TAEKOOK: Kids

°6°

Namg-il, 10. 04 PM

Annoyingly so, days quickly turn to nights, most of them sleepless for Taehyung as he's trying to be good at both - parenting and studying, Naya's frowns transform into occasional peals of laughter and shy smiles, both so endearing to the boy that he stops everything he's doing for a moment long enough to paint a mental picture of the child with round crimson red cheeks and a crooked front tooth into his mind to remember later when worries are eating him inside out.

Taehyung gets up fairly early every morning, reads a bit, then wakes up the kids so they can eat whatever Yoongi brought for them a day prior, after that he leaves Naya to her business or lends her his phone so she can watch Avatar on it, and takes Jaeill to his bedroom (always leaving the door open so she can hear any cry or call for help) where he, though most of the time fruitlessly, tries to study. The days end with a few fits here and there, some shouting before dinner, maybe some crying after it, and around 9 PM Taehyung manages to put them both to bed. He sometimes stays in the room and reads them his studies and eventually, they fall asleep due to boredom.

He then relaxes against his office chair and goes through his notebooks a couple more times until his eyes start closing on their own and he, most of the nights, falls asleep with his forehead leaned against the table.

On some days, when the subject matters are especially hard on him, Taehyung stays up way past midnight despite knowing he'll probably look like complete crap the next morning, and types the nighttime away on his computer, forcibly awake by an insane amount of cheap coffee, and on nights like these, he hears when Jungkook comes home, his car parking in front of the house, the man sneakily jumping up the stairs to his bedroom, ignoring the squeaking parts of the staircase.

Taehyung sometimes hears the faint groans of pain and discomfort through the thin walls and his heart aches for the young male but he pushes it back, dismissing the want to simply go to him and hold him in his arms.

But Taehyung isn't a fool - Bogum has told him that Jeon Jungkook is a well-known boxer, a sport he takes seriously and engages in with burning passion - he beats people up and gets beaten on a daily basis, sometimes returning with big blue patches around his eyes and bruises on his ribcage, some baring and some not.  Taehyung knows he can do nothing about it, besides, the boy told him loud and clear that he needed no one, especially not someone like him.

So Taehyung ignores him the best he can, even as he sees the younger leave in the morning (never before telling Naya she's cute and kissing Jaeill on the cheek, which Taehyung finds incredibly cute), a limp in his step and that stone-cold expression on his handsome face again.

Taehyung is irritated about the fact that even though Jungkook shows no interest in him whatsoever, he sees the younger as an interesting closed book which upon being opened, turns out to be written in a foreign language Taehyung can't understand.

But even that is forgotten sometimes when he's outstandingly busy with this or that around the house or when his pale small neighbor visits him to drop off food.