chasing stars - Chapter 1 - jeongvee - 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys (2024)

Chapter Text

“Jeon Jeong-ho is reported to have passed away at approximately 6.35 am on Sunday, 21st April 2020. Sources have been telling our news outlet that His Highness passed of natural causes and old age. Nothing has been revealed about the true cause of the death from the family members themselves. The Jeon family’s PR agent has provided us with the information that Jeon Jeong-ho passed away peacefully in his mansion after months of intensive medical care.

The Jeon royal family is undoubtedly one of the most important assets of Sconya and in the event of Jeon Jeong-ho’s death, a lot of the questions from people are regarding inheritance of both the property and the new head of the family. It’s common information that Jeon Jeong-ho’s only son had passed away due to a painful case of leukemia four years prior.

The funeral is reportedly to be held on the evening of April 23rd somewhere between 5 to 6 pm at the Jeon’s private cemetery. More details will follow as soon as they can be reported.

To read more about the Jeons, you can move over to our comprehensive article about the family tree……..”

Truth be told, in Taehyung’s entire year of interning at the news firm, seldom had been the case that the morning news had been this interesting. He could give less f*cks about Sconya’s royalty than he does about the rings that his coffee cup leaves on the counter of the kitchen table everyday but it was nice to have something that he could retain before he was interrogated about it.

The little window above their stove that served as a makeshift exhaust fan shows the sky as clear as day. It made him want to claw his eyes out. A glum day would have meant an excuse for taking an off and maybe crawling back under the covers until it was an acceptable time to be showing his face anywhere around life. He huffs when he hears the bathroom door click somewhere from inside his room, a loud rush of water as the toilet is flushed and footsteps make their way towards the mattress to collapse into the pile without abandon. The harsh thump of contact makes him flinch. Not because of the intensity of the contact but because his heart was aching. He wants to be back on those covers, throw himself there with the exact same thump and bask in the softness.

Instead, he is stuck here reading the front page of The Sconya Times with his coffee and the willpower alone. The sheer amount of effort it was taking him to reach the end of the page was commendable because his headache was blurring his vision so much that it was impossible to retain any information from the phone screen. Had it been a normal day of news like ‘Lady tries to put cat back in the cage only to be clawed in the face! Read more to find out!’ he would have zoned out, zero f*cks given. He at least appreciates the day for not kicking him in the ass about this one aspect.

When his alarm notifies him of the ring of 7.40 (the time beyond which he can’t possibly delay his departure further) he sighs heavily and picks up his keys from where they’re hanging from the fridge magnet. Looking around at his room longingly, he shuts the door in comfort’s face, already looking forward to being back 8 hours later.

*****

The thing is, Taehyung’s boss was kind of an asshole.

He feels like it was such a common emotion at this point that when he shared it with his other friends outside of work, he rarely got the sympathy and spoiling he was looking for. It wasn’t a good way to release stress, by getting even angrier at his friends for not getting what he wanted by ranting his concerns out like this. It happened way too often (read: every weekend) for them to be fazed by it and at this point, Taehyung has no outlet for this except to shut up and deal with it like a man (man in the hyper-masculine way of ancient standards, where men hunted and had to suck it up when they got hurt because taking a rest means going without food for a day. No one asks Taehyung whether he can do that though, he’d rather just sit and cry about it thank you very much).

When he steps into his cubicle for the day, the energy in the air is already dead. All of the cubicles sport the same blue screen and so much synchronisation hurts Taehyung’s eyes really. Customisation to their desktops was an absolute sin (he doesn’t know why, but he can probably take a good guess; they didn’t want to go through the trouble of formatting everything back to default if they fired anyone.) and sometimes when he comes back to this hell of a space after a particularly difficult assignment, it takes everything in him to not just smash this thing to pieces.

He’s trying to will himself to at least survive for the day when a booming voice rings through the room, effectively startling him out of his monologue. ‘Guys! The meeting starts in exactly ten minutes! I’d appreciate it if you were punctual,’ Ha, Taehyung thinks, sneaking in the word appreciate there like they wouldn’t get their asses handed to them if they were even a minute late. ‘Kim Taehyung-ssi, this goes for you particularly.’

Taehyung rolls his eyes, ‘You got it Jooheon.’

Jooheon’s eyes narrow, ‘Seriously, Taehyung, I will not make any more excuses for you.’

Taehyung turns to him with a sickly sweet smile and says, ‘Do you ever?’ and then turns his back to him again, cutting off the conversation there. Honestly, he had a lot of better things to do than deal with this pain of an ass when it wasn’t even properly 9 am yet.

On cue, about seven minutes later, he hears a collective shuffling from the cubicles around him, no doubt groups of people leaving to set themselves up in the conference room. People tend to arrive earlier than usual because it always tends to be an advantage, the earlier you arrive, the earlier you can snag a seat at the very far back where you can either doze off or play with your phone the entirety of the meeting. Taehyung himself had had the privilege of using that space only three times in his glorious career here and what a time that was.

He takes his own time when he knows he wouldn’t get that seat anyway; arranging things on his desk and rearranging them some more. Stealing a glance at the window, he finds Jooheon glaring at him directly from his seat right at the front of the projector (of course this bastard sits right at the front every time they have a meeting). He averts his eyes, sighs because that glare definitely meant he was out of his divulging rights and then sets off towards the room.

When he steps inside and settles down on the nearest possible chair that is free, he notices a more nervous energy in the room than is usually present. Even the people who are mostly not serious about these occasional meetings with the Director are shuffling their feet and setting papers and notebooks about, poised to take notes. The entire editing and compiling department at The Sconya Times had received a harrowing text message at 8.59 pm on the day prior, effectively ruining their Sunday from when they were all probably dreading their weekend ending. They had been called in for an emergency meeting to discuss some recent developments in the country’s news which would require some last-minute drastic changes to their publishing and editing schedule. He hadn’t known what it was about when he read the text but come the morning and Jeon jeong-ho’s death had put a lot of things in perspective. He still didn’t know how their company knew about Jeon Jeong-ho’s death before it had even happened, considering they had received the text last evening and his death had happened today morning, but this was just another example of a question he couldn’t ask while being part of a news company. Some things were taboo, controversial and it was better you knew nothing about it to maintain your own mental integrity because more often than not, the findings definitely corrupted your morals.

His thoughts bring him back to the room where he can see the Director coming in from the glass windows. He seems to be in a hurry and looks like he has a lot to say. The last time he had looked like this, it had been when the royal family’s son had been rumored to elope. Of course, the rumors had turned into smoke and wisp at the end but he will probably always remember the hustle and bustle of the department in that one week six months ago.

‘Alright! Thank you guys for coming here so early in the morning and I apologise for taking time out of your busy schedules,’ Taehyung swallows the urge to roll his eyes again. ‘But as a news channel that prides itself on reporting the very best and the most updated news on the current affairs of Sconya, we have a crisis on our hands.’

People look interested and perked up around Taehyung. He himself was almost mildly interested, however that didn’t miss his general disdain he had towards what he knew what was about to come. The director continues, ‘As you all may have read this morning, Sconya’s royal family head passed away this morning. His death has caused a sudden but very deep impact on all of our personal, emotional selves, I’m sure. I couldn’t even get out of the house this morning.’

Taehyung continues to listen to this with a straight face. He knew no one here feels remorse for the death of this person. He was merely a figurehead to them, a face and personality they only knew through newspapers and TV channels. No one here felt like they were ever close to him. ‘But as we are humans, we have to pick ourselves up and go on. Unfortunately for us, that means that we are supposed to double our work almost immediately. I’m sure you all know this sudden and unfortunate death also brings up another very big question: where is the Jeon inheritance going to go? Who’s going to take the place of Jeon Jeong-ho as the head of the family and consequently, the figurehead of our royal kingdom?’

Taehyung rolls his eyes for a third time, the royal family hasn’t been as important as this person was suggesting in the last ten years. All of the power that they had accumulated was due to the major businesses and stretches of country land in Sconya being under their possession. They were, like everyone else, mostly businessmen. There was nothing royal about them after Sconya had converted from a monarchy to a democracy about 20 good years ago.

‘This is perhaps the most important news we will be focusing on at least in the few upcoming weeks we are scheduling publishing for. This will be your priority. You might know that other news outlets are also probably holding emergency meetings like this in their buildings and shifting their priorities. At this thought, I would like to remind you that The Sconya Times has been the most legitimate form of news in this country ever since it was brought into creation. We pride ourselves on being the first to deliver the most important pieces of news that people need to know. Which is why, for this, I’m expecting us to carry out our reputation and cement it. This will be a race and I want us to be at the first ones at the frontline when we finish.’

Taehyung knows what all these flowery words mean. The Sconya Times wasn’t above using immoral means to get what they want. They prided themselves on being the first ones to deliver what he considers juicy news, something people would lap up in an instant. Delivering news the fastest also has a lot of perks. Once your sources had their hands on something first, posting it and making it public resulted in a surge of clicks onto your page, which made their stocks and advertisem*nt prices rise. But this was only the more obvious part. What people didn’t know about how fast news traveled between news outlets themselves was that once a news outlet had their hands on something, the rest of the news outlets didn’t continue their search to find whatever they’re looking for. What they surged towards was buying this news off the news outlet that had posted it first. This put the first news outlet on a lot of advantage. They could raise the price of that news as high as they wanted and outlets had no choice but to buy because it couldn’t be that they refrained from posting something that was urgent. The Sconya Times had had their glory moments more often than not and ended up first to post something more frequently than other news outlets.

He zones out for the rest of the meeting, it was nothing more than the Director repeating what he had already said into a thousand different shapes and forms so people would just listen. He doesn’t know how or when TST got their information in the midst of a bunch of employees who all looked like they were ready to bolt out of here but he doesn’t want to think about that either. He expects it to be right up the alley of what he considers the complete opposite of morally rightful as a citizen. As far as he strayed away from that piece of information, the better it was.

The meeting ends an agonising 45 minutes later, the only proof of the grueling nature of it on Taehyung’s notebook which had a series of doodles which extended about three pages. You could tell his patterns of impatience from it, the darker parts meant he wanted to get out of his chair so bad that it was impossible to not think about it and the lighter parts were him tolerating the time it would take until he would be free. He’s about to escape the room with the onslaught of employees filling into the office when Jooheon calls him back.

He groans so loud internally that it’s difficult to co-operate and tell his body to listen. When it doesn’t, he goes for the next best option: pretending he didn’t hear Jooheon’s booming voice above all. He keeps walking.

‘Kim Taehyung! Haul yourself back in here. I know you heard me.’ Taehyung takes a deep breath, just to calm himself and then stalks back the precious few steps he had taken out of the room of hell back into it again. He knows what this is about, as it always is. He gets held back ten minutes after everyone else because as he is, always late. It’s normal at this point, the other employees don’t even bat eyelashes of sympathy for him anymore. He settles himself down on Jooheon’s previously occupied chair and looks at him with eyes full of contempt.

Ready to receive another lashing, Taehyung can however feel the difference in energy with this one and the rest of them. There is something different in this room, maybe the ashtray, someone had smoked something else than they usually did. Or maybe the colors of the projector, he wasn’t sure. He urges Jooheon to get on with it with a nod, ignoring his instincts. However, his questions are answered just a second later when the voice that speaks isn’t Jooheon but a very familiar, papery voice from behind him instead.

He turns around to look at the Director with a questioning look on his face and then turns back to Jooheon with his arms folded across his chest. He is unimpressed with this, for the lack of a better word. This is how low Jooheon had stooped down now, scolding him for being a few minutes late into the meeting in front of the goddamn Director. Is this elementary school, is he a child? What difference does it make? ‘So this is what we’ve come to. You’re now going to reprimand me like this?’

Jooheon has the audacity to look confused. It pisses him off. ‘What are you talking about?’

He rolls his eyes in plain sight this time. ‘Jooheon, there is nothing I will say that will be different from all the other times you’ve told me off. I don’t know why you think doing this in front of the Director will faze me-’

‘Taehyung-ssi,’ The director interrupts. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’

Taehyung looks back at Jooheon. ‘I guess so.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Uh,’ So now he looks unsure. Isn’t that why he was here? ‘B-because I was late? Um, to the meeting?’

Jooheon looks like he was going to roll his eyes so far back into his head that they would never appear again. ‘Taehyung, if you would just stop jumping into things headfirst, for once in your life-’

‘No that’s fine, Jooheon,’ The director interrupts again. ‘This is why we wanted him.’

It’s Taehyung’s turn to gape. Something about this doesn’t feel right. ‘Wanted me for what?’

The director smiles in the way he has heard other employees say their nightmares are made of. He gives an involuntary shiver. ‘Taehyung-ssi, were you listening to the meeting?’

‘Yes?’ He knows he was zoned out for most of it but it’s not like the important bits and pieces weren’t filtering in every now and then. Even if they weren’t, he couldn’t pretend like he wasn’t listening in front of the Director of the company anyway. He is sure Jooheon sees right through him.

‘So then, you would know how serious it is that we get our hands on anything related to the Jeon’s inheritance matter?’ He nods in response. There isn’t much he can do with his words.

Jooheon stares at him for a minute, as if to gauge whether he’s even suitable for what they’re about to burden him with. ‘Taehyung, you see, this is very important for the newspaper’s reputation. And for matters like these, we can’t just rely on the sources we already have. We have to send one of our own out there.’

Taehyung’s head feels dizzy. What do they mean by ‘one of our own’? What the f*ck is happening? ‘I don’t- quite understand-’

‘We will be putting you out there to….uh….collect information on Jeon Jeongguk, to put it plainly.’

Taehyung’s ears start ringing. Jeon Jeongguk. The infamous grandson of Jeon Jeong-ho whose father had passed away four years ago. ‘What do you mean ‘collect information’? What information am I collecting?’

The director starts chuckling, ‘Taehyung-ssi, I know you’re not that naive.’

But he is. Or he wants to be. Taehyung doesn’t want to accept they’re doing this to him. Putting him out there like those disgusting vultures who prowl the streets looking for their prey. ‘B-but I’m not...I didn’t sign up….I mean, my job isn’t this, it’s to write articles on information that you provide me with, I’m not used to doing any field work…’ His voice trails away. He knows it’s a pathetic excuse and such an attempt to get out of this might not even be an attempt at all at the end of the day.

‘So learn.’ The director says simply. ‘We’re relying on you for this. Don’t let us down, Taehyung-ssi.’

Something in Taehyung tells him it won’t be pretty when he does let them down.

When the director leaves with a warning glance towards Jooheon, Taehyung immediately turns towards him, ‘What the hell, Jooheon? What the hell am I being signed up for?’

Jooheon sighs, ‘Taehyung, it’s not like I had a choice in the matter, they just told me to recommend my best for something and I did-’

‘And you did?’ Taehyung is indignantly screaming his ass off right now. ‘That’s your excuse?’

‘I’ve got nothing to say for this,’ Jooheon replies, running a hand through his hair. He looks like he’s distressed. ‘I didn’t know what they wanted the recommendation for at all. I only got to know early this morning at a prior meeting with the Director.’

Taehyung knows it might definitely not be his fault at all, Jooheon is all but an employee even if he is a manager. If a higher-up tells him to do something, it’s not like he has the power to deny them anything they ask for. It still doesn’t really faze him though, because he’s even lower in the ranking, just a mere writer in their giant news conglomerate and he desperately needs someone to blame for this.

‘Jooheon, I don’t think you quite understand what is happening here. They’re sending me out there, like those damn paparazzi vultures! Is this what our news outlet has come to? Is this what we’re resorting to?’ He’s walking back and forth in the conference room now, his pace completely out of rhythm and leaving stress marks on the carpet.

‘I don’t know why they think our own sources aren’t enough for this, but it must be something big. I hear there’s one like you after every potential Jeon heir so that they don’t miss anything.’ Jooheon is sitting down rubbing his temples now.

He resorts to coming and sitting down right in front of him with a plea-filled glance. ‘Jooheon, I hate paparazzi culture. This is why I started working here, because it is far from gossip magazines who rely on paps to invade the privacy of their subjects. We’ve always delivered instant news which is objective. I can’t do this, I can’t. I will not be one of them.’

Jooheon looks at him like he understands. ‘Taehyung, none of us out there who have journalism as a job love taking paparazzi culture seriously. Everyone everywhere agrees it’s the toxic part of free press. But neither I nor you nor anyone else can do anything about it when the Director of the company forces someone to partake in it. I don’t have a choice and neither do you.’

Taehyung looks downright miserable. ‘I’ve never stalked anyone before. I don’t know how to suddenly make myself invisible. I will be terrible at this.’

Jooheon looks at him with pity, ‘Well then, you better figure out how to do it fast. Everyone is waiting on you to report.’

*****

That night, when his apartment greets him with the telltale signs of darkness, for the first time in a long while, he’s probably happy about it. It’s not the most ideal environment to step into after receiving the kind of whips that had been rained on his back from this sh*tshow of a day but he’s positive he would like a moment alone. While Jimin tends to be very supportive, he also tends to be overbearing sometimes when he senses Taehyung in gradually occurring distress and he never says it, but he thinks it worsens it sometimes.

His first thought goes to the wine bottle he’s kept in the far back of the kitchen cupboard for these kinds of days, he knows if Jimin were here, he would have probably flipped his sh*t already. Taking out the bottle is a struggle on its own, the cupboards were high up and Taehyung needs to be on his tippy toes to reach far back. It’s not the best moment to test his patience and as soon as he gives up, he reaches the neck of the bottle stuffed in the very far back of the cupboard wall and yanks it out of its place.

See now the thing about journalism, as far as Taehyung is concerned is, that once upon a time there was definitely moments where he enjoyed fantasising about what it would be like when he finally became a part of a news outlet. Because that’s every aspiring journalist’s dream, isn’t it? End up where your voice can be heard, the only place in the entire democracy that can have a legal opinion with power. He remembers he was very excited about getting the job at TST because to him, that’s what dreams were made of. He ended up bagging a career like that just two years after he graduated and he knew it was a thing to be proud of.

Two years more down the line, at the same position in the same outlet had taught naive, simple Taehyung a lot of things. The first one being that this was definitely not what his dreams were made of, atleast. The conglomerate was a noisy machine full of personal opinions from powerful people higher up and people like him, mere article publishers and editors, had no right to burst forth with their own talent, their own reports because there was nothing in the world that would give that same voice to a nobody’s opinion. Two years down the line had taught him that it wasn’t just this company but every single newspaper outlet in the country printing things based on speculation and supporting political agendas and mending real news on the basis of who paid more to have their doings removed off the Internet. Two years down the line had taught him that no matter wherever he went, he was just a pawn in everyone else’s game.

Despite all that, one thing that he maintained his non-existent journalistic integrity on was the fact that he at least never partook in paparazzi culture directly. It was the one thing he always stood his ground on. The articles he had to write every day were surely based on TST’s ‘sources’ and no matter how ominous that sounded (and how close to just another word for pap) he made peace with how he would have nothing to report on if he didn’t have these sources sending information to him through a stream of constant texts. However, partaking in it, being the one on the other side of the phone didn’t strike him as something he’d do.

The door rattling him startles him out of his intense internal debate and causes some of the win to swoosh out of his yellow mug. Jimin, as usual, comes in making ten thousand things shake and rattle at once. He had always been such a loud person. Taehyung can tell his usual routine of keeping his essentials by the TV desk and toeing his shoes off without even looking at him. He hears him pause as he comes to the kitchen on the fourth step of his routine: getting a glass of water.

It takes a beat for Jimin to identify the difference in the air, ‘Tae, is something wrong?’

Taehyung sighs. Sue his roommate for being too perceptive for his own good. ‘Yeah. I mean no. I mean yes, sorry. Yes, something’s wrong.’

Jimin takes his time sipping water out of their plastic degenerate bright green bottle that they’d shopped for two years ago. It was their family heirloom at this point. He doesn’t notice the boy come up to him and taking another mug from the stand, this time bright red, and joining him at the couch facing their window, hands overstretched for Taehyung to pour some wine for him too. ‘What’s keeping you tense?’

He turns to him, and sees how the dimness of the lights from outside does nothing to hide Jimin’s dark circles. Taehyung has always thought he works so hard. ‘I got a….new assignment at work today.’

Jimin perks up, ‘Is it the one you’ve been wanting?’

Ah, so there’s that also. The one assignment he’s been wanting and pleading for. Jooheon probably knows his plead by heart now considering it’s all he talks about at monthly evaluations. Ever since he joined the company, he’s been wanting to get promoted to a position of writing opinion articles on politics instead of just reporting instant news headlines and articles about them everyday. During his first year, he was told that he was new and if his performance was acceptable for the entire duration then they might consider it next year. The promise of next year turned out to be something that didn’t arrive even after Taehyung’s whims about it. And maybe, it’s also time to accept that twenty five percent of his disdain at the current situation comes from how he had been asking for something all this while and what he got was this instead.

‘No,’ It takes quite a bit of effort to say it. ‘It’s something I’ve never done before.’

Jimin patiently waits for him to go on without saying anything. Taehyung collects his thoughts once more, ‘It’s not- it’s not good, Jiminie.’

From the looks of it, Jimin might be beginning to understand what this is about. ‘Tae, you don’t have to tell me right now if you’d rather not-’

Taehyung looks desperate when he says, ‘It doesn’t matter if I can talk about it or not. I’m supposed to start the day after tomorrow anyway.’

Jimin stays silent at this. Taehyung goes on, ‘I...I don’t know how to say it really. They thought it'd be good if I was a pap for a while.’

Jimin’s eyes increase to the size of golfballs, ‘They demoted you?’

‘No!’ He says quickly. ‘No they just- they want direct sources and they thought it might be better if there were more inside people doing the job rather than whatever their outside sources are.’

His roommate’s eyes deflate but he’s still looking pretty indignant, ‘And who’s the poor target?’

‘Jeon Jeongguk.’

There’s a beat of silence where he thinks Jimin might be as angry about this as he is himself. There’s a glint of something in his left eye and Taehyung is just about to go into another rage-fueled rant about it, albeit with a lot less stuttering when Jimin bursts forth and proceeds to cackle so loudly that he’s positive their entire apartment floor shakes. Taehyung watches him with eyes the size of their mugs when his laughing burst is so violent it takes over his entire body and causes him to nearly fall off the couch they’re perched on. Taehyung, personally, is three parts terrified, one part extremely confused.

‘J….Jeon………...Jeong- Jeongguk.’ He hears between wild giggles and honestly, five minutes have passed and it’s kind of ridiculous how Jimin still can’t stop laughing. It’s not that funny.

‘Are you done or do you have more choking on air to do?’ Taehyung utters, completely deadpan.

Jimin, for his sake, zips his lips shut, although there’s still a lot of mirth evident on his face. ‘They assigned you to stalk Jeon Jeongguk. Taehyung, if they think that’s happening, then my laugh is reserved for when they see the results.’

Taehyung pouts. ‘Would it really be that difficult?’

Jimin looks at him like he’s grown two heads from one neck, ‘Tae, are you seriously asking me this right now? That’s the potential royal HEIR. The kind of security he goes around with must be, scratch that, I KNOW it is insane. How do you think this is even slightly doable given that you’ve never done this kind of thing before?’

Taehyung pips up in a small voice, ‘But I thought Jin hyung………….’ He trails off into the distance and looks at Jimin again who looks caught in mid-air.

‘Aaah, were you trying to go down that route?’ His roommate says, scratching his chin at a very slow pace, the kind he does when he’s thinking hard about something. ‘Tae, to be very honest, I have absolutely no idea what your brother even does and you know he’s all wishy washy about this everytime he’s asked. Are you sure he’s going to be up for it?’

Taehyung knows he doesn’t know the answer to Jimin’s question. It takes him a while to put his thoughts in coherent order and he realises he doesn’t like where it’s going.

‘He has to help me, Jimin-ah, he has to. I don’t think I have any other choice.’

*****

‘Absolutely not.’

Taehyung’s heart thuds so loud in his chest he’s sure it’s going to give out.

‘Jin-hyung, I have absolutely nothing else to go on for. I can’t do this without you.’ He puts on his best pleading voice, although it’s been a while since that has worked on Seokjin.

‘Then don’t do it, Taehyung. I told you, it’s not up for debate. I can’t do it.’ His voice is sort of raspy on the other side, probably the phone signal messing things up, but Taheyung feels absolutely terrible for waking him up at such an ungodly time.

‘But hyung, I can’t just leave my career like this! What will I say to them? They’ll throw me out in an instant.’ He knows he’s being petulant kid right now but Seokjin has a way of bringing out the child in him and he doesn’t know what else his personality is apart from that when he’s conversing with his brother.

‘Then leave, Taehyung-ah. If a company as big as theirs doesn’t have a space for you after two years of commendable work and is asking you to do this sh*t for them instead, it’s clear they don’t give a rat’s ass about you and your position. It’s not going to make a difference, just leave.’ He yawns at that speech and Taehyung doesn’t know what to say at that, really.

‘But,’ His voice is very unnaturally small when it comes out again. ‘But what will I do when I leave here? It’ll take months to find employment again and I don’t want to put Jimin through the pressure of handling rent again. He already works so hard.’

‘It won’t take months,’ He says from the other side, his voice sure and confident where Taehyung’s is weak. ‘Just tell me where you want to go and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Hyung I- I can’t possibly-’

‘Taehyung, don’t be stupid. It’s not a favour, I’ve told you this before-’

‘But hyung-’

‘No buts. I am your brother, it’s alright if I can do something for you once in a while. You never ask for anything anyway.’ There is another yawn following it and it doesn’t sound like Seokjin, to be very honest.

Taehyung sighs, ‘Hyung, it would be so easy if you could just consider my request-’

‘Taehyung, are you seriously considering this? Are you nuts? Do you know how bad it can be for you if you get caught? Do you seriously want to get blacklisted by the royal family?’ There’s some shuffling in the background and Taehyung assumes his brother is probably moving away from wherever he was.

‘I know but I just wanted to try and - well, just wanted to see if they really would give me that opinion article position. I just think I’m so, so close to it and-and I guess, I could just do one more thing on the line for them before giving up completely.’

He hears Seokjin sigh heavily on the other line. ‘You’ve been saying that for a long time.’

‘I know. You know I hate someone else doing things for me.’ His fingers are rolling around each other now, a nervous habit he’s been told.

‘....Okay. Okay, I’ll see what I can do for you, Taehyung-ah.’

There’s a beat of silence when he tries to register what Seokjin says in his ear in his most tired voice yet. When it does absorb properly in his brain is when he jumps off the couch so rapidly that it almost gives him an ankle fracture. ‘WHAT? YOU’RE AGREEING? YOU’RE REALLY AGREEING TO THIS?’

Seokjin doesn’t sound impressed, ‘I mean I can just go ahead and cancel-’

‘NO!’ He screeches so loudly he’s sure Jimin is up by now. ‘Please don’t cancel, I love you Jin-hyung the mostest, mwah mwah.’ And what follows is the disgusting sound of kisses being sent by the sheer power of sound to the other side. He hears Seokjin screaming in agony and then hanging up with a click. Taehyung giggles.

He throws his phone onto the bed, satisfied with how this day has started. He didn’t expect Seokjin to agree at the first call if he’s being very honest. He guesses his brother still has a soft spot for him being in uncomfortable situations where he can do something about it. He knows Seokjin would solve half of his problems if he reached out to him as often as they appear.

Basking in the success of at least one task he’s supposed to be done with, he begrudgingly taps the news icon on his phone to catch up with the morning headlines. Whilst scrolling through the mountain of tabs, his mind shifts to his brother again.

He hasn’t seen him in person in over an year, Taehyung isn’t even sure what he looks like now, if he’s had a different haircut or a change in fashion sense. When this used to happen at the beginning, Taehyung would chalk it down to real life responsibilities being as overwhelming as water in cupped hands. But at that time, he had been a college student who didn’t really understand that when professors said, ‘This is training for real life!’ while drowning your existence with the expectation of insane amounts of productivity had been lying all this while. And it was clear when he got his own career running that if you wanted to see someone, you would simply just make time for them, no excuses involved.

There had been an ugly confrontation with Seokjin just before New Year’s last year when he had called him up a few days before Christmas and informed him that he might not be able to attend their New Year’s hangout. There had already been too many things that Taehyung had been suppressing at that point so this notification from Seokjin just sent him over the edge. They had a pretty heated conversation over it, meaner words were said and harsher promises were uttered. Taehyung almost broke his phone and definitely broke his penguin mug in a fury. Jimin had been a pitiful witness of that.

Seokjin had called back an hour later to apologize and then sat Taehyung down through video call and told him the true nature of his job. Both his and Jimin’s (who had been sitting in a corner and pretending not to listen to what he hoped would be a heartwarming make-up conversation between two brothers) eyes had grown twice in size when he had let slip that he worked for Jeon Jeongguk’s protocol team. At that point, he hadn’t gone into detail about what it was that he exactly did. It had taken him a few months and more detailed conversations to find out that his brother wasn’t even just a normal bodyguard/security officer, he was their entire protocol team’s manager. Jimin was still pretty unclear about what Seokjin did despite him having received two thousand explanation sessions from both Taehyung and Seokjin himself.

Jimin had repeated Jeon Jeongguk’s name in the same tone he had used with Taehyung then to confirm if what he had been hearing was right. The rest had been history. It had been self explanatory why Seokjin was away for such long periods of time and why he had had to cancel on important occasions when they already got together once in a blue moon over the year.

He understands that Seokjin agreeing to do whatever he deemed plausible had been a big risk on his part, he had been on the protocol team for seven long years and had worked his way up to being the manager. Pushing through for Taehyung probably had to be something like hitting his own back with a hammer because there is no way he wouldn’t get in trouble if, say, he did get caught doing whatever he was doing. He doubts anyone knew Seokjin was his brother and he could just simply turn away without showing any signs of the fact that he might recognise him but even then, it was a big lapse in security for the heir. A pap (God, he’s still shuddering while referring to himself as that) having an insider on the heir’s team sounded like something people’s mouths would froth over while gossiping.

His eye catches onto something in the middle of his thoughtless scrolling.

“ Jeon Jeongguk has landed at Sconya International Airport four hours prior to his grandfather’s funeral. The heir has been out of Sconya’s sight ever since New Year’s when he was reported boarding a plane with an entire entourage. Sources have been reported saying that the potential Jeon heir will be headlining the funeral which takes place today at 12 pm in the crematorium located by the family’s ancestral burial garden.

The family itself hasn’t reported anything regarding the inheritance while sources claim that a feud is on the rise. The official report by the family’s PR agency states that their main priority is the funeral and the transfer and settlement of Jeon Jeong-ho’s will. Jeon Jeongguk, 25, is also one of the main contenders in the running of who will become Jeon Jeong-ho’s replacement but the heir’s personal PR agent has refused to comment on anything regarding the matter.

More news will follow. To check for updates, you can subscribe to our website……”

Taehyung’s heart gives a thud as he stops reading. About five percent of him had been hoping Jeon Jeongguk doesn’t come back at all from wherever the f*ck he’d been off to.

He sighs and puts his phone down as he hears Jimin get up for the bathroom. Maybe it’s time to accept that this was coming and he had to face it headfirst.

*****

‘Taehyung, did you have a chance to look at today’s morning news?’

Taehyung rolls his eyes from where he sits in his cubicle, his hands busy checking his horoscope on GetMyStar.com. It’s a new hobby that needs fulfilling and Taehyung’s day is almost incomplete till he doesn’t sit down and see what the stars have for him that day. In the midst of his lunch routine, Jooheon’s voice comes and stings like a honey bee in his ear.

‘Yeah I did.’ He comments offhandedly, hoping that Jooheon can just say whatever he wants and go on his way.

‘Well, if you did, then I hope you know Jeon Jeongguk landed in Sconya. So we’ll be shifting your publishing schedule according to that. You’re taking off on your new assignment tomorrow, yes?’

Taehyung scoffs. He hates corporate language. Jooheon coming in and saying whether he’s had a ‘chance’ to read the morning news and asking him whether he’s starting tomorrow like he has any chance to reply no. Like they wouldn’t hand his ass back to him if he ever dared to do any of those. He knows from experience it’s just better to gulp your disagreement down the throat and smile an affirmative. It’s the best possible course. ‘Yeah I know. You’ve only told me about a hundred times today, Jooheon.’

‘Just making sure. Do you have everything in place? Do you need any help getting there?’

Taehyung shifts. ‘What d’you mean by ‘help’? You’ve never provided anyone else with help when assignments like these are given.’

Jooheon looks sheepish. ‘Well, a lot is riding on this. So, they might give you something to assist you.’

Taehyung almost slaps a hand on his forehead. ‘Why wasn’t this apparently little detail mentioned yesterday?’

Jooheon shrugs. Taehyung f*cking hates this company. He really called up Seokjin for absolutely nothing and put his job in jeopardy.

He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself. ‘Yes, Jooheon, of course I would like assistance. How am I supposed to go and pap the Jeon Jeongguk by myself?’

Jooheon ticks his jaw like he’s about to say something Taehyung wouldn’t like. He makes a mental note to keep his mouth shut for the rest of his day. ‘Okay, I’ll see what they can do for you.’

With that, his boss turns around and walks back to where he came from. Taehyung heaves another sigh, this time of relief and turns back to horoscope.

*****

The ‘assistance’ turned out to be a man with a heart-shaped smile and sunshine shooting out of everything in him and on him except for his dark mop of hair. Taehyung eyes him wearingly.

‘Who are you?’ He takes a minute to ask after observing the man from head to toe. On this greeting, the man’s blinding smile turns a little dim.

He extends a hand, ‘I’m Jung Hoseok.’

Taehyung takes it slowly, still not trusting if this guy can really be of any help to him. ‘Taehyung. Which department are you from?’

‘Oh, I’m downstairs at PR.’

Taehyung looks at him incredulously. ‘Have you ever papped someone before?’

Jung Hoseok’s eyes widen so comically that Taehyung has the urge to almost laugh if the situation wasn’t so dire and critical. ‘What do you mean, papped someone before?’

‘Isn’t that what you’re here for? To help me?’ Taehyung replied back with the same curiosity. It’s almost beginning to merge into irritation with every second that passes by.

‘Yes? They told me you needed help with some….uh….fieldwork with a piece you wanted to write?’ Jung Hoseok replies, as incredulous and caught off-guard by this situation as Taehyung is.

He almost slaps himself out of pity. ‘So...uh, you don’t know what the … uh...fieldwork actually is?’

‘They told me you would have a detailed version of what I’d have to do.’ His smile is so bright it makes Taehyung want to inject some of it into himself so that he can get out of this misery hole he’s been building for himself as this conversation progresses.

He decides it’s time to break this man’s hopes and dreams.

‘Jung Hoseok, welcome to the writing department. Congratulations, you’re going to be a pap.’

His face draining of color is all the evidence Taehyung needs that he is probably completely f*cked.

*****

Seokjin comes through with an antidote for his heart going completely bonkers after his disastrous meeting with Jung Hoseok. He clutches his phone so fast that his neck criks.

‘Listen Taehyung,’ He starts speaking as soon as Taehyung greets him with a hello. ‘I don’t have much time. But after the funeral today, Jeon Jeongguk is going to be there at the funeral home for three more days. I’m on his immediate protocol team so I’m going to be there. You can just come to pay respects. It’s easy, just don’t be an idiot about it. And don’t let slip that you’re here from a newspaper. If they know that even your toenail is related to anything in the media, I’ll have to throw you out.’

Taehyung listens patiently and wildly tries to find an isolated corner to talk to his brother in hushed whispers, ‘Seokjin! The entire point of this assignment is to snoop around! How will I collect information about his stupid f*cking inheritance if all I’m doing is making myself invisible?’

‘I don’t know, Taehyung! Pretend to be someone else! You’ll be in so much deep sh*t if you don’t follow what I’m saying, I’m telling you right now you shouldn’t take these people lightly.’ Seokjin sounds indignant. Taehyung feels a little for him, it’s not his fault after all and he’s probably doing the best he can. He tries to calm himself down.

‘Okay. Okay, I’ll take care. How do I get into the funeral home?’ He asks, hand on his forehead where he feels a headache approaching.

‘I’ll send you an invite today through email. Get it printed and show it at the gate when they ask you to.’ His brother replies hurriedly. ‘Listen, I have to go. Take care, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t be stupid.’

‘Okay. Love you.’ Taehyung hangs up with a kiss.

As a second thought, as soon as the call drops, Taehyung sets a reminder on his calendar to get Seokjin a big ass present after his payday of the next month.

*****

The next day comes like the horn of a school bus, loud, clear and unwanted. Oh and, jarring.

Taehyung asks himself multiple times in the course of getting ready about what the f*ck he thinks he’s even doing and he has to physically stop to tell himself that he does have absolutely no idea. He tries not to think about the consequences his reckless course of action might bring upon him and the company but regardless, that matter is at least something he doesn’t have to feel guilty about. If they wanted him to do this then they should be ready for the consequences it might bring.

He’s in a hurry to get out that morning because he knows the crematorium is a little far from where he lives. For the first time in almost two years, Taehyung skips reading the morning news and rather spends those extra few five minutes looking at himself in the bathroom mirror.

‘Okay, look. You can do this. There’s nothing unusual about it. Thousands of people around the globe have this as their daily job,’ He doesn’t know how he’s going to psyche himself up once he’s actually there but his priority is getting out of his own house first. ‘Do you think they’re trailing around their house every time they have to do something like this? They’re not. Be a goddamn adult, Taehyung. Be a goddamn grown-up. Right f*cking now. Do it.’

It doesn’t work.

He resorts to washing his hands and then staring at the ghastly pale color his face had become. Oh god, he looks like he’s definitely going to throw up once they arrive.

He gets his jelly legs to work a little and comes out of his bathroom, grabbing his phone, keys and his trusty invite from the bed and then heading out. What greets him at his ugly green couch right outside the kitchen is yet again Jung Hoseok’s bright sunshine smile, threatening to light his ass up on fire. He eyes him with disdain and moves to the kitchen where Jimin is stirring what seems to be like orange juice in a glass but he knows it’s not. It’s guava. They’ve fought about this before.

Wait, hold on.

‘How did you get into my house?’ He turns to Jung Hoseok.

Hoseok looks taken aback. ‘Ugh, the door?’

Taehyung is not impressed. ‘Don’t be a smartass with me Jung Hoseok-ssi. I don’t recall giving you details of where I live?’

Hoseok looks sheepish, ‘Uh- so about that, the company gave me your employee file with your details and stuff, and since we never coordinated about what we had to do for today, I was told to just-’

‘Just appear by my place like f*cking Houdini, for f*ck’s sake, I’m going to feed Jooheon to the dogs…’

‘Taehyung, c’mon, it’s not his fault.’ Jimin says from the counter, sipping on his juice slowly. ‘He’s like you, trapped into this without further information.’

Taehyung rounds on him, ‘Don’t be the United Nations right now Jimin. Go back to sleep.’

Jimin, unlike Hoseok, doesn’t take well to cutting comments so early in the morning. ‘Well I would still be if your ass had done what it was supposed to for your guest and opened the door.’

He doesn’t want to admit he didn’t really hear the bell because the ball of nerves settled deep in his stomach is wiggling around every chance it got.

He takes one weary look at the watch on his wrist and grabs his notebook from the dining table. Hoseok wordlessly follows him out the door. Jimin blows them both a kiss before shutting the door in their face, a little harshly, no doubt still bothered by the argument Taehyung had roped him into.

‘So where are we going-’

‘Hoseok, if you want to live to see the end of the day, you will know not to say a single word.’

****

If there was one place in the entire world Jeon Jeongguk didn’t want to be in, it was here. The world could keel and fall over and leave this as the only safe space to be in and he still wouldn’t consciously choose to be here.

He takes one weary glance around the room. It is drowning in throes of black and the occasional sighting of pearls. He knows it might be disrespectful to look like he’d rather eat the dirt off his shoes rather than be here but at this point, a whole day later than having landed in this abomination of a place, he would rather get buried himself beside his grandfather if this goes on for a minute longer than his patience is able to handle.

Seokjin is right beside him talking to a grey-haired man who looks like he should be on his deathbed. His manager is almost leaning into the man to make sense of what he’s saying and Jeongguk can’t help but pity him, mostly everyone who comes up to Seokjin has questions for Jeongguk or about Jeongguk and it has to go through him first before they can come to the man himself. The rest of the main queries people have about the funeral are being answered at the entrance by their family’s manager.

He’s grateful for Seokjin though. At least the man offers sympathy where he can’t provide comfort.

Another horrible shot of pain rises up in the sides of his head and it’s so intense that it blinds his vision for a moment. It’s a side effect of not having had any sleep in the past 48 hours and also being around noise that never seems to get lesser in volume. At times like this, he misses having a guardian or at the most, having someone who could just take over for him. He remembers talking to other friends in the same situations, celebrities, actors and other businessmen’s sons and they never have to stay in and be there for attendance purposes because a parent does it for them.

He takes comfort in the fact that at the very least, the media isn’t here. The flashes of their camera would kill him if this entire ordeal didn’t.

In the midst of thinking this and willing for his headache to go away by sheer willpower alone is when he looks up again and a bright, white flash goes off right in his direct vision. Everything goes black for a second and he has to rub his eyes to try to bring them back to their normal vision. The person from his protocol team sitting a few feet behind him is suddenly thrown off-guard by the bright flash too and at once, Jeongguk sees his eyes jump to action, locating where exactly it had come from.

Jeongguk’s eyes take two minutes to wrestle away the spots in his vision. He stares straight ahead to clear his field of view and by pure luck, sees a man standing in the middle of the room, clearly panicked and flustered. Jeongguk looks closely and sees a black contraption in his hands. Aha, got him. He’s 100 percent sure that’s a camera in his hands and that he’s trying to hide it somewhere where it won’t cause trouble. An entire life’s worth of being annoyingly recorded and reported every f*cking where he went gives him a lot of experience to know exactly what’s happening at a glance.

He’s about to call Seokjin over to report the guy to him so that he doesn’t have to deal with his photos in the 6 o’clock news sitting hunched over at a wooden floor table looking like a used sponge. It’s when he’s about to prepare to call him out when the man shuffles his head up and Jeongguk takes a proper look at this man from the front and centre for the first time.

Like after that flash, Jeongguk’s breath gets knocked out of his system for a second time in ten minutes. He’s been all over the world, to capitals of fashion and beauty, and comes across some beautiful people in his life which leave him in a sense of wonder for days after. He’s positive, though, that even in his experienced opinion, he has never seen a more objectively beautiful person in his entire life. He looks like he’s hand sculpted by a wax artist because there’s no way, there’s just no way that his features grow into his face so well that he has to take a sharp breath in. Plus, he’s pretty sure this person knows how to carry themselves well, their hair is a soft silver and it comes in waves down his forehead and he knows that this ball of angelic light on Earth knows exactly what looks good on him. And there’s nothing more attractive than people who know exactly how to present themselves at their best.

He’s drowning in his own thoughts when another flash goes off and it, no doubt, comes from the same direction. Since now he knows where it’s coming from and his gaze is already trained there, he sees the twenty seconds of panic this man and his partner go through when it happens. In a moment of weakness, the man drops his camera right through his hands and yelps a little before his partner catches the camera and says something to him. He sees the man snatch the camera back and stalk off towards the left of the room.

If he had to guess, he’s definitely someone from the media. Every instinct of his says so. The company-issued camera and the notebook say more than actions ever do and on normal days, Jeongguk would let Seokjin know in an instant and this man would’ve been thrown out in a matter of seconds. However, as he sees him flounder over to the leftmost corner of the funeral house, he can see the skip in his step and eyebrows in a constant state of panic. It’s almost intriguing. All the paparazzi he’s ever come across in his life in Sconya are ugly, pale and mostly bald. He remembers thinking as a kid that being bald might have been a requirement for them because there was no way every pap he ever met on the street had no hair. They also had no lives or were so confident in their own selves that Jeongguk had rarely seen them falter in their steps. Yet, this beauty’s been here for ten minutes and he has already messed up two times.

He decides he’s going to keep his mouth shut for a little while. There isn’t really anything better to do anyway.

****

‘Hoseok, I swear to f*cking God if you leave my side one more f*cking time-’

‘Well, I’m considering dumping you and getting the f*ck out of here considering you’ve flashed the room with a camera like twice-’

‘It was a f*cking mistake, okay-’

‘How can a f*cking journalist not know how to operate a f*cking camera, for f*ck’s sake-’

‘Hello! Are you guys here to pay your respects?’ A deep, booming voice comes from somewhere at the side. Hoseok and Taehyung both startle to look where the voice comes from. A man whose figure, Taehyung thinks, is about 70 percent legs, stares back at their little duo with a smile.

Hoseok finds his voice first, ‘Uh- yes. Yes we are.’

The man looks unsure. Taehyung doesn’t blame him. He speaks up then, ‘Hello, yes we are. I’m new to this whole thing so sorry if we look out of place.’

If there’s one thing Kim Taehyung can do, it’s act.

The man’s eyes round on him, ‘Are you not from around here?’

Taehyung looks at Hoseok and smiles in a way that he gets the f*cking message, this is who they are now, ‘Yes- no actually, I mean, I just landed yesterday night. This is my business partner. We heard of the Jeons and naturally had to make this trip.’

‘Oh,’ If it was possible, the man looks even more suspiciously at them now. ‘Why didn’t you all arrive with the flight we booked out for international relatives arriving? Everyone came day before yesterday.’

Taehyung’s eyes widen. f*ck. They do these things in rich families? For real? When he catches the man’s glance again, he knows he’s about two seconds away from calling security.

Never f*cking mind that thing about the acting.

He’s grateful for when Hoseok’s tongue comes into action, ‘Uh, no, we meant to actually. But I don’t know if you guys read the email our PR team sent over. We got caught up in some last minute deal and had to rush everything. Couldn’t make it out earlier.’

The man doesn’t deflate, just keeps their eyes on them, trying to decipher whether to keep them or not. Taehyung and Hoseok don’t dare take a glance in each other’s direction.

After a few terribly long seconds, the man sighs, ‘Okay. Well, see you around. Jeon Jeongguk is there sitting at the partition if you want to pay your respects directly.’

And as he says this, he points towards the back where in a square feet of area separated by boundary ribbons, Jeon Jeongguk is sitting with one of his arms on his knee, one leg propped up. And he’s staring right at Taehyung.

Now, it’s just natural scientific phenomenon that even if you’re not a person who is fazed much by awkward or jarring social situations, a royal heir staring at you dead in the eye when you’ve made the biggest f*cking mistake of your life twice in a row is bound to make you lose your support in the knees. It’s Newton’s fourth law or something at this point (Taehyung doesn’t know, he was never good at science). He sees Hoseok vibrating from nerves beside him and Taehyung thinks, at that moment, the best course of action to take is to dive into this headfirst.

He hopes Hoseok doesn’t pass away.

*****

It’s a wonder really, how can someone be so incompetent at their own job?

He can’t quite get out of his mind the entire scene in front of him, the two blinding flashes then followed by a camera almost dropping and them arguing in what the man definitely thought were whispers but were completely something else in real life. He sees the panic in their eyes from the opposite side of the room when Namjoon walks up to them (he does that with every guest he sees, most people who are new always think he’s conversing as a check to see whether you belong here or not, but Jeongguk can tell that that’s really just his style of awkwardly conversing).

If there are things about papping Jeongguk had learnt from his experience of being in the literal and figurative spotlight all his life, he can confidently say this beautiful man is doing the literal opposite of everything that he has seen and experienced. And at this point, he doesn’t know whether he should be as intrigued as he is.

See, step one is always, always to remain as inconspicuous as one can. Jeongguk’s trained eye can spot a pap from a mile away but even then, he shouldn’t feel like someone is papping him right into his face because Sconya takes invasion of privacy more seriously than other countries do. One word from Jeongguk and their entire company could be shut down. So these paps are left with extremely limited but creative and hidden ways to catch him in action. But here he is, this man who is so attractive that Jeongguk doesn’t really know if he can be inconspicuous at all. Plus, his dressing definitely doesn’t allow him to blend into the situation, his partner is sporting a bright yellow t-shirt which is so bright, Jesus f*cking Christ, he could probably see it through the wood from outside the funeral home. The man himself is wearing suspenders and checkered slacks, both grey in color, whilst everyone else is a sea of black. It doesn’t even take a genius to figure out what normal dress code would be at a funeral home but he guesses a lot of things escape past him.

He keeps his eyes trained on him when he moves to the other side of the room and Jeongguk definitely thinks his best course of action might be to stand by the wall to the side without being in the front and centre where any errors he can do will be caught straight by anyone who is careful enough to watch. And for a moment, it does seem like the man’s partner is dragging him there but then they pass by the long table kept for refreshments and he swears he sees the man’s eyes glinting like crazy. Even the partner stops and one look shared between them is enough for Jeongguk to tell what transpires between them.

He counts. He, for real, counts on his finger this time. Soon enough, there is a clatter and a glass jug shatters so loud on the ground that the entire funeral hall falls silent.

In the middle of the chaos stands the man looking around with eyes so wide Jeongguk is sure he can fit golf balls inside them. He figuratively slaps his hand on his forehead still thinking about how this man can’t go five minutes without wreaking absolute havoc.

There’s a beat of silence when all that happens is exchanged glances with the audience, they keep looking at the man with looks that say ‘what kind of a dumbass would chuck over an entire jar?’ and the man is desperately trying to keep his dignity intact. It’s then when the man’s partner jumps into action and takes the man’s hand to the door on the right. Jeongguk knows what is about to happen in the split second before it does, as the partner moves towards the door with a surety he’s seldom seen. Jeongguk watches him with mirth barely concealed, because he can bet one thousand f*cking dollars that the partner definitely thinks that it’s the bathroom he’s heading towards.

However, he reaches the door and opens it with a bang just to find an empty stairwell. It’s an emergency exit.

Jeongguk does what he can to not laugh out loud.

Severely embarrassed, he takes another route towards the door on his left. There is very barely concealed relief on his face when he opens the door to find tiles and the dim atmosphere of the bathroom and it takes everything in Jeongguk’s willpower to not start giggling like crazy.

Headache now a thing at the back of his mind, Jeongguk moves back to watching other people, strangely very much waiting for the strange duo to appear again.

*****

‘You’re so full of f*cking sh*t, oh my god Taehyung, I’m never hanging out with you in public again.’

Something in Taehyung snaps when Hoseok’s words fall into an unoccupied ear, ‘Like I want to hang out with you after this-’

Before he can finish his sentence, the door almost bursts off its hinges as someone comes barreling in after them. Taehyung is in half a mind to tell them to f*ck off because it’s impossible to take any embarrassment anymore when he looks up and sees Seokjin. His brother’s ears and neck are completely flushed red, something that only happens when he’s deeply flustered.

He’s about to say something when Seokjin pulls up a hand, ‘Don’t Taehyung. Do not with me right now. I had precisely one instruction for you and that was to tell you to not be stupid. And what do you do, you go ahead and do exactly that! I’m still recovering from whatever the f*ck that was.’

Taehyung, to his credit, has the shame to look a little sheepish. He has absolutely nothing to say for himself because he knows he’s been the opposite of what he’s supposed to be. ‘I-I’m just clumsy! You know this! It’s not my fault? I should be the last choice when someone has a job like that up for grabs!’

Seokjin says nothing, just looks at Hoseok with a weary glance. Taehyung doesn’t like the two minute eye contact they have, because it definitely feels like they’re communicating something he doesn’t know about. He doesn’t want to be left out. Hoseok nods and then says, ‘I’ll look out for him.’

Taehyung is indignant, ‘What d’you mean you’ll look out for me? Like he’s not in the same league as me.’

Seokjin looks like he expected Taehyung’s outburst, ‘Tae, do not speak a word to me. He didn’t knock over an entire jug when he’s supposed to be stealthy. Shut up and follow his lead.’ With that, he’s opening the door and rushing out again, assumedly before anyone notices he’s been gone for too long.

Taehyung pouts, leaning at the sink, ‘People should listen to me when I say I’m bad at something.’

‘You never said that though. Just took this up and went with it.’ Hoseok points out.

Taehyung is fiery again when he says, ‘Well, it’s not like that asshole Director would’ve just given it to someone else if I didn’t do it! I would probably be unemployed this morning!’

Hoseok rolls his eyes, Taehyung realises it’s the first time he’s seen him do something like that. Since yesterday, he’s only been this example of an uncontaminated and undefiled person who didn’t have a single negative emotion in his very lean body that was about 65 percent legs. And he can’t help but wonder if he’s been the cause of Hoseok’s downfall. He broke him. Now Hoseok will never stop cursing and become Taehyung number 2 and it will haunt him for the rest of his life.

‘It’s been a long ass year since I’ve seen him.’ He pouts after the shut door, talking about his hunk of a brother.

‘If you’re done, we need to be out there.’ There’s a very deadpan voice coming from his side. He looks at Hoseok and shudders. People change so fast.

*

A whole half an hour later, when Taehyung and Hoseok emerge from the bathroom like some sort of fallen heroes, Taehyung’s eyes are glinting with a new mission. He doesn’t know what kind of crack he’s on to be able to muster such a thought into his mind (Hoseok’s words not his) but he figures if he’s already embarrassed himself this much, might as well go a little bit further and divulge in it completely.

Hoseok lags behind, wanting to stray away and pretend he’s not associated with Taehyung the second he does something even more embarrassing. Taehyung kind of gets it. He would have done the same, if Hoseok had been the one in his position instead. Ever since they had come out of the bathroom, he’s also been noticing a lot of stares in their direction and if that isn’t just crushing his rage-filled attention-loathing ego like anything. He pretends he doesn’t care though even if he does want to gouge out the eyeballs of this one lady who scrunches her nose up in distaste at the sight of him.

Both of them make a leeway for Jeon Jeongguk, where Taehyung can clearly see him, brooding in his own private little corner away from the rest of them. Hoseok lags behind reluctantly, he can feel a phantom hand near his back ready to keep him in step if he stumbles back again. And even though he and Hoseok really aren’t on the best of terms at this point, he appreciates more than he will admit. Because there are a f*ckton of people in this room, and he’s positive he’s going to stumble again when the moment comes.

They cover the journey to Jeon Jeongguk’s corner without any damages. As soon as Taehyung is about to step into the little opening that separates Jeon Jeongguk’s corner from them, he sees a giant shadow looming over him from his right side. Startled, he looks up to see a man about four times his size looking down at him like he’s an ant who’s about to be crushed.

‘Can I do something for you?’

Taehyung cowers. ‘Uh I-I,’ How the f*ck do you find people like this to guard you? He clears his throat and puts on his best professional expression. ‘I- actually wanted to talk to- uh-him.’ He points at Jeon Jeongguk who’s now staring at the trio.

‘And what business do you have with him?’ The guard doesn’t back down. Taehyung supposes it was always going to be this difficult anyway.

‘I just wanted a chat. You know, to sort of, share the grief? If it makes sense. People say grief lessens if you share it with others. I’ve brought a friend too,’ He looks behind him and points at Hoseok who’s looking at him like he’s dying to tell him how he’s making the biggest mistake of his life right now. ‘His grief will be lessened to one third of what it is right now.’

The guard stares at him like he’s grown two heads. ‘You want a...casual chat...with Jeon Jeongguk?’

‘Yes? Didn’t his grandfather just die?’ He rounds on the guard instead. ‘Did you offer him consolation, big guy?’

The guard looks like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him. From his peripheral vision, Hoseok looks about the same. ‘I - no- I didn’t. B- but I can’t let you through. I’ll have to ask the manager-’

Taehyung hears that and all he thinks about is how this is definitely an opportunity. ‘Okay, please go ahead and ask for us. We’ll just wait here.’

The guard probably hasn’t encountered two self-confident men like them in his entire life. ‘Okay, I’ll just call him as soon as I see anyone else from the team in passing. Can’t leave the opening unguarded like that, you know.’

It’s their luck that out of the corner of his eye, Taehyung catches someone who looks a lot like his brother coming into their general direction. He sees the guard’s eyes whip to him and Seokjin follows cue and walks right up to them, concern etched on his face to hear a potential matter that requires his attention. When he comes close enough and sees it’s him, Taehyung is ready to bet his life savings that Seokjin, while maintaining a stoic composure, is dying inside at the sheer audacity Taehyung has. ‘Sir, these two want to go in for a chat with Jeon Jeongguk.’

Seokjin whips his head to stare at him and Taehyung stares back, trying to send a silent telepathic message. His brother stares at him solidly for a full 30 seconds at which he sighs and turns to the guard, ‘Ask Jeongguk if he’s okay with it. If yes, you can send them in for 15 minutes. They’ve just come to pay respects.’ And with that, Seokjin leaves their side as soon as he had appeared.

Taehyung would tackle, hug and kiss his brother right now if it was socially appropriate.

He tries not to let his glee show as the guard, with a very suspicious look on his face, slowly unties the belt around the barrier to let Taehyung and Hoseok in. It almost seems as if he’s going to stretch an arm to stop them from actually doing so at the very last moment when they pass by him, but even after giving them the Look, he lets them surpass without a word.

Now Jeongguk’s corner isn’t much, just some square feet of space kept aside for his Highness, but Taehyung would be lying if he said that he can’t breathe better in this space than in the entire room. There’s actual space to walk around and sit if you want to, compared to the pinch of salt sized vacuums he’s been having to fit in throughout this venue. It’s a little more cramped now that there are three of them inside but Taehyung can’t help but think how Jeongguk has definitely been enjoying his own little pocket of freedom in this cramped ass hall and if this isn’t just the metaphorical representation of how it’s like out there.

Sighing, Taehyung doesn’t realise when that’s exactly what he does say, ‘Quite a bit of space you got here.’

If Jeongguk is taken aback, he doesn’t show it, ‘Yeah. I like oxygen.’

Taehyung narrows his eyes, ‘So do the rest of us.’

‘Well,’ He looks up lazily, with a flicker of light reflecting in his eye. ‘Why’re you all here then?’

There’s something about the way he drawls his words out that makes Taehyung’s stomach feel like a bottomless pit. He doesn’t like it one bit. ‘Some of us have obligations.’

‘Aaah, so obligations over living. Got it.’ He says in mock affirmation. Taehyung’s eyes narrow even further.

‘Wouldn’t expect you to get it.’

Jeongguk looks up again, matching his gaze with another one of his own that isn’t as lazy as he’s making it seem, ‘I’m sorry, what were you here for again?’

It’s Hoseok who stumbles forward with an excuse, ‘W-we’re here to pay respects.’

Jeongguk’s gaze shifts towards him like a predator shifting a target, ‘And why does that require my direct company?’

Hoseok looks like he’d rather die, ‘Uh- we thought it might be-uh , better if-if we all shared your grief a little. Noticed how a lot of people aren’t making their way here.’ His voice gains in confidence as he goes on. ‘Quite a bit are only here for gossip.’

Jeongguk shifts his gaze towards Taehyung again, ‘Shared my grief? Over losing my dear, beloved grandfather, right.’

The way he says it sparks something in Taehyung that’s so loud that it’s almost impossible to ignore. His journalist instincts just start firing up as he thinks about his next move, why exactly did he answer that question with such a sarcastic tone of voice? Is there some internal conflict going on here? A juicier story than inheritance he could possibly cover? My God, if he ever did get his hands on such a feature, it would turn his entire life around as an employee of that godforsaken company.

Taehyung softens his voice on purpose, ‘Well, you are the only living remnant of his eldest son.’

Jeongguk’s eyes flash with something Taehyung can’t quite place, ‘And what does my father have to do with you paying your respects?’

To his right, Hoseok is one minute short of getting down on his knees and pleading with Taehyung to not let them get thrown out of here. ‘Nothing. Just wanted to, you know, see how you feel. You know, so that we can pay our respects in the correct way.’

‘You know,’ Jeongguk doesn’t miss a beat. ‘I’ve never seen you around before. Yet, you keep talking to me like I owe you something. So pray tell, what was your connection to my grandfather?’

It is Taehyung’s turn to be caught off-guard. He definitely sputters, he hadn’t thought about that at all or even if he did, it had been a fleeting decision made in the loss of seconds. He didn’t really remember at all what it is that he’s supposed to be and his pauses did not help his case.

‘I-I … I’m not really important, j-just someone, my dad actually,’ He laughs to release the tension a little, it doesn’t work. ‘My dad actually did business with your grandfather a long time ago.’

Jeongguk doesn’t even flinch, ‘Ah, did he now?’

Taehyung and Hoseok both nod in unison.

‘Well then, may I know your name? It might help refresh my memory a little bit.’ He smiles and Taehyung swears he sees the devil. ‘I might suddenly remember who you are then.’

Taehyung gulps. ‘K-Kim Taehyung.’

He hears Hoseok take a sharp breath in.

‘Ah nice to meet you Kim Taehyung. Sit.’ He points towards the patch of carpet right in front of him. Both Taehyung and Hoseok begrudgingly take a seat. When they settle down, Jeongguk’s voice comes from somewhere in front, ‘Comfortable?’

Hoseok nods.

‘Well then Kim Taehyung-ssi, please continue paying your respects.’

Taehyung and Hoseok avoid looking at each other at all costs. Taehyung has an intense debate within him that takes into account his mind, his ego and his dignity on whether to continue this humiliation of a conversation or not. Of course, the stupid opinion article position hovers around his head once and his dignity completely loses out on the debate altogether.

‘So, Jeongguk-ssi,’ If he can see Hoseok’s eyes burning through him, he chooses to ignore it. ‘It must be tragic to lose a grandfather so suddenly like that.’

‘He’d been sick for over two years before he died yesterday.’ Jeongguk deadpans.

‘Oh,’ Taehyung’s sure his neck is red. ‘But you weren’t really ready for his departure right? I know, no one is at times like these.’

‘We’d actually begun writing wills a year ago when it was confirmed the disease was chronic and progressive.’

‘Oh.’

Amidst Taehyung’s embarrassment, the mention of wills perks up in his ear like a buzzing bee. This is what he’s wanted. And Jeongguk has pretty much escorted himself to this point of the conversation

He feigns surprise, ‘Aaah, you guys started writing wills a year ago? Wow, were you prepared for this!’

Jeongguk doesn’t say anything, choosing to pit Taehyung with his stone-like gaze instead.

‘S-so the wills,’ He really doesn’t know if he’s prying too much at this point, if he’s being honest. What he does know is that if he ever got information out of this man at his first f*cking meeting with him, this pap ordeal will just be over as soon as it began almost. ‘W-were they a happy affair? Or are you guys dealing with the stress of that too?’

Jeongguk doesn’t miss a beat when he answers, ‘You know, Kim Taehyung-ssi, the way you talk is very, uh, what d’you call it, familiar to me.’

Taehyung’s ears perk up, ‘How so?’

‘It’s almost like,’ He says tilting his head a little, Taehyung can see the beginnings of a tattoo on his neck. ‘Almost like, you’re a journalist hungry for gossip.’

Hoseok audibly gasps. Taehyung hears it and shuts down like a computer with Windows 97 trying to run a dial-up Internet connection.

For a long minute, there’s nothing but the hushed whispers and occasional sounds of old uncles coughing and aunties fake-crying surrounding them. Taehyung doesn’t dare answer his question. The way he said it, the way he’s looking at him right now, Taehyung can only conclude that he knows. There’s no way he doesn’t. That jab was too specific to be let out at this moment in front of them with that tone of voice, with that look in his eyes.

More unsure than he’s ever been in his entire life, Taehyung stares at him for a full, long minute. If there’s one thing that he is, on top of being an entirely useless pap, it’s determined even in the face of loss. So even though his insides are melting into a pile of goo, he resolutely stares back to throw him off.

Obviously, Jeongguk isn’t fazed. Taehyung would be surprised if he was. ‘Cat got your tongue, Taehyung-ssi?’

‘I think,’ He finds his voice now, when he knows that it’s imperative to speak something. ‘Whatever or whoever gave you that ridiculous idea should never be a journalist, so to say. Horrible guesswork.’

Jeongguk seems amused, a corner of his brow lifts up in response. ‘And you know a lot about who’s a good journalist and not, I’m presuming?’

Taehyung knows it’s just a game of words now, ‘No, of course not.’ He smiles sickly sweet. ‘Exactly like how you don’t know anything about being on the throne either.’

He hopes Jeongguk takes the bait. A lot of people were very vulnerable not when they were drunk or inebriated, but when they were challenged. It’s definitely Taehyung’s presumption but he definitely sees the heir in front of him part of that clique. He belongs to the royal family, it’s not that hard to guess if he’s got a fascination for keeping his ego in check. A lot of his other family members, courtesy of the news, would never pass up the chance to hold a dick-measuring contest.

There's definitely a split second where Jeongguk’s expression changes, but Taehyung doesn’t know him well enough to discern what it is. But that split second is all it takes for Jeongguk to revert back to a lazy smile and pointedly say, ‘Well, wouldn’t you like to know?’

And all there’s left inside Taehyung is an ugly feeling of how this man definitely has more brains than he initially thought.

*****

Hoseok is of the opinion that if it were, in fact, a normal f*cking person, they wouldn’t dare. And moreso if they were in a situation where the opposing party wasn’t as f*cking stupid as they were, they would definitely run, stride and gallop the other way.

Not Kim Taehyung of course. He thinks the man is made of something other than what other mortals are. He’s not really sure if he wants to endanger himself further by staying in his company.

A very unpleasant waft of something rotten goes right under his nose as he shifts on his feet, trying to adjust his posture. They had been locked in the same pose since the last hour and Taehyung’s explicit instructions had been to not move at all, lest someone walking by looked at them with a bit more interest than was necessary. All he knows is that they are supposed to look undoubtedly like two bags of trash dumped right there in the corner of the restaurant’s back door. He has cringed about 82 times in the smell of the place alone and it’s getting to his head as the moments pass by. He’s almost scared he will metamorphosize into actual trash by the time this is done.

What is nonsensical about this entire roleplay is that they can’t see sh*t from being piled into this rubbish heap. The overwhelming smell of rubbish tips him over the edge to speak something again, the first time having been in the middle of the first hour, ‘Taehyung, this is a waste of time. We won’t be able to see anything from the backdoor.’

Taehyung narrows his eyes, ‘What do you propose we do then, genius? Go inside and try to talk to him again? Because that went so well last time?’

He wants to tell him that Taehyung has definitely lost his cool again unintentionally and without reason but he sort of understands the rage that has definitely stemmed from the embarrassment of an encounter that yesterday morning had been. There had been so many blunders on their side that it was impossible to label a single event as the moment everything went wrong. He also definitely still thinks Jeongguk knew more than he let on and this was precisely why, he was sort of understanding about the sh*tground of a place Taehyung had chosen for this stakeout.

After Jeongguk had completely brought Taehyung to his knees at that mess of a conversation that happened in Jeongguk’s VIP booth, both Taehyung and Hoseok had thought it better to say a curt goodbye and leave the place entirely. It had been a rushed affair, a complete lapse of silence after Jeongguk’s last dialogue and then Taehyung abruptly getting up, throwing a goodbye in his face and scuttling out of Jeongguk’s area. Hoseok had to follow behind him regardless. If he had to give his opinion, he knew that making such an abrupt exit the moment Jeongguk hit a nerve was very telling of their own intentions. If Jeongguk was playing around when he asked them why their prying was as familiar as a journalist’s session, then he definitely, without doubt knew exactly who they were after their exit.

And Hoseok was sh*t scared within an inch of his life because if, in some twist of fate, Jeongguk was to see them here, they would be over. Not their career particularly, but their entire life.

He tries to stay quiet, mostly for Taehyung’s piss poor sake than for his own, but it is as you would say a personality trait. He cannot not be annoying for a single second. ‘But do you really want to sit out here and do the effort when you know it’s fruitless?’

Taehyung rolls his eyes so hard Hoseok’s sure Jeongguk can hear it from the inside of his restaurant, ‘Hobi, do me a favour. Just shut the f*ck up.’

If there’s one thing that gets to him, it’s indignant cursing towards him when he hasn’t really done anything, ‘Taehyung, if you run your mouth like that again, I will leave you here, you miserable piece of trash.’

He feels it coming before it actually hits him right in the knee. Taehyung’s one heel high shoe strikes right in his sweet spot and the pain is so immense at that moment that he can’t help but let out an entire high-pitched scream that is so unnatural that even unbothered Taehyung turns to look at him. He catches a poor fellow just walking into the alley for a smoke, who gets so startled at his exclamation that he drops his entire pack onto the mould-ridden floor.

When the pain subsides enough to let him see clearly, there is only a moment of hesitation before Hoseok stretches his own leg and kicks the figure right in front of him right in the ass. Taehyung yelps and clutches his butt out of pain, ‘What the f*ck? Are you crazy? Do you want me to kill you?’

‘Should you be asking ME that question after dislocating my entire leg?’ Hoseok asks dryly. Taehyung huffs and then stands up to adjust his pants and Hoseok definitely sees him rubbing his ass right where he hit him. Good. He hopes it hurts.

The only thing is, the moment he stands up to adjust and his face pops up from the rubbish heap into the plain view of the alley is exactly when the backdoor of the restaurant opens and out comes someone clad in a very expensive suit, which is all Hoseok is about to decipher about him. Out of fear and instinct, Taehyung tries to collapse right back into position.

The keyword here is, he tries. Because Hoseok doesn’t know what the f*ck happened in the journey from Taehyung’s ass being in mid-air to being at the ground, what sort of miscalculation happened in there in the general direction, because Taehyung lands right on his injured knee.

The need to scream is so immense that he wants to punch a wall to take his attention somewhere else, but in his peripheral mind, the stupid, f*cking, expensive man is still lingering and one sound from him will just out them and their sh*t entirely. They will, no doubt, have to explain what the f*ck they were doing in the rubbish bags in the first place because all rich people were pretentious and overly concerned for their own safety like that and then they will probably get banned from even putting a toenail in this part of the city.

But even Hoseok’s steel-like resolve can’t put everything at bay. There’s definitely a shuffling and loud enough rustle of the plastic rubbish bags for the scuffle to be noticeable. When Taehyung falls, Hoseok instinctively shifts the balance somewhere else from his injured knee after the first impact. That causes Taehyung to sit uncomfortably between his left thigh and right leg with both his pants right on the mould-like substance on the alley’s footpath. God knows what else is lying on the road with a connection to the fabric on his body right now.

There is a mini triangular vacuum of space between where they both fall between the rubbish bags where Hoseok at least sees what the f*ck is happening outside. Thankfully, the man comes right into his peripheral vision and he definitely sees and hears the scuffle they caused. He was right, it was too loud and moved too much for it to not be noticeable. He puts a hand on Taehyung’s shoulder and gestures him to be completely f*cking quiet by putting a finger right on his lips. Taehyung’s eyes widen and Hoseok hears the man’s footsteps coming nearer every second to their hiding place. He thanks the heavens that the floor is the cracked rumble of the footpath and a little wet so he knows exactly how fast this man is approaching him.

He and Taehyung completely hold their breaths as the footsteps come within touching distance almost, Hoseok closes his eyes when he can’t see the view of the alley from his miniature vacuum space anymore because the man is so close that only his clothes are his entire view. The footsteps stop right in front of them and Hoseok is just praying at this point, with all the moments in his life that he’s had actual faith.

And then, something so f*cking heart-stopping happens that Hoseok loses his marbles.

The man speaks. Says out loud, ‘Hello! Is someone there?’

Hoseok swears he feels lightheaded. This is not supposed to be happening to him. He was a good man, lived a good life, never tried to hurt anybody. There was no way this voice belonged to Jeon Jeongguk himself, no way. This had to be a f*cking fever dream.

When Hoseok tries to come to terms with this revelation, apparently Taehyung is going through the same shock. But the thing with Taehyung is, he doesn’t take anything in stride like Hoseok does. Even though Taehyung’s back is towards his front, he can feel the exact moment that Taehyung yelps again and says, ‘Oh my f*cking god.’ in a hushed whisper to hold his head in his hands.

Everything stills for a second. Hoseok doesn’t dare to breathe.

And it takes that one second for Jeongguk’s voice to completely change from the scared, hushed whisper he had heard a moment ago to something dry, hard and completely void of emotion, ‘Kim Taehyung-ssi, what a pleasant surprise.’

There’s nothing else to save grace for. Hoseok just sighs, resists the urge to kick Taehyung again and then stands right up. Jeongguk stands tall and proud right in front of them. It takes a minute for Taehyung to come back to reality where he shuffles himself up very reluctantly and comes to a stop right beside Hoseok. Jeongguk smiles, ‘Rubbish bags. Very classy.’

He sees Taehyung roll his eyes, ‘Yes, the classiest.’

He sees Jeongguk rotate the cigarette lighter in his hand. Hoseok's eyes light up at this piece of visual information, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard in the news anywhere that Jeongguk smokes. ‘And pray tell, what exactly would you be doing in the rubbish bags of the restaurant I just happened to be at.’

Taehyung pats his pants to get rid of the dust. Hoseok doesn’t tell him that the place they were residing at for the past two hours has far more things to worry about than just dust. ‘Mind your own business, Jeon Jeongguk-ssi.’

Jeongguk chuckles, Hoseok thinks it’s the most scheming sound he has ever heard in his entire life. ‘Seems like my business is your business, Taehyung-ssi.’

There it goes, again with those statements that say he knows exactly who Taehyung is and came to do. Hoseok knows that even if he had any doubts about who they were after the funeral home, finding them like this when they were supposed to be discreet probably gave them away. If it were up to him, he would just stop pretending to not be a pap.

Not Taehyung though. ‘Arrogant of you to assume that just because you’re rich and important, that your business would be everyone’s business. Leave us alone.’

Jeongguk rolls his eyes. Looking around him, the smell of rubbish is pervading the entire area and he and Taehyung are a little wet from several parts of their bodies and clothes. ‘Jeez, at least learn to do your goddamn job properly.’

He can feel Taehyung’s fire from beside him as he speaks, ‘You don’t know anything about me! What job?’

Jeongguk doesn’t flinch at the loud tone of Taehyung’s voice, ‘You have to be the worst f*cking pap I’ve ever seen in my entire life.’

And there it is. Out in the open. He knows. It’s the first time he’s said it like that but there is no way he didn’t know. Hoseok mentally slaps a hand to his forehead.

Now see, if it was him in Taehyung’s place, he would just sputter, stutter on his words and stumble out of the f*cking scene like he had committed a crime. However, he doesn’t know whether to praise his existence or just call him a dumb f*cker because Taehyung puts his hands in his (wet) pockets and proceeds to say, ‘I’m not a pap.’

Jeongguk looks dumbfounded. ‘You’re not a pap.’

‘I’m not a pap.’ Taehyung repeats.

‘You’re not a pap?’

‘I’m not a f*cking pap.’

Jeongguk laughs out loud this time. ‘You’re also the worst liar I’ve seen. Seriously, who gave you this job?’

Taehyung is surely gritting his teeth when he says, ‘I’m. Not. A. f*cking. Pap.’

‘Sure you aren’t.’ He says, finally pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. ‘But you know what I’m also not? Patient.’ Hoseok sees red when he pulls the lighter up to his mouth and lights the cigarette. ‘Scram.’

It’s Taehyung who takes action and literally spits right in front of his very expensive (Armani, Hoseok notices now) shoes and says, ‘f*ck you. I’m not a pap.’

The next thing he knows, his arm is being nearly dislodged from his body as he is dragged away from their crime scene, still trying to grasp how they would save themselves from this situation.

*****

The next time Taehyung tries to go over the speed limit on another one of his boundaries, Hoseok flat out denies.

‘No.’ He says, with a cup of coffee in his hands in the warm glow of his laptop and the sun shining through his window. ‘I’m not putting myself through this again.’

The thing is, when this hellish assignment was first given to Taehyung, he would’ve done this alone in a heartbeat. Hoseok was an unknown face from a department he had never stepped foot in and he would’ve given exactly zero amount of f*cks had this situation occurred when he didn’t know what he was stepping into. But exactly two humiliating and bone-shatteringly embarrassing encounters later, Taehyung is, for the lack of a better word, f*cking terrified of going out there without someone with him to voice out whatever his panicked state of mind is feeling just so he can force himself to be the rational one.

‘Hoseok, please,’ He doesn’t want to plead but he’s certainly not above it. ‘I’m begging you right now. Please.’

Hoseok peers at him from above the rim of his coffee cup. It’s certainly not Taehyung’s first time asking him this and Hoseok has a sneaking suspicion he won’t leave him alone unless he actually agrees. ‘Taehyung, you make life a menace for me whenever we’re on these little expeditions. Die. I will die before agreeing to go with you again.’

To be very honest, Taehyung should’ve expected this. It’s not like he didn’t kick Hoseok in the knee the last time they had fallen into a scuffle right at a very crucial moment that cost them their entire mission. A knee, which according to him, was still giving him trouble occasionally. Taehyung had been catching him coming into work limping at least three days out of the six after the fateful night. He still doesn’t think it’s that serious, but he’s not going to say that to his face.

‘D’you want me to die at the hands of that obnoxious, rich asshole? Huh? Will you be able to live with yourself knowing that you were the cause of my painful demise?’ He’s certain that if he was sure that the windows to Hoseok’s office weren’t made of glass and everyone couldn’t see what was going on inside, he would’ve been on his knees.

It doesn’t faze the man in front of him in the slightest, ‘You’re almost as bad at this as you are at being a pap.’

Something in his snarky remark reminds him of Jeongguk. He drops the act. ‘That’s enough, Hoseok. I can take everything but not an insult to my hard-earned career.’

Hoseok keeps his coffee cup down on the table with a slam, ‘Taehyung, this isn’t even your career? You’re a goddamn writer. And if you were to ask me, well, I really think you should stick to it.’

Taehyung’s ears turn red. He moves to get up from his chair very noisily to make a point, ‘Yeah. Well. f*ck what you think.’

He’s about to leave when Hoseok’s voice turns him back from his course of action with a loud ass sigh that he knows could mean nothing good. Whenever Hoseok sighs like that, it means it’s one of the very few times that he will say something that makes absolute sense. Taehyung, on the other hand, doesn’t like it when he’s not the smartest person in the room. ‘Taehyung, why are you so determined to do this? You know you’re bad at it. From what I heard about you before meeting you, you are still the kind of person who’s quite open to judging yourself and constructive criticism despite being one of our most respected writers. Just let it go.’

Taehyung knows he’s right. It’s the same thought that has been bugging him since the last time he went out and made a fool of himself yet again and it doesn’t help that his career has gone from being one of the things in his life that he was the most confident at to something like this, which he isn’t sure he can handle without feeling like he’s trying to hold water in his cupped hands. If it was just related to his progress and his assumption of the promotion he’s been waiting for, he would have quit right after that rubbish bag debacle.

But there’s something about Jeon Jeongguk that’s making him want to reconsider every living obstacle that comes his way. Taehyung is positive he’s never seen someone be so obnoxious in one sitting alone. Something in him reeks of privilege and pretentiousness and all the things Taehyung has grown to hate after adopting a career in journalism and seeing these people for what they really are when he gets to experience news about them first hand. The way he speaks, the way he walks, even the way he carries himself makes Taehyung want to shake him and put him in his place. He wants to be the first to let this man know how not to treat everyone else like they’re beneath him.

It’s with this thought that he had called up Seokjin in the very early hours of the morning, an hour when he knew his brother would be far less coherent but far more vulnerable to blabbing about their whereabouts. It had taken him five minutes of soft coaxing to know exactly where Jeon Jeongguk would be at 3 pm this evening.

He sighs, knowing time is running out. He has to be out of here right now if he has to reach Jeon Jeongguk right as he comes out, ‘I just need to teach this prick a lesson.’

If Hoseok is extremely confused, Taehyung doesn’t stay to see it.

**

The thing about this fake-ass glamour of these five-star plaza hotels is that Taehyung f*cking hates it. He’s always hated it. Something about the atmosphere wants you to be the most rich and obnoxious person in the entire room even when you’re actually not.

He had been waiting in the lobby for Jeon Jeongguk to appear for over an hour and a half when there was absolutely no sign of the man’s entourage and presence even though Taehyung was positive he’d arrived before Jeongguk was supposed to. He realises the calmness that settles in his chest at the possibility of this mission being a bust and it’s quite a contrast from what he had been feeling since the morning, a series of hard-hitting thuds right against his ribcage.

Even then, there’s also this consequent sinking feeling in his chest at the prospect of one of his highly planned expeditions going to fail, so he does what he deems appropriate in his fastest panic-brainstorming possible. Walking up to the receptionist, he’s sure to adopt his best imitation of how dirty rich assholes stalk towards their destination and he hopes that if the lady behind the counter is observing him approaching, she at least thinks he’s also a part of them.

‘Excuse me?’ His voice is about two octaves deeper. ‘It’s my first time to this hotel and I’m supposed to be attending the event at-um- your Jade Hall? I’m really terrible with directions so I don’t really know where that is. I’d be really appreciative if you could guide me.’

The receptionist looks at him up and down, like she’s judging him and for a moment, Taehyung’s panic settles in. Maybe the lady has caught him, maybe she thinks he’s faking it, of course she does, maybe he was too kind in the way he was speaking to her. But then, her voice is coming and dispersing his thoughts for good merely ten seconds later, ‘Sure. You’re very close to it. It’s down the hallway to your right.’

He smiles tight-lipped and looks towards the direction the lady pointed him to, it is indeed a hallway that stretches more towards the inside. To Taehyung, it seems like the circle of death. He takes a deep breath and starts with slow, sure steps towards the hallway, looking for the venue and trying to figure out how he must act once he gets inside with all those rich snobs.

The venue entrance doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it stands as a tall contrast to the rest of the plaza’s decor. The door is bold and wooden in the way that makes you instantly wonder if it’s antique and somehow, also screams of the poorly hidden rich elegance inside. Taehyung reeks at the kind of atmosphere it promises.

When he reaches the entrance, he’s all set to walk like he owns the place. He’s just put his hands in his pockets to walk in very coolly when his plans are stopped, very physically, by an arm stretched out like a rod of steel. His steps literally stop mid-way as he follows the entire length of the arm to his left, where the arm seems to be coming from and slowly inches his face towards the body attached to it.

The face looks at him with poorly disguised suspicion. Taehyung rolls his eyes. It’s the same guard who had stopped him and Hoseok when they tried to enter Jeongguk’s VIP area back at the funeral home. ‘It’s you again.’

The guard doesn’t respond to his statement. ‘Do you have an invite?’

Ah, the invite. Wonder why Seokjin didn’t tell him that on the phone.

Taehyung’s face scrunches, and he tries to do his best imitation of searching for the paper in his pockets. ‘Of course, the invite! How could I forget?’ He pats one pocket, the one at the left butt and then at the left hip, co*cks a smile, then moves the other hand to the right butt and then the right hip. Obviously none of his hands find anything, not that there was anything to find in the first place.

Taehyung never visualised himself being tacky at anything in his entire life but as the situation arises and he can physically see the suspicion in the guard’s eyes growing at a rapid pace, he swallows his pride down in one gulp. In the most exaggerated way possible, he stretches an arm to scratch his head, imitating what one might do in a slapstick comedy to let the audience know that the character has forgotten something and turns to look at the guard once again with eyes so wide you could fit golf balls inside them. ‘OH! I guess I’ve forgotten the invite at home! Silly me! How irresponsible!’

He nervously shifts on his legs again. The guard doesn’t seem to be fazed. ‘So I was running late this morning! Right? Had such a long night, you know? Of work and work and more work, I’m sure you can relate!’ He smiles bright at the guard. He stares back with eyes made of stone. ‘So I had sort of a sleep-in. But only because I was so tired, you know? And then I woke up with a start because I had to be here! On my way here, I was thinking that I cleaned up pretty quick without any major mishaps but,’ He heaves a long ass sigh. ‘This had to be my downfall of the day.’

He tries to move into the venue again, but the rod-like arm is still there. ‘I can’t let you enter without an invite.’

‘But I told you! It’s at home!’ He’s indignant now. What will it take for this measly guard to agree?

‘We have protocol.’

Taehyung scoffs as loudly as anything to make sure the guard hears him. Honestly, what if he had a gun in his pocket and was threatening this 100-ton pound of man that he knows he wouldn’t win against in physical combat? Would he still give him crap about protocol? People like these ask for it. He’s contemplating doing that corny trick of ‘WHAT’S BEHIND YOU?’ and running into the venue within an inch of his life when the heavens take mercy on him and he sees a familiar figure walking by the entrance, too engrossed in his phone.

Now, it is a very well established fact that Taehyung is by no means patient. When he sees the opportunity to progress, he will take it no matter how much chaos he causes along the way. In hindsight, he really should have kept his mouth shut because here, things at risk are definitely tenfold, but it’s called hindsight for a reason. Because, in the moment, Taehyung, with all his might, shouts out, ‘SEOKJIN-AH!’

Seokjin visibly jumps and snaps his head right towards the entrance of the venue where Taehyung is looking to break free from the guard’s metal-like arms that keep him restrained from the journey, Taehyung is positive that it’s the first time he sees the guard’s composure slip a little, as he goes from stone-faced to surprised at him calling out Seokjin and Seokjin actually listening and then hurriedly stalking in their direction.

‘What’s the trouble?’ Taehyung is terrified that he can’t read his expression off his face. He doesn’t know if he should be prepared to receive his lashings.

The guard visibly stutters, ‘Oh, Seokjin-ssi, this man here doesn’t have an invite and is making all kinds of excuses to get in-’

‘Let him in. He’s family.’ The guard’s eyes widen along with Taehyung’s own. ‘I invited him over here for an investment talk with some business personnel present. I’m sorry I forgot about the invite-only entrance.’

‘It’s fine!’ The guard squeaks out, automatically removing his arm and letting Taehyung walk free. It’s only fair that he looks back when he walks past and scoffs, very visibly and audibly so that he can rub it in his face a little. His little pride moment doesn’t last very long though, because the very next moment, his arm is being locked in with his brother’s and he’s being dragged across the floor to one of the venue’s corner pillars which aren’t very well-lit. He winces when Seokjin releases him with a thud.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing here?’ He narrows his eyes and Taehyung freezes a little. Seokjin is never fun to deal with when he’s in one of his moods.

Taehyung uses his pout to his advantage, ‘I haven’t been able to get useful intel about him at all. He keeps deflecting my questions and I just get angry because he’s such an asshole-’

Seokjin scoffs, ‘I’m sorry, were you expecting him to invite you to his house for tea and biscuits and let you in on his family secrets over a gossip session?’

‘No,’ He doesn’t know what he was expecting, if he’s being honest, ‘But he doesn’t have to be such a dickwad though? It just makes me want to ruin his life.’

‘Yes, ruin his life, by publishing gossip in one of your measly articles.’ Seokjin says dryly.

‘It’s not a measly article!’ Taehyung can take anything but disrespect and underestimation of his own career. ‘If I find something out, it’s going to be headline material-’

Seokjin sighs and then interrupts him, ‘Taehyung, what are you doing here? I don’t know why you think Jeongguk will let you in on his own time of the day in the midst of an event. Don’t you have better solutions to this instead of using me to hijack wherever he is to be at in the span of a week? I thought you had to be a little covert about this. Does turning up wherever he is not sound suspicious?’

‘But I don’t have the time, hyung,’ He says, while still visibly pouting and he can see it’s definitely having an effect on his brother. ‘I don’t have the time to elaborately plan and span this out. I need something fast before they just take me off this completely.’

Seokjin rolls his eyes, ‘Wouldn’t that be better? At least it’ll take this pressure off you-’

‘Seokjin-ssi, there’s some Mr. Ahn waiting on the line, says he was supposed to be here five minutes ago but there was some problem with his booked transport.’ A man in a plain, black suit is speaking with a hands-free Bluetooth device in his ear. Taehyung internally rolls his eyes at his appearance, if he had to guess who exactly was working on intelligence and security within this venue, it wouldn’t even take him 30 seconds to point towards this man here.

‘sh*t, I’ve gotta run, Tae. Don’t do anything stupid like that day, alright?’ Seokjin says in a very tense, pressured voice and Taehyung’s then feeling cold fingers on his cheek where Seokjin pats it and then he’s watching his brother leave for the lobby through the same door he came in from.

He’s considering taking a look around, maybe staking out Jeon Jeongguk’s location in the midst of this larger than life hall or maybe even trying to get in with the crowd, flirt a little, ask some juicy insider gossip. He eyes a lady about twenty years older than him by the champagne bar who’s been gazing at him with interest ever since he was pulled aside by Seokjin and even though the idea of fraternising (read: fending off advances) with her doesn’t really look like something he would want to do, he knows she might have her hands on whatever these people discuss in their rich golf clubs and VIP kitty parties. Within a neighbourhood and community like this, he knows that the people with the most intel are these aunties who look like they’re up to no good.

Taehyung makes a mental note to warm up to them later in the course of the night. The prospect of later is solely made up in a hassle when his stomach gives the loudest growl he’s heard in a while and his mind conjures up an embarrassing situation where Jeon Jeongguk hears it whilst their impending conversation. He shakes his head violently to himself, he’s damn sure he will not let him get the upper hand this time.

He looks around and finds the finger food counter just a few steps away from where he stands. It’s a little in the shadows and doesn’t look like it provides the best view of the place but Taehyung’s stomach wants what it wants. He makes a beeline for it, aiming to just grab a few delicacies to calm the wolf down there in his insides, just enough to make it through this stupid event. He promises himself a big beef cheeseburger afterwards, he could even take a double-decker this time. Just not now.

He reaches and just picks up the first thing he sees, it looks like some sort of pastry with a dark red, almost black filling poking from some of their ends. He eyes it suspiciously, the filling’s color does not look appetising and he doesn’t know what these royal heir motherf*ckers like to put in their food. What if their ‘refined tastes’ just include things like caviar and fish eggs (he’s had caviar once and it tasted f*cking disgusting), his stomach might just emptying itself out of spite.

It’s when he’s contemplating when he feels someone’s eyes on him. The kind of hot gaze that burns down your back and is impossible to ignore till you find the culprit behind it. From his side perspective, you can tell it’s a man and he’s tall alright. There’s sort of a dark shadow blocking the strong halo of light that’s coming from the big spotlights to his right so he assumes the person must be wearing a dark suit. His head instinctively turns to the side where he’s being eyed from, there’s a wild, on-the-spot thought that tells him it might be Seokjin, which causes him to become a little comfortable with facing whoever it is.

The first thing he sees is a lot of light. The spotlight is pointed directly in his vision and it creates those movie-like blinding white halos directly blocking whoever is standing above him. It takes a moment for the spotlight to move away and for his vision to adjust. The experience, though, is straight up like Taehyung just watched an angel descend from the heavens and appear out of nowhere in a burst of white light. It isn’t until two minutes after that Taehyung squints and finds out that the intruder eyeing him very carefully with a look that screams suspicion is Jeon Jeongugk himself.

It doesn’t help that in an attempt to be nonchalant about this man’s presence right when he is the most unprepared for it, he shoves the entire pastry in his mouth. Jeon Jeongguk is still looking at him with despair. He smiles his best wide smile, whatever he can manage with the full mouth of whatever the f*ck it was that he shoved into his mouth, and bites down on it. Eating shows how nonchalant he is, right? He is so unaffected that he can’t be bothered to stop eating to talk to Jeon Jeongguk.

He sees him cross his arms in front of him, ‘If it isn’t Kim Taehyung again.’

Taehyung rolls his eyes. It doesn’t look like the weather to have a decent conversation with Jeongguk again. In the midst of looking like he is abhorred by Jeongguk’s presence, Taehyung chews more on the pastry.

Rest assured, it tastes absolutely f*cking horrible.

There’s some sort of gunky, meaty stench that pervades his entire mouth as soon as his teeth break the pastry covering apart and get to the filling. He’s been vegetarian for quite some time so it looks like whatever he shoved inside was definitely meat. But even in meats, there were less acceptable meats and then ones he could at least swallow. This one in his mouth tastes like it came exactly from the rubbish pile Taehyung was inside while spying on Jeon Jeongguk. Taehyung’s face contorts into such a disgusted expression that he’s positive it looks like he’s having an aneurysm live in this venue.

Considering Taehyung has a low patience for whenever he is subjected to the universe’s ministrations on him regarding food and also taking into account things have been going for him these past few days, it’s absolutely no surprise that Taehyung’s ability to take it just runs out. There, right in the middle of the event, Taehyung says goodbye to his inhibitions and just spits the food right out.

He hadn’t, ofcourse, considered spitting it out in a mound of tissue in his hand which he sees a heap of right beside just as he’s done spitting the food out. He hadn’t considered that spitting it out without inhibitions, right in front of him would end up in the gooey, saliva-laced glob to end up on the person blocking his view from the huge ass spotlights at this moment.

Just as he realises it and the absolute horror crosses his features, Jeon Jeongguk looks up at him with half of the glob on his collar and the other half on his cheek. It’s a shame that Jeongguk is almost his height so the spitting ends up right on his face.

‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry!’ Taehyung utters, horrified. And he is completely and utterly horrified at the 300th mishap he’s managed to do in the past few days. ‘Oh my god! I-I’ll help you clean it up. W-where is the bathroom?’

Jeongguk looks absolutely abhorred. Taehyung doesn’t lie when he notices that there’s absolutely no expression on Jeongguk’s face when he says, ‘Right behind you, second door when you turn left.’

In a hassle, he grabs Jeongguk’s arm and leads him right where he told him to a couple of seconds ago. Practically running in the direction of the door to get rid of the absolute embarrassment he’s caused himself yet again, he ends up slamming the door so hard that it rattles against the opposite wall. Taehyung doesn’t notice the bathroom decor, although he definitely registers that he would’ve liked to, seeing as the bathroom’s expanse is almost as large as his living room and bedroom combined. He leads Jeongguk right to the sinks in the distance and opens a tap instantly.

‘I’m so sorry for ruining your suit. I promise it will probably come off..’ He trails off trying to collect water in his cupped hands to spread it over Jeongguk’s face first. He’s about to reach out to wipe his face off when the man himself leans his face down towards the open tap and thoroughly washes the remnants of saliva off his face. Taehyung just stands there, with his water that he collected, feeling a little stupid now that he doesn’t have anything to do.

It takes a long while for Jeongguk to wipe everything off his suit until he’s satisfied. If Taehyung’s being honest, Jeongguk did definitely rub his face and clothes excessively, he’s pretty sure they were clean after his third attempt. He lamely lets go of the water he’s holding in the next sink as Jeongguk grabs a tissue and wipes his face with it.

‘So Taehyung,’ He flinches, he knows another smartass remark is probably coming. ‘Why did you decide to grace us with your presence today?’

Taehyung’s mind is haywire. ‘Us?’ His reply comes out very small, probably the tiniest he’s ever tried to seem.

Jeongguk grins lazily, ‘Yes. Me and my unfortunate suit that you’ve ended up ruining.’

Something in Taehyung snaps, ‘It’s just water and a little bit of saliva. There’s no way your million dollar suit can’t hold that.’

Jeongguk leans against the sink, ‘It can. But who says I want to wear a suit that has someone else’s saliva on it again?’

He takes it as a blatant, obvious, personal disrespect. In his head, it sounds like Jeongguk is saying that he’s so dirty that his saliva can make anything unusable. And Taehyung doesn’t know why he just flares up so much that he ends up saying, ‘And has your mouth been anywhere near others’ saliva, Jeongguk-ssi? I’m sure it has, what with you being so notorious for it in the papers. I’m sure you won’t mind a little of it.’

For a moment, Jeongguk looks dumbstruck at the kind of lengths Taehyung has decided to go to. It takes him a moment to reorganise, recalculate and change his demeanor, ‘It’s a different story when it’s in my mouth Taehyung-ssi. Preferably combined with a pair of lips.’

Taehyung smiles sickly sweet, ‘Well, sorry to disappoint. Next time, I’ll aim even better.’

He’s about to make a grand exit like they do in the movies after saying something groundbreaking, even turns towards the door, when a very strong arm latches onto his elbow. It’s the sheer force of the gesture that makes him turn around.

Now what Taehyung had least expected after walking into this establishment today that he should find himself in a public bathroom of a high-end venue standing less than two centimetres away from the royal heir of the country. But in that moment, the first thought that pops up into his head isn’t the absolute momentum of this incidence, nope. His eyes latch onto the first thing they can find in order to ground himself in the hassle and end up making their home onto the mole right below Jeongguk’s lips. He’s determined not to make eye contact while standing so close so in a flurry, he thinks the mole is way safer, really.

Taehyung knows he had been running away from this admission since he had come across the sight of Jeongguk in that funeral home, really. It’s not just the way he handles himself, like he owns everything and everyone in the room (which he does) but it’s the way Jeongguk’s gaze holds the ability to pierce your perception. Everything this man does is intense, in a way that it always holds Taehyung’s stance in intimidation whenever this man decides to grace his presence on him. It’s also what makes Taehyung all the more annoyed because he’s never fared well with intimidation especially since he knows Jeongguk doesn’t know him and he’s not a direct authority figure in his life. He wasn’t his dad, boss, mom or teacher.

But it’s also the way he sees what creeps up Jeongguk’s hand when his sleeve lifts a little and the metal glinting above his eyebrow in the soft, white light of the bathroom. It’s also the way that Jeongguk is definitely almost Taehyung’s height, but in the way he stands and takes over the room, Taehyung feels really small. Like his presence is filling up the room itself.

Look, let him just say it. Jeongguk’s just really f*cking hot, okay. And he just refuses to believe that the hotness doesn’t decrease proportionately the nearer they are.

‘See Taehyung-ssi,’ His voice has now lowered down to a slow drawl. It doesn’t do well with Taehyung’s nerves. ‘I was thinking of something more…..proactive.’

He pauses then and Taehyung takes it as his cue to reply. However, it doesn’t help that he physically feels his tongue stuck in his throat with the way he knows Jeongguk is looking at him. He doesn’t dare move his gaze up where Jeongguk’s eyes are.

He hears an intake of breath and then Jeongguk’s voice continues, ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve……..as you put it…...exchanged saliva with someone. So why don’t you do the honors?’

Taehyung’s stomach swoops so fast that he gets lightheaded. Did he just f*cking hear what Jeongguk is saying? Did he just f*cking hear what he just said like that? Because surely, he must be hearing things at this point. There’s no way that this menace just insinuated what he thinks he did. There’s no f*cking way.

The shock is such that Taehyung forgets the intimidation of being so close together. His eyes are widened in complete surprise as he gazes up into his eyes and he finds him staring back. There’s a glint in his eyes that Taehyung recognises so well, because it’s the same look he gets subjected to when his younger brother is about to do something particularly nasty, like dump a whole chocolate container on him. His voice comes out in puffs of hot breath, it hits Jeongguk’s chin. ‘A-are you for r-real?’

Jeongguk smiles in that annoying f*cking way Taehyung’s just come to loathe. ‘Of course sweetheart.’

The nickname is like a punch to the gut. He gathers his senses and uses his free hand to push Jeongguk away from this proximity that’s making him dizzier by the second. ‘Are you for f*cking real? Do you want me to cause a ruckus?’

Jeongguk’s smile is scheming. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

Taehyung pinches the bridge of his nose, ‘I’m sorry for saying this, Your Highness, but you are the most f*cking annoying person I’ve ever met.’

Jeongguk grins and something in Taehyung’s heart thuds. It’s like someone put two mirrors right next to each other and shone a light in the middle. It’s f*cking blinding. ‘Funny you say that, Taehyung-ssi,’ Taehyung snorts, now they were back to respectful honorifics? ‘I was thinking the exact same about this person that keeps appearing at every one of my appearances at events. In the oddest of ways. I think he has something to hide. What d’you say?’

Taehyung’s face turns red. ‘I don’t have anything to hide.’

‘Oh?’ Jeongguk crosses his arms. ‘How come, out of nowhere, a man that definitely doesn’t look like he belongs anywhere in here suddenly starts showing up in the most important of my events? Wherever I appear?’

Taehyung definitely thinks it’s best not to respond. He doesn’t really have anything to say anyway.

‘How come every time I’m marveling at how he managed to break into these venues? When they’re reserved for invitees? And for people security can recognise?’

Taehyung gulps. One thing he definitely did not want coming out of this was Seokjin getting into any kind of trouble. His brother had a longstanding cemented career. He knows he had taken advantage of his affections by letting himself on the information that he definitely wasn’t supposed to expose to anyone, let alone a journalist. It was a recipe for disaster. These people would throw Seokjin out at the first mention of the fact that his brother worked for a newspaper.

‘I think I should also mention that the last time this happened to me, I woke up the next morning with a particularly nasty story about me on page 2 of The Sconya Times.’

Taehyung’s heart thuds so loud he’s sure Jeongguk heard it. It’s so obvious and so out in the open now that he’s said it like that and Taehyung has a very horrifying suspicion that this man knows more than he’s letting on.

‘I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He hadn’t realised that Jeongguk had taken the liberty to come closer to him every time he said a sentence. Their proximity is back to being dizzying again but this time, along with the flustered mess, Taehyung’s also equal parts scared. Had he really been that obvious? He knows his clumsy streak these past few days hadn’t been the best but he didn’t really know he had been that blatant about him being a journalist?

‘How come,’ Jeongguk’s voice is low again, it’s coming from far nearer than he’s comfortable with. ‘that’s the only response you have whenever I accuse you of something.’

He makes to shove Jeongguk away a second time and thinks he’s had enough of this. He just wants to get the hell out of here and reconsider whatever the f*ck he’s been doing uptill now. It had seemed like a fun game to him at first, something he could do with the sheer abundance of willpower alone but now that Jeongguk is in his face looking like he had him investigated, he’s just having cold shivers thinking about just who he was messing with. This was the royal family, they owned just about half of Sconya. Taehyung would find himself in the rubbish bins tied up in a body bag chopped up to pieces the next day and no one would ever find out.

He shivers.

‘Do you have something to say for yourself?’

He looks up at Jeongguk whose mischievous gaze still hasn’t lowered itself. ‘What d’you want me to say?’

Jeongguk grins again. ‘How about you start with just who you are and why you’re here.’ His smile is sickly sweet, almost as sweet as poison.

Taehyung contemplates. He really does. Even though he knows he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter if he didn’t want to become human steak. He’s looking at Jeongguk with as much hate as he can muster when his brain decides to work and pop forward an idea.

‘I-I’m a journalist.’ He says, as meekly as possible. He needs Jeongguk to be the one in power to bring all of this about. He sees him roll his eyes. ‘I had to get intel on you as part of my next project.’

Jeongguk huffs. He doesn’t really look too happy about it. ‘And? What did you gather?’

Taehyung looks at him with bewilderment. ‘What d’you mean? You’re saying like you gave up any information to begin with? I gathered horsesh*t.’

The ends of Jeongguk’s mouth perk up a little. ‘And? Now that you’ve said all this, what d’you think I should do about this?’

Taehyung gulps a particularly difficult mound in his throat. ‘I-I just. I’m- I was wondering if you could just give me a few meetings over the course of a month. Just an hour. Whenever you’re free. We can just talk or whatever. I won’t pry obnoxiously.’ Jeongguk chuckles humorlessly. ‘A-and in return, we can come up with a story t-that you’re more co-comfortable with.’

He says it in one breath, quickly, just to get over with. Jeongguk eyes him like he’s appalled that Taehyung even had the guts to meet his gaze and ask that.

It’s complete silence in the bathroom for the next two minutes. Taehyung tries to look anywhere but at the man who hasn’t removed his gaze from him in what looks like centuries. He would pay his entire life insurance in one go just to know what Jeongguk was thinking at this moment.

‘And what do I get out of this?’

Taehyung resists the impulse to roll his eyes, hard. All that contemplation and this is what he had to say. ‘I mean, don’t you want to control the narrative? I’ll run everything by you and make sure nothing’s there that’s too outrageous.’

‘And if I don’t agree? To whatever this is?’

Jeongguk is looking at him with something he can’t pinpoint till yet. Taehyung, however, snaps. He hates going in circles of dominoes till infinity runs out. If Jeongguk wants to do this, he can just say a yes. If not, then Taehyung just wants to f*ck off from here if he’s being very honest.

‘Jeongguk-ssi,’ He says very plainly, all signs of pretend meekness lost from his voice. ‘Let me tell you something. I’ve been in the line for a promotion for longer than I’d like and this is a big project that I can’t miss. If you don’t agree, I’ll have to write an article for it anyway. And you might not like wherever I get my info from.’

Jeongguk laughs. He laughs so heartedly that Taehyung just gazes in shock. His laugh is airy and melodic and Taehyung thinks he sounds like a baby that’s just found the particulars of experiencing joy for the first time in his entire life. Jeongguk’s age recedes and he just looks like a young boy trying to have some fun. Some part of Taehyung’s chest squeezes.

‘Sorry,’ He says between giggles. ‘I don’t meet people who make empty threats like you on the daily. This is a bit of a new experience.’

Taehyung stares, unamused.

‘What did you say there, the last part?’ He’s still chuckling between breaths. ‘I might not like where you get your info from? Taehyung-ssi, you’re too confident for someone who knows he doesn’t have a chance until I agree.’

Taehyung’s face turns hot. ‘Jeon Jeongguk-ssi, let me tell you-’

‘I’ll do it.’ Jeongguk says, between bated breaths.

Taehyung is caught in a trance. ‘I’m sorry, what-what did you just say? Did you just say what I think you said?’

Jeongguk grins one of his trademark smiles that is just beginning to itch Taehyung’s irritation vein now. ‘I don’t really feel like repeating myself, Taehyung-ssi.’

He really hadn’t prepared himself for the obnoxious possibility that Jeongguk might agree. The chances of that happening were in the negative 300 percentiles somewhere. He’s still in a daze when Jeongguk says, ‘Take my business number from Seokjin-ssi. I’m sure you know who he is, taking from the intense amount of research you must’ve done on me.’ There’s no missing the snark in his tone when he utters the word ‘research’. ‘But I’m sure we can work a time that suits both of us for our date .’

Then he’s patting Taehyung on the shoulder and leaving by the door they came from, his own state still in a trance. The last thing he registers before decking it out of the venue is Jeongguk’s echo in the bathroom hallway that definitely sounded something like, ‘Look forward to working with you, Taehyung-ssi.’

The only thing Taehyung can do is yell out, ‘It’s not a date!’

He hears Jeongguk laugh out loud from somewhere far away.

*****

Truth be told, if you put Jeongguk at gunpoint and asked him why he did half the things he does, he would just die. Because he has an answer for exactly none of them.

He’s in his obnoxiously big luxurious car, one of those that have like the space of a living room crammed into the back. He’s sporting a can of beer from the headache of the event and Seokjin keeps looking at him from where he’s seated right across his seat. He sees him busy on his phone and Jeongguk assumes he’s probably keeping his schedule for tomorrow on check. That was mostly what Seokjin was always on, anyway, keeping his life in order so that he doesn’t have to.

He sighs and rubs his temples. The buildings passing by are spaced out in this part of the city as they move further away from the main square. His villa was situated right on the tip of where Sconya met the outskirts and it was far enough that there was probably no living establishment within 20 miles of where he lived. Jeongguk liked to refer to it as the perfect place to be isolated. Sometimes, when the staff was on holiday and the family was busy with their own doings, Jeongguk felt like he was the only person on Earth. Rarely did he ever see anything other than wild animals in the vicinity.

It’s lonely is what he means to say. And, Jeongguk thinks, that’s also precisely why he ends up doing half of the things he does. It’s a plausible explanation.

Usually, when Jeongguk comes back from these events, the exhaustion is wearing him down to the point of giving up and just fainting from consciousness. He’s not a very social person and even less so in the presence of people that don’t know him and will never see him outside of these pretentious events. Socialising has always been a very important part of keeping his image up and it’s something he has to live with and something he resigned to a long time ago.

Not today though. The headache was still there and so was the ache in his feet from standing for too long because these parties never tend to have a few chairs lying around. Everyone thinks it’s fine for everyone to stand and dance for the entirety of the two hours. Jeongguk’s feet never seem to agree. But despite all of that, his bathroom interaction with the journalist is what his mind keeps returning back to.

It’s not hard to assume why. It’s the most interesting thing to happen to him in a while. It’s also completely different from how the pace of his life has been ever since he landed back in Sconya. In all his years of parading around events and charities and election campaigns, he had come across a wide variety of journalists, and without failing, almost all of them were just downright horrible. Pains in his ass. He had long since established that he was allergic to them. Growing up around people who were also mutual to his intense dislike for these people, he had an environment where he was encouraged to be as private as he could by almost everyone. At this age, he was positive that it had become second instinct to him.

The only time he had been caught off guard was about five years ago when a journalist had snuck into one of his youth campaign parties. Jeongguk gets a new pang of ache in his head even just thinking about the time he attended those. Youth campaigns, in theory, were supposed to be rally events for youth unions involved with Sconya’s top colleges; and people who were part of these youth clubs were usually kids of important people that ended up taking over business conglomerates or becoming judges and politicians. It was every bit as pretentious as it sounded. The parties they held were supposed to be mellow events for mingling in with youth unions from other colleges, but since everyone who was rich knew each other one way or the other, these parties ended up becoming an excuse to see just who would get more drunk and try to get it on in public. The things Jeongguk had seen in his three years of attending those, he had never seen a gathering be as shameless as it had been then.

At his last party he ever attended, he had been mellowing out on the bar as he usually did when he ended up at clubs when someone pretty had sidled up to him and struck a conversation. Jeongguk was intrigued. The dialogue sounded different, Jeongguk knew one of these youth union motherf*ckers never had the capability to sound interesting. He had let himself loose on what he thought was a fun conversation. He laughed, he talked and he eyed him a lot. The drinks kept coming in and both went more loose-lipped as the night went on.

Except Jeongguk woke up the next afternoon in his bed to a slew of phone calls from Seokjin and his mother. He opted to ignore them at first but as he was about to dismiss the notifications, his news tab showed him his own photo with the headline of ‘ Jeon Jeongguk Feels Lonely: Take A Look Into The Royal Heir’s Life Away From Duties’ with a blurry picture of him in the same club he’d been at last night. The rest was history.

He’d vowed to never let his guard down again. He rarely drank anything at parties since that incident five years ago. It was also the headache of the paperwork and bribing news companies to take their features down for six months straight that kept his guard up long enough for it to become instinct. Better for the features to pull up how he’s a stone faced enigma than anything that was ever written within an inch of that horrible article.

He thinks from time to time that the reason it had scared him so much was because a lot of it was whispered drunk confessions. Everyone knew whatever the f*ck you said while on that damn state of mind was as true as you could get.

‘Something on your head, Jeongguk-ssi?’

Jeongguk sighs. He’s told Seokjin to not use honorifics with him approximately eight hundred times. ‘Hyung, how many times?’

They were close enough to warrant him calling Seokjin hyung. They had had this conversation one night six years ago when Seokjin went mad looking for a lost Jeongguk and turned up wet and absolutely haggard at the ramen bar he was hiding at. They’ve been pretty close ever since.

‘We’re still in a professional environment. I don’t want to be caught on my ass calling you anything that’s less than what Your Highness deserves.’

Jeongguk looks at him unamused. He knows Seokjin is making fun of him. He reverts back to his question, ‘Nothing. Just thinking of the event.’

Seokjin hums, it’s not a new answer and Jeongguk mostly keeps his thoughts to himself. But there’s a beat of silence and like a lightbulb, Jeongguk remembers, ‘Hyung, did someone come to ask my number from you?’

Seokjin eyes him, unimpressed. ‘Jeongguk I have about 500 people coming in everyday asking for your number.’

Jeongguk huffs, irritated. ‘No, hyung. This was a boy. About my height. Was wearing these beige and a newsboy cap. Had these weird Gucci slippers on his feet and did not look like he was from around here.’

When he looks up, Seokjin looks like he’s been caught in the middle of a divorce. His eyes are so wide that they’re bursting open and he looks like he’s two seconds away from saying something. Something Jeongguk has noticed about Seokjin over the years is that he gets incredibly scarlet ears if he’s embarrassed, flustered or is hiding something from him. And seeing his manager’s head caught in the middle of daylights, his gaze moves towards his ears and they’re as scarlet as a tomato.

‘Hyung? You there?’ He waves his hand for attention, to no avail. Seokjin looks like he’s been caught in a trance. Jeongguk decides to give him his moment.

After about a minute of this, his attention gets taken away by Seokjin’s very low squeal. ‘What did you say he was wearing again?’

Jeongguk is alarmed. ‘Why? Did he come up to give a number or something?’

He sees Seokjin take a deep breath and compose his demeanor before asking. ‘Just to be sure, Jeongguk, was this...uh boy….wearing a Starry Night pin on his coat?’

Jeongguk’s eyes widen. ‘Yes, he was. Of course he was! So did he leave a number?’

Seokjin’s leg fidgets so hard Jeongguk thinks he’s having an aneurysm. ‘And Jeongguk, why would this boy...um….leave a number for you to contact?’

‘Uh, I….’ He trails off not sure whether he should say this. ‘I- I don’t know whether to say this.’

Seokjin’s eyes narrow. ‘What did you do , Jeongguk?’

‘Why do you have to assume I did something?’ He huffs, it’s a bit like a petulant child arguing for wanting to know why the sky is blue.

Seokjin stays silent. Jeongguk clears his throat. ‘I’m….I agreed to meet with him a couple of times for this story he’s doing for the newspaper company he works at.’

Now Seokjin knows whatever the f*ck went down five years ago at that youth union party. He was there through it all and even held Jeongguk’s breaking seams from falling apart by taking more responsibility on his shoulders than he should have. As soon as he hears this, he physically feels the alarm bells that ring down Seokjin’s entire being and he knows the impending question is about to come before it does, ‘Jeongguk, are- are you sure about this? I-I don’t know, it seems too….similar.’

He doesn’t say anything further. Jeongguk understands. Everyone treats the incident as some sort of trigger around him. Truth is, he got over it a long time ago. He was stupid and he shouldn’t have been drunk around a stranger he just met being one of the most important public figures in the entire country. That responsibility was on him whether he liked it or not.

‘I’m fine, hyung.’ He says, looking Seokjin in the eye so he knows it’s fine. ‘Really. I don’t really plan to put my guard down or anything like that.’

Seokjin eyes him with discomfort. ‘Then why did you ask for the number?’

‘I- uh- um- maybe because,’ This is a difficult admission and he wouldn’t have admitted to anyone else in a thousand mile vicinity. He finds something else to latch his eyes on. ‘M-might have thought the boy was- pretty?’

Seokjin chokes on whatever he’s drinking. The attack is so violent that his entire body falls forward with the sheer force of it. Jeongguk’s survival instincts kick in. He crouches down to the ground where Seokjin’s body is leaning and pats his back harshly for support. He doesn’t know what it does but it’s been tradition since his childhood, whenever someone choked on something, you told them to look upwards and then stroke their back violently and Jeongguk wasn’t going to lie and say it didn’t help. It did. It’s probably why it doesn’t even take a full minute for Seokjin to be back, upright, but hair tousled like he had just gone through a lot in the past 5 minutes.

‘Hyung, you okay?’ He doesn’t even remember what he said before Seokjin coughed up a storm. ‘Is everything fine in your windpipe?’

Seokjin looks like he’s seen a ghost. ‘What did you say? You found him pretty?’

Oh. Right. That.

‘Y-yeah I-I was I,’ He says, with a little self conscious tilt to his head. ‘Was I not supposed to?’

Seokjin doesn’t answer his question. ‘And you want to go on a date with him?’

Jeongguk doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. ‘Is there a problem, hyung? Why all the sudden questions?’

His manager opts to keep quiet. Jeongguk doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t. He honestly didn’t know what the hell he was thinking when he had accepted that journalist’s proposal on a whim. Jeongguk had known he was a pap hungry for his stories ever since he had first set eyes on him and his squirrel-like partner back at the funeral. Ever since his encounter with that first one five years ago, his eyes had trained to let his mind know who was scouting for stories and who was not. It wasn’t unusual, every once in a while journalists would gain some access to parties and events and try to mingle with the guests. Jeongguk had never yet failed to pick one out from the crowd no matter how much of an extrovert the person was. He used to steer himself in the other direction whenever he saw one walking towards him.

Kim Taehyung was so f*cking terrible at his job it was hilarious. And if he’s being completely honest with himself, it was also definitely a little bit annoying how he kept turning up at places he’s sure were kept mega-private within his security. But one good look at him at the funeral had had Jeongguk thinking about him for days. One good look and he knew he had just witnessed the presence of who was, objectively, the prettiest man to ever exist.

But it had been a few days after that and Jeongguk was positive that his mind had been playing tricks on him. Kim Taehyung and the conversation he’d had with him had been so irksome that the whiplash from the appearance and the personality attached to it was massive. He had damn near convinced himself that he was exaggerating it, that there was no way Taehyung had been as pretty as his mind remembered him to be.

But then there he was, spying on him like his life depended on it that fine night he had been at that restaurant. And yes, it had been every bit as annoying because he wasn’t having the best of days. Exchanging dialogue, snarky dialogue at that, had not been on his plate as the first thing he had wanted to do when he stepped out to catch a break. And he was definitely about to do something intensive then, like sue him and his partner, or let the security escort him out when he took a good look and Kim Taehyung was definitely prettier than he remembered.

He wasn’t really thinking when he accepted the proposal. Kim Taehyung’s face was every bit as distracting as the movement of his lips was. He didn’t realise he wouldn’t mind being annoyed by this man’s company for a few hours if that meant he could stare at his lips some more. It was definitely the suppressed hormonal urges speaking for him, to be very honest.

To be fair on himself, he had promised internally that he was going to be every bit as infuriating as he could be. He had no intention to let slip any intel Taehyung needed, just some harmless info, annoyed company and a pretty boy. That was it.

Seokjin was just staring at him. ‘Hyung? I promise it’s just harmless fun.’

From the front of the car, the driver announces that they’re in the establishment. Jeongguk takes off his seatbelt as preparation. He’s still looking at Seokjin who’s gazing at the villa fast approaching through the windows. He cannot, for the life of him, pinpoint exactly why his rendezvous ideas with Taehyung have gotten him so shaken up. He’s about to say something else when Seokjin speaks up,

‘I’m going to kill him.’

Jeongguk’s eyes widen. ‘No hyung, what are you talking about?’ He says, looking a little alarmed. ‘I agreed to it. He asked me-’

‘Jeongguk.’ Seokjin looks at him tiredly. ‘He’s my brother.’

Jeongguk stares at him wordlessly for the entire two minutes it takes for the car to reach the villa door.

*****

Hoseok flat out refuses to attend Taehyung’s ‘dates’ with Jeon Jeongguk.

‘But,’ He says, almost pouting. ‘But he won’t be obnoxious this time round? The entire reason he’s doing this is so that he can talk.’

‘You mean the entire reason we are doing this is so that he talks. And even that, we have to pray for. What if he just decides to be a sh*thead?’ Hoseok doesn’t even look up from his computer, typing away. The clacking of his keyboard makes Taehyung even more anxious.

‘No.’ He says, assuring himself more than Hoseok. ‘No he wouldn’t.’

He sees Hoseok grinning, ‘You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.’

‘Okay.’ He snaps back, huffs and settles down in the seat in front of Hoseok’s work desk. ‘Okay. I’ve had enough. I know what you’re trying to do.’

Hoseok doesn’t even bother giving a reaction this time. ‘What am I trying to do?’

‘You’re doing that thing.’ He waves his arms around, trying vaguely to make it look like he is making a point. ‘That thing. Where you act like you know more than you do.’

At this, Hoseok looks up. ‘Taehyung, you know, right? That in this situation, a 10 year old kid would know better than you, not just me.’

Taehyung lowers his head. He knows it’s sort of stupid trusting Jeon Jeongguk in a situation like that, especially since he wasn’t even aware why he decided to do whatever the f*ck he did. In no universe had he accepted the possibility of him accepting whatever Taehyung’s brain had conjured up in the mini panic mode his body had gone into after that disaster of a happening.

But right now, he’s a little ashamed to say that the absurdity of the entire situation isn’t what’s bothering him. In the slightest. His stomach sits a little lighter on his legs and his mind is floating in this absurd reality somewhere stuck on the precipice of last night where Jeongguk had called their impending encounters a ‘date’.

He shudders. It’s not funny. Whatever made him think it was hilarious was beyond him. Because it’s not funny. It’s not, right?

It’s more scary than it is funny, if he’s being honest.

But in the midst of all these legitimate emotions, there’s this very small, very tiny part of him that jumps at the thought of these encounters. This jump isn’t because he’s scared or cautious about it, no. He’s in the state of mind where Jeon Jeongguk had just absolutely snatched the coherency out of his mouth when he had claimed his personal space. It’s not like he had been thinking about it constantly. No. And it wasn’t like that he knew deep down that his heart was jumping because he had definitely thought about them in a date-like predicament. It’s not.

He almost slaps himself in punishment for allowing a thought like that to occur.

‘Did he even leave you a number to contact?’ He’s grateful for Hoseok stealing him out of his thoughts. He didn’t want to stay there anyway, in the warm embrace of thoughts that included him staying near Jeon Jeongguk’s presence-

‘Ah, about that,’ He snaps himself out of it. ‘I’d have to ask Seokjin. He said to leave my number with the manager but I just figured I could call him. He was insanely busy then.’

‘That’s one more thing,’ Hoseok now leaves his desktop completely and leans a little to look at Taehyung. ‘Who is this insanely gorgeous guy and why does he come rescue you everytime you make a mess? Which is all the goddamn time, by the way?’

Taehyung makes a face at the last insertion to the sentence. ‘You didn’t need to add that last part.’

Hoseok looks unimpressed. Taehyung continues after a long sigh, ‘He’s my brother.’

He sees Hoseok nearly jump from his seat at the revelation, his hands clasped to his chest. He looks like an overdramatic suburban mom. ‘He’s you WHAT?’

‘Brother. Family. Kin. Blood. Relation.’ Taehyung deadpans.

‘How did you get such a gorgeous and important brother while you’re out here doing dumb sh*t to advance in your career?’

Taehyung’s eyes tell all the stories of the fire that rises up in him, ‘Hey! There’s a line and you’re crossing it!’

Hoseok waves him away with a hand, ‘Yeah yeah. Get out of my office.’

In response, Taehyung stands up dramatically and leaves, making sure to stomp his feet extra loud. It reminds him of when he used to do this with his Dad just to show a reaction. Granted, he was only ten years old at that time. He thinks he hears Hoseok chuckling in amusem*nt but he pretends not to.

Back on his desk, he has another, far more important task to get to. It’s only 12 pm the next day but he knows that it’s to be done as soon as possible. Even though he’s been pretty prompt at replies lately, sometimes Seokjin isn’t the most responsive person in the world. And he wants these meetings with Jeon Jeongguk out of his sight and out of his damn mind as soon as possible.

Meetings. That’s right. That’s what they are.

He sees Seokjin as the first name in his recent contacts. It’s very on brand for him, he doesn’t have many friends apart from people he sees everyday and his family. You would hardly find Taehyung talking to someone on the phone willingly.

He settles down and stretches his legs as the rings go through. His toes have been cramped inside from the stress that’s been causing him to clench them unnecessarily. He breathes a sigh of relief as the blood flow falls back to his feet again.

Seokjin picks up right when he’s in the middle of a particularly delightful moan at the stretch of his muscles. ‘Hi- Jesus f*cking Christ Taehyung.’

Taehyung giggles, ‘Sorry hyung. Too tense. Was stretching. Anyway I wanted to-’

‘Taehyung I want to know what goes on in that brain of yours that’s telling you to fraternise with Jeon Jeongguk of all people.’

He physically gets caught in mid air with one of his legs bent till the toes touch the outer edge of the table in front of him. He looks like he’s trying to do a ballet dance on his work desk. ‘S-so you know.’

‘Of course I f*cking know Taehyung. I work with the man 365 days of the year. What are you even thinking?’ Taehyung can definitely recognise Seokjin’s calm parent scolding child voice and the no bullsh*t voice and this is definitely the latter.

‘I wasn’t getting any juicy info about him by appearing in his face wherever he went. And he doesn’t seem enthusiastic about me crashing his high-end events either. This seemed like the best possible option. At least he’s willing to talk to me.’ He says quietly, wanting this conversation done and over with. It’s not like he was dying to meet Jeon Jeongguk either.

‘Tae,’ He hears his brother exhale heavily. ‘Jeon might seem like an approachable person to you but trust me, one wrong move will all it will take for them to destroy your life. I’ve seen them do it with countless people. You’re a journalist looking for a story to publish. They will see one wrong thing about them in the press and they will know exactly who is behind it in an instant.’

He knows it makes sense. He does. But he’s not doing it because he’s getting any personal satisfaction from it. Taehyung wants to get done with this even more so now because everyone he has come into contact with has told him how impossible it is. There hasn’t been a single time in his entire career that he’s had to step back from anything that concerns his career. There’s a reason he’s so confident to ask for that promotion. ‘Hyung, he’s not approachable. And I’m definitely not doing this because I’m expecting him to be.’

He knows he’s deflecting the topic by talking about something else entirely.

‘Really? That’s all you got from whatever I said?’

Taehyung tries to smile. ‘C’mon, hyung. It’ll be fine. Really. I’ll take care of myself.’

Seokjin hangs up that instant. Taehyung’s left staring at his phone screen.

In the sole two minute silence that follows after, Taehyung tries to think of what to do to make it up to his brother. He understands Seokjin’s pissed for his sake but he personally thinks he can handle it. It’s not like Seokjin’s experience of the royal family screwing up people in the press has been specifically from the brand that sneak up on them and write unresearched, untrue crap that has no basis. This was a two-way thing, he will make sure of it. Nothing that Jeongguk doesn’t like would go in it.

At least that’s what he hopes so.

He’s in thoughts of calling Seokjin again and promising to massage his shoulders for an hour when he hears his messenger ringtone. His eyes dart over to the lit-up screen and it’s from his brother. He snatches his phone with a swift quickness; the message opens up to reveal 6 digits and a singular line of text that reads: Jeongguk’s contact. Make sure to not post it along with the article.

He does a small internal cheer.

****

Jeongguk isn’t even going to lie, he did feel guilty about bringing Kim Taehyung into this predicament when he wasn’t even aware what he was getting out of it. There was a clear imbalance in perception and while that had definitely been Jeongguk’s first intention with all of this, make him think that you’re going to answer his little reporter questions, flirt a little in the process and get out of it within a week.

Kim Taehyung being Seokjin’s brother changed a lot of things.

First of all, he felt guilty as ever tricking his brother in broad daylight. He’s positive that Seokjin might have definitely not let this course of action slip, since he knew how important it was for Jeongguk to keep whatever he can private.

He’s in these thoughts when the bell to the cafe’s door rings once again announcing someone’s entrance. Jeongguk’s eyes slip to the door instantly. It’s not visible like it is from the front of the place where the standard seating area is, but Jeongguk’s limitations don’t allow him to do much outside of the VIP area on the first floor. He can see the door quite alright though, since he knows at first glance that the person that enters is Kim Taehyung dressed in his beret and a long coat. He looks like he could be Sherlock.

‘Hey Sherlock,’ is exactly what he says as soon as Taehyung finds his way to the upper floor through the waitress’s assistance.

He sees Taehyung’s face turn red as he splutters forward a response, ‘Sh-shut up.’

It’s almost as soon as Jeongguk sees his body hit the chair that Taehyung’s just taking out a notepad, a pen and some paperweights from one of the two million pockets on his coat. Jeongguk watches him, amused, as he takes a moment, sets the things on the table so that they’re all aligned neatly to the left of his plate and looks up at him, ‘We need to establish ground rules.’

Jeongguk chuckles. ‘Are we in middle school?’

Taehyung remains unfazed, ‘No. I just can’t trust you.’

Jeongguk’s eyes widen in mirth, ‘You can’t trust me ? Don’t you think that should’ve come out of my mouth instead? There’s only one of us at the table who’s capable of turning the entire country’s press on me?’

Taehyung folds his arms across his chest with a firmness, ‘Yes. But I’m also not the one who owns half of Sconya. Which, I’m pretty sure, also involves the power to take me out of the equation.’

Jeongguk resists the urge to laugh out loud, ‘You think I’m going to get you killed?’

Taehyung looks like he’s caught off-guard by his outright admission of the word. ‘N-no? I mean,’ He looks hesitant as he wrings his hands together. ‘You can’t blame me for being cautious.’

It’s a fair assumption. Jeongguk definitely thinks they have one or two underground corporations they deal with which he’s never really gotten to the details of, but they’re definitely the kind of people Taehyung’s insinuating. He eyes him carefully, ‘Alright. Is that our first rule? That I have to promise to not get you killed?’

Taehyung clicks his pen. ‘Not really. This is an exchange. I’ll promise you that I won’t include any information in the article that you don’t want and you have to promise me that you have to give me something to work with.’

Jeongguk sees him poise his pen on paper like he’s about to write something down, ‘So I can get you killed then?’

‘Jesus f*cking Christ,’ Taehyung says and then rolls his eyes. ‘Why d’you keep bringing that up?’

Jeongguk takes the opportunity to wink at him, ‘Nothing special. Just wanted to see a reaction.’

Taehyung goes back to his pen and paper, this time writing down something Jeongguk can’t read from his place across from him, ‘So, Jeongguk-ssi, how does it feel like being back here?’

It was public knowledge that Jeongguk had been out of sight, out of mind for at least six months now. The public had seen the last of him getting on board their family’s plane with a row of entourage on New Year’s. The whys and wheres of his destination were kept mostly within family but he wouldn’t be surprised if Taehyung here knew where he’d been. News channels were very notorious for bribing information out of airplane staff.

‘I mean,’ He says, relaxing back in his seat. ‘It’s only been six months. It’s not like I’m back after a decade or something. I feel the same every time I jump off a plane and land somewhere else.’

He sees Taehyung suppress a groan. He waits for the next question but it never comes, instead what hits his ears is a mumble of words and he knows he definitely hears the words ‘rich’ and ‘pretentious’ and ‘asshole’. He frowns at him. ‘Let’s set some ground rules from my side too, Taehyung-ssi.’

Taehyung looks caught off-guard at this, ‘Why do you need ground rules?’

Jeongguk narrows his eyes, ‘I thought you said this was an exchange?’

Taehyung sighs. ‘Okay. What d’you want?’

Jeongguk takes one look at his hands holding the pen over the paper. He sees some flowers doodled on the corner of the page and it’s nostalgic in a way that it reminds him of his own schooldays. It’s been years since he picked up a pen for anything other than signing stuff. The sight is endearing. But what catches his attention even further is the hands holding the pen and how the fingers curl so delicately around the thinness of the stationery. The nails are long and well-kept and Jeongguk is sure he sees something of a shine when he moves his eyes a little towards the light. The way the hands fidget with the pen is a sight for the books and Jeongguk gets reminded of nail-polish advertisem*nts, how the hands caress surfaces in most of them and how it’s supposed to be exaggeratedly sensual. He doesn’t know how this man’s hands do that without the fancy editing and acting, in a completely normal, every day setting.

‘I want,’ He says, not removing his eyes off the hands that hesitate as soon as he says the first word. ‘I want two things.’

‘First, as you said, everything is an exchange. Since you want information off me, it’s only fair I ask the same from you as well. So, for every question you ask me, I get to ask one from you.’

Taehyung gapes at him. He opens his mouth to say something but Jeongguk is faster, raising a hand to shut him up. ‘Let me finish. Second, you say everything in front of me loud and clear. Even things you don’t want me to hear. I don’t want to hear mumbling and spend the rest of the date wondering what it was that you said.’

Taehyung’s response is instantaneous, ‘It’s not a date.’

Jeongguk’s lips curl up in an amused smile, ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Yes!’ He says, the pen dropping from his grip to clatter on the table beside the fork. ‘What makes you think this is one?’

‘What makes you think it isn’t?’

Taehyung sputters. ‘We’re….you’ve….this is a business discussion! I’m asking you questions for my article and you’re answering! I don’t even know anything about you.’

‘Hmm...sounds an awful lot like a first date.’

He sees Taehyung clench his teeth. ‘I’m asking you stuff. About you and your family. For my article. At work. We aren’t even having anything to eat, for f*ck’s sake.’

‘Oh,’ He says, looking around and realising they’d forgotten to order. ‘Let me change that.’

He hears Taehyung groan in frustration as he calls the waitress over. It takes Taehyung three and a half minutes to place an order with an undertone of discomfort. Jeongguk is pleased.

‘So is it a date now?’ He says as soon as the waitress scuffles away with their orders memorised.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. ‘Just answer my f*cking questions.’

*****

Taehyung and Jeongguk exchange numbers by the end of their first meeting. Taehyung thinks it’s a disaster. Jeongguk is, on the other hand, preening about how it went. It pisses Taehyung off.

When he gets home that night, Jimin is already in the room, most likely exhausted from a tough day at work. Taehyung makes a straight dive for the kitchen to find something to eat. Turns out giving assurance to people in authority about how you’re busting your ass from them tends to make you an awful lot like a hungry beast.

He’s settling on some fruit when his phone pings. Thinking it’s Jooheon asking some bullcrap about what his schedule looks like for the rest of the week again, Taehyung raises his phone to his eye to get the response done with as soon as possible.

What he finds at the top of the notif bar is <Number Blocked>. Intrigued, he opens the message to be greeted with an obnoxious ‘ So when do you think our next date will be?’

Oh, for f*ck’s sake.

His fingers are moving before his brain can catch up.

It wasn’t a date.

Jeongguk’s reply is so swift it scares him.

You’re still going on about that?

It’s only a date when both parties accept it as one. I refuse.

You’re hurting my heart.

Ffs, Jeongguk just go and do something with your time instead of bothering me.

Just wanted to know the time for our next rendezvous so I can clear my schedule :((

Taehyung wants to squeeze his hands around his neck until he passes out. Rendezvous was even worse than the date.

Saturday. Morning. Before 12 pm.

Aww, is there any place you have in mind? I’d like to go all out for this one.

It’s not a f*cking date, Jeongguk.

Was the cheesecake today not good enough?

????? What the hell does the cheesecake have to do with you being obnoxious?

Should I do better? Tell me what I can do to make it better, Taehyung.

You can start by leaving me alone.

Never.

Something in Taehyung’s heart thuds painfully at that. It’s all the indication he needs to stop replying to this pain in the ass. He’s turning towards his fruit again when the door to the bedroom creaks open and a very crumpled and tired Jimin comes out, most probably just having woken up. He smiles in greeting when Jimin enters the kitchen, who croaks out a ‘Hi’ when he passes him.

He's just settling down at the coffee table with his bowl when Jimin’s voice comes out again, clearer than before, ‘So how was the date with Jeon Jeongguk?’

Taehyung is answering before Jimin can even finish, ‘It wasn’t a date!’

Jimin stares at him. ‘Okay well. Damn. You don’t need to be so aggressive about that.’

He averts his gaze and rubs his temples up and down, sighing. ‘Sorry, it’s just….he’s such a pain in the ass.

‘Hmm…’ Jimin nods and comes to sit beside him. ‘Is it something you want to talk about?’

He thinks over the entire interaction again, how from the perspective of what he came to do, he doesn’t think he’s ever had such an unfruitful discussion in his life. Jeongguk seemed well-bent on answering questions with a vague overview to it or kept asking him questions that just started arguments upon arguments. It was exhausting to keep up that kind of dialogue with someone and he just didn’t want to be the one who didn’t have an upper hand by losing every single one of them.

So he argued to his heart’s content.

But somehow, when he mulls it over in his head to find the words to tell Jimin, it all sounds so childishly petty. Like he’s complaining about a rival in elementary school.

He sighs again, ‘No, it’s nothing. Let me just finish this and we’ll go back to bed, okay?’

Jimin nods against the armrest of the couch, the room falling into the lull of silence again.

*****

Taehyung turns up at the breakfast place on Saturday exactly an hour before he is supposed to.

He remembers waking up to a text from Jeongguk that had an obnoxious wink face attached to it. He groaned so loud that Jimin started stirring in his sleep beside him so he took his cue to leave and spent an entire half an hour on his couch groaning some more before turning back to his phone.

The thing with Taehyung’s notification bars was that they only showed him the most recent texts that he received. Jimin had told him multiple times that he had to tweak something in the settings for it to show all of them but he had always been too lazy about it. It had come to bite him in the ass a lot of the time because he had to keep his read receipts on for work and if he opened Jeongguk’s message and God forbid he found out that Taehyung had read his message exactly 30 seconds after he sent it, it would just spiral into another completely unnecessary thread of texts from him that he didn’t want to deal with at this point of the morning.

God, when the f*ck will all of this be over?

He decides to open the messages for a split second and turn off his data instantly so that he isn’t connected and the receipts don’t go through until he connects back again. What he found out in that split second is Jeongguk’s message above the obnoxious wink face was an attachment, a picture, and within the blurred, undownloaded version of it, he can make out glimpses of red.

There was a moment of hesitation and then a moment of weakness when Taehyung was connecting back to data again and downloading the godforsaken media. It’s when the picture is loaded and open on his phone that he remembers his breath being caught in his throat.

Because there Jeongguk is, on his phone, half naked.

He’s wearing a red baseball cap which explains the strong presence of the hue in the blurred version but Taehyung’s eyes move down to his chest with a quickness. The white T-shirt he sports is almost a muscle tee with how firmly it clings to his chest and sticks right to the ridges of his chest. Taehyung gulps with just how his entire being is just feeling hot all of a sudden, his stomach feeling like it’s being put on high heat to melt slowly over a stove. It takes him an entire minute to reorganise his thoughts and focus on real life to find that, oh God, the T-shirt is clingy because he’s wet. He’s f*cking wet, his hair sticks out in strands separately as if he just ran his hand over it after coming out of a shower or a f*cking swimming pool or whatever the f*ck he’d been doing to look like he was shooting a shampoo commercial.

He averted his eyes from the photo like he was burned by the pixels and tried to keep his heart steady for the rest of the two hours it took him to get ready, hop on a train and get here.

He’s since been trying to convince himself that the reaction was an immediate, involuntary scientific process. He is a man with eyes and a good aesthetic sense, if he may say so himself. It’s only the most natural thing in the world to see something that’s objectively, impartially attractive ONLY in the most unbiased, artistic sense and then have an innate response to it. The stomach flutters, the heat in his gut and the way his hands keep shaking. Probably oxytocin or serotonin or whatever the f*ck it was.

Wait, wasn’t oxytocin the love one?

He groaned into his hands for the fiftieth time in the past two hours.

‘Aw, what’s the trouble?’ He hears the voice come in like a disgrace, he physically sees the place getting smoked with the sheer audacity of this man.

‘You!’ He says, pointing an accusing finger at the man. ‘I should f*cking sue you!’

Jeongguk smiles and settles down in the chair in front of him. It scrapes on the wooden floor which would normally cause Taehyung to wince but his emotions reach at least 46 floors of tall, grappling fury right now. ‘For what?’

Is he for f*cking real?

‘For cyber harassment!’ His hand slams down on the table so loud that it rattles the entire floor. ‘For sending me indecent photos! Are you going to pretend you don’t know what you sent?’

Jeongguk isn’t fazed by his outburst. Instead, he remains so calm it causes Taehyung’s insides to flare up again. ‘So you found them indecent?’

He’s not impressed. ‘Don’t act like you didn’t send it with that exact intention.’

‘Hmm...well not really.’ He leans on the table, keeping both hands under his chin. He’s sporting a heartbreakingly gorgeous smile on his face and it’s all Taehyung can do not to squeal into his hands. Completely out of frustration, not because of anything else. ‘I can see it’s doing what I wanted to, though.’

Taehyung stares at him for a minute. He’s almost afraid to ask the next question, hesitating for a moment and then saying a metaphorical ‘f*ck it’ to his inhibitions. ‘And what was it supposed to do?’ There’s a breathless lilt to his voice that he absolutely loathes because it does the comprehensive job of showcasing just how weak he is.

Jeongguk takes his sweet time to answer, moving his fingers around on the table, like he’s doodling something. It takes everything in Taehyung to keep his eyes trained on him and not on the fingers caressing the wood. ‘Hmmm….I think you already know, Taehyung-ssi.’

Their silence is broken only by the waitress coming by to ask for their orders. Taehyung makes sure he doesn’t meet eyes with Jeongguk in the entire meeting.

****

When he settles down for breakfast at his kitchen counter on Thursday morning, five days after his last meeting with Jeongguk, there’s a message from Jooheon waiting in his text, email and public Instagram. All of them contain the same content, a singular link to some news article and the cold invite of a meeting before the main conference in Jooheon’s office. Taehyung sighs, folds his legs and taps on the link.

As soon as the webpage opens, the headline that greets him has his blood running cold.

“Our sources report that the Jeon inheritance matter is underway sooner than it was told to us. Matters of preparation are definitely in process. Just yesterday, Jeon Junghee, the niece of the previous monarch, Jeon Jeongho, who passed just less than a month ago was reported to have made multiple visits to Switzerland where the Jeon family treasure is rumored to be safekept.

So far, there has been very little information that the Jeon family’s PR agent has been volunteering to give to the press. Sources say that the inheritance might be more than just a trivial transfer of the crown, and that the country should expect nothing less than a metaphorical (and maybe literal?) bloodbath. General consensus by our sources suggests that there is tension between the eldest grandson of Jeon Jeongho, Jeon Jeongguk, and the eldest nephew, Jeon Jang-won. For followers of the royal family’s drama, the two seem to be the ones with the most formidable tension between them in public.

The Jeon family’s inheritance has been a longstanding impending problem in the history of the royals in court. Read more on our comprehensive article from 2016, featuring a detailed rundown of the………”

His eyes stop reading and go instantly to the publication’s name at the top of the page. A harrowing red greets him with the big bold letters reading Sconya Express. The sink in his stomach reminds him of the feeling he’d had when he had witnessed the red in Jeongguk’s picture but the swooping then had been for a totally different reason.

Sconya Express and The Sconya Times were two publications that had existed in their country since the start of time, which was even before Taehyung was born. Both publications had also always been involved in a healthy market competition from each other, or that’s what people believed about their rivalry anyway. Taehyung, as an employee that had to work long hours high pressure to be able to write articles at the speed of light just so that they could beat Sconya Express’s time of publishing by 1 minute had more of an idea just how vicious this healthy market competition was. Everyone who was involved with any business of both publications knew that before their own company values, you had to conform to a state of unabashed rivalry with the ‘other’. It was socially conditioned into all of their brains to turn their noses up at each other both metaphorically and in-person when they came across each other at events.

So seeing Sconya Express publish something he had been out on the field for quite a while was, to say, frankly alarming. He needed to speed up. And also inevitably get his ass handed to him when he would walk into the office today.

As soon as he enters through the door of their department, there’s someone at his cubicle ready to tell him to join the meeting room. The impending doom that descends on his shoulders on a Thursday morning when he’s called into Jooheon’s office for ‘updates’ is very much burdening both his heart and his mental state.

‘Hello Taehyung.’ Jooheon is looking at him from above his coffee cup. ‘I trust you read the article I sent you this morning?’

Taehyung resists a huff and settles down softly on a chair in front of his desk. ‘Yeah I did.’

Jooheon is eyeing him like a vulture. ‘And d’you have something to say about it?’

‘Uhhhh…..take a shot every time the article said ‘sources’, because there was a whole damn lot-’

‘Taehyung.’ His name rains down on him like thunder. ‘I’m not joking around here.’

He sobers up indefinitely. ‘I’m working on it.’

‘It’s going to be a month now. We still haven’t had anything that’s concrete or that we can publish.’

Taehyung sighs. Jooheon doesn’t even blink when he stares at him for a response. ‘It’s not that easy to get information from Jeon Jeongguk. He’s keeping things zipped up very tightly.’

There’s a light slam on the table and Taehyung catches Jooheon’s hand retract up from the rebound. ‘You saw that article? Where are they getting that info from?’

It makes him angrier than he’d initially thought it would be. It’s never a good thing to get fired up in your boss’s office even if it makes you want to tear your hair off. ‘How should I know? Maybe he’s trailing that other person, or he has actual contacts inside? Why am I being the only one questioned? Don’t you have other people trailing the Jeons?’

‘That’s not your business, Taehyung.’ Jooheon tells him flatly. ‘Your business is bringing the damn info that was asked of you. How is there not one usable fact in anything you’ve reported up till now?’

He doesn’t say that Jeongguk spends more than half of the meeting getting under his f*cking nerves but that’s a conversation for another day.

‘Because maybe I’m not the damn person for the job?’ He makes sure to roll his eyes this time, it’s only fair that Jooheon gets to see his frustration. ‘I’m a writer! You took me out of my expertise and put me in this! What did you guys expect? That I’ll become a pro pap overnight?’

‘There’s no such thing as a pro pap, Taehyung.’ Jooheon is now frustrated too, his words are becoming more stressed and intonated. ‘Everyone gets into this against their will. You have to learn quickly. What will you do in the future if you’re failing to report on this legitimately?’

Something in his words doesn’t sound right to him. ‘What d’you mean?’ His voice is dangerously low. ‘What d’you mean by that? Everyone gets into it against their will? What future? Do you plan to put me into it too?’

Jooheon looks like he’s been caught in headlights, ‘No. When did I say that? You’re taking this the wrong way.’

Taehyung’s voice is criminally threatening when he says, ‘Why did you say it like that then? Like this is my first venture and I’ll be getting more of these later.’

If there’s one thing Taehyung has learnt in all his years of being an employee here at this company, it was that Jooheon was absolutely terrible at not letting something slip. ‘Is this for real? Are you putting me on that permanently?’

Jooheon’s silence is deafening.

He gets up in a daze and makes to get out of the office before he can do something crazy like flip Jooheon’s desk over in a fit of anger. He’s about to stumble out of his office when Jooheon’s voice comes like another blow to his chest, ‘Taehyung, I called you in to tell you that the Director said he’s going to personally see to your dismissal if he doesn’t get reportable info on the inheritance issue by Monday.’

Taehyung’s out of the door just as he completes his sentence, without throwing him a second glance.

*****

It's almost afternoon when he finds himself at the nearest available space with alcohol, copious amounts of alcohol actually. The amount of recovery he needed before he could walk into his office and talk calmly instead of punching someone in the face could range from two days to two months and as far as his experience went, the only thing that could increase that pace towards being a calmly controlled human being was alcohol. It's also coincidentally the only thing that worked.

The Sconya Times office was located in the business district of the city. By way of other big metropolitan cities, Sconya’s business district had consequently made the part of the city in which it was located to one of the most affluent towns. It wasn’t hard to see conglomerates and their presidents roaming about for good spots to hold their meetings and transactions and the same at night, albeit in the darkness, people usually had different intentions. The point was, the bars and cafes in a walking distance from Taehyung’s office were all of the rich and high-end kind and on a normal day, he wouldn’t be caught dead in any of these because of one simple fact, he just couldn’t afford it.

However, as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, though in Taehyung’s case, the desperate was more of dazed and to the point of f*cking tearing off anyone’s eyeballs in that abomination of a place in which he worked. Finding himself in the nearest bar was a rarity and it also wasn’t one that even in the middle of daylight, the bar wasn’t really empty. It was bustling with activity and color and Taehyung wanted to drown himself in the bottle of alcohol he was currently sporting. The people were too loud and his head was this close to giving up.

What is stranger is that in that very second when Taehyung is at his lowest, fate thinks it might be a good idea to send something for his recovery. Something that definitely isn’t another bottle of alcohol but a hunk of a human being who had recognised Taehyung’s Starry Night pin from far away and had no qualms about making his way downstairs to get on with his intentions.

‘Hey sweetheart.’ Jeongguk’s voice is booming in his head even though Taehyung can bet his life he had said it in that low, sultry way that had Taehyung’s head spinning. Not today, though. Today, his head is a muzzle of other matters, ones he is far too deep in to care about this newfound obsession of his. He doesn’t even take a moment to marvel over the surprise of Jeongguk being here, just accepts it, takes it in stride and gives him a nod.

Taehyung can’t figure out the expression on Jeongguk’s face in his inebriated state but his own reaction is one that causes Jeongguk to take a stool and sit down beside him. Even now, Taehyung can tell he’s close enough that he can make out the smell of Jeongguk’s cologne.

‘I-Is there something wrong?’ Jeongguk speaks and Taehyung is a little shocked now, his voice sounds softer and lighter than he’s ever heard him speak before.

He looks at him and Jeongguk has this look on his face he can’t decipher, like he’s almost concerned for him, a little worried. Jeongguk has light creases on his forehead due to the strain of the expression on his face. Taehyung doesn’t even have the energy to lie to himself and convince his mind that he’s playing tricks, he acknowledges it as at least a little bit endearing. But he keeps those thoughts to himself.

‘What are you doing here? Can’t people see you?’ He says, looking around. The bar’s noise seems to be coming from the first floor mostly, the floor he sits at is at least half empty but there are people going around nonetheless.

‘Yeah, it’s been a running problem actually. Letting strays into the bar. The place is actually reserved for something else. I just came down to see what the problem was.’ He says, waving to the bartender cleaning a tumbler with some sort of glass polish. ‘And found you.’

Taehyung sighs. ‘If you’re here to make fun of me in any way or form, I suggest you leave. I’m not in the mood for it today.’

Jeongguk frowns a little. ‘And I can see that. What, you think my life mission is to annoy you till death? I’m just here to provide you company, strictly speaking.’

Taehyung sighs harder. ‘Usually, it’s common courtesy to ask someone who very much obviously looks under a great amount of grief whether they want company. But what else should I expect from Jeon Jeongguk?’

Jeongguk keeps a hand under his chin like he’s thinking hard. ‘Well, you told me not to annoy you so I’ll spare you my very well-thought and witty answer to that question.’

Taehyung feels a ghost of a smile on his lips, ‘Well appreciated.’

Their conversation falls silent for the next few minutes as Taehyung tries to think how it would be possible to bury himself within the dregs of his half finished drink at the bottom of his glass. The bartender comes by to hand Jeongguk a glass of whatever he had ordered with a tray of lemon and salt. The environment around them slowly falls away in a blur as Taehyung wills himself to focus on the clink of their glasses whenever both of them raise their respective ones to take a sip.

He always knew it would come to this, in the back of his mind, it was always a possibility that they wouldn’t consider this one assignment as some sort of grand pinnacle of achievement and instantly give him the position he asked. It was always plausible. What was causing this ache in his chest was that two years was a lot of time to spend on anything, let alone a career. He had always been confident of the fact that he was the best damn writer on their payroll right now. He knows he should’ve taken the first hint when Jooheon talked in circles over a year ago when he had asked for that position change. And if not then, perhaps the blatant exhaustion from getting every task and the underlying expectations within it always being that maybe they would consider his request this time should’ve been his last straw. Taehyung was by no means naive, but he was a damn fool for this is all he could say.

‘D-d’you want to talk about it?’ Jeongguk’s voice fades into his thoughts. He sighs and turns his head towards him.

‘Do I want to hear a royal heir listen to me rant about my career problems? Not really.’

Jeongguk furrows his brows. ‘I’m being nice to you. You don’t have to bring that fact in every conversation.’

All the tension-filled tight knots in Taehyung’s stomach start snapping, he’s well aware he’s entering into the anger stage of his grief. ‘Well, you are a royal heir, aren’t you? And also partly the reason why I’m in this situation at all! Why can’t you all just keep your f*cking lives private and let the rest of us live our lives in peace!’ His voice becomes progressively louder as the monologue continues and he’s aware he’s almost yelling by the end of it. He sees the people on their floor all try to sneak glances in their direction, wondering what the commotion was about.

He sees Jeongguk being stunned into silence for a second and then harden his features the next. He takes a deep breath before speaking in a surprisingly calm voice, ‘Taehyung, you need to calm down.’

‘Why the f*ck should I calm down? Is it not enough that you guys already rule over the entire f*cking city, have your hands in all of the businesses and probably have million dollar treasures hiding in your secret Swiss bank accounts? Why the f*ck should my career depend on tailing you around? Why the f*ck should it matter who your f*cking inheritance goes to? Why should it affect my f*cking life like this?’ He’s panting and yelling and crying all in one and it’s at least a little embarrassing judging by how many people are watching him break down live in front of their eyes but it’s not like he can stop now. ‘Why can’t YOU just be f*cking compliant and answer my damn questions?’

It’s hardly a moment after his monologue that he feels his forearm being held in a grip tightly and the jingling of the bell as the door opens and he’s almost dragged out on the street. The daylight outside is bright and heavy on his eyelids and it immediately sobers him up from the dark interior of the bar that had him wanting to drown in his misery. The dragging doesn’t stop until Jeongguk is bringing him to a parking alley right behind the bar, he sees an Audi parked in the distance and discerns it might be Jeongguk’s. He feels his arm being left loose as soon as the car is within touching distance.

‘Are you in your right f*cking mind?’ Jeongguk looks crazy, hair flying out and eyes wild. ‘How can you just spill all of that in a public place?’

‘As if no one in there knew you were royal.’ He says, a little shaken up. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Yes everyone in there knows me,’ Jeongguk’s hands are now flying about. ‘Which is why they wouldn’t be able to f*cking explain why I was in cahoots with a f*cking journalist.’

Taehyung gets caught in mid-air, literally. He hadn’t thought about that. At all.

‘Oh. I-I, I’m sorr-I mean I didn’t really consid-’

‘Of course you f*cking didn’t. Do you really even think before you do something?’ Jeongguk rounds on him. Taehyung very admittedly does not feel very nice about that.

‘Hey! I’m trying to f*cking apologize. It’s an honest mistake, alright?’ He crosses his arms trying to intimidate him. It works about as much as it does when a 4 year old tries to do it. Jeongguk rolls his eyes.

‘It’s also not one of my best days.’ Taehyung’s voice lowers and he sees the crinkles on his forehead soften a little. ‘I’m sorry.’

Jeongguk doesn’t say anything though he definitely looks like he was on the verge. He doesn’t really respond well to showing obvious emotion.

‘I-I’m- I have to get going.’ Taehyung says, after an awkward three minutes of fumbling around after none of them say anything. ‘I’ll see you around-’

‘Wait!’ Jeongguk’s voice is loud and demanding. ‘I wanted to say something. I mean- I meant it. Like, if you want to talk.’

Taehyung stares at him. And then stares a little more.

It takes just a split second for him to decide that Jimin is most probably at work, Hoseok will give him the dirtiest I told you so in the history of I told you sos and so it’s not like Jeongguk can’t be an emotional replacement for a few hours. For a few hours. Only. That’s all he will allow himself.

‘Alright.’ He says without sparing a glance in his direction and walks over to the door of his car. ‘Open up and let me in.’

Jeongguk looks visibly convulsed at his acceptance like he was 97 percent expecting him to deny. Taehyung doesn’t blame him.

‘Okay.’

*

‘So,’ Jeongguk says, scratching his chin. ‘You mean to say, they implied they were giving you this...uh- position? Was it?’ He looks towards the side for confirmation, Taehyung nods. ‘And then let it slip that they’re meaning to transfer you completely?’

‘Yes-No. I mean you’re half right.’ Taehyung says, head resolutely keeping his sight trained on the windscreen of the Audi. Looking at Jeongguk is still making his heart flip in his chest and he doesn’t know what to do about it. ‘I mean, they didn’t really imply…’

‘So did they say it out loud? At any point?’

‘No,’ Taehyung sighs. ‘They really haven’t.’

‘Don’t you think,’ And Taehyung can see he’s treading very carefully with the subject. ‘That’s on you though? They never said they were going to give you what you think.’

The thing is, thinking about it in his own head and stewing it over is very different from it being said out loud by someone else. And Taehyung would have definitely been on fire had it been said by anyone else, but it’s very attractive, very no-nonsense Jeongguk who did. It’s a little bit unnerving.

‘I’ve been asking for this since last year. This year’s about to end. They know I’m the best damn writer in that place. And okay, maybe this project being the ultimate pinnacle of achievement that I flatter in their faces doesn’t make sense, because they really did never say what I was assuming. But demoting me to this? It’s a step too far. Very far actually.’ His voice is calm now, very irreflective of the turmoil going on inside his mind.

‘Alright. I understand.’

He appreciates Jeongguk for not taking this further even though his tone told Taehyung that he might still hold different opinions. Sometimes listening to someone isn’t rationalizing their upset assumptions but just getting them to share what they feel and empathize with it. There doesn’t have to be a solution to everything. Not everyone wants solutions.

Chest feeling a little bit lighter, he smiles somewhat glumly. ‘I’m really sorry for what I did back there. I feel really bad about it.’

Jeongguk smiles back. ‘Nah, it’s okay. Will just pay them off or something.’

Taehyung sticks up his nose instantly at that. Jeongguk chuckles a little at his reaction. The small talk that follows is comfortable and pleasant; Taehyung finds himself wondering if this was the heartthrob of gossip magazines that he must’ve seen so little of.

*****

Four days later, Taehyung walks into his office and slams a piece of paper down on Jooheon’s table. Judging by his reaction, he’s about to gladly welcome Taehyung back as all corporate assholes do without offering compensation for whatever they’ve put him through. Taehyung’s just glad he’s not exactly here with the intention of receiving an apology.

Jooheon’s smile fades as Taehyung keeps his gaze fixed on the paper he put down, ‘What is this?’

‘Read it yourself.’ He responds and takes the liberty of perching himself on the same seat that he had used when Jooheon had told him that utter crap all those days ago. He thinks he’d like to redeem himself and that chair. No one should hate a piece of furniture because of the dickhe*ds that the owners were.

Jooheon takes one look at him and flips the paper over so that he can see the text on the other side of it. It takes him a few minutes to get through the entire thing and Taehyung sees his eyes getting progressively wider as soon as his eyes land on the bottom. His own smile gets wider.

Jooheon is stumped when he puts the paper down. ‘Where the hell did you get this from?’

‘You appointed me for this, did you not?’ He says pointedly. ‘Why’re you asking me where I got this from? Isn’t this supposed to be my job?’

‘Y-yeah.’ He says, flustered now. ‘I guess it is.’

Before Jooheon can utter a word about getting him to write an article on this or forward it to some other writer, Taehyung’s butting in again. ‘However, I’m not really going to let you use this.’

Jooheon raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think you’re under any discretion to decide that, Taehyung.’

Taehyung snorts. ‘Ofcourse I am. Read it again. What does it say?’

‘That Jeon Jeongguk is rumored to be in a strong relationship with someone unrecognised and not of royal blood that could complicate his inheritance process significantly.’ Jooheon says, eyes still trained on Taehyung. ‘I know what I read, Taehyung, I’m not stupid.’

‘Beats me,’ He retorts back, now drumming his fingers on the tabletop. ‘that you asked me where exactly I got this information from and you still haven’t been able to figure out. It’s very obvious if you think a little harder about it.’

It takes Jooheon a few minutes of contemplation and the few furrows on his forehead tell Taehyung all he needs to know about how he is hard at work thinking. He’s done far earlier than Taehyung expects and the eyes widening comically in the span of fifteen seconds has Taehyung producing a loud, airy laugh of his own.

‘No way. No f*cking way this is what I’m thinking right now.’

Taehyung is all coy when he moves forward and asks, ‘And what exactly are you thinking?’

Jooheon leans forward and lowers his noise level as if there are ghosts in the room who will hear and perform an impromptu expose, ‘Are you- are you f*cking saying you’re dating Jeon Jeongguk? You’re the one doing this? It’s you?’

Taehyung laughs out loud. ‘Right on spot.’

*

Two Days Earlier

Jimin has been offering condolences like Taehyung went and died and only his ghost is left to collect grievance points.

‘Jimin, it’s okay.’ He says, when his best friend comes scuttling in with a bowl of chicken soup, some ice cream and plushies in a container on his second night of being locked at home after the disaster that happened. ‘I’m not dying, you know.’

Jimin waves his hand like he’s trying to send Taehyung’s qualms back into his system. ‘Don’t be stupid. Your career just ended. I’m trying to be as nice about it as I can before I get tired of it and we all get back to the usual.’

Taehyung winces at the mention of his career being over. He hadn’t really thought about that front ever since he’s been stopping going to work at all and moping around his apartment. Forget Jimin, everyone he knows has been acting like he’s dying, even Hoseok sent a take care message. Taehyung lifted his nose at that, he’s sure the f*cker knows exactly what the matter is.

He lets Jimin tuck him in and put on a movie that he knows neither have the intention to watch. Both get busy with their respective phones for a while, Taehyung gets tired faster than his roommate and prepares to lie down on the bed beside him, in other words, the usual. He’s trying to nap for a little while when his phone pings from beside him.

Usually when he’s out of work, no one really bothers to hit him up that much. Thinking it’s a consolation message again, Taehyung rolls his eyes and picks up his phone again to read.

It’s Jeon Jeongguk appearing on his notifs tab after two exact days of him strangely calming the storm inside Taehyung to a slow wave. He still hasn’t had the chance to thank him for that.

You know I was thinking about your whole work situation. And I think I might be able to come up with a plan that could get you what you need.

Intrigued, Taehyung is typing back furiously.

Hello to you too, Jeongguk. Let’s hear this genius plan of yours then

How do you feel about dating me?

Taehyung chokes so hard on the spoonful of ice-cream that he inhaled before he read Jeongguk’s reply that even Jimin is concerned. He looks down on his lap as Jimin pats his back down aggressively so that whatever the f*ck went through his windpipe can be choked down. It takes him a few good minutes to be back to normal again.

I’m sorry.

Could you just repeat what you said?

Because surely whatever I saw must be wrong.

Surely I’m seeing things right now lol.

No you’re not. How do you feel about dating me in public?

Taehyung stares at the message. And stares at it a little more.

What the hell is dating in private?

Is that what all the famous people do? I wonder why there isn’t anything about your actual love lives.

In the press I mean.

I meant. Something like. Dating just for the press.

Not in real.

Why sweetheart? Did it make your heart flutter?

He knows Jeongguk is back to being his obnoxious self but he can’t help but deny when he puts it like that. It very much did make his f*cking heart flutter and he hates that his heart is one step ahead of him in acknowledging this.

Oh?

I’m not sure I’m following.

Like. Correct me if I’m wrong. But you yourself just said there’s not much about our love lives.

In the press. So you could be one of the few rare ones to bring proof.

Only you should go into the office and say that it’s you so you have leverage.

It’ll keep them on their toes. They won’t get that info without you.

Taehyung doesn’t even have to put his phone down to know it’s a brilliant idea. While before, the leverage was with them, he didn’t really have the power to ask them back for the same weightage. He was obligated to pass that information down to him because in that case, he had something to lose. Now that he’s had a taste of that loss and knows it’s inevitable, he’s not scared anymore. It’s something that keeps the leverage with him because it’s safe and well, fake. None of the other news outlets would be competition because they can’t report on anything that’s not present in the first place. Dating Taehyung ensures that they can only stage this when he’s in the picture and not go rampant for a proper news story that everyone might fight for. Taehyung thinks a few pictures in different settings would be fine, nothing too flashy. His own face doesn’t even need to be visible, only Jeongguk needs to be front and centre for the camera. That would probably be enough to keep the story going for two months alone.

And he can leverage all of that information for the position he wants on the team. Or he can just straight up refuse to give it to them if they deny cooperation.

He doesn’t need to think over it more before he’s typing in a ‘ I’ll think about it .’ and sending it on its way.

It’s when his back is hitting the mattress later that night when he realises that this is exactly what he’d been trying to steer clear of when he had wanted success on his own terms. One of the things with the press industry that he hadn’t ever wanted anything to do with: the dirty side of acquiring information for these gossip articles and no one would ever know where or how you got these from. Just the shock value of the news would be enough to make people forget their morals in exchange for satiating their curiosity. He wonders how many people might have tried to stick by doing the right thing like him but given up along the way.

Maybe Seokjin was right. He should just quit.

*****

Next day brings about Seokjin standing on his doorstep with a big, giant bouquet of sunflowers and a chocolate, the dark, sweet kind. When Taehyung shuffles into the living room sleepily with one eye closed and one cheek squished, his brother’s voice is the first thing that he hears and it’s his natural instinct that he just runs right into his arms for a place of comfort. Seokin always smelled like home back in Gwacheon.

His brother ruffles his hair lightly. ‘I heard what happened. Jimin called.’

‘Hmm..’ He says, rubbing his face on Seokjin’s sweater.

He feels himself being dragged to sit on the couch and lean into his brother’s side. He offers little to no resistance, already being so emotionally overwhelmed and Seokjin being back at his place in a year just breaks down his walls like nothing else. ‘Taehyungie, don’t you think it’s time to let go of that place?’

He nods absentmindedly. He really doesn’t want to go through with that conversation right now.

‘I can get you that position you want at an equally better place.’ Seokjin continues saying softly. ‘Trust me on this Taehyungie, it will really be no trouble for me.’

Asking Seokjin something and anything in regards to administrational and career related was a given. He only really had to confirm it was done after you said it to him and even that was stretching the truth a bit further, sometimes he confirmed even before pulling the strings because he was that confident. But with that huge advantage also came Taehyung’s sense of independence. As far as he could remember his childhood, it had always been his big brother doing his things for him because it was Taehyung’s personality trait to get stuck in the middle of anything and everything. After Seokjin had drifted apart in those years before they had their big fight and reconciliation, he had felt very much like a lost puppy trying to survive. He remembers vowing to himself he wouldn’t depend on Seokjin as much anymore lest a situation like that were to ever arrive again. They’ve had several long talks about this and Seokjin knows the damage he’d done.

Taehyung’s mind goes at a speed his mouth is unable to catch. In that split second hesitation and his near-sleep state, he utters softly. ‘Hyung, it’s okay, me and Jeongguk will figure something out.’

Seokjin stiffens. ‘You and who? ’

Taehyung realises the consequences a little bit later than he’s supposed to. ‘Uh, Jeongguk?’

‘Oh god, Tae.’ His brother’s clearly exasperated now. ‘I told you to steer clear of him!’

And Taehyung himself is so sick of hearing a million different things from all the people in his goddamn life about how to fix this instead of understanding that he’s the kind of person who just wants people to listen instead of them putting in their two cents.

So he snaps, ‘Hyung, could you please f*cking let me do this? I promise I’ll never contact him or take his name in front of you in my life if we get through this successfully. Yes, I know the risks involved with fraternising with him and all that yadda yadda and it definitely might get worse in the coming weeks but you have to be the one to trust me instead here. I know what I’m doing.’

God, it isn’t even 9 am yet and here he is, getting through another potentially toxic and draining interaction when he’s already so squeezed out of life.

His brother, though, has something else entirely on his mind, ‘What d’you mean, it’ll get worse? What the hell did you do?’

Taehyung drops his face down with a thud onto the armrest cushions and groans out loud.

*****

When he comes out of his office building after his little skit in Jooheon’s office, he’s sporting the biggest smile on his face and there’s a little skip to his step. There’s a text waiting from Jeongguk already the moment he comes out, ‘How’d it go?’

He feels giddy that Jeongguk remembered to ask for this when he had mentioned this in passing three days ago when he wasn’t even sure if he was going to go with it. The staggering confidence in his decision making sends heat to his face. And his stomach. And his gut.

Unable to contain his excitement in the form of words, Taehyung taps the little Call icon next to his name. It takes two and a half rings for Jeongguk to pick up in a breathless fit.

‘So?’

Taehyung giggles. ‘It went so well! Thank you so much!’

He can feel Jeongguk’s smile through the screen. ‘That’s- that’s amazing, Taehyung! D-did you give the information up after negotiation? Are they considering you for that thing now?’

‘About that…..’ His voice trails off.

After Seokjin’s had left him behind a soft, emotional mess, he had rolled over on the couch and decided that his plan had to be put forward into motion. Three days were enough to get him back on his feet and if he had to collect his dignity from that place, whether to move forward from there or stay within, he had to do something about it. Jeongguk’s plan was absolutely spot-on, all he had to do was implement it.

However, a few minutes of contemplation had Taehyung thinking that this plan definitely had potential to be spiced up a bit. Maybe he didn’t have to offer a few pictures and a self-written article as proof, maybe the dating thing could just be a leverage to start with and he could convince the company that through his relationship, he was positive he could get some information on the inheritance business. There was no way Jeongguk hadn’t warmed up to him now and maybe he would be more willing to slip in little bits of intel on himself instead of just being obnoxious.

It was ingenious. Jeongguk doesn’t even have to know all about it. His help was enough.

‘No. No I didn’t.’ He laughs a little. ‘Jeongguk, they’ll need more information than just an article to take me seriously. We didn’t even get to the photos part. But it did the part of shaking them up a little.’

‘Oh.’ He hears him say, a little unsure. ‘Oh yeah of course. We’ll do something about that in a few days, okay?’

‘Okay.’ He says back a little breathlessly, there’s something about Jeongguk’s confident assurance that calms his heart and then sends it into overdrive consequently. ‘Okay. Thank you so much.’

That’s when Taehyung gets his opportunity to formulate a question of his own. All he had been doing besides moping at his house was wondering just exactly why Jeongguk was doing this for him. He had evaded all of Taehyung’s questions at the interviews and he had always, in the back of his mind, assumed that it had something to do with their relationship with the press. Jeongguk was pretty f*cking famous. Who in their right mind, at that level of hierarchy, would want something like that out in the press? And that too, about themselves?

Taehyung had heard legends about Jeon Jeong-ho’s son, as in Jeongguk’s father who had passed away, and his marriage into a commoner family without royal blood. In hindsight, looking back at it as an adult, a lot of people including Taehyung were of the opinion that the concern hadn’t exactly been her not being of royal blood, but more the class difference between the couple. It was a pretty established fact in Sconya, almost everyone knew how Jeongguk’s father had been the first in their entire monarchial history to pursue a move as ballsy as he did. However, the legends and the rumors didn’t stop there. For Sconya and its residents, the news and its reaction had been normal, a lot praising him for breaking away but it wasn’t a hot topic at first. Taehyung pointedly remembers that what had made it a hot topic was the rumor mill that started coming out straight from the inside of their politics. Jeongguk’s father and the woman he had married had gone through hell, his mother for just her upbringing and his father for breaking away from their culture. There was a wide rollout of media blackout and when that didn’t work since citizens started speaking up in protest, there was a press-wide smear of his father’s name. Almost every headline had one more negative thing about him that no one wanted to know or care about. The spotlight was on him for far longer than it had been on anyone in Taehyung’s entire adulthood or childhood for that matter.

He had heard a lot of people say that this pressure was one of the main causes Jeongguk’s father gave up on life. The oppression and enforcement of keeping that oppression in place was what caused a lot of his health problems to develop.

So then Taehyung doesn’t really understand. He knows Jeongguk saw what happened with his own blood. Why would he want to do it again?

‘Jeongguk, I-why are you doing this?’ It comes out a lot softer than he had intended it to be.

Jeongguk doesn’t say anything for a whole minute. There’s complete static on the other end of the line so much so that at one point, Taehyung thinks that maybe he cut the line off and hung up on him. He’s about to call on him for assurance when Jeongguk’s voice comes through, ‘Taehyung, that’s something to talk about for another day, alright?’

‘Oh. Okay. Sure. Thank you so much again. For all this help.’

‘No problem.’

Both of them fall into a silence, which is as awkward as it is charged with tension. He feels like both of them have held up their breaths and are trying to figure out what to speak next. It reminds him of middle school and how he used to stay up hours upon hours after midnight to talk to a crush. The light, airy feeling in his chest settles very gently on his heartbeat.

‘Oh and Taehyung?’

‘Yeah?’ He sounds very short-winded.

‘You may want to keep an eye out, you know.’ Taehyung’s entire stomach feels like lead in an instant. ‘I’ve had a lot of experience with these people and the moment you let something like that slip to them, best believe they’ll find a way to tail you. Especially now that you’ve sort of- uh- threatened them.’

‘Oh.’ He hadn’t considered that. ‘Okay, thanks for the heads-up.’

He’s about to hang up when Jeongguk’s voice comes in panicked. ‘Wait!’

Taehyung attaches the phone to his ear again. ‘Yeah?’

‘You may want to keep smiling, you know?’ The voice on the other line says, ‘You definitely sound prettier.’

Taehyung’s heart gives out.

*****

They schedule the paparazzi part of their setup two days from when Taehyung drops a bomb on their office. They aimed to get done with most of the photos they planned to circulate in the course of a day. Taehyung thinks it’s very achievable considering they don’t have to have that many pictures for it to be able to look legit.

After his conversation with Jeongguk on that fateful day, they had been mostly communicating via text. It was definitely a conscious decision on Taehyung’s part because he had gotten home two days ago and while dressing down to lounge about in his living room, he had caught a glance of his own face in the mirror. The sight that greeted him was far from the Taehyung he had gotten accustomed to seeing every day for the past two years that he had been living in this apartment. There was a blush sitting pretty high atop the apples of his cheeks, his lips looked red due to how many times he had bitten them on the way here and his hair was unruly. And Taehyung knew he hadn’t been like this just as he came out of Jooheon’s office as a face because he had visited the bathroom before making a trip downstairs to call Jeongguk and go home. The only thing different within the equation was Jeongguk’s unexpected compliment. He could just not, for the life of him, stop f*cking thinking about it. About how delicately he had said it. About how his voice had sounded so airy and nice settling into Taehyung’s ears like honey. It was definitely recordable material, Taehyung would listen to it every night to help him sleep better.

He doesn’t know what he will do when he sees him in person today.

There was also another factor catered to this that had his head in a muddle constantly. The photos were supposed to be taken with Taehyung in the frame, as they had decided, with his face not visible. However, Taehyung was now having second, third and fourth thoughts about that decision. He hadn’t really realised at the spot about what kind of pictures they would have to take to make this thing look real. After Jeongguk’s heart stopping compliment and a text later to confirm meeting times, Taehyung had slowly begun to realise what he had unknowingly agreed to.

Maybe he agreed a little bit with the version of Jeongguk that called him stupid.

It wasn’t strange for Jeongguk to appear in magazines with rumored dates. He had always had a bit of a reputation, considering all his extravagant visits to yachts and disappearances from the country for months at a time were all preceded with a girl on his arm, sometimes way skimpily dressed for something that was to be always reported on the front page without fail. There had been a couple of times he had been seen out with a boy in the midst, Taehyung remembers those times specifically since he had been surprised he had the guts to do it in the public eye. However, there was one thing common within all of his endeavours. They were almost always recognisably connected to the royal family, and in the less than half of the cases that they weren’t, they were someone famous and well-known in the entertainment industry of Sconya. Taehyung could never point out a single time where Jeongguk had appeared with someone he didn’t instantly know when he saw the picture.

He wonders if all of them were staged. How would one know what is staged or not when a picture in a paper is all you’re going by and there’s thousands of articles theorising your every move? How does one, as part of the public, not get carried away with whatever has been spread by the press itself because that is the only version of reality that is available to you. He doesn’t know what Jeongguk’s taste in romantic partners is, but the man he’s come to peel layers off of during the course of his interactions doesn’t seem like the type of man who would be out and about with every model within walking distance. Of course, he wouldn’t have been able to make that distinction had he not known Jeongguk personally. He wonders how many thousands of people in Sconya still think Jeongguk is some sort of f*ckboy.

Of course he doesn’t know that himself either but he has a really strong feeling that there’s more to all of those features.

Taehyung’s thoughts turn back to the conversation left before they could even begin. When someone’s doing something for you free of charge, it’s always a sight to wonder about why they go out of their way to do it at all. The case with Taehyung is, he’s established that he doesn’t like accepting help, even from his own blood. When someone as important as Jeongguk turns up and offers to help Taehyung which would bring him the same disgrace that would’ve been knocking at his door if he had just answered Taehyung’s damn questions in the first place, maybe even lesser, it’s making him wonder a lot more than anything else is. What is there in this instance that can convince Jeongguk to be up for a spotlight in the press but not with an equal chance of having to represent whatever he wanted to say. As far as Taehyung’s concerned, he offered up a really good deal. Jeongguk had the entire narrative in his hand.

Jeongguk’s text confirming meeting times had been plain and empty last night. After his compliment on the phone, he had expected some sort of a development in whatever they had going on, maybe a teasing comment or two or God forbid, more compliments perhaps. Even a call. Anything was better than a business-toned text. It was a bit off-putting to receive a text that was as plain as this and he remembers something in his stomach sinking at the thought. It’s a light, little sink and a letdown to how excited he had been previously. It lasted all of five minutes before Taehyung had a good, long look in the mirror and told himself to wake up. What the f*ck did he think he was doing?

Nonetheless, getting ready this morning, Taehyung had made sure to find some of his best clothes in a whirl of nerves regardless of what he'd been feeling . These nerves were definitely more from fear of the oncoming than anything else but it didn’t hold him back from shaving, exfoliating and giving himself a lemon peel facial. He wakes up earlier than he has in years and douses himself in a bottle of cherry blossom lotion just to smell nice. He shuffled around so much that he ended up waking Jimin earlier than he was supposed to. His best friend had rubbed the sleep from his eyes in the kitchen and croaked out a ‘D’you have a date?’ causing Taehyung to choke on the piece of toast he had forced himself to swallow.

Standing at the entrance of this park, Taehyung looks like he’s on the verge of throwing up from the nerves. The location is ominous enough that it sends Taehyung’s heart into overdrive but more than that, he cannot seem to collect himself and think about how he will face whatever the f*ck he has to do to get those pictures today. Now that he has nothing to do except wait, it’s all he can think about.

When Taehyung hears a call of his name, he looks up from his bench to see the man of the hour walking towards him in all his suited up glory. Taehyung tries his hardest to not rake his eyes down his figure but as he gets closer, he realises it’s just getting more difficult to evade the urge.

‘Hello!’ Jeongguk reaches him, a little bit breathless from his little run. ‘Sorry, I’m a little late.’

Taehyung stares at him unabashedly. Jeongguk’s face looks freshly washed, there’s something so soft and dewy about his skin that it makes Taehyung want to squish a little bit in his fingers. ‘Jeongguk, you’re three minutes late.’

Jeongguk smiles a little. ‘Late nonetheless.’

He shifts back to call someone and Taehyung moves his gaze from Jeongguk’s strangely irresistible face to see who he’s pointing to. His view shows a man walking towards them with a large camera hanging from his neck and there’s someone behind him who looks like he’s trying to set up a phone to take pictures with the way he’s trying to take one from every angle.

Taehyung moves back to Jeongguk, ‘You look prepared for this.’

Jeongguk leads him down the path of the entrance, Taehyung starts walking with him, falling into step easily. ‘Yeah, thi- this isn’t the first time I’ve had to do this.’

‘Oh?’ Taehyung is truly intrigued, he couldn’t pick out any of Jeongguk’s conquest news from the media that ever sounded like it was fake.

‘Yeah I know I have a bit of a reputation. I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble over the years.’ He says, scratching the back of his neck and Taehyung’s heart almost drops out of his mouth. He hadn’t noticed Jeongguk’s forearms were exposed a little as a result of him having unbuttoned his cuffs. The white dress shirt looks entirely too crisp and when Jeongguk’s expression is a little embarrassed and his cheeks are a little red, he looks so boyish and heartwarming, scratching his neck like that. He’s never believed dramas that show the protagonist’s love interest in slow motion when they do something like that, believing there is nothing that can't look that good with a little bit of glitz, color and editing. But right now, his words seem to be eating him up as he looks on and sees that this man doesn’t need a bit of any of that artificial glamor.

‘So, Taehyung-ssi,’ Jeongguk’s voice brings him out of his daze. ‘How it’s gonna go is that you and I have to pose by that tree there.’

Taehyung follows the pointer of his hand towards the giant tree in a corner of the park. It’s a good spot, not too hidden but not too crowded. The occasional jogger passes by for a trail.

‘And Jaesuk and Minhyun here,’ He says pointing back to the two cameramen he had brought alongside. ‘will be by those bushes and take these pictures from there. It has to be a little bit from a secluded area so that it looks like these two were hiding when they took these pictures.’

‘Oh.Yeah. Okay. Sure. Makes sense.’ Taehyung’s head is automatically nodding with his directions. He’s a little overwhelmed by how professional and well planned it seems, it feels like the pictures are going to be too opportunistically taken and it might not look like ones that are taken from blurry glass windows by actual paps.

He follows Jeongguk down the path to the tree while the other two men remain behind fiddling with their devices, getting ready to take pictures. They’re almost by the tree when Taehyung notices the tangible tension between them and how Jeongguk feels a little awkward and has been avoiding eye contact with Taehyung ever since they got down to business.

They’re standing very hesitantly next to each other by an overarching branch. It’s a big tree alright, with roots extending over at least a foot and Taehyung tries to watch his step to not trip over any of them.

‘So, should we- ugh- begin?’

Taehyung looks at him, he’s still looking down not meeting his eyes at all. ‘So. How do we do this part?’

Jeongguk almost chokes, he hears him inhale sharply. ‘I-I don’t know.’

Taehyung’s shy now, biting his lips again. ‘You said you’d done this before.’

‘Usually,’ He says, now scratching the back of his head with his goddamn arm, Taehyung feels like his heart is about to fall out of his ass. ‘we get like...actors and stuff, models, who already know what to do. They’re usually the ones taking the lead.’

There’s something in that statement that makes him freeze. ‘So you mean to say you’re not the type to take charge?’ It’s out of his mouth before he knows and can regret it.

Jeongguk’s head moves sharply to gaze at him through wide eyes. He seems startled by this sudden turn of events and Taehyung doesn’t blame him, he’s still marveling at how he even managed to say that out loud. There’s more palpable tension in their vicinity now and Taehyung’s sort of afraid to even move a muscle because he doesn’t know what will happen if he does. Or if he even wants to find out.

They’re both just staring at each other, caught in some sort of a trance when there’s a loud voice from behind them, ‘Jeongguk-ssi! We have to leave in half an hour, you know that, right?’

One moment later, Jeongguk’s turning a little for a thumbs up in their direction. Taehyung doesn’t know what happens in the instance that Jeongguk turns around towards him again but it’s so fast that he can’t comprehend it. He feels an urgent arm yet strong grip enclose his waist with a firmness and the next time he gains coherency, his back is pressed against the tree log. There’s a visible thud as his back hits the bark but none of that compares to how his heart almost stops looking up, because right there, in his personal space, is Jeon Jeongguk gazing at him. His eyes seem to be a little moist but they’re definitely becoming hooded the more he gazes at them.

At a distance, he hears the click of the camera going crazy.

‘Taehyung-ssi,’ Jeongguk’s voice is less than a whisper, it’s coming out in wisps of air and hitting straight at Taehyung’s upper lip. ‘Does it look like I’m in charge now?’

Taehyung can’t help it, the feeling is so overwhelming that it instantly causes him to close his eyes. ‘I-I can’t- I don’t-’

‘It’s okay if you can’t speak, usually nobody can when I’m done with them.’ Jeongguk’s voice has moved, the breath hitting the side of his cheek instead. Taehyung tenses as his hand moves a little lower from being enclosed around his waist and curls down his hip.

He can’t believe Jeongguk took his stupid little bait which definitely just slipped with a lack of filter and ran with it. He doesn’t know who to blame for this, it definitely might be himself for suggesting an innuendo at all but to be fair to himself, he hadn’t expected Jeongguk to turn into this , whatever this is.

‘J-Jeongguk- this-this is not- what are you doing?’ His voice is broken and stuttering, his stomach now a giant ball of molten lava. Jeongguk noses down his cheek to his ear slowly and Taehyung shivers.

‘All part of the act, Taehyung-ssi.’

No one can see sh*t in these pictures, Taehyung rationalises. None of it is an act, he doesn’t know what’s up with him but there’s something different about this Jeongguk. Like he’s been holding back a lot and has just exploded and as a result, he doesn’t know how to stop.

Taehyung doesn’t say anything as they remain in the same position for a while. He tries to focus on the camera clicking but his shirt is now sticking to him through all the heat and the temperature around them has at least risen up a little with how he’s sweating till his fingers. It’s almost after centuries that the camera-man behind him is screaming again, ‘All good, Jeongguk-ssi! We’ve got enough!’

He gives another thumbs up but doesn’t let go of Taehyung immediately. Instead, he stays in the exact same position for long enough that Taehyung’s asking out loud despite himself, ‘Uh, J-J eongguk aren’t we done?’

‘I’m trying to think how to end this.’

‘W-what d’you mean?’

He gets his answer 10 seconds later when Jeongguk is moving from nosing at his ear with a swiftness right to his neck and planting a long, breathless kiss there. Taehyung gasps out loud. It takes a good 10 seconds for Jeongguk to plant a kiss and Taehyung feels both of his hands tightening around his hip. It causes Taehyung to arch his back involuntarily. He really doesn’t know how much more of this can take. When they break apart, Jeongguk still keeps a soft grip on his waist with one hand and looks at him with that same hooded gaze that now has Taehyung floating on air. He knows he looks like a mess, his face must be burning with the intensity of all. But then, Jeongguk’s speaking in the same breezy tone he uses to tell Taehyung off,

‘A farewell gift. I’ll send these over to you whenever they’re ready, Taehyung.’

*****

“ Jeon Jeongguk, potentially running for next heir to the throne of Sconya was spotted on a steamy date this Thursday morning. The couple enjoyed their time alone in the park and were spotted sharing a passionate moment in the clusters of trees in the southeast corner of the location.

The photos do no justice to the reality of the moment, however, one thing that fans of Jeon Jeongguk might be looking for is the identity of the lucky one. It seems as if the man accompanying him can’t be identified for sure because sources cannot vouch for the man’s identity at all! People all over the internet have been making assumptions about who it might be but as far as conclusions have been reached, the search is still ongoing. Who is this mysterious unknown man away from fame that has managed to capture Jeon Jeongguk’s heart?

Scroll through the pictures of the couple’s passionate moment here!”

Taehyung internally cringes so hard that his toes curl up. He can’t believe he’s been writing this crap for most of his career.

When he looks up from his phone, Jimin is doing the same from right across the table looking at him with eyes drawn like Taehyung has committed a crime. ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that? Why are you even awake?’

‘Early shift.’ Jimin waves his hand dismissively as if to let him know that that’s not the problem here. ‘Tell me why I woke up and was plagued by headlines about Jeon Jeongguk’s new fling?’

Taehyung’s face turns hot. He hadn’t exactly told Jimin what was going on behind the scenes, but to be fair, he hadn’t thought his roommate needed to know. It’s not like his face was visible at all, and no one had really discerned his identity. ‘Why’re you asking me, it’s not like he doesn’t have one every two months or so.’

‘I haven’t really finished, Taehyung,’ Jimin says, all coy, and leans forward onto the table. ‘Wanted to know why this particular fling of Jeon Jeongguk is wearing that coat we got from that thrift shop about 3 years ago? And why he has light brown hair with streaks of blonde like someone else I know?’

‘I-I’ He chokes on his spit a little. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say.’

Jimin doesn’t respond in favour of looking at him like he’s hiding something. Which he is. But there’s something unsettling about the entire person knowing that you’re hiding something from them.

‘Does Jeon Jeongguk taste good, Taehyungie?’ Jimin singsongs after a minute of Taehyung avoiding eye contact and Jimin looking at him with his eyebrows up into his hair. Taehyung chokes a second time.

*

Seokjin is the second person to reach out to him the following afternoon. The moment his name lights up on the screen, Taehyung knows he’s in for another one of those screaming sessions.

He picks up hesitantly. ‘Hello. Hi, hyung. How are you?’

There’s dead silence for a moment on the other end of the line. Taehyung is about to say something else when Seokjin’s voice comes through. ‘So this… this was your plan?’

He sounds deadly calm. Like he’s about to kill someone with a gun in his hand. Taehyung shivers. ‘Yeah, i- that is definitely not the full story. I can explain-’

‘How do you have an explanation for smooching Jeon Jeongguk in the middle of a public place where anyone can go by and see you out in the f*cking open. Please explain.’

Taehyung, intimidated, tries to go for another tactic. ‘I-Th-That’s not me. In the picture. Why would you think that? We can’t even see his face?’

Seokjin sounds unimpressed when he deadpans, ‘I gifted you those shoes you’re wearing in the picture. They’re custom made Taehyung, there’s literally no one on Earth who would have them except for you. Especially in this country.’

Oh. Right.

‘I,’ He gulps down on air. ‘I have an explanation.’

Seokjin sighs in the way he does when he’s extremely disappointed. ‘Taehyung I don’t know what the f*ck you think you’re trying to do.’

‘Hyung, I promise-’

‘I really don’t want to hear it at this point.’ He continues. ‘I’m tired. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

And then he’s hanging up and Taehyung feels even worse than he did before this entire thing started.

*****

Taehyung ends up going back to work the next day. When he enters, he’s met with a loud round of applause by Jooheon and all his little minions around his work station. ‘Well done Taehyung! This is the kind of quality work we’ve expected from you since day one!’

Taehyung doesn’t give them the attention they need, ‘Yeah, not quality enough to give me that position change I want, but sure. Whatever you say.’

The mood sobers up a little. Jooheon stutters when he starts speaking, ‘I-’

‘Save it Jooheon,’ He says, turning on his PC. ‘Just tell me what the workload is like and what I need to do for today.’

*

Jeongguk texts him around his lunch break. The moment his eyes land from his salad to his phone, it’s all he can do to not squeal out loud in front of the entire office watching. He composes himself, wills to let the blush on his cheeks fade because even without looking, he knows it’s there, pockets his phone and speeds up to the bathroom.

The office bathroom is probably the nicest thing about this building. It’s nice and spacious, with very clear and pristine mirrors lining up the counters; they’re so good at doing their job that Taehyung had once counted his nose hair without even having to use his front camera. He locks himself up in the space, thanks God there’s no one there and settles atop one of the sink counters to open it.

D’you want to meet today?

I have some more photoshopped pictures you can feed your company.

Taehyung grins. His heartbeat gets faster involuntarily and there’s a hotness to his cheeks that wasn’t there before.

Is that an excuse to see my face, Jeon Jeongguk?

Since Jeongguk had made it clear that they were definitely flirting, Taehyung thinks it’s okay to do it back. It’s not fun if he’s the only one getting flustered all the time.

Jeongguk replies back within a minute.

Sure, if that’s what’ll keep you going, sweetheart.

The reply is snarky but it’s somewhat reflective of their earlier meetings. Taehyung’s grin is as wide as ever.

Another text comes in.

Meet you at the cafe we met for the first time?

Someone knocks loudly on the bathroom door just as Taehyung types back a quick text and signs it with a kiss.

Okay. See you. X

*

When Taehyung sets out to meet Jeon Jeongguk, there’s something weird in the air around him. He doesn’t exactly know what it is, but everything seems too quiet and on alert. He doesn’t know why the collective atmosphere of the city seems like it’s under emergency but there’s something in his gut that tells him that there’s something wrong, something off about these streets he’s walking.

He walks with adrenaline junking up his veins, already high on excitement from the prospect of seeing Jeon Jeongguk but coupled with this nervousness of his sixth sense telling him something, it’s like he’s walking with legs that are made of jelly. He walks faster than he normally does, foregoing taking a taxi because he knows he won’t be able to sit still with all that is going on inside his head. And his gut.

When he’s at the intersection before the cafe, he thinks he hears a click behind him that’s very similar to one of those camera clicks he had heard behind him when they were shooting those photos with Jeongguk. His stomach instantly drops down to his ass. Is he being followed?

He takes out his phone and opens the front camera. Angling it to his face, he tries to get a view of the road behind him like he’s taking a photo. There’s nothing behind him that’s remotely suspicious, he catches a lady wearing a hot pink dress, a man walking by with two kids, a teenager with a dog. No one looks suspicious and everyone seems to be in a hurry to get to their destinations. A very normal city thing.

Taehyung has no choice but to wade off his second thoughts about all of it and continue walking.

He turns the street that leads down to the cafe in his thoughts when he sees someone in his peripheral vision leaning against the pole in front of the cafe. He looks up to see Jeongguk on his phone, very clearly waiting for him. Taehyung takes a moment to admire.

Jeongguk is dressed in a long coat and Taehyung sees the beginnings of a turtleneck from his position. His hair is a little messy partly because of how strong the breeze has been throughout the day. Taehyung does all he can do to not jump into his space directly, because even with a facemask hiding his facial features, Jeongguk looks like the man of anyone’s dreams. He’s a heartthrob in the true definition of it.

He stares for long enough that Jeongguk gets an inkling of someone looking at him very intently. He sees his head rise in slow motion and Taehyung suddenly hears a slow background song in the distance in his mind that syncs up perfectly to how he grins and walks up to him. If this is what feels like to be in an actual drama, then he wants f*cking in on it.

‘Hey,’ Jeongguk says as he comes nearer. ‘You done staring?’

Taehyung turns red. ‘I wasn’t-’

‘Yes, you were,’ He says back without a moment’s hesitation, looking at Taehyung’s lightly flowing hair. ‘You look nice.’

f*ck, he thinks he’s going to die. ‘Oh. Okay I-’

He’s about to compliment him back when there’s a whoosh in the air and Jeongguk’s doing the same damn thing again when he catches Taehyung off-guard. He’s suddenly very near to him and Jeongguk’s lips land right on his cheek with on of his hands on Taehyung’s waist and the other on the side of his cheek. In a way, this situation is even harder than when it happened in the park because right now, he has no option but to look right into Jeongguk’s eyes owing to the hand on his cheek keeping his face in place.

‘Jeon-Jeongguk, what-’

‘Don’t look back,’ He says, voice laden with urgency. ‘There’s someone with a camera right behind you. They’re trying to catch us off-guard.’

Oh f*ck. So that’s what he saw when he was coming here.

‘Yeah I- I’m not surprised,’ His voice is thick and unable to come out because Jeongguk is still breathing against his skin. ‘I felt like someone was following me out here.’

‘What d’you want to do?’ Jeongguk asks him, turning his head a little. The photographer is probably having a field day now.

‘I don’t really know, I mean-’

‘He’s probably someone from your company since the person who you told is probably the only person who knows it’s you,’ Jeongguk mumbles further. ‘And maybe a couple of higher-ups he might’ve told this to. So d’you want to give them a run for their money?’

He hears Jeongguk’s grin forming as he says this. It sounds adorable and steamy at the same time. However, what he doesn’t understand is that the moment he nods his head slightly, giving his agreement, Jeongguk’s lips land right on the corner of his lips. They’re just wary of touching by a centimetre but he makes sure to tilt Taehyung in a way that from the photographer’s angle, it probably looks like both of them are kissing.

Taehyung gasps a little, breaths coming out faster and Jeongguk’s hand keeps getting progressively tighter and more enclosed around his waist. He tries to keep his attention on the gold buttons of Jeongguk black coat but the heat coming from his vicinity is something that’s making his arms and feet sweat.

It’s over almost as soon as it starts. Jeongguk takes a subtle gaze behind him and after a thorough check, well, as thorough as it can be really, he concludes that the photographer had enough material and left.

‘I think,’ He says the moment he breaks apart. ‘It’s not really safe to meet out here lest he starts attracting more pap photographers.’

Taehyung listens to him in a daze. Even Jeongguk’s own cheeks are colored pink. It makes Taehyung giddy.

‘Take this facemask,’ He says again and puts one black piece of fabric down in his palm. ‘I’ll text you later, okay?’

Taehyung looks up at him, he’s taken off his own mask, probably so that the photographer can see it’s him and it takes the spotlight away from Taehyung. A small action like this makes him feel a little like he can jump and climb about ten floors of his office building. It’s so considerate, kind and awfully sweet that he respects his privacy like that even without Taehyung asking him to. He smiles big and tries putting the facemask on, ‘Okay. I’ll wait for it.’

Maybe it’s his smile or the way Taehyung struggles to put his facemask on or the disappointment from their meeting being cut short, Taehyung doesn’t know exactly what urges him to do it, but then Jeongguk’s gently taking the facemask away from his struggling palms and Taehyung is thinking that he’s probably going to help him wear it. And for a moment, that’s exactly what it seems like as he fiddles with it, but the next thing he knows Jeongguk’s stepping near him again and it’s a split flash where Jeongguk’s pulling at his forearm and the next thing Taehyung knows, his lips have landed right on his.

He’s shocked. There’s one word for it, he’s completely and utterly shocked at what has transpired between them because there’s no way he was expecting this short meeting to go this far. So he doesn’t really respond when Jeongguk starts moving his lips against him at first. His lips are soft and dewy and they taste exactly like Taehyung had had the picture of when they had met up at the park, moist and fresh like flowers. It takes Taehyung a moment to adjust to it but when he finally moves with the intent to respond, he feels Jeongguk moving away.

It takes him a split second to grab his forearms and pull him back towards him, connecting their lips again with all the fervour he has. Jeongguk moves the hand on his cheek to the nape of his neck instead and tilts his head a little so that he can move against him easily. Taehyung’s stomach explodes with butterflies at one point and his hands start shaking. Both of them pull apart after a while, staring at each other, breathless because of the lack of oxygen. All of Jeongguk’s breaths hit right on Taehyung’s lips and he swears it’s making him dizzy.

It’s way too soon when Jeongguk is grinning up at him and whispering, ‘That one was for looking so goddamn cute today. A goodbye kiss. For luck or whatever they call it.’

Taehyung’s blood collects all in his cheeks. Jeongguk sees his eyes widen and giggles. He takes the facemask, now all squished up in Taehyung’s hands, spreads it and puts it on Taehyung’s face tucking the handles behind his ears.

He’s then planting one more kiss right on Taehyung’s cheek and leaving him in a flurry with a quick ‘See you later.’

Well.

*****

It’s not like Taehyung didn’t know that Jeongguk was at least a little bit interested in him since they met. After the photos, he thinks it was almost nonsensical to assume that what Jeongguk was doing as a way to rile him up was anything but an obvious attempt to flirt.

The only thing that hadn’t clicked through was his own perception towards how he felt linking himself with someone who had been so obviously antagonistic to him from the beginning. At least half of his life problems now could’ve been solved if Jeongguk had just sat there like a good boy and answered his questions. But his obvious repelling to his plans had caused Taehyung almost his entire career along the way.

Taehyung doesn’t know what to make of his own feelings though. The way his heart started fluttering at the memories of that kiss or that day at the park, the way his palms started sweating when Jeongguk’s name lit up on the screen had to mean something, he knew that. What he didn’t want to admit though, was the blatant admission of whether he liked him. His mind was still clouded a little by the sting of what had happened when they had met and how Jeongguk, from a distance, had seemed to be exactly what Taehyung thought rich, pretentious assholes were like. After the euphoria of the kiss had worn off, Taehyung’s mind had been going back to those days and wondering whether he had really hated Jeon Jeongguk then or had it been because his compliance would mean his career taking off in the direction he had wanted it to go into.

Feeling his thoughts go into knots again, he closes his eyes and shakes his head to will them away and at least sleep with a clean mind. He’s turning in his bed again to find a comfortable position within his one million pillows when Jimin’s voice speaks out from across the room, ‘Taehyungie, you okay?’

He gazes towards the other side of the room, Jimin’s face is lit up softly through the illumination of the laptop screen. He had told Taehyung he had to stay up late to work on something and to warn him that the room might not be completely dark tonight. ‘D’you want me to work in the living room?’

Taehyung shakes his head, ‘No, I’m just- I can’t sleep.’

‘Is there something wrong?’ Jimin is, at once, closing his laptop and keeping it under his pillow. ‘Did Jooheon the asshole do something again?’

‘No he didnt,’ He giggles a little when Jimin’s body hits him a little from the side and curls up against him. ‘I- actually, Jeongguk kissed me earlier today.’

Jimin is confused. ‘In those press pictures, you mean?’

Taehyung looks at him and remembers that he had kept Jimin conveniently out of a lot of information that was supposed to be relayed to him, ‘Uh- you might be missing a piece or two there.’

Jimin looks at him suspiciously. ‘D’you want to tell me about it? Is it something important?’

Taehyung takes one look at Jimin and the next thing he knows, he’s spilling all of what he’s kept hidden all this while in a whisper by Jimin’s shoulder, snuggling into his warmth.

At the end of it all, his voice is a little scratchy from so much speaking but Jimin’s comfort makes sure to lull him to near sleep. ‘Taehyungie, I have one question. Do you like him?’

He doesn’t know, he really doesn’t. ‘Jimin, I’m not sure if he likes me either. I’ve never heard him speak about all of this blatantly. I feel like all of these little moments I’ve tucked away in the corner of my head happen out of nowhere when I’m not mentally prepared for them. And then, I’m too flustered to ask him about it later. But I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline talking when I get breathless and fluttery around him or if it's just me and my feelings.’

‘Hey,’ Jimin says, his hand reaching out to ruffle his hair. ‘Don’t think about it too much. I can see the wrinkles on your forehead. It’s just a boy.’

‘He’s also a royal heir, Jimin. I can’t pretend like this doesn’t change things a bit even if he did admit he likes me. Which he never really did.’

‘You’re still thinking about it too much,’ Jimin’s fingers feel nice raking through his hair, he closes his eyes. ‘I know it’s pretty valid for you to question whether it’s fear or your attraction, but you can’t figure everything out on your own, Taehyungie. You need to talk to him. Lay it out in the open. Tell him to say it out loud if he likes you. You need to say that all of these surprises and accidents and coy flirting are confusing you.’

‘He also has a bit of a reputation.’ Taehyung says slowly. He doesn’t like the way his mind doesn’t agree with that one.

‘Just ask him. I swear whatever answer he gives will be far much better than any explanation you can come up with on your own.’

*****

Taehyung ends up lulling himself to the brink of sleep in Jimin’s presence but never really goes all the way in. Blame it on the tension in his body, or the impending need to clear the air with the negative thoughts plaguing his mind, but the nerves keep his body alight with worry and adrenaline, pumping a shot every time he ends up closing his eyes due to sheer exhaustion. At about 4.30 am, he gives up, accepts that maybe it’s one of those nights and pads out into the living room.

The twilight is still in its early stages through the kitchen window but if there’s one thing Taehyung knows, it’s that the sun rises slower than it sinks. He’s still got quite a bit of time before he has to get ready and work. Going to the kitchen for a glass of water, he keeps his phone onto the counter and begins fumbling around for the ice bottle they usually keep in their freezer. His eyes, however, even after leaving the familiar environment of his bed, keep crouching down to his phone. He doesn’t really know why that happens but the felling in his chest tells him it’s almost like he’s waiting for something: a text, an indication that Jeongguk follows the same path that he thinks he’s following.

Having had enough of this toss and turn the entire night, Taehyung resolutely picks his phone up and goes straight to Jeongguk’s contact. His heart gives a lurch seeing he’s saved him with a white heart and then the flustered emoji, a split second decision he had taken when he was fiddling with his phone in his free time. It looks cute but only does the work of amplifying his fear further. He thinks it might be better to message at this hour, no sane person with work in the morning would ever be awake at this hour.

In the midst of thinking just exactly what to type, he pauses. What does he want to say? What would convey his desperation to a height where Jeongguk would understand just exactly what he wants him to say? What does he want him to say, really?

He settles for something simple to start the conversation:

Are you thinking about the kiss yesterday? Because I am.

So, not simple at all, really. But he’s sick and tired of holding back and an entire night of skipped rest just makes him more irritable and straightforward. He wants to get to the point.

Thinking that Jeongguk will reply when he wakes up has him settling the phone onto the counter again and going back to his bottle of ice water. He tries to will away the curiosity of thinking just what might his reply be. He’s just preparing to dump the water bottle back into the freezer when his phone vibrates on the counter.

His heart jumps into his throat.

Snatching his phone with a quickness, he opens it to see Jeongguk’s message is waiting for him.

That was the intention, sweetheart.

It makes Taehyung even more confused.

And do I not get confirmation back? Is the thinking mutual?

Jeongguk’s reply comes back faster than light.

It’s whatever you want to think it is.

Taehyung frowns.

You’re confusing me, Jeongguk.

What d’you want me to say, Taehyung?

Taehyung takes a deep breath. He’s sick of this.

That you’re thinking about me too.

I didn’t spend all night stressing over it for no reason, you know.

Jeongguk takes a bit longer to reply to this, Taehyung doesn’t like the wait nor the sinking feeling in his chest.

D’you want me to tell you how pretty you are, Taehyung?

Taehyung’s heart all but squeezes so violently in his chest that he thinks he’s about to pass out.

Is that why you kissed me? Because I’m pretty?

What other reasons do people kiss people for?

I don’t really care about other people.

I want you to tell me why you kissed me.

Because I couldn’t hold myself back.

Does that answer your question, Taehyung?

Taehyung’s heart thuds in his chest. He’s thinking of what to reply when another notification comes through, this time with a media attachment.

And opening it might have been Taehyung’s big mistake, because what he sees has hi smouth drying up like a f*cking desert.

Because what Jeongguk has sent him can no way be classified into anything other than a half nude. There's really nothing else you can call it. He’s taken it with a very flattering angle, one that exposes half of his face and Taehyung’s face gets hit with most of the pixels on the screen being of his chest. His fully exposed chest with no fabric hiding the layers of wetness that run down his pecs and ridges down to his stomach. Taehyung doesn’t know whether he just stopped working out or had a shower and he’s not sure he wants to know either.

Even maddening is the caption that says: Have been thinking about you since the moment I left you.

He pretends he doesn’t catch how the sentence can definitely be an innuendo.

He’s opening his own phone gallery before he knows it.

Now Taehyung’s aware that Sconya’s not the safest place in the world. There are tons of places he passes by and colleagues he meets who tell him tales and stories of getting robbed or their phone being smashed out of their hands and their only complaint is the fear of getting their personal pictures leaked. Taehyung knows keeping half nudes (and full sometimes) is a risk but he hasn’t had a relationship in forever and maybe, sometimes he wants to see if he looks good through a camera’s eye and then remember the day to make himself feel confident about himself.

He scrolls back to a week earlier when he had come out of the shower and found that the two pimples growing on his left cheek had disappeared. In the midst of all of the career pressure, he had decided to let down and take one nicely composed picture to remind himself that whatever happened, at the end of the day, at least he still looked good. It’s of him lying in his bed with the view of his mirror right in front of him and he’s wearing his tightest pair of white shorts on display. His legs are positioned in a way that it gives the camera the nicest view of his round, very bouncy butt and one of his hands is underneath his chin. He’s not facing the mirror or the camera, just looking towards the side. His side profile, he thinks, is one of the best features he’s been rewarded with.

Maybe it’s a lot more explicit than Jeongguk’s but he’s attaching it to the message and clicking send before he can think too much about it.

It takes a good five minutes for Jeongguk to reply. When he does, it’s in the form of an awaiting call. Taehyung’s breathless even before he answers it.

‘H-hello?’

‘God Taehyung,’ His voice comes in a little broken. ‘What are you doing to me?’

His breath hitches. ‘The same thing you’ve been doing to me.’

There’s a pause then, both of them trying to catch coherency in the middle of a sea of unsure feelings. It’s Jeongguk who speaks first.

‘D-d’you want to meet tonight? W-without obligations of work or whatever. Just like that. You and me.’

It sounds an awful lot like Jeongguk’s trying to explain the word date without explicitly saying it but Taehyung doesn’t say anything on it. If he won’t, then Taehyung’s not going to put him in a position to do it. The prospect of hanging out with him though, sends his gut into a frenzy.

‘Okay. Okay, I’ll- Yes, I want to meet.’ He says, a little bit nervous and hesitant.

‘Great. I-I’ll text you the pickup details later.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’

Taehyung giggles a little. It’s like he’s back in high school again and his crush-turned-boyfriend isn’t putting the phone down.

‘D’you want me to hang up first?’ He asks, with a little tilt to his voice.

Jeongguk sounds amused. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Okay, Jeongguk. See you.’

And then he’s tapping the red button to end it, his legs feeling like jelly and his arms shaking and sweating like he’s just run a marathon.

*****

Taehyung is, for the lack of a better work, absolutely f*cking freaked out when he comes home from work that evening.

The morning had been sort of a blur, Taehyung equated his behaviour to being drunk, because there was no way he was in control of what he was doing. All his back and forth had happened because of a lack of sleep, the very strange hour and the adrenaline flowing through his veins. He had realised just exactly how far he had gone when he sat on the train that morning and tried to reiterate what had happened. Safe to say, his mini freakout in the train, especially about that mini-nude he’d sent Jeongguk had not gone well. Both with him and the people observing him on the vehicle.

Jeongguk texted him the location around noon and Taehyung had nearly vomited on his work desk. When he had composed himself enough to read it, he found out that he was going to be at this bar in Garden East, probably Sconya’s most affluent area, and the thought had Taehyung sweating. He was positive he didn’t have clothes that looked like they would belong anywhere in Garden East, Their nightlife was filled with these up-end bars and clubs that had sultry music, glass displays and bi-color gradient lighting, and it was everything Taehyung wasn’t accustomed to. His heart does a little something that doesn’t feel good, this was probably one of the many more things between them that would create a ridge. Jeongguk belonged to another field.

By evening, most of his negative thoughts had faded away to give way to nerves and the urgency of choosing what to wear. Jimin was ready with an outfit on standby as soon as he dropped his bags in the living room and collapsed on the couch, and they were currently discussing Taehyung’s qualms about dressing lighter or heavier. He really doesn’t know what kind of mood these posh bars have, what if he’s the only one dressed casual, or the opposite?

‘Taehyung, trust me,’ Jimin sighs and says for the ninth time. ‘Most of your clothes look completely balanced between fancy and casual. Just pick something out of the three you’ve chosen.’

‘But what if everyone’s in suits?’ Taehyung shoots back in an uncertain voice, his lip is probably red from all the nervous biting he’s done.

‘No one goes to a f*cking club in a suit, Taehyung,’ Jimin snaps. ‘You’re getting on my nerves. Put any of these on.’

‘Definitely not the first one,’ He eyes the outfits laid down in front of him with an inquisitive eye. ‘It’s too dressy.’

Jimin looks like he’s about to murder him, ‘But you were just complaining about-’

‘No, He interrupts. ‘I mean, this one looks like I’m on a date, you know. I want something a little more casual than this. That doesn’t scream date outfit.’

‘What’s wrong with wearing a date outfit?’ Jimin looks at him, putting his phone down for the first time in a while.

Taehyung’s eyes shift, ‘He never said it was a date.’

Jimin’s eyes widen like golf balls. ‘So? You guys were literally sending each other nudes? Plus he explicitly said the words ‘outside of work and obligations’? What do you think that meant?’

‘I don’t know,’ He says, running a hand through his hair. ‘I mean he could’ve just said it was a date? What was the need for all these words?’

‘Taehyung, you’re overthinking again.’ All the while Taehyung had been speaking, Jimin had taken the liberty of coming up behind him and putting both his hands on his shoulder. ‘It’s okay. Everything doesn’t have to be negative, you know? Maybe he’s just not good at words, or got flustered while trying to say it. Trust me, it pretty much implies what you think it does. Anyone will say so.’

‘Okay.’ He says, forcing himself to nod and accept. ‘Okay, I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Good, now,’ Jimin says, rubbing his hands, Taehyung is honestly scared of the gleam in his eyes. ‘I’m just telling you I’ll be pretty disappointed if you don’t wear the first one…’

*

If there’s one thing Taehyung can say about VIP clubs now that he’s sitting in one, is that he should’ve never been to one because everywhere that he frequents now seems pale and dirty in comparison with nothing to offer but bad headaches for music choice. He’s been ruined, he’ll never be able to go to a commoner’s bar ever again.

However, he’s glad that his attention has been captured by said male who appears in his peripheral vision and Taehyung just has to take a moment to appreciate how Jeongguk looks tonight. He’s swapped out his professional, business-like outfits for something more casual and Taehyung had never expected his fashion sense to be like this, if he was being honest. He’s never been in the press wearing anything like this and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream at the knowledge that it’s far hotter than anything Taehyung has ever imagined. He’s sporting a bucket hat and a button up shirt with these loose black trousers that look like cargo pants but Taehyung can tell they’re definitely not. He doesn’t know how else to describe them either. What’s causing him to choke on his spit though are two things: a) Jeongguk’s wearing a pair of boots that have like one inch high heels and b) his button-up is unbuttoned to the degree that Taehyung can see half his chest.

His own outfit in comparison looks like he’s a nun on a retreat.

Jeongguk settles down on the stool beside him, Taehyung’s heart goes into overdrive seeing how he manually shifts the stool to be closer to Taehyung before sitting down on it. Taehyung can almost count all of his lashes when Jeongguk looks at him.

‘So, enjoying yourself so far?’ Jeongguk asks him, he’s coy and confident now.

If there’s one more thing Taehyung decided on the way, it was that he was going to let himself go today and do whatever the f*ck his heart tells him to. There’s been too many thoughts plaguing his mind lately, both regarding Jeongguk’s passiveness and his career and it’s just draining to be in that predicament for that long of a period.

So he flirts back.

‘The best time. Now that you’re here.’

Jeongguk grins in response. ‘So, you’re going to be like this today?’

Taehyung tilts his head a little, with his eyes mischievous, ‘Like what?’

‘All flirty and pretty,’ Jeongguk says, shifting nearer. ‘It’s a side I don’t get to see in person at all.’

Taehyung can’t help it when his gaze shifts to Jeongguk’s lips, he doesn’t know if it’s the light but they look pinker than before, ‘Well maybe you’ll find out today.’

He pretends he doesn’t see how Jeongguk’s grin gives way to something darker, it’s reflective of the look in his eyes when he’d just been up in his personal space that day they had taken photos. Looking at him again, he decides to ask about that, ‘So why did you just start caressing me like we’re lovers that day at the park?’

Jeongguk laughs, ‘I have one question for you Taehyung, did you enjoy it?’

Taehyung’s caught a little off-guard. ‘That wasn’t my question, Jeongguk-ssi.’

‘Well then answer mine first.’ Jeongguk says, like he’s giving Taehyung a challenge.

‘Why should I?’ He’s now tracing the rim of his glass with a finger. ‘Generally, people who ask first get their answers first. Why should I give this courtesy to you?’

Jeongguk leans ever nearer, his breaths land right in the four centimetre space between them both, ‘Because I feel like both our answers might be the same.’

Taehyung looks at him in silence and laughs a little, pulling away. He picks up his glass from the counter again and takes a long gulp, ‘I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.’

He doesn’t see Jeongguk when he says, ‘I’ve given my answer to your question before as well, sweetheart. It’s because I couldn’t hold back.’

Now, seeing it written on text and hearing him say it out loud is a completely different experience. His breath hitches and he almost chokes on his gulp of drink. ‘You- you can’t just say things like that.’

He hears a shuffle of movement and the next thing he knows, Jeongguk is standing behind him, his arms taking their space on the table infront of Taehyung so that he’s trapped in between his body and the bar counter. He doesn’t dare move because Jeongguk’s breath is hitting right at the sensitive part of his neck and he’s much too aware of it. ‘Say, Taehyung, do you dance?’

Taehyung knows how weak his voice sounds when he says, ‘A little bit.’

Jeongguk whispers against his neck again, ‘Would you care to join me?’

‘A-alright.’

And it’s in a moment’s flurry that Jeongguk is dragging Taehyung to the packed dance floor and leading him right to the middle of it between bodies that are either grinding or making out. The heat feels stronger here and there’s something in his gut that feels like a ball of molten lava as soon as Jeongguk keeps his hands right on his hips and urges him closer. Taehyung closes his eyes as soon as Jeongguk begins to move and of course, as one would expect of Jeon Jeongguk The Great, he’s a great dancer. His form and posture is absolutely mind-blowing and the way he’s moving has Taehyung growing even hotter from how fluid it is and how easy he makes it look. He tries to join Jeongguk’s movements using his hands placed on his hips to guide him.

It’s not long before the song changes and it’s something filthy, with the way he hears the word ‘strip’ within the first verse and it has Jeongguk coming even closer and Taehyung’s desire acting like it’s on steroids. Jeongguk tightens his hands and pulls him towards himself and Taehyung has to keep his own hands on his shoulder for balance, and he just prays to God when Jeongguk starts moving again. Because this time, Taehyung can feel the intent behind his moves, the way his hips roll forward and connect with Taehyung’s, it has him biting back a whine with the way his nether regions start getting even warmer.

‘D’you like this, Taehyung?’ He says, with a particularly violent roll forward. ‘D’you like being like this with me?’

Taehyung gathers up all the courage in his body to move his own lips to Jeongguk’s ear and whisper out a ‘You can do better.’

Before he can register it, he’s being turned around by the same hands on his hips and being yanked backward in the same breath so that his back is now connected with Jeongguk’s chest. He pretends he doesn’t notice how his butt collides right with Jeongguk’s groin and stays there for ten seconds when he catches his breath at being manhandled like that. His gasp gives way to a whine when Jeongguk keeps his ass on him by force. It takes ten more seconds for Jeongguk to adjust and start rolling his hips forward again, only this time, Taehyung can feel his dick poking through his loose trousers and can feel it right on the tight material that covers his own ass. A shot of arousal goes straight from his groin to his entire body and it has him throwing his head back with a whine that sounds more like a moan. Jeongguk isn’t satisfied with only this, it seems, because the next moment, he’s nosing down Taehyung’s neck and Taehyung feels the telltale signs of teeth right at his pulse point.

‘Jeon-Jeongguk, what-ah…’

The rest of his words drown out the second Jeongguk sinks his teeth into the skin and immediately laps it up with his tongue to soothe out the burn. Taehyung starts writhing, ‘J-Jeongguk, I-uh..’

Frankly, he can’t take it anymore.

Jeongguk knows what he wants to say, but he wants to make him say it. Taehyung realises this with his next question, ‘You what, baby?’

He hates how his voice sounds so smooth and confident even after all that.

Taehyung collects the last bits of shame in his system and throws them away. Mortified and definitely expecting his voice to crack, ‘Take me home, Jeongguk. Just take me home.’

*

They stumble into the apartment like badly organised dominoes, actually Taehyung doesn’t really see where it is or admire the location because there hasn’t been one single second in the midst of all of this that Jeongguk has left him alone. His neck probably has more bruises before whatever they plan on doing than after.

As soon as they stumble into the hallway, Jeongguk traps him with both of his arms against a wall, planting his face so close that Taehyung has to turn away to not feel embarrassed. Jeongguk chuckles lightly and starts kissing down his neck again, only this time, his hands earnestly pull the button-over Taehyung’s wearing with his shirt and start tugging at it. Taehyung gives him space to maneuver and in a matter of seconds, his button-over is hitting the ground. The shirt he’s wearing inside is low-necked and gives Jeongguk a lot of breathing room for planting more kisses and bruises, Taehyung’s whines increase two-fold for every single ministration.

Taehyung loses sight of his coherency somewhere between Jeongguk taking his shirt off and biting and sucking his nipples the same way he did with his neck. Taehyung writhes on the wall for as long as it takes Jeongguk to do it, nearly climaxing with the way Jeongguk doesn’t stop and his senses go into overdrive. All of the after is a blur somewhere between Jeongguk taking his pants and underwear off in urgency, turning him around and eating him out like his life depends on it.

They end up doing it against the wall with Taehyung propped around Jeongguk’s waist tightly and a second time, on a bed, both of the times taking Taehyung to the heights where he screams every time he climaxes. Jeongguk makes sure to place loving kisses for every hard thrust and that has Taehyung losing every last bit of his sanity in order to keep up with the pace.

When they both collapse on the bed, Taehyung has already org*smed four mind-blowing times. His eyes close the moment he hits the mattress, passing out from the sheer exhaustion of the night.

*****

In movies, there’s always that moment when the character wakes up from a deep visit to dreamland and finds themselves disoriented to the point that they don’t know where they are. Taehyung opens his eyes to the irritation of the sunlight directly hitting his eyes and the moment he opens them halfway, the slight pain in his back tells him all he needs to know. A hot shot of something flows right through his stomach remembering the events of last night.

He looks to his side and, he’s right, Jeongguk’s fast asleep on his chest, the sheets falling over him to cover most of his body except for half of his chest and shoulders. He’s turned away from Taehyung, even though he’s positive both of them fell asleep cuddling, but looking at his position, he has somehow ended up on the far other side of the bed and has somehow rotated in the opposite direction so his face is towards Jeongguk’s feet.

He smiles a little and gets his body back up, still looking at him, and then takes the liberty to look around the room. It’s completely white, the walls and the furniture, even the bed they lie in. The only smudges of color are on the large life-size painting hanging directly on the wall in front of the bed and it shows a black and white monochrome gradient. He supposes the white wisps in it are supposed to look like smoke from ashes. Everything else is doused in either pure white or a slight gold if there are doorknobs or other pieces of furniture that might need attention.

If you’d have described it to Taehyung and he’d have gotten to know a completely white room from second-hand storytelling, he would’ve thought it was bland. However, looking around him now, he knows it’s anything but. The one color scheme is used in such a way that it looks more tasteful compared to whatever Taehyung might’ve thought up in his mind.

He’s glad it’s a weekend and he fell asleep knowing that, because he might’ve woken up the entire place if he woke up in a flurry of movement. Now, he has the time to laze around and finally decide to get up. Looking at the clothes lying around the room, there’s a mixture of both embarrassment and desire deep in his gut when he spots some of his clothes lying in between them. He picks up the button-over that he was wearing over a shirt last night and wraps himself and his naked body in it and steps out of the bedroom just to look around. He hopes Jeongguk won't mind.

The outside definitely has more color than the inside does, but it’s still all very muted and a sea of light beige and other pastel colors. The granite countertops scream elegance and wealth like everything else does and Taehyung personally spots an induction stove-top in the open kitchen and sighs, he had wanted one of those for so long before accepting that he would never be able to afford it.

Looking wistfully, he moves his gaze from the kitchen to the living room and sees something that makes his breath catch in his throat. There’s a giant tapestry in the middle of one of the walls that stand behind the very elegant and strangely shaped sofa set that Taehyung weirdly seems to like. He moves a little to see clearly what the purpose of the tapestry is and stands right in front of it. It looks like it’s hung at an art gallery with the way it’s hanging so immaculately and making its space for itself in the room.

There’s a series of interconnected lines on the tapestry, linking one box to another and it’s a big system with the way the lines overlap and go over to the other side and come back to their side again. Taehyung notices it starts from that one little box at the top, like it’s where all of it originated from. Down below are different similar gold-embossed letterings and Taehyung can see that it’s Chinese from the way the syllables are written. He doesn’t know Chinese but he can sort of guess it’s a-

‘Family tree,’ A very scratchy and rough voice says from behind him, Taehyung almost jumps. ‘That’s the entire lineage of the Sconya royal family you’re looking at right now.’

There’s a jolt in his throat as he realises that he’s stumbled into some very important information that he would’ve killed to know had it been a few weeks ago. ‘Oh wow.’

‘Yeah,’ Jeongguk grins and comes up behind Taehyung, wrapping his arms around his waist and settling his chin down on his shoulder. ‘It starts from King Xinyang the IV right in the 15th century and descends into Sconya after the wars in the 17th. Everyone’s names are on there.’

‘I-is your name on there too?’ Jeongguk chuckles.

‘Of course,’ He says, still speaking in a whisper against Taehyung’s ear. ‘This one gets re-made and restored every year and a new addition is made everytime a potential heir is born or dies or someone gets married. They keep track of everything alright. Everyone in my family has one at their houses.’

Taehyung gazes dazedly, the font on the lettering is so small that Taehyung can’t really read most of it even with the broken Chinese he knows how to spell. Somewhere at the end of this tapestry, hidden, is the answer to all of his problems. ‘D-does this also tell who the inheritance goes to after your grandfather?’

‘Yeah, they decide everything in these restoration meetings. Given that we knew Jeong-ho was going to pass long before he did, there were a lot of meetings and discussions over this matter. We decided who was going to succeed a year ago.’

Taehyung’s heart thuds. So it’s not something that’s in the works, they’re already on their way to finalising it now. If only he had had this information when he wanted it, his career wouldn’t depend on being a professional paparazzi.

‘You seem really interested in this.’ Jeongguk says, nosing a little down his neck. Taehyung’s breath hitches.

‘Yeah, it’s wonderful work. I really like how this serves a higher purpose but still carries so much artistic value.’

His eyes are still roaming to look for the name he hopes is there. The series of interconnected lines makes it harder to know where to look.

Seeing his interest, it’s Jeongguk who speaks up softly, ‘You seem really interested. D’you want a little crash course?’

Taehyung nods way too eagerly for his own good.

Jeongguk begins explaining all the way from the top, standing in front of the tapestry like he’s some goddamn history teacher. Taehyung pays attention at the beginning when he talks about where it all started from, Kin Xinyang in the 15th century, and then descends down to their culture and what the people were like at those times and how it has evolved to some of their practices even now. To be fair to himself, he tries listening to it really hard, concentrates with all of his might because in the event that he decides to print something about his inheritance, it might be some of the most useful information he’s gotten. But it’s not his fault really, Jeongguk has on a pair of soft beige shorts and an open button-up with his chest exposed completely down the middle. His sleeves are rolled up and Taehyung honestly can’t fan himself enough with the way Jeongguk manages to take his breath away, the way his arm flexes when he tries to point to something that’s far out of his reach. Taehyung can’t look away, he can’t say he’s ever liked history back at school but he was positive that if Jeongguk had been his teacher, he might have learned far more than he did.

Jeongguk looks every bit like a dream and Taehyung wants to be part of it.

He’s still staring at him when Jeongguk reaches the end of the tapestry and amidst his daze, some words of interest start filtering into his mind. His mind catches on when Jeongguk says something about Jeon Jeong-ho. He slowly moves his head from Jeongguk onto the tapestry and tries to concentrate on the words he’s saying:

‘.....my great-grandfather owed a neighbouring monarch family a lot of money which is why he ended up making one of his sisters marry their son. It was a horrible deal and even though his sister remained very happy wherever she went, I’ve heard no one ever got to see her again,’ He says pointing towards this one line that intersects onto two opposite sides of the tapestry, ‘My grandfather took over from there after this disaster of a marriage when the court was convinced that he couldn’t rule anymore.’

He pauses a little, then continues, ‘Jeon Jeong-ho was known by all as a very capable successor, at least to the likes of us at home, we could always feel the intimidation and I don’t think he was ever present for us as a granddad. As a kid, I used to wonder why my dad hangs out with him so much. When I grew a little older, I saw how dad was running around getting things done all over the country, he knew things no one else in the family did.’

Taehyung was fascinated, the news doesn’t report things like this on the daily because no one really knows the inner dynamics of these people that are involved on the inside doing all of the work, living this life. It makes it all seem so real and very different from the far-away fairytale Taehyung had deemed it to be.

‘At one point, when Jeong-ho got sick, everyone assumed he was going to hand over the throne to my dad.’ Jeongguk continues, he’s now sporting a look on his face that’s deeply melancholic, it makes Taehyung’s heart hurt a little bit. ‘And it seemed like everyone was correct with how they went to Switzerland to get the bank accounts rounded up, even called the board members for a meeting, drafted wills and all, but then when he got a little better, there was no handling over, no transfer, nothing. All of it just seemed like a ploy. Nothing happened. Everyone wondered what all those meetings were for, but no one really knew what came out of it.’

He takes a deep breath then, ‘We all came to know seven months later that my dad had leukemia. That’s when it all clicked into place. Everything was being pushed into process because both my dad and Jeong-ho knew how precious time was and neither of them had the luxury of thinking about it. Even Jeong-ho was battling with his own illness, being so old and laden with so many responsibilities and in his last few days, it was so clear how desperate he looked for someone to come and take all of it away from him.’

Taehyung’s heart cracks a little bit, Jeongguk looks so broken while telling this. It must’ve been hard for him to lose both a father and a grandfather in the matter of less than four years.

‘I’m sorry, Jeongguk. You don’t have to continue. It’s- It was hard, right?’

Jeongguk looks at him with wide eyes, but this time, he’s filled with raw emotion and Taehyung sees how his eyes glitter with unshed tears. Like he’s trying hard to hold back, ‘My dad, yeah. It was really hard. I was sort of like his only play partner, you know, the only person he didn’t have to discuss business with. He always used to say that Jeong-ho didn’t give him much time as a child to be his dad but he wasn’t going to do the same to me. He made sure to tuck me in bed every night when I was a kid and had either lunch or dinner with me when I grew older.’

Taehyung wants to engulf him in his arms.

‘When dad passed away, everybody knew it was Jeong-ho’s turn. But he didn’t really advance any inheritance discussions. Everyone kept waiting on him to announce who he thought should be the heir but he always remained unbothered about it,’ He pauses and then takes a moment to remember what to say. ‘I don’t know if you remember but there was a big fuss in the media about me going for this overseas trip with a big entourage a few months back. That was actually Jeong-ho’s doing. He called both me and my cousin up to Switzerland where he had drafted the will and told us about the inheritance contract they had signed without any of our knowledge while my dad was still alive.’

Taehyung’s ears perk up.

‘They told both of us that it was going to be me.’

Taehyung’s heart drops out of his ass. ‘What? You- you’re the- you’re basically the monarch now, oh my f*cking god-’

Jeongguk sighs wistfully and comes back to where Taehyung is standing, taking both of his hands in his and leading them to sit on the couch. ‘Honestly, I had known about it long before any of it happened. After dad passed away, Jeong-ho basically took me under his wing. I don’t really know if he did it out of pity or because there was this wide gap left by my dad that he had to overcome but I suddenly found myself doing things I remembered dad used to do. I’ve always had an inkling.’

He pauses then, chuckling a little bit then adding, ‘Though, I didn’t think it was going to be that soon.’

Taehyung looks at him, still in a daze, ‘Jeongguk I don’t understand, like you’re the Crown now, like you own half of Sconya, I still can’t seem to wrap my head around it…’

Jeongguk smiles a little, ‘No I don’t. Not yet, at least.’

Taehyung rounds on him again, ‘But you just said-’

‘Yeah I - I never told you what I said in response though,’ He says and now Taehyung sees he’s avoiding his gaze a little. ‘I might’ve said I need some time to think about it.’

‘What?’ Taehyung loses his grip on Jeongguk’s hand. ‘You don’t want to be the monarch?’

‘It’s not that I didn’t want to be, at that point,’ Jeongguk sighs and then continues. ‘But I just didn’t want to add to that share of pressure, you know. These businesses I handle give me a lot of grey hairs as is. Plus, you probably already know what happened with my mother and father. I think Jeong-ho was the only person who didn’t give him the side-eye for it.’

‘Oh. Did you….have you thought about it now?’

‘No. They’re all waiting on my decision. I know plenty of people who’re against it, because they’re still hung up over my parents being a strange couple. I’m still thinking. But I know I’m running out of time.’

Taehyung doesn’t know what to say. His mind is spinning at the thought of being in the presence of a possible, potential monarch of the f*cking royal family. And sure, of course, he didn’t really give a f*ck about them before, but sleeping with one, flirting with one? He actually can’t believe he had the guts to do all of that.

It’s also the first time he realises within himself, looking at the scared look on Jeongguk’s face just how young he is. He’s even younger than taehyung and he himself can barely get his life together while he’s at it. The most he’s done throughout these past few weeks is make trouble for others and for himself. And Jeongguk has the pressure to succeed as the head of a royal family that has ruled over Sconya, directly or indirectly, for years. He can’t relate but he definitely understands the lapse of judgement he’s going through. If his father hadn’t passed away, he would’ve had a good 10-20 years with his father as the monarch before taking on his place and that would’ve been infinitely better instead of a two year crash course in taking over after his father had passed away. He is, right now, at the end of the day, just in his twenties. There’s a lot he still has to learn.

He looks over to him and Jeongguk is just playing with Taehyung’s hands in his grip, his heart goes out to him.

He looks over at his own lapse in judgement and catches himself before he can slip on that dangerous path. What was he thinking? That he was going to expose this just so he could advance his f*cking career? What was wrong with him? Why would he want to put even more pressure on this man who already had the burden of Hercules’s sky on his shoulders? Why would he want to forcefully put him in the spotlight when he hadn’t even decided for himself yet? Looking back, Taehyung’s heart agrees when, for the first f*cking time since this assignment was given to him, he admits that it really was for the best that he didn’t find anything out then. He hadn’t known Jeongguk as a person then and he regrets to think what horrible impact it must’ve been for him if somehow all of this got leaked to the media.

It’s always been a bad idea. Always. The press doesn’t have the right to information beyond their jurisdiction. Of course when the inheritance wants to make itself known, Jeongguk would be the first person on camera announcing just who it was. But for now, for this breathing space he’s trying so hard to keep, the press doesn’t have a right to disturb him out of it, especially forcefully. He deserved all the time he wanted out of the spotlight. Taehyung might have forgotten a lot of that along the way but he’s sure this is a wake up call. It has to be. There’s no way he can expose this vulnerability to a country of some 60 million.

He grips Jeongguk’s hands tighter. All he needs is support and Taehyung thinks he may definitely have a lot of that to give.

*****

They say it’s always easier to give conviction to your plans and decisions when you don’t really know what you’re in for regarding the future.

Jeongguk drops him with a kiss on his cheek and a hearty goodbye that evening right in front of his place and it’s all he can do to not collapse on the pavement and get a heart by-pass surgery. He’s leaving all too soon with the promise of texting him later. Till he climbs up the stairs, he’s a bubble of light, floating energy with warmth coursing inside of him and thoughts of Jeongguk plaguing every direction of his brain.

It’s when he walks in that he sees Seokjin perched on the edge of his green couch, Jimin is in the kitchen and by the looks of it, he’s making a drink.

Now, he knows his brother is pissed off at him. And yes, it has been all for the right reasons but Taehyung knows this was bound to happen at some point or the other, both of them had never gone very long without solving whatever it was that was keeping them apart. He hesitantly approaches him and settles his ass down on the loveseat right opposite where he’s sitting.

Seokjin has this unnatural habit of staring directly at him when he’s thinking about saying something but can’t quite get it out and it has never failed at unnerving Taehyung, so he thinks it’s better that he becomes the icebreaker, ‘Alright, out with it. What’s up?’

‘Tell me why,’ Seokjin asks with one hand on his chin. ‘when I was coming upstairs, I saw a car that looked a lot like Jeongguk’s parked right on the cusp of the apartment gate?’

Taehyung sighs, ‘Hyung, there’s been a lot of-’

‘Taehyung,’ Seokjin interrupts with a hand wave. ‘I came here to apologise for you. I never like being at odds with anyone and especially not with you, it makes my days messy. But tell me how you would feel if you walked into my apartment and caught me doing exactly the thing you asked me not to do minutes before you were to talk to me for the first time in a while?’

‘Hyung,’ Taehyung says indignantly. ‘Please just hear me out.’

‘I don’t know how to warn you of what can happen to you, Taehyung,’ Seokjin is now running a hand through his hair and Taehyung knows it’s something he only does when incredibly frustrated. ‘Please tell me how to get through to you on this.’

He’s about to reply when an email notification rings through the house and the source is directly from Taehyung’s phone in his hand. Usually when Taehyung gets email notifications, he knows something is urgent because the rest of the time, they usually tell Taehyung whatever it is through text. Sending an email means they have to cc the Director and in the past, receiving this has never meant good for anyone in their office including Taehyung.

‘Hyung, give me a minute.’ He opens the email with a quick hand and it’s a work email titled URGENT and they’ve definitely cced both the Director of the department as well as the Director of the publishing house, the one who had given Taehyung’s assignment to him that day. Taehyung sucks in a breath when he reads through it, eyes involuntarily scrunching together at the mention of photos and information and time and traction. It makes his head spin.

For a few moments after he reads the email, his attention remains scattered. It takes a good amount of considerable minutes when the information decides to settle in his brain and all it brings with it is white, hot, seething anger. ‘I’m going to f*cking kill all of them.’

‘Taehyung?’ Seokjin says, concerned now. ‘What happened? Is it something you want to talk about?’

It takes one look at Jimin sitting beside him with open ears and outstretched hands for Taehyung to spill forth about the work email. Jooheon had clearly sat and written this one with intent, with the way the corporate words all sound harsh and straightforward.

‘They want me to send more information on Jeongguk’s mystery man as soon as I can,’ Taehyung says, frustration evident in his voice. ‘They looked it up online and as far as they know, the matter is losing traction on social media and they don’t want it to come to that point. They’ve also mentioned how Express’s inheritance news is still a hot topic on many forums. The comparison between trends is crazy.’

Jimin sucks in a sharp breath. ‘It’s okay, Taehyung, you can-’

‘Jimin, they know it’s me,’ He says, his voice breaking. ‘They know it’s me, that’s why this asshole cced both the Directors because I’m pretty sure they know also. He hasn’t written it here but his last line says something along the lines of taking dire, necessary action to prevent the newspaper’s reputation from going down. It’s not just about kicking me out anymore. They will post about me. At some point.’

It’s Seokjin who tries speaking next, ‘Taehyung, this is exactly-’

‘Do not say I told you so right now hyung, I don’t need it.’

Seokjin shuts up promptly. Jimin looks at Taehyung with sympathy and then makes a move to sit down beside him on the loveseat pulling his head down to his shoulder. Taehyung complies very easily, Jimin’s warmth providing some semblance of comfort. They spend a few minutes in silence, both thinking about what to do in their own ways when Taehyung speaks up,

‘I-I stayed over at Jeongguk’s last night,’ He says after flushing out the shame in his body due to what that implies. ‘I saw their family tree hanging over his apartment. He-he told me about the inheritance thing. I know who’s going to be the successor to Jeong-ho.’

Seokjin can’t help it when he nearly screams. ‘WHAT?’

‘Y-yeah.’

‘He TOLD you?’

‘I mean, not exactly-’

‘Jesus are you two,’ He’s now standing up and pacing around their carpet with an evident look of frustration on his face. ‘absolutely f*cking insane right now?’

‘Hyung-’

Seokjin raises a threatening hand, ‘Not now, Taehyung. Let me finish. What the f*ck was he thinking? Does he know you’re a journalist?’

‘Ye-yeah he does. Of course he does-’

‘And he told you despite it all?’ Seokjin’s hands are now on his hips. He looks like their mom.

‘I mean I asked him-’

‘Irresponsible brat. I’ll just beat the f*ck out of him.’ He says, while still looking at Taehyung like he’s done something he has to disown him for.

‘Hyung- I….I think I like him.’

There’s complete silence. He thinks even Jimin’s breathing comes to a slow, steady stop. No one says anything for a good few minutes, Taehyung can see from his peripheral vision that Seokjin’s stuck in the same pose while Jimin’s entire body is tense. He swears even the clock stops ticking at some point.

It’s Jimin who breaks the ice wall. ‘Uh- Taehyung. I thought this was all because of a deal? I mean you told me that precisely?’

‘I know but,’ Taehyung’s still speaking very hesitantly. ‘he’s so sweet and I don’t know, he makes me feel things. A lot of things.’

He’s still looking at Seokjin who, in a daze, decides to take a seat on the couch again. ‘Taeh-Taehyung, is this- you’re not joking with me right now, are you?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve had a lot of time to run from my feelings. I’m really past that.’

Jimin takes his hands again. ‘Taehyungie, you know I want you to do whatever your heart says at any point, but this will be really hard. You know that, right? Does he like you too?’

‘I don’t know.’ He says, looking down and stealing his own gaze away from Seokjin. ‘He’s never explicitly said it.’

No one says anything for a while. Taehyung then thinks it’s a good idea to bring the conversation a notch further. ‘Th-that’s why I’m really confused. I thought that, by that whole dating debacle, I’d at least get closer to him in a way that he might get comfortable with me and provide me some juicy gossip for that inheritance thing. But-but now that he has, he was so sweet and must have trusted me a lot to provide that information without any second thoughts or strings attached. He didn’t even tell me to keep it secret. I - I don’t know if I should-’

‘Absolutely not.’ Seokjin says and this time, his normal voice is back with a snap. ‘You will not do anything of that sort.’

Both of them stare at him. The sheer protectiveness in his voice is a little jarring.

Seokjin sighs and then softens, ‘Jeongguk has been through a hard time. Especially with the press. Why d’you think he was so bitter and unwilling to talk to you in the beginning?’

‘I-I thought that was because, like a normal celebrity in the spotlight, he didn’t want to share any aspect of privately handled things.’

Seokjin sighs. ‘No it’s not- I mean, yes it is, but Jeongguk is definitely more violently against all of it than everyone else in his family combined. He- sort of like your situation, he went through the same thing some years ago. At a bar, someone came up to him and this boy, naive and young, said whoever came up had a very intriguing personality and he had a great conversation with them. You know how he is, you can never not have an interesting conversation with him when you’re around him.’

The last statement has Taehyung’s heart growing fond. It’s true, Jeongguk really does know how to make everything so much more interesting.

‘Well, then you should know he also prefers people who are the same, who he thinks can make it all seem...not so boring. This man came up and looked like he promised a good time, Jeongguk was young, he flirted a little and thought it was a good idea to get drunk around him. When he woke up in the morning, his entire news feed was filled with quotes from an article about pressures and the way he felt lonely sometimes, about his mental health worsening. All of it told in confidence to a person he decided to trust at once. He had a really hard time with it.’

A very irrational anger sparks in Taehyung’s heart, thinking of a Jeongguk that might have been so helpless and so confused waking up to wonder why personal thoughts about himself were part of media prosecution like this. Things he might have told in confidence, things he probably wanted to talk about to someone and this dickhe*d went ahead and sold him out.

It’s with a jolt that he realises, that he essentially, was suggesting that he do the same thing to him. A shudder runs through his veins thinking of himself being in that exact same position. Did the person who did this to him not feel remorse? Or the guilt?

‘That’s why I was so surprised when you told me that he let you in on the inheritance thing,’ Seokjin says softly. ‘It’s been a long time since he’s plucked up the courage to trust someone like that. He must think you can be loyal enough to not go screaming to the press about it.’

Taehyung honestly feels ashamed that he even thought that it might ever happen. It was very clearly something Jeongguk told him in extreme confidence. Even without all this added context, it didn't make sense for him to even consider airing it out in public.

‘Be careful with Jeongguk’s trust, Taehyung. There’s very few people he gives it to.’

*****

Jeongguk takes him out for another date two days later after a series of texts that ensue both sexual innuendos and more flirting. Taehyung’s heart goes into overdrive everytime Jeongguk utters a sweetheart.

They end up getting icecream from a cart not far from Jeongguk’s place. Jeongguk gets Taehyung strawberry icecream because he looks like someone who might enjoy it. Taehyung laughs and comments that Jeongguk looks like someone who would like mint choco chip. By the end of their date, they have five icecreams between them because each one of them insists on that one flavour that reminds him of the other.

Five minutes later, Jeongguk gets up suddenly and tells him there’s still one flavour he hasn’t thought of. Taehyung tells him to go and get it with a smile. Jeongguk comes back two minutes later with a cup of a flavour called Starry Night and tells him it’s because of the pin he always wears on his clothes. Taehyung looks at him with all the glee in the world and Jeongguk looks like he’s in a daze when he says, ‘You suit Starry Night, Taehyung. Sometimes you feel like short bursts of joy in a largely boring world.’

Taehyung ends up hugging him silly in the middle of the ground.

*****

When they meet again later four days later, he feels an urge from Jeongguk to keep touching him for as long as he can, however he can. His hands are always either on his waist, or draped around his shoulders or he;s clutching his arm like a scared kid.

The only thing he didn’t have the confidence to do yet is hold Taehyung’s hand directly.

Taehyung doesn’t mind the touching, instead revels in it when Jeongguk carries him through a row of stores on the floor of a mall he booked for the evening. It makes him feel especially giddy to know that there’s no one by their side, no people to bump into but Jeongguk still feels the need to keep him close by.

It happens when they’re just deciding to get food and Taehyung whines about going in the opposite direction just so he could emotionally bribe Jeongguk into getting him some stir fry. He’s dragging Jeongguk through the man’s own grip on his forearm when suddenly, whether it’s through instinct or through the need for him to stop, Jeongguk grabs his hand and says, ‘It’s this way.’

Both of them arrive at a standstill, Taehyung especially looking at their intertwined hands like he can’t believe it. Jeongguk’s hands look hesitant but firm and he loves the grip he has on Taehyung’s slightly larger hand. Theirs don’t fit neatly at all, what with Jeongguk’s being more calloused and a little more rough and Taehyung’s sporting long fingers and smooth skin, but it looks just right. His heart gives a little jolt.

He tightens his grip after a moment, with the biggest smile on his face and lets Jeongguk drag him to the opposite side from where they were headed.

The restaurant ends up being on the side they were going to go in originally. Taehyung doesn’t know whether Jeongguk did it just so he could hold his hand but he has his own suspicions.

*****

A week later, Taehyung and Jeongguk meet at the same park that they took their pap photos at. It’s an unusual location to meet but Jeongguk insists and Taehyung truly isn’t strong enough to counter Jeongguk’s use of nicknames for him yet.

They end up walking around the park, hand in hand, because that’s become a normal thing for them now. Everytime both of them are in each other’s vicinity, it’s become the heir’s thing to hold Taehyung’s hand in his own like he’s caressing it and Taehyung loves the soft feeling of him rubbing his knuckles at the soft skin between Taehyung’s fingers.

After taking an entire round and going the path up to the jogging track, they end up at the same tree where they had had their pictures taken. Jeongguk grins up at the tree and Taehyung can’t help but be endeared by it. ‘What are you so giddy about?’

‘You know, I always thought you were pretty before but I didn’t know I’d have the guts to do whatever I did that day, to be very honest.’

Taehyung leans into shoulder. ‘It was so surprising for me. You should’ve given me a warning.’

‘Body acted before the mind could catch up. You had no idea how pretty you looked under these shadows, you know?’ He nuzzles his nose into Taehyung’s hair and taehyung hums back as a response.

There’s something about standing quietly within the falling leaves around them with the occasional crunch of a foot stepping on them or a bird cooing above them that has Jeongguk reaching out and wrapping his hands around Taehyung completely, ‘I really like you, you know?’

Taehyung ends up jumping right into his arms and kissing the sh*t out of him against the same tree he plucked up the confidence in front of all those weeks ago.

*****

Taehyung wakes up in Jeongguk’s arms for a second time two days later. The sun is barely out but the twilight is poking through his curtains. What’s different is that, this time, when he turns around to look at the man, he’s lying wide awake looking at him through weirdly glassy eyes.

‘You were just staring at me asleep, huh?’ He asks, turning to face him.

He croaks out. ‘Never had the chance to say you look really pretty in the morning.’

Taehyung laughs, ‘Don’t do this to me at this time, Jeongguk. I have to get ready and go to work to face that demon. Nothing helps if I’m late.’

‘It’s still early though,’ He pouts. ‘You can give me like 15 minutes of pre-wakeup cuddle time.’

Taehyung doesn’t say anything, just shifts over to lay his head on his chest. Jeongguk has a tattoo right in the middle of his shoulder and his pec and Taehyung’s noticed he always keeps it very carefully hidden. It’s some sort of flower, and it looks really precise like Jeongguk had known exactly what it was before having it tattooed. He finds peace in raising one of his fingers and tracing the outline.

‘First time Seokjin told me he was your brother I choked on my own saliva,’ Jeongguk says, out of nowhere. ‘I can’t believe I told him I agreed to those interviews with you because I thought you were pretty.’

Taehyung smacks his chest with his free hand, ‘You made my life a living hell. You could’ve just said!’

‘And you would’ve jumped right into my arms, right?’ He smiles back. ‘It’s okay. It turned out better this way.’

*****

When Taehyung goes to work the day after he meets Jeongguk, Jooheon is already waiting for him at his cubicle. He rolls his eyes and proceeds to settle down on his desk, ignoring his piercing gaze.

When he fires up his PC is when Jooheon finally speaks, ‘Taehyung, I want a word with you in my office.’

He can’t bring himself to say how dramatic Jooheon is being, like he’s on trial for murder and he’s his last hope. With a huff, he follows Jooheon into his office, it’s a place he spends more time in than his own cubicle if he’s being honest, and finds that his usual seat has been occupied by the same asshole Director who was there the first time Taehyung got assigned the Jeongguk assignment.

His feet get cold again like they always do when he feels like something is about to go wrong. With hesitant feet, he pulls up a chair from the other side of the room and settles it somewhere that’s at a considerable distance from the Director.

He tries to sound casual when he says, ‘So what’s up?’

‘Taehyung,’ It’s Jooheon who starts the conversation. ‘Tell me something. Did you receive the email that we sent you on an urgent basis?’

Of course he f*cking did. It’s not like they didn’t mark it with an URGENT on purpose.

‘Yeah, I did.’ He says, looking him directly in the eye. If there’s one thing that Taehyung doesn’t want to show right now, it’s that he’s being intimidated. That their efforts to do it are working.

‘And has there been any progress on that front?’

He knew the time was coming. They had to ask him about it at some point or the other. He doesn’t know why his heart thuds loud in his chest at the prospect of this happening when he was the least ready for it. ‘No, I’m working on it.’

‘Listen Taehyung,’ Jooheon says and he’s now leaning on the table with both of his hands in front of him. ‘I already told you the moment that you came here that this is not the way things work here. If you’re given some work, we expect you to do it how we ask you to. This assignment was given to you months ago. And you still haven’t been able to give us anything concrete on that. Instead, we’ve faced a loss in engagement from the one thing that you did manage to bring us. We told you that you had to keep that in check because it had the potential of becoming a hot topic but the flow of your information just stopped coming.’

Jooheon trails on in the background as Taehyung zones out of it, his hands and feet forgetting their nerves instantly. He notices things have been so different since the last time he had stepped into this office before they completely broke his trust in this company. And now that Jooheon is trailing on and on of his faults in front of the Director and finds himself giving less f*cks about any of it by the second.

‘...I thought you’d be able to pick up traction when you came back with a bang but your performance has been underwhelmingly dissatisfactory…’

It’s strange how Taehyung gave two years of his best work to this company and in none of his monologues does Jooheon mention just how they had him followed that one time because they knew it was him in the photos. It’s also strange how they fail to acknowledge how they had kept Taehyung writing sh*tty, daily update articles when they knew he was meant for so much more, his entire resume had been top notch; there was a reason he had landed this job within such a short amount of time after graduation. It was strange how they managed to judge him through the one thing he couldn’t do after years of handling their entire writing department on his back. And it was definitely strange how they wanted to uphold this reputation of how Taehyung was underperforming when he had explicitly told them he couldn’t do it the moment they assigned him to this.

It was strange how he felt himself getting overwhelmingly angry by the minute for as long as Jooheon raged on about his supposed carelessness in the background.

‘...we might need to have a discussion about the future-’

That’s it. Taehyung had had enough.

‘Get to the point, Jooheon. What d’you want?’

Jooheon looks caught off-guard. He doesn’t even look sideways to gauge the Director’s expression. ‘Consider this my last warning to you, Taehyung. We want something concrete, something we can post by the end of the week. If not, you can see yourself outside.’

Taehyung is stunned into silence. While he had definitely assumed it would happen, he hadn’t expected them to descend this low to actually do it in his face.

His brain goes back to all those times Seokjin had told him to quit.

It’s the DIrector who says it next, ‘Taehyung, you have to understand, The Sconya Times wouldn’t have been able to be what it is today if we let employees like you get away with this kind of stuff.’

Right, employees like him who never got appreciated for what they did and for the top notch work they had been doing for years, weren’t compensated for anything they did in the form of experience and failed to do that one thing they never came here for. Right.

His anger is so seething that he stands from his chair at once, ‘I’ll be in contact about this.’

He walks out of the office and feels the relief on his face as clear as day. He remembers the days when his work used to be something he enjoyed most of all but now, the place seems like a quicksand.

*****

He calls Jeongguk as soon as he is home for the day after roaming on the streets for an hour or two.

Jeongguk picks up on the second ring, ‘Hey, what’s-’

‘They’re firing me.’ He says without abandon. Even flinches a little from how passive and dead he sounds.

‘Taehyung,’ He hears him sigh. ‘This was bound to happen. They wouldn’t be satisfied with your work ever. Even if you managed to do this, they would find something else to be miserable about.’

Taehyung takes this opportunity to collapse on the couch, loosening his tie to give himself a little breathing room. Jimin’s probably not home yet. ‘Yes I know but, it feels embarrassing to be chased out of a place like that. They’re probably going to spread the agenda that I was kicked out because I didn’t do my work properly.’

He hears some shuffling in the background and it sounds as if Jeongguk also finds a place to sit. The parallel makes Taehyung smile. ‘I know. D’you feel bad about this?’

‘A little.’

‘Taehyung.’

‘Okay, a lot. Of course I do. This career was my entire life before this mess happened.’

Jeongguk hums a little and stays quiet for a minute, Taehyung contents himself with hearing his little breaths coming through the speaker. They’re calming enough that he finds intrusive thoughts being pushed back to the back of his mind.

When Jeongguk speaks again, Taehyung is very much humming contentedly. ‘Taehyung?’

‘Hmm?’

‘You want to leave this place, right?’

‘Yeah. Very much.’

‘Okay.’

*****

It’s 4 am when Taehyung grabs his laptop and opens a word document to start writing so aggressively that the clattering of the keys can be heard in the entire apartment.

It’s partly fueled from the entire humiliating debacle he had to see at work today but more so from Taehyung’s regret. He’s heard a lot of times in his life that regret hurts the most out of any predicament that a human can place themselves in, and he’s starting to finally see why. It’s begun eating at him and his mind how he had so naively and wholeheartedly expected empathy out of a corporation that basically controlled the narrative in the entire country and had held on to the hope that they might recognise his hard work at some point.

The lights are off, the curtains are drawn and he can hear the low hum of the air conditioner from his and Jimin’s room. Late nights like this when Taehyung is a little disoriented, misdirected and also trying not to wake up Jimin while wanting the utmost support from him is when he feels the most lonely.

He stares at the first few words of his document, they spell out his own name, loud and clear, followed by a title that identifies him as one of the ex-writers of The Sconya Times. With a sigh, he contemplates whether he should add the ‘ex’ but it does nothing more than frustrate him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there’s still some involuntary hesitation at letting this all go.

His call with Jeongguk had made him realise that if things had come up to here, then the two year trajectory where he forced himself to work to the bone required that he go out with a bang. And so, he had decided to put himself as bait, instead of all the times he used someone else. He would reveal himself as Jeongguk’s mystery man, it might not be as big of a news as anything on inheritance but it was definitely something. Something that might at least make them regret whatever they did to him, even for a split second.

But even amidst all of this mental turmoil, Taehyung had still spent two years in a job that required him to work no matter what. He remembers still coming into work that one day where he had bumped his knee into a rock on one of his walks with Jimin and Jooheon had told him it was okay to come to work still his hands weren’t hurt and he could still type. He hates him for it but it has also trained him to keep typing no matter what.

He doesn’t know where the hours go by but to be very fair he hadn’t started out a lot of time before dawn. When the walls of the living room start reflecting the golden hues from the window announcing the sun and the apartment gets bathed in a soft glow of orange light, Taehyung stares at the finished product on the screen. It reads very proudly:

‘ An ex-writer on The Sconya Times publishing team was revealed to be Jeongguk’s mystery man…’

He doesn’t get a chance to think about how he feels when the exhaustion is taking him into dreamland again.

*****

Taehyung wakes up to 43 missed calls from Seokjin and 23 from Jimin.

He wakes up in a start as one more comes through but Taehyung doesn’t really answer the phone when he’s not in the right state of mind to. He lets it ring and takes a much-needed trip to the bathroom to freshen up.

It’s noon so the apartment seems pretty silent as it always is. He goes back to his phone after give or take, 15 minutes and sees that Seokjin has called 10 more times in the time it took him to get here.

‘Jesus Christ,’ He says, slapping a hand on his thigh. ‘What is so urgent?’

It’s when he extends his notification bar that he reads one of Seokjin’s 25 texts he had sent with the call. It just reads a simple, ‘ Check the news.’

Bewildered with the entire situation, Taehyung switches tabs and goes to The Sconya Times app for latest news updates. And what he sees on the homepage has him choking on his own spit.

Because no way does it read what he thinks it does. He must be seeing things right now. There’s no way it reads ‘Jeon Jeongguk ready to take on the throne tomorrow as the new monarch of the Sconya Royal Family.’

He’s barely giving himself a chance to think before he’s tapping the dial button next to Seokjin’s name.

‘Now he picks up! I’ve been calling since like, 9 am-’

‘Hyung, did you know about this?’ He says, the urgency in his voice evident.

‘No I didn’t,’ The tiredness is seeping out of his voice. ‘He just woke up and said I want to do it today. We kept asking him what. He didn’t tell us it was going to be this. Just typed up a statement himself and sent it to his PR team that handles his press publications.’

Maybe Jeongguk finally gathered the courage to embrace his future? But he was so unsure about it when he spoke with Taehyung.

‘Is there anything else?’ He says, sighing. ‘Have you talked with him at all?’

‘He’s been busy with phone calls and giving statements and handling other things. That’s why I wanted to call you up, just to see if you knew anything or if he had mentioned something. It’s almost like he’s avoiding us.’ He says and Taehyung’s heart gives an uncomfortable squeeze.

‘I’m sort of worried.’ He says in a small voice. ‘Why so suddenly?’

‘I don’t know Taehyung,’ Seokjin sighs with him. ‘Really don’t know what goes on in this boy’s mind half of the time. Turn the TV on, okay? There should be something about a presscon two hours from now. I can arrange something if you want to be there for him, okay?’

Taehyung, unable to put his own thoughts into words, nods and hums an affirmation. ‘Okay.’

‘Do come if you can, you know. I have a feeling he wants to see you as much.’

*****

An hour later, after Taehyung does much contemplation, he decides that he’s going to go down to his stupid presscon to try to talk to him. How can he drop this bomb on them like this? People like him and Seokjin that genuinely care about him as a person and he thought it was just necessary to barge in with his decisions like other people don’t get a say in how he’s trying to capsize in his own decisions. Does he have a plan? Does he have a forward route? What does it all mean, going from unsure to sure in such a small amount of time?

Seokjin curses at him a little and then tells him he’s going to pick him up in five minutes. Taehyung curses back at him for giving him such a short warning and they go back and forth like this until he can hear Seokjin’s horn down from the parking lot of his apartment. He throws on the first thing he can find and is out of the door with his keys and phone before he can double-think about it.

The streets and roads are mostly deserted, Taehyung thinks it’s because it’s a work day and people are swamped with most of their office duties by 11 am. Seokjin chuckles and tells him it’s because of Jeongguk’s presscon; the entire country is hanging on to his words.

For the first time he realises just how right Jooheon had been about this inheritance thing being a hot topic. It was actually insane how people just found themselves with a livestream source and opted to wait for him instead of going about their daily business.

They race down the streets and lanes, Seokjin driving like he’s playing a dodging cars game on a highway. He goes over a 100 kilometres per hour and Taehyung doesn’t even have the nerve to tell him to slow down because he’s just as anxious as him about getting there before Jeongguk was sitting in front of the camera. He needed to get there as fast as possible to get a word in before Jeongguk announces his decision formally to the entire world.

When they finally reach after half an hour, Taehyung is out of the car before the car can even stop, Seokjin cursing in the background voice as he races his way to the TV station. He made sure to bring his journalist pass with him to get access, they usually don’t check who’s going inside as long as you see you have a journalist pass that authorizes you to be in the presscon. They just assume everyone is there to report. Seokjin comes up running behind him and shows his own royal family emblem to show that he works for them and in a minute, both of them are being escorted towards the backstage area where other reporters are waiting.

Seokjin knows where Jeongguk is getting ready, but they have to keep up the guise of going with the man that guides them because everyone knows that Taehyung can’t be seen lurking around backstage.They end up in a hall amidst a sea of reporters who are all setting up their cameras and laptops to get themselves prepared for the torturous one hour it’s going to be for their fingers and their minds.

They stay there for five minutes to steer clear of any suspicions before Seokjin is grabbing his arm and leading him off to a staircase at the far left side of the hall. They go through a set of white, blinding, well polished stairs that seem never ending at first but then end up in a hallway of a row of doors. Seokjin without stopping grabs his hand and takes him down the hallway and stops at door number 5 on the right with a sign on it that says 56. He’s tightening his grip on Taehyung’ hand and entering before he has a chance to catch his breath.

The first thing he notices is the smell of powder. It’s definitely baby powder, but the smell is so soft and mixed with one more cologne that makes the entire room smell so sweet that it threatens to make him sleepy. When he comes out of his daze is when he sees the lone figure standing in the middle of the room in the process of putting a shirt on. Before seeing Jeongguk’s face, he registers the snake tattoo on his shoulder. He’s running into his arms as soon as the tattoo registers in his head.

Jeongguk catches him as always, his arms snaking around his waist while Taehyung’s go around his shoulders. He hears fake retching in the background as soon as he’s done smelling Jeongguk to his heart’s content, he recognises the sound from when he used to bring dates home all the time in high school and Seokjin made it a point to fake vomit every time he walked by wherever they were sitting, even if they weren’t particularly doing anything couple-y. He ignores Seokjin’s ignorance and whispers into Jeongguk’s neck, ‘Are you okay? Someone’s not holding you hostage, are they?’

Jeongguk laughs, ‘Yeah, you are. Your heart is.’

Taehyung takes the liberty of smacking his chest. ‘Don’t say things like this in public!’

‘Your brother’s still fake vomiting in the background. I don’t think it gets worse than this.’

Taehyung then grins and shifts his position so that he can touch Jeongguk’s face. He cups his cheeks with gentle hands and looks right into his eyes, ‘You sure about doing this? No one forced you, right?’

‘Just a little tired.’

Taehyung frowns, ‘That doesn’t really answer any of my questions, Jeongguk.’

Seokjin seems to catch on to the room. He stops retching and making obnoxious noises in the background and adds on to Taehyung’s plea, ‘Jeongguk, you nearly gave me a heart attack this morning. I just want to know if some old geezer in the royal family is holding you at gunpoint.’

‘I just,’ He says ,looking right at Taehyung’s eyes and enveloping his hands with his own. ‘I’m doing this because of you.’

Taehyung’s entire resolve seems to break in the split second silence that follows. He turns around to look at Seokjin and even his brother seems stunned. His hands automatically drop from Jeongguk’s face. ‘What?’

‘This has been a big deal for you, this assignment or whatever you had and you’ve been at my back for this for months. You sounded so upset over the phone that day. I still remember you were so loud and so obviously feeling incompetent that day you managed to get drunk in front of me. All of these days, I’ve started to hate seeing you sad. So I just thought, hey, this might be a way to end his misery. If there’s no inheritance issue then there’s no assignment about it. Even if they don’t take you back and you quit, at least you don’t have to keep thinking about it.’ He says it with an extremely low voice, sounding more like a 5 year old kid than someone who’s about to take the country by storm in a few minutes.

Taehyung remembers the first time he was give an update article on a major topic by Jooheon. He had been even more naive then and had wanted to prove that he could do all sorts of things. He remembers turning in ten more articles in the span of a day, all had been related to that one topic and he had done all the coverage for it. At the end of the day, he had expected some kind of appreciation for his work, maybe even a lessening of his weekend workload but all he got was a nod as Jooheon stalked out of the office at the dot of 5.

The whiplash between a company he gave two years to and a man who was willing to go above and beyond for him renders him completely speechless. ‘But-but what about you?’ It’s Seokjin who asks this, his voice tells how he is also very clearly affected by this.

‘What about me, hyung?’ He says and laughs lightly. ‘This had to happen someday. This just gave me leverage to push through with it.’

Taehyung feels the urge to do something, to show the burst of emotions inside his body, the way he’s so grateful and wants to cry but also wants Jeongguk to take it all back and not do it for the sake of a person who had been considering ratting him out not even a few months ago. He’s still trying to process everything when there’s a knock at the door and a lady with a mic set on her head is leaning her head in and saying, ‘Jeongguk-ssi, it’s time.’

Jeongguk glances at him and smiles, ‘It’ll be okay, hyung. Don’t worry about me. I was born for this.’

Taehyung’s attaching himself to his body before he can even do something about it. The tears keep coming down involuntarily and he realises he’s wetting Jeongguk’s shirt that’s supposed to be part of a national broadcast in five minutes but he really doesn’t care. The only thought running through his mind is: this is it. He’s the one. You’ve found him.

‘I-’

‘Shh,’ Jeongguk keeps a gentle hand on his face. ‘Don’t say it yet. I’ll see you on the flip side, okay?’

Then he’s hugging Seokjin and in a matter of two minutes, he’s finding his bearings and walking out the door looking like he’s going to battle.

Taehyung stays stunned in silence for five minutes before his mind catches up with him. How can a person be so utterly selfless and so giving? His heart gives a lurch at the thought of Jeongguk actively planning how to make things better for him. The urge to do something about it, something as wildly aggressive and just as much giving as Jeongguk is. He’s in these thoughts when he accidentally fiddles with his phone and ends up unlocking it.

The tab open shows his document of the article he’d been working on last night.

*****

When Taehyung finally gathers the guts to go back to the hall Jeongguk is answering his questions in, his head experiences the kind of sensory overload he’s never had because of the abundance of flashes and the voices speaking all over each other.

He catches a question just as he sidles up behind Seokjin who’s watching the ceremony from a distance.

‘What made the royal family decide to do this so suddenly? Has there been a development in place for months that we weren’t aware of?’

He sees Jeongguk’s chuckle. His cousin is sitting to the side and they both share a look. To Taehyung, they both look close. He moves closer to Seokjin and asks him about their relationship.

‘Yeah, they are. Every time I’ve had to pick him up from the office, he’s sitting with his cousin enjoying a glass of wine. I’ve also caught him discussing video games with him a lot of the time.’

Taehyung smiles. It all sounds very Jeongguk.

It happens after half an hour of Taehyung standing there and observing the room. Five or ten notification bells go off at once, and a lot of the laptops chime. There’s a flurry of movement as everyone takes out their gadgets and spend a minute observing them. He looks over to Jeongguk on stage who looks confused but composed. It’s oddly hot.

Suddenly, the noises get even worse because every reporter jumps to their feet to ask questions, even ones who’ve already had their turn. The flashes get even more frequent than before and someone gets handled a mic before it can get even more overwhelming.

‘Jeongguk-ssi, there’s been a recent update on your love life. The man’s identity has been revealed. Would you have some words to say on this?’

Jeongguk looks taken aback. Taehyung realises a little too late that the article he sent to his company before coming to the presscon hall must have gotten published.

‘I-I don’t really have anything eloquent to say about it but yes, I’m in a happy relationship.’

The word ‘relationship’ makes his head dizzy.

He doesn’t notice when Jeongguk’s eyes move far away from the audience to look at the general direction that Seokjin is standing in. When he catches sight of Taehyung, his heart jumps out of his throat because Jeongguk looks like a lost puppy right now. Taehyung does his best to smile back but then someone else is asking a question again and Taehyung knows it’s not enough.

It’s truly time.

Before Seokjin can even ask him about his intentions, he’s slowly making his way over to the front of the stage, slow-walking like he owns the place. When he gets into the front towards the stairs of the stage, he doesn’t realise Jeongguk’s eyes have been stuck to him all this while and have followed him. Consequently, the reporters accompany his line of sight to catch who he’s looking at. When Taehyung comes within the view of the heavy fluorescent lights is when the flashes start going crazy.

Jeongguk understands what is happening because he gets up at once from his seat to lead him up the stairs with a hand in his, guiding him softly. When he gets up, He engulfs him protectively against his chest before Taehyung’s snatching his handheld microphone and speaking in it before he can stop himself, ‘This is Kim Taehyung and I’m Jeongguk’s lover.’

The volume of the voices in the audience rise. The flashes blind his vision. But somehow it doesn’t seem as bad as it did from the other side of the room. Within Jeongguk’s arms, he thinks he’s always safe. And there was no way he was going to let Jeongguk face the brunt of this alone.

He hides his face in his neck a little when Jeongguk takes a question.

‘Jeongguk-ssi, your father also ended up marrying someone who wasn’t of the same class as the royal family and it was always evident that your family didn’t approve of it? Would this be okay with them now?’

Jeongguk tenses. ‘My mother and father’s relationship was one of the strongest bonds I had ever seen. I grew up around them and the love made me into a better person, into who I am today, so that I am capable of giving that same love back to people. Frankly, if people are focusing more on what people said about their relationship than how it actually was and how it nurtured me and everyone around them to become better, then I’m not going to invest my energy into proving you all wrong.

Taehyung is a personal choice. The way my mom was for my dad. And I’m positive we can be reflections of them and go against the world even if everyone might not agree. I’m very dedicated to him.’

Then Jeongguk’s keeping his mic down a little to press a kiss on his forehead and the cameras start going crazy again. His eyes start leaking bursts of emotion’ amidst all of this mess, Jeongguk’s words seem to have made a home in the corner of his heart that had been empty for long.

‘I think I’m starting to fall in love with you, Jeongguk.’

He hears Jeongguk’s grin when he says, ‘I think I’ve fallen way before you, Tae.’

He lets out a little sob, still clutching on his arm and very grateful to have found him and to have the split second decision to give him a chance into his life. ‘I hope the cameras aren’t burning my skin.’

Jeongguk clutches on his shoulders tightly, ‘This is what our life is going to be from now, sweetheart. Better get used to it.’

*****

‘Jeon Jeongguk’s coronation takes place on Saturday at 4 pm in the royal family’s mansion located on the outskirts of Sconya. Political members from all major countries seem to be attending and the streets are filled with colorful banners and posters, all enveloped with Sconya’s national colors. The mansion is undergoing restoration for the next three days before the ceremony is due to take place.

Jeon Jeongguk announced his takeover as the monarch in a sudden announcement a week from now. Sources say that the takeover had been in progress ever since Jeon Jeong-ho’s only son, Jeon Jeongguk’s father had passed away of leukemia four years prior. The accounts and heirlooms had been in the process of transfer since then and it had been kept entirely secret due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Jeon Jeongguk will take on the crown on Saturday as the youngest member of the Sconya royal family to ever sit atop the throne. The crown is reported to be the same one that Jeon Jeong-ho was coronated with, a stunning masterpiece made of 56 triangle shaped diamonds and 46 encrusted rubies along with 24 karat gold lining around the edges. The net worth is reported to be somewhere around 10 billion won.

Jeon Jeongguk will be attending the ceremony with his newly identified lover, Kim Taehyung who had been an ex-writer at The Sconya Times. The newspaper’s agency says that they’re very happy to have employed such a talented individual within their chambers and if he ever decides to come back, they will take him with open arms. Both have been spotted together various times this week, follow this link to get more info and pictures on the two lovebirds.

As always, The Sconya Times is dedicated to bringing you the fastest news updates in the entire country. Tune into our livestream at 3.30 pm on Saturday where we will bring you the coronation to your TV, live right from inside the mansion! Click on this link to find out more updates…..’

*****

Fin.