Work Text:
the knocking at his door is loud but it isn’t enough to make him get out of bed. he doesn’t remember the last time he got up from under his blanket, a couple hours at least, the pillow resting against his headboard holding him upright completely flat by now. he exhales and glances down at where his phone rests face down near the edge of his bed. it’s dead anyway, has been for a couple days now. he doesn’t bother to pick it up.
the knocking at the door continues but it’s louder and paired with a voice now. he assumes it’s one of his friends who’d given up on texting and calling him and now resorted to knocking at his apartment door. he can’t quite make out the voice or what they’re saying but he knows they’re loud. he thinks about how the neighbors will eventually complain soon.
eventually the knocking stops and taehyung lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in. this isn’t the first time one of his friends has come knocking at his door. at first it was gentle knocks. quiet “come on tae, open up. we just wanna make sure you’re okay”’s. but he never answered them. at first when they stopped coming by he thought they were giving him some space, maybe some time to think before they came back to talk to him. but that only lasted a day before they came back. and still, he never answered them.
it’s been a little while since jimin left, taking a piece of taehyung with him. twelve days to be exact. not that anyone’s counting (except taehyung). twelve days of waking up to an empty bed, stepping out of his room to an empty apartment. the first day he had hoped that jimin was just in the kitchen and that would’ve explained the empty space next to him. but when he got up there was no noise in his apartment other than the sound of his feet hitting the ground as he walked into the empty kitchen. that day, he retreated back into his bed and didn’t get up except to go to the bathroom. his bed now covered in granola bar wrappers and empty water bottles from the drawer next to him where he kept his stash of snacks. the clothes on him were the same clothes he was wearing when jimin had walked out of his apartment in tears, not even looking back.
taehyung doesn’t cry. no. he’d cried the first couple of days but now he just feels numb, his limbs hanging off his body with no energy to lift them up. he spends most of his time sitting upright on his bed thinking, not even bothering to turn on something to distract him. sometimes he dozes off but he can’t remember the last time he slept longer than two hours.
it’s when he’s in the middle of dozing off again that he hears the knocking. it’s more gentle than before, three light taps on the door. he stirs from his light sleep enough to acknowledge the sound and grunts. his friends really don’t give up. he’ll have to thank them for looking out for him so much if he ever gets out of this slump. when there’s no sound for a couple seconds after he rests his head back into his pillow and attempts to fall back asleep. three more light taps hit his door and this time he hears a voice.
“tae, it’s me.” it’s gentle and raspy, but very clear. it takes a minute for taehyung’s brain to process what he hears but once it does his stomach drops and a lump forms in his throat. it’s been so long since he heard that voice, too long. he thinks he’d imagined it until the voice rings out through his apartment again. “open the door, please,” and taehyung immediately gets up. it’s the most energy he’s had in a while and when he reaches his apartment door he realizes his whole body is shaking. he turns the doorknob before he can overthink it and swings the door open.
in front of him is jimin. but it’s not his jimin. no this jimin is one he has never seen before and hopes to never see again. this jimin looks like a shell of the person he was when taehyung first met him. his eyes are puffy, the dark circles around them very pronounced. his hair looks like it hasn’t been touched in forever and his clothes hang off of him like they’re barely holding it together. no, this jimin looks worn out and it takes everything in taehyung not to reach out and pull him into his arms. he can feel the stinging in his eyes but he attempts to hold it together.
it’s quiet between them as they both take in each other but jimin breaks first. he glances down at the box he’s carrying and it’s then that taehyung realizes he was holding something in the first place. “i brought some of your stuff.” jimin’s voice is raspy and sad, like he’s barely holding it together too. like he wants to cry but won’t do it in front of taehyung.
taehyung follows jimin’s eyes and sees the box has a couple things he vaguely recognizes from jimin’s apartment. a couple shirts and some books he’d left from the million times he’d stayed there. he wills himself to reach forward and take the box from jimin but his arms refuse to move from his side.
“jimin,” he finds himself saying instead.
“i was gonna call you, you know, to warn you at least that i was coming over,” jimin interrupts.
“my phone’s dead.”
“oh, well...i didn’t end up calling anyway. i thought it would be better to do it like this.”
it’s then that it all sets in for taehyung. that this is jimin saying goodbye. that jimin looked through his apartment to find things taehyung had left so he could bring them back to him. that taehyung’s existence is no longer present in jimin’s apartment in any form. the thought alone almost has him falling to his knees, his body becoming weaker and weaker by the second, unable to carry the weight of his pain anymore. when he opens his mouth to speak he realizes the tears he’s been holding in had already fallen.
“jimin, please...why are you doing this?” he begs. jimin doesn’t meet his eyes. he shifts slightly away from taehyung and this breaks him even more. “please...don’t leave me. i need you.”
at this, jimin lifts his head up. there are tears streaming down his cheeks but the look he gives taehyung is one of pity and it pains him.
“i’m so sorry tae. i- i have to...we have to take some time from each other. we’re both dealing with things that aren’t letting us be in this relationship happily and we need some space to figure ourselves out.” his voice sounds so tired, so pained, as if he’d played this exact conversation out a thousand times and yet it still wasn’t enough to prepare him for this moment. he sets the box down next to him and lifts his hand up to caress taehyung’s cheek, wiping away the tears from it. taehyung’s hand aches to cover jimin’s but he knows if he moves, jimin will let go of him so instead he pushes into his hand gently and revels in the feeling of it.
it doesn’t help stop the steady stream of tears, instead it seems to make it worse, but jimin doesn’t move his hand. “what am i supposed to do without you,” he whispers through the lump in his throat.
“oh baby, you’ll be fine without me. we just need some space for a little bit, okay? it’s only a little bit.” he realizes jimin is also crying and feels guilty for taking some comfort in that.
“and you’ll come back?” taehyung asks.
“of course i’ll come back,” jimin sniffles but there’s a gentle smile on his face now.
“and you won’t find someone else to love instead of me?” taehyung knows he sounds like a child but it’s jimin and he’s never had to hold back from letting him know how he feels.
“oh tae...from the moment i met you, i knew i would never love anyone as much as i love you and if i ever tried to, i’d be miserable forever. you are it for me and i will always come back to you.”
jimin slowly removes his hand from taehyung’s cheek, not before swiping his thumb gentle across it to wipe off his tears. he turns to pick up the box of taehyung’s belongings and hands them to him, waiting until he knows taehyung has a steady grip on it before letting go. taehyung takes a step back into his apartment with it and waits. for what? he doesn’t know. it’s quiet between them again save for the sniffles coming from both of them. they hold each other’s gazes for a little before jimin breaks the almost silence between them.
“i should go now,” he says, wrapping his arms around himself as if to hold himself up. taehyung pushes the box to his side and frees one of his hands to wipe at his eyes and nose. he knows his face is probably red and puffy by now but it’s the last thing on his mind. “yeah...no go ahead. i don’t wanna keep you.” he waves him off without looking at him and moves to close the door.
“see you soon, tae.”
“see you soon, jimin.”
and with that, he watches jimin walk away for the second time in less than two weeks. when he’s out of sight, he closes the door behind him and leans against it. after a couple minutes of getting himself together, he sets the box down next to the door, stands up straight, and walks back into his room where his blanket and pillow await him once again.