Taehyung has been at Bangtan for just barely a week now, and with Jungkook following him around like a puppy to make sure he didn't get lost around the school, it wasn't hard to figure out he was one of the more popular ones. 

He got his name called left, right, forwards, backwards. 

He got flirty calls from students at the back of classrooms.

He got chatted up by some students at his locker. 

He got interested looks thrown at him pretty much wherever he went. 

But you know what? Taehyung's looks weren't half-bad either. Whatever, he was hot. Anyone could see that. Naturally, people started throwing looks his way as well as the week passed by. 

He was a little more than uncomfortable, still feeding the thought that he indeed was, straight. 

He turned a corner to get to his locker. It was one of the days where he had a class during early morning and Jungkook was still sleeping in the dorm room. His classes didn't start until late morning or afternoon. Maybe even some evening classes here and there. Taehyung gathered the information that he was a deep sleeper. 

Once, when Jungkook had gone to bed earlier because he needed to be somewhere the next morning, Taehyung stepped out of the shower in the dark, knocking over Jungkook's books sitting at the edge of the table when he hit the table, whacked his hand against the closet door, stubbed his toe against his bedside table and let out a stream of curses, stepping, tripping, falling over his long pants, hitting floor with a painful thump and oh, walking over to Jungkook's bed thinking it was his and awkwardly lying down on top of Jungkook. He got up straight away upon discovering Jungkook's body on contact. 

All of that in one night and Jungkook barely moved. 

Come to think of it, he should have just the small bedside lamp. 

Taehyung tried opening his locker with much difficulty, not able to get the lock open because of his combination. This is the fourth consequetive day the lock was giving him problems. He rolled his eyes and punched it. The lock retaliating using the metal as a defence. He reeled back and his face contorted into one of pain, opening his mouth silently and waving his hand about in silent agony. 

He brought his now red fist to his lips. He glared at the lock with furrowed eyebrows. 

Hearing someone chuckle somewhere behind him, Taehyung turned around to find a very attractive man standing a few feet away. Looking very amused, he gestured to the lock with his head. 

"Need some help?" he offered

Taehyung blinked at him in confusion and replied with his own question, "Who are you?" 

The guy simply smiled, showing two rows of bright white teeth. "I'm Jung Hoseok. One of Jungkook's friends. You didn't come with us to festival a few days back." 

One of Jungkook's friends? He frowned in thought as he remembered the time when Jungkook offered him to go with them. 

Oh. I think he's the one that was standing alone beside those two couples who were too busy just-

"Hello? Taehyung isn't it?" 

His thoughts that were getting a little carried away. 

"Oh. Yes. That's me. Jung Hoseok was it? Well, nice to meet you, I guess?" he said awkwardly. 

Yes, Kim Taehyung was socially awkward. 

Hoseok just laughed. "Haha, that's cute. Now, I've been watching you for the past few minutes. Struggling with this?" he pointed the the lock again

Taehyung blinked at him and nodded. 

"Yeah. The new locks are always a pain. You just got to-" with a hard yank, the lock broke open. 

With wide eyes, Taehyung stepped forward to examine his lock. 

"Oh my gosh, did you break it?" 

Hoseok laughed again, clearly amused by his behaviour. "No, I didn't, Strawberry. Your lock's fine."  

Taehyung turned to him, "Strawberry?" Hoseok grinned at him before ruffling his hair. "Yeah, strawberry. Your hair is pink. Suits you, doesn't really on most guys." 

Brightening suddenly, Taehyung grinned a box smile and replied, "Really? I knew it, my parents were like 'why' and I was like, 'why not?' and when I went ahead and coloured it anyway, they just tell me it's okay to like boys." his voice turned into a bitter tone as he talked

Hoseok, once again, laughed. "You really are a special one. But honestly, it's okay." his voice turned kind of serious to the end and when he looked at Taehyung's blank face, he burst into a round of giggles again. 

"Oh-em-gee, you're so weird. I'm STRAIGHT." Taehyung rolled his eyes as he said those two words again as he told this Hoseok guy in front of him

Hoseok held out his hand to him, "Can we be friends? For now, at least?" he asked

"For now? What? Don't you want to be my friend later on as well?" he said playfully but questioning him as the same time. He took the outstretched hand and gave it a little shake. 

Hoseok only shook his head with a smile, "You've got the wrong idea. You'll see eventually, Strawberry. It's nothing bad, promise." 

Taehyung only shrugged. "I'm not dwelling on this. I need to get to class. Thanks for breaking my lock for me and I'll look forward to seeing you around. Maybe. Probably, right?" he ended awkwardly while waving unecessarily. 

Laughing, like, again, Hoseok answered before stepping closer. 

"Like I said before, I didn't break your lock. I'd like to walk with you to class. Of course we'd see each other around anyway." he shrugged before removing the forcefully opened lock and opening the locker. "What do you need?" 

"Move please." he awkwardly shuffled and situated himself infront of his open locker, moving Hoseok out of the way. 

After he got his stuff and put away the things he didn't need, he realised something. 

He turned to face Hoseok, and before speaking he also realised another thing. Too close. Being too close for comfort, Taehyung took a step back and spoke, "This is my second lesson for this class and the route there is really, like, weird. Can you show me where it is? I mean, you did say you'd walk with me." he looked hopefully up at this ray of hope to take him to his class which he really did not know where it was situated in the school. 

"Yeah sure. What class?" 

Taehyung blinked and thought, "It's 12-EXO." 

Hoseok paused and his cheeks were touched by a light colour of pink. "Oh, that class. About that-" 

"Don't know where it is?" Taehyung cut him off playfully, giving a little grin. He felt comfortable around the boy already. Kind of. Still feeling a bit awkward, but maybe it was just him. The air around Hoseok was so friendly and he looked like an approachable person too. 

"Hey! I think I know! Just-Just-whatever! It's probably on the upper floor then. We can look for it when we reach there." he said indignantly before muttering the second part of his sentence. 

Taehyung laughed a little too, "Alright then. Let's go. I'm probably going to be late." 

"Yeah, probably." 

"Hey!"

"What?"

"You could at least say I won't be that late. Be a little reassuring, that teacher is scary."

"Okay then. You won't be that late." 

"That's reassuring, thanks a lot."

"I can just feel the gratefulness behind that thanks." 

"Whatever."

Yeah, Taehyung made a new friend. 

***

Jungkook woke from his sleep with messy bed hair. He yawned and looked over at the empty bed at the other side of the dorm room. 

Noticing Taehyung's laptop and bag was not in it's usual spot, as well as the missing pair of red shoes by the door, he came to the conclusion that Taehyung had left for a morning class. 

Glancing at the clock, the time read 12:54pm. 

"Well, I'm early, as per usual." he said to himself sarcastically before getting out of his bed and heading to the shower to wash his face. 

On his way there, he tripped and stumbled over a stack of fallen books. His books. 

Jungkook remembered what Taehyung had told him a few days ago when he woke up that he knocked over a stack of books on the way to his bed and it was too dark to pick it up and readjust it on the table again. So he just left it. 

"He must have done it again." he said, half amused and half still sleepy and proceeded to pick the books of the floor with a page torn and the rest crumpled. 

It wasn't until Jungkook was leaving for his afternoon class at 1:45pm did he realise that Taehyung was supposed to be back. If he remembered correctly, Taehyung only had a morning class that ran from a time he doesn't know to 9:30am. He'd usually have gone and come back and Jungkook would still be asleep. He only knew this because he was woken by Taehyung himself as he the toilet malfunctioned on him when he arrived back. 

He considered calling or texting him, already used to the fact that as his self-appointed "manager" as you could call it, he was used to knowing where Taehyung was most of the time. But decided against it as he probably went out to look around the school himself, or something of the sort. 

Instead, he packed up his own bag for class and left the dorm room. 

After his afternoon class though, he decided to drop by the supermarket to get some snacks and biscuits for Taehyung as a present for surviving a whole week in Bangtan. It was silly, but it was something Jungkook wanted to do for his roommate to ensure that they both got along just fine in the future as well. 

Also, Jungkook could possibly ask for a favour from him if ever needed. Possibly. 

After receiving permission to leave the school grounds from the receptionist, he headed to the nearest supermarket down the road from the school. 

"Hmm. Chocolate chip cookies will do. Strawberry-cream filled biscuits are good too. Which one?" he mulled over to himself for a few seconds before walking over to the counter holding both packets.

"Whatever. I'll just get both." he said to himself and bought the cookies. 

It was a cold day, but Jungkook felt like an ice-cream. So he walked over to the ice-cream parlour and entered on the way back from the supermarket. The bell ringing above the door as he stepped into the parlour filled with students despite the cold weather. Jungkook guessed that they were either skipping classes or were finished with their classes for the day or at least the afternoon. 

As he scanned the flavours on the board, his eyes stopped over a strawberry flavoured ice-cream picture on display. 

He immediately thought of Taehyung and that pink hair of his. Craving for strawberry ice-cream now, he walked up to the counter already intending to buy it. 

"One strawberry flavoured ice-cream please. Regular size and could I also order the strawberry sauce with it? Thanks." he handed the money over to the cashier to pay for the more-expensive-than-he-thought ice-cream. 

He collected his ice-cream over the counter and was going to just walk back to the dorm room to eat when something caught his eye. 

Jungkook saw pink hair in his peripheral and he instinctively turned his head to see none other than Taehyung. But he wasn't alone. Hoseok was with him and they both seemed to be enjoying a light-hearted conversation. 

He blinked in surprise, wondering why the two were together. 

"When did they meet?" he said to himself as he wandered over to their table with an ice-cream cup in one hand and a plastic bag containing cookies in the other. 

He felt this urge to just interrupt whatever they were doing and plopped himself right beside Hoseok. "Hi hyung. Taehyung, you're here too! What are you two doing here?" 

Hoseok jumped in surprise as he heard his friend's voice beside his ear. 

"Oh! Jungkook! Taehyung and I just went to get ice-cream. As you can see." he held up his cup and pointed to Taehyung's cup resting on the table

It pleased him in a strange way to see that Taehyung had also picked strawberry, except without the sauce that was almost $2.00 extra. Lucky he was in a good mood that day. 

"I didn't know you guys were friends." Jungkook said, a little hurt to know that Taehyung hadn't told him be befriended someone that was his friend as well. 

"Taehyung and I became friends just today. It's been great, hasn't it?" Hoseok said and Taehyung nodded, a smile on his face

Jungkook frowned at the sight. No, not at Taehyung's smile. But by the fact that Hoseok got Taehyung to smile within half a day of them meeting. It took two days for him to get the boy to smile and laugh! 

Not that it meant a whole lot anyway. Pfft. 

Hoseok proceeded to tell Jungkook about how he saw Taehyung by his locker and helped him out with his lock and how he also waited around for Taehyung to finish class before they went out for a movie and now eating ice-cream together. 

It almost sounded like a date. No, scratch that, it did sound like a date. Jungkook didn't mind that fact. 

They really did hit it off. 

"It's been fun." Taehyung commented

Hoseok glanced at the watch on his hand and picked up his phone and wallet off the table. 

"I have a class starting in around 20 minutes." Hoseok said, standing up and collecting his belongings on the floor by his feet. "It was fun hanging out with you today, Taehyung. Maybe we could do this again sometime?" 

Taehyung nodded at him, also standing up with his unfinished ice-cream in his hand. 

"Sure, I had a great time too." Taehyung replied and waved at him as he exited the ice-cream parlour

"See you, Strawberry. Bye Jungkookie." 

After Hoseok left, Taehyung turned to Jungkook and smiled at him. "Hello. Class finished?" he said casually

"Yeah." Jungkook said

Taehyung smiled upon noticing Jungkook's ice-cream. "Strawberry too, eh?" he really did seem to be in a bright mood

"Yeah, like your hair." he smiled 

"Hoseok said that too. He said it suited me." he told him

Jungkook's mood dimmed in the slightest bit and he felt like he wanted Taehyung to only pay attention to him. Like, Jungkook was his roommate and his first friend. Jungkook was meant to help him to get accustomed to the school and be the person he relied on. 

Yeah. He was just like that. It happened with his closest friends too. But with Taehyung, he felt that there was this special something about him to Jungkook and he was also pretty good-looking and all. Just being greedy? 

Jungkook continued to look at Taehyung and complimented him as well, 

"It does suit. Maybe you could try orange?" he suggested and Taehyung looked up from his ice-cream cup

"Yeah, maybe. But I like pink right now. Orange can come later." he said, spooning another mouthful of ice-cream into his mouth

Jungkook hummed in response and lifted his own ice-cream cup to his lips, eating a big mouthful. 

Despite the cold weather and with the ice-cream to top it off too, Jungkook felt a little warm inside as the sat inside the ice-cream parlour with Taehyung. 

Deciding as he finished his ice-cream at a slow rate, he found out he enjoyed being in the other's company after a week of spending time with him and sharing a dorm room. 

Oh yeah, Jungkook still needed to write down a list of questions to ask Taehyung. He was slightly eager to find out about him ever since the festival night. But they were tired after climbing down the slope and went straight to bed after changing clothes. 

The grey cardigan was washed now, and he chuckled quietly at himself at the memory about them in the clearing, throwing the piece of clothing at each other. 

Yeah, he didn't think he was ever going to throw that cardigan out. For the sake of that memory. 

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter

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This chapter was just fluff, I'm telling you. Introduction of J-Hope officially to the story as well

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