Hustlers || Taekook

Chapter 5

The café Taehyung picked out was smack in the middle of a moderate sized town centre, not too small but not eye catching either. Jungkook walked a bit more briskly than he'd've liked, away from his car and away from the few idle, curious stares thrown his way. He'd taken his much cheaper, much more modest looking car today, but anyone with eyes could tell it was still at least double the cost of the cars parked beside it.

Throughout the entire car ride there had been a vague, subtle sense of foreboding, or unsettlement drifting around Jungkook's thoughts like gauze. Something about Jimin's question rang with the jarring edge of a warning, but Jungkook couldn't decide on exactly what about that interaction left him probing out from his mind, attempting to brush against the thin, fluctuating layer on unease, to try and locate the core, the root of it. And then he realised what it was. He and Jimin hadn't seen each other in a few months, and considering that, they got along easily, comfortably, just as they'd been before, as if there hadn't been a day when they'd been apart.

But they had been, and if Jungkook used to think there was a slight distance between them because he didn't know much about Jimin in all honesty, the period of silence over the few months had only served to widen that gap. Jungkook hadn't sensed it until he'd said Taehyung had bright orange hair. He couldn't read Jimin's expression, whether he'd been annoyed, angry, worried, upset or whatever it was, but he knew Jimin hadn't been happy, and had been awfully subdued, that much he could tell. A very suspicious, strange reaction to hearing what Jungkook's date's hair was like. It was almost as if Jimin had realised something, and resigned himself because of it. But what had Taehyung's hair got to do with Jimin?

If Jungkook thought about it, the entire interaction had been a bit strange. Something... something had been strange, off. It was almost as if Jimin was purposefully avoiding the subject of cards, of BigHit and anything to do with it. Like he didn't want anything to do with it, and wanted to pretend he wasn't talking to one of the seven biggest players of one of Seoul's biggest gambling houses.

Jungkook didn't even realise he'd stepped inside the café before he felt knuckles rap against his forehead twice, sharply, as if knocking on a door. He recoiled, swearing and instinctively lifting a hand to shield himself from the unexpected attack.

"Ow what the fu- oh- oh, hey, Taehyung." Jungkook's scowl slipped off his face as he was met with Taehyung's handsome, grinning face. He was even more stunning in daylight, with the little, plain café as his backdrop. If he'd seemed to have stolen the sunlight as his own last night, now it was like he shared his light with the sun, lighting up the entire room with his bright smile. Maybe because in daylight, inside a little café out on the streets, he seemed so much more real, not just another fantastical open secret belonging to dark rooms and seas of cash. The thought was oddly... warm to Jungkook, for though he frequented the casino as if he'd been born and raised there, he couldn't help but feel alienated from it all at times.

Jungkook reached out to brush a few strands of bright orange hair out of Taehyung's pretty eyes and smiled back, small but genuine. Before Taehyung could speak, evidently following up on the uncalled for physical greeting, Jungkook held up a hand, grinning and beating him to it.

"Let me guess, 'anyone home'?" Jungkook grinned and Taehyung's lips curved sharply, gesturing for Jungkook to follow him to a little table for two nestled in the corner of the café, right beside the wall length window.

"Guesswork or a read?" Taehyung asked, amusement lightening his tone and Jungkook kept his content sigh at the sound of Taehyung's voice inside. Jungkook grinned again, feeling wonderfully, amazingly warm, comfortable, like he was at home. But his house had never felt like home to him like this inconspicuous café did, at this little table sitting opposite Taehyung.