Chapter Text
Taehyung can tell that Jungkook is done. Everyone’s done, really. It’s been a long day even for Taehyung, and he isn’t part of the dance line practice that Hoseok is running in the evenings. They all had demanding voice lessons before that—Taehyung managed to get snapped at for goofing off too much, and then again for being purposely low energy afterward. At lunch, Jungkook is already just a machine, not even joining the conversation when a stylist noona tells them that the managers had an hour meeting—an hour—about whether or not Jimin can dye his hair in the middle of promotions, and decided that no, he can’t. Taehyung wants to go back to the dorms—to shower and lose a few rounds of Overwatch—but instead he sits huddled in a corner of the dance floor during Hoseok’s practice. He messes with his phone for a while and then just kind of spaces out and watches when he realizes that he doesn’t even have it in him to find the internet interesting. Jimin seems pissed and jittery about the hair thing, and he throws it into his dancing, executing the new choreo with a loose, stunning artistry and then getting immediately huffy when Hoseok takes issue with anything. Jungkook is still just a machine, everything spot on but his face impassive. Hoseok has that quiet intensity he gets when they’re coming up against a performance and he thinks no one is quite there yet, but even so he barely prods Jungkook, doesn’t poke fun at his mistakes, just briefly tells him what to fix.
When they finish, Jimin impulsively starts a Vlive, “to check in with ARMY and send and receive love,” he tells his phone, and Jungkook vanishes immediately while Hoseok clowns for the camera. Taehyung flashes a peace sign from the floor before grabbing his stuff to follow Jungkook—he sees him halfway down the hallway and then hears footsteps pounding behind him.
“Kookie!” Jimin calls. “Kook-ah! They want to say hi!” Taehyung stills for the inevitable train wreck—Jimin channeling everything into a buzzy social energy, Jungkook impassive and resentful. Jungkook turns slowly, pulls his bucket hat lower, and then switches visibly into fan rendezvous mode. Jimin comes around behind him to capture them both in the shot, and Jungkook tilts his head back and offers a few platitudes that seem to cost him more effort than the entire evening’s practice. “We’re working hard on something special, aren’t we Kookie?” Jimin prompts. Jungkook just looks lost.
Taehyung watches, and then does the only thing that makes sense—he summons up the shreds of his remaining energy and takes off running toward them. He sees them look up in surprise a moment before he crashes into Jungkook. “We love you ARMY!” he shouts, face as close to the camera as possible, and then he grabs Jungkook by the torso and drags him down the hall. Jungkook seems to catch on, and they both take off running, Taehyung relieved to hear Jimin laughing behind them.
They bust through the double doors, and then they still to a respectful walk by the offices, and Taehyung feels light on his feet for the first time that day. He doesn’t expect anything from Jungkook, knows that he’s practically a dead man walking right now, and he’s right—he barely looks around as they head back to the dorm, blearily rubbing his eyes while they wait for the elevator. When the elevator doors close, though, Jungkook sags onto him from behind, his forehead on his shoulder, arms around his waist, and Taehyung knows it’s kind of like a thanks. And for some reason he wishes there were ten more floors.
~~~
Jungkook showers, and then instead of going through his whole skincare routine he just wanders over to Namjoon’s room and flops onto his bed. Namjoon barely says hi, which is good, and then goes back to working on lyrics, which is even better. It’s kind of like a magical circle of protection from group activity fuckery, to be in Namjoon’s room while he’s working seriously on something. Even Jin rarely disturbs him when he’s like this. Jungkook stares at Namjoon’s feet—he tends to bounce his right foot in frustration or excitement when he’s close to an idea—and savors the silence, the not moving, the not demanding. He thinks for a bit about Namjoon’s dedication, wonders if this kind of productive energy is something you can catch if it’s floating in the air around you. And then he purposely tries not to think about that. He feels a familiar dread about how he’s made no progress on his own mixtape, guilt for how he’d postponed that meeting about it—supposedly because their schedule was too packed, but actually because he had nothing to say. It’s such a rare chance, something he’s been working toward for years, but suddenly he doesn’t have any concepts or ideas; he just feels empty. These days he’s sleepwalking through practice and training, lapsing on hobbies he’d just picked up and that fans are sure to ask about, doing the bare minimum. Coasting by on old goodwill, the memory of hard work. He rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling.
Namjoon’s muttering to himself, and then he turns toward Jungkook in his computer chair, asks him to look at something and tell him what he thinks. Jungkook drags himself out of bed and leans over his hyung’s shoulder to look at the screen.
“Did you get my pillows all wet?” Namjoon asks, like it just occurred to him. Jungkook is busy trying to wrap his brain around the verse.
“I like how it seems like you’re there,” he says finally. “Like you’re seeing it happen, instead of it just being a metaphor.” Namjoon nods. “I think that word,” he points, “is too similar to that one.” Namjoon makes a noise of disagreement.
“It’s supposed to be.”
“This line,” he points again, “is my favorite. It feels really specific.” Namjoon nods again. He says it aloud—“But I’m even thirstier than before”—and then feels like maybe he shouldn’t have.
“You’re good at this, you know,” Namjoon says with a sudden emphasis, looking up at him. “If you kept pushing, they’d probably let you write more.” Jungkook doesn’t know how to answer, just feels stupid.
“JK mixtape. Hwaiting,” he says weakly.
“Yeah. What’s happening with that?” Jungkook curses himself for bringing it up at all, suddenly feels like Namjoon’s room while he’s working is actually the worst place to be. At least in the living room with Jimin watching a loud drama no one would be asking him about progress. He straightens up, shakes his wet hair—Namjoon launches forward to wipe water droplets off of his notebook.
“Sorry,” he mutters. He gives his token excuse about their schedule, tries his best not to look like someone with nothing to offer the world. Namjoon pats him absentmindedly on the shoulder, his mind already back on his work.
“You’ll get there. You always do.” Jungkook thanks him automatically. “Let me know though,” he adds, fiddling with his computer, “if they’re dragging their feet. I’ll talk to them for you.” Jungkook nods, feeling even guiltier than before. He flops back on the bed, wonders how long you can bank on other people’s confidence in you before there’s nothing left to pull from.
~~~
Jungkook vows the next day to turn things around. He wakes up late, which is dumb, but then he mentally sets aside a short block of time after lunch for brainstorming and even emails to see if they’ll schedule a meeting about his mixtape next month. He really likes the direction their new singles are going, and his recording session that afternoon starts out well. They get through the up-tempo song quite well, and everyone likes Jungkook’s ad libs—they return to a few to refine them. He hasn’t heard the new vocals on the other track yet, and the producer plays him the whole song to see if they want to add any harmony before they focus on Jungkook’s lines. He nods along at Jimin’s part, really likes the way he curves up to the high notes, is impressed as usual with how he always sounds so effortlessly sincere. They have Namjoon filling in some harmonies—he actually sounds decent—and then it’s Taehyung’s lines, and for some reason Jungkook isn’t ready.
Taehyung’s voice is just an everyday facet of his life. Jungkook has been singing with him since he was fifteen, imitating him on variety shows, critiquing him mercilessly from the sink while he belts in the shower. It’s just another part of his odd, lucky life; it shouldn’t be special. But that afternoon his hyung’s voice catches him by surprise, deep and close and seductive in his headphones, and suddenly he feels cold, his throat tight. The lyrics are about loss, pleading with someone who’s already gone, and Taehyung wraps around each phrase—Jungkook briefly imagines him recording next to him in the dark, licking his lips before the take. He shivers. Then it’s Jimin again, and Jungkook exhales. There’s an unfinished section where Jungkook is supposed to be trying his lines, but he just stands there, looking at the floor. The last line is Taehyung’s, of course—he’s high and plaintive, his voice catching expressively. And then the track ends with a click.
“Any thoughts?” the producer asks him through his headphones, and Jungkook shakes his head emphatically. The old demon is back.
~~~
When Jungkook was a lot younger, and didn’t know how to wall himself off, or that his body was this inexplicable thing liable to betray him, Hoseok used to joke that Jungkook had a huge crush on Taehyung. Jokes, especially jokes at each other’s expense, were usually something that they traded around, recycled until it was unclear who originated them, but for some reason this joke was only Hoseok’s. He teased Jungkook for his crestfallen looks when Taehyung chose another team, when he wouldn’t come watch Jungkook play video games, when he got the chance to leave practice early and actually did. “Give the poor kid a break,” Yoongi broke in at one point. “He won’t always get one.” For some reason Yoongi’s comment stuck with him. He wishes he didn’t, but he understands it now, thinks of it every time staff edits him and Taehyung out of a video or reminds them to “behave like men.” Jungkook is older now, much more experienced at self-censorship. Sometimes he even just exists for long stretches of time, doesn’t consciously acknowledge how he’s always, always trying not to think too much about it. And then there are times like today in the recording booth, when he’s weak beneath it again.
Jungkook spends the rest of the day self-censoring, and also trying to subtly avoid Taehyung. He notices, of course—he’s worse than Jimin about feeling neglected—and that night when he invites Jungkook on an unauthorized convenience store run, and Jungkook shakes his head no, he sees him visibly pout.
“Come on,” Jimin wheedles beside him. Lowers his voice. “They can take my hair color but they can’t take my cheap snacks.”
“I’m staying too,” Taehyung says, plopping heavily next to Jungkook on the couch. “I respect rules.” Jin snorts.
“Fine,” Jungkook says, panicking a bit. “I’ll go.” He ignores Taehyung’s look of betrayal and stands up. It’s just for a little bit, he tells himself. Just until he gets back to normal.
“I don’t care who goes,” Jin stage whispers, rattling the keys, “but we’re leaving now.”
Taehyung really does stay behind, and Jungkook at first feels relieved and then spends the whole trip stewing about it. He remembers how Taehyung rescued him yesterday from Jimin’s Vlive, how he’s gotten so good at supporting him without pushing too hard at his boundaries, how he doesn’t deserve any of this. He spaces out in the snack aisle and ends up just buying an assortment of Taehyung’s favorites—maybe he can chuck the bags at him one by one from across the room when they get back. And then hide.
Jimin seems to notice something is off, because he serenades him with the entirety of Press Your Number from the other side of the backseat—Jungkook finds it embarrassing and funny and feels really, really bad that Taehyung is missing it. They get back to the dorm, and Jungkook tenses up again, but Taehyung’s nowhere in sight as they all drop their contraband snacks on the kitchen counter.
“What’s this?” Yoongi asks, pulling Jungkook’s grocery bag toward him and looking inside. “You don’t even like these.”
“Can you give them to Tae?” He’s already at the edge of the kitchen.
“Um. No?”
“Don’t say it’s from me.” He flees to his room.
~~~
Taehyung practically busts open his door later that night, and Jungkook jumps so hard he drops his phone on his face.
“Why are you being a brat and then buying me snacks?” Taehyung asks in the doorway, his voice accusatory. Jungkook rubs his nose, wincing, and sits up in bed.
“Huh?” Taehyung holds up a lime-colored candy bag, shakes it menacingly.
“Yoongi-hyung just dropped like seven bags of candy on my head and said they were from you.”
“God Yoongi,” Jungkook groans.
“Well?” Jungkook only has his bedside lamp on, so he can see his stance, but he can’t quite see his face.
“Who says I was being a brat?”
“I do. I should know. I’m a brat.” He’s impassive, hair shadowing his eyes.
“Maybe I was trying to make it up to you,” he mumbles, looking away.
“Think you can buy hyung’s forgiveness?”
“Yes?” Jungkook tries. Taehyung waits a beat, then lets the door close behind him and walks over to sit on the bed. He pulls a bright green candy out of the bag and holds it out to him. “I already brushed my teeth,” Jungkook protests. Taehyung raises his eyebrows, his mouth a line. Jungkook exhales and lets him feed him, sugary melon flavor hitting his tongue.
“It’s good, right?” Taehyung says, getting the rest of the way on the bed and leaning against the headboard. Jungkook makes a face.
“Goes a little weird with toothpaste.” Taehyung shakes his head.
“So ungrateful.”
“And now I have to think about sugar all night,” Jungkook adds, unrepentant. “Eating away at my teeth.” Taehyung rolls his eyes, pops another one in his mouth. He shouldn’t look good this way—no makeup, gaudy Gucci button-down, his hair fluffy without styling. But he does.
“What’s with you lately? You’re like a mean zombie.” Jungkook shrugs. “Buying me a pile of snacks is a cry for help if I ever saw one.” Jungkook opens his mouth, closes it. Taehyung just grabs a pillow for the small of his back and settles back against the headboard again, rooting nonchalantly through the bag. There’s a silence, and Jungkook tries to think through what’s with him. He realizes that the odd benefit of having a whole catalog of things to worry about is that he can just pick one, even if it isn’t the problem most relevant to the man currently stretched out on his bed.
“I’m kind of a failure,” he volunteers. Taehyung looks at him, eyes a little wide, and then snorts in disbelief. “I’m just coasting with everything,” he pushes. “I’m not working hard anymore. I have nothing to show for myself.”
“You put in like a ten-hour day yesterday.”
“That doesn’t count,” Jungkook protests swiftly. “That’s just stuff I have to do, that other people arranged. It’s not really a work ethic.” Taehyung tilts his head back.
“That’s not a healthy attitude,” he says finally. He holds another candy out, and Jungkook takes it carefully into his mouth.
“Just because we’re successful doesn’t mean we’ve made it,” Jungkook says through the burst of sugar. “Now there’s a higher standard.”
“I know,” Taehyung says defensively. Jungkook realizes that now it’s kind of like he’s criticizing Taehyung too, and he falls silent. “Can I stay tonight?” Taehyung asks evenly. Jungkook feels his throat clench. “I asked Jimin, but he said I was too clingy.” He doesn’t make eye contact. This is the exact, precise thing that Jungkook does not need right now. He needs a sort of blank, detoxifying space, a way to reset his body and brain, to start over tomorrow without the thought of Taehyung gnawing at his gut.
“Sure,” he says.
~~~
Taehyung disappears to get ready for bed, and Jungkook brushes his teeth again for good measure. He can take the thought of sugar rotting his teeth off his list of worries, at least. One problem solved.
Jungkook plays Overwatch for a while, Taehyung messing around on his phone and giving him weird challenges the whole time—get play of the game as Ana, push someone off the map as Lucio, kill Widow so many times that she switches. Jungkook fails most of them, but it’s fun anyway, and he feels a weird surge of pride when he boops Orisa into a well and Taehyung cheers behind him.
“It’s really an easy move,” he admits. “Happens all the time on this map.”
“No one asked for your input, wonderboy.” Taehyung cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
Jimin drifts in wearing a facemask, sabotages a whole game by poking Jungkook in his side every time he’s about to finish a kill, then drifts back out. Finally, Hoseok sticks his head in to suggest they go to bed, and they both complain at his hover-parenting, but Jungkook logs off anyway. Jungkook kind of thinks that Taehyung will leave then, that there’s really no point in him staying when they already hung out and his room is literally down the hall, but he just pulls his sweater off and curls up in the bed. He thumps his palm on the empty part of the mattress, his nose scrunching up in an absurdly cute yawn, and Jungkook feels his face burn as he turns off the light.
“Tell me about your mixtape,” Taehyung says in the darkness. Jungkook freezes halfway through getting in bed. “Like your concepts.” Jungkook doesn’t answer, just slowly pulls up the covers. “That’s what you’re worried about, right?” Taehyung is usually pretty oblivious to things that don’t directly affect him, on his own wavelength—why would he know this? Jungkook thinks about how he’s the most boring, least creative person in the world, how Taehyung is here next to him in the dark, asking for his thoughts, and he has nothing.
“I don’t have any ideas,” he says lamely. He imagines how someone else, some other man, would be able to come up with something on the spot, would sweep Taehyung away with his words. Woman, he thinks fervently. Some other woman. Then his brain kind of stutters to a stop.
“You always have ideas,” Taehyung says. “Sometimes they’re just a little buried.” Jungkook turns his head toward him—his eyes are adjusted and he can see his profile now.
“I heard your vocals on the new track,” he says impulsively. “They’re good.”
“Yeah?” He can barely see him, but he can tell that Taehyung lights up.
“Yeah. They’re like…” He wants to explain how sinuous they are, how Taehyung extracts everything he can from each phrase but still imbues them with meaning. “They’re really good,” he says instead. Taehyung scoots toward him, hooks a leg over Jungkook’s.
“Wanna hear my song concepts?” Jungkook adjusts his leg the tiniest bit to feel the pressure there, feels something flutter in his throat.
“Yeah,” he says earnestly.
Taehyung talks his way around and through, like he always can, his dark voice rumbling next to Jungkook’s ear. He starts with a few viable ideas and then swiftly verges into detailed nonsense—a long narrative about a rabbit that lost its home, a star that isn’t sure whether or not it wants to be human, a whole concept album about different animals—Jungkook listens to every odd story, rapt, until he starts to drift off.
Taehyung stills, maybe in the middle of something, and Jungkook is almost too far gone to notice him turning toward him. Something touches his forehead; he thinks he hears a “Goodnight, Kookie,” but it’s so soft it’s only consonants. And then he realizes how close Taehyung is, and his heartbeat jumpstarts. It’s hard to breathe, with Taehyung exhaling softly across his mouth, but he’ll never, ever move; he’ll asphyxiate here if he has to. He wonders if it’s an accident, if Taehyung is just too sleepy to care. And then he feels Taehyung hitch closer to him, and then, so light he could almost be imagining it, he feels his lips. It’s all he can do to keep himself from flinching, from opening his eyes; Taehyung’s mouth doesn’t move—it’s more like a touch than a kiss—but it doesn’t go away either. You’re asleep, Jungkook tells himself. You’re asleep. This isn’t real—don’t move, don’t move, don’t move. His palms are tingling—Taehyung nudges him with his nose, and his heart beats even faster; he’s closer now, his head tilted, but it’s still not a kiss.
Jungkook has settled on a foolproof plan, which is to not move, to never move, to become a living statue and pray that whatever’s happening keeps happening forever. But then, because his body is a traitor, he takes Taehyung’s lower lip into his mouth, grazing it gently with his teeth. Taehyung inhales sharply, and then his hand is on Jungkook’s hip, turning him toward him. He feels goosebumps down his back as Taehyung deliberately presses his whole length into him, and he pushes back as hard as he dares, finding the spot where Taehyung’s shirt rides up. He can’t handle it, feels like he’s going to lose it and kick a hole through the wall or pin Taehyung to the bed and kiss his face off. He pulls back, drapes a heavy leg over him and presses his face into his neck, whines as quietly as he can. Taehyung’s hand finds the back of his neck; he runs his long fingers up and down. Jungkook feels like he can push as hard as he wants here, and he does. He resolutely doesn’t kiss him, but he lets himself drag his lips across his skin, senses his erratic breathing right there below his mouth.
“God, Kookie.” Jungkook feels himself go hot, takes his skin into his mouth and then releases it slowly, feels more than hears the noise in the back of Taehyung’s throat. “What am I going to do with you, wonderboy?” Anything, Jungkook wants to answer. Everything. But he can’t actually acknowledge it. Talking will make it real, will turn it into something conscious that they both have to deal with. He lets out a long, frustrated sigh into Taehyung’s neck and then nuzzles himself into a more comfortable position. You’re asleep, he tells himself again. Go to sleep.
And somehow, miraculously, he does, Taehyung’s fingers tangled in his hair.
~~~
He wakes up sweaty, Taehyung cuddling him from behind. He stays perfectly still, waiting it out, and mercifully, before he works himself up into a panic, Taehyung stirs, pats him on the shoulder, and gets up. They meet again at breakfast. Jungkook tries to control his face, knows he looks like a wreck anyway, but Taehyung just shuffles over and serenely puts his chin on Jungkook’s head while he tries to chew his gyeran-mari. It quickly becomes clear that Taehyung isn’t going to acknowledge it but isn’t going to be weird either. Jungkook thinks this is the absolute best, the ideal policy. He spends the rest of the morning pretending like it didn’t happen but also feeling like he’s wrapped up in some sort of fuzzy blanket of bliss.
They have a photoshoot that day, so they get makeup and styling and then pile into black SUVs. Everyone else seems sleepy, but Jin is already in fine form, grousing loudly about his frumpy clothes until the driver is shooting looks at his increasingly absurd and insistent complaints.
“Why can’t I just have angel wings again? ARMY loves me in angel wings. ‘He’s so handsome he can fly away,’ they say. Today they’ll just say, ‘He’s like a precious trashman.’”
“It’s a cozy-style shoot,” Namjoon argues from the front seat. “We’re casual oppas.” Jin pulls angrily at his brown cardigan.
“This isn’t casual oppa! It’s casual grandpa!”
“Think of it as pre-angel,” Namjoon reasons, his dimples coming out. “You’re grandpa Jin-hyung, and then you die and blossom into angel Jin-hyung.” Hoseok’s in the middle row, directly in front of Jungkook.
“We really haven’t explored aging enough in our songs,” he says.
“It could work,” Jungkook suggests from the backseat. “Like: I’m looking back on my life, and all I remember is you.”
“Told you you’re good at this,” Namjoon says smugly.
“I want to make ARMY lose their hearts, not their eyes,” Jin grouches. “Why do I have to dress like I spend all day in a recliner?”
Jungkook assumes Yoongi is asleep in the backseat across from him, his head back, eyes closed, but then he distinctly says: “Grandpa in Luv.” They all lose it, Jin especially, and Hoseok wheezes out, “Grandpa Meets Evil.”
“Youths are getting disrespectful these days, aren’t they?” their driver says, and they shut up, Namjoon politely apologizing. The car is silent for a while, and Jungkook tries to keep it in, but eventually he can’t take it, and he leans toward Hoseok and whispers: “Grandpaz with Fun.” Hoseok stifles his laughter with his fist, shakes his head when Jin gives him a questioning look and texts the joke to the rest of the car, and by the time they get there they’re all losing it under their facemasks.
The shoot really does seem like it’ll be casual, the director and photographer establishing a chill vibe right away, with a quiet soundtrack of barely-there beats and a nice spread of healthy food in the room adjoining the set. The rest of the group shows up, Jimin complaining about how Taehyung just slept on him for the whole ride even through they’d made a big deal about how the ’95 car was going to be the fun car. Taehyung wanders in after him, predictably unrepentant, and when Jungkook gets a good look at him he can’t help but think shit.
It would be a nice, relaxing afternoon for Jungkook of zoning out while someone tells him to tilt his head in different ways if it weren’t for the fact that Taehyung is a soft force of nature. The set is all soothing warm colors and domestic details, and they’re supposed to be laying around on couches and rugs looking handsome and impassive, but Taehyung has on these grey clingy slacks and a silky button-down, his hair styled to fall gently in his eyes, and Jungkook keeps getting distracted when the director tells Taehyung to put up a leg or strike more of a pose. Jungkook schools his eyeline and facial expressions as rigidly as he can, thinking that the last thing he needs is literal photo evidence of his obsession. He’s doing pretty well, and then the director rearranges them and has Taehyung stretched out on the floor, head on his arm, and Jungkook can’t stop glancing over at the exact part of his neck that he had his mouth on last night. Yoongi actually has to grab him by the collar and direct him toward the camera, and Jungkook feels his cheeks burn. He ends up closer to Taehyung the next time they all change positions, and it’s almost easier this way, feeling him leaning languidly against him instead of having to witness it. It’s easier, at least, until Taehyung puts a hand on the small of his back, moving his fingers infinitesimally as the camera clicks, and then Jungkook wonders if the photographer knows he’s documenting his life falling apart in real time.
He really, absolutely shouldn’t, but he stays to watch Taehyung’s solo shoot, hiding in a dark corner behind the softboxes and pretending to look at his phone. Taehyung always has it in him to be a handful, but today he’s focused and responsive, his poses shifting on command from fond to sleepy to sultry. There’s a lot of emphasis on his hands, touching his neck, cradling his chin, doing his signature V by his eye, and Jungkook keeps remembering them pressing into his hip, tangled in his hair. It’s an exquisite kind of torture, and he thinks he really should leave, but then all at once they say they have what they want and it’s over. Taehyung grabs a bottle of water, and Jungkook expects him to walk out to the others, but instead he comes over to Jungkook’s corner and rests an arm on his shoulder.
“You’re next, wonderboy,” he says, offering him a drink. Jungkook takes the bottle, eyes wide, passes it back when he’s done. “I’ll try to be a little less distracting than you were.” A staff member pulls Jungkook to the center of the room, touches up his makeup, and he’s already trying to obey the director’s injunctions to look innocent and untouchable before he can even start to process how he possibly could’ve been a distraction, how Taehyung even noticed him there in the darkness.
~~~
Jungkook doesn’t realize how much he expected Taehyung to come hang out with him again that night until he doesn’t. It’s not even that late when Taehyung leans into his room, tosses him a handful of candy in a sort of cluster bomb that Jungkook couldn’t possibly catch, and then laughingly wishes him goodnight while he’s still trying to fish pieces out of his computer keyboard. He feels disappointed and lame, and he ends up eating all the candy while reading a bunch of weird Wikipedia articles about Abraxas, even though he didn’t particularly want any. Eventually, he wanders out to the main room to watch TV with Jimin.
“How do we get Hobi-hyung to forget we have extra practice again tomorrow?” Jimin whispers during a commercial, curled up next to him on the couch. “He said we would, but it’s not on the schedule.” Jungkook considers it, drums a rhythm on Jimin’s knee.
“Don’t bring it up at all,” he whispers back finally. “We just skip it, somewhere he won’t find us, and then when he’s mad just say”—he pitches his voice up—“hyung, it wasn’t on the schedule.” Jimin snorts with laughter into his shoulder. “How could we know?”
“What a brat,” he says, eyes dancing as he pulls a bag of contraband shrimp crackers out from under his blanket. “Where do we go during practice?” Jungkook shrugs, not sure he really wants to make Hoseok mad.
“Everywhere I can think of is lamer than actually just going to practice.”
“Yeah,” Jimin admits. The show starts again, and they half-watch it for a while. “Someday,” Jimin says, when they’re supposed to be wondering if the lead will finally work up the courage to confess, “I’m going to do whatever I want, every single dumb thing I can think of.” He crunches menacingly on a cracker.