Brighter Days || Taekook

Part 4

It's cold. So cold that Taehyung's body feels numb. His fingers have stopped shaking a while ago and he can barely feel them anymore. The thin sweater he's wearing doesn't do anything to protect him from the temperature. The heater in his crappy small flat is broken. A bright pink scarf is wrapped around his neck that smells of smoke and vanilla. It's a gift from the girl that sometimes works the same corner as he does. She looks worse with every passing day and Taehyung thinks that soon the scarf will be all that's left of her.

For once Taehyung is glad about the cold, because it means he doesn't feel the ache in his body. His last client was a tad bit too rough, left bruises behind in the shape of fingerprints around his throat and on his hips. It's why the girl gifted him the scarf, to cover the evidence. It's not nice to look into the mirror and be reminded of how the bruises got there. Taehyung wears the bright pink scarf with frayed edges like a shield to protect himself from the onslaught of memories.

His stomach grumbles loudly and he places a hand on top of it, as if that could help sooth it. It's been a while since he's properly eaten.

Taehyung shuffles around on his shabby mattress, before pushing himself up. He's been inside all day, and the sun is already setting. He'll have to get ready for work soon, so he most definitely needs to get some food into his stomach before that. Not eating makes him feel weak, and weak is the last thing he wants to feel whenever he's with a client.

Although if he's completely honest with himself, he doesn't want to see any clients today.

Or ever again, for that matter.

But life's not a picnic and Taehyung doesn't have a choice.

He goes to the nearby supermarket, grabs a tuna sandwich and some water. After some consideration he grabs a second tuna sandwich before paying.

The first sandwich he eats while getting ready for work, putting on heavy eyeliner and squeezing into ripped jeans that are too tight. He wraps the pink scarf back around his neck once he's ready, before grabbing the second sandwich, his keys, phone and the black wallet that's already falling apart, and making his way to his corner, focusing on his breath becoming visible in the cold air on his way there.

She's there again, the other prostitute, with a black eye but a smile on her lips. Taehyung offers her the sandwich without a word, and she takes it with a quiet "Thank you". While she eats, she tells him about the dog her family used to have. Taehyung also had two dogs when he was a child, but he'd rather not think about that. Instead he listens and makes humming noises when appropriate to show that he's still following her words.

The girl gets picked up first tonight, and Taehyung watches with tired eyes as she gets into a car. Only minutes later, he gets into a car as well. While he blows the client, his eyes stinging with tears as he's forced down on his dick with violent fingers in his hair, he can feel his phone start to vibrate in his pocket.

Taehyung startles and starts to cough around the guy, trying to pull away from his grip to get some air again.

No one ever calls him, his phone ringing maybe once a month, and every time it does, it fills Taehyung with anxiety.

His client is quick to pull Taehyung back down again before he even has a chance to think about what to do, and while his lips are wrapped around a stranger's dick, the phone stops vibrating in Taehyung's pocket.

When he's back at the corner, the girl isn't there yet, or maybe she's already gone again. Taehyung doesn't care all that much at the moment.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket with shaking fingers. The screen's cracked, has been for the longest time, but Taehyung doesn't really have the money to fix that. Technically it's not even his phone to begin with. He found it on a park bench, and at first he wanted to give it back, he really did, but then he got a new number and just kept it. It's not like he stole it. Finders keepers and all that stuff.