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The clock strikes 11:59 PM, and Kim Seokjin is still hoping.
Midnight. That's what they'd agreed upon, after all. Min Yoongi still has fifty-eight seconds left.
He watches them tick by, trying to ignore the feeling that they're counting down to something much worse than a new day, let alone a special one. Thirty-three, thirty-two. Half a minute now.
A glance at the door, waiting to hear the sound of jingling keys, choir-like in its sweetness. Twenty seconds, nineteen. Somewhere, there's a sigh. Ten seconds. Somewhere, there's a cry. Five, four, three, two, one.
The clock strikes 12:00 AM on the fourth of December, and Kim Seokjin gets into bed, turns out the light, and lets the darkness consume all his hope.
He falls asleep the next minute and wakes up the minute after that. Yoongi's there now, framed by sunlight beside him. He has never felt so distant and dark to Seokjin, who gets up carelessly and pulls his suitcase out from under the bed. Their bed. The one they bought and assembled together, made love on, cuddled on, laughed on, cried on. The one that gave him a thousand memories whose rose-colored filters were now shattered.
Seokjin's always been an efficient and almost noiseless packer. Thus, it comes as no surprise to him when Yoongi only wakes up near the tail end of his haul in their bedroom. He sees the man he called the love of his life sit up out of the corner of his eye and look at him through bleary, confused eyes and messy bangs.
"Good morning, babe. What are you doing?"
No response.
"Are you packing? For what? Are we going on a trip?"
Silence.
"Seokjin-hyung, please say something."
"Isn't it obvious? I'm getting out of here."
"Out of here? Where are you going?"
"Anywhere. I can go anywhere I want." Just not home.
"But why are you leaving?"
"Because you already did."
"What the hell are you talking about? I'm right here." Yoongi stands up but makes no move to stop Seokjin, who isn't even looking at him.
"You're not. You've been gone the second you broke your promises, the instant you threw away our agreements, the moment you ignored my texts and calls for some feeble excuse in your mind and for people who barely care about you. You left a long time ago, and now I'm doing the same. I'm getting out of here. Getting out of us."
"What? Is this about your birthday? Come on, hyung, I don't wanna fight on your special day—"
"This isn't a fight," Seokjin says in the same unusual monotone voice he's used this entire time as he pries Yoongi's arms off his waist. "You stopped fighting a long time ago as well. And last night, so did I."
"I didn't— look, I'm sorry, okay? I always apologized before, and now's no different. I'm sorry I—"
"Oh, you got one thing right, at least. Now's no different, because you're not sorry this time, either."
"I am sorry! I was always sorry—"
"Sorry isn't a sentiment someone's sincere about when they keep disregarding everything that should matter over and over again."
"Are you saying my work's not important?"
"No. I'm saying you don't know what 'important' truly means anymore."
"So, you think you're not important to me?"
"I don't know, am I? But it doesn't matter what I think anymore." We're over. Seokjin goes to the bathroom to pack his toiletries, and Yoongi follows him, scoffing.
"That's it, then? Half a decade of dating down the drain, and you won't even talk to me about it properly. All because of, what, a few fucking broken promises?"
"You don't have the right to say that." Seokjin still refuses to face him, but there's the slightest tremor in his voice now. "I guess you forgot about that, too. Wouldn't surprise me."
"What? Forgot about wh—"
They're twenty-two, and it's their first morning together in their shared apartment. Seokjin's staring at him, eyes dappled with golden sunlight and purest love. Yoongi stares back. It's not hard. In fact, it's one of the easiest things in the world, second only to loving him.
"Yoongi-yah."
God, his morning voice makes me melt. "Yes, hyung?"
"Can you promise me something? But, heh, don't promise it if you can't keep it."
"I'd keep any promise as long as it's to you."
"Mhm. Okay." Seokjin grins, and it bleeds into his voice, for his expressions and feelings always do. "Yoongichi, promise me you won't make promises, especially to me, that you can't or won't keep."
And young, starry-eyed Yoongi can't ever imagine himself breaking a promise to Seokjin, simply because he falls more and more in love with him every day, so he doesn't even hesitate to offer his pinky to the man he's going to marry and say, "I pinky promise, Seokjinnie-hyung."
Seokjin's grin turns into a smile as he raises his own pinky, and Yoongi knows with immovable certainty that if he breaks a single promise to him, to the love of his life, then he would've lost in every sense of the word. Their pinkies curl around each other, and they are happy.
They were happy.
"Seokjin— I—"
"Have nothing more to say to you? Me, too." He puts the rest of his things in the living room inside his suitcase, closes it, and walks toward the door. "Goodbye, Min Yoongi. I wish you happiness."
Seokjin's hand is on the doorknob when Yoongi says it.
"I bought a ring."
Seokjin stops.
"I was working overtime, and I got another job. I was never with friends. I was gonna ask you on your birthday. Today. It's a diamond ring, your favorite. I remember you told me so during that photoshoot. I just got it last night. That's why I was late."
Please, let him turn around, Yoongi prays to some god. Neither believed in the other. Please, let him turn around and curse me, punch me, kiss me, kill me. Just don't let him leave. Please, I can't lose him. Please.
Seokjin looks back and meets Yoongi's eyes one last time, his face impassive. But the words that leave his mouth say more than any expression ever could.
"Save it for the love of your life."
The clock strikes 12:00 PM on the fourth of December just as the door closes behind Kim Seokjin, and Min Yoongi realizes that you can fall more and more in love with someone every day and still lose them.