Work Text:
"Surely you know what a kiss is?" she asked, aghast.
"I shall know when you give it to me," he replied stiffly...
- Peter and Wendy (1911), J. M. Barrie
🧚🏽♂️
“Ahh, Jiminie, I felt like I was in the clouds!”
Taehyung flies on his back with one arm crossed behind his head and the other dangling below him to let his fingers skim along the water. His seaswept blonde hair ruffles in the wind as he glides along the water with his eyes closed and his face pointed toward the midday sun. There’s no need to look at where he’s going; Taehyung knows the island better than anyone, even better than Jimin.
“You can sit in the clouds whenever you want,” Jimin mutters, just barely loud enough for Taehyung to hear him over the tinkling sound of Jimin’s wings fluttering through the briny sea air.
“This is true. But imagine feeling such a sensation with both feet planted firmly on the ground!”
Taehyung’s eyes snap open to stare at Jimin, who floats above him. His eyes are deep, seafoam green, and as calm as the ocean on the island's north side, far from the Jolly Roger’s dock and Mermaid Lagoon.
“I prefer to use my wings more often than my feet,” Jimin insists.
“Stupid faerie,” Taehyung grins with large, white teeth, “you wouldn’t understand. It was absolutely magical !”
With a sudden burst of energy, Taehyung kicks his feet and launches himself further into the sky. The force sprays water into the air, large droplets nearly knocking Jimin, who is in his tiny faerie form, out of the sky and into the ocean.
“I am not stupid!” Jimin screams after Taehyung, whose cackle is carried across the island by the wind. “And I am magical!”
“Not as magical as a kiss!”
Taehyung swoops through a low-lying cloud, causing it to burst apart and disintegrate into small whisps of white. Jimin watches him skip across the sky, hopping from cloud to cloud, laughter turning his wide mouth boxy. Joyfulness looks gorgeous on Taehyung, even at Jimin’s expense.
It hadn’t always been at Jimin’s expense – not until Wendy.
Stupid Wendy and her stupid kisses.
Jimin scowls and struggles to keep up with Taehyung as he careens through the sky toward the dense trees of Neverwood. He isn’t interested in returning to Home Underground, for he knows some, if not all, of the Lost Boys will be there. It has been days since Wendy left Neverland, and the Boys still beg Taehyung to retell the Kissing Story. Jimin is sick of it!
Tumbling into the brush on the forest floor, Jimin stands at his full height, no longer the tiny creature that fits in the palm of Taehyung’s hand. Jimin prefers his natural faerie form, but he has found himself transforming more than usual to be human-sized. Perhaps it’s because Taehyung has stopped letting Jimin sit on his shoulder or hide in his hair.
It’s that damn Wendy’s fault!
The only thing keeping Jimin’s anger at bay is the delicious fact that Wendy is gone, preferring to return to the human world rather than stay in Neverland. Jimin knew not to trust a girl . Of course, no one ever listens to him. He’s just a stupid faerie.
“You are so grumpy today!” Taehyung shouts before scooping Jimin up and tossing him over his shoulder. “Yoongi is rubbing off on you.”
“I am not! You’re being a jerk,” Jimin hisses as Taehyung carries him to one of the hollowed-out trees made to disguise a secret shoot that leads to the underground hideaway the Boys live in.
They shouldn’t be so loud; no one knows when a pirate might be creeping about. Even Jimin has let slip the Lost Boys’ secrets a handful of times out of anger that he always regrets later. He isn’t a malicious faerie, but Taehyung always says faeries are too small to have more than one emotion at a time. Whether or not it’s true, Jimin doesn’t know, but if it means that Taehyung will forgive him when he’s naughty, then Jimin is okay with that.
“You’re just jealous,” Taehyung grins and tosses Jimin down the shoot. He cackles when Jimin screams and jumps down the shoot to follow him.
“I hate when you do that,” Jimin groans from where he flops onto the floor, having been spit out by the shoot into the middle of the living room. When he looks up, big, wide eyes stare down at him.
“Hi Jiminie,” Jungkook gives him a soft smile and holds out a dish with a mini blueberry cake on it. “I made you some sweets.”
“Oh, thank you, Jungkookie. That’s so nice of– Hey!”
Quick and unapologetic, Taehyung snatches the pastry and pops it into his mouth. When Jimin gets up to charge after him, Taehyung presses his palm against Jimin’s forehead to hold him out of reach.
“Taehyung! I am so tired of you!” Jimin tries wrestling with Taehyung's arm, twisting at his wrist. His efforts only make Taehyung laugh, the sound just as pretty as the tinkling of Jimin’s faerie wings as they flutter in frustration behind him.
“It’s okay,” Jungkook insists, “I made more.”
Jungkook’s kindness is drowned out by the sudden hooping and hollering of the other Boys, who finally realize Taehyung is home. They come clambering out of other hidey holes in their home, falling out of patch-quilt hammocks, and popping up from holes in the walls. They all screech for the same thing, the Kissing Story. How many times must one story be retold?!
“Tell it again, Tae,” Hoseok demands with sparkling eyes, and the rest of the boys eagerly agree.
The Boys lounge on the floor in the middle of their home, where pillows and blankets create a giant nest for them to cuddle in. Yoongi is curled up in Hoseok’s lap, mouth open, as he waits impatiently for Hoseok to give him a crumb of blueberry cake. Seokjin is off in the kitchen cleaning up Jungkook’s baking mess. As usual, Namjoon is found in the rafters – the roots of the tree that map the ceiling – with a book in hand. It’s one Taehyung stole from one of his trips to the humans. Jimin doesn’t know how to read, but he would bet all the gold in the world that the book is about something stupid, like kisses.
The Boys gather around Taehyung, who perches atop a small, polished tree stump — the “talking chair,” as the Boys call it, denoting that Taehyung has the floor to speak.
Jimin stands to the side with his arms crossed and one shoulder against the wall. He hardly listens to the beginning of the story, the part where Taehyung talks about trapezing through the human world and getting into trouble. It’s his good looks and quick wit that lure humans to Neverland. Jimin is quite honestly tired of it. Humans don’t belong here; it’s bad enough the Boys and pirates exist. If it were up to Jimin, the island would be inhabited by faeries and merpeople.
“Her lips were soft,” Taehyung reminisces with a sigh felt throughout Home Underground. Some of the other Boys sigh, too, with envy or hope that one day they will experience the unique magic of a kiss.
Scowling, Jimin turns away with disgust, twisting his pretty face. Faeries don’t kiss. No one on the island kisses except merpeople and pirates. It’s a savage thing, something dirty and dangerous that only serves to woo people to bed or kill them, as is the case with a mermaid’s kiss. There is no reason to spawn new faeries; they grow from morning dew every time a human baby laughs for the first time. Faeries don’t kill people, either. And if they did, there is sufficient magic for that.
So, what need does a faerie have to kiss? There simply isn’t one.
Yet Jimin watches Taehyung out of the corner of his eye and feels panic in his chest. It’s too stuffy in Home Underground — the downside of being underground. It’s hot, and there's no air circulation to calm the rising storm shaking Jimin from the inside.
With a puff of golden, powdery pixie dust, Jimin transforms into his faerie form, tiny enough to fit in a person’s palm. He flies through the group of Boys, pinching Taehyung’s earlobe as he zooms by before disappearing up the shoot Taehyung had previously thrown him down.
“Jimin-ah!” Taehyung shouts as he tenderly rubs his ear. “Come back, you little pest!”
The thing is, Home Underground isn’t Jimin’s home. He isn’t a Lost Boy. He grew up here, in Neverland, like all the other faeries. Sure, Yoongi carved a tiny bed out of a tree branch for Jimin to sleep on when he visits Home Underground, placed on a rickety nightstand beside Taehyung’s bed, but it isn’t his real home.
Pixie Hollow is where Jimin belongs. As he flies home, glittery tears staining his pink cheeks, he is reminded of how much he truly doesn’t belong with the Lost Boys. It was silly of him to bother saving Taehyung that fateful day many years ago. He should have known better than to venture out into the seas to save a boy from a shark attack after being cast off a pirate ship — he should have known that Taehyung would bring him trouble.
Trouble and heartache.
Jimin is unfamiliar with the second concept, but it fills his tiny body with such unbelievable sadness that he can barely make it to his miniature tree home before he collapses in the doorway. The gold glow he usually emanates is muted, so much so that it’s almost entirely nonexistent.
It isn’t true that flying requires happy thoughts; pixie dust suffices. But the life inside Jimin flickers sometimes, and he doesn’t know why. Sometimes, he thinks it’s because of Taehyung. Even though Jimin is always by Taehyung’s side every step of the way, no matter the circumstances, Jimin fears that Taehyung forgets him.
And the worst thing that could happen to a faerie is that they are forgotten.
Amid his sorrow, Jimin doesn’t hear the piercing wind that shoots through the trees protecting Pixie Hollow. Only creatures capable of flight can access the forest unless they brave the dangerous waters surrounding the island. Jimin prefers the solitude of their forest. He likes having someplace to run away to.
Flipping over onto his back, Jimin stares up at the stars twinkling in the sky. The lower half of his body is through the door’s threshold; the other half is on the porch of his tree house. Perhaps he’ll lie here through the night, using the patch of moss beneath him as a pillow.
It sounds like a good idea until the stars disappear behind dark clouds and the air smells thick with moisture. Before Jimin has the chance to summon enough energy to get up, the sky unleashes a downpour of cool rain. Each drop for a human might be refreshing, but tiny Jimin feels like he’s drowning. He’s weighed down by his soaked clothing and misery, willing to give everything up. Maybe he’ll die here instead. He supposes it would be an excellent place to die, his home. He hopes the world knows it’s Taehyung’s fault.
“Oh, Jiminie, what are you doing?”
The rain stops, and Jimin’s vision goes dark. He wipes water and tears from his eyes and blinks.
Taehyung’s blonde hair frames his face as he stares down at Jimin, worry etched in the wrinkles of his forehead and the pout of his lips. It’s such a strange look on a boy made of light.
“I’m taking a nap,” Jimin croaks.
Taehyung frowns.
“You’re so cold.” Taehyung pokes Jimin’s shoulder, his finger large enough to crush him but gentle.
Jimin lets Taehyung scoop him up in his hands and sits upright rather than flop his body down like before. He feels like rolling off Taehyung’s palm and plummeting to his death! That would be much better than staring into Taehyung’s big green eyes.
“Please get big.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Please,” Taehyung juts his bottom lip even further. “I want to give you something, and I need you to be big.”
With a quiet sigh, Jimin does what he’d considered: he rolls off of Taehyung’s palm. Halfway before he reaches the ground, a puff of pixie dust clouds the small corridor the trees make along the path to Jimin’s house. Once human-sized, Jimin stands before Taehyung with his hands on his hips. He wants to look menacing, despite his sadness. He wouldn’t look it regardless, but he does his best.
“What do you want?” Jimin tries to snap, but apparently, heartache changes everything.
Whatever this look is on Taehyung’s face, Jimin doesn’t like it. It isn’t mischievous or sad, but it reminds Jimin of those two things, and he doesn’t understand how both can be true at once. It doesn’t help that the rain still pelts them, plastering their blonde hair against their heads and making their vision blurry. Taehyung must be at least a little bit sad for some reason. He controls the weather.
“You stupid faerie,” Taehyung says softly, barely heard above the steady stream of rain, “you never ask enough questions.”
Narrowing his eyes, Jimin is about to ask what such an accusation means when Taehyung takes the side of Jimin’s face in one hand. He brushes his thumb along Jimin’s cheek, likely noticing the glittery remnants of his tears. Then he leans slowly but without hesitation to slot his lips with Jimin’s.
Faeries don’t kiss, so Jimin has no idea what to do. At first, he holds his breath and stands still, arms locked at his sides. Unfortunately, faeries aren’t merpeople, so Jimin must breathe. He gasps when he jerks back, and Taehyung laughs.
“Ever since I learned to kiss, I have wanted to teach you, too,” Taehyung’s confession is cheeky, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he ducks his head and looks at Jimin through his eyelashes. So coy and deceiving.
The look sparks heat in the pit of Jimin’s stomach, shooting in every direction until his limbs are tingling just as badly as his lips.
“Try to breathe next time,” Taehyung taps his index finger against Jimin’s parted lips, “and move like I do.”
Jimin grabs the front of Taehyung's tunic when Taehyung leans in for another kiss, this one moving faster than the first. Taehyung's other hand wraps around Jimin's waist, pulling him until their bodies are pressed together, from their lips to their feet sinking in rain puddles as they sway. Taehyung is warm and firm, and when Jimin cracks his eyes open to take a peek at the gentle look on Taehyung's face as he kisses him, he sees his own golden glow reflect on Taehyung's pretty tan skin.
The slide of their lips together is smooth and wet with rain. Jimin follows each whispered instruction Taehyung gives him in between breaths, desperately wanting to perform well. Other feelings drive him, such as desire and the need for affection, too many emotions for a tiny faerie to carry. He can only focus on one, and his body naturally chooses a loophole — a way to encapsulate all the feelings he wants to feel at once.
“I love you,” Jimin admits, his eyes squeezed shut, and Taehyung’s lips pressed against his jaw. He had never considered the possibility for kisses to be given elsewhere.
Taehyung laughs, and Jimin’s love is almost overpowered by flaming embarrassment.
“I don’t know what love is,” Taehyung pulls back and pinches Jimin’s earlobe. It’s delayed retaliation, and it makes Jimin open his eyes.
“It’s okay,” Jimin says softly. The rain has stopped. “I don’t know what it is either.”
There’s still mischief in Taehyung’s eyes, but his look is soft rather than dangerous. Jimin has grown to adapt to Taehyung’s unpredictability, but this look catches him off guard.
“Shall we find out together?” Taehyung asks, lips reddened and still wet.
“That sounds like it would be an awfully big adventure.”
Taehyung’s grin is boxy and wide. He throws his head back and hollers, not unlike a wolf singing to the moon or hyenas laughing at prey. In the same breath, he snatches Jimin by the wrists and kicks off the ground, hurling Jimin high into the air with a screech.
“Taehyung!”
Jimin’s love drains as flustered embarrassment fills him when Taehyung catches him in the air, only to toss him onto a fluffy rain cloud that soaks Jimin even further and shout, “I told you, Jimin-ah, kisses feel like being in the clouds!”