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Taehyung sits, waiting, waiting. It seems that it was all he ever did the past few months. The apartment is quiet, table bigger than it used to be. It’s still the same one, yet it feels different to him. He sighs, fingers lacing through the handle of the coffee mug. Black ceramic meets his lips, the liquid that has long gone cold making his face scrunch in distaste. Why he still bothers to make coffee when he doesn’t like it, he will never know.
Everything seems to be still. Had he hit pause to his life? He chuckles to himself, what a ridiculous thought.
The sun’s going down, leftover rays of shine seeping through the open blinds. It had been warm earlier but now there’s a chill prickling his skin. Maybe it’s going to be winter soon. He should buy new fuzzy sweaters. Should he buy one for Jimin, too? Will he need to?
A dry laugh escapes his throat at that. Jungkook must have beat him to it, already, he’s sure. The kid’s competitive and as much as that’s sometimes endearing, it’s something that’s being used against him. Knowing him, Jungkook’s buying all the fuzzy sweaters Jimin could ever dream of to make him jealous. Taehyung is a jealous prick. Which, considering he and Jimin’s situation, isn’t quite ideal. After all, he did agree to this.
To whatever it was that Jimin had been eager to ask him a year ago.
Jimin must still be there, in his embrace. Will he be coming home to Taehyung’s today? Or is he staying there for the night?
Too many questions. It never was like this before. Taehyung never had to wonder where Jimin was, never had to guess what he’s doing or who he was with. Never had to wait so stupidly, so obliviously, for the love of his life to come back to him like this. Was he sick of it? Maybe.
With each passing day it became harder and harder to see Jimin. It’s confusing, really. When he’s gone, he longs for his presence; When he’s there, he hurts.
The supposed shared living space feels empty without the ever so brightly burning star that is Park Jimin. His day is fucked into millions of horrifying ways when he wakes up to a morning without the blinding smile of his still sleepy lover. Nights feel too dark, like the moon itself has abandoned them as he lies there clutching pathetically onto the pillow that smelled of fresh laundry and vanilla. Jimin’s scent.
Yet…
Mornings filled with the taste of his lips, soft, still felt wrong. Each touch the blonde pressed into his skin burned. Which fire was lit aflame? Was it still love? Then, he’d look at Jimin as they parted after a kiss and he’d see the bruise of a hickey he knows he didn’t give him on his neck. It’s mocking him, reminding him that he wasn’t the only one in Jimin’s heart. That someone else was allowed to see him like this, allowed to touch each curve and dip of his body. Someone else had the privilege, too, to witness Jimin at his worst and best. To love him like he does.
It could be that for you, too, Tae! The high pitch of Jimin’s voice supplies. It’s not the same. It isn’t, it isn’t, because truthfully he doesn’t want anybody else.
Why did you agree to an open relationship, then? With venom, the question poisons his mind. Why did he? For Jimin. For him, always for him. He tried, he really did try for him. It’d been hard, but he made it ‘till a year, didn’t he? He could go for another one, and another one, and another….. right?
Right?
The door clicks open, Jimin came home today. But there’s no guarantee he’d come home everyday, and maybe that void between the love and the hurt.. that middle part where Taehyung was left to wait, maybe that’s what Taehyung despises the most.
“Taehyungie, I missed you.”
He couldn’t go for another one.
Thuds of footsteps approached him but before Jimin could so much as touch him the words came tumbling out his lips, “Let’s stop here, Jimin-ah.”
His voice is cold. For the first time in their years together, it’s icy and void of feeling.
“What… what are you talking about?” Jimin manages to breathe it out without his voice shaking. Uncertainty swimmed in the amber pools that Taehyung often got lost staring in.
“It’s just—“ he pauses for a moment, “It’s not working for me anymore.”
It’s quiet again. Taehyung looks away. If he stares longer at Jimin’s face he’d cave in. He’d take it back just to save Jimin from the pain.
“But—“
Taehyung cuts him off, “And I don’t mean you should stop seeing him. Or whoever. You could.”
A flash of dawning realization crosses Jimin’s eyes.
“Are you… are you saying that…?” There’s tears welling up already but Taehyung has to be strong. For himself, this time.
“The future you had planned out, the dream you told me under the moon of living happily full of love… I’m sorry but I think I couldn’t be there beside you to fulfill it, anymore.”
There. He finally said it.
“But, Taehyung-ah, I… I want you to— No, I need you to be. Please, I love you. I love you. Is it because I’ve been spending more time with Jungkook? I could… I could make more time for you. I’ll stay here more and, and we could go to that art gallery—“
“No, Jimin, no.”
“Are you having a hard time connecting with someone else? Then I’ll set you up. I’ll arrange a blind date or.. or…”
Jimin sees the tiredness in Taehyung’s eyes. The words die on his tongue.
“You… you really don’t want it anymore, huh?”
He dreads it, but when Taehyung motions his head with a nod, Jimin couldn’t help but let out the sob that punches out his chest.
“I’m sorry, Jimin. I really tried, I promise you, I did… ”
They’re both crying now.
“It’s just.. so hard. It was so hard seeing you with all those other people, it was so hard to push myself to go on dates, too, knowing that all I really wanted was to cuddle with you until we both fell asleep. Like.. like it used to be, remember? But I don’t blame you. Please, don’t think that I’m hurting because of you, I’m not..”
He doesn’t know where all of these words are coming from but he doesn’t stop it.
“I agreed to this, okay? Turns out, it wasn’t for me, huh? Call me a bummer, but all these… these rules or whatever… it’s too overwhelming for me. Constant. What I really want is a constant in my life. I’d come home to one person, wake up and fall asleep to only their touch. And for a moment, I thought it would be you I could do all those things with…”
The end of such a beautiful love they had nears with each word he utters.
He whispers, “I wanted, hoped, prayed, it would be you.”
But it isn’t you.
They lock eyes for what seems to be an eternity and the raw emotions that clouded Jimin’s brings a pang to his heart. Never, in the years of their friendship and relationship had he thought he would be at the receiving end of that broken look on Jimin’s face. After all, he never dreamed of hurting him. But here he was now, proving himself wrong.
For one last time, “I love you. And I’m sorry.”
Taehyung stands up, lets his feet drag him further and further away from the love of his life. And Jimin? He lets him. No matter how much his heart trashed inside his chest, wanting to beg for Taehyung to please stay, stay, stay, he doesn’t. Jimin knows he couldn’t promise the love that Taehyung wants. Keeping him would only break them both.
Taehyung drowns out the sounds of Jimin’s cries, and finally, finally, leaves.
The door clicks shut, and just like that, it all ends.