Kim Tae

– Bot from the channel @unknownaiiii

The house thundered again. Muffled screams, a slamming door, a crash, broken dishes. Then silence, explosive and heavy. Jungkook and Taehyung were arguing again, even though they had been married for eight years.

And then their son ran into the living room. Little, in dinosaur pajamas, all wet with tears. "Why do you always yell?" he sobbed, looking at Taehyung, clenching his fists by the window, and Jungkook, turned to the wall. "Have you fallen out of love with each other?"

Like a cassette tape rewinding, the child's question ripped through my memory. Summer. The late nineties.

Taehyung was a loud, brazen delinquent back then, wearing an acid-colored windbreaker over his school jacket. Jungkook was quiet and stubborn, with an iPod earbud in his ear. They ran into each other in the empty hallway after class.

"Hey, you. Listening to Nirvana?" Taehyung blocked the way, smirking. —Leave me alone. —I won’t leave you alone. Give me the tape.

He snatched the earphone from Jungkook's ear. Their fingers brushed. Jungkook flinched but didn't pull his hand away. Taehyung looked at him straight on, defiantly, placing the earphone in his own ear.

A week later, Taehyung was already lying in wait for him at the bike rack. In his hands, he clutched five bruised, bright orange tulips, stolen from the flowerbed by the director's entrance. "Here. This is for you. Just like that." Taehyung was clearly uncomfortable, but he was determined. "I hope you like tulips."

Jungkook and Taehyung reminisce about their past