Jungkook adjusted his blazer for the tenth time that morning, staring at his reflection in the cracked mirror outside the boys' restroom. His tie was already crooked, and he looked like he hadn’t slept—which, to be fair, was true. Transferring mid-year into a new high school wasn’t exactly his idea of fun.

New uniforms, new faces, new routines—and the unfamiliar weight of countless eyes.

Don’t trip. Don’t talk. Don’t stand out, he recited internally as he made his way to the classroom.

Class 2-B was buzzing with noise. Laughter bounced off the walls, paper balls flew overhead, and someone was taping a banana to the fan. Jungkook’s steps slowed as he took it all in. He hated this already.

“Ah, you must be the new student,” the teacher said with the exhausted brightness of someone who had dealt with this chaos too long. “Everyone, attention!”

The class barely listened, until one loud voice cut through.

“Is he a ghost or are you all just ignoring him on purpose?”

A tall boy with messy dark hair stood at the back of the classroom, spinning a pen between his fingers. His voice carried without effort, and his smirk was the kind that could both charm and punch you at the same time.

“Kim Taehyung,” the teacher sighed. “Please don’t start.”

“Oh, I haven’t even started,” Taehyung said with a lazy stretch, eyes not leaving Jungkook.

Jungkook kept his head low and introduced himself. “Jeon Jungkook. I just moved here from Busan.”

“You're from Busan?” a girl whispered nearby. “He doesn’t even have an accent…”

“He’s cute,” another murmured. “But like… weirdly quiet.”

Jungkook felt his ears burn.

“You can sit by the window—next to Taehyung,” the teacher announced.

Of course. Of course he would.

As Jungkook took the seat beside him, Taehyung leaned in slightly and grinned. “Hey. New kid. Welcome to hell.”

Jungkook blinked. “Thanks?”

“I’m the boss around here. You’ll cry in a week. Two, if you’re stubborn.”

“…That’s comforting.”

Taehyung poked his arm. “You’re built like a puppy. Do you bite or just bark?”

“I don’t talk much.”

“Even better,” Taehyung said, leaning back with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll do the talking. You just sit there and look tragic.”

Jungkook tried his best to ignore him. He failed. Taehyung was impossible to ignore.

By lunch, Taehyung had already nicknamed him “Bunny” because of his front teeth, stolen his chocolate milk “for tax reasons,” and loudly declared to the whole class that Jungkook probably wrote poetry about loneliness.

“He just looks like a heartbroken poet, doesn’t he?” Taehyung said, flicking a grape at Jungkook’s head.

Jungkook scowled and swatted it away. “Do you always pick on new students?”

“Nah,” Taehyung replied, grinning. “Only the interesting ones.”

The bullying was mostly harmless. Teasing. Mockery. Silly dares like “lick the whiteboard” or “sing your name.” But Jungkook noticed a strange pattern.

Whenever someone else tried to take it too far—push him against a locker, make fun of his family, rip his notebook—Taehyung was there. Instantly. Silently.

A sharp glare. A quiet warning. A well-placed desk leg that tripped the bully when no one was looking.

Jungkook didn’t know what to make of it.

“You’re confusing,” he finally said one afternoon as Taehyung stole his juice again.

Taehyung cocked his head. “I’ve been called worse.”

“You tease me all the time, but then you stop others from doing the same.”

Taehyung shrugged. “That’s my job.”

“Why?”

“Because no one’s allowed to mess with my toy but me.”

Jungkook stared. “I’m not a toy.”

“You kinda are.”

“And if I punch you?”

Taehyung grinned wider. “Then I’ll deserve it.”

Later that week, Jungkook found himself in the hallway alone when the real trouble started.

Three older students cornered him near the lockers.

“Well, well,” one sneered. “The baby bunny’s all alone.”

“I heard he thinks he’s better than us. Transfers think they’re hot stuff.”

Jungkook didn’t reply. He tried to walk past them, but one shoved him back.

“You mute, too?”

Jungkook braced himself—when suddenly someone yanked the guy’s collar from behind and slammed him against the wall.

Taehyung.

“Try that again,” he said softly, voice low and dangerous, “and I’ll break your hand in three places. Maybe four if I’m feeling poetic.”

The hallway fell quiet. The seniors backed off, grumbling.

Jungkook stared, stunned. “Why…?”

Taehyung turned to him, eyes flickering with something unreadable. “Did they hurt you?”

“No. Just words.”

“Good,” Taehyung said. Then he paused. “Still hurts, though, doesn’t it?”

Jungkook looked away.

And then Taehyung said something that didn’t match his usual voice—soft, almost accidental.

“When I see you like that… it feels like someone’s punching my chest from the inside.”

Jungkook looked back at him in surprise.

Taehyung blinked like he didn’t realize he’d said it out loud. He cleared his throat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and stepped away.

“You’re annoying,” he said, back to normal. “Don’t make me feel weird things.”

And just like that, he walked away—leaving Jungkook with a heart beating far too fast, and a hundred more questions than answers.

Jungkook had developed a habit—and not a particularly healthy one.

Every morning, before leaving home, he stood in front of the mirror and whispered, “Don’t react.”

It was his shield. If he didn’t react, they couldn’t laugh. If he didn’t flinch, he wouldn’t break.

But no mantra in the world could prepare him for Kim Taehyung’s brand of morning chaos.

“Bunny!” came the familiar call as Jungkook stepped into Class 2-B. “You’ve arrived. Late, slow, and looking like you just rolled out of a tragic poem.”

Jungkook kept walking, ignoring the smirking faces, but Taehyung wasn’t deterred.

“Hey, where’s my morning juice tax?” Taehyung asked, spinning around in his chair with all the subtlety of a peacock on Red Bull. “You know the rules, Jungkookie. Pay up.”

Jungkook slumped into his seat. “You’re not my tax collector.”

“Wrong. I’m your emotional landlord,” Taehyung replied, tapping the table. “Rent is due in sarcasm and citrus-based drinks.”

Jungkook reluctantly handed him his orange juice without a word.

“See? You’re learning.” Taehyung leaned over with a grin. “Say it. Just once. ‘Taehyung, you’re the highlight of my miserable life.’ Come on, I won’t record it. Probably.”

Jungkook glared. “You need professional help.”

Taehyung gasped dramatically. “Was that... sass? From the shy poet? Be still, my heart!”

Across the room, someone muttered under their breath. “God, can they just kiss already?”

Taehyung whipped around. “Who said that? You wanna die?”

Jungkook flushed scarlet. “Ignore them.”

“Oh, I always ignore them,” Taehyung said with a wave. “They’re background noise. You, though? You're the main event.”

Jungkook wanted the earth to open and swallow him whole.

That day’s classes were a blur—geometry, biology, literature. The only constants were the faint ache in Jungkook’s chest and the occasional jab from Taehyung.

“Your handwriting is so neat,” Taehyung said during lit class. “Is it, like, illegal levels of effort?”

Jungkook ignored him.

“You know,” Taehyung continued, whispering while the teacher lectured about symbolism, “you could sell your notes. Or auction them. I’d pay—if I didn’t already have free access by sitting next to you.”

“I hope you trip over your own ego,” Jungkook whispered back.

Taehyung grinned. “Oh good. You’re warming up to me.”

Lunch break. Jungkook escaped to the rooftop.

He liked it there—the wind, the quiet, the illusion of being above everything. But today, even the rooftop betrayed him.

Taehyung showed up five minutes later with two onigiri in hand.

“How’d you find me?” Jungkook asked warily.

Taehyung shrugged. “You smell like existential dread. Easy to track.”

Jungkook blinked. “...That’s not even possible.”

Taehyung flopped down beside him and offered one of the rice balls. “Truce?”

Jungkook took it, reluctantly. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m always weird.”

“Weirder.”

Taehyung took a bite of his food, chewing thoughtfully. “I was thinking…”

“Oh no.”

“…Thinking,” he repeated, undeterred, “that maybe I should tone it down a bit.”

Jungkook raised an eyebrow. “Tone what down?”

“The teasing. The poking. The excellent psychological torment.”

Jungkook stared at him, stunned.

“I’m not saying I will,” Taehyung clarified quickly. “I’m just saying… I thought about it.”

“Why?”

Taehyung didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his head toward the open sky.

“Because when you flinch,” he said quietly, “it feels like I’ve kicked a puppy.”

Jungkook looked away. “Maybe stop kicking puppies, then.”

“…Maybe I don’t know how.”

There was a long silence. The breeze fluttered through their hair. The school bell rang in the distance, warning them lunch was nearly over.

Jungkook broke the silence first. “I’m not a puppy.”

“I know,” Taehyung said. “But you look like one. And I’m terrible with delicate things.”

Jungkook glanced at him. “Then maybe stop pretending you don’t care.”

Taehyung stood up abruptly. “You say that like it’s easy.”

And before Jungkook could reply, he was gone again, leaving behind half an onigiri and too many unspoken thoughts.

That evening, Jungkook wrote in his journal for the first time in weeks.

Taehyung’s confusing. He acts like a jerk but jumps in like a hero. He smiles when I glare. He pokes at my silence and then defends it with fists. I don’t get him. But when he’s around…

He paused. His pen hovered above the page.

…I feel like someone’s finally looking.

He closed the journal.

And smiled.

Just a little.

It started with a scraped knee.

A harmless stumble on the school stairs—Jungkook landed awkwardly, skin tearing just below his right knee. Nothing serious, just enough to sting and draw blood. But by the time he reached the nurse’s office, Taehyung was already there.

“I was in the area,” Taehyung said casually, flipping through a comic book he hadn’t touched until Jungkook limped in. “Not stalking you or anything. That’d be weird.”

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “You’re sitting in the nurse’s chair.”

“I like the cushion.”

“Right.”

Taehyung dropped the comic and walked over. His expression shifted—faint concern traced beneath his usual mischief.

“That looks nasty. Did you fall chasing someone?” he asked, crouching in front of Jungkook to get a better look.

“I tripped,” Jungkook mumbled. “Thanks for pointing it out like I’m five.”

Taehyung gently prodded around the injury. “You bruise easy.”

“Did you come to insult my skin now?”

“I came to…” Taehyung paused. “Okay, I don’t know. It just felt wrong when I saw you on the stairs like that.”

Jungkook blinked. “You saw me fall?”

Taehyung looked sheepish. “...Yes. From the second floor. I may have screamed your name and knocked over two juniors on the way down.”

“You what—”

The nurse returned just in time to stop the conversation from spiraling. She ushered Taehyung out while tending to Jungkook’s knee, but not before he whispered, “Don’t die from a paper cut or something. I’d never forgive you.”

Later that day, Jungkook found a small bandage tucked into his pencil case.

It was one of those cute novelty ones—white, with little cartoon bears and the words "You’re tougher than you think."

No name, but only one person in the universe was cheesy and bold enough to pull that off.

Jungkook stared at it for a long moment… and then smiled.

The week grew stranger from there.

Taehyung’s antics continued—but they started to shift.

He still mocked Jungkook’s love for quiet corners and black hoodies, but he also began to show up with oddly specific snacks. Shrimp crackers when Jungkook was hungry. Warm lemon tea on the day he had a sore throat. A packet of wet wipes after lunch, thrown at him with a lazy, “You’ve got sauce on your face, Bunny.”

“Why are you so prepared?” Jungkook asked once.

“I am chaos incarnate,” Taehyung replied. “But organized chaos.”

Jungkook snorted. “You’re an enigma with a backpack full of band-aids.”

“Don’t ruin my image.”

The class noticed too.

“You two are weird,” said Minji from the front row one afternoon.

Jungkook looked up. “What?”

“You and Taehyung. It’s like… he teases you non-stop but then acts like your bodyguard.”

“He’s unpredictable.”

“He likes you.”

Jungkook nearly choked on his water.

Minji smirked. “Just saying. It’s obvious.”

Jungkook shook his head. “He calls me fungus, Minji.”

“Yeah. Cute fungus.”

The confusion only deepened when Jungkook caught Taehyung staring at him during history class.

Not a passing glance—a stare. Intense. Silent. Thoughtful.

“What?” Jungkook asked, self-conscious.

Taehyung blinked, snapped out of whatever dreamscape he’d been lost in.

“I was just thinking,” he said softly, “you look different when you’re not sad.”

Jungkook’s heart stumbled. “Is that… good?”

“I don’t know yet.” Taehyung leaned closer. “But I think I like both versions.”

And with that, he leaned back again and went back to doodling a banana sword fight in his notebook like nothing had happened.

After school, it rained.

Not the kind of rain that let you walk home with a hood and hope—this was merciless, sideways, soaking rain.

Jungkook stood under the awning, cursing his umbrella-less optimism. He watched the puddles grow and sighed. Guess I’m getting wet today.

Then something smacked him in the chest.

An umbrella. Thrown at him from the gate.

Taehyung stood a few feet away, dripping under the storm.

“Take it,” he shouted.

“But—what about you?” Jungkook called back.

“I like rain!” Taehyung shouted, walking off with his hands stuffed in his pockets, soaked to the bone. “Besides, your books are more important!”

Jungkook watched him disappear into the storm, speechless.

That night, he sat on his bed, holding the umbrella.

It smelled like lemon shampoo and chaos.

And it was definitely the dumbest thing that had ever made his heart feel full.