Unpunished/Vkook ff

Chapter 7: Wants Are Needs

Taehyung's P.O.V

Sitting in a crowded classroom, I could only focus on fighting the tears away. I didn't understand any of the new material. On my mind were my blocked throat and aching chest. My vision was becoming more blurry each passing minute with salty drops.

A teacher had canceled my first two lessons, and without thinking twice, I'd jumped on the opportunity to earn some more money at the restaurant. Now, it had left me so exhausted, so sick, but I had to keep it in. Letting it out in front of everybody wasn't an option. I couldn't handle more humiliation.

I lacked the appetite to go to the cafeteria, and instead, allowed my legs to carry me wherever they pleased around the school. In a search for a place to cry in, I'd found myself rested underneath a tree. Once hearing Jungkook and Robert sitting on its other side, the need had left me.

Leaning onto the stem, one ear busy with music from my old earphones, the other with their voices, I closed my eyes. Jungkook would lose his mind if he found out, I remembered, yet I wasn't scared; I was rather calm. The boy provided me with comfort. And his presence alone made me feel safe and relieved. I needed him to shut my brain down, at last.

Jungkook's P.O.V

I looked at my watch and stood up. "We should get going. Five minutes to get to class, approximately," I said and stretched a hand towards Robert. "How's your back, grandpa?"

"I regret that Overwatch marathon so much..." Robert groaned and stepped around the tree.

He froze in place.

"Oh shit!" Robert screamed, pointing at the leg sticking from the stem's other side. "Is that a corpse?"

"Not quite..." A sleeping guy lay there, one of his earphones, unplugged. I grabbed the collar of his shirt, lifting him. "It will be soon."

Taehyung struggled to open his eyes, confused, still half asleep.

"It's not like he did anything, you can let him go," said Robert.

"You fucking kidding me?!" I snapped. "He was listening in!"

Robert attempted to speak again. "Kook—"

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING HERE?!" I cut him off, shouting, raising a fist.

Taehyung yawned in my face. "Nothing..."

Adrenalin was spreading through my blood as it began to boil, every part of me yearned to tighten the grip and land a punch.

Robert pulled my arm away. "Put him down."

Taehyung blinked at me.

That man was the start of everything I hated about most of my life. He and the likes of him had made us spend our younger years returning to concerned families with wounds and bruises almost every day. And as we were growing older, we'd used to fear for our lives. After all that time, they kept Robert's fear justified.

"I don't want you anywhere near me again! You hear that?!"

But Robert would never approve of violence, not even when it was called for, not when it was deserved. And I waited. I desired an excuse to get revenge, anything, only until he'd feel just as much pain, as long as nobody found out.

Taehyung's P.O.V

I came home the same way I'd arrived at school. After sobbing endlessly at work, all I could do for my family was to wipe off the tears before entering the front door.

Stepping into the living room, I met my mother's eyes; they were full of guilt, shimmering like she'd sensed something was wrong.

"Taehyung..." she called in a soft tone. "Come here, son, I wish to talk to you."

Mother took my hand, sat me down on the couch, went to her bedroom, and returned with a plastic bag. A school supplies shop's logo was on it.

"You haven't been well lately," she began, "even I can see it... I'm sorry, I know how stressed you are with that awful job and being a senior. It's not your fault I can't do enough for you all..."

"Mom..."

"I brought you something though, something small, which, I hope, will help." She pulled a single item out and handed it to me. It was a regular notebook; an unusual silver cover setting it apart. "I want you to use it as your diary... I can see you're going through a lot, and a lot of it, I don't know. Although, I understand. I don't tell you everything either, and I'm sorry for treating you like a little girl, but I felt bad. Keeping to yourself is unhealthy."

"Don't apologize," I told her, "it's an amazing gift."

Later that evening, before grabbing my physics notebook to study, I grabbed the silver one. I had no idea how or what to write, so I took the pen, pressed it against the paper, and began listing the events from hours prior.

The descriptions of locations and actions soon turned to those of tears and smiles, then thoughts, after, wishes— a wish to hear a voice more, to see a pair of lips curled up... a dream to feel a certain boy's touch.

He told me to stay away. I refused to.

Using up more and more of the pages, every single thing I felt towards Jungkook, and the soothing images within my head, were all engraved inside that diary.

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