Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All the light that had slowly started to creep into the morning sky seemed to have been seeped back up again. A drop of water on a desert land, evaporated before your very eyes. Jimin felt the darkness in his bones, it was making a home there, burrowing deeper into him. He ached.

They were sat on the balcony that extended from the house. Their legs had been dangling until now, tapping gently on the wooden edge. Jimin felt himself stop. He had grown rigid. 'Did you expect anything else?' he asked himself. 

He was disappointed at the little flame of hope he had harboured somewhere deep in the ventricles of his heart, hidden from the rest of his body in the little concaved area that was surrounded by so many protective layers. 

He blew it out now. It was futile.

Jimin had stars in his eyes as he ran down the hallways of the creative arts studio to his form room where he was to meet Taehyung. He was the happiest boy alive! He had the best news and his boyfriend was obviously going to be the first to hear it. He skidded into the room, gripped onto the first table to stop his momentum, which got him an eye roll from his fellow classmate. Jimin grinned at her, there was not a lot that was going to dampen his mood today... or so he thought. 

"Taetae! Tae-Tae! Taeeee," Jimin was practically glowing with happiness whilst he made his way to the middle of the classroom where the pair sat. 

Taehyung pushed his face forward, and Jimin held it with both of his hands. It was their usual way of greeting each other. They were in an established relationship but kissing in a classroom filled with their peers was not really their cup of tea.

"GUESS WHAT!" Jimin screamed into Taehyung's face, who didn't even flinch. He was used to Jimin's overexcitement, the pair knew each other like they knew how to breathe. A passive process that required no external thought or energy.

And so, he had gushed about how his dance teacher had found him a fully paid scholarship abroad. "Imagine me in another country!" he had said breathlessly, "Dancing with the best contemporary dancers from around the world!" 

Initially, Taehyung had beamed up at the sight of his best friend excitement. It was contagious, he had previously told Jimin. "Your happiness makes me so god damn happy," he had whispered into Jimin's ears years earlier. 

Jimin was swinging their arms with extra strength today as they walked home, it had nearly hit their faces a few times. 

"I will learn another language and meet new people and see new places! Imagine, imagine, just imagine!" He had uttered, feeling like words were not doing him justice today. 

On the curb of a busy street whilst waiting to cross he could not hold himself any longer and he had swang Taehyung to face him. He kissed him until both of them were breathless. Jimin was smiling into the kiss and every time Taehyung broke away, he just repositioned their heads and kissed him again. He wanted his happiness to flow between the two of them, to connect them intrinsically. He wanted the glow inside of him to flow into Taehyung's veins. For it to gush through his soulmate like it was in his. 

Because after all, they were both going to grow old together, right? Through thick and thin. Through the bad and good days... right?

It took the length of four streets for their relationship to show the signs of cracking. 288 steps before Taehyung stood stock-still in the middle of the street. Jimin had tried walking, but with their hands intertwined he did not get far before he felt the resistance.

He looked back, his eyebrows raised. 

"Does that mean I won't see you for three years?" Taehyung had asked. His face the colour of the cobblestones they were stood on. The hand that was not in Jimin's shaking by his side. "Does it?" 

"I will come back for holidays, silly!" Jimin had answered and pulled Taehyung into walking again. 

They had walked the rest of the way home in silence. Jimin had not yet thought about what it would mean for their relationship. But Taehyung's expression had now planted a small seed of uncertainty that he knew he could not hinder the growth of.

Over the next few weeks, the seedling would grow until Jimin could feel its presence pressing into his insides, ignoring it was as painful as acknowledging it. 

It was only recently that Jimin had been lying on top of Taehyung on their sofa, his head on Taehyung's chest, as they scrolled through social media together. Laughing at jokes about exam stress and pets going feral. They had seen a heartwarming video of a couple meeting for the first time, it was one of the viral ones, where the look of surprise of meeting your lover was written plainly across your face. 

Taehyung had put the phone on his chest, face down, and said, "that was adorable, but I can't relate," he had kissed Jimin's forehead and then wrapped his legs around the smaller boy’s body. "I like the feeling of you next to me too much."

The next time Jimin met with his dance tutor, he folded the application form he was handed and pressed it to the bottom of his backpack. That didn’t stop Taehyung from losing his smile when Jimin told him who he had had an appointment with. 

The silence had lingered throughout the entire school day. 

They were both lying on their stomachs in Jimin's bedroom that evening, Jimin failing to concentrate on his biology past papers and Taehyung pausing after each of his sentences he wrote for his essay. They were facing each other, papers strewn all across them, more to show their parents they were working than for any other purposes. 

"Taehyungie," Jimin said softly, he waited for his best friend to look up but all he got was Taehyung pretending to write, his tongue pressed between his teeth. "Do you not want me to go?" He continued. "You can tell me so." 

The younger boy looked up now, his eyes were guarded, he was trying to protect Jimin from whatever pain he himself was suffering from. But jimin knew him too well by now to not be impacted. He nearly winced at the sight. 

"My happiness comes from yours," was all he said. He cast his eyes away from Jimin, looked at the wall behind him. Jimin watched his Adam’s apple bob up and then down as he swallowed the lie. 

"But you're not happy with me going." 

"And are you happy about the fact that we won't see each other for months on end?" 

"Of course not! That is the worst part of this all. Not seeing you and my family is literally the only one drawback to this whole thing." 

Taehyung shrugged. He had said all he had to say. It was up to Jimin whether or not he justified his actions. Taehyung had always been the one to withdraw first. 

"We can facetime every day, twice a day if we're free, please Taehyung-ssi," Jimin was almost whining now, a habit he had not lost since childhood, "it doesn't have to change us." 

"We both hate the idea of a long-distance relationship," Taehyung said matter-of-factly. 

Jimin pressed his thumb and index finger in the ridges of his pen, liked how the small pressure ignited so many of his pain receptors on the surface of his skin. He knew Taehyung was right. But he couldn't tell him that.

"I like the way your hand slips into mine as soon as we're close enough to do so, I can't get enough of the way you smell first thing in the morning as you rush into my arms as if we're some long lost lovers reuniting. Or the way your lips taste as a hello and goodbye. You can't convince me that seeing you on a screen will ever replace the way my heart feels like it's floating in mid-air when you press yourself into me. Your body has become like an extension of mine; I don't even think of myself if it isn't some way or the other connected with you. Even before our physical relationship, we were always touching each other somehow or the other. You were always leaning into my side as we waited to buy ice creams, pressing your cheek to mine as a way of greeting. From the beginning of our friendship, we have relied on physical touch as an aid to what we feel for each other in our hearts." 

Taehyung took a sharp inhale of breath, "so are you really telling me we can be unchanged being oceans apart?" 

Jimin did not answer. He continued writing about the structures of enzymes and how they related to modern medicine. 

He continued writing about the induced-fit model as Taehyung left him a minute later. It was the first time they had ever separated without saying goodbye. 

Jimin saw the first drop of tear on this notepad before he even knew he was crying.

The seedling that had been pressing against his insides now grew branches and thorns. The small cracking of their relationship was now big enough to hold a body. 

It was the beginning of the end.

They were sat on the front steps of their home, it was the night before Jimin said goodbye to all he knew to be familiar and embarked on an adventure that would end with him being left heartbroken. 

He had bid farewell to his parents and brother, his flight being at 4 a.m, Taehyung would drive him there. 

Their legs pressed into each other. Jimin fumbled with the thread on Taehyung's ripped jeans. It was rare for him to be wearing jeans at all, he prefered loose trousers to "those vices that grip onto me like leeches, ew." 

The end of summer was approaching, the cold breeze a reminder of how rough the winters can get. Of what was to come. It was a warning to take heed. To go inside, seek shelter and stay warm, and yet neither of the pair did. 

"I love you," Jimin started, his words felt like they were stuck to the insides of his cheek, they knew the pain that would be caused by what was coming next and so clung onto his mouth. Begging to be left unspoken.

The words themselves were trying to protect Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung from the future that would be unrolled in front of them if they were said out loud. Yet Jimin spoke them anyways.

"I love you, I really do," he began again. He fought the urge to grab onto taehyung and hide from the horror that was going to be unleashed. All the hounds from his nightmare being let loose into his reality. He was going to do the unthinkable and it was scrapping at his skin.

Taehyung was the first to cry. Jimin heard him gasp and looked into his lover’s face. How was he meant to go on now? 

"No Jimin-ah, no, no, no," he was shaking his head. 

He looked like a toddler who had been told they could not have another sweet. He looked so innocent in his pain that Jimin was rethinking his decision. He couldn't go through with this. No, it was hurting Taehyung too much... and yet he knew his responsibilities towards the love of his life. 

His tears fell in big round droplets, Jimin hated himself for being the cause of them.

"Please Jimin-ah," he swallowed another sob on its way up, threatening to shred him to pieces. "Please don't do this to me." 

"I have no choice," he choked. 

What was there to do but to let Taehyung go? He could not bind this beautiful boy to him in a relationship whilst he hated the idea of a long-distance relationship. To Taehyung being next to Jimin was what made their relationship worth it, so what was the point of keeping him bound to something that was not his ideal type? 

If it was worth it then they would find themselves together once more.

"Let’s just be-," Jimin took a sharp inhale of breath, it felt like a thousand needle against his throat, "friends." 

Taehyung hid his face into Jimin's neck, he was sobbing so hard that Jimin found it hard to grasp onto his t-shirt. To hold onto something that was no longer his.

"Take it back," Taehyung begged, "take everything you said back Jimin-ah." and yet Jimin just clung onto him, unable to retrace his steps to what it was just a few moments ago. He had done what was needed from him and now it was up to fate to take its course. 

It was unbearable.

As they lay in bed that night, Taehyung had his face buried in Jimin's stomach. Jimin's hand caressed the crying boy's hair, every time he thought he had stopped, he would gasp for breath once more. Tighten his grip across Jimin's middle. 

"Don't leave," he said for the first time since Jimin had begun his planning of moving abroad. In all of the months of preparation he had never asked Jimin to stay, he had never stopped him until now. Maybe he only said it because he knew it was too late to go back anyway. "Cancel your flight. Just don't go."

"Do you see a future with him?" Jimin asked now. Another night and yet another heartbreak. Were they ever going to stop coming his way? Probably not. 

"We want to grow old together." 

And that was that. Jimin pushed himself off the balcony floor and got to his feet. 

He was leaving, and this time for good. He started to walk away when he felt Taehyung's hold on his wrist, he was swang back until they were standing pressed against each other. 

Jimin felt like he was suffocating in Taehyung's presence. His lungs overflowing and his senses crowded. 

He wanted nothing to do with the boy in front of him. Was done with the agony of seeing the person he loved the most with someone else. He wanted out and he was going to get it. He had not stayed the last time Taehyung had begged him to & he was not going to this time.

Jimin felt Taehyung’s hands wrap around his wrist, hard. He struggled to free himself, he wanted to be as far as possible from him. 

“Let me go,” he demanded, and when Taehyung didn’t yield, he tried pulling away but he was met with hard resistance. "Taehyung, you're hurting me," Jimin said through gritted teeth. 

Both of his hands were pressed tightly into Taehyung's chest so he couldn't even hit him. Because at that moment that was all he wanted to do; punch the beautiful face of the boy he had loved for years on end. He wanted to draw blood.

"Listen to me-" Taehyung started to say but was cut off. Jimin was in no mood to talk. 

He hated how close the pair were standing, he hated everything about the lack of distance between the two. He wanted oceans worth of it between them once more. 

"-there is nothing left for you to say, you've said everything I needed to hear. Now just let-me-go," Jimin spat out. 

"Jimin I need you to listen to me," Taehyung began again. 

"Let go of me!" Jimin was screaming now, he was fighting against Taehyung's hold, wringing his wrists in his grip to try and free himself. 

He felt Taehyung's grip tighten around him and winced in pain. As he fought against the younger boy, he saw a smile creeping onto his face. Jimin wanted to cover his ears, he knew what was coming and he didn't want to hear it.

He knew the next string of words was going to leave him paralysed in bed for years to come. They would form the beginning and end of all of his nightmares. But Taehyung was being ruthless, he was going to make Jimin hear them before he was allowed to go.

“I love yoongi hyung.” Taehyung said, and he let go of Jimin so quickly that Jimin stumbled back a few steps. 

He was scared of the boy in front of him. Of what he was capable of. 

Jimin started taking unsteady steps backwards, the world seemed to be spinning the wrong way on its axis. The ground felt unsteady under him, moving as if he was on a ship on a stormy night. Jimin was sure he could hear the sea in his ears. The sound was overbearing. 

“I know,” he repeated over and over again with each step he took backwards. “I know.”

And then he felt as if his heart was being pulled with a fishing rod. He was falling. He had not noticed he had reached the end of the balcony and he was hurtling down, his arms were searching frantically for something to grab and only finding thin air. His foot was losing balance. 

It was the longest second of Jimin’s life. He saw it stretch into a thin wire, everything happening in slow motion. He saw things in a clarity he did not know his eyes could possess. Heard the air vibrate next to his ears. Tasted fear on the tip of his tongue.

Just like it was meant to, Taehyung’s hand found his own. The soles of Jimin’s feet were on the ridge of the balcony, a millisecond more and he would’ve dropped. He was suspended in mid-air, most of his body arching off. 

Jimin felt himself slipping again, he was scrambling to push himself back up. He felt high on adrenaline. His natural instinct to survive was pulsing through him. 

Jimin pressed the soles of his feet deeper into the ridge but no matter what he did he could not get back up on his own and Taehyung wasn’t helping him either.

Taehyung was starting to say something. And even whilst held in mid-air, fighting to survive, Jimin knew it was going to decide his fate. 

What Taehyung said next would equate to him either letting Jimin go or pulling him back to his arms. 

But what exactly was Taehyung saying?