To The Moon and Back | taekook

9. Cursive Letters

"My god, what the hell is in those flowers?"

At Jungkook's sudden outburst, Taehyung looked up from the card game he was messing around with. Jungkook's hands were buried elbow-deep in the murky water of a small wash basin, on the side of which was piled a mound of the past week's dirty laundry. Even though they were rolled up, the ends of the sleeves of Jungkook's shirt were soaked completely through, and small bubbles flew up into the air as an effect of his furious scrubbing within the basin. He held the white shirt Taehyung had worn to the flower meadow up in front of his face. Although mostly faded, faint purple and yellow stains still mottled the surface of the fabric: an unmistakable reminder of their flower - picking trip just a few days ago. Jungkook groaned and let the shirt plop from his grip back into the bucket, not caring when a mound of bubbles splashed up over the rim and onto the ground.

"It's okay, I don't need to wear a shirt," Taehyung stated seriously, eyeballing the pile of bubbles on the ground.

Jungkook pulled the corners of his mouth back and made a face at the suggestion.

"You can't just run around shirtless, Tae."

Taehyung shrugged. "Why not?"

"Well you can't... it's just not... acceptable," Jungkook stumbled in reply, becoming annoyingly flustered by the simple question. "Not by me - I mean not specifically by me but I wouldn't care... not like I want to see you shirtless, I just wouldn't mind... if you were."

Jungkook's words grew more frantic as his mouth tossed him out, and at the end of the jumbled sentence he was too confused and ruffled to look up and see Taehyung staring at him with an eerily unbothered expression.

"The point is that society says you can't go running around half undressed," Jungkook choked out at last, quickly plunging his hands violently back into the wash basin in an attempt to clear his confused head.

"Oh. Well I can just wear it like that then. I'm sorry that I got it dirty," Taehyung apologized earnestly, cards forgotten as he stretched out from a seated position to lying on his stomach, chin resting on his folded hands.

Jungkook still wouldn't look up as he scrubbed futilely at the stained article of clothing, splashing more water down the front of his dry shirt. After a few moments of useless cleaning, he finally just sighed, hanging the sodden shirt over the basin's rim for a final time and leaning back on his heels, head tilted to the sky. He swallowed.

"Do you want me to clean it?"

Jungkook's head finally lowered at the suggestion, and he looked at Taehyung's stretched-out form on the ground.

"No no, it's okay. I'm not mad."

He thought for a moment as Tae fiddled around with one of his cards from earlier.

"I think we should go to town."

Taehyung's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. He'd been living with Jungkook for close to a week now, and the entire time the other boy had been drilling into his head how important it was to stay hidden. Not once had he suggested they go anywhere further than the backyard.