Behind the Mask

~Chapter 19~

~Taehyung's POV~

Everybody seemed to be having fun at dinner, simply enjoying each other's company; the girls were even nicer than I would've thought and pretty fun to hang out with actually, but I somehow managed once again to spend the evening staring at Jungkook, who was sitting right next to me. 
Still, he kept shooting happy glances at that Jennie girl, across the table, with that shy smile he only used to show when he looked at me.

What did he even like about her.. she was a real pain in the ass with that fake friendliness of hers! I could bet she just wanted to get into Jungkook's bed, maybe Yoongi hyung wasn't enough for her anymore, huh.. after all, that's what all girls wanted once they got to spend some time with Kook. Nobody wanted to get to his heart as long as they could have his body. That's why I couldn't get myself to trust girls anymore.

In time, I saw what Jungkook's girlfriends were all like and how cute and loving they acted around him, only to end up dumping him as soon as he would say he wouldn't sleep with them.

The fact that we were all going to be living under the same roof with the BP girls was really working out for Jennie, too.

She did promise she would be helping me with him, though. I didn't really know what to make of that, but she seemed like she genuinely meant it, so I decided to put her on probation. I was going to observe her every move before deciding whether she was trustworthy or not.

To be honest, I don't know when I started seeing Jungkook differently, from thinking about him as my little dongsaeng to not being able to imagine life without him. Because yes, I was, according to my taekook fanfic knowledge, whipped for this man.

I just...

As trainees, we all used to spend every single day together, since we couldn't visit our families, not even on holidays. Basically, we became each other's family. But Jungkook and I... we were more than that.

Besides the fact that he became my best friend -that is if you don't count Jimin, but how could you even, that dumbass leveled up all the way to soulmate- he was also my... platonic sleeping partner? If that's even a thing? In case it's not, we definitely invented it.

We always used to spend our nights together, just laying in my arms helped Kook get rid of his nightmares, since he was still pretty young at the time, and it helped me finally get rid of my insomnia. Of course, we agreed that we wouldn't let anybody know about this little arrangement of ours, but that was until one day, when Jin hyung found out.

And when he did, he just cooed at us for two minutes straight before he finally got out of his trance and even snapped a picture of us cuddling...
I guess I couldn't really be mad at him for that, because up to this day, it remains one of my favourite pictures of Kook and I.
Anyway, ever since Jin found out, Kook began to make up excuses so that he would start sleeping in his own room again, until he finally stopped coming to my room at all.

Some nights, when I couldn't sleep, I could hear him sobbing quietly in his room, probably waking up from one of his nightmares, and when he showed up next morning with dark circles under his eyes, my heart just broke a little more.

Still, I never questioned him about it, never once asked him if he wanted to sleep with me again, because I assumed he would just come to me in case he needed help.
But he never did.

And day by day, he drifted away from me, to a point where he wouldn't even want to talk about the time we used to sleep together, and I just couldn't understand why. What caused him to suddenly change his attitude towards me and act like all of it never even happened. I thought I was helping him, and he was definitely helping me, but apparently it ended up hurting him somehow.