mY BOY HOSEOK LOOKS SO GOOD,

also
"dosi" is a fictional town that i made up lol (i google translated 'town' into korean and it came up with 'dosi' so i just named my fake town 'dosi').
__________

jungkook focus
two and a half cigarettes later, the decrepit truck finally judders to a halt outside a small town based in the countryside named dosi.

jungkook stands up, brushing sawdust and any stray strands of hay off of his trousers as he walks to the edge of truck, jumping off neatly before leaning over again to grab his backpack. he looks up to see taehyung watching him carefully, eyes narrowed in a glare.

rolling his eyes, jungkook hauls his backpack on to his shoulder, "you coming?" he asks, sounding almost bored. taehyung responds with an irritated pout but climbs off. and once he's down on the ground, jungkook takes the sleeve of his shirt in his grip and tugs him along, as if taehyung was a little lamb that could easily stray away.

after a second of being in taehyung's close presence, jungkook concludes that taehyung seems to have chosen the decision of sulking. now the boy sulks to the maximum; pouting, grunting incoherent disses and purposefully lagging behind in his footsteps to annoy jungkook. however jungkook doesn't allow the older to faze him: instead, with patience straining, jungkook calmly drags the aggravating older to the front of the pickup truck where the driver and owner of the truck beams at taehyung.

"good to see you're okay now, kid!" he cheers, tipping his grubby baseball cap at taehyung who reluctantly smiles back, mumbling "thank you for the ride."

"thanks for the ride, man, you really helped us out." jungkook thanks, grateful.

the truck driver grins, "s'no problem, kids. you lovebirds stay safe now, yeah?" the guy says as he turns halfway to climb back into his truck.

jungkook genuinely smiles, waving at the man and feeling truly thankful — if it weren't for the truck driver, the police officer would've quickly realised that taehyung had been the one to call him and then would've remembered and tracked down jungkook's car's number plate, arrested him and 8.4 million dollars would've easily gone down the drain.

as soon as the truck driver drives away, jungkook hears taehyung slowly question; "what does he mean by lovebirds?"

"told him we were boyfriends to gain his pity." jungkook replies simply, tugging taehyung's sleeve to motion for him to walk along.

taehyung focus
"you could've just said we were friends or something." taehyung grumbles, still in a mood.

jungkook shrugs, "it was the first thing that came into my head — eh, whatever." he says nonchalantly as he turns around. taehyung follows his actions, turning around and readying himself to argue another point with jungkook, but he gasps audibly at what he sees instead.

taehyung's childish sulking act vanishes into thin air when his eyes meet with the bright colours, the frenzied patterns, the many different things on display, the smiles on people's faces — everything set before his eyes excited and appealed to him, making him forget that he was supposed to be in a sulk.

separated from the main road,  taehyung and jungkook stand at the mouth of a side road, the road leading to a small town named 'dosi' as stated by the sign planted into the ground.
the side road leads into a town square of some sort where a fairly sized market is laid out. row after row of little stalls litter every inch of the dusty ground, each selling various items which range from bloody fish and chunks of red meat wrapped in plastic to handmade dainty teacakes and samples of teas which frail ladies sip at with delighted smiles on their wrinkled faces.

all around them, people talk: tiny kids chatter noisily and playfully run around in and out of stalls, old women yell at flustered stall owners to lower the prices for their cabbages or carrots etc, and men, coming back from the fields, stomp their muddy boots into the ground as they chuckle and carry today's crops on their backs in large wicker baskets.

taehyung's mouth resembles a shocked 'o'. the marketplace set in front of him was something he'd never witnessed before in all his twenty one years of life. his eyes hurriedly dart to take in the colourful lanterns hanging from the wooden stalls, the pretty patterns imprinted on a teenage girl's dress, the frantic bark of a sheepdog and the loud jeers of the kids who dare each other to steal items from the stall owners.

jungkook focus
"woah." taehyung breathes as he walks a little ahead, wanting to immerse himself in the scene as well. but the grip on his shirt sleeve stops him. he turns around to see jungkook's eyes boring into him, "don't try to—"

"—escape? i know, i know, i just wanna get a closer look." taehyung murmurs distractedly, turning around to survey the hectic scene before him again.

"we're passing by so you can see all you want—" jungkook doesn't get to finish because he's suddenly thrown forward, his uncooperative feet dragging behind him as taehyung sets off at a sudden jog towards the marketplace, tumbling and pulling jungkook and himself into the loud throng.

momentarily, jungkook can't see taehyung amongst the people crowded around him, only the feeling of taehyung's sleeve in his hand keeps him reassured. he pushes past several people to manoeuvre his way in what he hopes was taehyung's direction.
a few seconds later he finds himself standing besides taehyung who ignores the latter's heavy breathing and grunts, only focusing on the stall's contents with glazed eyes.

"they sell fish here?" taehyung exclaims, standing on tiptoe to get a better look of the stall specifically selling fish. the younger regards the older with a crease between his eyebrows; why's he so damn amused? hasn't he been to the fish market before? jungkook shakes his head in disbelief, wrinkling his nose at the pungent fumes emanating from the cut fish guts.

"oh! they're selling ramen for so cheap! that's incredible!" taehyung gasps, walking over and unintentionally dragging jungkook along behind him.

"mm, very incredible." jungkook rolls his eyes as yet another person jabs their elbow into his side. he has to compress his irritation and refrain himself from childishly jabbing the person back.

jungkook sighs heavily as he tries to tug taehyung into the direction they're supposed to go but taehyung pulls away, digging further and further into the crowd. "mr kim—"

"look at those cakes! they're handmade, can you believe?" taehyung burbles to himself. "ive never had handmade cakes before — well, not ones made unprofessionally, y'know? all the cakes ive ever had were professionally done and were more healthy nutritional shit than cake." taehyung comments, staring at the cakes with awe.

"look, kim—" jungkook starts but taehyung cuts him once again.

"woah!! a kid's having a birthday party!" taehyung points out with a grin on his face. jungkook follows his gaze to see a bunch of six year old kids sitting round in a circle on the dirt and away from the busy market, playing games with ridiculously bright party hats and smiles spreading on their faces. not too far from them is a picnic table, complete and laden with all types of party food; sugary snacks, juices, sandwiches and to top it all off, a chocolate cake with six lit candles sitting atop.

the kids sing happy birthday to a little girl, clapping their palms together and taehyung, feeling enthusiastic, sings and claps along despite being a distance away.
"happy birthday to you! happy birthday to you—!"

"hey—"

taehyung's singing fades away quietly, leaving him to just clap along instead. but his previous enthusiasm seems to have disappeared a little: his smile slightly falters and his eyes contain a faraway look embedded deep in his irises, as if in deep thought.

"that birthday party looks so fun." taehyung murmurs to himself and jungkook just about manages to hear him over the cacophony of the market shoppers and stall owners.

"a party like that would been awesome, playing games with hyung and jae and. . ." taehyung trails off with a sigh. he shakes his head a little before planting a smile on his face, "they sell birds here?" he says, surprised, as he wanders off again.

"hey, mr—" jungkook frowns.

taehyung leads jungkook a little closer to a stall where a man stands guard over what looks like a thousand separate cages, all holding at least one small chirruping bird.

"poor birds." taehyung murmurs in a sad tone as he trails a fingertip over one of the steel cages. he can feel jungkook hover around behind him, impatiently looking around but taehyung takes no notice, busy in admiring the beauty encased in each bird.

jungkook, about to yell at the next person who pushes into him, grunts out "yes, yes, poor birdies."
and finally, with a roll of his eyes, he manages to lead a disheartened taehyung away from the hubbub and into the the next street — a much quieter and calm street than the previous one, (thank god, jungkook thinks) that also contains a kid's park.

"sit here whilst i sort out a few things." jungkook orders, pulling his phone out of his jeans pocket and pointing at a bench for taehyung to sit on.
taehyung ignores him and walks right into the kid's park, making a beeline for the available swing, all the whilst looking like a giant amongst the few kids playing in the park.

"oh, how cute, it's a kid's park." taehyung hums as he plonks himself on to the swing seat. jungkook takes a deep breath before following the older over to the swing set, anger threatening to spill.

taehyung's eyes are glazed again when jungkook comes to stand by the swing set. he follows his gaze to see him looking on over a family who all munch on picnic food.

"they're having a family picnic." taehyung voices with a small smile on his face. "ive never had a picnic before." taehyung states as jungkook regards him with a raised eyebrow.

"what's up with you?" jungkook questions, half wanting to know, half just wanting the other to shut up.
"you haven't had a picnic before? or the  fish market?" he queries, looking down at the phone in his hand.

taehyung shakes his head, blank. "ive never experienced them — ive seen them in movies though." he says brightly. "they look like a lot of fun."

"what about birthday parties? you never had one before?" jungkook asks as he google's vehicles free to take him and taehyung to their destination.
train? walk? bus maybe?

taehyung tilts his head up to the sky slightly, "no, i did have some but my mom and dad always invited the guests, and the guests were always business partners who'd come up to me with bouquets of flowers and clap me on the back, congratulating me." taehyung explains, now looking down at the gravel between his two feet. "my parents didn't even invite my friends."

"all my birthday parties were prim and proper and very very boring — there were no messy chocolate cakes or sticky sweets or party games, it was just me sitting there alone with my dozen flower bouquets." taehyung chuckles dryly, "what's a seven year old supposed to do with fifty flower bouquets?"

looking up from the bus timetable he was currently studying, jungkook voices out; "god, what a boring life you lead. here i am, thinking it must be fun to flaunt mommy and daddy's money and order people around—"

"it's not like that." taehyung's voice is sharp as a frown deepens in between his pretty features.

"whatever." jungkook dismisses taehyung's expression easily and continues to read whatever on his phone, not really caring anymore. taehyung, on the other hand, cared deeply.

"the image you've created in your head of me is wrong." taehyung mumbles, giving himself a little push on the swing.

jungkook sighs heavily before looking up at taehyung with an unimpressed expression placed on his face.

taehyung focus
taehyung looks at his feet as he slightly pushes himself and starts, "i can tell that you think im a spoilt brat that receives special attention, that gets everything handed to him on a silver platter but you're wrong. ive worked hard to be where i am now; ive stayed up for so many nights memorising five page speeches, missed breakfasts, lunches and dinners just so i could have extra time to work on business pitches. i stayed at the most prestigious boarding school in england for five years to study — it wasn't my choice, i had to go as the heir of the company and stay there by myself, away from my family and home. you know, i wasn't allowed to come back home during the holidays if i got less than a b+." taehyung laughs but it's not a pleasant sound, "just imagine the stress."

"ive never had the luxury of going out with friends for a drink, ive never travelled for a holiday, ive never had a fun day before in my life. all ive ever done in life is study, study and prepare to inherit my dad's company — that i don't even wanna take." taehyung sighs, poking the tip of his flip flops into the gravel pile below the swing.

"just because i was born into a rich family doesn't mean that my life's easy. do you know how many times ive sat on my bathroom floor crying because im not good enough in the eyes of my parents? do you know how many times ive thrown up due to the stress? do you know that my mom doesn't love me because im my dad's illegitimate son?"

taehyung grips the swing set chains on either side of him and continues to speak, unable to shut his mouth and stop his rant after spilling so much information already.

"im not a brat, jeon, and neither do i look down on people. im not picky with food, i don't care if my hair or face looks bad - im not the upright snob you think i am. i have problems and worries that i have to face myself: nothing's made out for me or handed on a silver platter. i do it all alone." taehyung finishes.

during his mini speech, taehyung hadn't bothered to look at jungkook but now he looks up to see jungkook watching him carefully, brows furrowed the slightest bit and his lips are tugged into a thin line.

taehyung freezes.
taehyung, what. . . are you doing?
did you just tell a complete stranger your life story and problems?? why?? what's jeon jungkook gonna do with your problems? he's your freaking kidnapper not an agony aunt from a magazine or something.

"oh my god, why'd i tell you all that?" taehyung asks himself, mortified at the information he's just blabbed out.

god, taehyung — couldn't you have just kept quiet and made another escape plan in your head or something?

now embarrassed and feeling a little awkward, taehyung coughs out a laugh. "ahaha, don't know where that came from. you should j-just, uhm, forget it." taehyung admits, stuttering and chuckling to cover up his embarrassment. he chuckles a little too long causing jungkook to look at him with a weird look on his face. he stops immediately.

"ahem, so. . ." taehyung abruptly says, pushing any thought of his family and work to the back of his mind before turning to look at jungkook, hoping that the boy wouldn't say anything. "what are w-we gonna do now?"