Metal Heart [ Jikook ]

Chapter 9

Wrapping presents wasn't as much of a mess as Jimin thought it might have been. Hoseok and Jungkook were in one room; the two of them were wrapping up the presents Hoseok had gotten for Taehyung and Seokjin. Jimin was pretty sure Hoseok had bought something for Jungkook-- he couldn't remember exactly what, but he was sure Hoseok would play it off-- would probably leave it with Jimin so the robot could tuck it under their little tree-- which they had yet to decorate. Jimin and Taehyung were in another room, wrapping all of the presents and trying their hardest to keep them in order so they didn't fall together and get mixed up. Jimin thought for sure there would be a lot of fumbling around and all four of them in the same room, trying to hide what they'd all gotten for each other; but Hoseok's plan of splitting into two little groups was a fantastic idea.

"Thank you again for buying all of this stuff for Hoseok. It was pretty stupid of me to not go out and get his stuff earlier." Taehyung said. He was speaking between little bites of food. Eating breakfast and wrapping presents wasn't a fantastic idea, but they had a lot of napkins, and there was a lot of checking fingers before they touched anything to make sure they didn't get food all over the books and the clothes. Taehyung took a sip of his water, "I'm sorry for not keeping Jungkook in bed, by the way. I tried-- but that kid is stubborn as all hell."

"I know." Jimin chuckled. He folded up one of Hoseok's jackets neatly and lined it up next to the other nicely folded jacket Jimin had pressed into one of the many cardboard boxes he and Hoseok had gotten-- just to make wrapping the presents a little bit easier. As Jimin was wrapping up the box, he thought about all of this-- the multiple presents, the cute little jewelry set for Taehyung, the way Hoseok had been talking about the boy. And, while Jimin really hadn't wanted to intrude, he was really curious, and he knew Taehyung better-- they were practically best friends, "Hey, Tae?"

"Yeah?" Taehyung asked, looking up at Jimin for half a second before looking back down, focusing on bending the wrapping paper in a way that wouldn't rip it. He hadn't cut off an inch or two extra of the wrapping paper to make sure he had a little extra room to fit the box. He'd cut off just enough; and he was struggling to make it look right, was using both hands and focusing pretty hard, biting down on his tongue, frowning.

"Um... are you and Hoseok...." Jimin didn't quite finish, figured Taehyung would know what he was asking without finishing the question that seemed so awkward to ask. Taehyung didn't hesitate at all to nod, a little hum of verification on his tongue as his frown melted away; "Yeah, we just got together last night."

"Really? Just last night?" Jimin asked, and Taehyung nodded again, the same little hum escaping his mouth. He bit down on his tongue again, his fingers fumbling. Jimin thought just last night was pretty curious, "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, I was just curious. Hoseok-hyung talked about you a lot. It was really cute-- the way he spoke made it sound like you guys had been dating for a little while."

"Well, we did have massive crushes on one another. I guess neither of us really realized before yesterday." Taehyung said. He reached over when he'd finally taped the wrapping paper that had been giving him so much trouble, leaned over to take another bite of his food, licking his lips and speaking through his food, "I mean, I kind of confessed, because I was really emotional last night. I'm not even sure why-- like, I just-- I got really damn emotional last night-- and it was so unnecessary, but I confessed because I was a mess, and I found out that Hoseok really likes messes, apparently."

Jimin laughed at that. Taehyung joined in on the laughter with his lips pressed together, likely to avoid accidentally spitting anything out. Taehyung's laughter died into a little half-smile after a few moments, and it was another couple moments after that-- probably to swallow what had been in his mouth-- before he asked, "What about you and Jungkook? Are you two together yet?"