The Tomorrow Of Us - Taekook

you still live with your mother?

The smell of wet shoes finds its way into his nostrils when he opens the door to their apartment. His mother must have come home just a few moments ago, as the umbrella in the corner it still covered with small raindrops. The rain came suddenly, surprising Taehyung who did for once check the weather report before living the house this morning. But what's the use when nature doesn't follow through with plans anyway?

He knows he should get some old newspaper and stuff it into his shoes to make them dry more quickly. He has orchestra practice later that evening and nothing is worse than getting into half wet shoes and spending an whole evening in them. Taehyung shudders at the thought. But before he can make his way to the stack of newspaper next to the trash in the kitchen, his eyes land on the figure hunched over some papers on the small kitchen table, which is barley big enough to provide space for his mother and him every morning.

"Mum?"

She lifts her head, her eyes looking small and tired. 

"What's wrong?" he asks, getting himself a glass out of the kitchen cabinet. He turns to find her shaking her head, her lips pressed into a thin line. "It's just not enough."

His eyes fall onto the paper his mother is bending over, quick to realize what she is talking about.

"What do you mean it's not enough? I've had five concerts this month so far, with seven more to go."  He downs the water and refills the glass once more, suddenly feeling thirsty for some reason. His mother dosen't bothered answering him even after he swallows the last sip of his second glass. He searches for her eyes but finds her just starring into blank nothingness.

It seems untypical for Taehyung but somehow the sudden silence and lack of response bothers him. Other days he might brush it off as her being overly dramatic because in the end, they always make it through somehow. But something in him urges him to ask, a silent voice in his mind wondering how they are still stuck in the same place they were two years ago, even though he plays more concerts than ever before.

He swallows dry before carefully asking her. "Where does the money go anyway? What is it that makes living in a 2-bedroom apartment so expensive?"

He hears his mother utter out a harsh breath "There is more to cover than just the rent, Taehyung."

"Yeah but-" he fumbles with the glass in his hands "all the electricity and water bills can't cost all that much, can they?"

"Taehyung, just let me handle it-" her tone sounds firmer now, triggering something in Taehyung. Call it his inner child but a part of him wants to keep asking why until he gets an answer he's satisfied with.

"But I want to know what makes it so expensive. I want to know why I have to keep doing more and more gigs when really I'm getting tired of-"

"It's not as if it would hurt you." She interrupts him "You can do what you love and get money for it, that's a pretty privileged position you're in, you know?" She has stopped starring into nothing yet still, her eyes don't meet Taehyung who is tentatively starring at his mother now. He

feels a tingle in his stomach and leans forward trying to hush a glance at the exact numbers on the papers on the table. "Can I have look at the bills?"

"No!" the answer comes back a little too quick and a little too harsh.

"I'm paying for them so I- I have a right to know what you are spending my money on."

It's a bold statement but he says it anyway. Whatever sort of trance he is in right now, Taehyung just hopes it doesn't vanish before he gets a good answer out of his mother. Otherwise, he'd have to just give up in the middle of the argument, like the coward he truly is.