His summer review classes passed by in a blur. He failed tests, skipped some classes, slept during breaks, got a pimple on his nose, and disappointed his parents because they were called to the office countless times that they’re starting to be a regular in the office due to his poor performance and his attitude towards learning. Or whatever.

When Taehyung found out he laughed and said "That's nothing new. You always do that except you don't fail your tests because you're scared of Jin-hyung."

He also pointed out his pimple on his nose much to Jungkook's embarrassment.

Everything went by in a blur that Jungkook doesn't even know if he was actually there. It felt like he was on autopilot, doing things the same way every day without fail.

He's also been receiving lots of message updates from Seokjin. From his professor to the parties that he was invited at. He figured that college sounded fun because Seokjin wasn't required to have that ridiculous haircut that the schools insisted them to have and he can actually drink alcohol. Which sounded pretty cool. Though he also found out that Seokjin has a professor that straight up told him he would chop his off.

Eunseo has been talking to him a lot too. She's still talkative and never runs out of things to say and at this rate, Jungkook mastered the art of looking interested even though he doesn't really care. He nods his head at the right timings and it never led to any awkward situations, he really does look like he actually listened. It worked well for both of them. Eunseo looked happy and Jungkook is not suffering from having to listen to her. It's a win-win situation.

Everything went by so fast and soon he's already fourteen. He popped twenty pimples from his skin that's no longer baby smooth, his voice has gotten deeper (but not as deep as Taehyung's), his voice cracked a lot, and Seokjin hasn't visited him yet. Though he didn't bother the older male about it, he thought the older male is really just busy and he doesn’t want to admit that Seokjin wasn’t there to sing happy birthday to him personally and not through a phone call.

Jungkook tried to distance himself from the older, though it is a given that Seokjin is literally far from him but he tried to slowly detach himself. Emotionally.

But he learned it the hard way that he couldn’t do that especially when Seokjin uploaded a new selfie in his Instagram account with those ridiculously ugly filters but for some reason, Seokjin can make it look good and decent unlike those girls in his school who used the same filter for their selfies. He tried so hard not to double tap the screen of his brother’s new iPhone but he did anyway. Double tap and liked.

It looked good, alright?

He’ll admit he hated Seokjin for leaving him but he soon realized he couldn't be mad at his hyung so he blamed himself for being born five years late. In all honesty it was a huge gap and it intimidated him so much that sometimes he doubted why Seokjin is even talking to him in the first place. And there are times when he would send death glares to his brother’s back when he’s not looking because of how lucky he is to be born in the same year as Seokjin, and how he could just casually tell Seokjin through the phone that he just jerked off to this girl in one of his classes.

He hated it so much he could feel his hatred digging his bones and turning his soul as dark as the bags under his eyes.

Getting older also meant his parents torturing him with after school tutors, extra classes, and cram schools that lasted until ten in the evening and it’s an understatement to say that he's mentally exhausted. His brain is dried and fried and is currently being buried in the depths of the hell that is called school with the teachers as the little devils who literally used a ruler to measure if his haircut is fit to the ugly standards of his school. It also didn’t help that his father insisted that he should take medicine in college even though he knew perfectly well that Jungkook couldn't even remember the names for the bones in his body nor the fact that he couldn’t even last ten minutes in a science class without snoring to the point that his teacher just gave up on him. And as if it was the best idea ever, his mother insisted that he should take law instead of medicine despite the fact that he doesn't even give a crap about his country and that he doesn’t even know who their current prime minister is. Why would he care? Surely, the prime minister doesn’t care about his mental health or else he would had abolished the idea of that test that defined a student’s mental capability and productivity as a citizen of South Korea in just a few hours of absolutely disgusting test with a paper that showed questions that Jungkook wouldn’t probably be able to answer seeing the current state of his academic life that consisted of him stalking Seokjin’s social media accounts and playing online video games with Taehyung.  

He wondered how Seokjin even survived this and even managed to get into a good university in Seoul. Alright, scratch that. He doesn’t even want to think that Seokjin is in Seoul. Now he’s starting to detest the dumb test for taking his hyung away.

He never wondered about how his brother survived it because he knew he didn’t. He just yelled YOLO and moved on with his life. He’s more surprised that his older brother even managed to pass into a university. It was a miracle and his mother cried.  

To the people who called him stupid, they surely never met his brother. Jungkook is now convinced that the lack of motivation to study just runs in the family and completely not his fault.

All of these thoughts aside, he doesn't even know who to blame at this point so he ended up pretty much hating everything around him that made him look like an emotionally constipated teenager who listened to sad songs on a daily basis according Kim Taehyung. Especially with the growing dark circles under his eyes that resulted from late night video games. He blamed literally everything from the dog that chased him the other day to his school principal who kept calling his parents because of his poor performance at school. He hated him so much and his fat belly. Really, he could use some exercise instead of sitting his fat in that chair as big as him that looked like those chairs of those evil CEOs in the dramas that Jimin liked to watch.

"What do you think you're doing? You weren't like this before!" Jungkook's mother shut the car door as hard as possible when she entered the car. They were on their way home from a meeting with Jungkook's principal.

The young boy flinched but remained silent.

"Why are you acting like this?" She asked again, her voice had calmed but it still has its authoritative tone in it.

"I...." he debated if he should even say it, "I'm exhausted. "

A sigh, "You can't be exhausted. You need to get into a good university since your brother wasn't able do it."

"Okay."

He doesn't want to study anymore and maybe if his brother wasn’t dumb and lazy as hell, he wouldn’t be suffering like this. Sure, if he studied hard he could follow Seokjin in Seoul but that's impossible. Besides the undeniable truth that his notebook is still blank since the first day of school, Seokjin will be done with college once he got out of high school and he'll be most likely get drafted for the military service and that's another two years of waiting. He's five whole years behind Seokjin. And once he graduated from college, Seokjin will be at that age that he should he getting married or else those old ladies who had nothing better to do with their lives will start gossiping about Seokjin being gay or some other ridiculous lies.

Wait, what?  Why is he bothered about Seokjin getting married?  It shouldn't matter, right? He just wanted to follow his hyung and prove that he can be equal and they could just forget the five years gap. He wanted to chase him.

Right. That's it. It doesn't matter what age Seokjin will be married and to whom.

(He tried to ignore that sharp pain in his chest. Tried.)

"Me and your dad will be out for two weeks in Japan for a business meeting. Can I trust you to be alone in the house without burning anything? Your brother can't leave his dorm in the weekdays."

"Yeah." Right, as if his brother is also not capable of burning anything in the house though that’s an argument that he should just bury and never bring up.

"Alright, good. I want you to be serious with your studies now, you got that? When I come back, I'll be expecting good news from your teacher."

"Give me a break." He murmured and his mother never whipped her head so fast and the car went to a full stop.

He's so in trouble and his allowance is in danger.

-X-

When his parents left and when his tutor was done for the night, he decided that he should crack his math textbook open. He felt guilty because his parents are working hard to keep him and his problematic brother in school (also with the help of Jimin’s constant nagging about studying, he literally just replaced Seokjin’s nagging position in Jungkook’s life) so alright, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

In fact, it was great, perfect, and Seokjin will be proud.

When he was greeted with words that he couldn’t understand despite being written in his native language, his head started to hurt like that one time when Taehyung accidentally elbowed his face hard while he was dancing to a chicken song. He immediately regretted landing his eyes on that sinful book.

All these stress, frustrations, and constipations about his academic life is causing him to have more pimples on his face. He’s so embarrassed by it that he started following makeup gurus in the internet just to know how to use a concealer. When he asked his brother to buy him one (because there’s no way he can ask his parents), he laughed like a wheezing dog and said something about how his little brother is starting to care for his physical appearance. The complete opposite few years ago where he couldn’t even be bothered to give a care when his face is covered in chocolate and dirt.

Only the heaven knew how much he hated his brother.   

He opened his desktop computer and left his math textbook on the floor. He wanted to burn it so bad but his mother trusted him not to burn anything and that included textbooks so he decided against it, thinking he already angered his mother and that was enough for the rest of the month. A jar with paper cranes is placed next to his keyboard and he vaguely remembered successfully making two hundred twenty-six paper cranes. He shrugged and opened a tab, typed in facebook, logged in, and searched Kim Seokjin in the search box.

He checked his hyung’s profile and saw his last status update was eighteen hours ago and Jungkook already saw that. He frowned, worried why Seokjin hasn’t updated anything in the last eighteen hours. He also hasn’t received any text message from him in the last fifteen hours. His last message was about what his grocery shopping list followed by three hearts. Three hearts. He can’t believe it. Three hearts. Of course, he replied to his hyung with a cute emoji.

He clicked the refresh button and punched the F5 button on his keyboard repeatedly for the next two minutes until a doorbell interrupted his important agenda for the night. He checked the clock and it’s almost twelve midnight, there’s no way it’s his brother. Or maybe it is, his brother had come to their house on a weekday completely drunk and whining about how he’s tired of eating instant noodles and how badly he wanted to eat their mother’s homemade meal. Pft, who’s the baby now?

When he dragged himself to the front door while considering the thought that it might be a serial killer, he was surprised that it wasn’t his brother who was waiting for him. It was Jimin.

“Hi, can I sleep over tonight?” He said. His voice sounded a bit desperate but Jungkook brushed it off.

He noticed that Jimin had two large bags with him, way too big for an overnight but he decided not to question it. “Sure. Come in.”

It wasn’t unusual for Jimin to have overnight stays in his house so Jungkook decided not to ask why. If it’s important he’ll say it soon.  

Jimin entered and removed his shoes, together with his socks. He looked around carefully in the room, “Your parents aren’t home, right?”

“No. They’ll be gone for two weeks.”

“I see! I should stay for two weeks then-- I mean…so someone will cook for you?”

Food is not a problem for Jungkook because he could just crash at Taehyung’s house anytime and eat there. Jimin is completely aware of that.

“You can’t cook.” He said instead.

“Hey! I can fry hotdogs and eggs without burning them.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes, “Sure. You can put your bags in my room.”

“Thanks….” A pause, “I can sleep on the couch.”

“You can sleep in my room like the usual. It’s fine, hyung.”

When he watched Jimin make his way to his room, Jungkook’s mind is on the verge of shutting down due to his confusion. Never in his life did he experienced such confusion that didn’t involve Kim Seokjin so his brain wasn’t used to this. What is Jimin doing here? Based on the bags with him, it looked like he brought his whole closet with him. What? Or maybe those are just oversized stuffed toys?  

“Oh! You’re making paper cranes!”

Jungkook walked closer to his room and saw Jimin staring at the jar with curious eyes.

“Yeah. I just thought it was fun.”

Lies. He doesn’t think it’s fun at all. He got countless papercuts and learned how to curse just from it but he couldn’t stop because he’s desperate enough. He wanted to grow up as fast as possible and chase after Seokjin. Really. He figured he needed miracle with that.  

“I’m almost done with mine.” Jimin placed the jar back on the table, “I’m on my eight hundredth.”

“No wonder why Taehyung-hyung said you were failing your classes. You were just folding papers.”

“I’m not!” He puffed his cheeks and Jungkook grinned, “He’s the one failing, not me. I study hard, thank you very much.”

“Why are you making paper cranes anyway?”

Jimin blinked and directed his attention to the computer screen, “Seriously, Jungkook? Stalking hyung’s profile?”

That was a poor attempt to change the topic but it worked on Jungkook nonetheless. His face was flushed red the moment he realized that, yes he forgot to close the tab, and why does it have to be on Seokjin’s profile? Explaining an open tab to a website is better than this.

“I just happened to—“ He ran to his desktop like his life depended on it (which it really does, considering the current situation at the moment). He was about to close the tab when he saw a notification that Seokjin posted something (alright, he turned the notifications on for Seokjin’s account. That’s definitely not creepy.) and he blamed his hands when it automatically punched the abused F5 button and saw that the older male just uploaded a selfie three minutes ago with the caption ‘long day. I’m going to sleep for the next ten years. :^(( ’

As if his hands have a life of its own, he immediately pressed like and regret washed over him when he heard Jimin snort next to him.

“You got it so bad, Kookie.” Jimin laughed and Jungkook decided it was reasonable to throw an eraser to Jimin’s face.

Later that night, after they ate dinner, Jimin lied down next to Jungkook on his bed. It’s big enough to fit two growing boys and there’s enough space for them to move.

Jungkook didn’t missed the way Jimin let out a shaky breath.

“Kookie?”

“Yeah?”

“I ran away from my place. Don’t tell Taehyung, alright? If he asked, we can say I’m staying over to watch you because your parents won’t be home.”

Jungkook felt his stomach. Oh.

“Okay.” He said instead of asking why.

“Good night.”

“Night, hyung.”

He tried to pretend he never saw Jimin and Taehyung kiss when he was thirteen and how Jimin would sometimes wear long sleeved shirts in hot weathers and how Taehyung will look at Jimin with worry written all over his face.

He turned his head to where Jimin placed his bag and convinced himself that those are not his clothes.

Honestly speaking, he’s beyond frustrated that the two are keeping this from him. Just like how Seokjin kept something from him too. He wanted to ask Jimin what’s wrong and help him but what can he do? He’s still young.

He hated it so much.  

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