Brighter Days || Taekook

Part 17

The studio is small, but somehow Taehyung has the feeling that today the walls have crept in more than usual. The walls are too close, too constricting. The screen of the computer is lit up, and mocking him with the knowledge that it's showed all the pictures that Namjoon possesses of him with Mr. Kim before. Empty Styrofoam cups are sprawled across the small table, the only indication of the coffee they once held being the brown stains engraved on the rim.

There's a clock on the wall. It announces every second with a tick. Taehyung counts them to force himself to focus on something, anything, to keep his mind from panicking. He stops counting after five hundred, when he hears footsteps, but they always pass by the door, never stop to enter.

Has Namjoon forgotten about him?

Impossible.

Is he making Taehyung sit and wait to make him suffer, a form of screwed up punishment for deciding to run away?

That might actually be possible.

At least to Taehyung waiting feels like a punishment. It's the worst punishment of them all, the dreadful anticipation that something bad is about to happen any second, but there's no way to say when. His dad had liked playing that game with him. Loved it, even. Loved raising his hand and watching his son flinch away and wait for the impact, and wait and wait, before Taehyung would finally look up in confusion when he felt no pain, only to then be met with a heavy blow.

Taehyung takes a shuddering breath.

It's alright, Namjoon's not making him wait to punish him. He's just searching for Hoseok. And the more Taehyung thinks about it, the more he realizes that it's a good thing for him to wait longer. Waiting means no confrontation, and a confrontation is something he really doesn't think he can handle right now. Not with Hoseok. Not after he was so angry at him last night.

And the broken glass. It was an accident. It was. Jimin said so. And it had looked like an accident as well, not a deliberate act. Hoseok had looked equally shocked once he had realized the glass had escaped his grip and flown in Taehyung's direction.

Looking back at it now, it almost seems like a false memory. Everything had slowed down, Hoseok's eyes had widened dramatically and Taehyung's breath had stopped once he 'd realized what was happening, the glass spinning in the air before clattering to the ground and shattering into pieces. Taehyung's memory of those few seconds is ridiculously detailed, when everything else surrounding it seems blurry. Hoseok wouldn't have looked so surprised either if he'd thrown it at Taehyung deliberately. Or maybe he 'd just been surprised at himself for actually doing it.

The room's too small, and the walls are closing in further, although he knows they actually don't, and then Taehyung hears two pairs of footsteps stop in front of the studio, and he watches the door handle slide down and he knows that this is it. The panic he's feeling is irrational, and he knows that as well, but there's just nothing he can do about it.

Namjoon enters first, and Hoseok shuffles in right afterwards.

Taehyung can't read Namjoon's face at all. He keeps it deliberately blank and it drives Taehyung crazy. He hates not being able to tell how someone feels, because how's he expected to know what's coming his way if he can't read the other person?

Hoseok's making it easier for him. He looks somewhat guilty, shoulders slumped and head ducked. Taehyung wonders if he actually feels bad for what transpired last night.

"I think it's time to talk about what the fuck happened, and to apologise." Namjoon says when neither Taehyung nor Hoseok talk.

Namjoon's right. It's time to apologise. Not that apologising has ever improved any situation that Taehyung's been in, but it's still the right thing to do. He's caused trouble, the least he can do is own up to it. Maybe then Hoseok, who's still very much studying the floor and deliberately avoiding either of the other two teens' gazes, will forgive him.