Hustlers || Taekook

Chapter 21

Taehyung dropped his phone as his head snapped back and he staggered backwards a couple of steps from the force. He'd raised and cocked a gun up to Jungkook's face before his phone had even stopped skittering across the concrete, before Jungkook had time to blink. Jungkook didn't even flinch as he stared down the barrel, chest heaving as crazed, blood-red anger pulsed through his body, every single nerve set aflame, every muscle tensed.

"You fucker." Jungkook spat, almost scaring himself with the animalistic, grating, downright murderous tone of his voice. In the second before Jungkook had spoken, Taehyung clicked his tongue and grimaced in pain as he gripped his face, before his entire body visibly froze at the sound of Jungkook's voice. Taehyung's hand dropped to his side.

His eyes, bloodshot and framed with faint lines of stress, snapped all the way open, scarily wide and leaving an uninterrupted ring of pinkish white around his irises. What little colour Jungkook had noticed his face to hold had drained away in an instant, and his lips, parted in shock, were starkly red against the ashen, almost grey pallor of his cheeks. His entire being had lost colour, from his skin to his hair, which was a little shorter, and had been dyed a soft blond. Jungkook didn't know how to feel about it, but of course he looked amazing as always, despite everything.

Taehyung stared at Jungkook with the most terrifyingly open, explosively emotional expression Jungkook had ever seen. He looked... pretty bad. Jungkook was surprised he hadn't cut his knuckles on Taehyung's sharp cheekbones, almost knife-like due to the drastic, scary loss of weight. He wasn't sure if the crazed, haunted, desperate shine in Taehyung's eyes was due to horror at seeing Jungkook, or an effect of the dark, dark purple shadows seeming to press themselves into the skin beneath his twitching eyes.

He looked awful. He looked like a mess. Jungkook wasn't sure if Taehyung had slept at all recently, not with those eye bags. He wasn't sure if Taehyung had eaten anything, not with those hollowed out cheeks and that thin, brittle looking neck that seemed longer than usual due to the unnatural slimness.

Jungkook felt bitter rage explode inside his chest and surge through his limbs again as he realised even now, even as Taehyung looked like he had been staring into the eyes of death for a good several months, all it took was one look. One second, one instant, for Jungkook's breath to be taken away once more at how beautiful he was. How fucking pathetic.

He snapped himself out of it, the cursed, wretched, hateful, inevitable moment of captivation, as he focused back on the raw fear and pain clashing and battling within Taehyung's impossibly wide eyes. He slapped the gun out of Taehyung's hand, meeting no resistance whatsoever from Taehyung's shaking fingers. He'd moved in for another hard, heavy punch before the gun had even hit the ground, but Taehyung also seemed to snap himself out of a trance somewhat, quickly dodging to the side. He brought up his arms, thinner than Jungkook remembered, to block the sudden barrage of blows Jungkook couldn't hold back as anger flowed freely from where it had begun to crush his skull all the way to the very tips of his fingers and toes.

"I'm. Gonna. Fucking. Kill you." Jungkook growled the words out in between punches that Taehyung backed away from a little sluggishly, a little clumsily, just barely managing to avoid each blow by a hair's breadth. He seemed dazed, staring at Jungkook as if he was about to go into shock just from the sight of his face. Was he even breathing? Jungkook didn't stop to dwell on it, throwing a punch in the centre of Taehyung's chest. Taehyung caught his fist in a cold, shaking hand. Jungkook struggled for a second before lashing out and gripping Taehyung's neck in his other hand, using Taehyung's initial moment of shock and pain to shove him back. Taehyung stumbled back before tripping on a risen part of the pavement, hands flying up to grab Jungkook's fingers wrapped around his neck as he fell backwards. Jungkook fell with him, bruising grip cruel and unrelenting. Jungkook's knees hit the cracked concrete hard but he barely noticed the pain, tightening his grip on Taehyung's neck and slowly crushing his windpipe as he pinned him to the ground with his body. Taehyung's fingers clawed and ripped at Jungkook's hand, eyes and mouth wide open as he struggled to draw in air.