#80/14 - “Hey, do you wanna fight?!”/”Kiss it and make it better.”

TaeJin

Word Count: 1127

FYI: Taehyung (17) is in high school and Seokjin (20) is in college. Therefore Taehyung is underage however, their is still the same as it is in present day, three years apart.

It wasn’t unusual for Kim Taehyung to sneak out of his parents home on a school night and wander the streets of Seoul alone. His feet had always been the surest and most reliable thing he had in his life. They took him everywhere, away from his problems, towards temptation, toward happiness, into the middle of sticky situations and into the arms of whoever was willing that night. His feet kept him grounded yet gave him the freedom to fly.

Which was why night after night, he was walking the streets of Seoul. The oppressive air that stifled him back in the two family home that was anything but peaches and roses, could never snuff out his drive and passion for wanting more, wanting sweet escape, for finding that anchor that gave him just enough to suffer through another year of high school.

“Hey, do you wanna fight?”

Words like these barely phased Taehyung as he ran and sometimes skipped through the streets down the alleyways that were shortcuts or a new path untread. He knocked into people unintentionally, never had a good sense of depth perception. Sometimes Taehyung held a dangerous glint in his eye, with a lopsided grin that oozed out the instability that some would call craziness. Trickling fear into the tips of their toes of the unknown, was he crazy enough to harm them or was he just the kind of crazy looking to feel the pain with each blow that pummeled him to the ground. Some were ready for the challenge, others not so much.

It was on these nights that Taehyung clambered his way through a window on the first floor of an apartment complex towards the center of Seoul. It was always left open a crack, just enough for the dark haired teen to lift and shimmy his way through. Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter, it didn’t matter the season, it was always waiting for that gangly teen who couldn’t seem to stop coming by at all hours of the night.

“Ow, , !”

Curses flew through the darkness as Taehyung stumbled and crumbled onto the floor in a heaping mess. Normally, there wasn’t anything in his path but tonight he seemed to have knocked his shin on something hard, maybe a heavy box? His eyes were adjusting to the darkness quickly as they always had. The rustling of bedsheets and creak of the mattress springs dipping alerted the male to the owner of said apartment waking up.

“Tae?”

The words were slurred with sleep but a moment later, the lamp on the bedside table flickered on illuminating the bedroom in a soft glow of artificial light. Pushing himself up, the owner of the apartment rubbed his left eye with one hand before running his fingers through his hair and mussing it up a few times. Blinking away the last three hours of sleep, he glanced at the red lights showing it was three in the morning. Nothing new there. As he turned his gaze to the intruder, that didn’t seem to care about his sleep nor the number of days he visits then doesn’t visit a frown formed. It always did.

Taehyung had a scratch just under his left eye, sure to have a real shiner in the morning, his dark brown locks had a new green streak through the front of his fringe. Last week it had been pink and the week before that orange.

“Seokjin hyung, kiss it better?”

The words followed a over the top pout with the biggest puppy dog eyes Seokjin had ever seen. It was ridiculous and adorable and frustrating all together.

“Do what?”

His brows knit together in confusion of the nonsense the younger was speaking. This type of nonsense wasn’t unusual, the boy had always been speaking in riddles when he visited the elder in the dead of night but not quite on this level. Taehyung continued to sit on his bottom, knee bent, hand rubbing along his shin. He pouted deeper, if that was even possible and pointed to his shin.

“Hyuunnngg, kiss it better.”

The whining was just plain unnecessary, Seokjin rubbed his hand over his eyes in mild annoyance at the younger.

“Get up here then.”

That lopsided grin broke across Taehyung’s face before he pushed himself off the floor immediately and rushing to the bed almost tripping over his own feet in the process. Seokjin could only bite his lip in an attempt to stop his lips from turning up in one of the softest smiles he has ever given. Others may see this manic troubled teen but all Seokjin could see was one of the warmest, honest, a little misguided teen that was searching to find love within himself and out. The bed shook as Taehyung plopped all of his weight onto the mattress and slapped his foot down right in front of his hyung. Hurt shin being flaunted for the elder to make better.

With a small shake of his head, Seokjin leaned down, a hand gently grasping the brunette’s calf and pressing his lips to his bare shin. Lifting his lips from the other barely an inch, he gazed up at the younger and spoke softly in the quiet night,

“Better?”

As Taehyung looked down at his hyung, his grin slipped letting the silence stretch between them. Swallowing, his adam’s apple was visible as it raised and fell. Slowly he turned his head from left to right, indicating that it still hurt. Sitting up, the sheets rustled as he moved closer, large hand cupping the younger's cheek. Seokjin let his thumb caress his cheek as their eyes held each other's gaze. The rise and fall of their chests felt like they were in sync but neither dared to move further than they already had.

It felt like years had passed before Taehyung felt a pair of chapped lips against his. He let them guide him, timidly, sweetly and then it was over. Just as quickly as it had begun it ended. Neither said anything. Seokjin moved back in the bed, pulling down the covers. Taehyung followed suit and curled up against his hyung’s chest. That had always been his place ever since the first night he had climbed through Seokjin’s window in the dead of winter, knocking obnoxiously.

They wouldn’t talk about what had just transpired, the line they had just crossed. The boundaries that had always been pushed but never broken.

Not tonight.

Not tomorrow either.

“Remember you have to leave by-”

“I will hyung. Thank you.”

Taehyung had always relied on his feet. They were his wings, his freedom, what led him to a part of what he was searching for and hadn’t realized was right in front of him.

Kim Seokjin.