Chapter Text
Taehyung sat with his head in his hands, foot tapping in soft thuds against the soft rug. He glances up to catch the worry on his boyfriend’s face. Jungkook stands by the far end of the couch, eyes deer-wide and hands locked in front to squeeze at a rattle-toy like a stress ball.
They haven’t spoken a word in minutes, a game of stare-off in full play until Taehyung fists his hair in his hands. “So let me summarise.” He sighs tiredly.
His tie hangs loosely from his collar, sleeves of his dress shirt folded, and watch discarded clumsily over the blazer dumped on the couch. “You’re choosing a baby that isn’t even yours over our relationship?”
“You’re twisting my words Tae. I’m not choosing anything I’m just giving you an out–”
“You want to give me an out because you gave someone an in. Are you certain he isn’t yours?”
Jungkook reels back like a physical blow had pushed him on his chest. “Are you implying–”
“I’m not implying anything.” Taehyung’s hands move to rub over his face, a harsh sound produces out of it. “I’m just asking–”
“He is a year old, and we’ve been dating for three. If you think I cheated on you just go ahead and say it. You don’t have to beat around the bush to cushion the blow, Taehyung!” Betrayal in eyes, Jungkook takes another step back. His defensive habit of putting walls in vulnerable moments had faded over the years, especially with the arrival of someone who he knew wouldn’t use it against him. So the feeling of sinking quicksand takes Jungkook by as much surprise as does fear.
“Jungkook,” he sighs, brows furrowed. “I come back after a work trip of 3 weeks to find my house transformed into diaper-smelling neonatal ward and my boyfriend asking me to either live with it or pack my fucking bags. Do you think you have a ground to act mad here?”
Jungkook’s lips seal shut. He bows his head as if laden with weights of a hundred stones and shakes his head softly. “I’m sorry. I will schedule a paternity test as soon as possible to prove that… I was loyal.”
Taehyung deflates at that. It is inevitable for hurt to triumph over rational logics. “This is such a big responsibility, Kook. Forget us, you’re jeopardizing yourself over someone who isn’t even related to you–”
“No child deserves a life without a guardian. And if she trusted me enough to take charge of her baby after her, she must know I can do this.” When the words slip from being a conversation to mindless blubbering, they don’t know. “I loved his mother once. I owe it to her.”
“Yeah, before she went ahead and cheated on you. Do you not remember the mess you were when she–”
“Let's not talk ill of the dead Tae. Soyeon was my best friend before anything.”
Taehyung raises his hands in surrender. He gets up. “Do you think it is easy raising a human? It is a huge responsibility! What about your job? How are you going to balance both these things when you have a full-time–”
“I quit.”
“...What?”
“I quit. Gave my resignation two weeks ago.” Jungkook mumbles shamefully, eyes fixed on the toy he twists his hand.Taehyung begins to walk out and Jungkook runs to follow him. “I didn’t tell you because you were already stressed from the work meetings and I didn’t wan to–”
“We talked every single day.” Taehyung whispers, flabbergasted. “Do I mean nothing to you?”
The toy drops to the ground as Jungkook moves to Taehyung’s side, eyes urgent and beseeching, he clasps his forearm. “No! You know that’s not true, Tae!”
Jungkook freezes instantly when a shrill cry resonates in the hallway from the guestroom he just converted into a nursery. He tightens his hold on Taehyung’s arm when he sees his jaw clench.
“Do I though?” Taehyung frees his arm away. He shoves a hand into his pocket and looks away the moment Jungkook’s lips begin to quiver. Jungkook wonders if he has the right to stop him when he picks up his blazer and hangs it on the nook of his arm.
Taehyung takes out the hand from his pocket. “Happy anniversary, I guess.”
He throws a velvet ring-box on the couch and brisk walks out of the front door, knocking over his suitcase on the way.
~~
Taehyung's loose bangs wilt backward when he throws his head back to finish his drink. Yoongi tuts for the third time.
“Stop that.” He reprimands when Taehyung waves the waiter over. “You’re shit at handling your alcohol.”
“I’m shit. Period.” Taehyung mumbles before dictating to the waiter for another round. Jimin sits in the corner, eyes locked on the single drink he’s had in his hand since they arrived at the bar.
The private booth they sit at provides scarce concealment from the stench of the neighbor’s cigar. Taehyung is surprised by the intensity of his emotions that the repulse to it is negligible if not zero. Yoongi, who sits beside him in the formals they arrived from the work trip in, much like himself, pats his back lightly.
“I think he’s a little overwhelmed and impulsive right now. I will ask the lawyers to stay prepared in case Jungkook wants to drop off custody and solve this like an adult.”
Taehyung nods bleakly. His eyes have drooped in lieu of the haze floating around and inside of him— from the warmth of booze he just gulped and the burn of an inferno his relationship has toppled into.
“D’you wanna eat something?” Yoongi coaxes softly. Taehyung shakes his head. Putting anything in his tummy would be nothing but a trigger to the stimulus ready to retch.
“And you?” He asks again. Taehyung hears nothing part from Yoongi’s sigh so he reckons Jimin must’ve denied it too.
Now is when it registers with Taehyung how peculiar Jimin’s behavior has been ever since he called his friends to the bar. He hasn’t said a single word, nor has actively extended any condolences not that it would matter. He looks up and finds his best friend slumped against the cubical wall, eyes fixed on the untouched glass. It takes a long moment for 2 and 2 to add up and Taehyung coughs out his gasp the moment it forms the most distorted four of his life.
“You knew!”
Damned above all that is treacherous, Taehyung eyes choose this moment to go moist, pathetically in time as the waiter arrives with more poison. Jimin nods; waits for the intruder to walk away before he serves with a long drawn sigh. “He called me this Monday.”
Taehyung gapes. “You’ve. You’ve known for five days?” His voice doesn’t dare cross above a whisper, perhaps inaudible in the wrecked place.
Jimin nods again, head never lifting from where it zeroes over the glass. “He was terrified and he wanted me to keep you away for the anniversary. He didn’t want to knock you with so much altogether.”
Taehyung scoffs but doesn’t interrupt when Jimin continues.
“Hence why I suggested we stay over for a day or two. He said he’d leave the baby under his sister’s care for when you arrive and then explain everything when you’re not drained from the meetings.”
Taehyung drops to the backrest of his seat. He stares at Jimin in a mocktail of betrayal and disbelief. He never, however, gets an eye-contact back.
“My best friend and my significant other.” he mocks a chuckle.
“Yoongi hyung, be a darling, and please reveal whatever you’re fooling me into too.” Taehyung smiles venomously, too gone for rebuttals. “I’m on a roll today.”
“I r-refused at first,” Jimin adds when the moments of silence stretch too long. “He was scared– terrified– and I yelled at him about the impulsive mistake and.” He gulps. Taehyung wants to walk away. But something about Jungkook trusting Jimin over him with something this colossal makes the bitterness from earlier multiply inside him until it is the primary component in his bloodstream.
“-and I tried to convince him to rethink this. The implications of it in your relationship.” Jimin’s grip on his glass tightened.
Yoongi’s hand is instantly on Taehyung’s thigh as a gentle way to pacify the rabid urges. He hates that it helps. He then watches him turn to Jimin. “If I was in your position, I probably would not have told Taehyung either.” Taehyung’s head snaps to him. He feels sick to the very core, stabbed and stabbed and stabbed in the gut by everyone that has ever meant something. “What.”
“The work jaunt was as stressful as it gets and if it wasn’t for the last-minute damage controls, our company could’ve suffered irreparable plunges.” Hands locked over the table, Yoongi gently begins to explain. “You were our frontman and we needed you un-distracted and in your best relentless form. So as a business partner, yes, Jimin did the right thing.”
Taehyung is still dealing with the brutally honest words when Yoongi is turning to Jimin again. “What I would have rather done as a childhood best friend though, is convince Jungkook to not take hasty decisions and wait for Taehyung to come back to the house. Not stop Taehyung from going home.”
“You think I didn’t try? He was adamant that if he didn’t instantly prove himself eligible for custody they would put him up under foster care and he couldn’t let that happen.”
“And what was so wrong with foster care? Children actually have a good future–”
Taehyung’s eyes shift from Jimin to the glass in his hand, unblinkingly. “Jungkook didn’t have good foster parenting growing up. He never details much and I won’t push, but he was pretty much brought up by his sister. He never hides his distaste for the facility though.”
Yoongi rubs the hand on his thigh. “Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it?”
Taehyung topples the glass to his mouth and finishes the last of his drinks. “Telltale of how little my position is in this situation.” He chuckles with eyes brimming.
“If that is what you believe— that Jungkook doesn’t love you enough,” Jimin interrupts with his head still low and voice feeble. “What about his work? Does he not like it too?”
“Jungkook loves his job.” Yoongi adds.
When Taehyung’s eyes shut themselves in exhaustion, the face that unsurprisingly flashes is Jungkook— specifically with the big glittery eyes blabbering off about something that happened at work, a challenging cake decoration he nailed, or pouting about the fondant that wouldn’t cooperate.
He lurches back to the twinkling tinsel on the apple of Jungkook’s cheeks when he decorated a cake for Taehyung’s brother’s wedding and put his soul into it like it was his life’s project.
There are many things Taehyung has come to doubt in the past 12 hours, but a thing he knows in his heart is that Jungkook derives true happiness from his job.
And for him to quit it…
“My head is spinning.” He mumbles.
Next he remembers being hoisted up from the booth and dragged to the car that Jimin straps him in. Some vague discussion about taking the couch at Yoongi’s place. Yeah, that sounds okay.
~~
His brain wakes up before his body does, lead heavy eyes still shuttered down and body sore like a dough lump, he turns on the bed. A reel of events, possibly the worst ever, plays like a movie behind his eyelids. It plays in a scene-by-scene recap.
Jimin’s dismayed face when he insisted he had to go back home, Jungkook’s off-putting call right before his flight just to tell him that ‘he loves him no matter what’, the disturbing turbulence of the plane, the cab driver who took the longer route, and finally.
Jungkook standing to greet him by the door, face pale and eyes filled with worry, house wrecked into one he doesn’t recognize. All the gut-wrenching tears and ending up wasted in the arms of his best friend whose face is dismayed again.
A movie Taehyung would pay to not watch ever again.
Jungkook.
His brain supplies; his eyes snap open. They didn’t finish talking yesterday. He has no conclusion of the rift to lament about. Have they broken up? Is Taehyung supposed to move out? Or does Jungkook plan to move away? What about his career? The assorted cluelessness makes him jolt awake. The moment he does, a tearing ache hits like a sledgehammer on the fore of his head.
He slugs out of the bed and walks out to see Yoongi cracking an egg over the instant ramen cup and Jimin seated over the countertop, eerily silent. On his arrival he gets water handed to him, only then he comes to realize how parched he is.
“Some lunch?”
He nods. Then pauses. What? When he presses the button on his phone, the 3 pm strikes him as do the plethora of texts and call notifications from Jungkook. He shuts the phone after staring at the wallpaper for long minutes when Yoongi pushes the bowl in front of him.
Slurping on the noodles he can practically feel the side of his face burn with how laser-sharp Jimin stares, “We will talk after I visit home first.” Taehyung spares him a half-assed glance before digging back in.”I will see the terms I come to with Kook to judge how mad I have to be at you.”
Thankfully Jimin welcomes the logic without question.
About thirty minutes later when he is dawdling his heavy limbs into the car, fastening his seatbelt, his phone dings. It’s another message from Jungkook, so he finally opens the chatbox only to get a striking whiplash from the number of it.
He sags backward and taps them open.
> Taehyungie please come back im sorry [8:34 pm]
> Where’d you go im getting worried [8:46 pm]
> Remember to eat something please [8:47 pm]
> im sorry [9:07 pm]
> please just answer that you’re okay [9:33 pm]
> please [9:46 pm]
> Its 11 tae are you not coming home please reply [11:01 pm]
> Just had a word with Jimin hyung. Have a good sleep please. [12:47 am]
> im sorry. I really am [1:15 am]
> Don’t forget to take an aspirin when you wake up you know how your head aches for entire day if you dont [1:39 am]
> the ring is beautiful. Whoever receives it someday would be the luckiest human to ever exist. [2:27 am]
> Im si sorry ypu dpnt dwswrve this [2:28 am]
> you’ll come back tomorrow, right? [3:00am]
> i mean i obviously understand if you dont. But. Lets talk once please [3:36 am]
> you dont owe me anything im sorry [3:40]
> It’s raining :) [3:55]
> Oops I just realized the spam im sorry i won’t text now. We’ll talk when you get home. [4:22 am]
> good morning! Take the meds and don’t drive if there’s a headache. [6:13 am]
> Are you up yet tae? [6:20 am]
> I have an appointment with the paediatrician at 9. Is there any chance you will come before that? [6:39 am]
> I guess not. [8:10 am]
> I’m waiting at the hospital now I think this going to take much longer than I thought. I’ve cleaned up everything. Take a nap you’ve been working so much. See you when I get home. Love ya. [9:15 am]
> sorry [9:17am]
> I’m done finally! [2:00 pm]
> You’re not here [2:15 pm]
> im sorry [3:33 pm]
Taehyung's heart hurts, simply put. He had juggled acting purposefully obtuse to get a defensive response out of Jungkook with the circular arguments. But now that he has had a hunch on the whys and a brief insight into the what-ifs, he cannot help the way his nose stings. He drives barely over the lower speed limit and still reaches home too early for his wish.
He stares at the screen again. Something about the screen filled with only Jungkook’s messages digs a pit inside his stomach. It seems wrong; astray from whatever innate they’ve constructed for themselves in their bubble. He’s too weak for this.
So he types back unnecessarily.
<Woke up at noon with a killing hangover. I’m here now.
He walks inside to find the house silent enough that one could hear a floating feather. He frowns but decides to take a detour to the kitchen first. When he’s pouring water for himself, erroneously there is an empty wrapper of a granola bar beside the trash can. Not thinking much of it, he picks up the wrapper and foots the lid open. He stills. The trashcan brims with most things unfamiliar to their household but predominantly filled with empty wrappers of granola bars of similar kinds.
He wonders if Jungkook would be in their room, but the strange kind of pull to the guest room has his feet on autopilot in that direction. He opens the door to the closing of his windpipe.
There’s no sign of the furniture there once used to be, now endowed with the centrepiece of a giant white crib in the middle of which a blanket-wrapped lump lays. Inside, beside, and around it are scattered disarray of objects that may or may not classify as neonatal muses.
He staggers at sight. More so when he sees an old mattress on the floor beside it on which Jungkook sleeps curled into himself. One of his arms folds into a makeshift pillow while the other lays straight with a half-eaten granola bar clutched in the fist. He stares at him with the ache shifting from his head to his gut.
Standing there, staring at his love looking so shrunken, so shattered for minutes he brings his knuckles to the door and knocks softly.
Jungkook (arguably the heaviest sleeper Taehyung has ever come across) jolts awake immediately. He stands straight like he was electrocuted and runs towards the crib. Only in the middle of him checking god knows what, Taehyung knocks again. Wide deer eyes are on him instantly.
“A word?” he speaks and walks out.
When he turns around to see Jungkook walking out, he looks terrified. Taehyung doesn’t get it.
Wasn’t he the one to suggest an ‘out’? Wasn’t he the one who went ahead and plan his entire life out with Taehyung’s involvement nothing more than that of audience? Then why does /he/ look like whatever Taehyung is going to say is not going to be in his favor? Belatedly he notices the wet lashes and eyebags; not much beyond that is needed to have Taehyung physically hurting like he wasn’t already. Before he can stop himself, he is reaching to hold Jungkook’s hand in his and watches his chin tremble.
“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
Jungkook nods with his head low, only the sound of a sniffle.
“Are you sure of your decision to want this?” He keeps his voice soft, caresses Jungkook’s hand with his thumb. When he nods again, Taehyung pulls him closer. “You’ll be a great parent, bub.” He presses a kiss to the forehead.
“I-I’m so–”
“Shh, it’s okay. I don’t agree with your method but I can see now why this was so urgently compulsory for you. But that boy inside is not going to go through whatever little Jungkookie had to experience. He is the luckiest boy in the– wait, it’s a boy, right?”
Jungkook chuckles lightly through his tears and that has another giant hole opening in Taehyung’s chest. The pain intensifies and the way Jungkook’s face collapses on itself he knows he isn’t the only one feeling it. “Y-you mean the world to me, Taehyungie. I’m sorry it looks otherwise. But this. This is m-my calling. I have to keep this above my world.” Taehyung instantly collects Jungkook in his arms who inclines on his chest bonelessly.
“What’s the plan then?” He mumbles against the floral fragrant hair, breathes it in for what possibly feels the last time.
“Seoul is too expensive. I’ll move back with noona for the time being and then find a place in her town. No one really bothers with a cake decorator there so I’ll just put the accounts degree to use, I guess. Start a-afresh.” Taehyung frowns to read Jungkook closely. He looks to be pulling his best smile even though it is trembling, hands clasping tighter in Taehyung’s hold.
“It’ll be worth it, Tae.” He assures and rubs his palm on his chest. Taehyung nods reluctantly but the smile he gets returned has his insides in a puddle.
Jungkook leans in, cagey as though wondering if he’s allowed to do that. Taehyung leans in, feebly because he can’t bear to think of it as the last. When their lips meet, Taehyung’s chapped ones to Jungkook’s wetly shivering ones, it is nothing like what he’s ever felt and at the same time something Taehyung can only ever imagine feeling around Jungkook. With Jungkook. And it hurts.
Jungkook lets it linger, slowly locking one between the other, before he pulls away to press a hand to Taehyung’s heart. “I don’t know how you do this,this patience with me. I can’t believe I had the privilege to be loved by someone like you. I love you, Taehyungie.”
Taehyung moves away and steps back. In all truth, he doesn’t know how he’s doing this either. How the bubbling hot lava inside him comes out knitted into warm blankets at the sight of Jungkook. He takes another step back and then another. Jungkook’s hand is in the air like he’d reach out but he also looks like he’s mentally restraining himself so he doesn’t. And he doesn’t.
So Taehyung turns around and sprints out before Jungkook blames himself more than he does. He’s already chosen a hard life for himself as it is and Taehyung will be damned if he is ever an addition to the burden.
~~
It is somewhere around 2 hours after Taehyung has walked out that Jungkook’s sobs have simmered to small sniffles. He shys away from big round eyes that fix on him, the chew toy forgotten.
It’s embarrassing to think that in a house with just the two of them, the one year old has seen him cry more than vice-versa. He brings another spoon of baby food to his mouth only for him to dodge it. “Come on, Hanie. Just three more.” He sniffs. The baby lulls backwards and topples like a bowling pin on the carpet. He clutches the little stuffed dino by its ear and brings it above him towards Jungkook. He smiles, nose scrunching.
“Are you trying to bribe me into not feeding you?’
With chubby fists, he throws the toy away. Jungkook sniffs and lifts him into his arms when the baby makes an irritated grunt. Seconds later he sleeps on his shoulder again. Jungkook wonders what a life like that must feel like. No grief of the lost, no greed of the coming. Just sleep-eat-burp-poop-sleep. He lowers the baby carefully into the crib again.
He closes the door behind him softly, looking for his phone. But the moment he does, he staggers back in shock. Taehyung sits on the couch, hands clutched on knees and head dunked low.
Confused, and heart beating like a snare drum, Jungkook approaches him slowly. “Tae?”
He never lifts his head up but opens his eyes and glares at his socked feet. “When we got together, I was showering in debts.”
Jungkook frowns, but takes a seat on the loveseat opposite to him. “I had a bedless one-bedroom apartment that I shared with two grown men.” he continues without sparing him an eye still. “I told you the vision behind our startup and waited for you to laugh it off.”
The vertical frowns deepen. “Why would I laugh?”
“Because everyone did.” He spares. “When I needed money for the asset purchase, you gave me the savings you had for someday opening your own bakery. You didn’t think once”
“You paid me back within three months. I don’t see why you’re recalling all th–”
Taehyung cuts him off. “You believed in me when my own parents didn’t. You stayed up to keep me company while I created a software even I didn’t knew I could. But you always held my hand! And I never repaid that.”
Jungkook’s forehead straightens, he shakes his head viciously. “Don’t. Don’t you dare say what I think you're going to. This is a child Taehyung. There is no other reason to have a child other than wanting to give your life to it.”
“But isn’t it the same for a relationship?” Taehyung careens into it. “I was torn between my will to not stay and… not leave.”
“Stop, love, p-please.” Jungkook buries his face in his palms.
“Measuring the two of them though,” He sighs loudly. “The wish to not leave was so much more than the wish to not stay.”
Jungkook sobs out. It’s strange how one form of weight lifts from his chest while the other presses him down more. “I want to try.”
The sob gets so loud it comes out as a cough. Jungkook feels a hand in his hair. He tries to shake his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Ther-there’s no debt. J-just go, Tae pl-please.”
“I love you too.” On the tremble of Taehyung’s voice, Jungkook looks up. His own face is wet from tears and snot and he probably is flushed but the sight of Taehyung’s moist eyes is what hurts more.
“Thank you for saying this.” He falters. “But how would it be different from any foster facility if I let the baby have a guardian who doesn’t want him?”
“Then don’t.” Taehyung adds immediately. “I want to be with you, and I want it so bad that I am willing to do this. And even if I am in no way trained for a baby, let me be there for you. You make sure the baby is well-fed and I’ll make sure you aren’t killing yourself with granola bars.”
He takes his time to think. Weighs the pros and cons and then shrugs. If it isn’t apparent by now, Jungkook isn’t the one to overthink decisions. He trusts his gut and he trusts it with his life. “I will love you forever for even thinking of it. I will be grateful, trust me.” He waits for Taehyung to nod. “But I really need you to be honest with me the moment you feel this isn’t for you.”
“I promise to walk out the very day I feel like my addition is a bane to the boy’s upbringing.”
Jungkook laughs wetly, closes his eyes when taehyung wipes his cheeks. “Thank you Taehyungie. I don’t deserve you.”
“There are a lot of times when I’ve felt the same for you. You’ve been the pillar in my life for so long I think this is my calling to be with you in your calling.”
“So. You’ll try?”
“I will.”
The moment they lean accordly, a cry rings in the house. Tiredly Jungkook rests his forehead on Taehyung’s. “I’ll be right back. Or… do you wanna come with?”
Taehyung bites his lip and shakes his head. “I’ll cook some real food for us.”
In understanding, he places a small kiss on his cheek. “That’d be great. I think I’ve forgotten what real food tastes like.” he walks off leaving Taehyung.
They don’t know what they just come in an agreement to, they don’t know who limits on what. They just know that their acute desire to stay with each other triumphs over any other prospect. In deep avidity, they just hope that is a help for them to ride the shotgun.