Apodyopsis [Yoonmin]

32.

"How's this?" Taehyung asked showing Jungkook the picture he had just snapped of himself.

"That's perfect. How are you so photogenic?" He wondered.

"I don't consider myself photogenic. I just snap a picture and move on with it."

"That's the confidence I aspire to have." He grinned.

Taehyung gave him a small smile and went back to his phone. "Hey, how do you know if your picture is in black and white when you're umm...?"

"I take it with my phone camera and then go to the picture filters. It says black and white filter and I click on it. When I get pictures taken by other people I get them to send it to me so I can edit them the way I want."

"Okay. Sorry for the question I'm just a curious boy."

"I know." Taehyung smiled admiring his cute face.

"So, uhh, what does this mean?"

"Huh?"

"Well, we are meeting up without me having to pay you. Does that mean something?" Jungkook asked with eyes full of hope.

Taehyung pressed his lips together as he looked down at his lap. Jungkook's smile faded.

"Is everything okay? You've been acting so off lately. Almost like I'm bothering you. Am I being clingy?"

Taehyung reached behind his car to the back seat and pulled out a magazine. "Look," he said avoiding eye contact.

Jungkook took it and read the headline. "Will the Mins kick out adoptive son off family business?"

"They post these every now and then. It's so stupid. I don't care about the money. They're my family regardless." Jungkook said setting it down on his lap.

Taehyung took a deep breath and tried to remember the speech he had rehearsed the night before.

In his head it was easy thinking about it, but having Jungkook in front of him made it so hard.

"What about the article?" He wondered even more confused. The silence was killing him. The fact that Taehyung was avoiding eye contact made it worse.

His heart was tightening now. This wasn't a good signal. "Taehyung?" He said again. His voice was now a bit shaky and he hoped he wouldn't notice.

Jungkook was pretty good at hiding his emotions except when it came to him. The love and appreciation he had for him was impossible to hide.

"I'm in this business to have money. I can't keep seeing you and become distracted with my ultimate goal. I want to be rich. I want to have so much money so I never have worry about my future again. I lost so many things due to poverty. Do you know how many times I starved? Do you know how many times I cried seeing my mother struggle? The kids made fun of my clothes because I only had a few pairs and my shoes had holes. She fought so hard to give me everything she could and since then I promised myself that I wouldn't go through that again. I will give her the world just like she gave me hers when we struggled. Being with you isn't going to get me nowhere. Your father can leave you without money simply because you aren't his blood. I can't risk my plans for you. I'm sorry."

Jungkook's heart sunk. That was no what he expected at all. "Taehyung I-I can give you the future you want. You wouldn't have to...you..."

"How? How do you know that when your own future is at risk? They might love you and accept you, but at the end of the day they didn't conceive you like they conceived, Yoongi."

Jungkook's eyes flooded with tears, "Don't say it like that. You're making yourself sound so..."

"Selfish? Yeah. I am."