Jungkook is frustrated and sick of acting all tough and different. 

He's frustrated that Taehyung still manages to distract him even when he's trying so hard to push the younger away. 

So today Jungkook tries extra hard to focus on swim team. And he tries extra hard to be the bossy lifeguard that people want him to be.

~

Jungkook shows up early to swim team today, nervously hoping today is not the day. He has his white board ready and a plan in the back of his head incase Namjoon does end up showing up to evaluate.

However once all his swimmers have arrived and the clock strikes 9:10am, Namjoon still isn't here. 

Lisa starts the warm up and Jungkook relaxes a little. His evaluation has to be tomorrow. At least now he'll know. 

~

"Not all of your dives are perfect so I'd like to practise them a little bit." Jungkook says to his swimmers once the harder swim set it over.

Everyone gets out, Yoongi lining up on the block first. He dives in when Jungkook calls it.

"Good job." Jungkook says before watching Jackson climb onto the block next.

He tries to mirror Yoongi but his legs flail in the air and when he enters the water it's not very pretty.

"Ahh Jackson, remember to keep your body stiff, don't flail your legs." Jungkook says in frustration. Jackson nods before pulling himself out.

Next is Taehyung. He climbs onto the high block before bending over nicely as Jungkook watches. The boy eagerly awaits for Jungkook to call it.

"Swimmer take your marks....go." Jungkook calls, watching the boy dive outwards and tightly enter the water with barely any splash.

It's perfect...

"Make sure you don't dive so deep." Jungkook says with frustration when the boys head comes up from the water expectantly. 

He sees Taehyung slightly sigh before watching the others dive. 

"Great job Hoseok! It's getting a lot better." Jungkook says to the bubbly boy who smiles brightly. 

After diving, Jungkook instructs the swimmers to get back in the water for the next set.

"Now we'll be doing 400m of free." Jungkook says.

"400m? That's a lot..." Jungkook suddenly hears Taehyung mumble under his breath. 

"What was that?" Jungkook raises an eyebrow at the boy who's pouting.

"No..nothing it's just..." Taehyung looks up at Jungkook, who's face is quite serious.

"Go on." The lifeguard awaits.

"That's a lot of free... can't we do too? Or back?" Taehyung tries, biting his lip when Jungkook's facial expression doesn't change.

"Kim Taehyung, you can do 400m of -, everyone else will continue with front-crawl." Jungkook says, jaw clenching when he looks back down at Taehyung. It's the first time he's called the boy by his full name in a long time.

Jungkook can't have one swimmer changing his set, and he especially can't have Taehyung do it. He has to be straight with him. 

Taehyung's mouth is just agape, eyes wide as he watches Yoongi pushing off the wall to start. Jackson pushes past Taehyung too, starting his laps. 

The tanned boy doesn't move from his place frozen in the water as Hoseok and Jisoo both go in front of him too. 

"Something wrong?" Jungkook asks the younger boy when he's just staring at the lane in front him. He can't complete 400m of -. He can barely do 6 laps of it.

"N..no." Taehyung stutters all of a sudden, surprising himself and Jungkook. He was so confident at the swim meet the other day and now he's back to being under Jungkook's power. 

"Then go, Yoongi already overlapped you." Jungkook says with an emotionless face. Taehyung doesn't look up, gulping as he decides to start his laps. 

The other swimmers do their laps of front crawl pretty quickly, sometimes overlapping Taehyung or touching his feet. 

He's on his 12th lap when everyone else finishes. It stresses him suddenly when he's on the way back from his 13th lap and he notices everyone at the wall waiting for him. 

Above them stands Jungkook who just watches Taehyung swim, not taking his eyes off the boy for a second. Lisa begins talking to the rest of the swimmers about the next set. 

Taehyung feels awful. He's angry and annoyed and it's all Jungkook's fault. He needs to get to the bottom of what happened with Jungkook. Taehyung's starting to notice a big change in the lifeguards attitude, especially towards him-starting only a few days ago. It's as if he doesn't even care about Taehyung as a swimmer anymore. Not that he ever really did.

Perhaps it's about the kiss, it has to be. However the Jungkook that Taehyung knows would never act so mean after such a small happening.

Taehyung angrily does his laps, kicking the water aggressively as he tries to reach the wall quickly. When he touches the wall, he tries not to look up at the lifeguard who continuously watches his every .

Finally, he ties it all up with his last lap of -, breathlessly making his way to the faraway wall. 

Yoongi swims past him suddenly, doing a front crawl sprint. That must be the next set. They already started the next set, not even waiting for Taehyung to finish. 

He slams his hand against the wall when his laps are done, his legs are sore and he's breathing heavily.

He doesn't look up at Jungkook when he's done, feeling a little too annoyed of the lifeguard in this moment.

"Good job Taehyung." He says and the way he says it makes Taehyung want to get him back at him for what he made the younger do. But he can't. His power is gone in this moment.

"The next set is 6 front crawl sprints. Unless you want it to be back-crawl this time." Jungkook says to Taehyung, no joke in his tone.

Taehyung looks up at the lifeguard to see his jaw clenched and his eyebrows raised. 

Now if Taehyung wasn't angry and annoyed right now, he'd think Jungkook was incredibly hot like this. He doesn't know why or where it came from, but it's slightly more attractive to see Jungkook like this. However Taehyung just clenches his fists instead, putting his goggles back on his face.

He doesn't say a word to the older and starts his sprints.

"He's really getting it today isn't he?" Lisa says from beside Jungkook.

"I guess, I mean I've been too nice to him lately." Jungkook says, hiding the small concern under his tone. He's not all that good at being tough and soon enough, it'll ware off.

"It's nice to see you growing some balls this time around." Lisa says as a joke, hitting Jungkook's arm playfully as he glares at her.

~

Once practise is over, Jungkook watches his swimmers get out of the pool and to their bags and towels. 

As if nothings new, Hoseok heads home with Yoongi for the second time that week. 

And Jungkook tries to spot Taehyung, but he's already near the gates, attempting to put his pull boy and kick board away. 

It's actually quite funny, when Jungkook watches the boy aggressively jumping up with his kick-board in hand, trying to reach the ridiculously tall shelves. He laughs by himself for a good 30 seconds before deciding to go over and help.

"I thought you were tall enough." Jungkook mocks once he approaches the boy from behind. 

Taehyung quickly turns around, startled by Jungkook's sudden appearance. His whole body suddenly facing Jungkook as he holds his board in one hand.

"I..shut up." Taehyung mutters and his face drops a bit, cheeks growing pink. He tries to act angry but it definitely doesn't work. It never works.

"Let me do it." Jungkook says, taking another step towards the boy who seems to back up.

"I can do it just fine." Taehyung says, turning back around and looking up at the shelf. Usually he puts it on a lower shelf but they're already all full.

Jungkook watches the boy hop up and down for another few seconds before he takes another step to the boy so his body is almost flush against the younger's.

It's surprises Taehyung quite a bit, stopping his next jump as he's about to turn around.

However just as his body starts to turn, Jungkook reaches his hand out and grabs the board from Taehyung's hands slowly. His fingers linger over the boys slender ones, just the way Taehyung did at the swim meet with his card.

Taehyung's face burns as he looks at his hand to see Jungkook's on top of it. 

The lifeguard finally grabs the kick-board and leans slightly on Taehyung's back to reach the shelf. Once he's placed it, he steps back and awaits a thank you.

Taehyung is slow to turn around, hoping the older isn't there anymore so he won't have to look at Jungkook and deal with his confusing emotions. One second he's mad at Jungkook, the next second he's attracted to him.

However Jungkook just stands behind the boy with an annoying grin on his face that makes Taehyung angry.

"B..bye." Taehyung mutters before running out the gates and surprising Jungkook. 

As Jungkook watches the younger boy rush onto his bike and leave the pool, he feels a lingering stare on him. 

When he looks up, Jin is standing a few meters away from him with a raised eyebrow, as if telling him to watch himself. 

Jungkook had almost completely forgotten about the plan for a few seconds.  And the day was going so well too.  

Looks like he'll have to seal the deal tomorrow by being extra hard on Taehyung. More than ever.