The Epitome Of Ethereal Beauty

The epitome of ethereal ✨️💜 beauty

Me, Myself, and V ‘Veautiful days’ Special 8 Photo-Folio Teaser

Happy Birthday Taehyung 🎂💜

MAIN MASTERLIST | WIPs ✑

updated: 05.15.21

KEY:

☾ angst | ❀ fluff | ❥ smut

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Welcome to 𝓜𝓲𝓻𝓪'𝓼 𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽*:･ﾟ✧

𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙥 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙘𝙠 𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙚𝙨 ❤💧👄💧❤

💜 Hi! I’m Mira! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ 💜 all of my works are purely fictional — one could only hope to be the lucky Miss (Y/N) (L/N) after all.  💜 also, please don’t plagiarize, repost,  or translate my works! ಥ_ಥ 💜 do you have any requests, thoughts, or questions? feel free to send them in! \(@^0^@)/

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...𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙖 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙...

━ type: bts x gn! reader ━ masterlist

━ about: don't know, neither this nor that ━ pictures taken from Pinterest

━ a/n: yes f2l is cool but have you ever wondered about the precarious drop of a friend of friends? Strangeness mixed with knowing, seeing and talking in passing, wondering maybe you should speak more. Maybe nothing would happen but what if. What if.

NAMJOON: All he quite discerns of the matter right now, is that his hands are clammy. Namjoon comes to stand in the empty doorway, momentarily glimpsing at your back, before uttering -

"'Sup."

Those...those were not the words he meant to say. You glance over your shoulder, meeting the long-limbed figure with a tired, polite smile.

"'Sup," you take back and Namjoon slowly comes to stand near you. The hot summer air has chilled into a warm evening and the cicadas are yowling in full spring while the rest of your friends are sitting around the campfire, swapping stories and laughter. You were washing away the dishes in silence. He wonders why.

"You need any help?" he asks, hoping you'll agree, hoping you'll toss him a bone to wield as an excuse.

"Ah, you can dry the washed ones if you want," the tone of your voice leaves much to discover. Maybe because he doesn't truly know you. A friend of a friend is not a stranger but also not family. An awkward gamble played between two social roles, tugged perfectly in the middle. Not friends, not strangers. Acquaintances.

"So, how have you been?" he questions further.

In the silence, the only sound is the rhythmic ticking of the clock and he feels that signifies the divide between who he wants to be and who he is. But what does he want to be? To you, that is. Slyly, he peeks at you from the corner of his eye. Your lips, your brows furrowed in a wrinkle of concentration. He quickly turns away. Namjoon doesn't know what he wants. All he knows is that lately whenever you came into his mind, he felt...fuzzy, for lack of a better term. And in spite of also lacking free time, he had clawed tooth and nail to be in this gathering of friends. Especially after you affirmed you'd be here.

"Eh, same old, same old," you laugh, cavillous. "Working away. You?"

"Same," he chuckles but with hardly any humour.

"You must be tired," you reckon with a hum and he takes the plate out of your outstretched hand.

"Why do you say that?"

"You're sulking when you think no one's looking," you explain, in your own mind, wondering whether you're breaching some invisible boundaries. Maybe he didn't want to be reminded of that.

"Are you looking?"

"I just notice."

The plate smashes against the kitchen tile and the atmosphere eases. Though Namjoon is not happier because of it.

"I'll get the broom," you laugh, looking at the broken ceramic and taking a step away. "I thought they were overestimating your...capabilities."

"No, no, they've been correctly estimated," demurely, he scratches behind his ear. You've been watching him. Have you then seen him watching you as well?

When the plate is disposed of, with a promise to act dumb when questioned about its absence, Namjoon lingers at the bottom of the stairs as you go up the rented guest house. Retiring early for the night, you said.

"Wait, I'm gonna rest too," he calls out and bounds up the steps to where you were standing.

"There are spare pillows in my room," you offer conversationally, trailing next to each other. It's weird. But good weird, you think. "You want some?"

Namjoon decides he needs an exorcism for the flash of impure thoughts briefly running through his mind. And despite having two very good pillows on his own, he agrees. Taking a seat on your bed is...it makes something inside him tingle and shiver. He's on entirely new territory, eager to explore but scared of being shot at from a proverbial bow.

"How long will you be staying?" he inquires. He's full of questions when it comes to you.

"Not quite sure," you reply. "I was offered a new job. Here. And I don't know what to do about it."

Namjoon's head snaps upwards. Moving. Here. Permanent. Geographical moving also meant you'd move into a much closer tight-knit circle of friends he met on the regular basis. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, his heart is hammering.

“You want to gather thoughts together?”

YOONGI: Ask anyone and they wouldn't dare to even presume this would happen. And you do mean anyone - a medium, a priest, a prophet, all of the above - no one could possibly see this coming.

Min Yoongi, The Min Yoongi, was in the same zoom call as you. Out of respect and also due to the fact that you hardly knew the man, your gaze was kept solely on your notepad. An open page sits there beneath your hand, diligently receiving the inked words. Monday. Away. Shane. Cordially. Bastard.

But damn did he look good.

Although you hoped to all of higher power, he remembered nothing of last year. Recalling your life’s greatest humiliation, you want to smash this keyboard against your skull and knock yourself out. Although that doesn’t happen. More so to simply not draw any more attention. If you were a truly outstanding person this year, karma could repay you and make you invisible. 

You stumbled through the front door of your friend's home with perhaps a minuscule amount of leisure and free-mouthedness one would deem too much for an upstanding citizen.

The scorching sun had finally sunk beneath the horizon and eager to wash away both the torrid heat and the annoying work call thrust in the middle of your vacation, you'd been perhaps too liberal with the liquor but you meant no harm.

You truly did mean no harm.

"Whose the little guy?" you tossed a hand towards the stranger standing at the bottom of the stairs. When he turned around, you squinted and went Occam's razor on the situation. Which one was more probable - you were drunk during your vacation or a renowned idol and producer of a world-famous k-pop group, Min Yoongi, was sipping a milkshake out of your own personal mug?

"As if," you laughed out loud and then promptly passed out on the couch, face smushed into the fabric in what could only be described as an expression that could only be made within a fever dream.

Turns out the truth was stranger than fiction. A fact you were reaffirmed many, many times as you'd spent the rest of the vacation absolutely stunned at the revelation that one of your friends was bosom pals with a superstar. The same superstar whose first impression of you was…that. Safe to say you’d evaded him like the plague for the rest of the trip. 

“______________,” a friend calls out over the line and you jerk at the sound of your name. Thank God Yoongi was not looking, far too preoccupied with his phone. “Are you coming?” 

“Eh, I don’t know,” you drawl. “Because I have to be at work longer than you do, I won’t be able to drive with you and, to be honest, taking a solo trip in the mountains? No, thank you. I'm not made to fight wilder beasts. I bruise like a peach.”

Just then your phone dings with a message from an unknown number. 

I can pick you up.

You frown at the screen.

It’s Yoongi.

A pause. Somehow transmitting the awkwardness through the endless void of digital silence.

Suga of BTS?

“I’ve got a work thing, give me a second,” you lie without blinking, turning off both the camera and microphone. 

Smooth

Yes, I know who you are

Both messages arrived on the respective phones simultaneously.

Well, as I said I can pick you up. I won’t be able to make it on time as well. 

Right. Or wrong. Or perhaps merely...confusing.

Why would you do that?

Is there something wrong with doing "that?"

For every response, he seems to have a question, and for every question a rebuttal. You don't yet know whether that's something to be enjoyed or annoyed by. He doesn't give you time to ponder, anyhow.

Turn on your camera, Sae is asking for you

Before your brain can wholly grasp the situation, your fingers already brush up against the buttons on the keyboard and you're forced to stare at your own dumb-founded expression.

For a second, you meet Yoongi's gaze through the monitor. He seems to be in deep thought...or perhaps hungry. You don't know him, that's the problem. But maybe you can get to know him, or you simply won't. A hitched ride will remain only that, with no further bound expressions of familiarity. When you glance at Yoongi again, his head is faced downwards, fingers numbly scrolling up and down. As if he was still in the text conversation, flicking through it solely to appear busy.

"Oh, please, come," Sae pleads. "It's been so long since you hung out with us. You and Yoongi are practically tied to your jobs. Oh, please, please, please!"

We'll just both have to endure it T-T

You didn't peg him for a T-T type of guy. Min Yoongi turned out to be full of surprises. You do hope they're the good kind.

"Okay, I'll...find a way. To get there."

If Yoongi hears you omit his proposal, he doesn't display it in the slightest.

Text me where and when, comes his succinct order and both the conversation and the zoom call appear to end there, leaving you leaned back into the chair and wondering how he even got your number. Just then, in a manner both alarming and yet characteristic, the last ding lights up your phone like a lighthouse in the dark.

If you're wondering how I got your number, I asked Sae :)

JIN: Arguably you've known him for a very long time. So long in fact many friends had faded and new ones had the time to appear. However, you've never known him so driving by three ads of his face plastered presumptuously across the marble high rises of elite society doesn't garner much reaction or interest. Even when you stumble upon his ad whilst flicking through anything to numb your mind for the evening, you watch it but don't obsess over it. But you do watch it.

Some of his ads are fun, that's all.

"He's shy," your friend had tiptoed to whisper in your ear as you pointed out that the guy nursing a glass of champagne awkwardly in the corner was in fact Kim Seokjin who had modelled a perfume you bought. "Please, don't bother him too much. People harass him too much as it is."

You could agree to that and hadn't bothered him too much or rather at all. Those very few times you spoke with Jin were in passing - between dinners of mutual friends or in the clumsy lingering pauses when you found yourselves the only two present in the room.

Which is why this was oh so suffocating. Pressed thigh against thigh, you had to squeeze between twenty other people to take a picture. He's a bridesman, you're a groomsmaid. A cliche with a twist. Like anyone needed those today.

It seems that you've amassed some bad karma as throughout the whole event, the word "squeezing" is etched into the forefront of your mind. Squeezing to get past someone, only to have Jin either in front or the back. Squeezing to push your chairs closer as the rowdy migrating crowds flock to each other like birds during spring. Squeezing to get into the queue to congratulate the happy couple, squeezing to escape the many children, the annoying cousins, the inebriated uncles...

A wedding is a tight-packed event is the lesson to take home here.

Finally having escaped all the constrictions, fleshy or otherwise, you draw a heavy sigh of relief, shivering in the cold flowing from the swaying sea. Another friend married off, another ten questions of when will it be your turn. As if these prospects just announced themselves...

"Excuse me, may I join?"

You blink. For a second guided by fuzzy logic, you glimpse at the sky, pondering shouldn't a divine voice sound more intimidating and assertive but then you turn and find Jin standing some distance away. Even in the dark, you could spot his thumbs twiddling, riddled with anxiety.

"Sure," courteous, you reply. Jin traverses the sand, slightly wobbling from left to right. Drawing a heavy sigh of relief, he drops to the ground as though all the strings that kept him upward were abruptly cut all at once.

Deafening is the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline.

For a lingering second, Jin gazes at the dark horizon, before nuzzling against his knees.

"I'm sorry," he mutters all of a sudden and you frown at his statement. "You're...you're the only other person I know here, so I clung to you the entire day. Must have been annoying."

"It's okay," you brush off. "I get it."

Silence settles once more.

"Why are you not out there?" demurely, he hums, throwing a head back to the pulsating, multi-coloured shell of a guest house trembling with bibulous celebration. "You're usually front and centre at these kinds of things."

Despite finding it strange that he knew such detail, you keep the confusion behind your teeth.

"I'm not feeling it," you shrug, also shrinking into yourself as the chill of the night soaks through the sand. "Work has been really tough and my went missing-" realizing that you were speaking to him as a friend, you stopped. "Nevermind, you don't have to hear it."

"It's okay," he echoes, casting you a soft, empathetic smile, permed curls flitting in the faint breeze pushing grey clouds in an out of the moon's glow. People weren't lying, he really was handsome even if both his nose and ears had gone exceedingly pink.

Wind rushes through the air and with it carries the unmistakable stench of alcohol.

"Are you drunk?" flatly, you state and he rocks back and forth, sporting a supposedly innocent expression.

"A bit," he puts two fingers together. "Needed some courage."

"Alright," you drawl, rising to stand and he glimpses up at you. He doesn't at all seem intimidating as his fame made it seem. "Let's get you to bed before you'll get the idea to go ass bare into the ocean."

He embraces your offered hand with an offended pout.

Trailing up the narrow path to the guest house, you begin to tremble and immediately feel a jacket draped on your shoulders. Jin was looking away when you glanced at him in question.

"We should meet more often," he mutters near incoherently, entirely fixated on the ocean, though in the soft glow of the outdoor lighting you can spot that his eyes ever so slightly travel your way.

HOSEOK: Warily you glimpse at the blank hallways that stretch around you like a maze, littered with doors leading nowhere. You're going to die in here. Get lost and starve to death.

"__________?"

Hearing the questioning lilt of that voice, you shrink into yourself and wonder if it'd be feasible in any sort of way to pretend you can't hear him. But he draws a bold dash across your hopes with a single casual sentence.

"Hey, __________!"

Turning around, you clutch the water bottle like a shield. Hoseok struts towards you, his manager trailing behind. They exchange a few words and the other man slides past you with a polite, yet curt nod of the head.

"Hello, Mr Jung," your eyes naturally flit to anywhere, fucking anywhere, but the blinding smile spreading across his lips.

"Ah, ___________, still so official," he complains. You're not quite sure if there's a sentiment behind those words or if it's just something he thinks he needs to say. Regardless, you're much too intimidated to delve into it and as such count your prayers to get out of there as fast as possible.

After a stilted pause during which you can't force yourself to speak, he at last wonders out loud.

"What brings you here?"

Travel. Vacation. Hoseok-less promised vacation that Nall promised you'd have.

"You can see the Bean!" you remember her saying. "Lounge around in a hotel! Wander the Windy City!"

"What about your BFF?"

She had only thrown a hand at your concerns.

"Hoseok and I will be busy working through the routine," she scoffed. "We won't have time to hang out."

Maybe they won't but Nall could forget her water and whine for food, which meant you had to fetch both at the end of the day. Fetch both and run into Hoseok.

"Ah, Nall brought me along," you scratch at your nape, catching a whiff of the jumper's sleeve. Yeah, this was definitely not of the first freshness. "And she forgot her food and water, so I'm here to deliver it."

You jingle the bag as if to prove yourself. Hoseok laughs at that.

"Sorry," he sputters, pushing a palm in front of his mouth. "It just sounds like she's your puppy."

You smirk ungainly with him.

"I'll bring you to her," Hoseok drawls, feet turning back. "She's still in the practice room."

"Thank you," quietly you bid, shuffling next to him. At first, he seems bouncy but the longer you walk, the more you notice the way his shoulders slump. The darks under his eyes.

"Are you...nervous about your performance?"

He laughs again, but to your ears, it sounds forced. Quite a lot forced.

"I'm excited," he reiterates but for some reason, you persist.

"They don't cancel each other."

Hoseok was never your friend, mostly due to your own blame but how was it possible to ever not feel...cheap beside him. Your clothes, your hair, your likes, your days, everything about it was normal and he was decidedly not so. You were simply on two different levels and the way to bring them together was to exit from the game altogether. Nall sometimes remarked that he would ask about you but those times were usually in passing. This hasn't happened before. You never met him alone.

"Suppose they don't," he mutters, briefly appearing much more sullen, almost sunken. A shell. "It's just very..." he huffs a short breath full of wordless frustration. "Overwhelming."

"Nall says you make it overwhelming," you mumble and his eyes snap at you, instantly making you avoid his gaze.

"What do you say? Honestly."

You think about it.

"I think that it doesn't much matter how your performance will turn out because you're not going to be satisfied by it anyhow."

Hoseok makes a low sound at the back of his throat, pushing his hands deep into his pockets.

"And what would you do?"

"I would..." you fall into silence as well. "I would actively disregard all critique. Push it to later, and for now, concentrate on just being in all of this," you gesture at the building, of course, meaning in actuality, the festival. Hobipalooza, as Twitter, coined it. "Trust yourself, trust your fans and remember that sometimes the moment for critique comes after something is done."

You almost want to add the cowardly "but that's just what I think". After all, what were you risking putting yourself out there? Nothing much, nothing deadly. Nothing that could compare to thousands of eyes starved to get nothing but perfection and ready to examine your every single movement in one of the most stressful moments of your life.

Now you can't help but feel silly giving such "advice". It wouldn't be too grand of a surprise to see Hoseok roll his eyes in annoyance but he wasn't. He was glaring at the floor. Abruptly he stops and you fret he's going to curse you out or cast a cold shoulder but he does none of that, instead pointing at a door you've halted by.

"She's there," he states quietly and you madly scramble to get away, only to freeze when Hoseok calls out your name. Again.

"Thank you," he offers a weak smile which you return and then turns on the heel, trailing away, wrenched in deep thought. You could tell even from the curve of his back. With a sigh, you open the doors and bring down the very thunders of judgment upon Nall's head. For making you endure this torture.

Leaving the studio, you both waddle with some speed, eager for fresh air.

"Dress comfortably on Sunday," she remarks casually, pushing open the entrance doors, whilst absent-mindedly chewing a piece of chicken. It bobbed in her left cheek. "Hoseok just texted to offer you a VIP pass."

JIMIN: Everyone had gone dead silent. Like others, you turn to examine the stranger but seeing the shrunken stature, agitated and unwillingly placed in a spotlight, you quickly turn to frown at the hotel carpet.

"You should have told us."

Naturally, Em is the first one to do the scolding, and on instinct, you scoff.

"Well, I told you I'd bring the needed plus one and here he is," feebly, Malia gestured at the masked man. Didn't do him much good as you all realized who he was in the whooping span of 35 seconds.

They squabble amongst themselves for a while, until the decision is laid on you, eyes turned to hear your judgment. You were the last domino, whatever side you swing on, that will bound to happen.

"We needed one person, he's here," numbly, you shrug. "Nothing more to it."

Em appears displeased as all hell. Her face contorted in an expression of thinly veiled resentment but you couldn't care less. She could hitchhike far away from your group if she hated to be here so bad.

"He will be recognized," she hissed in the corner, earning a dirty glare from Malia and some others. "And then we'll have to muck up the mess!"

You stop by your friend, giving her the entrusted document folder without a word. Though unspoken, she understood the "talk later" without ever needing extra clarification. The guy glued to her side, Jimin, meets your gaze and blinks slowly. A hesitant "thank you" comes from underneath his mask.

"No problem," you reply cooly and head out.

No, the rest of the crowd didn't much like Jimin, and Jimin didn't much like them either which meant that you were saddled with him. You were with Malia and she was with him. It was an indisputable package.

"So are you...together?" you ask her cautiously as you two were the last one's outside the tents, chatting absent-mindedly around a dwindling campfire. Immediately she stutters, a grimace seizing her features.

"What? No!" she cries out, seemingly scandalized beyond any belief that you would even suggest such a thing. "We're just friends. Nothing more."

"Then why did you bring him here?"

Her lips purse and she reaches to gruffly poke the cindering wood with a stick.

"I don't know..." she trailed off. "He's never had much of stuff like this. Normal stuff, you know, and one day I was raving on and on about what fun it is - the nature, you, everything - and he had this faraway look in his eye and I..." she sighed. "I felt bad. So I invited him to gift that sense of normalcy. If for a little."

Malia was always so kind-hearted. Whenever you began to feel like Jimin was all one of your best friends could see, you recalled her words, summoning each letter to the forefront of your mind and then letting the matter be. And it wasn't like Jimin was a heinous travel companion. Quite the opposite. He helped you out whenever he could, even without asking but the conversations you had were scarce, limited mostly to single words instead of sentences. But life is funny, though you don't think highly of her sense of humour.

"I'm sorry," the receptionist bid once again and you sag on your bag, drenched in ice and thoroughly drained. "All the rest of the rooms truly are full."

The math was simple and judging from the skirting glances passed around the lobby, everyone knows that. Two unlucky bastards would have to sleep in the campervan. And while you wouldn't have to share a bed, the space in that foul machinery was so small, you might as well have. Just thinking of the airless, claustrophobic space parked outside gives you a nauseating shiver, in spite of sensing in your heart, or the sixth sense, that it'd be just your luck to end up there. You draw matches.

Two losers.

You and Jimin.

Awkwardly you glance at each other before turning away. Malia loved Jimin and you like two siblings but even her gaze flitters somewhere around the wooden beams of the ceiling.

The dinner proceeds with lingering tension. You shower, partake heavily in the buffet, drink hot wine and just before lights out, miserably slump to the campervan. When you yank the doors, Jimin, who'd you not seen for some time, recoils as if shot. You cast him a tight-lipped smile only to halt in confusion.

"I...made a bed for you," he explains, shuffling to the side.

"I...Thank you. You're very kind."

Jimin smiles, brightly, broadly, so much that his eyes disappear into thin lines of happiness.

"You've gone completely red!" he cries out amidst peels of laughter, pointing incriminatingly at your face and immediately you find your gaze lowering. Escaping him.

"I'm glad my internal temperature amuses you," you drawl and he laughs harder.

TAEHYUNG: "Just trust me!"

"Ah, yes, the pinnacle of reliability. Yelling "trust me" after every two steps."

Jae casts a displeased side-eye at your grumbling figure, shivering like a stranded leaf in the wind. The loose clothing did little to protect you from the sudden onslaught of unwanted elements, and despite wholeheartedly agreeing with Jae to go to the snottiest brunch of all time, mostly for a change of scenery, it didn't hinder you in the slightest - from complaining your heart out that is.

"He should be here any moment," Jae mutters, jumping up and down from cold like a delirious flamingo.

"Why can't we just take a taxi?" you cry out when a punishing wind strikes your back.

"Because it's expensive! And besides," Jae began to erratically wave towards a stream of cars coming down the road. "He was driving around anyway."

"What for?"

"Says it clears his head."

By sitting in traffic? But before you could dispute it any further, a car does roll to the side of the street where you stood waiting. You had to admit it was a nice car, though you couldn't say much more than that. This was Jae's strangest of friends, bearing no name or workplace as far as you knew. You'd never understood why Jae, a reputable blabbermouth, felt the need to be so goddamn cryptic but the issue also didn't capture enough of your attention for you to pester him. You let it be. Currently facing the ominous darkness of two tinted windows, you swallowed. And maybe shuffled behind Jae to peer dubiously when the car doors opened.

"Hey man," Jae leant down, wearing a broad, dazzling smile. "Thanks for helping us out."

"No problem."

Bizarre, you could swear you knew that voice. Something about it tickled an acquainted nerve. Naturally, as you stood there wondering, Jae was already sticking a foot in the backdoor with no inhibition whatsoever. You attempted to follow him only to be shocked in stupor when Jae casually tossed out:

"Hey, can they sit in the front? Carsick traveller here."

"Of course."

As a form of retribution, you elbow him in the ribs, hard, and begrudgingly climb into the passenger seat, only to have your entire muscle system stiffen and ears ring as you fixate on anything but the driver.

You were positively going to rip Jae an entirely new set of holes.

"You don't mind some music, do you?" Kim Oh Christ Taehyung questions oh so considerate and Jae affirms that he doesn't. You can't even manage a stutter. Maybe if you don't look at him, he won't exist...

"So, __________, are you feeling better these days?"

Elegant. The goal is to sound elegant, put-together and most of all, n o n c h a l a n t.

You squeak a breathy, high-pitched laughter.

"What?"

Why not just unbuckle the seatbelt and drop yourself out on the road? Surely, would hurt less.

You hear Jae press his entire face into a seat to muffle his laughter.

"Oh," Kim The Fucking Taehyung, blinking at you, befuddled. "Jae was just saying that you'd been sick for some time."

You wither away with a smile. They'd been talking about you. Kim Taehyung knew about your cold. Why not?

"I'm fine now. Thank you for asking."

He nods, with a hum, then turns up the volume.

"Do you like this song?" he converses with ease you can only envy. Your cheeks burn and you find enough belief in your heart to pray that soon he won't be so friendly. You tune into the melody, before shaking your head.

"I haven't heard this one. Not my type probably."

"Oh," Kim Thee Taehyung deflates visibly by the wheel, rubbing the back of his neck with one palm. "It's my song."

You should have just stayed home. No, no, you should have just never woken up. Maybe you should have never been born.

"Oh," dully, you echo. "I mean it's a nice song! I just...listen to other genres."

Well, at least Jae finds this very amusing. The rest of the car ride is spent in relative silence, with only a few, well-meaning questions: where are you going? Do you need a ride home? Jae agrees but you think firmly to yourself that even walking back home would be a more viable option.

At last, Kim The Taehyung rolls up to the obnoxious brunch place Jae wanted to burn his funds through and faster than a bullet, you bend your head his way, squeak a mousy "thank you" and jump out of the car, wondering if somewhere amidst the pose you managed to flash him. Maybe you should just move. Like to Mars. Enrol in one of those space programs. Jae bids his friend, Kim The One and Only Taehyung, a warm goodbye, expressing his own gratitude for such help on this fine Saturday morning. Just before he leaves, Taehyung finds your gaze and waves.

"See you soon, _____________! You're funny."

JUNGKOOK: "Get your fucking stompers off my carpet!" you groan, the second you find that husk of a black dot, sprawled all over your furniture, a handful of chips reaching towards his mouth.

"So unhospitable," Jungkook tuts and you roll your eyes. If a year ago you would have questioned why a k-pop boy was snacking and watching your TV then right now it was just a part of a deeply harrowing weekly routine.

Kiya pokes her head through your open bedroom with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, we just needed a place to escape the paparazzi."

"And get pre-drinks," you note, sternly gazing at the various bottles littered all over your precious coffee table. Kiya can only laugh and disappear at that. With some amazement mixed with judgment you watch as Jungkook shovels the food into the bottomless pit that most people called mouth.

"Don't worry about it," Kiya huffed, blowing strands of her sweaty hair from her eyes. You dropped the box onto the floor of your empty apartment. Your own place. Who would have thought? But who also had the bright idea that they didn't need a moving agency! They could get on their own. Well, ten strangers later and you were still only halfway through. Bodies pressed against the narrow hallway, catching breath and mercy like they'd been through a war. All of them were friends of friends, with the last one running late. Kiya insisted that this guy would be your salvation, he could lift anything and was insanely competitive to also succeed or :

"Sprain an ankle trying!" Kiya laughed but you found no humour in her sentence. At last, a smooth and breathy voice greeted people around him by the entrance, and without wasting any time, the stranger perched your full-length mirror on his back, making his arduous way up the stairs.

"He's a madman," you gasped.

"He also accepts the payment in food, so we're going somewhere to eat later on," Kiya poked you by the side, gesturing to free the space for her atlas of a friend.

A year later, you bore just about the same opinion about Jungkook. The guy truly was a madman. But as annoying as he was, you still were thankful that he had hauled half of the furniture up two flights of stairs that day.

"So, Grumpy," he poked with his knee as you sat down. "You coming to my show?"

"Undecided."

"Oh, come on," he whined loudly and you glared at him, seeing some of the chips stain your precious sofa. "Just because you look like Grumpy The Dwarf, doesn't mean you have to act like him too."

You can't kill Korea's national pride, you repeat it like a mantra in your head. You can't kill Korea's national pride.

After a dizzying wave and a stupid row of giggles, Kiya and Jungkook waltz away from your home, leaving you sighing and exhausted on a Friday evening. Maybe you should have joined them...But the second you drown in more comfortable clothes, the thought of leaving dissipates from your mind.

As nameless movie drones in the background and the silence of the night is filled with the rhythmic chopping of your knife, you try to convince yourself that you're not lonely. You're striving, as they say. You're cruising through life, with a stable, clean home and a stable job. Many people had much less, you were lucky. But the crushing solitude, makes your fingers halt and suddenly you feel thoroughly appalled by the simple process of making yet another meal to eat with no company. Perhaps you should get a cat? Perhaps go straight to two?

A quiet rap by the door interrupts the ever-reliable routine and you cautiously paddle to see who'd come by your door, only to scream when a big eye reflects into your peephole.

"Oh, what do you want?" you berate him but there's something different about Jungkook. For one, he's red like a ripened tomato, and secondly, his expression was unexpectedly sincere.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," says he, swaying slightly and slurring his words. "You don't look like Grumpy the Dwarf. I meant to only tease but then I thought about it and it may have been a little rude."

"It's okay," you drawl in vague comfort as he guiltily scuffs the tip of his shoe against the ground. "Is that everything?"

"Yes! No!" he pouts in a frustrated manner. "I came to clean."

"To clean?"

Clearly disorientated he blunders into your home, squinting at the sofa.

"I made a mess here," he mumbled. "I ought to clean it. Where's the vacuum?" he began to spin around which foreseeably ended up with him kneeling on the floor, head caught between his trembling hands.

"Damn, this carousel is crazy," you hear him mutter to himself.

"I just think he doesn't quite know how to talk to you," Kiya, truly shockingly being the more sober one, reflects as Jungkook snores on the floor. Rolled to the side, courtesy provided by you. She'd barged in, deep in the throes of a crying frenzy, yelling that Jungkook was kidnapped and it was all her fault, and the Korean government will sentence her to death. Yet when the initial panic wore off and everyone's ride home was organised, she was once again the elegant, collected angel you'd known her as. Jungkook was...well, slumbering on your floor, blissfully unaware of the world around him.

You both sat around him, eating grapes and partaking in some much-needed late-night talk. "Like sometimes he tries to be really cool which comes off as aggravating. Despite being an idol, he's still human you know, and he wants to be liked."

Kiya takes a sip of her water, a picture definition of refined behaviour even if one of her lashes were hanging by her cheek.

"Why does he want to even talk to me?" you ponder, checking if he was still breathing. By the unflattering tractor sounds rising from his face, it was safe to assume yes.

"He thinks you're cool," she shrugs. "Hence why he tries to emulate that."

"And sorely fails," you shake your head at him and Jungkook stirs, blinking tearily at your figure. "You keep sleeping, honey. Don't worry about a thing."

Naturally, the sarcasm goes right above his head and with a polite, obedient nod, he's knocked out again.

When with some extreme difficulty, you manage to hurl him into the backseat of his company's car, he drunkenly grasps your palm into a handshake.

"Let's be friends, okay," he offers, barely stringing together any coherent sentence. Kiya glances at you, clearly guilt-tripping at this point but Jungkook wasn't a bad guy. At least, you didn't think so. Thus you shake his large and bizarrely soft hand and promise okay, you'll be friends.

He giggles at that, nose scrunching up in an expression of pure happiness.

Maybe he wasn't the coolest around you, but he wasn't a bad guy. Not even a bad friend, you reckon.

© soraviii, 2022

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