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Hi all you adorable ARMY!

Thank you SO much for staying with me.

And I love all the feedback that I get from you, it gives me so much positivity.

Thank you

xo

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Jungkook

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"Let's be friends," Jimin says to soulmate, extending his hand for a handshake.

His reaching fingers were covered in silver rings, and soulmate takes a moment to peer at them.

"Your rings are very pretty," she says, pausing to point at a thinner band.

"Ah, this one is a gift from Hoseok hyung," Jimin replies, turning the ring so that she could see it better.

In that moment, Jungkook becomes strangely aware of how many rings Jimin always wore.

How well Jimin always accessorized, with his fancy earrings and matching hats.

How Jimin was always put together, with tight jeans and his unbuttoned plaid shirts flowing around his balanced frame.

And how Jimin was getting soulmate to compliment Jimin, even though soulmate had not complimented Jungkook.

Soulmate smiles gently at the friendship ring before she puts her hand into Jimin's, clasping his fingers.

They shake hands, Jimin grinning.

"We are friends," Jimin repeats.

"Yes," soulmate smiles back.

And now they were friends, while Jungkook had no such promises from soulmate.

Jungkook is swallowing his tongue whole and keeping his body so tense with inaction when Taehyung comes to his rescue.

The front door beeps and opens and Taehyung sprints out from the hallway, charging at the manager who was walking through the door with two pizza boxes.

"YESSSS!!! YESSSS!!!" Yells Taehyung, snatching the boxes away from the older man and running to set them down on the kitchen counter.

"Aish," the manager tsks as Taehyung almost drops the boxes.

"HYUNGGG THE PIZZA IS HERE!" Taehyung screams toward the rest of the bedrooms as he's lifting the lid on a box and reaching in.

He pulls his hand back as the hot pizza sears his fingers and he blows on them and whines.

Namjoon saunters out from his room and looks around, nodding at Jungkook and soul mate and thanking the manager before joining Taehyung.

He frowns as he watches him blow and tease at the edge of a slice of pizza with his teeth without using his hands.

"Use a utensil or something," Namjoon sighs.

Jungkook darts a glance at the girl by his side to see how she's taking in this animal show and her eyes are wide but she's barely hiding a smile.

The manager who brought the pizza settles down beside the two of them, taking their temperatures again.

"Your fever is gone, Jungkook," he smiles gladly.

Jungkook blinks.

Right, he had a fever before.

He is making healing progress, then.

"We are so happy you're here, thank you for cooperating. It's such a relief that you and Jungkook are both alright," the manager says to soul mate, and Jungkook uses the conversation to look at her again.

She is cute, sure, but not astonishingly so.

Yet something very weird was happening to him every time he looked at her. His heart kept doing a magnet thing and all he wanted was to scoot closer.

Sorcery.

"I'm sorry that I took so long to realize what was happening. It must have caused you all so much grief." She looked very guilty then, and her body slumped.

"Your bruises were very small," the manager replies kindly. "And it is normal to assume you might be sore and tired after a concert. I can see why you misunderstood the bonding effects."

"I'm really sorry," she whispers, lowering her head.

A strand of her hair escapes from behind her ear and sweeps across her cheek.

Jungkook's spare hand was reaching across the space already, his fingers about to brush her hair back before he suddenly jerked and realized what he was doing, and slammed his hand back down into his thigh.

The hard slap echoes through the room.

Everyone, including the manager, turns over to watch him questioningly.

"... Aha!" Jungkook says, ignoring the heat creeping up his neck.

It seemed the only natural follow-up to slapping his leg.

"Aha what?" Taehyung calls, muffled by pizza is his mouth.

"Aha, no... no wonder," Jungkook stammers, rubbing his neck, scraping his brain for something, anything.

"No wonder what?" Taehyung's eyebrows lift higher.

Even soul mate is blinking at him curiously.

"No wonder, no wonder she didn't know! She thought she was tired from the concert," he almost bites his cheek.

"It must have been very confusing," Namjoon nods.

"No one blames you," the manager says to her, patting her on the shoulder.

"Of course not," Jungkook hurries to add, "because your bruises are also so small. It makes sense you didn't see them."

"... Thank you," she says softly. "You're all being so understanding, even though I almost killed Jungkook."

Something painful flits across Jungkook's chest at her words.

"Stop," he says.

There's a tone to his own voice that he doesn't recognize.

"We both almost died. Both of us. Not just me."

He looks down at where their forearms are resting together.

His tanned, lean muscle and longer elbow pressed against her smaller frame made him feel strangely protective.

He turns his wrist so that he gently grasps her hand in his.

"But we're fine now. So please stop worrying about what didn't happen."

Her eyes widen as his fingers slide over her own.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the manager's look of surprise, but somehow Jungkook can't bring himself to care.

"Stop feeling guilty," Jungkook whispers.

She nods, her face so obviously stunned Jungkook isn't sure she knows what she is nodding to.

She turns her head as though forcing herself to stop staring at him.

She wipes the back of her other hand across her eyes.

He could let go of her hand now.

He let go of her hand now.

the socially proficient part of his brain was yelling at him.

But he doesn't.

Partly because of the pleasant tingling coursing through his hand.

And partly because he thinks he might want to never let go of her hand at all.

And he knows it's the bond, he knows it's messing with him, he's surprised by the thought too, but he just can't help it, can't control it.

The apartment has fallen silent.

Taehyung hmms at this development and struts over, standing over them while chewing loudly.

The manager shrugs and hands them each a bottle of water.

"Drink more water. It helps heal," he says.

Soulmate takes a bottle and sips from it, lifting her chin to look at the pizza Taehyung is shoving in his mouth.

"It smells good," Jungkook admits.

Like a kid caught stealing from a cookie jar, she jerks her head in the opposite direction.

Jungkook laughs.

"It's OK, I kinda want some too."

She smiles guiltily.

"You guys want some?" Taehyung lifts his head, a look of confusion pinching his face the way his fingers were pinching a slice of hot dough.

"I don't think we can eat pizza right now, we're sick," Jungkook says hesitantly. "It just smells good."

"Ani," Jimin shakes his head, reaching for Taehyung's hand and biting neatly into the pizza, talking around his mouthful, "before you're fully healed you're not supposed to eat."

"They are still attracted to food though. I read this," Suga says, waving his hand at everyone as he struts out from the hallway.

He pulls a chair from under the kitchen counter and sits, reaching for the pizza.

"But if they do eat they will just throw it up. They have to wait until they're done healing."

Jungkook sinks with disappointment.

Maybe it was worth it, it smelled so good...

"And it makes them sick for days," Namjoon reads his mind and points at him.

"Don't do it, Kookie."

Jungkook sighs loudly.

The girl next to him giggles, sending electric shocks from his knee, where they are touching, all the way up his spine, into his brain.

He grins, glad to see her laugh.

And like clockwork, she looks him in the eye whenever she's laughing at him, and he likes that too.

In fact, even if it is just the bond controlling him, Jungkook thinks he might like a lot of things about her.

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