With his stomach swimming in a pool of eagerness, Jungkook opened the door. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Taehyung uttered. “Sorry that I just appeared. I was about to come here when I sent you that text. In which you didn’t reply...”

“Oh, right. Sorry. We were just talking.” Jungkook gestured towards his hyungs, who were already staring at them with small smiles on their faces.

“Hi, Taehyung,” Jimin grinned, and Seokjin waved at him.

“Well, I should go then.”

Jungkook rushed to stop him from leaving, clawing at his hand. “You should stay. If you want.”

“Yes, yes, Taehyung, we were just leaving,” Jimin said, chuckling, as he rose to his feet.

“Bye,” Seokjin smiled, then the two walked out of the apartment.

“That was awkward,” Taehyung commented, earning a giggle from him.

“Don’t mind them.”

They shifted to the couch, sitting close to each other. “You made up with Seokjin?” Taehyung asked.

“Yeah, we talked about that too, and we’re okay now.”

“I’m glad. What else did you talk about?”

“It was a really long conversation about love and falling for someone.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Remember when I asked you what are your thoughts about love and falling for someone? We never had that conversation.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“And you chose to talk about that with Jimin and Seokjin,” Taehyung said, a thread of teasing in his voice.

“Well, I can’t talk about you to you,” Jungkook giggled.

“You should.” Any trace of Taehyung’s smile dissipated. A glimmer of melancholy sparked in his eyes, and he dragged his head down to obscure it. “Because I have no idea what you’re thinking.”

Jungkook placed his fingers beneath his chin and raised his head, uniting their gazes. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Are you really going to change the subject again?”

“Well, if I start talking, it may take some time...”

“So you have that much to say, huh?”

“Maybe.”

Taehyung’s smile found its way back to his lips, with an outline of fondness. “Get me a beer then.”

Jungkook trod to the kitchen and opened the fridge. The gleam in his eyes dimmed with the sudden anxiety that poured through his insides, speeding up his heartbeat and drying his throat, as realization thundered down on him. He was about to confess his feelings to Taehyung.

He reached for two beers with shaky hands and turned around. He observed Taehyung’s form, and another tide of crippling disquiet drowned him. It was so much easier to talk to his friends about him. Now he had to talk to him. And it was about to get even more real.

Taehyung glanced back to see what was taking him so long. He spotted Jungkook standing frozen solid, and although he was staring at him, it was as if he couldn’t see. His eyes had a haziness varnishing them, his body clenched, and his lips parted with quick breaths flowing through them. “Kook?” At the lack of any kind of response, Taehyung inched closer to him and set a hand on his shoulder. “Kook?”

Jungkook flinched at the sobering touch. “Yes?”

Taehyung sighed softly, then pulled him into a tight hug. “You’re freaking out again.”

“I’m not—okay, yeah,” Jungkook murmured as he buried his face into the crook of his neck.

Taehyung couldn’t help but chuckle at his cuteness. “What are you so afraid of?”

“Life.”

Taehyung withdrew at his mystifying answer and cupped his cheeks. “Why?”

“Because you can feel something one moment, and the next, something might happen and you won’t anymore. Because you get your hopes up and have expectations that may never come true. Because you don’t know what will happen. You can’t know. And life rarely turns out the way you want it.”

Taehyung gazed at him in a moment’s stillness. He stole the beers from his hold, then trudged to the living room and sat on the couch. He opened both beers as Jungkook joined him, and he passed one to him. “You know why I hate it when others call me Tae? My mother used to call me that. And then one day, I woke up, and she was gone. Not even my father knew she would leave. She had left two letters in the living room and the one was for me.” Taehyung sipped his drink and reclined.

“She said she wasn’t happy anymore. She said she had to leave in order to be happy. And that she was sorry and that she was going to miss me. I couldn’t understand why she left. I was only fourteen. I found the letter she had left for my father and read it. She said she never wanted to marry him, but she had to because they had me. I was so mad and hurt and frustrated. How could she just leave? Why did she stop talking to me and just disappeared? Did I mean nothing to her? I thought she would come back, but she never did. And after two years, I looked for her.

“She was already married to a rich son of a bitch. She left because she wanted to have something my father couldn’t give her. A villa. An expensive car. Clothes, jewelries, trips. Not that my father was poor. He had money. But he didn’t want to live a fancy life. He wanted simplicity. But it turns out my mother hated that. He was buying her presents. He was giving her money. But she wanted more. So she fucking left like I was nothing. And she was the only person who called me that.”

A sorrowful expression had reigned over every inch of Jungkook’s face as soon as he started talking, and by the time he finished, his heart ached for him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It still hurts, and the truth is, I do miss her. But I don’t want someone like that in my life. Even if she’s my mother. I don’t want anything to do with her after that.”

“Do you still talk with your father?”

“Yes. I’m still close with him. He did nothing wrong. He was always there. I’m really grateful for that.”

Their gazes bonded, and they shared a round of delicate eye contact and warm smiles. Jungkook was the first to dip his head as a gnawing question dangled on the tip of his tongue, itching him to vocalize it. He smothered that itch with a swig of his beer.

“Just ask,” Taehyung said, able to identify his strange demeanor and what it signified.

“You don’t have to explain...”

“Jungkook. Ask.”

Jungkook darted a row of peeks at him. “Why didn’t you say anything to me? When I called you Tae?”

“I don’t know. It felt weird coming out from you. It made me feel kind of soft, and I don’t know, safe.”

“I make you feel soft?” Jungkook questioned with a sort of teasing awe.

“Don’t mock me!” Taehyung shoved his shoulder in a gentle move. “If you’re going to be an ass, I’m not telling you anything else.”

A harmonious jumble of giggles tumbled out of Jungkook as he threw his arms around him, nestling him against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Taehyung joined him in the outpouring of laughter in a heartbeat. He clutched him, dragging on his intoxicating scent, and spent a few moments savoring this heavenly embrace.

“I want you to tell me everything even if I’m an ass,” Jungkook uttered against the side of his head and placed a little kiss on it.

“You can just not be an ass.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Taehyung snorted as he drew back. He combed through his hair with tender fingers, then ran a knuckle down his cheek. “I hate you.”

A bark of a laugh erupted from Jungkook’s lungs. “You can’t hate me.”

“No, I can’t,” Taehyung admitted easily. He marveled at his bright smile and glimmering eyes, feeling his chest so full of emotion. He was so in love with him. His vision narrowed on the faint reddish hue that cloaked the tips of Jungkook’s ears. “Well, that’s new.”

“What?”

“Your ears are red.”

Jungkook’s eyes popped as he slapped his hands over the said ears. “Shut up,” he breathed out, embarrassed.

“I think it’s cute.” Taehyung attempted to lower his hands with a tug, but Jungkook didn’t yield. “Kook, move your hands.” As he perceived Jungkook made a move to stand up, he flung himself on him and started a round of unmerciful tickling.

Jungkook thrashed about, gasping, laughing, already on the verge of tears. “Okay, okay!” he squeaked, but Taehyung didn’t stop. “I’m—gonna—die!”

Taehyung burst into chuckles at his adorable behavior and decided to cease his attack for now. “You’re so extra.”

“And you’re annoying,” Jungkook snapped back as he placed his hand on his chest, panting.

Taehyung draped his arm over his shoulders and rubbed his forehead against the side of his head. His beam lost fragments of its vibrancy until it petered into a gloomy smile. “You know what else I am?”

A shiver slashed down Jungkook’s spine at his whisper, that quickened his pulse at once again. “What?”

“A jerk.”

His answer evoked a snort out of Jungkook, mellowing some of his tension. “I know.”

“You know what else?”

“What?”

“Stupid.”

“Why?” Jungkook’s brows knitted in a frown.

“You know what else?”

“Taehyung...” He tried to pull back, but the grip around him tightened.

“A coward,” Taehyung uttered. “An asshole. Idiot. Dense—”

“Tae.” Jungkook shifted his body towards him and leaned their foreheads together. He took his hands in his and squeezed them. “You’re anything but everything you said.”

“I am, Jungkook. Because I couldn’t realize sooner that I like you. I didn’t want to admit that you’re making me feel something. I was unbelievably stupid when I said I won’t fall for you because I already felt something I couldn’t understand about you.” Taehyung cradled his cheek with a tender palm and brushed it with his thumb in slow caresses.

“Well, if you put it this way, I’m worse than you,” Jungkook sighed. He crept away from his touch and faced the coffee table, with his head hanging low. “I said I won’t fall for you when I already felt something about you too. I kept lying to myself, saying that what I felt was nothing, that you meant nothing more than a friend when it was everything, when you were everything that... I wanted.”

Jungkook dared to lay his eyes on him, a sorrowful twinkle fueling them. “It’s true that I continued sleeping with Jaebum to take you out of my mind. It’s true that I fought with Youngjae that day because I was jealous. It’s true that I was furious when I saw you kiss that asshole, and I really hated you for that. I was so delusional for a moment, just for a moment, I thought if you weren’t with Youngjae, you would be with me. But then I saw you kiss him and that thought never crossed my mind again. And it’s true that it hurt awfully a lot when you chose him over me. A lot of things are true, and I can’t really remember everything right now.”

He reached for his beer and gulped down a few sips, using the action as a way to gather any ounce of courage he could to phrase what raced through his mind. “Another thing that’s true is... I have fallen for you. I feel what you feel. Not since yesterday, but for some time now. And I’m terrified of getting hurt again, and I’m having such a hard time trusting someone again, but you make me... You make me want to give you everything I have.” Jungkook paused. His heart battered against his chest so hard it dizzied him. He finally confessed, but he couldn’t look at him. He had used any grain of his courage for his confession.

The gentlest of smiles hovered over Taehyung’s lips, his gaze, which was anchored on him at all times, brimming with fondness and bliss. “Say it again.”

“What?”

“Say it.”

“What do you want me to say?” Jungkook asked with an intensity he couldn’t tame. He whipped his head to the side on impulse, merging their eyes. His stomach did tiny flips of something that urged him to move closer, crush him into his embrace, kiss him even.

“Jungkook, fucking say—”

And so easily, that something exploded within Jungkook’s core, and he pitched forward, clutching his face and claiming his lips with a fierceness and possessiveness he had never experienced before.

Taehyung’s impossibly stiff body by his shock mellowed seconds later, and he grasped his waist to pull him into his lap. He rolled his mouth against his with equal zest as he squeezed him so closer and closer. The clash of their tongues burned, as if they got engulfed in the flames of the overwhelming yearning for each other.

Soft moans spilled from Jungkook’s throat as he relished every press of their lips and every swirl of their tongues. His hips moved on their own, rolling against Taehyung’s crotch, and tingles erupted high and low on his skin at the lewd groan he wrenched out of him.

Feeling his lungs ache by the lack of oxygen, Jungkook disconnected their mouths with a gasp. He rested his forehead against his, his heart hammering in his ears. “What do you want me to say?” he whispered, his hot breath skidding across Taehyung’s face.

Taehyung panted, hearing a similar boom boom boom around his senses. “Fucking hell,” was all he said before he smashed their lips together again.

⚜✳⚜