Archive of Our Own

🥇

Jungkook always showers last.

Call it a post-practice ritual: the squeaky faucet in the locker room’s last stall, the drum of water on damp skin, the hissing heat rising to unspool new knots in his shoulders. It’s the only place outside the rink where his mind shuts off long enough for him to breathe, and he gulps the quiet in by the mouthful, lets the steam of it sink into his bones.

Between the rink and his shower, though, there’s always his dumbass team.

With a heavy sigh, Jungkook tips his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Put your dick away, man.”

In his peripheral, Jackson Wang crosses his arms, bare hip cocked. “What’s wrong with my dick, Cap?”

“You keep pointing it at me, for one.”

“It’s not hard! I’m just trying to have a conversation!”

“You can wear pants for those. That’s what most people do.”

Jackson huffs, affronted. “Why don’t you like my dick?”

Jungkook chokes on his spit and a hockey stick clatters to the floor as three separate teammates whip toward them.

“Aye yo?”

“It’s an honest question!” Jackson defends loudly. Then he freezes, eyes widening before they drop to his exposed crotch. “Oh, god. Is it ugly?”

“No no—” Jungkook holds his hands out like he might try to comfort Jackson, then instantly jerks them back when they get too close to his junk. “Yikes—I mean, no, it’s a perfectly normal—”

“You think it’s ugly!” Jackson wails. He whirls around, dick swinging, ass to Jungkook as he faces their teammate Charlie, a tall, white guy with a head full of brown curls. “Bro, is my dick ugly?”

“No bro, your dick is beautiful.”

Instant relief sags in Jackson’s shoulders. “Thanks, man.”

He fist bumps Charlie and turns back to Jungkook just as another teammate farther down the row of lockers mumbles, “How come you never call my dick beautiful?”

“Cause it isn’t, dude.”

“The fuck—”

The room devolves into nonsense shit-talking but Jackson ignores it all, plants a foot next to Jungkook on the bench, and leans into his space, waiting with raised eyebrows. “So?”

Jungkook sighs again. Someone fucking end him.

“Fine,” he caves, “I’ll go—”

“Hell yes!”

“—but no drinking.”

“‘Course not,” Jackson agrees with an easy grin, arms raised in victory, “we’ve got a season to win! No drinking allowed, scout’s honor.” He salutes with a short nod, then puts his hands on his hips and stays right where he is.

Stares expectantly.

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “I’m not calling your dick pretty.”

“Well I’m not moving ’til—” Jungkook makes a sudden lunge for his hockey stick and Jackson cups his own dick with a squeak, scuttling behind Charlie’s larger frame for cover. “Hey, man! You can’t go to a party if you kill the host!”

“Works for me,” Jungkook says. “I don’t wanna go.”

Jackson glares at him around Charlie’s bicep. “Well you can’t qualify for playoffs again without me!”

“Technically,” Charlie muses while he loops his arms through a shirt that seems too small for his shoulders, “we still have two subs left. I mean, there’s always Kyle.”

Jackson gapes at him. “Bro!”

“I’m just saying.” Charlie shrugs. “We’ve got options.”

“Kyle is definitely not an option,” Jackson grumbles.

Thing is, he’s right. With one of their defenders already benched thanks to a nasty collision during last week’s game, Jungkook can’t afford to kill Jackson yet. It’s the only thing that’s got him lowering his hockey stick.

Jackson sticks his tongue out, triumphant and annoying and butt-ass naked.

Jungkook’s eyes narrow.

“Pretty confident for someone who glides through his strides every time Smithy drives the net,” he quips. Then he smiles, downright serene. “But that’s alright, hey? That’s what I’m here for, whipping you into shape.”

The smug look drops from Jackson’s face like a puck to ice. “Jeon, wait—”

“Everyone say thanks to Jackson’s dick!” Jungkook calls out. “Next practice starts with suicides, and for every half-minute it takes you fuckers to get dressed and clear out, you get an extra set—starting now.”

The locker room explodes into chaos.

“Ah, shit—”

“For fuck’s sake, Jackson—”

“Why’s it always Jackson?”

“I’m not the enemy here!” Jackson cries as he yanks a pair of boxers up his thighs, yelping at the pop of his waistband. “He’s turning you against me!”

Charlie laughs and wiggles into his jacket, shoves a cap over his curls as he hauls his duffle bag over his shoulder in one quick motion. Grins at Jungkook, all straight teeth and dimples.

“Stone cold as always, JK.” He knocks a knuckle against the bill of his cap and slaps Jackson on the shoulder. “See you at the party.”

“Watch your goddamn elbow—”

“Where the hell’s my mouth guard—”

“Go, go, go—”

Jungkook leans against the wall by the exit, mouth drawn in a flat line to hide his grin as the rest of his team tumbles into each other in their rush to get out faster.

“Later, Cap!”

“Later, Cap!”

“You got those cones put away, yeah?”

Near the end of the commotion, Jackson stumbles up with his shirt half-tucked into unbuttoned jeans.

“I’ll text you the details for tonight,” he says to Jungkook, pausing in the doorway to wink. “Be sure to bring that cute roommate of yours.”

Jungkook looks down at his wrist, taps where a watch would go. “You just hit four extra sets.”

“God dammit, Jackson!” Behind him, Eric swings his duffle bag into the back of Jackson’s knees.

Jackson buckles into the hall with a wheezed laugh. “Later, Cap!”

Their voices carry down the hall, obnoxious and loud as shit. Jungkook snorts when the last shout fades, and a tiny thread of tension releases somewhere behind his sternum in the quiet they leave behind.

He strips out of his compression shirt and kicks off his shorts, grimacing at the sensation of dried sweat as he slips into a pair of slide-ons.

And maybe he takes longer in the shower than he needs. Maybe he washes his hair twice, counts and re-counts the columns of tile that stretch from floor to ceiling. Sue him. Once Jungkook leaves this practice center, he knows nothing will stop life from slamming into him again, full fucking force—boarding with no penalty.

Right now, there’s only hockey and shower steam.

So he thinks about drill sequences as he towels off and pats a new moisturizer into his skin; thinks about lazy left wings and concussed defenders as he pulls on his favorite hoodie, lean frame immediately swamped in dark fabric; and, as he grabs a stack of cleaned Tupperware containers from his locker, all neatly tied in a purple wrapping cloth, Jungkook thinks about winning.

At the end of the hall leading from the locker room to the rink, he pauses by an open door, knocks twice with his middle knuckle. “Hey, Coach.”

But Coach Kim’s not in his office anymore. Jungkook considers waiting, but the exhaustion’s catching up to him quick and he can’t say he minds dodging their usual game of twenty questions.

How’re your classes, Jungkook-ah? How’s your sleep been? How’s your halmeoni?

Did you like the japchae? Eunyoung worries about you with that schedule of yours.

You’re too much like our sons, thinking you can survive off cup ramyeon and protein shakes.

She’s still insisting you come over for a real, home-cooked meal when all the boys are in town again.

You’ll think about it, won’t you?

The invitation always throws Jungkook for a loop—especially when he mentions his sons. Namjoon was bad enough on his own—Jungkook still remembers all the ways he embarrassed himself last season before the old captain finally graduated—but it’s the thought of having dinner with thee Kim Seokjin that really makes him want to curl up and die. To be that close to his biggest hockey idol? To sit across from that smile and those shoulders, casually chatting over japchae?

Jungkook is so good at staying home.

In the end, he places the stack of wrapped Tupperware on the edge of Coach Kim’s desk, scribbles on a sticky note in rushed Korean—Please tell Eunyoung-ssi I ate well!—and heads out.

It’s easier this way. As the third Korean captain the team’s seen in the last four years and the youngest player to ever hold the title, he doesn’t need any dumbasses with too much time on their hands bringing his skill or Coach’s character into question.

Jungkook earned the C on his jersey. He’ll prove it by taking his team all the way to the playoffs just like Namjoon did. And then he’ll take them to Nationals.

The rink’s still out of sight when he hears it: the scratch of skates on ice. He pauses with one headphone in, thumb hovering over the play button on his phone.

A figure skater, Jungkook can tell just by the sound: the quick kick as they launch into the air, the breath of nothing as they spin, then the clean crack of a solid landing; that smooth, even glide. It sends Jungkook’s pulse rocketing, a frantic beat on the back of his tongue. He swallows around it, turns the corner—and there he is.

Kim Taehyung, skating like a dream.

Jungkook only knows the basics: theatre major in his final year, certified social butterfly. Stupid good at figure skating but never part of the school team—not once in all four years, Jungkook checked, and as he slows to a stop at the foot of the rink, he can’t for the life of him figure out why.

Taehyung’s dressed in all black tonight, a body-hugging fit that shows off the build of his shoulders, his tiny fucking waist. Taehyung swings up and out of a sit spin, twirling like a top, and Jungkook’s mouth goes a little dry.

He’s fast. Faster than half the hockey team, easy; Jungkook would put money on it.

No music plays, but there’s a natural rhythm in the way Taehyung moves. He bends impossibly low, flattens into a perfectly executed hydroblade, gliding backward across the ice in a broad, sleek circle. His arms spread wide at his sides like wings, face so close to the ice he could kiss it if he wanted.

For a moment, Jungkook thinks he does.

Then Taehyung presses up again, uses the momentum to launch into another dizzying spin.

The trick twirls him around, gives Jungkook a perfect view of his face as he lands and god, he’s just as beautiful as always, deadly even at a distance which is why Jungkook always keeps his—and then Taehyung’s sharp gaze is locking onto him, the intense heat of his focus spearing straight through Jungkook’s gut until Taehyung blinks and it all bleeds out, eyes widening as he registers Jungkook’s presence and fuck, he’s just standing here at the edge of the rink, watching Taehyung through the plexiglass like a goddamn creep.

And actually, maybe Jungkook’s lived long enough. He ducks his head, books it for the exit, feels pretty good about the earth splitting open to swallow him whole.

Outside, he jams his other headphone in his ear and almost eats shit on the snow-covered sidewalk when Avril Lavigne’s “girlfriend” blasts at full volume.

“Fuck—!”

Jungkook fumbles to hit pause then jolts out of his skin as one of his scheduled alarms blares loud and shrill in the cold dark, a familiar reminder filling his phone’s screen.

Don’t forget to call!!!

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he hisses, silencing the ringer and roughly tapping to clear the message. He shoves his phone in his pocket but only gets a few steps before he’s pulling it back out to edit the alarm, scheduling it for Sunday afternoons instead of Friday evenings. Sundays are better for phone calls, anyway.

A new text scrolls across the top of his screen as he hits save on the new reminder. The unknown address drags him to a halt, and he squints at the message that comes next.

2^nd LEFT WING:

here’s the addy!!!

be there or be square you fucking loser

Shit.

Jackson’s party.

Jungkook groans and lets his head drop back, searching the dark for the will to reply.

JUNGKOOK:

Said I’ll go, didn’t I?

2^nd LEFT WING:

yeah but i’ve got a lot riding on this

the guys have a bet running against me that you won’t actually come

JUNGKOOK:

Yeah? Maybe I’ll bail after all.

2^nd LEFT WING:

say sike

🥹🥹🥹

Jungkook considers letting Jackson sweat it out, but his stomach twists the longer he stares at the dumb emojis.

“God dammit,” he mutters, swiping away a calendar alert that lets him know he should already be in the study room he reserved at the library. If he’s fifteen minutes late, he loses it for the night

But when was the last time he saw any of his teammates outside of a rink or travel bus?

The fact that he has to think about it makes him feel worse.

If nothing else, hanging with the guys somewhere other than the practice center might strengthen the team’s morale, improve their cohesion on the ice. And it’s not like he has a valid reason to bail; their game on Saturday’s already cancelled.

He shakes the chill out of his hands.

JUNGKOOK:

sike

2^nd LEFT WING:

✨ f u c k y e a h ✨

Jungkook rolls his eyes, but the twisting in his gut dies down and the cold biting through his hoodie kicks his legs into motion again.

It’s bonding, he thinks. For hockey.

One party can’t hurt.

🥇

“Nobody touch me! I have a spinal injury!”

Jungkook runs a tired hand down his face. Stares vacantly across an empty yard of crushed solo cups and wonders for the hundredth time how the hell he ended up here.

“Do you have any loss of sensation in your limbs?" a paramedic asks, her voice a tinny echo from where she’s got her head shoved in a large trashcan, trying to get a coherent answer out of Jackson who’s folded in half over the can’s rim, ass in the air.

“I can’t feel my legs!” Jackson shouts.

“He’s been saying that for the last hour,” Jungkook chimes in. “He’s not paralyzed, he’s just high.”

“How do you know, Jeon?! They’re my legs!”

Jackson’s feet kick uselessly, the toes of his heavy shoes clanking against the can.

And look, Jungkook isn’t one to dismiss potential emergencies, honest. So he sticks around as they lift Jackson out of the trashcan. He waits with them while the paramedic asks Jackson if he knows his name, his age, or where he is. Hell, Jungkook even drives him to the urgent care so he can avoid the fuckass ambulance fee.

When they arrive, the clock on his dash reads 3:08 a.m.

“Who knew all it took was breaking my spine to get you to hang out with me?” Jackson mumbles, cheek smushed against the cold glass of Jungkook’s passenger window.

“Shut up, idiot.”

Jungkook focuses on the deep-breathing technique a sorority girl once taught him while waiting in line at the library’s coffee counter.

As it turns out, Jackson’s spine is perfectly intact, which comes as a surprise to exactly one person. But he’s got a sprained wrist that’ll keep him off the ice for about three weeks, and that’s got Jackson’s bleary eyes going wide, his totally un-paralyzed spine straightening as his gaze flicks to Jungkook, then away.

“Damn, that’s a bummer,” he says too loud, crooked grin gone too fast. His hurt wrist rests listless on his thigh, held still by a black brace.

Jungkook doesn’t reply, too busy taking notes as the doctor runs through a list of directions: how much rest Jackson will need, when the brace can come off, PT check-ins, easy exercises he can do at home.

It’s not until all the paperwork’s been filled out and they’re sliding into Jungkook’s car that Jackson finds the courage to speak again. He huffs a half-hearted laugh and rubs at his neck with his good hand.

“So how many suicides am I running three weeks from now?”

Jungkook shoots him a look like he’s crazy. “None, dude.”

“What d’you mean, none? Aren’t you pissed?”

Jungkook puts the car in reverse, pulls out of the cramped parking spot, shifts into drive. He knows what it looks like when guilt hurts worse than the injury, knows that shame isn’t the kind of wound to rub salt in; the sting sucks enough on its own.

“Nah,” he says, and it’s true. “Just relieved it’s not worse—and that it’s not your dominant hand. I’ll do a lot for you, man, but I’m not wiping your ass.”

Jackson chokes on a snort, caught off guard. “But the season—”

“Just started,” Jungkook interrupts. “If things go a little south with you on the bench, we got plenty of time to turn ‘em back around. Three weeks is nothing.”

“Yeah,” Jackson says slowly, like he doesn’t quite believe him but wants to. “Guess you’re right.”

Jungkook clicks on his blinker. Checks his blind spot. “I’m always right.”

The drive back to Jackson’s is a short one. Jungkook leaves him to his thoughts, mostly because he’s too caught up in his own, but when he slows to a stop at a traffic light and peeks over, Jackson’s still got this look like a kicked puppy trying too hard to wag its tail.

“Hey,” Jungkook says. “It’s minor, yeah?” Jackson’s chin dips in a pitiful nod. “So we’re working with a best-case scenario here. You’ll rest a couple weeks, ease into some stretches, restore your range of motion, be back before you know it.”

Jackson sniffs, lip wobbling. Stays quiet for a beat before he says, hopeful, “I’ll be gucci in no time?”

Jungkook stares at his big, teary eyes. Feels his own eye twitch.

Then he breathes out slow. Drops a heavy hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “Yeah, man. You’re gonna be gucci.”

Jackson musters a watery smile. The red light pouring in through the windshield turns green and Jungkook returns his hand to the wheel, keeps his grip relaxed and unbothered because that’s exactly what he is: cool, collected, and completely, utterly unbothered.

Three weeks, four games, two subs.

That’s fine.

As soon as the sun’s up, Jungkook will break the news to Coach Kim and head straight to Travis’ place to let him know he’s going in as their second line’s new left wing.

He won’t even have to ask Kyle.

🥇

“What do you mean, Travis dropped out?”

Jungkook stares at the two sophomores in front of him, both lounging on a sticky-looking couch that came with the pre-furnished apartment. He can’t remember either of their names, only knows that Travis auto-matched with them through the complex’s online portal and swore they were cool.

Roommate Number One takes a rip from a homemade Corona-bottle water pipe. “I mean he dropped out, man,” he says, voice strained around the breath he holds. Smoke pours from his lips in a slow exhale, ends with a wheezed cough. “Poof.”

“You mean like, out of his major?” Jungkook pushes. “Out of calc? The hockey team?”

“Nah, dude, like out of school,” Roommate Number Two replies.

Jungkook’s eyes bug. “He dropped out of university?”

“Packed up last week,” Roommate Number One confirms with a nod. “Said he wants to focus on his vlogging.”

“Vlogging.”

“Yup.” Roommate Number Two snags the Corona bottle from Number One, lighter ready in hand. “Just hit 20k subscribers last month.”

Jungkook can’t believe what the fuck he’s hearing. “What kinda content does he make?”

“Reactions mostly,” Number Two says after a deep inhale. “Goes through new music, old movies, whatever people ask for, and they eat that shit up. Had one that really popped off, what was it called again?”

“Pride and Prejudice,” Number One supplies.

Number Two snaps his fingers. “Yeah! With the girl from Pirates of the Caribbean!”

“That’s Keira Knightley, fuckwad.”

“Whatever, it did crazy numbers. There’s that one scene, you know?”

“With the hand,” Number One says.

Number Two nods excitedly. “Yeah, the hand!”

They both hold up a palm, flex their fingers wide.

“Fuck,” Jungkook mutters. “That is a good scene.”

Number One grins, arms stretching wide along the back of the sticky couch. “Peak cinema, man.”

Jungkook nods, despondent. “It’s the subtlety.”

His phone buzzes with an incoming text, and he takes the moment to scroll through his piling messages while The Roommates rattle off different reaction videos that launched Travis into Z-list stardom.

2^nd LEFT WING:

is it possible for a sprain to hurt worse the next day

like is that normal or am I dying

UNKNOWN:

Is this Jungcook?

It’s Sara from psych

What time do you want to meet for our project??

NAMJOON-HYUNG:

Hey, Jungkook! Heard about Jackson.

Let me know if you wanna talk through anything!

We can grab a coffee at The Grounds. lmk

KOCHINIM:

You did good, kid.

We’ll talk more after practice tomorrow.

Oh, any word from Travis?

He didn’t answer when I called.

EOMMA:

Have a good day <3

Jungkook can’t decide if he wants to chuck himself out the window or just his phone. A lump forms at the base of his throat. He tries to remember the sorority girl’s coaching.

You have to like, focus on the turn of the breath in your lungs. Where the inhale becomes an exhale. Then breathe out sloooooow, like this.

“Hey, sorry about your hockey stuff, though.”

Jungkook glances up from his phone to find Roommate Number Two blinking at him like he only just remembered he was there. “No worries, man.”

“You’ve still got that other guy, right?” Number One scrunches his face, thinking. “Travis talked about him some.”

“Oh yeah, Kyle!” Number Two beams at Jungkook like they just singlehandedly solved all his problems.

Jungkook does his best to smile. It’s not much more than a grimace.

Right. There’s always Kyle.

🥇

“I promise it’s not contagious!”

Kyle slumps heavily against the doorframe to his shoebox of a dorm room, wrapped in a baby blue comforter like a miserable burrito. His voice is all stuffy, consonants coming out half-formed, and he’s even paler than usual, eyes drooping as he breathes in through his mouth. His frosted tips have lost their usual spike, flopping limp over his forehead.

Jungkook eyes the tiny wads of damp tissue paper jammed in both of his nostrils. “Right.”

“No, really!” Kyle insists. “It’s probably just allergies.” He sneezes so hard the tissue wad from his left nostril dislodges and splats on the ground.

Jungkook takes a wide step back. “Brother, that’s not allergies.”

Kyle moans and pouts at the ground. “It has to be. I can’t afford to miss any more classes.”

Jungkook doesn’t mean to rush him along, but he’s never been the best at this. So he rocks back on his heels as he admires the dorm hall’s faded teal walls and says, “Well, guess I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait!” Kyle sways in his spot like just standing makes him dizzy. “I can still play, if that’s what you’re here for. Jackson posted his brace on insta, and Travis—”

“Is a world famous vlogger now, yeah I heard.”

“He’s actually pretty funny. I liked his Pride and Prejudice reaction.” Kyle’s right hand pokes out from his comforter as he flexes his fingers wide. “There’s that one scene everyone loves, you know.”

Jungkook stares at the snotty tissue wad by Kyle’s slipper. “Peak cinema.”

“Right.”

For a while, neither speaks. Then, so hesitantly, Kyle mumbles, “So, do I have to go in for Jackson? That’s why you’re here?”

It’s a bit overkill in Jungkook’s opinion, the way he looks like he’s on death row waiting for Jungkook to tell him today’s finally his day.

“Nah,” he sighs. “Don’t worry about it, man. Feel better, okay?”

Even beneath the comforter, he can tell Kyle’s body goes weak with relief. “You’re the best, JK.”

“Yeah, I know.”

That’s why I need to make it to the playoffs.

An alarm goes off on Jungkook’s phone. He reaches into his back pocket, snoozes it without looking. Already knows which one it is.

🥇

Jungkook can’t sit still. Can’t remember the last time a Sunday felt so long and punishing.

He’s positive his brain will melt out of his skull if he doesn’t burn through the excess energy thrumming in his system—but going all the way to the practice center and setting eyes on the rink would only remind him of the the season he’s about to tank.

So he’s here instead, in the middle of the crowded campus gym, stretching on a Sunday.

Murmurs of nearby conversations filter in and out of his awareness alongside the Top-40 pop music playing on repeat over the speakers. When he’s warmed up, he snags the first free exercise bench he sees and loads the barbell with enough weight to make him sweat but not die.

Then he just kinda sits there staring blankly at the rows of packed treadmills across the room.

Three weeks, four games, two subs.

That would’ve been fine.

Three weeks and four games with one sub and one giant gaping hole in his lineup?

That’s less fine. Sucks, actually. But he’s not out of options yet.

He can’t be.

“Need a spot?”

Jungkook jumps at the sudden question and his first coherent thought when his head snaps up is, Arms.

Tan and toned, right there in front of him, on full display in a gray cut-off with Venice Beach scrawled across the front—and suddenly the only problem Jungkook has is the fact that those arms aren’t currently locking him in a chokehold.

His eyes trail slowly up the guy’s chest, and when they land on his face, he considers taking a quick walk outside to go bury himself in the snow.

Kim Taehyung has a tiny mole on his left cheek. Jungkook’s never been close enough to notice.

“Huh?”

Taehyung quirks his head to the side, a little amused, a lot like he’s waiting for a reply. “I asked if you needed someone to spot you. Saw you over here on your own, figured I’d check.”

“Oh.” Jungkook blinks rapidly and scans the gym, no longer sure of who he is or how he got here or why Kim Taehyung is talking to him. He frowns at the bench he’s straddling like it’s the first time he’s ever seen one. “Right. Uh, yeah. Thanks."

Taehyung presses his lips together but a small smirk still breaks through. “Cool.”

“Cool.” It takes another five seconds for Jungkook to remember how bodies work, his movements stiff and robotic as he lies back on the bench. Fucking say something. “You’re Taehyung, right?”

It’s out of his mouth before he realizes and Jungkook mentally starts packing his bags, sets up plans to move somewhere along an unstable fault line or within spitting distance of an active volcano.

If Taehyung finds him weird, he doesn’t let on. Simply says, “The one and only,” as he takes his position by Jungkook’s head. His shirt’s damp at the neck, like he’s been here a while.

Jungkook nods absently. Feels stupid when Taehyung doesn’t ask for his name back. His hands are too sweaty when he grips the bar, so he wipes them on his shorts, rolls his shoulders as he locks his gaze on a random ceiling square. Ignores the way Taehyung looms over him when he says,

“Haven’t seen you here on a Sunday before.”

Jungkook hefts the barbell of its rack. Inhales as he lowers the bar to his chest, exhales as he pushes up, arms extended. “Maybe you just missed me.”

“Impossible.”

Jungkook focuses on the very heavy bar of plated weights he’s holding over his body instead of the surge of panic that makes him want to puke a little, because what the fuck does that mean?

Maybe he’s hallucinating this whole thing. Maybe he got plowed down by a campus scooter and never made it to the gym.

He keeps his wrists neutral through his set, makes sure his back doesn’t arch off the bench and ruin his form. Grits his teeth as he pushes through his last rep and re-racks the bar, breathing deep. He only has to tip his chin back an inch before he’s following the long line of Taehyung’s body all the way up from his gym shorts to his dark, curious gaze.

At this angle, the harsh light overhead gives him a kind of halo.

“You okay?” Taehyung asks. “You seem a little spaced out.”

“Oh—sorry.” Jungkook clears the bench and scans for the closest wipe station, but Taehyung’s already sliding into his spot, leftover sweat marks and all. Seems perfectly at ease with the weight Jungkook set. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Jungkook shrugs. The view of Taehyung’s head bracketed by his knees is enough to make him dizzy. He pats at his temple with the back of his hand. It comes away wet. “Bunch of boring hockey stuff. It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time for boring hockey stuff,” Taehyung offers, squaring his shoulders. “Or not, no worries.” He adjusts his hold on the barbell and hefts it off the rack.

Jungkook listens to the frantic pound of sneakers on treadmills as he watches Taehyung lift. Tries to compute how this certified gym bro and the figure skater from the practice center are the same person, both equally bad for his health.

“One of our guys got injured this weekend,” he finally says. “Well, another one of our guys.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that.”

“You did?”

Taehyung stutters on his next rep, a tiny blip in his flow. Jungkook’s hands hover, ready to assist, but Taehyung recovers quickly. His eyes flit up to Jungkook, sparkling like he just told a joke.

“Jackson Wang, right?” Taehyung grunts with the effort it takes to talk but breathes cool and even through his nose on his next exhale. “Posted the wrist brace on his Insta.”

Right. It makes sense that Jackson and Taehyung know each other; they probably hang out at all the parties Jungkook doesn’t go to.

“Yeah, sucks. He’s out for the next three weeks, and the subs we had on hand are either too famous or too sick to step up.”

“Wait.” Taehyung racks the barbell before his set is finished. He swings his legs to one side of the bench, eyebrows furrowing with genuine concern as he sits up to assess Jungkook. “You don’t have enough players? Doesn’t that mean you’ll have to like, forfeit? I feel like that’s one of the big sports rules.”

Jungkook snorts. “Yeah, it’s a big one. And each forfeit fucks our stats up worse than an outright loss.”

Taehyung continues to frown at him even after he stands to trade spots, like this is his problem too, not just Jungkook’s. “That’s gotta be a lot of pressure as the captain.”

“Sure, I guess.” Jungkook grips the bar again. “It’s harder on Jackson.”

“Still,” Taehyung mumbles.

“I’ll find someone before it comes to a forfeit. Only qualifications I need for a sub at this point are knowing the rules of hockey and skating in a straight line.”

Everything else, Jungkook can handle.

He won’t be the captain who undoes Coach Kim’s legacy—no way in hell. If Kim Seokjin put their team on the map and Namjoon got them to playoffs for the first time in decades, Jungkook will be the one who takes them all the way to Nationals.

The rest is just details.

At the end of his set, Jungkook takes a swig of water and nearly chokes when Taehyung holds out his fist.

“Solid set.”

Jungkook hums something that would maybe be a sentence if he could open his mouth without dribbling water down his shirt and bumps his knuckles to Taehyung’s. He does his best not to ogle his arms. Begs his heart to stop beating so loud—can’t tell if he’s hot from the exertion or the the fact that Taehyung won’t quit looking at him.

“Well, I guess—uh. I’m gonna…” Jungkook points his thumb over his shoulder at some unspecified machine. “Y’know.”

“Yeah, for sure. See you around?”

Taehyung pulls the hem of his shirt up to wipe at his face and Jungkook astral projects out of his body.

“For sure,” he echoes weakly, taking another too-big gulp of water before he shoots Taehyung a tiny salute and completely one-eighties in search of the nearest exit.

It doesn’t matter that he only just started his routine, that he hasn’t been at the gym for more than twenty minutes tops. He forgets he has anything to worry about other than a pair of devastating eyes and stupidly perfect arms.

“Jungkook-ah, hwaiting!”

He spins around at the shout, wide-eyed. Points at himself to make sure, and Taehyung laughs.

“Yeah, you,” he calls in Korean.

Jungkook takes a half-step forward, still close enough to get caught in Taehyung’s orbit. Ditches English when he asks, “You know my name?”

It looks like every muscle in Taehyung’s face struggles to stay stoic at the question, but Jungkook doesn’t get why until Taehyung replies, “You’re Jiminie’s new roommate, right? The recluse.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow at the nickname. “Guess so.”

“You’ll find a sub soon,” Taehyung declares. “I’ve got a good feeling. And you know what they say—What’s past is prologue.”

“Thanks…” Jungkook replies, not too sure what he means or who they are. He trails off with his hand half raised as Taehyung waves and heads toward the rowers.

It’s not until he’s halfway to the library that Jungkok realizes Taehyung referred to him as the captain.

🥇

“Do you know Kim Taehyung?”

It’s 10:34 p.m. and Jungkook’s sat on the secondhand couch he got from Facebook Marketplace, waiting for the bowl of cereal in his lap to get soggy.

Jimin’s head whips up from where he’s buttering toast at the breakfast bar. His bangs are tied up in a small sprout, so it’s impossible to miss when he pins Jungkook with a look like he’s the dumbest fucking idiot he’s ever seen.

Jungkook frowns, offended in advance. “What?”

Without a word, Jimin peels his nightly sheet mask off and chucks it at him. It slaps Jungkook smack in the face and sticks there.

“Man, ew!” Jungkook hurls the mask back but his shot goes wide and it slaps against the wall, plops to the floor. “What the hell was that for?!”

“For asking dumbass questions!” Jimin cries, waving his butter knife around. “In my own home! On breakfast night!”

“Well how am I supposed to know if I don’t ask?!”

“You’d know if you went literally anywhere with me when I invite you places, brat!” Jimin clicks his tongue, head ticking to the side as he picks up his toast again. His skin glistens with leftover product from the sheet mask. “This is unacceptable. I’ve clearly gone too easy on you.”

“Whatever.” Jungkook traces his thumb along the smooth edge of his cereal bowl. The granola is just beginning to separate. “So… you do know him?”

A burnt square of toast clocks him in the forehead and plunks into his cereal. Spilled milk seeps into his pants.

“Hyung—!”

“Jungkook, my sweet summer child,” Jimin interrupts. “Of fucking course I know him.”

🥇

On Monday, Jungkook shows up early for practice and finds Kim Taehyung chilling in the locker room. He sits slouched on the far bench by Jungkook’s station like he owns it, eyes unfocused with a vacant pout on his face, but when he spots Jungkook, his face splits into a bright grin.

“Jungkook, hey!”

It might affect Jungkook less if Taehyung just sucker-punched him.

He stares at Taehyung.

Twists to search the hall for another Jungkook before realizing he’s the only one here.

Turns back to Taehyung.

“Uh. Hey?”

“This is a super weird space when it’s empty,” Taehyung states, casual like they talk all the time. He taps his foot as he leans back on his palms and takes in the space again. “So quiet and secluded. Someone could kiss in here.”

“Huh?”

There’s an awkward pause as Taehyung seems to catch up with himself, eyes wide as he processes what just fell out of his mouth. Then he laughs and rubs his thumb between his eyebrows, like he’s smoothing out a frown line.

“You look worried,” he says. “Right here.”

Jungkook tries to school his features but his brow instantly furrows again as Taehyung runs his long fingers through his hair, black bangs flopping into his eyes. He looks too good, dressed in a matching teal track suit that blends in with the dark teal of the lockers.

“Sorry, not that I’m not, you know—” Jungkook bails on the sentence before he can embarrass himself. “What’re you doing here?”

“What’s it look like?” Taehyung stretches his legs out, crosses his ankles. “I’m your new substitute!”

“Our what?”

The words don’t make sense. Not from Taehyung, not in that order.

Not that he doesn’t—look, Jungkook’s seen the guy skate more times than he cares to count. He’s obviously an athlete who knows his way around a rink; all speed, all muscle.

But Kim Taehyung can’t play hockey.

“Right,” Jungkook begins, already hating himself a little, “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but…” He trails off when Taehyung pokes his bottom lip out, eyes rounding as his chin wobbles.

“You don’t want me?”

And Jungkook’s heart falls straight out of his ass. His stomach swoops. He maybe sees God.

He definitely takes too long to buffer, because Taehyung’s pout morphs into a teasing smirk. “Kinda thought you were desperate, though.”

Jungkook drops his gaze before he can say something stupid, struck with the sense that he’s meeting a slightly different Taehyung every time they speak.

He frowns as he refocuses on the jacket Taehyung’s wearing: an old zip-up from one of the hockey team’s previous seasons—with the name Kim Seokjin stitched beneath the university’s logo, just to the left of his heart.

“How do you…?”

“Jungkook-ah!” Coach Kim’s warm voice booms behind Jungkook, and then he’s sweeping into the room. “I see you’ve officially met our Taehyungie here!”

A dull horror dawns on Jungkook just as Taehyung lifts a hand and says, “Hey, dad.”

Every instance of Coach Kim mentioning how Jungkook and his sons would get along flashes through Jungkook’s mind with painful clarity, followed by all the invitations Coach and Namjoon have extended over the last year whenever “all the boys” were back home for a weekend.

“No fucking way,” Jungkook mouths, too quiet for Coach to hear.

Somehow, Taehyung catches it. He shoots Jungkook a wink.

“Perfect solution, huh?” Coach Kim beams at him. “So long as no one else gets benched, we’ll be just fine until Jackson returns. How’s your halmeoni, by the way?”

“She’s great, Coach.”

“Good, good! Glad to hear it.” He claps Jungkook on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it then. Taehyung can’t stay today, but he insisted on stopping by to see you. Stop by my office later—Eunyoung sent food over with me.” He gives Jungkook a final shake before he lets go and disappears down the hall.

Jungkook clenches his teeth through a smile as he watches him go. The strap of his duffle bag digs into his shoulder.

Coach Kim’s got a charm that kills. It’s something about his shoulders, Jungkook thinks—a feature which runs in the fucking family, apparently—but more than that, it’s the smile lines that frame his mouth, the crows’ feet by his eyes that never fully go away. It still feels like a dream sometimes, getting to train with him directly.

So it’s hard to tell him on the spot that this is a horrible idea.

“You were saying something? About appreciating me?”

Jungkook’s eye twitches. When he turns back around, Taehyung’s lounging sideways on the bench, head propped in his hand as he bats his eyelashes at him.

“What’s he mean, you can’t stay?”

“Ah.” A hint of remorse twists Taehyung’s lips. “I, uh—I’m a theatre major?” He says it like a question, like Jungkook might not know. “Our semester’s show is coming up soon and most of our rehearsals conflict with team practices. Including today’s.”

Right.

Their new substitute is the coach’s son—Kim Seokjin’s little brother—who can’t attend practice and doesn’t know shit about hockey.

Fuck my stupid gay life.

“But don’t worry!” Taehyung adds. He sits up straight again, fingers gripping the edge of the bench. “I’ll still be good for the games.”

Jungkook’s not so sure. Has half a mind to catch up with Coach and tell him they need someone who’s actually played hockey before or at the very least isn’t so…distracting.

Instead, he says, “Okay.”

Taehyung’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay?”

“What’s your schedule look like?” Jungkook fishes his phone from his back pocket, already restructuring his workouts and study schedule for the upcoming weeks. If these are the cards he’s been dealt, he’ll make it work. “I can work with you one-on-one when our free time aligns.”

He holds out his phone. Taehyung doesn’t take it right away.

He studies Jungkook closely, like he’s waiting for a catch or punchline. “You’d do that?”

“Sure. You’re doing us a solid.” Jungkook may not agree with the solution, but he can recognize this for what it is. “Nothing matters if you get hurt, though, and I’m not putting you on the ice until you know the basics.”

Taehyung peers at him a second longer, then slowly reaches for the phone. His hand brushes Jungkook’s as he takes it with a suppressed smile. “That’s so sweet, Jungkookie. You’re like my hero.”

Jungkook flushes at the endearment and pulls his arm back before Taehyung can see the goosebumps rising. “It’s no problem.”

Which, hey, isn’t true. But with the way his face lights up, Taehyung seems to appreciate the sentiment.

“So, when do we start?” he asks, hopping twice on the balls of his feet.

And at the end of the day, Jungkook’s as weak for a pretty smile as the rest of them. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

🥇

“First rule of hockey. The puck goes in the net.”

“I thought the first rule of hockey was to look viciously cool and devastatingly sexy.” Taehyung scowls behind his face cage and holds his arms out stiffly at his sides, standing like a kid who’s spilled soup down his shirt. “God, how do you move in all this?

Jungkook ignores him as he lines up a series of pucks for some introductory shooting drills—a far safer option than opening his mouth, because nothing makes him dumber than a hot boy and goddamn, did the sight of Kim Taehyung in shoulder pads turn Jungkook into a fool.

“You’ll get used to it,” he manages.

“How come you get to wear sweats?” Taehyung whines.

“Because I’m the coach here.”

“But I feel so…blocky.”

“Well, that’s the idea. Safety first, safety second. Coolness third, if you’re lucky.”

“Lame.”

“I mean it,” Jungkook says. “All you need to focus on is not getting hurt.”

Taehyung offers up a lazy grin. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” Jungkook nods to the line of pucks. “We’ll start with shots on goal then move into stick handling.”

“Oh-ho, stick handling?” Taehyung perks up, wagging his eyebrows. “I’m great at that.”

Jungkook would maybe let him have the joke if they weren’t four days out from Taehyung’s first official game.

Instead, he points his stick toward the goal. “Oh good. Then we’ll breeze through this no problem.”

As soon as Jungkook backs up to give him room, Taehyung falters. He frowns down at the first puck placed in front of him like he can’t quite figure it out.

It’s the first hint of uncertainty Jungkook’s seen on him since they stepped into the rink, and he caves instantly. “Look, all you have to do is—”

But before he can finish the sentence, Taehyung winds up, uses his whole body to swing through his shot, and sends the puck straight into the net, the loud crack of his blade on ice echoing through the rink.

Jungkook stares at the goal, dumbfounded. “Yeah, that.”

“Wait.” Taehyung’s eyes go wide. “What’d I do?”

“You just crushed a slap shot on your first go is what you did.”

“Oh.” Taehyung’s brow wrinkles. He kicks his skate against th ice, and Jungkook wonders if they’re hard to adjust to without the toe picks he’s used to. “I just copied what Jin-hyung does.”

The casual name drop’s got Jungkook’s heart giving out. “How the hell did I not know you were brothers?”

“Same way you didn’t know Jimin’s my best friend, I imagine,” Taehyung teases. “From what I’ve been told, you live under a rock.”

God save him. “What else have you been told?”

“That you asked about me.” Taehyung skates around him in a small circle and Jungkook turns with him, keeps him in his line of sight. When Taehyung comes to a stop, he’s closer than before. Tiger eyes locked on their prey. “Why ask Jimin when you can just come to me?”

The usual chill of the rink is impossible to feel with the way Jungkook’s whole body heats.

“That’s not—”

“Don’t worry,” Taehyung reassures him. “I was charmed.”

Jungkook wonders if that’s supposed to make him worry less.

“Makes sense that you never knew, anyway,” Taehyung adds. “I don’t exactly advertise the fact.”

Jungkook thinks of all the messages he almost sent Namjoon last night, each one a different version of, Hey traitor! Why didn’t you tell me you’re related to Kim Taehyung?

Only, Namjoon probably did tell him, even if not explicitly by name. It’s Jungkook’s dumb ass who pictured a middle schooler every time he mentioned a little brother. But if Taehyung kept it on the down-low, it makes sense that the topic didn’t come up more.

“You wanted your own identity,” he says.

Jungkook understands that. He’d moved across the country to find his.

“See?” Taehyung leans on his stick. “Knew you’d get me, Jungkookie.”

I like the way my name sounds when you say it, Jungkook thinks.

He clears his throat, hot around his neckline. “Alright. Take that stance again.”

“What stance?”

“The one you held when you aced that slap shot.”

“The what?”

“The—” Jungkook sighs. “Okay, how ‘bout you just watch first.”

He shoos Taehyung out of the way. Rolls his neck and lines up his shot.

“You wanna keep your stick flexed and snap the puck off the toe of your blade, like this—” Jungkook takes his shot, a loud crack resounding as he sinks the puck exactly where he wants it, the clean swish of the net. “Got it?”

Taehyung chews his lip, dark eyes set on Jungkook. “Mm, nope.”

“That’s alright, I don’t expect you to get it right away. Here.” Jungkook retrieves another puck from his line, slowly walks Taehyung through the steps, then demonstrates a second time. “How’s that?”

Taehyung hums, unsure, then shakes his head. “One more time.”

Jungkook’s ego flares, unable to tell if he’s being made fun of or not. The thought that Taehyung might be comparing his ability to what he’s seen from his brothers stabs through Jungkook’s logic, right to his pride.

He grits his teeth as he takes the next shot—his fastest yet.

Taehyung whoops and claps his gloves together. “Again!”

“Are you even paying attention?”

“Jeon Jungkook.” Taehyung says his name like a vow. Places a hand over his heart. “I assure you, I’ve never been more locked in than I am at this very this moment.”

It’s those eyes that suddenly have Jungkook too aware of himself, of how wide the rink is and how close they’re standing, of how alone they are with no one around.

He clears his throat. “You’re up.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Don’t—I’m not—just go.”

Taehyung’s next shot is sloppier—too much movement with his arms, not enough with his torso—but it’s leagues ahead of what Jungkook first expected and it sets his blood pumping. Makes him hopeful. He nods his approval when Taehyung spins to face him with a cheer.

“Again.”

🥇

“Body low, head up!”

“Don’t just scoop the puck with your arms, rotate your torso—let your core do the work for you.”

“Elbows out! Again!”

“Your lower hand’s for support, not control.”

“Head up! Body low!”

“You’re gonna get bundled if you keep your eyes on the puck like that, and you’re gonna fuckin’ deserve it.”

“Head up up up!”

Again!”

By the time Jungkook calls break for their Thursday session, he’s panting right along with Taehyung. They sprawl out on the players’ bench, trading a water bottle between them.

“So this is fun for you?” Taehyung says it like an accusation.

“Of course.” Jungkook’s sweaty and worn out, his blood pumping just loud enough to drown out the constant chaos in his head.

“Hm.” Taehyung doesn’t sound convinced.

All things considered, things could be much, much worse. Taehyung moves like a dream on the ice: precise, elegant, and fucking fast, even with the clunky hockey gear to get used to. But if Jungkook wants to keep his team on track for the playoffs, he needs more than fast.

He needs focused. Needs dedicated.

Needs Taehyung to stop cracking jokes after every direction Jungkook gives or whining through drills he’s not immediately good at with a teasing lilt that never fully disappears.

“So, how’re you feeling? About…things.” Jungkook waves his hand, loosely gestures around them. “I know it’s probably not what you’d wanna be doing with your night.”

Taehyung offers up a carefree shrug, still panting. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” He pauses, then adds, “That’s from Hamlet.”

Jungkook squints. “Right.”

“Have you seen Hamlet?”

“I read it once, I think. In an English class.”

Taehyung’s head falls back with a groan. “English classes failed us, Jungkook! Shakespeare’s meant to be performed, not read.”

“Right,” Jungkook says. “So I was actually asking about hockey—”

“Which isn’t so different from Shakespeare!”

Taehyung scoops up his helmet and whisks onto the ice again, spinning to face Jungkook where he still sits on the bench.

“Yeah?” Jungkook challenges. “How’s that?”

“You know,” Taehyung holds his arms out wide, “the energy, the movement! It’s exactly the same if you think about it. Also, mostly white apart from a Kim.” He cups his own face and smiles, then adds,“Or in this case, a Jeon.”

Jungkook snorts and rejoins him on the ice. “Shakespeare has…energy.”

“An endless current running straight through the heart of it.” Taehyung jabs a finger at the center of Jungkook’s chest. Even through the thick gloves, it sears through his zip-up, sets his sternum on fire. “Just like you, hey? Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

“Are you using old, white literature to call me crazy?”

“You’re a dreamer, Jungkook! Driven by ambition for the impossible! Of course you’re mad.”

Taehyung maybe says it like a compliment, Jungkook can’t quite tell, but there’s something in the words that he’s heard too many times before.

Impossible.

His glove is still pressed to Jungkook’s chest.

Jungkook brushes it away. “This isn’t a joke, you know.”

Taehyung lets his arm drop, quiet.

They just kind of look at each other then, feeling out this new edge between them, like they’re both confused at why it’s there, gauging where it might cut.

It’s not that Jungkook expects Taehyung to like hockey. Sure, he was born into a family of hockey legends who singlehandedly shaped Jungkook’s dreams of becoming a player—but he doesn’t expect him to like it. Doesn’t need him to like it. He just needs…

“I know.”

Taehyung lifts his chin as he says it, an open challenge.

Jungkook isn’t so sure, but he gives in for now. Doesn’t have the energy for anything else. “Okay.”

They return to practice as the time ticks closer to midnight than either of them planned. Jungkook tries not to hold it against him when Taehyung flops to the ice after he fucks up his weaving at the end of another drill sequence. Just taps his stick twice and nods at the cones.

“Head up. Again.”

🥇

Jungkook’s not expecting Taehyung at Friday’s team practice, and that’s fine.

If you asked him a week ago, he’d say that putting a left wing on his second line when they’ve never played with the team isn’t just a dumb idea, it’s damn near irresponsible—but Coach Kim doesn’t seem concerned, and Jungkook doesn’t really have another choice. So it’s fine.

Jungkook will make it fine.

But when he looks up from his rower and sees Taehyung walking into the practice center’s weight room, a knot of dread unravels in his chest.

Then immediately re-knots in his stomach.

Because Taehyung is here, walking up to the foot of his rower, all pretty teeth and brown eyes.

He removes one headphone, then the other. “What are you doing here?”

“I wasn’t called tonight.” Taehyung slides his hands in his pockets, rocks back with a shrug. “Thought I’d come here instead, get a feel for the team.”

“You weren’t called?”

“Means they don’t need me for rehearsal.”

Jungkook can’t tell if Taehyung’s bummed or pleased about it, kind of wants to ask what show they’re putting on or what role he’s in but is a little worried he’s already supposed to know. He thinks he’s seen posters for Romeo and Juliet around—definitely not Hamlet, he knows that much, which means Taehyung’s just got random lines from different plays bouncing around in his head, and Jungkook doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he finds it super hot.

“Thought you’d be relieved to see me,” Taehyung says, jaw tensing.

Jungkook’s grip loosens on the rower’s handles. He realizes he’s been frowning up at Taehyung in silence like a dumbass. “I am, it’s just—”

“Just what?”

“Yo, JK! Why does this feel weird?”

On the other side of the weight room, Eric’s splayed ass up on the floor, failing to properly stretch his adductors with a foam roller under his left leg.

“Probably ‘cause you’re still fucking doing it wrong,” Jungkook drones.

“Okay, so how the fuck do I do it right?”

Jungkook groans and makes a show of hauling himself out of his seat to go correct him but stops briefly in front of Taehyung, closer than he means to be. “Thank you. I’m glad you’re here.”

He doesn’t have time to place the look on Taehyung’s face before it disappears.

And he can’t be positive from a distance or through the face cage, but he swears the hard set of Taehyung’s jaw sticks around through the entirety of practice, never letting up once.

To be honest, Jungkook is relieved he’s here. Because Taehyung doesn’t fall behind.

Sure, he doesn’t move like a hockey player—seems a little lost on the ice at times, meandering even when Jungkook corrects him until Coach steps in with a sharp, “What’re you doing, Tae?”—but he finds his footing in the end. The other sub, Dennis, does well too, a straight guy from Minnesota who isn’t as pretty as Taehyung.

Jungkook gives him extra attention to even out his biases.

Besides, the rest of the team seems all too willing to give Taehyung pointers, even after practice is done.

“You’re good,” Eric says as he strips out of his jersey and hurls it into his locker.

Taehyung raises his eyebrows, pushes his sweaty bangs back. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Charlie confirms, tugging off his blocker. “Never thought about playing?”

“Not even once.”

“You’re kidding.”

“What can I say? Hockey doesn’t appeal to my sensibilities,” Taehyung says, voice like honey. “I’ve got other methods for getting muscly himbos to toss me around.”

Eric cackles off to the left and the guys immediately start throwing elbows as they rank each other from most- to least-himbo-like.

Jungkook clenches his teeth and yanks too hard on his shin guard’s Velcro strap. There’s an edge to Taehyung’s moves and his words, dipped in just enough charm it’s almost hard to notice. Jungkook notices.

“Not all hockey players are himbos,” he says.

Taehyung’s smile turns sickly sweet. “No,” he agrees. “Some of them are pretty, pretty captains.”

An explosion of jeers and whistles follow the quip, and Jungkook’s whole body burns. He can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or frustration or the fact that Taehyung thinks he’s pretty.

How pretty?

Jungkook shucks off his sweaty undershirt. It lands next to the freshly cleaned Tupperware he needs to return to Coach’s wife, wrapped in the same purple wrapping cloth. “Alright, everyone go home! I’m sick of smelling you. We meet here early tomorrow, same as usual. If you’re late and hold up the bus, I’ll make you run ’til you puke.”

“No suicides!” Mikey begs as he chucks his elbow pads in his locker.

Jungkook doesn’t make any promises. “Win tomorrow and we’ll see.”

When the locker room finally clears out, Jungkook sticks around.

Only this time, so does Taehyung.

He peers up at the ceiling and chews absently on his thumbnail, lips barely moving as he mumbles half-formed words under his breath. His expression is drawn now, closed off and concentrated. Jaw still tense; the pressure probably radiates up through his skull now, a self-inflicted headache.

Jungkook almost reaches out to run his fingers along the sharp curve, from chin to pulse, before he remembers that it would be fucking insane of him to do.

He picks a safer option. “You okay?”

“Hm?” Taehyung blinks at Jungkook’s address, seems to come back to his body as he straightens and takes in the emptied room, then Jungkook’s half-dressed state. “‘Course. I’m golden.”

Jungkook nods, then keeps nodding like a broken bauble. Fiddles with the waistband of his shorts. Panics and lets his hand fall to his side when Taehyung’s eyes follow the movement.

“They’re right, you know. You are good.”

“Oh?” Taehyung’s posture relaxes. He kicks one leg over the other. “Big praise, Captain. I’m just swinging a stick around.”

Jungkook’s eye twitches. “It’s not just swinging a stick.”

Taehyung waves the words away, nodding as his gaze drifts back to the ceiling like he’s trying to recall something far away. “Right, I know.”

His lips start moving again, a silent muttering.

Jungkook finds himself thinking of that sorority girl by the library’s coffee counter again. Tries to focus on where the inhale turns into an exhale. Breathes out sloooooow.

“You really never thought of playing? Never wanted to try going pro like your brothers?”

Taehyung returns to chewing on his thumbnail. “Really really.”

“Wanted to be a world-famous figure skater instead,” Jungkook guesses.

Taehyung makes a face. “No thanks.”

“At all?”

“At all.”

He says it like the thought itself is a joke, but Jungkook doesn’t get the punchline.

The casual dismissal in Taehyung’s tone digs under his skin. “Seems like a waste, doesn’t it?”

That captures all of Taehyung’s attention, but Jungkook’s suddenly not sure he wants it.

“Only it’s not, is it?” Taehyung challenges. “Who cares if I’m good at something if it doesn’t interest me? The real waste would be everyone’s time.”

“Do you consider this a waste, then? Since it doesn’t interest you.”

“No, I consider it a favor.”

Jungkook needs more than a favor.

“Look,” he says. “I know this is just something you’re doing for your dad, and that’s great. But for me, this is—”

“Everything.”

He comes up short, the word plucked out of his mouth. “What?”

“That’s what you’re going to say,” Taehyung guesses. “That this is everything for you.”

Jungkook closes his mouth. Finally says, “Yeah.”

Taehyung hums, gaze sharp as it drags down his body then returns to his face. “Seems like a waste.”

And just like that, the unnamed edge from their last solo session sinks between them again. Jungkook feels it pressing on a vein. He doesn’t know how to take this Taehyung; doesn’t understand what it is he wants.

“Just yesterday, you were calling me mad with dreams and ambition or whatever the fuck.”

“Yes, well. Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”

“Am I supposed to say sorry for having a goal and going after it?”

“No.” Taehyung slopes out of his seat. “But when was the last time you played hockey and actually enjoyed it?”

Jungkook works his jaw, holding his ground as Taehyung saunters up to him.

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t think he can. Apparently, Taehyung doesn’t need him to.

“I figure skate, Jungkook, because I find it fun. Because it feels good in my body.” He gets even closer, so close Jungkook almost goes cross-eyed. He can feel the heat from Taehyung’s body on his bare skin, can see there’s a mole on his eye’s water line, another on his bottom lip as he smiles. “Go on. Ask me what else I do to feel good.”

Jungkook knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he will quite literally never ask that. Not while he’s sane.

Just so happens he’ll also never stop wanting to know.

He searches for a different way out of the conversation. Can only find it in him to say, “Hockey’s fun for me.”

“Fine. Hockey’s fun. What else do you do?” When he stays quiet this time, Taehyung nods like he expects it. “Tell me when you figure that out.”

Jungkook just wants to fucking shower.

He steps away, overwhelmed and too cold in his shorts.

“Bus leaves at seven,” he says, turning back to his bag. The zipper catches in the black fabric. “Don’t forget.”

From the corner of his eye, he catches the lazy salute Taehyung throws him before he swings his own backpack over one shoulder. “Later, skater.”

Jungkook doesn’t watch him leave, so he’s not expecting it when Taehyung speaks again, his voice softer, somewhere by the open door, like he’s lingering.

“You know, I’m not just doing this for my dad.”

The pointed edge digging at Jungkook’s pressure points melts. He eases the zipper free. “Okay.”

When Taehyung actually leaves, Jungkook strips all the way down and heads for the showers.

He’s quicker than usual, the water doing nothing to drown out the static in his head.

On his way out, he hears the familiar scratch of skates on ice before before he sees him.

Instead of leaving, Taehyung’s traded his hockey gear for ice skates.

No music plays. Jungkook’s heart lurches when he jumps and misses the landing, tumbling to the ice, his arms and legs out like a starfish. Then Taehyung just kinda stays there. Before Jungkook can panic enough to jump on the ice himself, Taehyung laughs.

He pulls out his phone without getting up, types something out before returning it to his pocket. Almost immediately, Jungkook’s own phone buzzes.

It’s gotta be cold, he knows, lying on the ice.

Jungkook feels like he’s on fire.

KIM TAEHYUNG:

Sit with me tomorrow.

JUNGKOOK:

Ok

🥇

Which is why he ends up almost thigh to thigh with Taehyung first thing in the morning after piling onto a travel bus with twenty other guys.

The team’s energy is high with anticipation but mellowed by just how fucking early it is. Not that Jungkook minds; he keeps his head low and his headphones in while the rest of the world wakes up, playing his Game Day song on repeat to get himself in the zone.

Except it doesn’t really work this time.

He’s usually a window guy—likes to watch the strip malls switch to trees then back to strip malls as he runs through gameplays and visualizes their upcoming win—but today, he sits in the aisle seat and ignores the landscape completely, because Taehyung’s got a side profile that makes everything beyond it pretty damn unimportant. He sits hunched against the window with one knee up, mouthing words Jungkook can’t hear.

His eyes are closed and he’s got a bound script folded open in one hand, its cover bent back the exact way Jungkook hates. Every so often, his eyes pop open to scan the lines he’s got highlighted, brows furrowed as he chews on his nail. Then he nods and flips to the next page, closes his eyes again.

Jungkook probably shouldn’t interrupt.

“What are you doing?”

Taehyung cracks an eye open to peer at him. Answers in Korean, “Speed running lines.”

“For your play?”

“Mm.”

Silence. Taehyung’s attention returns to his script. The sun flits between buildings and trees as they pass by. It’s a perfect winter sunrise, clear and pale and cold. Jungkook studies the dark bags under Taehyung’s eyes. Removes his headphones.

“This game’s not making you miss anything important, is it?”

Taehyung shakes his head, free hand tapping quick rhythms on his raised knee. “Rehearsal’s way later. We’ll be back before then.”

Jungkook picks at a speck of lint on his sweats. Flicks it away.

“Are you gonna be okay with learning your lines? We can rework our solo sessions if you need more time.”

“It’s all good.” Taehyung half shrugs one shoulder. ”I’m actually just the understudy for this show, so it’s not the end of the world if I’m not perfect.”

“What do you mean?”

“I only need to be fully off-book for Romeo. For everyone else, I can bring the script on stage if it comes to it.” Taehyung shakes the script in his hand without taking his eyes off it. Almost every line on the page he’s studying is highlighted blue, but Jungkook doesn’t see Romeo’s name anywhere.

He frowns. “Wait. How many people are you the understudy for?”

“All the male roles,” Taehyung says, chewing on his nail again.

“All of them?”

“Mhm.”

“Isn’t that like, half the fucking play?”

“I mean, sure, but it’s different. Understudies—they don’t go on, you know? Like I’ll probably never have to step foot on stage as the Friar.”

“But someone might get sick, right? Or break a leg? Then you’d go on.”

“Jeon Jungkook.” Taehyung rolls his head to his shoulder, finally looking up at him. “Are you wishing for the downfall of my fellow actors?”

A secret grin plays at his lips. It makes Jungkook lightheaded.

“I’m just saying—what you’re doing sounds extra hard. And cool as fuck.”

“Thanks, Jungkookie.” Taehyung’s grin softens, turns shy. Jungkook wants to know what else gets Taehyung smiling like that.

He nods once, making up his mind. “Okay, so when do we practice?”

“Huh?”

“You need to practice with someone, right? Or is this the easiest way?” Jungkook points with his chin at the script in Taehyung’s hand.

“No.” Taehyung blinks down at the script. “No, it helps if someone runs them with me.”

“Can I see?”

Taehyung stares at him for a beat, then holds out the script. “Okay. I’m running Mercutio right now—should really be working on the balcony scene with Romeo, but Mercutio’s got this one speech—it’s wild.”

It’d probably be smarter to use their travel time going over logistics for the hockey game Taehyung’s about to be thrown into, but he’s close enough to see Taehyung’s whole face brighten as he points to where Jungkook should start reading from and that’s all it takes.

“Cool,” he says. “We’ll run the balcony later, too. Always thought I’d kill it as Juliet.”

When Taehyung laughs, he leans into Jungkook’s side. Stays there a second longer than he needs when he points to the script. “Okay, start here and read out the parts that aren’t highlighted. I’ll let you know what you can skip.”

“Sounds good.” Jungkook curls his fingers around the script’s bent spine, nails biting into the page, teeth biting into his smile.

🥇

They’re still in the first period, and Jungkook’s jaw hangs open like a broken hinge as he watches Taehyung move across the ice like he was born with a hockey stick in hand, arms pumping with each stride to gain speed.

His plays aren’t exceptional, no sudden breakaways or trick shots that Jungkook didn’t teach him, but he finds his open lanes and receives every pass that comes his way. Jungkook can’t decide if he’s pissed or turned on when Taehyung pulls off a perfect assist, snapping the puck to his Center just in time for Smithy to take the shot, and then Taehyung’s breezing over to the players’ bench for the next line change.

Like he knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing.

Jungkook huffs in disbelief and shuffles down the bench. “That motherfucker.”

🥇

It’s Monday afternoon and Jungkook’s all but locked himself in the library to prepare for his psych exam when his phone buzzes for the thousandth fucking time.

2^nd LEFT WING:

Having a sprained wrist sucks

I can’t even jack off like this :(

JUNGKOOK:

Damn :/ and no one will help you bc your dick’s ugly

2^nd LEFT WING:

Hey!! Fuck you!!

JUNGKOOK:

No thx <3

He puts his phone facedown and hisses a quiet “fuck” under his breath when the table immediately vibrates.

This time, it isn’t Jackson.

KIM TAEHYUNG:

So when’s our next session, sk8r boi?

The pang of guilt is instant, followed immediately by the weird twinge in Jungkook’s gut that’s been bugging him all weekend.

He didn’t get the chance to talk to Taehyung after Saturday’s game; the team swarmed him and Dennis on the bus ride back, making up different chants to use their names in, and when they finally returned to campus, Taehyung was off to rehearsals.

If he’s honest, Jungkook didn’t try very hard to catch him.

Instead, he made an ice bath on Sunday with all the ice left in his and Jimin’s tiny freezer, and Jimin sat on the closed toilet lid with one of Jungkook’s exercise textbooks propped open across his lap, quizzing him on different parts of the musculoskeletal system. When his usual alarm went off halfway through the day—Don’t forget to call!!!—he changed the alert from Sunday afternoons back to Friday evenings.

And when Taehyung sent a thank-you text for running lines with him before the game, Jungkook just…didn’t reply.

Still hasn’t.

JUNGKOOK:

We should talk about that, actually.

KIM TAEHYUNG:

k! I’m in CAB, the scene shop behind Main Stage

It’s the room with all the the power tools

JUNGKOOK:

I’m not on campus

KIM TAEHYUNG:

Well then get here

The demand makes Jungkook’s neck warm, because why is that kinda hot, and also who does this guy think he is?

It’s better for his mental state to just ignore Taehyung for now. Better for his psych grade, too.

Five minutes later, another text vibrates his papers.

KIM TAEHYUNG:

:(

It only takes ten minutes for Jungkook to reach the Cultural Arts Building.

Then another five to find his way to the right auditorium because Taehyung didn’t mention that there were three. By the time he finally gets to the right hall and locates the large workshop room labeled Scene Shop, Taehyung’s nowhere to be found.

“Sorry,” Jungkook says as a girl with black curls in a high ponytail shoulders past him into the room. “Do you uh, know where Taehyung is? Kim Taehyung?”

The girl laughs. “No clue,” she says. “Check under all the tables, though—he likes to sleep there.”

“Thanks.”

Turns out, Taehyung’s not under any of the tables. But he is on one.

The room at the end of the hall looks like some kind of costume shop. Rolls of fabrics line the left wall along with a series of mannequins in different states of undress. A room with shelves and shelves of wigs can be seen through a wide window on the right side, and Taehyung’s smack in the heart of the chaos, perched on the edge of a dark teal table, wearing fitted jeans tucked into work boots.

He sits with one leg crossed over the other, a pin pinched between his lips as he assesses the back of a dress that a girl’s haphazardly thrown on over her jeans. A tape measure drapes loosely over Taehyung’s shoulders and a pair of stained work gloves poke out of his pants pocket. Protective glasses rest on top of his head, holding his bangs out of his face while he works.

Jungkook doesn’t think he could step closer if he tried.

He jolts when a frazzled guy with frosted tips squeezes past him—because he’s standing in the doorway like an idiot, again—and shouts, “Hey, Tae! Do you know where that yellow paint is? The new stuff?”

“In the storage closet, babe,” Taehyung calls around the pin in his mouth.

“It isn’t, though,” the guy replies. He coughs, a deep rattle in his chest that ends in a pitiful sniffle, and Jungkook cringes away on instinct. So does everyone else in the room, no matter how far they are from the guy.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Close your mouth, Kyle!”

Jungkook has to do a double take, eyes bulging as the frosted tips finally click. “Kyle?”

Kyle, for his part, looks horrified. “JK?!”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m literally a theatre major?” Kyle says, gesturing to himself like it’s obvious. “What are you doing here?”

And isn’t that the fucking question.

“Oh? That was fast for someone not on campus.”

Taehyung says it in Korean, just for Jungkook, and Kyle’s frosted tips are instantly forgotten.

Taehyung gathers an inch of loose fabric at the back of the girl’s dress, takes the pin from his mouth to slide it through the folded seam.

“There,” he says in English with a pat to the girl’s shoulder and a fluid hop off the table. “Nothing to cry over, hon. Just get Summer to stitch it up for you.” Then he sidles up to Jungkook and loops an arm through his. “Afraid you’re gonna have to find that paint yourself, Kyle. I’ve got a date with a hockey player.”

Jungkook blushes down to his fucking feet as every head in the room swivels toward him. “We’re not—”

He trips over his own shoes as Taehyung yanks him into the hall again, waving sweetly to the room of theatre students now whistling and shouting obscenities.

“They’re cute, right?” Taehyung leans into Jungkook’s side as they walk. “Juliet’s a bit of a mess, but once she’s on stage she yearns like a dream.”

“They kinda remind me of my team,” Jungkook says as Taehyung angles him through a backstage entrance. “Am I allowed to—?”

“How many games do I have to sub for until it’s our team?” Taehyung laments.

A table of odd props almost clips Jungkook on the hip. He swerves just in time, follows Taehyung into a cramped storage room for costumes.

The door clicks shut behind them, and he immediately loses Taehyung in rows of frills and lace and velvet. The small space is stuffed to the max with racks of clothes but seems completely empty of other people—not that Jungkook can tell past the large, double-stacked clothing rack that takes up the center of the room.

A rolling ladder leads up to the second row, and Jungkook has to actively talk himself out of climbing it. He turns in a slow circle as he steps deeper in, running a hand over yellow polka dots and mauve cuffs.

“Cool, isn’t it?” Taehyung’s voice calls from the other side of the center racks.

“Yeah, it’s neat.”

“This is the only place anyone can have an actual conversation.” Hangers rattle on the rack next to Jungkook as Taehyung splits a line of costumes down the middle, leaning through the gap with a sly grin. “Someone could kiss in here.”

Jungkook wonders if the shock of having him so close will ever wear off.

“Why am I here, Taehyung?”

“You tell me,” Taehyung says, twirling to flip through a selection of mismatched suit jackets. “You’re the one who wanted to, and I quote, talk, actually.”

“Right.”

“So what’s up?”

Jungkook rounds the center rack, joins Taehyung on the other aisle. The sleeves of Taehyung’s white tee are rolled high, snug on his biceps. When Jungkook imagined having this conversation, he hadn’t planned for such a fatal distraction.

Before he can even open his mouth, though, the door to the storage room crashes open and the same girl from before pokes her head around the corner, curly ponytail swishing. She barely spares Jungkook a glance.

“Sneaking away again, Tae?”

“You wound me,” Taehyung says with a hand over his heart.

“Always finding a way out of what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“And yet somehow it always gets done.” Taehyung blows her a kiss. “I’ll be right back after my hot date. Pinky swear.”

The girl snorts but doesn’t say anything else, grabbing a costume at random and zipping out of the room.

Jungkook decides he doesn’t like her.

“You were saying?” Taehyung prompts, and it takes Jungkook a second to realize he’s not actually looking for anything. He pushes the same four jackets back and forth along their rack, squinting at lapels and smoothing out invisible wrinkles.

“About the solo sessions,” Jungkook begins, a lot less sure than he’d felt twenty minutes ago. “I don’t think we need them anymore.”

Taehyung turns to him with eyes wide, lapels abandoned. “What?!”

Jungkook runs his thumb down the sleeve of a sequined shirt. “You’re good,” he offers as explanation.

“Not that good!”

“You sure looked like you knew what you were doing out there.”

Taehyung gives him a look like he’s questioning just how many hits to the head Jungkook’s taken on the ice.

“I mean, I guess I’m okay, but—what if I forget everything you showed me? What if I can’t join the next team practice and it fucks up my groove?” He looks down at his shoes. “What if you lose because of me?”

The confession is small and quiet; it takes all the wind out of Jungkook’s sails. He doesn’t know what kind of reaction he was looking for when he came here, but Taehyung seems—earnest.

It makes him want to be earnest, too.

So he says, “Okay.”

“Wait. What?”

Jungkook maybe wants to die a little bit, because even Taehyung sounds surprised at how fast he fucking folded.

“Okay,” he says again. “We’ll keep meeting, whatever you need to stay on your game. And we can—run lines, too, during breaks. So you don’t fall behind in,” he nods at the room around them, “all of this.”

Taehyung grips the gray sleeve of a suit. “Yeah?”

Jungkook swallows. “Yeah.”

Neither of them move, afraid of disrupting whatever ground they’ve landed on. Something in Taehyung’s expression is raw and exposed, but Jungkook can’t place what.

They both yelp when the door slams open.

“Taehyung, stop making out in the storage room!” a new voice shouts.

“Make me!” Taehyung yells back without missing a beat.

Jungkook’s eyes blow wide. “We’re not—!”

“Tell Cameron to cool her fucking jets,” Taehyung snaps over him. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

There’s an exasperated huff and the door closes again. The quiet rings louder than before.

“So…we’re good?” Taehyung ventures. “Solo sessions back on?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “We’re good.” Then, because he’s hopeless, he adds, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

🥇

“Okay. Try to take the puck from me.”

“Eat my ass,” Taehyung snaps from his starfish position on the ice. He doesn’t even lift his head to glare at Jungkook through his helmet’s visor.

The puck Jungkook’s pushing back and forth slips off his blade and he scrambles to recover it before Taehyung looks his way again. “I mean it, up.”

“Who hurt you, Jungkookie?”

“My fourth-grade piano instructor. Get up.”

Taehyung’s head pops all the way off the ice at that. “You play piano?”

“No, I play hockey. Get up.”

“Did Bach break you?” Taehyung teases as he drags himself to his feet. “Or was it Für Elise? Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? Is this mysterious instructor to blame for why you’re so disciplined?”

“No. I was born this way.”

“Well I wasn’t.” Taehyung hangs his head and swings his arms out like a kid, hockey stick loose in his hands as he pouts at the ice. “So be nicer to me.”

Jungkook’s not sure he believes it. No one skates like Taehyung without having a deep-rooted desire to succeed and the will to carry it out.

“How about this,” he bargains. “If you can get this puck from me, I’ll answer any question you want.”

Taehyung instantly quits moping, cuts his eyes up to Jungkook without raising his head. “Any question?”

“Sure.”

Taehyung shoots forward, and Jungkook’s only a little alarmed at how close he comes to succeeding. He holds onto it though, knocks the puck around in circles as Taehyung tries again, lunging over and over as he searches for an opening.

“Come on,” Jungkook chirps. “You going for a stroll or are you trying to play some fucking hockey?”

“This is fucking impossible!”

“That’s ‘cause you’re zoned in on the puck itself. Keep stabbing at it like that and I can make you look silly all night.”

“So, what then?”

“Push the body.” Jungkook taps his own chest to emphasize the point. “Run up on me, get in my space, fuck up my groove. Kill my vibe.”

When Taehyung rushes him this time, he shoulders into Jungkook’s space, cuts off his escape.

“See? I’m done,” Jungkook says as Taehyung pushes him back and hits the puck out of his reach. “Focus on stopping me, not just getting the puck.”

Taehyung grins triumphantly through his face cage, skating away quickly with his prize in tow. “What’s your Game Day song? The one that gets you in the zone.”

Jungkook scowls. “Ask something else.”

“That’s not the rules!”

“Too bad, ask another question.”

Taehyung groans. “Fine. Where were you born?”

“Busan.”

“What was your piano instructor’s name?”

“Mrs. Hudson.”

“How—”

“That’s too many questions. I already answered an extra one.”

“God, you’re so strict about it.” Taehyung passes the puck to Jungkook. When he wins it back in their next match, he asks, “How did Mrs. Hudson hurt you?”

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “She told me I lacked finesse.”

“Oh, I bet that wrecked you,” Taehyung ribbed with a wide grin. “No one had ever told you that before, huh?”

“Or since.” Jungkook gets low, grip tightening on his hockey stick. He nods to the puck. “Now, try to keep it from me.”

Taehyung’s grin drops. “What?”

Jungkook surges forward, and Taehyung screams at the top of his lungs.

“Wait wait wait wait wait!”

Jungkook doesn’t go easy, closing the gap between them and snatching the puck in no time. He skates around him a series of loops, buzzing with energy while Taehyung leans over panting. “Who’s your favorite character to play in Romeo and Juliet?”

“I don’t actually play anyone—”

“But who’s your favorite?”

Taehyung drags his hockey stick back and forth across the polished ice in lazy half-circles. He seems less interested in their game when he’s not the one asking questions.

“Mercutio,” he says.

“Why?”

“People don’t play him right.”

“What—”

Taehyung fixes his stance, locks Jungkook in his sight. “Too many questions.”

“Alright.” Jungkook hits the puck back to him and grins, knows it looks dangerous by the way Taehyung’s eyes go wide.“Again.”

Before the word’s fully out of Jungkook’s mouth, Taehyung’s booking it to the other side of the rink, barely managing to keep the puck in his possession at the speed he sets.

And then Jungkook’s after him.

“Please! I have a family!”

He’s only a few feet away when Taehyung ducks down and scoops the puck right off the ice, holding it tight in his gloved hand as he tears away. The gap between them widens in seconds without a puck on the ice for him to worry about.

“That’s a fucking penalty!” Jungkook shouts.

“Aw, is the captain mad?” Taehyung pivots, sacrificing a bit of speed to skate backwards while grinning at Jungkook. “Pretty little figure skater’s faster than him, even in all this gear?”

“Being fast isn’t always a good thing, you know!”

“Oh don’t you worry, Jungkookie.” Taehyung leans and swings wide, following the curved edge of the rink. “I know how to take my time when it matters.”

Jungkook’s close enough now to catch his wink—and the way his eyes widen again, hands scrambling  to shove the puck somewhere under his jersey right before Jungkook crashes into him. He traps Taehyung in his arms and skates forward until he’s pinned to the boards.

“Cheater!” Taehyung cries.

“You’re the cheater.”

Jungkook chucks his gloves off and Taehyung’s scream devolves into boyish laughter as he tries to fight him off. Jungkook isn’t gentle, tugging at the chest guard of Taehyung’s shoulder pads to search for the puck and searching for weak points in his padding to dig his fingers into his sides.

“Penalty! Abuse of power!” Taehyung writhes, red in the face and panting with laughter as he tries to break free. “Is this how you treat your teammates?”

“You didn’t earn a question,” Jungkook fires back but he shows mercy anyway, hands coming to rest heavy on Taehyung’s waist.

And it’s funny: before their solo session, he had plenty on his mind. Two exams in the upcoming week and about as many missed calls from his mom; an email from his advisor; a group project with shitty team members, then a paper for his psych class; a text from Jimin and two from Hobi about a dinner this weekend that he probably won’t go to. It all piles up around him, feels bigger than it is.

Right now, there’s only hockey and Kim Taehyung.

“Okay, you win,” Taehyung relents. “What’s your question?”

Jungkook knows he shouldn’t ask it, but with his hands still on Taehyung’s waist, he’s not feeling very sane. So he does.

“The other day, after the team practice,” he says. “you told me you figure skate because it feels good. What else do you do to feel good?”

Taehyung’s breath is still haggard, like it has been all practice, his face flushed from effort, bangs sticking to his forehead beneath his helmet. His grin goes straight to Jungkook’s core.

“I fuck.”

Jungkook doesn’t think he’s ever been more grateful for a face cage.

He snatches the puck from the waistband of Taehyung’s hockey shorts and lets him go. Drops the puck to the ice and grabs his gloves, then adds distance.

When he’s far enough away to not feel the pull of Taehyung’s orbit, he sends the puck back with a quick two-touch pass. “Again.”

🥇

Reading Shakespeare at a retro-style smoothie joint in the middle of November isn’t exactly how Jungkook expected to spend his Friday afternoon, but he doesn’t really mind. Not when Taehyung’s sat across from him, staring at the red tabletop and picking at the peeled laminate as he runs lines.

“And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love…”

He says the words differently each time—slow and monotone, sped up and half-acted—but he never goes all out. They’re memorizing tactics, Taehyung tells him, ways to make the words themselves a muscle reflex instead of something he has to actively think about while performing.

And it must work, because the speech Taehyung’s practicing now is one of the most confusing things Jungkook’s ever heard but Taehyung rattles it off like it’s nothing, only stumbling over his words a handful of times and calling for line once.

Jungkook holds the script in his left hand, its cover folded back the way he hates.

“Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,” he reads. “Thou talks’t of nothing.”

Taehyung frowns at the table, his gaze piercing, thumb pulling at his lip as he mutters, “True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain…”

He finishes the scene as a blender whirs on high, snapping the spell Taehyung falls under while he practices. He drops his head to the tabletop.

“You were near perfect that time,” Jungkook says. “Wanna run it again?”

Taehyung groans. “Spare me.”

“If you want to be off-book for this—”

“I don’t have to be off book for anyone but Romeo.”

“But you like Mercutio.”

“It’s not about what I like,” Taehyung says too matter-of-fact, lifting his head and flopping back against the vinyl booth. He fiddles with the straw in his empty smoothie cup.

Jungkook pulls the cup out of his reach. “Okay, but what do you want?”

Taehyung’s grin is instant. “To know your Game Day song.”

Somewhere behind him, a barista shouts a customer’s name. The blender kicks on again, too loud.

Jungkook sighs and puts Taehyung’s script down, unzipping his backpack. “If you’re done with your lines…”

“Okay, okay, no song,” Taehyung amends. “What was your hyper fixation growing up?”

“Hockey.”

Taehyung squints. “You look like a bug kid.”

“You look like a horse girl.” Jungkook spreads his anatomy notes across the table, flips his planner open.

“Nooooo, play with me,” Taehyung whines. He kicks at Jungkook’s shins under the table. “Don’t you ever just breathe?”

“I breathe all the time.”

“That’s not the kind I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to get you a hobby,” Taehyung declares. “Not hockey. It has to be something you’re bad at.”

Jungkook looks up from his notes, lifts an eyebrow. “I don’t stay bad at things for long.”

Taehyung narrows his eyes. “Why was that so douchey and so hot?”

Any charisma Jungkook had channeled immediately vaporizes with the flush racing up the back of his neck.

“I’m being serious,” Taehyung continues. “You need a hobby—or nothing! Doing nothing’s great. Have you ever just sat under a tree?”

“Of course I have?”

“Recently?”

Jungkook shuffles his notes to look busy. Taehyung despairs.

“Sitting under trees is for the soul, Jungkook! Sometimes just existing is enough.” 

“Maybe you can teach me how to figure skate.”

“Jeon Jungkook. That’s genius. I bet I even have skates that’ll fit you!” Taehyung’s whole being lights up with the idea. He rubs his chin, suddenly appraising Jungkook. “Although, if we want something you’d really suck at, we could always try acting.”

“Fuck you?”

“Maybe someday.”

Jungkook splutters on the sip of smoothie he takes. Scans the shop for an escape, then his notes, before he settles on Taehyung’s open script.

“What’d you mean—” Jungkook coughs on a strawberry seed, “—when you said people play Mercutio wrong?”

“Oh.” Taehyung steals his empty cup back. Taps it on the table. “Nothing really, they just don’t give him much depth. He’s a funny character, so it’s easy to make him stupid and insufferable, just a string of dick jokes anywhere they can fit them in.”

Jungkook’s lip twitches against his will.

Taehyung points a threatening finger at him. “Don’t you dare.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Good.” His expression dims a bit, pausing like he’s not quite sure what to say, and Jungkook worries he’s picked the wrong topic. One of the blenders behind the checkered counter sounds like it got jammed, the blade chopping in short, uneven jolts instead of its usual smooth grind.

“It’s just a shame, you know?” Taehyung says at last. “Mercutio’s sincere in his own way, but not many people take him seriously—not the characters in the show or the actors that play him.”

Jungkook realizes he leaned forward at some point, ribs pressing against the table’s chrome edge. He straightens in his booth. Reorients his notes so his hands have something to do.

Across the table, Taehyung visibly shakes himself, then rests his cheek in his hand. “What about you, huh? What do people get wrong about Jeon Jungkook?”

Jungkook frowns. “What’s that matter?”

“Everything about you matters.”

Outside the wide storefront window, patches of snow still cling to shadowed portions of the sidewalk. The sky is clear and the sun looks cold.

Somehow, when it filters through the glass to hit Taehyung, the light turns warm.

“How ‘bout this?”Jungkook focuses on the mole along Taehyung’s water line instead of his actual eyes. He picks up the script again, taps it twice on the table. “You get one answer for every run of Queen Mab we get through.”

“Deal.” Taehyung smiles so hard it cracks at Jungkook’s heart.

When he flips to the correct page, it takes him a moment to remember how to read.

🥇

“You’ve been bouncier recently.”

It’s 9:36 p.m. and Jungkook’s waiting for a lake of maple syrup to soak all the way through his pile of pancakes. He props his chin on the coffee table to get eye level with the stack, but he still shoots Jimin a look over the top.

“Bouncier?”

Jimin wiggles deeper into the couch cushions, a small blue plate balanced precariously on one knee.

“You know,” he says around a mouthful of eggs. “Like, more pep in your step. Been doing something different these days?”

Jungkook rolls his eyes before fixing them on his pancakes again. “Just been playing hockey.”

“Oh, I know all about you and your hockey.”

He uses air quotes around the word, rolls his eyes for good measure. His plate wobbles and Jimin’s expression turns panicked before he saves it from toppling.

“What?” Jungkook sits up straight, back popping. “Why’d you say it like that?”

Jimin makes his eyes all wide and innocent.“Like what?”

“Like—never mind. I hope your eggs fall.” Jungkook’s phone buzzes, rattling the table.

“Hey! No phones on Breakfast Night!”

“Since when?” Jungkook scoffs, glancing at the new notification.

2^nd LEFT WING:

I’m telling u my wrist curls have never been curlier

Doc’s impressed with how how fast I’m recovering

I think he might be in love with me

“End me.”

“Jackson?” Jimin guesses.

“Jackson,” Jungkook confirms. He snorts despite himself, shoots off a quick reply.

“Have you called your mom recently?”

Jimin asks it casually, eyebrows raised in faked disinterest as he pushes his strawberry slices to the edge of his plate to keep them separated from his eggs.

Jungkook drops his phone to the rug, returns to his pancake watch. “Nope.”

He doesn’t mean to put it off—that’s what the damn alarm’s for—but he’s worried bouncy might sound unfocused over the phone.

He pours another dollop of syrup on his pancakes. “We need another lamp in here.”

“Hey.” Jimin scooches down in his seat and stretches his leg out to poke Jungkook with his foot. “Bouncy looks good on you.”

Jungkook shoots him a flat look over the top of his breakfast dinner. “Thanks, Jimin. That means a lot.”

“Now eat your fucking pancakes before they fall apart. You make me sick.”

🥇

Jungkook doesn’t see Taehyung again until the following Friday, and that’s fine. With the opening night for Romeo and Juliet creeping closer and the semester ramping up as the holidays stare them down, their schedules become impossible to align.

After a particularly rough team practice, Jungkook takes his time in the shower, counting and re-counting tiles until his fingertips get pruny.

When he finally drags himself out from under the water, he slings a towel around his waist and throws another one over his head, toweling through his hair as he pads back to the locker room.

Taehyung’s there, lounging by his locker.

And Jungkook is so fucking naked under this towel. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more naked than he is right now, which is objectively false but emotionally true.

“I come bearing gifts,” Taehyung says, lifting a stack of pre-portioned, home-cooked meals, all tied neatly in a purple wrapping cloth.

“How’d you know I was here still?” Jungkook asks.

Taehyung shrugs. “You always shower last.”

He fake winces then, like the containers are heavy, and hisses as he lets his arm sag.

“That’s nowhere near your max weight.”

“Ah, but it carries the extra burden of a mother’s expectations.”

Jungkook takes the package of Tupperware from him. “Thanks.”

“My mom dreams of the day you’ll actually come over,” Taehyung says. “I think she worries about you more than she worries about me.”

Jungkook winces for real. First his own mom, now Taehyung’s. Is he doomed to worry every mother who stumbles across him for the rest of his life? He doesn’t feel like he’s doing that bad.

Taehyung fiddles with the uneven strings of his sweatshirt. “Sorry I haven’t been able to practice more this week. We had a problem with the set and since I’m in scene shop…”

“It’s alright. Have you been running lines?”

“None of that!” Taehyung orders, springing up from the bench. “Tonight, we leave hockey and Shakespeare behind!”

He reaches behind him and pulls out a well-loved pair of ice skates. “Pretty sure these will fit you. Come be bad at something with me!”

“With you?”

“Fine, come be bad at something in front of me,” Taehyung corrects. He nods to the towel around Jungkook’s waist. “As much as I’d love to see you pull off a waltz jump in that, you might want to get changed.”

Again—never been more naked.

He ducks his head and snatches a clean pair of joggers from his locker. Zips into a team jacket and as soon as they’re on the ice, Taehyung’s off dancing.

Jungkook doesn’t know another word for the way he moves; Taehyung builds speed quickly and turns to slide across the ice on one knee, his back arched and head thrown back. Before he runs out of momentum, he comes out of the move in a series of tight rotations, hands clutching his skate, and then he’s kicking his leg in the air, knee all the way by his goddamn head.

The sharp grin never leaves his face—except for when he pouts or stares Jungkook down like an enemy or bends low to kiss the ice like a friend. There’s something in the performance of it that Jungkook recognizes: the desire to be the best, to have every eye in the room on him.

And fuck, does Taehyung make it impossible for Jungkook look away. He reaches his hand out as he soars past, snatches it back to clench at his shirt dramatically when Jungkook’s hand lifts on its own, reaching for him too.

It shouldn’t have been so hot but Jungkook feels his cheeks flush red. “Right, so I’ll just do that.”

Taehyung’s laugh rings loud from where he’s already hit the other side of the rink. “How about we start with some swizzles into a one-foot glide? You’ll get that in no time.”

Jungkook doesn’t know what “no time” means for Taehyung, but he’s determined to prove him right. He follows every direction, takes in every line and pose of Taehyung’s body, tries to make his own do the same.

“Arms out for balance.”

“You’re too wide with your feet.”

“Get some speed and then bring your feet together again—like that.”

“Now lift and hold. Keep your knee in front.”

“Again.”

He’s not sure how much time passes before Taehyung’s grinning at his heavy breathing. “You’re good.”

Jungkook grins back. Wipes a hand across his sweaty neck. “I know.”

“Alright, tone it down, Golden Boy,” Taehyung drones, but there’s not bite to the words. He skates around Jungkook in smooth, backward crossovers. “Finally having some fun?”

“Hockey is fun.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But what about something with no A-plus or medal waiting at the end? No expectations at all, do you have something like that?”

Jungkook doesn’t even think. Just blurts out, “Breakfast nights.”

Taehyung blinks at him, processes the words. “What?”

“Me and Jimin-hyung, we have these breakfast nights. At least once a week if we can, but we cook together—I mean, sometimes it’s just cereal and toast, but sometimes it’s chocolate chip waffles and strawberries.” Jungkook hesitates. “He didn’t tell you about them?”

Taehyung smiles. “No, he didn’t. They sound special.”

They stand in the middle of the rink, chests rising and falling, breaths puffing in the chilled air, watching each other. Jungkook breaks first, glances at his skates.

“You were right,” he says to fill the quiet. “About Shakespeare and hockey.”

“Say more.”

“You know.” He All the entrances and exits for the characters, coming on stage as someone else leaves—they’re line changes in a way. And it’s fast, faster than people realize, all in constant motion, just like a hockey game.”

Jungkook blushes at the weird look on Taehyung’s face; scrambles for something else.

“And historically speaking, they’re both super white—”

“All the world’s a stage,” Taehyung says, “And all the men and women merely players. That’s As You Like It.”

“As I what?”

“You look worried again.” Taehyung giggles a little as he rubs his thumb between Jungkook’s eyebrows. “Breathe, Jungkookie.”

“I breathe all the time. A sorority girl taught me.”

Without the hockey gear he’s used to between them, Jungkook can feel the heat of Taehyung’s body; his hand comes up to hover at his waist, terrified that he might be allowed to touch. That Taehyung wants him to.

A shrill alarm cuts through the air.

“Shit.” Jungkook fishes his phone out of his joggers and the screen lights up.

Don’t forget to call!!!

Fridays don’t seem to be working out for him.

“I should go.” A flash of disappointment crosses Taehyung’s face and Jungkook rushes to add, “But we should do this again. Maybe. If you want. Until I don’t suck anymore.”

“It’s okay to suck,” Taehyung insists. “It’s not about being good, it’s about—”

“What feels good. I know.”

He doesn’t move, trapped in the recollection of what else Taehyung does to feel good and doing everything in his power to push the sudden visual out of his mind.

“See you tomorrow,” he all but shouts as Taehyung shifts his weight, moves the slightest bit toward him.

Taehyung stays on the ice as Jungkook heads out, starts practicing his lines out loud and Jungkook recognizes the balcony scene instantly. Taehyung skips Juliet’s lines without pausing in his own, an endless, one-sided conversation.

Jungkook ducks his head as Taehyung’s voice gets louder, more dramatic, calling after him in a way he must know will make Jungkook flush.

“O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? / The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.”

🥇

They’re neck-and-neck in the third period, and Jungkook gets the puck right as his winger goes in for a line change. He stays on the ice, drives forward through the neutral zone, and in the next second Taehyung’s jumping on the play like a fucking bullet, calling for a pass as Jungkook faces down defense.

Taehyung receives the puck then snaps it forward, back to Jungkook just in time to line up the shot.

It’s only a moment of celebration but Jungkook takes it for what it’s worth, an opportunity to slam into Taehyung and pull him close with a shout, knocking their helmets together, and then Jungkook’s tapping out for fresh legs, their team firmly in the lead again. He can’t quit buzzing, a thrill that explodes when the game’s called and the win is theirs, a rush of cheers and tackles and thunking helmets.

And then Taehyung’s in front of him again, sweaty and grinning and apologetic. “I have to go—”

“No worries!” Jungkook beams and shrugs out the headlock Charlie’s worked him into. “I’ll see you Tuesday for another solo session, yeah? Same time?”

Taehyung takes a few steps back, walking backward to keep Jungkook in his sight as he says, “I’ll text you.”

It’s all the confirmation Jungkook needs. His gaze stays locked on Taehyung as he heads out, dumbstruck in real time that a person like him actually exists. A single question on repeat as he’s swallowed by his team again.

Can I kiss you? Can I kiss you? Can I kiss you?

🥇

“You’re pissed. I returned from the brink of death and you’re pissed.”

“I’m not pissed, I’m just sad to see you.”

Jackson flings himself against the lockers, gripping at his chest like he’s been shot. “Say it ain’t so, Jeon. Tell me it ain’t so.”

Jungkook snorts at the drama, genuinely relieved—but there’s a drop in his stomach when he sees Jackson in the locker room that he apparently can’t keep off his face.

“No man, I’m fucking stoked,” he says, gripping Jackson’s shoulder and shaking him. “About damn time, too. I’m never partying with you again.”

Jackson grimaces. “Dude, I’m never partying with me again.”

“Someone write that one down,” Charlie calls out. He claps Jackson on the back with a grin and pulls him into a hug. “Welcome back from dead, man.”

“It was a sprained wrist,” Jungkook says to no one.

“And I thought every breath might be my last!” Jackson stands up on the bench and cries, “The only thing that got me through the darkness was knowing my captain needed me! O Captain, my Captain!”

Eric’s head pops up from where he’s lacing his skates on the other side of the room. “You know Whitman?”

Jungkook cocks his head. “You know Whitman?”

Jackson frowns. “What’s a Whitman?”

“Get down before you die again,” Charlie chides as he straps his massive leg pads. “Your dick’s too pretty to get benched.”

Jungkook hangs his head as the locker room erupts. He tries to pinpoint the spot in his lungs where his inhales become exhales. Gets maybe two breaths in before Jackson’s hopping down from the bench and slinging an arm around his neck to pull their faces close as he nods toward Charlie.

“Be so for real,” he whispers. “Do you think he’s into me? I’ve always had a thing for goalies.”

Jungkook fixes him with a stare. Grips him by the jaw just hard enough to squish his lips into a pout.

“If you get hard in here,” he swears, “I’m benching you for the rest of the season. Sub or no sub.” Then he pats his cheek twice. “Now get your gear and get on the ice.”

🥇

It’s not that Jungkook doesn’t want to text Taehyung. He just doesn’t know what to say.

Except there’s too much to say, actually.

Like the fact that he got his paper back on Tuesday and aced it just like he said he would; or that Jackson played better than he ever has at Wednesday’s practice which means they’re still on track for playoffs; or that Jungkook’s sitting under a tree right now in the middle of November and there’s no snow but there might as well be with how fucking cold it is, and he’s looking up at the bare branches because Taehyung told him it’s nice to do nothing sometimes, so that’s what he’s doing.

Nothing, but maybe missing him.

He holds up his phone and stares at the last message in their chat.

KIM TAEHYUNG:

Sorry I didn’t tell you.

They wanted it to be a surprise.

Jungkook definitely should’ve replied by now, because it’s fucking Thursday and all he needed to say was, No worries, wanna get smoothies? :) Or, No worries, wanna teach me how to hydro blade? :) Or, No worries, wanna maybe kiss like we almost did the other night before my alarm reminded me I still haven’t called my mom? :)

But he didn’t send any of those and now he doesn’t know where to start and he doesn’t really get how this somehow always happens to him.

“Yah! Are you trying to get frostbite?”

Jungkook drops his phone and it smacks him in the face. “Fuck!”

Jimin looms over him, hands deep in the pockets of his puffer jacket and beanie pulled low over his ears. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Jungkook blinks up at him. “Inviting whimsy into my life.”

“Right. Well don’t let me stop you.”

“Wait!” Jungkook shoots up to a sitting position. “Where are you going?”

“I’m meeting Hobi at the studio.”

“In CAB?”

“Is there another studio I should know about?”

Jungkook nods along, fingers tapping on the hard ground. “Cool, cool. That’s cool.”

Jimin stares at him like he’s deciphering something complicated that’s meant to be easy. He glances around, likely looking for Jungkook’s backpack. Only Jungkook didn’t bring his backpack because his afternoon class got cancelled and he’s trying to do nothing.

“Do you…wanna come with—”

“Sure!” Jungkook jumps to his feet. Stretches his arms and jumps in place to get his blood flowing. “If you’re offering.”

“Well come on, before I leave you to your whimsy.”

As soon as they step inside the Cultural Arts Building, Jungkook pats his pockets like he’s looking for something. “Ah, actually, I have this thing I forgot to—”

“Yeah?” Jimin says, spinning to give him an unimpressed look as he continues walking. “Tell your thing to text me later. Hobi wants to do lunch tomorrow.”

“It’s not—” Jungkook sags, giving up before he starts. “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell him.”

Jimin grins. “Breakfast night this Sunday?”

“Breakfast night this Sunday.”

The hall behind the Main Stage auditorium is surprisingly empty. A few classes are still in session, but Jungkook doesn’t see Taehyung in any of the rooms as he passes.

The door leading backstage, however, is propped open with a paint bucket, and as he gets closer, he hears a familiar, muffled voice.

Jungkook eases through the door with his heart in his throat. He’s definitely not supposed to be here.

“Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.”

Backstage is dark and oddly quiet for the time. Jungkook follows the rumble of Taehyung’s voice switching between characters until he’s in the wings, looking out across the stage.

Fake vines climb up Romanesque columns. Juliet’s balcony juts out over the stage, a solid fixture for the set. From the wings, Jungkook can see the staircase Juliet will use on the back side. He imagines Taehyung drilling the treads in place, jumping on them to make sure they’re steady. Extra set pieces are rolled away behind the curtains, ready to make their entrance when the time is right.

The auditorium lights are dimmed, and the stage is lit by a single row of lights. No one’s in the booth when Jungkook peaks around the curtain. But Taehyung is on the balcony, hair highlighted by the bright stage lights. Brush in hand, he crouches to put the final distressed touches on the metal railing. Eyes squinting, he says to no one,

“I dreamed a dream tonight. / And so did I. / Well, what was yours? / That dreamers often lie. / In bed asleep while they do dream things true.”

Jungkook holds his breath in the wing as Taehyung suddenly stands and whirls around, facing an imaginary Romeo, an imaginary crowd, with a charming smile.

 “O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.”

He starts lighthearted. Taehyung’s eyes glint, a half-smirk on his lips as he winds up words at will. But as he continues, his speech quickens, turns frantic, like it’s running away from him. The smirk disappears. The paintbrush is no longer in his hand as he leans over the balcony, shouting now to the empty auditorium as his face contorts, pained. Desperate to be understood.

Jungkook hasn’t heard him run lines like this before. Earnest, in character.

Jungkook’s chest feels tight, his breath is still. He doesn’t notice at first that he’s walking onto the stage, footsteps quiet. But he feels Romeo’s cue coming, can’t help it when he calls out in a voice that’s shakier than he’ll ever admit, 

“Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace. Thou talks’t of nothing.”

Taehyung startles and whirls around. Jungkook’s close enough now to see a dozen different emotions flit across his face before he settles on a muted smile, eyes shining in the stage lights.

“True, I talk of dreams,” he says, “Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air And more inconstant than the wind, who woos…”

Jungkook might melt through the floor. How can someone be that beautiful?

He stops in front of a ladder wrapped in fake vines. His hand brushes a rung. “Can I?”

“Sure. But if you break this set, I break you.”

At the top of the balcony, there’s a cut-out arch that leads to the illusion of Juliet’s bedroom. Glowing fairy lights invite them through the doorway where faded pink fabrics drape in low swoops. On the other side, there’s a small platform, nothing more than a wooden board with safety rails, and the staircase that lets Juliet get backstage.

Jungkook and Taehyung sit, legs bent and knees touching.

“I hate to break this to you, Jungkook,” Taehyung says, ”but you’ve got the acting skills of a wooden board.”

Jungkook ignores his teasing. “You don’t. Why the hell are you an understudy?”

“Eh, a lot goes into casting. It all depends on the show—and on whether or not the professor casting said show believes you have adequate work ethic.” Taehyung shrugs. “Flippant, I believe was the word.”

Jungkook nods like it makes sense. “Too many make-out sessions in costume storage.”

“They saw the swarm of hockey players lining up outside and said enough is enough,” Taehyung laments. “All good, though. They’ll give me a role next semester. I’m a senior so they kind of have to.”

“You’ll get a role because you deserve it.”

“Lots who disagree with you.”

“Well, they’re idiots.”

Taehyung slides his foot closer to Jungkook. There’s a smear of yellow paint on his cheekbone.

It’s wild how normal he looks now, how quickly he dropped Mercutio’s character to change back into himself. But the look on Taehyung’s face at the end of his speech is seared into Jungkook’s brain. Hurts to touch.

“I see why you chose this over figure skating,” he says.

Taehyung hums. His fingers tap against his knees. “Who says I chose?”

“Please. Even if you don’t compete, you skate at a competitive level. It might be just for fun now, but it wasn’t always.”

Taehyung doesn’t deny it, but he does try to brush it off. “It’s not that interesting, really. I just discovered I liked the storytelling part of figure skating more than the actual competing.”

Jungkook sits quietly, letting Taehyung choose between the words he’d like to share and the ones he’d prefer to keep.

“Every routine’s a story,” Taehyung finally says. “The music, the jumps, the timing of a turn, where you move your arms, how you hold your face. But with the competing…it gets to a point where there’s no real finish line. Just a ladder with nowhere to go. So when I ended up with a theatre elective in middle school, I told my dad the skating comps were out and he said okay.” Taehyung grins. “I got a director’s chair for Christmas.”

A laugh bursts out of Jungkook, imagining Coach Kim wrapping a director’s chair for his youngest son. “That’s cool, that you’ve loved this for so long.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though,” Jungkook insists. “It’s okay to have a dream and run toward it.” He presses his leg more firmly to Taehyung’s. They’re close enough for him to hear the quick intake of breath. “It’s okay to want something.”

Taehyung’s next exhale comes shaky. His fingers twist in his slacks. “I want all the time.”

Jungkook relates. There’s a lot he’s not sure of—like if either of their lungs are working anymore, all the air sweeping out between them—but he’s positive of this: if Jungkook belongs in the rink and on the ice, then Taehyung belongs here under spotlights.

“What do you want now? More than anything?”

When Taehyung lifts his gaze, the intensity’s too great to hide. “I want to be on stage.”

“You will be,” Jungkook swears. “We’ll get you there.”

At that, Taehyung cracks a smile. “We, huh?”

Jungkook leans back, spine bumping the safety rail. “You know, like…a general we…or the royal. Your friends and family…me, also, if you want.”

“You didn’t text me back.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I need to call my mom.”

Taehyung reaches out, the pad of his thumb smoothing between Jungkook’s eyebrows. There’s no jolt, no electric spark or eruption of butterflies. Just skin on skin, something solid; a comfort that sinks down to his core.

“You know,” Taehyung says. “Someone could kiss in here.”

And yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea.

They move at the same time, meet somewhere in the middle, and Taehyung’s lips are soft, the noise in the back of his throat low like a need. He shifts to kneel and hums his approval when Jungkook tugs him into his space, right into his lap. He smells like mint and soap and a little bit of paint.

It’s the first time Jungkook’s got his hands on Taehyung’s body without shoulder pads and hockey gear between them, and the feeling of those honed thighs tightening around his hips has Jungkook going dizzy. He smooths his palms from the back of Taehyung’s knees to his waist, charts every line of muscle through the thin material of his pants.

Taehyung slides his hips forward, searching to close more distance with nowhere left to go, and Jungkook groans into his mouth, drags his fingers up Taehyung’s spine, dimpling skin before he grips the back of his neck and holds Taehyung steady in the kiss.

He’s not sure how strong this platform is, but he’s desperate to find out. When Taehyung tilts his chin to kiss him deeper, Jungkook gets why someone would spend their whole life trying to capture this feeling in plays, why people would still come to see them.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes, and Taehyung swallows it down, mouths along Jungkook’s jaw to lick at his earlobe.

“Big praise, pretty captain,” he murmurs, nosing at Jungkook’s flushed skin. “That piano instructor was way wrong, by the way. You definitely don’t lack finesse.”

“You are literally not allowed to talk about Mrs. Hudson while kissing me.”

Jungkook knocks his head against the rail, stretches his neck to try and escape Taehyung’s reach.

Taehyung takes advantage, presses his lips to Jungkook’s pulse. “Oh? Is that why you’re getting hard?”

You’re hard—”

“Shh,” Taehyung whispers, returning to his lips. “Give me my sin again.”

“Fuck, why is it so hot when you do that?” Jungkook groans.

Taehyung pulls back an inch to take in Jungkook’s pained expression, too delighted for his own good. “Duly noted.”

Somewhere too close, a door crashes open followed by two voices.

Jungkook startles then hisses against Taehyung’s teeth, pinned beneath his weight. They look at each other with wide eyes, absolutely still. Jungkook can only hope the layers of fabrics cover them at a glance, that the fairy lights don’t outline their position.

The voices grow closer, close enough for Jungkook to maybe die, and then they fade.

When the door slams shut, Taehyung tilts forward and giggles into the crook of Jungkook’s neck. Jungkook wraps his arms around his waist, shaking with silent laughter and also just shaking.

“I need to go before someone else comes in and finds us here,” he says, and it’s probably the last thing he wants to do.

Taehyung nods against his shoulder. “Will you come to the show?”

“It runs the whole weekend, yeah?”

“And the next. Tell me which day you’re free and I’ll get us tickets so we can sit together.” Jungkook frowns, half-forgetting that Taehyung won’t be part of the performance. Won’t even be backstage. Taehyung pokes his side. “Unless you’d like to hide here with me until opening night. I’m sure we can find something to do.”

Jungkook can think of a couple things. But, “I’ve got—practice.”

Taehyung grins as he disentangles himself. “So serious, Jungkookie. I’ll text you.”

“Cool.”

Without Taehyung in his lap, a bit of clarity returns to him, but it’s not until he’s outside in the cold again that Jungkook truly starts to panic, because What the fuck.

Do I have a date with Kim Taehyung?

🥇

KIM TAEHYUNG:

Change of plans

JUNGKOOK:

???

KIM TAEHYUNG:

Are you out of practice?

Mercutio’s sick.

JUNGKOOK:

Does that mean you’re going on tonight??

Yeah i’m out

KIM TAEHYUNG:

Yup.

I want you to come.

Please. 😊

“Coach! What do you wear to a play?”

From the locker room’s entrance, Coach looks up from his own phone with a knowing grin. “Not your skates and not your sweat.”

“Right.” Jungkook unclips his helmet, scrambles out of his jersey.

“Jungkook-ah.”

He swings around, one arm out of his shoulder pads. “Yeah?”

Grin still in place, Coach Kim adds, “You might want to bring flowers.”

The guys erupt into hollers as he struggles out of the rest of his gear, and for the first time since becoming captain, Jungkook showers first.

He doesn’t hit a snag in his plans until he’s standing on yet another flower aisle and the black button-up he tucked into a pair of black jeans starts sticking to his sweaty back. There are no roses. It’s November, and the other arrangements look like shit.

Jungkook doesn’t even know what kind Taehyung prefers. He adds it to his growing list of questions. 

If he’s honest, Jungkook’s not sure what to do with all the things he’s dying to learn about Taehyung, right down to his favorite flower, and he’s definitely not sure what to do with everything he’s already learned, like the way Taehyung’s lips feel against his own, how Jungkook can never go back to not knowing.

It scares him a little to think about. It maybe sets him free.

His phone’s out of his pocket before he’s made the conscious decision, dialing the only person he trusts in a situation like this.

She answers on the third ring, and her Busan dialect washes over him in waves.

“Eomma,” he rushes. “I’m going to see a play, there’s this guy, he’s so pretty, but Mercutio’s sick and they don’t have any roses. I’ve been to three stores. Are sunflowers okay?”

There’s a brief pause, a collecting of thoughts, and then she answers, “Sunflowers are perfect.”

Jungkook squints at their cheery yellow faces suspiciously. “But what if they’re not? I could try the next store—”

“Get the sunflowers,” she repeats. It sounds like she’s smiling. “He’ll love the way they stand out.” 

By the time he makes it to the Cultural Arts Building, sunflowers in tow, there’s a woman on stage thanking everyone for coming out tonight and Jimin’s craning his neck from the front row, trying to discreetly wave Jungkook down.

“You’re lucky I saved you a seat,” he hisses when Jungkook collapses next to him.

“I’ll make the waffles next time,” Jungkook whispers.

“That’s what I thought.”

Unfortunately, Jungkook still doesn’t understand Shakespeare.

But he gets Romeo and Juliet, especially after all the time he spent running lines—and more importantly, he gets how fucking phenomenal Taehyung is on stage.

Watching him in his element, entirely unrestrained, feels a lot like the first second of a hockey match when the puck’s still somewhere between the ref’s hand and Jungkook’s blade.

Arguably, the worst part of the whole show is when Mercutio dies. Not because Taehyung does bad or anything—he blows the scene out of the fucking water—but because then Jungkook has to sit through the rest of the acts while trying not to grip the sunflower stems too hard, at constant risk of snapping them in half.

Then the auditorium lights are coming on, and Jungkook’s standing with the rest of the audience as the cast comes out to take their bows.

Jungkook doesn’t really know how to explain the type of warmth Taehyung is—like sunlight when it’s caught in a sheer curtain, or when it shines through the underside of a leaf in the summer when everything’s still alive; and in the evening, not the middle of the day. Golden hour in August, or something.

He waits around with Jimin for Taehyung to change out of his costume.

When Taehyung comes out with the rest of the cast in his usual slacks, all earth tones and swishy fabric, he’s still got eyeliner smudged around his eyes, like the actor and character are blurred together. It’s a far cry from how Jungkook’s used to seeing him, sweaty and bare-faced on the ice: new but still him, and Jungkook wants to know more.

Jimin surges forward with a whoop, shoving a bouquet of pink roses at Taehyung and launching into a stream of endless compliments that have Taehyung blushing and shrugging him off with a smile.

Jungkook forgets how to move for a second, winded like he’s been knocked straight into the boards. He’s been preparing for this since the moment Taehyung texted him, but he doesn’t get enough time to remember the speech he planned before Taehyung’s turning that smile toward him.

“Is that my skater boy?”

“Uh,” is the first thing out of Jungkook’s mouth, which doesn’t bode well for him. “Hey.”

He holds out his flowers, snaps them back because Taehyung doesn’t have hands to hold them. Taehyung instantly shoves the pink roses he’s holding into Jimin’s arms and reaches for Jungkook’s sunflowers. And he looks so endeared that Jungkook searches for something else to give him.

“It’s Circus by Britney Spears.”

“What?”

“My Game Day song. Also you’re incredible. Can I take you on a date?”

Off to the side, Jimin slaps a hand over his face with a muffled groan. Taehyung’s mouth falls open with no sound.

Jungkook’s never seen him speechless. So he panics.

“Totally cool if not! Sorry, you just got finished with your show and I didn’t want to hijack your moment or misread the situation or bring you the wrong flowers but—”

“Misread the—” Taehyung looks Jungkook up and down, like he’s questioning his sanity. “I’ve literally kissed your face.”

Off to the side, Jimin gasps, delighted. “Shut the fuck up. When?”

Jungkook panics harder. “Well you know—”

“Jungkook, I’m the coach’s son,” Taehyung butts in.

He winces at that, stomach folding in on itself as alarm bells ring in his head. Abort, abort, abort—

“Right, yeah.” Jungkook rubs the back of his neck. It’s burning. “If you think it’s in appropriate, I get that too—”

“Jungkook.” Taehyung steps closer. “I’m the coach’s son. My brothers play for the NHL. I was in skates practically before I could walk.”

Jungkook frowns, not following what he’s trying to get at. “What’s that got to do with—?”

Taehyung cradles the sunflowers to his chest, runs his thumb between Jungkook’s eyebrows, presses a hand to his cheek. Skin to skin. Jungkook settles back to earth, grounded by the touch.

“My sweet, sweet Jungkookie,” Taehyung sighs. “How could I possibly not know the rules of hockey?”

If Jungkook was malfunctioning before, now his system completely shuts down, emergency reboots. “Wait. You know how to play?”

“Of course I know how to play!”

“But you said you weren’t interested in hockey!”

“I wasn’t!”

“You said you needed help! I believed you!”

“That’s called acting.”

“I’m trying to tell you I like you right now!”

“You better!” Taehyung squishes his cheeks. “I had to be bad at hockey for you!”

“You said you wanted help!”

“You didn’t even ask if I knew how to play, just assumed I didn’t know! Kinda fucked up of you, actually.”

“Oh, my god,” Jungkook breathes, eyes wide. “That is kinda fucked up.”

Taehyung tosses his head back with his laugh, hand dropping to rest on Jungkook’s shoulder, and then they grin at each other like idiots.

Jungkook kind of forgets Jimin’s there until he says, “You know, I could’ve made this happen ages ago if Taehyung just told me he liked you and you went—”

“Literally anywhere with you, I know,” Jungkook groans. “I’m trying to have a moment here, hyung.”

“Well, respectfully, speed it up!” Jimin switches the roses he’s holding to his other arm and pulls his phone halfway out of his pocket to check the time. “I sent Hobi to call your parents and find us a reservation. I think Namjoon’s coming too—Jin-hyung will be a little late, something about picking Yoongi up from the studio.”

Jungkook might pass away. But he doesn’t get the chance before Taehyung’s grinning at him again.

“Will you come?” he asks. “I want you to come.”

And Jungkook wants to give him everything. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

The kiss is sweet, simple. Like a promise.