overmorrow || bts x reader

a rather rough start.

The porridge was bland. That was the only word to describe it, and it fit the whole damned food perfectly. Or at least on that morning. It was a bland blend of oats and berries and warmed milk, yet I just couldn't bring myself to do more with the mush than just swirl it around my mouth with the occasional chew.

From across the table, the somewhat elderly lady who had been taking care of me for so many years and sheltering me stared me down. Unimpressed, stern, and ever so stubborn in what she thought, she chided me for not eating with her still-full bowl. Did I mention her occasional hypocrisy as well? Because that was most certainly present. After her minute lecture, I merely shrugged. If I didn't eat it then something would. Foxes rummaged through any waste they could get their filthy paws on around these parts anyway. However, it certainly didn't help that we were located closer to the forest than other residents. Lucky sods never realised how fortunate they were about small things like that.

Finally I swallowed the tasteless slop. With a heavy sigh, I pushed my half-finished bowl away. She stared at it then at me disapprovingly with those honey eyes of hers before copying my action. Her marks of age in that moment seemed even more hollow and ingrained into her skin. Wrinkles like crevasses and sags as heavy in appearance as the largest weights. Even her expression was almost heartbreaking; a mixture between the harsh stubborn mule she always seemed to be and a rather forlorn one of someone going through at least quite a bit of mild inner turmoil. But it most certainly was more than that.

Even the coffee was bland- watered down and more vinegar-like in colour if anything. The taste was somehow worse.

"Why are you even going?" She finally asked. The words were muttered with a bite of reluctance to them, yet her face told of relief to finally get the question out. And, to be truthful, I didn't know how to word the response to her. Marjorie wasn't a fool- she was far from it- and there was a high chance she already knew. But by god did she have a short fuse, and one small slip up could set her off. The classic 'checkmate' situation, huh? It certainly felt like it. Both ways to respond just seemed to make her angry in the well-informed visions I could muster. So there was one way forward:

Begrudgingly, I took a gobful of the coffee and tried to filter it down and away from my abused tastebuds as quickly as I could. It was a chain reaction of gulps until I was finally free from the beverage. It was no longer bland, but instead tasted of some unknown, awful substance. I cringed, both genuinely from the taste and to push home my attempt to change the subject,

"Jesus, woman, how the hell did you make this?" I smacked my lips in disgust and for the sake of melodrama. Go big or go home, right? "It tastes more like fox dung than coffee beans, for crying out loud!"

"Language, you! Don't think you're too big for soap to scrub out your mouth for one minute!" Hook, line and sinker. Marjorie took the bait like a fish and her eyes were like one too- bulging and twitching with disbelief at my outburst. That was until she regained control and slumped back down in her chair and crossed her arms, deciding now to dig into her barely lukewarm porridge. Just as she was to take a bite off her spoon, she waved it at me and quipped a, "You can't say much anyhow. Remember when you last tried to make coffee?"

I grimaced, tearing my formerly amused gaze from the older lady who (now satisfied) popped the spoon into her mouth. That was one mistake I'd rather not remember. My foot nudged hers under the table as I slouched in my seat, to which she gave me a swift kick for. I realised my mistake just as she was to open her mouth and flew up from my seat and attempted to escape the room.

"Yeah, you better run you brat!" Those were the words I could still hear from her seat at the table as I slowed my pace into a stroll up the stairs. Even with the volume of her voice I snickered quietly to myself with a shake of my head. Usually when she would bark orders or name calls from across the house they'd be coupled together, 'asking' me to grab some eggs from town for tea coupled with rather colourful language. It was all part of her oh-so overwhelming charm.