jeon jeongguk isn't stupid.

epilogue (falling in love with your best friend is pretty fucking smart)

It's the same shit.

The exact same shit as before.

Chemicals. Chemistry. Bland white tables. Taehyung. Jeongguk. Hands.

Only, a few things have changed. Not much, but just enough to the point where if you paid attention, you'd notice.

It's in the little things.

The same bitch of a teacher as before, a lady with a hard set frown who's really just doing her job. Jeongguk keeps this in the back of his mind, but he still feels annoyance whenever her long, drawn out words fill his ears and make him nearly pass out onto the surface in front of him.

There's a few things that keep him awake.

The first one being, if he fails this next chemistry test, he's quite literally screwed. It feels like ages ago but it was just last week when he sat in this very seat and made a mess of the chemicals he was instructed to pour, earning him and Taehyung a blaring F as a lab grade. Taehyung wasn't mad at him, although he probably should've been.

That's the other thing keeping him awake.

The hands that used to seem so far away, close enough to touch but not realistically touchable, not actually there in the ways that mattered- but they are now. The left one drags a thumb over the back of Jeongguk's knuckle from where their hands rest under the table, on top of Taehyung's thigh.

And it's really in the little things.

In the way just that, barely anything, a touch that's hardly even noticeable, only to Jeongguk who's consciousness directly focuses on the warmth, is able to keep Jeongguk's hands from shaking. Is able to keep emotions and chemicals alike from overflowing, from spilling all over the table and giving Jeongguk an even worse grade to worry about. Potientally making Taehyung almost slightly mad.

Also the chemicals in front of them aren't pink, they're something else. It's a singular beaker with some shit Jeongguk and Taehyung had to mix into it earlier. Jeongguk doesn't have the strength in him to figure out what, but when he pours starch into it and the glass colors blue, he thinks he knows why. Why the colors changed.

Because everything changes.

It's never instantaneous, like the chemicals lie and try to tell you. It isn't just pouring one section of a person into another and then watching as they change colors, become a new substance entirely.

It's gradual. You long for something to happen, for the bland white to be washed away by a bright blue or a sage green, and then suddenly you look up and realize you've been that color all along. You just needed the contrast of another color to help you realize.

It's a bad analogy. Comparing chemicals to Jeongguk and Taehyung. To Jeongguk specifically.

But it's the only one he can think of, so he thinks it's a pretty damn good one if it sort of helps him at least try to wrap his head around this chemistry bullshit, because Taehyung's eyes are landing on his fingers, clearly waiting for him to write an answer down on the lab sheet between them.

Jeongguk has deja vu.

"Gguk."

Fuck, he has deja vu.

"Gguk."

It comes in the form of fingers leaving their spot from being wrapped around his own, and he internally curses because what comes next is really gonna make him reminisce. To the old colors he saw himself as. To when his fingers still shook.

"Gguk, are you gonna-"

"Yeah, I'm working on it."

This time is tone isn't piercing, doesn't make Taehyung's eyes widen or voice drop in shock. Because even though Taehyung's saying his name, he's not saying it like he's a porcelain doll. He's just checking on him.