Chapter Text
"Young Master! Go slow please!"
"Where's the fun in that?" Taehyung winked at her, thrusting faster.
"Please—I uh, ugh, I can't— keep— up!" She panted out.
"Then don't!"
"I have to! It's my duty!" The house maid called out, running behind the wobbly figure of Kim Taehyung trying to ride a bicycle and failing miserably as he kept thrusting the pedal faster and forward.
Jieun ran as fast as her heels allowed in the boundaries of caution, but the giggling toddler was in a world of his own liking. His small feet paddled along, left and right as the bicycle swayed dangerously, barely surviving crashes.
Jieun ran a hand through her red hair, biting on her lip in pure frustration.
"This is so much fun!! I could do this all day!" Taehyung cried in glee, not caring about potential death lurking closer with every push of pedal.
The outside was so not baby proof.
Jieun, horrified at the idea of Taehyung cycling everyday, shook her head. "No no no, at this rate I'll end up with arthritis at the age of thirty and will die a virgin! I need to marry! Marry a rich man mother said, not raise one! I cannot end up being a single pringle for life! Nobody even eats pringles now, they're expensive!" She whispered to herself, wallowing in self pity for a fine moment before an idea birthed in her sly head.
"Young Master! Be careful or you might fall! And God forbid, die! Or worse, get injured enough to get injections!!" Jieun shouted on top of her lungs.
"Injections?!" Came back Taehyung's equally horrified squeal and the bicycle, though it had supporters, faltered dangerously close to the park boundaries.
As fear started to creep in through his feet, Taehyung's baby face contoured into that of pure mortification. "I don't wanna do this anymore! Jieun! You're awful! I don't wanna!! Take me away!" He cried, leaving the bicycle handle. The two-wheeled machine shuddered like a dried leaf during storm. Taehyung decided it to be the moment to give up on paddling.
Bad decision.
That's what Taehyung's life was in a big collective: A series of spontaneously made bad decisions.
But that's why everyone else around him existed.
To get his rich ass over all the bad decisions he makes.
Taehyung was a catalyst in the equation of his life and everyone around him existed to nullify his burning presence.
Like a dramatic scene in an anime, it happened slow but simultaneously quick.
The handle did a one-eighty and wheels are but circular objects forced to follow momentum under the influence of physics that Taehyung was too young to understand. The training wheels hit a stone. Jieun shouted something in the background. But Taehyung's fear of needles had temporarily numbed his sense of sight and sound.
Cue some dramatic classical music in background.
The bicycle was about to hit the ground and Taehyung's leg would be stuck between them in a painfully brutal fashion. Would have ended up twisted or most probably, broken.
Though the brunette never even realized his impending doom because, as always, his counter to all the bad decisions lurked upto him like a shadow and pulled the bicycle back in position with its handle.
Somewhere behind, Jieun sighed out loud.
Taehyung, still sobbing, oblivious and drowning into the cushiony seat like stale jelly, tilted his head to see Jeon Jeongguk holding the handle and standing with a scowl gracing his precious face.
So Taehyung did what he does best, cling. He jumped on Jeongguk into a hug, sobbing about, "Gukkie, hyungie, I don't want injections! They're gonna poke me like momma. I don't wanna die like momma. I don't like injections! Hyung!! Save me!" Taehyung begged like the dramatic brat he was.
The sudden jump caught Jeongguk off guard as he took a few steps back, regaining balance by releasing his hold from the bicycle and circling a hand around Taehyung's small waist. The bicycle finally hit the ground with a loud clunk and Jieun caught up to them.
"Yah! You brat! You don't just leave a bicycle's handle when you're riding it!! You could have gotten hurt!" Jeongguk snapped in Taehyung's ears, spanking his butt with his free hand.
The younger brunette did nothing but bury his face further in the crook of his hyung's neck, sobbing as his small fingers clutched tightly onto Jeongguk's shirt and fisting the fabric.
Jeongguk sighed and ran a soothing hand down Taehyung's back. "Hey, it's gonna be fine," the older whispered in the younger's ear. "You'll be fine, no one's gonna poke you with needles or anything. I'll make sure to poke their butt's first. Alright?" Jeongguk huffed out, ruffling Taehyung's hair as the younger nodded, his small nose brushing against Jeongguk's collarbone.
The older pressed his lips in a line as the younger's weight became known to his small self.
Jieun eyed them with a disapproving stare. "You mustn't use such causal language with young master. If Master finds out, you'll be in grave trouble."
Jeongguk could care less about anything Jieun uttered. "Well then, Miss Lee, you mustn't leave your young master in his own hands or he'll end up tripping to his death and then you'll be in much grave trouble," The ravenette coughed out a reply, trying to threaten a woman almost twenty years older than him, in honorifics.
Jieun's breath hitched in her throat, "God forbid!" She cried out, whacking Jeongguk's head who only 'Tsk'ed in response.
Another round of paranoid sobs and Taehyung finally replied, "I want Melon candy! Hyung bring me Melon candies!" Only to earn another spank on the butt in return.
"You call me hyung only when you want something in return," Jeongguk seethed, releasing his grip on Taehyung. The toddler fell onto the ground in a fit of giggles. Jeongguk rolled his eyes at the figure of Taehyung rolling on the dirty road and walked back to his bicycle, into his personalized bubble of reading manga.
"Young Master!" Jieun's eyes almost left their sockets as she picked him up and dusted his Gucci outfit clean. Brushing his brown tresses as his uncontrollable body doubles up in laughs, Jieun smiled. There was something especially contagious about Taehyung's boxy smile that made you want to hug him and smile forever.
Until he pushes you away, of course, and opens his mouth for saying, "Ew iunni! Go away! And bring me melon candies! Where's Gukkie Hyung?" And then you let go and wonder why do you even bother—?
Oh yes, because the pay is astronomical.
Then you get up and follow suit.
Walking inside the doors of the extravagant Kim Mansion where you've spent half of your teenage, your identification card beeps through every door you pass. Everyone knows you, daughter of a mistress, cousin of the Kims, just another loyal worker at the estate.
The floor, carpeted with Persian rugs, numbs the sound of your heel clanking against the floor. You remember Mrs. Kim ordering to do it, two months after she was declared pregnant. She wanted to baby proof every part of the mansion for her children to roam freely in. Mrs. Kim wanted her children to know no bounds, for them everything is attainable.
"One's confines are only those what they cannot let go of," you remember her say. It's one of the best you liked.
As the servants dusted and mopped every corner till it sparkled clean, the renovators stuck and unstuck new wallpapers, the planning committee swapping through innumerable ipads in search of the most authentic toys for personality building and organic materials for the room of their new heirs.
You remember the mansion bustling in joy as the Kim couple held parties everyday to establish better social connections for their yet to be born heirs. You were there through it all, cleaning the Jeons' son's vomit as their parents worked through the night and left their two-year-old sick child in your care, to serve their masters.
You reminisce it in the pictures, of the day the Kim twins were born. As you pass through the gallery and Kim Taehyung's lanky form is framed with gold, hung in a place detested by him and visible to all. As much as he wants to take it down, he cannot. Because Mrs. Kim put it where it was.
You see him in the arms of his father, smiling a square smile as his brown ringlets fall over his eyes and Mr. Kim laughs at his son's shabby state while Mrs. Kim eyes them silently from her chair, just claiming that it was a new fashion she was experimenting on. As soon as Taehyung pouts, the camera clicks.
You remember it because you were there, through it all. You were with them laughing when Taehyung whines over how the family photograph turned out to be, but Mrs. Kim loved it. So they kept it.
You can hear them laugh as you make your way upstairs, to the kitchen, and as you cross the glass walls you can see Jeon Jeongguk and Kim Taehyung running after each other. Calling names Or throwing toys at each other, and you unconsciously smile. Though, you don't know the innumerable amount of firsts they would have in this mansion.
You don't know it yet, but you will. As every clock ticks and every second ages the mansion, them and you, you'll be here to witness the rise of someone great and the fall of someone loved.
As you take out a handful of melon candies from the crystal jar, you hear a loud screech. Your eyes widen in a sudden motion as you rush down the glass staircase and you realize— it's not your story. It's their story.
A story of their firsts.
With all sorts of paranoid thoughts clouding her mind, Jieun races down the steps.
It was a dog, peeing on Kim Taehyung's brand new bicycle that had him screeching like a deranged banshee. So Taehyung, being the courageous little tiger of his mother, picked up the stray stone, than almost caused his death, and flung it at the dog.
It flew in a very new direction of its own and hit a tree.
The German Shepherd growled at Taehyung, staring him down as if he were it's lunch. The brunette stared him dead in the eye and poked his tongue out in retaliation.
The animal barked and as its deep vocals resonated in Taehyung's ears, the five year old did not wait for his eyes to be clawed out of their sockets by a savage animal and he ran.
He screamed, running as fast as his small feet could distance the dog and his fragile body.
Jeongguk— who was whistling calmly against his bicycle, absorbed in the alternate world of manga where he had the power of one punch man and Taehyung hates his guts— almost died when Taehyung suddenly jumped on his bicycle and shouted, "Run hyung! Run like your pants are on fire! Run like someone stole your candies!!"
The security, servants, maids and Lee Jieun, all rushed outside to witness the cause of commotion. The guards caught hold of the dog before the poor animal could even start chasing the boy, but Taehyung's constant— "faster hyung! Go faster!" didn't help as Jeongguk paddled at an unmatched speed, dead to the cries of the crowd over Taehyung's pleas to save his life.
Dashing through the spring air clapping against their ears, their smiles grew wider. As strands of sweat framed Jeongguk's face, as Taehyung hugged Jeongguk close, as the younger cheered, "Hyung this is so much better than cycling! I'll ride you forever! Go hyung go!"
The cobbled path slowed their speed as the cycle went up and down. The sun played it's part with desperate loyalty and Jeongguk's energy felt sucked on. Taehyung tried touching his feet on the ground. His Gucci shoes scratched the ground in a warm melody that he liked to play over and over again. His small hands wrapped tighter around Jeongguk's small waist as he forced his hyung to listen to the music.
All Jeongguk felt between them, was a good amount of sweat.
So, Jeongguk decided to distract himself with the beating of Taehyung's heart against his back— playing a melody that seemed beyond this world yet so close to home.
It was a sweet distraction.
Jeongguk would cherish it forever if he didn't realize that his heart was beating at an abnormally fast pace and his breathing was obnoxiously haggard and his throat was uncharacteristically dry because he was—
No, not in love, go away peasant. He is a seven-year-old child who is absolutely thirsty and—
In need of immediate source of water that Taehyung very conveniently spots.
"Horsey! Stop! Look!"
And stop horsey does in front of a cluster of trees giving way into a clearing. Away from the hustle of the city and into the lap of nature was sitting a scared space made as if just for them.
"It's beautiful..." Jeongguk whispered to himself, doe eyes wandering over the clearwater pond and the water lilies that decorated it's edges.
Taehyung pouted upon seeing Jeongguk's unfaltering attention captured by the cicadas chirping on the trees. Annoyed, Taehyung walked in front of his hyung and stood with his hands on his waist, puffing his cheeks he announced with a pout, "I'm beautifuller!"
"Okay Taehyung, move on," Jeongguk pushed like aside like a fly on his morning cake and jogged up to the lake to drink a few mouthfuls.
Taehyung's lips drew in a straight line as he sat on the lush green grass, still pouting his lips out as his big brown eyes stared at jeongguk as if shooting lasers to have him dead and buried six feet under.
"Taetae is prettiest. Lake is ugly," The toddler announced again only to have his hyung roll his eyes at him.
"Stop being superficial Taehyung, the lake is of course prettier and if you say anything otherwise then the lady in the lake will be upset," Jeongguk informed, his small form curved on his knees, eyes looking intently inside the pond.
All he saw was his reflection staring back at him in an eerie fashion.
Taehyung's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he ran up to Jeongguk and clutched onto his arm. "There's a lady in the lake?" He whispered, pointing at the water, almost inaudible to anyone out of earshot.
"Yes," Jeongguk nodded maturely, whispering back with equal intensity. "She is the one who made the lake and this small forest."
Taehyung gulped, his big brown eyes hinting mix of fear and curiosity.
"H-h-how is she alive, you know, inside— the pond?" Taehyung questioned hesitantly, choosing his words as wisely as his five-year-old brain could help him to.
Jeongguk knocked a fist on Taehyung's head, lightly of course, replying, "Like we live on land and fishes live in water. Legend says she cried in this place so much that it gave birth to a lake and then she drowned in it, but because it was her tears, she lives in the salty water forever— helping travellers rest and provide them water." Jeongguk spun lies with as much expansion his seven-year-old brain could provide. Feeling triumphant over creating a story all by himself, he turned to witness Taehyung's reaction—
"Who is legend and why was she spying over this lady when she was crying? Why didn't legend save this lady when she fell in her tears?" His voice was shaky as his big brown eyes welled up.
Jeongguk's breath hitched, no one wanted a crying taehyung at their disposal. No one.
"Oh, Tae, you see—"
"Don't worry miss pretty lady," Taehyung cut in, sitting on the edge of the pond and caressing the water's surface as best as he could. "I'll be here for you, okay? I will come and talk to you, with Gukkie, so that you won't be sad and alone! Mommy said we should never leave crying people alone. So I'll come here everyday until you smile!"
The Kim heir gave no thought to his drenching Gucci cuff as he splashed the pond water around, in the name of giving the Lady of the Lake company. The water splashed on Jeongguk, who pettily scowled at Taehyung for being childish and splashed water back at the giggling child.
As evening bled its way through the scorching afternoon and the Kim Estate's security team finally tracked their Young Master, Jieun and Lee Joongi, head of security, found the duo shivering and cuddling underneath an apple tree as water dripped form every part of their external body.
The security team ran up to help Young Master Taehyung change out if his formal day wear into a cute tiger onesie that was all pink and fluffy as he liked it.
"Jeon Jeongguk! Wait till Master hears about it! You're gonna get in so much trouble for this!!" Jieun exclaimed, exasperated, as she twisted Jeongguk's ear and dragged him to the SUV.
The ravenette cried out in pain. His ears have always been sensitive and the cold made the pain borderline unbearable to him.
Taehyung, upon hearing Jeongguk's cries, ran upto Macy and clung himself onto her leg. "Stwap! Stop hitting my friend! He is crying! You're making my friend cry! Stop it!" He revolted, hitting his small fists on her meaty legs. Jieun felt like she was getting a massage from a worn out massager.
Taehyung started wailing out loud.
Having the child cling onto her legs and try to look threatening while dressed head to toe in a pink and white onsie was purely entertaining to the twenty-year-old handmaid. Though, her fun was not a priority when Lee Joongi stabbed daggers through her soul with his eyes. Seeing his young master in pain was equally painful for him.
"Miss Lee, why don't you leave the children alone? Like you did before they ran away? I'm sure I can make an exception of not reporting this matter," Joongi worded out calmly as his deep voice resonated in the dead of the evening. His security team standing like dead men on high alert.
Jieun, understanding the personal threat in his statement, loosened her grip on Jeongguk's ears. As soon as he got free, Jeongguk made a mad dash to the car. Taehyung followed like a butterfly fluttering around a sunflower.
"Happy?" Jieun called out, annoyed at being checked.
"Content indeed," Joongi replied crisply, walking up to the car. His team followed suit, filling up the extra six cars that surrounded the SUV Kim Taehyung was sitting in.
Jieun huffed out a breath, after failing to get inside before the team, she made a beeline for the SUV and called shotgun.
Joongi revved the engine, the car moving smoothly between six others. Jeongguk was constantly tonguing his cheek, his fingers fumbling with the hem of his wet clothes. Taehyung sat beside Jeongguk, leaving no space between them and held onto his arm. His small legs swayed to and from as he hummed some nursery rhyme.
"Will you tell mum about this?" Came Jeongguk's soft voice after a while of contemplated silence.
Joongi knew the question was aimed at him. The blonde man sighed, green eyes catching Jeongguk's doe ones in the rearview mirror. "Bud, you know they are my senior, right? I cannot help it. They will know, they should know."
Jeongguk nodded meekly, knowing the older could see him. His hands fisted the soggy fabric of his shirt in impending fear of being scolded. A voice invaded Jeongguk's mind.
its all because of him. That little pest!
He tilted his head to find Taehyung clutching onto his arm for dear life and sleeping soundly. The elder could only sigh in frustration.
"Sleepy head. What are you, snow White? can't even be mad without carelessly waking you up and being punished for it. Such a nuisance," Jeongguk whispered under his breath. His heart went erratic in his chest, fueled by fear and overthinking.
His parents would be mad.
Disappointed
As the tires halted in front of the Kim mansion that night, two people came out. Jeongguk, shuddering in his semi wet clothes, on his feet, and Taehyung in the arms of Jieun, coddled in his furry nightwear, sleeping.
Each step that Jeongguk took forward was one step closer to another week full of reckless training and scars. A night of being beaten and make him realise his responsibilities.
That day was one of Taehyung and Jeongguk's many firsts. The day Jeon Jeongguk realized he made his first enemy and the day Kim Taehyung, in his sleep, dreamt of his first safe place— Jeon Jeongguk's arms.