Jeongguk was in a dilemma yet again.
The basketball team had returned the previous day, almost ten days after they left, and everyone in the school came to know that none of the team members made it to the national team. Apparently, they were close, very close, but none of them got the scores that were needed for the national team.
And he could personally see how dejected that made Taehyung, seeing as they were having lunch at the same table and Jeongguk was (un)fortunately forced to sit opposite to Taehyung.
He could see how Taehyung didn't participate in any of the conversations and simply kept poking and pushing his food around. Overall, he didn't look good and Jeongguk felt the urge to cheer him up somehow. He just did not know how he was going to achieve that with his awkward ass.
"I-I wanna go up to the terrace..." he announced after a while. He couldn't bear it anymore. "S-Sunbae, you w-wanna come with me?" he mumbled at the end. His legs asked him to run before Taehyung glared at him or something, but he fought the urge and stayed for the reply.
"Huh?" Taehyung looked up at Jeongguk but made no move to get up.
"Y-You w-wanna come with me t-t-to the terrace?" Jeongguk asked again, this time sounding a lot smaller than earlier.
He quickly glanced at the entrance of the canteen, considering if it would be a good idea for him to blurt out a 'never mind' and sprint out of the room.
"Oh, yeah, sure, let's go," Taehyung said so lifelessly that it had all of them exchanging concerned glances. Nevertheless, he grabbed his bag and was just about to throw his tray of food away when Jeongguk grabbed it, stopping him from doing so.
"Bring it with you, s-sunbae, I'm getting mine too. Th-The view is so pretty, you wouldn't even notice the food going in," he said, surprising himself with his newfound confidence. He chanced a glance at Yoongi and Jeongyeon, both of who were smirking at him with slightly raised eyebrows.
Taehyung just sighed and headed towards the entrance without another word. "Go get yo' man, Gguk!! Hwaiting!!" Jeongyeon whisper-cheered for him, making Jimin and Hoseok chuckle. Jeongguk rolled his eyes at her but refrained from flashing her the finger. He knew she hated it when someone asked her to fuck off, even if she knew they didn't contain any ill feelings.
He lead Taehyung towards a bench behind a water tank on the terrace, swearing on his life that Taehyung would love it there.
Taehyung didn't have the heart in him to tell Jeongguk that he was in no mood to enjoy nature, but he soon found himself forgetting all about the match.
"Jeongie never misses a chance to come here, you know? I love the breeze here and the trees behind the school. It gives such a creepy but pleasant vibe at the same time, don't you think? Yoongs once got beaten up by Jeongie because he kept trying to scare her that vampires would come out of the forests after sunset. He didn't know back then that she isn't the type of girl to get scared by stuff like that..."
Jeongguk chanced a look at Taehyung, having rambled too much already, only to have his heart stutter to a stop with the way Taehyung was staring back at him with an amused smile. His gaze contained an intensity that he could never put in words.
"Wh-Why are you l-looking at me like that?" he mumbled, all of his newfound confidence throwing him to the wolves and dissipating into thin air. His face turned red and he looked away from Taehyung when the latter didn't stop staring at him.
"Just wondering why I never knew about you before," Taehyung said.
Jeongguk took a sharp breath. So he had been right. Taehyung didn't even know of his existence until then. If he had listened to his friends and gone forward to confess his feelings, he would have faced rejection before he could even complete his confession.
Taehyung was known for his cold rejections, after all.
"I'm glad Jiminie confessed to Jeongyeon and it somehow brought our friend groups together," Taehyung continued.
"M-Me too," Jeongguk mumbled. If one observed closely, they would find smoke coming out of his ears.
Why was Taehyung so open?!
"Oh, and of course, how can I forget that video?! That one was hilarious. It was what made me fa-...interested in getting to know you in the first place," Taehyung continued with a little chuckle and it was all too much for little Jeonguk, who could barely get past the fact that Taehyung was staring at intensely him, let alone saying such stuff.
Would it be utterly horrible of him if he just left everything and ran downstairs now?
Maybe not, but he wasn't too keen on getting beaten by Jeongyeon.
"O-Oh," he said and chuckled awkwardly instead.
"That reminds me," Taehyung started again. For some reason, he just couldn't stop. "Why did you run away when I called you that day in the canteen?"
Jeongguk turned redder if that was possible, and considered pretending not to have heard the question, but he noticed how Taehyung was now unconsciously eating his food. He didn't want the boy to stop, now that he seemed to have come out of the mood that he had worked himself up into earlier.
"I-I was scared," he mumbled.
"Of.....me?" Taehyung asked a little too incredulously, his beautiful features pinching up to form a comically shocked expression that had Jeongguk chuckling again.
"Y-Yeah..." he said and proved his embarrassment by scratching the back of his neck as he threw a shy glance at Taehyung, who had now burst into laughter by throwing his head back.
"Seriously, I don't know what part of me still scares you. I get that you might have been scared back then because I'm your senior, but we've already played an entire evening together, and chatted the whole time I was away, which was like ten days, I don't know why you are so red in the face and still keep mumbling like I'm gonna eat you up if you speak properly," Taehyung said, still laughing at Jeongguk, who turned even redder at that. If one looked closely, they would even see the blood rushing in his veins.
Jeongguk couldn't form words. True, they had chatted the whole time Taehyung was away, but in his defence, when he chatted, he didn't have to show his face or look at Taehyung's face. Chatting was so much more easier than having to even look at him, god save him.
"I-...umm...no reason...I..."
'Fuck it,' he thought. Taehyung was right. There was no reason for him to still be so scared of talking to him. The boy wasn't even scary or intimidating, to begin with.
"Umm....it's Jinnie hyung's birthday today," he said.
If he wanted to get better at conversing with Taehyung, he could probably start with this, he guessed. "We are having a little party to ourselves. Just me, my parents, his parents, his boyfriend, best friend, Yoongs and Jeongie. Maybe Jimin hyung and Hobi hyung too if Yoongs and Jeongie decide to bring them. Do you wanna join?"
Taehyung gave him a huge smile at that, his eyes crinkling up and his lips widening to form a box that had gentle curves in its corners. "I was going to ask you myself. Jiminie told me he and Hobi were going to go and I felt a little left out. Of course, I'll come. Is six okay?"
At that, Jeongguk gave Taehyung his first ever dose of the bunny smile that was said to have the power of melting the hardest of rocks.
"Yeah, six is perfect."
Legend has it that it was then that Taehyung began to walk around with a tiny bottle in his pocket. Just in case he had to collect his melting heart out of the blue.
