viridity. kth x jjk / vkook

four

KTH | 11:34 a.m. | 23rd street

taehyung had left right after breakfast, despite the insistent protests from the other boys telling him he needed to stay longer, that he needed time to heal.

it's okay, i've had worse.

he hadn't said that, of course, but it was the truth.

he had been hurt worse, and he had went longer before without eating. he'd struck lucky this time; just happening to stumble into a store where two university students were nice enough to take him in for the night.

taehyung took small, slow strides to his apartment complex.

it would have really been a five minute walk, but he managed to make it take twenty five, stopping every few seconds to look around and take a few deep breaths.

taehyung was scared.

and when his fingers reached the cold, metal doorknob of his apartment, he felt his breath quicken. by the time he'd opened the door, six minutes had passed.

he took six minutes to turn the knob and walk inside.

"taehyung, is that you?"

his breath hitched.

"yes, dad. i'm..." he breathed. "i'm home."

and the word home tasted bitter on his tongue, because this place had never been home to taehyung.

it was a little room with cold air and torn wallpaper and walls that closed in on him and suffocated him from inside out.

it was where the bruises bloomed on his ribs and bled through his skin until he couldn't feel anymore.

it was where every room reeked of alcohol and cigarettes in the worst of ways, not in the warm way jungkook's apartment had smelled like. it was where this particular, cold smell of cigarettes tore his lungs in half and gave him the sickly, painful reminder of just exactly where and when everything had went wrong.

it was hell itself.

JJK | 4:27 a.m. | corner convenience store

taehyung didn't show up at the convenience store that day.

JJK | 3:49 a.m. | corner convenience store

or the next.

JJK | 4:21 a.m. | corner convenience store

or the next.

KTH | 3:07 a.m. | apartment 263

it took three days for his father to unlock the door to the hallway closet and let him out.

it had been dark in there. dark and cold and unpleasant.

the door opened with a click, and taehyung fell out of the doorframe, landing on his hands and knees a few mere millimeters from his father's shoes.

a hard booted foot kicked his ribs, as his father's voice came low and hoarse, menacing. "you leave this house all night one more time, you little shit, and i'll make sure you starve to death in that closet. you understand?"