the beginning.

october 2011

Taehyung found himself sitting in his best friend's family cafe on one fine Tuesday afternoon, poring over the jobs section of the local newspaper.

"What about this one? The job description says that you'll have to make deliveries four afternoons a week, and the pay's not too bad either," Seokjin suggested, sipping on a strawberry smoothie as he sat with Taehyung to assist him, and in his words, 'to give him a wise hyung's opinions'.

The younger boy scrunched up his face in displeasure, "Nah hyung, that's way too boring," he stated, continuing to leaf through the paper. His laptop was open in front of him, and he had come prepared for a day of serious job-hunting with multi-coloured highlighters and plenty of pens in tow.

"I'd give you a job here if I could, but we're kind of overstaffed as it is," Seokjin sighed. Taehyung bit back a 'whose fault is that?' as he smiled at the kind hyung in front of him who didn't have the heart to fire anyone; even if they were not required.

Seokjin scrolled through the search results on the laptop, "Why are you even looking for a job now? Didn't you leave your previous one so you could focus on university?" he questioned, briefly glancing at the orange haired boy.

"Yeah I did, but I don't want to burden my father with my tuition bills you know. He already pays for hyung's tuition, plus the twins' elementary school fees, and now he's saving up for noona's wedding too. Plus the shop's seen better days, so money's a bit tight," Taehyung answered. There was no sign of complaint or dissatisfaction in his voice. Seokjin thought it was one of Taehyung’s most admirable personality traits. He was incredibly optimistic, always thankful, and tended to look at the bright side of everything, unlike most of the people around him. Taehyung was the kind of person who took all of life’s curveballs in his stride, and sometimes Seokjin wished he could be like that too.

"That's nice of you," Seokjin said appreciatively, fondly ruffling the younger boy’s hair. Taehyung smiled bashfully, turning his attention back to the newspaper in his hands.

Seokjin continued to jump between numerous webpages and tabs before he found a job description that seemed promising, "Taehyung,