Blood In The Water / Mafia / Kim Taehyung

~ 25

"Are you okay?" Taehyung asks, pulling his seatbelt across him before clipping it in and turning the engine of the car on. We had left the restaurant a couple of minutes ago. Taehyung had spoken mostly about work, future projects, finances and so on. Of course everything he said was in a kind of code, just in case anyone could overhear our conversation. "I think that's the sixth time you've asked me that tonight," I roll my eyes, also putting on my seatbelt.

"Fine. I'll go back to not giving a shit then," Taehyung retorts, but with a sly smirk, indicating he was only joking. "What do you want to do now?" He lays his head back on the car seat headrest, seemingly in deep thought. Like this, his neck is fully exposed and I mentally scold myself for feeling the things I do when I look at it.

"I don't know. I'm not really familiar with this place." I look out of the car window which was steamed up with condensation from the heat of our bodies mixing with the cold air.

"Neither am I," Taehyung mumbles, eyes glancing up at the rear view mirror of the car. Taehyung had a habit of always checking his surroundings, mostly because there were a lot of people that would take great pleasure in hurting him. His fingers tapped on the steering wheel, creating a rhythm as he continued to think. Without warning, the car pulls away from the parking space. I look over at Taehyung who had began driving. It was strange going out with Taehyung like this, it was almost like we were just an ordinary couple in love, even just best friends going out for the night.

"You never gave me an answer earlier," I say, eyes still glued to the side of Taehyung's face. He lets out a heavy sigh and the corner of his lips turn down slightly. He still doesn't give me an answer a few seconds later, and I'm assuming he was trying to pretend he hadn't heard me. "We aren't seriously going back to that again, are we?" He glances over at me quickly, before averting his eyes back on to the road. In slight annoyance, I rest my elbow by the window and lean my head on my arm.

"Well, yeah. It's not a difficult question," I argue, watching as we turn onto the main road, but not in the direction of the house. I hadn't suspected we would be going home so soon anyway. "What about you?" He questions pushing the attention back to me.

"What do you mean, what about me?" In the distance I can see the line where the horizon bleeds into the ocean. I hadn't even realised we lived so close to the sea. My finger finds the button to the car window and I press it, hearing the sound of the wind rush into the car as the glass comes down. Almost immediately I can smell the saltiness in the air that is thrown up by the waves that crass into the sea wall. I must have taken Taehyung by surprise, because his head whips to the side to look at me worried.

"What do you want us to be?" He rephrases his question and I'm taken aback by it. It wasn't a question I thought I'd ever hear Taehyung ask.

"I don't know," I answer, the wind blowing my hair back as I lean my head closer to the open window. It felt like years since I had seen a beach or the sea. I'd never been on family holidays and I didn't make enough money to be able to travel by myself, so I'd only been to the beach a handful of times in the past. It was different at night, street lamps lit up the road, their light reflecting on the surface of the water. With no noise from cars or people, the sound of the waves was much clearer.

"See, it's a much more complicated question to answer than you think." The car slows to a stop on the side of the road. It was definitely illegally parked, but it seemed Taehyung didn't care as he clambered out of the car, finishing our conversation.

I walk with Taehyung beside me as he guided me towards the seafront. The tide was in, only leaving a small section of the beach available to walk on. My feet sink into the sand as we approach the sea and already I can feel the small grains fill my shoes. The sea that laps calmly onto the shore extends as far as the eye can see. Ripple marks are left behind on the sand as the water retreats and then swashes back onto the beach. I'm so entranced in the beauty around me that I hadn't even realised I was now holding Taehyung's hand. I didn't know whether I had subconsciously reached out for his hand or whether he had taken my hand in his. I guessed by the way our fingers were intwined and his thumb was rubbing up and down mine, he had been the one to make the move.