Chapter Text
The sun had turned shy and barely showed its face. The birds' songs had started to fade, and the cold was seeping in. Anyone would want to stay inside and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate. Or some strong coffee.
"No, but we have to go outside," Mark insisted. Jeongguk seriously doubted that the kids absolutely had to do anything.
"It's too cold. Your mother wouldn't like it at all," Jeongguk tried to explain. The kids had been sick-free for half a year. It was a record. Jeongguk thought it would suck if one of them turned sick again. One sick equalled to three sick brats within two days. "Can't we do something fun inside?"
"No! No, no. Come on, Jeongguk! We have to go out!" Yeri insisted while kicking a ball under the dining table and ready to throw a tantrum at any moment.
Jeongguk couldn't let them boss him like this. He had to draw a line and say stop. He had to take charge. He was the adult one, after all.
"Please?" Somi pleaded with the softest voice, while she blinked her huge eyes and looked at Jeongguk like a kicked puppy.
"Sure, dear," Jeongguk said without thinking. After that, he suddenly found himself locking the door, while the kids chanted pleas to the lift to come quickly.
Jeongguk watched the kids run back and forth, using him as a goal-post they had to slap on the arm or the back or wherever their self-made rules demanded they had to slap, while he tried to keep his warmth by exposing as little skin to the icy cold wind as possible.
He'd been the siblings' babysitter for three years, and he'd watched the annoying, but easy brats grow and turn into exhausting, but adorable kids. He picked them up from school and made sure they didn't starve while he nagged about their homework. He would watch kids' TV with them while they cuddled and told him everything they had in mind in between the TV watching. He would tuck them in bed and stay there to study for whatever lesson he had for the next day in case they woke up to check if he'd abounded them before their mother had returned.
They squealed and laughed when Jeongguk cooperated and joined the game for a couple of minutes, before he decided that the cold was too much and sat down by some withered flowers. He loved to watch them play and see them happy. He hated to admit how much he loved them, and he would never let a stranger take care of them, whatever situation he was stuck in. Exam time? The kids would shut it and watch TV. He had to go home for the holidays? He'd take them with him unless the mother took a break from work. Jeongguk had somehow ended up embracing the kids into his life, when it all was supposed to be a simple daytime work, babysitting the neighbour kids after lectures. The worst part was that he couldn't have it any other way.
A van rounded the neighbourhood when the kids had started to throw sand at each other, the hysterical laughter a sad reminder for Jeongguk that the kids never would like to return inside for the time being. He watched a handful of men empty the van for furniture and bring them into their apartment complex entrance.
He wondered if the empty apartment next to Jeongguk finally would be lived in. The old lady who'd lived there had forced Jeongguk to water her boring plants in her balcony, and she'd often insisted that Jeongguk and the kids ate sweets every time they passed her on their ways. Jeongguk had been sad when she had been moved to the nursing home, and even sadder when he watered her plants without her nagging or passed her door without her jumping out from behind of it and go crazy about how thin and lightly clad Jeongguk was.
A familiar force knocked into him and pulled Jeongguk out of his thoughts. Jeongguk enveloped the considerably smaller body with both arms in reflex, but didn't look away from the van. There was no cardboard boxes or anything that indicated that the new folks owned anything but stuff like a bed, a bookshelf and a closet. Jeongguk thought back to his own moving day, where the number of cardboard boxes had exceeded the amount of furniture, and Jeongguk had literally waded in boxes for months before he’d managed to unpack everything.
"Jeongguk! Jeongguk! Look at the big car! What is it doing here?" Somi asked around his neck. Jeongguk tore his eyes from the van and looked at her. Her full attention was on the van, as was the rest of theirs too, and the curiosity and wonder shone from their eyes.
"Can't we go watch?" Mark asked before Jeongguk got the chance to answer.
"Let's go help!" Yeri suggested, and they all looked at him with anticipation. Jeongguk should be used to the kids' persuading skills by now. Three years. They would always beg, bat their eyelashes and be adorable. They knew how to be irresistible. Still, Jeongguk fell under their spell every damn time.
He tried to explain that the guys probably were helping someone to move into a new apartment. Why? Because they needed to arrange their home. Why? That's just how the world worked.
Those answers were not good enough.
"Can we help?" Mark asked, following the men back and forth between the van and the entrance door.
"Can I get a ride?" Yeri asked, looking more than ready to drive the huge four-wheeler herself.
Somi, on the other hand, had decided to cling to Jeongguk's neck, her usual shyness kicked in. Jeongguk tried to excuse the kids' almost rude and annoying curiosity by giving half-hearted warnings and messages that they shouldn't trouble the men.
Luckily, the men looked more amused than annoyed, and they smiled and chuckled at them instead of disappointing them with rejection. Jeongguk smiled sheepishly, but thankfully at the men. He never knew how to restrict the kids in front of others. They had him twirled around their little finger.
"The dude's lucky to have these as neighbours," one of them chuckled when Mark decided to jump into the van and try help with the emptying.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Mark! You cannot jump into cars like that! What if they kidnap you, for God's sake," Jeongguk yelled before he looked at the man when he realised that he probably had insulted the working men. "No offence."
"No, no!" The guy laughed and helped Mark jump off the van. This, with the addition to Mark's happy squeals of laughter, looked utterly funny to the rest, so they all decided to climb into the van in hope to be able to jump down like him. "You're absolutely right. They shouldn't jump into cars like that."
Jeongguk sighed, apologised to the men for the kids' lack of shyness and helped the kids jump a couple of times, before everything had been emptied. "Lively bunch you've got there, eh?" Another one chuckled, as he watched the kids try to persuade one of the men to let them drive. Just once.
"Yeah..." Jeongguk sighed and couldn’t help but grin a little proudly. “They’re something.”
The kids were fighting in the bathroom when he left them for the day. Irene, as their mother, could sort out which of their hunger or their hygiene was more important to be taken care of first. Jeongguk needed a quick rest before he had to read through his notes for his lectures the next day. Morning classes were a bitch, but being prepared and a cup of hot coffee would make it bearable enough.
Taking the lift up one floor instead of the stairs was lazy done of him. The flight of stairs wasn’t that big of a deal either. But the lift had been just there, still open from their arrival mere minutes ago, and the soreness in his limbs had practically begged him to show mercy.
To look at his reflection in the mirror was a must, of course, as he combed his fingers through the strands in muscle memory to make sure it wouldn't fall out place and stay as it had been for the whole day. He tipped his head and pulled an expression he knew would receive more than enough likes as a selfie on social media, before he walked out of the lift when it opened its doors.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket halfway to his apartment door, and was about to whistle a cheery tune when he noticed. The door to his new neighbour was wide open. He halted in his steps, and looked back and forth in the hallway. There was no one.
"Hello?" he tried to call carefully, still looking back and forth. It had been a good hour since the moving people had left. "Anyone here?"
He had a strong urge to knock, or maybe even ring the doorbell, as he peeked a look inside. A sofa and a bookshelf had replaced all the things the old lady had furnished her home with. A lonely looking cardboard box stood by the foot of the kitchen counter, the space clean and cleared otherwise. Everything was oddly white, compared to the warm coffee brown colour they had been before this new resident had decided to move in, and it was easier to see that the room was identical to his own apartment, just mirrored, without all the stuff the old lady had stuffed her apartment with. Jeongguk's own walls were white, and it looked more like his when it looked more spacious, but the change was weird. Jeongguk tried to look a bit more, standing on the tis of his toes to see if his eyes could reach the balcony. Were the plants still there? Would he still need to water them?
Jeongguk couldn't see them. He sighed. Looking back and forth one last time, he guessed that whoever it was probably left it open to grab something quickly from wherever - maybe their car? - for then returning. Jeongguk decided to leave it be and opened his own apartment with the keys he had in hand.
Putting the keys on the kitchen counter to his right, he went straight to the balcony. He opened the door and leaned out and looked to his right. The plants were still there.
"Huh," he said out loud to himself, before he closed the balcony door. He walked out to his room and wrung the jumper off him. He was turning the water on for a shower when he realised it wouldn't be that bad to continue watering those plants anyway.
♢
The walk from his spot in the garage to the lift was short, much shorter than Taehyung had in mind, but he wasn't going to complain. The subdued light was comfortable, and the lift didn't make any annoying sounds to announce its arrival.
The top half of the lift walls were covered with mirrors, while the rest of the surface was walls painted matt dark red. The floor and ceiling were dark wooded. The buttons for each floor were lined up in a chronological horizontal order, and Taehyung felt peace when he pressed the silvery round button for the fourteenth floor; The top floor.
The lift didn't play any music, and it didn't announce what floor the doors opened at; a simple black and white screen above the doors displayed the floor number. When the lift finally reached its destination, the metallic doors slid open and revealed that the floor was of the same colours as the lift: Dark brown parquet floors and the same matt red painted walls. Taehyung didn't think twice about the colours of the walls when he exited the lift to the sound of the doors sliding shut. 'Take left, then the first door to your right when you've rounded the corner'.
Just as promised, the said door opened with ease when he turned the key. The apartment bathed in the soft grey light that streamed in through the uncovered windows that took major parts of the wall opposite to the entrance door. Taehyung knew that when the skies cleared, the sun would shine brightly and unhindered through the windows, which was such a satisfying discover that he headed to the door he assumed lead to the bedroom to check if all his expectations had been met for once.
Just as he'd hoped, the one and only window inside was wide and placed in the same wall as the ones in the living room, and the happy feeling was so overwhelming that he pulled out his phone from his back pocket and texted a 'Thanks.' to one of the handful of contact numbers on the phone, and threw the device on the bed before he decided to celebrate with a shower.
Stripping out of his clothes was easy enough, as pulling the supposed to be tight jeans on and off had become an effortless task as he'd lost weight since last time he'd bought new clothes. But he took his sweet time, slow but calculated movements as he always did in whatever situation, which he’d recently found out apparently made everyone around him mad with impatience. His t-shirts were always a size or two too big for his frame, so the fact that he had to regain his weight vanished as he relished in the comforting feeling of being blanketed by his t-shirt, taking a deep breath and sighing it out while his fingers did not wish to let go of the fabric, before he pulled that one off too.
Standing in nothing but his boxers, glasses and caps, he realised that the cardboard box with his sad excuse of belongings were nowhere to be seen inside of his bedroom, so he entered the living room again to see if he'd missed something when he'd been too focused on the windows.
As he'd suspected, he'd missed something. A lot, in fact. Standing by the door, he saw that the huge window to his right also had a door, which lead to a balcony. An open balcony with more than enough space for a single person to smoke and enjoy a moment in the sun. The wall, white as cream, in front of him was naked, but an open kitchen with light wooded cupboards and shelves covered the left half of it. The kitchen was too open, he noted absentmindedly before his eyes continued to scan the room. To his left, he saw the entrance door still being wide open.
Taehyung hummed before he started to walk up to the door to close it. That was when he noticed the lonely cardboard box on the floor by the end of the kitchen counter. He headed for the box instead of the open door, picked it up with both arms to handle the size and weight of it without dropping it on the floor and placed it on the counter before he pulled out his stuff one by one in search for one of his old ragged towels. A grey t-shirt, two black ones, a book, his navy-blue raincoat, another book and there! His old towel. He slung it on his bare shoulder before he headed to the door, closed it, and turned back at his new home.
Home. The word made him take another look. His couch for two was placed in the middle of the living room, about between the kitchen counter and balcony, facing the naked wall. A bookshelf filled with books in different colours and sizes was standing along the wall right behind it, between the bedroom door and the balcony. The kitchen counter was a mess with all the stuff he'd pulled out of the cardboard box.
Sighing, he headed for the last door, the door identical to the bedroom door, which he had yet to discover in his new home. When he turned the doorknob, a bathtub welcomed him in. Ah, yes. A bath. That was exactly what he needed, he decided and walked over to prop the drain and fiddled with the tap until hot water streamed through.
As he waited for the water to fill up, he walked back to his bedroom and picked up his phone. He wasn't surprised to see that he'd received a few texts.
From Kim Namjoon [6:01 PM]
u liked it? that's good.. :)
From Kim Namjoon [6:04 PM]
yoongi's still not sure if ur gonna like the laundry situation.. u sure u don't want a maid or a cleaning service of some sorts
From Kim Namjoon [6:04 PM]
?
From Kim Namjoon [6:05 PM]
the outdoor is the best tho.. ur gonna love it <3
From Kim Namjoon [6:05 PM]
that I am sure of :) <3
From Kim Namjoon [6:08 PM]
remember to always bring ur key when u leave.. the front doors got automatic locks.. remarkable that ok?
From Kim Namjoon [6:08 PM]
remember not remarkable
From Kim Namjoon [6:08 PM]
and please for the love of god tae.. remember to shut the door and not leave it wide open.. the last thing we want is for that kid to find u and snuck in or smth
From Kim Namjoon [6:12 PM]
oh and the neighbours are known to be friendly.. not that they'll bother u when ur locked up in ur apartment but still.. remember to smile once in a while :) :)
Taehyung really couldn't stand texting. It was stupid, and his thumbs always tapped on the wrong letters and messed up the text with unnecessary many typos. Typos he'd use a huge amount of time correcting. And others' texts always made him cringe, with all the abbreviations and lengths of them.
To Kim Namjoon [6:26 PM]
No maid. I'll figure it out, no worries. Where is the grocery store?
He read through the blocks of text once again before he added 'I also need more household stuff.' when he was sure he didn't have any replies to the other things Namjoon had texted him.
He guessed that the one frying pan, the average sized casserole and the few cutleries he owned were placed in one of the cupboards in the kitchen, he'd have to rearrange those later, and that his slide projector hopefully was in between the rest of his clothes.
He was going to need a dining table of some sorts, as eating at the counter itself was a big 'No, no', and preferably a simple one which would be big enough for him to do his work on when eating became a chore. His eyes lifted from his text and scanned the bedroom. Yeah, no, the scrawny old desk of his, which was placed so that its worn-out chair faced the opposite wall to the window, would do no good outside of his bedroom. Some things were meant to be in the open space of a living room, other things were not.
The phone was again thrown onto the bed when he'd sent the message. Taehyung couldn't really starve for the rest of the day. The lunch he'd eaten could pass off as an early dinner, but he'd definitely need to snack on something before he went to bed. Grocery shop. He really hoped Namjoon would text him about some grocery shop within the time he finished his bath.
Ah yes, the bath. He wandered back to the bathroom and found the bathtub pretty much ready for him to sink into. Stepping out of the resting articles of clothing and into the water was such a blessing sensation, and Taehyung would be lying if he said that it didn't tempt to stay there forever.
Laying there, in the scalding water, Taehyung tried, for the best of him, to think. To at least try and think. But nothing came to him. Even the little list of stuff he got to do through his day was refusing to run through his head. The emptiness was awful.
He closed his eyes. Breakfast at the hotel. Done. Stay there till Yoongi comes. Done. Eat lunch with Yoongi, and then take the keys he gives you. Done. Head for your new apartment. Done. Text Namjoon when you’ve arrived. Done. Relax for a couple of days and then try to continue writing.
Taehyung opened his eyes and just stared at the ceiling. White. It looked new. Or maybe it was carefully used and frequently cleaned. Taehyung wouldn't know the difference. He could search it up. How to see the difference between a new bathroom ceiling and a perfectly caretaken one. He would search it up when he finally bothered to bring his laptop from the car. Or on his phone. Yes. Namjoon had mentioned that the data he paid for was supposed to be used, not save it up for later use. It didn’t work like that.
Taehyung let his gaze fall to the clear water.
And bath bombs. He'd need to get bath bombs. Preferably those with nice floral scents. Yes. He could probably ask Yoongi to buy him some. Floral scents would be nice.