Cover It Up | Taejin [ON HOLD]

III

III— BREAKTHROUGHS

SEOKJIN HAS BEEN doing some research on BTS for the past few days, which basically consists of looking them up on Naver and being very impressed by the amount of time they seem to put in to create content for and interact with their fans. He's been able to gather a lot of information about the members through Bangtan Bombs and see their thoughts and worries about their work in their logs, and it's frankly very refreshing to see a group so down to earth when so many companies make their artists out to be flawless gods and goddesses.

He's also found out, through various online fan forums, some completely useless facts, such as that one of Taehyung's eyes is a monolid while the other is a double eyelid, and that Taehyung has a mole on the underside of his nose. Idols always have the most committed fans; Seokjin is honestly a little jealous.

The next time Seokjin sees Taehyung on set, he waltzes up to him and greets him with a very bright good morning. It occurs to him that maybe his cheerfulness seems odd when the younger boy looks at him sleepily, slowly blinking his eyes. (How cute.)

"You seem wide awake for seven in the morning, sunbaenim."

Seokjin, greeting the stylist noonas, slides into the chair next to Taehyung as one of them clips back the boy's fringe. "Yeah, I'm kind of excited for today. I've never done a fight scene before."

Taehyung glances over for a second before the woman instructs him to face forward. "Didn't you do one— do a fight scene in Killing Love?"

"Oh," Seokjin says, the vague memory coming back to him, "oh right, yeah, I did that. Wow, that was, like, four years ago." He stares at the boy as a stylist begins applying makeup to his face. "You watched that and knew that was me? I was just— Bully Number Two or something."

Taehyung very determinedly stares at his reflection. "Yeah, I—" He clears his throat. "I mean, I watched it after you started getting bigger roles in dramas so— so I recognized you."

"Ah, I see." Seokjin watches Taehyung's eyes instinctively slide shut as the makeup artist pats concealer under his eyes. "We're gonna be doing a fight scene together in a few weeks; you excited for that?"

Taehyung's eyes flutter open, and it strikes Seokjin how pretty the kid really is. (And frankly, he's a little jealous of that, too.) "That soon?"

"Yeah, I think so," Seokjin replies, waving to Sooyeon as walks in their direction. "That's what Hoseok told me, anyway."

Taehyung follows Seokjin's gaze and spots Sooyeon, who smiles at them both, sunglasses resting low on her nose. "You boys just as tired as I am?" she asks, her voice still raspy with sleep. "I feel like my legs are gonna pass out underneath me."

Seokjin laughs. "Your legs can't pass out, Sooyeon."

The young woman rests her arms on the back of Taehyung's chair and lays her head on her arms, yawning. "Whatever, I don't... I'm tired."

"Did you just wake up, noona?" Taehyung asks, looking up at her, an amused grin splaying across his lips.

Noona?

It occurs to Seokjin, right then and there, how close Taehyung has gotten to Sooyeon to not only drop the sunbaenim title, but the entire sunbae title as well and go straight to calling her noona. And he must be similarly close to the rest of the cast and crew as well; Seokjin now remembers Howon mentioning "Taehyungie" a few times in passing, but he hadn't thought much of it since they were about the same age.