road trip.

[28] bite sized clouds

you see, taehyung's too gullible, too naive; the littlest bit of niceness shown from someone makes taehyung wanna open up his heart eternally for them — which results in painful heartbreak when they do him over. he's grown up into an adult without once knowing how to tell the difference between an enemy and a friend.
he doesn't have much experience with the world outside his office at kim industries and it sucks at times, times like right now when all he wants to do is thank jungkook a million times and like him but he can't do that because jeon jungkook is his godamn kidnapper, his 'scary' kidnapper who freely carries around two fucking m9 guns in his dora the explorer backpack, haphazardly threatening to kill people every fifteen minutes — five minutes if he's pissed off. he's someone taehyung's not supposed to like.

taehyung sighs, looks away from his pack of sour sweets and glances at the aforementioned man.
oh, you still haven't thanked him, taehyung remembers randomly after looking at jungkook. better say it now.

taehyung clears his throat, "th–thank you for h–helping me out — you were really good." taehyung mumbles, staring down at the pack of sour gummies sitting on his lap. "i-i mean, you were really good with handling the situation. how did you know what to do?" taehyung asks, gathering himself and feeling genuinely curious.

jungkook takes his time to answer. he breathes in the cigarette, drawing the fumes into his lungs for a couple of seconds before slowly parting his lips to allow white tendrils to escape and form a bite sized pale cloud in the air.
he finally bothers to speak, "my friend's a therapist; he specialises in phobias."

taehyung doesn't know if he should believe jungkook but he nods nevertheless.

"you ready to leave?" jungkook asks, dropping his cigarette on to the concrete below and grinding it to bits under his heel.

taehyung folds up the open part of the sour gummies packet and pushes the item into the plastic bag hanging from the motorcycle's handlebars. "yeah," he murmurs, looking up at jungkook.

"alright, we'll leave—" jungkook's phone rings, breaking him off. he pulls the sleek looking device out of his back pocket and reads the name of the caller printed on the lockscreen.
"—uhh, hold on." he mutters, sliding his thumb across the lockscreen to answer the persistent caller.

im glad i thanked him, taehyung thinks as he pulls out the water bottle again. what he did was super nice of him to do — was super nice of a kidnapper to do.

a kidnapper.
right, he's a kidnapper.

drinking and temporarily holding the water in his puffed cheeks, taehyung frowns.
but would a 'normal' kidnapper help me through my panic attack?
would he sit there with me for ten minutes, my face cupped in his hands and tell me that im okay and safe? would he have even helped me out of that suffocating bathroom?

taehyung pauses for a second.
i don't think so.

full of thoughts, taehyung swallows the water in his mouth and takes another few gulps of now lukewarm water.

would a 'normal' kidnapper even allow you to have pee breaks and let you get junk foods? would he even fucking feed you meals?

no.
no, of course he wouldn't. it's probably part of the job description right?? jungkook's boss, the guy who wants me, probably asked for an unharmed and healthy kim taehyung. otherwise why would jeon treat me like. . . like this? yeah. yeah, totally — it's for the job — for the money on offer, nothing else.