Work Text:
It’s just another crumpled paper.
On the top of another crumpled paper.
That is already on a mountain of crumpled paper.
Who would imagine he would have this amount of paper in his room, to begin with, and now he’s almost out of it. But at least he was trying again to do something. Trying to not get another piece of useless paper on the top of the mountain that now could represent how much he was feeling heavy there.
Namjoon said that is good to write on paper too, so he was trying the way his hyung told him. Not facing a screen, just pen and paper, like the elders use it because they can’t face the technology correctly. But he understood what Namjoon wanted to say with “just pen and paper.”
The heavy feelings flow from his mind to his hand and doing the right movements with his hand to try to write something legible made him think a little bit more than if you just tap tap tap on your cellphone or laptop. There’s this little pacing time when handwriting, that just forces you to think more about the word choices you want to use to talk about your feelings.
But Taehyung has another problem: he hates to sing and write sad songs in Korean.
If you open his papers what is able to be found is a huge amount of “ I”m scared of cracking up again I just / Want it to be like it was before / cause I don’t think that my heart can take much more”*¹ that he didn’t know what to do with it.
It’s, for a fact, already three a.m. in Seoul and he has locked down inside his room and his mind. Wondering around how to break the sad and nostalgic feelings of years ago when he felt all the love in the world.
Maybe everything could be different if he just… never felt. But it’s impossible for him. Everybody knew him as the sensitive one. The emotional one. The one that easily breaks and always keeps hard feelings. The one that is always making faces for others.
“Taehyung?” a whisper of his name fills the room and makes him shiver.
For a long time, it was an excited voice calling his name, filling his room with so much light that nobody would ever believe it was three in the morning. The happiness that he could listen to the person calling out his name so deep into the night always made him feel a warm sensation.
But this time it was a different voice. A different tone, a sadder voice. It hurt him because he loves that voice so much that he hated to listen to the sad whisper calling his name. Normally the owner of the voice was always calling him with a happy tone to talk about anything. He loved his company so much, they would spend hours and hours talking nonsense. But Taehyung couldn’t anymore.
Everything hurts.
He felt a hand over his shoulder and a force turning him around. The big bright eyes were looking at him, trying to read the room and his hyung. They were shining, but not in the way everybody always loved to describe his eyes and the little galaxies that lived in them. They were bright because he was crying.
“What happened?” he asked a little higher than he wanted to. Nobody would make his maknae cry. Not him.
“Hyung - “ he started again. Taehyung didn’t know what to say, but he felt the urge to punch the son of a bitch. “Why are you ignoring me?”
He was the son of a bitch.
“I am not?” he said, almost smiling, trying to hide all again.
And he, in fact, wasn’t ignoring Jungkook at all. But it was really hard for him to observe Jungkook’s big lovely eyes capturing everything while he was in pain. To look and see how much happy Jungkook was holding hands, hugging, snuggling, kissing cheek’s, while Taehuing was in the corner, feeling as he was replaced for another person.
“Are we playing dumb or something?” Jungkook was mad now, he could feel it, by the way, he raised his voice and almost high-pitched it. “You thought I wouldn’t notice how you’ve been avoiding me lately?”
“Jungkook, I already told you, I am not avoiding you.”
He tried his best not to change his voice tone. He couldn’t let the younger notice how broken he was for feeling not lovable. And it never matters how much Jimin would tell him that he’s lovable and he deserves all love he gives to the others. But it was actually too much to see the person who lightens his day with the person that always brought happiness for him. Was it because he wasn’t enough?
“Stop lying!” the younger just held everything to not make some loud noise and wake up the others, breaking the voices inside Taehyung’s head telling him to just get out of this conversation. Actually, to not wake up Seokjin, Namjoon, and Jimin. The rest was all too woke up. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You’ll never do anything wrong to me, Jungkook,” Taehyung said, moving a little behind and taking distance for the youngest.
“What is going on, hyung?” his voice was down again, he was taking a step ahead again, getting closer, “You used to tell me everything, and now every time that I look at you I feel more like a stranger to you.”
“Please, Jungkook, can we just… let it slide? I don’t know. It’s three in the morning.” his voice was tired. That type of voice that normally Yoongi uses in the breaking dawn when everybody wants some advice but the man spent the last five hours composing a new song.
Jungkook’s eyes were reading him again, from his head to his toes. From the messy bright brown hair to the blue bear pajamas and the ink stain in his hands. Jungkook looked like he just turned down another game party with his friends.
“We can’t.” his voice was firm. How could Jungkook have grown up so much in the past years? “I need to know.”
“Why?”
“Because we can fix this.” His voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He never wanted to sound like that, but he was feeling as all his body was as fingernails on a chalkboard.”We can work it out.”
“We can’t.” his voice was low and firm, trying to be the exact opposite of Jungkook at that moment.
“Why are you even not giving a chance to it?”
“Because every time I look at you, I remember that Hoseok is in love with you and it hurts too much.”
It was like a heavy block of massive metal was taken off his chest.
And put on somebody’s else chest.
Taehyung can describe how Jungkook’s expression changed so much in so little time. His big eyes that once covered by his eyelids that were squinted, became big and scared. His lips, which were trembling and tight, were now wide open. His nostrils once were flaring outwards but now they were small again.
You could see the confusion in his head because in all the scenarios Jungkook was prepared for, everything he had imagined, his mind would never think it was about that. It was the first time in a while that the youngest finally understood how hurt the oldest was looking at him.
“Hyung, I –”
“It’s not your fault, JK.” Taehyung laughs but Jungkook feels like the sound of it is knives for his body. Every single sound of the laugh opened an imaginary wound in his chest, that was already too heavy. You could feel the metal smell blood has, Jungkook was bleeding without actually bleeding. “It’s not his fault, also. But every time I see you together it’s so obvious how in love you two are, and it hurts too much knowing that he doesn’t love me anymore, even though he’s the only one I ever got to fall in love with.”
The younger don’t know what to say. He knew how it was like to love someone who’s never gonna love you back. He would give his life for a person that loves him, but not in the way he always wanted to. He felt heavy and lost, even with friends and growing. It was funny for him how much dark he felt while he was getting more and more lights over him.
He was in the spotlight, but too blind to see what was in front of him. And Taehyung? He was at his worst because he fell in love with someone who loved him back. They were happy together but then, once, they weren’t. He never understood how it all happened, but as they were working together he imagined that they were fine. But his friend wasn’t fine.
What kind of shitty friend Jungkook has been? Putting all his feeling first and never thinking about his hyungs? The worst part is that Tae and Jimin helped him a lot back then when he had his heartbroken for the first time. How could he be so insensitive to Taehyung after all this came out? How come he never thought about how Taehyung was feeling as he started going out with Hoseok, and then kissing Hoseok, dating Hoseok.
His stomach punched him back and he lost the sense of his legs. The urge to meet the floor and feel his knees actually breaking the fall and taking a huge breath trying to not let his heart go out through his throat.
“I’m so sorry” is everything Jungkook is thinking now, with a breaking voice.
“I told you there’s nothing to do about it” he had held all this time, but that was fucking hurtful. Because it was true. We can’t decide how other people feel about us. That’s when he cries for the first time, and he feels Jungkook’s hands reaching for his hands. “I’m so sorry,” he tries to speak, but he has a quavering voice. “I’m so sorry I still love your boyfriend, Jungkook. And I’m sorry I’m not mature enough to be around you because of my jealousy. I’m so sorry to wish that I was you.”
When Justin Timberlake wrote “Cry me a River” back in 2002, he was feeling angst by discovering that his former girlfriend had cheated on him after he expressed infinitive love. He sings about someone who’s looking for him again, after hurting him. Taehyung knew now another way to use the expression.
They were crying another Han River, actually. Jugnkook’s eyes were almost red for so much crying, and Taehyung felt now his t-shirt was too wet for simply crying. It was too much, he was again feeling too much, and it was so hard to hold this crying.
He never felt like crying in front of any bandmate because it wasn’t professional to do it. Sometimes he would say he would spend the night at Seojoon’s place, but he was actually in a hotel far away, eating ice cream and crying alone. He never felt like showing his feelings again, only the good ones, and he was trying to set the mood too. But sometimes he did it only to let the pain and sadness go away.
But now he was looking the mess he created. He made Jungkook cry. He would never get this one out of him. He broke the heart of someone he loved so much because he was hurt. He wanted to be as far away as he could to not break anyone, and, yet, there he was, breaking Jungkook’s heart apart.
“I’m sorry,” Jungook says one last time, and, like a coward, he leaves the room.
He left Taehyung crying all along. He left a room filled with emotions he couldn’t handle anymore. He left a place where he shouldn’t belong, but the owner was too good to evict him. The owner was too gentle and sweet to even think about kicking him out of the room. So he did what Taehyung should have told him about, and left.
The walk to his room is a walk of shame. His head is filled with “Because every time I look at you, I remember that Hoseok is in love with you and it hurts too much.” and he couldn’t bear himself to cry even more about that. He is so insensitive. He was so disappointed with himself, with all the situations that he created. Unfortunately, he shares his feelings with Taehyung, and being loved by Hoseok was one of the best feelings in the world.
He opened his door and had to take a deep breath to get himself together again because once he gets in it, he breaks again. Hoseok is sleeping on his bed, with such a calm expression that makes Jungkook cry even more. He controls his breath, in a horrible way to not make some noise to wake him up, but it’s all in vain. He hates himself for leaving Taehyung crying, for being the reason for his pain. But what can he do?
He loves Hoseok way too much. He could be the worst friend in the world, and an egoistic person, but he couldn’t hold how much he loves Hoseok. He loves him too much that he feels that the room is filled with his feelings. He couldn’t hold how much he had feelings for him. It was that kind of love that makes you go crazy and do things you never thought you would. It is the kind of love that makes you go higher and higher and prove yourself better every time.
He wishes so hard that’s not the way he feels about Hoseok. But he looks at the man sleeping on his bed and he can’t hold how much love he can give to him. And it hurts him so much that he can’t hide or hold his feelings so Taehyung could be okay.
In all the ways he thought he could ever hurt his hyungs, he never thought it would be like this. With something, you can’t control. Hoseok and Taehyung had dated a couple of years ago and sometimes Jungkook actually forgot that it even happened, which is what makes him the most terrible human being.
“Jungkookie?” Hoseok’s deep voice grows in the dark. “Are you there?”
“I am, I -” He tries to speak more but his voice is too unsteady and is cut by his crying.
He listens to Hoseok getting up from his bed and searching him in the dark. He can feel him getting closer with his arms wide open and once he’s inside them it feels so good, it feels so right that it breaks him to cry even more. He wants to put his head on Hoseok’s chest and cry his heart out because he can’t handle anymore to anything.
“Baby, why are you crying?” he’s holding him tight. And it feels so right. “What happened?” he asks, whipping some tears away.
He can’t speak anymore. It’s like he has this block of massive and heavy air inside his throat that blocks him out of speaking. He could try, but he will choke with the air, so he waits for a little, and cries a little more.
“Jungkookie, baby, please, talk to me. I’m really worried.”
And deep down Jungkook knows that he is a terrible friend, that he’s wrong again, and maybe Taehyung should be the one in Hoseok’s arms. Taehyung deserves all the love in the world and deserves much more than Jungkook. He’s the one that should be there, sleeping with Hoseok, and kissing Hoseok, and holding hands with Hoseok. Not him. All that Jungkook deserves is pain.
But he understood that he was a horrible person and when he feels speaking without the heavy block of air all he can think is a plea “Please, promise you won’t stop loving me.”
He’s trembling now, shaking so hard that Hoseok tries to not find the corner of the bed with his knee, but is already too late. He can’t complain about the pain and the shock he felt, because Jungkook is already shaking harder and making it harder to come together to the bed.
“Jungook, I will never stop loving you,” he said, kissing his wet cheek, smiling, and holding him close to himself.
Hoseok is like the sun. Everybody said that. He is the strong force to Seokjin’s days. He’s the battery in Yoongi’s life. He’s what sustains Namjoon’s life. He’s the warmth that Jimin needs to be strong. He’s the one who lights the night for Taehyung. And he’s the one who makes life makes sense for Jungkook. So, he is the sun in everybody’s life.
But Hoseok also was the sun because every time you get too close to him you feel that your wings aren’t prepared for the flight. You feel the need to fly higher to touch him, but every time you upgrade your wings so you can be one step closer, you feel your wings melting more. And more.
One day you’re too blind by his light to see that your wings are melted and all that remains to you is a leap of faith down to Earth again, hoping that there will be something that would make it hurt a little less when you fall and meet the ground. Hoping he could at least fall into the sea and be lost there in the intensive blue around him, the unknown force that pushes him to the deepest deep of everything and fills his lungs with water until he can’t breathe anymore.
Hoseok didn’t try to ask anything more, he made Jungkook lay down and sleep close to him. He was too shocked to come back to sleep but held the youngest hands until he calm down and his breathing was slowly turning into a pacing heavy one. That’s how he knows Jungkook is sleeping and is when he makes himself sleep again.
They wake up with the sun. Literally.
It was shining so bright outside that they felt stupid for not thinking about closing the curtains too well. It was hot because they were like little ants through a magnifier. Jungkook felt his skin hurting from the sun, and he was the first to try closing it. That’s when he listened to a knock on his door.
He was already up, even with his eyes so swollen that he could barely see anything in front of him. Hoseok was still sleeping, as nothing could actually bother him. He found the doorknob and turned it around slowly enough to not make any kind of noise.
He found Taehyung out there. Frozen to death, looking at him with a piece of paper in his hands. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t sad as he was yesterday. He was still too hurt, Jungkook could tell, but he would never talk about it again. He pushed Jungkook out of his room and closed the door behind him.
“I want to show you something I worked on last night after we talked,” he said, resentful. “Can you…?”
“Sure,” he said, following him back to his room.
Taehyung’s room was the way Jungkook left it sooner. The paper mountain was bigger, but the feeling that the air there was heavier than the air in Chile was too much for him to handle again. The heavy feeling in his chest was back and was worst. He wished everything were different.
“I need you to listen to something and give me some opinions about it.”
“I’ll do anything you ask, hyung.”
“That’s not how we’re gonna work, Jungkook.” Taehyung was serious now, his eyes were looking for something in Jungkook that the youngest couldn’t tell yet what it was. “I’m not using this as a ‘you date the person that I like, so you’ll do whatever I say’ card. I need you to be honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. This won’t change because we’re still best friends. I don’t need sympathy.” He took a deep breath, his voice was already cracking up again and he didn’t want to deal with another crying session there. “I wrote a song. I need you to listen to it. Can you?”
“I’m all ears.” Jungkook smiled. The smile that Taehyung loves to see. The smile that means the world to him because he only smiled like that to one person before: Namjoon. “What did you do?”
There was a guitar playing, but it was a computer bot doing it, as Taehyung didn’t play the guitar to it. He had one of the apps and programs that simulate musical instruments and Tae used one that was a fake guitar sound, just to follow the melancholic beat. His voice was lower, as when he sings Singularity.
Taehyung sang about when they were together. In the chorus, we ask if the sun is still in love with the moon. He sings things like “Do you still keep counting my sins?” as Hoseok could actually hold something against someone. Jungkook knew that Hoseok never counted Taehyung’s flaws. But he started feeling his cheeks wet as soon as his hyung sang “ How many more first kisses? / Are you gonna watch me pick up the pieces?” because it was sad, and Jungkook knew there’s nothing they could do about it because Hoseok was clear about his feelings towards both of them. He loved Taehyung as the friend he was close to the most. He loved Jungkook with all his heart and soul.
How can someone be sad about being loved by someone else? Isn’t what everybody wanted? Someone that loves you for who you are, with their heart and soul that sometimes it is too much for a body so the feeling extends to something ethereal that nobody could actually understand.
He loves his hyungs with all his heart.
Maybe that’s the problem.
He is too sensitive. But nobody expects it from him. He’s the Golden Maknae, the one that does everything so perfectly, the one who has the bad boy vibe. That’s how everybody else saw him. Everybody but his hyungs. And Hoseok was the one who could see his soul.
Hoseok was the one who always knew when he was happy or sad. The one who always knew how to get up and pick up his pieces on the floor because the team needless drama and more action. He was the one that talked with Namjoon about Jungkook’s feelings, about Vhope being a thing thing. He was the one in front of all of them, picking every little fragment the group could lose.
“What do you think?” Taehyung’s voice brought him back to reality once again. “Is it too cringe?”
“No!” he shouts, jumping from the chair, “This is good! Like, Namjoon’s solo stuff is good! You should show him.”
“You’re saying this to make me happy. It’s shitty and cringes, I know,” he said, moving his mouse around the screen.
“Taehyung, if you delete this song I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.” Jungkook was even surprised that he said it aloud. Taheyung froze and Jungkook took his hands away from the computer. “It’s perfect. Maybe something for a solo on SoundCloud perfect.”
“You really think it?”
“You asked me to be truthful to you. I’m being. I really love it. And I hope this doesn’t turn into something like the hundred songs you finish but never release it. You really should work with these lyrics and transform this into something melancholically beautiful.” he smiled, and Taehyung felt good again.
*****
“Taehyung?” Hoseok knocked on his door but was opening without waiting for an answer. “I think we need to talk.” he was dead serious.
He just thought about what it could be. Vigil’s just died, but they knew. They were getting a break, he had already booked their family to travel together after the shows. They were good, Jungkook and Hoseok were happy than ever and Taehyung was okay with that. He overcame his feelings towards Hoseok.
“Why didn’t you tell me you released your mixtape?” he asked, sitting on the corner of the bed, looking at him with his warm eyes. “I thought we were friends.”
“I didn’t tell anyone. It’s a nice surprise, don’t you think?” he smiled, trying to look angelical for Hoseok. Sometimes that’s how he gets rid of trouble with his bandmates.
“I listened to it.” he said, not letting his ‘tata mic’ face get rid of the trouble he was into. “From me, the moon. I listened to it.”
That was the problem? An old song he ever wanted to show the world but he didn’t know a way to put it out without raising some flags about the person that broke his heart for the first time. It was an old feeling, not important anymore. He learned how to surpass it and now everything was, indeed, good. No hard or harsh feelings for them. Only happiness.
“It’s an old song hyung, don’t get too attached.” he shrugged like a teen.
“Yeah, Jungkook told me about it.” Hoseok coughs, laughing,
“I imagined that.” he smiled, his square smile was not a simulation, he was proud of himself, “But this song is going to be used on a drama next year. It’s nothing about the past.”
“I thought we were friends. How come you never tell me that? That you still have feelings for me?
“I had feelings for you.”
“Why did you release the song?” Hoseok was a little too anxious for that. His words were getting over themselves on the phrases and Taehyung found it really cute. Hoseok was really cute when he was that kind of nervous.
“Because Jungkook said I should. I don’t want to ruin what you two have, it’s not my intention here. It’s a sad song about a breakup. Nobody knows who hurt me, what happened. It’s okay.”
“Can you promise me one thing, then?”
“Always, hyung.”
“Don’t hide anything from me again. Even if it hurts, please tell me. We can work it out.”
That’s what Jungkook said to him years ago.
“We always can, hyung.” he said, smiling and turning back to his computer as Hoseok turns to his door and closes it. He is free now. It was the last step to get over Hoseok. To write a song and show to the world how broken he was. But now he’s fine.
He’s ready for the next person that will break his heart.