Taehyung is eighteen when he feels he might know Jungkook from somewhere. It’s the first time they meet; Jungkook is one of Jimin’s friends from his singing classes, and even though he could view him as a child (after all, Jungkook is just sixteen), they get on well with each other. Taehyung likes the way Jungkook smiles, all childlike and innocent, and the way he laughs at Taehyung’s strange behaviour. He doesn’t tell him he’s crazy nor does he look at him weirdly, and by the time he leaves Jimin’s house, he looks into Jungkook’s soft, brown eyes and mutters, hopeful, “See you soon.”

He doesn’t sleep that night, can’t stop thinking about Jungkook, wonders why he looks so familiar.

They meet again at a concert. Taehyung is invited by Jimin, and he doesn’t really expect to find Jungkook in the crowd, moving sweaty bangs out of his eyes with one hand while the other is resting on a girl’s hip, arm wrapped around her slim body. Taehyung shouts out to him, wide eyes and wide smile, and Jungkook turns to look at him with a bewildered expression. Turns out the performer is an acquaintance of Jungkook, more like his brother-in-law, he admits with a laugh, scratching the back of his head with his free hand. The other one, still unconsciously holding the girl to his side, makes something uncomfortable settle in Taehyung’s stomach. He doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know why it makes him feels worse when Jungkook says, with a cheeky smile plastered onto his face, “And this is my girlfriend.”

Some months later he realises that he might have been jealous, maybe a little hurt. The thought of not having Jungkook by his side, of being with another person, is slightly unsettling, but more so is thinking like that, he reasons after a while.

He tries not to think too much about it, at least not while holding his girlfriend in his arms.

The next time it happens, Taehyung is nineteen, studying biology in university and working at a cofee shop to help his mother with the house bills.

He’s on his shift when a pale boy enters the shop and orders an americano, and Taehyung opens his mouth in surprise when he notices his raven hair and his brown eyes, and he mutters “Jungkook.”

The boy looks at him through long lashes, and it feels so familiar, and it is so, so weird Taehyung is starting to believe he really is crazy.

“Yes?” Jungkook asks, and Taehyung thinks, his voice sounds the same. “Do I know you?”

Taehyung is at a loss for words. He doesn’t know what to say not to sound creepy, looks around the place for something to give him an idea and catches Jungkook’s school uniform, smiles when he feels that might work.

“I went to the same high school as you, you were quite popular when I was graduating,” he finally answers, hoping his voice doesn’t sound too anxious, too nervous, too happy. Jungkooks looks at him with an arched eyebrow and laughs, and it sounds the same to Taehyung, who doesn’t know how he remembers Jungkook, why he remembers Jungkook, but is already getting used to the feeling of his gaze on him with a smile on his pretty face.

“I guess I was.”

There’s one time Taehyung doesn’t meet him.

He’s just turned twenty six and is a quite successful solo artist. He breaks hearts daily with his striking features and sings his heart out to every one of his fans, gaining more and more fame with every ballad he releases. He takes pride in the fact he writes his own lyrics, though Namjoon, a fellow rapper of the same company, always help him with the rhymes. He enjoys the writing sessions with him because they always get something done by the end of them.

In one of these occasions, Namjoon asks him who he thinks about when he writes.

“Your songs always talk about love and they sound sad, some of them eager, as if you were waiting for something,” he tells him, and Taehyung doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know, but keeps thinking about what Namjoon says for the rest of the week.

He doesn’t find an answer, even after three comebacks full of songs about lost love written down in music sheets.

Taehyung is fifteen when he meets Jungkook through Twitter. Taehyung likes to think they’re friends; they have been talking everyday for a year and a half, occasionally retweet each other’s tweets and like Skyping with each other almost every Saturday. Jungkook is incredibly mature for a boy his age, even though he certainly looks thirteen years old. Taehyung doesn’t mind -- he’s young, too, and while he enjoys spending time with Hoseok and his friends, he likes talking with Jungkook the most.

The sad thing is Jungkook lives un Busan and Taehyung in Daegu, and while it’s not that far, they’re still too young to travel such distance.

“You know what, Kookie,” Taehyung whispers one night. They’re on Skype with just their microphones because it’s too late to have the lights on and Taehyung has told his mother an hour ago he was going to bed. “Sometimes I feel I’ve met you in another life.”

Jungkook laughs a little, says, “I think the same sometimes, especially when we say the same words, or think about the same things. It’s crazy, but it feels nice.”

Taehyung closes his eyes, letting his head rest on his folded arms on the desk. He smiles languidly, not bothering to stifle a yawn.

“Yeah, it feels nice,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep. Jungkook tells him he should go to sleep instead of nodding off in the living room, and Taehyung agrees, promising to talk to him tomorrow as soon as he gets online. He intends to send him a heart emoticon but instead it is a winking one, and the last thing he hears before logging out and turning off the computer is Jungkook’s lively laugh against his ears, sounding fresh even through the headphones.

Taehyung is seventeen and he’s part of the rookie group Bangtan, and he’s happy, because he remembers Jungkook and while Jungkook still doesn’t remember him, at least this time he loves him back.

They’re young boys with hearts that flutter with every dream they have, no matter how little or big it is. Taehyung practices his dancing at night instead of sleeping because he feels he’s not good enough, and Jungkook sometimes gets angry with himself on days when he can’t hit his high notes on their songs. They spend time with their bandmates and in no time it feels like a family, as though they have always been together in this dorm, with Hoseok yelling at them to clean the room, Yoongi trying to watch a movie while an annoying Jimin tries to steal the remote and Seokjin ing about Namjoon not helping him in the very least with the chicken soup he’s cooking.

They like sharing body warmth under the same blanket when they can’t sleep and it’s too cold plus they’re too lazy to get out of bed in search of a hoodie. They enjoy slow kisses after long practices, secret logs they never upload to Youtube and drinking hot cocoa at 3 a.m. because Taehyung craves it and Jungkook is restless because of the following day’s performance.

“Kookie is mine,” murmurs Taehyung, wrapping his arms around Jungkook from behind. He hides his face in the younger’s neck, his warm breath hitting against pale skin, and Jungkook lets himself sag against the other’s body. Jimin makes a face while one of the coordi noonas finishes with the last details on his make up.

“We already know, brat,” says Yoongi in his stead, grinning with amusement from his seat in front of one of the mirrors.

They aren’t lovers because they definitely enjoy being best friends, but they are still young; they have a lot of time to develop their relationship into something like that. They just have to wait till the right time comes, but for now they’re okay with what they have.

They’re more than okay.