"Fuck fuck fuck where's my fucking sock for fucks sake?!" Jeongguk cursed as he ran around his apartment, looking for his sock. "I took them both out of the washing machine yesterday and hung them out, why is only one here?" He questioned as he frantically searched. He really didn't want to be late, and he was probably going to be if he didn't find his sock and get his ass out the apartment in the next 10 minutes.

"Finally!" Jeongguk sighed as he found the offending sock, just chilling in the washing machine like it didn't just waste 5 whole minutes of his precious time. Just his luck, it was still wet.

Great.

He put on his remaining sock and shoe, before running to find his bag. An incessant pounding on the door made him roll his eyes and sigh, trudging towards the door, praying it was an over-enthusiastic postman, rather than an uninvited guest.

"Hello?" He said as he flung open the door. "How can I help?"

"You can start by turning your shirt the right way round."

"Yuna?" Jeongguk asked in confusion. "What are you doing here? I literally don't have time for you to visit me right now, I know it's summer but I'm busy."

"Gee, what a welcome." She said dryly, pusing past and inviting herself inside, "What a great brother you are."

"Why are you here, Yuna? I have to go to work right now."

"There's no one at home." She responded.

"So? You're 15, you can take care of yourself."

"No, Jeongguk. There's nobody at home. I don't know where mum fucked off to this time, but there hasn't been anyone at home for a week now, so I hopped on the train and came here."

"Fuck. What the fuck?" Jeongguk said in confusion. "How could she just leave?"

Jeongguk and Yuna were raised by a single mother, who could not care less about them. She was never present, physically and emotionally and Jeongguk had moved out the very day that he turned 18. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, and the only times he held a conversation with her was to ask about Yuna and that was it. That wretched woman was not to be trusted, and Jeongguk was fed up of her dodging her responsibilities as a parent.

"She said she'd come back after the summer, but I didn't wanna be alone for all that time. Plus I wanted permission to dye my hair." She shrugged nonchalantly.

"Have you had breakfast?" Jeongguk sighed.

"Nope. Figured my strong, capable older brother would make me pancakes." She grinned. "Hey why do you smell kinda damp?"

"Long story." Jeongguk said. "Are you sure you're okay? Nothing bad happen to you on your way here?"

"Um, well I'm pretty sure my finger is broken." Yuna said as she held up her hand, index finger swollen and purpleish.

"What the fuck? How did that happen?"

"I shut my finger in the front door when I was leaving the house." She snorted. "I should be fine after going to A&E or something."

"There's a hospital about 5 minutes away from here, I'll take you." Jeongguk said.

"Nah, I'm all good."

"Yuna, let's go, okay? Rather go and get it fixed now than end up with a hook looking finger for the rest of your life." Jeongguk said. "I won't have time to stay there with you, so you have to make your way back once we're there."

"Yeah, that's fine." Yuna agreed, and so they left the appartment and walked down to the hospital, sitting down in the long A&E waiting room. 10 minutes passed and Jeongguk sighed and began to bounce his leg in aggitation.

"Jeongguk, just go."

"Huh?"

"Just go to work. I'll be fine here."

"Are you sure?"

"Dude, it's a hospital. Why wouldn't I be safe here?"

"Ah, you're right." Jeongguk said. "I'm going out to work then and we can talk later. Text me when you get home" Jeongguk said picking up his bag. He checked his watch, noting that he was already fucking late.

"Hey, can I have £10 please?" Yuna asked.

"For what?"

"KFC."

"Fuck that, you don't need £10 for that." Jeongguk scoffed.

"But I've got a broken finger! Don't you pity me at all?"

"I can break the other 9 for you if that's not enough." Jeongguk sneered.

"Fine, £5." Yuna scowled.

"I'll give you £3, and you can use the £1.99 McDonald's vouchers in the newspaper. Buy me a pack of sweets too." Jeongguk said, digging into his pocket and handing her the coins.

"God bless whoever made that voucher thingy in the newspapers though." Yuna said. "Breaks my heart seeing people chuck them in the bin and then pay full price for the same meal." She shook her head. "I'm gonna need more than £5 actually."

"What now, you con artist?" Jeongguk rolled his eyes.

"I need to buy pads. Even though you're a big pussy, I assume you don't keep any in your house."

"Shut up." Jeongguk scowled, handing her a £1 coin.

"You and I both know that's not going to be enough. I'm thinking another £5 would do the trick."

"One part of me doesn't want to give you any more money, but the other part of me knows you'll bleed on my bed out of spite if I don't." Jeongguk sighed, handing her an additional £5. "Wow what a coincidence. Yuna now has £10 like she asked for originally - who could have foreseen that outcome?" Jeongguk said sarcastically.

"Actually Einstein, it's £9." She corrected.

"I hope they amputate your entire fucking hand." Jeongguk scowled.

"And I hope your job doesn't involve any mental maths."

"I'm leaving now then." Jeongguk said.

"Alright then, bye." Yuna smiled as Jeongguk left the room and exited the hospital, bolting down the stairs two at a time. His sock was wet, his bag was heavy, he'd left his phone at home, his sister had turned up out of nowhere and he was really really really late.

Needless to say, his morning was not going well.

He checked the bus times, and wanted to scream when his bus wouldn't be coming for another half hour.

When does the TFL ever do anything right? He thought to himself miserably as he began to run to work. Naturally, the run itself was shitty too, because he had stepped in a pile of dog crap, (fuck you if you don't pick up ur dog poop smh) his water bottle had begun to leak in his bag, and he had fallen over too, badly scraping his knees and elbows. In all honesty, Jeongguk wanted to turn around and go home, but he knew he couldn't because Yuna had his keys, and Taehyung had a match today and he needed to be there to pick up the balls.

Oh fuck.

Taehyung had a match today.

Jeongguk cursed through gritted teeth as he finally made it to work, scanning his ID and running through the halls, tired, dirty and extremely overwhelmed. He dumped his soggy bag into the locker rooms and sighed. Suddenly, Namjoon slammed the door open and began yelling at him.

"Jeongguk where the fuck have you been? Do you know how fucking late you are?" Namjoon seethed.

"I-"

"I don't even want to fucking hear it. It's your first important match as a ball boy and you show up an hour late, delaying the bloody match and making everyone fucking angry as shit. I'm in trouble with my supervisors, and I swear to god I'm going to beat your arse if anything happens to me or my position. Get the fuck out and onto the court." Namjoon boarderline yelled, and Jeongguk knew it was best just to comply, lest he break down and start crying in the middle of the room.

He ran out onto the courts, bowing and apologising to the referees and coaches for delaying the match. The manager beckoned him, and Jeongguk was really just not mentally prepared to be yelled at again. After being harshly chewed out by not one, but three superiors, Jeongguk returned to his post, wiping away the tears that threatened to fall.

The match went horribly.

The crowd was dead, the opposition kept glaring at him, and Taehyung was clearly out of groove, making trivial mistakes and having sloppy serves and returns the entire game. Thankfully, he still managed to win, but Jeongguk knew that most people didn't actually care, and were more pissed off at the fact that the match was delayed. They filtered out of the stands, utterly disappointed, and soon only Jeongguk and Taehyung were left on the court.

"You were late." Taehyung stated. "Everyone had to wait for you."

Jeongguk remained silent.

He was burning with rage; upset and defeated that everyone was yelling at him and that nobody was giving him even 1 microsecond to explain his side of the story. He was fully aware that he had let people down, but he was really doing the best he could, and there was nobody around who even bothered to even attempt to see that. He continued to pack the equipment away, not making eye contact or responding to Taehyung's comments. When he was finished, he spoke up:

"I'll be leaving then." He said as he began to walk towards the gate and leave the court.

"No. Stay. I want to practice my serves since I didn't get to this morning." Taehyung said with a snarky tone of voice.

Jeongguk grits his teeth and clenches his jaw so hard that he feels as though his teeth might break. He knows Taehyung can see he's angry, knows it's obvious that he's holding back, and yet, that stupid son of a bitch was still testing him, still trying to rile him up and make him furious.

He throws the bag down on the floor, and walks slowly back to his post, hands positioned in front of his crotch in the official resting position. He stared forwards emotionlessly, waiting for Taehyung to finally start. There wasn't even a need for Jeongguk to be there, and he and Taehyung both knew it, but Taehyung was in charge, so Jeongguk had to comply.

Taehyung threw the ball up and swung his racket forwards to serve, the ball pinging speedily through the air and thwacking against the back wall. It was silent for a minute.

"Pick up the ball, Jeongguk." Taehyung instructed, tone demeaning and belittling.

Jeongguk remained motionless.

"Pick up the fucking ball, Jeongguk, and actually do your fucking job for once, okay?" Taehyung yelled, watching as Jeongguk clenched his jaw again and slowly began to walk towards the ball, picking it up and returning to his post.

Usually, Taehyung would serve about 15 times in a row, before Jeongguk would go and collect all of them at once, but this new method Taehyung was using was trivial and rude.

Jeongguk felt degraded.

Again and again, Taehyung forced Jeongguk to walk over and pick up the stupid tennis balls, watching with an unreadable expression on his face the entire time. He'd wait and time it until Jeongguk had nearly returned to his post, and then serve the next ball immediately, so that Jeon would never get a moment to stand at his post.

As Taehyung served the next ball, it occurred to him that he'd slightly misjudged the timing for this one, and he watched in horror as the ball came hurtling towards Jeonguk's face like a bullet, and impacted his face so hard that the sound echoed slightly and Jeongguk was knocked over instantly, colliding with the floor.

Silence.

Taehyung dropped his racket and rushed over, heart pounding in his ears as the reality of the situation came crashing down. What the fuck was he doing?

"Jeongguk I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I-It was an accident, really." Taehyung frantically apologised, reaching out a hand to help him up, but Jeongguk slapped him away.

"Get. Away. From. Me." Jeongguk growled lowly.

"Jeongguk, I-I'm sor-"

"Get away from me!" Jeongguk yelled, shoving Taehyung off him and standing up himself.

"Y-Your eye. It's starting to bruise. Oh, Jeongguk I'm really sorry." Taehyung apologised. "I can take you to the infirmary if you'd like?"

"I'd like it if you could leave me the fuck alone." Jeongguk seethed. "You don't get to bully me and then just fucking act like you didn't fucking attack me on purpose."

"I-I didn't, I swear." Taehyung panicked.

"Whatever." Jeongguk dismissed, walking away from Taehyung and towards the gate to leave. He flung it open, leaving the heavy metal gates to crash against each other, and he began to exit, not bothering to close the gates behind him.

"Just get out of my sight, you selfish son of a bitch."

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Sad chapter rippp :(