Taehyung rubbed his thumb over his clothed lips. He had grown attached to the coverups he were used to wearing. Watching Sora as their teacher was giving them a briefing, he readily hoisted his bag when the students were dismissed to their own rooms. 

"Mr V, sorry to hold you back. Just thought that the students might need another reminder regarding tomorrow's reporting time."

"No, it's okay. So here's the itinerary for tomorrow. We'll be leaving at 1pm and our destination will be at the hotspot of this region, the South mountains." Taehyung explained. The teacher seemed to open slightly, about to interrupt. That made Taehyung let her to have a say. 

"Sorry Mr V, but i thought that maybe while we're at this place, let's allow the kids to have a little time to themselves to explore the summer grounds? Its opening hours is at 10am, certainly enough time for them to head to the mountains." 

Taehyung mentally groaned. 10am? He hardly wakes up around that time. But... his selfishness would affect 56 students' happiness. "Okay sure, then we'll meet at 9.25am." He was partially glad that he had worn these cover-ups or else his dissatisfaction would show. Taehyung headed to the lobby lifts and a few of the students were waiting for the arrival of an empty lift too. 

They shared a moment of silence as they waited and as they got into the lift, some of the girls paid attention to the floor he'd be staying on. They were biting their overstretched smile as he would be on the same floor as them too. 

It reached the 23rd floor and half of them scooted out to look for their rooms with the luggage they were familiar with, sitting in front of their doors. Taehyung walked coolly to the end of the aisle as his room was a luxury suite, very distinguishable from the students' room.

He turned to the room opposite of his and smiled to himself.

So close.

Taehyung then shook his head and entered his room with a mess of thoughts. 

-

Sora folded her clothes and hung them nicely at her side of the shared closet compartment. Apparently, she’s occupying a room with her teacher and apparently, it’s rather awkward for Sora to be breathing the same air with her at first.

“Are you hungry? I’ve got some breads here.”

Sora shook her head and wring her wet hair with a hotel towel. It was pretty cool that the teacher was good at making her feel slightly comfortable with casual conversations. It was no doubt that she was going to cling onto this young lecturer until the day they leave Jeju.

“What’s this door for?” Sora turned the knob.

Her roommate shrieked and ran towards it, holding Sora carefully by her shoulders. She placed a finger on her lips and pulled Sora’s hand to lead her back to the main part of their room, somewhere further from the door.

“That’s Mr V’s room. We’ll have to keep our volume low, okay? And don’t talk about whatever happens to your underwear, honey. The walls here are rather thin.”

“What?! How is that even possible? He has to go through our room to get into his?!” Sora was at the point of reaching her volume outbreak but her teacher, Ms Lin, pressed on Sora to keep her voice low.

“This is an adjoined room! We’re linked to his apartment, Sohee. The luxury suite comes with this room and he’s kind to let us have this space without us having to cover the cost of our own accommodations!” They were whispering in their stressed voices and Sora horridly gave the room another glance. It’s rather awful that V could make out from their conversations.

“Can’t we lock it?” Sora hissed as she walked towards it again.

Ms Lin tiptoed behind her and kept on pressing on the younger lady to step away from the door. “The key is with him! Now, step back.” Ms Lin gripped her hand but just then, the door swung open towards them.

The two girls gasped in surprise and then stumbled backwards, sending their bums onto the floor.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!” Taehyung appeared and froze in his hesitant attempt to help them up. Sora shyly scurried to the inner part of their room and grabbed a towel to cover her exposed legs. If only she had known about a guy’s presence, she’d have had brought a track pants instead.

“Mr V, sorry if you heard some of our talks. This kid wasn’t aware that the door was linked to your suite.” Ms Lin clasped her hands together in utmost apology.

“No worries, I heard nothing.” Taehyung defended their humiliation but secretly, he was sniggering at Sora’s panicked voice behind the indeed, extremely thin walls. Ms Lin was trying to figure out with the signal of her eyes as to why Taehyung was standing there after barging into their room.

“Oh, sorry for the abrupt interruption… I thought you guys might want to leave this door open. You know, if you need anything from the kitchenette. It’s a shame that I forgot how your room only has a kettle.”

“Aigoo, you’re so considerate, Mr V. But…. Leaving the door open… it’s a little unsafe, I guess…”

“Oh god, Ms Lin, don’t think that way! I’m never going to step in here. You guys are welcomed to my space, though. The living room and the kitchenette.” He pleasantly welcomed them, then looked behind Ms Lin’s shoulders to see Sora crouching, trying to cover her knee caps with the given length of the towel.

“I was just kidding, Mr V. We’ll transfer our necessities in a while. You have an ulterior motive behind this invitation right? I have a hunch that you’re short of drink sachets?”

Taehyung grinned, ashamed that the woman knew his point.

“I have chocolate sachets for trade though! I’m guessing you brought enough coffee mix?” He muttered. Ms Lin laughed and shook her head in amusement due to this guy’s smart move. She told him not to worry as she had plenty of them to share. Taehyung silently prayed that she’d be granted the heavens upon the afterlife as her blissful soul had brought some of his life saver, coffee mix.

Ms Lin urged Sora to help her bring some of her travel kits to Taehyung’s space as she unpacked a few of them to make Taehyung a cup of coffee. While the reddened Sora, hid her side profile with her hair as she passed by Taehyung. No one knew of the relationship they were in and not even them, could tell what they exactly felt for each other.

“Thank you for the coffee, Ms Lin. I’ll be in my room now. If there’s anything, just leave a knock on my door.” He had to drink his coffee in a confined space so that Sora needn’t have to see him without his cover-ups.

As they settled into their respective rooms, Sora then took off the wrapped towel around her waist.

“Mr V is so considerate, don’t you think? He’s really a nice guy.” Ms Lin complimented. Sora scoffed and threw her back onto the bed. Taehyung would use a different kind of tone on her which made her think that his reactions to Ms Lin were a little too exaggerated in the formal term.

“Ms Lin, have you seen him before without his cover-ups on?”

“Oh yes! When he first met us, he had a flu, I guess. But he took it off during our first meeting. From then on, i've never seen him without his cover-ups ever again. It must be that he’s a little conscious about the praises that he’d receive. He’s reeaaallly good-looking, Sohee.”

That exaggerated tone wasn’t helping her at all. Although before, she felt that making him wear the cover-ups would regulate their conversations, all she felt like doing now is to run at him and rip his identity.

Sora was about to ask another question but Ms Lin’s head was losing balance, hitting itself onto the headboard of the bed. She dozed to sleep without notifying the younger lady. Sora cleared the mess that Ms Lin forgot about and tucked the older woman in bed with a provided comforter.

went dry of all sudden and she tip-toed to reach the door. She poked her head into the luxury suite and saw that V wasn’t there. Sora made a quick move to the kitchenette and filled a mug with the cooked water.

“Being so sneaky, I see?”

Sora jumped in surprise and accidentally spilled some of the water out of the mug.

“You’re still awake?”

“Shh, don’t tell Ms Lin but I took another of her coffee mix.”

Sora chuckled and proceeded to wipe the mess she made. Taehyung rested his back against the kitchen’s island and watched as Sora disposed the tissues.

“You’re being so stiff here, Sohee. Chill down.” Taehyung noticed that she was trying to do things flawlessly by bending her back without slouching and pouring the water out of the jug elegantly. “I can’t. You’re pressurizing me.” She complained honestly.

“I like it more when you’re just natural around me. Like the careless girl you are, you don’t have to be perfect.” He continued to pressurize her with his gaze and Sora nervously gulped down on her drink.

“Ah, they have ice pops in the freezer. Get one to cool your throat.” He opened the top compartment of the refrigerator and handed one to Sora. Sora mumbled to him a thank you and shuffled to the door, wanting to enter her room.

Just as Taehyung sneered at her adorable movement, the lights started to flicker, sending them off in no time. Sora dropped the ice pop in her hands, blindly looking for things to hold her as a support. Her short-lasting yelp caught his attention pretty well and he lowered his shades to see if he could view the area even though the lights were off.

“Sohee… Are you okay?”

He pulled down his shades to the bridge of his nose and walked towards her. He was careful to not expose himself too much as it could give himself away. The lights from outside of the apartment gave away enough for Taehyung to still see some few objects in the dark. But Sora’s legs were shaky as she finally tapped on the wall for support.

“V, I can’t see.”

Taehyung hurried to her and scrutinised her eye contact. Sora’s night-blindness was perhaps rather close to critical. She was looking at the ground, waving her hands to locate other things so that she could walk her way to the connecting door.

“Stop here. You… You really can’t see?”

Sora nodded her head in a different direction as she didn’t know where Taehyung was exactly standing at. Taehyung didn’t mean a mocking laugh but he lowered his shades again.

“Are you sure you can’t see anything? If I remove my cover-ups, you’re sure that you can’t see me at all?” Sora looked up in alarm. Why would this guy want to tempt her with the removal of his disguise? She was already dead curious of how he’d look like without it but he chose to remove them right in a condition where her vision couldn’t tolerate. The night-blindness in her only allowed her to see a blurry sight of his exposed eyes.

“I really… can’t see you.” Her tears fell from the corner of her eyes. She couldn’t describe why they did so involuntarily, but her heart scrunched as it seemed like she was trying to reach out for something that she couldn’t. It’s like she was trying to reach out for the past memories that were impossible for her to grasp and relive them.

“Sora-ah, you can never chase after me!”

“Oppa, stop right there! It’s killing me, don’t leave me here in the dark!”

Taehyung realised that his sister was then facing a serious problem with her night vision. He quit running and got back next to his sister to make her sit up after she bumped into a pillar. Sora whined as she felt deserted, so lonely when her brother darted out of her sight, leaving her alone in the pitch black space.

The silence, as though, was beckoning her soul to conjoin with the fading walls and Sora hated the traumatic sensation. She tugged her palms at her ears tightly, begging for tight hug to assure her that she wasn’t alone.

“Sorry Sora, I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.” Taehyung the tip of her head and pulled her in for a tight embrace. He felt ultimately sorry for fooling around with her limitations and since then, he was always there for her whenever the dark tunes in.

Sora blinked her eyes forcefully, in much desperation to see V so that she could clutch onto his sleeves, not wanting to be trapped alone in the room that had been overcast by nothing by just darkness to her.

Taehyung smirked behind the mouth mask, the only remaining cover-up he was wearing, as he took a step backward while Sora was taking a few baby-steps forward towards him.

“V…” She wasn’t trying to make her whining evident but more of her tears fell and Taehyung then realised her change of expression. The bold girl from before turned fearful as he was taking steps backwards, wanting to move away from her.

“Don’t leave me alone, please!” Her brows finally frowned, showing creases on her forehead. Sora started to whine when she pushed herself forward towards Taehyung. He in a lump of air when she was tugging onto his shirt, laying her forehead on his arm as she silently chanted for him to stay there with her. He felt sorry of all sudden. He didn’t know what Sora would be feeling and he was sorry that he failed to understand the fear of being stranded in a dark space centred in a room with illusion drawing closer to you, arousing anxiousness.

“Oppa…” Sora cried in his chest.

Taehyung didn’t know any idea how to comfort the lady but he placed his hand on the tip of her head and through her smooth hair meticulously. His hands tentatively s to her sides and he adjusted them properly to make the hug comforting in some ways. 

“I… I’m sorry, Sohee. I won’t do that again.” He uttered. 

(a/n): OMAIGOT sorry for the false anticipation dear readers, my connection was down last night so i couldn't do a double update ToT Anyways, guys i feel a little worried when some say that they couldn't quite understand some of my chapters omg please don't be afraid to ask so that it can help clear your doubts! Sorry i'm not that good as a writer to bring you a perfect fic D': So you heard me, please just leave any kinds of thoughts in the comments (: Thank you readers for the upvotes, subscribes and aklfhkjaglskklsghsfgj!! :'D <3