Archive of Our Own ^beta

He has therapy at 2 pm. His hands are clammy, his bottom lip chewed raw, and when Dr. Min ushers him into the office, spacious and warm, he looks him straight in the eyes. Eyes are what he aims at, always. They’re the most vulnerable part of a human.

“Hello, Taehyung,” Dr. Min says, all sweet, and nice, and exactly like therapists are supposed to sound.

“Hello, doctor.” He sits in the olive green plastic armchair in front of the doctor’s desk. Taehyung likes olive green. It reminds him of the forest nestled behind his mansion, and of his husband’s shirts. Jungkook wears green, like the colour had been weaved for him. Taehyung instantly relaxes.

“How can I help you tonight?”

His soft tone is welcoming, and Taehyung finds himself immediately trusting Dr. Min, as he always does. The late night hours are reserved in the name of Kim Taehyung, every Friday, right to the clock he sits in the olive chair and bares his soul to Dr. Min.

“Help me make my husband fall in love with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Help me make my husband fall in love with me,” he repeats in the same tone.

“That’s something new, pray tell me what brought this idea to your mind?”

“Is it such a foreign concept to want to be loved by your husband?”

Taehyung digs a finger into the crevices of his thighs, eyes playfully glinting at his therapist.

“With all due respect, Mr. Kim, your husband is an asshole.”

A loud bubble of laughter crawls out of his throat and the finger stops digging at the exposed flesh, “You’re such an entertainer, Yoongi. Love when you joke like this, therapy suddenly becomes fun.”

Min Yoongi’s eyes remain unperturbed, calm and only moving when he notes something on his paper. He is used to the laughter, to what it hides.

“And I love when you use jokes to hide your feelings,” his therapist says in an even tone.

Taehyung’s face morphs back to its apathy, “You’re good, Dr. Min.”

It’s always a battlefield with Taehyung, or a silent wall. Yoongi doesn’t know which one is better.

“What made you want to think about your husband's feelings for you?”

Taehyung curls his finger around the white gold engraved band closing around his palm. His eyes smooth around the edges, lost and far away from the top floor of the hospital.

“Cigarette packs take long to finish,” Taehyung ends up saying.

Yoongi has to untangle knots and decipher what hides behind the mountains of words.

“Jungkook smokes too, doesn’t he?” Yoongi makes the correlation.

Taehyung’s lips twine in a glimpse of a smile, but it’s not there yet, never defined. He nods, once.

“And he smokes alone?”

“He never smokes with me.”

Yoongi releases a light flash of air, “You’d want to share cigarettes with him, you want to share your space with your husband, you want to share yourself with Jungkook,” Yoongi concludes.

“What a tragedy, doctor. Am I ill?”

Yoongi scribbles on his paper, then raises his eyes still “No, Taehyung. Perhaps you’re in love?”

“Oh, I thought we finished joking, doctor.”

Taehyung thinks he would finish his cigarettes faster if he shared them with his husband. That’s his language of saying he craves the presence of the man he is legally bound to. This is Kim Taehyung for you.

“Your avoidance and complete dismissal of emotions and feelings has to be touched upon, Mr. Kim.”

“Am I supposed to feel something?”

“Any human would if on their first wedding night, they’d walk on their fiance in bed with someone else.”

Yoongi knows he crossed the limit. He knows it in the still expression falling on Taehyung’s face, in the fingers curling back to dig in the soft flesh of his thighs, in the absolute hollowness in the man’s eyes. In the way Taehyung pretends to look at the 18 karat rose gold watch, and then brings a hand to his chest in a fake gasp.

“I think our time just ended a second ago. Such a pity! See you soon, doctor, maybe never.”

Taehyung walks out of his chair, eyes already far away from the room, when Yoongi commits his second mistake of the night.

“Taehyung, stop, listen to me, please…”

Taehyung freezes with his hand on the doorknob, “Don’t ever say that word to me, you know I hate it.” The cold tone should be enough for Yoongi to stop, to take a step back, and prepare better for his next attack.

Instead like a fool he is, he continues “Jungkook may be your husband, but don’t look too deep into him, he’s not your answer.”

Taehyung chuckles, coldly and empty, only like he can, “Oh, but I fancy my husband, doctor, isn’t that what you wanted? For me to have feelings? Well, I do, even if they are unrequited, just my luck.” Taehyung shuts the door silently, a faint creak that follows the hollow air in the office.

Yoongi writes hurriedly

‘his hands are shaking, still digs at his flesh’

‘he seems restless, like the second before a car crash or taking a step off the ledge’

‘he doesn’t know how to live any other way’

and lastly ‘still poses for indifference. but then there’s what he feels for jeon jungkook, whatever feelings those may be’

End of session 42.

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The mansion is eerily hushed as the door opens just as silent, footsteps whispering across the floor. Taehyung hangs his jacket in the hallway, and then heads towards the kitchen. Footsteps freeze midway, as he catches onto the presence at the aisle. He takes a breath, and then another lungful of air. His husband turns to him for a split second, and then returns his eyes to his phone, as if Taehyung is no worth one more second.

“Happy to see you too, dear husband of mine.”

Jungkook leaves the untouched cup of coffee on the table, as he finally moves his eyes towards Taehyung. And what eyes those are. Jungkook always has that ‘i hate you and everyone in this place’ look. Especially Taehyung. He once hoped he'd become the exception.

‘I hate everyone, but you’

Instead he’s the:

‘I hate everyone, especially you’

Taehyung hums at the silence treatment, taking a seat at the table as well. His head is pounding, but the maniacal grin doesn’t fall off his lips as he stares at his husband. Jungkook stares for some more seconds, in which disgust, hatred, and what not brews in that glance. And then he stands up from the table, the coffee cold and untouched.

“If anything from your night outings resurfaces to the press, you’re gonna deal with it yourself,” Jungkook says as he walks past Taehyung.

A sniff is enough to understand. Taehyung doesn’t have to ask how his husband’s day has been. The familiar smell of hyacinths that only one person wears.

The manic grin erupts on his lips as he salutes Jungkook on his way, too cheerfully “You’re always so helpful and caring, a dream husband, nothing less.”

Jungkook stops in the hallway, eyes intently hovering over Taehyung’s form, “Tone down this show.”

Taehyung stands up as well, walking down the hallway, eyes playfully glinting at his husband, “I can’t, I have a bit of an attitude problem.”

Taehyung’s smile is so bright and mocking, and Jungkook has enough of it. He stares one more time at his phone, and then unlocks the door.

“Find someone else to deal with your attitude.”

And clicks again. Oh, Dr. Min didn’t tell Taehyung what happens when you decide to have feelings. Taehyung climbs the stairs, the smile still etched onto his features. He catches the blue eyes of Sera, one of the maids, the blue is sad and stormy, and Taehyung just laughs,

“It’s how we’re flirting, he’s so cheeky, my husband, don’t you worry, Sera, all is good.”

He enters his room and falls on the bed. The cage is open. He can walk out anytime he wants. Why is he still here? Feelings, love, Dr. Min said.

Damn it. He closes his eyes.

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“Dr. Min, hello, have you missed me?”

Strict to 10 pm. Same olive chair in the room, empty and shaped to Taehyung’s body and needs. Fresh smell of strawberries in the air. Taehyung smiles graciously and lays in the chair. His lips are glued to the same stretch, displaying a familiar grin and Yoongi shakes his head, mentally noting the dose might be worse. Hell, maybe the prescription is not for him at all. Yoongi can’t help in this matter. But he can make sure the maniacal grin is not as painful to display. Taehyung smirks, and he jokes and looks alive, that all other details fall silent for his parents.

Today, Taehyung looks especially sun burnt, life burnt, like he walked a mile and still didn’t find his destination. Yoongi stumbles on thoughts upon thoughts, his paper a mixture of lines and circles and all kinds of shapes Taehyung coded. He forces to focus on the person standing in front of him, Taehyung’s eyes glinting with mirth, indifference and something else. Yoongi has been searching for that ‘something else’ for each session for a year now.

“How are you feeling today, Taehyung?”

“Not much, doctor, joyful as always, I am alive, what bigger blessing than that,” Taehyung grabs a rubber toy from the desk, fingers scratching at it, just to push the incessant restless feeling inside onto the material of the toy Yoongi bought him.

“Are you still writing in the calendar?”

Taehyung claps his fingers in mock delight, “Every little detail of my exciting life is there.”

“Do you read over it often?”

“I have no friends, no social life, no better things to do. Of course, I read my calendar every day.”

Yoongi dashes off a line on his notebook, the pen stops midway, crosses the line, then looks up at Taehyung again. Just how more stretchy his grin can become.

“Did you observe any changes in you, your behaviour, your thoughts?”

“I do not believe people change,” It’s Taehyung’s first non sarcastic answer, hiding just that ‘something else’ Yoongi is so desperately searching for.

“Why do you think so?”

Taehyung pushes one leg on top of the other, the baggy pants covering the restlessness within his skin (and scars).

“The world changes, people do not. They just try desperately to keep up with it and not be left behind.”

Grave fear of abandonment concealed under cynic beliefs.

“Isn’t the world made of people? If it changes, won't we all change too?” Yoongi prods further.

The question doesn’t catch Taehyung off guard, as Yoongi intended. Instead the grin disappears and Taehyung appears all hollow again, face emptied by any wrinkles or muscles moving. Just a pair of eyes that pierce and do not mirror anything.

“People are so selfish to think the whole world revolves around them.”

‘People, not we, he feels alienated, isolated, alone, sets himself apart from other humans,’ Yoongi notes down. A small success in his exploration of Taehyung. Yoongi takes mercy on the boy. He switches the topic.

“What’s some recent thoughts?”

“In the dark recesses of my mind?”

Always so poetic, dramatism to hide the bleeding wounds. Yoongi nods, and Taehyung returns the grin full force on his face.

“Do you think a romantic dinner with me will make Jungkook fall in love?”

Yoongi exhales a long, heavy breath, his chest rising and falling with the effort. He still indulges, “Are we talking hypothetically or practically?”

“Whatever will give me a positive answer.”

Always words tangled in words and in more riddles. Good thing, Yoongi is very good at riddles.

“And what is a positive outcome when it comes to Jungkook?”

A harsh manic laugh echoes through the room. The laugh holds jagged edges, as always. Yoongi rushedly writes it down, the number of Taehyung’s manic grins.

“You think I really believe Jungkook will fall in love with me?”

Yoongi stops scribbling, eyes drawn to Taehyung’s figure splayed across the chair.

“Why not,” he asks, even if his jaw is constricting upon just the suggestion.

“You’re so silly, doctor. No one ever ever chose me, why would Jungkook? This, what we’re doing, is more of a game to spare the time.”

And jackpot. Yoongi finishes writing his sentence in a centred circle, and puts the paper away. One step closer to fully understanding the demons haunting Taehyung’s mind.

“Then what’s the goal of your plan, or of that romantic dinner? Even if it’s a game, there must be a purpose to it.”

“A man can always try, right, maybe he will actually fall in love with me. Anomalies happen all the time. The possibilities are endless, didn’t you teach me so?” And here is the final of whatever Taehyung is willing to disclose. Who becomes even more restless after realising the raw confession he let slip past his lips.

Yoongi feels for him. Taehyung doesn’t believe Jungkook could love him (thinks no one else could either).

“So, a romantic dinner, how will you make Jungkook attend it?”

“I have my ways, doctor.”

“And what about the hyacinth, any plans on that front?”

“Oh, you’re about my husband’s paramour?”

Yoongi dips his chin briskly.

“He’s not a problem. We don’t have to worry about him.”

Yoongi likes the sound of ‘we’. That Taehyung feels not so much alone in some of his mind games. Yoongi doesn’t like, however, that Taehyung dismisses some of his husband’s worst characteristics - including his side piece - the man who wears hyacinth on his neck and collarbones. Yoongi tries his luck one more time though, fingers grasping for the pen again.

“Do you think there’s redemption for your husband?”

“Did he sin me in any way?”

“Then, do you think there’s redemption for the others who did hurt you?”

“And there you go, losing me again,” Taehyung stands as if pierced, “Good talk, please let’s not do it again ever.”

“Do you believe in redemption?” Yoongi pushes, trying to get through Taehyung.

“I refuse to discuss this subject further, and if you ever raise it again, I will kill you” Taehyung says grinning, but Yoongi sees the hands shaking in his pockets, eyes red and haunted, “But just to satiate your endless curiosity with my persona, redemption doesn’t exist. If you weep after making someone suffer, or don’t, it doesn’t change anything, the deed was done.”

Taehyung leaves the office.

‘behind the frenzied grin, there hides a hurt boy who put tape on the scars, but whose wounds still bleed’

‘perhaps he hates himself with burning passion, perhaps he thinks he could effortlessly suppress god’

Yoongi doesn’t know if he’s fascinated or concerned.

End of session 43.

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Tonight he again enters the mansion and catches his husband's shadow hovering over the kitchen stool. Same routine for the past year. Such imagery always makes his already stretched lips raise even higher. He sits on one of the stools, face resting in the crook of his palms, staring intently at Jungkook. The man ignores him for approximately ten seconds, and then he raises his eyes to stare back.

“You look delighted,” Jungkook comments, and Taehyung lets himself enjoy such moments where Jungkook initiates things. It unravels at his seams.

“I took my happy pills, that’s why.”

The look Jungkook slants him is both unimpressed and unconcerned.

“Is everything with you a joke?” He lazily asks, as if he can’t put more effort into anything concerning Taehyung.

Taehyung grins, again, “Did you know that animals can joke too? And rats can laugh when they are tickled, they emit these high frequency sounds you can’t hear, only with special equipment.”

“What?”

Taehyung observes Jungkook’s cold stare and thinks to himself - he doesn’t know much about his husband, most to nothing, really. Maybe little things he caught after living together for the past 3 years.

“What’s your favourite food?” He asks, because he can, and because the pills make it so he doesn’t care if Jungkook doesn’t answer him.

Jungkook doesn’t disappoint, his lips twist into a grimace as he hears the question. Taehyung marvels at the liveliness in such an expression.

“And this is my cue to leave,” Jungkook whispers to himself, and with a sigh, pushes back from the kitchen stool. The wood creaks under his shifting weight. His eyes are dulled, fixed on his phone as his thumb swipes across the screen. Without another glance, he ambles toward the door.

“Have dinner with me,” Taehyung’s voice calls after him.

Jungkook pauses, and turns with a bitter smile. Taehyung rarely sees Jungkook smile, it’s such a delightful recurrence.

“Now that’s a good joke,” Jungkook says, voice dripping with venom. “But please don’t say it again, Taehyung. The mere implication sickens me.” He spits out Taehyung’s name as if it is something foul and toxic on the tongue.

Taehyung winces. It hurts just a little. But not nearly enough.

He grins, switches to another topic, from one extreme to another, “The real treasure is the memories we make along the way. And we don’t make any.”

“One of my first memories with you is when…”

“When I left you breathless,” Taehyung interrupts with a sly grin.

“You hit me in the stomach and then broke my nose,” Jungkook claims back.

“That is my fondest memory,” Taehyung says.

Jungkook’s expression hardens, “I think I’ve reached my limit of interacting with you. Let’s not talk for the next three months.”

“Hurting my feelings so blatantly. You must know I like bad boys,” Taehyung quips, cheerfully.

“I’ll start going to churches then,” Jungkook replies coldly, twisting the doorknob and stepping out.

Taehyung watches him leave. He has a guess where exactly.

Hyacinth.

“Well, that has been fun,” Taehyung says out loud.

He rocks on his feet, walking the stairs barefoot, whistling to himself. He enters his room and the grin falls off his face. His feet touch the soft plump fabric of the green carpet and he relaxes, fingers resting in his pockets. The restless energy persists, still. He trails a finger alongside the walls. The room is painted a deep, calming blue, posters of cats and arrays of green plants framed in each corner.

Soft, dim fairy lights hung across the ceiling. Taehyung spends an hour observing each one of them, feeling the warmth under the light on his skin. He gets bored of it too. His feet take him to the shelves lined with well-worn books, spines cracked and pages creaking, He paces back and forth across the soft, plush carpet, falling on the bed, tangled in sheets and pillows. He walks his eyes around his room - a knocked-over chair, a collection of vinyl records spread out around the turntable. He wonders… would Jungkook like his room if he ever stepped foot in it? Probably not. Jungkook likes his things clean, organised and without flaws. Taehyung reaches for his phone and dials a saved number. The person answers after a couple of seconds.

“Hello, Mr. Jeon. I don’t like you very much, but I need your help. And I am not above begging.”

There’s a deadly minute of silence, and then the person speaks. Taehyung ticks his finger on the sheets impatiently.

“Hello, Taehyung. Nice to hear from you. How have you been? I’d do my best to help in any way I can. Can I still ask, did I hurt you somehow, why do you hate me?”

“Jungkook hates you, so do I. Didn’t you hear about spouses' solidarity?”

Jungkook’s dad heaves a sigh and it’s loud enough to echo through the other phone line.

“How can I help you, Taehyung?”

“You know - Jungkook is like a foreign language I am not fluent in, not even beginner level. I need help to learn him.”

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The restaurant is a silent affair, closed to the public, lights dimly lit and empty of anyone at the moment, except a waiter posing as a shadow in the corner. Taehyung is wearing his favourite pair of baggy pants, well ironed, paired with a white shirt. He even styled his hair, although it took almost an hour to arrange it in place without falling bored or annoyed. He feels especially antsy this evening, but it’s for greater good, he reminds himself. He tries to mimic a grin, and his lips submit after a while. He checks his pocket by default, but there’s no box there, no happy pills. There’s a high chance this whole ordeal will end very badly for him. Not taking his pills even for a day, it's a great danger to society. How could people ever handle a sober Taehyung.

He still hopes Mr. Jeon will not disappoint and bring Jungkook to the restaurant. He doesn’t want another reason to hate the man. And then the door opens revealing the person Taehyung thought about all the seconds of the day. He doesn’t see any shock on Jungkook’s face when the brown eyes land on his figure at the table. Taehyung grins this time naturally, without any chemicals influencing it.

“You knew it’s me and still came, I am elated. Though, why did you dress like going to a funeral?”

“With you, I never know,” Jungkoook curtly speaks as he grabs the chair from the table without any grace and sprawls on it, thighs spread and hand reaching to tug at his tie and free his shirt from it.

“You still came,” Taehyung says. Despite knowing Mr. Jeon organised it under some fake pretences.

“Make it short. What do you want from me to end this stupid game, prank or whatever tantrum you’re throwing?”

Taehyung raises an eyebrow, truly offended this time. He simply finds Jungkook interesting in a world that only bores him, how can it be reduced to a mere game or tantrum?

“What do I want?”

Jungkook gives a short nod, “Anything, and then let me live my life in peace, preferably void of your presence in it.”

“Can’t do it, Jungkook. I want you, how can I let go of you once I get it? Quite a paradox, no?”

Taehyung can see the patience running thin off Jungkook’s hunched shoulders. His hair is dishevelled and he appears exhausted.

“Before our wedding, I told you I do not wish to marry, I do not wish you in my life. I begged for you to stop the wedding. And you know what you told me? You said ‘why should I care about your wishes’. So, tell me, Taehyung” Jungkook leans in, hands gripping the edge of the table and eyes dangerously piercing Taehyung on spot, “Why the fuck should I care about what you want now?”

Taehyung’s hands stay patiently on his thighs, fingers grazing at the skin around his nails, until he feels wetness dripping from them, red and splotchy. He grazes and grazes, and then grins.

“You shouldn’t, of course, but I’d be grateful if you did. I can be a quite good company.”

“Why?”

It's a clear question. Why go to such extents for him? Jungkook doesn’t understand.

“People often want things, and then they get them. For orphan kids it’s different. We never get anything for ourselves, we are the mere thing no one wants. I saw you and I decided I want you, is that such a crime?”

“It is, when the desire is not returned.”

Jungkook does not pity, and he does not act surprised upon the new information - Taehyung is an orphan - no media, few people actually know about it. Taehyung is grateful for the lack of reaction or comment on it. Jungkook doesn’t care enough to comment.

So, he slants, “Desires are relative. They come and go. One family can want you one day, signing the adoption papers and everything, and then boom they don’t want you anymore. So, you may not want me now, but you can later.”

“Don’t you have a family now that can get you whatever you want?”

“They can’t get me you.”

“They arranged the marriage, I would say they succeeded in fulfilling your bratty desires.”

“Wouldn’t you want to know all about my desires about you?” Taehyung leans in as well, tilting his head to the side to admire each freckle and wrinkle on Jungkook’s face and each strand of raven locks curled around his eyelashes. Taehyung starts counting the eyelashes.

“You’re a little feckless bra…”

“Keep the compliments coming, I might just start blushing.”

“And I might just commit homicide.”

“Love when you flirt with me.”

“I would nev…”

The creak of the door cuts between their very passionately flirting, Taehyung notes. He feels just a bit angry at whoever dared to interrupt them. Someone steps inside, footsteps just about shy and quiet. Taehyung didn’t expect another guest. It’s when he catches Jungkook’s face moth into something different than his usual expression of annoyance, hatred or disgust… Taehyung guesses it. The hyacinth odour helps it too. Taehyung lets go of his bleeding nails and stands up, greeting the person that hesitantly approaches their table. Taehyung sees Jungkook’s strange look and grins. He turns towards the boy - the unexpected guest - a tall blonde with a marred cheek and a dark haunting look in his eyes.

Now, this just became more interesting.

“Well, hello, now that’s a turn I didn’t expect myself. We didn’t meet before, or did we? Anyway, I am Kim Taehyung, this man’s husband,” he points at Jungkook, “You must be his side piece, right?”

So there Taehyung sits, next to his husband and on his right to the person his husband loves. God! What an entertaining night. His gaze keeps flitting between the two, fingers beating the whirlwind of his thoughts onto the table. He wants to scrape his nails into it. Maybe he can.

The blonde completely ignores his presence, eyes set onto Jungkook, as if no one else exists in the room. Taehyung is used to the feeling of being invisible, so he doesn’t mind it. He looks between Jungkook and the blonde man who all but stare at each other. Taehyung tires of it quickly. It’s getting to his head, he’s becoming impatient. The swirl of chemical panic starts growing inside of his chest. As if something bad will happen any minute now.

“Will you just keep looking at each other in this tense silence or does anyone want to say something?” Taehyung's voice rings out, with a manic edge that makes the other two get out of whatever trance they were in.

Jungkook’s sharp glance at him cools down the slithering snakes in his veins.

“What happened, Beom?” Jungkook asks, softly. Taehyung didn’t know his husband’s voice could lower and melt to such an extent.

So, that is hyacinth - Beom. How delightful. Taehyung feels slightly grazed that no one paid respect to his greeting, but oh well, it was more for dramatic purposes and because the hissing continues inside his head. Restless. Manic.

Jungkook stares at Beom with a soft look and the lack of hatred in his gaze.

“One of our factories in the South burnt down,” Beom voices out, tone not betraying any defined emotion.

“Was it an accident?”

“No. You shut your phone and no one could get to you. I apologise for intruding.”

Before Jungkook can reply, Taehyung hooks his fingers onto the table, pushing himself up.

"That sounds like a big deal. Well, I'll leave then, don't want to mess up your strategic brainstorming."

"Sit down," Jungkook says to him, the usual cold demeanour plastered on his face.

Taehyung revels at the exposed teeth shining when he speaks. Now he imagines those teeth in his skin. He pushes a hand against his stomach and stands up again.

“I want to leave. I’m getting sick,” Taehyung rasps.

Jungkook’s tongue flicks against his cheeks, “I am not very fond of your presence either.”

“No, I am actually about to be sick. I will leave right about now. You can enjoy the dinner though. Don’t want food to go to waste.”

The last thing Taehyung sees before rushing out of the restaurant is Jungkook’s disapproving glare. He pushes himself into the car and flicks a finger at his driver in a silent order. He gets home and he vomits. Yoongi did warn him to take his pills at all times. And he missed his dose today intentionally. He doesn’t have anyone else to blame except himself for the state he’s in currently. Taehyung washes his mouth, and then presses solid tablets on his tongue and the chaos gets louder, but it takes a form and an order too. He sits by the opened window, eyes tracing the line of smoke filtering through the cracks. When the doorbell rings minutes later, the sound is loud, like a metallic echo following his earbuds while he walks to the door.

He opens the door, not expecting anyone. No one visits them, ever. Do their neighbours hate them? He just realised now, he never got any visit from their neighbours, do they actually have them? Taehyung opens the door, brain focused on the riddle with the neighbours, when he is welcomed by the sight of a white coat. He looks at the man and waits. The doctor looks at him back, strangely. He looks like he’s waiting for something from Taehyung, but speaks in the end when met with nothing but a blank stare:

“Can I enter? Mr. Jeon sent me.”

“No, you can not.”

“Mr. Kim, Jungkook said you were not feeling well at the dinner, please let me see if there’s any danger posing to your health.”

Taehyung stares him down one last time, and then flicks his eyes towards the half burnt cigarette, “No.”

“Mr. Kim…”

Taehyung shuts the door in front of his face. Dr. Min has warned him many times to not get off the medication, otherwise he’ll get sick for hours. Taehyung wanted to be sober during the dinner with Jungkook. Sometimes, tragedies are born in simple things. Taehyung pushes the stick of the cigarette against the ashtray and climbs to his room. His head still spinning, his stomach still churning.

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The morning after feels like a waking nightmare. It's his first day in months without taking the pills. As if he’s cut off from the world—sound, light, and smell, all muted. As if he's trapped in a hazy bubble. He sits in his room, fingers scraping at the box in his pocket.

“Play again,” he instructs. And the exact melody starts vibrating through his earbuds.

There's a guy in the corner, fingers dangling over guitar strings, playing the same melody on repeat at Taehyung's request. Taehyung still doesn’t hear it well, as if through a daze. He’s annoyed and irritated, but the live sounds soothe the chaos inside, just for a little bit. The whole mansion is empty. Taehyung is laying on the floor, eyes closed, fingers tight on the fibres of the carpet, tugging at it, just not to touch the box in his pocket. He didn’t take his pills today either, for some reason. There’s a door knob echoing amidst the funeral of music, and then the creak upon the door opening.

Jungkook enters, and stops right at the doorway. The sight of Jungkook in his room is jarring — Taehyung’s eyes are glazed, as if seeing through a fog. Jungkook looks at him, and then steps forward, opening his mouth, perhaps to spout some other nonsense, Taehyung thinks. But then his husband notices the guy in the corner.

"Taehyung, who the fuck is that?" Jungkook demands, pointing at the guitarist.

"Carlito," Taehyung responds flatly.

"Who the fuck is Carlito?"

"My in-house loop artist. You know I love live music."

"No, I actually don't know that," Jungkook retorts, irritation creeping into his voice. Oh, look here’s the familiar hatred crawling back on Jungkook’s face. Taehyung missed it dearly.

"Well, we already established you suck at your husband's duty."

The disbelief overturns whatever was on his face before, and for the first time, Jungkook looks at him with something different than boredom, hatred or displeasure. Or, perhaps it’s the usual frustration, and the sobriety gives Taehyung silly thoughts.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" As he speaks, Jungkook pushes the sweaty hair strands off his forehead, and Taehyung catches two grey bags under his eyes.

"Many things, you can ask my therapist for the whole list."

"You have a therapist?" Jungkook asks.

"You already filled your quota of five interactions with me per month. Careful, there’ll be hazards if you speak to me some more," Taehyung warns, his voice cold and detached.

Taehyung can’t stop thinking about the pills in his pocket, he can’t control his brain, the swirl of thoughts, or his mouth. So, he just counts the pixels on the walls, while Jungkook looks at him and counts something else in his mind.

“Are you okay?”

Taehyung’s chest fills for the first time with the scrape of an emotion, something alive. He turns to Jungkook and catches the empty glance and finds ground in it. It’s jarring to hear the question from Jungkook. It soars Taehyung, although only for a couple of seconds.

“You can wait for me downstairs. And we’ll talk.” Taehyung says, as he motions to the guitarist to leave his room as well.

Jungkook looks at him some more, Taehyung is not used to it. In the end, Jungkook leaves his room too. Taehyung loses the battle. He brings the same two tablets to his tongue and swallows. Dr. Min was right, not taking medication makes him feel even less alive. But, taking medication feels like he’s alive, but just not in control of himself. He wonders if Jungkook hates both of his sides? Taehyung lets the pills travel down his throat. And then the whole chaos in his mind quietens down and he walks out towards the kitchen.

“What’s that urgent, that you came to my room to talk about?” He asks immediately once his eyes fall on Jungkook’s slouched figure.

“There’s a general meeting at the company. You should be there too.”

“Oh, joy, joy, my excited face begins now, can you see it?”

“And this is my doubtful face,” Jungkook speaks, pointing to his blank face. Taehyung takes a moment to realise that Jungkook just talked to him differently. Is it different? Or is it just his mind? He can never trust himself.

"Something else?" Taehyung asks, impatiently.

"Beom is not the side piece."

"Do you prefer paramour or side lover?"

"He's not any of those."

Taehyung raises an eyebrow, eyes glinting again. "Good for you then?"

"It's not for your sake, but I don't want you to misunderstand. He's been my secretary and only, for the past 3 years. Don't make me into the terrible man I am not."

Taehyung's manic brain processes it. Taehyung thinks about it some more, as Jungkook sips from his coffee. And they coexist in silence.

"Do you love him?”

Jungkook stays silent and then leaves the room.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

“Change of plans, doctor,” Taehyung says in a levelled way, and his grin appears as second nature, an artificial coat sewn into his skin. His system is clogged with tablets, white and sterile. He laughs when he doesn’t want to. And when he wants to cry, he grins. And when he feels his chest constricted with pain, his grin grows larger.

“How do you feel, Taehyung?”

Like he’s not in control. There’s a small plant between them, nested in the centre of the table and Taehyung grounds himself in it. Yoongi is sipping from a Norwegian cup of tea. The smell of strawberry tea is grounding too.

“How do I feel? I feel like someone is screaming, but no one else hears it except me.”

Yoongi’s forehead is again clouded by marred lines. When he’s worried or displeased, he shows it with his whole face. Taehyung marvels at each small change on his face.

“I told them multiple times, this is not the right prescription for you.”

Taehyung’s eyes follow the trace of Yoongi’s pen pushed angrily on the paper, his mind is on something else, “I didn’t take my pills last week.” Yoongi stops writing.

“I was homesick of my own feelings. And I didn’t take my pills. I wanted to remember how it is to be in control of my own brain.”

“What happened then?” Yoongi’s voice remains neutral, but Taehyung can deduct a sip of worry slipping in.

“I felt hollow, and so itchy,” he says, locking up the rest inside, “And scary and alone, as if I unlearnt how to act, how to handle my emotions.”

Yoongi knows it’s not all. But he lets Taehyung retreat back to his box.

“Let me talk to your parents. This medicine is altering your emotional palette, and it's not the right prescription.”

“It’s court-prescribed. They think I am dangerous without the pills.”

Dangerous to himself or to someone else - they don’t really care. It was most convenient to put him in a cage and leave him there. Taehyung feels a sharp pang in his chest, it elicits a loud chuckle and he craves to stand up and pace around or to knock on the walls and wait for an answer back. Because he remembers the very reason he was put on medication. Yoongi notices. He always does.

“Taehyung, listen to me carefully, what happened in that foster home is not your fault, never was, that bastard had it coming, they have no right to medicate you for it and…”

Yoongi never knows when to shut up. He never knows when to stop caring. Taehyung stands up sharply and laughs and he feels restless. He looks at the wooden clock on the wall and feels as if something bad might happen any minute now. He feels on edge and the tick of the clock makes his heart constrict in tandem and…

“What about Jungkook? Jungkook? Did anything new happen with you two?”

“Jungkook?” The ticking stops.

Yoongi nods and Taehyung remembers the grounding stare and the way his cheeks pluck when he’s displeased and oh Jungkook.

“He asked me if I am okay.”

He remembers Jungkook’s quiet tone, his calming presence. Jungkook who never gets angry. Who exists alongside him. Who makes him feel safe.

Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook.

“What’s on your mind, Taehyung?” Yoongi asks.

“You know, once I dreamed of a family, and it almost killed me. I am dreaming now of Jungkook loving me. I am thinking about what my second death will be.”

Yoongi’s eyes are steady on him, “Did you maybe think that he just doesn’t know you?”

Taehyung opens his mouth, but doesn’t feel like he can speak. Yoongi smiles at him, Taehyung traces the lines of his lips. It's a genuine smile.

“I don’t know myself either.”

His voice is rough, and his emotions are welling up, and he wants to wipe the grin off his face, carve it out and let himself tear up.

“Jungkook doesn’t know you have a therapist.”

Taehyung nods. Jungkook doesn’t know of his court case, or his medication. His parents made sure that no news outlets had a sniff of anything.

“He thinks I am a brat.”

Because Taehyung forced the marriage on them.

“Your medication messes with your brain, it alters everything there. That’s why you’re not in control of your emotions. It also messes with your empathy.”

That’s why sometimes he’s not in control of himself. “What was the change of plans you talked about?” Yoongi changes the subject.

“I don’t want to make him fall in love with me anymore.”

“Why?” Yoongi says, patient and softly.

“He loves someone else.”

“Didn’t he before?”

“I was sober when he told me last week.”

Yoongi falls silent. As if his hands would be tied and his mouth taped. He sees the tragedy happen, but can’t do anything to stop it. Because the court prescribed untested, strong, ill fitting medication and because Taehyung’s parents would rather silence Taehyung than deal with his trauma. And because they would rather threaten to marry him off, then have him at their house. Sometimes, Taehyung wishes he wasn’t adopted. That he didn’t stay rooted in a corner while his adopted parents gave birth to their child and decide they don’t need him anymore. But the medication helped. It barely hurts anymore, he thinks. Most of the time, Taehyung can’t force himself to care about others, especially about Jungkook. But last week, when he heard the confession, when the silence spoke about Jungkook and how he loves someone else, Taehyung was sober and he cared.

“You know, Taehyung, I think Jungkook would want to get to know you, if you let him. What is the new plan?”

Taehyung counts to ten, and tries to regulate his breathing, as he shares his new dream, “I want to get to know life through him.”

Yoongi doesn’t ask anymore why Jungkook. He thinks people choose other people without reason. Without intent. They see a pair of brown eyes, and think the world is worth living if only to stare into  those eyes every day. Jungkook for Taehyung is that place - the place where people die there, where people bleed there, where people leave their hearts there as victims to the beautiful views.

“Make a deal with him. You told me Jungkook treasures his promises. So, make one with him.”

“He refused my previous one.”

“Make him another one, something he won’t be able to refuse. Aren’t you a businessman?”

Taehyung cringes at the word. He deals with the finances of his parent’s business. But he’s good with numbers and clauses, not people. Taehyung swallows and clears his throat. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Yoongi repeats, eyes warm. There’s a subsequent silence Taehyung always finds comfort in. This time their session ends in it.

“I’m glad you came in today. I look forward to our next session. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need to. Is there anything you feel you need to speak about before we finish today?”

Taehyung shakes his head. He stands up. So does Yoongi, who pushes aside his notes and walks to open the door for him. Yoongi flashes him a small smile once he’s stood outside the door facing him, “Take care of yourself, Taehyung. Till next time.”

Taehyung walks fast till he’s outside the building and leans against the door of his car, fumbling inside the pocket of his hoodie for his pack of cigarettes. He lights one up and takes a deep drag,  inhaling the stale taste of tobacco. Immediately his body begins to unwind, tension easing as he focuses on taking deep inhales of nicotine. All to be repeated next week in the evening, like clockwork. There in between the fingers, he holds the burning cigarette and his anxiety, in another finger his phone that pinks with a message. No one ever messages him. Taehyung opens and stares at the screen.

At the message from Jungkook:

‘where are you?’

Before Taehyung can process the words, another message appears on the screen.

‘we have to talk.’

Taehyung shuts off his phone and opens it again. Checks two times. The messages are still there. He wants to climb back to Yoongi, show him the screen and ask if it’s real. Instead, he flicks the cigarette button on the pavement with his foot, and gets inside his car, a grin spreading all over his face. He parks the car near the gates, waiting for them to open. The pills kick in again, and he grins to no one and his itching skin is a bit too sweaty. When the gates slide open, Taehyung catches the haunting brown and he flicks his head through the open crack in the window.

“Couldn’t wait one more minute in the house for me, must have missed me so bad to walk out to meet me,” he chides.

Despite the barely lit parking lot, he still catches the roll of those brown eyes. Jungkook strolls right towards the car, and without another word, he gets inside. Taehyung stares at him, at Jungkook inside his car. Jungkook who spots grey nests under his eyes, all hair a tousled mess and shirt hanging open. Jungkook who looks like he hadn’t slept for the past week, and still turns to him and asks, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Taehyung lies and grins, and he thinks that this time the grin is actually warranted. Whatever high divine power intervened, it’s Jungkook’s second time asking him if he’s okay.

“You’ve been going to therapy all this time, when you told me you’re blowing off the clubs.”

Taehyung tries to remember when exactly he said it, but can’t. But he certainly knows that he said it - his more manic side of the brain that likes to fire up everything.

“You said you’re having your dose of night fun, I thought it involves partying, alcohol, drugs and sex, the meaning of fun,” Jungkook accuses him.

“My therapist is very fun.”

“You come home high out of your mind.”

“Maybe that’s my personality.”

“Drive towards the nearest port,” Jungkook says in the end. Taehyung too is a foreign language hard to learn and handle.

“Like a date?”

“Like a homicide attempt, can you drive now?”

Taehyung stares some more and has his fill. He starts the engine and drives down the road. The windows are open and the night breeze filters inside. Jungkook’s eyes are clouded with things that stray  far away from this car. Taehyung doesn’t like it. “Shall we talk? I’m allergic to silence.”

Jungkook turns to him slowly, eyes unnerved, “Why do you go to therapy?”

Taehyung beams, avoiding the stare and focusing on the road ahead, “Perhaps it’s better to stay in silence.”

Taehyung doesn’t miss from the corner of his eyes the cruel smirk that spoils Jungkook’s face. A twisted curl of lips, his mind fixates on it, dissecting every side of such an expression - the sharpness in his eyes, the mocking lift of his brow. Everything else around him blurs. His grip on the steering wheel slackens, and before he realizes it, the car veers dangerously towards the edge of the road. It’s when he feels an electric jolt travel up his spine, his eyes fall on the fingers grasping his on the wheel and yanking it back. The car swerves, tires screeching, but they’re back on the road.

Jungkook takes his fingers back, and his face is void of any smirks, only silent disbelief.

“Where did you take your driver’s licence from?” Jungkook asks, his voice neat despite the sharpness and the panic and the danger.

“I didn’t.”

“Fuck, that’s why I don’t get to know casual things about you. I want to jump out of the car now.”

“Wouldn’t recommend it, broken bones hurt like hell.”

Jungkook stares at him for a second, mouth opening in an incoming question, but he seems to think it better and averts his eyes to the streets outside the window. The rest of the drive unfolds in a dazzling silence. Taehyung wonders what it is about Jungkook that makes him feel safe, drop all his guards and just breathe. Jungkook’s hand is resting against the opened window, the other one nestled on his thigh. Taehyung stares at it and imagines things. Lots of it. He thinks about the heavy touch of those fingers from before, when moving the wheel. He wants to twirl those fingers, stare at each one, touch, kiss, suc…

“Stop staring.”

“Why?”

Jungkook doesn’t deem it fit for an answer from him. Taehyung realises for the second time he doesn’t know much about his husband.

“Tell me something about you,” he urges, when the car reaches the harbour.

“On credit,” Jungkook says after a minute too long. Taehyung paints the picture in his head, he likes the deal so he nods. An answer for an answer.

So, Jungkook starts. “You want to know something about me? Here it is - someone attempted to kill me tonight.”

Taehyung waits and pays special attention to Jungkook’s dark irises, and the way they glow in the dark, still glacy. And then the words register as well, and a rich bubbling laugh bursts out of him.

Jungkook stares incredulously at him, “You’re insane.”

“And someone wants you dead. That’s…”

“Amusing?”

Taehyung would use another word, but his tongue is curled upwards, flicks it over his lips and thinks what exactly is he feeling currently. Unknown grip of panic settles in his chest and another laugh bursts out of him. His brain is trying to connect the confession with something else, something he can’t remember. His mind is pretty jumbled.

“I’m forgetting something,” he says out loud.

“Morals, probably.”

“No, something more important.”

Dinner, restaurant, light candles, burning fire in his chest, Jungkook… Oh.

“Didn’t someone burn one of your factories recently?”

Jungkook hums, a slow smile crawling up his lips. It looks more like a haunting smirk. But Taehyung doesn’t complain. Whatever he can get, is good enough.

“Let’s get out of this car,” Jungkook’s eyes roam around the car, attentive and trailing each corner.

Taehyung thinks and then it dawns on him. Jungkook thinks there could be hidden microphones there.

Oh, someone is after Jungkook.

He should probably say something encouraging. Taehyung walks to the edge of the dock where Jungkook stands. Taehyung is behind, mind slumped over the best comfort move. But his eyes inadvertently are drawn to each trail of Jungkook’s hand. First in his hair, tugging at the strands, and then sliding down his neck, gripping the tie and removing it up his head. Taehyung’s attention span is quite short, but he considers the view in front, he could stare at it for hours, the trails of sweat down the thick veins running through Jungkook’s throat, his fingers soft and delicate reaching for the back pocket to intertwine with the butt of a cigarette.

Oh, Taehyung is enarmoured.

“Come here,”

Taehyung hears and walks close, choosing to lay down on the hardened wood, feet dangling in the water. Along the edge of the port, a series of lights hang over, Taehyung sees the shadow of the cigarette on the pavement. He raises his eyes to the stick hanging in front of his face. Jungkook doesn’t say anything. It’s not even needed. The cigarette between them is all there it is. Taehyung grabs it and stares in wonder. He flicks its edge between his lips. Jungkook leans in, lighter in hand, eyes on his as he turns it burning with a lighter.

The first smoke is relief, the second one is a burning force inside his chest he can’t put a name on. Maybe it’s just his lungs screaming out. After a clip of counted seconds, Jungkook leans back, resting his weight on his arms, palms pressed firmly against the cool, rough wood. His fingers splayed out, finding small crevices and cracks to anchor himself. Taehyung wonders if the universe is playing a cruel joke on him. They’re sharing cigarettes as Taehyung always dreamed about.

He wanted them to talk more. And they’re doing it. It’s becoming scary and dangerous. After all, this is what ruined Taehyung, the longing for things he could never have.

“Time to return your debt,” Jungkook cuts his thoughts, voice cool and raspy.

“Ask away,” perhaps it’s fear that makes his voice shake, perhaps it’s the medication.

“When you said in the car that broken bones hurt like hell, was it another joke?”

There’s a haunting chill creeping up his spine. His mind is a cocktail of question marks and too many feelings he can’t define. But a truth for a truth.

“I neve joke about broken bones.”

Jungkook’s eyebrows knit together in a furrowed line, lips pressed thin.

“How did that happen?”

“My foster brother took me on a camping trip once. Alone. I wasn’t fond of the idea, I hate insects and bugs, among other things, you see, so I jumped out of the car.”

“Was it really bugs that scared you so much? That you risked jumping?”

Taehyung focuses on Jungkook’s fingers running circles on the wood, and on the line of smoke crawling out of Jungkook’s lips.

“Everyone fears bugs, I tell you, they’re scary,” before Jungkook can say something more, Taehyung ‘s grin comes back full force, “Now it’s my turn, you’re indebted an answer to me.”

“Ask away.”

Jungkook’s relaxed posture seems daunting. He doesn’t look as restless anymore, his raven locks curl around his eyelashes and he has his eyes closed, the sleeves of his shiny black shirt rolled up to reveal tattoos Taehyung still didn’t explore. It’s itching to touch and trail and observe.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Jungkook’s eyes are closed, but his lips curl in a subtle smirk. Taehyung feels slightly infuriated, but he doesn’t know the reason why.

“I wanted to warn you. Be more careful with your night outings, there’ll be more guards following you. If someone wants me dead, they might want you too.”

Taehyung takes a second to react, and then as second nature he laughs whole heartedly, this time it's a natural reaction out of his chest.

Jungkook opens his eyes and pierces him with a still, disinterested look, “What, pray tell, did amuse you this time?”

“You think I am afraid of dying?”

“Isn’t everyone?”

“Oh, Jungkook, there’s scarier things than death.”

It feels like he stripped himself bare, the admission, perhaps the most honest he’s ever been, it feels like he ripped the flesh of his bones. And Jungkook's piercing stare, disarming, sharp and sterile, makes him stand up, flicking the butt of the cigarette on the metallic pillar near him. Taehyung thinks it’s too much, to have Jungkook like this, the dose can be disarming. “I am getting drowsy and I need my beauty sleep, let’s go.”

“Now I start wondering now how much of everything you say are jokes,”

“Don’t try to figure me out, you won’t like what you find there.”

Jungkook hums, stares at him some more and then walks past him, grabbing swiftly the keys out of his hand, a faint touch of his fingers making Taehyung lose touch of reality for a second.

“Not trusting you to drive me somewhere ever again,” Jungkook mumbles under his breath.

Taehyung is still too immersed in his fingers where the touch still lingers. He sits in the passenger seat and zones out. And then as a giant church bell stumbling on his head, he remembers what the important thing is.

“Someone is trying to kill you.”

“My car exploded today when I was ready to leave the company.”

Taehyung hums, but then an opportunity reveals itself underneath all the panic, “Let’s make a deal. I can help you find the culprit.”

“And when did I exactly ask you for any help?”

“You don’t need to. I volunteer.”

Jungkook stays silent, trying to tone down his irritation perhaps. Taehyung thinks it’s a fair deal. He can save Jungkook and at the same time enjoy life with him, even for a while.

In the end, Jungkook seems to think it over, “Let me entertain this idea of yours, what would I have to do in return?”

“Help me enjoy life?”

“You’re like the human version of a headache,” and then he starts the engine. Somewhere along the road, Taehyung hears a faint whispered “deal.”

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

3 years ago

Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook’s wedding- is written in ill fitting invitation letters. Sometimes Taehyung wonders if it’s even worth fighting to release the next breath, to coat it out of his throat.

Tonight especially. He grovels his eyes at the golden platinum band curled around his finger. Perhaps it’s worth it.

He got engaged today. Or was it a charade? He brings his fingers in front of his eyes for inspection. One, two, three, four… Funny, does he have only four fingers? How many fingers Jungkook has, he wonders. He should urgently ask his husband for this information. He grins at no one. Words start ringing inside his head.

‘Stop it’

‘I do not want to be married’

And then more begging. His newly acquired husband on his knees. Oh, what a vision, Taehyung closes his eyes and savours the nuances. Why did Jungkook beg? Oh, yes, he didn’t want to marry or… Maybe Taehyung confused it, it’s a bit of chaos inside his brain. Maybe Jungkook didn’t like his beige suit. Taehyung admits, beige is a terribly dull colour. Jungkook on his knees begging, his husband’s lips moving in prayers that fell dead and silent to Taehyung’s ears. His dose today was especially strong, double, maybe triple. Taehyung haven’t asked the person who injected it.

Maybe he should have. He vaguely remembers the day that is today. The morning’s injections, his fosters’ warnings to behave, and Jungkook’s prayers and begs, and then his lively ‘I hate the very sight of you’ as the wedding vow. A guitar melody shuffles through his ears, but nothing mutes the soft sound of begging. A clutter of motion grips him out of the vision. He shatters against the night breeze and the wind waves and then lights flashing in front of him.

He looks around and sees that he’s at the edge of the curbside, a step closer to the crossing lane where red glows brightly.

He turns around to the person that removed his earbud, “The fuck you want?”

“You almost crossed at red,” Taehyung hears. And he sees a shade of fierce red and he gets the urge to reach and touch to see if it’s as silky as it looks. “You were almost hit by a car,” the stranger continues.

“And?” Taehyung asks, still distracted by the colour. Each strand seem to be dipped in a different shade of red. Taehyung raises his eyes to those of the stranger’s. Dark and expressive,

But then those same eyes crinkle at the corners. Is it a smile? Taehyung wants to reach and trace the lines of the smile to assure himself it’s real.

“You don’t care about your life?” The stranger’s voice is soft, there’s a tilt to it.

Taehyung shrugs his shoulders at the question. How should he answer this? He still has to ask Jungkook how many fingers he has. If they both have four, they are destined to be together.

“I am Hobi, and there is my guitar which is my best friend.”

“Carlito,” Taehyung says, eyeing the whole red, which reminds him of his favourite childhood toy, scarlet and entirely Taehyung’s, that had a guitar sewn into its chest. Taehyung would hold onto it at night when he was a child, carrying it from foster home to other foster home.

The toy’s name was Carlito. The stranger weirdly fits this name, with his guitar and striking red hair. Hobi doesn’t fit the stranger. Carlito does. Hobi - no, Carlito - starts a fine tune on his guitar. And Taehyung’s grin is swept off his face. The tune is… protruding his chest, and squirming around and twisting his insides. He listens to the melody and he thinks of this morning’s lose of control, his vein pulsing under the weight of the medication. He thinks of the string of begging. Jungkook on the floor.

‘I hate you’

He stills. Hobi’s eyes are closed, as his fingers move effortlessly, hovering over different strings. Taehyung focuses on the strings, the order, its corroded surface. It doesn’t stop - the squirming and the flailing of his skin, of what’s under.

“Why does it hurt?” The words stumble out of his mouth.

He’s strange to this emotion. He’s a stranger to Jungkook.

“What hurts?”

Taehyung shakes his head at the stranger - at Hobi, he doesn’t know what his chest is filled with, beside the medication. His face blankens when the stranger crosses the distance and sits too close, a finger reaching to… Taehyung flinches.

Hobi steps back, worry overflown by guilt, “I am sorry for trying to touch you without your permission. It’s just that… you’re crying.”

Is he? Taehyung raises his own finger to his face and feels the wetness on the tip of it. He’s crying. Why is he? Jungkook is a stranger, and Taehyung doesn’t care about his begging. Maybe he’s crying because another family abandoned him, his foster family pushing him into the arranged marriage. Maybe he’s crying because there’s another one that doesn’t want him - Jungkook practically begged to not be joint with Taehyung in any sort of relation. His hand is shaking too. But he is pretty certain it’s not because of the high dosage. He tugs at it with the other hand, but the trembling doesn’t stop.

He has to go to Jungkook. Ask him why Taehyung feels hurt. Why was Jungkook on his knees asking not to be married. Why he despises Taehyung so very much. What should Taehyung do, so finally someone wants him. He turns around and looks at the flashing green. And then crosses the street. He walks around the block, five more minutes to Jungkook’s house. He hears the creak of leaves under heavy boots. He looks over his shoulder and catches Carlito’s figure behind him, with a shaken face.

“Did you get scared?”

Hobi, shakes his head, albeit not convincingly, “You just turned around too fast.”

“Is your house around the corner?”

“What?”

“Why else would you follow me?”

“Oh, I am so sorry, it’s just that I was worried if you will get home safe, you seemed a bit distraught. I am so sorry if this is…”

Taehyung wants him to shut up. He feels too much noise in his mind, whispers, threats, begging. It feels like an axe is stuck in his chest. He has to talk to Jungkook. He doesn’t know why. But Jungkook has a calming voice. He also has nice arms and cool drawings on them. He wants to draw on Jungkook’s skin.

“I’ll probably go,” Hobi announces, stopping Taehyung’s visual of arm drawing, red pencil, infinite lines. Hobi walks closer and hands Taehyung a piece of paper, “Here’s my number, just in any case, if you ever don’t know anyone you can talk to, I… uhm I can play my guitar for you?”

“Thank you, Carlito.”

The stranger smiles. Taehyung walks to the doorstep. He lifts his hand to knock, but the door is already ajar, a dimly lit sliver of light spilling through the crack. And noises. Harsh breaths. Too much for his brain. He steps inside. The noise comes through the hallway. Taehyung follows it. He stills by the wall.

Jungkook is there. Taehyung stares at the other person pinned by Jungkook's arms to the wall. They’re kissing, harshly and Taehyung again feels his chest spiking up. He reaches inside his pocket for the box of medication, because his fingers itch, and his anger is rising till the tilt of his neck. He gets his grip on the box, but it falls off his fingers on the floor. Immediately, two pairs of eyes turn towards the noise, to the box abandoned on the floor, and then to Taehyung. He hears a curse coming from Jungkook and he smells the intense hyacinth flavour in the air.

“Oh,” he only manages to say.

He’s starving, but he doesn’t know what for.

“I won’t disturb you, you can continue,” he encourages them, turning on his feet and heading outside.

So many noises in his head. Buzzing, and begging. And anger, so much anger. He doesn’t control it when a touch lands on his arm. He reacts without thinking. He spins around and his knee jabs into their stomach, the hit jolting him as it releases some of the tension inside. And then Taehyung’s eyes fall on Jungkook’s crouched form. He feels on edge, as if the red light is still flashing before his eyes and he just crossed the street at red and got crushed.

Jungkook stands up, hushed breaths, cold dark eyes fixed on Taehyung.

“Don’t leave,”

Taehyung tilts his head, unaware of the words and what they mean, but lulled by the softness of the tone.

“I will go, you can take the room upstairs,” Jungkook continues.

Taehyung doesn’t understand what and how and why. He sees from the corner of his eyes his trembling hand and Jungkook looks at him like a frightened animal.

Does Jungkook pity him? Oh, how terrible.

“Don’t go out like this,” Jungkook says as he grabs his jacket. The other guy is nowhere to be seen. Taehyung heard a door on the other side of the house. So, someone left.

“I am sorry,” Jungkook whispers.

No one ever apologized for hurting Taehyung.

Jungkook continues, “Why did you have to marry me?”

That’s a good question. Taehyung doesn’t know why. He takes a last look at Jungkook’s ruffled hair and bloodshot eyes, at the smell of alcohol and something stronger coming from the man, at the bruised scarlet knuckles. Jungkook opens his mouth to say something else, but then he changes his mind and leaves the house.

Taehyung is standing alone in Jungkook’s house. There’s no red lights around, no honking cars, no danger of being hit.

He is so tired. He walks to the couch in the living room and falls on it. His dried cheeks and holed chest hurt and he closes his eyes. He wishes he had Carlito. He doesn’t know where he lost his toy. He feels like he’s bleeding, but he doesn’t know where the wound is. He falls asleep.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Present day

Inside the car it’s warm. A week later, they are again in a car together. And Taehyung’s brain is still jarred by the attention and time he spends in Jungkook’s presence. Today they went to the port again. His eyes fly between the door handle and Jungkook’s hand on the wheel, driving.

“There’s something that doesn’t add up,” Jungkook murmurs.

“About what?”

“You.”

Taehyung notices the piercing attention he’s receiving lately. Like he’s a riddle and Jungkook wants to solve him.

“Do you need a bit of an incentive?”

“For solving you?”

“Yes.”

“What would you have that I’d want?” Jungkook simply asks, corking an eyebrow, as his eyes strain towards Taehyung, and away from the road.

“Here’s another deal. You want to find out who I am,” Taehyung leans in closer to Jungkook, he doesn’t want even the night shadows to hear it, “And I have a riddle for you: In the absence of the script, I am the character without a backstory. Guess who I am.”

Jungkook’s gaze is heavy and twisting, as if he looks through down to the marrow, “What do I get in return?”

“I’ll divorce you.”

They both married without a say in it. Taehyung will make sure that at least their separation is an act of freedom for one of them.

“Deal.”

Once, Jungkook finds out the simple truth about Taehyung, and once Taehyung finds out who wants Jungkook dead, they’ll separate. After all, they always had an expiry date.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

He sleeps peacefully for the next week.

On a Wednesday morning, someone’s breathing hovers over him. He shuffles his body inside the covers. It’s cold for an early autumn day. He forces his eyes to open. And he’s met with fireworks of glowing light. In Jungkook’s cold, bored eyes. Taehyung blinks a couple of times, but the foggy image doesn’t disappear. Jungkook is standing over his bed, hands laced together behind his back.

“Can I help you with something?” His voice is tense and groggy, the remnants of sleep laced into it, but Jungkook hears him. He nods his head.

It’s such a rare occurrence, that Taehyung’s morning brain just freezes. He is still not sure that his mind didn’t conjure this Jungkook in his dreams. After the deal they made a week before, Taehyung knew he had to prepare himself to face more time with Jungkook. But it’s still hard to get used to it. A man’s heart requires time to acclimate to such drastic changes. Otherwise he’ll suffer from a heart attack. Taehyung hasn't taken his pills yet, but the buzz is cursing through his veins, shaking him up from under his toes. He stands up suddenly, eager to stretch his body. His feet finally graze the floor and his grin stretches, the grumpiness from being woken up so early all gone.

There’s a grimace growing on Jungkook’s face at the sight of him, and Taehyung places his hand under his chin, trying to understand when he managed to piss off his husband already. Maybe it’s just his pure existence. Now, that’s a curse he can’t fight.

“Something’s the problem?”

Jungkook’s lips grit in a thin line, eyes scattering from Taehyung’s feet up to his face, and then shifting his glance on the wall opposite. The man turns on his feet and leaves for the door. Taehyung stares at himself the same way, to see what so much as annoyed Jungkook. But beside his naked body, he doesn’t catch anything. Just bare thin legs, in a short pair of boxers and his bare chest like he was given to this earth at his birth. Well, if his body alarmed Jungkook so much, Taehyung can’t do anything about it. He was born like this.

He must cover it well, then. He throws a white T-shirt on him, tucking it in a pair of black jeans. His hair could do with a bit more care, but Taehyung is too hyped for what is to come, he doesn’t have time for it. He brushes some strands away from his face, cleans his teeth and face swiftly and then walks downstairs. Once he's inside the kitchen, he tosses a look around to immediately catch Jungkook’s figure sitting at the table, a coffee in his hand and a faraway look in his eyes. Taehyung thinks - Jungkook always looks cold and bored, but if he stares deeper, he can see worry and hurt and like the whole world is on his shoulders.

Maybe it’s only his medication that’s making him way poetics about his husband. Damn, his medication. Taehyung scratches his head, remembering he didn’t take his dose today. Jungkook notices him across the room and only looks at him for a second, before moving his eyes to the chair opposite his. Taehyung goes to sit over there. He grabs the box from his pocket and throws two of those in his mouth.

Jungkook eyes him warily, “What are those for?”

Taehyung grins, “Vitamins.”

Jungkook looks at him for longer than necessary.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Taehyung cuts the staring, suddenly uncomfortable by how piercing those eyes are, as if trying to discover all of his secrets and more.

As Jungkook starts speaking, Taehyung finds it hard to focus. His eyes drag to the way the muscles in Jungkook’s arms flex when he gestures around and places his coffee down. And Taehyung’s ears stray to the bass in Jungkook’s voice, when he retells how they have to go to Jungkook’s company and spend a day there. Jungkook’s eyes are glowy somehow, little flickers of dust and… Taehyung startles when Jungkook’s fingers clip in front of his face.

“You were saying?” Taehyung tries to pretend he paid attention. Truth is it’s Jungkook’s fault, why is he wearing such tight shirts and why are his arms so buff, but his face so round and utterly pretty.

“Drink your coffee and eat your croissant, we are already late,”

Truthfully, Taehyung never understood Jungkook’s obsession with having breakfast each morning, coffee and croissant and some fruits. Most of the time, when he’d wake up, he’d descend the stairs and find the coffee ready and the croissant laced with butter and jam ready. He’d look at the cooking lady standing by the table, waiting for him, and she’d always say it’s Jungkook’s instruction. So, like a good boy, Taehyung would sit alone at the table and eat his croissant and drink his coffee and hum under his breath. And it would be his only indirect interaction with his husband for three years.

Jungkook is waiting for him by the door, a shiny black jacket draped over his shoulders and Taehyung stops in his tracks, looking at himself in the mirror. Jungkook notices the hesitation. He arches an eyebrow, as if even the possibility of speaking to him is in itself a chore.

“Should I change my clothes?” Taehyung asks timidly.

His hand slightly tugs at the corner of his white shirt and jeans that surely will look embarrassing. Jungkook looks mildly annoyed by him. He opens the drawer left to him, grabs a loose black jacket and drapes over Taehyung’s shoulders.

The boy freezes. Did someone crack his chest open, why he feels chills all of a sudden. A loud honking resounds near him, and grips back to reality. He tugs it close to his chest, the jacket, and walks towards the car, the door already left open. He sits inside. They’re going today to the company to attend a couple of meetings, and for Taehyung to catch anything suspicious so he can call his people to do a background check. He knows himself how many rats he caught in his father’s company.

And he doesn’t mind doing some socialising. He’d been feeling especially lonely the past few days. Carlito hasn’t messaged him recently. And he doesn’t have other friends. He’s also good at reading people, the micro expressions on their faces. He mostly knows if someone is lying to him. For some reason. Now, it’s a skill. Before, the lack of it made him cry at nights, just sometimes.

“How do you think mermaids copulate?” He asks, suddenly turning to Jungkook.

Before, if he’d remember those nights, he’d freeze in a corner and cry again. Now, the buzz of the drugs makes him grin and his brain is wired to trip, walk and then trip again. He expects Jungkook to ignore him, as always.

Jungkook surprises him the second time this day, “They don’t exist,” he briefly answers.

Taehyung’s grin stretches wider, “But if they existed, how would they?” The ache to ask some more questions, to get more answers, swells in his chest. “By the way, related to that, do you think a vampire can suck blood from the…”

“If you continue the sentence, I am throwing you out of the car,” Jungkook sternly says.

Taehyung is amused, he likes it, “Why shouldn’t I finish the sentence?”

“Because I already know what you say.”

Taehyung wonders how his husband can know such a thing, “I can bet you actually don’t.”

Jungkook seems to ponder over it, and then he swiftly turns his attention towards him, “Okay.”

Taehyung’s whole face lights up, despite the complete reaction on Jungkook’s own face. “Continue it then: Do you think a vampire can suck blood from the…”

A second hesitation and then, “Dick,” Jungkook finishes. Taehyung blinks once, then twice, the car is fully draped in deadly silence. And then he splutters, his eyes wide and grin wiped off his face. His cheeks blaze red, and he quickly turns his face toward the window, utterly baffled by just what the fuck is happened. And then Taehyung thinks about how would a vampire suck the blood from the dic… and OH

OH

His grin arches back, ten times larger as he also turns back to Jungkook, who is driving with both hands on the wheel, still as dead faced, pale, and utterly bored by whatever happens around him. But Taehyung can catch the way Jungkook’s fingers keep ticking on the fabric of the wheel. Taehyung grins wider, “Just so you know, I am now visualising your answer.”

“Shut up,” Jungkook threatened, and then "What was the actual answer?"

Taehyung, still feeling the heat in his cheeks and the grin playing on his lips, animatedly answers, "It was the earlobe. Can a vampire suck blood from an earlobe, or would they just end up giving you an accidental piercing?"

Jungkook’s gaze heavies on him for whole seconds, “You’re an idiot.”

“It’s not me who wonders if vampires can suck dic…”

Jungkook fastens the speed all of a sudden, the car moving smoothly across the road, a smirk playing on Jungkook’s lips. The rush is electric, and Taehyung gasps, gripping the seat. Just as fast, Junkook slows the car and Taehyung’s back hits the seat with a thud. Taehyung grips his chest and tries to control his breathing. He turns in time to catch Jungkook’s mocking smirk.

“That was so much fun,” Taehyung exclaims, “Do that one more time.”

And it wipes the smirk of Jungkook’s face. He turns his attention on the road, “One of these days, your mouth is going to get you stabbed.”

Taehyung opens his mouth, but Jungkook cuts in again with a disapproving glare, “Don’t tell you’ve been stabbed before.”

Taehyung grins, “No, I haven’t, but that would be fun too,” the drugs start buzzing louder in his brain.

“Try to not speak for the rest of the road, for both mine and your sanity.”

Taehyung can totally do that. He nods his head. It’s just another game. Who will speak first from the two of them. There’s only 5 more minutes until they reach the grand glass building. Taehyung stares at the dashing exterior and thinks he didn’t fully understand what’s happening. For the first time in 3 years, he’s visiting Jungkook’s workspace. Wait, does it mean, Jungkook’s secretary will be there too? Beom or hyacinth? What a delight. Taehyung claps his hands and gets out of the car. Taehyung slows his steps on the pavement, swiftly grabbing the box of pills and throwing another one in his mouth. He needs one, because his chest is pumping loudly and because otherwise he can do something dangerous. He finds Jungkook waiting for him at the entrance, with a stern glance showing him inside. It’s still early on, and the building is not yet buzzing with people.

But Taehyung is buzzing, that is. Inside, his attention flits from one thing to another. As they walk through the revolving doors, Taehyung stops at the mosaic of the lobby’s floor. The floor is bathed with swirling patterns in deep blues, bright greens, and fiery reds. Taehyung’s grin grows wider with every step, his eyes darting from one vibrant tile to the next. He remembers the design made him gape last year too. He wants to sit down and paint it.

Jungkook, as always in his presence, looks between ⅓ frustrated, ⅓ bored and the other one annoyed. He keeps checking his watch, but not moving forward or saying anything. Taehyung’s stare locks onto the enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. And then at the two men at the reception desk.

Taehyung observes them quietly, “Am I seeing double? Oh this isn’t good,” he whispers under his breath.

“They’re twins,” Jungkook says, appearing beside him.

Oh, Taehyung nods and eyes the twins again. When the blonde men feel the attention on them, they raise their eyes and smile at him. Taehyung is perplexed. He offers one of his mean stares and walks forward towards the elevator.

“You have something with the people who smile at you?” Jungkook sounds amused when he asks.

“Only when they don’t mean it,” He shuts the conversation down, focusing his attention on the ticking number of the floors on the glass screen.

Jungkook decides not to comment on it, but his eyes remain heavy focused on Taehyung. He knows the reason for such growing attention to his persona. Jungkook wants to solve him, because he wants to get divorced. Nothing more and nothing less.

Isn’t it fun?

After close to 5 minutes spent in silence and more staring, they reach one of the highest numbers of the floors. Jungkook lets him step out first. Taehyung fixates his attention on the artwork displayed on the wall outside Jungkook’s office. Jungkook doesn’t wait for him this time and enters his office. Taehyung stares at the secretary desk, at the pen’s collection and the portrait framed on the desk of two men smiling and hugging. None of them is Beom. Taehyung is utterly confused. He walks towards the door and hears in time a loud high pitched,

“Urgh,”

“Don’t look so pleased to see me, Jimin,” Jungkook answers.

“Why are you here?” The man with pink vibrant hair says.

“I own this company?”

“Unfortunately,”

“Namjoon, take your boyfriend out of my eyes.”

It’s then that Taehyung emerges in the office as well, eyes catching onto each small detail, including the new two people beside Jungkook. And then he hears a loud shriek and doesn’t have time to brace for the storm that comes his way.

“You’re such a cutie, Jungkook, how could you hide your gorgeous husband all the time,” and then without letting anyone else talk, Jimin turns to Namjoon, “Baby, can we take him for us?”

“Like adopt?” Taehyung asks, confused.

Everyone bursts out laughing. Taehyung is still confused, but then he catches the fleeting trace of a laugh on Jungkook’s face, and he grins as well, even if he doesn’t understand the joke.

“Oh, you’re so adorable. I am going to steal you.”

“Human kidnapping is illegal,” Jungkook flatly says.

“Not if the human agrees,” Jimin counter attacks.

“Namjoon,” Jungkook sternly commands, his eyes fleeting from Jimin’s figure to the door.

Namjoon knows better than to test his boss’s patience. He grabs his boyfriend by his waist and ushers him outside.

“We’re going to come for lunch, you’re not getting rid of me, Jeon Jungkook.”

“He’s funny,” Taehyung comments, amused, watching the door close behind the guests.

“He’s a pest, that’s what he is.”

“More annoying than me?”

“Oh, you’re topping that list, don’t worry.”

“Good,” Taehyung trails, as he eyes each thing in the office.

“Can you please sit, so we discuss the plan?”

Taehyung nods and sits on the chair, hooking both his hands under his chin, tilting his head to the side, and intently looking at Jungkook. The man doesn’t seem to appreciate it, but he shrugs once, coughs twice and then continues, “We are having two meetings today, one with my biggest competitor, and the second one with one potential investor. In between, you can quietly walk through the floors and observe. Key point here is - quietly.”

“I am the definition of quiet,” Taehyung smirks.

“No, you’re not.”

“But I can be.”

“And what would motivate you enough to not wreck chaos in my company like last time?”

“Share a cigarette with me on the roof after the day ends.”

Jungkook appears slightly bewildered by the request, but he nods and then ushers Taehyung out of his office. His heart grows warm and he thinks to himself - he can definitely be quiet. With the promise given to Jungkook, running through his mind, Taehyung makes his way towards the middle floors where different departments reside. He strides through the hallways and tries to intercept any deviation on the people’s faces. Sometimes he gets too caught by the ceilings or the possibility of hyacinth in the air.

An hour or two pass.

He stares through a window, and then hears some gossip. He feels grateful no one ever paid attention to him. Now he moves like a shadow, lingering in the corners and taking his breath. And then walking again. His span of attention is quite short. But he sees it. He sees jealous faces of colleagues, envious of others, or angry managers, or ones that smile through their crooked teeth and ugly promises. Taehyung buys himself a coffee and puts in too much sugar and ice cream, already tired of too many humans. He knows it would give Jungkook a heart attack to see this monstrosity of a drink, and it brings a smile to his face. He takes a picture and sends it to Jungkook, continuing on to the next hallway. Jungkook did consider it a possibility for his killer to be someone internal. When he checks his phone the next minute, it tells him Jungkook blocked his number. He grins wholeheartedly. Soon, he spots a girl walking towards his direction, and an idea pops in his mind. He stops her with a wave of his hand, and she smiles politely at him.

“Do you know where Beom’s desk is,” Taehyung inquires, so he can avoid that exact place.

“Oh, Mr. Kang Beom? He doesn’t work here, he operates in the factories,”

Nice. He wants to continue his way, but the girl stands in his path, her smile more crooked and prominent. Taehyung blinks, disoriented.

“Can you go out of my way,” Taehyung asks. At the sudden grimace on the girl’s face Taehyung remembers manners and adds a soft, “Please?”

The girl immediately beams and walks out after bowing. His phone pings, it’s a message from Jungkook.

‘The meeting starts in 5 minutes, where are you?’

Jungkook unblocked him. Nice. And he’s missing him. Even nicer.

Well, people are waiting for him, important people. He stabilises himself and then heads to the conference room. The room is already crowded, a big screen overflowing with a giant oil sunflower logo. So, this must be Jungkook’s biggest competitor. Taehyung heads inside, eyeing the crowded room. Luckily, he catches Jungkook’s eyes quickly, who signals him for the chair next to him. He doesn’t notice how everyone’s eyes in the room turns to him. Jungkook stands up once Taehyung reaches him.

“This is my husband Kim Taehyung,” he points to Taehyung’s grinning face, “He will attend the meeting today.”

No more introductions seem to be needed. Jungkook sits down, and then everyone follows his lead and goes down on their chairs as well.

“How is it going?” He leans closer to Jungkook and asks.

“Instead of coming here himself, he sent his secretary, which not only speaks of his complete dismissal of us, but of his lack of disrespect too,” Jungkook pushes his frustration out.

Taehyung watches mesmerised.

“So, it’s not going good at all,” Jungkook finishes and then moves his eyes to the screen and the man who coughs once to get everyone’s attention.

Once Jungkook understands Taehyung’s eyes are not fixated on the right thing, still staring at him instead, he raises his finger and pushes it against Taehyung’s chin, moving his focus towards the screen.

“Pay attention,” he warns.

Well, only because Jungkook asked so tenderly.

And because of the burning chin, where Jungkook’s finger has been. He starts listening to the conversation. And he observes. He knows there’s no merger option at all. In loud and buzzed words, the young boy speaks of all of Jungkook’s company drawbacks and how many advantages they will get by being acquired by their rival company. The second thing he notices is the boy’s lingering gaze on Jungkook. He doesn’t fault him. Taehyung too likes to stare at Jungkook. He truly understands. The next part of the conversation is less pleasant. The boy starts touching on the fact of Jungkook’s age and how “he’d need a more experienced shoulder to lean on while navigating the very hard industry of petrol”.

A load of bullshit. Jungkook may be young while his father signed the company on his name, but Taehyung thinks his husband might do a good job. His opinion might be biassed, but hot bosses are usually very productive. Carlito said so. Taehyung has no reason to not believe his close friend. The other thing Taehyung notices is the way Jungkook’s fingers continue to grip the arm of the chair. The way he slowly shrinks in himself and if someone can understand the lack of control, the hidden anger and how everything explodes inside, but you have to keep quiet, face blank - then it’s Taehyung. When the presentation finishes, the attendees glance between each other, words starting to hover over them, Taehyung stands up. His body can’t stand still for too long. Effects of his medication. So, are also the next words that escape his mouth, addressing the boy:

“Wow, not only does your “merger” plan sucks, but you do too. How does it feel to suck so much, and not in the way you’d prefer.”

All the whispers fall dead silent. He sees from the corner of his eyes Jungkook wiping his forehead and cursing again. Taehyung likes the most when he curses in French, it’s so hot.

“Everyone out, the meeting is over,” Jungkook says, not standing up, just eyeing everyone with a cold glare. And then he focuses on the boy who presented,

“Tell your boss, next time if he has a more serious offer, he can come himself and present it to me. So, I can listen to an even more experienced person.”

“Mr. Jeon, you are doing a terribl…”

“I thought I said the meeting was over?”

The man takes his things and leaves the room.

“And that’s why I don’t take you to meetings after last time,” Jungkook whispers quietly, as if scolding himself for wrong decisions. He can only blame himself for it, truly.

“We have one more meeting, anything to know in advance about it?”

Jungkook looks up at him, eyes dark and throwing daggers at him, “He’s an old man, who if starts talking, no one can stop him. He’s misogynist, homophobic and I don’t think i can deal with him today. So, please, can you also refrain from fucking my brains out?”

Taehyung hears him. He nods solemnly. He can do it. They walk in silence towards Jungkook’s office. Only, because Taehyung can see a growing migraine wincing Jungkook’s sour face. The silence doesn’t prolong however, because near the office, the pink haired man from earlier waits. And next to him is his tall buff boyfriend. Jimin is beaming, and Taehyung notices the sincerity in it. He gets overwhelmed a bit. But tries to smile back, no matter how wrinkly it turns out. Jimin’s beam grows larger. Maybe it’s because Jimin sees Jungkook’s complete lack of patience and mood, falling on his stool and massaging his temples, maybe it’s because Jimin pities his boss, or maybe because he’s afraid to stir more drama… But the lunch proceeds in silence for the first fifteen minutes, only with Jimin quietly asking Taehyung various questions. Favourite food, and favourite actors, and then managing to tell the gossip of the whole company. Taehyung is not used to such attention and burst of energy, loud voice and many questions assaulting him. He shrinks in himself for a bit, and already misses Jungkook’s solid calming tone. But Jimin looks nice, and Taehyung can’t ruin this. Whatever it is. Close to the end of the lunch, in Jimin’s appears a sudden glint of something… maybe mischief… maybe something else. Taehyung doesn’t know the man very well, but he already can say it’s quite dangerous.

Jimin grins. “Let’s play a game, Tae, to get to know each other better.”

“Okay,” Taehyung accepts. He likes games, “I am very good at games, especially at following rules,” he voices out.

A groan resounds in the room and everyone’s head turns to Jungkook, who masks it with his hand and a cough.

Jimin pretends he didn’t hear it, as he continues, “The game is the following, a truth for a truth. I ask you something and you have to tell me honestly, or avoid the question if you don’t want to answer, and I ask you something else, And then you ask me back. Okay?”

Taehyung nods his head.

“You go first,” Jimin says.

Okay, this is not bad. Why was he ever wary of Jimin? He is such an angel. Taehyung doesn’t have to think too much of questions, his brain is always running on adrenaline, and rush and a million inquiries about the world, “What’s your fondest memory,” he asks.

Only because he wants to observe sheer happiness on Jimin’s face, while he retells it. Jimin absolutely swoons over it, retelling about his summers spent at his grandparent’s farm. Taehyung closes his eyes and imagines it. He feeds on the warmth of the memories and Jimin’s soft voice retells it. Soon, it’s Jimin’s turn to ask.

He smiles innocently at Taehyung, “What’s your body count?”

Taehyung tries to process the question.

But Jungkook interrupts, standing from his chair, “Jimin, get out of my office.”

Jimin, instead of being scared off, looks at Jungkook smirking, and that smirk hides something else Taehyung doesn’t understand. Taehyung rushes to restore the energy from before.

“It’s no problem, I can answer it. It’s half”

Jimin’s smirk wipes off, bewildered, “What do you mean half?”

“Well I didn’t finish the deed?”

“The deed?”

“Murder,” Taehyung plainly answers.

Someone chokes on their water. The room falls dead silent.

“Body count refers to the number of people you slept with,” Jimin slowly explains.

And Taehyung’s grin stretches, “Oh, then 0.”

“Are we going to pretend we didn’t just hear almost a confession of murder,” Namjoon says from the back.

“Yes, we are,” Jungkook flatly answers. “And you reached the limit of my patience. Get out of my office. Namjoon,”

He again points to the door, as if he knows that the man is the only one being able to handle Jimin. As he leaves, Jimin stares at Taehyung with a mix of bewilderment and panic, he still manages to throw out an, “I have your number, Tae, I’ll text you, you’re my best friend now.”

Taehyung sits paralyzed a minute. “How did he get my number,” it’s the first thing he asks.

“He has his ways.”

“He said I’m his friend,” it’s the second thing that freezes him, and not even his drugged brain can process it.

“Smiles terrify you, and so do friendships, anything else I should be aware of?” Jungkook says, leaning in his chair.

Taehyung shakes his head, keeping silent till the second meeting.

Hours later, Taehyung stares at his watch and notices that an hour has passed, he fell asleep on Jungkook’s desk. He doesn’t have much energy to share himself with other people, or Jungkook. But he promised. So, he grips the edges of objects nearby and tries to stand without falling, ignores the migraine, the exhaustion. The world is exhausting, so are the people. They walk to the conference room. Jungkook stops first to introduce Taehyung to the old man, some high shot investor. Taehyung bows once, grins his special type of grin. And then he reaches for the man, and hugs him carefully. He catches the man’s grumbling face, and Jungkook’s disapproving look. He only winks at his husband and then reaches one of the bodyguards at the end of the corridor, leaving Jungkook and the man in the corridor.

They are in the conference room minutes later, Jungkook eyeing him suspiciously. Before the meeting can entail, the investor shakes his hands in his pockets,

“I can’t find my phone,” the man grumbles, his voice a constant tick of complaint and whining.

“Oh, no, such a loss, well, then we will meet each other next time,” Taehyung says, waving to the man, happy that the meeting is actually cancelled.

“I would not cancel it, but my phone is important, someone has to call me for a deal that…”

“Yes, we understand, please go!”

Jungkook throws him a sterning gaze.

Taehyung corrects himself, “I mean, go please,”

Jungkook pinches him from the back.

“Go to find your phone and get that deal.”

The man apprehensively leaves, still complaining to his secretary. Taehyung grins triumphantly.

“Now that’s a blessing from the God I didn’t expect,” Jungkook says, falling on the chair.

Taehyung can see Jungkook’s eyes drop with exhaustion.

“I am your blessing, not God.”

Jungkook pushes through the marred lines of exhaustion and smirks, “Unless you stole his phone, it’s God who chose to bestow this upon me.”

Taehyung keeps silent and heads to the door.

“Taehyung, please tell me you didn’t steal the phone.”

“I didn’t steal the phone,”

Jungkook follows him in the corridor. And pins him with an icy glare.

“I stole his phone,” Taehyung confesses quickly. Minutes tick by, and Taehyung thinks he broke Jungkook. His husband keeps staring at one point on a wall, cursing in his sixth language, which is Spanish.

“I can’t deal with this today,” Jungkook says all of a sudden, “Let’s go home.”

Taehyung agrees with a smile and follows Jungkook outside. He forgets about the deal to have a chat with Jungkook on the roof. He doesn’t even know if he won the deal to begin with. It is still an almost perfect day, Taehyung thinks, as they walk out of the evening and he catches the purple clouds hovering over them and the start of the sunset cripping in. He turns to Jungkook, ready to point out just how much fun they had together, when he sees Jungkook halting abruptly on his feet. Taehyung follows Jungkook’s line of sight and his eyes fall on a petite raven haired woman. He vaguely remembers her from his wedding with Jungkook, three years ago.

Oh, she’s Jungkook’s step mother. And the reason Jungkook hates his father.

Taehyung keeps himself out of it, as he notices the woman’s face suddenly spreading into a shy smile as he approaches them. She notices Taehyung and bows respectfully, smiling kindly, which terrifies him, but he pushes the unease deep inside his chest.

“What are young doing here?” Jungkook speaks, and his tone is full of malice and disgust. The woman doesn’t wince. She keeps the tone of her voice soft and tender.

“Your father invites you to a dinner,” and then she turns to Taehyung carefully, “You can come too, Taehyung-ah.”

He keeps silent. If Jungkook hates his step mother, by association and husband loyalty, he hates her too. She doesn’t seem deterred by his ignorance.

Jungkook shakes beside him. “I told him last time to not contact me at all, unless it’s about his funeral.”

Taehyung tilts his head to the side and observes this Jungkook. He has never seen him like this. Deadly… dangerous, icy heart and icy tone of his voice, not detached or bored.

The woman must be stronger than him, because she remains calm and only shrinks a bit into herself, “Please think about it, Jungkook, your father’s heart is not doing very well. And also,” she hesitates, but manages to collect her courage, or stupidity, “Did you give another thought to the charity for suicide victims and people suffering of depression and…”

“If you don’t get the fuck out of my sight, I am going to kill you,” Jungkook cuts her.

“Jungkook, listen, I just want to help. You can bring awareness to other people who are suffering just like your mother did. You couldn’t save her, but maybe you can help others, it can heal you and…”

A gun is suddenly raised in the air and aimed at the woman.

“You have a gun, wow, that’s so ho…” Taehyung manages to whisper under his breath. His brain too slow to catch onto what’s happening, only fixated on the shiny thing with a barrel and bullets.

“Get the fuck out and tell my sperm donor that next time he sends you to me, he’ll get you back in a coffin.”

The woman stares some more, in pity, at the barrel of the gun, and then leaves.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

“So, your mom…”

“She’s dead,” Jungkook says, flatly, and with a tone that still carries the danger of the loaded gun.

Taehyung feels the motion of the wheels, the drive of the car against the night wind. A crow arriving on a branch, running scenery through the window, keeps his attention for a while. But soon he gives up on trying to find something more interesting than Jungkook. He turns to the man. He becomes insensible and selfish when he asks,

“Did you love her?”

Jungkook’s eyes trained on him come from whatever lands they travelled inside his mind. The look is hollow and Taehyung waits with rapt selfishness for more of Jungkook.

And then his husband nods. Taehyung feels his heart break in half as if he tasted the love of a mother and then lost it.

“I am sorry then.”

The tone of the evening turns poignant. Taehyung can’t let their night end on such a note. It’s one of the few memories he wants to treasure for when he’ll need something to keep him afloat and breathing. He has to lighten the mood.

“Want to hear a story?”

All but a subtle shift of Jungkook’s chin, and Taehyung lightens up, turning with his whole body towards the man.

“I am an amazing storyteller,” he claps excitedly. Particles of his heart bounce up and down. He thinks it might be the drugs, he did take double portion.

“Careful not to make me fall asleep with your story though, I am driving after all,” Jungkook interrupts, voice serious and for a second Taehyung wants to cry out of happiness. Jungkook is talking to him. Still.

But he grins large and toothy. The road ahead stretches like an endless ribbon. Taehyung wants it to never end.

“It’s about a little girl, was she six years old, or was it seven…”

“Why a child, why not stories about adults?” Jungkook interrupts again, eyes on the road, but his fingers ticking in the direction of Taehyung’s hand gesturing around while telling the story.

“Because I think all our pains and sufferings come from the small child inside of us, who’s still in pain, can I continue the story now?”

Jungkook arches an eyebrow and finally turns to Taehyung. His eyes still look eons away from this place. The car suddenly screeches and Taehyung steals a glance outside. Jungkook parked in the middle of archades of trees.

“I can’t do this right now,” Jungkook speaks, “I’d either drive the car off the nearby bridge or run myself off the car.”

It feels like a confession. Of what, Taehyung doesn’t know. It sounds raw, and unfiltered and filled with the familiar pain Taehyung was stinged by too.

“So, you should start your story or ramble or talk my ear off, because I can’t control my mind right now.”

Jungkook doesn’t look at him, his arms are gripping the wheel, his head resting in the crook of it, lowered down. As if he can’t let someone see him in this state. Vulnerable, uncontrolled, weak.

“There was once a small girl. She had no end and no beginning, no origin. She was an orphan. Wandering the streets alone on Christmas night, trying to sell matches. It was a cold winter, the icy air clawing under her skin. She looked around, at the street lights, at the homes filled with laughter, warmth and love. She stared at the outside world, while she was freezing in a bubble, alone and cold. She had no coat, no hat, no gloves, only a handful of matches, the kind that lighten candles, it was everything she owned and could offer. But people didn’t need that, didn’t need what she had to offer. Didn’t need her.”

Taehyung turns his attention to the window, the inside of the car cold all of a sudden. He pushes his hand, shaking again, in his pocket.

“She tried to sell the matches, walking from door to door, but no one would buy. People ignored her, too busy huddling in their warm homes, drawing their curtains tight against the night. No one noticed her, like she was invisible, almost like she wasn't really there at all. The night grew darker, colder, and she grew more desperate. She knew she had to light a match, just one. to feel the warmth, if only for a moment. So she did. She struck it against the wall of a nearby house, and suddenly, in that tiny flame, she saw things. Things no one should see. The first match flickered to life, and in the glow, she saw a beautiful room, warm and bright, with a crackling fire in the hearth. It was so real, she could almost feel the heat. But just as she reached out to touch it, the match went out, plunging her back into the cold, dark street. It was one of her hopes, to bathe in warmth and love, to not be alone.

She struck another match, desperate for the warmth again. This time, the flames revealed a grand feast laid out on a table, roasted meats, steaming vegetables, desserts piled high. Her mouth watered, and she stepped forward, but the food disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving her more hungry and cold than before. Another hope of hers, to fall asleep at nights with her body quiet and full, not crying out of emptiness and void on empty, cold ground.

With trembling fingers, she lit a third match. This time, she saw a Christmas tree, glowing with candles and surrounded by presents. As she reached out, the match burned out, and the vision faded, leaving her alone again in the darkness. She always dreamed of spending a different Christmas, that all the ones she had before as a child.

She lit another match, but instead of warmth, the flames brought a figure, a woman, smiling joyously and kind, like a mother would. The girl started crying.

She knew she was in danger of freezing out if she wasted all the matches, but she couldn't stop dreaming and hoping. She kept lighting match after match, each one revealing more of her dreams, of her hopes, arms enveloping her in warmth, kind smiles.

Finally, she lit the last match. The flame flickered weakly, barely holding on. In its dim light, she saw a funeral, dark and silent, with no one attending it, only a small coffin at its center. As the match burned lower, she realized, it was her coffin. She wasted all her matches for impossible dreams and hopes. The light faded, and with it, the girl did too. By morning, she was found frozen on the street, a smile on her lips, and the burnt-out matches clutched in her hand. The end.”

A minute of silence and then Jungkook raises his head all of a sudden, eyes filled with fury. Much better than the emptiness that pertained before.

Taehyung smiles.

“Continue the story,” Jungkook grits through his teeth.

“This is the end.”

“I said, continue the story.”

“Like about her funeral? I don’t think many cared to organize a…”

Taehyung wished day and night to have Jungkook’s undivided attention on him, but now that the man stares at him, face coloured by emotions Taehyung can’t read or understand, he wants those eyes gone from his face. Jungkook looks at him as if he is touching him, his marred bones and crawling his fingers deep inside his skin to carve holes there. Taehyung doesn’t like it all of a sudden. He turns back to the window, as if he still can see the crow flying off the branch.

“She was an orphan, she was born alone, and she died alone. There’s nothing much else to the story, don’t look too deep into it,” He snaps.

His heart catches in a gripping lock, when Jungkook, all of a sudden grins at him, his whole face lighten up like Taehyung has never seen before. A grin not induced by drugs or mocking. Something else Taehyung can’t put a name on.

“You really know how to tell a story, don’t you?”

Taehyung doesn’t know how to reply to that. So, he keeps silent. There’s tremors travelling up his arms, and he curls more in himself,

“Can you start driving, so we don’t freeze here just like the girl with the matches?”

Jungkook complies, starting the engine, his finger reaching to turn the heater on. Taehyung relaxes.

“Who is the author of the story?” Jungkook suddenly asks.

“Hans Christian Andersen.”

“He really knew how to write stories for kids, uh?”

Taehyung managea to raise the corners of his lips in the imitation of a grin, albeit too weak to maintain it, falling off his face quickly, “This is my favourite story from him.”

“Do you think he ever found his happy ending?”

Taehyung shakes his head at the question, “He grew up in poverty, and along his adult life, he was a lonely, shy man, with little to no experiences of happy endings. He always said that we learn more about our own character from suffering than from being happy.“

“So, basically he was saying life is tragic and you’re never going to find joy until you die, so be happy if you end up dying early?”

It elicits an easier grin to manage, and Taehyung does so.

“You nailed it,” and then without thinking too much about it, Taehyung leans in closer to the man, the dim light from the dashboard casting shadows across his face. His voice drops to a whisper, just loud enough to be heard over the hum of the engine. "Do you want to know a secret?" he asks. His voice is trembling too, as is his hand reaching for the hem of his pants.

Without waiting for a reply, he slowly lifts the hem of his shirt up, and the hem of his pants down, revealing the curve of his waist. Just below, where the skin meets the waistband of his pants, is a tattoo. It is small, almost subtle, a single burnt match, blackened and twisted, like it had just been snuffed out. The tattoo looks too real, as if it had been scorched into his flesh.

Taehyung observes how Jungkook’s eyes trail the line of the tattoo. For a moment, Taehyung sees Jungkook’s unblinking eyes and wishes he could read minds. He sees Jungkook’s fingers gripping the wheel and then reaching forward, as if to touch, to trail… And in the next second, the car swerves suddenly, jerking to the side as the wheel slips from his grasp. The tires squeal in protest, snapping Jungkook just in time to correct the course. The car steadies.

There’s an uneasy feeling creeping up Taehyung’s spine. As if his body is a cage and he doesn’t possess the key to it. Jungkook remains silent, jaw locked and eyes back with that unreadable hollowness inside.

“This is the second accident we almost got in today, do you think the third one will be definite?”

“Careful not to jinx it, if we actually crash, I am going to blame you.”

“But we’ll be dead, so you can’t do anything.”

“I’ll come to haunt you in hell.”

“I don’t believe in hell and heaven.”

“Go on and ruin all my inner child's dreams and beliefs, you don’t believe in happy endings and you don’t believe in heaven, tell me Taehyung, what do you believe in then?”

“Myself,” He answers, eyes blinking at the sudden flux of attention from Jungkook.

Jungkook hums, as if the answer makes perfect sense.

The car screeches to an abrupt halt near the mansion, as they wait in silence for the gates to open. Taehyung gets out of the car, and his spine throbs from the heavy stare following him all the way up to the house. He knows deep inside his mind, and in the surface of his grin, that they are nothing. They were nothing, and they will always be nothing. But Taehyung always stares at him, and Jungkook sometimes returns that stare tenfold, and damn, Taehyung doesn’t know if he can do nothing anymore.

He sits at the kitchen stool. Jungkook sits on its other end. Taehyung doesn’t know what it means, or what’s expected of him. He’s not ignored anymore. It’s unsettling. But they’re still nothing. He then remembers the whole purpose of his visit to Jungkook’s workplace. And it’s a good diversion for the chaos that takes place inside his brain.

“Do you want to hear my report from today,” he asks, grinning wide and leaning his hands on the table with a sly smirk, ticking his fingers on the table to hide the tremble in them.

Jungkook remains emotionless, but he nods his head, as if he expected only this.

“It’s someone from your office and not really. If you want the longer version, I can provide it too. But just trust me, the person who wants to kill you is not working alone.”

“And the longer version?” Jungkook asks. Because he doesn’t trust Taehyung.

“The longer version,” Taehyung starts, his voice low, and menancing, “is that whoever it is, they are careful, too careful. They’ve left no trace within your company, no loose ends, nothing that ties back to anyone you work with directly, but it’s there. One of your factories burned and you were assassinated near your company. So the reason is not tied to your work, but it is a means to an end.”

Jungkook's eyes narrow, he remains silent, but Taehyung can see the brute force hiding inside, urging Taehyung to continue..

“This person that wants to kill you,” Taehyung says, his fingers still tapping nervously on the table, “the method they chose to kill you, burning you right outside your company, no threats or blackmail, no other contact with you. This isn't just business, it’s personal. They hate you, they want to burn you alive.”

Jungkook's mouth tightens, “Lovely,” he says flatly.

Jungkook stands up, unlocking his hands from his chest.

“Today has been fun,” Taehyung says, elated, but his voice dropping low as the drop of the drugs hits him all of a sudden, “And nice,” he adds.

Jungkook quirks an eyebrow, a playful grin on his face, “This was fun for you? And nice?”

Taehyung nods.

“I am starting to feel a little sorry for you, then,” Jungkook speaks.

Taehyung doesn’t understand. He blinks and then he realizes his body is exhausted, his knees weak, so he starts climbing the stairs without another glance back. Explanations can wait for later.

“Good night to you too,” he hears Jungkook’s voice.

He shuts his door closed and falls on the bed, tugging at his chest, where the pain starts its root. He falls asleep and dreams that it’s cold. He walks on the streets and tries to sell matches. But everyone ignores him, as if he’s invisible. He falls asleep on a street, he freezes and then he dies.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

“Hello, doctor,” Taehyung greets Yoongi, pointing the sharp blade at him, “Make it stop.”

Yoongi’s eyes glint, as if elated, as if he’s seeing his favourite patient, “What exactly should I stop?” He ignores the knife pointed at him, and instead observes the dark nests under Taehyung’s eyes.

“My emotions,” Taehyung rasps, pain lacing in his voice, “I take the medicine to stop my emotions, to weaken them, to not feel, but it’s not working. Stop it.”

The evening stretches in a silent stare off between the two. Yoongi struggles to understand what triggered it. Taehyung just tries to shut it off, the pain, and the sudden sharpness in his movements, in his joint limbs, as all the memories he tried to subdue are resurfacing.

“Please, make it stop,” he asks again.

Rust leaves on the doctor’s desk, connected in a crown with flowers joining the ends of it, his younger brother brought it earlier to him.

Yoongi takes the crown in one hand and turns to Taehyung, “May I?”

Taehyung stares dumbfoundead, eyes large and hands stopping gesturing around. His heart flutters, so he nods. Yoongi steps carefully around him, fingers faintly touching Taehyung’s head as he places the crown on top of it and immediately steps back. He stares at the flowers that bury deep and hide between Taehyung’s black locks and smiles.

“It fits you, little prince.”

Taehyung reaches his fingers to the crown on his head, touching the petals and grounding his panic and chaos of emotions.

“When you feel like you have no control of your emotions and it’s too much, take a breathe and try to ground yourself with nature, walk, touch flowers, twist them in crowns, draw on them, let your emotions out. Now tell me what happened.”

Taehyung does as he was told. He retells everything that happened this week. Carlito’s sudden disappearance from his life. His overwhelment in the face of Jimin’s energy and normal social interactions. And lastly he talks about Jungkook. Yoongi listens carefully and then relaxes against the back of the chair.

“Here, it’s a calming tea with strawberries,” he offers the cup to Taehyung with a smile.

Once the cup is secured in the boy’s hands, Yoongi starts.

“You didn’t take your pills for some days,”

Taehyung nods.

“And then you took a double dose yesterday.”

Another nod follows.

“And you told Jungkook your favourite book story,”

“Yes.”

“The story that you feel the closest to, the one that reminds you of your childhood, the childhood that created deep wounds that are buried with medication.”

Taehyung can’t do anything else but curtly move his head in confirmation, sipping from the tea, and grounding himself in the fresh smell of his favourite fruit. The cup is painted with oil colours, tiny strawberries adorning it, one of his therapy activities with Yoongi. Taehyung relaxes.

“Your body and brain are used to heavy medication, and then suddenly you stop it for a few days and then double it, and you start remembering the roots of your trauma at the same time. It causes a glitch in your brain, that follows what you feel right now, your body is trying to sort out and get back to what it is used to.”

“Will this pass?”

“Sleep it out today, I will give you some strawberry tea, continue to drink it, and then tomorrow take your medication only once as prescribed, and it will all go back to how it used to be.”

Taehyung sighs in relief. Yoongi doesn’t look particularly satisfied.

“Have you given it any thought, to stop the medication?”

Taehyung thinks about it, just for a second, and shakes his head. He wants to change the topic.

“Jungkook… let’s talk about him.”

“Of course, should we talk about why you offered to help him find out who burned his car?”

Taehyung is thankful Yoongi took it so easily and didn’t ask follow up questions or act in panic for the mere mention of murder. Taehyung doesn’t remember confessing as many details to Yoongi about the assasination, but he is glad he did during his drugged phases. Yoongi understands him.

“I wanted to help him,” he says simply.

“But why?”

Taehyung thinks about it, and realises the answer is already on the tip of his tongue, “I wanted him to need me. That’s why I made deals with him.”

“Do you think Jungkook will not spend time with you, if you didn’t do the deals?”

It’s the easiest question Taehyung has ever been asked. He nods. Yoongi’s eyebrows scrunch in a fusion of pity and scorn, “You think people can’t want you, so you make them need you.”

Because Taehyung was never wanted as a child. So, the relationships he builds are on the foundation of need, because no one ever wanted him. “Oh, don’t read me so fast, doctor, leave a bit of mystery out there, otherwise my main character - myself, will just get boring.”

It’s clear the tea calmed the panic, and then medication is already kicking in, because Taehyung's manic grin is back. He stands suddenly from the chair, stretching his arms.

“I better go till you divulge all of my darkest secrets.”

Yoongi stands to follow, but Taehyung stops him with a hand midair.

“You have to know, Taehyung, I think it’s good that you’re opening up to Jungkook.”

Taehyung doesn’t look happy, as he eyes the calm ocean in his doctor’s eyes, “Don’t say such jokes, they are not funny.”

And he leaves the building. He drives home and gets a sudden urge to hear from Jungkook. Last day they spent it all together. Today he barely saw the ghost of Jungkook leaving early to work. He presses the dial, and waits and waits. He hums a song under his breath while the phone beeps with the same tune. Finally, after a minute, he hears ragged breathing on the other line.

“What took so long to answer your phone,” he whines, fingers playing on the surface of the wheel a tune he’s also humming.

“My fingers were covered in blood and my touch screen wouldn’t work.”

A loud rich bubble of laughter resounds in the car, as Taehyung giggles in the confines of his car.

“I didn’t know you have such a refined sense of humour, you’re impressing me each day.”

“I am trying my best.”

“Well, I am just coming from the doctor, and he recommended me to spend more time with you, doctor’s orders, I swear.”

“Is that so?” Jungkook flatly asks, disinterest evident in his voice as a strange noise comes up from his side.

Taehyung hears some ruffling, and then a loud noise like banging, and then Jungkook’s rushed breathing. And then another sound filters through the phone, not Jungkook’s, a wavering breath caught somewhere between a whine and a scream.

“Are you alone?”

“No, I have a guest over.”

“I see, do you want me to drive the longer way home then?”

A pause and then a thud is heard.

“Can you please go to that store I usually buy ice cream from and get me a box of it?”

“But it’s almost an hour away,” Taehyung complains, still his hand already correcting the wheel to the direction of the ice cream shop.

“I will be very grateful if you do it,”

“Something else?”

“Maybe that chocolate cake too…”

“No, I meant something else you can offer me for the ice cream, your gratefulness is not nearly enough.”

“I see, well think what you want and it’ll be yours, in the limits I can deliver, now I am ending this call because it’s quite rude to not give my undivided attention to my guest.”

“Well, bye I…”

The line goes dead. Taehyung swears out loud. Jungkook has no manners. Taking all the attention from Taehyung, and giving it to whatever guest is gracing his house. That’s just rude. Still, Taehyung drives to the ice cream shop, and he buys the chocolate cake too. Jungkook drinks his coffee bitter and sugar less, but then he’d eat an entire chocolate cake. Taehyung adores this man.

When Taehyung steps inside the house almost an hour later, a hand holding the ice cream box and another the chocolate cake wrapped, there’s eerie silence around. Except the sound of a running shower upstairs. Taehyung places the goods in the kitchen. He grabs a spoon and hops on the cake, earnestly.

Only minutes later steps echo from the stairs and Jungkook soon enters the kitchen, hair still damp from the shower, clinging in dark strands against the nape of the neck and forehead, droplets trailing down, kissing the skin. A shirt is pulled on but left unbuttoned, clinging lightly to the still-wet torso. Taehyung stares, and he can’t stop his brain from waxing poetics, spoon frozen half way to his mouth.

The fabric of Jungkook’s shirt, slightly translucent in places from the dampness, hints at the hard planes of his chest and the ridges of his abs, the scent of fresh soap and water lingering…

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks him with a flat tone, but amused eyes.

His brain short circuits, but his grin is back on his face, “I planned to eat all the cake till you arrived,”

“Go on then, eat it all.”

“Well, now I don’t want anymore.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes, grabbing the ice cream box, and placing it in two bowls, “Have you thought what you want in exchange for the ice cream?”

Easy answer.

“Watch a movie with me.”

Jungkook looks incredulously at him, “You could ask anything, and this is what you want?”

Taehyung nods, mouth full of chocolate. A second roll of eyes, and they are headed to the living room.

Taehyung tries to remember and he can’t, they never watched a movie together, or spoke as much as they did for the past weeks. He’s grateful for the medication, otherwise his brain would have been in a tight state because of it.

“What’s the movie?”

Taehyung grins again, “Hannibal, you’ll love it.”

As Taehyung rushes to set up the movie for them, Jungkook’s eyes catch on the red blotch on the floor. He grits his teeth and reaches with his foot the exact spot, steering it clean. When Taehyung turns to him, excited to watch the movie, Jungkook masks his emotions, and turns back to the semi amused expression.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Light bursts when he opens his eyes and he’s blind sided for the stretch of the minute it takes him to blink and adjust to it. Bursts of light touch his cheeks and stop on his eyelids. He sees the stretch of an arm, tattoos glowing on it, curled around his chest. He closes his eyes, too soft in the position he’s body is stuck in.

He vaguely remembers last night, Jungkook’s constant roll of eyes or snarky comments at the screen. Telling Taehyung how he was fooled into a movie, only to end up watching 4 episodes till midnight. Taehyung very soon realises he is not very comfortable in the position he’s sitting in. And when he curls his body upwards to change it, he is met with a pair of hazel eyes, too brown and glowing, staring back at him.

“You’re staring,” Taehyung lets him know politely.

The corners of Jungkook’s mouth curl upwards just slightly, the very ghostly replication of a smile.

“I am,” Jungkook drags the words, morning voice too sweet for such an early rise, “Am I not allowed to?”

The slowness of the moment, the softness of it makes his brain wired all strangely. Nothing makes much sense. Jungkook’s eyes don’t make sense and Taehyung’s mental poetics and debate on the colour of the irises too doesn’t make sense. He brings his arms out of the blanket he doesn’t remember grabbing at night, and stretches them wide. And then he ignores Jungkook’s arm still draped over his chest or Jungkook’s silent stare following his movements. Taehyung gets out of the couch and stretches some more.

“That was not very comfortable,” He voices out, gripping the blanket off the couch and cloaking it over his body.

“I slept quite good,” Taehyung hears Jungkook’s words as he walks back to his room. Well, at least one of them had fun.

Taehyung still feels itchy as he falls on the silky blankets covering his untouched bed. The softness lingers and his fingers reach to pinch the slight crease on his chest where Jungkook’s trace still remains. Air is clogged in his throat and the breaths coming out are shallow, but rushed, each one trembling on the edge of panic, as though chasing after something just out of reach. Beneath the surface of that frantic rhythm, something flutters —soft, delicate, like wings brushing against his ribcage.

This is not okay. Taehyung stands still, grazing his fingers on top of his racing heart, his too warm chest. He takes a shower, trying to wash clean the remnants of whatever his body was infected with.

The water clashes with the little tingles still pinching his skin. He’s so warm, the stream of hot water turning his skin on fire. After the last droplet of water curls around his chin, he gets out of the shower and immediately pushes two pills on his tongue, swallowing them, together with the marred edges after last night. After throwing a white shirt on, he grabs the flower crown from the bedside table and pushes it against the black strands, slightly tousled. His heartbeat calms down.

In the room at the end of the corridor, daylight streams in through an open window, faint tendrils of smoke drifting lazily toward the ceiling. Jungkook lays in the bathing tub, his body draped in a clinging black shirt that hugs his muscled chest, still damp and cold against his skin from the water he splashed on his face before. Tattoos snake down his arms, their ink barely visible beneath the soaked fabric. A cigarette hangs between his lips, smoke curling up in silver spirals before escaping into the air through the cracked window.

On the edge of the tub, a gun sits there, menacing, contrasting against the white porcelain of the tub, a pack of cigarettes beside it.

With a sharp inhale, Jungkook snatches the cigarette from his lips, crushing it into the ashtray. His body tenses as he rises, muscles rippling beneath the soaked shirt as he grips the fabric over his head, peeling it away. He fumbles with the buttons of his trousers, and then gets rid of them as well, following his boxers.

He steps into the shower, and then leans forward, forehead pressed against the cool tile, fists clenched against the wall as the stream of water muffles his curses.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Breakfast is an usual affair, two men sitting at the opposite ends of the table, in eerie silence, glances stuck on whatever else but each other.

Taehyung is the first one moving his gaze from the dried coffee cup to Jungkook’s still figure. Dark hair, sleek and slightly tousled, falls just above his collar. Today, Jungkook wears a pale, cream-coloured jacket, the fabric soft in contrast with the cold and hard expression on his face. Beneath it, a sheer shirt clings to his form. It’s Taehyung’s first time seeing the man wear something like this, not sharp or black. There’s a sense of serenity and calmness though. Clinging to Jungkook, Taehyung thinks that the morning softness he caught in Jungkook’s gaze wasn’t a mirage after all.

“What’s the occasion?” He breaks the quiet, dragging his eyes up and down Jungkook’s form.

A raised eyebrow later, Jungkook sits from the table, finally honouring Taehyung with his attention, “I have a couple of events today.” Jungkook’s gaze stops on his face and then on the crown safely tucked in his hair.

Taehyung grins, “What kind of events require you to wear this? Oh, I know, if you dress like this, your chance to close deals will double, and…”

Jungkook ignores his rant, stepping closer, eyes pinned to the star shaped jasmine flowers weaved through the crown. He stretches his fingers, and then boldly reaches to touch the flowers tucked between Taehyung’s hair.

“You look ridiculous,” Jungkook comments dryly a minute later, pushing the flower crown on Taehyung’s forehead, which falls sloppily on the crook of his nose.

Taehyung complains loudly, wholeheartedly,” Hey, you still didn’t answer me.”

Jungkook stops in his tracks, deliberating, as his eyebrows furrowed into a frown, “I’m going out later,” He speaks in the end, “to a party.”

Taehyung’s mouth shapes into a surprised ‘O’, and then he shakes his head in confusion, “Aren’t you too old for that?”

“Are you judging my lifestyle?”

Taehyung ponders, but the answer comes easy, “Yes, I think I am.”

“Ai, ai, ai, Kim Taehyung, discriminating against people on the basis of their hobbies and preferences is not okay. Do better next time.”

Taehyung sits confused many minutes later after the door gets shut in his face. Jungkook is going to a party. Does Taehyung wonder what the usual parties Jungkook goes to look like? Yes. Does he wish to attend one? Definitely. Does he care that he’s not invited? Not really.

For the rest of the day, he sits in his small office, neatly tidied and organised, scrolling through the balance sheet and losing himself in the numbers. He does it not often, his family has an entire accounting team. Still, they think Taehyung might have the golden hand, always finding mismatches in their sheets or financial metrics. Taehyung is good at math and solving riddles. And at finding tricky ways to cheat the tax authorities.

That’s his main responsibility. Making even more money for his family and cheating the system. It was his idea to establish a series of subsidiaries in countries considered tax heaven, where the taxes on corporate income is minimal. And not only. It’s fun and it’s entertaining. Finding loopholes like that.

It’s nice to know he can help his family at least a bit. And that they need him because of that. His mind goes quiet while he does the numbers and the papers. Close to lunch, he strides to the kitchen, mindlessly rummaging through the fridge, as his phone suddenly pings inside his pocket. Taehyung sees his foster mom number and should know better by now. But he still slings to the floor and presses the phone to his ear. Breaths in and out, waiting for a greeting.

He sent them the materials just now. He knows that’s why they’re calling. But his heart still skips a beat.

“Are you sure transferring this new patent we got to our subsidiary in Luxembourg will not raise any suspicions?”

“If it’s justifiable from a business perspective, then it won’t. Hire a dedicated team in Luxembourg to work on the patent, in research and development, or the legal part of it.”

A stretch of silence on the other line and Taehyung shoulders his body into the wall, closing his eyes and breathing deep and slow.

“Everything else good?” Her tone is cold and chilling. Taeehyung can imagine her figure standing at her desk, fingers busy at the keyboard, handling hundred other things while contacting her foster son.

“Everything goes splendidly, of course.”

He knows the question is only posing for polite purposes, for demure and delicate business dinners, where the woman will be able to share that her adopted son is living marvellously because she took pity on him and adopted him.

“I spoke with your shrink yesterday, how was it, Yoonhi or…, doesn’t matter, he told me your mental state is improving steadily, of course, it better be, I am paying him tons.”

“Of course. These days I am glowing,” he bores his nails in the silkiness of the skin at his thighs, as he speaks, not recognizing his own voice.

She pauses, probably debilitating on his sarcasm, but doesn’t seem to care, because she continues, “Spoke about your medication as well, and heard it’s benefiting you, so you will continue taking it.”

Taehyung listens only with half an ear as his whole appetite just slinks down, and he barely can stand up from the floor to walk outside on the patio.

“We will see you soon, make sure to behave till then, understood?”

Taehyung’s brain tries to search for the reason his parents are gracing him with their presence soon, but doesn’t come up with nothing.

“It’s for your birthday,” the woman cuts in, “Did you forget? Does it have to do with your medication? Maybe it’s not the right dosage or…”

Whatever the woman is spewing falls deaf to his ears. Taehyun gets blindsided by the sun once he steps out. He lays gently on the grass, body covered only by a pair of tiny red shorts and an oversized white T shirt. Somewhere a minute later, understanding that she lost Taehyung completely, his attention span barely reaching to properly end the call, she does it instead. The phone slips from his fingers and he embraces the softness of the grass tickling his back and exposed arms. Eyes closed, sunlight beaming and painting on his body, he doesn’t catch when he falls asleep.

He dreams of bathing in water and flowers, water dripping freezing scented, drowning in it, smiling. He is stirred awake when he feels a pinch on the lower side of his thigh. Eyes suddenly open, all he can see in the horizon is a shadow hovering over him.

A shadow of white and a piercing brown gaze. Taehyung feels slightly disoriented, remnants of sleep still clinging to his eyelids. He blinks a couple of times, and the blurry figure catches sharp edges and more nuance. In the middle of the sunlit meadow, Taehyung reclines in the soft grass, bare legs stretched out, staring at Jungkook from under his eyelashes.

In the moment, he kinda wishes that he was buried six feet under ground. But he also wishes he was kind of buried in Jungkook’s arms, those arms look like they could save half of his problems, or maybe even more and heal his mental state all at once.

“Did you have lunch?” Jungkook’s voice cuts into his delusions.

“What’s that?”

Jungkook shakes his head, clearly disappointed with the answer. Jungkook leans down, his hand reaching out, strong and deliberate, fingertips brushing against the smooth skin of Taehyung’s thigh, hastily moving it aside. Jungkook lays down beside him, discarding his jacket and remaining in only the see through tight blouse.

Taehyung has some wires intertwined in his brain, unable to move or to speak. Chilling tingles dance on his skin and his fingers reach to brush over the same spot. Jungkook’s fingers are not there anymore, but Taehyung still feels the ghost touch lingering. The silence stretches between them. Taehyung doesn’t know how to feel.

“Are you okay?” The words stumble out of his mouth before he can stop them.

Jungkook turns to look at him, his eyes are not cold anymore, nor filled with frustration. Taehyung doesn’t like it when he can’t read them.

“I don’t know.” A raw answer.

Taehyung wants to take the words back, the question, he doesn’t know how to handle such a Jungkook, a stranger, whose voice and touch and stare make storms brew inside Taehyung.

“Are you okay?” Jungkook speaks, when he notices Taehyung’s slightly confused face.

“I helped my family avoid some taxes today and make more money. I feel splendid.”

Jungkook’s sign that he heard the words is only an arched eyebrow, and an amused chuckle, “Don’t little criminals deserve their lunch too, then? Why haven’t you eaten?”

Taehyung is grateful Jungkook doesn’t ask more about his family business, about his family. Lunch is a safe topic.

“My parents called and they’re not the most fun people, but today they especially sucked.”

He doesn’t know what it’s about this Jungkook, that tugs at his strings and makes his mouth spew truths dressed in sarcasm and deprecating humour.

“Were they not satisfied with your genius schemes of laundering money?” Jungkook’s voice is both soft, enticing, poisoning, and tired at the edges.

“Why are you not okay?” Taehyung asks back, tilting his head to the side to face Jungkook as well.

“I feel as if everyone around is against me.”

“Is this some sort of mid life crisis or are you talking literally?”

“Considering that I have a mole at my own company that helped someone assassinate me, the creepy feeling that I am always followed, many of my investors turning their backs on me, deals breaking because of corporate secrets getting out, I don’t know, you tell me, Taehyung, am I imagining things?”

Taehyung hums and lets himself take in the sunlight painting shapes on his body and Jungkook’s presence near him. “What if I also am onto it?”

“You don’t look like it.”

“Like I could kill a person?”

Jungkook nods, not taking his eyes from him.

“Well, I tried once.”

“And you didn’t finish, I remember, half of it only, what happened to your overachieving spirit, couldn’t finish things?”

“I was interrupted,” Taehyung defends himself.

“Half ass job, then, leaving things midway. You can do better.”

“Are you encouraging me to murder?”

“We all could become happier with a little murder spree.”

Taehyung doesn’t disagree. It could solve a lot of problems in his life. “Talking about murder made me hungry,” he says. Because Jungkook is here, and because Taehyung won’t miss the chance of having lunch with him.

He stands from the ground swiftly, hearing footsteps following him, as he enters their kitchen.

There’s a creamy soup Jungkook warms up for them. Taehyung is tasked with toasting the bread. When they sit at the table, Jungkook’s gaze is especially piercing.

“Where did you put your flower crown?”

“I threw it,” Taehyung simply says, as he devours another spoon of the creamy soup, dipping his bread into it.

“Why?”

“You said it looked ridiculous.” Among other reasons, it also started getting itchy, the flowers withering slowly.

Jungkook remains silent, a blend of disbelief and frustration colouring his face. “Do you even have any experience in dating? Attraction” He asks, still not touching his food, attention solely pinned on Taehyung.

Taehyung stops midway with the spoon of soup to his mouth, trying to understand what exactly Jungkook wants from him. “There was a guy once, he told me he can’t live without me,” he answers honestly.

“And?”

“I told him to die then.”

Attraction is somehow a foreign concept to him, or dating, he never had the time, patience or mental health for it. Jungkook eyes him attentively, elbows leaning on the table, face tilted, sharp and pretty.

“It looked good on you,” he voices out, after a while.

“What?”

“The flowers were pretty on you,” Jungkook repeats.

Taehyung stares in a mix of confusion and trepidation for something he can’t seem to get, “Okay?”

It sounds more like a question, and Jungkook lets it go, after he curses once, in French, standing from the table, as his phone pings with a message.

“Leaving so soon?” Taehyung asks, a lopsided grin dancing on his face, as he finishes his plate.

Jungkook checks his phone and his mouth quirks into a slight smirk, and then he gives a bit of attention to Taehyung too, pushing his phone in his pocket, “Yes, any plans for tonight?”

Some atoms in his body burst loudly, and raging, and Taehyung doesn’t understand what is happening with his body, why it reacts so disparagingly at every word out of Jungkook’s mouth, or why it traces each upturn and curl of said mouth.

“I am planning to have a party too,” he says, “And nobody's invited but myself.”

“So, you’ll stay at home?”

“In my room, yes, if you are nice, I might just invite you.”

The brown in Jungkook’s eyes deepens, "Invite me to your room?" His voice is rough, thick and raspy.

Taehyung doesn’t understand where the tightness in his throat comes from, like the air's been sucked out of the room. He nods, afraid that if he speaks, he'll say something even more foolish.

"Call me if anything happens," Jungkook says in the end, the silence between them stretching for too long. "And have fun without me. But not too much."

Jungkook leaves. And Taehyung breathes erratically. Two pills might have been too much of a dose. He had issues with his throat and its capability to supply oxygen the whole day.

Close to evening, Taehyung lays on the couch, swirling a kitchen knife between his fingers, humming a melody under his breath. There’s something buzzing under his skin. The reminder of his birthday that’s making him anxious, more itchy than usual. He walks to his closet and puts on a pair of black jeans belted, and gets into his car, fingers ticking incessantly on the wheel.

Sometimes driving helps. He parks on an alleyway. Opens the window and grabs a cigarette from the pack. He has a personal vendetta against birthdays. They make him feel lonely, scared, manic. He doesn’t have any positive connotations to his birthdays. One birthday reminds him of when he jumped out of the car and broke his bones. Another birthday reminds him of pleading and dried tears on his cheek and some bruises adorning his wrists. Another birthday marked his adoption, not the happiest memory. More birthday memories. More ticking on the wheel and erratic breaths, until he gets the sense he’s slowly suffocating.

The buzzing in his pocket grabs him from his head, from the memories. He thinks of Jungkook and breathes easier, in and out. He grabs his phone. The caller is not Jungkook.

It’s Hobi, named Carlito in his phone. He answers the call with a strange sense of relief.

“Long time not hearing from you,” he greets his friend.

“Taehyung, I really need you right now.”

“What?”

“Please don’t ask questions. I will drop you the address, can you come?”

It’s not like Taehyung has more entertaining things to do tonight.

“I missed you too, of course I will come.”

“Thank you, I will wait for you,” and then the phone ends.

Taehyung puts the address in the map and catches the name of a club. VIP, private, high class / the words catch his attention, but the place is unfamiliar. Not that he visited many clubs in his life. Embarrassingly none. He starts the engine and drives to the place. He parks on the curb. Taehyung steps into the club, immediately assaulted by the deep thrum of bass reverberating through the darkened space. The air is thick with a haze of expensive cologne, and the faint scent of leather. Dim lights flicker across velvet-lined walls, the whole place bathing in gold and crimson hues. He runs his eyes over each corner, catching himself curious about the crowd, attention flickering between the bar, the drinks swimming around, the half naked people, glitter and smoke flashing through the place. His heart pounds. There’s something exciting, but also unfamiliar at the place. He is curious. Because he tries to imagine Jungkook in this scene. What would the man do? Leisurely splayed across the couch in the VIP section, lazily tending to his whiskey drink? Maybe in one of the booths, deep into someone else? Or leaning his elbows on the table at the bar? On the dance floor? It’s enough to know Jungkook is somewhere out there, in the same place, Taehyung grins, gripping the edges of his jacket.

As his eyes adjust to the murky light, an arm rests gently on his back. He snaps back, shutting his fingers tightly as his eyes meet Hobi’s. And is immediately embraced. He survives through the hug, teeth gritted in an uncomfortable grimace. But he knows Hobi likes hugs, so he relents. Just for a couple of seconds, and then untangles himself from the arms. He roams his eyes over the place in a suggestive grin, “I like this place, not my style, but quite interesting.”

Hobi stares at him softly, in relief, “I am happy you are here.”

“What was so urgent?”

Hobi’s soft smile morphs into a sheepish apologetic expression. “I might have lied a bit.”

“Why?”

“I wanted you here, to have a bit of fun, you deserve to go out, not be stuck between four walls. I knew you wouldn’t accept otherwise, please forgive me.”

“Okay,”

“So easy?”

Taehyung nods.

“So, if I asked you to go out at the club, you would have agreed.”

“No,” Taehyung replies with a grin.

Hobi’s curls bounce as he laughs, loudly, pushing a glass towards Taehyung, “Have some fun, you deserve it.”

“What is this?” He asks, as he eyes the concoction in his glass.

“Magic,” Hobi whispers, as he leans in, “and lots of vodka.”

Taehyung vaguely remembers some of Yoongi’s warnings of being careful with mixing his medication with alcohol. But not clearly defined instructions. He guesses it can pass. If only a glass. What’s the worst that can happen?

“So, show me how to have fun,” he says. And Hobi beams.

Taehyung takes a sip and immediately grimaces, the alcohol burning his throat. The taste of strawberry in it alleviates some of the burn.

“It gets better,” Hobi says, pushing him from the back towards the other corridor of the club. “You wouldn’t ask me where I disappeared?” Hobi adds, whispering close to his ear, to reach him through the loud bass of the music.

“Where have you disappeared?”

Hobi chuckles, amused and a bit drunk. It’s a new emotion Taehyung sees on him and he takes time to analyse it, as he sips from the drink. After each sip, the burn becomes more manageable. The crowd and loud music too. It’s not as itchy, memories stop flooding his brain, and his chest is not constricted in pain anymore. Is this what is fun for Jungkook? He wants to understand him.

He sips and listens to Hobi’s intense storytelling about how he landed in a cell, after a police officer caught him stealing a car.

“Was it an electric car?”

Hobi nods his head, body moving in tact with music.

“You should have then first hacked the system to bypass security or even mimic ownership. Next time you can use a signal booster, without setting off alarms.”

Hobi stares at him strangely, but then his face erupts in a large wholehearted grin, “Oh, Taehyung, you’re amazing, never change.”

“It’s the drugs in me.”

Hobi doesn’t hear that part, pushing Taehyun through a dimly lit corridor, while moving his body under the bass. “There’s a smoking area out there,” Hobi explains.

And Taehyung can see it, the exit to an outside patio. He takes into the private room leading from his right, a different bass of music, a different air.

“It’s reserved for the rich brats, the VIP section,” Hobi comments, taking his hand to lead him outside.

Taehyung’s gaze is drawn towards the VIP section. To the golden decorating it. And then his gaze lands on a familiar figure. Time slows. He’d recognize Jungkook from anywhere, from crowds of people, from seamless glasses of vodka and dimly lit rooms. There, stretched out on a leather couch, Jungkook’s shirt is open, each button undone, revealing smooth tattooed skin. His head rests on someone else's lap, someone Taehyung doesn’t recognise. Jungkook’s lips are parted as that someone pours wine from a bottle into his mouth in a slow, steady stream. Jungkook’s eyes are closed, cheeks flushed, hair messily tousled. A smirk lingers on his face, deadly and sharp.

“What are you looking at,” Hobi asks behind him, quickly enough his gaze finds the same view, “Oh, fuck, I am sorry, I didn’t know he’ll be here. Taehyung, let’s go,” Hobi grips his hold, trying to drag Taehyung away.

He doesn’t bulge, eyes stuck on Jungkook. It’s a bit nauseating, a bit uneasy, a bit hot from what he’s seeing. He catches the moment Jungkook’s eyes open, and his smirk stretches onto a loud, rich chuckle at whatever the person near him is saying. And then the stranger, silver hair and a nose piercing, stands up, tugging Jungkook upwards by his stretched tie. Tugging at the tie, dragging Jungkook somewhere to the private booths. Jungkook follows. Taehyung flushes at the scenery. He raises his fingers to scratch at his neck, his skin hot and sweaty.

“Let’s go outside,” Hobi asks, and Taehyung relents, following him outside, the image from earlier imprinted on his irises. “I am really sorry you had to see that,”

Taehyung takes a cigarette from his pocket and Hobi lightens it for him, “What are you talking about?”

“Jungkook out there, with… I am sorry.”

Is it the vodka from before making it hard for him to follow the logic of whatever Hobi is spewing. It might be. He grins at Hobi, hooking an arm around his back, the touch uncomfortable, but he pushes through it to comfort Hobi, who looks distressed, “It’s okay, everything is alright.”

“Do you want me to punch him? I can go there and do it.”

“Punch who?”

Whatever Hobi is about to answer gets cut by a loud ringing. Hobi hastily grabs the phone from his pocket, groaning when he looks at the screen.

“I need to answer this, I will go to the bathroom where it is quiet, can you wait for me here, please?”

Taehyung nods.

“Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

Double nod.

Hobi smiles at him and then walks inside the club.

Taehyung waits a minute to finish his cigarette and then enters as well, grinning when the buzz of the music is back. He feels warm inside, as he walks through the crowd. Everything here is interesting to him. He mindlessly walks through the crowd of people, when he feels another grip on his shoulder. The call was shorter than expected, as Hobi is back so fast. He turns towards his friend, only to be met with the hazel that poisons his brain.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes?” Taehyun grins at Jungkook, at the dishevelled look and drunk eyes.

“Are you real?”

Taehyung thinks the man must be quite drunk, the wine poured in his mouth, for him to ask such silly questions. “No, I am a ghost haunting you.”

Jungkook’s eyes remain dark and then he reaches his hands to cup Taehyung’s face in his palms. “Real,” Jungkook voices out.

Taehyung feels wetness drip on his face. “Your hands are bloody,” he notices and tells Jungkook.

“It’s the lightning in the club.”

Makes sense.

Jungkook grabs a tissue from his pocket, wiping gently the wetness from Taehyung’s face. A lopsided grin and a hotness travelling up his body, Taehyung stares mesmerised. Jungkook stares back.

“What are you doing here? What happened to the one person party you were having?”

“I decided to invite someone else to it,”

Jungkook arches his eyebrow in a silent question.

“My friend Hobi invited me here, he’s somewhere out there. I sneaked out from him,” he says, voice playful and all of a sudden understanding all the fun about clubs.

He feels giddy and Jungkook’s palms holding his face feel so good.

“Hobi?”

“Carlito, you met him, my in house musician, and friend.”

“And you sneaked out from him?”

Taehyung nods, still grinning.

“Brat,” Jungkook says, leaning in closer, so he can be heard, “What should I do with you, Taehyung?”

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

“Oh, what I want is dangerous,”

Taehyung feels his muscles melt, body weakened, and suddenly dizzy. It’s in a blur that he feels Jungkook’s forehead pressed against his, a hot breath tickling his cheek and then his knees give up. And he falls down, vision blackened out.

He hears distantly,

“Taehyung, hey, Tae, you’re okay, I am here,”

and gentle arms.

And then nothing.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

“Hello doctor, how are you?”

There’s a low grumble at the other line. Midnight traffic vibrates through the open windows at the end of the corridor. The phone is gripped tight in his hands.

“Did you call me at 3 am to ask me about my well being?” His doctor speaks, without any indulgence in his patient’s trouble.

“Maybe,” Jungkook says, gripping the phone even tighter, closing the window closest with the other hand.

“What happened to Taehyung?”

“How do you know this is about Taehyung?”

“You came to me a month ago after missing half a year of therapy because you wanted me to help you figure out your husband. And then when you didn’t like my advice, you disappeared again off the radar. Only to come back to the next session last week asking me to help you not fall in love with your husband. Did I miss something?”

“Those were not my words. You have a silly imagination, doctor. I might just write a negative review, Doctor Kim Seokjin.”

“You've been threatening me with this since you were 14, I think I could live with it.”

“I didn’t have any power then.”

“And you have now?”

Touche.

“Soon. I will,” he replies, walking till the end of the corridor and then back.

“What happened, Jungkook?” The voice on the other line appears exhausted, and Jungkook takes pity.

“I counted to 100 in French, Japanese, Russian, it doesn’t help. Tell me another method.”

“Help with what exactly?”

“Can’t you just advise me on a method?”

“Not when I don’t know what the actual problem is, Jungkook.” The voice grows louder, edging on the annoying tone Jungkook is familiar with.

“I want to kill someone. How do I deal with these urges, doctor?”

Another grumble and Jungkook is very tempted to end the call, and pay someone to screech Jin’s tires tomorrow. It doesn’t matter if it was Jungkook who bought Jin the new black Maserati.

“Take a deep breath,” Jin instructs.

Jungkook closes his eyes and does as told. Nothing follows after.

“Do you still want to kill now?”

Jungkook thinks it over, “Yes.” Silence stretches on, and Jungkook grows annoyed. This just won’t do. Jin is lucky Taehyung is asleep now and Jungkook is close by to glide over a gaze every now and then. “What are you doing there?”

“I am counting to 100 hundred in Spanish,”

Jungkook grows indignant, “Hey, that’s my method, not very nice to plagiarise.”

“And what are you gonna do, find a new therapist?”

“I could just kill you and stop therapy.”

“Sometimes I think that’s for the better.”

“Admit it, I am secretly your favourite patient.”

“I am actually mentally reviewing all the different choices I could’ve made to avoid this exact situation,” Jin says.

“Impossible, your family is indebted to ours, not much was in your power.”

“You’re right. And you’re clearly stalling. Now want to tell me what happened to Taehyung?”

Jungkook wonders how he didn’t get in a car yet and crash, with how Jin tests his nerves and patience, with how the smell of chlorine makes his skin itch. Does he want to hit someone or to be hit, that’s yet to be decided. Whatever gets him out of this situation.

“Someone poisoned Taehyung.” The words come out empty of whatever anger pulses in his gripped knuckles.

It comes out as a fact.

Today was rainy.

He wants to hit someone.

Jin is annoying.

Taehyung was poisoned.

Facts.

The silence on the other end just feeds the anger. He always had a hard time dealing with it. Sundays boxing matches and his recent hobbies tamer it, but not enough.

“Why are you silent now?”

Jin is silent. Because Jin knows him the most. Because Jin knows whatever will escape his mouth will earn him a burnt car or slashed tires or worse. Depends on Jungkook’s mood. And his mood soars at the moment the longer the silence stretches.

“I am currently insuring my car, wait one minute and I will put on my therapist suit and talk.”

Jungkook throws another glance at the monitor inside the room, through the small window, it beeps, the line solid and safe and calming the itching and buzzing in his own head.

“Done,” Jin announces.

“It was more than one minute,” Jungkook speaks, the timer in his watch shows a minute and half.

“You can take it out of my paycheck. Now coming back to your problem,”

“Taehyung is not a problem,“ Jungkook interrupts him. He despises unprofessionalism.

He can practically see the heavy eye roll and hear the loaded sigh, but Jin knows better, because he continues, “How do you know he was poisoned exactly, maybe it’s your paranoia acting out?”

Paranoia is a big word, considering he was assassinated three times just in the recent month.

“I know how a person looks when they mix alcohol with drugs, he was on medication, and I know how a person looks when their throat is paralyzed and they can’t breathe and they choke because they were poisoned.”

Taehyung’s medications are an entirely different topic he doesn’t feel sane enough to discuss at the moment.

“So, someone is targeting both of you?”

And this is the part that makes Jungkook want to carve someone’s heart out with his bare hands.

“It wasn’t lethal, this poisoning method is used as a scaring or threatening tactic.”

“They are using him to get to you,” Jin concludes for him.

“I just don’t understand why,” Jungkook says out loud what he intended to keep locked in the safe confines of his brain.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s nothing to me, why would they go after him?”

“You’re not serious,” and then a second later, “you are serious! God damn fucking hell, Jungkook.”

Jungkook waits for a proper rational conversational line. He doesn’t entertain Jin’s gibberish.

“You asked me to help you not fall in love with your husband,” Jin announces after a while, when his strange choking sounds end.

“I clearly remember these were not my words. I said - help me figure out my husband.”

“Which in your language translates to exactly that.”

“You know what, you actually helped, thank you for answering my call.”

“Seriously?” The slight disbelief, but also hope in his voice is crushed very fast.

“Yes. Now, I don’t want to kill anyone, just you.”

“Considering that you already want to kill me, it can’t turn out worse than that. So, I will ask you. What do you feel considering the fact that this is your first time in years you stepped in a hospital?”

“Don’t make it a big deal,” Jungkook says, voice too cold and icy, and laced with enough venom for Jin to end the topic.

He doesn’t.

“Jungkook, you barrelled with multiple burns to my apartment because you refused to step inside a hospital. So, let’s talk about it, it’s important to admit to…”

Jungkook ends the call. Jungkook opens the door slightly, careful not to produce any noise. He looks at the mix of tubes and wires. And then at Taehyung. He knows things die. He knows people die all the time. He has seen it, over and over again. He doesn’t know why looking at Taehyung makes his body ache and his grief eat him from inside. Jungkook sits in the chair. He sits there, letting his mind take him apart. The last time he was in hospital… Every terrible memory he locked away starts flooding his brain. He imagines Taehyung dying. He sees it in front of his eyes. Over and over again, until those brown eyes stare right back at him. And they’re alive. Jungkook breaths a deep sigh of relief and feels like he doesn’t want to ruin the world today. And for the world to ruin him.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Cracking his eyes open takes effort. Taehyung almost feels too lazy to do that. But then his nose discerns a familiar scent apart from the antiseptic with an underlying hospital smell. He stops with his eyes half open looking into the blurry darkness in front of him. His entire body feels chained down. He tries to speak multiple times, but the words die on his lips. The blurriness dissipates slowly, as he fully opens his eyes and sees Jungkook’s unimpressed stare aimed at him.

“Am I dead?” Taehyung finally pushes out of his dry throat. The words scrape his mouth and tongue.

“Yes, and I came to hell to haunt you,” Jungkook answers, dry as always.

Taehyung smiles like a fool. Still, he feels dehydrated. And he doesn’t like Jungkook’s answer. So he goes back into blackness.

…

The second time he wakes up, Taehyung preens through his eyelashes at Jungkook’s sleeping form. It is dark around him. There’s nothing in the room except his bed and a chair. So, he focuses his eyes on Jungkook, ignoring the searing pain in his chest, clogging up to his throat. He focuses on the slow breaths coming out as soft puffs of air. He stares at Jungkook - at all the tiny things that make him the man Taehyung finds harbour in, the man he trusts despite everything, when he can’t even trust himself.

“You should sleep,” Jungkook says, eyes opening slowly.

Taehyung blinks at him. He feels tricked. He thought Jungkook was sleeping.

“I can’t,” he confesses. Not when his whole body is in pain, like it’s burning from inside.

“They gave you medication only for a few hours and hoped you’ll get through the pain by sleeping for the rest of the night.”

Taehyung hums. He already knew he didn't have much luck on his side.

“I can close my eyes and pretend that I am sleeping, if it helps,” Taehyung offers.

He can see frustration build on Jungkook’s face.

It seems no matter what he’ll say, he can’t make it better. Which poses the question,

“Why are you here actually?”

Jungkook stares at him for long moments, and then he simply averts his eyes to the window, “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Taehyung tries to turn his head to the window as well, see what's so interesting, only to have pain shoot across his throat. Blinding and dizzying. Jungkook stands up, steady and determined, hovering over him, one hand reaching to lower the pillow Taehyung’s laying on, with the other hand he traces it over Taehyung’s eyelids, closing them,

“This is the only time, and if you tell it to anyone else, I will deny it. I am going to tell you a story. Keep your eyes closed and focus on my voice.”

“A story?”

Jungkook’s fingers fall on his lips, pressing gently against the slope of his mouth, “I don’t want any word coming out of your mouth. Listen and focus on my voice only.” Taehyung obeys. Jungkook retreats his hand. Taehyung wants to speak again just to have the warmth back on his mouth. But he thinks it’s more worth it to hear a story, he likes them a lot. Especially coming from Jungkook. Not that Jungkook told him many stories. He keeps his eyes closed and tunes out all the other noises and senses.

“There was once a girl,” Jungkook begins, his eyes fixed on the wall. “A wretched thing, born into a world that had no place for her. She lived in rags, surrounded by ugliness, yet... she saw beauty in the things that crawled and festered. Where others saw cockroaches, she saw butterflies. In weeds, she found flowers. Her world was dark, but her mind was always reaching for the light.” Jungkook pauses. When he speaks again, his tone grows colder, more detached.

“Her mother... she warned the girl. Told her that dreams would destroy her, that in their world, hope was a dangerous thing, a cruel thing. But the girl, she couldn’t help herself. She was cursed with this... this need to see beauty where there was none. Then, one summer, she met him. A prince, she saw in him. Tall, glowing, everything she’d ever wanted but never had. He came from a world of riches, a world she could never truly touch, but he looked at her... and for the first time, she felt seen. He told her she was beautiful, even with her dirty cheeks and torn clothes. And for a while, the girl forgot that nothing good comes without a price.They loved each other. She fell pregnant. The summer ended. He left, as they always do, those who belong to the light. And with him went her dreams, her hope, her beauty.”

Another pause, a ragged breath, “Her parents threw her out. The world turned grey. The butterflies were cockroaches again, the flowers... just weeds. But then, as if to twist the knife, the man returned. Brought back a flicker of that lost sun. And then he left again. Promising nothing but money, nothing but the things that don’t matter when your heart is broken. She gave birth to a son. But he wasn’t her sun, just a reminder of everything she’d lost. The man came back every few months, dropping money like breadcrumbs, but never the love she needed. And so she faded, day by day, year by year, until there was nothing left but the shell of a woman who once dreamed of butterflies. The last blow came when the man announced his arranged engagement to another woman. He would send money still, but no more visits. Something inside her finally shattered. The little boy... he saw it. He saw the moment when she was no longer his mother, just a ghost walking through life. One night, the boy saw how people die. He found her in the bathroom, the floor slick with blood, and all the silence in the world wrapped around her like a shroud. The hospital was too late. That night, the boy’s world disappeared from under his feet. Because despite her brooding silence, her ignorance of anything but the man she loved, the boy has always seen only her, his mother, the only being he grew to care deeply about.

After her death, the boy… he was taken by his father into the world of light. The man finally took responsibility. Only it was too late. Even when his father, descending from his golden palace, took the boy into a life of marble and sweets... the boy never could see butterflies. Only cockroaches, crawling through the filth of a world that pretended to be beautiful. Only the ghost of a woman that once believed in beauty and it crushed her, haunting his mind each time he closed his eyes.”

Taehyung is asleep, soft puffs of breath crawling out of his mouth. Jungkook stands from the chair and leaves the room. He grips the phone in his hand, when the cigarette doesn’t help. And he dials the only person he knows could. It’s only after three seconds that he hears the soft tone he is so familiar with.

“Jungkook, are you okay, something happened?” Beom’s voice filters through the midnight noise of the streets.

“It’s okay,” he tries to assure him, or maybe himself. He doesn’t know. His mind is breaking him apart from inside.

It was a mistake telling the story to Taehyung. It was all a mistake.

“Beom…” his voice breaks and cracks and he falls apart as his body shudders and he starts sobbing with his whole body.

“Jungkook, I am here, I am here. You always have me, I am here, listen to my voice, you are not alone, you have me, you have my promise. Always,”

“Always,” Jungkook finishes their promise.

He hides his tears and his head in the crook of his arms, gripping the phone near his ear. He could never show his hurt and pain, not when everyone cheered at that. But Beom was there, always, through it all. It’s all that’s left from that other life, from that other world where a girl dared to hope for something more.

“It hurts so much,”

“It’s okay, Jungkook, let yourself feel. That’s the thing about pain… it demands itself to be felt.”

A small smile cracks through the tears.

“You’re still quoting your cheese romance movies,”

“Always. Stay on the line with me, Jungkook.”

And Beom listens to each of his breaths as the sun rises above. It was all a mistake.

Because he is starting to see a butterfly in Taehyung.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

The room is large and smells of fresh lavanda, it’s clean and it hosts Taehyung for the second day inside. Beside the nurse, who is suspiciously taking too much care of him, no other guests step inside. Taehyung stares at the ceiling, counting the shapes. At midday, he tries to draw tarot cards, overhearing the nurses gossiping about their fate in the cursed cards. It doesn’t turn out too nice, but the suspiciously nice nurse compliments him for a straight hour on his mastery of colours and shapes. Taehyung takes a last look at the caricatures on the paper and then tells the nurse he wants to sleep, and she - rosy till the tip of her nose- leaves the room quietly. Taehyung sighs in relief.

He doesn’t know which day of the week it is, or time. He knows there is no medication in his system, no bitter aftertaste in his throat or buzzing under his veins. There’s however something fluid in his veins, compensating for it. He feels relaxed, losing control of time. It’s liberating. He pushes the newly drawn cards on the table, laying on the neat bed, eyes eclipsed in the white ceiling. He barely remembers what happened at the club… Hobi’s funny and delicious drink, Jungkook’s fascinating presence and then darkness. Does it matter?

Probably not. Will it change something if he cared more? Less than probable. So, he stares at the shapes on the ceiling instead, entertaining his mind with geometry. It’s an hour later, when the throbbing sound is heard behind the windows. He is barefoot, the floor cold and refreshing, tiptoeing to the stool, and quietly opening the frame, fogged at the edges with condensation. His nose is invaded by a scarce aroma of earth. It’s raining. He lays still in the sterile, bleached confines of the hospital room, a stretched large smile, staring at the ravaging rain outside.

He is alone, as he always was, as always meant to be. The room is quiet, save for the steady beep of the raindrops, and Taehyung’s heavy exhales and loud smile. This time the only buzzing comes from outside. He feels eerily light. Through the foggy glass, he watches as the rain falls — slow, sombre drizzle at first, then thickening into a steady downpour that streaks against the pane in heavy, rolling drops. A wave of raindrops cling to his face for a moment, trembling there, before being swept away by another, and another. He joyously smiles. And his smiles drop off his face the next second. He doesn’t understand. Like the rain hits the glass of the window, and his face, something hits him inside.

His eyes follow the droplets… some type of grief. But for what? He can smell the rain. A faint scent of damp earth and decaying leaves drifting into his nostrils, far beyond the antiseptic walls of this place. It is a raw, metallic smell, like wet stone and rusted iron. He thinks he likes it. He liked rain when he was younger too. He has vague memories of his childhood. Vague words encrypt din his brain from when he was 4 and overhead nannies:

“Poor boy, how could his mother abandon him at our doorstep when she didn’t others…”

The smell of rain is almost alive, and so metallic. It rained that day too, he thinks. Or maybe it’s just a figment of his mind, conjured in desperate nights when he convinced himself he did have a family. Harder was to accept that the family abandoned him. He remembers the rain of each home he was adopted in and left no later than a month.

He was either too quiet, or too loud. Too joyful or too grieving.

Taehyung closes his eyes and feels the rain falling on his skin, the cold, clean drops cutting through the fever that still clings to him, the damp wind biting his cheeks unending. He takes a look at the door. And remembers more rain. He did have once a good family take him in. A caring mother figure, a funny father figure teaching him how to cycle, play chess, cards…

and a not so good brother.

When he was 14. And then two years later they left him too, at the doorstep of the familiar orphanage. And a year later, his current family took him in. They lost their own son, they saw said son in Taehyung. Made him learn how to play piano, and dress more often in blue, wear his hair on the side and eat wagyu beef every friday, traditions. Along the way, he forgot who he was.

He wonders if he ever did know. He wonders, was he made of all the people that abandoned him and all the houses that fostered him? He tightens his grip on the handle, stares down at the distance to the ground, and then back to the door. His room is on the first floor of the hospital. He doesn’t like heights. He’s lucky the nurses assigned him to the low floor. He raises his knees and crawls out of the window pane, jumping down. The ground underneath is slippery and muddy, but he manages to settle on his two legs, immediately feeling the rain in between his toes.

The rain caresses each part of his skin and he looks up, eyes closed, getting soaked fully. He likes the way the rain cleanses him.

Once someone said to him:

'You’re holding onto too much, why remember all of it?'

And he buried it all somewhere deep down. The medication kept it away. Now tiny fragments resurface. Taehyung lets the rain cleanse them too. Minutes later, he hears someone clearing their throat. He turns to the entrance of the hospital and finds Jungkook there. Holding an umbrella above his head, a black suit, tousled hair and a boring stare, just like Taehyung remembers him.

“Do you like this hospital that much, you decided to get sick just to stay longer?”

Taehyung stares at the man, a strange feeling growing in his chest.

Jungkook continues in the same cold tone Taehyung missed, “You can just ask, and I can prolong your stay, no need for such adventures.”

“I like the rain,” Taehyung says.

Jungkook leaves the confines of his car and walks to him, a gloomy sigh escaping his lips before he reaches him, “And the rain seems to like you too. It clings to you,” Jungkook trails off, hovering his umbrella over Taehyung’s head. “Let’s go,”

And Taehyung quietly follows. They enter the hospital. Jungkook folds his umbrella, leaving it at the entrance. Taehyung can hear the splashes of water from his wet feet, and Jungkook’s silent steady footsteps. As they reach his room, Jungkook lets go of the bag in his hand, letting it fall to the ground. He takes a look at Taehyung, from head to toe, and crosses his arms.

“I brought you your pyjama, go and take a warm shower and change your clothes,”

Taehyung listens, chest warm, a lopsided smile growing on his face. He opens the bag and finds there his favourite black pyjama with strawberries and grips it in his hands. Before he enters the bathroom, he takes a look at Jungkook’s lifted chin and pursed lips, and remembers Jungkook’s story he retold nights ago.

“You had quite the nerve to critique my story telling abilities,”

There’s a flash of amusement briefly crossing Jungkook’s face, but then the stern shadow falls on his face again, “We both don't believe in happy stories, aren’t we just a match made in heaven.”

“Hell,”

“Pardon me, match made in hell.”

Taehyung grins, and enters the bathroom. The water flows over him, hot and steamy. Taehyung stands beneath the heated water for more than an hour, his eyes half-closed, lips parted in silent gasps as the hot droplets coil around him like ghostly fingers. Partly, he stays in the shower because the heat numbs him. Partly, because he doesn’t know how to face Jungkook on the other side of the door.

When he finally steps out, skin flushed and raw, his pajamas clinging to him like a second skin, Jungkook sits hunched in the chair by the bed. Taehyung’s gaze latches onto the bowl of soup on the small table.

“Come and eat,” Jungkook’s voice cuts through, flat and disinterested as always.

Taehyung listens. He moves past Jungkook and sinks onto the bed, folding his legs beneath him. He inhales deeply, the smell of tomato soup curling inside his nose.

“Was it boring here, is that why you jumped?” Jungkook asks, not really accusing, just questioning, almost curious.

Taehyung lifts the spoon, blowing on the hot liquid. “I was never allowed to be bored... or needy. So, no…”

He lets the soup slide over his tongue. “I can entertain myself.”

Jungkook hums in response, but he doesn’t seem to believe, or agree. They drift into silence. Taehyung eats, while Jungkook stares at the rain through the window.

Three days. Taehyung has been in this hospital for three days.

He wonders aloud, “Do my parents know?”

Jungkook shakes his head, “Should they?”

Taehyung chuckles, the sound however brittle and hollow around the spoon clutched in his mouth. “Better to keep this secret between us.”

Jungkook stands up, the chair screeching loudly. “What other secrets are you keeping, Taehyung?”

“None. I’m an open book for you. Ask, and you shall receive,” he jokes.

It’s a minute later that the seam bursts.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re on heavy medication? That you’re practically drugged everyday? High out of your mind?”

“Oh…”

“Exactly. Oh, Taehyung.”

Jungkook sits by the window, hands in his pocket, as if nothing can touch him, not even the frustration clear in his voice, the silent anger in the cold accusing tone.

“Why do you care about that?”

A long silence follows, Jungkook’s eyes burning into his, and then just a flat “I don’t. But do you realise what you’re doing to yourself?”

Taehyung says nothing, and Jungkook turns back to the window. “This medication is destroying you. Until nothing will be left, until you can’t even recognize yourself.”

“I already can’t…”

“Shut up. Just... shut up,” Jungkook snaps, his voice breaking.

Taehyung never saw this Jungkook, alive and angry and… helpless.

“It wasn’t my choice,” Taehyung says, voice growing distant. “They forced me to…”

“Your parents said you chose it. That your therapist advised you against it, but you said you wanted it.” There’s no accusation in Jungkook’s voice, just the same frustration, confusion.

Taehyung tries to recall, but his mind is a fog, and all he hears is Yoongi’s voice, echoing — court prescribed, court prescribed, court prescribed. “I didn’t want it,” he whispers. “Yoongi said—”

“Your Yoongi doesn’t exist,” Jungkook cuts, his eyes hollow when landing on Taehyung. “I checked every record. There’s no Min Yoongi, no certified therapist by that name. He’s gone. Vanished.”

“I don’t understand…” His mind is a jumble of messing thoughts, and he starts to grow cold under his skin.

“Look at me,” Jungkook speaks, and Taehyung forces himself to meet his eyes. “Your therapist intentionally kept drugging you for the past year. And your friend Carlito spiked your drink in the club. And I have no idea who wants to kill me. And no idea who I can trust.”

Taehyung tries to wrap his head around it. He is grateful Jungkook let him know. He hates being left unknown, uncertain, in the dark, helpless, unaware. His mind is too dizzy. So, he stops replaying each fragment with Yoongi and Carlito.

“What do you want me to do?” He genuinely asks. The soup is cold by now, and he sighs in disappointment. Giving his full attention to Jungkook.

“Stop taking your medication.”

“No. I meant what should I do to help with the more urgent matters,”

“Taehyung, this is urgent…”

“Jungkook…”

“Please.” It’s the first time he hears this word from Jungkook. It doesn’t sound right, it sounds raw and vulnerable.

“Why does it matter so much?” Taehyung’s voice cracks, and the question he doesn’t ask hangs in the air— Why do you care about me?

“My mother…” Jungkook’s voice almost breaks. “She thought the drugs would help her forget. And they did, for a while. But then they took everything else too. She became a ghost.”

Oh. “I don’t know…”

“Then ask something of me. Let’s make it a fair trade. I’ll give up something, if you give up the meds.”

Taehyung takes entire minutes to think it over, while Jungkook curls his fingers repeatedly around what seems to be the shape of a gun behind his jacket. “Okay… but I need time to think what to ask of you.”

Even more deals between them. Jungkook exhales, and slumps back in his chair. Taehyung’s hand drifts to where Yoongi’s flower crown once rested on his head. Nothing makes sense anymore.

“Let’s go,” Jungkook suddenly says, standing.

Taehyung follows. They walk down the dimly lit hallway, the air thick with antiseptic. He notices Jungkook’s tensed back and heavy huffs of breath. He doesn’t seem to like hospitals too much. Taehyung wonders, why then would Jungkook step inside one willingly. The elevator doors close behind them with a cold metallic clang.

Jungkook watches him. Taehyung watches him back, catching the fresh sniff of hyacinth.

He grins.

“How is Beom doing?”

“Busy,” Jungkook replies. “He was the one who searched for your Yoongi.”

“And you?”

“I looked for your friend Carlito. The one who spiked your drink.”

“Why wasn’t I involved in this little investigation?”

Jungkook leans in close, his breath hot against Taehyung’s skin. “You think I can trust you?”

Taehyung’s lips twitch into a smile. “No. I barely trust myself.”

And then Jungkook laughs — a harsh, grating sound that fills the small space. The elevator stops, and they step out onto the roof. The night air is cold and sharp, and for a moment, Taehyung feels like he can breathe again. Jungkook is still laughing behind him.

They reach the edge. The panic grows again as he looks down at the many floors till the ground.

Jungkook lights a cigarette, bringing it to his lips. Taehyung stares earnestly at the smoke and then at the edge of the cigarette. He thinks taking a huff of the cigarette would alleviate his trembling hands and hear of heights. Jungkook looks at him and then at the cigarette. In the next second, Jungkook’s arm, that holds the cigarette, curls around Taehyung’s shoulders, bringing the cigarette to his lips. He blinks a couple of times, staring at the burly fire and burning stick. Jungkook’s glint in his eyes is tempting. Taehyung takes a huff and he touches heaven.

In the warm press of Jungkook’s arm, Taehyung’s troubled heart takes peace and sleep.

“I want to trust you,” Jungkook whispers in the confines of the night and the roof.

‘Please don’t’ - Taehyung wants to say.

Instead he stares at the city above them, “You can.” He lies. He can barely trust himself.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Someone said there are only two tragedies in this world.

One is not getting what you want.

The other one is getting it.

Taehyung has only ever suffered from the first one.

Soon he will bleed from the second one too.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

“The doctors advised to continue taking these pills for two weeks, clean your body and desanitize it of all the drugs. Then there is a good facility where they will help you survive the desanitizing period,” Jungkook speaks with a familiar detachment.

Taehyung turns to the window and counts the raindrops touching the glass. They’re driving home, after he got discharged from the hospital. “Like a rehab?” He asks, in the same dejected tone. He is tired today. He figures it’s the exhaustion coiling in his toes, but also the slower flow of blood in his veins.

The light flickers red above the car. Jungkook turns to him, full body, eyes strangely intense and heavy. “Only for three weeks. They know better how to treat this.”

‘This’ being Taehyung’s messed up emotional plate. And a drugged state, obviously.

“And what if I don’t want to go the rehab?”

“You should be taken off the meds. And the facility is the only way that can do it the right way.”

“You wouldn’t like me off the meds, I am like… psychotic.”

“I think I’ll survive just fine.”

The light turns green. Jungkook averts his gaze back to the road ahead. Taehyung crosses his arms and thinks about being locked in a facility. About being stripped of everything that makes him what he is for the past 3 years.

“I might hurt Beom in a fit of rage. The drugs are keeping me sane,” He tries weakly.

A dry chuckle is the only reaction he gets from Jungkook. “Please try not to, if you can help it.”

And that is it. The rest of the way is spent in astute silence. Taehyung is not in the mood to talk. And Jungkook gives him his space. They park near the gates. And Taehyung feels relief crossing his chest at the view of the mansion, at the greenery surrounding it, at the breeze and fresh soily scent of rain. He rushes off outside, skips a couple of stairs lingering by the door and taking into the familiar sights. Jungkook stands a couple of feet behind. Staring. Thinking. How each day, another taste of Taehyung slips inside like moonlight in a locked church. Against his own volition.

“You were not even this happy seeing me,” Jungkook says.

Taehyung turns to him, still smiling. “Why should I be happy to see you?”

That cheeky smile. Jungkook groans and enters the house, pushing Taehyung gently aside. “I’d believe the sight of your husband wo…”

A loud bark renders his words short. Taehyung immediately freezes beside him. Another bark and then a ball of brown fur emerges into the living room, startling both of them. Jungkook groans again, remembering how Jimin was supposed to stay here with the small creature until they reached home. Jimin is nowhere in sight. But the creature is. Stopping one feet away from a very bewildered Taehyung. The little dog mirrors Taehyung’s expression somehow, eyebrows scrunched together.

“I don’t know who’s more scared of who,” Jungkook remarks dryly. He comes in between two, “Taehyung, this is your new pet,” and then he lowers his gaze to the creature, “pet, this is Taehyung.” He deems it enough, so he leaves the two, scratching at the tie and throwing the jacket on the edge of the couch. A shriek is heard from the living room, and then a panicked Taehyung bargs in the kitchen, followed by the small dog.

“It’s your companion,” Jungkook replies flatly. Does Taehyung hate it?

“I can see that, but why is it here?”

“It’s yours. The doctors said a pet can be a good emotional support and blah blah blah… I don’t want to repeat their monologue.”

Taehyung takes a quick look at the puppy, and then turns to Jungkook, eyes full of dust and sparkles and tiny drops of hope? “It’s mine?”

“Yes, Taehyung, that thing is entirely yours.” He points a finger at the ball of fur that strolled close to Taehyung’s feet.

“But… does he want to be mine?”

Jungkook clicks his tongue, “By the way he’s already following you around and giving you the puppy eyes, I’d say yes, Taehyung.”

This is the only confirmation needed for Taehyung to drop immediately to the floor and pat his lap lightly, for the small puppy to rush in the place and nuzzle his nose against Taehyung’s hand.

Jungkook shakes his head. Taehyung continues for the next hour to give all his attention to the small beast. No other way to describe the puppy, who already managed to rip one pillow, hide Jungkook’s shoes, and growl at him. When it’s time for them to leave to meet Beom (for their little investigation Taehyung begged to be a part of), Taehyung has to be physically warded off the house, leaving the puppy to their maid.

“I think I love him more than anything in this world,” Taehyung announces once seated in the car.

“Shouldn’t you share some of this love to the person who gifted you the puppy too?” Jungkook says it as a joke.

But then Taehyung reaches over the board and kisses his cheek. Slow and sizzling. Jungkook can only hear the unpleasantly loud and fast beating of his heart. Just as quick, Taehyung returns to his seat, blabbering about all the new toys he can buy. Jungkook finds himself sighing as he pushes his fingers onto the fabric of the wheel, gripping it tight. His cheek burns. He hates it.

“Can you turn the AC on?”

“It’s 14 degrees outside,” Jungkook mutters.

“And?” Taehyung sits still, breathing caught in his throat. Jungkook turns the AC on, despite the roll of his eyes and absolute displeasure spread over his face. Taehyung turns back to the window and thinks of his Yeontan. And he thinks of Beom. And of their plan.

“Is there any entrance test to your little gang?”

“Murder is the main criteria. But I heard you have a half body count, maybe we’ll accept that.”

Taehyung feels the sharp bite of the reply, and grins, “Who did Beom kill?”

Jungkook’s gaze turns steel, “Who did /you/ almost kill?”

“My adoptive brother,” he bits his tongue, then adds for good measure, “The sadness in my tone is because I didn’t finish the deed, not for any trace of regret.”

Jungkook only hums, amused all of a sudden, “He deserved it?”

Taehyung stills, because no one ever asked him that. “He didn’t want to share his sweets.”

“Then he deserves even worse, obviously.”

Taehyung nods. “He also ate pineapple on his pizza,” he adds for good measure.

“Then he deserves to be killed, brought from the dead and killed a second time,” Jungkook says, all serious in his three piece suit and gun hidden in the back pocket.

Taehyung laughs, bubbly and rich. Jungkook grips the wheel tighter.

“I really hated him, you know,” Taehyung admits, all of a sudden, the memory of his adoptive brother making his stomach churn in displeasure. “I am pretty sure there’s a tree out there whose sole purpose on earth is to replace the oxygen that he wastes. I told him this once, that he should go to that tree and apologise.”

“And what did he do?” Jungkook asks, with the same apathy in his tone he treats the rest of the world.

“Wasted even more oxygen.”

“If you ever want to finish your body count, I can always help,” Jungkook promises.

And then he parks near a small garage and is out of the car. Taehyung follows as well. He can see Beom’s heavy gaze from the window. And Jungkook’s cold gaze falling off his face, to a more polite, warm smile once he sees Beom approaching. Taehyung takes a look at what appears to be a two story garage, old building, draped in wilds and metal. He likes it. He steps inside and his mouth hangs open, eyes taking into the wilderness, and the multiple computers and screens plastered everywhere… on the desks, floor, mattresses.

Beom is at one of the computers, a ruffled Coca Cola T-shirt and ripped jeans, and the same pale scar marring his cheek. Jungkook is behind him, staring at the screen, with a more piercing, levelled expression, in a silky-looking V-necked charcoal blouse and dark jeans, still looking like he belongs here.

In this place. Taehyung looks around. At the high ceilings, crumpling, but still steady somehow, at the gym barrels on the second floor, a bookshelf in another corner, dusty and magical.

“Taehyung, come here,” Jungkook speaks, arms crossed, his expression guarded but lacking any full-on hostility. Taehyung marches there, eyeing the screens interconnected, and Beom’s dry gaze, “Beom here has some questions for you.”

Beom refuses to look at Taehyung, giving instead his full attention to the screen. “How did you meet Min Yoongi? You refused to have any other therapist for more than a week, but you kept Min Yoongi for a year. Any explanation for that?”

“I have three explanations. You can choose the one you like the most.” Taehyung didn’t know there would be an interrogation here. Nor that Beom will just stand motionless and bored, not looking at him as if he wasn’t even here. Upon Jungkook’s questioning gaze, Taehyung relents to the question, for now, “I met him at a strawberry farm I used to visit in summer.”

“So, he appeared out of nowhere at the farm and you decided he’s a good pick for your therapist?” Beom’s tone wasn’t hostile, but it was sharp. Not the same coldness as Jungkook’s, tinted with a hint of teasing.

Taehyung shrugs.

Beom finally takes his attention away from the web of data on the screen and turns swiftly to Jungkook, “You said he’d be helpful.”

Jungkook, in turn, grazes a long sizzling look over Taehyung’s form, “Look at him, just his mere presence is motivating.”

Taehyung beams. And hears a loud groan from Beom. He decides it’s too early for him to be a menace, so Taehyung tries answering again, “Yoongi sat near me and listened for hours to my drugged brain spilling silly facts about soil and strawberry planting phases and bugs. I thought it’s enough of a requirement to be my therapist. Am I helpful enough now?” His answer makes Jungkook chuckle, rich and bubbly.

Beom closes himself even more, as if the screens could hide him from the rest of the world. Taehyung creeps in closer, hovering behind the blonde.

Beom takes in a deep breath, his whole muscled back arching with it, “Can you please take a couple of steps back?” He addresses Taehyung, still not looking at him.

Taehyung instead stares at him, at the boyish features, mop of blonde curls and freckles adorning the face. And then he arches an eyebrow at Jungkook, who only shrugs in response,

“He’s pretty possessive of his computers, has been married to them for the past years.”

Taehyung laughs. Takes a couple of steps back and stands near Jungkook. Beom ignores them both, sneering under his breath, but continuing his interrogation, “And how did you meet your other friend Hobi?”

“On the street, he was performing, I almost cried.”

Beom finally turns his gaze to him, eyes of an intense blue, “Did he do something to you?”

“Besides crushing my heart with his talented voice? No, nothing really. He took me home and gave me his number.”

The air around thickens, and Taehyung slyly grins before leaning on the couch, “On that night, you must remember, I came home with him and you two were inside making out.” His grin is all sorts of trouble. Beom on his part, buries his head in his arms, groaning even louder, if possible.

Jungkook only shrugs, not a speck of emotion on his face, except silent amusement, “Now this is awkward.”

He walks to the couch and hovers over it, gaze looking down at Taehyung, “You’re really a brat, aren’t you?”

Cheeky smile. Burning cities for it. Jungkook stares at the golden filter of light dancing on Taheyung’s face, at his carefree smile and loose shirt riding up his waist, as he leans in further into the couch. Jungkook turns immediately back and catches Beom’s gaze on them.

He walks to the desk and flicks his hand over Beom’s head, “Stop staring.”

Beom only sneers, his usual reaction to everything, and turns back to his screen.

“What’s the conclusion?” He asks. And eye keeping track of Taehyung. Taehyung who currently has his eyes closed, comfortably laying on the couch.

“They specifically targeted him because of his connection to you, and because of his vulnerable state, and infiltrated his life. We can’t know for sure how much Taehyung divulged to them, unless Taehyung decides to actually cooperate and be helpful.”

Jungkook understands, but then he points to the couch with a finger, “He’s napping.” As if it’s an explanation enough.

“He just arrived here,” Beom flatly says.

“Go and wake him up then,”

Jungkook takes his phone from the pocket and walks away to the back porch.

Beom takes a lingering look at him, and then a snippy gaze at Taehyung’s sleeping form. He curses out loud and buries himself back in his screens.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Taehyung wakes up with the dawn of bell lights hanging from the ceiling, his eyes catching onto the shadow of darkness around. He must have slept for longer. He looks around.

Jungkook is not here, only Beom tracing the screens. Taehyung squints his eyes, watches Beom carefully. Beom has turned himself so no one can sneak up on him from the left, face set in a way that makes him look like he belongs here, all wires and strange codes. Taehyung’s eyes linger on the redness of the scar that overtakes his entire right side of the face, crossing over his cheek, down to his jaw.

“It’s rude to stare,” Beom says, and Taehyung hears it, the apathy in the tone.

Something uncomfortable twists inside Taehyung at the lack of eye contact. “It’s rude to not look at someone when you talk to them,” he replies.

“I would have, if someone didn’t threaten to gauge my eyes out.” The tone is accusing.

“I don’t remember throwing such a colourful threat.”

“Oh, Jungkook’s the asshole who did.”

Beom actually snarls when he says it, and for a second Taehyung understands Beom is apathetic about everything and everyone. It’s not a special treatment for Taehyung. Taehyung wonders what made Beom hate the entire world to the point of dismissing it. Or who gave him the scar.

“Does Jungkook not want you to look at me, because he’s jealous?”

“What?”

The array of green plants steal his attention for a while, but then he turns back to Beom. “You shouldn’t allow him to be such a possessive partner, or forbid you stare at others. It’s not very healthy.” Taehyung tries not to make it sound too arrogant, or like he knows the best. But toxic partners should never be allowed things like this. He waits for Beom to either placate the words helpful, or snap at him. What he gets in return is instead a very sudden burst of laughter that changes Beom’s entire face, making him appear more boyish, way younger and alive.

“Partner what?” Beom barely manages to get the words out, before another burst of laughter creeps on his face.

Taehyung sits dumbfounded. Tries to gauge what is happening, or what made Beom so amused. He comes up with nothing.

“Jungkook is jealous because of you,” Beom says when he finally manages to stop laughing.

“I am not gonna steal you from him,” Taehyung says, appalled even at the insinuation, even if Beom is strangely pretty.

“I told him you’re visually pleasing when we got drunk last week, and he said he’ll gauge my eyes out if I’ll even stare at you.”

Oh.

Taehyung opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He closes it. Why would Jungkook even say such a thing? It must have been the alcohol. “But then you and him…”

Beom brings his attention back to the screens, typing on it, as a new notification comes in. But Taehyung understands it for what it is. It’s not dismissal, it’s the attention span that fluctuates differently for other people. He sees the tremble in those fingers that type.

“Me and Jungkook are not a thing,” Beom says in between typing.

“I saw you kissing,” Taehyung reminds him.

Beom’s groan is more alive than before, and does not hold any malice anymore. “That was one time, and we did it out of desperation. He was pretty fucked up back then, and the engagement just fucked him more, he thought he’ll regain control of his life by doing it. I… that day was the court trial of someone that… I thought with the trial, he’d be gone from my life, but he still lingered in my thoughts and nightmares. That kiss, it was an attempt for me to take control back too. It was awkward and we decided to never mention it again.”

Taehyung’s mind is clearer since he doesn’t take his medication. Looking back he can see it. The embarrassed groan when he asked Jungkook if he loves Beom. He wonders how much of what he felt and thought and saw was affected by his medication.

“You know,” Beom says all of a sudden, “Till 10 minutes ago, I thought you were involved in Jungkook’s assasination attempts. I couldn’t understand why Jungkook trusts you so much. You came into his life all of a sudden, making it impossible for him to refuse the wedding, you acted all careless, disappeared every friday for years, you met with Yoongi and Hobi each week in secret. I thought it was all a plan.”

“Oh…” It does actually sound quite rational.

“Now… I don’t think you have one evil bone in your body. I am observant too. I see your fingers shaking sometimes, and I see the void in your eyes. I am starting to trust you too. Don’t make me regret it.”

Taehyung does not know how to respond to it. So, he remains silent. He observes, but he didn’t know someone could observe him back. A clutter sound of steps resounds from the back door. Taehyung watches Jungkook’s figure approaching from the shadows. Jungkook looks ruffled up. There’s a print on his fingers from the many cigarettes he must have smoked. And an archaic exhaustion to the nests under his eyes. Sleepless nights, shoulders pressed down by worries. Taehyung hasn’t seen it before. It may have been his medication that overlooked it.

He looks at Jungkook, at first he sees all sharp edges, a snarl, a gun hidden behind his jacket, cigarette smoke. And then he looks closer and sees a hurt boy that still despises the world for taking from him, and taking and taking.

“What were you two so animatedly talking about?” Jungkook asks, and even his voice is drained, frayed at the edges, weary and thin, as if he’s barely holding himself in pieces.

“Beom told me you threatened to gauge his eyes out if he looked at me.”

Beom, near him, swears, banging his head on the table. Jungkook only raises one eyebrow, tilting his head, menacing, “Are you two best friends now?”

“He finds me visually pleasing, that’a great premise for friendship,” Taehyung argues.

Jungkook rummages in his pocket, extracting a pair of keys, “I think it’s time we go home, don’t you miss Yeontan?”

Taehyung all lights up, standing up immediately. Jungkook side eyes Beom, as they walk out of the place.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

The Camaro is parked near the garage. There’s a crushed-up packet of cigarettes on the seat and Jungkook throws it into the back before Taehyung gets in. It’s only when Taehyung is actually sat in the passenger seat of his car that Jungkook realises he has no fucking clue what the hell he’s doing.

He starts the engine, driving away from Beom. His father called an hour ago inviting him to his birthday dinner. He would have rejected the call, block his poor excuse of father, trash the phone in the nearest wall and then go and get drunk. Instead, here he is, agreeing to the dinner and trying to think how he could survive it. He knows he needs to. Taehyung doesn’t say anything for a long while as Jungkook drives aimlessly through downtown. There aren’t many other cars on the roads, but then, it’s evening on a Wednesday.

“Music?” Taehyung asks.

“Whatever you want.”

Taehyung fiddles about with the car stereo and soft acoustic guitar comes through the speakers.

“What is this?” Jungkook gestures at the radio.

“It’s Bon Iver, he’s good, right?”

“I already feel miserable enough, I don't need the music for that. Play me something sexy.” He needs a distraction, he wants to get his father’s words off his mind, not to think of the approaching dinner.

Taehyung flicks around on his phone again, and then

“Michael Jackson, seriously?”

Taehyung just watches him, raises an eyebrow. “What music does Jeon Jungkook fuck to then?” Taehyung asks him.

Jungkook breathes in, and out, grips the wheel tight, can see Taehyung has no idea of what effect his words have. He wants to pull the car over. Jesus, fuck. “I don’t.” He only says, and his cheeks colour at the confession. The confession that he’s a virgin should have never even been a subject of discussion.

Taehyung just stares at him, silent all of a sudden.

Jungkook pulls the car over.

“There’s nothing shameful about being a virgin. I am one too.” Taehyung easily says.

And Jungkook does not want to have the discussion about sex in this exact circumstance. “I never said it’s shameful,” he explains instead of shutting down the topic completely.

“Looked like that.” Taehyung’s turned himself so he’s sitting almost sideways, legs twisted on the seat and the left side of his head against the headrest.

Neither of them speak again for a little while.

“Je veux mourir un peu avec toi,” Jungkook breathes the words, and adds “tout de suite.”

Taehyung doesn’t understand French. He doesn’t know Jungkook just told him ‘I want to die with you a little, right now’.

He doesn’t know that French people call ‘little death’ - the post sensation after orgasm. He doesn’t know that when Jungkook looks at him, he wants to die with him a little every time.

“Stop staring at me,” Taehyung says.

“No.”

Then they’re caught like that, just watching each other.

“Come to my father’s dinner with me,” Jungkook says, and when Taehyung doesn’t reply right away, he adds in a quieter tone, “Please.”

“Don’t you hate your father?”

Jungkook lets his head rest against the seat, closing his eyes so he doesn’t stare at Taehyung anymore, “I do.”

“Then why?”

“I have a suspicion I need to confirm.”

“What suspicion?”

Jungkook takes a deep breath, before admitting “I think my dear step mother is behind the assassinations attempts.” Jungkook thinks he’d hear a gasp from Taehyung, or an array of incoming questions. Instead, Taehyung’s face is empty. Unable to read. Jungkook wants to lean in, grab his face in his hands, and unveil all his secrets with his lips.

“I have to admit to something too,” Taehyung says, tone small and weak, as if he already knows Jungkook will hate him for it.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Jungkook didn’t like Taehyung at first. He didn’t like Taehyung 1 month into their marriage. And he didn’t like him a year later either, or three years.

He doesn’t know when he started being curious about the man. And when the switch happened. When he became hungry for him. Somewhere there is a lapse of time he is not aware of. Jungkook has rarely liked someone else. He has blood on his fingers, impossible to wash off, and a couple of kisses traded in moments of desperation or need. It was his religion - to never get poisoned by love, never be ruined by its venom. He thought he’s unable to feel anything beside lust, maybe. Even lust, he knew he can’t afford it, can’t trust anyone.

Is it only lust towards Taehyung? Jungkook hopes so.

Jungkook killed plants, because he watered them too much. And he thought his love could save his mom, and she’s in a grave. He thinks his love is violence and death.

Something neither Taehyung, nor him needs. He wonders if kissing Taehyung would melt away the frustration, he’ll get satiated and then they’ll part ways like strangers. And neither will die.

He never liked Taehyung. He liked blondes. Taehyung’s raven locks, always wild curling around his eyes.

Jungkook liked the azure of the ocean in eyes. The amber in Taehyung’s eyes was overly sweet and irritating to the eyes. Too blinding.

Then why did he yearn for the man that was composed of all things he didn’t like? Months ago Taehyung’s voice irritated him, his theatrics, the glint in his eyes. Where did Jungkook’s aversion disappear to? Was it the way Taehyung’s lips curled hungrily around the cigarette? Or his feet soaked wet on the cold pavement under the rain, the soaked wet smile and his eyes that lacked any care for Jungkook?

Was it the way Taehyung lived life? Like a shadow threading on the ground, ghostly smiling, taking naps on ripped coaches and plants stealing his attention.

Was it Taehyung laying on the grass, eyes closed and unaware, out of this world, inside his thoughts, rays of sun dancing between the locks, making Jungkook crave touch, Jungkook who treated physical touch like a burnt man would fire, maybe it was Taehyung opening his eyes, the brown in them becoming Jungkook’s favourite colour instead of blue.

Or maybe it was all the curves, the arched muscles in fine bones, tanned skin, when Jungkook saw him, exposed thighs, defined brawn and toned abdomen.

He achs. Jungkook achs for Taehyung. It’s as simple as that. He never liked to complicate things. Deals and promises and tricky words.. It is all Taehyung. Jungkook wonders if he kissed the boy, would he get a glimpse inside him.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

“I have to admit to something too…,” Taehyung whispers in the confines of the car.

Then, a phone rings, loud and urgent. Jungkook excuses himself and answers when he sees the name on the screen. Taehyung knows he lost his chance to confess. He is ready to doze off for another couple of minutes, when Jungkook puts the person on the phone on speaker. Beom’s voice resounds in the car.

“Did you put me on speaker?” Beom reassures again.

Jungkook scrunches his face in displeasure, “Yes, Beom, your new best friend can hear you.”

Beom ignores the tease. “You know how I could not find anything on Yoongi and Hobi? I thought it’s because it’s not their real name. Turns out, I wasted time on finding their real names, but…”

“It’s their actual names?” Jungkook supplies.

Beom grumbles a nod.

“Then why couldn’t we find anything on them?” Jungkook speaks again.

“They must not be from here,” Taehyung interrupts, voice small, but confident.

“Exactly,” Beom’s tone becomes softer.

That sucker. “Arschlecker,” Jungkook says in German.

Beom ignores him again. “They’re not from these parts at all, Yoongi and Hobi are from a small town in the north of the country, in the mountains, and they are brothers. And guess who else is in the family?”

Before Jungkook can even think about any possibility, Taehyung answers “The stepmother?”

“You’re much more useful than Jungkook,” Beom supplies, and a small grin slips into his tone. “She’s their oldest sister.”

Jungkook’s brain tries to piece everything together, but it’s hard to imagine. “Let me make it clear, her brothers, Yoongi and Hobi, are trying to help my step mother get rid of me for whatever reason, and then what, become the sole heir to my father’s empire?”

“Yes. They must have planned it for years, infiltrate each web of Jeon’s world.”

“Formidable, no one else put as much commitment into something for me,” Jungkook speaks out loud, voice in marvel.

“They want to kill you,” Beom comments.

“It’s still commitment,” Taehyung supplies helpfully.

Jungkook winks at him. “So, now all the cards are revealed?”

Beom pauses, and then starts uncertain, “there’s only one more thing that remains a mystery.”

“What is it?”

“There’s someone messing up your business, your accounts, and I can’t trace the culprit. I went to dig deeper, and apparently your step mother has three brothers. One little brother was given to the orphanage, because the family didn’t have enough money to sustain one more mouth. I believe the boy returned to the family, and he’s the last piece of the puzzle, messing up our plan. We can’t act unless we know all the players on the board.”

Jungkook understands, “You’re not quite useless Beom.”

“Your compliments are always of such high praise.” Beom says flatly, and then his voice melts into a gentle whisper, “Taehyung, what do you think?”

“I think you’re on the right path,” Taehyung says gently, craving another cigarette between his lips.

Beom marvels at the compliment, “Thank you…”

Jungkook hangs off the call. He turns to face Taehyung, who looks amused, “Ready for the birthday dinner in the marvellous company of my family?”

Taehyung nods with a grin. Jungkook wants to kiss it off his face. What a misfortune.

“Give me a cigarette,” Taehyung demands. He needs his nicotine.

Jungkook complies. He reaches his hand and slightly leans into Taehyung, palm slowly sliding over Taehyung’s thigh towards the glove, opening it, pressing his arm onto Taehyung’s flesh. He grabs a pack of cigarettes and hands it to Taehyung. Sometimes later, Taehyung’s hand reaches another cigarette and presses iit between Jungkook’s lips, finger gliding over the soft flesh, tracing it lightly.

Jungkook’s breath catches in his throat.

“You have soft lips,” Taehyung says, after lighting the cigarette. “What moisturiser do you use?”

Jungkook curses him. Loudly. In his mind. Windows open, fluids of smoke released outside. Jungkook takes a drag and thinks the dinner will be survivable because Taehyung is with him.

They reach the mansion in under an hour through long strings of smoke and burning sensations. At the door, they are greeted by the butler, who apologises as always, because the dinner already started. No one even awaited their arrival. Or believed they’ll arrive to begin with.

Taehyung remains at the door, his eyes are glossy. It hurts physically to see him perturbed like this. Jungkook knows Taehyung doesn’t like crowded spaces. He understands the root of the anxiety. He walks towards him, and slides his fingers around Taehyung’s, interlocking them.

“It’s okay, you’re with me,” Jungkook tries to reassure him.

And they walk to the table. At the centre of it, is his father, as always, taking a quick look at him and then returning to whatever conversation he was holding with the man next to him. Next to his father, is Ae-cha, his step-mother, trying to spoon feed their 5-years old son. Some business partners peek at their entrance, and salute the heir of the oil company. They don’t know for sure yet who to suck up to. Will it be the eldest son, the heir, to the empire, or will it be the 5-years old boy born in the marriage, and guided by Ae-cha.

When he slides into the chair left open for him, Taehyung sitting near him, some men turn to heated discussions about the latest trends on the market, predictions and what not. The dinner with his family is just as he imagined it to be. They sit by the table, eating silently and talking business and ignoring the elephant in the room. He notices Taehyung’s hold is slightly shaking as he fails to keep the fork in his hand. Jungkook reaches under the table to place his hand on his thigh.

Taehyung relaxes. Jungkook’s touch grounds him.

“So, about the deal for the merger with the…”

“It’s not happening,” Jungkook cuts in, after his father’s first words addressed to him are about the business.

His father stops eating, the fork cluttering on the table, and finally looks at him, eyes void of any emotion, he has always been cold like that. Ae-cha continues eating, completely detached from whatever is happening at the table. Jungkook muses - she might be cheering deep inside.

“What do you mean it’s not happening?”

“We realised that our values don’t align, I want to lead the business alone, without an old man talking rubbish all the time. Speaking about old men, when are you fully retiring?”

“You, son of a..., think you can talk to me like that in front of all…” His father stands from the table, voice raising as he hits the table with his knuckles.

Jungkook feels a sharp pang in his chest, no matter how used he is to his words. Taehyung grips his hand two times.

“You don't seem very stable to lead anything anymore, if you get so fired up instantly” Jungkook spits out the words and he can see the flinch in his step-mother’s face, even if she silently continues to eat.

She may have her strategy. He might have his as well. His father is enraged, that much his face shows now. The rest of the business partners eye his father with distrust.

Jungkook can’t keep it inside anymore, “If you can’t handle peacefully one dinner with your son, how can you handle other things in your life, your heritage, your young son that you so want to be your next kin.”

His father is completely fired up, as he pushes away his chair and tries to march up towards Jungkook. Only he’s stopped by a hand gripping his wrist, gently.

“Please, sit down, this stress is not good for your heart,” Ae-cha speaks through grit teeth, She brings a tablet to his father’s mouth.

Jungkook decides this is enough for him. He doesn’t need to stay anymore. He stands up from the table in a calm manner, looks around at the other men, “I need to excuse myself, just got a call from work, urgent matters, I need to retreat. You see, business means a lot to me.”

He turns to Taehyung. Taehyung is focused on something else, eyes keen and intent, so focused like Jungkook has never seen him before. Taehyung’s eyes are on Ae-cha, with a certain type of emotion Jungkook can’t decipher.

“Tae…,” he whispers, and Taehyung’s eyes snap, he turns his attention to him. Whatever was in his look is gone.

He reaches his hand, and Taehyung intertwines their fingers. They leave the mansion. They sit in their car for a couple of minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. And then Jungkook starts the engine, wanting to get as far away from here as possible. They drive in silence. But Jungkook’s heart beats incessantly, his hand carrying the burning touch of Taehyung’s hand. He parks near the harbour. To the place they first opened up to each other. And he guesses one deal got true. Taehyung, in his own way, helped Jungkook find the culprit.

And Jungkook in his own way helped Taehyung feel and enjoy life. Now only is left one more deal. Jungkook has to guess who Taehyung is, what mystery he is.

Jungkook still remembers the riddle: 'In the absence of the script, I am the character without a backstory.”

What is Taehyung to him? He’s the person he’s falling in love with? If he wins, Taehyung gives them the divorce.

Jungkook does not want to win anymore. So he remains silent.

Outside a storm brews. They remain in the car. Taehyung turns to him with a glint in his eye, “You were firing him up on purpose.”

A smirk starts growing on Jungkook’s face. Taehyung is too smart for his own good. And too beautiful. His heart beats wildly inside his ribcage.

“You wanted his business partners to see him in an unstable light. Those business partners are the shareholders of the company who have voting rights,” Taehyung continues.

Thunder rattles above them. There could be an earthquake, it wouldn’t touch Jungkook as deeply as this moment does.

“You’re really amazing, Jungko…”

Jungkook pulls forward and kisses him.

Taehyung stills.

The kiss is... angry, gruff, harsh.

As if winter breathes into his mouth. It knocks the air right out of Taehyung.

He isn’t sure, is he being kissed or is he being killed?

Jungkook’s lips turn warm then. His fingers dig into the skin at the nape of Taehyung’s neck, as if he’s scared Taehyung will disappear into thin air. Taehyung’s mouth slides open against his. But he still doesn't move. He only accepts, takes as much as if given to him, pliantly. It’s only Jungkook, one hand holding him by his neck, one pressed against his jaw, lips gliding over, swallowing his, slow and open. The only way left is - for Taehyung to breathe through him too.

He never knew people can be hungry for other people, through the way Jungkook is kissing him. Jungkook is kissing him like he is the only source of oxygen on earth, and he is desperate not to suffocate.

And then everything stops. Jungkook pushes himself off when he realises Taehyung isn’t really kissing him back. When he sees the confusion in Taehyung’s eyes. Jungkook backs away.

Taehyung just sits there, at a loss of words. Jungkook’s expression tightens. He has no idea what he just did, like a criminal caught in the act, unaware how he lost control and turned into his instincts with no self preservation.

“You should have stopped me.” Jungkook says, voice alarmed, “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Jungkook’s face looks crushed. Taehyung has never seen him this hurt. Jungkook opens the car door and walks out into the rain, slamming it shut behind him hard. He’s walking away. He doesn’t know where he is going. Jungkook hears another door slammed shut.

“Wait!” Taehyung calls. “Where are you going?”

“Away.” Jungkook replies. He can’t sit in the same car as Taehyung now, and not kiss him again.

“Stop!” Jungkook hears Taehyung yelling behind, but he can’t stop. He’s going crazy, his mouth carries the taste, he feels like he’s bleeding. The rain patters hard against his shoulders, and it’s still not enough to freshen his mouth of the burning taste. “Stop! God damn it.”

Jungkook stops, turns on his heel, and faces Taehyung. “God damn you.” he surges forward again and steals a taste off Taehyung’s lips. Curses himself when he retracts, hands in his hair and lips still burning.

Taehyung brings a finger to his lips, traces it over them. “I..,” starts Taehyung. And he is again interrupted by a loud ping.

Jungkook takes the interruption like a salvation ring, from drowning. He lets his eyes take in the text message. Taehyung observes confusion on Jungkook’s face, then slight realisation, and then… his face falls, and utter hurt and betrayal dances a deadline circle there. He raises his eyes to look at Taehyung. He appears nauseating. Like he just got stabbed. Only there’s no knife in his chest.

Only a short text message. Shudders travel up Taehyung’s spine. Jungkook can see it, the way the boy grits his teeth, but remains silent about his pain.

“What happened?” Taehyung asks, hiding his trembling knuckles behind his back.

“I just found the third brother,” Jungkook confesses, looking intently at him.

“Who is it?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Taehyung doesn’t argue. Jungkook leans in, taking a couple of steps at once. His hands reach to curl around Taehyung’s face. Then, his palm slides down his throat, feeling the burning in the flesh, the fever. Worry flashes on his face. Then... his expression changes, his eyes soften, and then Jungkook is kissing him.

Again. Taehyung leans in as well, and his lips mould against his.

“Tell me to stop,” Jungkook pleads, more for himself than for Taehyung. “Please tell me to stop.”

Skin on skin, the piercing gleam in Taehyung’s fractured candlelit eyes. Taehyung remains silent. Jungkook is not strong enough otherwise - to stop. The world becomes a blip in an universe that consists only of two of them. Mouth on mouth, openly sliding against each other, shared breaths, and raindrops tracing lazy paths down their faces. Jungkook’s hands reach behind to hold Taehyung’s. The trembling stops. It’s slow and soft. As if the entire time stopped.

Jungkook presses Taehyung against his chest. In the dim light, it’s hard to find the end and the beginning of their bodies, tangled together. One of Jungkook’s hands holds Taehyung’s, the other hand finds its way under Taehyung’s shirt as he traces the raised, jagged scars cutting across Taehyung’s stomach. Taehyung melts against his chest, breaking the kiss, letting his head fall on Jungkook’s shoulder.

His pulse dances frantically in his veins.

Jungkook’s hand is still pressed into Taehyung’s shirt, whose heartbeat rapidly laps through the thin material of his t-shirt against Jungkook’s palm. Taehyung tilts his head, eyes closed, mouth open. Jungkook brings their mouths together again.

“Don’t leave me, please,” Jungkook whispers into Taehyung’s mouth. It sounds like a prayer. It sounds like Jungkook just found his religion. They kiss till their lips grow sore. And some more. Neither of them pays any heed to the rain. Despite the desire that possesses Jungkook’s body, despite the undeniable surge of heat radiating between them and the need that is painfully throbbing inside him, Jungkook gives Taehyung’s lips one last kiss before withdrawing completely. They are both out of breath. Jungkook watches Taehyung’s chest heave. For a few fuzzy dizzy seconds the entire world reduces to the spark in Taehyung’s eyes and the sounds of his hushed breathing.

What just happened? A barrage of kisses fired off one after another? A breakdown? It is a new feeling, a dangerous, scary feeling. He knows loving someone is dangerous. His mouth is still warm.

Jungkook is the first to break the silence. “Let’s get in the car,” he says, though his voice is still hoarse.

“Huh?” Taehyung’s own voice sounds foreign, faraway.

Jungkook takes his hand in his and guides him in the car. He has a couple of clothes in the backseat. In the following minutes of silence, Jungkook instructs Taehyung to raise his hands. He carefully removes the wet T-shirt, urging his eyes to not look at the naked patches of skin. He brings a warm brown hoodie over Taehyung’s head, eyes lingering on his face.

He wants to kiss him again. Many say people are free to choose how to achieve their desires.

Only,

people are never free in choosing what they want to desire.

Violent urges. They stay in the car till the rain stops and the street ahead clears from the foggy smoke.

“She’s drugging him. Probably it’ll lead to your father’s death soon, maybe a week? His eyes have a yellow scar inside, and the pills she’s feeding him are strong,” Taehyung comments.

Jungkook wants to kiss him, smother him in kisses, have him in his arms and never let go. It’s scary how much he can’t seem to control his desires. Taehyung observing his step mother and letting Jungkook know makes him want to kiss Taehyung even more. This means Jungkook can now unleash his own plan, once he knows absolutely each part of the game. He reaches out and holds Taehyung’s hand that starts trembling again.

“Everything will be okay,” he says. He hopes it’ll be.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Taehyung has been completely silent about his withdrawals. Jungkook knows he can’t let it drag for longer. Taehyung has been without medications in his system for too long, and he does not have proper help to cope with the upcoming withdrawals. A week later, they pack things and he drives Taehyung to the clinic.

Jungkook breaks when he parks the car. When he looks at Taehyung’s silent form. “Can I?” He pleads.

The void on Taehyung’s face, the exhaustion clears out, and he smiles softly when Jungkook leans in and interlocks their lips.

They share warmth. And Jungkook stops only when he feels another shudder travel up Taehyung’s spine. The withdrawals…

It’s the best clinic in the country.

“They allow pets,” Jungkook assures, “Once your withdrawals are better, I will bring Yeontan. I can’t deal with the beast myself.”

Taehyung smiles again. Jungkook never wants to stop kissing him. “You like kissing me,” Taehyung remarks cheekily, when they are in Taehyung’s new room inside the clinic.

“I like you,” Jungkook confesses.

Taehyung remains silent. Jungkook doesn’t push. He knows Taehyung is not obligated to answer back with the same intensity of feelings. Or with any feelings at all. “You’re not alone, never, I will visit whenever they allow me to,” he assures Taehyung when the nurse has to physically get him out of the room.

That day he sits in his car, head pressed against the wheel. He never felt as physically hurt before, not even when he was stabbed, burnt or shot at. He knows there’s too many plans waiting for him. He has people to punish,

to kill

companies to overtake,

but the only thought running through his mind is Taehyung.

He wonders just an hour later… what is Taehyung doing, how is he feeling? He wants to drive back and sign himself in the clinic too. He knows he shouldn’t. Addictions can be all sorts of ways. Especially when trying to get rid of one, it’s not good to be attached to another one, to a person, or object, or feeling. Beom’s call gets him out of the misery. If only for a little bit.

“It’s Jimin,” Jungkook rasps in the call, “He’s the youngest brother of Ae-cha.”

Beom takes a minute to consider the thought, “What gave it away?”

“I pushed too hard during the dinner, Ae-cha became desperate and scared, so she also became stupid and pushed Jimin to text me. He said in the message he suspects Taehyung to be the third brother of Ae-cha. But I never told Jimin the latest news you gave us- about the third brother- I told him about everything else though. So, we have to change our plans fast.”

They discuss for the next minute an adjusted plan, that Jimin or his accomplice Namjoon would not know about. And before the call ends, Jungkook confesses,

“I am scared, Beom.”

“What happened? It’s the best clinic in the country, I am sure Taehyung will recover in no time…”

“It’s not that. I am scared that… even if it would have been Taehyung the third brother, I would have forgave him. Even if he would act against me, I would only pray and plead him to get on my side. I am scared…”

“Of how much you start to love him.”

Beom has always had gut feelings he trusts. He wants to assure Jungkook everything will be okay, that there is a safety pin in falling for Taehyung. He knows there isn’t. He knows things with Ae-cha are almost done. It’s not the problem.

Jungkook won. But Jungkook also fell. And Beom has a gut feeling that Taehyung will break Jungkook’s heart. Taehyung who never learned to trust his own emotions. Who’ll want to start a new life after the recovery (probably). He doesn’t say that though.

“If there is someone that deserves your love, it’s Taehyung,” he assures his closest friend.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Jeon Jungkook desires violently. But he also has patience to wait. He wants power. He can wait for it. He wants love. He’s patient here too.

Weeks pass by. Hours spent on proof reading documents, finding loopholes, trading money and secrets to collect men on his side. Three months trial to debunk his step mom’s lies after his father passed away, reasons uncertain, just a week after his birthday dinner. With the help of Taehyung, Jungkook finds the exact pills Ae-cha used to poison his father and Beom finds the doctor that illegally prescribed them (hacking Ae-cha’s phone).

It’s not enough to put the whole family under bars, but Ae-cha gets sent to jail on premeditated murder. And the whole inheritance falls on him.

A knife stab in his chest, a bullet shot under his heart, burnt patches on his abdomen, and the war is finally done, with some more sprees of murder to clean the whole empire. When the last day of the trial ends in an empty bottle of whiskey, sweaty hair stuck to his forehead and a headache pressing on the tip of his fingers, Jungkook can breathe in relief. He wants so much what is not here. He doesn’t know where to go. For the past months, he saw glimpses of Taehyung. Stolen cigarette breaks, sunsets caught together,

no kisses,

just lingering glances,

warmth.

Just Taehyung’s swollen face, grey nests under puffy tired eyes, teared up from screaming nightmares. Some times Taehyung would look completely void of anything alive in him, just empty eyes and silence between breaths.

Sometimes, Taehyung would stare in one corner of the room and tell Jungkook snippets from his childhood. Jungkook knows how much trust that presumes. He’d listen to everything in silence, and then avoid the pity comments, and change the subject or bask in silence. Sometimes, Taehyung is playful, teasing and sharp and dangerous. Sometimes they play with Yeontan, or smoke on the balcony, or stare at the dawn of day, thighs brushing together and stolen glances.

Jungkook knows, he asked for hope from Beom, and Beom lied to him. Sweet lies, sweeter than the whisky he’s slipping down his throat.

Taehyung never was, and never will be /his/. He’s slowly slipping away from Jungkook, like sand dripping through his fingers. And Jungkook can do nothing but watch and savour the few moments he knows they still have left.

He knew not to be greedy or desire things…

things work,

people don’t.

He can’t manipulate his way in as he can do with bank accounts, stocks or trademarks. He can’t kill to get what he wants. All that’s left to do is be patient.

Taehyung prolongues the stay at the clinic for 3 more months, after the doctor calls Jungkook and tells him:

“Don’t visit today, he’s not feeling well.”

as in nightmares haunting him all nights, screaming, throwing up, body betraying him just as his mind does.

“He remembered a memory that was deeply hidden by his trauma,” the doctor explains after Jungkook falls on the floor, leaning onto the hospital door, listening to Taehyung’s hushed breath on the other side.

Close to evening, the breathing evans out. Taehyung fell asleep. Jungkook is allowed to enter the room and take a look. And he spends the night there, just to make sure Taehyung doesn’t disappear anywhere. Taehyung has told him many times, he is scared of waking up alone.

During the night of spending quiet time in Taehyung’s room, Jungkook realises even more things that taste bittersweet, that make his throat constrict painfully:

1. Taehyung’s eyes are beautiful, of warm honey, soft, amber glows.
2. There is sadness in his eyes, which you can only see in the ones who want to die, but life does not allow them, an eternal sadness that clings to him like dusk to a dying sun

Jungkook falls asleep on the chair, admiring Taehyung, letting his eyes take in the boy and printing it into his brain. When the doctor comes for an early checkup, Jungkook can’t stop taking his eyes off Taehyung, as if mere seconds and the boy would disappear.

“He decided to stay some more with us, and personally, from a medical perspective, I think it will be very therapeutic for him. We got rid of the withdrawals, his body is clean and not craving medication anymore. Now we will focus more on his mental health.”

Jungkook only dares to move from the chair when Taehyung wakes up and smiles at him, a weak exhausted smile, but it alights everything inside Jungkook. They talk for an hour while Taehyung shares his breakfast with him. Taehyung tells him some more about his childhood. He tells him how he strayed from one adopted family to another, and all of them competed in which one was the worst. He stayed the longer with one family of a single mother. She was sweet, gave him candies, let him learn how to swim, and taught him math. She celebrated Christmas with him. And Taehyung was truly happy with her. The only drawback was the biological son of the woman.

Jungkook knows just how much Taehyung doesn’t like to talk about the guy. The guy whose name is already on Jungkook’s hitlist. Taehyung was willing to survive anything, just to bask for longer in the woman’s warm hugs and forehead kisses, night fairy tales and an illusion of happy family. But, it became too much, and a kind social assistant after countless visits to check on the situation, took Taehyung back to the adoption house.

After a year, Taehyund was adopted by his current family, money was a safe haven from all the terror he encountered before. He dreamed once about family love, but that only bought him pain and nightmares. Once, on the way from school, the foster brother from the family he stayed the longest with, cornered him.

He found out Taehyung's new address, and … Taehyung doesn’t talk about it. Jungkook only knows that Taehyung lashed out then. To be taken off a court case, his parents made a deal to medicate him to control his anger. Jungkook knows there’s so much more hiding behind that sad smile Taehyung tries to muster each time Jungkook looks at him. But Jungkook knows - it’ll take years for Taehyung to untangle his trauma fully.

He thinks - despite all the sharp and violent edges - Taehyung remained so soft, so lovable. And he tells him so.

Taehyung asks him to leave.

The week after, Taehyung is sitting on a sofa in the hospital room. An oak tree rests peacefully on the paper that he is painting. He stops the movement of the brush when Jungkook enters his room after knocking softly. Peace settles in his chest. Jungkook lays quietly on the fluffy carpet, a safe distance away from Taehyung, as his hand holds a brush and walks it over the white paper. Taehyung throws only a swift glance at him, and then brings his attention back to the painting.

Later, as Jungkook paints a beautiful mountain with calming colours adorning its peak, Taehyung softly pats his shoulder and says “it’s beautiful” as his lushy eyes scan the painting. When it’s time to say goodbyes, Jungkook’s chest is full of warm air inside.

Taehyung looks more healthy under the neon lights, his cheeks painted in red, with a rose painted on each of them.

“Can I?” Jungkook asks, and for the first time in his life, his voice is weak, trembles.

Taehyung appears confused for a single second, and then he nods earnestly, even if he does not know what exactly Jungkook is asking. Jungkook takes both of Taehyung’s hands in his own and then gently, slowly leaves a tiny kiss on each of the knuckles, lips lingering to pour as much love as he can muster.

Taehyung’s breath halts.

Jungkook leaves a couple more small kisses all over the length of Taehyung’s hands. And then he leaves. Jungkook knows days with Taehyung are coming close, slipping away. Two weeks later, he barges into the hospital, breath cutting at the tip of his throat,

“Can I see Taehyung?”

The nurse on the shift gives him an apologetic look, “He’s… he wants to be alone right now.”

“What happened?”

“He needs time. the memories that were buried deeply in his conscience are overwhelming him right now."

Jungkook nods, “how can i help?”

“Perhaps later he’ll need some support.”

The nurse means later as in the next day and as some support perhaps a short visit or a sent bouquet of strawberries (Jungkook sent that bouquet once). The nurse's eyes widen though when she sees Jungkook slowly approaching Taehyung’s room, falling on the floor, back pressed against the door again, listening to the boy’s breath, making sure he’s real, that he’s there.

Fifth month at the clinic, Taehyung has a different glow around him. He doesn’t talk much with Jungkook about the past anymore. He starts talking about the future.

How he saw a singing penguin in a nature journal.

How he’d love to see it in real life.

How he’d want to go on a cruise to admire whales.

Or visit the abandoned castles in Scotland.

Or the haunted places in Hungary.

Jungkook calls Beom afterwards, asks him how detrimental it would be if Jungkook took a one year vacation. He knows he’s breaking his own heart, hoping. And he knows he’s getting ahead of himself, when one day, near the end of Taehyung’s stay at the clinic, Taehyung’s therapist asks Jungkook to remain for a talk.

“I would not recommend it,” the therapist tells him, a petite woman close to her 50s, with a kind smile and eyes, white short hair tied with butterfly clips.

They talked about Taehyung’s plans after the clinic. Jungkook managed to slip away that he would be open (available, eager, desperate, pathetic) to go with Taehyung on his travels. The therapist looked at him like she knew she’ll break his heart with her next words,

“Taehyung does not need it.”

or translated - ‘does not need you’.

starved people will eat anything.

The therapist said.

Taehyung, devoid of childhood love and care, adult affection and attention, will eat from a spoon everything Jungkook gives him. And Jungkook will become another addiction, instead of the medication he is trying to heal from.

Because Taehyung craves touch, yet he flinches every time someone gets close to him. Because Taehyung says yes to Jungkook’s lips, but he does not know what he says yes to. Because Taehyung never had the chance to say no, to choose, to know what he wants. Taehyung is worth finding himself, knowing himself, feeling himself.

“He’ll never be able to do it, while stringing and clinging to you, Jungkook. You are part of his past, the reminder of everything he should try to move on.”

The therapist watches him with a detached look in her eyes. As if she’s not even aware she’s breaking Jungkook right now, in tiny particles dissolved in this small hospital room, never to recover again. He storms out of the hospital. He wishes he could scream, and throw the pastel vase with the daisies at the wall, or break the window with his fist.

Jungkook never allowed himself to get angry. He couldn’t. Not when his mother needed quiet and peace and a soft voice addressing her. Not when Taehyung flinched at anyone who raised their voice even slighter or showed signs of aggression. Jungkook will do anything for the people he loves. Including sacrificing himself. He walks out of the hospital, counting in his head numbers to calm himself, in all possible languages. The outside breeze makes his galloping heart slow down. He takes intakes of breaths and leans in on his car.

He wants to scream, so that the voices inside quieten down. And he wants to rush his fist through the window, so that the pain grows physical too. He does neither. Jungkook stays still, head buried in his arms, crouched to the ground. He gives himself a couple of minutes. And then stands up, gets inside his car and drives away. The evenings brings him back to the same stool in a hidden tavern on the outskirts of the city.

A glass of bourbon. Beom, loyal as always, like a guard dog on his right. Grief and pain rolling in waves, because he still didn’t lose Taehyung. But he knows he will. Tiny spiders crawling around him. Oh, Jungkook rots in hell. How could he ever dream to coexist with Taehyung, who is wildflowers and rose thorns, but bright and so much stardust.

“You have blood on your hands,” Beom reminds him.

As if Jungkook could ever forget. He still remembers. He watched all his childhood, his mother drowning her sorrows in alcohol, when she thought he was sleeping. He watched her cry herself till the morning sun lightened their windows, always covered with thick large curtains. Then she would wash her face and put the fake smile on her pretty face, welcoming him with her warm arms. She made Jungkook home-schooled and rarely let him wander outside the house. People were dangerous, they could hurt and destroy. The only person Jungkook knew in his childhood was Beom, the small boy that trespassed in their yard and asked him if he was a vampire.

Isolated.

Thick curtains, rarely seen outside. But Jungkook didn’t mind. He didn’t mind living between four walls and having the same view every morning, afternoon and night. He had everything he needed: a gym room, a pool, a garden outside the house, a telescope and his mother. It was a peaceful night once. He remembers the warmth of the spring and his mother’s surprisingly good mood. It was one year before she died.

Jungkook stood still by the window, while his mother was checking in her tarot cards. It was then that Jungkook saw shadows approaching in their yard. And then quiet voices,

“Boss said to kill the woman and bring the boy alive, understood?”

Jungkook remembers his mother’s horrifying eyes, the terror in them, when the two intruders barged in their house. The smell of gas, burnt meat and grease still assaults his nostrils years later. Because Jungkook was only a child when some of his father’s enemies found their home and attacked. Jungkook remembers their sleazy smirks, the greasy fingers grabbing his mother. And then pure adrenaline and fear. He has blood on his hand and two corpses they had to bury with his mother. And many more bodies later. Beom approached him a day later, asking if he could also kill his stepfather. Because Beom saw what Jungkook did. His mother’s state only worsened after that, because their house started being surrounded by men in suits, to protect them.

That was the first time Jungkook killed to protect. He has killed more after. He’s just not sure if the purpose stayed, because the metallic smell of blood is rotten in his nostrils, and whenever he looks at his hands he can see the stains there.

Years later, and it still smells, still rots, scarlet and metallic. The tavern is rotten too, with wilds growing till the tiles and drunkards around. Beom is stirring his drink. There’s a tremor in his hand. He remembered those years too. Jungkook didn’t kill Beom’s stepfather, but he did worse with him.

“Sometimes what is an epilogue for you, is a prologue for someone else.” Beom scratches his head, drowning the rest of the drink.

“Since when are you a philosopher,” Jungkook teases, crudely, voice sharp and biting. But he knows. What ends for Jungkook will become a start for Taehyung.

“Since you’re a lovesick puppy.”

Since Jungkook is a killer, a criminal and a pain bearer.

“If he is to come back to you,” Beom starts, voice slightly slurred, “he needs to have other options. He has to choose you even if he has a thousand other choices. He has to be happy, thriving and to choose this world, fully understanding what’s he getting into.”

Jungkook also hears the words in between the lines and alterations. Jungkook has an empire to clean and rule, people to kill and punish, enemies to threaten. Why would Taehyung want to do anything with this?

They leave the tavern by midnight. It’s raining and the drops wash away the weakness and the doubts. He falls in bed with tightness in his chest, tightness of a fresh sunburn. He wakes up with the same tightness, aggravating and tugging at the whole bones in his body. Jungkook leaps in the bath of freezing water, closes his eyes.

He remembers what he always wanted… To not feel weak again, to never fear, to never get hurt again, to not tremble, or depend on anyone else. He wanted power and money, to become invincible, to own life, to never get fucked by it again. That was the whole reason he agreed to getting engaged to Taehyung. Otherwise his father threatened to disown him. Jungkook went through hell and back to get his name signed in the inheritance paper.

He couldn’t refuse then. Now he has the money and the power and Taehyung is slipping away through his fingers. And Jungkook still doesn’t feel happy. He wonders if happiness is just a myth, or a curse. Something impossible for him, because broken people are broken cups and glued broken cups are not as shiny anymore. The windows to the bathroom are rolled down and when Jungkook emerges from the tub, his skin is bit by the crisp late autumn wind. Earthy scent of fallen leaves. The wind rustles the edges of the curtains. It brushes against his skin like a feather, prickling with a bite that jolts him awake. He performs the same routine, unbuttoned white shirt, black suit, hair styled, gun in the back, driving through the city.

And then he visits Taehyung. Today is another day. Same breeze and cold, same stains of blood he sees on his hands. Today he visits Taehyung. And today he loses him too.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Jungkook’s face is blank as he sits across a fidgeting Taehyung. Blank emotions, slates, voices, cuts. He didn’t always knew of blank. A longtime ago, when he was but a small kid with silly hope for blood in his veins, Jungkook would wiggle his toes and wish for things. And then the same wish brought him only blood and despair and corpses buried in the ground. Wishing- that’s quite dangerous. He lived his teenage years as a feared child afraid to ask or fight for things his heart desired, or to desire at all.

Many years later, he grew to tarnish this fear. He started wishing for things and taking them as per his wish. Wishing for money and power and indestructible walls around him. And he got them all, with time and patience, and a couple of bullets and a deeply penetrating skin knife. Wishing for a person - that’s different. It’s dangerous and unimaginably stupid.

But here Taehyung lays across him, staring at him for minutes in row, mouth shut. Jungkook could start himself, but he waits. Lets Taehyung organise his thoughts. They both know what’s happening anyway. His heart is drumming and it’s devilishly predictable how the voice inside keeps whispering ‘told you so’ ‘everyone leaves’ ‘some die to leave you’ ‘some move seas and mountains’ ‘you’re never enough’.

“I have something to confess,” Taehyung says, startled, as if his mouth betrayed him and spoke before he was ready to.

Jungkook tries to think of all the ways Taehyung is dear to him. To not hate him. It arches inside because he was betrayed and stabbed and kneeled and hurt. He thinks it’d hurt the most if it comes from Taehyung. He knows why Taehyung is /it/ for him.

Because Taehyung stayed. Because he listened. Because not once did he give up on Jungkook (no matter what). Because everybody else gave up on him. He was nothing (and never enough). But Taehyung… he found something worth staying for (even if for a while). Because Taehyung is so beautiful, it hurts. It aches in every bone in his body, like when the scars hurt if it rains. Deeply rotten in his body, that last seed disconnected from the Blank. The one that feels. It exists solely because of Taehyung.

Unconsciously for the past 3 years. Jungkook does not say anything, he does not want to take away from whatever Taehyung has in mind, the jittery scarring of his fingers, the rays of sun dancing circles around his face. It hurts, looking at Taehyung. He wants to open him up and consume him whole. Like the selfish man he is. Like the man Taehyung doesn’t want.

“When you saw me for the first time in your father’s office when you got to know about the engagement, three years ago, it was your first time meeting me, but…,” Taehyung’s voice is steady despite the jittering and tapping of his fingers on the cup of tea in his hands, threatening to spill over, “but it was not my first time meeting you.”

Jungkook’s brain tries to conjure any images from before, any possibilities he could have met Taehyung before. But nothing comes upfront.

“When?” His voice is steel and he prays for the first time in his life to the gods he doesn’t believe in - that what he's about to hear won’t ruin him, he doesn’t think there’s much left of him anyway.

“3 years ago, just a month before we got engaged” Taehyung’s voice is still steady. He gained colour to his cheeks, a summery rose, and his glint is not flinching anymore. It’s been doing him good. This place. The people in it. The plans he made ahead.

Taehyung met him before their engagement. And Jungkook doesn’t remember it.

“Where?” His mouth betrays his curiosity. But he doesn't think he wants to know. Taehyung speaks anyway.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

3 years ago

Taehyung stared at the drunk guy at the bar, an unbuttoned tight shirt, laced in black, creased to each seam of the muscled chest, eyes of an intense brown, black locks curled around thick eyelashes.

So many stared too. But the man didn’t look at anyone, except a single point on the empty glass. Taehyung looked at him and saw it. A man who made peace that there will always be a ribbon of loneliness and suffering running through who he is.

Like Taehyung.

He looked at the man, and saw himself in him. It was like a pull, like a thread, like he had no control when he slid next to the man, eyes pinning the latter. He garnered no attention, not even a flick of the head or a raised eyebrow. Taehyung coughed once, twice, and finally the man turned to face him. And Taehyung was stunned into silence.

The man was beautiful. And in pain. The empty drowning in his eyes, the hollow look, Taehyung recognized it. He saw it every time he stared into the mirror. And something else. A far away look. A if he wanted to die, but life didn’t let him.

“Problems?” The man spoke, voice slurred, dingling the half empty glass between his fingers.

Defensive posture, as if everyone is out to attack him. Icy glare, icy tone. Taehyung knew a lost cause when he saw it. Just like himself. The man’s eyes were bruised, so were his words and everything that made him human and breathing. Scarlet lips and pale fingers. What else was left for him to live in this world for?

The man looked like he already gave up.

“Who did this to you?”

The question couldn’t nail the hollow look or the paleness or the hitch that followed the man’s lips. But it was a start.

“Life,” the man replied, tilting his head and as if for the first time looking at Taehyung, truly looking, taking him in.

“That bitch,” Taehyung said.

The man was drunk. And he didn’t seem to care. And the man laughed, rich and bubbly and completely unfiltered, leaning his head back, almost stumbling off the chair. They all said it’s not the happy ending, it’s the story along it. It’s not the despair, it’s the hope that ruins you. But they never said what to do when you meet someone sharing your tragedy.

It clawed at his braised liver, or maybe stomach, he didn’t know biology well, nor his body, but something definitely ached inside. Broken people recognize broken people. What to say about people making pacts with death, welcoming it, it’s as if looking in a mirror. During the night, Taehyung listened. The man spoke. Either because confessing to a stranger was easy. Or because he was completely drunk and obliterated. Or maybe it was because Taehyung made him laugh.

And Taehyung saw it. The man lived his life resisting the desire to end it. That night, the man got whisked away by one of his bodyguards, as he became speechless after all the whiskey he bottled inside. It was his mother’s death anniversary. He was angry. Because not even she chose him.

Taehyung too existed. And he too found it nauseating. That night, before leaving, the man leaned into him, hand pressing something in his pocket, while his breath, hot and sharp, bit at Taehyung’’s neck.

“Pain recognizes pain,” the man said before leaving. Taehyung got the card from his pocket. It was a business card and there was a name on it ‘Jeon Jungkook’.

A month later they got engaged. Taehyung knew no one would save him. The least he could do was try to save Jungkook.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

Present day

“You pitied me?”

“I got obsessed.”

Taehyung pitied him because he saw himself in Jungkook, a lost man with no direction and one foot in the grave. That’s why he never gave up on Jungkook. And believed in happiness for him.

It’s all going red before Jungkook’s eyes. But not a red of anger and fury, a red of bleeding. Because everything Taehyung may feel for him was born from a misplaced sense of pity and duty to help Jungkook because no one ever helped Taehyung.

“You saved me,” Jungkook says. And he doesn’t know what he said until his lips bleed from the pain, the confession, and

Taehyung rushes out of the bed and assaults

consumes

buries himself in Jungkook’s arms

nests his head and tragedy in the crook of Jungkook’s neck.

And Taehyung whispers, “You saved me too.”

Because they saved each other. Jungkook got his power and money and protection. No one will be able to hurt him again. And Taehyung got his will to live.

“In the absence of the script, I am the character without a backstory. Guess who I am,” Taehyung whispers.

Taehyung told him once, if he guessed the riddle, he would divorce him. And Jungkook knows this is Taehyung’s way of asking Jungkook to let him go.

“You’re an orphan.” Jungkook says.

It breaks past his lips and writes the end. Taehyung smiles, his lips moving against Jungkook’s skin.

“I was always an orphan, no backstory, no script, nothing to tie me to this world. And you gave me a script and a purpose, and you made me want to know this world… and myself.”

Jungkook uses his free hand to grab the papers from his bag. He puts them on the table. The divorce papers. Signed. And maybe there is hope in this world, but not for them.

Jungkook is too tainted, he knows he’ll never get rid of the blood, he chose this world, he pulled the trigger and entered the casino of money and power and hungry sharks, danger and danger and danger. Taehyung lived in it too, but he chose he didn’t want it anymore… the lose of control, the danger, the fear. Here they are, clothed but still naked, bare and vulnerable, knowing their love is tainted with pain, suffering, rotting in everything love shouldn’t be.

They stay interlocked like that for the rest of the dawn.

And when he leaves, unlocking the door, Taehyung is earnest as he asks, “Please take care of yourself. The blood on your fingers is proof you fought and survived. Look at it with pride. I am proud of you.”

Damn it. Jungkook turns back, crosses the room and ruins himself more. He takes Taehyung’s face in his chin and kisses him and finally breathes and drowns all at once. Taehyung goes mellow in his arms.

They stop after the sun sets down. Foreheads touching, sharing oxygen.

“You’re beautiful, and you’re the rare thing I’d thank this life for giving me. You deserve everything, and fuck anyone who ever dares to hurt you. You know you always have me, no matter what. Take care of yourself, my love.”

Taehyung slumps in his bed, touching his lips. It wasn’t love for him, it was something else. But his lips burn and he aches. Tomorrow he will embark the ship, chest lighter to leave the place. Tomorrow his chest will ache too, but it will be in liberty of his mind, lighter breaths, fresh breeze and the small tingling excitement at the waves pushing the ship forward.

Jungkook never cried. He hasn’t cried when his mother slapped him for getting out of their yard.

Or when they were attacked.

Or when she died and left him - solitaire in a world that decided it hated him.

He didn’t cry when his father threatened him, called a disgrace, word, hit, yell. He never cried before when life had its way with him.

He gets into his car and breaks down.

And sobs, uncontrollable.

Today he cries, and he loves. Tomorrow he’ll put on his shirt and suit, same routine, get into his car, step inside the building for which his father worked and sacrificed everything for. And no one will be able to hurt him again.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧

2 years later

His fingers press onto the hard leather of the chair. He hums, keeping a careful eye on the tick of the clock. A huge clock mounted on the wall, its arrow spiralling towards 5 pm. He just finished another meeting. It wasn’t a very amiable meeting, not that any meetings happening in the confines of his office bring him much pleasure. He reminds himself to notify his secretary to buy a new carpet, maybe order new ceilings. The scarlet botches have ingrained in the old ones.

The shade irritates his irises. He sends a quick message to Beom. Doesn’t get a reply back, but instead his phone pings with a ringtone that starts to annoy him. He’ll have to notify his secretary to change his phone ringtone as well.

“I have 25 boxes right now with pink handcuffs in them,” his friend starts, tone tantalising.

“And what do you want me to do with this information?” Jungkook mars his brain for any indication that he was responsible for his friend’s current disarray. Then it clicks. A grin erupts on his lips, fresh, and cutting edges. “I asked my secretary to order handcuffs.”

“For torture?” Beom asks.

“For torture.”

“Why the hell am I then locked with 25 boxes of pink fuzzy handcuffs. This is torturing me more than the enemy.”

Jungkook hears a series of curses from the other end. The clock continues to tick. “He must have misunderstood,” Jungkook explains, when Beom seems to calm down.

“No, he’s just too enamoured with you to pay any attention to anything that comes out of your mouth. Remind me again why haven’t you still fired him?”

“He has his uses.”

‘Wait, don’t tell me you like that insufferable brat…”

Jungkook ignores his question, “Speaking of issues, how is he?” Jungkook doesn’t need to say his name. The soft tone, the rawness he asks with is enough for Beom to release a heavy sigh.

“Taehyung is… doing good. Healthy, smiles a lot.”

The hole inside Jungkook fills in with the information. It hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt. It hurts good. Jungkook’s hand stills on the leather. This is the third time he thinks about Taehyung today. Not a great day. On the other end of the line, a pause follows. Pauses are dangerous with Beom.

“Taehyung met someone.”

Jungkook breaths in and out. Then he relaxes in his seat and exhales as he did before, allowing himself only one second of mourning.

“Good for him. Does he make Taehyung happy?”

Another pause, and then a sturdy, “Yes.”

Jungkook ends the call. He focuses his attention on the creature laying by his side, soft purring. Jungkook leans back in his chair, his hand moving gently through the silky black fur of the panther by his side.

Nabi- he called her.

He remembers finding her, a tiny, battered creature, alone in a dark alley two years ago. Bleeding. Shattered, eyes holding resentment towards the entire world. Jungkook stared at her back then. He too was bleeding. He too felt only ruin for the whole world will bring peace to him. He felt abandoned by the whole world (by Taehyung), when he walked on a dark narrow alley and saw the panther.

Later he found out she’d escaped a wildlife park outside the city known for its abuse of the animals inhabiting it. Jungkook nursed her back to health. When the time came to set her free into the wildlife park of one of his contractors, she’d refused to leave and would escape each time. She became the first to choose him willingly, when no one in his life ever had. She never left his side since then. Now she was fully grown, piercing green eyes and a shadowy coat and unmeasurable loyalty he still doesn’t know how to repay.

But maybe he doesn’t need to.

Last month he freed Jin from his life, from his debt owed to Jeons. No one knew Jin was his therapist. And now Jin wasn’t his therapist anymore. Jungkook thinks it’s for the better not to have anyone tied to him. Everyone left him in order to be happier.

Nothing ever ends in happiness anyways, people just add metaphors to the ugliness. And turn the bitter margins into beautiful things.

And nothing ends in poetry. Everything ends,
and people decide to turn it into poetry.

Jungkook’s hands still reek of blood. He licks the rotten flesh and smirks. He still kills and turns grounds into funerals. It’s somehow poetic. Maybe, the cemetery was always meant to be his home.

Alone and feared and deadly.

Jungkook cradles this feeling close to his chest. He turns off the light in the office, rests his head against the armrest. And falls asleep.

❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧❦❧