Exchange student - one year ᵗᵃᵉᵏᵒᵒᵏ

32

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✯ .⋅} ────── ⊰

For the rest of the weekend, nothing happened between them apart from a few shy glances. They no longer fled the room when the other was in it, but sat down carefully. They still kept a shy distance from each other on the couch, but slowly, very gradually, they seemed to be getting closer again.
On Sunday evening, they sat on the couch in the dark living room, which was only lit up by the TV, each at one end, while an anime that Jungkook liked so much was playing on the TV. His parents were still at a relative's house, so there was a strange, almost intimate silence between them, which was by no means uncomfortable.

The blond sat there with his legs bent and his arms wrapped around them, while the dark-haired man only had one leg bent and was supporting his head with his hand.

With one eyebrow raised, he skeptically watched the action on the screen, which didn't really interest him. Taehyung knew what anime was, but he had never bothered to watch it. It just didn't interest him. He had friends who watched that crap too, but either he left the room or something else came on. He simply found it uninteresting, moronic and totally unrealistic. And yet here he was, sitting in the living room, looking at the screen on which one of these animes was playing. And it was only because he subconsciously wanted to be near the blonde.

Jungkook kept glancing over at the older man and smiled softly to himself. He was still sad about what Taemin had done and also about the fact that Jimin hadn't responded to his messages or calls since then. But somehow, he managed to suppress this pain better than he had thought. Simply because Taehyung no longer treated him like air. It was as if Taehyung's presence was a kind of balm for his soul, soothing the pain and giving him new hope.

At some point, the dark-haired man snorted and clicked his tongue. His eyes were fixed on the television. His pupils constricted as he tried to focus on the subtitles flickering across the screen in front of him. "Everything okay?" the blond asked, turning a little in his direction to get a better look at him.

The older man shook his head, his dark hair swirling around his face, and pointed at the television.
His eyes met the blond's as he spoke calmly, but with an underlying anger in his voice. "That's absolute bullshit what it says in the subtitle. It's completely mistranslated." His arms crossed in front of his chest as he looked back at the TV. It annoyed the hell out of him that what he was reading was different from what he was hearing.

It took Jungkook a moment to understand the situation, then he suddenly remembered. "That's right, you understand Japanese, don't you?" he said and received a brief nod from his roommate in response. The blonde nodded as well and reached for the remote control to turn off the subtitles. "It should be better now," he said, giving his seatmate a reassuring smile.

Taehyung scrutinized the younger man, letting his eyes wander over the blond's face, over the soft curves, the sharp edges that made up his face. He sighed, a deep, melancholy sound that reflected his feelings.

He reached out in Jungkook's direction to take the remote control from his hand. His fingers briefly touched the blond's, a fleeting touch, but enough to set off a firework of emotions in both of them. The older man switched the subtitle back on and put the remote back on the table in front of him. "Leave it on, you don't understand anything else. I can ignore it somehow," he mumbled. His voice was a soft whisper that could barely be heard over the hum of the TV, but Jungkook understood exactly what he was saying.

This small gesture from the dark-haired man made the blond's heart beat wildly. Like a girl in love, he brushed his blond strands behind his ear and felt his cheeks glow with embarrassment and excitement. His fingers plucked nervously at the fabric of his trousers as he tried to calm his rapidly beating heart, which was almost leaping out of his chest. It was only because the older man had moved closer, taking him into consideration and their fingers were only fleetingly touching that he felt like he was drowning in a sea of emotions.