Bargain (Not Met) (JungHope)

Interlude - Approach

When Taehyung walked into Hoseok's cubicle for their daily lunch research, Hoseok felt some sort of tension rise in the air. Jungkook's little outburst hadn't been cleared up on Taehyung's part, so that might've explained it.

But when Hoseok glanced over in the demon's direction, he was shocked to find not a single trace of guilt in Jungkook's demeanor. Rather, it seemed he was back to how he was the previous evening: brooding and on the cusp of raging.

"Shall we go to the cafeteria today?" Taehyung spoke, breaching the stifling silence. "Or would you rather go to the library again?"

Hoseok tore his gaze away from Jungkook, who met his eyes with an intense sort of emotion that the office worker had a hard time identifying. He turned toward Taehyung with a polite smile, silently thanking the manager for keeping his concerns of Jungkook's behavior on the down-low. "I'm feeling like having burgers again," he answered, turning back toward Jungkook mid-sentence. "How about you, Kook?"

Jungkook gave a huff of breath, and Hoseok was really starting to see the mental regression.

"Burgers are fine," he ended up muttering, his hunched form and reluctant stare anything but compliant.

Hoseok noticed Jimin's silent concern from the corner he occupied. He gave the angel a minute shrug when he met his gaze, and Jimin frowned before nodding in hushed understanding.

"Well, it looks like we're in agreement," Taehyung said cheerily. He held a hand out toward Hoseok, and Hoseok took it with a slight oompf as the manager lifted him from his seat. "You think these books will be more useful than the last?" he questioned, idle chatter an easy distraction from the unpleasant air around a certain demon.

Hoseok gave a vague answer of sure or maybe or both. He didn't know what his replies were nor what Taehyung speculations were. He was too busy observing the silent glower Jungkook sent their way, lurking a good foot or so behind them.

From an angry adolescent to a brooding teenager overnight, Hoseok mused.

--

Lunch was...awkward.

Hoseok wanted to breach the topic of Taehyung's mysterious USB drive, but he was afraid that would trigger some extreme reaction from Jungkook. He couldn't afford such a high risk being that they were camping out in their usual spot at the library, a potential audience of five there for the hypothetical event.

Hoseok knew that Taehyung had noticed that something important wasn't being said. He skirted around it and pardoned any mishaps Hoseok may have had while speaking, half-sentences of approach mixing in with quotes from the various novels they've read. Hoseok was grateful to the manager for playing oblivious, but he also just wanted to rip the band-aid off the whole situation.

He pardoned himself from the group with the excuse of using the restroom backing him up, the intensity of Jungkook's unnerving scowl finally getting the best of him. Taehyung sent him off with a cheery wave, and Jungkook gave him a knowing look. Hoseok prayed that the demon wouldn't do anything drastic during his absence.

After splashing some odd-handfuls of cold water onto his flushed face, Hoseok faced his reflection with a grave sort of expression.

"You can do this," he uttered. Self-encouragement was desperately needed at the moment, and he figured verbal emboldening would be better than the panicked waves of garbled sentences that'd been circulating his mind the entire lunch-shift.

"Am I not included in this mission anymore?"

Hoseok had come to learn to not immediately shriek during instances like these. It was a common enough occurrence to have a mere ripple of panicked-stricken adrenaline to run and flush through Hoseok's entire system.