YES, DADDY (KOOKV)

FOURTEEN¹⁴

Taehyung's not entirely sure what he was envisioning when he'd been told "week-long conference", but it definitely wasn't this.

This is a shit ton of people milling around in a gigantic arena-turned-conference-area, booths and tables and interested parties set up in a never-ending grid system that has Taehyung balls deep in déjà vu after the first five minutes.

There're people handing out business cards like they're making it rain — other people dressed all fucking proper and shit as they sit behind their booths and wait for poor suckers to approach them — it's all at max velocity and it's all happening at once and Taehyung doesn't realize he's retreating into Jeongguk's side until the older man glances down at him with that concerned crease in his brow.

But Taehyung gets better — gets looser — realizes that it's okay because he may be completely out of his element, but he's here for Jeongguk and Jeongguk definitely knows what the fuck he's doing — which tables to stop at — which ones to politely pass without eye contact — who to strike up conversation with and who to avoid. Taehyung takes mental notes.

Day One is okay. But what Taehyung's really looking forward to is dinner. It's with a bunch of people that Jeongguk knows from either college or internships or whatever and that's cool, but mostly Taehyung's just really fucking selfishly excited because it's at a fancy-ass restaurant and he gets to wear his new suit that Miguel hooked him up with.

So he nods and is polite and still kind of subtly hides behind Jeongguk a little bit when people come up to talk to them (by the way, bullshitting about being Jeongguk's assistant is astronomically easier than he thought it'd be), and as the little pangs of anxiety from being put on the spot flood in and then back out again, he just keeps his eyes on the prize.

The overhead lights near the sink in the hotel room are pretty flattering — casting Taehyung's suit with a white light that picks up all the brighter hues in his suit and raises it from almost black to the dark navy that it's born to be. It makes the skinny black tie that Miguel picked for him stand out even more.

"That's fine. Yeah, we could probably work something in around that time, don't you think?"

Taehyung glances over himself in the mirror, listening as Jeongguk talks to some unknown person on his phone from the other side of the room. There's a wall between them, and Taehyung is thankful because it gives him just the right amount of cover to fix his hair and pull at the sleeves of the jacket and try to swallow down that little bubble of nervous excitement that's stirring inside of him. Because this is it. This is the moment he's been both dreading and eagerly awaiting. Jeongguk needs to get off the phone so they can do this.

"Maybe something around two o'clock. ...what? ... Well yeah, but then we'd have to factor in driving time."

Taehyung takes a deep breath, his anxiety leaving no more room for patience, and just does it. He checks himself over in the mirror one more time, and then he steps out into the room where Jeongguk is facing the window with his phone pressed to his ear.

"Alright. Three, then? It'd make more sense to give us enough time for traffic."

Jeongguk is getting a little unhinged and Taehyung just stands there, feeling awkward in all the right places and—

"That's fine. ... Alright, three's fine—"

"Jeongguk...?"

"Yeah just make sure you're there this time," Jeongguk says and then he's finally turning toward him and— "It's important—..."

Jeongguk stops.

He just stops talking altogether, his eyes landing on where Taehyung is standing across the room.