Ten

A scruffy, brown haired boy rushes through the hallways, tie flying up against his face. All the doors, displays and lockers pass by in a blur. The final bell has rung for home. Today is a Friday and it is sunny. Which only means one thing.

The beach.

He quickly spurts out goodbyes to his friends, twitching a bit on the spot when his fifth period teacher catches up with him to scold him for leaving before her dismissal. Barely listening he waits for her to finish, ready to bow so he can be done with it. He runs all the way home, the exhaustion of the school week long forgotten. Breathless, he rips the door open to see his mother already packing away food and drinks into a basket while through the window his father is in the backyard hooking up their small boat to the car.

"Sweetie, be quick now. Put your uniform away and bring out some blankets and a couple of towels from the cupboard upstairs." He doesn't need to be told twice. He kisses his mother on the cheek, slyly snatching one of the icecreams she was about to place in the cooler before bounding upstairs. "Kim Taehyung! What is this? I gave birth to a little punk."

Although it's nothing compared to the docks near where Taehyung's parents came from, Friday afternoons at the beach are the best. It is the only place where they don't have to talk about school or work. Taehyung knows that it's a good thing to move out here in the city.

His dad got a better job and he got in to a better school. His mom finally got to own her own kitchen. Taehyung doesn't know what she means by that when they had one back at their old house that they shared with his granparents. But he's sees father less and less. He wonders if he would've studied as hard to be in the school's top ten if he knew this is what would happen.

"Tae! A hand?" The small boy breaks out of his reverie and rushes over with a net to place his dad's catch in. After a good ten minutes of struggling, dinner flops out and back into the sea, tail fin whacking his dad in the face in farewell. Turning back with a red cheek, mother and son point and laugh.

"Serves you right for trying to eat her!" Taehyung hollers, clutching his stomach.

"Yes, very ungentlemanly of you dear. That fish will probably tell all her family and friends of it. You didn't even ask her name. Oh, the shame." Arm dramatically draped over her forehead, hIs mother plays along. His dad only shakes his head, reaching over to wrap his arms around his sons' head, gently knuckling at his hair.

"Weirdo. Like mother like son, I guess." His wife turns to him with a light-hearted scowl, striding over to check how bad the mark is. After deeming it harmless, she pokes him on chest.

"Says the one who got -slapped by a fish."

"Seol-ah, don't curse in front of our son." His dad moves his hands to his ears. Taehyung can only smile. As far as they know, the only curse words that exist in his vocabulary are shut up and idiot. Good thing Yoongi hasn't visited yet.

"Hmm, doesn't change the fact." She's baiting him. If you thought Taehyung's mother was childish, you've got another thing coming.

"Very mature." Nice try old man.

"Good for you honey, you know when to back down." Ahe pats his head and his left eye twitches. Gotcha. They set off into a heated (but not really) mock battle where they point out the "unfavourable" traits that Taehyung inherited from the other. It is an old arguement that Taehyung knows all too well, so he's not offended.

"I'm surprised he has friends, the way takes after you. They must just as freaky, if they haven't called the mental hospital on him already."

"Yes, yes, yes - you already pointed that out. I bet he at comebacks like you do, too. Ha."

"Well he sure as hell didn't get his english skills from me." Taehyung snorts at this. Mom's still winning, though.
"He got his womanly hands from you, too. What kind of man has slender, white hands?"

"I think I'd be more concerned with the manly voice he got from you. And excuse me wife, what in the hell is that s'posed to mean? I never heard you complaining about my hands."

"And I never heard you complaining about my voice." Smirks and arched eyebrows turn into knowing glances and flirtatious giggles. It is at this point, where most kids would cringe. Taehyung doesn't though because he is too innocent to understand the meaning behind their words and also because it was at this moment that he realised something.

He did, however look away in horror when his dad made a chomping gesture at her before grabbing her neck to close the distance and plant a chaste kiss on the lips. "Gross!" Gross indeed, but back to what the young boy realised.

His parents have always acted freely like this in front of him. He's used to it. The older he got, the more he saw why he would be happy, too when his dad would kiss his mom. It made him feel special that he has such parents. That he came from that. He knows people who don't have both their parents together and he feels sad for them. They don't know what they're missing.

But seeing them today, mocking and teasing and still being able to look at each other the way they do made him realise that maybe he does have a big dream to aspire to after all.

A/N: a bit of a filler chapter, but I felt there needed to be some sort of back story building up for what's to come :)