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Jungkook rolled over in his bed and groaned.  The light of a gentle morning sun was pushing its way into his consciousness.  He should go jogging.  But he didn’t want to.  

He wanted to eat too much and laze around.  Shoving food into his mouth before his brothers could eat it all.  He wanted to sit in a dark corner of his room and nosh on bags of chips and plates of kimchi rice.  And just enjoy living.  Without six guys telling him how to do it. Or a hundred million fans either.

He just wanted to be true to himself.  But the question was: who was he?  

He wasn’t sure he knew the answer to that question.  ARMY moms would have said that he was the sweet youngest of the group.  The thoughtful one.  The servant of all.  The boy with the infectious grin and the adorable laugh.  The sensitive one who cried when he wrote love letters to his fans.

The members of the band would have said he was the twerpy youngest who could lift any of them without a moment’s notice and carry them a mile.  Who sometimes used his superior strength to wreak vengeance on them for all the agony they’d caused him.  They would name him the one who often determined to make them all laugh.  They would also say he was the one who worked the hardest and drove himself to the point of sickness and near blackouts when his passion was involved.  They might have stated he was the one least likely to communicate with the others and most likely to ignore their text messages.  They would have declared he was the most talented.  Good at everything.  The Golden Maknae.  That last they would have expressed with an air of awe.  They were clearly very proud of their little “brother.”

Yet none of them clearly discerned the immense pressure such statements put him under.  Because he bore it all with such amazing grace that no one – not even Tae – knew his heart.  Or the extent of his inner struggles.

When other adolescents had been testing their boundaries to determine their identities, Jungkook had been working hard to adapt to the expectations of the company he had hoped would choose to make him a star.  When his friends had been navigating the stormy waters of parental conflict, Jungkook had been weeping into his pillow because he missed his family so much.  He had laid down all the creature comforts that teenagers usually cling to and deprived himself of food, fun, and sleep to become a model idol.  He was still making sacrifices.  Though most of them weren’t quite so dramatic anymore.

But his choices had molded him into a very different sort of creature from his peers.  In many ways, he had grown up overnight while his old friends had taken years to achieve the same maturity.  Some of them still weren’t there.  But in other respects, he was still a child.  Looking for answers that weren’t always easy to find.  

But he hid most of his struggles from the older boys.  He didn’t want to distress them.  Their discomfort worsened his own.  He could bare anything as long as it wasn’t hurting them.

Sometimes his desires were simple.  He wanted to eat without restraint.  To put down the weights for a while.  And pick up his gaming controller.  Thereby zoning out in a make-believe world.  Where he could outsmart them all.  And experience all the adventure his passionate heart craved.

But other times he just wanted to go home to his parents’ house and crawl into a bed whose scent he’d nearly forgotten.  He yearned to enter his mother’s kitchen.  Nothing could make him forget its aroma.  He longed for his adoring eomma, and his loving appa, and his big brother.  No one knew how his heart had broken the first few years he’d done without them.  Or how his heart still broke.  Wondering what he had missed pursuing fame.  

Had the sacrifices been worth it?  He wasn’t always sure they had been.  Some days he despised his life.  But he would never have admitted it.  For he loved the six older men who had adopted him as their little brother.  And he loved the fans around the world who poured their love on him.

But they were not the only ones interested in him.  As much as his ARMYs adored him and wanted to see him happy, there were others – counterfeit ARMYs – who sought his destruction.  For someone with his sensitive heart, this fact was hard to swallow.  It was an agonizing truth on certain days.  Days when he wished he’d remained anonymous.  Never rising to the heights of super stardom.  Stuck in his old life.  Just a regular kid.  

But most of the time, he was grateful for the life he had chosen.  Thankful for his six older brothers and his millions of adoring fans.  But on days like today, he just wanted to enjoy his life.  Separate from other people’s expectations.  And their input.

Belatedly, he remembered that today was his twenty-fourth birthday.  He buried his head in his pillow.  What surprises would this day hold?  Which route would his brothers decide to take?  Would they bless him?  Or seek to embarrass him?

He was used to it.  The six of them ganging up on him.  They were the reason he’d started lifting weights in the first place.  It had been purely self-preservation.  Not to mention how much fun it had been to see them finally quaking in their boots when they provoked him.  He grinned to himself.  He was well able to defend himself against them now.  Still, he was hoping for lavish love today instead of the eager dishing out of embarrassment.

He rolled out of bed and stood up.  He grinned down at his knit pants.  They were two sizes too big.  Just the way he liked them.  He zipped his hoodie up and pulled its hood up over his head.  Jungkook preferred to hide from the world.  An odd thing came over him when he climbed on a stage of any sort.  He was given a gift to perform, but in his own environment, he would rather not be the center of attention.  It was a strange dichotomy that not even he could explain.  He shrugged his shoulders and headed for his door.  He was ravenous.  Time to whip up some birthday breakfast.

He grabbed the knob and pulled the door open, prepared to amble out into the hallway.  But he stopped short on the threshold as his gaze fell to the floor.  And to the brightly wrapped package that was sitting in front of his doorway.  Shiny burgundy wrapping paper covered a cube.  After bending to pick it up, he acknowledged that its sides were smaller than his hands. 

He furrowed his brow as he studied it.  He wondered who had left it here for him to find.  He was tempted to open it immediately, but he was very hungry, so he carried it with him to the kitchen.  He set it on the island counter and headed for the fridge.  He bent to investigate the freezer.  He was hoping for a package of ready-made hotteok.  The kind he could pop in the oven and bake for fifteen minutes.  The only question was whether one of the other guys had devoured the last package.

“Yes!” Jungkook began to do a happy dance as he liberated a package of hotteok from the freezer.  He had actually unearthed two boxes of the sweet pancakes.

He twirled across the kitchen and turned on the oven.  He decided to bake both boxes of hotteok.  He was sure his brothers would all want to eat one once they smelled his baking.  He grinned.  There were four cakes per package.  So he could still eat two and give everyone else one.  He grimaced.  Hopefully, they wouldn’t give him a hard time for being hungry. 

While the oven warmed, he stuck his head in the fridge as he looked for something he could eat now.  He found some eggs and bacon, so he grabbed a frying pan and approached the stove.  He began to fry the bacon while he waited for the oven to heat up.  The bacon was almost browned by the time he slid the cookie sheet full of hotteok into the oven.  He set a timer before frying himself a couple of eggs.  He devoured them with the bacon.  By the time he was done eating them, the hotteok was begging to be rescued from the oven.

Jungkook set them on the stove and grabbed two, but he dropped them on his plate a moment later.  They were so hot!  He decided he was going to eat one before he called anyone else to breakfast.  Gingerly, he nibbled the edges in an effort to save the roof of his mouth from burning to the ground.  Five minutes later, he had successfully demolished the hotteok one bite at a time without peeling off the top layer of his skin. 

He left the kitchen to call the other boys to breakfast.  Five minutes later, they all appeared, one by one, in the kitchen. 

Namjoon was first.  His dark blond hair was sticking out in all directions.  And he was yawning.

“Hey, Kook.  Did you make hotteok?”

“Mm-hmm,” Jungkook responded around a mouthful of hotteok.  He grabbed another and handed it to Namjoon.

He grinned, revealing his dimples.  “Thanks.  It’s your birthday, and you’re cooking us breakfast?”  He nodded. “Sounds about right.”

Jungkook happily chomped on his hotteok.

“Happy Birthday, Kook,” Namjoon muttered before taking a careful bite of his pancake.

“Hey!  Is that hotteok I smell?” Hobi asked as he came rushing into the kitchen.  “Am I in time for one?”

Jungkook nodded and snagged another from the pan.  He turned to place it in Hobi’s hand.

“Thanks, Jungkookie.”  His eyes widened.  “Hey!  Happy Birthday!”

Jungkook smiled.  And took another bite of his hotteok.

“Ay, Jungkookie, did you save me any?” Tae asked as he suddenly appeared in the kitchen.  He strode across the room and glanced down at the cookie sheet.  After a moment, he squinted at Jungkook.  “You ate two, didn’t you?”

Jungkook quirked a dark eyebrow as he took another bite of his delicious hotteok.

Tae lifted a mirroring eyebrow as he faced his friend.  “You did.  There are four in a box.  If you made two boxes,” he glanced at the evidence on the counter, “then you baked eight.  Hobi and Namjoon each have one.  There are four left on the pan.  You have part of one in your hand.  So the other must already be in your stomach.”

Jungkook grinned widely at Tae.  Revealing his chubby white teeth in all their joyful glory this morning.  Right before they bit into his hotteok again.

“I would suppose that is one happy stomach Jungkookie has then,” Hobi murmured as he munched on his own pancake.

“Well, I suppose since it’s your birthday, you’re entitled to the extra one,” Tae declared as he dropped a heavy hand on Jungkook’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze before snagging his own hotteok off the pan. 

He was taking his first bite of it when Jimin entered the room a moment later.

“Hotteok?!” His eyes grew wide as they flew from one man to another until he had glanced at all four of them.  Then after his eyes spied the cookie sheet, he flew across the room to grab his own.  “Jungkook-shi, you made us hotteok?  That’s why you’re my favorite,” he smiled widely before taking a bite of the sweet concoction.

“Hey!  I thought I was your favorite.  We go way back, Jiminie,” Tae scolded him.

Jimin glanced from one to the other.  Jungkook pursed his lips and disturbed a rare dimple in his cheek.  He turned back towards the pan and moved the last two hotteok each to their own plate.  When he turned around, Yoongi was following fast on Jin’s heels as they both entered the kitchen.  Jungkook handed them each a plate.

Jin glanced down at it.  “I was going to make you breakfast, Jungkook!”

Jungkook just shrugged.

Yoongi reached out to accept the sweet bounty.  He flashed Jungkook a sweet smile.  “Thanks, Little Prince.” 

Jungkook’s face lit up with a tender smile.

Then Yoongi set his hotteok down on the island and walked towards the fridge.  A few moments later, he handed Jungkook some milk he had prepared for him.

Again, Jungkook smiled at him.  Then he drank the milk.  Gratefully.

The guys all kidded around as they downed their hotteok.  Jungkook began collecting everyone’s dirty dishes.

“Hey!” Hobi shouted.  “It’s your birthday, kid!  You shouldn’t be doing the dishes.  Let me get those.”  He grabbed the pile from Jungkook’s hands and headed for the sink.

Jungkook blinked before grabbing a cloth to wipe down the counter.  “Nope.  You don’t get to do that either, little one,” Yoongi murmured as he removed the damp cloth from his hand.  “I’ll take care of it.”

Jungkook furrowed his brow for a moment. 

“Jungkookie, wanna play a video game?” Tae queried.

Jungkook’s face lit up.  Grinning widely now, he followed Tae into the other room.

An hour later, Jungkook remembered the present.  But before going to retrieve it, he concentrated on beating Tae.  Once this was accomplished, he headed back to the kitchen to retrieve his gift.  Only, that was easier said than done.  When he stepped into the kitchen, he discovered that someone had completely cleaned off the island.  The gift was nowhere in sight.  He frowned.  Where could it be?

He thoroughly searched the kitchen.  But he found no red box.  Then he wandered into the living room.  Still, he found no gift.  He sighed.  What on earth had happened to it?