Chapter Text
Introduction
If you were to ask Jimin to describe what Taehyung was to him, (which people often did) don’t expect a simple answer. It’s not a question that warrants a quick reply because Jimin can’t explain Taehyung with just a few words; it would be an injustice. Taehyung isn’t just his soulmate, his better half, his best friend and husband (his night time pillow, partner in crime, occasional back scratcher). Jimin would need to write a whole series of books just to skim what Taehyung was to him and that’s because Taehyung meant the world to him. And it’s hard to explain anything without retelling his experiences with the other. I guess it makes sense because Taehyung’s life involves his own.
The bottom line of all this is: when you ask Jimin, you better be prepared to hear an in-depth narrative of their story.
Jimin would bore you with all the unneeded and extra details of their story (who cares that Taehyung’s second toe is bigger than his big toe?) and it will probably go off on a tangent because of course Taehyung would be right beside Jimin correcting his husband on certain things (‘It was September 3rd not the 4th. How can you forget the day we first held hands?’). The two would undoubtedly argue over some parts of their story (‘Remember the time we ran out of power and you tried to burn fire wood and almost burned the house down?’ ‘We promised not to ever speak about that.’) and reminisce longer than they should on others (We have to tell them about the day we brought home Taeji.”).
The main point is: Taehyung and Jimin can’t tell you their story. It would take a century for them to do that so I’m going to help them out.
So here’s the abridged version of Jimin and Taehyung’s life (and therefore love) story as told by Jimin and Taehyung (they prefer VMIN) themselves.
The Beginning
Their story begins when they first meet at the age of 7. They started out as next door neighbors (how typical). At this point before I even begin, Jimin’s remembering fondly of only seeing the top half of Taehyung’s head as he peeked out from behind his mom’s legs. Jimin was standing in front of his parents, his dad’s hands on his small shoulders as they welcomed the Kim family to the neighborhood. Jimin’s family was also fairly new to the neighborhood, having moved in two months ago. Both families moved from South Korea to the States so it was typical for the two families to create a strong bond, finding a piece of home in one another.
Taehyung didn’t bother saying hi or give any enthusiasm as Jimin waved to get the other’s attention. Taehyung continued grabbing at the bottom of his mom’s shirt, already wanting to go back home. After a few more attempts, Jimin crossed his arms in front of him and glared at the other. They didn’t interact at all that day.
When school started in September, they were both in the same class.
Ashamedly, Jimin admits he stayed away from Taehyung. It’s not because he was mad at the other; he’d long forgotten about their first meeting. Unfortunately, the other kids thought Taehyung was weird. Even though kids normally wear colorful clothes, Taehyung’s clothes were always clashingly bright. His pants never seemed to match his shirt and his socks were always mismatched. Sometimes Taehyung wore his pajamas to school and once he even wore a dog costume. It was obvious that Taehyung’s mom let him pick his own clothing.
While most of the kids enjoyed going outside for recess, Taehyung preferred being indoors and playing with the dinosaur and animal action figures. When no one played with him, he would talk to himself. In the beginning of the school year, kids didn’t mind playing with him but the number slowly dwindled.
Additionally, Taehyung sometimes switched his speech into Korean without even realizing. This actually happened quite often with his sentences intermingling between broken English and Korean especially when he was really excited. The kids started to distance themselves from Taehyung because they didn’t understand him. As a result, the usually excited Taehyung gradually became quiet because no one would talk to him.
Jimin wasn’t exactly like the other kids either; his English wasn’t perfect. He only spoke English when he was at school, Korean being the preferred language at home. The most important thing though, was Jimin played sports like one of the ‘cool kids’. Therefore, all the kids overlooked the weird way he sometimes spoke or the times there were missing gaps in his sentences.
It was the first week of December when Jimin sprained his ankle. He’d been running around on the snow and somehow slipped on some ice that was hidden underneath it. Luckily, Christmas vacation was starting the next week, but because of his injury he wasn’t allowed to go outside for recess.
It was the first time since he started school that he would be inside. He tried to ask some of his friends to keep him company; he even tried bribing them with his mom’s cookies but his friends were just as active as him and wanted to go outside to play in the snow.
Jimin was understandably upset. He hated his sprained ankle because now he couldn’t do all the things he’d been planning to do: have snowball fights, sled, and build a snowman. Thinking about all the things he would miss out on, made Jimin cry. Jimin was a big boy so he tried to stop by sniffing and wiping his eyes on his shirt before the other kids got back. He forgot that Taehyung was in the classroom, eating his lunch near the dinosaurs.
The other boy slowly got up and walked over to Jimin. Without saying a word, he hugged the crying boy.
“My mom always hugs me when I cry and it makes me feel better,” Taehyung says to Jimin.
Jimin pushed the other away and was about to shout how you shouldn’t hug strangers, but stopped. Taehyung was smiling at him, revealing all his baby teeth in a boxy smile; his eyes were crinkled in happiness. Unknowingly, Jimin smiled back.
“Are you hurt? My mommy always kisses my booboo when I’m hurt,” Taehyung says.
Jimin shakes his head quickly.
“Hey!” Taehyung grabs Jimin’s hand excitedly and stands up, “Do you want to share my lunch?” He quickly brought Jimin over to the dinosaur table and picked up a sandwich, “I have peanut butter and jelly!”
“I don’t like jelly,” Jimin looks down at the sandwich.
Taehyung frowns as he holds the sandwich in his hand. Then he smiles like he was struck with a genius idea.
“Here!” He pulls apart the sandwich and hands him the slice of bread with only the peanut butter.
Jimin gave a wide smile, his tears long dry by now.
“Hey you want to play dinosaurs with me?” Taehyung asks. He holds out a tiny T-Rex in his other hand; the smile on his face still blinding.
Jimin hesitates. Would the kids call him weird if he started playing with Taehyung? He looked back at Taehyung, who suddenly had a sad look on his face. The other picks up his dinosaurs like he was going to put them away.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Taehyung’s voice was soft and low, not at all like the excited voice he had a moment ago.
“No! I want to!” Jimin reaches out a hand to grab one of the dinosaurs Taehyung was putting away, “
Can I play with the velociraptor?”
They became friends after that. They didn’t become best friends (that’s later on) but they did talk and play with each other more. It actually couldn’t be helped. Jimin’s family always went to Taehyung’s house for barbeques and Mrs. Park always baked extra cookies for Jimin to give to Taehyung at lunch. Their moms even alternated between picking them up after school.
Jimin didn’t stop going outside for recess entirely. He still loved being active and playing soccer with his other friends, but there were days when Jimin stayed inside to play with Taehyung too.
Additionally, no one called Taehyung weird anymore; all the kids were used to Taehyung by now. Even Jimin’s friends spent some days inside playing action figures with the two. With a little persuasion, Taehyung started going outside for recess more. All Jimin had to do was pout and Taehyung would trail after Jimin until they were outside just to make sure Jimin would smile.
They even started hanging out at each other’s house. Jimin would tell Taehyung that his mom was making cookies and Taehyung would run over. Taehyung would say he got a new action figure and Jimin would come over with his own action figures.
Jimin would go to Taehyung’s house on Saturday mornings with some of Mrs. Parks’s blueberry muffins and together they would eat breakfast and spend the whole morning watching Saturday cartoons. On days that it snowed and rained, Taehyung would run over to Jimin’s house with a mug in one hand and hot chocolate mix in the other, ready to spend the day in Jimin’s bed watching TV and drinking hot chocolate.
After this point in the story Jimin wants me to skip a few years to high school but Taehyung interrupts him because that’s not where the story progresses next. They started out as neighbors and became good friends (not best friends) but as the two grew older, they started growing apart. Taehyung calls it the first dark moment of their relationship; Jimin immediately playfully punches him and tells him to stop exaggerating.
But the truth is the two did grow apart. They turned from friends to strangers again and mere acquaintances.
Middle School
Jimin was the one who started it. Immediately as spring came around, Jimin tried out for the school’s soccer team, getting a spot on the team with ease. He had practice almost five times a week and when he wasn’t practicing he was playing with the others on the team.
Jimin was always apologetic. He would come to Taehyung’s house whenever he was done with practice or early in the morning before heading off to the soccer field but it wasn’t the same anymore because they no longer watched Saturday morning cartoons together and Taehyung couldn’t just come over whenever because most often Jimin wouldn’t be home. It didn’t matter if it was raining or not because Jimin would still be practicing. Sometimes Taehyung would receive a call late at night from Jimin apologizing for missing their hot chocolate time.
Taehyung was definitely not okay with Jimin moving on and forgetting about him because that’s what it felt like. Jimin had always been the kind of kid who liked doing activities and was constantly moving around. He was the opposite of Taehyung. Taehyung stuck to his interests and only had a few. He hated doing exercise and he didn’t make friends easily. It wasn’t that he was shy but the people at school already had a perceived perception of him.
Originally Taehyung didn’t really care what other’s thought of him because he had Jimin. Jimin was his friend and he was the only one whose opinion really mattered, but things had definitely changed.
Taehyung assumed once spring ended, Jimin would have time for him. But as soon as soccer season ended, Jimin joined a dance team. Taehyung had no idea Jimin liked or could dance.
“You should join too Tae,” Jimin put his head on Taehyung’s lap and kicked up his legs in excitement, “It’s more time we can spend together.”
Taehyung glared at the screen and raised the voice on the TV so he could hear better.
“You know I don’t like exercise,” Taehyung couldn’t help the anger in his voice. He hoped Jimin would get the hint but the other was still smiling, obviously too excited about the dance class.
“But we would be together!” Jimin got up and put his hands on Taehyung’s shoulders making Taehyung turn towards him.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Taehyung said angrily, “I want to watch this; dance is stupid. Only girls like to dance.”
Immediately as the words left his mouth he wanted to take it back, especially when he saw Jimin stiffen beside him.
“Dance isn’t stupid! And it’s not just for girls!” Jimin shoved Taehyung angrily, “I like dance. Do you think I’m stupid? Are you calling me a girl?”
“No; I wasn’t calling you a girl,” Taehyung’s voice was soft but it sounded like he was still angry.
Jimin glared at him and crossed his arms angrily like he was waiting for more. Taehyung turned to the TV and focused on it. He didn’t even turn his head when Jimin got up from the couch and left his house.
When Mrs. Kim asked where Jimin was Taehyung gave an angry shout of, “He left and I don’t care!”
At the time Taehyung really didn’t care. He was angry at Jimin. Jimin chose soccer over him and now he was choosing dance over him. Obviously Jimin didn’t value him as a friend. The more he thought about it the angrier he became. He waited for Jimin way too long; he wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Jimin came over the next day with a tray of cookies in his hands. He was greeted by Mrs. Kim. Taehyung didn’t see him. He said he didn’t want to see Jimin anymore even when his mom told him that Jimin said he was sorry and wanted to play with him.
But Taehyung was still angry. He wanted Jimin to feel what he felt the other times he went over to the Park house and Jimin wasn’t there.
In a way Jimin helped spew Taehyung joining the anime club. If Jimin was going to be busy then why couldn’t he join something that made him happy? In some ways he did this in spite because it would mean he could be too busy for Jimin.
It was probably around three weeks before Jimin stopped trying to come over to Taehyung’s house. Taehyung accepted Jimin’s apology but now Jimin was busy with his dance classes and Taehyung was hanging out at a new person’s house for anime club each day of the week, even hosting the club on Saturdays now.
He made plenty of new friends that shared the love he had of anime and cartoons. The best part was they also liked action figures and dinosaurs. And none of them liked playing outside or doing sports.
The Kims and Parks still hung out at each other’s houses for dinners and barbeques; their parents even tried to get them to become good friends again but they were too different and too stubborn.
Taehyung was no longer angry and there were still moments when he was with his anime friends and felt sad that Jimin wasn’t there. Jimin still liked anime; that never changed. They just stopped watching it together and slowly stopped interacting altogether.
High School
High school was good for the both of them. Both of them were average students. They weren’t exactly studious and mostly got by with B’s and the occasional C. They had their own group of friends. Both were actually quite popular.
Jimin was a jock. He was good at sports, joining the soccer team in the beginning of sophomore year, becoming one of the best players in the school’s history. He became the captain during his junior year. But he was more well-known for his dancing. The dance team was always around school putting on shows and doing routines during games. Jimin also became a gym rat. He was always doing some sort of physical activity whether running or lifting weights. He had a body that made all the girls (and some guys) drool and an eye smile that made everyone melt.
High school was actually great for Taehyung. When he entered high school, it was a new start for him. There was a whole pool of new students who didn’t know him as the weird dinosaur boy. And puberty hit him hard. He grew taller and his voice became lower. All the girls found his voice sexy. And boy was Taehyung handsome. Taehyung was one of the popular boys in school as well. It was different than Jimin’s popularity though. Everyone knew who Jimin was and everyone admired him but from afar. Taehyung on the other hand: everyone knew who he was too but that was because he was friends with everyone. The best thing was Taehyung never had to change the way he was. He still talked about the same things and still dressed questionably at times but no one cared. Taehyung was friendly and he always managed to find a connection with anyone he started a conversation with.
Just like that, the two managed to find their friend groups. Jimin with the dance club and jocks while Taehyung managed to float easily between groups but mainly still stayed with the anime club.
It wasn’t until junior year that they would really interact again. During this part of the story Jimin and Taehyung would turn to each other and smile. They wouldn’t say anything until the person they’re telling their story asks them what happened next. (Are you wondering that?)
“We got married!” one of them or both of them would say.
Junior year of high school was when Taehyung and Jimin got married, had a kid and additionally became best friends.
It’s not like Jimin and Taehyung stopped being friends. They still interacted and considered each other school friends. They had some classes together up until junior year and they partnered up for projects when their group friends were either already partnered up or not in class. When Jimin had no one to partner with Taehyung would choose him over his own friends and Jimin did likewise.
When either was sick the other brought them their homework so they wouldn’t miss out on school work.
But as mentioned earlier they had settled into their own friend groups so they didn’t have time to see each other or hang out after or outside of school.
“Everyone pair up. I’ll be giving out semester projects today. Choose your partners carefully; you will be working with them until the end of the year.”
“Partners?” Taehyung leans back in his chair from in front of Jimin and holds out a fist.
“Definitely,” Jimin fist pounds Taehyung back.
“I’ll go up to get our project,” Jimin pulled back from his desk and jogged to the head of the class where the teacher was holding up a hat with slips of paper in it.
When he got back, Taehyung was already facing his desk, straddling his chair.
“What have we got? I pity the poor soul who has to teach the class about sex.”
Jimin opens the paper and his mouth drops. Taehyung eyes him before nudging him, “We got that, didn’t we?”
“Um…not exactly,” Jimin hands over the slip of paper and sees Taehyung’s eyes widen.
“We have to take care of a kid? A doll?”
“Ah you’re the unlucky two who get to experience the joys of parenthood,” the teacher had come over to their desk. She couldn’t help but smirk at the two grimacing students.
“Come by my desk after school today so I can get you acquainted with your child.”
They thought they’d be taking care of a sack of flower or maybe a toy doll. They had no idea that the child was almost like a real life baby. Boy did they make dolls realistic these days. The doll looked like a real child and the teacher explained that it acted like it. It could cry, burp, poop and close and open its eyes. It could even smile. It was basically a real life baby in doll form with a voice recording device to record everything that was said around the baby.
“So boys no swearing allowed,” the teacher handed the baby to Jimin who awkwardly held it in his hands.
“What are you doing? It’s not a football,” Taehyung grabbed the baby into his own hands.
“You’re holding it by the armpits; that’s not any better,” Jimin argued. Their teacher shook her head, “This will be interesting.”
After youtubing how to hold a baby correctly they were on their way outside of school.
“Actually Tae, can you take baby J; I have to go to dance practice.”
Taehyung stiffened, “Is dance practice more important than this baby?”
Jimin stopped and raised an eyebrow, “I have practice every other day; you know that. Can’t you just take care of it for ---“
“Stop referring to it as an it! It’s our child.”
“Are you saying we should name it?” Taehyung glared and Jimin corrected himself, “Her I mean.”
“Well she is our child,” Taehyung sat down on a bench and dragged Jimin to sit beside him, “And we should probably set some ground rules.”
“What?” Jimin got back up, “Look Tae. I don’t have time for this. I have to go to dance practice.”
“Jimin,” Taehyung’s voice dropped an octave and he growled. Jimin cursed how Taehyung’s voice developed so much better than his. He was still short and his voice was on the higher end for boys.
“Are you walking away from me again?” Taehyung got up.
“I’ll come to your house as soon as I finish. Don’t worry babe,” Jimin rushed forward to kiss their daughter on the cheek and then going along with the act he kissed Taehyung on the cheek, “Keep dinner warm for me!”
“You dick!” Taehyung yelled after Jimin and then immediately looked down at the baby in alarm.
As promised, Jimin went over to Taehyung’s immediately after dance practice, not bothering to shower or change at his own. Mrs. Kim excitedly let him in and he scrambled up the steps to Taehyung’s room, quickly drowning in nostalgia as he walked on the dinosaur welcome mat outside Taehyung’s room.
“Honey, I’m home,” Jimin opened the door without knocking.
Taehyung looked up in alarm and then shushed him, “Shut up. She just went to sleep. What is that?” He got up to stare at what was in Jimin’s hand, “Is that a rose? Wait…is that for me?”
“Thought I owed you an apology for walking out today. I’m sorry baby,” Jimin nuzzled his nose cutely against Taehyung’s.
“What are you doing?” Taehyung backed up in alarm.
“I thought you’d appreciate the gesture,” Jimin shrugged. He went over to Taehyung’s bed and looked down at their daughter.
“She’s cute. She gets her nose from me.” He looked over at Taehyung who had a seriously pissed look on his face.
“You’re not taking this seriously at all,” Taehyung said in a shout whisper, “This is worth 85% of our grade. I don’t want to be the only one who is doing all the work!”
“Chill man, you won’t be,” Jimin leaned back to sit on the bed, “It can’t be that hard. All we need to do---“
Apparently Jimin disturbed their daughter’s sleep when he sat on the bed because the doll’s eyes opened and a wailing sound came from it as well as tears from the eyes.
“Oh crap,” Jimin turned to look at it, “Wow it looks so real.” He pushed his face closer to examine it, “Are those tears?”
“Yeah and I’ve been taking care of her all day. Now you can,” Taehyung nodded his head at the doll.
“What do I do?” Jimin picked up the baby and started rocking it, “This feels ridiculous. Tae, it’s not stopping. Make it stop.”
“Nuh uh. It’s your turn to take care of the baby. It’s only fair since you went to your dance practice. I missed one of my shows because of you!” Taehyung left the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Feeding the doll didn’t work, rocking it, singing to it, and rubbing it didn’t make the baby stop and Jimin was getting tired and angry. He almost wanted to hit the doll against the wall to make it stop crying but then he would fail and probably receive a punch to the gut from Taehyung.
He looked through the bag that their teacher had given them and found some diapers.
“Oh crap,” Jimin muttered, “I guess I’m stuck with bathroom duty,” Jimin picked up the baby to stare at it, “It’s a good thing you’re cute.”
When Taehyung came back Jimin was fast asleep with their daughter in his hands. It looked so cute and it immediately brought a smile to his face. He slowly walked over to Jimin to wake the other up.
“Come on daddy. Time to wake up,” Taehyung grabbed the baby from Jimin’s hands and put her in a basket that his mom had given him to use as the baby’s crib.
“Did you just call me daddy?” Jimin opened an eye and stretched. He smiled as he saw Taehyung put their daughter into the basket.
“So I was thinking,” Taehyung sat down beside Jimin on the bed, “We should call her Taeji.”
Jimin laughed, “Wow that’s so creative. Just mash our names together.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Taehyung asked defensively.
“No babe. It’s cute. I like it,” Jimin yawned and fell back onto the bed, this time lifting the covers to crawl under them.
Taehyung lifted the covers and slipped under them as well, “When are you going home?”
“Not now. I’m tired.”
It wasn’t easy that was for sure. They had a baby to take care of and school to attend. Additionally they both had social lives. They had friends’ birthday parties and hangouts and clubs. Somehow they managed to find a schedule that worked. Jimin took care of her in the morning and Taehyung towards the end of the school day. After school they would trade off based on what day and who had anime or dance club. They would alternate who would take care of her on nights but most of the time they would wind up sleeping over at each other’s house. Long after Taeji fell asleep, the two would stay up late drinking hot chocolate, talking and catching up on each other’s lives.
“You still like dinosaurs?” Jimin laughed as Taehyung put a stuffed dinosaur into Taeji’s crib. They updated the basket to an actual baby crib. The two were afraid that they were both enjoying the parenting life a bit too much. They even spoiled their daughter by buying her clothes from actual baby stores.
“You don’t choose the dinosaur life, it chooses you,” Taehyung shrugged.
“You’re still so weird,” Jimin laughed. Taehyung stiffened slightly but relaxed because when he looked up Jimin was smiling at him.
“I missed this,” Taehyung put his hands behind his head. They were currently lying on his bed. Jimin turned on his side so he could see him.
“Hey will you marry me?” Jimin asked.
Taehyung coughed on his spit, “What?” They both turned to the crib. Taeji was still sleeping.
“Did you just propose to me?” Taehyung was about to get up but Jimin pushed him back down, “We already have a daughter. Let’s get married too?”
“Um hold on,” Taehyung rolled off his bed onto the ground. He was down there long enough for Jimin to think he might’ve fallen asleep. He was about to check on him when Taehyung’s head popped back up with two rings in his hands.
“Here put this on.”
Jimin grabbed one and examined it, “Are those dinosaurs?” The plastic ring was surrounded by dinosaur pictures, “How long were these even under your bed?”
Taehyung slipped his own on his ring finger, “Can you do any better?”
Jimin laughed and slipped it on, “I’m not complaining. Love means acceptance even if the one you love is…different.”
Taehyung laughed as Jimin gripped his arm and dragged him back onto the bed.
“I’m glad you’re my partner, Tae. I missed us.”
Taehyung stayed silent and then turned to Jimin, “Don’t leave again okay?”
Jimin laughed at Taehyung’s cheesiness but replied with an equally solemn tone, “You were the one who let go.”
They wound up acing the project. And more than that, they got closer again. To this day, they still regard that project as one of the most important times of their lives because it brought them together again. This time they were best friends who understood the differences they had but the married life taught them how to understand one another and appreciate those differences too. Even after the project was done, they still kept those colorful rings on. They told their friends that they were friendship rings. It was nothing to be ashamed of despite the plastic things being a children’s toy you would find in a quarter machine. They never took the rings off until their wedding day when they switched them for the real thing (but that’s for another future chapter).