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Taehyung’s always liked old things. Old songs, old movies, buildings that have been standing for hundreds and hundreds of years. His grandmother teased him for having an old soul whenever he would spend an afternoon with her, doing homework at the kitchen table while she cooked, listening to old trot songs and the classical or jazz radio stations. He liked how sturdy they were, like old heavy furniture all scratched up with stories, strong enough not to be swept away with time.
He thinks that’s something he likes about Paris, all the history always being talked about and the way that he can feel it, walking through the streets.
He is so far from home that it sometimes feels like a dream. How did he end up here, he thinks, the cobblestone side streets, the cathedrals that survived revolution and war, the cafes that look so much like Van Gogh’s painting at night, just some kid from the countryside? It feels so far away, but not so far, either. He remembers when he was young, when playing arenas seemed like such a big dream, going on a trip to Gyeongbokgung Palace when his family came to visit and feeling almost the same. Feeling the weight of the past, grounding and anchoring, making it safe to dream without losing one’s balance.
He talks about all of this on the terrace of his hotel room with Hobi the first morning they’re in Paris. There’s still a chill in the air, and they’re both wearing jackets.
“Ah,” Hobi says, knocking the brim of his baseball cap so that the hat sits further back on his head, opening up the view of the Paris streets below, mist clinging to the tops of buildings, little European cars rushing by below. “I still can’t believe it. I still can’t believe it sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Taehyung says. Hobi has the hotel room next to him, and they’re both leaning into the corners of their respective terraces closest to each other. They stand there quiet together for a few minutes, watching the city pass by, each absorbed in their own little dream world, Taehyung munching on an apple that he’d been carrying in his pockets. When Taehyung blinks himself out of his thoughts, he finds that Hobi’s looking at him, small smile in the corner of his lips.
“Taehyungie,” he says. “I wonder if we’re close enough to touch hands?”
“Hmm,” Taehyung says, reaching out.
Hobi meets him halfway, and Taehyung clasps their hands together. Hobi’s hands are small and delicate and kind of bony. Taehyung’s always liked them, the little thrill it brings, the warmth under his skin.
“Oh! We can!” Hobi says, grinning, so pleased and bright.
“We can,” Taehyung says, swaying their joined hands back and forth.
They linger for a moment more. The people walking by below look small. One hand in Hobi’s, the other holding the rest of his apple, skin sticky with juice. Taehyung thinks he would like to spend the whole morning like this.
“Well,” Hobi says. “I think I’m going to go shopping today. I should probably shower. Do you want to come?”
“I don’t think so,” Taehyung says. “I think I’ll rest today, hyung.”
Hobi squeezes Taehyung’s hand before he lets go. “Rest well.”
“I will,” Taehyung says. He stays out on his terrace even after the shh of the sliding door announces that Hobi’s gone outside, finishes his apple and watches the sun rise fully over the city. He can taste the sweetness in his mouth even when he’s left holding the core, licking his fingers clean and aching for something that’s hard to think about.
Taehyung had known gay people existed before he even came to Seoul. He knew about them in degrees, though, not quite sure what being gay really meant, only that it was frowned up and bad, until Namjoon had explained that it meant men who dated men in the same way that men dated women.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Namjoon had insisted. “People say that there is, but there isn’t.” He’d then said something very convoluted that Taehyung hadn’t quite understood and acted like it was perfectly clear, but Taehyung had been too busy, too tired, tired all the time from practice and more practice and working hard and being homesick, missing his mom and dad and grandma and siblings like an aching nagging bruise, to really give the matter much more consideration. It wasn’t wrong. People should live their lives how they chose. Beyond that...he hadn’t thought about it too much, what it meant concretely.
Then as he grew up, met more and more interesting and wonderful people, as he saw gay couples holding hands, hugging, kissing, the two disparate parts, the men who date men the same way men who date women and the what dating means parts, began to come together, he began to imagine what it would feel like. To hold hands with a guy, to hug and cuddle, the way a girl would. He was busy. They were always busy. But sometimes he imagined it.
The day stretches before him, and he decides he definitely wants to rest. Maybe he’ll go out later, but spending the morning lazing around will be nice. Softest sweatpants on, the silk shirt that feels nice against his skin, he climbs back into bed, puts on a playlist of his favorite classical music. It feels indulgent and nice, the warm sun through the window, lying back on the heavy hotel pillows. He thinks it would nice to have someone else in the bed, but no, nice isn’t the right word.
He wants it, with an intensity that almost scares him. A longing heavy and hot.
When he watches movies about two men in love, he can see the rush between them, the urgency, the hunger. The first time he’d seen one, it was as though he’d cleaned a glass window in an old dusty room and was peering into a beautiful green garden. Like a revelation, and then things fell into place, after the movie ended and he was staring at his laptop screen in a daze. He had always thought he wouldn’t mind holding a girl’s hand, holding her. Hugging, kissing, have sex, all of that. Girls were soft and pretty and nice. He wouldn’t mind . He’d thought that was the same as wanting, but wanting aches . He’d seen that ache onscreen, and he’d felt it, and that ache was the same as the thing he sometimes felt for his guy friends, felt the urge to reach out and touch, to grind hips together and dance his fingers up their chest and hold them close and hold their hands as they walked home drunk.
It had lit something in him on fire. Oh, he’d thought. Everything made sense. The world suddenly felt a little more orderly, but a little wilder at the same time. The careful chaos of jazz music, of the crash as a symphony enters its climactic movement. After that, he had paid attention to the flicker in his chest when Jimin pillowed his head on his chest, when Jungkook wrestled him to the ground. It was so bright, so bold, swirling around between his ribs like the colors of Starry Night. When Hobi kisses him on the forehead as he floats through the muzzy space between sleeping and waking, he still has to fight the urge to reach up and wrap his fingers around Hoseok’s neck and pull him down and kiss his lips, right in the center of his smile.
It's scary. Anything that big, that hot, a bonfire taller than he is, is going to be scary. He doesn’t want to do anything about it right now. There’s other things to think of. Someday, though, things will slow down for them. Someday, people won’t look at them like they’re a movie on the screen.
Until then, he enjoys the heat, the smell of the smoke, the sparks and the light and the thrill. He feels like he’s doing his own learning and growing, in his own way. Doesn’t feel trapped, or stagnant. He’s still thinking about what it is he likes, what it is he wants. Figuring out how to tend to the fire, figuring out what makes it flare.
The hotel sheets are soft. He thinks he could get strawberries from room service. Piano chords ring out gentle through the room, and he drifts off instead.
The next morning, he wakes up feeling like sleep had been a heavy stone sitting on his chest all night. It’s not unpleasant. Sometimes after concerts he wakes up the next morning feeling like he’s going to fly away, lost in between the real world and some fantastic spotlight-lit liminal space. It’s earlier than he would’ve thought he’d wake up, but constant jetlag is strange like that
He takes his phone and his bluetooth speaker and an apple out to the terrace, remembering how nice it had been to watch the sunrise yesterday. It’s still dim, the sun hidden behind the tall buildings of the city. He texts Hobi, would you like to eat an apple?
He’s not really expecting a response, thinking that maybe Hoseok is still sleeping, but Hobi texts back after just a few minutes. yes please don’t eat all of them!! :( :(
Taehyung doesn’t so much as breathe on the apple after that. He feels suddenly nervous, has the sudden thought of accidentally dropping that apple and watching it roll off the terrace.
Hobi would probably laugh if something like that happened, point and clap his hands and shriek, and it would make Taehyung laugh too, until his sides hurt, but he doesn’t want that right now. Yesterday, holding Hobi’s hand, looking down at the city, had felt good, soothed some of that ache inside of him. He wonders what it will feel like this morning, if it will feel the same, or if some of the bottled-up joyful energy of the concert will pass between them and make it even better. Something about the two of them on the terrace, and Paris below them...he wants something he couldn’t anticipate, wants a playfulness he can’t predict.
When he hears Hobi slide his door open, he scrolls through his playlist and switches the song to Girl With the Flaxen Hair by Debussy, because Hobi’s mentioned liking it before. It’s lovely, flowing but a little stately at the same time. It goes well with the rose-gold of the sunrise, brighter today than yesterdays misty morning, with the flow of traffic and the far-off city noises.
Hobi’s got sleep-tousled hair, hoodie over the t-shirts and shorts he sleeps in, sandals on.
“Morning,” he says, hiding a yawn behind his hand. “Oh! I like this song.”
“I know,” Taehyung says. Hobi doesn’t share his passion for old music, but he loves old musicals, and they watch them sometimes together, cuddled up with a laptop balanced on their legs. They both touch the people they care about easily, reaching out without thinking too much about it. Still, cuddling up with Hoseok feels revelatory sometimes. It makes Taehyung’s heart beat fast. He’s pretty sure that’s what a crush feels like, and it feels so good, worth it even if Hobi doesn’t feel the same.
Hobi does like old books, the kind of literature they had to read in high school. 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Rainy Spell, To Kill a Mockingbird, books like that. He’ll talk about them sometimes and Taehyung will listen, and Taehyung will talk about old music he likes and Hobi will listen.
Even though a lot of his happy memories with Hobi are from noisy times, playing and never letting the other do something ridiculous alone, he thinks he likes how they’re both loud people with big quiet sides. He likes spending time with their two quiet sides together.
“I brought you your apple, hyung,” Taehyung says, holding the apple out over the open space between their terraces.
“Ah, what a sweet dongsaeng,” Hobi says, grinning as he takes the apple and turns it over in his hand. He then begins rummaging in the big front pocket of his hoodie. “I brought you one, too,” he explains. “I couldn’t leave you hungry.”
This time he’s the one who holds the apple over that empty space. Taehyung imagines what would happen if he opened his fingers, how the apple would fall and fall until it splattered open on the pavement far below. Even after all this time away from his siblings, from home, being the oldest is engrained deep in him. Being taken care of makes him feel vulnerable and opened up.
“You didn’t have to,” Taehyung says.
“I didn’t,” Hobi says, in his matter-of-fact way. “I just wanted to.” The gold light of the sunrise catches on the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the curve of his cheek, the fall of his hair, the tendons and bones and muscles in his hand and wrist and arm. The air smells like city. Up from below, the sounds of people speaking French drift up, barely audible beneath the soft piano of Taehyung’s playlist.
Taehyung reaches out and takes the apple. Their fingers brush, and somehow it’s even more intimate than holding hands had been, yesterday. Hobi ducks his head for a moment, eyelids flickering down over his eyes. Taehyung feels his cheeks get blush-warm.
“Doesn’t something about this feel like a dream?” Hobi says, taking a bite out of his apple.
“Yeah,” Taehyung says. Deja vu, watching the sun rise again. A slow moment, the kind of moment that’s rare for them. The city looks beautiful in this lighting. Hoseok does too.
The piano plays on, and time never stops. History gets sturdy with age, but new history like this is flimsy and diaphanous as mist in the mornings. Taehyung licks apple juice from his lips, wonders if he’s imagining Hobi’s eyes following the swipe of his tongue.
Doesn’t something about this feel like a dream? Taehyung thinks about that, walking past a cafe later that morning. He’s got on a facemask and a beret, one of their bodyguards on his right and Jimin, running his hands through his hair, Chelsea boots on his feet as usual on his left.
This, too, feels like a dream: their feet on the pavement, walking past the cafe patio, overflowing with flowers and jumbles of tables and chairs. There’s a boy about their age sitting at one, handsome with dark skin and elegance in his slouch. He looks like he’s waiting for someone, alone at a table, staring off into the distance.
Taehyung thinks he could spin a whole movie out of it. Something about the scene is just very atmospheric. He thinks about telling Jimin about it, but he’s not sure how to put it into words.
Instead, he just bumps his shoulder into Jimin and whispers, “that guy’s pretty handsome.”
“Who?” Jimin says.
“The guy at the cafe,” Taehyung says. “Sitting by himself.”
Jimin darts a quick look, giggles his little fairy giggle. “He is,” he says.
Here’s another rush: when him and Jimin share these moments, more and more lately. They haven’t talked about it. They haven’t had time, or maybe they just don’t need to. They used to have to talk a lot of understand where the other one was coming from, but now they often just know. It feels good. It’s another thing they share, another level they connect on. Taehyung doesn’t want to be with Jimin as a lover, but he’s already with him as a twin soul, even in their many differences.
Later, in Jimin’s hotel room, day-drinking expensive wine in his bed, Taehyung asks, “I thought you might know this.”
“Know what?” Jimin says, raising an eyebrow. “You forgot to ask the question.”
“Hobi-hyung’s not straight, is he?”
Jimin’s eyebrow had lowered, but he raises it again. “Now isn’t that something you should be asking him?”
“Jimin,” Taehyung pouts.
“Talk to him yourself,” Jimin says again, more firmly this time. Taehyung thinks, there was a time when Jimin would’ve speculated with him. He’s right, though; they’ve all realized, after so much time and so much happening, that talking things out with people directly is what works best.
The thing is, though, is that neither Taehyung nor Hoseok are particularly good at talking.
Hoseok loves with his whole body: loves his dance, his art, loves them.
Taehyung likes to buy him gifts, little things that remind him of him. When he gives them, Hobi will pull him in for a big hug, scatter kisses everywhere carelessly, but there's always that moment before he does, when he’ll look at Taehyung with his eyes wide, like he’s saying for me? Really?
Hobi’s careful with his words, even if people might not believe it. When Taehyung tells him he loves him, he says thank you, which sounds so funny, always makes Taehyung whine at him and slap at the back of his neck and tell him say it back, even Yoongi-hyung will! even though every time Hobi just slaps Taehyung’s hand away and laughs and tells him go find Yoongi-hyung then! It seems cold, maybe, but then later Hobi will tackle him to the bed and kiss his forehead and cheeks and neck and Taehyung knows him, knows him through and through, the way living on top of each other for so long brings, yes, but also the way people who’ve tried really hard to understand each other does.
So Taehyung keeps saying I love you and Hobi keeps playing along with him, when he dances up on him and grabs him and spins him around he grins and laughs and picks up right where Taehyung leaves off. It’s how Hoseok says I love you back. Taehyung can hear it, Taehyung knows it when he hears it. But sometimes even I love you isn’t clear, when Taehyung’s surrounded with so many different kinds of love.
When he’d been a kid in school, he’d thought history was all facts, all true or false. Now, he’s heard enough of Yoongi and Namjoon’s constant talk about how history is a shape with a million sides, different from every angle.
Taehyung knows that things aren’t usually black or white, true or false, this or that.
There’s nothing messier than wanting, he thinks, thinks of the movies, where characters will grab the other by the shirts, gripped with sudden unexplainable desperation. He doesn’t mind a mess. He likes where the black and white explodes into any color he could think of. He just wants to know if Hoseok likes it too.
After the show, the adrenaline high fades like sugar dissolving in water. The last show of the tour, and Taehyung’s heart is still full and tangled. All of those feelings are submerged somewhere deep in his body, painted over with the growing tiredness that’s overtaking him. They’re flying back home soon enough that going to sleep isn’t really worth it, and Taehyung still has to pick up everything that’s been scattered over his bedroom in the past few days.
He’s sitting on his bed, sitting with the ache in his heart that he can’t quite explain, when Hoseok texts him: would you like to eat an apple?
There’s a chilly breeze outside, and the whole city’s lit up. Maybe it would wake him up a little.
It’s not like he’s going to say no to looking over the Paris skyline at night with Hoseok, anyways.
ill meet you out there hyung! he replies.
The lights are even brighter than Taehyung had pictured them, sitting in the dim hotel room. The stadium filled with lights and then the drive back, feeling like he was suspended in a field of stars. Now, he feels removed from it, up high where it’s quieter.
Hobi’s already leaning against his balcony. Taehyung’s eyes are already adjusted enough to the dark that he can pick out his features: his nose and lips and browbone.
“Hey,” Hobi says, quiet, reaching out over the balcony. Taehyung reaches, too, meets him halfway the same way Hobi had met him halfway their first night here, clasps his hand in greeting.
“Hey, hyung,” Taehyung says.
“The lights are pretty,” Hobi says, tilting his head, towards the city spread out underneath them.
“You’re prettier,” Taehyung says, making it sound extra greasy.
“Psh,” Hoseok says, wrinkling his nose. “I would shove you, but I’m afraid I’ll fall off.” He doesn’t let go of Taehyung’s hand.
“Scaredy cat,” Taehyung says, and Hobi doesn’t object.
They’re still holding hands. Taehyung notices Hobi’s playing music off his phone, a Chopin nocturne. Maybe it’s a little cliched, but combined with the night and the cool breeze, it’s perfect.
“Are you listening to my playlist?” he says.
“Ah, I actually added this to one of mine,” Hoseok says. “Remember how you would always play this at night, when we shared a room?”
Taehyung had forgotten that this was one of the songs on that playlist, the one he’d play as he and Jimin and Hoseok fell asleep after they’d stayed up too late talking. “Oh,” he says.
“See, I can have fancy taste, too,” Hoseok says. They enjoy the night and the music and the warmth of each others’ hand. The end of tour is always bittersweet. It reminds Taehyung of being a little kid, when he would spend all day playing outside, roaming through the neighborhood and into the forest to the stream, knowing he had to head back home by dusk. He’d always felt sad to leave behind that intoxicating feeling of being in charge of himself, no adults around to tell him what to do, the world big and full of places to explore, but at the same time he’d always started missing home by then, started to want to see his mom and dad and grandma and all of his things in their places in his bedroom. Taehyung can feel that ache in his chest, and from the way Hobi’s shoulders slump a little, he thinks Hobi feels it too.
It doesn’t really need to be remarked on, though. He doesn’t think remarking on it would help They’ll both sit with it for tonight, until they’re back to running around, too busy to think on it too much.
“You excited to go home and see your dog?” Hoseok says, breaking the silence eventually and beginning to swing their hands back and forth.
“Yeah,” Taehyung says. “I bet you are, too. Even though your dog isn’t as good as Tannie.”
“Don’t disrespect Mickey,” Hobi says. “He’s an elder.”
“But you miss him.”
“Yeah,” Hoseok says. “I guess we should go make sure we have all our things packed up.”
“I guess,” Taehyung says. He wishes there wasn’t this space between them, wishes he could press himself up against Hobi’s side right now and hold him and feel his heart beat. All his messy want, spilling out over the entire city, making all the lights glow red and blue and green like fireworks.
Hobi pulls his hand away, and for a second Taehyung’s is left suspended in that space between, just empty air between his hand and the street below.
He pulls it back, tucks it into his pockets, feeling shy all of a sudden.
“Here,” Hobi says, pulling something out of his pocket. “I almost forgot. You said you wanted to eat an apple.”
“Oh,” Taehyung says. He’s not really hungry right now, and he’d sort of thought Hobi had been joking. Something about the fact that Hobi had gotten attached to the tiny ritual they’d started makes the wonder in him at the sight of all the city lights expand and glow. “Here. Pass it to me?”
Hobi does, very carefully. Taehyung tries to take it with the same amount of care. Even with the breeze, the air feels heavy and still. The apple’s cool, fitting smooth into the palm of his hand as he raises it to his mouth and takes a bite.
He’s not hungry, but the sweetness feels good.
“Here,” he says. “It makes me feel more awake. Have a bite.”
“Thank you,” Hoseok says. His eyes are wide and look so starry in the dark. He looks at Taehyung, really looks at him, before he flutters his eyelashes shut and bites into the red skin of the apple, right over the pale mark of Taehyung’s bite. He closes his lips around that mark and sucks, looks up again and meets Taehyung’s eyes before his teeth sink in.
It’s deliberate and something about it makes Taehyung feel hot all over.
“Hyung,” he says.
Hoseok leans against the railing of the terrace facing Taehyung now. “Yes?” he says
Taehyung leans over, too, right across from him. They’re too far, too far apart. He wishes they were closer, he wants Hoseok closer so bad.
“Hyung,” he says. “Come to my hotel room?”
Hoseok takes a deep breath. It comes out shuddery.
“I’ll let you in,” Taehyung says. “I know we have to catch our plane soon.” Taehyung’s not impulsive. Neither is Hoseok. When they know what they want, they know. Taehyung just thinks that Hoseok is trying to tell him that he knows that he and Taehyung might want the same thing.
“Taehyung,” Hoseok says. “Taehyung. Let me think about it?”
It’s bittersweet. It dims the glow a little. A lot of things are bittersweet right now. “Hyung--” Taehyung says.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hoseok looks down at his hands, turns them over to look at his upturned palms before he lays them back on the railing. “It’s just that--we’re both feeling that weird drop after a show, and the drop after a tour, and it’s late, and we have a flight to catch--it’s not that I don’t want--I don’t know. I just want to talk about it. I want it to be right.”
“I understand,” Taehyung says. He’s learned that saying that when he’s upset goes a long way, and he does understand. He really does. “Hobi-hyung, it’s okay.”
“When we get home,” Hoseok says. “When we get home, Taehyung?”
“Please,” Taehyung says.
“Of course,” Hobi says. He takes another deep breath, like he’s steeling himself for something, then leans over the balcony. They’re not close enough that Taehyung could meet him halfway in a kiss, but they’re close enough that Hobi can brush the tips of his fingers over Taehyung’s lips.
“I gotta go pack up my stuff now,” he says. “But when we get home.”
“Yeah,” Taehyung says. “See you soon, hyung.”
“You too,” Hobi says, and then Taehyung’s left standing alone on his terrace.
He takes a deep breath, looks out at the city lights, then up towards the stars. Just like they are in Seoul, they’re dimmer than the artificial stars below. He’s impatient a lot, but he’s learned a lot about how to wait.
When they get home, they’ll talk. They don't need to rush: they have history, and whatever happens, they’re going to make more. It’s unavoidable, really: their fates are all twined up, and maybe they have been since Hobi had braces and everyone told Taehyung he hadn’t grown into his ears. Taehyung doesn’t know what they’ll be to each other, but he knows what they’ve been, and that holds him to the ground.
He looks over at Hobi’s empty terrace, the warm gold light spilling out of his hotel room. When he runs his tongue over the roof of his own mouth, he tastes sweet apple.