Doll Parts (taekook)

Chapter 4

Once in an ocean of mirrored visors, filtered masks, and raised hoods, Taehyung caught a glimpse of a familiar pair of eyes. A man in a reflective bomber jacket with fiery red hair zooming by on an electric scooter.

Drunk and coming down from a two-day HySpeed glitch, Taehyung chased him through congested streets and alley descents. He jerked past crowds with noses buried in screens and minds afloat in digital clouds.

Blocks upon blocks, his boots splashed against wet concrete. The wind whisked his hair away from his face as wild and asymmetrical as his thoughts. Taehyung's heart was about to erupt when the man slowed to a stop. Ahead of him, the man folded up his scooter, clipped it onto his backpack, and strolled into a coffee shop as narrow as a yard.

He took his face mask off, and Taehyung squinted at his features through the windowpane, his fingerprints smudging the glass. Processing, despite his upside down intoxication.

Was this him? I'll find you. Add fourteen years to that little boy's face. Was this him? Best friends forever.

Taehyung shut his eyes as tight as he could, as if his eyeballs would pop out if he didn't. Several brain flashes in a high speed info overload—a surface mount assembly on a 3D printer. Flash. The locks of hair he used to keep under a paper-thin pillow. Flash. How to replace a rotator on a carbon fiber leg. Flash.

Reality to retina, the image in front of him was slow to flip right-side-up.

When he caught his breath, Taehyung entered the shop and hovered by the entrance. Fiery red. He needed a closer look.

At a call of a different name, the man perked up. His smile didn't engulf his eyes. The turn of his head, even his posture, wasn't right.

It wasn't him. Of course it wasn't.

Heart crushed and brain rattled, Taehyung slumped like a deflated automaton. The corners of his eyes stung. His pupils must've looked like disks, must've looked insane. An old woman shouldered past him, hissing curses under her breath.

The red-haired man was staring at Taehyung now. And—

Huh, he looked nothing like him at all.

⌱

"Hey. When d'you think you're leaving?"

Jungkook shrugged off his plastic coat, pouting in a cloy exaggeration. "You really want me gone?"

"Nah. I just wanna.... know."

"I guess I can tell you." Jungkook drooped down onto a rolling chair—the one he had unofficially claimed as his own—and spun around. "I'm meeting my friend two weeks from now," he shared, slowing to poke at the suspended nylon 12 absentmindedly. It was coming along.

"Two weeks?" Taehyung repeated, pausing. The ache in his thighs throbbed with each step. "You said a few days."

"So, you do want me gone."

Taehyung shook his head. "Was just shocked, is all." He limped to sit across Jungkook, his gait stiff and mechanical.

"Is it okay? If I stay here until then?" Jungkook asked, fiddling with the corner of the diagnostic box.

"Do I have a choice?" Taehyung laughed in a restrained manner.

He chuckled along. "Not really."

⌱

With Jungkook around, Taehyung cut his daily dosage of HySpeed in half. An unexpected relief. He was no longer a one man team: Jungkook packed the items and would book the delivery service for each batch through Taehyung's phone. He'd also be the one to take the trip downstairs and hand the package over to the delivery man.