trouble ➳ bangtan boys

SEVEN

'I'm coming over'

I groan as I read the message from Taehyung. How dare he just invite himself over?

I text back 'fine.' to which he doesn't respond.

After only a few minutes I hear my doorbell ring and I run downstairs to greet him. I open the door, revealing Taehyung with a large grey hoodie covering him and a SnapBack on his head.

Before I invite him in, he pushes passed me and steps inside.

"Rude..." I mumble and he sighs.

"Look, I don't particularly want to do this so please, just for one day, stop insulting me and lets get on with this." He breathes and turns around to face me. 

"Fine," I sigh. "Follow me."

I walk upstairs and into my bedroom, V following closely behind me. I sit on the edge of my bed and he crouches down, sitting on the floor in front of me. 

"You don't need to sit on the floor..." I mumble and he looks up. 

"Well, I'm not sitting on the bed with you." 

"I didn't mean that," I sigh. "There's a chair over there." 

"I'm good here." He states adamantly and I roll my eyes, climbing off my bed and sitting opposite him on the floor. 

"Fine, let's do it here," I tell him and reach for my laptop. "You can research the facts on here, I'll make the poster." 

I hand him the laptop and as he outstretches his arm to receive it, the sleeve of his grey hoodie reels up revealing a dark bruise circling his wrist. 

I frown. "What happened?" 

He pulls down his sleeve, mumbling an almost inaudible 'nothing' before taking the laptop. 

"Fine, I won't ask again but if you're in trouble, V, you need to tell somebody."

He ignores me and opens the laptop, immediately typing quickly onto the keyboard. He reads me some facts which I jot neatly down onto a large piece of A3 paper. This continues for approximately an hour before he sighs tiredly and shuts the laptop screen. 

"What time is it?" V asks and I glance at the clock behind him.

"9pm." 

"I'm tired." He mumbles and closes his eyes. 

For the brief moments when he's not looking, I carefully study his features. He's actually quite cute, his appearance contrasting immensely to his rude and blunt persona. The bruise painting his face is now faded into a yellowish colour and is slowly disappearing, but it's still there and I can't help but wonder how it really got there. 

"You should go home. We've done loads of work tonight." I tell him and he stares at me blankly.

"I don't want to go home." He says lowly and once again, I find myself frowning at his words.

"What? Why?" 

"My dad's pissed at me." 

"Why?"

He shrugs. "He found my cigarettes and lighter, so that apparently means that I'm a bad person." 

"What about your mum?" I ask. 

"I haven't seen her in ten years, Violet. She could be dead and I would never know." 

"Oh, I'm sorry." I stutter and look at him sadly.

I remember on my first day of school when Eunki and I were sat in the cafeteria, and she introduced me to each of Bangtan one by one. She told me that V had problems at home but at the time I didn't think anything of it. I was too blinded by his arrogant attitude to care. 

"Why are you suddenly opening up to me?" I ask quietly and he shrugs. 

"You asked, I answered. I'm an honest guy, Vi."

I feel suddenly sympathetic towards V. A few hours ago, the mere thought of him made my blood boil, but now, as I sit opposite him and look at him as if he's an innocent child, I have no thoughts of hating the boy. 

"You can stay here, if you like..." I offer and he looks up, surprised.

"Really?" He asks, his eyes widening and I see nothing but innocence inside them. 

I nod. "You can sleep in the spare room. My mum is working nightshift at the hospital so she'd never know." 

"Thank you." He breathes in relief. 

Are things at home really that bad for him?

"What about your dad?" He asks and I look down uncomfortably. 

"He um-died, yeah, he died." 

"Really?" V asks, shocked and I nod. "I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"It's fine." I cut him off, a forced but assuring smile on my features. 

"When? If you don't mind me asking." He speaks in a somewhat gentle tone, his voice still just as deep and raspy but surprisingly soft and calming. 

"Last year. I wasn't too close with him, though. I only saw him once every fortnight and it was only for an hour or two. It was just sad seeing my mum suffer. They may have been divorced at the time but she still had a place in her heart for him."

He nods understandingly. "What happened? Wait no, don't answer that, that's way too personal. I'll shut up now."

I laugh halfheartedly. "It's alright, honestly, you can ask whatever you like. He was murdered, actually, but the police closed the case and labelled it as a suicide but I know it wasn't. He would never do something like that. I know somebody murdered him."

"Sometimes, Violet," V starts. "People's struggles go unnoticed. He could have been dying on the inside and nobody but him would have ever of known. Pain is transparent; you see through it but it's still there."

"Trust me, V, I know that he was murdered." I say and stand up, fetching a spare blanket from my wardrobe. 

"Why do I need two?" He asks, confused.

"It's winter, V, it's cold," I smile and hand them to him. "Goodnight."

Never in a million years did I expect to not only warm up to Kim Taehyung, but to invite him to sleep over at my house.