"You're shaking!" Jin exclaimed with surprise and worry, although it sounded more like he was scolding him. That idiot! He deserved scolding, he could have caught his death staying out here the whole night. It was nice to know that he was this committed though. He reached for his thermos and with his other hand he took Taehyung's hand in his, but Taehyung flinched, his eyes showing brief shock, as if he had gotten an electric shock. It was probably the difference in temperature, Taehyung's hand was freezing. He guided his hand to the thermos and made sure he had a good hold on it before he released his hand.

"Here. Have some coffee before we start. You're freezing!" he shook his head in disapproval. Taehyung grinned sheepishly as he poured himself a cup.

"Okay, so there's a History test in two days, we're going to make that our first mission, to pass the test!" he said determined, an excited butterfly tickling his insides. He hadn't been this motivated since.. well, in a long time.

"Two days?!?" Taehyung coughed mid-sip, nearly drowning on a tiny sip of coffee.

“Yeah! No time like the present, speaking of... let's get started, we don't have all day.” he smiled and pointed to the equipment shed. “Fetch all the hurdles and a dozen or so hula hoops. Chop, chop!” he ordered, dictator-style. He wouldn't say he enjoyed being the tough guy, but he didn't exactly hate it either.

“Aren't we supposed to be studying?” Taehyung scrunched up his nose, looking like the cutest, most skeptical 5 year old on the planet. Jin had to hold back a chuckle.

“What happened to doing exactly what I say?” he folded his arms to look more authoritative. Taehyung let out a loud sigh in protest and headed to the equipment shed. Despite his skepticism, he went to work with enthusiasm, perhaps a little too much enthusiasm, leaving a trail of hula hoops behind him as he tried to bring everything at once. At least he was laughing while doing it. Learning was supposed to be fun. Jin believed in the 'happy student, successful student' theory, that you learn much more when you are doing it for yourself, not just because you didn't want to get scolded or punished.

Jin took one hurdle and one hula hoop and placed it on the track. Taehyung watched him in disbelief. “If you were just going to use one, why did you have me bring the whole bunch?” he complained.

“Well, it depends entirely on you how many of them we are going to use.” Jin smirked, delighted at his ingenious. Okay, they weren't all his ideas from scratch, he had had some inspiration from the internet.

“Huh?” Taehyung looked at him with a blank face, not following anything he was saying. He would soon, though.

“Okay, each lap I'll give you a historical fact that is likely to be on the test, and while you are running you should repeat it in your head, making up a song is a fun way to do it, so you can sing it to yourself as you complete the lap. At the end of the lap is a quiz, if you get the question wrong you will have to do the obstacle course which will grow by one hurdle and one hula hoop at every wrong answer. Sound good?” he grinned proudly.

“Eh, no.” Taehyung frowned, looking at the huge field beside them.

“No time like the present, okay, first fact. In 1392, General Yi Seong-gye established the Joseon dynasty after a coup that overthrew the Goryeo dynasty in 1388.” Jin started, bursting with excitement to see if his method actually worked.

“Ugh, this is too much information, I'm never going to remember all that. History is so boring and pointless!” Taehyung whined.

“Hey, what's up with the attitude. Without History, how are we ever going to learn from our mistakes? It's good to know where you came from. Stay positive. You can do this, I know you can.” he patted his shoulder vigorously. He could feel Taehyung loosen up, which made him just a tiny bit proud.

“Fighting!” he shot his fist into the air with great energy and then made it turn into a heart as it softly came back down again.

“So old-fashioned.” Taehyung chuckled, shaking his head while smiling wide. Old-fashioned or not, it got him to smile, Jin thought satisfied.

“Fine, here I go!” Taehyung announced with fake enthusiasm and started running. Fake enthusiasm was better than none, it had the potential to turn into the real thing when he least expected it.

He watched him run. There really was more to that boy than what met the eye, not that he wasn't extremely easy on the eyes. He was starting to realize how blind he had been ever since the semester had started. He had been closed minded and pessimistic, too focused on his own pain to see anything else, even what was staring him right in the face. He had made a snap judgment based on nothing but prejudice, and he regretted it. It was time to make up for it.

Oh! Oh! He was nearly there, that boy could run. His heart jumped as he stepped onto the track to give him the quiz question. He could barely breathe as the anticipation threatened to swallow him whole.

“What year was the Goryeo Dynasty overthrown?” Jin asked, a tiny spark of hope igniting in his chest.

“1398!” Taehyung shouted, completely out of breath. The spark went out, just like that, after only a few seconds of existence. But this was not the time to give up. They were only just starting. He had known it was going to be a long, difficult road. Knowing was easy. It was harder to stay positive when you had already started running down that road, realizing the end was nowhere in sight and you were already gasping for breath.

Taehyung's proud posture deflated like a balloon when he saw the look of disappointment on Jin's face. He quickly wiped it off, replacing it with an encouraging smile. “Almost! Only off by 10 years! Still going to have to give you the punishment, I'm afraid.” he smirked. There might have been an evil twinkle in his eyes, just for a moment or two.

“I told you... this is useless.” Taehyung pouted and planted himself on the ground. Never had there been a cuter quitter.

“Hey! None of this!” he said in a strict, teacher-y voice. “Nobody ever got successful after just one try. It's trial and error. You fail. You get back up and try, try again, until one time, when you least expect it, it all falls into place, making all the hard work worth it. You've just got to believe. If you can't believe in yourself, nobody else will.” he offered him his hand to help him back up again. “We're in this together, okay?” he reassured him, squeezing his hand slightly. Taehyung bit his lip awkwardly. “...key..” he whispered, weirdly coy.

“Now, do you believe you can do this?” he asked with intensity.

“Mmh...not really.” Taehyung avoided his eyes, gently kicking the ground with the toe of his running shoe.

“Do you believe in me?” he asked more softly, using the side of his index finger to nudge Taehyung's jaw gently upwards, just enough so their eyes met. For a short moment they looked deeply into each other's eyes, as if they were both searching for something. He wasn't sure what though.

“Yeah...” Taehyung mumbled as he looked away, embarrassed. Unexpectedly, a warm, fluffy feeling took hold of Jin's chest, before it started spreading all over.

“Ehm...uhm...key...mm...let's...uhm...keep ah...keep going then.” he fumbled for words, but they had all suddenly become too slippery to hold on to long enough to make a coherent utterance. Taehyung nodded subtly in agreement.

“So what went wrong? Did you repeat sing the fact the entire way?”. They needed to dissect the method in order to find the problem and make it better.

“Heh...” Taehyung scratched his head with a sheepish smile.

“You didn't, did you? It's not going to work unless you follow the instructions. So what were you thinking about then?!?” Jin complained, annoyed.

“I did!! Like...for half a lap...and then I just... got distracted.” he shrugged as his smile turned even more sheepish.

Jin sighed deeply. This was going to exercise his nerves more than he had ever exercised any other part of his body. If nerves could get six packs...

“And..? What distracted you?” he said dryly, trying to contain the annoyance.

“I just....started thinking about... how nice you were being to me....that you didn't have to do this... and that no one had ever been so nice to me before...” the toe of Taehyung's shoe started working on digging a hole in the ground again. Jin was left speechless. He had expected something like he had been thinking about how hot his favorite movie star was, or what he was going to have for breakfast. Anything but this. Leave it to Taehyung to catch him completely off guard. He was an expert in that.

“Uh...right. Ehm...so maybe it's better to sing it out loud. Let's try it.” he quickly changed the subject before his brain had a chance to start the melting process.

“In 1388 there was a coup

that made Goryeo go completely boop

In 1392, General Yi Seong-gye

came and established Joseon, yeah!

A new kingdom needs a king, yo!

let us now call him King Tae-jo!”

Jin made the lyrics up on the fly, singing them to the lullaby Hush Little Baby, which just randomly popped up in his head. Lullabies were usually pretty good for making study songs, since the melody was simple and everybody knew them.

“Boop?” Taehyung laughed heartily.

“Hey! It's hard to rhyme with coup!” Jin retorted in a huff. He went all out and even sang to him, something he never did in front of anyone, and all he could do was make fun of him?!

“It's nice.” Taehyung smiled sweetly.

“What?” he asked annoyed.

“Your singing. I like it.” Taehyung's soft, husky voice reached down to the deepest, darkest crevices in his heart, awakening them with light and warmth.

“Whatever. Now you try it.” he instructed, careful not to show any reaction.

“Me?” Taehyung got all shy.

“Yeah, that's like the whole point, you singing it.” he pretended he was still irritated.

“Here goes nothing...” Taehyung chuckled awkwardly before the most beautiful, soulful singing voice Jin had ever heard started singing his little song, giving it wings and turning it into the most beautiful song he had ever heard.

Taehyung chuckled and off he went, energetically jumping over the hurdle and into the middle of the hula hoop, before sprinting away, singing his heart out.

This was going to work, Jin thought as he tried to make it so by willpower alone.