chapter 1

There was something going on. Jungkook peered at his two bandmates sitting on the sofa across from him. Taehyung was sitting cross legged at one side of the sofa scrolling on his phone and Jimin was on the other end reading a manga. This wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. They often sat in the living just doing their own thing, without speaking a word to each other. What was unusual, though, was the silent tear gliding down Taehyung’s cheek. Jungkook looked at him in silence. Then a second tear appeared. Taehyung kept his gaze to his phone. Jungkook looked around to see whether anyone noticed anything. Jimin was still focused on his book. Jungkook looked behind him, but Yoongi who was sitting there had already gone to his room. Jungkook’s shifting caused Jimin to look up at him. Jungkook’s eyes widened. Jimin raised his eyebrows quizzically. Jungkook silently nodded his head hoping he would not look at Taehyung. Jungkook pretended to look at his phone again, only to see Jimin turn his head towards Taehyung. From the angle Jimin was looking at, he was not able to see the state Taehyung was in, since Taehyung had his hood up. He shrugged his shoulders and continued reading.

The three of them sat in silence once again. After a while Jimin announced that he was going to bed. ‘Goodnight, hyung”, Jungkook said. Jimin looked at Taehyung. Taehyung had fallen asleep. Before Jimin could say anything, Jungkook said “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him”. Jimin nodded and went upstairs. Jungkook carefully sat down next to Taehyung. The tears on his face had dried and were not that visible in the dark. The dipping of the sofa caused Taehyung’s eyes to flutter open.

Jungkook looked at his hands and slowly met his eyes. He did not say anything. Taehyung fully opened his eyes and sat up and looked at him questioningly. ‘Hyung’, Jungkook started. Taehyung immediately understood that the younger must have seen what he was going through. Taehyung looked away, avoiding the younger’s gaze and sighed. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Jungkook asked softly. ‘I don’t know what to say’, Taehyung said, his voice slightly wavering. Jungkook did not know what to do, so he took Taehyung’s hand in his and softly stroked his hand with his thumb. ‘Hyung, I don’t like to see you hurting.’. Taehyung still avoided his gaze and just stared in front of him. ‘I am going to go to bed, Jungkook’, I am exhausted’. He gave Jungkook’s hand a squeeze, never meeting his eyes and headed upstairs. Jungkook sighed and followed suit.

Jungkook felt concerned. His youngest hyung has always been a bit on the sensitive side. He would often feel hurt by the smallest actions or words, even when they were not meant to be harsh or to be taken as anything other than a lighthearted joke. Jungkook and the others were aware of this and took care of Taehyung well. Taehyung could not hide his hurt well, when it came to small things, like light teasing. His face was often an open book, in those cases. If someone made a joke that he took personally, he would be sulking the rest of the day. The others would notice and smother him in love and attention and he would be back to his usual bubbly self, the joke forgiven and forgotten. But when it came to bigger issues, there was no telling what was on his mind. He had a tendency to bottle up his true feelings.

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