Brighter Days || Taekook

Part 50

"Taehyung," Jin yelps, "put that down again!"

Taehyung groans, but he knows that as soon as Jin has spotted him with the box in his hands – and it's not even a heavy box, but he knows that Jin won't allow him any room for arguments either way – it's game over. He puts it down again in the back of the van as Jin stares him down with a scowl. "If you're trying to be productive, carry up the blankets and pillows; one at a time."

"That's not fair. I want to be helpful as well," Taehyung pouts, but Jin levels him with a disapproving glare that allows no more disputing and makes Taehyung begrudgingly sift through all the stuff to find their bedding.

"Yeah, shouldn't have gotten a cracked rib then," Jin deadpans, before grabbing the very same box Taehyung had been forced to drop just seconds ago.

It's moving day, and everyone's in high spirits. It's a warm afternoon at the beginning of May, the Seoul air humid and fine dust levels at an average, and Bangtan Sonyeondan is busy lugging around boxes and furniture as they have packed up their lives in the old dorm to move to a new one. It's only slightly bigger than their last one but considerably closer to the Big Hit building. It's still six bunk beds and a mattress on the floor that make up a bedroom, but Taehyung doesn't mind that. He likes when he wakes up in the middle of the night and can hear the other members around him – it gives him comfort.

Technically, the seventh mattress on the floor is unnecessary anyway, because more times than not Jungkook ends up in Taehyung's bed to cuddle at night, or sometimes in Jimin's or Hoseok's, or sometimes Taehyung falls asleep on Yoongi's mattress as he watches his hyung scribble lyrics on paper and Yoongi doesn't have the heart to wake him up and send him to his own bed when he has already fallen asleep. Very rarely, Jin and Namjoon will share a mattress as well, one of them sneaking under the blanket of the other when the rest of them are asleep, but they get caught anyway when one of the other members wakes up before them. So really, the mattress on the floor is unnecessary because most of the time someone's sharing anyway, but it's there nonetheless and has started to turn into Jungkook's closet over time, the youngest throwing all his clothes on it mindlessly.

"I'm tired," Jimin whines once they are all done unloading the cars and sprawled out in their new living room, surrounded by unpacked boxes, and Hoseok agrees with a groan. Some furniture still needs to be assembled as well, but none of them can find the motivation to do that at the moment.

"I'm not," Taehyung teases, and ducks as a pillow comes flying towards him from Namjoon's direction. It's late afternoon, and the company has allowed them the rest of the day off after moving. Jungkook has already dozed off and the others look close to doing the same, but Taehyung can't blame them. It's been an insanely busy few days since his release from the hospital, and from here on out after today – their last free day for who knows how long – it will only get busier with their debut only thirty-three days away. But who's counting anyway? Certainly not Taehyung.

He leaves their new dorm in the early hours of the evening with a fixed itinerary in mind. His first stop leads him to a store that he's passed a couple of times already, and with each time what had first been just a dumb idea had formed into something more solid, and now Taehyung is ready to make the purchase. He's researched online, knows that he has made enough money during his meetings with Mr. Kim to afford it effortlessly and still have a few savings, and he also knows that his members will greatly appreciate the gift. The shop assistant looks a bit perplexed at the teen walking in and purchasing the same product seven times, but she quickly recovers and smiles amicably and promises that the delivery to their new dorm will take place tomorrow afternoon.

After he's finished at his first stop, Taehyung takes the public transport back to the familiar bad quarters he called his home for so long to pick up Soonshim. He walks down the sidewalk briskly, hands in his jeans pockets and head lowered, but his shoulders aren't hunched and he doesn't feel as uncertain walking down these streets as he used to. He knows now that he won't have to return here again, that the life and the Taehyung that had stood at the corner of the sidewalk and lured in cars with paying customers are dead now, and that all that's left of them are his memories. Of course he knows that he can't be certain that life won't slap him in the face and throw him down another deep well one day that he'll have to climb out off again, but for now he's in the open, has escaped, and he's willing to let that old Taehyung go – at least to some extent, because he knows that the old Taehyung will always be a part of him, that his scars run deep and will never fully fade, but that's okay. That's life, and at the moment life is good, and that's not something that Taehyung had really experienced before, so he wants to focus on the positive and enjoy the moment, and hopes that the Taehyung from the past will forgive him for trying to let go and not be bitter about it all too much.