You better not cheat again, Kookie

Chapter One

N/A: So,  I posted this on AO3 and decided to bring it here too. Please read the warnings. I hope you enjoy.

Being the golden maknae puts a heavy weight on Jungkook's shoulders. His hyungs, BigHit's managers and his growing number of fans always expect the best from him in just about anything he does. Often times, this matter has been taken with humor, and he tries to best reciprocate the jokes of his teammates about their inability to beat him in all kinds of competition. But the truth is that Jungkook just can't stand the idea of being less than perfect, and that creates great anxiety for him. Especially when it comes to school.

An outside viewer might be surprised by the fact that Jungkook has never been particularly good at academic affairs. Before starting the training, he wasn't exactly an outstanding student, his grades were always within a mediocre average and most of the time he only worried about achieving a sufficient grade to pass the subjects. His parents weren't exactly the traditional family archetype; while he watched his schoolmates suffer from coming home with a barely acceptable grade report, Jungkook could afford to have enormously supportive parents who didn't demand ridiculously high grades from him, because they knew that his talents and passions lay in another way. It doesn't mean that his parents praised mediocrity, since they always motivated him to enhance his artistic and sports skills, for which he stood out from an early age.

However, things have radically changed since his arrival at BigHit. When he signed the contract as a trainee, he made a commitment with the company and with his own family to finish his high school studies in the best possible way, a goal that has proven very difficult to achieve due to the restrictive hours he has. Before debuting, he already had a busy schedule between going to school, training his dancing and singing for hours, and attending long recording sessions. Now, a year after his debut, it's been a lot harder to find some time to at least attend school twice a week, turn in piles of homework, and prepare for exams.

Jungkook isn't complaining, or at least not externally. He knows that idols of his age have to deal with these and more issues. He watched Jimin and Taehyung struggle with these same difficulties until recently, and if they managed to graduate from high school without any problems, why wouldn't the golden maknae?

That's the optimistic thought he tries to have as he looks at his history book, but he quickly falls onto the kitchen table with a frustrated groan. He moved there a few hours ago when Namjoon complained about the light from the lamp on in the room they share. It's 2:00 am and he's only a couple of hours away from going to school to take a test, but he's hundreds of pages away from finishing the book that was assigned to him more than a month ago.

"I definitely can't give you more time," was his teacher's reply that afternoon, when he tried to get a few more days to prepare for the exam, "I've already given you two weeks longer than the rest, it wouldn't be fair to your classmates."

"But Sangsenim, I have really had a busy sche-"

"I am aware of your occupations, Jungkook-ah," his master cut him off, "the same ones that several of your classmates have, so I can't privilege you even more over the rest. I'll wait for you tomorrow at 9:00 am. You can go."

Jungkook didn't even have time to reply. He knew he didn't make sense. He attended a school where almost half of his classmates were celebrities or trying to become one, and because of that they received certain benefits that they didn't have in any other school. But he couldn't achieve the impossible, he had to admit that his master had already shown too much indulgence.

The memory of that conversation fills him even more with frustration. He'd like to admit that he didn't have any free time in recent weeks to study, but he grudgingly acknowledges that every free space he had was dedicated to a new video game that Taehyung had brought over. The sound of footsteps approaching makes him lift his head.