Brighter Days || Taekook

Part 21

Taehyung rouses from sleep slowly. His eyes are still closed and he considers succumbing to the drowsiness he's feeling in his bones. He feels discomfort in his left shoulder though, which makes it hard to fall back asleep. The surface beneath him is uncomfortable, and he wonders just where he dozed off. It's definitely not his bed.

The next thing he notices is that there's something warm and soft lying next to him that he has his arm thrown over. His first instinct is to think that Jungkook cuddled up to him again. He likes doing that, pressing close to others when he seeks comfort to fall asleep. At first it had been weird to Taehyung, but he's used to it by now. Sometimes it's even nice to have someone to cuddle with in the morning. The surface is so uncomfortable though that Jungkook's probably going to bitch about his sore back for the rest of the day. But the younger one next to him feels weird. Hairier, somehow, which Jungkook is anything but.

Taehyung startles when a tongue licks his cheek and opens his eyes, heart beating fast.

"Soonshim?" he asks confused, and then it takes a few seconds before the memories come rushing back to him. Memories of Mr. Kim and Jin driving him, and him crying into Soonshim's fur the second he spotted the dog. He must have cried himself to sleep, because that's the last thing he remembers. His eyes feel puffy and his face swollen.

"You're awake."

Taehyung whirls around and spots Jin folded on the floor next to a small table. There's a dark blue mug in front of him that's chipped at the rim, and a look of concern on his face.

"Where's-"

"Eomma? She left for a walk with the other dogs a while ago."

Taehyung nods and sits up. His body hurts from sleeping on the floor, and Soonshim is still licking away at his cheek and chin. Taehyung doesn't stop him.

"I have a few questions," Jin says. He's looking at Taehyung expectantly. The younger teen would love to tell Jin that he won't promise to answer them all, but Jin continues talking: "You've got a dog? That's what you always invest your allowance in when we ask you how much you've left at the end of the month?"

"Soonshim", Taehyung murmurs as he scratches the white-furred dog behind his ears, knowing that's where he likes it best next to belly rubs. "Technically he was my grandma's."

"How come you've told no one about him? You've been with us for months now, and you never even mentioned having a dog."

Taehyung shrugs his shoulders.

"It's not like I've been particularly open with you about my past," he counters and Jin frowns at him.

Taehyung heaves a big sigh. His head's hurting and he still feels tired. The last thing he needs right now is a confrontation with Jin. He just wants his peace and quiet, and he doesn't want to have to regret taking the oldest member with him.

"I don't visit him often, okay? I only stop by when I'm really down. I took him with me to Seoul when I-" Taehyung falters, swallows, licks his lips, then picks the sentence back up again. "When I came to Seoul, I had Soonshim and few other belongings. But he's the only thing I have left reminding me of my grandma, and I couldn't leave him behind in Daegu. Eomma – everyone calls her that and it's how she refers to herself – found us both when I was still relatively new to Seoul, and she saw that I was struggling to feed us both. She offered to give him shelter and proper care in exchange for money. It's what she does, find kids having a tough time with companions and offer them to take care of their dogs if they provide money. And I accepted. Soonshim was scrawny and dirty."

"You were also scrawny and dirty when I found you sleeping in an alley." Both Taehyung and Jin slightly jump, as they both haven't noticed the old woman returning. She lets the four dogs from their leashes and watches them scatter off before resuming, "if I remember correctly, you wolfed down the food I gave you just as much as Soonshim did. It was hard to tell apart who was human and who was animal."