CHAPTER 9

---

After what seemed like hours, taehyung's body gave up on him and he collapsed to the floor of their practice room. he tried to stand back up, but his body felt far too heavy to even pick itself up. he still hadn't caught up with the others and his ankles hurt like hell and his shoulder also swelled because of his accident with seokjin, his vision becoming blotchy.

knowing collapsing on the practice dance would not do him any good, taehyung retaliate from his practice. it was way past midnight, probably around 2 or 3. there were many missed calls from the maknae but taehyung ignored all of it. he was not ready to hear any words of disappointments coming towards him tonight.

clutching his stomach tiredly, taehyung made his way up the stairs and into the building of their dorm. from the entryway he saw the light of a tv flashing. feeling horribly guilty, he stumbled his way into the living room to see jeongguk sitting upright on the couch watching some drama. taehyung held his chest, feeling it tightening when the boy rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch.

"gukkie..." his voice no higher than a whisper.

hearing his name being called, jeongguk lifted his head and turned towards him. he smiled (grimaced) worriedly and stood up. "it's almost three in the morning. why had you just got home now? you will overwork yourself, taetae hyung... i'm so worried about you..."

the warmth and comfort emitting from jeongguk was almost enough to break down all the walls taehyung had built up. he didn't want to worry any of them, especially after causing such a ruckus. he must remind himself what kind of a nuisance he was. rubbing away the tears that threatened to fall from his eyes, he put on his best boxy smile. "i didn't overwork myself. i'll prove you how i've got the hang of the dance tomorrow."

"oh really?" jeongguk quirked a brow, smirking and taehyung felt his heart bloomed with something indescribable.

though jeongguk's smirk quickly dispersed when he took a closer look at taehyung. the light from the tv did little to help him in the dark room that jeongguk could see a slight swelling forming on taehyung's shoulder and ankles. the elder was slightly limping. "you alright, tae?" he reached out to inspect it.

slapping away jeongguk's hand instinctively, taehyung sharply inhaled immediately, surprised by his own action. "i'mfinethanksforaskingdontworryguk" taehyung frantically said, gathering his things and heading into the bathroom to shower.

pursing his lips thoughtfully, jeongguk stood there, gazing at taehyung's retreating form which soon entered the bathroom. he was extremely worried for taehyung. the smaller boy had been acting weird these past few days. he guessed he'd have to pry more later to find out.

---

the few moments taehyung would drift off into unconsciousness at night, he would jolt awake either by some sort of nightmare or pain from his aching body. this morning, it wasn't quite time to get ready for the day, but he found himself fully awake with his hands holding his tired head. his eyes were heavy and his legs and feet were throbbing, the overexertion from last night's practice still weighing heavy on his joints.

a twinge of pain ached in his gut and he gingerly placed a hand over his shoulder. he remembered when namjoon pushed him onto the floor, making him fall ungracefully, shoulder planted first onto the hard floor. he inspected his body when he took a shower. the skin was dark blue and puffy. rubbing the the almost black splotchy bruise, he swallowed thickly, his breath catching in his throat. taehyung further inspected his body. a jolt of pain shot in his knees making him hissed in pain. there, he found another big fresh, dark bruise. and another on his ankles and another on his forearm.

he felt ashamed that he bruised easily. yesterday was just a small accident on his part, jin hyung got the worse so if he already got these huge bruises then what about jin? taehyung immediately finished his shower, not caring that his fast and rough rubs worsened his bruises.

jimin greeted him first this morning when he came out from the bathroom. "i didn't expect you to be awake this early," jimin croaked, his voice deep and laced with sleep. "what time did you get back last night? i tried to wait for you, but was so exhausted that i must've fall'n'sleep." the elder offered an apologetic smile. it warmed taehyung's heart.

taehyung  smiled back. "jiminie, you didn't have to wait for me~" his cheeks flushed pink as he felt happy.

 jimin cooed at taehyung's cuteness and stepped forward to hug the younger. pain shot through taehyung's spine as jimin's muscled arm cradle his swollen shoulder. gasping, he curled forward, away from jimin. the spot seemed to be the most painful of all his other wounds.

"are you okay?!" jimin asked, concerned. he let go of taehyung.

swallowing back the tears and willed as much of the pain away as he could, he put on his best smile to jimin. "m'okay, chim. an ant bit me under the shirt. no biggie." luckily he wore sweater to cover up all the bruises.

relieved, jimin smiled coyly and stepped forward to playfully punch taehyung's shoulder. if tahyung felt like he was shot back then, he was sure jimin just stabbed his shoulder with a knife now. he held back a cry from pain, merely grunted instead.

jimin then ushered him to get ready fast before disappearing into the bathroom. taehyung's vision blurred as his legs straightened and he fell back onto his bed as soon as he entered his room. for a moment his vision swirled and he felt sick to his stomach. the pain was intense from his bruised body and the only thing he wanted to do right now was to cry.

---

taehyung finally faced seokjin since the accident in kitchen, looking all fine whilst cooking their breakfast. he timidly walked to stand next to the eldest, tail between his legs before mumbling an apology. his teary eyes looked up when jin told him that it was okay. jin then showed him his knee that bruised, not as huge as taehyung's, but he still felt guilty and was only shut up when jin told him that he was being annoying and bothering his work, he quickly complied and escaped from the kitchen.

eating breakfast together sounded so inappropriate for him with the constant glares namjoon and hoseok threw at him. taehyung couldn't blame them, they didn't hear his apology to jin and he expected them to be still angry at him even if they heard. it felt like he deserved no breakfast at all. so he was the first one to enter their car, not caring that his stomach roared for him to eat something. he could grab a bread later in break, for now, most important was to review the last practice. taehyung then focused himself on the video of their last practice to memorise some of the forgotten moves.

---

if the members were annoyed that he left them to enter the car first, they didn't speak out of it but taehyung could see hoseok scoffing at him when he saw him, or namjoon's glare when he found that tae already nestled himself on the front seat, or that yoongi looked colder than usual, or that seokjin didn't bother asking him if he had brought coats or anything that could be useful for him later. jimin looked fine, though, occasionally joked around with jeongguk who grunted in response because he was busy playing games. the atmosphere inside the car was so fine, except for tae who felt like an outsider. he had never liked sitting beside the driver but every time he did, the members always included him in their talks or jokes. however, taehyung got nothing of it today.

---

suga was pissed.

a pissed suga was definitely not a good view to be seen. not a good news either for everyone. the cause of the outrage had cowered on their seat--located on the corner of the room--with glares thrown at him.

taehyung almost whimpered as he was so scared. suga rarely got mad at him, and before, it had never been this serious. suga was pissed every time he was too noisy but today was different. the elder was pissed because he was too silent, apparently.

they were recording for a song that required many hard turns and high pitch for vocal lines. taehyung never thought his voice was good but the producers always told him that his voice was unique so he didn't get most line but the unique ones that were of course harder than the rest and the most important in the song. he had been concentrating on dancing way more than singing that was why his voice was so rough when he was told to sing his part, too quiet and too hard for the soft melodious song. yoongi was the one who wrote the song so he felt unsatisfied the most with taehyung, aside from the more intense glares from namjoon and hoseok. taehyung didn't know how would he fuck up things more later. the urge to cry was harder to resist now than this morning. he got the most important part but all he did was to waste it.

after a few more tries and taehyung's improvisations hadn't yet satisfying yoongi, the elder threw his headset and growled, "i swear if you make yourself more useless than now i won't give you any more lines on the future, taehyung. in 15 min i want you to sing it just the way i like or else." and yoongi left the room just like that to cool down his anger with namjoon and hoseok following.

seokjin sighed loudly, openly showing his disappointment of taehyung and stepped outside the room to grab water. jeongguk looked as mad as suga but he bottled it as he kept sitting next to taehyung, helping him with as much as he could even with how unfit his voice in taeyung's part. little did jeongguk know that taehyung felt worse with him helping. the elder felt more useless because jeongguk had to go down and help a loser like him. tears on his eyes were visible by now but tahyung was beyond glad that it hadn't fallen from his eyes.

the close proximity between jeongguk and him only made his heart beat faster, that taehyung guessed must be something bad for him. so he focused himself more to the music sheets on his grips, not even noticing the intense glares that were thrown at his and jeongguk's closeness from another maknae line inside the room.

it's more than a week from the last update im rlly soooorrrryy i was so busy with exams and ykno school stuff bla bla sooo ill make it up by working on the next next updates so that i can update them on time~

your comments are my food for thoughts so pls be generous to me hehe. hope u enjoy this chapt