Chapter 10

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Seokjin honestly thought he might go insane one day-- even if it was a mild kind of insane that he could manage, a kind of insane that wasn't hard to keep inside. It would be that kind of insane that mothers went when their kid wouldn't stop calling them, that kind of insane where it was mostly just hair-tugging and wishing one could sleep the insanity away. It wasn't insanity, but it was damn close to it, and Seokjin was scared of falling ill to it.

This sense of being insane came from one thing, and that one thing was people, specifically the people in science. Seokjin was supposed to be spending quality time with his family, was supposed to be catching up to them after so many years of not talking to them thanks to his obsessive planning over a robot that he gave to Jeon Jungkook. He was supposed to be carefree, having a good time, off of work, but he couldn't stop thinking about people, about Jimin specifically. Jungkook would have called him if something went wrong, and Seokjin knew this, but it made him nervous, for some reason, to find that Jungkook didn't call him at all as he was on vacation. He'd been expecting something to go wrong, almost, had been expecting a frantic call about Jimin breaking down or throwing a tantrum or going on a rage. He expected something bad, but he got nothing.

Calling Jungkook himself, he day before Christmas, didn't bring any bad news, which should have relieved Seokjin, but... it didn't. For some reason, it just didn't work for him. He was happy that Jungkook was okay, that everything was okay, but... something made him want something to go wrong with Jimin. He wasn't sure why-- was he that obsessed with work? Yes, yes; he must have been. Science had always been a big part of Seokjin's life; he must have been obsessed.

Seokjin took his work-broken fingers and picked up a pencil, a piece of paper, and began to sketch out a model of someone, just like he'd done with Jimin. It was insanity to think he could build another person, but he'd come up with a name, a lovely Min Yoongi, the same height, with the same amount of cute nature; and he couldn't find it in himself to stop drawing, to stop wondering and imagining what it would be like to bring life to another metal form.

The notebook containing Min Yoongi was put away almost as soon as Seokjin had finished drawing it. Insanity, he told himself, to think of another person, to imagine building another. He remembered what he'd been through building Jimin-- frustrated tears and so much wanting to give up, and it was Jimin on top of work that he actually had to do. Building Jimin wasn't necessary-- Seokjin wasn't sure why he'd done it. Had it been his original plan to give Jimin to Jungkook? No. He'd started to build Jimin just to practice building, but then came the thought of giving Jimin to Jungkook, of finally seeing Jungkook in love, and-- it just seemed so right. It had Seokjin moving along, under stress and pressure of his own mind to finish Jimin, to give him to Jungkook, to see the boy spark in love.

Seokjin had always wondered what it would be like, to see Jungkook so in love. He always wondered if the boy's eyes would sparkle as all his romance books told him a lovers' eyes would do. He wondered if Jungkook would cuddle with his partner, wondered if he would be big on skin-ship, wondered if he would be happy. He wanted to hear the laugh Jungkook would share with someone he loved, wanted to hear the secrets and wanted to know how Jungkook would prefer to kiss someone-- a short kiss, a long kiss, a kiss on the cheek or the lip. Seokjin wondered, and he kept wondering, and it was through all this stupid wonder, all this stupid curiosity that he found out; he was in love with Jeon Jungkook.

Seokjin realized this when Jungkook had graduated high school, when Jungkook had barely turned nineteen and Seokjin felt like a creep for loving someone so much younger than him. Why he hadn't made a move was obvious to him; he was too old for Jungkook at the time, and Jungkook had school to focus on. Why he'd chose to make Jungkook a robot instead of confess to him at a later time was so beyond him. He wasn't that nervous; he could handle confession, and he would have been able to handle rejection. It was-- and it took Seokjin a long time to come to terms with this feeling and that fact that it was true-- but it was just that Seokjin wasn't right for Jungkook. He wasn't the right person and he didn't have the right qualities and he just wasn't right. That was okay. Everything about that was okay, he thought, because his goal anymore was to have Jungkook happy and, having talked to him on the phone just hours ago, he thought Jungkook sounded happier than he ever had.

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