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The mug is full.
Taehyung sits on the couch and stares at it.
The mug is full and untouched. It sits just to the left of the pile of mail he’d taken up from the mailbox this morning. Two of the envelopes have been torn open, their papers sitting just above the pile, ready to go in the trash, but the rest are still closed and waiting.
The coffee table is bothering him. It had been white once, color crisp and unblemished, but coffee and tea and grease and sauce, and pen and pencil and paint and crayon and heaven knows what else have touched it too many times like a messy child’s finger painting, turning it a pitiful off-shade. He’s tried cleaning it time after time, but nothing can seem to erase the marks of the past on it. The table is unbalanced anyways. There’s a crumpled up napkin under one leg to balance it out. They were supposed to go shopping for a new coffee table today.
Taehyung used to love the cream walls of their apartment. He loved how they served as the softest backdrop for the blues that were his beloved prints of The Starry Night, The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Water Lilies (the 1915 installment of the series, the one with the ripples Taehyung adored). But now they just seem sad, especially with the tiny chips and cracks that litter the corners and crevices.
The table is discolored and wobbly, the mail is unfinished, the walls need repair and the mug is full.
It’s like everything is sad and holding its breath. Waiting, just like Taehyung.
The reporter on the television is talking like she has been since he first turned it on, her voice droning in the background as she says something about the status of a hostage situation downtown, about how a standoff is still going since the first shot was fired nearly five hours ago. She’s a nice lady. He typically avoids the news, doesn’t like how it frazzles his nerves, but he’s often seen her on in the evenings for years now. She has kind dark eyes and pretty bleached blonde hair, pointed white ears peeking from the strands like his own do from his own hair.
On any other day, he’d appreciate that more, appreciate that she normalizes someone like herself, like him, in such a public position. But her voice is just droning in his ears senselessly.
The clock has been tick-tick-ticking, and it’s driving him crazy, makes him want to take it off the wall and take the batteries out, but it simultaneously calms him like some double edged blade that just cuts him deep-deep-deeper, infecting him with more blank thoughts and feelings.
Taehyung doesn’t really hear any of it. The sounds are indistinct and fuzzy in his wavering focus.
All that matters is the the mug is full.
Taehyung wonders if the coffee inside is cold by now. It likely is, he thinks, but he isn’t sure, so he reaches out, slipping his fingers around the handle, grasping and lifting up. His arms and hands shake all the way down to the fingertips with nervous energy, and he drops it near immediately, the clack it makes against the edge of the coffee table loud enough to make him startle, the piercing sound of the ceramic shattering against the wood floor making him flinch, bad, his breath catching painfully in his throat. The mug leaves streams of brown liquid everywhere, pooling on top of the table and waterfalling down to the second pool on the floor in rapid drips, and Taehyung knows he needs to get up and get paper towels to wipe up the mess, or the dumb mop that he can hardly work correctly, but he feels like he can’t move.
The reporter of TV’s voice gets happier as she announces that the standoff has come to a close, and that the hostage is safe and the suspect is in custody.
Taehyung lets out the breath he was holding, but still all he can do is stare at the mess.
And then he feels like he’s holding his breath all over again, because the reporter, her voice taking on a gentle somber tone, tacks on that two officers are being hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
The mug was full, and now it’s not.
His day was going fine, and now it’s not.
Taehyung was holding it together, and now he feels just as broke as the ceramic shards on the floor.
The mug is empty, and Jungkook isn’t home.
❇︎
“Tae?”
Taehyung twists in his seat, his eyes snapping to take in the sight of a haggard looking Jungkook standing in the front hallway. His face shows blatantly how tired he is, his ears drooping in exhaustion and his hat hanging limply from his hand. He’s eyeing the elder worriedly. Taehyung hadn’t even heard the front door open.
“Jungkook,” he breathes, scrambling up from where he’s sitting, bare feet landing in coffee so cold it sends chills down his arms. His tail lashes with hardly restrained desperation.
“No, no, you’ll slip, baby. Hold on just a second, I’ll be right there,” Jungkook soothes quickly, hanging his hat and kicking off his shoes. Taehyung whines, frustrated and relieved and yearning, but he holds himself back from lunging across the room, tensely watching with twitching ears as his boyfriend undoes his utility belt and leaves his duffel bag at the doorway, then get closer and closer and closer and—
And when Jungkook finally steps over the spilled drink on the floor and sits on the couch and wraps Taehyung in a hug, it’s like the last puzzle piece sliding into place, like the sun’s rays dissipating over the horizon as the day draws to a close.
It’s like the final crack in the dam that causes the outpour.
Taehyung can’t hold back the sob that bubbles out of his throat, his chest jumping with the force of it. His tail latches itself around the younger’s leg while he buries his face into Jungkook’s neck, nuzzling his nose almost desperately against the skin to scent it because Jungkook is okay, he’s breathing and there’s no scarlet on his uniform shirt or pants, he’s right in Taehyung’s arms, he’s here.
Jungkook’s hand cups the back of his head, the younger making a soft, cooing sort of noise. “Shhh, it’s okay now. I’m right here, Hyung. I’m okay,” he promises, touches gentle and sweet. “Take your time, get it out, cub. I know, it’s been a hard few hours waiting for news. I understand.”
So Taehyung lets himself melt into his lax boyfriend’s hold, gradually calming his breathing down. He keeps nuzzling, though, thoroughly scenting the other the best he can both to comfort himself and to override the metallic, sharp smell that comes from firearms. Jungkook doesn’t complain. If anything, he encourages it, murmuring soft praises and tilting his head this way and that, letting Taehyung nose at any bare inch of skin within easy reach.
When he settles, he leans against the younger, head tucked under Jungkook’s chin. Blinking lazily with the fuzzy feeling scenting always gives him, he glances down at the floor, realizing there’s still a mess to clean. His boyfriend is tired. He should be taking care of things for him.
“Oh, I—I’m sorry, I dropped that mug—,” he hisses, pulling himself out of Jungkook’s grasp and standing. His tail reluctantly unravels from the death hold its had like a python around the dog hybrid’s calf. “I’m sorry, you just had a long shift, I should—”
Jungkook makes a despondent noise. “Tae, baby, sit down.”
“But—”
“Taehyung. Sit.” His finger’s wrap around Taehyung wrist, tugging gently. “We can wipe it up later.”
He hesitates.
“The coffee will make the floor and the table sticky, though.”
“Then we can mop tomorrow. And we can go get that new table we’ve been talking about, hm? But right now, I just want cuddles.”
Taehyung looks down at him. Looks at the tired eyes, had heard the exhaustion in his tone. But still he soothes Taehyung like there was nothing more important.
“Cuddles. I... I can do that.”
Jungkook smiles, worn but sweet. “So come here, then.”
Taehyung drops back onto the couch and curls into Jungkook’s side.
So maybe the mug is broken and there is coffee all over the floor and Taehyung is still wired up from anxiety. Sure, fine.
The mug is shattered, but Jungkook is home, and Taehyung is home in his arms.