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Jimin is a ball of sunshine. He's a beam of hope and light for everyone who knows him, someone who goes so far out of his way to help another that he screws himself up and never even cares, because he's just so stupidly selfless like that.
Jimin is a ball of sunshine, and a shy nerd, and an unfathomably strong survivor. Jimin was gentle and kind and scarred.
Four Jimins Taehyung has known, and he's fallen in love with every single one of them.
Taehyung finds Jimin in college in the fourth Korea he visits, as they accidentally run into each other after a sociology class, just as Taehyung had planned. Jimin is apologetic as he crouches to pick up Taehyung's fallen notebooks (all empty), dropping his own textbook in the process. He fumbles for a few seconds as Taehyung watches his face grow redder from above, a smile softly spreading across his face, and then he pops back up with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry about that. Again."
"It's okay," Taehyung says. "It let me meet you, didn't it?" He sticks out his hand, watches Jimin shuffle his books around to the crook of his left elbow, and take the handshake. "Kim Taehyung."
"I'm Park Jimin."
"Do you mind letting me get you a coffee tomorrow after class?" Taehyung asks. "I've got an agriculture class I have to run to." He doesn't really, of course, seeing as he isn't even enrolled in this college, but he doesn't want to come off so strong on the first day.
Besides, he has time.
Taehyung and this Jimin get along well, especially since Taehyung already knows all his habits, likes, and dislikes already. This Jimin is not too different from his first, who was just the same except a little more conservative in who he let in.
That's exactly what worries Taehyung here, though, because Jimin is too open. He loves freely and accepts everyone under his fold, not realizing that he's breaking his capacity and spreading himself too thin. Taehyung's tried bringing it up to Jimin before, but that resulted in a fight and Taehyung truly can't see Jimin suffer anymore, not after doing it for so long before. So instead, he provides himself as Jimin's support, shares his energy so that Jimin isn't the only one who has to be himself for everyone.
He watches as new people join their friend group, a few familiar from his Earth and a few new people. Joshua, Jeonghan, and Minghao start becoming daily presences in their lives, basically moving into the apartment Taehyung and Jimin bought two years ago. Taehyung goes to his job at a local restaurant with a smile every day, seeing Jimin joke around with their friends in the kitchen before he leaves. He'd long left college, since keeping up the student ruse was more difficult with Jimin living with him and constantly fretting over Taehyung's major, which was still "undecided" as far as he knew.
Jimin wouldn't understand that Taehyung's only wish in life was to spend all of it with him.
Jimin goes to graduate school just as Taehyung lands a job at an international firm that has him becoming nocturnal. He hates seeing less of Jimin, but he wants to make sure that Jimin never has to worry about paying the bills, especially as he starts to intern at hospitals, so he's told him that the apartment is worth half of what it actually is and handles all the bills on his own. He could easily bring over money from his Earth, seeing as he has too much of it anyways, but introducing bills that already exist in this Earth would cause too much of a scandal and he's only really here to be with one person.
Except he doesn't see that person around so much, even more so as Jimin starts telling him about this "Jungkook" that he works with, a child prodigy who's at med school and well on his way to become a neurosurgeon by the time he's thirty.
He finally meets Jungkook at a Christmas party Jimin insists on hosting (and paying for). Jungkook is tall, strong, and a little shy, the exact kind of person Jimin inherently clicks with. All throughout dinner Taehyung watches Jimin giggle next to Jungkook, leaning against him and touching his chest and shoulders.
After they bring out the eggnog, Jimin pulls out a slightly squashed mistletoe from his back pocket and starts chasing people around with it. Taehyung reluctantly kisses a completely wasted Jeonghan when Jimin glides over to them. He watches as Jimin shuffles over to Jungkook and pull out the plant, watches as Jungkook places his hands on Jimin's waist and his lips on Jimin's, bending him slightly backwards and pulling him closer.
Jungkook becomes a more prominent fixture in their lives then, and Taehyung often walks out of his room in the morning after a night of work to see him wrapped around Jimin on the sofa, both asleep, with anime still playing on the TV screen. Sometimes he'll see them both in the kitchen, covered in flour and honey as Jimin teaches Jungkook how to bake and eventually gives up with a laugh when Jungkook drops kisses across his face.
Taehyung decides to leave on his eighth year on this Earth. Jimin definitely would have been suspicious by now about why Taehyung didn’t seem to age if it weren’t for Jungkook distracting him, and really, Taehyung shouldn’t have stuck around this long, anyways. He’s seen the way Jimin watches Jungkook, like he’s received the whole world in one person.
Soon after Jimin announces their engagement, Taehyung lets him know that he’s decided to go to Brazil, chasing a passion for photography. He sees the way Jimin’s words falter, his eyebrows drawing in, and for the first time Taehyung thinks that maybe Jimin felt something for him, but Jungkook calls Jimin’s phone just then and the moment is gone.
Taehyung messes around for a while on a novel Earth that’s so futuristic that their parties are held in zero gravity. He sleeps with too many people to count, partly to forget Earth Four’s Jimin, partly because he needs a place to stay in an unfamiliar world.
There’s only so many people he can entice before he needs an actual place to stay and food to eat, though, so he finally lands a job as a model for a university, where he goes five days a week for various classes to stand for hours as students sculpt his body out of pixels floating in the air.
That’s where he meets Jimin again.
He’s just shrugging on a robe to cover his naked body when Jimin runs into the classroom, his round cheeks flushed red under dark bangs that escaped from the short ponytail he has tied at the base of his head.
Jimin freezes, looks down at Taehyung, squeaks out, “Thighs!” And then runs straight out of the room. Taehyung’s determined to follow him, though, and chases him down the length of the hall with one hand trying to keep the robe closed before he gives up and runs full-speed into the classroom Jimin just disappeared into.
“Hey,” he says, breathing heavily with one hand on the doorframe. “Did you need anything?”
Jimin doesn’t say anything, just pushes his glasses further up his face and looks around anywhere but at Taehyung.
“Oh,” Taehyung says. He closes his robe and ties it, looping the belt through the holes he couldn’t be bothered with using before. “Now will you look at me?”
“Just needed to talk to Professor Song,” Jimin mutters, looking straight at the ground now.
Taehyung brushes Jimin’s bangs away from his face, gently, then huffs out a small laugh when they sweep forward again. His Jimin never really let his hair grow out that long. Then again, his Jimin dyed his hair so much that there’s no way it could make it to this length.
“Professor Song left early to get to his art gallery.” Taehyung looks into Jimin’s eyes and waits until the shorter man finally looks at him. “Did you know that you’re beautiful?”
“I’m not,” Jimin responds.
Taehyung smiles at the flush in Jimin’s ears. “You are perfect.”
Taehyung learns a lot about Jimin in the strangest of times. Jimin is an art student, but a huge nerd, with all his drawings made purely by geometric shapes that Jimin meticulously adds with protractors and rulers and compasses. He's been at the top of his math class since he started, but simply chooses not to compete for the school because his passion lies elsewhere.
Jimin has OCD, in that his right hand must match his left hand’s actions whenever he touches an uneven surface. This means that while the two walk across campus, as soon as Jimin’s left thumb brushes against Taehyung’s elbow, he’ll twist subconsciously and bring up the right to rest at the joint briefly. The symmetry, the nearly ingrained need to be consistent, is beautiful, translates so well into his art. It’s also ironic that such a consistent Jimin exists, with Taehyung’s need to keep moving away.
And Taehyung quickly learns that Jimin hurts easily. His ex dumped him out of jealousy when Jimin got into a prestigious university and she didn't, leaving him alone, where he hadn’t really come back out of his shell again for four years. He still hasn’t, and it’s up to Taehyung to slowly pull, massage, draw Jimin out with every night and every word, and Taehyung does, because he loves Jimin.
And Jimin doesn't love him. He wants someone who can take care of him, Taehyung isn't sure if he's okay with that yet or not. This Jimin searches for roots.
How could he do that with Taehyung, whose very gift is in his freedom?
Jimin's piece, the "Black Swan", is an overlapping set of flat shapes stacked together to form a bust, made entirely out of movable pixels. Taehyung ends up knowing the exact person who talent-scouts for the library (and has a few talents of his own involving using his hands, too, if Taehyung remembers him well) and gets Jimin a place to display his work for a week, just for the experience. However, as soon as it’s unveiled, the bust draws attention from around the world, and Black Swan is quickly added to a lineup of art to auction.
The attention is well-deserved, too. On top of a plain marble countertop at the center of the art gallery floats Jimin’s work, a collection of several pitch black-colored shapes to form a neck and head, the edges of each shape rimmed with a rainbow. The effect is one of staring into a void and somehow seeing every color reflected back, where it's hard to discern the exact colors but impossible to ignore them subconsciously. The face shifts often (and Jimin won’t tell Taehyung if this part is his own pixel code or just the black-rainbow playing with minds) but as soon as Taehyung thinks he can make out the definition of a long nose, the shape shimmers out of his mind. The illusion of a faceless bust has brought more people into the gallery than ever before.
The piece also brings in a Min Yoongi, a synth pop producer who "dabbles" in art, as he claims. Jimin is immediately enamored when the man introduces himself to them as they close up the auction, saying that he would have been here sooner if not for a hover crash ceasing traffic above the city. When the two get back home and Taehyung helps Jimin unwind with his tongue, Jimin breathes his excitement into Taehyung's skin, telling him about how Yoongi's music helped him through his breakup and helped him discover his art style.
"Is it Yoongi you want, my love?" Taehyung breathes as Jimin spills onto himself. Jimin nods, tears in his eyes from how overwhelmed he is, and Taehyung feels his heart shatter a little more. "Then it's Yoongi you'll get."
Taehyung tracks Yoongi down the next day, calling in sick from the modeling he has to do for an introductory line art class. He finds that the composer is staying in town to create his latest album and attend a few talk shows for his production of the music of last year's biggest movie, coincidentally placing him at a recording studio managed by someone Taehyung had stayed with for a few days when he first came to this Earth.
After making small talk—some of which involves carefully flirting with the girl without promising her anything explicitly—he's in, and he follows directions to one of the black-tinted rooms. Taehyung lets himself in after realizing the door is unlocked, then waits silently for Yoongi to finish.
The producer's music is not to Taehyung's tastes at all, born from the soul music he's grown up with on his own Earth, but he's heard these types of beats countless times at clubs at this Earth. In fact, hearing this now, he's certain he's danced to Yoongi's music before on some forgettable night.
"Hi," Taehyung says when the synth beat fades out. Yoongi turns around sharply, then relaxes back into nearly a half-folded slouch when he recognizes him.
"You're Jimin's boyfriend, right?" Yoongi examines his nails, uninterested, and Taehyung immediately knows they won't get along unless he puts aside his own impatience to get through this. For Jimin.
"Not really," Taehyung responds, and Yoongi's head tilts up just slightly. "I came by to ask if you wanted to come watch Jimin's interview today. He really appreciated you coming yesterday and I know he loves your music, so it would mean a lot to him if you swung by."
Taehyung abruptly tuns to leave and Yoongi stops him. "Did Jimin ask you to ask me?"
Taehyung pauses. "No," he answers shortly, then walks out of the studio.
Yoongi fits into Jimin's life almost perfectly antagonistic to the way Taehyung does.
When Taehyung wakes up late in the mornings, having no jobs to freelance until the noon, Yoongi is up both at and through 4 AM on days he sleeps over to work on his songs, taking over the couch in the afternoon and evenings and preventing Taehyung from watching anything on the TV as Jimin insists on letting Yoongi get his sleep.
Yoongi had slid into first their homes and then their beds fairly quietly, showing up with increasing frequency at Jimin's campus to give guest lectures as a guise to drop by Jimin's classes before and after, and then becoming a recurring presence once Jimin became confident enough to ask him to their home. He was careful around Jimin, always keeping a distance between them, which surprised Taehyung: he hadn't thought Yoongi would end up being as selfless as he was. Eventually, though, he started joining them during long nights at Taehyung's insistence, who'd heard Jimin mewl out the producer's name quietly into Taehyung's skin enough to crack it and his heart.
Yoongi is still reserved with Jimin, giving in only when the younger man finds the confidence on his own to approach him. Taehyung is the complete opposite, drawing Jimin out of his shyness through his confidence and unrestrained flirtation.
He sees how they are beautiful together, Jimin a gentle wind and Yoongi always a storm in the distance. Yoongi respects Jimin's boundaries, and by doing so he allows Jimin to cross them on his own time. He's driven, and the late hours shut away in a room and afternoons stumbling around in oversized shirts gives Jimin a reason to take charge of someone else and care for them, getting him out of his own head.
Taehyung fit in as the bridge between the two, talking through misunderstandings when Yoongi is too emotionally constipated and coaxing Jimin into opening up to Yoongi, following his heart instead of shutting it away. He sees himself in the two now, in the way they're loud and touchy with each other when before they were quite literally blushing whenever they were within talking distance of each other.
He sees himself in their relationship, because as much as he's done, he's no longer a part of it. At least, not in his mind. Jimin has someone to look after him quietly, and someone he can look after, too. As worried as Taehyung was for the two, their dynamic has a quiet sort of perfection like they were meant for each other. Who is Taehyung to get in the way of that?
Sure, Jimin is his soulmate, but not this Jimin, it seems: this one belongs, heart and mind, to Yoongi. Taehyung knows how it feels to be so captivated by someone that it hurts to exist away from them, knows because he's been hurting since he left his Earth. He might have been a good stand-in for the kind of partner this Jimin needed, but his time is up now.
Taehyung decides to leave silently this time. Since he's been intimate with the two, he knows Jimin will insist on finding Taehyung a place to stay and Yoongi will pay for everything without saying a word. Taehyung doesn't think he can go through that, putting up a facade on top of another facade.
So on a cold evening he presses a kiss to Jimin and Yoongi's lips as they exit their home to advertise Jimin's newest piece, "Singularity." The most Taehyung has seen of it—and ever will see—are the countless black feathers on Jimin's desk and several sketches of those feathers bursting out as premature wings from a familiar red coat. The art has already gotten attention as the latest work from the creator of Black Swan, and Taehyung couldn't be prouder about what Jimin's achieved just in the span of Taehyung's time on this Earth.
Taehyung drops a letter detailing his journey to Occident—the continent that he could vaguely liken to the Americas on his Earth—in order to find a job as an international model. He ends with a cheerful "Look out for my debut!" He leaves the letter on Yoongi's desk, and hopes the tear drops on his signature go unnoticed when the two return.
He takes one last loop through their apartment, straying longer than he needs to in Jimin’s room. He hasn’t seen much of it in detail besides the bed, but now that he looks, he sees the excess of paper, the pencils strewn on the floor and table, and a thick binder.
Jimin’s not here, and Taehyung won’t be staying long enough for any of this to matter, so he opens the cover and sifts through several sheets of calculations, line art, and stray pixels until he sees the familiar shifting face of the Black Swan. There’s several notes all around that drawing, from numbers to questions to preliminary sketches.
He notices a crease on the right of the paper, worn through and nearly coming apart, and pulls open the other half of the paper folded backwards on itself. His breath catches on the writing there.
Minuscule script details experiences Jimin had with Taehyung, from their first encounter to the final touches on Black Swan. Some sections go into depth on how it feels to be with him, while others have several time skips from event to event. All around the border are drawings of Taehyung’s face, from when he’s smiling to frowning to sleeping. As Taehyung follows them clockwise, they shift to different kinds of faces before morphing back to his at the very top.
Taehyung touches a hand to his face, feeling the wetness there with his hands before acknowledging it with his heart.
Him. The Black Swan was about him.
Frantically he flips forward to find notes on Singularity. Here, Jimin’s small handwriting becomes bigger as the writing goes on, saying less and taking up more of the page. He starts out talking about Taehyung and Yoongi as lovers, and ends declaring Yoongi as his soulmate. And there, at the very end, after the signature, is the mention of the red coat, the one that had been so familiar to Taehyung. It was his coat, the one he wore at the Black Swan auction. He reads the definition Jimin assigns to it in a barely-legible footnote.
A red coat with a sinner’s wings—Wearing the love of one person when your heart has already escaped to another.
I’m sorry, Taehyung.
Taehyung bursts through several Earths over the next few days, trying to put as much distance between himself and the last Jimin. It's stupid, really, considering the Jimin from that Earth could never follow him, and it's not like he would, anyways, risking leaving Yoongi like that. Taehyung saw the love, true love, in Jimin's eyes when he looked at Yoongi, not like the hidden lust he'd seen for himself.
So now he's stuck on an Earth where he doesn't even know how far he is from his own, his energy drained from traveling nearly every day as soon as he felt the slightest bit ready to. He can feel his body's affinity for bursting charging up sluggishly, much less quickly than when he started, and he anticipates having to stay for at least a week before he can leave this time.
This would ordinarily be fine on any of the other Earths he stayed on before, but this one has a clear sense of wrongness, like something unnatural irreversibly tore through the world and pieced it together on a whim. The ground is utterly dry, to the point where Taehyung feels that it's leeching off his skin for moisture. The sky has been perpetually gray, sometimes a dull color and sometimes so brightly downcast that it seems like there should be explosions just on the other side of the cloud cover.
Taehyung passes nearly two days walking through a dead landscape that stretches out in every direction, becoming more and more worried that he'll pass out and die from dehydration before he can ever get himself out of this situation.
In the distance, a vague black shape starts to appear through the mist, an outcrop of dark rock bringing hope if only because it's the only reprieve from the monotony of the landscape. As it becomes bigger in his vision, he feels the ground rumble slightly in pulses, but he's too desperate for some sort of sustenance to care much about what lies before him.
The mist starts clearing up with every step and Taehyung sees the dark shape is the side of a large cliff, and right under it is a small militia moving in his direction, feet marching in unison, with a black-haired man in front who points a gun at Taehyung as he comes into view. "Who are you?" The man calls, and the men and women behind him halt.
Taehyung smiles at the familiar voice. "Kim Taehyung."
Earth Number He-Doesn’t-Even-Know-Anymore’s Jimin is an enigma.
Taehyung is marched back to a camp under the lip of a cliff and offered a jug of water, one he downs in less than a minute. There are dozens of canvas tents in the shadows, and more in the cave the cliff overlooks, if the echoes of voices are anything to go by. Jimin keeps Taehyung’s hands tied to a rope, which he ties to a post of his own tent. This Jimin is as cold and hard as ice, his eyes an obscure, steely silver and with more muscles than any of the other Jimins he’s met. His voice has none of the timidness or mirth that Taehyung’s used to hearing from those plush lips, and the hair every other Jimin cherished as part of their personality is cropped close to the sides, with the longer coal-black locks in the center held up and out of the way in a small knot.
“How does one possibly live to adulthood on this godforsaken planet and traipse through dead land with no regard for their life?” Jimin paces in front of Taehyung. His voice is harsh, his posture tense with worry. “Are you suicidal?”
“Maybe I just have a general disregard for my own well-being,” Taehyung says. After all, his priority is keeping Jimin safe, making up for what he couldn’t do before.
“You’re an idiot for that.” Jimin runs a hand over his hair, brushing back stray strands. “But I’d say we’re all idiots for trying to survive on an Earth that has already forsaken us.”
Jimin sits down heavily on a chair in his tent and drops his forehead into his hands. His spine finally relaxes into a curve, and his back rises high and settles low with steady breaths.
Taehyung watches him for a minute before saying, “Will you let me stay with you?”
Jimin raises his head and his eyebrows move together as he appraises Taehyung. “You think I would leave you out to die?”
Like I did to you? “Never.”
As strange as it was to see a serious Jimin, Taehyung quickly understands why he’s still Jimin at the core: he lives for others, lives to be the guardian angel that he had never gotten for himself.
Yet.
That’s Taehyung’s job, across every single Earth, one he’d assumed for himself when he’d failed his Jimin. The worst thing he can do now is burst away when this Jimin needs him.
Taehyung starts to assume responsibility around the campsite, pitching in first moving equipment from one end of the grounds to the other. He makes sure to detour to the camp council’s tent just to get a glimpse of Jimin working, to see him be the knot holding together all these people, keeping them alive. It’s a strange thing to see, when Taehyung has spent so much time being the one taking care of Jimin across several Earths. This time, it’s Jimin being the anchor, and Taehyung feels liberated, and that scares him.
Jimin has a lot to say, it turns out. He just can’t say it in front of the others, can’t scare the others when he’s the one giving them hope. But Taehyung is an outsider, and one who doesn’t know how this Earth works, at that, so when they’re alone in Jimin’s tent at night, the camp leader’s concerns spill out of him, in quickly and quietly spoken words like if he lingers on them too long they’ll come true.
And Taehyung? He’s the well into which all the fears flow into and the oasis from which they dissipate. Jimin has the burden of a nation’s ruler at the age of 26, and all the issues he’s facing with scarcities and maladies and the Earth rapidly cracking apart weigh on him. Jimin is Atlas for a mountain of responsibility, but he doesn’t have the immortality to keep going for long, and he knows it. He won’t say it, but he knows.
And Taehyung knows, too, so he shoulders some of the burden. Sometimes he covers the tent in tarp if he wakes up early so the harsh light of the morning doesn’t wake Jimin and gives him a few extra hours of sleep when he’s gone over two days without any. Taehyung starts completing tasks on his own from a checklist Jimin makes, and, he thinks, seeing how much Jimin has become less stressed because of that makes the members of their cliff-covered city accept Taehyung’s leadership a lot more easily.
But Taehyung's taking on more responsibility becomes a short-lived reprieve for Jimin, because soon enough there’s more to worry about. A reconnaissance party comes back to let them know that the cracks in the Earth have spread through the dead land Taehyung had been found in, and are making their way towards a surviving region where the city gets their food from.
Taehyung knows instantly that Jimin wants to go out there himself to get the last of the food, but he has to worry about finding a new source, and it’s too dangerous for the leader to go out to a volatile region.
Taehyung also knows that it’s up to himself to do so.
That night, Jimin invites Taehyung to sleep on his cot with him. There’s a hollowness to his eyes, one that quickly fills up as Taehyung slides in next to him and turns to face him.
“I don’t know what to do,” Jimin whispers. The blanket over them shifts a little by Jimin’s side, and then Taehyung feels a strong arm winding around his waist and pulling him flush against Jimin, who tucks his head into Taehyung’s neck.
“There is nothing you can do now,” Taehyung murmurs into his hair. “Sleep well, and tomorrow you might have an idea that could save the groves and orchards.”
Jimin tilts his head up. “It’s about to become dead land, Taehyung,” he says. “There is no saving it. All I can hope for is that some of the vegetation remains by the time we arrive.”
Taehyung meets Jimin’s gaze, just barely there in the near-blackness of the night, only visible because the smallest hint of light reflects off the tears in Jimin’s eyes. For the first time, Taehyung has seen the armor Jimin wears crack open completely, revealing all the vulnerability he’s familiar with. It brings a sob welling up in his own throat, but he can’t let the last Jimin sees of him be a crying wreck, so he pushes the sound and the tears away, pushes his mouth against Jimin’s, and Jimin lets him in, finally, their lips and tongues saying more in silence then than they ever have before to each other.
An urgency that Taehyung doesn’t expect from Jimin catches him by surprise. It feels... almost exactly like Taehyung has felt about Jimin across the Earths, wanting to have Jimin for himself so desperately just like this. Taehyung has never been matched so closely in urgency, and as Jimin’s hands move to his shirt, he wonders how long Jimin has had to survive on his own with the responsibility of hundreds of lives in his hands, unable to say anything about how much it’s draining him.
Jimin starts moving downwards, stopping every few inches to kiss and bite and suck at a part of Taehyung’s torso, and Taehyung is nearly lost to the sensation. “My savior,” Jimin whispers, returning to meet Taehyung’s lips. “Please don’t leave me.”
Taehyung holds the next kiss a little longer, pulls Jimin even closer, until they’re forced to separate by their lungs burning.
A few minutes later, as the two become one, Taehyung lets himself shed a tear. He looks at Jimin's face, at the perspiration and the loose black hair and the lips shaped like home, and there is nothing crossing his mind except the feeling of finally, truly having Jimin for himself again.
"You are my forever," he tells Jimin.
Several years ago, Taehyung sat in a chair next to the first Jimin he had met. He stared down at his soulmate, always the picture of perfection in Taehyung's eyes, from his straw-like hair from dyeing it too many times to the little snaggletooth he always showed when he smiled to the stars in his eyes that disappeared with every grin. There was some sort of timeless youth to Jimin, a vitality that burned brighter with every day, every experience.
Jimin was beautiful. Jimin was obnoxious. Jimin laughed too loud sometimes, and his apartment was never clean, and he was too stubborn. He lost a lot of minimum-wage jobs because he could never let go of his love for dance, and he wasted time and money at studios practicing routines he would never get to perform. Jimin was an impossible ball of hope in the face of dark certainties.
And he still was, at this very moment. Maybe not hopeful for himself, but so, so full of love for Taehyung that it hurt to see the smile on his face, to see the stretch of cracked lips that used to be plush pink against a backdrop of pale skin that used to be the exact shade of honey. It hurt to watch him laugh, then wince, to see him shake his head slightly and run a hand across his scalp out of habit even with all the hair shaved off.
"Promise me you will find someone," Jimin says, his eyes, ever-bright, disappearing with his grin. Both of his hands hold one of Taehyung's in between, although Taehyung's fingertips are still visible. "You can't stay sad forever."
"I can't promise that," Taehyung responded. He put his other hand on Jimin's, pressing it like if he did it hard enough and with enough conviction, he could give his life to his fiancé even as life seeped out of Jimin.
"Promise me that you will find me later, then," Jimin whispered. He blinked slowly. He'd been having a harder time staying awake with his body fighting so hard, and soon enough he was asleep again and his nurse came in to usher Taehyung out.
That was the last time Taehyung got to see his Jimin.
Jimin didn't even get to hear him make his promise.
* * * * * * * * *
The cancer was a void.
It took the color from Jimin's cheeks, first, then from his life.
It took dreams away from Taehyung, of a future where they could be happy for decades and tell their kids stories and create memories to laugh at when they were old and spending their days out on a porch.
And finally, it took Jimin.
* * * * * * * * *
The heartbreak was nearly impossible to deal with, for a long while. Taehyung would carry the shards of their lost love within himself everywhere he went, and they cut him up badly.
They cut into him painfully, irreversibly.
And then they cut him out of this Earth, into another.
Jimin wakes up much colder than he went to sleep. His arm is thrown to the side, like it's supposed to be holding something that's no longer there.
Taehyung.
Jimin feels a much colder feeling within his chest as the events and news from yesterday flood into his mind. The upcoming food shortage, the cracked Earth... the way Taehyung couldn't tell him that he wouldn't leave him.
Panic builds in his chest as he looks around and sees that his keys are gone from his desk.
Taehyung, you idiot.
"Every person on the recon team, grab your keys and get to the groves!" Jimin screams, running out of his tent. He grabs the keys from one of the women running to the trucks and sprints ahead, turning the car on and hitting the pedal before she can even reach it.
It takes over an hour to get to the groves if the collection team drives carefully, and Jimin woke up just four hours after he fell asleep... which means that Taehyung had been planning on doing this alone while they made love last night. He had thought about the end of them even as their relationship just began.
Tears flow freely from Jimin's eyes and he doesn't bother wiping them. The terrain in front of him is all cracked dead land and he's barely sure he's even headed in the right direction anymore.
"Fuck," he says, banging a hand on the wheel when the truck refuses to go faster. "Fuck!"
Every second feels like a second too long away from Taehyung, but Jimin sees a patch of green land growing in the distance, and it gives him hope to see that there are no visible cracks there yet. In fact, there's a pile of color a few hundred feet away from the groves, and another truck driving towards it.
Taehyung.
Jimin drives to the pile of fruits and vegetables and puts the car in park with a violent jolt, then races out to see the truck at half the distance between the groves and the produce, moving slowly with another load of vegetables in the back. In the driver's seat he sees Taehyung, face both sweaty and dusty, but with a grin that takes the weight off of Jimin's heart.
He's safe.
Taehyung's name is barely out of Jimin's mouth when a shudder in the earth makes him fall to the floor. The ground behind Taehyung's truck starts to disappear.
"Get out of the car!" Jimin shouts at him. Taehyung's eyebrows are furrowed as he stares at the ground in front of him, but they smooth out and his face settles into a soft smile as he meets Jimin's eyes.
The ground quakes again, and the cracks burst forward. The truck's back wheels catch on one and the vehicle starts to tip backwards.
Jimin doesn't realize a white noise has filled his ears until he sees Taehyung's mouth moving in the same motions, over and over. The sounds of the world falling apart come rushing back to him at once as he feels his heart shatter.
"Promise me that you'll find me later," Taehyung shouts, even as the truck tips backwards.
As Taehyung's face disappears below the ground, Jimin starts running towards him. Nothing is in his mind except for Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung.
He's pulled back by the people from the camp, and he doesn't remember when they even arrived, only cares about them right now enough to hate them for pulling him away from Taehyung. How could I ever find you again?
The cracks in the earth follow them, and a part of Jimin wishes they would reach him quickly and stop this pain he's feeling in his chest.
But they don't. They stop almost exactly at the food pile Taehyung had been creating with a final rumble, without moving a single berry out of place. If Taehyung had been right here, instead of just a few hundred feet away, he would have been alive. Jimin could have slapped him, cursed him, kissed him on the spot.
But he wasn't, and he isn't.
The recon team let go of him, and his knees buckle. Jimin stares numbly at the chasm that used to be lush greenery just minutes ago. He stares at the space the truck was before it fell backwards into nothingness.
His lips start moving to the shapes of Taehyung's name, forming the word with the weight of knowing that they will never feel Taehyung against them ever again.
And then they start moving to something else, something Jimin barely registers until the taste of his own tears brings sensation back to his skin.
I promise.
The cracks in his heart spread from end to end, and then it shatters completely within its cage.