STAY | BLACKPINK
"when darkness comes, ill be your fire"
taehyung focus
with cheeks still glowing red from embarrassment, taehyung boards the bus and stands awkwardly behind jungkook who purchases tickets from the bus driver, conversing lowly whilst taehyung fidgets.
the latter ignores whatever jungkook was asking the driver and looks around the bus' neat interior — it's clean enough, only occasional food wrappers litter the linoleum floor but otherwise the choice of transport looks kinda comfy to taehyung; the navy coloured seats are mainly stain free and no dodgy people seem to hang out in the back. and the vehicle's only occupants are three other passengers; an elderly man and a young girlfriend and boyfriend who sit together, fingers interlocked as they exchange sickeningly sweet smiles with each other.
"go to the back." taehyung swiftly jerks his head back to face jungkook at the sound of his voice. the aforementioned uncomfortably stares down taehyung, glinting eyes boring into his face as he waits for taehyung to make a move. taehyung gulps at the close proximity but nods, turning away to walk down the aisle with jungkook hot on his feet.
he takes the window seat at the back and settles down into the cushioned chair, leaning his heavy head against the top of his seat whilst watching the people of dosi move around outside. he sighs at sight; wanting to walk right out of the bus and wander back down the street towards the bustling marketplace to further explore.
taehyung looks away. his eyes flit to jungkook who still stands, shrugging off his backpack without looking or saying a word to the older, his face completely neutral. he hadn't said anything or looked at taehyung once since taehyung's sudden outburst and now the older remembers the expression printed on jungkook's face when he had accidentally blabbed to him about his lack of leisure time and shitty lifestyle.
he looked serious, less angry-frowny, and kinda. . . concerned?
taehyung shakes his head, incredulous at the very though of jungkook being concerned about him.
concerned? no, he probably just pitied me — after all the sad shit you ranted to him, of course he'd feel some sort of pity.
sighing, taehyung looks back out of his window.
jungkook focus
the younger takes a seat at the back too, but keeps two seats free in between him and taehyung, using one as a seat for his backpack. he settles down into the seat and folds his arms over his chest, waiting patiently for the bus driver to start up the bus.
soon enough, the vehicle judders to a start and courses slowly down the road — normally the "slow and boring" speed of a bus would annoy jungkook but today, right now, the younger revels in the relaxing pace and leans his head against the seat, closing his tired eyes. he plans to take a small nap on the bus since he'd only managed to grab a couple hours of sleep last night but his thoughts don't allow him to. one after the other, thoughts start to wander into his head, taking up his mind's interior without his permission.
is his life really like that?
jungkook opens his eyes to look at taehyung warily through the corner of his vision. the older doesn't seem to notice the pair of eyes scrutinising him and continues to watch the trees and fields flit by outside in silence.
jungkook mentally shakes his head, why am i thinking about what he said? he said forget it, so forget it jungkook.
he closes his eyes.
but, of course, the thought reappears unwillingly inside his head. sighing frustratedly, he opens his eyes once more and fixates his gaze on the empty seat in front of him.
surely being the heir of a huge multimillionaire company has its rewards? he thinks, internally hating his mind for not being able to comply with his body's tiredness.
but taehyung didn't say anything about rewards — he only mentioned the bad aspects.
the bad aspects, jungkook repeats inside his head.
he said he couldn't go home from school if he got less than a b+.
he said he's an illegitimate child.
he said his mom didn't love him.
he said he throws up due to stress.
he said he starves himself and loses sleep just to find more time to do extra work.
jungkook's gaze returns to taehyung's figure, eyeing the older with something akin to pity.
did he really spend his whole life learning about business and going through all that shit just so he could take over kim enterprises?
he doesn't even want to inherit his dad's company.
that's twenty one years gone to waste.
sighing, jungkook grudgingly admits: he seems to be a good guy ( jungkook thinks back to how taehyung had reacted with the kid in the chicken shop; playing happily with him whilst the kid's stressed mom took a breather. and just now when he had cheerfully wished that girl a happy birthday, singing and clapping along even though he didn't know her ) — it's a shame that he's going through all this shit.
he's just a guy who gets really happy seeing fried chicken, kids and new things.
jungkook looks over at taehyung again. for god's sake, the guy got super excited just by looking at a fucking stall selling cheap ramen.
shaking his head, jungkook attempts sleep again by closing his eyes and slowing his breathing rate but his mind produces yet another thought.
i wonder what other things he hasn't been able to do, jungkook wonders, tapping his foot against the metal floor of the bus, thoughtfully.
he brushes the thought away, well, whatever, i hope he gets to do them someday, he thinks, yawning.
another thought comes into his head.
jungkook frowns.
he pushes it to the back of his head.
it comes back.
no, oh my god, no. he pushes it away.
it comes back.
he doesn't even mean anything to you — why should you do this for him?
it comes back.
he's your fucking captive — you're meant to take him to joon hyung and collect your money. he pushes the idea away again. im not gonna make him write a bucket list up and do the list with hi—
it comes back.
oh, for fucks sake.
taehyung focus
"kim, what other things haven't you done?" jungkook abruptly breaks the silence.
taehyung swivels his head to face him, eyes blinking as he thinks through jungkook's random question.
"uhm, ive never been to a public bath before. . . and ive never been to a fairground either or an amusement park. ive never seen the ocean in real life — never went to the seaside. ive never had street food before, or alcohol. ive never gotten drunk before or went to one of those wild college house parties and—"
"okay okay, write them down. here," jungkook shoves his hand into his hoodie pocket, rifling through the contents to retrieve the two bus tickets. he hands a crumpled one to taehyung before handing him a pen from his backpack pocket.
taehyung watches him do all this with confusion in his eyes. he the items with furrowed brows and before taehyung could question the pen and paper in his palms, jungkook tersely cuts in, "write down all the things you haven't done before and you wanna do. write a maximum of um. . . six." jungkook orders, looking away as soon as he finishes talking.
taehyung blinks at the piece of paper and the black ballpoint pen in his hand and then regards the younger with a careful look.
feeling pretty perplexed but not wanting to ask and bug jungkook, taehyung turns away quietly and flips the bus ticket to show the plain side of the card. he places the bus ticket on his thigh and hunches over to write down the things jungkook asked of.
jungkook focus
it takes a whole half hour for taehyung to write down his list. he chews the pen top unconsciously whilst thinking hard and constantly crossing out items on his list, but finally finally he produces a complete list and hands it over to jungkook who's eyes flit over the words written in neat writing.
this is such a bad idea, he tells himself as he does so.
"'number one, dance in the rain.'" jungkook looks up upon reading the first thing on taehyung's list and raises both his eyebrows at taehyung, who shies away from jungkook's amused facial expression, his cheeks a rosy colour.
"i saw it in a movie once and it looked fun." he mutters, looking away, embarrassed.
"okay," this is such a bad, bad, bad idea, jungkook. "'number two, dye my hair.' huh, we could do that." he tells himself.
taehyung looks up at him, surprised, "wait, we're gonna do all these things?"
jungkook doesn't respond, instead he reads no3. "'number three, get drunk.' you've never gotten drunk before?"
"ive drank wine and felt a lil tipsy" he giggles a little at this. jungkook regards him carefully, making taehyung stop his giggling and feel suddenly self conscious. "but uhm, ive never gotten f-fully drunk." taehyung stutters, a little embarrassed.
"hm, 'number four, have my first kiss.'" jungkook looks at taehyung again. taehyung, red as a tomato, hurriedly looks away.
"don't say anything." he mumbles, his awkward fingers fidgeting in his lap as his ears turning a bright shade of red.
jungkook stifles a small smile and reads the next one, "'number five, spend a day at the fairground.' that's simple enough, okay."
"'number six, sit around a campfire at night on the beach?' hmm, okay is that all—" jungkook spots something written in small under number 6.
"'number seven? fall in. . .love with someone." jungkook slowly states as he squints at the tiny script. he looks up at taehyung who makes a strangled noise and completely presses his front against the bus wall, his cheeks, tips of ears and neck burning an agitated red colour.
"i was supposed to cross that one out." he whisper–shouts, cringing.
jungkook clears his throat. "dunno about the last one but i think we can do all these things before we reach our destination." he mutters, folding and tucking away taehyung's bucket list into his hoodie pocket.
taehyung coughs and regains his posture, sitting rigid in his seat.
"so we're doing all six?" taehyung asks.
"don't you mean seven?" jungkook asks, and this time he doesn't bother to stifle his grin. feeling embarrassed all over again, taehyung groans and covers his burning face with his hands, mumbling about how damn annoying jungkook was.
this is a very bad idea, jungkook. it's not too late to back out—
"we're gonna take advantage of the fact that we're off route and do some things you haven't been able to do before." jungkook explains, tugging his cap a little lower over his face before leaning against his seat and folding his arms over his chest. "im gonna take a half hour nap, don't wake me up and don't try anything funny." jungkook mutters, closing his eyes.
taehyung focus
speechless, surprised, stupefied. taehyung blankly stares at jungkook.
"we're gonna take advantage of the fact that we're off route and do some things you haven't been able to do before."
out of nowhere, a lone butterfly swoops around in taehyung's stomach, the flutter of paper thin wings catching him off guard.
__________
my "bucket list plot" finally starts after nineteen long ass chapters and taehyung feels something!1!1! whoo!
also thank you for taking the time to read this :):):):) <3