Chapter Text
Taeyong,
If you told me I’d be writing a letter to myself on the day of my wedding, I’d think you didn’t know how weddings work, but here I am - age 28, wearing a tuxedo in a back room of a church I’ve never attended - writing a letter to me at 18, standing on the railing of a bridge, heart-broken and empty.
I won’t tell you to get down. It’s your choice to be there and no one can ever take that away from you, that tiny amount of control you feel you have. I just want to tell you some things before you do it, because I know you do it.
He marries you, that boy that keeps you up at night. You marry him back. It takes a while to get there - a few bad fights, a lot of unlearning what you’ve convinced yourself you deserve - but he loves you and you love him and you look at him like he hung every star in the sky. He might as well have. He jumps in after you, pulls you out of the freezing water, drags you to shore to slap you across the face and kiss you dizzy.
You go to therapy. It helps a lot. The first two aren’t great, but the third is nice. You come around to realize people want to help you. You’re the only one who wanted you to fail.
Ten leaves and you can’t stop him. He has his dreams, his passions, and you don’t want to let him go, but you don’t want to hold him back. You don’t talk to him for a few years, but you slowly meet again in the middle. It’s easier with the therapy. He looks genuinely happy for you when you tell him you haven’t tried again since the bridge. He was so mad when he came to you in the hospital after that, tore into you with that sharp tongue and hurt eyes. It takes 15 minutes of him shouting at you to realize what you’ve almost done, what you’ve almost taken from Ten. You lose him but he comes back. He gets married to that soft-smiling physics major with the mole under his eyebrow. You know the one.
It feels somewhat hypocritical, to look back and wish I could tell you that it does get better, that the phrase wasn’t the bullshit we thought it was. The future seemed like heading into a cave, with only darkness ahead and no way out, but it’s more like a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel is family, is Jaehyun, is Ten and Kun. They’re waiting for you.
I know there’s a lot to die for, but there’s a whole lot more to live for.
So jump. Jump and let Jaehyun drag you out, cry and smile at the same time when he slaps you, when he tells you how fucking scared he was. Let him take you to the hospital. Get back together. Lose people.
You’re going to find so much once you’re out of the tunnel.
I promise.
Love, Taeyong
Taeyong holds the folded letter between his thumb and pointer finger, letting it dangle from the single point of contact as he stares at it. His chest feels heavy, like putting that onto paper only added to the weight bearing down on him, tilting the scales of justice to their decision of guilty. He’s not guilty.
“Tae?” Ten’s voice is soft, pulling him from his thoughts with a gentle sort of concern about him. “It’s almost time. Are you okay?”
“Mm,” Taeyong hums, non-committal, before turning with a smile. “Yeah. Want to help me burn this?”
He lifts his hand to show Ten the letter, and Ten steps fully into the room to reach for it.
Taeyong yanks it away, offering a sheepish smile and an explanation in the form of, “It’s private. Not important. I just wanted to write it.”
Ten nods, understanding, and pulls a lighter from his back pocket. “Now?”
“Now.”
The pair of them head outside the little church, fortunately evading anyone’s attention as they slip out the side door and crouch on the concrete. Taeyong places the letter gently on the ground and looks expectantly at Ten.
“You’re sure?”
He nods his response, and can practically feel some of his tension leave his body when the paper catches flame easily enough. Now it feels like letting go. Now it feels like he’s done it right.
“Thanks,” Taeyong says, voice soft. He doesn’t look away from the burning paper.
“You’re welcome, Tae,” Ten replies, leaning slightly to knock their shoulders together.
“No,” Taeyong his head before smiling at Ten. “Thanks for everything. Sometimes I don’t know what would have happened to me without you.”
Ten rolls his eyes with a little scoff and stands just as the paper is totally consumed by the flames, bound to be nothing but ash in the few following moments. He stretches his arms over his head and groans, then shrugs, grinning down at Taeyong.
“We’ve always been good together,” he says. Taeyong recognizes the teasing lilt to his voice. “Even if we weren’t so good apart.”
Taeyong stands too and pulls Ten into a tight embrace, which is returned without hesitation. It’s comfortable. He feels like he could cry.
“We should go in. Don’t want Jaehyunnie to think he’s been jilted, eh?”
Their hands find one another naturally, fingers linking like second nature, and Ten takes a moment to make sure the paper has stopped burning before pulling Taeyong back inside.
“I’ll see you in there, champ.” He grins, pressing a kiss to Taeyong’s cheek before slipping back into the room.
Taeyong can just barely see the small crowd in the first few pews. Their friends. His friends.
After taking a deep breath he knocks heavily on the door, and the slight murmuring in the room stops. The organ begins to play.
Part of him feels silly, walking by himself between the empty aisles, the faces of his closest friends watching him carefully, but then his eyes land of Jaehyun at the head of the room, smiling that precious smile at him. Taeyong can see his eyes sparkle across the room.
When he comes to stand by Jaehyun, they take each other’s hands and turn to face one another. Out of the corner of his eye, Taeyong swears he sees movement - the familiar fluttering of his favorite too-big shirt in the wind, bleach-damaged blonde hair whipping around his face. The figure takes a step forward and drops out of sight.
Taeyong knows what happens after that. He acutely remembers the sting of the cold water, the burning of his lungs as the air was pushed out of him, the sensation of numbness washing over him that felt somewhat like a welcoming embrace.
Looking at Jaehyun across from him gives Taeyong a sense of déjà vu when remembering the jump. He had closed his eyes under the water and opened them again to see Jaehyun’s face in front of his, concern etched into his kind face, wrinkles finding a home before they ought..
Now Jaehyun is not worried — in fact, Taeyong is very familiar with the excitement sparkling in the other’s dark eyes; it’s the same excitement bubbling in his own chest, making his hands shake ever so slightly in Jaehyun’s.
If only Taeyong at 18 could see them now, before he jumped, before he decided there was no good reason to be there. If only Taeyong had known he’d be okay.