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“Appa?” Taehyung is small and it is late. In the winter the night yawns long, the rattle of the city deadened by the walls of the house. Things are quiet in the house– Appa says he likes the peace– so quiet you can hear everything. “Appa? What are you doing?”
His father sits hunched in front of the window, the rough fabric of his jacket brushing the floor. From where Taehyung stands the window is a grimy silver maw, exhaling cold gusts of wind that send his lips trembling.
Shards of broken glass lie spattered on the ground, moonlight glinting off their sticky edges. Taehyung is only 7 years old but he knows what blood looks like.
His father shifts. There’s a gagging sound, a plaintive choke so soft Taehyung almost misses it. Taehyung knows how to be quiet, too though. His father gags again and rocks forward, hooks his elbows around his knees. “Appa–”
Under the moonlight, Taehyung can see the way his father’s back ripples. Blood drips to the floor, and Taehyung lets out a little gasp. That, at last, seems to catch his father’s attention. He looks over his shoulder.
The contrast of the shadows and the light from the window render his features bolder, deeper. He looks blue under the moonlight, unrecognizable save for his coat. His smile– terrifying on regular occasions– drips red and Taehyung finds himself scared, scared in a way he hasn’t felt before.
It is like his feet are glued to the ground, like there is a snake slowly curling itself around him, squeezing the breath from his lungs with a mere suggestion.
“Taetae. My little moonchild.” His father’s voice is raw, unsteady as he heaves himself around till the window’s at his back.
Taehyung’s eyes drop to his hands. He’s cradling something in his palms. His father has big hands– he will too, that’s what his father says– but blood leaks through anyways. “You should be in bed.”
“Uh huh.” he nods.
“C’mere.” His father beckons him a sharp jerk of his head. It reminds Taehyung of something in an action film he saw once, the snap of a neck.
With his father kneeling on the ground, they’re almost the same height. It’s close enough that he can meet his father’s eyes without strain, barely has to tilt his head up. “Hold out your hands.”
He obeys. Still, his father tsks at the gaps between his palms. Taehyung cups his hands together at the silent reprimand, and then carefully, painstakingly, his father lowers his heart.
For the first few seconds, he stands rigid and doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare breathe. The heart is slick and warm, but most importantly big. The heart is big and Taehyung’s hands are small, small enough that they shiver under the weight of it all.
Finally, he breathes again. It’s a tentative breath but the heart breathes with him.
“There you go,” his father huffs. He flicks his eyes up from the heart as his father sits back on his heels but he doesn’t look away for long. He’s always thought hearts looked different.
Hearts, Taehyung thought, were supposed to have one point and be even and perfect, not blue and bulging. Still, it’s the first actual heart he’s seen, and while it’s ugly, he knows it must be a heart. It’s not like it could be anything else.
There are no further instructions, but Taehyung finds his fear has melted away. His feet move first and then he moves with them, carefully stepping through the glass to hold the heart up to the moonlight. It’s the one to breathe this time. He breathes with it.
His father laughs. “Go on,” he says. “You know what to do.”
Taehyung’s hands tremble as he punches down the nozzle of the spray can. It is blue this time, a blue arc of paint dribbling down the wall all big and bold and looping. It crosses over whites and greens and oranges and yellows and Taehyung’s fingers slip from the metal too soon. He lowers his arm and watches the last of the paint splatter.
His hands are still trembling.
Taehyung’s hands are usually trembling when he paints. It’s worse this time, though, worse because he can’t stand to look at them now, can hardly coordinate with his fingers twitching and his palms sweaty, red blood crusting under his nails. He clenches the can.
In the fall, once the sun dips below the buildings, there’s a chill to the air. It’s not quite night not quite day, the faintest outline of the moon hidden by the clouds. Taehyung hates this time. He hates it when the sky begins to burn: bruised purples and saccharine pinks and the occasional dusky red. It makes him ache.
Police sirens howl in the distance. They move like clockwork and Taehyung has memorized their routes. He knows their people and their maps and he’s never seen the point, the glory in chasing down teenage vandals, but he knows their hunger too. He also knows it won’t be long till they reach him– just long enough for him to get away– but it’s worse this time.
Taehyung has been worse this time.
Taehyung has been awful awful awful and the knowledge of that squeezes his chest, rises to his throat, makes him hurt like nothing else. What has he done? Are they coming for him? Do they know? Does he run? He tosses his cans into his duffel bag, tries to breathe. The world’s bleeding out of focus and it never gets old but he can’t let them see his hands.
The sirens screech louder, closer. It could be a coincidence. There’s no way of knowing who they’re after and it could be one big coincidence. Taehyung knows this but they sound like baying hounds, and it’s messing with his head. He needs to get out of here.
He needs to get out here right now but there’s time to pause for a second, to wait– breath trapped in his throat. Wind ruffles his hair and stiffens his limbs. The clouds roll out, part way for the moon.
He exhales.
And then he’s running, navigating the maze of crumbling pavement and darkened windows. He runs through alleys, past ghostly convenience stores, around leaking trash piles. He runs on and on and on until he forgets everything but the moonlight and the ground beneath his feet.
The first time Taehyung meets Namjoon he’s 15, armed with his faded green duffle bag and a limp. It’s his second night away from home, his third night caught in the rain– an achingly steady drizzle, numb numb numb. His fingers are too clumsy to fold cleanly much less pilfer anything and there’s no light to see by anyways, not with the clouds blotting out the moon.
So he’s in an old trainyard. It’s a trainyard because there are crates and rails but it’s honestly more of a junkyard, sprawling and labyrinthine. A veritable treasure trove of cave-like nooks and rat shit. The crates afford a decent amount of shelter– enough that Taehyung wouldn’t dare complain– but sleep is completely out of the question. Even putting aside the whine of his stomach, the rain patters heavily upon the cars. Each drop falls like a nail to his skull.
He finds a good spot. It’s wet because every spot is wet but it’s slightly drier and absent of other squatters, hidden away near the back of the yard. Without Namjoon he’d have gone undiscovered for days or weeks, a bony scrap of a kid wedged between listing crates.
It is in that spot he sits, clutching his bag to his chest. As he sits there and shivers, he recgonizes the irony of it all. Taehyung is not yet an adult and he’s never liked calling himself a child, but here he is hugging the bag like it’s some precious toy, some safety blanket.
It’s a useless thought to think but he thinks about that and more. He even thinks about the future. He tries, anyways. It’s hard to think about the future, though. Impossible, really. He tries so so hard sometimes.
What would a future look like? A future with him in it? The next year looks the same and the year after that and the year after that and what would the world look like in 10 years? 20?
Something must happen. Something must change eventually, but Taehyung doesn’t know what or when or how. 100 years in the future, what will he be? 200?
200 years in the future and scientists might discover the odd, inexplicable corpse of a boy. They might find him tucked between two metal shells, curled in a fetal position. He is so frozen they’ve managed to preserve his body, to locate a rotten green protrusion on his stomach.
Taehyung squeezes his bag tighter, drops his head forwards. Maybe they’ll realize a rare phenomenon has occurred: the boy’s forehead has grown into his knees.
“Hey,” someone says. They nudge at him with their boot-clad hunk of a foot. Hey. It’s so casual Taehyung wants to cry. It’s the first thing Namjoon ever says to him.
Taehyung tries to peer up through his bangs and finds he has to tilt his head to spot the glint in the person’s eyes.
“Hey.”
The person looks at him for a long moment. It should be creepy because it’s night time and Taehyung is outrageously vulnerable but it’s not. It just seems long, like a moment stretched.
Not stuck, but looped. The same ache in his neck, the same glint in their eyes, the same cloud chasing the moon. The moment ends when the person shifts to scratch their head, suddenly awkward, boyish.
“It’s raining,” they say eventually. “I live nearby. Stay with me till it clears up.”
Taehyung stares and feels his chest ache.
“I won’t hurt you.”
It’s stupid and reckless and driven by something Taehyung can’t even explain, something like longing or hope or plain old desparation, the need for an end. It’s so so stupid but the stranger is stretching out a hand and–
“Okay,” Taehyung says. He takes it.
The fifth time Taehyung bangs on his door, Namjoon appears. The sky has darkened now and with the fading traces of sun, it reminds Taehyung of muddied water colours; something foul. It makes his head hurt, his chest hurt, but lately everything has been making his chest hurt. Even Namjoon. Especially Namjoon. Just Namjoon.
He hadn’t meant to show up here, it has just kind of… happened. He’d been running and running and running, long enough that the sound of his heart and the dry rasp of his lungs drowned out the sirens, and then somehow, he’d ended up at Namjoon’s. Again.
It’s not exactly surprising, considering his track record, but the day’s events have made Taehyung a bit more sensitive, a bit more aware of his inner workings in a way that’s honestly uncomfortable. He comes running to Namjoon every time there’s trouble. Every single time. What does that say about him? What good does that do him?
“What do you want.” Namjoon is scratching the back of his neck, still bleary eyed. Half his hair looks like it’s been shocked into motion, and Taehyung has the irrational urge to pat it down.
“I–” he starts. He’s not quite sure what he’s going to say. It’s a big question and usually he wouldn’t bat an eye because Namjoon and him are good at passing around big questions, but Taehyung has a big problem and he doesn’t know how to know what he wants. It doesn’t matter, though, because Namjoon’s already cutting him off.
“You woke me up. Do you need a place to crash?” He frowns. “Wait, you have a key. Couldn’t you have just–”
“I forgot it.” Taehyung bites out. “At the house.”
“Forgot it?” Namjoon sounds incredulous, speaks with a tone both condescending and flattering. “You don’t forget your shit.”
“Haha,” Taehyung says. He was going for an actual laugh at first but it seems there’s something stuck in his throat. Namjoon’s right, he doesn’t usually forget things. Without a lot of belongings, he’s grown a bit attached to that he does have, and he’s always careful not to lose or forget anything. These are extenuating circumstances. “Well.”
He tilts his head up and tries not to cry.
“Tae?”
“Mmm.”
“Come here.”
Taehyung shuffles forwards obediently and lets himself be folded into Namjoon’s embrace. Taehyung is long and lanky but Namjoon is both longer and lankier, so they slot together easy. Hugs are rare and only come from Namjoon, so Taehyung usually likes to savour them when he can, cling tight to Namjoon and sway until he’s sort of melted into the other. Hugs usually make him sigh, make all his edges fuzzy, his brain fog up.
Taehyung holds him tight tonight, but he still can’t stop thinking about his dad. His hands. Blood.
He only allows himself a few seconds before pulling back but Namjoon stops him, holds him in place and scans his face. Freezes.
“Your face.”
Taehyung tries to laugh again but it comes out a rusting croak. “My face.”
Namjoon levels him with a look and cups his jaw. Taehyung holds his breath, lets his eyes flutter shut as Namjoon drags his fingers along his tender cheekbone. “Yes, your face. When did you get this?”
“I dunno,” Taehyung mutters. He tries to pull away again but Namjoon doesn’t let him, fingers digging into his shoulders. “Fine. Today. I tripped.”
“It’s the size of a fist.”
“I tripped.”
“A fist, Taehyung.”
It’s an old discussion, an old argument. Taehyung really really wants to cry.
“It’s done, okay? Done. D - O - N - E, done. We can stop talking about it. Better yet, you can let me in.” Namjoon meets his gaze head on and Taehyung hates him a little bit then, hates the way his eyes go soft, the way his mouth turns just so. It makes him want to push Namjoon away, to pull him close. It makes him want to run for the hills, to carve a spot for himself right in Namjoon’s chest. Just so he can hurt too.
“Just tell me one thing, okay?”
“Okay.” Taehyung breathes, shaky.
“Was it your dad?”
And then Taehyung can’t help it. He doesn’t mean to do it, he doesn’t mean to, he swears. He’d swear a thousand times over if he could but he can’t, just opens his mouth and laughs. He hasn’t been able to laugh all night, hasn’t been able to get more than a few choked words out, but it’s funny. Why shouldn’t he laugh?
Namjoon is still standing there, standing there watching him laugh with his stupid adorable bed-head and toothpaste-mouth and Namjon is far from normal but this is his normal, this is what Namjoon looks like on a regular day and here is Taehyung laughing and is it a regular day? Is it? What has Taehyhung done today?
“Wha–?” Namjoon says, and then Taehyung’s laughing harder and harder and he has to stop laughing but he can’t. He can’t and so he yanks himself from Namjoon’s grasp and stumbles up and over into the crate.
Why is he laughing? What’s he doing? What has he done? That’s the real joke.
“Tae! Tae, come on.” Namjoon’s trying to hold him in place, hands sliding across his shoulders.
It’s impossible, he’s staggering into the table, but Namjoon’s trying to help. That sucks.
It’s kind of funny too because Namjoon has always been helping him, has been the only one to try so hard, but what can Namjoon do now? Namjoon can’t do anything now, and that’s the funniest part because Taehyung has fucked up yet again and Namjoon will want to fix it and make everything better but he can’t.
Namjoon can’t do shit.
Namjoon just asked about his father. Funny. Taehyung hasn’t had the humour beat out of him yet.
“Shit, Tae,” Namjoon says. Taehyung looks up and laughs in his face, tries to shrug out of his grasp again. He’s out of it though, and knocks a beer bottle to the floor with his elbow.
It shatters loud and fast and all he gets out is a whimper before the laughter takes ahold again, bubbling from his lips all brittle, blanks from a gun.
His jaw hurts, his cheeks hurt, his throat hurts, his chest hurts, oh, his chest really fucking hurts, and his hands hurt too because Namjoon is squeezing them and his hands will outgrow Namjoon’s soon, he’s sure. He’s broken a bottle.
I’m sorry, he tries to say, only it comes out:
“I–” and then he’s gagging, falling to his knees next to the goddamn glass and heaving, hacking away at the ache in his chest.
“I–” and then his throat is bulging.
“I–” and then out slips his father’s heart.
It falls to the floor with a muted thump. Taehyung stares.
Everything is kind of muted, like the buzz of some far away radio away has crept between his ears, like he might not be there at all, like he might be the static. Everything is kind of muted but Taehyung swears he feels it hit the ground, a distant ache.
Before he knows it his father’s heart is cupped in his hands, glistening in the moonlight.
He flexes his fingers and watches as they curl round the thing, cold. It is suddenly cold, so unbearably cold. The moonlight is warming his face and his arms and his back but his hands are so so cold he can’t hold the heart any longer, lets it slip from his fingers.
He makes a sound. A whimper, a plea, a broken little cry, and Namjoon’s hand slides to his back– a branding iron. Everything is muted but Taehyung still feels a bit terrible, a bit hollow like he’s a bowl scraped clean or a lock with no key.
“Tae,” Namjoon says.
Taehyung stares wide-eyed at the floor. Blood is spattered across Namjoon’s floor. There’s even a huge clot. It’s gross, so gross. Taehyung is so gross.
“Taehyung, please,” Namjoon says again, voice hoarse.
Taehyung’s chest clenches around nothing and the bloody clot on the floor clenches too and then he’s turning to Namjoon without a second thought, a flower to the sun, the tide to the moon.
He doesn’t know if he has anything to say, isn’t sure if he’d remember even if he did, so he just looks. Looks with wide eyes and a hollow chest because Namjoon has a very nice face. It’s a distinctive face, a face that Taehyung could memorize no-sweat because it’s just that nice. Even twisted in concern it’s nice enough to make the blood rush to his cheeks.
“You have to tell me what’s going on.” Taehyung doesn’t understand why is it so cold.
He shakes his head.
“Why?”
Why?
“Why, Taehyung. Work with me a little, yeah?” Namjoon rubs his back and Taehyung arches into the searing contact with a sigh. “Did you know about… this? What’s going on?”
Taehyung shakes his head again. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell Namjoon anything. Taehyung kind of wants to tell Namjoon everything.
Namjoon is his go-to person, his shelter. Namjoon was the first to stretch out a hand, the first to say “I won’t hurt you”, the first to say “I love you”, the first to be his honest to god friend and Taehyung wants to tell him stuff all the fucking time. Taehyung kind of wants to tell Namjoon everything and if anything were to be everything this would be it but–
“I don’t.” He breathes. “Know. How.”
“Oh,” Namjoon exhales. “Oh. Okay. Okay, um… try? That sounds really bad,” he says. Then he laughs.
Somewhere, Taehyung’s heart does another thing and his eyes dart away, drop to the floor. Freeze. The bloody clot is wiggling.
“Tae?”
He picks up the clot.
Before, his hands were cold, stiff and brittle like chips of ice. The clot is not cold. It is all still a bit unreal, all still a bit distant like those aren’t his knees bruising the floorboards, not his blood dripping hot to the floor, not his newly grown heart pulsing in his hands.
It is strange to hold himself so.
When did he even get his own heart? What do you do with a heart?
Taehyung inhales to keep from crying and watches his heart clench in his palms, watches it sigh and expand; muscle bleeding, blooming. He looks for a long time. What do you do with a heart?
Ah.
“Hold out your hands,” he says at last.
When Namjoon holds out his hands they are spaced too far apart. Taehyung is pathetically glad for it, glad he gets to nudge them closer, to chase his warmth.
And then he doesn’t give himself time to think. Drops his heart into Namjoon’s hands. Just like that.
He doesn’t know what to expect. It is strange holding the whole of you in your hands but it is stranger still to entrust it to an unknown, and honestly, Taehyung finds he expected more drama.
In a more interesting piece of entertainment there would be searing heat, an electric current shuddering up his spine neon, every single one of his sorry nerves burning fluorescent. His back would arch to the sky and he would glow, he would burn, he would be glorious and luminescent and pure like the very moon itself.
Instead, he is warm and gasping for air, and he is not so much aware of himself but more so aware of Namjoon because Namjoon is hesitating now.
Taehyung knows this because he can feel the tremors in Namjoon’s fingers, the ragged rhythm of his breath. He also feels oddly sweaty though he isn’t sure whether that is Namjoon or him and overall it is not particularly pleasant but–
Taehyung doesn’t want Namjoon to let go.
So he fumbles out for Namjoon (his eyes are closed, his eyes are closed, his eyes are closed) and he grabs his hand and closes it firmly over the heart; feels the answering squeeze.
There’s a brief rush of heat, flushing him warm from his toes to the tip of his nose, and then his chest starts to hurt again. His chest has been hurting for a long time, long enough that in a sense, this is nothing new or notable or worthy of remark, and yet there is no pain between his ribs, no rising tide, just a hollow hollow ache like something’s missing. This must be the muted feeling and Taehyung gasps for breath because he doesn’t want to keep aching and then oh–
There is Namjoon’s forehead pressed against his own and he gasps again and those are Namjoon’s lips pressed against his own and oh–
He stills.
Taehyhung has one hand wrapped around Namjoon’s own. The other hand is braced against the floor to keep him upright. His legs are curled beneath him, his bangs partially obscuring his view of Namjoon, whose face is still pressed to his. His eyes are open too. It is more like their lips are touching than they are kissing and yet with each exhale, each drag of skin against skin, Taehyung shivers, feels as if bits of him are flaking away.
Namjoon’s fingers curl around his hand, around his heart.
“Is this okay?” Namjoon asks. His voice is low and he’s pulled back a bit to speak but his lips are still right there, setting off sparks because Taehyung’s lips are also right there and this is Taehyung’s first kiss. Their lips are barely brushing by now but they’re still touching. It’s been so long, does it count as more than one?
Taehyung nods and tries to remember how to breathe. It’s embarrassing, so so embarrassing, but he can feel the flutter of his heart in his palm. Namjoon has to feel it too. There’s no way he can’t.
But he doesn’t say anything. He just smiles. He’s so close Taehyung has to kind of cross his eyes to look at him but it’s worth it because wow are Namjoon’s eyes pretty.
Taehyung is suddenly very aware of how he must still have snot and sick on his face, how Namjoon literally just saw him throw up not one, but two hearts. Two hearts. It was mere moments ago that he was choking, aching but it feels like something longer. Taehyung must look so gross right now.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling away. He is sorry. “I broke a bottle. And I did a bad thing. Appa is gone. And I still don’t know how to explain.”
“Don’t,” Namjoon says vehemently. It kind of surprises Taehyung but it also kind of doesn’t. It’s very Namjoon, very on brand.
“Don’t explain?” He manages a smile.
“Don’t apologize,” Namjoon says. “You can explain later. It’s okay.”
It’s okay. They should feel like empty words but they don’t. Taehyung nods, chest warm.
Somewhere far away, he knows it’s ridiculous. He’s just emptied the contents of his chest and Namjoon (Namjoon!) has kissed him (kissed him!) and his father is dead, his father is gone, his heart is no longer Taehyung’s to carry, and just seconds ago he was so sure something was missing, something was gone. But his chest feels so warm now. Full.
Kneeling in sight of the moon, hands wrapped tight around his heart, head bent to Namjoon’s… there is nothing missing. He breathes it in. Namjoon breathes with him.
And just like that Taehyung knows what to do.
Taehyung has always known what to do, and so he slides his fingers between Namjoon’s own, leans forward and presses their lips together.
There is a moment of stillness and then Namjoon kisses back.
His heart thumps once, twice, then to life.