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"Things like... jealousy?"

Jungkook tilts his head, looking into your face.

You can feel yourself flush, the red flaming over your cheeks and neck.

You see Mira in your peripheral.

She's leaning back, watching the two of you with an amused grin on her face.

Because there is still some good in the universe, a manager bursts into the room to save you from yourself.

"Omo, you guys are still here? Bangtan are going down to the cars already. It's time to get home and rest, Jungkook," he frowns disapprovingly.

"You two, get back to the dorms and Heal."

He waves at both of you, dismissing the pair as he sits down beside Mira to look at her ankle.

You shrug at Jungkook, then quickly using the chance to fly to the door and almost run down the hall.

How dare he levy jealousy on YOU, when HE was the one who got so worked up that he pushed Taehyung into a wall?

At least you hurt Mira by accident.

The elevator doors are closing as you approach them.

You push off with your feet, jogging the last few meters and sliding sideways into the gap as the doors come together.

The elevator is already packed.

"Sorry, excuse me," you pant as you bump into RM and his stylist.

"Where's Jungkook?" Jimin asks.

"He was... somewhere back there behind me," you answer, only to realize how it made you look like an escapee.

Someone sniggers.

RM's eyebrows lift.

"Ah..." he concedes.

You dread what he is going to say next, but he says nothing.

The elevator is silent except for the shuffling sounds of clothes, but you can see RM look at Yoongi, their eyes meeting.

RM smiles and shakes his head.

Yoongi shrugs.

Everyone unloads and walks out to the cars slowly, the line of black SUVs pulled neatly up against the door.

Taehyung and Jhope are already sitting in one of the cars, Taehyung listening to music in the front seat.

You jump in beside Jhope.

"Hey," he says. "Don't you want to wait and sit with Jungkookie?"

"They are playing cat and mouse again," laughs Taehyung.

He turns around to look at you.

"Jungkook can be so bossy, right?"

You grin.

"Let's go," Taehyung says to the older guy in the driver's seat.

Jhope leans over you uncomfortably to look out the window, obviously looking for Jungkook, who was likely still in an elevator.

"She needs to stand up to him, he's too pushy," Taehyung bends his arm awkwardly at the elbow to offer you a high-five.

You slap it.

The driver's mouth curves upward suspiciously for half a second, and then he starts the car and leaves.

Jhope is still turning around and craning his neck to look out the back window as you pull into the street.

---

You're relieved to be out of the chilly air as the front door to the dorms close behind you.

"Hey, I found a picture from elementary school," Taehyung says as he unceremoniously kicks off his shoes.

It flies off his foot and hits the wall, leaving a grey smudge on the beige paint.

Jhope frowns unhappily, shaking a finger at Taehyung who smiles in rectangles and just doesn't care.

"It's our class photo, want to see it?" Taehyung asks.

He pulls on the corner of your shirt as he watches you unnecessarily remove your shoes and place them neatly off to the side.

Jhope, however, nods seriously.

"That's how you should put your shoes!" he points at you and scolds Taehyung.

Taehyung just pulls on your shirt again.

"Wanna see it?" he repeats impatiently.

"Sure," you laugh.

Taehyung dances toward his room, beckoning at you.

He's got it tucked into the corner of the screen on his laptop.

It's slightly folded on the top edge, like it had been shoved in a pile and stored for ages.

"My mom sent it to me a few months ago but I only looked at it yesterday. Look, there's you!"

Tae points at the row of heads in the second row, and you see yourself, standing there, tiny and blurry.

"There's you," you grin, pointing at the dark blob of flyaway hair sporting a rectangular smile.

"Remember Soo-hyun? He was always trying to copy our... well, your homework. But sometimes mine too, that I copied from you first," Taehyung falls over onto his bed, snorting.

You gently pull the photo from the laptop.

"But he always helped us whenever we got into a fight in the playground," you smile, finding Soo-hyun in the photo... a handsome boy with dark, rebellious eyebrows.

"He was a good fighter!" Taehyung nods in agreement, putting his fists up into the air.

"Chae-young is here too," you smile softly.

Your best friend ever since elementary school, she smiled brightly at the camera, her posture perfect and her head high.

"Do you still talk to her? You were so close," Taehyung pulls on your arm, trying to grab the photo.

He pulls you down to the bed.

You sit gently on the edge while he worms over on his stomach and pokes his head over your hand.

You point at Chae-young for him to see.

"She was very nice," he says.

You smile in appreciation.

"Yes, she is. We are still best friends. She was with me, actually, when I went to your concert and touched hands with Jungkook."

Taehyung's eyes widen.

"She saw you bond with Jungkook??"

"Well we didn't know at the time, but yes."

"You have an eye witness!" whispers Taehyung dramatically.

You laugh, scanning the photo for more familiar faces.

He wasn't really surprised that she took off at a run.

She gets nervous every time he puts his face close to hers.

He tries to remind himself that she was a nervous deer in the headlights when he first met her.

But occasionally she gave him a random kick of spunk and he keeps forgetting that he has to turn it down a notch.

He doesn't try to catch her.

He bows at the manager and waves at Mira before he leaves.

He walks down the hallway at a normal pace and she's already gone from sight.

He can hear her shoes pattering away in the distance and it sounds like she's almost running.

It doesn't matter.

She needed to heal, and so did he.

He knows she wouldn't leave him when he had gone seven hours without healing and exhausted himself at a concert.

She would be in the car, whether she ran now or not.

He was, a little surprised, when he sauntered out the building door and into the parkade, and she wasn't there.

Yoongi is sprawling out, alone, in the backseat of the emptiest car, while Namjoon, Jimin and Jin sit in another car.

Jimin waves at Jungkook from his open window as they drive away.

"Hurry up," drawls Yoongi from the open car door.

Jungkook rolls his tongue in his cheek, a little miffed, and gets into Yoongi's car.

"Did she already leave in another car?" Jungkook asks.

"Well do you see her here?" Yoongi rolls his eyes.

He pulls his cap over his face, shutting Jungkook out.

Jungkook huffs, violently pulling the seatbelt across his chest as the car starts.

It gets stuck four times due to his sheer speed pulling at it.

The staff member driving turns to sigh at him.

"Jungkook, don't break it," he says.

Jungkook gives an exaggeratedly slow and drawn out motion of pulling the belt slowly over his lap and clicking it shut.

Jungkook is, definitely, very surprised, when he gets home, steps into the foyer, and the living room is dark.

Yoongi trudges into his room without a word, slamming the door shut behind him.

Jimin has thrown himself onto the sofa, face down in the darkness.

Everybody else is in their rooms, light creeping out from the frames.

The only door without light inside is Jungkook's own room.

Jungkook walks over to it, turning on the switch just to look inside and make sure that his soulmate, was in fact, not there.

He's shocked for a second that his soulmate might not have come to the dorms at all, but then he hears her voice.

The door to Taehyung's room is half open, and Jungkook clearly hears her talking from within.

"She had come to check up on me, twice," Soulmate was saying, "I was completely passed out in bed, and you know she still lives so far away. She doesn't drive. She came so far to check on me. I didn't answer my phone, or my door, and she was worried sick. We didn't know I had bonded. She's really the best to me."

Soulmate was talking about her first days after the bonding.

Jungkook had never heard about this before, and his curiosity spiked through the roof.

He didn't creep, he made sure of it, but he quieted his footsteps on purpose.

He walked closer to Taehyung's door.

"Jungkook was passed out too, with a fever and so much sweating.... we were so scared," Taehyung was telling you.

Jungkook felt himself frown.

He definitely didn't like Taehyung emphasizing how weak and helpless Jungkook had been.

He was right up against the partway open door now, so he took a step sideways to change his viewpoint.

She was sitting on Taehyung's bed.

Taehyung was lying down in the same bed with , looking for all the world comfortable and accustomed.

Jungkook felt the red come into his vision, but he tightened his jaw, keeping it at bay.

She was holding something in her hand... a photo?

They were looking at it as they talked.

Taehyung's soft, fluffy hair nestled under her wrist as he wedged his head into her lap to look at the picture.

He was like a puppy in her lap.

A handsome puppy, and his sculpted face and perfect nose had never looked so damn annoying to Jungkook.

Jungkook wanted to him.

He couldn't decide if he should storm in and shove Taehyung, which he had already done before and proved to accomplish nothing...

Or pretend he didn't see this, and go back to his room and let his anger consume him.

He couldn't decide.

But that was fine, because suddenly a filter of blue was over him, and

A wave of dizziness hit him, and coupled with his exhaustion, .

He turns and sways back to his own room.

He wanted to sit on his computer chair...

... But his head spins and he falls, landing on one knee.

The pain shot up his body.

He crawls forward, pulling himself up onto his bed.

Blue sparks tear through his brain.

He can't see past the flashes.

He fumbles, grasping blindly for the garbage can under his desk, rolling halfway out of bed to do it.

He hits his hand twice against the desk, and his wrist stings sharply.

Numbness creeps up his arm.

His fingers close around the garbage can.

He pulls it in, just in time to vomit into it.

He vomits violently, his stomach heaving.

The acid burns his nose and throat.

He puts the garbage can down gently.

Jungkook wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and goes limp.

He feels like he's on a roller-coaster, drifting and falling and being tossed left and right even though he can feel the bed beneath him.

It's like how he felt when he had the soulmate bruising and almost .

He wonders if he should call for help.

But then he doesn't want to see Taehyung's face right now.

Jungkook gives in to the blackness.