Better Than Tears (sweeter than sleep)

How wrecked am I?

Taehyung - formerly known as messy-hair - did indeed smile all the time, about as much as Jimin did.

They were two totally different smiles. Taehyung's always looked kind of sheepish while Jimin's always looked like he was incredibly happy. He guess that was because Taehyung said stuff that he should be sheepish about whereas Jimin...he didn't know exactly, but Jimin seemed to find great happiness in making other people feel good. Taehyung's smile was perfectly harmless, but Jungkook still liked Jimin's smile the best, eve if there was nothing scary about Taehyung's either. Jimin had told him the truth.

He could trust Jimin.

He did trust Jimin.

They sat at the kitchen table together, drinking tea again. Taehyung had already complained that it should be hot chocolate and Jimin had retorted that he'd already had two cups today. Taehyung wasn't deterred, but he drank his tea valiantly and with a sort of cheekiness that Jungkook could never hope to replicate. Taehyung's stomach growled and Jimin got up to retrieve apple slices from the fridge and was wheedled into getting out a jar of caramel to dip them in. Jimin offered one to Jungkook, who decided that he'd never had anything so delicious as apples and caramel, and that was considering he'd thought Jimin's dinner the night before had been the most delicious thing he'd ever eaten.

"Do you like chocolate with caramel, Kookie?"

Jungkook wondered where on earth "Kookie" had come from, but Taehyung was smiling so harmlessly at him that he stammered out an answer. "I-I guess."

"My sister says only mint should go with chocolate. I hate mint and chocolate together. Raspberry and chocolate is a tenuous relationship, but mint? It's practically fighting! No, caramel is the best thing to go with chocolate."

"Tae, you don't have a sister."

"I mean Mina, she's practically a sister. We've known each other forever. We pretended to get engaged (remember, that one summer that you didn't speak to me for three days because supposedly I went behind your back to propose?) and she'd got this pretty haircut nowadays. It's too short, but I guess it's okay. Makes her eyes looks nice."

"I'm sure she'd be flattered to hear that."

"Don't be ridiculous, she'd hate me for it. All we ever do is argue. Even if I compliment her, she argues it. Seriously, I'm telling you I think you're pretty, what do you want from me, woman? She thinks there's not rabbits on the moon, but--"

"You still believe that?"

"Jiminnie, if we have to believe in so much serious stuff, we might as well believe in some ridiculous stuff too. There's too much that gets us down. You tell somebody that there's rabbits on the moon and it could make their day."

"Probably because it's the weirdest thing they've heard that day."

"My point stands. If you can make someone smile by believing something weird, shouldn't you?"

Jimin smiled, wiping caramel from Taehyung's mouth and shaking his head fondly.

Jungkook wasn't confident enough in the company to smile freely, but he had staved off any anxiety thus far. He felt a small measure of pride slink over his bones at that accomplishment. Strangers always made him nervous, always made him freak out, always made him cry. He'd done all those things with Jimin.

But not with Taehyung, because Jimin had said that Taehyung was safe, and Jungkook trusted Jimin.

He still kind of wanted to, though. It was exhausting trying to keep the anxiety and panic from clawing their way up his throat. By the time Taehyung had finished reminiscing about that time he'd brought home a stray cat and his mother had just about had a fit when he'd fed it the leftovers she'd been planning to serve for dinner, Jungkook was just barely staving off a fit himself.