"You should go home, your parents will get mad if you're not here to eat with them tonight, and instead you're here with me," Seokjin attempted.
"Pfff, that's a nonsense! They won't even notice that I'm not at home, my mom doesn't come out of her room anymore those days, even to eat, and my dad doesn't even wait for me to eat after night classes," Taehyung replied by forcing Seokin to push himself. "If they really want to look for me, your mom will tell them where I am."
Seokjin didn't reply but agreed to move carefully aside to make room for Taehyung, being careful not to fall because he still wasn't comfortable with this high bed, even though the mattress was really comfortable, he couldn't deny it. However, he chooses to face the window so as not to face Taehyung who was on the side of the door.
They hadn't faced for a long time because Seokjin was always content to present his back to him, which the other accepted without flinching, as long as he was able to grab him by the waist and cuddle him at night as he would have done with a stuffed animal or a pillow.
Which Seokjin obviously wasn't, but Taehyung sometimes seemed to forget that he too was a human being and didn't ask his opinion or his permission. However, Seokjin had never been able to stop him from doing so.
Even though out of habit, Seokjin didn't find it weird, he didn't appreciate it since Taehyung became tyrannical with him at school. Moreover, if it had been up to him, he would never have perpetuated for so long this practice to which Taehyung had been fiercely attached since childhood, even though they no longer had the same relationships than when they were children.
Indeed, they had been in bad terms for a long time already, when Taehyung had started to make his life in middle school a real nightmare.
This was the strangest thing in Seokjin's eyes: outside of class, at night, out of sight of others, Taehyung became a different person. If he was distant and frosty with Seokjin during the day, seeming to rejoice in letting others hurt him as if out of evil revenge, he was glued to him at night, never sleeping without him, sometimes allowing himself to converse as if nothing had happened when he had been obnoxious during all the day with him.
This sass, as Seokjin called it, he associated with Taehyung status as a wayward, spoiled wealthy heir who always got what he wanted and whose character and whims were as changeable as an autumn sky. Seokjin just wanted to stop talking to him and ignore him forever but Taehyung wouldn't allow it and always came back to him, forbidding Seokjin to ignore him, no matter how mean he had been to him in the same day, never even apologizing.
No matter how much Seokjin disagreed, Taehyung didn't care anyway, considering he had all the power over him even considering that the house Seokjin shared with his mother and grandfather was his too. Because of this, Seokjin could never escape Taehyung's imperious grasp, neither at school nor at home.
Even if the young footballer had accepted this by telling himself that he would soon be rid of Taehyung and the people he hated to see, escaping thanks to his future high school in boarding school, that night particularly, more than any other night, he would have preferred that Taehyung refrain from staying with him and leave him alone.
Indeed, the day had been much more difficult than usual for him and Taehyung, who had been very mean and had done everything to crack him up before the game and then made him angry when he woke up in a hospital bed, was the last person he wanted to be with at that moment, after his disastrous defeat, which he considered to be even more serious than his asthma attack.
For a moment, the two boys didn't speak and the room fell into a prolonged silence. But after a while, Taehyung heard sniffles and realized that Seokjin, even if he tried visibly but in vain to be discreet, had finally cracked. It was no wonder after nearly dying and even worse in his eyes than dying, after risking losing the possibility of realizing his dream.
Thinking back to the match, his asthma attack, the terror and the pain he felt when he stopped breathing, and now his loss in the Junior Championship final, Seokjin couldn't contain himself and started crying silently, letting his tears roll down his nose and onto his pillow which soon got wet. He cried so much that his silent sobs turned into gasps. So much so that Taehyung gave up pretending not to notice.
"Are you crying?" He asked unnecessarily.
"No," Seokjin lied in a hoarse voice, remaining resolutely turned to the opposite side and who would have rather got whipped by Mr. Kim than be seen crying by one of those arrogant Kims in front of whom he had promised himself to remain strong. He suddenly gave a cry of surprise mixed with indignation: "hey!"
He had just felt with a start a hand grab his shoulder from behind and force him to tilt his whole body to find himself back against the mattress and offer his face to Taehyung who then felt his cheek with the back of his hand to check that they were indeed wet, this which he could see with his eyes anyway.
"Can you stop this, please?" Seokjin asked with barely concealed exasperation, as he took Taehyung's hand away from his cheek.
"Let go of my hand, I touch you as I want, you just didn't have to lie to me and I wouldn't have had to check," Taehyung said, using his hand to prevent him from going back to the other side and ignoring him again. "Yes, little lier, look at you, crying like a baby! I find it hard to believe, coming from you, who's been playing tough all this time, but you have to believe that you were crying when our backs were turned," he scoffed.
"It's not true, I never cried behind your back!" Seokjin exclaimed, outraged.
Taehyung saw that he wasn't lying but he still asked slyly:
"Who can prove it?"
"No one, and you know that perfectly!" Seokjin said, upset, "well, think what you want since it seems to make you happy. Now that you saw what you came to see and laughed at me, can you go away, please? I want to be alone tonight."
"I told you I didn't care what you wanted. I want to stay so I'm staying," Taehyung said, giving him a painful flick on the forehead. "And stop talking to me like I'm tiring you."
"Ouch! Then leave me alone," Seokjin pouted, rubbing his aching forehead.
"Okay, I'll let you cry as all you want while I savor my victory over you," Taehyung said, seeing that he managed to annoy Seokjin enough to make him more sulky than sad.
"You didn't win, I win, I didn't give up!" Seokjin replied with pride, "And I do not cry!" he added furiously, crossing his two forearms over his wet face to hide it from Taehyung who was watching him intently.
But there was no point in hiding his face when his sobs quickly started again and became soon so loud that a blind man could tell he had completely collapsed, even though Taehyung's repeated teasing had seemed to have slightly distracted him from his despair for a few minutes.
It had been so long since he had held back his tears in front of his mother, in front of Mr. Kim, in front of Taehyung and in front of everyone else despite the daily difficulties, that now that they were released, they did not seem ready to stop. It was as if for several minutes, Seokjin had ended up forgetting that Taehyung was there, right next to him.
Or he could no longer make his pride triumph over his pain and didn't care at the end that Taehyung saw him crying and then used it to make fun of him and make him look weak in the eyes of everyone else at school.
However, Taehyung wasn't looking at him with the evil eyes he usually gave him at school, and his smirk didn't form on his face which Seokjin wasn't looking at anyway. In fact, the rich heir was looking at him with some discomfort, as if this vision of a completely broken Seokjin was eventually unpleasant to him after he nevertheless had tried for two years to break him without success.
He had been wrong during these two years: he had thought he wanted to hurt Seokjin to the point of making him lose his smile and now that he had lost it, he would have liked to make him find it again and never lose it again. What was wrong with him?
He couldn't help it, Seokjin was his weakness, the only person for whom he was willing to question the principles he lived by, at the risk of destroying the image of a relentless and imperious Taehyung that he had created in the eyes of everyone else. He had tried all this time to hurt Seokjin to convince himself that it was not the case, but today he regretted it. He was just helpless in the face of Seokjin's tears.
"Don't cry Jin, that's not like you," Taehyung told him. "If you want, I'll pay for the trophy to be in your name, okay?"
"I don't want you to do that!" Seokjin whimpered loudly, unable to stop the flood of tears he'd been holding back for years. "Our school did not win the trophy and I did not win the top scorer medal, it means I am a loser who don't deserve any trophies!"
"No, you're not a loser," the other retorted.
"Yes I am, since I lost. This is the definition of a loser!" Seokjin said, spreading his arms to reveal his wet face and his puppy dog eyes.
Taehyung sighed but didn't add anything to this truth.
"See? You're not saying anything now, that means you also think I'm a loser!" Seokjin cried in despair.
"Make up your mind!" Taehyung shouted, exasperated at Seokjin's inconstancy, "yes, you lost and that makes you the loser of the match but that doesn't mean it erases all the other wins you've had over the year and all the hard work you put in to get here. What I mean is, unfortunately for me, you don't have a loser's mind. You never had one. You have perseverance in your blood, and sometimes it has the gift of getting on my nerves, believe me." But other times other I think I admire you a little, he almost added.
"You really think so?" Seokjin asked, his face suddenly bright.
"What? that you annoy me? Of course I think so."
"No, not that. Is it true that you think I'm persistent and don't have a loser's mind?"
"I didn't say it was a quality, but yeah, it's true."
Taehyung's word seemed to reassure Seokjin who wiped away his last tears and shed no more new ones. Taehyung even thought he saw the beginning of a smile on his face but it abruptly disappeared when Seokjin's nose suddenly wrinkled and he sneezed loudly.
"Oh no, not again..." he grumbled, looking around for tissues.
"You didn't seem to have a cold anymore," Taehyung remarked, reaching out to grab the tissue box that was on the bedside table next to the bed and handing it to Seokjin.
"Thanks. And it's not a cold, I already told you I was allergic to you," Seokjin grumbled as he grabbed a handkerchief and blew his nose as hard as he could.
"Oh, stop with that," Taehyung replied, who was nonetheless starting to wonder, because it was the third time it happened in a short time, first in Seokjin's room, then in the school hallway and now here.
"But it's true! It's like a natural reaction from my body, it's not up to me," Seokjin protested, feeling his nose bracing for another onslaught when he inhaled again.
"Natural rejection?" Taehyung repeated in a flat voice, "Are you implying I'm disgusting?"
"Well..." Seokjin started thinking about how to say it politely.
"Don't answer this," Taehyung threatened him.
"But if it's not you, it must be your perfume that stinks and stings my nose," Seokjin retorted, purposefully pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger at the peppery smell.
"It's a new perfume from France and it was very expensive so it doesn't stink," the rich teenager replied as if it were a valid and unassailable argument. "You just have poor taste."
"And you just have a rich reasoning: just because it's expensive doesn't mean it doesn't stink."
Outraged, Taehyung replied:
"Your nose must not work properly because of your asthma. All the girls complimented me on my good smell today!"
"Yeah, but I'm not one of your courtesans so you can be sure that I'm telling you the truth unlike them," Seokjin replied, "they probably lied to you to please you, it's obvious because you stink," he concluded, waving his hand dramatically in front of his nose to get some air and get rid of the smell that was stinging his nose and making him want to sneeze again.
"You are saying that I stink, uh?"Taehyung countered, not wanting to let Seokjin laugh at him with impunity, "did you forget that you were brought here from the football field? Do you think someone made you take a bath in the meantime?"
Seokjin opened his eyes wide as he realized what Taehyung had just said, who continued mercilessly:
"Yes, Jin: I'm the one lying next to a big, sweaty, stinky filth!"
Blushing in shame as Taehyung congratulated himself for having had the last word in this conversation which had been dominated until now by an emboldened Seokjin, the latter pretended to get up to go take a shower. Yet, Taehyung stopped him, holding him by the arm.
"Where are you going ?"
"I'm going to take a shower, of course! I can't sleep like this."
"Not now, tomorrow," Taehyung forbade him, without letting go of his arm.
"Erk, no, it's disgusting!" Seokjin replied with a sickened expression.
"Yes. That way you'll stay the stinker of both of us."
"No, I don't want to, I want to shower!"Seokjin whimpered.
"Shut up and stop fidgeting," Taehyung replied, "for now it's better to rest and not make unnecessary efforts."
Seokjin glared at him but then had an idea.
"Taehyung?"
"What?"
"I'm thirsty, I haven't had a drink since half-time earlier and my throat is very dry."
"So what? do you think I'm going to bring you water? Am I suddenly became your servant without knowing?"
"Okay, there's no need to be disagreeable your highness, I'll go myself," Seokjin concluded, satisfied to have succeeded in his plan and trying to stand up again.
However, Taehyung clicked his tongue and prevented Seokjin from getting up.
"Stay there, I'm going."
"Uh? But I thought you didn't want to play at being my servant?"
"Shut up!"
In front of a surprised Seokjin who didn't think Taehyung was really going to do that for him, Taehyung got up, took the empty glass on the nightstand and went to fill it in the bathroom before bringing it back to him.
"Thank you," Seokjin said with gratitude, still surprised, as Taehyung lay back in bed.
He emptied his glass in one go, realizing how thirsty he was. Even if he would have love taking an other glass of water again, he didn't dare ask Taehyung who had already gone back to bed. But watching him as Taehyung rearranged the covers around him, ready to make himself comfortable, Seokjin had an idea that made him smile mischievously: he wanted to see how far he could push Taehyung in his sudden thoughtfulness towards him.
"Taehyung?"
"What now?"
"I want to go to the bathroom..."
"Are you serious?!"
"I just drank and it's been a long time since I went to the bathroom, you know?" Seokjin defended himself.
"Then go ahead and come back quickely," Taehyung sighed, already tired of being considerate, used to being taken care of but not the other way around.
"But... if I walk to the bathroom, I'll run out of breath," complained Seokjin placing a hand on his chest. "I still have trouble breathing, can you help me, and take me there, please?"
"Jin, are you really asking me to carry you to the bathroom?!" the heir asked, outraged.
"If you don't want it doesn't matter, I'll go alone..." Seokjin said simulating a small coughing attack.
Taehyung closed his eyes to suppress a surge of violence that wanted to express itself, as he had learned to control himself in front of Seokjin. Then, he got up from the bed again, heavily this time to show Seokjin his exasperation, and he walked around to join the side of Seokjin where the boy was straighten up, swinging his legs in the void.
Taehyung glared at him to show him that he was doing this against his will and Seokjin, after giving him an innocent look back suppressed a giggle when Taehyung presented his back to him and bent down to allow him to mount.
Delighted, Seokjin wrapped his arms around Taehyung's neck and his legs around his hips. Taehyung grabbed Seokjin's tighs and straightened up, adjusting him on his back.
"Thank you, Tae!" Seokjin said happily as he swung his legs.
He couldn't see it because he didn't have access to Taehyung's face, but Taehyung smiled with satisfaction when he heard Seokjin call him that again after so long.
"Stop swinging your legs like that or I'm going to think you had enough energy to go to the bathroom on your own," he muttered nonetheless before walking to the adjoining bathroom.