What a cliche thing to say, Jungkook thought. Without haste, he turned back in the direction from which he had come.

"Where are you going?" Taehyung asked as his eyes darted up towards Jungkook's face. They had gone from perusing his firm abdomen to viewing the way his s didn't hold the same hardened nubs at the ends as his did.

"Somewhere you don't belong."

The pitter patter of bare feet speeding across the hardwood floor disrupted the apartment's calm quietness. Jungkook had just enough time to slam the door shut and lock it before Taehyung latched onto the wooden surface. The doorknob jangled, followed thereafter by a pause.

Jungkook strained to hear what Taehyung was saying from the other side. He pressed his ear up against the wood, his eyebrows curled in tight over his face. "What?"

"Can I come in?"

Jungkook's nose crinkled as he pulled away. He didn't have time for this nonsense. He had somewhere to be. And soon. "Read the sign."

And yet, the more Jungkook thought about turning Taehyung over to the police, the less probable of a scenario it became. When asked who Taehyung was, he would invariably have to answer that he was a stranger. Even with or without telling the officials that Taehyung—whom would have to be coaxed into assuring them Jungkook knew nothing about him; not even his name—had broken into his home, they would wind up chalking the matter off as nothing more than a joke. An act of ersion, even, by the youth of today.

"We wouldn't know what to do with him," Jungkook could hear the on-duty officers saying. "We don't err... Groove that way." The comment would be puncutated with a cacophony of brittle, sharp-edged snickers.

No. Jungkook wouldn't turn Taehyung over to the police. He didn't have the patience to tolerate incompetence.

And yet, the question of what to do with him remained. Jungkook slid an orange shirt over his head. Maybe he could turn him over to the nuns. God knows they wouldn't mind caring for another soul.

"Lhep... Klep... Keput..."

Growing increasingly irritated with Taehyung's failed pronunciations, Jungkook flung the door wide open.
"Keep," Jungkook seethed. Taehyung tipped his head forward, wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear.

"The sign says Keep-" But before Jungkook had time to finish, Taehyung ran forward and wrapped his arms around Jungkook's waist. Jungkook stumbled backwards, an arm outstretched to seize something that he could latch onto for support but his reaction was much too slow. His fingers brushed up against the thing whose plush feathering had since been worn down to nothing more than a thin layer of cloth before the sway of gravity became an anchor. Jungkook shut his eyes as they tumbled over onto the ground.

Jungkook groaned as he slid a hand up to where the soon-to-form bump in the back of his head pulsated. His left shoulder throbbed and his index finger felt like it had been ripped open at the side. After a few unsuccesful rubs to alleviate the pain, he made to sit up but something heavy was blocking him from moving.

He looked up to see Taehyung rubbing circles onto his chest; his fingers inching along every centimeter of skin they could connect to.

"What are you doing?" Jungkook asked as he shoved him off. "I meant what I said when I told you to stop doing things like that."

Taehyung looked down at his hands, curling and uncurling his fingers. His face was alight with curiosity. "The touch." He glanced up for a brief moment. "It lingers even when you're gone."

Jungkook rolled his eyes. Taehyung was making some of the most useless observations.

Leaving him to his wonder and amazement, Jungkook stood up and hurriedly finished dressing himself. With one last glance at the back of Taehyung's head, he headed out towards the foyer.

Taehyung looked up, startled when he noticed Jungkook was no longer in the room. He clambered out after him. "Hey! Where are you going? I want to know."

Jungkook plopped down onto the floor with a groan. He waved his hand to dismiss Taehyung's question. "Just," he said as he finished tying his shoelaces. "Do what plants do." Hand on the doorknob, he reached for his bag. "And please, for the love of whatever supernatural being you believe in, do NOT leave the house. If someone knocks, don't open the door. I don't care who—or what—it is. No one is home until I get back."

With that, Jungkook pulled the door open and stepped out onto the hallway's worn-out carpet. The red was no longer the color of freshly-fallen apples strewn about an orchard but that of cherries left out in the dust for far too long. He took one last glance at Taehyung who looked at him with a saddened expression. If Jungkook had been trained in the class of sympathy, he would have thought he had hurt his feelings somehow.

Jungkook let out his fatigue in a breath of air as soon as the door clicked shut. He was just about to slide the bag down over his shoulders when he noticed something that cut deep into his stomach. The bag was a little too heavy to be the one he kept his wallet stored in. He had to take but one quick look at it to know he had grabbed the wrong damn bag.

Today was proving to be one hell of a day.

❀

Todays shift, like every other days, was uneventful—something Jungkook didn't mind in the least. He loved getting paid for doing practically nothing.

The pool worker's shack was nothing more than a slab of marble held up by a low wall out front. Two entrances bordered the rectangular building—one on either end—and while doors weren't allowed, the rules had said nothing against draping a towel over the openings. Jungkook had done just that to the entrance that bordered the eastern side of the pool when the high school girls had shown no indication of stopping their never-ending oggling. They thought they were smart enough to grab his attention in the least inconscpicous way by "sun-bathing" near the windows.

The following day, the flock of girls had migrated to the other side of the shack. Although their euphoria was temporarily lived because soon after the manager had been forced to move them el