Chapter Text
Taehyung came back home drunk. He just visited your gravestone. And headed straight to the bar, where he drank until he forgot that you were no longer with him. He had started with one beer, then a shot of tequila. He soon lost count of how many bottles of beer he had or how many shots of vodka he had consumed. He could throw up right there. He could get alcohol poisoning. But he didn’t care. He was far too gone to care.
As soon as Taehyung entered his home - no house - he went to your shared bedroom and opened your closet. There was no reason to call it a home. This was just a 5000 sq. Ft plot. You were his home. He opened a drawer in which you kept all your valuables. He laid them all on the bed. You had safely kept all the letters, drawings, and gifts he gave in the past 7 years you were together. Time to time, you would take all out and go over them with him.
The first letter Taehyung ever gave you was when he barged into your apartment to get away from those thugs. You lived in an unsafe area, but money was tight, and you had no other option. That was a letter of apology. You seemed to like them and he noticed that. Ever since then, he wrote a letter every day and left them at your doorstep. Sometimes there would be absolute rubbish in them. How his day went, how this one guy spilled coffee on him, he tripped while walking the stairs, he accidentally shaved his eyebrow half, etc. but sometimes there were more personal things. Like the day his team member died in a shootout and how he felt he was responsible for it, or the time his grandmother died of illness and that it had been two years since he saw her. He had promised her he would come visit her that Christmas but she passed away before that. Now he has her in the graveyard closest to his house, so that he could go visit her whenever he wanted- no more excuses. The whole while when he was sending those letters, he never once showed up in front of you. But despite only meeting Taehyung only once, you knew him completely.
You didn't even realise when you started writing letters back to him and it became a means of conversation. In the day and age where people were more used to texting,
you were writing letters to one another. Let's say the both of you were old school romantic. One day you opened the door right when he bent down to place the letter. And that hit the two of you off. You started meeting more regularly. You felt the connection with him. Taehyung was a mafia gang leader, yet you felt safe with him. More than you have ever been. With him around, you never had to be alert or watch your back.. You knew he had you safe and protected. You started falling for him. Fast and hard. But you could never bring the courage up to tell him. Kim Taehyung was a man way out of your league.
And then one fine day he confessed to you. You couldn't believe yourself. You never thought he felt the same way towards you. You were far simpler than what you thought he needed or wanted. Guess you were wrong. He liked your simplicity. And then you spent 4 amazing years dating and then got married. The wedding was simple. The two of you didn't have any relatives. Taehyung had his gang members and you had your college friends. They were the only ones at your wedding but it felt complete.
The sketches started when he told you his fantasy of drawing you. It was his way of memorizing every detail of you and etching it deep and permanently in his brain. You were his biggest muse. Some drawings were simple ones. You worked on the dining table, cooking in the kitchen, playing with your pet dog etc. others were more intimate. The way you look in absolute bliss. The face contorted with pleasure, the tears gliding sinfully from your eyes down your red, flushed cheeks, lips red and plump from all the abuse they went through, beads of sweat lining your forehead and strands of hair splayed all over your face, going down to the neck that had purple hued bruises everywhere. Taehyung just loved drawing you.
The gifts were different every time. You once told him gifts had to be meaningful and for special occasions. So you received a gift on your birthdays, anniversaries and every single personal achievement you made and even when he was just in the mood to buy you something. He once gifted you a necklace that you told looked exactly like the one your mom used to wear before she passed away and the one that she had to sell because she had no other way of getting money. He then gifted you a laptop so that it helped you study better. He got a keychain that had photos from your first date with him. You didn't even know Taehyung had taken photos of you. He said these were the photos he would keep looking at whenever things got tough or when he couldn't sleep.
He then went through your favourite photo album. You would pick a favourite picture of every event and put it in that album and even write sidenotes as to why it was so special to you and what exact feelings you had during the time. You even took pictures of the times you fought. You mentioned it was something like keeping track of things the two of you fought over and to never fight over that again.
While Taehyung was going through them, he could almost feel your presence. He turned around to see but when he couldn't see anyone, he couldn't believe it. He was sure that he saw someone over there. That he saw you there. There was no way he was hallucinating. He didn't hallucinate. Or maybe he did, after you passed away. He went feral. He looked everywhere. He checked all the floors, every bathroom, every bedroom, the kitchen, the roof, the pool, the basement, the lawn, the entrances, the storerooms. He even asked the guards and the servants if they saw you. They were all puzzled and scared. They dared not say a word. They were also in pain. You had always been kind and gentle with them, treated them as your own - your family. As much as they wanted to console him, they wouldn't. They had to let him face the pain. Otherwise, he would never be able to move on.
The thing they did not know was that Taehyung never wanted to move on from you. He would rather die than forget you. After all, he was the reason you died.