Chapter Text
prologue
[busan]
/
It's been years since Taehyung has been back in Busan.
Six years, to be exact.
Six long years, that should have been spent finishing high school, getting a degree, getting a job - doing all the things that the rest of his friends had done, the things he was supposed to do if he wanted to have a life. Six long years, that he should have spent learning how to be an adult, how to take care of himself, how to be someone his parents would be proud of. Years that instead, he'd spent in an obscure corner of Seoul, out of reach of his family and happier than he'd ever been in his entire life.
It feels strange, coming back home now.
Taehyung doesn't even know where his father lives anymore.
It should feel terrible, stepping foot back into the city of his childhood that had housed every horror he'd run from - but it doesn't. Taehyung is older now. He's a person of his own. He can say he's coming back home, and not mean home to my father. Coming back home, but not to the cursed four walls he'd grown up in.
Taehyung is coming back home, but to Jungkook. To Jimin.
To the people he'd die for.
When he thinks of it like that, it isn't hard at all.
It's been six years but the streets to his neighbourhood aren't that different from how he left them. A couple of stores are missing, replaced with other stores. A couple of apartment buildings he didn't think were there before. Some buildings have had a fresh coat of paint, some are desperately in need of one. But for the most part, the neighbourhood feels the same. The quiet streets, the warmth of the sun, the cracks in the sidewalk that make him feel crazy.
It isn't hard to find Jungkook's house, it's a path down the streets that he'll never forget. He's walked down it more times than to his own house.
When he spots it at the end of the street, Taehyung stops for a moment.
Just for a moment.
Jungkook's house looks a little different as well. A fresh coat of paint, decorations hoisted up at the entrance. A car that Taehyung doesn't recognize parked by the gate. All the windows lit up, in a way that they never are, because Jungkook has a strange bone to pick with overhead lighting and prefers lighting his room up with lamps or candles like a caveman.
It makes sense, though, because the house must be full right now.
Full of people that Taehyung knew six years ago, and then decided that he didn't want to.
He's going back home to Jungkook, he tells himself again. To Jimin.
Taehyung is twenty five years old, and no one else can tell him who to be anymore.
One foot after the other, one after the other.
For Jungkook, for Jimin, for himself.
He's barely made it through the gate when the front door bursts open.
It's Jimin.
Of course it's Jimin.
It shouldn't be jarring to see him, because they've been in touch the whole time. Taehyung has watched him grow from afar, through screens and pictures, but it's different to see him in real life.
He's dressed neatly, crisp button down and his hair dyed brown again, the sort of inconspicuousness you needed to survive in this quiet neighbourhood.
The sort that Taehyung had run away from.
For a second Jimin's face is too serious, too hard, too stressed, like he wasn't sure he'd open the door to see what he hoped to see.
But then he grins, and it's like they're kids all over again.
"Ahhhhhh," Jimin says. "You bastard."
Taehyung grins back. "I made it in one piece."
Jimin tackles him into a hug, holding him too close. Too tight. He's laughing, and it's been six years, and Taehyung had missed him so much he sometimes thought he might die.
He holds him back even tighter. "I missed you," he says.
"You asshole," Jimin says, but there's no heat in it. "Then maybe you shouldn't have left."
There's a thud from somewhere in the house, and a voice that Taehyung recognizes as Jungkook's father yelling sharply about no running in the house. Seconds later Jungkook's face emerges, flushed and nervous and excited and scared, like he isn't sure that Taehyung is going to be real.
"Jungkook-ahhh," Taehyung says, still trapped in Jimin's arms, reaching a hand out to the younger boy.
Jungkook looks like he might cry.
"Are you crying?" Taehyung says, because deep down he really is an asshole. "Are you really crying? Are you going to cry before your wedding?"
"Shut up, hyung," Jungkook says miserably, wiping his eyes with his sleeves. "I hate you."
"Jungkook are you crying?" Jimin asks as well, letting go of Taehyung to turn around.
"Both of you shut up."
Taehyung laughs, holding his arms open, and Jungkook falls into them. It's been six years and he still fits in his arms perfectly, like they were all built to be a part of each other after all.
"I'm home now," he says, more to himself than to anyone else.
"Yeahhh," Jimin deadpans. "He's not going to stop crying now."
"Leave me alone," Jungkook mumbles into Taehyung's shoulder, and Taehyung laughs and holds him tighter.
/
To be honest, Taehyung still doesn't know why Jungkook is getting married.
He's two years younger than him. A whole two years. In Taehyung's head, Jungkook is still the little kid that he had to walk back home and help with his homework and chase around the house whenever he was bored.
He's always been someone that Taehyung needed to take care of. Needed to, wanted to, had to. He's practically his little brother, and the idea that he's grown up enough to get married, before Taehyung no less, is ridiculous to him.
But he likes to think he handles it better than Jimin, who is slumped on the couch over a can of soda pretending that it has some sort of alcohol content.
"He could have married me," he complains, waving the can at Taehyung as if Taehyung had something to do with any of this. "Aren't I great? Aren't I the best? He could have just married me?"
Up close, he looks older than he had through their video calls. His face is sharper, his eyes more tired. He looks like a Jimin that had to grow up for real.
"I'm literally right here," Jungkook deadpans.
"Shoo," Jimin says, pushing him away with a hand on his face. Jungkook falls back onto the couch dramatically.
Jimin turns back to Taehyung. "I raised him," he says flatly.
"You didn't," Jungkook mumbles, from where he's fallen.
"I brought him up as my own son."
"Then why the fuck would you want to marry me, that's creepy."
"Silence, child," Jimin snaps. "Taehyung-ah, don't you think I'm handsome?"
"The most handsome," Taehyung agrees.
"And don't I earn a lot?"
"Ehh, you earn enough."
"So I'd make a good husband right?"
"Of course," Taehyung says. "I'd marry you."
Jimin brightens up. "Really?"
"For sure."
Jimin grins. The he kicks Jungkook in the foot.
"Ow."
"Who needs you, you traitor."
"Excuse me??"
"Watch us get married and laugh in your face."
"Wow, okay."
"We should crash his ceremony," Taehyung says. "Push him out of the way and steal all the thunder with our love instead."
"Yes," Jimin says. "And then we'll run away and get fifty dogs and every time Jungkookie knocks on our door we won't open it."
"Why am I getting kicked out of the family?" Jungkook asks, incredulous.
"Because you're a traitor," Taehyung says wisely.
"Fine," Jungkook says, crossing his arms. "I'll get a hundred dogs. And you can't see any of them."
Taehyung gasps, scandalized.
"Jungkook-ah?" someone calls from a different room. Jungkook is up in a second, running off without even bothering to excuse himself.
Once he's gone Jimin looks more serious again.
"Is he stressed out?" Taehyung asks him quietly.
"Like hell," Jimin says. "He doesn't show it at all though."
It's one of the worst things about Jungkook, really. It was harder still, when Taehyung lived in a different city. When they lived together he could keep an eye on the younger boy, could tell when he was quieter than usual, or too loud like he was trying to compensate for something. When his footsteps would stutter when he had to go back home, when he'd hold Taehyung's hands a little too tight.
But from too far away, there wasn't much Taehyung could do to read him unless Jungkook told him outright. It was too easy for calls to be ignored because he was busy or overworked, and there was no way to differentiate that from him being sad.
They've had a couple of shitty fights over it, the worst being when Jungkook had been so sick he'd had to be hospitalized and hadn't told Taehyung anything of it. Taehyung had exploded, maybe worse than he should have, and Jungkook had told him that if he'd cared that much maybe he should fucking visit home, and then they hadn't spoken for two entire weeks.
They'd nearly had a fight that bad three months ago, when Jungkook had called him up at 3AM to tell him cheerfully that he'd been arranged to marry some guy he didn't even know.
The worst part was that Taehyung knew instantly that he wasn't joking.
He'd felt his heart stop, blood pounding in his ears, and he'd known that he wasn't joking because this was the sort of stupid thing Jungkook had done his entire life.
He'd always just done what his parents had told him to do.
Taehyung had cursed at him, had told him to stand up for himself, had even offered to run away with him - and that had only made Jungkook angry, because apparently not everyone can run away from their family whenever things don't go their way and some of us aren't like you hyung, which had pissed Taehyung off but not for the right reasons - he knows Jungkook doesn't blame him for running away. Neither does Jimin. They both knew Busan was killing him and that he had to get away.
Every time Jungkook yells at him, Taehyung knows it's less because he blames him and more because he hates himself for not wanting to follow him.
Jungkook's family means too much to him for him to run off like a rabid dog the way Taehyung did, and he hates himself for it every day.
And now here they are, just days away from Jungkook marrying some guy he's only met thrice, and Taehyung here pretending it doesn't make him want to kill himself.
/
Taehyung thinks Min Yoongi doesn't know how to smile.
It pisses him off.
The man is older than Taehyung, a year or two maybe, and has some cushy job in Seoul that goes right over Taehyung's head any time someone tries to explain it to him. It has something to do with businesses. Or stocks. Whatever.
He's polite, to be fair. Overly so. His manners are impeccable, and he can use a knife and fork in a way Taehyung never bothered learning, and everything about him pisses Taehyung off.
This is the man who's supposed to be Jungkook's husband.
Jungkook, the loser who sends Taehyung shitty memes and cries every time his favourite characters cry on screen.
Jungkook who drinks his soup straight from the bowl because he understands it's more effective than trying to play posh and use a spoon.
Yoongi is wrong for him, is what Taehyung decides, three minutes after knowing the man. Yoongi doesn't deserve Jungkook, not at all. Yoongi deserves another rich asshole like him who'll sit around and talk about business or stocks or whatever the fuck.
"What's his job again?" Taehyung asks Jungkook, leaning close to his ear, for like the fifth time today.
"He handles mergers and acquisitions," Jungkook repeats, like he's memorized it.
"And what the fuck does that mean," Taehyung asks, careful to make sure his expression doesn't change. They're in public, after all, with too many people watching and waiting to judge them.
They're all sitting down to dinner together at some fancy restaurant. To be honest Taehyung is kind of touched that he and Jimin were invited, considering how they're out of place and not even related to Jungkook by blood.
But here they are, sitting together with Yoongi, his family, and Jungkook's family, as if they were part of their home all along.
"Something like what my dad does," Jungkook whispers back.
"And what is that."
"Listen, hyung," Jungkook says, "I don't fucking know either."
"Why couldn't you just marry Jimin," Taehyung complains quietly. "I know what Jimin does for a living."
Jungkook sighs.
Yoongi looks at them and raises his eyebrows. Jungkook smiles, but it comes out awkward.
Taehyung hates everything.
"So, Yoongi-ssi," he says brightly, because the least he can do for his little brother is try and pretend that the dude he's marrying is a human being. "What do you like to do in your free time?"
Yoongi tilts his head, considering. Everything he does is so careful, so measured. He's the epitome of well raised, born to money, everything that Taehyung ran from this city to escape.
Sometimes he thinks Yoongi is the child that Taehyung's father would have wanted to have, and that fills him with a fucked up emotion that he doesn't want to identify.
Yoongi dabs at his mouth with a napkin before he speaks and Taehyung wants to stab himself.
"I'm very into music," he says. "What about you?"
"What kind of music?" Taehyung asks, ignoring the question entirely.
"Western classical, mostly."
Taehyung stares at him blankly.
Jimin sees his expression and snorts, and then coughs trying to cover it up.
Yoongi's eyebrow twitches, but he says nothing.
"Western classical is great," Taehyung says, even if he hasn't heard a single piece since he was thirteen or something. "But do you like BTS?"
Yoongi tilts his head again. "They're okay," he says.
Taehyung stares at him blankly some more.
They're okay, he had said.
Okay.
This monster was marrying his little brother. His best friend. And he called BTS okay. What the fuck.
"Taehyung, honey," Jungkook's mother says, in the quiet voice she uses when she means i don't know why my son is your friend but could you please act the way I want you to right now. "Why don't you tell Yoongi about your work in Seoul? You both might even live near each other."
"I fix motorcycles," Taehyung says bluntly. "In Jung-gu."
There's an awkward silence, where he can feel everyone judging him.
Taehyung likes to pretend it doesn't bother him.
This is how it's always been. His father had been a CEO. Jungkook's father, apparently, had handled mergers and acquisitions, whatever that was supposed to mean. Even Jimin has a decent story, working in software with a pretty good salary even if it makes him want to die.
And Taehyung is a high school drop out who fixes motorcycles because he's been banned from racing them.
The least qualified person at this table, only here because for some reason Jungkook still loves him.
He keeps his gaze level, watching Yoongi carefully. Looking down means he's ashamed of it, and Taehyung isn't ashamed of what he does. What he is is angry, that he's expected to be ashamed of it. That running away without finishing high school when it was the only way to keep yourself alive was seen as a coward's move, and that the sheer amount of courage it took him to survive in a city he'd never been to before was completely unimportant.
"I see," is all that Yoongi says, turning back to his food as if it doesn't matter to him, and it sparks a certain rage in Taehyung's chest that he's been fighting all day.
The way the man clearly wants to ask more, but isn't because it wouldn't be polite. The way he's judging Taehyung just as much as the next person but doesn't say it out loud.
Taehyung hates this type of person the most.
"Hyung is an artist too," Jungkook says, because he's never been able to catch on to the fact that people don't like what Taehyung does for a living. He's always thought that Taehyung was the coolest person in the universe and it makes Taehyung's heart hurt.
"Is that so?" Yoongi says, polite interest in his expression.
"Yeah, freelance," Taehyung says.
"Interesting," Yoongi says.
The conversation ends awkwardly.
The other adults chat about things that mean nothing to Taehyung, about relatives he hasn't seen in years and current affairs that he hasn't been following. They talk and talk and Yoongi chimes in regularly, always polite, always adding nothing of note. His words are so careful, so calculated.
Taehyung drinks a little more than he should in front of these people.
"What do they see in him?" he asks Jimin later, when they've finished eating and are waiting outside for the rest of the family to join them.
"He's a good guy," Jimin says.
He isn't a good guy. Taehyung knows this. He knows this, because his expressions are the same that he'd grown up seeing on his father's face, always calm, always cool, always pristine and never a father.
"He's so boring," is what he says out loud.
"He doesn't know us," Jimin argues. "He could just be awkward."
"He's not," Taehyung says. "I know his type. He doesn't have a personality outside of being polite so he doesn't get disowned and written out of his parents' inheritance."
"You're so dramatic," Jimin says. "Jungkook likes him fine."
"Does he?" Taehyung stresses.
Jimin doesn't reply.
/
"You know," Jimin says, long suffering, "Most people go to clubs for their bachelor parties."
"Shut up, hyung," Jungkook says, focusing on dealing out cards. "It's my party."
They're sitting on the floor of his bedroom, blankets spread out around them, a couple of bottles of soju and bags of chips in the middle of their circle. Jungkook has a deck of cards in his hands and Jimin is pouring soju into glasses, while Taehyung lies flat on his front and watches them with his face in a pillow.
"We should at least be outside," Jimin says. "How is this different from any other day."
"It's not supposed to be," Jungkook says, his voice a little sharper, more higher pitched than usual, and Jimin instantly softens.
Taehyung gets the urge again, that he's been trying to supress, to tell Jungkook to run away with him right now.
But he knows it'll probably get him a punch in the face.
"Okay," Jimin says, a little more gentle. "I get it. We're having fun for old time's sake."
"Yeah," Jungkook says, voice still a little sharp.
"So Jungkookie is going to lose for old time's sake," Taehyung adds, shifting through his cards.
Jungkook scowls at him.
The game goes as smoothly as card games go between the three of them, which is to say it's a chaotic disaster. Taehyung wins three rounds before they figure out he's been sitting on his cards to hide them, Jimin smacks him in the head with a bag of chips so hard that it pops open, and Jungkook loses dramatically because he's an idiot who still hasn't realized he's sitting in front of a mirror and everyone can see his cards.
"On the bright side," Jungkook says, because he's momentarily forgotten that he's been pretending to be happy about getting married, "After I move to Seoul we can do this all the time."
He looks at Taehyung with such sincere hope that it breaks his heart.
"You didn't need to get married for that," Taehyung says dryly. "All you needed was a stupid bus ticket."
Jungkook makes a face at him.
"I'll come soon too," Jimin says. He'd been trying to transfer to Seoul for a few months now, and once he'd learned that Jungkook would be moving it had only sped things up for him. There was no way he wanted to stay in this neighbourhood with both of his best friends gone. "Then we can have a cooler bachelor party there by actually going outside."
"He won't be a bachelor," Taehyung says, nodding towards Jungkook.
"We can pretend he is for a day," Jimin says. "Or we can invite Yoongi too."
There's an awkward silence.
"He's a good guy," Jungkook says, unnecessarily, even though no one has said he isn't.
The silence gets even more awkward.
"I'm sure he is," Jimin says gently. "I hope he likes us, though. It'll be fun, the four of us hanging out together."
"Yeah," Taehyung says, with zero feeling. "It'll be fun."
He gets that thought again, about his father. About how Min Yoongi would have been the sort of son he might have been able to tolerate.
Yoongi doesn't deserve Jungkook. Not at all.
But it doesn't matter what he thinks anymore.
"It'll be fun," Jungkook repeats, and he even looks excited. "All of us in Seoul."
"Cheers," Jimin says, holding up his empty glass.
/