Chapter Text
Taehyung awoke to the sound of his phone ringing. He was half-buried in a huge comforter that effectively sealed off the outside world. He had absolutely no desire to leave his bed fort to search for his phone in whatever direction he had thrown it last night, but he knew what would happen if he failed to pick up after the fifth ring, and it wasn’t pretty.
Lifting the comforter to let only a small sliver of light cut through his precious darkness, Taehyung stuck one arm out and patted the ground blindly until his fingers encountered the vibrating device. He quickly answered, enclosing himself in sweet sweet darkness once more. He didn’t even have to look at his phone’s screen to know who it was. There were only a few people with his number, and only one of them called every day.
“What, Jungkook? Do you have any idea how early it is?”
“‘Early’?” Jungkook repeated on the other line in disbelief. “You do realize it’s three in the afternoon, right?”
“Like I said. Early.”
“You sound more and more like Yoongi-hyung every day.”
“Thanks for the compliment. Now as much as I love hearing your lovely voice, was there like a point to this call or can I go back to sleep..?”
Jungkook sighed deeply. “Hyung,” he said. “You gotta go outside.”
“Woah, so it’s Serious Kookie today,” Taehyung said jokingly. His voice sounding flat to even his own ears.
“Hyung, you haven’t left the house since you got there,” Jungkook pressed.
“And how would you know?” Taehyung retorted. “I’m offended! I could have taken a walk or something!”
“Because you’re staying at my family’s house and I have access to the CCTVs.”
“...you know, that is a gross violation of my privacy.”
“I told you to go there for a change of scenery,” Jungkook continued, ignoring him. “Not to just lay in my bed all day and order take out. You’ve gotta go outside.”
“This is a change of scenery,” Taehyung protested. “Your childhood bedroom looks vastly different from my drab studio. I feel better already.”
Jungkook let out another frustrated sigh. “Look, I didn’t want to say this, but… it’s been a year now since you painted anything, Vante.”
Taehyung curled up further under the comforter, but it was no use. The heat was already fading from the blankets, leaving his body cold.
“...I know.”
“Please, I’m begging you,” Jungkook said, voice a little desperate this time. “Just put on some shoes and go at least as far as the park near my house.”
“Yeah, okay,” Taehyung agreed quietly.
He knew it was time to stop, too. He just wished he felt ready.
“Really?” Jungkook exclaimed. “Okay, good! Take a selfie once you get there, I need proof!”
“Damn, okay, Mom,” Taehyung said, smiling despite himself. “I’m getting up, okay? Geez.”
“I want that selfie before the end of the day, or I’m getting on the next train to Busan, you hear me?”
“Zombies will take you out before you even make it to me.”
“You and I both know if I had been in that movie, I would’ve made it back.”
Taehyung chose to not dignify that completely true statement with a response. “I’m hanging up.”
It took Taehyung maybe fifteen more minutes to find the will to actually move off the bed, then he refused to turn on a light and took another fifteen to shift around in the dark and locate his clothing off the floor. Then once he was finally out of his room, his stomach started growling so naturally he had to make toast and eat it, which was another fifteen minutes gone. Then he couldn’t remember where he left his shoes, as he hadn’t yet left the house once since he first got there so they weren’t by the entrance, and wasted yet another fifteen minutes looking for them.
All in all, it took him over an hour to leave the house. But at long last, Taehyung took a step outside.
The sun was shining brightly, causing him to squint even though he had remembered to put on shades. Taehyung was dressed lightly in a brightly patterned button up sliding off his shoulders and equally boldly colored loose slacks, but he could still already feel himself beginning to sweat buckets in the humid Busan heat. Taehyung instantly wanted to turn back, but he gritted his teeth and kept walking down the road towards the faint noises of the park. Jungkook may be younger than him, but he was absolutely terrifying when he wanted to be. Taehyung had no doubt that if his manager said he’d show up in Busan, that he’d be there that very night.
People milled about on the road around Taehyung, all avoiding making contact with him and seamlessly passing by like water flowing around a rock in the river. Taehyung found it both calming and unsettling at the same time. It was so different here than in the streets of Seoul he had gotten used to walking. It was particularly odd to him that no one stopped him or looked at him, but it also made sense.
Normal citizens not involved in the art world every day wouldn’t necessarily know his face; though they might know his alias…
Taehyung made it to the park finally. It was a cute set up on a hill that overlooked the ocean, wind casually fluttering his shirt and hair as the shrieks of playing children were carried through the air. Taehyung liked the sound of children laughing. It reminded him of his childhood home in Daegu, playing with all his younger siblings. He walked towards an empty bench and sat down, looking out blankly over the waves.
Taehyung wasn’t sure when it even happened to be honest. He was sure that day had started out just like any other. He had woken up in his studio, eaten breakfast while mulling over a few new ideas he had wanted to try out. He had ordered a few new canvases of various sizes that weekend, and had been so excited when he smelled that fresh smell of paper and paint that meant new creations. There had been some exhibit coming up, and he had wanted to add something new to surprise everyone at the gallery. Jungkook had told him a few overseas art school grads were coming, and he wanted to inspire them to make it big like him. He had sat down on his stool, picked up his brush as he had done countless times, and looked at the blank canvas before him.
And he couldn’t paint.
It wasn’t like he had never experienced a block before. Taehyung hadn’t even taken it that seriously at first. When a few hours became a few days, he called Jungkook to cancel one of the slots in the exhibit and they had gone with their original plan and displayed some of his past pieces. He went to the party, he met the graduates, he was sure he even inspired some of them regardless. There wasn’t another exhibit for a few months, so Jungkook encourages him to take a break before going back to his studio. He took a trip back to Daegu with Yoongi, soaked in the jimjibang, drank some soju, visited his family. He came back to his studio to find the same canvases he had ordered, still without anything on them, but that was fine. He still had some ideas, still felt a spark of creativity, so he figured he would go to bed early and wake up the next day ready to return to normal.
Except he still couldn’t paint.
When a few days turned to a few months, Jungkook’s voice started to get worried. Yoongi called more often than he used to, asking if he wanted to maybe try that joint exhibit Taehyung had pitched a while back. That was when Taehyung officially knew that something was wrong. Yoongi hated displaying his work with other artists, even him. That was when Taehyung started to panic. He sat on his stool and stared at his blank canvases all day, not moving sometimes even all night. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat.
He couldn’t paint.
There was an article out in an art magazine about how no one had seen his face in a while or seen any new works. He stopped answering calls after seeing the notification on his phone one day. That’s around when Jungkook stepped in. Taehyung barely remembered what happened. He was sitting at his stool as usual, and then suddenly Jungkook and Yoongi were in his studio packing up all of his things. They put a train ticket in his hand and pushed him out the door. He left his canvases behind in that now dark studio. Taehyung was sure they were still there now, blank.
Just like his mind right now as he stared in no particular direction at this park. He wasn’t sure how long he had been simply sitting there, but Taehyung was pretty sure this wasn’t working. It had been a whole damn year and so far nothing had worked. He felt like he was running out of options. His heart thumped with a dull panic as he wondered what he was going to do. Taehyung didn’t think he could do anything besides paint. He wasn’t really good at anything else, except maybe taking care of kids. And like, what even else was there to do? What did other people do with their lives?
“I guess I could teach kids…” Taehyung mumbled to himself.
“Mister, you shouldn’t talk to yourself in public like that. People will think you’re crazy.”
Taehyung looked around and noticed the small girl speaking in front of him. She looked young, maybe six or seven, her long dark hair braided very neatly in pigtails with a rather cute headband pulling back her bangs. She had on a nice dress too, with surprisingly pristine black Mary Jane buckled shoes on. The little girl was holding a ball and staring Taehyung down with a disapproving pout on her little mouth.
“What?” Taehyung asked, blinking dumbly. He hadn’t noticed anyone come near his bench.
“Also stop slouching,” the little girl continued, ignoring Taehyung’s question. She pointed a tiny finger at him. “You’re going to wrinkle your shirt! My daddy says anyone with wrinkled clothes is super lazy.”
Taehyung didn’t know how to respond to all this scolding from this random child. He immediately fixed his posture, sitting up straighter. The little girl may have sounded a little harsh, but she had a point. “That better?”
The child gawked at Taehyung in surprise. “Y-yeah,” she said, gathering her wits. “But it’s really weird for an adult to be listening to some little kid, you know.”
“Well, what do you want from me then?” Taehyung asked, smiling a bit in amusement. “It’s not like you were wrong.”
“Really?” the girl asked, her voice sounding unsure. Then she smiled smugly and puffed her small chest out proudly. “That’s right, I am right. My teacher always says kids should just listen to grown ups, but what am I supposed to do if they’re wrong?”
Taehyung sensed that this girl gave her teacher a run for his money. “Well, I think everyone can be wrong sometimes,” he replied sagely, trying not to step on this mystery teacher’s toes too much.
The little girl’s eyebrows furrowed as she no doubt tried to make sense of Taehyung’s cryptic reply, but before she could say anything else a voice yelled across the park. “Jiyeong! Jiyeong, where are you?”
“Oh, that’s my teacher,” the girl informed Taehyung. Her name must be Jiyeong then.
“Shouldn’t you go over there?” he asked her, nodding in the direction of the voice that was now repeatedly yelling her name and sounding frantic.
“No? I’m the kid,” she said matter-of-factly. “The adult is supposed to find me. Mommy always says to stay put when I get lost and it’s her job to find me.”
Again, she did have a point, though Taehyung wasn’t sure if he would count being on the other side of the park as being lost. Still, he figured it best not to say anything against Jiyeong’s young logic and waited for her poor teacher to figure out where she was standing. Taehyung could only imagine what kind of person it would take to put up with this sassy little girl day in and day out. In his mind he pictured a lady in her mid-thirties with a high ponytail and permanent creases in her forehead.
“There you are,” the voice that had been yelling finally said with immense relief. It was definitely a man’s voice, Taehyung thought as he looked up in curiosity.
The first thing he noticed was that this girl’s teacher was young-looking. Like, super young. He surely wasn’t in his mid-thirties; Taehyung would have been surprised if he was even in his mid-twenties. The second thing he noticed was that this girl’s teacher had pink hair. It was the exact shade of bubblegum or cotton candy, and seemed just as soft, the ends lightly dancing on the man’s face as he half-jogged over to them. The third thing he noticed was that this girl’s teacher was ridiculously attractive. Everything about him was pretty as fuck, from his young soft face to his dainty ass hands that were barely peeking out of his sweater sleeves to his athletic and lean body with strong looking thighs incased by a pair of blue jeans.
Taehyung was certain he had never seen a prettier person in his life. And he was best friends with Min Yoongi, so that was saying something.
“Jiyeong, what are you doing over here?” the pink-haired teacher asked in exasperation, easily dropping into a squat to speak to the young girl. He was wearing a dark green apron with the English letters BTS embroidered on the pocket. Was that the name of a school? “Didn’t you hear me calling you? Why didn’t you come over?”
“You’re supposed to find me,” Jiyeong replied instantly. It was a very much abridged explanation compared to what she said to Taehyung just before, but judging from the child’s expression it made perfect sense to her.
Judging from the teacher’s expression it made no sense at all, but he just sighed and took her free hand that wasn’t holding the ball. “Alright, well I found you so come on,” he said, standing back up. He noticed Taehyung sitting there for the first time and nodded once politely. “Sorry if she was disturbing you, sir.”
Taehyung’s mouth dried up. He knew he was supposed to respond, but the only word in his mind at the moment was cute . Too many seconds passed to be considered a normal pause anymore, and the pretty teacher tilted his head a bit.
“Um, are you okay?”
Taehyung opened his mouth to say something, anything. “Yeah, I’m good! She was just telling me how to live properly. I needed it, I wasn’t sitting up properly,” he rambled.
The pink-haired teacher stared at him for a second, and Taehyung blushed realizing how crazy he must have just sounded. Jiyeong on the other hand nodded in approval at his explanation.
“My daddy says that wrinkled clothes means you’re lazy,” she repeated proudly. The teacher frowned at her.
“That’s fine for your dad to say to you Jiyeong, but you can’t just go telling that to strangers,” he scolded her. She frowned right back at him.
“But why not? It’s true!”
Taehyung felt like he was about to cause a disagreement. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“Don’t worry about it,” the teacher assured him with a small tired smile. “She’s always like this. Our class’s little etiquette coach.”
Taehyung smiled back, trying to ignore how cute this stranger’s smile was. “She’s wise beyond her years.”
Jiyeong beamed at the compliment, too young to hear the sarcasm in either adult’s voice. “My mommy says I was a princess in my past life!”
“I’d say you act like one in this life too,” the teacher muttered to himself, low enough that Taehyung was sure she didn’t hear. “Anyway, say goodbye to the nice man and let’s get back to school!”
“Bye-bye, mister! Remember what I told you!” Jiyeong said loudly as a goodbye, pointing at him again.
The teacher bowed slightly, no doubt in effort to instill the behavior into the little girl. It proved futile though, as the girl had already turned to leave and didn’t even notice. They walked away, approaching a larger group of children that were gathered around another young-looking man wearing a similar green apron. No doubt he was another teacher. The two men spoke to each for a moment before turning to address all of the kids together, motioning them up into two lines before finally departing the park and walking steadily down the street together. There must be a kindergarten somewhere nearby that they come from.
Taehyung wondered where it was. He wondered if Jungkook had maybe gone to the same kindergarten back when he lived in Busan. He wondered if a lot of kids went there. He wondered if all the kids were like that eccentric little girl. He wondered if that eccentric little girl’s teacher had dyed his own hair that bright shade of pink or if he had gotten it done at a salon somewhere. He wondered if that pink-haired teacher took his class to that park often. He wondered if he would run into them if he went back to the park tomorrow.
Taehyung wondered a lot of things as he walked back home.
But mostly he wondered if Jungkook was going to kill him for forgetting to take that selfie.