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There was nothing immortal in life; everything was finite, and everything had to come to an end, a fact that Taeyong was painfully aware of. On the third day of December, when the snow fell heavily on the road, Taeyong watched as it all came to an end in the coffee shop across the street. He stood there, shivering in his jacket, as he watched the love of his life fall in love with someone else.
Everything between them had long since shifted. At first, it was subtle. There was barely a ripple in the grand scheme of things, but Taeyong noticed it, every brushed-off question, every small fight, every date that Johnny canceled. Taeyong noticed, but he was also paralyzed, shackles on his ankles as he watched everything they had built slowly crumble, bit by bit, as the end crept steadily toward their doorstep.
The first time Taeyong realized that the love they once shared was no longer there was when Johnny forgot their fifth anniversary. Taeyong waited at the dinner table, where the food had long gone cold, candlelight flickering in the cold night as the clock ticked on. When Johnny came home, he stopped in his tracks, his eyes taking in the food, the candle, and Taeyong with pearl earrings dangling from his ears and his wedding ring glittering under the lights. The apology felt more performative than genuine. Taeyong could see that Johnny was upset, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the excuse that fell from Johnny’s lips was nothing but a lie. That night, Taeyong shoved aside every doubt and every disappointment and plastered on a reassuring smile. Yet the seed had been planted, and it had nowhere to go but grow.
The first time Taeyong saw him, he understood why Johnny fell for him. He was a barista working in Johnny’s favorite coffee shop. The tag on his apron read “Jaehyun,” a pretty name for a pretty face. When Taeyong stepped up to the counter, he was greeted with a smile accompanied by two dimples, and Taeyong just couldn’t find it in himself to be angry not when he wasn’t sure that Jaehyun was at fault. Not when he wasn’t sure if Johnny fell out of love with him because of his inadequacies or because Jaehyun was simply that perfect no one could help but fall in love with.
His feet carried him outside after Jaehyun handed him his order, yet his mind was elsewhere. In his thoughts, he was back on their wedding day, standing at the altar with Johnny looking at him with eyes full of love as he promised Taeyong forever. And Taeyong was so happy his battered heart leapt in euphoria despite knowing better. He wondered when did their vows had become meaningless words to Johnny, whether Johnny had looked at him and decided that forever was just too long to be spent with him. Under the falling snow and the blowing wind, Taeyong decided that he didn’t want to know.
When it all came crashing down, they were sitting down for dinner. Taeyong forced every bite down despite tasting nothing. He looked at his husband, at the slope of his nose, his strong eyebrows, the shape of his lips—memorizing everything. When Johnny looked at him with questioning eyes, Taeyong smiled and returned to his food. If Taeyong had been braver, he would have confronted Johnny, would have raged and screamed, would have demanded answers and retribution. But Taeyong was a coward; he didn’t even have the courage to say goodbye. Johnny would just have to settle for this.
The papers was heavy in his hands, as if it weighed a ton. Johnny was fast asleep on the bed; he wouldn’t wake up until morning. Taeyong made sure of that. He placed the paper on the table beside his side of the bed.
Taeyong was a coward. If he had been braver, he would have drained everything out of Johnny and ruined him the way Johnny had ruined him. But Taeyong was a coward who didn’t have the heart to destroy the man he loved like that not when all he had now were the happy memories Johnny had given him. There were countless nights he lay awake, thinking that if he could just forget what he knew, if he could just turn a blind eye, nothing would have to change. He would still have Johnny—not all of him, but a part of him.
There were moments when Taeyong yearned to give in to those desires, to abandon the divorce, to return to that endless bliss of not knowing. But the glass had been shattered; time could not be turned back. Taeyong knew that if he stayed, the pain would become too much. It would grow into resentment, festering and tainting everything they had the good and the bad, and he couldn’t allow that.
Taeyong was a coward, so this was how he chose to leave, in the middle of the night, with divorce papers on his bedside table and no words, no goodbyes. After all, everything that needed to be said had already been said.