At around nine in the morning, Taehyung's phone rings. He's looking for a text message, but then he realize it’s ringing, and the name on his Caller ID says JUNGKOOK.

He groans and picks it up.

“What?”

“Oh, that’s real nice. I call you to chat, and you just completely ignore me. Nice.”

His throat is dry and scratchy, so he has to swallow before he answers. “I didn’t ignore you, I asked what.”

“You were snippy.” Jungkook says. He sounds normal, as if he’s been up for hours. It hurts Taehyung's head to even think about being up that early on a weekend.

“What do you want?”

“I want to hang out.”

“Jungkook, I just woke up…” something clicks in his brain, and he rolls onto his back, ungluing his eyelids and opening his eyes. “Weren’t you supposed to hang out with Chungha today?”

“She has to work, so I thought-”

“So I’m a second choice?” he says in mock-horror.

“What? No, I was just-”

“Relax, I’m kidding.” he sighs, and sits up. “When do you want to hang out?”

“I was thinking we could work on our project, and then watch some movies or something. Like yesterday, but better.”

Taehyung snorts. “Fine. See you later, around lunch?”

“Okay, sounds good.”

“Bye.”

He hangs up and gets out of bed, grudgingly. After about an hour, he's ready for Jungkook to come, and he has two hours until he's due. He goes downstairs for food and realizes that he should probably have asked his mom.

“Good morning,” his mom chirps. She’s definitely a morning person- always chipper in the a.m.

“Hi. Where is everyone?”

“Dad had an emergency at work, your brothers are God knows where, but I’m off to a charity bake sale.” She lifts a saran-wrapped plate of cupcakes in his direction, grinning.

“You’re going now?” he asks. Happiness floods through him, along with an overwhelming sense of relief. Not that he's ashamed of Jungkook, but he'll still be shamed incessantly if they find him here.

“What are you doing today?” mom asks as she lifts a crate of colourful cupcakes off the counter. He grabs one of the other two boxes and helps her carry them to the car.

“I’m just going to do some homework. I have a group project, so I might have a friend over.”

His mom smiles at him. “That’s wonderful, dear. I’ve got some of the extra cupcakes in the fridge, so help your selves.”

“Thanks mom.”

He helps her load the last two crates and then watch as she drives down the street and far away from their house.

Just to be cautious, he checks the rooms in the house to make sure that no one is home. Just as he's finishing Hoseok’s room, the doorbell rings.

He checks his watch at the same time his phone beeps.

New Message

From: Jungkook

11:12 pm

I’m early :$

He laughs and opens the door for him. The cold, late September air washes over him, and he ushers Jungkook inside so he can close the door. He has his bag slung over his shoulder, and a big smile on his face.

“Hi,” Jungkook says.

“Hi.”

“I brought my stuff, so we can do our project for a while, and then do something else.”

Taehyung nods, and his stomach makes a very loud and obnoxious growl. Jungkook raises his eyebrows.

“I didn’t have time to eat. Are you hungry?" Taehyung explained.

“I could eat.”

He leads Jungkook into the kitchen, and the younger man dumps his bag haphazardly on the table.

“I have left over pizza,” Taehyung tells him, pulling the container out of the fridge.

“Sure.”

“You’re not one of the weird-o’s who hate cold pizza, right?”

“Nah, don’t worry.”

“Good.” He opens the container and they start to eat. He brought down his bag with him earlier, so when he pulls his stuff out of his bag, Jungkook does the same.

“So, your whole idea about Christmas Eve and Jack-o-lanterns?”

“What about it?”

“We need to think of how we’re going to do it!”

“Oh, right.” Jungkook gives him a lazy smile. “Sorry.”

Taehyung grins at him. So far they've just been talking about the idea. They haven’t really decided what they're going to hide, or how many items.

“The sheet says we need to have at least ten items.” Jungkook says. His eyes are moving back and forth, taking in the instructions from the paper Mrs. Lee handed out two weeks ago.

Taehyung realized that he likes the way Jungkook looks when he reads. His forehead creases like he’s concentrating on something very interesting.

“So, a jack-o-lantern, mini Christmas tree maybe?” Taehyung asks. His pen is hovering over a clean piece of lined paper, waiting for Jungkook's answer.

“That sounds good. We’ll be able to buy most of this stuff at a dollar store, right?”

“Most likely. We just need to decide what to buy.”

By the time they're going to have a break, they've decided to buy a jack-o-lantern, a skull, a pirate hat, a gravestone, and a chocolate bar for Halloween, and a small tree, a candy cane, a plastic Santa, and a star for Christmas.

“We just need one more for Christmas,” Taehyung tells him, reading back over the list.

“One more Christmas themed thing…” Jungkook runs his hand through his dark hair, and Taehyung's heart gives an unnecessary thump.

“We could do…” Jungkook's eyes suddenly becomes very wide. “Mistletoe!” he sing-songs.

“Nice.” Taehyung grins at him. “That would be…good.”

“Can we go shopping?”

“Right now?”

“We might as well; we don’t really have that much time until this is due.”

“It’s only the last week of September. This isn’t due until December.”

“Still, we should get started on it.”

“We have!” Taehyung gestures to the paper scattered on the table in front of them. “Really all we need to do is think of where to hide this stuff, and then find a prize.”

“Can we go shopping anyway?” Jungkook asks.

Looking at his pouty face, Taehyung caves. “Fine, but we’re only going to the dollar store.”

“Yay!”

Jungkook jumps out of his chair and practically runs to the door. By the time Taehyung has got his shoes on, Jungkook's out the door and pulling on the passenger’s side door handle.

“Come on!” he yells to him, “Let’s go!”

He sighs, locking the house door behind him. He lets Jungkook into the car and move around to the other side.

“Why do you want to go so bad?” he asks. “And why are we taking my car?”

“Eh.” Jungkook drapes his arm over his seat, so his hand is near the side of Taehyung's face. Tae pulls out of the driveway and he starts driving to the store, ignoring Jungkook's hand.

“Honestly,” Jungkook says, “I just really wanted to see your car.”

“Why?” Tae asks. He feels suddenly self-conscious. Does it really matter what his car looks like?

“Most people have all this crap in their cars, but yours is clean.” He realize that Jungkook's doing the same thing to him that he did when he first saw his car.

“Well, I’m not like most people.”

Lame. Whatever.

Jungkook smiles at him; he sees it from the corner of his eye, and it makes him grin. On the way to the store, he tells Jungkook about how he got his car- working at the book store downtown.

Taehyung loves The Book Nook. First of all, it was the first place he ever bought a book, and his first memory. He remembers the smell of the pages and the ink, the coffee wafting from the back room…the woman who owns it- Jenny Yoon- is one of his favourite people in the world. Since his first visit they forged a close connection, and since then she’s always been there for him, almost like a godmother would be. When he got old enough for a job, she gave him one without hesitation.

“She seems like a really nice person.” Jungkook says. Taehyung glances at him again to see a genuine smile on his face.

“She’s amazing, you should meet her. She’s just so nice to everyone, and she understands that I can’t work all the time.”

“When do you work?”

“Mainly nights, some weekends. She always gives me the first few weeks of September off though, to focus on school and get my stuff sorted.”

“Why?”

“It’s been that way since grade nine. She found me hiding in the back room, freaking about the math test I had the next day. I was crying and pulling my own hair out, and still trying to read my notes, but she didn’t laugh. She made me some tea and told me to go home and study, and that she’d take over my shifts for a while.”

Jungkook smiles. “That’s really nice.”

Taehyung nods. As they're pulling into the parking lot, he sees a familiar head bobbing into the very store they were going to enter. His smile vanishes as he looks into the passenger seat. Jungkook has taken off his seatbelt and is opening the door. He yanks his arm.

“Wait!” he tries to keep his panic out of his voice, but it is there, rising with hysteria.

“What?” Jungkook has a concerned look on his face, and is staring at his hand clamped on his.

He retracts his fingers, thinking about how Jungkook might react if he saw this was about Momo. For some horrible reason, Taehyung's afraid of her, which he knows is irrational, but his stomach still curls with fright.

“It’s nothing, never mind.”

“Are you sure?”

He forces a smile onto his face. “Yeah, it’s all good.”

“Okay.” Jungkook jumps out of the car, and he follows, somewhat reluctantly.

They walk into the store, and immediately Taehyung catches the sharp scent of plastic and metal, from the cheap toys and things lying on the shelves. Warm air blasts from the vents, pushing the smell around even more.

He doesn’t see Momo, so he pulls Jungkook behind the first row and starts looking for Halloween things.

His vision is assaulted by an incredible array of orange, purple and black. Though it’s not yet October, the stores already have their decorations out. Taehyung never understood that.

“I think we’ll be able to find what we need.”

“What about the Christmas stuff?” Jungkook asks, picking up a plastic jack-o-lantern and dropping into his basket.

“We might have to come back after Halloween.” he shrugs.

However, in the next aisle over, there’s a small Christmas display housing all the things they need.

Taehyung moves over into the next row to check if there’s more items, but before he gets more than halfway down the aisle, a slightly shrill voice echoes over the shelves and reverberates around, so that he can’t help but hear it.

“Hi Jungkook.”

“Oh, hi…” Jungkook’s voice comes over the shelves too. It sounds like he’s struggling for her name, and a sinister grin creeps over Taehyung's face.

“Momo,” she says, slightly exasperated.

“Right. What are you doing here?” Jungkook’s voice sounds slightly false- like he’s trying too hard to be polite.

“Just looking for some things for the scavenger hunt. My partner and I thought we’d do something fun, like with a beach theme?”

“Cool. Tae and I are doing the same.”

. Why did Jungkook has to mention him? Taehyung thinks.

“Tae.” He can’t see Momo’s face, but he can hear the annoyance in her voice. “How are you doing with the pet?”

“Why do you call him that?” Jungkook says angrily. “He didn’t do anything to you!”

His heart warms at these words. He could hug Jungkook…if there wasn’t a shelf there, obviously.

“Tae is a horrible person. But if you don’t know, I could tell you...”

What is she up too?

“What are you talking about?” Jungkook scoffs. But he does sound curious…

“Bet you didn’t know he was the school .”

Taehyung almost knocks down the shelf. He. Could. Kill. Her. Anger rushes through him, mixing with his blood and making his face red.

Tears are welling in his eyes, pressing them towards the surface. Don’t cry. Do. Not. Cry.

“What?”

He freezes, the anger ebbing slightly. Jungkook can’t believe her, can he? He keeps silent, listening for his reaction.

“Mmhmm. He’s been all over the school, if you know what I mean.”

Jungkook doesn’t say anything. He can’t really think it’s true?

“See you at school.” Momo coos.

“Yeah…” Jungkook mutters. Taehyung hears Momo leave, but he can’t bring himself to move. He's livid. Mostly at her, but Jungkook too. He can’t believe her! How could he think I’d do that? Obviously he doesn’t know me as much as I thought.

He feels his face to see that it’s warm with anger, his eyes still stinging with tears that haven’t fallen.

He takes deep breaths, waiting until he sees her leave out the front door before he goes back to Jungkook, who he haven’t heard a word from.

Am I supposed to mention it, or see if he mentions it?

All thoughts stop, however, when he rounds the corner and sees Jungkook standing there, holding something in his hands. He can’t see what it is, but he’s staring at it intently.

“Hi.” he says, hesitantly.

Jungkook jumps about a foot in the air; the thing in his hands disappears behind his back.

“Hi!” he says. His voice is too loud- too normal.

“Uh...” Taehyung hesitates, wondering whether or not he should say something.

“Let’s pay then,” Jungkook says, “We’ve got everything.”

Jungkook moves past him quickly, not making eye contact. Tears threaten to fall again, but Taehyung holds them in, and follows him.

A stab of pain hits him again on the way out. Jungkook holds the door for him, but won’t look at his face. Instead Jungkook's focusing on a sign just above his head, but he knows he’s not reading it.

How could he think that about me?

He goes over it again and again in his mind. It’s not true. What does he think about me now?

It’s a very awkward and silent drive back to his house. When he pulls into the driveway, he turns off the car, but neither of them gets out.

Tell him. Taehyung tells himself. Do it.

He opens his mouth, but no words comes out. He swallows, and tries again.

“It’s not true.” he says. His voice is very quiet, and slightly scratchy. Jungkook looks up, confused, so he repeats himself, louder this time.

For the first time in twenty minutes, Jungkook looks at him.

For one horrible second he thinks Jungkook's going to ask him what he's talking about. He couldn’t bear to explain it to him. But then-

“Of course it’s not true.”

Relief surges through him. “You don’t believe it?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think you’d heard, and I didn’t want to make you upset.” Jungkook looks at him closely, and he knows Jungkook sees that he's upset. “You heard the whole thing, didn’t you?”

He nods, and the tears threatens to fall again.

“I haven’t- I’m not-”

The tears fall into his lap, and he pushes his face into his hands, like he's going to be able to push them back in.

Stop crying. This is Jungkook. Don’t cry in front of Jungkook!

But to his surprise, Jungkook takes a hand away from his face and squeezes it, sending a warm jolt up his arm.

“I know. She’s just a horrible .”

He lets out something between a sob and a laugh, and a smile creeps onto Jungkook’s face.

“Get out of the car so I can give you a proper hug.” Jungkook says.

He does, and when they meet in front of the car, Jungkook wraps his arms around him in a great bear hug. He pushes his face into Jungkook's chest and sighs deeply.

“Thank you,” he mumbles into his jacket.

“Sure.” Jungkook says into his hair.

Now that he's calmer, Taehyung realized that he had never hugged Jungkook before…and he can hear Jungkook's heart pounding in his chest, maybe going a little faster than normal.

How long is it until a ‘friend hug’ becomes too long? Apparently Jungkook doesn’t know, so he's the first to pull away, no matter how reluctantly.

“Do you still want to hang out?” he asks. He rubs his face in his hands to try to get the tear stains off.

Jungkook smiles. “Sure, we can hang out for a bit.”

“Okay.” He leads Jungkook back into the house, and they pack up their project stuff, including the things that they bought at the dollar store. He noticed something red and green disappearing into Jungkook`s pocket. The younger sees him trying to catch a glimpse and smiles at him mischievously.

“What is that?” he asks, moving around Jungkook. He stretches out his hand to catch his hand, but Jungkook’s too quick for him.

“It’s nothing,” Jungkook says. A crooked smile on his face.

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes and heads to the basement, where, to his surprise, he finds Seokjin.

“Hey,” Seokjin says. His eyes are glued to the TV, which is showing some doctor show.

“Hi.” Taehyung pushes emphasis into his word, so that Seokjin might guess he has company. “Are mom and dad home?”

“Nah. And Hoseok is out too, and they won’t be home for dinner. It’s just me and you…” Seokjin trails off at this, and Taehyung catches his brother's face in the mirror across from the couch- Seokjin's just seeing Jungkook, who’s standing awkwardly in the doorway behind him.

“Hi,” he says with a grin, sitting up. “I’m Seokjin, Tae’s brother.”

“Jungkook,” he says.

“Are you using the TV Seokjin hyung?” Tae asks.

“Nah, you can use it. I’ve got homework anyway. Nice to meet you, Jungkook.” Seokjin leaves them alone, but as his brother crosses behind Jungkook, he waves his hand like a fan, as if saying, Hottie!!

Taehyung grins and pulls Jungkook into the room. When he hears Seokjin heading upstairs, he says, “Seokjin’s usually at school, I’m surprised he’s home.”

“He seems nice,” Jungkook says, flopping onto the couch.

“Don’t sit in my spot.”

“Too late.” Jungkook grins.

Tae raises his eyebrows at him and grabs the nearest pillow. “I might kill you with this.”

“Bring it Taehyungie.”

Taehyung stops, mid swing, and the pillow hits him in the face, knocking his glasses askew.

“What did you call me?”

“Taehyungie. Isn’t that your name?”

He smirks at Jungkook. “Of course it’s my name, but have some respect, i'm older. Get out of my spot.”

“Why? Why now? You have no complain when i call you Taehyung or Tae. Don't you like it?”

“I do, but it’s not nice.” It gives me weird feeling in my chest.

“It’s nice,” Jungkook says.

Taehyung gives him a slight shove, and Jungkook grabs onto his wrist, yanking at him. He's off balance, and he's sure he looks like an idiot, with his arms waving around in the air. He feels himself falling, but then he lands with a soft thump on something cushy, but it’s not the couch.

“Ouf!” Jungkook cries. He had landed on his stomach.

“Sorry!” Taehyung shrieks. His face is turning red, but he can feel Jungkook laughing beneath him. He slides off him and onto the floor, laughing the whole time. His sides starts to ache, but one look at Jungkook’s face, and he's off again, giggling and choking on air.

“Sorry,” he says again, as his giggles finally subside.

“That’s okay. But if I’d known you wanted to sit on my lap, I would’ve let you.” Jungkook says, smiling. 

Um…

“Right.” Taehyung smirks, getting up. Jungkook moves out of Tae's spot, but not so much. Jungkook’s closer than he was yesterday, so that their legs are inches from each other. One tiny movement and their legs would be touching…

Taehyung focuses. The movie is starting. Focus.

Suddenly he freezes. Jungkook’s leg is touching his, and the other seems completely aware of it, though he’s staring straight at the movie; Jungkook doesn’t seem to be breathing and neither is he.

. I need to breathe. He's afraid that he’ll sound super loud and unnatural, and in fact, when he does breathe, it does sound loud. He thinks he catches the corner of Jungkook’s mouth moving upwards, but he can’t be sure.

After a few minutes Taehyung relaxed. Just like yesterday, Jungkook seems too as well, but again, just like yesterday, he doesn’t move when the movie is over. The credits are rolling; his leg is still touching his. He waits for Jungkook to move it, but he doesn’t.

Chungha, Taehyung thinks, Jungkook has Chungha…and Namjoon...?

Jungkook still hasn’t moved his leg. The other turns to him with a grin. “It was good, huh?”

Taehyung nods. His eyes flicks to their legs, thigh touching thigh, and he sees the Jungkook's eyes follow his.

Jungkook stands abruptly. “I’d better get going. My dad might want me for dinner, I never really asked.”

“Okay.” He follows him to the door, where he gathers his stuff and gets ready to go. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow?”

“It’s Saturday.”

“Oh. Right. Monday then.”

Jungkook nods. It looks like he hesitates for a second, before stepping forward and folding him into his arms.

“Don’t worry about Momo,” he says.

Taehyung's heart swells with happiness. He really doesn’t believe her.

“Thanks.” he murmurs thickly. His eyes are tearing up, but he waits for Jungkook to leave before he breaks down in silent sobs.