ODDS OF SURVIVAL - TAEKOOK

CHAPTER SIXTEEN [ M ]

Long chapter

By the time they got back to the plant nursery the sun was at an angle in the sky that Jungkook had generally come to associate with "dinner time," and he checked the little watch around his wrist to confirm.

After over a month it still felt weirdly retro to be wearing an analog watch, but since both of their cell phones had long since run out of charge, wrist watches, and the one little clock just inside the door of the shed, were their only reliable way of telling time.

At least until they learned to better judge time by the sun, since neither of them had ever been "outdoorsy" enough to have experience guessing the hour by the sky or the angle of shadows at the start of this. Even so, Taehyung hardly ever wore his watch.

Instead he just annoyed the shit out of Jungkook by asking him the time 5-8 times a day.

Taehyung had a watch, and he used to wear it when they went out on supply runs where they might split up to scavenge separately, but ever since... since that day, they almost never left sight of one another outside the boundaries of the fence.

It was definitely dinner time according to his watch, and his stomach growled to remind him that he'd skipped lunch as well.

It would suck to end up unloading the truck in the dark, though, so rather than go straight for the food like he wanted to, he went around to open up the back of the truck and get to work.

Meanwhile, Taehyung went straight inside with his new pet and Jungkook fully expected him to fuck off and play with the damned cat for the rest of the day.

After all, he'd already spent the entire ride home talking softly to her and petting her. It was weird because Jungkook hadn't been aware that Taehyung was even capable of pitching his voice in a tone that might be considered soothing, but he had no trouble busting out the sweet talk for an animal.

Apparently it was just people Taehyung had a problem with. On some levels Jungkook could appreciate that, and he could certainly appreciate compassion for animals, but something about the situation still grated at his nerves.

Anger simmered at the back of his mind, and it was just about to boil over into a proper rage when Taehyung re-emerged from their house and went straight to helping him unload the truck without hesitation.

Jungkook took a deep breath, letting his anger slowly deflate along with his exhale. He was being unreasonable. Taehyung wasn't going to start ignoring him and their shared responsibilities in favor of a cat.

Working together they managed to unload the truck in about an hour, but the sun was already setting by the time they finished. It was a particularly cold day, the lack of sun only making it worse, so the idea of standing under the icy shower was especially unappealing.

He was too tired to carry water to fill it, anyway. Taehyung seemed to silently agree with him, as he simply closed up the back of the truck and shuffled inside, pausing at the door to look over his shoulder and check that Jungkook was following him.

Jungkook suppressed a groan over the soreness of his muscles as he followed Taehyung inside, latching the door behind him. They hadn't encountered many zombies that day, so all things considered they were both relatively clean. He resolved to bathe in the morning and hope it wouldn't be too horrendously cold then.

He shoved a hand through his hair to get it out of his face as he watched Taehyung fuss with opening a couple cans of beef and vegetable soup for dinner. It had grown longer now than he'd let it get in close to a decade.

He wished he had learned to braid it back the way his mother used to do, back when he'd first decided to let it grow long in his early teens. His parents hadn't even protested when he started doing the kind of weird, rebellious teen shit that had most other kids fighting with their parents.