wants to say
something, that it doesn’t really matter what the price to pay is as long as Woojin is safely home,
when a hand pushes the door more from behind Namjoon and Taehyung slips himself past and into
the room.

Jungkook’s eyes glue to him like magnets, studying him for anything new in the few minutes he
was gone. His hair is wet, but he’s dressed, ready for bed, basically, and if Jungkook paid attention
to anything but his face maybe he would have recognised he was wearing clothes he’d given him.

“There’s a towel in the bathroom,” Taehyung addresses to him, though he doesn’t explicitly look at
him. Namjoon does, a hurried small shift of his eyes, anxious in its own way before he nods a
silent goodbye, goodnight and moves away.
Jungkook gets on his feet and follows. The water pressure is low, too low for how lost he imagined
he could get in its loud, bashing blur, but it will have to do. He turns it on as hot as it will go, until
it’s steaming and his skin is turning slightly red. He cranes his head down, eyes pinning shut, lids
punitive with how hard they press together. He feels drops rolling down his face, at his lips, the
edge of his nose. His hands cling at his hair, rub through wet, tangling strands. He’s broken
between standing there for as long as water can be hot and going as quickly as possible back to
Taehyung.

The battle is short. He washes himself with something cheap that smells pricelessly like Taehyung,
basks in it, and gets out. He puts his underwear on backwards and leaves it at that, drying himself
quick and rough. He’s glad the mirror is too steamy for him to see his reflection, though his palm
briefly lifts and places against the glass fo it until the print of it stays with every single detail,
looking somehow forensic when he pulls it away.

Taehyung is in bed, wrapped in just a sheet without a duvet, but perfectly cocooned inside of it and
it looks wrong, him hidden away in fabric instead of hugging himself around something. His back
faces the door. His back faces Jungkook. He can see the pattern of his shoulder and back lift with
his breath, even and shallow.

He closes the door as softly as he can. He touches his palms to the bed first, then his knee, his eyes
skidding over Taehyung’s shape underneath the sheets. He can see his face from this height as he
hovers over the mattress. His eyes are closed, cheek puffed against the pillow.

Jungkook lies down on his back, close enough to feel the heat of his body, but not touching him.
His eyes fit open wide to the ceiling. There is a crack in it. He can see it even in the darkness, just
the outline of it puncturing the paint. It’s nothing serious, nothing dangerous, just an imperfection
they cannot afford to fix.

“Jungkook.”

Jungkook’s gaze snaps to him, body tilting slightly to proclaim its attention, because Taehyung is
speaking, so softly, but he is not looking.

“Thought you were asleep,” Jungkook says quietly, matching Taehyung’s murmur.

Taehyung’s head cranes then, just a twist in the neck to briefly look at him. “Can you hug me
tonight?” He asks and Jungkook blinks, startled. “I know I usually do it and you’re not very
cuddly, but— please.”
Jungkook blinks again. He can hardly do much more. He doesn’t remember a moment where his
mind was so literally blank of cohesive thought. He’s confused, but he’s warm and he’s shuffling
closer before he can catch a single good trail of thought.

“Of course,” he sighs and Taehyung is relaxing his head back on the pillow as Jungkook is draping
himself over him, fitting his stomach and chest against his back.

Taehyung wraps his fingers against his wrist when it comes closer to him and somehow the night
isn’t sleepless.

“What does he want from me, hyung?” Jungkook demands, restless on his feet as he gets on and
off the curb in Yoongi’s garage. “When does he want the bag?” He’s asking, words spilling quick
and incessant before he really gives the other the chance to provide a reply. “He can have it
anytime,” he throws his arms to the side. “His terms.”

“Jungkook,” Yoongi pronounces, voice in striking contrast, slow and low.

“Whatever he says, I’ll fucking do it,” Jungkook declares and pauses. He turns to Yoongi, captures
his eyes with permeating determination and tells him, “I need that boy back, Yoongi.”

He draws a breath with the finality of it, finally allowing himself a moment of stoic silence and
Yoongi the chance to talk. Yoongi trains his eyes on him, studious and apparently calm, arms
crossing. Yoongi appears paler than usual, Jungkook sees now, when he looks at him for long
enough, and that is saying something. He wants to ask him if he’s okay, but he doesn’t, not now.
He lets him speak. “You’ll do whatever he says?”

Yoongi’s eyes narrow slightly with his question, gauging Jungkook’s expression as if it would be
more truthfully telling than his words and although Jungkook has turned genuine now, in this
moment, he knows he has earned this, the attempt to peel down layers with scrutiny and a priori
scepticism. But he’s honest now. “Anything.”

Yoongi slips his eyes over him twice more before he breathes, looking away. His gaze scatters
around the room then, darting over everything and nothing. Yoongi knows how to read Jungkook
and, in turn, Jungkook knows how to read Yoongi, so when Yoongi swarms with reluctance, he
sees it.

“Yoongi,” he takes a step forward, speaking softly to make himself seem more rational. He’s not
entirely capable of reason right now and he is aware of it and Yoongi even more so. Jungkook’s
determination is hard to stifle. “Tell me.”

Yoongi’s tongue coats briefly over his lips, pauses at the corner of his mouth. “He wants—“ he
starts, stops, and his chest heaves before he turns back to Jungkook with an arch of his chin in the
process and evenly tells him, “He wants you to say you had the bag in the first place. He wants you
to take blame for the assault on the girls in front of Byung-Chul.”

When it’s said and done, done and said, he roams his eyes across the garage once more, doesn’t
fixate searchingly on Jungkook. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and he looks away.

But it doesn’t help much because he can still read the deflation in his voice when he speaks, when
he realises, “He’ll fucking deform me.”

When Yoongi summons the courage to look back at Jungkook, his own eyes are trained on the
floor, somewhat restless as they bounce around even, uneventful cement. He’s right — Byung-Chul
will make him suffer, he’ll drag it out and he will make sure it leaves in permanence, whether he
will deform him or outright end him. Yoongi knows that and he knows, too, still it doesn’t change
anything for Jungkook because Jungkook is stupid and has been developing a hero complex for a
while now, much before Taehyung, as compensation for many, many things.

“That’s why you’re meeting Kai first and you will fucking bargain,” Yoongi insists next, voice as
determined as Jungkook’s previously was.

“Yoongi—“

“You will,” he tells him again, because he can’t convince Jungkook not to go, but he can at least
get him to reason. “Get in the car,” he instructs, opening his own door.
“Wasn’t your license confiscated last week?”

“Just get in the fucking car, prat,” Yoongi says and leaves little room for answer as he slips into his
seat, slams the door shut. If Jungkook wants to talk, he has to get in the car. The door sings in a
moment and Jungkook slides in, closes it behind him. Yoongi is staring ahead, so Jungkook does,
too. “He says you can bring along your ‘little bitch’ which I suppose is Taehyung, but no one else.”

Jungkook’s eyebrows narrow. “He wants Tae there?”

“He supposes you would want him there,” Yoongi says, turns to him and Jungkook instinctually
follows. “He’ll let you see the kid’s alright.”

It takes him a moment. “Is he?” He asks softly.

“Kai wouldn’t hurt him,” Yoongi shakes his head, answering fast, too fast maybe. “It’s not his
style,” he justifies, a slightly noticeable tremble betraying his composure.

Jungkook turns to his lap instead. “I don’t know him anymore, Yoongi,” he confesses in a murmur,
a bit ashamed there was a time he used to. “Did he say anything about Woojin?”

“He’s staying with a nephew of someone,” Yoongi says and his hand distractedly drives over the
wheel even if he is not starting the car, not leaving the garage. “A kid he goes to kindergarten with.
He’s asking lots of questions. Nephew helps distract him,” he recites, searching his brain for any
information Kai let slip.

Jungkook doesn’t really say anything to this. Relief swarms him, warm and filling, but it might be
treacherous, it might be futile. Relief might cheat him into slacking and he can’t afford that.

Yoongi clicks his tongue in the silence, adjusts himself slightly on the seat and speaks. “Open the
glove box.”

Jungkook charts his eyes to him confused, but Yoongi only beckons with his chin as he notices his
brows furrow and his gaze asking. He glances forward again, reaches, clicking at the glove box
and it falls open. Two items are there, one sits calm and necessary, the other glares and makes
Jungkook’s chest heave. The car documents and a silver gun.

“I’m not taking that,” Jungkook turns hurries to Yoongi, eyes wide and head shaking. “I don’t need
that.”

"Im not letting you go to Kai without one,” the other cuts simply.

“Yoongi,” Jungkook breathes sharply.

“Jungkook,” he equals. “Please, for once. Fucking respect me. I’m sober. I’m fully fucking sober.
I’ve barely been taking shit since,” his lips part and his mouth is dry, Jungkook can see, so dry his
saliva is foamy and white as it stretches between his teeth, “since Clo,” he finishes, pauses. “I’m
scared, Jungkook,” he tells him calmer and Jungkook doesn’t think he’s heard him say that since
the first time he boxed, bare knuckle, aggressive and hungry. “You’re not going to use it. You’re
just going to have it.”

Jungkook pries his eyes away, turning forward sharply with an exhale. He pushes his tongue into
his cheek, mind ticking with consideration, and he shakes his head. “Kai won’t believe I’d use it
anyway.”

He doesn’t know where to put his hands now after he opened the box. He doesn’t want them to be
close to it, can’t hold them in his lap, so he holds one against the window, close to the roof, and the
other at the hand rest. It looks awkward, feels uncomfortable, but he clenches his fists and stays
like this.

“We don’t believe he’d hurt the child, too, but we’re both scared fucking shitless,” Yoongi says in
a loud justification that sounds more like an exhale as it comes through his lips. His eyes dart
between Jungkook’s with a pause in which his mouth remains slightly opened just so that flash fo
teeth can be seen. He looks at one, he looks at the other. “People snap,” he states, singularly and
conclusively, waiting for it to fully settle before he speaks again, prying his gaze away for the
moment. “It will scare him. He knows you. Knows you get insane when it comes to people you
love.” He adjusts on his seat, his voice lowering more to the barely enunciated mumble he usually
speaks to him, one that used to annoy Jungkook when they were growing up. “Tonight. His club.
He wants you to bring the bag to see you have it and wants Taehyung there to tell the kid to stop
asking questions and stay calm. You’ll make arrangements for Byung-Chul,” he explains, and then
his gaze returns. “And you will bargain, Jungkook. With that to his chest if you have to.”

“Yoongi—“ Jungkook tries.

“With that to his fucking chest if you have to,” his voice returns as well. He licks his lips. His
mouth is so dry. Jungkook wants to ask him how he’s going about lowering the drugs, if he’s being
careful. Yoongi can’t do cold turkey like Jungkook can. Jungkook is all or nothing; Yoongi is
methodical. And, compared to him, Jungkook is an absolute amateur when it comes to drugs.

He promises himself he will ask him after, after it is all over. It will soon be over, Jungkook
realises, staring at Yoongi’s dry, drugless mouth; him almost clean, Clo in rehab, both her and
Jungkook out of the apartment, that goddamn bag almost out of his life and Taehyung two feet,
fully in it. They are certainly closing a chapter of their life, and Jungkook, for the very first time
really wants to be alive for the other. He has never thought he wants to be dead, never, but he has
never had such a palpable, conscious thirst to be alive either.

He twists himself more towards Yoongi, licks at his own lips. “You think I have a chance?”

Yoongi’s head cocks. “You think Kai wants you dead?”

Jungkook sighs, shutting his eyes in a moment of consideration. “He needs someone to take the
blame,” he says.

“He doesn’t truly want it to be you,” Yoongi shake this head.

Jungkook leans back into his seat, somewhat tersely, stares ahead at the grey cement of the garage,
his hands helplessly throwing in all the space the car allows him to be desperate. “What’s my other
option,” he asks, turning to the other with his eyes wide, “be his friend again?” He slaps his hands
down, swallows his deflation. “He’s crazy enough to make me choose.”

“He’s crazy enough for a lot of things, that’s what worries me,” Yoongi nods. He leans back into
his own seat again, one hand on top of the wheel even if he currently has no control of it, habit. He
rests his head, shuts his eyes and Jungkook looks at him for a while before he does the same. They
sit like that in a comfortable silence, comfortable seats. Yoongi is tired. Jungkook is exhausted.

Yoongi’s eyes blink open. He might pass out if he keeps them closed for too long. He exhales a
sigh, exhales the words. “I’m sorry.”

It’s so soft, Jungkook thinks maybe he imagines it, but he pries his own eyes open anyway, rolls
his head until he has Yoongi in his sight and by his expression he knows he did speak. “What are
you sorry for?”

Yoongi doesn’t return the look. “There are enough things,” he says simply and blinks up from his
lap to the garage. “Plenty, actually.” Yoongi sighs once more, sighs so loud and continues, and
silences any potential attempts of Jungkook to speak. He shuffles on his seat, raises himself into
the air and rummages through his back pocket, slips something out. He falls back down, drops the
car keys in the cup space between them with a distinctive clink. “Car’s yours until I get my license
renewed.”

Jungkook breathes through his nose, returns his eyes forward. “I don’t want a car,” he shakes his
head.

“The Kims might,” Yoongi says and it’s silence again.

Taehyung would probably love to sit in this car, to drive it a bit, if things were different. He can’t
imagine him being excited over something like this now, and it is a very simple thing of Jungkook
to notice, but suddenly it all feels worse, to be rid of something so small. He had been proud to
have made him excited, the time he let him drive his car. He wonders if things will ever normalise
themselves enough, so that moments like that can transpire again; he misses that excitement much
more than he misses his own car.

Jungkook sighs, shoulders lifting, chest puffing. “If Byung-Chul lands me in jail or—“ he slants his
tongue over his lips, “in a fucking grave,” he snorts out, humourless laugh.

“Jungkook,” Yoongi’s voice comes and it strains, “don’t chat shit.”

“Whatever,” Jungkook blinks the statement away, shakes some hair from his eyes, “What I mean
is,” he turns to him, “take care of Clo, please.”

Yoongi considers, nods. “She can take care of herself, but I will,” he promises. Then, softer, “You
know I will.”

“Well, then take the same care of yourself, okay. Whatever advice you would give her, Yoongi.”

And, Yoongi, with a surprising amount of energy, lifts his hand up, slaps him loud and clear right
over the head. “Don’t talk to me like it’s the end of the world.” He opens his car door. “I’ll see you
tomorrow.”

Jungkook doesn’t really know how he expects him to react. He imagines if the roles were reversed,
he’d probably break a thing or two. He’d attempt to break Kai, probably, which would be a
mistake.

He stomps his way through the room, all eyes on him. “There must be another way.” He can barely
recognise his voice.

“Tae—”

“No,” Taehyung’s eyes are wide when they meet his, when he stops for the second to tear the word
from his throat and then continues, step after step, each that leads nowhere. Namjoon and Junsu
stand out of his way, corners of the room, bodies equally folded over, arms tangled in front of
chests. Ji-woo sits at the table, blank, seemingly numb. Jungkook is the only one who stands in his
way, a wall and a barrier to his wild pacing, confining it only to the kitchen, itching to reach for
him and offer something each time he comes closer. “Why doesn’t he just want the fucking bag, he
can have the bag. He can,” he stutters, “he can burn it to the goddamned ground, why do you—“

“He needs a scapegoat,” Jungkook tells him, as calmly as he can muster. He is not calm. He
doesn’t know what he is, but it is not calm, not with the way he is aware of the skin on his arms,
but he manages to be collected and maybe he can keep it up some more, because now he thinks he
has to have composure for them both, has to have a composure that would convince Taehyung
everything will be alright.

And it is difficult to have when all he feels is impending doom.

But he does have the advantage of knowing Kai is not impartial to him, Kai would probably like to
be able to play him longer. Passing the bag over to Byung-Chul is too singular, would certainly not
satisfy his malicious hunger. Kai probably wants Jungkook to bargain, to offer himself, make him
feel as if he is avoiding something grander and settling for being his toy for a while, as a kindly
compromise. He doesn’t tell Taehyung that, because he doesn’t certainly know that.

And because Taehyung doesn’t really let him speak for too long.
“No,” he says. “No,” he insists. “You’re not doing it. Who knows what Byung-Chul will fucking
do to you. You’re not doing it.”

“This isn’t your decision, Taehyung.”

“Nor is it yours. I don’t want to just— exchange one person I love for another. If Byung-Chul
thought you were responsible for what happened with his daughter, he would just—“

He comes subconsciously within his reach and Jungkook lifts his hands up, palms over his
shoulders. He squeezes there, reassuring, but he knows it does little. He tries to capture his eyes for
longer than the wild stares Taehyung throws him as he deems fit, when Jungkook says something
that he finds immediately incredulous. Otherwise, he reserves his gaze mostly for his feet and
naked floorboards. So Jungkook leans down slightly now, tries to catch his eyes in their downward
trajectory. “Calm down,” he tells him, softly, privately, with a rub into his shoulders when
Taehyung does lock his eyes with his.

Taehyung breathes, stares at him with wild eyes in a way that somehow, to Jungkook, feels
innocent. His chest expands, shoulders lift and then fold over, deflated. “This is unfair,” he says,
voice lower. “This isn’t fair.”

“I’ve done some stupid things so far—“ He tries to say, but Taehyung seems to be tired of karmic
justifications because he is at it again, Jungkook’s hands falling futile as he steps back, chin lifting
and he looks at him at level now.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “So have I, but Kai has done worse, so why the fuck does he get what he
wants?”

“I don’t know, Tae,” Jungkook shakes his head. “But that is what he wants for Woojin and you and
I both know that’s what’s most important right now.”

He doesn’t counter him, because it’s true. Woojin is number one priority; deserves least to be in
Kai’s claws and Taehyung cannot fail that kid. He just wishes it was truly up to him not to fail him.
He pokes his tongue in his cheek, turns away and continues his pacing, head shaking viciously as
he repeats. “This isn’t fair.”

He is aware eyes are on him, Ji-Woo sitting surprisingly silent at the kitchen table, trailing her gaze
over his back and forth. He half wishes to scream at her, are you happy now? He wants to say. He
wants to be petty, to get it out, get out this poison in his stomach, but he doesn’t have the gut and
she doesn’t actually seem in a told-you-so mood. She doesn’t seem anything, really, she just sits
there and stares at him. And so does Namjoon, and their father, and Jungkook.

Jungkook, who allows him to pace in silence for a bit, who licks at the corner of his lips and side
eyes the room, considers asking him to speak in private, but they all deserve to know the rules. “Do
you want to see Woojin?” He asks, his arms folding protective over this chest.

Taehyung whips around, brows furrowed. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Kai wants to see that I actually have the bag tonight,” Jungkook tells him, shifts his eyes once
more to the others, speaks to them, too, catches their glances briefly before he returns his attention
back to Taehyung, “says I can bring you along, show you he’s okay.”

He watches his eyes widen, even the irises seem to grow larger, but maybe it’s jus the way he
stands away from the light. “He’s okay?” He asks, brows perking up, voice breathy and hopeful,
lips remaining parted.

Jungkook wants to meet the hope with a sure, loud, full-chested, yes, but he sticks to truth, nods his
head, tells him, them, “That’s what Yoongi says.”

Taehyung closes his mouth, starts walking around again. “Yes,” he says. “Of course, yes.”

He walks until he is stopped right in his tracks, the voice of his sister, dry as if this is the first time
she speaks that day. “I’m coming, too,” she announces.

Jungkook looks at her. He goes for cautious. “He only said Taehyung,” he tells her, delivers it slow
and even, as near to simply informative as he can muster.

She lifts her hands in the air, twists her wrists, palms opening as if she is throwing something. “I
don’t care,” she answers, before she leans on her seat, folds her arms, her brows permanently
higher on her forehead.

Jungkook is glad for Namjoon there, needs voice of reason. He steps up, speaks careful, but with
the much needed warning. “Ji-woo,” he presses, “this is Kai.”
Ji-Woo meets his eyes boldly, unrelenting. “I know,” she concedes evenly. “I’ll stay outside, but
I’m coming.”

“Ji—“ Taehyung attempts, pronouncing the single syllable with all the former affection he used to
have for her in the very few instances he spoke of her, a troubled, sympathetic affection the Kim
siblings have for each other that Jungkook almost completely destroyed with his actions.

“Don’t waste words,” she cuts him off, sharp, but curiously affectionate, too, her eyes on her
brother’s. “I’m not letting you go to his layer, too. I’ll be outside,” she repeats to consolidate, “just
in case.”

Namjoon breaks the rising silence, claps his hands together, sighs. “Well, I’m coming, too, then.”

Kim Junsu gets another one of his son’s Red Bulls from the fridge. It will be a long night. “Guess it
will be a family trip.”

Jungkook looks around them, all standing with a similar determination. The Kims. Everyone has
always had to say about the Kims, pests, leeches, thieves, sluts. No one ever really said to
Jungkook they were the closest thing to an actual family, accommodating to survive Richhood.
“Fine,” he breathes and it seems to set things in motion, heads turning, feet shuffling, chairs
scraping. “Namjoon, stay out of the way of Kai’s security footage. You know where the cameras
are.”

Kai is holding his hand. It is the first thing that registers with Taehyung as he stands shoulder to
shoulder with Jungkook, ready for everything and for nothing at all. He sees him holding his little
brother’s hand, walking him forward in slow, measured steps, and he has too summon all his
strength to abide by Jungkook’s pep talk; don’t fucking snap.
“Taetae,” it is the first thing the kid says, eyes widening upon the sight of his brother.

“Woo.” He starts forward on an instinct, but Jungkook clasps at his forearm, pulls him back in
place, as close to him as he can stand.

“Smile,” he says from the corner of his mouth, squeezes in tone with the instruction and lets him
go.

Taehyung glances at him from the side, but Jungkook is fixated forward, his eyes rooted on Kai,
who whole-heartedly returns it. So Taehyung turns there, too, briefly skims his gaze over Kai, but
then he’s immediately fixing on his little brother. He gulps once, feels like his mouth is too full for
him to smile if he doesn’t. Then he attempts it, presses his lips close together, teeth tightly drilling
into each other, and he forces the corners of his mouth into his cheeks. He hopes it looks like a
smile. It doesn’t feel like it, but then Woojin waves, a tiny, innocent wave, and it slightly does.
“Hey, Woo,” he greets, as tightly as he smiles.

Kai enters his sight more and more, suddenly leaning down towards the boy, bringing his mouth
closer to him, but he is looking at Taehyung and Jungkook when he speaks, a poignant malice in
his eyes and the way it matches the own, contorted twist of his lips, a taunting smirk and chilly
satisfaction. “Wanna go hug your brother, Woowoo?” Kai teases, head cocking as he talks to him
with a pretence of affection that makes Taehyung’s blood churn, as does the way he so boldly
deigns to say his name, the name only his family calls him.

Taehyung doesn’t intend to aim his body forward, but maybe he twitches, his foot does, or perhaps
his whole leg, because he has Jungkook’s warning fingers and warm palm catching at his arm
again. He tugs at him a little bit.

“Stay calm,” Jungkook speaks through gritted teeth and Taehyung turns, sharper than before, his
own teeth pressing together, some hair falling in his eyes.

“He doesn’t get to—“ he starts, grumbling out, but Jungkook stops him with a brusque, telling
stare. His eyes meet his from their corners, his head tipped towards him ever so slightly, still
keeping Kai in his periphery just in case he does something sudden.

Jungkook has the gun with him. It is in his tucked in his belt, hides beneath a blazer and it feels
heavy and cold pressed against his skin, even if it has been there for a while. He has it with him,
but the idea of pulling it out to scare him feels far away, foreign, especially with Woojin there,
holding his hand.
“Stay calm, Tae,” Jungkook says, voice low, tells him to be calm as he tries desperately to cling
onto his own composure. It’s usually easier with Kai. Kai has never held a little boy he loves by the
hand, though. “His rules,” Jungkook reminds him with a small jut of his chin. “You’re telling
Woojin everything’s alright.”

Kai’s smirk stretches at the interaction, as Jungkook quietly lectures, and he waits for it to settle for
Taehyung, for him to get it, to nod, to turn forward and make a clumsy, nervous attempt of a smile
again. He does, plays by the rules and tries, gaze dropping away from the daggers it instinctively
shoots at Kai and instead slips welcoming back to his brother.

Kai gives him a little push. “Go, Woowoo.”

Woojin is out of Kai’s reach and Jungkook is immediately marching, forward, getting in his face,
but Taehyung’s awareness of it falls as his focus finds his brother.

The kids rushes forward at the indicative light shove and Taehyung falls down instinctive, one leg
folding over, knee on the ground, the other keeping its foot pressed there firm. His arms spread a
little, welcoming, inviting, eyes focused on his brother as he approaches with a slight bounce to his
step, an unknowing grin on his mouth that makes a dimple pop, such striking innocence that it’s
somehow painful.

“Heeey,” Taehyung prolongs, voice airy and light, voice careful. It rasps at the end and he
swallows tries again. “Hey, baby,” he says, something he hasn’t called him in two years, as he
raises his hands, swipes them over his forehead, cleaning off hair, to see him better, see him full.
“How are you feeling?”

“I’m good,” Woojin grins, nods, steps trustingly closer and Taehyung’s hands lower, catch him by
the shoulders, rub there, make sure he’s real, he’s there. He’s suddenly fascinated with how big his
palms feel against him, with his own rapid awareness of just how small his little brother is. “Kai
hyung and Yun taught me a game last night,” he tells him, brags.

“Did they?” Taehyung squeezes into him, his voice slightly shaky; he doesn’t want to imagine
what sort of entertainment Kai has in his repertoire. His palms rub. “What did you eat, Woowoo?”

Woojin’s face screws slightly, a pout forming. “When?” He asks before the pout deepens and he
shakes his head vehement and quick. “I didn’t have any bad snacks, Taetae, I promise.”
Taehyung’s hands fall from his shoulders, wrap around his wrists and he takes them, presses them
together, as he ventures. “But you’ve eaten?”

The kid’s brows draw closer, but he nods, anyway, answers docile.“Yes, hyungie.”

“Good, baby,” Taehyung praises, pulses his hands gently around his wrists in reassurance. “Who’s
Yun?”

“He’s my friend from kindergarten, but you haven’t met him.”

“I haven’t?” Taehyung perks his brows, licks his lips. His designated Woojin voice is even more
exaggerated than usual, frail, as it bounces around the walls of his throat before it slips. “Is he
nice?” He asks, receives a convincingly energetic nod and allows it, tugs at him. “Okay, come give
me a hug, Woowoo,” He says before he wraps himself around the child, at first unresponsive in his
arms. “I missed you.”

“It’s been one day, Taetae,” he complains, voice muffled in Taehyung’s shoulder as he holds him
close, as close as he can get, as wrapped around him and separated from the rest of this room, the
rest of this world, a hopeless, physical, instinctive attempt at protection.

“I missed you,” he mutters, buries his nose in his hair.

“Why are you shaking, Taehyungie?” Woojin asks, his arms finally slipping around Taehyung’s
rib cage in response.

Taehyung sniffs air, tries to tighten every muscle in his body, stop himself from trembling, make
himself stronger. “I had too much coffee, Woowoo. A lot of coffee at work today.”

“Ji-woo says no coffee.”

“I know she does,” Taehyung says, swipes his hand over the back of his head gently, fingers
distractedly running through strands. “Listen to your sister or you’ll end up like me.”
“Hyungie,” Woojin whines, tries to pull away, but Taehyung cups his palm more secure over his
head, pushes down, makes sure his forehead touches his shoulder, “what’s going on with Kai and
Jungkookie? I can’t see.”

Taehyung can. He sees them, talking, voices quiet and eyes sharp. He can’t hear them and he’s
thankful, that means Woojin can’t, either. “They’re playing a game,” Taehyung dismisses, makes it
simple, though his heart hammers, skin tingles. “They’re just playing a game.”

“What game?” Woojin asks and Taehyung curses curiosity. Taehyung hates curiosity.

“It’s stupid one,” he says.

“Don’t I get to play?”

“No,” Taehyung tells him, sharper than he intends, his head shaking against him. “No,” he repeats,
softer, sweeter, what Woojin deserves. “You’ll never have to play this game,” Taehyung promises
him as his eyes dart hurried and stinging over Jungkook, every motion he makes, tries to read it,
make sense of it. “It’s a stupid game,

Jungkook walks up to Kai the second Woojin is in Taehyung’s arms, allows a quiet rage to settle
over his features, his lips shaping a snarl, his eyes glinting vituperative as he marches up and
pauses just in front, just a single pace, chest raising into his.

“Kai, you’ve out-fucking-done yourself,” he hisses, speaks quiet. He doesn’t want Woojin hearing
and quite honestly, he doesn’t want Taehyung as well, doesn’t want him there at all, but he can’t
risk changing the rules at such an early stage of the game.

Kai’s head cocks, his lip twitches. The skin on his neck folds and bundles and the reptile there
smiles as vicious as its owner does. “Why, thank you,” he nods. “Yoongi says you want to talk.”
Jungkook gulps down some aggression, summons composure, and lifts up the fucking bag in the
air. “Yoongi says you want me to give this to Byung-Chul myself,” he counters.

Kai regards the object more contemplatively than Jungkook expects him, the smirk dwindling a
tiny bit. Not the answer he expects, Jungkook notes. “Yoongi is correct,” Kai says nevertheless,
adjusts his stance. He spreads his legs wide, bulges his chest, shoulders pulling backwards, as wide
as they would go. He holds his elbows and nods to the floor. “Put it on the ground and open it for
me, Kookie.”

Jungkook holds his stare for a lasting moment, an elongated challenge, before he bends, squatting
on the floor. He places the bag there for balance before his hands reach for the zip. He pulls it
open, doesn’t notice Kai fails to peek at the contents as he chooses then to steal a glance at the
boys, sees Taehyung clutching at Woojin’s head, talking in his ear.

“I wonder out of sheer curiosity,” Kai’s voice pulls him out of it from above and when Jungkook
twists his head to look at him, he finds he’s been looking at them, too. “If I made you choose which
one to keep alive, who would you pick. Bet it would be the one you get to fuck if he wouldn’t ever
fuck you if I burst the little boy’s brains out.”

Jungkook’s on his feet, in his face, in a moment, in a flash of something white, any notion of
tentative composure slipping and breaking into pieces. He’s snarling, lips pulling back over his
teeth, eyes shining with threat. His heart hammers in his chest, his veins pumping with an
adrenaline that in itself feels violent with how pure and hot it is. “If you touch a hair on him—“

Kai lifts his chin forward, getting even more in his face. “You’ll do what?” He challenges, his
every feature cruelly laughing.

Jungkook doesn’t know when he pulls it out. He only knows he presses into his chest, shielding it
with his arm away from Taehyung’s view. The throat of the gun buried right between Kai’s
ribcage. “Don’t try me.”

He’s sure it’s not the first time Kai’s been held at gunpoint, but perhaps it is the first without his
goons around to cock one back at Jungkook. There’s no guarantee that no one’s hiding in a back
room now, waiting for a sign, a snap of Kai’s fingers, but to think this through Jungkook would
have to think and for a few bold, naked moments Kai completely obliterates that ability of his.

Kai looks down, looks up. The smile is lost on his face, his lips tugging tight as he swallows. His
blink is mismatched. He is nervous, Jungkook knows. He doesn’t expect this. He’s thought a
couple of moves ahead, but he can’t act them out.
“I wouldn’t hurt the child, Jungkook, you know that,” Kai tells him, voice tame and even, despite
the swallow that betrays affect. He looks Jungkook right in the eyes and he meets the stare back.
“I’m just running my mouth.”

Provocation. It’s Kai’s thing and it is most likely true; getting Jungkook to lose his composure is
exactly what he targets and he gets it, just not in the way he expects.

“Do I?” Jungkook’s head cocks. His hold on the gun is too light and he knows it. “I don’t know
you anymore, Kai.”

The other’s eyes narrow, offending first, but now offended. “Whose fault is that?”

“Fault?” Jungkook snickers, something cold and cruel raising high in his chest. “I don’t want to
know you.”

“You like to pretend that you don’t,” Kai accuses, his body coming closer, digging itself further in
the gun. “That’d you’ve moved on from someone who’s only good for people like me to someone
who’s good for people like him,” he throws his chin at Taehyung in indication, makes his eyelid
twitch, “but you’re still Jungkook,” He says. He uses no adjective, no noun, just his name as
synonymous to all he means to describe, but it is enough and Jungkook sees him take pride in the
very fact of it, as if it is some deeply rooted truth of his words. “And you know me,” he continues
with a cock of his head, “Longer and better than you’ve known him. And I know you, so much
better than he does.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “Not anymore, Kai.” He hopes doubt doesn’t seep into his expression,
into the way he holds the useless gun against him. “People change.”

“No,” Kai tries to form another smirk on his face, but it is too crooked, more of a snarl, “not really.
They don’t.” He shakes his head, leans it forward over the barrier Jungkook puts between them.
"You don’t. You just adapt yourself to people you love. If it was me you’d suddenly started
fucking, you’d be helping me take that child.”

“I don’t love him because I fucked him but because he’s everything that you and I are not,”
Jungkook says it as crude as he does, with the same hollow certainty. “I’d never give that bag to
Byung-Chul for you, Kai. I’d do it for him.”
Kai’s eyes grow as narrow as those of the snake on his throat. “Heartwarming.”

Jungkook’s mouth pries open but he doesn’t get to speak. “It truly is. My son’s a sap.”

It’s so quiet. All Jungkook hears is Kai’s grunt. His expression changes so quickly. The snarl let
loose until all his lips can form is a diminutive O, a small oval as they part and release a gasp of a
breath. His eyes open wider, lids relaxing around irises, the challenge from them evaporating.
Jungkook has never seen eyes change so quickly. Any power they hold diminishes, they glaze over,
they look like nothing, pure nothing.

Jungkook darts his own all over him with confusion. “Kai,” he breathes, his whole face screwing at
the change, all his focus on him and he can’t hear the steps. His ears are ringing and Kai is falling.
“Kai,” he repeats, a naked, shrill panic in his voice as he tries to catch him as he falls forward. It
seems like it takes a moment to Jungkook, but it is less than a second between the grunt and his
body toppling heavy into his chest. He catches him by the arms, tries to hold him up. There’s no
wound in his front. Kai drapes his head onto Jungkook and he sees, red and glaring on his back,
almost round, but misshapen.

“Jungkook,” Kai says, a heavy breath in his neck and he is clutching at his shirt with a fist, all his
body weight on Jungkook, all his power waisted on that grip.

“What did you do?” Jungkook hears Taehyung’s voice as if comes from underneath an entire
ocean. His ears are ringing. “Jungkook, what did you do?

“Nothing, I didn’t, I— wouldn’t. I—“ He has a gun in his hand, still, a gun that Taehyung now
sees, a gun he did not fire. He drops it to the floor, holds Kai with both hands, gets down because
he cannot hold him up, his muscles are clay, his fingers are trembling, arms are shaking. He drops
the gun and he gets down, next to the bag, gets on his knees, Kai in his lap.

“What was that, Taetae?” He hears Woojin’s voice, innocent and so startlingly young and he
swears he feels something pop in his heart.

“Nothing, baby.” Taehyung presses his head to his shoulder, cradles the back of it harder, fingers
making their way through strands, rubbing in comfort that he himself needs. “Jungkook dropped
something.”

Jungkook doesn’t know what to do. He has no idea what to do. He pushes hair out of Kai’s face,
his cheek pressed into Jungkook, hopes his eyes can tell him because Kai always has a plan, but he
is just staring into nothing, breathing heavy, back raising and falling, making that wound pulse to
live, an occasional whimper evoked from his lips.

Jungkook grasps at the fabric of Kai’s shirt, bundles it and presses it into red. Everything is red. He
presses there and he presses hard, stop the blood flow; he knows he should be doing that. The
wound is low and off-centre and he should be alright, he will be alright. He’s bleeding; his hand is
clutching hard into his shirt. Blood makes it’s way there too, somehow, splutters. It’s so completely
messy and Jungkook is a mess as well.

“My pride and glory,” he never hears the steps, only the voice, materialising as if from no where,
always, always in Jungkook’s head and for a moment he thinks he imagines it, but then he looms
over and Jungkook’s looking up. “Shaking. You really are a pussy, aren’t you? Spend my whole
life thinking I’d made a man out of you.”

His father stands calm over them, a man that used to drive Jungkook places when he was younger a
few meters behind, expressionless. He holds a napkin. And in the napkin a gun.

“Dad. How did you— “

“Kai really should have done off with that useless brother of his a long time ago, but he kept him
around because he was family,” he spits it out as if it is poison, unrelenting in his approach. He’s
almost there. Jungkook can almost see his shiny feet when he hears Kai splutter and looks back
down. He has blood on his stomach. He’s coughing blood and Jungkook doesn’t know what that
means, but he knows it isn’t good.

“Tae, call an ambulance—“

Taehyung keeps one palm tight on Woojin’s head, pressing it incessantly into his shoulder. The
other he has pressed against his ear, phone in hand. “I am.”

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, he demands, desperation lacing his voice. He doesn’t
know this man. He’s running his eyes all over him, every inch of him and it looks like the person in
whose house he lived, whose food he ate, whose cars he drove, but it can’t be him.

“Not letting this piece of shit you’re holding in your arms like he’s your fucking girlfriend
compromise my relationship with Byung-Chul over a game with you.” He slips a napkin out of his
breast pocket, his name engraved in it. Jungkook’s name engraved in it. He extends it forward.
“Want a handkerchief?” He cocks his head, and Jungkook can only glare. “No?” He clicks his
tongue, bends, uses the handkerchief to grip at the strap of the cursed bag and lifts to his full height
again.

“Here’s what will happen,” he narrates calmly as he steps around the blood on the floor. “You will
do nothing to impair my relationship with Byung-Chul. You will be independent from me, but
neither you nor your fucktoy,” he breaks composure for the sake of spitefulness, charges his eyes at
Taehyung for a second and Jungkook wants to scream at him not to look at him again but he has no
voice, “will ever publicly say a bad word of me. I was a good father to you. I supported you. You
chose independence. This gets burned as it should have a long time ago.”

He shakes his head. His eyes hurt, burn when they look at him. He shakes his head, gulps. “This
doesn’t make you a winner.”

His father’s brows jump. He nearly snorts, an unflattering, childish sound, slurp of his voice that
reminds Jungkook he is not half the businessman he thinks he is, is incapable of the class, the
composure, the coolness, calculation. He is not Byung-Chul, and he will at some point fail.
Jungkook will make him fail.

“And do you think he makes you a winner?” The man behind him reaches forward, gets the bag
from him docile and silent and steps back again. “If you do anything different to what I said, my
lawyers will have plenty of proof you pulled the trigger.” Those are his parting words, simple,
instructive. He leaves through a back door, through Kai’s door, without another glance and
Jungkook tries hard to release any anger he holds for him right now. He presses his teeth together
until they hurt, turns to Taehyung instead.

“Get Woojin out of here, Tae.”

He stares at him for a moment, his big eyes bigger, wide, ravaging all over Jungkook. But in a
moment he nods, hugs Woojin around the waist, gets on his feet and leaves.

Jungkook whips his head down, gaze latching fiery onto Kai. His eyes are shut. He’s shutting his
eyes. “Kai,” Jungkook calls through gritting teeth. He’s hissing his name out, saliva gathering in
the corner of his mouth. He shakes at him, presses fabric harder over his wound. “Kai,” he says
louder, clearer and realises he had been subconsciously hissing to avoid the way his voice now
breaks, “you fucking piece of shit. If you die in my arms, I’ll kill you, man.”

His eyes are still shut. He can see him breathe and he hears him moan, weak and elongated from
the initial sound. Jungkook runs his free hand over his head, chases some more hair away. He grips
his chin, lifts it up, jostles it slightly.

“Kai, you motherfucker, wake up, stay with me, do you know who I am?” His eyes part and then
they shut and Jungkook releases him, slaps him, and then catches at his chin again. “Tell me who I
am, look at me and tell me who I am.”

His eyes take a couple of blinks to fully part, but they do. “Jungkook,” he mumbles. Jungkook has
never heard Kai weak.

“That’s right,” he swipes his palm over his cheek on instinct. “That’s right.”

Kai clutches harder on his shirt. “Jeon Jungkook.”

“Yes,” He hisses out. “I’m Jeon Jungkook. And I won’t let you die.”

Taehyung rounds the corner where he knows his family is, still clutching Woojin tightly to his
shoulder. There is nothing more for him to see that he shouldn’t but Taehyung’s arms are solid
around him; he feels he’s lost control of their motion and can only keep him there in a shallow
attempt to shield him from shit. “What happened?” He’s curious, demanding in his throat. Of
course, he is.

Taehyung has to swallow twice before he answers. “Game over, WooWoo.”

“Who won?” Woojin whines.

“No one won,” Taehyung murmurs, voice fading as his sister appears before his eyes. He manages
to unwrap Woojin from around him in a second, but he doesn’t put him on the ground, passes him
to her instead as she reaches for him readily. Taehyung forgets his age in that moment. It’s his baby
brother and that’s all he knows. “Take him home,” he says.
Ji-woo’s whole face sinks in relief as she sees him. “Come here,” she mutters under her nose, a
breath, skin of her forehead folding as all her features pull with so much of that relief it seems
pained. She hugs him to herself, as Taehyung had, and Taehyung manages one breath before
Namjoon’s hand is at his shoulder.

“What happened?” He asks, has to lean and cock his head to try to track Taehyung’s eyes, which
are everywhere. He’s out of breath for no reason other than that his body seems to forget how to do
it without his conscious command. “Taehyung, are you okay?”

He raises his eyes, meets concern. “Just take him home,” he says. He wants to go back. Jungkook
is there. Kai is— he doesn’t know what Kai is. He saw him drop. He’s never seen someone get
shot.

“Was that a shot?” It’s his father who asks, he thinks. He’s disoriented between them, has a hard
time deciphering who looks, who squeezes at him and who speaks.

He looks up. Ji-woo has eyes on him now, focused. She shakes her head. “It’s not Jungkook,” she
says, in a release of a breath.

Taehyung shakes his head. “Kai,” he says, one word, all he can manage. “Listen, I—“ he turns
around, looks at the building before his lips smack shut. He licks them, starts again. “Get Woojin
out of here,” he repeats with urgency, dances his eyes between them to tell them one more time.

Ji-woo locks eyes with Namjoon. Neither moves.

“You two go,” Junsu steps forward. Taehyung thinks he has a hand on his shoulder now, but he
can’t be sure because he’s not standing in front of him. He’s next to him now. “I’ll stay with your
brother.”
Jungkook’s head raises like that of a rabbit when he hears steps, his eyes immediately widening as
they lock on Taehyung who does not pause once as he walks towards him. “Why are you back?”
Jungkook’s demanding as soon as he sees him, and Taehyung shakes his head, drops on his knees
ungraceful and bruising when he’s close enough.

“I called an ambulance,” he says, voice urgent, eyes permanently fixed on Jungkook’s. “They’ll get
police. If we’re here when it gets here, we’re in this.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow, jaw twitches. “That’s why you’re leaving,” he returns tightly, pressingly,
gaze dancing all across his face in some silenced attempt to study every feature once more, just in
case.

“No, I’m not.”

He’s too focused on Jungkook to see his father bend, pick up the gun. He holds it lightly between
his fingers, rotates it to examine it closely, keeping any digit away from the trigger.

“Taehyung,” Jungkook’s teeth press together. “Get the fuck out,” he insists, stresses, juts his chin
in a random direction to urge him.

And Taehyung shakes his head again. “No.”

“Yes,” he hisses.

Taehyung’s eyes bounce with a flash. His tongue is fast in his mouth, powerful as it whips, “You
wouldn’t leave, why do you expect me to?”

It’s too late, anyway.

It’s a blur, but there’s sirens, then there’s people.

“What happened?” Someone’s asking and Jungkook is finally, finally looking away from him.
Someone is squatting next to Taehyung, head tilted down and focusing immediately on Kai.

“Bullet wound,” Jungkook says simply, numbly, and Taehyung is getting pushed out of the way,
standing on his feet, hovering near as a person lowers in front of Kai, bringing his face forward.
Jungkook lifts his hand for a moment, shows it. “He got shot.”

“He got shot?” Someone behind Taehyung is asking and he is twirling, face to face with a police
man that advances with a stern face, a purse to his lips. “Did any of you witness it?”

“It’s Kai.” Taehyung’s hearing voices, murmuring voices. They come from his sides. An arm is
locking around his, his father pulling him away gently before he is pushed about more. “Isn’t that
Jeon’s son?” Someone whispers. “Yes, it’s the Jeon twin.”

Taehyung wants to see them; he wants to know, why does it matter. It’s a boy who got shot and it’s
another who’s trying to keep him alive. What does it matter?

“Did any of you witness it?” The stern men asks, his head titled down, eyes mostly narrowed at
Jungkook with offensive expectation.

Jungkook’s lips part, his eyes dart. He stammers. “I—“

“I shot him,” a voice next to Taehyung is saying and Taehyung’s head whips. Kim Junsu raises the
gun. His face is bare of emotion, features straight, ordered and relaxed as if he sleeps with his eyes
opened. His sentences flow just as much of a nothing, a straight line of words that duly inform. “He
kidnapped my son,” he says, ignores the way Taehyung’s hand falls down, grips at his wrist,
squeezes. “So I shot him.”

Taehyung moves closer, from the side, chest hitting his shoulder and he glares and he seethes,
“Dad, no.” He begs, “Dad, I forbid you.”

Junsu leans, speaks to him just as calmly through the corner of his mouth. “We’ve always known
I’d end up in jail at some point.”

Taehyung clings to his arm harder, lips parting, but Junsu’s holding the gun, Junsu is fucking
confessing, straight up, shamelessly claiming that bullet in his back as his, and someone is soon
holding his other arm, urging him away from Taehyung.
“Sir,” a man in a uniform puts his hand on his father’s shoulders, one of those men that were so
desperately interested in Jungkook’s last name. He doesn’t recognise him, doesn’t know the Kims;
the Kims are the roaches, and are only known by the big names of the houses they inhabit. “I’ll
have to ask you to put your hands on your back, spread your legs—“

“Dad,” Taehyung protests in an attempt that feels whiny, but he doesn’t have any energy left to
care.

Junsu stands still as cuffs click declaratively in place behind his back. He only tilts his neck,
catches the eye of the man behind him. “Can I speak to my son?” He questions, so frustratingly
calm, natural with procedure. “I’ll come willingly after.”

The man handles his elbow, juts his chin at it. “I will have to hold onto you.”

“Dad—“

“Tae,” Junsu’s head spins, eyes catch his as he pronounces his name with atypical stern finality,
demands his attention, his silence. When Taehyung’s lips smack shut and wide, confused irises
dart over searching, he resumes, still with a peculiar, settled tranquility, quiet and private, “This is a
long time coming.”

Taehyung’s head shakes, eyes blink. “Not because of me,” he whispers back, regret on his breath.

Junsu adjusts his step and the hand on his arm tightens, makes him pause. He speaks to him gently,
“It’s not because of you,” he assures softly and for a blind moment Taehyung feels younger,
Taehyung remembers when his father used to be a father. “We all had a part to play in this, how I
raised you,” he tongues at his lips, acknowledges with a sour tip of his head to the side, “or didn’t.
Every one of you, all four, even the little one,” he trails and Taehyung’s lips part, but the man tugs
on his arm and Junsu interrupts, “how Jungkook was raised, how Kai was. You were fishing for
blame earlier, all my children, all of you, but really it was my fault. Your mother’s, too, to a certain
extent.”

“Dad—“ he tries again, brows furrowed.

Junsu asserts his repeated interjection with a step towards him, voice raising to overpower his. He
has no time. “Somehow, despite it all, maybe I did a thing or two right, because you have been a
much better parent to Woojin than I have.”

Taehyung’s teeth clank. “Dad.” His eyes dance between his, expression relaxing as it sinks, as if it
will really happen.

“They’ll keep me warm in there, Taehyung,” his father says because it’s really happening. He had
the right words on his lips, a gun in his hand. “It’s nothing premeditated and he didn’t die, so…” he
trails, gauging his son’s face. It has never been truly easy to say goodbye to any of his children and
his motivation this time doesn’t make it any easier. “Keep being a better parent to Woojin for me
please. Raise him well, you, your sister and Namjoon, and Jungkook. I’m counting on you to do a
better job raising him than I did you. And I did miss you, Taehyung. I always miss you.”

“Dad, no,” Taehyung cuts, terse, his body moving with it. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t
Jungkook or me. Jungkook’s father—“

“I know,” Junsu interjects. “Court will never believe that, though, will they? He’s rich.”

Taehyung’s head shakes, voice comes airy and futile. “Dad.”

“It’s me or Jungkook.”

His throat feels dry, his eyes sting. “Daddy.”

“I have more reason to be there than him.” He nods. He, his father nods at the man, and he starts
walking, pulls him along and Junsu steps in rhythm.

Taehyung stares after, helpless, really, to do anything. He feels he doesn’t know anything at that
moment. His head feels so utterly empty of connecting thoughts. Watching his father get taken
away appears absolutely surreal, distanced from him and from his actual physical reality. He has
hands, on them fingers, and arms and legs and he can move them. He flexes his digits once and
relaxes them, makes sure he has control of that and he does and he realizes his feet attach to a real,
distinct physical floor, to ground, to earth, and this is all truly happening.

“You’re Kim Taehyung?” Another one of those men speaks and Taehyung turns, recognizes his
name, gets pulled back to present, to here and now. The sound seems to change, decibels raise, and
he shakes his head, he gulps. He remembers himself.
“Yes.” He nods, pointedly turns his body towards him, forces his attention on him to pull it out of
his head.

“The Jeon twin got on the ambulance with Kai. Asked me to tell you to go home,” the man says
simply, job done, hands clapped, and he turns to leave, does not care for the way Taehyung’s face
changes, convulses, features drawing together, confused and concerned.

Taehyung lurches forward, grabs the man by the arm, quickly, in indication, grounds himself
physically to his body to assure he’s hearing him. “No, but what hospital are they going to?”

The man slips away from Taehyung’s touch and draws back, disregards him with a shake of his
head. “Just listen to Jeon, kid.”

Taehyung’s lips part. “I—“

“Go home,” the man dismisses. He walks away. Jeon has spoken and Jeon has the last word and
Taehyung is brought more to reality not only to how he was from a minute ago but how he has
been for consecutive days at this point. He goes home.

“Jungkook.”

Jungkook gets on his feet on an instinct, his eyes widening slightly as they land on Yoongi in the
doorway. “Hyung,” he calls in tight greeting, but the other’s attention is not on him. He’s staring
past and behind, to the body that lies so lifeless and frail, looks so much like a cadaver. But he’s
only sleeping, Jungkook knows, Jungkook has been chanting that to himself with his fingers
pressed to his lips, rocking back and forth for he doesn’t know how long at this point.

He’s drugged, safely drugged, and he’s resting, and he’s asleep. He will wake up. He’s okay.
Yoongi closes the door gingerly. He steps into the room, eyes still helplessly training on the lying
figure behind him. His head shakes. “You didn’t—“

“It wasn’t me,” Jungkook rushes out as quickly as he can, body turning to follow the trajectory of
Yoongi approaching. He nears, stands next to Jungkook, thighs almost touching the bed. He stares.
Jungkook’s shoulders lift, fall. He tells him, quiet, a layer of disbelieving shame hinted in the way
he can only hiss, “It was my father.”

Yoongi stares at it, at him, for a few moments more before he inhales, deeply, almost coughs, but
he clears his throat. He turns away from Kai and towards Jungkook, raises a hand and rubs into his
temples, with a thumb and a pointer finger, eyes falling shut as his head arches down, as he
rummages through it, wonders. “I think I can get you a lawyer without my parents finding out.
We’ll have to fly him in from—“

“Kim Junsu confessed to it,” Jungkook interrupts, admits. His fingers are tapping at his pocket,
flicking against it, his nail bashing against the metal of something there, but it doesn’t hurt enough.

Yoongi’s head raises, brows shift up. “Taehyung’s father?” He asks.

Jungkook’s lips press together tightly as he nods. “He took the blame,” he tells him. He would
offer more of an explanation, but he has hard time comprehending it, too. “Can we get someone for
him?” he urges for that instead of trying to justify it because after so many things to regret he
grows a sudden, poignant obsession with thinking about a will, a going to, not of was and used to
be. He can’t deal with that anymore, with the helplessness of was. So he gazes imploring at
Yoongi, at Yoongi who is, “Settle for the shortest sentence possible. He—“

“Of course, Jungkook,” he raises his hand, cups it over his shoulder, squeezes once. He exhales for
them both, guides him subtly as Jungkook mirrors. “Calm down,” he says, applies suggestive
pressure with his hold and sinks together with him as he sits back down in his previous place.

They sit next to each it other and it forces their knees to face Kai, forces their eyes on him.

“Okay,” Jungkook breathes, runs a palm across his face. He looks at Kai. He hasn’t looked at him
so simply in a while; he’s not glaring, eyes not narrowed, or calculative. He doesn’t need to be
wary of his every move because Kai is immobilized, confined, asleep. “There might be footage of
him with Woojin at some point. I don’t know how much of it my dad got taken care of, so—“ he
gulps, blinks. He doesn’t want to think of his father. “Might be evidence he had him with him.”
Yoongi nods, just lets him speak, even if he doesn’t understand all that he is saying, just allows
him to get words out, to keep himself in motion, in flow. When he grows silent, Yoongi grows
worried. “Are you okay?" He asks and he is aware it is really dumb question, but it gives him an
excuse to look at Jungkook and not at Kai.

Jungkook shakes his head. “He shot him,” he says, his voice high and void. He speaks
mechanically when he continues after a long pause, says words, eyes never once betraying their
devoted fixation to Kai’s lifeless body. “I caught him when he was falling. He was so heavy. I
couldn’t hold him up. He was— he was really heavy,” he manages short sentences; it seems to
make things simpler. He shakes his head again, intertwines his fingers in his lap, palms squeezing
together. “He’s been unconscious for so long.”

Yoongi glances at him now too, at Kai. “He’s a bad person, Kook.”

Jungkook’s eyes are wide when they flash at him in a moment. “That’s what ninety percent of
people that know me would be saying if I was there. They’ll have good reason to, as well.” His
elbows press into his knees and his head falls in between, fingers digging into strands of hair,
tugging, worthlessly punitive. “Fuck,” he curses in a sharp, short exhale, a heavy word he feels
beneath his skin, in his bones.

Yoongi doesn’t say anything to that because it is no use confirming it and he tries not to lie to
people he cares about. He lets him dangle his head, grab at his hair, lets him deal with it another
time, one more time, all the time. They all enjoyed impunity for way too long a time to get calmly
through moments like these.

He sits back in his chair, back relaxing into it. He folds his arms, stares at Kai. “Sorry I gave you
that thing,” he says, mostly to pull him out of his thoughts, but to say it, too, because he doesn’t
know what happened, doesn’t know if it had anything to do in this play even if Jungkook’s finger
never touched a trigger.

Jungkook straightens up, palms clapping together again. He has his bottom lip sucked into his
mouth as he shakes his head. “Wouldn’t have changed anything,” he confesses. It wasn’t him,
wasn’t Yoongi and it wasn’t the gun. Wasn’t Kai, either. It was all his father and it was all
business. “But you were right. It threw him off. The direction the conversation was taking— he
might have wanted something else from me,” Jungkook finishes and he does what he doesn’t want
to. He thinks. He thinks and with thoughts comes pity.

“He has no one here,” Jungkook says, voice raw. Kai has no one. Here is just a place now. “His
fucking brother is too scared to be here. No one wants to be officially associated with him.”
“He made his bed, Jungkook,” Yoongi tells him tightly. He knows where Jungkook’s mind is
heading, drawing comparisons, painting himself to be worthy of the same, him and Clo both,
always, constantly, worthlessness first, and then the guilt if they do have something, and then they
ruin it, and Yoongi cannot let him ruin it. “You don’t have to sit by it.”

“I don’t want to leave him alone.” Jungkook shakes his head, turns to Yoongi, speaks in earnest.
“I’ve known him almost before since he could talk, let alone be a bigger bastard with every word
that he said.“

“I’ll stay,” Yoongi tells him.

“Yoongi…” Jungkook trails, eyes low, on the floor, and Yoongi knows he doesn’t understand, he
knows he thinks he is trying to strip responsibilities off of his shoulders when he is just fulfilling
his own. He has no hero complex like him. His proposition, his proclamation, is partially selfish
with the way things weigh on his own conscience, and it has nothing to do with Jungkook.

“Go be with that family,” Yoongi urges, a gentle nod towards the door.

Jungkook shakes his head. “I don’t want to leave you by his side.”

“I have more reason to be here than you do,” Yoongi meets his eyes for as long as he can hold them
before he blinks down to his lap, mutters. “It’s been like that for a while.”

“No, you don’t,” Jungkook insists, always helplessly a center of his own universe, always better
then, always guilty now, “You know him better now, but I introduced you to him.”

“Jungkook,” Yoongi pronounces tersely, eyes still boring into his own lap, fingers dancing lightly.

“What?”

He keeps his voice low but it does nothing to diminish the effect of what he feels when he thinks of
it, when he speaks of it and it is the first time he does, out loud, voiced, professed and no longer
avoidable. “Ever wondered why Kai didn’t blink an eye at your sexuality?”
“What?” Jungkook exhales, eyes sealing onto him sharply. “You—“

Yoongi raises his gaze up. He looks at Jungkoook “I’ve slept with him,” his neck grows suddenly
cold as he says it, in tune with his heart racing even if the rest of his body remains somehow
wondrously calm. “I don’t have half a romantic feeling for this man, Jungkook, and I never will,
but I will wait for him to wake up.”

Jungkook’s lips press together. He’s blinking over him, facing him as now he is the one to face
away and fold over, to bury his gaze in the ground, elbows in his thighs. Jungkook’s stare is blank
but unrelenting. It seems to last so many moments before his lips release, his jaw grows loose.
“Does Hobi know?” He asks.

Yoongi’s head whips, eyes widen slightly. “You’re not surprised?”

Jungkook shakes his head, sighs and then exhales ruthlessly honest. “I don’t know what I am. I
saw my father shoot a man for the sake of his business relations.” It has him overly sensitive on the
outside, on the cover on his skin, on anything and everything physical in him, and then again so
numbed of deeper feeling for the day. He can’t take any more, he thinks. There is a threshold and
he’s past it. And he’s exhausted. And Yoongi is Yoongi, no matter what, and that’s that.

“Hobi doesn’t know and he will never find out, okay?” Yoongi says, sits back in his chair.

“Okay,” Jungkook nods, buries his teeth down in his bottom lip. “I just—“ he tries, “him?” He
raises brows, swallows judgement to make it about what he really means it to and it has nothing to
do with Kai and everything to do with Yoongi, “I thought it was—“

“It is,” he cuts him off and it is another thing he acknowledges aloud for the first time ever and he
wants desperately to feel relief at the confession, but it only makes him feel more entrapped in the
hopeless reality of it. “But you do realise I’m not Hoseok-sexual, right?” He cocks his head. “What
I like? This is something I want to know about myself, avoid your mistakes. I wanted to do this and
he— he was available I guess, up for anything, no strings attached, no chance of feelings. Couldn’t
exactly go to you, could I?”

“Yoongi…” he trails absently next. “You could have talked to me,” he says it mostly because it
would sit right in a situation like this, in conversation between other people. Not here, not really.
Here it’s empty and they both know it and Yoongi is the first to bitterly acknowledge.
“Yeah, you didn’t really give off that type of vibe,” he tells him, adjusts on his seat. “Before you
started this up with Taehyung, maybe I could have talked to you, but the more involved you got
—“

“I know,” he interrupts because he can’t deal with the retrospection of his own banal irrationality
right then. Still, it dangles voracious in the air, the past, the inescapable was he so desperately
wants to escape to focus on a redeeming will. His fingers play with each other as he presses his
hand into his seat, teeth tease over his lips once more.

Yoongi slants his body a little, peers at him from below to try and find his eyes. “Now I do feel like
I can talk to you,” he says, “okay?”

Jungkook follows his gaze as it raises, lifts his head up and straight. He stays silent, but he does
nod.

Yoongi nods back at him, turns away, forward. “You’re very lucky, to have found someone who is
brave enough and who makes you want to be brave enough.” He turns to him, fixes him with a
stare that is instinctively strict. “Don’t fuck it up with him again."

Jungkook sighs, lifts his leg up and hugs it in a posture he would not have allowed himself for a
long time. “I’m trying very hard not to,” he admits, blows some of the hair that slips before his eyes
and shakes his head. “Don’t know if it’s enough. Don’t know if I’m fit for this.”

It’s been a while since they have so genuinely spoken like this, no implication and no accusation,
little to nothing between the lines and everything said actually meant. It’s a calm conversation,
which they hold with soft voices and lost glances.

“For what?” Yoongi asks.

“For, like,” he shrugs, trying to clumsily articulate everything that’s been going through his head
the past few days, “an actual, real committed relationship with another human being. Seems like a
fucking myth to me.”

It takes a moment. “Learn,” Yoongi says.

“How?” Jungkook asks with sharpness that he at first feels is attacking but then he realizes it is
only desperate. “Have you actually seen a real-life one around here?“

“Not from other people,” Yoongi shakes his head. “From each other.”

Jungkook pries his eyes away, stares at Kai again, a little and a little past him and at nothing. “Park
Jimin was better at comforting him than I was,” he recounts, feels something that tastes bitter at
the beginning of his throat as he admits it. “He had to actually, verbally ask me to hug him to get
me to do it.”

Yoongi exhales, moves closer to him. “They’ve been friends for how long?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook shrugs. “As long as we have,” he guesses, realizes where Yoongi is
going with this and rushes into another sentence, his leg falling away. “But I love him, I’m
supposed to—“

“He loves him as well,” Yoongi interrupts, calm, before he can fully go on his tangent. “Be patient,
Kook. And don’t try to fill every role in his life. It’s impossible. It will drive you both crazy.”

Jungkook looks at him for a moment, body still perched forward in fighting mode, ranting mode
before he relaxes, slumps into the chair and asks him softly, “When did you get so wise?”

Yoongi’s lip twitches. “I’m your hyung,” he tells him. “I take care of you.” he shuffles his feet on
the ground, locks his ankles together and rests his back into his seat. He blinks forward, shrugs,
tells him lower, quiet. “It’s always easier to talk when it’s someone else’s life.”

They fall into a soft silence that is broken by the sound of vibrations. Jungkook taps a hand on his
pocket, feels for his phone and senses its shape in his pants, but no vibrations. He swears he could
almost feel it, but it’s Yoongi who gets a call. He scoots forward slightly, fishes his phone out and
places it against his ear.

“Hey, Hobi,” he greets in the phone and Jungkook strips his eyes away from him, allows him to
privacy of not scrutinizing his expression when talking to him so close to their previous
conversation. “Yeah. Jungkook’s fine. Yes. Tell her yes. Scathe free. I don’t know. No, he’s not.
I’m at the hospital. Only me. No, I’ll stay, but I’m kicking him out. No— no, you don’t have to.
Hoseok.” The line gets cut and Yoongi brings his phone to his eyes, glares at it for a moment
before he drops it in his lap.
“Is he coming?” Jungkook asks.

Yoongi turns to him, stares dully, lids lowering. “Guess.”

Jungkook rests his chin on his knee, feels the timbre of his voice when he speaks, “He really loves
you, you know.”

Yoongi’s jaw clenches. He squeezes his hand around his phone, blinks at nothing. “Like you love
Julia.”

Jungkook’s head lifts, leg drops. “No, Yoongi—“

“She asks if you’re okay,” Yoongi interrupts, pauses for a beat after his sentence is complete to
silently reinstate he wants the other conversation Jungkook tries to lead over and done with. “And
if Taehyung’s okay,” he continues after a moment. “But you don’t know how Taehyung is, do
you?”

Jungkook’s lips part, but he can say nothing. He didn’t even say goodbye to him, didn’t personally
tell him where he was going, he doesn’t know how Taehyung feels about what his father did, about
seeing a man get shot, about anything. He knows nothing and he is afraid to go home in case he
never learns, in case he can’t properly communicate he wants to hug him, wants to talk to him,
soothe him, help him, help himself through him. He wants that, but he doesn’t know how to say
that and he is so, so scared he isn’t what Taehyung needs right now. He supposes he won’t know if
he stays in the hospital and even the tiniest chance that maybe he is, that maybe Taehyung does
want that from him, too, right now, propels both his feet on the ground.

He is almost up when he chances a final glance at Yoongi, asks wordless questions.

The other nods. “Go be with that family,” he tells him. “He probably wants to see you. And the
longer that blood dries on you, the harder it will be to clean.”
He raises his fist to knock on the door, but the door swings open before his hand makes contact.
Park Jimin is at the threshold. He pauses in his step when he sees him, startled at first, it appears,
then he sniffs air, eyes narrow and he adjusts more on his feet, pushes his chest out, gives himself
more height. His lids drop, a once over, then eyes scanning Jungkook’s body as he stands there
waiting for any reaction. Finally, Jimin speaks. His head cocks, he asks. “Are you okay?”

Jungkook breathes, once. It’s not what he expects and he takes a moment, charts his tongue over
his lips and nods. “I’m fine,” he tells him because with the way he stares at blood on him it seems
the question is physical. He’s fine, he tells him even if he isn’t, because if he has to be fine to go
see how Taehyung is, he will be fine. He’ll make himself be. “Taehyung—“

“He wants to see you,” Jimin interrupts and Jungkook feels his shoulders slump with some rapid
evaporation of heavy tension. “Wants to know you haven’t done something stupid.” His eyes drag
over him, once, twice. Jungkook knows he knows now. “Apparently, you have a tendency.”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t.”

“Good.” Jimin says and exchanges places with him, going down the two steps at the doorway as
Jungkook goes up. “He’s upstairs,” he tells him. “You should wash your hands, take that off.”
Jungkook nods, looks away. His hand hovers by the door. “Jeon,” Jimin summons again and
Jungkook pauses, turns to him a final time. Jimin stands at the bottom of the steps and looks up,
hands in the pockets of an undersized leather jacket, head tipped up, eyes pointed. “I know it’s not
the time for this, but if you hurt him, I’ll pow you.”

Jungkook nods as his hand finally applies pressure on the knob. “Pow me.”

“Hi,” Kim Ji-Woo greets as he steps into the room and he is stuck to the door the instance he hears
her voice. She isn’t looking at him, her side turned, as she runs a plate under steamy water, scrubs
at it and puts it away, but by the way she speaks the simple word it seems she knows precisely
who is in her house.
 Jungkook clears his throat, he takes a step. “Hi, then,” he concedes, awkward, another interaction
he is utterly unfamiliar with. He pauses in his stride and he whole-heartedly expects her to be a
bitch to him, to tell him to go away. It’s her chance now. They’re alone. She doesn’t.

So he’s the one to speak. “Ji-woo,” he tries and her hand hovers over the faucet. She turns it off,
dishes undone. She turns to him, face not much of an anything, just an abundance of features piled
there, tired and reticent. “I just—“ he started, fails, “I wanted to—“ a final time, firmer. “I know
you don’t want me to see Woojin. I respect that. I’ll try to be here as little as—“

“You can see him,” She interrupts and Jungkook’s mouth, parted for speech, gapes. She looks
upon him for a moment, silent, then she tells him. “I understand what Namjoon says about you.”

Jungkook’s brows screws as he wanders another step into the he room, towards her. “What does
Namjoon say about me?”

“You either love, hate, or are impartial,” she says simply, listing these polarities that have always
poisoned his judgement. She shrugs. “I guess it’s something I’ve always been guilty of. I know you
love my brother. I know you love two of my brothers.” She tells him, “You can see Woojin.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ve all been through enough. Taehyung’s been through enough. I don’t want to be something
else he has to go through even if I still stand behind my opinion of you and what happened between
you,” she pauses for a moment, lets him interrupt, but he doesn’t, so she raises her voice higher,
admits through a breath. “You’re right. I can hate you without being an ass.” She sighs, nods to
their table. “Do you want something to eat? Jimin brought too much take out.”

Jungkook shakes his head, swallows down saliva that seems stuck to his throat. “No appetite.”

Ji-woo nods, wordlessly agrees it’s understandable before she turns back to her dishes. “Go wash
your hands.”
Jungkook skips that treacherous step — he knows this house now, he barely needs to look to make
his way around it — and continues up the stairs. He hears voices carry from the boys’ room, his
feet taking them towards it. He pauses at the threshold, coats his eyes over three figures sat there,
all the Kim brothers, focused on one another. Namjoon sits on the lower bunk. Taehyung has his
back to him and both cannot seem to be able to tear their eyes away from the youngest boy.

There is something quietly intimate in the way Namjoon and Taehyung mumble back to Woojin’s
excited chatter, in the way they sit together and focus on each other. He debates going in, but
deems it inappropriate. He wants Taehyung already, but his name dies in his throat, doesn’t even
reach his tongue as he observes the brothers talk.

Woojin’s telling them where he slept the previous night, that he was at a sleepover and that it was
fine and that he had fun. He worries his brows together in a moment as he blurts out words, turns
more exclusively to Taehyung.

“Ji says she will sleep with me tonight, so you will have to go next door, Taetae. I can tell her I
want you to stay if you want me to.”

Jungkook watches Taehyung shake his head, whisper something quietly to him. He’s running a
hand softly up and down his arm, cupping it at his shoulder, head tilted down and attention focused
on the little boy, who so excitedly returns it that he doesn’t even notice Jungkook’s figure hovering
at the threshold.

He pushes himself off wordlessly off of the door frame, lets them have the moment uninterrupted.
The door to the bathroom is cracked opened, but he flinches with its creak when he pushed it more
to let himself inside. He steps in, shoes too loud against the floor tiles, his own eyes in a tainted
reflection of an unclear mirror catching his gaze. He could partially see himself, a somewhat
blurred vision of his stained hands and stained shirt.

He has bags under his eyes that he thinks make him resemble his sister more and he wishes he
could speak to her then as Taehyung gets to speak to his siblings. Yoongi feels inexorably right in
the very moment he stares at those familiar eyes. He needs Taehyung in one way, but needs Clo
Eun in another, but he needs them both.

He notices him in the mirror, first. Taehyung appears in the doorway, pausing for a moment but it
is negligible before his feet shift and he steps fully in. He closes the door softly behind him and
approaches, his eyes fixed at Jungkook’s in their common reflection. He stops right next to him, a
proximity that somehow manages to get Jungkook’s breath to hitch even after everything. He
notices his eyes pry away, his head tilt down and he is taking in Jungkook’s spotted, bloody hands
raised in the air and spread.
Taehyung’s hands reach. He grabs at Jungkook’s wrists, tugs at them, forces them to the sink.
Without as much of a word, he turns the syphon on, adjusts temperature and then aims for
Jungkook’s hands again. He presses his fingers into the skin, rubs, scrubs, cleans, harder than
Jungkook could to his own palms, before he moves up the digits. Jungkook is tired of only seeing
his reflection, breathes through his nose, sealing his lips from exhaling at him before he turns his
head, fits his eyes over to him from the side.

Taehyung appears terribly concentrated on removing every spot of crimson from his fingers. He
even digs his nails underneath his, gets residue from there and lets water carry it away down the
drain. His face is incredibly close, expressionless to the point it speaks volumes. His lips are
pressed together, white, partially sucked into his mouth and despite the focus of his brows, his
blinking is rapid and unnecessary.

Jungkook glances back at the sink, watches watered red slip down the drain and disappear until his
hand is utterly clean and his skin is starting to ache underneath Taehyung’s fixated ministration and
the heated water. His thumb twitches and the motion of it seems to wake Taehyung up when a nail
brushes into his palm. He keeps one hand cupped over Jungkook’s and reaches with the other,
turns the water off before he faces him. Jungkook turns instinctively as the other does, body
rotating into place until they’re standing, chest to chest, breaths shallow but quiet.

Taehyung meets his eyes briefly before he blinks down Jungkook. He’s wearing a rather simple
long-sleeved top, a very small logo over his chest with a very large price attached to it. Taehyung
reaches, untugs it from his belt and then catches at the hem. He layers his gaze over Jungkook’s
own again and Jungkook gulps, nods, and raises his arms silently as Taehyung slides the fabric
easily over his head and holds it in his hands for a moment before he turns back to the sink.

He rinses it with cold water under as hard of a stream as the water pressure in their house would
allow, because otherwise the blood stain would never come out. As blood does, blood penetrates. It
has seeped through the fabric and onto Jungkook’s skin, a great, big, red blotch right across his
stomach, tainting his physique. Taehyung does away with what he can of the stain much better than
Jungkook ever could. He’s washed so many things by hand previously in his lifetime, for himself,
for Woojin, for everyone. He’s never washed blood before, but he gives it his best.

Taehyung squeezes water out of the shirt before he droops it carefully over the towel hanger. A
few drops drip to the floor, but Jungkook’s ears are buzzing and he barely hears it. He’s just
standing there, contemplating Taehyung’s silence, his eyes dashing over his every move. He hasn’t
said a word and Jungkook craves to hear the vibration of his voice, needs it.

Taehyung turns, still mute, he crosses his forearms, pinches at the hem of his shirt and raises it
cleanly over his head, disposing of it on the floor. His eyes disappear for a moment and then they
are shining at Jungkook’s again and he never takes his off, only cares for his eyes as Taehyung
undoes his pants, strips.

Jungkook stares as he takes a step closer, reaches for him, galant fingers unhooking his belt. He can
do little but look as he hears the loud clang of the enormous logo of the buckle meet the tiles. It’s
unlike Taehyung to discard something so expensive, simply release it to the floor as he now starts
to work the button of his trousers, and Jungkook is enthralled, cannot separate his eyes from his for
a moment. Taehyung undoes it swiftly, parts the fly and takes his fingers away, his body away. He
starts the shower instead, drops his underwear, too, and gets in the bathtub.

His eyes graze over Jungkook again, a silent expectation in them, and Jungkook holds them as he
strips anything left on him and lifts his leg, steps in, joins him. They stand as far from each other as
the bathtub would allow and when Jungkook fully comes in, his gaze relentless on Taehyung, the
other boy takes a step back, submerges himself underneath the water.

Jungkook stares. He watches his hair change from its fullness to slick and stick against his skull,
drop heavy over his eyes as he screws them shut. He watches his head crane backward, taking most
of his face away from the bashing water while allowing it to rain across his chest. He watches his
skin grow redder with the heat, a blotch of redness appearing on his shoulders where the water hits
the hardest but it does nothing to rival the dried almost brownish spot on Jungkook’s stomach.

Taehyung reaches a hand forward, fingers wound around the other’s wrist, and he tugs at him in
indication, asks him to get closer and he does, careful not to slip he moves to stand beneath the
stream as well. He struggles not to blink when drops reign heavy on his lashes, sting at his eyes.
He wants to look at Taehyung, he doesn’t want to lose him out of his sight, but then he moves. He
releases his wrist and instead slips his hand down, traces his fingers over Jungkook’s knuckles and
he unclenches a fist he didn’t know he was making, feels tips ghost over his palm before they trail
down, glide over the length of his fingers. It’s Jungkook who is the first that can take it no more.
He intertwines his digits with his, closes them over his knuckles, presses their palms together. It
surges through him a warmth very different than that of the shower.

With his hand securely in his, Jungkook allows his eyes to close. As long as he can feel him, it’s
okay. And in a moment he feels another hand pressing into him. His stomach draws back, flattens
with his sharp exhale as he senses the touch, but Taehyung doesn’t hesitate. He presses his palm
there, his fingers and rubs the blood off of there, too, until there is no sign of what happened on
Jungkook’s body. The stain is gone but Taehyung’s hand isn’t. It slides to his side, fingers grip
somewhat hard into his waist, cradle at the flesh there, a squeeze. He holds him and holds himself
up.

Lips press into Jungkook’s in a moment. Careful, slow lips, lips that know his by now, how to
move against them. They tangle together, softly, almost no pressure in the way they wrap around, a
yet again silent exchange, wet and hot as the shower. A kiss that turns into nothing more than a
hug. Their fingers release and instead arms slide around bodies. Taehyung locks his around
Jungkook’s neck, rests his forehead there. Jungkook holds him by the waist, tugs him in.

He sighs into him, lets go of himself and relaxes, permits his body to seek solace in the touch. He
hasn’t kissed him in two days, he realises as their lips brush, which feels excruciatingly long
despite everything that rests in their history. The insecurity of whether he was allowed to or not
simultaneously peaks and slips when Taehyung kisses him, and Jungkook senses something almost
physically remove itself from his shoulder as they slump around the other.

Silence drags as they get dressed. It draws heavy and uncomfortable as they lay on their backs, a
certain distance in between. It is long into the ams and Jungkook feels exhaustion in his limbs and
on his lids, but he knows he can’t sleep, not yet, not with the way his mind is racing, his tongue is
heavy with a palpable need to speak to Taehyung, first.

He doesn’t really know what to say, shies away from meaningless words of encouragement, an
everything will be alright, even if he desperately wants to promise that. He can’t, and he feels like a
general lie will just extend the distance he feels stretches, so he tries to find something more
concrete to latch on as conversation that still offers some potential comfort.

“Yoongi will find a lawyer for your dad,” he tells him, soft, low, careful not to disturb the silence
too abruptly. “And Kai probably won’t even press charges.”

Sheets shuffle, Taehyung’s body moves and he’s lying on his side now, Jungkook can see the
outlines of him as he turns. He faces away, gives him his back.

“State will press charges,” he says, voice gruff but tone calm, speculative. “You can’t just shoot a
person,” he continues and it sounds plain but feels loaded. A moment passes, he speaks louder,
higher, too, an unfamiliar pitch lacing his question and it makes Jungkook press his lips together,
swallow. “Why did you have that thing?”

Jungkook turns his head on the pillow, stares at the ceiling. “Leverage,” he tries to put it simply.
“Yoongi gave it to me. He wanted me to bargain.”

“You wouldn’t have used it,” Taehyung asks or says, just speaks it. It doesn’t twist like a question,
just sounds like a statement in the room, an address of it and Jungkook turns to see his back again,
eyes skimming past the back of his head.
“I’m a lot of things, but I’m not that,” he murmurs to his back.

Taehyung shuffles in the sheets, but still he keeps his back to Jungkook. “I thought your father was
a lot of things, but not that.”

Jungkook blinks at his head, his hair, all he gives him. He shakes his head for the purposes of his
own conscience, gulps. “I don’t think he aimed to kill,” he says softly. “He just wanted the bag
gone.”

Taehyung answers in a flash. “You’ve been raised to justify his every action to be able to live with
yourself and his money.”

Jungkook breathes deeply, through his mouth and through his nose. “That was fucking Richhood
for you,” he exhales heavy.

“Was?” Taehyung questions, voice pigmenting with an ugly, louder irony. “Richhood will be just
the same tomorrow. It doesn’t matter you’re not there. Doesn’t matter Kai isn’t. Your dad will be
and Byung-Chul, too, and so many more. The sun will always shine over fucking sunny
Richhood.”

“Yeah, but future Mins won’t be raised like I was, or Jungs, or Seungs.”

Taehyung moves. He pauses. “There will be no Jeons. You don’t get to raise children, not here.”
And that’s unfair, too, it stays interlaced hidden in his words.

“It’s time that name died,” Jungkook tries, some bitterness adorning the words, but he still hears
him sigh. “I have you,” he says softer, more genuine, eyes darting across his back, trying to beg
with their intensity for him to turn around, to look at him. “More than some people here can say.”

“More than Yoongi can say.”

That’s when he hears it in his voice.

“Yeah,” he agrees, dejected and distracted and then he moves closer to him. “Face me. Tae.” He
doesn’t, just sniffs and his shoulders raise with it, and Jungkook’s voice raises in a quiet panic as
he props up on his arm, hovers over. “Taehyung, face me.” Taehyung gets on his back, first, wipes
at his eyes with his palms, but it is no use and he just lets them drop on the mattress, stares up into
Jungkook’s towering frame as he sinks lower, arm folding. “Don’t cry,” he asks him softly, his free
hand instinctive as it ventures towards his face, thumb brushing away fat tears. “Why are you
crying?”

“I had just, you know, started to think maybe we could really drive off into the sunset,” he gasps a
bit, finding air. “Except the sun never fucking sets, it just goes on and on and on.”

He hugs him this time. He doesn’t wait for permission, or a request. He reaches out and wraps
himself around him, brings him closer.

Jungkook realises this is the first time Taehyung has let more than a tear in front of him. He
himself has allowed him to be witness to him crying now, helplessly and readily, but Taehyung has
never permitted himself more than glossy eyes and that one single damned tear. In Richhood you
have to be traditionally strong, but when you’re a Kim you have to be stronger, and you cannot let
Richhood see weakness.

“I thought it was supposed to be beautiful, like, love was supposed to be beautiful, but I love Ji and
Namjoon and my dad, and you, I fucking love you and it’s always the ugliest, with the four of you
it’s always the ugliest.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Jungkook knows he does, believes him, he believes Taehyung loves him and he’s so incredibly
sorry that he does because no matter what happens, he will always have made first love ugly for
him; no matter if they grow up and Taehyung falls out of love and finds someone else more
beautiful to love, if he apologises, if he regrets it, if he changes, he had to hurt him to learn to love
him and it was, it had been so hideously ugly. And he will have a time letting him go; he knows
that, so perfectly well — he is not done making mistakes, he can try and he will, but he can never
guarantee.

Kim Junsu goes to jail because he says he deserves it, and in that aspect of balance of things then
what does Jungkook deserve. It makes things very complicated, the was and the will, and what the
was does for the will, the was they have to live with and the will they have to build.

Taehyung knows that Jeongguk is sorry, too, but he knows he has himself to blame for enabling
Jeongguk to turn so ugly as well. He could never really predict the extent, but he is not completely
 faultless in allowing Jungkook to be so unapologetic. It engrains in his brain what his father says,
they all had a part to play.

And maybe Jungkook is reading his mind, because he is saying, “You know what, Tae, Woojin
will have the most beautiful love story, yeah? And it will be because of you, he’ll never be scared
because you’ve taught him how, and he’ll never think it’s wrong because you’ve taught him that,
too.”

“I don’t— I don’t know. We fucked it all up.”

“But it’s over now,” Jungkook tells him. “It’s over. It’ll be different. We’ll make it different.” Step
by step, gradual, building, forming instead of conforming.

Taehyung chokes on breath. He shakes his head. “We didn’t win.”

They can’t change the rules of the game, but they can change the players, change themselves. And
perhaps they must learn to live away from was, will, good, bad, love, hate, right, wrong, Kim,
Jeon, win, lose. Learn, most importantly, they must learn, because chapter may be over, but they
are still young, and they all, all of them have so much to learn, maybe to teach. Jungkook wipes
one of his tears away, but a few get past. He tugs him closer, feels a warmth, his warmth, and
reminds him. “We didn’t lose.”

Chapter End Notes

Right, so, this is roughly over.

If it isn’t obvious, this was a first draft, very much discovery written under the
influence of feedback and a self-instigated pressure to be consistent. I’m not proud of
all of it and it is very far away from what I originally had in mind and probably about
half of that word count could be skipped. There are a lot of things I would do
differently if I were to do a second draft as I am now much more aware of what I’ve
written, especially with the depictions of certain themes. It’s not a happy, good story
about happy, good people and it was not meant to be one, just an experiment of me
writing. I didn’t expect the attention it got and I’m thankful for it, of course, but also
 very surprised as it is an uncomfortable read, certainly not to everybody’s taste and
there are loads of good stories on here more well executed and much less of a mess.

But thank you for giving it a try, I learned a lot from writing it and at times it was
enjoyable for me, so I truly hope it was enjoyable for you and that I'll see you soon
with something new. :)

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