Divergent | Jungkook AU

Chapter Sixteen

THAT AFTERNOON, I go back to the dormitory while everyone else spends time with their families and find Taehyung sitting on his bed, staring at the space on the wall where the chalkboard usually is. JK took it down yesterday so he could calculate our stage one rankings.

“There you are!” I say. “Your parents were looking for you. Did they find you?”

He shakes his head. I sit down next to him on the bed. My leg is barely half the width of his, even now that it’s more muscular than it was. He wears black shorts. His knee is purple-blue with a bruise and crossed with a scar.

“You didn’t want to see them?” I say.

“Didn’t want them to ask how I was doing,” he says. “I’d have to tell them, and they would know if I was lying.”

“Well…” I struggle to come up with something to say. “What’s wrong with how you’re doing?”

Taehyung laughs harshly. “I’ve lost every fight since the one with Kai. I’m not doing well.”

“By choice, though. Couldn’t you tell them that, too?”

He shakes his head. “Dad always wanted me to come here. I mean, they said they wanted me to stay in Candor, but that’s only because that’s what they’re supposed to say. They’ve always admired the Dauntless, both of them. They wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it to them.”

“Oh.” I tap my fingers against my knee. Then I look at him. “Is that why you chose Dauntless? Because of your parents?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “No. I guess it was because…I think it’s important to protect people. To stand up for people. Like you did for me.” He smiles at me. “That’s what the Dauntless are supposed to do, right? That’s what courage is. Not…hurting people for no reason.”

I remember what JK told me, that teamwork used to be a Dauntless priority.

What were the Dauntless like when it was?

What would I have learned if I had been here when my mother was Dauntless?

Maybe I wouldn’t have broken Molly’s nose. Or threatened Kai’s sister. I feel a pang of guilt.

“Maybe it will be better once initiation is over.”

“Too bad I might come in last,” Taehyung says. “I guess we’ll see tonight.”

We sit side-by-side for a while. It’s better to be here, in silence, than in the Pit, watching everyone laugh with their families.

“I feel braver when I’m around you, you know,” he says. “Like I could actually fit in here, the same way you do.”

I am about to respond when he slides his arm across my shoulders. Suddenly I freeze, my cheeks hot. I didn’t want to be right about Taehyung’s feelings for me. But I was. I do not lean into him. Instead I sit forward so his arm falls away. Then I squeeze my hands together in my lap.

“Ji, I…,” he says.

His voice sounds strained. I glance at him. His face is as red as mine feels, but he’s not crying—he just looks embarrassed.

“Um…sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to…um. Sorry.”

I wish I could tell him not to take it personally. I could tell him that my parents rarely held hands even in our own home, so I have trained myself to pull away from all gestures of affection, because they raised me to take them seriously.

Maybe if I told him that, there wouldn’t be a layer of hurt beneath his flush of embarrassment. But of course, it is personal.

He is my friend—and that is all. What is more personal than that? I breathe in, and when I breathe out, I make myself smile.