a little notes :

" : talking

' : thinking

// : twitter

Ok let's begin

"Oh look, they are going wild, posting taekook things all over again" Taehyung giggles, as he scrolls down his twitter timeline to see their fans' reaction to their today's performance. Jimin, who is sitting right besides him leans over to get a glance of the mentioned post, "no way, I've seen this too, like 3 times". "Oh really? This is the first time I'm seeing it this close. What cameras do they have, seriously, I need this too haha", Taehyung turns his phone in Jeongguks direction "Oh yeah true haha", Jeongguk nervously laughs, tilting his head to match the angle of the display. They are all in their living room, sitting comfortably on the couch after a long day. It's award season again, which means a lot of performing and waiting on BTS' side and lot of observing on ARMYs' side. This is the time of the year, where fans are able to watch their favorite groups casually interact with each other, be it in their own group or between others. It is true that 80% of the time, they are just doing what they'd normally do, but knowing that millions of eyes are on them still makes them careful about what to show and what not to. However, sometimes things are perceived a little bit different than they were actually intended to. Today was one of these moments. Jeongguk had been a little stressed out by the fact that they were nominated for this years Daesang, the main price of the show, as to why he previously asked Taehyung to sit with him. This is because - as everyone knows - he is great at distracting him in a fun way. The thing is, as they returned from their performance, Jeongguk was sitting down on one side of the bench, with the other members not knowing about this, sitting down one by one besides him, Taehyung being the last one. This proceeded to him shooing everyone away from the younger so he could sit down next to him - as he promised, oblivious about possible consequences. Now, as expected, their fans are going crazy because 'omg they cannot be apart for like ONE second'.

"I can't believe how many views these clips have." The older says, after Jimin leaves the room to go to bed. Jeongguk doesn't reply and quietly sits at his place on the couch opposite of Taehyung, eying his amused reactions to the different fanclips and comments. Well, what should Jeongguk answer, he might or might not enjoy the attention they are getting. Also, he even might or might not have his own fan-account, secretly following ARMYs tweeting about them. Besides that, It might ALSO be that this is one of the accounts that create original taekook-content. And it might but just MIGHT be that this account is one of the biggest out there. Jeongguk is a curious person, sue him. So tbh, it all started out as just fun, wondering why fans are so into ships and also a little because he was bored during a night where he couldn't sleep. That night, as he looked further into this whole shipping-world (he didn't even know such a thing exists before), he was astonished by how observant the community was. Making out something as small as a look into the others direction, an unusual word or even just sitting there ignoring each other. It was really amusing to be honest. So that day he set up a scheme to satisfy his curiosity: How to control his own shippers.

Jeongguk, young and naive, tried out various things: long stares even when the other wasn't talking, not too obvious skinship, him mentioning Tae at irrelevant occasions etc.. All without hurting the other of course, he could never. After getting a viral reaction that was much bigger than he expected, Jeongguk unwillingly got invested even more, resulting in him creating his own fan-account, where he was analyzing his own behavior, leading his fans into the direction he wanted. Since it was Tae, who he was so close with it wasn't awkward at all, he even had fun doing all this fanservice, making it natural to them, unconsciously continuing even when they were alone. This also resulted in the weird habit of them acting out love-skits together, which WASN'T even Jeongguks idea, but he played along anyway. Why not? Eventually he also tried the same with other members, but gave up quickly, because it wasn't as fun and also since except for Jimin everyone got kind of suspicions as to what he is up to. It all got a little bit out of hand at one point, so he kind of slowed down his proactive behavior half a year ago, only going with the flow nowadays. However, his account is big as ever, with almost ever second tweet blowing up to 10k+ likes, resulting in him trying to hide the fact that he himself is the one who basically leads the taekook fandom.

So, to avoid being killed by BigHit and his members - especially Tae -, he learned one thing through these almost 3 years: to casually change the topic as soon as it comes up. So when Taehyung once again, chuckles at his very own posts he just ignores it or answers something as 'Yeah true, btw did you see…?' to lead the conversation elsewhere. As much as he loves his hyung's laugh, especially when he is the reason for it, he would never dare to risk Tae to find out.

"Kookie?", Jeongguk jolts at the sudden interruption of his thoughts. "Are you coming or not? We have a schedule tomorrow morning." "Ah, yeah sure!" He gets up from the couch, fixing his sweatpants. As he picks up his phone to quickly look at the time, a notification pops up - one of his secrete fan account. 'Damn I thought I had the notifications off', he opens twitter to adjust the settings again, while the definitely 18+ comment on one of his posts pops up, the one he got the notification from. A slight blush crawls up to his face. Yeah, he will never let Taehyung find out. He can't.

"No way", Jeongguk is talking to himself while looking at the recent twitter posts, comfortably settled in his chair. They had their last award show for while - well, only for about 2 weeks but still - and NO ONE even noticed his latest action. He was trying to create another 'taekook moment' by setting up a stare-fight with Tae across the table, signing him more than obvious to sit on his lap while wiggling his eyebrows.

He didn't do anything like this for a while, so he was even more disappointed that nobody caught up on this. Judging by his twitter timeline his attempt was overshadowed by their Idol performance, which he and the rest of the dance line meticulously rehearsed. So to be honest, this isn't even a bad thing. Not at all, they even had celebrated the success after they returned to the dorm, but right now he wasn't Jeon Jeongguk. He was his disguised taekook-loving twitter-self. "I always have to do the dirty work by myself", he growls, typing some keywords into the search bar. Over the years he's gotten pretty good at searching their groups' recordings, be it fancams or official ones. So as he finally finds a video of his liking, one that is displaying the two of them perfectly, he uploads it instantly to his page with the caption saying something along the line of //come get your man already//. Army-Slang, as he calls it, was something he got fluid in unwillingly after he spent too much time online among their fans. Even if he didn't want to, it was kind of inevitable, going by the amount of shipping-posts and thirst tweets he has seen. It was something that weirded him out at first, but to be honest, after getting kind of used to them he got (mostly) rather flattered by his fans' compliments.

As he watches the post slowly gaining likes, comments and retweets, he glances at the watch on the bottom right of his computer's display. It says 1:23am already. He should go to bed soon, looking at the busy schedule for tomorrow. He grabs his black water bottle and moves himself out of the room, towards the dorms kitchen. He let the water from the tab run down cold, causing the bottle's surface to condensate. He shivers as he takes a big sip, making his teeth hurt. He eventually takes another sip - just because the water tastes like 100 times better cold - before he refills it with a little less freezing water.

The light is still shut down, but the moon is bright enough for him to recognize the familiar figure that is entering the kitchen. With lazy steps Taehyung silently comes closer, judging by the empty glass in his hand, probably to take a sip of water as well.

"Can't sleep?", breathes Jeongguk silently, not to cut into the silence to harshly. The other only answers with a deep drowsy hum as he reaches the sink where Jeongguk is still standing, resting his head on the younger's shoulder, while refilling his glass. The window on the other side of the room allows the moon to light up a part of Taehyungs sleepy face, revealing his features, mellow but still prominent enough for the other to make out every detail, even as small as the mole on his nose. No wonder their fans are drawn in by his beauty. His gaze travels slowly from the mole up his nose landing on his eyes. "What'ya looking at?", Taehyung asked, tilting his head to face the other with eyes half closed, making Jeongguk quickly turn away. He didn't even realize he was staring. "Nothing, 'm just tired", he answered sluggish, faking the tone to match his words. "hm…" the other empties his glass with a few big sips and continues "then good night". He made himself move again back to the door. Jeongguk hesitates, he didn't move until Taehyung was almost out the door. "Uh, good night" And the door closes.

'What was that?', questioning himself a little bit, he raises his eyebrows. He has no reason to hide himself staring, which makes his reaction even more questionable. He's just tired, he shouldn't think about it too much, he convinces himself as he grabs his bottle and trots back to his room. He closes the door and letting himself fall on the mattress. Twitter is probably just taking a toll on him due to amount of time he spent there before. Ah his tweet, he almost forgot. "Let's see… It has 794 likes already? Wow not bad…" he pauses and lets his hand bounce back to the soft surface together with his phone ... "Well, nobody posted about this before so I guess this was to be expected." He closes his eyes, just for a few seconds while listening to the wind outside. Thoughts flow through his mind as the scene from before passes by his inner eyes again. This seriously could be part of a fanfiction, he giggles to himself. Not that he ever read a full one, but he does know that they exist. He sometimes stumbles across those small au intros, which he finds quite interesting most of the time. One time however, his curiosity took over and he ended up at a literal wolf in sheeps clothing.

What started out funny and kinda cute was spiralling down to a smut filled scene in a toilet stall very quickly. So, as he was reading how he apparently roughly pushed Taehyung against the wall, choking him and demanding to be a good boy he completely lost it and yeeted his phone across the room - which was luckily landing on his gaming chair. So that was it basically for him. After this, he was acting super awkward around Taehyung for almost a whole week until he was able to gather his shit again and talk to him like he normally did. This was around one and a half years ago and he hadn't touched any fanfics since. Now he knows that he was just unlucky for choosing one of the most explicit ones he could get out there, however he kept playing safe by leaving this part of the fandom be. He wasn't a big reader anyway.

A low grumble filles the room. He shouldn't have brushed his teeth already, otherwise he'd just grab something to eat, but he's too lazy to repeat his evening routine. He picked up his phone again to distract himself from the stinging feeling in his stomach.

As he unlocks the phone there is his post again. As he looks a bit more down in the comments it is displaying a bunch of reaction memes posted by his followers. This is probably one of his favorite parts about being in the fandom himself. Not only that his fans are literally hilarious, but also that he can just randomly post everything he wants to have an opinion on (only revealed content of course) and they will openly show their thoughts to it - unlike they would if they'd know that it's actually him.

As he scrolls down the comment section, he comes across various reactions, a lot of them being surprised by the fact they didn't notice this interaction yet. Another girl has been loosing her shit because SHE SAW IT BUT NOONE WOULD BELIEVE HER, which has him laughing "you're welcome baby girl". There are not too many comments, but he's still too lazy to read all of them atm, so he decides to just quickly brows through the first few until one particular comment gets his attention.

//Not to kill the mood, but why does Tae look so uncomfortable?//

The tweet has only 2 likes so apparently not many share that opinion. Anyway, a little panicked, Jeongguk skips instantly to the top of the page to watch the video again. But nothing extraordinary catches his eye. It's just like they always mess around, nothing more. Jeongguk replays the clip 3 times just to make sure. And the 4th time it hits him like it couldn't be more obvious. It's true. It's not Taehyungs face that tells him, but his unnatural posture, his hands and feet which can't stand still since the moment their act began. The 5th time he replays it he notices the small lip-bite which was almost hidden by how he turned his head away from the camera. Why though? They were always doing things like this, so what was the problem this time?

Or was it just that he didn't notice until now? It wouldn't be that unlikely, since he wouldn't have seen it this time either if it weren't for that one Army. To make sure, he goes back to his older posts and checks Taehyungs behavior and it is true. The small difference in how he acts towards him was now obvious. In every single one of the videos he checks. It dates back to roughly 3 months ago, then it stops. What happened then? Was it him that made him uncomfortable? And more importantly, was it the same when they were alone? His mind wanders back to the scene in the kitchen from before, but Jeongguk is sure there was nothing in particular. There are so many questions that wander through his mind, that he doesn't even notice that it's already 3:30 in the morning. He tries to convince him self to go to sleep and just to let go of all the thoughts that are troubling him, but he keeps taking his phone again and again to find out what might be the reason for Tae's sudden change in behaviour.

After what feels hours, he finally falls asleep, with his last thought being 'why didn't he notice earlier?'.

"Oh come oon," Jeongguk whines as he hammers his fist to the vending machine, "I paid for you, why won't you come ouut". He settles his head on the glass with a thump, brain throbbing from the lack of sleep.

He can feel it, it's going to be a horrible day and the machine, silently denying to give him his morning coffee is not helping.

For once he is early at the company, trying to collect his thoughts before the day starts. To be honest, he left home in a rush, just because he didn't want to run into the person responsible for his lack of sleep.

After his unexpected realization of Tae being awkward towards him so suddenly, he spent multiple hours, trying to find the reason behind it. 'There has to be one piece I'm missing,' he told himself over and over. The only thing he found out was that the transition between Tae's behaviour has been pretty abruptly somewhere within their promotion period for 'LY: Answer'. That means it's already been 3 months and yes, that had him taken aback.

He feels defeated by his own ignorance and doesn't know how this could have even happened. He has to know how. Ideally now, but first, he needs to know if being close is only an issue when they are in public or not, which he has to test out as soon as possible - another reason why he needs time to prepare. Jeongguk just wants to make sure that he is at least not completely delusional. If that's not the case, then well ****. So yeah, now here he is, alone, fighting with this damn machine.

"Good Morning Gguk, what has the coffee machine done to you this early in the morning?" a familiar voice reaches Jeongguks ears. 'Tae' he thinks as he slowly turns his head that is still on the cold surface. Of course it's him, he could recognize this low mellow voice out of millions. His gaze travels to the older, scanning him unconsciously from head to toe. His sleepy hair paired with the wide button up and loose pants could almost be the outfit of a beggar, but it's Kim Taehyung. He could wear a potato bag and it'd still look like the newest Gucci collection.

'Okay,' Jeongguk thinks, 'it's not time to hide your balls, do something.' he hesitates. 'Should he keep it at a distance first?' He figures that this would not make much sense, since he HAS to test his reaction out properly. Also, he could really need some comfort right now and it's always Taehyung who knows how to do that best anyway.

So in conclusion, his last 3 awake and nerve-wrecked brain cells go for a hug. "Hyuung, give me a cuddle. I'm getting mistreated already and it's not even 8 am.", Jeongguk whines, worrying if it has been too much or bothersome.

However, seeing the other's fond smile and open arms, Jeongguk feels a familiar, but missed warmth flow into his chest, because Taehyung doesn't look bothered at all. 'Maybe the day isn't THAT bad after all,'

Jeongguk steps closer to the older boy and leans into the other's embrace that feels just right to even blur out the fact that he still needs to know why he is not acting casual like this on stage.

They stay like this for a few seconds until Jeongguk brakes the silence, "I just wanted to buy a coffee but the machine refuses me. This always happens when I'm short on sleep…", "Huh? What did you do yesterday? I thought you went to bed after I saw you in the kitchen.", Taehyung leans away a bit to look the younger in the eyes with a surprised look, "Nah, I wanted to, but something caught my attention, so yeah I-", Jeongguk pauses for a second, because it is only then that he realizes that the other would definitely ask for more information - which he simply can't give him without blowing up his cover or sounding like a complete fool. Therefore, he has to improvise. "-like I saw one of my favorite youtubers using a new editing tool and I had to try it out. But it turned out to be a bit harder to use than it looked like…" he says, being low-key proud that his made-up reason actually makes sense.

"Oh that's why. Are you working on a new Golden Closet Film?". Okay yeah no, screw 'being proud'. He didn't even have a new Idea - let alone done any editing since he uploaded the last GCF. So this is what he deserves for lying AND for being lazy.

He has to find a reasonable excuse to not let him see it quickly, since Taehyung is giving him a questioning look already, "Well, I-" "Yoooo good morning guys, how are you?" God thank Hoseok, this was perfect timing. Taehyung eases the grip around Jeongguk and turns to greet Hobi, who just entered with his freshly brewed morning coffee from the pop up store next door. Feeling a little bit stupid, because 'Why didn't I think of buying coffee there from the beginning?' He proceeds to blame it on the lack of sleep and waves a hand to greet his hyung.

'Now or never', he thinks using this situation to his advantage and escapes before Tae can ask him again about his non-existing edits with the words, "I guess, if the machine won't give me coffee, I'll just quickly head down to grab a coffee too, Hobi-hyung you have it from this new store right? Does it taste good?", walking towards Hobi, meeting him halfway. The older furrows his eyebrows as to why the younger is so enthusiastic that early in the morning AND is asking stupid questions. "How can you even compare that shit from the machine to actual coffee beans?" "I take this as a yes. See you in 10!" Jeongguk waves again, quickly aiming for the door. 'That was really close', he thinks as he trots down the stairs, sighing.

"Okay, that'd be everything. Let's continue with rehearsals after lunch break", their manager finally announces. They were discussing the general schedule for the next week and some details for the next concerts, which has him almost falling asleep, earning him a flick on the forehead from Jin and laughter from the rest of the team.

Luckily, in the afternoon they will continue with rehearsing the stages where he has to move his body. So, hopefully this will wake him up.

They are having their lunch in the lounge area of the company and the staff brought take out for the whole team: Chicken in soy sauce on rice with some small side dishes like kimchi, which smells deliciously. Jeongguk finishes early after shoving almost all of his food into his mouth at once. That's because he was too nervous to have a proper breakfast in the morning.

Full and satisfied, he excuses himself and decides to take short nap on a sofa in a quieter place, farther away from the rest of the crew.

Finally some sleep. The pillows feel like heaven as he gradually sinks deeper into them, the voices in the background slowly blurring into one monotone sound. As his thoughts flow by one by one, he comes to think of the comment from last night again. He would love to let it go and just sleep, but it lingers in his mind a little bit too long. 'Maybe this was just bullshit. At least when we are alone, it shouldn't be true. Today in the morning Taehyung acted all normal after all…' Jeongguk tells himself, successfully shaking of this thought and drifting off again.

He suddenly gets woken up by a loud thud. He opens his eyes halfway, not really able to tell what happened. 'The others must have just dropped something,' he thinks, eyes closed again, as he suddenly notices something brushing by his legs. He draws his eyes open just for a second, seeing Taehyung sitting at the other end of the couch who has Jeongguks legs placed on his thighs, drawing circles on the youngers skin as Taehyung almost falls asleep himself.

'Why is it always him today?' He can't help to notice every little thing Taehyung is doing, how he is acting when they are talking or even just looking at each other. It doesn't seem forced at all. Also, he observed that most of the time today it's not himself, but Taehyung approaching him, which has him smiling unconsciously.

Taehyung catches the sleepy smile and does the same, "I've been wondering…", Taehyung brakes the silence and pauses, sighing, "What do fans see when they watch us interact?" and suddenly Jeongguk is wide awake. His head shot up at this question and his eyes are wide open now, looking at the other who is still grabbing onto his leg.

"W-What do you mean?" Jeongguk tries to sound casually, why does Taehyung bring up this question now? Was his concern justified after all? So he is uncomfortable about being close in public. But he never seemed to care much about shippers, so why exactly now?

Taehyung looks away, "I don't know, really. It's just that, whatever we do, they tend to over-analyze our behavior and some of them… They make us look like we're in love and stuff, you know?", he sighs again, visibly sinking deeper into thoughts, "Sometimes they even make me believe them for a second, because they are so detailed." now he seems to be completely lost in thoughts, making a face that Jeongguk tries, but fails to decipher.

When the older notices the others stare, Taehyung turns to Jeongguk and smiles nervously "And then I realize it's just us."

Jeongguk wants to say something, but he is at loss for words. What does he mean? What is he thinking and why is he acting like this all of a sudden? And also, did he just really hear that he reads stuff about them? Like.. Fanfictions? He can't find the right way to answer this sudden intervention, so he just keeps staring with his mouth open and no words coming out. Taehyung seems to get even more nervous at the silence, so he continues, "don't tell me you never look at these posts and read what our fans think. I KNOW you are on Twitter all the time." Taehyung answers with a defensive voice. "I didn't know you were following taekook fan-accounts?" Jeongguk asks, trying to direct the attention back to the other.

"Well, uhm.. I'm not even sure if I do to be honest", he laughs, "At least not on purpose though. As you know, at the beginning I followed mostly big fan accounts and fan-artists, but by the time it got more and now I follow all types of accounts. Also, they retweet all different types of things, including ships, so it's kind of unavoidable?" he pauses, continuously boxing Jeongguks thighs slightly, "Anyway, it's not really important, I was just wondering what you think about it. Seriously, they write whole theories and stories about us and they are so damn detailed in their observations and sometimes they are so damn accurate I-", he stops and takes a last look at the still frozen Jeongguk before he suddenly shoots up, pushing the others legs away. "Aah, don't look at me like this, I was just making fun okay? We should go back and help the others clean up, we have to start practicing soon." Taehyung says, trying to sound casual, passing by Jeongguk quickly, head down. However, Jeongguk can't help but notice the others reddening cheeks.

What? Just what was this conversation?

He doesn't know what confuses him more. The fact that Tae is actually paying a lot of attention to people talking about their ship? That he apparently ready 'stories' about them? That he apparently ENJOYS THEM? Or the fact he seems to be REALLY affected by all of this? Thousand different scenarios swirl wildly around his head, unable to catch them and figure out what all of this means. The nervousness from yesterday is back again, but 100 times worse and in a way he has never experienced it before. He knows there is something, but he doesn't know what and he hates that.

"JEON JEONGGUK! MOVE YOUR LAZY *** HERE IMMEDIATELY, OR I'LL BLOCK YOUR DEVICES FROM THE WIFI WHEN WE GET BACK!" Jin screams on the top of his lungs, bringing Jeongguk successfully down to earth. It seems as if Jin called him several times already, judging by his expression and the fact that everyone else already left. "Oh damn, sorry Jin-hyung, I didn't hear you!", Jeongguk stands up and runs towards the older one. "Aaah really, what are you doing today, come back to your senses." he gives him a slight poke to the side of his belly. Jeongguk twitches, "Hey! I already said that I'm sorry!" "Yeah, yeah, whatever. This is for my poor throat.", he grins at the younger, entering the practice room first. As Jeongguk follows, he unconsciously scans the room for Taehyung, finding him standing next to Jimin, discussing something. Probably about the performance.

Jeongguk decides to let him be for now, at least until he sorted out his thoughts a little bit.

Except for Jeongguk worrying in between the performances, the afternoon goes by without anything special happening. Everyone is giving their best at rehearsing their stages, trying to bring them to perfection.

After 7 pm, they end their practices and naturally split up again. Yoongi and Namjoon head back to their studios, Hobi too has something he wants to work at. Jimin is staying behind with Jin to help him to refine some movements of their choreography, while Jeongguk - still panting and all sweaty from the practicing his own dance - sits down for a moment on a chair on the other end of the room to contemplate whether he should practice his individual performance once more or if he should give in to the lack of sleep and call it a day.

Just when he decides to give it one more go, Taehyung approaches him from the side - exhausted as well, asking "I think I'll head home, are you coming too?", Taehyung shoots him a questioning look. "Uhm, I wanted to rehearse Euphoria once more… You don't need to wait for me.", he didn't have time to organize todays conversation yet, so he can't help but sound a little uncomfortable.

Of course, Taehyung notices immediately, "About what I said today… I didn't mean to make you uneasy, so don't think about it too much. I was just joking. Really." Jeongguk wants to say it's fine, but on the other hand he really needs answers, even if he doesn't even know which answers he is searching for, so he just blurts out, "So you don't care about people talking about us as if we were together?" it feels weird saying something out loud to one of his best friends, especially because until now this has only felt like an impossible, fictional thing, trapped inside twitter. But now these words linger in the air heavily, catching an unprepared Taehyung, "I, uhm…" He pauses, with a concerned look, expecting the other to continue, but Taehyung answers eventually, "Not really. I mean, you can't avoid it… kind of." Jeongguk scans every reaction of the other. Now. Now is the time to ask what was bothering him the whole day, before the opportunity vanishes, "So I don't bother you with the fanservice in public?", Taehyung looks surprised again, but this time he doesn't look startled, just genuinely wondering why the other might come up with this idea, "What? Why do you think that?" his face goes back to a rather indifferent look "It's not even fanservice… It's what we always do, am I wrong?"

Jeongguk's feels a weight being lifted from his shoulders that had been there since yesterday. He still didn't figure the other conversation completely, but knowing the comment he was thinking about continuously was wrong is such good news right now, he forgets about everything else. His corners of his mouth go up into a smile - it might even be the fist sincere smile of the day - "No, you're right. I was just worried.", after hearing the others answer, Taehyung claps his hands together, "Then we're good! So are you coming after you're done practicing? I'll wait.", Taehyung takes another chair from behind and settles down in front of Jeongguk as if he'd say 'don't convince me otherwise'. Jeongguk answers with a lighthearted laugh "Yeah fine, I'll hurry!"

Taehyung watches Jeongguk practice his dance a few more times, observing his movements thoroughly while summing along to the song. After finishing, as promised they go home together, talking about unnecessary things and laughing about random jokes as if nothing has ever happened. Also after they finished their ramyun-dinner at home and parted into their separate rooms, Jeongguk doesn't want to waste another thought about his initial worries. The day has been too long and he feels is too relieved to dig up all the mess again.

So when he enters his room he falls straight into his bed with closed eyes and a loud sigh. 'Taehyung was right, they make you believe things that are not true,' he thinks and falls asleep with a light smile.