Vestiges || KTH FF

Chapter III

Taehyung hated hot weather. Summer brought him a lot more than just the scorching heat. It made him suffocate. It made his heart beat with unknown anxiousness, in a speed which his body wasn't able to cope up with. Summer wrapped him in a dark heavy shadow which gradually made him dull.

Less thoughts.

Less words spoken.

Less emotions felt.

He was drowning in the pits of nothingness. The burden of his past getting heavier. Taehyung wasn't depressed, something he was really sure of. He had just become more.. silent. Than he usually was before.

But in the faintest of his memories, he remembers there being a time when he used to look up to this time of the season. The summer. The vacation. The unbelievable satisfaction from eating the cold ice-creams in the scrunching heat.

The echoes of the summer days were once one of his best memories when the leaves turned dark green and full, opened towards the sunlight in the hot aromatic air.

But as time passed, summer became his least favourite to the point that now he couldn't even stand it. The uncomfortable feeling it gave him was enough to taint his soul. The painful memories it brought started to turn into haunting nightmares.

Nightmares of that hot weather, when his stubbornness for a mere ice-cream cost him his dad's life. Had Taehyung not been that stubborn, his dad would never have gotten into that accident. He also remembered the time when he had got a call from the hospital that his mom was ill. He had rushed out of school in hurry, running and panting in the heat. Sweat dripping as the sun was merciless. And his heart dropped, his throat ached due to dryness when he learned that she was suffering from cancer. Her room was hot and the open windows carried the humid air.

Summer brought nothing but just pain and suffering to him. It was also one of those humid suffocating nights, he lied unconscious in front of his eyes on the cold street, his uniform soaked in his own blood.

Taehyung's eyes shot open as he woke up from his sleep, something electrifying running through his veins. It was the same nightmare he had been having for sometime. It was the same routine every night. Waking up from the same horrid dream, panting and sweating, his mouth dried up in thirst. His breathing uneven. The fan was on its full speed and the windows were open yet the heat was unbearable.

Taehyung got out of his bed and walked downstairs to the kitchen. Taking out a bottle of water and some leftover fried chicken- which they apparently ordered for dinner since Heechul-ssi was too tired to cook- from the fridge, he sat in the dinning and and gulped down all the cold water at once. After having a bite or two of the chicken, he leaned back on the chair satisfied with his late night snack.

A screw driver on the kitchen counter caught his attention when an incredible idea popped up in his mind. He cleaned the mess and headed back up to his room. But stopped in front of Heechul-ssi's room when he saw a faint light peeping out of the small gap from the slightly open door.

He carefully went inside, walking on his toes not wanting to wake up the sleeping man. The room was a mess and his bed was a disaster. His computer was on, books and clothes spread everywhere.

Taehyung turned of his computer and walked towards him to remove his reading glasses from his sleeping face. The scar on his eyebrow caught his eyes, an uneasy feeling of guilt clutching tightly to his heart. It made him realize of his past hatred and rage towards him.

His stubbornness not to move on from his dad's death. His denial of accepting Sung Heechul as a new member of his family. It had been around 6 months since his mom tied knots with him yet he was still wary of him. In spite his disrespectfulness towards him, he cared and loved Taehyung as his own child. He had once went to his school for a Fathers' Day event. Seeing him talking sweetly about him like the other dads did for their children made him furious. In the heat of the moment, he threw a glass vase at him, which scarred him to date.

As the saying goes time solves everything, it has been 5 years now, and never did he mention anything about it. He still loved and cared for me like his own child. In these years, Taehyung's hatred towards him subsided yet it was difficult for the simple words of apology and acceptance to come out of his throat.

Taehyung closed the door behind him and went up the stairs to his room. It was around 4 in the morning, the sun was just about to warm up those blues to a radiant golden. The darkness of his room escaped as the light from the tube-lights raided the surrounding. He stood in front of the old cupboard, his fingers wrapping tightly around the screw driver curious to know what lied inside. Every kind of scenario ran into his mind. From the lamest to dramatic, from some old stinky laundries to a decayed corpse.

After many trials and errors, Taehyung was finally able to unlock the cupboard (since he wasn't like those professional thieves or agents). His nose scrunched up in irritation from the dust as he opened the old wooden cupboard. His glasses lied on the table yet he was able to see the insides of it. No dirty laundries. Nor any horrid corpse. Just a number of shoe boxes at the corner of the cupboard.

He sighed in disappointment, not that he was expecting gold yet here he found the most basic kind of junk. But there was still bits of excitement left in him, so he took out those boxes and kept them on the study table. With a rag he found lying in some corner of the room, he cleaned the thick blanket of dust wrapped around the boxes.

Inside the box was something Taehyung was not expecting at all. Several DVDs rolled-up in bubble-wraps. Every DVD was numbered with a faded black marker (maybe the marker faded in these 3 years).

The sun was almost up, its warm rays entering his room through the open windows. After going through the junk or whatever one might call it, Taehyung found that one of the lids of the boxes had something written on it. Unable to read, he realized his glasses were off.
Lazily, he put on my glasses and read what was written on the lid.

JEON JUNGKOOK'S LOG.

A/n: The fact that our TaeTae lost so many people in the past (ㅠ ㅠ)
But he'll soon meet new people. Will he make new memories or push them all?
Btw... My fab season is winters. What's urs?
Lemme know in the comment box & twinkle the lil star ;))