“I’ll be your friend, your family, your shadow and your sunshine- I’ll be everything you need.”

Author's note: All events are fabricated. 

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Jeon Jungkook

Genre: Friendship, fluff, crush

Rating: PG

Word Count: 2264

The heavy air around him becomes stifling and toxic, likely a harbinger of another emotional storm for the younger male.

Jungkook s the navy blazer and struggles to slither his long, bony fingers out of the silk ruffles. He swings the costume aside and stares at his reflection in the mirror. His make-up was smeared across his face and his eyes were no longer a seductive grey. His small red blemishes and the tiny mole under his bottom lip was visible again. His orbs were back to their dead, exasperated brown and the sheen was no longer gracing his vanilla skin. 

He was tired from the stage rehearsals and wanted nothing more than to return to his dorm and shut himself out of the current realm to drift into hours of dark conceptual nothingness.

But they had to spend the night in the studio, they had a show the following afternoon and they were afterall, Bangtan Sonyeondan. Be it their pre-debut, be it post their billboard conquest- they will practice until they perform like they are machines of algorithms and mechanical controls. Like they were built for that particular stage, like flaw is something heretic in their bible.

Jungkook pulls his muscle tee out from his tourister, slips on his camo pants and washes his face. He looks into the mirror again, long and hard. With each passing day, the empty fissures in him were broadening. With the expansion of age and perception, comes an expansion in need. Both bodily and emotional. 

Sometimes he looks at the mirror and sighs, wants someone to fill the empty spaces beside him, give him a hug or perhaps, a kiss and tell him everything is going to be okay, that he is going to be okay. 

Sometimes, he just wants to leap and bound his way to his dorm, find a certain someone waiting for him, just for him. Instead of letting him play Mario Kart alone, that certain someone would give Jungkook warmth and love. Instead of the blasting TV screen, Jungkook would have a face, a heart, and a messiah to stare at all night long.

Sometimes, Jungkook just wants to be him, wants to be young and twenty. Make unforgettable mistakes, burn in drunken escapades, rejoice in forbidden fiascos and simply- live.

But his contract restricts that.

His contract restricts love, restricts warmth, restricts everything that keeps him at the beeline of being a human and being an industrial pawn.

But Jungkook doesn't mope. He has given up his childhood in countless dance sessions; innumerable sore throats and in studios that he silently called the grey playground. He shall give up his youth too, in cold beds, in denied lust and forced smiles.

He shall give it all up because he understands, he is an all-capable child, the uncut diamond and the company's Midas.

Jungkook sighs as he his hand up his chest and brings it back to his navel, feeling his muscles tighten and cramp in their exhaustion. He has a bulge in his pant too, but he is too tired and too sick of taking care of it any longer. 

He has learnt to bear the pain for five years now, so he bears it tonight too.

He stalls to the large conference room, that had been cleared and accommodated with comforters for the seven boys. Jungkook walks by the green room but retraces his steps soon, finds light seep from the glass panel of the door.

He turns the knob with unintended stealth and cranes his neck. He arches a brow when he finds Taehyung splayed across the small couch, passed-out and drenched. Jungkook figures by the half-done shoelaces and plugged in speakers that the older male had been practicing incessantly, to boost the performance and his self-confidence.

Jungkook enters the room, burdened in the massive scent of sweat and deodorant- one overlapping the other and hulking into an odour mismatch. When he looks at the massacre Taehyung had created in the room, he laughs but when Jungkook turns to see his face he halts, breathes and empathizes. 

He recognized the creases by his eyes, it meant Taehyung was daunted in his dreams- in a realm which one makes for his own comforts, Taehyung's fears have crept in. That is what nightmares are, really. Reality in the form of shadows, monsters and serpents, insecurities in the form of daggers and cutlass; you get nightmares when you dont accept reality, dont want to live it. Want your vulnerabilities to eat you alive rather than let your faith shield you.

Jungkook flicks off the switch and lets the dim bulb of the dressing table illuminate the room. He turns to leave but he hears a small cry.

'Ngh- so cold.'

He trails his gaze back to the shadowed outline of Taehyung and finds his nails clawing into the leather of the couch in a desperation that is bordering biblical. 

Jungkook lets the door swing shut behind him, and he settles on the couch beside Taehyung. Taehyung holds an odd composure, with one leg on the couch and the other dangling and his head tilted against the material. His back is facing Jungkook and he is crookedly sitting up. Jungkook sighs because he knows Taehyung will wake up with a stiff neck but this makes the younger smile because he knows he will come running to him and ask him to massage it.

Jungkook freezes and dysfunctions for a moment when Taehyung loses balance and falls backward into Jungkook's lap. The younger's eyes widen because had he not been there, Taehyung would've banged his head against the wall.

Jungkook feels an onslaught kind of ache when he sees Taehyung's pale face regain colour and body snuggle close at the sudden exposure to warmth. Jungkook feels his head reel again, all his drowsiness dissipating in the air like a receding fog.

He doesn't remember how long it has been. 

Five days? Five months? Oh hell, probably five years since he has fostered ardour for the older boy.

In the beginning, it was friendship, all infantile and pure its foundation. Then tagged along brotherhood, born out of sheer admiration of his oceanic deep voice and flippant smile and of kinship that stitches itself to shared toothbrushes and shampoo bottles.  

But the inception of nemesis came when Jungkook held his fingers for too long, stared at his mere-towel sheathed body for too long and lingered near his neck for too long even when he was awake and Taehyung's shoulder was no longer a need.

Jungkook thought it was mere deprivation, of release of hormone and of lust. There have gone innumerable nights where he had the shower and pleasured himself in two, three, even four courses. But when Taehyung's visage flashed by like a refraction of light, Jungkook had the red siren going off in his mind.

Taehyung's sneeze tore Jungkook off of his daze and made him slowly drink in the entirety of the boy in his lap. 

Taehyung's hair, bleached and coarse yet silken and soft. Jungkook had always found his wet, frizzed hair immaculate, the stray, unkempt strands adorning his forehead like an ebony scepter. 

Taehyung's nose, the small lumpy protrusion Jungkook was ever envious of because his own wasn't as tender, as lovable. It was a small unnoticed feature but along with many other infinitesimal pieces of Taehyung, Jungkook had started adoring his nose too, it's small scrunches and winter red tip.

Taehyung's lips, what could it be other than cherry blossoms? Always in their spring, Jungkook thought he had never seen flesh so immaculately carved, as though he has transcended art, transcended it all. Red and full, plump and luscious; it hid the universe's most precious smile- a smile that was often encashed and industrialized, a smile that was never truly freed.

Taehyung fumbles around in his sleep and Jungkook knows he is looking for someone to wrap his arm around. Jungkook curves into him and gives the older male space to snake his hand around him and bask in the younger's heat. 

To Taehyung it is merely a rut, a filial habit of growing up with siblings but to Jungkook, a lonely townboy in the boisterous city, this minuscule gesture meant the world. To him, this meant, even if it is someone's surreality, he belonged to that someone's arm.

He hated it when Taehyung is shoved aside by Yoongi or Namjoon when he gesticulates the same. Taehyung merely looks for a crutch, a support to lull him into sleep. Hence, Jungkook had set his mind upon it, given Taehyung support, be it dawn, dusk or twilight.

Jungkook feels Tahyung's waist graze against his bulge and he gets scared. If the older feels Jungkook grow hard against him, he will hear no end of it. 

They are bandmates, brothers who hug and touch each other in front of cameras because their fans want them to. They place kisses on cheeks and make heart signs on events because the little sheets of fan requests tell them to. They are close in their affinity, in their dorms they walk around in their underwears and cuss no matter if it is the youngest to the oldest. But never do they nuzzle into each other, squeeze a hug or place kisses- it is not condoned to be manly. 

This scares Jungkook. Threatens to deluge him in the abstract attraction he has towards the certain bandmate asleep on his lap.

Women- they are told to forget the very noun, discard it from their vocabularies and replace it with career. Men- well, it is hilarious to be brought into consideration. Bandmate- unthinkable.

But it is what it is. 

When Jungkook finds Taehyung looking at Jimin as he moves with the music like leaves do with the wind, he wants to press a hand upon his shoulder- tell him he is no less, that his very presence, his very existence is an accomplishment to the band.

When Jungkook finds Taehyung talking about his favourite clothes on camera, he admires him. To that particular broadcast, he might be a potential fashionista, a little lost and detached but little do they know he talks about crime thrillers the same way, also the history of music and an excerpt of philosophy that he had come across the last night. To them that knowledge is baseless, as it cannot be encashed, cannot be valued by admirers that seek him to be a mere fashion, perhaps symbol.

When Jungkook finds Taehyung curled up in a ball in his room, crying into his nightsuit because he is weary of his inaccuracies, tired of being called a clown, an upliftment of the mood of the group when he didn't have the courage of lifting himself from the purgatory pothole of hopelessness, the younger wants to mould himself into him, finally hold his soft, featherlike cheeks in his hands and breathe his faith into him. Feel his own thin, curved lips kiss the older's plump, sweet ones, feel his hands pull him close and delve deeper into the cauldron of affection even though it may set his heart ablaze and inaugurate destruction.

They have both in similar and dissimilar ways, sacrificed, lost and gained. All seven of them had, but only Taehyung kept smiling his boxlike smile, curled crescent eyes becoming another reason to hold on, push farther. He took the initiative of loving each one of them to their shreds, giving himself and his searing pains up to wear glee, make it an all-encompassing, all-enhancing catalyst to their dull days. 

Everybody saw Taehyung keeping his discrepancy and incompetence piled but Jungkook took the initiative to crumble it, destroy it completely to fill it with affirmation and love. He was growing close to the older boy with each passing second but the older made him his favourite brother.

Or a rather painful term.

A favourite bandmate.

Jungkook cradled Taehyung's head in his palms, pulled him onto the armrest so that their faces are closer and so that Jungkook's pants dont tear underneath the building pressure. 

Jungkook closes his eyes and pulls a frown, kneading his cheeks because it is midnight,

A time where he usually dozes off otherwise it makes him drown in his decisions, blank him out and confuse him as to what happens after this. What happens after they have it all, after they have nothing more to achieve? Is there even an end to achieving? Does living begin where achieving ends? What happens, what really happens after tonight, after this very moment?

Jungkook feels his tears fighting to liberate themselves, tired of being hidden behind propriety, fake emotions and business attires. Tired of being made invisible behind cake-faces and behind public stages. Tired and weary, of belonging to a boy who no longer remembers his age, no longer remembers what people do at his age.

In simultaneous retort, Jungkook feels Taehyung rest his face against the younger's chest, whisper in a low, sub-conscious voice. 

Jungkook strains his ears and finds it is not his name that is being chanted but the older's grandmother. 

This Jungkook finds breathtaking. 

This Jungkook finds brighter than the breaking rays of sunshine because this means he has succeeded in making Taehyung feel at home. In his embrace, he has succeeded to become Taehyung's family, become a portion of his affection. In his embrace, he feels Taehyung has found someone close, someone he deemed to be of his own.

This makes Jungkook lean forward and imprint a kiss upon his cheeks. 

This makes Jungkook close his eyes and await the unfolding of a new chapter in his search for love.