Chapter Text
There are many things in your life that you regret. For one, you should've been a better student. Two, you should've been a better daughter, you were rebellious and proud (to be honest, you still are). Three, there is a list of people you need to apologize to, one of which will lead you to your fourth biggest regret: Min Yoongi.
Yoongi is your life's greatest love, you didn't know that then but you know it now. You were teenagers with big dreams and even bigger tempers. The love you shared was explosive, but that love hurt the two of you the most. You were both on ground zero and there was no hiding against the shrapnel. You pushed and he pushed harder, compromising wasn't something you two knew how to do; but you stayed because he loved you and you loved him with a love much bigger than the two of you.
You loved him during his sleepless nights, when his training got the best of him, how you cradled his head against your chest. How his tears still feel hot against your skin even after all these years.
You loved him when the two of you didn't have enough money to even eat until you're full. How you sat on your threadbare mattress sharing a slice of cheesecake you took home from the bakery you worked at. How you talked about his dream of performing amidst a sea of blinding lights. Your dream wasn't as big as his, you were young and in love and all you wanted was a stable life by his side. You wanted your own bakery, perhaps. You wanted to teach, perhaps. You wanted to be an actress, perhaps. You wanted everything and nothing, and at that time filled with uncertainty, the only sure thing in your life was Min Yoongi.
And he loved you too, my God , how he loved you. When you missed your family, he held you as you cried. He whispered sweet nothings against your hair and they fueled you to be better, to survive, to thrive. How he called you his Beloved, just one of his many endearments for you, how your name sounds like honey when he says it. How he called you the only good thing he has. You believed him then but not anymore, but only because you don't want to be the only good thing he can have. Min Yoongi deserves the blinding lights, the adoration, and all his dreams realized.
He loved you in a way that's terrifying in its intensity, he loved you in a way that took your breath away from you. It was exhilarating and exciting but isn't it that a lack of oxygen kills a fire? You burned out. The two of you did and it wasn't pretty.
It wasn't so much as falling out of love, no , it was loving each other too much. Too much. Keeping up with each other became harder and harder, the stress got too intense and palpable you could cut it with a knife. He trained longer and longer hours, so you worked longer, too. You fought a lot, he screamed and so did you. His sharp tongue cut you, so you did, too. It was a testament to your compatibility that what Yoongi can dish out, you could, too. However, it was tiring. So tiring that the exhaustion reached your bones.
It was in the middle of one of your fights when you suddenly felt all the anger leave your body—like you were doused in cold water after being under the sun for too long. Clarity, that's what it was. You were fighting again for some petty reason. You tried to remember what it was—maybe he forgot to pick up dinner? Left his socks lying somewhere other than the hamper? Maybe he ate the chocolate you've been saving for when you got your period? It was a tiny thing, you were sure of at least that, a tiny thing that tipped the scale of your temper. It's always, always the tiny things that will get the better of anyone.
Your apartment at the time had thin walls but all you felt and heard was quiet, even in the middle of being shouted at by him. You felt peace, you felt ready, you felt you needed to get down the seesaw that was loving Min Yoongi. It was unhealthy how much you fought, unhealthy at how much you loved him. You lost respect for each other along the way, became each other's bad habit. Did you even like each other at that point? You can always love someone and not like whom they have become and what the two of you have become was toxic. Unhealthy. Unbearable .
"Yoongi, let's break up," you remember blurting out in the middle of his tirade. His eyes widened and then his brows scrunched.
"What?" was all he could say. The breath you took that next moment was heavy and dragging.
"I’m tired of pretending I’m still what you need. I'm not what you need anymore and you're not what I need anymore." He was quiet. It was one of his many great qualities, you know? How he listens. It's one of the qualities he forgot during your months of petty fighting.
"We can't keep hurting each other like this, we're better than this. We were better than this," You didn't cry then, you were oddly clear-headed. Was that growing up, was that how it felt? He was still quiet but you can see the minute expressions on his face, the deepening of the scrunch on his brows. The fidgeting of his hands. The slight tremble of his shoulders. The tiny things you've grown to memorize about him. He let out a breath and looked at you in the eye.
"You're right," and his confirmation, while out of your insistence, still hurt; still cut you straight to where you last felt the genuine joy of being in love with him. You had to swallow the hurt that built up, had to unclench your throat from the pressure of the impending goodbye.
He was still holding your gaze and the softening of his look felt like mockery. When was the last time he looked at you like this? When was the last time you looked at him like that? You couldn't recall and it made the decision to break up even easier. He was about to debut anyway, he wouldn't need you, you were but a distraction (and you wondered exactly when you started feeling like this? As if you were an unimportant part of his life.)
You sat down on your threadbare mattress with your back against the wall, patted the space beside you, and waited for him to come. And when he did, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and pulled you to him, it made you fall against his chest. You felt the tears could have fallen any moment then but you held it in. You couldn't turn back now just because he held you like how he used to.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against your hair. You hugged him and he still smelled the way he always had, bright and warm and safe. He felt like coming home. When did home stop being a place?
"I'm sorry," you whispered against his chest. His heart wasn't beating fast, he was calm and so were you, the calmest around each other that you have been in what seemed like ages.
"Take care of yourself, you hear me?" You told him and he chuckled. "So long as you take care of yourself, too." He said. Then silence, no one was letting go, no one was removing an arm around the other. Just breathing, just quiet contemplation on where you both got it wrong.
"Yoongi..." He hummed in acknowledgment, he was playing with your hair and you were picking at the hem of his shirt. You've been in this embrace many times before but this one felt final.
"Thank you for loving me the way you've loved me for so long. I wish we're ending on a better note or that we're not ending at all, but this is for the best, isn't it?"
"You're right," and you both chuckled in the realization that this is the first time in a very long time that you both verbally agreed on something again. He added, "And thank you for loving me, for showing me how love is supposed to be."
Your arm tightened around him with that and then you let him go. You moved away, his hand falling. You looked at him to see him already looking at you, his eyes were red. You were sure that yours were, too. And you wanted to cry but not just yet.
"I will be in love with you for a very long time after this, you know? Damn. " You tried to keep your tone light but the way you said damn spoke bitter honesty.
"I don't think I will ever stop loving you," he said. You raised your brow and teased him, "I'll bet my entire life savings that you will and that is okay. We're not competing anymore so it's okay to lose now. Of course, I didn't think what I was losing was you but then again, what do I know? You've always been the smarter between the two of us,"
He laughed and said, "Lies." He smiled that smile you loved—love—so much.
"Good thing you don't have so many of your things here anymore, huh?" The words, again, tasted bitter on your tongue. He started spending more time at the dorms than with you and you understood that, you really did, but it was still hard. His dreams were so hard to compete with and you were ready to stop running.
"You're right, I need to tell them I'm moving back full-time. I'm sure they'll be shocked." He tried to smile in jest and it didn't work. The pang in your chest was absolute.
"Tell them my regards," were your only words for the boys you've grown to care for and love. They'll take care of him, you were sure.
And so he stood up and you lied down, turned your back away from his packing up. You heard him shuffle around that tiny apartment. You tried to think of what he’ll leave behind besides you. The tears started to fall then, but you were silent, or as silent as you could have been. He heard you though, you think, because you heard a punch from the bathroom. When he started sobbing you wanted to go to him but you didn’t have the right to, you didn’t want to have that right, it’ll be harder to give up that right if you stood up now.
So you stayed where you were and waited out his crying. Eventually, you still couldn’t stop yourself from going to him when 5 minutes passed and you could still hear him sobbing.
“Yoongi,” you whispered when you saw him sitting on your bathroom floor, knuckles red and raw and face tear-stained, staring emptily into nothing. You reached for his hand as you kneeled in front of him, “Yoongi, it’s okay … I’m okay and you’ll be okay. And... we’ll be okay, you know?” You knew you were right, it felt like truth when you said it and years after the fact made it to be true. You were okay, maybe not as happy as you could be, but you were okay . Yoongi, or better yet Suga, was even more so. You were sure. You had to be, because what use was giving him up if he was unhappy?
Then he hugged you—in a grip that almost bruised, but you weren’t complaining because you embraced him just as hard. Then you just cried, apologies interspersed in between the choking sobs. He was crying still and he kept asking why. And you kept wondering the same thing. And you were wondering again where you got it wrong and if it was possible to go back then? When it was simpler, when loving and being loved by him didn’t hurt as much.
You knew you had to stop the tears and let him go because with the way he was holding you, you just knew he was half a step from unpacking. Yoongi was stubborn, he wanted to prove things—you love this about him—because he is a persistent hard worker with dreams much bigger than him. You love this about him. You loved him. You loved him. You love him. But you had to let him go.
So you untangled yourself from him but his hands were gripping your shirt trying to stop you. You lifted your hand to wipe his tears away and the slow way he closed his eyes and leaned to your touch made you choke in tears. You allowed yourself a final moment of weakness... you kissed him, one last time. It was bittersweet. It felt like a chapter closing, hell, it felt like an entire book ending.
He kissed you back fervently, he was almost pulling you back to him, but you pulled away enough to whisper against his mouth, “Goodbye, Min Yoongi.”
You memorized the way he looked when he walked away.
You lasted 3 weeks before your apartment suffocated you with memories of him. 2 months until you couldn’t even bear to look at the door without weeping. He must have it easy, he wasn’t bombarded with memories of you wherever he looked. Maybe . Maybe he had it hard, too? What right did you have to know?
So you booked a flight home and moved back permanently. It was the first brave thing you did since loving him and letting him go. You had dreams back in Korea but one of them was also chasing his.
It’s been years since then.