Small feet pad through the dirt, two sets of footprints marked, one following the other.
Taehyung's right hand grips a toy shovel and the left holds the handle of the pail, swinging it so the edge of the pail hits the back of your knee.
You don't comment or turn around to yell at him, instead focusing on the verdant horizon of the field, grass cut and ground soft after being trampled on so often by careless adults and kids much like the two of you.
He stops by a tree, shielded from the beaming sun with the canopy of leaves that stay still. It's a kind of afternoon that is suffocating, too warm and difficult to breathe without any trace of breeze to lessen the sweat building on your hairline.
Yet the pint-sized human doesn't seem to particularly care as he squats down, bucket by his side, shovel puncturing through the first layer of dirt.
"Stop staring at me, dumbo!" He shrieks and you look away. But Taehyung's still not satisfied as you stand there, towering over him. He throws the shovel right at your feet. "You dig!"
Your head falls, staring at the tool, and then you quietly comply.
Despite squatting down, you're still taller than him, but he ignores it, ignores that you're older than him, taller and stronger, that he's technically under your authority and watch.
He's the king in this make-believe universe after all and his words are law. You're merely the peasant meant to serve him, the knight, bound to protect him.
But you don't like that game very much, so you go against rules and ask in a murmur, "What are we doing?"
Taehyung barely hears you. You don't make much noise and he's not even sure he could recall the sound of your voice if he had to. Not like he cares to know though.
"We're gonna dig to the other side of the world, duh!" Taehyung's expression is exaggerated, mouth dropped, like you have a single brain cell and he's a genius who finds it physically painful to have to explain everything.
"I don't think that's how it works," you mumble. Your dad doesn't let you talk back. You think it's okay with Taehyung though.
"It works!" He insists with a pout, cheeks puffing out into balloons. "I saw it on TV!"
"Oh."
You don't watch TV. Your dad says it's bad for kids.
"You dig there and I'll dig here." The seven-year old goes for the other shovel in the red bucket, a whole toy set his mom gave him for Christmas when he visited her.
For a brief moment, you wonder if making so many holes in the field will get you in trouble later.
Like that time Taehyung was a pirate and tried to dig for treasure in your backyard while his dad said it was okay and even laughed, but your dad scolded you that night when they were gone and told you it shouldn't happen again. Apparently it's bad for the grass.
Your eyes lift, looking up to where the younger boy is working hard.
He's putting dirt by the handfuls into his bucket as if preparing to build a sandcastle in the middle of summer on a grassy field and not a beach. All his might is mustered up, arms straining as he groans and makes an even deeper hole, trying to find the other end of the Earth.
YOU ARE READING
His Bodyguard || K.TH.
Fanfiction"I'm sorry." You shake your head. "Is there something I should know, Mr. Kim?" "Mr. Kim?" he murmurs in exasperation and steps forward again as if to corner you. Taehyung refuses to give up. He insists on jogging your memory again. "We used to dig h...
