Marked (BTS Taehyung)

Chapter Nine: That Sounds Perfect

It was unbelievably awkward. You couldn't deny that making eye contact with a guy who you barely knew, yet were mated to, was the worst thing you had done in this life. From awkwardly walking to the restaurant, to sitting down and trying to order, everything was done in complete silence unless absolutely necessary.

Honestly, you felt as though you were back in high school, on a first date with a guy you weren't exactly sure you liked, but he had asked you out, and that was a good enough reason as any to give him a chance.

You couldn't help but notice how ironic it was that the two of you had met just a few days before Valentine's day, a holiday reserved for couples like Jade and Namjoon, as perfect as they were. Couples that were undoubtedly made for each other, cliché though it seemed.

The avoidance of eye contact between you and Taehyung was painfully obvious to everyone around you, and the waitress gave you a sympathetic smile as she placed a water down in front of you.

"Anything else I can get you?" she asked, looking from you to Taehyung before walking back into the kitchen, no doubt to tell the other workers about the awkwardness going on at her table.

You played with the straw wrapper, wrapping and unwrapping it around your fingers, staring at it as though it held the universe's deepest, darkest secrets. Taehyung was tapping out a rhythm on the table, avoiding the gazes of those around the two of you as well as yours.

"So," he began, then allowed the word to fall to the table, where it was consumed by the void of silence that this date had become.

"So," you repeated, biting your lip and unwrapping the straw wrapper for the third time around your fingers.

"Well, this is going well," he muttered, almost low enough for you not to be able to hear him, voice curling through the air in an untraveled path to your ear; the longest sentence he'd uttered since leaving the Big Hit building with you earlier.

"To be honest I was thinking the same thing," you whispered, rolling your eyes at the curling wrapper around your index finger.

"You're not having a good time either?" he questioned, eyebrows raising at you, and waving away the waitress when she tried to come up to take the order for your food.

"No, Taehyung. Every girl in the entire world twirls a straw wrapper around her finger when she's having a good time. Universal code. Everyone knows it," you grumbled, surprised at how clueless Taehyung actually was when it came to girls.

"Well, then maybe we should just go somewhere else? Maybe order take out and watch a movie?" He sounded hopeful, and you were again shocked at how similar this was to all of your dates in high school, as few and far between as they had been. You hoped that this wasn't going to end in disaster as many of those dates had.

"That sounds perfect," you said, already reaching for your jacket.

________________________________________________________________________________

"Those two may just be too awkward for one another," Dinah remarked, using Yoongi's shoulder to haul herself up, pitching forward and letting out a gasp before she regained her balance. "Neither one of them wears the pants in that relationship," she continued, fully recovered and completely ready to go home and sleep for a few hours, if the little one in her stomach would allow her to.

"We were nothing like that in the beginning," he agreed, walking behind her to the elevator so that he could drive her back to her apartment. He had taken to staying with her when he could in the last few months, when he wasn't in the studio or busy hunting for a place that their family could call home.

Dinah's apartment was small and no place to raise a newborn, and while she had the benefit of privacy and no roommate, it was too far away from the Big Hut building and Jade's apartment for anyone to be able to get to her if she needed help with something, and with another tour coming up, Yoongi needed Dinah to be close enough to get help, whether it be Jade or Dinah's family, just in case something happened while he was gone.

"That's because we both knew what we wanted to get out of this," Dinah replied, then falling silent as she focused all of her attention on entering the car safely, resting the seatbelt over her swollen belly. "And he's going to be here sooner rather than later," she said, resting a loving hand on her stomach, and Yoongi placed his over hers shakily.

His son was due to arrive within the next month, a glowing beacon of happiness in the midst of all this stress. However, he was scheduled to be out of the country when it happened.

"You have spoken to Jade about staying with her as soon as the guys and I leave for Chile, right?" he asked worriedly, putting the car in reverse and backing out of the lot.

"It's going to be a big sleepover," she remarked, rolling her eyes. "I'm perfectly capable of dealing with it on my own."

"I'd just feel better about leaving you here if you had someone to help you out. I know you're not Jade's biggest fan," his voice dropped, "but she really does care about all of us, and I just need to know that there'll be someone else here for you because I can't be."

"Yoon, I know. I'm just giving you a hard time."

"I really wish you wouldn't," he muttered, pulling onto a side road.

Dinah laughed, a clear bubbly sound that didn't match her tough exterior, and Yoongi was reminded of how he'd met her; that same laugh ringing through the streets of an underground rap battle he had taken place in a year ago. Who could have imagined that the two would have ended up here?

"Yoon, it's just how I am," Dinah laughed, getting out of the car and walking slowly to the door of the apartment building. "Now where did I put my fucking keys?"

"Watch your language. Don't want our little guy picking up any bad habits, now do we?" Yoongi joked, pulling her keys out of his pocket.

"Why do you have them?"

"You gave them to me earlier. You're getting forgetful in your old age."

"I'll show you old age, you little-"

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"So, they've added another one to their pack."

"A human," Jane agreed, nodding her head at her alpha in respect and adulation.

"I personally think Namjoon's girl is the way to get to the pack," Gun Ho butted in, speaking out of turn and without the permission of the pack's alpha.

Jane rolled her eyes at him, fed up after the few days she had had to spend with him as they watched the Bangtan pack. She absolutely loathed Gun Ho and his backward views on pack dynamic; that an alpha be born into his status, not earn it.

After watching the Bangtan pack, careful not to make eye contact or get close to any of them, Jane wished that her pack was a free flowing and kind as theirs seemed from the outside looking in.

"Gun Ho may be right," she continued, shaking herself out of her reverie and bowing respectfully to her alpha. "She seems to be the motherly figure that takes care of the rest of them. Without her, the pack will fall to pieces, and be ours to crush."

"Well then, it seems that you know what you need to do. Take her out."