“Now that is a talent, Jungkookie.” Jungkook looked up from the television screen that was playing some vampire recreation of The Titanic - he had no idea where Taehyung found the movies they watched. Taehyung had suddenly hopped up to stand on the couch in the living room; his arms swinging throughout the air and Jungkook didn’t even try to stop the speech that was about to come out of Taehyung’s mouth. “Baseball? Drop it. I’m confident you can make a living doing this, Kook. You know I don’t lie.” Jungkook only raised his eyebrows at him, knowing better than to interrupt before Taehyung was finished. “The way you catch popcorn in your mouth can only be the work of a prodigy. I think - no, I know - the league would be honored to have you.” Taehyung proudly puts his hands on his hips after finishing his mock speech.

    No one except maybe Jungkook and Seokjin could ever tell he was joking (“You’d be a great actor, Taehyungie. Want me to find you auditions?” “I dunno, dad…” “Hyung, it's true. I think you’d go far.” “You’re right, Jungkookie. I could be the next Lee Minho.” “Okay, I wouldn’t go that far.” And they’d all laugh at the pout on Taehyung’s face).

    Jungkook stood up from his corner of the couch and jumped onto the cushion, “You’re right, Tae.” He started, “I’m dropping out of high school. I’m going to do tours around the world, people will drive hours to see me. Want to be my manager?” He slings his arm around Taehyung’s neck and steadies them when they lose their balance on top of the cushioned springs.

    From the corner of the room, Yoongi looks up from his newspaper. “I’m not even trying with you two anymore.” He raises his eyebrows and glances towards the other room, “Sit. Jin will yell if he sees you two standing on the couch, says it ruins the cushions. I don’t ing know. I’m not in the mood.” The two boys look at eachother and then dissolve into a fit of giggles, falling on top of each other and onto the couch. Yoongi smiles fondly over his newspaper.

    “Yoongi what did I just hear?” Seokjin can be heard fuming from the other room.

    Yoongi face becomes a little more pale, he folds up his newspaper and sets it down as if he was never there. He looks over at Taehyung and Jungkook who sit wide eyed on the couch, “I’ve been sleeping since I got home, got it?” He doesn’t get much more than muffled laughter and the slapping of arms in return.

-

    Jungkook wouldn’t say he was popular at school. Sure he was friends with the popular kids - he was on the baseball team in the spring, after all. But he didn't hang out with them. Nor did he sit with them at lunch. He sat with Taehyung, and they sat in the library. He didn’t know why, of all places, Taehyung would choose the library, everyone knows how his relationship with books is. But Jungkook figures it's because Taehyung somehow managed to make friends with the old librarian who doesn’t even like Jungkook, and that's saying something.

    She let them bring their food into the library. So Jungkook didn’t usually question it.

    Jungkook walked into the library during lunch hour and made his way to the corner table where he saw Taehyung’s lunch bag. It was a bit big, considering it contained lunch for two courtesy of Seokjin. Jungkook stopped arguing against that ages ago. He assumes Taehyung is somewhere in the tall stacks, spying on studying students and attempting to pick up on the latest high school gossip.

    He saw Taehyung sneak around the last tall stack just as he was unloading their lunches. Taehyung darted his way across the open space of the library to their corner table, “Jungkook, you will never believe what I just saw.” He started, and Jungkook glanced up at him. “I swear Jimin and - Jungkook are you even listening?”

    Jungkook looked back up at him and smiled, “No.” Taehyung rolled his eyes, “I don’t care about Jimin’s library escapades, Tae. I’ll probably hear about it later, anyway.”

    “But you’ll get the truth from me, Kookie. I’m an eye witness. Jimin’ll buff up the story too much, you know how he is.”

   
    Jungkook looked at him, finishing setting up the little containers around the table, “I’m not sure which one is worse.”

    “Fine, fine. I’ll keep this one to myself.” Taehyung said as he slid into the chair next to Jungkook, picking up his utensils and digging in. A look of curiosity makes its way onto Taehyung’s face, “Do you hear about Jimin’s… a lot?” Taehyung suddenly looks a little awkward, and Jungkook doesn’t think he’s ever seen him act like that, but he rolls his eyes anyway.

    “Every day. I can’t get away.” Jungkook says this around a mouthful of rice.

    Taehyung leans in and lowers his voice, “I think Jimin's got a thing for that Hoseok kid in the grade above us. They look at each other weird.” He scrunches his nose, and Jungkook does the same.

    Jungkook raises his eyebrows, “Jimin? I don’t think you know him as well as I do Tae. He’s strictly straight.”

    Taehyung leans back and shrugs, “I know only what I see, Jungkookie. And I see that Jiminie has a little boy crush.”

    Jungkook snorts, “If you’re so sure about his uality, why don’t you go and woo him?” Taehyung looks up at him and smiles, cheeks puffed out with rice and the tiny grains poking out of the gaps in his teeth. Jungkook’s heart starts to beat a little bit faster, but he blames it on the spicy pepper he just ate.

    “I wouldn’t date just any baseball jock, Kook.”

    Jungkook tries not to think about the implications behind that statement.

-

    “Do you do that too, Kook?” Taehyung asked this as he was laying on his bed; his head at the foot and his feet resting atop the headboard. Jungkook was sitting on the cool floor while leaning his back at the end of the bed, and Taehyung’s head was sticking from the edge of the mattress and hanging next to his. Jungkook realized most of their conversations took place in Taehyung’s room, where the walls were still light blue with the outlines of the rubber duck stickers that used to line the walls. Taehyung refused to take those down until he was 14.

    “Do what?” Jungkook questioned, tilting his head so he was looking to the right at Taehyung’s hair which  stuck in every direction.

    Taehyung’s brows were furrowed and he was looking at Jungkook with an expression that couldn’t be placed, “Take girls into the library.”

    Jungkook laughed it off, “I think you’d know if I was taking girls to the library like Jimin does.” Taehyung is still looking at him in that way and Jungkook rolls his eyes, “You’re the only one I take to the library, silly.” Jungkook realized the mistake in his words when he took in Taehyung’s wide eyed blush. He wondered why Taehyung would blush in this situation, it's not like Jungkook meant it like that,  but he didn’t say anything. He took in the way Taehyung’s cheeks lit up with a rosy color that wasn’t due to the sun that streamed through the bedroom windows. His eyes were glossed over, just a little bit, and Jungkook decided he likes it when color takes over Taehyung’s cheeks. He coughed, “You know what I mean.”

    “Yeah.” If Taehyung’s voice was a little bit tighter than normal when he uttered that syllable, Jungkook pretended not to notice.

-

    Taehyung’s blush was pretty and his smile made Jungkook’s heart beat faster and he didn’t think it was gross when Taehyung talked with his mouth full (It was cute, he looked like a chipmunk that tried a little bit too hard) and he liked boys and Jungkook couldn't figure out how he felt about all of this.

    He was confused. About what exactly, he didn’t know, but he was so confused. Usually when this kind of thing happened he would talk it out with Taehyung. When he argued with his dad, he would talk to Taehyung, when someone at school said something that made him think, he talked about it to Taehyung. But this was about Taehyung, so what was he supposed to do?

    Usually when this happened his second choice would be - he actually didn’t have a second choice because this had never happened. He couldn’t even dream of talking to the guys on the team about his Taehyung… problems? Emotions? Weird happenings? He refused to call them feelings because he didn’t have feelings for Taehyung. That was ridiculous and not plausible and he dismissed it as soon as the idea came to his mind.

    But he needed to do something. And for some reason his need led him to an early morning breakfast with Seokjin who, by the way, was absolutely overjoyed by Jungkook’s sudden appearance in his home at 8am on a Saturday morning. “Do you want eggs with your pancakes, Kookie?”

    Jungkook could not believe he was doing this. And apparently, neither could Yoongi because he walked into the kitchen at 8:15, mumbled something about not wanting to deal with whatever this is, and promptly walked back into his shared room with Seokjin to throw himself back onto the comforter (which was more for looks than comfort, thanks to someone whose name rhymed with sin. And, in Yoongi’s mind, that wasn’t much of a coincidence).

    Seokjin scoffed, “Don’t worry, he does that every morning regardless of the situation.” He looked sweetly back at Jungkook, “So, eggs?” Seokjin said this as he was already cracking two eggs into the saucepan, and Jungkook told him he wanted eggs even though he knew he’d get them whether he wanted them or not. Over the few minutes it took them to cook, Seokjin asked, “Why are you here so early in the morning, Kookie? Tae isn’t even awake yet.”

He knew that. Of course he knew that Taehyung didn’t wake up earlier than noon on the weekends, and usually neither did Jungkook. “Is something going on in school? Is Taehyung acting up again? God, I knew I should have given him a worse punishment for the rubber duck thing, but he just smiles at me so sweetly, you know?” Jungkook knew, oh he knew. “Oh did you notice Taehyungie taking an interest in any… boys? I don’t think he’s ever had a crush on anyone, Kook.” This made Jungkook’s stomach hurt and, again, he didn’t want to think about why, but he needed to.
   
“Ah, no.” Jungkook started as Seokjin set down a heaping plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes in front of him, which Jungkook suddenly lost his appetite for. But he knew he would eat it anyway, “It’s not about Taehyung.” This may have been a lie, but Seokjin didn’t need to know that. “It’s about me?” Jungkook didn’t know why he said this as a question, but the way Seokjin’s eyes sparkled when the words came out of his mouth made him hesitate.

    Seokjin gasped, “Is there a girl in your life, Jeon Jungkook?” And, for some reason, Jungkook only pays attention to the fact that Jin assumes he likes a girl. Does he not look like he likes boys? Is there a certain look that those kind of boys have? Does Taehyung have that look - Jungkook had never noticed it before. Why doesn’t he have that look?

    He tries to ignore why he’s worried about having the look. It’s not important to this conversation, right? “Kinda, sorta, I guess?” Jungkook says, looking up from where he was tearing his pancakes into little pieces. Dismissing the fact that he just told Jin he had a crush on somebody, when he absolutely does not have a crush on Taehyung.

    Jungkook had never seen Seokjin jump up and down in excitement before, but apparently he was going to go through a lot of bizarre things today. Seokjin rushed over to the table and sat down at the chair closest to Jungkook’s. “Who is she? What’s she look like? When did you start liking her? Oh, I knew this day would come, but I never thought it’d happen so soon!” This is the part that Jungkook didn’t think about. Seokjin was asking him questions and he didn’t know if he could answer them without giving his true predicament away.

    “Um, I don’t - I don’t know if I like, uh, her, per se.” Jungkook stumbled over his words, trying not to slip up and tell Seokjin that it was actually Taehyung that they were talking about.

Seokjin’s face relaxes in realization, “Oh. That’s what it is. Don’t worry about it, Kook, I can help you with this. I am absolutely the best person to come to about feelings.” Jungkook has to remind himself that these are not feelings he has for Taehyung. They really aren’t. “Good thing you came to me about this,” At this part Seokjin lowers his voice, even though they both know that Yoongi and Taehyung sleep like bears in hibernation, “When our relationship started, Yoongi had no idea what he was doing, I still think he doesn’t even know what’s going on. He’s not too good with this kind of thing. So it’s good you chose me over him.” Jungkook shudders at the thought of having this conversation with Yoongi, it would be ten times as awkward.

“Ah, well, uh, she - weird things happen to me when I’m around her?” Jungkook still isn't even sure what he is saying, or how to say it.

“Okay, what kind of things, Kook. I won’t make fun, don’t worry.” Seokjin reaches out to rub his back, and it reminds Jungkook of when he was 10 and fell off of his his bike, scraping his knee (“It’s okay, Jungkookie, we all fall sometimes.” It didn’t hurt, and, at that point, Seokjin was the only person except his own mother Jungkook allowed to call him ‘Jungkookie’).

    “Well I guess I like her smile? It makes my stomach feel weird, like it’s bubbling but it's not that.” Jungkook started nervously, and Seokjin sat there and gently urged him to go on, “And, uh, she, blushed at me once and I think it might’ve been the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Jungkook says this wistfully, and he has trouble separating his thoughts about  Taehyung and what he has to say out loud.

“Anything else, Jungkookie?” Seokjin softly urges him to go on.

Jungkook thinks about Taehyung, he thinks about his smile and his blush. He thinks about his hair sticking in several directions as he lies upside down, and the flush of his cheeks when he wakes up from his after school nap. He thinks about when Taehyung told him he was gay, and when Taehyung asked him if he had any girls in his life. He thinks about how everyone adores him and how Seokjin asks about him everyday after school. He thinks about how he spends almost every waking moment with Taehyung, and he doesn’t want to share even a little bit of that time with anyone else. “I don’t want him to be with anybody else.” Jungkook says this softly, and he blushes when he realizes the mistake in his words. It’s too late to correct it, judging by the fond look on Seokjin’s face he already knows. But it wasn’t a mistake, not really.

“Well,” Seokjin says, and Jungkook shyly anticipates the words that are about to come out of his mouth, “It looks like you have a crush on this person, Jungkookie.” And Jungkook furrows his eyebrows, he thinks about Taehyung and realizes that he's always thinking about Taehyung. He looks up from his cold pancakes at Seokjin, biting his lip in both worry and realization. Seokjin pats him on the back, “I’m sure it’ll work out. It always works out if it's meant to be. And I feel like, for you, this might be exactly what is supposed to happen.” Seokjin smiles at him, and the thoughts flying around in Jungkook’s head calm down a little bit, “I’ll heat up your food, then you can eat and you can go back to sleep in the guest room, okay?”

Jungkook nods, realizing how tired he is, and waits as Seokjin heats up his food. He has a crush on Taehyung, he has to admit it to himself, and the thoughts make hordes of butterflies erupt in his stomach. He looks towards the stairs that lead to Taehyung’s room. He thinks about Taehyung’s sleeping face (ignore the drool, though - or maybe not, it might be kind of cute) - his eyelashes fluttering and hands clenched in his comforter - and thinks are we really meant to be?