Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun filters into the room in speckled sheets from between the curtains, spilling onto the floor and grazing the edges of the hand-knotted wool rug that looks like a fairly recent addition to the room. And with it come figments of the previous night, unbidden, unrelenting, inundating. 

Hands, trapped between hesitation and desperation, pace hot, a hurtling meteor. Touch serrated, cool like a broken gasp. A vicious push and pull. Tugs, repetitive, rushed, insistent on affirming what is consolidated by memory, by years of practice. The glide of a wet hot mouth, searing, taking what belongs to it. 

Taehyung lowers the comforter, half expecting to find a patch of scalded skin where his heart is. There isn’t. No physical evidence of the heat he has been feeling since the dinner last night, since his eyes first fell upon him , for the first time in over two weeks. Now logically, he knows it isn’t a long time for two ordinary people to stay out of touch. Life happens. Work is a bitch. 

But they aren’t most people. Not Taehyung and Jungkook. It’s suddenly a deafening cacophony of remembrances, and there is no telling which pieces are just a night old and which are stale, which are the ones he had allowed to sink into the pit of his stomach and which are the ones still making him choke.

The sheets stir up in a rustle, even though he hasn’t moved a limb, is even scared of breathing too loud lest he should disturb the lazy reprieve from his own head that the morning daze grants him. The next exhale catches in his throat as he tries to pull up a thread from his alcohol-induced haze that he could trace the noise behind him to. Shaking off the last remnants of sleep, he slowly shifts to lie on his back and risks a glance at his side. And oh.

It’s Jimin. Jimin mumbling something into the pillow as he blinks open his eyes to meet Taehyung’s. His lips slowly quirk up into something like a smile. “Good morning Tae.”

The next breath comes easier. Albeit the echo it produces in the emptiness in between his ribs almost forces a shiver run through his body, he masks it with voluntary movement of his own, turning more to face Jimin with a mirroring expression of ease. “Morning.”

“How’s your head treating you? ‘Cause you looked completely smashed last night. Didn’t even finish dessert,” Jimin finishes with a snort.

“Doesn’t feel all that bad now that I see how my misery is entertaining for you.”

That punches a chuckle out of Jimin. He relaxes into the mattress, gaze flitting between the ceiling and Taehyung’s face. What he says next is softer, slowed down by a slight frown that mars his features. “Ar-are you okay?”

“Hmm?” He decides to play pretend for now. Thinks Jimin will let him get away with it, at least for a little while. Jimin always lets him get away with a lot.

“I found you in the middle of the corridor. You would have been lying there all night had Jungkook not pestered me to dig out an extra blanket from the store room.”

“Thanks for not leaving me to sleep on the floor,” Taehyung finishes with a sigh, feigning nonchalance.

“Tae,” it’s a plea, as brief as one can be. A reminder that he’s there.

Their positions have interchanged now, Jimin on his side, gaze trained on Taehyung, while the latter remains fixedly drawn to the lazy whirr of the ceiling fan, the golden detailing of its rim molten into a halo with the circulations. 

“Chim.” 

“Talk to him,” Jimin presses on the last syllable. The weight he adds to that pronoun hits tenfold, very much like the person it refers to.

“I tri-”

“Flights are exhausting. He must have been too tired for a conversation that serious.”

Taehyung bites back a reply, not knowing what is too much to say, not knowing if he can say anything at all, the fear that what might perhaps be only in his head being spoken into existence surging greater than the need to confide in his best friend. 

He’s never really had to hide anything from Jimin who was almost always the first to know every update of his life. All those years ago, it was Jimin who first noticed his blooming crush on a freshman with a smile too bright for an 8 a.m. class and eyes with galaxies painted in them, even before he himself realised how he had started seeking those pair of eyes to share a laugh with after every joke their friends told, how they beckoned him in crowds getting tipsy under the shadows.

He can feel the corners of his eyes stinging, and he resents how easily he can cry at times for the most trivial of things. He’s scared that if he opens his mouth, it’s only gonna result in a pathetic sob. 

Jimin takes the silence as Taehyung’s will to cooperate. He resumes, “Let his circadian rhythm fall back into place, grab lunch and let things happen, naturally. That would give the two of you enough opportunities to sit and talk it out. Detangle the knots.”

Taehyung focuses on the slow rise and fall of his chest, trying to contain the storm that has been brewing inside of him for a while now. Jimin’s asking for the two of them to detangle the knots. He doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s past the kinks in the spiel of their story, that it’s now about not letting the winds tear off the roof over their heads. And that his grip is already failing, his hands clammy with sweat and grime that he’d been sweeping under the carpet for months now.

He dispels the quiet with another hum.

Breakfast is as uneventful as it can be for a group of twenty-something guys hungover on expensive vodka. Other than the rather anticlimactic single vacant chair that gapes at them through the entirety of it. Jimin drags his chair closer to Taehyung’s, scooping up scrambled eggs into his plate and spreading butter on the bread. Taehyung doesn’t want to be treated like a child who can’t even serve himself but is glad for Jimin’s nervous energy and the need to stay occupied around him that distracts him from his own mind for the time being. 

“Did he say why he was leaving?” Seokjin enquiries upon a mouthful of toast.

“Work,” Yoongi answers, attentively sipping at his mixed fruit juice.

“Our Jungkookie is working the hardest among us. It’s odd to still think of him as the baby of the group,” Namjoon looks pensive as he says.

“Did you forget how he was whining about us not wanting to watch Kimi No Na Wa for like the hundredth time just last night?” Jimin cocks an eyebrow for added effect. “He’ll always be our baby.”

That almost makes Taehyung smile. Almost. The ache of Jungkook’s absence is dulled by how he’s always present in their conversations, how he is well-loved, how there’s always a seat reserved for him, whether they’re staying in for a movie marathon or bar-hopping to recreate their college days, how there are seven tickets booked for every event, every new release, every concert any of them might exhibit interest in, how the dynamics of their friendship haven’t changed, not really. Not in ways that are as familiar to him as the back of his own hand. 

The empty chair stares at him though, mocking. Like the largely unanswered texts on his phone only occasionally interrupted by monosyllabic replies. The thread that was once littered with selfies, memes and dog pictures has come to a staggering emptiness in this past month. Taehyung suddenly finds too much space in his life, the monotony of his apartment, the refrigerator devoid of banana milk cartons, the top kitchen shelf cleared of its stock of spicy chicken ramen. It’s way more space than he thinks he can ever get used to, didn’t think he’d ever have to and it’s only left him feeling smaller than ever. And cold. It’s quite like finding himself back in the body of his early teenage self, lanky with limbs too awkward to figure out what to do with them, clothes never fitting quite right, the pockets of discomfort making him feel oddly small until he grew into them. He can never grow into this space though, he concludes.

“Taehyungie, pack up some kimchi jjigae I've left on the stove for that brat,” Jin’s voice breaks into his internal monologue. 

He pulls at the sleeves of his pullover, tugging them till they reach his knuckles.

“I will, hyung. He loves the way you make it.”

“And still didn’t bother to stay back to have it,” Jin speaks in a mock-sour tone.

“You know he takes his work very seriously,” quips Yoongi.

“A little too much. I think he got it from you,” Jimin grumbles while pouring himself a glass of milk.

“His diligence has often bordered on him overworking himself. He forgets to take a break. Tae,” Namjoon turns to him, “take one for him. Plan a vacation for yourselves. When was the last time you did it? Just the two of you?”

“They’ve long been over the honeymoon phase of their relationship, Joon. They’re content in their domesticity. Right Tae?” Hoseok’s question has the rest of them looking up from their plates.

And despite never being the one to shy away from attention, basking in it, in fact, when he gets it from his hyungs, Taehyung doesn’t think he can handle the pressure building in his chest, or the one clinging to his eyes. He hides behind the glass of juice he takes a slow sip from, the tanginess of which makes his nose scrunch. 

“He’s umm… We’ve just been too busy to do anything out of the way, hyung. I’ll talk to him about it though.”

He hopes the smile he gives doesn’t look as broken as he feels inside, hopes against hope that a talk is all they need to fix it, even though he doesn’t believe it will.

By the time Taehyung makes it home after an impromptu trip to the convenience store for a quick dinner, the sky is a purplish hue, sunlight paled into a flimsy cast of clouds whose soft glow is the only thing lighting the apartment just enough that he doesn’t stumble upon anything. 

Dropping the bags on the kitchen counter, he hastily moves to discard the extra warm layers on the couch when he notices a slit in the darkness emanating from the bedroom. Jungkook had wordlessly taken to eliminating his presence from the house, busying himself in the guest room in the hours he spent here. Unwrapping the scarf from around his neck, Taehyung lets his fingers rest on the door for a moment, listening for any sign of what to expect. When only silence greets him, he pushes it open and steps in with a careful, “Kookie?”

The figure clad in all grey, hunched over at the far end of the bed turns at the call of his name. “Tae?” Save for the powdered sparkle dotting his eyes, his face is washed of all expression, nothing for Taehyung to latch on to to guide him through the dreaded conversation that’s at least two weeks overdue. 

Taehyung’s mouth parts in an attempt to continue whatever it is that they have started, but Jungkook beats him to it with a firm, “Where were you?”

“With Jimin,” comes a harmless half-truth as he feels enervated of attempting to narrate the convoluted truth of how he’s been avoiding their confrontation in fear of the ends it might lead to. His nerves are acting up again, the ends and absences and spaces making their presence known with a maddening buzz that drains out nearly all other thoughts from his brain.

“Are we okay?” He isn’t sure if he’s even audible, hates the vulnerability that bleeds into his voice. Jungkook knows all of him, has seen him naked, cleaned him up when he was sick, held his hair back when he threw up after a stupid drinking game. But none of that had him vulnerable quite like this, the slow roll of each moment scathing. What changed?

Jungkook’s face is an impressive feat of calm and composed, when the entirety of Taehyung’s insides feel knotted hopelessly. 

“Come here,” he whispers as he gets up from where he was perched at the edge of the bed to stand at the side, a comfortable distance that he leaves between them as some kind of a peace offering, letting Taehyung decide if he wants to close it. 

Wringing the hem of his shirt irremediably, Taehyung takes a slow step and a half ahead, reaching a hand out to grip at Jungkook’s forearm, grounding himself with the touch.

“Tae,” the name is caught in a sigh that lingers for a few preternaturally long moments before he decides to continue, “We’re okay. All couples fight. It’s normal. I wish it hadn’t happened, but we can’t change that it did. What we can do is move beyond it, not let a fight break us.”

Even when pinned by Taehyung’s gaze, his expression doesn’t falter. The grating monotony of his voice verges on apathetic and Taehyung finds himself bursting at the seams. 

“That’s the thing Jungkook. It wasn’t just one fight. It wasn’t an isolated episode. There are things that led to it, things that might break us. We need to work on it.”

“You’re thinking too much. I love you, Tae. That hasn’t changed, won’t change. I don’t understand what’s gotten you acting like this.” 

“I-”

“Baby,” the words are almost breathed into his mouth, a warm palm gliding down to his waist, erasing the little distance he had left out for his rationality to not fling itself out the window with the barest of the other’s touches.

“Kookie, stop!” He pushes a firm palm to Jungkook’s chest and lets their foreheads rest against each other, the slight incline of his head adding an inch of a gap between their lips. “I love you too. But something has changed. You’re not the same. We’re not the same. We haven’t been, for quite some time now.”

“You’re talking in riddles. Why are you trying to complicate it? You’re too far in your head to even consider what anyone else is saying”

“We can’t just kiss and make up everytime. Grow up!” Maintaining the cadence of his voice is a Herculean task, one that Taehyung manages by fisting into the fabric of Jungkook’s sweatshirt, torn between pushing him away and dragging him closer to slam their mouths together. He misses the ease of it, how each of their actions towards the other came so naturally, almost without the buffer of thought or meditation.

“Oh so now you wanna play the hyung? Where was this energy last night when the only welcome you offered me was by being drunk off your ass spouting nonsense?” Jungkook jerks back to glare at him, letting his hand fall from where it clung to his clothes.

“I didn’t expect the first thing you’d try to do after fifteen days of radio silence is shove your tongue down my throat!”

“What’s so wrong about wanting to kiss my boyfriend?”

“You wouldn’t even look at me!” Taehyung thinks he’s crying at this point, though his cheeks feel dry. He sure feels like it, the pressure welling up his waterline to skew his vision. “And the first time I managed to get you alone for the night thinking maybe we could talk, you were pouncing on me like a horny teenager!”

“I had travelled for more than half a day. And we were drunk. Forgive me for not wanting to sit through a tedious conversation and instead seek physical affection from my boyfriend of four years!” Jungkook is nearly shouting by the end of it, words rushed in a pitch that is shakily high and so unfamiliar that Taehyung is left blinking for a few seconds, processing the sentences though it’s only the tailend of it that echoes in his mind. 

Four years. That’s how long they’ve been only each other’s. And falling for nearly five. But as Taehyung looks back at the random dates that he went to because he was too nice to upset anyone with an outright rejection only to spend most of them thinking how he would enjoy the time better with Jungkook by his side, he realises they’ve belonged to each other for all five. He still hasn’t figured out if it was the proverbial love at first sight. Everytime he looks at Jungkook, it becomes a tad bit harder to point to an exact moment he fell in love with the boy. 

It was like trying to dodge the rain, he concludes, trying to keep feelings at bay for a guy fresh out of school when he himself was stretched thin from the drudgery of college and was losing sight of what the point of a degree was. A guy who liked so many of the same things as him, who could beat him at Overwatch when none of his hyungs ever could, who could bribe him into joining the gym at least twice a week with the promise of jjapchae at a cozy little restaurant across the bus stop. 

Taehyung tried ducking the splatter of the rain drops with his head hung low as he quickened his pace. But did he even stand a chance when Jungkook was so generous to him with that incandescent smile of his that began with the crescents of his eyes and pushed the rest of the world around Taehyung into indecipherable rubble? 

And before he knew it, he was soaked, drenched in feelings that stood out stark like Jungkook’s muted monochromes against his own earthy tones. He can’t trace out the boundaries of ‘meeting Jungkook,’ ‘befriending Jungkook’ and ‘falling in love with Jungkook’ phases in the passage of time, has never really had a desire to. 

Knowing him was loving him. Falling for him was meeting him for the first time, breath whooshed out of his lungs like it did when he first peered into those adorably round eyes, when he first heard that airy chuckle dissolve into a fit of giggles over a dumb fight in the college cafeteria about flavoured milk.

“I can’t do this right now,” Taehyung shakes his head, stepping away. “Good night, Jungkook.”

But he’s frozen in place by a near scream, “You’re running away!”

“You’re running away!” The fear slices something white hot in Taehyung. 

“What? I’m leaving for work, Tae. Don’t be ridiculous.” He doesn’t look up from the suitcase laid open on the floor.

“There’s always an excuse. Isn’t there?”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say. I have a flight to catch in less than four hours.”

Taehyung approaches the cupboard to pull out a few shirts that he knows Jungkook always forgets to pack in favour of more t-shirts. “I expect you to not make me look as if i’ve lost my mind or something when it’s clear you’ve bailed on me in the last couple of months more times than I can count. Or am I just not worth talking to?” 

At that, Jungkook looks up, taking the shirts from his hands. His fingers drag purposefully slowly over Taehyung’s wrist and the both of them can only wonder when they started needing excuses and pretenses to touch each other. “You know that’s not true, Tae.”

What isn’t? Taehyung wants to ask. That his desperation hunkers on depravity these days? That he isn’t worth it? Both? Neither? He’s brimming with questions, always has been more of the curious kind. But he’s never been this terrified of the answers. 

Not since that one time he cried watching a shooting star with a squeaky “Why do they have to leave their family and fall to make our wishes come true?” At which his mother had gently patted his cheeks and told him they weren’t stars at all, just wandering pieces of rock set on fire. 

He thinks that was his first brush with betrayal, at a mere six years of age. Rocks that pretended to be stars. But it didn’t sting that much because he hadn’t held them in his palm, hadn’t familiarised himself with every crevice, every bump. Those were things far away from him, bigger than him, giant streaks against the expanding canvas of the universe. 

It made him sad for a few days, unable to ever look at the sky the same way, wondering what other deceptions they held behind the pulsing light show. But it didn’t stick. Unlike the betrayal of his heart handed back to him which he had gifted another with the promise of a forever. Maybe forever can only last so long. 

“I want you back.” Taehyung doesn’t try to pretend he has control over what comes out of his mouth. It’s embarrassing. But he’s desperate.

“I’m right here,” Jungkook reassures without missing a beat but doesn’t stop squeezing in the pile of clothes into the suitcase.

“But you’re not,” Taehyung’s smile is still the most gorgeous, the kind that lights up the whole room, Jungkook thinks, even when it’s overcome with the shadow of heartbreak. 

The two of them learn that heartbreak isn’t a landslide ripping the ground in violent screams. It’s the stillness that eats away at years of ease and familiarity like dust mites.

“I’m tired, Jungkook.”

“Well you’re not the only on-” The tremors of Jungkook’s phone vibrating where it is kept over his laptop have him rushing to pick it up, not bothering to finish the sentence. He does appear vaguely apologetic when he mumbles a quick, “Sorry, I gotta take this,” before pressing the device to his ear.

“Please do. Dinner won’t cook itself,” Taehyung finds himself replying needlessly to his back before slipping out of the room to put his mediocre cooking skills to use. He’s trying to get better though. And Jin hyung has been quite helpful guiding him through evading prospective disasters even though he frequently asks why Jungkook isn’t the one Taehyung sought for his foray into the culinary domain only to answer it himself with a “Well, i’m glad you came to me, Taehyungie. Kook could never teach you as well as I can.” 

This is yet another thing Taehyung has been unable to wrap his head around- the overwhelming number of times he’s found himself in the kitchen alone of late scrambling through a whole meal. Jungkook’s the cook between the two of them and he’s always been so insistent on keeping Taehyung well-fed that the boy never learnt to make anything beyond basic survival food and coffee that he doesn’t even like. They’ve had more lunch dates and dinners followed by movie marathons than Taehyung can count which Jungkook was cutely determined to prepare all by himself, only ever letting the former assist with chopping vegetables and keeping a steady supply of kisses and back hugs. 

Maybe he’s being a little dramatic. But he’s gotten so used to it always being Taehyung and Jungkook. Jungkook and Taehyung. The two of them working as a team through the most mundane of chores. Is he dangerously dependent on Jungkook? It might look like it. But Taehyung is a people person. And Jungkook had shown him a permanence that kept him sane against the current of people moving in and out of his life. It was only logical that he clung to it with all his might.

*****

The walls are washed by a steady pulse of light that beats to the music, shifting from a crimson red to an emerald blue in an endless cycle. The specks of green in Jungkook’s hair shine something golden from where Taehyung is watching him dance with Seokjin. The billowing sleeves of his shirt follow the movement of his body, stretching out over his biceps as he squeezes his eyes shut and throws his head back.

He’s dancing nothing like he did when he was a member of the dance crew in college. But Taehyung can clearly make out the practiced ease of the swing of his hips, the expert way his shoulders move in time with the beats even though Taehyung has tuned out of his surroundings. He can always tell, has confidence in the way Jungkook embodies the music he dances to, a distinct memory from the first time he tried to teach Taehyung some moves from a routine for his competition already surfacing. He had made a ritual out of saying, “Look at me, just me,” to Taehyung before each performance as if Taehyung wasn’t already hypnotised by the communion every part of his body engaged in with the sound that filtered through the speakers.

It’s kind of funny how he became a bystander to the life of his lover, his boyfriend, his best friend, and not a participant. 

Taehyung’s beer is on the wrong side of tepid, and he lets a swig of it sit in his mouth for a few moments in some kind of pathetic attempt at distracting himself with shitty alcohol. Jimin presses into his side, throwing a hand over his thigh while the other has a precarious grip around a flute nearly empty of the pink liquid it holds. 

“How are things?” Jimin asks in an unusually higher pitch, even if his words are a little slurred.

“Better. Okay…” he spits out through a harsh exhale and deciding that Jimin deserves a more truthful answer, adds, “almost okay.”

Shuffling over Jungkook’s shoulders are a pair of hands that are not Seokjin’s. His eyes are still closed, a hint of a smile pulling at his lips a clear sign that he’s already buzzed. Taehyung hadn’t kept track  of how much he drank, couldn’t bring himself to look at him as freely without feeling a tug in his chest that made him slightly nauseous. This unexplored territory they’re treading often makes Taehyung feel like a conman in his own body, like he’s intruding in his own life.

The music is an almost grating bass, and Jimin speaks over it, stage-whispers a consolation in his ear, “You guys will be okay. You always have been,” punctuating it with a loose smile.

Taehyung peers at his friend at that, watching for signs that Jimin believes what he says. But that’s what friends do. Believe in each other. Believe for each other. Against all odds. This little family they’ve made has always been good at it. They’ve held on to each other to form the walls of their home away from home. Even as Namjoon and Yoongi moved to Seoul to start their own studio. Even as Hoseok began spending more time in hotel rooms than his house. But suddenly the two youngest of the group, despite living together, are lost, drifting. And the crack in the wall is a gaping chasm. 

And Taehyung is oh so desperately trying to cover them up with his hands. He’s often told that he has big, reliable-looking hands. Hands that feel safe. That one can fall back on. Jungkook loves them. 

But they are suddenly too small to patch up the ugliness that is ripping apart what took years to build. And Jungkook loved them. He would seek them out randomly and without reason, let their fingers collide sans the heat of intention. He’d cradle Taehyung’s palms in his own slightly smaller ones and rub patterns on it that felt a lot like a silent litany of Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung . A lot like love .

Without Jungkook’s hands around his own, Taehyung can’t find it in himself to believe that the two of them will be okay.

But they’ve prided themselves in being more than okay. That was the thing about Jungkook what always had him gravitating towards him, right from day one. How he always made him feel all these things that were so much more than just okay, how every moment next to him shone brighter in recollection.

The stranger pushing up against Jungkook is growing persistent in efforts to glide their bodies together, movements discordant with the beats hammering the dance floor. Taehyung can tell, however, that Jungkook has still not caught on to the insistent way the body behind him moves differently than the others surrounding him. He’s definitely more than buzzed.

And before Taehyung can substantiate his actions with careful logic, he’s making his way to the scene he hasn’t been able to ignore, knows he won’t be able to, to wrap his arms around Jungkook’s waist, guiding him closer to himself and away from the stranger- a girl with wild blonde hair who scurries away into the shadows.

He holds his breath, half expecting Jungkook to turn his back to him and slip away. His eyes, however, flutter open, hands pulling up to hang loosely around Taehyung’s neck and his face lights up with the most magnificent of his grins, the one that makes his upper lip almost disappear, putting his front teeth on display and highlighting the rosy sheen of his full lower lip, squishing his nose in an impossibly adorable scrunch, sparkling eyes flattening into crescents. The one Taehyung can’t remember when he saw the last time but can easily recall how that was easily the first thing about Jungkook he fell in love with.

“You have a bunny smile.” Taehyung yells over the music through a smile of his own.

“Is that a good thing, hyung?” Jungkook cocks his head to the side with the question. 

“It’s an amazing thing.” 

They’re both a little tired and a lot sweaty from dancing but don’t have it in themselves to stop. There’s something exhilarating about not needing an excuse to be pressed this close to each other, almost sharing breaths, steadying each other with curious hands through the push and pull of the bodies around them. The allure of letting their desires flare naked under the cascading blues and curdling reds has goosebumps erupting on both their skins.

“I didn’t know clubbing was your scene,” Taehyung says only so that he doesn’t do something stupid like press his mouth against the other’s like he really wants to. He doesn’t know if that is accepted behaviour for hanging out together for the first time outside their college routines.

“It isn’t,” Jungkook purses his lips like he’s forcing himself into a pause. But then the music shifts into a barely-there beat over which a husky voice floats smoothly and he resumes, “I just wanted to be with you.”

The sudden bout of boldness is succeeded by an instant reddening of ears and that’s all Taehyung can notice because Jungkook already has his chin tucked into his shoulder to hide away his embarrassment. But Taehyung is greedy. And maybe a little bit in love. Or getting there, at least. And he wants to see the colour staining this shy boy’s cheeks following the little confession. So he takes a step back, forcing Jungkook to straighten up with a low whine.

“I wanted to be with you too.”

It’s a shame that Taehyung can’t quite make out the flush he knows Jungkook is donning because the dance floor is a little too packed and the swaths of light are mere phantoms grazing the top of their heads. But the disappointment is quickly swallowed by the fluttering of his heart when Jungkook’s hand slides down to his waist, fisting the back of his shirt to ground them both through the head rush.

The violence in his sternum is a jackhammering orchestra of emotions that are strangely reminiscent of the first time he had found himself in a club with Jungkook. Nerves, hesitation, affection. Like he’s sixteen again. With a crush. The ugly parts of it included too. Like the fear that has never tainted the relationships of his younger self. Like the annoyance curling in him at finding himself in this situation he can’t quite get out of, doesn’t know if he really wants to. Maybe having Jungkook surround him, engulf his senses, igniting starfire on his skin is worth the cloudburst inside of him.

“Hyungie,” the term hangs sugar-coated between them, a tender tether in the small space that separates the two. 

It’s bad enough knowing Jungkook wouldn’t be this way were he not drunk. What’s worse is Taehyung’s inability to walk away despite the knowledge. It’s a bad decision. But Jungkook’s smile, the way he glows, the innocent way he laughs even if his sweaty bangs and the light grind of his hips are painting an entirely different picture, his nimble fingers, his honey-laced voice make him want to stay, stay, stay. And maybe Jungkook is worth a bad decision. Or hundred.

Jungkook is still beaming, face full of enamoured glee that Taehyung has missed so much it hurts like a deliberate press on a knife wound. And Taehyung is greedy. 

So he presses closer and lets himself bleed. “Yes baby?”

“Dance with me, hyung.”

When he sees Taehyung unmoving despite the request, he decides to up his ante with a pout. “Why won’t you?” His petulance is ill-concealed.

And oh no, Taehyung’s heart can’t take that, absolutely not. So he lets his limbs loose as a new, slower song fills the place for Jungkook to guide them in a sloppy rhythm, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of fingers carding through his hair. He’s startled into blinking them open when he feels another set of fingers pressing into his forehead, rubbing at the space between his eyebrows. Jungkook does that, believing his eyebrows to be overly emotive with a mind of their own, so when he thinks they pull up in an intimidating frown, he gets to straightening out the wrinkles, physically if need be because, “Taehyungie, as hot as you look like that, pissed isn’t how I wanna see you.” 

But he hasn’t done that in a long while, barely looking at Taehyung long enough to gather what expression his face is cast in. This unadulterated attention, then, unnerves him like nothing else and he finds it excruciating to be that Taehyung to this Jungkook. 

He wonders if Jungkook has caught on to his deception, if he’ll call him out on his lie right here, right now. If the rest of the crowd here, an aggregate of different levels of inebriated for different reasons, will care about an imposter among lovers in the night. Or if there are other imposters like him, pretending to be the protagonists of their own love story that lasts a few hours of darkness and leaves you with a stranger’s taste you’re washing away with bitter coffee come morning like a sucker punch of reality. He wonders what the price of getting away with this ruse might be. 

Jungkook’s sweet, sweet voice grounds him to the present moment, the touch on his forehead a relief from the festering heat of an overcrowded club but burning with its own kind of flame. 

“Are you upset?” Jungkook eventually asks, sporting a frown and wrinkled eyebrows of his own and it isn’t difficult to hear the ‘ with me’ that he’s decided to forgo. The question comes from a place of insecurity, voice uncharacteristically small that Taehyung can only hear because of the dip in the music.

Feeling hypnotized by the words that you said

Don't lie to me, just get in my head.

Taehyung tightens his hold around him in place of answers he can’t give. But Jungkook is inclined to be especially cruel tonight as he mumbles, “You look so good, hyung.”

“How drunk are you?” Taehyung asks, shuddering.

“Not enough,” Jungkook shuffles closer, doing that thing he always does to fit into the arms of any one of his hyungs, shrinking himself to occupy the space he’s carved out for himself.

When the morning comes, you're still in my bed

But it's so, so cold.

Jungkook drapes himself over Taehyung and the contact sizzles till it leaves the latter numb. “I’ve missed you. I’m sorry,” his words are mushy, piling on top of one another, “I miss you.”

The last of them are breathed into the crook of his neck and Taehyung is so done with self-restraint, with trying to turn off the tap when the sink is already overflowing, with squeezing himself into just one measly, mortal body when he’s been the type to run and spill over, it is a physical ache at this point to continue to stack up bricks on this dam he’s been building.

He presses a lingering kiss to Jungkook’s temple. His face feels flappy, quivering like it isn’t solid flesh and bones, like it could ripple with a single touch. Like his skin could melt off with the intensity of everything he feels for this person he’s got an armful of. It’s his Jungkook face. And he knows Jimin knows this when he and Seokjin come up behind Jungkook to suggest, “Take him home, Taetae. He seems tired.”

Taehyung loves loud and fierce. Lightning splitting the sky. But he’s learning to tame it as he exchanges smiles with the guys for hasty goodbyes and drags Jungkook home, or what’s left of it.

Once he has the boy in bed, jacket and shoes discarded, he allows himself a little reprieve of confession. “I miss you too.”

Just those four words have something hot gushing his waterline, and he turns to make a quick retreat when Jungkook secures a tight grip around his wrist, tighter than he should be capable of in his far from lucid state. “Please” is all he needs to whisper for Taehyung to be blinking back tears that have now come out in earnest and even though he has his back facing Jungkook, the shaking of his shoulders isn’t something the lights turned off can mask.

Taehyung turns, one knee on the bed, quite beyond caring what a mess he probably looks like. Fighting the tendrils of slumber, the figure on the bed shifts away to make space, the clasp on his wrist still unrelenting. Taehyung lets himself be pulled under the blanket, too tired to make a decision that won’t guarantee heartache accompanying the hangover the following morning. And he’s just really, really missed having the love of his life so close, the warmth of their bodies mingling, lined together. 

“You’re so beautiful, Tae. Red is still your colour.”

Taehyung half wishes he’d stop talking but the statement still has a glitter of a smile smearing his face. “You say it like I've already gotten old and wrinkly.”

“You’d still be beautiful. Even then,” the words are swallowed by a yawn, “old and wrinkly.”

Taehyung turns just in time to see Jungkook covering his nose with a fist. Some things never change. He lets the familiarity of it warm him further, suppressing a chuckle by only allowing his smile to stretch wider, till his cheeks hurt. “Sleep, Kook.”

But the other only undoes his fist to poke the swell of Taehyung’s cheek, tracing down the slope to the divot at the corner of his lips and then across. Jungkook touches Taehyung like he’s made of glass and the latter still feels he could disintegrate any moment under the weight of that feathery caress. Time stands still with bated breath as Jungkook tests the give of his lower lip with the pad of his pointer finger, slow and methodical, which he then replaces with a quick, chaste press of his lips. 

Tear drops cling to his lashes when Jungkook asks, “Can I hold you?” 

Taehyung looks down at the blanket covering them, the touch around his wrist loose but still very much there. “You already are.”

Soundlessly, Jungkook shuffles closer to sling an arm around him, burrowing his head in the space above his shoulder and Taehyung finally lets out a brief laugh he’d been keeping in, part masochistic, part content in an embrace of nostalgia. “G’night, Kook.”

Silence falls over him like a blanket in response.

*****

The Sunday morning sun traipses around just as silently when Taehyung rises, bed already cold. Disappointment trickles in, albeit sluggish with routine. He calculates how many shots his coffee would require to get rid of the tingling that nags at his lips just underneath the saltiness. The liberal dose gets him through his trip to the library, so he puts up with the bitterness.

Taehyung rarely spares their mailbox a glance but the thick package that sits in brown popping out of it is hard to miss. He unlocks the door and keeps it ajar with one foot, shifting his bag and books in one hand to grab the mail in the other. Inside, he places it on the coffee table, a Barcelona address in neat print making it evident it’s for Jungkook. 

It’s when he’s sitting at the same table replying to a mail from the department head about an upcoming convention when the door swings open and Jungkook does what he hasn’t done in months, makes way straight towards Taehyung. Startled, he looks up from his laptop. But Jungkook’s eyes aren’t on him. He’s grabbing the package with unexplained haste, his face pulled in all hard lines as he inspects the envelope.

“Can you not touch my stuff?”

“What?”

“My stuff. Don’t touch it!” Jungkook’s voice is a solid force that has Taehyung reeling, dropping back on his haunches with a thump.

“I- Jungkook, it was in the mailbox and it looked heavy and important so I-”

But Jungkook is already moving away. And he still hasn’t spared a glance at Taehyung, even as he continues his unwarranted verbal assault. “I need space, Taehyung. Ugh, this is so annoying,” he’s twisting the handle of the guest room door, movements cyclonic like it’s in their nature to mark their paths with wreckage. The last thing Taehyung catches on before the door slams closed behind Jungkook is, “We should take a break.”

Deliberate, the words plunge and twist, not stopping even as Taehyung writhes, a hand to his heart, gut lurching at the sound of the crash, the spray of rain that tears through the roof merciless in its whipping. 

Break. Break, break, break. Break is the sound of the storm stepping past the threshold. Break is the silence of the auditorium as the stars realign to drop the curtain on their romance.

A little past midnight, Taehyung is downing his third cup of tea, legs cramped from sitting in the same place for hours while his mind grows restless, powered by caffeine. He doesn’t know which thread of thought he’s latched on to when he gets up and heads to the guest room. With the way Jungkook has his legs bent and blanket bunched up around his thighs, it’s a safe guess that he’s been asleep for quite a while now. So Taehyung pushes past the door and sits on the bed, taking in the face now at ease, hardness shed under the soft glow of the night lamp. 

He’s still angry, confused at the outburst from earlier but more than that, in the moment, he realizes how much he misses the other’s softness, the radiance of youth that moulds Jungkook in tenderness in spite of the breadth of muscle. 

Jungkook had mentioned a break. The word, despite the bang that accompanied it, had lodged itself loud and clear inside Taehyung. What break did Jungkook want them to take when he can already feel the two of them breaking, crumbling around the sandcastle braving the waves?

He moves to turn off the lamp when he sees a brochure-like booklet, all stiff, glossy pages, opened beside it. Peeking out from under it is the same envelope, alighting a sudden curiosity in him about the contents of the package that had made Jungkook uncharacteristically volatile. He picks up the booklet, revealing a couple of loose pages folded underneath. He unfolds them to read an appointment letter that has the ground disappearing from below his feet. The print, bold as it is, meshes into an incomprehensible blot.

Appointment letters usually call for a celebration, a string of congratulations and smiles and hugs and pats on the back. Then why is this one swallowing Taehyung like there will only be shreds of him left for Jungkook to find come morning?

The ink of Jungkook’s signature is just the tiniest bit smudged at the end, the paper there a slightly different texture, like a mound on earth swollen with secrets. Taehyung thinks back to when Jungkook got his present job, how he’d come home squealing, not even bothering to take his shoes off before picking Taehyung up, spinning him around and delivering the news in between kisses. 

He doesn’t even realise how he’s trembling with sobs until soft, soft hands cradle his face to pull it down on a firm shoulder, a voice that seems to be coming from above the water chanting his name. His hands are emptied, body turned to face something, or someone, he can’t quite tell. And he lets himself go at the mercy of those strings pulling him around as he tries to focus on his breathing and the voice that persists. 

“Tae, breathe. Taehyung, please, please. Just breathe, Tae.”

He follows the call till his vision clears. And there’s Jungkook, his own eyes red-rimmed and murky, keeping together all of the frayed pieces that is Taehyung in between his palms.

“You were really gonna go without telling me? Leave the country?”

“No, Tae, I just… I didn’t know how to brooch the subject.” He takes in a breath, hands falling down to Taehyung’s shoulders as he explains, “This city, the people, this house, they’ve always been more yours than mine. You were born here and you’ve lived here all your life and I came in like the weed in the garden that didn’t really have a place there. I don’t belong here, Tae.”

Taehyung extracts himself from the other’s grasp to stand, even though he feels his knees almost giving out. He wants to run away, pretend like none of this is happening, like he can still wake up from this bad dream. But his mouth seems to be working on a one-track mind of its own. “And the last five years? What were they?”

“You can’t doubt my love for you, Tae. I love you, you know that.”

“Do I? You say you don’t belong here but what about me? I belong to you. I thought we belonged together. Or was I an idiot all these years? Was it just a fucking Taylor Swift music video and now that the song is over it’s ‘wrap up’ and we’re just two people who were coworkers for a little while?” The words bubble out, gushing, a torrent Taehyung has no mind to build barriers against. Not when Jungkook has been ramming in with wretched abandon.

Jungkook squeezes his eyes shut like hearing this physically pains him. “I thought that… that if I start ignoring you and we just naturally drift away it’ll hurt less and you’ll be able to move on.”

Taehyung chortles, “Do you even hear yourself, Jungkook?” There are too many things wrong with what the man has just said but he decides to stick to the end of it. “That’s what you want? For me to move on?”

“I don’t know. But it won’t be fair of me to make any demands of you.” There is barely any strength in Jungkook’s words, his eyes glassy with the knowledge of defeat. 

“What part of these past few months has exactly been fair, huh? You’re right though. It isn’t your place to make demands anymore.”

“I’m sorry for how i’ve been acting. You’ve made yourself a life here. And I’m so glad I got to be a part of it but,” he stops like he’s ashamed, “I need more. And I couldn't have just asked you to wait.” 

And maybe Jungkook is greedy too.

“Oh Jungkook, but you could have.”

“I’m sorry.”

But Taehyung isn’t listening anymore. “But you did ask for a break this evening. I’ll do you one better, Kook. let’s break up. You made a decision for the both of us when you had no right to do it alone. So now I'm making one too.” He thinks he might cry again but he can’t keep the knife in, not anymore, as much as it hurts to bleed out on the floor.

Jungkook rubs at his nose, crimson from sniffling. Despite looking like a brittle snowflake, he musters radiating conviction when he insists, “I love you, Tae.” 

And as much as Taehyung has been doubting that recently, he believes him then. He believes the Jungkook he has known for years, who wouldn’t lie to him about this, who had loved him like it was the easiest thing to do. The anger seeps out of him to be replaced, once again, with the warmth of familiarity, the comfort of knowing that his lover isn’t a stranger, just a nomad dreamer. 

Jungkook’s light isn’t a bulb that sits snugly in the palm of one’s hand, but a flitting, bursting, sloshing kind, the kind that drew Taehyung to him like a beacon past the hundreds of freshers on campus all those years back, the kind that burns white hot now.

“I love you too, baby,” Taehyung responds, retracing his brief path back to the bed, to Jungkook, their knees touching so that Jungkook knows he’s there even as he shrinks in himself as if that’ll quiet his whimpers.

“I’m sorry it’s not enough.”

“I’m sorry-” Taehyung breaks off, pushes back the words. I’m sorry I'm this hurt when you’re only trying to live your dream. I’m sorry I couldn't secure a place for myself in your future.

He thumbs at a rivulet running down Jungkook’s cheek, suddenly hating nothing more than seeing him like this, scattered like he can’t gather himself back up, even if he’s shards of mirror Taehyung keeps cutting himself on. Jungkook curls his fingers, tentative, into his shirt, as if Taehyung would ever deny him of that. He locks him into an embrace, the firmness of which he doesn’t know who needs much. 

They sit like that, wrapped around each other, for what feels like hours, till they’re out of tears. Taehyung, worn out from the heaviness that curdles till it’s suffocating, is also out of fucks to give as he moves to bring them to lie down, ignoring the screams of ‘bad decision’ in some slightly more alert part of his brain. Jungkook makes an incoherent sound like he might protest but hastens to entangle their legs once they’re under the sheets. It’s timid, a compromise their exerted minds make with their accustomed bodies. 

Sleep comes blissfully soon when they lay huddled together and the last offshoot of the clusterfuck that plants itself in Taehyung’s head is a mosaic of old memories and the night’s revelation. A song that Jungkook used to sing often when they were still in college. About being scared. About losing. About a butterfly. Jungkook would serenade him with it, lull him to sleep with it, hum it when they’d go for walks. As if Taehyung was so so beautiful and vibrant in colour, like a butterfly. The melody comes wafting back, even if the lyrics evade him, ephemeral. And Taehyung knows. It’s Jungkook. He’s the butterfly of the two. Wings dainty but iridescent. 

*****

The thing about building a home with someone is, you share everything, from underwear to dreams. So when that person takes up a solo dream, it leaves a hole in the wall, letting the beatings of the seasons in. That hole is not for mending, it sits yawning, a shameless sting of hope that hangs you by the hook. 

The corner of the library Taehyung whiles his time away in is warmer than usual, the mid-year heat dueling with the air conditioning till it seeps on the notebook he’s scribbling in (or was) in faint patches. The storm peeps in from over his shoulder like an ever-inquisitive benchmate. 

He checks his phone (again) to see the minutes crawl brutally slow, scrawls through the messages, a finger hovering over the contact name in indecision. Sometimes, you need a person to hold the other end of the thread to smoothen out the kinks. He gets up, dials and presses the phone to his ear, pushing himself up against an adjacent window. It’s a minute of a limbo, ductile and tense when doubt comes roaring in, courage retreating but just before it completely fizzles out, the airlessness lifts.

“Yoongi hyung?”

“Miss me already?”

“Don’t get cocky,” Taehyung smiles, resting his head on the cool glass of the window pane, a sharp relief compared to the device quickly getting hot and clammy in his hand. “Am I disturbing you?’

“I’d have already told you if you were,” Yoongi enunciates, short on patience and sleep like he often gets in the afternoons. “What’s the matter?”

Taehyung has been rephrasing the sentences, rehearsing the conversation for the better part of an hour now, which sounds silly now that it’s just Yoongi, sleep-deprived but attentive Yoongi. He squeezes his eyes shut and marches on with the questions. “Did you find Daegu suffocating? Like… as if the comfort of your home was stagnating? Like you needed to escape? Make a run for it? Because nothing would ever grow here?”

Probably caught off-guard with the suddenness of it, Yoongi sighs. Movement echoes over the line like he’s making himself comfortable and stalling to find the right words. “I had a dream Taehyungah. And I did what I needed to for it to become my reality. I’m not saying I wasn't happy back home. I was still making music there, even if it was just mostly for myself. But realizing that I could share my dream with others, that it could expand, that my dream could help other people on their way to achieving theirs, I just took that chance.”

“I don’t have a dream hyung. At least not one like that.” This time, he surprises himself with the sentiment, not quite knowing where it tumbled from.

“And that’s okay,” Yoongi’s voice is the salty beach breeze.

“I feel like a rock on the river bed gathering moss while the water rushes past me.”

The response he gets is suddenly more alert, words slow and careful, “Where are you, Taehyung?”

“The library.”

Yoongi tsks. “Using your phone in the library?”

“Perks of being faculty, hyung.” He hears a snort.

“And what brought on this pensive mood? Not enough books to keep you occupied?”

Taehyung fumbles. He didn’t think this through, didn’t think he won’t be the only one asking questions. “I-”

But the short pause makes Yoongi interrupt, “You don’t have to tell me. Not now.” When the silence lingers, he continues, “Talk to me. Or someone. Anyone. How long have you been feeling like this?”

“Not long, I think. It feels like the world is moving too fast, and too far away.” He doesn’t know how much sense he makes, if it’s even fair to be unloading like this on someone without context.

“I feel that too sometimes.” But it’s Yoongi. Yoongi who’ll always be a piece of home, safe and warm, no matter how far. Yoongi who’s patient and kind and giving without the need for too many words. 

He inhales, steadier and confesses, “I don’t wanna be left behind.”

“And you won’t Taehyung. You always make a place for yourself, wherever you go, whoever you’re with. Have a little more faith in yourself.”

“I’ll try,” he hopes Yoongi can hear the resolve in his tone.

“Hyung loves you.” Just like that, the candle is relit, flame shy but steady, braving the storm. 

“Thank you, hyung.”

Habit. It takes 21 days to form or break a habit. Some say it averages around 66. Taehyung didn’t keep track of how long it took him to make a habit out of Jungkook, how many days till searching for those doe eyes became instinct. But now he has a chance to see how long it takes him to break it. 

Under the shower head, door closed on Jungkook shuffling through his cupboard, it almost feels like there is no storm. No tears. No tremors. It’s only the ever-present phantom of Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook in the steam that mists the glass from his bath minutes before Taehyung decided to take one too. He turns the water colder than usual, letting the bruising pitter-patter drown out the noise of change, of abandon that sneaks in from the bedroom. The ripples on his skin aren’t Jungkook’s fingers easing the tension out but his stale presence that comes alive, fluttering, in the tiny space.

Taehyung’s hand darts for the body wash that he doles out and scrubs himself red like if he does it hard enough, the memories will be washed away too. But the plum and cedar wood scent that cocoons him is electrocuting, sending his synapses into a frenzy. He looks down and sure enough- it’s the purple pink bottle that belongs to Jungkook. The mingling of woody and fruity notes, to Taehyung, was so inherently Jungkook he bought him two bottles last Christmas. 

Now, standing under the cold spray, he helplessly tries to reduce to just another smell what he’s come to recognize as comfort, safety and love. They say nothing stirs up the memory of a loved one as powerfully as their scent. Taehyung can only hope his olfactory senses haven’t learned love quite like he has.

He steps out to see Jungkook having made his way to the bottom shelf, sitting on the floor. He’s about to head out when he remembers that the shelf doesn’t just contain Jungkook’s least used things. He rushes to where Jungkook is hunched over. The other, noting his presence, looks up, a velvet box that doesn’t belong to him opened in his hand.

“Tae-Taehyung? What is this?” It’s a miracle Taehyung can even hear him, voice chipped like broken porcelain, over the blood galumphing in his ears.

“Exactly what you’re thinking it is.”

Heartbreak, it seems, is also bits and pieces of you left in another’s custody when the other doesn’t want to have anything to do with them.

“For me?”

“For the person who said he’d give me a forever.” He bends down to retrieve the box, pocketing it hastily like it would explode right there. “You’re not that person anymore, Kook.”

Outside, the wind picks up speed, rustling the maroon curtains shadowing the window like flighty wisps. Taehyung traipses towards them, feeling the gauzy texture between his fingers, thumbing the slender filigree at the bottom, glowing something pearlescent under the moonlight. The colour flits between red and purple and burgundy in the light-dark of the night. It’s so you . Jungkook’s voice rings in his head, loud and clear from a bright summer afternoon. 

“These curtains, Kook,” Taehyung plasters both his hands on the window sill, “please pack them up too. And that coffee mug, your Stitch pillow, the-”

The moon is a pot of silver Taehyung could dip his fingers in and paint the stars that have shied away. Through a stuttered breath, he faces Jungkook, still sitting at the same spot with his hands in his lap. “I don’t want you in pieces that i’ll spend months-” the stars are blinding, but he pushes through, “years sweeping up. Take all of you when you leave, please.”

It’s an unfair demand, he reckons. But he needs it. 

Taehyung has known Daegu for 24 years, acquainted with the streets like he is with the veins that stretch through the length of his forearms. When Jeon Jungkook barrelled into his life five years ago, starry eyes and a saccharine mouth, he offered to show him around, dive with him into the flashy nightlife, share with him his favourite 24/7 diners, feed squirrels and ducks late in the evening when the parks were emptied out of school kids and the health-conscious.

That was the plan. But you see, what happens when you put your heart in the palm of someone soft and sunny and incandescent like Jungkook, it’s a second chance at novelty. So Taehyung rediscovered Daegu running through back alleys to kiss your favourite boy in, over tteokbokki and greasy burgers that gave way to conversations and a love story in the making, at the thawing of dusk that would douse his companion in the prettiest of pinks and oranges. Daegu was beautiful, it was home. But Jungkook was the most beautiful in it.

 And now, once again, he bemuses, Daegu is rendered fresh for drinking your heartache in, ordering pizza and not finishing it because he can never eat the whole of it alone, lying on the bench near the pond waiting for sleep that won’t come. And this will hurt enough, Taehyung doesn’t need the shards littering his apartment, lurking for him to stumble upon and bleed.

The stars have bid au revoir as Taehyung’s vision is full of stormy climes and Jungkook’s feet are touching his, static in the air cut into ribbons with apologies that change nothing. They never do. But Jungkook is nothing if not persistent, so he backs Taehyung to the wall, hands to his cheeks and on offence, “You want to be rid of me that bad?”

The crackle is deafening but Taehyung speaks over it, “You decided to move to the other side of the world to live a dream I have no place in. But I won't let you drag my heart all the way there. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Is that all we’re gonna turn into? Useless apologies?” Jungkook spits out.

Taehyung grabs at the little box through the fabric of his sweats. This was never the plan. How much can they salvage out of the scrimmage they've let their love dissolve into? Jungkook is a butterfly, yes, and it’d be a sin to try to cage him in his palms when he’s got the most beautiful wings Taehyung’s ever had the privilege of seeing.

“I’m happy for you, Kook. I know I don’t look like it,” he chuckles, though it echoes more like a sob, “but I’ve always known you were meant for great things. This city was never big enough to hold you, I get that.”

“But you’re hurt.”

“I’m hurt now, but I’ll be fine.”

“Promise me?” His hold tightens.

Taehyung nods, places his hands over Jungkook’s in urgency. “Y-you too. None of the hyungs will be there to watch over you. You better take care of yourself, Kook, or I- I’m gonna-”

Jungkook taps a thumb on his lips, shutting him up. “Please let me have this,” he implores, gaze searching Taehyung’s for permission. Leaning in, with their noses bumping, he confirms, either to push back the inevitable or prolong the moment caught in between their heated bodies like a blooming firefly in a jar, “Can I?”

“You can, lover.” and Taehyung resigns himself to the fact that this is the last time he’ll refer to Jungkook as this. His lover. He fortifies it with vocalization, and lets Jungkook kiss him silly, licks into the mouth he’s memorized so well yet fears forgetting just the day after. And when the firm wetness gives way to teeth, his fingers latch onto Jungkook’s tighter, who, in turn, digs them into his jaw harder, both adamant to take a piece of each other for keepsake, to leave indents that will burn harsher, faster. 

Breathing comes as an afterthought, their lips separating merely to glide over each other. Jungkook pecks at the tip of his nose, his hands slipping down around Taehyung’s neck, pushing him further against the wall till its grainy texture rubs at Taehyung’s back, tethering him to the reality of the moment, the kiss goodbye. He pulls, a fist in Jungkook’s hair and a mean tug at his lip, drawing out a hollow sound from the boy who hurtles headfirst into little finesse. 

They fall, further and away and into bed. Taehyung lifts his head from where it’s pressed to the pillow, letting free all of his noises, a letting go that diverges from the path to hate. With Jungkook’s hand punishing around him, he burrows in his claim on the other’s skin and they fall, together, farther, walloping. Mottled red and purple in parts, they sink into each other deeper, an orison of hope for when they resurface on the other side. They fall, closer like magnets and then ripping apart before what they have festers into a wound that demands the sacrifice of a limb.

*****

In the morning that follows Jungkook’s departure, as Taehyung walks into the emptiness that bounces off the walls and sits slouched at the corners, he can almost pretend it’s a slight refurbishing of the apartment and not the axis of his universe shifting.

He slides open the drawer and fishes out the box, holds it to his chest, the bones in his body too water-logged to attempt to open it. The ring, sitting untouched, is already Jungkook’s as much as it’s his. Maybe even more. Has been since the moment he had walked into the kitchen really late one Sunday morning, watching him shake his butt ridiculously (ridiculously adorably) to Beyonce’s upbeat if you like it you shoulda put a ring on it and decided to heed the woman’s advice. Maybe since even before that, some absurdly pre-emptive sleight of hand on the universe’s part like that one time when Jungkook, buzzed on flavoured soju, had leaned in, hands cupping around the shell of his ear, like he was letting him in on the secret recipe to Coke and through delicate puffs of breath, told him, “I more than just like you. It’s almost an I love you. Not quite, but almost. It’s not an epiphany that’s dawned on me suddenly though. It’s been an almost I love you for a long time now. Probably since the day we met.”

“I’ve loved you since day one. I know it’s hard to be sure of it like it’s always hard to pinpoint the exact moment you fall in love with anyone, anytime. But then I realized, it’s in our hands, no? What we can’t verify with variables and constants mapped out over a graph, we can just choose to believe,” Jungkook whispers, rushed and squeaky when Jimin and Jin move away. 

He’s put his bags down to grab at Taehyung’s hands, not moving an inch as the speakers announce, “... final call for passengers boarding the fli-”

“Go,” Taehyung squeezes his biceps, “I believe you.” I believe you because it’s you, because that’s also how I’ve felt. “I love you.”

He lets Jungkook muffle a sniffle in the crook of his neck, tastes the ‘I love you’ he gets in return on his skin rather than hears it.

*****

3 years and a lapse of forever later

The night is set ablaze in rubies and sapphires exploding against the red mist that is the night sky, dipping into the squiggly, bloated lights that are the ocean, their inks spilling into each other. This far from the beach, Taehyung can see Busan stretch out in the finiteness of a canvas, well-planned and well-proportioned. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket, probably still from Jimin’s frantic apologies at being unable to accompany him on the trip. Or- maybe it’s Jungkook’s grandmother whom he’s supposed to visit for lunch the day after. Maybe she’s calling him to cancel, having finally decided it’s useless to keep in touch with a boy who isn’t part of her grandson’s life anymore. Maybe she even detests him for having tied Jungkook down all those years he could have already been going around doing great things- things he loves- things he loves more than Taehyung. 

The sputter of fireworks and the torrent of tourists do little to break the march of winter that rolls on steadily in October and makes rationality a rare commodity for Taehyung. When the tendrils of cold bite at his fingertips, it’s harder to not resent everyone and everything for not having someone to warm them up, especially after having had them for five years. It’s nearly impossible to not think that he was the one who did something to drive them away. 

Now, throwing himself a pity party in the rising tide of the Busan Fireworks Festival, he realizes why exactly he didn’t want to make a solo trip and be left alone with the tightening noose of his thoughts, he’s had enough nights like those back home. This, the yearly ritual they had established from the first time Jungkook had asked him if he wanted to come with him to Busan on his grandmother’s insistence, this Taehyung wants to keep isolated from the ruthless trappings of his own mind. 

Warming his hands in the folds of his checkered scarf, determined to find the kitschy pop-up diner he and Jungkook used to go to, an inconspicuous facade sheltering quite possibly the best hand-crafted custom dessert place they’d ever come across, with renewed fervour, Taehyung makes a quick turn past a florist’s and gracelessly gets his breath knocked out of him as he slams into what feels like a puddle of blankets but is surely not because-

Oh. His lungs deceptively fail him for the second time in under five seconds as he rights himself to look at the object of his collision. Clad in the black padded jacket Taehyung distinctly remembers bundling him up in some four years ago, hair a lighter shade of brown, almost chestnut at certain angles, is Jungkook. Sweet, sweet Jungkook with his galaxy eyes and rosy mouth and the pretty mole that sits snug right under his lower lip. Jungkook, with his familiar yet startling impossibility of soft and hard that sometimes had Taehyung blinking and pinching himself to check if he’s dreamt him up.

Rose tinted air, gold-streaked skies. It feels like a dream now.

“Tae?”

Taehyung’s Jungkook instincts are on a gallop, nudging him to jump into the boy’s arms, swaddle him and only just stops himself when he spots what has both of Jungkook’s hands occupied- a loosely tied, unornamented bouquet of wide-opened lilies and dusk-tinted orchids that he certainly doesn’t want to crush. So he settles for a toothy grin and a hushed “Hey.”

Jungkook’s gaze wanders for a moment, settles back on him, lit with something he cannot yet place. “Y-you’re here alone?”

Taehyung nods, his grasp on language flighty all of a sudden. As much as he has imagined their second first meeting, played out scenarios in his head like a little kid moulding time in between tiny palms, there are no perfect utterances to adorn the moment that started sloppy but also like a clichéd romance, no Brontë-sque happy ending to solidify this stumbling executed by fate. It’s a rather Beckettian silence of waiting, not knowing for what. A waiting that never culminates.

“Oh that’s-” But with some people, it makes sense because it doesn’t quite have to. “But you hate travelling alone.”

He does. Kind of. Hate is a strong word but he’s of the party which thinks a journey is as much about the person you’re undertaking it with as it is about the earth dipping by. And silence has always been too loud for him.

“Ah yes, but this had been a you and me thing. And I wasn’t ready for it to become anything else.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

With the awkwardness mounting, he watches Jungkook shift his weight on his legs. Empty-handed, he asks, “You? What ab- when did you get back?”

A group of teenagers tumbles past them, loud in the flurry of movement, deafening against the chatter of the Festival.

“We should- uh- move. Catch up, y’know,” Jungkook pulls Taehyung to the side, a fist to his sleeve. “Oh, and I got back Thursday. It’s a lot of work- that’s how new beginnings go, I guess.”

“Where were you headed?”

“I went to that dessert place. Remember? But I couldn’t bring mys- I mean, they’ve only gotten bigger. It’d be a waste. You know my limit on sweet things. So I was going to grandma’s. Surprise her. Then I saw the flowers and figured, why not? I have three years to make up for, after all.”

“You think you can push that back a little? I’m in the mood for chocolate and butterscotch.” Taehyung starts walking in the direction Jungkook had emerged from.

“They have this new cookie dough and salted caramel custard with ice cream. Reminded me… I think you’ll like it. C’mon, my treat!” Excitement colours his voice as he increases pace.

“You don’t have to win me over, Kook. But you might have to do that with Yeontan. He doesn’t take to strangers well.”

It hits him belatedly, never under any circumstances had Taehyung imagined referring to Jungkook as a stranger. But, oh well, maybe a second chance is also just as many firsts as the first one. Same trip, same number of stops. 

“Yeontan?” 

Yeah, uh… wait.” he slips out his phone and after a bit of tapping, brings the screen to Jungkook’s face. It’s a little pomeranian, bushy hair, prominent eyebrows, looking delectably cuddleable. “Isn’t he the cutest little fluffball?”

“A dog?” That wasn’t supposed to sound like a question. Was it?

“Tannie isn’t just a dog.” Taehyung’s face sets into a scowl. “He’s the best boy. My baby boy.”

Jungkook gawks, halting his walk. “And me?”

“What about you?”

“What am I?”

Taehyung snorts, “Clearly pushing it,” and ambles ahead, not looking back.

“You wound me!” Jungkook’s taken to whining now.

And though Taehyung has quite a few retorts ready, he stifles them and tries to do the same with the grin that stretches across his face at the ease with which they patch up a conversation. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t replace you.”

“Looks like you did.” It’s Jungkook’s turn to scowl.

“Now I can’t share a chocolate ganache with Tannie, can I? It’s supposed to be bad for his fur.”

“You only love me for the food,” Jungkook grumbles. 

And for an instant, everything freezes. Love . There’s that word again, so easy, between them, like it’s always been. Even when it’s not supposed to be.

Taehyung knows Jungkook’s aware that he’s slipped up. But the night’s young and pretty and all that jazz. And he’s just really, really missed Jungkook, refuses to let the nerves gobble them up. “Buy me flowers too.”

“Okay.” Taehyung hears the smile in his voice. 

“By the way, if we hadn’t bumped into each other now, we’d have met tomorrow. Grandma called me to have lunch with her.”

“I think we’re just really meant to find each other.” Jungkook laces their fingers together. They’re still a tight fit, just perfect, a unity not corroded by time.

Taehyung smiles. “Sap.” Always.