【playing..】

Golden Child (골든차일드)- YES.
안아줄게 (Burn It)

❚❚►_____________________________ 3:29

Jeongguk sat at this desk, comfortably leaned back in his chair, headphones around his head, smile on his face, words rushing through his chat.

He had just went live a couple minutes ago, hot tea by his side, wrapped up in a big grey hoodie as winter was really settling in and his apartment was getting colder and colder.

Yes, he could just turn his heater on but it's severely broken or damaged at least and made such loud noises that he's sure would be picked up by his microphone so he'd rather not kill the viewer experience and have loud ass clangs in the background that would make his house seem haunted.

Also yes, he informed his landlord already but that bitchass screamed at him through the phone last time like he was a 5th grader getting scolded by his teacher, yelling that he had just replaced it before Jeongguk moved in and yeah -- he wasn't trying to repeat that experience.

So, he'll rather deal with freezing to death than calling his landlord again. What can you do about it?

But his chest was feeling rather warm with laughter, chatter of his friends ringing right into his ears.

Eyes focusing on his chat, skimming though every once in a while as they were still not engaged in any games yet, just conversation making their viewers laugh.

Today he had just gathered whoever of his close friends in the streaming community wanted to join, asking in their joined discord who had time and was going to be live as well.

Turned out that Jimin, Maya and his newest friend -- Vantes were the only ones who actually had the time to join him today.

And this was going to be his first stream that included Vantes, who was officially Taehyung to him now, where he wasn't going to pee his pants from nervousness.

Since they had talked out their differences about a week ago they have been engaged into a mix of texting and talking throughout the day which was pretty pleasant.

And they had more to converse about than Gguk had thought, much more actually. It seemed like there was never a dry or boring moment when they talked, hours somehow flew by in the moment of a blink.

And he could absolutely slap himself for developing an even stronger feeling bubbling up in stomach and chest everytime he saw a notification that had the other's name attached to it, dropping everything he does to respond.

Maybe he was whipped already, maybe it was just the new friendship excitement.

He was gonna go with the second option in order to keep his sanity. Seemed like the best option to deal with now. The first one he was gonna deal with when he couldn't avoid it anymore.

That's how you handle problems as a adult everyone. That's how you do it -- totally.

But aside from that he was just happy to have cleared up the misunderstanding the two had, soul feeling all clear and like a weight had been lifted off his chest. It felt good.

The two had also spend some nights of the past week glued to their screens, connected through video games beyond the hours of their streams, forgetting the worlds around them, engaged in whatever their choice was that night (mostly it was between Among us if their other friends had some time to play beyond streams, Valorant, Smash Bros Ultimate or League).

So today was the day they were actually going to project their fun nights of talks, laughs and gaming to their audiences, like they would usually do, of course, but this time no weird 'we are not on good terms' tension between the two of them.

Their recent usual choice of Among us had them pretty tired out by this point, aching for a little break in between, also with only four people, they weren't enough in the first place.

So soon they found themselves on their Minecraft server, which Jeongguk hadn't touched in ages and wasn't even sure if he had the game still installed (he did end up finding it in his mess of a desktop), running around doing nothing and everything at the same time.

Gguk had just started to built a little house, placing the blocks of wood he had knocked off the nearby surrounding trees as the framing.

But his peace wasn't left for long, while concentrated on their current reoccurring debate of what type of meme was their favorite (his bet remains on frog ones while Jimin and Taehyung kept defending spoopy and Maya somehow ended up screaming about her harted for the infamous rise and shine), Jeongguk suddenly heard the sound of a little ping, his screen flying to the left, his character knocked off his frame of a house, hitting the ground with a crack.

He let out a little gasp of startle as he had been so engaged in the conversation, his hearts only reduced by two. "Oh my god, who the fuck was that? I almost peed myself. That scared me worse than a fucking jumpscare, jesus christ."

Jeongguk was only met with loud laughter, no one standing up to say who had done it before paning around with his mouse to look around the area, squinting his eyes.

And there -- Taehyung's figure, all in black pixeled clothes, black eyes, his username floating above him, bow in hand.

"V, bitch, i know you did it." Gguk scrolled through his tools, also selecting his bow, clicking to draw and pointing it at the other.

"Woah, woah. Get the bow down Hawkeye, i'll stop." He saw Taehyung quickly switch from his bow to some stone, placing the blocks infront of his figure to protect himself.

"You better." Gguk tired to make his voice more threatening, going back to filling in the frame of his house with brick blocks, their conversation continuing after some quiet giggles in the background owned by Maya and Jimin.

But not for long as Jeongguk was punched forward, being hit again.  "V!! Stop it, oh my god." He complained, ready to chase Taehyung with his sword drawn.

"Oh, please. Totally like a third grader trying to get their crushes attention by annoying them." Maya laughed loudly, commenting on Taehyung's actions and just that -- made Jeongguk's neck feel all hot again.

He bit his the inside of his lip, pretenting to ignore the comment, Jimin laughing at it, as Gguk ran after Tae, seeing him dissappear behind his placed stones.

But just as he pressed down twice to run faster, ready to zoom past Taehyung's previous stone protection, he stopped, seeing a little pixeled red flower floating on the bright green grass texture behind them which had him smiling, knowing that he had dropped it there for him to find.

And his little smirk along with the slight redness that blushed his cheeks was probably caught in his camera, stopping his chase like he gave up, going back to building with a fuzzy stomach.

Their stream soon switched to only talking, deciding to retire the game play for today, going back to conversations between the four of them, looking through their twitters for some live questions and topics suggested by their audiences, Jeongguk occasionally going to read out and give out his thank you's for donations just like right now, just that this one had a litte interesting twist.

"Thank you so much for the donation Maryji-" he pressed the mute button on his keyboard before talking not wanting to disturb the others in their conversation but upon seeing the message attached to it, he retracted his finger.

This was gonna be fun.

"Guys-" Gguk took a moment of silence to get his friends' attention, hearing little noises of recognition before continuing. "A donation asked me: Jeongguk, Fuck, Marry, Kill. Jimin, Maya and Vantes, go." He laughed as he read it out because he knew what the donator was trying to get at.

He wasn't stupid or blind and going to act like he hasn't seen his chat flooded with comments about Vantes and him, twitter still oversaturated with people talking about the two. And he could pretend like he was annoyed or mad about it but in all honesty -- he wasn't?

Which brings him back to his point of ignoring the bubbly feeling he gets the whenever he talks to Taehyung so he was also going to ignore his thing of him being okay with his followers wanting interactions out of the two of them.

He heard the hollering of the other three after his train of thought, laughs lacing their ooh's.

"Let's go, Gguk. We are excited to hear it." Maya chuckled, poking a little fun at him, she also probably knew the reason for said question.

It's been a pretty big talk under their friend group as well, Jeongguk rolling his eyes with every message along the lines of 'when y'all gonna kiss' in their joined group chat on discord.

"That's easy." Jeongguk started, his voice a little teasing, interrupted before he could even breathe in to continue.

"Oh, is it?" Taehyung's voice came out even deeper than it usually was and Gguk would say he could tell the little differences in his tone whenever they decided to be a bit nagging towards each other at this point.

"Yeah indeed. Fuck Jimin, marry Maya and kill Vantes." He continued his teasing -- and this was really only to get a reaction out of Taehyung if he was honest here but he would insist this is how he would truely choose.

Of course, he would marry Maya. They would make a great gay power duo and Jimin's cute. So in some alternate universe, yeah, he'd pick him up at a club.

But he knew if he was attached to a lie detector test right now? Oh, he would fail so miserably.

"Woah i'm honored, Gguk." Jimin laughed, probably also very aware that that wasn't his honest answer.

Before he had processed any thought, Taehyung took his chance to talk and intersect, already jumped in with a chuckle.

"Oh Jeonggukie." Damn, that nick name out of Taehyung's made his knees feel weak like they were going to give out eventhough he was literally sitting down this very moment. "Why are you lying to that nice donator?"

"I'm not, baby. I'm killing you." Gguk tried his all to play it off like it hadn't effected him at all but tips of his ears blushing up in pink no where to hide.

He just knew he was going to be bombarded with this the moment he opened Twitter or Youtube after this.

But what can he do? Being obviously flirted with by someone who you find generally attractive (not that he's crushing, you can totally find a platonic friend attractive), it's fucking hard not be affected by. It's pretty nuch impossible.

"Oh my god, get a fucking room. That's disgusting." Maya intervined quickly, making some fake exaggerated gagging noises.

"Let the two dudes be gay. What the fuck." Jimin jumped in, sounding offended in an exaggerated way on purpose.

"This is getting too homosexual even for the homosexual." Maya answered him, making all of then break out into a fit of laughter.

"Anyways-" Jeongguk drew out the word, scrolling through his mentions quickly, trying to find another topic but being hit with mostly links which mostly just confused the hell out of him?

"Oh my god why do you guys keep tweeting me this link?" He voiced his thoughts loudly with laugh. "If y'all want me to look at it so desperately, sure then." His cursor hovered over it, ready to click. If his followers wanted him to see this, he's gotta see this, doesn't he?

"Watch him being directed to some porn site and end up with a virus and a banned twitch account." Jimin joked but honestly -- a good point, making Jeongguk open it on his other screen that wasn't streamed, you know just incase the porn site virus theory was true.

He was slightly nervous as it loaded, but being relieved that there wasn't some naked moaning people popping up, which would have jumpscared the shit out of him, but well -- he was surprised in a different way.

Gguk was met with a box filled with tags. First jumping out at him being 'rating: explicit' -- oh, god.

His eyes continued scanning the page, next thing catching his eye -- wait.

"Oh god-" He gasped out, interrupted yet again before he was going to continue.

"Oh my god, he's looking at porn-" Maya laughed and well, she wasn't too far off in a way, was she?

"No but-- Vantes x Goldengaming fanfiction? I might jump out of a window." Jeongguk's hand went to cover his face because -- shit he knew he was probably beet red by now.

Yeah, he totally was looking at an explicit fanfiction of Vantes and himself called 'Why i don't hate you', seeing the tags include some things that made his mind wander to a lot of different places involuntarily, counting sixty-five thousand words in twelve chapters.

He was never one to be big on shipping people but damn people were like hella serious about this.

Like so many words about him? And Vantes? Together? The two of them?

Just that thought alone really got him to wonder about things he shouldn't wonder about.

He hasn't even met the guy in person.

What if he was a creepy forty year old? You never know on the internet.

Not that he had any serious concerns about that but afterall he wasn't aware if the other was even remotely his type visually. Personality wise? Yeah, he could get down with that. Voice? Not even a question, perfect 12 out of 10.

But looks? He only had a remote idea of things like hair color as Taehyung had said a couple of times that he was back to his natural black hair right now. But besides that he doesn't know.

Not that Jeongguk was shallow like he only cared about what someone looks like. No, not at all. But he's gotta admit that it does play some role.

But why the fuck was he even thinking about that? He's only excited about having him as a friend, yeah. Haha. That's what he's still gonna go with. As he said, it's for keeping his sanity in tact.

But his racing thoughts about things that he would deny happened in about three seconds anyways were broken off.

"Oh, so y'all think this only fiction now?" Taehyung commented, raspy chuckle following.

Gulp. There he was again, fucked.

He literally had used up all his faked confidence in responding to Taehyung's flirtatious comments in their Fuck, Marry, Kill conversation, so his battery was pretty much at a zero right now.

"Dude, V, do you want to kill him?" Maya luckily tried to jump in to save him.

"He killed me so only fair, isn't it?" The other argued back and yeah, gotta give him that, that's a valid point.

"He's got a point there, not gonna lie. Sorry, Gguk. Gays stick together, tried to save ya but he just got better arguments." Maya sighed after a beat of silence, leaving Gguk to respond himself again.

"I should have killed you in real life." Was all Jeongguk came up with in the moments Maya decided to so graciously but badly at the same time protect his sanity. At least she tried.

"Naw, cute. I can literally feel how red you are right now." He heard the coo in Taehyung's tone, making his ears hotter for the tenth time just today. "Anyways send me the link. I could use some inspiration, Jeonggukie."

Yup, that was his downfall, choking on his own spit, having the others lighten the thick tension through the screen with laughs aas this specific topic soon faded to the back of their heads, continuing with questions -- but Jeongguk?

His head surely was still there, even after they had all ended their streams, late in the day yet again (sleep before 11pm is overrated anyways), talking a little more privately before Maya and Jimin decided to sign off for the day.

So, it was only the two of them, Jeongguk and Taehyung, left at the end of the night again like it had been the whole week.

And there was that slight feeling, the heart beating higher but feeling it drop in his gut at the same time. And yeah, he'll still insist it's just because he's just excited about this friendship.

"Wow, this tea is now iced." Gguk's faced scrunched up after taking a rather large sip. Not that he didn't like iced tea but he had just wanted something different right now.

"Yeah, it's because you let it sit there for what? Five hours?" Taehyung chuckled, his voice seemingly slightly tired out but probably also strained a bit from talking about everything and the world in their streams today. "Dumbass."

"Hey!! Don't be rude!" Gguk's face pulled into a pout, obviously exaggerating being offended. Why? Maybe just to get a reaction? Maybe. "Reminds me why i'd kill your ass." Yeah, maybe.

"Yeah, sure." Taehyung only huffed out a litte laugh, a moment of silence spreading through the two of them before he picked up with something nothing could have prepared Gguk for. "So Jeongguk --" since everyone thinks we're cute together? Can i have your number?"

Oh god. What if he dies of a heart attack and no one was here to save him?

Think he could be a forty year old creep, think he could be a forty year old creep, Jeongguk. We aren't slipping to option one of  being whipped instead of option two of new friendship excitement, no we aren't.

"Uh- yeahy- yeah." Gguk's words stumbled out after another brief quiet moment. "i'll uh- forward it to you on- on- discord. Yeah."

"Sweet." He could literally hear the smirk in Tae's voice and god if that didn't make it even harder for him. Way, way harder.

And that's exactly what he did the moment he was off that call, sending his number to Taehyung before he went to bed, pressing a smile into his pillow like he was in middle school again.

hello <3

so things are getting all kinds of heated huh ;)
I hope this was enjoyable and somewhat of a break of kpop falling apart this week sigh seriously spotify kakaom sort out yalls issues!!!

Also quickly wanna give a big congrats to my best friend onelasttae for publishing love maze, her first paid original story! congrats bubba, you deserve it!

any opinions on this are appreciated!

much love
-yoo