Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Winter break came with a freedom Taehyung never managed to get used to. Jeongguk always went home on the first day of holidays, back to his oh-so-lovely perfect family that called him each Tuesday afternoon to make sure he was having a good time and better grades, and this winter wasn’t any different from any other break apart from their goodbye slash morning sex and exchange of love you ’s and i’ll miss you’ s. He’d waved Jeongguk off on the train station after his lover had boarded his train back home to Busan before taking an uber back home, making the driver drop him off outside of the supermarket around the corner where he’d spent a disgustingly large amount of money on various types of alcohol and a carton of Marlboro reds. He’d barely gotten through the front door when he screwed up the lid off a Grey Goose vodka, taking a couple of large gulps before slipping out of his shoes and coat. He’d made a quick beeline to the kitchen after that, and after he’d put the alcohol in the fridge and freezer he’d promptly sat himself down by the kitchen table. He spent his next couple of hours in that exact spot, drinking straight out of the bottle while playing random games on his phone to pass the time before the hours had passed into evening and he could go to the pub without feeling like a complete loser. Hoseok joined

By the second day of holidays, Hoseok and Namjoon would have left too and with them most of everyone in their dorm building, leaving Taehyung and Yoongi alone. Thee elder couldn’t care less about Taehyung doing god knows what with his break, he’d said so before, which suited Taehyung just fine. The elder would likely spend most his break in the studio, working on his thesis on… no one actually knew, but something music composition for sure. Yoongi wasn’t one to speak of his studies, much more preferring working in peace and quiet, but they all knew he was the hard-working type, being as far as they knew somewhere in the top of his year. Damned good that he was too, because sometimes it seemed like the man never left his studio - Hoseok had complained about having to go there to make sure he ate and slept over and over again, something everybody knew he secretly enjoyed because if he followed Yoongi back home it meant he’d be getting dick, and by that Yoongi was hiring a studio no longer than a three minute walk away from their apartment building.

Taehyung himself never went home during holidays - he had no reason to. His parents would be working through the entire winter without breaks as usual, so there was no point in him going back to the empty mansion he’d grown up in just to spend his days bored out of his mind. There was nothing for him in Daegu, no friends and no family, so why would he go? He’d considered going on a short trip to Japan for the break, just to entertain himself, but he’d ended up deciding against it. No, he’d much rather use his break for something more giving, something more exciting.

Giving being another word for getting absolutely shitfaced, that is. He hadn’t built up his alcohol tolerance the last two years only to take a break from the few things that was keeping him somewhat alive, after all, and he’d already prepared himself for it, both mind, body and soul. He’d taken three days off drinking before the break just for good measure, making sure his body wouldn’t crash and burn completely during the next week and a half, and he’d already cleaned the apartment so that there wouldn’t be any work to be done during his drinking time. He had some studying to do before Spring term started, but it wouldn’t be any problems; he could easily finish it in one sitting.

For his first night without Jeongguk Taehyung downed bottle after bottle of soju ( together with his first bottle of vodka ) instead of sleeping, as if the amount of bottles he finished in the end was actually hours he’d been sleeping. By morning it had been five days since he last slept, but being alone came with another privilege apart from the freedom of drinking, sleeping and partying whenever he liked. It came with what he’d spent the better part of his teenage years searching endlessly for, and what he’d finally found once again just months back but never been able to do with a clear conscience, not when his friends were always surrounding him.

He’d nearly cried out of relief when he finally found them, through a classmate’s friend’s friend, because his old best friends were finally back in his life, as if they’d never left to begin with.

-

“Jeongguk, please stop, oh my god-” Taehyung stopped mid sentence for another fit of laughter to exit his mouth. “Stop, stop, stop, god, okay, you’re right”. Jeongguk stopped tickling him as soon as he’d finished his sentence, staring down at him as he was sat on top of his lover, his ass firmly planted on Taehyung’s lower stomach as his legs splayed out on each side of him.

“So you accept it?”

“Fucking aight, I do, so don’t tickle me again.”

“Can’t promise anything.” The cheeky motherfucker had the audacity to smirk down at Taehyung, probably having the time of his life after making Taehyung suffer. He couldn’t help but let out a low groan, his head lolling to the side so that it faced the sofa cushions. Some random drama was playing on the TV in the background, just as background noise as they’d originally been studying together, and the muffled voices of strangers could be heard all through the apartment as it took up the silence between the two lovers.

“Why are you like this,” Taehyung let out with a groan, making Jeongguk laugh in a way that reminded Taehyung of birdsong and soft winds. He turned his head back up to the younger, mapping out his face in the fluorescent lights of their living room as he tried to keep his facial features to look as if he was mad, which he most likely was failing catastrophically with.

“I’m just trying to have a wholesome relationship with you, what’s so wrong with that?”

Taehyung didn’t really have an answer to that, a faint blushing on his cheeks blooming as the word ‘relationship’ registered in his mind.

He and Jeongguk had only officially been dating for a couple of days after all - it was completely normal for him to still be phased by the title, especially when it came out of his lovers mouth so lightly.

Jeongguk’s voice had always had a way with Taehyung; his singing made Taehyung feel like a summer day on the beach and his conversational tones reminded him of nights inside and hot cocoa during rainy evenings. But his favourite was Jeongguk’s morning voice, how he’d nearly growl out his first words of the day between white linen sheets before he’d woken up completely, turning his sounds into something reminiscent of old times ballroom dances with fluttering dresses in a rainbow of colours and tall glasses of champagne.

“You’re so cheesy, oh my god…” Taehyung trailed away. “What did I sign up for when I entered this relationship?”

Jeongguk grinned as their eyes met.

“Me.”

Taehyung wouldn’t have it any other way.

-

It wasn’t the pretty pink pills from his childhood, but it was close enough. The round, orange pills seemed to be staring right back at him when he opened up the sealed bottle and gazed down at them for the first time. He’d gotten them nearly a month back, bought an entire 100 pill bottle of them without giving it a second thought, and for the last month they’d been hidden away in an old bag under Taehy ung’s bed, just waiting to be retrieved and taken. He’d barely even looked at the bottle before, too stressed with having gone through his first actual illegal drug deal rather than just stealing some from an unknowing mother, but now he took his time to actually check on it.

It wasn’t beautiful, not at all, but he hadn’t expected it to be. The rectangular, white bottle just looked clinical, like something you’d expect to see while opening a locked cabinet at the doctors, the only thing really sticking out being the bold OxyContin followed by 60mg written directly under it .

Well, it wasn’t like he cared like how it looked, after all , was his last thoughts before his reflexes took over, carelessly pouring out two pills into his palm before reaching for his third beer of morning to swallow them down with. He was hoping that it’d be enough to make him pass out, because when he was young and he’d just started with the pretty pink pills he hadn’t needed more than one to fall asleep; but he was older and bigger now, so two should be a good amount. Right? He reassured himself that it was fine before screwing the lid back onto the pill bottle and standing up from his bed, chugging the remaining half of his beer as he walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge, fetching another cold beer before retreating back to the bedroom. He unceremoniously dropped down on the bed while miraculously not spilling any of his beer out in the process. He’d not gotten dressed since waking up yet, and if everything went as planned he wouldn’t be either; for now he was perfectly comfortable in his black boxers and an oversized, yellow t-shirt that reached halfway down his thighs, with slits cut out of it around the shoulders and on the side by his waist after he’d had a new fashion idea a couple of years back. Looking down on the yellow fabric, it was as if the colour was shining, oozing out of the cloth like an extra layer or colourful aura that painted the world around it with joy and energy. Because while Taehyung didn’t feel particularly energised, joy was exactly what the pills he’d swallowed contained and it was exactly how he’d feel soon. Joyful. It had been a long time since he’d last felt anything like it.

Ten minutes went by, and Taehyung was anxiously biting his fingernails down to stubbs as he waited, the large gulps he took out of the beer can quickly emptying it, leaving him no choice than to get up and go get another one again. He hadn’t looked up anything about the pills, not a single Google search nor any questions about them to the dealer, so he had absolutely zero clue regarding how long they’d take before kicking in. Hell, he didn’t even know the recommended dosage. He was winging his high just like he winged everything else in life - with little glamour, a decent level of skill, and fuck it imprinted on his skull.

Twenty minutes past, and Taehyung took another pill just to make sure he hadn’t taken too little. He was sure he wouldn’t have to need more, and it was likely he’d already taken too much. Common sense would have told him to start with just one pill before waiting an hour to take the next, but Common Sense and Kim Taehyung hadn’t gotten along with each other lately. He’d left the pill laying on his tongue while he’d closed the lid of the bottle and put it besides the empty beer cans on his bedside table before he’d swallowed it down with more beer, and it left a bitter tinge on his tongue that reminded him of heaven.

Thirty minutes after he’d taken the first two pills, and Taehyung was higher than Mount Everest. He’d just started to feel it kicking in before it hit him like a semi-truck, the high having crept up on him like a leopard before attack. He’d taken it by storm, relishing in how his body had begun to float ever so slightly over the bedsheets, how the walls had started to shimmer like tiny diamonds in the light from a cloudy day in the busy Seoul that shone in through the window. Taehyung normally couldn’t relate to any of the people bound to be milling around on the cold streets outside the walls of his apartment, not in the slightest, and at this point they were nothing but alien to him as he laughed silently at them while embracing his loneliness. He just had time to finish his fifth beer of the day before he promptly passed out, face to the ceiling as he’d watched it slowly descend down on him before he’d closed his eyes a last time.

It was just after 2 p.m., a Thursday afternoon just three days before Christmas Eve, when Taehyung faded out from the world at last. It had been five days since he’d last had even a blink of sleep and it had taken two bottles of vodka, six bottles of soju and countless cans of beers topped off with three round, orange pills before he’d finally gone down.

If he happened to die he’d at least go down in history as a champ.

-

“If you don’t want me to fall in love with you then don’t be so charming, you dumbass.”

Jeongguk’s words echoed through Taehyung’s mind, reminding him of how their relationship had came to be. He’d spoken jokingly, with a hint of laughter in his low tone as he uttered the words, but they’d both known that it wasn’t a joke - Jeon Jeongguk was definitely on his way in falling for Kim Taehyung, that much was obvious to anyone who saw the way he acted as soon as Taehyung’s name was as little as mentioned around him.

They’d officially been in a relationship for three weeks already, and those three weeks had easily been some of the best weeks in Taehyung’s entire life so far. After thirsting after Jeongguk for years he’d finally gotten to the point where he could call the younger his own, something he’d rarely allowed his past self to even dream of.

Jeongguk in a relationship was all sunshine and happiness, chirping laughter and toothy grins, late night cuddles and early morning blowjobs. He was Taehyung’s very own sunrise and sunset in one, reminding him of colourful skies and new beginnings as soon as he smiled at him. Taehyung loved every moment they spent together, be it as they walked together to the café before their classes or when they cooked dinner together in their cramped kitchen or whenever they studied together on the living room floor.

Jeongguk was the sun, and Taehyung marvelled in his light.

He couldn’t believe that he’d ever gotten so lucky. So fucking lucky.

-

Taehyung liked to think that his entire life was actually just a game, that someone else was the one controlling him and his every action and was hence responsible for all of his fuck ups and regrets. It was much easier to think like that rather than having to take the blame for everything and everyone he’d fucked up, is fucking up, and is going to fuck up in the future.

If someone else was controlling Taehyung, it wasn’t his fault that he ruined his family. It wasn’t his fault that his drug addiction ever started, nor was it his fault that his mother became worried sick and his father took on more work so that he wouldn’t have time to think about his only son.

If someone else was controlling Taehyung, he would have never been the one who made Jeongguk fall for him, nor was it him who loved him back without being able to own up to it.

If someone else was controlling Taehyung, he had no reason to feel all too bad about what was about to come, because it wasn’t he who was in charge of his downward spiralling mental health, topped off with a new prescription pill addiction and long-running alcoholism.

It was so much easier to think that he wasn’t the one driving himself into an early death.

-

“Jeongguk?”

“Yes babe?”

“You’ve been starin’ at the wall for the last like, five minutes, and I’m gettin’ a bit worried, you okay?”

Jeongguk finally tore his eyes from the white wall behind Taehyung and instead let his eyes fall back down onto the textbook he had on his lap. They were studying together on the living room floor, a.k.a their usual spot, with Jeongguk leaning his back onto the sofa as he sat with his textbook between his crossed legs and his notes on the low sofa table meanwhile Taehyung was spread out over the floor, back against the floor and pillow under his head as he balanced his laptop on his chest and ignored the ache in his neck.

“Yeah yeah, sorry,” Jeongguk chuckled, “I was just taking a break from accounting, I got a fuckton of reading to do for my essay and it’s killing me.”

“Fucking mood, I have an essay for my political theory class that’s due in two days time and it’s sucking the soul outta me.”

Jeongguk laughed, a bright, chipper sound that made a smile bloom on Taehyung’s lips. He could never get enough of the younger, and even though they’d been together for almost five weeks already it still felt like it hadn’t been more than a couple of days since they’d first started seeing each other. He still got butterflies in his stomach sometimes when they held hands or kissed, he still couldn’t help but be amazed over his luck whenever they were cuddled up together, and something as little as just seeing Jeongguk’s name in random places was enough to make him smile like a fool.

Man, he was in deep for the boy. But who could blame him? Jeongguk was just another way to say perfection, after all.

-

Taehyung had close to no recollection of his New Years celebrations. All he could remember was somehow making his way out of the apartment for the first (or was it second?) time since winter break started, finally having run out of all the alcohol he’d stocked up on the first day of break, all the empty bottles scattered over the living room floor as if it was nothing more than a showcase of his depression and addiction. He never showed up to any parties or clubs, but rather just went out to get himself another five 1.5L soju bottles and a case of beer, heaving them back to the apartment and up the stairs with maximum effort.

He’d promised Jeongguk he’d keep in contact with him during the break, but the youngers ‘Happy New Year hyung, I wish you’d be here so that you’d be my New Years kiss’ text message was left on read until he finally replied in the late afternoon on the first, when he finally woke up from his long slumber.

The students were all bound to be coming back the third, the start of term beginning the fourth. He only had one more day to indulge himself in alcohol and pills before he needed to straighten up and start acting again, no more slacking to do as the new year came abouts with even more classes and seminars to attend.

-

Jeongguk and Taehyung had been dating for exactly five weeks, six days and four, no five, hours when Yoongi finally invited all the boys out to an underground hip-hop club to see another one of his live gigs. The elder had been an underground rapper for as long as they’d known him and longer, having started out to begin with when he still lived at home in Daegu before bringing his hobby and aspiration with him to Seoul for university. He wasn’t famous, per se, but he had a decent following both online and in real life and it was well enough for clubs to sometimes reach out and ask him to be a live artist the odd weekend night. It had been quite a while since his last one though, Yoongi having said no to every invitation for nearly two months in favour of working on his mixtape and studying, but now it seemed like he’d finally finished up and was ready to go back on stage. It was a night out with the entire gang, with the additions of Seokjin and Jimin, two of Yoongi’s closer friends that Taehyung had met enough times to call friends and realise them as the newest two members in their squad.

They’d rocked up together with Namjoon and Seokjin in tow, and they met up with Jimin, Yoongi and Hoseok at a Chinese fast food place just around the corner from the club, pre-drinking while eating to their heart’s contents and chatting loudly with one another, probably bothering the other guests but no one cared enough about it to stop. Taehyung and Jeongguk sat next to each other, legs touching as they’d squeezed into the corner of the booth, and while Jeongguk spent most of the time talking to the others rather than eating Taehyung spent most of his time with just watching Jeongguk. The younger just had that way with people that completely contradicted, how he was both shy and outgoing all at once, mixing stuttered words with loud exclaims and high-pitched laughter, matching shy smiles that he hid partly with his sleeves with a relaxed and easygoing posture. Taehyung had no fucking clue of how he managed it, but he loved every bit of it, loved every bit of Jeongguk.

He hadn’t talked much during their meal, instead opting to be an observer while he could feel himself coming more and more to life with each shot of soju he threw back and each beer he finished, even finishing it off with two shots of cheap vodka with the rest of the boys that burned his throat and set his heart on fire. He was already tipsy when they got up and left, just like the others were (except Yoongi - he’d only had a beer and the two vodka shots so that he wouldn’t step on stage drunk), and he didn’t hesitate to reach out to Jeongguk, intermingling their fingers before pulling his lover towards him for a chaste kiss before they left.

The club was located two flights of stairs underground, and Taehyung laughed over the sheer amount of ‘underground’ it all screamed when they had to walk through a wide cement tunnel, the walls and ceiling covered in UV spray painted artworks and just simple name tags and quotes, before coming into the actual club area. The spacy room that opened up before them after getting through the tunnel made Taehyung suspect it was an old bomb bunker, because no way would such a huge area had been built underground for any other reason. There was another metallic staircase to walk down before getting to the main floor, the edges of its last few steps littered with empty plastic cups and the railings presumably spray-painted to a bright pink and orange that shone in the lights.

It was brimming with people even though it was no later than 11 p.m., a fine mixture of both boys and girls and men and women milling around and going between the seating areas and large dancefloor. A stage was set up on the far opposite wall from the entrance, not just some small thing but rather an actual stage holding a DJ booth in the middle, flanked with speakers on both sides and lights going off and on around it. There were three bars, two on each side of the room and one just a couple of metres away from the stairwell down, all of them spanning multiple metres across with slick black bar tops and shelves upon shelves of alcohol on the walls behind them. Each bar had four people behind it, all of them seemingly working their asses off to deliver to the crowd that surrounded them.

The seating areas were situated against the same wall as the entrance, with booths of varying sizes with slick red sofas and black tables against the wall, spacing out into simple sofas scattered around a couple of tables and then going into round, faux leather bar stools around high bar tables in shiny black. Most of the seats were already taken, leaving only a few sofas and a couple of bar tables free, and Taehyung thanked the gods that they all had a table in the VIP area. It took him a couple of seconds to find the actual VIP area, his eyes shooting around the room before finally locating it on the right side of the stage, holding no more than four crimson sofas, two low tables and a small space of floor to dance on. Man, they sure were lucky to have Yoongi.

The walls were, just like in the tunnel, painted with bright UV spray-paint that shone in the blacklight lamps that were situated all around the club. It was clearly made to look like it was just random street graffiti, and maybe it was, and it was all done so well that it must have taken a lot of people and a lot of time to do. Most noticeably was a large painting that covered nearly the entire front wall, starting in the bottom left corner and blossoming up towards the ceiling with a plethora of faces, flowers, patterns and psychedelic illusions, surrounding a ‘NEVERMIND’ written in bold, white lettering that must span more than twenty metres across. Taehyung recalled that that was the name of the club with a smile; they sure let themselves loose and worked hard to fix everything up.

At last, Taehyung reflected over the music. They’d heard a track he’d recognised as Don Mills’ while walking down the tunnel, only recalling it because the Korean rapper was one of Yoongi’s favourites (which had been completely clear when Yoongi rapped along to the last few lines of the song), but he’d never heard the song that was currently being blasted out of the speakers and around the room. It was just what he’d expect from an underground hip-hop club though, with a heavy bass and trap beat mixed with a mellow voice spitting bars. Taehyung didn’t listen to a lot of hip-hop usually, but he’d picked up a fair share of songs and artists from Jeongguk, Yoongi, and Hoseok, who all listened to more hip-hop than anything else. When the song finished and the next one came on, Taehyung recognised it with a fond nodding of his head - it was a song Jeongguk had been rapping along to all week, a new song and one of the younger’s favourites. After hearing Jeongguk rap to it so many times it had became one of Taehyung’s favourites, too.

Taehyung finally tore his eyes away from the club and back to his friends, turning his head to the side to check if they were ready. He met Hoseok’s eyes as the elder had turned nearly at the same time as he did, and after nodding at each other with matching grins adorning their faces Hoseok turned to the others, letting out a loud ‘come on, leggo’ before pulling forward and into the club. Taehyung let go of Jeongguk’s hand after a last squeeze, rushing after Hoseok down the stairs as he breathed in happily. It smelt of sweat, alcohol and regret, but it felt so right at the same time, feeling as if he’d just gone on a long-awaited vacation at the same time as it felt like he’d just gotten back home again.

In Taehyung’s defence, he hadn’t been clubbing for six days, and even then he’d barely even gone to the pub. Jeongguk had been sick with a bad cold and fever, at the same time as he’d desperately had to get around to properly study for once, so he’d been stuck at home if not in class for majority of the time, either taking care of his lover or studying so hard his brain hurt. Being sober for so many days at once had proved insanely annoying, bringing with it a constant headache and withdrawals that made him throw up twice on the third morning, but he’d made it work in the end. But now he was finally back in the game, studies finished and Jeongguk nursed back to health, and it was time to fucking party.

He’d actually slept last night too, for once having passed out completely sober after just two days awake, and he’d woken up to Jeongguk’s sleeping beauty pressed into the mattress next to him nearly ten hours later. He’d watched the sunrise play on the gentle features of his lover, pink turning orange and orange turning pale white against the crevices of his cheekbones, neck and collarbones, the colours painting Jeongguk like the finest art. It had been a long time since he’d felt so refreshed, as if he’d been born again, and he’d made sure to relish in the feeling as it crept upon him. Jeongguk had woken up with a smile on his lips, and Taehyung had felt nothing but love overpowering his entire body, leaking out of his pores and escaping his mouth as he’d whispered sweet nothings only for his lover to hear. They’d spoken to another in low voices, as not to disturb the morning, exchanging chaste pecks on the lips that turned into Taehyung trailing faint kisses down the younger’s neck and over his chest. It had been so innocent, so pure, and so so loving. They’d showered together to save time before their classes after wasting too much time with each other’s love, and they walked to campus hand in hand before splitting up with a final kiss on the lips and a promise to meet during lunch.

He and Hoseok had reached to the bar while Taehyung had lost himself in thoughts, and he could see Namjoon and Jimin standing to his left out of the corner of his eye. The rest had presumably gone to the VIP area directly, probably to shed some of their clothes (because while it was fucking cold outside, the club had been heated up to a suffocating level of body heat mingling with heating systems) and maybe start on the token vodka and mixers that would be delivered to their table in an ice bucket shortly upon arrival.

He and Hoseok had a mutual understanding for whenever they went out clubbing together, and they both ordered from different bartenders at the same time as they stood pressed to each other, both of them leaning their elbows on the bar table as they paid and then waited. Within a minute they both had six shots in front of them - two vodka, two Jägermeister, and two soju each - and then their first drinks of choice, in Taehyung’s case a vodka and lemonade, Hoseok with a mojito. It was with matching grins adorning their faces that they shouted out ‘it’s sta~rting’, simultaneously turning back to the table to grab onto their first shots, throwing it back before reaching for a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. The burn of the vodka was dampened by the Jägermeister’s molten lava and topped off with the soju to get rid of the strong taste, leaving Taehyung with an inferno burning in his stomach and exuberance in his mind.

They left the bar without waiting for Namjoon and Jimin, pressing themselves through the bodies of people that had taken over the dancefloor as they had to cross over to get to their table. It was warm, especially as he was still wearing his oversized winter coat over a black turtleneck, and it was crammed to the brink, with people stepping on his feet just as often as he stepped on theirs, but Taehyung had a good feeling about it. He could barely hear himself thinking over the sound people moving abouts and the music booming out over them, and it was nothing short of a blessing.

Today had already been a good day. No, it had been better than that. Taehyung couldn’t remember having a better day since semester started, if not for the entire year; it wasn’t often Taehyung felt truly happy, especially not for more than just a moment, but he couldn’t remember getting stuck in a single thought loop or bad memory the entire day. It had to be some kind of record, him not being overwhelmingly sad for an entire day. It was almost that he got worried about it, worried about the lack of anxiety and intrusive thoughts and depressive mood swings. Almost, at least - instead he reminded himself of the moment, shaking his head and taking another sip of his drink before continuing his trek amongst the people.

Taehyung and Hoseok arrived to the VIP area, simply showing their VIP wristbands to get past the guards standing outside it, to see only Yoongi sitting down on one of the sofas. The other’s jackets were spread out around the sofas, with some of the jackets seemingly attempts to reserve specific spots, but Taehyung completely disregarded this as he moved over Seokjin’s maroon coat and plunked down in the seat closest to the stage.

Yoongi sat straight across from him, Hoseok plopping down next to the elder, and Taehyung put his drink down on the table before leaning over it so that he could talk to the others.

“Yoons, you gettin’ nervous?”

The elder only shook his head, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“This is a bit bigger than y’all used to, init?”

The elder nodded this time, and Taehyung could see Hoseok following the conversation as he sipped on his mojito.

“Yeah, it is, but it’s no biggie. Should be fine.”

Classic Yoongi. Acting all cool, even though he was probably being eaten up by his nerves right in this moment. Everyone knew it, everybody saw how Yoongi always bit on his nails before shows and how he’d always pace back and forths while waiting for his gig to start while backstage, but no one mentioned it. They didn’t need to - Yoongi had it all under control, always losing every bit of shame and nervosity as he stepped on the stage and did what he was born to do.

It was always surprising to remember that Yoongi didn’t aspire to be a rapper, that it wasn’t something he wanted to do with his life. Sure, wanting to be a producer wasn’t too far-fetched, especially not when you knew Yoongi produced his own tracks himself, but when you saw Yoongi standing in the spotlight and spitting bars like his life depended on it you couldn’t help but wonder. Because it was as if the elder was made for the stage, his movements calculated and the bowing of his head almost theatrical, the beats pouring out of the speakers ranging from heavy trap to soft old school as his growly voice always stayed the same. He was enthralling, and he knew it. But it just wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life.

Taehyung didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Sure, he was studying political science and international relations, so he guessed it had something to do with politics, but he couldn’t ever see himself as a politician. Maybe as an advisor? Or maybe he’d study past his masters and get a PhD in one of the subjects, becoming an intern at some university and then a professor? He’d never really thought that far, which wasn’t too odd. He rarely thought more than a week or a month forward, never planned ahead but rather winged whatever life gave him, freestyling his own life while trying his best to survive.

Maybe he didn’t know what to do in his future because he didn’t see one for himself. After living with so much pain and suffering for so many years Taehyung was just surprised he was still alive, that he hadn’t managed to overdose as a child or drink himself to death as a teenager or step off a bridge as a young adult. Hell, Taehyung was proud of himself for being alive, because it hadn’t been easy to stay living, not when he’d seen the world burn down to the ground around him as he watched it with the tank of gasoline and lighter still in hand, over and over and over again had his own mind ruined everything he loved and held dear until he couldn’t recognise them anymore, again and again had Taehyung lost track of himself between days of no sleep and hours of heavy drinking to never find himself whole again.

Taehyung’s life had been a rollercoaster where the rise to happiness and health took months or years and the fall down to the bottom took only a couple of seconds. Taehyung didn’t know what a normal life even meant at this point, but for what it took he pretended to have one as long as people were watching. And either he was a great actor, or everyone else was just so blind to see the truth.

Taehyung felt someone sitting down on the sofa next to him, but it wasn’t until a heavy hand fell onto his thigh that he looked up from his thoughts and faced Jeongguk. He was tapping the beat of the song out with two fingers on Taehyung’s thigh, and that simple act of love made Taehyung find his smile yet again, a faint blush of adoration forming on his cheeks with a drunken warmth. The younger was grinning with his entire face, eyes sparkling and skin painted a soft red from the club lights, the shadows enhancing his face to bring out the dark eyes and high cheekbones. He’d shed his outer clothes, donning a simple black t-shirt spelling out Armani in dark grey over his chest together with the ripped skinny jeans that were a size too small but Jeongguk kept wearing because of how they showed off his muscular thighs and perky ass.

He was so fucking beautiful. He never failed to remind Taehyung of the sunrise over the ocean a warm summer morning, of the sunset seen from an airplane window, of the sun shining through the windows on a lazy morning in bed, of the full moon on a starry night. He reminded him of everything that was good in the world and of his favourite things, but most importantly, he reminded him how it felt to be loved, and to love.

They’d been together for five weeks, six days and six hours, and the flowers that had been blooming in his body since he’d first kissed his lover had been starting to bloom. Taehyung feared he’d end up choking on them, that they’d fill up his lungs and suffocate him slowly as their thorns would rip up his insides and their stalks would grow out through his veins and out of his body.

He didn’t know if he wanted them to destroy him or if he wanted to live with them anymore.

-

Taehyung had never been in a relationship before Jeongguk. Not a serious one, at least - he’d had a few flings where he’d gone on a couple of dates with someone he thought he had chemistry with or had been hot enough, but it had never led anywhere past those handfuls of dates and usually just ended with a mutual agreement to stay ‘just friends’.

No, Taehyung was more of a ‘fuck around and fuck feelings’ type of person, something his track record clearly showed. He was well known around campus as a fuckboy, or at least he had before he got together with Jeongguk, and he didn’t blame anyone who thought of him as one. He’d long since lost account of how many he’d fucked, be it a quickie in the bathroom of a club or party with a stranger or with a friend or hook-up at their place, but after the last two years the number was high enough that he were genuinely surprised he’d never gotten a STI.

He didn’t really care much about his reputation either; he’d definitely earned it, and in this day and age he didn’t get too much shit about being promiscuous either. The only bad part of having such a reputation was that people often assumed he also had a habit of playing around with people’s hearts too, which he could proudly say he never did.

Because Taehyung knew the feeling of being heartbroken, he made a point out of cutting everyone off before they could start to develop feelings for him. Well, apart from Jeongguk, but the younger was something else completely. Taehyung had previously always made sure that it was clear to whoever he fucked that it was a one time thing, or a no strings attached arrangement to anyone who was good enough in bed for a redo, and he never texted back anyone who’d seemed like they hoped for more than just a blowjob out of him. It was for their best, in the end, after all.

Because Taehyung had broken his own heart once before, and with Jeongguk, he was breaking it once more. The first time around it had been his mental illnesses and prescription pill addiction, when he was still an innocent child but with a hollow heart. His insomnia had ripped out part after part of him for each day he spent awake at the same time his anxiety ruined every chance of him having friends or honest feelings, his depression blooming inside his body like invisible thorns tearing him apart together with the pills that seemed to be filling up his body as to substitute his hopes and dreams for the future. In the end it had just became too much for his poor, young heart to handle, and it had promptly broken apart in tiny little pieces that cut his mind and soul with razor sharp edges.

He had barely repaired it before getting together with Jeongguk, and even though the first couple of weeks of their relationship had healed his heart so much that it no longer deserved to be called broken, things were changing now.

And it was all because Taehyung couldn’t bring himself to love him back, which meant that he was bound to be the one breaking Jeongguk’s heart in the end. Taehyung didn’t want to accept it, didn’t even want to think about it, but he knew that it was going to happen at some point if he never succeeded to muster all the love the younger truly deserved, for real and not just faked. Taehyung hadn’t realised at first, too caught up in their honeymoon phase of the relationship to take notice, but as soon as he realised that while Jeongguk was falling for him rapidly, his own feelings were hardly changing. He was stuck with loving his partner more as a friend than a lover, and knowing that he might never be what Jeongguk wanted him to be was enough for his heart to begin to crack.

Taehyung had vowed to never become a heartbreaker, but here he was - breaking two hearts at once, as if they were nothing. And for each passing day he spent with Jeongguk, Taehyung’s heart fell apart, bit by bit by bit, and at this pace it wouldn’t be long until he’d completely lost it all.

-

They went home to Jeongguk’s parents for dinner the Friday that marked seven weeks together. They hadn’t told them about their relationship before now, and Taehyung hadn’t been sure they should have told them overall in fear of rejection and ignorant replies, but Jeongguk had convinced him that his parents would be okay with it, that they weren’t homophobes and that they’d accepted Jeongguk by storm when he’d came out to them at the tender age of 14.

It didn’t exactly help Taehyung’s nerves that it was a fairly fancy get-together either, with both him and Jeongguk dressing up in their matching sets of sleek dress pants and long-sleeved button-ups from Armani, sets they’d bought with each other and their parents money just two days prior while out on the streets of Gangnam-gu. They truly looked like a couple now, matching outfits and all, but Taehyung couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable in the fitted clothing so different from his usual, oversized style. The sight of Jeongguk’s thigh muscles bulging underneath the black pants and the sleeves of his shirt clinging to his biceps made it somewhat okay in the end anyhow, because Taehyung knew he was the lucky man that’d get to pull them off his lover’s form later that night.

They took a cab from their home into the heart of Yongsan-gu and through Itaewon, sitting in silence as they held hands over the middle seat, Jeongguk spending his time looking out of his window and onto the busy streets of Seoul with a smile etched on his face while Taehyung’s gaze jumped around between the sight of his lover, the interior of the car, and out over the streets they passed by, all while the nervosity and anxiety was threatening to eat him from the inside out. Jeongguk kissed him on the sidewalk outside the restaurant his parents had picked out for tonight, breathing love and tranquility into Taehyung’s system with a purity Taehyung could never dream to achieve. He left Taehyung with numb lips and a fire burning in his heart when he finally pulled away and started walking towards the entrance of the restaurant with fast steps, and it took Taehyung a couple of seconds before he could finally motion for himself to move and catch up with his lover.

Miyoung and Hyuk, as they told Taehyung to call them, were a lovely couple. They were both nearing their 50’s already, having gotten both Jeongguk and his older brother late in their lives, just a few years older than his own parents and just like them they’d kept up with the times rather than get stuck in old ways of thinking. They’d gotten married straight after university and proceeded to start up their very own company together, using their well-off families money to give it a decent boost into the complicated system of business and marketing. And now, nearly thirty years down the line, they shared the title of CEO over JCorp, one of South Korea’s largest telecom companies.

Jeongguk’s parents sometimes reminded him of his own, which wasn’t very surprising as their families were such great friends. They were outspoken and careful with their words all at once, probably a habit after years and years of working within major businesses, and they had to break away from the dining table a couple of times throughout the meal to take various phone calls from people working for them or from business partners, just like Taehyung’s parents did whenever they had the time to spend time at home with their son. Obviously Jeongguk’s parents took on less work and made time for family at least, unlike his own parents, as Jeongguk had so many stories to tell about his parents and the fact that he still went back home during his breaks. But Taehyung didn’t envy him, not at all; he was so used to his parents being at work that he didn’t know anything else.

Jeongguk’s parents did end up taking the news of their relationship well too, being quick to congratulate them after some light initial questioning and inquiries about the nature of their relationship and ongoing studies. Jeongguk had murmured an ‘I told you so’ as soon as his parents had smiled upon them, lips stretched over bleached rows of teeth as they’d nodded in approval and Miyoung had pretended to wipe tears away with her napkin before welcoming Taehyung into their family as their son rather than son’s boyfriend. They seemed to genuinely happy for them, happy they’d found love in each other, and Taehyung soon relaxed in his seat, smiling and thanking them for their blessing before continuing to eat the main course of the fancy three course meal they’d set up for them.

They held hands under the table after they’d finished their food, listening to the older couple bickering with each other as they were telling the story about the first time they met and later on their first date. Taehyung and Jeongguk responded with their own stories of meetings, stories they hadn’t even told each other before.

They spoke of how Taehyung had thought he’d met one of the lord’s angels and how Jeongguk thought he’d met a god in disguise on the day Jeongguk moved in with Taehyung, all those years ago when they’d been no more than strangers.

They spoke of how Taehyung had thought it hopeless for the longest of times as his crush for Jeongguk had done nothing but grow and flourish and how Jeongguk had started to write poetry and short novels just to have a way of expressing himself and his feelings of pure adoration and appreciation for his elder.

They spoke of how Taehyung had thought himself to be dreaming when Jeongguk first kissed him on that party and how Jeongguk had been dreaming to do just that for months before he’d finally decided to go through with it before he’d drank himself drunk with courage and gone through with it.

They spoke of when they’d gotten together at another party, when Taehyung had needed to get away from someone and Jeongguk had came to save the day, and they spoke of the first date they went on afterwards, when they’d gone out shopping on the streets of Gangnam-gu before having dinner at some fancy-ish restaurant downtown, where they’d ended up exchanging kisses over clothing racks and held hands without a single care in the world.

They told their stories, they all told their stories, and in the end it was more than just a meet-up with his lovers parents, it was a double date between two couples that had more love than common sense between them. Jeongguk’s parents insisted they’d stay for longer after they’d finished their meals, continuing the conversation over glasses of red wine and loud laughter as the evening hours passed by.

They didn’t get back home until midnight, with full bellies, fuzzy minds, and smiles playing on their lips. Taehyung kept to his earlier promise to himself when they finally got into bed, slowly pulling down his lovers pants before they were pooling around his ankles and buttoning up his lovers shirt until he could plant his kisses all over his pale torso. They danced between the linen sheets of Taehyung’s bed with an intimate touch that changed it all, leaving marks of their love on each others necks and thighs as their heavy breathing and soft noises sounded throughout the room together as they made love, true love, with one another. They didn’t stop until their bodies ached and their clothing was splayed all over the floor so that it was impossible to tell what belong to who, and they didn’t stop until their moans and screams of pleasure had reached crescendos that could be heard all the way to the moon.

Taehyung fell asleep in his lovers arms, after having spent little less than four days awake and suffering under the weight of his own mind. Jeongguk fell asleep just after his lover, holding his lithe form in his arms as his head rested on his chest as the elders expression reminded him of his favourite love songs and blooming meadows filled with a rainbow of flowers. He fell asleep only after giving his lover a final kiss on top of his head, head falling down onto his pillow as the smile on his lips faded away alongside his consciousness.

-

Taehyung met Jeongguk outside of their dorm building when the younger finally came back from winter break, directly closing in on the younger for a long hug as he breathed in Jeongguk, the faint smell of lemon from his shampoo mingling with his usual raspberry scented body wash and body odour. Jeongguk nearly had to pry Taehyung off him in the end, and when he finally succeeded to make the elder loosen his grip on him he was granted a short, cute peck on the lips that Taehyung soon made into two, three, four and five kisses before deciding he was satisfied.

It was Taehyung’s first day off the pills, and he felt like absolute shit. He’d gone through nearly half the bottle of them during the break, for once in his life sleeping soundly and without a single all-nighter pulled.

He’d cleaned the flat out yesterday too, throwing out all the empty alcohol bottles and cleaned the living room for more than an hour to make sure that it wouldn’t still smell of soju, bad decisions and depression. He’d also hidden what was rest of the pills back into their old hiding place under his bed, and he was ready to act like they didn’t exist again until the next long break.

Or well, hopefully he’d be able to do so. It was only his first day off them and if he already felt this shit, he could almost see the hell that was about to come around the corner. It’s not paranoia if they’re out to get you, after all.

-

The day after they’d had their dinner with Jeongguk’s parents, Taehyung woke up with only the rays of the early day sun shining in through the window and onto the bed to accompany him. He had his face facing the wall but he could hear the sound of Jeongguk in the room clearly, faint creaking from the desk chair and sound of the turning of pages coming from just a couple of metres away from himself.

He turned around with a smile on his lips, silently as not to rouse Jeongguk, and opened his eyes, squinting in the light before they found the younger’s form in front of the window. He was writing, quick strokes of a ballpoint pen over blank paper, and Taehyung recognised the book he was writing in as the notebook that contained his poetry. It was a neat black thing, wrapped in leather and with a string around it as to clasp it together, much nicer than the school-styled notebook that Taehyung himself had turned into his own journal slash inspiration book after Yoongi’s suggestion.

Jeongguk had always spent a lot of time writing in his different notebooks, going through them as chewy gum or soju shots, usually sporting a new one every month or two. He had such a passion for writing, such an intense interest in it, that periodically it seemed as if he did little else than pouring his heart out onto blank sheets of paper with dark ink. He’d write mostly poetry but also short stories and novels mixed with song lyrics (that he often shared with Yoongi when they were done) and simple ideas and thoughts.

He didn’t even need to express the fact that all he wanted to do with his life was to write poetry, to study it and work with it, to release poetry books and to make a living from writing. But his life had other things in mind for him, that he had to take over his family company in time, and so Jeongguk was studying business instead of creative writing or something along those lines. But at least he seemed happy enough about it, he still liked business enough to study it all the time, and he made time for his writing whenever he could.

Taehyung had only seen bits and pieces of Jeongguk’s poetry before, when his notebook had laid out open or when Jeongguk had asked him about a certain passage or two, and it had been breathtaking each time. He’d told the boy to send a couple of poems in to a publishing agent and see if they would want to publish some more than once, but the boy had always been adamant to keep his work a secret until he was content at last.

Taehyung felt a smile blooming on his lips as he watched Jeongguk’s hand move across the sheets, pen flowing across the pages in a delicate dance as it created his very own works of art. Taehyung adored everything about Jeongguk, and his lovers writing habits came with him, hand in hand, just as much of a part of him as anything else.

It was with a low sigh that he rose up, sitting on the bed with the sheets pooling over his groin and hips as the sun made his tan skin look as if it was glowing.

“What are you writing?”

Jeongguk didn’t turn his head at the words nor did the pen stop moving across the papers, but a smile bloomed on his lips before he replied.

“Just another poem, nothing special.”

“What’s it about?”

“You, in the early morning lights.”

Taehyung’s smile only grew. So cheesy.

“Can you read some of it for me?”

Jeongguk’s pen finally stopped moving, and he turned his head ever so slightly so that he could see Taehyung, his eyes wandering across Taehyung’s bare upper body and chest to his neck and finally his face, stopping when his eyes met his.

“I can read you the first line or two, but that’s all you’re going to get.”

Taehyung grinned, peeking his tongue out of his mouth in a playful motion.

“I’m honoured, your majesty the poetry king.”

Jeongguk let out a short giggle before turning back to the notebook, turning one of the pages so that he could view it from the start. Taehyung saw him take a deep breath before opening his mouth again, his chest moving up and down fluidly, before the words spilled out of his lips.

“I’ve always had a terrible weakness for beautiful but sad things, for people who drain more than they radiate, for people who have more regrets than they have dreams. And I think, I think, I’ve found one of those to call my own.”

-

Taehyung used to destroy himself in so many ways that now when his options were limited, he just felt empty.

The withdrawals had, by day 3, made Taehyung so sick that he could barely attend his classes, and it was hard to knock back drinks at the club when leaving bed made you break out into a cold sweat. He did it anyways, of course, but even Taehyung had a limit and he hadn’t even spent a full hour at his pub choice of the night before he called an uber back home and went back to bed, spending his nighttime hours somewhere in between sleeping and being wide awake.

So by the morning he wasn’t just having withdrawals from the pills, but also from the alcohol he’d became dependent on the last year. He called in sick and sent out a text to one of his classmates asking him to take notes for the both of them as soon as he realised he was physically unable to leave bed without feeling like he was about to pass out, and although he hated it he was fully aware of the fact that he had no one to blame but himself.

Jeongguk was worried about him, of course he was, but Taehyung was confident in his acting abilities and he managed to play it off as just a bad cold or the influenza before his lover even thought to take a day off to take care of Taehyung too.

Jeongguk was out of the door for his first class just after 9 p.m., and Taehyung was immediately making his best attempts at getting out of bed without passing out or throwing up. Jeongguk would be back home by 4 p.m., and in that time Taehyung planned to do three things.

1. Get out of bed and go to the shop around the corner.
2. Buy a couple of soju bottles.
3. Drink them all and discard of the evidence before Jeongguk came back.

It took him nearly an hour, which of ten minutes he spent spewing out poison into the toilet bowl, before he’d finally gotten out of bed, dressed, and out of the front door. He sure wasn’t a pretty sight with his sickly pale skin tone, mismatched clothing and glossy eyes, but he couldn’t care less as he made his way down to the shop.

It probably didn’t help with his image that he was buying three large bottles of liquor just after 10 a.m., but the shop was situated just outside of the campus area so the cashier were bound to have seen it all before if not worse cases - Taehyung had a faint memory of having came it just after 6 a.m. at some point the last year to buy a pack of condoms and a bottle of champagne, so if anything, even he had done something more odd than just buying a couple of bottles of soju on a Wednesday morning the first week of the new semester.

He’d made his way back home quickly, the cold winter sun nearly blinding him as he made his best attempt to walk straight without tripping over his own feet or fainting. It was just after 10:30 when he finally found himself back in bed, but this time he’d brought with him a tall glass of water and his soju, leaning back against the wall as he opened up his first bottle with used movements before raising it to his lips, chugging nearly a third of the bottle without any ado, the alcohol slipping into his system with an embracing warmth and familiarity.

By 1 p.m., Taehyung was out of soju and finally, fucking finally , drunk again. The alcohol took the edge off his benzo withdrawals at the same time as it retracted its own withdrawal symptoms, and for that Taehyung blessed the gods. He’d just started to have insects crawling underneath his skin again, but the alcohol seemed to kill them all - or maybe just put them to sleep - and he couldn’t be happier about it.

Maybe he’d get out of his withdrawals okay, after all.

-

They had their first argument the day before Christmas break started and Jeongguk would head back home to his parents in Busan. They’d been dating for nearly eight weeks already, eight weeks that had gone by without a single fight or argument, so it wasn’t too surprising that it was finally time for one to break out.

What did surprise Taehyung though, was that he was the one to flip out. And it was all because of Jeongguk asking such an innocent question, making such an innocent inquire, that all hell broke loose. It really didn’t take more than an ‘where have you been the last three nights? Have you slept at all?’ for Taehyung’s dams to open up and for him to spit venom.

He hadn’t spoken to anyone about his insomnia before, not uttering a single word of it apart from to one of the doctors all those years ago in rehabilitation, but now the curses spilled out of his lips regarding his condition.

“Fuck you who can sleep every night, without a single care in the world.”

“Fuck you who can rest your head on your pillow and snooze away within minutes instead of hours.”

“Fuck you who sleep more hours a week than you take shots of soju a Friday night.”

The ‘fuck yous’ mixed up with ‘insomnia’ and ‘days without sleep’ as if they were long lost lovers, waves of curses mixed with silent cries for help and in the end, tears were spilling out of Taehyung’s eyes as he bared part of his soul for his lover, opening up his heart wide open right then and there as they sat on the living room floor.

Jeongguk had watched him in silence during his entire jargong, sucking in the mad rants with a frown on his face while he gnawed on his lips, eyes focused on Taehyung’s form as the elder went from talking to yelling to murmuring to sobbing in silence, emptied of words and emotions.

The silence was overpowering when he was finished, only broken by the occasional sob or hard breathes from Taehyung, and it felt as if the world was crumbling around him as he had his knees pressed to his chest, painting the grey of his sweatpants with tears as they rolled down his cheeks and onto the fabric. It felt like forever had passed before Jeongguk finally moved, eyes on Taehyung as he opened his mouth up to let out a sigh before half-crawling half-walking to the elder, firm arms wrapping around his lithe form as Taehyung’s face got pressed into his lover’s chest.

Jeongguk’s body rocked once, twice, thrice, and Taehyung could hear the telltale sounds of sniffling as his lover began to cry too, tears dripping down to mix with Taehyung’s brown hair.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so-” Jeongguk started. “I never knew it was that bad, Tae, I really didn’t know. Like, I knew- I knew you had problem sleeping, but I didn’t realise it was that bad. Fuck, I’m so sorry, it must have been so hard, so fucking hard, and knowing you you didn’t tell anyone so that it wouldn’t worry anyone; I can’t believe how hard it must have been for you to go through all this, to suffer in silence, have no one to talk to.”

Jeongguk sniffled again, a sob wrecking through his body as he pressed Taehyung closer to his chest.

“I love you so much, fuck, I’m sorry I haven’t been understanding with this, but I’m so so happy you told me about it and I hope it made you feel better to confide in someone too.” Strangely enough, it did too, Taehyung realised as Jeongguk paused in time for yet another sob. “You’re so strong, fuck, you really are, it must have been a living hell for you. But I’m here for you now, I always will be, and I promise to be more understanding and to help you as much as I can. Fuck, I love you so much, I really do.”

“I love you too.” Taehyung managed to get out, shaky voice coming out as little more than a whisper against his lover’s chest but still loud enough for Jeongguk to pick up on it, the younger finally releasing his tight grip around Taehyung and plonking back down with his ass on the living room carpet just in front of Taehyung. Jeongguk looked so, so sad, with red-rimmed eyes matched with pink cheeks and drying tears lining his face, but Taehyung didn’t look much different by now so it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all.

They sat in silence, just watching over each other with faint smiles playing on their lips, waiting for each other to stop crying before they’d either resume their conversation or move on with their lives. It took them a few minutes before they’d finally collected themselves again, and it was with a simultaneous, fluid movement that they moved against each other, their lips meeting in the middle in a chaste exchange of pent up emotions.

Jeongguk’s lips tasted of salt and regret, but Taehyung loved it with his entire heart, body and soul. It was with a shaky movement that his hand came up to rest on his lover’s cheek, fingers caressing his cheekbone at the same time Jeongguk moved over so that he’d be closer to Taehyung, a hand sneaking around the elder’s neck and pressing them tighter together.

Their lips moved against each other’s as one, bringing them together in both mind and body right then and there as they sat on the living room floor. With time the kiss got more heated, brimming with a mixture of love and desire, and Taehyung dragged Jeongguk along with intermingled fingers towards the bedroom before long.

Taehyung fucked into Jeongguk slowly that evening, as if they were making love rather than just having sex, their lips still tasting of salty tears and remorse as they became one. They played out their very own intimate dance act in between crumpled linen sheets in a fully illuminated room, mapping out each others bodies with wet kisses and soft hands, drinking in the sounds of lovers with smiles playing on their lips and butterflies in their bellies. It was an exchange you couldn’t find with a one night stand or normal hook-up, not something you could find easily and without trying; it was an exchange of love and adoration that could only be found amongst lovers, only found amongst those who’d met their soulmate.

When Jeongguk woke up at 4 a.m. and went to pee, the sight of Taehyung sitting in the living room sofa with his schoolwork spread out on the table in front of him brought little more than a twinge of worry in his heart and a smile blooming on his lips. He didn’t go back to bed until he’d left his lover with tingling lips and a rapidly beating heart, a stupid smile plastered across both their faces as one went to bed and the other spent his fourth day in a row awake as ever.

-

It was too much. Too much, too much, too much, too much too much too much too much too much. He couldn’t do it.

It was day six off the pills, and if Taehyung had known it’d be so horrible without them he wouldn’t have vowed to stop taking them as soon as Jeongguk had come back to him.

It was day six he’d spent awake. He hadn’t been able to catch any sleep last night either, instead he’d been sat in the living room as Jeongguk slept and he silently hugged a bottle of soju that soon turned into two, three, four bottles of soju but nothing that seemed to ease the pain and the itching and the hallucinations, nothing that erased the monsters hiding behind every corner and behind his back and nothing that took away the bugs that had once again crept into his body and seemed to only multiply for each passing day.

Jeongguk thought Taehyung had caught a bad cold, or maybe even the influenza. The poor, innocent boy really had no idea of what was going on. But he couldn’t blame him - he couldn’t see the monsters, couldn’t see how they stared at him in the night and how they’d come to attack without sparing a single second if he let his guard down even the slightest bit.

Fuck. He really couldn’t do it anymore. He needed the pills again, because if he went through one more day of having to deal with the monsters and the bugs it wasn’t a matter of surviving, but rather what’d kill Taehyung first; them, or Taehyung.

Laying in his bed Taehyung’s alert eyes could see how the sunlight was begin to shine through their curtains, meaning there were only mere minutes left until Jeongguk’s alarm clock would be set off and Taehyung would have to act like he had everything under control again, act like there wasn’t a monster perched on his lovers shoulder and that there weren’t bugs inside of Taehyung that were in the progress of eating him up inside out.

And soon after it came. The shrill sound of Jeongguk’s alarm jolted them both awake, in Taehyung’s case awake from his thoughts. Jeongguk had always been a quick riser, never one to snooze, and Taehyung had already memorised Jeongguk’s schedule enough to know the younger would have to leave their shared apartment within 20 minutes.

20 minutes. He had to wait 20 minutes, then he could finally get to the pills, then he could finally be free from the monsters and the bugs and the shadows and the itching and - everything. He could finally succumb into his first proper sleep again for days, one he’d only missed more now that he’d finally had it for the first time in years.

“Hey, babe, are you awake?”

Jeongguk’s voice had always sounded sexy in the mornings, all low and masculine after sleeping for so long, but Taehyung barely noticed it. He was busy doing whatever he could not to look at the monster who stood in the shadow in the corner of their room, busy pretending like he couldn’t see how it would jump at any change to devour them both.

“Yeah, think imma bit sick still tho’” Taehyung muttered in reply with a well timed shudder of his body. “Think imma take the day off again.”

“Oh, okay, you sure you’ll be fine alone?” Jeongguk’s voice was laced with worry for the elder, and Taehyung didn’t blame him - he had been acting a bit weird lately, even though he thought he’d managed to act at least more normal than he actually was. Because it wasn’t hard to figure that he, Kim Taehyung, had gone utterly insane.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna take a shower and then I’m off to class then, so I’ll see ya later?”

Taehyung only responded with a nod of his head, burrowing himself into his blankets as he watched his lover step out of bed and out of the room. The shower was turned on just a couple of seconds later, and lucky that because Taehyung had officially lost the last piece of patience. He quickly turned around in bed so that his upper body was hovering over the floor, utilising his long arms to grab one of the bags he had under his bed and hurriedly opening its side compartment where he knew he’d find just what he’d been waiting for.

The pill bottle looked exactly the same as it had before, but of some reason it had turned into something beautiful now that Taehyung knew it’d be saving his life within just a couple of minutes now.

When Jeongguk came back into the bedroom to get dressed, Taehyung had already slinked the bottle into one of his hoodie pockets.

“I’m gonna go shower too, but I’ll see you later?”

Jeongguk turned his head towards Taehyung ever so slightly.

“Yeah, sounds good! Make sure to take care of yourself today too, I’ll be home by 6 or so”

“Yeah yeah I know and I will. I love you.”

“I love you too, Taehyung.”

And with that, Taehyung could finally flee. It was painful to walk so slowly to the bathroom, seemingly a trip that had never been so long before, and he’d barely even turned the lock before he fished the pill container out of his pocket, used movements unscrewing the lid before he did one of the probably dumbest things you could do.

He raised the bottle to his lips and just poured the pills into it, not caring a single bit about how many he swallowed down dry. He didn’t care anymore, he just wanted it go to away. He just wanted everything around him to go away, he wanted to stop the hallucinations and stop having bugs under his skin. It probably wasn’t his best idea, but who cared? He sure didn’t.

He let himself drop to the floor, his back brushing against the bathroom cupboard before his ass hit the soft, blue bathroom mat with a soft poof, his legs folded up so that his head was resting on his kneecaps as he closed his eyes. The floor wasn’t comfortable at all and he would probably be better off with going back to his bed and lay back down but he just couldn’t collect the strength needed to stand up and walk back out. It wasn’t like it mattered anyways; Jeongguk would be gone until late afternoon so it wasn’t like anyone would need to use the bathroom anytime soon.

The tears started rolling out of Taehyung’s eyes uncontrollably as he waited, shocking even himself as he felt them dripping down his cheeks and down onto his folded knees; he hadn’t even noticed himself being sad, but maybe that was it. That he wasn’t crying out of sadness but out of frustration and guilt. Frustration because of the withdrawals and the pain it had brought upon him, the guilt because he’d taken the pills again even though promising himself not to do them again when Jeongguk was still staying at home.

He didn’t feel guilty over the usage of drugs overall, per-se, because without them his life would have been so, so bleak, just as taking alcohol away from his life would make him end up feeling like. Alcohol gave but a cheap effect compared to what the pills did, but Taehyung had still taken so much to it with the years, after learning about the bliss it could give and about how it took so much of the pain away, even if it was just momentually. So were the drugs, anyways - it was always just for the moment, before you had to refill again, be it by chugging yet another beer or popping another two pills, wait and repeat, repeat, repeat.

The tears were still streaming down Taehyung’s face freely, leaving him with a red face and shining cheeks as a reminder of his vulnerability. He felt weak, so so weak, but what could he do about it? There was nothing left to do apart from waiting for the pills to kick in, something that would be happening within the next twenty minutes, and that just left Taehyung alone with his brooding thoughts.

Taehyung turned his head and looked down on the pill bottle through blurry eyes, holding it up from where it laid on the floor so that he could see how many pills he had left. An empty space met his eyes, and he couldn’t help but take a double take. He’d taken them all. All of them. There had been nearly half the pills left, a rough 50 pills or so, and now they were all gone.

Shit, now I won’t have any to take later, was Taehyung’s first thought.

Fuck, that can kill me, was his second.

His third was that he didn’t care if it did.

Dropping the pill bottle onto the floor once again and watching it roll away on the floor and into the shower, Taehyung felt a bitter grin forming on his lips, letting him taste the salt of his own tears as he chuckled lightly, the sound of his voice echoing in the bathroom. Taehyung had taken a possibly lethal dose of OxyContin . Taehyung could actually die, today, right now, on the bathroom floor. And he still didn’t feel even a tinge of regret, no second thoughts, no urges to throw the pills up into the toilet before they could be absorbed, nothing telling him it wasn’t right for him to die here.

Taehyung was often scared of his own mind, but now he was terrified . He’d known he didn’t really care much about if he was alive or dead, he’d had suicidal thoughts for years for Christ’s sake, but now that the prospect of dying was laid out in front of his eyes it just felt so wrong that he didn’t care at all, not in the slightest. And that was such a fucked up thing to realise about yourself, and Taehyung was petrified.

But what could he do? Nothing. He couldn’t do a thing about it, because it wasn’t Taehyung that ran his brain, the bad thought did, they always had.

He leaned his head back against the wall, tipping it upwards to that his eyes could wander across the ceiling as he waited for the pills to finally kick in. He did his best to ignore the feeling of the bugs moving around under his skin and in his veins, he did his best to ignore the booming headache he sported and he did his best to ignore the twitching in his legs, but after just a couple of minutes it became unbearable. The bugs were driving him insane, they had been for days, and no matter what he did they wouldn’t stop. His nails were scratching on his arm before he’d realised he’d even moved his other arm to do it, long nails digging into his skin as his fingers moved back and forths over his outer arm.

But it didn’t matter how much he scratched, even when his skin turned red and the scratches became deep enough to bleed out, the blood smearing out on his arm as he didn’t stop scratching, no matter what, even when the red liquid got mixed with the tears falling from his eyes and even when the pain shot through his body like electricity. It still wasn’t enough to rid him of the bugs and he could see them, could see them moving under his skin, could hear them laughing at him because of his futile attempt to rid himself of them for once.

He’d opened the bathroom cabinet under the sink before he had time to think, hand knocking item after item out on the floor as he searched for the pair of scissors he and Jeongguk used to cut their hair with. He knew they were sharp, they had to be, and hopefully they’d be sharp enough to split his skin. He found them after a short, panicked search, triumphantly holding them up in the fluorescent light shining in the bathroom. It was with shaky hands that he opened them up completely, but it was with a sure hand that he lowered it onto his arm and with one quick movement dragged it across his skin.

The scissor didn’t cut deep, but it was better than his fingernails. Taehyung found himself stabbing at the skin over and over again, ripping up his skin over and over and over and over again, leaving no room for pause as he worked towards making the bugs bleed out from within him, cutting into the same cuts without even noticing the pain it brought with it, too busy and too focused on getting rid of the bugs to feel his body shaking in suffering. He only focused on the scissors shine as it moved in the light, back and forths over his arm, moving to his inner arm when he’d ended up cutting open the upper side of it, the tanned skin breaking up in ripples as Taehyung kept crying, cutting, and suffering.

He didn’t stop until his entire arm was teared up completely, breathing heavily in between the sobs that wrecked though his body. He followed the blood dripping down from his arm and onto the bathroom floor, his eyes shooting open when he saw how the blood had formed its own sick, morbid artwork on the bathroom floor and carpet, staining the blue mat with deep scarlet and the floor with a shining red layer. Looking around him he could see bloodstains on the toilet and even as far as in the shower, and that, that was when he realised exactly what he’d done. He looked down on his wrist in horror, the cuts faintly visible beneath the pouring blood, long and deep as they stretched all over his lower arm, all the way around. He stared in awe as the blood ran down his arm and onto his t-shirt and underwear, staining the white fabric with a steady flow of liquid.

Taehyung couldn’t feel the pain, not at all. He didn’t know if it was because of his head having shut off or if it was because of the pills finally kicking in, and he felt even more tears exit his eyes and roll down his face before falling down into the growing puddle of blood on the floor. He couldn’t stop himself from wailing, helpless screams for help falling out from between his lips to resonate through the room, the sound of his misery bouncing against the walls and painting them with silent prayers and curses of peace and hatred.

He didn’t stop wailing until he noticed the familiar calm edging around the corner of his mind, shutting him up and making him tremble in anticipation at once. Not even his thoughts could stop him from cracking a weak smile, because finally, finally, he’d get to feel the peace of the drugs again.

Within a couple of seconds the feeling had enveloped Taehyung in its arms, holding him in a tight embrace while whispering sweet nothings against his neck. He welcomed it with open arms, desperate for its touch and feel, longing for its kisses of innocent joy and bliss alike, and when he couldn’t bare to wait any longer he started running towards the feeling as to meet it halfway.

He was so focused on the oncoming high that he didn’t notice how sick he felt until the bile had already hit his tongue, overpowering his mouth so quickly that he didn’t have time to reach the toilet seat before he was throwing up, spraying it over himself and painting the floor next to him like a new age Michelangelo, mixing his blood and tears with his very own poison. He threw up once, twice, thrice, his body too weak for him to move himself from the floor and resulting in the remains of whatever Taehyung had eaten and drank the last couple of days caking his clothing and the floor alike.

His mind felt all fuzzy and his body all heavy, just as it should, but at the same time he could feel that something was wrong, that something was terribly wrong. Not just because of the puking but rather because of how he could feel himself passing in and out of consciousness and how he could feel his mind slipping away from him, further and further away for each passing second. He didn’t feel all happy and high as he should, no; he felt bliss but he also felt fear, a deep rooted and unadulterated fear embedded deep inside his heart and mind alike.

He realised with a hazy thought that this must be the end, that this was what it was like to die, that he was truly dying. He also realised that he still didn’t feel anything particular about that knowledge. The only regret he could come to think of being that he’d never loved Jeongguk as much as his lover had deserved; instead he’d passed through the younger’s life like a hurricane, making him feel a taste of what love was all about before disappearing away from this world, only leaving behind memories of soft kisses in the mornings, I love you’ s whispered in the moonlight and intimate dances between tangled bedsheets, all topped of with a dead body and a ruinated bathroom floor.

Taehyung’s last thought before he finally slipped out of consciousness was about Jeongguk, about the stars that shone in his eyes and about the birdsong that came through his lips whenever he laughed. He remembered the way his lover would smile with his bunny teeth on full display and he remembered the way his lover would sing to himself while cooking breakfast on the weekends.

He didn’t even have time to think of an apology to his lover before he passed out a final time, his mind slipping away from him rapidly before his body slumped against the white tiles on the wall and he closed his eyes a final time, never to open them again.

-

Jeongguk knew something was wrong as soon as he came home without hearing Taehyung moving about, especially after he’d checked his bed and realised the elder wasn’t just sleeping, his lovers phone laying abandoned on his bedside table to show he hadn’t left the house.

Taehyung was never, ever quiet, not like this. He was always making some kind of noise, be it talking or singing to himself or humming, or even just knocking on things, a non-stop flurry of noises that Jeongguk had grown to love.

He sighed in relief when he noticed the bathroom door being locked, but he soon found himself in a change of mind when he picked up on the smell of rot coming through the door, seeping through the cracks of the door as if something was decomposing in there.

“Taehyung?” He knocked on the bathroom door. When no reply came he did it again, and again, and again, speaking his lovers name time after time, the absence of any replies or even a single noise at all making him worry more and more. He knew Taehyung had been sick the last few days, so maybe something had happened and he’d passed out in the bathroom? Maybe something else had happened to him, maybe he’d fallen in the shower and passed out? Or maybe this was something else completely, and he’d just been mistaken?

He spent nearly five minutes nearly knocking the bathroom door down and it was just before his anxiety would be eating him alive that Jeongguk gave up on just knocking and calling out Taehyung’s name and he waltzed into the kitchen and got a regular kitchen knife, bringing it with him back to the bathroom door before putting it between the locks rotation, effectively opening up the lock as he turned the knife around.

It was with a deep sigh that he opened the bathroom door while imagining all kinds of scenarios he could find Taehyung in, but nothing prepared him for the sight of Taehyung slumped against the bathroom wall and surrounded by an even mixture of blood and puke. He dropped the kitchen knife and he could faintly hear it bounce on the ground as he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the scene, eyes wandering from the shower and onto the empty, orange pill bottle that laid in the middle of it next to a pair of bloody scissors before reaching the dried puddle of blood and vomit and Taehyung’s arm, stained with caked blood and covered in cuts and wounds of various sizes. The tears were escaping through his eyes before his eyes came to see Taehyung’s face, sickly pale and completely relaxed, mouth hanging open ever so slightly and hair covering most of his forehead and eyes. He didn’t look like he usually did, the tan skin didn’t reflect the light of day anymore and his eyes were sunken into his face in a way that reminded Jeongguk of a decomposed skull.

Taehyung was dead. His lover was dead, forever gone.

He barely made it to the kitchen sink before he threw up, the sour bile burning in his throat as he coughed on his own tears, falling down to the floor as he wailed, screaming for help, trying to convince himself that it was nothing but a morbid nightmare, that it wasn’t real, wasn’t real, wasn’t real, wasn’t-

He didn’t know how long it took before he’d calmed himself down and stopped screaming, but it was with shaking hands that he slipped his phone out of his back pocket, pushing in his code before calling Jimin with trembling fingers. He couldn’t remember their conversation afterwards but he’d managed to tell him that Taehyung was dead, his lover was dead, his soulmate was gone, he’d left them for another place, and Jimin called 911 for him.

He didn’t leave the kitchen floor until the doorbell rang, taking himself up to open it with wobbly steps before Jimin was there, thrown around his neck and with the ambulance personnel in tow.

Jeongguk saw his lover for the last time that day, his pale and sunken face peeking out from the body bag as the nurses carried him out of the apartment. Apparent drug overdose, they said, mixed with a heavy blood loss.

Jeongguk hadn’t even known Taehyung was in pain. He hadn’t known he’d suffered so much that he’d take his own life. He hadn’t known about the demons that played around in Taehyung’s mind. He’d only known that sometimes, his lover wouldn’t sleep for days and that sometimes, his lover would drink his bodyweight in alcohol in one sitting, that was it. Taehyung had never told him anything about doing drugs or about being suicidal, never told him that sometimes he smoked two cigarettes in a row with a wish that it’d kill him faster or that he’d hid a crate of beer under his bed so that he could drink first thing in the mornings without having to leave bed to begin with.

Jeongguk hadn’t known a single thing, and he would have blamed himself for being so blind and stupid if not for the pain of losing Taehyung was so strong that it was all he could think of.

He’d never see his lover again, never hug him, never kiss him, never make love with him, never study with him or share a bottle of soju with him while they studied. Jeongguk had never known love before he’d met Taehyung, and it wasn’t until now that he got to know just how painful heartbreak truly was.

-