I Was Forced To Share A Suite With My Bandmate, And He Finally Made His Move

The announcement from Sejin, their tour manager, landed in the exhausted quiet of the van like a dropped stone. “There’s been a mix-up with the booking at the hotel. We’re one suite short. Taehyung, Jungkook—you’ll be sharing.”

A beat of silence. It was thick and heavy, charged with the post-concert adrenaline that was just beginning to curdle into fatigue. Jungkook didn’t look at Taehyung. He kept his gaze fixed on the blur of LA streetlights passing outside the window, his profile sharp and unyielding. Beside him, Taehyung shifted, the movement small but audible in the tense quiet. He gave a noncommittal hum of assent, a sound so devoid of his usual warmth that it was almost unrecognizable.

The suite was offensively large, a sprawling space of cool marble, plush white carpets, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a glittering panorama of the city. It felt like a stage set for an intimacy that no longer existed between them. Without a word, they chose opposite sides of the cavernous main bedroom. The silence stretched, taut and unnatural, broken only by the quiet zip of suitcases and the soft rustle of clothes being unpacked.

Jungkook moved with a stiff, methodical precision. He laid out his toiletries on his side of the vast double vanity, arranging them in a perfect, straight line. He set up his laptop on the sleek modern desk, plugging in the charger and external hard drive with efficient clicks that seemed to echo in the stillness. It was a defense, a wall of routine built brick by silent brick. He was Jeon Jungkook, the Golden Maknae, the perfectionist. He had work to do, footage to review. He didn't have time for whatever this awkward, painful silence was.

Taehyung, in contrast, seemed to drift through his side of the room. He dropped his duffel bag onto a velvet armchair, not bothering to unpack it fully. He pulled out a worn black hoodie and his camera, his movements languid and disconnected. He glanced once toward Jungkook’s rigid back, his expression unreadable for a fleeting moment before his own mask of indifference settled back into place. He slid open the heavy glass door to the balcony, the rush of cool night air and distant city sounds flooding the room for a second before he stepped outside, closing it behind him.

The glass created a near-perfect reflection. Jungkook could see him out of the corner of his eye, a ghostly image superimposed over the lines of code on his screen. Taehyung lifted his camera, his body a dark silhouette against the electric glow of Los Angeles. He was framing a shot, losing himself in his art. Inside, Jungkook pressed his headphones over his ears, turning up the volume until the sound of their own performance filled his head, successfully blocking out the man on the balcony and the suffocating quiet that now separated them.

An hour later, they were seated in a private room at a nearby restaurant, the rest of the members filling the space with tired but cheerful chatter. Jungkook had made a point to sit between Hoseok and Jimin, leaving a seat pointedly empty between himself and Taehyung, which Yoongi eventually filled. The arrangement felt deliberate and sharp.

Across the table, Taehyung was a black hole of energy. He picked at his food, pushing a piece of grilled beef around his plate with his chopsticks, his gaze distant. When Namjoon tried to ask him about his photography, his answers were monosyllabic and vague, his voice lacking its usual deep resonance. He was a ghost at the table, present in body only.

The sight of it—this hollowed-out version of his best friend—made something tight and hot coil in Jungkook’s stomach. It was a familiar, unwelcome feeling: the sting of being shut out. He couldn't stand the heavy silence radiating from Taehyung’s side of the table, nor the concerned glances the others kept shooting between them. He needed to fill the space with noise.

“Jimin-hyung,” Jungkook announced, his voice a little too loud. He pulled out his phone. “I bet you still can’t beat my score in that racing game.”

Jimin, ever perceptive, looked from Jungkook’s forced smile to Taehyung’s withdrawn figure. He hesitated for a second before plastering on a grin. “Yah, you think you’re so good. Hand it over.”

Jungkook leaned into Jimin, their shoulders pressing together as he started the game. He became animated, shouting playfully when Jimin nearly crashed, his laughter sharp and brittle. It was a performance. He was performing for the table, for the other members, trying to project an image of someone who was fine, who wasn't bothered by the chasm that had opened up between him and the man across from him. But with every glance he stole, he saw Taehyung sinking further into himself, his shoulders slumped, his face pale under the restaurant’s soft lighting.

The charade couldn’t last. Abruptly, Taehyung pushed his chair back, the sound scraping loudly in a lull in the conversation. Everyone looked at him.

“I’m going to head back,” he said, his voice flat. He didn’t look at anyone in particular, but his eyes definitely avoided Jungkook’s. “Just really tired.”

“You’ve barely eaten,” Seokjin said, his brow furrowed with concern.

“Not hungry,” Taehyung replied, already turning away. “See you back at the hotel.”

And then he was gone. The door swung shut behind him, leaving a silence that was heavier than before. Jungkook stared at the empty space where Taehyung had been, the knot in his stomach twisting into something sharp and painful. It felt like a public dismissal, a confirmation that whatever was broken between them, Taehyung had no interest in fixing it. He felt the eyes of his hyungs on him, full of pity and worry, and it was suffocating. Jungkook’s jaw tightened. He turned back to Jimin, shoving his phone back into his hand. “Your turn,” he said, his voice strained. The game felt stupid now, the manufactured fun having evaporated with Taehyung’s exit, leaving only the raw, bitter feeling of being left behind.

The walk back to the hotel was a blur of muted city noise and the roaring in Jungkook’s own ears. He let himself into the suite, the heavy door clicking shut behind him with a sound of finality. The room was dark, save for the cool, blue-white light of the city filtering through the massive windows. Taehyung was standing in the middle of the room, his back to the door, staring out at the view. He hadn't even turned on a lamp. He was just a shape in the gloom, as still and silent as a statue.

The quiet was a physical presence. It pressed in on Jungkook, thick and suffocating, amplifying the frantic beat of his own heart. He stood there for a long moment, his keys digging into his palm, waiting for Taehyung to turn, to say something, to acknowledge his existence. Nothing. The silence stretched, pulling tighter and tighter until Jungkook felt like he would snap.

“Hyung.”

His voice sounded foreign in the stillness, rough and strained.

Taehyung didn’t move. “I told you I was tired,” he said, his voice low and directed at the window. It wasn’t an explanation. It was a wall.

“This isn’t about being tired,” Jungkook said, taking a step into the room. The plush carpet swallowed the sound. “You’ve been like this for weeks. Months, even. You barely look at me. You avoid being alone with me. Now we’re forced into the same room and you act like I’m not even here. What is it? What did I do?” The questions tumbled out, stripped of anger, leaving only a raw, desperate frustration.

Finally, Taehyung turned. His face was all shadows, his expression impossible to read in the dim light. “You didn’t do anything, Jungkook.”

“Then what is it?” Jungkook insisted, his voice rising slightly. “Why are you pushing me away?”

Taehyung ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of exasperation that sent a sharp pang through Jungkook’s chest. “I’m not. I just… I have things on my mind. My art, the photos… I need space. That’s all.”

The words were meant to be placating, but they landed like stones. Space. It was a clinical, dismissive word. It was a confirmation of every fear Jungkook had been nursing for months—that Taehyung’s new world of art and introspection had no room for him. That he had been replaced by a camera lens and a sketchbook.

“Space from me, you mean,” Jungkook said, his voice flat, all the fight gone out of it, replaced by a hollow ache.

Taehyung didn’t answer. He just looked at him, his mouth a tight line, his eyes dark and unreadable. The silence that fell between them now was different. It wasn’t just tense; it was wounded. They had reached an impasse, a cliff edge with no bridge in sight. The argument was over before it had even truly begun, leaving nothing resolved, only more unspoken hurt hanging in the air between them.

Jungkook turned away first, the rejection a cold weight in his gut. He walked to his side of the bed, pulling back the pristine white comforter with mechanical movements. He stripped down to his boxers and a t-shirt, deliberately keeping his back to Taehyung. He could feel Taehyung’s gaze on him, but he didn’t look back. He slid into the cold sheets, the vast, empty space of the king-sized bed feeling like a cruel joke. A few moments later, he heard the soft rustle of clothes as Taehyung did the same on the other side of the room. The lights remained off. They lay there in the shared darkness, separated by a few feet of mattress and a canyon of misunderstanding, the stark reality of the long night ahead settling over them like a shroud.