Lesson Learned || Vkook

Chapter 8 - Carefully

I open the door across my mom's room: my room.

I instantly regret not having cleaned my room when my mom told me to do so yesterday. Clothes are scattered across the room, a poster hangs with just one corner on the wall because I still haven't fixed it, and random pieces of paper cover the wooden laminated floor.

Taehyung walks passed me and looks around him. 'Wow, so cool!' His eyes find my bookcase, that's mostly filled with comics and manga's and immediately starts browsing through my collection. 'This is so much better than the crap Namjoon reads,' he mumbles to himself, as he takes one of my Fairy Tail manga's and starts paging through it.

Now that his focus is on my books, I've been given the opportunity to quickly try to clean my room at least a little bit. I notice that my dirty laundry (that usually finds his place in the corner of my room) wasn't their anymore, so I silently thank my mom for at least cleaning that before Taehyung entered my room.

'Your room is awesome!' Taehyung says in amazement, taking in all the stuff in my room. I smile shyly. 'Thanks, it's not much, but it's all I need.' Though I'm sure that his room is at least three times this size, probably decked out with the latest technology and what not.

'You can shower first, I'll lay a towel and some clean pajamas for you in there,' I tell him as I quickly take the first pajamas I see out of my closet and find my way to the bathroom across the hallway, not being able to be in the same room as Taehyung for any longer.

In the bathroom I lay the stuff on the corner of the sink, and my eyes finding those of myself in the mirror. Is this really happening? How is it possible that he stays over at my house, in my bed?!

Please, for ones in my life, let me not mess this up. I don't know why it's that important to me, all I know is that it is.

I fill a cup with water and drink it in one sip, also splatting some water on my face, trying to get rid of those burning red cheeks I have. I take one last look at myself in the mirror.

Why does he even want to stay over. I'm sure he has friends that are a thousand times more composed, rich, good looking and mentally stable. I can offer him nothing but embarrassment and sadness, because that's all there is inside of me.

 I sight, close my eyes so I don't have to face my horrible reflection anymore, and walk back to my room, feeling worse than when I left it.

When I re-enter my room, I see Taehyung standing at my desk, looking at something. My feet take me closer to him to see what it is that he's holding.

A picture.

A sudden sharp pain hits me, seeing what picture he's holding. My dad holds the seven year old me closely, whilst we walk towards the sea. It had been a warm day, so we'd decided to go to the beach. My mom, who took the picture, hadn't wanted me to go into the sea, but my dad convinced her that it would be save if he held me tight. Me, tightly in my dad's arms.

I say nothing, remembering the moment, when Taehyung suddenly realises my presence and quickly places the picture back on the desk.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to...' He doesn't finish his sentence.

I get what he means, he must have some questions about me, and my dad. I had told him that I live her with my mom, so I'm sure he can guess that my dad isn't here anymore, but he doesn't ask about it, which I appreciate, I don't want his pity.

'It's okay,' I tell him, lightly smiling to give my words some power. 'I've laid some stuff for you in the bathroom; the black door here across the hallway. If you need anything more, just tell me!'

He smiles. 'Thank you so much, Kookie!' And he exits the room.

The quiet returns, and I take place on my bed. I hear water running, which let's me know Taehyung has found the bathroom.

The bedding on my bed is covered in soft, black with grey, squares. It looks so tempting, and my head automatically falls down on the pillow. The light on the ceiling suddenly seems so bright, and I place my hand over my eyes, trying to block out some of the brightness. Did my forehead always feel this hot?

A stinging feeling appears in my throat, but my attempt to cough it away only makes it worse. I try to lift my head from the pillow, wanting to get some water from the kitchen to ease the pain, but my energy seems to have left my body. Only black dots appear in front of my eyes.

[Taehyung's POV]

The pajamas Jungkook had grabbed for me barely fit. His frame is a lot smaller then mine, and he's almost worryingly thin. I take a look at myself in the mirror, and a smile appears on my face. He'd grabbed pajamas that are covered in little cartoon bunnies. Typical.

I pick up my clothes that I wore today and tiptoe back to Jungkook's room, trying to be as quiet as possible, so I don't wake up his mom. She'd already done so much for me and has been so nice. Just like Jungkook.

I don't think he realizes how much he has actually done for me, as he's determined to demote himself. To act like I don't have to care for him. Which instantly makes me want to care for him even more, because he clearly needs it.

I slowly open the door leading to Jungkook's room, trying to keep the squeaking noise as soft as possible. After I close it behind me again, I turn around to look back in his room, which is full of awesome stuff, only to find a sleeping Jungkook in the bed.

'Jungkook?' I softly whisper as I walk towards him, checking if he's really asleep, but he doesn't react. It doesn't seem like he had planned to fall asleep here either, since the lights are still on, he still has his wet, cold clothes on and no covers over himself.

I softly chuckle. Cute.

It feels wrong, but now I finally have the time to look properly at him. Usually, every time I meet his eyes, he looks away. And all the other times, he has a layer of pain all across his face, as he shyly crosses his arms, so that he appears smaller than he actually is. Or when he nervously bites his lip when he doesn't know what to say. I don't think he even knows he does that.

But lying here, he looks so much better. Less nervous, less stressed. Even though there is still a red glow all over him.

I should wake him, so he can take a shower and put some warm, dry clothes on, but I don't dare to wake him up. He finally looks relaxed, I don't want to disturb his rest, which he so desperately needs.

So, as careful as I possibly can, I take the bed sheets from under him and tuck him in in such a way that his body heat can not escape. I don't want him to catch a cold. Especially since it's my fault that he's wet.

He looks so peaceful.

His hair has almost dried completely and has started to get curly. One pluck covers his forehead, and before I can even realize it, I gently swipe it away. As my hand reaches for his forehead for the third time this day, I feel heat radiating from it. How come he's that hot? Has he actually caught a cold?

Guilt rushes over me, as I can only blame myself for this. I already have to sleep over at his house, now he's caught a cold because of me... Can I bring this troubled boy any more trouble than he already has?

I quickly tiptoe back to the bathroom, wet a washcloth, and walk back to Jungkook. He doesn't seem to have awoken by me tucking him in, so I carefully sit next to him on the bed and swipe away the sweat that has begun to form on his forehead. Then I carefully place the cold washcloth on his forehead.

When the cloth touches his forehead, he lightly turns to his side. I jump away from the bed, afraid that I've woken him up, but he doesn't open his eyes.  He grabs the bed covers in his hand and pulls it towards him.

 'Tae...' 

I can't help but grin.

I gently rearrange the washcloth so that it's on his forehead again and let him be. He needs to sleep, hopefully he'll feel better in the morning, or else my guilt will only be worse...

When I finally know how to take my eyes off him,  I turn around to go towards the living room, where I'll go sleep on the couch in his place.

Damn.

When we walked towards his room, I remember he turned off all the lights in the house. I only knew where we were going because of the light from the bathroom and his room that hadn't been turned off yet. The rest of the house I couldn't see one bit, because of my night blindness.

Panic rushes over me. I can't walk towards the living room with no lights! Knowing me, I'll surely knock something over and wake everyone up. And I also can't turn on the torch on my phone, because I was stupid enough to leave it at home, forgetting to bring it with me being too excited to walk Jungkook home.

My eyes shift back to Jungkook's bed and a thought pops up in my head...

No, I couldn't. We just met today, and he's sick. Surely he doesn't want to wake up seeing a random boy lying next to him, that would just be weird, wouldn't it...?

I sight, take one of the pillows from Jungkook's bed, and my hoodie, which had already dried, and try to make myself as comfortable as possible on the floor.

I tightly hug the pillow, trying to catch a bit of sleep, but even though I close my eyes, sleep doesn't come.

I'm not surprised.