An Extra Beat of Love

23. Another almost-fight

I swear Taehyung's behaviour and thoughts are gonna frustrate you like hell. It is frustrating to me too, lol. I just wanna slap him and force him to take some rest XD

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"Wanna go on a date?" Jeongguk asked, slamming his chopsticks down on the table once Seokjin and Namjoon left for work. Taehyung froze. "....a date?" he asked, cursing his horrible luck as much as he could. 

"Yupp!!" Jeongguk exclaimed happily, taking Taehyung's hesitancy for shyness. 

"We can go to the amusement park. Or maybe we can go to the trampoline or something. Or maybe the water park. Or the snow world. Or we can go racing. Hana will enjoy all of them too," he suggested excitedly, dropping brick after brick inside Taehyung with every suggestion of his. 

"WATE' PATH, WATE' PATH!!" Hana exclaimed after hearing Jeongguk utter 'water park'. That sounded perfect for her. 

Taehyung stared at Jeongguk open-mouthed, not knowing how to escape the situation. Not a single one of Jeongguk's ideas ensured that he followed his 'minimum physical activity' plan for the two days. 

"....don't you have work, though?" he asked hesitantly. 

"Nope. I took a couple of days off. Yoongi hyung will call me if he needs something urgent. I'm free otherwise," Jeongguk said with an excited grin. 

Taehyung looked down and tried to think quickly. "Umm.....umm....Hana was not feeling very well yesterday," he blurted out, remembering the fact that Hana had gone to sleep earlier the previous day. "I don't think it's good to take her outside now," he said. 

"Ohh? Rig-"

"NO, NO, OPPA, I'M FINE, I'M FINE, APPA, I AM VELY VELY FINE!!" Hana exclaimed desperately, scared that her father would cancel the plan on her account. 

"Baby.....you ar-"

"Appa, pleash. Wate' path," Hana pouted and looked at Jeongguk with large watering eyes, killing his building-up resolve right away. 

"Fine, fine, you are alright. Let's just go, hyung. We need not count this as our first date if you don't wanna," Jeongguk pleaded. 

Realizing that he had no more say in the matter, Taehyung sighed. "Fine. When are we goi-"

"You don't wanna go with me?" Jeongguk asked, noticing the dejected way in which Taehyung was answering. 

"No, no!! That's not it!! Let's go, let's go, I wanna go!!" Taehyung exclaimed right away. He did not want Jeongguk to misunderstand him and think he did not like him back just as much as Jeongguk did. He did not want Jeongguk to think he was leeching off of him just because Jeongguk liked him.  

Jeongguk immediately broke into a grin, scrunching his nose up the way he did when too much of happiness leaked into his features. He leaned across Hana's chair at the dining table, where they had had their breakfast before the owners of the house left, and pecked Taehyung's lips. 

"Let's get ready, then. My doll is ready already," he said and got up from the chair. Taehyung tried his best to smile without making his fear and hesitance obvious. "Yupp," he said and got up from the table as well. 

"YAYYYYY!!" Hana yelled and jumped onto him right away, showing her excitement in her own way by hugging him(his legs). Taehyung chuckled at that and bent down to hug her better. When he pulled out, she outstretched her arms, asking him wordlessly to pick her up. 

With a sigh and a forced grin, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, following Jeongguk, who stayed completely oblivious to Taehyung's inner(and outer) turmoil.